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headoverheelsforramsey · 3 years

Note

Hiiiii! Here are this week's different questions lol

Not Yet Wed Questions

Note: Great Scott! This week, we are going back in time to MC’s intern year. Think of Ethan’s relationship with them at this point and answer the following questions accordingly. It is entirely up to you when in year 1 this takes place (pre/post Miami, pre/post CH 15, etc). Feel free to answer with dialogue or pictures or both :) Have fun!

No worries. All of this is off the record and HR will never know!

The setting for this answers is:

For Both

When I first saw them, I thought__________

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Three people at work your coworker hates?

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

(Bonus round! Feel free to skip.)

Never have I Ever:

come into work hungover

had a fistfight

been kicked out of a bar

gotten a tattoo

broken someone’s heart

been in love

For MC (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What do you find the most impressive about him?

Last thing he texted you?

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

For Ethan (MC is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Last thing she texted you?

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

Hello Hello Bree! My weekly dose of sunshine has arrived! 🤗

Sorry this took so long I am literally neck deep in assignments.

Anyways can I just say that these questions were just brilliant!! Book 1 is so close to our hearts and Ethan MC dynamic back in the day was priceless. 😂

Just a fair warning this contains a lot of pinching noses and rolling eyes because that's what book 1 Ethan used to do all the time. So now let the fun begin! 🤩

The setting for this answers is: Post Chap 15, before the ethics trial.

Ethan : Remind me again why I am doing this?

Meera : Because you are unemployed and have a lot of free time, also because I asked nicely? (with puppy eyes)

Ethan (Rolls eyes)

FOR BOTH

When I first saw them, I thought__________

*Both of them wait for each other to answer*

Ethan : You go first, this was your idea.

Meera : Oh boy. Why do I have the feeling you are going to hate me even more after this?

Ethan : I can't hate you more than I did when I first met you.

Meera (expectantly) : So you are saying the hatred for me has declined since then?

Ethan : Just answer the damn question.

Meera : Okay fine. I thought "why is this person being so rude to me? I am still a kid I am still learning. Such an asshole, gotta keep outta his path."

Ethan (looks at her amused) : I thought "ah shit here we go again. A new bunch of nerve wrecking idiotic interns incoming."

Meera (dramatically opens her mouth and places her hands on her chest) : Ouch! Rude!

Ethan (sly grin)

What is your coworker's most used swear word?

Meera : Jesus. Christ. Jesus Christ. He is religious that way. (winks)

Ethan : Very funny Rookie. She on the other hand has an explicit vocabulary in slangs but I think I have heard holy shit, holy cow, holy fuck the most.

Meera (excitedly) : See I am religious too. Also look at us twining in swears.

Quick: What color are their eyes?

Meera (immediately) : Ocean Blue! No, Celestial blue!

Ethan (looks at Meera, surprised)

Meera (suddenly concious) : Blue. Just plain simple blue.

Ethan (thinks for a moment)

Meera (puts a hand over her eyes)

Ethan : What are you doing?

Meera : I won't let you cheat.

Ethan : Cheat? I don't cheat.

Meera : Ofcourse the great Ethan Ramsey doesn't cheat. Then go ahead and ans---

Ethan : Dark brown.

Meera (impressed with him)

Three people at work your coworker hates?

Meera (heaves out a long dramatic sigh) : Ask me whom he doesn't?

Ethan : I tolerate most of them though.

Meera (chuckles) : I think it'll be Dr. Thorne, Dr. Myles and Dr. Hirata. Atleast these are the ones he complains about the most.

Ethan : Hmm. Fair enough. Bose here obviously hates that back stabbing "friend" whose name I'd rather die than learn. And I think Dr. Emery and Dr. Mirani also falls under this list.

Meera : Full point for the first one, but I think Aurora is a good person overall, she has some issues, which we need to work out. And I don't hate Zaid, I just don't like how he is always in a grumpy melancholic mood.

Ethan : Which is very justified of him given that he has to work with the interns the majority of his work hours.

What is your coworker’s strangest or most endearing quirk?

Meera : Easy, pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling his eyes when annoyed, which is all the time by the way.

Ethan : I think adjusting her glasses when it threatens to slip from her nose and forming her lips in a strange way when concentrating.

Bree : I am sorry doctor could you just explain the last part better.

Ethan (rolls his eyes and tries to do his best impression of Meera's pout)

Meera (chuckles) : That's not how it's done, Ethan. This is how it's done (pouts)

Ethan : Yeah same thing.

If they had a crush on anyone at work, who would that be?

Ethan : Crush? What are we? Highschool students? I am not answering that. (prepares to leave)

Meera : I think it might be Dr. Emery.

Ethan (stops short on his way out, turns around and takes a seat again) : Really Rookie? Fine you want to know her crush? It's that scalpel jockey, or that paramedic guy she is so friends with or maybe that other Indian intern roomate she has.

Meera : What! No. They are my friends. What made you think that?

Ethan : What made you think Harper is my crush?

Bree : Okay doctors let's move on to the next round.

Never have I Ever:

come into work hungover

Meera : Nope!

Ethan : Never. We are doctors we might get someone loose their life.

had a fistfight

Meera : Yes.

Ethan (looks at her unbelievingly) : I thought you were the harmless kind.

Meera (smugly) : I am mostly harmless, untill you get on my bad side. What about you?

Ethan : I'll have to say no.

Meera : You punched Nash though.

Ethan : He didn't punch me back, so doesn't count Rookie.

been kicked out of a bar

Meera : Unfortunately yes.

Ethan : Unfortunately yes too.

Meera : What?! The great Ethan Ramsey?

Ethan : Stop calling me that. I am a human afterall and I had some very stupid friends back in med school.

gotten a tattoo

Ethan : No.

Meera : Yes.

Ethan (smirks)

broken someone’s heart

Meera : Not that I know off

Ethan : I am not proud of it but yes.

been in love

Ethan : No.

Meera : Expected. For me it's yes. Maybe it didn't last but I can't say what we had wasn't love.

For Meera (Ethan is not there)

Where do you see him in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

He thinks he won't practice medicine anymore because he can't solve Naveen's case but I know he won't be able to resist helping people and ofcourse that is what Naveen always wanted. So, professionally, he is doing wonders. Inspiring thousands of hearts, guiding hundreds of young doctors and saving millions of lives. The diagnostic team has becomes globally recognised. He has written another book or two. Maybe won the Lasker Awards.

Personally, I hope he is happy and not lonely. He needs someone by his side. Someone who can tolerate his sarcasm and critisisim. Someone who will put a smile on his face when he wakes up beside her. Maybe he'll have a family, if that someone is really strong-willed. (let's out a dry laugh)

What do you find the most impressive about him?

His passion for what he does. He just lights up and enrapts the entire room when he speaks about medicine. And I just get lost in the sea of passion in his eyes. Also his stubbornness and unwillingness to give up is really impressive.

Last thing he texted you?

I'll show you wait.

He ordered about half a dozen books on Medical Law and Ethics for me.

If he asked you out on a date, what would you say?

(stays silent for a long time)

I don't think so he will. Like the chances are really really thin but trust me if he does I wouldn't dare say no. (colour rises to her cheeks)

But yes that's in a different world. A world in which we don't live. (sighs wistfully)

For Ethan (Meera is not there)

Where do you see her in five years (both professionally and in his personal life?)

If she manages to save her lisence she'll be a wonderful doctor. She'll save innumerable lives and be one of the brightest stars in medicine. I am sure she'll secure a spot on the DT and maybe even lead it someday. She'll make me proud. (smiles genuinely)

Personally I hope she'll be with someone who loves her more than anything and that she is with literally anybody else but that scalpel jockey. She'll have a loving caring partner who'll cook her meals when she comes home from a twelve hour shift. She'll have amazing friends especially the ones she has now. They really love her and they didn't think twice before helping her out with Mrs. Martinez's case.

Maybe she'll have a family. A few kids who will also grow up to show a stunning reflection of their mother.

What specifically do you find attractive about her?

Ethan : I can't say attractive but I'll say I like her personality. She has a magnetic one that makes sure to turn heads any time she walks into a room. Also I love that she cares so deeply about people and she is willing to go out of her way to put a smile on these people's face. Like for example Mrs. Martinez.

Bree : So is this "like" or "love"?

Ethan : Did I? Did I just say love? I am so sorry I meant like.

Bree : Could you enlist something physically attractive about her?

Ethan : If I have to. I'd say I love, er... like, like her laughter. It literally brightens the entire room. (blushes)

Last thing she texted you?

"Thank you Ethan"

If she asked you out on a date, how would you respond?

(sighs) I would feel lucky to go on a date with her, but right now in this situation? It's too complicated. I can't jeopardize her career, so it's a no form me, despite my actual feelings.

This was so fun! Thank you once again @jamespotterthefirst

Tagging my usual : @starrystarrytrouble @mm2305 @charisworld @choicesfanaf @potionsprefect @genevievemd @shanzay44 @little-flowers-on-heaven @schnitzelbutterfingers @coffeeheartaddict @gryffindordaughterofathena @chemist-ana @adiehardfan @custaroonie @ireneadlerisseggsy @takemyopenheart @natureblooms24 @mainstreetreader @izzyourresidentlawyer @a-crepusculo @quixoticdreamer16 @starryeyedrookie @barbean

Please let me know if you want to be added or removed. And if you want to sit out only the answers to the ask games hit me up too. There won't be any hard feelings. I promise. 💜

#newlyweds game with our host bree #queen bree supremacy!#ethan x meera #asked and answered #messrprongs

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paullicino · 3 years

Text

Ten Years

Taken from my Patreon.

Ten years is a long time. It’s long enough for many things to change, but also long enough for everything to remain the same.

I remember ten years ago as if it were yesterday, as if it passed by in the blink of an eye, with light and shadow, textures and taste all as familiar as ever.

A morning after. Shocked faces. A phone call. Events barely believable, yet all too real.

Ten years ago, my then partner and I were living in a top floor flat off Tottenham High Road. It was sweltering in the summer and the downstairs neighbours played dance music at four in the morning. But the views out the back bedroom window were of valleys of rooftops, sprouting television aerials and summited in the winter by the briefest dustings of snow.

The sun was for the front of the flat. The moon shone into our bedroom.

I remember that sunlight in the afternoon, sparkling through the shifting foliage of the tall trees outside. And I remember summer most of all. August.

We had a tap. A faucet. A great, overwrought thing that our landlady was obsessed with. It was the best tap ever, she said. It was large, curved and heavy, the pharaonic headdress worn atop a newly-fitted kitchen of which she was so proud. Wasn’t it exciting that we had such a good tap?

We just wanted our bed repaired. Our home wasn’t finished when we moved in and we slept on the sofa for weeks. When the mighty tap was finally installed, it was too heavy for its fitting. It teetered. Along with poorly-mounted cupboard doors with handles that prevented other cupboards from opening, its practicality was an afterthought.

The walk up Tottenham High Road took me to the only two locations I ever really visited, the supermarket and the job centre. The supermarket provided us with affordable food (though I’d watched the price of many staples almost double over five years) and the job centre provided me, an unemployed person, the money with which to buy that food.

The job centre, which was now extra special and had been rebranded Job Centre Plus, did not provide anyone the means with which they could get a job. It spent almost all of its time providing people with unemployment benefits. Most of the thousands of Tottenham residents who poured through its doors would’ve taken a job if they could’ve found one, but the listings at the centre itself were usually out of date, irrelevant or in some other way misfiled. Most employers don’t want to list their vacancies at the Job Centre Plus because they don’t want to employ the kind of people who go there.

Out of the Job Centre Plus and the supermarket, which one do you think burned that August?

I have written before about my strongest memory of the Job Centre Plus, but here it is again. It was of an old foreign woman and her daughter trying to speak to a clerk. The old woman didn’t speak English, so her daughter was attempting to explain that the woman was looking for work and thus registering as unemployed to gain unemployment benefit. The clerk was trying to explain that the woman was too old to work and should also be on disability benefit. The daughter was trying to explain that they had tried to navigate those systems and that they were obtuse and broken. Her mother just needed money. To live.

(Ten years before, in the summer of 2001, I’d first looked at the cost of moving out. I looked at rents around my Hampshire town, at the cost of housing and at the wages I needed to earn. England was expensive, I decided. It sure cost a lot just to live.)

Everyone was trying to explain everything. The job centre mostly wanted to give people their money and get rid of them, because there were many more lined up behind.

My strongest memory of the supermarket was of the man outside with no legs. He sat there panhandling in his wheelchair almost every day of the year. Britain had just launched its latest Astute-class nuclear submarine, each of which costs over one and a half billion pounds, but it was still a country where a man with no legs had to beg outside a shop.

I thought about that man long after I left Tottenham. I think about him here, now, ten years on.

My partner went abroad to see family and I spent some of the summer restarting my career as a freelance writer. I was fortunate with the connections and opportunities that I had, none of which would ever be found at a job centre, and I spent a lot of my time writing either to find work or simply for practice. I was writing on the night my street burned.

It began before dusk and I came home to find enormous police vehicles parked outside, the sort that are mobile command headquarters. Chains of armoured riot vans surged north. I heard there’d been a protest outside the police station and that a car or two had been burned. I checked the news occasionally. It didn’t have much to add.

Police vans kept coming, though all other traffic had stopped. The roads were closed, blocked by the police, and the latest news told me that petrol bombs had been thrown and a bus set alight. The reports were sparse.

The police in England are really good at responding to riots. They turn up in great swathes, on horses, in vans, or on foot and armed with batons and shields. They have all kinds of exciting equipment to help them. A year before, they’d kettled schoolchildren protesting the huge increase in university tuition fees, surrounding and slowly crushing hundreds of them in Trafalgar Square and on Westminster Bridge. Footage emerged of them beating the shit out of kids or dragging people out of wheelchairs. Here they were now in Tottenham, ready for more.

I kept trying to find news. The police had cordoned off most of the High Road, which meant the journalists that were arriving had no ability to find what was happening inside the riot. Distant footage of fires was the best most of them could provide. As I remember it now, the BBC had one van inside of the police cordon and couldn’t broadcast out because its dish had been damaged. I also have memories of a single journalist, almost in the thick of a mob, asking rioters to give them a moment to explain why they were protesting, or wondering why on earth they might want to block a BBC camera crew who were trying to film them.

What an inane question.

I found the news I wanted. I found it via Twitter and social media. And it was terrifying.

Broadcast news had described a riot not unlike any other. But the still relatively new sphere of social media was overflowing with witness statements, photographs and the kind of low-quality video that phones captured back then. People across Tottenham were panicking as they described growing crowds on the High Road burning not only vehicles, but also shops and businesses. They were breaking into commercial properties. They were looting. They were starting more fires. This had begun half a mile away from my home and it was spreading outward. The post office burned. Landmark businesses burned. Local shops burned and, with them, the flats and homes located above.

The updates kept coming and it’s almost impossible for me now to try to describe to you not only the sheer volume of panic and distress that waterfalled down my feed, but also the sense of utter hopelessness that came with it. People beyond the High Road described not just the violence spilling into their streets, the fights and the hundreds of looters, the fires and the damage, but also how there was no one who could stop this. No emergency services responded. Their phones went unanswered or the lines were jammed.

I read update after update that echoed the same, basic fact, something which I still struggle to comprehend even now, something I’d describe as barely believable: No help was coming.

But the social media updates kept coming. Looters were turning up with empty vans and loading them up with everything they could take. Buildings were being destroyed. A whole estate was being evacuated.

The news provided by the BBC and its peers remained limp and languid, so I spent all night reading these updates, discovering more nearby shops were being gutted, or how the retail park near me was looted to the point of emptiness, and I watched as even my own view out the window became broiling crowds of countless restless and angry people. I remember one man walking off into the darkness with brand new flatscreen televisions under each arm, the police vans now long gone. The night was regularly punctuated by shouts, screams, thumps and sometimes what might have been explosions. The sirens were always distant. The helicopters came and went.

I don’t know where the police cordon had gone. It felt almost as if they had given up and let Tottenham run rampant.

The sun came up and from that back bedroom window I saw smoke rising. I hadn’t slept. The news was full of irrelevant speculation and so, at five-thirty, I put on my shoes and walked the High Road. What I saw was barely believable. Sometimes I met the stunned gazes of other people doing the same, sometimes I avoided any eye contact. I have kept a diary for a long time now and this is what I recorded (slightly edited):

“This morning at about 5:30, as the sun rose, I tried to wander through Tottenham to take some pictures. It became one of the scariest walks I've ever taken.

The atmosphere was tense and unpleasant. Columns of smoke snaked upwards and the High Road and several other streets were blocked off or packed with police vehicles, many more of which were endlessly arriving, some from as far away as Kent.

The nearby retail park was littered with debris and many of its shopfronts were smashed. Groups of people, perhaps gangs, loitered everywhere. While some areas were busy with police officers, others were neglected and patrolled by hostile looking young men.

I didn't end up taking many pictures. I kept moving. Depending upon where you walk, Tottenham looks like a cross between a blitz bomb site and the mess after a chaotic festival.

Something still feels very different. Tottenham has hardly been rosy at the best of times, but today the sunshine can't seem to dispel a strange chill in the air. I myself can't stop thinking of all the homes that burned last night. It might not be immediately obvious to many people, but above a great deal of those shops set ablaze were flats, often family homes for very poor people. Many of those who had little now have less.”

A day after those first riots hit Tottenham, they went nationwide. London wasn’t done and, for a week, many major cities in England played host to their own riots. Tottenham was totally locked down, but it was far too late. The disorder had moved elsewhere.

I remember telling a colleague I worked with that I wouldn’t be finishing something that weekend. He laughed at the news and imagined it would all blow over. He was from a much wealthier background.

Then, everyone started trying to explain everything.

The BBC caught up with events the way a great-grandparent catches up with technology, fumbling and frowning. Goodness me, they said, in their middle class, broadcast-trained voices, and they joined in with the three broad lines of discussion that emerged. One asked how this could happen, one asked why this had happened, and one was about how this would never happen again, because the law would be firmer than ever, the punishments and prosecutions authoritative and absolute. The police were ready for more. They were going to get water cannons. I imagine those work particularly well on kids and wheelchairs.

There was a lot of talk about punishment, including from the Prime Minister, who decided to stop being on holiday in Tuscany only after England’s third night of rioting. I wonder if he had imagined it would all blow over.

Sometimes there was talk involving the people of Tottenham themselves, but it was more likely to be talk about them. A lot of people in Tottenham are Black and have families that trace back to the very first Windrush immigrants of the late 1940s. One Black Labour MP said it was important to talk about their experiences in London, their economic situation and their history of treatment by the police. After all, the spark that had set these riots alight was a protest outside the police headquarters, subsequent to the suspicious shooting of Mark Duggan, a Black man, something that called to mind a similarly suspicious death of a Black woman that also precipitated Tottenham’s 1985 riots.

For some people, the discussion became about how Black people had started the riots and been the chief participants. This wasn’t reflected in anything I saw either on social media or with my own eyes, in person, on the night. But nobody was stopping to ask me what I thought or what I saw.

Not long after that first riot, my partner called me to check I was okay and to ask if those barely believable things she’d seen on the news were really as bad as they seemed. They were. I rode the bus up the High Road on my way to Wood Green, then later to Walthamstow, both of which offered me temporary job centres that took the overspill from ours, thoroughly gutted by fire and then looted of all of its copper piping. The bus crept past burned-out shops and homes. I don’t know where those people have gone.

