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backtothefanfiction · 4 months

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One Last Date For Christmas | PART ONE: An Arrangement At The Christmas Party

Summary: Another year, The same Christmas party and holiday hook up... or is it?

Warnings: 18+ Only, Smut (oral M & F receiving, p in v, mild dirty talk with Christmas references), Mentions of Cancer/Death, Fake Dating, Fuck Buddies to Lovers, this is basically Hallmark/Netflix Christmas movie vibes

Word Count: 5.9K+

A/N: Okay, so I've been feeling crumby lately and really need a boost, so although we took a poll and it was decided this whole story would go up as one piece at the same time, I need the motivation and have had a crumby week mentally and need a boost. So here is part 1. If you do enjoy PLEASE LEAVE ME FEEDBACK!!! I am like Tinkerbell, if I don't get attention I will die haha. But seriously my mental health needs the kind words for energy so please take a moment to share some if you like this part and not just like it. Anyway... ENJOY!!!

Another year, another fancy corporate business party Peter was obliged to attend due to his job. It had become such a regular routine over these last 7 years J. Jonah Jameson didn’t even bother asking if he was available to come anymore, just automatically emailed over the details so he could attend.

Peter couldn’t completely complain. He got free drinks and fancy food for the night. I mean in reality he got to act just like any other guest, despite the camera he had around his neck for the night. And instead of paying to be there, he was instead getting paid to be there. Sure it was only an extra couple hundred bucks, but at this time of year it really did make all the difference.

Being a freelance photographer only made him so much a year, especially when the rest of his time was spent moonlighting as the local superhero which didn’t pay a thing. Not that he couldn’t have made some money as a public figure. A couple grand here to endorse a few products. A donation of thanks or two from business owners or generous members of the community there. All of which had been options that he had turned down. That wasn’t who Spider-Man was and definitely not who he wanted Spider-Man to be. And so at almost 40 years old, this was Peter’s life.

No wife. No kids. Not even a pet, because he couldn’t commit to spending enough time at home in his tiny run down box of a studio apartment, to look after it. He sometimes brought girls home, he did have needs after all, but no matter how interested they had been in him, he’d never let himself get attached. After Gwen he would never get attached again.

The only one to ever even come close was you. He had met you 5 years ago now at this very event. Just like him, you always felt like a fish out of water at these parties, despite always being on the guest list. Your Father was one of the big business benefactors of the party and ever since the divorce you had become his regular plus one.

Just like Peter you were a chronic singleton, always too busy traveling for work to be able to sustain an actual relationship, despite your Mother trying her best every time you were home to set you up with some poor soul. She just didn’t get it. You didn’t believe in marriage anymore as most of them ended in divorce, your parents marriage and even two of your Uncle’s marriages prime examples alone; and as for children? You had decided at the age of 13 you wouldn’t have kids and no matter how many times your Mother, Grandmother or Aunt Sarah told you, you would change your mind, you hadn’t. If anything the birth of your brother’s kids had only cemented things more.

It wasn’t that you didn’t like your niece and nephew, you were just always glad you could pass them back off to your brother and his wife after a few hours of their shrieking play and demands for cookies and ice cream, while fighting over what to watch on the telly. No, you had never wanted kids and you never would. You had however always wanted to get a cat, but until you changed jobs or just simply didn’t have to travel for work anymore, that would just remain a lovely little dream for the future.

Peter always arrived to the party early. After all, he was getting paid by the hour, so the longer he was there taking photos, the more money he could claim from the Daily Bugle finance department on Monday. He aimlessly wandered around taking photos of the venue and the table settings and the odd entering guest as people arrived. He helped himself to horderves off of shiny platters and the odd glass of champagne as he worked, seamlessly floating through the crowd, formally stopping people every now and again for more posed group shots, other times just taking candid photos of people mingling. He took the occasional booming order from J. Jonah Jameson, “Hey Parker! Make sure you get a shot of me with the Mayor. Parker! Come here and take a photo of me and Mrs Perez! Parker! Take a picture of me and my wife!”

“Yes, sir.” Peter would respond with a smile. Usually you were here by now to laugh at the way he followed the head of the Daily Bugle around like his lap dog, but as of yet you still hadn’t arrived. Then a horrible thought crossed Peter’s mind, ‘what if you weren’t coming this year.’ He had seen your Father walking about, had even taken a couple of photos of him with various business partners and city officials, but as of yet there had been no sign of you.

Peter checked his watch again hoping you were just running late, but the closer it got to 8.30pm and the start of the meal portion of the night, he started to give up hope. He knew you were busy, always flying between Tokyo, Milan, London and Paris for work; but you were always usually back home for the holidays. He was just about to check his watch again when you came through the door like a whirlwind in red.

He watched you like a Spider sizing up his prey as you made a beeline for your Father. You gave him a rushed greeting and an apologetic kiss to the cheek, before you followed him and the rest of his group to their table, placed closer to the small makeshift stage that had been erected at one end of the long window lined room. He kept his focus on you as you took your seat, your father pushing your chair in for you as you turned to greet one of the other women at the table a couple seats away from you. That was, until J. Jonah Jameson’s booming voice called him away again.

“Parker! You’re over here with us!” He barked as he ushered Peter over to a table on the other side of the room. He was just able to lock eyes with you and give you a friendly smile before he took his seat. “I’ve sat you on this side so you can get the wife’s good side.” Jameson continued to say.

There was a couple of speeches and awards before the food was served. Peter was pleased to find that he was in fact in a good vantage point in which he could take pictures of the stage this year without having to move. He also had a clear sightline to you too, his lens unconsciously moving in your direction every few shots then back again.

Peter had chosen the steak and hasselback potatoes for his dinner with a rich chocolate pudding for dessert. When he finished his meal, he dismissed himself from the table, as he traditionally did, to go around the tables and take a few more candid shots of people before taking a break at the bar.

“I’ll take an old fashioned, please.” Your familiar voice suddenly came from beside him. “I’m sorry I was late.” you said as you leaned into him as if conspiratorially. “My flight got delayed.”

“Where were you coming from this time?” Peter asked as he took a sip from his own drink.

“Boston.” You said with a sigh. It definitely hadn’t been the answer he was expecting and his quizzical look at you said as much. “I was visiting my Mother. Her and her new partner Brad moved there a few months back to be closer to his grandchildren.” You explained.

“I’m guessing that means you got away with not being set up on a blind date this visit.” Peter fished, knowing your Mother’s habits and routines well after these last 5 years of annual hookups.

“You’d think so.” You said as you took a sip of your stiff drink, just to emphasize the drama of it all. “Turns out Maggie’s teacher is single and available.” you say with mock enthusiasm.

“Maggie?” Peter questions.

“One of Brad’s grandchildren.” you fill in with another sigh and eyebrow raise. “I wish she’d just give it a rest, you know?” You pause as you take another sip of your drink before you tell him, “I’m thinking of coming up with a fake boyfriend just to get her off my back. But then I know she’ll be all like ‘when do I get to meet him?’” you say doing an exaggerated impersonation of your Mother’s voice.

“Yeah, I think about doing the same thing with Aunt May sometimes, but I’d hate lying to her.” Peter confided.

“How is your Aunt?” you ask. The one blessing of only seeing each other once a year meant there were always things for you both to talk about and catch up on.

You watch as his face falls, his eyes turning sad as he looks into his drink. “Umm, they’re not good actually. We found out this year she has stage 4 breast cancer. The doctor said this is probably gonna be her last Christmas.” He struggles to look at you.

“Peter, I’m so sorry.” you say, mustering up as much empathy as you can as your hand instinctively comes to rub at his back. “Is there nothing they can do?”

“They said they could try a few different treatments but it wasn’t guaranteed to work and May ultimately decided that… Well she said that she’s lived to a good age and if this is how she is meant to go, this is how she is meant to go.” He paused, blinking hard as he continued to stare at the liquid in his glass. “She said I was a grown man and didn’t need her anymore.” He let out a small unsatisfied chuckle that wreaked of denial, before he finally looked at you again. “I just… I just feel guilty, you know?”

“What for?” You asked him.

“It’s just. I know she was always holding onto this hope that I’d meet someone. That I’d end up finding someone and settling down. Live a life like her and Ben did.”

“But that’s not what you want from your life?” you question him now unsure, as you finally sit yourself on the bar stool next to him. “I mean, if you wanted that, isn’t that what you would have done? Gone out, met a girl. Settled down. You can’t be someone you’re not just to please others.”

“But it was what I wanted.” he suddenly confides. “And that’s why I feel guilty because she knows that. When I first introduced her to Gwen, I said, ‘that’s the girl I’m going to marry Aunt May.’” he says with gusto, like he’s saying it exactly how he had said it to her, before his body deflates again.

“But things change. People change. We’re allowed to change Peter.”

“I know, but… she just, I know she never gave up hope.”

“You know what they say about hope?” You say.

“It breeds eternal misery,” he bristles.

“No.” You chastise. “It’s like the sun, if you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”

Peter’s brow furrows as his head turns back to you. “Did you just quote Star Wars to me?”

“Princess Leia.” you smile.

“God I love you.” he says casually with a smile.

“I know.” you continue to beam back before you raise your glass towards him. “For Aunt May?”

“For Aunt May.” he agrees before clinking your glass with his own.

You both creep away a little before midnight, catching a cab back to your apartment. You always went back to your apartment. Peter said it was because he wanted you to be comfortable and said it was more homelier than his place, but the truth was, Peter was ashamed to take you back to his own apartment. It looked like a dingy run down squat or some really dodgy student housing in comparison to your place.

He didn’t want to kid himself, he knew he was definitely punching above his weight a little when it came to you, not because he necessarily thought he was ugly, but more simply because you had more money than him. You’d never made him feel inferior for it. In fact you’d always wanted to help him by offering to put him in contact with some galleries so he could get more of his work out there. Maybe make some extra cash by selling some of his photos as art for the rich and wealthy, not just to a local paper, but Peter had never had the guts to take you up on the offer. It would make him feel indebted to you and throw the balance of your relationship off even more than it somewhat already was.

“Did you choose red because it’s my favourite color or just for the festivities?” He nibbled on your ear as his fingers ran across the velvet skirt of the dress, dragging it up to your thigh as he pressed himself against your back.

You hadn’t bothered turning on any other lights than the Christmas tree, before you stopped to take a moment to look out your window at the city. Christmas in New York was your favorite time of year. Every year to mark the occasion, you would go down to Rockefeller Plaza, grab a hot chocolate and watch as they turned on the lights. As kids you would go ice skating there. Less so now you were adults, your brother and his own kids had their own tradition of skating in Central Park on Christmas Eve, but some years you would still partake.

“I chose it for the season.” You sighed, your body relaxing back into him, head resting on his shoulder as he kissed his way down your neck.

“My festive little elf.” He teased as his fingers continued to work up the hem of your dress until they could reach your panties, which you had in fact bought new and chosen with Peter in mind.

“I even brought presents.” You plaid along teasingly.

Your breathing hitched slightly as the pads of his fingers dragged over your lace covered clit.

“Really? For me?” You could feel him smiling into the exposed skin of your collarbone.

“Mhmm.” You hum. “Maybe, you should unwrap me.” You tease back.

“Mmm.” He hums back deeply in delight as he turns you around to face him. The hand that was just ghosting at your centre, now wraps firmly around the back of your neck, as he smashes your rouge stained lips into his.

His other hand begins pawing at the velvety fabric of your dress again before he’s pulling his face away from you, his grin growing too big and you can’t help but give a satisfying smile back as you notice how your lipstick has transferred from your lips to his, marking him as yours for the evening. Your hand reaches for his and you begin taking steps backwards, pulling him in the direction of your bedroom and awaiting bed.

Your room is a slight mess from your hasty packing before you left for Boston and your equally hasty unpacking upon your return. You’d just had enough time to get home and get changed, rushing your make up and hair, before you left to go to the party. Your suitcase lay open on the floor, some of the contents lay spilling out from where you had hunted around for your makeup bag. The little pink bag from Victoria Secret sat upside down on the floor beside it. Peter spies it the moment he enters the room.

He feigns shock, “Did you buy this for me?” He teases as he picks up the bag.

“Don’t get too excited Parker, they were having a sale.”

“I don’t care.” He says with a boyish grin, despite his 39 years of age. “Come here and let me see.”

You smile at him as you begin to step closer to him before calling out into the room, “Alexa, turn on mood lighting.”

His eyebrows raise as a lamp in the corner of the room turns on, illuminating your bedroom in a magenta hue. “Mood lighting huh?”

“Do you wanna be able to see your Christmas gift or not?” You sass back with a hand on your hip.

“I mean, I’ve always thought of you as my Christmas present, regardless of what you wear.” He says as his fingers begin to grab for you again and pull you into him.

“Next year I won’t bother then.”

“Oh no, you’ve made it a thing now. I’m gonna expect this, every- single- year- from now on.” He says between kisses across your cheek and down your neck and upper chest. You begin to giggle and shriek in delight as his lips gently nibble at your skin. “Mmm. Come on then. Let’s see what you got for me.” He says ripping himself away from you so you have the space to reach behind you for the zipper to your dress.

The dress begins to relax its hold on your body, slowly exposing the black strapless lace bra to Peter before you slide the dress down the rest of your body to show off the matching lacey bikini briefs. You carefully step out of the puddle that now is the red velvet dress on your floor, your ankles only wobbling slightly as you still stand in your heels for him to take in the full sight.

He pauses for a moment silently taking you in before he gives a small nod. “Yes. Yes, this will do. Excuse me a moment while I go and write my thank you letter to San-“

“Peter.” You whine.

“Oh come on, don’t be bratty with me now.” He says jokingly as he steps closer and wraps you in his arms again.

“I thought you liked it when I was bratty.” You joke back as your arms wrap around his neck.

“Nope. You become completely intolerable and insufferable and…” You roll your eyes as he continues to list words, but nonetheless, begin to snake your arms from around his neck, trailing them down his chest as you begin to get down on your knees before him.

You begin to work open the button of his jeans, freeing his semi hard cock from its confines. He only stops his fake monologue about you acting like a brat when you take his length into your mouth and his hand involuntarily reaches out for the side of your head as he sighs.

The only sounds that fill the room now are his small gasps and moans and your saliva slick lips around his cock. One of your hands braces itself on his thigh, whilst the other works the rest of his shaft your mouth won’t reach.

You pull off him with a sloppy pop of your lips and Peter groans before you begin to circle the tip of his cock with your tongue and he jumps away from you with sensitivity, suddenly worried he’d blow his load too soon if you continue like that. It makes you giggle.

His fingers reach around the flesh of your bicep and he pulls you up off the floor before pulling you into him, his head nuzzling into your neck, lips and teeth nibbling and teasing at your skin and driving you crazy. He’d worked out that you liked that on the second Christmas you had slept together. He loved the way it made you sigh but also giggle and shriek when the sensation grew too much.

“Ahhh Peter.” you cried out with a high pitched moan.

He reluctantly broke himself away from you and the intoxicating smell of your favorite perfume so you could latch your mouth onto his, a satisfied smile struggling to be contained on your lips. He can’t help but smile back.

“Peter!” you shriek and giggle as he reaches around to pick you up and drop you back onto the covers of your bed.

Your hands get lost in his hair as he begins kissing his way down your chest. Your stomach involuntarily twitches as his lips move across it and the way his hands reach for your hips to forcefully hold you in place sends you reeling, a wave of arousal soaking your panties. His lips skip over your underwear, instead kissing at the inside of your thigh as his hands begin to relax on your hips, his fingers curling under the waistband of your underwear, ready to pull them down.

As he removes you of your underwear, he also takes the opportunity to rid himself of the flattering black long sleeved top he’d been wearing all evening. The removal of his shirt reveals a silver necklace that had been hiding beneath the shirt and the way the chain hangs off his neck has you biting your lip. It is so rare to see a man wear jewelry so you never realized the effect the sight had on you before, but there's something about the connotations and hidden meaning to it, his choice and confidence to wear it, makes you want to rub your thighs together in want.

His fingers are suddenly teasing at your entrance though and its almost enough to take the edge off, or it would be if his finger hadn’t stopped at the first knuckle of his middle finger. You realize he’s only done it so he can spread the arousal that was already leaking out of your cunt around between your folds and across your clit so he can then go in and lick it all off. Your head falls back into the pillows of your bed as you sigh out his name in relief.

You can feel the focus he has radiating off of him without even looking as he begins to expertly lick up from your entrance, swirl his tongue around your clit and then back down again as he draws moans, ever increasing in volume, from your lips. You found out very early on in your yearly dalliances that he was an expert with that tongue, making you cum not once, not twice, but three times just from his tongue alone, when you told him no one had ever actually gotten you off that way before.

You could feel your first climax of the night building low within you, your muscles growing tight, clit growing extra sensitive as your fingers tangled themselves into his hair, encouraging him and guiding him and not allowing him to pull away until you finished. The pressure of his tongue grew firmer and you ground your clit down against it until that tight thread within you snapped, your hips stuttering as pleasure rippled through you. He held tightly onto you, lapping up everything you gave him and helping you ride it out until you were actively pushing him away from you. He gave your bare thighs a small satisfactory slap as he gave you his smug tight lipped smile that seemed to say ‘another happy customer’ and you couldn’t help but let out a little giggle before turning your head and trying to hide the ear to ear smile that was on your face.

You were able to compose yourself as he shifted from the bed to shuck himself fully off the rest of his clothes, his jeans joining your red dress in a puddle on the floor, before he carefully lifted the necklace off over his head and placed it on your bedside table. You shifted yourself over on the bed as he came down to rest beside you, his hand reaching out to pull your face to him as he gave you a kiss before he encouraged you to climb up on top of him. Your lips didn’t part from his as you straddled his waist, your cunt involuntarily rubbing itself along his hard length as your tongues intermingled with one another.

