#second drafts always get better detailing

[charmandabear]

Office Hours - Chapter Eleven

Summary:

You and Astarion have a little check-in about your preferences.

Pairing: Astarion/f!Reader Rating: Explicit Word Count: 6.1k Tags/Warnings: mentions of many, many different kinks, slightly less than ideal kink negotiation, choking, blood drinking, fingering, rough sex, honestly all the standard stuff at this point

I swear I'm not doing this intentionally, but I'm finally posting chapter 11 when the draft for chapter 12 is up on my Kofi. Eventually I'll get my shit back on schedule.

As always, the professor screenshot is from @zipzoomzaria.

Read it on AO3 ~ Masterlist

The sky outside your living room window is streaked with orange and purple from the nearly set sun. Lying on your couch with your feet propped up on the coffee table, you open an incognito tab on your phone. No sense in ruining your algorithm. You search ‘BDSM checklist’ and click on the first result, an extensive PDF that looks relatively promising. You’re trying to not be judgmental, but as you scroll through the list you’re plagued with thoughts ranging from “Wait, that’s a kink? Isn’t that just standard?” to “People are actually into that?” to “Oh. Oh.”

Your eyes scan down the list. There are just so many options that you hadn’t considered. 

Bondage – light: yes. Bondage – heavy: maybe? Bondage – all day/multi day: definitely not. Collars – worn in private: absolutely. Collars – worn in public: …maybe?

You picture yourself walking around with Astarion in public with a collar on. Maybe not something so explicit as a dog collar, but like a little choker? Just for you and him? The thought sends a small thrill up your spine. You keep scrolling.

Fetishes: boot worship, cock worship, corsets… sure. Cross dressing? The image of Astarion wearing lacy lingerie and giving you a come hither stare over his glasses brings a light flush to your cheeks.

You open up your text messages and stare at your sparse conversation with him. The picture of His Majesty chewing on The 48 Laws of Power is still prominent, making you smile. Your thumbs hover over the keyboard, but you have no idea what to say. Come over so we can compare kinks? I want to tell you in explicit detail all of the depraved things I want you to do to me? You drop your head back on the couch and stare at your ceiling for a few minutes while you try to sort through your thoughts. Better to be simple and direct, right? After a heavy sigh, you type:

-Do you have plans tonight? Do you want to come over?

You pause before hitting send, suddenly unsure. Why is this the thing giving you anxiety? It’s still hard to be so forthright with him while every instinct screams at you to play it cool. With another huff you clench your jaw and hit send.

You put your phone face down on the couch next to you so you’re not tempted to stare at it. You start to feel antsy without anything for your hands to do and your eyes trace the dents in your worn down popsocket. The seconds stretch on for what feels like hours, and you’re convinced that you’ve said the wrong thing. That he’s changed his mind and decided that you’re not worth the effort after all.

Finally you hear the soft hum of your phone buzz, and you frantically flip it over to read his answer.

-I’d love to. Shall I bring anything? A leash, perhaps?

You giggle and squeal and press your thighs together all at once. You settle back on the couch and tuck your feet beneath you, smiling like a schoolgirl with a crush. An apt comparison, honestly.

-Not yet, but maybe one of those fancy expensive wines.

Your heart thrums as your eyes dart around your apartment, making sure it isn’t too messy. You generally keep it fairly tidy, although compared to Astarion’s place yours is downright spotless. The briefest image flashes through your mind of the two of you living together before you internally scold yourself. Absolutely not, it’s way too soon for those thoughts.

Your phone buzzes again, and you look over at it, surprised.

-You’re still my favorite vintage, darling. 🤍🩸

If someone had been around to hear the noise you just made, you would’ve vehemently denied it.

***

You nearly jump out of your skin when you finally hear the knock on the door. You quickly check your hair in the mirror before opening it, and there he is, looking as dashing as ever in a lavender button down and forest green trousers. His collar is undone just enough to get a peek of the delicate silver chains resting on his collarbone, and his sleeves are rolled up, showing off his sinewy forearms. You take the bottle from his hand, your fingers lingering on his wrist momentarily, and gesture for him to come inside. You put the wine down on the counter and turn back to him as he slips his hands around your waist, his cool hands resting on the skin of your lower back below your crop top. You stand on your toes and loop your arms around his neck, gently pressing your lips to his. 

“Hi,” you murmur with a shy smile.

“Hi,” he repeats, resting his forehead against yours. You pull away reluctantly and open the cabinets to take out glasses for wine. Astarion glances down at your socked feet and then over to your shoe rack by the door.

“Oh, erm… would you like me to remove my shoes?” he asks, uncertainty apparent in his voice.

“Oh!” You didn’t consider that he probably hasn’t spent much time in other people’s spaces, and you don’t want to push him outside his comfort zone. “Well, uh… you don’t have to, I guess.” He studies your expression and frowns.

“I feel as though you’d like me to,” he says carefully, and then before you can respond, he walks over to the shoe rack and slips off his shoes, placing them neatly on top of the rack.

“Thanks,” you mumble, and he crosses back to you and kisses your temple. You linger in his scent for a moment longer before turning toward your tablet resting on your kitchen island. You unlock the screen and pull up the checklist you had been perusing earlier, then slide it over to him to look at.

“So in the spirit of, you know, being on the same page about things,” you tell him as you pull out your kitschy pirate-shaped corkscrew, “I wanted to look at a list of like, things to try, and I dunno, talk about it.” You don’t know why you’re so nervous about this. You certainly don’t have much experience with being so explicit about your desires, preferring instead to rely on nonverbal communication with partners. Which, in retrospect, might explain more than a few disappointing experiences.

Astarion brushes your hair back from your neck and lightly runs his nose along your ear, eliciting a shiver. “You wouldn’t just rather have a repeat of the evening at the bowling alley?” You lean your head back into him for a moment, savoring his touch, before steeling yourself and pulling away.

“No, we should actually talk about it,” you sigh heavily, barely able to keep the disappointment out of your voice.

“Having a conversation, how novel,” he says with that high-pitched giggle you find so very charming. You pour generous servings of wine and take a long sip before settling yourself onto a barstool. 

“So they split it into different categories, and then there are a lot of subcategories,” you explain, trying to be chill about it and only mostly succeeding.

“People can get very specific about their wants, it’s true,” he agrees sagely, and you’re suddenly reminded of his centuries of experience over you. You try not to let that make you feel even more insecure than you already do.

“Right. So um… blindfolds, light bondage, chains.” You make little check marks next to the ones you’re interested in with your tablet pen.

“Collars, I believe you articulated something along those lines,” he smiles at you salaciously, and you take a deep sip of your wine to hide your embarrassment. He places his hand on your lower back reassuringly, and you muster the resolve to continue scanning down the list.

“Various cuffs sound good to me, although I’m not sure if I know what ‘handcuff style’ means,” you say, putting the pen to your lips in thought. 

“May I?” he asks, holding out his hands to indicate that he’s asking for permission to demonstrate it on you. You nod and slip off the barstool, and in an instant he has you spun around and your wrists pinned together behind your back. He’s gentle enough, but uses just the right amount of force to make you gasp. “Do you like that?” His voice is low in your ear and your heart threatens to leap out of your chest.

“I, uh… think you can surmise the answer to that,” you tease a little breathlessly, and the puff of air from his chuckle tickles your neck.

“Perhaps, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I want to hear you say it.” He punctuates the sentence by tightening the grip on your hands ever so slightly.

“Then yes, I do.” The words come out a little strained but he deems your answer satisfactory. He releases your wrists and you turn back to him to see him with an incredibly smug grin. You playfully shove his face and return to the list, and he leans over your shoulder to read along with you.

“Thoughts on gags?” he asks, and you think it over for a moment. 

“I think probably not, although maybe tape, just none of these other ones. I don’t want to get all drool-y.” You throw him a mischievous glance over your shoulder. “Although on you, I might reconsider.” You stick your knuckle in his mouth and he closes his lips around your finger, sucking on it while keeping his eyes trained on you. He pulls your finger out with a lewd pop and pulls your wrist into his lips, grazing his fangs along your pulse point. 

“You’d be hurting yourself more than helping, darling,” he murmurs into your skin, and you bite your lip in an attempt to control your breathing. He uses your momentary distraction to snatch the pen out of your hand. “And I’ll go ahead and put a tick next to ‘leashes’ right here.”

“I thought you wanted to hear me say it,” you needle him back, pressing up against him unnecessarily to retrieve the pen.

“Oh I most certainly would,” he purrs, and you feel a heat creep up the back of your neck. You continue scanning down the list, adding checkmarks to some of the things you’ve already done. You reach ‘blood play’ and add a check. Astarion leans down and gives your neck a quick little nip, not enough to break the skin, but enough to make you yelp. 

“Fetishes,” you read, tapping the pen to your lips. “You know, I’m definitely into some of these things, corsets, high heels – I might even still have some of the costume pieces from when I was in Venus in Fur that they let me keep.”

Astarion’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “Venus in Furs, as in, the Sacher-Masoch book?”

“Based on it, yeah. Venus in Fur, singular, by David Ives.”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing some production photos from that,” he teases, running his fingers along the waistband of your skirt.

“Well maybe I should just model the costume for you in person,” you murmur, turning into his chest and tilting your chin upward. He follows your lead, capturing your lips into a heated kiss. Your head grows foggy with lust and you finally push him away. “Focus,” you scold yourself as much as him.

“I am extremely focused right now,” he hums, looking down at you through heavy-lidded eyes. 

“Hmm, prove it,” you retort, and tap the pen on your tablet screen. “What are your thoughts, um. On crossdressing.” You’re a little embarrassed to ask, but you continue to barrel through your shame. Jaheira would be proud.

“Would you like that?” His voice remains just as lust-filled and you flush a deep red. “Seeing me in a cute little skirt and thigh high stockings?”

The image in your mind is vivid: Astarion straddling your lap, a miniskirt flaring out from his hips and his cock pressing against you through thin satin panties. You nearly start hyperventilating.

“Uh-huh,” you breathe heavily.

“Duly noted,” he says with a giggle. You blink to focus your eyes back to reality and return to the list.

“Humiliation?” you ask, and he shrugs. “Yeah, me neither. Impact and rough play. Uh…” you scan through the list, putting down a few checks – face slapping, riding crops, spanking. “Oh. Um. Non-monogamy.” You turn to him to gauge his expression. He returns your gaze equally carefully.

“Is that something that interests you?” he asks, his voice neutral. 

“Probably not dating… um… but I could consider a threesome, like, with the right person. Unless you’re not into that,” you add quickly, and his lips curl into a smile.

“We can cross that bridge if we come to it,” he replies and plants a kiss in your hair. 

“Okay, I like that,” you hum appreciatively. You move onto the next category. “Role play. None of these are of particular interest to me, probably… ugh, schoolroom scenes, I can’t.” You shudder and he lets out a cackle.

“Not interested in a professor/student roleplay?” he asks with a roguish smile. “No looking for extra credit to get your grade up?”

You have another visceral reaction. “Too close to home, no thank you. Although…”

“Reconsidering?” he narrows his eyes playfully.

“No! I was just looking… Well, two jump out at me. Uh…” you struggle against your internalized shame and let out a growl of frustration. He takes your face in his hands and forces you to look at him. His cool touch is a soothing balm against the fiery heat in your cheeks.

“Darling, you can tell me. Trust me, I’m sure it isn’t anything I haven’t already heard.” His voice is gentle, but there’s almost a sadness behind it that you can’t place. You take a deep breath and hold onto his hand, keeping it pressed against your cheek.

“Okay. The first one is fear play. Like… I like when you get a little animalistic. Almost a predator/prey kind of thing.” You avoid his gaze despite his insistence, but you power through. “The other one is switching roles. I may have… fantasized… about you being a bit of a needy sub.” You almost swallow your last few words before looking up to his gaze again. His red eyes are completely inscrutable. 

“Well, I’m more than happy to hunt you down, love,” he leers at you and your breath catches. Then his expression falters, shifting into something more contemplative. “As for the second…” Your whole body tenses in anticipation of the ‘but.’ “I’d have to think about it. I don’t relish the idea of giving up that much control.”

“Ohmygodsnoit’stotallyfinewedon’thavetotalkaboutiteveragain.” The words pour out of your mouth in a barely coherent jumble. He laughs and pulls your face into his, giving you a tender kiss.

“I said I’d think about it, darling, not that it’s an outright no.” He searches your eyes for any indication of understanding, and you nod. He looks back at the next category on the list. “Sensation play, non-impact,” he reads, and he laughs when his eyes fall on ‘biting/being bitten.’

“Yeah, I guess that one’s pretty obvious,” you say sheepishly, putting a check next to it. He looms over your shoulder and you feel the electricity crackling between the two of you.

“Now, I’d like to ask for a point of clarification,” he considers while pointing at ‘breath control (choking)’ and ‘breath control (mild restriction.)’

“Uh-huh?” you ask, barely trusting yourself to articulate words. He maintains eye contact with you as he brings his hand to your throat hesitantly, a silent question. You give him a shallow but prolonged nod, your breath quickening with excitement. He closes his hand slowly, testing the pressure. Your mouth falls open with a silent moan.

“Mild?” he asks, his voice husky. Your fingers curl and flex on the counter, dropping the tablet pen.

“Yeah,” you squeak out, your blood pounding in your ears. His eyes glint with a devilish fire and a smile slowly creeps onto his lips. 

“Good,” he hums, low and dangerous. He studies your face for a moment longer, turning your chin left and right, almost like he’s examining you. Your body trembles, waiting for his next move. He suddenly pulls you up onto your toes, your face close to his, his nails digging into your flesh. You whine, high and loud and undeniably aroused. 

He continues with his interrogation. “And how is this? Yes or no, pet.” Under any other circumstances, his voice might be considered gentle. 

“Y-yes,” you stammer, your voice cracking. 

“Yes, what?” he spits through gritted teeth, tightening his hand and tearing another wanton moan from your lips.

“Y-yes daddy,” the word tumbles out of you before you can even think to stop it. 

Evidently it was the correct answer because his features split with a feral grin as he snarls, “That’s my good girl,” before crushing your lips into his. You grasp weakly at his hips as he devours you, and you’re more than happy to let him. He slides his hands under your ass and plunks you down on the island. He grabs the hem of your shirt and yanks it over your head, pulling your hips in closer to his waist as he continues to ravage your lips.

He snakes his hand into your hair and pulls your head back, exposing your neck to his destruction. “Little love, tell me what you desire,” he growls into your ear, and you clutch your arms around his shoulders.

“You,” you manage to gasp out, “I- ah- I want you. To have your way with me. Destroy me, consume me, take your fill. I want you, Astarion.” You tense up, waiting for his bite, but instead he leaves a trail of sloppy kisses and nips down your chest. He closes his lips around your nipple under your bra, sucking on it through the lace. You run your fingers through his curls and drop your head back with a moan. 

Before you can adjust to the feeling of his tongue on your nipple, his lips continue their journey down your stomach and to the waistband of your skirt. He hikes it up to your hips, hooking his fingers into the band of your panties and pulls them down past your knees, discarding them onto the kitchen floor. He hovers his mouth over your slick cunt and shifts his gaze up to you. You can feel his cool breath and you whimper and squirm, aching for any part of him. 

“Your hand, love,” he purrs as he reaches out for your wrist, pulling your fingers to your swollen clit. You groan as you make contact, instinctively rubbing little circles to give yourself the relief you crave. He slides his nimble fingers into your cunt and you jerk your hips into him, clenching around him and breathing heavily. He slowly pumps his fingers as you massage your clit, never taking his eyes off you. It’s almost too intense and you want to look away, but you’re transfixed. His lips drift to your inner thigh, his fangs ghosting over your skin.

“Please,” you mewl, and the breath from his laugh tickles your thigh. He straightens up and puts his lips to your ear, his fingers never straying from their tortuous pace. 

“You’re going to listen closely to what I’m about to say and you will follow my instructions, understood?” You whimper out a noise of assent, trying to match your fingers to his. “I’m going to bite you, and you’re going to continue touching yourself while I drink. And you’re not going to be stingy with those needy little moans of yours, my sweet, I want to hear and taste you come.”

“Yes sir,” you squeal, and your breath quickly turns into a groan when he sinks his teeth into you. Your fingers slow at the overwhelm of sensation, but when his own fingers speed up as he takes in long greedy pulls of your blood, your need becomes almost unbearable. You clutch at the back of his head with one hand as the other services your clit, and you pant in his ear as he drinks. “Fuck, Astarion, gods, yes,” you gasp the explitives into his hair. Your hips buck into your hand as you bring yourself closer, aided by his fingers dragging against your walls and his tongue lapping at your neck. You quickly grow dizzy with lust and blood loss, your vision clouding you ramp up to the edge. Your fingers tangle into his curls as your whimpers and whines grow high and needy. When you feel the vibration of his own groan against your skin, your orgasm crashes down on you, your cunt and neck both throbbing with pleasure. He rides it out with you, lazily licking your wounds closed.

He pulls away from you and the sight of his lips red with your blood sends another surge through you, and you grab his face and kiss him roughly. He wraps his arms around your waist, the fingers on his left hand still sticky with your cum. You claw at the buttons of his shirt, desperate to feel his cool, smooth chest. Once you’ve rid him of the offending clothing, you break the kiss to catch your breath, sliding your hands over his shoulders and down his arms. He growls with a low appreciation.

“My darling, you taste delectable,” he hums and swipes his thumb across your lips, collecting a drop of your blood and sucking it off lasciviously. You pant and look at him through blurry eyes, your legs still shaking. He pulls you off the counter and your knees buckle as you land, barely able to hold up your weight. “On your knees, my treasure.”

You happily drop to the floor, never taking your eyes off his. He towers over you with a sinister smile and you slide your hands around the back of his thighs, just trying to brace yourself. Your mouth hangs open, hungry for him but waiting for instructions. He cards his hand through your hair, letting it run around your ear and down under your chin.

“So eager for me,” he says in a low voice, and he slips his thumb into your mouth. You suck on it fervently, keeping your carnal gaze on him, aching to please. His eyes flutter closed briefly and he lets out a long breath. You keen into his thumb, a nonverbal plea for his cock. He yanks his digit back from your mouth and closes his hand around your throat once more, bending over for a heated kiss. When he finally releases you, you’re panting again, the whimpers practically uncontrollable.

He begins to unbuckle his pants and you pull up on your knees, begging like a needy pup. “Little love, is this what you want? My cock shoved down your throat?” He pulls out his erection, engorged and flushed pink with your blood, as you nod with a whine. “Good. Open,” he commands and you dutifully obey, taking him as far into your mouth as you can. You swallow down your gag reflex, keeping your eyes trained on him as his head falls back with a moan. You bob your head on his cock, your nails digging into the back of his thighs. He tangles his hand into your hair and you hold still as he thrusts into your mouth. 

“Fuck, Tav,” he hisses and you moan around his cock, spurred on by that jolt of electricity you only get from hearing him say your name. He yanks your hair to pull you off his cock, and he looks at you with wild eyes for a moment before pushing you down onto your back. The kitchen tile is hard and cool against your skin, and you’re all too aware of every knot and point of tension along your back. But your legs fall open for him anyway as he pulls his pants down to his knees and positions himself at your entrance. He teases your slit with the tip of his cock, gathering your wetness and spreading it down onto the shaft with his hand. 

“Please,” you croak, your hips canting upwards towards him. He lets out a shuddering breath that’s almost a laugh. 

“Use your words, love.” His voice is thick with lust, which just sets you off more.

“Please,” you beg with even more desperation, “please fuck me and choke me, Astarion. Please.” You’re almost crying with need at this point, and the noise you make when he finally buries himself into you up to the hilt is utterly obscene. He grabs your throat and digs his fingers into the side of your larynx, just barely restricting your air supply. He pounds into you with long, powerful strokes, and you claw at the kitchen floor to keep yourself from sliding backwards. You let out a strained cry with each thrust, pleasure and sensation overwhelming your body.

“Look at me,” he snarls with a slight squeeze on your throat, and you snap your gaze to him. He looks borderline bestial, his eyes wild with bloodlust, his hair falling over his glasses. His expression alone would have been enough to get another orgasm out of you, but the look paired with the feeling of his controlling and possessive hand around your throat sends you careening off the edge with a cry. A few more broken thrusts of his hips and he’s following, his cock throbbing as he spills into you. He falls forward onto your stomach limply, breathing heavily as you push the curls back off his sweaty forehead.

You reach across your alleyway kitchen and grab a dish towel hanging off your oven door. Astarion slides out of you and you gently wipe your combined spend off his cock. When you look up you catch him staring at you adoringly. 

“What?” you shy away as he pulls his pants back up, and he chuckles.

“Nothing. You’re just beautiful like that, is all.” He takes the towel from your hand and returns the favor, wiping down your inner thigh before crawling toward you and planting a featherlight kiss on your lips. A thousand different thoughts run through your head before you resolutely decide to continue the conversation from earlier. You strain your neck up at the kitchen island above you and frown.

“My tablet is so far away,” you pout, reaching upward pathetically. He rolls his eyes and stands to retrieve your tablet and your wine glass, handing them to you as you lean your back against the island cabinets. “My hero,” you croon as he sits down beside you, taking his own glass with him. He takes a long sip while watching you out of the corner of the eye and you pull the list back up.

“Now where were we?” You scoot over towards him and loop your arm through his, resting your cheek on his shoulder.

“I believe we got side tracked right around ‘breath control,’” he says as he takes the pen off the side of the tablet and puts checks next to the relevant entries. You shove him with your body and continue your journey down the list. You consider a few more – temperature play, sensory deprivation, teasing… 

“Ooh, this one is specific to elves!” you squeal with delight when your eyes land on ‘ear play - elves.’ You quickly nip at his earlobe and he makes a shuddering moan, a somewhat disproportionate response for how relatively tame your action is.

“Ah- yes, I thought you had figured that one out,” he quavers with a laugh, and you suddenly redden.

“Oh. Ohh.” It suddenly dawns on you that the differences between elf and human anatomy are more than just visual. “Is that something you like? That you’re okay with?”

He laughs. “Yes, very much so, just be cautious with it if you don’t want things to come to a sudden, messy end.”

You nod and then add mischievously, “Good to know.” You turn your eyes back to the list. “What the fuck are vampire gloves?” You google the phrase while Astarion scoffs.

“There’s nothing more desirable in the world than a vampire, is there?” he spits, venom apparent in his voice. You look up from your phone, which is displaying pictures of leather gloves with spiked palms.

“What do you mean?” you ask, a little nervous. His vampiric nature has become an integral part of your relationship, but it’s never come up so explicitly.

“It’s nothing,” he exhales heavily. “I’ve just had more than my fair share of lovers who were more interested in my fangs than in me.”

You freeze beside him as he continues to scroll through the list with his finger. You’d like him regardless of whether he’s a vampire or not – in fact, you didn’t even know when you first discovered your attraction to him. But you certainly don’t feel neutral about it, and now you’re worried that you’ve fetishized him.

“Love?” He turns to you, since he must have heard your heart stop. You chew on your lip uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry if I, like, made it weird,” you mutter, your cheeks red hot.

“What? Darling, no,” he hushes you reassuringly. “It’s different when it’s you.”

You wrinkle your nose with incredulity. “I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like it is.”

“My sweet, you have a stunning pair of tits,” he begins, and the non sequitur makes you bark out a laugh. “What I’m saying is that it’s something that I like about you, but it’s not the only thing I like about you. And I’m sure you’ve met your fair share of people who only saw you as a walking rack.” You smile, but you’re still not fully convinced. Your eyes linger on the right side of his neck, hidden from view but you can see the bite mark with perfect clarity in your mind’s eye. He brushes a lock of your hair behind your ear.

“Darling, I haven’t exactly been subtle about how I feel about your blood,” he says in a smoky voice, and a shiver runs up your spine, “even moreso when you’re aroused. I wouldn’t change that, not for all the moonstones in Evereska.”

You pout for a moment longer while he gazes at you earnestly. “And you promise to tell me if I get weird about it?”

He chuckles and presses a kiss to your hairline. “Yes, I promise to tell you if you get weird about it.” Your words sound odd in his posh accent, but it gets a smile out of you nonetheless. “Now, I believe the next category is ‘Service and Restricted-slash-Controlled Behavior.’ Well, that’s certainly a mouthful.”

“Funny, you were a mouthful not that long ago,” you say with a licentious grin. 

“Hmm, points for clever wordplay, but reduced marks for low hanging fruit. B+.” He glances at you over his glasses and you gawk at him.

“Excuse me, did you just grade my dirty joke?”

“I hold myself to a higher standard, and I expect the same of you,” he says haughtily and you roll your eyes.

“I think it was at least an A-,” you mutter and he laughs.

“Of course you would, professor,” he smirks at you.

“Are you calling me an easy grader?” you gasp, your affront over the top and theatrical. 

“No, just easy,” he hums, leaning in for a kiss, to which you respond by biting his lip. You snatch the pen out his hand and look back at the list. One in particular jumps out at you.

“Oh, the dress that you got me, you know, the night you did the meanest thing anyone has ever done to me?” you say, and you can feel him tense up beside you. 

“Have I mentioned how sorry I am for that? And also how wonderful and talented and intelligent you are?” His words carry an air of jest but the concern in his eyes is real.

“And funny?” You widen your smile in an attempt to set him at ease.

“Well, let’s not go that far.” He visibly relaxes when it’s clear you’re just teasing.

“Anyway,” you glare at him playfully, “I was going to say that I liked that. I like when you pick out clothes for me.”

“Then I’ll keep that in mind,” he says with a raised eyebrow. Then his voice drops as he breathes, “You truly were a vision in that dress. I’ll have another one made, if it’s to your liking.” You close your eyes contentedly as he nuzzles your ear, and all you can do is nod. You finally clear your throat to shift your attention back to the list.

“Oh, how about chores?” you muse, tossing him a snarky grin. “Do you think you’d want to don a cute little maid’s outfit and clean my apartment?”

“You could sell me on the maid’s outfit, but darling, you’ve seen my home, you know that I’m not one for cleaning.”

Your mind supplies the very unhelpful image of Astarion wearing a French maid outfit and your brain short circuits. Astarion catches you glitching and laughs.

“Someone is very enthusiastic about seeing me in a dress,” he says, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. 

