Jon Bernthal Bts Of Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021)

Frank ‘ 😍 😍 😍 ’ Castle.

Care and Comfort

CW:  Richie being Richie, swearing. Angst and fluff. Mentions of Mikey's death and addiction.

Word Count:  2070

AN:  Requested by an anonymous person!

February 22.

It’s a tough day.  You’ve been with Richie long enough now—two years—to know what the date means.  What it is the anniversary of.  You came into Richie’s life after Mikey exited it, but you knew enough of your boyfriend’s best friend. 

What a charming, larger-than-life man he was.  Mikey Berzatto.  Mikey Bear.  Charismatic.  Filled the room with his presence, his stories, his ability to make a person feel like the most important person in the world.

Also an addict.  Also, probably, a narcissist. 

So it’s a tough day for Richie.  Mikey’s suicide blew a hole in the lives of those who loved him, and Richie loved Mikey like a brother.  Two years out from his death, Richie is no closer to any real closure:  he misses his friend.  He loves his friend.  He hates his friend for what he did, all the shitty behavior before he finally made a choice that couldn’t be taken back.

February 22 is the day that Richie’s feelings break loose like a storm.  He rages, he goes sulky and quiet.  He gets mad at Mikey, and because Mikey isn’t there, he lashes out at those closest to him.

You, namely.

But you can handle it.  What sort of girlfriend would you be if you didn’t help him weather these hard days?  Because you know, deep down, the person Richie is angriest at is himself:  that he didn’t see it coming, that he didn’t do more to help his friend.

-----

Your first year together, Richie was snappish.  He tried to start fights with you all day, and you—not understanding him completely—were too bewildered to rise to any bickering.  Your confusion took the fire out of him, and he spent the rest of the day maudlin, full of apologies, rife with terribly negative self-talk.

This year? 

This year, Richie is just sad.

He stays in bed past noon.  He gets up around one in the afternoon, wanders out into the living room of your shared apartment, then promptly plants himself beside you on the couch.

“How are you feeling?” you ask, soft.  You glance at him, take in the red-rimmed eyes, the deep lines etched between his brows.

He answers with a grunt, a non-committal noise.

“Hungry?”

Another grunt, and this one sounds sort of like a no or a nah.  A beat later, though, you hear the snarl of his stomach, and you laugh softly at it.

“Let me make you something.”

That, at least, earns you a grumble, a string of unintelligible words, but he doesn’t object when you stand up and make your way to the tiny kitchen.

-----

You’re no Carmy, and you’re no Sidney.  You’re no Tina or Marcus or Ebra.

Still, you can hold your own as a home chef.  You had a mother and a father who cooked, who taught you how to fry a chicken breast, how to make a simple fresh pasta, how to roast a piece of beef or pork.

So you can’t do a Hamachi crudo or a lamb ragu, but you can do comfort food.  Food that sticks to the ribs and warms a person from the inside out.  For Richie, on this difficult day?  You make him breakfast for early dinner or late lunch. 

You slice up the brioche you got earlier in the week and find it perfectly stale for French toast.  You put cinnamon and a pinch of cloves in the egg batter, fry up the slices to perfection.  You fry some bacon to the crispness Richie likes; you make a pile of buttery scrambled eggs with goat cheese and chives folded in.

You finish it all off with strong coffee in the French press, which Richie used to scoff at as needlessly fussy but now can’t live without.

You don’t bother to plate it nicely.  This isn’t the Bear, and no one is going to give you a star.  This is food as medicine, and you heap everything on a plate and carry it—along with silverware and the coffee—into the living room.

Richie has gone horizontal as you cooked, stretched out on the couch with his face to the back, but the scent of the food makes him turn a bit and glance up at you.

“Said I wasn’t hungry.”  He sounds peevish.

“Just have a bite or two.”  You set the silverware down with a clink, and Richie heaves a sigh, rolls over, sits up.  He doesn’t quite glare at you, but it’s glare-adjacent.  A slight narrowing of his eyes as he looks at you.