His fingers reached round to grab a hold of your ass cheeks, squeezing the flesh as he encouraged you to grind down harder. You moaned and gasped against his lips at the drag of your clit across his skin. Your open mouth before him allowed him to reach out for your lower lip, sucking it into his mouth making you moan louder, before he began to trail kisses down your chin and neck. You closed your eyes, getting lost in the feeling and the sounds of your own voice. It sent a new flood of arousal between your legs and you could feel Peter grinning against your skin as you worked your slick over his length.

You paused only long enough to reach over to your chest of drawers, pulling a box of condoms out of the second drawer. The position allowed Peter to attach his mouth over your breasts, his teeth biting at them over the lace bra. You reached behind you to unclasp it and take it off as you sat upright, Peter’s hands resting patiently on the tops of your thighs as he waited for you to then open the condom. You held out the torn open packet for him to take the condom and start rolling it down onto his length as you reached back over the side of the bed to drop the wrapper in the bin.

You shifted your legs back slightly as you recentred yourself, one hand balancing on the bed, the other on his bare chest as he lined himself up with your entrance. He glided the tip of his cock against your folds, covering the tip of his cock with your slick before he began to encourage you back onto it. The slow fill of his cock inside you had you letting out a long sigh of satisfaction, your eyes falling closed, head tilting back as you savored the feeling.

It had been a slow year. Despite a brief hook up with a guy over the summer after a night out with friends and a quick tinder hookup in your hotel in Rome (where the guy spoke barely a lick of English), your only companion had been your old reliable rabbit toy. You’d be lying if you hadn’t been counting down the days to tonight the whole time you had been visiting your Mother. When your flight had been delayed, it was the thought of missing out on your one good and guaranteed fuck of the year that had stressed you out. Now it all seemed worth it.

Peter started slowly, his hips pushing up into you at an agonizing pace as he guided you down and your hips back with every thrust, the contours of his cock dragging agonizingly slowly across every sensitive spot inside you, working you up gradually to another earth shattering climax. Your body bowed over him as you let out small gasps of praise into his forehead, your fingers gripping tightly into the sheets either side of his head. You felt one of his hands run soothingly up your back and it sent shivers down your spine that only added to the sensation building in between your legs.

“Peter.” you sighed against him, as you pressed your forehead into his, your eyes closed in concentration as you chased that feeling inside you.

“What is it? What do you need?” his voice gently calls to you as he moves the hand that was caressing your back round behind your neck, pulling your lips down to his for a kiss.

“More. I need more.” you say equally as gently back into his lips.

You feel his head give a small nod in acknowledgment before he seals the deal with a kiss, as his thrusts begin to grow quicker and firmer in pace. It makes him hit something deep inside you that has you crying out. Your eyes fly open, desperate to lock onto his. He looks up at you with such beauty and gratitude. It makes you want to kiss him again and you do, your tongue licking deeply and slowly into his mouth in rhythm with his thrusts.

Your thighs shudder slightly as the sensation between your legs changes and you know your cumming again but the feeling of his cock moving between your legs doesn’t stop. It works you through the high and he still doesn’t stop. Instead his thrusts grow fast as he searches for his own release. You brace yourself, holding yourself over him as he just takes what he wants. If he holds out long enough you think you can get out one more orgasm of your own.

You balance yourself on one arm as your other hand reaches between your legs, swirling rapidly at your clit as you push yourself against his length, feeling every sensation of his rapid thrust. Peter grunts in response at the sensation of your fluttering cunt and it forces him to find one final push, his hips sputtering only slightly before he increases his angle and speed one last time, then he’s embracing you.

His arms wrap tightly around you as your final climax soaks his cock. Your head is buried into his neck as you try to shut out the overstimulation for just a few more strokes of his cock before he stills, his length pulsating as he finishes, only adding to the sensitivity between your legs making you squirm. He’s quick to push you off him as you do, his own sensitivity unable to take the feeling.

You both pause breathing deeply as you come down before he gives you a small tap and you flop onto your side on the bed. He quickly gets up, kicking his legs out to disperse the blood around them as his cock softens. You close your eyes to revel in the last dregs of your orgasm as he goes to your adjoining ensuite to sort himself out.

He takes a little longer than usual and you begin to frown, but then you hear the flush of the toilet and the door opening and you settle. You quickly get up, flashing him a smile as you hobble to your bathroom with legs like a newborn calf. Usual he’d let out a proud little chuffing laugh but this year he doesn’t.

When you return to see him sat on the side of the bed in his underwear, his fingers reaching to fix the necklace he had taken off back over his head and around his neck, you realize he looks distracted. “What is it? What’s wrong?” you ask him as you climb over the bed to your rightful side and slip between the covers.

His head turns, eyebrows raising as if he’s only just noticed you’re back in the room. “Huh?” he says. “Oh, nothing.”

“Really?” you say as he shuffles himself round to face you, put he doesn’t get under the covers. Peter doesn’t sleep over. He stays for a debrief and a chat for maybe another hour, some years two, but always leaves to return to his own apartment and bed.

“It’s just,” he says as he places an arm under his head as he gets himself comfortable, “I was just thinking about what you said earlier.”

“What did I say earlier?” you reply as you shift into a similar position to his, facing him. You look like two kids at a slumber party who have moved so close to each other so you can whisper really quietly and not disturb the others who are sleeping.

“About pretending to have a boyfriend to get your Mom off your case.”

You frown at him, “Yeah, but it’d never work because she’d want to meet him.”

“Okay, yeah.” he says, but his tone isn’t one of defeat, it instead says ‘wait, hear me out’. “But what if you had someone to take home and pretend to be said boyfriend?”

You’re still confused. “What are you trying to get at here Parker?” You suddenly sit up, placing distance between the two of you as a realization hits you. “Wait, this isn’t you asking me out or trying to be my boyfriend is it? You know I don’t really do the whole dating thing. We have our arrangement and that's-”

“No. NO. Would you just hear me out.” he speaks over you and cuts you off as he too sits up defensively. “Look, I just thought we could come to some sort of arrangement.” You’re silent as he pauses and takes a deep breath and you wait for him to continue. “Okay.” he says, his hands folding in his lap, “This is probably gonna be my Aunt May’s last Christmas.” he says and the implication of his words make you bristle. He struggles to look at you, but your eyes remain fixed on him so he know that you are listening and paying attention, even if his words are starting to make you uncomfortable. “I don’t want her to die thinking I’m gonna spend the rest of my life alone, you know? I mean,” he sighs, collecting his thoughts before he continues, “I don’t want her to die without hope.”

“Okay.” you acknowledge quietly as you follow his words.

“So I was thinking, what if- just for this christmas,” he emphasizes, “what if we pretend to you know, actually date. Come the New Year we go our separate ways as normal, no strings attached, but you know, just to get our families off our backs so we can live our chosenly single lives.” He screws up his face a little at the word chosenly, which he’s all but sure he’s made up but figures he’s gotten his point across.

“So, we pretend to date for the holidays to get our parents off our backs?” you frown, checking you’ve got his proposal right.

“Yeah. You’d come for Christmas Eve dinner with my Aunt and I’ll…” his voice trails off as he wracks his brain for an equal solution for you.

“You’ll come to Boston with me for my Mother’s New Years party.” You fill in for him.

He hesitates a second realizing he’d actually need to travel and stay with you and your family to make things even on your side of things, but the thought of letting May die thinking he’s going to be lonely forever, has his stomach turning more so he hastily agrees. “Fine, but-” he interjects, knowing a single day with his Aunt for a supposedly 2-3 day trip with your family isn’t a fair exchange, “if my Aunt is still with us in February, you have to stop by on Valentines day.”

“I thought you just said we go our separate ways come January.” You respond.

“Yes, but one meal with my Aunt in comparison to a multi day trip to Boston is hardly an equal-”

“Fine. Fine.” You concede with your hands raised.

He relaxes slightly as you come to an agreement. “You wanna shake hands on it or something?” he offers. You roll your eyes, your fingers reaching for the pillow you’d pulled into your lap to nervously fiddle with instead, picking it up and throwing it at him. “Hey.” he jokingly exclaims as he holds his hands up to catch the pillow before it hits him in the face. “Is that any way to treat your new boyfriend?” he deadpans.

“Uuuhhgg.” you scoff back with another eye roll but you can’t help the tiny smirk that creeps into the corner of your mouth.

I'm going to upload the other parts of this mini series on the dates that match up with the story (Christmas Eve, New Years Eve), if you want to be added to the list below, please put it in writing. All current tags have been taken from likes, reblogs or comments from other posts about this series, if you wish to be removed, just let me know. (I had a few more names who liked posts but it wouldn't let me tag you, apologies, I'm not sure how to fix that but I hope this finds you anyway.) Once again if you did like this, please don't just like it, respond with some words of your own to give me a boost.

@sincericida @tarzinnia @raindropsandteaandtears @xenasolos @dil3mma @ms-wild-card-56 @shivani1902

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padme-amitabha · 2 years

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Why do you not like Ahsoka?? I mean she’s more interesting than Padme, and Padme never gets referenced in the original trilogy, there’s a reason the final fight in rotj is between Vader and Luke with the emperor in the background and not Padme talking to Vader about how she loves him and all of that, plus Ahsoka is just badass and likeable, Padmes only cool in tcw imo, outside of that she’s kinda boring imo, no better than a character like Rey or Snoke imo, she also has baffling dialogue

Why do you not like Ahsoka?

Must we all conform and like her?

I mean she’s more interesting than Padme,

Subjective.

and Padme never gets referenced in the original trilogy,

Well, Ahsoka doesn't even exist in the movies until Filoni created her in 2008 and casually inserted her into Star Wars.

there’s a reason the final fight in rotj is between Vader and Luke with the emperor in the background and not Padme talking to Vader about how she loves him and all of that,

Because the emperor is alive and she isn't...? And she isn't force-sensitive to appear as a ghost. She may just be Vader's ghost and anything she says to him will be said only to him. We are following Luke's story. We as the audience don't know Vader would be redeemed and specifically what is going on inside his head. Again, even in ROTJ novelization before Padme even appeared Vader thinks of his wife and that she was very dear to him. Where was Ahsoka again in any of this?

plus Ahsoka is just badass and likeable,

And boring on her own because her story is mostly reliant on Anakin. What is she except Anakin's padawan? We don't see anything else of her except being a Jedi. Padme isn't just a politician. She served in public service as a kid, got elected as a Queen, had things happening to her, had a love life (with Anakin), has her own values and beliefs that weren't taught to her, and has plans and hopes for things outside her work. Ahsoka is a Jedi and can fight with a big plot armor. Totally makes her more likable.

Padmes only cool in tcw imo, outside of that she’s kinda boring imo,

See, that just means you prefer to see her as a Senator and you see Ahsoka as a Jedi. That's going for character stereotypes, rather than the characters themselves. TCW Padme is horrible, unlikable and completely different from her actual character. Filoni had to butcher her to make his pet more likable in comparison and casually insert her into the prequel trio because we all like our own things. He is so "attached" that he can't even kill her. Well GL created the others and let Anakin, Padme, and Obi-Wan die as they were supposed to so the story could be meaningful.

For all of her badassery, it was Luke's (and Padme's) love that redeemed Vader and saved the galaxy. Ahsoka like obi-wan and Yoda failed to turn him back and just went into hiding from him lol. Doesn't seem very brave to me. And when there are two Jedi who failed what was the point of her again? She was pointless as far as the Skywalkers were concerned. I wouldn't mind if she had her own story independent of the skywalkers but Anakin being 20 and assigned an even younger padawan makes no sense. Obi-Wan was older than ROTS Anakin when he trained him. No wonder Ahsoka likes to strut around like she's Anakin junior. It's stupid, unoriginal, and annoying. We didn't need a kid for SW to be relatable.

no better than a character like Rey or Snoke imo,

Rey is the Mary Sue of the sequels and Snoke is a background villain. Yes, totally equivalent to the mother of Luke and Leia who inherited a lot of her qualities that helped them become the heroes they were, a Queen and senator from her planet, the main character in the first movie and a part of the actual prequel trio. Padme was always going to be part of star wars. There's old concepts before she was even named and she was present in a completely different, older version of Star War. There was no padawan kid named Ahsoka Tano and she certainly didn't change anything in the Skywalker Saga aside from adding pointless filler.

she also has baffling dialogue

Maybe you don't understand her character well and TCW's dialogue is easier for you?

More thoughts on Ahsoka: 1 2

#ask #another ahsoka ask and im blocking you

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chihirolovebot · 2 years

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GODD- THIS NEW CHAPTER JAKCKEKDJEKC

I’m literally going feral over the reader’s independence. So often in stories, we see the reader glued to their love interest’s side with no motivation or drive of their own. They often feel like a film of saran wrap that the author just kind of, slaps on, which is why the execution of this story is so goddamn incredible.

The reader has depth and a certain je ne sais quoi that’s so undeniably “Danganronpa” that it only could’ve been achieved with intense, in-depth knowledge and thought about the plot and themes of the game. Not only do they feel like they were yanked straight out of the game, the way they behave and act feels real, and tangible, and human. We see them mourn, and grieve, and cope, and recover, and strive to do better, and AOCKEOKFKDJ- forget the fanfiction sector, there’s almost NOTHING in modern media that executes this kind of story well.

Following that train of thought, the reader’s relationship with the other characters has been developed so well. My worst pet peeve in a story is when the reader only interacts with their love interest and no one else, and yet everyone still seems to love them, but this story doesn’t have that problem at all. It’s so lovely seeing the reader interact with everyone, and provides such a nice breath of fresh air from the usual death and despair of Danganronpa.

God- there’s just so much that’s so incredible about this story, but I’m running out of words to describe it without sounding like a broken record. (Not that I think it’d be bad- you deserve a constant source of compliments running 24/7 for the absolute masterpiece)

So yeah, I look forward to seeing a new chapter at some point in time, but please take as much time as you need to get it up there!

OH WOW this is such a long thoughtful comment hello!!! it took me a minute to answer because i like to dedicate longer answers to this kind of feedback SO i apologise for the wait but here we are!!!

i cannot tell u how big of a pet peeve it is when the reader-insert for a story is just, like u said. a piece of saran wrap. like even if the personality the author gives them isn't anything like mine, it's still way more interesting than them just being a mary sue for lack of a better term. PLUS giving the reader a stronger personality makes writing their development so much more fun and interesting?? i feel??

getting the 'danganronpa-esque' writing n dialogue down was SO difficult because there is just a Way they talk which i cant even describe its just. the most normal dialogue ever followed by monokuma giving the most batshit insane monologue u have ever fucking heard. u go from sobering conversations between shuichi and kaito about guilt and grief to tsumugi talking about getting deepthroated by a squid. the whiplash between characters n conversations was definitely one of the hardest parts to pin down lol. i am SO flattered u think the reader-insert fits into the world of dr, and not only that but they feel real to u?? that is Insane. thank u very much u have no clue how much that means to me personally.

AND YEAH ok ok i think i said this in the preface of the fic in like chapter one but holy shit yeah, imagine going thru the whole story and the only one the reader had attachment to was kokichi. it definitely wouldn't work with the themes i highlight in my work (not just living for other people, living for yourself, and establishing a middle ground between trusting everyone and trusting nobody) especially with a character like kokichi, who blatantly flies in the face of those themes. it also just wouldn't work for the type of character arc i wanted the reader to go through — they want to want to live, and first they do this through loving the people around them and feeling that they 'owed' them to stay alive, and just now they're in the process of learning to live for themselves. but they could never have gotten to that point without the affections and connections to people like rantaro, kiibo, kirumi, kaito, tenko and shuichi. like. if the reader ONLY had a strong connection with kokichi, they could never have learned all those valuable lessons and grow as a person. kokichi provides something else entirely for the reader — he is a challenge and someone that makes them question their morality and the way they think. he's not going to be any help in making the reader realise they want to live (except when he's doing a little mansplain manipulate malewife).

thank u very very much for this!! i apologise that i rambled a lil i just Have many a Thought abt this fic and i could probably talk for days abt it. im very very happy ur enjoying it!!!

#dear venus.#🏚.sleep awake

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overlyimmersed · 2 years

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I really miss playing Union Cross...

But today I compiled my key kid's stats from the offline version that still exists.

Now the offline version is, of course, offline and that means the data isn't being held on a server, as the servers aren't there anymore. So all your game data exists only on the device you saved it to while you had the chance. This really sucked when I changed phones, cuz my new phone doesn't have an SD card slot. So my key kid's whole existence is reliant on a cell phone that doesn't actually hold a charge by itself anymore.

The absolute terror I feel at losing this data completely finally made my brain go "hey! Take some screenshots and archive them, dumbass!". So I finally did. And here's my data! :D

I was by no means "good" at this game, but I made up a whole story and life for this character and I can't stand to just let her and everything we accomplished together vanish.

Here's what she looked like when she started out (except the keyblade of course cuz that's a fully leveled keyblade but that was never part of her story it was just my personal favorite one.) A member of the Anguis Union with the title "Sugary Secret". I pretty much only ever had that hydrangea dress on her from the moment I got it. I was always a favorite, the only time I changed it was for holidays or when I need boosts from certain gear to beat a boss.

This is her sort of "final form" I guess. A more grown up looking, upgraded hydrangea dress and a new title "Bitter Promise". Plus different particle effects. The first screen shot wasn't timed well but she had sparkles, the second here shows Lux particles.

