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stevie-petey · 1 month

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dibs

“Jinx!” Again, they say this at the same time. They both groan, and without any other words, they jump into an intense game of rock, paper, scissors. “One, two, three!” Steve holds out a rock, Robin does as well, and the two teens almost strangle one another. They try again, this time they both land on paper, and Robin throws her head back in frustration. “I’m not good at math, but this cannot be statistically possible.”

Summary: do the laws of dibs still apply if steve and robin see you at the same time ???

Rating: general, some swearing

Warnings: swearing, fem!reader, use of y/n

Words: 1.4k

Before you swing in: this is for my beloved val (@southelroy), and i was so excited to try my hand at writing robin and steve together <3 this is a very silly fic, not at all meant to be realistic or serious, and it isnt proofread so pls enjoy n beware !

According to the ancient rules of “dibs”, the first person who sees the desired one has the rightful claim of dibs. Anyone else present during this time must obey this sacred rule, respecting the fact that the other has laid claim first. It’s an old, ancient tradition, held up for centuries through faithful friendships.

It’s a solid system, really.

Except Steve and Robin see you walk into Family Video on the same day, at the same time, together.

You walk in, hair slightly wet from the rain and your eyes bright, and smile at the two of them shyly. Setting down your umbrella, you unbutton your raincoat and look around the store. “Sorry, is it okay if I hide out in here for a bit? My umbrella broke and I really don’t feel like catching a cold.”

Steve and Robin stare at you, wide eyed and in shock. They’ve never seen you before, they surely would’ve remembered your face if they had, and their brains short circuit simultaneously.

When they don’t say anything, you cautiously walk up to the counter and laugh nervously. “Uh, hello? I can leave, if that’s what you’re trying to say.”

“No!” Steve shouts, panicked that the word “leave” has left your very pretty and pink mouth. When you flinch at his raised voice, he quickly clears his throat and lowers his voice. “I–uh, I mean… No, no. You can stay–please! I mean, if you don’t mind, ‘cause, ya know, it’s raining–”

“What my coworker here is trying to say is that you can definitely stay.” Robin interrupts, admiring the way the raindrops in your hair seem to form a halo. “In fact, why don’t you have a look around? We have plenty of movies.”

You smile at Robin, which she practically melts seeing. “Thanks, you guys are lifesavers. I’m here visiting my cousin, and he said I should stop by anyways.”

“What, do we know him?” Steve asks, finally finding his voice again.

“His name is Dustin Henderson, if that helps. He’s a freshman at Hawkins, said he stops here sometimes–”

“Dustin Henderson is your cousin?” Steve and Robin say at the same time, completely taken aback.

You laugh. “Ya know, I’ve gotten that a lot since being in Hawkins. I take it he’s well known?”

“Oh, he’s definitely well known.” Robin snorts, thinking about how many people would scream at the idea of more Hendersons running around the world.

But if they’re anything like you, then Robin thinks she’d love to be invited to a Henderson family reunion. Immediately.

“Well,” you smile again at the two teens, amused by their weird dynamic. You can see why Dustin likes them so much. “Since I’m stuck here for a while and I promised Dustin I’d get a movie, I’m gonna take a look around as suggested.”

You pause, now realizing you haven’t asked for their names, and you gasp. “I’m so sorry! What are your names? I feel horrible for not even asking.”

“You could never do any wrong,” Steve sighs dreamily, leaning against the counter in what he hopes is a cool looking pose. “I’m Steve, Steve Harrington.”

He sticks his hand out for you to shake, which you accept with a slight giggle. He’s odd, but incredibly endearing even if he’s currently standing against the counter like a middle-aged man. “I’m Y/N Henderson.”

Robin, sensing what Steve is trying to do, hip checks the boy so that he falls onto the ground. “And I’m Robin Buckley, the better half of this duo.”

Like hell she’s going to allow him to flirt with you.

Her declaration makes you laugh, even as poor Steve groans on the floor in pain. You wink at her, amused by her charm, and start to walk towards the movie aisles. “Oh, I believe that.”

Steve scrambles back up, and the second you’re out of earshot, he and Robin immediately shout at the same time, “Dibs!”

“Jinx!” Again, they say this at the same time. They both groan, and without any other words, they jump into an intense game of rock, paper, scissors.

“One, two, three!” Steve holds out a rock, Robin does as well, and the two teens almost strangle one another.

They try again, this time they both land on paper, and Robin throws her head back in frustration. “I’m not good at math, but this cannot be statistically possible.”

“Okay, let’s think about this.” Steve holds a finger up to indicate that he’s speaking, which Robin scoffs at. “I saw her first, so–”

“Uh, news flash, dingus: I saw her first.”

“Were you dropped as a child? I clearly saw her first–”

“Actually,” your voice causes both Robin and Steve to turn in horror, realizing too late that you’ve been standing behind them, listening in. “You both saw me at the same time, so I’m not sure how the rule of dibs applies here.”

“We…” Steve gapes at you, speechless.

Robin is no better, her face burns horribly. “We think… You’re pretty?”

“Well, I gathered that much.” You laugh again, and the sound is enough for both Steve and Robin to forget all their worries and admire how delicate it is. Then, holding up two dvd’s, you place them on the counter. “I’ll take these, please.”

Robin looks down at your movie selection, seeing The Breakfast Club and The Outsiders, and her heart drops. “Just… Just these?”

“Mhm,” you nod, unsure why her demeanor has suddenly changed. “Is there something wrong with my movie selection?”

Steve looks at Robin and he knows immediately what’s wrong. She absolutely hates your taste in movies, which he’s ecstatic over. He lets out a whoop and first bumps the air. “Yes! She’s mine!”

“Shut up, you moron!” Robin screeches, embarrassed and infuriated. She cannot believe that this is happening to her right now, in front of a very pretty girl, no less. Closing her eyes, Robin takes a deep breath and turns to you. “Please excuse my friend, he’s allergic to pretty girls.”

“Hey, that’s not true–”

You cross your arms at Robin, an amused smile on your face. “What’s so wrong with my taste in movies?”

“Nothing!” When you raise your eyebrow at her, Robin accepts her fate and gives in. She knows she’s done for now. “It’s just… It’s incredibly bland.”

“I happen to think your taste is impeccable, Y/N.” Steve butts in, batting his eyelashes at you for added effect.

Robin watches, with pure disgust, as it works. Steve’s charm gets you to laugh once more, and you even lean closer to his side of the counter. You place a hand on his arm. “I’m honored to have you on my side, then.”

Stupid Harrington and his stupid male species.

While you and Steve exchange gross lovey-dovey glances, Robin rings up your movie rentals with disdain.

“That will be $5.25, please.” She mumbles, crestfallen.

You tear your eyes away from Steve’s and notice the jealousy and hurt on Robin’s face. You frown, feeling bad for being the cause of this. She seems like a sweet girl, and Dustin spoke highly of her, so you know she’s someone special. Taking some cash out of your purse, you hand it to Robin and catch her eye.

“Hey, listen to me real quick.” Robin looks up, despite not wanting to, but your eyes are too pretty not to look into. When you have her attention, you turn to Steve. “Can you give us a second?”

He looks bewildered. “What? Why?”

“If you leave now, I’ll give you my number.”

“Yes ma’am!” Steve hops over the counter and goes to sort some movies, leaving you alone with Robin.

Once he’s gone, you lean in close to her. “I understand what you’re going through.”

Her eyes widen, terrified she’s been caught. “W–what? No, I think you’ve gotten this all wrong–”

“It’s okay,” you grab her hand, gently take it between yours. “We’re more alike than you may think, and while I’m flattered, you’re too young.”

Robin knows she should be devastated by this, but all she hears is, “So… Let’s say ten years from now, if you happen to visit Dustin again…”

You laugh, she’s got such a spark to her. “You’ll have to figure out the whole ‘dibs’ thing by then with Steve.”

“I saw you first!” Steve shouts from somewhere in the aisles, before a giant crash follows. A few seconds pass, and then, much quieter this time, he shouts, “I’m fine!”

⌑ writing masterlist

#steve harrington x henderson!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #robin buckley x reader #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington x fem #stranger things #m's writing #implied robin x reader #dont wanna tag much x robin because like not really but she has a crush ya know #fluff #theyre such silly guys tbh

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retrieve-the-kraken · 1 month

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Okay, so I’ve finished my taxes, and I’m basically out of the woods with some overwhelming work stuff, and everything turned out well with a medical situation with my mum, but I am still very tired, but I also cannot keep going without putting my preliminary thoughts on my very first viewing of season 3 down on a post…

It seems my worst characterization so far is assuming that these two idiots would learn to communicate. They haven’t, they’re stupid teenagers, they’re really bad at it, they get mad at each other for everything, and they don’t listen. And that needs to change soon if we want Wilmon endgame.

Boris, do you do couples therapy? PLEASE HELP THEM.

I think a big reason Wilhelm lashes out, besides getting caught up in his own head, is the fact that he’s also constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing and pissing Simon off. But the stakes for Simon are clearly higher. Wilhelm really needs to learn to communicate, but he’s dragging a whole life of terrible communication and zero support, so HOW is he supposed to learn, if he naturally feels afraid to open up?

It shows in the way he reacts to learning about Erik. Simon might be right, and Erik maybe just gave in to peer pressure, like everyone else in that school (which we see over and over again, like with the strike, and that guy who just repeats ‘yeah hilarious’ when Vincent tells him, and the graduation rituals and basically everything that everyone does at that fucking school), and maybe he wasn’t particularly homophobic. Or maybe he was, but if he had found out about Wilhelm maybe he would have changed his views (after all he was a stupid kid too)… But how would Wilhelm know? Erik is dead, there’s no way of asking him, confronting him about it. And people still call him perfect, and still compare him to his brother.

It must be so traumatizing to have held this person in your head as the one you trusted for everything, the one who would support you most, the one who probably knew you better than anyone else, who would love you and be there for you no matter what, and it turns out that he might not have accepted you at all. And just like that Wille is all alone and angry and afraid again.

(This is why it’s extra cruel that August posted that fucking video, especially how premeditated it was to share it over the whole world, but also then tell Wilhelm that his brother was possibly a homophobe. It doesn’t matter that he went through that horrible hazing, it doesn’t matter that he put a stop to it, and it doesn’t matter that he’s a stupid kid too, the fact that he did THAT to someone, anyone, is awful and he should have known better.)

So that scene in season 1 when Erik teases Wilhelm about his crush potentially changes completely. Maybe he didn’t suspect anything, maybe it was just a coincidence that he never used any pronouns…

And that makes it even more traumatizing that his parents still think of Erik as the figure of perfection, and Wilhelm, who is queer and scandalous and rebellious, is the real thorn on their side. Fucking Ludvig saying that Erik really was perfect, that he didn’t have “that darkness inside of him”, to his surviving son… But for all we know maybe Erik’s death was not accidental, maybe he did have “a darkness” inside of him.

On the other hand, that “darkness” doesn’t excuse Kristina at all. I am convinced that this depression/burnout that she’s going through is absolute bullshit. Sure, she might be depressed, she’s still grieving her “perfect” heir, and she’s going through a lot. But it’s like Wilhelm says, how convenient that she shuts down and breaks down now. She wasn’t like this when the video happened, because she could still cover it up. And she wasn’t like this when Wilhelm called her to scream that he was going to abdicate, because she could still drag him out of Hillerska. It was only when he told the whole world, and there was no covering it up anymore, that she suddenly became fragile with grief.

And even if it were true, even if she’s going through a severe depression or burnout, as a result of everything that’s happened, that doesn’t excuse her previous lies and manipulations. And it makes the fact that she still really wants Wille to become her successor, despite knowing what it could do to him, despite knowing that he’s already extremely anxious and that he does not know how to manage his own emotions, is evil.

(And even if she wants August to be the backup too, knowing how he is, knowing his own family history, and how it could affect him too, is evil too.) MORE on this later.

Kristina uses her breakdowns to emotionally manipulate Wille into trying to do his best to be the perfect crown prince, now indirectly through Farima and Ludvig. And Wille’s so concerned with her and her fragility that it affects his relationship with Simon. Because he’s anxious about the possible imminence of having to take over, of being the new monarch, when he can barely control his own feelings, when he just wants to enjoy his first relationship and just be in love.

Of course he made things worse for himself and Simon when he publicly revealed their relationship, but we can understand where that’s coming from. He didn’t want to hide anymore, he didn’t want to not be able to be himself anymore, not be able to be with the boy he loves. But they’re still forced to hide, because people start hating on Simon, because people won’t stop talking about them (as much as I HATED Wille shushing Simon, I also understood that he didn’t want anyone to hear their argument, because he didn’t want to give people more reason to talk about them, but also there’s probably a lot of ‘keeping up appearances’ embedded in his mind), because they are very different and almost incompatible for many reasons, and because being the crown prince means conforming to a lot of things (no tattoos, no cutting your hair shorter than, no nail polish, no expressing political opinions, etc etc), and so he has to remove the nail polish and he doesn’t want his foundation to be geared toward LGBTQIA+ people or mental health issues… He can’t express himself, he can’t be himself, because what he is or who he is for real is not compatible with his role or what is expected of him… he’s so repressed still.

(The whole nail polish scene, and the scene where Simon suggests that Wille’s foundation could be geared toward LGBTQIA+ youth, reminded me a little of Isak in SKAM saying that he wasn’t just going to start marching in the Pride parade or wearing makeup. Wille is not necessarily about identity expression, or at least he doesn’t think that he should be. He just wants to be himself, and be with the boy he loves, and that’s it).

As for Simon, he can do no wrong, and I absolutely agree with everything he says and does, but he has always been very idealistic, and he does come across as a little more naïve than I expected, especially with the whole social media comments and his song. It wasn’t the first time he experienced it, because things went south for him when he appeared on the video, so for him now to think that people are magically not going to be cruel.

But I understand how much he’s sacrificing for Wille, and Wille not appreciating it at all must sting. Just like he points out that he didn’t have contact with Micke for years, for Sara’s sake, and suddenly she’s living with him… that fucking hurt. Simon has always been very opinionated and outspoken, and he’s very authentically and proudly himself, but he’s also always molded himself to what other people need, like being a parented child and taking on too much in the house to relieve Linda, and taking care of Sara, and worrying about his father, and letting himself be manipulated by Marcus, and now basically giving up a lot of himself to be with Wille. And as a result Linda treats him like he’s a drug addict, and Sara goes to the father she didn’t want to have contact with, and Marcus talks shit about him to the press, and Wille doesn’t listen to him…

Sara saw the light (sort of), so maybe hopefully Wille will too. More on that later too.

Anyway, it would have been nice for someone from the royal court to sit Simon down and explain to him what being the boyfriend of a royal involves, so that Wille doesn’t have to figure out how to tell him all these difficult things himself. Wille is so used to some of these things, they seem so obvious to him, that he might not immediately think of how weird or outlandish it might seem to Simon. (THat scene with the cake, I mean… it was funny in a way, but I wonder how many terrifying thoughts crossed Simon’s mind, the obvious “wait what??? did I just eat poison???” but also “wait what??? someone’s trying to poison my boyfriend????” and “there are kids here, have they also accidentally been poisoned????”).

I really really hope that, since he’s being forced to go to Boris with August, that Wille will think about going with Simon, and trying to work things out. They need to be able to say all these things to each other, get on the same page.

More importantly, I need a callback to what Boris said to him in season 2, about the expectations of his family, about being able to make his own choices. Which Wille internalized beautifully with that speech to Simon outside his house.

Anyway, this is already very long. Moving on to more general thoughts:

- I did think that the fact that they sort of resolved the whole issue with the police report and the drugs felt a little anticlimactic. It was built up and built up and the whole season 2 finale was about that, and we had a cliffhanger and everything, and then… bye. I wonder if it will come back (more on that later).

- And for that matter, Alexander just became a background character. Did he even have any lines? I could barely spot him.

- August telling Wilhelm in front of everyone at the table that he’s sure Wille will fuck up on his own… rich.

- Also Stella and Rosh was sort of hinted at, it happened in a blink, and then Fredrika was… jealous? Confused? Homophobic? All of the above? But then… NOTHING. Stella was even missing in the last episode, because she was “sick”… (scheduling conflicts for Felicia? Actually sick?)

- I think it’s interesting that Sara preached and preached to Simon about giving people a second chance, including their dad, and then she… goes and does it? It wasn’t the first time she did, she was with August despite the awful thing he did. And then she goes and… gives August ANOTHER chance????

- Someone needs to tell Sara that she needs to stop getting wtih August, because every time they get together somehow, Wilmon go south… It seems these two couples cannot exist simultaneously…

- So I still have to rewatch, but… is August then in the middle of selling his father’s estate to pay Simon? Are any of his friends aware of this?