“Shut up, you’re just really cute,” you mumble, and he wraps his arm around your shoulder and kisses the top of your head.

“Serving other Doms, supervised only,” he reads. “Well, as long as I get to watch.” His voice drops salaciously and you stifle a giggle.

“Like the idea of watching me beg for some big strong Dom?” you volley back, trying to keep your cool.

“Darling, I just like watching you beg.” His voice rumbles low in his chest and you shiver. You move onto the next category, sexual activity and penetration, and wordlessly check entries that, for you at least, just feel pretty standard. Astarion takes the pen from you and puts a check next to ‘strap-on-dildos.’ You glance at him with raised eyebrows and he just smirks in response.

Despite the amount of semi-public sex the two of you have had, you don’t give the next category, ‘Voyeurism and Exhibitionism,’ much attention. The final category, ‘Magic in the Bedroom,’ gives you pause.

Astarion scrolls through the list with his finger, musing, “Since neither of us are magic users, I imagine we’d simply go shopping for scrolls together.”

“Hey Astarion,” you say, and he turns his head to you.

“Hmm?”

“The charm person potion. That I found in your trash.” You keep your voice even, and he frowns.

“Ah. Yes. I, erm… I’m still very sorry for that.” His voice is uncharacteristically stilted.

“Why did you do it?” you ask quietly. You’re pretty sure you know the answer, but you still want to hear him say it. He exhales a deep sigh and waits several moments before finally answering.

“I’ve had more than a few close calls with, ah, potential lovers, shall we say.” He stares off into the middle distance and your eyes trace his profile. “I didn’t think you were secretly a Gur, but also, I’d rather not take my chances.”

“And the thing you said about wanting to seem more charismatic?” You put your hand on his knee in an attempt to soothe both him and yourself.

“A lie. Well,” he corrects himself, frowning, “a half-truth. If I could guarantee that you wouldn’t want to ram a stake through my heart, then you finding my otherwise grating personality slightly more charming was merely a bonus.”

You study his face for a moment longer and then take your hand and turn his chin so he’s facing you. “Hey. Thank you for telling me. I appreciate it.”

“I was selfish,” he growls, the self-hatred pouring out of him in waves. “I was so focused on my own safety that how you might feel about it didn’t even occur to me.” He clenches his jaw and you put your tablet on the floor and sidle yourself between his legs. You wrap your arms around him, pressing your bare skin flush against his.

“I wish you hadn’t,” you murmur into his ear. “But I understand why you did. I’m certainly no stranger to feeling unsafe on a date. There are other ways to guarantee your safety, but I think you know that now.”

He lets out a shuddering breath followed by a quiet laugh. “I don’t relish you seeing me like this.”

“Too bad, get treasured, idiot,” you giggle and he pulls out of the hug to take your face in his hands and give you a sensual kiss. You melt into his arms, breathing in his scent deeply. “Bed?” you ask, and he nods silently. You stand and help pull him to his feet, leading him into your bedroom.

#office hours #bg3 fanfiction #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate fanfiction #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion smut #astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion fanfic #bg3 modern au #university au #professor astarion

[acertainmoshke]

I decided to do these each day I actually write, as a personal incentive and maybe to get some people interested in my snippets.

WIP: Cold Iron

Words written: 627

Draft: First

Chapter: 1 (I'm actually just restarting it from scratch)

What happened: Shakatra, feeling isolated from their current life, wasted the day dancing and spinning in the show, much to the annoyance of their brother Kristoffer. Also took the chance to describe both changelings.

Comments: I focus best first thing in the morning at my desk with coffee, but my desk isn't set up yet and I slept in so here I am at 8pm trying for the 5th time this year to restart this book. I'm cautiously optimistic of this one, but not sure of the quality of today's work. Also, listening to 80's gaming remixes of sea shanties is ideal writing music.

Favorite excerpt:

They could feel the prickles of his skin through his pastel t-shirt and the back of their sweater. The little stings were familiar, comforting. A safe way to hurt. After a very long moment, Shakatra pulled back to look at their brother. He was fat, hiding his large muscles, and this year had decided to put his textured brown hair into long dreadlocks swung over one shoulder. They no longer really noticed his black eyes—pupil-less or all pupil, depending on how you thought about it—or the shimmering abalone horns that curled up through his hair. But every time they saw him, they stared at his skin. It was the color and texture of acorn caps, covered in tiny brown scales with a little sharp spike every few inches. Something about the repetitive texture was endlessly fascinating to touch or watch.

“What happened?” He couldn’t hide his annoyance. They had promised to wash the dishes, to sweep, to go shopping if possible. 

They bit their lip, tasting blood. 

“Shaka?” 

They looked away, back to the dark window. In it was reflected a 30-something androgynous person, with pale skin and unevenly cut black hair and gray eyes. But beneath that reflection flickered another, truer one of an unearthly creature with lightly lavender skin, ears sharply pointed behind its head, and gray eyes slitted like a cat’s. 

“I don’t know.” Their voice was small and shaky. 

“What is going on lately?” 

They didn’t have an answer for him. 

#REALLY rough draft #second drafts always get better detailing #writeblr #daily update #Cold Iron #Moshke writes

[hyomaslut]

──★ ˙🌟 ̟ !! gold star redemption program. 18+!

☆⌒(ゝ。∂).ᐟ ᴛᴇᴀᴍ ʙʟᴜᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴋ's ғᴀᴠᴏʀɪᴛᴇ ᴍᴀɴᴀɢᴇʀ

✿ ─ synopsis: you are the new manager for team blue lock and you have a great idea to make the players get along better. after all, positive reinforcement worked really well on dogs, why not men? ✿ ─ characters: isagi yoichi, bachira meguru, shidou ryusei, itoshi rin, chigiri hyoma + kunigami rensuke referenced ✿ ─ cw: smut, fem!reader, she/her pronouns used, aged-up!characters(18+), pet names, kissing, penetrative sex, oral receiving/giving, semi-public sex, unprotected sex, hair pulling, overstimulation, rough sex, deepthroating/face-fucking, non-exclusive relationships, lots of jealousy, pda, use of foul language, suggestive themes, shidou is an asshole, rin threatens murder, somewhat proofread ✿ ─ notes: okay so every is going to ignore the logistics and mental gymnastics done to put all these guys on the same team and have any of this go on, right? cool. this work was requested by @anastasiablossomlove pls enjoy!

managing team blue lock was no task for a person of average conviction. anyone with less of a spine would be easily trampled and consumed by the members, all with big personalities and even bigger egos. you took to the role with exceptional organizational skills and a positive attitude that didn’t falter, even under the cold glares of the less compliant men of the team (cough cough itoshi rin cough cough barou shouei). before the end of your first week you had drafted up detailed and individualized meal plans, unique to each of them. by the second you had worked with the coach to create special training regimes that works towards their fitness goals while providing challenge and variety. right under their noses you dug your pretty fingers into every part of team blue lock, finding every issue and soothing every conflict, turning a group of somewhat wild animals into a well functioning machine with you at its core.

and not a detail slipped your eye. you could always tell when kunigami had pushed himself too hard in the gym by the stiffness in his shoulders. honestly you doubt you would’ve been able to convince him to let you help him if he wasn’t just as sore as you predicted. but the minute your palms were pressing into his back he was groaning in relief, “you’re an angel” grumbled under his breath. he’s a bit less embarrassed the next time around, blushing while asking you to fix him like you did last time.

you quickly took responsibility for doing chigiri’s hair before every practice and game. after seeing it fall out of its style and flap wildly in his face whenever he reached top speed on the field, you decided he needed something a little more reliable to keep it out the way so his eyes could stay on the ball. though when his hair was this soft, who could blame you for taking a bit longer than necessary, brushing through the knots and gently scratching at his scalp. plus, he didn’t seem to mind all that much, always red faced and all smiles, leaning into your touch. the thank you kiss he plants on your cheek lingers long enough to leave a matching blush on your face as a token of his appreciation.

being the backbone of their system earned you respect, acknowledgement, even affection from the overly friendly members of the team (cough cough bachira meguru cough cough shidou ryusei). no one could deny the benefits of having you around, always offering all kinds of helpful advice and showed not a shred of judgment when listening to their problems. and you weren’t exactly ignorant to the fact that your constant support was causing some of your new friends to become especially attached to you. maybe to someone else it would be a bigger concern, but in your eyes, this was only another opportunity to do more for your team.

that’s why you implemented the gold star redemption program to help motivate them. it was quite simple to follow, you had a chart with all of their names along with cute, slightly wonky doodles of them, and a list of ways to earn gold stars. from goals and assists to being on good behavior, whatever way they earn their stars, team members can then cash them in for certain prizes from you. the list had looked something like this…

2 ☆ = snack or drink of your choice 4 ☆ = a home cooked meal 5 ☆ = a kiss <3 7 ☆ = a massage <33 10 ☆ = private training session <333

the objective was to give incentives towards cooperation. not to mention, it’s always good to strengthen bonds with your team members. it seems, however, that you underestimated how much of your time this new system would take up. or maybe you just overestimated how easy it would be to keep up with the greedy desires of so many egoists at once.

ever since your arrival, anyone with eyes could see that isagi yoichi carried a torch for you. you let him talk your ear off for hours about tactics and players, never tired of his company or too busy for his rambles. it gets his heart thumping obnoxiously loud in his chest. so yoichi makes it his objective to dote on you as much as possible to try to make up for all the time you spend fussing over everybody else. always staying after practice to help you or walking you home. so when you start handing out stars for that kind of stuff, isagi is already making a steady income. he considers himself a gentleman, so at first he spends his stars on meals. and he’s more than happy to eat your cooking, stirring up all kinds of wifey fantasies in his head and enjoying his lunches with you. but at night, when he’s lying in bed, the big ticket item at the bottom of the prize board haunts him. and when he can’t take it anymore, he slips into your tiny little office that you share with the coach, a self-satisfied smile on his face when he lets you know that he just finished the stat sheets you asked him to fill out, earning him his tenth gold star. enough for one private training session.

in all the times you thought about sex with isagi, you’re not sure you ever pictured it to be like this. bent over your own desk, tennis skirt bunched up around your waist, your star player too eager to sink into your pussy to even push down your underwear. they stayed tugged to the side, thoroughly soaked from the way his hips meet yours in sloppy desperate thrusts. “i knew i needed to fuck you when i saw this skirt,” he confesses, eyes fixed to the point where you connect, mesmerized by the way his cock disappears inside you, “you’ve been tempting me all day, so be a good girl and take my cock, okay?” before you can respond he hooks a finger into the elastic of your panties to let it snap back against your skin, drawing a small yelp from you. he changs the angle to fuck you harder, deeper. you wonder if this could be the same sweet yoichi that carries your things and bashfully tells you your outfit looks good.

apparently that yoichi doesn’t exist once he’s balls deep inside you, all that’s left is the side of him you’ve only caught glimpses of when he’s dominating his opponents on the field. and if you thought that it was a chance encounter, you’re sorely mistaken as week after week isagi makes sure he earns his ten stars and you get to know just how mean he can be. his grip is always tight around your hair, whether it’s pulling and steering you into the position he wants or guiding your head down to take more of his dick. god forbid he asks you nicely for something like he always does when you’re not ‘training’. one time you even had the gall to suggest the idea to him and lived to regret it as now if you want anything from him, isagi is only accepting the most convincing of your begs. “c'mon princess, mind your manners, if you wanna cum then you’re gonna have to ask really nicely.” and no teary eyed puppy dog look will get you what you want, even when he makes getting your words out so difficult. truthfully, he never intends to be so hard on you, but having you crying and begging for his cock is the only way to soothe the devil on his shoulder that tries to tell him to take you for himself. in the aftermath, you start to recognize your yoichi again, sheepish in his apologies for how rough he was with you, kissing away the tears that run down your face. he’s lucky you’re too fucked out to charge him for them.

there’s not a world where you offer bachira meguru sexual favors in exchange for playing soccer and he says no. he was already gonna do that anyway, and now not only does he get to make even more of a game out of it, but his reward for winning is the cute little manager he’s had his eyes on for far too long? consider him sold. bachira knows it would be most fun for him to save up and have sex with you as soon as possible, but all of a sudden he has five and he’s itching for a kiss. one he decides to give you right before practice starts… in front of the whole team. but can you blame him? he’s already been waiting forever to feel those pretty glossed lips on his, you couldn’t really expect him to make it through the next few hours when he’s so close to getting what he wants. and you could maybe understand that, but was it really necessary to go for a full open-mouthed wet almost make out that left you panting when everyone’s eyes were already on you? you suspect not, but bachira doubles down, telling you it was of upmost importance that he got it in, else he wouldn’t be able to focus. he neglects to tell you that he overheard reo in the locker room talking about what he was gonna do now that he had five stars. shidou already made it very clear that he would be first to ten, so bachira had to be crafty in order to secure at least one first from you.

meguru was certainly one of the more needy players, right under nagi that required some form of encouragement every step of the way to get anything done. bachira usually does what you tell him to, but not without whining about deserving a prize for being good. quite frankly, you dread having to ask anything of him, because he is determined to be fully compensated for even the smallest of requests. even a task as easy as grabbing something on a high shelf was met with a cheeky smirk and a request for a kiss. and don’t think he’ll budge either, holding the item hostage if he thinks he can squeeze two out of you. it didn’t make it any easier that bachira didn’t possess a shy bone in his whole body, openly showering you in affection when the others were around, holding your hand and nuzzling his face into your collar. it was enough to make even a professional like you blush. he acted as if he was oblivious to the jealous stares of his friends, but the smug cat-like smirk he sends them and the way he only holds you tighter when you try to shyly brush him off gives him away. it may come as a surprise considering his reputation for being a bit delusional, but bachira tries to root himself in reality for once. he frequently reminds himself of the nature of your relationship and tries his best not let his imagination run wild with anything that would be beyond the boundaries you’ve clearly set. things like picturing himself taking you on dates, coming home to you at night, introducing you to his mom. they were all too dangerous to let his mind settle on them for too long.

and what better distraction than burying his face between your thighs. it’s hard to think of much when he hasn’t bothered to stop lapping at your cunt long enough to take a breath in a couple minutes. suffocating was the least of his concerns when the clench around his fingers lets him know your orgasm is just around the corner. meguru swears that your pathetic little whimpers and the slick dripping down his chin are like a straight hit of dopamine to his brain and he’s at real risk of addiction at this point. lidded amber eyes travel up to watch your expression twist into one of pleasure as you gasp out his name. now that catches his interest. when your vision clears and your brain is functioning again after that intense high, you search for his comfort as if you had done any of the hard work. but all you’re met with is that signature wild look that he gets when he brushing past the enemy team’s defense straight towards his goal. it’s your only warning that he’s far from tired and even farther from sated. “if i can keep going, so can you baby. i know you have more for me. jus’ need t’see you make that face one more time.” you have no room to protest, his tongue already finding your clit and working towards bringing you to the edge once again. by your fourth time cumming, you’re sobbing for a break and debating whether you should charge him four times over or give him a star for each one.

someone who was on board with your system from the second that you explained how it worked, was shidou ryusei. what better way to celebrate another one of his blood pumping, heart stopping performances than racing to the locker room to blow a load in his favorite girl while his teammates debrief with the coach? to him it was simple, you fuck him, you feed him, you take care of him, you spend time with him. shidou is, by all of his definitions, dating you. while some might be turned off by the idea of dating someone who isn’t offering exclusivity, he didn’t see it as much of an obstacle. not when he spent star stickers like a gambler on a slot machine, having you multiple times a week if the economy allowed it. and if he’s short a few, no worries, ryusei is quite the negotiator. it starts one week when he’s only missing a star or two, promising he’ll pay back the difference, you know he’s a good customer. it’s probably not a good idea to give in to him though, as the next time he wants a private training session, he’ll insist they’re only nine stars for him. he has made all kinds of fake coupons from 50% Off! to Buy One Get One Free! to even a homemade punch card in his own terrible handwriting. shidou was the first one to ever get a star taken away when he tried to give you an arby’s gift card in exchange for a blowjob. he didn’t try that tactic again.

the worst is when he tries to haggle in the middle of sex. your legs are thrown over his shoulders and his tip is kissing your cervix when he chooses to whine about not being able to kiss you because he has no stars left. he worked too hard to get good star credit, he can’t go into star debt!! “ and with his lips just hovering over yours, his hot breath fanning across your face, how could you say no? in a moment of weakness, you have unfortunately given an inch to shidou, infamous mile taker, and now it’s hard to get him to pay for any of his kisses, especially while he’s fucking you. you thank god that at the very least no one knows he’s been getting them for free… if only shidou would allow your life to be that easy. even worse than giving him an inch, you expected shidou to keep a secret. and you thought his big mouth was something you liked about him. until he’s using it to brag to everyone that he’s your favorite, practically your boyfriend, all because you let him get away with a smooch here and there. let’s just say you had to give out a lot of free kisses to smooth over the problem his bragging habits created.

honestly ryusei was starting to cause a lot of confusion outside of the team with his antics. what with his always hanging off your arm, giving you as much affection as you’d tolerate, calling you sweet nicknames. the people in your life were actually starting to believe you two were dating. not that shidou does anything to discourage such rumors, only grinning and agreeing every time someone mistakes you as a couple. hell, he was starting to get you confused, saying things during your training sessions that certainly didn’t fit the transactional nature of the act. “holy shit you’re so tight- love this pussy, l-love you so much. say my name. c’mon baby, say you love me and i’ll make you feel so fucking good.” and only because ryusei always makes good on his promises do you allow yourself another moment of weakness.

itoshi rin didn’t have much interest or faith in you upon first introduction. he sized you up as some nobody doing this whole manager thing as a fun extracurricular, so as long as you stayed out of his way he didn’t care what you did. with his luck, he shouldn’t be surprised that you were immediately in his way, extremely often, rambling to him about ideas and strategies that he had no intention on listening to. although even he could admit, he understood why the others were so easily charmed by you. he was wrong about how seriously you took your job. not that it changed anything. at least that’s what rin tells himself, but in reality your relentless efforts and endless dedication to supporting all of them was something that spoke to him, made him a bit soft for you. it didn’t help that you were his type in every sense of the word, your attractiveness doing nothing but make feigning indifference a lot harder for rin. your seemingly endless patience didn’t help either. you always responded in kind to all of rin’s harsh words and cold stares, never let his sour attitude deter your subtle acts of service like getting grass stains out of his uniform and making sure he stays unbothered during his yoga. against his will, he was slowly warming up to you, but you were still caught off guard when rin started cashing in his stars, even if it was just a meal. he had lots of them sitting idle on the chart waiting to be used, so you supposed it was only natural for him to get some free food out of it. but you were even more taken aback when a couple days later he requested a massage from you with insistence that he only asks because he’s been extremely tense as of late. which wasn’t entirely untrue. rin had been very tense. just not from anything soccer related like he’d like you to believe. he was tense from the stress of his budding feelings for you combined with the dread of knowing he probably will never have you all to himself. at least not with this stupid reward system in place.

he despises it. he absolutely hates going about his day knowing there are other guys, his shithead teammates, that are getting your time, attention, and affection for the price of a couple of stupid fucking stickers. he misses the days when shidou’s incessant bragging about how many times he was able to make you cum or bachira’s unnecessary details of what your pussy tastes like didn’t bother him. now his blood boils to hear them talk about you like that. that kind of anger makes it clear to him that being your friend was simply not an option anymore. which is how he settled on getting a massage from you. he would satisfy this overwhelming craving he has for you and go back to normal and be able to focus solely on becoming best in the world again without thoughts of you plaguing his mind. that was his hope going into it, but feeling your warm touch on his bare back, melting away years of untreated knots and neglected aches in his body, he could almost blush at the intimacy he feels. especially when that foreign kindness he loves so much is on display as you reassure him that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about and that you’re proud he finally put his pride aside long enough to let you help him. you’ve got him, hook, line, and sinker now. no use in struggling so hard, he supposes, as some part of him knows he’s doomed to fall sooner or later. perhaps it’s time to surrender. he fought a good fight, but his greed for you was candidly too tough of an opponent.

and to rin, surrender looked like asking you when’s the soonest he could book a private training session. you don’t think you could look any more shocked. rin had a quick turn around from someone you doubted even liked you, to someone reserving as much of your time as his stars could buy. the more often he was with you, the less time you spent giving those lukewarm brats the treatment he wants reserved for him. and he wishes he gave in a lot sooner when he feels the wet heat of your mouth around his cock for the first time. how fast he would’ve folded if he knew how pretty you would look on your knees for him. rin tried to be gentle and let you set the pace, but between hissing out curses and barely biting back moans, that same greed to get more from you has his hand twisting itself in your hair and pushing down on the back of your head. he couldn’t help it. and it was so worth it to watch you choke and sputter around his length but never pull away. he knew you weren’t a quitter. “shit, feels good… don’t stop,” he all but gasps, hips instinctively jumping to reach further down your throat, grip tightening when you try to come up for air. after a long moment of breathing through your nose you relax enough to let him ease himself the rest of the way in. rin sighs in relief when your nose finally presses against his pelvis. the way you look up at him starry-eyed and full of adoration made his chest feel heavy with desire to be the only one you ever look at. it drives him crazy that any guy on the team can see you like this, and that heartache has rin fucking your face to forget it. “fuckkk. don’t look away, eyes on me, g’nna cum in that pretty mouth.”

you couldn’t deny that your new attempt at encouraging the team had its kinks. while overall the amount of arguments that broke out between players lessened to keep on good star-earning behavior, you could tell that it came with its own set of tension creating problems. you also couldn’t deny that being pulled in every direction by men vying for your attention was both very time consuming and extremely gratifying, but you think you manage it well. save for when they were already pumped up with adrenaline from a game, that is when real issues arise. especially when a player from the enemy team thinks it’s a good idea to try and hit on the cute little lady holding the clipboard. fatal mistake.

it starts with your favorite pot stirrer, bachira, calling out from his position, making everyone else on the team aware of the situation. “no shot dude, she don’t want you! focus on losing!” you’re confident you can diffuse whatever is about to go down before you notice rin leaving the ball alone in centerfield to beeline straight towards you. threats are flying from his lips on approach, quick to get in the guy’s face, planting his hands on his shoulders to shove him back. “what the fuck do you think you’re doing? i’ll kill you if you don’t get the fuck away from her.” you think maybe you have a shot of getting rin under control if you just- your eyes widen in horror as a flash moves in from your peripheral. there are no words, just shidou drop kicking this poor stranger at top speed. you cringe as you watch shidou knocks this guy off his feet, cleats first, taking rin down with him. what a way to earn a red card.

this was a fun project and request tysm!!! i just went about it in the interpretation i found most interesting, i really hope it was to your liking!!!

© 2023 hyomaslut. please do not copy, translate, or repost any of my content onto any other sites.

#divider credit to @cafekitsune #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #bllk smut #blue lock #bllk #isagi yoichi x reader #rin itoshi x reader #rin itoshi smut #isagi yoichi smut #bachira x reader #bachira meguru x reader #shidou ryusei x reader #shidou ryuusei smut #shidou smut #chigiri x reader #kunigami x reader #miwa sins

[7s3ven]

Hihi can you do a luke x reader fic where reader has had a crush on him for the longest time but he never liked her back and once she started to loose feelings and liking other people he gets jealous and ends up liking her and they get tgt in the end

I love ur writing sm!!🙈🙈

THANK YOU!! 😽😽

I actually have the perfect idea for this in my drafts, omg.

EVERY1 WANTS HIM. luke (pjo)

( master list )

IN WHICH… Y/N L/N realizes she didn’t the only girl hopelessly in love with Luke. And when she finally lets him go, that’s when he decides to reciprocate her precious feelings.

“Everyone wants him, that was my crime. The wrong place at the right time.”

Warnings : Y/N is kind of girly, details differ, angst

—

Love was a funny topic. It often left you breathless with your head spinning and your heart pounding so fast that you feared it would abruptly stop. Or sometimes, it filled you with a sense of dread and envy that engulfed you. Y/N was the latter.

Being an Aphrodite child, she had no problem catching the attention of the guys at camp, including Luke Castellan’s.

He was the golden boy, the role model, the literal blueprint to a great demigod warrior. And Y/N was practically perfection in a human’s body. So why was keeping his attention so hard?

Y/N had tried to deny her feelings for Luke after realising he rarely batted an eye in her direction, yet every time she smelled his cologne, she almost swooned. Him sending her occasional bright grins when he decided to acknowledge her didn’t help either.

“Y/N, can you help Luke with setting up the targets?” Chiron’s voice snapped Y/N back to reality. She suddenly remembered that she was standing on a large grassy plane, awaiting to teach a band of small kids archery. Well, more like Luke was going to do the teaching part. She was only there as a small punishment for being out past curfew.

“Right.” She stammered, hurrying over to Luke. He handed her a target from his pile and when their fingers brushed, Y/N almost jolted. “Sorry.” She muttered.

She felt a little stupid right now. She wasn’t usually the shy one when it came to interactions with guys. Luke merely smiled, his gaze following her as she placed the target down, providing Y/N with false hope.

“You’re better at archery than I am. You should be teaching.” Luke uttered after a moment of silence. Chiron had already wandered off to attend to other parts of camp, leaving the pair of older kids alone.

“I’m not that good.” Y/N quickly replied.

Luke was silent for a minute more before he spoke again. “Why do you act so defenceless and dumb?”

It took Y/N a short second to register his words. “Excuse me?” She choked out. Was he insulting her? Last time she checked, she was decently smart. Definitely not on Annabeth’s level but her grades had always been higher than average.

“I’m not calling you dumb.” Luke quickly corrected himself, “But I’m just wondering why you pretend to be so weak when you’re actually a good fighter and why you hide your intelligent side and focus on your looks. Why do you act stupid to get male validation?”

Y/N didn’t know the answer to his random question. “Nobody likes a smart and strong girl.” She whispered as she set up the last target.

“Well, I must be a nobody then. My type is smart and strong.” Luke grinned before his eyes darted over to Silena, who stood a few meters away. “Your sister’s waiting for you.”

Y/N glanced over her shoulder, subtly waving at Silena. “I’ll get going then. Bye, Luke.”

“See ya, Duke.”

Y/N momentarily paused, “What did you just call me?” She asked in confusion.

