#it's non-intrusive but it's THERE and why do i want you guys to know this
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3am •°ˎˊ˗
chishiya shuntaro x gn!reader
word count 2.6k
summary 3am brings out the most vulnerable and real version of ourselves. on this particular night, you and chishiya unravel those parts of each other.
warnings mentions of parental issues, angsty, non borderland au
authors note had this idea after listening to my 3am playlist. i cant get chishiya/nijiro out of my mind fr. hope you guys enjoy this fic!
most of the world was asleep. the only light shining outside was from the moon, the stars, and some streets. slight, but there nevertheless.
in your case however, your desk and laptop screen also shining light. an unnatural and annoying light that was beginning to give you a headache.
it was about two-fifty in the morning — close to three. you and chishiya, who you’d consider a good friend in uni, were studying for your upcoming mid-term since the both of you were pre-med students.
it’s safe to say, you were stressed out. the topic you’d been learning looking like a completely different language the more you looked and attempted to learn it.
you huffed frustratingly, beginning to write in your notebook harshly and quickly. chishiya turned his attention from the textbook in front of him to you as you were making a lot of noises suggesting your stress.
“everything alright?”
at this point, chishiya was already prepared and confident for the exam. he stood by you however, because it seemed like you needed the company.
and the help.
you continued your harsh writing. “yeah, I’m fine.”
he shrugged, continuing back to his book and left you to your studying. or stabbing of your poor notebook.
your thoughts were everywhere else except where they really needed to be, going a million hours at once. the stress of this exam, intrusive thoughts of just quitting starting to enter your brain, and a random song in the background, banging in your head at once. you were tired.
maybe this is why i’m not processing all this information, you thought.
at that point, you about had it.
you turned off your desk light while standing up from your chair suddenly and made your way out of your room, chishiya’s eyebrows raising at your actions. he sighed, then followed you out.
when he made it to where you were, he saw you leaning against your kitchen counter with your head down in front of your coffee machine. the sound of it in the midst of pouring your third cup for the night, echoing throughout the silent apartment walls.
he stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do. hell, he didn’t know how to comfort anyone. weirdly, he wanted to comfort you.
you were always so bubbly — shy and introverted but outgoing when he got to know you. you cared a lot. probably too much for chishiya’s liking. you two were polar opposites but he didn’t mind. maybe, the universe put you two together for this sole reason.
“y/n?”
you picked up your head and stood up regularly, turning your body towards him. you didn’t say anything. you just looked at him blankly.
“too much coffee isn’t good for you.” he crossed his arms, leaning against the wall behind him and continued. “you should know that, you’re a med student.”
it sounded much harsher than what he had originally in his mind. but that was chishiya’s way of showing that he…cared?
you huffed. “god, chishiya. i don’t need your input. i just need to pass this goddamn exam and coffee is going to help. you’re already going to pass so i don’t know why you care.”
he just stared at you as you turned back around and poured your coffee into your hello kitty mug, reminding him of the time you FaceTimed him when you got the mug. you were so excited and happy over something that seemed so silly.
but that’s just how you were. though, he always felt like there was a part of you that he had not seen just yet. he read people scarily well and…he would know.
you breezed passed him and back into your room, cranking your music up. the aroma of your scent lingering until he followed you back in.
you were sitting on your window sill filled with all your plushies and other pillows with your textbook on your lap, flipping through the pages and sipping your coffee.
he sat across from you and looked out the view from your window. you didn’t look up from your book once.
one thing he loved about coming over to yours was the view you had. the beautiful sight of the city that the moonlight was shining upon. your music in the background making the view ethereal. it was peaceful. like a pause from the chaotic world.
his thoughts were interrupted by you flipping the page of your textbook harshly. taking yet another sip of your coffee while your eyes scanned the information.
he turned to you and kept his gaze there. despite the frustration written all over your face, you were shining against the moonlight. your soft features illuminating against it, like the moon was focusing on only you in that moment.
examining your face more, he saw tears starting to pool up in your eyes. the facade you were trying so hard to put up, finally fading away.
he paused. his attempt on comforting you earlier had failed miserably. now you were crying?
he shifted in his seat and looked back out the window, pretending not to notice. he felt uncomfortable. he didn’t know what to do. he was used to keeping his emotions inside at all times. he assumed the same for you. but now, it seems those bottled up emotions were pouring out of you and even though you didn’t want it, you let it.
he heard you sniffle, his eyes returning back to your face. you quickly wiped your tears and closed your textbook, throwing it on the ground next to you whilst placing your coffee gently atop of it.
you pulled your knees to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, looking out the window to the view. tears were still spilling out and now you weren’t wiping them away. you were letting your tears fall into the night. but despite your built up emotions spilling out, your face remained still and blank. your tears just grazing on top of it.
“i have a feeling this is more then the mid-term that’s on your mind,” chishiya said, breaking the silence.
you didn’t say anything for a moment, your eyes still on the view of the quiet night. you let his words sit with you because he was right. and you hated how well he could read people — especially you.
you let out a breath before speaking. “it’s not like you would care.”
you knew chishiya wasn’t the type of person to express his feelings. so why would he listen to you express yours? regardless, he surprised you with his next choice of words. “try me.”
those words had you finally looking away from the view and to him, his gaze looking at you intently. inviting you, daring you to give him a chance.
“it’s a lot,” you started, gaze looking back out the window. you let out a soft chuckle. “i’m a mess.”
you felt him scoot closer to you, his eyes burning through you to get something, anything out of you. you felt that this was his way of letting you know that he was here to listen — something you weren’t used to.
finally, you let the words fall out of your mouth.
“i don’t want to be a fucking doctor.”
the words that were engraved in your brain since the minute you started uni was finally out into the night. for only you and chishiya to hear. and now, you felt somewhat free.
you looked back at him, his eyebrows having a slight furrow to them, expressing to continue your thought. “this is not my dream. to be honest, i’m really doing this for my mother.” you spoke your next sentence quieter, practically whispering. “because she wasn’t able to because of me.”
“what do you mean?”
you bit the inside of your cheek before continuing. “she was my age when she met my dad, so close to getting into her dream university because she took a gap year.”
he scanned your face, tears still spilling but your face still remaining blank.
“she was in love with him. and well, long story short, she got pregnant with me and couldn’t follow her dreams of becoming a doctor. so that’s why i’m doing what i’m doing. but it’s not what i want.”
he pursed his lips. “you shouldn’t let her be the reason to not enjoy your life.”
“but i love her. she’s been through hell for me. and i feel like it’s my fault she never got to follow her dream.”
“it’s not though.”
“but it’s the least i could do.”
he took his eyes off of you, returning his eyes to the window. he remained quiet for a moment which only built your nerves more. maybe, you shouldn’t have said anything? maybe you should of just kept on pretending. interrupting your thoughts, he spoke. “can i tell you something?”
you hummed in response, starting to feel more at ease.
“i don’t want to be a doctor either.”
chishiya didn’t know why he decided to tell you something that was so vulnerable to him. he spent years trying to dig it so deep in his brain that he would eventually forget it. but after admitting those words aloud, he realized he was simply putting up a facade. just like you.
“for similar reasons as you. except, my father never really was there for me nor showed he cared,” he shrugged.
he guessed that telling you this unexpectedly was because he felt you. and weirdly, he felt bad for you. you cared so much that you’re doing something that doesn’t make you happy. you didn’t deserve that.
“wow,” you replied. “i didn’t know that. i’m sorry.”
he looked at you, seeing your blank expression turn into concern. you really did care a lot about others. he was surprisingly glad he was one of them. at the same time however, he didn’t deserve someone like you to care for someone like him. “don’t be. i’m fine.”
his blunt expression grew more concern for you. you weren’t sure how he would respond if you kept prodding. but you did so nevertheless. “are you sure?”
he sighed. he wasn’t sure how to answer this. no one had ever asked. “i’m doing what i can.”
you gave him a slight smile. “i think we all are. sometimes, that’s the best we could do.”
he smirked back, looking at the view once more causing you to do the same. no matter what, you two always returned your eyes to it. you both never seemed to get tired of the sight.
“what is your dream?” he asked.
you smiled, despite all the emotions you were truly feeling. no one had ever asked you that before. no one ever cared to ask. “i want to be a writer.”
“really?”
“yeah. it’s like my escape,” you leaned a bit closer to the window before continuing. “no one has ever really listened to me or know the real me. they never really cared to. but writing — it’s a way i get to express the real me. and the ideas in my head.”
he looked over at you once more. your eyes were glistening with passion. something he never saw from you. it made him smile a bit. he silently hoped that you would be able to follow your dream. it seemed like something you truly adored.
“what about you?” you asked, meeting his gaze.
he snickered. “never really thought about that.”
you simply nodded.
“maybe travel the world. there’s so many places i haven’t seen yet. i would like to see all of them if i could.”
you gasped suddenly, causing chishiya to jump from your abrupt action. “i have an idea!”
he raised his eyebrows.
“when we graduate, we should take a trip! we could go anywhere you’d like.”
“with what money?”
“we’ll save up. if not, we’ll wing it.”
he chuckled at your comment. smirking, he nodded an agreement. “sounds like a plan.”
you smiled back at him. “any particular place you have in mind?”
he thought for a moment before answering. “Switzerland. i don’t know, that place looks unreal from what i’ve seen in photos. it’s definitely on my bucket list.”
“then Switzerland is where we’ll go.”
he smiled at you. a genuine smile. it was small. so small that any other person wouldn’t have realized it. but you — you noticed.
“you know,” you started, turning your attention back to the night. “nighttime has always been my favorite.”
he tilted his head, urging for you to carry on.
“not only is the world quiet from all the chaos, but you see people’s authentic selves. during the day, you put up this mask so people don’t see the real you. cause you’re scared that if they see the real you, they’ll run off. and the world is so loud that sometimes you wish you could just take a pause from all of it. nighttime, is like that pause. with the world quiet and the moonlight shining on the world lightly, its peaceful and inviting. that’s when people take off that mask of theirs and are comfortable with their vulnerable and real selves. and whoever you’re with in that moment to share your vulnerability with, its true and authentic. not something you put up to protect yourself.”
after a moment, you looked over at him, blood rushing to your cheeks. you said a lot and felt embarrassed. but he just looked at you keenly.
“i can see you as a writer.”
you furrowed your brows, confused at his response.
“your words are beautiful.”
your eyes widened, a slight sparkle to them. his words hit you hard. the kind of hit that felt like every negative emotion in you had disappeared. the kind that made your authentic self comfortable with him. the kind that felt like it was only you two in the world.
he simply just looked away. he honestly didn’t know what to say nor do next. but he was content. cause his words were truthful. you were a beautiful person all around. and he wanted to be sure that you knew that. even though the feelings he was feeling were foreign and uncomfortable, your words were right. the nighttime and you were making the chaos in his mind bearable.
you both sat in comfortable silence with the soft music in the background. the moon seemed like it had shined brighter, now illuminating and focusing on the both of you. making you two feel safe with each other.
after the blissful moment, you glanced at the clock on your nightstand. three-thirty.
chishiya followed your eyes and turned to also see the time.
“shit,” he muttered. “i better get going.”
“yeah,” you replied, a little saddened that he was leaving.
he got up from your window sill and began to gather his things. you just watched, bringing your knees closer to you as you rested your head against them.
once he was done, he threw his backpack over his shoulder and walked towards your door. but before he opened it, he paused and looked at you. really looked at you.
“i know i don’t say this enough or show it but, i really do care for you.”
you lifted your head up, mouth slightly agape at his words. he…cared for you? he cared for you.
you smiled at his words while he slightly grinned back.
“see you tomorrow, y/n/n.”
and then, he walked out the door into the peaceful night. leaving you breathless, filled with old and new emotions but most importantly, leaving you free.
he saw the real you. he listened to you. and he cares about you.
and while you don’t know where this is going or where it will go, you do know you care for him too. more than you ever had for anyone.
#chishiya shuntaro#chishiya fic#chishiya imagine#chishiya alice in borderland#chishiya angst#chishiya fluff#aib chishiya#shuntaro chishiya#chishiya x y/n#chishiya x reader#chishiya x gn reader#chishiya x you#aib fanfic#aib x you#alice in boderland x reader#aib#nijiro murakami#nijiro days#alice in borderland
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List of small Garmadon details/moments in canon that I feel define his character, in approximate timeline order:
Garmadon attempted to be the voice of reason and didn’t want to disobey their father (“Never Trust a Human”)
When Wu’s sword was lost over the wall, Garmadon acted as the responsible older sibling to retrieve it (“Rise of the Snakes”)
His father and brother both speak of a “darkness” in Garmadon while he’s a teen, but this refers mostly to mood swings and impulsivity, and Garmadon felt as if there was nothing truly wrong with him (The Curse of the Cat-Eye Jewel)
“I know what it is to feel rejected by my father.” (The Curse of the Cat-Eye Jewel)
He is enthusiastic about traveling the world moreso than finding a “cure” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
Wu is uncertain whether Garmadon really is different, or if it is merely a placebo effect: “We can’t seem to agree on anything lately. Then again, Garmadon and I have never agreed on much!” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
“We make a great team!” “Yeah!” Garmadon agreed, but a flash of doubt clouded his brain. Does he really mean it? Wu hadn’t looked at me the same ever since that dumb snake bit me. And as for being a team…he’s always trying to tell me what to do. How is that teamwork?” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
Garmadon looks into a magic mirror and sees his future form, as well as “two figures in silhouette next to the terrifying figure, with their backs turned to him. One looked like a kid[…] Is my father right? Is there really evil inside me?[…] A feeling of utter loneliness and despair swept over him.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
Had intrusive thoughts to abandon Wu in the maze, but went back for him after realizing those thoughts would lead to that horrible future (The Maze of the Sphinx)
“Somehow, he felt in his bones that he could not escape his destiny.” He gives up a wish to cure himself by saving their new ally, but keeps up the facade that he thinks he’s fine even though he now has doubts. “Besides, I keep telling you, I don’t need saving.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
“I did the right thing, he told himself. That’s all that matters.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
“Maybe I do need that tea. I just hope… I hope that when we find it, it’s not too late.” (The Maze of the Sphinx)
“I know he thanked me, but did he say anything about how good it was of me to save him? I mean, he and Father are convinced I’m turning evil. Would an evil guy bravely save his brother from plummeting into a deep abyss? Why doesn’t anybody give me credit for the non-evil stuff that I do?” (The Chroma’s Clutches)
Wu’s thoughts: “On that day in the monastery, years ago, when I lost my katana, I was too afraid to retrieve it. But Garmadon jumped over the wall to get it for me, and got bitten by the snake that may have infected him with evil, as Father expects. I often wonder what would have happened if I had been the one to get bitten that day…” (The Chroma’s Clutches)
Only Garmadon hears the hopeless voice of the Chroma in his head: “There is no hope[…] All is lost. There is no point in continuing your journey, because nothing will change[…] Nothing will change. You are who you are, Garmadon. Deep in his bones, Garmadon knew the Chroma was right. When he wasn’t pretending everything was fine, he could feel the evil inside him, like a poisonous ball in the pit of his stomach. No tea was going to cure him. He knew it. Wu had hope, but why? What was the point of—” (The Chroma’s Clutches)
Garmadon didn’t want to sign the letter Wu had written for Misako, only doing so when his eyes turned red and the Venom took over (“Spellbound”)
He left his training with Chen to help lead the Elemental Masters against the Serpentine War (“Spellbound”)
Garmadon resisted giving into the Venom for centuries before he caved and attempted to steal the Golden Weapons (“Battle Between Brothers”)
“I never wanted [Lloyd] to [be like me]” (“The Royal Blacksmiths”)
Garmadon, once corrupted, is happy to overtake the world, but all those thoughts leave his mind as soon as Lloyd is at risk (“The Royal Blacksmiths,” “The Green Ninja”)
Lloyd: “I’m gonna do everything in my power to stop you.” Garmadon: “I wouldn’t have it any other way[…] You're a good boy. Soon, you'll be a great man. Although we're now on opposite sides, I'm still very proud of you.” (“All of Nothing”)
“Lloyd doesn't want to fight—uh, I mean, so Lloyd doesn't want to fight? [Laughs]” (“The Last Hope”)
Became a pacifist and a teacher (“The Art of the Silent Fist”)
Takes responsibility for his harmful actions (“The Greatest Fear of All,” “The Corridor of Elders”)
“I yearned to make the world in my image. I never realized I already had, in you.” (“The Corridor of Elders”)
Oni Garmadon does not recognize his predecessor’s human form, and has zero memory of those times, but he remembers being married to Misako (“The Fall”/“Big Trouble, Little Ninjago”)
“People ask me: ‘Do you think Lord Garmadon is disappointed in Lloyd, like would he have wanted to see a chip off the old block?’ Well, I think Lloyd could very well have gone that route. We may never really know the exact nature of the disappointment that shaped Garmadon’s path. But I think that no matter what, even—even—in his most deranged state, Lord Garmadon still has abiding affection for his son. And you know that he would trade it all away if he had to safeguard Lloyd. So I think that there’s always going to be the embers of deep affection for his son, no matter what.” (Mark Oliver, “NINJAGO ZANE INTERVIEWS GARMADON part 2/3”)
Garmadon misremembers the incident of when he was bitten. Out of guilt and the weight of his fate being seemingly meaningless, he wishes that Wu had warned him of crossing the wall and he had simply acted defiantly. Regardless, he feels he was “destined for evil” (Garmadon #4)
The Overlord orchestrated the Great Devourer biting Garmadon so he could be the perfect puppet for the Overlord (“Dragon Form”)
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Cuerpo Inc: After Hours Perk
“Look, dude... I know you’re not really Jake. The sooner you drop the act, the sooner we can have an actual conversation between us.” I tried not to any trace of fear reach my smile as Jake’s neighbor continued to stare me down, his arms folded across his chest. Thomas was right, of course-- Jake and I had swapped bodies with each other a few hours ago. I wanted to take advantage of the pool in Jake’s suburban backyard, and he wanted to take advantage of my downtown apartment to have a few nights out on the town. It wasn’t specifically against the rules, but since the office frowned upon non-work swapping we had promised each other that we were going to keep it on the downlow. Did he know about Jake’s job? He probably knew about Jake’s job..
“Why would...? Thomas, my man... it’s the weekend! Why the hell would I swap bodies over the weekend?” I gave him a playful shove on the shoulder, like I had seen Jake do to so many of our coworkers back at the office. “I spend enough time during the work week swapping bodies with people so that my company doesn’t have to pay for airfare. After a solid week of swaps across the country, I’m gonna be spending the weekend in my own body, thank you very much.”
Thomas simply shook his head at me. “Yeah, I dunno, man... being Jake’s neighbor, I can’t help but notice a few things.” Jake had warned me that his neighbor on the other half of the duplex was weirdly nosy, but this was a special kind of intrusive that I hadn’t prepared myself for. “It seems like Jake always swaps bodies with someone on Fridays, and he doesn’t swap back until Sunday afternoon or so. Not everyone who wears that body is as good as pretending to be Jake as you are, stranger.”
His benign acceptance of Jake’s body swapping habits was starting to make me question just how often Jake was swapping bodies outside of work hours. Jake swore that he only swapped once every few months, but there was no way Jake’s neighbor would be this suspicious if that were true. “I’m not pretending, it’s really me in here!” I said, laughing as I slapped my chest for emphasis. There really wasn’t any reason for me to double down on this lie, but... telling Thomas the truth felt like giving up, and I wasn’t about to take that loss. “I’m Jake, dammit! What do I have to do to prove it to you?”
“Take your shirt off,” he said, staring me down with a shit-eating grin.
I couldn’t help but laugh. There had to be a catch, but I had no idea what it could possibly be. Better to try and just bluff my way through it. “You’re such a weirdo-- you know that, right?” I peeled my tank-top off over my shoulders, trying to mimic the body language I’d seen Jake use before. I wadded it up and tossed it over my shoulder, making sure to maintain eye contact with him as I did so. “Are you happy, now, Thomas? Do you believe me?”
He just smiled at me as his shit-eating grin got even wider. “Quite the opposite, stranger. The HOA around here gets very angry about partial states of undress, so the real Jake wouldn’t go shirtless unless he was behind a fence. So. Let’s head over into Jake’s backyard so we can talk about this further. What is your name?”
“Gah, fine. My name is Ethan,” I said, shaking my head. Not that it really mattered that Thomas had figured out that I was lying, but it still felt weird that he cared so much. I made my way toward the gate, and gestured him through. Jake’s backyard had a nice, tall wooden privacy fence to keep the pool hidden from view, and there was a patio area with a few plastic beach chairs set up near a cheap outdoor table. I’d expected Thomas to be gloating-- it’s what I would have done after calling out someone’s lies like that-- but instead he was typing away on his phone.
“Is this you?” Thomas asked, holding up a picture of a guy in a suit. More to the point, it was a photo of me wearing a suit.
It took me a bit to figure out when that photo had been taken. “Yeah, that’s my body,” I said, staring back at Thomas. I wasn’t sure why he had a photo of me, but I didn’t see much point in trying to lie anymore. “Assuming it’s a recent photo, that was probably taken last Wednesday. I swapped with a guy out in Milwaukee who needed to be local, and he needed someone who was wearing something a bit nicer than business casual.” It was a part of my job as an Accountant / Host. Since my job was 100% virtual, my workplace also expected me to swap bodies with anyone who needed to be local for an important meeting. I’d gotten used to filling out spreadsheets while wearing someone else’s body a long time ago, but not everyone was used to Cuerpo Inc’s casual approach to body swapping. Maybe Thomas was one of them?
“Just thought you should know, he’s using a photo of you on his Grindr profile,” Thomas said, handing me his phone. Sure enough, there was my name and my face on a profile littered with peach emojis, declaring that I was a hungry bottom eager for a hung daddy. Well, that explained why he had a photo of my body. “Jake does this a lot,” he added. “He’ll find a guy with a young face and a slender build, and then spend the weekend knee deep in gay sex. So, when your ass hurts on Monday, that’s why.”
“I appreciate the warning,” I said, giving Thomas his phone back. “I’m a gay man myself, so I’m not too bothered by it, but... it is the sort of thing Jake should have told me before we swapped.” I have to admit, I was not expecting Jake to be into that kind of thing. When he told me he wanted to spend the weekend out on the town, I really did just assume he was going to get super drunk in my body. Jake usually carried himself as a man’s man around the office, talking about beers, sports, or his most recent fishing trip. True, he never mentioned a wife, but I assumed that meant he got burned in a divorce or something. A thought occurred to me as I looked closer at Thomas.
“I can’t help but notice that you also have a Grindr profile,” I said, slipping my hands into my waistband. “Perhaps you would like to enjoy me for some fun out here by the poolside? Seems like this fence would give us a lot of privacy...”
Thomas stepped forward, close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath hitting my chest. “So let me get this straight. I come here to warn you about Jake’s plans to have sex inside of your body, and you decide to... try and have sex inside of his body instead?”
I looked down at him, staring directly into his eyes. “I suppose that is exactly what I’m doing, yes.” It was my turn to stare at Thomas with a wide grin. “It only seems fair, after all. What’s good for my body must also be good for his. And I can’t help but notice that you haven’t turned me down.”
He responded by placing his hands on my shoulders. “Well, now. I suppose I haven’t. But do you really think it would be a good idea for me to fool around with my neighbor’s body while he’s not inside of it?”
I responded by grabbing one of his hands, and sliding it down to one of Jake’s pierced nipples. “I just asked if you wanted to join me. Who said it was going to be a good idea?”
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‘cause no one breaks my heart like you
“Last times always make him uneasy. He thinks that he should be used to it by now from his track record of being abandoned (willfully or “out of their control” situations alike). None of this should hurt him as deeply anymore.” or Bradley Bradshaw is terrified of commitment and he decides to stop being selfish (even though it’s hard to see).
A/N: Okay so EXTREMELY long time, no see! I’ve been working on this little project since the end of September and have been driving myself crazy in trying to sculpt the words the way that I wanted and how to make this seem as realistic as possible. I appreciate every single person who has been so patient with me and my inconsistent posting and hope you enjoy 19k words of our favorite guy in the sky.
(Year 3)
He loves me. He loves me not.
He loves me.
The strange thing about crying is never knowing when the tears will fall. There’s this burning sensation that comes with it; clearly juxtaposed to the watery mess your eyes want to produce. Your nose burns, your face is hot, and the all-consuming, mind-numbing squeeze of rubberband-like pressure around your temples makes you dizzy.
Whether the dizziness is because of the crossed wires in your psyche (the hurt feelings and the busted-up ego that comes along with it) or the metaphysical spiral that sent you into a breakdown in the first place is up to your discretion.
The thought pattern sometimes breaks you out of feeling so non-descriptively shitty.
Because the thing about being a twenty-something that you’ve come to uncover is that life is shitty. Paying rent is shitty. Paying an arm and leg for a pilates workout is shitty. Office jobs are shitty. Office jobs that house cruel know-it-all men are even shittier.
Shit, shit, and shit.
You used to pride yourself on having a more extensive vocabulary than one filled to the brim with the swear word, but as of late, you can’t be damned to care. It’s not like anything you said at the office held any value to anyone anyway.
You’re just a “kid” - “You and my sister are the same age!” And you’re also a woman; one of the fifteen employed by the grounds and building company you’re a consult for, and one of three on the fifth floor working on engineering consults and software materials for digital blueprinting.
And the preparation for working in an environment like this - one where mumbled insults at the findings of a mistake on your colleague's draft or small comments about your body being made in passing (never enough to be called harassment, but certainly enough to make you question why it was even being brought up) - wasn’t new.
The patent leather diploma propped up on the desk in your home office gave proof of it. Years spent with dreaded calculus exams and awkward office hours spent with even more awkward professors and snooty boys with poor attitudes served as the price you paid for the merit.
So who can even be put to blame for thinking that you could handle it?
The answer is definitely “you”, but accepting blame for these kinds of things - accepting the fact that in a way, you’re only reaping the consequences of your own actions - is never an easy thing to do.
And your lips are chewed raw from all the intrusive thoughts plaguing your brain and sometimes you wish that you didn’t have this overarching tendency to view things from “outside of your body.” Sometimes being so critical inwardly kicked your conscience into a God’s eye perspective.
The worry of if your work pants actually did make you look frumpy or if the makeup around your nose was caking like how it usually does if you blend it in before you let it get tacky. You worry if your hair sits the right way or if the secretary downstairs thinks you have a Dunkin’ Donuts addiction. And then that makes you worry if she notices the breakout forming on the left side of your face.
The worry then transpires from material to emotional and manifests in the form of the two things you’re most deathly terrified of; being a failure and being a failure who finds herself alone.
Because what if you fucked around and lost the information to the three billion dollar hospital that you’ve spent the better part of fifteen weeks working on? What if you got fired because your bosses realized how inaccurate your math was sometimes? What if everyone was constantly laughing at you and that’s why you struggle to find a commonality with your coworkers?
And what if, through this whole slue of hypotheticals that hadn’t happened yet but had the potential to happen, you found yourself in a position to be alone? What if your boyfriend - your darling, kind, and sweet boyfriend - finally saw you how you saw yourself? And what if what he sees makes him want to walk away?
Bradley would never, you try and rationalize, but the more your brain tries to force the pieces of the jumbled insecurities to fit, you aren’t too sure.
The fact that the same work colleagues who spark the flame of your self-doubt are the same age as he; thirty-somethings with wives and maybe a toddler or two. Your bosses who scare the shit out of you are in the same age range as the men Bradley knows and loves; his Uncle Maverick and Uncle Ice, and the commonalities are far-fetched but multiply the more you think.
The more you torture yourself, really.
And the excruciating rug-burn-like feeling slides its way from the depths of your stomach up your throat. When you were little, you used to imagine that it was slimy and plasmodia-esque. The Mucinex guy, you used to call it, and the feeling is so sickening and ugly and horrific, that the ugly little cartoon ploy almost seemed cute in comparison.