Later that year, my partner and I discovered that our income was low enough that we were eligible for housing benefit. It took us so long to try to apply for it that we moved home before any progress was made. When I found enough work to support myself, I visited the job centre to sign off, as we called it, to close my file. I asked a woman at reception what I needed to do. “Nothing,” she said, as the line behind me wound down several stories of stairs and out into the grey autumn street. “Just stop coming. Stop coming.”

Winter came and things rustled in the walls. There was a long, tall hedge along the High Road and I would look out the window to see men using it as a urinal. I only had to live in Tottenham for around a year and a half and I have good memories from that flat, but I also remember a stifling and sad place to live, from which I was lucky to move on. Tottenham was never my home and I never had to stay there, but I certainly feel that I came to get a sense of the place.

After moving out, our ex-landlady complained that we hadn’t left the oven as clean as she would’ve liked. She hiked the rent 9% while we were staying there. She never fixed anything that broke and provided excuses instead of solutions.

I found more work. I taught games and narrative for a semester at a small institution in East London. One of the things I asked my students to consider was the stories and the experiences of people who weren’t like them. I asked them to share how often they had been stopped and randomly searched by airport security. “Not just at the airport,” one student reminded me. “On the tube. On the street.”

My life continued to improve in many ways, but I still remembered the man in the wheelchair. The BBC and many other media outlets continued to talk about poverty and race, but not always to poor people or to people who weren’t white. In 2014 I wrote On Poverty and one of the most surprising responses I repeatedly received from people was “I had no idea that it was like this.” A friend of mine tried to apply for support for chronic health problems and documented her many struggles, including being required to explain exactly how many times a week she suffered from migraines (“You said it was two or three times a week. Well, is it two, or is it three?”). The news regularly reported growing homelessness, rising use of food banks and the inevitable deaths of people who weren’t just failed by broken systems, apathy and a lack of understanding, but also simply too poor to be alive.

I feel like some of the people I knew didn’t like how I kept returning to these topics. I feel, even more, that they didn’t at all understand. I remember some of these people waiving off the Brexit referendum as it approached, certain the country wouldn’t vote to amputate itself from the European Union. I don’t think they understood and I don’t think they’d seen the unhappy England that I had, both as a child and as an adult. I think they’d only seen, and been, very comfortable people.

I think these people would call themselves open-minded, progressive and keen to make the world better. I’m sure they could explain those views. At length.

If I think of those people now, I’m quite sure they are all still very comfortable, ten years on. I also think there is still a good chance that man is sat in that wheelchair outside of that supermarket, though he could also be dead by now, again simply too poor to be alive. No longer able to watch the sun sparkle through tall trees, see roofs dusted with snow or catch the moon peeping through his bedroom window.

Such things aren’t for poor people. We still get frustrated when we give them benefits or find out they own mobile phones.

---

Ten years on, Tottenham is almost a dream, a memory where the details have faded and the edges have softened. I have moved countries, had the privilege of travelling through work, enjoyed many different creative opportunities and benefited from free healthcare that has addressed difficult, long-term health issues. I have rationed my life according to a tight budget, but I’ve never had to face the overwhelming, unending hardships of others that I’ve shared neighbourhoods and postcodes with. I cannot ignore these people because they have so often been one street away, visiting the same shop or riding the same train. They are not an abstraction, they are right there, ready to tell us all about their lives.

Ten years on, Tottenham has one of the UK’s fastest-growing rates of unemployment, the latest statistic in the region’s long history of joblessness and poverty. Many of its residents, like poor people across the country, live paycheck to paycheck, at risk of financial ruin should they experience a single upheaval. Ten years on, the most reliable predictor of success and financial stability in the UK (as in many developed countries) is now considered to be the circumstances of your birth. The idea of social mobility is more irrelevant than ever, with much of your destiny decided before you are even born. Ten years on, almost a quarter of the population of the UK lives in poverty.

Ten years on, continued austerity, government apathy and cuts to social services has meant that, yes, ten years really is enough time for everything to stay the same. Without change, the problems people face become generational, systemic. Some people tell me that the 1980s were like this for certain families, regions, populations. I didn’t know. We were doing okay. Perhaps I didn’t get it, didn’t notice it, didn’t want to think about it.

Ten years on, Mark Duggan’s family filed a civil claim against the Metropolitan Police and were awarded an undisclosed sum, after his death was officially ruled a lawful killing in 2014. Lawyers for the Duggan claim commissioned this in-depth report on the shooting, which illustrated many problems with the official police version of events.

Ten years on, the UK government is trying to curtain the right to protest. It commissioned a review that concluded that the country has no systemic racism. It wants to limit the powers of the Electoral Commission and has considered conflating the concepts of whistleblowing and leaking with spying, meaning those who leak information could be treated as criminals. It is increasingly intent on punishing those who might express dissatisfaction.

And ten years on, as we all know, wages have not risen to match the rising costs of rent, food, utilities or transport. It sure costs a lot just to live.

Finally, in 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur on Poverty and Human Rights visited the United Kingdom and did speak with many of its poor. The resulting exhaustive and damning report concluded that “statistics alone cannot capture the full picture of poverty in the United Kingdom” and that “much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos.” It described harsh, ill-conceived and out-of-touch support systems devised and doubled down on by a government that not only failed to understand poverty, but that couldn’t even measure it accurately. It also predicted that these things would only get worse, and without any consideration of the effect of extraordinary events, such as a global pandemic.

The government described the report as “barely believable.”

I don’t think any help is coming.

---

There’s a question that sometimes bounces around social media and it asks people this: “What radicalised you?” As if there was some moment that changed a person’s political beliefs and rearranged their perspective on the world.

Here’s the thing. I feel like my perspective is from the floor, skewed and sore after I fell between two stools, always unable to find an identity amongst wider British culture. I grew up too comfortable, too spoiled and too well-spoken to call myself working class, but I was easily alienated by schoolfriends with multiple bathrooms and university-educated parents. My interests and my sentiments aren’t supposed to be working class, but many of my life experiences and even philosophies are. I know what it’s like to memorise Shakespeare and to explain themes in Romantic-era art, as much as I know what it’s like to fight government systems that are ostensibly supposed to help, to be unable to afford your own home, to walk into a supermarket and look at staple foods you still can’t afford. You think about Descartes and then you think about which dinner provides the cheapest way to keep your body alive.

When I was a kid I remember going to friend’s houses where they were too poor to clean the carpet, or seeing them lose a parent to lung cancer, or the time someone showed me a gun hidden in their brother’s car. As an adult I wrote to my politicians to ask them what they were doing about poverty, about education, about the cost of living. I went to protests and signed petitions and supported charities both practically and financially. I suppose I was trying to articulate some of the skills I’d learned from in some situations to articulate the experiences I’d had in others. Surely you have to do something.

I both resent and appreciate aspects of both classes and I imagine I’ll never work out who I am or what I’m supposed to call myself. But I do know there are vastly different worlds and vastly different experiences within British culture and that many continue to be overlooked even when in plain sight. And it’s what I find most frustrating.

If there was one thing I learned, if not one thing that radicalised me, it wasn’t simply that poverty never goes away, it’s that it always needs to be explained. There are always, always people who don’t get it, who don’t notice it, who don’t want to think about it or who will puzzle over it from a distance as if it were some transient mirage they can never hope to touch. Those in power will continue to make decisions about poverty that they do not experience, in spite of the fact that making financially comfortable people the authority on money is like making able-bodied people the authority on wheelchair access, like making men the authority on women’s bodies, like making white people the authority on racism.

And so, ten years on, here I am again, writing about Tottenham, about class, about poverty and about ignorance, and only from a slightly different angle. I will write about these things more, not least because I’ve already started another work on these themes, but mostly because I will always need to. I don’t imagine that, during my lifetime, the explaining will ever stop. I don’t imagine that our societies will give up on punishing people for being poor in a world where it is so often simply too expensive to be alive. And I don’t imagine I will have any more patience for people who imagine it will all blow over.

I refuse to let you middle-class your way out of this.

I don’t have any solutions to these enormous and complex problems. I don’t have exhaustive lists of who exactly to blame or where precisely everything has gone wrong. But here’s what I believe: If we don’t talk about poverty, and if we don’t listen to those caught inside of it, it will never go away, and there will be infinitely more Tottenhams.

#Tottenham #Tottenham riots #Mark Duggan #poverty #London #England #writing #2011

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fromthewifecage · 4 years

Text

Never Trust A Cowboy With A Computer (AKA: Erron Black/Female reader smut)

I’ve had a lot of issues with this, I’ve had to edit the hell out of it, changing a bunch in the 1st chapter, so please reread Chapter 1 before jumping into the smut that is Chapter 2. It’s over 5k words, and it’ll be posted over on my AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeltAutomaton in a bit if you want to be extra kind and go give me kudos there :D Thank you again to @tomoka0013 @gojihime99 and @malicedragoness for your encouragement and all your help *blows kisses* Hope you like :D NSFW!

CHAPTER 1:

For once, the absolutely only time in recent history, your hair is behaving, thank the Gods! Actually, is there a God of Hair? Hmmm, maybe Kano would know? His stories of meeting Gods are always fascinating, even though he always exaggerates his role and prowess in encounters with said Gods. There is simply no way on Earthrealm that Kano could have stolen the Thunder God’s hat without being zapped into the Netherrealm. Plus, Kano has never produced this hat, so whenever he has one too many beers and starts on another night of tall tales, you nod along and feign complete belief in his words.

Maybe one day you’ll get to meet a God? Not likely whilst you’re stuck behind a computer for hours and hours every single day. Especially working alongside Erron-sodding-Black. He’s gone through at least 5 computers this year, 2 in the past three weeks! You swear he was doing it on purpose. In your steamiest daydreams he’s deliberately breaking his computers so you’ll have to travel to the ‘Black Dragon Boyz office’ (and yes, they spell it with a ‘z’) to spend precious time un-fucking his computer. Every time it happens, you swear you’re just going to tell him to go bother someone else, or get his arse down to PC World and find some spotty 17 year old work experience boy to bother rather than yourself. After all, you’re doing just as an important job for the Black Dragon as he is, well, almost. He might be a super amazing dead-shot sniper capable of assassinating even the most heavily guarded target, but you aren’t just IT support, you are a Black Dragon member too.

******** More after the cut! ***********

You spend much of your time hacking into Special Forces super secret files, reading General Sonya Blade’s horribly dry mission reports, or transferring money from one Swiss bank account to another before you could be traced. Well, that was why Kano had hired you. Yet these past few months you’ve been dragged to broken computer after broken computer by the obscenely handsome aforementioned Erron Black at least once a week. You hadn’t minded the first few times, after all, any time spent in Erron’s company makes you all giddy and wibbly-wobbly inside your knickers. His voice honestly does things to you, actually makes parts that shouldn't tingle at work, tingle. He has warm eyes that seem to sparkle whenever he speaks to you, or catch you staring at him, not that you stare at him. Much. OK, maybe a little. He has a smile that is likely illegal in half the known world. Long, strong fingers that you so often think about, especially when you watch him dance a coin across his knuckles when he’s thinking, his trick to keep his fingers supple. No, no no. No thinking about him. He obviously isn't interested in you. He’s a simple man when it comes to that. You’ve seen him make moves on people who catch his eye; he’ll watch them for a while, then walk up to them, give them a smile, tell them plainly what he wanted. Then you’ll watch them walk off together whilst your heart dissolves into self pity. A few months ago, you made a real effort to try to stop flirting with him. No more lingering looks while spending more time than needed helping him with his computer. The man was multi-talented with most things, just not computers. It probably didn't help that he didn’t grow up around modern technology. You gently tease him about being old and doddery around computers and he takes the jokes well, and really, you miss joking around with him, but it was for the best. Kabal jostles with you for mirror space, smoothing down his hair and giving the mirror a big grin. Why is it so easy for men like him? He probably rolls out of bed after 2 hours sleep with his face in a half-eaten curry and he’ll still wake up ridiculously handsome (the git). Whereas it takes a lot of fussing to even get your hair to behave, let alone look nice and shiny like Kabal’s does. Maybe you could make a small shrine in the corner of your bedroom to the Hair God? You nod to yourself, thinking Kabal must have done that. “Come on, you look beautiful. Now get your coat and scarf, and we’re outta here. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll miss it!” Kabal fusses with his coat buttons. Always unable to keep still, the man practically radiates excess energy. “I WILL BE SAD IF WE MISS THE FILM.” Tremor stands up from his own desk, the building shaking ever so slightly with the enormous man’s movements. “Not as sad as Kabal. He’ll start bawlin’ if he misses his boyfriend’s new film.” Erron spins round in his brand new swivel chair, his eyes glinting with mischief. “Johnny Cage is NOT my boyfriend and I don’t even care about missing the film.” Kabal bristles with indignation. He did care about missing it. He cares a lot. “I don’t even like his films, or him. I’m just watching it ironically.” Erron laughs. You feel that laughter, deep inside and it demands attention. Bastard. “Suuuure. Enjoy your boyfriend.” “He is NOT my boyfriend!” This was going to end up in another fight. Last week Kabal had called Erron ‘Old Man Withers’. Erron had retaliated by drawing on Kabal’s Johnny Cage calendar. (The moustache and glasses actually suited the ridiculously handsome movie star.) So Kabal put a mouse in Erron’s desk drawer and recorded Erron’s screams, playing them every so often whilst laughing. The feud had gone on until Kano forced them to apologise to one another, in front of everyone. This sort of idiocy happened probably twice a month. It had escalated to where people now made bets on how long each feud will last. The longest feud had lasted 23 long days before Kano had flipped. “I DO NOT WANT TO BE LATE.” Tremor tugs open the office door and the handle will need replacing. Again. You follow after the huge man, Kabal behind you is muttering about revenge. “Hey, Sweetheart, you goin’ too?” It takes a second before you realise that sultry Texan drawl is aimed at you. “Oh, yes. There was a spare ticket since Kira’s still stuck on a job.” Oh shit, you should have offered it to Erron instead. You’d been so excited to be included in the cinema plans that you’d been selfish and not asked if Erron had wanted to go. “But……” Erron’s face scrunches a little and he turns to his computer and hits a few keys in quick succession. “It ain’t workin’ again. Sorry, darlin’.” He gestures helplessly to his computer. “But… I only fixed it this morning! What have you done this time?!” You drop your bag to the floor, and peel off your coat with a frustrated groan. You are going to get fired, there was no way Kano would believe this. You are completely and utterly incompetent. No other reason. Your fault. “It’s those darn computer gremlins again.” He gives you an apologetic smile and shrugs with frustration at the computer gremlins. You sigh and wave goodbye to Kabal and Tremor, both eager to watch Ninja Mime’s latest adventure. This one was in SPACE and it was going to be amazing, and you were going to miss it. Nooooooo! You stomp over to Erron’s computer, your mouth twists into a grumpy pout. “That is it. No more computers for you! you want to do some work; then you can bloody well do it on a typewriter.” Erron replies with a “Heyyyyyyy” and a laugh. The throb between your legs from the laugh can just sod off. No more. Not when you were going to be unemployed and unemployable after this. Who was going to hire you? What could you put on your CV? ‘Failed IT support worker’? ‘Only capable of turning a computer on and even then it’ll probably turn itself off again when you’re not looking?’ ‘Can steal FBI or Special Forces secrets but can’t keep an old man’s computer running for more than 3 minutes before it’s broken again’? ‘Want to play Solitaire? Well don’t ask me, best try the sudoku in the newspaper instead’. You’re so engrossed in sulking you don’t notice Erron get up from his comfy chair to stand behind you as you perch on the crappy stool with no back (it had no back because Tremor had tried to sit on it). It was only when strong hands find your hunched shoulders and begin kneading at the tightly knotted and sore muscles, that you look away from the ‘blue screen of death’. “I’m sorry, but I’ll make it up to you, Sweetheart.” By the Gods his fingers are truly magic. His thumbs are rubbing magic circles into your shoulders and it feels soooo good. “Mmmhhhhh?” Maybe he is a God, the God of massage.? You close your eyes, your head rolls back and you enjoy the moment. Heat radiates from where his fingers touch you, heat that only gets stronger when it reaches your face and between your legs. He finds one particularly knotted muscle and you can’t help but groan your pleasure as his thumb circles the spot. His chuckled reply tugs you back to your senses and you quickly shrug his hands off you. Thank the Gods you have your back to him so he can’t see your positively flushed face. You quickly get back to tapping away at the keyboard, but your hands are shaking so badly from the intimacy, you struggle to hit the correct keys. “You sure you got that, Sweetheart?” The computer indignantly beeps at your clumsy fingers. “Says the man who has trashed enough computers to practically bankrupt Kano.” Your hands continue to shake and your thwarted desire swerves into anger. “I’ve made you mad.” “I haven’t been out in FOREVER, and just as I’m about to go out, YOU go break your computer. AGAIN!” “Ain’t my fault your boyfriend doesn’t take you out.” Why did he sound almost happy about that? Hang on… You spin around to face him. “What boyfriend?” “You know, the dwarf.” “The.. what?” “Your boyfriend, the hairy dwarf.” He folds his arms, and shifts his weight to one hip. He doesn’t seem too happy talking about this mystery boyfriend, whoever they are. “Is this some sort of joke?” You honestly have no idea what he means. Maybe he’s drunk or Kabal has told him this for a laugh? “I don’t think so?” One of his eyebrows rises in puzzlement. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t have a hairy dwarf boyf.. why do you think I have a hairy dwarf boyfriend?” Maybe you have a secret boyfriend so secret you don’t actually know you are in fact dating him? Piotr, who runs a very seedy strip club in the seedier part of the city, is a dwarf, (and you only know him because Kano is friendly with him, he’s a bit scary), but he’s balding. Who does Erron think you are dating? “You said you did. You know, you were talking about him being all small and his hair got everyw…. He’s a cat ain’t he.” Erron has the good grace to look embarrassed at his idiocy. “Obviously.” Is Kabal recording this? This is ridiculous. “Shit.” “Yup.” “Then.. uh.. you should go catch up with Kabal and Tremor.” “I still have your computer to fix.” This was going to be such an awkward few hours. Sitting in the office in silence because the pair of you are idiots. “I can do that.” He throws out a warm smile. “Really. The man who can’t even use a mouse without breaking it, can fix this mess?” You can’t help but roll your eyes. If he even so much as looks at the computer it will probably catch fire. “I maybe exaggerated my lack of skills.” His smile wavers, and slides from warm to worried. You are going to kill him if this was going where you suspect it is going. “I maybe might’ve deliberately caused the error.” He holds up his hands in surrender. Yup, you’re definitely going to have to kill him. “I maybe did some classes a few years back when I was at a loose end.” “…… I’m going to kill you!” “How ‘bout I make it up to you? I take you out for dinner, there’s this patisserie we can go afterwards for the best pastries in Moscow. Hell, you wanna watch that film, let’s go.” His eyes plead with you not to hate him, but right now, you really do. “I have a hairy dwarf who’ll be better company, thank you.” That he was possibly asking you out and that he wanted to actually go out on a date wasn’t registering. All you can think of is the waste of time and how humiliated you feel. Everyone probably knows and has laughed at how utterly clueless you are. Kano is going to fire you for being shit at your job - after he finishes laughing. “Heyyy, Sweetheart. I’m sorry. I just wanted to spend time with you.” He really does sound sorry. His eyes go all soft and warm and apologetic and Gods, he is beautiful and you really do want to believe him. “You really thought it was accidental?” He tries to hide a smile and can’t stop one eyebrow from raising quizzically at the thought that you’ve been so utterly clueless. “Well… you’re… there weren’t computers around when you were young…younger, I’m just an idiot aren’t I?” The-all-too brief warmth and fuzziness from thinking maybe there might actually be something there between you dissolves back into embarrassment from being tricked so easily. You grab your coat and bag and leave the office whilst Erron stares after you.