“Duke. As in, Heather Duke? You know, from Heathers? She acts dumb but is actually really smart, just like you.”

Y/N could only stare at Luke with her lips slightly parted. “Okay.” She breathed. “Bye.” She jogged over to Silena, quickly grabbing her half-sister’s arm.

“He gave me a nickname.” She whispered to Silena.

On instinct, Silena squealed. “Oh, my gosh! He’s totally into you!” The younger camper effortlessly fed Y/N’s delusions. “Make your move at the campfire tonight, don’t be shy!” Silena nudged Y/N with her elbow.

“Do you think he actually likes me?” She mumbled. Silena immediately nodded. Y/N shakily inhaled. “I guess I could… sit with him at the campfire.”

Silena happily clapped her hands. “Let’s go find you the perfect outfit!”

The campfire was in a few hours. The sun was slowly beginning to set, giving Camp Half-Blood a break from its harsh and burning rays.

Silena dug around in Y/N’s closet, messily throwing articles of clothing over her shoulder.

“What on earth are you doing?” Drew scowled in disapproval as she was hit in the face with a short brown skirt.

“Y/N’s going to make a move on Luke and she needs to look sexy!” Silena exclaimed amongst all the chaos.

Drew lightly scoffed. “Just throw her into a black top and mini skirt. She looks good in anything.”

Silena gasped as she stood up straight. “You’re right!” She scrambled around to find what she was looking for before shoving a black off-shoulder top and a short grey and white plaid skirt with hints of brown into Y/N’s arms. “Get changed! Now!”

Y/N quickly hurried into the bathroom, a little overwhelmed by Silena’s sudden enthusiasm.

“Are you sure about this?” She mumbled, trying to tug the skirt down. She usually wore short skirts but never in front of Luke.

“It’s fine, stop fidgeting with it.” Drew snapped, linking arms with Y/N. Silena did the same on the other side, the two girls practically dragging Y/N out of the cabin. She nervously gulped as they neared the roaring fire.

“I’ve never seen you this nervous.” Drew piped up. It was true. Y/N was almost like a flirting machine yet her heart was always stuck on Luke Castellan.

Y/N’s eyes scanned the small crowd huddled around the campfire, freezing when she spotted Luke in the company of another girl. Silena, wondering why Y/N had abruptly stopped walking, followed her gaze.

“Oh… that’s…” Silena wrinkled up her nose, nudging Drew.

“That’s not right.” Drew furrowed her eyebrows together.

Y/N watched with an aching heart as Luke slung an arm around the girl’s shoulder and leaned in to kiss her cheek.

The girl in Luke’s arms immediately glanced at Y/N, knowingly grinning as if to silently say “There’s another girl in Luke Castellan’s life”.

Y/N almost started trembling. “I…” She clawed at her throat, “I can’t breathe.”

Drew immediately grabbed Y/N’s wrists. “Calm down.” She demanded, “You are Y/N fucking L/N. You don’t need a man. You are an absolute powerhouse by yourself!”

Y/N shakily inhaled before she nodded. She resisted the urge to glance at Luke again, knowing it would only suffocate her even more.

“Y/N, no offence, but maybe Luke just… doesn’t like you as much as you like him.” Silena murmured, despite being one of the only people that constantly fed Y/N’s imagination.

Y/N stared at the ground, feeling a mix of anger, sadness, and happiness all in one. Angry that Luke led her on. Sad that Luke would never see her the way she saw him. And happy that she no longer had to withstand the pain of seeing him with other girls.

“We can skip the campfire.” Silena gently said, placing a hand on Y/N’s shoulder.

Y/N quickly lifted her head, her lips curved into a delicate frown. “No. Find me someone to flirt with.”

“Theo, Ares kid. Handsome, good fighter, surprisingly didn’t inherit his dad’s anger issues.” Drew pointed a tall brunette boy sitting amongst his siblings. As Y/N stormed off towards Theo, Drew leaned to the side to whisper to Silena.

“She really is mother’s daughter.”

“Theo. Hi.” Y/N stopped in front of the teenager, smiling at him. Theo paused, lifting his gaze to stare at Y/N in surprise.

“Oh! Y/N… hi!” Theo looked unnaturally happy to see Y/N. He grinned up at her, welcoming her to sit next to him.

“I thought you would be sitting with Silena and Drew.”

“I decided I needed a change.” Y/N clasped her hands together as she gazed at Theo. She saw his cheeks turn bright red.

“And you chose to sit next to me of all people?”

Y/N shrugged, “Yes. Is there something wrong with that?”

“No!” Theo stammered, “I just wasn’t expecting you to sit with me! Because you’re so pretty- does that sound weird? Uh, you’re just really beautiful- that sounds weird.”

Theo’s siblings looked over at him and mockingly snickered together as he tripped over his words.

Y/N merely stared at him, her glossed lips set in a slight curious pout. “You think I’m pretty?” She asked, batting her lashes.

“Everybody thinks you’re pretty. Not just because of your looks but because of your vibe.”

Y/N’s cheeks unintentionally heated up. “Oh.” She murmured, glancing at Silena who was eagerly watching the pair. The ravenette subtly pointed over at Luke, whose jaw was clenched. His attention was no longer on the girl beside him and, instead, his focus rested on Y/N.

“Are you trying to make Luke jealous?” Theo suddenly asked. Y/N quickly turned her head to face him. “It’s not hard to tell you have a crush on him. I mean, he probably knows at this point.”

“I’m not that obvious.” Y/N retorted.

Theo chuckled as he took a sip from his drink. “You’re about as subtle as a sword. You wanna make him jealous? I’ll help you. I know how a guy’s mind works and right now, he wants to strangle me for even looking at you.”

“Why would you even offer to help me with such a ridiculous task?”

“I like watching chaos.” Theo moved closer to Y/N, their shoulders gently brushing. “And I like causing it even more.” He grinned, “What do you say? Partners in crime?” He held out his hand for a hand shake.

“I like the sound of that.” Y/N laughed as she pulled Theo into a tight hug, “I don’t think a handshake would cause enough chaos, though.”

Theo had that same mischievous glint in his eyes as Y/N did. “You’re right.”

“You should’ve seen Luke.” Silena giggled as she washed her perfectly clear face, “He was practically fuming!”

“He deserves it.” Drew piped up as she carefully plucked out any stray eyebrow hairs. “Leading Y/N on then acting like he’s all innocent. What a jerk. You’re better off without him, honestly.”

Silena hummed in agreement. “Hermes boys are always telling lies.”

Y/N remained quiet as she wiped the excess water off her face. Sure, she felt annoyed that Luke had played with her feelings but small part of her still yearned for his attention.

“Yeah. I guess.” Y/N whispered. Drew and Silena left the bathroom, leaving Y/N to tend to herself. She stared at her reflection, taking in the dark circles that had begun forming and how her smile never looked genuine anymore. Her lips were curved but there was no joy in her eyes.

“Y/N, are you coming? We’re watching to all the boys I’ve loved before.” Silena poked her head into the bathroom, alerting Y/N.

As Aphrodite children, romcoms were their favourite movies. They spent a lot of time watching crazy rich asians, 2000 romance movies, and even gossip girl purely for the unbelievable drama.

“Yeah, I’m coming. Hang on.”

Y/N practically stumbled out of her cabin. It was still dark, the sun still hiding behind the mountain peaks. Dim lanterns lit her path as she begrudgingly started jogging around the camp grounds. She was using it as a method to clear her mind, but she unexpectedly crashed into Theo.

“Morning.” He grinned down at her. “You out for a morning jog?”

“I have nothing better to do.” Y/N muttered back as she spotted some movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Luke slipping on his camp shirt as he stepped out of the Hermes building, barely awake. He saw Y/N and Theo but didn’t bother acknowledging them.

“Someone’s grumpy today.” Theo joked, lightly nudging Y/N. “He’s probably still jealous over last night.”

Y/N folded her arms over her chest. “I still don’t get why he’d be jealous. It was fun at first but why exactly would he be envious of you?”

Theo sent her a surprised look. “If a pretty girl was throwing herself at me and then suddenly stopped and gave other guys attention, I’d be jealous too.” Theo’s gaze flickered to Luke, “And here he comes now. See ya.”

Theo slyly slipped away before Y/N could grab him. Luke was quickly walking towards her, tightly holding a beige-coloured envelope in his hands.

“Y/N.” He uttered, “Here.”

“What’s this?” Y/N muttered as she took the letter Luke handed her. For a minute, she almost thought it was for her.

“I need your opinion on it. I’m going to give it to Isa.” Luke smiled, knowing exactly what he was doing, while Y/N thickly gulped.

“Right.” She muttered, staring at Luke’s surprisingly neat handwriting. It felt like she was opening a letter meant for her. Her eyes quickly scanned over the words, wanting nothing more than to run away. “It’s good.” She choked out.

“Would you give it to her? I know you’re relatively close.” Luke sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck while Y/N furrowed her brows in annoyance. She bit back a loud scoff, shoving the letter into Luke’s hands.

“I’m not your errand runner, Luke.” She snapped, “Give it to her yourself. And I’m not close with Isa. Wrong girl, you jerk!” Y/N couldn’t help but storm off. She felt ridiculed by Luke. It was like he was purposely embarrassing her to see how she would react.

If Luke wanted a fight, he’d get more than that. He’d get a war. People often forgot that Aphrodite was also a goddess of battles and that her children were often just as violent as the Ares kids if pushed too far.

By the time Y/N arrived at the Pavilion, Drew and Silena were already sitting in their usual seats. “He’s such a jerk.” Y/N grumbled as she slid into the seat between her sisters, “Ugh!”

“What did he do this time?” Drew asked, unfazed because she had expected Luke to mess up again.

“So I’m on my morning jog and I run into Theo so we talk but Luke approaches me, causing Theo to walk away. And Luke hands me a letter without any context! So I ask what it is and it’s a letter for Isa. And he asks me to give it to you because apparently, we’re close. But I have never even talked to her! And I realized he probably mixed me up with another girl!”

Y/N angrily stabbed her fork into a roasted potato. “The audacity! Honestly!”

“Good to know you’re finally acknowledging how stupid he is.” Drew drawled as she stared into a small hand mirror and perfected her lip gloss.

Silena, always the kindest out of the iconic Aphrodite trio, pursed her lips. “Don’t say that.” She muttered at Drew. She turned her attention to Y/N. “Maybe he’s having pretty girl withdrawal symptoms.”

Drew gave Silena a pointed look. “What does that even mean?”

“He misses Y/N fawning over him and after her interaction with Theo, he wants to get back at her. Thus, locking you two in a battle where both of you are too proud to fold.”

Y/N huffed. “Maybe I should just move on.”

“Please do.” Drew piped up, “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Y/N nodded her head in determination. “Okay. By the next campfire, I’ll be completely over him! I swear by it!”

Y/N was wrong. So, so, so wrong. She was not over Luke. In fact, she might be falling deeper into his undeniable charm. She sat with Drew and Silena, as always. Theo and Clarisse lingered behind them while Luke, Chris, and a few other Hermes kids sat to their right.

“Is that the new Apollo kid?” Drew asked as she nodded over at the boy strumming the guitar. He was quietly humming along, adjusting the strings every once in a while.

“Yeah. Eric or something.” Y/N replied, her eyelids drooping. She leaned back, accidentally bumping into Theo’s knees. She tried to pull away but he held her down.

“Don’t look now but a certain Hermes boy is staring at you. He looks green as fuck.” Theo whispered in Y/N’s ear as he rested his hands on her shoulders. “Laugh like I said something funny.”

Y/N lightly giggled, covering her mouth with one hand so nobody could see that it was fake.

“He looks even angrier now.” Clarisse added, enjoying Y/N’s little scheme.

“I thought you were moving on from him.” Drew butted in.

“The chaos is fun to watch.” Clarisse answered for Y/N. “Don’t look at Luke but look at Eric. He’s eyeing you up.” Y/N glanced at the new camper, immediately locking eyes with him.

Eric gently smiled as he began to sing along with his siblings, swaying to the beat and never once breaking eye contact with Y/N. Luke’s gaze darted between Y/N and Eric before he ran his tongue over his teeth in annoyance. Why was he feeling this way? He had never been interested in Y/N before, at least not in the way she wanted.

He agreed that she was beautiful but there was nothing more to her than that in his eyes. He never did give himself the chance to get to know her, though. He only liked the attention she gave him and when she abruptly ripped it away, he felt empty. Only now did he realize how many guys were actually interested in Y/N.

It only got worse after the campfire. Y/N was no longer seen following Luke around like a lost puppy and to other boys, they saw it as a chance to finally make their move.

“Oh, my gosh. This is so cheesy.” Theo laughed as he read the love letter someone had sent Y/N. She chuckled along with him.

“I know, right?” She sighed, plucking the letter from Theo’s hands. “I appreciate it but the rhyming scheme doesn’t exactly work out, does it?” Theo immediately shook his head.

“They have great words but they cannot rhyme to save their life.”

Over the past few weeks, Y/N ended up spending more time merely hanging out with Theo than plotting another trick against Luke. In all honesty, she enjoyed his company. It made her wonder why she let herself become so blinded by her adoration for Luke.

“Uh oh.” Theo muttered, “Lover boy incoming.” Y/N lifted her head to see Luke.

“Can we talk?” The brunette asked, though it sounded more like a demand. He didn’t even bat an eye at Theo. “Now?” Luke Castellan had finally cracked.

“Oh… sure.” Y/N stood up and glanced at Theo, who shooed her off. He sadly watched as she trailed after Luke, her hands clasped nervously behind her back.

“That should be me.” He whispered under his breath. “Castellan doesn’t deserve her.”

“Did I do something wrong?” Luke led Y/N to an isolated area of camp. And he eventually said something after a few moments of deadly awkward silence. “Why are you avoiding me and talking to all these other guys all of a sudden?” His knees felt like jelly when Y/N looked up at him.

“Excuse me? I have a right to associate with anyone I please.”

“Why aren’t you paying attention to me?” Luke blurted out. “Why are you flirting with other guys when you used to only flirt with me?”

“Because you’re a jerk, Luke. You don’t have the right to play around with my feelings and when I don’t give you attention anymore, suddenly you want it again! You should have appreciated it when you had it!” Y/N harshly poked his chest as she spoke in a tone she had never used before. Luke could only stand still as Y/N pointed out his flaws.

“But… I liked your attention.” He whispered just loud enough for Y/N to hear.

“Too bad. Go kiss Isa. I thought you liked her?” Y/N was mocking him as she waved him off.

Luke stumbled back, stunned. In that moment, he realised how truely beautiful Y/N was. He took notice of her charming smile, her shining eyes, the crinkles on her face as she grinned. And he remembered how kind she was. She never overstepped a boundary unlike other girls. She admired Luke from afar and didn’t act like a creepy stalker.

Luke slowly walked away, quickly glancing over his shoulder to see Y/N embrace Theo. He had never felt more jealous than before. He could see Clarisse, Drew, and Silena watched him, each smiling like they knew something he didn’t.

“Did lover girl reject you?” Clarisse taunted him, causing Luke to roll his eyes.

“Fuck off, Clarisse.” He grumbled. Drew let out a muffled laugh, finding amusement in the whole situation.

“She doesn’t want you anymore, Castellan.” Drew uttered, shrugging. “Get over it. Didn’t you treat her the same?”

Luke furrowed his brows. “I never treated her like that…” He trailed off, trying to remember when he had ever brushed Y/N off.

There was the time at the campfire where he kissed that girl on the cheek.

And when he showed Y/N his love letter to Isa, which was really just his shopping list shoved into an envelope.

And when he purposely mixed her up with another girl.

“Oh, shit,” He muttered, “I’m a jerk.”

“You just noticed?” Drew snapped. “You realise you miss Y/N because she only ever focused on you when so many other guys wanted her attention too? What happens now? What are you gonna do, huh?”

Luke lightly chewed on the inside of his cheek. “What am I supposed to do? It’s not like I share her feelings.”

Clarisse leaned against a wooden pole, staring at Luke with a small grin. “Yeah. But you’re starting to. You’re jealous.”

Luke scowled, “I am not.” He huffed. “You’re delusional, Clarisse.”

“Maybe. But at least I didn’t fumble a gorgeous girl like you, Castellan.”

Luke clenched his jaw, something he seemed to be doing quite a lot with recent events. “Whatever.” He muttered, quickly walking off.

“I thought she was planning to move on from Luke.” Silena spoke for the first time.

“Be realistic, she’d jump into his arms if he confessed.” Clarisse fired back. Drew nodded her head in agreement. Y/N had always been a hopeless romantic, especially when it came to Luke.

“So… are we going to help him out or…” Silena trailed off as she looked at Drew then at Clarisse, both of them having identical evil glints in their eyes.

“He can figure it out on his own. I want to see how it ends.”

Luke lay awake in his bed, a thin layer of sweat coating his body from the humid air. It was unusually hot in his cabin. The Hermes building was often cold when the wind blew through the small cracks in the walls but someone made the grand choice of leaving the heater on for hours.

Finally, he stood up, having had enough of overheating. He yanked the door open, the wind feeling euphoric on his flushed cheeks.

He stepped outside, deeply inhaling. His gaze flickered to another camper walking around, dressed in a blazer cinched at the waste and a mini pleated skirt. There was only one group of people who dressed that fancy for a simple walk; Aphrodite kids. And Luke instantly recognised their H/C hair.

“Y/N.” He quietly called out as he jogged towards her. Y/N resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she turned around.

“What?” She muttered, folding her arms over her chest.

“I’m, uh, sorry for upsetting you earlier.” Luke scratched the back of his neck, hoping and praying Y/N would accept his half-hearted apology. It wasn’t much but it was all he could muster up.

Y/N, however, wasn’t that easy to break. “You can’t treat me like that then expect me to forgive you. Get it through your head, Luke, I don’t like you anymore.” She was about to storm off but Luke was quick to grasp her wrist.

“Please… forgive me. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to treat you like that. I didn’t know it would affect you.”

Luke was stunned when Y/N shoved him back. “You knew I liked you, Luke. You knew yet you still played around with me. And then when I move on, suddenly you want me back. You don’t get to decide that!”

“I know.” Luke murmured.

“You’re a jerk.” Y/N hissed, pushing him again.

“I know.”

Luke was expecting another harsh blow but Y/N only stared at him as she lightly panted. “You were jealous.” She muttered.

Luke quickly shook his head. “I don’t get jealous.”

“Admit it, Luke. Admit it.”

“I… can’t.”

“Tell me how you feel… and I’m yours.” Y/N stepped closer to him, their bodies almost pressed together. Luke’s breath hitched and in that moment, he wanted to blurt out everything.

How he felt like a failure after his quest.

How he thought he never truely deserved love.

And how he missed Y/N fawning over him.

Yet, he said nothing. He kept his mouth shut and he could see the hope in Y/N’s eyes slowly drift away.

It wasn’t a surprise to her that Luke remained silent. After all, he was never one to share his private thoughts.

“That’s what I thought.” She whispered, “Good night, Luke.” Y/N slipped away, not sparing him another look.

Over the next few days, Luke looked horrendous. Even Chris was staring at the boy in concern until he finally confronted Luke. “Dude.” Chris muttered, “You look terrible. What happened?”

“I haven’t been sleeping well.” Was all Luke answered with as he slowly stirred his spoon around in the soup. Clarisse, Drew, and Silena had all taken a notice of his rugged appearance as well.

“Do we help him now?” Silena questioned.

Clarisse sighed, rolling her eyes. “We have to. Otherwise, he’ll never have any game.”

STEP ONE: Lure Y/N out

“I don’t get why we’re going on a walk in the middle of the night.” Y/N uttered as Drew forcefully pushed her out of the cabin. “There’s harpies, you know.”

“Fuck them. Come on, hurry up. We don’t have all night.” Drew grumbled.

Silena was leading the way with Clarisse hot in her trail, holding a sword in case a happy did actually show up. The group of four girls wandered through the woods, their only source of light being a dim lantern Silena held in her left hand.

“Almost there.” The ravenette beauty spoke up. “Y/N, wait here.”

Drew and Silena rushed off while Clarisse stayed behind, grabbing onto Y/N’s collar every time the H/C-nette tried to walk back to her bed.

“I got someone’s dessert promised to be for a month. I ain’t letting you ruin that.” Clarisse uttered.

STEP TWO: Make sure Luke looks… decent

“Stop fiddling with the collar.” Drew slapped Luke’s hand away as he tried to adjust the tight buttons. He struggled to suck in a breath. “Gosh, men are such babies.” She rolled her eyes while Silena silently combed Luke’s hair.

“You look handsome.” Silena reassured Luke as she showed him his reflection. Luke stared at himself, feeling a little uncomfortable in such formal clothes.

“Are you sure?” He asked for the fifth time, finally causing Drew to snap.

“Oh, shut it, Castellan! We made you look good, end of story!”

Silena was quick to hush Drew in case Y/N heard her shouts. Luke sighed, adjusting his tie so that it was centred.

“I still think confessing to her on a beach is stupid. There’s sand in my shoes.”

“Hey, we offered to help you. You’ll take what you’re given.” Drew poked his shoulder before turning to Silena. “You can go get Y/N now.”

STEP THREE: Force Y/N to confront Luke and Luke to confront his feelings

Y/N furrowed her brows as soon as she saw the strange sight of Luke standing on a sandy beach. She turned to Silena but she had already dashed off, most likely to wait in the shadows until Luke and Y/N came to an agreement.

Y/N sighed. “What do you want, Luke?”

“I shouldn’t have let you go that night.” Luke answered. “I should have spilled out my feelings. I should have told you everything.”

“Well,” Y/N folded her arms over her chest, “It’s too late now.”

“I think you’re pretty.” Luke quickly said Y/N got ready to leave. She paused. “I think you’re beautiful. Gorgeous. Breath-taking. And I’m not talking about your outer appearance because as amazing as that is too, I’m talking about your heart and your vibe. I like how you’re the embodiment of pink. I like how you collect pearls and pieces of jewellery. I like how you adore heart-shaped things and how you’re always ready to lend a helping hand.”

“You noticed… all that?”

“I like how you always watch romcom movies with your siblings. I like how you wear the prettiest necklaces. I like your seashell collection and I like all your Vivienne Westwood clothes. I like how every time you leave camp for the holidays, you come back with a new fashion book and it’s all you read for the next days coming.”

STEP FOUR: High-five as Luke finally confesses (and Y/N cries - Clarisse)

“I like you.” Luke spoke the three words Y/N had been wanting to hear for years. She stared at him, silent and unmoving. He took that as a no until Y/N pulled him into a hug.

“Thank you.” She whispered, small tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Are you… crying?” Luke questioned.

Y/N quietly laughed. “Not many people notice all that about me… so if they do, I end up crying out of happiness.”

“Is this a yes to my confession?”

“It’s a maybe.”

“Good enough for me, Bella.”

Y/N sent him a confused look.

“You know, like Bella and Edward. Twilight, duh? How can you like to all the boys I’ve loved before and nor Twilight?”

Clarisse and Drew eagerly slapped their hands together while Silena fondly watched Y/N and Luke. She was happy for her half-sister because after all those years of pinning, Y/N finally got what she wanted.

PJO TAG LIST (FULL) : @lostinhisworld @julielightwood @jennapancake @evrybodydies1 @kkrenae @s0ulsniper @justanotherkpopstanlol @simpforeveyone @papichulo120627 @corpsebridenightamare @lilacspider @urmomsbananabread @ur-lacol-dsylexic @hottiewifeyyyy @kamiliora @be-bap @finnickodaddy @th0tblckgrl @shoyofroyoyoyo @syraxesrevenge @ahh-chickens @dracoslovergirl @midnightstar-90 @liv1104 @krkiiz @arialikestea @maryclx01 @lukecastellandefender @yuminako @coryoskywalker @crybabysbakery @jsbabyyy @liviessun @p3pperm1nttea @angie-esc @purplerose291 @prettylilsimp @10ava01 @happy-jj @czennieszn @gisellesprettylies @loveyava @jamesmackreideswife @2hiigh2cry @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @randomgurl2326 @niktwazny303 @luvvfromme @y0urm0m12 @mochi-lover26 @annispamz

#luke castellan #annabeth chase #luke castellan pjo #luke castellan x you #greek mythology #grover underwood #luke castellan x reader #percy jackson series #camp half blood #percy jackson fanfiction #pjo show #pjo season 1 #rick riordan #luke pjo #hermes pjo #aphrodite pjo #ares pjo

[hazbin-writings-and-musings]

Lucifer Morningstar x Pregnant!Reader Headcanons Part 3

Keeping the ball rolling after part two, here's Lucifer and reader headcanons as baby gets ever closer to arrival. I think I'll do two more, with the last one detailing the actual birth and dear Lucy welcoming his second child. Thank you for reading and please enjoy!

Warnings: Pregnancy Mention, Smut

- His dedication to soothing your aches and pains grows even faster than they do as you get further along. The wealth of information now available about pregnancy (albeit not of the supernatural variety) initially overwhelms him, but he manages to find what he needs in books about prenatal massage. It doesn't matter where or when pain strikes, he'll be there to roll up his sleeves and work as long as he needs to make sure you're better. He's happy to have a professional masseuse join the palace staff to provide the help you need, but he also just enjoys doing it himself. There's a kind of intimacy he can't explain when it comes to tending his beloved and the body you're growing his child with. It doesn't hurt that his fingers are literally magical.

- He wants the FULL stereotypical expecting-a-baby experience, so yes, he'd love to do some breathing classes with you! The King of Hell might struggle to do anything in public without attracting attention, but he manages to locate a relaxed enough class that the two of you can attend without fear of paparazzi, and he is beyond thrilled from the very first session. There's not much he can offer now and through delivery beyond support, but he intends to give 110%. Pregnant yoga is also not off the table, nor is any activity that lets the two of you bond and enjoy the experience. To a very small extent, he enjoys these sessions because he gets to be seen with you. The Sinners and Hellborn just can't help sneaking an extra look at the King and his expecting lover. He doesn't need to say a word whenever he meets the gaze of someone looking the two of you over, the proud puff of his chest says it all as he lovingly splays a hand on your belly; that's right, I pulled this.