- I have a cultural question: what was the whole deal about travelling to the US? I mean, I thought they were asking if these kids have never travelled abroad, but they mentioned the US specifically, several times… Is that a thing in Sweden, traveling to the US? Not any other part of Europe? Not Asia? Just wondering. Made me curious.

- Still waiting for this season’s Elias song… just one episode left… If we don’t get one, or a callback to Revolution, I might claw my face off…

- Nils repeating that maybe Wille would have been better off with someone from the inner circle. Seriously, Nils, who do you mean? WHO? Who could you be referring to? Hmm?

- Something else about Nils… a part of me really wished that Wille would have asked Nils for confirmation on the Erik thing. Wille obviously doesn’t want to believe it at first, but then he does, and hearing it from August makes it even worse, so maybe hearing it from someone like Nils would be the final confirmation that he would need, that his brother was the worst. On the other hand, for him to ask Nils to confirm something like that, as a gay, and possibly hearing what happened to him as a result of it… that would have probably made it even worse.

- Really hate that Marcus was mentioned, that he came back to haunt Simon in a way, even if it was minimal. But props to Simon for not rising to the bait in that moment.

- Simon, my love, i understand that you’re upset and heartbroken, but… it would have been nice if you tried to get Wille to talk to you one last time, before breaking up with him on his birthday… especially seeing everything he’s going through. Not that your feelings are any less important than his, of course, but… are you trying to get him to jump out the window????

-Eternally saddened by the disappearance of the orange sweater. Eternally saddened by the fact that Wilhelm did not set foot in or around Simon’s house this season. Although who knows, still one episode left…

Things that I liked most:

- Seriously the chemistry between Edvin and Omar is OFF THE CHARTS. The intimacy coordinator this season was very good.

- Especially that sex scene. Not just because it makes me immensely happy when my favorite ship fucks, because holy shit that was hot, but also because there’s a whole theme around all the hate mail and messages and classism and homophobia and toxic masculinity that Simon is a target of, especially being Latino, whilst Wille, being white and privileged and high class and the heir to the throne, is probably seen as the “man” of the relationship (especially since in the video he’s also the one “in control” whilst Simon is the receiver), so it’s very VERY satisfying to see that they are both top and bottom at times, and they both equally enjoy it.

- Also the use of choir music during the sex scene, giving it a very holy feel, much like Elias’s Holy playing when they have sex again in season 2… seriously I NEED my Elias song this season or I WILL START A REVOLUTION.

- At first I was annoyed at the whole “school possibly closing” plotline, because I thought it was unneeded. Or that maybe it would play a bigger role in the whole video-drugs controversy. But the truth is that it was really good, how it highlighted these kids’ privilege and the absurdity of wanting to cover things up and uphold traditions, and it also worked wonderfully to highlight the divide between Simon and Wille. As Simon says to Wille, he only takes a stand when he has nothing to lose.

- Felice. Felice this whole season was magnificent. Her whole breakdown over the end of her friendship with Sara, showing how truly important it was to her. And Madison saying that sometimes breaking up with a friend is worse than getting dumped, and I AGREE SO MUCH. But then I also think she loses her sense of self, because despite being popular and beautiful, she still gets used and treated badly, by August (obviously), but also by Wille (the kiss), and worst of all by Sara (who in a way used her for her horse, but also for the clout). And in the meantime, she’s treated differently than the other students for being one of the few black girls, and she gets singled out for her hair… and yet, the school is using her to make themselves look good. And now she decides to give Sara a second chance, because she really missed her, because it really hurt to lose that friend, and Sara goes and… does that…

- One of my favorite things about Simon is how he is proof that just because you’re gay doesn’t mean that you have flawless fashion sense. And i can’t help but wonder how fashion and style icon/ELLE’s Best Dressed Man/OMR Beauty founder Omar feels about Simon’s fashion choices. Never change, Simon, never change.

- Vincent was every bit of the tremendous asshole that I hoped he’d be this season. Did not disappoint. I wanted to punch him in the face every time he opened his mouth. Marvellous.

- I’m happy that we got more Madison, but still not enough. Still, iconic. Forever one of my favorite characters.

- I don’t know what to say about Sara and Micke. Just maybe that, when he played that song in the car, even before they started singing, i just knew “oh fuck, it’s all going to shit soon…” I guess Sara felt lost enough that she was suddenly willing to give him a second chance. And the whole “is that going to happen to me?” bit really made me sad. That she understands that mental health and mental illness is unfortunately many times hereditary, and worries that she might become just like him… But despite not being entirely like him, with addiction problems and such, she was still unreliable like him, she did bad things to her family like he did… I was rooting for you, Micke, we were all rooting for you.

- I feel that August’s love for status and for the monarchy might be starting to fray at the edges. First with the fact that he was reminded of his own traumatizing initiation, and reminded of how the crown prince, his cousin and friend and idol, himself was part of that. Second with the fact that Simon points out that he might have an eating disorder, how he would probably not fare any better than the queen if he were in such a stressful position as crown prince or king, how difficult it is for him to handle stress and anxiety. And third with seeing how it affects Wille and Simon and realizing that something similar might still happen to him and Sara. And the fact that he reveals to Sara why he is the way he is, that he lets his guard down with her, might point to even more growth (even though I hate that Sara sort of gave him a “second chance” again). Also I feel the reality of how they, the Royal Court, would control his life is finally sinking in. Hopefully he will also soon realize that they also use him as a manipulation tool. So maybe he won’t let himself be manipulated by them much longer.

- I loved Wille’s ultimate outburst at his mother and father, i love that he told them everything they needed to hear, about their emotional abuse, their neglect. Unfortunately they still refused to acknowledge how terrible parents they have been, and walked off, instead of trying to resolve it. So Wille throwing around the gifts, as impulsive and tantrum-ish it might come across, makes perfect sense. He tries to talk and gets nothing in return. If he’s repressed it’s bad, but if he expresses himself then nothing happens either.

- And I love that Simon got to see what Wille is really dealing with. As privileged as he might be, he’s still lacking the most important things: unconditional support and love. No amount of money or status can make it better, and Wille is broken. The only thing is that, Simon saw how broken Wille was over the death of his brother, whom he loved very much, but I don’t think he quite grasps the gravity of Wille learning that maybe that beloved brother wouldn’t have been so cool with him, because he has never had to deal with a parent or sibling rejecting him for his sexuality. It’s something very different to be rejected by society at large than it is to be rejected by your own family, and not everyone has the emotional strength to deal with that. So for Wille’s parents to still like his potentially homophobic dead brother more than him, is heart-wrenching. But I don’t think Simon really gets that because he’s probably not surprised that Erik might have been like that, because in his eyes those privileged kids in that school (except obviously Wille, and Felice and Madison, who is asking about the non-binaries) are probably all massive homophobes.

- Despite this, I love that Simon sets boundaries nonetheless. I mean, it hurt like fucking hell for him to tell Wille, on his fucking birthday, that maybe they shouldn’t be together. But just because Wille is hurting doesn’t mean that Simon has not also been hurting too. And if they can’t comfort each other, and try to support each other when they both obviously most need it, then maybe they’re just not going to work. And it took a lot of guts for Simon to bring it up in that moment, in Wille’s bed, in the palace, where he’s basically trapped, with nowhere to go, no way to get away (I doubt he called Linda in the middle of the night to come pick him up more than two hours away in Stockholm).

My hopes for the final episode (I don’t think I have any predictions other than, open ending or not, Wilmon will be endgame and there will be a revolution, I just don’t know how):

- Wilmon talk. An actual, healthy, heartfelt talk. A reconciliation for the ages.

- That the fucking school will close and August won’t be able to graduate, and he’ll realize that maybe he shouldn’t have “lived for that school”, as Erik once put it.

- That Wille will realize that, if Erik was not the person he thought he was, then maybe he no longer has to live up to his legacy anymore. @foreverunraveling pointed out how, now that the big Erik revelation is confirmed, then maybe the queen’s trump card to manipulate Wille into being the ideal crown prince is gone. Wille doesn’t care about the monarchy really, but he did care about not disappointing his brother, the “perfect crown prince”, and now we know that he was far from perfect. Erik lived a double life, as Wille points out, there was “public Erik” or crown prince Erik, and there was “private Erik”, or the real Erik (or so Wille thought, now we know there was a “secret Erik” which was the real Erik) and Wille struggles so much with the idea of having to split himself in two, . Wille cannot live a double life, he withers away when he has to hide himself, and now he gets the opportunity to leave that stifling life behind, and blossom.

- That Simon will get a fucking break. I hate that his whole life was turned upside down from the moment the video was leaked, and it’s just never going to be the same, whether he stays with Wille or not, he’ll always be the boy from the crown prince sex tape, he’ll always be the crown prince’s ex, or the crown prince’s boyfriend. But I want some positive feedback for him, someone bigger than the woman and the little boy wanting a selfie. I want him to have his own fanclub or something. Maybe that’s too idealistic…? (I may be imagining something like that scene in Red White and Royal Blue, when they realize that there’s a whole crowd outside the palace all excited to the the Prince and his First son boyfriend… one can dream).

- I want whatever Felice said during the interview to be taken seriously, and for her to stop doubting herself.

- I want a genuine apology from August.

- Also one from Kristina.

- I get the feeling that the fact that August leaked the video might still come out publicly, what with the whole school issue. And in that case, I would like for it to be Simon might to do it, tossing the money from the settlement in his face. It looks like Simon still feels guilty about accepting it, especially when he chided Wille about his privilege and Wille (figuratively) threw the money back in his face. What if Simon does it literally?

- I really wanna know what’s going to happen between Felice and Sara now. The outlook is not good.

- Is it too much to ask to know what’s going on between Stella and Fredrika?

- Most importantly, is the whole thing with Erik going to come out eventually? And how will people react? With support for the monarchy, or with support for Wille?

I have so many more thoughts, but I’m slightly burnt out, and I really should take a break. Also this is way too long. Might have more thoughts once I’ve rewatched the first five episodes, calmly over the weekend…

Also this is very long and I’m sorry.

#young royals #young royals season 3 #yr season 3 #yr s3 spoilers #young royals season 3 spoilers #young royals thoughts #young royals analysis

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 9 months

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AITA for being mad that my girlfriend broke up with me?

So I (23 M) got with my ex (23 F) about 5 months ago— we met through a college program, and really hit it off! It was just friends at first but I pretty quickly caught feelings, because she was just so down to Earth with me I really felt like I could spend forever with her. I wasn’t gonna say anything yet, because I felt like we hadn’t really known each other for that long. But then, some stuff happened in my city (don’t worry we’re fine), and thanks to that we didnt meet up for a good while. I ended up finding out she went to the next city over to escape a bunch of riots (I don’t blame her) so I drove out to make sure she was okay. Which she was!

I took her back home after telling her about what she missed— she was originally going to go to her parents house, but with some convincing on my end she agreed to go back. After such a long couple of days, I realized she always made me feel safe and comforted in ways no one else could. So I confessed to her, which she accepted, and we started dating! It was really nice, and super romantic. I felt like I found the perfect person and I thought she did the same.

But less than a month or so into the relationship, she completely turned on me! Getting mad about how I moved on from the previously mentioned from the crazy stuff happening in my city, yelling about her living in my house now, and not wanting to date anymore. It was like she completely forgot our friendship and relationship all. And I tried helping her get back to where she was, and sometimes she’d wake up like her anger had never happened, but after a few days it wouldn’t stick and I’ve given up on trying to make her remember anything. At first she was sort of OK with dating but it quickly turned into a on-again, off-again thingy.

She constantly complains about things— she complains mostly about my hobbies (I’m really into gardening and botany, which she says is “weird”, and I don’t know what she means by that…?), and she also complains about our neighbor, who I’m on really good terms with (apparently my ex and my neighbor (41 F) had bad blood in the past, but I had no clue!!!) In fact, she complains about my other friends (23 F and 22 NB), saying that the former is a “self-absorbed prick” and the latter got “brainwashed” by me after we became friendly. I feel like I can’t spend time with my ex around my other friends anymore or even mention them because of how vocal her anger is.

She claims to have constant nightmares and blames them on our negative relationship, and I was getting really fed up with it because she just lashes out in anger instead of talking ANYTHING out with me. We got into an argument recently, and because I was so angry I had told her that I didn’t like her now and I wished she went back to how she was when we first started dating. She was really hurt, and I didn’t mean to hurt her that way, but she ran off before I could apologize. It’s been days and she still hasn’t come home, but she texted me and told me we’re through (if it wasn’t clear enough). I’m pretty frustrated she has just been lashing out at everything and not communicating with me. It makes me feel shitty and I don’t get why she acts like this.

I’m afraid I’m being a dick for being mad she left without ever talking things out, but I wish she gave us a proper chance! So AITA??

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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sp00kyapricotz · 2 years

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future- dallas winston x fem! reader

a/n: sorry i haven’t posted anything in a while i’ve just been super busy! but i’m into the outsiders now so yeah enjoy 😭i hate this a lot but i’ll be working on better stuff soon

warnings: blood mention, cut mention

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it was 12am and you were changing into a cream white silk slip when you heard a rythmic knock on your door

a normal person would be startled or pissed, but you were used to this by now

you knew who it was immediately, your boyfriend, dallas winston

you were taking to long to get to the door

“babeee open up”

he was all bloodied and bruised up, more than he usually was after a rumble

“god dal you look fucked up!” you say as you run up to him

“relax dollface i’m fine, just a few cuts and scrapes here and there, get me a cancer stick will ya babe”

“dally you are not fine stay here”

you run over to get some gauze and bandages from your room

“honey sit down”

he listens to you and sits down

he shuffles around in the couch seat trying to hide the immense pain he was going through, though you could still see it visibly

he accepted it at this point and took off his leather jacket, allowing you to see more of his injuries

that’s when you notice a blood stain on the side of his torso

“dallas don’t tell me this was another knife fight”

“ok it was, but babe if i had known it was gonna be a knife fight i wouldn’t have gotten like this you know those socs never fight fair”

“alright enough, take off your shirt that cuts gonna get infected if we wait any longer”

“wow you’re really that desperate to see me shirtless huh babe”

“dal just take the shirt off and shut up please”

normally he wouldn’t accept that kind of talk towards him but he was head over heels in love with you so he’d let you say anything to him and wouldn’t care, mainly because he just adored your voice

he took off his shirt and you got to work

“this is gonna sting a little okay”

you look up at him knowing he’s not focusing on your words instead he’s just looking straight into your eyes

“ah fuck” dally throws his head back onto the chair from the pain of the stinging

“ i told you it was gonna sting”

you wrap the gauze around his stomach noticing just how deep the cut actually was

“dal this shits pretty deep”

“yeha yeha i know ,just hurry i wanna go to bed”

“ok..”

you finish wrapping and bandaging and he gets up to go to your bedroom

“wait you’re staying over tonight?”

“yeah? i can’t stay over at bucks tonight the cops are gonna be looking for me over there”

“what the fuck? what else did you do now?”

“the cops showed up right before i started walking here, they saw me and started chasing me down, don’t worry though i don’t think they saw me come this way”

“shit dallas why you always gotta be getting into trouble like this?”

“what are you talking about?”

you see a rise in anger in his tone, which starts to scare you

“forget it, just go to bed dal the extra pillows are in the closet by the left door”

“alright…” he says turning back to you

….

after a long 15 minutes of silence, you assumed dally had fallen asleep already so you went along to the bathroom to get ready for the night

as you were washing your face, the sight of the gash on his stomach just kept replaying

you couldn’t help but think about how if that knife had gone a little further, you could’ve lost him forever

while you and dal had your rough spots, at the end of the day you could never live with out him

and with the thought of that your eyes began to water, then a river of tears came

you didn’t want dally to hear you, so you washed away the tears and just got straight into bed as if nothing happened

unfortunately he’s an incredibly light sleeper and when you got into bed he woke up

“y/n what time is it?”

his voice groggy and dry

“you’ve only been asleep for an hour go back to bed”

your voice was shaky and you knew he would hear it

and he did

“y/n what’s wrong?”

“what do you mean what’s wrong there’s nothing wrong”

dally turns on the lamp which reveals your puffy red eyes and nose

you see the scars on his face, his black eye and busted lip in more detail now that the light is on, you just broke down completely

he takes you in and holds on to you tightly

“doll what’s wrong, i can’t help you if i don’t know what’s buggin you”

“it’s you dal, i love you too much to see you getting hurt like this all the time”

“what?”