You’re not really sure how your emotions caught up with you today. From how you run from them and shove them down and turn them off, you forget that you have feelings sometimes.
But then you wake up freezing because Bradley took all the covers in the middle of the night and Dunkin fucked up your coffee and you spilled said fucked up coffee on your new work shirt that you know the stain is gonna be a bitch to get out.
On top of that, your hair seems frizzier than what you remembered when you left the house and your lips are chapped with not a damned chapstick in sight in the abomination that happens to be your purse.
David across the hall from your office says something about how you’re late and it’s probably because “You changed your outfit about six times. Know how you women are. My wife is the same way.” And that’s not the reason why you’re running behind at all, but you’re sure indulging in the fact that your boyfriend hopped in the shower with you uninvited and then proceeded to invite himself to bruise your cervix this morning isn’t exactly “safe for work” content.
And your vagina hurts like a bitch because Bradley went too rough and the report you had filed was sitting on your desk with an intimidating note about how the numbers were inaccurate (“Fuck you, Michael and Rick from downstairs,” you think).
Maybe it’s the fact that you’re so tired and that the cogwheels in your brain are doing that fucked up thing again where it sends you into overdrive and your entire body feels numb. Maybe it’s the fact that you know you can’t cry; that you can’t actually process what you’re feeling until after five when you leave the office today.
But the burning sensation doesn’t go away no matter how much ice water you drink or how many times you excuse yourself to the bathroom to splash your face with cold water.
It’s all one big, nasty, slimy feeling that clouds your conscience until you’re met with the front door of your safe haven; Bradley Bradshaw’s home. The sniffles scratch at your chest like a stray dog begging to be let in. The whimper you let out is pathetic and you would’ve laughed at yourself if you hadn’t been so concerned with getting inside.
Fuck. Was unlocking Bradley’s front door always this difficult?
Bradley can sense you before he has any indication that you’re home. He joked how he could feel you oceans away when he was on deployment and while you thought that he wasn’t serious (Bradley was a sap and had a tendency to be so tooth-achingly sweet) you know that there’s some truth to it.
It was odd how he was always so attuned to your needs; how he could always tell how you were feeling before you were even aware that you were feeling it. It was something that you had raved to your friends about in the earlier stages of your relationship. It was also certainly something that they had witnessed on nights out at the club when visiting you in San Diego.
Something inside Bradley loves you so deeply, but he also can’t deny the fact that he loves the praise; the reassurance that he’s a good guy who is always doing the right thing. He’s not doing it for brownie points, “per say”, but the praise does feel nice, and after having to fight tooth and nail to stand out - to be someone and mean something to someone other than his family - the good deeds and the compliments that arose because of them were satiating enough.
But if he’s being honest with himself, he had always been that way. Despite his innate desire to recreate his parents’ epic love story, being empathetic and filled with space to make homes of other people’s sorrow was just something he was born with.
Nothing new, and nothing special.
You force the door open and try and breathe; the cold air of Bradley’s living room hitting your face and the dry heat of Southern California constricting your lungs even more than they had been. You just need a moment, you think. You just need to breathe and you’ll be okay.
In, out. In, out. In, out.
Suddenly you’re too aware of your heart beating inside your chest; the anger and sadness and frustration demanding to be let out. You can feel your trachea eroding away with your sobs. Your eyes feel like salt had been poured into them. Your body is heavy with the weariness of your soul, and something about today’s events and your life, really, has made your legs feel like they weigh a billion pounds. Moving them would only land you flat on your face.
And then you’re made aware of your breathing and your heartbeat is out of sync. The feeling claws your insides and makes every fiber of your being sting.
Fuck.
In. In. In. In. In!
Bradley rounds the corner where your hallway extends into your living room. He has a basket of laundry in his arms. His chest is admonished with a shirt with a comically stretched “UVA” logo. Under different circumstances (one where you could breathe, for starters) you would have laughed at him and his expression reads that he’s prepared for it; the slight smile line near his mouth is quirked up on one side being his tell.
“Hey, baby!” he says before coming into full view of you.
You can see the light in his eyes leave and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he drinks in your appearance.
Your own eyes widen as you damn near suffocate in the doorway of Bradley’s home. Your sweet, sweet Bradley who you’re sure you’ve traumatized in the span of three seconds.
You’ve had episodes like this before, but never in the presence of another person.
They don’t happen frequently, and from various self-help Refinery29 articles and Google searches, you were certain that what you were experiencing - the sudden shortness of breath and the tunnel vision and the pent-up, white-hot frustration making your head woozy - was not normal in the slightest.
And if it was anyone else you would tell them to get help. You would tell them that what they were experiencing didn’t make them any less of who they were before and that it would be absurd to define someone by such a small fragment of their experiences. But what you say to others is different than what you feel about yourself, because admitting there is an issue that you can’t solve by yourself is equivalent to weakness in your mind.
Weakness isn’t something you’re allowed to show very often; not with Mikes and Bills breathing down your neck looking for something to boot your sorry ass out of the front doors of their company.
Bradley recognizes the look you have on your face. It resembles that of new recruits during hypoxia training and even those unfortunate ones that experience g-lock while up in the sky. He’s had his fair share of freakouts and anxieties and he knows that the feeling is awful. Something inside the shelf of him breaks when he sees the same glimmer of fear in your eyes and a call for help on your face.
He drops the laundry basket to the ground and rushes toward you. His feet move faster than his mind and if people on the base could see him now, it would be the last time they called him slow to react.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he whispers, softly grabbing your forearms and rubbing his thumbs over your wrists, “You’re okay. Breathe. Just breathe.”
His grip on your forearms drops to your waist as he subtly moves you into the entryway of his home. You can feel the vacuum of air behind you as he reaches around your back to shut the door and lock it.
Bradley’s pupils search your face for answers your mouth can’t give him. He sees the slight bloodshot hue in the whites of your eyes. He sees the slight flush to your cheeks and knows that the dewiness of the shade isn’t because of the heat outside or the blush he had watched you apply this morning. He sees the forced movement of your chest; your lungs overworking themselves to keep you standing.
Your eyes are staring right back at him but your brain can’t seem to register that you’re safe. You’re home. You’re with Bradley.
The longer he rubs his thumbs in the crease where your elbow meets your bicep, the more feeling you regain. Your heart rate has slowed a good deal and the air you’ve so desperately been engulfing has allowed itself to make itself useful to you.
He shushes you and steps closer, engulfing you in a wrap that could envy that of a boa constrictor with its prey. He peppers the top of your head with small kisses and he makes sure your ear is pushed up to his chest so you can hear the thump of his heart.
You don’t even realize that you’re crying until he moves your conjoined bodies so that his back is facing the door and you’re being held close to his front. Bradley slides down the navy blue painted oak so swiftly and carefully with you in his arms that you can’t even be sure when your view changed from his face to being at eye level with his coffee table.
His hold is comforting and the dam that you’ve worked so hard to maintain all day has finally hit its peak of pressure and broken completely.
“You’re safe, baby. I’m here.”
The sob that leaves your mouth is one that you don’t even recognize as yours. The last time you can remember hearing something remotely similar resonates in the memory of your niece throwing the biggest hissy fit ever known to man at her second birthday party last summer.
Man, if only she knew that her competition was you instead of her new baby brother.
“My sweet girl,” Bradley whispers into your hair, holding you as your body shakes so violently it jostles his large frame behind you. “You’re okay. It’s okay. Get it all out.”
And you don’t know when the crying stops and turns into shallow sniffles or when the sky changed from its yellowed hue to the dark navy that usually blankets your late-night talks with the man behind you, but all you know is that Bradley Bradshaw is a saint.
Your sweet, sweet Bradley who would stop the world from turning if that’s what you asked of him.
Because it’s what you would do if he had been the one to ask instead. That’s how love works.
He loves me. He loves me not.
He loves me.
(Year 4)
He loves me not. He loves me.
He loves me not.
Looking for blame was never your strong suit.
But as you look outside the passenger window of an inherited Bronco on a chilly November night, the fingers you always seem hesitant to point uncurl themselves from your fist without resistance. You have half the mind to not actually point at the culprit of your anger who manifests in the form of the six-foot-one man seething beside you.
The radio is clicked off and the joyous laughter and cacophony of faux karaoke is absent in the midnight blue starlight. The windows are down despite the air surrounding the coast bringing the atmosphere to a standing fifty-five outside, and the wind from how fast your lover is driving taking the temperature down to at least fifty degrees even.
Your eyes refuse to drink in his appearance for more than five seconds at a time because you know that you’re an angry crier who gets set off very easily. Exchanging looks with the fuel that set fire to the burning in your belly would not do you any good at this moment.
When you had pulled on the pretty little cocktail dress and left Bradley to his own devices in the living room of your apartment, the thought of the anger brewing between you like a hurricane didn’t cross your mind at all.
And how could it?
In the four years of being together, there were a fair share of disagreements but nothing that wasn’t just a product of stress or small tidbits of jealousy and hurt feelings that brewed into something bigger than it was ever intended to be. They were usually resolved with a mature conversation on the floor of whoever’s living room followed by cuddles and on a few occasions, fervent makeup sex on the floor.
It always gave you rug burn but you never complained. Having Bradley was something you craved so deeply that no consequence could ever outweigh the desire; even damn near purple knees and a sore ass from how domineering he could be.
Love has a way of making the world stop turning. Nothing truly matters besides the feel of a warm body holding you in bed and the promise of sweet nothings weighing you down lovingly. That always is (at least in your case) until too much pressure is applied and you begin to freak out - the ugly truth of how much love can hurt with each pained exhale that mimics simultaneous cries of pleasure and calls for help.
“Does he really love me?” “Am I too much?” “Am I not enough?”
Insecurities upon insecurities and you really have no true basis for why you think this way or why you feel like you will never amount to what Bradley deserves. If you’re being honest, it’s all a jumble of things and it reminds you of the ABC spaghetti-o’s you used to beg your mom to buy.
Superficial and never really making sense, much like the word scramble of letters in your soup.
But despite you trying to tell yourself that you were being ridiculous - that the pit in your stomach that refused to move was nothing more than an overreaction - the ABC spaghetti-o mixture started to make sense of your anger and what may have caused it.
And the insecurity you had felt that you tried to push down inside of you; tried to deny the existence that it was there and was, in fact, so excruciatingly real made way at Rueben’s wedding shower.
It’s not like you hate being around Bradley’s friends - not like they’re strangers that you try and force small talk with so that the three-hour minimum interactions required for a get-together go by faster. Most of these gatherings have an imaginary itinerary that you’ve come up with and if you play the game right, you never come home with too bad of a hangover.
The first thirty minutes will be spent giving side hugs and enthusiastic “Hey! How are you?”’s being tossed around. You’re always grateful that the years of sorority recruitment have prepared you for holding “safe” conversations; ones that don’t deter any deeper than being happy to see each other and the San Diego weather that never seems to change.
Every now and again, one of the guys will hold up your left hand and inspect for an engagement ring before pushing Bradley’s shoulder slightly. A “You better lock her down before I do, Bradshaw,” nipping the air and making your cheeks turn slightly pink.
Hour one will entail being tucked beneath Bradley’s arm as he sips a Budweiser and joins the circle of regulars that you often go to the bar with or host for dinner parties at his place. Mickey and Rueben will give you friendly exchanges and ask about your work and siblings. Javy and Jake will give you a curt nod and then start to babble away with your boyfriend about whatever hazing-like endeavor they’ll pull on the new pupils in their class. And sweet ole Bob will stand to the side with his hands in his pockets before offering to show you the newest picture of his two-year-old niece, which you graciously partake in viewing because she’s a cutie.
You’ll slosh around the heavily poured margarita you’ve had in your hand for the past hour before Mickey will laugh and ask if you plan on drinking it at all, and you’ll give a faux introspective hum before shaking your head “no” and offering your drink to Bradley. And Bradley will ask what’s wrong with it and you’ll say it’s too strong and he’ll graciously take the glass and drop a sweet kiss on your temple.
And when he downs the drink with no grimace at the shit ton of tequila and triple sec poured into it, you’ll make note of how the margaritas you make at home are probably more of a mocktail than anything to him. You’ll then marvel at his ability to handle his alcohol, and recall asking him one time at the start of your relationship if a high alcohol tolerance was required to join the armed forces.
Hour one and a half would be spent with Natasha kidnapping you from the group of aviators Bradley has concerned himself with. “Sorry not sorry, Bradshaw. We got stuff to talk about,” she’ll say and then drag you across the room to another corner of aviators (thank God they’re all women this time). And then you get another round of “Hi! You look so good!”’s thrown at you and a mojito to replace the margarita on account of Cali. The funny stories of hookups and boyfriends paired with all the constant belly laughing are reminiscent of college roommates after a night out at the bars.
Hour two will include drunken karaoke (even if there isn’t a karaoke machine in sight) and some kind of serenade from Bradley. He always goes to the piano willingly (though it’s always anticipated that dear old Rooster is bound to end up there if the instrument is available) and he’ll pretend like he doesn’t enjoy it, but you know that his ego is inflated by everyone singing along and the praises sung to his playing.
Hour two and a half will bleed into hour three and usually ends with people starting to head out and “See you tomorrow!” being tossed around. Nat always gives you a tight squeeze and holds your shoulders before making you promise her to get lunch sometime soon. You’ll agree even though you know that your schedules will never align and it more than likely won’t happen, but the drunken stupor you’re both in creates a bubble of extroversion that neither of you can seem to put a cap on.
Bradley then takes you back to the car and turns on the radio. He’ll look over at you lovingly before kissing your forehead and rolling all the windows down. He knows that the sea breeze has made the air chillier than the number displayed on the weather app in your phone. You’ll groan as he gives you a, “C’mon, baby. You know I run hot!” with that cute laugh and head-shaking smile, and then you’re off down the interstate back to Bradley’s home, where you’ll stay the night and leave out back to yours around the same time he gets up for training.
That’s how the itinerary usually goes, and the comfortability of it all keeps you sane and acts as a warm blanket that keeps you distracted from the sheer differences between your boyfriend and his world.
But tonight was different, and the minute you step into the lavishly decorated venue, you know that your unofficial itinerary has no room to unravel despite the massive square footage of the party taking place around you.
You recognized Natasha alongside the other female aviators that you were friendly with but certainly not close to. Because of the occasion at hand, a few girlfriends and spouses were also huddled around them including Rueben’s fiance, Izzy.
And somewhere between the three glasses of champagne you had and Izzy’s stories about how she and Rueben were secretly “trying” but didn’t want anyone to know (you’re not sure how it’s a secret anymore because she blurted it out to her soon-to-be husband’s coworkers, but truly to each their own) planted a cherry pit of insecurity in your stomach. When you finished your glass of champagne and took note of how dizzy you were, the insecurity started to grow into the slimy monster that you were familiar with.
Then came the picking yourself apart.
Your eyes found the glimmer of engagement rings, baby bumps, and phones with family pictures as the home screen. Wearing your undergraduate alma mater’s class ring on your finger seemed infantile, and you made the conscience effort to slip it into the clutch you had been carrying with you the entire night.
Phoenix noticed the sudden stiffness in your spine and how your eyes had a glimmer of sadness in them; how they held sparkles of wishing that you could relate. It’s a look she remembered having during her time in flight school. And because she had taken it upon herself to act as your big sister turned good friend since you’ve been dating Bradley, she knew that you wouldn’t speak up or excuse yourself from the conversation.
Because you, much like her and so very much like Bradley, would rather suffer in silence and let the thoughts of not feeling good enough eat you alive until the joys of who you are become eroded to make room for the sorrows of who you aren’t.
It came as a surprise to feel her hand guide you away from the giggling women to the front table housing cupcakes and plastic water bottles with the cheesy Canva-designed “Hitched to Fitch” labels replacing the ones they had come with.
“Thank you,” you said, and she only nodded before handing you a bottle and grabbing one for herself off the table.
“M’gonna head to the bathroom and then go outside for a bit. Meet you there?” she asked and you agreed, your hands busied trying to twist the cap off of your water bottle.
Phoenix disappeared and your eyes started to search the room for Bradley. You’d even be satisfied to see some of the familiar faces that you’ve come to know via pool at Hard Deck or biweekly group dinners at your boyfriend’s house.
Your eyebrows furrowed as you scanned the room and realized that you didn’t see anyone you recognized for that matter. Instead of doing the smart thing and texting him about his whereabouts or trying to get some kind of idea about where he may have disappeared to, you did the opposite and headed outside to the back area where the sky swallowed any light in its darkness and the greenery around you smelled earthy.
The November breeze chilled your bones and it took everything within you to keep your teeth from chattering audibly. You internally scolded yourself for being insistent that you didn’t need to bring a jacket to wear with your cocktail dress. When the wind chill had been brought up when you were putting on your earrings, Bradley had only shaken his head and laughed before making sure to put on the baby blue suit coat of his that you loved. You both knew that you’d have it across your shoulders come nightfall when the sun had set and the late fall wind chill kicked in.
The back of your heels dug into the blisters that had formed sometime during the evening and your champagne-induced mind can’t force you to walk any farther. And your intention was never to wander off and not let anyone know. It was to find Bradley and get some air, and you fell short in finding your boyfriend, so the latter had to do for the time being.
Thoughts of the Law and Order episodes you watched leisurely slammed themselves into the forefront of your mind as the thought of a dangerous predator sent shivers up your spine. You chewed on your lips and crossed your arms over your chest; half thinking and half trying to preserve your body heat. You took a small step forward before your action was interrupted by the loud cacophonous laughter of the men that made up your boyfriend’s friend group.
You smiled fondly and decided to wait a moment longer before making your presence known. Not very often do they get to joke around like that.
“She’s letting you hit raw and you still haven’t knocked her up yet?” you heard an unfamiliar voice say, “Jesus, Fitch, are you broken?”
You can hear Bradley chuckle along with the other males making up the group as you remained standing hidden behind the archway of the garden. If you had common sense, you would hit the gopher of your curiosity on the head like some dumb carnival game and would reveal yourself; softly joining in on the conversation and maybe even getting to put a face to the voice you had just heard.
But instead, you stayed put and tried to flip through the catalog of voices that you had come to know.
Reuben was ruled out because the statement was about him. Mickey’s voice was naturally quieter and softer in nature. “Hit raw” would never come out of Bob’s mouth ever. Hangman is an actual menace to society, but would “Never use the Lord’s name in vain, sweetheart. Was raised better than that.” And Javy was on leave visiting his family in Ohio for the next three weeks, you remembered Bradley mentioning earlier.
So who could it be?
An instinct - that old know-it-all voice that was cemented into your subconscious from years of mistakes and warnings from your mother - told you that the curiosity would actually kill you this time. Part of you thought it would be best if you found the bathrooms and waited for Natasha there. Your frozen toes and embarrassingly hard nipples would certainly thank you, but yet you do the opposite of what your panicked brain is telling you (one thing that the ABC spaghetti-o’s made clear to prevent you from getting your feelings hurt).
You had decided to snoop some more and God, did you wish you could beat yourself upside the head to forget what you had heard. Maybe a concussion wouldn’t be that awful.
And by the time Natasha caught up to you, you had thanked God that the night sky concealed the sadness written on your face and that the cool air could be used as an excuse for your sniffles.
Bradley, your sweet Bradley, had betrayed you, and he wasn’t even aware of how deeply that had cut you yet.
As you and Natasha made your way to the group of men huddled outside, you could feel the energy from Bradley shift, and from one look at you, he can tell that something in you has changed. His eyes are softened from both the scotch in his system and the tenderness he held in his heart for your being. Something in you just won’t allow his hazel irises to bleed into you. You already have enough blood surrounding the metaphorical stab wound that he unknowingly caused you tonight to last you through the goddamn week.
He had reached out to bring you into him and tuck you into his front and wrap his arm around your torso. He knew that you were freezing and his suit jacket had been abandoned inside so blocking the wind with his body was the next best thing to warm you up, he had thought. His hand had grazed the goosebumps on your arms, but you pushed him away forcefully. He didn’t raise the question out loud, but when he turned to face you and saw the red tint on your cheeks and the straight line your lips were in, it confirmed what he had thought.
You were pissed off.
The thing about Bradley, though, is that he’ll never bring up someone else’s issue with him. He’s confrontational at heart but only about things that cut him deep; about things that stain his fingertips red with anguish and disappointment. And he knows that he has a lot of problems. He knows that what you had heard had to be beyond upsetting, and as you stood shivering with your arms folded over your chest and a good three feet put between you and him, he noted that the look on your face was something that he had caused.
But because he’s him and because you’re you, he decided to let you come forward and let you confront him with your problem because the absolute last thing he ever wanted to do was upset you, and he certainly fell short in avoiding that scenario tonight.
You stayed quiet and distant for the rest of the night. Your smiles and hugs and sarcastic quips were kept to a minimum and everyone noticed that something was off with you. When you had given Reuben and Izzy their parting hugs, he had whispered in your ear to “feel better soon.” Izzy had even made an effort (despite how “off her ass” drunk she was) to comfort you, and it was then that you realized that everyone had noticed you but Bradley.
Your sweet, sweet Bradley who always happily obliged to love you and make you feel known and seen no matter the cost, but clearly, that was short of a few oceans away and the contempt of what he had done took precedence of the space you held for him in your heart now.
All the realization did was piss you off more.
Bradley had tried to give you his suit coat but you had just brushed it off your shoulders and let it fall to the ground. Normally, you would profusely apologize and declare that the action was an accident, but you simply watched it fall, raised your eyebrows in a gesture of being unamused, and started making your way to his car.
He had opened the passenger side door for you, but you stared at him; a look of utter silent disbelief and frustration rampant in your eyes. He couldn’t even process all that he was seeing reflected in your face before you reached your hand out to slam the very door he opened. You slung it open again before damn near hauling your body into the leather interior of the seat.
He had half the mind to subconsciously reach out and shut the door for you until you started angrily buckling your seatbelt, to which he ultimately decided to back away and round about his vehicle with half caution and half emasculating retreat to the driver’s side.
The wheels of how you were acting and how he could even begin to tread the water of what exactly had made you so painstakingly angry. You wouldn’t look at him. You wouldn’t speak to him. You didn’t even acknowledge him, and through the years of being an only child with a mother who doted on him like no other, Bradley had to admit that he was selfish; that he always wanted attention and always had to have it. The older he had gotten, the better he had become at concealing this, of course (Well, that’s debatable, you would have said if you were speaking to him) but he doesn’t like to share. Never likes to be pushed aside to have to make room for something else if he can help it.
And his thinking is selfish…and absurd…and a “doorway for toxicity” (all things that his therapist had said before Bradley had stopped seeing him because he hates being called out), but he can’t help it, and despite keeping it at bay in his friendships, he certainly has a more than difficult time keeping it concealed in his relationships.
Bradley blames the scotch he downed before he said his goodbyes on why he felt so wounded; on why the guilt and embarrassment were eating him alive. Everyone had known something was wrong with you and it hurt his confidence that he couldn’t be the one to pinpoint what exactly had caused your sour mood. He certainly had an idea, but he’d come to learn throughout the years that assuming things would never do him any good.
The wound you had given his ego was further agitated by your show of slamming the door as soon as he turned on his heel to go to his side. Knowing eyes in the parking lot of the venue had made their presence known with hushed whispers and heeled footsteps walking faster to avoid running into him.
Your anger angered him, and instead of being open to the idea of criticism and accepting his party in making you miserable tonight, his need to deflect kicked in instead. Old habits die hard, and he just couldn’t resist.
He knew you would always forgive him; would always say sorry and mean it because you love him. He has a right to be mad too, he had thought. You let his suit coat fall to the ground on purpose. You refused his touch. You slammed the door to his Bronco not once, but twice. If anyone had a right to be angry, he knew it was you but who was to say that he wasn’t a second runner-up?
Bradley knows that he was so incredibly wrong for trying to play you; trying to play chess when you weren’t even aware that there was a game being played, but so help him God if he got into a massive blowout fight with you in the goddamn parking lot before the night was over.
And he’s pissed off but he isn’t an asshole (at least he doesn’t think he is intentionally). He settled for keeping his mouth shut because he knew it would keep your anger at a minimum with less material to be upset at.
He backed out of his parking space and put his hand behind your headrest, his fingers lightly grabbed the ends of curled pieces of hair that wrapped themselves on the wrong side of the seat. You can feel the wispy touches and you tried your best to shrug him off.
The ghost of his fingertips on your body drove you up the wall. Instead of harshly pulling your head away from him, you bend down to unbuckle the strap of your heel. You were sure you almost saw the tail end of a frown when you had come back up, but he was absolutely the last thing you wanted to look at for the time being.
You could feel his stare on your face. His eyes traced your collarbone and followed the labyrinth of shadows up to your jawline. The temptation to give him some grace, to entertain his worries for just a second rang the bell inside your heart, but you were stronger than that. You deserved better than that.
He didn’t care about you in front of his coworkers, so why should he get the privilege of caring about you now?
Bradley, obviously attuned to your every move and gesture, sensed your subtle attempt at fleeing from him. He never knew how far away someone could feel from another despite being stuck in the confined space of a front seat.
He could tell that you were digging your heels in; doing your best to avoid him and remove your brain from the peanut butter-thick tension that plagued the scene. It didn’t stop him from searching the side of your face for answers - for any indication that the metaphorical distance you’ve created between you two actually exists and isn’t just a figment of his chronic overthinking.
The radio was tuned to some 80s throwback station, a Bob Seger song that you knew the melody of but certainly not the words to, which filled the uncomfortable silence. The age gap between you and your boyfriend was further cemented as he sang the song quietly as if he had written it himself.
You’re sure you would have spiraled all the way down to the abyss located in the treacherous unknown of the Pacific Ocean if you were given the chance to. Anywhere would be better than here, you had thought.
Bradley’s hand slipped to the heat to turn it on amidst the chilly fifty-degree fall air that had you shaking in the passenger seat. Your anger was so rampant and rage-induced that your body felt like it was on fire. Your annoyance has no place to go, as he didn’t even bother to lower the windows in the car this time. He had known that the routine of you two going out was thrown off, and trying to keep a small sliver of expectancy would do you both no good.
Bradley could be so observant yet so self-absorbed at the same time, and it drove you absolutely nuts.
And you started to spiral and the heat that was being blasted in your face crafted a tornado of grievances that you weren’t even aware you were holding against him.
Bradley is a blanket stealer. He always gets the wrong kind of grapes for you at the grocery store. He can never tell the difference between Alexandra Cabot and Casey Novak no matter how many times you force him to watch Law and Order: SVU. He always gets an absurd amount of water on the bathroom floor when he showers. He never fills up the Brita filter after he uses it. He always places his shoes sideways on the rack near his front door; not quite crooked enough for you to say something about it but always slightly slanted enough for you to notice it.
Most of all, he hurt your feelings tonight and he had yet to acknowledge that he was the cause of it. Yet here he is, trying to get in your good graces because the guilt of knowing that he had done something was chewing him up and spitting him out currently.
So attuned to your needs but never to your feelings. Same old Bradley.
His hand traveled to the bare skin of your knee; his large palm cupping the bone before moving it upward so his fingertips could trace the shallow gaps where your joints were relaxed. Your breath hitched in your throat and if it would have been acceptable to scream - ie; your boyfriend not currently driving you both across a narrow two-lanes-of-traffic bridge over the ocean - you would have.
His touch burned you. Made your heart volcanic. Sent fiery tears streaming down your face. His touch had betrayed you. Made you small. Made you insignificant. Made you feel like he never cared.
If you could’ve caught a glimpse at yourself you would know that you were beet red. You could feel yourself visibly shaking with anger and you knew Bradley could feel it too. You smacked his hand away as if you were smacking a blood-sucking mosquito off your body in the suffocating heat of June.
Except this wasn’t a mosquito. This wasn’t the soft glow of a summer sunset with a pesky little bug slurping down your blood. This wasn’t a fond moment that you would laugh at later.
