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targaryenrealnessdarling · 8 months

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A Perfect Score - Chapter 8 - The Fallout | FigureSkating!AU

Summary: You wait for whatever secrets Larys might have, but they say things get worse before they get better. Right? | Word Count: 8k~ | Warnings under the cut~

Series Masterlist | Links to my Taglists: General Taglist | Aemond Targaryen Taglist

Warnings: angst 💀, smut straight out the gate, semi-public(?) sex, degradation, praise, aemond being a sexual menace, dirty talk, p in v unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), creampie, mentions of emotionally abusive relationships (both platonic and romantic), mentions of injury resulting in loss of sight, lots of swearing, feelings of inadequacy

A/N: oh lord here we go

It had been a week since you’d last heard from Larys, and the anticipation of what he would return with had your palms sweating as you double tapped your phone screen, seeing if any notifications were there to greet you.

Nothing.

Your heart raced with worry, and it was difficult to not show it around Aemond, now that the both of you were attached at the hip. Every quiet moment, Aemond would try and squeeze in some kind of gesture before inevitably his family would walk in. But as the days went on, instead of biting his lip, putting distance between you and his cheeks blossoming being seen romantically with you, he lingered, making it clear to whoever chose to disturb either of you that he didn’t care if they saw.

He was slowly beginning to care less about that, focussing said care on something else.

As proven by your time together on the tour, Aemond was insatiable.

You honestly don’t know how his dick hasn’t fallen off yet, or that he’s not on some kind of blood pressure medication, by the way he enjoys fucking you into oblivion any spare, quiet moment he gets. Not that it’s something to necessarily complain about. But the more time passed, the more your nerves began to spike, wanting to desperately have him define what was going on here.

Helaena seemed to give the impression this was strange behaviour for him. With the exception of the person Hel so lovingly called ‘that fucking dinosaur’, Aemond’s conquests had been just that. Casual. No strings attached. Sometimes not even necessarily because it had to be, but because he’d shut it down before it went any further.

You didn’t ask Aemond about that.

Even Alicent had mentioned as such, that she’d never seen her son so happy and content.

So why was there this sicky feeling in your stomach?

It was still so early in the morning that it was dark, the faintest of dark blue in the sky to remind you that the sun was just about to come up. And here you were, not in bed, not snuggled in bed sheets. But skates on, all limbered up and ready to practise.

In lieu of Aemond, you shoved your headphones in and leant against the ledge on your forearms, idly hovering on the ice, scrolling through the various news articles.

Martells: Trouble in Paradise? Qoren in trouble after leaving Sunspear Strip Club with blonde stranger Aemond Targaryen and his muse. He fell first but she fell harder, our source says. Otto Hightower seen giving flowers to Floris Baratheon as she is discharged from hospital

The last one made your nose crinkle.

Course he was seen doing it.

You almost jumped out of your skin and dropped your phone in your hands as a firm, tall body bumped into you from behind, genuinely winding you as your form became sandwiched between it and the ledge.

"Fucking-" you pull out your earphones and throw a look over your shoulder. Knowing exactly who it is.

Aemond smiles apologetically, but not really that sorry, and snakes his arms around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder, looking all innocent. But what isn’t so innocent is the way he’s so unabashedly pressed up against you.

You raise an eyebrow, "You done sneaking about?"

He huffs a laugh, the air blowing on your neck as you pretend to scroll on your phone to ignore him, “Was hardly ‘sneaking about’, you’re just going deaf”

He reaches over and scrolls back up, back at the news article you’d ignored a second earlier.

Aemond grins, “Pfft, Aemond Targaryen seen bringing his lover home to meet his family” he recites from the article's title, “do you think they have any idea what actually goes on, hm?”

You roll your eyes partly as his hands drop to your hips, squeezing gently, managing at the same time to grind his hips against your backside. You can’t really ignore the heat that’s beginning to gather in your belly when he does that.

You smirk at him over your shoulder, “Shouldn’t we be practising?”

His hands still make their way over every curve he can find. His mind miles away from said practice.

“Hm. I thought we could practise something else”

You catch his wrist, cheeks bright red as he tries to slip his fingers past the waistband of your leggings, “Aemond!” you whisper-shout, “there’s security cameras!”

“They don’t work” he muses, pressing a few open-mouthed kisses to your neck as he turns his head into you, wilfully ignorant of how embarrassed this is making you, “lucky for us”

His hand slips completely beneath the leggings, expertly sliding between your legs to swipe two digits along your folds. A quiet breathy mewl slips past your lips, your backside pressing softly into his obvious hardness, knowing full well he’ll likely punish you in his own way for teasing him.

“See, now you’re all wet for me” he whispers in your ear, teasing his fingers past your folds just barely, prodding at your slick entrance, “I’ve got myself a needy little slut, haven’t I?”

“Aemond, please -”

You’re not entirely sure how he manages to do it. How you instantly turn to mush when he touches you. When he speaks to you.

You can scarcely believe you ever really hated him.

Sometimes, you wonder if it ever was truly hate.

For either of you, it couldn’t have been.

You feel the way Aemond hums deep in his chest, “But I’m having so much fun teasing you, baby” he coos quietly, pressing the pads of his fingers in tight, soft circles on your clit, spreading what slick had gathered over it. The motion has a stuttered breath slipping past your lips, your hips sinking on him, searching for more contact.

You’re more annoyed than anything that he’s having such a good time watching you squirm, and embarrassment blooms hot at your cheeks.

“Turn around”

Your eyes snap open. His voice is so different, and how easily he’s able to flit from soft, teasing to harsh and domineering always manages to make your knees feel weak.

He pulls his hand free, not even waiting for you to do as he says before he spins you around, shoving your lower back hard against the ledge and kicking your legs apart with one of his. His eye is focussed entirely on the task at hand, jaw tight and his expression completely flat. He looks almost angry, but you know he’s just impatient.

You swallow thickly as he rolls the leggings over your hips, taking the underwear with it so it hangs around your upper thighs. He’s so rough with you that even now, before he’s done anything, that his fingers leave little red imprints where he’s been.

“I’ve been wanting to taste your pussy for days, princess” he muses, slipping to his knees, heedless of the ice leaking freezing water onto his sweatpants, “we’ve not had a spare moment, have we?”

You almost outright sob in want when he presses his face to your core, inhaling your scent deeply like he’s not been between them every day since you arrived back at his home.

“ - fuck - princess -”

You press your lips together to stifle a moan when you feel his tongue part your folds, licking a long stripe over your entrance, a low moan vibrating through your core. Your grip, white-knuckled on the ledge, tightens. As does his on the fleshy skin of your thighs, keeping them wide apart for him to feast on your cunt.

You’re not sure who is really enjoying this more, but based on the sounds Aemond is making while he drags his tongue from your entrance to your clit, lighting sucking on the sensitive bud and moaning while he does it, it would seem he is.

Airiness floods your head and that same pressure is beginning to tighten up in your gut when he grazes his teeth softly against your clit, redoubling his efforts and diving down to fuck you with his tongue, caressing the top of your slick walls with it. He groans as you reach one hand down and tighten it in his hair, ruining the bun he’d had it in. Aemond takes it in his stride, shuffling closer to you and nuzzling his nose against your core, providing pleasure in both ways with the way his sharp nose keeps butting against your bundle of nerves.

Tugging slightly on his follicles, the coil in your belly winds tighter, and you feel your body sinking repeatedly onto him, moving your hips in micro-movements to increase the contact.

“Fuck - Aemond -”

He smirks against you, giving one fat stripe over your folds before breaking away briefly, “You gonna cum for me, princess?” he asks quietly, before moving back in to pleasuring you.

You’re only able to get out hard pants before finding the energy to reply, “Yes, yes…” you chant, your hips finding him over and over, chasing that high.

Aemond pulls away, moving to stand quickly and crashing his lips to yours, his tongue moving against yours and allowing you to share in the heady, exciting taste of your arousal. You moan softly into his mouth, fisting his shirt to pull him closer, putting all of your disappointment at being denied your peak into kissing him back, nipping at his bottom lip harshly as he pulls away.

Instead of looking annoyed at how clearly annoyed you are, he simply smirks, his tongue darting out to clear his lips of any arousal or saliva, soothing where you’d bit him.

“Patience, princess”

He spins you around again before you have a chance to bark back, pushing you over the ledge with a hand flat on your back. Your skates bang against the side and you nearly lose your balance, before Aemond presses his legs against you to keep you stable.

“What the fu-ow!”

Heat blooms on your ass when Aemond slaps it, soothing it with his palm afterwards. It aches there but also between your legs, where more arousal has gathered, desperately needing friction. Or just something.

Aemond huffs a laugh, managing to pull down his sweatpants just enough to sheath himself deep inside you in one smooth motion. The sudden intrusion has your walls stretching to accommodate his size, the slight prickle of pain stoking the fire that had been neglected in your belly. You gasp, grappling forward as he bottoms out and begins immediately pistoning into you, spearing you apart on his cock like it’s the last thing he’ll do.

“ - fffuck, baby - so fucking tight-” he breathes between thrusts, his hips smacking harshly against yours, “ - so fucking wet for me, always so wet for me, aren’t you-”

You can only manage staggered moans in reply, your body constantly hurtled forward by the brutal rhythm of his cock driving into your heat over and over. You hope to any god out there that he doesn't actually want a proper reply. You’re not sure if you’re even capable of that right now.

“I like fucking you in your skates, with all your clothes on -” he breathes hot against your ear, leaning over and changing the angle, so he hits impossibly deeper, “-just my dirty, little cockslut, aren’t you-”

“-Aemond, please-”

“What” he replies harshly, increasing the intensity of his thrusts. He almost seems frustrated with how erratically his hips push against your backside, with the sounds to match, “gods, you’re so fucking needy for me - just like to be properly fucked, don’t you, princess -”

Your skates drift across the ice with every movement, breasts pressing near-painfully into the ledge. Being fully clothed like this, while you’re meant to be working, feels so dirty, so erotic, that it fans the flames inside you, pushing an all-consuming orgasm through your core, numbing into your limbs, with a wild cry of his name.

“That’s it, good girl - love it when you cum for me, fuck, love being inside you - lov-” he babbles incoherently, before his own voice strains, your core squeezing him so tightly that he spills deep inside you, filling you with his warmth.

You feel his heaved breaths at your back, trying desperately to suck the air back into his lungs.

He stays nestled inside you for some time, only moving away and pulling out after a long moment. You whine softly at the loss of him, hearing the fumbling of him pulling his sweatpants back up. You do the same, covering yourself on shaky legs, feeling the thrum of your own heartbeat through your core.

He’s quiet.

“Aemond?-”

Before you can really ask him what’s wrong, his arms wrap around you from behind. It’s a far cry from the way he was holding/fucking you earlier. It’s soft and tender, like one wrong move and he thinks you’ll break in half. He holds you close, your back pressed against his chest, where you can feel the steady beat of his heart, calming down.

His hands clasp at your front, his chin resting at the crown of your head.

“You okay?” you ask, covering his hands with yours, soothing his hand with your thumb. The action makes your stomach roll, an unfamiliar feeling being stoked within.

You feel him nod.

“Yeah, yeah…fine” he says, barely above a whisper.

Even though he’s not convincing anyone, you don’t prod or pry for more information. You know him well enough that he’d appreciate just your understanding and silence. So that’s exactly what you do.

You just stand, in a comfortable silence, pressed tightly against each other.

Eventually, he begrudgingly did start practising the finals routine with you. And though both of you were pumping hot in your blood with lust after the quickie, there was always, always something unsaid. You could tell there was something Aemond wanted to say, but didn’t have the courage to form the words.

The last time either of you were at the ice rink at his home, the shared touches were electric, almost painful, and there was then an underlying hostility.

But now.

It felt completely different.

And you didn’t know what to do.

The press were onto you. Both of you, like hounds. Like they could smell something was going on. They’d even started constantly hanging around outside the security gates, waiting for someone to come out, or to catch a glimpse of the supposed couple.

Sat on the bench, unlacing your skates, you look up at Aemond as he pulls on his shoes.

“Just gonna freshen up before lunch, see you inside?” he asks, pulling on his jacket in preparation of being rained on.

You can hear the rattling of the incessant raindrops on the metal roof of the ice rink.

You spare him a smile and nod, “Course”

You don’t know why it surprises you, but he bends down, one hand tugging your face up to his to press a tender, almost loving kiss, as quick as it is, to your lips. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

It has you frozen in your own body as you watch him walk away, slipping out the door, the rain pelting on the ground outside becoming briefly louder as it swings shut, dropping you into silence.

Your lips are warm from him, a deep point in your belly is also.

Just as you slip your shoes on, your phone buzzes in your pocket. Before any other feeling, a lingering sense of unease rolls through you.

Larys Strong has shared a link with you.

Swallowing thickly, you stare at the screen for what feels like hours. And then a follow up email, just with text.

Here is all I have.

With a shaky breath, you swipe his email away and click on the link, which takes you to a Google Drive. Anxiety twists in your chest, feeling very much like you are doing something you shouldn’t. But the not-knowing is driving you crazy, so the loading bar at the top of the screen somewhat aggravates you, impatience humming in your blood.

Two folders.

_Floris Baratheon Incident

And one with your name.

With shaky thumbs, you decide to click on Floris’ first.

Several screenshots of conversations, email exchanges, text messages, even a voice message.

Do something to her skates.

O.H

You immediately recognise the phone number as his.

Otto Hightower sabotaged Floris Baratheon.

Your breath is stuck in your throat, dread rising with the anxiety.

Fuckfuckfuck.

He had not only wanted Floris out. He was willing to physically harm her, pay someone else to do it, so that her contract would be broken.

The voice recording is largely muffled, making you press the speaker side of your phone right to your ear. But from the sounds of it, it’s Otto.

“I know it’s good to have a Baratheon on our side of the competition, but Floris is nowhere near good enough to launch Aemond into the Olympics. While she likes him, he doesn’t like her. We need some kind of…integrated relationship if we’re going to convince the judges. There’s nobody there on our side anymore, since Viserys died”

He goes on, the recorder muffled. Perhaps in someone’s pocket.

“I can’t break her contract without paying her. She needs to be gone, as soon as possible”

The tone of his voice. Talking about Floris like she’s not a person, makes your blood run cold.

And that’s all there is in that folder. Such a short conversation, like they were just talking about the weather, but really they were planning on how best to ruin a young girl’s life, career and hobby. All for the sake of not paying her because they didn’t like her chemistry with Aemond…

Which begs the question.

Why you?

You don’t really want to admit how sick it makes you feel to see how many things there are in the folder titled with your name. It feels…intrusive. Like people know secrets about you that you, or even Rhaenys, doesn't even know.

After all figure skating isn’t just a career, it’s what you love.

You don’t want them to ruin that for you.

You can feel your breath pick up, hot tears sitting behind your eyes, and the beginnings of a migraine slipping into your head. Low background.

Bad circumstances.

Is that really all you were? A fucking pity choice?

Not because you were just good at what you did?

Not just because they wanted your skills.

But because they wanted to raise someone they deemed lesser to their level, for sympathy votes.

Bile rises in your throat at that.

Everything had been meticulously planned. Every movement. Every placement.

Everything.

The magic of that first night with Aemond feels ruined.

You feel preyed upon. By Otto and whoever he was collaborating with to make this happen, as if they were right there listening against the door and taking turns looking through the keyhole.

And then Otto’s words almost a week prior…

‘It is just business. Aemond knows this’

Surely…he couldn’t have been in on this the whole time.

Right?

You grip your phone tightly, hearing the case crack in your grip.

There is…humiliation. Betrayal.

But also anger.

You don’t even register the hammering of rain against your face as you stride past the garden, clad only in the exercise clothes you had been in all morning. By the time you’ve slid the doors forcefully aside, your hair is half-soaked, your leggings as well, blood feeling like fire with the anger that courses through you.

You know he's here tonight.

He's always lurking about somewhere.

You push the doors to the library open, the oak banging against the doorframe with a rattle. Otto looks up from his desk with surprise, with an expression that immediately reminds you of the subtle, yet annoying way Aemond used to look at you, before his eyebrows lower and his lips curl upwards, as if amused.

"Caught out in the rain?" He asks, chuckling, completely ignoring the frown your face is set into.

Phone gripped tightly, you take your time walking in before you're at his desk, chucking the device haphazardly in front of him. The list of screenshots litter the screen.

"What the fuck do you call this?"

Otto takes one sweeping look at your phone, not really even reading any of them.

But somehow knowing full well what they are.

"Is there a problem?"

"Is there a prob-" you scoff, laughing incredulously.

If you don't laugh you'll cry.

"First of all, fucking sabotaging Floris' skates?" You throw the words at him, "she could be permanently injured! Her career could be-"

"She had no career" he interrupts, which is slowly driving you mad, "she could not take criticism. Thinks she's better than she actually is"

"Oh, and that's an excuse, is it? She broke her fucking ankle. She might never skate the same and you treat her like…well you treat her like a fucking commodity, like you do the rest of your family!"

"How I conduct business with my family is of no matter to you"

Your hands brace the desk, not backing down one bit.

"I am not your fucking family" you warn, "which brings me to that. Low birth? Common? Bad circumstances? Who the fuck do you think you are exactly!"

"I scouted you for your skills"

"And hoping that me and Aemond would fuck into the bargain. Improve his image, did it?"

"That was merely a bonus"

"Is this what you do to all the women in your life? Force them into the arms of someone else so you don't have to deal with them? So that you can climb higher without having any talents of your own?"

Otto's eyes narrow.

"You don't know a thin-"

"I know you forced your own daughter into the arms of a fucking judge, and she faced the repercussions.

I know you forced Helaena to skate with Aegon, even though she'd be happier doing Singles. But she's too nice for her own good to really hate you for it.

And I know, you forced me to work with Aemond, just hoping, just praying, I'd be stupid enough to throw myself at him. You must have been shaking in your fucking boots when he didn't like me at first"

Otto seems more than anything to be annoyed that you've interrupted him.

