#so why would he think he is any different...... it *would* be a strategy that works at home too.....

[too-antigonish]

Morse and drinking in the 70s...

Long....because I can't write short. And obviously, a lot of you will already know this stuff...

Just want to take a moment to talk about alcohol and alcoholism in the context of the early 1970s and remind folks of how totally and completely different it is from how we see it today.

Drunk driving had not been outlawed in most countries. Not only that, it was widely regarding as funny—funny enough to be used as a regular “gag” in movies. Problem drinking was also seen as funny. There were regular cartoon strips about it. The “drunk” was a funny stock character in all sorts of plays and movies.

Alcohol was ubiquitous. We’re not just talking liquid lunches. We’re talking drinking at work, while you work—just as you see in Endeavour. Think about that for a second.

And politely saying no wasn’t something you did without social consequences. It wasn’t just seen as a personal preference. Unless you had a specific, acceptable reason, turning down a drink was often seen as stand-offish and judgmental or as a social snub. Teetotalism was regarded as rather naive and ridiculous—not something any man or woman of the world would embrace.

In the early 1970s, there was no widespread understanding of alcoholism as a disease. It was still seen very much as the consequence of personal weakness—still a matter of “If you cared enough or tried hard enough, you wouldn’t do this so it must be a character flaw.”

Plus, most people, “normal” people don’t have problems with alcohol, so if you do then there’s something abnormal and defective about you—most likely something you brought upon yourself.

And as a “personal weakness” and a “defect,” the shame around it was profound and the secrecy matched. If someone went away for treatment, it was very much akin to an unwed mother going off to have her baby and then returning without the child. You never spoke of it. You pretended that it had never happened.

If you were a kind person, you also didn’t go out of your way to parade babies in front of her or talk constantly about children when she was with you. But refer to it directly? Never. Ask for help? Never. It was always something to be hidden. Everyone did their best to forget that it had ever happened and saw this as the "kindest" thing to do.

When Morse returns from his “cure,” it would simply be assumed that everyone would pretend that nothing unusual has happened. Why he’s  just been off on a tour of the West Country and nothing else! Hope you had a lovely time! That sort of polite fiction was exactly what he would have expected upon his return. Anything more direct—at least in a public setting—would have been shocking to him and everyone else.

Where things break down, however, is in the more personal interactions. His relationship with Thursday is such that they can at least broach the topic of drinking. When they do, my impression is that Thursday is well-aware that Morse not “cured.” However, in the context of the time, saying this would be akin to saying, "You failed," because there was no disease model of alcholism in widespread use. You went to be cured and it worked or it didn't.

However, I'd also add that Thursday is almost to the breaking point with the cumulative strain he is under. He can’t cope with the “burden” of Morse being in a precarious state and he knows it. He feels desperately guilty about that—as well as about other things like Strange and Joan or about life having moved on so much while Morse was gone—and so he just shuts down. 

Shutting down is Thursday’s go-to strategy when he’s overwhelmed. We’ve seen him do it many times before. And part of that for him, is that he pretends that the people around him are ok—even if they are anything but ok. Not surprisingly, he does it the most with the people he has the closest emotional ties with—Win, Joan, Sam, and Morse.

So the only way that Thursday can cope is by having Morse be perfectly fine. Conveniently, his preferred coping strategy fits exactly with his society's expectations about how alcoholism works. If Morse is "cured," you don’t need to worry about sparing him the constant offers of alcohol in the same way that the young unwed mother might hope to be spared babies. You certainly wouldn’t embarrass him (especially after he’s been through the humiliation of rehab) by drawing attention in any way to a possible to the idea that he still has a problem. 

And finally, a last note on time context. The scene in the pub where Morse has that first drink after finding out that Joan is marrying Jim is utterly heartbreaking for so many reasons. One of those reasons, however, is that we know it’s the first drink—and that the first drink leads to the second, and so on and so forth. Then Morse says to Thursday, “They said the, the odd beer, the odd shot, does no harm…"Everything in moderation," they said,”  and we automatically assume he’s lying.

I’m fairly sure that those scenes were meant to be interpreted through our modern viewpoint. However, it’s worth noting that again, the model of alcoholism in the 1970s was nothing like what we have today. The idea that someone with a drinking problem/addictions needs to abstain entirely was not even close to universal at that point. It’s perfectly possible that the advice Morse is quoting is the advice he received!

#itv endeavour #endeavour morse #shaun evans #fred thursday #endeavour: prelude #thursday thursday #sort of #but mostly meta about alcohol in endeavour and the 70s

[rawliverandgoronspice]

because I just... draw ganondorf's OoT outfit a lot right now, and it's Quite Something as we all know, I was cursed by the thought that I find absolutely hilarious that, while he wears dignified long robes and ornate armor every time he's actively at war with hyrule, his most risqué picks, combined with body types that demand a ton of effort to maintain, both happen in games where part of his plans involve trying to convince a hylian king that he is very uwu and not a threat at all whatsoever :3333

and he was right, because it works. both times.

#thoughts #shitpost #ganondorf #oot #totk #maybe the femme fatale angle was indeed baked within the character all along #every time I draw him in full I'm like “why are you like this!!!!” #because he's smarter than me that's why #checkmate myself #also.... I think it's an angle gerudos would think of going for when attempting to deceive a hylian given The Weird Lore #so why would he think he is any different...... it *would* be a strategy that works at home too..... #sorry I have slept like 3 hours my brain keep on thinking I should wake up before 5 in the morning even though I'm on vacation

[daytaker]

The Gang React to You Ignoring Them

Lucifer

"How childish. They'll have forgotten by the end of the day."

By the end of the day, however, Lucifer has reached his fucking limit. But his pride will not only prevent him from begging you to knock it off-- it will prevent him from even acknowledging in your presence that he is remotely bothered.

He probably goes to vent to Diavolo -- that is to say, visit him for tea and offhandedly comment about your immaturity for pulling such a stunt, knowing that he'll just contact you and beg for him.

Mammon

"Oh no you don't! MC! MC! MC! MC! MC! Hey! MC! MC! Hey! MC!"

He will follow you wherever you go. At first he thinks he's hilarious, being an absolute pain in the ass, but the longer it goes on, the more dejected he gets. His energy level tanks and soon he's just lying on top of the nearest piece of furniture and whining for you to stop it.

If you manage to get him off of you long enough to escape him, he will just text you.

Mammon: MC Mammon: MC Mammon: Hey MC Mammon: Hey Mammon: MC

If you block him, he will just text someone else until that person becomes so annoyed that THEY beg you to stop.

When you finally give in, he pretends like he didn't even care that much. It was just a little joke between pals, right? Haha!

Leviathan

"So this is how easy it is for you to just toss me aside like a piece of garbage."

Levi will take this extremely personally. Depending on why you're ignoring him, he might blame himself and enter a spiral of self-hate. He'll hole up in his room, refusing to leave until you finally come in and either apologize or forgive him, whichever is appropriate.

He'll spend a few moody minutes acting like it's too late for that, but soon he'll be on the verge of tears, making you to swear on a copy of The Tale of the Seven Lords that you will never pull that kind of thing again.

Satan

"Really? Is this what it's come to? You understand how pathetic this makes you look, don't you?"

Like Lucifer, he won't be too bothered at first, assuming you'll get over things relatively soon. But if nothing has changed within an hour or two, he'll start to get testy. He'll send a text, sit in the same room as you and stare a hole through your head, and if you're still ignoring him after a while of that, he'll storm up to his room.

Depending on how emotionally charged the incident was that led to you ignoring him, he will be more or less capable of fending off an explosion of temper. Most likely, any acknowledgement you toss his way will ease the tension, so it might be a good idea to just shoot him a text asking him not to destroy the house, please.

Asmodeus

"But it's impossible to ignore me! You can't look away from a face like mine! See?"

I don't think you can ignore Asmo. Being the literal Avatar of Lust with powers to charm and an intense need to be admired and adored, he simply exudes an aura that demands attention. You should probably come up with a different strategy of attack.

Beelzebub

"...Are you mad at me?"

Why would you do that to him? How could you be so cruel?

If you did do it, it would probably confuse and sadden him. Confusion and sorrow both make him feel hungry, so he will go ahead and start eating his feelings within an hour of the silent treatment. Even if you're content to allow this to continue, the other six demons in the house aren't, and you will ultimately have no choice but to make up with Beel.

Belphegor

belphie.exe has stopped responding

Considering you'd already forgiven him for the whole murder thing, he can't comprehend how you've become so mad at him that you'd go so far as to give him the cold shoulder. He won't know how to respond at first, but he will quickly become an angry, sulky ball curled up under the blankets on his bed. If it takes more than a few hours for you to come crawling back to him, things will start to change. Belphie will return to the common areas of the house, acting mostly the same as usual, and he will not spare you a second glance. Even if you stop ignoring him, well, two can play this game, and Belphie is absolutely petty enough to drag this one out.

After a day or two of you trying to talk to him, he'll relent. He'll feel kind of guilty, having worked through most of his anger while ignoring you. He'll probably text you a lot for the next day or two, just to ease some of his anxieties.

Diavolo

"I don't understand."

You can't do that. That's illegal. Next character.

Barbatos

"Hehe. What a troublemaker."

Barbatos likes it when you ignore him sometimes.

Barbatos will not change his behavior at all, ever. You could spend the rest of your life ignoring him, and he would simply accept it as one of those unfortunate circumstances life sometimes throws his way. He would prefer it if things didn't go down that way, though. Basically, he'll let you come to him whenever you've gotten over whatever it is you're upset about. What a king.

Solomon

"Hmm? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

Solomon will act pretty much the same as usual around you too. He'll point out that you're ignoring him to whoever else happens to be around and bemoan the situation, but he won't actively appeal to you. Instead, he'll orchestrate a scenario that traps you in a situation where he is the only person you can go to for help. As soon as you do that, he'll act as if nothing ever happened. If you resume the silent treatment, well, he can always come up with another scenario.

Are you still sure it's a good idea?

Simeon

"I didn't realize you were so upset. I'm sorry (that/if) I hurt you."

Simeon will either immediately understand why you are doing this, in which case he will apologize (using "that") or he will have absolutely no idea what's going on, and he'll still apologize (using "if") to be on the safe side.

If you don't show any signs of breaking, he'll enlist Luke's help to make you an apology dessert of some sort. And how can you stay mad at him when he's offering you angel food cake with such a sad expression?

Luke

😧😠😣🥺😢

Wh- Whaaa...?! How dare you ignore him! That's so mean! It must be all the demonic influences rubbing off on you! Stop it! Stop it or he's going to tell Simeon!

And then he'll go and tell Simeon. Simeon will probably tell him to just wait until you've calmed down. If he thinks you're being unreasonable, though, he'll probably have a talk with you himself. Really? Pulling the silent treatment on an actual child? Sure, he's a millennium old, but he's still a child.

#obey me #obey me hcs #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beel #obey me belphegor #obey me beelzebub #obey me barbatos #obey me simeon #obey me solomon #obey me x reader #nobody asked for this i just did it #you can't stop me #obey me luke #lucifer #mammon #levi #satan #asmo #beel #belphie #diavolo #barbatos #solomon #simeon #dthc

[triptuckers]

switching teams - percy jackson

Request: yes! "Hi there! Could I request an enemies to lovers! trope, where the reader is part of the ares halfgods." Pairing:  Percy Jackson x ares!reader Summary:  percy should know better than to try and fight an ares kid Warnings:  a lot of swearing lol, fighting, mentions of blood & injuries Word count:  1.9K A/N: can't wait to see more of dior as clarisse in the show she's such a good actress. thanks for your request, enjoy!

ever since percy got to camp a couple of years ago he's had it out for you. you don't know why, but naturally you decided to respond with the same energy.

he wants to test the ares kid's patience? fine by you.

for some reason he's always arguing with you and you're all to happy to argue back. somehow he knew exactly which buttons to press, how to get on your nerves.

there's always tension between the two of you, which reaches a high during war games like capture the flag. this time is no different.

you're part of team red, following clarisse's lead. percy is on the blue team.

not that it matters, your team is unbeatable. you're proud of your cabin for coming up with the best strategies. you and clarisse always draw up new battle plans, surprising the blue team whenever they think they cracked your plan.

and today you're going to win again. you know it.

you've been walking through your part of the forest, getting rid of any kids of the blue team you run into.

after a while, you think they've all said to each other to avoid certain parts of the wood, given that you don't see anyone for a while.

then you hear talking in the distance. smiling, you grip your sword tighter and creep closer to them.

'let's move, c'mon, these are y/n's parts of the woods.' says one of the kids. you recognise him as someone from the hermes cabin.

'right about that.' you say, jumping over a fallen log and blocking their path.

all three kids widen their eyes and you quickly count their weapons and cabins. two from the hermes cabin and one from athena. a combined total of three swords and a spear. you'll need to take out the athena kid first, they might be able to analyse your fighting style if you're not fast enough.

'I told you!' says one of the hermes kids as you charge them.

you were right, you can tell by the way the athena kid's eyes follow your movements they're trying to analyse your moves. but you catch them off guard and give them a hard shove after kicking one of their legs to the ground.

you make quick work of the hermes kids just in time for your team to run past, carrying the blue flag. you grin at sherman when he runs past with the flag.

'you know what to do!' he says with a wink.

you nod and take off. you're the best sprinter and best swordsman of your cabin.

the plan was simple. once your team got the flag, they would run through your favorite parts of the woods. you would hear them, join them and then run ahead of them, getting rid of any blue team kids in your way and clearing the path for your team.

so that's exactly what you do.

you run to the river, getting rid of any blue team kids you see.

when you see the river in the distance you can't help but to feel a sense of pride. you won again.

but before you can reach the river, something hard knocks you on your back.

before you can get up, someone appears above you, pointing his sword at you and smiling. it's percy. this fucking kid.

you lash out with your sword but percy is quick to block your blow.

'got ya!' he says.

'no you don't.' you say.

he may be pointing a sword at you, but you're not defenceless. with one swift motion, you kick percy's legs, sending him to the ground.

you're quicker, rolling over and pinning his hands to his side. there's no room for him to kick you with his legs.

percy's fighting to get his sword but this time you're stronger. this time, you smile.

'you need to be quicker.' you say. 'and you need to understand we will always win capture the flag.'

'we can still win.' percy argues.

'no, you can't.' you say. 'you're the strongest swordsman on your team. and I've got you pinned to the ground.

'so you admit I'm a stronger swordsman than you!' says percy.

'I said on your team.' you say.

you look up when you hear people cheering in the distance. your team has reached the river, with the blue flag.

'looks like we win again.' you say.

percy looks annoyed. 'get off me, the game is over.'

'say please.'

'fuck off.'

'say please and I'll get up.'

percy rolls his eyes and sighs. 'please, y/n, will you get off me?'

'because you asked nicely.' you say, pushing up off the ground, making sure to accidentally put your weight on percy's legs.

without looking at him again, you take off to celebrate the win with your team.

the next time you're playing capture the flag is three weeks later. you're excited to keep your winning streak going.

just as you've finished putting on your armour and checking all of your weapons, you see percy putting on a chest plate with a red mark on it.

'hey!' you say, getting his attention. 'you're not on our team.'

'yes I am.' he says. 'I already talked it over with clarisse.

'no the fuck you didn't.' you say.

'y/n!'

you look over your shoulder and see clarisse looking at you. she's your best friend, you always train together and she's a great team captain. but this?

'he's on our team.' she says.

'why?'

'because you two are the best swordsmen at camp. it's the logical choice for capture the flag. work together.'

'I will not-'

'not up for discussion. he's on our team, deal with it.'

you turn to percy, walking up to him and giving him a look of pure malice. 'just because you're on our team does not mean I won't hesitate to fight you.' you say.

'no maiming. no killing. especially not your own team members. those are the rules.' says percy.

'I don't care.' you say. 'don't get in my way.'

you hear percy mumble 'fucking ares kids' as you walk away to get into position before the game starts.

as soon as the starting signal sounds, you head to your favorite spot in the woods. there were always some blue kids who thought they could get lucky, but they always run into you.

you're waiting there, your eyes on the path, when you suddenly hear footsteps behind you.

you're just in time to turn around and block the other person's blow.

'you!' you say as you recognise the eyes looking into yours.

'me.' says percy.

'I'm on your fucking team you idiot!'

'I recall you saying it didn't matter.'

'piss off!'

'no.'

percy takes on a fighting stance. he better be fucking kidding. he wants to fight? fine. you can give him that.

'I want to teach you how to become better.' he says.

'at what?'

'sword fighting.'

that's it. it's one thing to attack you from behind. another to tell you he wants to teach you how to be better.

percy knows it's bad fucking luck to claim he's better at fighting than an ares kid. but you've got a tell, and it will get you killed some day.

'you have a tell. let me teach you how to avoid it.'

the nerve he has.

with two quick strides you're in front of him, bringing your sword down on him with all of your strength.

percy blocks it, but his arms are straining underneath the weight of your blow. you really are good.

he swings his sword to your left side but you jump aside and aim the next blow at his legs. he jumps over your sword and kicks you out of the way.

you spin around and attempt to drive your sword through the exposed part of his arm. percy gets out of the way, but only barely.

'you're using your father's strength to guide you.' he says, grunting in between blows of your swords hitting each other.

you don't respond, choosing to save your strength and focus on trying to hit him.

'you're faster than me. you could win.' he says.

fuck him. you are going to win. how dare he question you like this? how dare he question your fighting skills?

you take a step forward, ready to end this fight. but percy kicks your leg out of the way and pushes you, sending you backward.

'you step before you strike.' says percy. 'with your right foot.'

what the fuck?

'I have to give it to you, it took me a while to realise it.'

'been watching me, have you?'

you start to circle him, looking for an opening to strike.

'yes. now start avoiding the step before you strike.'

'I don't need a poseidon kid to teach me how to fight. you're doing this to distract me.'

'is it so hard to believe I actually want to help you? clarisse is right, we'd make a good team. you're almost as good as I am.'

'I can never be a team with someone who insults me to my face.'

'right. never claim to be a better fighter than an ares kid. noted.'

you race forward and strike percy, hoping he doesn't expect it.

he does. he easily blocks your attack.

you're furious. no one is better than you. certainly not percy.

you let your rage take over, going in for another attack, subconsciously taking one step before striking. percy kicks your foot.

you're breathing heavily. he wants to teach you? fine. you keep your footing in place as you strike, catching him off guard.

percy is too surprised and is too late to block your blow. you slice through his upper arm. it's not a very deep cut but it still bleeds. you smile as you see the blood start to slowly trickle down his arm.

you strike again, but only nearly hitting him. you can teach him as well. for instance, his weak point is his legs. you sweep them out from under him. percy falls to the ground as you point your sword to him.

'you're beaten.' you say.

'and you listened to me.' he says.

you hate to admit it, but he did have a point. once you focused on not taking a step before striking, you were able to beat him.

you reach out with your other hand.

percy is eyeing your hand suspiciously.

'I'm pulling you up.' you say. 'the fight is over. I won. I'm not striking an unarmed, beaten opponent.'

percy takes your hand and allows you to pull him to his feet.

'thought you didn't like me.' he says.

'I never said that. you annoy me. but ares kids respect good fighters. you're a good swordsman. and you were right. I have a tell.' you say.

'did you just admit to liking me?' says percy, smiling.

'I also said you're annoying.'

'but you like me.'

'doesn't make you less annoying. now come on, we have a flag to capture.'

the two of you take off to rejoin your team. during the fight, something had changed between the two of you. if percy could point out a flaw you didn't know you had, you're curious to see what else he knows about you that you don't know about yourself.

maybe it's a good thing he convinced clarisse to let him join your team.

A/N: If you want to request something, make sure to read my house rulesHere’s the list of characters I write for. Everything that I have written can be found on my masterlist. Please don’t repost my work, as I spend much time and effort on it!! Thank you for reading! Much love, Marit/Max

#idk if anyone here plays the game hades but ares has the best boons he's my fav in the game #pjo #percy jackson #Percy Jackson x reader #Percy Jackson x child of ares #Percy Jackson x ares!reader #Percy Jackson fanfiction #Percy Jackson fanfic #Percy Jackson fanfics #Percy Jackson fic #Percy Jackson fics #Percy Jackson oneshot #Percy Jackson oneshots #pjo fanfiction #pjo fanfic #pjo fanfics #pjo fic #pjo fics #pjo oneshot #pjo oneshots

[hedgehog-moss]

Some news that made me smile today

1. There was a funny article in Le Monde about French people's existential questions as to what to do with their trash in these times of garbage collectors' strikes (in various cities not just Paris). Some started storing their trash on their balcony so there wouldn't be so much in the streets, then started feeling embarrassed because now all your neighbours know you're a class traitor. True enemies of the reform divide their trash into several bags to make the piles in the streets more imposing. "They're asking their friends what their strategy is, talking about their trash bags like they're ballots." The article quotes people as saying: "My gesture of support for the revolution: putting my trash bags outside so they've got something to burn." "I'm thinking of putting my trash in the boot of my car and driving up to Paris to add it there."