You’d been bruised; so deeply hurt. Made to feel so goddamn stupid for ever thinking that he loved you. That he respected you. Fuck him for making you feel the same way you do at your 9 to 5 every weekday.
Bradley reached and turned the radio off. The deep exhale and the pink flush that crawled up his neck was his tell of truly being pissed off. You had only seen it happen a handful of times. Most of the time Maverick or Hangman served as memorable faces to cause the reaction.
But this time, the time that extended your handful into two handfuls, was because of you. Part of you is prideful of that fact. Now he can feel what you’ve felt the entire night.
“What the actual fuck is your problem?” he griped at you. He shifted in his seat and his left hand gripped the steering wheel significantly harder. “Been acting like a pissed-off toddler all night.”
The desire to roll your eyes bated you with knowing it would satiate you in getting your point across. But the desire to do him one better, to see if you could irritate him more, took over. You know that nothing gets under Bradley’s skin more than someone taking the high road; someone one-upping him in his “noble and kind” act.
“I’m not starting a screaming match with you in the car,” you deadpanned. You heard him huff beside you, still avoiding his presence with your eyes.
“Would rather you fight with me than take an oath of silence.” He cracked his neck and stiffened his back against his seat. “More grown-up ways to go about telling me you’re mad, you know.”
The anger ran up your spine and reared its head in your ears. “Hmm,” you sneered pensively, “More grown up than my pussy then, huh?”
Bradley slammed on the breaks of the Bronco. His sudden change in speed caused you both to jerk forward. He thanked God that the road was dark and no one was directly behind him. His abrupt decision could have resulted in disaster. But even if someone would have rear-ended his prized possession, his biggest fear at the moment would have to be the fact that his suspicion was confirmed.
You had heard them and that’s why you were so royally pissed off.
He simply swallowed and pushed his foot on the gas pedal, the car slowly starting to move forward. He turned the radio off completely and his raised brows to signify that he was deep in thought.
How the hell was he going to get himself out of this now?
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
The scoff you let out rumbled in his ears; eardrums rubbed raw from how accusatory the pitch of your laughter sounded. “Does it fucking matter that I did?” Your voice sounded thick and the puff of air you blew out of your mouth told him that you were seconds away from angry tears.
“You’re laughing, Bradshaw but what about that youngin’ you brought tonight? She even old enough to drink yet?” his friend and old squadron partner, Yankee, had laughed.
Bradley had forgotten how loud-mouthed Yankee could be. Completely unafraid of asking the questions everyone was dying to know the answers to and unapologetically crass (even more so than Hangman, believe it or not). Call sign given to him by how goddamn opinionated he was about the MLB and how much of a ride-or-die fan of the New York Yankees he was.
Yankee was one of those people who you didn’t tell your personal business to because he was bound to have some opinion about it; whether it was if he could tell that your flight suit was slightly stained or if you were making the right choice about proposing to your long-term partner.
Come to think of it, Yankee was one of the friends Bradley had that he was sure he would never be caught dead hanging out with one-on-one. Something about the two never aligned. Bradley never found Yankee’s jokes to be funny and more often than not found his demeanor to be beyond annoying. But he can't help who his friends liked, and Yankee had never brought anything up against Bradley that made him want to beat him to a pulp, so he was found in the same hand-shaking and bar-hopping circle of friends with Yankee until the other pilot was moved to Corpus Christi.
“Hey, Rooster’s girl is at least twenty-three. Old enough for a master’s, but can’t hold her liquor for shit,” Hangman declared, sipping the Budweiser he had been holding by its neck.
You stuffed Bradley’s suit coat that was sitting over your lap on the middle console; desperate to have any part of him away from you. You hadn’t even noticed you were crying until you felt your tears fall into the dip of your collarbone.
The anger and sadness that bubbled inside you warmed your insides; turned your volcanic heart into lava. The heat from the vents of your boyfriend’s car blasted in your face and made you feel even sicker than you had previously. Your thighs stuck to the worn leather and itched due to your increased adrenaline.
You fidgeted about in the seat. Bradley adjusted his posture, leaning his head on his fist that rested on the window sill on his left side. He wanted to drop the whole thing. He wanted to return back to your good tequila-shot-induced moods before the night turned to shit.
He flipped the heat to a lower setting when he noticed your discomfort next to him. He haphazardly leaned over to close the vent on your side before he saw them; the tears streaming down your face and the pitiful pout adorning your lips. You looked so hurt. So broken. So done with him. Like maybe, just possibly, the love you had for him had finally given out.
He figured no one was to blame but him.
He tried his best to make you comfortable but the silence looming like a shadow from your side of the car sparked a wick of anxiety inside of him. His hands kept adjusting the temperature and checking your face as he turned the knob back and forth, the temperature going up and down. The air vents opened and closed as if they were playing some infantile game of peek-a-boo with you.
“Jesus - fuck -, Bradley,” you hissed, “Can you quit it?” The tears had turned from anger to sadness to annoyance and you wondered if it was possible for the primary purpose of tears to switch that quickly.
Bradley let out a soft sigh before flicking the heat off completely and rolling down both windows. “Sorry.” The meekness on his face wrote regret for all that had taken place.
“You don’t say,” Yankee joked, “Ole Rooster’s been scoping out the playground still, I see.”
The group of men laugh, none of them in the know of the impending doom of the night about to take place. It always started like this with Yankee. One second, everyone would be laughing and having a good time. The next, he would say some “balls-to-the-wall” asshole-ish comment that even made Hangman grind his teeth in their offending nature.
“I would say more ‘Babysitters Club’ and less ‘Sesame Street.’ Have to at least be in middle school now for Bradshaw,” Hangman fires back, and although the jokes being made about his taste in women and dating habits were being made fun of, nothing truly offensive had been said yet, so Bradley continued to laugh and nod his head with subtle “Fuck you”’s thrown in every now and again.
Bradley had been in the Navy since he was twenty-one years old. He knows the way that Navy men talk. He knows the way that most Navy men think. “Swear like a sailor” is the common saying and the various time he’s spent on deployments or on carrier ships provided that it was true. He certainly isn’t blind to the nature of how these men viewed women from how they talked about them when there weren’t female ears around or when they didn’t have a warm body to go home to at night.
And he’s not proud of it - knew that his mother and father would bury him alive for some of the things he’s said - but the guilt of his parents’ imminent disapproval had since been disbarred from his conscience. When it came down to it, no one gave a fuck who he had fucked the night before or what he had said about the women he was sleeping with. Not when he was miles away from home in an undisclosed location on a suicide mission with no one to go home to if he happened to make it back.
So many other people whom he had befriended felt the same way and Bradley had figured that this is why locker-room talk still exists in the military. Some of the things he heard he was sure could have been said at a random run-of-the-mill suburban high school in any part of the continental United States. All that was changed was the bass in the voices and the number of hairs on their chests.
It’s hard to be polite when preserving your life is the action item at hand.
“You know Bradshaw, I always knew you were smart,” the other pilot swishes around his scotch on the rocks in his hand, “They’re always so horny when they’re that young.”
Laughter rang around the room and he joyously partook in it. “Well, I do get laid pretty frequently if you may ask,” he added before taking a sip of the beer he had in his hand.
His gaze caught Bob’s eyes. Sweet, innocent Bob who thought the world of everyone. Sweet, innocent Bob who knew that Bradley was digging his own grave, but continued sipping his glass of red wine. The gawky metal frames that rimmed his friend’s eyes bore into his soul, almost magnifying the wrongfulness of what he was saying.
Bradley had broken their eye contact, his arm coming up to cover his mouth as he cleared his throat and a shaky hand bringing the neck of his bottle up to his lips. He had known that Bob would never say anything, that he wasn’t one for confrontation or calling people out even when they deserved it. But that was the good thing about Bob. He always let people make their own mistakes and never really offered much to say about it afterward.
“I knew it! You seemed looser than the last time I talked to you.” Bradley catches Bob’s eyes again, his friend’s eyebrows slightly raising in a scolding manner. “Now tell, she the tightest pussy you’ve ever had?”
The atmosphere thickened as the side conversations had come to a screeching halt. He would be lying if he told himself that the lump in his throat was from the lack of water he had drank that night rather than the uneasiness of knowing he was in the wrong.
And he knew he shouldn’t. He knew that he should keep his mouth shut; that he owed you the small price of privacy, that you wouldn’t like the mechanics of your sex life being discussed with men who were probably making paper mache volcanoes for their middle school science fairs when you were born. He knew that Bob wasn’t giving him a warning look for no reason and that Mickey didn’t wander back into the venue for no reason at all.
But despite his better judgment (or lack of coherent judgment at all), he opened his big, fat mouth. He had sped up the ends to his means without hesitation; without regard for your feelings.
“Tightest thing I’ve ever put my dick in.”
His friends nod their heads and laugh. Some of them chuckled to avoid the awkwardness and others in agreeance with what was being said.
Bob scooted himself closer to Bradley and shook his head with a deep sigh. “C’mon, Rooster.” A clammy hand had come to lay gently on Bradley’s shoulder.
He had pretended not to hear him. He knew the minute that he let Bob’s words register that he would drop to his knees and beg you for forgiveness. He hated peer pressure. He hated the way he was acting. He hated the way he was treating you behind your back. He hated the way his friends were laughing.
He hated himself more for doing it because you deserved so much better. But clearly, he didn’t feel bad enough to stop.
The sobs that wracked your chest shook you like an earthquake. The more you pondered on why he would say the things that he had said - why he would laugh and demean you behind your back - sent you into a frenzy.
Had he always thought of you this way? Were you always talked about so grossly? So demeaningly? Were you really anything to him other than a warm vagina to pummel his dick in when he was horny?
The questions remained unanswered as you tried to stifle your cries. You hated crying in front of people anyway, but crying in front of Bradley always made you feel awful. Tears always made him uncomfortable and your tears made him upset. Whenever the waterworks started from you, he drove himself mad trying to remedy your issue. You had used to think it was because he cared, but now you started to wonder if it was because he didn’t know how to tell you that he didn’t want to deal with it; that you were being a bother.
Your hand is bitten raw from trying to hold in your pathetic cries. The alligator tears that ran down your face at a rapid speed and the shaking of your shoulders did little to mask the fact that you were sobbing. Years of being told that your emotions would hinder your credibility at work, months of pent-up frustration, hours of disrespect, minutes of unkindness, and seconds of insecurity create an atomic bomb on the merits of the lesson you had been told throughout your entire lifetime; there will never be enough room for your emotions.
And you believed it. You took people for their word. You made narratives and internalized them from how people acted. You read between the lines and the margins of what you interpret carve doubt into your heart; carve the failure that you’re so deathly terrified of so close to your lifeline of needing to please everyone all the time.
The trait is toxic - an unfavorable condition - your therapist would say but it had become such a compulsion, you’re sure you would die without it. Something about approval is so intimately invasive and the shower thoughts you conjured up while thinking about this never seemed to uncover the answer as to why.
Why it matters. Why it doesn’t matter. Who the fuck would even care. (You, of course, but the world is so much larger than you are and your selfishness would be disappointing, you think.)
You wish your boyfriend could read your mind and see the twenty-five cent bouncy ball-like thoughts hitting every crevice of your brain right now. You wish that your hurt feelings could be seen by him with x-ray vision or some fictional superhero-like ability. Most of all, you wished that he had known that the events that had taken place throughout the entire night were tearing you up right beside him.
If he felt that way about you, felt like you were around just for your body and not for you, what did everyone else think? Was Natasha only friendly because she thought you were too immature to be left alone at gatherings? Did Rueben and Mickey actually give a shit about what you had to say when they asked about your work? Did Jake and Javy even know your name?
Did your boyfriend even like you?
The questions imploding like fireworks in your head made you cry harder, and you couldn’t help but let the sobs out now. Bradley looked over at you. His hand brushed your knee, his palm cupped it and his fingers spread out to rub soothing circles on the lower part of your thigh.
“Don’t cry, baby. I’m so sorry,” he begged, his voice quiet. Small. Unsure. All the things he had made you. “Please don’t cry.”
The rubber band inside of you finally breached the capacity of tension it was able to withstand. The fact that you needed comfort more than anything and the person who usually supplies it for you with no bounds is the one who is violating that comfort made your head spin.
“She’s got that young pussy,” Yankee continued. “Gotta fuck ‘em before they turn into moms. Not as tight anymore.”
Bradley’s ears turned red upon hearing Yankee’s declaration. Knowing that you fucked up and realizing that you fucked up are two vastly different things and the realization hit when he heard Jake Seresin (of all fucking people) tsk and shake his head.
“That’s fucked up, man. Have some respect.” Ever the Southern fucking gentleman.
The sandy-haired pilot’s mouth gaped open before closing; the words loose in his psyche but ceasing to exist in real-time. He finally thought that he had a handle on what he wanted to say. Something noble. Something dignity preserving. Something along the lines of “What the hell?” and “Shut the fuck up.”, but either or never making its way out between his lips.
Waiting for the perfect moment that never comes, he thought, and upon further internalized reflection, he realized that it posed itself as true. Jake wasn’t entirely wrong for saying that about him all that time ago.
The clicking of heels on the ground announced Phoenix and his dashing girlfriend’s presence with the group of men and snapped Bradley out of his thoughts. Something in the way she was carrying herself, something about the way that her crossed arms over her chest blocked her usually sunny aura, told Bradley that something was wrong.
He brought his lips down to her ear when he hugged her from behind and almost built up the courage to ask what was wrong. But he fell short when he was called away to do another round of shots with Rueben and Natasha. He had settled for a kiss to your temple instead before he bolted off.
“Fuck you,” you manage to spit.
Bradley raises his eyebrows. The curse word sends him into immediate fight or flight. “What did you just say to me?”
You know that you’re teetering the line of too much. Toeing the line of immaturity. Testing if your boyfriend liked you enough to put up with your explosion of emotions. “I said fuck you.” The definitive tone in your voice that you attempt scares you with how much it resembles your mother’s.
Bradley scoffs and squirms in his seat some more. His inability to sit still is his tell of guilt. “I told you it wasn’t like that.”
“What the fuck else was it supposed to be then, Bradley?” Your head snaps to look at his side profile.
The cream-colored polo shirt that you had bought him months ago was worn tonight with a different ending in a mind; one where he sped home and kissed your lips swollen and then had you withering beneath him as he fucked up into you on the wall of his foyer. Certainly not the narrative that was currently unfolding in front of him.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Now it’s your turn to laugh cruelly. “Well, what I didn’t want you to say was that I was the tightest thing you’ve ever stuck your dick in? That I’m insatiably horny? Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?” You turn your body to face him completely, heart beating in your ears and chest starting to heave with the upset of Bradley’s attitude toward you. “How the hell is Jake Seresin defending me before you even thought to?”
“Leave him out of this.” His face turns red and anger starts to bubble over inside him. Rooster always sweats whenever he gets flustered; so pissed off and angry that the heat inside of him has nowhere to go. The muggy threshold of the heat being flicked on minutes before pairs vexatiously with the aggravation that sits between the both of you.
He rolls the windows in the car all the way down but remembers to roll yours down enough for the smallest gusts of wind to be let in. Even though you had made him angry and he knows that you’re completely justified in the case that’s been built against him, he still cares about you.
He knows that you never like your window being all the way down unless the heat of the summer is unbearable and you were going on a beloved sunset drive with him; your shared playlist playing through his speakers and the top of the Bronco being taken off.
The way that your hair dances in the wind remind him of when you’re carefree enough to lean your head backward outside of the car while driving down a backroad, the words of a Paramore song exiting your lungs with such clarity that he could question if Hayley Williams had written the song or you.
But it’s not the heat of mid-June’s sunburn heating up his cheeks and your screams aren’t accompanied by the laughter of him poking your sides. Summer-salted air is replaced with a frigid fall breeze and your happy moods are burdened by your own frustrations.
“Wish I could tell you the same about our sex life, but obviously too little too late.”
His hand comes up to wipe at his nose. His eyebrows are furrowed. “What the fuck do you think we talk about then? Huh?” Bradley’s pointed tone sends a slight sliver of fear down your spine at his annoyance. “Do you think we sit on those fucking carrier ships in the middle of the fucking ocean for eight months at a time and talk about what? Girl power and Title IX? How much we love AOC?”
The tears dripping down your face continue to fall.
“I’m not saying that you have to sacrifice your conversations with the “bros” about jet fuel and g-forces and whatever the fuck else you always seem to insist is so goddamn important, but my vagina is not a conversation topic to have over a fucking draft beer with your buddies.”
Bradley rolls his eyes at your mention of the word “buddies.” If only you knew how he really felt about Yankee.
“And I’m so fucking sorry that my lack of not wanting to be disrespected disrupted what you think is a party conversation starter. Would you like my apology half-assed like yours or sincere with a complimentary blowjob because that seems to be all you think I’m good for?”
“I said I was sorry and I meant it!”
“You said you were sorry because you want me to accept your apology, but what next, Bradley? Are you actually gonna fix it?”
He rolls his eyes and lets out a deep exhale. “Don’t act like I won’t do anything you fucking ask of me,” his hand comes up to rub at his temples.“ I love you more than life itself and you know that.”
“So why are you acting like you don’t then?”
He starts driving down the stretch of road that leads to his home. The yellow glow of the street lights makes you want to ask him to take you back to your place. You can’t stand to be sitting next to him in his car's front seat, let alone sleeping in the same bed with him tonight.
“Take it back,” he says dismissively.
“Show me different and maybe I’ll consider.” He pulls the car into his garage and you throw the door open before he can come to a complete stop.
“Hard to when every little thing that slightly offends you sends you into a goddamn spiral.”
Your weakness. He’s got you there.
“Fuck you, Rooster,” you say weakly, stomping away inside to his bedroom as fast as you can with the heels you have on.
“Grow up,” you hear him say behind you, hot on your tail before turning around to head to the kitchen.
You spend the next two hours separate from each other, toeing around the house petrified of seeing the other’s face. No fight you had gotten into with one another had ever been this bad in the four years you had been dating, and part of you wonders if this is how relationships begin to fade; how people start to realize that maybe their person wasn’t their person.
But you think Bradley is it for you. You’ve always felt that way since coming to know him. Be with him. Have him in the same way he has you. You don’t think you can function without him no matter how much of an ass he’s being to you right now. And sure, you’re independent to a fault and yeah, you don’t always know what’s good for you, but you know one thing definitively, and that thing is that Bradley Bradshaw checks all your boxes despite driving you slightly insane at times.
You look up at yourself in his bathroom mirror as you finally scooped yourself off of the floor of his bedroom and made the decision to scrub your makeup off (or what was left of it after your meltdown, really). The patch of stress acne near the side of your forehead from the new project you had been put on at work and the ball of anxiety over what to wear to the wedding shower tonight made itself known. You realized that you had run out of makeup remover and face wash at Bradley’s house a couple of days ago, and the regret of not bringing some or asking him to drop you off at your own apartment started to settle with the burden of your hurt feelings and the freakout your skin was bound to have come tomorrow morning.
A sigh had left your mouth and Bradley’s bathroom cabinet opened as you decided to skip washing your face in favor of only brushing your teeth. But when you go to grab the lilac-handled toothbrush from its holder, you notice the two brand-new bottles of makeup remover and face wash that you certainly didn’t bring, and then you’re reminded of how sweet your boyfriend can be. How caring he is.
The soft spot in your heart that he owns starts to warm again.
After you manage to wash your face and brush your teeth, you run into the problem of only bringing a sleep shirt. Bradley keeps his house on sixty-five no matter the weather outside. He always claims that he runs hot despite some of the wind chill San Diego experiences at night during the fall and winter months. And while you have clothes at Bradley’s, most of them fall into the business casual garb you wear to work or are borrowed (more like stolen, he likes to joke) and no matter how cold you may be, your pride has so much more precedence than it would allow you to give in.
Bradley’s Chicago Bears hoodie sits folded in your designated drawer, but you bypass putting it on. The embarrassingly large t-shirt (albeit free t-shirt) that repped a random student organization from your undergrad institution would have to do tonight.
You waltz out of Bradley’s bedroom quietly. Not only to go undetected, but to be polite in case he had already fallen asleep on his declared refuge of the couch. The soft sound of Breaking Bad playing told you that he was still awake. He can never fall asleep with the TV on; no matter how tired he is.
“Baby?” Bradley calls out from the couch.
Shit. Were you really that loud?
Your feet move faster than your brain; something about Bradley is so magnetizing. You’ll follow him to the end of the Earth if you knew that he needed you. Your puffy-eyed, pantless form moves to stand in front of him. His form still wears the clothes he had worn tonight. The only thing different was the UVA throw blanket you had gotten him last month “just because” over his lap and his printed airplane-socked feet sticking out from underneath it.
Your gaze looks towards the shoe rack near the front door and you chuckle to yourself as you see them exactly how you imagined them. Tucked away where he wouldn’t trip on them, but slightly askew.
His hand comes up to grab yours that lies limply at your side. “C’mere,” he whispers, testing the waters to see how much damage he had done.
You give his hand a small squeeze, the coldness of yours allowing you to feel every callous on his palms. “Jesus, you’re freezing.”
He opens the blanket on his lap and guides you to straddle him. He closes the blanket and immediate warmth covers you. Bradley’s hands sit on your lower back above your tailbone, soothing circles being rubbed on the bone there, and his head coming to rest on top of yours. You breathe in his scent, your face snuggled into his neck.
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” he speaks and you exhale. You bite your lip, the tears welling up again and wetting his neck.
“It’s okay,” you weep brokenly. “I’m sorry, too.”
He presses gentle kisses on the top of your hair. The sadness that fills the room; the culmination of utter sorrow and confirmation of your insecurities makes the room heavy and eats away at you. Bradley does his best to comfort you until your sobs quiet to hiccups.
And as much as you love Bradley, as much as you want to be satisfied with his apology (or lack of a sincere one, thereof), you realize that sincerity was perhaps not one of his defining characteristics. But instead of calling him out, you so stupidly and cowardly accepted it and apologized right back.
He’s apologizing for the sake of saying sorry. For the sake of diminishing your anger. For the sake of being able to be truthful about never going to bed angry if someone asks. For the sake of doing so because if you accept, he’s still allowed to stay the same and he never has to change.
But you’re saying sorry for being a nuisance. For embarrassing him. For bruising his ego and for being accusatory that he never gave a damn about you.
And what you don’t realize is that you should really be saying sorry to yourself, because while you’re boxing yourself up to make space for him, he’s not sorry about forcing you to do it.
Boxes are heavier when they’re filled with resentment, you learn, and the weight becomes unbearable when sorrows are thrown out to sea with no lifesaver near in sight.
Love is all about sacrifice and banged-up feelings; even if that means that the love of the man you would do anything for suffocates you as you lay curled into his side with a heat made by his chest and his soft snores in your ear.
“Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is patient. Love is kind.”
And for the first time in the four years you had spent together, you truly start to wonder if Bradley really does love you. The hot coffee on the nightstand when you wake up and the discovery of his thermostat being turned up to seventy degrees confuses you when you get up to head back to your apartment in the morning when you compare his treatment of you now to he had treated you the night before.
He loves me not. He loves me.
He loves me not.
(Year 5)
He loves me. He loves me not.
His mother used to tell him that women always knew.
And she would say it over the sound of a cheaply made General Hospital episode that she had taped so they could watch it together during their evening “wind down time.” His pencil would be scratching away at a Calculus problem from the AP Calc booklet his teacher had passed out at school that day and the soft clink of his mother’s knitting needles would grace his ears.
He would nod his head as he sat by his mother’s feet on the floor of their living room and wouldn’t say a word. The cocoon that the soft yellow glow of the lamp gave off wrapped him in a moment of security; a moment of comfort that he was never allowed very often.
And he had never really thought anything of it at the time. He had figured it was just some chock-full wisdom that would blossom into a useful tool for his adult life; one where his mom wasn’t dying and he was married with maybe a few kids and a beautiful house with a backyard and a bay window.
“Women always know,” his mom said as the female lead had discovered her husband cheating on her long before she had traveled home to catch him in the act.
“Women always know,” his mom said as she would catch him trying to sneak a girl into his teenage bedroom at half past three in the morning.
“Women always know,” his mom said as she comforted him when she had declared to an eighteen-year-old Bradley that she no longer wanted to continue with chemotherapy. She died not even two days later.
“Women always know,” he can hear his mom’s voice in the back of his head as he watches you tiptoe around him when you come home from work.
The door closes with a soft click and your keys are grasped tightly in your hand to prevent them from jingling. The bags underneath your eyes beg the question of when the last time you had gotten a full eight hours of sleep was, but you both would rather not inquire out loud.
The answer would shock both of your consciences.
The tossing and turning you had done the night before was cruel. The anxieties of your day had breached unknown territory; the pit of your stomach hollow and your chest tight. Your mind was so frazzled with fear you couldn’t bear to stay still because the lack of movement gave way for your thoughts to be caught; for your fear and anxiousness to swallow you whole.
Bradley would normally stir in his sleep the minute your eyes had popped open in the middle of the night, but instead, he had elected to turn over and cuddle his face more into his own pillow. The action tacked itself onto the mile-long list of things you were upset about - things that you found unfathomable that your brain scrambled together.
And when you had finally gotten to sleep, your alarm clock blared beside you. Your heart had started to race and the monster of nerves you had successfully defeated for an hour and a half resurrected itself.
When you had turned to face Bradley, you found him still fast asleep and that’s when you knew.
You’re not stupid. You’re not oblivious. In fact, you’re always so painfully aware that it kills you sometimes. You notice how he’s been pulling away. You notice how he’s seemed more reserved and despondent than usual. You notice how he doesn’t kiss your forehead anymore or ask to join you in the shower when you’re both spending your mornings at home together on the weekends.
Conversations at the dinner table are neither here nor there as most nights he can’t be damned to make it home to eat with you. For the first time in five years, you had run out of face wash and had to write a note to yourself on your phone to pick some more up from the store the next time you went shopping. Bradley had watched you type it out and his sagging shoulders wore disappointment on them.
You knew.
You knew he was both feet out of the door with your relationship; his hand still on the doorknob to close it but not having the guts to lock the door while he’s at it.
You know.
You know that you’re going to break up. You know that Bradley is the one who will be taking the initiative and doing it. You know that he’s been thinking about it for a while. The absent gasps whenever you do happen to catch dinner with him say so, and all you can think about is his mouth opening and closing like a goddamn goldfish as he searches for the words to bring it up. The thought makes the actions of the inevitable seem more bearable.
But yet you cling to what little time you know you have left with him.
How you know that you’ll never get to sleep beside him again. How you know that you’ll never get to snuggle into his UVA blanket. How you know that you’ll never visit the Hard Deck or the base or any spaces where Rooster Bradshaw exists freely.
How you know that things will never be the same and that your sweet, sweet Bradley will soon become a sweet, sweet stranger.
So you try to prolong it.
You never linger in the same space as him for too long for fear of the dreadful topic being brought up. You bite your tongue a lot more than you usually do. You keep your stuff neat and tidy; praying for some miracle that he didn’t see your hairbrush on his bathroom counter and that it would buy you another day with him.
You know it can’t last forever but the stupid, naive part of you thinks you can stretch the time to infinity and it’ll be some Groundhog Day-type plot.
You had started planning your arrival home around his schedule months prior. You aimed for leaving the office when you knew he had already left base about an hour earlier. If Bradley was anything, it was predictable, and he would either be in the shower when you had made your way home or cooped up in the home office he had made of the spare bedroom.
You nearly jump out of your skin when you see him standing in front of you; hands drying the ceramic plates Penny and Mav had bought you as a housewarming gift whenever he bit the bullet and moved you both into his parents’ old house last summer. Gray running shorts are low on his hips and a New York Yankees long-sleeve looks damn near painted on his biceps. You swallow the lump in your throat that travels down to your stomach.
Your brain can’t even begin to think of what to do or say but Bradley beats you to it.