"And what do your grandsons get? Aegon fucking hates skating and Aemond-" you scoff, "-he was emotionally abused by a woman decades his senior and you forced him to talk to her"

Otto is quiet.

"Gods forbid Daeron ever chooses to compete professionally. He's the only one who doesn't hate you yet"

Otto stands quickly, brushing your phone back towards you.

"If you release those screenshots my lawyers will destroy you" he warns, "you'll never be signed again, and you'll certainly never make the championships again, I'll make sure of that"

Your mouth opens to bark back.

"And you'll never see Aemond again"

But that makes you freeze and go cold all over. And it might not be the rain sticking to your clothes.

"No contact. Nothing"

You swallow thickly, clenching your fists. Anxiety and fear rolling through you. Your heart drops into your stomach. And Otto wears a victorious grin, which only serves to make you want to vomit.

"You used me for fucking pity" you say, voice strained, trying desperately not to cry.

"And I made you a champion," he responds coolly.

Is that all he ever fucking thinks about?

Winning?

Even at the cost of his family hating him?

"I'm not entertaining this"

Otto chuckles, "You are bound by the terms of our contract. And I'm sure there's plenty of…other reasons why you'd want to stay anyway"

How could he weaponise Aemond at you like this…

You take several steady breaths.

"Fuck you. And fuck your contract"

"What the hell's going on?"

You swing around quickly, heart dropping at the sound of Aemond's voice. He stands against the doors, looking worriedly between the two of you, his eye wide and concerned. The ends of his hair are wet from the shower you suppose he's just taken, looking much better than you, as the rain drying on you makes your hair frizz up.

Wound tightly with both anger and betrayal, laughing is the only thing you find the effort to do, confusing both the men in the room.

"Yes, why don't you tell Aemond what you've just told me?" You smile, eyes filled with tears in Otto's direction, snatching your phone from the table just as he's about to do the same.

"It is no concern of yours, Aemond" Otto replies distantly.

"If it concerns her then it does concern me"

When Aemond says that, any warmth associated with the affection you have for him turns to dust. Just the sheer weight of the situation makes your body feel like lead, incapable of letting any light in.

"I can't fucking stay here, not with him" you shake your head, the situation entirely overwhelming, trying to just get as far away from Otto Hightower as possible.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong? Baby - please -" Aemond crowds you, intending to help, his hands on your arms to try and make you just talk to him. His features are set in worry. It's somehow endearing.

But with everything that's happened it just feels like too much, like the walls are closing in on you. Like one touch and you'll explode.

"Please, Aemond, I can't stay here after all he's -"

You don't even have the strength to finish the sentence before floods of tears pour down your cheeks, your throat tightening up.

How you even find the energy to swing the front door open is beyond you.

The last thing you see before walking away from the Targaryen House, is Aemond in the doorway, looking out at you walking through the rain. He wears a look of sadness and panic.

You only briefly hear the echo of Alicent berating someone deep within the house, her malicious, emotional screams bouncing off the walls. You see Helaena, joining Aemond's side, her face sullen. And Aegon, sat in an armchair, looking not at all surprised at the situation, with his hands clasped in his lap.

You can't pretend it doesn't hurt your heart to leave. But you simply cannot be in the same vicinity as Otto right now before doing something you regret.

Without Arryk or Criston's car, you're resigned to walk in the pouring rain to the security gate. Almost not minding the rain compared to what's going to happen.

The press, waiting outside with their raincoats on, all scramble to their feet. Camera flashes clicking loudly against your ears, crowding your space even further, uncaring of personal space. Microphones and voice recorders join them a moment later, accompanied by a waterfall of questions.

With Aemond, he could work the press easily, paving a path wherever he went by virtue of his position in the industry. But now, by yourself, it pains your chest like a stab straight to the heart, the notion that now, as you fight off the press to pave your own escape, tears rolling down your face, that you are very much alone.

"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please try again later"

You choke on your own tears and breath. Four times you've called El, to ask if it's okay to come back to the flat you used to share.

Your mind was so blurry, and messy, you'd forgotten she was on holiday with her family. The annual Baratheon get-together. And perfect weather for it too.

For a brief moment, you're almost mad she's not here.

But know that it's just because how utterly lonely you feel, and she'd always been there before to offer a shoulder to cry on. An instant ramen to make. A shitty movie to put on. All to make you feel better.

In the rain, everything looks different, but especially through the misty gaze of the tears that glaze your eyes.

You bend down to slip the spare key from under the doormat, relieved it's still there. She'd probably forgotten about it anyway. It takes a few genuine tries with your rain-slick hands to get the key into the door, but you manage.

Only to be hit immediately with the nostalgic smell of your apartment.

It'd been so long.

It makes you want to cry even harder. It feels warm. Not at all the cavernous, marble, almost clinical feel of the Targaryen House. But cosy, comforting, like a big warm hug, despite nobody being in.

It smells like those Fresh Cotton candles she loves, the basic bitch.

You laugh sadly at that.

You miss her.

The normality. Her late night voice memos. You miss all of it, before everything became so complicated.

Even though you have the whole flat at your disposal, you can't find the energy to do anything useful like cook or shower.

So with rain soaked clothes, sticking uncomfortably to your skin, you just curl up on the sofa, the TV turned down low, just as a means of filling the silence. You almost don't want to go into your room. Seeing it all empty will just upset you even more.

You ignore the frequent buzz of your phone on the sofa, pulling the blanket up to your chin, just entirely numb.

The rain taps incessantly on the window, the way it hits the concrete with such velocity has a faint mist rising from the streets. It's all so grey outside, with only the hum of passing cars and their warm headlights to fill the colourless space as the sun, hidden behind endless clouds, gives way for darkness.

You sigh, feeling your throat tickle with the onset of a cold, probably from walking home in the torrential downpour.

It's so quiet you barely hear it. And the third time it happens you furrow your brows and look over at the door.

Perhaps El wasn't able to go after all?

You wipe your face, striding over the fallen blanket piled on the floor, with no energy to pick it up, and shuffle to the door, undoing all three locks that you and El had installed after an attempted break-in.

The uncomfortable humid waft of the outside is the first thing that hits you, as well as a spray of hot rain.

The second is cold.

Cold all over.

Aemond stands, or rather slumps against the doorframe, one hand rested flat against it and completely out of breath, as if he’d been rushing.

Aemond Targaryen, who hates going out in the rain, hates getting his hair wet, hates walking anywhere that isn’t necessary, prefers to take Arryk’s care even a few minutes down the road and absolutely hates not looking his best, stands there completely drenched, just entirely quiet. Rain has soaked through his clothes, sticking to every square inch of his body.

Like him, the air is taken out of your lungs as well. Frozen in place, and unable to utter a single thing as your throat closes up once again.

Aemond can’t seem to say anything either, he just looks down at you, his expression not unreadable, but so unlike him that you’re not sure if you’ve ever seen it.

Except you absolutely have.

That night Otto forced him to speak to Alys Rivers, he wore an expression of panic.

Shoulders rolled forward to appear smaller.

Eyebrows furrowed in worry, his good eye downcast and sullen.

The expression of being entirely lost.

He’s still being pelted with rain when you step forward, dissolving entirely into silent tears, your arms holding his torso so tightly, you’re surprised he reciprocates.

Everything else fizzles out. And you hate how cringy it sounds in your head, but all there is is just you two, and this moment, his arms, wrapped snugly around you, almost entirely encompassing your form. Such tenderness from him he has only afforded you a handful of times.

But this. This is something else. Not just tenderness.

But neither of you dare to approach that.

It just feels too good to be around him, to have him like this. You don’t want to think about anything else.

Aemond feels how you tremble, trying to hold in the sobs, so much that it hurts in your chest.

“Oh, Princess…” he soothes, one hand moving up to stroke the back of your head, your face firmly planted against his neck.

You wonder, in the hours since you stormed out, what he now knows.

So you don’t open the floodgates just yet.

Giving one last squeeze, you pull away, wiping the rain and tears off your face with the back of your hand and gesture inside.

“You want to come in?..”

He almost looks shocked you’ve asked, but understanding that both of you need to talk.

As if by habit, Aemond toes off his shoes before he shuts the front door behind him, following you into the warm, cosiness of your shared apartment with El.

Instinctively, you load the kettle with water and click it on, a few silent seconds passing before it begins to hiss with life.

“Where is she?” he asks, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking around at all the little nick-nacks on various shelves. Not cluttered, but busy enough to feel like a home.

Your turn, having been staring at the kettle, “What?”

He shoves his hands in his pockets, the wet fabric dragging across his skin, “Your flatmate. El, right?”

How did he remember that?

“O-oh, um…she’s away with her dad” you reply, swallowing thickly with nerves and turning back to pour a mug of tea for yourself and a coffee for Aemond.

You don’t see it, but there’s a subtle smile on his face as he watches you, for not having to ask him how he likes it.

“Thanks” he says softly, as you slide a mug over the counter in his direction.

Seeing Aemond in this kind of environment is nothing short of weird.

Having seen him in environments professionally, such as ice rinks and competitions, as well as being inside his home, surrounded by space and expensive items, gives you an impression of him akin to a celebrity, someone out of reach.

But here, in the tiny apartment, lit with brown and amber hues, where the living room and the kitchen are quite literally the same room, he looks so comically tall and broad, he almost swallows every bit of the room he’s in.

But it’s nice, seeing him in a different light.

He seems different.

He leans on the arm of the sofa, facing you in the kitchen, taking a scalding sip of his coffee, which is nowhere near drinkable, and then leaning over to pop it on a coaster on the coffee table.

It’s hard to contain the smile that drifts onto your face. At least he’s kept his manners.

And then, Aemond clasps his hands, sighs and does that thing where he tries to look small again.

“Just after you left, Alys came to the house”

Just like that, your heart is frozen again. But instead of dread, there’s anger.

But not at him.

“Why?” you ask, warming your hands with the mug.

Aemond shrugs, not meeting your gaze, “Probably to cash in on whatever petty shit she can get her grubby hands on”

You’re glad he speaks about her with some level of aggression. She deserves more than that.

"She probably saw the articles. Pictures of you leaving. Thought she might be able to worm her way back in somehow now that Otto is on his ass" he adds.

Fuck. They work fast.

Maybe it's for the best you didn't check your phone. It's probably Rhaenys, wondering what the fuck is going on.

Brief embarrassment runs sharply through you.

He takes a breath, “Otto told us everything”

You raise an eyebrow, “us?”

He nods, “All of us. Mum. Aeg, Hel”

You blink, your throat feeling sore from not letting the emotion out, keeping it bottled inside until you have the answers you want.

The answers you need.

“Did you know?” you ask, voice wavering. Feeling awful for even suggesting it.

Aemond looks up at that, his mismatched blue eyes reflecting the warm amber light of the room.

“I knew…that he was scouting, and had his eye on you to replace Floris” he answers slowly, watching your face, careful about his words, “but, honestly, that’s it, baby, I promise”

The term of endearment has your tummy doing a tiny backflip.

You let that absorb for a moment. Grateful that Aemond is affording you the silence for it.

Clearing your throat, “But you didn’t know why?”

He shakes his head once.

“I hate to ask it, it’s just becau-”

“Because I said all that shit about, class and…who you were, I know” he interrupts, but with a voice that softens, “and I understand why you’d assume that I knew”

He stands, taking short, careful steps towards you, his fingers playing with each other, “But I promise, I didn’t know…any of that shit. I admit, I could have done more, and I could have been better to you from the beginning, and protected you from all this.

And I’m sorry for that”

You look up at him, breath hitching for a moment having not realised how close he is.

“And I will always be sorry for it” he adds, discreetly reaching for your hands.

His gaze is downcast, looking at your hands in his.

“There’s so much I need to tell you”

You realise that this isn’t just going to naturally occur.

That he is asking for you to listen to him. That for so long, nobody bothered to ask how he was, or how he was dealing with everything. The abuse from Alys. The chronic pain.

Nobody had ever really asked him.

And after everything, how could you not?

He at least deserved to get it all off his chest.

“Let’s sit down, okay?”

You sit on the sofa, nibbling on your thumbnail as Aemond speaks, surprisingly animated, and without hardly taking a breath. Only doing so every now and then to sip the rapidly cooling coffee.

He starts essentially from the beginning. The situation with this father. The absentee. Who couldn’t give a shit about the four children he had with Alicent if he tried. Often he forgot their names and pretended sometimes, as if they didn’t exist. Eventually, Alicent was not exempt from this behaviour.

You learn that this ‘friend’ Alicent was referring to so lovingly when you returned from the semi-finals, was in fact Aemond’s older half-sister, Rhaenyra. He explains as much as he can from his own perspective, tagging it all off with ‘well, how would you feel if your best mate started getting it off with your dad?’.

Point taken.

Rhaenyra never went professional. She moved abroad, remarried, had more children.

But not before kicking the wasp’s nest, as Aemond put it.

You, of course, know of Jace, being friendly with him and seeing him every now and then, practically in the same line of work. But even less about his younger brother, Luke, since he was several years younger and still unsure about the industry.

After all, once you're in, you're in.

But you didn’t realise that Aemond was related to them in some capacity.

And that when they were all children, having grown up together, after a largely innocent duel using fake, wooden swords, Luke, no more than a child who didn’t know any better, bought an actual knife. A steak knife, no less. One that Aemond vividly remembers, as the serrated blade tore through his skin after a scuffle.

Of course, Aemond knew it was accidental, but that wasn’t exactly the first thought running through his mind at the age of 10.

Rhaenyra paid the medical bills and swiftly left the country on the first flight out, but not before some choice words were had between her and Alicent first.

It sounds spectacularly messy.

And Aemond had been stuck in the middle of all of it. Having lost sight in his left eye, a scar lining his face, spent weeks in hospital without his own father there and a new chronic condition as a result.

No wonder he’d felt so alone.

Like any of the siblings, figure skating was impressed on them from an early age. And Otto, as per Aemond’s explanation, had jumped at the opportunity when Aemond was doing well despite not having sight in one eye. So much so, that he’d spent a large part of his formative years just competing. Not doing things that a normal teenager would do.

Having to grow up far too quickly.

He’d started wringing his hands at this point in the story. The tell-tale rolling of his shoulders forward and his leg bouncing with nerves.

“I regret the day I arrived in Harrenhal. Shit ice rink anyway”

Enter. Alys Rivers.

By his description, she’d clocked him the moment she saw him. Even now, he says, he does a double take whenever he sees a woman with long black hair, his heart going fast.

He doesn’t go too in-depth. Only that she made him feel validated at first, said all the right things.

Did all the right things as well.

But he wasn’t ashamed to admit that. He was more ashamed at how much he had bought into it all those years ago. How she’d attempted to make herself like a barrier between him and his family, especially Alicent, and for a long while, it had worked. He hadn’t stepped into the Targaryen house for months, spending every waking moment with Alys and only Alys any moment he could get.

What shocked you the most, was how it managed to last even six months.

He had said that she’d been his first sexual partner, and that she used that against him multiple times but he never really saw it until afterwards. Said that ‘she was the only one who was going to love him. Because she loved him unconditionally, despite his deformity’.

That made you feel ill.

How could she say something like that?

It had all ended quite forcefully. Otto had discovered that Alys had managed to get a hold of Aemond’s bank details, taking little bits and pieces from the shared company account, before getting too ahead of herself, and withdrawing large chunks at a time. Eventually exposing her long-standing behaviour.

For a while, Aemond tried to justify it. Saying they were gifts.

It was only when he returned home and Alicent broke down crying, that he said he’d finally sobered up, after months of being forcefully drunk on Alys Rivers.

Otto was less sympathetic. Urging him that ‘as a man, it is your responsibility to deal with this on your own’.

“He knew the pregnancy thing was bullshit…” Aemond carried on, the blanket somehow ending up on his lap, shared between you, “...but she was trying anything and everything to shake the allegations that she was ever stealing from us, from me, rather”

He sighs.

“She just wanted to get anything she could out of me” he adds, his voice wavering, “and she would’ve done…’til there wasn’t any of me left”

You shake your head, “Otto was cruel making you talk to her”

Aemond swallows visibly, moving his shoulders at the memory.

“I said I’d cut off ties with Otto as soon as I can”

Your eyebrows raise, the empty mug almost falling out of your lap.

“What?” you half-shout, “Aemond, I-I don’t want you to just do this because of-”

“It’s not just that, it’s fucking - it’s everything he’s done to us” he adds, his gaze meeting yours, as if to emphasise, to make real everything he is saying, “-everything he’s done to me. Aeg. Even Mum…”

You can tell by the way he trails off, that it’s a sore subject. Perhaps one broached many times, but never resolved.

He fucking loves his mother so much. Empathises with her pain like he shares in it. Sometimes his long, sad expression, reminds you of how she often looks.

“I’ve wanted to for a long time” he mutters, “I fucking hated you for it then, but you were right, I never liked it. I just did it because I thought it would…achieve something, I don’t know”

You know what he means but daren’t not say it.

He thought that pursuing it professionally would buy his love. Both his father, then Otto.

One he’s not had from any male figure in his life.

You swallow over the lump in your throat. It must be so much weight on him. And it shows, in how light he looks even now, telling you the very bare minimum.

“What he did to you was the last straw…”

Your eyes flit up, to meet him. That same rolling feeling spreads over your tummy, like opening the curtains on a sunny, summer morning and bathing yourself in light.

His look right now is both intense and soft at the same time. Willing you to believe him in case there’s any indication that you don’t.

“...Mum was in floods of tears when she found out. Said you were good and kind. That you never judged us. Never judged her” he adds, words breaking with emotion in between.

You huff, playing with your fingers "high praise then" you joke.

But he smiles despite it, “...she loves you, you know”

That cracks a smile from you. The first one in hours. Your cheeks burn from the tears and rain on it, and yet it feels nice. You watch with barely-concealed, softened joy as Aemond cracks his own smile, one side of his lips turned up just ever so slightly, in his classic Aemond-esque sort of way.

You wouldn’t trade that smile for the world.

“I do too”

Air is sucked from your chest, mouth entirely dry, as the sheer heft of what he’s said begins to sink in.

Did he really just say that?