The strike has been going on long enough that more complex reflections are arising: "why are we piling the trash on the pavement, bothering pedestrians, rather than putting it in the middle of the road to bother cars?" Also some people are driving their trash around to go put it in the streets of the strike-breaking districts where trash is being removed by private companies. The commitment. The conclusion of the article is that people who don't close their trash bags properly "cannot be said to be doing this out of any political strategising" and should stop doing that.

2. The garbage collectors' strike in Paris was due to end tomorrow (I think) and I was wondering if they would be able to extend it, and I just learnt that garbage collectors in the private sector are taking up the torch, they'll be on strike starting tonight. They handle different arrondissements of Paris—the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 10th and 18th. No big deal, just the Louvre, the Palais Royal, Rue de Rivoli, Montmartre.

3. I'm late for this one but some football fans attending the France-Netherlands match at the Stade de France in Paris chanted "Macron démission" at the 49min3s mark... Apparently they had organised it because Macron was supposed to be present for the match, but he wussed out cancelled at the last minute.

4. Our ministers are cancelling things too—they've been told to "postpone all non-imperative official visits" within the country because Macron's finally running out of cops I guess and if you send them to protect ministers you won't have enough to intimidate Parisians. The Minister of Labour is quoted as saying "our security forces are exhausted." So it seems we've grounded our government for the time being.

#anyway i'll be in paris tomorrow and i hope everything goes well at the tuesday protest for people attending <3 #frpol

[secretwritingspot]

Conjugate The Ways

Pairing: OPLA Sanji x Reader

Rating/Content Warnings: R/18+ content but again no actually doing the do - I do actually write smut I swear but these first two are tame comparatively - sexual content, excessive dirty talking (and excessive bad French), maybe sexual harassment if you squint but it's not really creepy tho because she doesn't notice? It's hard to explain but basically just Sanji saying all the raunchy shit he thinks to reader in French so she doesn't understand so. Yeah whatever that counts as. Implied AFAB femme presenting reader but not too much, just a few lines here and there.

Summary: Sanji runs out of new ways to call reader pretty, so he comes up with a...new strategy. Approx. 1.3k words.

Disclaimer(s): I absolutely do not speak French (unless you count the one and a half years I took back in highschool, which I DEFINITELY don't 💀) and, ironically to the title, the conjugation is probably terribly off here, since it's a mix of Google translate and language AI chatbots. But I thought the concept was silly and hot and I would rather die than hand this off to someone who actually speaks French to proofread because shit gets NASTY. Also there's one line at the end implying reader is American but feel free to ignore that if you're not lmfao.

The day Sanji found out you were easily flustered was the best day of his life.

There was no one else on the crew to really appreciate his efforts, not in any interesting ways, at least. Nami’s exasperation and Zoro’s disdain were amusing in their way, but neither was the reaction he was looking for.

You, however- well, you were just a masterpiece. As soon as you'd joined the crew of the Going Merry, you were a bright little ray of sunshine lighting up the constant angst aboard the ship. You were truly pleasant to flirt with, too. You'd stumble over your words and mumble sheepish thanks at his compliments and go pink at his pet names. Not even a week into joining, the name “mon cœur” had stuck, because of how much the term of endearment made you blush.

He asked why that in particular got to you, and you confessed that something about it being in French made it seem more intimate coming from him, which he supposed made sense. He also made it a point to speak French to you more often, even if you had no idea what he was saying.

After a few weeks, though, he ran into the same problem he often ran into in English- there are only so many ways to say the same things twice.

Eventually, he'd run out of synonyms for beautiful, his compliments would grow stale and repetitive. Not that you minded, of course, angel that you were. But the hobby lost a bit of it's appeal. That was, until he figured out the loophole:

No one else aboard the Going Merry spoke French.

Unlike in English, if he ran out of new compliments and sweet flattery, he could just say exactly what he was thinking with the same soft, gentle lilt to his voice that he used when delivering one of his many declarations of love and you'd never know the difference.

He'd tested his theory a few times when you helped him prep in the kitchen and it worked like a charm, you receiving his declarations that “j'adorerais voir tes jambes écartées”, and “j'aimerais te faire mendier pour moi”, as if they were glowing performance reviews- which you probably thought they were, given that the only commonly understood part of either statement was “j’taime”.

It became easy to fall into the habit after that.

“Je veux t'ouvrir sur mon queue, mon cœur.”

“Hmm?”

You looked up at him like you always did, with those big doe eyes full of curiosity and fondness, and he almost felt bad.

Almost.

Instead, he brings a hand down to ruffle your hair gently with a lovesick smile on his face.

“Oh, nothing to worry your pretty head about. Just how gorgeous you are. Je t'emmènerais sous tes draps, comme une pute, et te ferais jouir encore et encore, ruiner ta petite chatte.”

Like always, a pretty pink flush bloomed high on your cheeks, the color somehow making you look more naive. He wondered how dark your blush would be if you knew what he was really saying.

“Y'know, if you ever want me to actually be able to respond to you, you're gonna have to teach me French.”

You tease lightly, and now it's his turn to blush, though for a much more incriminating reason.

“Sure, mon cœur. Someday."

You hum softly in response and he studies you in the moment’s silence, peaceful and calm and comfortable in a way silence could only be between two people as close as you. Pretty eyes with long lashes, soft skin, full lips. What a sight you were.

“Y'know, sometimes I can guess. Not much, but a few words here and there.”

His heart stops beating.

“…oh, can you?”

You look away shyly, an endearingly sheepish look of pride crossing your face.

“Well, y'know- words that sound similar in English. Universel and pour and en."

Sigh of relief, breath out. Respond before you look too suspicious.

“Well, it'll get a lot more complicated than that if you ever really want to learn.”

You pout at that, posture slumping a bit in disappointment as you switch on your intentional puppy dog eyes.

"C'mon, please Sanji? At least teach me a few words?" You bargain, batting your lashes up at him. "I promise not to completely butcher them."

He just rolls his eyes fondly, shaking his head and mumbling under his breath to himself.

"Mon cœur, je pourrais dire n'importe quoi que je veulent, et tu n'en devinerais rien."

He brushes a hand through his hair for a moment absently, sighing to himself. Damn your persuasiveness.

"...fine, love."

Your face lights up. Maybe this isn't the worst idea in the world.

"To start, I'm sure you want to know what your name means, hm?"

"I mean-" You huff slightly at his words, folding your arms across your chest in an endearingly flustered sort of defiance. "I already know what that means!"

He raises a brow teasingly and paces slowly to the wall, leaning up against it with crossed arms and a smirk. The sudden attitude amuses him.

"Oh, do you? Enlighten me then, mon cœur: what have I been calling you this whole time?"

Proving his point, you go silent for a moment, flushing sheepishly.

"I...get the gist of it is what I'm saying!"

He raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth in mock-surprise, clicking his tongue disapprovingly.

"Ah. You "get the gist", do you?"

You huff, annoyed at his teasing, and look away.

"Fine. I don't know what the stupid nickname means, Sanji. Happy? I swear, you're such a-"

"Ah ah ah- no. No, mon cœur, this...is a learning opportunity," he cuts you off, voice growing soft as he walks back to you, gently grabbing your arms to uncross them. He coaxes you back to a more relaxed state, rubbing your shoulders soothingly.

"No need to get upset, hey? I'm only teasing."

You roll your eyes but accept his apologetic soothing nonetheless. Yes, he's an ass sometimes, but he's yours.

"Besides, love-"

He leans in teasingly close and all of a sudden you find yourself boxed in against the wall, framed by a hand planted next to your head that he uses to lean in, tilting your chin to the side gently to whisper in your ear.

"French is the language of love, not something you "get the gist" of."

He leans back with a satisfied smirk and you must be blushing to your ears at this point, trying and failing to laugh it off with a nervous shake of your head.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Got it. You can't "get the gist" of French."

"Glad we're in agreement, then," he grins, striding casually back to his seat as if nothing had just happened. He stops mid way for a moment, tossing over his shoulder-

"It means 'my heart'. Meaning-wise it's closer to 'sweetheart' or 'love', but literally translated...'my heart'."

He sits back down lazily and you swallow, trying to remember your words as your brain starts up again.

"Oh. Right, that- that makes sense."

You clear your throat awkwardly and pull out your compact mirror as discreetly as possible to check if you look as flushed as you are. It's not too bad, thankfully, but you have the feeling he knows anyway.

"To use it in a sentence: je vais te putain jusqu'à ce que tu supplies et que tu appelles mon nom en ce joli accent américain, mon cœur."

You can't help but smile at the soft, lilting voice he says the words in, the little nickname feeling even more special now that you understand it.

"What does the rest of the sentence mean?"

He just chuckles and shakes his head, though you're not quite sure what's so funny.

"I'll teach you later, sweetheart."

#vinsmoke sanji #sanji x reader #opla sanji #opla sanji x reader #opla #opla x reader #sanji x you #opla Sanji x you #opla x you #one piece #one piece live action #one piece x reader #one piece x you #opla x y/n #opla sanji x y/n #sanji x y/n

[ohtobeleah]

Secret Sacrifices // Jake Seresin

Chapter One: [Mermaids Don’t Exist]

Summary: Jake continues to plays your knight in shining armour when tensions rise between you and an overly intoxicated patron. Bob brings up a mutual memory.

Warnings: Jake Seresin x F!reader. Witness Protection F!reader. Sexually degrading comments made towards reader. Sexual tension, trauma. Mentions of death & violence.

Word Count: 3.5k

Author Note: Still not writing as much as I once was but I’m getting back into the swing of things. Any comments, thoughts or concepts are welcome!

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Dreams mainly occur when the body falls into a stage of sleep referred to as R.E.M. Rapid eye movement occurs when the brain and body are finally able to completely rest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that when your body is able to rest, it allows you to do so. 

“We’ll find you, Y/n!” 

Nightmares are typically thought to be an evolutionary conserved trait. Some researchers believe that nightmares provide a rehearsal for life-or-death situations. Before you lived one? You would have said something along the lines of ‘that checks out.’

“No no no no please, Patrick, stay with me—“ 

Some researchers believe nightmares to be a practical experience for many people as it allows the brain to run through multiple different algorithms to find the most desirable strategies, and solutions to often critical and complex situations. 

From a procedural standpoint, simply imagining doing an action can improve your performance.  

“I love you—take Charlie.”

This applies when we simply imagine doing an action such as playing the piano or running for your life after being run off the road, it activates something called a mirror neuron. 

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here, girly.” 

In theory, the more nightmares you have, the more of those algorithms your brain is able to run, and the more prepared you’re likely to be for the daily struggle of survival. 

But evolution herself is seen by the scientific community more so as a tinkerer than as an inventor. 

“Oh god—please, not my baby, please! Someone! Help us!” 

So, that’s probably why you have the same nightmare over and over and over again every single night. 

Every morning you wake in the same way, with your face pressed into your pillow and your chest sinking into your mattress. Secretly, every morning you wished that your pillow would have suffocated you in your sleep so that today would forever be unobtainable. But you couldn’t do that, no. Not when the only way to bring a sense of worth to your life was to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

With a groan and a look that spoke volumes to your lack of self-esteem, you rolled onto your back and let out a heavy sigh. Your hands were quick to shield your eyes from the mid-afternoon rays beaming into your bedroom via the slightly cracked windows. 

“Your name is Y/n Y/l/n, you are doing the right thing.”

Guilt and grief aren’t linear emotions. They don’t have a perception of how much time has passed. Realistically it had been three years, six months, and two days since your entire world had been flipped upside down. But every morning, after seeing your husband bleeding to death as he sat pressed against the steering wheel, and having held your five-year-old son in your arms while he took his last breath, the wound was reopened.

And the clock always resets.

“Ah, there she is.” You couldn’t help but hang your head in shame almost. Penny’s glare from behind the bar was as piercing and sharp as it was endearing and playful. Like a woman who took no shit from no one. “You know, you’d think management would be here on time more frequently than whatever the hell this is.” All you could do was take the semi-serious scattering from the owner of the bar you’d been lucky enough to be set up with a pretty good gig at. “Get over here and give me a hand will ya?” 

“Sorry, Penny—” There wasn’t much more you could say to justify yourself. You woke up late, got ready slowly, and got lost in the steam of your mid-afternoon shower as you fought off the existential dread that was your current situation. “Flat tyre,” You shrugged like it wasn’t that big of a deal that you were currently twenty-three minutes late for your shift, “I’ll make it up to you.” 

“Yeah well, you can start by clearing off the table by the piano,” Penny smiled as she nudged her head in the direction of the unruly table of patrons that had surely had far too much to drink. “Think Rick’s had a little more than his liver would care to admit.” 

“Yeah righto,” you sighed as you came behind the bar, doing up your apron as you looked around at the utter mess that had become the place. “I’ll sort him out.” 

North Island wasn’t somewhere you ever saw yourself living, but that was the real kicker in all of this. You didn’t mind the picturesque town with clear blue skies and water that mirrored it. But being the outsider, being the new resident, being the Hard Deck’s newest manager was all some of these people saw you as. Six months in a small Naval town was barely a dint in the years some of these families had been living here. 

“Aw hello, Brewer!” Rick Spencer, the resident rioter, cooed as he beamed your way. For someone in their mid-sixties, he surely went alright. “What brings you in on this fine Saturday afternoon?”

Typical - If you could have, you would have rolled your eyes so far into the back of your head you would have fallen over. Instead, you chose to smile and settle into the nightlife festivities with a can-do attitude and a rather cheeky smile. 

“Came to check on you, Spence? How’s everything over here boys?” It wasn’t uncommon for you to entertain the banter most of the patrons would give you. Most of the locals had caught on quickly that you enjoyed a good laugh every now and again but also knew how to handle your own. 

But there's always one in every group, isn’t there? 

“Would be a hell of a lot better if the barmaid was a little more topless! Right boys!?” A man you hadn’t seen before interrupted before a roar of ‘yeahs’ and agreements were made. Fists and beer bottles along with spirits alike slammed against the tabletop. “Come on girly—” The man continued as you stood there holding the empty bar tray, ready and waiting to collect the empties that littered the table. “Get your kit off.” 

“I don’t think so, boys,” You politely declined the offer of public indecency. “Perhaps in another lifetime.” 

“Sorry about him, Brewer,” Rick explained as he shook his head and stood from his seat at the booth. “My nephew’s here for a few days.”  

“Yeah well, so long as he remembers I run the joint and can have him tossed any time,” You replied sternly. “Keep him in line, Rick.” 

“Oh come on now, sweetheart, I was only joking!” The man you only knew as the nephew chuckled as he overheard your comment. “It’s slim pickings around here anyway, you just look like the best of a bad bunch is all.” 

“Hey!” That voice, that far too familiar voice echoed through the crowd. “You speak to her, or any woman for that matter, like that again? So help me god I’ll punch your teeth right through the back of your skull.” Jake snarled as he came to stand in front of you with his back nearly pressed right into your chest. “Got it!?” The close proximity, the overwhelming aroma of the familiar cologne, and the notes of burnt orange and bourbon made your heart warm. It all had your heart beating against your chest with a force so intense you thought it might break through. 

“Yeah right,” the man only known as the nephew agreed. “Sorry, sweetheart, I’ll get on the waters for a while.” 

“That and a pretty big tip should call us even,” you added with envy conviction laced in your voice that you even had yourself fooled that everything was alright. “Let me just grab these empties for you fellas.” 

You didn’t mess around with it, you simply let the group fall back into their regular chatter as you filled your tray. 

Jake stood with crossed arms a little off to the side, eyeing off all the men who sat idly. Fucking pricks. 

“Been here all of five fucking minutes—” Jake could sense your frustration as you turned into him. At first, he didn’t move, he simply stood there drinking you in as you held the now full tray of dirty glassware. 

“You didn’t have to do that for me,” was all you said. 

With wandering eyes, Jake didn’t miss a single inch of you. 

“I know,” Jake smiled softly as he reached around to lead you back to the bar for a moment to decompress. His hand gently fell to the small of your back as you walked side by side, “I know you’re capable of taking care of yourself, but just because you’re capable? Doesn’t mean you have to go it alone.” 

Alone, that’s all you’d ever been for the last three years. 

“Yeah, yeah I guess you’re right,” the sigh that left your body allowed your shoulders to relax as you placed the tray onto the bar and slid it over for Penny to take. “Thanks, Jake, I owe you one.” 

Jake Seresin had never been the kind of guy who saw himself settling down. But when he first saw you, that thought hadn’t left his mind. 

“Name a time and place,” Jake teased as he sent you a wink. It didn’t take Jake long to find himself at home up by the bar, perched on one of the bar stools as he entertained his favourite bartender. “I’ve always wondered what our first date would be like.” 

“Do I look like I came down in the last shower, Seresin?” You knew Jake had a thing for you, it wasn’t all that hard to put together. But it could never work, not in a million years. Not when you were playing pretend on a professional basis.

“What’s that even mean?” Jake asked as he leaned his elbows on top of the bar, grinning ear to ear as he pressed your buttons more. 

“It means—“ You cooed as you leaned into his space, making it known that the flirting was welcome, but the end goal wasn’t in sight. “I know you’re just trying to get in my pants.” 

“Pretty good-looking set of pants if I do say so myself,” Jake teased as his eyes trailed down the expanse of your body, then back up. Those emerald cities of his were full of complex wonder and undoubtable loyalty. Something you could never give back. “But despite the fact I think you’re pants would look a hell of a lot better in a pile on my bedroom floor, I’m not just doing any of this for a chance to, well, you know what I mean.” 

You did know what Jake meant, and for all intents and purposes you could admit to yourself that it sounded very tempting. But you knew what the repercussions would be.

“Jake, that’s all very sweet of you,” you felt as if you had this very conversation every week. The gentle let down. The kind-ish conversation where you reminded the overly-confident and somewhat self-assured Aviator that you weren’t looking for love or lust, or anything. Besides, there were already too many people looking for you. “But you know, as much as I think you’re a good guy and friend, I’m not interested.” 

Jake stood silently before you, drinking in all that was you. From the lines etched into your forehead to the small scar that ran through your left eyebrow. He wasn’t listening, there was just something about you. Something so intriguing that he couldn’t stop trying to win you over. He couldn’t stop trying to get you to give him just one chance. One chance was all Jake wanted to convince you he wasn’t everything he knew people had told you he was. 

“What would you say if I asked you to–” Before Jake had a chance to finish his question, the echoing sound of a glass shattering into smitherings against the wooden flooring, interrupted his train of thought. 

“OOOIII– TAXI!” It was almost as if all the patrons, besides Jake that was, had all congealed into one as they yelled shouted and cheered towards the man who had dropped his glass. With a heavy sigh and a quick roll of the eyes, you knew you would be the one who ultimately had to clear the mess. 

“I should probably get back to work.” The silence that came from Jake was deafening as you pulled away from where you had been standing far too close to a man you thought you didn’t want. A man you couldn’t have even if deep down you really wanted. Life was unfair like that. You couldn’t have anything you wanted, anything you loved. Anything that made you happy in the smallest of ways. 

“There’s really no chance of getting you to agree to just one date, is there Brewer?” Jake watched as you made your over to where you kept the cleaning supplies in a small section behind the bar. 

“If you already know that then why do you constantly make such an effort?” It was the look on your face that told Jake everything he needed to know. There was no chance in hell he was ever getting that date. 

But Jake Seresin never gave up without a fight, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to now. 

“Because you gentled me, Brewer,” Jake Seresin had never been the type of person who wanted to settle down. He was always so content with the relations he chose to have and the way he chose to have them. Short simple quick flings. Girlfriends who lasted no longer than a year and one-night stands he’d promise to call but never got their numbers. But then there was you. “No one’s ever done that before.” 

“Please don’t put that on my shoulders, Jake,” You weren't sure how to respond to that, how to process that kind of admission. “Just lay off the heroics for a while alright? I don’t want people getting the wrong impression.” 

“That impression would be?” Jake questioned like you’d just insulted his very being. That it would be a crime to love him. 

“Jake, I have a job to do alright,” It wasn’t that you were angry or upset that Jake cared for and about you. It was more frustration on your part for not being able to act on your own feelings towards him. It had been three years since your husband died. Three years since you felt the loving embrace of another human being. That alone was enough to frustrate anyone. “Please, just–just, I need to get back to work.” 