“Hi,” he speaks, breaking the ice of your anxiety that freezes you both over. He knows that you can feel that something is off. He knows that you’ve felt it for a long time. He also knows that he’s about to shatter you completely and he’s not sure if he can watch as he does it.
“Hi,” your voice quietly sounds. Your hands start to shake and Bradley’s eyebrows upturn with sympathy as he drinks in your appearance.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. He places the plate down and steps towards you. “C’mere.”
His arms stretch to accommodate you. His heart beats wildly as he approaches. He thinks you can sense it because you slam your ear against his chest. There’s no way you can’t feel the rise and fall and frenzied thumping coming from his pectoral.
“Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her. Don’t hurt her,” his heart begs, but his brain knows that either way, hurting you is inevitable.
He wishes there was another way but he knows wishful thinking will only put you both in a landmine of resentment; a world of a loveless marriage and three kids who will eventually have to pack their bags for their respective weekends with you and him on opposite sides of town. He doesn’t want that for you. He doesn’t want that for him. He sure as hell doesn’t want that for them. So he pushes aside his selfish desire to keep you close and does what he always does.
He decides to walk away.
“Just get it over with,” you say weakly from his chest. He plants a gentle kiss on the crown of your head. His thumbs rub soothing circles on the backs of both shoulders. Your stomach is cold and the rest of your body is left scorching.
“What are you talking about?” his chin comes to rest on top of your head. His hold on you unintentionally shoves your face deeper into his chest.
“Don’t make me say it. Please don’t.”
“I can’t talk about it unless you tell me what you’re gettin’ at, babydoll.”
“Don’t play stupid, Bradley,” you release yourself from his grip, “You’re going to break up with me. We both know it so please, just do it already.”
The words that you say steer clear of the convoluted plan he had in mind. Breaking up is no easy task and the guilt of the thought even crossing his mind had been weighing on him for ages. It wasn’t like he sat down with himself and crunched the numbers of the housing market to see when the best time would be for you to move out or that he had a set itinerary of how the conversation was going to play out. He wasn’t even sure he was going to do it today until you had left for work, and it seems to him that you had figured it out without having to mention it to you.
Women always know.
“Don’t say it like I’m just trying to throw you away.” You flinch at his words. He realizes that his tone had come off more aggressive than he intended it to be when he notices the slight watering in your eyes.
“Isn’t that what a break up is?” you want to ask, but you’re so stunned you can’t get your vocal cords to carve out the shape of the letters, let alone thrust any sound out.
He takes your hand and leads you to your shared bedroom. The white duvet and navy blue bordered throw pillows remind you of when he used to take the time to hold you before you fell asleep at night. The hardwood of the floors tell the secrets shared between the two of you as hushed and giggled whispers; pointless gossip and serious confessions alike. The framed pictures on the dresser show you and him in various moments of your five years together.
Easter spent at your parents’ with your siblings and nieces and nephews this past spring. Thanksgiving with Mav, Penny, and Amelia three years prior. A selfie you forced him to take with you at Phoenix’s wedding last year. A candid shot taken by one of your friends of you two curled up on the beach; blissfully in love and lost in each other’s eyes at the start of your relationship.
The photos and the room had seen so much of you two. Various deployments and promotions. A canvas of emotions and intimate moments. Laughter and tears. Petty fights and teenaged makeout sessions. So many things that had written the story of you and Bradley long before you had moved in and long after. The thoughts of the memories fill you with excitement.
But the thought of him not feeling the same way - the fact that he’s bringing you to a room with the story of you both written exclusively in every crevice to end things - brings a waterfall of tears down your face.
The story of creation and its impending graveyard.
Another pang of anguish surges through you and the coldness in your stomach spreads to your feet.
He sits down on the foot of the bed first. He looks up at you with worry written in his irises. Bradley can sense your discomfort; the sadness and panic bouncing off of your aura in waves of deep indigo blue - the color that he’s assigned depression. He doesn’t know why (and he thinks that if he were you, he would slap himself across the face) but he offers his hand to you.
There’s no hesitation and his hand guides you to sit on his lap like how he always does when you’re upset and need comfort.
You sit down and push your face into the side of his neck. The stinging sensation from the hot salt water tears leaking into a cut he had given himself from shaving that morning makes the nature of the situation all the more realistic. This is the last time he will hold you like this. This is the last time he will know you as well as he does. This is the last time he will ever have the chance to make you miserable.
Last times always make him uneasy. He thinks that he should be used to it by now from his track record of being abandoned (willfully or “out of their control” situations alike). None of this should hurt him as deeply anymore.
But the feeling of disappointment is just so intense this time. He’s sure it doesn’t even fall within the scope of what could be considered “hurt feelings.” He would classify this as torture, and he can’t help his own quiet sobs racking his chest as he holds your crying and shrunken-in form in his arms.
“I don’t want to break up, Bradley,” you weep, “I just don’t want to.”
He shakes his head and wipes his own eyes. “We need to.”
There’s something so personal about failure. It’s not a stranger to you. It’s not a monster or fear or the Mucinex man that you try to boil it down to be. It’s something that you can’t obsessively try to avoid anymore because it’s right here in your face.
Except this time, it takes the shape of Bradley’s red-rimmed eyes and gray hairs on the border of his hairline that you hadn’t noticed before.
Bradley isn’t one for bragging. He can’t stand bragging, actually, and he wonders if that’s why he has such a hard time trusting his judgment. He considers that to be the reason why he’s always teetering on the edge of uncertainty, but he knows deep down that this time, he’s right. He’s so spot on and as much as it kills him, it would be more of a crime to deny it than to just admit that he’s right.
He knows it. You know it. He’s sure God does, too.
“No, you want to,” you stubbornly sniffle.
Ever the most hard-headed person to exist, but a sweetheart when it comes down to it. He almost cracks a smile at your attitude, but then he runs into it like a wall of bricks. You’re breaking up. This is the last time he’ll ever get to see your bull-headedness in full effect. The thought makes him whimper and he prays that you didn’t hear the infliction of it in his voice.
“That’s not true, sweet girl,” he sighs, fingers tracing the seam of your work pants, “I can’t make you miserable anymore. We need to.”
“Who said I was miserable?”
He pauses. He knows that the statement he’s about to make will send an uncomfortable chill down his spine. He knows that it’ll make him feel that way because he’s being called out.
“I don’t want to get married and you do. That’s miserable.”
Your ears burn more than they already had because he’s right. You’ve been waiting around for a stupid diamond on a stupid gold band; for reassurance that he wants you to be his as much as you love the idea of being his forever.
Five years and you know how he takes his coffee in the morning. Five years and you compromise regularly about what to keep the thermostat on. Five years and nine weddings you had attended with him. Five years of loving each other and knowing one another in ways that only fiction writers can dream of having someone know them. Five years of feeling like you would die without him.
Five years and he’s ready to throw it all away because he doesn’t think you both want the same things. Five years down the drain.
You think being kicked in the face would hurt a hell of a lot less than this does.
“Uh-uh. No,” you say. You paw at your eyes with your hand ferociously. “No! You don’t get to do that. You know that’s not fair!” You spring up from his lap like he was a fire that had just licked your skin with white-hot heat.
He grabs at your wrist, his eyes pleading with you to not leave him. His touch burns you but you give in. “It’s not fair to keep doing this to you.” His arms envelop you once again and you feel like you can’t breathe.
You push at his chest. “This isn’t fair.” Your arms try and pry Bradley’s arms off of you. “You can’t - I can’t just let you throw us away like this. It’s not fair!”
Bradley swallows down the lump in his throat. His eyes produce more tears the more he watches you struggle against him. He’s scared that if he lets you go that you’ll lose it completely. Part of him knows keeping you near is helping him hold it together too, but he tries to rationalize the overall shittiness of the entire situation by telling himself that he’s appealing to your needs - that you need him, but he also knows that he needs you.
“I love you so much,” he whispers into your hair.
“Then why are you hurting me?” The question explodes in the air, It’s something that he thought he was prepared to hear from the pep talk he had given himself on the ride to work this morning, but it still stuns him.
“I’m hurting you by keeping you with me.”
You scoff and cry harder. The fight inside of you hasn’t ceased yet. Such a stubborn girl, he thinks. It’s one of the things he loves the most about you.
“You’re hurting me now.”
Bradley swallows his comment. His mind ping pongs back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on how to tell you why he knows this is for the best. The truth is, he doesn’t know it. He just thinks it, and the worry of having to follow his instincts, to have to be guided by something so material and un-cemented, scares him to death. But he knows that you deserve the word and the world is something he knows that he’ll never be capable of giving anyone.
“You deserve someone that will marry you.” The words taste bitter in his mouth. “Someone who will make you so happy that you won’t even think of us anymore. Someone who can give you that house in La Jolla and a huge wedding and babies and a dog.”
“Someone who won’t blow up in flames while they’re in the sky,” he almost adds, but he closes his mouth instead. The conversation was already heavy. There’s no need to tack on his death that is always in the cards.
“I deserve you,” you say, tone dripping with determination and assurance.
He’s full-on sobbing now. “You deserve so much better, baby. Why can’t you see it?”
You chew on your lips so hard that they start to split. The salt of the blood in your mouth is vile but you would rather taste that than the tears that have been roaming down your face.
“Why can’t you just be better then?”
He feels like you stabbed him in the heart. He guesses that he deserves that. “I can’t be better if you deserve the world. I know I can’t give you that.”
The room fills itself with hiccuped breaths. His heart cracks and yours disintegrates. Bradley moves himself to the headboard to support his back. If you weren’t so concerned with your world crashing down, you would have made a joke about how his age was catching up with him. But trying to force yourself to smile feels like a crime.
Bradley has experienced loss. He’s experienced disappointment. He’s experienced heartbreak. He thought he was prepared for what he was choosing to do, but he never had thought of how he would feel when he was experiencing all of these things at once.
His abs hurt from how hard he’s crying. The hair on the crown of your head is soaked from his tears but you don’t mind nor do you notice. The chest of his long sleeve is stained black from your own tears. You both cling to each other even though being close is what causes you to ache.
The bright white of the linen duvet reflects cornflower blue in the moonlight. Your throat is dry from your heaving. His head hurts from his racing thoughts. Both of your eyes sting uncomfortably; you seeing the world as if you were underwater. Not only because of your uncontrollable sobbing but because the focus of your life - the love you so willingly gave that has illuminated your world for the past five years - has finally dimmed.
The hours spent holding each other felt like seconds and you finally muster up the courage to say something; to put on a brave face and revel in one of your lasts with him.
“Bradley?” you croak. He clears his throat and presses a timid kiss to the top of your head as if he’s scared that his lips are more of a weapon than a tool of comfort.
“Yes, baby?”
“Will we still be friends in a few weeks?”
He sucks on his lips. He wants to say that you’ll always be friends. That no one that comes after you will ever hold a candle to you and what you both had. That you’re his beginning and end, but he can’t keep dragging you along with a false promise of giving you what you actually want. He can’t make himself want to be a husband even though he knows that it’s what he needs to be to keep you. Wanting you just isn’t enough anymore.
The risk is contemplated, but he never wants to prey on you and your vulnerability. He settles for the safe option.
“Depends on if you still wanna be, sweet girl.”
You plant a soft kiss on the wet spot on his chest your tears have created. The answer is sweet but not what you want. You wish it would’ve broken his resolve; would’ve reversed your relationship ending. You know that he knows better than to do that.
The silence sets in again before you speak up.
“Bradley?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Will you still call me every night before I go to sleep so I can hear your voice?”
“I can for a little while, baby.”
His answer is the right thing to say, you know, but you can’t help the fact that the statement breaks your heart even more. “Why only a little bit?”
He sighs. You’re not making this easy for him. “Babe, you know why.”
“Right,” you whisper, shifting in his lap to wrap your arms around his neck. You peer into his eyes. The hazel in them is dimmed. There’s no sparkle left. “M’sorry for asking.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he reassures, “Just think that maybe that won't be healthy if we do it for too long.”
It kills him to say that, but he knows that he’s doing the right thing. It certainly doesn’t feel as such, and he would think that nearly twenty years of service in the Navy would help him separate the bad feelings from the nobility.
Breaks up just don’t work like that, he figures. No amount of experience or preparation can concoct an easy way out where no one gets hurt.
He gets lost in his thoughts before he hears your voice again.
“Bradley?”
Broken. Timid. Inquisitive. A test to see if he still cares enough about you to answer. He knows how you are and that you’re reverting back to old patterns that you had lost during your time with him. He has to push aside his feelings of being slightly offended that you’ve put the wall back up so quickly, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s done enough damage to last a lifetime. He just wishes that you didn’t think he could fall out of love with you this easily.
“Hmm, baby?”
“You’re my best friend.”
“My best friend too,” he exhales, the pang in his chest valiant in letting him know that this is the end, “Always will be.”
You pause and tailor your next statement carefully. Part of you takes it slow to prevent yourself from breaking down again but part of you takes your time to keep him near; to keep him from walking away from you. And you don’t want to do this to him. You don’t want to anger him or upset him and that’s the fucked up thing about it.
He’s hurting you and you don’t want to hurt him back.
“Yeah, but what happens when you date another girl and she’s your best friend instead of me?” The thought makes your skin crawl and you dig half moons into the skin of your hand with your thumb to prevent yourself from letting out a chest-wracking sob. “What am I supposed to do then?”
Bradley sighs. The thought of you moving on is selfish but he knows that it’s inevitable. He wishes that no one will ever get to know you the same ways that he’s gotten to, but shakes the thought as soon as he realizes how selfish it is - a declaration of love or the right answer.
He does the latter.
“You’ll find someone who’s an even better best friend than I am,” he sniffles. He hadn’t even noticed that he had started crying again. “Someone who doesn’t make you cry.”
Your breath hitches and it triggers more tears to stream down your face. He’s hurting, too. You never want to see him hurt like this, but then you realize that after today, you will never have to ever again. The thought makes your body ache; withdrawal symptoms before any withdrawal had actually begun.
“You promise we’ll still talk?” you speak in a watery voice.
“Yes, babydoll,” he wipes his eyes and sniffles some more, “ We’ll still talk.”
You start to play with his hands. Your finger runs across a faint scar on his index, the freckle on his pinky, the empty space where you wish a gold wedding band would be on his ring finger. The tips of your own fingers start to burn when you realize that his disinterest in ever wanting to wear one is why you’re breaking up.
You push the thought to the side and continue on in the conversation.
“About life stuff?”
He gives a soft chuckle, the one he usually gives you when he’s playing into your amusements. Part of him is never serious when he does it, but there’s a new wave of promise that he has to keep.
“About anything you want.”
The crying dies down again. The energy in the room is constantly going up and down like the waves on the beach near the back of the house.
“Bradley?” you interrupt the quietness again. The lack of sound makes you even more anxious than you already are.
“Yes?” He curses himself as the statement leaves his mouth. He knows you’re picking apart his lack of use of a pet name; that you’re convincing yourself that you’re an inconvenience to him and that he never cared for you the way you wanted him to.
Bradley almost tacks one on, but the pause between adding it and answering would have been too broad and you would have noticed and called him out on it. He decides against it. He also starts to wonder when he became so decisive all of a sudden.
Turmoil does that to someone, he guesses.
“My heart hurts so bad and I don’t know how I’ll fix it.”
The energy in the room spikes again. The tension you can feel radiating off of him like an unbearable heat makes your eyes water. Crying was something you did often but not something you enjoyed. You’re in for some long, painstakingly miserable months, you think.
“Mine does too but we’ll do what we always do, right?” You shift in his lap and curl into him more. You know he’s right, but it doesn’t mean that what he’s saying is what you wanted to hear. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I - I don’t think I kn-know how to d-do that anymore.”
He moves his chin from the top of your head to actually look at you. He had been avoiding it for the fear that he would be too cowardly and would retreat back to keeping you in this miserable, hopeless search for a marriage that he was never planning on partaking in. He can’t go back. He can’t undo what he had just done. Even if he were to announce that he wanted you to stay, it being brought up in the first place will forever have torn an irreparable hole in the fabric of your relationship.
Bradley’s hands cup your face and he smacks his lips on your forehead. He thumbs away the tears that had been endlessly streaming all night. He rubs soft circles back and forth on your cheekbones. The pressure you get in your cheeks from crying always gives you a massive headache, he knows.
The fact that someone else will know that about you sends him into a spiral of guilt. A spiral of weakness. A spiral of wanting to undo what he had just done.
But he doesn’t.
Do the right thing. Do the right thing. Do the right thing.
And so he does.
“Bullshit, baby. You’re the smartest woman I know. You’ll figure it out.” Truthful words, but not truthful feelings. He’s never been good at deciphering those.
“Bradley?”
“Yes, baby?”
The words get stuck in your throat. You never want to make him feel bad because you know how hard he is on himself. You’re not sure if saying what you want to say is even worth it but - from the way he’s holding your face, from the way you’ve gotten to know and love him, from the way that he will always be your sweet, sweet Bradley - you determine that he needs to hear it.
“You’re the kindest man that I know even though you stomped on my heart.”
He sends you a soft smile and delivers a soft kiss to your lips; the first one of the night despite being so close to him all evening.
“I learned how to be because of you.”
You don’t know how long you both stay like that - wrapped up in each other with waves of tears coming and going as they please. The soft whimpers leave your mouth and the sniffled breaths that leave his paint each corner of the bedroom with an ending.
One where you don’t get the ring and the house and the babies. One where he doesn’t get the girl and the family and the happily ever after. One where you both don’t have a soulmate anymore.
He knows that he shouldn’t say it. He knows that it’s probably the last thing you want to hear. He knows that he’s not ready for you to leave and he says it hoping that maybe, he can take back what had happened; that maybe you can steer the conversation in talks of staying together and compromising and “working it out.”
“I love you. I’ll always love you.”
You look up at him brokenly. His heart stops beating when you open your mouth to speak.
“But you’ll never love me enough to try.”
Bradley closes his mouth and exhales deeply through his nose. The point you made is compelling and it stings to know that it’s completely truthful. He sits with you on his lap, subtly rocking you back and forth until the sky turns from the midnight blue of nightfall to the yellow-tinted wisteria of sunrise.
Women always know. And he would be foolish to pretend like your gut feeling was wrong.
He loves me. He loves me not.
None of it matters if he doesn’t love you enough to be what you need.
#bradley bradshaw#bradley rooster bradshaw#rooster bradshaw#rooster#bradley bradshaw x reader#bradley bradshaw fanfic#rooster x reader#rooster top gun#bradley rooster bradshaw x reader#rooster x you#top gun#top gun maverick#miles teller#mt#rooster bradshaw fic#rooster bradshaw fanfic#rooster fanfic#rooster x y/n#bradley bradshaw smut#rooster bradshaw smut#rooster smut#top gun smut#top gun maverick smut#rooster angst#rooster bradshaw angst#bradley bradshaw angst#literally stole the title from pool by paramore#can you tell that i adore paramore
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like a fool — p.gwk
pairing: park gunwook x gn reader!
genre: combo of angst & fluff!!!
childhood best friends to lovers!!!
warnings: feelings of worthlessness
word count: 1k
note: listen to like a fool by twice for a better experience!
you’ve thrown a stone at my quiet heart
maybe you don’t know
park gunwook. the oh so cliche, childhood best friend who also happened to be the guy you were oh so hopelessly in love with. of course, you never asked to fall for him. it just kind of happened.
was it the first day of 1st grade,when he fended you off the bullies for tugging on your pigtails?
or was it when he spent all his allowance to and bought every single box of chocolate imaginable on valentine’s day just to litter your desk after you complained about not receiving a single piece of candy the previous year?
tell me, maybe what you said before
was just a joke, oh
or was it the most recent occurrence, when he let you cry into his arms after a horrible day as he stroked your head which such tenderness. you caught yourself, as you almost mistook it for him reciprocating the same feelings you had for him.
i want to tell you, without sounding awkaward
but it wont turn out well, i’ll look back and regret it
of course, once the thought plagued your mind it made you cry even harder into his chest. you wanted to push him away so bad, but you couldn’t when he radiated so much warmth.
but i’m just impatiently waiting, yeah
like a fool
brushing non-existent crumbs off your uniform, you let out a sigh you didn’t know you were holding. as you blew the strand of hair that managed to block your vision, unwillingly stepping foot into the school groaning as chatters of your schoolmates filled the hallways.
it might be a childish though, it might just be an illusion
gunwook is everything that you’re not. of course, people are going to talk and ponder why he keeps you around when he’s a trainee at a well known company AND the stuco president while maintaining clubs and top honors. while you, well, let’s say at least you’re passing! it’s gotten better. though, the whispers that are almost at a talking level always make their way your ears.
i might regret it, but boy you’re my first love.
you felt like a fool, walking alongside him the halls with his gummy smile that never failed to bring heat to your face as he looked at you such adoration.
gunwook would furrow his eyebrows as you recounted the most recent confession you’ve gotten, turning down yet another guy. “and you’re the one complaining about being single.” he rolled his eyes playfully, nudging you.
“my standards are WAYYY to high” emphasizing it as you raise your arm as far as you could. you let out a sigh. “maybe next time.” you look away mumbling….
you’re the only one in my heart
﹟ ★
gunwook came running to your front door engulfing you in his arms spinning your around chanting “i got in! i got in!”
your face lit up with joy but not as much joy as his displayed. though, a part of your heart stung realizing he would be gone for a longer than you thought.
“congrats gunwook!!” you ruffled his head. he finally placed your feet back onto the floor.
as per tradition, the two of you took a stroll to the nearby convenience store, purchasing watermelon popsicles. toasting to his success.
side by side the two of you walked down the side walk. a feeling of tranquility and comfortable silence engulfing the atmosphere. you stopped in your tracks
“you know…” you turned to him. “i’m going to miss you a little bit.”
“disgusting.” gunwook teased shoving you.
you frowned in response. “and right when i was getting sentimental.”
“kidding, kidding!” he put his hands up in defeat. “i’m going to miss you more y’know.”
“i know.”
﹟ ★
it was the day before he had to leave to the dorms, your eyes teary eyed at the fact of not seeing your best friend for a bit.
i can’t tell you, but i want to show you
you don’t know what possessed you to do the unthinkable. somehow, you acted on your intrusive thoughts, placing a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth.
gunwook’s eyes widened at the sudden act of affection.
“a little something to remember me by, before you leave for the program,” your hands slightly trembled as you placed a locket containing a picture of the two of you. purposely, you avoided his gaze worried to witness his reaction.
you gave him a soft smile, hoping he’d take the hint. gunwook closed him mouth and returned the smile patting your head as he trudged up the bus.
your eyes followed, watching him as rush to the back of the bus, waving at you shyly, as the bus drove into the distance
﹟ ★
after a couple weeks of filming schedules and such, gunwook finally had time off. in the duration of auditions and the signal song evaluation, of course his dream of debut was his number one priority at boys planet. though, he couldn’t help but think about his best friend waiting for him back at home.
without a doubt, gunwook was entirely grateful for all the star creators who showed their endless support for him at the live stages and online. though, he would be lying if he didn’t miss your presence.
gunwook replayed your confession over, over, and over. hell, he even consulted in his new favorite hyung about the situation. groaning in agitation? lovesickness? frustration. hwanhee patted his shoulder with a knowing smile, “hearing the way you talk about them,” he paused. “i think you know the answer.”
﹟ ★
you impatiently tipped your body back and forth waiting at the train station for gunwook’s arrival back home. a crowd emerged from the train that just arrived. gunwook’s train. as soon as you saw his tall figure, you called out his name with as much noise as you could, even making heads turn in the process. gunwook turned around to the sound of your voice, as he sprinted to you picking you up in his arms once again.
despite being flustered, you melted into his familiar touch inhaling the faint scent of frantic softener lingering on his hoodie.
“you know….” you started, picking up your head up. “the facade you put up during the auditions was sooo obvious!” you teased him as he settled your feet back on the floor.
a light coat of pink dusted his cheeks turning away ever so slightly. nothing could’ve prepared you for the words that were about to spill from gunwook’s mouth.
“i’m love you.”
your vision suddenly became blurry as endless tears filled up your eyes. he pulled you into his chest stroking your hair up and down as you continued to sob into his chest.
“you’re such a crybaby,” gunwook taunted as he lifted your head up smoothing down the hair he ruffled.
“shut up,” you sniffled in a croaked voice from the sobbing.
he rolled his eyes before placing a tender kiss on your lips this time.
boy i am your fool
<3
#boys planet#park gunwook#boys planet imagines#boys planet x reader#gunwook x reader#boysplanet fic#boysplanet fluff
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HIT "TWEET"! 🐦
⸻ PAIRING med student!Kaeya x med student fem!reader
STATUS on-hold ('til 2024) | sporadic updates
TAGS smau with lots of written parts, enemies to ??? lovers, mutual pining, humor/crack, fluff, dying med school students, suffering college burnt out gifted kids
SYNOPSIS Going to med school was, by far, not the best decision you've made. But, because of it, you've made multiple friends online - especially on MedTwt on Twitter. Do you need help? Just type your problem with the hashtag "#MedTwt," and you're one step closer to getting the answer you've longed for!
When you experience struggles in the world of studying medicine and science, your Twitter moot is always there for you. On the other hand, an acquaintance enemy of yours never fails to bothers you. They have such contrasting personalities, yet a familiar feeling of comfort whenever you talk to them. Or is it uneasiness?
Fate surely is a playful one.
WARNINGS profanities; time stamps don't matter unless stated (time seperators do tho – but not the time itself) ; kaeya is a bitch (affectionate); y/n is tired of kaeya's shitty shenanigans; slow burn ('cause we love it here); y/n has an online persona that is named "zie" — this nickname will be used and mentioned a lot; a lot of "k why s" jokes (+ y/n's intrusive and impulsive thoughts). more warnings will be added as the story progresses.
TAGLIST is open, please send an ask or comment HERE if you want to be added/removed! if i am unable to tag you, please check this post.
AUTHOR'S NOTE it's my first time writing kaeya as main character and I hope I give his character justice :')) that banner/header is by far the ugliest i've made.
also, please expect a lot of typographical errors, because i write whenever i'm unhinged and wrote most of the chapters late at night
🐦 TWITTER PROFILES: Fullmetal Hoes | Noble Gases
TWITTER MOMENTS 「BOOK」 ⚡️
What's happening? this stupid guy fought against me because of a book and is now ruining my life.
1 Tweet: Bookstore
2 Tweets: I love Taylor Swift!
3 Tweets: kaiser 💓
4 Tweets: Kaeya
5 Tweets: delusions are okay
DELETED TWEET 1: painful reminder
6 Tweets: science is not science-ing
7 Tweets: do you care?
8 Tweets: siblings
THREAD | REPLY 1: non-existent ass
9 Tweets: be there or be square
THREAD | REPLY 1: i am done with you
REPLY 2: blue emojis
REPLY 3: gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss
REPLY 4: mission: unblock me please
10 Tweets: preparations
THREAD | REPLY 1: shitty bastard
REPLY 2: playing pretend
REPLY 3: why now?
TWITTER MOMENTS 「SCI-FAIR」 ⚡️
What's happening? kaiser and i will finally have a chance to meet e/o <33
11 Tweets: just a hunch
TWITTER MOMENTS 「...」 ⚡️
What's happening? i don't know either.
⠀
UNRELEASED CHAPTER NAMES ARE STC.
TAGLIST 🐦 @mayasshitposts @eternal-dokja @aemiko @temshouineichi @sukunasrealgf @eutopiastar @wonderland-fan @kissingkzuha @aether-darling
#aguy may bagong smau#MAHAL KO PA PO BUHAY KO#genshin smau#genshin impact smau#genshin impact x reader#genshin x reader#kaeya x you#kaeya x reader#kaeya alberich#kaeya#albedo#sucrose#diluc#genshin angst#genshin fluff#genshin x female reader#genshin x you#genshin x fem!reader smau#kaeya x female reader#genshin imagines#genshin x y/n#genshin impact x you#kaeya imagines
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Hellooo!! Can I ask a scenario wherein jiwoo and his friends are doing some shopping with kayden (in his human form) and kayden's gf. Then she picked a shirt for Kayden (something light that will go with his color palette hehe), asking to try it out. Then a man said something mean about a man should only wore dark colors. Then she picked a fight on the man telling him a man can also wear other colors etc etc, not letting others disrespect kayden or a man's masculinity (if you know what I mean) hehe. Then the boys are calming her, subin telling she's gonna be her role model and kayden saying despite being a non awakened she can depend herself just fine. ONLY IF MY REQUEST IS OKAY TO YOU, THANKYOU!! LOVE YOU!!