Chapter 2

The flat is dark and cold when you finally get home. The bus had been late, and Russia in autumn is hardly the most fun time of year to be kept waiting at a bus stop. Fur-lined boots and a thick fuzzy coat are nice enough, but do little to keep your body from freezing outside in the colder months. Still, the flat has semi-decent heating, and a thick blanket and a fuzzy cat happily purring on your knee whilst you drink coffee soon has you feeling a bit warmer.

Thinking back to earlier you have to admit you’d have liked a boyfriend, and no matter how humiliating what had happened earlier was, you still wish that this boyfriend was Erron. Your cat, Bob, was great company, and he would never play mean tricks on you, but great company as Bob was, he didn’t keep you quite as warm and quite as tingly as Erron possibly could. Sensing your traitorous thoughts, Bob nudges at your hand with his fluffy head to demand attention, purring happily when you indulge him and tickle under his chin. You give him a kiss on his fuzzy little head as way of an apology for being so utterly traitorous. Soon your thoughts switch to worries that you’ll be fired once Kano finds out about Erron’s trickery. Actually, Kano doesn’t fire people; he has them eaten by pigs or whatever it is that scary gangster criminal people do. Who will look after Bob? Your bottom lip quivers as you think about Bob, all alone in the dark, unable to open his tins of cat food without opposable thumbs, meowing sadly for someone to change his kitty litter. A moment later you force a smile. No more feeling sorry for yourself! You aren’t some pathetic pushover, this means war! You won’t just put a mouse in Erron’s drawer, you’ll put three rats in there and upload his screams to Youtube. He’ll find 30 chickens in his flat and you’ll steal his lunch every single day. You’ll swap all of his guns for water pistols and laugh when he cries about it. A loud buzzing from the doorbell pulls you from your thoughts of revenge. It’s probably Kano and some hungry pigs, so you take three deep breaths to prepare yourself. Scooping up Bob and tiptoeing to the door, you peep through the spyhole to instead see Erron waving at the spyhole. Muttering various threats, you open the door and give him your best pout. “Cute kitty.” He holds out a pink box with gold cyrillic lettering across the top. “I’ve come to apologise.” You keep up your pout and take the box with your free hand, then try to nudge the door closed with your hip. Erron laughs and strides into the flat, giving Bob a quick tickle on the head. 3 minutes later and Erron has taken over the kitchen. He has his own coffee, has eaten two of the amazing pastries he’d brought and Bob is his new best friend. The cat winds around Erron’s feet, meowing for attention, steadfastly refusing to stop even when you refill his food bowl. Traitorous beast! This must be payback for earlier. “You don’t like pastries, Sweetheart? I can go get somethin’ different?” The bastard throws you a smile that would normally have your knickers falling down, but you’re still feeling sorry for yourself, and Erron-Bloody-Black is not going to get off this easily. You have to keep up the pout so he won’t suspect your revenge plans. You shake your head and turn to tidy the counter-top behind you, thinking hard about a plan of attack. How about stealing his hats and replacing them with hats identical in every way except the hats were all just slightly too big? Your plan of attack is quickly ruined when strong hands find your hips and give them a gentle squeeze. Your spine tightens, and you hope your gasp of pleasure wasn’t audible. Lips brush your ear, and when he speaks, his warm breath sends a huge shiver right through you. “Please, Sweetheart, I’m sorry, don’t hate me. I promise, I’ll make it up to you. You want me on mah knees?” The thought of Erron on his knees is enough to make you shiver again. A hard pulse hits you right between the legs. Oh fuck, that was unfair. “It’ll take more than that.” “More cake?” He presses a very soft kiss just below your ear. Another pulse hits. Your legs quiver but you just about manage to keep yourself upright. Your knickers are going to evaporate. “You didn’t give me a chance to eat them.” Your voice is surprisingly steady but you chew on your lip to stop any pathetic noises escaping, just in case. “Dinner, every night for a week. We’ll get dressed up all fancy and go to the ballet, then spend the weekend in bed.” His voice is lower now, rougher. Another kiss sends more shivers through you, nerve endings sparking. Your fingers grab onto the countertop to stop you slithering to the floor. “That’s pretty presumptuous of you.” “You don’t wanna spend the weekend in bed with me?” Your stunned silence is answered by low laughter and him pressing a kiss to your neck. The tip of his tongue teases your tingling skin, and this time you can’t stifle your reaction. Erron takes your whimper as an invitation to slide his hands to your thighs and tug up your dress so his fingers can find bare skin. You lean back against him, his warmth quickly bleeding into you. More prickles of heat fizz through your nerves and aim straight for your core. Strong fingers dig into your thighs as he tugs your dress higher, inch by inch. Warm lips pepper kisses down your neck to your shoulders, lightly dancing his tongue over your increasingly sensitive skin, chuckling to himself with your every moan and whimper. You grip the edge of the counter harder and let your head roll to the side to give him more of you. Each touch from his mouth sends sparks down your spine and you can feel a slickness between your legs. Oh fuck... “This ok, Sweetheart?” Your reply is a mere mumble but he still gives you a moment to decline his touches, his mouth and fingers still upon you. You quickly force a “Yes, please”, and are rewarded by fingers sliding to your underwear, skimming so gently over the silken fabric to tease you. You whine at being denied his fingers and receive a gentle bite to your shoulder in reply. Then he’s gone. Your dress slithers back down to cover your thighs with you almost doing the same and slithering to the floor. You turn and watch him stride through the open door into your bedroom. Luckily he can’t see how your face scrunches into a desperate pout from being denied. “You comin’, Darlin’?” Your reply of “Well I would have been” is mumbled through gritted teeth as you trot after him, wishing you have even an ounce of self-control. He sits himself on the edge of your bed, reaching out to a hand, tugging you to sit on his lap, your legs straddling his as you face him. His large strong hands cup your face, and with a smile he presses the softest of kisses to your mouth. He waits for you to respond, then kisses you again once you kiss him back, a little harder and a little longer this time. His thumbs brush your face, then his hands are holding you close to him, close enough to feel both his warmth and his heart pounding as hard as your own. He is intoxicating, his heat, his mouth, his hands, and you want him more than anything. Your fingers find his face, stroking over his stubble prickled cheeks to learn how he feels, your touch light, nervous at finally being able to indulge yourself. He smiles at your touches and pulls you harder against him so you can feel his burgeoning hardness through his jeans, his smile widening when you wriggle to feel him, delighting in feeling his arousal because of you and enjoying your own arousal demanding attention. Your skin prickles with building desire and impulsively your hands leave his face to tug your dress up and off. He kisses you again, unbuttoning his shirt between every press of his lips to yours. His hands are then all over you, your back, your ass, stroking your skin, teasing you with the gentlest of touches then squeezing you hard enough to make you gasp between your contented sighs. His mouth moves from your lips to your neck, his teeth and tongue teasing louder gasps of delight from your kiss reddened lips. Your fingers stroke through his hair then roam over his chest and back, then moving over his thickly muscled arms, learning just how he feels. Erron murmurs happily into your ear and against your neck, and his fingers dig tighter into your ass, moving you against his groin, becoming more and more desperate to feel you. He tugs at your bra and when no objection is made, it joins the pile of clothing on the floor. He growls into your neck in approval at your breasts being free, and using the lightest of touches, traces the back of his fingers around the swell of your breasts and over your hard, sensitive nipples. Erron chuckles breathily at your whimpers and how you shiver from his touches, your need building as you grind down against his hardening dick encased in his jeans. Every touch of his mouth and fingers goes straight to your cunt and fuck, if he doesn’t fuck you soon, you’ll explode from the building pressure. Your fingers go for his waistband and fumble at the buttons with sweaty and shaking fingers. Erron drags his attention from your chest to watch you struggle with the stubborn fastenings. “You’re an eager one, Sweetheart.” “It’s your fault.” “Yeah, I guess it is.” He cocks an eyebrow, lifts you off his lap and lays you on the bed. Said eyebrow raises even higher when you wriggle out of your knickers and toss them aside, but it’s in jest, and he takes a long moment to gaze appreciatively at you, his smile genuine, warm and tinged deeply with desire. He tugs off his jeans and underwear with ease and tosses them to join the clothes pile, and then he’s on you. His tongue and lips find your breasts, his teasing your nipples harder ever so gently with his teeth has you tugging at his hair. You feel the graze of fingers trail down your body to your thighs that then grip you tightly enough to leave marks you’ll feel for the next few days. His long, strong fingers slide between your legs, moving them apart to finally reach your cunt. Again his touch is so light and gentle, a finger brushes over your folds before dipping between them. His thumb searches for your clit, circling around the sensitive bud as his fingers find your opening. He kisses you again, murmuring between the kisses, he whispers how beautiful you are to him, how he’s wanted you for all this time, how you feel, how hard you’ve made him and when he increases the pressure he pulls back to watch your eyes flutter closed and your teeth sink into your lower lip to stifle your pleasure. He continues to tease your clit, using your slickness to keep his touch feather light. He watches you writhe beneath him with tightly closed eyes, your back arching and one hand tangling in your own hair as he changes the pressure of his thumb on your clit, sometimes soft, sometimes rough, sometimes so feather light you beg for him to be rougher. Your feet kick against the bedclothes, rucking them up around you both as Erron pulls more and more pleasure from you. His thumb leaves your clit and he laughs at your indigent whines, instead he slides a long finger inside you. You’re so wet and needy that your cunt accepts him easily, and you soon beg for more. With a smile he adds another finger inside you, then a third, scissoring you wider, his fingers moving easily with your arousal. You whimper up at him, voicing just how good he’s making you feel, and how you want to touch him. He kisses you when you reach out to grasp his long, thick cock, stroking him harder, feeling the velvet softness of the skin over iron hardness. Your kisses quicken and deepen, tongues entwining, teeth biting at the others lips, desire building so quickly that every touch is almost desperate. When you whisper how you want him inside you he eagerly slides his fingers from you, pushing your thighs wider apart, staring into your eyes as he first strokes his cock harder, your arousal on his fingers coating his length along with the pearls of precum that weep from the crown, then rubs himself against your folds. He pauses, taking the moment to breathe, then tormentingly slowly, he pushes himself inside your hot, wet heat. His thickness feels so good, stretching you so wide you can’t help but voice your pleasure. He groans a reply and almost tauntingly slowly, he pushes deeper, his thick cock stretching you more than his fingers could. He pauses, allowing you both to catch your breath and adjust to just how perfect the other feels. He gazes down at you with heavy-lidded eyes that shine with more than just desire, his damp hair messy, strands sticking to his forehead. Agonizingly slowly, he pushes forward, his cock stretching your cunt wider and wider as you cling to him, until he’s filled you completely. Again you kick at the bed, the sensations overwhelming you, your head light and fuzzy, your skin buzzing as sweat beads along your scalp and chest, dampening the backs of your limbs, and between where you and Erron lie against one another. Erron groans with pleasure and kisses you open mouthed, eager and lust-filled, just so happy to be with you. He tears his kiss-swollen lips from yours to take deep breaths and you stare up at him, every nerve tingles with sensation, your cunt so tight around his cock. You stroke a hand through his damp hair and whimper uncontrollably as he snaps his hips first backwards, then forwards. You nerves delight in the friction and beg for more and you’re unable to stop from begging him to fuck you, fuck you hard and fast and to fuck you now! The pace starts out so slow, his fingers digging into your hips, his mouth on yours then moving to your neck, hot breath on sweat slicked skin. Your legs wrap around him, pulling your hips upwards, angling you so he’s even deeper with each thrust, his cock making your nerves sing from the friction and the need for more. Your fingers are in his hair, tugging and stroking and you whisper and moan your delight at feeling him inside you. When neither of you can take it anymore he speeds up his thrusts, still achingly deep, are brusingly hard, your cunt so tight around him that the sensation is almost too much. Sweat rolls down the back of your legs, prickles in your hairline and down spine. Your hands are everywhere, gripping at him, holding your writhing bodies together, and slipping on his hot wet skin. The tightness in your cunt starts to radiate to your thighs and spine. Your thighs grip him tighter and you whimper your pleasure and beg for more, desperate for a release. His replies are muffled, his mouth is in the crook of your neck and when his thrusts start to quicken yet further he lifts his head to gaze down in your eyes, watching as you come undone beneath him. He whispers encouragement, delighting as your pleasure builds into a fire that overwhelms and burns, every nerve aflame and so bright. You cry out and let everything wash over you, your body writhing as Erron keeps moving inside you to prolong the feeling and let you ride out your bliss. His hands paw at your hips as he comes mere moments after you, hips thrusts jerking and stuttering, spilling deep inside you, grunting loudly with his own overwhelming pleasure. He’s heavy as he lies panting on top of you, the pair of you struggling to breath again and calm your pounding hearts. Erron chuckles breathlessly, kisses you between deep breaths, rolls first onto his back, then onto his side to face you and props himself up on one elbow. “Think I’m broken.” You snuggle up against him, reveling in the afterglow, in how your hot sweat slicked skin feels in the cool air of your apartment. “Guess I have a talent for breaking things.” He smiles. He can’t keep his eyes off you. “I hate you.” “I know.”

#Erron Black #Erron Black X Reader #Erron Black X Female Reader #Mortal Kombat #Kabal #Kano #Tremor #Smut #Mortal Kombat Smut

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drummergirl231-2 · 4 years

Text

I’m really not okay.

I feel like my brain is just broken. It’s taking all I have to start this post and who knows how long it’ll take to finish it?

You guys have probably seen my fundraiser by now and a lot of you have read my story of what I’m facing in my personal life.

Living with an emotionally/psychologically abusive narcissist is really taking a toll on me. I remember my last semester at college... I was living in an off campus apartment that my parents were paying for because they wanted me to get a degree so badly, even though going to school with Misophonia nearly killed me.

But living on my own, not in the triggering dorms or at home with my parents... I remember feeling so free. I remember being so happy there, but dreading moving back home. I don’t know how else to explain being there but just freedom. I wanted to cherish every moment while it lasted. I kept it clean... dusted, mopped, disinfected, organized... It was beautiful. I got things done. I could do everything I had to do.

Here... I only leave my bedroom if I have to eat, go to work, do laundry, use the toilet, or shower. My parents are unemployed and almost always home. I used to have Sunday mornings where I felt free to move around and get things done, but then the governor shut down churches again, so now the one time a week I could be sure they’d be gone from the house for a couple hours, they’re home, and my mom teaches Sunday school classes for adults via Skype from the couch, besides, so the one time I could guarantee being able to hang out in the living room is now more time stuck in my room.

Dishes pile up in my room for a couple days and I don’t take them out to wash them until after my parents go to bed. The litter box gets smelly but I wait until they’re on a walk to clean it. My bathroom needs to be cleaned but I rarely clean it. I almost never vacuum or dust my room because that would require going out there to get the vacuum or duster. There are empty containers on my shelf in the fridge I need to wash.

But with my parents here it’s like this dark, oppressive cloud looming and I just don’t want to be out there with them. I put off eating until I have to (I do still eat, though. I’m maintaining my weight). I almost never take out the trash from my room or the bathroom until it’s overflowing.

This isn’t me. This isn’t how I function when it’s just me, or me with a good roommate. And I hate living like this.

And my parents make fun of me for hoarding dishes or they say stuff like, “Oh my gosh she’s emptying her trash can. Hello, have you seen our daughter lately?”

And it kills me inside because I can and have done so much better but so much of what they call laziness or what they think is just how I am is me avoiding them at all costs.

And I’m getting headaches almost every day, and I can’t concentrate on anything, and almost every night I have nightmares about trying to go somewhere or do something or get away but my mother stops me or slows me down or holds me back so I can’t.

And it’s like I’m losing motivation to try, only I’m not. I have more motivation than ever to get out. I just have zero energy, and brain fog, and I eat healthy but I feel like garbage. I feel like I can’t do anything. I have zero confidence.

I keep getting rejected from jobs I apply to with “we’re going with more qualified candidates,” emails, even though I’m applying for entry-level jobs that don’t even require a college degree for goodness sake, and I recorded an attempt at a first youtube video today but when I uploaded it to my computer it said I needed a 99 cent codec to play it but when I clicked on “Get it,” it didn’t take me to a page to buy it so literally every time I try to do something these days it fails and I get stuck. It’s like I can’t move an inch in any direction.

#personal post #sorry #i can't decide on a specific friend to bother with all this #so i'm just gonna spew my problems publicly so no one feels obligated to help

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writers-hes · 4 years

Text

how do you want to spend new years eve?

hello, guys! thank you so much for your support on christmas record! i’ve been getting some requests to continue it and late christmas and i will get to it, after the plans that im currently thinking of! meanwhile, here is a new years-themed fic! if

if you haven’t read the fics mentioned above, you can read them here. if you want to be a part of my taglist, you can do so by reblogging or liking this post.

don’t forget, requests are open! ❤️

warnings: SMUT !!!!! swearing, alcohol + unedited

(it’s my first time writing smut so please leave me some feedback! i love you guys and thank you guys so much for 140+ followers, i love u all!)

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“I can’t do this anymore,”

Words that Harry told you when last year’s New Year’s Eve. Harry didn’t know why he was saying those words, perhaps it was because he wanted to take the young model to bed instead of you. Harry watched you crumble that night, asking what happened, asking if it was your fault. It wasn’t any. In fact, things were going great--so great between the two of you. Perhaps the reason why Harry broke up with you was because for him, distance was the antidote to the love he was feeling. Perhaps he was scared because all of his past relationships never seemed to work out, a sick part of him wanted you not to work out. Heartbreak brings a new writing material, anyway. He felt it at first, how in love he was suddenly being when you combed the stores in London to find his favourite bath gel. It was the little things that you noticed and the little things that Harry’s beating himself up for now.

The year was so great for Harry, releasing his new album and all that. He just had two successful live shows in Los Angeles and in London. People celebrated him wherever he went and he had this rockstar status that you once used to love but he’d just rather be at home with you. He’d rather spend the night with you instead of getting wasted during the afterparties, trying his best to forget the greatest mistake he’s ever done. It was annoyingly painful, how he saw your face in crowds, he knows you weren’t there but he was hoping. One time, strolling in his hometown, Holmes Chapel, he thought he saw you. He ran after you, grasping the arms of the girl in front of him. It wasn’t you--she just looked like you. Seven billion faces in the world and yours was the only face he memorised perfectly. He memorised how you scrunch your nose, how you’d raise your eyebrows, the curve of your lips, the shape of your tongue, and the softness of your eyes.