The thing about nightmares is that they often don’t stick to their own parameters. Sometimes, you end up living a nightmare more often than you dream one. Right now? As Jake looked at you like you’d just shot him through the heart, you knew you were wide awake. Living a nightmare that continued to punish only the good. 

“You’re untouchable,” Jake sighed to himself softly as he shook his head in defeat. “The untouchable woman who won’t let anyone in, you’re too proud or something aren’t you?” 

“It’s just–” All you wanted to do was explain yourself, pull Jake aside and let him in on why you couldn’t allow him to love you the way you wanted him to. But no words came out as you stood there holding the old dustpan by your side. 

With every blink, you saw flashes of Patrick. The love you lost too soon, too suddenly. He made sure to haunt your dreams to keep you safe. For a brief second of all-consuming anguish, you saw him too. Standing right behind Jake, warning you not to. “I need to get back to work, I’m sorry.” 

“Right,” Jake clenched his jaw when he felt the word vomit about to spew from his lips. He wasn’t mad, rejection just wasn’t something he was familiar with. “When you get a chance, put a Budweiser on Bradshaw’s tab.” Jake pressed his lips together into a fine line of regret, instantly kicking himself for pushing. He knew he shouldn’t have, but the chase was as addicting as it was thrilling. With a simple knock of his knuckles on the bar before, he turned on his heels. Leaving you to stand there in your own self-loathing. 

Your heart sank as you watched Jake shove his hands into the pockets of his jeans with a head that hung so low you almost wondered if his neck would be sore. Guilt, shame, it all felt the same. But you couldn’t let Jake in, you couldn’t allow him into your life more than what you’d given him over the last six months. 

You’d tangled yourself in barbed wire so you couldn’t be reached by anyone. Unknowingly bleeding when as it digs into you more and more. You would think the touch of skin on yours wouldn’t be so terrifying, but you’d been bruised before. You couldn’t allow Jake to fall into your web of lies that kept you safe from harm’s way. If hurting him was the only way to keep him safe, you’d hurt him twice over every single day.

Perhaps it would be safer to stay the untouchable woman. 

***~***~***~***~***~****

As a child, there was magic in the mundane. You often found yourself missing the mermaids among the koi in the pond, their glittering scales reminiscent of a childhood fairytale. Summer mornings you’d make bouquets out of the same flowers adults would now mow away while wrinkling their noses at the weeds. 

You often wondered to yourself when the awe of the day-to-day faded away and when you stopped believing in your ability to see mermaids in the momentous world around you. 

“Another round fellas?” You tried not to think too much about the way Jake’s eyes burned into you like a fiery sunbeam as you stood behind Rooster. “Same old same old? The usual orders of Bradshaw’s table?” The squad, affectionately known as the Daggers erupted into laughter all the while Rooster remained silent and brooding. 

“You are all bleeding my dry,” Bradley sighed as you made the rounds and collected all the empties onto your bar tray. “Seriously, I know you aren’t all working for free, cough up.” 

“You could– just apologise for being a Neanderthal and I’ll close it out?” Your statement left a bad taste in Rooster’s mouth, he wasn’t one for apologising for things he didn’t think he’d done wrong. 

“I could,” the brooding moustache-having man replied. “But it’d be an empty lie.” There was something about Bradley Bradshaw that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. He wasn’t necessarily a bad person, he was–an only child. He probably never imagined mermaids among the koi.  

“Appreciate the honesty there, Bradshaw,” you chuckled deeply as you finished you collecting all the empty glasses and beer bottles. “Guess the next rounds on you.” 

“Here here,” Coyote chimed in with a Cheshire Cat grin. “All in a hard day’s work there Rooster, you always know how to piss off the barkeep.” 

“Works out in our favour,” Bob smiled as he passed you two empty glasses. “I don’t think I’ve paid for a drink of my own in a few weeks now.” 

“No, you just keep trying to convince everyone Brewer here was your first kiss,” Phoenix smirked as she finished off her beer. 

All the air inside your lungs felt like they had been sucked right out. The chills that ran down the expanse of your spine made your blood run cold. You stood tall with your now full tray of old beer bottles and empty glasses and sent a polite smile Bob’s way. 

“You still riding that wave?” 

“You just really look like Y/n from Nurellun Public,” Bob countered with an almost pleading tone. “She was my first kiss by the sandpit and I remember she had a little yellow dot in her right eye.” 

“Brewer has a yellow dot in her right eye,” Jake decided to enter the conversation from his place in the corner of the booth. “Tell you what Floyd, you must have been one shocking kisser if you got Brewer here to change her damn name.” The table erupted into a loud boisterous laugh as the Weapons System Officer sunk a little lower into his seat. 

You felt for Bob, being the butt of the joke was never a good feeling. But when your case officer relocated you to North Island, he didn’t bank on one of its locals being your first snog. You hated gaslighting the guy, but you had no other choice. Bob Floyd had to stay in the era of Meridamis and weed bouquets. 

“Like I told you last time Bob, you’ve got the wrong girl,” It was as nonchalant as it was dismissive. “My first kiss was with Johnny Bennett out at some random guys shed.” You had gotten used to lying about your life and who you were. At the very beginning it was almost impossible, but three years on? You’d gotten pretty good at playing pretend. 

Only you wished it could be with the mermaids in their fairytales. But much like all those mermaids and all those fairytale stories……you didn’t exist. Much like Johnny Bennett.  

***~***~***~***~***~ 

Tags: 🏷️ @a-reader-and-a-writer @xoxabs88xox @hiireadstuff @buckysteveloki-me @athenabarnes @els-marvelvsp @blindedbythelightt @tayl0rhuynh @na-ta-sh-aa @kmc1989 @sunlightmurdock @mamachasesmayhem @jaxfart @lauenderhaze @sugarcoated-lame @maisie-rebloging-blog @captainmoonknight @seitmai @shanimallina87 @kajjaka @imnotcreativeenoughforthisblog @imladrisofabookdragon @buckysteveloki-me @mrsevans90 @allepaula @els-marvelvsp @djs8891 @paperbag33

#secret sacrifices // jake seresin #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin x you #jake seresin x y/n #jake hangman fic #jake hangman imagine #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin imagine #top gun hangman #top gun fandom #top gun fanfic #top gun fanfiction

[macfrog]

hits different cowboy like me chapter twelve

oh, my, love is a lie! are we all ready? do we have our coping strategies in place? have we prepared ourselves for impending doom? then gather round, my dear children, for i’ve a tale to tell. and it’s a SORE one

pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader

summary: still reeling from your fight with joel, you seek out an effective way to deal with it: a night of sambuca shots and no second thoughts

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) alcohol + drug consumption (reader gets hammered), heartache, angst, unwanted touching, intended sexual assault, drink spiking, descriptions of blood and bruising, protective!joel gets into a quick barfight, more discussion of cheating(?), joel won't admit feelings, pain pain and more pain, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing

word count: 10.9k

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist

Joel takes a beat to answer. Like he’s waiting for your voice to fill the space, the way it usually would. What’s up, old man? How hard is it to copy an address right? Lois not as good at typing as she is at sucking your – “You, uh…you got it. Call me if there’s anythin’ you need. I’m home all night.” The call cuts before your dad gets the chance to say goodbye. Which doesn’t really matter, because he wasn’t talking to your dad. You know it, ‘n Joel knows it.

Of course he went to see Lois. He’s probably been seeing her for some time now. A nice lady, his own age, his line of work. You’re pretty sure she has a son, too. And your dad would love her, would love to think Joel was shacking up with some plant hire receptionist. She could turn your life around, son, he’d said. They fit together like a couple of jigsaw pieces. What the fuck would he have ever seen in you, past some young, tight thing for him to fuck? Just a placeholder. Just a time-waster.

A twenty-three-year-old; enough energy to keep him on his toes, cure his boredom. Fill his summer with something to do. And close enough to him, too, that he reeled you in with minimum effort. One stupid look at you – one stupid, stupid glance and you were hooked. High as a kite on him. All the touching, all the whispering. That fucking – the fucking bottle. The video. All of it, every second he ever spent near you – it all makes you cringe now.

And then, once the embarrassment of being played by your dad’s best friend passes, there’s the hurt. The aching. Fuck, the aching. The way your chest swells, feels like it might rip at the seams and burst open. The sting behind your eyes anytime you picture his smile, the way he’d look at you. The feeling of your throat closing up whenever you go to speak, windpipe constricting around any words that aren’t his name, and using them to choke you.

And it’s not like you can talk to anyone about it. Can’t have a heart-to-heart with your dad, have him make you a tea and sit him down by your window, ask for advice on heartbreak and getting over his best friend. You’ve been excusing your reclusiveness by telling him you’re on your period. That’s why you haven’t left your bed in four days.

It was just all so fucking believable, wasn’t it? So good, you thought you were dreaming the entire time.

And here he’d just proven you right. You dreamt it all up.

Has he fucked her yet? Lois. Is she one of the ten he told you about the other night? Has she touched him the way you have? Has he touched her, the way he did you?

Does she know how he sounds when he comes undone? How he looks? How he feels? Does she do it for him the way you do it? And what does he call her? Baby? Darlin’? Or something different entirely?

Now you’re wondering when he started seeing her, and then, if they have slept together, when the first time was. Whether or not you cross over with her. Maybe he went and fucked her after you argued. Let off some steam over at her place, while you sat in his house, smelling his shirts and reading his stupid fucking Alcatraz books. While you paced around, practicing the words you’d say to him when he came back.

All you wanted was for him to come back. You wanted him to come find you upstairs, take the book from your hands and lean his head down on your chest, mumble an apology into the material of your shirt and then kiss you, and kiss you again while he pulled the clothes from your body, and kiss you while you were naked underneath him, and kiss you while he rocked his hips into yours.

Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

You think you hate her. You don’t even know her. Don’t know what she looks like, only heard her voice. She’s probably gorgeous. Probably a really sweet woman, helps out on the PTA, the type that stops to read missing dog posters so she can keep an eye out for them. Probably knows Joel well enough that she writes Sarah a birthday card every year. Just a real nice, Southern lady.

And you fucking hate her.

That’s not fair, though, and you know it. She didn’t do anything wrong. Joel’s the one who screwed you over – screwed you both over. Really, you and Lois are one and the same.

Except that she’s taken away the only thing to put a real smile on your face since you got home, and for that, you fucking hate her.

What had he said again? That night he drove you home from Sal’s, the night your dad asked him to stay for pizza. …said she’d like to go for a drink. I said maybe sometime. Maybe he’d organized that drink, in the midst of whatever you two had been doing. Thought nothing of it – you said it yourself: you were just messing around. Said it, like, three times to him. Good fucking job.

And that adds to the hurt. That neither of you seemed to care enough to call it anything more. Because now, sitting alone in your room, desperately checking your phone for a missed call or a text message from him, ears pricking at every sound your dad makes downstairs in case he’s answering a call from Joel or welcoming him in through the front door – you wish you had called it something.

Wish you had just fucking said it. Told him outright about the feelings you had. You were thinking about them enough – the thought circled your mind any time there was a moment’s silence between you.

Sometimes, the way he’d glance over to you, the way his hand would brush against yours, the way he’d say your name…he felt like…

Yours. He was yours. He was so fucking close to being yours.

You almost said it, once. Almost admitted it to him. Couple times you saw it flash behind his eyes, too. And it’s a damn good thing neither of you did say it, because it would’ve been a mistake. Would’ve been lies.

You don’t love him. You never did. You were in some fantasy, built by Joel. There ain’t no love between you. None from your side. And definitely none from him.

Definitely – none – from –

him.

----------

Anna’s been at you all week. She text you on Monday night, but you were about four layers of blanket deep in your bed, weeping into a box of dry cereal and listening to some sad girl playlist on repeat. You fished your cell out from under your mattress the next morning. Your dad had to call it to help you find it.

Anna: Frank’s again on Friday? Rodeo night round 2!!!

Tuesday, it was Please?? It was so fun on Sat. Cmon, Kara’s coming again. Sam’s working but that means free shots so.

On Wednesday, she tried a new approach. I’ll cover any shift you want.

Any two shifts……

Ok three????

Thursday, she started to get desperate. I’ll spill all your secrets to my dad if you don’t come. And you know he’ll tell them all to your dad lol

By Friday morning, though, she’d decided you had no say in the matter: you were going, and you’d be happy about it. And you didn’t have it in you to fight back.

She’s standing at the side of the mirror, scanning you from head to two.

“All black? Again?”

“I look good in black.”

“You look good in anything,” she agrees, turning to sift through your closet, “so why don’t we go for…?”

“No,” you clip, holding a finger up to the red dress in her hands. “No.”

“What’s wrong with it? It’s hot. C’mon.”

“Why do I gotta be hot?”

“I mean…is Mr. Miller gonna be pickin’ you up again, or…?”

You lob a previously discarded dress at her and she snorts, turning to slip it back onto a hanger.

Even his fucking surname sends a pang of pain through your body. Your heart jumps at the sound of it, like its hopes had risen for a second, but then it plummets with the realization that it’s not really Joel, and he’s still really gone.

You’re in a plain black slip dress, black denim jacket slung over your shoulders. Black lace-up boots, too. It’s like rodeo night, except without the fun and excitement of Joel waiting for you at the end of the night. It’s basically rodeo night’s funeral. And good fucking riddance.

Anna – always glittering, always in some sparkly getup – leads you out of your bedroom and down the stairs. Your dad agreed to drop you guys off, seeing as he’s out working later on.

He’s sat in his armchair, glasses on the tip of his nose, squinting down at the instruction booklet to that fucking Garmin he’s still wrestling with. He looks up and claps his hands once.

“Ready, girls?”

Anna nods eagerly and you lift your eyebrows, thinking about how Joel would laugh at the sight of his buddy still fighting a very obviously lost battle to a GPS. Then you think about how he’d tell you quietly, You look beautiful, darlin’, and ask you to text him when you got home safe.

And finally, you think about how much of an ass he is, and you blink the tears from your eyes before following the two blurry figures out to the car.

Anna snaps a couple selfies as the car winds out of the neighborhood, angling her phone to pull you into shot. The sun setting over the roofs of the houses dazzles your eyes. She tuts, tells you to Look like you actually wanna be goin’ out, and sends them to Kara, letting her know you’re on your way.

You’re watching her reply to a text from some boy she’s seeing when your dad’s ringtone echoes throughout the car, the name on the tiny digital screen the very last name you want to see right now.

Or maybe the very name you’ve been waiting all week to see. Just, on your screen instead of your dad’s.

“Hey, Joel,” your dad calls, and your body instinctively leans in to listen better. Drawn in like a magnet to just the sound of his voice.

“Hey, bud,” he replies. It’s like a punch to your chest. Hands around your throat. Salt behind your eyes. “I just got off the phone with Clark’s, they just dropped that equipment off at the site. Said there wasn’t nobody around to sign for it, so they just left it at the gate.”

“It’s a manned site, what do they mean there wasn’t–?”

“No idea,” Joel says, cutting across him. “Just said there wasn’t anybody to take the delivery.”

Anna’s head slowly turns in your direction, likely to take another dumb selfie or to ask some random question about your outfit, but you turn away, refusing to meet her hazel-eyed stare. Refusing to let her take your attention away from this phone call. From Joel.

Your dad sighs, runs a hand down his cheek. “I hope it’s still there when I get to it. Sure you gave ‘em the right address on Monday?”

“I wrote it down exactly how you text me it.”

Joel’s voice sounds flatter than normal. Less trademark Joel grumbly and more tired, deflated. A little irritated. It bruises your heart hearing him and not chiming in, not teasing him for potentially getting the street name wrong or something. Not letting him know you’re here.

Your dad does that anyway, though.

“Well,” he sighs again, hitting the turn signal, “I’m on my way to Frank’s – girls are havin’ another one of their wild nights out. I’ll head straight from there to the site ‘n make sure everything’s in place. Thanks, Joel.”

Joel takes a beat to answer. Like he’s waiting for your voice to fill the space, the way it usually would. What’s up, old man? How hard is it to copy an address right? Lois not as good at typing as she is at sucking your –

“You, uh…you got it. Call me if there’s anythin’ you need. I’m home all night.”

The call cuts before your dad gets the chance to say goodbye. Which doesn’t really matter, because he wasn’t talking to your dad. You know it, ‘n Joel knows it.

No. He was talking to you. He knew you’d be listening. Knew that conversation would mean much more to you than it ever could to your dad. And he knew you’d be hanging on to every word he spoke.

He’s home all night, which translates to: he’s only ever fifteen minutes away if you wind up needing him. If you end up wanting him.

You’ve spent the last four days purposefully stopping yourself from wanting him. Your thumb has hovered over his name in your contacts more times than you’d care to admit. Mostly at night, when your dad goes to bed and there’s eight hours of quiet – quiet you’d usually fill by annoying Joel, striking up a conversation at midnight when he’s about to sleep.

What the fuck would you even say if he did pick up? Would you be mad? Would you yell? Or would you just break down, sob a few incoherent sentences down the line to him and pray that he doesn’t hang up?

But then – would he even pick up? It’s not a thought you want to entertain much. That sound of ringing and ringing, and no gruff, Hey, baby, at the other end.

Your chest hurts. You take a gulp of air.

You’d happily have him never touch you again if he’d just come the fuck back.

Anna slaps your arm and Joel’s face is wiped clean from your mind. “C’mon,” she chirps, and nods out of your window.

You turn to see the faded blue brick walls of Frank’s, clusters of people outside clutching cigarettes and glasses, holding hands up to shield their eyes from the sunlight and tipping their heads back in laughter at one another. Kara stands among them, arms crossed, shoulders hunched. She waves when you catch her eye, stumbling out of the car in a daze.

Anna’s arm links through yours, almost violently, and she skips along the sidewalk to Kara, who joins your chain. The three of you stroll into the bar together and over to Sam, who smiles genially in welcome.

“Hello, ladies,” he sings, leaning in. “What can I do ya for?”

“Get us drunk, Sam!” Anna exclaims, rapping her knuckles on the bar top, and, for the first time tonight, you find yourself nodding in agreement with her.

Get me –

fucking –

hammered.

----------

You get your wish. Sam hands you a cold beer, and within twenty minutes you’re ordering a second. Anna and Kara opt for cocktails, some bright pink concoction that you don’t even bother to ask the name of, you just lean over the bar and tell Sam to make up a third.

And then there are the shots, two each, which are a hysterically terrible idea. You know it as you tip your head back, sickly taste of sambuca spilling down your throat and taking with it the very last of your good sense, apparently.

All the while, that phone call rattles through your head. Joel’s voice swings between your ears like a pendulum. His dry tone, the borderline contempt he spoke to your dad with. The thought of who he’s been with and what he’s been doing either side of that call burns like the drink in your belly, and forces you back up to the bar for another to wash him away with.

You rock against the dark wood, sticky with alcohol, and hoist yourself up onto a stool. “One peer, blease, sir,” you garble to Sam, one finger in the air. “Oh, wait…”

You throw your hand down onto the bar with a roar of laughter and lean back, forgetting there’s no back to your chair. It tilts back, and your hands fumble to grab the edge of the bar, but it’s too far, too late, and you land on the solid floor with a clatter – metal leg of the stool digging into your own.

“Fuck,” you hiss, dragging yourself back to your feet. A thin line of dark red blood cuts from halfway down your calf, streaming down into your boot.

“Are you okay?” Sam yells, stood frozen with the beer and bottle opener still in his hands.

“I’m fine,” you grumble, clambering to your feet. You don’t even convince yourself.

Sam doesn’t let go of the bottle when your fingers curve around it. He looks you dead in the eye and asks, “What’s goin’ on?” and you know he won’t let go until you answer him.

“Nothin’. I’m fine.”

Until you answer him truthfully, that is.

“I’m…It’s just…I got a lot goin’ on up here.” Your shaky finger draws a circle against your temple, and your eyes flutter closed.

“I can see that. Is this really a good ide–”

“Well, howdy, clumsy!”

The owner of whatever fucking annoying voice just shrieked through your ears slaps his hand down on your shoulder, almost toppling you for the second time in five minutes, and you twist around to find a pair of red, blotchy cheeks and almost equally red hair to match, stood before you.

“Hi…?” You squint your eyes to get a better look, the figure swaying with the room behind him.

“Hi.” He’s still smiling. Two huge front teeth, like a pair of overgrown Tic Tacs. “You have no idea who I am, do you? That’s…embarrassing for me.”

“Zack!” another voice screams over the bassline of the music. “Are you fucking coming or not, dude?”