Kayden x Reader
From author: More than satisfying. I hope, you like it)
How you convinced Kayden to go shopping with you and the guys is still a mystery. There is a suggestion that he was just bored and decided to join the shopping, but apparently, he is just jealous that you are paying more attention to Jiwoo and his friends than to him.
What can we say about Jiwoo and the guys who were shocked that Kayden and his girlfriend joined the shopping spree. Well, at first it was really an awkward sight, but after you assured the guys that they shouldn’t worry so much about Kayden’s presence, the guys relaxed and began to behave more confidently.
The boys didn’t choose much for themselves, so Subin consulted with you a lot about this or that style of clothing. She chose what she wanted and what you recommended her to wear. Of course, you advised the boys to buy more stylish clothes (you paid for some, as if giving them a gift) and while they were trying on what they had chosen, of course, you began to choose something for your boyfriend, since you saw that he was becoming too intrusive and realized that he was jealous. If only you could calm him down and start choosing a new shirt for him.
Kayden usually wore something that would be comfortable for him to fight in, that is, a sports style, but recently he began to wear dress pants and shirts, which suited him very well. It especially showed his muscle definition. Your nose didn't bleed a couple of times while you were looking at him in his new style.
- Kayden, please come, - he approached, clearly not understanding what you want. You just wanted to look at his current shirt size to know which shirts would suit him. - Turn your back.
- And why is that?
- Don’t fool me and just turn around, - Kayden didn’t argue and turned around, and you turned the collar of your shirt and found out the size.
She found a shirt that she had noticed a long time ago and told Kayden to try it on. He just didn’t understand, looked at you, then at your shirt and said:
- Don't want. She doesn't fit my tough guy style at all.
From anger, a vein appeared on your forehead. Yes, Kayden was very stubborn and rarely made concessions due to his character, but even so, where did he get the idea that a light shirt did not fit into his image?
Jiwoo immediately guessed that things were heading towards a quarrel, but he did not intervene, because he knew that you were terrible in anger. Friends just stood there and didn’t understand what was happening.
- Ah, now listen carefully, my dear, - here even Kayden shuddered in fear. He knew better than anyone else that you were terrible in anger and still managed to make you angry. - Who’s going to tell you anything if you just try on this shirt? Dark colors certainly add a cool edge to your image, but sometimes it's worth making concessions to lighter colors. Light colors are also suitable for men, and with your body type it also emphasizes muscles, which is not always noticeable in dark colors of clothing. Understood?
- More than... - taking the shirt that you chose, Kayden went to the fitting room.
The guys who stood on the sidelines all this time were shocked and delighted with how you dealt with Kayden’s stubborn character, because he is very headstrong and will not listen to anyone.
- Miss (Y/N), you are simply incredible! No one has ever managed to cope with Mr. Kayden like that! You are a role model for me! - Soobin said with a joyful exclamation.
- I’m not that incredible, I just learned to cope with Kayden’s stubborn character, nothing like that.
- Well, I would argue, - said Kayden, leaving the fitting room in the shirt that you chose, - I admit that I have a rather headstrong character, but you are the only one who could handle the pine tree. Despite the fact that you do not have awakened abilities, you can easily stand up for yourself by simply destroying the enemy morally.
- Thank you for the compliment, it’s worth noting that I was right. The shirt suits you very well.
- Maybe then you can take it off me? - Kayden asked flirtatiously and with a hint of vulgarity, which is why he received a slap on the head from you.
- Not in front of children! Unscrupulous!
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Yandere Files: Melone X Hostess Club Reader
CW: pregnancy, drinking, drugs, dubious consent, childhood neglect, overstimulation, foot fetish
Notes: Beryl here! Another manipulative yandere post! It’s doesn’t feel very yandere-ish this time. I guess it’s because they’re less violent/forceful and use their words more to get what they want. I hope you fruit lovers enjoy ~ This one is much lewder than the others. Minors DNI
Y/N has been dealt some pretty shitty cards in life. If they were able to describe their life in one word it would be: Unlucky. They had an inattentive mother and mentally abusive and violent stepfather. Where’s the real father? Good question. They dipped out the minute their mother announced she was pregnant.
Their mother was pregnant and just given birth again. She was too lazy to take care of 2 children at once and why does the stepfather want to raise a child that isn’t his own? So they get sent off to boarding school. This wasn’t the best option either. Y/N caused trouble, got into fights, and neglected their school work. They were smart but they only wanted to learn on their own terms.
At age 18 their family stopped financially supporting them and they were left to fend for themselves. All they could afford was a super cheap studio apartment in the dangerous part of Napoli. But good news for Y/N their luck was beginning to turn around. They got a job at a specialty cafe!
The cafe took heavy inspiration from the east for its very accommodating atmosphere. Hostesses and hosts would be pouring wine for their guests, lighting their cigarettes and cigars, sitting with them, conversing, laughing at their jokes, flirting with them, and having a non alcoholic drink with them. Y/N liked this because they liked giving and receiving attention! It’s not that they're necessarily extroverted, they just been starved of the love and attention they needed as a child.
But there’s one thing that they can’t ignore but can’t say anything about…mafia activity. Specifically Passione. But why would that bother Y/N when all they have to do is keep quiet and act like nothings wrong? Easy peasy. In fact Y/N kinda likes when Passione members come in, they spend soooooo much money and it means more money in their pocket! Getting commissions off drinks and the offers of dates for money or luxury goods is huge perk for them!
There’s a regular that comes in that none of the hostess like dealing with. The guy is good looking but he’s aloof and kinda creepy. He always asks weird questions…. Intrusive questions. He never uses his real name. Just Melone. That’s it. Weird. But being the youngest and the newest hostess Y/N was the one who had the misfortune of having to serve him.
"Buonasera signore~. I’ll be at your service tonight. May I serve you?” Y/N asks, slightly sweating. They were nervous.
He looks up from his laptop with a bored expression and looks them up and down. His teal eyes shined slightly with a bit of interest.
“Please sit down.” He said coolly and gets back to typing on his laptop .
He was weird! Just like the others said! Oh man this is going to be a very long night.
“So tell me…are you healthy?” He asks without looking up.
“Uh… what?” That question was odd and took them off guard.
“Are you in a good health condition? No health problems?” He clarified looking back up making eye contact.
Maybe he’s in the medical field… Oh well this is awkward but Y/N is being paid to humor him.
“Yes sir…I am.” Y/N replied.
“Polite too. Interesting. What’s your date of birth and blood type? Also do you smoke or drink? Illicit drugs? I’m clearly not a cop so you can be honest..” He stared back at his screen.
Things are getting weirder and weirder…why does he wanna know all this?
“Ahem… my birthdate is ________ and uh… I don’t know my blood type sorry. I don’t smoke because it’s bad on my skin but I do drink socially. No drugs…other than what I’ve been prescribed.” Y/N rambled.
“Uh uh uh. I don’t need to know why- I just need to know if you do.” He said waving his finger in front of them.
“Rude prick. I better get paid good for this….” Y/N thought.
“So you don’t know your blood type..? Hmm.” He grabbed your hand in one fluid motion and licked it.
“What the fuck?!” Y/N shrieked as they pulled their hand back.
“ Mmmm… according to your delectable fingers your blood type is ____.” He purred as he licked his lips.
“Uh great.” Y/N says in a sarcastic tone. “ Do you need a drink? Because I need to wash my hands…”
He ignored the question and excitedly starts typing on his weird keyboard putting in all the strange information he requested. His excitement was short-lived. “Oh… what a shame. You aren’t a match either. You’re too compatible with the target. Sigh…none of the AFAB here are incompatible. Why is it so difficult this time around???” He says dejectedly.
“I’m sorry..?” They didn’t know what to say.
“Well… I have an hour or two to kill before I gotta get back to work. Let’s use this time wisely and get to know each other. You’re new around here aren’t you? What’s your name?” He asked, showing an ounce of interest.
“Oh so NOW he wants to know about me?! What is up with this guy???” You thought angrily.
You swallowed the anger into the bottom of your stomach and just played along.
“Yeah I’m new. I’m Y/N and I’ve been working here for about a month and a half.” They said. “ I’m assuming you work a very important job since you're glued to your laptop.” You observed.
“Y/N…What a lovely name. It suits you.” He says. “Let’s just say my job is important and dangerous but it’s not currently being valued as much as it should right now .” He subtly hinted at being a part of the familia.
“What made you decide to work here?” He asked. “You look like you belong in university.”
“Well that’s a long story. I can’t afford it. Once I turned 18 years ago my mom and stepdad stopped financially supporting me or… just supporting me in general. So I had to fend for myself. Basically I have no family but I got my own studio apartment and a job here so I’m fully independent now and don’t need them!” Y/N explained.
“Really? That’s quite awful. You never stop being a parent just because your child grew up.” He frowned .
“Yeah…It really makes me wanna make sure that I will never be like them when I become a parent one day.”
They’re interested in having children in the future? Now Melone is genuinely curious. Not to mention that they are healthy and their Zodiac lines right up there with his. Could this be the one? He’s tried so many times but things never seemed to work out for some reason… Well, at least they made good surrogates for Junior. Y/N might be the right soul mate this time!
“Are you free next Sunday?” He asked. “ I want to get to know you better. We could go to that nice park in the good part of town.”
He didn’t give off the best first impression but Y/N was a kind person. Why not give him a chance? It’s not the first time they went on a date with one of their patrons. Maybe they will get another Gucci purse or pair of high heels out of it!
“Sure. Sounds like it will be fun! Do you want me to meet you there or are you gonna meet me at my place?” Y/N asked cheerfully.
“Di molto bene! I’ll meet you at your place then.” He says excitedly.
Y/N wrote down their phone number and address on his receipt and that concluded their meeting for the night.
This might have been a bad idea. Let’s see how it plays out.
——————————-
The moment he sees your tiny cramped apartment he’s internally frowning. That’s no place to start a family. Hand me down furniture and outdated amenities and creepy neighbors…creepy even for him? That’s saying something!
“I never been on a bike before so I’m a little scared.” You confessed and he just smiles and pats on the space behind him.
“Don’t worry! I won’t go that fast! Just hold on to me nice and tight. It’s only a 5 minute drive so it won’t be long.” He said trying to ease your anxiety.
He loved how you clung to him the whole time. Feeling your chest against his back made his thoughts wander to what they looked like without clothing concealing them. These types of thoughts are not new to him of course. So he's easily able to tame his cock from waking up.
He didn’t expect you to be distracted the whole time though. While sitting on the grass at the park after a long walk he kept rambling about pseudoscience and zodiac signs. He stopped for a moment to see what you were looking at. You were looking over at the playground. A mother was kneeling in front of their crying daughter. She was putting a bandage on the little girls scraped knee and kissed it.
He looked at you and you had a mix of emotions all over you. Sadness, happiness, jealousy, confusion…it was a complicated look.
“I wish that were me…” you sighed. “ such a loving family. I want that too.”
He learned a lot about you that day. You were perfect for him. You were neglected and love starved, perfect for the taking. And you’re open to having children! You’re on his wavelength! Oh he’s not going to let you go.
He visits you often at the cafe. He always specifically requests for you and no one else. The others are jealous that you're able to catch his attention and he isn’t creepy towards you. He asks for dates often and buys lots of drinks so you make lots of money from him. He still asks odd questions from time to time…like favorite Kama sutra position , and when your menstrual cycle is. But he’s good at slowly manipulating you into normalizing this behavior. He likes you sitting in his lap while you two talk. He says close contact releases oxytocin.
Many of his dates include shoe and lingerie shopping at the department store. He always insists on putting the shoes on your feet for you. He enjoys massaging your feet too when they’re sore from all the walking. He has to hold back the urge to want to suck on your toes since you’re both in public. But he definitely can’t hold back his hard on seeing you in luxury brand 5 inch heels. Good thing he’s wearing civilian clothes for most of these dates, that jumpsuit wouldn’t hide a damn thing.
Everything is running smoothly. He’s gained your trust, now all he has to do is get you inside his house.
This time though he takes you to hang out at his house. He gets you a glass after glass of wine to make sure you’re nice and drunk so you’re easy to take advantage of. He’s not going to be able to keep his hands off of you and you’re too drunk to say no. He’s feeling you up and shoving his tongue inside your mouth and you’re lazily just reciprocating not really understanding what’s going on but just feeling the warmth build up inside you.
You’re going to wake up in bed with him with no recollection of what happened the night before. He’s just clinging to you, beaming that finally awake.
“Buongiorno Y/N~. Did you sleep well? Last night was… amazing.” He pulled you in close and nuzzled into your chest.
The first time was a little concerning but you trusted him. You assumed you wanted it but just don’t remember. It’s a little awkward but you both reached a huge milestone in your relationship! That’s supposed to be a good thing! You just wished you could remember it…
He uses his manipulation skills to convince you to move in with him and quit your job.
“I think it would be for the best if you got out of that dangerous apartment and moved in with me. I worry so much for your safety. We already spend so much time together, don’t you want to take our relationship to the next level? Also about your job… I’m not really happy with you spending time with other guys. I know it’s just business but I can’t help but feel jealous of another man who even looks at you! You understand right?”
He becomes more controlling once you move in. You cannot leave the house without his verbal permission. And don’t bother trying sneaking out, he has cameras everywhere they’re all linked to his laptop.
He sneaks prenatal vitamins into your food when he cooks for you. The food is always fantastically seasoned so that you can’t taste the pill.
He has a massive sexual appetite and if you can’t keep up with him that’s perfectly okay! Because he’ll give you aphrodisiacs to help with that. Whether you want to or not.
He keeps up with your menstrual cycle and knows when you’re ovulating. When you’re ovulating is when he’s the most ruthless.
He has you nearly bent in half with your legs between your head as he’s pussy drunk thrusting hard and it’s just making lewd squelching noises. He came in you 3 times already and intends on cumming even more deep into your cunt in hopes of you conceiving his children. You're overstimulated and your cunt is overflowing with his cum as he’s panting praises.
“Oh love! You’re slutty pussy keeps pulling me back in~! You’re so addictive that I can’t stop! I can’t wait to see you full and round with my child~! You're going to be a wonderful parent!”
You’re in the bathroom crying and looking at the positive pregnancy test. You don’t know what to do. You wanted a family but everything is happening so fast! You’re afraid of being as bad as your own parents. Thankfully Melone is always here to comfort you.
“You're pregnant? Di molto!!! That’s wonderful news! …why are you crying?” He’s confused.
“I’m scared I won’t be a good parent. I don’t what it’s like to be a good one! I don’t even know how to hold a baby !” You sobbed.
He wiped away your tears and gave you a big warm hug.
“Oh love~. You have nothing to worry about. You’re going to be a great parent I promise! You may not have had the best upbringing but I’ll make sure you and the baby are well taken care of.” He said kissing your forehead. “ You can always trust me.”
You can always trust Melone! He’s very trustworthy. As long as you’re willing to make a big family with him you have a very fruitful future ahead of you!
#jjba#la squadra#jjba part 5#jjba x reader#la squadra x reader#la squadra esecuzioni#jojo melone#jjba melone#melone x reader#jjba Melone x reader#jojo Melone x reader#minors dni
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A Fine Line 4
Pairing: Namjoon x f!reader (ft. Hoseok)
Genre: roommates/enemies-to-lovers, non-idol!au
Word count: 6k
Summary: It’s time to rebuild your life. You’ve got a new job, a new apartment, and a future that might be bright. The only problem? Your new roommate.
Content: alcohol consumption/drunkenness
Beta’d by M @here2bbtstrash
Chapter Three | Masterlist | Chapter Five
4 – A Warning
It was as if that one argument you’d had with Namjoon had broken a seal. You both moved through the apartment with barely concealed contempt. Now that he was actually giving you a reaction, it spurred you on. You didn’t really know what had come over you. When you’d had your epiphany after meeting Hoseok, you had thought it would clear Namjoon from your head. You had thought you could basically forget about him; sure, you had to live together and that drove you mad but you had sort of expected that to be the end of the plague, the end of his intrusion into your daily thoughts. Not so. At least this was more fun. You could see him straining, desperately biting back whatever words he wanted to say; you could feel the waves of his frustration roll off him as he tried to maintain the high ground. You didn’t care about the high ground anymore; it was far too much fun slumming it. He was so fun to play with. Getting him to actually snap, though, that was another matter. He seemed to possess an inordinate amount of willpower and no matter how petty you were or rude, he wouldn’t give in and give you what you wanted. He wouldn’t react. He was like a man of steel. So, you had to be fire.
Summer had arrived, suddenly and in full force. Even with the air-con on, you felt hot. Your bedroom window opened to the south and the constant sun made it almost unbearable to be in there. You were lying on the sofa in a crop top and pyjama shorts, reading. Namjoon was sitting across from you in the chair, writing. He was annoying you, actually: muttering to himself, sighing in frustration, scribbling in his notebook, music leaking out of his earbuds, tinny and intrusive. You tried to focus on your book, but it wasn’t really grabbing you and you found yourself constantly distracted by your irritation. You slammed the book down on the coffee table, admitting defeat, and stretched. Throwing your arms above your head, you arched your back and brought your feet up, groaning in satisfaction. As you were about to lower your arms, you caught Namjoon looking at you: the smooth expanse of your stomach exposed as your crop top was pulled high, your underwear clearly visible in the wide, loose legs of your short shorts. He didn’t notice you noticing him and you smirked to yourself, slowly relaxing with another satisfied moan. You carefully put your crop top back in place and slowly moved the legs of your shorts to cover your modesty. You heard him grunt and when you looked back, he was looking at his notebook. You picked up your phone, your mind whirring. Your first night with Hoseok came screaming back to you and doubt flooded you.
You: Quick, what’s a tiny thing a woman can do that’s ~accidentally~ sexy?
You prayed that his unbroken record of instant replies wouldn’t end here. A flurry of messages arrived.
Hoseok: Depends.
Hoseok: How sexy are you trying to be?
Hoseok: You know this guy?
Hoseok: You want to fuck him right this second?
Hoseok: You want to fuck him or date him?
Hoseok: Is your hair up?
You groaned quietly; you didn’t need more questions! You needed a quick answer. You replied to all of them.
You: As sexy as possible. Yes, I know him. I do NOT want to date him; I want him to want to fuck me more than he’s ever wanted to fuck anyone ever in his life but I am NOT going to fuck him. Yes, my hair is up, why?
There was a pause in which Hoseok did not reply.
Hoseok: See, this is what I didn’t want to get involved in 🤪🤪🤪
Hoseok: I think I feel sorry for this guy.
Hoseok: You’re a bad girl 😂 😂
You: HOSEOK! Shut the fuck up and tell me what to do!
Hoseok: Where are you and what are you wearing?
You: Home, crop top and pyjama shorts.
Hoseok: Stretch, hard, make sure your top comes up and pretend you don’t notice.
You: I’ve done that!
Hoseok: Then why do you need more? Don’t go overboard!
You: Hoseok, for god’s sake, just tell me something!
Hoseok: Alright, alright!
Hoseok: Let your hair down and shake it out, sigh a little, eyes closed. When he looks at you, look at him, don’t look away.
Hoseok: You won’t get him all the way to more than he’s ever wanted to fuck anyone but it’s a start.
Hoseok: And for god’s sake don’t be obvious! It’s not a performance; keep it NATURAL.
Reading his messages, you wondered if it could really be that easy. Were men that simple?
You sat up fully and made a show of pulling your hair tie out, running your hand through your hair, tipping your head back and shaking, doing exactly as Hoseok had told you. As you brought your head back up, you looked over at Namjoon and his eyes were on you. You removed your hand from your hair and drew his eyes to yours. His eyes flicked down again to your body and then back to you. You weren’t sure what to do now and just as you were about to look away (would that ruin it? Were you supposed to just stare him out?), he broke the eye contact and turned back to his notebook, shifting his position in the chair, angling slightly away from you.
Your phone buzzed.
Hoseok: Well?
Hoseok: Did you do it?
Hoseok: Did it work?
Hoseok: Who is this guy anyway?
Hoseok: If you’re fucking him, you should really tell me.
Hoseok: Who are you trying to seduce and why isn’t it meeee??! 😜 😜
You shook your head and hit the call button, getting up to move to your bedroom. Despite the many (many) times you had thought about sleeping with Namjoon, it had not occurred to you that he might have had the same thoughts. It would certainly make things a lot more interesting.
“Give me more,” you instructed Hoseok, once safely within the four walls of your bedroom.
“More what?”
“More tips, you idiot! I need to know how to be sexy.”
He chuckled quietly.
“I honestly don’t think you need much help on that score.”
“Much, Hoseok. You just said ‘much’. This is why I need you.”
“Ah, y/n, I don’t know… I did say I didn’t want to get involved and, honestly, I’m not sure I want to encourage you. You’re on an evil mission to not fuck a guy. I don’t know if I can support that.”
You thought he was joking. He sounded like he had a smile on his face, but you couldn’t be completely sure.
“Please, Hoseok. I need you. It’s not getting involved. You just have to help me- I don’t know, be… sexy. Just help me. Don’t focus on the other stuff. It’s just me, your ineffectually sexy friend.”
“I wouldn’t call you ineffectual!” He laughed a loud bark of laughter. “You got me home at any rate.”
“This is different from that.”
“How so?”
“This is a slow burn, Hoseok. I told you: I want him to want to fuck me but I don’t want to fuck him so I can’t very well do any of the things I did the night we met.”
He hummed thoughtfully and you waited for him to respond.
“I am going to tell you what is sexy about you,” he said eventually. “And you can do with that information what you will. But I’m not giving you any tips for torturing this man. Technically, anyway, I think. I think I can sleep at night with that.”
“Thank you!”
You spoke quietly in your bedroom, blushing and occasionally squirming with embarrassment as Hoseok ran through his list of your sexiest attributes and habits. You found it hard to believe some, if not all, of them, unable to accept that a man could see you as sexy in such an easy, casual kind of way. Sure, people have called you pretty before, occasionally cute, but sexy? You just had never felt like you had that in you. Hoseok was really working to change that, though. He had no reason to lie to you – and you’d already embarrassed yourself in front of him on that score anyway – so you had no choice but to believe him. Besides, if you didn’t believe him (believe in yourself), your devious plan would never work anyway.
“Ok,” Hoseok said, starting to wrap the call up. “Now that you’ve had me on the phone for half an hour telling you every little thing about you that turns me on, are you going to come over and sort me out or what?”
You sat on the insights you’d gained from Hoseok, biding your time. Plausible deniability had to be maintained at all times, because as soon as Namjoon knew what you were up to, if you made it too obvious, if – heaven forbid – he discovered you actually did want to fuck him, you knew the game would be up. Softly softly catchy monkey, as they say. You almost fell out with Lina again over this. She thought you were being cruel and unfair. She thought it had all gone on long enough and that someone had to do something honest before everyone got hurt. She had disapproved of you before and, whilst you valued her opinion and sort of secretly agreed with her (is it unfair to make someone want you when you’ve no intention of matching that desire? Probably, a little, maybe, yeah, but you felt like he basically had it coming so it didn’t keep you up), you also wished she wouldn’t be such a stick in the mud about it. Couldn’t she see how much fun you were having?
“Yes, I can,” she had said. “And that’s why I’m worried. This isn’t like you, y/n. You’re not a mean person, but this is… This isn’t nice behaviour.”
You thought she was going a little too far. After all, you weren’t really doing anything, right? This was all just accidental, incidental, little things; it’s not like you were doing a strip tease for him or anything. And you relied heavily on the fact that you did technically want to fuck him. You didn’t have any intention of actually doing it, but you were tempted. And that’s what made it so much fun; you saw him look at you just a little too long and you could imagine all the things he was imagining. You could think about all the things he might want to do to you, all the things he might tell you to do to him and it made you feel almost powerful. Sometimes you would look at yourself in the mirror after a shower and try to see what he saw – or what you hoped he was seeing. It made you feel like a woman again. And whenever you were too tempted, whenever you got too frustrated, there was Hoseok, who showed you again and again that you were a woman.
For the first time since you moved in, you were so, so glad that you and Namjoon were roommates and you were so glad that he wasn’t out at work so much. It gave you ample opportunities to just maybe, ‘accidentally’ plant some ideas in his head. You found yourself becoming highly attuned to his moods, to the tiny variations in the sighs and grunts which were really your only methods of communication at the moment, if you could even call it communication. Your argument had set in motion a kind of stand-off and you were spending more time together than ever. Not talking, of course, this wasn’t quality time; this was getting in each other’s faces as much as possible and making your presence as unavoidably known as you could.
You were thankful that the summer kept you in thin vests and short shorts; that you could come home from work and gratuitously, impatiently, strip yourself of your blouse and trousers, standing under the air con in your underwear to cool off.
“Put some clothes on, would you? I live here too, y’know,” Namjoon had said one Tuesday as you let the air blast your sweat away.
“It’s hot, Namjoon; I’m just cooling down.”
“Yeah, well can you do it where I don’t have to look at it?”
“You don’t have to look at it; go into one of the other rooms.”
“I was here first.”
“Oh, that’s mature. Besides I’m not doing anything; I’m literally just standing here.”
“In your underwear.”
“And? Does that bother you? Is there something wrong with my body?”
You stood with your hands on your hips and he looked you up and down. Then he just looked at you with a pinched face as if to say ‘ah, not good enough’. You rolled your eyes. He could pretend what he liked because you saw the way he looked at you when he thought you weren’t looking.
You had taken to doing your morning workout in the living room. Of course, the excuse you gave was that the air con in your bedroom didn’t work properly – and as the sublessee to Namjoon’s subletter, he was the one who had to fix that – but it also provided excellent ground for your campaign.
Sweating and breathing hard, you lay on the floor, eyes closed, a hand pushing the hair back from your face, in tight leggings and a sports bra every single morning. And then you had to stretch. Namjoon wasn’t often an early riser, but he appeared just frequently enough for it to be worth it. It had the added benefit that you were getting fitter, too, the determination to flaunt yourself overriding any abiding laziness or lack of motivation with regards to exercise. You knew he was stronger than you – always would be, there wasn’t much you could do about that – but you liked the idea of getting stronger and putting up a better fight. You liked the idea of surprising him. After all, you still didn’t really know each other, even after all this time.
You didn’t really have an end-game at this point. You hadn’t thought that far. You were sitting on the sofa, watching a favourite film when Namjoon approached.
“Can I have the TV please?” he asked, perfectly civil.
“I’m watching,” you replied, not moving your eyes from the screen.
“There’s an announcement on soon I need to watch.”
“When?”
“About ten minutes.”
“Mm, this has half an hour left.”
“Ok, but I need to watch the announcement in ten minutes.”
You finally dragged your eyes to his.
“This has half an hour left. Why can’t you just watch it on your computer?”
“Because it’s not being streamed online. It’s only on TV.”
The one concession you had made to Lina was that you wouldn’t be unreasonable where it wasn’t warranted and you had seen this film enough times to recite the script by heart. Irritation rising, you looked at Namjoon.
“Fine, come back in nine minutes. But I want the TV back afterwards.”
He sighed, sounding aggrieved but he forced out a thank you nevertheless.
When he did return, eight minutes later, you got off the sofa and moved to the kitchen. The weather was still hot and you had stacked the freezer full of ice lollies to help keep you cool. You took one out and were going to take it to your bedroom to wait for Namjoon to finish when inspiration struck.