It wasn’t purposefully, how he never saw if you were off having the best life you could. He was just bored and decided to go on Instagram. He was scrolling through the photos of his friends, even liking some of them when he stumbled upon a picture of you, wearing a shirt he gave you, whilst looking another man in adoration. He bit his lip, making himself believe that that was not his shirt and even if it was, you weren’t looking at another boy--you were looking at him. He lightly tapped on the photo, seeing as you tagged the prick that was in it. He chuckled, it was Leon Harris, a friend of yours that he always found annoying. How come he never recognised him? He saw how this Leon guy was looking at you while you were both dating. He frowned. How long have you been with this Harris prick? It was jealousy bubbling in the pit of his stomach but at the same time, it was the need to see more of you. He wanted to see how Leon Harris viewed you. Does he see you the way Harry does? Does he kiss you like Harry does? Does he hold you like Harry does? Was he a better man than Harry?

He sighed, scrolling through Leon’s photos. He’s a douchebag. Surely, my angel could do better than this. Harry was irked and irritated. Leon never posted photos of you--he only posted photos of football, gaming consoles, going out with the boys, and unnecessary flexing of his father’s money. Harry was annoyed. He felt his skin prickling with the thought of you being touched by Leon in ways he shouldn’t. That night, he drowned himself in putrid brown liquid. To think, he had all the money he could ever want in the world but still settled for convenience store-grade whiskey. Tomorrow would be a better day.

“Fuck,” he said once he woke up. He remembered the night before, him downing the bottle of whatever shit was in the glass bottle. His head was pounding and he knew that if you were here right now, you would take care of him. He always looked for you, even though he was the one who broke your heart. New Years Eve was coming around and people were already asking him to make an appearance in some parties. He wanted to, he really did but the risk of bumping into you in some of the parties were high. He wasn’t ready to see the face of the woman that haunted him every night for the past year. He lazily walked towards his en-suite, one of the many rooms that smelled like you. He made sure to buy the exact perfume you always wore and spray it around the house. Harry knew that it was unhealthy, holding onto every piece of you when he was the one who decided to end things. He was annoyed at himself and wanted nothing more than to call you but it will only stay like that, a wish. He couldn’t bring himself to do it and to call you because he knew you were hurting. Perhaps you weren’t hurting now, seeing as you were with Leon but maybe you’re still stuck on him, seeing as you were wearing his shirt and a chain around your neck with his heavy ‘H’ ring hanging. Who else was ‘H’ in your life? He couldn’t remember any. As he was taking a shower, he was confused. Was that photograph a sign to call you? Or was it you slapping him in the face because you would never come back to him?

-----

Harry decided to drop by Nick’s NYE party. He never got to see his old friend around and wanted nothing more than to confide in his friend. Nick was your friend too but he always belonged to Harry. He was Harry’s friend first, after all. He might see you there but at least, liquid courage would flow freely into his bloodstream, giving him all the confidence that he needs in order for him to talk to you again.

When Nick learned that Harry was coming to his party, he was ecstatic. It’s been awhile since he last saw Harry and he really missed him. After the break-up, he knew immediately that Harry was broken and in the seams--so were you. Nick invited you to his party, too and you weren’t sure if it was an act of kindness or generosity. Perhaps he was pitying you because all of you and Harry’s mutual friends left you after the break-up, a confirmation that they never really liked you. They only liked to be closer to Harry for his money, fame, and influence. Who wouldn’t want to be near the Harry Styles after all? Still, you knew Nick wasn’t like that. He genuinely liked you after Harry formally introduced the both of you to each other. You were practically joined by the hip whenever Harry was touring and it was nice--it was just you who decided to distance yourself from the friendship when you and Harry broke up, avoiding everything that was related to him.

You had just woken up when Leon knocked at your door. Through your break-up, Leon was there to console you. You tried dating each other but it just didn’t work out--Leon was not Harry and you were not a boy. So instead, you hired Leon to be your assistant, seeing as he was unemployed and was also your friend.

“Y/N if you don’t wake up the fucking door I will break this down!” Leon called from outside. Groggily, you made your way to the door of your London penthouse. You opened the door to reveal Leon, in what he would call an outfit that was out of his comfort zone. You understood, though, seeing as Leon was still inside the closet. The only people who knew he was gay was you and his sprinkling of boyfriends who also happened to be inside the closet. You understood, though. Leon’s family was strict when it comes to homosexuality so he had to act as a straight black boy--always going to the gym, making his Instagram as douche-y as possible, and so one. You felt for him, always asking him if you could do something for him. He would always say no telling you how much your friendship and the job you gave him was enough.

“What do you want?” you asked as you walked to your couch to continue your sleep.

“Remember? Nick Grimshaw is coming in today for a fitting,” Leon reminded. You sighed. You were a designer based in London but because of Harry, you had more artists come at you for designs. That was how you and Harry met, you being introduced by Harry L, his stylist, before his world tour for a couple of suits. He then came to you a few months after, asking for some pieces for his magazine covers and you agreed. Your heart ached at the memory of you and Harry playing with new pieces you came up with. Harry always loved your designs.

“Oh, yeah. Where was it again?” you asked, disoriented because you’d see Nick Grimshaw again. You’d be reminded of Harry again. It wasn’t as if you weren’t reminded of him all the time, though. The burning sensation of his gold ‘H’ ring hanging from your chest every time. It became your source of comfort and it was pathetic how you still held onto it for so long--it’s been almost a year. “It’s here, yeah?” you asked, to which Leon nodded. You nodded as well, limping towards your bathroom to be ready for the day.

“I’ll make coffee!” Leon shouted as you trudged to the comforts of your hot shower.

It was a few hours later when your doorbell rang. Nick’s custom silk pants and denim jacket was laying on your couch, ready to be worn by the celebrity. If it fit him, you’d be focusing on the apliques and the details that he wanted to have--they were quite easy actually. He just wanted to have his name in sparkling red embroidery, almost looking like something inspired from Gucci (Harry’s favourite, your heart hurt) but entirely different at the same time. Leon opened the door as you shuffled back and forth to make sure everything was dandy. “Y/n! Oh, how I missed you so much!” Nick greeted as soon as he saw you flip through the crystals that you would embed on the lining of his pants. You smiled and gave him a hug, to which he returned. He looked at Leon and greeted him as well. Leon only replied with a “hey, man” and if it weren’t for Nick not knowing that Leon was gay (they kissed many months ago), he would think that Leon was your boyfriend. “How are you, Nick?” you asked. “Really doing well but better because you’re coming to my party!” he answered. You frowned in confusion. “I’m not going,” you told him. “Harry would be there and I don’t really wanna see him.” “But Y/N…” he trailed. “It’s been so long since we last hung together! If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were avoiding me,” he pouted. Leon decided to exclude himself from the conversation going straight to the kitchen to get some refreshments for your guest. “Nick--” “Just come on to the party and all will be forgiven,” he cheekily grinned. In reality, he was never really mad at you. He understood why you decided to distance yourself from him but he still likes you as a person and wanted to be your friend. You sighed, nodding to his request. He squealed. “Now, where is it? I wanna fit through my special outfit now,” he said. You motioned him to the pieces lying on the couch. “So you wanted to have something hip and vintage, right? Well, here’s a pair of black silk pants. They would be embedded with diamond Swarovskis on the side. Then,” you trailed looking for the surprise that you wanted to give him. “Ah, here’s a special just for you. I worked on it by myself,” you said, showing Grimmy a large hand-made sewn on patch of his caricature. You also showed him ‘GRIMMY’ in a font quite similar to BBCRadio1 in sparkling red thread.

“Wow--I am floored! These are so good!” he exclaimed, carefully taking the patches from you. He observed them, amazed by how far you went onto the detailing of his face to his favourite shade of red.

“Thank you,” you smiled. “It’s nothing. You’re my friend and I wanted to make your day extra special,” you muttered. “I’ll have them sewn on before the event ASAP so you could get it tomorrow or the next if the blank pieces already fit you or the 30th if there are still alterations to be made,” Nick stood up immediately, trying on the pieces over his current clothes and declared that they were the perfect fit. You smiled at him, appreciating how much he appreciated your work.

“I’m really glad to be your friend, y/n. I know Harry will be there and I know what he did but if you ever need me for anything, just call an old man like me, even if it’s just for a laugh,” he said. “The pants and jacket are a perfect fit, by the way.”

-----------

It was the day of the gruelling New Years Eve party hosted by Harry’s friend--Nick Grimshaw. He wasn’t quite sure if you were coming but just in case, he wore the other half of his iconic ‘H’ ring--the gold Gucci ‘S’ ring on his pinky, the ring you gave him on his ring finger, as if telling you that he was still yours to take, and a couple of rings he bought from all around the world. He also wore a custom polo shirt from you, one that you collaborated on with his mum for his birthday. No designer brand could top off the beauty that he was wearing. He was hoping that maybe, just maybe, after you see him tonight, you’d come back to him.

He sighed, anxious to see you—or not. From what he could recall, you distanced yourself from Grimmy. Maybe you rejected his invite, maybe not. Who knows what you were doing anymore? Why should he care? You were with Leon Harris. In his mind, the worst rebound you could ever get. You knew he hated Leon, that prick was a good for nothing douchebag. Harry went over to his collection of liquor, pouring himself a shot of vodka. Who was he to judge your tastes? It was him who broke things off, leaving you with nothing and no one. He knew that your mutual friends sided with him and left you. He groaned as he downed the shot, annoyed at himself. He misses you and he doesn’t know how to take you back.

“Leon, stop!” you groaned as he laid down your revealing party dresses. You were opting for a pair of floral pants and black shirt. Leon, however, disagreed with your choice.

“What? You should show him what he’s missing,” he shrugged.

“There’s nothing to show,” you muttered, taking a red dress off the bed to shut Leon up. You changed, not really minding if Leon was there, seeing as he wouldn’t even think about you that way.

“Look, I know you’ve been wallowing in your sadness since he ended things but it’s been a year, y/n. You should let things go,” your friend sighed as soon as he zipped you up. You sat on your vanity chair and took your curling iron.

“It’s not that easy,” you sighed as your curled the first strand of your hair. You spent the afternoon like that, fixing up your hair and putting on your makeup. Leon sighed, he knew that you were clearly affected by seeing your ex again. Leon was happy though, you maynit see it but you were clearly stressing about what version of you you would present to Harry. Leon was positive that this would end up in some make-up sex but who knows?

Harry arrived at the party earlier than you did. Knowing you, it probably took you hours to get ready for Leon. You loved doing that and you used to dress up for him. Sure, you were a secure woman but you still loved to make sure that your man’s eyes was on you and you only. Still, from a far, he would stare at you, the way he did when you were still together. He immediately made it a mission to look for Grimmy. He was porbably out there, entertaining guests but Harry wasn’t really in the mood to socialize. He was just here to get drunk and see you—if you were even coming.

“There he is!” Nick exclaimed as he saw Harry walk towards him. Nick’s friends looked at the poostar.

“Hey, Nick. Thanks for the invite,” Harry smiled. Nick saw that Harry was clearly uneasy.

“Love the polo shirt but you’d probably want to look like you actually want to be here,” Nick said. “Y/N’s attending the party,”

“Could’ve told me that before I wore this shit,” Harry grumbled. He took a flute of champagne to one of the bartenders walking around and downed it immediately. Nick looked at him incredulously. “If I have to see her, I have to see her while I’m drunk,”

Nick sighed but still guided Harry to the special booth for Nick’s closest friends.

You stumbled in, a little tipsy in the bar to look for Nicky. Nick when you’re sober, Nicky when you consumed alcohol. You were with Leon who was holding your hand, just in case someone bumped in on you and you tripped. Leon sighed, obviously being sober in this situation. He was sure that Harry was here, seeing as there were shitty headlines such as HARRY STYLES WEAR Y/N Y/L/N’S COUTURE IN NICK GRIMES ANNUAL NYE PARTY.

Leon saw it though. He was wearing the special polo shirt you and his mother designed. He knew the intricacies of the polo shirt because on your first and last attempt to date, you rambled about Harry. You told him that instead of the signature tag of the customers with Mademoiselle or Monsieur as prefix, you opted to embroider my love, Harry--a one of a kind polo shirt. Leon has seen him wear the said shirts in Harry’s appearances, even getting the nickname ‘Harry’s special’ by many of his fans.

“Y/N!” Nick exclaimed as he saw you and Leon. You looked at him and immediately sobered up, seeing as Harry was latched onto his shoulder. You looked at Harry, suddenly aware of his presence and your self. He was looking at Leon with jealousy and you knew it, Harry never liked Leon and you walk in here with him in a dress like yours? It was killing him.

“Y/N, Harris.” your ex-boyfriend acknowledged. “Harry,” you nodded. Leon looked at him, aware that your ex was probably killing your friend in his mind. “I see that you have replaced me so easily, y/n,” Harry slurred. He was pretty sure he won’t remember shit tomorrow so he decided to just go with the flow. “Ha! See, Nick? Liquid courage,” he chuckled as he took a swig off of his beer bottle. “Alright, Harry. That’s enough,” you interjected, trying to take the bottle away from Harry. He clearly drank a little too much and you know that when Harry was drunk, he has the tendency to say things he didn’t mean at all. It’s not even a defense or anything, he just does it. “No, you’re not my girlfriend anymore. You can’t control me. Why don’t you go be with that Harris prick? Honestly, angel? You could do way better than that wanker, yeah?” he says, pointing his bottle to Leon who was busy eyeing down Nick.

“Harry--give me that bottle.” you said, clearly annoyed with how things are currently going. Why was he being difficult?

“Do you still love me, y/n? Look, I’m wearing the polo shirt you gave me,” he says, twirling like a little girl showing off her new outfit. “I see you’re wearing my ‘H’ ring, too. I saw it the other day...Instagram. That must mean something, yeah?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. He surrendered the bottle to you.

“Come on, let’s go somewhere so you could sit and clear your head, yeah?” you asked, holding his arm. “Leon,” you called to your friend. “I’ll just help Harry clear his mind. I’ll find you later, yeah? I’m sorry,” you said. Leon only nodded, mouthing a ‘sure’ before talking to a friend Nick introduced him to.

“If you don’t love me, you wouldn’t take care of me like this. Remember when you would do this lot? I miss it,” he rambled. You weren’t sure if he was being serious enough but you decided that either way, your heart was hurting. A silence fell upon the both of you as you sat on the booth.

“Harry, stay here yeah? I’ll see if someone could get you some water,” you said, standing up from the couch. Harry grabbed your hand.

“Please, stay. I promise I won’t say anything anymore. Just...stay here, love? Please? It’s been a while since you were this close to me and tonight, let’s just do things like the old times, yeah?” he asked. You were torn, so fucking torn with what he was saying. Wasn’t he the one who asked for a break? It’s been a year and you missed him. You really do.

“Harry,” you started, staring at his lips. You missed how soft it was, you missed how he kissed you. “Can we, can we kiss?” you asked. Harry sobered up. Were you really asking him to kiss you? He sat up straight looking at you. He inched closer until he could feel your heavy breaths. Your chest was heaving and you were itching for him to get closer. He smiled, taking your chin with his ring clad fingers until your lips met. It was slow and nice, two lovers yearning to be with each other again but soon enough, with too much yearning and passion, your kiss became heated. You didn’t notice it but Harry’s hands soon found your arms, caressing your bare arms up and down, the coldness of his rings against your warm skin a pleasuring contrast.

“Fuck,” he breathed as soon as you both pulled away. “Do you want to take this somewhere?” he asked. You nodded, mind too hazy from what just happened. You collected your bag that was left beside you.

“Let’s use the back door and walk discreetly, yeah?” you asked, Harry was never one to bring drivers during the holidays and so were you. You were intoxicated so you both didn’t want to drive. “Then, let’s just hail a car or something when we’re a little too far away,” you said. “I’ll just text Leon,” you added as you unlocked your phone.

“W-wait, Leon,” Harry rasped.

“You don’t have to worry about him. I’m single and I’m not his type,” you breathed as your grabbed his hand. He wasn’t sure if he should believe you, but nodded anyway. He was too desperate--all he wanted was to feel you close. You both made a beeline to the backdoor and exited, silently thanking the Lord for the absence of paparazzi. You walked, an awkward silence falling between the both of you. Still, your minds were hazy with lust, yearning, and love. You were a little far away when you hailed a taxi, telling the driver to go straight to Harry’s place, seeing as his house was nearer than yours. The both of you were obviously itching to touch each other but you refrained, you didn’t want anyone to see and complicate things.

The moment you arrived at Harry’s door (thank God he cleaned), your mouth was on his. This time, your kiss was more daring and passionate, all curfew thrown outside the window. You moaned as he trailed down to your neck, your back against the wall. He was sucking and licking the spot where your neck and shoulder blades met, your spot as he would call it. You were sure that he would leave a mark in the morning but you didn’t care. You were tugging at his hair, something that he always liked, to encourage him to go lower.

“Come,” he rasped as he took your hand to his bedroom. You both tiptoed in the dark hallways of his massive house until your back met the mattress in his bedroom. “How do you think I feel once I saw you in this red dress?” he asked. You weren’t able to answer his question as he kissed you again, only this time, his hand was playing with the thin straps of your silk dress. He lowered it.

Meanwhile, your hands were on his polo shirt, carefully unbuttoning the material off of his torso. Once you were able to take off the buttons, your hands met his tattooed chest. He moaned at the contact.

“Unzip me?” you asked as soon as he moved his lips down to the skin visible on your chest. He sucked your skin as you raised you body, his hands going underneath you to unzip the tight red dress off your body. He stopped for a moment, looking at your naked chest.

“Fuck, I missed this,” he moaned as he put his mouth on your nipple. You arched your chest towards him, his ring clad fingers kneading your other breast. Your hands were inching towards your underwear, nothing really special because you weren’t expecting this. “Ah, ah, ah,” he taunted, the moment he felt your fingers go lower.

“Harry—“

“No, let me do it, love,” he whispered. His mouth latched on to your other nipple, only this time, his fingers were trailing down to your clothed center. Your hips grinded on his hands, the rings giving you more texture. You were whimpering, begging for your ex-boyfriend to touch you. He chuckled a little bit, pushing your underwear to the sides before teasing your clit. You grounded your hips again, and Harry gave in, flicking the button in between your legs.

“Fuck,” you moaned. “more, Harry…”

“You want this? You want me to fill you up?” he asked, breathy. Quite frankly, his manhood was penting up in his pants. You nodded and Harry moaned, completely removing your underwear. Your hands trailed to his pants, massaging him through his fabric. Your hands immediately unbuttoned his trousers, and he stood up, removing it alone with his boxers. Your hands immediately found his dick, rubbing the precum all over before you pushed Harry onto the bed.

“What do you want me to do, Harry?” you asked seductively.

“Ride me,” he says. He bucked his hips towards your hands, clearly wanting more. “Come one, love,” he encouraged. You sat in his lap, taking his dick in between your hands, rubbing it on your clit for a few times before inserting the tip inside you. “I missed this, fuck,” he moaned. You moaned too, sitting lower until his length was filling you up. “I think you had your fun already,” he taunted, flipping you over. He leaned onto you as he pounded into you a few times.

“Harry, shit, shit,” you moaned. Your hand went to your clit, rubbing it as Harry went in and out of you.

“You just can’t get enough can you?” he asked. Your other hand and legs were around him, your nails digging onto his back. You nodded. “You’re not gonna cum until I tell you to, love,” he said as he pounded into you harder. His hand was immediately on your nipple, pinching and tugging it. It was sensory overload, his hands on your breast, yours on your clit, him inside you, your nails onto him. He moaned, putting his mouth on yours as his tongue entered your mouth. You both felt his thrusts going sloppier and sloppier as your walls started to clench.