A pale, jittery guy with a dark green t-shirt hanging off of his lean frame barges into the red-haired boy’s side, and a few seconds after his mouth stops moving, you register what he’s said.

“No – f-fucking – way,” you breathe, staring him up and down. His red flannel is tucked into his jeans, sealed by a brown leather belt. There’s a longhorn head on the buckle. “Zack? From Costco? What the fuck’d you do, stalk me?”

He laughs awkwardly, looking from you to over your shoulder, where Sam’s still holding your beer.

“Sorry–” you mutter, shaking your head. “I’m not at my best right now.”

“It’s cool,” he replies, grinning. “You look like you’re having a good night. I’m out with my buddies. This is Eric.”

Eric gives you a nod – his blond fringe jumps, and he jerks his head to sweep it back out of his eyes. “Nice to meet you,” he says, before rounding again on Zack. “Seriously, bro, he says he’s not waitin’ around this time. C’mon!”

“We were gonna head to the rooftop if you wanted to come?” Zack raises his eyebrows, pointing a thumb over his shoulder as Eric and another two figures make off for the stairs at the other end of the bar.

“Sure.” You blindly reach for your beer and Sam relents, letting it slip from his grasp. He calls your name as you trot off, and you turn for one second to give his worried stare a thumbs up, before swirling back toward the stairs. No second thought.

This isn’t the night for second thoughts.

The rooftop is quieter, less crowded. Background noise made up of passing cars, a siren in the distance, and the muffled music from downstairs. You wander over to where Zack stands with Eric and a couple others: a short guy with wireframe glasses, hands stuffed in his hoodie pockets, and someone you think you almost recognize.

His black V-neck looks like it might burst at the seams around his chest, swollen with muscle. Thick neck, holding up a square jawline, and a face heavy with features which mirror the broad body below.

And a thick smell of marijuana which follows his every move.

Zack shuffles to the side to let you into the circle. You shimmy in between him and Eric.

V-neck pulls a small metal case from his back pocket and fishes a cigarette out of it. Eyes start to shift around the group, the boys glancing over shoulders to check who’s watching.

“Are we…? Is that weed?” you blurt out.

“Shut the fuck up!” Eric hisses, jabbing his elbow into your ribcage.

V-neck eyes you down quickly. It’s the first he looks at you, and it puts a sickly feeling through your body. Sends the alcohol hurtling over itself in your stomach.

You raise your eyebrows and wrap your arms around yourself, your beer bottle against your lips. “Sorry, jeez…”

“This is Knox,” Zack mutters, as Knox lights the cigarette.

He takes one hit, inhaling deeply with his chin in the air, and passes it to the boy in the hoodie. Another cloud of smoke joins Knox’s, slowly dispersing above your heads, and then it’s Eric’s turn. With a cough, his fist against his lips, he passes it to Zack. Soon, the air around you is thick and white, and Zack’s handing you the joint.

You lift it to your lips and inhale. The feeling hits you instantly; your body feels light, your face warm, your eyes blink in and out of focus, watching as a blurry shadow begins to follow your hand when you pass the joint back to Knox.

A couple more circuits, and the roach is pressed into the ground by Knox’s boot. The group separates; Zack and his friends fall into some metal chairs around a table, sparking up a debate on the best Lord of the Rings film, and you float around nearby.

“You a friend of Zack’s?” Knox asks, downing what’s left of his whiskey.

“Hm…Not really. We met at Costco, ‘cause I was there to get some party stuff for my dad’s friend’s daughter’s– Well, she’s my friend, too, and she wanted this garden party, and my dad’s friend was like, What the fuck is a garden party? you know, so I had to go help ‘im get stuff for it, with my dad, who was kinda a buzzkill, but anyway…Z-Zack helped me lift some sodas into my cart.”

Knox nods once. Fingers locked tight around his empty glass. He’s staring you down like you’re fresh meat.

You purse your lips and stare back, but quickly get bored when he doesn’t speak, and you miss Anna and her selfies and her sambuca shots. As you’re about to wander back to the door, though, Knox steps in front of you.

“So, you’re here often, then?”

Your shoulder knocks into his. “Huh?”

“Saw you last week. You were pretty spaced, don’t know if you remember.”

The memory whips past your eyes quicker than you can catch it, frames lingering only long enough for you to see Knox’s thick arm linked with yours outside Frank’s, the smell of weed in your nostrils, and the bright lights of Joel’s truck. And then it’s gone, before you can get a good grip of it.

“I’m…I remember now. Yeah. No, I’m not here much, I just…Rough week.”

He nods again, and you suspect he hasn’t listened to a word you’ve said since he got you alone. “You want another drink?”

The way he’s looking at you makes you feel more and more nauseous. Makes you want to turn and run back downstairs, slot in beside Anna and Kara, bury yourself between their shoulders and stay there until they decide they want to go home.

It makes you feel the way it felt last week, when he halted you outside the bar on your way to Joel. And suddenly the memory is soaring in front of your eyes again.

Your hand on Joel’s elbow. The frown on his face. Whitened knuckles around the steering wheel. ‘s go, pretty girl. Pretty girl. Pretty girl. Pretty girl.

“Yeah,” you tell Knox. “Yeah, I do.”

You follow him downstairs where he nods to Sam at the bar.

Sam ignores him, instead glares at you. “Can we talk…?” he asks, but Knox cuts across him.

“Beer, right?” he checks with you, and you nod. “And another whiskey.”

Your friend hesitantly grabs the drinks, glancing up at you every five seconds in a question. You respond by nodding slowly, feeling your head bounce each time you do.

You lazily scan the room for Anna and Kara, who you spot in a booth over by the window. The spotlights overhead reflect in the sparkles of Anna’s dress; Kara’s holding the straw of her drink between her lips, bobbing her head to the music. You saunter over, twirling on your way.

“Where have you been, baby?” Anna calls, giggling when you fall against the booth, palms flat on the wooden table.

“Upstairs,” you mumble, and then feel a tap on your back.

“Forgot this,” Knox says, pushing the beer into your hand. “You wanna go dance?”

Anna’s face twists into one of worry, and you give her an apologetic smile and spin off, following the wide frame to a dark corner of the bar where he takes your wrist and pulls your body against his.

He’s not doing much dancing, rather, he’s just keeping a solid grip on your waist, watching as you rock side to side, taking a couple shallow sips of your drink. You pull on his arm, Fucking move, dude, but he only leans further back, until he’s shrouded in shadows and pulling you into them with him.

When he leans into your space and snakes a drunken arm tight around your neck, you don’t retreat. You lean in, too, and plant your lips on his.

It’s messy, it’s a little gross. He tastes sour, weed and alcohol on his tongue, and it makes you wish you’d never started kissing him. Still, you take it further. You open your mouth more, letting more of him in, soak your own tongue, wet your lips. You barely even feel it when his hands move south and cup your ass, and it’s only when he squeezes that you wriggle out of his grip.

“Sorry,” you mumble, taking hold of his sleeve to steady yourself. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head, says something short that you don’t hear, and you lean back against him, wrapping your arms around his neck.

He’s smaller, much shorter than Joel. Your shoulders almost match the height of his. But he’s more built, he’s bulkier, in an uncomfortable way. Like trying to put your arms around a giant balloon or something. There’s no softness, no enclosing feeling when your weight presses against his. Just the huge surface of his chest, the hollow feeling of two mismatched bodies unwillingly pushed together.

Not strong. Not safe. Not secure. Not him.

But you’re kissing him again, because it’s the first time in five days you’ve felt something other than your aching chest and heavy head. You’re kissing him because you feel unwanted and unloved and, even though he seems almost as hammered as you are, it feels good to have someone want to be on you.

You’re kissing him because you’re trying to pretend it’s Joel.

Only he tastes…well, disgusting, and he smells different. He’s sweating from the heat in the bar, and his arms aren’t placed somewhere to make you feel wrapped in his grasp, they’re placed anywhere that he can pinch, squeeze, or otherwise fondle.

Joel’s face swims in and out of your head; a smile as he pulls you in for a kiss, a smirk when he’s telling you off, soft eyes when he’s listening to you talk. It makes you want to throw up.

That might just be the drinks.

Someone taps you furiously on the shoulder, and you push Knox off your body.

When your eyes fail to meet Sam’s, he takes your wrist and drags you behind the bar, ripping the beer bottle from your grasp and almost launching it into the sink. It smashes, and the liquid pours down the drain.

“Hey, what the f–?”

“I’m gonna call your dad,” he yells, deafening to your numb ears.

“Do not fucking call my dad,” you slur, laughing a little. “I’m fine! I’m having fun.”

“You’re fucking wasted. And that guy – he’s bad news.”

“Does it matter?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Who even are–? What the fuck is up with you right now? Yes, it fucking matters!”

“Not my dad,” you repeat as you back away, staggering over to the booth where your friends sit.

Anna storms over to meet you, slipping her wrist around yours and bringing you to a halt. “Did Sam find you?” she asks. Her hands plant on your shoulders, and she dips her head until you’re eye to eye.

She’s blurry. She’s nothing but shapes, and movements, and noises. And she’s fucking pissing you off.

“Can everyone just – get the fuck off of me?” you groan, stumbling backwards, and Anna links her hands with yours to stop you from collapsing.

She pulls you back upright, leaning in close. Her head shakes, you can see that much. But her expression is cloudy, and her hands don’t let go of yours so easily when you try to pull away. The orb-like shapes in front of you mutter your name, only it’s not Anna’s voice, it’s his.

Anna’s babbling, panicked tone drives through your skull. “She’s been drinking, like, a lot, and I think she might’ve had some weed upstairs. But Sam said he saw –”

“C’mon, kid,” his voice says again, and there’s a heavy arm pulling you off to the door.

“Get – off – of – me.” You struggle in his grasp, pushing his body away from yours, fingers expecting to find the V-neck collar of a black shirt and instead finding –

Buttons. The edges of a green flannel shirt. And a soft cotton tee underneath. And then his scent washes over you: warm, sweet, earthy. Grounding.

“Joel…” you whisper, thick with fear and intoxication and need.

His jaw angles down, you catch one fleeting glimpse of his chin, graying beard, tight lips hidden beneath it, and then you’re shoving his chest again, attempting to push him as far away from your own body as he’ll go.

Only he doesn’t move.

“Fuck off,” you seethe, palms flat on his pecs. “Get the fuck away from me.”

He says your name in a hazy blur, says, “We’re goin’ home,” and you almost laugh in his face.

“I don’t f-fucking think so.”

“Yeah? Well, I do. Thanks, Anna, I got her.”

“Hey,” a fourth voice joins the chorus, “hey, you know this guy?”

Knox pushes past Joel’s arm, unlinking your fingers from his, and takes your shoulder with one rough hand. All your anger, all your rage at Joel, and yet, the second you’re separated from him, the only thing on your mind is having his hand back around yours.

Joel’s upper lip twitches, he stares at the back of Knox’s head and then scoffs, reaches by him again to take your wrist. You let him have it. “Come on,” he says.

Knox is rounding on him, holding Joel back with a palm flat to his chest. “I ain’t too comfortable lettin’ her head outta here with some random old man, dude…”

Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shut the –

Joel’s jaw ticks. His expression falls blank, narrowed eyes looking up and down Knox’s frame as you tremble behind it, Anna’s steady arm around your shoulders.

“Take your hand off of me, and move aside,” he snarls, voice dangerous. You can hear the threat, and at the same time, the desperate attempt from within himself to hold off.

“Hey,” Anna reaches forward, tapping Knox’s shoulder three times with a glittery nail, “she knows him. It’s fine. He’s fine.”

“Nah, man,” Knox hisses back, “who the fuck even are you? You ain’t takin’ her anywhere.”

You step forward, putting yourself between the two of them, hands clumsily landing on each of their shoulders. “He’s a f…my dad’s friend,” you slur, eyes unfocused.

Knox isn’t listening. He hasn’t listened the entire fucking night. His eyes are set on Joel’s as he wraps a tight fist around your free arm, trying to pull you closer to him. Only he’s hurting you, and your fingers struggle to pry yourself free, so you look up at Joel.

You couldn’t see Anna’s expression. Couldn’t make out the worry on her face that her voice clued you in on. You could barely even see Sam, when he dragged you out of the dark corner of the bar.

But you can see Joel. See the shadow his brows cast over his glower, see his thin lips, see the tightening of his jaw. See the rage inside him like it’s an alarm beacon, flashing red from behind his eyes.

Knox tugs angrily on your wrist. “You just gonna let this asshole ruin your night?”

“Let go of m-me,” you murmur, suddenly feeling the bar’s eyes on you. Your face reddens with heat from the alcohol, doubled by your embarrassment.

When he hears you, Joel’s face contorts into one you’ve never seen on his face in your life. Fury, disgust and fury, twisting his lip and tugging on his brows. He leans in and rips yours and Knox’s hands apart, pulling you free and shifting you behind his body with as much effort as it’d take him to click his fingers. Your weak hand reaches out to take a fistful of his shirt, holding onto him at his spine.

The men square up to one another, Joel at least four inches taller and, despite Knox’s built form, far broader. Knox takes a step forward and Joel matches.

“Joel…” you whisper, catching Anna’s gaping stare over his shoulder.

“Hey, uh, Mr. Miller?” Sam edges in from behind Knox. “I’m gonna have to ask that you…don’t…do this, but if you have to, can y’all maybe move it out to the street?”

“Do I gotta do somethin’?” Joel asks Knox. You pull in closer to his back, trying to hide your face from the spotlight cast on you by what feels like thousands of drunken eyes staring directly at you.

Knox thinks it over for a moment. You can see Zack watching like a deer in the headlights from behind his buddy. He’s seen Joel before, and you know from the way his eyes stick on him that he recognizes him. Remembers how briskly he swept you out of the soft drinks section, how blunt he was about it.

The V-neck swells with the deep inhale its wearer takes, and then he shakes his head, sighing. Smug smirk thick across his lips.

“Nah, man. I didn’t think she was gonna be worth the fuck anyways, so.”

Joel clicks his teeth, gives his head one quick shake, mutters a resigned, “Alright,” then reaches back, and nudges you gently by the stomach until you’re safely out of reach.

And then he swings.

Once, catching Knox across the corner of his jaw, sending his face skyward. The crowd around the three of you gasps. Knox’s burly chest twists, and he staggers backward. His hands come up to clutch his face before Joel’s taking the collar of his shirt in his fist, reeling him in and holding him steady.

“Joel!” you yell, but he doesn’t fucking hear you.

His second blow lands square on Knox’s nose with a crack loud enough even for your numb ears to hear over the thudding music. Blood sprays from his nostrils and floods down into his mouth, smearing across his cheek as Joel’s knuckles ricochet off the square face. The crimson pours down his chin, spattering onto his shirt, bright and shocking against the stretched black material.

Joel lets him drop and he collapses onto all fours, coughing blood and spit and whatever the fuck else onto the dark floor.

“Fuck!” Knox screams, fingers trembling over his burst nose – thick, dark droplets running down his hands. “You motherfucker, you broke my fucking nose!”

Joel stoops down, takes the back of Knox’s shirt in two rough hands and hauls him up until he’s limp on his knees.

“I ever see you around here again,” he growls, “I ever find out you’ve been anywhere near her, as much as looked in the same fuckin’ direction as her, I’ll do worse ‘n break your Goddamn nose. You hear me?”

Knox whimpers, more blood dribbles from between his lips, and Joel throws him down. He turns back to you, massaging his knuckles with his thumb, and grabs your hand.

Your voice is weak with shock. “What the f-uck was that?”

“Just – come on,” he says, dragging you out of Frank’s without another word.

He leads your wobbly form down the street, past chattering crowds toward his black truck, opening the door for you and helping your unsteady limbs up into the passenger side, before he closes the door over and strides around to the driver’s side.

When he shuts his door – more of a slam – he sighs, head leaning back. His hand clenches and then relaxes, loosening his knuckles, hissing anytime the quickly-darkening skin stretches.

“Sorry,” you mutter.

“What you sorry for?”

You shrug. Your mouth trips over words. “…gettin’ you into a barfight.”

He doesn’t look over at you. Just Hms and switches the ignition on, pulling away from the busy curb.

“Where’s m-my dad?” you slur.

“Work. Site inspection, remember?”

You nod, turning back to the road when you start to feel motion sick. Your eyes feel like they’re spinning in their sockets, your stomach flips with the slightest turn. “He get that delivery?” you ask, letting Joel know you heard the phone call earlier.

His jaw turns in your direction. Letting you know he knows you heard it. “Yeah. He’ll be home in a couple hours.”

“Did Sam c-call him?”

“No. Why?”

You lean your head against the passenger window, the cold distracting your brain from the ache in your head. The streetlights sail by in a blur. The engine rattles through the glass.

“Asked ‘im not to.”

“Yeah? ‘n why’s that?”

Your head rolls back onto the headrest as you decide on an answer. I didn’t want him seeing me drunk and high. I don’t care about you seeing me drunk and high. I just wanted to see you.

“’s never seen me drunk.”

“Or high?”

You snort. “I’m not…”

When your head slants to the left to look at Joel, his face turns from yours. He was just looking at you, and you missed it. Probably had that look on his face, that Nice try, kid expression.

“Okay…” you admit, spiritless, “a little high, then.”

“Anna was the one who called,” Joel says. “Said you were hammered, some guy was all over you, ‘n Sam watched him put somethin’ in your drink. They couldn’t find you anywhere. She was fuckin’ hysterical.”

Your head bobs with the moving truck. “When’d he put someth…?”

Joel shrugs. “I dunno. But I believe it.”

So do I, you think. Knox was on you from the minute he saw you. Tight grip around your waist, your wrist, drawing you into him with beer and weed and whatever else he had in his pockets. The comment that had warranted him two bone-breaking punches from Joel all but confirmed the intentions he had in mind. And now you feel fucking stupid.

“I didn’t really…I only had a couple sips of it,” you hear yourself saying, head heating with embarrassment – an attempt to convince him, or maybe more yourself, that you’re not as dumb as leaving your drink to be roofied.

Your voice sounds pathetic, though, and Joel doesn’t say anything to make you feel better. Doesn’t say anything to make you feel worse, either – the silence does that by itself.

You bring your knees up to your chin, nestling a little into the seat. It could almost feel like nothing’s happened, nothing’s changed, except you’re intoxicated, and Joel’s hands are firmly by his person. Not on your thigh, or tangled between your fingers like they usually would be.

You study him. Stare at every part of him like it’s the last time you’ll ever get to see it, until the gentle curve of his nose and the glint of his watch face are burned into the back of your eyelids when you close them over. Face lit red from the brake lights in front, right hand sitting idly on his thigh.

He looks like your Joel. Almost. Just a little closed off. Distant.

But he came to get you, right? Damn near punched Knox’s lights out, took you by the hand, led you back to the safety of his truck. He came straight to Frank’s as soon as Anna called. And he’s taking you home. He’s looking out for you.

So why doesn’t he feel like your Joel?

Well. You can wager a pretty solid guess. It starts with L and ends with comma, Receptionist at Clark’s Plant Hire.

The dark silhouette of your house looms overhead as Joel pulls into your drive. Sure enough, your dad’s not home.

The engine cuts and your head drops, eyes fixing on your hands clasped in your lap. You know Joel’s watching you. What the fuck is he thinking about?

Fuck that. Don’t think about that. Let’s not dive into that pool of imagination.

“Well, thanks.” You do your best to smile, without really looking at him. Your fingers find the door handle and you tug on it, pushing it open and spilling out onto your driveway.

You hear Joel sniff behind you. “Need a hand?”

“I’m good,” you call back, only just managing to stay on your feet.

The cold air helps a little to waken you up, sharpen your senses, but the world around you is still a whir of dull color and shapelessness, and you wobble across to the house in a route of zig-zags, boots almost tripping over thin air as you go. When you reach your front door, you hear his truck lock and the shadow of him appears by your side.

“I said I’m good.”

“I ain’t leaving you, kid. You’re hammered.”

You roll your eyes and open your mouth to protest, but then he’s taking the keys out of your hand and unlocking the door himself, hand on your back as he ushers you into your own house.

“I’m f-fine,” you repeat, tripping over the doorway.

“Look it.”

You meander over to the stairs, and when your foot manages to find the first step, Joel says your name. Your gaze sweeps across the floor until it meets his boots, travels up his legs, and finally rests on his outstretched hand.

“Water,” he tells you.

“I’m fine,” you say, the word losing meaning the more you utter it. “I wanna go – to bed.”

He shakes his head, and then tilts it in the direction of the kitchen.