Am I in a fever dream?

He nods, "I think I have for a while"

You want to speak, to hug, to kiss him, but nothing will come out. Your body won’t move in accordance with your brain, and your hands get pins and needles all of a sudden. Without you realising, warmth seems to have made its way down your face, dripping off your jaw.

All the while, Aemond just sits there, watching your reaction.

Fuck.

You love him too.

And before you even know it, in place of words, your lips are pressed desperately against each other, hands clamouring for any bit of clothing or skin you can find. Aemond groans as you tilt your head, deepening the kiss and allowing tongues and teeth to wrestle against each other. His hands cup your ass as he tugs you over his lap, breathing heavily into your mouth with each break for air.

Instinctually, your hips grind on him, feeling him harden instantly beneath the damp sweatpants, your hand reaching down to stroke his length to full mast with your palm.

His hands are everywhere. Thighs, waist, breasts, tangled in your hair. While his lips map out your entire body where he can from this angle, leaving marks with his teeth over the column of your neck, still rippled to attention from goosebumps. You squeeze around him with your thighs, directing all your want into just that movement, to tell him how much you need him.

“Bedroom” he breathes, “where?”

You answer as your hands dip beneath his shirt, smoothing over his tacky skin, feeling his muscles contract.

“Down the hall, first right, but there’s no bed sheet-” you gasp as he lifts you, pressing needy, open kisses to your swollen lips.

“I don’t need fucking bed sheets for what I’m about to do to you”

Aside from when he deposited you on the bed, the mattress squeaking comically, making you look at each other and giggle like two little love-sick teenagers, Aemond is entirely soft, tender, taking his time like this is the last moment he’ll ever get to properly be with you.

Even the act of undressing is painfully slow and sensual, despite the clear hunger in both of your gazes. Everything he does now, has your stomach fluttering pleasantly. Irreversibly.

And it’s something you’ll never get sick of.

He was never one for making too much noise in bed. But here, as his cock pistons into your desperate heat over and over, your former bedroom alight and hot with sex, Aemond whimpers, whines and groans, depending on what’s going on, right against the crook of your neck. One hand on your throat, his fingers encircling it and tightening the closer he gets to the height of his bliss, pleasantly robbing your brain of just the right amount of air to feel like you’re floating.

Your orgasm builds embarrassingly fast, from everything, the heat of the moment, him.

And doing this knowing he really wants to.

Nearing the peak of your pleasure, his thumb snakes between you and rubs your clit in tight, careful circles, hurtling you towards the precipice. All while his pelvis smacks with the sound of your arousal against yours, with your legs pulled tightly around him, and his grip not letting go.

With each thrust of his cock into you, he kisses your neck, and utters.

“I love you”

Then your jaw.

“I love you”

And finally your lips, just as your pussy tightens around him.

“ - fuck - I love you -”

He pulls his head up to look down at you just in time to watch as you fall apart, white-hot pleasure running like fire in your veins as your pussy flutters around his cock, taking him over the edge with you. His hooded, lusty gaze focussed entirely on you, until his brows furrow himself, lips hanging apart only slightly, as he finishes deep inside you.

The only sound is hurried breaths, and every now and then the mattress squeaking as a result of only the tiniest of movements.

Aemond huffs, leaning up on his elbows, the chain slipping out beneath his shirt and dangling in your face, the chill of the metal against your chest making you shudder. His hair, already having been ruined by the rain, hangs in lazy wavy strands around his face.

An exhausted breathy laugh falls out his mouth, his warm hand making its way back up to your face, sighing as he sees you lean your cheek into it.

He looks so perfect like this, is the first thing that comes to mind.

But the words that come pouring out your mouth are completely and entirely natural.

Really, the point of no return.

The only moment Aemond Targaryen remembers of his life before loving you, is when you say so clearly, with such devotion, adoration and care.

“I love you too”

Aemond Taglist (1): @asp3nxx | @avidreader73 | @bellaisasleep | @boofy1998 | @cathy1514

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jaegeraether · 5 months

Text

Sunsets and footballers (Part 41)

Lucy Bronze x Reader (38)

Masterlist (other parts here)

(*A lil smut with some sickening fluff. Happy Holidays!*)

“Why are you not in position?” Lucy asked as she entered the room, naked besides the strap she wore. YFN hadn’t seen that one before. She was sat on the edge of the bed naked and tilted her head as she admired her girlfriend and her well earned body. Everything about Lucy’s body was a product of her determination and work-ethic. She was toned from head to toe, and with the strap…she was even more than that. She looked dangerous.

“I asked you a question.”

YFN’s eyes flicked up to meet Lucy’s. Her expression was also dangerous, and her deep breathing and dilated pupils betrayed how turned on she was. YFN stood and walked slowly towards her, Lucy’s eyes following her every step. When she was close, she looked up at her, darkened eyes meeting darkened eyes and her fingertips touched Lucy’s hip, running from hip to lat and back. Lucy shivered.

“You’re not doing what you’re told.”

“I’m sorry.” She whispered as she held Lucy’s eye contact with a mischievous expression. She leant forwards to place a kiss on her collarbone, her lips staying on her as she spoke. “I just wanted to make you feel good. Will you let me do that?”

Her lips ran the length of her clavicle to that hollow oval in the middle. Lucy’s breathing hitched.

“Use your words, Luce.”

“I want to fuck you. Hard.”

“I know, love. You will. Just let me tease you first, like you teased me.”

Her fingertips on both hands had made their way to her back now and were stroking it devastatingly softly. She had no idea how Lucy was holding herself together, and from her swaying under her touch, apparently neither could Lucy.

YFN lowered herself to the ground slowly, dragging her lips down her torso, over the sensitive skin of her nipple and the bumps of her abs as she went until she reached her knees and stared at the black strap in front of her. She looked up found Lucy looking at her with wide eyes. Her lips parted to help her increased breathing and she swallowed excitedly, her throat bobbing as she did. YFN kept her eyes as she moved closer, sliding the tip onto her tongue as her fingers found her clit behind the strap. She kept Lucy’s eyes as she sucked the tip, teasing her clit at the same time. And she kept her eyes as she slid her head further onto the cock. Only when she started going deeper did she tear her eyes away, instead closing them and focussing on the task at hand. She took her time at first, Lucy not knowing how to stay upright as her little Australian took it deeper and deeper in her throat with satisfied, wet hums. She stimulated Lucy’s clit simultaneously which made her a moaning mess, unsure what to do. This was something Lucy had never experienced before.

“Oh fuck.” She moaned as she watched her little Australian work the strap. She had the timing of the clit stimulation down perfectly. It felt as if she were actually sucking her off. YFN moaned onto her, enjoying herself and that made Lucy feral. She gripped onto her hair with both hands, her hips moving to fuck the strap into her mouth. She forced herself to go slow and gently, but YFN’s spare hand grabbed Lucy’s and encouraged her to grip tighter and force herself into her mouth harder.

Lucy couldn’t even find words. She was a fucking mess. YFN was on her knees and taking the whole cock in her mouth, gagging and moaning onto it as if it was for herself rather than Lucy. Tears pricked in her eyes at the depth but she continued. Her fingers were ruthless and rubbed Lucy right up to the point where she was just about to come.

“F…fuck! Fuck… little one I…I’m go..going to come. I can’t. Argh – fuck!” Lucy was so wound up that her body felt unsure and light, tingly and close.

Lucy groaned and tightened her grip in the gorgeous sun-kissed hair in order to wrench her head back off her strap, YFN’s eyes met hers with a look of surprise and almost annoyance that she’d been stopped, her lips plump and red and wet. God, she was a sight. Just to prove a point, her fingers rubbed Lucy brutally as teetered on that edge.

“No.” Lucy growled and shoved her hand away. She picked her off the ground and shoved her backwards on the bed. “On your fucking knees.”

YFN didn’t hesitate to follow instruction, knowing just how wound up she’d gotten Lucy. Lucy knelt on the bed behind her and parted her legs further, her hand gripping the back of her neck and holding her hard to the bed as she lined up.

“You’re dripping. Good girl.”

She entered the tip and pressed in a little, teasing her. YFN tried to wriggle back into her but was held strong and groaned her frustration.

“You deserve this.” Lucy growled as if it were a punishment as she thrust the entire strap into her little Australian, her hips connection with a ‘slap’.

She cried out in both surprise and pleasure, her sounds swallowed by the bed she was pressed into as Lucy generously allowed her a few seconds for her body to clench and unclench needily, getting used to the size before she started. As expected after two weeks of no sex, Lucy was fucking merciless. Her strength, her pace, even her words as she growled them between her breathing.

“Fucking needy, aren’t you little one? Can’t even wait to come home to me. Needed to call me just to get off.”

YFN’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she took what she was given from Lucy with grateful whimpers. She wanted her to treat her like a toy and use her. She wanted her to speak to her like it also. Everything Lucy was doing was perfect, and even more so because she wasn’t pretending. Lucy needed it also.

The room was filled with a cacophony of angry, wet fucking, loud whimpers, angry grunts, pornographic cries of ecstasy with each thrust. It was so brutal that it started to hurt in the best way and she took it gratefully, gripping the bedsheets for dear life.

Lucy was so riled up after the oral sex that she felt herself teetering on that edge a lot less in control than usual, and she tried not to fall but she couldn’t stop herself. She cried out in a sound that was more of a pained yell than anything and her body locked up so tight she couldn't breathe. Everything stilled. She didn’t know where she was, what she was doing, or how much time had passed. Her body was feeling everything and nothing at the same time. It was an all-consuming feeling of euphoria.

She felt gentle kisses to her neck and face, two fingers expertly rubbing her clit which lengthened and intensified that electric shock feeling through her body. She felt the bed against her back and one blissful eternity later the fingers stopped and held pressure instead, those kisses continuing with some supportive cooing that came back into focus.

“Good job, Luce. Ride it, love. God, you’re amazing.”

Those kisses brought her back to life as her body eased and relaxed itself into the softness of the bed. She let herself enjoy her happy sense of peace for a little and when she was ready she opened her eyes and found those beautiful blue ones watching her from above, filled with curiosity and wonder as her golden sun-kissed hair fell silkily near her own. If she were religious, she would have thought she was made in heaven. She didn’t believe in religion, but she sure as hell would for her.

YFN was perched with her head in her hand, watching Lucy. Her leg was tangled around one of Lucy’s and her eyes followed her hand as her thumb wiped the beads of sweat from Lucy’s forehead and her fingertips tucked the little curled up baby hairs of hers back into place behind her ear with a peaceful smile on her face. Her eyes met Lucy’s once she was done and she waited patiently for her to be able to speak, using her free time to trace the features of her face. Her dark eyebrows, high cheekbones, strong nose, sharp jawline, and soft lips. She was especially fascinated by those. Lucy kissed her fingertips as she traced her lips.

“What happened?” She whispered against them.

“I think you already know what happened, Luce.”

Lucy did know. She’d just had the most mind-blowing, out of body orgasm she’d ever had in her life. Though her mind immediately went to the fact that it had happened before YFN also had a chance to get there.

“Stop…” YFN whispered, ducking down so her lips could gently kiss Lucy’s. “Stop those thoughts right now. I really, really enjoyed that. You just railed the fuck out of me, Luce. And on the counter…” She eyes rolled back a little as she bit her lip. “Are you done for the night?”

Lucy looked offended as she pulled her girlfriend closer. “I’m never done with you.”

“Good, because I’d like us to spend the rest of the night loving each other.” She reached down and took the strap off Lucy, throwing it to the floor and straddling her girlfriend before she managed to complain, her hair now falling like a curtain around their faces, offering them privacy from the outside world. Lucy needed to take a few seconds to admire her before she could speak.

“What do you have in mind, little one?”

“Just you and I, no toys. Just fingers and tongues and cuddling and laughing and loving.”

Lucy grinned. “Sounds perfect.”

And they did exactly that. They fucked, or more accurately…loved… and moaned and teased and bit and kissed until no part of their bodies were untouched or unloved by the other. It was a vast difference to their usual brutal fucking; this was purely romantic and personal, a way to show just how much love they had for each other. They stopped for water breaks when they needed to, and even ended with a naked midnight snack as they both hadn’t eaten dinner. They tried to not wake Narla, being as quiet as possible, laughing silently and into each other so as to not make a sound. The largest sound made was a slurping noise by Lucy as YFN fed her a watermelon and she moaned at the taste of food. YFN smacked her with a chuckle and wiped the watermelon juice off her chin with her thumb.

YFN took hold of the trophy she’d cleaned, Lucy’s first, and sat it on the counter in a good place next to a photo of her with her family.

Lucy came up behind her, her arms wrapping around her. YFN leant back into her, Lucy’s body strong and warm against her back.

“I want you to keep this out, Luce.” She whispered for Narla’s sake. “It’s your first.”

Lucy reached out to touch it gently as if she were reliving the memory before she pulled her hand back and kissed her on the cheek. “I think that’s a great idea, little one. Thank you.”

Lucy tried to whisper, but her voice was deep and travelled far. They heard Narla make a sound and both froze before they scuttled back to the bedroom.

YFN’s body woke her up with stress, worried she’d miss her flight. It wasn't until 10am, but it was international, and she needed to leave around 8am from Lucy’s.

She turned to look at Lucy as she slept on her stomach, her arm draped over YFN. She always slept a lot, though she knew she would sleep extra-long after the travel, her game and their long night. Her body was so warm against hers that she didn’t want to leave the bed at all. She gently brushed a strand of Lucy’s loose, dark hair off her face as she slept and watched her body rise and fall with each sleepy breath. She loved just watching her. It took a good bit of self-discipline for her to slide herself out of bed and out from under Lucy’s arm. Her little suitcase was in the corner of the room and still zipped up so she decided that to not wake Lucy, she’d put her clothes on instead. The closest things she could find were a pair of football shorts and one of her oversized shirts that she loved to wear. She also managed to find some socks and she snuck out into the kitchen, clicking the door closed behind her.

Narla was already awake and came padding over. YFN got down on her knees to greet her as she got close. She was a curious and fiercely independent dog, also very intelligent. She was almost Lucy in dog-form in a lot of ways. She allowed YFN to give her morning pats and even rolled onto her back so she could rub her little pink belly. YFN checked out what Lucy had in the fridge and pantry after that while Narla watched her from the couch, chewing on her new football toy in between her legs. YFN grinned at that, happy she liked it.

Typical Lucy had a lot of ingredients to account for her love of food. When she saw the amount of condiments she had, she rolled her eyes.

She poured herself a glass of juice and made sure Narla’s water was full before she started breakfast. They hadn’t eaten anything since early yesterday apart from their midnight snack, and Lucy was always hungry after a game so she knew she’d wake famished, and so she cooked a hot English breakfast with bacon, eggs, sausages, toast, mushrooms, tomato and beans. When she was just finishing, YFN looked at the time just after 7am and was deciding whether or not to wake Lucy, knowing she’d be upset with no goodbye, but also needing her sleep. Luckily, she didn’t need to make that decision as Lucy stumbled out to the kitchen looking very much like she needed another twelve hours sleep. She yawned and rubbed her eyes behind her glasses as she walked out, her eyes widening at the big breakfast YFN was cooking, an excited grin crossing her face. She came over to take her girlfriend into her arms with a kiss to the temple.

“It looks incredible. You’re incredible. The smell is so good it quite literally woke me from the dead. I’m starving.”

“I thought you would be.” She chuckled. “Morning, Luce. You look like you’ve been hit by a bus.”

“And you look beautiful as ever.”

“A pretty bus, of course.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and helped her plate up the food. They sat adjacent to each other at the dining table as if they had done for years, Lucy holding one of her legs captive with her own. It was as close as the footballer could be with her as above the table she needed her space to spread out and eat. And God, did she eat. YFN was worried she’d run out of breath with how quick and excitedly she was eating, somehow managing to get her food down before YFN had been through half of hers. She couldn’t finish her own and offered it to Lucy who’d been eyeing it, as much as she’d denied she was, and that was also gone quickly.

“Do you want more?”

“No, I’m full now with your leftovers. Thanks love, that was delicious.” She gave her a peck on the cheek and checked the time. 7:30am. She frowned at her phone. “Do you really have to go?”

“I’m sorry, Luce. Yeah, I do.”

“When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure but I was thinking that I’d just come over whenever I get a chance…I think that’s best.”

“Better than setting dates; this weekend was a disaster.”

“Don’t say that, my limp and bruises would suggest otherwise.”

Lucy gave a proud grin and YFN smacked her in the arm as she collected the plates, taking them up to the kitchen.

“Just leave them in the sink!”

“Luce-”

Lucy was behind her then, taking the plates and lowering them into the sink. “Leave them, little one. I don’t want to waste any time doing dishes with you. Let’s go have a shower, hm?”

YFN sighed and turned around and placed a kiss to her throat. “You know, I’d be happy to do dishes for a living if it meant I could spend my time with you.”

Lucy’s neck vibrated under her lips as she hummed happily. “And you think I’m the bigger romantic.”

“You are.”

“Someone’s in a mood for debate, today.”

They both knew it was because she had to leave in the next 30 minutes. Without waiting for a reply, Lucy bent down and threw her girlfriend over her shoulder, her hand smacking her ass as she took her to the shower.

“Luce, your knee! Put me down!”

Lucy chuckled but she didn’t stop.

“You’re sure you can’t zoom tomorrow?” Lucy mumbled into her neck. They’d waited that long for not even a full day together.

YFN tightened her arms around Lucy’s head. “I need to be there for the new office in London tomorrow, Luce.”

The new starters weren’t a problem, they were starting Tuesday. It was the office being ready that was the issue.

“And no one else can do that?”

“Luce…you’re killing me. You know they can’t, love.” She mumbled back to her, getting even more upset at Lucy’s sadness as she grasped at straws that weren’t there. “I’m hoping Friday I can come. I won’t need to be back until Sunday…”

Lucy groaned and then accepted it with a sigh as she pulled back. “My game is on Sunday. El Clasico.”

“Against Real Madrid, right?”

Lucy looked a little caught off guard. “That’s right.”