“Didn’t have to fucking do all of this.”  His voice has a rough edge, but you know him well enough to hear the faint thread of gratitude underneath all the gruffness.  Richie never knows how to handle being taken care of.  He’s used to being the one taking care of others:  his daughter, his ex-wife when they were still married.  Mikey’s mother, after Mikey’s suicide. 

He’s the real-life version of setting himself on fire to keep others warm, so he is always surprised when someone else cares for him.  Even if it’s something as ordinary as making him a comforting meal on a day when he’s too paralyzed by grief to feed himself.

-----

As you had guessed not hungry wasn’t true.  Once Richie gets a few bites into him, his appetite awakens and the plate is cleaned of crumbs in an appallingly short amount of time.

“Good?” you ask, and he mumbles a sheepish “thanks,” so you clear away the empty dishes, take them to the kitchen, rinse them off.

When you return to the couch, though, Richie is sitting up straight and gazing right at you.  He waits until you meet his eye, and then he says, slowly and deliberately, “thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He clears his throat, seems embarrassed by himself.  So much of his bluster and cockiness is an act, a smokescreen.  Richie is often insecure, chagrined by his own behavior, and you can guess that he’s berating himself for being curt with you earlier.  For dozing in bed for so long when the two of you have so few days together.

“Really didn’t have to do all that though, sweetheart,” he starts, and you wave him off.  You sit beside him, and he lifts his arm automatically, the gesture for you to tuck yourself against him, but you shake your head.  You settle against the corner of the couch, then pat your lap invitingly.

“C’mon, Jerimovich,” you tell him.  “Let me scratch your head.”

Your first impression of Richie is the most lasting one, even two years in.  He puts you in mind of a shelter dog—kicked and mistreated in some prior life, yearning for affection, baring his teeth at the thought of being kicked again. 

And like a dog, the man loves to be petted.  It’s not necessarily sexual; it’s the simple fact of human touch, the feel-good chemicals that release in his busy brain when you skate your fingertips over his bare skin, when you press your own body against his, when you scratch your nails over his scalp.

Which is what you do now.  You let Richie settle in your lap.  He tucks one arm underneath him, but he wraps the other over your thighs.  Once he’s situated, you just…pet him.  Scratch his head.  Sometimes you press your fingertips in the small muscles that go tense and bunched at the base of his skull, but mostly you just pet him.  Let the repetitive motion lull him, and you feel him relax against you little by little.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you ask after a long stretch of silence.  The T.V. is on, some true crime cop show, but it’s muted.  The only sounds are those of city living:  faint doors opening in the hallway of your apartment building, traffic in the street, the occasional gust of wind against the window.

“No.”

A beat, and then you ask him to tell you a story about Mikey.  It makes Richie sigh, and he starts with the well-worn story about Bill Murray, but you interrupt him.

“No, tell me a story from when you were kids,” you clarify.  “Tell me about Baby Mikey, and make sure there’s lots of Baby Richie.”

He chuckles against you, and it sounds warm.  Genuine.  He’s never said it, and you’ve never asked, but you can guess that it helps him somehow, when you ask for Richie stories in the guise of Mikey stories.  How you gently try to frame him as the main character in his own life instead of Michael Berzatto’s side-kick and sometimes-stooge. 

Now, Richie tells you a story from his high school days, and it’s his own story, and Mikey is just a supporting character, but an important one—a supporting character before the crush of adulthood, before Papa Berzatto took off and left Mikey as the man of the house.  Before the Beef as it skidded into bankruptcy, before the arson attempts and shell games with Unc’s money, before the pills and the dealing out of the alley, before whatever darkness in Mikey swallowed him up and put him on that bridge with a gun two years ago to the day.

It's a funny story, some prank on some stodgy old teacher, and Richie chuckles as he tells it.  You can hear his own darkness bleed out of his voice, can hear him remembering the good ol’ days instead of wallowing in the bad ones.  You can hear him remembering his friend who was more like a brother—remembering him in all his bright promise and not as he left.