You groan, mumble something about him being such an asshole, and walk straight by his hand.

Joel doesn’t react. Just follows you and hits the lights, which burn your eyes when they flicker to life. You wince and point up to them.

“Off,” you bluntly order, and he grunts, stepping back to oblige. You’re plunged straight back into darkness.

You’re holding yourself unsteadily against the edge of the kitchen island, whole body swaying. The room is fucking spinning, the lights out back swirling with it in a blur of white motion before your eyes. You swallow dryly and turn around to focus on Joel.

He’s filling a glass over the sink. “What happened to your leg?” he asks over his shoulder.

You turn your knee, examining the dent in your calf where the stool leg cut into you. The dry burgundy stain like a backwards seam line on your skin, emerging from a bright red bruise slowly fading to deep purple.

“Fell off a stool,” you mutter, angling it in the moonlight streaming in through the window.

Joel Hms again. “You got anything to cover it?”

You shrug, having lost any and all energy to barter back with him. He slides the glass across the countertop to you, followed by a bottle of painkillers, then turns back to the open drawer he pulled them from and begins rummaging for a band-aid.

Your shaky hand lifts the glass to your lips. It’s cold and slippery in your grasp, drops of condensation running over your fingers like the blood from Knox’s nose had run over his. The more you tighten your grip, the harder it becomes to hold, until it’s sliding from your clutch.

“Easy,” Joel murmurs, appearing at the side of you and placing his hands over yours, holding the glass still.

“Your knuckles are bleeding,” you say, eyes focusing and then unfocusing on the marks at the base of his fingers, the dabs of dark red where the skin has burst.

He slowly lowers your hands until the glass is safely back on the counter, and then pulls away from you, drawing his swollen knuckles in to his body.

“They’re bleedin’,” you repeat, looking up at him.

“I know they’re bleedin’.”

“Let me see,” you step forward, “Joel. Let me–”

He catches your hands in his. Pushes them back down. Stares at the counter, sighs instead of replying.

Your eyes sting, filling with tears that crowd your already-blurred vision. The punch you feel to your gut brings you to your senses as if it drains you of every substance in your system all at once.

It’s like he’s broken up with you all over again. And it pisses you the fuck off.

“Fuck you,” you whisper into the dark, and he doesn’t move. Doesn’t lift his eyes, doesn’t even flinch. “Fuck you, so much.”

You’re staring him down, what little you can see of him in the pale light cascaded onto him through the shades. The crease between his brows, more prominent with the frown on his face; the line his lips form with the tight clench of his jaw.

Fucking look at me, you think. He can say something back – anything. You can stand and hiss horrible words at one another, yell at each other if that’s what he wants to do. Argue until you’re blue in the face, until the alcohol’s all dried up and the moonlight on his chest is replaced by sunlight. Just fucking look at me.

“You’re an asshole and a liar, you know that?”

“Yeah?” he asks, eyebrows lifting.

“Yeah,” you decide. “Just stringing me along this whole time.”

You blink away the tears before they can fall, making room for more. They’re forming rapidly, each time heavier, and thicker, and angrier. But fuck it, right? This is over. He’s done, and you’re done. Just ignore the pain of it, stick your finger in the wound and keep pushing until you hit bone.

“That guy you punched? He was all over me. All fucking night.”

Joel’s voice is toneless. He’s already over the conversation before it’s begun. “I know he was, kid.”

“We kissed.”

“I know that, too.”

“Had his hands all over me. ‘n if it hadn’t been him, it woulda been literally any other guy in there.”

The words are starting to bleed into one another in your inebriated state. Anger turning to rage turning to fear turning to shame turning to hurt turning back into anger.

“Woulda kissed any one of ‘em. Mighta let them take me home, mighta let them fuck me.”

His head gives an involuntary shake and he blinks. Like he’s trying to wash the thought away. The image of you under someone else, moaning someone else’s name, pulling someone else into your body.

“That piss you off? It make you hate me?”

And then he looks up. Finally, his gaze locks with yours. And his eyes are just as glassy, just as fucking full of tears as yours. He replies with the worst thing he could possibly come up with. It forces the breath from your lungs in a painful exhale.

“There ain’t a thing in this world that you could do that would make me hate you, you know that.”

And then your tears start to fall. Your façade breaks. Stone crumbles. Dam bursts. They fall onto your cheeks, searing on your heated skin, rolling down onto the front of your dress in dark splatter marks.

Through a sob, you choke out another, “Fuck you, Joel,” and then, when you catch your breath, “you don’t get to – to sleep with someone else, and make me feel like the idiot for it.”

He looks up at you with a dark expression, lips locked tight like he’s refusing to let something slip. He shakes his head, and then says, “Can we not have this conversation right now?”

You scoff. A drunken, angry scoff. “You don’t wanna talk about her? When’s a good fuckin’ time, then? When suits you and f-fuckin’ – Lois?”

He falls quiet. Presses his fingers into his eyes. Sighs. “Baby,” he says into his palms.

“’m not your fucking baby,” you whisper between your teeth.

“Baby.” He drops his hands. Looks you dead in the eye. “I did not sleep with Lois.”

You’re frozen to the spot. Your lips fall apart, coated in salty tears. You’re holding your breath, though you’re not sure what for. The room stops spinning for all of ten seconds until he speaks again.

“I didn’t. I know what that message sounded like. Know how you musta heard it. But nothin’ happened, nothin’ has ever happened. Nothin’ would ever happen,” he says, a little more animated, tossing his hands in the air.

You stare between his eyes. He’s still enough that your fucked brain can focus on them, can see plain as day – even in the dark kitchen, even through your cloudy tears and all of the poison in your blood – that he’s telling the truth.

“Ex-plain,” you say dryly, looking down to his lips.

Joel sighs again. “I told you I had work to do. Had to head over to Clark’s to order that stuff for your dad. Saw her there, said hi. ‘n that’s all.”

Your eyes slowly close over, wet lashes on hot, dehydrated skin. Your ears are ringing, your body aching. You breathe a sigh as what he says sinks into your slow, throbbing brain, and then lull to one side, slumping against the counter.

“You didn’t…you didn’t think this was worth tellin’ me on Monday?”

“Tried, baby. You were gone. You were so angry; thought it’d be better if I let you cool off.”

“You’re – a fucking – idiot,” you seethe, shaking your head. It’s starting to pound again, sharp pain right behind your eyes like they’re being tugged backwards.

“Well, tonight, I guess that makes two of us.”

You grimace at him. “Lettin’ me go for four fuckin’ days thinking that –”

“– thinkin’ that I would actually cheat on ya? ‘s that what you think a’ me?”

“What did you ex-pect? You didn’t exactly try to – c-clear it up.” You step back, lifting a hand to cup your forehead with a groan. A mix of frustration, pain, and exhaustion in the form of a slow-moving ache hauls its way from one temple to the other.

“Baby, I gotta get you to bed,” Joel says, stepping forward. “We can talk about this when you’re able to see straight.”

“I’m fine,” you whimper, but it’s the least convincing you’ve sounded all night.

“Kid–”

“Don’t fucking call me kid. Like it’s some pet name, like you give a damn about me–”

“You think I don’t give a damn about you? You think I don’t care?”

Your head wobbles in response. It sends the room hurtling again, Joel’s figure swimming in and out of your vision. You grab the countertop again in attempt to freeze him in place.

He tuts and turns his jaw. “You know how much sleep I’ve had these last few days? Not a fuckin’ minute. I ain’t slept a single night, worryin’ about you ‘n what’s goin’ through your head. Like I give a damn about you. I wish I didn’t give a damn about you, baby. Make my life a whole lot easier.”

“Then, show me. Fucking prove it to me.”

“Prove it to you how? Break some asshole’s nose in a bar? Take you home when you’re wasted?”

Yeah. And also, no. Not just that.

You seethe. “You know what the fuck I mean. Do something about it.”

“I can’t,” he says, raising his voice. “Can’t take you out on dates, can’t put my arm around you, can’t kiss you ‘less there ain’t nobody watchin’. I can’t do none of what I wanna do. This is – it’s fuckin’…”

“…impossible,” you breathe, thick and slurred.

Joel lifts his head then, sees the look in your eye. He sniffs. “’s pretty damn hard, yeah.”

You tip your head back, feel the weight of your tears and your eyes and your brain slap against the back of your skull, a nauseating pull at the nape of your neck. You’re defeated. Nothing left in you to argue, talk, even so much as breathe.

Your words drag between one another, each one beginning with the remnants of the one before it.

“Just - take me to bed.”

He’s standing inches from you, hands hovering over your own, hesitant or unwilling or fucking afraid to touch you.

You ball your fists against his chest and give him one tiny, ineffective shove. But he’s bigger, stronger, sober. He doesn’t budge. Accepting defeat, you breathe one last, “Fuck you,” and brush past him, staggering out of the kitchen.

Joel – water and painkillers in hand – watches you like a hawk going upstairs, arms braced for you to lean on anytime you begin to tumble backward. When you do, his hand brushes your elbow, and you whip it out of his reach and reel it back in to your body.

He settles you on the bed just like he did six days ago, after your rodeo night. Only he doesn’t kneel, doesn’t take your boots off. Just walks away, grabs a tee from your chest of drawers and hands it to you to slip into by yourself.

You don’t even have to open your eyes. You know which one he’s given you. Can tell from the feel of the material, the cracked lettering on the chest, that it’s his Rangers shirt, the same one he put on you the first night you slept together. Smells more like you than it does him these days, but feels just like he always does. And as he waits a safe two-feet from you for you to change, no hands reaching out to help, to fix your hair, to stroke your cheek – you think the shirt will just have to do.

Everything he does is close enough for you to recognize him as Joel, and yet distant enough for him to be someone totally different. Every move he makes is pre-determined, all outcomes already analyzed and mapped, all risks carefully averted. It’s like he’s walking a minefield.

He hands you a couple of pills and helps with lifting the water to your lips. Then he sits at the end of your bed and applies the band-aid while you drag a makeup wipe clumsily over your face.

His thumbs linger on your fucked leg, rubbing over the padded dressing a few times after it’s stuck on, gentle and slow. Eyes never leaving the spot your skin broke open. And then, when you’re done with it, he takes the makeup wipe and quickly runs it down your calf, cleaning the dry blood from your skin.

Touch as delicate as though he were holding a rose – fingers brushing over your body like you might tear or fall apart at the slightest movement. When he’s done, he makes his way around to the opposite side of the bed.

“There’s a sleeping bag in the hall closet if you’d rather take the floor,” you tell him, rolling back and pulling your knees to your chin.

“Nah,” Joel says with the groan of a near-fifty-year-old man, kicking his boots off and propping his pillows up. “We’re close enough by now.”

He pulls the flannel from his shoulders and tosses it to the end of the bed, then slips in under the covers beside you, clasping his hands on his chest. His entire body a perfectly polite distance away.

Your wrist lifts, weak and limp, and your fingers ghost across his red wine knuckles. He winces a little, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he watches as you trace the curves of his hands, surfing the valleys where the bone drops, then back up to the peaks where the blood breaks from his skin.

“You didn’t have to…” you whisper. “He was just some dirtbag.”

He sniffs. Replies to you in his head, translated through the look in his eye. Wasn’t all about the dirtbag.

And you know it. Knox was just an asshole who took the hit for the last four days. Sure, he deserved it. But his big, ugly face and the uglier words which happened to tumble out of it were simply a punchbag full of sand; Joel’s fist hammering into it was as much about defending you as it was about punishing someone, anyone, the first fucker who wound up on the wrong side of him, for everything that had happened.

He's angry. At himself and at you and at this entire fucking mess. And you’re angry. At yourself and at him and at the very same thing. The two of you lie side by side in the dark, both broken and bruised and bleeding. You let out a small, pathetic sigh, and Joel echoes it.

His eyes close over and you stare at him. Stare at the faint lines on his face that slowly fade as he relaxes more, falls closer and closer to sleeping. Watch his chest slowly rising and falling, and his hands moving up and down with it. His entire body is still. Like it’s the first calm he’s had in a while. The first time he’s been able to settle.

And you stare at him. For hours, feels like. You stare at him until sleep, or alcohol, or something stronger coats over your vision and sweeps him out of focus.

----------

The wall opposite your window is lit with a single stripe of bright, nauseating orange, the sunrise staring in between your drapes. There are birds screaming outside. Your head is still throbbing and your throat feels like splintered wood and the other side of your bed is empty.

He can’t have left long ago. The mattress is still warm under the sheets he’s folded back over. His shirt is sat folded on the pillowcase.

You grab it and haul yourself out of bed – head still spinning, you trip out of your room.

He’s gotta be in the kitchen. He’ll be standing at the counter drinking a coffee, he’ll mumble a Mornin’, then pull you in and kiss the top of your head. He’ll ask how you’re feeling and if you want some breakfast. He’ll be Joel again.

“Joel…?” you call, rounding the bottom of the stairs toward the kitchen. No response.

The clock on the oven reads 5:57. The kitchen is deserted. When you loop around the island – as if he’d be crouched behind it or something – you notice an empty mug sitting in the sink, trails of black coffee at the bottom.

Your shaking hands cup around the ceramic. It’s cooling, but it’s warm.

He’s been in here.

“Joel!” you yell. Come out, now, this ain’t funny anymore.

You hear the squeak of wheels rolling to a stop outside and flee over to the living room windows, daybreak burning your eyes when you peer through the shades.

You’re frantically searching, going blind with the bright rays singeing your corneas, pacing back and forth between each window to get an angle on the street that will show you his truck. Show you him.

You don’t even notice the sound of keys in the door, or the rattle it makes as it pushes open.

“Hey, kiddo.”

You whip around. The owner of the voice lifts a hand to his puffy eyes and rubs them, yawning.

“H-hi, Dad.”

You look fucking insane. Hair all over the place, makeup haphazardly removed, Joel’s flannel shirt hanging from your fist. Wearing nothing but a long tee, a blood-seeped band-aid on your calf.

“Good night?” he says with a sleepy chuckle. “I am pooped. You want anythin’ before I head up to bed?”

You shake your head, but he’s not looking. Rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

“Alright, I’m gonn–”

“Where’s Joel?”

Your desperation has reached a new high. Your pride, a new low. You just want him back, don’t care who knows or thinks or suspects what. Just come back.

“Huh?”

“Joel? He brought me home and I woke up and he’s gone.”

“He – Well, I…I suppose he’ll be at work, hon. He can’t stick around here all day.” He smiles weakly, and then swivels on his heels.

“He text you?”

He sighs, his back still turned. “What has gotten into…? Here.”

Your dad twists and throws his phone toward you. It lands on the carpet at your feet. Then he turns back and begins climbing the stairs.

“See ya in a few hours.”

When he turns the corner on the landing and his footsteps fade out of earshot, you bend and your fingers clutch his phone.

He has one unread text from Joel.

You unlock the phone with a click and open up the message thread. Your half-drunk, half-sleepy eyes flit across the screen, leaning back against the arm of the couch to read every word he ever sent your dad.

Joel: She’s in bed. Sat with her for a bit to make sure she didn’t roll onto her back. She’s a little worse for wear. I got a job up in Waco I need to be at in an hour, so I gotta head.

You scroll further back.

Joel: She okay?

Joel: Sarah says she hasn’t heard from her in a few days. We can come over for dinner tonight if you reckon that might help?

Further back still.

Joel: Sure, not doing anything anyway. Sarah in Nashville. Tell her to text me when she’s ready to be picked up. Hope she enjoys her rodeo night 🤠

Joel: Table booked for 6. Get you both at 5:45. Looking forward to it.

You scroll until your eyes hurt.

Joel: No answer. She’ll be home soon I bet.

Joel: You ever seen Grey’s Anatomy? Pretty good TV

Joel: Your daughter available tonight to help me put up stuff for Sarah coming home? I fear what might happen if I attempt it myself

You read the final message, the first thing he sent your dad after you got home. Six days in. He’d driven you home from work.

Joel: No problem, wouldn’t have her walking home in the rain. Was nice to see her again. She’s a sweetheart.

You’re laid back across the couch, your legs hanging over the armrest. You drop the phone to your chest and stare up at the ceiling, suddenly feeling a lot more sober.

She’s a sweetheart.

Your throat tightens around a sob. Like a fist clenching around your neck, crushing your breath to nothing. Your eyes well, tears slowly flood across your vision and then spill over, running rapidly down to your ears and seeping into the fabric of the couch. You’re still silent. Still unable to open your mouth.

You’re doing everything you can to hold back. To stop it from happening. But your chest feels like it could burst, and your eyes are screwing shut tighter and tighter, and your body curls up like an animal succumbing to a mortal wound, and then –

Then, you break.

It forces its way from your throat, hammering against the sides of your mouth before it’s escaping, tearing away from your lips and hurtling skyward. A deep, violent exhale. Broken, and painful, and heavy.

There’s no one to hold back for. Just you, sat in your living room, clutching the flannel of a man who doesn’t want you anymore.

Your breath stammers, shudders against the palms of your hands as your fingertips massage your eyes. You’re crying like a little kid, and it’s not making you feel any better, but no matter what you do, it won’t stop.

And you don’t know why. You tell yourself that: I don’t know why I’m crying. Almost laugh when you think it through to yourself: sobbing at 6AM over someone you were sleeping with, for all of, what, four weeks? I don’t know why the fuck I’m crying.

Except – you do. You do. And you’re totally, completely, undeniably fucked.

You sigh and close your eyes.

You are – fucked.

----------

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[canyourfavesurvivecastledracula]

Hitter

@would-we-be-friends-if-i asked:

Eliot Spencer (ex special forces, chef, private bodyguard/wet work man, very good at identifying a wide range of things by their minute but distinct differences)

@pomrania writes:

Eliot is a skilled grifter (specialized in making himself seem not a threat) AND a skilled fighter (and more importantly he knows when NOT to fight) AND he has a ridiculous variety of sundry skills he's highly talented in, so there's prolly like twenty different ways he could survive.

@r0sequarks writes:

Eliot…it comes down to whether he tries to fight Dracula (look, worlds best hitter isn’t helping, he loses a straight fight) or if he knows better to play dumb/try to run. Depends on why he’s there and what he wants; I think he’d wise up and get out of there in most cases but baby murder could drive him to fight and die.

@darthlordcommie writes:

Elliot: It all comes down to whether Elliot clocks how dangerous Dracula is in terms of a fight. If he realizes that there's no way he'll be beating Dracula in a fight, he'll slip out the window. He's weak to the trance, but he's very quickly on top of things, and if he can make it to the wolves, he's got survival training, he can make it past the wolves.

@siredgarconanshakespeare writes:

#my money is that eliot could TOTALLY do it #but we shall see

---------------------------------------------------

Eliot Spencer is definitely smarter than he looks, acts, or our best testing indicates. He can punch his way out of any situation that a way can be punched out of. He's the second best actor in the crew after Sophie. He speaks Romanian I'm sure - heck, he probably Knows A Guy. He has opinions about Dracula's cooking. He's not worried about wolves, he's comforting those poor horses (Certified Horse Girl powers). If anyone can charm a vampire babe, he can. He puts up with Hardison on purpose. Eliot Spencer has every skill he could possibly want to survive Castle Dracula.

HOWEVER. He is the character I am most immediately sure is not making it out.

I think he does recognize the threat. He can probably understand the warnings being shouted at him and understands that the key to survival is being underestimated, which he is very very good at. I think he will recognize that even he cannot punch his way through a master vampire in his own stronghold. I think he could make it past ordinary wolves through his own prowess but also his understanding of and respect for the natural world; I think he will fare less well against wolves that are being supernaturally commanded to kill him specifically - but again I think he will recognize that and not try that route. As you say, he knows how to fight and when not to fight. That's not the issue.

Eliot is not going to make it for one reason and one reason alone, which is that Dracula just so happens to have his personal kryptonite: Children In Peril.

Eliot can think strategically. He can unassume with the best of them and stay in character, fly under the radar. He can do whatever he needs to do to survive. But not when there's a child in danger. The minute kids enter the picture, Eliot goes off the rails - and that's when he has a crew counting on him. But alone? In Castle Dracula? With baby eating monsters and only his own life on the line? (And we all know he considers himself both expendable and beyond redemption).

When the job is Stay Alive I think he can do it. But from May 16th on the job becomes Kill Dracula, and I don't think he can do that. And even if he can go back to strategy-and-survival mode, knowing that the first child is past saving, the minute he sees Dracula heading down the wall with his baby-snatching sack, he's going in for the kill, never mind this is a fight he can't win. Jonathan wishes for a gun to shoot Dracula off the wall; Eliot doesn't use guns, so instead he'll throw a whole Eliot at him.