And this was our Spirit Pet, Twinx. This is the last picture of took of her, in her winter gear. I worked SO hard to get as many spirit parts as possible because I wanted to make the cutest little miss-match I possible could. She has a rainbow Pupstar body, silver Snowpup tail, blue Wolfstar ears, rainbow Tigerstar legs, and brown Weaselstar head. The data for the pets aren't in the offline mode, so I don't have much on her. I wish I'd taken more pictures, I was very attached to her. I probably put twice as much work in this spirit then I did Salaesha.

Originally Twinx was supposed to be a placeholder name, I couldn't think of anything good when I was first asked to name her, but it stuck.

Anyway, like I said, I wasn't actually good at this game, so the battle stats and such aren't impressive, but I did work really hard. I wasn't ever actually able to beat the game though. I couldn't defeat Aced in the keyblade war so I got stuck on that level till the game was taken offline.

I didn't bother screenshotting the scores for the Classic Kingdom games cuz I don't care about that really. Those are still playable so I could regain or even exceed those scores whenever I want. But I did score high enough in them to get the Starlight keyblade for KH3. Though that wasn't really that hard.

And that's who Salaesha was as far as game data goes. The story I had for her in my head was that she never actually participated in the Keyblade War, once she learned what was going on (that the Foretellers knew the war was coming and did nothing about it, that her own Chirithy wasn't honest with her, and feeling abandoned by Ephemer) she felt betrayed and deserted the unions, going off into the worlds never to be seen again.

Mayethians are extremely loyal and extremely emotional, so feeling betrayed by someone she'd given so much of her loyalty to, Master Invi that is, is a really big deal and caused Salaesha to reevaluate basically everything in her life.

She did also feel deeply betrayed by her Chirithy, who she affectionately called Chi, but they were able to make up and Chi went with Salaesha when she abandoned the Unions.

And that's why the title change. I had the title as "Sugary Secret" because she was kind of my little story secret as a past life for an OC that exists in the present of KH. "Bitter Promise" comes her feeling bitter about everything that went on and vowing to prevent other people from feeling the way she was made to.

Oh, the "sugary" part is just because she's a Mayethian. An alien species I made up that live off sugar.

Since Salaesha keeps being reincarnated, Chi still exists. Having to search or wait for the new version of his friend.

I haven't really decided how exactly, but I'd like to keep Twinx in existence too. Like I said above I got really attached to my little abomination so...

Oh! Hey if any of my old party members sees this, dm me! I miss you guys.

#kingdom hearts #khux #kingdom heart union cross #key kid #kingdom hearts oc #I think Chirithy are technically genderless and generally an 'it' rather then any other pronoun #but I always said 'he' while playing #and since it's my chirithy I can decide these things for this specific chirithy #though I really don't think Chi cares at all and is more of a he/they then strictly he #honestly it doesn't really matter #other chirithy may vary but this one is mine and i say he most of the time sometimes they

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zeta-in-de-walls · 3 years

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Okay, so you know one scene I absolutely adored in the Doomsday stream? Tommy giving Sapnap Mars the fish back. It’s such a lovely scene!

It was preceded by Tommy swimming in the middle of the ocean looking for a fish that had been released 2 months prior and I admit I had little faith in Tommy finding Mars again. But then he did! (Ahh that must have been such a contrast from other characters who were about to head into war. There’s Tommy swimming in the sea looking for something someone cared about. It really reveals his priorities, I feel.)

Anyway, Mars the fish has a ton of history.

-It was one of the first pets on the server, created so George’s fish Beckerson could have a friend well before Tommy joined the server.

-Mars and Beckerson lived in the Community house for a long time until Sapnap decided to rescue them seeing as how they’d been abandoned and nearly forgotten for so long.

-One day, Tommy stole Mars from Sapnap’s house after he killed Niki’s pet fox, Fungi, (and also threatened Tommy’s cow Henry) in order to demand an apology for Niki from him. Dream logged on and traded Mars and Beckerson back in return for Mellohi, Tommy’s disc.

-Then, after Sapnap killed Henry, Dream gave Mars to Tommy to help him have some leverage over Sapnap after what he’d done.

-Later on, Sapnap kidnapped Tommy’s horse, Juorse, and tried to negotiate Mars in return for the horse back. When Tommy refused, distrusting Sapnap, he killed Tommy’s horse. Tommy then challenged Sapnap to a fight, which he lost badly and he decided that things needed to end. This war was just leading to their pets dying.

-He and Sapnap went to the ocean and Tommy gave back Mars but convinced Sapnap to release Mars to put an end to the Pet Wars once and for all in a touching scene.

So Tommy bringing Mars back is a really good sign of reconciliation. Tommy had come to the conclusion that just because someone hurt you, didn’t make hurting them back right and it was mean to insist Sapnap release Mars, something he loved, just to make things right. This moment is something of a culmination of all that had come before it in Tommy and Sapnap’s reconciliation.

This scene’s also an interesting contrast to Dream. Sapnap had initially told Tommy he wouldn’t fight with him on Doomsday, because he didn’t want to be against Dream, his old friend. But it’s Tommy who asked to speak with Sapnap further while Dream hadn’t spoken to Sapnap in weeks.

Again and again, Sapnap had remained on Dream’s side because they were friends but Dream never seemed to reciprocate. Dream gave Sapnap’s fish to Tommy and helped Tommy fight Sapnap! And again, after Sapnap killed Tommy’s horse, Dream logged on to support Tommy - even though it was the day before a massive war where Dream was allied with Schlatt.

There’s other events too. Sapnap was very hurt when he heard about Dream’s speech about caring about nothing anymore save Tommy’s discs. He asked Tommy about it in a sad little scene before tagging along for the rest of Tommy’s stream where they named a pet bat together named Batthew and Sapnap helped Tommy make a present for Tubbo, helping to reassure him while Tommy was so clearly terrified of being exiled again. Their dynamic was nice for instance Tommy ran into Technoblade and they yelled a bit and afterwards Tommy noticed Sapnap had been quiet and encouraged him to speak up, realising that he was actually pretty shy. Sapnap confronted Dream only to see him removing George’s kingship and giving it back to Eret and it seemed like again he wasn’t respecting them enough as Sapnap and George decided to join Quackity and contest Dream’s decision.

And so on Doomsday, Sapnap’s loyalty is finally wavering and its Tommy who decides to talk to him, where Dream does not. I think that if Dream had so much as made the time to talk to his oldest friend, Sapnap would have stayed by him. But Dream didn’t - he’d cut out all his attachments and only saw them as weapons to control others.

So not only does Sapnap side with Tommy on Doomsday, Sapnap also comes to help Tommy and Tubbo out in the disc war finale, directly going against Dream. When he finally met Dream in prison, in his eerily silent state, Sapnap was nice yet he didn’t entertain for a moment helping Dream get out. He said that he’d hunt down and kill Dream himself.

#sapnap #tommyinnit #heh this is about the characters ofc #meta #analysis #that scene where everyone opposed dream - it was of his own making #and i just love tommy and sapnap's dynamic #they mesh so well together #also theyve got a history of betrayals #so its awesome they could become friends and put history aside #plus attachments and pets are a big part of their story #at one point sapnap brought tommy to where he pets were kept and challenged tommy to kill them #and tommy refused - in spite of sapnap having just killed his own

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mrsmctominay · 3 years

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NSFW Alphabet for Marcus Rashford & Jesse Lingard

NSFW Alphabet- Marcus Rashford

Jesse is done here

A = Aftercare Marcus takes good care of you after sex. He runs you a nice hot bubble bath and afterwards he will rub body lotion over your red ass cheeks. He will make you a cup of tea of you're up for it and if not, it's cuddles for the rest of the night.

B = Body part He loves your eyes. The way they look up at him whilst you're on your knees with his dick in your mouth or the way they roll back when he fucks you good. Even the way you bat your eyelashes at him when you know you're being a bad girl in public.

C = Cum He attempts to make you squirt every time you have sex. He has managed to do it twice, but it's always his aim. He knows he's done an extra good job when you do squirt.

D = Dirty Secret He is dying for a threesome with Jesse but he is scared of the reaction from the both of you, so he keeps it hush hush. His dick in your pussy with Jesse's in your mouth is his dream view.

E = Experience He's had his fair share of experience in the bedroom, but giving him a little guidance every now and then never hurt anybody. Plus, he finds it sexy when a girl knows exactly what she wants.

F = Favourite Position Good ol' missionary. I mean, he could get off just from watching your facial expressions so watching them AND getting to fuck you is just a win win for him isn't it.

G = Goofy In Marcus' mind, there's a time and place for giggles and it's not in the bedroom. He's more focused on you reaching your high, and hurting you...

H = Hair He's never fully shaved, it's stubbly. He says that he feels too bare when it's fully shaves but you're not bothered because it looks good the way it is.

I= Intimacy Dirty, dirty, dirty. The marks left on your body tell their own story. He likes to have rough, dirty sex. The only time it isn't rough is if it is a special occasion or if you ask him to be gentle. Otherwise you always know what to expect.

J = Jack Off If he HAS to masturbate, he does so whilst imagining a threesome with Jesse. He has a few go-to scenarios but he changes it up every now and then.

K = Kink Marcus has a huge pain kink. Hearing you whine when he places a hard slap across your ass and seeing the mark it leaves is so so sexy to him. The sound of his hand attaching to your skin and the sting that rises over his palm is something else.

He also likes seeing you in ropes, tied up and helpless. Unable to help yourself. But this only happens when you've been EXTRA bad, if you've teased him a lot around his friends. He wants to see you begging for him whilst also being unable to move.

L = Location The bedroom is good enough for him, easy access to everything plus you know that any position is achievable. The couch is an option if he's feeling adventurous.

M = Motivation When you trace your fingers over his thigh or chest tattoos. His thighs especially. It fucks. Him. Up. Or when you catch an attitude. Being extra cocky makes him hard as fuck.

N = NO He doesn't want to take pictures/ film the moment. There's always a possibility that someone could see and he doesn't want anyone seeing his girl naked apart from him.

O = Oral He prefers to give. The way your thighs tighten round his head as he eats you out? Him having to force your hips down because they wont stop bucking in pleasure? Give it to him.

P = Pace Rough, just like I mentioned. He's all over dirty, rough sex that will make you scream his name. Sex that will end in your body jolting in overstimulation, every part of your body being sensitive to touch.

Q = Quickie He is okay with quickies but no way does he prefer it to normal sex. He can't do as much to you as he normally would. But if you're in a place where a quickie is absolutely necessary then he will do it.

R = Risk He loves taking risks. Fingering you under the blanket when Jesse is over is his go-to. Knowing that he could hear or see at any moment really turns him on. Especially when he hears you come up with a cover up story to explain the reason you gasped out of nowhere.

S = Stamina This man never stops. He could go all night long and not get tired. Mentally, he keeps a note of how many orgasms you've had and each time he try's to beat his 'record', so you usually don't stop until he's close to reaching it, beats it or if you fall asleep...

T = Toy He may as well be a sex toy vendor. From vibrators with bunny ears to collars with the word daddy on them to bright pink ropes used to tie you up. He's all about toys.

U = Unfair He is very unfair. Especially when you're tied up because he knows there is nothing you can do to help yourself. During the day, he definitely has his favourite things to tease you with. Reaching a cold hand up your hoodie when you're in the kitchen, placing his hand so far up your thigh that his pinky can reach your pussy, pressing himself against your behind when you bend over to get something... The list goes on.

V = Volume He's vocal in the sense of dirty talk. He says some very filthy things to you. Using pet names that he knows drives you crazy. Calling you his little slut and telling you that you're a dirty little whore.

W = Wild Card He secretly enjoys watching you get yourself off. Using the vibrators or dildo's on yourself or gently spanking yourself with a paddle. He really enjoys it.

X = X-Ray Everyone expects Marcus to be packing, and they would be right. It's very big, sore if he uses it wrong but majority of the time he does a good job.

Y = Yearning The roughness of the sex would depend on how often he needs it. If you have slow, romantic sex then he needs it more times in the week but if it's roughest of rough, he will give you some time off.

Z = ZZZ Everything, including you, has to be clean and tidied away. Any toys used will be left to soak in some hot water and you will be tucked in bed before he goes off to sleep.

#marcusrashfordblurb #marcusrashfordoneshot #marcusrashfordsmut #marcus rashford imagine #marcus rashford #marcus rashford smut #rashfordsmut #rashford #rashfordimagine #rashfordblurb #premierleagueblurb #premierleaguesmut #premier league imagine #premier league

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asimpforarmin · 3 years

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What Dog the AoT Characters Would Have 💛

Character(s): Armin Arlert, Sasha Braus, Jean Kirstein, Connie Springer, Bertholdt Hoover, & Annie Leonhardt

Genre: Light-hearted, modern!au

Warnings: Mentions of animal neglect/abuse, some dog breeds commonly perceived as scary, cursing

A/n: I usually include Mikasa in my headcanons, but I just forgot until last minute that she existed ;-; so, sorry for not including her. If someone requests it, I’ll add her to the list.

💛 Armin

His parents got him a beagle puppy for one of his birthdays and he got so attached to it. He was so grateful that he had a dog and absolutely treasures him.

Named him Buddy because he’s his little sidekick and is always fun to play with and snuggle up to.

Buddy almost never shuts up though. A bird flies past the window? He starts barking. A truck goes by? Goes bonkers. He sees himself in the mirror? Shooketh.

Whenever Buddy starts going crazy, Armin picks him up, takes him away from whatever’s bothering him and scratches behind his ears. That makes Buddy practically melt into Armin’s arms and it’s so adorable. 💕

Buddy is very protective over Armin, or as protective as a dog his size could be. He always barks at the doorbell and is very wary of strangers.

If you walk into Armin’s house and Buddy has never seen you before, Armin will be sitting in a chair holding a dog who’s glaring into your soul.

You and Armin will try to have a normal conversation while Buddy is snarling and growling at you with Armin just patting his head and making an expression that says he deals with this all the time.

After a couple visits, Buddy is still tense around you but unwinds once you start playing with him.

Whenever Armin’s studying or working, Buddy will jump up into his lap and snuggle with him.

Sometimes when Armin falls asleep at his desk, he’ll have his arms on the table and Buddy in his lap.

When he’s in the car, Buddy tries to bite cars through the window. He just growls and bangs the glass with his teeth before Armin stops him from chipping a tooth.

Just how Buddy is protective of Armin, Armin’s protective of Buddy.

If someone talks shit about his dog, he’ll get sad about it. Buddy doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, he never hurt anyone.

Buddy can’t be taken to the park because he just agitates other dogs. He never gets along with them and never lets his guard down.

Buddy’s also one of those dogs who gets really dramatic. One time he was laying on the couch with his ball and it rolled off so he just started howling.

It’s also really hard to trim his nails without him growling, even though he’d never bite anyone.

Once Buddy has calmed down around someone, he’s fun to just hang around.

Armin likes to sit on the couch reading with Buddy on his lap or beside him. He’s great to study with or have around.

💛 Sasha

Adopts a 5-year-old blue greyhound from her local shelter.

She’d been volunteering there for a while when the greyhound came in and just couldn’t resist.

With greyhounds being bred to hunt and Sasha coming from a family who has a hunting background, it seemed like a match made in heaven.

She bought her and gave her a bright pink collar with a little dog bone tag with her name etched in it.

Since greyhounds’ necks are so long, she gives her a big knitted scarf to wear in the winter to keep her all nice and cozy.

Was torn between naming her Snickerdoodle or Candy because they’re both cute names and are both foods, but ended up naming her Pumpkin because she couldn’t decide and Pumpkin’s a really cute name as well.

Sasha loves playing fetch with her and it’s so fun because Pumpkin can run really fast, really far.

Pumpkin almost never barks unless she’s having fun or there’s someone at the door.

Sasha’s bed is lofted by a couple feet for storage and Pumpkin has no problem getting on and off her bed.

The first time Pumpkin saw Sasha’s bed, she didn’t know what to do so just sat there looking up at Sasha. It took a couple minutes for her to realize Sasha patting the bed meant she could jump onto it.

Sasha allows her dog on any of the furniture so there’s short hairs all over the couch no matter what.

Pumpkin’s really kind and gentle around kids so Sasha can basically take her anywhere. She’s super well behaved but sometimes scares people because she jumps in excitement.

Sasha also shares her food with her dog all the time. Always packs extra whenever she goes somewhere so she can give some to Pumpkin.

If you moved in with Sasha, Pumpkin would take to you right away.

She would literally be so sweet and always make you happy all the time. 😭💕

Plays tug of war and fetch a lot with you.

If you’re working/eating at a desk, she’ll lean her head on your leg until you pet her or give her food, or both.

Overall, Pumpkin is so sweet and adorable. She will always cheer you up when you need it and always has enough energy to play.

💛 Jean

Adopted a pitbull who is now 6, but was brought into a fighting ring when he was 4.

He knew it would be a challenge to help an abused dog but wanted to give him a good home.

When he first saw him, he was covered in scars and missing part of his ear.

He named him Kane. He’s a beautiful deep reddish-brown color with a white belly.

From the first moment they met, there was a connection. Kane warmed up to Jean quite quickly for a dog who’s been through so much.

Jean took him home and slowly introduced him to lifestyle changes, like going for walks or taking baths.

He introduces him to other dogs too. Kane showed a little hostility in the beginning, but once he realized they weren’t threats he was fine being around them.

Jean pays top dollar for him. Any issue he has, he takes him to the vet and gets it fixed up. He also gets the best food for him because that’s what he deserves.

Kane loves going for car rides. Sometimes Jean will get in the car with him, no destination in mind, and just drive.

Jean rolls the window down and Kane pokes his head outside. His mouth opens and because of the wind going into it, he showers the window behind him in slobber.

Kane absolutely loves swimming. He’s quite good at it, but Jean still takes a lot of safety precautions, such as a life jacket or shallow water because pitbulls are known to be somewhat bad swimmers.

Every summer, Jean takes out a kiddie pool and lets Kane splash around in it.