The story ends, and then you hear it:  a weak sniffle.  You lay your palm over the curve of his skull, hold him, and think that a cry might do him good.  Richie holds so much in; tears might be healthy, might help him grieve Mikey in a more healthy way—

“I know it, you know,” he says against your lap, his voice thick with unshed tears. 

“Know what, baby?”  You wonder at what revelation he is going to share with you, what understanding in his own psychology or Mikey’s has come to him.

“I fucking know I don’t deserve you,” he replies, and it surprises you.  You gape wordlessly above him.  It wasn’t what you were expecting him to say.

“All this shit,” he explains.  “My life’s a fucking mess, and every year, I fall into this black hole and you have to pull me out.”

You smile down at where he’s settled in your lap, and you feel a wave of love for him wash through you.  Your boyfriend, Richard Lawrence Jerimovich.  Rough around the edges and then some, but underneath all that trauma and hurt lies the biggest heart you’ve ever seen.  A heart of gold.  A man who wants desperately to belong, to be loved, to be needed.

“You’re putting a lot of weight on have to,” you tell him.  “I don’t have to.  I want to.”

He shakes his head.  “Shouldn’t fucking have to or want to.”

“It’s just life, Richie.  It beats us up.  What’s the point if we don’t take care of each other when we’re feeling a little more beat up than usual?”

“You take care of me more than I take care of you.”

You scoff, and you resume scratching his head.  Dragging your nails through his short hair.  “Bullshit.”

“You do.”

“You keeping score on me, Jerimovich?”

He grumbles at that.  “You’re not keeping score?”

“In love?  Never.”

As usual, the mention of love makes him squirm.  Makes him uncomfortable.  He’s perfectly fine saying it to you, says I love you easily and without a bit of hesitation.  Hearing it said back to him, though?  That’s entirely different.

You say it as much as you can.  You let him squirm and be uncomfortable and you let each mention of your love for him chip away at those rough edges a little more, revealing more of that big heart of gold.

“I love you,” you tell him, and sure enough, he squirms again.

So you say it again and again, over and over, until he finally surrenders to it, sighs and nestles himself in your lap, and he mutters it back to you as he allows you to comfort him, to take care of him.  To love him.

Russian Into Love - Pt 1

Pairing: Alexei x fem!reader

A/n: (pls ignore the pun title, it was meant to be just a working title but I can’t think of anything better 😭) soooo this is the first part to a slow burn fake dating/marriage thing that I’ve had in my head since watching s3 of Stranger Things, I’m gonna be playing fast and loose with canon and idek if the s4 plot will be in this buuut I’m having fun writing it :)) pls feel free to comment and tell me what you think bc I personally love this and I want you all to love it too ❤️

(All Russian translations were taken directly from google translate so pls don’t attack me, attack mr google instead)

Wordcount: 2.9k

You were certain that you were going to lose your mind. It had been days since you had really looked at the sky, watched the clouds roll by like passing trains, and you were convinced that another day spent staring at the same faded floral wallpaper would be the death of you.

“Y’know, Murray, I’ve been thinking…” You began tentatively, not raising your eyes from the gossip magazine you had been pretending to read for quite some time.

“Sounds dangerous. Try not to do it again.” Murray dismissed without even looking up from the book he was wasting away his own time with. Ignoring his quip, you continued as though uninterrupted.

“I think we should go to California with Joyce and the kids.”

The idea had been playing on your mind for days, ever since you had learned that Hopper was gone. And after 4 days hiding in a motel room with Murray and the quiet Russian scientist, you were desperate for any opportunity to get out and as far away from these four walls as possible. Murray’s head snapped up from the book he was reading in the old armchair in the corner of the room, and Alexei’s eyes left the TV playing Loony Tunes to watch the conversation in interest.

“Oh? And why’s that?” Murray asked, his voice tinged with the familiar condescension that you had come to expect from him.

“Well, first off, if we have to stay in this motel much longer I think I might snap and start killing people. Secondly,” your tone softened slightly, “I’m worried about Joyce, and I think we should try to be close by.”

