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#tutorials in under a minute

htlifestyle · 1 year

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Easy Everyday Makeup in 10 minutes | Beauty Basics | HT Lifestyle

Makeup under 10 mins? Today, we are going to show you how you can do this simple everyday makeup in under 10 minutes. If you’re a beginner, don’t worry, this is super easy to do. Let’s start!

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art · 20 days

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Creator Spotlight: @camberdraws

Hello! My name is Camber (any pronouns), and I’m a mixed media illustrator located in the southwestern United States. I love drawing everything, but I have a special interest in depicting strange creatures and environments, often accompanied by abstract imagery and mark-making. Professionally, I’ve worked creating concept art and 2D assets for museum exhibits, but currently, I am engaged full-time as a software developer and make standalone illustrations in my free time. I’ve been posting art on Tumblr since I was a teenager, and the site has been very welcoming towards my work to this very day!

Check out Camber’s interview below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

I’ve had an interest in drawing since I was barely sentient, but at thirteen years old I decided to become “serious” about art. I was all about reading tutorials and doing a ton of studies. I would tote my heavy instructional art books to school every single day (my poor back!) Despite all this, I decided to forgo art school in favor of a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at my local college. Alongside my major, I received a minor in Art Studio with a specialization in fine art, which totally changed my views on creating artwork and drastically changed my style.

How has your style developed over the years?

As mentioned previously, my style did a 180 after I studied under some very skilled fine art professors! As a kid, my drawings were very realism-heavy and inspired by video game concept art. I mostly worked digitally, too. During college, I was thrown for a loop when we were instructed to do strange things like, for example, make a bunch of marks on paper using pastel, WITHOUT looking, and then turn said marks into a finished piece of art! I quickly and deeply fell in love with abstract work, and especially appreciated images that are not easily parsed by the viewer. Since then, I’ve made it my goal to combine abstract mark-making with more representational subject matter.

What is one habit you find yourself doing a lot as an artist?

Hmmm, one habit I really enjoy as an artist is strictly tracking the amount of time I spend drawing! I currently work a full-time job wholly unrelated to art, so I have to be careful with my time if I want to spend enough hours drawing each week. I created a spreadsheet that allows you to enter the amount of minutes you’ve drawn each day and calculate how much drawing time you still need to reach your weekly goal (I aim for 20 hours a week.) Having such a clear, numbers-based objective keeps me motivated to work like nothing else!

Over the years as an artist, what were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

I know this is a common inspiration, but Hayao Miyazaki’s work has been rewiring my neurons since I was a child. Seemingly all of my artistic interests can be summed up by the movie Princess Mononoke: it has strange/abstract creature designs, a strong focus on nature and environmental storytelling, and a mix of dark and hopeful themes. Additionally, I’ve been deeply inspired by video game series such as Zelda, Okami, Pikmin, and Dark Souls. But arguably, none of these have influenced me more than Pokemon! I’ve been drawing Pokemon since I could barely hold a pencil, and I haven’t stopped since! I believe my love of designing creatures originated with my endless deluge of Pokemon fanart during my childhood.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

I’ve always been fascinated by 3D mediums and am so tempted to try them out! Whether that’s 3D models created digitally or sculptures made from clay, I profoundly admire artists who have this skill. Oftentimes, it feels like I don’t have time to delve into a totally different artistic paradigm. However, I feel very strongly that learning new skills can enrich your current work. I should take that advice and someday give 3D mediums a shot!

What is a recent creative project that you are proud of?

I am in the process of creating an art book (a dream of mine!) and have been executing smaller drawings of concepts I find interesting from both a visual and storytelling standpoint. A recent drawing for said book is that of a snail made of ink with an ink bottle as a shell, and it went absolutely viral! I’ve never had an experience like this as an artist before and it has been spectacular! I was able to open a shop using my newly acquired art printer and sell many prints of my snail. Creating something original, directly stemming from my interests, and having that resonate with so many people has been unreal. I couldn’t ask for more as an artist!

What advice would you give to younger you about making art that’s personal or truthful to your own experiences?

I would tell my younger self to chill out and experiment more! I was so caught up in the idea that I needed to have a realistic style to be considered “good.” I also believed that technical skill was the only measure of how worthy my art was. That’s not to say technical skill doesn’t matter, but I now firmly believe the creativity and voice of your ideas far outweigh the skill of execution in terms of importance. Technical skills should elevate ideas, not the other way around. Once I began to revel in strange ideas and stories for my work, depicted oftentimes in odd styles or mediums, I truly found my voice as an artist.

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

My peers here on Tumblr inspire me more than anything! Sharing my work with contemporaries and giving each other support brings me joy like no other, and keeps me motivated to continue creating. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them! @beetlestench, @theogm-art, @trustyalt, @ratwednesday, @phantom-nisnow, @svltart, @mintsdraws, @mothhh-hh, @jupiterweathers, @thesewispsofsmoke, @picoffee, @fetchiko, @kaisei-ink, and @pine-niidles just to name only a few!

Thanks for stopping by, Camber! If you haven’t seen their Meet the Artist piece, check it out here. For more of Camber’s work, follow their Tumblr, @camberdraws!

#creator spotlight #artists on tumblr #camberdraws

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werecreature-addicted · 3 months

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Plsss write smth with lesbian werewolf or cryptid or eldritch horror 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️ I love your writing sm 🤗🤗🤗

Lesbian werewolf who agrees to do housework around your home in exchange for sex and sexual favors. She seems to know a little of everything and no job is too big or too small for her, as long as you're willing to pay of course.

Sure you could pay a plumber to come over and stop your toilet from running, or you could have a couple drinks with her, and she'll get around to fixing your shit eventually, but first you gotta bounce on her thick callous fingers like a good pup, get yourself nice and wet but don't cum- be a good girl for her and she'll get you everything you need.

You could also probably hang a shelf by yourself, there are a million tutorials on YouTube on how to do it, or you could just put a stud finder on her chest and go "found one!" and she'll pound into you for a good three hours straight before she puts up your shelf in under five minutes and goes right back to being in between your legs.

You don't own power tools, why would you? All you have to do is gag on her strap for a little while and she'll let you borrow whatever you need- or if you're a good little slut for her, and finger her while sucking her strap she'll do whatever the fuck it is you need done anyways. Doesn't want her little puppy breaking a nail putting together furniture or whatever.

She's pretty good with just basic around-the-house stuff but she's not as good with cars so if you want her to work on yours it's gonna cost you. Costs exactly one butch werewolf girl sitting on your face until she cums so hard her thighs shake.

Sometimes she comes over, not to fix anything just to drink your beer sit on your couch, and relax after work. She loves it when you rub her shoulders or massage her feet after a long day. You'll whisper that she works too hard, that she deserves to relax and be treated like a princess.

She lays back on the couch and lets you get on top of her she doesn't have to do anything but feel good. Sex is a lot softer and slower when you top, less rushed and animalistic, and more indulgent and doting. no favors, no work to be done. just you and your werewolf princess.

#monster imagine #monster fucker #monster #teratophillia #werewolf #werewolf x reader #werewolves #werewolf girlfriend #monster girlfriend #monster girl #I believe in masc bottoms #and I am a visual learner btw

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rinhaler · 6 months

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i cant stop thinking abt noncon + stepcest Rin who cant control himself anymore after noticing how much his lil step-sister has grown since he was away bc of soccer n shit yk..

(btw your blog is goated)

GOATED WHAT A COMPLIMENT AKGHDSAKLH thank u very much I hope u enjoy this <3

warnings: 18+ MDNI, fem!reader, stepcest, dub/noncon, slight fingering, vaginal sex, nii-chan/rin-nii used, slight degradation, praise, dacryphilia, calls ur pussy 'she', shush kink?

words: 2k

“You’re always flirting with me.” Rin speaks. It’s the first time he’s said anything to you since he got back from Paris. He’s always been cold with you, short-tempered and even cruel. But you hadn’t expected to hear him say something like that.

You scoff, shuffling your position on the couch to get more comfortable to read your magazine. He always notes how often you change your position when you read; you can never sit still for more than a few minutes. You often read with your bedroom door open, and if he passes by to go to the bathroom, you’re always in a different position by the time he walks back to his room again.

“What was that?” he asks, pulling a disgruntled face at your dismissive response. “You think you don’t? You only wear short skirts when I’m visiting. I see your socials.”

“Oh… so, you’re stalking me then?” you giggle. “Don’t flatter yourself, Rin-nii… I jus’ feel pretty like this.” you defend yourself despite knowing he’s right. He thinks you’re dumb, and the fact that you smile and giggle after every word is a dead giveaway. You’re a flirt, and you’re a liar.

He also hates that you’re absolutely right.

Not a day goes by where he doesn’t check your social media profiles. He likes to see what you’re up to and who you’re seeing. It’s only been a recent development, though, he saw a particularly sultry post on your Instagram and he quite frankly hasn’t been the same since. He hadn’t realised you’d grown so much and come into your own. He can’t get you out of his mind.

You gulp a little as he leans forward, his fingers lingering on your chin and guiding your eyes to meet his own. He doesn’t speak immediately. Instead, he opts to examine your responses. The way your forehead forms a tiny bead of sweat under the pressure of his gaze. The way your tongue quickly swipes over your plump lips when his eyes drift to stare at them. The way your breasts almost spill with each heave of your chest as you try and keep your composure.

“Be grateful, little sister. Good nii-chan’s keep an eye on their little sister’s, you know.” he tells you matter-of-factly.

“T- uh, thank you, Rin-nii…” is all you can muster beneath his intense stare. He smirks, too fucking coolly before withdrawing. You close your magazine and stand up, desperate to hurry to your room to calm your nerves. He watches you walk away as he flicks through the channels on the TV.

“Oh God, miss you on my lips… hm-mm-mm…” you sing along with your record player as you listen to Lana Del Rey, following a muted makeup tutorial on your phone to pass the time. You grunt in annoyance when you realise that maybe you aren’t destined to perfect winged eyeliner today.

After locking your phone, you immediately tap the screen to see the time. You almost gasp as you realise it’s 7PM and five hours have passed since you last checked what time it is. Dinner will be ready soon, you grab a makeup wipe and begin to cleanse your skin. You should probably do your skincare, too, but it can wait until right before bedtime.

You examine your face to see if you’ve missed any makeup. Your eyeliner is stubborn but eventually comes off. And so with that, you get up to toss the wipe into the bin in your room.

“Jesus Chri— Rin! What are you doing?” you ask, spotting your elder brother in the doorway of your room. His eyes follow the stained wipe as you drop it into the bin, but his eyes linger on you once more as you wait for him to answer. “Oh… is there something on my face? Thought I got it all…” you tell him, leaning over your dressing table again to make sure your face is spotless.

“Tell me the truth.” he sighs, entering your room without closing the door. You look at him through your mirror before you turn to face him, an eyebrow quirked in confusion as he continues to close the distance. “You flirt with me.”

“This again?” you laugh. You lean back against your dressing table, fingers curling beneath the tabletop as you cross one ankle over the other. You feel heady as he gets closer and you smell his cologne. It doesn’t suit him, you think, but it’s nice. The scent is generic and sporty but Rin Itoshi himself is nothing close to generic.

Though it doesn’t matter, ultimately, not when it’s flooding your senses and drowning your mind.

“You’ve gotten so big…” he sighs, placing a hand on your hip. He smirks at how you shudder from his touch on your bare skin. Your watery eyes make his heart swell, unable to believe how trusting you are. You don’t stop him when his hand smooths over the curve of your ass and fingers dip under your skirt, though you’re trembling. Thick fingers prod at your panties and a tiny mewl escapes your lips. A condescending chuckle leaves him as you uncross your legs, widening them to give him better access. “Your panties are soaked. I knew you wanted me…”

You grab his wrist, urging him to stop when you remember the bedroom door is still wide open. It doesn’t deter him, though. His heavy fingers still press against the material covering your cute little cunt, his bulge growing tenfold when he pushes by your puffy lips to tease your throbbing clit.

“Don’t act coy, now. I know you want this, you opened your legs for nii-chan to play with you.”

“We can’t.” you whisper, biting your lip in a feeble attempt to stifle yourself. “Not l-like this! Not when they’re home… please nii-chan.” you beg, though it’s fruitless. Your eyes flutter closed as his head sinks, his lips meeting your neck to kiss you delicately.

You barely have the energy to fight when he encourages you to hook your legs around his waist. He carries you to the bed, mumbles of protest leave you but you don’t dare make too much noise and draw attention.

“Has to be now, princess.” he tells you. “Don’t know when we’ll get a better chance.” he continues.

You’re trapped beneath him, making a point of looking away from him as he humps against you pathetically. And you want him, of course you want him, but the risk is too high. He’s lost all sense, instead thinking with his cock rather than his brain. But you’re not too far gone yet. You can put a stop to this.

It needs to stop.

“Why are you being like this?” he wonders as he pulls out his length, jerking it slowly all the while still humping the tip against your clothed, wet panties. “I have to do this… little sister. I have to know how tight you are around me.”

“Another time, please! What if we get caught? P-Please stop, you’re smarter than this!” you beg once again, the request falling on deaf ears. You gulp as you feel his fingers hook under the gusset of your panties, moving the material into the crease of your thigh. Your voice breaks, a whiny moan following as he presses his tip into your sticky cunt. The stretch is heavenly, and you can barely catch your breath. His glimmering green eyes staring down at you as he inches further and further into your welcoming warmth makes you feel humiliated. You don’t want this, but fucking hell, you really do. “Aaah~!” you sob.

His palm flies to your mouth, the pressure almost suffocating as lust blown eyes turn impatient.

“Shut the fuck up,” he whispers, still bullying his cock into you. “Gotta be quiet, don’t want our parents to see what a little slut you are for nii-chan, yeah?” he warns you.

You don’t know what to do with yourself. You aren’t sure where to put your hands. They grip into the duvet below before you begin pulling at his shirt. He doesn’t have the patience to take it off, though, not when you’re sucking him in and squeezing around him like a fucking virgin. Are you? He doesn’t want to know. His head dips as your nails begin to claw up his back, marking your territory unintentionally.

He moves his leg, hooking his ankle around yours to keep your thigh pinned in place and open wide. You feel him hold your other ankle briefly, kissing it softly before he moves his hand under the bend of your knee. Your eyes cross as he pushes your leg until your opened up for him like a blooming flower. The new angle is monstrous, his thick, intimidating length reaching depths you didn’t even know existed.

He groans as he watches tears roll out of your innocent eyes. Those trusting eyes that didn’t think your nii-chan could be capable of something so salacious. He’s sure he won’t last long. Not when your clamping around him like this and looking at him with those pathetically wet eyes. You’re mumbling something beneath his dampening palm, but he isn’t stupid enough to free your airways and risk you crying out needily for your dear nii-chan.

You panic as you feel him withdraw his length, though deep down you know it’s for the best. But your eyes roll over white as you feel him stab it in again.

“Pretty little sister… want you to cream this cock for me…” he announces, repeating the motion again and again as he basks in the way you can barely look at him in your ecstasy. He can’t take his eyes off you, though. He doubts he’s ever seen a more beautiful sight. “I’m gonna cum inside, princess. I belong inside, yeah?”

You shake your head, his words stirring in your mind and bringing your senses back once more. Oh God, he can’t. You’re on the pill, all should be fine if he does cum inside but it’s so damn wrong.

“Did you just say no to your nii-chan? I don’t like that answer.” he replies, his hips picking up the pace again. His body shimmers with a sheen of sweat, and his breathless pants become heavier. “You should be begging me for my cum. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, don’t worry, I’ll give it to you.” he continues. Each thrust of his hips is deep and powerful and you’re sure your inner thighs might be developing bruises.

You whimper, again, knowing you can’t do anything to change his mind.

“Your pussy is so cute… think your clit needs some attention, though. Touch yourself for me, let me watch.” he requests. “Go on… she’s so swollen.”

It’s like being hypnotised. Your dominant hand flies to your cunt and begins to rub your needy clit. And it’s minimal, after barely any touching at all and you’re creaming for your beloved nii-chan. The sight is too much for your brother and the way your walls squeeze him for all he’s worth are an additional lure into his release. His own eyes turn white briefly before he looks down at where you’re joined. Your combined coupling forming a beautiful white ring around the base of his cock with every shallow impale.

“F-Fuck… don’t wanna pull out.” he tells you, finally uncovering your mouth to kiss your lips intimately.