“if that blade had gone even an inch further i probably would’ve never seen you again, and i- i just don’t think i’d be able to live with that”

“you know i’ll never die from a rumble like that, i’m tough okay? you don’t gotta worry alright”

“i know you’re tough. but you’re not made of steel, a bullet goes through you and you’re gone… gone! you realize that right?”

“i know, but that’s not gonna happen alright”

dally moves his hands to holds your face

“look i know i don’t have a future, but you do and i just don’t wanna see you wasting that on someone like me. but if you want me to be a part of that future then i’ll try to keep out of shit that could get me killed”

“but you do have a future dal, at least with me..”

“so please just try to keep out of trouble”

“i can’t make too many promises but i can say ill try”

“thank you dally”

you look up into his eyes and fall into his warm embrace.

#the outsiders #dallas winston x reader #dally winston x reader #the outsiders dally #the outsiders fanfiction #dally winston fan fiction

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lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year

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MAG 199 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: Slow Tuesday at work/after work...

MARTIN: "Anyone want another cup of tea?" Ah yes, Martin's solution for everything. Tea XD

MELANIE: "So, we’re seriously holding up ‘let Jon become god’ as a legitimate choice here?" Yeah, I guess Melanie would hate that. Even if it's not her god, with her being cut off from the Eye and all xD

So, as far as I see it from these first few sentences we have Melanie and Martin who want to send off the Fears. Then we have Jon who is adamant on becoming the Pupil and letting the Fears die so no other Jon ever has to suffer this. And Basira and Georgie, who are kiiiind of more on the neutral/fence-sitter side.

GEORGIE: "But is it all other realities, or just some of them?" JON: "Does it matter?" MARTIN: "I mean, maybe? If there are infinite worlds out there then “thousands” isn’t even a drop in the bucket, cosmically speaking." MELANIE: "'Cosmically speaking'?" MARTIN: "You know what I mean." [MELANIE SIGHS] BASIRA: "It’s still more than one, though, isn’t it? Which is what we’re discussing." It's time to bring up MAG 155 again! xD They are talking more than one, that's for sure, so it seems like they would do more harm if they send off the Fears, hitting more people than they are, in total numbers I mean. But are they? Here's the hypothetical part again (in MAG 155 it was that the statement giver was working on projects which could save thousands of lives. Hypothetical, cause in the end nobody knows if the projects would have actually failed if it wasn't for her). They don't know what these other worlds look like. We know there's one very similar to theirs from MAG 114. But how many people are there? Maybe all those other worlds are so much smaller that in total numbers they are less than the people here. Very unlikely I know, but there is no way to tell for sure.

GEORGIE: "Option two is Jon takes over from Magnus. Keeps the Powers contained here with us, and tries his best to make the place a little more… tolerable, until the end." MARTIN: "And we lose him." Technically, they don't know that either. Martin fears Jon's humanity will be lost once and for all. But what if he just stays the same?

MARTIN: "No, Jon, I’m sorry, but if one world still matters in an infinite spread of dimensions, then one person does, too." That's the problem. Jon doesn't think that way. If you're counting in total again, trading one life for so many others would have been quite expensive.

Lol, I just remembered this is basically Life Is Strange on a much larger scale and more complicated due to more variables and unknown outcomes XD

MELANIE: "I-I think the issue is he matters a bit too much." MARTIN: "The point is you don’t have a responsibility to sacrifice yourself just to make everyone else’s lives a bit easier." JON: "I’ve already made them a hell of a lot harder!" Okay first, fuck you, Melanie, seriously! Second, their conversation here again feels so real. Martin thinks Jon's martyr complex is bullshit and that it's not his fault. I feel like Jon did a lot better during their pilgrimage, accepting that it was not his fault and that he was used. But now after what Annabelle told them I'd say he sees himself existing already as his fault.

MELANIE: "Hey! Georgie didn’t do anything!" GEORGIE: "No, Melanie, I, I didn’t." MELANIE: [Softly] "Yeah." GEORGIE: "And maybe I should have. I kept out of it, even when I got a pretty good idea of what was going on towards the end. But… I should have known better. Hiding never helps." It's cool that doing nothing is also presented as doing something. (On a lighthearted note, it's just like someone asking you "Hey, what's your plan for the weekend?" - "Doing nothing" - "Great, then you can join-" - "No, you don't understand. My plan is to do nothing!" XD)

GEORGIE: "For a while! But… we couldn’t actually do anything, could we? Couldn’t save anyone." BASIRA: "Okay, fine, blame for everyone. But the hard fact is, Jon’s the only one who can take over the Panopticon." Oh wait, isn't there a Communist Bugs Bunny meme with Basira??

GEORGIE: "Which brings us to our third option." JON: Which is?" GEORGIE: "Do nothing. We… adapt to the new world, and just wait for it to finally end." Of course Georgie comes up with that one xD But she's right. As I said, doing nothing also is doing something.

BASIRA: "Do we actually have the right to make this decision? The five of us? For the whole world, or for maybe infinite worlds we know nothing about?" GEORGIE: "No, of course we don’t. But we’re the ones here." Ahh, I love the dilemma.

GEORGIE: "And I doubt there’s anyone else out there who’s in a better position to decide." JON: "There isn’t." I mean, Jon wouldn't know, he can't see them. They could technically try to ask other watchers who don't like that they ended up as a tormentor.

MELANIE: "Right? It’s kind of shitty to bring them out just to ask them if they’re willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good." There simply is no right way to do this.

MARTIN: "If it’s just a matter of guilt, then I’ll take it right now. I’d rather live the rest of my life lying awake wondering if I made the right choice, over lying awake listening to the screams of everyone on Earth being tortured!" JON: [Angry] "What? So it’s better for a thousand times more people to scream as long as we can’t hear them?" Very fair point of Jon. Also, most of the guilt would still be weighing on Jon, since he was the lynchpin to all this. I think it would totally fit his character to be high at risk of committing suicide in a scenario where they pass on the Fears and nobody knows he was the Archivist so nobody would come to take revenge on him.

MARTIN: "No! Because Annabelle said it wouldn’t be like that. Wherever they go, it’ll be like it was here before, with the Powers just lurking on the edges." MELANIE: "And our world survived like that for… for what, all of history?" MARTIN: "Mmmm." MELANIE: "Sure, it’s not great, but it’s, it’s not like those other realities won’t have bad stuff happening already. We all lived with monsters in the shadows, and we just got on with it." BASIRA: "Yeah, until we didn’t – until the ritual kicked off. What’s to stop the same thing happening in these other worlds?" MARTIN: "It, it took like millennia of failed rituals before this happened. That means there has to be a chance that it won’t happen at all, right?" Sooo many possibilities! It's such a shitty situation all over again!

MELANIE: "And if it does happen, it will be because of the actions of the people in those other dimensions, just like here it was because of –" JON: "Me." MELANIE: "Because of us." Ohhh, another Communist Bugs Bunny meme!! Also, if it does happen (another mass ritual working) it was only possible to happen at all because that world got the fears passed onto them. So it's not solemnly the fault of the people over there. Our crew would have given them the materials necessary for it.

MELANIE: "Exactly. Probably have their own Panopticon, their own Archivists." Oh yeah, what again are the stakes in The Magnus Protocol? TWO Panopticons and FOUR Eliases!!! xD

GEORGIE: "Well… Did Annabelle say for certain that this dimension is where they were, um, ‘born’, I guess?" JON: "No. No, the Eye can’t see its own creation, so… I don’t actually know how they came to be. Perhaps we can’t know." This does change things again. Annabelle said she doesn't know if they are unique to their world. But that there are definitely worlds without them to spread to. (Also, wait, isn't the MAG 200 statement exactly that?)

JON: "Sure, but even if that was true, it doesn’t change the situation." BASIRA: "Yes, it does. If it’s a choice between stopping the Fears completely – destroying them once and for all, here and now – or just being one universe they don’t escape, among potentially infinite ones where they do… Those are very different scenarios." Yeah exactly that, very well summarized.

JON: "We don’t know. And even if we hunted Annabelle down, and squeezed more information out of her, I don’t think she knows either. We simply don’t have that information, and we can’t just arbitrarily decide what’s true just because it makes the choice easier for us." Ahh yes. One of the themes in Magnus. Making decisions based on the information at hand at that point.

BASIRA: "No. No, I’m not just gonna stand here, and watch you try to justify murdering humanity." JON: [Angry] "How is it different from just letting it happen on its own?" BASIRA: [Forceful] "Because it is. It’s not an option. End of discussion." This and...

GEORGIE: "We’ve got to hope." JON: "Hope that our actions don’t destroy countless other worlds!" GEORGIE: "It’s better than the certainty that they’ll destroy this one!" [TENSE SILENCE] JON: "Sounds like you’ve all decided, then." ...this were breaking points. Especially not even counting Euthanasia as an option. It's Jon's life all over again. People deciding for him what to do. And the thing is, for the plan of passing on the Fears he doesn’t even have to do anything actively. All he need to do is watch them doing it. But doing nothing is also doing something...

GEORGIE: "Can I have a cigarette?" Noooooooooooo! This marks the point of no return. Just like MAG 1 already was the point of no return for them. And Jon once again takes the bait...

GEORGIE: "Then you won’t mind if I hang onto this?" JON: [Distracted] "Hmm." [FAINT STATIC RISES AND FALLS] Did Georgie know what the lighter means? Or that Jon can't keep track of it? We didn't hear how they explained the whole situation, so we don't know... And can this moment be seen as the one Jon finally sheds all the cobwebs off of him? Also I said last episode there's another lighter-moment for me, it's this one. Cause I missed this on my first listen!!! In MAG 200 I was just as surprised as Jon was when he looks for the lighter XD

GEORGIE: "I’m sorry. I know you hate what we’re doing." JON: "I hate all the options. I just… It’s all my fault, you know?" GEORGIE: "What, because you weren’t able to outsmart the literal embodiment of manipulation and scheming?" JON: "Mmm." GEORGIE: "We all make bad choices, Jon. It’s not your fault some eldritch horror decided yours were going to affect the whole world." For all the things Georgie did that made me not like her, I do like her for that one.

JON: "They were still my choices." GEORGIE: "Yeah. And you live with them. Or you don’t. That’s all there is, really." JON: "Hmm." I think that's another cog wheel for Jon to make his own decision.

MARTIN: "I’d understand if you hate me right now." JON: "What? No! No, Martin, I love you. I always will. And I know you love me too. I mean… [sighs] that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the real core of it. You want to save me." MARTIN: "I want you to save yourself." And that's the last puzzle piece for Jon to finally see the big picture. So to count them all again I personally would think its Jon learning his life was a set-up to this. The others dismissing his options. Georgie telling him all he can do is live with his choices or don't and finally this. Jon doesn't see sending off the Fears as saving himself. It's condemning himself. Again. Him saving himself would mean he can finally put a stop to this and save other people like him in return. Spare them the guilt.

JON: "Sometimes… I imagine if none of this had happened. If we had just… met. Been together, without… all of this." MARTIN: [Softly] "Me, too. … But we wouldn’t have, would we? Been together, I mean." JON: "Huh? W-What do you mean?" MARTIN: "Well, we had that, didn’t we? Almost a year of just working a normal job together, and you hated me." I don't think Jon meant this as them working in the Archives together. More like, him still in research, without the pressure of a job he's not qualified for, without a chaotic task of cleaning up after that one colleague who was about to retire and therefore didn't do their work anymore and without the feeling of The Eye pressing down on him. Just Jon meeting Martin in the library and getting to know him.

JON: "Oh god, Angela! Ha! She’s still about, you know? Lording it over a nasty little Flesh domain. Anyway, I didn’t explicitly say it. I… implied it." Face it, Jon, you're a prick xD

MARTIN: "Face it, Jon, it took almost two years of crisis and trauma to even make us compatible. And that sucks. But here we are. And I don’t want it to be for nothing. I won’t let it." JON: "That’s very sweet of you, Martin. Sort of. Thank you." I do see Martin's point of view and I think Jon sees it too. But I also think Jon thinks it will all be for nothing if he sends off the Fears. Also yeah, shared trauma can create a hell of a bond.

MARTIN: "Wherever you go, I go. That’s it." JON: "You promised to let me go. If I had to." MARTIN: "And you promised not to go if there was any other choice. And there is. So that’s the deal." JON: "That’s the deal." I wonder if it would have changed anything, if Martin left it at that. (Also "Wherever you go, I go" T__T)

MARTIN: "I guess that’s why it really bothers me, you know? I try, but I can’t actually imagine ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you. And it… It hurts to know you can." Oh no. If reminding Jon of his promise might have actually turned him around, than this here definitely sealed the deal on going with his own decision again. Martin basically admits here, that he wouldn't have held up his end of the bargain. This makes it sound like Martin is relieved he doesn't have to break his promise cause he definitely would have anyway. I think this is so crucial to what Jon ends up doing.

JON: "I did this. It’s my fault. And I don’t want… I can’t let anyone else feel that. That helpless, enormous guilt. Ever." [JON SNIFFS AS IF TEARING UP] MARTIN: "Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey, come here, come here." [FABRIC RUSTLES, WITH SNIFFS FROM JON] Oh fuck that wrecked me. Still does. In general, these "hey, hey, hey, hey, hey"s get me, I don't know why. It was the same in MAG 102, when Jon does it when Martin begins spiraling into his guilt over not even knowing Jon was kidnapped.

MELANIE: "We were scouting. I was showing Basira where we think the gas mainline is." MARTIN: "And?" BASIRA: "Not good. You know those eye things?" JON: "The old Archivists?" BASIRA: "Yeah. I think they know something’s up. The place is crawling with them. It’s like they’re looking for something." I mean yeah, it's world-building, but also a bit of a loose end, since we never hear their struggle to get to the gas main. I think Jonny mentioned in one of the Q&As/Retrospectives that he thought about squishing in a scene of that somewhere in MAG 200 but he couldn't find a fitting place for it. And I think he's right. I don't think it fits anywhere before Jon realizes the lighter is gone and then an explosion immediately hits, it would kind of devalued this moment. And after that there's already too much going on, breaking off Jon and Martin at that point would destroy the atmosphere. But it's fine, there's a lot in TMA that was implied which we never actually hear first hand. It does give MAG 200 a bit of a suspense, like are they actually able to light up the gas main.

MELANIE: "Jon, you’re sure about this whole gas main thing? It just seems, I don’t know, really mundane." JON: "It’s what Annabelle said, and she wasn’t lying. At least, she didn’t think she was." It's also what Gertrude was planning on doing and she had lots of experience about blowing stuff up.

MARTIN: "You’re not listening. I mean, if he kills Jonah, then knowing our luck he’s just going to end up taking his place in the Panopticon, isn’t he?" Hmm, there's quite some dream logic involved. Cause in MAG 193 Jon said "The Eye would choose a suitable replacement" and "If we kill Jonah Magnus, I take his place". It is never specified if different persons killing Jonah have different outcomes. But I guess you could argue that if Jon himself does it, he's more connected to he whole thing going on and the Eye would be much quicker to put him into place. With someone else doing it (whom the Eye does not see fit to become the Pupil) it probably takes a few moments to connect to the Archivist.

MARTIN: "He can come up with me, but when it actually comes to Jonah…" It wooould make more sense for Jon to hide in the tunnels, cause the Eye can't properly see this place. It would probably take a looooot longer to get to Jon, which is easier for them to time their operations. Buuut, if Jon had to stay in the tunnels, we would immediately know Jon went up to Jonah alone, and so we still have a few seconds benefit of the doubt.

BASIRA: "I just mean… um… If we don’t make it out of this… I wanted to say thanks. For coming back for me. [sighs] What I did… Who I was… I – Thanks." JON: "I’m sorry for all of this." Aw, same thought as with Georgie earlier.

BASIRA: "We’ve all got regrets. But we can’t undo what’s done. All we can do is try and do something worthwhile with the time we’ve got left." [HEAVY SIGH FROM JON] JON: "Yeah." Oh no, that "Yeah" didn't sound good...

@a-mag-a-day

#a-mag-a-day #mag 199 #tma #tma spoilers

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stevenbasic · 1 year

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GITJ Post 299: A Monday After, p1

What the…where am I? I thought, slowly sitting up on my kitchen table and gazing up at the ceiling, And what the hell is that?

I’d fallen asleep, apparently, on the kitchen table. Well, passed out is more like it. What time was it? It was morning? I had no idea. All I knew was that I was naked underneath the thin blanket Melissa had obviously put over me, my cock hurt and the room smelled like paint.

And now there was some of it on the ceiling.