- He wants to brainstorm names right away, and because the two of you elect to be surprised by the birth sex, a very long list of potential selections is drafted for any outcome. His tastes tend to be a bit more old fashioned, but he has a knack for choosing those whose beauty has passed the test of time. His selections are also based on humans that have caught his attention through the ages, for good and bad reasons. Charlie was named after an ancient king, for example, who stood out most to Lucifer because he managed change on a scale few can ever hope to achieve, and change was what he desired for his child above all else. As he follows the naming rule of "two yesses, one no" he listens to all of your suggestions just as eagerly, which over the months results in an increasing long piece of parchment covered in names and notes. Vetoed suggestions are crossed out and he makes a point to note any potential issues with a name in great detail, and while the process is far from streamlined, the two of you have a great deal of fun selecting a final list of favorites.

- Out of everything required to prepare the nursery, selecting baby clothes tends to get him crying from the cuteness most often. He'll hold up potential outfits and try to imagine the baby in them, and while he's got a fantastic sense of fashion, the fabulousity doesn't detract from the adorableness before him. The itty bitty booties, the tiny socks, the cute little onesies... Stars, he's going to have another perfect baby, and since they'll no doubt be as precious as Charlie was... You'll often find him tearing up but beaming in silent thought as he looks over your future child's wardrobe, and he'll always explain himself honestly; he just can't wait to enjoy another round of baby days. If only they didn't go by so quickly...

- Lots of things grow increasingly difficult as you get further along, but he's always up for the challenge of making life easier for you, especially in regards to the bedroom. A baby bump will make certain positions impossible, but that's of little consequence for a man that can bend reality and his own physical form with ease. His capacity for effortless flight makes gravity a non-issue, and where his magic hits its limit, his creativity takes over. Whatever position results in comfort and satisfaction for you will be achieved, and he thinks of plenty to be offered. With his long, forked tongue added to the mix, you need not worry about missing out, no matter how much your middle swells. If anything, he rather enjoys being on the bottom...

#hazbin hotel #lucifer morningstar #lucifer #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin lucifer #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel imagine #x reader #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer x reader #lucifer imagine #lucifer smut #hazbin #hazbin hotel headcanon #hazbin headcanons #lucifer morningstar headcanons #pregnancy #lucifer headcanons #headcanon #hazbin imagine #lucifer morningstar imagine

[intheupside]

“I think he’s still obviously one of the best in the world, but he’s not really getting the credit he deserves right now,” Marchand said. “A lot of the attention is on the younger guys, but if you look at the details of the game, and full 200 feet, he’s by far the best player in the League, him and (Colorado Avalanche forward) Nathan MacKinnon.”

He added, “Two good Nova Scotia boys.”

Marchand has long admired Crosby’s game, playing on a line with him and his then-Bruins teammate Patrice Bergeron at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. 

“It’s all in the way that he prepares and the way he has for years,” the 35-year-old said. “I think what a lot of players don’t understand, especially young players, is that the work that you put in when you’re younger and early in your career and even throughout your career, it doesn’t benefit you for the next season, it’s a continuation of building it for down the road. 

“That’s something that he’s done so well for such a long time is the way he trains and takes care of himself and is always trying to get better, his competitiveness on and off the ice, it’s unmatched.”

Among the 32 players named to the 2024 All-Star Game on Thursday, including Marchand’s teammate David Pastrnak, Crosby has been named to the second-most appearances, with six. Only McDavid (7) has been named to more teams.

But Marchand doesn’t want Crosby -- with whom he trains in the summer in Nova Scotia -- left out of the conversation. He doesn’t want him forgotten. He knows Crosby’s history and that he remains an unbelievable player. 

“He’s not as flashy as some of the higher-end guys,” Marchand said. “He’s direct. He plays safe but he plays hard and direct. He plays a winning game. I think he’s learned how to play the right way that you need to play in playoffs to have success. He plays that the entire season. He’s not trying to beat somebody one-on-one every time he gets the puck. He tries to find open space and find the open man, he moves it quick.”

Crosby has played 19 seasons in the NHL, ever since he was the No. 1 pick in the 2005 NHL Draft and has won the Stanley Cup three times with the Penguins. Bedard, who was the youngest-ever player named to the All-Star team, was taken No. 1 in the 2023 NHL Draft. He will be 18 years and 201 days old when the All-Star Game is played at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Feb. 3. 

“That’s the way that the game is going,” Marchand said. “The young guys are getting the attention now. There’s a lot of flashy young guys coming to the League but if you look at the attention that Bedard’s getting compared to Sid, they’re not on the same level right now. Bedard’s a [heck] of a player for his age, but Sid’s one of the best to ever play the game, one of the top couple players in the League now and Bedard probably gets more attention than anybody.

“They’re trying to grow the game. They use the young names to do that. That’s great for the game of hockey, but you sleep on a guy like [Crosby], he uses that too. He feeds off of that. He’s got that drive, he wants to prove people wrong. We’ve seen it.”

#sidney crosby #pittsburgh penguins #brad marchand #boston bruins #nathan mackinnon #colorado avalanche

[ohcorny]

hey corny. so i always see people recommending to outline their story before starting it, but could you talk a little bit more about what that means? what is an outline and how do you structure one? how long are the ones you write, depending on the project? do you focus on plot beats or feelings? how specific do you get? can u recommend any readings for learning more?

up front i don't have any resources for this, only experience. and outlines feel like one of those things where it's like... there are a million ways to do it and the way that works for me might not work for you. i have a friend who writes out all his ideas on index cards and that, for me, is insane. but he's also a better writer than me so who can say what is right or wrong.

anyway an outline is essentially a sketch but for a story. you go through the whole thing, start to finish, and figure out what goes where and what happens when. the idea is that this is the stage where you work out all the big picture stuff and make sure it all fits together, now, and not after you've drawn twenty pages and suddenly go "wait shit that doesn't work" and have to do it over. it is much easier to delete and rewrite a paragraph than to redraw several pages.

doing anything more, ie including dialogue or feelings, depends entirely on how useful that information is to you at that point in the process and whether the purpose of the outline is for your own guidance, or so somebody else can tell what you're trying to achieve.

this got really long with multiple examples

here is an excerpt from the original outline i used to pitch Hunger's Bite to publishers. this one had to be polished to a professional standard, because somebody else was going to read it and decide whether they wanted to give me thousands of dollars to tell this story. (also several of the details are no longer accurate. for instance it now takes place 9 years earlier lmao)

this paragraph represents the first eight pages of the book. the final book is 264 pages long, and the outline was 12 pages of paragraphs as dense as this one.

it establishes where we are, who's there, and what they're doing. i describe their conversation, but i don't commit to the dialogue. i will occasionally include snippets of literal dialogue, but usually only if it's Important Dialogue, or i just don't want to forget a good idea i had while outlining. it's not expected at this step.

an outline written as part of a pitch to a publisher should tell the whole story, with all the important details, and leave nothing ambiguous. they need to know the tone, shape, and the arcs. no secrets! all the spoilers. outlines for yourself should do this too, but outlines for others need to be as clear about your vision as possible. again, an outline like this exists for the purpose of getting you paid thousands of dollars. you should write it like that.

in comparison, here's an excerpt from the outline i wrote for revisions to my WIP prose novel, so i could show it to my agent (who already read the draft) to be like "do these changes sound good?" i'm not selling it to anyone yet, just making a guide so i can have a conversation about it. so it doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to be functional and clear. the first chapter was entirely new stuff. the second bit was just writing down what was already in the chapter that existed.

i have historically been very bad at outlining things when i don't think i "need" to, and only wrote this one after having written like 60k words of the book without any overall plan. i gave what i had to my agent for feedback and then sat down and figured out how i could apply it. it's made the whole revisions process significantly less daunting. now i have a checklist for things i need to do! this one was a paragraph or two for each chapter, with the ones that needed a lot of rewriting given a bit more detail.

lastly, here's a bit of the outline for the first roger crenshaw book. i was the only person who had to see this, and since the story was planned to be very short i didn't have to worry about a whole lot. as long as i knew what was supposed to go where, it would work. honestly it's not a whole lot different from the previous example.

this one was like five paragraphs and it did the job, and this story was like 15k words. you only need as much or as little as will actually help you on the page.

basically if you take nothing else from this, it's that there are multiple ways to write an outline, that it does not need to be perfect if you're doing it for yourself, and that it only needs what you think is important (unless it is for other people. then it should have everything). and also it's a good idea to do it earlier in the project than after you've written 60k words or drawn--jesus christ i got up to 12 chapters in never satisfied? it's amazing i didn't quit sooner

[thechaoticplayer]

The Confident Student Council President 🔞

Author's note: had this sitting in my drafts for about 2 weeks... giggling and twirling hair- this didnt come out exactly the way I want it but I guess I'll cope + ratio

Summary: your stupid ahh male friend asks you to get the shoulder pads (that he forgot) for football practice. however, you werent expecting the student council president to be inside, the man you've been crushing on for quite some time now...

Contains: x reader, Dom! Ver Vermillion, him being super demanding and sweet at the same time, this was inspired by his fucking shower stream (I WAS SCREAMING), theres a bit of plot, praise, smut yet again it's not even a surprise anymore

VER VERMILLION was something to admire. In class, he had a sense of authority to him, but never abused the power he was bestowed with. He was very gentle but stern, like an mature older brother. Ver had no problem putting someone in their place, and it put you in awe of him. You quietly watched him from afar. Noticed every tiny detail about him.

Ver's hands. They're so pretty, but with a single gesture, he could make the whole room silent.

Ver's voice. Calm and low, still somehow heard over the ruckus of the classroom. When he raised his voice in the slightest, everyone knew to shut up.

Ver's smile. He was constantly smiling. A soothing smile that put everyone at ease. He could easily charm anyone within a 10 feet radius with his smile alone.

Ver's face. Sometimes an expression of relief, of slight irritation, of slight happiness. You wondered what expression he'd make if you littered his face with kisses. then you quickly shook the idea out of your head, because it was highly unlikely of ever occurring.

Everyone knew who Ver Vermillion was. Hardly anyone knows you, never the less know of your existence. You were content with that, because you could never be someone near as popular as Ver. Besides, you weren't anything much, just another valedictorian who gets asked the answers to questions.

Speaking of which...

A classmate leans over to your desk, where you sit scrawling down notes. "Psst. Hey."

An internal sigh. "Yes?"

He glances at the teacher before looking back at you. "Do you have the answer to number four?"

"Yes. Right here." You point to your sheet and angle it to him, where he stares for a good moment and nods.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

Back to being ignored again. Not that you minded.

Your attention shifts back to the council president. He was nearly in every single class you had, which you were grateful for. It was nice to observe him. Not in a creepy way. Thatd be weird.

Ver speaks with a student to his left, a small smile on his face, eyes twinkling mysteriously. You pondered what went on that head of his. He had to deal with students almost all the time. How did he deal with it all? Especially the annoying ones. God, what a pain in the ass.

You didn't realize you were staring at Ver until he glances in your direction, eyes locking for a split second. Fear and embarrassment flash through your body as you jerk your head back down, as if you weren't awkwardly staring at the man not too long ago. This happened frequently, to your dismay. Always staring and always caught. No way to escape the council president.

Did he think you were a freak for doing so? maybe.

You didn't look up the rest of the class period.

With a swing of your bag, you hold the bag on one shoulder, adjusting the strap to your liking. You push in the chair and weave through the stream of people out the classroom. You were on your way to meet with a close friend of yours, the only person you considered a "friend" anyway.

He was doing his football practice today, which you usually always came to. You had nothing else better to do anyway. He contrasted your introverted side, him being such a people pleaser. It wasn't a surprise that others began to ship you two together. But you two were just friends. Nothing more. Besides, you had eyes on someone else. And your friend knew that. Constantly teasing about your red cheeks everytime you were in close proximity with Ver. Each time earned him a "shut up!" And a punch to the shoulder.

A small bzzt vibrates in your pocket. With another series of buzzes to go with it. You paw through the one hundred millions of things in your pockets before pulling out the desired object. Your screen lights up to reveal texts from... well speak of the devil.

Hey uh... ik ur on ur way to my practice, but could you get my shoulder pads for me?

I totally forgot abt them

Hurry up coach is gonna kill me

How the fuck did this kid forget one of the most important things of playing such a violent sport? Space cadet...

You respond with a quick "yea" before scurrying off towards the direction of the boys' locker room. You actually had to shove past a couple of people, which you hated to do because that's being an asshole, but you also didn't want your friend to get yelled at by his strict coach.

You halt at door, furtively searching around the place before just rushing inside. You don't need any speculation on your plate along with huge packets of work. Upon seeing no one, you sneak inside.

Now which locker has his stuff in it? You quickly tap out the question and send it. You look around frantically, the "delicious" scent of sweaty men in the air. God, they need some damn air freshener.

You open each locker and judge from the sport bag which one was his. He wasn't answering, causing the anxiety to rise steadily. You really didn't want to get caught in here.

Deciding to calm yourself, you pause and recollect your thoughts. Clearing your mind, your ears pick up the sound of running water. Confused, you approach the sound. Did one of them forget to turn off the faucet? But it sounded more of a shower on, and as you approached, steam exited out the doorway of which you presumed was the showers.

You scratch your head. Who would be in here? All the boys are already outside. Who the hell would be showering right now anyway? One of these football heads must've left the shower on.

You peek inside, squinting through the steam. That has to be some hot water. You peer through the some to see a lean figure under the shower head. The steam clears a bit and your eyes widen.

Rivulets of water roll down his skin, spiraling down from his chest, down his abs, to his thighs, down his sculpted calves. He raises his arms up to run his fingers through his hair, his back muscles rippling with the motion. His arms aren't extremely muscular, but you could tell he worked out. You only could see him from the back, as your gaze traveled further down, your face felt extremely hot and a hundred million thoughts went through your mind.

Ver Vermillion.

You were... spying on the student council president. in the shower.

Oh god. In the shower. He was so...

Fucking hot.

You skitter back, almost slipping on the tile and banging your head against the changing stalls. A hand pressed to your mouth to keep you from screeching. Emotional moment. very fucking emotional. Suppressing your urge to scream on the top of your lungs because oh my god? Thousand hundred question marks?

You hurry back to the locker area, ramming your shoulder hard into a locker after taking a turn too fast. You hiss in pain, rubbing your shoulder.

"Hello?" Ver's voice calls. You curse yourself. "Is someone there?"

Nope nope. You're Casper.

You run into the other hall of lockers as the sound of water slapping tile approaches. You cease breathing through your fingers, your heart like a jack rabbit in your chest. You press your back into the metal, wishing you could just melt into the locker.

"I know you're in here. I can feel the prescence of a soul."

Sheeeeesh... was there anyway of escaping this? you eye the only exit, the only one you entered through. If you sprinted, would he be able to make out your face? He'd probably wouldn't even recognize your back; you weren't anyone extremely memorable or anything.

"Don't even try to run. I'll catch you," Ver says, voice light. "Might as well show yourself."

You sigh, concluding the fact you could not escape unscathed. You edge closer towards the corner of the wall, peering over to look at Ver.

A hand clutching the towel around his waist, he watches you reveal yourself with a flash of surprise and was that recognition? before it was replaced with a stern look.

"Would you like to tell me what you're doing in the boys' locker room?" Ver questions, seemingly not minding the fact he was practically naked. Way too confident to be okay with the presence of a female in his midst. which was very attractive. But not the point.

Your cheeks burn. "...my friend, who is on the boys' football team, forgot his shoulder pads." You tried not to stare for too long.

You shift your weight from foot to foot as he raises a skeptical brow at you. "Why couldn't he get it himself?"

"He's already on the field," you answer lamely. "Plus his coach... is mean."

Ver walks and pauses in front of you, holding a hand up near your chest. You stare, confused. He seems to be studying something before closing his hand. "You aren't trying to be deceitful. However..."

"Yes?" You swallow, the heat becoming unbearable. You could feel the heat resonate off him. A throbbing ache between your legs cause you to squeeze your legs together.

Ver's eyes darken, the hand now cupping your chin. "I can feel your desire. for me."

Hellllloooooo?

Your breath catches, unusable to look away from his startling gaze. "Uh..."

"You've been watching me. You always seem to be looking out for me without knowing. That small box of mochi, my favorite... that was you, wasn't it? And the line of students trying to ask me questions were suddenly cut in half, stating that their questions were answered by someone else." Ver observes your facial expression and you can't help but break eye contact. "I see."

"I can explain?" You whisper quietly, your skin flaming at his touch.

"You can, and you will. You see, I've been watching you as well. I've caught on to you, so I decided to watch you. Always helping others, without wanting anything back. Willing to do anything to help me because..." Ver pauses. "Why?"

"Because..." you falter. Might as well spit it out, right? You gulp again. "Because..."

His eyes bore into you, and it wasn't helping. Maybe he didn't need to know after all?

"Why don't you show me?"

"...What?"

"Show me why."

You stare at the council president. What exactly was he asking? Then it clicked. Oh. But... you couldn't dare to-

Could you?

Just this once. Life is short, right? and he's so close...

You slowly rise onto your toes, closing the distance between you and Ver. Before your nose touches you stop suddenly, the anxiety and nervousness causing you to halt. What if this was a mistake? what if he didn't want to kiss you? what if this isn't what he meant at all? What if-

A small groan exits his lips as Ver grabs the back of your head and pulls you close until his mouth finds yours. Your eyes widen with a gasp and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue inside your mouth.

You whine softly, letting go of all the worries and throw your arms around him tightly. Ver groans once more, his hands gripping your hips as the hot make-out session continues, inappropriate wet sounds echoing through the room.

You stutter backwards and your back hits the locker and continue, tongues dancing together as Ver tugs on your shirt. You pull away, pulling the shirt over your head, and smash your lips against his once more.

Ver's hands roam all over your torso, sliding up your waist to your back, unclipping your bra but not removing it.

He breathes against your neck, "Is this what you want?"

"Yes," you reply, just as breathless.

"Are you sure?" Ver gazes into your eyes, searching for the affirmative.

You nod, leaning to his face to nip at his bottom lip.

He explodes.

Ver throws the bra away with a low growl, biting your neck and eliciting a quiet moan from you. You unbuckle your own pants, the pants dropping down to the floor as Ver sucks love bites all over your delicate skin. One hand fondling your breast, his thumb lightly skimming your tit and a stammered breath escapes you.

"Your tits are already hard," Ver notes, pinching one of them and making you squeal, flushing horribly. "I wonder if..."

A finger presses itself against your clothed cunt and you whimper, holding onto his shoulders tightly. Ver sighs, rubbing circles on your sensitive area.

"I can feel how soaking wet you are... this whole time, you wanted me this bad?" He chuckles quietly, enjoying the way your legs quiver in anticipation. "I'll show you how much I want you too."

His finger slides underneath your panties and meets your clit. You gasp, biting you lip as the council president works his magic on your wet pussy, his ministrations causing you to whimper. Ver kisses your neck, mumbling praises against your skin.

"You're doing such a good job..." Ver whispers, two fingers inside you now and you moan. He pumps the two in and out quickly, his long fingers almost kissing your g-spot and it makes it harder for you to hold yourself up. "Good girl..."

You whimper louder. "Please..."

"Please what, sweetheart?" Ver purrs, somehow increasing speed and your moans increase in volume. "Are you going to cum?"

You nod quickly, the ache growing tenfold. But then he stopped. You open your mouth to ask but when he rips your panties. You squeak in surprise as he hoists you up, your legs instinctively locking around his hips. Ver's towel audibly drops to the floor.

Ver's tip nudges against your hole. He looks at you. "May I?"

"Y-yes," you stammer, burying your face into his neck.

His tip nudges into you, entering completely and bottoms out, groaning. You moan loudly, your walls clenching around his hot cock. He filled you up completely and tears blur your vision slightly. Ver stretched you out deliciously, and he started to thrust in and out.

His nails dig into your hips as he slots his hips up against yours, grunting in your ear and leaving sloppy kisses all over you. Ver kisses you deeply, swallowing your noises as your juices stick between your bodies. You felt extremely warm all over.

His cock drags in and out your walls, pressing against the spot repeatedly. Pleasure racks your body. You rake your nails across his back, toes curled as the council president rams himself into you. The metal door groans against the movement.

"Shit..." Ver mumbles with a small groan. His dick throbs hard inside you as you clench around him. "I'm so close baby, s' close..."

A small whine as the only response you give as you squeeze your legs around him, the only indication of your incoming orgasm. He speeds up, panting hard.

"Cum with me, sweetheart, cum with me," he speaks in one breath.

You nod, lips parted as you lean your head back against the locked. "Yesyesyesyes-"

His seed ribbons inside as your own cum squirts all over his cock, a soft and drawn out moan in your hair as his hips stutter against you. Your legs limp as your chest rises up and down quickly, sweat shining on your skin. It felt awfully sticky down there, but you didn't mind one bit when Ver looked up at you with a soft and affectionate gaze.

He brushes the hair plastered to your forehead away and says softly, "you're so beautiful, you know that?"

"I..." You blush, leaning into his touch. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Let's clean you up." Still inside you, probably because the man didn't want to pull out just quite yet, he carries you to the showers to wash you up.

THE NEXT DAY...

Ver smiles at you from across the room and you wave, blushing hard. The both of you were officially dating after the... well. Burst of sudden confession you two did.

Your friend, however, was extremely awkward around you and Ver. He was constantly avoiding yours and the president's gaze for some odd reason. You have been meaning to ask him, so you lean close to him.

"Hey, you've been acting weird. What's up? Is it because I didn't get your shoulder pads and got in trouble?" You tease with a small smile.

The tips of his ears go red as he stares down at his desk. "About that..." he clears his throat. "I... did try to get them but..."

Realization hits you in the face like a brick wall. Your entire skin takes on a pink hue. "You-"

"Yeahhhh. I should've stayed put honestly..."

"Oh. My. god."

"Not that I care or anything. Go get some girl, I guess."

"Please shut up."

"Sounds like you two were getting into it pretty-"

You punch him. Hard. A yelp of pain satisfies you and Ver looks over at you two, startled. you smile sweetly.

Greatest two days of your life.

#nijisanji #nijisanji en #vtuber #nijien #nijisanji smut #nijisanji x reader #xsoleil smut #xsoleil x reader #xsoleil #ver vermillion smut #ver vermillion x reader #ver vermillion

[sergeifyodorov]

would you actually be willing to give like a pretty long rundown of those main guys from the 2015 draft class?? because i would be Very interested

Of course! I wrote this in a Google doc so I could get it all down. It's a LOT btw -- this is the abridged version, leaving out what are probably important details, and it's still [checks] 11k words long. Sorry about that.

Anyone who tells you that the draft is a science is an idiot not worth their twenty-dollar stadium beer. The draft has analytical elements, sure, but it is a crapshoot through and through. If you dare to take a look back on draft histories from the past ten years -- the past twenty, the past thirty -- only rarely is the first pick, the “best in show,” actually the best of his class. I mean, no wonder, right? How well can you determine how good a man is going to be at hockey when you have only seen him as a teenager? Accuracy and prophecy are not kin.

Every ten years, though, you come across someone whose trajectory is easy to map. A prospect who is so head and shoulders above everyone else -- in numbers, in the eye test -- that you cannot help but say that they are going to be The Next One. God save the poor boy you put that name on.

In this case, it is 2014, and they are speaking those words again. On the dingy ice of an OHL arena, a red-haired Toronto boy with scared fawn’s eyes paces around the circles, faster than anyone else in the building. There are articles written about him already, calling his experience the torture test and labelling him Jesus, the saviour, the new great. It will get worse for him from here.

A Generational Prospect

It is 2004, and all eyes are on Sidney Crosby. He has eclipsed QMJHL scoring records. He performs highlight-reel antics. It is known that he will make the NHL as a teenager, and that whichever team has him will have an asset they should not ever think to relinquish.

Now, in 2023, all expectations of him are blown away. He is fifteenth on the all-time scoring list, having played most of his life in the dead-puck era, and will be inside the top ten by the time he retires. He has never been below a point per game, having gotten to a hundred points as an eighteen-year-old rookie and only slowed down to ninety at thirty-five. He has won three Cups; two Harts; two each Art Ross and Rocket Richard.

Something similar can be said for his contemporary, one Alex Ovechkin, sixteenth in all-time scoring, second ever in goals. While neither were always the most singular, dominant player of the past eighteen years (has it really been that long?) their longevity and consistent high-level play have cemented them into that tier of all-time greats. 

Such players only emerge once (or, for them, twice) in a generation; a “generational talent.” Gordie Howe was the first, before drafting happened at all, then Gretzky, joined as a part of the WHA merger, then Lemieux, then, debatably, Jagr through the early half of the dead-puck era, then Crosby and Ovechkin. Jagr was drafted fifth overall partly due to political constraints (it was 1990, and Czechia was behind the Iron Curtain), but all of the other drafted ones went first. While development curves for everyone else are hard to map, it is easy to tell, for them, how good they are as youths. We all call Gretzky the “Great One,” but he actually got that nickname before he was a teenager, because of how much better than the rest of his peers he was.

This is how we go up to the 2015 draft. Let’s say that it is September 2014, a full hockey season before the draft, so we can set the scene. Go back to the dingy Erie rink, watch the red-haired boy speed around the ice.

This is Connor McDavid. He was born in January just outside Toronto; if you are unfamiliar with the term “GTA,” I will pause now to tell you that it means Greater Toronto Area, and that it is the nexus of all hockey in the world. He is a Leafs fan, as so many of the GTA hockey-playing hopefuls are. 

Connor is an unusual child, even by young hockey prospect standards. Entry to any of the CHL major junior leagues -- the OHL, the WHL, the QMJHL -- starts at sixteen, but select few can apply early, and if they are academically, physically, and emotionally deemed adept they can be accepted for exceptional status and join at fifteen. This happens once every two or three years nowadays; Tavares and Ekblad were the only ones to predate McDavid. As well as being deemed exceptional by the board of the CHL, he is exceptional among peers, too: intelligent and analytical, black-and-white, painfully shy. He works hard in school, desperate to avoid coming off as a “dumb jock.” Media interviewers ask for him, but they have to change the settings on their microphones in order to pick up his voice, it is so soft. 

He has already won trophies; scholastic achievement, sportsmanlike behaviour, CHL rookie of the year. He will score at least one point in all but one of the first eighteen games of the 2014-15 OHL season, before breaking his hand in a fight (getting himself a Gordie Howe hatty, being that he already has a goal and an assist). He will score a hundred points in thirty-eight games, and a hundred and twenty points in the forty-seven games he will play.