You’re speechless. You aren’t surprised your brother is so experienced or so filthy with his words. Not when he’s travels and fucks girls around the world. But how are you meant to be without him now? When he goes away again… how will you stand it? His cock is made for you, of that, you’re sure. But you doubt he’ll keep it in his pants for your benefit.

Fuck, this was a mistake.

“Dinner’s ready!” your mother calls up the stairs, your nii-chan’s hand instinctively flies to your mouth and he shushes you before chuckling again.

You cry desperately as he withdraws his softening length from your twitching hole. But neediness turns to discomfort as you feel your brothers fingers move the gusset of your panties back into place. It’s so wet and sticky and gross, your face distorts at the unpleasant feeling.

“Come on, don’t want to be late, do we?”

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likedovesinthewindd · 4 months

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request: I wanted to request a Farleigh Start x fem reader. Where they are both American and he asks that she helps him with an essay. During the process, he starts having feelings for her because of her honesty towards him but she doesn’t realize it until he says it out loud.

★ tags: @darkeyesshine

You were surprised when Farleigh had initially approached you for help on an essay. You knew him, not personally, but the two of you attended tutorials under the same tutor, and before that, you've seen him around campus plenty of times, usually accompanied by his plethora of friends.

You were, however, not at all surprised when he hadn't shown up the next day as he promised. You checked the time on your wristwatch; thirty something minutes passed since you had arrived at the library. You couldn't say it was uncommon for him, considering he wasn't exactly known for his punctuality or perfect attendance, but you'd be dammed if he was going to waste your time when he was the one who needed your help.

You huffed in annoyance, beginning to pack away your books and call it a day when you noticed Farleigh's tall figure appeared from behind one of the bookshelves, eyes darting around until he saw you sitting by one of the long tables. He took a seat at the chair next to yours rather than the one across from you as he started rummaging through his bag.

"You're late," you said, reopening your books and trying not to show too much irritation at his tardiness and still remain cordial. "So sorry ma'am. Won't happen again, ma'am," he said sarcastically as he dropped his books on the table with a loud thud before sighing. "But in all seriousness, I really am sorry. So, uh, shall we start?"

To his credit, he stayed true to his promise (kinda) and would always be early enough for your sessions, most days looking like death itself due to a previous night of partying or studying. Farleigh was actually very smart; people always seemed to forget that considering strings had to be pulled to get him into Oxford due to his past behavior and poor choices. You still liked him, though, and had grown used to his sarchotic personality and the playful banter that came with it.

He himself had grown quite fond of you, too. He liked that you never spared him his own verbal lashings and never sugar-coated anything; whether it was critique on his writing or telling him he wasn't going to see 30 with the way he needed a smoke break every five minutes.

Today was the last session before he was to submit his work for moderation, and as you read through his work for the last time, you could feel his eyes burning holes into the side of your head. You chalked it down to him being really eager to get all of this over with.

"It looks really good," you smiled as you slid the file back to him. You were half expecting him to simply take the file and be on his way with a half-assed thank you thrown your way, but he actually seemed very grateful for your efforts. "I owe you one," was the last thing he said before he was already halfway across the library. Later that night, he would be at your dorm room door with a gift bag in hand.

"A thank you gift," he smiled as you took the bag from him. "It wasn't necessary, but thank you," you said. "It definitely was," he argued, "You saved my ass."

"I also kinda wanted a reason to come and tell you about Anabel's little get-together tomorrow night. The Christmas party?" he added. "I know about it. And I heard its invite only," you said, crossing your arms. "That's why I'm telling you. I'm inviting you," he said very matter-of-factly. "Why do you want me to go, don't you have friends?"

"Are we not also friends?" he said, sighing when your eyebrows knit together in confusion. "C'mon, are you really gonna make me beg?"

"No, I don't mind going with you, I just didn't think you liked me that much," you said truthfully. "Well, I do like you. I really like you," he said with a smile. "Tomorrow night. Seven," he added before he was gone.

#saltburn #farleigh start #farleigh start x reader #farleigh start x you #farleigh x reader #farleigh x you #likedovesinthewindd

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prettyboytsum · 4 months

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˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ tying a tie I nanami kento pairings: nanami x reader tags: slice of life series (potentially?), fluff wc: 354

8:04 AM "darling, i know how to tie a tie."

"just—give me a second alright," you shush, hand on your hip and the other on the tie as you focus on the video tutorial playing. your brow furrowed in concentration as you repeat the steps to yourself.

"i loop this over this," you whisper, an amused look on nanami's face as you try to replicate the practiced steps he does every morning before work. "then i tighten—i tighten this?" "mhm, not quite," he responds jokingly, which earns a glare from you. nanami has always been capable of tying a tie. he's done it every day for more than a decade—to work, to dates, to ensuring that gojo dresses presentably when needed. but during your movie binge the other night, you had come to the (mundane) conclusion that you have never had a moment of tying a tie for him before he's off to work. "it's a cliché in every movie we've seen," you whined then as you were both getting ready for bed. nanami was already settled on his side while you lifted the shared blanket to tuck yourself in. "how are we supposed to tell our kids we fell in love!" "are we not?" "clearly, not! if i've never even tied a tie—" you grumble to yourself as turn the lampshade off with a pout. which leads you to now and your very poor attempt at getting nanami dressed for a long day at work. "there!" you say, pleased with yourself. nanami, in all his efforts, has to bite back a smile when he sees how crooked and loose the fabric is. he's been standing in the living room with his briefcase and cup of coffee in hand for the past 20 minutes while humoring you. "are we in love now?" nanami pokes, the amusement dripping over. "yes, very in love," you nod, clearly satisfied as you give him his usual goodbye kiss and a pat on the chest. his heart stutters. nanami kento, a man of routine and perfection, has his coworkers wondering why he started the day with a lovestruck smile and hastily tied tie.

author's note: head in hands...nanami my beloved...honestly thinking of making a slice of life series for him because in some universe, this man deserves a break T__T ⓒ prettyboytsum 2024. all works are posted under this account on tumblr.com and are protected by copyright laws. do not plagiarise these works on any other platform or account.

#₊˚⊹♡₊ luna writes #just want to inform everyone #nanami is fine and well we just had a lovely breakfast together #can you tell i'm coping terribly #nanami kento #jjk kento #jjk x reader #nanami x reader #nanami x you #nanami kento x reader #kento nanami x reader #kento x reader #jjk hcs #jjk #jjk fic #jjk fanfic #jjk drabbles

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traveler-at-heart · 5 months

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The Thing

Summary: Natasha works the courage to ask you out.

Natasha Romanoff x F!R

Finally alone.

Natasha is very particular about her food. It took her exactly seven minutes to make the perfect sandwich. She smiles at it and as she’s about to take a bite, a voice interrupts her.

She’d be annoyed, except for the fact that it’s you.

“Hey, Natty” you say innocently, approaching from behind. You’re one of those people that is always hugging or touching your friends.

Natasha doesn’t mind. It would be easier if she didn’t have a big crush on you, though.

Closing the distance, you rest your chin on her shoulder and inspect her plate.

“That looks nice” you whisper, unaware that the redhead is struggling to keep her knees from buckling.

“Yeah…” she can feel your hands traveling around her waist.

Nice is an understatement.

Finally reaching for a couple of chips, you giggle and step away from the other woman.

“Hey, that’s my lunch!” Natasha protests, but she’s not annoyed.

“Sorry, I’m being called for an urgent mission. Apparently, I’m the gal for the job. This will do while I get some food when I land. Thanks, gorgeous!”

That’s another thing. Gorgeous, babe, angel, darling. You always have a pet name for her.

It’s really hard to tell if you’re flirting when you speak like that.

After all, you call Kate Bishop delicious muffin. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

No point in thinking about it now. There are more pressing matters at hand.

“Jeez, Steve, I still have 5 minutes!” You shout when someone knocks on your door. You open it and find Natasha on the other side. “Ah, sorry, love. Thought Grandpa America was timing me”

Love.

That’s new.

“Uh… here” she’s always struggling to speak whenever you’re around. You must think she’s a moron.

“For me?” You take the container that she’s presenting and open it. You gasp at the sight of a sandwich and your favorite chips. “Oh, my God!” You lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. “You’re my favorite widow”

“Yelena will be pissed when she finds out” Natasha tries to joke, looking down. Her face is burning, the touch of your lips lingering.

“She’ll survive” you put the sandwich in your bag pack as the timer in your wrist goes off. “Better find Steve before he goes nuts over a one minute delay. Thanks for the sandwich. You’re an angel”

Another kiss on the cheek, this time closer to Natasha’s mouth. And she almost believes you know what you’re doing, based on that little smirk.

“Oh, shoot” you turn around and call for her when you’re walking towards the hangar. “When you see Yelena… tell her to remember about the thing”

“The thing?” Natasha repeats and you wink.

“She’ll know what I mean” you smile and wave goodbye. “See you in a couple of days, Natty”

—

It doesn’t take long for Natasha to find her sister. Maybe the thing is something important and she wants to make sure Yelena remembers about it.

“Hey” Natasha says as she sits down next to the blonde.

“Hi” Yelena mumbles, sinking further in the couch, while she scrolls through cooking tutorials.

“Y/N left for a mission today”

“Oh, are you sad that your future girlfriend left?”

“Shut up” Natasha says. Of course Yelena would know. “She wanted me to remind you about the thing”

“Mkay” Yelena answers, still looking at her phone.

“That’s it? I thought it could be important”

“She just wants me to get her tickets for a… uh…” Yelena finally looks up, drawing blank. “Crap!”

“You forgot the thing?”

“I forgot the thing” she confirms, looking around, as if the answer might be on the Compound’s walls. Kate enters, unaware of the tension in the room. Yelena runs to her. “You”

“What?” Kate barks out, looking ready to slap her.

“You were with me when Y/N asked me to buy those tickets. Do you remember what they were for? A musical? The opera? Ballet?”

“It was a concert” Kate nods. “Don’t remember the name of the band, though. Sorry” Kate grimaces.

“Ok, let’s just say band names, see if it comes back to me” Yelena pleads and Kate stutters. Working under pressure isn’t her biggest strength.

“Uh, Rammstein”

“She hates metal” Natasha says.

“The Phantom of the Opera”

“Not a band” Yelena shakes her head.

“The Beatles”

“Half dead” Natasha points out and Yelena groans.

“She’s gonna kill me. I have to run to Mexico. At least the food will be good there”

“Hey, weren’t you in the room when Y/N asked Yelena for the favor?” Kate remembers all of the sudden, looking at Natasha.

“Were you?” Yelena says, hopeful. “Please, tell me the name. I’ll do your laundry for a week”

“And wash my dishes”

“That too”

“And my mission reports”

“And… nu-uh, that’s too much, Tasha”

The redhead rolls her eyes.

“I’ll get the tickets myself. Can’t trust you with that either”

“Do you want to give your crush a present?” Yelena pokes her tongue out and Natasha glares. Before Kate can stop them, they’re wrestling around the living room, throwing things at each other.

“Stop it!” Steve jumps in. “Hey, we just got new curtains. Damn it!”

—

Natasha may have hacked the concert’s website to make sure you got the best tickets. She’s walking back to her room, being extra careful that they’re not folding in case you wanna keep them. She knows you have a box full of mementos from shows.

“Hey, Natty” a voice greets from the hallway. Natasha’s hands fly behind her back, because she wanted to surprise you. And she’s definitely not ready to ask you out right now. “Oh, scaredy cat. What are you hiding?”

Your tone is playful, while you try to reach behind her. Only as your face comes close to her, she notices the bruise around your left eye and temple.

“What happened to you?” she puts the tickets on her back pocket and places her hands on your face. “Who did this to you?”

“H.Y.D.R.A. brute. Nothing new under the sun” you smile and take advantage of the distraction to reach for Nat’s pockets. The redhead is faster and takes your right wrist. The same thing happens with your left hand, and she holds both wrists close to her chest. “Nat! Come on”

“I can’t show it to you, not now” she tries hard not to giggle, but you’re struggling to break free and the frown on your face makes you look adorable.

“You are not playing fair, Natasha. I’m calling for backup. FRIDAY, call Yel..”

Natasha panics then, pulling you close and silencing you with her lips. You stand still for a couple of seconds, but then close your eyes, deepening the kiss.

She sighs against your mouth and lets go of your wrists, her hands going down to circle your waist. You bite her lip and the moan she lets out is reward enough.

"My, I'd say buy me dinner first but I wouldn't mind skipping straight to dessert" you joke and she smiles, her green eyes still closed.

But, you’re still curious, so you take advantage of her distraction and reach in her back pocket.

“Wait” Natasha says, her face flushed and lips swollen.

“You got me the tickets? That's better than dinner!”, you say, jumping into her arms once again.

“Well, Yelena forgot the thing and I wanted to ask you out” she smiles against your shoulder and you pull back. Her eyes go back to the bruise, concerned once again. “Are you sure this doesn’t hurt?”

“I’m fine. Never been better” you lean forward and kiss her again. She smiles against your lips, thinking how happy she is that Yelena is always forgetting things.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff x y/n

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roseykat · 6 months

Text

KINKTOBER DAY 9

TITLE: Don't bite the hand that feeds you

PAIRING: Seungmin x reader

WARNING: minors DNI with this post or my blog. I create NSFW SKZ related content and I know I won't be able to regulate every single interaction with those posts so please do not engage with my work and page whatsoever.

SUMMARY: Featuring Seungmin as your lecturer's student assistant who runs your tutorials and possesses just as harsh a personality as he fucks.

TAGS: Mean tutor Seungmin, oral sex (f!reader receiving), unprotected sex, public sex, swearing.

KINK: Freelance

KINKTOBER23 - MASTERLIST

TAGLIST: @kbitties @luneskies @mal-lunar-28 @kibs-and-bits @aaasia111 @fairy-lixie @dreamingaboutjisung @queenmea604

A/N: this is for all the Seungmin stans out there x

There isn’t any way to work around a more stubborn person. People that you’ve met before don’t even come close to the level of arrogance that this person carries with them. That person being one of your tutors for a class at Uni, Seungmin. For some reason, he always has the time of day to help other people but has an issue with your supposed incompetence in completing a task when it comes to you.

Seungmin never checks your work, never goes over your answers, discusses your ideas or anything like that. He has a very prickly attitude yet only those needles are only for you. You see the sigh he lets out whenever you need to approach him to clarify something he went over during the tutorial. You see the crease between his eyebrows as the annoyance grows when you ask if he can read a draft of yours before you submit it.

He never does that with other students. Seungmin is happy to help them, makes conversation with them before class, and always seems to have time for them.

The difference in his behaviour towards you definitely placed an unnecessary burden on your shoulders. But you’re not one to budge. Whether his intentions are malicious or not, you’re not exactly an easy one to crack, which is why you continued to supposedly ‘bother’ him.

“Hey,” you approach him after one of his tutorials, hoping you used a good enough manner to not light a fire under his seat. “Would you be able to check this for me?”

Seungmin furrows his eyebrows - not a good sign, and averts his eyes from the whiteboard to look at your paper, “I can’t help you with that.”

“And why is that?” You question. “You had no trouble looking at everyone else’s. How’s mine any different?”

“Judging from your grades, I’d suspect there would be a lot of differences,” he responds.

“I’ll take that as a compliment since I’m one of the top in the class thank you,” you scoff.

“And one of the top most arrogant too,” Seungmin fires back. “If you haven’t got anything relevant to show me, I suggest you leave. The next tutorial group starts in twenty minutes.”

Your face contorts slightly, “well since this isn’t relevant enough for you, is it possible for you to check over one of the drafts we have to send in on Friday?”

“Can’t do that either-“

“Then what can you do exactly?” You cut him off impatiently. “Seriously, I’ve been trying to ask you for help for the past two weeks and you’ve only ever given me vague answers to my questions and you won’t proofread any of my work which is what you’re here to do.”

Seungmin takes off his glasses and closes the distance between himself and you, “I don’t help out entitled people like you who always demand things.”

You glare up at him, “I’m not entitled. I was just merely commenting about the fact that you don’t do what you’re being paid to do.”

“And you just keep proving my point as to why you are entitled, because you don’t shut up and you always complain. After every tutorial, you come up to me and ask me for something.”

“Yeah, just like everyone else and yet, I don’t see you giving the same shit to them as you do to me,” you argue right back with him.