As Murray pondered your words, Alexei watched you both patiently while waiting for a translation. Murray knew as well as you did that with everything that had happened in the Starcourt mall and the subterranean Russian lab, Joyce had a lot to deal with right now, and while you both knew that she was capable of looking after herself, you just couldn’t stand the idea of her moving away on her own.

“As much as I may agree with you, we can’t go anywhere until Alexei’s green card situation is resolved.” Murray argued eventually.

“в чем дело?” [What’s going on?] Alexei asked, but before Murray could respond to him, you continued.

“Yeah, well, there is an easy way to deal with that. If Alexei wants to.” You said, and Murray’s head snapped up to look at you in obvious surprise.

It wasn’t the first time the idea had been brought up; Murray had mentioned marriage as a solution to Alexei’s citizenship situation on the very first day of your captivity, but it had been dismissed quickly because finding someone to marry Alexei would prove difficult, perhaps even impossible. So, Murray had moved his attention onto finding other ways to solve the problem, whereas you had been unable to stop thinking about it; it was such a simple solution, you were willing and as long as Alexei was too, you could soon see the other side of the motel room door.

“There is. Are you volunteering?” Murray asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“If it gets us out of this room, sure.” You replied, crossing your arms across your chest determinedly and trying to ignore the nervous pounding in your chest.

Murray’s gaze fixed on your face only intensified, his eyes narrowing as he regarded you closely from behind tinted glasses.

“I don’t think you’re taking this as seriously as you should be. Marriage is a big deal for most people, you know.” He explained with a frustratingly soft look on his features.

Wordlessly, you stood from your spot on the garish floral bedding and crossed the room to peer through a crack in the blinds. Both men watched you as you made a show of peering from left to right across the mostly empty car park.

“Nope, just as I thought, there’s no queue of men waiting for my hand in marriage.” You sighed dramatically and flopped back down on the bed, while Murray scoffed at your dramatics.

“Murray, что она сказала?” [Murray, what did she say?] Alexei asked again, and this time Murray answered.

“она предложила выйти за тебя замуж из-за грин-карты. и она хочет переехать в Калифорнию.” [She offered to marry you for your green card. And she wants to move to California.] He explained, and Alexei’s head spun quickly to stare at you, eyes wide behind his glasses.

“если мы поженимся, я стану гражданином США?” [If we marry, I’ll be an American citizen?] Alexei spoke, his eyes never leaving you.

You toyed anxiously with a loose thread on the bedding while Murray explained your idea to him. Alexei’s approval of this plan was the only thing coming between you and your escape from this room, so while being rejected by him wouldn’t be the biggest hit your ego had ever taken, it would mean staying here for longer. With the man that had rejected you.

“да. но вы также будете женаты на ней.” [Yes. But you’ll also be married to her.] Though you didn’t understand Murray’s words, you couldn’t miss the disdainful tone at the end and so you shot him a venomous look. Alexei looked thoughtful for a moment, still staring at you.

“это было бы не так уж плохо.” [That wouldn’t be so bad.] He said finally, and Murray let out a hearty laugh.

“What’s so funny?” You asked, jaw clenched at the sigh of Murray’s glee.

“He thinks it’s a good idea.” He stated, causing your heart to leap. It had been surprisingly easy for Murray to convince him, you thought absently. “I’m not taking you to buy a wedding dress, though.”

—————————————————

So just a few days later, after what you were sure must be the fastest, most pragmatic wedding ceremony ever held in Hawkins, you, Murray, and your new husband piled into Murray’s van with what few belongings you still had, and set off for California.

You were admittedly beginning to grow nervous about your plan; once you arrived in California, you and Alexei were moving into a small home under the half-correct guise of being a newly-wed couple moving into their first home together, while Murray had found a new base for his own work somewhere nearby. The nervous pit that bubbled in your chest had nothing to do with the prospect of living with Alexei, you had been living with him in that horrid motel room for over a week at this point and despite the close quarters, he had been a wonderful roommate. Instead, your nerves were flaring up the idea of being caught in the ruse you had agreed to live in for the forseeable future. Or at least, until Alexei met someone he wanted to really marry.