Understandably, his name is penned in at number one on the draft board. Even such deficits as breaking a hand and being out for six weeks don’t tank his stock, it is so obvious how well on track he is to outpace all but the best.

He is sweet and shy, a captain of Erie based mostly on skill, and tight-laced into the destiny of future franchise saviour.

At least he has a friend, though, right?

Dylan

The 2014-15 Erie Otters are a good team. A great one, even -- third in league standings by season’s end, and you don’t get that far if your single generational superstar is sidelined half the year with a hand injury.

This is where Dylan comes in. Like Connor, he’s a GTA boy, and a young Leafs fan. Unlike Connor, he’s part of a serious hockey family -- the middle child of three. His older brother Ryan has already been drafted, in the first round, no less. He’s a real student of the game, too, a stats obsessive and a calm, steadfast personality. 

Remember how we said the draft is a crapshoot? That’s very true. Prospects may have precise rankings when all is said and done, but in the meantime I find it best thinking of them as instead arranging into tiers -- there’s the generational talent in this year, but disregarding him we have a first overall-level, then a small handful of top prospects. Not saviours in their entirety, but certain to make a team very happy. Dylan projects as the latter group -- he’ll be somewhere between three and five. In 2014-15, he’s the OHL scoring leader, and takes the Erie Otters’ single-season record.

He and Connor are also best friends. Connor’s quiet, anxious even, but Dylan has a coolheaded sort of confidence that brings out the best in him. Rarely are they pictured without each other; rarely are they spoken to without mentioning the other. There’s a sweet little video out there of the Otters going to New York state and going on this little ziplining/outdoor climbing gym, and Connor and Dylan are about as glued to each other’s sides as you can be while obeying the harness safety rules. In hockey terms, while a little young for it, they’re married. Much like Crosby and Malkin are, although over a much shorter term, and publically the two Otters are much closer.

Dylan is the one I feel as if I can talk the least about. He is mostly defined by what he is not: not Connor, to start, and before the actual draft takes place that is the most of it. 

Of course, that’s the most of what any of it is, isn’t it? These are teenagers, separated into imprecise tiers and mostly defined by which tier they slot into. The three boys below Connor, no matter how good they are, are defined by being not Connor.

Jack Eichel most of all.

Jack, to start, is American, unlike any of the other three. He’s a late birthday -- born in November of 1996 instead of  the first eight and a half months of 1997 -- so he’s, in theory, had another year to adapt. (Brief footnote: the September 15 cutoff is what determines draft eligibility, either the year you turn eighteen or the year you turn nineteen. If you were born in, say, June of 2000, you would be eligible for the draft in 2018. If you had the audacity to be born in October of 2000 instead, you’d have to wait until 2019.) His development pipeline is also unlike the others, having come up into the NCAA, college hockey, and playing at the US National Development team before committing to Boston University. He won the Hobey Baker award as a freshman, and led the NCAA in scoring as a rookie.

He was marketed, coming into the draft, as the American Connor -- the new face of American hockey, a homegrown star, a fellow generational talent, although that was a feeble marketing strategy to dull the disappointment of going second to greatness. He was proud and polite, quiet but not scared, a young man uncomfortably aware of his own myth and rather irritated at the fact he had a myth in the first place. Taken in and treated well, he would probably have a well-suited disposition to a high-stress, playoff-bound team.

It’s unfortunate that that wouldn’t realize until eight years after he was drafted.

The Draft Itself, or, What Caused All These Problems In The First Place

The draft lottery rolls around. The lottery and the draft take place on different days -- the lottery several weeks before, so that for a long time the boys have an idea of to whom they will go. The first four teams to pick are, in order:

Edmonton. Edmonton had been very bad, for a very long time, and had three shiny prizes already to show for it: Taylor Hall, drafted first overall in 2010; Nail Yakupov, drafted first overall in 2012; and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, drafted first overall in 2013. I’m sure you already know this, but Edmonton was Gretzky’s team, while Gretzky won all his cups, and they now stand to get themselves another generational talent in Connor McDavid.

Buffalo. The Sabres have a few decent pieces: Ryan O’Reilly, Sam Reinhart. They haven’t made the playoffs in a few years, and have plummeted to the bottom of the standings, finishing thirtieth out of thirty.

Arizona. Arizona has never gotten off the ground, not once. They are a dust mote of a franchise, held in place by Gary Bettman’s fragile ego and the skimmings of Original Six markets. Their survival, as doomed as we know it is, is banking on a distant hope of good prospect luck and better PDO.

Toronto. While Arizona is the smallest of small markets, Toronto is… well, it’s Toronto. Remember earlier, how I said that the GTA is the nexus of hockey? Toronto is called the Centre of the Universe, and for good goddamn reason. The Leafs are one of the most storied franchises in the NHL, and simultaneously one of the winningest (the second-most Stanley Cups, after Montreal) and the losingest (their most recent Cup was almost sixty years ago.) Their fanbase dwarfs all but the most hardcore of French Canadian separatist contingents. There’s a common phrase now, when any hockey news is mentioned -- but how does this affect the Leafs? It’s well-done satire.

And with four teams, we have four boys. So I come upon the last one now: Mitch Marner. Mitch, like Dylan and Connor, is a GTA boy, a born and raised Leafs fan on an OHL team. He plays for the London Knights -- a diminutive forward (he weighs in at 160 pounds soaking wet at eighteen, and eight years later barely cracks 180) with fantastic playmaking skills, the creativity and gall to do things other players have never even thought of. He’s a sweet one, too, bubbly and energetic and cuddly and kind.

Here is how the draft goes:

The Oilers take the stage first, for the fourth time in six years. The ceremony is unnecessary. Connor McDavid is the name everyone knows they will say. Connor walks up to the stage, looking vaguely nauseous, and dons the jersey and the hat. (His facial expression in the interviews afterward is thoroughly dissected over the next eight years. Some say it’s simple stage fright; others say it’s personal distaste for the Oilers -- remember, Toronto boy, Toronto heart. I choose to believe it’s the first one. Not all of us are John Tavares.)

After a first-round prospect is chosen, they bring him down for an interview, then shuffle him off to some arena underbelly for photos upon photos. Connor performs his niceties, but before he is taken back, he asks to stay. He wants to watch Dylan get drafted.

The Buffalo Sabres come second, and pick Jack Eichel. Eichel is asked, throughout, how he feels about Connor, being behind Connor, coming second to Connor. The narrative being pushed is called McEichel -- the Canadian wunderkind versus the American one -- and he wants no part in it. He’s impressed by Connor’s play, in their few brief meetings he thinks of him as nice enough, he wants to carve out his own path.

This refusal to play along may have been the start of the discontent, in hindsight. The media clearly wasn’t going to get anything out of soft-voiced scared-eyed perfect Canadian boy Connor, but Jack, sharper edges and colder heart, might be good for a soundbite or two about this new league-made rivalry. Jack, though, ever aware, puts himself solidly into Generic Hockey Interview voice and backs off.

The Coyotes come third. Here is where a choice occurs, the first genuine decision. Connor McDavid had been slotted into first pick since the day he got accepted for exceptional status. Eichel had taken a few years more, but his place in second after Connor was well known for months on end. Dylan and Mitch, however, were up in the air. Do you pick the big one with more points, or the small one with star power?

The Coyotes follow the conventional hockey wisdom, and take the big boy. Connor waits to watch his friend take the jersey, then hugs him in the wings.

Finally, the Leafs.

Let’s actually take a step back to talk about the Leafs rebuild, for a second, because it, like everything the Leafs have ever done, is a testament to failure. Also, somewhat, because it is relevant. Also, moreso, because I can’t shut up about hockey and you’ve asked me to talk as long as I like. If you’re still reading, I want you to know that a) I am ever thankful for your time and b) we’re, like, just getting started here.

The Leafs’ last contending era was before the 04-05 lockout season, which means it predates the salary cap. They struggled in the midsection, for a long time, then finally fell enough to gain the fifth overall pick in 2008, with which they selected a big tough young defenceman named Luke Schenn, the first official piece of the Leafs’ rebuild, strange as it may be. Luke, while competent enough, was obviously not the sort of franchise-changing star the Leafs needed, and they struggled in the midsection again, before gaining, once more, the fifth overall pick, with which they selected Schenn’s partner, one Morgan Rielly. The two would be perfect partners, but we won’t know this for eleven years. Luke was traded twelve hours after Rielly’s draft.

Rielly is still in the AHL the next year, 2013, when the Leafs make the playoffs. This is the infamous 4-1 series: the Leafs go down 3-1 in the series, claw their way back up to game seven. They gain a 4-1 lead, going into the third period, and then blow it completely and lose the game, and the series, in overtime. They do not make the playoffs in 2013-14, and before the 2014-15 season begins they change management. The man they install as President decides to tank, and tank hard, selling as much of the Leafs as he can in the hopes of landing that elusive first pick.

They end up with fourth overall, and Mike Babcock, the Leafs’ head coach, does not want Mitch Marner, instead asking the then-management for the bigger defenceman, a boy named Hanifin who will go fifth to the Hurricanes. The Leafs take Marner anyway. Watch him as his name is called. He, like the first three, sits in a nest of other prospects and their families -- Mitch actually sits right behind Jack Eichel -- but unlike them, when his name is called the other prospects lean over to offer him congratulations, as well as his parents and brother. Mat Barzal, from across the aisle, offers a bro-hug as Mitch goes by.

The rest of the draft goes as usual. The 2015 draft, beyond narratively, is one of the deepest drafts in recent memory; players you may recognize include Timo Meier, Mikko Rantanen, Travis Konecny, Sebastian Aho (the Carolina one!), Roope Hintz, Kirill Kaprizov, Troy Terry… the list goes on. These players have their own stories, but few really tie in to this one. (So far.)

Summer passes; we move on. Training camp rolls around.

Connor McDavid, as expected, makes the team. He moves in with Taylor Hall, a fellow first overall. Jack Eichel also makes the team.

Dylan and Mitch do not. Dylan’s reasons are unknown to me, but Mitch is sent down because, again, Babcock does not want him. He’s naturally undersized and does not have a frame that builds muscle; Babcock is not under the impression that young men in Mitch’s image make good hockey players. Both Mitch and Dylan are returned to the OHL.

The stage is set now; each boy has a team. Eight years on, only half of them are on those teams. But we can’t worry about that yet! We have to make it to the NHL first!

World Juniors and the Memorial Cup

Once Connor makes the Oilers, Dylan Strome is named captain of the Erie Otters. Very cool, to only get what you deserve after the golden boy is gone.

Jack and Connor are off playing with the big boys. They’ll get their own section later -- we have to work our way up, not up and down and up and down. I’ve got to be somewhat cohesive, you know? So, we’ll stay, for now, in the world of junior hockey.

The Otters and the London Knights, Mitch’s team, are in the wonderful circumstance of not only both being very good at the same time, but also being in the same division as one another. This means they see each other quite often (no plane travel in the OHL. Bus only.) and have thus formed… a bit of a rivalry. It is becoming difficult to dance around: Dylan Strome, despite the politeness they’ve shown each other at the draft, hates Mitch Marner.

And why wouldn’t you? He’s the one Dylan fought with all last season for the OHL scoring title; he’s fast on his feet and can shoot from impossible angles; he makes plays you’ve never even considered, much less considered possible. He dangles through the Otters and scores the easiest impossible goal you’ve ever seen and laughs as light as air about the whole thing. And he’s tiny. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Marner drew a lot of comparisons to Patrick Kane in his junior days -- thankfully without the character in common, but as a hockey player. An undersized (almost comically so) London winger with otherworldly ability to manifest scoring chances out of nothing. The exact sort of irritating worm that not one of us wants on the other team.

So, of course, they get put on the same team.

The 2016 World Juniors are summoned. Connor McDavid, then dealing with a broken collarbone and a great deal of pressure, is not on Team Canada’s roster. Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner both are. Suddenly and thankfully, the media’s focus shifts from one, false rivalry in McEichel to a very very real one.

I don’t want to dismiss what happens next as a mere symptom of the fact that hockey players are engineered to get along with their teammates, even if they don’t like each other. Admittedly, it does start that way -- Mitch is a winger and Dylan a centre, and both skilled, so the coach puts them on the same line. Simple enough. And then they spark up a friendship.

Dylan’s reasons for hating Mitch were not personal, just hockey-related. Dylan hated Mitch because he was good and he knew it, the simple way a teenager hates their direct competitor. On the same team, though, the competition aspect is removed, and the barrier for hatred is gone. This is the Dylan/Mitch enemies to lovers arc, if you want to put it that way.

Mitch, for the record, I doubt ever hated Dylan. He doesn’t have that in him, never had. He saw a rival, sure, and as soon as that rival wore a matching jersey I assume he taped the word friend over whatever defined their relationship before. Mitch is probably one of the most gregarious, friendly, charming hockey players out there. Beyond his cute little face and on-ice highlights, even. He’s loud, sure, but when he talks he knows how to include you. He finds out what you like and talks about it, he singles you out if you’re shy and builds up your confidence. He’s just plain nice.

Dylan, like the rest of us, was charmed. Within weeks he went from calling Mitch annoying to telling us all about how he loves cuddling (!?) with him. They became fast friends and great linemates.

Dylan’s not the only one Mitch Marner befriends at Worlds, though. Somewhere between matches, Mitch takes an elevator at the complex they’re staying at, and ends up sharing it with a boy from the American team, a tall square-jawed Mexican centre with a Justin Bieber obsession. This is Auston Matthews, one of the projected top picks of the 2016 draft -- born just two days after the cutoff that would have made him eligible to go in 2015. He played with Jack Eichel at the USNTDP, before taking his age-eighteen year to go play pro in Switzerland. He holds the NTDP scoring record as a seventeen-year-old, and will continue to hold it until Jack Hughes breaks onto the scene. The two boys in the elevator do not yet know it, but they are about to share the mantle of franchise saviour, for the franchise most desperately in need of saving.

Either way. The Canadians place sixth at World Juniors, the Americans do better, the Finns win the whole thing. (In the long run, Laine turns out not to be better than Matthews after all.) Mitch and Dylan go back to their OHL teams.

Erie and London tie in points that year, but London wins the OHL title and goes to Alberta for the Memorial Cup, the CHL trophy. Mitch Marner takes home the scoring title, the Stafford Smythe (CHL equivalent of the Conn Smythe), and the Memorial Cup itself. He is one of the most decorated winners in OHL history, touted as being clutch, creating magic, and racking up points. He has close friends in Dylan Strome and fellow Knight Matthew Tkachuk, who will be selected sixth overall in the 2016 draft, the second American after Auston Matthews himself. And when NHL training camp rolls around in the fall, even Babcock cannot deny he is ready, no matter how slight he may still be.

Connor Complex

There’s nothing that fuels story like a good rivalry, and the NHL was obsessed with marketing this rivalry. The Canadian versus the American. The perfect child of a long line of red-blooded southern Ontario tradition versus the Boston boy with a chip on his shoulder. Jack and Connor, Connor and Jack. They hyped Jack up the time leading up to the draft, trying to hint that he was almost as good -- no, just as good -- as McDavid himself.

He was not, and everyone knew.

The 2014-15 Sabres, then the worst team in the NHL and having done an elite job at tanking (they are one of the worst teams in the analytics era, besides the 2022-23 Anaheim Ducks -- I wonder what prize might be waiting at that number one spot? Surely not someone named Connor.) wanted McDavid. The Pegulas, the owners of the Sabres, tried to hide their disappointment in him as pride. They had an all-American star, they said, someone who had grown up not too far from Buffalo himself, and in the same country, no less. He would be the sort of man to lead them into a new golden age, away from the misery of the tank years.

And yet the narrative persisted. McEichel, they whispered. Look at how good Connor McDavid is, and look at how much Eichel is not him. McDavid, they say, McDavid McDavid McDavid. No article could be written about Jack without mentioning how he came second to Connor.

The Sabres tried to quell the whispers. Look at our boy, they say. They signed Eichel to an eight-year, ten million dollar contract, and in the beginning of the 2018-19 season they named him captain. Isn’t our boy great.

The team does not improve. The Sabres hadn’t made the playoffs for three years when they drafted Eichel; they still haven’t made the playoffs today. I wasn’t around to look, but the team was bad. Eichel did his best, but he was young and inexperienced and did not -- never did -- have captain’s blood in him; Ryan O’Reilly lost his love for the game.

The whispers of character issues start to come out. Jack Eichel is a “locker room cancer;” he’s selfish, stuck-up, quick-tempered. He’s caught in a cage where the only key is to be Connor, something which he never wanted to achieve in the first place, and never could have even if he did want it. The whole narrative was completely fabricated. He liked Connor well enough when they met.

I do imagine he has feelings about it, though, and feelings about Connor now. He didn’t know him, not enough to have an opinion on the boy, but the name followed him around long enough for him to think about it. Imagine it. You’re good in your field, great, even. You’re doing well enough to earn yourself a superstar contract, you’re an All-Star, and yet the only way you will get any recognition at all is when they say that you are worse than one of the greatest players ever to play the game. They lock you into a connection that you have never wanted, barring you from forging your own path. You exist permanently in that orange-and-blue shadow. I don’t blame Jack for being angry. I would be too.

Babcock

Auston Matthews was incredible from the jump. He was big, he was strong, his wrister is the stuff of legend. He won the Calder in his and Mitch’s rookie year, by a not insignificant margin, well ahead of Laine. He was a coach’s dream doll, unusual enough to be marketed and good enough to be useful. Unavoidably masculine even at nineteen.

Mitch less so. Mitch is still small, remember, and struggles to gain weight. I know I talk about his size a lot, but it’s genuinely important. Hockey and its fan culture has long been a group that prioritized size and raw power above all things. Mitch possessed neither of those things, and when he struggled with gaining muscle it was seen as an unwillingness to try. If you know anything about the ability of our bodies to gain or lose weight, you know that it is simply a genetic roll of the dice, a scale that puts a little bit of us into the “gains muscle mass easily” category and decides when to stop. Most hockey players actually aren’t very far up the muscle-gaining spectrum, especially when compared to American football or baseball players -- mass is strength, yes, but it’s also more to move around on ice -- but Mitch is especially low on the scale. Because of this, he is seen as unmanly, a dangerous thing to be.

The Leafs media market is a nightmare, and always has been. Because this is the Centre of the Universe, there are more eyes on the Leafs than on any other team. More eyes mean more writers, means you have to say weirder and wilder things to beg for clicks. Outrage is a good marketing tactic. Getting mad about one of the prize prospects seemingly not wanting to bulk up for the good of the team is a very easy thing to do.

What’s more, Mitch, after his entry-level contract had expired, had had a very difficult and long-drawn out contract negotiation, asking for a lot of money -- essentially the maximum that the Leafs could afford at the time. Because of the salary cap constraint, this was seen as kind of selfish. The angry clicks move. Mitch is sensitive, they say. Soft, selfish, weak.

It’s easy enough to dismiss out of hand when your uncle from Belleville does it, because what does he know. It’s different when it’s the head coach of the Leafs. Mike Babcock, is, at the time of hiring, the highest-paid coach in the NHL. He was signed before the 2015-16 season, and at that point had an eight-year contract, which would have carried him up until this year.

Mike Babcock sucked. Structurally, his teams were fine -- the Leafs made the playoffs in 2016-17, and haven’t missed it since, but he was awful, horribly mean to the boys under him, and especially, especially Mitch. 

We should skip ahead a little bit. It’s the beginning of the 2019-20 season. The Leafs have made the playoffs three times already, and lost in the first round each time -- but this, too, is not yet a phrase that strikes worry into our hearts. They’re young, and they have plenty of time left. 

Respected veteran Jason Spezza came home to the Leafs, having spent his career -- a player who might squeak the Hall of Fame, but is more likely just below its level -- in first Ottawa, where he was the captain of the Senators briefly and one of its most well-loved players, and then Dallas. Like the boys I talk about here, Jason Spezza is a former OHL player, a GTA boy, a Leafs fan. The Leafs’ season opener is against Ottawa, the team where Jason Spezza left most of his mark. There used to be a promotion with the Senators -- a local branch of some pizza chain would offer a free slice if the Sens scored more than five goals in a game. Spezza (and his linemates, Heatley and Alfredsson) were so good, they named his line the Pizza line. Mike Babcock makes Jason Spezza a healthy scratch on that day.

This is seen as disrespectful, but no more than a coach living up to his hardass reputation. You do what the coach tells you, don’t you? Lest you become a whiner, or worse, a locker room cancer. Scratching an extremely well-respected veteran on the opener against his former team is just something some guys do. A message, if you will. Stay the course, Babcock just wants his players to respect him.

And then news of the list leaks.

It happened when Mitch was a rookie, but they kept it hidden for three years. The Leafs went on a father-and-sons trip, one they do every season. They’re on a road trip, with only their fathers, isolated from their home.

(A brief aside to talk about Mitch’s dad; his name is Paul Marner, and he is the most stereotypical hardass hockey dad on the planet. A nitpicker, an armchair coach, a bully. I do not imagine Mitch felt particularly comforted by his and Babcock’s combined presence on this trip.)

Babcock approached Mitch and asked him to organize all of his teammates in a list. He wanted Mitch to arrange them in order of hardest workers to laziest; he thought Mitch was one of the lazy ones, and wanted to drive this point home by making him categorize his teammates like this. Mitch, as a rookie hockey player does in the presence of the Maple Leaf hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, obliged. He was under the impression it would be a private affair, just an assignment from Babcock to teach him some sort of lesson. Whether it be out of fear or honesty, he placed himself last on the list. 

Babcock told the others.

Specifically, two Leafs vets that Mitch had placed low on the list -- Nazem Kadri and Tyler Bozak. Imagine this: you are a decent centre on a bubble team, but nonetheless an established NHL veteran of about a decade, and your coach shows you a list a rookie made. He tells you that the rookie arranged everyone by work ethic, grinders to lazy shits. You are firmly on the “lazy shit” end.

How much does the coach have to suck, or how much does the rookie have to be loved, for Kadri and Bozak to react like they did? The rumour says they called for Babcock’s head on the spot. Mitch was in tears. I wouldn’t want to stay in Toronto if that happened to me. No wonder he and Auston signed for so much -- Babcock was barely halfway through his contract when they did. If I’d thought that I would have to deal with him for that long, I wouldn’t accept anything less than as much as they could possibly pay me.

In the end, in the beginning of December, 2019, Mitch got hurt and the Leafs went on a road trip. They were already losing by the time they’d left, and they kept losing. Normally, a team on a road trip doesn’t take the hurt players with them, but they took Mitch. The Leafs lost six in a row and finally fired Babcock, letting Sheldon Keefe take his place. Mitch’s presence was a comfort.

Go West

The Leafs make the playoffs first, and take Mitch with them. The Sabres are fighting a silent war with their star centre, but they are no closer to success. 

Connor McDavid is named captain at nineteen, the youngest in the history of the NHL. He scrapes the team to a playoff spot, then to a second round loss. He wins the Art Ross and the Hart.

The year before his entry-level contract expires, when he is first eligible, he signs what is then the most expensive per-year contract in NHL history -- eight years, a hundred million dollars. He is looking forward to spending the rest of his prime as an Oiler. He wins the Art Ross the next year, comes very close the year after. The Oilers do not make the playoffs again until after Covid hits.

He gets hurt a lot, too -- he breaks his collarbone as a rookie, missing half the season, and at the very end of the 2018-19 year, crashes into the net irons and shatters his knee. There are rumours of the man who broke Connor’s collarbone doing it on purpose; Connor claims that he overheard the man bragging about it, and I am inclined to believe him. This guy gets traded to the Oilers not too long after that.

In the meantime, Dylan is struggling. The Coyotes stick him in Tucson, a team he is obviously too good for. His entry-level contract slides another season. He wiffles between Tucson and Arizona, not being considered good enough to stay up but being too good to stay down. In the end, on the last year of his entry-level contract, he is traded from the Coyotes to the Chicago Blackhawks, a similarly bad team with a few remnants of its Cup-winning days. Dylan, a feeble icon of Chicagoan hope for one last dance with the aging core, centres Patrick Kane.

In his first half-season with the Blackhawks, he scores 51 points in 58 games. There are hopeful flashes of what he can be, the touted prospect he once was. 

Things wrap up on New Years like this: Connor is beyond a hundred-point pace; Dylan, although in no less danger, is at least out of the dust at the bottom of the barrel; Jack is caught in a cold war; the team loves Mitch. 

John Tavares has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Playoff Series

March of 2020 rolls around, and with it the coronavirus pandemic. The league is shut down before the season ends, and the playoffs re-formed in July, inside a bubble -- no one in, no one out until they are eliminated. The Sabres stay with their families, having once again missed the playoffs. The Leafs are set to play the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the Oilers are set to play the Blackhawks.

This, to date, is Dylan’s only playoff appearance, and he is set to face Connor.

Dylan wins.

The qualifying round -- functioning as the first round of the bubble playoffs -- is a best of five, not of seven, and the Blackhawks defeat the Oilers 3-1. They then proceed to lose in five games (this one is a best of seven) to Vegas, but Dylan’s job is done.

The Leafs lose in the first round again. The Leafs have made the playoffs since Auston and Mitch’s debut, every single year, but they lose each time; in six, to the Capitals, then in seven every year after that. Or, in this case, in five.

Covid had not stopped by the end of the 2020 season ( :/ ) and the NHL was rearranged for what would be ostensibly the 2020-2021 season, but ended up being played mostly in 2021. Because of border laws, the Canadian teams are sequestered into their own, North division. Dylan Strome signs a two-year contract extension with Chicago right before the season starts -- one that will carry him until the end of the 2021-2022 season. 

If you’ve seen All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, it is this season that is covered. The Leafs tear through what is seen as a weaker North division, taking a comfortable first place spot. Connor McDavid cracks a hundred points in fifty-six games. Both Leafs and Oilers lose in the first round.

The Leafs do it perhaps most remarkably. They have drawn the Canadiens, a rather insubstantial team who are in their spot mostly because they have one of the best goaltenders in recent memory at their back.

I watched this game, live, before I was a serious Leafs fan. I can only imagine what it would be like if you were already invested at that point; I would not wish to live that horror on anyone. I tried to watch All or Nothing, later, but I stop here. 