He also really likes to turn on the hose or sprinkler and aim it at Kane. He jumps up to bite the water and they both have a great time.

It can be a problem though because when Jean’s trying to fill the pool up, Kane keeps batting the hose with his paw or trying to eat the water and Jean has to get him to relax.

Other than his little quirks, Kane’s a relatively chill dog. He’s alright with being dressed up in costumes or having to wear a cone.

Every halloween, Jean gets both of them a matching costume and they sit on the porch to give kids candy.

Jean also lets the kids pet Kane because over time, he gets very welcoming of people and other dogs he doesn’t know.

Long story short, Kane’s not the dog you want to protect your house, if someone broke in, he’d just start wagging his tail and not be able to tell what’s going on.

💛 Connie

Saw how cool Jean’s dog is and also wanted a badass and cool breed.

He ended up adopting a doberman pinscher.

Like Jean’s dog, she looks strong and intimidating.

Unlike Jean’s dog, she acts the complete opposite of how she looks.

She’s often quite jittery or seems scared. Whenever someone even remotely raises their voice, her ears go down and she lowers her head.

You and Connie often have to give her tons of pets and appreciation after shouting, whether it’s good or bad shouting.

She’s also a total cuddlebug. She loves to be on Connie’s lap 24/7 and sleeps right next to him, watching over him.

Because of her timid personality, Connie named her Lily. It’s a sweet and innocent sounding name. Even though he sought her out to be a “cool” dog, she’s super sweet and didn’t want to name her something that conflicted with who she really was.

One thing about Lily is she loves running. Connie likes to skateboard alongside her as she pulls him along. It’s not much effort for her because Connie’s lightweight and uses his feet a lot. Plus, the area they live is pretty flat, so they often do.

Lily has a hard time understanding what is and isn’t a toy. One time she nearly chewed off one of the sofa legs. Next time Connie sat on it, it snapped and then he figured out Lily was behind it.

After that, he trained her to know everything he puts in her basket is a toy, but everything else isn’t. Then, she used the basket as a toy.

She goes through toys lightning quick.

Every time you or Connie give her a new stuffed animal, it takes approximately .2 seconds for it to be torn to shreds.

Connie loves to take her to PetSmart and let her pick out toys in-store.

If she chooses a toy that means Connie won’t need to guess what she likes and what she doesn’t.

One time she chose one of those scented rope toys, but once Connie took the packaging off, she started acting weirdly.

Once he gave it to her, she started barking at it and whacking it with her paw.

Connie was super confused so he threw it and she chased after it like normal, but once she got close to it she started acting scared of it and barking.

It’s been like that ever since now so they just don’t play with that toy.

Lily doesn’t bark that often. She usually only barks from excitement or when she meets someone new.

She also doesn’t have the zoomies that much so she’s a really relaxed dog to hang with.

💛 Bertholdt

Bertholdt saw his neighbors packing their stuff in a van one day and leaving but saw they left their samoyed leashed up outside.

He wanted to hold out hope that they were just going out somewhere for a bit so waited the rest of the night but found the dog still chained up the next morning in the rain.

He was never close to his neighbors and didn’t want any confrontation so he went up and knocked on the door, checking if anyone was home.

No surprise, they weren’t so he cautiously made his way over to the dog.

It was so happy to see someone and started licking his hand right away.

He unchained the dog and led it into his house where he gave it a nice warm bath and some food.

While bathing her, he took off her collar, with the neighbor’s number and address engraved in it along with her name, Mavis.

While Mavis was eating he called the number he found on her tag. He explained that the dog looked like it was left there on purpose so he took it in until they got home. They just said they didn’t want her anymore and hung up, which broke Bertholdt’s heart.

So he took her to the vet, got some pet things because he hasn’t owned a pet previously and she became a big part of his life.

She clings to him everywhere and won’t ever leave his side. Almost never barks and is super good on a leash.

Bertholdt takes her to the dog park a lot, Mavis is very social and has made a lot of friends there.

Mavis has quite the habit of rolling around in the mud or dirt though so Bertholdt has to give her a bath quite often.

Bertholdt absolutely cannot contain the dog hair. There is so much of it and it’s everywhere, went through like 3 lint rollers in the first week.

He spoils her rotten. Whenever he goes shopping he gets her new treats and toys because he swore to do right by her when her old owners didn’t.

If you were brought into the equation, Mavis would love you unconditionally. She’ll be there to give you high-fives and cuddle with you.

She is the softest thing on the planet so the cuddles are amazing. If you and Bertholdt sleep together, she’ll plop herself right in between the both of you so she could get attention until you fall asleep.

Whenever she needs something but isn’t up, she licks your face until you give her what she wants.

Even though she can get quite hot in the summer, she always wants to cuddle and loves to do it, whether it’s with you or Bertholdt.

💛 Annie (normally I don’t write for her but I couldn’t get this scenario out of my head)

Hitch gave her a chihuahua for her birthday even though she never remotely hinted at wanting a dog.

She didn’t want to return it though and oddly liked it, even though she never asked for him.

Just calls him “Dog” for a bit since she doesn’t know what to name him.

He’s a tan deer head dog so Annie gives him the name “Biscuit” after a couple weeks.

It’s super generic but she doesn’t think he needs any fancy name and he looks like a biscuit so 🤷🏻‍♀️

She has one of the backpacks with a compartment to fit a dog.

She likes to put Biscuit in there and take him out when she goes out.

When Annie takes him out, Biscuit is usually pretty chill, aside from giving a couple glares to random people.

Sometimes he even falls asleep in her backpack.

Whenever someone pisses Annie off, Biscuit senses it. Annie isn’t usually one to get into a full-blow fight and be loud, so Biscuit is her volume. Whenever she starts going off, he starts growling and barking.

And when she does get loud, both of them are yelling and screaming so that often deters the other person.

When she first got Biscuit, Annie didn’t really pay that much attention to him. She’d be on the couch and whenever he came up to her with a ball or toy, she’d throw it.

Then as she started to get used to him, she started to like him more.

Nowadays, she sometimes chases him around the house with a smile on her face and it’s so adorable, especially because she doesn’t smile all too often.

Biscuit is relatively calm, even for a chihuahua. He can often be seen on the couch on his back with his tongue out laying in the sun.

Speaking of being on the couch, originally Annie wanted to keep him off all furniture but soon realized he simply wouldn’t stay off and she didn’t want to bother to train him not to.

Now, they share almost everything. She sleeps with him next to her, they relax on the couch together, and sometimes she even brings him up on one of the kitchen chairs and they share food together.

Biscuit hates her alarm clock with a passion. If Annie doesn’t wake up from the alarm, she wakes up from the high pitched barks of her dog wanting her to turn it off.

Once the two are close, they are bonded for life and can be seen everywhere together.

#attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #Armin Arlert x Reader #Armin x Reader #Sasha Braus x Reader #Sasha x Reader #Jean Kirstein x Reader #Jean x Reader #Connie Springer x Reader #Connie x Reader #Bertholdt Hoover x Reader #Bertholdt x Reader #Annie Leonhardt x Reader #Annie x Reader

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tangledbea · 2 years

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Hi, I was thinking how it seems a little odd that, out of all the animal sidekicks created for Disney movies, there are very few dogs and no cats, dunno if it's because they try to go with unique choices and maybe avoid abandoned pets issues. Anyway, I like Pascal a lot, but wouldn't Rapz be the quintessential cat lady, being closed alone and all that? Plus, there was some concept art of her petting cats in the kingdom, any idea on why that got rejected? Thanks a lot!

I get the impression from this ask that you are a cat person. lol I am, too.

I think you hit the nail on the head about them wanting to have unique animal sidekicks in their movies. I know Pascal was a chameleon specifically because they wanted something unique (and one of the crew members had a chameleon, so they thought that was a cool direction). Dogs and cats might not be the animal sidekicks in Disney movies very often, but they are often Disney protagonists (101 Dalmatians, Aristocats, Oliver and Company, etc).

As for Rapunzel being a quintessential cat lady, do you really think Gothel would bring Rapunzel a cat? That would be another creature she would have to bring food etc for, and Gothel seems very anti-pet in general. I can’t imagine her allowing an animal that could conceivably shred her stuff be around. Even before the series gave us a way that they met, Pascal being her animal companion worked for her story because he could hide in plain sight, so Gothel wouldn't know about him. To this day, I think him tugging on her dress at the climax of the movie was the first time she was particularly aware of him. In fact, it was a big deal that he did that, because for the first time, he let her see him, and it was to defend Rapunzel.

There are a lot of things that got rejected from the whole Kingdom Dance part of the movie, including dress- and shoe-shopping. I'm sure the artists were told to come up with ideas for things Rapunzel might like to do in a kingdom when she's never been out of the tower before, seeing things she's never seen before. For the sake of pacing in the scene, they opted to stick with her growing attachment to Eugene and her connections with other people instead of a lot of side solo activities (like stopping to pet every cat she sees).

#Tangled #Rapunzel #Pascal #Analysis #Speculation #Answered

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venteamocha · 3 years

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Hello! Sometimes I see you post stuff from IF blogs and I've recently started playing some IF games, which I've enjoyed so far. Do you have any IF stories you'd recommend in particular? I'm not attached to any particular genre and I don't need romance or a self-insert main character, (though I'm not opposed to either). Though, it's a definite plus if it's LGBTQ+ inclusive! I'm not really sure what the "cornerstones" are of IF so I'll take any and all recommendations haha

Oh god, I play so many IFs. So many. And it’s not even close to all of them, but I’m trying!!

Tbh IFs without romance seems to be very rare, I think because when I think IF I think Choice of Games, and those pretty much always have romance in them. At least, the most well known ones do. But a well done one without romance would be nice too!

Okay, this is a list of my favourites! They’re all LGBT+ inclusive, and most have gender selectable love interests, or at least ones that change gender depending on the gender and sexuality combination you pick. In no particular order, of course. Behind a cut because I’m gonna give them each a mini review. Because I haven’t done that yet.

(There are so many.)

Mind Blind: I absolutely love our big brother Nick, I love how witty and sharp so much of the dialogue is, I love how the MC clearly has a rather large handicap, but is still such an important person to so many people and not looked down on in the slightest. And when they are, we all know it’s because that person is a jerk! They’re not defined by what they aren’t, but what they are, and that’s a great message.

Shepherds of Haven: Part of why I love this one so much is I just love fantasy settings and this one just pulls it off so well. The cast is full of amazing characters, and I gotta say I die inside pretty regularly for not being able to afford the patreon content, lol. The author puts so much amazing stuff on there, and gives us so much great content in the game and through answers on tumblr, and you can tell this whole thing is just the best thing ever to them, and that makes it the best ever for us readers too!

The Wayhaven Chronicles: I’d be shot if I didn’t mention this one, the series that literally killed dashingdon when the book 3 demo dropped!! Again, another author that cares a lot and does their best to do right by their fans. We’ve been given drip after drip of these amazing characters backstories, and I just cannot wait for more! It’s definitely very romance centered, but the overall plotlines are also very good, and I have to say that no matter who I romance, I just feel like the group as a whole is a family. And that’s wonderful.

Speaker: I really like the lore. I really like the lore. I can’t wait until we get more of the overall plotline. Mostly I want my Speaker to get in deep trouble so Seb, Li and Seer (best sister ever) go off and beat the shit out of whatever is causing it. This probably says something about me, but what can I say, I thrive on angst and inflicting near death injuries on my OCs. Sometimes I even kill them, although all of this is offtopic. Or is it? I guess we’ll find out, although I doubt we’ll actually be able to kill off Speaker. And yes, I am definitely playing the Seb & Li poly route. I love them both so much.

Wilhelmina: I love vampires, ok? Ok? And this one is based off Dracula!! The OG!! And you can choose Drac’s gender!! Shit, sign me up forever!! Yeah, she might be literally killing my bff, torturing my fiancé and low key fucking with my mind, but vampires are hot!! Let me live! Or not. But yeah, this is a really well done retelling of the Dracula novel and I like how well it works as an IF. Did I mention I like vampires?? Especially when they get all monstery?? (This one has an MC with a set gender, as it’s based on an already existing literary figure. Mina can have a same sex relationship with dracula, if you make drac a female, or with Lucy, a female love interest.)

More Things in Heaven and Earth: Hi Nell!! First off, I gotta uncover a deep shame of mine. My family literally has a Shakespeare heirloom collection. As in, my greatgrandfather passed down through the family a collection of Shakespeare that was published in 1911. In ye olde englishe. I tried to read it when I was like 10 and was like what language is this?? What the fuck? What the fuck??? And ended up reading As You Like It, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, and a little of Hamlet. Didn’t touch the rest of it. I only got into the other stories through trashy ya reimaginings. That said, this retelling of Hamlet inspired me to go read the whole of the original and now I have a lot of fears for these characters that I’m so much more attached to, oh god I hope my Ophelia has a happy ending. I hope Hamlet himself has a happy ending. The dialogue is so well done, everyone is engaging, and yeah it made me finish an old af book when nothing else did. (This one also has an MC with a set gender, female, for the same reason. However, there are two gender variable love interests, so you can very much play a bi or gay Ophelia if you so choose.)

Guenevere: I love King Arthur. All the myths. I have so many books based on the King Arthur mythos, oh dear god. I love pretty much every version of it. All the movie and tv shows too! I just can’t get enough of those knights. I could go on for paragraphs about how courtly love worked and how all the different social castes were, but I’ll try not to. This series lets you customize Guen as a character to an amazing degree, considering that she’s also based on an actual literary figure like the other two I mentioned above. It really feels like she becomes your own character, and yet she still exists within this world very very well. I worry quite a bit that the author might have bit off more than they can chew with the current book they’re working on, what I’ve seen of it looks absolutely massive in scale. What is out so far is a wonderful read though, full of drama and laughter and lots of chances to make the story your own.

Bastard of Camelot: Yep! Another King Arthur series! Sue me! This one lets you set Mordred’s gender though, so it’s more inclusive in that way. It is very interesting to play as one of the “bad guys” of the King Arthur mythos. You can play them as straight up evil, as good, or you know, a bit of column a and a bit of column b. Or they can just be a rude little shit. It’s got dragons too! You get a dragon pet! Dragons are cool. It can be a bit tough to play sometimes, since a lot of people dislike Mordred quite a lot because of prejudices. Hopefully this will change a bit later in the series if you’ve been a fairly good person up to that point. Gotta say though, as a warning, that Mordred is a product of incest. It’s not glossed over, and it does cause a lot of problems for them in the story.

God of the Red Mountain: I just love that this inspired me to read more chinese mythology tbh. There is just so much here! And it’s just such a good read. I wish I was better at describing things. The MC being a spirit that you can define, the whole setting, most of the love interests also being spirits, the massive amount of history and culture and lore, how it all fits together. It is such a well done story. I really wish it got more attention than it does. I still miss Big Sister. I still can’t wait to find out more about the foxes, and how we can heal our MC.

The Nameless: Another one that lets you play as something otherworldly. I love the lore behind this one, and I love all of the cast I’ve met. I kind of like that our MC isn’t loved right off the bat, that we’ll have to win over all of our love interests and even the other npcs. I’m up for the challenge! Everything I’ve read on the tumblr for these characters just makes me love them all more tbh. I love how much they’ve written for all of them! Most of all though, I love Oisein. All the art of them is just *chef kiss* and their personality is magical.

A Mage Reborn: This is a really recent one but!! Wow, it’s really well done! That cliffhanger!! Oof!! Not many books literally start with killing your MC off! That takes guts! I told the author this already, but I love the way they formatted this, the way it starts with the end, so to speak, and then fills it all out. It just made everything feel so poignant, how MC is literally looking back at all these moments in time in the last minutes they have before they die. Shit. That’s powerful. And there’s gonna be more??? Can’t wait for that angst. Give me that drama. Of course I picked the one who had me killed, that’s just how I am!

These are all just the COG type games, there are a few twine games with graphics I’d throw on here, but the list is long enough as it is and they feel like they’re in a different category to me. Maybe it’s just me?

#if #if recs #rivi's recs #interactive fiction #there are more than these that i like too!#these are just the ones i feel the strongest about #and as i said these don't include the itchio twine ones #there are amazing ones there too but that feels like it should be a separate post?#i'd put links but i think it won't show up anywhere if i do #because tumblr is A Site #i can pass them on though if needed

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averykedavra · 4 years

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Dance Until the Dawn

Hey, guys! I just finished one fic event, so clearly it’s time to start another! Seriously though, this looked like fun and it might help me transition into working on smaller projects again. So I’m trying some prompts for Soulmate September! Who knows how many I’ll complete, but I’ve got little plans for all of them, so you might get a lot of content this September!

(Tagging @tsshipmonth2020! Song title from Willow Tree by Rival, Cadmium, and Rosendale. You can find this story on Ao3 here.)

Prompt: Day 1. Your Soulmate’s name is written on your wrist or palm. 

Pairing: QPR Royality.

Words: 9913

Warnings: referring to a trans character by their past name and pronouns during the time period when they used those identifiers, some internalized transphobia, internalized harmful beliefs about soulmates, rabies mention, crying, some self-deprecation, vaguely implied gender dysphoria? it’s more on the gender euphoria end.

Patton was eight when he got his heart broken, and he barely even realized it’d happened. Afterwards, he’d look back at that afternoon and wince--or, if he was having a really bad day, cry. It was sad, really. The whole day had been great, and it would have been a nice memory, if not for the soulmates.

They’d been lying on the treehouse floor, the two of them, Patton falling off the side of a large squishy beanbag and Ro drumming her feet on the windowsill. They’d spent a good few hours playing teatime with Patton’s stuffed frog and Ro’s committee of plush puppies. Every time things got boring, Ro would say “oh no, here comes the dragon” and teatime would turn into Rescue the Princess time. But eventually Ro had run out of places to hide the princess because the treehouse was only so big.

The treehouse was their favorite place. It had red walls and a corrugated roof that went ping-ping-ping when it rained and a scratchy rope ladder and a small window with a bucket hanging out of it for Secret Important Messages. In other words, it was perfect.

So after one last daring rescue mission, the stuffed animals were piled in a corner under Patton’s drawing of a dinosaur, and Ro pulled out the storybooks she’d gotten at the library. Patton grabbed his own as well. They were only allowed to check out five at a time, but five plus five was ten, and ten was plenty to keep them busy.

Patton liked books with animals on the cover. He didn’t really care about the story as long as there were animals. And Ro liked adventures. Today she’d brought a whole stack of books, each of the covers sporting dragons and pirates and damsels in distress and brave knights who got them out of distress. Patton thought they could be a little scary. And violent. But Ro always stopped if Patton got nervous, and anyway, it was hard to be scared on a warm spring afternoon with carpet tickling his toes and a lollipop stuck in his mouth.

“Me first!” Ro opened a book with a princess on the front. “We’ll do you next, promise!”

“Okay!” Patton said. He didn’t mind much. Animals were great, but Ro’s stories got interesting.

Because Ro liked to rewrite the stories afterwards.

That was Patton’s favorite part of the afternoon. They’d done it for almost a year, ever since Patton moved here and was greeted by a huge grin and a long black braid and an impressive amount of sparkly hair clips. Being friends with Ro was simple--Patton didn’t know how he’d ever been friends with anyone else, because nobody was like Ro. Nobody understood Patton like Ro did, always knowing when he was upset. Nobody made Patton smile like Ro did, with her endless stories and boundless excitement. Nobody completed Patton like Ro did. They fit together so neatly, like puzzle pieces clicking into place. They were eight and together and the world was wide, exciting and full of new things to read.

“So,” Ro said in her storyteller voice, flipping her hair over her shoulder. And Patton shuffled over to Ro and peered at the book, careful to keep his sticky fingers away from the pages. He wiggled with anticipation.

It was a good story. It was about a lonely princes who was born with no name on her wrist. No soulmate. Her family despaired and she herself mourned, because she would never have a true love. Then a handsome knight saved her from a vicious dragon--this was the part Ro liked the most, dipping her voice to read the knight’s part, Patton playing the princess because all she did was cry a lot. The princess and the knight fell in love, but she knew they weren’t soulmates, so they couldn’t be together. Then they learned the knight hadn’t been given a name at birth, so it hadn’t shown up on the princess’ wrist, and they were soulmates after all. They kissed--“Ew,” Patton said as he finished up his lollipop, and Ro nodded in agreement--and got married and lived happily ever after, the end.

“The thing is,” Ro said, closing the book slowly with her nose wrinkled in concentration. “The thing is.”

“What’s the thing?” Patton asked. Here it was. The fun part.

“The thing is, I think his name should have shown up anyhow.”

“Really? Why?”

“I think it’s cheating!” Ro declared. “Why’d his name not show up ‘cause he didn’t get one when he was a baby? I don’t remember anything from when I was a baby! It’s stupid!”

“It’s not,” Patton said, more out of a desire to get Ro talking than any kind of real belief. “That’s just how soulmates work. It’s your true name, the name on your birth cert-if-i-cate.”

“Your what?” Ro asked, momentarily distracted.

“It’s a piece of paper,” Patton explained, feeling a little proud to know something Ro didn’t. Ro knew almost everything, and the stuff she didn’t, she was good at making up. “They give it to you when you’re born. It proves you got born.”

“Of course I got born!” Ro said, waving a hand at her chest. She was wearing a faded Cinderella t-shirt and there was a hole in the side from the time they played Hide and Seek next to a wire fence. “I don’t see why anyone’s gotta have some paper. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t born, right?”

Patton shrugged. “It’s just the rule.”

By now, he understood that some things were Just the Rule. That was code for something he wasn’t supposed to argue with. There was also That’s How It Is, and sometimes You’ll Understand When You’re Older, and once in a while Because I Said So, Patton Mbow.

“Soulmates have rules,” Patton added, “because they gotta! You hafta have them or else the world goes ker-splooey.”

“But soulmates are magic!” Ro looked deeply offended. She clapped her hands together. “Unity! Two people are magic and they find each other and it’s magic. Magic shouldn’t have rules. That’s no fun!”

Patton shrugged and fiddled with his bracelet. It covered his left wrist and was sprinkled with liberal amounts of glitter. People liked to cover the names on their wrists because it was kinda private and you didn’t want people peeking at them sometimes. Patton didn’t mind. He’d have a chance to find his soulmate later. Magic could help him out and he’d meet his soulmate like Mom and Mami and he’d live happily ever after, the end.

Not now, though. Now he had books and a treehouse and Ro, who was glowing the way she always did when an idea caught her attention. Her eyes glittered like stars and her hands flew like they were birds and sometimes she ran out of breath but she’d barrel ahead anyway with barely a pause.

Gosh, Ro was amazing.

“It’s just too complicated,” Ro was saying when Patton shook himself and focused. “True names are your birth name but also not really? So many rules! It’s like math. Magic shouldn’t be like math.”

“I like math,” Patton said. “Sometimes our math teacher gives us cookies.”

“I like math too,” Ro said. Which wasn’t true, but Patton appreciated it anyway. “But magic and math aren’t the same!”

“They have some of the same letters!”

“Well, they’re kind of the same, then.” Ro waved a hand. “But magic shouldn’t be like math, it should be like...like...”

Patton waited as Ro fought for a word. She’d find it. She always did.

“Like singing!” Ro exclaimed. “Everyone knows how to sing ‘cause it’s simple! No rules!”

“I’m not sure,” said Patton, who’d gotten several comments when he sang a song from Sesame Street during the school concert about butterflies. “I think singing has rules, too.”

“No it doesn’t! You just sing the notes at the right times!” As an example, Ro sang the first few words of Hakuna Matata, but she’d forgotten the rest of them, so she trailed off with a “something something problem-free.” Patton clapped anyway. Ro was a good singer.

“Like that,” Ro said triumphantly. “If you have the words and the tune and the beat, it’s all set!”

Patton giggled. “Those kinda sound like rules.”

“They do?” Ro scrunched up her nose. “Oh, come on! Why does everything fun have to have all these rules attached? If I was in charge, I’d stop with the name thing altogether!” She nodded triumphantly. “Who cares about names anyway? They’re just words! I’d rather get something interesting, like...favorite foods! Or pets! Or--Disney movies! Names are so short and boring.”

“People have the same pets,” Patton pointed out.

“People have the same names, too! Like there are two Emmas in the grade up!” Ro shrugged. “I think it should be more interesting than names, is all I’m saying.”

“I think,” Patton said slowly, to make sure Ro wasn’t going to keep talking. Ro had gone silent and watched Patton with interest, chin in her hands.

“I think,” Patton said again, “that people should use whole names instead. They’d be easier to find if there were whole names.”

“There’s no room,” Ro said.

“You could write it real small!”

Ro looked at her wrist, the one not covered with a strip of ribbon. “Good point!”

Patton beamed.

“I still think names are boring, though.” She stuck out her tongue. “It’s not even nicknames! I’d rather it be nicknames.”

“You don’t like your name?” Patton asked.

Ro scrunched up her nose again.

Ro’s full name was Aarohi. Her last name was even longer. Patton called her Ro when they’d first met and he didn’t really know how to say Aarohi--he had trouble with words sometimes and it helped to keep them short. He was better now, but Ro had stuck so Ro was what Ro remained.

“Your soulmate can call you whatever,” Patton reassured Ro. “Darling or stuff like that. That’s what my moms say.”

“I want my soulmate to call me Ro,” Ro said decisively. “Just Ro. I like Ro.”

Patton scrunched up his eyebrows. “I call you Ro.”

“Yeah, and I like it.”

Patton couldn’t really explain the weird feeling in his stomach. He felt vaguely that a designation like that for a nickname--that it was for soulmates--meant Patton was no longer meant to use it. “I can call you something else,” he suggested. “If you wanna.”

“What?” Ro frowned. “I just said I liked it!”

Patton sunk into himself a bit. This wasn’t an argument, but it was getting kinda emotional, and he hadn’t expected this. He didn’t know what to say next. Soulmates always made him feel a little icky and strange, like he’d missed a step going downstairs and his stomach had swooped a bit. Today it felt even worse. He tried looking at Ro, found Ro was even harder to look at, and decided to look at the floor instead.

There was a long silence. Well, long for Patton and Ro, which meant maybe three seconds.

“Pat?” Ro asked.

Ro rarely called Patton nicknames, unlike everyone else they knew. Ro wasn’t always great with names so nicknames helped him remember. But he said he never needed to with Patton because Patton was unforgettable. Now, the use of that nickname made Patton’s stomach do another funny swoop.

“Yeah, Ro?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

Patton thought about it. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On the secret,” Patton said. “And if it involves lying or something else bad. I don’t like lying.”

“There’s no lying.” Ro paused. Her voice was weirdly hesitant. “And it might not have to be a secret for long, if--if you--you’ll see. I just wanna show you something, and you gotta promise you’ll be nice about it, and you’ll keep it a secret unless we agree it ought not to be.”

We. Patton shifted. This secret involved him. Had he done something wrong? He really hoped not. Ro was his bestest friend and Patton didn’t want her to be mad at him.

“I’ll keep a secret,” Patton said.

“Pinky promise?”

Patton extended a pinky. Ro wrapped it around her own and shook their hands up and down.

“On your honor?” she asked.

Patton thumped his chest in what he hoped was an honorable fashion. “On my honor.”

“By your sword?”

Patton didn’t have a sword. He thought about pointing this out, but then they’d have to go find a sword, and he was curious now. And a little scared.

“On my sword,” he said, his voice small.

He’d made promises like this before. But usually Ro was excited, eyes sparkling, pulling him towards someplace they were Not Really Supposed to Enter to do things they Shouldn’t Be Doing. Ro wasn’t smiling now. She was worrying her bottom lip and tugging at the ribbon over her soulmark.

“I--” Ro hesitated and let out a long breath. “I’ve got something to show you. Maybe I should have sooner, but--yeah. Here.”

She grabbed the ribbon around her wrist and untied it, letting it fall to the treehouse floor. Her wrist was dark and smooth. She turned it over.

Scribbled across the veins in neat blue ink was the name Patton.

Bubbly, round, just a little bit sparkly.

Patton.

“I should have showed you,” Ro said apologetically, “but I couldn’t think of when and I didn’t know if I should and I don’t really know what to do with a soulmate--”

Something that had loosened in Patton’s chest, becoming all gooey and mushy and soft, hardened again.

“We’re not,” he interrupted.

“We’re--” Ro stared at Patton. “What?”

“We’re not,” Patton repeated. He realized he sounded sort of sad. He didn’t know why.

“Of course we are,” Ro said. “I’ve got your name. We’re soulmates.”

She sounded absolutely certain about it. And Patton wanted to believe her. It surprised him, how much he wanted to. Ro knew all sorts of things--she was smart and passionate and funny and amazing. And she spoke like she controlled soulmates herself, like she could see the jagged edges of each soul and pinpoint exactly where they fit together.

Patton wanted Ro to be right.

But.

He pulled off his bracelet.

The name on there was curly and fancy and he’d forced his moms to read it for him. Red glittering ink, a curving line that ran under it and curled dramatically off into nothing. Little loops inside the curves and flourishes at the end of each line.

Roman.

“See?” he said quietly. “Not you.”

Ro stared at the letters, frowning. “Could be me. It’s kinda close to Ro.”

“Your name isn’t Roman,” Patton said, grabbing his bracelet and pulling it back on. He didn’t want to look at the name anymore.

“But--” Ro looked upset. “I thought--I’ve got your name.”

“It’s prob’ly another Patton,” Patton said, the words sticking in his throat. “I bet there are loads of Pattons. You’ll find another one soon.”

“I don’t want another Patton!” Ro was clearly close to tears. Her wrist lay on the boards of the treehouse, bearing the right name for the wrong person. “I want you!”

“We’re not soulmates!” Patton shook his head. “It’s the rules.”

“I hate the rules!”

Patton reached out and touched Ro’s hand. “We can still be friends! You can find your Patton and I can find my soulmate and we can be friends anyway!”

Ro sniffed. “But all the stories say soulmates are s’pposed to be everything.”

“We’ll make space.” Patton jutted his chin out. “You don’t like the rules, so--so we won’t follow them! Names are stupid and true names don’t make sense and soulmates are...soulmates are stupid! And anyway, there’s nothing in the rules about friends. You’ll find your knight, and I’ll--I’ll be your sidekick!”

Ro smiled a little. “We’ll stay friends?”

“Always!”

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

“Pinky promise?”

“Pinky promise!”

“Swear it on the treehouse?”

Patton looked around at the treehouse, full to bursting with ideas and crannies and things to do.

Always was a long time.

But he couldn’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

“I swear,” Patton said, and Ro’s eyes shone like diamonds.

And they went on their way, reading another book, all talk of soulmates behind them. It was a nice long afternoon and there was no point in wasting it.

And if Patton felt weirdly sad when he thought about things too hard, that was okay. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.

He kept his soulmark covered after that, even when nobody told him to.

It made him feel just a little bit lonely.

---

Patton grew up, and Ro grew up, and whenever Patton’s mind wandered to that day, he tried to put it out of his head. Ro, for her part, barely seemed to remember at all. Patton wished he was the same. He wished he knew why he thought about it so much, soulmarks scrawled against bare skin, sunlight creeping through the edges of the wood.

He realized what it meant when he was thirteen.

Ro was also thirteen, and Ro had decided they were going swimming.

Ro did that. She had a tendency to simply decide on how things were going to be, craft a narrative in her own head, and then expect everyone else to fall in line. Patton usually did so. Ro’s ideas were good, and she always made room for Patton, right there by her side.

Some well-meaning adults--who could really be the worst kind of adults, in Patton’s opinion, though he’d never say so out loud--said that they’d outgrow their friendship soon enough. They weren’t soulmates, after all. It was a good thing that Ro didn’t like to listen to adults, and that growing up only seemed to bring them closer together, joined at the hip and two peas in a pod with the same sense of humor, the same excitement over new stories and fascination with small animals.

Ro was growing up tall and rounded with chubby cheeks and a squishy tummy and thick legs and eyes a little too big for her head and dreams too big for anyone’s head. And Patton was all bones with black hair that refused to untangle itself without three hours of brushing, and allergies that prevented him from eating basically anything, and a chipped front tooth from where he’d fallen out of a tree, and a left foot a little longer than his right. Ro liked acting and singing and writing and drawing. Patton liked cooking and hiking and sculpting and babysitting. They had enough friends to have nice big birthday parties and good enough grads to be on the honor roll. Ro could dance. Patton couldn’t. They both liked to read, they both liked to wear costumes and makeup, and they both could jump-rope past a hundred.

They were friends.

And as friends, they spent a lot of the summer together, so when Patton’s moms finally let him stay somewhere overnight because he was a Teenager, Ro immediately got Patton an invitation to stay with Ro’s family by the lake. For a whole week. With Ro.

Patton spent most of the summer, and a good bit of the spring, being ridiculously excited.

And after an eternity of waiting, it happened, and it was everything Patton had hoped.

They crawled their way to the shore in a minivan packed Tetris-style with everything they’d need and some things they wouldn’t. Patton forgot his alarm clock so he slept in late and stayed up later, leeching every moment of sunlight he could. They spent hours in the lake until their hair was limp and their fingers were pruny. They hiked up mountains just small enough to be relaxing and just tall enough to see the ridges around them, blue and sheer and endless like the world had been crumpled up and spread flat under the sky. They lit a bonfire or two on starry evenings when the sun sank between the hills with golden fanfare and the trees looked like cardboard cutouts against the sky, and Patton would eat the marshmallows and chocolate raw because he was allergic to graham crackers and toasting them just made them all burned. Ro, on the other hand, stacked four marshmallows on one stick and did her darn best to make them all catch fire at once.

Patton and Ro already spent most of their time together. They went to the same school and ate lunch at the same table, swapping Ro’s chips for Patton’s cookies. But now they were living together every moment of every day, swapping stories and watching each other smile and sitting on the dock as the sunset burned. Patton woke each day to Ro throwing open the door and beaming and saying “Get up, get up, it’s already ten and I just found a new tree to climb!” And she’d pull Patton off the pullout couch and toss a sweatshirt at Patton’s face and Patton would pull it over his pajamas and they’d start the day together with big smiles and bigger hopes.

No day had disappointed them yet.

He’d worried, at first, that they’d rub each other the wrong way when stuck together 24/7. Familiarity breeds contempt, that was one of Patton’s Mami’s many sayings. But it turned out to be the opposite. Patton felt happier and more comfortable than he ever had before. He’d be perfectly fine, he realized, with waking up to Ro’s face forever.

That meant something, and he wasn’t really sure what.

And he figured it out suddenly.

It was a sunny afternoon and Ro and Patton were going swimming.

The whole thing was Ro’s idea, of course. She’d tugged Patton down to the lakeside and threw on her swimsuit, and Patton did the same, and now they were splashing about in the water. It was a little cold and the sun was a little warm and the bottom of the lake was squelchy. But with the trees hanging over the water and the mountains cresting in the distance like the waves around them, Patton didn’t mind.

Ro could swim. Patton couldn’t, not much. He could doggy paddle, but asking him for athletics was barking up the wrong tree. Still, when Ro dipped beneath the surface and swam easily to the floating dock, Patton did his best to follow. He grabbed the ladder and hauled himself up, swim trunks dripping. The dock was hot under his feet and drifted slowly in the current.

“Pattycake!” Ro called from near the edge. “Check this out!”

Patton ran over. Ro was staring into the water, a smile playing across her face.

“What?” Patton asked.

“Lean over and you’ll see.”

Patton scooted up to the edge, curled his toes around it, and leaned over. Nothing but a water strider and a tuft of grass--

A small push in the center of his back.

Not even a push. It was too gentle for that. It was a little tap, a warm wet hand on the small of Patton’s back, an invitation. If Patton wanted, he could easily stay upright. It wasn’t a prank but a question--Ro was wondering if Patton wanted to play along. If Patton was in the mood for a game.

Patton was. Always.

He let himself fall forward and hit the lake with a splash.

When he surfaced, bubbles all around him, he turned to face Ro and tried to think of a complaint. But he was laughing already, and his face was soaking wet, and Ro was laughing too.

Patton rubbed the water from his eyes and looked up. “Ro--”

And the words died on his throat.

Because Ro was laughing. Ro was cupping her hands to her mouth and laughing, bright and bubbly and proud. She stood firmly on the dock, feet planted, swimsuit a bright red against her tan skin, her newly short hair--time for a change, she’d explained, hacking off the braid and gaining a dark wave that curled over her forehead and clipped short at the sides. Water dripped down her arms and pooled by her feet. Glowing in the sun, triumphant in her mischief, she looked magnificent.

She looked beautiful.

Oh.

Oh, that was new.

Except it wasn’t. Not really. It had all been there before. But now it was in the sunlight, exposed and gleaming and so, so real.

Ro.

Aarohi.

Beautiful and bold and the best thing in Patton’s life.

And not his soulmate.

The sun went behind a cloud. Suddenly, Ro wasn’t glowing anymore. Suddenly, Patton was cold and wet and tired and didn’t know why he’d agreed to come out here in the first place.

“Pattycake?” Ro asked, smile falling. “Everything okay? Did I push you too hard?”

Pattycake. The latest in a long string of nicknames. Ro’s nicknames for Patton weren’t like any of her others. They weren’t little teases or stuff to help her remember. They were soft and sweet and nice.

Ro was so, so nice.

Too nice.

Too nice for Patton, because she didn’t know what Patton really wanted.

Patton didn’t know what Patton really wanted. He just knew he wasn’t supposed to want anything at all. They weren’t soulmates. The letters gleaming red in the lake water made that clear enough.

Roman.

Not Ro. Never Ro, no matter how much Patton realized he wanted that.

It wouldn’t be fair to Ro to try and break the rules.

But oh, how he wanted to.

“Pat?” Ro asked again, stepping forward, concerned. So concerned. Such a good friend. They had such a good friendship and Patton was so selfish as to want more. He’d ruin it. He’d ruin everything they had and he’d be left without the one person he loved more than anything.

“I’m fine,” Patton forced out. “I’m, um, I’m tired. I’m gonna go inside.”

He didn’t wait for Ro to answer. He paddled into the shadows and pulled himself up the stairs. The stones were damp and pine needles stuck to his feet. He shivered. Getting out of the water was always the worst part. Patton grabbed a towel and wrapped it tightly around himself, taking a deep breath.

“Wait up!” Patton heard a splash. He turned around to see Ro swimming towards him.

“What are you doing?” Patton asked, pulling on his flip-flops.

“Coming with you! Duh!” Ro stood up in the water and adjusted her swimsuit. “Maybe we can practice some archery, I saw a bow and arrow in the barn--”

“You don’t have to,” Patton said weakly. “I don’t want to--you were having fun.”

“It’s no fun without you!” Ro looked around at the lake rimmed with trees and scoffed. “Do you see another Patton? I don’t think so!”

Patton’s heart went cold and he turned away.

“Pat? Hey, Pat!” More splashes and Ro was appearing behind him, eyes wide, mouth tight with concern. “Earth to Pat. You’re acting weird. Are you sick? Did that puddle yesterday give you rabies after all?”

Patton laughed despite himself. “Ro, a puddle can’t give you rabies.”

“It’s still a possibility.” Ro looked Patton over, grabbed another towel, and wrapped it around Patton’s shoulders. “Are you okay, though? You seem upset. We can go back to the house, watch a movie--”

“I’m okay. But actually,” Patton added, seeing an escape, “I might do that.”

“Great!” Ro clapped his hands. “Maybe we can do Mulan, or Princess and the Frog--”

“Um.” Patton shifted, staring at his flip-flops. “I meant...alone. I’ll go back to the house. You can stay out here.”

“What?” Ro didn’t sound offended, just worried. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” Patton tried to laugh. “I just...need a break for a bit, okay? I’ll hang out later!”

“Of course,” Ro said slowly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Pinky promise?”

Patton didn’t take Ro’s extended pinky. “I’m really tired, Ro. I’m just gonna go.”

“Okay. Okay.” Ro squeezed Patton’s hand. “I’ll be here if you need me, okay?”

Patton nodded. “Okay.”

Ro flashed Patton a smile.

And then she disappeared back into the lake, sinking beneath the surface, swimming much farther than she had before. She’d only been sticking around at the dock because Patton was there, and Patton couldn’t swim.

Patton pulled the towels tighter around him, but he still felt too cold.

He watched Ro a second longer before turning away.

---

Patton gave in when they were fifteen.

It had been two years. Two years of furtive glances and awkward blushes and late-night monologues about how Patton was terrible for even wanting this. That he was getting in Ro’s way. That Ro was going to find her soulmate and not need Patton and his stupid feelings ever again.

However, what Patton learned as they grew up was that a) he hadn’t stopped liking Ro. B) Ro hadn’t stopped being his friend. C) Ro hadn’t found her soulmate, and neither had Patton.

And d). Despite how much Patton berated himself for wanting Ro, he still did. So clearly, something wasn’t working.

Ro was still Ro. Kind and supportive and too good for Patton, and Patton desperately wanted to hold her hand and kiss her cheek and cuddle up next to her. Although they kind of did some of those things already, but Patton always pulled away first, because his face burned and he was scared Ro would notice and figure everything out.

Patton wanted to do those and not be afraid of showing how much he liked it.

Patton wanted to be Ro’s partner.

Patton was pining, and it was miserable.

He’d tried to look for his soulmate in a futile bid to get his mind off Ro. No luck. There were no Romans in his school and too many online. His moms told him to be patient. Patton didn’t have time for patience. He needed to find his soulmate and fix everything!

He’d find them, and he’d love them, and Ro would find her soulmate too, and everything would be like it was supposed to be, and they’d live happily ever after, the end.

That hadn’t worked out. Or at least it hadn’t yet, and it would eventually, but that wasn’t now.

So...Patton gave in.

Because Ro was beautiful. Ro liked to wear red nail polish and short shorts and denim jackets and bright red t-shirts. Ro was an actress--she sang and she acted and she could bring characters to life onstage. Ro made friends with everyone she met. Ro cried every time they watched Lion King. Ro was wonderful and so amazing and Patton ached every time he slipped Ro’s hand from his own.

At the very least, he needed to be honest. Patton didn’t like lying. And Ro was starting to realize something was wrong, spending less and less time with Patton, no longer hugging them in greeting but simply waving and smiling.

It was courteous, and it hurt even more, and Patton couldn’t be mad at her because she was trying, she’d seen that Patton was uncomfortable and done the best she could. Patton couldn’t blame Ro. It was Patton who was making things weird, Patton who was feeling things he shouldn’t be, Patton who needed to communicate,

So he invited Ro over to his house to talk.

They sat on the bed together, Patton fluffing the pillows and avoiding Ro’s eyes, Ro pulling off her jacket and setting it on the bed.

“Um.” Patton bit his lip. “I...I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?” Ro said. “Is...it a bad something? That’s a little worrisome of an opening line, Pat.”

“It’s not bad.” Patton stared at his hands and his wrists. Roman, covered by a bracelet but still burning into him, reminding him that he shouldn’t be doing this.

Rules were rules sometimes.

Patton closed his eyes and held back his tears.

“I like you.”

Simple. Quiet. Filling his bedroom until Patton was sure it would burst.

He’d chosen his bedroom as a safe place, filled with old science projects and peeling drawings, air rustling the blue pawprint curtains and a little mural over the bed. Ro and Patton had painted that the summer before middle school. It had their handprints at the bottom, two little signatures, Ro’s bright red and Patton’s pale blue. He’d thought his room would settle him.

Now he just thought of all the afternoons they’d spent together here, a pile on the carpet, talking or singing or reading or just sitting in silence. They’d done their homework by the door, and had pillow fights with these pillows, and jumped on this bed, and tossed paper airplanes out of those windows.

So many memories, and Patton was jeopardizing them all.

“I like you,” he repeated, keeping his eyes closed. “As--as more than--no, it’s not more than, I love being friends, but...I. I want--it would be nice if--would you ever be interested in being...partners?”

Patton cracked one eye open. Ro was silent. Her face was slack like Patton had slapped her.

Bad sign.

“We wouldn’t have to kiss or anything,” Patton said. “I don’t really want to, and I know you don’t either, and I found this word and it’s called queerplatonic partners and I’d really like that with you, if it’s alright, and I totally get if you say no, but I needed to be honest and we can just forget this ever happened, I promise--”

Ro opened her mouth and closed it again.

“I’m sorry,” Patton whispered. “I’m sorry, Ro.”

“You--” Ro swallowed. “You’re not my soulmate.”

“I’m not.” Patton shook his head. “I--I know, Ro, I know.”

“We’re not meant to be together.”

“I know!” Patton threw out his wrist. “Believe me, Ro, I know. I’m sorry.”

Ro’s eyes were sparkling with tears. “Pat, I’m sorry, I wish--”

“I know.” Patton pressed his hand to his eyes and scrubbed at the drops leaking from them. “I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Ro said softly.

And Patton hated his heart for leaping in hope.

“We could...anyway,” he ventured, knowing he was setting himself up for a fall, but unable to stop himself. “You’re the one who hates the rules.”

“Patton,” Ro said, even softer. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do!” Patton almost sobbed. “Ro, I do, I really do!”

Because he did. He’d never meant anything more in his life.

And Ro looked so sad, like Patton was breaking his heart.

A small part of Patton felt viciously satisfied. There. Now Ro knew how it felt. Now Ro knew how it felt to be shattered by the one person you cared the most about.

“I’m sorry,” Ro said, his voice breaking. “I really am. I wish--we’re not, though. We’re not meant to be together, you know that--”

“That’s not you talking.” Something hot and angry swept Patton’s chest. “That’s what everyone says. Why are you listening to them?”

“Why aren’t you?” Ro threw up his hands. “Look, Pat, I like defying the ruels as much as the next person, but the universe doesn’t make mistakes. We’re. Not. Soulmates.”

“So what?”

Dead silence.

“So what?” Patton repeated. “Soulmates die. Soulmates hurt each other. Soulmates are platonic or soulmates date other people. Soulmates are just names on wrists. They don’t mean anything, Ro.”

He was crying now, openly, tears dripping onto his quilt. Ro looked about to cry as well. A cold wind swept over both of them. Patton had forgotten to close the windows.

“All the stories,” Ro said desperately, “it’s just how it works, you know that--”

“Why? Why does this have to be how it works?”

“I don’t know!” Ro yelled. “Pat, I don’t know!”

Patton was shocked into silence.

“But you know what I do know?” Ro shook her head. “I know that you’re my best friend. And that you deserve someone who can give you all of themselves. Who’s not really a--who’s...as good as you. As honest as you, as sweet as you. You deserve your soulmate. Someone who will really make you happy. That’s...” She choked on a sob. “Pat, that’s not me. That’s never been me.”

Patton stared at Ro. “You make me happy.”

Ro’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry.”

Ro opened her arms, and Patton fell into them, crying into Ro’s shoulder.

They stayed like that for a long time.

“It’s okay,” Ro whispered, running a hand over the bristly back of Patton’s neck. “We’ll be okay. We’ll stay friends, always.”

Patton laughed, choked and jerky, and something loosened from around his heart. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Ro said.

She left soon after that, saying something about homework. They’d always done their homework together. Patton struggled with his essay without Ro there to give him the right words.

The room was cold, and Patton felt numb, and he hoped against hope that he hadn’t ruined everything.

It definitely felt like he had.

---

The week and a half after that was the worst week-and-a-half of Patton’s entire life.

He didn’t know if he was avoiding Ro. He didn’t know if Ro was avoiding him. But either way, they didn’t talk. Ro surrounded herself with her other friends and Patton ate his lunch alone in the bathroom, balancing his sandwich on his knees, grapes falling into the toilet and graffiti proclaiming that Madison Was A Not-Nice Word. They didn’t talk in class either. Patton’s science teacher remarked that they were finally straightening up and paying attention. Patton tried very hard not to cry.

Patton started writing Ro letters, but he would only get a few sentences in before tearing them up. What could he say? He’d already apologized. Ro was shutting him out, and it was entirely Patton’s fault, and there was nothing he could do.

He didn’t realize how much of his life was Ro until Ro was no longer there. Then he realized all his friends were Ro’s friends, all his afternoons were with Ro, and all his hobbies were much better when Ro was involved. And of course Patton didn’t spend every moment of his life thinking about Ro and spending time with her, but right now, it felt like there was a hole in the corner of every moment, a hole where Ro should be singing and talking and calling Patton ‘Pat’ and being his friend.

And then--

“I forgot the homework,” Ro said sheepishly when she finally appeared at Patton’s locker. “Could you remind me what we’re doing for next week?”

Patton stared at Ro and laughed automatically. “Ro, I told you to take notes!”

The words slipped off his tongue easily. He’d said them millions of times before. He was still watching Ro, heart stumbling over its rhythm, unable to believe that just like that, Ro was here. Smiling sheepishly with her jacket loose around her shoulders.

Things were...back to normal?

Things couldn’t be back to normal.

“Well, I’ll make sure to do so next time.” Ro scratched at the back of her neck. “I suppose you’ll have to walk me through it, then.”

That. That was an invitation to do homework together. Patton couldn’t believe it. He’d done nothing, he’d ruined everything and then hid for a week, and Ro was just ignoring it. Ro was extending a hand and smiling and asking him to do homework with her, and Patton felt like he was going to either faint or squeal.

“Sure,” Patton managed, unable to stop the huge smile on her face. “Let me grab my stuff.”

And they went back to normal.

They sprawled on the floor of the treehouse--way too big for them now, but Ro said it helped her think--and they scribbled their way through calculus and art and geography. They laughed and talked and every minute, Patton’s shoulders loosened. It was sunny and things were back to normal.

They walked to school. They sat together at lunch. They passed notes during class and giggled when they got caught. They were friends again, and Patton felt ridiculous for thinking that they wouldn’t be, for assuming that Ro would ever leave him behind.

They were friends always. No matter whose soulmates they were.

They’d promised that.

“I’m going to be a philosophy teacher,” Patton said one day.

“You are,” Ro agreed.

“I’m going to be a Broadway star,” Ro said another day.

“You are!” Patton encouraged.

“I’m still your friend,” Patton asked hesitantly a third day, when his mind was being too loud. “Right? Your best friend?”

Ro smiled. “You are.”

“I’m trans.”

That was Ro, staring at her--his--hands, knees pressed together and shoulders curled.

“You are?” Patton asked.

Ro nodded.

“You’re a guy,” Patton clarified.

“Yeah,” Ro said, his voice hoarse. “Um. I told my parents, and they’re okay with it, and...I’m probably gonna change my name soon, and maybe try testosterone, and...yeah. I--I’ve known for a while.”

“How long?” Patton asked.

“Um.” Ro shrugged. “Hard to know? Probably since I was thirteen. And...you know, even when we were eight, I always wanted to be the knight.”

Patton smiled. “You were a great knight.”

Ro finally looked up, his eyes misty. “You’re not--I thought you’d--”

“I love you,” Patton said, brimming with warmth. “You’re my best friend, Ro. I love you so much, and I’m so, so proud of you.”

Ro pressed a hand to his mouth.

Patton reached over and hugged Ro around the shoulders. Ro gasped, then he lifted his arms and hugged back fiercely, burying his face in Patton’s shoulder.

“I love you,” Patton said again, smiling at the top of Ro’s head. “Always. And I will always support you.”

“You promise?” Ro asked.

“Promise.”

“Pinky-promise?”

Patton laughed and tangled their pinkies together. “Pinky promise.”

“I love you too,” Ro said, looking up and giving Patton a watery smile. “I’m really lucky to have you.”

Patton smiled wider.

This...this wasn’t what he wanted. Not exactly.

But he didn’t need anything more.

He had Ro, right by his side.

Sun streamed through the windows, and they sat there for a long time, and neither of them pulled away.

---

“Ugh,” Ro complained, “why are names so hard?”

Patton looked up from where he’d been scrolling through baby names. “Nothing?”

Ro sighed and tossed his notebook onto the bed. “Nope! No names match my glamour, grandeur, and all-around greatness?”

Patton pushed aside the computer and leaned over. “What have you gone through so far?”

Ro motioned to the notebook. Pages upon pages were filled with names in swirling ink, each one flourished like a signature. Some of them were crossed out violently. Others were just left half-finished.

“None of them are me,” Ro complained, sighing. “All your suggestions? Nah. Sorry, Pat.”

“Hmm.” Patton bit his lip. “Maybe we’re tackling this from the wrong angle. What do you want your name to be like?”

“Noble!” Ro immediately declared. “A name fit for a prince!”

“Eric?” Patton ran through all the princes he knew. “Charles?”

Ro shook his head. “I’ll know it. I’ll feel when it’s right. I think? I don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll see.” Patton worried his lip. “What else do you want from it?”

“It just has to be me.” Ro waved a hand at himself. “You know?”