“I’m just joking.” She chuckled. “I know what El Clasico is. But I love that you were kind enough to not make fun of me if I didn’t.”

“You’re trouble, you are.”

“Si, but you love it.” She looked at her watch for the hundredth time. Boarding was soon and she still needed to get through security, though the line hadn’t seemed long. “I need to go. I love you, Lucia Roberta. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Usually that name was only for when she was in trouble, but this time it was said with adoration. Lucy smiled proudly at the name and took her little face gently between her hands, kissing her softly a few times before tilting her head to make it more needy as their tongues met. YFN leant into her body and into the kiss, letting herself enjoy it for a while before she pulled away first, blushing. “Public, Lucia.”

“I couldn’t help myself. I love you, little one. Come back as soon as you can, please. Your home is here.”

#woso #womens football #woso community #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso soccer #engwnt #lionesses #lucy bronze #lucy bronze imagine #lucy bronze x reader #woso x reader

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sophieswundergarten · 3 months

Text

Thinking about the kiddos being robots/androids

Reynie is an assistant for the orphanage. He's modeled after a child because it's supposed to make him more comforting and acceptable. Instead, he's bullied for not being a "real boy" and looked down on. That is, until Miss Perumal shows up and starts teaching him everything she knows. He's not even allowed to go to regular school since he's not actually a child that the orphanage is responsible for, so he loves getting to learn any and everything she'll talk to him about. Miss Perumal at first doesn't know he's not human, and though he tells her as soon as he finds out, she still loves and cares for him like he's real. Reynie feels minorly guilty about this, but he's so lonely that he can't help wanting to talk to her.

Sticky was supposed to be a child; an android designed for people who wanted a kid but for whatever reason didn't have a "real" one. He was supposed to be a perfect child, one that did as he was asked and never caused problems. And he didn't. But, what he did do was develop a love of learning. He started reading all of the time, just soaking in information and then sharing it with his parents. This led them to enroll him in many contests for robots whose job is the be informational aides, showing off how their simple child-machine was much more advanced then the ones literally designed to know things. However, the very thing that gives him an edge also gives him a whole world of anxieties, leading to him messing up.

Kate was designed and built by Milligan. Milligan is incredibly clever with machines, and he created Kate with the best of the best tools and materials. However, he knew that there might come a day where he didn't come home. Thus, he would power Kate down every time he left, wanting to keep her out of trouble. He debated wiping her memories of him, but in the end he couldn't bring himself to. And one day he didn't come back. Kate eventually powered herself back on and, thinking that she had been abandoned, went wandering away. At some point she came to the circus, and there pretended to be human so as to distance herself from Milligan. No one knew, though they wondered why she was so careless for her own safety. One night, she does hurt herself, and Moocho is the one who finds out. He is more focussed on helping her then asking questions, but the next day she sees Mr. Benedict's flier and is gone.

Constance is believed to be a "failed experiment", one that was supposedly destroyed. Instead, she wanders Stonetown, half-remembered flashes coming up on her and leaving her befuddled and confused. She fends for herself, and others mostly leave her be, assuming she's a lost child android that will find its way home using a locating system.

#the mysterious benedict society #mbs #reynie muldoon #sticky washington #kate wetherall #milligan wetherall #constance contraire

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cassiaratheslytherpuff · 3 months

Note

Please tell me more about Rarrydraft w prongsfoot!! Two sets of best friends - that can only be good ❤️

Thanks for asking! 🩷 I had completely forgotten I even started this. It's about Harry pining for Ron and finding Sirius's diary when cleaning up Grimmauld Place for Ron to move in with him.

I'll share a couple of snippets, maybe it'll motivate me to finish one of these days.

“I’m a patient guy,” Ron said. “I mean, you’d call me patient, right? When Hermione left right after the war to get her parents from Australia I waited patiently, didn’t I? In fact, I wanted to join her! Hermione, I said, we’re partners now, you don’t need to do this on your own. But no, she HAD to go off on her own.” Harry grabbed the nicest of his two bottles of Firewhiskey and climbed onto the counter to get the magickly charmed whiskey glasses from the back of the cabinet. At some point he’d owned six Charm-Chilled glasses, but after summoning them one time too many he only had too left – something about the pure rage in Ron’s voice made him decide this wasn’t the time to risk them. “And then after she finally finished at Hogwarts,” Ron continued when Harry focussed back on his voice, “I thought, this is it – now we start our lives together for real. But of course, then she decided she had to get that bachelor’s degree. And I offered to upend everything and come to Glasgow with her, because the only thing I really wanted was to bloody be with her.” Harry poured the Firewhiskey and handed Ron his glass, but he was too busy talking to take a single sip. “But it was all noo Ron,” Ron twisted his face and voice into a mocking imitation of his girlfriend, ”you’ve got to stay here. Your family needs you, Fred needs you at the shop. Harry needs you.” Harry winced at that, the idea that Ron might have stayed behind for him. “Of course,” Ron said, “now I find out the real reason.” In a single breath Ron seemed to deflate in front of Harry’s eyes, his shoulders sagging and his eyes turning worn and sad instead of fiery. Harry grabbed him by the elbow and directed him to the living room, carrying the bottle of Firewhiskey and his glass in his free hand. He sat Ron down on the sofa, and this time he went willingly, staring morosely into his glass before draining it in a single swallow and holding out for Harry to refill it. “What’s happened?” Harry asked again, thinking this time he might get an answer. “She’s going back to Glasgow for her masters degree,” Ron said. “I thought when she got back this summer that we could finally start our lives together, but after just seven months of living with me she’s off again.” “Why don’t you go with her?” Harry asked, refusing to acknowledge how much the idea hurt. “That’s what I suggested,” Ron said. “I mean, everyone’s got their own thing now – nobody really needs me to stay anymore.” Harry thought briefly and wildly, I do, but bit down the urge to speak.

And the diary

Diary of Sirius Black. July 1st, 1979. So, James and I moved into our flat today, and I figured it was a good day to start using this bloody diary Remus got me. I know, I know, I’m a dude I should insist it’s a journal, but sometimes it’s just nice to call a wand a wand, you know? I figure Remus thought I should have someplace to put my thoughts, because although I’m almost sure he has no idea what’s rolling around inside my head he does know there’s a lot in here I don’t talk about. Speaking of, I should ward this book if I’m going to write down all the things I refuse to say out loud. If James ever read it… OK, I’ve warded it. So we’re safe. I can write anything here now, but honestly I’m not sure I want to. Maybe seeing it in black and white will be too real? How about I tell you another secret? My childhood was… pretty terrible. They never did anything physical, but I’m starting to believe James when he says that doesn’t make it ok. It was alright, I suppose, until I sorted Gryffindor. At some level they must have known it was going to happen, but I still managed to make them ‘shocked and appalled’ as they said. I stuck with it for another five summers before I ran off and moved in with James’ family. That’s not the secret. The secret isn’t that living with James’ family felt more like a home than Grimmauld ever had either, though it did. It was brilliant, his mum kept hugging me and even though it took me ages to just relax and enjoy it she never gave up. They’re brilliant. Or they were brilliant, fuck I still can’t believe they’re gone… Anyway, I was talking about my secret. The real reason I finally couldn’t stay with my own parents anymore. The thing is, they found out, and I don’t think either of us could survive being in the same house after that. They couldn’t stand me, and I couldn’t stand being so thoroughly hated for every part of me. Maybe Mr and Mrs Potter wouldn’t have minded if they knew, but I was never willing to risk it. I suppose it’s the same with James. He might be fine with it, it might not change a thing except make us closer – but there’s always the chance it’ll ruin everything. The thing is, I’m queer. Shocker, right? Not really, I know. Feels obvious to me, but I think the only one who’s ever come close to suspecting it is Remus.

#rarry #ronarry #prongsfoot #snippet #ask #cw: alcohol #cw: child abuse #at least it's hinted at?#fanfiction #cassiwrites

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footy-fictionist · 1 year

Text

Endgame - Karim Adeyemi

Pairing: Karim Adeyemi x female reader

Warnings: talk about Nigerian foods (please correct me if I'm wrong), fluff, like very cute fluff, meeting the parents, badly translated German

Word count: 1946

Note: As always, English is not my first language. This one was requested and the request was: Could you write a fluff about meeting Karim's parents or teammates for the first time, and them absolutely loving you, just him being in awe of you My dear anon, I hope I did your request justice and that it is what you hoped for. Requests always make me a little nervous because I'm always afraid it won't be what you expected. This is purely fiction and I do not know Karim or his parents in real life. Please do not copy and/or publish my work, reblogging is totally fine!

To say she is nervous is an understatement and it is (according to her) for a good reason. She has been in a relationship with Karim Adeyemi for 7 months and they decided it is time to meet each other’s parents. He met her parents last week and today she was going to meet his mum and dad. They decided it would be a fun idea to invite them to Karim’s place instead of going to their house, but now she is doubting that decision. Especially since she promised Karim she’d take care of dinner and that it would be totally okay.

For the past week she’s been researching how to make traditional Nigerian dishes. Some of them she could skip because they were specifically made for things like marriage and that was definitely not the vibe she wanted to give off yet. She decided that fufu with Egusi soup would be her safest bet. She went to quite a few different stores to find all the ingredients and she made sure to get some extra things to make a salad and some things to make lasagna in case she screwed up or they didn’t like the food.

Karim would be gone for most of the day because of training and social media duties, so she had the house and the kitchen to herself. Early in the morning she decided to clean the house, well the last bits since they cleaned most of the house together in the past few days. After that she completely focussed on dinner. Karim didn’t even know she was going to make a traditional Nigerian dish, she kept it a secret in case it wouldn’t work out and she’d have to serve the lasagna that she prepared as well. It was ready to go in the oven in case it all turned out bad. This was not the case though. She read the recipe multiple times in the past few days and she generally knew how long some steps would take. Of course she still worked with the recipe, but it did help when it came to handling different steps and the time limits to them.

After a few hours in the kitchen and some hard work, everything was finally ready and right on time too. Karim would be home any second and his parents would arrive in an hour, giving her the time to shower and get ready. As she steps out of the shower, she can hear the front door opening and closing. She tries to quickly dry off and as she’s pulling on her underwear she hears footsteps on the stairs. A moment later Karim enters the bedroom, he takes a glance at her and immediately stops in his tracks. His eyes rake over her figure and he leans his shoulder against the doorframe whilst biting his lip.

She lets out a laugh. “What?”

“Nichts, ich bewundere dich.”

She can feel the blush taking over her face, so she turns to the wardrobe in order to look for a good outfit. She mumbles a thanks and a second later Karim approaches her. He took a shower at the training grounds, but is looking over her shoulder for a different outfit. He’s faster when it comes to choosing and has his outfit within a minute. Before he turns away after grabbing the outfit, he presses a kiss to her shoulder and suggests one of her favourite outfits.

“Isn’t that too casual. I want to make a good impression on your parents.”

“Mein Schatz, it’s not a fancy restaurant. We’re at home and you should wear something you’re comfortable in. My parents will love you, they’d love you even if you wore a garbage bag.”

She smiles at his reply, thanks him again and grabs the outfit he suggested. They dress in silence and take their time in the bathroom. Somehow she’s done before him and this time it is her turn to admire him. The outfit he chose looks incredible on him, he has his own style and she adores it. After he’s sprayed on his perfume, she steps in front of him and wraps her arms around his waist. His arms immediately wrap around her shoulders and she takes a moment to breathe in his scent. It helps to calm down the nerves she has, ever since they met, she’s felt most comfortable in his arms. She notices him taking in her scent as well before laying his head against hers.

They stay like that for a bit before he kisses her forehead and they pull away. She grabs his hand as they descend the stairs. They walk into the kitchen and she asks him if there’s something he would like to drink. She doesn’t get a response straight away and it makes her look at him. He’s standing in front of the stove where the dinner is ready to be heated. He’s lifted the lid of the stew and she can see his eyes are closed.

“Karim, are you okay?”

“Did you buy this somewhere?” She’s a bit offended that he’s asking that, especially since she spent a few hours making it.

“No, I made it. Why?”

His head snaps her way. His eyes are wide and he moves to grab a spoon. He puts a bit of the stew on the spoon and tastes a bit of the stew. He puts the spoon on the counter and looks at her in awe. She made this? She made a traditional Nigerian stew, she put in that much effort just because his parents are visiting. He quickly moves towards her and lifts her off the ground a little. He’s complimenting her left and right, whilst she’s barely registered what just happened. As he’s putting her down, the bell rings and they move towards the front door. As Karim goes to open the door, she quickly grabs his hand and squeezes it. He squeezes her hand back and opens the door.

Immediately his mum moves past Karim to get to her. She wraps her arms around her and expresses how excited she is to finally meet the girl that stole Karim’s heart. She hugs Alexandra back with a big smile, not having expected her to be so warm.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep any boundaries by hugging you. I hope it’s okay.” Immediately she assures Alexandra that it’s totally okay and they hug again, this time really introducing themselves to each other.

“Hi mum, how are you? Yes, I’m here as well.”

Karim’s sarcastic comments make them laugh as they release each other. Alexandra moves to him whilst calling him a big momma’s baby. He immediately protests only to be silenced by both his parents and his girlfriend. Abbey moves past Karim and Alexandra to introduce himself. He also gives her a hug. It’s just as warm as Alexandra’s, just a bit shorter. She invites them further into the house and they all sit on the couch. Karim asks around for drinks and she walks with him to turn on the stove to heat up the food and to help him bring the drinks to the living room.

As they sit down, Alexandra immediately starts a conversation with her and they get along incredibly well. They talk about jobs, football and going to watch some of Karim’s games together. Meanwhile Abbey adds some comments into their conversation here and there whilst Karim is just admiring his girlfriend and the dynamic between her and his parents. After a few minutes she moves to the kitchen to check on the food, leaving Karim alone with his parents.

“Is that Egusi soup I smell?” It’s his dad that asks first. As Karim confirms that it is in fact, Egusi soup, his mum is quick to add in her piece.

“She made it from scratch? She’s a keeper, Karim. I love her already, she’s not allowed to leave this family.”

Karim smiles at his mothers comments and agrees with her. He’s incredibly aware of how amazing his girlfriend is and he’s not willing to let her go, not ever.

She walks back into the living room not long after to announce that dinner is ready and they move to the dining area. She’s a bit nervous as she’s serving the food to his parents, more so when she realizes she’s never tried eating fufu before and that she’ll probably embarrass herself quite a bit. Karim notices though and is quick to help her out, which amuses his parents greatly. She made the dinner for them, yet doesn’t know how to eat it herself. They think it’s incredibly sweet.

The second they try it though, they are in awe. They immediately start complimenting her cooking skills and Abbey even asks her if she’s willing to give her secrets. Abbey is fully convinced that her Egusi soup is better than his own. It makes her blush and she is more than willing to share her recipe with him. Conversation really flows and they’re all having a great time. Karim can’t help but admire her, she’s literally everything he could ever hope for and more. After dessert he is fast to grab her hand under the table. He squeezes it softly and it makes her look at him and she mouths a ‘you okay’ his way and he just gives a small nod. It’s almost midnight when Alexandra and Abbey head home, promising to keep in contact and to meet up again soon.

Alexandra doesn’t leave without giving her an extra hug and softly thanking her. Both for the food and for making Karim happier than she’s ever seen him. She blushes and holds Alexandra a bit tighter and responds that he’s the best thing that has ever happened to her and she’d be crazy not to treat him like a King as he treats her like a Queen. Another smile is exchanged as Alexandra pulls away and they wave as Abbey drives himself and Alexandra home.

They are both tired as they clean up the mess and turn off the lights to head upstairs. They’re in their sleeping clothes getting ready for bed in the bathroom when Karim wraps his arms around her waist from behind. She looks at him through the mirror only to already find him looking at her straight in the eyes through the mirror. His eyes show some tiredness, but mostly she finds love and admiration. It makes her blush a little.

“I love you, I really really love you.” Karim’s whisper is soft and he immediately presses kisses to her right cheek after saying it. “You’re amazing and I can’t believe how well you get on with my parents. I knew they would love you but this had surpassed my wildest dreams. Ich liebe dich.”

They have said they love each other before but never as intensely as Karim has now. It makes her eyes water a little as she reciprocates his ‘I love you’ with her own. She turns around and puts her hands on his jaw. She presses kisses all over his face, repeating the same phrase over and over again. They share a soft but passionate kiss before heading to the bedroom. She gets under the covers as he turns off the light. He takes a small sprint to the bed and climbs in quickly. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her as close as he can. Their foreheads are touching as they breathe in sync. Both of their eyes are closed as they whisper another ‘I love you’ to each other. Both of them, incredibly aware that they’ve found their endgame.

Nichts, ich bewundere dich: Nothing, I'm admiring you Mein Schatz: my dear/treasure/darling

#karim adeyemi x reader #karim adeyemi x female reader #karim adeyemi imagine #karim adeyemi one shot #karim adeyemi fanfic #football imagine #football imagines #football one shot

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fanfic-lover-girl · 6 months

Text

Android 18 Rant (17 was the better Android twin)

So I have been watching clips from the Cell Saga for nostalgia and to overcome my fear of seeing Imperfect Cell's disgusting cockroach face. Anyway, I was comparing the absorption scenes of 17 vs 18 and looked at how 17 was treated in the story versus 18...and I wish 17 was the android that was kept in the Buu saga instead of 18.

I think my feelings can be expressed in 4 main sections.

Fight Scenes

So 17 had more fight scenes to show his mettle compared to 18. 17 fought against the Z fighters, Piccolo and Imperfect Cell. 18 had her one badass fight against Vegeta and then faded away to sit still and look pretty in the background. And her fight against Vegeta is not truly that impressive. The fight sequence between 17 and Piccolo was way more spectacular.

Scenes Leading up to their absorption

I think Cell's absorption of 17 was WAY more horrific. Imperfect Cell gave 17 a bad beatdown and then we saw his entire absorption process from start to horrific end. When Imperfect Cell begins to transform we see 17 literally falling into the void as he becomes part of Cell. With 18, it's horrible how Vegeta let Cell absorb her and it must have been frightening to see Cell walk towards her mockingly with his tail ready. But I think still 17 has the edge over her. Plus 18's absorption seemed to be way more focussed on Krillin than her. Her "death" is less about something horrific happening to her than Krillin losing a possible love interest.