“Harry, I’m cumming, fill me up...cum inside me,” you moaned. The popstar only gruntled, obviously bathing in your wetness.

“Cum, princess. Cum on my cock, cum with me,” he moaned as you both came, his cum filling you up and your walls clenching around him.

“I love you,” you whispered, hoping he didn’t notice but he did, stopping for a moment, looking at you. “Let’s talk about it later,” you smiled.

He thrusted for a few more times before removing his girth inside you. He immediately looked for a towel to wipe you with it and you waited. He always did this—you waited, basking in the afterglow of sex.

—————-

It was 4 am in the morning and you were both naked underneath the sheets. You didn’t talk about your confession, sleeping immediately once he wiped down the mess on your legs and he sighed.

It was 4 am and he was sound asleep, his tattooed arm wrapped around your torso. You removed it carefully and he shuffled in his sleep. You watched him, tears springing in your eyes before silently dressing up and tiptoeing until you were outside his room. He didn’t notice it, too sound asleep. You were silently sobbing as you buckled the straps of your black heels, calling for a car. It took a few minutes of you waiting outside his gates, the cold breeze raising goosebumps on your skin.

That was how you spent your New Years Eve and New Years, having sex with your ex and then, regretting it hours later because you told him you loved him.

PART TWO?

happy new years! i hope this is the first / last fic you’ve read for the decade. thanks again! xxxx

taglist:

@giitterysuits / @floral-suits @bree082 @dezzym17 @bouncebackbyers @lolapuffs @belleamoree @demolition-lovers-blog @gorgeouslygrace @styledharry @nervousshoeghostmoney

151 notes · View notes

ofsgraham · 4 years

Text

hello, lovelies! I’m poppy and cannot wait to get this party started. here’s a bit about graham and feel free to hmu or like this and I’ll come at ya!

♪ harry styles. cis man. twenty-four. he/him. ♪ is GRAHAM JENSON here again? gosh, they really love it here. they have been coming to reckless records for THREE MONTHS. they’re always requesting DISORDER BY JOY DIVISION to be played. everyone says they’re +TENACIOUS and +CHARMING but can also be -OVERLY-ANALYTICAL and -STUBBORN. oh look, they’re in aisle 10! ( ooc: poppy, 23, est, she/her)

Stats:

Full Name: Graham Brian Jenson Age: 24 Birthday: Nov. 7th Hometown: Upper East Side, NY Religion: Agnostic Occupation: Unemployed Tattoos: Too many to name but here’s a few: -hydra on his right side -sister’s name on his left wrist -koi fish (black and white) on his right calf Drug use: Yes, mostly pot Alcohol use: Yes (probably more than he should) Positive Traits: Tenacious, Charming, Intelligent, Protective Negative Traits: Overly-Analytical, Stubborn, Lazy, Self-Sabotaging

Bio/Background:

Born and raised in Upper East Side, NY by parents who both came from Old Money, Graham wished for nothing as a kid. He had the best schools, the most opportunities, and everything he asked for. Of course, there was a darker side to his family. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and raged terror upon him and his mother and little sister.

Graham took it on himself to defend his mother and little sister from the worst of it. Accepting his place as the true ‘man’ of the house. He would purposefully rile his father up so that he wouldn’t take his anger out on Graham’s other family. It resulted in far too many hospital visits, but given his family’s connections, they were able to cover everything up with ease.

Perhaps due to his family situation, Graham has always been a disappointment to his family. While his sister excelled in school and is on her way to becoming a success that their parents always dreamed of, Graham has fallen short in every category. He barely graduated from high school, and it was hardly the type of impressiveness that was usually associated with his family.

Graham dismisses any type of ambition, preferring to enjoy the moment and indulge himself in everything and anything he finds amusing. This created a rift between him and his mother, and made their relationship irreparable. His relationship with his father was always broken, but it became even worse when Graham got kicked out of college.

From then on, it was a constant party. He chased women, got written about in the New York Post, and was aimless. He created more than just one scandal, and was seen as an embarrassment and failure amongst his family and the other elite.

His parents decided they had enough of his antics eventually, and forced him to leave New York City. He traveled around the globe for a year or so, finding ways to entertain himself while keeping out of the eyes of tabloids as his parents instructed.

Then, his dad died in car wreck, and he was drawn home. For months, he cared for his mother, who could barely function given the loss. Despite his treatment, his mother still loved him, and Graham took it on himself to make sure his sister could continue school while he made sure their mother stayed alive.

It was only recently that Graham left New York, deciding that he needed a change of pace. He needed to find something to do with his life. For a while, he just drove around the country, looking for anything that would spark his attention. Eventually, he stumbled upon the town of Willows Peak. He never thought he’d end up in a place like this, but he doesn’t regret it.

Though he’s only been here three months, he already feels much more connected to it than he did with anywhere else he’s ever been. Still, old habits are hard to break. As much as he wants to find himself and do something important with his life, he isn’t sure he’s ready for it, or even what it could be.

Extras:

He has always loved music and books more than anything else. They’re the only ‘hobbies’ he really has. His collection of vinyl and paperbacks has accumulated greatly since he’s arrived in Willows Peak. It’s the only thing he’s ever really been passionate about, hence hanging out at Reckless Records.

His sister is really the only person he’s ever fully opened up to about struggles with depression and anxiety. He knows he should’ve talked to someone about it long ago, but his sister is the only one he trusts. Besides, he figures he can just brush it off and ignore it, like he does with all his other problems.

He doesn’t use drugs often, but he does probably drink a bit too much. Most of it is social, but he knows he can always turn to some whiskey if he’s having a particularly rough mental health day.

His father’s death impacted him in ways he still is figuring out, but he is afraid to face that, and chooses to push it in a corner of his mind where he doesn’t have to look at it.

Can be quite lazy as he’s never had to work for anything in his life and doesn’t have a plan to do so in the immediate future.

He’s a privileged boi pls come at him and tell him to get a job

Probably will fight for you

Momma’s boy we hate it here he just wants someone to take care of him

Probably a little too obsessed with tattoos and will go on and on about them or ask you a million questions about your own.

A disaster child lbr needs to grow up but also can’t really blame him entirely given what he’s been through

Wanted Connections (these are super super general as I like to come with specific plots depending on your muse(s) but just some vague ideas to throw out there):

Hook-up

Enemy/Person he fights with constantly (he’s annoying wbk someone needs to fight him)

Love/Hate relationship

Best Bro

Drinking/Smoking buddies

Dealer

Musical Soulmate

Person who reminds him of his sister (aka v v protective over them and only wants good things for them)

#recklessintro #abuse tw #alcoholism tw #depression tw #anxiety tw #background: 𝕚 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕔𝕖 𝕒 𝕗𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 #it's been a hot sec since I've rp'd rip so have this mess I'm sorry

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justlookfrightened · 5 years

Note

Emergency room meet-cute, Jack/Bitty or Ransom/Holster

Sorry this took so long!

“Please,” the small blond man said, gasping.

The child in the man’s arms was nearly half his size, Jack thought, hustling up a wheelchair for the … girl, it looked like, once she unburied her face from the man’s shoulder.

She was dressed in leggings and a sparkly shirt, her dark hair falling out of a ponytail and across her tear-stained face. One foot was covered in a sneaker and sock; the other was bare, and she was holding a towel that used to be green against the bottom of it.

“Thank you,” the man said, gently depositing the child in the chair. “You sit right there, sugar pie, and these nice people will get you fixed up in just a minute. You doing so good, baby girl. Just a little longer. Keep that towel on there, all right?”

The man turned back to the desk, digging a slim wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans.

“I’m sorry, you need her insurance card, right?”

“Euh,” Jack interrupted, before the clerk could say anything, “why don’t we get this one into triage while you do that? Can I take her just over there?”

He nodded to the alcove to the side of the ED waiting room.

“Of course,” the man said. “You go right ahead. You’ll be alright with Mr. —”

“Jack,” Jack said, nodding towards the badge clipped to his scrub shirt. He turned to the little girl. “I’ll be your nurse tonight, milady.”

The girl, who had been sniffling with her face down, concentrating on holding her towel, glanced up, almost smiled, and put her face back down.

“You’ll be alright with Mr. Jack, Jo-bear, and I’ll be right here, and then I’ll be there with you,” the man said. “I promise. Okay?”

The girl, who was maybe seven, nodded without looking up.

Jack looked to the man – her father? They didn’t look much alike, but that didn’t mean they weren’t family – and he nodded.

“Thanks, Mr. Jack,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I’m done here.”

Jack wheeled the chair the few feet it took to get to the alcove.

“Can you tell me your name, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Jo,” she said.

“Yeah? Is that short for something?”

“Josephine,” she said. “Josephine Bittle.”

“Well, Josephine Bittle, can you tell me what happened to your foot there?”

“I cut it,” she said. “It’s bleeding.”

Then she looked like she was going to cry again.

“I’m pretty sure we can fix it up,” Jack said. “Can I see?”

At her nod, he peeled the bloody towel away from the sole of her foot and saw a cut, about an inch long, curved, and close to a centimeter deep. At least the edges were clean. No wonder the poor kid was crying.

“Yeah, you’re going to be just fine,” he said. “Let’s put something clean on there, yeah?”

He applied a sterile gauze pad and wrapped it loosely.

“Do I need to press on it?” she said. “My daddy told me to keep pressing on it in the car.”

The cut was probably a good thirty to forty minutes old at least, and her foot was up on the rest that was part of the chair. It was seeping, but not too much.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m going to use this to take your temperature, okay?”

That was normal. Her blood pressure was also in the normal range, despite the traumatic evening.

Her father was there by then, holding her hand and whispering encouragement.

“So, Miss Jo,” Jack said. “How did your foot get cut?”

She looked at her father, who nodded and said, “Tell Mr. Jack.”

“I wasn’t supposed to pour the milk,” she said. “‘Cause the carton was full and it was heavy. But I didn’t want to wait for Daddy.”

“And the milk cut your foot?” Jack asked, face and voice serious.

“Not the milk,” she said, and there was that almost-smile again. “But I spilled it and I was trying to clean it up before Daddy saw and the glass fell off the table and broke and I stepped on it.”

Jack made notes on the computer, which already had a chart started by the admissions staff. She was eight, not seven.

He looked at the father — blond, small, worried — and said, “Anything to add, Mr. Bittle?”

“Eric,” the man said, although Jack knew that from her chart. “Eric Bittle. Um, no, that’s pretty much what happened. I knew she had the milk out — I was finishing the lattice on a pie crust not eight feet away — but I figured it would be good for her to try — develop independence and all that? But the next thing I know, there’s milk all over the counter and glass on the floor and she’s bleeding and crying.”

The guy looked near tears himself.

“Maybe I should have done it for her?” he said. “Or at least been paying more attention.”

“It was an important pie,” Jo said.

“Not more important than you, Jo-bear,” her father said.

“Mr. Bittle?”

The admitting clerk had matching wristbands for father and daughter and a clipboard forms to sign.

“Was the pie important because it was for you?” Jack asked, hoping to keep Jo distracted until they were ready to move back to a room.

“No,” Jo said. “It was for a job.”

Before Jack could ask more, the clerk was fixing bracelets on wrists and shuffling the papers away.

“You guys are lucky it’s so quiet right now,” Jack said, getting up to push Jo’s chair. “It’ll probably get busy later.”

“Sh- shoot,” Eric Bittle said. “I left the car in the loading zone.”

“Come with us to the room so you can see where we’re hiding her,” Jack said, ducking his head to whisper to Jo, “It’s the room where we put all our most important patients.”

He looked back at her father and said, “Then you can go move the car. I can sit with her for a few minutes.”

Once they got to an exam room, Jack lifted Jo onto the table, and her dad set the unicorn backpack he’d slung over one shoulder on a chair. “There’s a book and some paper and markers,” he said. “I’ll be right back. You’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I know,” Jo sniffled. “Come right back?”

“As fast as I can,” Bittle said.

As soon as he rounded the corner and couldn’t be seen from the open doorway, Jo looked at Jack, chin quivering.

“You want your book?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Hurts.”

“I know it does,” he said. “But you’re being very brave.”

“My daddy said the more I cried, the more it would bleed,” Jo said.

“Well, getting upset does raise your blood pressure,” Jack said.

“Can we talk instead?” Jo asked. “Daddy said I’d probably need stitches, like sewing up my foot.”

“Well, probably, yes,” Jack said. “But we can give you medicine so it doesn’t hurt. We just have to wait for the doctor. Then you can go home and have some of that pie.”

At that, Jo started sobbing.

“Wait, no, what’s wrong?” Jack said.

“There is no pie,” Jo said. “Daddy never finished it because I cut my stupid foot. And I don’t know if he has enough ingredients to make a new one when we get home. And it was an important pie.”

“You said,” Jack said. “For a job? Does your daddy make pies and sell them?”

Making pies one at a time in his kitchen didn’t seem very profitable to Jack, but what did he know?“No,” Jo said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “He used to, before my other father went away. He worked at a bakery and made pies and cakes and cookies. But his pies are the best.”

“Is he trying to get another job in a bakery?” Jack asked. He hadn’t looked at the financial part of Jo’s medical record. If her father was unemployed, did he have insurance? Maybe someone should tell him about the children’s health insurance program? He clearly loved his daughter, who was just as clearly well taken care of, but Jack would hate for a minor mishap like this to send their little family into a tailspin. Especially if there was no other parent involved.

“No,” Jo said. “After my other dad went away, Daddy got a job in a office. He says the hours are better and there’s more money. But now he doesn’t work there anymore either. And he wants to get another job, and he was making the pie so they would like him.”

She looked up, and Jack followed her gaze to see Bittle hurrying back into the room.

“Right, Daddy?” she said.

Jack knew he didn’t imagine the blush on her father’s face. He could feel his own cheeks coloring at having been caught gossiping. With an eight-year-old.

“Uh, close enough, Jo-bear,” Bittle said, a little breathless from jogging back from the parking garage. “But I doubt Mr. Jack here wants to know all that.”

He turned to Jack and said, “I’m sorry. Lord knows what you think of me. Letting my little girl cut her foot open like that because I’m worried about a job.”

Jack shrugged. “Accidents happen,” he said. “Really, she’ll be fine. Lots of kids get talkative when they’re stressed. It’s actually easier than when they clam up and won’t tell you how they’re feeling.”

Ransom came in then, ignoring both Jack and Eric in favor of pretending to search the room, saying, “Josephine? Josephine Bittle? Has anyone seen a Josephine Bittle?”

He did a double-take when his eyes lit on the child on the exam table. “Excuse me, but do you know what a Josephine Bittle looks like?”

That got an actual giggle, and Jo said, “Me. I’m Josephine Bittle.”

“Well, then. I’m Dr. Oluransi, and I’m going to take a look at your foot.”

Ransom sat on the rolling stool, peeled back the dressing, prodding a bit at the edges of the cut, and then using a syringe of sterile water to clean it.

“How did this happen?”

This time, her father told the story of the spilled milk and the broken glass, using even more words than his daughter and sounding so apologetic that this had happened on his watch.

“We’re going to have to get an a quick X-ray just to make sure there’s no glass left inside,” Ransom said. “I don’t think there is, but better to be sure.”

“That means another ride in the wheelchair,” Jack told Jo. “You can come too,” he said to her father.

So they went down the hall for an X-ray. Jo holding tightly to her father’s hand the whole way. When they got there, he rooted around in the backpack and pulled out a tattered stuffed rabbit.

“I think I’m going to have to go over there while they take the picture,” he said. “But you can hold Senor Bun if Mr. Jack says it’s okay.”

Jack looked to Dex, the radiology tech, who nodded. “As long as she keeps it away from her foot.”

Dex was quiet as usual as he positioned Jo’s foot and the camera, spreading a lead-line apron over Jo’s lap (and Senor Bun).

“Now you’re gonna have to hold real still, then I’ll be right back,” Jo’s father told her, before stepping behind the wall.

Dex, who rarely commented at all, threw a “Cute kid,” over his shoulder at Bittle.

“Thanks,” Bittle said, his eyes never leaving his daughter.

That gave Jack a moment to look at her father, who had struck him initially as small and flustered and worried. As they went through triage and her exam, Jack had somehow decided that Jo wasn’t the only one who was cute in the family. And she had said her other father left, which implied that Bittle was a) attracted to men and b) single.

And unemployed, and worried about his daughter, and Jack knew better than to even be thinking about a patient like this.

But Bittle wasn’t the patient.

He was the parent of a pediatric patient. Was that really any better?

“All done,” Dex said. “I don’t see anything in the cut, but we’ll have a radiologist take a look to make sure.”

Jack picked up Jo to put her back in her chair, suddenly self-conscious. It was hardly any effort at all to lift her – she was a child after all – but was he imagining the way Bittle was looking at him?

Back in the exam room, Jack said, “It’s going to be just a little while. I know you didn’t get any pie for dessert, Miss Jo. Would you like a popsicle?”

“Yes, please,” Jo answered.

Jack swore he was just being nice by bringing two popsicles back to the room. He wanted to give her a choice.

“Do you want cherry or grape?” he asked, after opening both packages.

“Grape,” Jo said. “It makes my tongue purple.”

Jack handed it over, then held the cherry one out to her father. “Do you want this? I’ll just have to throw it away otherwise.”

“Sure,” Bittle said, then put it in his mouth and began to suck on the tip.

“Um, I’ll be right back,” Jack said.

“Of course,” Bittle said. “I’m sure you’ve got other things to see to.”

Jack didn’t return until Ransom told him the X-ray was clear and they were ready to put in the stitches. He had Holster with him, which Jack knew was probably a good idea. It would be good to have two of them to hold Jo’s foot still while they administered the lidocaine, and Holster was a big guy; he could block Jo’s line of vision so she wouldn’t see the syringe and needle.

Still, Holster had a way of sucking all the attention in the room to himself. Jack shouldn’t be jealous, not if it would make this easier on Jo. But he felt like he’d built a little bit of relationship with the two of them, delicate and fleeting though it was. Maybe it was silly, but he didn’t want Holster to take that over.

Jack entered the room first, and went right to Jo.

“How was that popsicle?” he asked. “Did your tongue turn purple?”

Jo stuck out her tongue to show him, then said, “Now look at Daddy’s!”

So he did, probably feeling just as silly as Bittle did sticking his tongue out.

“Now that we have the important things taken care of, Dr. Oluransi is going to stitch up your foot,” he said. “We’re going to give you some medicine so it doesn’t hurt while we do it.”

“Are you gonna give me a shot?”

“Well, yes,” Jack said. “But it will only hurt for a minute. Then your foot won’t hurt at all for a while.”

“Hold my hand?” she said.

“Your daddy’s right here,” he said. “He can hold your hand.”

“You hold my other hand,” Jo demanded.

Jack looked at Ransom and Holster, who nodded and said, “I think we got this.”

Jack and Holster moved to block Jo’s view, and Jack took one hand while Blttle took the other. Jack could tell when the first injection went in by the way her whole body moved and her small hand gripped his tighter. Her reaction was less with the next two injections, and by the time Ransom started suturing, she was calm, if not quite relaxed.