What did she do? I marveled, lamenting at the fact that now I’d somehow have to paint my ceiling too but also, I must admit, smiling like a love-struck kid at the gesture. She’d painted a huge ‘I love you!!!’ above where I’d slept, meaning for me to see it first thing when I woke. I found myself grinning, despite myself. No one had ever done anything nearly as romantic as this for me before and it made me a little giddy. She’s a nut. No, actually, she may be crazy. Like, really. She could have - as unconscious as I was - carried me into bed. But no she left me sleeping on my kitchen table and somehow got that painted right above me, in ‘Twilight Blush’. Plus there was the whole wanting to be bigger and able to toss me around like a rag doll thing too which should have made me nervous since the woman was apparently some sort of superwoman. But…jeez…this is too cute.

She said she loved me.

I mean…yesterday was pathological, I thought, We each have something wrong with us, and together it’s…yikes. That was crazy. I mean, I’ve known I’m a bit strange in my tastes, kinks, fixations. I’ve known that for decades. Plus, I was physically changing, losing weight, and wasn’t nearly as concerned as I should have been. But she, Melissa too? She had said she was in some sort of ‘growth spurt’, and I knew girls everywhere were into this ‘vulni-chic’ thing - being bigger than your partner was the trend - but I always figured it was some sort of fad. The stuff Melissa was saying yesterday, though, and the things she got me to admit? This is going to be deeper and weirder than I may be able to handle. What would it mean for us, for me, I wondered, if I let this continue?

Wow what time is it?

But she said she loved me!

Okay okay okay. Yes I had to consider the possibility that she might have been a little mentally imbalanced, or a lot. And she’d been evasive, since we met, about her past. I kinda sorta thought there was some trauma there and I was going to hope that, as we got more comfortable around one another, she’d open up and share. I knew for myself there were things about my own past, my family, my childhood that I hadn’t shared yet, either. We were maybe not at that point in our relationship, where we could be totally honest with one another, but I could see that changing, already. But - is it somewhere I feel comfortable going? I fretted, Is a deeper connection something I want to pursue with a girl like Melissa. I mean…we’re so different. She’s - I forget - ten, fifteen years my junior? Little-to-no education. Horrible speller. But, does that matter, if we’re…in love?

But - was I in love with her, the way she said she was in love with me? I, for sure, had strong feelings - but were they love? I was…obsessed, yes. Fixated, for sure. Furtively worshipful? Maybe. But she honestly made me feel…like no one else ever had before. Yes she was built like a wet dream but also she was so warm and earnest with me, accepting of (and maybe, I admit, even encouraging of) my weaknesses. Sheryl was never like that; no one’s ever been like that, and it felt, now…nice. Is this love? Maybe? I wondered, Or maybe the early beginnings of it?

Yikes it’s a Monday. I have early patients today. I hope it’s not eight o’clock yet.

I looked at myself, now that I’d sat up on the kitchen table, feet dangling off the end, in the mirror on the back of the door. The same mirror in front of which Melissa and I had posed yesterday, comparing our insanely disparate sizes. I immediately felt a pang that I recognized…I felt the aching absence of her. But also, looking at my reflection, my sunken chest, my pipe-cleaner arms, I felt the shock of how small I appeared, I felt a rush of shame. This is what she likes? I puzzled, I’m so…puny. Puny everywhere except…

I pulled the thin blanket, which had been laying across my lap, away from myself.

I’m not, I said to myself, as I looked at the cock hanging between my legs, shadowed aside my thigh, I’m not all little. In my own way, in fact, I’m big. I watched as if, with the sudden attention, blood had started to engorge my manhood, causing it to stir. I may be small now, a short man. I may barely stand as tall as her chest, I was telling myself as my cock began to rise off the table, but at least I have this. It’s big, and she likes it.

I marveled at it, at myself, as the thing slowly rose up, like a schooner’s mast, past my belly. Rather than the concern or chagrin I usually felt in facing it, beefy and hearty in contrast to my skinny frame, I instead felt a surge of pride. I watched it, thickening still, realizing that blood was draining from the rest of me to feed its growth. Melissa likes it big, I reminded myself, hardness surging as I recalled the husky timbre that came to her voice when she addressed it, or the flash in her eyes when she watched it swell for her. I was, here, restoring some of my fleeting male ego, gaining pride from my cock. She likes my erection, she likes my come. She licked it off me, she slurped it from her hand, I advanced, and I can make so much for her.

I should really check my phone, the time…

With one hand I reached for it, left for me on the table, and with the other I grabbed my shaft.

There’s some pictures of her on here…

It was then that I saw the text from Melissa: “Good morning hun 😊 Marisela and Randi and me won’t be in the office til later. There helping me at a photo shoot for new offises.”

“Huh, okay,” I said, nodding to myself and acknowledging that little sense of disappointment: I was going to miss her. But if I was going to have to struggle to put her out of my mind for a few hours, looking at a few photos of her here might help….

But anyway, I should first check the time…

…ten-thirty!?! Holy crap!

===========================================

Patreon, mine.

#growing into the job

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alexandraswords · 11 months

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F*CK NORMAL

An overdue ending to a (un)well decorated drinking career.

Introduction

Friday, June 9, 2023 9:28 AM

Today is one of those days where I am just tired, and a bit bored, but mostly tired. I am exhausted. Mentally at least. I have really been putting my all into my sobriety to the point where my day revolves around meetings but im starting to lose momentum. I have a headache, the dog wont stop barking, i'm trying to pop the zits on my face. Basically being alone with my discontented ass self is not something I'm great at... yet.

I should meditate or journal or text another AA member. But I just want to sleep and be normal and relax. But fuck normal.

I thought drinking was normal. I thought my diet of vodka and water and the occasional box of cheez-its was adulting. I thought I was mature and well refined and socially acceptable because I drank, just like everyone else, because, you know, drinking is normal... right?

Wrong. Not for me. I am NOT normal. So I have to do abnormal shit to keep my addictive eating disordered alcoholic riddled ass self sober and happy. I have to keep listening to other people because me making my own decisions landed me in a crack den sharing a room with a friend I would consider a sibling, whom which a fought with constantly to the point where I dragged the mattress from our third floor apartment (if you consider that uninhabitable shit hole, an apartment) down out side below out kitchen window so if I jumped maybe the universe would send me a sign saying that it is or isn't time yet. Okay so I didn't actually do that, but I sure as shit thought about it... a lot. Like a lot. I mean i couldn't even barely walk to the bathroom let alone haul some shit down the stairs. Hell, I wouldn't even walk across the street to get my own liquor. I would bribe my roommate by telling him if he went for me and took my card he could buy something for myself. I just didn't care anymore. I hated everything. I hated that I had to be loaded to be able to walk because my shakes were so bad. I hated that I had to drink to even feel sober and functional and not hallucinate and vomit and dry heave bright green bile. And worst of all I hated that I had lost control.

My eating disorder and my alcoholism made my reality disappear. The food temporarily until my life became a cage, and the nicest word I can think of to name it would be a vomitorium because it was actually that repulsive if you could see inside the walls of it. The alcohol took control over me so I didn't have to deal with food, but also made it so I didn't worry or care about ANYTHING.

So I guess this is how I'm going to start this ... whatever rant of words form a book. Where I'm at right now. Because right now is all I have. Yes, I am in full self pity mode, but if there's one thing I've learned from AA it's that I need to take action, and never have I ever felt worse after going to a meeting. So,lets go fucking make our bed, and meditate or some shit and get ready for today. So, yeah, Fuck Normal.

So, Why the fuck not?

I got most talkative in fifth grade. The english section of my English SAT’s, I aced. People (my boyfriend) seem to like my writing and have told me If I don’t do something with it, then they’ll publish it themselves… which I’m pretty sure falls into the lines of plagiarism but lets be honest here. I am probably one of the biggest procrastinators when it comes to doing something that is actually good for me. Why? The fuck if I know. Maybe because all I’ve known has been chaos and panic since, like, forever, that when it comes to the real things, like happiness and joy and pride in work that I’VE DONE… well, I'm just not used to that type of thing. But I figured, fuck it. I can write a book. All i have to do is elaborate on how awesome I am at self sabotaging and add in some very few lessons I picked up and am still learning day by day. Basically I’ve decided its time to just put all my shit in one bound piece of parchment instead of having to explain my life story to everyone as if its my first day with a new therapist.

But alas, melodramatic Alex is bored and avoiding meditating, to keep her shit together and be healthier, obviously, because that would actually be beneficial to my well being. So for now i’ll just throw it in one of the corners in the back of my mind while it slowly simmers into a pot of anxiety attack soup while I try and explain to you (briefly before the pot starts boiling) how fucking insanely delusionally fantastically fucked my life is, and how I got here, and why I wouldn’t change one second of it for anything. But I mean, there’s forwards and shit in books right? So can this be like a PS after the main intro forward? ‘Cause This sober bitch has to go meditate before a meeting so I can stay mindful in my sobriety and not add homicide to my list of criminal activities. (That was a joke) So for now, just for today, Namaste Sober.

P.P.S- enjoy the buffet of garbage that hopefully is not similar to mine. But if you can and most likely will relate if you’re reading this (most likely because my clever title struck a chord in your twisted little heart) then just know, you're not alone in this shit show, but no one ever really puts the shit show on the ‘gram now do they?

#sobriety #clean and sober #addiction recovery #sobercommunity

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ghirahimbo · 6 months

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Life advice question… Okay here it goes: I have been dating someone who I love very much for more than a year. Let’s call him Joe. It’s a crazy long story, but I have loved him since highschool which was 9 years ago now. We were never together until a year ago but we were friends as teenagers. In 2021 I made a lot of mistakes including marrying someone for 6 months who was wrong for me because of guilt and religion but I never forgot about Joe all along. I moved back with my mom after the divorce from my failed “marriage” in 2021 and reconnected with my long lost love. I know I want to be with Joe and we are thinking of moving in together but my mom and my grandparents will look down on me because they believe that you shouldn’t move in together before marriage. It hurts so much because I too have these thoughts internalized from religious trauma but I want to live with him so bad but I’m scared of my family’s response. They already see me as a dumb slut for staying over with him on the weekends. I already tried the no sex, no anything before marriage thing and I ended up with a lying, psychopathic narcissist that used religion against me so I really don’t believe that it is the right choice for everyone. I know you grew up in a religious home too so you might understand. What should I do? I’m so scared. I’m getting older now and everyone else seems to have moved on with their lives and settled down. My boyfriend says he wants to live together at least a little while before getting married which is understandable because you don’t really know somebody until then, which I experienced first hand.

I feel like I can’t handle the judgment of my family, but I want to be with the love of my life. He comes from a much more relaxed background which sees sex and relationships as natural and without a strict timeline. It’s so much pressure when my mom always says I had a five year old and was married at your age all the time, why doesn’t he love you, what’s going on? she says he’s just using me and doesn’t care about me because he hasn’t proposed within a year, which hurts me so much, and is far from the truth, but when I hear it all the time it messes with my head. I try to explain my choices and my relationship but I just go mute and shut down. I’ve always loved your writing, and although it’s cringy to say, I feel like I relate a lot to Link never forgetting about and loving Ghirahim (my boyfriend is eccentric, artistic, sensual and wild at times, but that’s why I love him) in your story and everyone not understanding and worrying. It hit me on such a deep level to read even years ago. Ive never loved anybody like I love my boyfriend, and I don’t want to marry some random guy because he is “perfect” in my family’s perspective. What do you think I should do in this situation, it just feels so crushing and depressing at times? I’m just trying to live my life and follow my heart without feeling so much guilt and shame. Thank you for reading.

Hi, anon! That is a lot 💖 Deep breath. It's going to be okay 🫂

You're right, I was raised in a very religious home—Mormon, specifically. Looking back, I think a lot of Blind, But Now actually arose from my complicated feelings about disentangling from the beliefs I grew up with, but I hear that it makes a good metaphor for other scenarios, as well. I'm glad you found something to relate to 💖

A few grains of salt before I attempt to offer any advice (along with the general caveats thrown in that I'm not any sort of professional, your mileage may vary, etc, etc):

I can't speak to the specifics of your relationship with Joe, though in a way, that's almost beside the point. It sounds like you've known him for a long time, and you love and trust him enough to want to continue the relationship. No red flags jump out at me from your telling of things (lmao except maaaybe you comparing him to Ghirahim, but I'm going to assume you didn't mean that too literally 😂). It's definitely the widely accepted practice outside of religious circles to move in together before marriage (or with no intention to marry), and his asking does not at all indicate a lack of love.

I also talked to my sister a little bit about this because, to be honest, I'm the only one of my siblings who actually did the whole no living together/sex before marriage thing 🙃 The only reason my marriage has worked out as well as it has is because my husband and I have both grown a lot in similar directions since getting married, but it still has its complications.

That all being said, this is actually the best possible time for you to start looking to disentangle yourself from a living situation that's causing you so much stress and shame. I personally am the type of person to contort myself into knots to keep the peace, often to my own detriment. I think you might relate. Still, imagine the kinds of decisions you'll have to make down the line to keep that peace, and what your life might look like as a result. Imagine if your first marriage had resulted in children before you left it (as an aside, generally speaking, early 20s with a five year old is NOT the aspirational lifestyle some people make it out to be 😂). The longer you wait, the more you let your life seep into the cracks of least resistance, the higher your exit cost will be later on. As hard as it is (and it is hard!) this is the perfect stage of life to rip the bandaid, so to speak.

The next thing I'll say is that even if you weren't looking to move in with a romantic partner, I would still be suggesting that you start looking for a way to get out from under your mom's roof. Now obviously, I don't know your exact situation. There might be circumstances or disabilities on your part that make financial stability nearly impossible—and either way, "become financially stable" isn't exactly actionable advice on its own. 😜

What I can say is that there is a freedom and relief you can experience once you don't have your moms' words in your ear every day—freedom that I doubt you experienced during those six months with an emotionally abusive husband. All of my siblings found it much easier to develop their own personal belief systems outside of my parents' house, and my parents don't use language even a tenth as shaming as your mom seems to. I even know somebody right now who's working on a career training program with the goal of getting out of their religious dad's house who they know won't accept their queer identity.

Moving in with Joe could hopefully make that goal more financially achievable in the short term, and I really think that in itself would help you a lot—but I guess I would caution you not to consider that an end to things, either? There are reasons that your living situation with Joe might fall apart aside from the relationship not working out, and I don't know that it would be good for you to have to go back home afterwards if it did. Just... keep the long-term future in mind, I guess. If you don't feel beholden to your family for financial support, you won't feel so beholden to their belief system, either.

With alllll that being said, just from reading your message, I think you still have a lot of religious trauma to work through (which is totally understandable!). I can't quite get a feel for your current state of belief (nor, I'm realizing now, do you specify the religion itself? For some reason, I've been imagining an evangelical situation, though I guess there are plenty of other possibilities). Maybe *you* don't even know your current state of belief.

I know that the advice to get therapy gets thrown around a lot as if it's not often a difficult or expensive thing to obtain, but if you do have the means, I think the right therapist could really help you work through some of your beliefs and shame. If not, I would seek out a community—if not one to participate in, then at least one to observe. Maybe there's a podcast you could listen to, or a subreddit you could lurk in—something to help you realize not only that you aren't alone in your situation, but that there are others who have made it through to thrive on the other end. If some of these feel too intense—if, for example, you don't want to abandon your beliefs entirely—then only take what you need and don't feel pressured into anything you're not ready for. As somebody taking the first, hesitant steps out of Mormonism, I wasn't ready to deal with accusations of ill-intent or subterfuge against church leaders, or sacred things made light of, or speculations that Joseph Smith's visions stemmed from mushrooms, or really any of the bitterness typical of exmos in their angry phase. I just needed to see how the church and its teachings were causing people harm on a systemic level and take my own steps from there.

As for moving in with Joe against your family's wishes, know that it will be hard, but you are not the first, and not alone 💖 When my sister first moved in with her boyfriend, my parents really struggled with how to handle it, but eventually decided not to bring it up, hoping, I think, to be the soft place to land if things went south. Her boyfriend's parents took it much worse, judging them verbally and constantly until her boyfriend, with boundary setting skills that I envy, finally told his parents that they couldn't continue on like that AND keep him in their lives. Things were really rocky there for a few years, but even they've reached a state of equilibrium since then.

Parents' reactions to their children's decisions are as varied as the parents themselves, but a few things I can say: even if they come from a place of love, your mom's words to you right now are not helpful or loving. Her truth is not your truth, nor must her values be your values. While I don't subscribe to the idea that we don't owe anyone anything in this life, what you owe your mom does NOT extend to your life lived in a way that she would approve of. Rather, as a parent, it's her responsibility to realize that children grow up to be their own people and love you anyway. You have nothing to be ashamed of—and though it doesn't always feel that way, your 20s are still young. As hard as it is right now to take the leap, years from now, you'll be so glad that you did 💖

Again, this is all based on my own perspective from a limited view of things, but I hope there's something helpful to take from all this 😅 Wishing you all the love and luck!