And that is why Eliot Spencer can not survive Castle Dracula

#Leverage #leverage: redemption #Eliot Spencer #I looked up how many l s were in Eliot after the flack I got about Westley Princessbride #crooks #soldiers and warriors #leverage week #chefs

[aurae-rori]

DR RATIO ANALYSIS: PART 2, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

SPOILERS FOR 2.1 CONTENT.

Now, you might be saying - "Aurae, you already did one, why do you need a second?" And my answer is, "LORD, I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT HOW HIS DEFINITION OF 'IDIOT' IS DIFFERENT. AND ALSO HE DOES NOT HATE AVENTURINE NOR DOES HE THINK AVENTURINE IS STUPID." Once again, here is my disclaimer - although I have been researching psychology for a solid six years, I am NOT a professional. (I will be, one day. Just you wait, just youuuu wait-) So understand that everything I say has been analyzed with personal judgement, with my own conclusions, come to with logic and my personal interpretation. This is just what I have concluded, and you are always free to disagree.

This is my legacy. To be an analyzer. So let's go.

Okay, now that my disclaimer is over, let's take off Ratio's plaster head and chuck it into the sea, and see - what does he mean by 'idiot'?

This will be much shorter than my last, so don't worry - I will not be flashbanging you with another 4k words. This is more like a follow up, than anything else, because there's a few things I wish to touch on.

Dr. Ratio doesn't hate idiots in the sense that he hates people that have 'low IQ' or are 'stupid' in terms of being 'slow to understand'. I definitely touched on this in my last analysis, but he hates people who take their education for granted and don't go places with the gifts that they've been given. He hates "idiots" - "narrow minded" people who have the capabilities to do more and perceive more than they choose to do. People who deliberately look away or take what they know and what they could do for granted. He wants to open people's eyes and allow them to see life from multiple different angles and he believes that everyone should have a chance to learn - with the whole "knowledge for everyone" thing he's got rolling.

He wears a plaster head around people he doesn't seem to know too well in order to think more, or so that he doesn't have to see the faces of the people he dislikes. Pretty good roast. However, he does NOT wear that plaster head around Aventurine. Let's listen to the doctor's judgement - Aventurine is far from stupid. Although he likes to chalk up a lot of the things he does to his own luck, he is an INCREDIBLY capable individual who's managed to get this far because of his own form of genius. He's a man who relies on chance and good fortune, yes, but his charm, his way of scheming, and the way that he's good with people? That's skill. A talent he doesn't take for granted. Dr. Ratio respects him for this - because despite the fact that he has no proper education, he has his eyes wide open to the world and doesn't take shit for granted. He learns what he can in order to survive and he does it fucking well - Aventurine is a very smart man. He's observant, quick on his feet, and great at going with the flow and thinking in the moment.

Aventio aside, I actually believe that Dr. Ratio would be a really good teacher to those who struggle. He's patient where it's needed to be, even if he's got a quick temper, and I believe in his pursuit for knowledge he would do his best to go out of his way to find strategies that would work for their individuals. We're all unique, and he's aware of this - and because he wants to allow people to think for themselves, whatever helps the individual works. Depression? He's got a psych degree, I'm sure bro could give you some strategies. Autism? He has a touch of the 'tism himself. ADHD, and not feeling organized? Bro will help you. It's canon that he's a great fucking teacher - those who finish his classes go on to become successful people who are intelligent and critical thinkers. Round of applause for Ratio, the man that kins my father. He's shit at emotions, but great at knowledge.

Also, on that note, I believe that he would most likely hate parents that push thier "gifted" students to the limit without any compassion for the person that they really are. He's most definitely got some of that academic trauma so I believe that bro holds a secret disdain for parents who just use their children to gain more recgonition. Well, not so secret. He'd cuss them out. (Ratio please cuss out the horrible parents.)

Dr. Ratio, the Teacher ever. (Hey, maybe he'd get along with Kunikida...)

Also, I am definitely planning on making a fic where he teaches Aventurine Latin. As long as you're eager to learn and willing to look past the chalk being thrown, he's got a place for you.

Thanks for coming to my tedtalk. I did not read this through, so this is not edited. Take my unedited rambles.

#aurae analyzes #dr ratio #drratio #veritas ratio #analysis #character analysis #honkai star rail #hsr #aventio #ratiorine #aventurine #dr ratio x aventurine #character study

[sarah-yyy]

what is war of faith about? is it worth a watch apart from just wang yibo(being gay?)? and where should i watch it?

you were all expecting me to do this so okay let's see how many others i can drag down this shenlai (i think this is the ship name we've settled on?? i have seen many 沈来之笔 tags on ao3 so i'm assuming that's what the chinese fandom has settled on) hole.

what: republican era communist spy drama (finance bros edition) // completed // 38 eps, roughly 40 mins each where: iqiyi (standard disclaimer that i don’t watch with subs so i don’t speak to the quality of eng subs) why: *chanting* yibo yibo yibo yibo yib- wang yang?? xiansheng???? i'll preface by saying i don't watch many republican era shows - it's really just not my thing, like even zhu yilong couldn't make me watch one and that's saying a lot, but i did finish and quite enjoy this one!! extremely strong cast on this show, and the story moved fast enough and had enough action in it that it kept my attention.

meet my boy wei ruolai:

ruolai is from a v humble family, worked hard to put himself through night school but is having trouble stepping foot into the finance world because he has no money, no connections, no diploma (the school is holding off on issuing him one because he's from a communist-stronghold province 😪). he's working several jobs to make ends meet in shanghai when he decides to interview for a job at the central bank.

he aces his entrance test! ofc he does! ruolai is a bit of a whiz with numbers, and is very very very determined to get the job - the place could be on goddamn fire for all he cares, he'll finish his goddamn test and get this goddamn job even if it kills him.

his performance gains him the attention of shen tunan:

xiansheng!! 😍💖💕

chief of the central bank, The Guy™ of the finance and banking industry in shanghai. extremely attractive in a suit. 100% dilf certified.

xiansheng takes a shine on ruolai, but ends up not being able to hire ruolai despite his excellence because, again, ruolai is from a communist-stronghold province, and they don't want to take any chances with him possibly having communist ties.

does that set ruolai back?? no. my boy sneaks into a party that shen tunan is holding at his mansion, and convinces shen tunan to hire him by essentially picking apart shen tunan's ~secret strategies~ that he's uncovered just by following the finance news and making smart deductions 🥺💚

shen tunan caves and personally hires ruolai as his PA, and begins mentoring him and teaching him the ways of the banking industry.

the show is mostly about ruolai's growth in the central bank and the shift of his political beliefs, centred around the kmt and communist party's conflict in that era. the premise of the show is fairly simple - most republican era dramas move in the same direction. this one was well-written, had a solid cast, and beautifully shot.

the development of stn and wrl's relationship in this show was good! it's v shippable, if that's something that is important to you. ngl, i did stay through till the end because these two were so interesting.

we have proud teacher shen tunan who is so so proud of his boy and takes ruolai suit-shopping and tells him how special he is :

starry-eyed disciple wei ruolai who would literally do anything for shen tunan:

he really does mean it when he says that. he gets tortured and thrown in goddamn jail for shen tunan, and he just bears it all and doesn't let himself react in any manner that could harm shen tunan.

i started this strictly for yibo, and had no expectations that i would enjoy it, but guys...........wang yang is 🥵🔥 in this as shen tunan, and this ship just.......sails itself. what else was i supposed to do except go three hundred different levels of ahhhhhhhhh over them.

ANYWAY. strong rec. like at least 8.5/10. even if you're just in it for yibo (who is EXCELLENT in this, the whump scenes are incredible), or if you just want to ship shenlai, the payoff is strong in this.

#tv rec #war of faith #shenlai

[ax-killjoy]

☆ you think i’m pretty ??

synopsis ! 𖦹 : things that make them flustered <33

notes ! 𖦹 : school, art block, and writer’s block has been kicking my ASS.

Lo’ak, Kiri, Neteyam x Gn!reader

Lo’ak

It was something simple, something that not even Lo’ak knew he could get flustered by. Yet something just hit him right in the soul, making his heart melt, he felt warm, a blush over this cheeks, up to the tips of his ears.

You had been teaching how to ride an Ilu, yet he was so fustrated. Why couldn’t he get this down ? If this creature was nicer than a Ikran, why couldn’t he ride it ? Irritation coursed through his body, his mind running almost a thousand miles an hour. As he falls yet again into water. The ilu almost laughing at him as it swims away.

He growls in frustration, angrily splashing the water as he wipes his face. “this is bullshit.” Lo’ak mutters, watching as you call for the Ilu again. You chuckle, resting your hand on his shoulder, caressing it slightly with your thumb.

“Don’t worry about it too much. You’ve got all the time in the world to learn this, Prettyboy.” You say ever so casually, petting the ilu and feeding it more fish.

Yet Lo’ak stood frozen, his tail up and his ears perked. “Pretty boy ?”

ﾟ*✩‧₊˚ !!

Kiri

Kiri has NEVER been one to have crushes. She remembers when Jake would talk about growing up with little puppy crushes, and Neytiri would explain about her younger years swooning over the male Na’vi.

But Kiri never really felt that kind of attraction, never felt the need to. She was too busy ! Her reckless brothers always did something stupid, leading her to heal them with her grandmother. Who she bickers with until no end, and she runs around the forest feeling Eywa beneath her feet and in the air, grabbing herbs for future salves. And if she wasn’t doing any of that, she was running around the forest with Tuk.

But now that she moved to Awa’altu, she had all the time in the world it seemed. She sat under water for what seemed like an eternity, staring at the colorful fish and feeding her ilu, staring into sand that hid small crustaceans. Now that she wasn’t busy, she had time to indulge in her feelings, indulge in her feelings for you.

The two of you had been wandering the island all day, it one of those days that neither of you had tasks. Planning this day in advance, making sure to do all the chores just so the two of you could run wild for the rest of the day. And now, it was almost eclipse. The two of you sat in the warm sand, watching as the night and day mixed, making a sweet gradient above. “You know, I could do this with you forever.” You say, and she looks at you. “Do what ?” she asks.

“This. Just being with you, being part of the land. I could do this with you forever.” You say, before looking back at the eclipse. And for the first time, Kiri feels a blush spread across her cheeks. Not a blush out of embarrassment, but a blush of giddiness, puppy love, and hope for the future.

･:* ೫̥♡*

Neteyam

Similar to Kiri, Neteyam was a busy bee. He ran everywhere, constantly doing different tasks and doing anything the people asked for. He was one of the best hunters for his age, constantly going on hunting trips with his father and other adult Na’vi, and coming back just to do more tasks. He sailed the skies and scouted for sky people during Operations, he listened in onto strategies for the War party.

And if there was ever a second that he didn’t have any tasks, he was playing with Tuk. Helping his mom with something, running around with his siblings letting them do whatever stupid things they planned. Only for them to get scolded by their father once they came home. A never ending cycle, a consistent and eventful cycle to say the least.

This was no different, you were another skilled hunter for your age. Jake had tasked both you and Neteyam to hunt together, to see who paired good with who, and to see what two amazing hunters could bring back. What Jake didn’t know is that the two of you made this into a game of tag. Whoever catches who first doesn’t have to carry all of the meat to the village.

Neteyam hid well into the trees, his breath covered by the sounds of strong winds and bustling trees. He had killed 2 animals already, thanked their bodies, and was ready to leave. Now he just had to see where you were to catch you.

Suddenly he hears a branch snap. Before he can turn his head, he feels something flipping him over, and his back hitting the soft soil. He lets out of low groan, he opens his eyes. The sun hitting his eyes, suddenly he saw your face above him. He feels the weight of you straddling him to keep him in place. You giggle and smile mischievously.

“Now you’re mine, tsamsiyu” you say softly, the vibrations of your voice make Neteyam’s ears perk up. Before Neteyam could even open this mouth you jump up laughing, “I won !! now go grab all the meat we got !!!” You cheered before running away.

He gets up, a raging blush runs across his cheeks to each of his ears, his tail swaying sharply. Oh Ewya, what did you do to him ?

ﾟ*✩‧₊˚ !!

Tsamsiyu - Warrior

#avatar the way of water #avatar x reader #neteyam sully #neteyam x reader #sully family #avatar fanfiction #sully family x reader #lo’ak fanfiction #lo’ak oneshot #lo’ak imagine #lo’ak sully #lo’ak x reader #lo’ak te suli tsyeyk’itan #neteyam fluff #atwow neteyam #kiri avatar #kiri sully #kiri sully x reader #neteyam headcanons #lo’ak headcannons

[direquail]

My specific read on John is not that he's a nice guy, either. It's that, like any good character (specifically a tragic character, which, TM has said that he is modeled on a mythical tragic hero, so) he has a flaw that dooms him. And what that means is, when he has the choice to change what he's doing, that flaw either prevents him from taking the option he's aware of, or prevents him from being aware that there is another option altogether.

And so as a writer, what I look for are moments where either:

something good about a character becomes an excess that harms themselves or others

we receive information that shows a persistent blind spot a character has

we look for times when a character gives their view of the world/a situation and it Does Not Match Up with reality, or is hinted that it doesn't

we look for evidence of something simmering under the surface that clashes with their outward, agreeable presentation

What fills that role for John?

Yep.

When this first pops up, it's pretty easily dismissed as yet another layer on the falsehood he's propped up. Admittedly, he's been doing it for ten thousand years, so it's probably got a few layers to it.

However:

This one, to me, gives us a hint about what John is blind to: That his friends see his vindictiveness and his failings and that they could still love him. This is where it crosses into tragedy, for me; where his own inability to forgive blinds him to the capacity that other people have for generosity--and so, to a world where "justice" means more than "vengeance for the dead".

And this illuminates the whole chain of events that leads him to that climactic scene in Harrow the Ninth, telling Mercy that she never would have forgiven him anyways:

John is, at heart, deeply angry--like most characters in the series, and like a lot of people who grew up in poverty, especially if they managed to escape it. He also has some deep sense of justice, and deep sense of judgment.

So we have this cycle of related emotions and ideas: Justice, judgment, outrage. And a human measure of selfishness, amorality, double standards, etc.

In one situation, this allows him to throw himself completely into the cryo project, something that (if it hadn't been sabotaged politically) could have made a difference to humanity. He brings in people who work to make it even better, who demonstrably want to make the outcome as just and humane as possible. It's also implied that this is part of why he received those powers; "I chose you to change."

(And, I'll be honest, one of the other things that I see that chafes me is the implication that there was nothing about John to recommend him to the Earth. I'm actually of the opinion that there was; she chose him, and I don't think she just rolled a d100 or drew a card off a tarot deck and called him up. John is also still a human, flawed person.)

Then, the situation changes. It's no longer an issue of dedicating expertise to solve a problem; this is a political issue, and specifically of rich people using their resources to shift outcomes towards the one they think will benefit them the most, that will secure their survival, explicitly at the expense of everyone else.

And their strategy is, profoundly: short-sighted and unnecessary (pooling resources would help create a better outcome for everyone, including the rich, by reducing global trauma and preserving more of the systems that already structure their world); bigoted and uninformed (many rich people think that the world has to be a certain way, generally that the world is violent, competitive, dog-eat-dog, etc., and someone has to be "on top", and there will always have to be a loser, or lots of losers); and utterly cruel, unjust, and pointless.

And John--John, who grew up poor, who grew up aware of the despair around him and the injustice of his position and more than likely made use of that anger to achieve what he had up to this point--John is so angry.

Because they're all the same. They're all the same. It's the same song, over and over again, no matter how stupid and pointless and unnecessary. He is certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it doesn't have to be this way. He passes judgment.

But John is losing to them, because he doesn't have the resources they do. He can hate them and fight them all he wants, and it doesn't matter, because he's nowhere near in the same league as they are politically.

And then, after the cryo project is cancelled, he gains his powers.

The thing about anger and judgment is that the deeper it runs, often, the more invested the person who holds that anger in themselves is in not seeing what they hate in themselves. E.g: John has conceptualized the people he's resisting as fundamentally unjust, cruel, amoral, and bigoted. There's a very good chance--to different degrees, depending on the person--that becoming aware of similar traits in himself might wake up those feelings he has towards those other people--aimed at himself (that is, cognitive dissonance). He can't see the things he's passed judgment on in himself and function. He's not like them; he's trying to fix things, to bring about justice.

Of course, there's justice as in "living in a just society", and justice as in "justice for the dead". But that's a later realization, because right now, everyone is still alive.

So John hides those parts of himself; from himself, from other people. So thoroughly he can exclude it from his consciousness and pretend it doesn't exist. He thinks no one sees the real depth of his own rage, his own cutthroat pursuit of a solution. And then, when he can't pretend it doesn't exist, he can still pretend to be the man he thinks they need him to be. He can "fool" them. He can say--he's trying. He screwed up. He doesn't know what he's doing.

And then, Casseiopeia says, No, actually, we know you, and we know you're horribly vindictive. And we're on your side--we're on the same side--our fight is your fight--and we love you. But your drive for revenge is seriously limiting your ability to imagine and create a living, just world, and that's what we're fighting for. Remember? That's what we set out to create.

And John's brain can't quite handle this; he can't imagine that they could actually see him and still be on his side. Because he couldn't see that and still be on his side. He can't forgive; he can't imagine forgiveness.

He can't see the things he's passed judgment on in himself and function.

And, by this stage, in some ways, it's already too late to change course. But this is one of several "come to Jesus" (no pun intended) moments where John could become aware of alternatives, or could change his behavior--and doesn't.

And I think this is where we get that self-awareness from, the thing that makes him creepy and tragic but also infuriating: He is aware, but apparently that's not enough to stop him from being his worst self--so is he just pretending to be moral? Capable of making different choices but choosing not to? And the weird statements he makes later:

This is, imo, not a power-hungry dictator who genuinely doesn't care about the cost of his throne, or a gleefully predatory abuser. This is a dude who's committed to a course of action and doesn't feel great about it. This is a guy who has violated his own sense of justice and has to live with it.

This is a guy who set out to save the world, killed it, and now the only thing that's left to him is to avenge it.

And like, from a mythology standpoint, that is exactly what the Erinyes are, like the Furies and Alecto. They are not the justice of Apollo or Athena. They are screaming for blood. They are hunting their quarry to the ends of the universe. They are chthonic.

Again: This isn't what Cassieopeia or Christabel said to him. This is what John has said to himself. This came from him. This is a reflection of what he believes.

And it encapsulates, exactly, why he erased their memories. Why he took away their agency.

The difference between him and many, many people is he had the power of a god and no one to check him when he was struggling with his own worst impulses. And then, he created a world where no one could, not just because then he could do what he wanted and pretend to be kind and loving and moral, but so that he would never have to lose the love of the people he needed.

Because, unfortunately, he still needed them.

It just took ten thousand years for the lie to unravel.

#the locked tomb #john gaius #tlt meta #i'm not a john gaius apologist. i just think about cognitive dissonance a lot #and frankly tumblr and twitter are the home of cognitive dissonance

[gloomwitchwrites]

A Clone's Future

CT-7567 Captain Rex x Female Reader

Content & Trigger Warnings: fluff, physical hurt/comfort, light angst, happy ending, domestic elements, brief suggestive themes, kiss, Anakin & Fives make an appearance

Word Count: 4.1k

Rex is a soldier of the Republic. A clone. And it is not worth daydreaming about what it would be like to have a family. But he does just that, not knowing that there is someone out in the galaxy waiting for him.

ao3 // taglist // main masterlist // fluffuary 2024 masterlist

“I saw you eyeing that woman at Seventy Nines.”

Rex glances up from his datapad and flushes, rubbing the back of his neck. Fives grins down at Rex, arms crossed over his chest, one hip slightly popped.

“It was nothing,” mutters Rex, stepping around Fives’ comment.

The corner of Fives’ mouth quirks as he tries to hide a knowing smile. “Nothing? You were practically drooling,” laughs Fives, gently tossing his helmet on the bunk next to Rex’s. “Why didn’t you approach her?”

Rex blinks, confused. “Why would I?”

Fives shakes his head. “She was staring at you too, Captain. We all saw it.”

Rex looks back at the datapad, wanting to be done with this conversation. “And if I talked to her, what then?”

Fives shrugs. “You talk to a beautiful woman. Flirt a bit.” Fives leans in and Rex glances up from the datapad. “Slip into a dark corner for some—”

“That’s enough, Fives,” interjects Rex, his stomach twisting with understanding.

Fives pats Rex’s shoulder and then plops down next to Rex in the bunk. “This war is going to end. What do you plan to do after its over?”