It was only a couple of minutes before Ransom was straightening up and saying, “All done.”

“I’ll just get your paperwork, and then be back to go over care instructions,” Jack said. “Then you two can be on your way.”

When Jack returned with the sheaf of papers, Bittle was in the chair next to the exam table, leaning down to listen to Jo.

“Yes, Mr. Jack is very nice,” he was saying when his eyes lit on Jack in the doorway. He blushed again. “Sorry to be talking behind your back. All good, of course.”

Jack couldn’t help but smile at his earnestness.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Let’s go over these. Because the stitches are on the sole of the foot, they’re going to need to stay in twelve to fourteen days. You can make an appointment with her pediatrician to have them taken out.”

“But Daddy,” Jo said. “Aren’t we going to see Moomaw and Pepaw? I don’t want to stay home!”

“Of course we can still go,” Bittle said.

At Jack’s inquiring look, he said, “My parents. In Georgia. We were taking advantage if me being between jobs to make a longer visit. But they have doctors there too. I bet Moomaw can get the doctor she used to work for to do it.”

“You didn’t sound like you were from around here,” Jack said. “And as long as there are no complications, it shouldn’t be a problem to have a doctor in Georgia take them out.”

“You don’t sound like you’re from around here, either,” Bittle said.

“No, uh, Montreal,” Jack said.

“Surprised you didn’t stay in Canada,” Bittle said. “Seems the medical system there is a little less crazy.”

“Maybe,” Jack said, not wanting to explain how difficult it would be to be the son of a national hero and work as a nurse. “But I went to school here and it became home.”

“Well, that certainly worked out well for Jo and I tonight,” Bittle said. “I wish I could do something to thank you.”

“No thanks necessary,” Jack said. “It’s was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Jo.”

Bittle was bent over, digging through the backpack. Jack knew he was wearing whatever he had on when Jo got hurt, but the jeans – now stained with blood on the thigh – fit him well enough to highlight a little round behind. Even though Jack also knew he shouldn’t be looking. He looked back at the discharge papers.

“You know to call your doctor if it shows signs of infection,” he said.

“I know,” Bittle said, coming up with an extra sock and shoe for the foot that now had stitches. “Ready to try walking on this, Jo-bear?”

“I can wait with her while you get the car,” Jack offered. It was probably against policy, but it didn’t matter. They were dead so far tonight.

“You’re sure?” Bittle said. “You can do that?”

Jack shrugged and walked them out to the waiting room.

“Right back, Jo,” Bittle said, and jogged off toward the parking garage.

Jo watched him go, then looked up at Jack.

“What’s your favorite pie?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe apple?”

“Do you work here tomorrow night?” she asked.

“I do,” he said. “But your daddy doesn’t have to bring me a pie.”

Jo shrugged.

“I bet he’ll want to,” Jo said.

**************************************

When Jack put his jacket in his locker in the staff room, the table held not one but two pies, an apple and a peach. A card was propped in front of them, thanking the whole staff, but especially Jack, Ransom, Holster and Dex for their help with Jo, who had contributed a drawing of herself as a mermaid.

Lardo, the nurse-manager, came in while he was reading the card. “Better get a piece a now,” she said. “Those are some good pies.”

“Okay,” Jack said, cutting a sliver of the apple.

“And I saved this for you,” she said, pulling another card from her pocket. The front of the envelope said “Mr. Jack.”

Dear Jack, I am so sorry I don’t know your last name. I’m sure it was on your nametag, but my mind wasn’t all there last night. But I did notice how kind you are – you were very sweet with Jo. And it would have been awkward to say this then, and you don’t have to ever respond if you don’t want to, but I’d like to see you outside of the emergency room if you want to. Call me or text me or whatever. I never do things like this, but Jo said I should.

It was signed “Eric Bittle,” with his phone number underneath.

Then, PS: The apple pie is a new recipe for me. It has maple syrup in honor of your Canadian roots.

“Seriously, bro,” Lardo said. “You should eat that pie. And if that note says what I think it says, call the guy. For all our sakes.”

#omgcheckplease #omg check please #zimbits #meet cute #prompt fill #my fic

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purplesurveys · 4 years

Text

840

if given the chance to do anything, what would it be? Have a graduation ceremony. Mine was supposed to be tomorrow.

do you like the band rise against? Yesssss. They were a part of my punk rock phase in high school. Satellite was my favorite song of theirs; always made me feel things.

when was the last time you showered? Last midnight.

have you ever went back to an ex, only to be hurt all over again? I’ve gone back to an ex, but we haven’t broken up.

write a random lyric. “You can't feel the heat until you hold your hand over the flame, you have to cross the line just to remember where it lays / You won't know your worth now, son, until you take a hit, and you won't find the beat until you lose yourself in it.”

are you secretly fighting a battle with something/someone? Welp, the only thing I can think of rn is the heat, if it counts. It’s really humid and I can feel a headache coming through :/

how many times have you been in love? Continued the day after because a headache did end up happening and killed me. Just once.

are you the type of person who always needs to be in a relationship? I mean literally speaking, no; but to be honest, I’ve been linked to someone for quite a while now that if we were to break up, I’m sure I’ll struggle adapting to being single again. My relationship has been my safe space for when I rant or vent or cry for ~six years, so it’ll be hard to detach from that routine altogether.

are you generally a happy person or a depressed person? I’m a floating-through-the-wind person right now. I’m neither happy nor depressed.

do you think there is a fine line between love and hate? That depends for people but for me, I don’t. That’s my BPD speaking; at the same time, I’m also big on loyalty so if anyone does the slightest thing that betrays that loyalty, I won’t hesitate to cut them out of my life.

what is your biggest weakness? Food.

where is the person you love the most right now? She’s in her room, sleeping.

do you think you’re a strong or weak person? [trigger warning] I’m mostly strong. But when I get hit and turn weak, I turn really fucking weak, I guess. Like I’m usually not able to function or take care of myself, and sometimes I’ll do stupid impulsive things like going on a road rage, etc.

have you ever ridden on the back of a garbage truck? I have not. Garbage trucks here are not as sanitary and clean as the ones I see in more developed countries, so my elders would have whooped my ass if I ever tried to get on one of the trucks we have here.

how much have you changed in the past three months? From being a college student, I’ve turned unemployed :D :D Hahaha. I know I was freaking out about jobs last month, but over the last few weeks I’ve been nicer to myself and allowed myself time to relax and just lounge at home. Idk, looking at the bigger picture, I’ve been going to school for 18 years straight; and the expectation to job-hunt immediately after that is a little too demanding. I see that now. So now I’ll just allow myself to chill for the next few weeks and start applying when I’m ready, and once I’m sure I won’t get panic attacks.

which is better: a lie or the truth? Truth. Always the truth. No matter how ugly.

have you ever been miserable, yet happy at the same time? Yes, this is me every Christmas so it’s a familiar feeling.

This is also a bit like me right now I guess. I’m graduating cum laude – which is great in itself – but my final general weighted average is just a few tiny decimal points from meeting the required grade for magna cum laude...I’m happy about my honors, but for the rest of my life, I’ll regret that I was just a few points away from being a step higher.

do you think everyone is beautiful? Sure.

do you believe that all members of the opposite sex are basically the same? No. Hate generalizing.

when was the last time you were let down? The other night when my record of grades was finally completed and I ultimately didn’t meet the cutoff for magna cum laude.

is there someone you just cannot stand to be around? Just certain people from school but you haven’t seen me bitch about this because I haven’t been in school for three months now anyway hahaha.

what is the best fingernail polish color? If I had to have my nails painted I’d just go with nude.

is music a daily part of your life? No. More like an every-other-day part, lol.

do you drink alcohol regularly? A few times a month but that’s it. I always do it socially; but because of the quarantine I’ve drunk a few bottles of soju for myself.

what is the nearest purple thing to you? An artwork that Nina made. It has a section that’s mostly purple.

how long does it take before you fall asleep at night? Depends how tired I am. I can fall asleep almost immediately but other times it can take me an hour or two.

#survey #surveys

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blue-mint-winter · 4 years

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The Expanse s4e01 New Terra

On the rewatch, it’s clear the first episode is excellent - it provides the continuity with previous season, shows us the passage of time as we check in with characters and provides clever set up to new storylines of this season. Plus all the foreshadowing!

SPAAACEE. That’s what I love to see and this episode especially delivers on that front. CGI in this season is even better. I loved especially that shot of Martian scrapyard.

Lucia and her family on Barbapiccola running that Ring blockade! Yeah! Stick it to the Inners!

I love that Holden’s first line is “That’s one good cup of coffee.” OTP Holden x Coffee is still alive and doing well :) His whole first scene on Earth with his mother, talking at the campfire, seeing lightning in the distance, “Storm’s coming”, his mother giving him Don Quixote book - all of it is such a deliberate foreshadowing of events on Ilus. Great job, show.

Miller repeating himself like a broken record is a sign that something‘s wrong with him. On the other hand, he asks what rain tastes like. Aaaaaa

Upgrades, upgrades everywhere - Roci gets some, Naomi gets some for their expedition, Drummer gets some to heal her back.

Holden taking his medicine for cancer - more foreshadowing, love it.

The set up of Avasarala vs Nancy was pretty good. Avasarala is just tyrannical, Nancy brings up good points about letting people settle new planets and how they can’t keep up the blockade indefinitely and how it’s a grand opportunity for humanity, especially all these unemployed Earthers - but there’s no discussion or democratic process with Avasarala. She’s the empress that knows the best and they have to do what she says. No wonder Nancy decided to take matters into her own hands and run for Secretary-General.

“Don’t teach me about mythology.” - ok so this is funny because Avasarala’s husband is literally a professor teaching about Greek mythology this season. So maybe she knows Ilus was Ganymede’s brother which is why Belters named that their planet. But I doubt that. She doesn’t really give a shit about things like that.

That call from Clarissa to Amos was interesting, because they talk about choice. She’s imprisoned for life but on the way to Earth Amos let her help with mechanic work and he gave her a chance to kill herself in airlock if she wanted to. And Melba is grateful for the choice, which she didn’t take, but how I understand it Amos in her place would have killed himself for sure. Because he values himself and other people by their usefulness and in prison you can’t give anything back, in his own words. In his opinion, it;s better to be dead than useless.

Lol Amos asking what Avasarala was wearing.

Roci pass by Mars on transit and we have a look into another person that must be feeling pretty useless in that moment and that’s Bobbie. She’s stuck in a job she’s not really meant for, taking apart Martain warships instead of manning them as a proud marine, she had a trial, she’s living with her brother’s family. She and everyone in her life are like ships passing by each other and in effect, she’s very much alone. In transit, heading towards nowhere, without any higher purpose or life goal. But she seems to believe that a new war is coming and she’ll be needed again. We also meet Leelee and Thomas, Bobbie’s future bf. It’s a shame he wasn’t some kind of a spy though.

Ashford’s beliefs are put to test when he’s chasing pirates attacking Earth ships. Obviously these guys are Inaros’ faction, though it’s not said outright in this ep yet. Ashford is still new to this cooperation thing and no wonder it struck his nerve to be called a dog of Inners when he spent his whole life fighting them.

Another interesting argument is between Naomi and Drummer. Drummer thinks that Belters have no business settling on planets and that will just make them into Inners. And... she’s got a point. “We’re creatures of space.” But Naomi is also right, the choice is important and they deserve a chance for better life. Also, she was just putting herself through so much pain in the gravity therapy just to get to go down on Ilus.

Btw, I still feel it’s significant that Naomi wouldn’t make that kind of personal sacrifice to go down to Earth and meet Holden’s parents, but she would do that to go on a new planet and help Belters. Earth is the symbolic past of humanity, Naomi is heading towards the future.

The shuttle getting blown up was such a good scene. We get Elvi being excited and Fayez, and Murtry’s dislike of Belters before the big boom. The shots of the wreckage after remind me a lot of plane crashes. Amazing that so many survived. And that’s the set up to the crash mystery.

Roci’s landing and Naomi’s first steps on the planet were so nice. The music on this show, mmmm. Epic.

Holden comes to the settlement and the conflict immediately starts. They want him to pick a side. That swarm attack was very convenient timing-wise. Did Miller send that to break up the argument before they started shooting? At least that’s my theory.

#the expanse #the expanse s4 #my thoughts

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cobblepot-comfort · 5 years

Text

The Rescue

Chapter 6 - You Ain’t So Tough - Jim Has Oswald’s Back

Song to go with this chapter:

Fill My Little World - The Feeling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ztIpA2gQMo

"I'm scared, Jim."

Jim took Oswald's face in his hands.

"I know, sweetheart. But it'll be ok. I'm here."

He kissed him gently, then pulled him into a soft embrace.

"We'll get through this. You can do it."

Happiness to disbelief to fear, those three emotions had almost flown into one on Oswald's face as Jim had broken the news.

Jim had felt his pain, so deeply, but he had fought his own emotions, taking his beautiful, broken bird under his wing - buffering the blow as best he could.

He would take on the world for Oswald.

Earlier that day, over breakfast:

"Sometimes I think you really should be with someone who's not broken like me, you know Jim, with all working parts."

"Hey mister, what brought this on?"

"I don't know, Jim. It just occurred to me, that 's all."

"Look Ozzy, the last time I checked, your parts all worked just fine, in fact, a lot more than fine."

"Bless you Jim. But Jim, you can't ignore the fact that I am actually a cripple."

"Ozzy, don't you dare say that about yourself! You're perfect, and you're beautiful, as I keep trying to tell you."

"So you don't mind my crooked leg, my limp…?"

"Mind it? Anything but! In fact, I think your limp is very sexy, if you must know. And you know I love to kiss and rub that ankle, I hate that it pains you but it's beautiful because it's part of you and who you are."

"Awww. Really, Jim?"

"Yes, really, I love everything about you, I hoped you knew that by now."

"Ohhh James. That is so poetic and touching. It gladdens my heart and fires up my loins."

"Good. You know I love to make you happy. I see it as my prime function in life."

"In that case, I will make it my prime function to keep on just being me, Detective Gordon. And making you happy in the process. Deal?"

"Deal, Mr Cobblepot. Now, sorry sweetheart, but I really have to get off to work….just gimme a kiss for luck before I go…."

Later:

"You look adorable."

"Do I?"

"Yeah, course you do."

Jim straightened the black woollen beanie hat he had lent Ozzy as part of a disguise to smuggle him into the morgue to see his mom.

"Thank you, Jim. I needed that."

"I'm not kidding, you look so cute in it. It looks much better on you than it does on me! And the pea coat. So sweet."

"You're too kind." Oswald's eyes began to tear up.

"I love you so much, Jim."

" Hey, ditto. And I’m not just being kind - you do look adorable. Come here Cobblepot, I need a cuddle."

Jim pulled Oswald into a warm embrace.

"I want so much to protect you from this." Jim kissed Oswald's crown.

"I know. I know, Jim. I love you for that. But - but I'll be ok honey. I'm tougher than I look, you know that by now." Oswald raised his head and smiled tearfully.

"Yeah, I know you are.” He touched Oswald lightly under the chin. “But I'll look after you anyway. I consider it my job!"

"Well, then, in that case I won’t argue - after all, I don't want you to be unemployed, now do I?" The corners of Oswald’s mouth lifted and his dimples grew.

Jim could always inspire him to forget his troubles or worries, and make him smile - if only for a moment….

A short time later:

Oswald approached the door, trying to prepare himself - the moment he had waited for, longed for, and yet dreaded, when he would lay his eyes on the body of his mother. He would finally see the ultimate evidence that she was dead and never coming back.

But he so wanted to hold her again, to know and reassure her that she was in safe hands before being laid to rest at last. Safe hands to take her and prepare her for her last journey on this earth - the one way trip.

However, as he prepared to pass through the door, his knees went to jelly, he started to tremble and his mouth went dry. He stopped in his tracks, frozen to the spot, and he took Jim’s hand, squeezing it tightly.

“Are you ok, sweetheart?” Jim said anxiously, returning the pressure.

Oswald locked gazes with him, and the look on his face spoke volumes.

It said: “Jim - I know I said I’m tougher than I look, but….”

“It’s OK, Ozzy, I know,” Jim reassured, stroking Oswald’s cheek lightly, “And it’s ok to be scared. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Oswald lifted Jim’s hand to his lips and kissed it.

Then he took both Jim’s hands in his, staring into his eyes with deep adoration..

“I’m so glad you’re here, honey…I don’t know what I’d have done without you…”

“Hey. I’m glad I’m here, too, Ozzy. And I’ll be right here all the time. I’ll never leave your side.” Jim came forward and kissed him gently. “And I still say you look very cute in that hat.”

“You are very persistent, aren’t you James?”

“Yes, and I won’t stop. You’re worth it.”

Oswald smiled sadly, sniffed and straightened up determinedly. He removed the beanie hat and ran his hand through his hair with a flourish.

“Thank you Jim,” he said resolutely. “Now, let’s go in and see Mother - it’s not polite to keep her waiting.”

Jim had seen dead bodies before. But this was different.

This wasn't any dead body. This was Gertrud, Oswald's precious loving mom.

He stood just behind Oswald, holding onto his hand, keeping a firm, reassuring grip on it.

"Oh Jim. She looks peaceful."

Oswald sighed sadly, a single tear escaping and running slowly down his face, ending at his lips.

"Yes, she does." Jim placed his other hand gently on the small of Oswald's back. He pressed his lips gently to his crown.

Oswald glanced around at Jim with his tear stained face and smiled at him adoringly. He returned the pressure to his hand. Then he turned back to face his mother again, looking down at her quietly for a moment.

"You look beautiful, Mother," he said softly, addressing her with deep reverence, and he reached out and stroked her cheek with trembling fingers.

Jim ran his hand over Oswald's back rhythmically, just letting him know he was still there with him, understanding.

They hadn't allowed him to see his dad. He was too young, they said. But he'd seen him die, so what difference was it supposed to make?

He hadn't had the chance to say a proper goodbye….

And he hadn't even had the opportunity to face that drunk driver who'd taken his dad away from him so unjustly and so soon. He'd died in prison, poetic justice maybe, but he was now unable to suffer any more - unlike the living grieving relatives left behind.

He was glad that his broken, beautiful Oswald would be able at least to have closure - painful now that was. He would hold him and comfort him for as long as he needed it, absorb his grief, his anguish and pain, take as much of it from him as he could.

And they would get justice for Gertrud.

Oswald had spoken to his mother for some time. There was so much he had wanted to say, and although the shock of seeing her again, laid out and lifeless in front of him, had made him forget some of the things he had planned to say, he didn’t forget to tell her how much he loved her and how sorry he was that he’d been such a bad son (at which point Jim had been unable to help intervening and correcting him on Gertrud’s behalf).

And then he revealed the ‘little secret’ he had kept from her in life, and could now only admit to her after her death.

“You know those ‘hussies’ you used to chide me about? Those ladies with their demon purses? Well, you need have no fears about that, mother. Because….”

And he had coaxed Jim forward, taken both his hands and presented him solemnly. He was determined to put the record straight. Even if her ears could no longer hear him, he could still speak to her heart.

“Mother, this is Jim - you remember him don’t you? That handsome police detective who came to your party and kissed your hand? You liked him, I remember you telling me so afterwards.

Well, Mother, I love him, and he loves me, and he will take good care of me and I will take good care of him too. I will be in safe hands with him, I trust him with my life, in fact he saved it, Mother - twice! I saw my one true love and I ran to him, just as you told me to all that time ago.”