#uhhhh how to tag this #long post #religious trauma #i kind of tried to proofread this after writing it but it was very long 😅#sorry about that

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theadventurerslog · 1 year

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King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown | Part 1

The Adventurer’s Log

King’s Quest I: Quest for the Crown Part 1

Release Date: 1984 (original version)

Introduction

Ahh, King’s Quest, the well-known series from Sierra, but while it’s a series I’ve known of for a long time, it’s a series I had never played nor even seen played until these past couple months.

I came across the Youtube channel, Such Minutiae, and started watching their Lets Plays of the series. Come King’s Quest V and VI I decided I was interested in at least giving those two a play. On GOG they come bundled with KQIV and I figured, why not? I could give IV a shot too. Then this idea to start blogging my efforts struck and I thought, you know what? Why not start right from the beginning and grab the first three games after all, too? Throw in them being on sale and here we are.

Now, as noted, I watched a Let’s Play, so this won’t be a blind play. However, this particular game is a different version from what I watched. They played the Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI) version which was a sort of remake/remaster. I’m playing the older AGI game and aside from graphical differences there are other differences as well. I probably won’t be able to spot a lot of them, but there is one different puzzle solution I’m aware of and I’ll make note of it when I come to it along with anything else that sticks out to me.

Having already watched the games be played I expect this will go a lot smoother than it otherwise would, but that I will still have some hangups. There is some real bullshit in these games, so it’s nice to go in prepared, accept that and enjoy the ride. And die a lot. I intend to keep a death counter. That will be noted at the end of the posts.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

The first thing I noticed when I loaded it for a simple quick test, was that unlike the SCI version there is no intro scene. It dumps you right into the game and you gotta go into the castle yourself and talk to the King yourself to know what you’re doing.

So the first step is to go see the king and so the quest begins.

And so the quest ends

Come on now, I couldn’t not throw him in the moat. Also, the death music! It’s different in the SCI version. I know this music because it was also used in KQ II. It starts sombre with Chopin’s Death March and then… oh and then it transitions to I don’t actually know what it’s called, but it sure clowns on you. Please just go to this link https://youtu.be/AWvZNAv4_B8?t=527 I have it timestamped to the right place already and know my suffering. The most taunting thing ever. I love hate it.

Okay back to it for real. Go see the king and be told what your quest actually is:

If you want further backstory and more details, you better read that manual.

From the manual in summary:

The kingdom of Daventry was ruled over by King Edward and his nameless, but lovely! Queen. They held three magic treasures that served to help Daventry maintain its peace and prosperity:

A Magic Mirror that reads the future so they were able to use it to stave off disasters and avoid things like planting crops right before frosts.

A Magic Shield that is supposed to make the bearer invincible and his army always victorious.

A Magic Chest that always remained full of gold.

Then disasters start striking. They want an heir but haven’t been able to have a child. A sorcerer comes and offers a solution but wants the mirror in return. They consult the mirror and see what they think will be their future prince (spoiler alert: It’ll be Sir Graham). They agree. No child is ever born. The Sorcerer ran off with mirror and placed it under guard by a beast.

Later the Queen falls ill. A dwarf offers a remedy that looks like it’ll work but wants the shield in return. The King agrees. The dwarf runs off with the shield. The Queen dies.

The King grows lonely as more years pass, but eventually Edward comes across a beautiful lady, the Princess Dahlia (she gets a name) in need of help. He saves her. They plan to wed and now it’s the night before the wedding except whoops. She was actually a witch and planned to steal the chest all along which she successfully does and off she goes too.

More years pass with the King and Daventry falling into despair and disrepair. King Edward realizes he may die soon and summons his knight, Sir Graham, realizing it was him he saw in the mirror. If Graham can gather back Daventry’s three treasures he’ll prove himself worthy of the crown and become the King foreseen in the mirror. Time to go Questing.

Once you see the king it’s time to set out and start exploring. I set out, I pushed a rock and died because I pushed it from the wrong side and got crushed. And I forgot to save, so I basically had to start again, although ScummVM autosaved me in the hallway in the castle, so I got to skip entering the castle.

Then I set out again and remembered to save this time. Save regularly and keep multiple saves. Now something cool that King’s Quest does is having some puzzles with multiple solutions. There is a points system and to get the highest points you need to do the optimal solutions. If you don’t care about points you’ve potentially got other options.

After finding a dagger and a pouch of diamonds I quickly encountered a flying condor. This condor is mandatory but unfortunately it’s random as to when and where it will show up. I managed to jump and catch the ride while I could, except I ended up in a dead end because I didn’t have what was needed to get past a big mean ol’ rat. I did try offering it the diamonds, which worked, except I think it actually lost me points and I would have ended up stuck again anyway. I reloaded a previous save.

Thanks for the dead-end, condor, but fly on majestically.

My other activities included more exploration and finding more items, getting mauled by an ogre at least once or twice and managing to run away another time, some sorcerer encounters one of which left me frozen in place and essentially dead, got flown off by a witch and eaten, stolen from by a dwarf a couple times and got some temporary protection from a fairy.

I found a four-leaf clover and a walnut. I climbed a huge tree and found a golden egg. Surprisingly for how easy it is to die in other ways, falling off the tree doesn’t kill you. The egg doesn’t break either. Shockingly nice of them.

Moving on, I helped a starving woodcutter husband and his wife and got a fiddle in return. I got lucky in doing those two activities, and along with finding one other item, I earned everything I needed to deal with the rat and the rest of that area and shortly after getting those needed goods the condor showed up again. So, this time I was able to handle everything there and got my first treasure: the Magic Shield.

I was able to find the witch’s house, a gingerbread house naturally, and deal with her accordingly. Actually, I had to do it twice, because fumble fingers for me killed me again oops. This place was another big difference from the SCI version. In the SCI version there are gingerbread figures outside the house and of course the house just looks better. If she catches you Graham gets turned into gingerbread and she puts you outside with a punny Graham cracker death message. In this version you just get put in a cell and know you’re about to get eaten and that’s that. I did miss that in this version.

Not exactly gingerbread-y on the inside. In the SCI version that oven is a cauldron.

I still have a bridge troll to deal with, but I have the means to do so and that’ll open up more areas to explore. I also found a well I haven’t checked out yet as well. I’ll probably try for the well first then go for the troll.

I’m coming for you, troll.

I’ve been mapping as I go and I’m very glad I’m doing so. I’m sure I’d be getting lost if I hadn’t. There are many screens and quite a few are pretty nondescript.

With the huge caveat that I’ve watched this played before, I’m having a pretty good time. Sure, it’s primitive. It’s easy to die, ridiculously so at times. It can be easy to screw yourself over into an unwinnable state in these games, but if you go in with that knowledge and stay on top of your saves, it’s entertaining.

With deaths by: moat alligators, falling into unswimmable water, ogre, sorcerer, witch, rock crushing I am currently sitting a death counter of 15. I’m a little worried I may have forgotten to update it a couple times so it may be a death or two higher than 15. Three of those were deliberate.

I probably only have one, maaaybe two sessions left.

Death Counter: 15

Time Played: 1hr 35min

Current Points Score: 86/158

#king's quest #king's quest: quest for the crown #KQI #KQI_Log #adventure games #sierra

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useless-fanfictions · 2 years

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You Better Believe It PART FOUR | Destiel Soulmates AU

Pairing: Dean Winchester/Castiel Fandom: Supernatural (2005) Rating: Teens+ Tags: Crack fic, caring Dean, fear of heights, 8305 words | 4/4 chapters | completed Ao3 Link

Summary: The one where Dean doesn't believe in psychics or soulmates. Until he most certainly does.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

“I accept your apology, Dean.”

“Don’t.” Dean looked at him, Castiel’s eyes were trained on Dean’s face. “I just assumed something about you. And then I acted without thinking, I was embarrassed and blamed it on you. I am such a crap person! I’m sorry.”

“Dean it’s fine. Don’t feel too bad. I’m not upset that you kissed me, I just said that because I was angry then. I’m not anymore.” Dean barely heard him.

“You don’t hate me for kissing you?”

“Of course not. I am not going to lie, you have a very pretty mouth. So I was dying to know what it felt like.” Castiel’s eyes widened like he hadn’t meant to say that. Now it was Dean’s turn to be confused.

Instead, he laughed. He laughed because he wasn’t sure what else to do, and the tension between them was so high, and then Castiel’s laugh joined his own and they actually sounded like good friends.

“That is the best thing anyone had ever said to me,” Dean admitted after their laughter had died down.

“Yeah…” Castiel trailed off, looking away. Dean noticed that the mechanic had arrived sometime and was working on the machine. They lapsed into another silence, this one not so awkward. Maybe Castiel had actually forgiven him?

“What’s your family like?” Dean asked, he needed a change in subject.

“Do you really want to know, or you just don’t know what else to say right now?”

“I’ve got no idea what to say, but pity me and answer the question.” Dean smiled and Castiel’s smile lit up too.

“Umm… okay. Well, there’s Gabriel - which you’ve met - and I have another older brother named Michael, and youna ger sister named Anna. We kind of live on our own.” Castiel’s eyes took on this distant look, his whole face even, when he talked about his family. Dean scooted a little closer and gave a smile.

“Well, it’s just Sammy and I and our dad. But he moves around a lot and kind of lets us be, so I’ve basically had to raise Sammy.” Dean didn’t feel anything as he talked. It was easy to talk to Castiel, like they’ve known each other forever, and not just a couple of hours.

“Have you ever told anyone else this?” Castiel asked.

“I have, a few times before. I don’t very often, though.”

“I feel privileged.” Dean smiled at Castiel. The silence was no longer deafening, so they didn’t feel the need to fill it. Dean sighed and leaned back, this waiting thing was getting old.

After a few minutes and hearing the different mechanical clicks and bangs from somewhere down below, Dean watched Castiel’s face as he looked around at everyone at the fair.

He must have sensed Dean’s eyes on him because he turned his head and their eyes connected. “What?” he asked.

Dean shook his head, his goofy smile was back. He still didn’t look away.

Neither did Castiel. Dean cocked an eyebrow up. Castiel’s face didn’t move, but he turned red with a blood blush. What was this guy doing to Dean?

“Last time someone looked at me like that, I got kissed.” Dean’s voice was light and easy now. He was only messing with Castiel.

“I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure we already established that you kissed me.” Castiel’s smile grew with Dean’s flush.

“I don’t think I agreed,” Dean commented back after a while. “I heard you say something along those lines, but you never got my consent.” Somehow Castiel had scooted closer. Or maybe Dean had moved? Either way, it didn’t matter to Dean.

“Yeah, because you are totally big on consent.”

“Castiel…” Dean breathed. “Are you gay? You never did say if you are or not.” The question was out of left field, and they both knew it. Dean wanted to know, because he just needed to .

“Why would you care?” It was Castiel’s turn to cock an eyebrow up.

“Because I have my reasons. Answer the question,” Dean demanded playfully. Castiel was thrown back for a second. He had questions of his own, but he answered anyway.

“Yes, I am.” Dean noticed how his voice didn’t tremble or waver. Castiel must have been out for a while. Meanwhile Dean… Well, Dean didn’t know.

He struggled to keep his face from blooming into a huge grin when Castiel’s eyes drifted to Dean’s lips. It reminded Dean of their kiss, and how he’d reacted to it by grabbing the other boy’s head and pulling him closer. Dean thought he was 100% straight, only into girls, but Castiel’s lips were distracting. He missed the feeling of a strong jaw pressing against his, the warm, wet feeling that comes from any kiss.

“So you really didn’t care that I kissed you?” Dean asked, becoming more and more confident with each of Castiel’s reactions. Now the other boy flushed and grinned. Dean thought it was addicting and his tongue pokes out and wets his own lips. Yeah, okay, he really liked the kiss and wanted another, so sue him.

“Not necessarily…”

“Would you mind if I did it again?” Castiel had hesitated on all of his other answers, but not this one. He immediately shook his head. Castiel seemed eager himself.

Just like the tease he was, Dean pulled back until he was sitting straight up again. “Good to know.” He watched Castiel’s face morph into disappointment and he pouted. Dean loved it, it was out now, they both knew the other wanted another kiss, Dean just wanted to get revenge on Castiel making him feel like shit earlier.

“What, c’mon! You can’t just do that!” Castiel groaned. Dean laughed and winked at him.

Was Dean Winchester actually flirting with another dude?

Yes, apparently his was.

“What was it like? Discovering that you were gay?” Dean asked abruptly. “I’m asking for a friend.” He tacked on at the end.

“Bullshit, you are asking for yourself,” he grinned. “And it was very relieving, kind of. To know why I liked to look at guys more than I did girls.” Castiel shrugged like it was nothing, Dean’s earlier guess of the other boy being out of the closet for a while was proven correct.

Dean looked at his hands - that were folded in his lap - and smiled shyly. “Yeah, I am asking for myself. I mean, how did you know?”

“Do you like to look at guys, Dean?” Castiel asked as evenly as he could. Dean had scooted closer once more, their thighs were almost touching.

“No,” Dean shook his head. “I just uhh…” Dean rubbed the back of his neck and laughed, God, he was cheesy, “Met a guy that’s making me second-guess myself.”

“You still are into girls, right?”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell…”

“Then you might be bisexual. Into both genders, y’know?” Castiel hadn’t looked away. Dean didn’t either. There was a blush high up on both of their cheeks. Even though it was difficult for Dean to talk about this so casually with a guy he wants to kiss, it was information he really needed to know. Because if Dean was gay, then he would have to reconsider a few moments in his life.

Like the time at the waterpark, Dean had gone to the last town they stayed in. When a group of college kids, guys and girls, only a couple of years older than Dean, had shown up. They were all in swimsuits and Dean caught himself being distracted by the other guys’ tight swimming trunks than the girls’ bikini bottoms. Dean, at the time, had brushed it off and tried not to think about it. So what if it turned up in his spank-bank a couple of time? Doesn’t mean he was gay?

Dean realized now that maybe it kind of does.

Dean nodded, he pulled himself back to the present. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am always right,” Castiel said, a smug smile back on his lips.

“Really now? Then what do you suppose I’m thinking right now?” Dean challenged. His teasing mood was back, glad that he was able to still joke around with Cas.

“Do you want me to tell you, or show you?” Castiel asked, eyes shining bright with nervousness. Dean knew what he was talking about.

“I think I might experience it better if you show me,” Dean said. God, were they really going to do this, here?

Yes, they were. Castiel leaned in and closed the distance between them. Dean was ready, he knew what he wanted. Here, in this Ferris wheel cart, his pride wasn’t getting in the way. He wasn’t going to push Castiel away this time because he was sure what he wanted.

He knew. He knew he wanted Castiel right here. With their lips pressed together, and Castiel’s hand running through his hair. Dean reached out and pressed a hand to the back of Castiel’s neck, pulling him close. His chest puffed up and rubbed against the other boy’s. It was weird at first, to not feel a pair of breast pressing against him, but it was a pleasant weird. He craved more.

Dean definitely wanted Castiel right where he was.

THE END

#supernatural #destiel #dean winchester #castiel #sam winchester #gabriel #various background characters #soulmates #alternate universe #useless.fanfictions

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lionheartslowstart · 2 years

Text

Fight

My boyfriend “Thomas” and I don’t fight very often. On the rare occasion we do, it’s usually pretty low-key and short lived. We share our feelings, make sure we’re on the same page (we have different communication styles, so the argument is usually due to some kind of misunderstanding), and work together to find a solution. Very rarely do we have the kinds of big, blow-out fights we both used to have with our ex-partners.

However, just a few days ago, we had one of those very fights. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember chunks of the interaction, because dissociation, but I think I remember the important parts.

In essence, I asked Thomas a stupid question and basically triggered myself. (My traumatized friends know what I’m talking about.) I became very sulky, and the fact that I was already having a horrible day only made it worse. I became more and more depressed and hurt, until I blew up.

After an extremely heated and tense exchange, I stormed off, something I only really do when I’m so triggered I don’t know what else to do. I was raging, particularly because Thomas, who is not so great with words, had given one of those “sorry for being so honest” apologies, which only ever makes everything worse. I’m not going to delve into what the overall fight was about, but I will say it was an incredibly sensitive and triggering subject. And his “apology” only reinforced all the pain I was already feeling, triggering me further. (Again, it was really my own fault for bringing it up in the first place. I should have known better.)