What is he going to do? Rex hasn’t even thought about it. Hasn’t given the idea any life. Rex is a soldier of the Republic. Duty comes first. It always does. Thinking about the future when that future is entirely uncertain will only create heartache in the end.

“Haven’t thought about it,” answers Rex truthfully. Maybe Fives will drop this, and Rex can return to reading the latest war reports.

“Why not?” asks Fives, clearly not interested in moving on.

Rex’s grip on the sides of the datapad tightens.

Why not? Because fantasizing about the future in any capacity leaves Rex vulnerable and open to the realities of his situation. His family are his fellow clones. They are his brothers. All the family he needs is right here. Why would he ever need to consider anything beyond what is already in front of him?

“I don’t see the point,” answers Rex. “We don’t know when this war will end.” He pauses. “And some days we aren’t sure if we’ll even see tomorrow.”

Fives snorts. “That’s the whole reason why you should.”

“Fives—”

“We’re alive, Rex. We are people and we feel. We may serve the Republic, but we deserve to dream like the citizens we protect.” Fives reaches for his helmet and holds it reverently in his lap, the front side facing him. “In peacetime, we deserve a bit of happiness.”

Rex is silent a moment before he speaks. “Are you not happy now, Fives?”

Fives glances up and grins. “I’m happy, Rex. But happiness during peacetime is…different. I want to know what that looks like for us. Dreaming about it isn’t wrong.”

Rex didn’t say that it was wrong, but he’s not going to point that out to Fives.

Fives taps the edge of the helmet against his knee, sighing as he stands. “I’ll leave you to your boring war reports, Rex.” At the door, Fives turns, and grins mischievously. “Next time, if she’s there, you’re talking to her.”

The door to the room whooshes open, and Fives disappears into the hall. When it shuts, Rex is left in the lingering silence, the only sound that of the air filtration system. It hums softly, a dull buzz in the background.

Whenever his mind drifts toward the future—which is almost never—Rex rarely allows himself to linger. Maybe it’s because of his position, and that there are thousands counting on him to lead them. So many of his brothers look to him for guidance, even ones from other sections of GAR. He and Cody are always discussing strategies and offering advice.

Rex tries to live in the moment, to focus on what matters right now. But what Fives said is sinking in, lurking at the back of his mind, and drawing his attention away from the datapad in his hands.

This room is a small barracks area, one for captains and other ranked members of the Clone Army can go to rest. No one else is in here. It’s just him. They’re stationed on Coruscant, waiting to depart for a months long campaign. Rex and the rest of the 501st have some time to relax before returning to the battlefield.

Yes, they did go to 79’s last night. Yes, Rex may have had one too many strong drinks. And yes, Rex couldn’t stop staring at the woman giving him flirtatious glances all night.

Rex might be a clone but he’s still a man.

Locking the datapad, Rex sighs heavily, placing it on the edge of the bed. Tiredness sits in his bones, and Rex gives in to the exhaustion, bringing his legs onto the bunk and laying on his back. He stares at the bunk above him, at the smooth, plain metal, and tries his best to forget everything.

Tries is the key word.

Rex does try, but he cannot stop thinking about Fives and what he said.

He slips unexpectedly, falling into that space, considering the future.

The woman Rex pictures in his mind is faceless. He does not consider her features, or what her hair might be like. He does not consider whether this fictional woman is human or Twi’lek or any other species. Instead, Rex contemplates what he needs in someone else. Would she be soft and kind, someone to smooth out his sharp edges, to help him forget the realities of war, and linger in a calmness that soothes his soul? Or is she sharp witted, adventurous, willing to explore the galaxy and isn’t afraid of danger?

Or is she something else entirely?

Rex floats in the possibilities, of what this woman might be like and what she’d mean to him. Would General Skywalker want to meet her? Would he approve? Is it even allowed to him after the war ends? Will the clones have the right to enjoy the things the citizens of the Republic do?

These questions form in his head quickly but evaporate just as fast. Rex imagines warm arms around him, of knowing that there is always someone waiting for him, to share in all his failures and successes. It is a wonderful sensation, a calming sense of peace that ushers into his head and curls itself around him to take hold.

The physical isn’t entirely important to Rex, but he considers it anyway. He conjures up multiple images, giving the faceless woman hair then lekku then hair again, even picturing the woman he couldn’t stop glancing at while at 79’s. These thoughts bring the woman in his head to life a bit more, as if he’s stoking a fire, protecting the flame from extinguishing.

With his eyes closed, Rex imagines soft hands holding his, moving to his wrists and arms to eventually cradle his cheek. Rex sighs audibly, pretending that there is someone next to him in this bed, curled up against his side with their head on his chest.

But when he reaches across his chest to seek this someone out, his fingers only find empty air.

Rex’s eyelids slowly open, and a heaviness fills his chest. This is why Rex does not entertain thoughts of the future. This is why he lives in the present moment and focuses on the immediate needs of his soldiers and the Republic.

It’s self-indulgent. Unnecessary. That is what Rex tells himself as he turns on his side and tries to find some sleepful peace in the dark.

These streets are a maze, and Rex is utterly lost.

His personal communicator is crushed, and there are slavers on his trail. General Skywalker has no idea that Rex is being pursued. He has no idea that Rex took a blaster shot to the leg or that he’s limping along as he attempts to hide from his assailants.

This is supposed to be an undercover job, a way to figure out where an entire village full of Twi’leks were taken to after disappearing. While General Skywalker pretends to be a slaver interested in buying, Rex’s job is to find another way into where the Twi’leks are being held.

The whole thing fell apart. Crashed. Burnt up like an asteroid entering the atmosphere.

Behind him, his pursuers shout, and people scream. They’re closer than before, and Rex needs to find shelter. He needs to throw them off and return to General Skywalker.

He slips in a puddle, nearly stumbling into a pile of trash.

“Kriffing hell,” mutters Rex, staggering, placing one hand against the side of a building to balance himself.

His chest heaves and his leg is screaming, needing to rest.

Their pounding footsteps grow closer, and Rex takes off, dragging his leg along as he turns the corner. It’s shadowy here, and the street is long and narrow. There is nothing for him to hide in or around. The street is lined with residential buildings. There are entry doors and a few windows on the bottom level, but that won’t give him protection.

Desperation sinks in. Rex tries a few of the nearby doors, receiving no response.

There is a shout from the direction of where Rex just came from. “This way!”

Rex growls with frustration. He turns away from the door of one house, only to freeze when he notices the young woman in an open doorway.

“In here. Quickly.”

Rex glances back once and considers the alternative.

Kriff it, he thinks, entering the dimly lit home, the door whooshing shut behind him. Rex’s leg almost gives out beneath him, a sharp pain shooting up his side. He grunts, starts to double over, and his potential savior comes to him, placing their hands upon him gently.

Realizing that there is another person, Rex glances up quickly, the instinct to survive flaring white and hot and bright.

He finds…you.

And it is not what he expects. Because—no. Rex smothers the thought immediately.

There is a shout right outside the door, and you place a firm hand on Rex’s chest, easing him down toward the floor while holding a single finger up for silence. Rex doesn’t say a word, his gaze flicking between you and the door, and back again.

The voices soften, and then Rex doesn’t hear them at all.

When you sigh with relief, Rex relaxes a bit, knowing that he’s been spared some extra time.

But you? You are a mystery to him. Friend? Or foe?

“You’re hurt.” It’s not a question and Rex immediately likes the sound of your voice. “Heard the shouts,” you continue. “Saw you limping.”

Rex swallows. “Why are you helping me?”

Your smile is soft with a hint of mischievousness. “Do you think I like living amongst slavers?”

Rex shrugs. “Wasn’t really on my mind,” he admits.

“That’s fair,” you laugh. “They rarely treat the people who live here much different from the people they sell. I don’t mind disrupting things for them when I can.”

Friend, then.

Rex can work with that.

You glance down at his leg and frown. Your hand hovers just above the spot where the blaster bolt struck his thigh. Rex grimaces as the pain flares anew, like it knows he’s finally safe and demands immediate treatment.

“Can you stand on it?” you ask gently, placing one hand on Rex’s shoulder. Your palm is warm and a flood of comfort bursts inside him like a dam breaking.

What is it about you that’s different? Why does his body respond to you like he’s safe when his brain can’t seem to make the same connection?

Rex knows but stifles the thought again.

“Was running on it,” jokes Rex, trying to make light of that fact that the pain is a throbbing thing that won’t cease.

The smile you give him is so tooth-rottenly sweet that Rex feels heat warming his cheeks.

“Humor. That’s good.” You lean in a bit and Rex is immediately flustered by your closeness. “Means you’ll live.”

You present your hands, palms upward. They look so soft, so inviting, and Rex accepts. You help him to a fully seated position before sliding an arm around his waist to assist him to his feet. Rex drapes an arm over the back of your shoulders as the two of you hobble along.

You lead Rex into a small bedroom. The bed itself is unmade; the sheets tossed around like you’ve slipped out just to come to his rescue. For some reason, Rex pictures this happening, and then quickly dismisses it.

Easing onto the bed is hell, and Rex winces as you help him to his back. Thankfully, Rex isn’t wearing his armor, which will make tending to the wound much easier.

“May I take a look?”

Rex nods and you seat yourself next to him on the edge of the bed. When your hands touch his thigh, a shiver runs through him like an electrical current. You hum softly as you lightly press around the spot of the burn. Rex tries to stay calm, but in this prone position, Rex is only focused on your face.

He learns the line and curves, all your small tells, and the subtle way you tilt your head as you observe him. On Kamino—on any Republic vessel really—most of the medical care is run by droids, Kaminoans, and clones. It is mainly automated. Impersonal.

This isn’t.

You’re so close and delicate, taking so much care with him that Rex is void of words, only wanting you to keep giving him this attention. That memory, the one where he imagined what he wants creeps up unexpectedly, choking him.

Is this the feeling that Fives talked about? Is this the pull, the tug of what it means to try and find happiness outside of just duty to the Republic? Or is Rex only indulging himself while in the hands of a stranger?

“I have some bacta spray and bandages. I’ll be back in a moment.” When you stand, a momentary wave of panic grips Rex out of nowhere, stunning him.

What the kriffing hell is going on with him?

You’re back within a minute, placing the small box next to you as you return to your previous spot on the bed. Rex is instantly calm, relaxing as you consider where you want to begin.

“Could—” you pause. “It would be easier if the pants weren’t in the way. I can cut them or—”

“It’s fine,” replies Rex. “I can…remove them.”

Your eyes widen. “No. I didn’t mean—”

“Oh—”

“But if you want—”

“It’s—”

“I can cut it.”

“Yes,” nods Rex, relieved. “Yes.” Rex could start a fire with how hot his cheeks are.

With delicate fingers, you slowly cut away a perfect rectangle in his pants where the blaster burn is. Placing the cutters aside, you remove the bacta spray from the box.

“It’ll be cold.”

“I know,” answers Rex quickly.

Your eyebrows rise toward your hairline. “Is it normal for you to be hit by blaster fire?”

Kriff me.

“It’s a hazard of the job,” says Rex slowly.

Your lips part like you’re about to say something and then think better of it. “I won’t ask.” Your smile speaks to quiet amusement, and it feels like this one look is only for him. That this is something the two of you are sharing. That no one else is allowed to see inside.

The hiss of the bottle fills the room, and Rex momentarily flinches as the bacta spray hits his burn. Once done, you withdraw a gauze pad. With the other hand, you gently reach for Rex, lifting his own hand.

“Hold this for me,” you murmur, and the sound of your voice is so soft that Rex cannot resist your command.

Rex does as you ask, keeping the gauze pad pressed to the covered blaster burn. You unspool some bandages, and then begin wrapping his leg. You do not go over the pants. Instead, you slide your hand into the opening you created, guiding the end of the bandages underneath to the other side of his thigh.

It all feels too intimate, and Rex can’t help but linger on how close your hand is to something else.

“You can move your hand now.”

“Right,” mutters Rex, blinking quickly, trying to stare at the ceiling but failing completely.

Your subdued giggle draws his attention back to your face. Tying off the bandages, Rex mourns the loss of your hands when you draw away.

“All done.” You grin, and Rex melts. “I’ll grab you water and something to eat. We can talk after. Figure out a plan.”

We, as if it’s completely natural for you to help him, a stranger.

You bring him water first, and then go back to the small cooking unit, digging around for a pan to cook with while also grabbing ingredients. You shouldn’t do this for him, and yet you are. Rex’s military training tells him to be on guard, to be weary of you even if you’re showing him kindness. But that doesn’t sit right with him. Questioning your motivations taste wrong on his tongue, like he’s the bad person in this situation.

Watching you there next to the cooking unit, tending to him, it draws forth those memories again. Everything about this is too…domestic. Him reclining in bed as someone takes care of him for once is such a foreign thing. Odd. Almost forbidden.

He drifts, allows his mind to daydream of what a life like this could be like. With him, at rest for once, and someone close to him, wanting to do things for him just because they desire to do so.

But Rex doesn’t just think of someone. He thinks of you, and he sinks further and further into the daydream until the Republic, the war, and everything else in his life is a distant point in the galaxy.

But Rex needs to find General Skywalker. And you are a distraction. Healing is important but contacting Skywalker is even more urgent.

The meal you bring him is hot and so kriffing fresh that Rex nearly moans with pleasure. He could get used to this.

“Is it too intrusive to ask why you were running?” you ask, clasped hands resting in your lap. You’re sitting in the same spot on the edge of the bed, not opting to grab a chair or to sit anywhere else.

“I was poking around where I shouldn’t. Got caught.” Rex takes another bite and it’s better than the last.

“Are you alone? Or is there someone I can try to contact for you?” You shrug. “Don’t think it’s a good idea to turn you loose in the streets.”

“No,” laughs Rex. “Bad idea.” Your slightly embarrassed smile pleases him. While Rex ponders that, he also realizes he doesn’t know your name. “Here I am eating your food and sleeping in your bed. And I didn’t ask you your name.”

You give it without question and ask him the same. Rex considers whether or not he should tell you his real name or the fake one General Skywalker gave him for the job.

“It’s Rex,” he finally answers.

“Rex,” you say, as if rolling it around on your tongue, considering it and him, almost testing it out. Rex likes the way you say it. There is a soft sigh in the way you breathe his name. “Rex.”

“Just Rex.”

“Okay, Just Rex.”

He nearly chokes with laugher on the next bite of food. Once he clears his throat, Rex decides to be as honest as he can. “I’m traveling with someone. I need to find them.”

“I’ll go,” you say. “You shouldn’t leave.” Even though you’re staring at him, you still reach out and place a hand on his knee. You don’t break eye contact, and the earnestness is startling.

Rex gives you General Skywalker’s fake name and where you might find him. “It might be dangerous,” he says, trying to iterate the severity of the situation.

You squeeze his knee with a smile and stand, going to the closet to dig around. When you turn around, you hold up a large blaster. “I can handle myself.”

Using the strap, you secure it over your chest, the blaster hanging to the side. “I’ll be back. Don’t open the door for anyone.” You give him a little salute and Rex watches you leave through the front door.

The healing agent in the bacta spray and the need for rest creeps up. When the food is gone, Rex places the bowl to the side, slipping back into the daydream.

“Sleeping, Rex?”

Rex nearly launches himself off the bed. “General Skywalker,” he breathes, relief flooding his chest.

In the small doorway, you stand quietly, hands clasped tightly in front of your chest. You found him and even brought Skywalker with you.

He stops next to the side of the bed. “Glad you’re okay.”

Rex shrugs. “You would have come for me eventually.”

General Skywalker grins and nods his head. “That I would, Rex. I don’t like leaving my men behind. Especially you.” He glances at you standing in the doorway, and then turns back to Rex, one eyebrow arching in question. Rex nods, acknowledging Skywalker’s silent ask.

He exhales and approaches you. “Thank you. For taking care of my friend.” General Skywalker’s inclines his head in your direction.

“Of course. It’s nothing. Really.”

Skywalker holds out his hand and Rex clasps it. He drags Rex up to a seated position. “How’s the leg?”

“It’ll heal,” answers Rex. It’s already feeling better with the bacta spray on it.

“Can you walk?”

Rex stands. Wobbles. Remains upright. “I can manage, General.”

Skywalker glances at Rex’s torn pants. “We need to fix that.” He starts to remove his outer cloak and Rex shakes his head. “Don’t question it, Rex.”

Rex reluctantly grabs the cloak from General Skywalker and wraps it around himself, hiding the blaster burn. You step out of the way of the door to allow them exit. Rex’s glances at you and your lips turn upward.

At the door, Rex pauses, wanting to stay just a few minutes longer. “Thank you,” he says softly.

“Just avoid blaster bolts. If you can. For me.”

The back of Rex’s neck heats up and he exits the small house with a nod of his head. When the door whooshes shut, General Skywalker’s muted grin turns devilish.

“What?” asks Rex, flustered.

“You like her,” says Skywalker.

“I—I don’t.” Rex straightens his shoulders. “Why do you think that?”

General Skywalker taps the side of his head with one finger. “Jedi.”

“Sir. That explains nothing.”

“The feeling is mutual, Rex,” calls Skywalker over his shoulder as he starts walking down the street.

Rex nearly trips. “What’s mutual?” he asks, already knowing what his general means but not wanting to admit it to himself. General Skywalker gestures in the direction of your home. “No,” blurts Rex. “That’s not true.”

General Skywalker’s knowing grin is enough to silence him.

“You’ll see her again, Rex. I have a good feeling about it.”

“You’re doing a good thing, Rex. Even if you can’t always see it.” Your fingers slide over his jaw to gently cup his cheek. Rex leans into the touch, sighing heavily. “Saving one is an accomplishment, and you have rescued so many.”

After the Republic fell, and Rex and Ahsoka parted ways, he came to find you, only to bring you along with him on his journey to save his brothers’. You’re not on the frontlines, standing by his side in Imperial complexes, executing daring rescues. Rex wouldn’t allow that of you even if you insisted. You’re good with a blaster but you’re no soldier and losing you might shatter him.

Instead, you stay on Coruscant, awaiting each of his returns, ready to take care of, and look after, any clones Rex brings back with him. You never complain. Never waiver. You are his rock, a home for him to find a bit of peace from the unending injustices of the galaxy.

With your hand upon his cheek, you lean into him, resting your forehead against the side of his temple. “You’re a good man, Rex. I know that you know that.”

Rex’s fingers intertwine with yours. Bringing your hand up to his face, he gently kisses every knuckle and each finger. Sighing, you press lightly on his cheek, guiding Rex’s face in your direction. There is no brief pause or wanton hesitation. Rex knows where he stands with you, and his lips meet with your own in perfect satisfaction.

The future he dreamed of is here, with you, while rescuing his brothers.

The Empire is vast. It is powerful. But he is not alone. And that, the shared experience of companionship, is a hope in the face of a looming darkness.

taglist:

@padawancat97 @foxxy-126 @glassgulls @km-ffluv @sweetbutpsychobutsweet @singleteapot @garfunklevibes2012 @tiredmetalenthusiast @childofyuggoth @coffeecaketornado @kayden666 @cherryofdeath @enfppixie @ninman82 @beebeechaos @no-oneelsebutnsu

#captain rex #captain rex x reader #captain rex x you #captain rex fanfiction #captain rex fic #captain rex fluff #tcw rex x reader #ct 7567 #clone captain rex #the clone wars #tcw fanfic #tcw rex #star wars fluff #star wars fanfiction #star wars fanfic #star wars fic #rex x reader #rex x you #star wars clone wars #clone fluff #sw fluff #sw fic #sw fanfic #tcw fanfiction #star wars fanfics #clone wars fic #captain rex x fem!reader #captain rex x female reader #captain rex x f!reader #tcw fic

[aliveinacoffin]

A Difference In Fate

You knew Miguel had been hiding something from you, you just didn't know what. Stupidly, you thought the best of him.

TW: Agressive Miguel lmao

You weren't meant to find out.

Miguel wasn't sure for how long he'd hide it from you. Maybe a month, a year, forever. It didn't matter.

He'd only known you for a short amount of time, but he knew he was too late when he started to worry about what you thought about him. When Miguel told you about what happened to Gabrila and that universe, he felt a deep shame he'd never felt before. Yes, he lived with the guilt that came from destroying an entire fucking universe and all the billions of innocent people inside, but he was also terrified that you'd leave him because of it.

When you didn't, after a night of tears and shame, he knew he'd never let you go. Even if it killed him.

Which is why he lied, when he had that meeting about Miles that you had missed, he lied and said that it was nothing.

When you asked why Lyla wouldn't give you a rundown of the meeting, he lied again and said it must be faulty in her coding, and that the files couldn't be recovered.