You settled on the sofa next to him and put the ice pop to your mouth. You hummed happily, just loud enough for Namjoon to hear, and turned your attention to the TV. Or at least, you pretended to. What you actually paid attention to was Namjoon, sitting uncomfortably on the sofa next to you. You let your tongue lick the ice pole from bottom to top before sucking hard on the tip. Was it crass? Was it vulgar? Absolutely. More importantly, was it working? You felt him glance at you and then his look lingered just a little too long. You’d take it. It was all about the little interruptions, the tiny moments that left him buffering for just a second. Slowly disrupting his thought process and filling it with pictures of you that he could take to his bed.
However, the tables turned when you saw his name pop up on the TV and you almost choked.
“UN ambassador, what the fuck?”
“What?”
“How the fuck are you a UN ambassador?”
“Why is that so surprising to you? Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’re…-” You did not know how to end that sentence politely.
“I’m what?” He looked at you, challenging.
You stayed silent, still trying to reconcile this new information with the idiot Namjoon that you knew.
“You don’t know what I am,” Namjoon said. “You don’t know a thing about me.” His gaze was so level as you floundered. As if a film had been taken from your eyes, you suddenly looked at him differently. You genuinely hadn’t thought that much about what he did for a living. You assumed it was something in the music industry – hence his studio – but did that warrant an ambassadorship? Maybe there was some depth to him after all. You looked back at him, his hair, his eyes, his lips, his jaw, his arms, his hands, his thighs spread wide on the sofa. You could feel your body flushing and your mouth dry. It wasn’t possible you’d misread him that badly. He was an overgrown fratboy with a non-serious job (and a salary his parents probably subsidised), who had never had to grow up, wasn’t he? Time seemed to slow around you or your body was moving faster; either way, you felt somehow suspended in this moment, just the two of you. You wondered if he was feeling any of this.
“Don’t make a mess on my sofa now,” he said and you jumped. Your face burned as you wondered how in the hell he could know, and then you jumped again as an ice-cold splash hit your chest and you realised your ice pop was melting all over you. You grabbed a tissue from the coffee table and wiped your hand, wrapping your mouth around the rapidly shrinking lolly. Namjoon turned back to the TV and flicked it back to the channel where the film you were watching was finishing. He stood and chucked the remote on the seat cushion next to you before wandering back to his room. You were too flustered at that moment to realise that Namjoon would have known about becoming a UN ambassador long before it was announced on TV, too distracted to see that he was simply making sure you knew.
The film played in front of you and its credits rolled but you didn’t see any of it. Your mind was whirring, alive with a thousand questions. The Namjoon that you knew, that you lived with, and the Namjoon that apparently existed outside of this apartment seemed so at odds with one another. How could they really be the same person? It had shaken you. He was right when he said that you didn’t know a thing about him; you didn’t, not really. You had your phone in your hand, ready to google him but you caught yourself. This did not have to change anything. It didn’t, you told yourself.
You told yourself that nothing had changed when you saw him go to the bathroom, a towel slung over his shoulder, and you heard the water run and you had to swallow hard imagining him there, so close, so far. You gave yourself a rough slap to the face; you were not about to end up back where you started. Not now. This genuinely did not have to change anything. The facts were still the same: you wanted to fuck him; he wanted to fuck you. You hated him; he hated you. It was as simple as that.
Another week, another weekend rolling around. You knew that Namjoon was having friends over that evening; he had been polite enough to tell you well in advance. In fact, he actually invited you to dinner, too, and Lina, ‘if she was free’. You were instantly suspicious. What on earth could there be to gain from that? Why would he want that? Of course, you assumed that he, in fact, did not want that, and was trying to manipulate you into not going. Well, you were going to call his bluff on that one. You accepted his invitation gratefully and sent Lina a furious message which stated that, if she didn’t come, you would never speak to her again. She agreed. And you spent the rest of the week tense with trepidation. You initially thought you had foiled Namjoon’s plans but the doubt crept in and now you weren’t sure if you were playing right into his hands. For someone you had persistently thought of as simple, there was something mysterious about him; you always felt like he was holding back. You wondered what lay at his core. What made him tick, really tick? You didn’t know, even though that’s what you’d been trying to do this whole time. You knew he noticed you; you knew he was annoyed by you; but were you getting under his skin? Was he actually bothered? You suspected that he was but maybe you were just making things up, seeing what you wanted to see. He had such control over his temper that you had only very rarely seen it flare, so you didn’t have a wealth of knowledge to draw from. That was part of why this dinner made you anxious; you just didn’t know what to expect. You didn’t know how to behave. What was he expecting you to do? You didn’t know. What were you expecting you to do? You also didn’t know. You hadn’t felt this out of control of a situation for some time.
Friday had arrived and so had three of Namjoon’s guests, who were busy in the kitchen – because of course Namjoon wouldn’t be cooking for his own dinner. That fact alone made you feel a little more confident. Lina arrived and you intended to drag her immediately into your bedroom but she stopped to introduce herself to the men whose names you hadn’t bothered to remember and was making polite conversation with them. You were finding it hard not to tar them all with the same brush but you also felt like anyone who was friends with Namjoon couldn’t be that great; you also didn’t really want to get to know them in case, actually, they were. You weren’t in a position to be turning down friends but you couldn’t have Namjoon’s, even you knew that.
You were finally able to get Lina away from the kitchen and into your bedroom.
“What are you going to wear then?” she asked, taking a seat on your bed.
“What do you mean? I’m wearing this.”
“y/n, you can’t wear that to dinner; you’re basically in pyjamas.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a fancy dinner and we’re in my house. I don’t usually get dressed up for dinner, do I?”
“What is wrong with your brain? Of course, you have to get dressed! This isn’t re-heated leftovers on the sofa; Namjoon has invited you to a dinner party. He’s making an effort. You should, too.”
You were not convinced by this argument and were still convinced that Namjoon was up to something.
“I’m not sure about that, but fine, ok, what should I wear?”
Lina rifled through your wardrobe and lay a dress on your bed.
“Right, no, I’m not wearing that,” you told her immediately. What she had picked out was your date dress. Or what used to be your date dress from many years ago when you actually went on dates.
“What’s wrong with it? It’s a nice dress!”
“That’s my date dress, Lina. This is not a date. I can’t wear that.”
“Oh, would you stop being silly? It doesn’t have to be a date dress.”
“It’s way too fancy for this. It has to be casual.”
“Casual like your pyjamas you mean?”
“Oh, shut up!”
Eventually, you and Lina found a compromise and you changed, brushed your hair as instructed and refused to put on make-up (“I’m not even leaving the house, there is no way I’m putting make-up on and that’s that!”).
It was slightly awkward around the table. You were decidedly outnumbered; more of Namjoon’s friends had appeared while you were in your bedroom and you couldn’t keep straight who was who. You and Lina were peripheral, really, not knowing them or their lives or work or in-jokes and unable to keep up. It was making you angry. You figured this was Namjoon’s plan all along: act as though he’s offering an olive branch by inviting you, then casually and accidentally leave you out and ignore you all evening to remind you of your insignificance… or something. Well, you weren’t about to let him get away with that.
Unable to get a word in edgeways for most of the meal, you kept your wine glass topped up, drinking altogether more than you might ordinarily do. Lina kicked you under the table as you emptied another bottle into your glass and shook her head at you. You simply took her glass and, opening another bottle, filled it up for her.
“Here’s a question,” you started, loudly, interrupting the conversation they were having. “So how many of you guys are also UN ambassadors?”
They looked at each other, unsure, for just a second.
“Uh, just me and Namjoon,” one of them answered.
“And what exactly have you done to deserve that? I was pretty surprised when I found out, I have to say. ’Cause I mean, really, Namjoon? Am I right?”
“What does that mean?” the one with the tattoos asked. “What about Namjoon?”
“Well, he’s not really UN material, is he?”
The atmosphere had dropped, but you were too drunk to notice. Lina kicked you again, hard, but you ignored her. No one said anything. Namjoon watched you carefully from the other end of the table and his friends simply looked at you.
“Oh, come on! You know what I mean! You know him better than I do; this guy’s a p-”
“Hey, y/n!” Lina interrupted you. “I think we need some more water for the table; come and help me get some.” She stood and pulled at your elbow.
“No, no, hold on a sec-“
“Now.”
She frog-marched you in the wrong direction, away from the kitchen and into your bedroom where she sat you on the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“What? I’m not doing anything.” You sounded like a petulant child and even you could hear it.
“You’re trying to slag off Namjoon to his friends while he is also there.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so’? You can’t do that! You have your whole little game that you’re playing and whatever, that’s fine- well, it’s not fine but I clearly can’t stop you, but you can’t get other people involved. They don’t know you; you don’t need to be washing dirty laundry in front of them!”
You raised your hand to speak and then immediately forgot what you were about to say.
“But they know him! They know he’s a prick!”
“No, they don’t, y/n. They’re his friends. They specifically do not think that.”
“Well, they should,” you mumble to yourself.
“You’ve had too much to drink already; why don’t you just call it a night? I’ll tell them you don’t feel well.”
You laughed.
“Duh, they know that’s not true. And I don’t not feel well, actually. I feel great. I feel good. I’m the best probably, not that any of them would know that given that they’ve been ignoring us all night.”
“They haven’t been ignoring us. They’ve been ignoring you because you have been on your absolute worst behaviour.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
Lina sighed and raised her eyes as if asking for guidance.
“You’ve barely spoken to anyone; you’ve drunk all the wine; you’ve shouted over people and interrupted; you’ve insulted the host… If I were them, I’d think you were the bad roommate.”
“You what?”
“Don’t you think? Be real, y/n. I told you before that I didn’t think you were acting like yourself and I stand by it. This stupid game, your insistence on hating Namjoon, embarrassing yourself in f-”
“Embarrassing myself? How dare you?” You could feel your temper flaring dangerously, fuelled by the wine swimming in your system. “I am not an embarrassment and I am not a bad roommate. He is. He is. Why are you even here if you think I’m so awful?”
“I came because you asked me to. In fact, what you actually said was that if I didn’t come, you wouldn’t speak to me anymore.”
“Well, look how that’s turned out; I’m not sure I’m going to speak to you again after this anyway.”
Lina sighed again and shook her head.
“Fine. Have it your way.”
She left the room and you stood to look in the mirror to check yourself over. Before you had finished, you heard your bedroom door open and shut again.
“Lina-”
“I’m not Lina.”
It was one of Namjoon’s friends, tall, broad, not bad to look at; you couldn’t remember his name.
“What are you doing in my room?” You suddenly felt drunk, two versions of him swimming in front of you. You sat heavily back down on the bed.
“I thought it might be a good time for us to have a little chat.”
“A little chat? What are you, my dad?”
“I’m not your dad; thankfully, I have absolutely nothing to do with you, but if I were your dad, I’d probably be quite ashamed of you right now.”
“Why don’t you fuck off?” Who the hell was this guy?
“We know what you are doing. We know the stupid little game you’re playing with Namjoon and I am here to tell you to cut it out.”
“I’m not doing anythin-”
“Don’t take the piss, of course you are and you know it. You might think he’s worthless but he’s not and he doesn’t deserve a little bitch like you messing around in his head and in his house.”
“What are you, his dad?”
“Namjoon spends all his time looking out for everyone else. I look out for Namjoon.”
“If you spend so much time looking out for him, then you should know what is actually happening here. I’m not messing him around any more than he is me. It takes two, y’know. Are you going to give this little warning speech to him, too?”
“I already have, actually. I told him to kick you out.”
“He can’t do that.”
“Yes, he can.”
“We have a contract; he can’t just kick me out.”
“Sounds like someone didn’t read the addenda; there’s a break clause and I’ve advised him to use it – we all have. You’re a nasty piece of work and he – as well as everyone else – would be better off without you. You’re having so much fun playing with fire and I’ll bet you’re too fucking stupid to stop before you burn your whole life down.”
You were panicking, desperately trying to remember where you had put your copy of the tenancy agreement. He couldn’t kick you out. He just couldn’t. You had nowhere to go. He wouldn’t do that anyway, would he? … Would he? Your mouth was suddenly dry and you couldn’t swallow. Sweat collected in your palms as you stared straight ahead.
“Lina seems like a nice woman and a good friend,” he said as he walked back towards your bedroom door. “I’ve no idea what she sees in you but she seems like the sort of person you should be keeping around. Careful you don’t lose her.”
His words didn’t register until he was on the other side of the door and you remembered that Lina left not five minutes ago. Your head was spinning now and you were regretting that last glass (alright, bottle) of wine. You flopped back onto the bed and passed out.
When you woke, your head was pounding. Your mouth was so dry, your tongue stuck to the roof; your limbs felt like lead. You were still at the bottom of your bed, in the dress you were wearing last night. With one roll, you landed with a thump on the floor and groaned quietly to yourself. You lay there, unmoving, whilst all the events of last night came back to you. The look on Namjoon’s face as you were trying to launch into a diatribe against him at the dinner table was first but you couldn’t interpret it. As you thought it over, it changed; it kept changing. Was he smirking at you? Was he embarrassed? Was he sheepish? You couldn’t keep hold of the image long enough to ascertain and then others flooded in beside it. Lina’s disappointment, that sigh just before she left, her imploring eyes. That guy’s insistence that Namjoon could kick you out; ‘Namjoon looks out for everyone else and I look out for Namjoon’; the fact that he was a UN ambassador and so was one of his friends (why does a UN ambassador even have a roommate? He surely doesn’t need one); your panic and fear over the possibility of Namjoon kicking you out.
With further groans, you hauled yourself over to your desk and got out your Important Documents Box. You rifled through it, looking for anything related to housing and finally getting your hands on the tenancy agreement. You flicked immediately to the end and your heart sank. He was right. There was a break clause and, after six months, Namjoon did have every right to give you your notice and make you move out. Well, he couldn’t physically make you, you thought, but even if you stayed, he could take you to court and that’s not a spiral you wanted to slide down. You put your agreement back in the box and the box back in the drawer and you slowly brought yourself to your feet. Before you could think about any of that, you needed water and a lot of it.
Lying on your bed later that day, head no longer pounding but still feeling somewhat delicate, you just kept running over last night, wondering what to do now. You knew that first on your list should have been to apologise to Lina but, honestly, you didn’t want to. You were tired of her looking down on you, disapproving; you were tired, truth be told, of how nice she was being to you. She always had your best interests at heart and you just wished she’d snap just once. Just get angry!
‘Just be a real human and tell me fuck off for once!’ you silently cried. You were frustrated by her level-headedness. You were bitter. You didn’t want to apologise because you weren’t sorry. And you weren’t going to stop.
You thought about the break clause and wondered if Namjoon would really give you the boot. You knew you couldn’t ask him because you didn’t want to make it real in that way. You thought that there was probably every chance that he would. His friends were advising him to; even your friend had given up on you; if you were him, you’d probably do the same. Panic started drumming through you but you pushed it down, down, way down. You could cross that bridge when- if you got to it. Your weeks might have been numbered but they were weeks, not days. And if he was going to kick you out soon, you might as well make the most of the time you had left, you reasoned. Go out with a bang.
Chapter Three | Masterlist | Chapter Five
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A Future with You
Summary: Sometimes things happen that change everything, and the kind actions of a stranger help you at a low point in your life. Not only do you get to return that kindness but you also wind up happier than you've ever been.
Rating: M (Non/Semi-explicit smut content)
Pairing: Marcus Pike x gn!Reader (If you notice any descriptors please let me know kindly and I'll fix them)
Notes: This work is a part of the @pedrostories Secret Santa event and is a gift, I tried very hard not to imply any holiday the reader celebrates but included a holiday tradition from my giftee which is why there is a Christmas film on the title card. That being said:
Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Yule, Saturnalia Salutations to my Secret Santa giftee @browneyes-issac! I really hope you enjoy my gift, Lotus, this was a lot of fun to write ❤
A Future with You (6.7k)
“I’m sorry.”
Echoing, repeating, inside your head like a specter that wouldn’t leave you alone; the two words held none of the emotions they should have, the tone was blank and empty and had been delivered that way. Even now you could still see his stupid face looking anything but sorry, those green eyes lacking any empathy for what he’d done to you, and it hurt worse as all the ugly little thoughts you’d kept at bay were buzzing like a swarm of pests surrounding you.
You aren’t good looking enough, why would he choose Kaleigh otherwise?
You aren’t smart enough, you would have gotten that promotion sooner if you were, right?
You spend too much time working rather than being a good partner, he wouldn’t have to find affection somewhere else if you tried harder would he?
Each thought cut deeper and deeper, the aching in your chest bleeding out and making you feel cold, your legs pulled close to your chest and your face buried in your knees to hide the tears spilling over your cheeks. Around you the airport was bustling and loud but you couldn’t hear it, the endless number of conversations and bubbly pop music were muted by the grief and the voices of your own inner demons screaming at you.
Someone touched you, the hand on your elbow gentle, but you hadn’t been ready for it; head snapping up to look, worried you’d missed your flight or something. Instead, there were gentle brown eyes, a soft smile fading into a look of concern, and the stranger pulled his hand back; his lips moved but you still couldn’t hear him over the roaring of your inner demons, now mocking you for bringing a stranger into your pity party.
He tried again and this time you paid attention, you forced yourself to focus on the here and now, you pushed those inner demons back knowing it would just make the intrusive thoughts worse later.
“Are you on the DCA flight? I can make sure you don’t miss it.”
“What?”
Good going, dummy, way to sound like a moron in front of this guy.
“If you- if you need to stay like that, I can make sure you don’t miss the boarding call. I don’t expect you to open up to a complete stranger, but I don’t want you to miss your flight because of the hurt.” Part of you, the pride that you still had left, bristled at how quickly he’s seen you and figured you out; wanting to deny the assist on principle that you were just fine without someone jumping in. That you didn’t need a fucking knight in shining armor or some shit, no matter how distraught you seemed to be.
He's just being kind.
This stranger was giving you more courtesy that your ex had in, well, probably a long time. He was giving you the chance to hurt without the worry that it would cause problems getting home, and you needed that more than you knew.
“Please?” Your voice was rough from the screaming fit just hours before, when Ryan had the audacity to ask you to give him half of your own savings -thank the fucking powers that be you had not combined finances yet- so he could buy an engagement ring for Kaleigh. His rushed proposal to you had been done with a cheap ring from a little crane game he’d won on your anniversary trip, it was cute and you’d been happy with it because it’d been a sweet proposal and just fit the two of you so well; now though it stung, thinking about the fact that he wanted to give Kaleigh the hallmark proposal and happy family.
A nod was all you needed to return to burying your face in your knees, to muffle your soft wheezy sobs in the plush fabric of your scarf -it was going to be cold in DC and you weren’t going to be the idiot unprepared for the weather- and just letting the emotions go. But this stranger didn’t just support you by promising the bare minimal help, he went and got a fresh bottle of water for you when you’d finished yours and even went and got you a small snack from one of the nearby vending machines when you’d told him you hadn’t eaten since at least two days before.
This man had put more care and attention into you in the span of two hours than Ryan had in two years.
Fuck you’re pathetic if a stranger is better to you than your ex was.
Marcus Pike, as he introduced himself eventually, was a genuinely good man and you had to admit you were kind of jealous of this Teresa person that was apparently flying out to DC in a week to follow him. He’d gotten a text from her that she was working on a case or something, that she’d call in an hour or two if she could, and that led to him telling you about her. But the jealousy you thought you’d feel that he was getting everything he wanted and you weren’t just… wasn’t there. If anyone deserved a happy marriage it was this good-hearted, sweet, man beside you who saw a stranger in pain and stepped up.
“So, uh, are you from DC or the surrounding area?” He was trying to make conversation no doubt, you hummed as you chewed on the bite of the meal you’d ended up buying now that your appetite was returning, and a part of you was at war with giving him such personal information when you’d only just met him today. But you didn’t have some of the same bad vibes that you usually got with creeps or pushy men; you had a feeling if you refused to answer he’d actually respect that.
“Surrounding area, though my promotion does come with a change of office to DC. I’m in Baltimore currently but I’ll be looking for a place in DC as soon as I get back since it’s an hour commute not counting the traffic. The week I got off was supposed to be for me to begin the process of finding residency closer to work, I had use-or-lose time that would’ve been lost as soon as I started at the new role so it just made sense to take it when I got the affirmative that I’d be promoted.” Marcus was nodding in understanding at your logic, you hadn’t expected to actually get approved for any houses or places but just being able to take your time touring the options had been the idea.
Marcus grabbed his phone and handed it to you after opening a browser window, the condo was a nice place and the cost was actually pretty decent for the size.
“I was initially looking here, since they’re one-bedroom places, but with Teresa coming along I decided to spring for a two-bedroom so we could have an office room.” You sent yourself the share link, already liking that it had designated parking and security cameras around the building, but what sold it was the fact that the interior wasn’t the modern aesthetic with sleek square edged and monochrome colors. The appliances were a lovely shade of royal blue, the furniture that came with the place was vintage and fun looking, and if that was Marcus’ taste it was just one more way he was nothing like any man you’d met.
“Thank you, I’ll check this place out.” You had a few more days left of time at least, since handling things with your ex had been done quickly once you knew what was actually going on, and since he was planning on staying here in Austin you’d even decided to take the L and mail his things back to him so he didn’t have to fly back and you could avoid him accusing you of purposefully withholding his belongings. That meant time to wander around DC and get an idea of where you might want to live, though this place was looking pretty alright.
For the first time in a while you didn’t even feel scared that a stranger would know where you potentially lived, the warning bells were absent and you didn’t know if that was because Marcus was just that good or because he was good at hiding it, and you decided to let yourself believe in him being a good person.
There were so many other things you had to stress about and this was something you didn’t want to add to the list.
As the boarding call started, after you and Marcus spent time talking about favorite books and films, he let you on ahead of him and waved from his seat near the front of the cabin as you moved toward the back. The curse of booking a late ticket, of course, and after setting your phone to airplane mode you decided to take the nap you knew you needed.
Marcus bid you farewell at the exit terminal in DCA while he was getting his phone turned back on, since you didn’t have to go through baggage claim there was no added wait, and you were off and in a cab toward the hotel you’d booked last minute in the city so that you could just stay and explore living spaces before heading back to your place in Baltimore.
The condo was finally furnished, it looked like your space, and all of the boxes of Ryan’s stuff had long since been shipped off and confirmed to arrive at Austin. Breaking the lease on your old place had been costly -his parents chose to cover the cost after the truth came out- but you were free, free of someone who saw you as a piggy bank and free to move on with your career and live the life you wanted to live. You wiped the sweat off your brow and decided to head down the road to the nearby diner, a bite to eat that you didn’t have to cook sounded great, and you had a few hours before your best friends would be here to help put your knickknacks and art up.
It had been months since you got back, months since you’d started at work in your new position, and even if finding the time to hunt for a place in DC was limited to weekends and unexpected breaks in your work weeks you’d managed to finally tour a bunch of apartments and condos in the area. In the end you’d settled on the place Marcus had shown you after getting the in-person tour.
Now as you faced the brisk fall weather your mood was much higher, you were living a fair distance from work that public transport and even just walking would be fine too, and now you were going to get some good classic food. Warm and soft lighting made you relax as you entered the eatery, it was a seat yourself joint and you were ready to take a seat at the bar when you spotted a familiar face in one of the booths, waving when he looked up from his phone screen; Marcus’ smile was blunted since your first meeting and you glanced at the bar a moment and walked over to greet him instead.
“Hey stranger, fancy seeing you here. Want company?” Not wanting to assume anything you couldn’t help but grin when his smile did shift to something warmer and more welcoming.
“Only if you want to.” You slid into the seat with a smile after he gave you the okay. “How have you been, since getting back to Baltimore?”
“Better, it’s still- there’s still plenty of hurt but I’m in a better place all around; especially now that I know the whole truth. I just finally finished unpacking and organizing my place here in DC, so I figured I’d celebrate. How about you? How’s the East Coast treating you?” Since he was alone and lacking a band on his left ring finger you avoided the topic of the woman he’d said was coming out here, he’d been so excited about his engagement and with how sweet he was you had expected his fiancée to be just as enthusiastic.
Marcus’ shoulders dropped a little and you didn’t even think before reaching out to take the hand he had on the table, offering a sympathy-filled smile, and his eyes dropped from your face to your connected hands before he let that smile fall away.
“East Coast as a whole is okay, but Teresa ended up breaking the engagement to be with the guy that she was in love with before me. I knew it wasn’t- I knew that as long as she was around Jane that she would choose him; we’d only been together a few months before I proposed, I didn’t want to lose my chance with her just by being transferred so I’d called in a few favors to get her a position here and hoped that being away from the guy that wasn’t returning her feelings would let her move on. With me.”
You knew he’d moved fast; he’d told you that, but you had seen shorter dating periods turn into long and happy marriages before. What upset you was that Marcus had put his heart, his hope, into someone that just wasn’t in a place to be that person for him and wasn’t willing to just tell him that.
“You saw what the two of you could be and wanted to try for that, Marcus, and that’s perfectly okay. You gave Teresa every chance to tell you ‘no’ and she didn’t take it for whatever reason, if she wasn’t able to commit to you entirely then she shouldn’t have accepted your proposal. If she wasn’t able to communicate with you, to try to move on from the other guy, then she should have said something. It takes two people to make a relationship work and it sounds to me like she wasn’t trying as hard as you were.”
When you looked up from your hands it was to a man with shiny eyes and tears threatening to fall, a man who had been hurt and needed someone who could at least understand the hurt, and you didn’t say anything when he used a napkin to dab his eyes gently. If anyone understood what he was feeling right now it was you, after all, given that the situations weren’t the same but there were some strong parallels. Him allowing himself to cry? To feel? You liked that about him, a lot.
“When Ryan proposed it was a rushed thing too, it was on our anniversary and he won a little plastic ring out of a crane game instead of the little charm bracelet he’d been trying for. He looked at it, looked at me, and then got down and proposed right there; almost made me think he meant to try for it for that reason and since our relationship had always been easy and never focused on the materialistic things, I loved it and it was sort of on brand. But he pulled away, after that, wasn’t involved in any of the planning unless I specifically asked for his opinion. I thought it was cold feet, or that he was just nervous because he didn’t know if his parents were able to make it to the wedding on the day we chose, but it turns out his childhood friend Kaleigh was newly single and he’d always loved her.”
Saying the story out loud made the anger lessen, now that you could see the signs clearer, even if the hurt was still there. How Ryan had always talked about Kaleigh’s clothes style, compared your hairstyles on special occasions to hers, and just being very attentive to her social media to the point that you knew more about Kaleigh than his own sister before you’d ended up opening a group chat with Hannah. A part of you also felt like you’d dodged a bullet, learning before you were married, because it meant that not only had it festered enough to do more hurt later but you had a lot more to lose in a divorce situation compared to Ryan.
His grip tightened, making you look up, and Marcus’ expression was one of understanding. Even without saying the words he knew that you were offering him support, that you knew his pain and would be the person he could open up to about it, and if it weren’t for your meals being delivered you were sure the two of you would have been able to just sit in comfortable silence.
“Ah, pancakes guy? Breakfast for dinner is something I haven’t done in a while.” You took a bite of your meal and Marcus shrugged, putting a good bit of syrup -the authentic maple syrup not the gloopy pancake syrup- onto the hubcap sized pancake along with a large dollop of butter. Your talk lightened to things in the area to do for fun, things in Baltimore to do for fun, hobbies you had currently and things you wanted to try and get into.
Marcus was genuinely a good person and creative as hell, watching him sketch you on a napkin in only a few minutes had left your face warming at the detail he managed to get into the little image. Only after you’d gone through a few refills, talked until you were sure your voice was going to be shot, and spent nearly an hour more than you planned there with him did the two of you decide to leave. Marcus paid for your meal -his insistence- and followed you back to yours where you brewed some coffee for him and let him lean in the doorway of your kitchen as the two of you talked about movies that you enjoyed.