“So, charming and wonderful and kind and brave,” Patton said, smiling. “Got it.”

Ro spluttered and swatted at Patton. “Stop!”

“I’m telling the truth!” Patton ducked out of his reach. “Daniel? Maybe we should look into some Indian names?”

“I'm thinking I’ll use one as a middle name.” Ro groaned. “Maybe? I don’t know!”

“It’s okay,” Pat said, laying a hand on his arm. “We’ll figure it out, and we’ve got time! In the meantime, what can I call you?”

“Ro,” Ro said without hesitation.

“Ro’s okay?”

“Ro’s great. I love it when you call me Ro.” Ro paused and jumped up. “That’s it! I’ll find a name that has Ro as a nickname.”

“That’s kind of specific,” Patton pointed out, but Ro’s energy made him smile as well.

“There’s gotta be something!” Ro grabbed Patton’s computer and started tapping at it. “Hmm.”

Silence fell. Patton enjoyed watching Ro bite his lip and furrow his brow in concentration. He shouldn’t be, of course, because they were just friends and not soulmates and that was what they’d decided. Still, when Ro wasn’t looking, he enjoyed soaking in the sight of his best friend. Ro’s pen tapped against his leg as he scrolled, the light of the screen illuminating his defined chin and the dip of his lips--handsome. Handsome and beautiful. His hair was messy from all the times he’d run his fingers through it and he squinted at the screen.

It was dark, Patton realized--they’d been here for hours, working their way through a pack of gummy worms. Ro had promised they’d stop and watch Disney if Patton said the word, but Patton didn’t mind helping Ro, curled up on the bed surrounded by pieces of notepaper and watching Ro’s eyes light up.

Still, he turned on a little lamp. It had tassels on it. Classic Ro.

“Pat,” Ro said slowly.

“Yeah?”

“This.” Ro looked up, his eyes shining. “I think I found it--let me--”

He threw the laptop aside. Patton caught it before it fell off the bed. He dug around in the pillows and extracted his sparkly pen, setting a piece of paper against his arm and scribbling something down. He paused and stared at it a few seconds. Patton saw the exhilaration in his eyes. He quietly repeated something to himself.

“Yeah.” Ro shook his head, laughing. “Yeah, this is it, Pat--I found it!”

“You found it?”

“I found it!” Ro squealed and shimmied. “I think?”

“Let me see!” Patton paused. “If...it’s okay?”

“It’s okay, take a look!” Ro slid the piece of paper over to Patton. Patton smiled and looked down.

His heart stopped.

“It’s a little unconventional,” Ro was saying, “but it’s a nice name, and it fits with my nickname, and it’s definitely a noble and royal name--”

Patton swallowed. His hands were shaking. He read the name over and over, but it didn’t change, still scrawled in sparkling ink and taunting him.

“--I think this might be it, seriously, it just feels right--” Ro went silent. “Pat?”

Patton kept staring at the name.

Roman.

In Ro’s spirally handwriting, curling at the edges, a familiar script that made his stomach clench up.

Roman.

“Pat? Are you okay?” Ro’s voice grew quiet. “Is there something wrong? Do you not--I know it’s kind of stupid, I just thought--

Patton jerked his head up. No! Ro was fidgeting with his sleeve and he looked about to grab the paper and tear it up, and gosh, Patton had to say something.

"Do you remember,” Pat blurted out, his voice strained, “when I showed you my soulmark?”

“Huh?” Ro blinked. “I, um, yeah? I think so? Heckity heck, that was a while ago.”

“Yeah.” Patton rubbed at his bracelet. He’d gotten rid of the glitter because it tended to get all over his stuff. Now it was a thick leather strap with a little pawprint dangling from it. “Um...do you remember the name of mine?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Ro frowned. “Why? Was I supposed to? I just remember that it--” Something crossed his face. “Wasn’t mine.”

Roman.

Patton swallowed. “Great! Fantastic.”

“There’s something wrong.” Ro scooted forward, pushing the paper aside and touching Patton’s hand. “What’s up, Pat?”

“Does it fit you?” Patton asked desperately. “That name--does it fit you?”

“I...” Ro paused. “Yeah. I--I like it a lot. Why? Do you not--”

“I like it,” Patton immediately said. And it was the truth. He loved it. It was beautiful and regal and very Ro. But he’d spent his whole life hating that name. He’d spent his whole life hoping for that name to save him from his best friend and feelings he couldn’t control.

Patton looked down at the paper.

Roman.

Gleaming in ink, perfect and poised, close enough to touch.

“Pat?” Ro asked again. He was really worried now. Patton could tell from the crinkle between his eyes.

Before Patton could stop himself, he tugged off his bracelet and bared his wrist.

Roman.

Red ink, looping curves, smooth and polished and a name Patton had refused to look at for most of his life.

It gleamed bright in the darkness.

“What--” Ro froze. “Pat--”

“You didn’t know,” Patton said, “but you chose it, and--it might not mean anything, it doesn’t have to mean anything, it’s birth names--”

“It’s true names,” Ro corrected, his voice oddly distant. “They disproved the birth name theory.”

“I’m sorry,” Patton begged.

“Pat.” Ro shook his head. “What the heck are you apologizing for?”

“I don’t know, I just--” Patton looked around at the paper strewn on the bed. “This was your moment, and I ruined it, and--”

“Pat.” Ro reached out and pulled Patton’s hands into his own. He ran his thumb along the red letters on Patton’s wrist, and Patton shivered. Then he pulled his own ribbon off. It snapped in half from the force.

Patton. Bubbly and blue and cheerful. Neat against Ro’s skin, and a long-buried wound ruptured in his chest.

“Would you look at that,” Ro said, placing their wrists side-by-side. “A perfect match.”

Patton stared at them. “But--it could be a coincidence--”

“It could be,” Ro allowed. He was starting to smile. “But I don’t think it is, do you?”

“It could be...” Patton shook his head. “That might not be your name. What if we’re wrong?”

“Then we’re wrong.” Ro folded his hand over Patton’s so their wrists bumped each other. “But I don’t think we are, do you?”

“It could be--” Patton shook his head. “It could be a mistake!”

Ro looked surprised. His hand jerked in Patton’s. “The universe doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Maybe it did this time!” Patton pulled his hand away and tucked it to his chest, hiding the red letters from the room. “Maybe--what if we break up, what if we hate each other, what if we aren’t meant to be together--”

“Calm down, love,” Ro said. “I hear you. But--what if we are?”

Patton looked into his face.

What if they were?

What if they were soulmates all along? What if they were two sides of a coin, two halves of a whole, two peas in a pod? Soulmates meant nothing but the world decided they meant something so it meant something that their names matched, it meant something that Ro was staring at Patton like Patton had just saved the world, it meant something that Patton’s heart was beating out of his chest and he wanted to fold into Ro’s arms and nestle there forever.

What if they were?

It wouldn’t change a thing.

And it would change everything.

“We’d be soulmates,” Patton said. “We’re soulmates.”

“We’re soulmates,” Ro repeated, shaking his head. “We’re soulmates--oh my gosh-peck I could have been with you months ago, years--I turned you down and I didn’t even realize--it would have changed everything--”

Ro jumped up and grabbed Patton’s arms, pulling him off the bed. The next thing Patton knew, Ro was lifting him in the air and spinning him around. Patton clung tightly to his shoulders and felt laughter bubble up in his chest.

“You’re my soulmate!” Ro yelled. “Pat, Pat, oh, Patton, you’re my soulmate, it’s you, it’s always been you, I was such an idiot--”

Patton laughed and covered his mouth. “Ro--”

“I love you,” Ro blurted out, pressing their foreheads together. “I love you, I love you so much, darling, and I would like nothing else than to be with you for the rest of my days, you’re the light of my life, the moon to my sun--”

“Ro!” Patton exclaimed, face burning.

“Sugar, honey, dearest, I love you!” Ro spun him around once more. “I knew that, I’ve known that for years, but we weren’t together, I wasn’t supposed to--”

“You were the one who said we couldn’t be together,” Patton choked out, but it was hard to even be a little angry when Ro was beaming at him with sparkling eyes.

“How dare you listen to me!” Ro shook his head. “I was blind, I was a fool, I could have had you and was an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Pat said softly. “You just didn’t know. Neither did I.”

Which was the truth and yet not, because Patton felt very suddenly that he had known. All along. The revelation sat neatly within him, a new chapter of a book he already knew by heart, a twist ending he’d plotted with Ro ahead of time, swapping ideas on the floor of their treehouse.

Ro was his soulmate, and gosh, everything made perfect sense.

“I love you too,” Pat burst out, and he leaned in and kissed Ro on the nose. Then the cheeks, then the jaw, then all over, a kiss for every time he wished for this. A kiss for every time he didn’t dare to hope this could be real. “I love you, I love you, Ro, I love you so much--”

“I’m sorry,” Ro said. “I’m sorry it took so long, we could have been so much more if I let us--”

“More than what?” Patton shook his head, filled with a huge joy. “More than us? We were always us. Now we just get confirmation that the universe knows it, too.”

“The universe is smart,” Ro said, pressing a small kiss to Patton’s cheek. “Just like you are.”

Patton giggled. “Ro!”

“What? You’re my partner, I get to compliment and kiss you all I want.” Ro paused. “We--we are partners, right? If not, I get it, we can stay friends or give you time, I get if you need time--”

“I’ve had way too much time,” Patton interrupted, beaming. “I would love to be your partner.”

“We’re partners.” Ro somehow grinned even wider, squeezing Patton in a quick hug. “We’re partners, and we’re soulmates, I love you--”

“Does it fit?” Patton asked suddenly, lifting his hand to brush hair from Ro’s face, because Ro’s hair was always messy and Patton dreamed of sweeping it aside and now he could. His wrist shone with Roman on it. A little piece of Ro, glowing, and for once he didn’t look away. “The name?”

“I don’t know,” Ro said softly, “why don’t you try it out?”

Patton looked at Ro. His brilliant, beautiful, supportive friend. His partner. His soulmate. The person he’d spent his whole life beside, and wouldn’t mind continuing that trend for the rest of it.

Ro, who he’d promised he’d be friends with forever and always.

Always was a long time, but there was nowhere Patton would rather be.

“I love you, Roman,” Patton whispered.

Ro gasped. His eyes watered.

“Is that okay?” Patton asked. “Does that fit?”

“Pat,” Ro breathed, “Pat, it’s me. I found it.”

“Roman,” Patton said again, rolling the name around on his tongue. “Roman, Roman, Roman.”

Roman.

Roman, grinning, eyes wet with tears, happier than Patton had ever seen him.

“It’s me,” Roman said, laughing. “It’s me, Pat, I found me.”

“I knew you would,” Patton said, smiling back. “And so did the universe.”

“I found us.” Roman leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Patton’s again, his breath light on Patton’s cheeks. “I found us and I’m not letting us go.”

“I’ve always had you.” Patton shook his head. “We were confused for a bit. And scared. But...I don’t think we were ever lost.”

“You’re right. How could I be lost?” Roman laughed. “I have the most excellent of sidekicks.”

Patton laughed too. “Now that you’re my partner, I think you’re the knight and I’m the damsel.”

“I’m afraid that’s incorrect.” Roman dipped Patton suddenly, grinning. “Pretty as you are, I don’t think you’d wait around to be rescued.”

“I don’t know,” Patton teased, “I might let you do all the heavy lifting.”

“This is an equal partnership!” Roman declared. “Which means dragon-fighting together?”

“Dragon-fighting together,” Patton agreed. “But talk to them first. Maybe we can reach a compromise.”

“Of course!” Roman’s face softened. “We shall go on many wonderful adventures, my dear.”

“I look forward to it, my knight.” On impulse, Patton leaned forward and hugged Roman. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Roman asked, reaching up and cupping Patton’s head.

“For being you. For being there.” Patton looked up, smiling. “For being my friend.”

“I did promise,” Roman teased.

“And now...” Patton shook his head, still barely able to believe it. “We’re partners.”

“We are indeed.” Roman laughed. “I had my doubts in the universe, but it pulled through.”

“And this...” Patton chewed on his lip. “This is what you want? I don’t want you to feel pressured to keep Roman as your name because of me, I don’t want you to feel pressured to keep me--”

“Sweetheart,” Roman said, “that’s very kind of you, but I know exactly what I want, and it’s the black-haired cutie standing right in front of me.”

“You sure?”

Patton didn’t like the vulnerability in his voice, the quiet hope. Then again, if anyone would understand, it would be Roman.

Roman. His partner. His soulmate. His best friend and the person he loved most in the world.

Of course they were soulmates. How could it be anything different?

“I’m sure,” Roman said.

“Promise?”

“I swear on all the stars in the sky and all the phases of the moon,” Roman declared. He brushed Patton’s forehead with his fingers and cupped his chin. “I love you, Pat. I promise.”

Patton swallowed. “I want to stay with you. Can we stay?”

“As long as you wish.” Roman smiled. “Always, if that’s what you’d like.”

“I’d love that,” Patton admitted. “So, so much.”

Always.

Always with Roman, their wrists gleaming, their arms around each other and their heartbeats fluttering in time.

That sounded wonderful.

That sounded like more than Patton had ever hoped for.

“Magic,” he whispered to himself, because that was the only word for this feeling, a buzz and a spark and a warm wind swirling through the wind, rustling the notebook pages, slipping down Roman’s face.

“I told you, it shouldn’t have rules.” Roman laughed a little. “And I forgot that. I should have listened to myself--should have listened to you. We lost so much time.”

“We’ve got so much time to make up for it,” Patton said. “We’ve got always, Roman.”

Roman curled Patton tighter in his arms.

“And it wasn’t a loss,” Patton whispered. “I was with you, and that’s all I needed.”

“I love you,” Roman said again. Maybe it should have felt less new, less real and tangible and euphoric, since he’d repeated it over and over. But it still made Patton feel like a sun had come out behind a cloud, like his tears were drying and the world was opening up and everything was settling into place.

Patton didn’t even need to say I love you back. He could just stay there, wrapped in Roman’s arms, eyes closed and enjoying the warmth of the sun on his heart, thawing places he didn’t know were cold. Roman would know.

“I love you,” Patton said anyway.

Because he could, and because he wanted to, and he finally had what he’d wanted. An always with Roman. Roman. Roman here, Roman with him, Roman exactly who he’d needed all along.

They stood there for a long time in the darkness, and spent a long time together afterwards, and had a long future ahead of them.

They didn’t quite live happily ever after, of course, but nobody did.

They lived ever after. They loved ever after.

And that was so much more than enough.

General taglist:

@the17thmeatball

@most-likely-fandom

@csi-baker-street-babes

@caffeinated-cryptid

@thefivecalls

@ollyollyoxinfree

@the-gay-is-back

@dramaticsnakes

Taglist from @the-taglist-repository:

@dragonwithproblems @snowdice @locked-prism @nonasficcollection @enby-phoenix @idont-freaking-know @sign-from-god-complex @hitmewiththatfanart33 @aceawkwardunicorn @star-crossed-shipper @a-fandom-trashdump @notveryglittery @thatgaydemigodnerd @somehow-i-got-an-account @starlight-era @just-your-typical-trans-guy @potatsanderssides @katelynn-a-fan @dwbh888 @royal-stormcloud @intruxiety @brain-deadx0 @the-grounded-raven @grouptalekindnesssoul @the-hoely-bleach @anvil527up @fanficloverinthesun

#sanders sides #royality #roman sanders #patton sanders #soulmate september #soulmate au #averywrites #dkjhgfdhjkl this is just patton pining and being soft #fluff and angst #angst with a happy ending #qpr royality #also the excess of trees and foresty stuff is because i wrote half of this on vacation #this is all kind of a mess but i like it and i need to write more royality anyway #also!! do not tag as fem!sides!!! please!!!!!#trans roman sanders #wow i just realized all the parts get shorter and shorter w e l p #consistency is for the weak #high school au

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delaber · 3 years

Text

Just Friends (Part 4)

Story Summary: After moving to America for a 3-month long internship, you meet two interesting characters on a boring night out.

Word Count: 4.3K

Pairing: Rafael Casal x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol, minor drug use, smut, slight dom!Rafa, swearing, and loads of British references (sorry not sorry lol)

Chapter note: ready for some smut? :)

Tag-list: lonelydance mysearchforgratification ramp-it-up

Other Parts: See Masterlist

Rafa looked up from the girl he had been charming and sent his friend a mildly annoyed expression before he realised who was standing in front of him.

His expression softened immediately, jaw going a bit lax, mouth slowly spreading widely on his face, eyes softening considerably when they landed on you. Even though you felt a bit uncomfortable under his gaze, you couldn't ignore the warm feeling growing in your abdomen as you were under his direct scrutiny. Fuck he looked good.

Without warning, his expression changed completely, and he suddenly looked almost devilish as he without a word abandoned the girl next to him and slowly walked over to you without breaking eye contact. Fuck, fuck, fuck! You were already turned on by him.

"If it isn't Margarita Girl," he said slowly, drawing out every word while running a hand through his hair, flipping the blonde strands to the side.

"Mystery Man," you said charmingly, tilting your head slightly, drawing out your words as well.

He slightly bent backwards while putting a palm to his chest, looking at you with a pained expression, "oh fuck. That accent just does it to me. Goes straight to the heart."

You laughed at him and let him stand up straight before you quietly said, "it's good to see you."

He nodded slightly, "Likewise - would you like to sit down? Have a drink maybe?"

You nodded too, "I'd love to."

Rafa sat down close next to you, his cologne filling your nostrils as he found you a clean highballer glass. Wordlessly, he poured you a mixer with a smirk while you tried to ignore the death glares coming from the girl that he had flirted with before you had stolen away his attention.

"Here you go," he handed you a muddy-looking drink.