Corey Perry and John Tavares are both on the ice, in the race for the puck. Tavares catches an edge, as you sometimes do, and falls, and Perry’s knee is in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, and it catches Tavares in the side of the head. He falls to the ice, his limbs splaying unnaturally. He won’t move. 

Medics come over, to try and raise him to his feet. He fights against them, blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, unable to tell if they are trying to hurt him or not. There is no one in the crowd, the stadium empty for the pandemic. The camera cuts to Kyle Dubas in the rafters, who has a phone in his hand and swiftly vanishes back into the halls of the arena. He is calling Tavares’ wife. We do not know what is going to happen. Everyone looks shaken -- the Habs have just watched a man nearly die, the Leafs have just lost their captain, perhaps forever. They lose, although the game feels like an afterthought. I do not want to watch hockey anymore.

They win the next three straight, though, even without him. Then they lose, twice, in overtime.

The Leafs, as they have done for the past four years up to this point, go to game seven.

Partway through the game, Mitch Marner panics in his defensive zone and puts the puck over the glass. This is a penalty, it is a penalty every time, and he knows that. He sits in the box, looking defeated already. He curls in on himself, and the camera flashes to the penalty box. He’s crying. He knows the game is lost.

The Leafs are eliminated again, and there is a target on his back now, not only for the puck going over the glass but for the tears. He’s soft, they say. As they have said since he was picked, because he doesn’t look like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t act like a hockey player should, because he doesn’t play hockey like a hockey player should. He makes too much and he disappears when it matters.

Thoughts on the Leafs’ playoff successes suddenly switch from the core is young, even if this is frustrating to they need to win before it’s too late. Already, in recent years, they have suffered historic game-seven chokes and drastic failures to launch. Whether they do it against teams like the President’s Trophy-winning Capitals or the barely-alive wild-card Canadiens is irrelevant. They cannot win a round, at all. The Leafs are already the team with the greatest Cup drought, and they are now gaining a long playoff round victory drought too. It should be time, at least, for them to look like they are a contender. 

This is how the Leafs find themself stuck; a particularly frustrating timeloop, even though hockey itself is nothing but. Sports are cyclical by nature. A team is bad, then okay, then good, then declining, then bad again, and this repeats anew. Some teams try to get themselves out of this cycle by being good forever; I can assure you that this only really happens to the New York Yankees, who employ a cadre of evil wizards to keep everything on that hell team going well for them. Most other teams who try end up stuck like the Canucks are, right now: bad enough to miss the playoffs, but not good enough to get key picks for a rebuild. I can see next season play out, clear as day: they struggle out of the gate, one of their stars gets hurt right when it seems like they’re at the very, very start of gathering momentum, they’re bottom-10 by January and the team says everyone but Pettersson are on the table, they trade picks and low-grade players, they get blazing hot post-deadline and finish twenty-first.

There is, unfortunately, also a perception that pure talent is not what makes players playoff performers -- instead, some so-called “clutch gene” that exists, or not. The reality is somewhere in between. Clutch exists. There are always players who can score when no one else can even dream of it, but a greater problem is luck. President’s Trophy winners are not often Cup winners (even if higher seeds are most likely to win), because the regular season is a much, much bigger sample size and the playoffs can change the course of all of it by a goalie having a hot streak at the right time. The 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, third-best team in NHL history, got swept in the first round by Sergei Bobrovsky going crazy. The 2022-23 Bruins lost in seven in the first round in much the same manner.

And no matter what, the Leafs are always on the wrong end of the luck. Bounces hit the post. The refs take back goals for reasons they would have ignored at any other time of year. John Tavares slips, and his head makes contact with a knee.

Mitch ends up the whipping boy. He is the Leafs’ most valuable player, and this is a team with Auston Matthews on it, but I’m serious. He was the Leafs’ leading playoff scorer in 2023, he’s one of the best penalty-killers in the league, he’s adored by everyone who’s ever once talked to him. He only ever wanted to be a Leaf, and now that he is here he is the sacrificial lamb for the anger at a curse that is not his fault.

I do blame the media. I will always blame the media, those who turn on him at a moment’s notice because they know picking on the skinny pretty unmanly one will get more clicks than anything else. I beg of you -- know that, of anything that it could be, it is not Mitch’s fault.

Jack Eichel has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Neck Injury

It is 2021, and the Sabres aren’t going to make the playoffs. Jack Eichel has been captain for coming up on three years, and has been a Sabre for coming up on six, none of which have even slightly improved the team. He is widely disliked within the fanbase, and, rumouredly, within the locker room and organization. 

Jack is frustrated, dragging a mediocre team along through a slog of the past six years, and he has never been the kindest man on the planet. He is about to get worse. The Sabres are on a losing streak when they head to Long Island, and Jack is hit the wrong way and slips a disk in his neck. The Sabres insist he’ll only be out a week and a half. 

It is a great sin in hockey, to go against team. Anything that can be seen as selfish is demonized; shooting from a difficult angle when your teammate is wide open, not playing when you can muscle through the pain. Not trusting your coach or management is about as bad as you can get. If you’re a team guy, willing to sacrifice health and limb for the boys, you are held as saint, no matter how hurt you become in the end. This is a philosophy that has been drilled into these men since they were kids, as soon as they put their first skates on. You can stand any pain for the length of a hockey shift; you can play through anything for two minutes. It is a dangerous, dangerous school of thought, one of the most destructive parts of hockey culture. But it is, nonetheless, law.

Eichel is about to commit a sin so great they’ll kick him out of Heaven. I do think that, of the four of them, he is the only one with any semblance of genre awareness: when he was first scouted as a prospect and they were comparing him to McDavid, I think that he would be the only one to ignore the media’s spin on that as thoroughly as he did. He knows what he is, and he knows himself. Of course it comes off as bitchy and selfish, though -- that kind of pressure can’t be kind to anyone.

Before the week and a half is up, he visits a specialist doctor about his neck. This is where it all starts to go wrong.

The Sabres take issue with that for two reasons: one, that they hoped he’d be able to come back after the end of it. Keep in mind that he has herniated a disk in his neck, an injury typically so severe it’s impressive he’s walking -- slipping a cervical disk often causes nerve pain that radiates down through the entire spinal cord below that point, which is the whole body from how high up his is. Two, that the doctor he consults is an independent surgeon, one unaffiliated with the Sabres themselves. 

The thing about belonging to a hockey team is that you are, because of the way your employment is linked to your physical health, essentially their property. They make your medical decisions for you, they feed you, they tell you how to move. Going to someone else is a breach of contract, and the already-tense connection between Jack and the Sabres gets more tense. The Sabres keep losing. They lose eighteen games in a row.

Jack’s doctor recommended a surgery that no NHL player has ever had; cervical disk replacement. The Sabres did not want this -- the surgery carries risks, yes, but they also wanted to control the way that Jack’s injury was handled, and going through with this surgery was Jack’s wish, not theirs. The Sabres do their own evaluation, and ask for a different, more common surgery: spinal fusion. This surgery carries less immediate risk, but the bones in Eichel’s neck will also be fused, and he doesn’t want that. Because the team has final control over a player’s health, not the player, they decline his disk replacement. Having reached a stalemate, they rule him out for the rest of the season, trying to win a war of attrition.

September 2021 rolls around, and the Sabres, along with thirty-one other teams, take training camp. At the beginning of training camp, players do a physical exam. Jack, because his herniated disk has not improved, because he needs a surgery that has been denied from him, because he is stubbornly and bravely willing to wait out the Sabres, fails his physical. As a result, the Sabres, fed up with him, strip the captain’s C from his chest.

Jack makes one final request to the team: either let him get the surgery or trade him. In the end, they trade him to the Vegas Golden Knights, a team that did not exist when he was drafted. The Golden Knights approve him for the disk replacement surgery the day they acquire him.

The surgery is a success; his rehab goes better than anyone expects, and he starts tearing it up when he comes back. I would argue that, if the Golden Knights win the Cup this year, he should get the Conn Smythe -- he has been an invaluable member of the team, even without a letter on his chest.

It is less important for him to win his million awards than it is for him to come in and out of this surgery in the first place, still able to play. He fought with the team that was supposed to have upheld him as their star for months over his right to do what he wanted with his own health; in the end, the only way to go was for him to change that team. He was the first to have this surgery, but after him there have already been hockey players who have undergone it -- much like Tommy John, the baseball player who got his ulnar ligament reconstructed and the surgery to do so named after him. He fought for the chance to control his own body and won.

And for that, he was demonized.

The Sabres missed the playoffs every year they had him; they missed the playoffs every year after he left. Because he was the captain and he had the audacity to go against the organization’s wishes, he was hated. In Buffalo, he is still hated. If you ask, they’ll tell you he was a locker room cancer, that he was undevoted to winning. If you look at him in Vegas, neither of those things are true.

Jack Eichel is a rare man -- he does have that “clutch” gene, or rather doesn’t have the choke instinct. He has always been unbothered by the spiral around him. He operates well in the mire, and when the pressure rises it doesn’t affect him (or maybe, even better, he feeds on it.) He has the right kind of mentality -- that fuck-you, I’m here and you can’t change that, you tried to control me and I wouldn’t bend mentality. He has only made the playoffs once, this year. Like Dylan, actually, his only appearance has involved defeating Connor McDavid. Go back and watch his highlights from the Vegas-Edmonton series if you can: he has a couple of pretty goals and more than a couple great defensive takeaways, but he doesn’t lose his cool, not once. He has earned his right to be here, and he knows it more than anyone else. I’m rooting for the Stars, but I hope he wins some day.

153

How do you talk about the Edmonton Oilers? I mean, without either excusing or demonizing them, although I admit I have Hater Instinct and trend towards the latter. They have the best player in the world; that grown-up incarnation of the wide-eyed boy on the Erie rink. They have the best playoff performer in the world; Leon Draisaitl, who I have not avoided mentioning until now on purpose, but whom I cannot continue without bringing up. They have been terribly cap-managed since the day McDavid was drafted, and are an unstable roster with blazing-hot offense and very little defence or goaltending at all.

For a brief moment, let’s not talk about the Oilers. Let’s only talk about Connor himself.

McDavid has 850 points in 569 career games. Not even Sid had that many points through that few games. If he stays healthy, Connor’s well on track to become the second player ever to hit two thousand for his career -- after a certain other Oiler, who need not be mentioned. He has won just about every award you can win, with the exception of the Selke… and the Cup.

If it’s possible, he has proven himself better than all of the hype at the draft saying he would become a great. To watch him, you can see the way he has changed his team, how even though they have all learned from him that he is still the best.

There is something that many Oilers do. When next your team plays them, pay attention to it: they cut into the offensive zone with possession on the outside, using tight little crossovers to gain speed, after which they’ll usually try to rush the net (if there are no defenders in the way). This is a move that McDavid has patented; he’ll use it, just as many of the others will, but he’ll probably be the one that scores. The depth all skate like him, really, fast and in wide arcs, trying to generate a rush chance. 

Connor as a player is a tour de force, the best power-player in the world by a mile, no slouch at even strength, speedy enough to score even shorthanded. The boy’s got wheels. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which NHLers are fast and which are slow, but Connor’s just that tick above everyone else that you can see it without eye training at all.

Connor as a person is a bit less showy. He’s quiet by nature, shy and soft-voiced. Because he was hyped so much (franchise saviour, McJesus, Next One) he has been media trained into sterility, giving the same level answers as everyone else, hardly daring to express any opinion at all. His eyes are big, rounded, and one of them is lazy from a time when his brother tried to take it out as a child, and that combined with his heavy brow and stiff expression -- he’s never been a good smiler, smirks with one corner of his mouth and that’s mostly it -- give him a resting expression of something like concern, or maybe despair. When he laughs, he doesn’t really “laugh,” just kind of coughs, a one or two-syllable affair. He avoids eye contact with the camera, and often the reporters as well. There is no seething emotion under the surface, not like with Eichel, nor does he speak analytically like Dylan does. He moves through his life as if he is someone who does not want it to turn out quite like this.

I do not know if he wants to be in Edmonton. There are jokes about how he is desperate to leave, but I definitely don’t believe those; there’s a difference between not wanting to stay and wanting to go. I don’t think he hates it. He has been given a responsibility, the captain’s C -- and because, unlike Jack Eichel, he is a good Canadian boy who has been given a destiny, he accepts it. He loves his teammates, especially Draisaitl, whom he seems to derive all his confidence from.

I will also say that I don’t believe he’s stupid. Naive, perhaps; not stupid. There is no way out for him, even if he was sure he wanted to leave; he’s the best player in the world, far too expensive for any contender to afford in either trade or cap space, and if he asks for a trade he won’t let himself go to a team that isn’t already a contender. He will remain an Oiler at least until his contract is up, and I imagine that his staying afterwards depends on Draisaitl.

People talk about him leaving a lot, largely because of the team that has been assembled around him. The Oilers are not a well-created team, and I will say that plainly now and spend as little time technically deconstructing it as possible.

Beyond McDavid and Draisaitl, they have:

A rookie starting goaltender, whose success as we know it is based on a single-season sample size and a complete playoff collapse.

A five million dollar backup goaltender, who earned his contract by being carried by the Leafs, despite being utterly horrendous for a long enough stretch leading up to his free agency that anyone who looked beyond the win-loss numbers wouldn’t have signed him.

One genuine shutdown defender.

One young up-and-coming defender; by far one of the most promising Oiler (or otherwise) defensive prospects, beyond the usual suspects.

One netfront grinder who is great at playing wing to high-power setters, but cannot drive his own line.

One decent 2C.

Sarah Nurse’s cousin. Sarah’s better.

A supporting cast of bad defencemen and middling-at-best forwards.

Many charming characters, of course: Zach Hyman, the grinder, is a beloved ex-Leaf, and I’m personally a fan of Nugent-Hopkins, the 2C, but the vast majority of this is not the sort of thing a contending team is built upon. McDavid has missed the playoffs almost as often as he’s made them. The playoffs are a crapshoot, but in order to try your luck you have to at least be able to enter the lottery, and it takes a stunning amount of effort to be able to do that.

So, McDavid lingers, in this kind of limbo. It mirrors the Leafs, almost. (And yes. Because McDavid is an Ontario boy, and the Leafs are the Centre of the Universe, we have to mention them both in conversation. Not all stories revolve around the Leafs, but this one does.) One true contender, and one generational talent, both what we picture to be well overdue for their Cup run, but neither having yet done so. 

The thing about the stories of the class of 2015 is that they intertwine, that they mimic and mirror each other. These boys have not simply gotten drafted in the same handful of picks in the same year and gone on their merry ways -- they layer, they parallel, they weave around each other. Connor is the captain of a team that cannot win, Jack is a captain, Mitch cannot win. Jack fought for the right to control his body and was demonized for it; Mitch negotiated for a contract that he determined to be a fair price for Babcock, and was demonized for it. Whatever pure saviour they figure Connor to be, Jack is the twisted inverse of that, falling from grace.

Connor has one of the best seasons in NHL history, one of only seventeen player-seasons with over a hundred and fifty points (Nine of those seasons belong to Gretzky. Another four belong to Lemieux.) He loses, in six games in the second round, to the Vegas Golden Knights. At the time that he’s eliminated, he leads the playoffs in points. Leon Draisaitl is tied for second place. Counting from the date Mitch Marner played his first game in the NHL, the Oilers and Leafs have almost exactly the same number of playoff game wins, with the Oilers having one more.

There’s No Place Like Strome

Before we can look to the future, there is one person I have been neglecting. Dylan, poor Dylan. I think it would be only half an unfair assessment to call him a draft bust. He’s talented, for sure, but not nearly the same calibre that the draftees around him are. Hardly a Marner, an Eichel, or even a Rantanen or a Meier. 

His career has existed quietly in the shadows, so far from Connor McDavid that it only feels fair to mention them in the same conversation in this context. It has been eight years since they were best friends, Connor so close to Dylan he waited in the stadium in order to watch him get drafted. They didn’t look each other in the eye in the handshake line when Dylan won their series. Connor didn’t go to his wedding.

That being said: so far, he has found himself a knack for landing in the shadow of greatness. When he was an Erie Otter, it was Connor -- Dylan held the scoring title in their draft year, while Connor was out nursing his hand, but Connor was the chosen son and Dylan was the Coyotes’ consolation prize. When he was traded to the Blackhawks, he found himself centring Kane and Debrincat, but of course both of them were the offseason and trade deadline’s prizes, and not him.

And then he signed in Washington.

So now, we go back to Ovechkin. Alex Ovechkin is one of the greatest players of all time; his Capitals are on the decline now, but they contended for a long time while he was playing and may still contend as long as Ovi still skates. For a long time, the team relied on Ovechkin’s goalscoring, assisted mostly by his faithful centre, Nicklas Backstrom. They, too, are married; they have played a thousand games as teammates, been through a decade of heartbreak together before the Cup was theirs. During the 2021-2022 season, Backstrom took time off -- he needed hip surgery, something likely to end his career. Ovi was alone.

There is a fundamental difference, of course, between the expectations of wingers and centres. A winger, like Ovi, scores, or assists, at his own leisure, but it is the centre’s job to drive his line. Ovechkin is generational -- he will sink forty goals no matter what -- but he still needs someone to move him out of the defensive zone, someone to make his assist.

Enter Dylan -- a young centre, not especially fast on his feet but intelligent, and clearly experienced in the realm of managing high-calibre wingers (see: Debrincat, and the ghost of Patrick Kane.) He joins the Capitals on a one-year contract, desperate to prove himself. Chicago didn’t want him, and Arizona didn’t either. It takes barely until November before he is, once again, the necessary shadow of greatness. 

Ovechkin, the team’s captain and centrepoint, clearly likes what he sees, and the management does, as well. The Capitals offer Strome a five-year extension.

Maybe it’s because he’s less of a superstar then the other three members of his draft class, but Dylan has a life outside of hockey -- a wife and young daughter. After being thrown away by other teams, and with his new family, I can only imagine that it was… peaceful, if anything, to be offered this contract.

Chicago, after rapidly getting rid of him, Debrincat, and then Kane, would go on to tank spectacularly, and win themselves the first overall pick. They will use it to draft another generational talent. His name is also Connor.

The Blue Wedding

So, here we stand, at the end of it all. Dylan finally has a home, a mother hen of a Russian bear that it has become his job to assist in record-breaking, and soon to be two daughters. Jack has a team that loves him, freedom from pain, and an ongoing potential Cup run. Connor has a sterile mansion, a best friend, and an unsteady team. Mitch’s life is up in the air.

Right as I’m writing this, the general manager of the Leafs has been unceremoniously kicked out. His tenure will end the day before Mitch’s no-move contract kicks in, but it is not known if Mitch’s time as a Leaf will survive that long. He is well on track to become one of the greatest Leafs of all time, and his tenure might be cut short in the prime of his career. 

But let’s wrap up with this: Mitch will get married this summer. Because he’s Mitch, the darling of the league, everyone’s best friend, I imagine the wedding party to be extensive/ Packed to the brim of current and former Leafs, as well as people who have never been Leafs. I wonder if Dylan Strome will be there -- or even Connor McDavid, although McDavid never even attended Dylan’s wedding.

The stories, as they do, go on.

#asks #mitch marner #jack eichel #connor mcdavid #dylan strome #hope this helps and/or gives you brain poisoning #narrativeposting

[desertfangs]

Since you write a lot do you have tips for people who want to write more?

Hi, anon! I can sure try and tell you some of what works for me!

Ignore advice that you don’t find helpful (that includes these tips!)

Writing is a process, but your writing process is always going to be unique to you, so if something doesn’t work for you, trying to implement it is only going to make you miserable. Like some people will tell you to write every day, but sometimes the pressure of that is going to be too much. Basically anything that doesn’t work for you, chuck it in the bin. You don’t need it.

Put your word processor in full screen

I write in Scrivener, which has a “composition mode” but you can also just put your document on full screen to minimize distractions. That way it’s harder to flip over to check Discord or Tumblr or whatever. Of course, I still exit out of full screen every time I need to look something up in the thesaurus and then I end up spending 15 minutes screwing around on the internet so you know, it's not a perfect system.

Work on several things at once and don’t be afraid to step away if a story isn’t working

Granted, my writing method is like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, so I tend to start a lot of stuff that fizzles out after a few paragraphs (or a few thousand words 😭😭) and I know juggling multiple things does not work for everyone.

I personally usually need at least 2 current WIPs, so I can switch to the second when I get stuck on the first. This means even while I’m ruminating on one fic, I’m writing another. But I have friends who literally can’t write on more than one project at a time or their brains will explode, so again, it’s just about what works best for you.

[BRACKETS]

If you’re stuck on something like a detail or a fact you need to look up or a piece of dialogue (“How the fuck would Lestat respond to THAT?” is my constant refrain, my cats are tired of hearing it), just put something in brackets like [Lestat replies with something flirty or witty] or [Fact check if X] or whatever it is, and then you can move on and keep going and not lose your momentum.

Set a Timer

If you're struggling to make yourself focus and write, set a timer for 10, 15, 25 minutes (whatever increment of time works for you!) and write until it goes off. You can keep going after if you're on a roll, or your can stop for a while, but it will get you into the mindset of writing. And even if that's all you do that day, hey, you wrote for 10 minutes!

Kill your need for perfection and that critic in your brain

I am still working on this but it’s true! You can make your WIP more perfect in editing. The old adage that you can’t fix a blank page is correct. And honestly, a lot of times I will write something and think ‘ugh this is no good’ and then go back and read it weeks later and really dig it. Or I figure out what it needs to make it better. (Or sometimes it still sucks and we just pretend it never happened.) But no one else has to see your first drafts! So don’t stress about making the first draft super good or agonize too much over word choice. Just get words on the page and worry about making it better later.

I hope you find some of that helpful, Anon!

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #answers in the desert #anonymous #thank you for the ask #no idea if this is useful to anyone else but it's what works for me

[mikrokcsmos]

My Universe

synopsis; in which you get lost and Yoongi finds you.

pairing; idol!min yoongi x non-idol!reader

genre; angst, fluff, airport au

rating; PG-13

warnings; minor cursing (nothing explicit), reader has a minor panic attack, overprotective suga baby, we love a caring and attentive boi

w/c; 2,606

a/n; originally lost this entire draft and it took me three days to gain the energy and drive back to write it all over again from scratch. honestly though, I like this version better. anyways. enjoy, y’all. like/reblog and please leave some love. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YOONGI. this is a repost from my old account.

Yoongi hated the flashing lights.

They always blinded his vision and made him see a plethora of stars, the kind that didn’t involve nightly activities between you two, when he saw not only stars, but galaxies. No, these were the ones that didn’t exist to the normal fellow travelers making their way through the airport around him.

He also hated being singled out. Usually the reserved and quiet one within the group, with very few words to say. He’ll admit, he’s been able to loosen up over the years cause he got used to the constant attention, the pushy reporters, the even more personal bubble bursting paparazzi that had no moral boundaries apparently to get one stupid picture of him. Even if you couldn’t see his face, they still went at each other like hungry wolves fighting for the same prey.

It sickened him. But at the same time, he knew it was their way of making a living. So, he allowed it to happen, to an extent, now choosing to mainly ignore them with his head down and earphones in. Thank goodness he has bodyguards to do most of the brunt work with keeping them at bay, so he didn’t look like the bad guy in the situation. All he had to do was swiftly walk in between the hefty men that no one would dare to get close too. Easy peasy. Smiling underneath his black mask, he thought of you, and couldn’t wait to see you.

The only problem was, you weren’t used to the constant attention, you weren’t able to push through the pushy reporters, you weren’t able to keep walking with your eyes being blinded every five seconds by a different camera. Which made you start to get heart palpitations, becoming short of breath.

You were having a panic attack.

I mean, seriously? How were you supposed to know that there was going to be a ridiculous amount of people here to see your boyfriend at nearly, your eyes glanced up at the digital clock displayed above the flight signs, 2:27 in the morning?! You grunted to yourself, your hand pushing through the crowd and surprisingly in between the security surrounding Yoongi. A little detail you also failed to consider in your obvious fool proof plan.

You were so close to Yoongi, you almost grazed the back of his black leather jacket. It was a taller, broad chested, reporter that was holding a video camera that shoved you away just as you were going too. Causing you to finally get pulled into the whirlpool of paparazzi and fans alike that were desperate to gain the rapper’s attention. Like you.

Okay, so this wasn’t your best idea at surprising Yoongi. You’ll admit. The original plan was for him to meet you at the unmarked black SUV that he would be climbing into at the end of his airport journey. Where you could embrace and catch up in private. But this time, you thought you would spice things up a little. Your idea? To surprise him inside the airport, and not tell him you were going to surprise him. Cause, well, then it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?

Bad idea. Extremely bad idea. You thought about kneeling down to try and calm yourself, but realized that could end up fatal on your part since it would make you easier to get trampled over by the herd of feet you can hear squeak, click clack and stomp on the shiny, freshly cleaned, tile. It was non-stop.

Your hands clutched the sides of your head as you whimpered, becoming over sensitive from all the constant noise. Bodies continued to brush past you, some more aggressively than most, almost throwing you off balance multiple times. You tried counting back from ten, which normally works, but not this time. You knew you only had one last resort. You had to call Yoongi.

A picture of you lit up the rapper’s phone screen. Simultaneously stopping the music he was currently listening to with his wireless bluetooth headphones and replacing it with the ringtone you picked out for your contact when you called, opting for your couple song. The picture was of you wearing an oversized hoodie that came over your knees with Yoongi’s face on it. You were sitting sideways on the couch with your bare legs curled underneath you in his private studio. One of the many pictures he cherished of you, meant for his eyes only. His heartbeat subconsciously picked up as he got the ceremonious butterflies in his stomach that never fail to appear with anything that involved you.

A monotone voice could be heard over the ringtone announcing your contact name that you gave yourself, Baby Girl 🥵. Giving him the choice of answering it or not by speaking through the headphones. Which he did, in a heartbeat. After snickering at the description of the emoji you chose, sweat emoji, you claiming that you know you always had that affect on him. You were right.

“Hey sweaty.” A quiet chuckle could be heard on his end of the phone, mentally patting himself on the back for the playful jab of your contact name in good humor. He continued talking a mile a minute.