By the time you both sat down on your couch, on opposite sides with you pulling your legs close, a small part of you was loath to let him leave. Marcus had proven before that he was attentive and kind with a big heart and knowing he was going to therapy -he’d glossed over it but you didn’t mind since he trusted you enough to even mention it in the first place- all it proved was that he wanted to heal and be better. You liked him, and even though your heart hurt, you were terrified of the idea of losing him because you wanted to take more time for yourself, but you didn’t want to push him into anything by rushing since he was going through the same heartbreak you were.
“So, uh, you never said what you did for work. What brought you from Texas to DC? Politician?” Dropping the thoughts before they could ruin your night, choosing to needle him just a little, you watched the way Marcus’ nose wrinkled instantly. You knew he wasn’t but you were sure he’d be a good one, the kind of guy to push for what was right without forcing his lifestyle on others, and the idea of him putting any of those crusty old raisins in office in their place was a fun one.
“Nah, I’m not old enough or conservative enough to be a Texan politician. FBI actually, art crimes. I’m on the team of people that investigate when museums get robbed of art work or statues, sometimes we end up tracking things internationally depending on the thief. We also have to inspect and identify if things that pop up are authentic or if they’re fakes.” His explanation was delivered in an even voice and he showed you his badge while he was at it, your throat tightened and you felt the gooseflesh on your arms as the image of him apprehending a thief made your heart beat a little faster.
As if he couldn’t be more attractive, he had to be an FBI agent too?!
“That’s really incredible, I can’t imagine it was easy either. Did you have to get a degree in classic art before going to whatever FBI training is?”
Marcus laughed softly.
“I went to Quantico first, actually, my father was always set that as his firstborn son I’d be police or military or some role with authority. He could handle the FBI but it wasn’t until I was out of Quantico serving as a low-level agent that I pursued my Art Degree and transferred to Art Crimes as my hands-on credit hours. He still hasn’t forgiven me.”
“His loss, that is an amazing career to pursue Marcus.” You didn’t miss the way his smile brightened or how he hung off every word as you told him about your own career, how you’d not only gotten your promotion but quickly earned a pay raise on top of the raise that came with the new position, and you honestly couldn’t be happier now that you’d escaped “Hallmark Rom-Com” territory with your love life. After being able to focus solely on your career you’d managed to get into a much better place for yourself financially, which if you were being honest, helped bring you to a better place emotionally too.
Marcus stayed until he absolutely couldn’t and even then you made plans to meet up again on the weekend since he knew of a place that did drive-in movies, old black and whites and you hated that when you closed the door your heart was skipping and you couldn’t stop the way you did a corny little victory dance. It wasn’t a date, he hadn’t explicitly said it, but it was a start.
It was a date, the first of many, and Marcus was a breath of fresh air in the best way. He was kind, supportive, understanding, and an attentive lover. The whole ass package and somehow fate had put him in your path, not that you were complaining in any way, and this year was your first holiday together. You had plenty of fall-time dates last year trading apple cider and pumpkin kisses, snuggling up in the library together to just read or going to snuggle in his car at the drive-in theater, and there had been countless times you’d stumbled into the door of one of your houses where clothing ended up on the floor and sometimes you didn’t even make it to a bed.
You didn’t regret it, him, at all; a number of people tried to slow you down, since it hadn’t been so long after your break-up with Ryan before you and Marcus began dating, but their tunes changed when they actually met him and saw you two with one another. The main reason you hadn’t spent the holiday together as a couple yet was that Marcus had plans already with his family out of the country last year and you weren’t quite willing to intrude on that, even though you were sure about him, you didn’t want to crash a family vacation.
This year was yours, he’d promised, but that wasn’t looking like it would happen. Part of you couldn’t help but sigh as you looked at the calendar again, Marcus had to go to Austin for an undercover op and couldn’t even call you, he only had an approximation for when he’d be able to either call or come home. Since he was a Christmas guy you had used your key to his place and decorated his condo for the holiday for him, even getting out his fake tree and doing the entire set up, sneaking a few things of your own traditions around the main room before deciding it was done.
But all the tinsel and candles -LED since you weren’t exactly staying here to watch them- and décor couldn’t erase how it was lacking one Marcus Pike to fill the space with his sunny smile and warm affection. Even if you couldn’t celebrate the whole season with him, at the very least Christmas was enough for you if he could make it home, and as the days were crossed off your calendar it was looking less and less likely. Your own condo was significantly sparse on décor, trying to lighten your mood by making Marcus’ place look like a Christmas dream hadn’t really worked out the way you planned and his continued absence stole your spirit.
A chime from your phone made you huff softly and answer, if only to disrupt the cheerful ringtone, you knew it wasn’t Marcus since he had a custom ringtone set.
“Hey sharpshooter.”
Ryan’s parents had given you the title when you’d beat his entire family at the little shooting game at their town faire on your first visit, it was bittersweet hearing it again.
“Hi Drew, happy holidays.”
“Happy holidays, kid, just wanted to let you know that Nadine and I are proud as hell of you and that we miss you. I know it’s probably weird, your ex-fiancé’s parents calling to wish you happy holidays but you were family to us.”
“I don’t blame you or Nadine for what happened, but thank you for calling. Tell her I said hello and happy holidays, Drew.”
“Will do, sharpshooter, we wanted to pack up and send you some honey from the bee farm if you’re interested as a gift.”
“That would be a wonderful present, thank you.”
Even if you didn’t use it you could always re-gift it and pass business along.
“Good, you still have that drop box?”
“Yep! That’s perfect, Drew.”
“Wasn’t going to ask for your new address, figured in the New Year you’d want to move on for good.”
“I appreciate that, more than you know, but I’m glad I got to say a proper goodbye this time.”
“Me too, kid. Don’t settle for anyone that doesn’t respect you, you deserve the world.”
“I haven’t, Drew.”
“Even better.”
You knew when a conversation with Drew was over, when the sentences turned to one or two words, and despite this being one of the shortest conversations you had with the man you appreciated it all the same because now you could move on knowing that everyone from that point in your life was okay. You honestly felt lighter and almost jumped when you heard your door opening, knowing you’d locked it behind you, and your eyes widened when Marcus rounded the corner of the entry with a large grin on his face.
“Marcus!”
Your wail of his name drowned out the rapid tattoo of your footsteps as you hurried to hug him, to prove that he was really here, and he caught you in a tight hold and just held you close. His cologne was different, the facial hair was different, and the lingering scent of dry Texas air was different, and yet the feel of his arms around you and the warmth he seemed to just give off constantly was the same.
“I missed you so much, I’m so sorry I couldn’t call or contact you-“
“Don’t apologize, I know it was for your job, you were safer that way and it was required. You’re home, that’s what matters.”
“God, I love you, I love you so much, I booked the first flight home I could and spent extra hours in the office just to make sure I could come back and stay here.”
Marcus didn’t argue at all when you dragged him through your apartment, mouth practically fused to yours as you worked to get him out of his clothes and into the shower, your own clothes joining his on the floor as you joined him under the stream of hot water. He proved how much he missed you, whispering praise and love into your wet skin, the slick glide of your bodies and heavy breathing laced with promises and traded affections between each throaty cry of his name were things you would remember for the rest of your life. He was insatiable for you, just as you were for him, and the shower round turned to soaking your sheets after stumbling out of the shower and away from your poor attempt at getting him clean.
He was all lips and tongue and hands, no inch of you was left untouched or unloved, and Marcus went as far as holding the back of your neck as he filled you just so he could make sure he could watch your face as he made you fall apart over and over again. His kisses were deep and intense, encompassing you entirely even as his hips rocked so slow and deep against yours, it was toe-curling and spine arching and yet you couldn’t get enough.
When you both were spent, wanting to just make out and talk and cuddle, Marcus migrated you to the couch after getting you both into comfier clothes where he nestled into the corner of your L shaped sofa and let you lay on him with his legs on either side of you, turning on some low background noise in the form of classic Christmas movies, and you couldn’t begin to care as Rudolph and Hermey met Yukon Cornelius since Marcus was here with you at last.
“I need to go decorate my condo; did you want to come help? You could just stay at mine until the holidays are over?”
A slow smile spread across your face when you realized that he hadn’t been home yet, he’d come to see you first, and you nodded before getting up to pack a bag to bring with you. Marcus helped of course, you even let him choose some of the casual stuff to pack, and other than stopping for a simple take-out dinner the ride was filled with him telling you about the sting operation. He’d posed as an art teacher to expose someone on the staff from not only stealing student’s work but for having some of the better talents recreate pieces that had gone missing and passing them off as legitimate.
You couldn’t be happier that he had pretty thick curtains so you couldn’t see the glow of the battery powered candles through them, asking him about his method of befriending the perpetrator to distract him as you let him handle the luggage so you could open the door, and Marcus’ face went slack when he stepped into the condo to see it fully decorated already.
“I- you- you decorated my condo?”
“Wanted you to come home to one less thing to do, it was a good way to help fight how much I missed you for a little while.”
Marcus’ slack expression warmed before he was tugging you onto the plush carpet, the net of Christmas lights you’d attached to his ceiling using command hooks twinkled like stars as Marcus kissed you deeply under them, and you couldn’t resist flipping him onto his back so he was looking up at the lights while you tugged off your hastily donned clothes again. Your bodies were dewy with sweat and the lights were reflecting off his skin and twinkling in his eyes, his lips dropped open as you held him in place so that you could give him nothing but pleasure, and Marcus’ hands gripped your hips to help move you as he watched you.
Even with his feet planted he let you lead, let you control the pace, and by the time you were shuddering and tensed up as you crested that high Marcus was seeking his own completion and guiding you with his hands until he was spent and shaking under you. He pulled you down and just laid with you under the Christmas lights that you’d put up, the warm condo -thank you automatic thermostats- was a little chilly but not enough to make you feel the need to get up just yet.
“I plan to do a lot more to you under these lights.” Marcus’ eyes were dark with mischief and desire as he made that promise and you were more than eager to let him see it through.
Waking up with Marcus’ warm body pressed close to yours kept you drowsy and comfortable, eyes heavy still even as you glanced at the clock, and while you didn’t have to get up early today there was definitely a motive involved doing so. For the past week or so Marcus had been sneaking out of bed before you to make you breakfast.
‘I like taking care of you, besides you’ll agree to move in sooner if the promise of breakfast and as many orgasms you want is on the table right?’
He was a caretaker, a giver, you knew that about him but so were you and he was starting to make you feel like you weren’t giving him enough. It was a conversation to have, sure, but that would come later. He barely stirred when you slipped out of bed, didn’t make a peep when you tugged on one of his shirts and a pair of underwear, and his kitchen was warm and quiet as you raided the fridge to start cooking right away.
He hadn’t seen you smuggle his gifts home, since you both had still worked up until the holiday, and the wrapped presents were carefully tucked under the tree as the coffee pot percolated and the pan you needed warmed up. Hiding them from him had been embarrassingly easy, for a man that was an FBI agent he seemed to have forgotten that his coffee table had hidden storage because you’d even set a little bit of a trap so you would know if he got into his gifts.
Breakfast was nearly complete when you heard the sleepy call of your name from the bedroom.
“I’m in the kitchen, Marcus.”
You’d thrown on an elf hat for some Christmas humor, hearing your boyfriend hum appreciatively as he walked into the kitchen, and he grabbed your hips as he came up behind you.
“Did Santa leave me one of his helpers for Christmas?”
A small chuckle escaped you as you nodded, watching him pour himself a mug of coffee, and his eyes drifted to the tree over the breakfast bar countertop. You felt the weight of his stare at the boxes in plain sight and resisted the urge to laugh, just barely, and while he didn’t say anything he did pinch your butt and set the table for breakfast.
Only after you sat down did you notice that he had added boxes to the stack and you rolled your eyes at the smug look on his face.
“What time are you going to call your parents?”
“Well, they’re home in Austin since I’m here and Nina is with her girlfriend’s family in Maine. So I figured around three since we’re an hour ahead. Gives them time to get up and have lunch, just relax a bit, you know?”
“Alright, gives me plenty of time to clean up. And get pants on.”
The pair of you laughed, eating while conversing about any last-minute plans that either of you might want to do, and you only asked to watch White Christmas since that was a tradition in your family. Where it started you didn’t know but that had become the Christmas tradition, regardless of any other celebrations it was the only “Christmas-y” thing and this year Marcus was going to be there for the movie stream to meet your family too.
After dishes were cleaned up Marcus joined you in the living room and handed you one of your gifts, taking one of his to rest in front of him. You almost laughed because he picked the biggest of the boxes for each of you. The Razor Crest model in your hands was amazing, you would have to assemble it but that was a good rainy-day project, and Marcus looked thrilled when he began going through the canvas prints you had purchased for him to put up. Some of them were multi-panel pieces while others were single canvas pieces, but all of them were from the students he’d taught for his undercover op.
Your next gift was a new, beefy, set of over-the-ear headphones. These had noise cancellation or you could use the ambient mode to still hear things around you, you had only briefly mentioned these to him so for him to remember? You didn’t bother to mute your delighted cheer. Marcus grinned and then fell silent at the scrapbook you’d put in a pretty gift box; you’d only made and set removable labels for the pages with activities you wanted to do together. Things like going to certain museums or traveling to other cities, all optional but just things you thought were fun and cute.
There was even a page dedicated to the city of Casablanca, it made Marcus wipe the pooling tears out of his eyes.
“You- you want to do all this? With me?”
The unspoken words broke your heart.
You see a future with me?
“Absolutely, I do, Marcus -as long as we do it together, we could change up every little thing on those pages. That’s just ideas and possibilities, we can always pick others.”
His last gift was the smallest of the boxes, and the most expensive, so when he opened it to a Cartier box you watched his eyes go wide before he was so lightly touching the face of the watch you’d chosen for him. It was vintage with a round face and black leather band, the exact one he’d been looking at when you’d gone on a date to a silent auction, and you’d been hiding it for months even before he left for the undercover op. Marcus made a little sound of disbelief and you couldn’t help but grin at him, earning a kiss so good your toes curled and you were ready to ignore the last gift of the night.
But Marcus sat you back down and handed you the box, looking so sure of himself, and when you opened it carefully you frowned at the small cardboard box that was apparently empty. Looking up and freezing at the sight of your boyfriend on one knee, your chest tightened up and the mix of joy and the small bubbling doubts after last time made your eyes water.
“Before you say anything, even if the answer is a ‘not right now’ that’s perfectly fine and it won’t hurt my feelings. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, whether we’re married or not, I just want you to have something to show you that I’m serious about you. You walked into my life needing help and then returned that same genuine kindness months later, you have never treated me like I’m too much and you’ve been so patient with me. I know I spent a lot of our relationship gone, which is why you do not have to say yes to this, but I want to marry you and I hope that someday you might want the same.”
“Marcus I can’t lie and say I’m not anxious about this, I am, but you know the reason why and have been patient with me through my healing process. I love you too, and I do want to spend the rest of my life with you, I want to be by your side and explore the world with you one day at a time. I know we can be amazing together, even with you gone you’ve never given me a reason to doubt you, and I would prefer a longer engagement but I’d be willing to sign the papers tomorrow since it’s you..” He slipped the band on your finger and kissed you, promising you as much time as you needed, and you said a silent prayer to whatever higher power was listening to thank them for allowing this man to cross your path when you needed him the most.
After wrapping paper clean up, fawning over gifts, and very pleasurable thank you’s were exchanged he tucked you against his side on the couch and flipped on Netflix so you could continue catching him up on the shows he’d missed while he was working and glancing at your new ring with hope and love warming your heart.
All Fics Taglist: @haylzcyon @wordsnwhiskey @pagannightwitch @radiowallet @tauralmie @amneris21 @trickstersp8 @practicalghost @rominaszh @alwaysdjarin @alexxavicry @all-the-way-down-here
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#marcus pike x gn!reader#marcus pike x reader#pedrostoriesgift22#pedrostories#mentalist fanfic#marcus pike#chaoticwrites
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the eye of the storm.
platonic loceit/dlampr
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hello gang
it has been… a while since i’ve written sanders sides content. i was into it for years before i dropped it and now i’ve picked it back up again. i forgot how much i loved this series. i’ve been rewatching it and remembered just how much i was so excited for the reveal of the super mysterious and spooky orange side, and i got a little pang of inspiration from the working through intrusive thoughts aside video. here is some really shitty angst/comfort; it’s been a while so my characterizations may be off, apologies in advance. and also my apologies for the spacing— i wrote this on docs and i didn’t realize the spacing would be so wide. sorry!!
scroll to v end for authors notes!
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The date with Nico had gone so good! Thomas was reeling him in hook, line, and sinker; and Remus was able to be contained for the whole time! Sure, he had some moments, but nothing that none of them couldn’t handle. Now, as the sun set and shades of fuchsia and orange painted the sky above the exhibit, everyone decided it was time to go home.
The moment Thomas began to walk back all of the sides sank out, reappearing in his mind in an all too familiar routine. Remus was the only one absent for their outing, everyone else should have been here.
While Roman and Patton were happily reminiscing about the date, exchanging compliments and giggles, Virgil glanced around. He refused to glance in a certain serpent’s direction, but the room still felt empty.
Something was off.
Was it the coffee table? Couch? Maybe the blanket…?
Click.
“Where’s Logan?”
That seemed to break Roman and Patton from their conversation, and they both turned to look at Virgil.
“…Hey, yeah! Where’s our Logan?” Patton asked.
“Oh, who cares! He’s probably sulking because Thomas went out and had fun with the cutest frickin’ guy ever!” Roman proclaims, overly dramatic as always.
Patton puts his hands on his hips. “Now, Roman. Be nice to Logan! He was just trying to get Thomas to be productive— ya can’t argue the state of his home is a little…”
“Revolting?” Virgil finishes the sentence for him.
“I was gonna say icky, but that works too!” Patton grins at Virgil. “But anyway, don’t get mad at him for trying to help!”
“Pfft— help. Nerd.” Roman chuckles, earning a slight glare from Patton. “He could try to help by not getting in the way of our already non-existent love life!”
“You know, Patton’s right, Roman.” Janus murmurs from his corner. “Your twin gave him quite the bit of trouble today…”
Roman straightens his posture, almost defensive, as he glares at the slimy fiend. “What do you mean? What did that mangy mongrel do to him?”
Janus shrugs. “Oh. Nothing. I’m sure you wouldn’t care about that, Logan is just a speed bump on the road to love, and all that…” He says dismissively.
“Tell. Me.” Roman insists, moving closer towards Janus. “What did he do?”
Janus examines his glove, almost unbothered before he looks up at Roman. “Well…”
Roman glares. A silent message to get it the hell over with.
“When Thomas was up in the wee hours of the night, Logan and him decided on a new schedule. You know how those work out for Thomas.”
“Yeah. They don’t.” Roman murmured.
“Mhm. Usually it’s just because Thomas is more… spontaneous. Carefree, if you will. He likes to jump from task to task. Doing a list can be overwhelming, but Logan was just so dedicated to helping him stick to it. And poor Thomas even wanted to do it!…”
“…Jan. You lied, kiddo.”
“Whatever.” Janus shrugs. “Anyways. Remus decided to make Logan’s life a living hell by trying to kill or maim Thomas or Logan himself, but usually he ended up hurting himself.”
“Is that where the sparkly green eyepatch came from?!” Roman gasped.
“…Yes.” Janus murmured. “Anyways. Logan tried to reason with him and—”
“Is no one gonna ask why he knows all this?!” Virgil interjects.
Janus huffs. “Are ANY of you going to let me talk?!” He sighs. “And before you ask, I listen. To everything. Are there ANYMORE questions before I answer the first one?!”
Patton raises his hand for a moment before it shoots back down.
“Perfect. Great. Back to what I was saying… Logan confronted Remus after a few failed attempts and tried to reason with him, because this was one of the few times he’s actually gotten Thomas on a schedule and he tried to stick to it. So, you can tell why he’d be a little irritated about his incessant attempts at getting him off task.”
Roman raises a brow. “And…?”
“Logan screamed at him.”
“Oh.” Roman chuckles. “Yeah, he does that—”
“His eyes shone orange.”
A silence fell over the room. There was a silent, unspoken yet unified agreement that they all knew what that meant. And they knew it was bad.
Virgil was the first to break the silence. “…fuck.”
“…Did… Thomas? See? Do we have to have another confrontation so soon?!” Patton gasped.
“No. No he didn’t. Remus mocked him for the outburst almost instantly and as far as I’m aware, the interaction was over after that.”
“…What made Logan lose his cool that badly over something like that?” Roman hummed.
Janus rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that you all ignore him?”
“How dare you! I don’t ignore Mark Zucker-nerd; I just don’t listen to him!”
“…Roman. Buddy. That’s ignoring.”
Roman paused, looking down. “…so it is! But either way— we don’t ignore him, Janus. It isn’t my fault he never has anything helpful to add!”
“Oh, please. Logan is literally the embodiment of Logic. He’s resolved how many of these past issues? Logan does the most and gets the least reward, Roman. You have the most influence over our host, followed by Patton and Virgil. Maybe lately me and Remus have had a little fun taking the wheel every now and again— but when was the last time you let Logan make a big decision? You decided to skip the callback, you decided to go on the date. All Logan gets influence on is his little passion project, which he’s probably abandoned at this point because I seriously doubt there’s much passion left in him.”
Janus’ rant has left the other sides staring; Roman in disbelief, mostly at the audacity, Patton in shame, and Virgil in guilt. Deep down, they knew Janus was right.
“…Okay. Maybe I’ve been… a little… controlling.” Roman murmured.
“A lot.” Janus hummed.
Patton leans over to him, “Hey, Jan— kiddo. Small wins.”
“Right, Patton,” He whispers back, sighing. “Anyway. I suggest we try to make this up to Logan one way or another. After we make sure he’s alright.”
“I’m not checking on him. I love the guy, but if I step ten feet near conflict I’ll throw up and die.” Virgil mumbles, throwing his hood up.
“Logan doesn’t usually take comfort from me all that well. I think he finds it kinda patronizing…” Patton frowns. “But I’d be happy to try!”
“No, you're right… and he’d only think I was mocking him.” Roman murmured.
One by one, all their eyes drift to Janus.
“…You want me to go in there. Don’t you.”
“Well, yeah! You’re the most neutral with him! Logan doesn't know you super well and while I’m sure he didn’t appreciate your impersonating of him, I think you see eye to eye with him on a lotta stuff! That helps!” Patton grinned. “You might be the best candidate for this kinda thing.”
Virgil sighs. “….I can’t believe I’m agreeing with this… but yeah. Janus is the best candidate for this particular job…”
“…Of course. Fine. I’ll go check on him.” Janus huffs. He leaves his little corner in the shadows, brushing past the other three and making his way down the hallway. It doesn’t take him long to reach Logan’s door. Usually there’s light peeking from underneath the door, but that’s absent this time. Hmm…
Janus knocks three times.
Usually a “one moment” or a “come in” would follow. But there is silence.
Janus waits a moment, before knocking again, this time accompanying it with a “Logan? You alright?”
He’s met with silence again.
Janus sighs, placing his hand on the doorknob and twisting slowly. He pushes the door open, peeking in just a bit to get an idea of what he’s getting himself into.
The moment the door opens just a crack it’s blown open with immeasurable force, pulling Janus inside and slamming the door behind him. The room is barely a room anymore— more so a culmination of wind. Janus can make out a few objects— calendars with black and red marker scribbled over the dates, some books and some pages torn from them, blank sheets of paper, and a few pens and little knickknacks. Glancing around quickly, Janus realizes there’s a soft, barely there orange glow coming from the center of the room.
Fuck.
“Logan!” Janus calls, trying to push his way through but inevitably getting pushed back against the door. “Logan, let me in! I will help!”
There’s some sort of loud noise, but Janus can barely make it out throughout the pounding sound of wind against his ears.
Fine. Be difficult. It takes a lot of strength, and a lot of mental willpower, but he’s able to carve out a path directly into the eye of the storm. Janus heaves a bit as he walks, immediately taking note of Logan.
He’s… never seen the other so distressed. And honestly, it stings.
Logan is sat on the floor on his knees, hunched over and sobbing. Janus has never seen him cry, never heard it either. But this is just too much…
“…Logan?” He calls quietly, softly. Trying his best not to startle the other.
Said side looks up with a horrified gaze. His eyes gleam with amber tones and the best descriptor Janus has at the moment is overwhelmed.
“Calm down, calm down.” Janus shushes, kneeling to Logan’s level. Instinctively, Logan tries to back away, and Janus lets him. He gives Logan his space. “Deep breaths. Breathe…”
And he tries. All he can manage is panicked and shaky short breaths that can’t be delivering much air to his brain. Janus could see this plain as day. “Logan. Think you’re stable enough to talk?”
Logan glances up and after a moment's hesitation, he nods quickly.
“Five things you can see. Can you do that for me?”
Logan glances around quickly. “Books.” He murmurs, almost rapid as he speaks. “…Calendar. Marker. Pen…” He looks around again. “Cube.”
“Alright. Good. Four things you can feel?”
“…Clothes. Glasses.” His tone is almost robotic, despite it being watery. “Wind… and… and… and the floor.”
Janus can see and feel the wind slowing, even if just a little bit.
“Good. How about three things you can hear?”
“You. Me. Wind.”
“Almost done. Two things you can smell?”
“Um…” Logan panics again. Another question he can’t answer. Of course. ���Cologne? Maybe… and… and…”
“Focus, Logan. You’re okay. It’s okay.”
“…Ink.”
“Good. Last one. One thing you can taste.”
“Salt…”
The wind slows to a stop. All the objects fall from where they were propelled. They could deal with that later.
“See? You’re okay. It’s okay.”
Logan looks up, eyes still watery and overflowing with tears. He’s shaking. The word that comes to Janus’ mind is helpless. He knows it’d make Logan worse so he decides to keep that thought inside.
“Now. Would you like to talk about this?”
“I don’t know how!” His tone is surprisingly aggressive, but it doesn’t seem like Logan. It’s out of character for him. He’s crumbling. “I don’t know how to… to talk about this! I’ve never— I’ve never felt so… so…”
“Breathe, Logan.” Janus offers. “It’s alright. Just—”
“LET ME TALK.” Logan shouts; the ferocity of the moment is only comparable to earlier when Remus had pushed too far.
And Janus falls silent. He doesn’t take it personally. He knows it isn’t— Logan is just so overcome with it all he’s lost control. He knows just how bad they can be.
And Logan realizes just what he’s done a moment after, and he falls back into helpless sobs, curling around himself. He feels so fucking awful. Not only is he useless, but he’s an asshole too. Another flaw to add to the ever growing list.
“Logan, I know you’re overwhelmed…” Janus reaches a hand out to touch, but he hesitates, and quickly lets it fall back to his side. “Tell me what’s going on. What’s got you so upset?”
Logan hesitates speaking, before he sobs out his words, “I’m so awful, Janus…”
“If this is about today, you’re not. Remus is especially heinous and you know that—”
“It isn’t just today!” He shouts. “It’s getting harder and harder to do my job and get through to him— I-I’m not good enough, Janus. I can’t do anything anymore! I used to be able to… to do everything, and it was fine. My calendars were in perfect order, I kept the others in check while maintaining a balance— I wasn’t a fucking emotional wreck!” Logan sobs, looking up at Janus desperately. “I’m useless. I can’t— I’m not—”
“Logan. You’re magnetizing.” Janus murmurs.
“Magnifying.” He corrects.
“See? You’re still capable of doing your job. And you still do your job just fine.” Janus puts a gentle hand on his shoulder, smoothing over the wrinkled shirt. “Everyone’s been in chaos these last few months… and that’s partly me and Remus’ fault. We haven’t been easy adjustments.” He sighed. “But,” And he holds up his finger with a dramatic pause, “You of all people have been the most versatile. You put forth your best effort Logan— more so than the other sides have. You know that.”
“But my best isn’t good enough.”
“It is. It is. You don’t believe it is, but it is.” Janus assures. “It isn’t your fault you’re getting overshadowed.”