“That’s because you expect things to be handed to you on a silver plate. Unlike them, you don’t work for your shit with me,” Seungmin responds, placing the cap on the whiteboard marker a little bit too rough.

“Being here is me working for my shit,” you press back. “You’re just being a stubborn ass because you don’t like me.”

“Well you’re right with one thing,” he sighs.

You roll your eyes and scoff, “fuck you honestly.”

It took a lot of effort not to just shove Seungmin out of your way as you headed out the door with a fresh stormy cloud looming over your head. Felix could spot it a mile away when you went to meet up with him for lunch nearby after his class too.

“What’s wrong?” He asks carefully, studying the pained expression on your face.

“Nothing,” you sigh, trying to let it go. “Just one of my stupid tutors.”

“Is this the same one that isn’t doing his job properly?” Felix questions, remembering the conversation you both had about him a while back.

“Bingo.”

“You know, he’s probably dealing with things in the background that you don’t know about,” Felix points out, his habit of always giving people the benefit of the doubt starting to shine through.

“Yeah, pretty sure he’s dealing with ‘absolute fucking dickhead disorder’,” you spit. “And even if he was - even if the worst is happening to him, he has no right to be taking out his anger or frustration on me.”

Felix sports a disappointed look on his face, “is it just you, or are there others?”

“It’s just me, I swear.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Felix assures. “If he really is as bad as you say he is, maybe just ignore him. We’ve only got seven weeks left, that’s not too long until you can get away from him, yeah?”

It was easier said than done, because the next round of tutorials that approached in the following week, opened up that fresh wound of just seeing Seungmin’s face and dreading it. All of Felix’s advice went out the gate, almost like it was never there in the first place.

In the end, you simply chose not to speak. What’s the point in arguing with a person who won’t move?

So right after the tutorial, you don’t bother darting straight to Seungmin and asking for his help. He’s not willing to give it to you so there’s no point in lingering behind. As you pack your things up from the table and start to head out, Seungmin peers at you from behind the glasses that you so badly want to knock off his face sometimes.

He’s not entirely stumped that you haven’t approached him, but he is a bit intrigued. Maybe he had come across too strongly with you the other day - maybe within the past month without being of any help to you at all. Then again, Seungmin isn’t the most apologetic of people.

“Surprised you’re not asking me to check anything for you,” he projects his voice to you just before you leave the class.

You heard him on your way out, but what’s a retaliation going to do? Only add fuel to your own fire. Seungmin isn’t the one who’s got something to lose here. He’s just a student tutor who’s clearly got enough competence to reinforce the learning you receive during lectures. At the end of the day, his grades for this class aren’t on the line. Yours are.

“Y/N,” you hear a voice call out to you, recognising it to be Felix. Caught up in the swirl of your own thoughts, you almost forgot Felix had been waiting for your tutorial to end as he sat in a row of seats against the wall.

“Hey,” you call out to him.

“So, how was it? Did you say anything to him?” He asks as you sit down beside him.

“I just gave up,” you answer. “I forgot that you can’t get your point across to dickheads so I stopped trying. I’ll just go to the other classes' tutorials if they let me switch. Or maybe I can just cross-check my work with their tutor.”

“Geez, that bad is he?”

“The fucking worst,” you confirm.

However, you weren’t surprised to learn that Seungmin’s attitude and behaviour still continued in the following tutorial, close to an essay hand-in date which is what you didn’t need. The only saving grace is that instead of going over the content that you learned in an earlier lecture, Seungmin allowed his students to study for another upcoming in-class test in the upcoming week.

You spent that time wisely working on the essay you needed to hand in since it was the first due. Then, by two o’clock, everyone started wrapping up their study session. You slot your books into your bag, zip it up, and ready to leave.

“You, come here,” Seungmin speaks in your direction, but you really don’t want to listen. At first to begin with, you were surprised he was even talking to you.

“And if I don’t?”

“Don’t be stubborn. I want to talk about your assignment,” he replies. He set his bait and waited for you to take it. So you approach him hesitantly from your chair, leaving your bag behind at the table.

“See, how hard was that?”

You roll your eyes. Not even a full conversation in and he’s already made you reach your limit, “oh go fuck yourself.”

Upon hearing your nasty sentiment, Seungmin’s hand latches quickly onto your wrist, “what did you just say?”

You look down at your arm in disbelief, then back up to him, his eyes narrowing at you, “what?”

“Say it again.”

“I said; ‘go fuck yourself.”

“Fucking brat.”

Without warning, Seungmin’s hands grasp the sides of your arms in a flash, backing you against the wall behind him. Out of nowhere, his mouth comes down and crashes against yours in a bruising kiss. There’s no time to process what’s actually going on when you start kissing him back, allowing his tongue to delve deeper into his mouth.

In the back of your mind, you can’t believe your own actions, but at the same time, pushing back on him also feels like you’re letting some of that frustration go. To take things further, Seungmin breaks away from you for a moment, turning your body by your arms, and backs you straight into the desk until your hips hit the edge.

Your first instinct tells you to lean back while your legs automatically lift so that Seungmin can slot right in, pressing his semi-hard dick against your pussy.

It gives you the opportunity to wrap your legs around his waist, trying to bring him in closer as you hope for more friction. Seungmin pins your wrists down to the desk, kissing along your jaw and down to your throat where he bites and sucks until there’s a line of future regretful hickies for you to deal with later on.

“D-Do something,” you stammer, feeling so dizzy from the pleasure that you desperately start to chase.

“Why should I?” He mumbles into your skin.

You turn your head, watching figures of people pass by through the frosted glass of the door who could potentially walk in at any given time. In saying that, a portion of you recognises that there’s something so naughty about being caught in the act.

“Please Seungmin,” you beg for him, feeding into his ego.

His head rises from your neck, “that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say ‘please’.”

You didn’t care what he meant by that. All you care about is relieving that itch inside the pit of your stomach because you know that horny feeling will take a long time to dissipate. Nonetheless, Seungmin seems to listen to you when he unbuttons the first two buttons of his white dress shirt.

His fingers reach down to your jeans, unzipping them and yanking them right off your legs until you’re just left in your underwear, already soaking through. Seungmin uses the pad of his thumb to brush gently over the fabric which is sticky to the touch. It makes the corner of his mouth tug up.

“Keep quiet if you don’t want people to come in,” he warns before taking his glasses off and placing them to the side of you before kneeling down.

Your chest already starts heaving just feeling his warm breath fan across your inner thighs. The anticipation leading up to it has you clawing at the desk when Seungmin starts removing your underwear.

“Look how fucking wet you are,” he speaks from a stance of astonishment just seeing what he was able to do to you from a simple makeout session and some rough and tumble.

His comment turns you into a flustered mess that is easily shattered when Seungmin moves his mouth closer to your pussy, kissing your inner thigh and inching closer until he reaches your clit. Your back arches in an instant. One hand clasps over your mouth to stifle a loud moan at the heat of Seungmin’s mouth, the other grabs a fistful of his hair and starts tugging. He doesn’t dare hold back; sucking on your clit, lapping up at what he can to make your entire body shudder.

It never occurred to you that Seungmin is like this. You’ve always made him out to be some rich, entitled, arrogant, teacher's pet with good grades and an outstanding reputation when he goes and does shit like this – eating you out in broad daylight, in public.

Whatever rabid spirit took over Seungmin, it wasn’t stopping him. His tongue dances perfect circles and random shapes against your clit, embracing your thighs quivering shamelessly around his head.

“Oh my god, feels…feels so good,” you mutter, using every drop of energy you can to subdue the moans into whimpers.

Not even the hand you’ve been trying to use to cover your mouth is working because when Seungmin keeps building you up to that edge, you increasingly become louder. But that’s all on him for initiating this, not that you’re complaining. Not when your head is just about thrashing back behind you on the wooden surface trying to syphon all the pleasure you’re getting. It’s like rouge electricity, a live wire inside of you that has no chance of being tamed.

“Fuck, gonna make me cum,” you mumble, eyelids already fluttering. “So…good.”

Seungmin heard that as a sign to press his face further into your pussy but kept the same momentum and pace that his tongue uses to make you cum, and when you do, every ounce of pleasure pours into all the cells throughout your body. It rattles you in such a good way, that you forget how hard you’re tugging on Seungmin’s hair as he continues to eat you out through to the very end. But you managed to stay quiet – just.

Your body unstiffens and your chest heaves up and down trying to catch air. The orgasm was so massive that afterwards, you couldn’t figure out what time it was or where you were. It nearly took out every bit of consciousness you had remaining.

“Been wanting to do that for a while,” he rasps.

Whatever that means – not that you can articulate it as of yet. You’re still trying to grapple with reality and when Seungmin unzips his pants to free his cock, you know there’s no point in trying.

He’s big in length and has a sizeable girth. He teases you with his tip, sliding up and down from your now oversensitive clit to your drenched hole. Just feeling how wet you are makes him wonder one thing:

“Are you a virgin?” He asks.

You’re still trying to regain a bit of consciousness, only able to muster a few words at a time, “no...no I’m not.”

“I pinned it down to either that or someone hasn’t touched you in a while,” he responds. You groan at the embarrassment. Seungmin must obviously be that experienced for him to make such an observation.

“The latter. Now just hurry up and fuck me.”

“Shut up,” Seungmin snipes, even though he begins to push his cock inside of you at a terribly slow pace.

You didn’t realise how much you had been aching to have someone inside you. Your own fingers can’t seem to do the right trick of actually feeling full and satisfied. But now that Seungmin is here, slowly thrusting in until he reaches the hilt, can he make you feel that way.

“Jesus fuck,” Seungmin bites down on his lip and has to hold onto the edge of the desk beside your body for support.

He’s never felt anything like it. Even after sleeping with other women prior to you in his past, there’s something about the way you feel that isn’t like the rest. Maybe it’s from the fact that you hadn’t been touched in a while or not, either way, Seungmin can’t contain himself when he starts thrusting properly.

His cock glides in like melted butter, the lewd wet sounds making you want to hide from embarrassment. But Seungmin revels in it like it’s about to slip through his fingers like sand. So he lowers his body onto yours, resting some of his weight comfortably on you. It’s intimate yes, but it enables Seungmin to start whispering things in your ear.

“So fucking wet for me, aren’t you?” He purrs. “Such a good girl for taking all of my cock, especially for someone who hasn’t been touched in a while. Just opened up for me so easily.”

No words could ever spring to your mind in response to that, but it causes your body and mind to have a reaction you’re all too familiar with from about five minutes ago. That tingly feeling starts creeping up inside you the longer Seungmin keeps fucking you. His cock repetitively hits such a deep sweet spot that you don’t think anyone’s ever reached before.

“S-Seungmin…it feels…fuck it feels so good,” you moan right in his ear, your arms clinging to his back.

“Yeah?” He chuckles. “I bet it does with the way that you’re clenching around me.”

Seungmin just keeps finding ways to unintentionally embarrass you, but if there’s one thing that he’s learnt about you and himself, it’s that he likes seeing you so flustered. He thinks it’s cute. In saying that, he doesn’t want to get too caught up in things when the euphoria that has already built itself impossibly high starts making itself known.

Just like you, Seungmin feels too good right now. He’s doused in warmth from the heat wrapping around his cock and the way that your walls keep involuntarily clamping around him.

“S’too much…” you gasp for air, fingers digging into his clothed arms at this point. “M’gonna cum again please.”

Seungmin presses himself up away from your body but still thrusting at his same pace, “go on then. I want to see your face when you do.”

It washes over you quickly and he’s fast to clock onto the small reactions beginning to change. The only thing that doesn’t alter is the fucked-out look you have on your face. That remains all the way up until the bliss starts packing its punch. Seungmin’s hips don’t hamper your orgasm, not when he watches your eyes roll back and sees the words to describe how you’re feeling become lodged in your throat.

“Y-Yes!” you call out, your voice echoing throughout the empty classroom. Your wet walls convulse around Seungmin’s cock, clutching onto him for dear life as you cum hard.

“I suppose that’s why you cum so easily, huh?” He asks, catching his breath. “Because nobody’s been touching you? Poor thing.”

Your cheeks burn a bright red as Seungmin continues to fuck you, right up until he’s had his fill. Regardless of how overstimulated you are, he can’t stop because he’s nearly there. His hips stutter forward a few times as he chases the tail of his orgasm, getting hit with it right at the last second.

“Fuck I’m gonna cum,” he lowers his head, watching where his cock keeps disappearing into and listening to your whimpers. It’s all enough to tip him right over the edge and into a pool of warm euphoria. “Yes – fuck!”

With a few more grunts and thrusts, Seungmin slows right down as he cums inside you. For a split second there, his vision started to go splotchy. It reminded him of the fact that he hasn’t cum that hard in a while. In saying that, you get to bask in the warm sensation that fills your lower half.

“Shit,” he gasps, breathing heavily. In the back of his mind, something told him that he shouldn’t have done that. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you swallow, trying to dampen your dry throat. “You’re lucky I’m into that.”

He lets out a breathy chuckle and for the first time, you’ve actually seen Seungmin genuinely smile.

A/N: I’m not going to lie, I kind of want to make a part 2 to this but reader finds out that she’s pregnant lmao

#rosiewritesskz #stray kids smut #skz smut #lee know smut #bang chan smut #han jisung smut #hyunjin smut #changbin smut #felix smut #i.n smut #bang chan x reader #felix x reader #hyunjin x reader #i.n x reader #lee know x reader #seungmin smut #seungmin x reader #changbin x reader #han jisung x reader

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egcdeath · 4 months

Text

how the cookie crumbles

summary: when you come back home to austin to help your sister with her bakery, you end up in an arrangement with your high school crush that ends up being far more than you bargained for.

word count: 11.5k

warnings: FAKE DATING, au: no outbreak, pining. so much pining and a touch of yearning, idiots to lovers, high school crushes to lovers, very hallmark-romcom esque, fluff, a touch of angst, more fluff, the reader has a sister but the sister doesn’t have a name, joel’s ex is kinda rude, alcohol consumption, cuddling, miscommunication kinda, unrequited love that’s actually requited love, no use of y/n, not beta read.

author’s note: this is my first fic back after taking my several month long break!! i want to give a big shoutout to my texas consultant and biggest cheerleader @cowgurrrl, who encouraged me to write, gave me helpful ideas, and let me dump my brain and my silly little ideas on her whenever <3

For as long as you could remember, you and your sister had been total opposites. As girls, your sister spent her time playing with dolls, experimenting with whatever new hairstyle on your scalp, and eagerly shadowing your mother in the kitchen, while you preferred to spend your time exploring the city on your bike, reading books in your hammock, and doodling whatever had caught your interest in your hourly. As you entered young adulthood, you were unsurprised as your sister married her high school sweetheart just months after graduating college before setting off to start her own business in Austin, while you moved as far as you could out of Texas and began a prosperous career in New York City.

Regardless of the different paths your lives had taken, the minute your sister had even suggested that she might’ve needed help at her bakery, you were booking a flight back home. The holidays were a notoriously busy time for her business, with people wanting cakes and pies to display as their own labors of love at their family gatherings, or to have their children wake up to a dozen expertly decorated cookies under the guise that that was what their Elf on the Shelf had been up to that night.

Given that you had no holiday plans other than drinking Bailey’s-spiked hot chocolate and watching reruns of your favorite season of The Bachelor, it seemed like a no-brainer to come back to Austin. Part of you was excited for your homecoming, to return to the vibrant personality of the city that was a far cry from the east coast city you’d grown to know and love over the years. The other part of you dreaded your return, not feeling particularly excited to have to run into peers from your adolescence while you were trying to peruse the shelves of your local Costco.

You were welcomed with warm arms the moment that you walked through the door of your sister’s home—metaphorically and literally. She practically hugged you the entire way as you dropped your items off in her guest bedroom, then even more so as she directed you to her car, giving you all sorts of updates about your parents and her husband, but not allowing you to forget the whole reason that you’d come home in the first place.

“You’re not hungry or anything, right?” she asked as she hopped into the driver's seat next to you.

“I think I’m good. I ate at the airport,” you replied, slightly amused by your sister’s eagerness to get you to work immediately. Then again, you couldn’t exactly blame her when you thought about how busy she must’ve been.

“Good! I’m gonna put you right to work then. How does frosting cupcakes sound?”

It sounded fine, and it was fine for the first few hours, until the angle of the piping bag started to make the newfound cramping in your hands unbearable, and your sister had to give you an impromptu tutorial on how not to make your rosettes look so… depressing.

“Look, the Girl Scouts need this order in like, an hour, and my cashier is going home in a bit. Give yourself a little break to shake your hand out, or pee, or do whatever it is you have to do, then you can ring customers up. How does that sound?” she finally huffed, clearly just as frustrated with you for your inability to do a task that was practically second nature to her.

“Anything’s better than frosting these damn cupcakes,” you commented as you tossed your gloves into the trash. “If I never have to frost a cupcake again, it’ll be too soon.”

“I love you, which is why I have to tell you that you will be frosting so many more cupcakes in the next few days,” she laughed aloud, looking down at the army of baked goods in front of her that she was still working on meticulously frosting. “But you’ll get used to it. I’ll have Ben give you better instructions. He’s really good at this, for some reason. I’m convinced it’s because he went to art school.”

You groaned dramatically as you exited the kitchen, only to bother your sister if nothing else. After all, wasn’t it your job as a younger sibling to annoy your older sibling?

As much as you enjoyed doing random tasks that your sister needed done in the back, working in the front was definitely one of the better aspects of working at the bakery. There was far less technique involved in doing anything, and when there was downtime in the storefront, you got to passively scroll on social media, turning your brightness down so you could secretly cyberstalk people from your high school in peace.

Being that you were distracted by the phone in your hand, you paid no mind to the shrill sound of the door’s bell as it opened. As you finished up looking at someone’s engagement pictures, you glanced up once before doing a complete double take.

“Hey, I’m just here to pick up the Girl Scout order-”

There was no way.

You hadn’t seen that face in years. Hell, you hadn’t thought about that face in years, despite your mild obsession with him as a teenager.

Joel had been the definition of so close, yet so far. You seemed to always be in his orbit, butterflies in your stomach every time he leaned over his desk to ask you a question about the material or to poke fun at one of the weirder quirks your teacher had. Yet, just as you’d finally worked up the nerve to confess your feelings to him, word got around the school that he was becoming a father. After many pints of ice cream and late nights of your older sister comforting an inconsolable teenage you, you’d finally gotten over the man, letting his memory become a funny anecdote you shared to friends to display your terrible luck in love.

As much as you hated to admit it, he looked good. Obviously, he was much older now, but much to your dismay, he’d aged more like wine than like milk. Donning a new beard that somehow managed to make him even more handsome and biceps that strained against the sleeves of his shirt, he looked far more attractive than you could ever even remember him, his mature look a good one. You were sure his wife loved looking at that striking face in the morning, before she set off to take care of their adorable young daughter. Their perfect little family, still holding up despite the test of time.

You had gotten so caught up in your thoughts, you’d barely registered the fact that Joel had said your name in a tone that held a mixture of excitement and disbelief.

“I haven’t seen you in years! Since high school?” he asked, despite already knowing the answer. The surprise of seeing him, let alone seeing him looking so good led you to smile dumbly and shrug. “Wow!” he remarked.

“It has been a really long time,” you grinned involuntarily, practically feeling yourself revert back to your younger, immature self simply at the sight of the man standing across from you. “How are you? How’s the family?”

“We’re good. Sarah’s turning 13 soon, which is really exciting,” Joel explained, setting a hand on his hip as he did so. You swore you could see the fondness for his daughter as he spoke. “It feels like just yesterday I was feeding her bottles and carrying her around in a sling.”

“I know, they just grow up so fast,” you agreed, as if you’d had any sort of experience in the field. The fact that Joel still had this effect on you, one that made you want to follow him around like a lost puppy and agree with every word that came out of his mouth was mildly concerning to you—particularly because he clearly had a wife and a child.

“They really do. You have any of your own?” Joel asked, looking deep into your eyes and making you want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Me? No,” you dismissed before following it up with,. “I’ve been pretty focused on my career, so it’s not exactly the best time for a family. To be quite honest, I think my cats do the trick plenty well.”

“You’re still so responsible,” Joel complimented, stirring something up deep inside of you that you promptly wanted to push right back down. “Clearly, I didn’t do any family planning. I’d say it worked out pretty well, if you don’t count having to get divorced just a few years after getting married.”

This piqued your interest. You could almost feel the teenage version of yourself cheering internally at the news that Joel and the mother of his child had split. She’d always been a bit of a bitch to you, so to hear that the two of them had split had sounded like music to your ears.

“Man, that’s too bad. I always thought you two would be the one couple from our school to make it,” you lied through your teeth, hoping that your entertainment wasn’t too obvious.

Joel chuckled and shook his head, smile lines appearing seemingly out of thin air, and unfortunately making you melt on the inside, just the slightest bit.

“That’s really too bad. I mean, what happened with you guys? If you don’t mind me asking,” you were definitely taking a risk with this question, but you were hoping that the reward of the answer would be worth every bit of boldness you put together to ask.

“We just had… different ideas for our futures,” Joel explained what you could only assume was a very condensed version of what had actually occurred. “You know, she’s actually in town right now.”

“I hadn’t realized she’d left town. Should we keep our voices down then?” you asked jokingly, although it would be quite awkward if his ex wife walked in while the two of you were talking about her.

“No, we’re good,” Joel chuckled. “Sarah really wanted to see her for the holidays, and it wasn’t like I could say no to that request. Although, getting Naomi to actually come was a bit like pulling teeth. I’m sorry, this is way too much information. What about you? Any special people in your life?”

“No, Joel, you’re all good. You know how much of a gossip I was,” you offered him a genuine smile. “Unfortunately, no. Funnily enough, the thing I was dreading most about coming home is having my mom constantly on my ass about bringing home a good man.”

“I get it. It’s exhausting seeing all the PDA whenever Naomi and Henry come back. It’s like they’re rubbing in that we’re so happy together and you’re still all alone.”

“Assholes,” you remarked, rolling your eyes to show Joel just how on his side you were. “I’m sure you’ll find someone someday. I mean, both of us will. Then maybe my mom will stop bothering me and your ex will finally stop acting all high and mighty for being in a relationship.”

“I can only hope,” Joel sighed. “Well, I apologize for dumping all of my holiday woes on you when I really should just be picking up some cupcakes.”

“Oh no, I apologize for holding you up. I’ll go grab that order for you,” you said before walking off to the back, where your sister had just finished putting the final touches on the order.

“Perfect timing,” she remarked, stepping back and running her arm against her slightly damp forehead. “Who were you talking to back there?”

“Oh, no one,” you dismissed, not ready to hear her reaction. “Just giving good customer service.”

The look she gave you told you loud and clear that she didn’t believe you, but it would be a conversation for another time. Since she didn’t seem interested in pressing, you took it as your opportunity to grab the large, pink box, and bring it out to Joel.

“Here’s that order for you,” you said politely. “It was good seeing you today.”

“Yeah, you too,” he said, happily taking the slightly heavy box when you offered it to him. “How long will you be in town?”

“Into the New Year, I think? Maybe earlier, maybe later,” you shrugged.

“We should get together sometime. Maybe get a coffee or something and properly catch up? I would love for you to meet Sarah, too.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” you grinned, begging yourself not to revert back to your younger, naive self, but not exactly being able to fight it at the same time. “Well, if you ever need me, I’ll probably be here.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said as he headed to the door. “See ya!”

As soon as the door jingled, announcing Joel’s departure, you let out a deep breath that you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding.

Fuck. You could not be feeling this way about a man you had a crush on in high school.

Your sister always seemed to have a sixth sense for when you were getting antsy, so one evening as the two of you worked on closing the storefront, she pulled you from the monotony of sweeping the floors while listening to the sound of her new favorite pop artist to send you to the grocery store and retrieve a few items that she needed more of.

With her company card safely secured in your wallet, a short list scribbled out on a pink post-it note, and your hands closely grasping the handlebars of the cart, you amaturely navigated the grocery store, unfamiliar with the locations of the items that lined the shelves after years of not visiting Austin.

The evening in the grocery store brought you a sense of serenity, with the rush of urgent people looking to pick up the one ingredient they forgot for dinner mostly gone. After packing your cart full of sticks of butter and bags of sugar, you headed off to the get your final item, relieved to have had a mostly successful trip without running into anyone you knew in your youth.

But just as you had this thought, you caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of your eye. Dark hair and beard imprinted in your mind after your brief interaction with him just one day ago. You did your absolute best to pretend you didn’t see him as you inspected a bag of flour, keeping your head lowered, and gaze averted. Yet, your efforts were futile, as just moments later, you heard your name called aloud as the man approached you.

“Hey!” he said cheerily, blissfully unaware that you were attempting to use the ‘if I can’t see you, you can’t see me’ method on him just moments ago. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, it’s been like forever,” you added on, looking into his eyes and almost immediately regretting your decision as your gut was immediately consumed with a swarm of rabid butterflies. “What’re you doing here?”

“Grabbing some groceries,” he answered sweetly, despite that being the obvious answer to your not-so-great question.

Duh. What else did people come to the grocery store for? What a stupid question. See? Joel just made you so… stupid! Even after all of the years you’d spent apart.

“Sarah wanted to try making some Christmas cookies to bring to her mom, so…” he trailed off, gesturing down at the flour that was now in his hand. “Got any tips on the best flour to get?”

“That’s definitely more of my sister’s wheelhouse. I just do whatever she needs me to do, like go and get,” you glanced down at your list before continuing for comedic effect, “White miso paste.”

Joel smiled fondly at your joke, only making your insides melt further.

“Remind me to stop by and try whatever has that white miso paste in it. Sounds interesting,” Joel grabbed a package of all-purpose flour and tossed it into his cart, before leaning on his cart.

Fuck. Why did he have to be so endearing, with his smile lines and his kind eyes, and his insistence on treating you like you were the only other woman in the world, despite the other woman customer just standing feet away from you two.

“I definitely will. Has your number changed in the past thirteen years?” you asked, not sure what had gotten into you with the slightly flirty move.

He shook his head, his eye briefly catching on something and causing him to pause in his movements before he returned to the conversation, now looking slightly off in a way that he hadn’t looked just a moment ago. You were so stupid. Of course you trying to flirt back would’ve backfired. You needed to excuse yourself before you managed to embarrass yourself any more than you already had.

“It has not,” he confirmed, smiling at you once more, but not looking like his heart was completely into it. “Any chance you’re checking out?”

“I am!” you said a little too enthusiastically, which Joel responded to by somewhat urgently beginning to walk to the check-out lane. Given that he hadn’t told you goodbye, you followed him like the lost puppy that you were around him.

Just as the two of you stopped in line and had mostly finished checking out, Joel finally seemed to unclench from whatever he’d seen (or whatever you’d said) that had bothered him before. Yet, as soon as it was over, you noticed that same tension washed over him once more.

“Oh, Naomi. Henry,” Joel said, his tone taking a complete 180 from what he had just had with you moments ago, and his change in demeanor suddenly made sense to you. “Didn’t realize you two were in town yet.”

You glanced over to the woman who had seemingly appeared out of thin air to ruin your moment with Joel, just like she had done in high school a million times over. Who you hadn’t recognized was the man next to her, looking a little too put together for someone who had likely just gotten off a flight and was headed to the grocery store.

“Joel,” she said artificially sweetly, the one singular word drenched in annoyance. “We just got in. We’re grabbing groceries for the hotel.”

“I didn’t realize chocolate chips were groceries,” Joel muttered to himself as he evaluated their basket. You were slightly surprised by the sass he had seemed to equip out of nowhere, a far cry from the southern charm he had displayed with you in your past interactions. You desperately wanted to leave the situation, which was clearly none of your business.

“Surely, you remember your ex-wife having a sweet tooth,” the man on her side replied defensively, wrapping an arm around her protectively.

“Something like that,” he replied, glancing over at you with an expression that you couldn’t quite read.

With tensions boiling over with just a few words stated, you finally decided to step in, impulse and instinct guiding you.

“Hey honey, I think we need to get going,” you said, internally cringing as the words left your mouth. Joel’s now wide eyes made contact with your unsure ones and your furrowed brows as you attempted to tell him to just go with it without a single word.

The good thing for you was that Joel was a quick learner, and his hand quickly found the small of your back. Something in Naomi’s expression changed, just for a moment, before she went back to her stone cold facade. You hoped that Joel caught it, the same way that you did.

“Yeah, we don’t want to keep you too long, since we’ll be seeing you plenty this holiday season,” Naomi replied, flashing you a fake smile. “I didn’t realize you two were together. I’ve never heard Joel say anything about you.”

You were sure the sentiment was supposed to hurt your feelings, but you were more unsurprised by the sentiment than anything else.

“Some of us like to leave our personal lives personal,” he shot back, glancing at you before bringing his glare back to his ex-wife.

“Well, that’s cute. I remember, you had the biggest crush on Joel back in the day. Glad you two ended up together,” she laughed and your stomach dropped. Were you that obvious in the past? “Anyway, we’re gonna go to a less busy lane. See you at dinner, Joel. And maybe you, too?” She looked you up and down, and for a second you felt like you were in the hallways of your high school once again, trying your best to avoid the passive aggression of a particularly mean girl.

“Right. Bye,” he said simply, watching the pair walk away as if he were scared that they would turn back around at some point and bother Joel some more.

“Fuck,” he muttered aloud as soon as they were out of earshot, his hand falling away from your back and back to his side.

You immediately launched yourself into a rambling apology, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep or anything, they just looked like they wanted to eat you alive and-“

“No, no, don’t apologize. I appreciate what you did back here. I mean, you saw the look on her face when she thought we were together?”

“Oh yeah,” you laughed out, which also acted as a cover for the deep sigh of relief you needed to let out. “Is she always so shocked when she thinks you’re dating someone new?”

“Well, I haven’t dated much since the divorce,” he explained as the two of you began exiting the building. “So I guess I didn’t really know what to expect. But it totally delivered.”

You couldn’t help but smile as the two of you walked out to your cars together and Joel confessed that not only was he single, but that he hadn’t really seen anyone. Not that it really mattered to you, considering that the two of you had absolutely no shot together.

You weren’t exactly sure where Joel had parked, but he’d offered to help unload your groceries into your car, and you weren’t exactly going to decline that offer.

“Thank you, again for helping me out tonight,” Joel said as he helped place bags in the trunk of the car. “Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

“Actually, there is one thing.”

—

Every year, you absolutely dreaded your family’s holiday celebrations. Specifically, the celebrations where you showed up without a date, and had to spend the night downing eggnog to drown out the sound of your family asking you when you were going to settle down and bring a grandchild, or niece, or nephew into the family.

But this year, you didn’t have to worry about that issue. After running into Joel at the grocery store and briefly pretending to be his partner, he’d agreed to do the same for you at a family holiday party, and to be completely honest, you couldn’t be more excited.

“Again, thank you,” you said to Joel as he opened the passenger door to his truck for you, politely standing at the side of it as you got in.

“It was really the least I could do after you saved my ass back there in the store,” he dismissed, closing the door behind you before getting back into the car.

“I mean, I couldn’t just stand there and let you suffer,” you explained, glancing over at the man as he settled into the seat and started the car. He’d certainly dressed up more than usual for the event, a nice red sweater nicely complimenting your green sweater, and his hair styled nicely. For a second, you thought about your younger self, and how she probably would’ve given anything for a night like this—to just play pretend with Joel just for a moment, since he clearly didn’t see you the way you saw him.

“Well, I appreciate it,” he dismissed, sending you a quick, charming smile before beginning to pull out of the driveway. “Anything I need to know about your family?”

“Oh my god,” you laughed. “Where do I start?”

You more or less talked Joel’s ear off on the drive over, filling him in on family members to avoid; overbearing aunts who would attempt to examine him like a lab specimen, uncles who would try to quiz him on his knowledge of local sports teams, and the occasional family friend, who seemed to be just as crazy as your actual kin. Joel listened politely, taking in all of the information, and throwing in some commentary every now and then, but surely making mental notes on who to try to avoid.

Once you finally arrived at the car-lined street, Joel once again opened the door for you like the gentleman he was, before allowing you to lead the way to the christmas-light adorned house that was clearly bustling on the inside. As the two of you walked up to the porch, Joel looked at you rather earnestly.

“Did I scare you in the car? I promise they’re not all that bad,” you began to attempt to explain, nerves bubbling in your stomach as you thought about how Joel surely wanted to go home.

“No, no, you didn’t scare me,” he assured you, reaching over to brush a stray hair out of your face. “I just… I never got the chance to tell you how good you look. I wanted to say something when you first got in my car, but I guess I got scared. You always look good, but you kinda took my breath away.”

Fuck, you internally groaned. Why did he have to tell you that? Was he just trying to get into character or something? You couldn’t even gather the words for how it made you feel before the front door was swinging open with one of your favorite aunts at the door greeting you.

“Hello, my love!” she practically squealed as she pulled you into a hug. “And who is this?”

“This is my boyfriend, Joel,” you introduced, only slightly alarmed at how easily the word rolled off your tongue.

“Hello, ma’am,” Joel said warmly, setting out a hand for her to shake, which was rejected in favor of a hug. He was clearly a bit caught off guard by it, but also clearly a little into it.

“Sorry,” you whispered to him once she let go and the two of you were ushered inside. “We’re a hug family. I probably should’ve warned you about that on the ride over.”

“I don’t mind, I promise,” he assured you, gently grabbing your hand and looking to you for some sort of assurance. You smiled at him then subtly nodded, lacing your fingers in between his in an act that you hoped would be as practical as it was performative.

As the two of you navigated through the house, you made pleasant small talk with all who you encountered, with you proudly introducing Joel as your boyfriend, and him taking the lead in introducing himself from time to time. After an exhausting hello tour, you had finally made it to the kitchen for drinks, something you’d surely need if you were going to keep up at this rate of socialization.

As you grabbed Joel the beer he’d requested and began to spoon out ladles of the bowl that was tape-labeled ‘ADULT Punch’ into your own cup, you were slightly surprised that you’d finally ran into your mother.

“Hi honey,” she squealed, pulling you into a hug. “How long have you been here? You avoiding me?”

While past experiences of being single during the holiday season and having to interact with your mother often ended up with you suffering for the entirety of the night–or an entire week, like the time she tried to set you up with a coworker’s son–you felt a newfound confidence with the knowledge that Joel was just a few feet away from you, diligently playing the perfect boyfriend.

“We just got here,” you giggled at her typical overbearing self. For once, your guard was down, knowing that she would not be attempting to set you up with anyone, or hounding you about coming home and settling down with a nice local.

“We?” she asked dramatically, brows raised in surprise. “Is your sister somewhere around here, or something?”

“Don’t act so surprised,” you feigned offense as she stepped back to look at the two drinks in your hands. “I brought my boyfriend,” you glanced back at Joel, who was right where you left him, making enthusiastic smalltalk with one of your cousins about the Cowboys game. Like a good little fake boyfriend, upon catching your eye he excused himself from his conversation and walked over to you and your mother.

“Mom, this is Joel, my partner,” you explained, as your gentlemanly fake boyfriend grabbed your mother’s hand and gave it a polite kiss. You certainly hadn’t forgotten about his charm back in the day, but to watch it up close and personal after so much time had passed was undoubtedly having a bit of an effect on you.

“I’ve heard all about you. Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he gushed. You had to give credit where credit was due, Joel was a great actor. You’d given him a bit of backstory on your mom on the ride over to the house, and you’d certainly discussed her while the two of you were students, but definitely not to the extent that he was playing up.

“So nice to meet you,” she replied, her cheeks warming at her interactions with the man. Joel was laying it on thick, but it seemed to be working for her. “Miller, right?”

“Indeed,” he confirmed, flashing a pearly white smile at your mother. As you watched the interaction, you were doing your best to keep it together, partially wanting to laugh out loud at Joel’s overdramatic chivalrous act, and partially wanting to melt into a puddle over just how alluring he was.

“Then I’ve also heard a lot about you. My daughter had the biggest crush on you in high school! It’s so funny that you’ve ended up together now. I suppose God’s timing is always right?”

Your eyes grew wide and your mouth gaped open for a second as your mother reinforced your little secret that Joel had heard from someone else just a few days ago. Suddenly, you were feeling a lot less like a liquidy puddle, and more like the bark of a firm tree–if that tree could experience mortification. If you didn’t need it before, now you really needed that drink. He glanced at you and smiled cheekily before looking back at your mother.

“So I’ve heard,” he said with a smirk, clearly biting back a laugh. You were going to kill your mother. And maybe Naomi too, while you were at it. In fact, you might just add yourself into the mix. It certainly couldn’t hurt. Or at least, it would hurt less than the discomfiture of your fake boyfriend hearing from everyone about the huge crush you had on him.

“Mom! I think your other daughter just got here. Why don’t you go say hi to her and Ben?” you suggested, knowing that the best way to prevent her from embarrassing you any further was to distract her with the idea of embarrassing her other child in front of her significant other.

You clearly knew your mother well, because the strategy worked well enough to get her off your tail. You passed Joel his beer as he watched you closely, the same mischievous smirk lingering on his face long after your mother had left.

“Crush, huh?” he teased you, causing you to shake your head as you took a healthy sip from a deceptively strong punch.

“Shut up,” you groaned. “Please.”

As the night went on, you realized that you couldn’t have picked a better candidate to pretend to be your boyfriend at a family gathering. Joel was quite sociable and polite, even more so with a beer in his system. He didn’t even mind entertaining your family members on his own as you went off and caught up with the few members of your family that you could tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time.

Following a rather chaotic series of discussions including when you and Joel were getting engaged (never, I mean, in the next few years. Probably.), the most romantic thing you’d done (backpacking through Europe, according to Joel), and what it was like reconnecting with your high school crush (fucking fantastic), you’d finally lost track of Joel. You did a quick lap around the house before bumping into your sister and cousin, the latter of which desperately described her need for air.

The three of you huddled together outside on the deck, the spot where you seemed to find yourselves at almost every family function regardless of how fun or stressful it ended up being. While you were enjoying the mayhem of the party and enjoying your time with Joel even more, it was nice to have a little break from it all.

“I can’t believe you’ve been home for just a few days and you’ve already gotten your childhood crush wrapped around your finger,” your sister laughed, comfortably leaning against the railing of the deck.

“That’s the power of working for a Fortune 500. All of the men in your hometown just want a sugar mommy for a little bit. Get some presents for the kids and wife for free,” you joked.

“You’re kidding?” your cousin asked, her brows furrowed in a mixture of confusion and intrigue.

“I’m kidding,” you confirmed. “You know, we aren’t even actually dating,” you confessed, lips and tongue loose from your second glass of punch.

“What?” your cousin and sister exclaimed at the same time, the two of them suddenly very alert.

Even in your not-completely-there state of mind, you could tell that you had made a mistake telling your secret. It was now very likely that the entire house would know the truth within the next hour, or that you would not be hearing the end of how terrible an idea the whole ordeal was for months on end.

“I figured you two just hit it off, or had some long distance thing going on?” your sister questioned, peering at you curiously as if your face would reveal some sort of information about your arrangement.

“Nope. It’s kinda a long story, but I guess the short of it all is that we’re pretending to be together for the holidays so certain people get off our asses,” you said casually, finishing off your drink and looking out into the backyard rather than making eye contact with either of your kin.

“Fair enough,” your cousin sighed, finally relaxing once more. “If I wasn’t already seeing Will, I’d probably do the same.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea? He really broke your heart,” your sister asked, grabbing your arm to attempt to force you to look at her, and staring at you with concern.

You were sure you could imagine what was going through her head in the moment, the vision of your heartbroken teenage self and the sound of your prolonged sobs as you questioned what your crush saw in her that he couldn’t see in you. You really couldn’t blame her for being worried. She was your older sister, after all, the task of protecting you instilled in her from the day you left the womb, and clearly not gone now. But things were different now. You were all adults, you had more life experience and perspective, and most importantly, whatever was going on between you and Joel wasn’t real, regardless of how much you might have wanted it to be.

“Yeah, when we were eighteen. I think it’ll be fine,” you dismissed, as if anything was ever that simple.

“And he seems like a sweetie now. I think my own parents were wishing I brought him home for the holidays,” your cousin, ever the peacekeeper, added as she attempted to diffuse the quickly escalating tension between you and your sibling.

“He was also a sweetie thirteen years ago when he led you on, then got someone pregnant,” your sister snapped back with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest and turning her back to you.

“Okay, that’s enough,” you declared, watching your breath float away in a cold puff of air. “Can we go inside now? I think my toes are gonna fall off.”

After a side eye from your sister and a nod of agreement from your cousin, the three of you headed back inside, where you made quick work of grabbing yet another drink and finding the fireplace.

A few couches were arranged by the fireplace, some filled from edge to edge with sleeping, snuggling children who were exhausted by the excitement of a holiday party, others with some of the older members of your family who simply needed a break from it all. Among them all, you were surprised to find Joel, enthusiastically talking to none other than your father.

Your father was probably one of the most difficult people in your life to impress. He’d maybe told you that he was proud of you a total of five times in your life. Yet, he looked content, hell, happy as he spoke to your fake boyfriend.

Part of you felt bad as you found your way to the empty spot on the couch next to Joel, but you were cold, and you weren’t going to pass up on the opportunity to warm up by the fire and the man that you had found was a bit of a human furnace.

When Joel caught sight of you, he smiled and beckoned you over, and you made quick work of maneuvering yourself past the coffee table between the couch. Once you sat down, Joel surprised you by greeting you with a gentle peck on the lips. The action temporarily shocked you, and you desperately hoped that the feeling was not reflected on your face. The naturalness of it all almost felt as if you’d done it a thousand times, and you tried your best to suppress the part of you that wanted to do it a thousand more.

“Hi honey,” Joel greeted you sweetly, his hand almost immediately finding yours. It all felt so right, and if you weren’t so endeared by him in the moment, you certainly would’ve been mildly panicking.

“It was nice meeting you, Joel, but I’m old and I’m tired, so I’m gonna head out,” your father explained, giving you a half nod as he began to stand up.

“Bye, dad. I’ll see you on Christmas?” you asked him, ignoring the panicked look that Joel was certainly sending your way.

“Sounds like a plan. Love you. Get home safe,” he bid the two of you farewell before leaving without much other fanfare.

“Why didn’t you tell me that was your dad?” Joel asked you, looking at you with wide eyes. You laughed a little bit at his panic, finding the dumbfounded look on his face more adorable than you’d like to admit.

“Thought it might’ve come up in conversation, or something,” you shrugged, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of the day, mixed with the criminally strong punch set in. “Why do you care so much? Trying to make a good impression, Miller?” you teased.

“You’re the worst,” he groaned, then laughed as you snuggled up to his side. You weren’t exactly sure whether the laugh was coming from discomfort or relief, but with the bone-deep cold you were feeling and alcohol in your system, you couldn’t exactly bring yourself to care. “You’re also really cold. Are you okay?”

“Mmm, you’re really warm,” you replied, settling against his warm body unconsciously.

“Someone’s feeling the punch,” he replied, wrapping an arm around you as you closed your eyes.

“It was way stronger than it needed to be,” you agreed in a murmur against his sweater. “Thank you for being such a good fake boyfriend tonight.”

“It was actually pretty fun. I like your family a lot,” he confessed, trying his best to maintain eye contact with you despite the fact that you were in the express lane to dreamland and your blinks were beginning to turn into miniature naps.

“Everyone liked you too. I owe you,” you yawned, dropping your head from the soft fabric of his sweater to the denim of his jeans.

“Mhm. Wanna head home?” he asked.

“How’d you know?” you responded as Joel chuckled above you.

The ride back home was a mostly quiet one, with Christmas music playing softly on the radio and you dozing off in the passenger seat. Every now and then Joel glanced over at you, and the few times that your eyes were actually open, you wondered what it was that he was thinking. Was he checking up on you to make sure you were still alive? Probably. But you just swore there was something else in his eyes, something you’d seen when Ben looked at your sister, or when your parents looked at each other.

But that was probably just the exhaustion speaking.

Once you arrived at your sister’s place, Joel made quick work of helping you get inside safely, even helping you get to bed at your own insistence. Even in your not sober and exhausted state, you knew that you didn’t want the night to end. Even in your less than ideal state of mind, you knew that the way you were feeling about Joel was unsustainable.

—

The soft, dim lighting of a restaurant that felt fancy even for you seemed to beam down on you, encouraging little beads of sweat to collect at your forehead and the creases of your arms. As much as you were desperately trying to maintain the appearance of being cool and collected, your staccato breaths, wobbly smile, and the rapidly appearing perspiration were quite clearly selling you out. You couldn’t help but to stare down at your menu like it was the most interesting thing in the world, the intimidation of sitting across from your fake partner’s ex-wife’s heated glare far more intense than what you’d expected. Far worse than sharing a brief, yet artificial moment of PDA in a grocery store, and far more than you expected to be able to handle. Yet, Joel had done the same for you, and really, it was only fair that you would do the same.

After the Christmas party, you hadn’t really expected to hear anything else from your date. As far as you knew, Joel had only agreed to play pretend with you for one night, and as fun as that night was, it was all fake.

As much as you hated to admit it, your sister was maybe, just a little bit right about the whole ordeal not being your best idea. You couldn’t help but think about the two of you at the party—how he’d held your hand like your hands were two pieces of a puzzle that were made for each other, how he cuddled with you on the couch and looked at you with such genuine concern when he thought you might not be well, but above all, you were stuck on his confession to you, about how beautiful you looked and how scared he was to tell you.

You couldn’t believe that you were still making these kinds of stupid decisions, the type of decisions that made you want to lay in bed all day with a pint of ice cream and a soap opera playing on the revision, and not do work—the very work that you came back to Austin to do.

But despite your urge to shut down, you tried your absolute best to do what you set out to do. You spent hours tossing ingredients in mixers, whipping egg whites into stiff peaks, and narrowly avoiding burning yourself as you took trays out of the oven. Only at the end of the day, as you wiped your forehead with a flour-covered arm and checked your phone did you realize that you’d missed a call from Joel.

After a quick call-back and an explanation to your sister that you would no longer be third wheeling the night’s tree-lighting ceremony with her, you had somehow managed to renew your little agreement with Joel. Your task being a performance of being the perfect, dream girlfriend to Joel Miller, a task that you hoped you would be up for.

But as you sat at the table next to Joel, nearly sweating your mascara off, you began to question the extent of your capabilities within this particular role.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Naomi began, the sharp wing of her eyeliner and the depths of her eyes feeling like they were poking and prodding into you, searching for any weakness or insecurity to be exploited. “What are you up to these days?”

“Well, apart from making the most of my time with Joel,” you looked over at him with what you hoped appeared to be adoration, but probably came across more accurately as the fear you were experiencing, and grabbed his bicep–what you hoped to appear like a fond move, but was something more like you bracing onto him for dear life. “I’m a consultant in New York City. It definitely takes up a lot of my time, but it also feels like every second of free time I have, I’m spending it on the phone with this one.”

You and Joel chuckled, your choked out laugh feeling far more artificial than his. You hoped to whatever powers above that you would somehow manage to convince the couple across from you to believe a story that you could barely even believe yourself, although, with the way that Naomi was still glaring at you, you doubted that being the case.

“That sounds fun,” she replied, leaning forward slightly as if she was ready to sink her teeth into you two and absolutely tear you apart. “So how’d you two reconnect?”

Joel, clearly sensing your discomfort, came to your rescue with a quick, preplanned answer. “Remember when I took Sarah to Manhattan earlier this year?” Joel began, averting his gaze from you and onto his ex, who now shot Joel a pleasant, yet, rehearsed smile.

“Mhm,” she replied, seemingly already entertained by where the story might end up going.

“Well, we ran into each other at a coffee shop a few blocks away from her workplace and really just hit it off. The rest is history,” he said, turning his attention back towards you.

“You two were hitting it off in front of our daughter?” Naomi asked, the slight tilt to her head and hint of smirk on her face revealing that her question was less out of concern for their child, and more out of taking an opportunity to antagonize the two of you.

“It was more like reconnecting. I swear, Joel is the only person in the world to think that recommending my favorite bagel shop in the city is flirting,” you attempted to save, not wanting to be labeled as a threat to their child just a few minutes into dinner.

“To my credit, you were selling it pretty hard. You were practically saying, ‘come with me to get bagels tomorrow,’” Joel added on, seemingly lighting up as the two of you added more and more to your fake meet-cute.

“Next time you visit we’ll get all the bagels you want, my love. We can even split them Lady and The Tramp style,” you giggled, feeling your cheeks warm as you imagined you and Joel at the opposite ends of one cream cheese filled bagel.

“Okay, yeah, I get it. I was just joking, anyway,” she replied, clearly fed up with the two of you.

“Sorry,” you apologized, actually feeling a little bad about how long your little bit had gone on. “What about you two? How’d you and Henry meet?”

“It’s actually a pretty cute story,” Henry spoke up after being a passive spectator for an uncomfortable period of time. “Noms had just moved out west a little bit after the divorce, and the two of us met in a yoga class. I accidentally took her yoga mat, and it was… what did you say earlier? The rest was history?”

The two of them shared an intimate laugh, one that indicated that they were referencing some sort of inside joke, just as you and Joel had earlier after you’d shared what you’d been doing with your life since high school. You glanced over at Joel, his pressed smile and slightly furrowed brows a clear indicator that he was not impressed by the two of them. Thankfully, before the tension could go any further, a kind waitress interrupted the conversation with the simple question of whether or not your table was ready to order.

Shortly after ordering, the conversation picked up once again. While you occasionally were able to ask a question or two about the couple sitting across from you, it above all felt like you and Joel were being interrogated about the nature of your relationship. Lies easily flowed from both of your tongues, sandwiched between fond looks shared between the two of you as if there was no one else in the room, and stolen moments of physical affection that seemed to warm you from the inside-out.

As the two of you added more and more onto your story, the more you began to yearn for the more intricate details of it all to be true.

You wanted to receive a bouquet of flowers on your doorstep from someone almost two-thousand miles from you, just because he’d been thinking about you. You wanted to have a reason to come back and visit the city you grew up in, and to learn about every new hole-in-the-wall shop that had come to mean a lot to him. You wanted to take on his hobbies, and have him take on some of yours despite you both being terrible at them, solely because you knew that the other cared about it. The longer the night went on, the clearer everything became: you wanted all of this and more with Joel, but you’d clearly never be able to have him.

It was no longer a question to you of if your arrangement should end, and had clearly become a matter of when it was going to end. No matter how much fun you were having holding Joel’s hand under the table and feeding the man next to you bites of scallop, you knew it wasn’t sustainable to be feeling so strongly about a situation that had been doomed from the start.

You were undoubtedly treading a very thin line between getting your hopes up for what wasn’t, but could be, and savoring every last second you had with Joel, pretending to be something that the two of you were very obviously not. With the arrival and passing of dessert, and the final spoonfuls of a split chocolate cake, you’d realized that your time with Joel had ended; a conclusion as bitter as the dark chocolate garnish on your shared plate.

The two of you held hands once more as you walked out to his car, fingers lingering together even after the couple you’d been putting a show on were safely tucked away in their own vehicle. You didn’t talk much on your ride back home, the air thick with a tension that made you wonder if Joel had come to a similar conclusion of his own during dinner. The radio filled in the silence where words lacked, covers of Christmas songs filling in for the conversation that surely should’ve been occurring.

After a ride that felt like it had lasted forever and no time at all, you had finally arrived at your sister’s place, the final resting ground for whatever your relationship had been.

“Thanks,” you said as you unclipped your seatbelt, wanting to rip the bandaid off and leave as quickly as humanly possible, while also lingering in his car forever. “Have a good night.”

“Yeah,” he looked at you for a moment as if he had something more to say, but was holding his tongue. Taking one long look at your face, then offering you a weak half smile, he spoke once more. “You too.”

Though you were mildly disappointed when you didn’t hear back from Joel, you couldn’t say that you were particularly surprised. Everything about your final encounter in his truck indicated that the very brief chapter in both of your lives of pretending to be what you both were not was over. Still, you couldn’t deny the remnant ache in your chest when your father asked where your boyfriend was over Christmas dinner, or the pathetic way that you secretly hoped every ring of the bakery door would deliver you Joel Miller, much like your first day back in Austin did.

Once again, you attempted to drown yourself in your work, working from open to close at your sister’s bakery and ending the day with sore legs, flour in your hair, and an intense desire to never consume anything sweet ever again. You somehow even managed to convince your boss to let you clock a few virtual hours at your actual job, spending all of the time that you were not at the bakery in your temporary bedroom, doing whatever tasks would set you ahead by the time you returned to work.

You realized you weren’t being particularly subtle with the fact that you were trying to distract yourself from something, and while your sister did her best to be whatever it was that you needed during such a bizarre time, she didn’t exactly press, though you were sure she had a bit of an idea of what was making you feel so down.

“Hey, I have a catering job for us,” she informed you one morning as the two of you worked side-by-side.

“When? You remember I’m leaving tomorrow, right?” you sighed, hoping your sister recognized your mild annoyance as less with her, and more with your time in Austin as a whole. You desperately wanted to leave, but you’d promised to stay until the new year began, when orders typically began to slow down. (“Resolutions,” she told you over the phone as you prepared to come back home.)

“Of course I remember,” she shook her head playfully as she spoke to you. “It’s tonight. At the Spoke. They’re doing some New Year’s Eve thing, and I think it’ll be fun.”

“I think maybe we have two different definitions of fun,” you commented, continuing to roll out the piece of dough in front of you.

“Oh, come on. What were you going to be doing anyway?” she pressed you, her attempt to get you to get out of the house clear as day now. “Working in your bedroom during your break? Sulking for reasons you refuse to share with me? Watching episodes of The Bachelor that you’ve seen a hundred times already?”

“Ugh, okay, okay. I’ll do it. We’ll do it,” you finally conceded.

“Good! Now, do you want a coffee? We’re gonna have a lot of trays to finish today.”

You couldn’t deny that it made you feel a little bit better knowing that you had somewhere fun to go that night. Despite living in Texas for the first portion of your life, you’d never had the opportunity to go to any sort of dance hall, and though you’d probably be spending the majority of your time distributing cupcakes to people, you were excited to be doing something fun regardless.

After your longest and final shift at the bakery, your sister hugged you as tight as she could manage and thanked you for everything you’d helped her accomplish this holiday season, before sending you back home to get dressed up for the dance hall. After deciding to go full cowgirl with your attire, you peered in your sibling’s closet for any article of clothing that you could borrow for the night, and ultimately left her closet with a completely different wardrobe.

Even as you and your sister arrived at the dance hall early to set up, patrons were already beginning to flood into the venue. Their excited energy was contagious, and you couldn’t help but feel invigorated, your downtrodden feelings being replaced with much more positive ones.

As the night went on, you found yourself having more and more fun, whether it was from distributing pastries to rosy-cheeked dancers who paused to take a break from the floor, or flirty gentlemen who took the brief moment of your fingers touching over a distributed cupcake to ask to buy you a drink. While you were sure that you would’ve had a decent time doing nothing at home, then popping a bottle of champagne at midnight, the night was certainly shaping up to be a memorable one.

Time seemed to be flying by as you stood by the table, offering cupcakes to whoever passed you by. It wasn’t long before Ben arrived, and your sister was excusing herself from the table to share a dance with her partner. You watched the two of them with adoration, thinking of how you would love to have someone to come sweep you off your feet and offer to dance with you–well, someone other than a sweaty patron. As much as you’d tried to convince yourself over the years that you weren’t cut out for relationships, your trip and weird fake dating arrangement with Joel had made you realize something of the opposite. Maybe you’d be ringing in the New Year with a Hinge download.

After passing out the final cupcake you had, you began to break down boxes and put away some of the other items you’d brought to help the distribution process go more smoothly. With your back turned to the dance floor as you dropped leftover napkins into a plastic bag, you were surprised as you heard a familiar voice greet you from behind.

“Joel?” you said as you looked up at the patiently waiting person, surprised to see his face after such an abrupt ending and a period of radio silence between the two of you.

“Hi,” he said, almost shyly.

“Hi. Sorry, we just ran out of cupcakes” you stated, trying to pretend that things were business as usual between the two of you–whatever business as usual meant now.

“I don’t…” Joel trailed off before ditching the idea altogether, surely figuring that whatever he had to say was more important than an explanation of how he was uninterested in the treats you were serving. “Can we talk?”

“I mean,” you hesitated for a moment, wondering if it would be better to avoid everything altogether and simply move on with your life. You could simply tell him no, hop on a plane the following afternoon, then never think about Joel again. It would all be so simple and easy–the exact opposite of what your relationship had spiraled into during your time back in Austin. “Yeah. Sure. Let’s talk.”

The truth was, as easy as you would’ve liked it to be, you were intrigued by Joel’s nervous body language. As he shifted from foot to foot and subtly picked at his hand, you imagined him walking into the hall with his friends, or whoever it was that he came with, seeing you, and immediately going to leave the venue, only staying from the coercion and peer pressure of his peers. You imagined him spending the night working up the nerve to come say to you what was left unspoken the last time the two of you talked, hoping that the beers in his system and all of the dancing would finally get enough jitters out of him to finally address you.

“I’m all ears,” you shrugged, crossing your arms over your chest in a subconscious protective measure. Even though he could do no physical harm to you, your brain was all too aware of the damage he’d done to your heart in the past.

“I’m sorry. For everything. For not reaching out to you after our dinner, and for being an oblivious idiot in high school. And I guess, for being an oblivious idiot now,” he began to blather, glancing down nervously at his shoes as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

You were surprised by his words and slightly unsure of what to say, or even think in response. Now that you had heard his apology, you were beginning to have an idea of the direction that this confession was likely going to take, and you couldn’t tell if you should be leaping for joy or finding the nearest exit. Maybe you could figure out a way to do both, jumping and skipping as you left through the fire exit.

Joel began to search for his next words and you tried to ignore the racing heartbeat in your chest as you attempted to search for your own. Just when you were thinking that it would be impossible for your situation to get any more uncomfortable, a man slightly shorter than Joel and who oddly resembled him sauntered up to the table where the two of you were attempting to speak.

“It’s gonna be twelve soon! Come dance!” the man shouted at Joel, his accent heavy and his words slurred as he grabbed onto Joel’s flannel sleeve. Joel shot him a dirty look, one that clearly communicated his annoyance, but didn’t exactly scream surprised.

“Not now, Tommy,” Joel reprimanded, his gritted teeth and tense demeanor making you want to laugh–if not for his reaction, then over the surrealistic nature of the scene. Mere moments into some sort of apology or confession, the two of you had been interrupted by his intoxicated acquaintance asking him to dance.

“Yes now, Joel. C’mon, lighten up!” the man practically whined, eliciting an exasperated eye roll from Joel. He looked back at you with tense shoulders and worry in his eyes, and you couldn’t exactly tell if he was looking for backup or sympathy. Instead of responding to him with either, you gave him a shy shrug of approval.

“We can talk while we dance?” you suggested, part of you hoping that maybe the distraction of doing something else while you spoke would make your conversation a little less difficult.

Taking Joel’s hand, you followed the men out to the dance floor, where Tommy had disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared to interrupt Joel’s confession. Part of you wondered if this had been premeditated, or if Joel’s drunk friend was simply not able to read the room.

“Before we start, I have a confession of my own,” you began, hoping that what you were about to say would at least lighten up the mood of your conversation. Clearly, the two of you struggled with communicating your feelings, and you hoped sharing what you were prepared to share would at least be helpful in opening up a line of communication.

“Yeah?” he said hopefully. You tried your best to fight the smile that was threatening to appear on your face at the sound of his tone, but ultimately failed.

“I don’t have a damn clue how to do this,” you confessed, glancing over at the pairings around you moving together as if they had done these steps a million times–and knowing your town, they probably had.

“It’s fine,” he said without an ounce of judgment in his voice. “I’ll teach you how.”

And he did, his mouth pressed closely to your ear as he counted off numbers in time with the live band just a few feet away from you, and directed your body left, right, back, and forward until you finally seemed to get the hang of the dance. Though there was still an elephant remaining in the room, dancing seemed to be successful in alleviating some of the tension that lingered.

“Is it okay if we continue our conversation?” Joel asked as the two of you took a synchronized step back. Your eyes were trained on your nearly matching boots, and the thought of having to face your feelings–or the lack thereof–made your stomach churn. Once again, you began to consider the most efficient exit routes.

“Of course,” you replied, doing your best to mask the nerves that had bubbled right back up as you finally met his eye.

“I was so excited to see you, when I found out you were back in town. I guess there was still part of me that wondered what things might have been like if things were different. Then I saw you in the store, and we started doing… whatever we were doing, and I just kept wanting more. It just felt so real, too real, and I started wanting more than what I could have. I mean, you live so far away, and even if you didn’t, I’m sure you have romantic prospects all over the place. Why would you settle for me?”

You almost couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Joel still thought about you? He had begun to want more in the same way that you did the more your fake relationship progressed? He thought he wasn’t good enough for you?

“Joel-” you began, his name slipping off your tongue involuntarily. You desperately wanted to dispute his claims, but he didn't let you finish.

“I guess I just wanted to apologize for how I acted. I didn’t want you to assume that things ended how they ended for any other reason other than me making terrible decisions as usual.” Once again, it was Joel’s turn to look uncomfortable, and you couldn’t exactly blame him after what he shared with you.

“I accept your apology, but it wasn’t all your fault. And you’re not an idiot,” you clarified in between a spin, finishing your sentence as Joel pulled you back to him. “I was disappointed, but I understood. Honestly, I was starting to feel the same way with you. Our fake dating was starting to feel a little too much like real dating, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up when you were clearly uninterested.”

“But I’m not uninterested,” Joel looked at you with a glimmer of hope in his eyes, which only seemed to be highlighted by the fact that his arm was draped across your torso, a welcome result of the spinning move. “I want to try, if you want to try. The distance is a hurdle, but we can give it a shot, at the very least. We can visit each other when we get the chance. We can watch the same episodes of The Bachelor, then discuss it afterward.”

“Oh my god, who told you about that?” you remarked, interrupting his big speech.

“Your sister. At the Christmas party,” Joel replied, his cheeks flush with the adrenaline of sharing his feelings with you and the excitement of dreaming of a future with you.

“She’s unbelievable,” you murmured, shaking your head the slightest bit before Joel continued.

“But that’s besides the point. We can send each other delivered gifts, and can talk to each other every day, like what you told Naomi.”

“What I told her when I was lying?” you asked with a laugh, reminiscing on your dinner.

“Well, yeah… But it doesn’t have to be a lie. I can come visit you, and you can come visit me. We can get bagels at your favorite shop when I come to the city. I can teach you how to dance when you come to Austin. Maybe it’s crazy, but I think we can try. Should try.”

“I would like nothing more than that,” you confessed, an honest truth that seemed to light you up from the inside. Hearing Joel’s almost crazed rant about how passionate he was about trying made you a little less afraid of your possible future together, and a whole lot more sure about your feelings for the man.

“Then let’s do it. Let’s do it right this time,” he said as the music finally came to a conclusion, being swapped out for none other than the chant of a countdown.

Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

As cheers of ‘Happy New Years’ rang out, Joel gently directed your face towards his, your noses and foreheads pleasantly bumping into each other. As your lips finally touched, it felt as if two puzzle pieces designed for each other and meant to be together had finally fallen into place, the rumble of fireworks outside celebrating the long-awaited union between the two of your bodies.

In the past, the affection the two of you had shared had felt real, but deep down you were aware that it was nothing more than a farce. A façade to trick judgmental exes and prying family members. But this time, the affection was different.

The growing warm feeling in your chest, the electric sparks on your skin where Joel was touching you, and the look of admiration in his eyes once you’d finally pulled away told you everything you needed to know.