"What in the world is this?" you raised an eyebrow as you took in the sceptical-looking drink.

"It's a Mystery Man-special," he said cockily, "try it."

You took a sip, the taste of smoked whiskey completely overpowering anything else he had put into the drink, "yuck! It's horrible!" you whined, sticking out your tongue.

Rafa shot back his head with a laugh, "You're hurting my feelings."

"This is the absolute worst drink I've ever had! Why'd you put in such an overpowering whiskey? It's terrible!"

"This happens to be my favourite drink in the entire world," he shook his head in disbelief, "I knew you were too good to be true - you can go back to your friends now."

"Not until I've made you a Margarita Girl Special," you said and grabbed a couple of bottles from the table in front of you and started mixing him a drink, your years working at a college bar definitely helping you, "this is a Bramble," you handed him the purple cocktail when you were done, "this is practically the most British thing ever."

He looked at the drink with a raised eyebrow, "normally I don't go for fruity-girly cocktails."

"Are you not manly enough to handle a colourful cocktail?" you smirked at him.

"I'll show you exactly how manly I am," Rafa winked at you before forcefully grabbing the drink from your hand. Delicately, he took the straw in between his lips, looking at you all doe-eyed as he started drinking. You laughed at him as his expression changed from theatrical to amazed.

"Good, yeah?" You asked him.

"I'm not much for admitting it but shit, this thing is fucking delicious," he said, smacking his lips a couple of times while eyeing the drink before going in for his second sip, "yeah, this is definitely better than my sad attempt at impressing you. You are hereby hired as bartender for the rest of the evening."

"So I don't have to go back to my friends now?" You teased.

"Oh, I'm not letting you go now."

"I can live with that," you sent him the most charming smile you could muster.

"Well, in that case - I think it's time for you to tell me your real name," he charmed back, leaning a little closer to you.

"I quite like being Margarita Girl. It gives me an edge, don't you think?"

"Trust me; you don't need more edge," he chuckled, "Plus, I hate being Mystery Man if all you think about now is an invisible creep that hides in women's locker rooms. Come on, I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours."

You laughed at him, "I get your point. But I kind of already know that your name is Rafa."

"So you know my nickname," he shrugged.

"It's a nickname?" you furrowed your eyebrows.

"What the fuck kind of a name is Rafa?" he chuckled.

"How am I supposed to know?! You have a friend called Diggs for crying out loud!"

"His real name is Daveed", Rafa continued, "- what, you don't have nicknames in England?"

"Of course we do," you laughed, "my friends and I are just not big on giving each other pet names I guess."

He nodded slowly, "Margarita Girl it is then. Your first and most fanciest nickname."

"I'll wear it with pride," you said quietly.

Rafa looked at you with piercing eyes, a smile spreading on his lips, "you really want to keep up the mystery?"

"You have to admit that it retains a certain amount of intrigue."

"I definitely find you intriguing," he admitted while leaning closer, his fingers brushing against the side of your knee. His touch made you fight a shudder all the way up the length of your spine but his next comment was whispered, and made you sure that he was aware of the exact effect he had on you, "I've thought a lot about you," he licked his lips and stared you square in the eyes.

"Why didn't you stop by then?" you said slowly, looking between his lips and his emerald green eyes. You were suddenly having a hard time concentrating on anything else than holding yourself back.

"I couldn't figure out if you wanted me to or not," he furrowed his brows, "I didn't want to overstep. It seemed like a one-time kiss for you."

"I had every intention of it being so," you nodded slowly, "still, I haven't quite been able to get you out of my head."

A small smile erupted on his face, "was it my soft lips? I bet it was. I moisturise them every morning, you know," he joked in almost a whisper, "women just can't seem to get enough of them!"

You rolled your eyes at him, "God, you're obnoxious!"

He chuckled as he started moving his thumb along the edge of your patella all the while he edged his face closer to you, "would you like to kiss them again?" He smirked. His face was mere inches from yours when he suddenly stopped, his eyes scanning your face. Every instinct in you screamed for you to look away from his piercing eyes, but a voice coming from inside your head told you that looking away was exactly what he expected from you, so you held on. He needed the challenge. He wanted it.

"Fuck," he breathed when he realised that you weren't going to back down easily. A certain darkness spread in his eyes as the devilish look from earlier re-emerged on his face, "your confidence is driving me insane," he leaned in and whispered against the shell of your ear, "I can't even begin to describe all the things I've been wanting to do to you."

This time, you couldn't hold back the shudder that spread throughout your body. You wanted to do unspeakable things to him too.

He noticed the shiver and was currently smirking helplessly against your ear. "Listen," he pulled back his face and smacked his lips, "I know it's only a couple of hours after midnight and that your night probably hasn't even begun yet, but do you want to get out of here?" The hand that had nuzzled against your knee was now crawling up the length of your thigh, sending shockwaves throughout your body. You wanted him to continue his wandering hand but not in front of all of his friends. Not here.

"Yeah," you breathed against the sensitive skin on his neck, feeling his jaw tighten as you softly pressed your lips against the stubble that extended a little bit beyond his jawline.

Hand still well-placed on your thigh, he turned to his friends Diggs and whispered something to him. Diggs nodded slightly, sending you a wink as Rafa grabbed your hand and pulled you away from the table, all the while the sour-looking girl was sending you a murderous look.

You and Rafa had barely left your seats before his hands came into contact with your waist, his fingers slowly crawling their way to the front of your dress, while he was kissing your neck and shoulder. He was walking behind you, hands running all over you as you hurried out of the VIP area and towards the exit.

As you half-ran through the club with Rafa's lips practically attached to your neck, you saw Samantha flirting with an older guy at the bar. Her stunned face when she saw you running out the club with Rafa tagging along no more than 15-minutes after she had let you go, was quickly replaced by a genuine grin and a thumb-up as you mouthed 'see you tomorrow' to her.

Rafa only briefly let go of you as he grabbed both of your coats from the coatcheck and followed you out the door, but his hands were on you again as soon as you stepped out of the double doors and into a vacant taxi. He gave the taxi driver an address you had no idea where was located before his hands started running all over your body once more. He pulled you close to him and hungrily kissed your lips all the while his hands were desperately running over your torso. His hands suddenly moved to your back as he pulled you closer to him. He leaned into the kiss, his soft lips moving against you, his tongue slowly caressing yours. His fingers were trailing the zipper down the length of your spine as he softly hummed against you. You enjoyed the sensation of being pressed up against him and welcomed the feeling of him invading all of your senses. The way he was kissing you; hungry and sloppy yet slowly and controlled combined with his wandering hands and small sounds of affection coming from the back of his throat was enough for you to decide that going with him home was the best decision you'd made all year. His slow movements as his tongue caressed yours was pure sex, and you could feel the heat starting at the pit of your stomach, as the warmth spread throughout your limbs. You were so hypnotised that you couldn't help yourself when a soft moan suddenly escaped your lips.

The sound you made had him losing his mind completely, his lips suddenly moving more forcefully against you again while he started panting against you.

Your hand travelled slowly up his thigh as he continued to kiss you hungrily. He shifted around, clearly in discomfort of how tight his pants were getting and he tried to shimmy around to alleviate some of the tension in his crotch to make himself more comfortable. You made a quick decision and moved your hand to pad him through his suit trousers. A tiny "Fuck" escaped his lips as you palmed his rock-hard crotch through several layers of clothing, and you watched him gulp as you found the zipper and slowly pulled it all the way down, giving yourself easier access to the massive erection between his legs. He made a guttural sound as you traced the outline of him, making the heat between your own legs unbearable. He helped you unbuckling his belt and the button above the zipper, so you had full access to his boxer-clad erection.

Still kissing hungrily, your fingers danced around the hem of his fly, moving slowly against him, until you decided that you had teased him enough. When you grabbed the full length of him through his boxers, he hissed at the touch and made a rather loud involuntary sound while he slowly buckled his hips upwards against your hand. You thought you'd never heard or seen anything sexier in your entire life.

Unfortunately, the taxi driver too heard Rafa's involuntary sound and whipped around in his seat. "HEY!" He called out as he realised what you were doing, "not in the cab, pal!" He said sternly.

Rafa cleared his throat, "yeah, sorry bro..." he said and ushered your hand away from his crotch while sending you a pained expression.

You straightened up and kissed his cheek, your hand retreating to a more safe zone on his thigh. He leaned in and pushed your back against the door of the taxi, kissing you slowly and sloppily. He put his hand on your leg as well, slowly starting to rub up the length of your inner thigh.

"Fuck, I can't wait to see that tattoo of yours," he whispered against your ear, "I can't wait to have you naked on top of me, screaming my name."

You made a whimpering sound at the thought of having Rafa slide into you, and you moved against his fingers that were now wrapped tightly around your upper thigh, his thumb brushing slightly against your wet panties every other second.

"Fuck I want you so bad," he groaned before taking your earlobe in his mouth, "this whole anonymous no-names thing that you insist on is turning me the fuck on. I'm going to fuck you so hard that you can't even remember your own name when I ask for it."

You whimpered once more, imagining Rafa in complete beast mode, roughing you up and taking you forcefully from behind.

"Fuck you look so good coming undone for me," he whispered and licked his lips, "and I'm barely even touching you."

"Touch me," you whimpered against him and felt how his fingers found the outline of your panties while his mouth engulfed your earlobe with a small groan. He was just about to dip inside the lace fabric at your core, when he was interrupted.

"SIR!" The taxi driver called from the front seat.

"WHAT!" Rafa bellowed back in an annoyed tone.

"We're here," the taxi driver said sourly, "are you going to stay all night?"

"Of course not," Rafa mumbled and paid the driver for the ride plus a ridiculously large tip 'to ensure his silence'.

Why, you had no idea.

"Let's go," Rafa came up behind you, urging you towards his front door. He was kissing your neck and pressing his pelvis up against you, making you shiver in anticipation of what lay ahead.

He unlocked the door and lead you inside the beautiful house that he was sharing with Daveed. You took in the space as Rafa continued attacking your neck with his lips, hands running all over the front of your dress. A dim blue light coming from the outside caught your attention.

"Hold up - you have a pool?"

"This is California - everybody's got a pool," he mumbled against your neck, slowly sliding down the zipper on the back of your dress.

"I don't," you said as an idea slowly took form in your brain, "I could go for a swim."

Rafa pulled back his face, "are you insane? It's like 50 degrees outside. Not to mention the fact that Diggs would have my balls for fucking you in the pool."

You turned around and kissed him, "please," you whimpered palming him through his trousers.

"Absolutely not," he groaned against you at the sensation, "next time I'll let you swim for as long as you want, okay?"

You made puppy eyes at him.

"Aw, don't give me that. I can't decide if you look fucking adorable or adorably fuckable," he grinned as he slid your dress over your shoulders, making the fabric pool around your feet.

"Fuckable, I hope," you said slowly as he took a step back to look at you half-naked in front of him.

He took a minute to admire you wearing nothing but your lacy underwear before his lips met yours once more, his hands immediately traveling along your body.

"How the fuck do you look this good," he mumbled as he gave your ass a smack and a squeeze.

"Do that again," you groaned against his lips, a small moan escaping you as his hand smacked you once more.

"Do you like that?" He said darkly as he smacked you a third time.

"Yes," you moaned against his incredibly soft lips. "Bedroom?" You panted against him and noticed how your voice was laced with lust

"Down here," he groaned and lead you to his personal space.

Together you fell on the bed, him hovering above you, still wearing his suit.

"You're wearing too many layers," you said while tugging on the collar of his dress shirt.

"Let's do something about that," he said and stood up straight, shaking off his blazer and pulling off his dress shirt even though it wasn't even unbuttoned. You carefully examined his many tattoos as he unbuckled his belt and quickly slid out of his trousers.

When he was wearing only his boxers, he stopped and looked at you, "what?" He grinned.

"You look good," you smiled up at him, "I like your tattoos. Especially that one," you said and pointed to the words written across his pec.

"That one hurt like a motherfucker... Let me see yours," he wriggled his eyebrows at you, "I've been dying to see it!"

You slowly spread your legs apart for him and revealed the small drawing you had etched on your skin.

"You have a fucking hot dog tattooed on your inner thigh?" He laughed, "god, you're such a nerd," he continued, "...but you do continue to surprise me," he knelt down on the floor in front of the bed and kissed your tattoo while he slowly ran his fingers over your lace-covered folds.

A sharp intake of breath from you had him smirking up at you before he hitched two fingers on either side of your panties' waistband. You let him slide the fabric off you before he positioned himself on the floor with his face between your legs. He kissed each of your inner thighs and mumbled in between wet kisses, "you have no idea how much I've been wanting to do this."

"Touch me," you panted as you felt his hot breath on your inner thigh, "please!" You squeezed your arms together to make your breasts really pop.

He grabbed one ankle at a time and positioned your feet so he had easy access to you, "I'm in control of this," he said darkly, his thumb finding its way to your clit, "do you understand?"

"Yes," you panted at the sensation, "you're in complete control."

"Good," he groaned right before he let his tongue slowly run over you.

"Oh fuck," you panted while his tongue moved sloppily against you. Your fingers went to the bottom of his hairline where you started massaging his scalp while he sucked, nibbled, and licked at your core.

Two of his fingers slid inside you while his tongue was performing magic, and you felt his fingers curl inside you, hitting your g-spot repeatedly as you started calling out his name with pleasure.

When your moans became so deep and so frequent that Rafa could hear how you were struggling to come undone, he retracted his tongue and fingers from you, only to be met by a whimper from you. "But I was so close," you groaned.

"I've waited five weeks. You can wait five minutes. Now turn around for me," he said demandingly, and you immediately did as he instructed. You were on all four on his bed, your face pressed slightly into the mattress when you felt his fingers on your clit.

"Oh fuck, Rafa," you cried out as you suddenly felt his tongue running over your folds and dip inside of you. With his right hand circling your clit, his tongue and left hand took it in turns to enter you. His well-placed strokes of action had you a senseless moaning wreck underneath him within a couple of seconds as your inner walls started tightening around his tongue and fingers.

"Don't stop," you moaned into the mattress as he sped up his actions, "please don't stop".

He felt you coming completely undone as you clenched tightly around the set of fingers that were pulsing in and out of you perfectly timed with your moans and shaking legs. You fell to the mattress and turned around, staring up at a panting Rafa with heavy eyelids. He was palming himself through his boxers with a very pained expression as he drank you in. As he motioned to lie down next to you, you noticed how his grey boxers were stained with leaking pre-cum.

He hovered above you for a few seconds, "you look amazing," he sent you his charming smile, edging his face closer to yours before capturing your lips in a heated kiss.

He quickly broke off the kiss and sat himself down on the bed next to you, sliding off his boxers in the process. He took your hand in his and guided you on top of him while he was still sitting up straight. His hands went to the back of you where he quickly unhinged your bra. His fingers brushed against your arms as he pushed down the straps leaving you completely naked on top of him.

"Oh fuck," he hissed when the bra dropped to the floor, "you're easily the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," he said, looking up at you with lust in his eyes. You ran a hand through his hair as his tongue slowly circled your nipple, his erection twitching against your stomach.

You put your finger under his chin and forced him to look up at you, "I want you inside of me," you whispered.

He nodded eagerly, "I need a condom," he was already out of breath, "Or I'm not going to last long. Not with you being this fucking sexy."

You nodded in agreement, "where?"

"Top drawer," he pointed to his night stand.

You pulled out a silver wrapper and opened it using your teeth. Rafa leant backwards on his elbows and watched as you grabbed him by the root and slid the condom all the way down his length, his head dropping low in the process.

You hoisted yourself up and guided him in the right direction, sliding down on him with a small whimper. A guttural sound escaped his throat when he felt your tightness around him. His hands were caressing your hips as you slowly started moving on top of him without breaking eye contact. He groaned beneath you and started massaging your breasts as you started bouncing faster and faster on top of him, enjoying the sensation of being stretched by him.

"Fuck," he whispered as you threw back your head with a moan. The grip he had around your waist tightened significantly while his expression was becoming more and more pained. He started panting louder and louder in time with your movements which in turn made you slow down the pace completely, sending him a devilish smile in the process.

"Payback time," you laughed down at him.

"Uh uh," he shook his head, "not gonna happen," he easily picked you up and threw you down on the bed next to him, "like I said; I'm in control of this," he whispered darkly as he slid inside you with force, making your eyes roll to the back of your skull.

"FUCK!" He groaned and went into complete beast-mode, fucking you roughly and holding your hands fixated above your head by pinning your wrists tightly together. The way his hips moved against you had you wishing you could run your nails all over his back and leave small marks of affection on his skin. Being rough-housed like this by such a sexy, handsome man was nothing short of amazing!

"Choke me," you gasped, looking up at him.

"Oh fuck yes," he said as he pressed his hand against your jugular veins right underneath your jaw, constricting the blood flow without influencing the flow of air.

The feeling of his full control over you had you a moaning mess beneath him. He was holding your wrists so tightly with just one hand that you were unable to move your arms even if you wanted to. All this topped with his perfectly moving hips and the sensation of his fingers pressing against your throat had you lose all control, and you felt yourself tighten significantly as you approached your second climax.

The tightness around him, made Rafa's movements more and more mechanical with each passing stroke, and you caught him with his eyes screwed shut completely just before you cried out with your second release of the night. The sight of you coming completely undone topped with the wonderful tightness around him was enough to send him over the edge too and he came inside you with a roar.

He had energy for a few lazy, pallid strokes topped with a couple of slow moans before he pulled out of you and threw himself down on the bed next to you. You were both panting for a couple of seconds until he reached over and kissed you softly, his hands running achingly along your over-sensitive body.

"Amazing," he panted against your skin, "perfect start to the new year."

You couldn't agree more.

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