I’m not really sure what my plan was when I stormed off. It wasn’t really a “thinking” moment. I had my phone on me, but the rest of my stuff was in his car. I just knew I needed to get away. From him, from myself, my feelings, everything. I ended up finding a small public parking lot to rest in and collect my thoughts. Thomas found me a few minutes later, which did surprise me. Not just because I had tried hard to shake him, but also because I had been nastier than usual, due to my rejection sensitivity kicking in. I honestly thought he would just go home without me. But instead, he entered the parking lot maybe three minutes after I did, and quietly sat down next to me. He didn’t say anything for a while.

This is where I have some memory lapses. I don’t remember every piece of the conversation, but that’s okay. What I do remember is the love and kindness Thomas expressed to me. He was honest, he told me in times like these he wished he didn’t care, that he could just walk away. But walking away from relationships when they got hard was all he’d ever known. He said he loved me, more than he’s ever loved anyone, and that he does care, about me, and about our relationship, very, very much. Thomas said that he doesn’t always understand my trauma or my emotional problems, but he understands that I have them, and he wants to be there for me, no matter what. He waited until I had visibly calmed down, and then asked if he could put his arm around me. He held me for a long time, rubbing my back and kissing my head.

While I don’t remember every word spoken, I do remember how I was spoken to. I have never, in my entire dating history, had anyone talk to me with such empathy and patience during an episode. Ever.

As I calmed, embarrassment seeped in. I felt terrible. I had never lost control like that in front of Thomas. In fact, I haven’t lost control like that in a long time. I’ve done a lot of work, but I clearly have a lot more to do. Certain triggers are still very intense for me, so much so, it seems, that I regress back to how I used to be. I’ll have to investigate that more.

Of course, I apologized. I told Thomas how embarrassed I was at my own behavior, and that I was sorry for reacting the way I did. He accepted my apology graciously, and then apologized in turn for not communicating effectively and for hurting me the way he had. What had started as a horrible, triggering interaction, ended up being a beautiful, profoundly impactful one.

Thomas accepts me, all of me, every facet of my being. He goes out of his way to make sure I know he loves, appreciates, adores, and values me. I have never met someone so compassionate, loving, and empathetic. His heart is gentle, and I need to make sure I’m gentle with it. I will continue working on the things I so clearly need to work on, knowing that Thomas will be with me every step of the way, cheering me on from the sidelines, celebrating my victories, and patiently accepting my setbacks. Thomas has the kindest, most generous heart I have ever known, and I must always do my best to cradle it with the care it deserves, just like he does mine.

#personal #trauma #abuse #boyfriend #recovery #healing #love #relationship #communication #mental health #mental illness #mentally ill #ptsd #post traumatic stress disorder #cptsd #complex ptsd #complex post traumatic stress disorder #borderline personality disorder #bpd

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nojey · 3 years

Text

finally

feral boys x streamer!reader (separate)

genre: fluff, crack

warning(s): none

synopsis: the feral boys finally meet their favorite streamers

dreamwastaken / clay

word count: 407

the day you met dream, you were on the phone with your best friend george, also known as georgenotfound

he was speedrunning on stream while you were on a discord call with him

his viewers knew who you were, not only because you were george’s best friend but also because you were a streamer too

you weren’t a big one but well known for how well you play battle box in mcc

george was about to end his stream after an unsuccessful speed run when he asked you something

“you know dream right?”

“yeah, of course, he’s one of your other best friends” you answered

“are you okay with me adding him to the call?” he asked you.

“uh sure, but aren’t you gonna end stream?”

“no, i will after this.” he giggled

“why? are you trying to embarrass one of us?” you asked him suspiciously.

“you don’t have to worry about that.”

you heard a ding from discord, indicating that someone joined your voice chat

“hello? dream?” george asked.

“george. why? why are you doing this to me?” dream asked.

“hi dream,” you smiled.

“uh, hi. hi (y/n).”

“george why did you add me to the call?” he asked george.

“well, i know how much you like watching their stream. and considering you’re both my best friends, why not introduce you! perfect right? anyways. i’m gonna end my stream now. let’s raid karl. and you two can talk to each other. bye now!” he left the call so now it was just you and dream in the vc

it really warmed your heart that someone with such a big platform liked watching your streams since it had been quite hard to gain a following since you started streaming

“hi dream,” you said once again

he sighed. “hi (y/n).” “i really didn’t want him to do that, i didn’t want this to be the first time we meet, you know. i just love watching your streams so much and i wanted it to, honestly, be in person. but you know, george does what he thinks he shou-”

“it’s okay dream, i’ve actually been looking forward to meeting you, considering you’re also one of george’s best friends. but i do agree, he does tend to do whatever he puts his mind to.”

after you calmed his nerves, his conversation skills skyrocketed and the conversations flowed very easily

you guys spent the rest of the night talking

georgenotfound / george

word count: 326

being a minecraft streamer and a hypebeast got you some recognition

you were a hypebeast model on instagram and when you had announced you started streaming minecraft on twitch you had grown pretty easily

it didn’t take you time before you were invited to join mcc

not just because you had a big following but because you were actually really good at playing

since you didn’t really know any other mc streamers you got placed in a group with people you had never met

their names were Ph1lzA, WilburSoot, and GeorgeNotFound

the first time you talked to them, they welcomed you with open arms and we so nice

“hi (y/s/n)! i’m philza but you can just call me phil,” he introduced.

“hi phil!” you responded.

“i’m wilbur, is this gonna be your first mcc?” wilbur asked.

“yeah, it is. i’m actually really nervous.” you laughed a bit, to get the nerves out.

“ah okay, well no worries. we were all beginners before. don’t worry about trying to score high, just have fun!” phil assured.

“we’re just waiting for one other person and we’ll get started on the practice.” phil continued.

“okie dokie,” you said. you put yourself on mute and wiped the sweat off your hands on your pants.

“hello, hello, sorry i’m late. had trouble starting the server.” you heard.

“well nice of you to join us george.” wilbur said.

“yeah, yeah. hi philza, hi wilbur, hi (y/s/n)- wait, (y/s/n)??” he stuttered

“hi george?,” you said softly.

“oh my god, i’ve watched your streams before, they’re really cool. i enjoy watching them.” he rambled.

you giggled

“well thank you,” you said, still giggling a little.

for the rest of the day you all practiced, everyone giving you pointers, but george watching carefully to make sure you understood the pointers you were getting

and if you didn’t then he knew to tell you which part you were kind of misunderstanding

sapnap

word count: 398

you met sapnap long before you became a streamer

you were a big fan of sapnap

and one day you ran into him in public

it was a short interaction but it really meant a lot to you

so you asked for a picture to remember the moment by

after you took the picture you said your goodbyes and you were extremely excited

a few weeks after than interaction you had made the decision to start streaming

you were thinking about becoming one for a long time and after meeting sapnap you made your decision

because you wanted to be the type of person sapnap was to you

and be a person someone looked up to and meet people that felt the way about you that you feel about sapnap

you’d been a streamer for a few months when you got a raid from sapnap himself

his viewers were suggesting he raided you so he did

you freaked out, you gained a small following and the fact that sapnap decided to raid you? amazed

but what you didn’t know was that he kept watching you

after he saw how appreciative you were he wanted to watch more and he got intrigued

so he followed you and started watching your streams almost every time you streamed whenever he wasn’t busy

after about 2 years of streaming you got a very big following

your supporters were stalking your twitter and found the picture of you and sapnap when you both met

they then began to repost it on twitter tagging the both of you

you saw it and replied, “LMAO i look so small. but big shoutout to sapnap for raiding me as a small streamer and making all this possible <3″

he saw your reply and his eyes went big

HE MET YOU BEFORE!??

he then proceeded to respond to your tweet, “we’ve met before??”

and it went back and forward

“yeah, it was before i was a streamer, we met at like.. the grocery store lol”

“i literally had no idea you were a fan of me”

“yup, i’ve been for the past 3 years”

“dude after i raided you i started watching your streams and you became my favorite streamer”

“well,, you’re still my favorite streamer ;)”

after that sapnap dmd you asking if you guys could meet in person again

and who could pass up that offer

karl jacobs

word count: 510

you and karl met at twitchcon

you had recently become a big streamer and this was your 2nd time going to twitchcon

1st time having a meet and greet

meeting your supporters meant so much to you

you finally get to give each of them a hug, and it may not be all of them but seeing this many people come out to meet you meant more than anyone could imagine

but being at twitchcon also meant you could meet your streamer friends

which made everything 10x more exciting

you decided to meet up with your friend, valkyrae and you guys were going to a creator party

when you finally got to see her you gave her a huge hug that lasted a while because it was the first time you were meeting in person

once you both reached the venue of where the party was being held you all met up with your other friends. you hadn’t met any of them in person but rae had

you saw sykkuno, lily, michael, toast, and a few other people and smiled really big, excited to see all of them

you finally got to them and pulled them into a group hug

“you guys!! oh my god it feels so good to finally meet all of you!” you said.

“it’s nice to meet you in person, (y/n).” sykkuno said smiling at you

you let go of the hug and remembered everyone else that they were with

“hi! i’m (y/s/n) but you can just call me (y/n),” you said with a smile.

“this is karl, poki, and scarra.” toast introduced.

you saw karl and poki whispering to each other while you got into a conversation with everyone else.

poki coughed and said, “hey guys! don’t we have to go to that thing, right? that thing.” hinting at something, looking between you and karl.

you’re pretty sure everyone caught on and they all agreed.

“oh yeah! that thing!”

“yeah, we should probably go!”

“yup, don’t wanna be late to that thing.”

you looked at them with an unimpressed look as they walked away, looking behind their shoulders to see you and karl standing there.

“hi, i’m-i’m karl, i’m sorry about that. i just told poki that you’re like literally my favorite streamer and i guess she wanted us to talk more? i don’t know, but it’s really nice to meet you.” karl said.

you laughed as you quickly understood your friends weird behavior

“yeah, you raided me a few times- thank you for that by the way. it helped me a lot in growing my fanbase and i don’t think i’d be where i am if you hadn’t raided me.” you smiled at him. he beamed and smiled back at you.

“yeah, no, it was no problem. like i said you’re literally my favorite streamer and being able to help you with that is absolutely insane to me.”

for the rest of the party, your friends could see both of you talking the night away

and maybe even dance together

quackity

word count: 428

finding out what to do for stream was kinda hard when pretty much all your friends were busy

but then you got a text from karl, asking if you wanted to play jackbox with him and a few friends

you accepted, knowing you wouldn’t have anything else to stream

in the lobby it would be you, karl, dream, sapnap and a few other people you didn’t know

when it was finally time to play, you started up your stream and introduced what you’d be playing that night

“hey guys, welcome welcome, welcome. today i’m gonna be playing jackbox with karl, dream, sapnap, and a few other of karls friends.”

you joined the vc and immediately heard a lot of boys talking very loudly

you let out a small, “hello?”

somehow everyone heard you and stopped talking

“(y/n)!” karl yelled out.

dream and sapnap let out a “hi, (y/n)” and you said hello back.

“hi everyone, i’m (y/s/n) but you all can call me (y/n)” you introduced yourself.

eveyrone else said hi and introduced themselves

you found out you were playing with quackity, wilbur, tommy, and techno too

during mad verse city karl was going against quackity and his rap went something like this

“you talk so weird, i’m gonna need translator, next time (y/n)’s here they’re gonna be a hater, because your big crush on them i’ll see ya later”

your mouth was wide open while all the boys started teasing quackity

“what the fuck! i don’t have a crush on them!”

quackity ended up losing that one.

after the game and you ended you stream you asked quackity to stay

“hi quackity,” you said, with an energetic voice

“... hey, (y/n)”

“sooo, was what karl said true?” you asked.

“mm not necessarily. it’s not that i have a crush on you. you’re.. just my favorite streamer and you know. this is the first time i’m meeting you and i was telling all of them that i’m nervous because i’ve never talked to you before and i think you’re a great streamer and that you put out really funny content and i didn’t wanna embarrass myself but. karl did that for me.” he rambled

you giggled

“i think that’s really cute. thank you for supporting me. you can dm me on twitter or discord if you ever wanna play sometime.” you told him and left the vc.

you then saw all the boys you were playing with pile into the vc and you could only imagine what they were talking about.

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tommybaholland · 3 years

Note

hi hi!! i just wanted to start this by saying all your pieces are literally *chefs kiss* do you think you could do Sk8 boys with a s/o who’s not used to affection but they’re slowly starting to warm up to the boys? and how the boys would react to that? idk if that made sense fhdjdjd have a good day!! <333

sk8 boys + when their s/o is touch starved

yes, it does make sense as the sentiment resonates personally, anyone else? thank you for reading<3

reki enjoys a good, healthy amount of physical touch with the loved ones in his life, including all his friends so it was quite the adjustment for him after finding out that you’re not super affectionate. he used to think that you didn’t like him or something when you would move away from him when he’d get close or flinch when he would try to hold your hand or put his arm around you. he’s not the best about confrontation and his words come out all jumbled up when he asks you about it, “so i’ve noticed that you kind of shy away when i touch you? which is fine! i, i don’t want to force you or make you uncomfortable but just let me know if i’m being a creep, okay? or i mean--” he was obviously nervous but sweet about it and you just explained that you’re slow to warm up with touch. he breathes a sigh of relief knowing that you’re just as into him as he is for you, possibly more. over time, you become better with accepting his affection and eventually get to the point where you’ll just slide your hand into his or find your spot in his arms. he remembers being surprised but content by your closeness, “oh, well hello there, snuggles.”

langa wasn’t too affected by the discovery of your aversion to touch but that doesn’t mean he had never noticed and questioned it. being an only child, his parents gave him a lot of love and attention, his mom still doing so today with regular hugs and kisses. he figured that maybe you were just awkward as he could be sometimes when it came to relationship stuff. however, there was one time when he tried to hold your hand as you walked side by side and you reacted by pulling your hand away quickly. it stunned him a bit, making him stutter in his reply as you apologized, “no, no. it’s okay. do you…not like to be touched or…are my hands cold?” you respond by saying that his hands are fine but his first assumption wasn’t wrong at all. you just weren’t used to the affection but hoped that you could get better over time and acknowledged him for never forcing or resenting you for it. at this point he’s confused by the gesture, “why would i force you? that’s not fair to you. we can start small if you want.” you agree and he holds out his hand again which you take this time, your grip getting tighter every few minutes as you walk the rest of the way home.

joe is naturally a very flirtatious, touchy-feely type of person so there was no hiding from him. at the same time, he had never been with someone who wasn’t hanging all over him, which was somewhat refreshing for him. not that he doesn’t love attention but it can get exhausting at times. on the other hand, he can get needy and starved for affection, especially with someone who he’s really into like you. but he’s known to just start cozying up without warning, assuming that you’ll follow his lead. each time he’s done it, you’ve responded rather negatively either by shifting away or asking him to move over a little. he’s slightly confused but luckily he knows how to use his words, “babe, are you okay? i’m sorry if i’m coming on a bit strong, i just want to hold youuu.” you decide that it’s time for some real talk and tell him about your lack of experience and exposure to physical affection, therefore making you feel weird about it. if anything, this makes everything better for him as he sees this as an opportunity to better himself as a committed partner, promising to ask before touching you until you’re more comfortable. “i’ll probably end up corrupting you….haha, just kidding. may i wrap my arms around you?”

cherry shares a similar vibe and doesn’t display a lot of affection but he’s in no way unloving, he just understands boundaries. out in public, he keeps it more professional and tame but when you’re in comforting privacy, he wants to give you a little more attention. he likes to try to massage you like trying to pull your legs into his lap to rub your feet or rubbing the back of your neck and will ask first but you’ve declined every time. he’s bought the first few excuses you’ve given but then things just weren’t adding up and you seemed off, leading him to wonder what was wrong, “dear, is everything alright? you just…won’t let me touch you, which is completely fine if you’re not comfortable but i just want to take care of you.” you think he’s very sweet and clearly would like to understand so you help him by explaining your plight with affection. as expected, he doesn’t try to change your mind and accepts what you’ve told him. he reassures you by saying that he will always ask before touching you and you don’t have to feel any pressure to say yes. you feel lucky to have him in your life, making you feel safe and validated. you would be willing to work on being more open about touch so that he can love you properly.

tadashi would very much be on the same level in terms of physical affection, which was nice because neither one of you felt forced to change that. he enjoys the company of your presence but there are times where he’s wanting to have you in his arms, hold your hand, feel your touch. he’s not sure how to initiate such interaction and knows that you wouldn’t receive it well. he feels like now would be a good time to have a talk with you about his intentions, “i would like to learn how to show you my love for you if that’s okay with you. we can learn together, my lovely.” you’re hesitant at first, sharing that you’re afraid of giving all of yourself when intimate relationships are known to be futile. he understands your fear, knowing it very well but he offers up compromise, “you don’t have to give all of you or any of you to me but i love you all of you and wouldn’t mind sharing that love with you.” you’re close to tears at his sincerity, nodding your head in agreement. the moment seems to call for a hug, making you slowly gravitate toward one another before ending in an embrace. he closes his eyes at the warmth that he feels from your body pressed tightly against his, making him never want to let you go.

until next week, wild card...anything you want to see next??