This was real.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller fluff #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x f!reader #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #tlou

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lovingseventeen · 10 months

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svt doing your makeup

a/n: i luv fluff and i luv seokmin UGH. and i’m releasing this as my 1k event is still going on bc i figured y’all deserve some new ideas too. but please go check out that series too! i’ll put the link to it right here <3

seungcheol:

✧ claims that sitting on his lap while he does it is necessary

✧ “sit here” he says, patting his lap, “i need you up close”

✧ tries to be as gentle as he can

✧ whines when eyeliner is hard to do then he whines even more when you laugh at him

jeonghan:

✧ lowkey pranks you by telling you he’ll attempt one look but he does something very different

✧ nothing crazy, like he wouldn’t purposefully make you look bad by any means

✧ but maybe he wants to gently push you out of your comfort zone so he picks a new eyeshadow color, but still subtly does it so it isn’t too vivid

✧ “you said you were gonna do my usual!” you gasped when you finally checked yourself in the mirror

✧ he actually did pretty well, you were just caught off guard

✧ “i always wondered how you’d look like this” he tells you, “and would you look at that, i knew you’d look so good”

joshua:

✧ he likes to watch when you get ready most of the time so he knew your routine for the most part

✧ his hands are confident as he works, his lips gently parted as he focuses

✧ tilts your face by gently holding your chin

✧ gets up very close to your face to put your makeup on but also to definitely fluster you (he’s evil for this)

jun:

✧ thinks watching one youtube tutorial is enough but it is in fact, not

✧ forgets how to do something as soon as he puts a dab of concealer on your face

✧ “wait, wait a minute-”

✧ he’s rewinding the video he referenced and maybe he swaps a method here and there - like jun the dot of makeup is starting to set

✧ you don’t look too bad at the end either, but he’s very relieved to be done (after an hour) as he’s spritzing your setting spray

soonyoung:

✧ get so excited, “can i pick your outfit too!”

✧ really really wants to do it well so he asks you about everything, every step of the way

✧ “is this the one they use when they get rid of my eye bags?” he asks

✧ “i have to tap the excess off right?”

✧ “what’s the difference between these two?”

✧ maybe you have to retouch a little at the end, but you’re proud of him (may have been light handed because he didn’t want to overdo it)

✧ loves it when you put on the outfit he picked and give him 360 of your look

✧ you give him a kiss on the cheek after and you leave a kiss print with your lipstick (he’s the kind of bf to not wipe it off too and he sends a selfie to the svt group chat to brag)

wonwoo:

✧ calm about the whole ordeal

✧ googles general makeup instructions and references this one article as he does your makeup

✧ he keeps looking back between the article and your face

✧ doesn’t go for anything over the top, but more or less just perfects your skin

✧ “very pretty” he comments as he assesses his work

jihoon:

✧ also does research and he’s the only member who learns how to undo a mistake

✧ he mutters to himself “wait, this is not it, wait, don’t look in the mirror right now,” as he’s scrambling for your concealer

✧ very careful hands

✧ kind of under pressure because he doesn’t want to be at fault for making you look bad

minghao:

✧ he’s so fun, he wants to do a matching look with you

✧ wants to go for something edgy, maybe some soft smokey eyeshadow

✧ winds up being a session where he does your makeup (with the most delicate hands) and you do his

✧ you also end up painting each other’s nails to add to the look

✧ easy to say both of you look very hot together

mingyu:

✧ APPALLED when you flinch away from him when he’s holding your eyeliner

✧ he’s already talking in pout when he goes “have i ever hurt you before? baby trust me”

✧ he’s so pouty from that point on and he’s even more motivated to make you pretty (well, more pretty than you already are)

✧ “here, look” he tells you, holding out a mirror so you can examine his work

✧ you gasp, “‘gyu you did so good!” he’s blushing but still a little sulky

✧ “see? i’d never hurt you! you had no reason to flinch!”

✧ “i know, i know” you assure him, taking your usual seat in his lap to wrap your arms around his neck to snuggle him. “thank you baby, i love it” (you know he’s already forgiven you when he wraps his strong arms around your waist to pull you closer)

seokmin:

✧ baby is so so gentle with you

✧ compliments you after ever step

✧ “your skin’s already so perfect i don’t have to do a lot..” he mumbles under his breath

✧ “wow this is so sparkly, your eyes are even prettier” he grins

✧ “pucker your lips for me?” he’ll ask (he takes off half of what he put on though because he cant fight the urge to peck your lips when they’re like this)

✧ squishes your cheeks when he’s done and he says “you’re so prettyyy” in that painfully adorable lovesick way he does

seungkwan:

✧ here’s our resident perfectionist — he does research thoroughly

✧ even finds some good alternatives for some of your current stuff

✧ winds up teaching you a better method for the looks you tend to go for

✧ “that’s not how i do it but-” you begin, only to be interrupted with “i thought you said i could do what i wanted! just wait, look, i’ll show you-”

✧ his lips are pursed and frankly, he’s starting to sweat because he’s passionate about getting you to look even better than you already do

✧ 10/10 look in the end, you could easily wear it out

vernon:

✧ he was surprised at your request to do your makeup but he agrees. though he does warn you it might not look great

✧ “you trust me with this?” he double checks as soon as you lay out your supplies on the desk

✧ “of course i do” this makes him grin

✧ he doesn’t look up anything but he lets you talk him through your steps and his touch is so light and a little awkward as he swipes across your eyelid

✧ he can’t hold his reactions when he messes up though, and he’s kind of like 😬 in that very specific vernon way. “i think you’re gonna wanna do this part babe” and he watches so intently as you do it

✧ amidst this though, he does learn about your process and even if he can’t do your look for you entirely, he might offer to do parts of your routine for you in the future. if you’re tired as you’re getting ready in the morning maybe he can lay your foundation for you and your concealer - the parts of your process that aren’t too intricate.

✧ future vernon maybe even offers to take off your makeup for you at the end of a day instead

chan:

✧ he believes the phrase “shoot for the moon. even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”

✧ in hindsight, it could be poetic but he really just bites off more than he could chew

✧ rewatches the same ten seconds of a tutorial over and over again and he still doesn’t quite understand what cutting a crease means

✧ please kiss his forehead and walk him through it

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cal-kestis · 2 months

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HOW TO: Do A Crystallize Gif Transition

Hi! I was asked to explain how I did the transition effect in this gifset, so here's a quick tutorial! Disclaimer: This tutorial assumes you have an intermediate understanding of gif-making in Photoshop using Video Timeline and requires the use of keyframes.

PHASE 1: THE GIFS

1.1 – Determine how many frames you need. Since you need at least 2 scenes for a transition, consider limiting the amount of frames you'll use per scene. For a transition between 2 scenes that's 540x540px, I would recommend no more than 30 frames per scene (for a final gif that's 60 frames). Even that may be pushing it depending on your coloring. Just be sure to consider the dimensions and colors of your gifs in relation to the amount of frames to keep your final gif under Tumblr's 10MB limit.

1.2 – Import frames, crop, resize, convert to smart object for Video Timeline, color, blend, etc. Do this as you normally would! If you need a tutorial for the basics, here's my tutorial. :) Please note, the methods in this tutorial only work with gifs that are converted into smart objects in the Video Timeline workspace.

Tip A: I recommend using scenes where there's a lot of one color (or scenes where you can manipulate it to look like that). The crystallize filter on a gif creates A LOT of movement that can feel a bit chaotic. Having your gif be primarily one color reduces the eye strain a bit imo.

Tip B: I like how this effect looks with blended scenes because it allows me to use different "crystal" sizes (more on this in Step 2.2). Check out the USERGIF Resource Directory for plenty of blending tutorials!

1.3 – Move all your gifs into one document, group into folders, and arrange. Once everything's in one doc, keep everything organized in a group folder! I have just two scenes, so that's Folder 1 & 2. Within those folders are the gifs I blended, which I labeled by gif color. Then, simply drag Folder 2 so it continues right after Folder 1. (Make sure none of your adjustment layers from Folder 2 accidentally affect Folder 1! You can do this by clipping your adjustment layers to match the length of the gif as I did, or using clipping masks.)

(Ignore that lone Hue/Saturation layer lol. I decided last-minute that I wanted my gif to lean more pink than red.)

PHASE 2: THE FILTERS

2.1 – Duplicate each scene. We're going to use opacity keyframe animations on these duplicated scenes that allow it to go from "normal" to "effect" and vice versa. The filters will only be applied to the duplicates. In the screenshot below, all of my duplicates are highlighted:

2.2 – Apply the Crystallize Filter. Above your sharpening settings, apply this filter by going to Filter → Pixelate → Crystallize. On the pink gifs, I made the crystals bigger (cell size: 45), and on the black and white gifs, I did a cell size of 25.

The different sizes help break up the uniformity of the crystals imo, creating more of a mosaic-like look, which is what I wanted to match my gifset concept.

2.3 – Apply the Oil Paint Filter (Optional). Filter > Stylize > Oil Paint. Here are my settings (they're the same for both crystal cell sizes):

Brush – Stylization: 0.1, Cleanliness: 8.6, Scale: 0.1, Bristle Detail: 0.3 Lighting – Angle: -60, Shine: 0.7

This filter helps soften the cells a bit while adding some texture (left: no oil paint; right: with oil paint):

2.4 – Repeat steps 2.2 & 2.3 on all duplicated scenes.

PHASE 3: THE KEYFRAMES

3.1 – Add opacity keyframes. The very start and end of each scene needs an opacity keyframe set to 100% opacity. Move 0.09 seconds from each of those points, and place another opacity keyframe, this time set to 0% opacity. We're basically making the crystals fade in and out. Please reference the screenshot below for keyframe placement:

If you need more info on opacity keyframes, check out Phase 2 from this fade transition tutorial I did on usergif.

3.2 – Repeat step 3.1 on all duplicated scenes. All the keyframes in Folder 1 should line up exactly and all the keyframes in Folder 2 should line up exactly!

PHASE 4: THE DUPLICATES

4.1 – Convert back to Frame Animation. If you're not sure how to do this, I've written out the steps here. I rec the action linked in my general gif tutorial which I shared earlier!

4.2 – Delete duplicate frames. Whenever you use keyframe animations, you'll get duplicate frames. That's just how it works, unfortunately. If you follow my steps exactly (specifically the 0.09-second spacing, which follows my tried-and-true 0.03-second rule), you'll have a total of 12 duplicate frames exactly — 3 duplicates per keyframe section. Just manually delete them! You can spot the duplicates by eye, but with this spacing, it's usually the 2nd, 5th, and 8th frame for each transition section. The selected frames below were my duplicates:

If you want to learn more about why there are duplicates and the math behind it all, I explained it in more detail in this ask.

4.3 – Export and you're done!

I hope this tutorial helps! Let me know if you have any questions :)

#gif tutorial #completeresources #usershreyu #usernanda #useryoshi #userzaynab #userrobin #usersalty #userhella #alielook #uservivaldi #tuserabbie #useraish #userabs #tuserlucie #mialook #resource*#gfx*

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reiding-writing · 4 months

Note

Spencer who learned like a whole sss language or something niche like knitting, so he can teach it to reader cause he heard her talking about how hard it is to find a good teacher???

acts of service [ s.r ]

Summary:

Hobbies are supposed to be relaxing. So when Spencer sees you dwindle into frustration at your newfound hobby of embroidery, he takes it upon himself to teach you better than any low quality youtube tutorial would.

WARNINGS: unserious threat of self-induced harm, lots of mentions of needles and piercing things, horrible description of how to do a chain stitch 😭

pairing: spencer reid x gn!reader

genre: fluff

wc: 2.0k

masterlist!!

a/n: i genuinely spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to do a goddamn chain stitch because lo and behold, the internet sucks when it comes to tutorials 😭

Spencer watches from across his desk as you re-attempt a stitch in your embroidery hoop for the sixth time before giving up and throwing the hoop down on your desk with a huff and leaving to get a cup of coffee, muttering something under your breath about “Stupid stitches,”

He’d been watching you try in vain to learn to embroider for almost three weeks, and it was getting to the point where he was frustrated for you.

You’d picked it up as a way to relieve your stress whilst working, and instead you’ve manged to frustrate yourself to the point where you’re literally having to remove yourself from your desk to calm yourself down.

“Are you alright?” Spencer raises his eyebrow at you as you return to your desk with a cup of coffee cupped in your hands, and you sigh as you take a seat.

“I’m two minutes away from sticking my embroidery needle in my eye so I don’t have to look at this monstrosity anymore-” You place your mug down on your desk, holding the embroidery hoop to your face to judge your own creation.

“Please don’t,” Spencer’s tone carries genuine care for your well being, but its also followed by a laugh on the back end which indicates he knows you’re not serious.

“Why do I do this to myself?” You ask the question to no one in particular as you lean your head over the back of your chair, swivelling it back and forth with your foot as a pivot and leaving your hand to fall into your lap.

“Studies have shown that having hobbies, particularly creative ones, can decrease the amount of cortisol produced in our bodies over time, leading to an overall more relaxed state of being,” Spencer mirrors the way you turn in your chair as he watches you, answering your rhetorical question as if it were completely serious.

“I can tell you right now that I am the exact opposite of relaxed,” You exhale through your nose, joined by a shake of your head as you straighten your posture once more. “I think its time I cut my losses and give up,”

“No you should keep up with it, it’ll be much easier once you’ve got the hang of things,” He tilted his head slightly at you as he voiced his encouragement.

“Easy for you to say Mr. ‘I have an 187 IQ and an eidetic memory’,” You roll your eyes at him, although your expression betrays the fact that you’re not truly antagonistic towards his intelligence. “Half of the tutorials i’m watching don’t even actually show how to do anything,”

Spencer chuckles as your eyes examine the three straight lines of red stitching in the fabric like you were trying to incinerate them with your mind before discarding the hoop to the corner of your desk to actually get some work done.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

It’s two weeks before the topic of embroidery comes up again, you sat cross-legged and hunched over in your jet seat on the way back from a case in Montana, eyes boring into the fabric as you tried to create a shape vaguely resembling a circle.

“You shouldn’t hunch over like that you know,” Spencer sat down in the seat next to you with a yawn, leaning back against the padding of the leather chair with his head tilted in your direction. “It’ll tighten the muscles in your neck and give you a tension headache,”

You huff at his chastising of your posture considering his own but straighten your back nonetheless, holding your embroidery hoop at eye-level as you carefully puncture the fabric.

He’s glad to see that you haven’t given up on embroidery yet. Partly because it’s good for you to have a hobby that had zero relation to your job and partly because it meant that his 18 hours of research over the last ten days hadn’t been in vain.

“If you’re going in a circle it’s better to use a chain stitch,”

Your eyes flicker upwards at Spencer’s suggestion, wonky thread oval forgotten about as you narrow your eyes at him slightly in an accusatory fashion. “How do you know that?”

“I uh-” Spencer blinked a few times, eyes flickering across the jet’s cabin as he tried to find a reasonable explanation for his sudden knowledge in embroidery that wasn’t because he wanted to be able to teach it to you. “I know a lot of things,”

His intelligence was usually a valid excuse for whatever niche bit of information would come out of his mouth, but you knew for a fact that he had no prior knowledge on how to embroider something. He might have known the history of it at a stretch, but how to physically embroider something? Absolutely not.

If he had he would have told you weeks ago. So this was definitely something new.

“Mhmm, apparently so,” You nod with clear suspicion riddling your expression, but you weren’t about the turn away his help just because you were suspicious of the origins of his newfound expertise in embroidery. “Alright genius, show me then,”

You hold out the hoop in his direction and he takes it from you with an awkwardly endearing smile, un-stitching your botched attempt at a circle and turning the hoop at an angle so that you could see what he was doing.

It was only six stitches, but the way he passed the needle through the fabric was effortless, and it left a perfectly symmetrical blue circle in it’s wake.

“Chain stitching is much easier to curve than straight stitching due to the nature of how the needle passes through the fabric,”

If you weren’t so beholden to his ability to be good at absolutely everything he does you’re sure you’d be a little jealous. Or maybe it was the way his eyes glistened as he looked at you. No. It definitely wasn’t that. You were just grateful he was willing to help you, that’s all.

“Show me how to do it then if it’s so easy,” You shift yourself towards the leather arm that’s separating the two of you, leaning your elbows on it to watch him more closely as your eyes locked on the way the pads of his fingers held the needle.

“Here,” He held it out towards you, blunt side up, as an indication for you to take it. “I’ll walk you through it,”

You take the needle from him with a raised eyebrow, one that only continued to rise as he passed you back your embroidery hoop as well and leaned towards to to angle the fabric at a 45 degree angle towards himself so that he could see what you were doing.

“Alright, so first you want to pierce the needle through the back of the fabric towards you and pull all of the thread through,” You follow his instructions as he speaks, nodding once you’ve garnered yourself a big loop of thread that’s connected under the fabric at one end and your needle at the other.

“Alright?”

“Alright, now go back through that same hole from the top, and bring the needle back up through the fabric about a centimetre downwards, only half pulling the needle through,” You furrow your eyebrow slightly but try to follow him, although he stops you as you attempt to pull the needle all the way through with his hand on top of yours.