Sure he felt guilty about lying to you, but he more so felt a sense of anxiety about when you'd find out, not if.

Another thing Miguel loved and appreciated about you, was that you were incredibly acute and intelligent. Nothing ever went past you when it came to people or plans. You always quickly noticed the small details or came up with new strategies.

That, and that you were just incredibly fucking lucky.

___________________________________________

"So, what do you think about that last meeting?" Peter B. Parker from Earth 616B asked you, catching you off guard from the paper you were reading. His tired eyes and five o'clock shadow seemed worse than ever. He seemed to be having a rough day since the whole morning he had been mostly silent, like there was a weight in his mind holding him down to drag him to the depths of hell.

"Oh, I didn't make it. What was it about, anyway?" You shrugged, spider mask pulled up to your forehead to take a bite out to the 'Original Spiderman Burger'

He stared at you for a bit, blue eyes watching your movements. "Did Miguel not tell you?" He asked, genuinely taken aback at your lack of knowledge of the situation.

You chewed quickly, covering your mouth while trying to answer as fast as you could. "No, and he still won't. I want to know! Was it about something embarrassing?" You laughed, grabbing your drink.

"It was about the anomaly." Peter said, voice curt and timid.

You raised an eyebrow at his odd behavior, usually, you and Peter easily bounced off one another, both your jovial and rather silly personalities perfect companies for each other. To see him being so quiet with you was worrying.

"I got that man, just tell me, I don't bite. My teeth aren't as sharp as Miguels." You elbowed him, smiling like you would a timid cat. You took another drink to try and give off a relaxed aura, but inside your heart was picking up with his lack of relaxation.

"It's-the anomaly is the kid I talk to you about all the time. He was never meant to be a Spider-Man. We're not allowed to interact with him in any way until we figure out a way to find a solution." Peter said solemnly, turning to hunch over his uneaten food. His own masked burger staring back at him.

You scoffed with liquid in your mouth, swallowing before giving out a barking laugh. "What does that even mean? Not meant to be Spider-Man, who's meant to be Spider-Man? It just happens, it's luck not fate." You grumbled, face screwed up half in disbelief and half in genuine confusion. Suddenly you jerked up in shock, and quickly turned to the older man.

"Isn't he the kid that made you want to have a baby in the first place?" You placed a hand on Peter's shoulder, feeling his cold shoulder through the soft fabric of his suit.

"Yeah." Was all he said, a grave look on his face.

You tilted his shoulder at you, and watched his eyes slowly move over to your kind face. "Hey man, don't worry about it. Miguel seems tough, but on the inside, he's just a big softie. Trust me, I'd know. I sleep with the man every night. We'll figure it out, alright?" You reassured him, smiling brightly at him.

Peter looked down again and hit his fist on the counter. "Yeah, you're right. It always works out in the end, huh?" Peter's voice was strong like all the hope he had lost was now found and stronger than ever.

___________________________________________

"It's kind of sad, you know? Like, it wasn't his fault he wasn't supposed to be Spider-Man." Pavitr Prabhakar said, hands deftly working to fidget with his yo-yo.

Both your guy's hair swayed softly in the warm Mubattan air. You played with the bottom of your spider suit feet. "Yeah, sounds like he's just a kid."

"Well, I'm sure it'll figure itself out, after all, we're all Spider-People right? Everything is great!" Pavitrs voice got fainter as he whipped away, probably going off to swing around Gayatri's neighborhood.

You looked off into the sunset, eyes squinting at the bright light of the sun. Still, you basked in the warmth as you sat, just pondering and mulling over your feelings over the whole situation.

You liked Pav, as you've all started calling him, his happy-go-lucky and glass-half-full personality was infectious, and he was overall just a joy to be around.

It made you have a gut-wrenching bad feeling, especially since he hadn't had his canon event yet. You wished there was a way for him to just be happy and be Spider-Man without the life-altering loss that came with it.

___________________________________________

"That's the price you have to pay when you become Spider-Man." Miguel said later that evening, sitting at the table while he filtered through emails, videos, and reports.

You came over and kissed his head, swiping away all the red screens taking over your shared table. Instead, you replaced his work with food, more specifically asada quesadillas.

"Okay sure, but he's just a kid y'know? Like, he's barely able to drive a car and now has this duty to protect a whole ass city. Let alone deal with an unbearable loss that would break a full gown adult." You challenged, staring at your boyfriend across the table. You had brought up your feelings about Pav and how the guilt of his misfortune weighted you down.

You still haven't told him that you know about the kid. Miles. For some reason, a part of yourself told you that you should. That you should hide that knowledge because for some reason a part of you thought he'd be upset. No, knew he'd be mad.

"It's the fate of the universe." He sighed, eating his food as if the whole conversation was boring.

"But what does that mean? Doesn't fate bring in the idea of gods or goddesses? A higher power saying this should be the way? And what about destiny? Then doesn't that bring in the question of whether or not it's real, let alone that we have to abide by those rules?" You started, rambling about the subject. This whole situation seemed wrong, like Miguel's ideals weren't quite right. You knew Miguel was intelligent, insanely so that he created his own AI and created a multi-diversional portal travel and created a society within his universe to combat world-breaking enemies.

Still. Something about this was wrong.

Miguel growled out your name, dropping his food on his plate to stare at you so intensely it made you gulp. He clenched his fists on the table, obviously trying to hold back his anger before he spoke to you.

"You know what happened to me when I tried to break the rules. God or not, things happen for a reason." Miguel said, eyes lowering to try and continue eating.

"What about us? We're from different universes, yet we live together, and we're dating. Are we fate? Or are we pure coincidence?" You asked, trying to get him to explain in a more logical reasoning like you know he's capable of.

Miguel slammed his fist on the table, rattling the dishes placed down and you. "Can we drop this? This conversation is going nowhere." He was getting angry, you could tell. But still, something in you nagged and ate away at your soul.

"Yes, perdón amor." Your eyes fluttered down, and you gulped away the hot stinging of your throat.

"I'm sorry hermosa, but you know this is the only way." Miguel offered, holding his hand out across the table to reassure you.

You met him halfway, and smiled at him shakily. Still, you didn't believe him.

___________________________________________

"He was your friend?" You asked curiously while you went over the blueprints for the watches. You wanted to customize yours further, so you invaded Lyla's security, (asked pretty please), and now were trying to see what changes you could make.

Gwen Stacy was behind you, arms crossed while she looked to a wall, dissociating. "Yeah, and I can't see him at all even though I want to. So badly." She sighed, tired eyes looking down. You looked back to her, offering a sad smile.

"We'll figure it out honey, I'm sure."

"Why are you dating Miguel?" She suddenly asked, and at those words, you whipped around and gave her an incredulous look. Your hands on your hips with a disbelieving smile.

Both of you looked up to see Hobart walking in, sauntering over to your workstation. "Hey." He nodded up to both of you, immediately going through your files.

Both you and Gwen greeted him before you turned your attention back to the girl. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're just so nice and understanding while Miguel is...well Miguel." She said, exasperation filling her voice.

You laughed, brushing her off. "Hes not that complicated, just rough around the edges, I promise."

"What do they say, love is blind?" Hobie spoke up, eyes hyper-focused on the watch details.

"That's not applicable to this." You waved him off. Walking over, you put both hands on Gwen's slim arms, giving them a grounding squeeze. "Everything will be fine, we just need time to figure out a solution to this problem yeah? Miguel and everyone else has been aware of this problem for a while, it's just now it has a name!" You smile, trying to uplift the depressing mood.

"Yeah, and his name is Miles Morales, a sixteen-year-old kid." Hobie said, his hands drifting down from whatever he was doing with his watch.

You sighed, hanging your head down before you walked back over to your table. "Thank you for the optimism Hobie."

"You're welcome." With that, he walked out.

___________________________________________

That conversation went the same with Jess and many other members of the spider society, saying that 'taking care of' Miles would be for the greater good.

But what is the greater good? What good were the protecting? Apparently, Miles's universe has been doing fine so far, what's so wrong with that?

Apparently, his whole existence was flawed.

At the end of that day, when everyone either went home or started a night shift to find out where Miles had gone, Miguel returned home.

When he opened the door, he half expected you to be at the table or living room searching for Miles for him, to be directing people, or actively searching for him with Miguel. Of course, he knew you really wouldn't be.

Miguel only returned home to check up on you, after everything.

The whole time you had stood back, and without his knowledge helped Miles escape Miguel's wrath. But he didn't know that.

The front door creaked open, and Miguel was greeted with a dark and quiet house. The only light that was seen was the yellow light of your shared bedroom down the hall.

When he closed the door and silently crept in his own home, he could hear quiet sobbing coming from the room

"Amor?" He peeked in his room, fully stepping in at seeing your hunched-over form. Basically in the fetal position, sitting at the edge of your bed you had your hands on your head.

You looked up, and when he saw your face he immediately stepped back. Rage still filled him, but seeing you made him completely break down.

Your face was one of pure fury, an anger so deep and true it morphed your wet face into something unnatural. Your hair was wild and messy, your face also covered in small scratches form god knows what, and your knuckles were white from how hard you were clenching them.

"What the actual fuck are you doing here? Don't you have a child to murder?" Your snarled mouth pulled back to show off your teeth. Even though you didn't have fangs like him, doesn't mean a bite from you wouldn't hurt.

Instantly, Miguel snapped back. "Don't you dare-"

"No, shut the fuck up. What the fuck was that? Who even are you?" You asked, standing up to your full height.

"I was-am stopping an anomaly from destroying the entire multiverse. I'm saving-" Miguel's voice was raising by the word, his large build hunching over to try and intimidate you.

"Don't talk about him like he's not a child! Don't act like you're not hunting down a literal child? What is wrong with you?!" You screamed, voice raw from the running and crying you'd done all day.

"This. This is what I didn't want to tell you! You don't understand the gravity of the situation! Pinche-" He started, eyes glowing that sparkling red you had grown to love after the long three years you'd known Miguel.

Now they just disgusted you.

"I knew! I've known this whole fucking time! But I trusted you to know what to do, because I love you, and I know you're so smart. But this? I-i can't-" You turned around, hands shakily typing frantically into your watch.

"Lo siento, lo siento preciosa, no quise gritar-" Suddenly Miguels voice was filled with sorrow, and he reached out to hold you in his arms. The same arms that held you, cradled you, strapped you down, and lifted you up.

"Stop, just stop." You sobbed, quickly opening a portal to god knows where, just anywhere but here-

Miguel called out your name, and you turned around to see his eyes piling with tears. His face twisted into the most pained face you've ever seen, his fangs popping out of his lips, his mouth pulled back to a vicious snarl, and his eyebrows furrowed down so deep he grew another crease in his forehead.

You looked down to hold back another sob, shaking your head while walking closer to the portal.

You didn't even glace back at him when you left.

#across the spiderverse #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader angst #miguel x reader #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel spiderman #across the spiderverse x reader #spiderman across the spiderverse #atsp spoilers #spiderman 2099 x reader #spiderman 2099 #spiderverse #miguel spiderverse #spider gwen #hobie spiderverse #ghost spider #fanfiction #angst #miguel o'hara angst #miguel angst #sobbing #but he deserves it

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Idia Shroud - Platinum Jacket Vignette

"Happy 100th Anniversary"

[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]

Idia: Look at all these dynamic brushstrokes that can only truly be appreciated because they're from a real painting… Fheehee! This is the real thrill of seeing one live!

Idia: ―Ah! Th-Th-Th-This is…! A PAINTING OF THE LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD ON HIS CHARIOT!!!

Idia: It hits so hard～ In order to rescue a captured comrade, the king himself rushes to the front lines… Oooowee～ Doesn't that just get your heart pumpin'?

???: Indeed… However, is it appropriate for a dutiful commander to leave his base and head to the front lines?

Idia: Eeek!!! Silver-shi!? D-Don't just cut in when I'm talking to myself like that. This is why I can't deal with extroverts…

Silver: My apologies for startling you. I found your comment to be interesting, so I could not help but chime in.

Idia: E-Even if you think it's interesting, don't you think your impression of him was pretty shallow just from this one anecdote...?

Silver: Meaning?

Idia: I-If he was just a minister or something, he coulda just split after setting up the strategy, leaving it to his subordinates to execute everything.

Idia: But he still went to such a dangerous place to stir up morale, because that mission would be the linchpin of the whole battle. So, basically…

Idia: That means his responsibility meter is through the roof!! Wheeew, he's a totally different breed than any naïve and useless politician who just hoists their title around.

Silver: So you're saying that he himself went out there because it was a crucial situation. I would say that he does have an overwhelming sense of responsibility, indeed.

Silver: Hearing your opinion on the matter has allowed me to delve deeper into understanding this painting and its story. You are quite wise.

Idia: S-Sure, yeah～! You should follow my example and study up on things a little better, Silver-shi!

Silver: I will do just that. …However, it feels as though what you said about how other leaders may act had some weight behind it.

Silver: I had heard that you took up the title of Housewarden after being recommended by the previous Housewarden...

Silver: Was that because you had had previous experience as a leader, and were thus therefore chosen for the position?

Idia: Huh!? N-No, nuh-uh, wut are you even talking about? No way, no way… 'Sides, I'm more of a solo player even in my online games, y'know?

Idia: I mean, sometimes I've taken the lead of a party when I absolutely had to for a raid, or something…

Silver: As I expected, you do have experience in leadership.

Idia: It's not that big a deal… I mean, I got a reliable battle buddy who tanks and usually takes the lead.

Idia: Generally, I go for healing or DPS roles. Or more like, I just stack as many buffs as I can to increase firepower.

Idia: But it's not like our schedules always line up, so whenever he's not around, I take the lead… Because I have to!

Idia: It's usually the high-level players with great skills that take on the leader role. And in that case, I've basically maxed out all my stats in every position, so…

Idia: And I can grasp what the scenarios call for, see? And I can also play the tank roles to take charge on the front lines, right???

Idia: "Thanks to you, I was able to clear this high-level quest! I'm so thankful to have joined this party!"

Idia: …THEY SAY, ELECTING ME MVP OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

Idia: And I was just taking on the leader role because I had to. I'm just way too good…

Silver: So, those who fought alongside you showered you with gratitude. That just proves even further your leadership capabilities.

Idia: I-I wouldn't go that far― …Or maybe, just a little bit further? H-Hee Fheeheeheehee!

Idia: But also, I don't want to deal with failing a quest because some loser was placed in charge, so.

Idia: So I guess next time I have to put together a party, if my friend isn't available, I'll just have to lead them all again!

Idia: Wheeew, it's hard being so awesome～!

[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]

Silver: This is a painting of a lion, warthog, and a meerkat, I see. The three of them are singing a song and seem to get along well.

Idia: Ain't they waaay too upbeat, to be able to sing while walking like that? Like, this painting shows the lion crown prince that was forced to leave his own country…

Idia: It's showing him singing along with some friends he ended up making, while he tries to ignore that pain, right?

Idia: Lucky him, that they chose to glorify his hiatus from his royal duties like this. Tch!

Silver: I've heard that singing can raise one's spirits. Perhaps they all wanted to brighten their own moods.

Idia: Speaking of singing to take your mind off stuff, there was this one time when I was a kid when my little brother was too scared to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night…

Idia: So we would go there while singing the theme song of our favorite anime together.

Idia: Eh, anyway, whatever their reason for singing, having that moon in the background composition like that's super moving. Kinda like what you'd see in an MV.

Silver: Em-vee…?

Idia: Eh… Y-You don't know what a music video is? It's a video recording that goes along with music and lyrics…

Silver: Ah, so you call those MVs. I understand.

Idia: I-If you feel like checking out some MVs sometime, I'd recommend the idol group "Precipice Moirai."

Idia: Premo's MVs are so awesome that you could watch them 100 times and never tire of them…!

Silver: 100 times… That's quite a lot. Is that generally something you'd watch so often?

Idia: A true fan would absolutely! More like, it's way too insolent to think that you could truly appreciate their MV with only one watch!

Idia: The first watch is all about enjoying the song and video in its entirety. The next three times the focus is shifted to checking out each of the three members' dance moves and expressions one by one.

Idia: Next, there's the actual composition of the MV, and digging deep into the actual message of the video… At a minimum, it should be watched ten times.

Idia: On top of all that, Premo's super casual MVs can put even a film director to shame!

Idia: There's no way to fully comprehend their art with only a couple viewings. That's why it needs to be viewed hundreds of times.

Silver: I had no idea their work was that deep… It may prove useful in training me better in emotional expressions, and perhaps could even be incorporated into the academy's music courses.

Idia: N-No, I mean, you don't gotta go that far… But it's great that you know just how awesome they are.

Idia: Even between us Premo fans, there's always those who still don't understand their art at all…

Idia: Every time a new MV comes out, there's always people saying stuff like, "She got the most screen time," or "She's definitely the manager's favorite," and the like…

Idia: But does that have anything to do with the quality of their work? It doesn't, right? They don't care about understanding the heart or essence of the songs.

Silver: I see… I feel as though I have learned a lot from you, Idia-senpai.

Silver: When we return to campus, I will look into, hm… Premo? Yes, Premo's music videos.

Idia: Eh, no way!? S-S-Seriously!? They have all their latest MVs on their official Magicam account!

Idia: P-PLEASE WATCH THEM! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]

Idia: Ooh, here's the Sea Witch floating in the darkness… She's got a nice, bewitching smile going, too.

Silver: This is a painting depicting the scene of when the Sea Witch drew up a contract.

Silver: If I recall, it was said that the contract was so unbreakable that even a powerful spear couldn't rip through it.

Idia: I mean, you'd think that just having a contract that doesn't tear apart or bleed ink in water is strong enough...

Silver: Perhaps the contents of the contract was dire enough she did not wish it broken.

Idia: Who cares about the contents, the material of the contract is way more interesting. How high of a defense stat did it even have to not get ripped up by a spear?

Idia: But I totally get it, everyone wants to make invincible things every so often.

Silver: I cannot say I understand, but… What sort of thing would you make, Idia-senpai?

Idia: Like a "game console power cord that can never be taken away," or something like that… A-Actually, I tried to make something like that when I was a kid.

Idia: Whenever I'd play video games all day and into night, my mother would end up hiding all my cords.

Idia: If all she did was hide them, I could just make myself a new one, but she'd hide the cord materials as well. Totally overboard!

Idia: So I had a thought. I had to do something so she couldn't hide it!

Silver: I can only imagine your mother was concerned for your health… Did you never consider quitting your games?

Idia: Why would I? Ahh, but I really did burn the midnight oil like a little worker bee back then.

Idia: Like, I'd put a motion sensor on it, so that the cord could automatically run away from whoever was holding it...

Idia: Or I'd make the cord transparent so it couldn’t be found, or attach a homing function to it so it'd come back on its own…

Idia: And finally, after many failed attempts… I finally did it…!

Idia: I MADE A TRANSPARENT POWER CORD THAT ONLY RECOGNIZES THE AUTHORIZED USER!!

Silver: I do not really comprehend what that is, but… It is amazing that you invented something with your own two hands.

Idia: Nope, not at all.

Idia: My family also has a real stubborn genius, and every time I came up with some tech, it'd quickly get shot down by some kind of countermeasure...

Idia: And it took me a few months of that game of cat and mouse before I realized I should just convert my game console to wireless.

Idia: Hmph… But the peace and quiet that came from switching to wireless didn't last long at all...

Idia: Soon after, the Final Boss appeared: a device capable of disabling all wireless tech within a 10-meter radius!

Idia: Well, all the experience I got developing the motion sensing and automatic functions helped when I was putting Ortho together…

Idia: So I guess all that trial and error wasn't for nothing.

Silver: Even if you can picture your ideal outcome, it is rather difficult to actually put into action.

Silver: However, you have made real many of your thoughts. I can respect that.

Idia: Wai― What're you trying to say all a sudden? Getting complimented to my face randomly like that is a little scary… W-Wait, is this all a plot to beguile me!?

Silver: A plot? ...Hm, I see it has gotten late. I have kept you for some time. My apologies.

Silver: I am grateful to have heard such wonderful stories from you. Well then, I shall be on my way.

Idia: Whew… I'm exhausted having to actually talk to people for the first time in a while… Ah, this is…

Idia: It's the hero from that one myth. Look at his sparkling expression… He looks like he totally believes the future ahead of his is bright.

Idia: Life doesn't always go as swimmingly as you hope, though… Hope he doesn't get too excited that he gets carried away by the river of the underworld!

Requested by Anonymous.

#twisted wonderland #twst #idia shroud #silver #twst idia #twst silver #twst translation #twst birthday #mention: ortho