“Perhaps if my methods were different, if my tactics were better—”
“Shhh.” Janus presses his finger to Logan’s lips, effectively silencing him momentarily.
“Logan. You’re doing nothing wrong.”
“Then why am I getting ignored?”
Janus didn’t have an answer immediately. And he could tell that upset Logan even further, despite the fact he was trying to conceal his tears.
“I don’t know, Logan. I’m sorry.” He sighed. “But I’ll never ignore you. You know that, right?”
He sniffles, nodding.
“…Do you want a hug?”
Logan hesitates for a long moment, as if weighing the pros and cons. Potential comfort and warmth, but also a huge dent in his reputation.
This was a pretty big dent too. Fuck it.
“…Please.”
Janus wraps his arms around Logan, hugging him tightly. “You’re alright. It’s alright..” He murmurs. “You’re okay.”
While Logan quietly cried into Janus’ shoulder, the scaly of the two silently wills the objects back into their places. He doesn’t need Logan even more stressed.
“Do you feel better?”
Logan nods, swallowing thickly. His throat feels scratchy…
“…I don’t think I’ve ever felt those… those feelings so… intensely.” He cringes at the word; it feels sticky and wrong on his tongue.
“I know… but it’s all over now. You’re calmer. Your room isn’t a tornado.”
Logan blinks, glancing up. “Oh. I was…” He looks around quickly. “Everything is in its place…?”
“I put it back. I know mess overwhelms you.”
Logan can’t help the microscopic smile.
“Thank you, Janus… I… apologize for all this.”
“Don’t mention it. It was out of your control. Now,” He pulls away slightly. “Do you need me to stay? I’m more than happy to.”
Logan thinks for a moment, and then shakes his head. “No. I believe some time alone would benefit me. I need to ‘recharge,’ if you will.”
Janus stands and makes his way to the door. “Alright. If you need anything else, you know where my room is.”
“I do. Again, thank you.”
“No worries, Logan. That’s what friends are for.”
—
(i wrote these authors notes as i wrote the story; i didn’t wanna stick them in as i wrote so i put them all at the end.)
authors note: i forgot how vividly i imagined their headspace; even down to the order of the doors. in case you’re wondering, the hallway of their rooms (which you enter from the right side) goes from left to right as such: virgil, logan, roman, and patton. the dark sides have their own separate wing (because of course they do)
authors note 2: i feel like sides have a lot more willpower and control in the headspace than we originally think— and the dark sides seem to be more powerful than the core 4 so they have an easier time doing stuff like that. obviously since deceit can transform into any of the sides— which i feel like the other sides can do but choose not to?? if they can become thomas’ friends they should be able to transform into each other,,— and remus can summon objects outside of the mind palace and headspace— we’ve seen other sides with fidgets or swords or little caps but never anything like super big i don’t think? it’s been a while hah
authors note 3: i’m trying to make up some shit about the orange side while also keeping it vague so it’s not too specific. mostly cause i want this to be logan centric but also i want this to have the best chance at holding up after he is revealed
authors note 4: logan may be the logic side but he is also the autism side
authors note 5: this just became a loceit fic but i’m not even mad. logan x anyone supremacy
authors note 6: this just became a self projection fic but i’m not even mad. logan x self projection supremacy
authors note 7: i didn’t know how to end this so have some weird janus and logan
okay hi!! finally done writing. got this done in like… two hours shockingly. i speed ran this fr
no beta read we die like men.
reblog if you enjoyed!!
#sanders sides#thomas sanders#sfw#fanfic#remus sanders#logan sanders#anxiety sanders#deceit sanders#logic sanders#patton sanders#roman sanders#sanders sides fic#creativity sanders#dark creativity sanders#is that a tag? it is now#virgil sanders#morality sanders#janus sanders#loceit#hurt/comfort#angst#fluff#my first fic here woooo
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What’s it’s like to be Luffy’s lover?
Pairing: Monkey D. Luffy x GN! Reader
Genre: Fluff, [AU]
Warning: None
Words count: 0,5k
You will probably meet for the first time somewhere on the street. No matter what you do, he will just come up to you and tell you how good it is
He's so direct that sometimes you might be hurt by his comments about something related to you, but no! he didn't mean to offend you, really, he's just that kind of guy.
He is very intrusive, he will literally come up to you and hug you from behind, slightly leaning on you with his weight, because he was boreeeeeeed🥺
He doesn’t care who is standing next to him, Zoro, Sanji or Law, he just wants a little tenderness and affection with a person from whom butterflies flutter in his stomach😩
Since Luffy's homies consists of marimo, ero-cook, Usopp, cute Choppy, beautiful Nami, smart Robin, superrrrrrr Franky, Brook who plays the violin and daddy Jimbe, you will one day be invited to a party with all of them, where Sanji will be respectful to treat you, and if you like to drink, then Zoro will invite you to drink some sake with him, after you get drunk and lose to him, the beauty Nami will move you to Luffy, ordering you to confess your feelings to him.
It was a lot. anyway you did it. and Luffy just smiled at you and was like "I love you too, (Y/N)! Let's go dancing or do you want to eat?😁" and then you hear Sanji's muffled cry: "YOU DON'T ASK LADIES LIKE THAT, IDIOT! THEY'RE ONLY OFFERED🤬🤬"
Once you made yourself a mask of cucumbers and Luffy, seeing this, also wanted such an "edible" mask. In short, you made it for him, but he could not resist and ate it, eh, feed him before the cucumber mask, otherwise his, in any case, non-existent, bags under the eyes will not disappear. (Umm, ok.)
Ace and Sabo know a lot about your relationship, as Ace always tells Luffy to come to them for advice.
Once wanted to steal a box of nestle bars from the supermarket, yeah.
Maybe stand, watch and gossip about women with children arguing in public with people who just walk past her.
you are both afraid of Garp.
Luffy has dirty sneakers, that's 100% information.
As I said, Luffy is very obsessive, he literally always follows you like a lost puppy, he also leads you by the hand, but if you don’t like it, of course, he won’t go, but he will ask a couple of questions: "WHYYYYY!?", "BUT WHYYY (Y/N)" and "w-why (y-y/n)☠😭😭😭"
Btw, he loves to watch different asmr with you with food from popular American mukbankers to Korean ones. But you must also have some food with you, otherwise he will break in the first minute and, offended by YouTube, will go to another room or to the kitchen
#one piece x reader#monkey d luffy x reader#monkey d luffy#luffy x reader#luffy x you#monkey d luffy x you#one piece headcanons#op headcanons
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took the words RIGHT outta my mouth with the last post. madhouse is a mixed bag more than it is an outright fundamentally broken story that would never work.
the worst part about Madhouse is that it has so much potential and promise. it's BEGGING to be written by somebody who actually cares at all about the story because most of the details really can work, but instead of being told as a delicately crafted story it's being used as a coping tool by a writer who didn't even know how to go about the damn endangered species plot point properly.
idk, i'm the kinda guy who likes seeing stuff at it's best and madhouse totally dropped the ball, so i just like the sudden wave of madhouse rewrites lmfao
btw your human characters look cool as hell
Yes! Full agree! I'm such a huge fan of No Bad Ideas, that I do genuinely believe any story could be a really good experience if handled by writers that care. Calling a story fundamentally unsalvagable is, I feel, pretty close-minded in a way!
Madhouse suffers basically from the author throwing everything in the pot haphazardly without measurement, when it needed to follow the recipe's gentle guide.
I also want to make self indulgent content, but it takes care, it takes patience, and most importantly of all, it takes real passion for the craft.
Lily Orchard Doesn't Understand Art. She doesn't care or respect the medium whatsoever.
It's clear she doesn't understand what makes the works she enjoys so enjoyable, because it's usually nothing that she thinks it is, nor is herself capable of.
It shows in everything she tries to create. People don't see what she tells them they're supposed to see, they see the total lack of passion, soul if you will.
Even this story can work and be so impactful if you put genuine soul behind it, and that's the beauty of ideas. It can totally flop for one person but thrive when handed off to another.
Her lack of passion extends to the lore of her world. examples include...
Ralts are going extinct, does this affect the characters or world in any noticeable way? No because she didn't bother to think any further than “i wanna make them more rare and special” also she finds a special rare endangered ralts just out in the wild near her home. wouldn't it avoid busy spaces bc it can sense people and Ralts are skittish? whatever it just accepts Lily immediately with no work because- ooh a piece of candy!
Silph co. has a cloning machine they wanna use to fix the population but how would this actually fix it when the problem is that Pokémon aren't breeding and why would they ignore Ditto who fixes this problem immediately? No idea because the machine was the only way Lily thought of to "Make cryptid child real!!" and nothing else. The machine only makes clones of the Pokémon put in, and not viable base forms of an evolution line, but this is never addressed because it's completely irrelevant in the face of Lily's Cryptid Lovechild over here.
Gardevoir made a psychic bond to her trainer without her consent, does this effect how they behave around each other afterwards? Not really! because she's uninterested in thinking about how it would! The psychic link connects their life force and thoughts but in a non-intrusive way so Lily the character just happened to not notice ANYTHING wrong here until she was told? Can you believe that? I can't.
How do these things effect each other? They don't! Nothing effects anything else because she doesn't care! They just happen and then stop happening and nobody ever talks about it again except to go “ah yes this is a thing, I will fully accept that and never question it again”! I've, notably, just described Lacey, the 'cynical' Kalosian Socialite. Who just fully took Lily the character at face value despite being a cynic and then vanished off the surface of the earth because she's irrelevant now that she's approved of Lily's Cryptid Lovechild.
I could go on but i'll cut it short. Lily only uses Madhouse to express her crooked desires uncritically and without consequence in a blameless void, Which is fine... if she didn't believe it was more than that.
Regards to you and anyone else also rewriting madhouse, I love seeing people capitalize on the potential of such a story, as well. In your own Asylum work so far alone, it has more soul and passion than Lily's entire body of 'creative writing' and 'critical analysis'.
On that note.
Thank you, Dillweed! I've actually seen your work before I started this account.
Your characters look so visually distinct from other styles i've been exposed to. Such strong expressions compliment each one of the characters vividly, enhanced by how effective every design decision is. I can respect how much thought you put into your own characters! Thank you for the ask!
#is Cryptid even a good word to describe Bonnie at all??? Cryptid Child is the whole personality but i looked it up and Bonnie doesn't even#match the definition google gave me of a cryptid? she's Eldritch for sure though i think. Hmm..#pokemadhouse#pokemadhouse rewrite#pokeblr#pokemon#answered asks#lily orchard is a bad writer#lily orchard#mikaila orchard
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～ 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐘 ✨～
『𝑨𝒄𝒄𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑴𝒆𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈』
—𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘓𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭：⚫⚫⚫⚫⚫
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー
(𝙿𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎：「𝗥𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗶 𝗔𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗺𝘆 」— 𝙎𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡 𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー
“Hey you—Stop right there! ”
Hearing his voice, I knew I was done for now as I felt a quiver up my spine. Turning around slowly, I heard his footsteps approach before he had already wound up standing before me, the hall suddenly seemed so silent.
Lifting my gaze, I had to tilt my head even more than usual just to see his full feature with how tall he was compared to me, that cold gaze those familiar emeralds that resemble dilated cat eyes looking down at you coldly without a hint of friendliness on that emotionless look on his face.
“...Do tell me, are you blind? Or that you didn't happen to bring along your glasses to school this night—As a student, passing by a teacher without greeting him upon sight”
“—What a disgrace you are!”
I thought about it for a bit, was it really necessary? Back in my old school, greeting teachers was just a courtesy that we only did if we felt like it...
But seeing how upset he was, maybe it was different for him. Bowing my head, I apologized in courtesy.
“... I'm very sorry, teacher Kuron—”
“Well, well, well—What's going here, huh?~—”
Startled from the intrusion of another voice, I step back reflexively and look up in surprised, there, now standing next to Mukami Kuron— blonde hair and blue eyes under long lashes, isn't that—
“...Ohh—Don't tell me, you did something to make our dear teacher here angry, I could feel the cold air coming from a mile away transmitted from this guy over here. What's wrong, M Neko-chan, did you happen to piss off our dear teacher Kuron here by chance? Ah, how unlucky can you be~ Sensei here never seem to take it lightly with any students that happen to cross him, from what I heard~ All the bad students that he's disciplined before...either turn over a new leaf, or.. disappear. Without. A. Trace—”
“So—Are you prepared for whatever punishment he will put you through...or say, are you actually looking forward to that that's why you purposely cross him on the path hmm?~ You really are such a masochist.”
Hearing something so ridiculous from the blonde idol, my lips parted, about to deny and protest—until Kuron interrupted.
“Student—Kou, kindly zip that boorish yappery mouth of yours before you become the second one to cross me instead. And I would much appreciate it if you would keep an appropriate distance from me and keep your hand to yourself. Please do not simply touch a teacher like that in school as it's visibly inappropriate.”
“Eehhh, why so cold—Best, friend ☆ I'm only so kindly giving a little warning to our dear reckless student here so that she knows not to piss off a scary teacher like you in the future. That is, only if she wants to remain and survive till the end~ What's wrong with that ?”
“...In the school, you and me are considered as a different position thus don't start to presume you have the same standing as I do, not to mention being with a student with a glamorous golden record known for skipping classes...non, merci. Further, I shall do my job on my own structure and unaided, so do behave yourself before I decide to spare the leniency and take you into one of my detention classes as well, stu, dent.”
“Ehhhh—No way! You wouldn't treat me like that would you, Kuron? I'm that one very special student of yours that you oh so care about and give special services to exclusively just, to, me ♪”
“—Silence! Stand aside and behave yourself at once—Mukami Kou!”
I watched the pair in pure bewilderment and disbelief as those two start to argue right there. Now that I think about it, this is the perfect time for me to slip away—
_Before I actually get into more trouble.
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Secret Santa Fic: I Think We Are Going To Be Friends
@istanrandomfandoms I was your secret Santa! Thank you to @songtam for hosting this!
So, uh fun fact: I currently am on vacation and as such can not properly ensure that my formatting is correct. So I apologize if this looks terrible.
Quick summary/trigger warnings: Dex hosts Jensi, Fitz, Keefe, and Tam over for a sleepover. Dex is an anxious person and worries over whether or not they actually want to be there. TW are probably for a non-graphic description of a possible panic attack that is warded off, some intrusive thoughts and a few swears here and there.
Uh, a few notes that are totally optional: I actually have never been to a sleepover so I apologize for any inaccuracies. Also, this is not the most accurate description of anything, so take this all with a grain of salt. And I still can’t end things or make good titles.
So enjoy all 2k words of this!
Dex didn’t know how he got stuck being the one who held most of the hangouts for the guys. After all, he wasn’t the best student or the most popular or the most social. He couldn’t even promise a quiet place to study.
Of course, there were a few possibilities as to why. Dex’s house was the one closest to their school. Dex had the best snacks. Dex has the best study method.
The most likely was simple because Dex’s parents were the best of the group. Tam, Fitz, and Keefe all had distant and harsh parents and too big, empty and quiet houses. And Jensi’s parents had been cold to them ever since they caught going to the musical meetings.
Dex’s house, on the contrary, was full of love and noise. It was big, but it felt full to the brim. There was a warmth that was missing from the others.
No matter what the reasoning was, Dex’s house was the unofficial-official hangout place.
Friday was one of the many times that this was brought into play. The guys were coming over that night, and they were having a sleepover. They were definitely going to do homework, but they were also going to do activities like watch movies and talk.
This wasn’t the first one Dex had hosted a sleepover, but it was the first time he had so many people at one. He loathed to admit it, but he was nervous. Dex knew that was normal, but he felt like it was admitting weakness.
But it was all going to go well. If Dex believed that, then it had a higher chance of going well. That was the idea, right?
—------
This was a terrible idea. The sleepover was going to go all wrong. Everyone was going to hate him for it. Nothing Dex could do was right.
These were some of the thoughts that were racing through Dex’s head the day of the sleepover. It was a train of thought that Dex tried to avoid, but he couldn’t always avoid it.
It wasn’t even anything that serious. He just had heard some kids talking about how boring sleepovers were during physics.
“I hate going to sleepovers. Seriously, it’s basically just watching a movie and sleeping. We could just do it during the day,” was what some kid in physics said. There were a good amount of other kids who agreed.
That comment allowed all the anxieties Dex had buried down in his head to rear their ugly heads.
He didn’t want some of the only people who tolerated him to start resenting him. Sure, they were only friends since Sophie was his cousin, and they didn’t feel the need to be close friends with him.
Unfortunately, it meant that they were only hanging out with Dex outside of when they had to make Sophie happy.
Therefore, if Dex screwed the sleepover up, then the other guys would probably not want to hang out with Dex for any other reason that they could avoid.
So Dex had to make sure not to screw up the first big sleepover he ever had.
Everything was counting on him!
He wasn’t sure he could do it.
********
The time for the sleepover had finally arrived, and Dex didn’t feel prepared at all for it.
Sure, he had prepared his bedroom (that really was the size of a small apartment) with as many snacks and blankets as he could get away with. And he had as many movies as he could find all by the tv he had, and he even managed to convince the triplets that they weren’t to disturb them.
Therefore, Dex had no real reason to be nervous. But he was. And it didn’t make sense.
Dex couldn’t afford to make any huge mistakes, and he would barely get away with all the small ones he would make. But he had to try and not destroy the friendships he had.
Ding Dong.
The first person was here. Dex raced downstairs towards the door, hoping that he would get there first.
Unfortunately, Dex’s mom got to the door first. Dex was almost at the foyer when he saw Tam and Keefe’s faces.
“Hi, Dex!” greeted Keefe. “Long time no see. How you doing?”
“I’m good,” Dex replied. He motioned his mom to go away, but she didn’t seem to get the message. “How are you guys?”
Tam shrugged. “Fine. We walked here together. Fitz and Jensi are coming soon.”
Dex nodded perhaps a bit too vigorously. He exclaimed just a tad too loud, “Sweet!” Dex then felt himself blushing. He did not have to be that loud.
Thankfully, Tam and Keefe didn’t seem to bothered by it.
“Why don’t you guys go up to Dex’s room?” Dex’s mom requested.
“Sure!” replied Keefe. “Come on, you guys! I want to see how Dex’s room was set up!”
Tam nodded. “Okay. Mrs. Dizzne, can you send Jensi and Fitz upstairs when they ge-“
There were three knocks heard from the door, and Dex made his way to open it this time. Standing in the door way was Fitz and Jensi.
“Hello,” Fitz greeted. “I see we’re the last ones here.”
“Yeah, we are,” Jensi agreed.
“Hi, guys. We were just about to go to my room, if that’s okay with everyone,” Dex explained. He really wanted to get away from his mother’s gaze and back to the safety of his room.
Dex trodden up the stairs, and the others followed.
“I have to warn you guys that it’s a bit messy,” Dex stated just before he opened the door to his room.
“That’s okay. My room is also a mess,” Jensi chuckled.
Opening the door, Dex gave his room just one more glance. He regretted not taking down all his posters, but at least all of his clothes were put away.
“Can I sit on the bed?” Fitz asked. He pulled his bag closer to his chest. Dex remembered that Fitz never really asked for things.
“Sure,” Dex chirped. “I call floor.” While the floor had multiple blankets, it wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep. Dex had actually planned to take it so the others didn’t have to.
“Cool, I call the couch,” Keefe announced. He took Tam’s hand, and dragged him to the coach with him. Dex had to admit that Tam’s angry expression was pretty hilarious.
Tam glared at Keefe. “What are you doing? I can just sleep on the floor.”
“What? Lord Hunky Hair not good enough for you?”
Tam kicked Keefe as he moved towards the floor. “You kick in your sleep.”
Tam put his sleeping bag on the floor next to Dex. “Dex, I am joining you on the floor.”
“Sure,” Dex squeaked. Dex hoped he didn’t kick Tam in his sleep.
“I guess I got the hammock?” Jensi asked rhetorically. They simply sighed as he put his bag on the hammock before sitting.
There was silence as the teens got themselves settled. Dex could not figure out if it was comfortable or not.
Eventually, Fitz broke it.
“So what do you guys want to do?” Fitz inquired. Dex felt cold shame fill him. He had things they could do planned, but he quickly realized that they were super embarrassingly juvenile.
“Well, could we play truth or dare?” Tam suggested, tongue between teeth. “I think that could be fun.”
“Sure!” Dex cried. He then realized that he might have sounded a bit too enthusiastic. He hoped that no one would judge him for that.
The teens sat on the floor in a circle. Fortunately, Dex had the foresight to make sure his carpet was clean.
“I call going first!” Jensi yelled. “Keefe, truth or dare?”
“Uh, dare obviously,” Keefe replied.
Jensi’s face scrunched up in mock concentration. “How about you do a cartwheel?”
Keefe recoiled. “Why?” he whined. “You know that I can’t do that.”
Jensi chuckled. “Should have thought of that earlier!”
Keefe grumbled, but he got up reluctantly. He walked a good distance away, and put his hands in the air. Lowering them, he stumbled and fell on his face. Dex laughed along with the others. It was pretty comical, after all.
“See guys?” Keefe asked rhetorically. “I don’t know how to do one.”
Keefe eventually moved back to the circle. “Tam, truth or dare?”
“Truth,” Tam stated.
Keefe rubbed his hands together. “Alright then. If you had to take someone in this room on a date, who would you take?”
Tam responded, “Not you. Maybe Fitz?” Tam tapped his chin. “He doesn’t talk during movies, unlike the rest of you. He isn’t as annoying either.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” Fitz responded. “I will hold it close to me.” The other guys started laughing, but it took Dex a few minutes to realize that Fitz was being sarcastic.
“Alright, who's the next victim?” Jensi asked after they finally calmed down.
“Dex,” Tam announced. Dex felt his palms become instantly ten times more sweaty, if that was even possible.
“Uh…Truth?” Dex mumbled.
“Alright,” Tam replied. “Why are your hands shaking? They have been since we got here.”
Well, there went Dex’s plan of keeping his anxiety hidden. He should have really expected that.
Dex figured that his best choice was to just be honest.
“Well, you know how it is. Anxiety and all that stuff. I’m used to it,” Dex joked. Surely if he made it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, then they wouldn’t treat it like a big deal. That was pretty sound logic.
Apparently it was not, if the others' faces were anything to go by.
“Dex.” Fritz’s voice sounded choked. “You shouldn’t be used to that. No one should be.”
The others nodded in agreement.
Jensi added, “If you want, we can just cancel the sleepover. It’s not worth it if it makes you anxious.”
Keefe moved towards Dex, and he grabbed Dex’s hands. Dex distantly remembered that Keefe had like some magical ability that allowed him to figure out what someone was feeling if he touched them.
Keefe asked, “What do you want to do, Dex?”
Dex couldn’t grasp a solid thought. Every thing in his head was moving too fast and too slow all at once. He could not fuck this up. He just couldn’t.
Everyone was going to leave him since he messed up and he is a human disaster who doesn’t deserve things and why didhethinkthiswasagoodidea????
“DEX!” a voice shouted. Dex realized that he was breathing very heavily and his eyes were closed. There were hands holding his hands.
Dex forced his eyes open. Sitting in front of him was still Keefe. Keefe who was safe.
“Are you back with us?” Keefe asked softly. Dex gave a small nod in response. He didn’t trust his voice.
“Alright. Mind explaining what just happened?” Keefe inquired. Keefe’s voice was soft and kind. It was a trick. Keefe was trying to let his guard down.
Dex was powerless against his desires to let his guard down. He rationalized it by thinking that at least he would be able to be free from the pretenders.
“Why do you keep hanging out with me when Sophie’s not here? Sophie is the best person ever, and I am just her messed cousin who is obsessed with tech. I can’t barely get through the first hour of a sleepover without breaking down. Why do you keep coming back for me?” Dex’s voice broke saying the last sentence, his voice barely above a whisper. Dex’s hands found their way into his hair and were pulling at his red locks.
Jensi spoke up. “Hey man. Why would we do that? We like you for you. Not because of Sophie. Not because of anyone else. We like you for you.”
Dex looked up towards the other two. Tam had a sad look on his face, and Fitz was nodding.
Tam added, “I became your friend since you were interesting. I don’t became friends with people just because we have a mutual friend. They have to earn it.”
Fitz gave Dex a perplexed look. “I don’t understand how you didn’t know that we wouldn’t be here if we were not friends. Why would you sleep over at someone’s house if they are not your friend?”
Dex started crying, but this time his tears were of happiness.
Maybe they were lying. But Dex wanted to believe that they were telling the truth.
“Thanks guys,” Dex choked out.
“You’re welcome,” Tam responded, and the others gave similar replies.
Dex gave a small grin and asked, “So, Jensi. Truth or dare?”
The teens laughed and continued their game. The sounds of laughter would continue on for the rest of their lives.
#kotlc#kotlc dex#kotlc keefe#kotlc tam#kotlc fitz#Kotlc jensi#kotlc secret santa 2022#tw panic attack#tw anxiety#tw swearing#sleepover fic#hope you enjoy!
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Um. Hi. I am actually alive! Ahahaha....
Sorry about the impromptu hiatus, friends. I'm like 85% sure I have some variety of ADHD and basically, if I'm not Very Invested In The Thing, I have significant amounts of difficulty doing The Thing at all. And, well... unsurprisingly, my hyperfixation on the arcana/fictif has faded into the abyss at about the same time as the stories themselves have. I still have both apps on my phone, though I'm not sure why. I suppose I'm afraid I'll lose them somehow, if I delete them, though I know there will be no further updates. Buuuuuut I digress!
So. For once in my life I don't have a main fandom I'm utterly obsessed with! And yet, I have suddenly found myself wanting to write again... so I suppose I have a few options, and I may as well let you all in on the fun, too!
It's poll time, baybee!
Option 1 - Open up my options for requests and take them for any fandom/character I feel confident enough to write for, likely sticking to headcannon list thingies instead of full fics. I'll still do Fictif/Arcana stuff too, don't worry! It'll actually be towards the top of my list, because it's my most recent obsession. Full disclosure: I've been on a little bit of a visual novel kick lately, so you can expect a lot of those in my content list, hehe~
Option 2 - Stick to what you all are here for, reread the routes and fics and such and try to get back to writing almost exclusively for Fictif/Arcana, and try to get out all of those requests I've promised... This will probably be the slowest option tbh, because I think I need to switch something up to get back into writing like I was, but I would be willing to do this if that's what you guys prefer! I'll probably still slip in the occasional thing from other fandoms, because whatever gets me writing, you know? But I'll focus primarily on this fandom.
Option 3 - Shift my focus from fandom content and move into OC content. You'll still get occasional fandom things when I have the inspiration, don't worry! I have one OC/reader insert that I use everywhere, because of various reasons, but the poor thing is horrifically undeveloped, and recently I've been working to fix that and expand on her life and background characters. I've never introduced her to you all, mostly because I just... didn't think you would be interested, and because I was afraid that bringing her into the spotlight would let you all see through the paper-thin veil of her character into the awful void behind it. But she actually feels like a character now, largely thanks to one of my best friends, who has pushed me to develop her further and helped compensate for the areas I'm lacking. You know who you are and you have my eternal gratitude.
Option 4 - Yes. Do all of that. I'll bring in other fandoms to try and spice things up, but try to keep a decent bit of focus on reviving the poor Fictif/Arcana fandoms, while also introducing you to my OC and working on her. You might get the occasional x character fic about her, but I'll try to keep primarily focusing on the x reader/insert ones.
Option 5 - Yes, but make a separate account to do the OC stuff on. I know OCs aren't everyone's cup of tea, and you might not want to deal with that, so I could always do a separate account. I do keep things pretty well organized here, though, so I highly doubt it would be terribly intrusive while you're trying to find my non-oc work.
#am not dead actually#returning from the grave as much as Felix over here#oops#poll time#btw if anyone wants a poll submitted to you because you can't do them yet shoot me a message#hi Moss. I know you're gonna be the first person here. Love ya kiddo
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