But as you watched the scientist eagerly watching the scenery go with his forehead practically pressed against the windows of the van, you felt your worries fade a little. His smile was infectious, and just existing around him was easy, as natural as breathing. Not to mention the fact that his English was improving steadily; faster than your Russian, luckily.

Just then, Alexei turned towards you and caught you staring. His face split into an ecstatic grin that you couldn’t prevent your own from mirroring.

“это так…тепло.” [It’s so…warm.] He said with a small chuckle, gesturing out of the window.

Even though you didn’t understand his words, his joy was simple and genuine, and you couldn’t stop yourself from grinning along with him. You didn’t even realise you had been staring at him until Murray coughed pointedly, drawing both of your attentions to him.

“Now, I know that this is all very exciting, but you two need to remember that to your neighbours, and friends, and coworkers, and everyone except for me and Joyce, you two are married.” Murray reminded for the hundredth time, enunciating his words with annoying precision as though you were rowdy children. He glanced past you at Alexei, and translated. “Вы должны вести себя так, как будто вы на самом деле женаты. Понять?” [You have to act like you’re actually married. Understand?]

With a glance in your direction, Alexei nodded. Murray turned his gaze on you, one eyebrow raised in that universally understood question: well? You huffed, avoiding his gaze.

“Yeah, sure. Are you gonna give me strict instructions on how to do that? A list of my wifely duties or something?” You questioned snarkily, and Murray tutted in response.

“No, actually, I thought maybe California might melt that icy heart of yours and you can figure out how to be affectionate on your own.” Ignoring your indignant noise, he continued. “Look, I’m not asking you to consummate this faux marriage, just try not to act like our comrade here repulses you too much.” He explained firmly.

“He doesn’t repulse me.” You replied entirely too quickly. Embarrassed heat flared in your cheeks and you ducked your head in the hopes that Murray would not notice; the chuckle he let out told you that he did notice.

When the van finally pulled into the driveway of your new home, set against the late afternoon sky, you hopped out of the back of the van excitedly. It was a relatively small two-story house, with houses on either side that looked like the epitome of suburbia; beige buildings with pristine gardens, even complete with a white picket fence. The mundanity made you want to retch, but instead you focused on your own home and allowed yourself to pretend for a moment that it was real, that it could ever be real for you.

Suddenly, a large hand was in yours, and it raised your hand to Alexei’s lips for him to press a kiss to the back. You stared at him in utter confusion for a second, before he nodded surreptitiously behind him, in the direction of a neighbours house.

In a window at the front of that house, you could see a tanned, blonde woman peering through her curtains, watching your arrival as subtly as she could. Sending her a friendly wave and a smile that you hoped looked genuine, you scoffed lightly.

“Nosy neighbours. Fantastic.” You murmured, mostly to yourself. Alexei watched you with a faint smile, before pulling you eagerly towards your new home.

Together, though no longer holding hands, you explored the house; Alexei was simply delighted by the small pool in the backyard, and you were pleased to find the kitchen already equipped with a fridge and oven. Then you ventured up the stairs and found four doors, behind which were a linen closet, a hideously beige tiled bathroom, and thankfully, two bedrooms, both already furnished with basic double beds.

You glanced at Alexei and he met your gaze with a half smirk, both of you seemingly grateful to not have to share a bed in order to protect your newly-wed image. He entered one of the rooms wordlessly and you entered the other, one with a window overlooking the back yard, and dropped your backpack on the floor at the foot of the bed. You couldn’t help the sigh of relief that slipped past your lips; all things considered, the house was nice. Murray had really showed you some mercy with the two bedrooms, too. You had almost been expecting him to make this as uncomfortable as possible, just to spite you for being a constant thorn in his side.

“Alright, lovebirds, I’m leaving!” Murray called up the stairs, and you stepped out onto the landing to see him standing at the bottom of the staircase.

“Wait, we don’t have any groceries and I’m starving, you’re leaving me here without food on my wedding night?” You asked in faux incredulity, to which Murray rolled his eyes.