#sk8 the infinity x reader #sk8 x reader #reki x reader #langa x reader #langa fluff #reki blurb #reki fluff #joe x reader #kojiro nanjo x reader #cherry x reader #cherry blossom x reader #tadashi x reader #tadashi kikuchi x reader #request #requested #tommybaholland

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chilumi-shipper · 3 years

Text

Ready to Let Go

Xiao x Adeptus!Fem!Reader (x Zhongli)

Summary: Zhongli loves you, Xiao loves you, You love Xiao. Seems as though, in the eyes of everybody else, Zhongli was gonna be a problem within your relationship with your fellow adeptus. He would never do that though, not to you, not to Xiao. For the first time, the vigilant yaksha seems happy, and you seem more carefree the moment you two are starting to get close to one another. Zhongli would never trade your happiness for the sake of his own, and that's why, he's ready to let go.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

The God of War, flaunting over one of his very own dearest adeptus, if Guizhong saw him right now, she would've laughed at how much he jumped and flaunted over you whenever you were in his presence.

But love is complicated, he could say he loves you with a burning passion, yet it can never change the fact that you had fell for another, no matter how much Zhongli might push through, you will choose to be embraced within the arms of your true beloved, Xiao.

Neither you nor him ever said anything to confirm the nature of your relationship, but Zhongli felt it, the connection between you and the adeptus was so much more than just two people who used to work along side each other. You and Xiao, he's known both of you for millennias, you're not really the greatest with expressing emotions.

Zhongli was never one to fight reality, in fact he accepted it with open arms, having no care for the pain it might bring.

But just this once, he let's himself drift to a false hope, perhaps you only see Xiao as a friend, that in actuality you tell him the feelings that you're too scared to say to your Archon. But every time Zhongli dreamt like that, he can't help but see Xiao, sadness clouding over him, it slaps the brown-haired man in the face.

He can't do that to Xiao. The poor boy, tormented his entire life, but today, he may very well be bearing a smile on his face, with you around him, with you loving him.

He was sitting between you two, in a table in Wangshu Inn's restaurant area, the light atmosphere was calming.

It was supposed to be a nice get together, yet Zhongli felt irritated. The way your gaze lingers past him and onto the person of your interest as you spoke about how you tried cooking mortal food recently. How you seem to take into account every expression and response Xiao would give, but pay no mind to Zhongli at all.

You weren't being rude and ignoring him the whole time, in fact, you make eye contact with him from time to time, to see if he's understanding you. But Zhongli felt peeved, why couldn't you look at him the way you looked at Xiao?

"I really like cooking actually!" You exclaimed, the cat-eyed adeptus smiling softly while listening to your rambles, his elbow resting on the table, while his chin leans on his hand. That makes Zhongli feel even worse for having such feelings for you, just looking at the small but genuine smile on Xiao's face as he admires you.

"Xiao?" You softly called out to him, clasping your hands together. The adeptus gave a hum in response. "There's this recipe I found called "Tofu Cookies with Almonds", I was hoping you could help me taste test them when I try baking for the first time?" Your voice gets quieter the more you say. Zhongli found it adorable when you get shy, yet he can't help but feel a nauseous felling eating away at his skin, you didn't invite him.

The waitress puts the food you all ordered on your table before Xiao answers. Zhongli looked into your eyes, seeing the nervousness as you anxiously wait for an answer.

"Okay."

Golden orbs then looked at Xiao, seeing he's looking away from you, his ears red from embarrassment. Yet even when he tried to hide it, the Archon can feel his giddiness from miles away.

Zhongli can't help but look back and forth, seeing your eyes light up with happiness because of Xiao's answer. "Thank you so much!" You smiled brightly, proceeding to put some food onto your plate to start eating.

In all this, Zhongli felt as though he didn't have a place. Perhaps you were overjoyed that you didn't look at the fact that you completely discarded him, but someone else noticed.

"Mora- Zhongli can join us too, he's good at taste testing food." Xiao looks at you, before looking at the taller man. "I think." Zhongli then nodded, agreeing with Xiao's statement.

He knows he shouldn't, he knows that he just let the two of you resolve your feelings together, just the two of you. Yet he can't, for once in his life, he feels that it's too hard to let go.

The two looked at you expectantly, despite you making it obvious that you wanted to spend some time with Xiao alone, Zhongli hoped that maybe, just this one occasion, you'll let him intervene with your growing relationship. It's selfish, it's pointless, but just this once.

You smiled, "Okay."

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

"Mr. Zhongliiii!" You burst in the funeral parlor, calling out to him. "You have to help me." The man got up from his seat immediately, worried.

"What happened?!" He asked in a panic.

You looked down onto the book in your hands, the man did the same, looking at a book that has a very interesting title.

'The Art of Romance: For Newbies.'

What?

Usually, if you were to come to him with a book like that in hand, he would have laughed and teased you, eager to see your embarrassed state. Yet, Zhongli felt nothing but hopelessness, you putting in so much effort for someone else, meaning he really has no chance, does he?

"I need to you to help me look for a really nice dress. Like really, really nice! Oh but not too nice, since we're baking, if I get stains on a dress, he might think I'm sloppy. Oh, but if it's too simple, he'll probably think that I don't really care. Ohhh, but I don't want to seem like I care too much--" You looked up at him, rambling on and on about what you're supposed to wear for tomorrow. "It says here that if the person thinks you're too desperate, they might think it's weird." You pointed at the book that you're holding, bring it closer to his face.

Zhongli gently grabbed your hands that are clasped around the book. "If you're worried about Mora, I already have some on me." You peaked your head from behind the book, looking at the brown-haired man's serious face.

"Him?" Zhongli completely ignores your ramblings, only focused on one thing you said. You're worrying so much about what to wear, just to make a good impression to him.

You felt your cheeks heat up as he looks at you with a frown on his face. You laughed a bit to ease the tension, scraching the nape of your neck.

"Xiao..." He's mentally prepared himself for this moment, you would come to him, ask for advice since you knew him as a very cultured man, and you would confess your love, for someone else. And yet, hearing it come from your own lips seem to crack the barriers of his heart with just one word.

Despite the tears wanting to just slip out of his golden orbs, he smiled at you. "I've always sensed your feelings towards him." His words fluster you even more, you didn't realize it was so obvious, but Zhongli was a very observant person, maybe it was just that.

"Do you wish to impress him tomorrow? That's why you're so... jumpy today?" You nodded, feeling embarrassed that you are worried about this sort of thing. Usually, only mortals are prone to these types of worries.

"Y/N, Xiao doesn't care about those trivial things. You just have to be yourself." He told you as a matter of fact.

'Besides, the Yaksha already is making it obvious that he likes you back.' Zhongli kept this thought internally.

"But what if he doessss." You whine, gripping on the book tighter. "Xiao is just so.... Xiao! So unpredictable and complicated." Sighing, you looked up at the man again. "Can you help me, please?"

Zhongli sighed, although it hurts him to help dress you up so pretty, just to send you off to another man, but he'll bite. How could he ever say no to you.

After hours of rummaging through your closet, you finally, finally find something that's actually good in your eyes, even though Zhongli assured you that everything would be fine.

The dress of your choice has Xiao's colors, white, gold, mint green. You really are some piece of work, piece of work that doesn't belong to him.

Zhongli just kept sighing as he walked back to the funeral parlor, he's conflicted, which usually doesn't happen. Is he just gonna leave you two alone for tomorrow with some lousy excuse, or... get in the way.

As he got to the entrance of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, he saw Xiao, sitting on a bench just outside. The cat-eyed boy sensed Zhongli's presence, standing up and looking at his way immediately.

The brown-haired man walked up to him, silently asking why he's here all of a sudden, in the city, which also doesn't happen very often.

"Can you help me?"

Oh boy, here we go again.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

"You don't have to straight up lie if you don't like her treats, you can just give polite comments, like saying you're not really a big fan of them or something." Zhongli explained once again, it was the dead of night. Xiao had asked to help with how he should talk to you, he's not very talkative and expressive, but he doesn't want to make you feel like he doesn't like you.

"But that might also hurt her feelings." The Yaksha pointed out, listening intently to the older man.

"Yes, but she will appreciate the truth rather than a pointless lie."

He just needs help expressing his feelings right.

And Zhongli seeing how you two desperately try to be the best you can for one another, it makes him smile, despite the constant heart ache. And the realization that he has no chance for you, with the evidence right in front of him, Zhongli makes his decision...

He's ready to let go.

"I'm not gonna be joining you two tommorow."

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Alternative Ending: Ready to Hold On - Reader chooses not to choose and start a polyamory relationship.

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact angst #genshin impact imagines #xiao x reader #genshin impact xiao #genshin angst #genshin impact fluff #zhongli x reader #xiao #zhongli #genshin impact zhongli

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imagining-in-the-margins · 3 years

Text

The Birds & The Bees (S.R. | Pt. 3)

Summary: Reader earns her nickname, and Spencer sinks to a new level of sin. A/N: Here, take your first dose of smut 💊 ✨ Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Slow Burn (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Drinking, alcohol, masturbation (male) Word Count: 5.3k

MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist

——————————————————

If I had to pick my favorite thing about working for Spencer Reid, it would probably be something that most people wouldn’t expect. Sure, it was nice to be able to work with a human encyclopedia, and he was definitely very nice to look at, but neither of those things contributed to my love for my job.

It was the sense of belonging. An overwhelming feeling of serenity that existed, flowing freely beneath the surface like a network of roots twined together. I never felt out of place when I was with Spencer — which couldn’t be said for basically any other time. Especially not now.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays because it’s just absurd. You harass your neighbors while dressed in a costume and they reward you with something sweet (or, in some cases, change). As I’ve grown older, not much has changed aside from the creativity and length of the costumes.

... and the sweet treats being replaced by the bitter sting of alcohol.

“You do realize that guy was hitting on you in there, right?” my friend shouted from less than a foot to my right.

“He was just being nice.”

“Yeah... in a bar,” another girl chimed in, “On Halloween.”

I tried to remember the face of the man they were talking about, but my memory of his eyes blended into the flashing lights of the club. Even if I wasn’t drunk, I knew it would have been hard to remember him. Because the truth was that he wasn’t the person I wanted to see when I closed my eyes.

“Leave her alone. She’s trying to stay pure for her professor,” my friend snickered.

Despite the treachery, I still caught her before she almost pushed us both straight off the curb in her drunken state. But it wasn’t her opinion I was worried about, because at that point, I was certain she would remember none of it by the time class rolled around come Monday. It was our other acquaintance that I responded to, with a very squeaky and unreliable, “I am not doing that!”

“Yeah, what she wants isn’t pure at all,” the mess on my shoulder droned. That was enough of a reason for me to drop her, although it really resulted in both of us barely staying on our feet on the somewhat crowded sidewalk.

“Stop! It’s not like that!”

“Sure it’s not.”

Then, something else caught her attention. Knowing her, I figured that it was either a man in a scandalous costume, or it was a two for one drink deal plastered in front of a bar. I assumed it was the latter, because as soon as she finished talking, she grabbed hold of our hands and yanked us against the brick wall of the next bar.

“So you wouldn’t mind if, theoretically, Professor Reid saw you in your costume?” she asked.

I like to think that I am a relatively smart girl. After all, I had made my way to graduate school, and Spencer seemed to think that I wasn’t a complete hopeless idiot. But in that moment, I couldn’t understand why on earth she would ever think to ask me that.

Running my hands over the fuzzy pink bodysuit I was wearing, I tried to picture his reaction. As soon as I tried to look down, however, the two floppy bunny ears affixed to the hood dropped over my eyes.

“I-I mean, I guess not…?” I mumbled, my face growing hot from something other than the alcohol, “I’m wearing it in public, so...”

But then she said it — the most terrifying two words I’d ever heard in my life.

“Okay – good.”

My eyes shot up immediately, trying to follow her eyes through the crowd of drunk, costumed people. By the time that I spotted him, somewhat thankfully dressed in normal clothes, I was powerless to stop it.

“Dr. Reid!” My friend’s voice rang out into the night, “Dr. Reid, come over here!”

The moment our eyes met, I knew I was fucked. Totally, completely, and utterly fucked. A clever little grin filled his cheeks as he quickly spotted me trying to hide under my hood.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” I shrieked, but he was already on his way over.

“You said you didn’t mind!”

In a panicked whisper, I bit back, “I didn’t say call him over here!”

When he grew closer, though, I corrected myself. Because it was not just Spencer who was walking over. There was someone else with him. Another man, just as tall and just as beautiful as Spencer, but with a dark complexion and an even more wicked smile.

As for my company, they had already scattered into the bar behind me, leaving me with a wordless, dumbstruck look on my face that was very poorly hidden behind bunny ears.

“H-hey Prof— Dr. Reid,” I managed to get out.

“Hey,” he answered in a tone I’d never heard before. A slightly guarded, very entertained but mostly awkward stretch of the vowel.

The man beside him, however, was quick to question.

“Who’s this?”

As I said before, I like to consider myself a relatively bright person. But the alcohol that night had been both free and strong. So, when I was asked by a handsome man who I was on the Devil’s night, I answered honestly.

“I’m a bunny!” I cried, bringing my hands together over my chest and turning to present the small pink pompom affixed to my lower back.

“I can see that,” the stranger replied through a genuine chuckle. But while the action was amusing to at least two of us in the conversation, Spencer looked mortified. It wasn’t necessarily negative, though.

I couldn’t be sure, of course, considering that I had already consumed more liquor that night than I had in the past month, but something told me that Spencer was less humiliated by me, and more worried about how blatant his response to my answer was. Because when he spoke, he did so through a smile.

“She’s uh... my teaching assistant.”

“Teaching assistant, huh?” his friend repeated, clearly amused.

There was almost a challenge to the title. Something about the way he said it setting my heart into overdrive. Unable to control my own treacherous tongue, I continued to dig myself a wonderfully sized hole to jump in to.

“I’m also very good at hopping,” I said.

Once again, the better company of the two laughed. Spencer, however, covered his smile with a hand that brought attention to just how red his face had grown over the course of a few seconds. I was so distracted by it, lost in the way I could still see upturned lips just from his eye shape alone, that I failed to acknowledge the other man for a suspicious length of time.

“Well hey, don’t let me get in the way of you two catching up. Reid, I’ll go tell the hostess we’re here, so the others know where to go.”

With a firm pat on the shoulder, the man almost turned to walk away. But before he could, I drew him back again.

“Ooh, is there a party?”

Spencer, finally able to speak again, rushed his reply.

“No, it’s nothing.”

It was obviously not nothing, though. Judging by the toothy grin that his friend flashed, it was a very big not-nothing.

“Did he not tell you?” he asked with an incredulous, mischievous tone, “It’s his birthday.”

And it was, by far, the most insulting, scandalous news I’d heard that night. Enough to elicit a sharp gasp and hand reaching out to grab his wrist in a way I knew I shouldn’t have.

“You didn’t tell me it’s your birthday!”

My mind was racing, kicking myself for having not figured it out sooner. I was trying to recall the monthly staff newsletter, but then quickly remembered that I usually relied on Spencer to summarize them for me.

“It’s not my birthday,” he explained with a sigh, “It was a few days ago.”

His friend seemed pleased by my response, although he clearly saw it dwindling. My heels had already dropped back down with my hands that fell away, signaling a very different emotion than the excitement from seconds prior.

“We’re meeting up with some people for drinks and dinner. You want to come?” he asked, trying to convince me before it was too late.

But the moment had passed, replaced by loud, insecure ranting that insisted that Spencer wouldn’t have avoided telling me his birthday unless he didn’t want me to know. That meant he either didn’t enjoy making a fuss out of his birthday, or he didn’t want me to, specifically.

“Uhh...”

“Don’t answer that,” Spencer cut in, swiftly raising a hand to dismiss the other man whose name I finally learned. “Thanks Derek, I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Suit yourself,” he mumbled back. But Derek, in all of his disappointment, didn’t fail to draw out one more flustered laugh from the two of us who remained as he gave a tiny half-wave and sang, “Goodbye, Bunny.”

Spencer’s neck craned back, never once leaving his friend until he had safely entered the restaurant. Once he was sure that he was safe from ridicule, or at least observation, his entire demeanor changed.

“I’m sorry about that,” he offered, but I couldn’t accept. If anyone had been a bother here, it was me (and my friends).

“No, I’m sorry I bothered you!” I rushed.

The silence stretched between us, an unsettling reminder that we rarely interacted outside of work. That he’d never known me to party, and I’d never thought of him doing something as routine and normal as celebrating a birthday. It shouldn’t have been strange, but it was.

Perhaps that feeling was what drove me to continue, proudly stating, “I promise that I will have all your work ready first thing in the morning.”

It wasn’t until Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed and his mouth opened in a strange, lopsided grin that I’d realized I made a mistake.

“Um...” he spoke through laughter, “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

“I’m very motivated?”

Thankfully, he saw the humiliation and was happy to offer me a graceful escape from my humiliation. “How about I give you until Tuesday, instead?”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best, huh?”

I gladly took it, staring down at my heels as I tried to find anything else to focus on. Anything that wasn’t his eyes that seemed even more powerful after dark. But true to the magnetism I always experienced in his vicinity, I was drawn back into golden irises full of an emotion that made my heart beat twice as hard.

“Where did your friends go?” he asked. I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I just threw my thumb over my shoulder and towards the bar behind me. I didn’t turn away from him then, too scared to acknowledge that I would be leaving him soon. That we would go our separate ways again and I would have to wait until Tuesday to drown in the honey of his eyes again.

Sure enough, Spencer gave a solemn nod and cleared his throat before mumbling, “Right. You should probably go find them, so they don’t get worried.”

But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay with him, the rest of the world be damned. I wanted to feel his eyes on me longer, especially when they started to wander my figure that I’d secretly hoped he would see.

I could pretend to hate my friend for calling him over all I wanted, but when I slipped into the costume hours earlier, I’d wondered what he would do if he saw me like this. And now that the answer was in front of me, torn between the exposed skin of my thighs and chest, I wanted to experience it for as long as possible.

With my fingers on the zipper to try and calm my heart, the inebriation manifested in soft giggles as I replied, “I think I’m pretty safe with you, Professor.”

Spencer didn’t need to vocalize his disagreement. I saw his contention in the form of wayward eyes falling to my hands that fiddled with the tiny piece of plastic keeping me covered. When they trailed back up the zipper teeth to meet my eyes again, they were filled with a hunger that took my breath away.

Unfortunately for us, though, our smitten haze wasn’t shared by anyone else in the vicinity. Especially not the drunk pack of men who passed, completely unaware of the amount of space they took up on the sidewalk. I don’t even remember one of them running into me, but I definitely remembered what followed in extreme, vivid detail.

Spencer caught me, quickly and more gracefully than I thought him capable of moving. His arms were locked around me, not only preventing me from face planting on the concrete but causing me to press my face directly against him.

Before he had a chance to say or do much of anything else, I placed my hands on his chest and tore myself away from the warmth of his embrace. Because I was already drunk enough on the alcohol — I didn’t need to be any more inebriated from him.

“S-See? You caught me!” I squeaked.

I didn’t miss the fact his hands stayed on my waist even with the added distance, his fingers subtly digging into and stroking the plush fabric. I didn’t try to stop them, either.

“Are you going to be okay? Should I take you home?”

I knew it wasn’t how he’d meant it, but my inner voice still pleaded, Yes, God, please, yes! My outer voice, however, clung to reason and respectability.

“No! Don’t miss your birthday dinner!” I insisted, but he didn’t look convinced. “I’m fine, seriously. I just suck at walking in heels.”

Any part of me that would have normally been offended by his insistence that I couldn’t handle myself while drinking was quelled by my desire to keep his hands on me as long as possible. Although there was enough space for my arms between our chests, I swore I felt his fluttering heartbeat against my fingers. I thought of hummingbirds.

Resigned to my stubbornness, Spencer took a moment longer to stroke patterns through the pink fabric wrapped around my waist before he sighed, “If you say so.”

“I do!” I giggled, leaning closer like I might convince him not to leave at all, “So you better listen up, mister Professor man.”

The look he gave me was sweet, honeyed bliss. But even that seemed minuscule in comparison to the way his hands slid over my sides, making their way over my shoulders and gently brushing the errant bunny ears back out of my face. He left them there, too, with a barely-there caress of my face.

“You look cute,” he said, like it wouldn’t break my heart.

Shier than he’d ever seen me before, I somehow managed to still look him in the eye as I answered, “So do you.”

It was a good thing I’d been paying attention, too. If I hadn’t been staring into his eyes, I would have missed the flash of chaotic playfulness that appeared just as he glanced down at the space between our chests.

I wouldn’t have been prepared at all when he dropped one of his hands from my face to the zipper of my costume. Not to say that anything could have prepared me for the way it felt to have his knuckle brush against the skin just below the lace bralette that had been meant to protect my modesty.

Before I could even comprehend the delicious friction of our skin, it was gone. Spencer pulled the zipper up to my chin, releasing the plastic in favor of grabbing hold of my chin once more.

“Be careful with that zipper,” he instructed, “I don’t need you getting hypothermia this early in the semester.”

Unsure of how else to respond, my body responded on instinct as it stammered, “I-I promise.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again, and my autopilot continued.

“Double promise. Promise squared.”

“Okay. You have my number so... call me if you need anything.”

I absently nodded, but Spencer accurately concluded that I hadn’t actually processed what he’d said. When he let go of me, he took the time to smooth out the bunched up fabric over my shoulders. I tried to convince myself that he was just interested in the soft fluff, but it was hard to ignore the hunger that’d only grown stronger. The darkness that rivaled the moonless hallow’s eve.

“I don’t mind giving you a ride home if it means you get back safe,” he said with a deathly seriousness strongly contrasted by the flippancy that followed. “Otherwise I’ll have more work for Tuesday.”

I was grateful for the shift, because it made the loss of his hands hurt less. My chest filled with laughter that quickly burst from me with frantic, messy words.

“Of course! The work. For Tuesday. Okay! Thank you!”

“For what?” he also said through laughter.

“I— don’t know.”

Spencer turned away from me, looking behind him at the obligations that would tear us apart. I wondered if he, too, was busy contemplating how well it suited just how different we were. How two establishments side by side could house such different things. How we were frequenting opposite ends of the spectrum.

Whatever he was thinking about, however, it didn’t break his spirits too badly. Because before he sent me on my merry way, he flashed me the goofiest little bouncing peace sign before he sang, “Hop along, little bunny.”

So I did, turning back to my life and letting him return to his. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of his eyes following me until the darkness of the bar swallowed the space between us.

Still, I didn’t need him to be there to remember how it felt for his hands to roam my body like familiar territory. I saw that look in his eyes every time that I closed my own and remembered how it made my legs shake like weak stems bending to the wind.

I decided then that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world that he’d seen me in my costume. In fact, I think he quite liked it.

——————————————————

There are few things more relentless than Derek Morgan. Death and taxes, perhaps. When it came to mocking me, there wasn’t a single missed opportunity. Even at the darkest hour, I trusted him to be consistent and predictable.

That was precisely why it made no sense that I had made it through an entire dinner and drinks outing with the team without him mentioning what had happened. Not even once. I almost let myself be relieved. Perhaps time spent with a child that can talk back did him some good, I thought. But when the time finally came for us to take our leave, I realized my mistake. He wasn’t holding back out of the kindness of his heart.

No, Derek wanted to wait until there was no escape route. He wanted to have me trapped in a car hurtling down a highway before he spoke the words that he’d been waiting to say all night.

“So... Bunny.”

“Her name is (y/n),” I quickly corrected. Unfortunately, Derek wasn’t in a merciful mood. Although there was a notable smirk on his face, his next words were uttered with a hefty dose of skepticism. A warning that it was a subject that ought to be approached with a critical sincerity.

“Her name is Trouble. That’s what her name is,” he said, shaking his head.

“She’s just my teaching assistant,” I said like I might actually convince myself, though we both knew that I wasn’t going to convince him. “It’s fine.”

“Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”

But that time, it was me who issued the warning.

“Stop,” I ordered, meeting his eyes to find him hiding his genuine concern under jokes that weren’t really jokes at all. “I respect her. She’s very bright and she earned her position.”

“I never said she didn’t. I know she’s probably smart, but I also saw the way you looked at her.”

The words felt like a blow to the stomach — yet another reminder that my affections for her were so thinly veiled they might as well be scrawled across my skin. He didn’t need to be a profiler to notice that I was fond of the girl, but it certainly made it worse.

Because he knew that I was lying when I muttered, “You don’t need to worry about it.”

He knew that I was lying, but he still asked, “Why’s that?”

“She’s...” I started, pausing while the word tried to form on my tongue. The word that had haunted me ever since those damned girls mentioned it. That short, simple little noun that had taken a cursory affection and turned it into full blown lust.

“She’s a virgin.”

Derek’s brows jumped up his face, his jaw dropping the same way mine had when I first heard the news. Then, just as I had, he put the pieces together and realized that it should have been a foregone conclusion.

“Trouble with a capital everything,” he half laughed.

But this wasn’t a joking matter, and I really wished that I could make him believe that. That definitely wouldn’t happen, though. Not when he looked up to see me hiding behind my hands, sinking into my seat like it would get me out of the conversation.

“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s obviously waiting.”

It was the wrong thing to say. I should have seen his response coming from a mile away. But I didn’t, and so I was forced to listen to his childish giggles that were followed with an even more lighthearted crooning.

“Yeah, waiting for the right professor to come teach her the lesson on the birds and the bees.”

“Cut it out.”

Without even looking, he astutely observed, “Kid, you’re blushing.”

“Yeah, because you’re talking about me fuc–”

The word never made it out, getting caught between my teeth as I bit down on my tongue damn near hard enough to make it bleed. I wished it would. I wanted the iron to drown me and rid me of the sinful things it sought to do, instead. Opting for a more… distinguished explanation, I eventually stammered the rest of the thought.

“You’re talking about me... deflowering my significantly younger employee!”

“You can say fuck, Reid,” he deadpanned, “I think you’re old enough now.”

“I don’t want to. It sounds too... crude.”

I didn’t expect him to understand. How could he? He’d only seen her when she was at her most provocative… by far. Part of me envied him, to be able to sequester her innocence and view her as just another girl.

But she wasn’t like anyone else. She was an untouched bloom, a magnolia of unearthly shades. A beautiful blossom that had broken through the concrete walls I’d maintained for so many years. A tantalizing taste of the life outside that I refused to let in.

A fucking tease.

“Too crude for little miss innocent bunny?” Derek cooed, and it was so uncomfortably close to my thoughts that I couldn’t help the way I snapped back.

“Are you done?”

As we pulled into my parking lot, Derek just waved off my hostility, recognizing it as nothing but misfired shame and anguish at the thing I wanted being out of my reach.

“Yeah, I’m done. I hope you had fun, even with the teasing.”

I chose not to dignify the second half of the statement, climbing out of the car like I couldn’t step away from the conversation fast enough. But of course, I knew that only made my guilt more apparent. My culpability was clear and conclusive. There was no argument to be made.

“You know I’m right!” he shouted just before the door shut. A final reminder, one last cautionary call for the beast inside of me to keep itself hidden lest I allow myself to sink my teeth into something pure.

“Goodnight!”

Few things changed when I reached the confines of my apartment walls. Fantasies had only devolved into a vividness that was borderline frightening. How easily I could get lost in visions of her, only promising my return in exchange for my imagination agreeing to become a reality that I would get a chance to experience.

But that wasn’t fair to her. She was just a girl doing her job with an astounding amount of patience and understanding for her hopeless romantic of a boss. For a moment, the guilt became so overwhelming that I let it win. I managed to swallow my newly acquired memories well enough to navigate my nightly routine without wishing she was there every step of the way.

Wishing that she would call me. That she would grant me the excuse to return to her, to touch her as freely as I had earlier. I imagined a world where, upon arriving to her destination, she invited me in.

As I collapsed on my bed, I wondered if she would have preferred the privacy of my home. A place far enough away from other students and academics to finally see me as something more than a superior. Something attainable in a way she never seemed to be.

Just as I closed my eyes to give in to the dreams, my phone buzzed. The sound set off every nerve in my body, all of them very poorly coordinating to allow me to grab the device and turn it on to reveal her name.

“Hey Professor! I just wanted to let you know that I got home…”

I’d never opened a notification so quickly, but I should have waited. I should have paused and taken the time to notice that what I was opening wasn’t just a collection of letters and symbols.

It was a set of pictures.

Pictures of her.

“Safe and sound and zippered up. No hypothermia for this bunny tonight,” she tagged onto the end, “Sweet dreams!”

How could I ever dream of anything but her? How was I meant to turn off my phone now, knowing that she was there; her drunken, lustful stare on display? I only tore my eyes away from her face long enough to notice her surroundings. I took extensive, painstaking notes on the color of the sheets on her bed and the way the zipper I’d tugged at to control myself from taking her had fallen away again.

I could feel the softness of her skin against my knuckle again. I heard the way her breath nearly broke at the force with which she sucked in air at the feeling of me touching her. How hard she pressed herself against me, how her back arched when I held her and how she never even tried to stop my hands from finding new places to rest.

They worked diligently now, too, trying to keep her awake and with me for as long as I could, but also wanting to free myself of obligations so that she wouldn’t notice how long I’d stared at the pictures she’d sent.

“Goodnight, little bunny,” I sent before adding, “I’ll be counting rabbits instead of sheep tonight.”

As if to reward my efforts, another picture flooded my screen. Her face was scrunched up in an adorable innocence, half covered with her hand but still effortlessly beautiful.

I stopped myself from responding again. I forced myself to stop, to prevent treacherous hands from calling her and begging her to let me come to her. It wasn’t fair — it was manipulative, downright evil, even — to take advantage of her inebriated state to hoard any insight she might provide.

But she’d already sent these… So, would it be so wrong to indulge in her? By touching my own body to the thought of her, would I taint her? Did I care even if it did? Maybe it was for the best to plant the seed of impurity now, to strip her of her power over me.

But deep down, I knew that I would still want her. I would still wish that the hand that sneaked beneath the sheets belonged to her. I could almost feel it as my hand traversed familiar territory. It would be new for her, and it would be new for me to feel the delicate, unmarred skin of her palm slowly sliding down my stomach. Her fingers bashfully brushing through soft curls at the base of me, still too nervous to hold me the way I needed her to.

Her face would be buried in my shoulder, with dew from her breath wetting my neck and raising the hairs on my arms. I would take her hand in mine and guide her to wrap her trembling hand around my cock.

Just like I was doing to myself now, with my other hand still holding the phone displaying the image of innocence. My hand wasn’t as soft or inexperienced as hers would be, but as long as my eyes stayed on her half-lidded gaze staring back at me, I could pretend.

I could hear her panting my name— my real name, Spencer— in my ear, praising the feel of silky skin beneath her fingertips. She would whisper about how she wanted to feel it elsewhere, too. She would beg for me to replace a hand for her most precious place.

That damned angelic girl showing her hand on the zipper would beg me to steal away her innocence. She would unveil herself slowly, knowing that I needed the time to memorize every inch of her skin as it was seen by another for the first time. Seen by me, and only me. The vision would be for my consumption and indulgence.

I wanted it. I wanted her.

My stomach tensed as I pictured the girl staring back at me straddling my hips. I stroked myself harder, faster, letting my thumb trace down her body on my screen.

If I stole it from her, would it be mine?

Would she be trapped as I was, only able to feel anything when I was with her? Would she dream of me? Would she cherish each and every memory of my touch and play it back in her mind? When she felt the urge to break and burn, would she picture my hands lighting the match?

If I ruined her, would she be mine?

I pictured the girl on the screen with tears in her eyes, her mouth stuck open in a silent scream and her hands clutching desperately to mine. I imagined how tightly her body would grip me as I fucked her. How hard it would fight the intrusion of my sinful touch. How I would hold her down despite the resistance until she gave in to me. Until I broke her, thoroughly and irreparably.

She would be mine.

That was the thought that took me over the edge, all energy that was not delegated to my hand feverishly stroking my cock remained with my other hand to hold her picture in front of me. It never even wavered, never once shaking and risking losing any clarity. Even my eyes refused to close all the way.

She would be mine.

The warm, sticky mess of my desire coated my hand and stomach, but all I could think was how it would feel to mark her as mine. To feel the excess drip back down my cock as she collapsed against my body. To know that she would never be the same, never be wholly herself again. That she’d let me inside of her soul and that when I left, I hadn’t left empty handed.

She was already mine.

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| Part Four |

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