“Don’t pull it all the way back through,” He adjusts his body to face a similar direction to yours. “Here, let me help,”

His hands brush the tops of yours as one comes to assist you in holding up the hoop of fabric and the other guides your fingers in holding the needle. His skin is frigidly cold against your own, although whether that’s just because you run hotter than him or the fact that he’s so close to you you feel like you’re internally harbouring volcano you’re unsure.

With his hand guiding your own, you reinsert your needle back through the original hole you’d made from the top down and pierce it upwards through the fabric a little further across, leaving both the tip and the end of the needle above the fabric with the middle underneath.

“Good yeah, now this is the complicated bit, you need to get the rest of your thread,” He loops his ring finger around the excess thread, and makes an effort to move his fingers as slowly as possible so that you can see exactly what he’s doing. “and wrap the start of it underneath the tip of your needle,”

He demonstrates his words as he speaks, pulling the beginning of the loop of thread tight underneath the tip of the needle before slowly pushing the needle all the way through the fabric until it’s free once more, and there’s a small looped stitch in the fabric.

“And then to create your next stitch you do the same steps, but start inside of the first loop,” He again demonstrates his words as he uses your hands to make a second stitch that, like the name suggests’ creates a two-stitch chain from where the stitches are connected.

“See, really simple, just a little convoluted in terms of instructions,” His eyes turn away from the fabric and back towards yours once he’s finished his explanation, although yours remain on your needle. “Think you can do it on your own?”

It takes you a second to come back to your senses, and you blink up at him blankly for a moment before nodding, a soft “yeah I think so…” echoing from your throat.

You didn’t have the heart to tell him that you were to distracted by the way his hands moved against yours to listen to a single thing he said.

“Let me know if you need any more help okay?” He gave you that awkwardly endearing smile that reached his eyes and made you want to scream into your hands at the prospect of being so perfect.

You return it with a half-stunted nod as you desperately turn your eyes downwards to your fabric again, unable to look at him any longer without flushing red light a traffic light. “Yeah thanks-”

“I’ll teach you how to do a running whipped stitch next, it uses two different colours of thread,”

Whipped is right-

Spencer’s tone held all the enthusiasm of a child who’d just learned that you could mix multiple colours to create a new one, and it easily rubs off on you as you resign yourself to actually listening to what he’s trying to teach you instead of just fawning over how it feels when he touches you.

“Can you- show me how to do a chain stitch one more time?”

“Of course!”

The minute his hands touch yours again you know you’re done for.

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds x reader #mgg #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #asks 🫶

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suashii · 11 months

Text

୨♡୧ THE MAN WHO HUNG THE MOON — sakusa kiyoomi x reader. sfw. fluff. dad!sakusa.

the sound of sleepy giggles from down the hall makes a smile tug at the corner of your lips. as you pick up the toys scattered about the living room, you picture the scene; your daughter comfy under her blanket and sakusa squeezed into the toddler bed beside her with a book of her choice in his hands. he’s probably changing his voice with each character just the way she likes, tickling her tummy every time she laughs so that the joyous sound is prolonged. little moments like these, ones that warrant you a glimpse into their daddy-daughter time never fail to make your heart swell.

the noise from the back dies down a few minutes later and the quiet click of a door closing tells you that your husband has finished putting the girl to bed. you’re almost finished cleaning up the toys left behind in the living when sakusa wraps his arms around you from behind, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. he doesn’t give you time to savor the feel of him before he’s gone, leaning down to aid you in tidying up.

you shoot him a petulant look that he can’t see as you reach down to pick up the doll by your feet. you have every intention of tossing it in the bin with the rest of your daughter’s things but before you can, you realize that you don’t recognize it. your eyebrows knit together in confusion as you meet sakusa at the toy bin. “when did you get her this?”

“a few days ago,” he replies upon seeing it. in all honesty, he had meant to put the doll away before you returned home. now that the cat is out of the bag, he might as well be entirely transparent. “and i actually got it for me.”

“like, got it for you so the two of you could play together?” you eye him curiously with your question. you’re sure that’s what he meant but, without context, the statement produces an entertaining image in your head of the man playing with toys even in the absence of your daughter.

“not really,” sakusa admits, and he can see a sparkle of interest swimming in your gaze. the real reasoning behind the purchase is nothing to be embarrassed about but he still hesitates to spit it out. he’d hoped that you would see the result before you could ask about the process.

“sakura told me she likes the way you put her hair in two braids so i bought the doll to practice.” he turns the doll in your hands so that you can see what he’s taken away from the youtube tutorials in the past few days. it’s a lot better than his first attempt but sakusa thinks he could use a few more sessions to hone the skill before surprising sakura with the style.

you survey his work on the synthetic hair. it’s not bad by any means. the braids are a little loose, but you can clearly see all of the effort he’s put in. you glance up to meet his onyx gaze and offer him a smile. “you’re cute. but why didn’t you just ask me? i would have been more than happy to teach you.”

the thought had passed sakusa’s mind when the girl had first told him that she preferred the way you did her hair but he had convinced himself that the task was something he could easily do on his own. it’s not that he feels like he’s above asking for help, though, he does feel like you’re busy enough with work of your own. the last thing he wanted to do was worry you with this—something he should be entirely capable of.

“you already have so much on your plate, i thought i could take care of this on my own.” sakusa takes the doll from your hands and places it with the rest of the toys in the wooden chest before closing it.

it’s hard to believe that this is the same man that expressed doubts about whether or not he’d be a good dad before your daughter arrived. every day since then, he’s proven that his anxieties about being a parent were misplaced. sakura looks at him with stars in her eyes, like he’s the very person that hung the moon—a lot like you’re looking at him now.

you interlace your fingers with his slim ones, giving his hands a comforting squeeze as you boost yourself up on the tips of your toes to press your lips against his in a soft kiss. his breath is minty, likely from brushing his teeth with sakura not too long ago. you pull away with a smile, bumping the tip of your nose against his before returning to your normal height. “she’s going to love when you do her hair.”

thanks for reading! consider commenting or reblogging if you enjoyed ❤︎

#₊˚ପ⊹ signed: haikyuu #sakusa kiyoomi x reader #sakusa x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu x reader #sakusa fluff #haikyuu fluff #sakusa imagines #haikyuu imagines #sakusa drabble #haikyuu drabbles #sakusa scenarios #haikyuu scenarios

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ln444 · 4 months

Text

santa doesn't know you like i do. . .

kinda part 2 of this

cw: spiderman!lando, fluff fluff fluff, mentions of food.

now playing: santa doesn't know you like i do by sabrina carpenter & winter time by sabrina claudio

note: happy holidays everyone ! <3 here's my gift for you, enjoy! :D

______________________________________________

lando being late didn't really faze you anymore; after all, he was spider man, and that came with a genuine excuse. however, tonight was christmas eve, and lando has promised to spend the day with you. it was already 11 am, yet there was no sign of lando. you checked the news multiple times to see if any villains required his attention, but there was nothing. sitting in front of your phone, you debated whether to call him. perhaps he was caught up in something or even sleeping; you couldn't blame him, you see everyday how being spider-man affect him physically and mentally and it's not easy. still, the disappointment lingered, especially since it was your first christmas with him.

lando checked the clock in the small, crowded coffee shop, tapping his foot impatiently and cursing under his breath. thirty minutes had passed, and he was finally nearing the front of the line, letting out a sigh of relief. unable to text you because his phone had died –a common occurrence thanks to his absent-minded self with a perpetually uncharged phone- he continues to wait, his mind torturing him with the thoughts of you waiting for him, and his anticipation grows as the scent of fresh coffee surrounded him.

after what felt like an eternity, lando finally slips back into his spider-man suit, swinging his way back to the city. his mind is clouded with negative thoughts, weighed down by the guilt of being late on such a special day. this time, he didn't really have an excuse. he had spent a good hour attempting to wrap your present earlier that morning, followed by another hour swinging to get your favorite cakes from out of town, that you mentioned a few weeks ago. the thing is, he didn't expect the place to be so popular on christmas days. he blames himself for not waking up earlier or considering watching wrapping tutorials on youtube in advance, to avoid wasting precious time trying to do it all by himself.

his heart tightened at the thought of you sitting alone in your decorated apartment –the cozy space you both had adorned together just a few weeks ago. memories flooded his mind, recalling how he got easily distracted by you every time you needed his help. eventually, it resulted in both of you sharing kisses amidst the decorations on the floor, finishing late at night. with these thoughts filling his mind, lando couldn't help but wear a smile as he swung faster, his heart beating with excitement to see you.

with his backpack loaded with the gift he got for you –and that he spent most of his morning wrapping– and one hand tightly gripping the box of your favorite cakes, lando swung as fast as he could. he was determined not to ruin the cakes, not after everything he went through. most importantly, he didn't want to disappoint you. the thought of your smile when you open the box keeps him grinning as he fly through the city.

feeling a bit down, you decide to call lando around 11:30 am, but it goes straight to voicemail. frustrated, you toss your phone on the sofa and slump onto it. gazing out the window, you hope to spot a sudden spider-man at your window but a delightful surprise awaits. instead, you found a breathless lando, adorned in an ugly christmas sweater, that matches yours –you both made a pact to wear one today–, standing outside with messy hair, braving the cold breeze. opening the window in a hurry, you're about to voice your thoughts, but lando silences you with a warm, unexpected kiss. despite your annoyance, you find yourself kissing him back.

"well, hello to you too," you scoff as you pull away, observing lando entering the room. he closes the window behind him, and you stand there with your arms crossed, lifting an eyebrow. you examine his face; his nose and cheeks turned pink because of the cold and his eyes was slightly watery because of the wind, making it hard for you to fight the urge to wrap him in your arms.

"i... baby, i'm sorry. i can explain!" he looks like a lost puppy and your heart was about to explode. you find yourself already forgetting why you're mad just by the sight.

"look!" he pulls out a box, and it doesn't take you much to recognize the logo of your favorite coffee shop. your expression softens immediately as you gaze at the boy in front of you, who wears an apologetic smile.

"lando... are you insane? how did you manage to get this?" you take the box from his hands, your fingers eager to open it to verify if it's exactly what you think it is.

"i went to that coffee shop you mentioned, that's why i'm late. i'm sorry," lando explains, and you place the box on the table, your attention now focused on him. your hands slide around his neck as you get a closer look at his face, making your heart soften. your fingers gently caresses his hair as lando's arms wrap around your waist, pulling you closer, and he almost sighs at the warmth of your body against his cold one. "you remembered," you whisper close to his lips, your eyes drowning in his, and his smile widens. "of course," he replies simply, pulling you into a soft and warm kiss.

"i hate you," you whimper, and lando raises an eyebrow, confused. "you make it so hard to be mad at you," lando chuckles, pecking your lips. "you have every right to be mad at me, baby," he says softly, and you use all the strength you have to fight the growing smile on your face. "you know what it means, right? no more kisses for you..."

"what? never mind, you're not allowed to be mad me," he pouts, and you giggle, pulling him for another kiss. "well, you're excused for this time, just because you brought me cake," you pull away from his embrace and lando softly whines, feeling cold again.

you take the box in your hands, placing it on the small table as he eases off his backpack. pulling out the present from it, his eyes wandering to the christmas tree adorned with festive lights. a proud smile graces his lips, but it transforms into a heartwarming glow as he notices a present beneath the tree –his present, thoughtfully placed by you. his heart swells with gratitude and affection.

"wow, looks like you have better wrapping skills than me," you playfully comment from behind, drawing him out of his reverie. lando chuckles, recalling the earlier events of the day. settling beside you on the sofa, he envelops you in his arm. "oh, i forgot to mention that i spent a good hour wrapping it this morning, thanks to youtube," he laughs and your eyebrow arches in mock accusation. "so, you're a cheater!" he pulls you closer, both of you sharing a lighthearted laugh.

"let's just eat the cakes, please. i want to erase that traumatic moment," he whines, and you giggle, placing the box on your lap. as you share your thoughts on each cake, lando's attention wavers. lost in the light of your eyes, he finds himself enchanted by the simple joy your bring to the moment. the warmth of your laughter and the sparkle in your eyes makes the moment unforgettable for him. it's moments like these that become some of lando's fondest memories, wrapped in the comfort of your company. the way you can make every single little things so interesting always fascinate him.

you turn to him, a spoonful of cake in hand, bringing it towards his mouth. a smile naturally graces his lips as he opens his mouth to accept the bite. lando doesn't miss the way your eyes gleam with a mix of excitement and impatience, and he can feel his heart warming. playfully, he draws out the moment, savoring the anticipation in your eyes, earning a playful eye-roll from you. finally, he takes a real taste, and the widening of his eyes sends a momentary wave of worry through you, concerned that he might not like it.

lando's smile widens as he observes your reaction, earning a playful slap on his thigh. "so ? do you like it?" a hint of impatience can be heard in your voice and he takes the chance to tease you about it, responding with a small kiss on your neck, sending shiver through you; "so impatient, princess," he whispers playfully and your cheeks heat, which he doesn't miss either, only deepening his grin. "no but seriously, it's the best cake i ever taste," he sincerely says and a warm glow of joy fills you. as he pulls you closer, his eyes locked onto yours, and you exchange a gentle smile.

"maybe we should go there next christmas," he casually mentions and the idea of spending another christmas with him makes your stomach flutter. "i mean, in a car, of course," he adds with a laugh and you can't help but join him, quickly pecking his lips "i would love that."

you chose to spend the day in your apartment immersing yourselves in silly christmas movies –that you take way too seriously than you should– and sharing joyous memories of holidays past. the warmth and fullness in your hearts become a precious imprint, each second spent together etched into your minds forever.

in those sweet moments, lando felt at ease just being himself around you. the chaos of superhero life fading, and you presence became a comforting escape. with you, he didn't need to be perfect or carry the superhero burden. it was a simple, special connection where he could be lando, unmasked and genuine. he realized that the past months spent by your side made him a better person in so many ways.

lost in his thoughts, he didn't catch your question or the way you patiently waited for his response while he's dumbly staring at you. "lando! are you even listening ?" you whine and, to be honest, lando did not listen, too captivated in the depth of your eyes.

he doesn't bother responding, surprising you with a kiss that feels entirely different from any you've shared before. it's like lando is trying to convey something. the kiss is filled with an overwhelming amount of love and affection, making your heart threaten to burst out of your chest. it takes a moment for you to gather yourself and reciprocate, getting lost in the rush of emotions filling your body.

lando doesn't pull back after a minute like he always does. instead, he draws you even closer, your two bodies fitting together like two puzzle pieces. his tongue meets yours, initiating a dance in perfect harmony.

both of your cheeks were burning, like two teenagers sharing their first kiss. in that moment, it felt as if it was just the two of you in the whole world. lando never felt so loved and complete.

"i'm so in love with you, i think i might go crazy," lando blurts out, caught in the passionate moment you're sharing. the words lingers in the air, both of you breathless from the intensity of the kiss. his eyes reveal a mix of nerves and sincerity, and your heart races with a whirlwind of emotions, making it harder for you to catch your breath. the warmth of the embrace deepens the impact of his words, making it hard for you to think straight. lando's cheeks are burning and he mentally curses himself, blaming himself for always talking without thinking twice.

in response to lando's heartfelt confession, you tenderly stroke his warm cheek, your voice carrying the sweetest tone. "oh, lando... i'm crazy in love with you," your whispered words against his lips feel like an intimate secret shared between the two of you. your words leaves lando in awe, his mind momentarily blank, and he can't help but pull you into another kiss, drowning in the depth of the emotions exchanged.

as the soft glow of christmas illuminates your cozy apartment, you and lando find yourselves lost in each other's arms. with every shared kiss, you both savor the warmth of the holiday and the special connection makes this christmas unforgettable. in the embrace of each other, you discover that loving each other is the greatest gift, and you find yourself already excited to spend next christmas –and maybe the next one, and so on– together.

______________________________________________

#lando norris x reader #f1 x reader #lando norris fluff #lando norris drabble #lando norris fanfic #lando norris imagine #f1 drabble #f1 fluff #f1 fic #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine

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aerequets · 1 year

Photo

threaten

(timelapse under cut)

i finally figured out how to screen record, zoom is the real homie 😎 people have asked before for tutorials or recordings so im happy i can finally do that!

that being said i did get distracted like 3 times in the 45 minutes this drawing took (somehow) so ignore the other stuff and im sorry for the weirdly long pause near the beginning LMAO