“You would not believe the amount of people that are here so damn early. It’s actually insane. Probably the worst amount of reporters and whatnot in a long time, but I’m almost there and I can’t wait to–“

As the last body brushed against you rather aggressively, it caused you to stumble harshly forward onto the tiled floor, hands catching your fall and knees taking the brunt force of it all. You let out a broken whimper, only catching bits and pieces of Yoongi’s ramblings through the phone that laid a few feet ahead of you on the floor due to your sudden impact. You reached out and clutched it tightly with your fingers, pushing your body up in a semi sitting position, much like the one that can be seen in your contact photo in Yoongi’s phone. One hand flat against the tile, propping your upper body up. Legs curled next to you, sideways. All you wanted to do was cry out of frustration at everything going wrong. So, you did.

Staring down at the rare pearly white smile that beamed at you for your eyes only, used as Yoongi’s contact photo in your phone, only made your watery eyes overflow with tears that streaked down your cheeks in little rivers. Breaths slightly becoming shorter, making you gasp out a sob involuntarily. You quickly put the phone on speaker and set it on the floor in front of you, knowing you wouldn’t have the strength to hold it much longer.

His rambling was abruptly cut off, ears straining to hear what he thought he heard, though it was hard to be sure from all the raucous noise surrounding him. He went to speak again, but stopped himself when he for sure heard your watery gasp through the phone. His smile wiped off his face in an instant, turning to one of worry.

“Baby? Where are you? Are you okay? Are you hurt? What’s wrong?” The questions flew out instinctually, him wanting to solve the situation as fast as possible. He knew you were having a panic attack. He could feel it in his gut as soon as he heard you, having helped you through them in the past.

He stopped his brisk walking pace and stood stock still, nearly making the security guard that was positioned directly behind him, plow into him, before catching his footing in time to avoid his client. He closed his eyes to try and get any clue from your end of the phone when you wouldn’t respond to him. As much as he wanted to freak out, he knew he had to stay the calm one between you two in order to find you before it got worse. He bit his lip in frustration, zoning out the nagging from his security guards to get him to continue on his foot path to the end destination, nearly wanting to let out a cry of his own when he heard it.

The same announcement over the airport loudspeakers that littered every corner of the building he was in, something to do about a travel package to Hawaii, he could hear echo through your side of the phone back at him. Okay, he thought rationally, so you were somewhere within the airport. That much could be certain. Now he needed just a little bit more to figure out where exactly you were located within the huge facility. Maybe…a sign? He thought logically. So, he asked you.

“Sweetie, you think you can read me some sort of sign near you so I can find you and help you? Please? I know it might be hard, but you can do it, baby. I believe in you. You got this.” He asked in his soothing voice he knows can get through to you in your current state of mind. Semi loud so you can hear what he says, but slowly and clearly.

You didn’t respond right away. Shaky and watery eyes immediately surveyed your surroundings in search of some kind of unique sign that could directly implicate your position on this tile floor that seems to get colder by the minute. You could literally feel the many pairs of eyes that walked by you on faces connected to bodies that didn’t even try to reach out and help you in the slightest. What a cruel world we live in, you thought bitterly. Though, you wondered, if you were in their shoes, would you have done any differently? And that thought alone sobered you up immediately. A fresh new set of tears falling down your cheeks in streams now.

There it was, the sign you were looking for. Directly above your head, ironically. It was a picture of a smiling, and blended family, much like your own, you thought with a watery smile. In bright red letters, and a snazzy font, it read ‘Family Doesn’t End With Blood’. You managed to somewhat clearly reiterate the sign you just read to your ever patient boyfriend, hoping and praying to all that is holy that it’ll be enough and you can soon be in the comfort of his arms.

As soon as he heard the words fall out of your mouth he opened his eyes and slowly turned his body in a circle, reading every sign his eyes found hoping that the next one he reads will be the one you just told him.

Bingo.

It wasn’t even that far from where he stood. He immediately pushed through the last throes of the crowd surrounding him, or what remained. It seemed like half splintered off upon getting what they needed from him already. He didn’t even care what the remaining vultures thought of him, or what berating he’ll surely receive from his head of security once they find out he fled them of his own accord. All he cared about was finding you, making sure you were safe, calming you, and holding you in his arms.

It’s like the life you two shared ran through his mind in flashes, like a reel of a film. It spurred him to pump his legs even harder, especially when he noticed the lone figure that half lay beneath the sign. Getting closer he could see how fast your chest rose and fell, the tears that littered your flushed cheeks, and your eyes that widened upon landing on him coming towards you. He could visibly see your body sag in relief, which made his heart flutter knowing he could make you feel so calm in a matter of a look. It was the same way with you, for him.

He slid the last few feet in front of you on his knees. Not wasting any time, he began searching your body for any kind of wounds or minor injuries that could’ve triggered your attack, hands hovering over every bit of your body he examined. He found none, except your hands and knees scraped up a bit. He exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Good. Now to calm you down.

“I’m here, baby. I’m here, and you did so well. I’m so proud of you.” He praised you with a look so full of warmth, you couldn’t help but give a small, shaky smile in response. Feeling like a little kid again, you reached out to him with grabby hands. I need you now. A silent demand.

He encased your body with his arms, and gently pushed your head to lay where his heart is with one hand on the back of your head, the other brought your body impossibly closer than it already was, making you half lay on him now. With him supporting your body weight completely, you slumped into him in pure exhaustion, eyes closing and hands gripping the back of his jacket like you would never see him again after you departed. After a mere 4-5 minutes of listening to his heartbeat, your breathing returned to normal. Your eyes dried up. Your body regained its strength back.

You tried to unwrap yourself from him, but his response was to grip onto you even tighter, not wanting to let you go just yet. So, you let him. Returning the embrace with as much passion as he was. You lost track of how much time passed there on that tile floor, that oddly, didn’t feel as cold anymore.

It wasn’t until the head of Yoongi’s security cleared his throat loudly, did you look up from your position still attached to the rapper. Yoongi didn’t even flinch, making no attempt to acknowledge the man. Which left things in your hands. He stood off to the side of you two with his hands clasped together in front of his stomach, posture rigid, but eyes letting you know that he understood why your boyfriend broke the rules. He nodded at you once making eye contact and tilted his head in the direction of where the car garage was, subtly telling you that you guys needed to get up and it was time to go. Then he left, footsteps receding until you could hear them no more. That’s when you finally managed to get the rapper’s attention.

“Yoongs, can we go home now?” You asked meekly, voice sounding weak due to not getting much use of it for awhile. Your eyes must’ve been puffy for sure. They took the most damage.

You could feel him nod his head in the crook of your neck and reluctantly let you go. Yoongi stood up first, then extended his hand out to you to help you up off the floor. Gripping onto it tightly, you managed to raise yourself back up on your feet. He refused to let go of your hand even after you were up, instead opting to pull you flush to his side. You gave him a small smile of thanks, squeezing his hand, your silent way of saying ‘I love you’ to each other without words. He squeezed your hand back twice. ‘I love you too’. Your other hand finding purpose in the crook of his elbow, holding it gently yet firmly, you leaned into his side.

And then you walked in sync towards the car garage in the now unnaturally calm atmosphere, security once again flanking the both of you now.

Just two lovers wanting nothing more than to collapse into each other in their shared bed, at their shared home, where they can create their own little universe of stars only they could see.

#min yoongi x you #min yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #yoongi x reader #jungkook angst #suga x you #suga x reader #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi fic #fic; my universe #masterlist; old account #main masterlist #min yoongi #bts yoongi #bts min yoongi

[ellewritesalright]

Second Best - Part 1

Nikolai Lantsov x reader

Part 2 - Part 3

A/N: Look, am I starting a new series when I haven't finished nly? Yes, I am. And I would proudly do it again because this story has been in my drafts for so long and I want yall to see it. Hope it's coherent enough :) also, I gave the mc reader a last name :)

Synopsis: When you were a child, the Lantsov king and queen arranged for their second son to marry you, a rich Ravkan noble family's only daughter. After many years, after all the destruction of the war, and after Nikolai was crowned king, Nikolai breaks off the engagement. But the complications of your past and your strict parents make it a nightmare to find a new fiance, so Nikolai promises to help you, yet he slowly realizes the mistake he's made.

Warnings: strict and mean parents, very slight self-image issues because of said parents, kinda confusing and purposefully ambiguous details that will be important later in the story (bear with me please)

Word Count: 1700

..........

It was going to be a very important day, your mother had said. She sat in the corner of the room as a gaggle of maids did you up. Everything needed to be perfect for your meeting with the new king of Ravka. After all, he was your fiance, but there were rumours that he did not wish to marry you.

The engagement was made when you were both children and he was only supposed to be a prince, but now circumstances had changed and he was king of a fractured nation. He would need to marry for the good of Ravka, so a political match would be much more beneficial. You wouldn't blame him if he chose to marry a foreign princess or noblewoman, but your parents insisted that you would be the future queen of Ravka.

"Stop fidgeting," your mother commanded. You straightened out, averting your stare as you mumbled an apology.

It was cold outside the front door of your parents' home in Os Alta. Goosebumps had broken out on your skin and you struggled to not rub some warmth into them. All you could do was wait for the king to arrive. He was more than ten minutes late, but your father had insisted that you all remain standing at the entrance until Nikolai arrived. 

As you heard carriage wheels in the street you swore you could leap with joy that you would soon be allowed inside again, but you stayed perfectly poised. The royal carriage swung around the corner and you felt your heartbeat pick up, kicking into double-time. You pitied any nearby heartrenders, for the thumping must have been utterly annoying; but you came about it honestly.

There was always a fear in the back of your mind that you would be found out. Someone would discover your family secret and you would be exiled from respectable society before you could marry your Lantsov fiance. But you couldn't worry about that now, not when the carriage had stopped and the king was getting out.

If you had been worried about the cold earlier, it was now the farthest thing from your mind. King Nikolai's stare was enough to make your face heat up, and you thought you might burst into flames without a moment's notice as you curtsied to him. He still looked a little like the boy in your faded memory of him, the boy that you met when you were twelve and he was fourteen. He had a boyish countenance, a light-hearted look to him as he stepped out of his carriage.

You were prepared for a bit more resemblance to his older brother, but he was comparatively more handsome than Vasily ever was. His smile was charming and warm, not greasy or snide as his brother's had been; he had a stronger chin than his brother, and really just a better bone structure in general. But perhaps the lack of similarity between him and his brother gave credence to the rumours of his lineage. You often wondered if people thought that way about the differences between you and your parents.

Whatever the case, you were too conscious of the way he didn't offer you his arm as the four of you entered the house to care about any of that. In Ravka it was common for engaged couples to do that sort of thing, even when they were practically strangers, so it seemed the whispers of his detachment from you had some truth.

You settled in the drawing room where tea was presented to the four of you. Mere minutes of small talk passed before your father broached the topic of the engagement. He set down his cup and saucer, leaning back in his seat as he stared at the king. Nikolai had just told an anecdote about the tiring details from his coronation several months ago and your father was ready to pounce.

"I suppose the wedding will be as much of a headache to plan, but this time you'll have my daughter to shoulder some of the weight," he said, a cheerful air to his voice despite the trap he just laid.

"Lord Antonov," Nikolai smiled politely, "I don't suppose you've heard any news from my father or mother."

Your father shook his head, a confused twitch in his brow.

"They were the ones to arrange this marriage, but, as it is, they are not around to see it through. They approved the match back when I was a boy and my father was still king." Here it was. The rumours were about to be verified. Nikolai kept on, "Things have changed since then; I am no longer a boy, and my father is no longer king, so you will forgive me if I would like to drop the agreement that my parents made you many years ago."

"Promises and plans were made, your highness, and they cannot be easily undone--"

"And yet they must be undone." Nikolai levelled your father with a heavy stare. "Ravka needs strong diplomatic ties, and I believe that one of the best options to achieve this is through marriage. I cannot sacrifice the good of this country for an old arrangement made by a party that is no longer in power."

"But what will my daughter do?" Your mother piped up. "She'll have to find a new suitor, but who would want her now that she gets older?"

As much as you would have liked to say that her words did not affect you, you couldn't deny their sting. To your parents, all that their daughter–their only child–had ever been was a bartering chip for well-born men to marry and continue their noble lines, and it showed in your mother's primary concern. If you weren't young, you weren't beautiful, and if you weren't beautiful, who would dare marry you? 

Nikolai nearly laughed. "She is twenty, that is not old. And if you're so concerned that she needs to be married, I will see to it that she finds someone suitable. I know enough barons and marquises who would be glad to marry her."

"For centuries we Antonovs have dedicated our lives--our entire estate--to this country and the Lantsovs, and this is how we are to be repaid?" Your father narrowed his stare. "Have you no honour? That you would go back on your word--some king you are."

If your mother's superficial worries weren't enough to make Nikolai rethink the marriage, insults from your father definitely wouldn't change his mind.

"Father," you gasped as a sorry attempt at admonishment. When you felt eyes on you, you couldn't help but speak, even if your parents wouldn't like what you were going to say. "You should consider the importance of his highness' role in Ravka. If our country needs a political marriage to strengthen diplomatic ties, then perhaps it is for the best that we sever the arrangement you made with the former king."

"My daughter doesn't know what she's saying, your highness," your mother tried to backtrack, but you weren't having it. You'd be in deep shit with them for that first comment, and you figured you should continue since they were already angry.

"If you two are as patriotic as you often say then you would understand that the good of your country comes first. If the king asks you to forgo an old agreement, you should forgo it."

"There you have it," Nikolai said. "The two most important voices in this conversation have spoken." He stood and looked at you. "I must be going now, but perhaps could you walk me out, my lady?"

You stood and set aside your tea, eager to be out of the room. In the hall, you caught Nikolai staring at you. He smiled, looking forward.

"You handled that well," he said.

"I should hope so." You glanced at him. "Like you, I was educated at Ketterdam University where most of my classmates were hog-headed boys who went on and on about the most insignificant topics. I found the best way to assert my voice in the classroom was through a light shaming of those who couldn't figure out when to shut up."

"Very effective," Nikolai remarked, his eyes alight. "What did you study at school?"

"Economics for the most part, but there was also advanced physics as well as debate classes."

"You must have made quite the student." There was approval in his voice.

You held back a proud grin. Men are frightened by smart women, your mother often said. She maintained that you must hold back your brains until after you had a ring on your finger, but because you weren't marrying him, you didn't see the need to hide your intellect. You straightened out and replied, "I was always top of my class."

When you reached the front door Nikolai fastened his jacket and turned to you with a conciliatory smile. "I hope I haven't bent your parents too out of shape."

"They'll get over themselves." But you weren't too certain of your words. You amended, "They'll have to."

"I meant what I told your mother," he said. "I can help you find a fiance. Though I'm sure you wouldn't have difficulty finding one on your own."

You chuckled. "Yes, undoubtedly my mother is already scheming to entrap the next richest bachelor in Ravka into a marriage."

"That's not what I meant." At your quizzical brow, he smiled and fixed the cuffs of his coat. "I only meant to say that you're highly intelligent and quite beautiful. Anyone would be lucky to marry you."

You dared to look away from his hazel eyes, tracing the gold frame of a portrait as you quickly dispelled the heat from your face. When you looked back he was trying to hide a smug smile that told you he knew exactly what game he was playing at. 

"You've scrapped our engagement, and yet now you're flirting with me," you observed with a tsk. "Are you always this contradictory?"

"When the mood strikes me," he said. "Now, it has been a pleasure but I must be getting back to the palace."

You parted ways with a handshake, Nikolai returning home and leaving you to face two very upset nobles.

..........

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feel free to like, reblog, and comment if you want to read more, I really appreciate the feedback! If you want to be tagged in the other parts of this series or to be added to the Nikolai taglist please comment on this part or send me an ask. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day/night :)

Masterlist

Part 2

Nikolai Taglist: @notoakay

#nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov fanfic #nikolai lantsov x you #nikolai lantsov fic #grishaverse fanfic #second best

[landinrris]

It's not a Miami companion fic, but it is a drabble/snippet from a third part to this series that sees me returning to early 1910s painter Carlos, only now Carlos and Lando are living their domestic life in Madrid. So while I continually chip away at this, please enjoy a bit of Lando modeling for Carlos, and specifically modeling this pose ✌️

Carlos hums into Lando’s neck, the evidence of his smile pressed to Lando’s skin. Yeah, much better than Manchester. “So you will let me draw you today?”

“I’ll always let you draw me, you know that.”

“Yes, but you will let me pose you today maybe? I have an idea for this new work and want to get some specific ideas for the figures in the background. Angels, I’m thinking.” Lando might be able to listen to the way Carlos says angels for the rest of his life.

“Yeah? Always happy to help. What idea have you been thinking about?”

So Carlos tells him about a strong central figure. He tells Lando about the idea about the interference from heavenly creatures and how the central figure perseveres despite everything. All while Lando goes back to scrubbing their cups and sets them on the small drying rack next to the sink.

Hearing about Carlos’ ideas never fails to leave Lando in awe of how his mind is always working. It’s always reeling with possibilities and composition and color. He thinks in terms of proportions and the flow of people’s bodies.

Even without seeing a draft in front of him, Lando can picture the idea in his mind painted with the care of Carlos’ impressionistic style. The detail of his portraiture evident even in the broader expanse of a larger scene. He paints like Lando could reach out and feel the fabric himself— like he could lend a hand to the paintings’ subjects and have them step into the room with him. 

To know that Lando has a hand in any of that creation feels like an honor. Especially when Carlos leads him to their small chaise and slowly strips him of the clothes he had managed to put on following leaving their room. The kisses Carlos presses into his collarbone and chest do absolutely nothing for Lando’s resolve, but this is par for the course as well. 

Carlos says he does it because it always brings a pretty blush to Lando’s skin that makes it that much easier to not have to imagine. Lando’s half inclined to believe him when his kisses never lead to any kind of payoff, but that doesn’t mean they don’t drive Lando a little bit insane. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t sigh and slide a hand into Carlos’ hair as Carlos peels his trousers down his legs.

But Carlos pulls away before Lando can get him where he wants and begins manuevering Lando into his desired position. He folds one of Lando’s legs up and drapes the other one so it’s hanging off the chaise. He does the same to Lando’s hands, bringing them to rest above his head and practically crossing at the wrist. The touch he gives Lando’s chin to tilt back so he’s staring at his hands feels vulnerable in a way he’s not completely used to. Not while Carlos is still dressed at least. 

“If you wanted to draw me looking like we’re in the middle of having sex, you could’ve just told me,” Lando chides.

Carlos tsks. “Ay, Lando behave.”

“What, like you are?”

He gets up almost in response and walks into the other room. Lando only moves his head enough to see the hallway after a handful of seconds. Naturally, Carlos catches him when he returns with the sheet from the spare bedroom. “You have forgotten how to not move.”

Lando returns his head to as close to what he’s pretty sure it was before as he can, though he’s unable to keep the smile off his face. “Is that to protect my modesty?”

“No, you are an angel, remember? Keep up.”

“Angels wear loin cloths?” He looks down his body to see Carlos accordion-folding the fabric into a longer strip before kneeling between Lando’s legs and draping it gently over him. The sight is admittedly too much, so Lando redirects his gaze over to the wall and takes in steadying lungfuls of air. Judging by the amused hum from Carlos, it’s not quite enough.

“Trust the process. They certainly do not wear wrinkled trousers and a slept-in undershirt.”

“Touché,” Lando concedes before taking a steadying breath again.

When Carlos’ hands leave him seemingly for good, Lando mourns the loss. Carlos isn’t in his sightline where Lando judges he sets himself up in one of the chairs across the room. Lando can hear the scratch of his pencil against paper— quick, sure strokes alternating with quieter and seemingly exploratory ones. 

Even though he can’t see him, Lando can imagine the look of concentration on Carlos’ face, the way his eyebrows crease in the middle, the way he sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth as he tries to get the particular curve of something right. Lando wonders if maybe it’s one of his muscles this time that makes Carlos sigh petulantly as he rubs the art gum over his lines. Maybe it’s the jut of his jaw tipped towards the ceiling that Carlos can’t get the perspective just right on.

What certainly doesn’t help quell Lando’s excitement is the way he imagines Carlos staring at the draped fabric around his lower stomach and hips. Does it turn Carlos on just a bit to draw the arch in Lando’s back— to shade the fabric that the empty space creates on the chaise? Carlos is staring at him, and Lando’s relegated to being a good model lying in wait until Carlos decides they’re done for the afternoon.

It can’t have been more than fifteen minutes.

Carlos hums from his perch, and Lando swears his skin burns.

#two ciders deep and thought ''you know what? fuck it. snippet because i love them and i love this universe still'' #my perpetual bed time story universe #carlando #birdsong au core #writing tag #husbands™

[seokjinsonlyone]

in which you get possessive...

the first red flag was when she walked right past you without saying a single word. some old school friend of tae and jimin’s that managed to reconnect with them in one way or the other. you didn’t care to delve into the details. could always tell the exact content of a person’s character by how they walked into a room with other people. you hadn’t been wrong yet.

she didn’t even try to acknowledge you until taehyung specifically cleared his throat and introduced you as his girlfriend, and even then all she did was look you up then down and say, “oh, hi.” you didn’t like her. you told taehyung as much but your boyfriend is a much better person than you are. likes to give people the benefit of the doubt. told some sob story about how he remembered her always being shy or something. whatever. your instincts were never wrong. you didn't like her. but you weren't about to spend your precious time thinking about some girl he used to know. you let it go with a roll of your eyes and a huff through your nose.

the second red flag was when you were at dinner, and she put some food on his plate. launched into some story about how he used to always like this that and the third and then plopped a piece of meat and half an egg right on top of his rice. his eyes shot to you immediately and you were glad he had the good sense to realize that was a problem. taehyung sat frozen not knowing how to proceed in the situation while you stared at her as she pretended not to notice your gaze. she only looked up again when she saw taehyung moving to eat the food she placed on his dish. you placed one hand over his wrist, halting his movements, and ate the food instead. you looked her dead in the eye with each bite. you could see the heat creep up her neck and you're sure if she was a cartoon character there would be steam coming from her ears. you didn't know who she thought you were, but you were not the one.

"you better handle it," you told tae that night. "because if you don't i will." you were pacing back and forth in your room furiously. he watched you from the bed, leant up against the headboard as if you weren't plotting murder in your head. "and if i handle it, it's not gonna be pretty. they gon find her in some back alley, and you're gonna be bailing me out of jail." he assured you he would. started hugging all up on you, got to talking all sweet, telling you how there was nothing to worry about and you were the only one for him. you pushed him off of you. he wasn't telling you anything that you didn't already know. you weren't jealous, you were possessive. there was a difference. he latched back on to you, kissing up your neck, telling you how hot he found your behavior. but you were being serious. "tae," you stressed, "handle it."

and he did. later on that night. after your breathing had slowed down, no longer panting, bare, tangled up in the sheets, he grabbed his phone and let you help him draft a respectful but firm text telling her to back off. even let you block her from his phone and all social media accounts. it was the most satisfied you'd felt ever since she popped up, and if you were happy, he was happy.

which was all the more reason you were stupefied at her presence when you walked into jimin's house a few days later and found her sitting on the couch without a care in a world, eyes lighting up when they caught sight of your man. she stood up, looking like she wanted to do something stupid like hug him, so you pulled him to you and kissed him in a way that you usually reserved for the bedroom. and the turned on, dazed expression painted across his face when you broke apart was something she couldn't even attempt to compete with and had her dropping back unceremoniously onto the couch.

triumphantly, you dragged taehyung into the kitchen by his hand and jimin by his ear and fussed at him for having her here in the first place. you'd personally told him how disrespectful she was and how much she pissed you off. and he didn't even like her really. had said he thought she was annoying too, and that there was something off about her. but he came up with some lame excuse anyway about how he'd already invited her and didn't want to uninvite her and blah blah blah. you didn't want to hear it. you saw the mischievous glint in his eye. he probably just wanted to see you drag her.

you were determined to keep it chill, though. just wanted to kick back and relax with your boyfriend and your friends. have a few drinks, share a few laughs, and make a couple memories. and you were good for the most part. kept your distance from the girl. kept your man wrapped around you. everything was cool. until it wasn't.

you stepped away for 2 minutes to use the bathroom. and when you came back, ready to sit in the spot you'd been all but glued to the entire night she sped past you, elbow checked you, stealing your seat. you got hot all over, felt all the blood rush to your head, and then you blacked out.

when you came to, you were thrashing in tae's arms. you stopped immediately once you realized what you were doing. then you saw jimin, holding back a laugh, ushering their so called "friend" out the door. and you were finally sure that was going to be last you saw of her. "did i hit her?" you asked tae.

"no, but you would've. i saw the light leave your eyes, and grabbed you right before you lunged."

you wriggled out of his grasp, tilting your head from side to side attempting to crack your neck, then shrugged. "i told you i'm not the one."

he tilted his head to the side, like a lost puppy assessing a situation. "you're crazy."

you nodded in agreement. "and, you're mine."

#bts #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #kim taehyung #taehyung fanfic #taehyung smut #taehyung x y/n #taehyung x reader #kim taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #bts v #bts x you #taehyung fluff

[slayingfiction]

Preliminary Editing

Hi! There are 4 stages of official editing: 1. Developmental/structural editing, 2. Line/stylistic editing, 3. Copy editing, 4. Proofreading. These are tips to do before these stages.

Here are some ways to edit your book as you work from your first to second, third, fourth, etc. draft, before you start officially editing, or better, hiring someone to do it for you.

Start by going through chapter by chapter, and rewriting all the prose you find cringy, or that you don’t find flows well. Cut any information and scenes that you find unnecessary, or that has no value in the story.

Add all the small details you forgot to add, or only thought of after writing the chapter. Every single event in your story should be able to be tracked back to a specific moment that caused the cascading event, and therefore the consequences.

Add or change all details so that the story is cohesive, and there are no plot holes. Your MC has OCD? Make sure the entire story they are exhibiting those symptoms. Your MC has a pet? Make sure you know where they are at all times, and what they are doing, even out of scene.

Change your verbs to ensure you are always using the same conjugations. I usually mix past and present during first drafts. :(

Go over all dialogue to make sure all dialogue is representative of the characters speaking. From personality distinctions, mannerisms, dialects or language barriers.