“There’s a flyer for a pizza place by the front door, will that be adequate for the blushing bride?” He asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” You waved off his snide comment with a dismissive scoff. “You’re coming back tomorrow though, right?”

“Yes, I’m coming back tomorrow to take you and loverboy to buy a car. Hopefully, that’ll stop you from bugging me to take you places.” Murray replied with another roll of his eyes.

Before you could respond with a quip of your own, Alexei stepped out of his bedroom and onto the landing beside you. He and Murray exchanged words in quick fire Russian, before Alexei nodded, and brushed past you with a gentle smile into the bathroom.

“I just told your dearly beloved to be ready to go at 10am tomorrow. You’d better not make me wait.” Murray explained, waving a finger at you as though you were a naughty child.

“Would I do that?” You asked as innocently as you could, fighting back a smile as Murray began to walk away.

“You would and you have, repeatedly. Don’t make me leave you behind.” His final warning, only intended half jokingly, rang out as the sound of the front door closing signalled Murray’s departure.

Breathing out a slight chuckle, you tried to ignore the ache in your chest that already missed Murray and his quick wit; although you had always argued with him and seemingly done everything within your power to irritate him, you and he both knew that it was all in good fun. After years spent alone, you both had found verbal sparring partners within each other, and the few short years you had lived with him had been the happiest that you could remember.

You remained in place on the landing, absorbed in your thoughts, until the sound of running water reminded you of Alexei’s presence in the bathroom. The realisation that he was there, just on the other side of the dark wooden door beside you, and presumably about to shower, sent a cold jolt though your veins and before you could think about it you were darting away from the bathroom door and bolting down the stairs as quickly as you could.

Since your living room was totally devoid of furniture, you elected to sit outside in the back yard beneath the late afternoon sun as it slowly dipped towards the horizon. Lying on your back on the warm ground, you kicked off your shoes and allowed your feet to dangle in the pool, relishing in the coolness of the water around your ankles as you gently kicked your feet. With your eyes closed, you allowed yourself a single moment of peace and serenity before what you were certain would be a busy week, with your new house to be fully stocked and decorated.

The only thing that signalled Alexei’s arrival by your side was the shadow that he cast over your face, the sudden darkness prompting your eyes to open. He stood, towering above you, with damp curls and that same cheery smile across his face.

For an evil genius Russian scientist, he sure does look friendly, you found yourself thinking.

“Hi,” You said, peering up at him as a smile began to unfurl across your own face.

“Hello.” He said, his accent distorting the word slightly.

Carefully, he lowered himself to sit on the ground beside you, his own feet dangling in the pool beside yours. For a moment he was silent, and you attempted to settle back into the peaceful moment you had found just before, until you were again disrupted by a gentle prod to your cheek.

You opened your eyes to see Alexei, now propped up on an elbow so that he was almost lying beside you, holding a flyer in front of your face. After some squinting, you recognised it as the pizza place flyer Murray had mentioned, for a place called Surfer Boy Pizza.

“You’re hungry?” You asked, tilting your head up towards him. He nodded.

“Da.”

“Alright,” you replied, happy with the simple exchange, and unfolded the flyer to read the menu, “let’s order something then.”

As you were reading through the topping options, Alexei leaned further down over you to point a finger at one of the pictures on the flyer, a picture of a fresh, greasy, pepperoni pizza.

“Say?” He said, looking down at you intently.

As you looked back up at Alexei, his face was cast in shadow from the late afternoon sun behind him, making his features difficult to make out clearly, but you were fairly certain that he was staring intently at your lips. You froze, fixed in place by his watchful gaze. The whole world seemed to stand still for a long moment before you regained the ability to speak.

“P-pizza?” The word came out as a question, and heat flared in your cheeks as he grinned.

“Pizza.” He repeated.

Oh. The pronunciation.

“Y-yeah, pizza.” You repeated, breathing a slight sigh of relief when he finally turned his attention away from you again. “Um. Okay.”

You rose shakily to your feet, the flyer trembling in your grip.