The narrative coddled 18

Why did no one try to kill 18?! Piccolo's goal was to kill 17 to prevent Cell from transforming. But's like after Semi-perfect Cell everyone lost their game. Besides simp Krillin, no one had any motive for sparing her. Why didn't Tien tri-beam her instead of Cell? His attack would be 100% guaranteed then. Why didn't Trunk blast her to bits when Vegeta was being a total dumbass (that scene did Trunks so dirty)? With Krillin, the show probably wants us to think he sees good in her, but why? Because she kissed him ONCE?? How does Krillin know that she did not enjoy a murder spree after she pecked his cheek? It's the height of foolishness that Krillin risked the whole world because he caught feelings. I doubt Krillin would have hesitated as much if it was 17 instead of 18. She was spared because she was a sexy girl. Lowkey sexism. She was just reduced to Krillin's love interest by the end. His own damsel in distress.

...But I will admit that Krillin would have likely spared 17 too given how he accepted 16 later.

18's Dumbfounded Look Post Cell Appearance

What pisses me off about 18 is how stupid she looks and acts when the time gets rough. The girl could not even bother to step in when her brother was being pounded into the ground by Cell. If you don't care enough about your twin to help at least run away. So many times, she stands around looking like a wide-eyed child when she should be escaping. Part of me thinks she had no self-preservation. Why not flee during 16's fight with Imperfect Cell? And then she takes her sweet time while Tien is risking his life to keep her sorry behind safe when he should have just destroyed her. And then she stands around looking like a blonde airhead AGAIN when Vegeta is fighting Cell. Darn woman, do you want to live or not?! You have the advantage of being undetectable with ki sense. What the hell are you doing?! 17 was a total idiot when he chose to not escape as well but at least he went down fighting. I bet 17 would not stand around gaping like a goldfish if the roles were reversed.

Watching Android 18 just makes me annoyed. She had one moment to shine and then faded into obscurity. The only reason she remained relevant is because she became Krillin's wife. Not that her being his wife served any greater purpose beyond making Krillin happy (and I admit that Krillin deserves his happiness). Unlike Chi Chi and Bulma who gave us useful child characters, Krillin's family is literally a waste of space in the Buu saga narrative. On Kami's lookout when she is arguably the strongest fighter there, it's Krillin, like the heroic guy he is, who goes out to protect everyone from Buu. It's a shame how the androids' unlimited energy just never comes up again. I wish Android 17 stuck around. At least he had a more entertaining personality.

These are my opinions and if you feel differently about 17 and 18 you do you. But 18 is just another DBZ female that ended with a sad whimper.

If I had to choose the best or most badass DBZ female, I would go with Videl or Bulma. Or even Chi Chi or Launch! 18 sure as heck does not deserve the title. I am happy for her and Krillin but that's about it.

#android saga #cell saga #cell dbz #android 17 #android 18 #dbz #dragonball z #android 18 critical #tien shinhan #future trunks #piccolo #imperfect cell #semi perfect cell #the cell saga was a hot mess full of mess ups #krillin #dbz salt #krillin critical

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hex-rex · 2 months

Note

WAUGH THT PREMISE IS SO COOL!! MY SIBLING IS SO COOL!!!!! PLEASE EXPLAIN THE FALLEN ESSENCE THING. AND ALSO HER NOT AGING?? (AND LAME GUY 1S CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND THING?? WHAT'RE RHEY LIKE???) ALSO DO THESE PPL HAVE NAMES PLS SHARE

WARGH I JUST GOT BACK FROM A WALK THIS IS AN AMAZING COOLDOWN THANKYOU

cut again incase it gets long(it will)!

So, I've always been obsessed with the concept of whether we have souls (cuz while we prolly are just. blood bags that is depressing), so an essence in this sense is sort of someones soul. There are multiple different pieces of it that make up who they are. The only people who can touch\reach someones essence is someone in childhood friend guys bloodline, because they were made to mend and watch over the essence of those who have died, and therefore are expected to judge where someone goes (<-whole thing). Essence is super fragile so it's his job to repair any cracks and make sure none shatter (<-because bad things happen 👍, also a whole other thing).

The reason she's still aging in the time loop is a really long rant that I will try my hardest to simplify! Basically, younger peoples essence is still under development, which is part of the reason time feels so different when you're younger- essence is what ties you to the current timeline. Group of people wanted to see if they could trick this and make someone eternally young. Things went wrong, though, and instead of making her 8 y\o forever, it knocked her off the path of time and stuck her in the loop instead. The place she holds people prison in is unaffected, because that is where it activated in the first place. She ages despite the time loop and her age never resets because her essence is no longer connecting her age to the current timeline. She's trying to create a new body and essence so she can transfer herself there in an attempt to break her out of the loop. Because her essence is broken though, she isn't aging and is stuck being mentally 8 years old this entire time. She can also manage to weasel her way into others essence (which is how she plans to escape), and uses this to mentally manipulate people without them knowing (she focusses on people who were kinda bad to begin with bc it is easier). She has them gather the pieces she needs for her without them knowing; the only one it failed on was Lame Guy 2, so she told him about the time loop (causing him to remember everytime it happened) so as to force him into helping her escape it.

ALSO IM SO OBSESSED WITH YOU CALLING HIM LAME GUY 1 AS WELL IM TEMPTED NOT TO GIVE THE NAMES LOLL

But Lame guy 1 is Rock (it is silly but ive grown attached) and Childhood Friend is Jix (actual reason for that ☝️)

#lore #ridge #I LOVE YOU FOR THESE BTW 🥺

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ive-tumbled-down-a-rabbit-hole · 2 years

Text

Bathroom Matchmaking

Meet Cute Monday 36

36 as I missed a number due to a typo (facepalm! Oh well, maybe not as far into 52 as I thought but hay ho, I’ll get there helps when I keep finding WIPs I’d forgotten I started). This one is definitely not based on a smidgin of reality whatsoever, not a pinch of truth in this at all.

Masterlist

MCM Masterlist

….................................

Duke stood awkwardly outside the bathrooms waiting for Mar’i to finish up washing her hands so they could go back to the table and the rest of the family. He was starting to regret eating quickly as he nervously shifted his weight hoping his niece would speed up so he wouldn’t look like a creeper lurking outside the woman’s bathroom. Duke groaned as he heard the little girls voice raise in excited chatter wondering what on earth she could be doing in there and why Dick hadn’t taught Mar’i about stranger danger.

After what felt like forever, his delightfully frustrating but cute niece burst through the doors and beamed innocently up at him with her toothy grin.

“You sorted now, little Nightlight? Clean hands sorted to go get grubby again?”

“Uncle DuuuuuuukE!”

Duke chuckled at her elongated whine and went to ruffle her already messy hair before turning to hold her hand and lead the way back to the table where the questionable sanity of the rest of the Waynes sat.

“No! Wait!! Uncle Duke!! The toilets are really really pretty here. Do you think we could Grampa to decorate my bathroom like this.”

Before Duke could do anything his little niece with her stupidly strong strength pulled him and opened the bathroom door and to practically drag him into the ‘forbidden room’. His eyes opened wide in panic before he squeezed them tight as his ears were filled with a loud startled shriek.

“I’m sorry, so so sorry Miss! Mar’i sweetheart, you can’t just drag me in bathrooms. Especially ladies' ones. Which is occupied. I’m sorry miss! I promise I’m not a creep!!”

Duke tried to ease his hand out of Mar’i’s in hope that she would let him escape the embarrassment that was occurring. His ears were burning with the awkwardness that was being inflicted onto him.

“But Uncle Duke you’ve not seen how pretty the walls are.”

“Nope! Nuh-uh Mari! You’ll have to show Aunt Cass or Auntie Steph instead!”

The little girl reluctantly let him go as Duke darted out the bathroom at haste.

Marinette had just left Uncle Jagged at the table to go freshen up between courses. This was their last evening in Jagged’s home city, and he wanted to show it off to her. She was smiling to herself as she exited the bathroom stall as small child probably 8 or 9 came into the bathroom and started chatting merrily to her.

“You have blue hair too! Coooool!”

“Hmm sort of, it’s really black but the lights make it seem blue. Your hair is very pretty and cool, the light makes it shimmer a beautiful blue especially at the ends.”

“My mummy has even longer hair.”

“Does she now?”

“Yup! One day mines going to be as long as... as... Rapunzel's. And I’m going to have lots of flowers in it too and maybe let it float. Can yours float?”

“... not that I’m aware of. If it gets static, some of it can float then.”

“But not all of it? On its own?”

Her cheerful demeanour reminded Marinette of what Manon was like all those years ago. Marinette was focussed so much on the child she didn’t notice that she managed to drench her top with the water she was washing her hands with until it was too late.

Marinette paused to look around the luxurious bathroom and saw it was just her and the little girl. If she waited for the girl to leave, she’d be able to dry her top, so it’d look like the disaster never occurred. Slowing her hand washing down Marinette waited while the child told Marinette about her being at the restaurant with her uncle’s, aunt’s and grandad and took to drying her hands. Marinette chatted calmly along showing interest in her chitter despite wishing the girl would hurry up.

Finally, the girl finished and waved at Marinette and exited the bathroom, Marinette whipped her top off quickly and held in under the hand dryer, praying that it would be gentle enough on the material or at least dry the top off enough that the water mark was less noticeable.

She focused on the top that initially Marinette didn’t notice that the door opened until she heard the familiar little voice talking to someone else. Glancing up she saw a man and shrieked in surprise, moving her top to try cover herself up. Her cheeks burned with the thought she has indecently exposed herself to the pair. Drying the top was a bad idea.

The man instantly squeezed his eyes shut and seemed to be pulling himself backwards trying to escape the girls grasp.

“I’m sorry, so so sorry Miss! Mar’i sweetheart, you can’t just drag me in bathrooms. Especially ladies' ones. Which is occupied. I’m sorry miss! I promise I’m not a creep!!”

“But Uncle Duke you’ve not seen how pretty the walls are.”

“Nope! Nuh-uh Mari! You’ll have to show Aunt Cass or Auntie Steph instead!”

As soon as the door shut behind him Marinette shoved her top on and tried to take some deep cooling breaths to repel some of the heat that graced her cheeks. She really wasn’t expecting that to occur.

“You have a pretty tattoo Miss. My Uncle Roy has lots of them, but they aren’t like that.”

“Thank you. They represent a huge part of my life, but errr... are you ok? Did you need to escape that man?”

“Oh no! He really is my Uncle Duke. I wanted to show him the bathroom as it’s really pretty. I like the flowers and birds on the wall. The mirrors are nice too. I want to get my Grampa to decorate the one at home like this, but I needed to show someone what I want.”

Marinette sent a strained smile to her, feeling awkward at being exposed, unintentionally, but still slightly uncomfortable with everything that had just happened.

“That’s... nice. Well, I hope you get to show maybe one of your aunt’s next time like your uncle suggested. Bye!”

Marinette darted out the room leaving the girl only to bump into a wall of muscle which had arms that wrapped around her to keep her up right. Slowly stepping back ensuring she didn’t fall backwards, she looked up into the amber eyes of Duke(?), if she heard correctly, whose ears were turning as pink as her cheeks by the moment.

Duke looked down in at the woman in his arms who’d expectedly crashed into him as a blush grew on his face.

“I... errr... Sorry about earlier. I wasn’t expecting Mar’i to drag me into the bathroom.”

“It’s ok. I should have thought about someone walking in and not be as silly to ummm, put myself on display.”

“You weren’t on display, as soon as I realised it wasn’t empty, I closed my eyes. I saw nothing. I swear.”

The woman sent him a small smile. She seemed sweet and just as uncomfortable as he was by the whole thing. His eyes followed her hand as it tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear she peered up into his eyes. Duke tried to explain why he was still lurking in the hall feeling more embarrassed by the moment.

“I... err... I guarded the door as well. I didn’t want you to have to go through that all gain.”

“Thank you, that’s... really sweet of you. It was my own fault... but thank you for being so chivalrous in protecting what’s left of my dignity further.”

“No sweat, Ms...”

“Marinette, but my friends call me Mari.”

“WE HAVE THE SAME NAMES!!! UNCLE DUKE!!! WE HAVE TO TAKE HER BACK TO GRAMPA SO HE CAN MAKE HER MY TWIN!!!”

Both Duke and Marinette winced at the volume of Mar’i announcing her arrival, jumping apart further. Marinette stood floundering as to what to do, Duke crounched to try and hush Mar'i.

“Mar’i no! We’re not pulling a Bruce. She isn’t up for adoption and can’t be stolen.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“It does for Grampa though.”

“...Errr... She has parents?”

“What about Steph and Cass? Uncle Tim and Uncle Jay had them too.”

Duke looked up at Marinette and mouthed ‘sorry’ to her and nodded for her to escape. She really didn’t need to be dragged into Wayne brand of chaos. He really needed to talk to Dick about Mar’i’s unique views of talking to strangers and claiming family... Bruce was a no go, he started this whole mess.

Marinette nodded with an amused look on her face.

“Thank you for the offer, Mar’i but I’m here with my own uncle and he’d be very upset if I didn’t get back to him. It would make him sad, like your family would be if you were suddenly taken away.”

“Oh... I hadn’t thought of that.”

Duke sighed in relief and awe at how the situation seemed to defuse so quickly with how Marinette kindly refused (sensibly) Mar’i’s ‘offer’ and avoided a tantrum with tears. Standing up he grabbed his troublemaking niece by the hand and smiled to Marinette.

“Thank you Marinette. See ya, now come along Mar’i I’m sure Dick and Bruce will be worrying why we’ve taken so long.”

The trio walked toward the main restaurant again and departed ways to head towards their respective tables. As Duke guided Mar’i over to their family she piped up a little too loudly, obviously having mused over Duke and Marinettes words.

“Uncle Duke. You could marry her instead of Grampa adopting Mari. That way we can still be twins.”

Duke groaned and heard Marinette snort in the distance, there was no hope that she hadn’t heard. And given the eyes of the Waynes staring at him, he had a feeling that meddling was around the corner.

This was a serious issue living in a bunch of nosy interfering meddling siblings, a family of detectives.

#maribat rarepair #maribat #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #maribat au #ml x dc #dc x ml #meet cute #meet cute monday #duke x marinette #marinette x duke #Dukette?#name twins

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storiesofsvu · 2 years

Text

A Redemption Earned Ch 21

Heather Dunbar x fem!reader Warnings: minor mentions of Heather's past chaos.

You jogged up the stairs to Heather’s front door, letting yourself in, shaking the misting of snow off your coat. You’d exchanged keys back before Christmas to make it easier to come and go between houses considering Heather might end up working odd hours, or if she wanted to have dinner ready and waiting by the time you got home to your own place. You hung your coat up, stepped out of your boots and left your bag on the entrance table, swiping your phone and tucking it in the back pocket of your jeans. You could hear the television playing softly and figured Heather was in the living room despite the lack of light coming from that direction you headed that way anyways. A small lamp was on in the corner, illuminating a soft glow around the room, your head tilted in confusion when you found Heather sitting on the floor in front of the couch. A couple of small piles of photo albums surrounding her along with a couple of larger cardboard boxes, papers scattered around covering the floor. You weren’t totally sure as her back was to you, but you were almost certain she was crying.

“Heat?” You greeted softly and she nearly jumped. Her hand darting up to wipe at her eyes as she sniffled, glancing at her watch.

“Fuck, I didn’t realize it was so late already.” She started to gather up a couple of the papers as you crossed the room, sinking to the ground beside her.

“What is all this?” You asked, leaning in to press a kiss to the side of her head as your eyes scanned a couple of the papers. It looked like art projects, colouring, things you’d much more expected to find at your house rather than hers.

“The kids…” she sniffled again, letting out a weary sigh, “I went looking for something to add to the wall,” she gestured to the bare wall behind the couch where she’d hung up the art you’d made all those months ago, “even with your painting it’s a little bare in here. I got to thinking about putting up some stuff like you said, make it more like someone actually lives here rather than a show home.” Her eyes focussed on the television for a moment, a small smile creeping onto her cheeks and when you followed her gaze you realized it must’ve been old family videos, a VCR even hooked up to it. “I was looking for a specific photo frame, but I found all this instead…”

“I didn’t realize Becca did ballet.” You commented and she let out a watery laugh.

“She certainly didn’t want to. And don’t ever let her know you’ve seen this, she’ll kill me.”

“You just having a nostalgia mom moment?” You asked, your fingers softly smoothing her hair behind her ear and she let out a weary sigh, her gaze dropping to her lap. She reached out, picking up a photo from a Father’s Day dinner when the kids had been in elementary school and a tear managed to sneak its way out of her eye, running down her cheek. She wasn’t in the picture, and naturally it wasn’t because she took it, it was because she hadn’t been there.

“More like realizing just how much I missed out on.” She placed the picture back into the shoebox it belonged in, looking back up to the tv, “ballet was one of the very first things we actually fought about. My mother made me take it, to help with the discipline and control, I enrolled Becca for the same reasons. At first she wanted to go all the time, she wanted to keep dancing, she loved it. My mother showed her pictures and videos from when I was her age and it was something Becca wanted to do to be like me.”

“That’s adorable.” You smiled, your hand squeezing at hers softly and she let out a little laugh, shaking her head.

“Rob taped this. Because I couldn’t make it to the recital. Becca came home all excited with her medal, wanting to show me how well she’d danced and I couldn’t be bothered to look up from my paperwork. Some mom I was. She told us she wanted to quit dance the next week, I told her no, we’d paid in full for the year. So every Saturday she would get dressed like she was going and Rob would take her for ice cream instead. That was like, the beginning of the end…”

“And you two have found new ground and started over, remember?” You nudged at her gently with your elbow and she looked over at you.

“Yeah. I know she forgives me for most of it now but looking back at some of this stuff is helping me realize just how absent I was, how much of a parent I could have been to them then. And I wish I had.”

“And that’s growth.” You smiled softly, happiness floating through you when she returned the smile, leaning in to kiss you.

“Thank you.”

“You look like you’ve been at this for a while.” You gestured around the room and Heather laughed, nodding.

“I took a half day, there wasn’t much going on at the firm.”

“You eat lunch?” You raised a brow and Heather nearly rolled her eyes at just how well you knew her and her bad habits.

“No.” She admitted and you pressed a kiss to the top of her head as you stood.

“You stay here, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Heather watched you leave the room, a smile still on her face, there were days she still couldn’t believe just how lucky she was. To not only have gotten this second chance, but to have her family by her side, and to have found someone who was able to look past her failures and do nothing but support her future. She shifted forward, stopping the ballet tape and ejecting it from the VCR, while the images of little Becca dancing her heart out did bring her joy, it also brought a lot of other conflicting emotions with it, and she’d hit her limit for that today. Her fingers shifted through the other tapes, a handful of them unmarked, one simply labelled, ‘birthdays’, figuring that was a safe bet she popped it into the player and hit play before leaning back on the couch.

It clearly wasn’t in any kind of chronological order, the first one that popped up was Becca’s sixteenth, a party that while she had appreciated it, she thought everything about it was over the top. Which was pretty natural for Becca once she’d hit her pre-teen era. Heather was honestly glad that she’d resented her family’s wealth so much, branching out on her own and not relying on family money. It had made Becca into the woman she was today, one that Heather was immensely proud of. There had been a very high chance she could have just skated easily through life and turned out to be an entitled brat, which the old Heather probably would have loved, but not anymore.

“This looks like an episode of my super sweet sixteen.” You laughed as you came back into the room, handing Heather a bowl of mac and cheese.

“It could have been.” She laughed in return, thanking you for the food and the bottle of water you handed her before moving back into the kitchen to grab yours and returning to her side on the floor. She took a small bite of macaroni, chewing it down before glancing up at you and letting out a happy sigh, “I love you.”

“It’s frozen mac and cheese Heat, I assure you it’s not that good.” You teased back and she rolled her eyes, swatting at your arm.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, I know.” You laughed, leaning in to kiss her cheek, “I love you too.”

The tv screen blared static for a minute before it popped back up to another home video, this one much older than the last. A barely one year old Jordan being passed from Rob to an older woman,

“Is that your mom?” You asked.

“Rob’s.” She replied, “much nicer than mine, honestly not that bad of a mother in law.”

“I’m assuming that’s Jordan?”

“Yeah.” She replied, a little happy smile on her face as she watched the screen, “my sweet boy. He really was a great kid; he just fell in with the wrong crowd at boarding school. Two to twelve were his prime years, before he was too cool for his mom.” You watched for a moment, Rob’s attention pulled off camera before his arm wrapped around someone, pulling them into frame and you realized it was Heather.

“Oh my god you’re adorable.”

“Stop it.” She turned her gaze to you, soft smile on her cheeks as she watched you watch the tape for a moment before turning back to the tv. “God I remember being absolutely miserable that day. Six months pregnant in the middle of a heat wave trying to keep Jordan under control and let Rob actually enjoy his birthday.”

“You look really fucking young, how old were you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Jesus. No wonder you had so many nannies, you were a fucking baby yourself.” Heather laughed lightly, letting out a little sigh.

“We planned Jordan; I knew I wanted to get the whole kid thing out of the way early on. If we didn’t, I was sure we’d both be in our forties and realize time had flown by and it was too late. I had him the summer after we both graduated college.”

“You’re really cute pregnant.”

“Don’t get any ideas.” She warned with a tease and you laughed, “I hated it, absolutely hated it. After Jordan was born I told Rob there was no way in hell I was going through that again while in law school, so we put a pin in it. But Becca’s never been one to stick to a fucking plan…”

“You were at Harvard, pregnant, with a baby, barely legal yourself?”

“Yeah.” She sighed wearily, “Becca was born the beginning of my second year, and my god she was a fussy baby. Even from conception, my pregnancy with her was way worse than with Jordan, then after she was born it was just exhausting. Jordan slept through the night from the start, not Becca, up all hours screaming which would wake up Jordan, God the lungs on that girl.” She laughed, shaking her head at the not so fond memories, “and of course, I had to be perfect, the perfect student, the perfect wife, perfect mom, everything by the book. But Becca, she refused to latch, never once was I able to actually breastfeed her. I felt like a failure with her, it’s honestly no wonder our relationship fell apart.”

“Well you didn’t fail her in the end, did you?” Your hand snuck into her lap, squeezing at her hand and she smiled up at you.

“I’m just so fucking thankful for Rob, we’re all so lucky to have him, he was an incredible dad from day one.” Her eyes swung back up to the screen, smiling at the way Rob pressed a kiss to her baby bump before scooping Jordan up from the floor for a round of airplane.

“He really was meant to be a dad, wasn’t he?��

“Yeah.” She smiled, “god those first few years were rough.”

“Well I can imagine!” You laughed, “two kids under two while you’re in law school and he’s in med school?”

“I’ve never known exhaustion like that.”

“I would’ve dropped out.” Your bowl of food now empty, you placed it to the side and leant into Heather, your head resting on her shoulder while your arm wound into hers, interlacing your fingers. The screen went to static again, the picture replacing it footage from Jordan’s tenth birthday, kids running and screaming around the backyard. “That house is fucking huge.” You commented and Heather chuckled.

“That’s the guest house.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes.” She laughed, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. The camera panned around the yard, pausing briefly on Rob who gave an enthusiastic wave from behind the grill before it moved on to watch Jordan do a very over the top belly flop into the pool, the actual house half in frame behind him. “That would be the house.”

“Is that the place over on Fessenden that’s been up for sale for like, six months?”

“That would be the one.”

“I drove past it on the way here today and I won’t lie, I’ve debated going to one of the open houses to see the inside of it.”

“Well you don’t need an open house for that.” She laughed, “I’ve still got the keys until it’s sold.”

“You’re the one selling it?” Your head shot off her shoulder and she laughed.

“Yes. I left it sitting empty when I left Washington. It was still partially trashed but I thought Becca or Rob might want to go back to it, and it was part of me that I was still clinging to. Becca helped me get things fixed up last year and it’s just been sitting on the market since.”

“Is it still partially furnished?” You asked, your eyes back on the tv as the camera followed a tiny Becca through the back door and into the house, your gaze nearly glazing over at the sheer vastness of it. Heather saw the look in your eyes and raised a brow, a grin taking over her cheeks,

“You want to fuck in the fancy house don’t you?”

“Yes.” You turned back to her, nodding vigorously, “yes I very much do.”

“Well…” she leaned in with a smirk, stealing a gentle kiss, “I’ll call the realtor and tell him not to bring anyone by after five on Saturday and we can play dress up.”

“I like the sound of that.” You laughed softly, meeting her lips for another tender kiss before you sunk back onto her shoulder.

You spent the next couple of hours just like that, Heather reminiscing on little bits of her kids childhoods, the family parties with Rob, grandparents, friends from work. You saw videos of Christmas mornings, exuberant presents piled up in front of the tree for everyone (and boy oh boy did you tease Heather when the apple watch presents showed up), New Year’s Eve’s of them watching the fireworks, summer vacations up in Connecticut. Trips out on the boat, nine year old Becca opting to go fishing with her dad instead of stay lounging on the boat with her mom. Heather told you stories about how Becca and Rob turned it into a monthly thing during the warmer weather, they loved their little daddy daughter fishing trips.

Heather found herself very surprised when an unmarked DVD popped up with footage from Jordan’s twenty-fifth birthday. She didn’t even really realize which year it was until you spotted Nat in the background of a shot and mentioned it. She felt a misting of tears build in her eyes, this was probably the last footage of Jordan before he died, the last somewhat good memories of her son, happy, surrounded by people who cared about him. She sniffled a little bit, her heart swelling as she felt your thumb wipe away a runaway tear, turning her gaze to you instead. It all tumbled out of her before she even realized, the stories of Jordan that she’d held on to for so long, how at her absolute rock bottom she knew she was to blame for everything but still tried to blame someone else. How she felt like a failure of a mother for it, and you assured her she wasn’t, that she did everything she could to right her wrongs. That Jordan would definitely be proud of the woman she had become today. You knew Jordan was still a sore spot for her, and probably always would be, but you would always thank her for sharing those intimate details of the part of her life she protected the most with you. Each time Jordan’s name came up between the two of you, she was more relaxed and open than the last, and that was progress.

You were watching vacation videos, clips of Becca and Jordan running amuck at Disney World (and let’s be honest, Rob was just as excited as the kids were), you nestled into Heather’s shoulder when she looked down at you. You had a happy little smile on your cheeks, warmth from the loving family vibes and she let out a little sigh.

“Are you sure you don’t want kids?”

“I have twenty of them from nine to three every day, I’ve gotten my fair share.” You assured her and she kissed the top of your head.

“You don’t feel like you’re missing out on any of this family stuff? The Christmas mornings?”

“Nope.” You twisted your head to look up at her, “your family’s my family, and the thirty year old you’ve got is chaotic enough for me.” You both laughed at that, Heather reminding you that you still had yet to experience the full on gremlin chaos.

While the videos continued to play on in the background you started to go through all the other stuff that was in the boxes Heather had pulled up from the basement. Comparing art projects and colouring pages, laughing at how terrible some of them were, and how hilarious the family self portraits were. By the end of the evening you’d watched most of the videos and had selected a few art projects to go up on the wall beside your framed one.

You helped Heather go through the photo albums, making sure they were organized and presentable before finding them homes around her living space, accessible to whomever might want to look through them and smile at fond memories. You selected a few prime ones to display in frames or up on the fridge, ones that Heather would smile at, remembering the moments she felt like a good mom, that she had succeeded with her children.

You packed away the rest of it, Heather insisting she would take it downstairs the next day as you started to yawn. She pressed a tender kiss to your cheek and guided you upstairs where you got ready for bed together in a wordless routine. Climbing under the covers you both made sure you had the correct alarms set for the morning and curled into each other.

“I love you.” You murmured, pressing a kiss to Heather’s neck.

“I love you too.” She replied, her lips hitting the top of your head as her arms squeezed around you.

_________________ @ms-calhoun @naturalxselection @yesterdaysgone @hbkpop @giftedchildturns40 @anya-casablanca @svulife-rl @swimmingstudentchaos8911 @alexusonfire @jamiethetrans @natasha-danvers @oliviaswifey @mysticfalls01 @cmmndrwidw @bumblebear30 @svushots @yourtaletotell @cerberus-spectre @emskisworld @ex-uallyactive @addictedtodinosaurs @imaginaryoperagloves @multifandomlesbianic @annegilletteslostwh0r3 @bookpillows @drduckthief @whimsicallymad @mmmmokdok @ladysc @momlifebehard @mmemalwa @holycrapraewth @poisonedcrowns @wannabe-fic-reader @when-wolves-howll @dead-of-niightt @fighterkimburgess @lannister-slings-and-arrows @borg-queer @godard-muse @itisdoctortoyousir @brooklynmhm @nobody-important1212 @emilyprentiss4life

#heather dunbar #heather dunbar x reader #house of cards #heather dunbar series #a redemption earned

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fullmetalscullyy · 1 year

Text

day 4 - the coffee shop

12 days - 12 oneshots | a collection of oneshots to celebrate royai

rated: g | words: 1933

read on ao3

It wasn’t odd for someone to be in the coffee shop this late. Riza saw lots of people come and go throughout her shifts.

It was intriguing being able to chat with so many people day in, day out, and that was what Riza enjoyed about her job. In quiet periods – when she should really be spending her time studying for her degree – the people watching potential was too good to pass up.

The coffee shop where she worked part-time was quiet in the evenings. Plenty of time to study and write essays then, rather than when the place was abuzz with chatter throughout the day.

There were the parent groups with their cute kids. The odd screaming toddler here and there, but when supplied with a treat or a favourite toy from a harried parent, they quickly quietened into excited gurgles. The teenagers mostly kept to themselves in the back corners with their slushes. They didn’t cause any bother and the staff were content to let them be. They had a good rapport with each other as a whole, cracking jokes and chatting to them. Plus, it was better for them to be in somewhere warm causing no hassle, than out on the streets, Riza thought. Business people, fast moving and running on impatience were her worst customers, but even then, they weren’t terrible. Just abrupt. They had places to go, people to see, and didn’t want to spend a minute of their precious time doing anything other than seeing to their work. Stressed out students – varying from being on the edge of crying to typing word after word at an alarmingly fast rate, all fuelled by nothing but sugar and/or caffeine from their menu – filled out most of their tables though. Being situated so close to the university the place was always teeming with them.

But not on Christmas Eve, though.

This one was a curiosity.

Her last customer appeared completely engrossed in his work. He probably hadn’t even realised she was working around him, cleaning tables and placing the chairs atop of them to prep for cleaning the tile. Nothing would deter him from his focus on the screen of his laptop, it seemed.

“Excuse me?” Riza kept her voice low and approached slowly so not to startle him.

“Hm?” The sound which left him was distracted. An automatic response. His head turned before his eyes moved from the screen, both facing her while his eyes were still glued to the screen.

“Sir? I’m sorry, it’s closing time.” It was actually ten minutes passed closing time, but he appeared to be so focussed and Riza felt bad for interrupting his flow. She knew his struggle well.

His brows tugged down into a frown when he eventually looked away from his screen. His dark eyes met hers for a brief moment before his entire face slowly went slack. His lips parted as he stared up at her for far longer than was usual in a conversation, and Riza felt her cheeks heating up.

When his eyes bored into hers, she had to admit she felt unable to look away. She was drawn to them. She didn’t want to look away.

His jaw snapped closed and he quickly looked away. Riza did the same – so she missed how his cheeks turned pink.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He scrambled to collect his things, knocking a paper off his table in his haste.

Instead of bending down to pick it up he froze. Hands hovering over the table. His eyes fluttered closed and if Riza had to guess, he was counting to ten.

She crouched silently and picked up his work from the floor.

Riza wasn’t one to snoop, but she couldn’t help but see chemistry and Roy Mustang typed on the front page.

“Oh, sorry! No, let me get that.”

It was an awkward exchange as he reached down for his fallen papers, only to realise Riza was already standing. He outstretched his hand to take them hesitantly, like he couldn’t quite believe she was already standing and had moved so fast.

Getting a closer look at him now, Riza saw the tell-tale signs of sleep deprivation and stress. The skin surrounding his eyes was bruised and dark. Even the whites of his eyes looked red-ish. Overall, he looked exhausted. Burnt out.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“Sorry, I’ll grab my stuff and go.” He hurriedly stood from his chair and shoved it back under the table.

“Take your time,” Riza offered kindly. “There’s no rush –”

“What time is it?”

“Quarter past 8.”

“Shit,” he muttered to himself. “Sorry. I’ve kept you back. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, honestly.”

“I’ll go –” He knocked over another stack of papers onto the floor and Riza was sure steam was about to erupt from his ears.

“Listen, sit down. Take your time. Finish your drink,” Riza directed as she crouched to help the poor man out and give him a break. She’d been in his position before and knew the feeling well. It never hurt to offer some kindness, and it looked as though he needed it.

Desperately.

“I don’t want to impose –”

Riza shook her head. “You’re not. I promise. There’s still an hour until I finish anyway. Stay and take all the time you need.”

He shot her a grateful look. “You really don’t mind?”

“I insist.”

His shoulders slumped and his eyelids drooped with his relief.

She even offered him a glass of water.

The man just blinked at it.

Riza left him to his work and continued her closing routine.

After half an hour of companionable silence the man sat back in his chair. His posture was terrible and his spine hit the chair exhaustedly, but he looked pleased. Tired, but proud. He rolled his neck and let it hang back over the chair, so his face was turned up to the ceiling as he closed eyes. His fingers dug in and rubbed his eyes so hard he could barely keep them open once he stopped.

“What are you studying for?”

He didn’t startle, as such, but he was surprised to hear her question. After collecting himself and blinking himself awake he answered, “my Masters degree.”

Riza was sympathetic to the cause. “If needed I can vouch for you. You’ve been working very hard on it.”

Hearing him laugh made Riza smile. “Much appreciated, but that won’t be necessary. At least, I don’t think so anyway. Thank you for your kindness today, though. It’s much appreciated…” He trailed off as if he wanted to say her name.

“Riza,” she supplied.

His face lit up in a grin. “It’s much appreciated, Riza.”

“You’re welcome…”

“Roy,” he laughed quietly.

“You’re very welcome, Roy. I understand your plight.”

“Are you studying too?”

She nodded. “I work on my dissertation when I can in the quiet moments in here.”

His eyes lit up at that too, and Riza had to admit it was nice to meet a kindred spirit. Or someone who was suffering from uni work as much as she was. Despite how universally hated the struggle was, it did bring people together.

“And thank you for the water too. And the extra time.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I honestly didn’t realise I’d been here for that long. I thought I had a couple of hours yet.”

“As I said, you’ve been working very hard.”

“How can I repay you?”

She lifted her hands and waved off his offer. “Not necessary. Honestly.”

“Please?”

Nerves fluttered inside her stomach. “I mean it, you really don’t need to –”

“What if I want to?”

His question disarmed her. Why would he want to? And why be so insistent?

Riza’s jaw threatened to go slack, her mouth fall open, when she noticed the dusting of pink across his cheeks and his nose. He was not shy by any means, but he didn’t appear to have intended to say his reply out loud.

He… She thought… He… liked her?

“Please? We can grab dinner. O – Or coffee. I don’t mind.”

The poor man’s sleep deprivation must have been getting to him.

“Really?”

He nodded, then sighed in frustration. His smile faltered but didn’t disappear. He turned slightly apologetic. “Sorry. I promise, I am normally smoother than this,” he chuckled.

Riza couldn’t comprehend. “Smoother?”

He grinned at her, and Riza noted how it made the edges of his eyes crinkle. The expression transformed his face and it made her stomach flip. Pleasantly.

Oh.

He was asking her out.