Add description, the 5 senses, where you feel it should be more descriptive, or find different ways of describing your story, instead of always using the same words or adjectives.

Improve writing by being more concise with your words. Example, remove all “very ****” and get better adjectives or adverbs. Take out ‘very fast’ and replace it with quickly or hastily, rapidly, swiftly, or instantaneously. You can also remove most instances of words like possibly, may, might have, likely, probably. They did or they didn’t, just choose one.

Double check the accuracy of all the information you’ve used. From fighting styles, to when people need their passport, or how your world delivers communication in a technology free world, etc.

Share your work. Beta reader, or alpha reader. It doesn’t matter, get someone to look over it to point out any problems you may not see and then adjust accordingly.

Repeat as necessary until you are ready to do the 4 stages of official editing.

When you have feedback, try not to take it personally, though you almost always will at first. Be proud of yourself for the work you have accomplish, and know that it’s not done, so it’s ok to not be perfect. I promise you, as likely it is that someone doesn’t like your story, it’s just as likely someone will love it. Just find your people.

You don’t need to do all these steps separately, but also don’t do them all at once, or you will likely miss some details. Try to do 2 to 3 full preliminary story edits before the official ones.

Happy Writing :)

#writing tips #story writing #writer #book edit #writer things #writing advice #writing community #writers #tumblr writers #writers on tumblr #writing life

[thatbanditqueen]

Basic Training Ch 2

This is a new Elvis Fan Fic set during his basic training at Fort Hood WIP I am playing around with for the summer. Comment, reblog , tag and let me know what you think or if you would like to be added to the taglist.

Thanks to my ever alpha @whositmcwhatsit who read the rough draft and made it so much better. Thanks Jader Gator. I love you and I think you know that I go between being so in awe of your writing that it is paralyzing to being inspired to write just to get close to what you create.

There are so many good writers in our fandom, and I am lucky to be friends with a little group of horny elvis witches who put up with me, answer my random questions and help me figure out narrative roadblocks, so thanks, as ever, to my sister wives @be-my-ally @vintageshanny @missmaywemeetagain @ellie-24 @from-memphis-with-love @powerofelvis for helping me write. You guys are so talented I feel lucky to breathe your air, you teach me everything.

Summary: Elvis surprises Bess at her office to thank her and gets to know some of the other women on post.

Word Count: 4.9 K

Warnings: None. Swear words? Handsy charming naughty Elvis?

I have formulas, tropes, motifs that I always go back to consciously or unconsciously.... whatever... as I was naming this chapter I realized how chapter two is always about the nicknames..... Here we go...

If you need to catch up, read Chapter 1: I Don't Date Soldiers here

Basic Training Chapter 2: Lil Moo Moo & Tupelo

Wednesday, April 2, 1958

1715 Hours (5:15 p.m.)

Fort Hood Front Office

“Oh, give me Burt Lancaster any day over Elvis Presley.”

Mabel’s eyes didn’t leave her work as she said this, not even when she placed her cigarette in the ashtray on her desk, the keys on her typewriter plunking up and down in her glasses’ reflection as she typed. Unflappable and wry, Mabel was a career civil servant with the commemorative lapel pins to match each milestone from her twenty six years and counting career at Fort Hood. Her light green metal desk was set in the center of the large outer room in the base’s front office, right in front of the CO’s door. Bess’s desk was to the right, across from the XO’s secretary Rose, who left everyday right at five o’clock on the dot. 

The other two women Bess shared an office with were almost polar opposites. Rose worked punctually from eight to five every day, while Mabel was always the first to arrive between 6:45 and 7, and often the last to leave, determined to stay on post until the CO left. 

Bess fell somewhere in-between, arriving most days with her father at 8 a.m. and then pushing him to leave as early as possible. But with her father out of town, Bess was mistress of her own destiny; a mistress who apparently couldn’t bear to leave until the final details for an awards ceremony tomorrow afternoon were hammered out. 

Which is why she was perched on the corner of Mabel’s desk at 5:15, or at least it had been before Dori arrived. Waiting for her father, the CO, to return from inspections, Dori had turned the conversation to her favorite topic of late: her quest to meet Elvis Presley. Tonight she was specifically wondering if he would come to the MWR dance that weekend. This had prompted Mabel's unsolicited preference for the tall, athletic physique of Burt Lancaster.

Dori giggled. “How many times did you see From Here to Eternity when it was in theaters, huh Mabel?”

“More than I’d care to admit, Ms. Crenshaw.” Mabel lowered her bifocals as she hit her typewriter keys slowly, looking down every few seconds at some hand written notes. “And every time they play it on TV or show it here.”

“And how many times did you see Jailhouse Rock, huh, Bess?” Dori teased.

Bess blushed. “Only once.”

Mabel paused her typing and picked up her cigarette again. “I have the feeling Bess has turned sour on those Presley pictures. You should have seen her last week, damn near punched a dent in her desk after a reporter ran her off the road.”

“Ah, no, Bess loves Elvis.” Dori checked her lipstick before putting her compact back into her purse. “She’s lying too. I remember seeing Jailhouse Rock with you and the soldier on duty said you’d been to our sweet 'lil ol base theater every night that week.”

Bess fixed Dori with a grimace, mumbling defensively. “That was Loving You, and I only saw it three times. People were talking through it the first two times.” She shifted, rolling her thigh over Mabel’s desk as she balanced herself. “I didn’t care for Jailhouse Rock, though, kinda thought the main character was a jerk.“

“Oh honey, that’s what made it so good.” Dori’s high voice vaulted up the ceiling “Don’t you just find him scrum-diddly-umptious actin’ all tough and mean, but then being hung up on his lil ole manager the whole time?”

Bess straightened the stack of files on her lap.

“No, Dori, I don’t care for quiet, mean, brooding types who can’t just be a man and tell me how they feel, playin' mind games instead. And, as for Elvis, honestly I can take him or leave him. There are twenty thousand men on this base.” Bess straightened her ponytail, balancing her files on her lap as she spoke. “Why, I could find you ten Mississippi tall boys who can play gee- tar and yodel at you before mail call is done…”

Bess’ voice trailed off when she noticed Dori gasp and cover her mouth with her hand, eyes wide with shock as she smacked Bess’ knee. Mabel whistled low, her eyes quickly fixing on her typewriter as Bess shifted around on the big desk.

“What? What is it….” Bess’ jaw fell open and dropped her files to the ground. She felt them slip over her skirt on their way, unable to stop them, it was as if she had forgotten how to use her hands. No, all she could do was cringe with embarrassment at Elvis’ downward smirk as his eyes flitted up to look at her.

“Oh cluck a fuck, I mean fuck a duck - I mean, oh cluck!” Bess heard herself cry out reflexively, then remembering how to move, she scrambled to pick up her papers. She was grateful for Dori’s unflappable poise as the blonde hopped over Bess’ hunched body on the ground and introduced herself to Elvis, adding:

“Please excuse my friend there, she flunked outta finishin’ school.”

Bess watched Elvis kiss Dori’s extended hand with mild amusement as she squealed and smiled and unleashed her excitement onto him, her hand already on his chest.

“I been prayin’ every day to run into you, Elvis - Oh, may I call you Elvis?”

“Yessum, I -”

“Oh good! See, I knew we’d be great friends, I just knew we would! I have been all over this base hopin’ to run into you. Why, we’re all just pleased as punch ta have ya round here, aren’t we?”

She turned to see Bess still on all fours, curly brown hair half loose from her ponytail, while behind her Mabel looked up and grunted softly in salutation before continuing to type. 

Mabel’s cranky glare and Bess’ antics on the floor did not create the mood Dori had envisioned for her first meeting with Elvis Presley. She looked down and her broad smile wavered for a moment as she realized the top button of Bess’ shirt was undone, revealing her bra completely. Dori’s painted pink lips popped as she nudged Bess with the tip of her heel and whispered through her teeth.

“Stand up, Bess honey, fo-ar gawd’s sake, ya shirt!”

Bess jumped up, fixing herself as a big red blush grew over her face, made worse as Elvis caught her eye with a wink. Mabel stopped typing for a moment and motioned for Bess to come and look at something while Dori kept right on talking to Elvis with her hand now firmly around his bicep.

“Now, don’t pay no mind to Bessie’s talk about you and your pictures, why, we’re all big Elvis fans round here, the biggest fans ya ever met.”

Elvis cocked his eyebrows up at Bess’ simmering glare from where she now stood behind Mabel’s chair.

“Huh, yeah, that’s sweet of ya, ma’am -”

Dori put her finger to Elvis' lip. “Dori, honey, puhleeze!”

“ - Uh, Dori.” Elvis’ spoke carefully, as if forming every word in the back of his throat before speaking out, his voice was soft and shy. “I don't s’pect everyone to like all my pictures. After all, I didn’t write them, it’s just a job to me.” He winked again at Bess. “S’pose I mind even less if they like some of my other movies. Like ‘em enough to see ‘em every night a tha week.”

Bess felt her cheeks redden even more, but before she could think of a clever reply, Mabel elbowed her and pointed at the XO’s handwriting.

“Can you read that? It looks like repercussion, but it could be reprimand as well.”

Bess picked up the legal pad for closer inspection and turned to the others, motioning for Dori to come take a look. She hadn’t expected Elvis to follow, but he did, making himself right at home and angling his tall body behind the women. 

He snuck his hand around Bess’ waist as he looked at the writing Dori held up for him, eyes forward and completely detached from the movements of his fingers rubbing along the waistband of Bess’ skirt until she pulled them off. This made her stumble to the side and gave Elvis an excuse to openly grab her waist and steady her, She frowned, flustered by the way his long fingers navigated the crease right where her waist met her ribs, his thumbs squeezing tightly and then rubbing gently over her as he asked if she was ok. 

Pushing Elvis’ hands away, Bess whispered that she was fine, trying to slow her pulse and still the shivers that ran up her spine. Her whole body trembled, aware of his proximity to her, and she refused to meet Dori’s now extremely curious eyes over Elvis’ shoulder. Nodding, he turned back to the others and helped himself to the paper, declaring that it was repercussion as he introduced himself to Mabel, kissing her hand, and asking her about the tiny, porcelain figurines on her desk as she giggled.

“That’s Lady and Lola, my brother brought them back to me from Japan. Are you a dog person, Private?”

Bess made her way back to her desk, taking in the youthful bloom of Mabel’s beaming face and girlish laughter. She had never seen her co-worker this cheerful and open before. Dori’s face was aghast as Elvis ignored her and made himself comfortable on Mabel’s desk, asking her for a cigarette and then turning with a conspiratorial whisper as he asked them not to tell anyone. 

Dori began tapping her fingers along her crossed arms harder as she watched Elvis put his hand on Mabel’s shoulder, while the older woman batted his thigh and chuckled at his jokes about dogs. Bess smiled to herself at the way Dori tried to wrest the conversation back by talking about how she used to have the sweetest lil ol’ poodle in the world when she was a girl. But it was an uphill battle, because now Mabel was pulling out her secret tin of homemade shortbread and asking Elvis what he thought. He had to try five pieces before he could adequately decide his verdict, and he moaned as if he had never had shortbread before. His voice was low as he stuttered “Mmm hmmm mmm hmm mmm” in a hum, and Bess dropped her pen when he caught her eye and licked his lips, proclaiming through crumbly mouthfuls that it was “the best doggone cookie he’d had in a long while.”

Bess shook her head at Elvis’ transformation from the shy soldier who had walked into the office to the confident, cocky rascal he was now, only minutes later. Elvis was masterful, she mused, and it was down to the attentive way he looked at each person he spoke with, talking to you as if you were the most important person in the world and responding to everything you said and did with his eyes. No, with his whole body really, she thought. He had a magnetic energy that had drawn her in the moment they met Friday. Now that same magnetic energy was doing its work on Dori and Mabel before her very eyes, as he engaged with them in a way that was humble, considerate and disarming. Some soldiers were stiff and uncomfortable here in the front office where there were often three to five women bustling about. Elvis on the other hand, seemed to be in his element amidst a group of women vying for his attention.

Bess found, to her own chagrin, that this included herself and was disappointed by her own desire to get his attention. She held out until she could no longer help it and interrupted their conversation with a loud, authoritative cough.

“I’m sure you didn’t come to our building to talk about puppy dogs and shortbread, Private, we don’t want to keep you from your tasks or the mess hall.”

Elvis turned to look at her from where he sat on Mabel’s desk and began throwing his olive patrol cap from hand to hand as he gulped.

“Uh, well ma’am, actually, I came up here hoping to get a word with you, Bessie. Uh, I mean Miss Schwartz.”

Now it was Bess’ turn to swallow and once again avoid Dori’s questioning eyes. Mabel’s eyes snapped down to her typing, her face back to being an expressionless stone wall.

“Sure thing, um, walk me to my car? I just, I was just about to leave, I just, uh, need to put these in the Commander’s office.”

As she walked back to her father’s desk, she heard Dori’s voice ring out behind her.

“I didn’t know you were acquaintances with Bessie. That busy bee, she really gets around this base, huh? I reckon she knows more soldiers than the rest of us combined.” Bess smiled to herself at Dori’s insinuation. “ Are you here to ask her to the dance?”

“Uh, no ma’am, Dori, Miss. I, uh, reckon it's better for me to keep a low profile this weekend, let the boys enjoy their night.”

“Well, you know, that attitude might give our boys the wrong impression, like. Make the guys think you fancy yourself too good for our simple, lil ole MWR dance.”

“Uh - well- “ Elvis’ face lit up when Bess rejoined them and they shared a lingering smile that Dori vowed to interrogate Bess about later.

“Oh let him be, Doreen,” Bess murmured, her voice breathy as her heart fluttered once more at the depth of Elvis’ knowing, penetrative gaze. “Uh, he, uh, the boy, man, the man clearly doesn’t want to go. And he already knows that I don’t go on dates with soldiers.”

Mabel had stopped working again and was now chewing the edge of her glasses, leaning forward on her chin as if she was watching a soap opera unfold in front of her desk.

Dori pursed her lips and placed her right hand on her hip energetically. “Oh he does now?” She said playfully, flouncing up the bottom of her blonde bob. ”Well, Private, you’re in luck, because I do date soldiers. I’ll pick you up at 8.”

Elvis looked to Dori, then back at Bess, his confused expression transforming into a smirking wide smile as he registered Bess’ frown. Bess looked down, picking at a chipped piece of her thumb nail until it came off, as if it was the most important thing in the world and needed her attention immediately.

“Huh, well, whoo boy.” Elvis eyed Bess again, then his lips screwed up into a wider grin as he chuckled mischievously. “I don’t hardly know ya, but I can’t say as that’s ever stopped me before.”

Bess’ heart did a series of flip flops as she watched Elvis laugh with Dori. She wasn’t sure what she disliked more, the fact that her friend had just maneuvered herself into a date with Elvis, or that she was jealous. Bess decided it was the later and that she would will herself not to care. 

Elvis' eyes flickered over her for a second and Bess suddenly had a sense that he could tell exactly what she was thinking and feeling in that moment, and she returned to picking at her thumb nail. She was vaguely paying attention as she heard Dori tell Elvis that she’d meet him up at his barracks Saturday night, but she thought Elvis smirked wider as he took in the smile that she forced her lips into.

“You’ll be there, won’t you, Bess. Even though you don’t date soldiers?” Dori looked at her, adding another few fluffs to her hair for absolutely no good reason.

“Hmmmm. Well, I usually do, since the CO encourages all the single female employees to go, but I did have some research st—”

“Don’t be silly, of course you’ll come, it’s gonna be so much fun. I can already tell. There’s gonna be a live rhythm and blues band we hired in from Houston. They are just the bee’s knees, and I’m on the MWR committee. My theme for this dance is Spring Fling, cuz it’s spring! The decorations we got are so adorable, floral Chinese lanterns y’all. I cannot wait.” Dori squeezed her hands into fists and did a little dance in place.

Elvis turned back to Mabel. “You comin’ Saturday night, Miss Maybelline?”

Mabel giggled like a school girl instead of the fifty year old woman she was.

“Every one I can make it to, CO’s memo encourages all single women on base to attend.”

Elvis took Mabel’s hand in his, softly trailing over the top as he kissed her knuckles and smiled devilishly as she giggled again.

“Well, be sure ta save a few dances for me, mmkay, honey?”

Mabel nodded with a giggle and a wink. 

Elvis’ cocky smiled followed Bess' curt nod out of the office and into the back stairs of the building where her voice echoed down the concrete stairwell.

“You know Private, I really wish you wouldn’t come to my office unannounced.” She paused two steps below him and turned around so he had to stop himself from slamming into her finger as it pointed back at him.

“Hold on a minute there, baby, now, what’s wrong with being friendly?” He grabbed her finger. “Careful where you point that thing, woman. First lesson of basic training is safety. Thought you’d a know by now.” He grasped her hand and softened it into his fist. She seemed to lose her train of thought looking up into his eyes. “What’s got your panties in a twist, Bessie Boo, you ain’t jealous, are you?”

Elvis was decidedly less polite when they were alone, Bess realized. She wasn’t sure she liked it, or the way it made her feel as she pulled her finger away and kept descending down the stairs in front of him, her voice a little shaky.

“Of Dori? No, no, not at all. In fact, that all seems to have worked out the way it should.” She shoved the door at the bottom open and headed toward her car as Elvis’ long legs made easy work of striding next to her.

“Why’s that?”

Bess turned as she got to her car.

“Cuz, well, you seem like a good match.” She smiled, trying to really mean it, trying to keep her voice cool and nonchalant. “Dori, is, well, she seems to have the sort of, um. Well, that is, she’s very glamorous. And popular. And attractive. She’s a lot like the girls you’re always with in the fan magazines. I think you’ll have a lot of fun.”

Elvis stepped closer, fixing his work cap back on his head. “So you read the fan magazines, huh? Thought you could take or leave Elvis Presley.”

Bess didn’t know if her cheeks could take the constant flushing she was experiencing. She leaned into the hood of her car, changing the topic as she spoke to the blue paint.

“Look, why did you come by my office?”

Bess leaned her back into the car, and he reached out for her waist, rubbing his hands along the sides for a moment, before taking the handle next to it and pulling it open, tilting his head to get in.

“I uh, I came by because I wanted to thank you. Think we could just talk for a spell?"

Bess swallowed and nodded. After a few moments searching, she discovered her tongue where she had left it on the roof of her mouth and did her best to eke out intelligible words. They scooted along the white vinyl car bench until Elvis got to the other side and leaned back, stretching out his arms and looking at her.

“I know'd it was you that talked to Sergeant Norwood.”

Bess looked down. “I, ugh, actually. That would be highly inappropriate of me to talk to a senior instructor in your company and ask for any special treatment.” She looked back up at him. “But, um, how’s it going?”

Elvis grinned wide. “He’s, uh, well, he’s instruction’ alright,  instructed me to come over to his house here on post after dinner most nights. He, uh, well, I uh, he lets me use his phone to call home and get a few hours of shut eye at their place. Though I preferred the bed at your house, Bessie bug. Cushioning there was better.”

Bess let out a snort as Elvis slid down to put his head in her lap, just as it had been that first night in her guest room. He pulled her right hand in his over her chest, threading his fingers through hers as he looked up into her face with apt admiration.

“Ya are the first real friend I’ve made here.”

“Hmmm. Seemed like you were doing all right making new friends upstairs.”

Elvis smirked, his squeezed his fingers between hers.

“You are jealous a Dori. Jus say tha word and I’ll take you to the dance too, baby. I could take both of you as my dates, ya know, nuff a me ta go ‘round.”

Bess tried to take her fingers back, but it was a half-hearted attempt and his hand was so much bigger than hers. Resigned, she squeezed back and sighed, looking out the window.

“Ha, I’m sure. But, no, I’m not jealous, I’m just giving you a hard time, Presley. You sure seem like a fast operator.” Bess felt an aching warmth blossom in her belly as his thumb rubbed the inside of her palm.

“Honey, I didn’t operate nothing, I’m just an innocent bystander caught in the eye of Hurricane Dori. If anyone is operatin’ fast, it’s your friend back there.”

“Yeah, well, you have to forgive her, she had a lot more going on in Savannah than she does here. We are sorely lacking in ladies’ charities and fancy galas for her to host. So Dori gets all pent up, all that energy and nothing to do with it. Maybe you can help wear her out. " Bess arched her eyebrows suggestively, her voice was light and teasing. "By dancing, I mean, of course.”

“Huh, sure. How ‘bout you? Will you have any pent up energy ya wanna dance off with an ol’ friend?”

“Ha, I’m about as old a friend to you as Dori is.”

“Nah, honey, you’re different, we go way back now. I don’t know anyone who’d risk their job to take a po’ boy like me home an feed me an’ take care a me so good.”

Elvis' eyes welled up and Bess softened, thinking he might cry. She found herself soothing the top of his forehead with her left knuckles.

“Hey, ssshhh, hey. You would have done the same for me, right? If our roles were reversed and I was a new recruit being trained for combat?”

The left side of Elvis’ face lifted into a crooked grin. Bess was transfixed watching the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

“Course, course I would. You know, I’ve spent the last two years running from women chasing me, I reckon the Army’d be in better shape if they’d put ya girls into combat. Ain’t nothing more terrifying than a hoard of twenty thousand screaming girls coming for ya.”

“Ha, yeah, probably makes basic training seem like a breeze.”

Bess smiled down at Elvis, and made her fist into a fake microphone, affecting a serious, transatlantic accent like the reporters at his press conference last week.

“So, Private Presley, what do you think, is basic training harder or easier than running from women for a living?”

Elvis chuckled. His right hand let go of Bess’ fingers and snaked around her waist. “Well, ain’t nothing like getting clobbered by a swarm of women. I s’pose the main difference between those girls and the Russians is, they don’t mean to hurtcha. They’re just tryin’ to get themselves a piece of ya for a souvenir.”

Bess’ raised one eyebrow, her reporter microphone hand still at attention.

“Oh? Please tell us, the American people want to know, which piece of you are these girls trying to get their hands on?”

Elvis burst out laughing. “Uh, no comment, though I could show you later if you want.”

Bess blushed at the glint in his eyes, and kept talking. “Hmm, fresh. Next question, how devastating was it to get your haircut?”

“Well, now, that didn’t bother me none at all. You know what they say, hair today, gone tomarra."

He paused, grinning at her tepid "Ha. ha. ha."

"But no, I ain't sore. Now, if it weren’t never gonna grow back, yeah, sure, maybe I’d be sore, but I don’t mind following the rules and cutting my hair like all the other boys here. I’m actually starting to like it.”

Bess combed her fingers through his crew cut.

“MMhmmm. I liked it better long, but you know me, I hate soldiers.”

“Picked a weird place to work then, Bessie, ain’t nothing but soldiers here.”

“This is just temporary, till I figure out what’s next for me.”

Elvis looked down towards his knees, speaking softly. “Yeah, jus temporary. That’s what my manager keeps sayin’, but man oh man, I think it’s all over for me. Ain’t no one gonna remember me in two years.”

“That’s not true. Trust me, it just feels that way. How many records you sold?”

Elvis leaned his face into her fingers as they cupped his cheek, he could feel Bess’ thighs tremble slightly underneath her skirt and it made him smile. He looked up at her big brown eyes sheepishly.

“Oh, I don’t know, ‘bout 25 million I s’pose.” His voice was casual and aloof til he cried out at the smack of Bess’ hand hitting his shoulder.

“Ha, I would have guessed 4 or 5 million. 25? I can’t even picture a stack that high. It would go all the way to the moon, probably. You’re thick, you know that? Like we could forget you with all those records out there, spinning 'round in people’s homes, on the radio. No, I think the Russians would have to bomb us to kingdom come before we forget about you, what with 25 million records playing all over. ”

“You’re sweet, Bess, you know that? My uncle used to have a cow named Bess.” He grinned up at her and made a moo sound. “Lil' Bessie Moo Moo, she was sweet, just like you… Moo Moo.” His voice tapered off as Elvis' hand began to trail up the side of Bess’ body. His voice became low and earnest. “She had the sweetest milk.”

Bess shivered at the touch of his fingers before pulling her head toward him. Just as she was an inch away from his lips, she stopped him, and tilted back up, fake microphone fist in her hand again between their faces.

“And, I know our listeners will want to know this important detail, where exactly was this cow, Private, Memphis?” She was the reporter again, and her heart thumped with a beat of regret as she took in the split second of disparagement that played across his face as she lifted her lips away from his. But then it was gone and he was back to playing cool with a grin. 

“Nah, back in Tupelo where I was borned and raised.”

“Tupelo, huh? Well, tell us Presley, why does all the good rock and roll music come from that part of the country, places like  Mississippi, Tennessee?”

Elvis nestled his head back into Bess’ thighs, scrunching up his lips as he thought.

“Don’t know, I guess we jus have a history of it, it's a place where ya got Black rhythm and blues and country and western, spiritual music. It's in the air we breathe down there, I guess, gets all jumbled up and out comes rock ‘n’ roll.”

“Well, Private, is rock n’ roll the secret weapon we’ve all been waiting for to take down communism and restore civilization to Eastern Europe and Russia? And if so, when are you being sent over enemy lines?”

“Now, maybe you’re on ta something there, pretty sure it’s already destroyed civilization state side.”

“Oh, definitely, the very fabric of our society is crumbling, just ask any parent and they’ll tell you that their teenager hates school and wants to have sex, all because of rock ’n’ roll. No teenager ever felt that way before they heard your music.”

“Huh, you’re a smart ass, you know that?”

“I’ve been a smart ass since you met me. Try to keep up, Tupelo.”

“Huh, yeah, ya a piece of work, lil' Moo Moo. And ya asking for it talkin’ to a man like that.”

Elvis pinched her soft, springy sides as he chuckled. Anyone walking by the blue Ford would have only seen Bess’ silhouette sitting up, head tilted back in a deep, guttural laugh for the first time in almost a year, as Elvis lay back in her lap, tickling and pinching her. They sat in her car for another hour, as Bess fussed over a cluster of razor burn below his ear, and he asked her about her life, getting to know as much about her as she was willing to reveal until she had to push him off her lap to go meet Sargeant Norwood, dismissing his offer to come back to her house and show her that souvenir all the gals were chasing after

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

Read Chapter Three Here

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