“You see, I feel convinced that you guessed that I was never a ladies’ man. The only lady I ever really loved was you. The way you scolded me about my tomcatting exploits was very unconvincing, I saw something in your eyes that told me you knew my true nature and you wanted to protect me - by overcompensating, and making up these scenarios for those other people to hear, to put them off the scent as it were. I only wish I could have come out and admitted to you what I was, and I’m truly sorry that I didn’t. I know you would never have judged me and would have stood by me - no matter what.”

Oswald took a breath and swallowed hard. This was not the only thing he was admitting to, and he and Jim both knew it. He had been unable to tell his loving mother about his criminal activities, and he had broken her heart - because she had known he was lying to her, and he had known that she’d known. He could at least have told her about this other thing - this thing that concerned love and life, not violence and death.

Jim lowered his head and kissed Oswald’s hands. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he said softly.

Oswald bowed his head, closed his eyes and his tears fell.

#jimwald #gobblepot #oswald cobblepot #jim gordon

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fuckprophecys · 6 years

Note

jercy au where percy's an art thief and jace is a detective?

I’m doing this for Jason Grace Week day 3, because this has been in my inbox for ages.

Jason didn’t like whoever kept stealing statues and paintings from museums.

He definitely didn’t like that they kept leaving the art on his doorstep with pretty ribbons and sweet messages on them.

“What’s the point of stealing art if you’re just going to return it,” He slapped his notebook shut and put his head in his hands. He could hear Reyna snickering at him.

“I think the perp has a crush on you.”

Jason groaned softly.

“With my luck? It’s a 50 year old drunk who’s looking to get arrested quick.”

Reyna’s snickering got louder

“Or maybe it’s a drug addict who’s sole purpose in life is to taunt detectives.”

“I hate you.”

Jason rolled out of his chair, letting himself fall to the floor. Then he laid down on his back, looking up at the press wood bottom of his desk.

And he stayed like that. For an hour.

Someone dropped a file on his stomach.

Annabeth’s sick-ridden voice rang in his ears.

“The prints came back, we’ve identified a suspect.” She sounded miserable.

Jason wiggled out from under his desk and put the file down on the table as he got up.

“You shouldn’t be here, you’re sick.”

Annabeth shook her head. “’M fine. The person we’re-”

“Me, you’re not going.” Annabeth ignored him.

“- looking for is Perseus ‘Percy’ Jackson. Lives on the corner of West 112 and Malcolm X.”

Jason nodded, grabbing the file, but not opening it.

“I’ll go alone.”

“I’m your secondary-”

“You need to get some rest. Now.”

Annabeth grumbled.

“Fine.”

Jason made his mistake when he didn’t look at the file.

Usually he would never make that mistake, he needed to know what criminal background the suspect had.

He realized his mistake mid knock on the door number Annabeth scribbled on the sticky note along with his address.

Percy Jackson was a rather average height man, but that was the only thing average about him. His eyes were like looking into all oceans in one glance, green rings around his pupil that dashed out into deep royal blue edges. His skin was ridiculously tan, almost glowing like the sun. He had a couple tattoos - a girl’s name in cursive on his wrist, a wave peaking from behind his shoulder, a geometric black rose on his his hip, half hidden.

He was built like a Greek God.

The smell of a fresh shower lingered in the air, and Jason was painfully aware that he was only wearing a towel.

Percy leaned against the frame of his door, scanning Jason’s physique. “Can… I help you, stranger?”

Jason cleared his throat.

“I’m, uh, looking for Perseus Jackson.”

“Well you found them.” He put his hand on his hip, clicking his tongue.

Jason nodded, spacing out for a moment. Percy seemed to notice this, but didn’t have time to comment.

“I’m here with the NYPD-”

Percy held up his hands.

“Woah, is this because of the parking ticket? I told the lady I was late because the guy gave me the wrong deadline and-”

“No… no, that’s not… why I’m here.”

Percy blinked.

“Oh.”

Jason licked his lips, a crutch he had for conversations.

“I’m actually here about a case.”

“Shit.” Percy grumbled. “I’m going to be late for work… can we… maybe do this later, I don’t want to get fired.”

Jason nodded without thinking about what Percy just said, then a door was slammed in his face.

Without saying a word, Jason climbed back down three flights of stairs (because the elevator was broken).

When he sat down in his car, he grabbed Percy’s file and read it out loud.

“Name: Percy Jackson, Address… blah blah blah blah blah…” He skims the page to find where he worked.

Jason’s heart stopped in his chest.

“Shit… Place of Employment: Unemployed.”

He bang his head against the steering wheel and his horn went off.

“Captain, I know I messed up but-” Jason wasn’t sure if Chiron could handle this stress right now.

“It’s a genuine mistake. you’ve been here for two days, it happens.”

Jason nodded. “Thank you sir-”

“That’s why I’m giving the case to Arellano.”

Jason stopped nodding.

“W…what?”

“I’m taking you off the case and putting you on leave.”

“But-”

Chiron stood up from his chair with the aid of his crutches. He was still recovering from an incident in the field, but he was still much taller than Jason would ever be.

“Go home, get some rest, watch whatever you millennials watch nowadays. But you’re not coming into work for a week.”

Jason opened his mouth to argue, but a stern look from Chiron caused him to decide against speaking. So instead, he left without being dismissed, grabbing his phone off this table, and going straight for his car.

The ride home was busy of him scolding himself of his mistake, losing Percy Jackson, their prime suspect, because he forgot to read a file.

His home was a small apartment, nothing much, nothing important. Just they place he stayed when he had his days off.

Jason slid his key into the door. It didn’t unlock.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

He jammed the key further in, even though it really didn’t budge.

“Oh my god, please, not right now.”

He turned his key back and forth, and the door locked on his.

His eyes went wide and his heart stopped dead again.

“Shit shit shit shit shit-”

He unlocked his door, letting it swing open, and reached for his gun…

Which he came back empty handed. He cursed his day, and grabbed the potted plant by his door, wondering if it would be good enough for defense.

He closed the door behind him, walking slowly forwards.

“Who’s ever in my house-” Jason didn’t bother correcting his mistake, “you have till the count of 3 to be out of here or I’ll find my gun.”

No reply.

“One…”

Not a single sound.

“Two…”

No movement.

“Three…”

The cold blade of a knife pressed against his throat as he was pushed against a wall, his plant shattered from his hands.

He didn’t fight only because of two brilliant blue-green eyes wildly staring at him.

“Please don’t shoot me,” Percy whispered, “I’m not here to do any harm, I promise.”

Jason held his breath. Percy smelled like spicy cinnamon and sweet vanilla, the kind of candle Jason has here. He had a blue hoodie, but Jason couldn’t read what was on it because Percy was pressing him against the wall.

Jason was also aware of the foot height difference between them, with Percy being the shorter one.

“How did you-”

Percy bit his lip and Jason mouthed ‘oh.’

“I’m… Sorry. I came here to apologize for this mess. I didn’t realise how fucked up it was until I saw you at my door and…”

Jason realised this was a confession.

“You-”

“Stole the art, yet. Because I had a crush on you in highschool after your dad bragged about you everytime I was arrested, all your achievements and grades and ‘model teen’ shit… and I decided to try and flirt and picked the worst way possible so I’m here to turn myself in.”

Jason’s face went red at this.

“I…”

“It’s fucked up, yeah, I didn’t think the job thing would even get past you. But it did… so I figured something was wrong, and I found your address and…” Percy paused. “Shit… no, that’s fucked up too.”

Percy pulled back, dropping the knife. Jason gently peeled away from the wall, guiding Percy to the living room.

“So you were flirting?”

“In a fucked up way.”

“But… you were flirting.”

Percy glared up at him as he sat on the couch.

“Are you mocking me?”

“No. It was… kinda cute…” He admitted. “Couldn’t keep the gifts.”

“I know.”

Jason hummed softly, sitting on his coffee table.

“You could have just came to me in person.”

“I would die.” Percy whispered. “I’m an unemployed mess with a criminal record for street racing and vandalism, and you’re a top detective with a squeaky clean record and a dad who is so proud of him that people literally admire you without knowing who you are.”

Jason stays quiet, folding his arms together.

“So when are you going to bring me in.”

“I’m not.”

Percy blinked in mild surprise.

“You’re… not?”

“I was taken off the case, they have no real evidence you committed the crimes… unless you sent something telling them.”

Percy just shook his head.

Jason sighed.

“Maybe not stealing things would be great. And I would lose my perfect record if anyone found out. But they don’t have to, as long as you promise never to steal anything starting… 2 minutes from now.”

Percy paused.

“Two minutes?”

Jason smiled.

“You need time to steal my heart, don’t you?”

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eddievee · 6 years

Text

Gay and Sober

I’m intimidated by the thought of writing about this. There are multiple reasons as to why I perhaps shouldn’t express these thoughts. However, I have a problem. I have a problem and I feel as though trying to articulate it will help me cope. It is my hope that friends and family members will read this and understand my struggle. Maybe they or someone on the internet could also find solace in my story.

Basically, I have a drinking problem. Call me an alcoholic. Call me an addict. Any term under the umbrella of substance abuse likely applies. I write this at twenty four. Looking back over the past liquored up eight years of my life, the most traumatic experiences and biggest setbacks I’ve endured have had to do with alcohol. I pinned a guy in my dorm to the ground at eighteen and nearly got expelled from university. I went psychotic at twenty-one, experiencing auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. My psychiatrist deduced that it all transpired because I went off of my psychoactives cold turkey and started to self-medicate with wine. That turn of events forced me to withdraw from school for almost a year. In that time, I left random objects on my university president’s doorstep and nearly got arrested for trespassing. I also showed up drunk to the undergraduate library after withdrawal from classes and had to be escorted out by police. My relationship with alcohol is distinctly self-destructive and volatile. In March, I got hit by a motorist after a night out of drinking. I had recently quit a managerial position after over two years working there, lined up a prospective job with greater pay, and a couple of my coworkers bought me Jack Daniel’s as a farewell present. I wrote a goodbye letter that evidently still has a place of honor in the store. It was a bittersweet goodbye, but I was leaving a staff that I knew was going to miss me. From my end, that feeling was mutual. I also had a solid positive reference in my back pocket from my time there. I was ecstatic. To leave a job I really didn’t like was fabulous. To feel as though I was moving on in my career was even better. It was time to celebrate, of course! So, I imbibed. I guzzled hard liquor by myself and went to my usual haunt. I drank more there and tried to ride home on my bicycle. That’s when it all happened. The injury was severe. I sustained contusions on both sides of my frontal lobe and cracked a few bones in my skull. Emergency services were called and I was rushed to the hospital. There, it was determined that I was at a .27 blood alcohol content. Had I consumed a couple more drinks that night, I would have been legally dead. At the hospital, I was put into a medically induced coma and given a room in intensive care. The coma lasted roughly a month and I received inpatient physical, occupational, and speech therapy for another month before discharge. Multiple doctors, nurses, and therapists told me that based on the severity of the injury, I was expected to be discharged by November. I remember visiting the intensive care unit after being moved to the rehab unit. Multiple doctors and nurses who managed my case expressed verbal and physical disbelief that I was standing and walking. Several entered the unit for their shift, saw me, and would throw their hands in the air and turn around before greeting me. I don’t know the totality of their experiences in medicine, but I imagine several of their cases don’t end up walking and talking a month after coming out of a coma. They were unquestionably shocked to see me so relatively well.

Basically, I almost died. Mortality was clarified for me in March. The physical toll alone was nothing short of traumatic. In spite, I’m happy that my recovery has gone so unexpectedly well. I’ve gained 25 pounds of muscle back, I was discharged from outpatient therapies after two weeks, and I’m now looking at the possibility of returning to work. However, I’m not totally well right now. Despite all of the strides I’ve made over the past three months, I know I have an immense amount of work to do to get healthy again. However, I’m ill at this point for reasons unrelated to the somatic impact of my auto accident. The psychological consequences of my injury came later and asymmetrically. With the physiological component consuming most of my time, energy, and focus initially, I simply didn’t know how what happened was going to impact my mental health. With BPD on my diagnostic record, I’ve been depressed, anxious, and occasionally psychotic for much of my adult life. I’ve been in and out of psychiatry and psychotherapy since I was 18 years old. I’ve been hospitalized for psychological reasons twice. Having a degree in psychology and women’s studies, I know the annals and the phenomenology of mental suffering. Through both talk therapy sessions and undergraduate study, I am familiar with coping mechanisms and understand quite a bit about mental illness as a whole. With that said, the knowledge doesn’t necessarily lead to better mental health outcomes for my own struggles. I shouldn’t be drinking at all. In certain traumatic brain injury cases, to consume alcohol is to possibly have a seizure. I also developed blood clots in the hospital and was put on a powerful blood thinner. I’m off that prescription now, but it could have had complications with hard liquor. None of that kept me away from the bottle. I experienced a radical shift. Prior to the injury, I was working overtime hours every week and dating someone I was passionately in love with. He had a key to my apartment after one week of love drunk stupor. Suddenly, I was unemployed and single, my boyfriend breaking up with me in a hospital bed. It was jarring. That particular adjustment was perhaps as traumatic as the injury itself. I had free time and loneliness and ample opportunity for self loathing. Libations were perfect to indulge that stress and sorrow. Got a problem? Pour some plastic jug vodka on it. Let’s Popov off. I mentioned that I had a history of making serious, lasting, and self destructive decisions by drinking prior to March, but I was always able to control myself. I could stop. Now, I can’t. I can consume an entire fifth of eighty to one hundred proof liquor in one evening. If there’s some leftover when I wake up hungover, I drink it that morning. I can’t handle my liquor anymore. I’ve permanently damaged some friendships by sending weird and alarming text messages when I’m blackout drunk. Normally comprised of suicidal ideation, they’re pathetic pleas of “kill me.” Alongside the profound lack of self control, that depth of depression is what’s particularly alarming to me. I don’t want to get sober, but if I keep going like this, I’m going to die. It’ll be at my hand or with a broken bottle. Maybe both. At the least, my liver will fail or I’ll withdraw into delirium tremens or develop Korsakoff’s amnesia. Something. I’ll say again: I don’t want to get sober. However, little of that has to do with alcohol’s effects on my brain and body. Those certainly are factors, but it’s not the bulk of the story. I don’t need a drink to get through the day. It’s fun to be drunk! I like to party. I like relaxing inhibitions, but I don’t need a drink to function. The social and celebratory elements of drinking make it harder to leave behind. I’ve quit abusing other substances in the past because I was almost always using by myself. I like people more than I like drugs. Alcohol is different because that line between people and drugs is blurrier. There’s a distinctly social component to drinking that bears salience to my life. I’m gay. Bars and clubs, the spaces relegated to LGBT people by dominant culture, are centered around the sales and consumption of alcohol. That’s a fact. I’m also a drag queen, who are hired in part to facilitate that commerce. Alcohol was in the room when I first started to meet other gay guys at sixteen. Its omnipresence throughout my gay young adult experiences make it that much more difficult to go without. Booze is sometimes like an old friend; it has been my chaperone for years.

To leave alcohol behind would make me profoundly anxious, thinking that I would be leaving my friends behind too. My community matters to me. If there’s anything that the experience of surviving traumatic brain injury has solidified in my mind, it’s that I matter to my community as well. I’ve made friends in these spaces for years now. The gay bar has been a critical component to my sense of self and I’m terrified to lose that. A friend of mine might read this portion and roll his eyes. He once told me something like “People you party with are not your friends. They’re people you party with.” That may be true, but it’s connection. There’s a multitude of research literature on how social connections lead to better life expectancies and health outcomes. Unhappily married people tend to live longer than content single people for a reason. I don’t know how to mesh sobriety with my network of relationships in the nightlife scene. These people have welcomed me and held me, laughed with me and wept with me. I’ve devoted so much time and energy to drag performances to express my love and gratitude for my community. I don’t want to be without the people I’ve met in part through drinking. I wouldn’t be here without them. At the same time, many people in my nightlife existence know that I have a problem. I went out the other weekend for a going away party. After leaving the club, I went to my friend’s place and had a 2:00 AM conversation with another friend who didn’t accompany us out to the club. He’s mentally ill, but high functioning, and deeply empathetic. We relate. I asked him about our friends’ perception of my alcoholism. He expressed that even before my accident in March, people would notice how drunk I’d get on a regular basis. He said that some people get that drunk “every six months or so.” With me, it was “like every other week.” He went on to comment on my overall melancholy and bleak outlook on life. He said, “Sometimes, when I see you, it’s like you woke up and happiness wasn’t even a possibility.” Being a depressant, alcohol feeds into my psychological dependency for crisis and sorrow. RuPaul asserted that Katya, Brian McCook, had an addiction to anxiety in season seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I feel that. I’m realizing just how intensely accustomed I am to feeling depressed. In drag, I’ve rejoiced in sorrow on stage for years. On multiple occasions, I’ve walked into the bar in full drag makeup and the first thing I hear is “what’s wrong?” It’s not even that the glass is half empty. For me, the glass was never there. To be sad is almost comforting in its combination of introspection and self pity. It’s especially affirming when you feel as though you have a right to that lowness. As Bright Eyes once said, “Sorrow is pleasure when you want it instead.” That pleasure has grown old. I want to do more than just survive in spite of crisis. I’ll say this: I don’t know if I’m going to get sober from alcohol. In my recent brief attempts at sobriety, I’ve recognized just how much temperance culture permeates United States media. You’d be challenged to walk down the main street of any major city and not see at least one advertisement for liquor. The push and pull relationship of Puritanical abstinence from indulgence and the American civic duty of reckless consumption is powerful. That relationship is also undeniably profitable. With that said, my pro and con list of continuing to drink is getting grimmer. What I need to do becomes more obvious after each fifth of bottom shelf whiskey, with each morning I wake up hungover, and within each inebriated, suicidal cry for help. To those of you who have been on the receiving end of my substance abuse, I’m sorry. My brother recently found me in my apartment, eyes rolled in the back of my head from drinking to excess. I’ve fallen down stairs at the local gay bar, making an absolute fool of myself. I’ve said alarming, dreadful things in person and online that I regret terribly. In total, I’ve damaged relationships that I’m never going to repair. The problem is when I’m alone. If I’m at the bar and not drinking around you, don’t think it’s completely because of what I’ve expressed here. More than anything, just know that I have a drinking problem. It exists unarguably within and outside the context of my near death experience. I wrote that I was unsure of how to simultaneously be sober and be present at the spaces where I’ve made loving relationships. This is my attempt. Know that I want to be around, but I simply can’t do it like I used to. I need to get sober from alcohol. At the very least, I should. It’s going to be a tall order, but less lethargy and fewer depressive episodes sound fabulous. Thank you.

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overbakedone · 6 years

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this is the first time i've ever started writing my thoughts and feelings anywhere before. this is not easy.

instead of writing things and then deleting it all because its not good enough or it sounds stupid i'm just going to write it now and stop backspacing. i guess i should start with where i am in life right now so there is some perspective.

im 25, im a bakers apprentice, i live with my parents, i have a girlfriend, lets call her ‘C’ who for the first time feels right to me despite everything, i barely have any friends, they don't ever want to see me, i don't have much time in my life right now, i work all night and struggle to fit sleep into my schedule. but things are really the best they have ever been for me. i just started an AFL 9′s competition, weird i usually have no confidence going into these things and will either quit after the first practice or not even show up, i really kinda enjoyed it and am excited for next week.

i've wanted to start writing anything for a few months now, i guess now i have some time. time is so fucked up, i wish there was more of it, i wish i could sleep without wasting my day, i wish i didn't have to compromise sleep for everything but i do, i guess its part of being a baker, its a job i am loving and i think i've found my life passion but it has its ups and downs. my partner C expects a lot of my time i guess, she can be very needy at times, demanding almost, sometimes i feel pressured by her to sacrifice my sleep, personal plans and hobbies and interests for her, but i know what she feels, she wants the same thing i do. she has problems making friends, or keeping friends, she feels isolated and alone, and she wants my companionship, and i want that too and despite anything i feel in the moment i always feel happy about her at the end of the day.

i should be grateful for the relationship i am in right now, i really should be grateful for a lot of stuff, my parents for allowing me to stay here still, being so supportive and also allowing and accepting of me and really tolerant of the shit i do. ok so i do smoke week every day right so that's already something to do at home that's difficult, i'm pretty sure they know and don't care or even agree that my life has been better since i started smoking, fuck i used to be on antidepressants, i took one every day at a certain time, it made me feel a bit better, ok sounds just like smoking right, expect when i didn't take this pill i got nausea, headaches, severe episodes of depression, i couldn't eat my appetite was so fucked up i was eating one meal a day and it was like a piece of bread or takeaway food. since the smoking started i've found some actual passion in life, i don't feel like a useless number anymore i guess.

one of the things on my mind always is my friends, since i was in highschool i havent really had a group of friends, i feel like i am a social person but then when it comes to it i feel like i just get burned. a lot of my old friends turned out to be secretly hating me and not wanting me around, some sort of pity friendship, i was an asshole in my time and honestly was not a good friend myself, do you pay for the dumb shit you do as a teenager, the people you fuck over go from your life completely yet new people you meet do the same things to you like they know. i had/have a long term best friend, J, we had been mates for years, we worked at my old job dominoes together for a bit, and kinda hung out a few times, but not until we got into PC gaming together did we form a bond. after that we would chat every day, play games together, watch the footy together, go places even though he lived across the city from me. one thing that changed massively in my life was i quit drinking alcohol, and then i felt like all my friends both disagree with my choice and resent me for it, like for some reason i have to take the same drugs they are taking at that time to be their friends. so J has just grown more and more distant, i get that we are older now, we both have partners, jobs that take a lot of our time, but then when we hang out or talk he seems disinterested, more interested with his friends that i introduced him to (from our discord server) and has seemingly replaced me, none of these guys i really like at all, in fact the only one of the new group i like is the one girl in it because she actually has interesting things to say.

fuck that was a paragraph, i guess i should talk about alcohol.

alcohol has fucked up my life, i cant repair the mistakes and stupid things i did while drinking alcohol, so they are there, i guess its just talking about it left. to start off, when i drink alcohol i have a hard time finding my limit, i feel like i swing from nothing to completely blacked out, puking, sobbing and basically hating myself very quick, i feel sick for days after drinking, barely able to eat, leave bed, move, i feel so nauseous and tired, its so fucked up what it does to your body, but oh your mind is even worse. i've broken off relationships, cheated, threatened people, gotten into fights, brawls, got my arm broken, hurt myself repeatedly, gotten arrested and a criminal record that may prevent me from going to canada next year, and is currently delaying booking flights, ive missed work, shown up drunk same clothes no shower to work, but the main thing that alcohol does to me is makes me sad. alcohol makes me so fucking sad, it makes me reach into the deepest pits i can think of and brings out all the emotions that are in there, my ex being the main one. every time i used to drink id think of her, call her, text her, go on her facebook, look up her instagram her twitter, fuck it drive my car to her house to see if her cars there like that does anything or means anything just fucking alcohol is so stupid. i never want to feel like that again, i never want to sabotage my life, sabotage and self destruct my relationships, but i guess losing my friends is the thing i have to take in consideration. australia is a fucked up place, where drinking heavily is the social norm and if you don't get fucked up or even have a beer with mates you're a loser.

i just want a deep connection with my friends. when i was in newcastle with my partner, i met her friends there that she had been living with, despite the fucked up things that happened to her there, she lost a lot of friends herself and a long time friend, had trouble finding new ones, trouble fitting in, the friends she had there were the most honest and truly welcoming, connecting people ive met, and i miss that. i miss having a friend you can just, go over to their place, sit around for 3-4 hours talking shit, laughing, listening to music, relaxing and sharing stories and shit. weird that people can have such an effect on you in a short time. the life i live here is full of making plans, only for them to be cancelled, inviting friends over, for nobody to show up, cancelled plans all the fucking time, i've never been asked to just come over and chill, never its always some group thing that i'm invited to as well. i even try talking to them about this, i told a group of girl friends i have, i miss you all and haven't seen you in so long, we need to have a casual hangout, and the message was almost completely ignored, i asked them all to come to mind to watch the grand final, the house was free, i got a big projector screen, big comfy couch, live central right in the middle of everyone, nobody even replied or brought it up again, yet the second someone else that lives in the far corners of perth brought it up everyone started chatting about their plan to go. so if that's not my friends making it obvious they don't want to see me, they only include me then thats fucked up. i don't know what to say, this happens all the time, my 21st birthday i invited 65 people, and less than 15 people showed up. its hard to keep trying, always trying, i always try to make social events, i always ask friends what they are doing, when they can see me, make plans, they get cancelled, they are busy, they say they're coming then don't show up, most of the time i never hear a word too, they just dont show and don't even apologize, is that a fair thing to do, yeah sometimes i dont go to my friends events, i'm too fucking tired or just don't feel like going, somethings come up, i tell them straight away i cant make it i'm sorry this has come up, yet i don't get the same courtesy.

am i an unlikable person

the guys at work seem to like me, so i started a baking apprenticeship, basically i started watching great british bake off and picked it up as a hobby, making cakes and stuff, actually i should go back. so i used to work in some shitty small software company in the city, 9-5, peak hour traffic, office drama, workplace bullies, understaffed, overworked, red tape and bullshit everywhere, i quit after 2.5 years for mental health reasons, i made a lot of money but had to move on, so i spent a year off , it was only supposed to be a few months, go on a holiday road trip with my then partner, S, she broke up with me via a text message right after eagles lost to melbourne at home, basically the footy game was more disappointing, we had a shit relationship, i think i resented her, i cheated on her, yeah i'm an awful person and deserve everything, she was an emotionally manipulative person, terrified of her own body and sex, tried to dominate my life and change me, im glad we broke up. so i stayed unemployed for a long time, over a year, barely looking, until i found this baking apprenticeship, not only did i apply for the job and write a completely custom cover letter (im so fucking lazy i usually close a job application the second it requires anything more than an apply button) AND i called back a few weeks later when i heard nothing, well turns out that call landed me the job, the apprentice they hired instead of me was useless, had no passion and was a slow worker. so i got the job, and basically have been killing it ever since, i get a lot of praise at work (lots of criticism too) baking is one of those things that takes time, its all about time, so i got a lot to learn but i am actually confident once in my life, holy shit i have a job i like and am good at. is this the dream?> lol

so today i started writing my feelings down, and its kinda felt good, but i'm exhausted now, and my fingers hurt, so this is the end of my first post, i hope nobody reads it, its really just for me but i don't know.

thanks for listening i guess

#self #baking #life #thoughts

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fromthewifecage · 4 years

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Never Trust a Cowboy with a Computer (aka Erron Black X F!Reader)

I actually wrote this several months ago, and kept stalling and being an idiot. About 1 month ago I asked the wonderful @tomoka0013 & @gojihime99 if they could help edit it. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! SO many kisses to you both :D Basic premise is Erron Black X F!Reader. Reader handles the Black Dragon IT and they have a rather huge crush on Erron (because who wouldn’t?) Reader is about to go out to the cinema with Kabal & Tremor buuuuut… dun dun dun….. shenanigans ensue, This is Chapter 1 of 2. Chapter 2 is written but needs me to have a shout at it. If people like this then I’ll try to get it out within a week (Chapter 2 contains the smut). If you do like, then please like and reblog as Tumblr is hiding my tags and no-one will see this otherwise. Your support means more than you’ll ever know x

Never Trust a Cowboy with a Computer

Chapter 1 For once, the absolutely only time in recent history, your hair was behaving. Thank the Gods! Actually, was there a God of Hair? Hmmm, maybe Kano would know? His stories of meeting Gods were always fascinating, even though he would always exaggerate his role and prowess in encounters with said Gods. There was simply no way on Earthrealm that Kano would have stolen the Thunder God’s hat without being zapped into the Netherrealm. Plus, Kano had never produced the hat, so whenever he would have one too many beers and start on another night of tall tales, you’d nod along and feign complete belief in his words. Maybe one day you’d get to meet a God? Not likely whilst you were stuck behind a computer for hours every day. Especially working along side Erron-sodding-Black. He’d gone through at least 5 computers this year, 2 in the past three weeks! You’d swear he was doing it on purpose. In your steamiest daydreams he was deliberately breaking his computer so you’d have to travel to the ‘Black Dragon Boyz office’ (and yes, they did spell it with a z) to spend precious time un-fucking his computer. Every time it happened, you swore you were just going to tell him to go bother someone else, or get his arse down to PC World and find some spotty 17 year old work experience boy to bother rather than yourself. After all, you were doing just as an important job for the Black Dragon as he, well, almost. He might be a super amazing dead-shot sniper capable of assassinating even the most heavily guarded target, but you weren’t just IT support, you were a Black Dragon member too. You spent much of your time hacking into Special Forces super secret files, reading General Sonya Blade’s horribly dry mission reports, or transferring money from one Swiss bank account to another before you could be traced. Well, that was why Kano had hired you. Yet these past few months you’d been dragged to broken computer after broken computer by the obscenely handsome aforementioned Erron Black at least once a week. You hadn’t minded the first few times, after all, any time spent in Erron’s company made you all giddy and wibbly-wobbly inside your knickers. His voice honestly did things to you, actually made parts that shouldn’t tingle at work, tingle. He had warm eyes that seemed to sparkle whenever he spoke to you, or caught you staring at him, not that you stared at him. Much. OK, maybe a little. ****** Keep reading after the cut!!! *********

He had a smile that was likely illegal in half the known world. Long, strong fingers that you so often thought about, especially when you’d watch him dance a coin across his knuckles when he was thinking, his trick to keep his fingers supple. No, no no. No thinking about him. He obviously wasn’t interested in you. He was a simple man when it came to that. You’d seen him make moves on people who caught his eye, he’d watch them for a while, then walk up to them, give them a smile, tell them plainly what he wanted, and then watch them walk off together whilst your heart dissolved into self pity. A few months ago, you’d made a real effort to try to stop flirting with him. No more lingering looks while spending more time than needed helping him with his computer. The man was multi-talented with most things, just not computers. Probably didn’t help he didn’t grow up around modern technology. You’d gently teased him about being old and doddery around computers and he’d taken the jokes well, and really, you missed joking around with him, but it was for the best. Kabal jostled with you for mirror space, smoothing down his hair and giving the mirror a big grin. Why was it so easy for men like him? He could probably roll out of bed after 2 hours sleep with his face in a half-eaten curry and he’d still wake up handsome (the git). Whereas it took a lot of fussing to even get your hair to behave, let alone look nice and shiny like Kabal’s did. Maybe you could make a small shrine in the corner of your bedroom to the Hair God? You nodded to yourself, thinking Kabal must have done that. “Come on, you look beautiful. Now get your coat and scarf, and we’re outta here. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll miss it!” Kabal fussed with his coat buttons. Always unable to keep still, the man practically radiated excess energy. “I will be sad if we miss the film.” Tremor stood up from his own desk, the building shaking ever so slightly with the enormous man’s movements. “Not as sad as Kabal. He’ll start bawlin’ if he misses his boyfriend’s new film.” Erron spun round in his brand new swivel chair, his eyes glinting with mischief. “Johnny Cage is NOT my boyfriend and I don’t even care about missing the film.” Kabal bristled with indignation. He did care about missing it. He cared a lot. “I don’t even like his films, or him. I’m just watching it ironically.” Erron laughed. You felt that laughter, deep inside and it demanded attention. Bastard. “Suuuure. Enjoy your boyfriend.” “He is NOT my boyfriend!” This was going to end up in another fight. Last week Kabal had called Erron ‘Old Man Withers’. Erron had retaliated by drawing on Kabal’s Johnny Cage calendar. The moustache and glasses actually suited Johnny Cage. So Kabal put a mouse in Erron’s desk drawer and recorded Erron’s scream, playing it every so often while laughing, and it had gone on until Kano had forced them to apologise to one another, in front of everyone. This happened probably twice a month. It got to where people made bets on how long each feud would last. The longest feud had lasted 23 long days before Kano had flipped. “I do not want to be late.” Tremor tugged open the office door, the handle would need replacing. Again. You followed after the huge man, Kabal behind you muttering about revenge. “Hey, Sweetheart, you goin’ too?” It took a second before you realised that sultry Texan drawl was aimed at you. “Oh, yes. There was a spare ticket since Kira’s still stuck on a job.” Oh shit, you should have offered it to Erron instead. You’d been so excited to be included in the cinema plans that you’d been selfish and not asked if Erron had wanted to go. “But……” Erron’s face scrunched a little and he turned to his computer and hit a few keys in quick succession. “It ain’t workin’ again. Sorry, darlin’.” He gestured to his computer. “But… I only fixed it this morning! What have you done this time?!” You dropped your bag to the floor, and peeled off your coat with a frustrated groan. You were going to get fired as there was no way Kano would believe this. You were completely and utterly incompetent. No other reason. Your fault. “It’s those darn computer gremlins again.” He gave you an apologetic smile and shrugged. You sighed and waved goodbye to Kabal and Tremor, both eager to watch Ninja Mime’s latest adventure, and this one was in SPACE, so it was going to be amazing, and you were missing it. You stomped over to Erron’s computer, your mouth twisted into a grumpy pout. “That is it. No more computers for you! you want to do some work; then you can bloody well do it on a typewriter.” Erron replied with a “Heyyyyyyy” and another laugh. The throb between your legs from the laugh can just sod off. No more. Not when you were going to be unemployed and unemployable after this. Who was going to hire you? What could you put on your CV? ‘Failed IT support worker’? ‘Only capable of turning a computer on and even then it’ll probably turn itself off again when you’re not looking?’ ‘Can steal FBI or Special Forces secrets but can’t keep an old man’s computer running for more than 3 minutes before it’s broken again’? ‘Want to play Solitaire? Well don’t ask me, best try the sudoku in the newspaper instead’. You were so engrossed in sulking you didn’t notice Erron get up from his comfy chair to stand behind you as you perched on the crappy stool with no back (it had no back because Tremor had tried to sit on it). It was only when strong hands found your hunched shoulders and began kneading at the tightly knotted and sore muscles that you looked away from the ‘blue screen of death’. “I’m sorry, but I’ll make it up to you, Sweetheart.” By the Gods his fingers were truly magic. His thumbs were rubbing magic circles into your shoulders and it felt soooo good. “Mmmhhhhh?” Maybe he was a God, the God of massage. Your eyes closed and your head rolled back. Heat radiated from where his fingers touched you, heat that only got stronger when it reached your face and between your legs. He found one particularly knotted muscle and you couldn’t help but groan your pleasure as his thumb circled the spot. His chuckled reply tugged you back to your senses and you quickly shrugged his hands off you. Thank the Gods you had your back to him so he couldn’t see your positively flushed face. You quickly got back to tapping away at the keyboard but your hands were shaking so badly from the intimacy you struggled to hit the correct keys. “You sure you got that, Sweetheart?” The computer made indignant beeps at your clumsy fingers. “Says the man who has trashed enough computers to practically bankrupt Kano.” Your hands continued to shake and your thwarted desire swerved into anger. “I’ve made you mad.” “I haven’t been out in FOREVER, and just as I’m about to go out, YOU go break your computer. AGAIN!” “Ain’t my fault your boyfriend doesn’t take you out.” Why did he sound almost happy about that? Hang on… You span around to face him. “What boyfriend?” “You know, the dwarf.” “The.. what?” “Your boyfriend, the hairy dwarf.” His arms folded, his weight shifted to one hip. He didn’t seem too happy talking about this mystery boyfriend. “Is this some sort of joke?” You honestly had no idea what he meant. Maybe he was drunk or Kabal had told him this for a laugh. “I don’t think so?” One of his eyebrows rose in puzzlement. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t have a hairy dwarf boyf.. why do you think I have a hairy dwarf boyfriend?” Maybe you had a secret boyfriend so secret you didn’t know you were in fact dating him? Piotr, who ran a very seedy strip club in the seedier part of the city, was a dwarf, (and you only knew him because Kano was friendly with him), but he was balding. Who did Erron think you were dating? “You said you did. You know, you were talking about him being all small and his hair got everyw…. He’s a cat ain’t he.” Erron had the good grace to look embarrassed at his idiocy. “Obviously.” Was Kabal recording this? This was ridiculous. “Shit.” “Yup.” “Then.. uh.. you should go catch up with Kabal and Tremor.” “I still have your computer to fix.” This was going to be such an awkward few hours. Sitting in the office whilst neither of you spoke since you both felt like idiots. “I can do that.” He threw out a warm smile. “Really. The man who can’t even use a mouse without breaking it, can fix this mess?” You couldn’t help but roll your eyes. If he even so much as looked at the computer it would probably catch fire. “I maybe exaggerated my lack of skills.” His smile turned, and slid from warm to worried. You were going to kill him if this was going were you suspected it was going. “I maybe might’ve deliberately caused the error.” He held up his hands in surrender. Yup, definitely going to have to kill him. “I maybe did some classes a few years back when I was at a loose end.” “…… I’m going to kill you.” “How ‘bout I make it up to you? I take you out for dinner, there’s this patisserie we can go afterwards for the best pastries in Moscow. Hell, you wanna watch that film, let’s go.” His eyes pleaded with you not to hate him, but right now you really did. “I have a hairy dwarf who’ll be better company, thank you.” That he was possibly asking you out and that he wanted to actually go out on a date wasn’t registering. All you could think of was the waste of time and how humiliated you felt. Everyone probably knew and had laughed at how utterly clueless you were. Kano was going to fire you for being shit at your job - after he’d finished laughing. “Heyyy, Sweetheart. I’m sorry. I just wanted to spend time with you.” He really did sound sorry. His eyes went all soft and warm and apologetic and Gods he was beautiful and you really did want to believe him. “You really thought it was accidental?” He tried to hide a smile and couldn’t stop one eyebrow from raising quizzically at the thought that you had been utterly clueless. “Well… you’re… there weren’t computers around when you were young…younger, I’m just an idiot aren’t I?” The-all-too brief warmth and fuzziness from thinking maybe there might actually be something there between you dissolved back into embarrassment from being tricked so easily. You grabbed your coat and bag and left the office whilst Erron stared after you.

#Erron Black #Erron Black X Reader #Erron Black X F!Reader #Kabal #Kano #Tremor #Mortal Kombat #Mortal Kombat X Reader #Mortal Kombat X F!Reader #Black Dragon #Black Dragon Boyz

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