At the realisation, her own cheeks turned pink.

“If you don’t want to, just say the word and I’ll go. It’s no problem at all.”

Did she want to?

He was attractive. Long dark hair framed darker eyes. He was handsome. Attractive. But what really drew Riza’s attention was his smile. It was a beautiful smile. Wide, friendly, kind.

Riza could practically hear her friend hissing in mind.

Do it!!! Rebecca would glare at her too.

Riza smiled back at him. Hope filled his expression for a brief moment and she watched as he sucked in a breath in anticipation.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

She didn’t think it was possible for his smile to grow any wider, but now he was beaming.

“Great!”

“Did you want to go tonight? No offense, but you look like you’re about to pass out.”

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s probably best if we don’t. I don’t think I’ll be the best company.”

“That’s fair. Falling asleep would definitely put a damper on the evening.”

Again, he laughed her at her joke, her teasing. It sent a thrill through Riza.

“Before we do, and before I forget, here.” He fished his wallet out the back pocket of his jeans and Riza opened her mouth to protest about him paying for the water she’d given him but it was cut off. “Take a photo.”

He was holding out his driver’s license.

“Of my ID, I mean. Share it with your friends. I promise it’s me. It’s mine. Scout’s honour.”

The fingers on the hand still by his side twitched as if he really did want to salute. Riza bit back a grin at that. He was kinda goofy. Kinda dorky. But it was endearing.

And so was that smile.

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

He nodded and pocketed his ID once Riza had snapped a photo. “Text me whenever,” he added, handing over a piece of paper with numbers scrawled on it. “We can organise something. You can bring your friends too, if you like. We could make a day of it.”

She was touched he’d be so thoughtful and considerate.

“Thank you, Roy.”

He flashed her his grin again. There was no other word to describe his mood, except pure elation.

“Shall I wait until the afternoon tomorrow? To avoid waking you after you pass out.”

“Might be best,” he laughed. “I don’t doubt I’ll crash hard. But whenever you want to go out, whenever you’re free next, just let me know. I’ll be there.”

He was so earnest, it endeared him to her even more.

It was cute.

“Have a safe journey home, Roy,” Riza called after him after seeing the heavy snow falling outside. It was blanketing the ground in a thick layer of fresh, crunchy snow. An excited thought curled around her heart at the thought of getting to walk on freshly fallen snow.

“You too, Riza,” he replied softly. Again, that smile made her heart flutter within her chest. It softened his entire face. “Take care.”

kudos and kind comments are always appreciated :)

read on ao3

feel free to send me an ask too!

#royai #royai fic #royai fanfic #royai advent calendar #emma writes #royai au

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xprojectrpg · 1 year

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Moment of Awesome - Marie-Ange Colbert/Tarot:

When Marie-Ange has trouble with a reading, her girlfriend tries to help.

"Since Garrison needs more drama," Amanda grumbled, but her face was grave. "Try a reading just for him and see what you get? Unless there's that cost thing kicking in as well?"

"I still have no idea how that works. Nothing about this power makes any more sense than it did a decade ago." Marie-Ange dutifully shuffled her cards several times, and then flipped the deck. She flipped through them one by one, peeling off a post-it note and removing a piece of loose paper and tossing both into the wastebasket next to her desk. "Here..." she said, after another shuffle. "You cut this time. I am out of any other good ideas."

The witch nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, focussing on Garrison before reaching for the cards. Her mental image happened to be of him wearing only shorts and that ridiculous apron in their kitchen, and her lips twitched slightly as she opened her eyes again and cut the cards, placing the bottom half on the top of the rest of the pack. "I'll give you a boost," she added, laying her hand on Marie-Ange's shoulder - they'd discovered under Tante Mattie's tutelage years ago that Amanda's magic could help Marie-Ange's precognition.

The surge of magic felt smooth, like cream in tea - easy, simple, none of the grit of awkwardness for the first time that Marie-Ange could remember. She sighed into it and leaned her head into Amanda's touch - and then picked up the cards.

They were the same sturdy cards she used all the time, probably her tenth or eleventh deck in fifteen years. The card stock had worn just a little soft on the edges from use, rounded and grey instead of crisp angles and bright white. She pulled a card, and set it on the desk.

"What."

The front of the card had peeled off, sticking to the card under it, leaving a ragged white background.

The next did the same, front and back in tatters. The third fell apart entirely, the cardstock separating into fragile layers of paper and glue.

Marie-Ange set the deck down, picked up a pencil from her desk and poked the cards with the eraser. "I have never, not once, had that happen. The deck that went through the flood in Baltimore did not even do that."

"Oh, bollocks." Amanda's hand tightened on Marie-Ange's shoulder. "Trust Gar to have something completely new and fucked up in his cards." She frowned. "And there's nothing solid to warn him about."

"Yes, because I definitely want to tell him 'my cards did strange things but I have no idea what it means' he is going to just look at me, say "Right, it's Tuesday, eh?" and make me a sandwich." Marie-Ange rubbed the scar tissue around her missing eye. Her stomach grumbled a little, and she laughed dryly. "I should have a sandwich, that part is right. You know the strange thing, there is none of the ... since the eye, it is like the precognition is pulled along, or is pulling me along. Words do not happen that I can find to make it make sense. I just know sometimes. Offer this, know that. Give up this, gain that. This time I have nothing. No strange feeling, just broken cards."

"So in the meantime, we keep an eye out for anything weird... well weirder than normal." Amanda smoothed back Marie-Ange's hair. "And I can do better than a sandwich - dinner's on me, and not like the time with the whipped cream. Proper food on a table and all."

"Which means regular readings and the spreadsheets. Ew." Marie-Ange said. "Yes. Food, with a table, and a wine list. It does not have to be a fancy list, just a list of more than four." She booped Amanda's nose playfully and then picked the eyepatch up off the desk, untangling the strings. "Or you could play with my hair for the next ninety-seven years, and that would also be good."

"That's for later," Amanda promised, dropping a kiss on top of Marie-Ange's head before stepping back to let her collect herself. "I found this little Italian place a few blocks away. Real Mama and Papa sort of place, decent food, good wine list, desserts to die for. I asked New York to find me something nice to treat you to - no pre-cog, just thought you'd like something nice tonight."

#moment of awesome #tarot #daytripper #xprpg #xproject #phase 2

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buckyismybicycle · 2 years

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Hold Onto Me: Chapter 5

Pairing: WS!Bucky x Reader [AO3 LINK] Rating: Teen for now, Explicit later Tags/Warnings: canon-typical violence, canon-divergent, angst, fluff, music soothes the soul y’all, so many other tags to come Summary: You happen to get caught in the Winter Soldier’s attack one day, but you don’t expect to ever see him again. You definitely don’t expect him to show up at your home, bleeding. You definitely, definitely don’t expect to want to go on the run with him.

A/N: OOps. I am actually behind on posting chapters!!! Don’t kill me.

One day there came a soft knock and you both stood upright immediately. The thing is, even though sometimes it felt heavenly, you both still wore your shoes in the house, or slept with them right beside your mattress.

Bucky slid beside the door frame so that he would be right behind the door when it opened and you look through the peephole.

“Landlady,” you mouthed, waving him to sheath his knife that you hadn’t even noticed he pulled out. Had it already been a month? Goodness. Making sure you look presentable you open the door with a convincing smile.

“Mrs. Brown good evening! How are you?”

“Oh, I’m doing lovely my dear. How about you, how is the apartment treating you?”

“It’s been lovely, thank you so much.”

“That’s great! Now I know you said that you only planned to stay one month but you seem pretty cozy here so I wanted to see if you’d like the apartment for the next month too before I go posting.”

Your eyes remain focussed on the pleasant woman in front of you but in your peripheral vision, you watch for Bucky’s reaction, but he remains still.

“That’s very generous of you Mrs. Brown, thank you for the offer. Can I think about it and get back to you tomorrow? If I decide to stay for the next month I’ll have the deposit for you as well.”

“Of course, of course. Have a good night my dear!”

“Goodnight Mrs. Brown!”

“We shouldn’t stay in one place for too long,” Bucky whispers as soon as he hears Mrs. Brown’s footsteps fade. You look around at your little space. There are no personal touches of course, but it has been home for four weeks now.

“Would another month be so bad?” You asked nervously. It’s not exactly like you had a guide on how to escape capture. Bucky gnawed on his bottom lip and thought hard.

“One more month. We’ll pay her upfront, so if anything happens, we can boot it,” he shrugs. It warms your heart to see his concern for Mrs. Brown.

“Okay.”

You knew that even though it wasn’t anything, it still spooked Bucky a bit and he was back to his twitchy self. Telling him stories about your childhood seemed to hold his attention fairly well though, so you told him a lot of stories. The shocking part was when he offered one up himself.

“I had a sister,” he says tentatively. “Becca. Rebecca? Baby Bex,” he laughed.

“We were pretty well behaved, for kids, anyway. Our ma was gone early on so we left… I wanna say Indiana. Our pops was stationed in the military up in Jersey so that’s where we went. Few days, anyway. Obviously couldn’t have a couple of brats the same placed you’re keeping grenades. Aunt Ida was in Brooklyn though, took us on for a couple of years. She got sick just like ma did though, and me and Bex weren’t near old enough to be by ourselves. They sent Bex off to boarding school. I never saw her again. I keep thinking… All this time. I should’ve. I thought about her everyday. After I got shipped out I thought ‘what the hell were my last words to her?’ And I can’t remember. I don’t know if I forgot on my own or if it was burned outta me, but I don’t know.”

You drape your arms over his shoulders, just so he knew you were close. He doesn’t cry, but he doesn’t move away. You run your hand soothingly up and down, not really sure if he can feel it in the titanium, but he closes his eyes and stays in your arms so you stay.

No matter how much you wanted to take his pain away, you couldn’t, so you kiss him sweetly instead, your body following wherever his hands lead you. Somewhere, in the tangle of limbs on the couch, he sighs against your lips, happily, like he’s got a weight off his chest.

He seems calmer in the morning, but his eyes are always attentive; you get exhausted just watching him. So you asked him to teach you what he knew - what you should be looking out for, what he sees on patrols, how to fight.

He looks a little taken aback at the last request but you tried to argue it was probably the most important one.

“What if we get into a situation where we need to fight our way out?!”

“You should never have to fight, if that ever happens, you stay behind me.”

“I can’t just hide behind you while you risk your life!”

“You know what I can do. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

“I know you wouldn’t! But I don’t want to feel useless. Like you have to carry me everywhere, I want to be able to take care of myself. I don’t want to be a burden to you.” And you can feel your eyes stinging at the truth of it - that you’ll slow him down and he’ll leave you behind.

“You’re never going to be a burden to me,” he states. Still, you can’t help the small sniffle that escapes you.

Bucky stares at you with those calculating blue eyes, his brows in a straight line, like he’s on the verge of giving in.

“Or what if something happens to me when I’m out by myself?” And yeah, maybe that’s playing dirty a bit but Bucky heaves a sigh and you know you’ve won.

He goes for an extra long run that night, and you’re just about to finish your 1000-piece puzzle of the Eiffel Tower.

“I found a good spot on the beach for some of your training. Secluded, quiet.”

“On the beach?” You were confused.

“Sand is softer than tile, I don’t want you to get hurt.” You laugh but truly appreciate the sentiment, that he was always looking out for you. So to show him just that, you launch yourself up from the floor and fling yourself into his arms, knowing that he’ll catch you.

“Thank you!” You exclaim as you kiss him, ignoring his protests that he needs to shower.

It’s hard for him to try and train you, so worried about his own strength and how fragile you were in his eyes.

“We start slow,” he starts. “Your legs - kicks - will be stronger than your punches, but your punches will be faster and easier to execute. We’re going to start with throwing a punch, different punches, and then how to block them. Though, I’d really prefer if you dodged them entirely.”

“Yes, sir,” you quip and he squints his eyes at you a little dangerously. You file that reaction away for later.

“Hands up, sweetheart.”

And so, he goes through the basics. It’s the most he’s ever spoken, and you think the extensive knowledge he has makes it easier for him, where he doesn’t have to think about the words, he just knows them. You go for three hours, and Bucky calls it quits for your sake even though you insist you can keep going.

“We still have to conserve some of your energy, sunshine. You did great, we’ll pick it up tomorrow. Get some rest.”

You tell him to go first, that you’re too wound up. When he heads to the mattress on the floor of the room, you take a breather and go over every detail, making some quick notes in your journal so you don’t forget.

Determined, you also set a goal for yourself and do a set of push-ups and sit-ups, hoping to increase the number every few days. You want to be at your best.

He teaches you how to read your opponent, judge their reach, which side to lean. Thankfully, the one advantageous thing about your smaller frame is that you’re quick and light on your feet. He takes it easy on you, obviously, but you find your rhythm pretty quickly.

When you’re both showered and done with dinner, Bucky tells you just how impressed he was, as he flops on the couch.

“Only because it was you, and I know how to read your body language.” You make it a point to sit on his lap, leg on either side of him.

And apparently, according to said body language, that really does something for him. He closes the distance and kisses you, hard. You moan happily against him, fingers tangled in his hair, and one hand pulling him closer still. He nips at your bottom lip before pulling away, just slightly.

“Bucky,” you whine against his lips, begging him to come back. Your hands come up to his broad shoulders, as you steal another kiss, and slide down his entire front before stopping at his pants. He’s never made a move to go further than your heavy petting, you haven’t even slept in the same bed yet always taking shifts. He just grabs your wrists, places kisses on both sets of knuckles and leans up for your lips once more. You can’t complain, not when he nips up and down your neck and sucks a mark right underneath your collarbone.

Bucky tells you it’s time to take it to the beach, and you get nervously excited. In the five weeks you’ve been living in the city, you’ve become fairly familiar with the neighbourhood, you never wandered far.

“Maybe we should bring everything… just in case,” you say tentatively.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees with a single nod. It’s not difficult, since you lived out of your bags and made a habit not to leave your things scattered about.

Of course, Australia has beautiful beaches. The breeze was crisp and you took in the smell of the ocean air, loving how bright the stars were at night. For a moment, you wanted to forget your lessons and enjoy this sensation.

“What a beautiful view,” you say to Bucky, eyes glued to the crescent moon floating above the water.

“I know,” Bucky agrees and you feel your cheeks burn as you turn to him, finding him staring only at you.

“Sap,” you tease him, but it’s alright if you make it up with a kiss, right? He doesn’t seem to mind, judging by the way he kisses you back.

Every time you come out, you admire the moonlight. It bounces off the water and Bucky’s eyes, which only get more captivating as time passes. The moonlight is beautiful, it makes you feel at peace no matter what state you’re in, calms your nerves. Where Bucky calls you his sunshine, you call him your moonlight.

Here, in the open space, he makes you practice your kicks, and your footwork. The sand gives you a little more resistance, makes it more challenging, and you like it.

Then comes the painful part of the lessons.

“I have to teach you… if anyone ever gets the best of you, you have to know how to break free, or break your fall.” Bucky looks almost ill as he says it and you can tell exactly what’s bothering him.

“It’s okay Bucky, you won’t hurt me,” you say cheerfully. “If you do, by accident, it’s okay. I need to learn, it’s part of the process okay?” Bucky exhales a deep breath, trying to take your words to heart.

The first time he flips you over his shoulder, you almost squeal out loud. The air escapes out your lungs as you land on your back. Bucky was right, this would have sucked in the apartment, not to mention your neighbours would be wondering what the hell was going on.

“Sorry, angel.”

“Don't be,” you wheeze out. “Now how do I keep the air in my lungs on top of protecting my head?” Bucky laughs at your unexpected question, and it’s a beautiful sound.

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sophieswundergarten · 11 months

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Because apparently I like angst, I was thinking about the various iterations of "Kate gets adopted by Curtain" AUs, and my brain went to...

The TPJ Cave Scene

Because, I imagine that in this version of events, Kate really was on the Society's side. She wanted to join them, and she tried her best to help them at the Institute, but when push came to shove she couldn't leave SQ.

(SQ knew a little bit about the whole situation, but he has, like, negative ten self-confidence, so he's caught in the middle of his headstrong sister and control freak dad, and he's pretty sure that Kate and the others must just be misguided, but it's his job as the big brother to protect Kate, so he doesn't tell Curtain a single thing)

So she went with Curtain and kept quiet about her mutinous thoughts. Sure, she still snarked at him and pulled him into arguments about his paranoia or his treatment of SQ, but that was nothing really out of the ordinary. She sent a few letters, far too vague and far apart for the Society's comfort, with no return address and no details beyond "We're safe. I'm so sorry."

So they end up on the island in hiding and Kate is doing her best not to rock the boat, but still begging SQ to trust her and leave Curtain before something worse happens.

Meanwhile, the Society is losing their entire minds because immediately after Kate apologized and slipped away to check on SQ, Milligan shows up. And he's regained his memories.

Anyways, instead of a scavenger hunt they're just actively searching for Curtain/Kate the whole time, and when eventually they figure out he's probably looking for duskwort, Mr. B and Number Two have been doing field research while the others stay at home and research that way. But cue Mr. B and Number Two going missing, and that whole crisis, and the kids go off on their own.

Because they were actually involved in the search this time, they get to where they're going much quicker. They still get to meet Noland/Cannonball/Sophie because I love them and they need to be included, but at last they get to the island!

There they find Kate hanging out in the forest/abandoned village because she got mad and ran off and Curtain let her because A) Where's she going to go? It's an island, and B) He's spiraling down the paranoia hole at this point and can barely pay attention to anything.

The Society is super excited to see Kate, and assure her that they understand her not wanting to abandon her family, and she fills them in on all the details. Number Two still escaped, and is... somewhere. They're trying to come up with a plan when Milligan shows up!!

The kids all look at him and Kate uncomfortably, and he announces loudly and forcefully that they will be focussing on one problem at a time, and right now they need to deal with getting everyone off the island safely.

So, they formulate a plan, and then the Ten Men or Grays or whatever show up and think they're trying to kidnap Kate :)

Milligan fight scene, and the kids get to the cave

The Society gets captured, and Kate gets in serious trouble. She has a fight with Curtain where he yells at her a lot and tries all his nasty manipulation tricks like telling her her real dad didn't love her and how great he is for adopting her, and then goes somewhere else to Plot.

SQ tries to comfort her, and the kids take this moment to try and convince him how awful Curtain is. SQ is too scared and uncertain, though, and while he's definitely not going to hurt the kids or tell on them, he isn't about to give up the only protection he and Kate have ever known.

Mr. Benedict has to do his hypnotism trick, but Kate doubles back after a minute and arrives just in time to see Curtain going berserk, just so angey at poor SQ for messing up. Kate hides until Curtain storms out again and rescues SQ, who is so miserable at this point (And after being confronted that 90% of what made his life bearable was Kate, and thinking she had finally gone because he made too big a mistake) that he agrees to go with them.

Aaaaand then they find Milligan and get back to the Shortcut (Where Number Two is) and SQ does his best to help in whatever way he can and sticks right to Kate's side the whole time, and then they get to head back home!!

At this point it's basically a backwards version of the lovely @sqenthusiast's post here, but I will never get over the Cave Scene, so here's what came out of it this time :)

#And then Milligan adopts SQ obviously #In case that wasn't super clear #Because Kate needs a sibling who lives with her!!#She can't get ALL of her shenanigans and prank energy out only when she visits the others #Also I adore my sibling and our relationship is very important to me and I'm more of the SQ in this relationship while they're the Kate #And our dynamic is so good #I want to share it with these characters :)#Anyhow!#Sorry for the crazy rambles #I know they don't make a lot of sense #The usual heterogeneous mixture of Show and Book with random bits of both floating around #Sorry #the mysterious benedict society #mbs #kate wetherall #sq pedalian #milligan wetherall #ld curtain

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tara-l-blackmore · 2 years

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Updates

Social Media and Online: Tiktok: I fought Tiktok and won. I told them they banned me due to discrimination, the likes of which they never even bother with when it comes to literal criminals and predators. I told them that to censor someone queer and neurodivergent was pure bigotry, and if they didn't do something about it, I would let everyone know. So they did something: they gave me my account back. Am I glad? Somewhat. I've stepped back from it a great deal due to what I discussed last time, instead focussing less online and more off social media, and that has been helping me greatly, both mentally and creatively. So there is a small victory.

Twitter: I am still fighting them on this one, especially when it comes to current events and why I was banned. They keep asking me to delete the tweet that made them suspend me, but whenever I mention I can't even get into my account to do so, they don't see the problem and have yet to even talk to me about it.

Photobucket: After almost 20 years of free service, Photobucket has decided to start charging their customers for access to their own photos. Not only that, the photos they once gave you access to and that you uploaded in trust are hidden behind a pay wall, and unless i subscribe for a monthly fee, I can't even save the photos and delete my account. I am currently still fighting this, and they have yet to give me a good reason why they have done this and why they won't even let me save my photos and leave.

COVID: Both Terry and I are still struggling with side-effects, even two months later, and as such, we've scheduled for the second booster shot. Everyone around me is saying how ridiculous it is that we need these shots, and I keep thinking, "You never had it, so how would you even know?" And 99/100 of the time, the person saying I'm being a hypochondriac either has never had COVID or isn't even vaxxed. You simply do not understand how bad it is until you have it. It's not just a "bad flu". This disease has consequences, one that has caused a global pandemic that everyone has decided to ignore, and I personally am not interested in dying because of someone else's ignorance.

Personal/Misc: Jenny: On June 29, a childhood friend's sister passed away suddenly of COVID-caused pneumonia and complications with diabetes. Her name was Jenny, and her sister is Julie. When I first heard, I sobbed my eyes out, despite never having had spoken to her in decades, nor her sister, even. This was due to two major reasons: grief, obvious grief, as she was only 40 (my sister Heather's age), but she was a mother of three children. And her death was so avoidable and needless and tragic. She was a firecracker, a tough and no-nonsense person, who took little shit but gave a great deal with a smile and a hug. She was a force of nature, fierce and loyal, and also kind. So to hear of her death in such a sudden way was heartbreaking. The second reason is more selfish: it reminded me that death can happen at any time, without any warning, and can take anyone and everyone I love. And because Jenny was also Heather's age, it's even more terrifying. (More on her in a moment.) I went to the memorial, terrified of being there and ready to leave in case I was not wanted or welcome, holding Terry's hand in my own. I walked in, looked around, and found Julie. Both of us were wearing masks, but it didn't matter. Our eyes met, and in silence, we broke the distance and hugged, hard, crying. From such a tragic loss, something else was reborn: a hopeful friendship, renewed, with Julie. Julie, who is married to her childhood love and a mother of two, who still has that orange hair but finally has meat on her bones, a beautiful fluff. I am of course wary, but I have some hope that our friendship will rebloom. I need a friend.

Family: Heather's pregnancy has bumped up early, meaning she will be giving birth to her second child, named Nicholas Basil, in a week. I am so happy and excited, but it seems to be that I am the only one. My mother is miserable about it. She thinks Heather is making a mistake having this baby, and is already blaming him for things when he isn't even born yet. She hates him, for being male, for existing aside Ellie, his older sister, and thinks he will destroy the family and cause Ellie to regress. She want "nothing to do with him," her own grandchild, because he was born late and a different sex. I told her off last week about this, but she doesn't care. I honestly hope she either grows up once he is born, or Heather tells her off, too. I love my mother, so very much, but I would support Heather if she were to disown Mom over this, over her own disowning of a literal foetus, including not allowing her into Ellie's life, anymore. Heather has that right, and if she's going to be nothing but a demon to my nephew, I don't want Mom near him or Ellie, either. She doesn't deserve to have a relationship with Ellie nor Heather if she persists in doing this. We're all worried and scared for Heather, as at 40, having her second kid will be very hard on her, which was another reason why I was so upset when Jenny died: it reminded me that Heather could, too. She could die giving birth to Nicholas, and then what? Nobody would love him, then, because they would blame him. But I would and will, specifically because of that. And I'm going to be his protector for the rest of my life, especially against his own grandmother. No grandchild should ever be treated that way. Ever. Least of all before he is even born!!

Marriage: I want to say things are well, and for the most part, they absolutely are: Terry continues to support and love me like always. But lately, sometimes, I feel distance between us. Our physical love has decreased a great deal, and while I usually am and able to label this under age, I'm also terrified it's something deeper, something hidden, something he doesn't want me to see or know. Or maybe I'm just projecting, thinking I am gross and unwanted because of my change in gender and looks. I'm not (just) a woman, anymore, and least of all the woman he married. I'm a genderqueer enby, fluctuating between what I see as a woman and something else, agender, undefined, and more and more, it's becoming the latter. I'm terrified that my changes and expressions of this are off-putting, and the fact that I am changing is turning him off of me. We barely are together like that once a month, and even though I know we're both on the ace spectrum, being who I am and having gone through what I have, I can't help but read more into this than I probably should. Maybe it's better not to, but I would rather be paranoid and catch something I missed than miss it completely. I just don't know or understand what is or isn't normal for relationships. Maybe comparison isn't such a good idea, as it's our relationship and thus one of a kind. I dunno. I just worry sometimes.

Writing: I haven't been writing much at all, and it's clearly hurting me. I have been getting great ideas for one of my series, but writing is slow. I'm not quite sure why, but as mentioned, once I stepped back for a bit and tried to prioritise, I've been mostly reading stuff, which in turn helps me imagine and think about my own words. Fanfic, usually a staple of my daily activities, has become dormant and almost dead, and several fanfics have been ended for those reasons. However, thankfully, I had a few breakthroughs over that time, so hopefully, I'm thinking that some of the fics I want to finish are now being worked on. I'm excited about it, but also worried it'll absolutely suck. I just need to write it, get it down, and not worry so much about it being perfect (write high, edit sober), because the worrying is holding me back, when instead I should just be writing, just to get the story out. Like I surmised, death is unpredictable and comes without any warning; my biggest fear is to die with all my stories unwritten or unfinished. I want to leave my nieflings something...

Personal: I'm lonely. I'm very lonely at times. I spend my days alone in my apartment, a very wonderful luxury, yes, but also isolating. I do have hopes with Julie, but past experience has warned me to be cautious and wary. I can't work, have no means of meeting people, and even when I do, whatever strikes up ends fast, because once people realise I'm autistic and mentally ill, they leave. I've spoken at length about this several times, only back then, I didn't know it was my autism that kept myself apart from most of the world. Now that I do, I lack the patience or effort to wait for long and see if a person is worth being my friend. And yes, that sounds cold and arrogant, and I do not care. I'm old and lonely and tired. I just want one person I can see and hug and talk to once and a while, to help and be helped by someone who not only likes me, but understands me, and I don't have the time or patience to work on friendships that are fake or only one-sided. It used to be that this person was my mom, but once I figured out my true gender and tried to talk to her about it, and was thus ridiculed and laughed at by her for it, I have since been unable to be my true self with her, anymore - especially when it comes to my future nephew, too. So I'm a lonely and sad housespouse who has no money to their name and nothing to show for their almost 40 years of life. Looking at myself that way, I can see why I have no friends. Maybe it's better I don't; I won't have to say goodbye.

That's all for now. Special shout out to @cypsiman2 for always sending me a kind word after a word-vomit like this post is, and I just wanted them to know that I appreciate them. Thank you.

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missymurphy1985 · 2 years

Text

One Shot Smut Challenge Part Two

Unlikely Inspirations - Cillian Murphy X Fem!Reader

Warning - public sex / breeding kink / possessive kink

Taglist @queenshelby @margoo0 @being-worthy @peakyscillian @peakyciills @janelongxox @elenavampire21 @ysmmsy @cloudofdisney @lauren-raines-x @misscarolineshelby @screemqueen @peaky-cillian @misselsbells06 @datewithgianni @heidimoreton @jardinsecos @bitchwhytho @gypsy-girl-08 @queenofkings1212 @look-at-the-soul

Waiting in the queue at the pharmacy for your repeat prescription was always an adventure.

Would old Mrs Barrett cause a fuss again because she can't take penicillin and the doctor prescribed it for her because she isn't allergic to it like she claims she is?

Would that psycho sanctimommy from two doors down cause royal hell because her 3year old spawn has a sniffle and she's demanding antibiotics because MY BAAAAAAABY....

Or would that delightful chap from the next village pop in to try and get hold of something he's absolutely NOT been prescribed because of reasons the pharmacist can't divulge in a public place, but everyone knows anyway...

Yep. Your very own episode of EastEnders in your local pharmacy in Monkstown. Always a joy.

Your husband had finally parked the car and joined you, kissing your forehead as he took a seat next to you. Earning him a disapproving look from Mrs Jenkins, the neighborhood busybody who just HATED the fact your husband was ten years older than you, and delighted in pointing it out at every opportunity. Add to that the fact that you dated her son briefly in high school - ultimately leaving him when you went off to university to study Music Theatre in Galway after high school, yeah. She wasn't your biggest fan. She was even less impressed when you met Cillian during work experience while he was in a play there. You'd been together ever since, and married three months ago.

"You know, when you were of age your wife was barely double figures," she sneered at Cillian.

"Good to see your faculties are still in working order Mrs Jenkins," you sneered back, earning you a nudge from Cillian.

"She's only after your money Mr Murphy, I'd get out now before she ends up pregnant. You'll be stuck for life then."

"How do you know I'm not pregnant?" You smirked, feeling Cillian's eyes on the side of your head. She didn't even look at you, continued talking to him instead like you weren't even there.

"Then you're screwed financially now, aren't you Cillian? Silly girls like her only ever want one thing, and she'll drop you like a hot stone as soon as something better and younger comes along."

"You know, I think I preferred it when you called me Mr Murphy. Less friendly," he said, still smiling, albeit with a clenched jawline and gritted teeth.

He suddenly stood up and looked to you, telling you he'd wait in the car. You could tell he was angry, but there was something else behind his eyes you couldn't place. You glared at Mrs Jenkins, holding her stare until the old bat finally looked away and stuck her ugly interfering nose back in her book.

Your name was called, and you grabbed the small package quickly and left. Cillian was sat in the car, music on louder than necessary, that look still in his eyes. You climbed in and turned the volume down, opening the package to check the contents and grabbing the bottle of water from the centre console. Three days late taking your pill, you needed to get one in your system.

He grabbed your wrist suddenly, stopping you from taking the bottle, making you jump and look at him questioningly.

"What?" You asked, as he stroked your hand gently, teasing your fingers with his own. You couldn't help but smile.

"It's not true.. is it?" He asked, his eyes focussed on your fingers.

"What? What Mrs Jenkins said? Of course it's not true Cill - she's a stupid old nutcase with a long standing issue because I broke her baby's heart seven years ago."

"I mean about you being pregnant."

"Baby I've just picked up a three month supply of the pill. What do you think?"

"Okay." He still wouldn't make eye contact with you.

"Right. Spill Murphy. What's this really about?"

"It's just.. when you said it.. kinda got me thinking.."

"Thinking what?"

"Well she has a point. I'm not getting any younger."

"Stop with the riddles already!"

His hand moved from yours and up your arm, tracing small circles over the skin. You felt the heat in your abdomen just from his gentle caress, and he leaned closer to you. You leaned in too, his mouth so close to your ear you could feel his breath against it.

"Who's the only person who can make your pussy wet?" He whispered, and you inhaled sharply as his hand slid over your thigh, under your dress, suddenly gripping your crotch hard over your panties.

"Cillian... What are you doing?" You gasped glancing around the car park hoping no one could see you as his hand rubbed hard against the cotton material.

"Don't worry, I have a better location in mind for what I wanna do," he growled in your ear before leaning back and starting the car like he hadn't just made you nearly cum in your seat.

The drive lasted mere minutes, but it felt like hours. You drove out of Monkstown, away from the beach, towards a wooded area that you regularly took your dog for a walk. He took a left turn down a dirt track you didn't recognise, and pulled up in a deeply secluded area surrounded by trees. The road was a mile away at least, and no one was around at this late hour of the afternoon.

He got out of the car and opened your door, swinging your body around so your legs dangled out of the 4x4. Parting them, he stood between them and grinded his hips as close to yours as possible.

"Fuck, Cillian... What's gotten into you?!" You chuckled, as he squeezed your breasts over the dress, your breathing catching in your throat as he tweaked your nipples through your bra.

"The thought of you... Carrying my baby... Belly swollen, tits full, pussy filled to the fucking brim..." He groaned between thrusts of his still covered erection under his jeans against your core.

"So that's what you want, is it?" You gasped as his cock stroked your clit.

"More than anything, fuck I wanna put a baby in you..."

"Then I suggest you get on with it Daddy."

The look in his eyes suddenly turned feral - a flash of pure lust, and your panties were ripped from you in seconds. Your fingers working on his jeans as he hitched them down his legs. You knew anyone could walk by, but the risk turned you on so much you couldn't stop him now if you tried.

"Who owns this?" He asked, sliding two fingers deep into your pussy, rutting them up expertly.

"Fuck!!! You! You do, oh god..." You cried, as he clamped his hand over your mouth.

"Damn right I do pretty girl... And who's cock are you gonna cum over?"

"Yours... Yours..."

"Who's name you gonna be crying out when you do?" His fingers thrusting into you harder, his hand muffling your cries of ecstacy as you started to come undone.

"Who's baby are you gonna be carrying in that sweet little womb? Who's baby are you gonna be full of, making your belly and tits swell?"

Your eyes rolled back in your head as you came over his fingers with a loud groan against his hand. Your slick walls firing your cum over his arm as your body writhed on the seat. He spun you around, your body bent over the seat now as he thrust his hard length deep inside your still spasming walls. You gripped onto the centre console for support as his cock filled you, balls deep now, you could feel it throbbing, the thick vein pulsing.

"So tight, baby, so fucking tight..." He paused for a moment to enjoy the feeling of being buried inside unsheathed again - three days of condoms after seven years without had been... challenging.

You turned your head to look at him, biting your lip as he started to move.

"Fill me up, Daddy..."

He gave a loud, deep grunt as he thrust into you hard, his cock now hitting you fast. One hand on your lower back, the other on the door frame for leverage.

"Fuck.. fuck you feel so good.." he panted, his fingers digging so hard into the flesh of your ass, you could feel the bruises forming already.

"Harder baby, fuck... Harder!!" You begged, your release so close you could feel the burn in every nerve ending throughout your body.

He lost the ability to form words as he pounded you from behind - the car rocking so hard it was creaking.

Gripping onto the centre console, you almost screamed his name as you started to cum, clenching your walls over his cock, desperate for him to cum inside you.

"Gonna cum so deep... Fill that tight little pussy up good... that what my girl wants, huh?"

He suddenly pulled out, spinning you back round to face him, sitting upright on the seat before he slammed his cock back in. Your arms gripped his shoulders, your legs clamped around his waist as he picked up the pace again, pounding into you.

"Wanna see your face when I cum inside you... When I fill your pussy up..." His mouth hung open, his deep breaths and gasps filling your abdomen with more heat, another orgasm not far away. He took your hand and slid it between you.

"Play with your clit while I'm fucking a baby into you," he ordered, your fingers working yourself hard and fast. The seat below you was soaked with your combined juices by now, his hands had to hold you steady.

"Gonna.. baby I'm gonna..." His eyes closed, forehead resting on yours as you felt his cock pulsating between your walls.

You fell over the edge again, taking him with you this time. Ribbons of his cum filled you, you felt them hit your cervix, painting your inner walls white as he groaned deep from within his chest.

Staying inside for a few minutes as his cock softened, he closed his eyes to calm his breathing down. Both of you panting against each other.

"You mean it?" He asked, taking deep breaths to regulate himself.

"That I want your baby?"

"Yeah..."

"Nothing in the world would make me happier."

He chuckled, stroking your arms lightly.

"What's so funny?" You asked.

"Mrs Jenkins is gonna be pissed when she finds out this was her idea..."

#cillian murphy #cillian smut #cillian fanfic #cillian x fem!reader #cillian murphy x smut #cillian x smut #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian x oc #cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy x requests

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