“I-I’m gonna, uh, just, um, go? Inside? And…order pizza? Yeah, um…okay.” And with that, you darted back into the house without a glance back at the man sitting, looking very confused, at the edge of the pool.

The cool indoor air did nothing to soothe the burning in your cheeks after your unbelievably awkward exit, though it was a relief to no longer have Alexei staring at you. The memory of his attention focused so intently on you made you want to curl up in a ball; it had been as though he was the first person to ever truly look at you, and it had made you feel vulnerable in a way you hadn’t in a long time, not even with Murray.

Before you could allow your thoughts to delve too far into what that could mean, you snatched the phone from the receiver and punched in the number with more force than strictly necessary.

When Skeen said "I don't have a brother" ????

Top ten anime bretayals

Joel Miller x reader blurb: Joel is a sweetly nervous wreck on your first date

Guys? This? This----

That's 100% tipsy DILF Joel Miller going on his first proper date in a long while and he's super nervous and wants to make a good impression and so he arrives early and pounds merlot before his date gets there. Bullet point head canon fluff below. Thanks to @ozarkthedog for encouraging my nonsense. 😘

Word count: 550ish

Pairing: DILF disaster dater Joel Miller x f!reader

Unedited, unbeta'd etc. No warnings used, nothing beyond sweet disaster dater Joel Miller really.

Putting it out into the world unformed so we can all have a lil' indulgent daydream.

He's trying' to get back in the dating game

(like yeah he gets laid but DATING is scary)

Sarah is off to college and before she does (he's fucking mortified but appreciative) she helps him set up dating apps

and he's mostly horrified at having to interact with strangers lmao

and how some women are just straight in with sexting and he's a bit skittish and been a bit single for that

(with a stranger at least. Joel is slut when it's intimate)

but he's talking to a nice lady (that's you, babe!) and she’s funny and nice and seems real

So they arrange a 'big' 'proper' first date

and Joel wants to make a good impression

He picks a nice restaurant where Joel’s gonna have to wear a suit jacket

and he's sooo nervous

and Reader is too

But Joel doesn’t clock it, all he sees when you walk in is a vision in a beautiful, enticing dress perfectly suited to the venue, while he feels like a cater-waiter in his button down and sport coat

Meanwhile he turned up nearly 20 minutes early

and now he's flushed from downing nearly 2 glasses of wine in quick succession

and you both order dinner and there are some awkward starts and stops to conversation. But you're both kind and want the date to succeed, so you both take turns fumbling to fill the few awkward silences

He picks wine instead of anything harder because he wants to be present

He's trying to be a GENTLEMAN

he REALLY likes you

dinner is delicious and the waiter brings the dessert menu. And nothing on it even looks nice, even though you have a massive sweet tooth, and certainly don't want the night with Joel to end

"This all looks a bit fancy and not very sweet," you suggest putting the menu down. 

So you say"shall we get the bill?" 

Joel's heart drops cuz he doesn't want the night to end, but you clearly do and how did he fuck up so bad, of course you were just seeing the date through to the end cuz you’re nice and polite and—

Then you carry on "Do you want to go get gelato? There's a really good place around the corner."

and then his heart soars when you suggest gelato

Like Ozzie said, he’s like a “teenage girl totally lovestruck”

Joel flags down the waiter so fast and there’s a tussle for the check, and he only agrees to split the check when you acquiesce  to let him buy you gelato. 

You stroll down the street and the summer night is warm and the dark envelops you. You and Joel get your gelatos and sit down on a park bench, chatting merrily away, the awkwardness of the night forgotten as conversation flows. 

Joel pointed out you had some ice cream on your face and when you kept missing it with swipes of your napkin, he licks his thumb, swipes it at the corner of your mouth, and popped the digit between his own lips. 

It was only when you gawped at him that he realized what he’d done without thinking, and took his thumb out from between his plump lips. 

“God, I’m so sorry, that was---” You shut him up by lunging at him and licking the taste of your ice cream out of his mouth. 

++the end++ 

I love one (1) man, and it's nervous DILF Joel Miller: