ventafaxine

ventafaxine || she/her || 23 || entp || 7w6 || aquarius || writer on ao3 || goldrose

📚 ao3

📚 White Coffee / one-shot / original story / explicit / light bdsm

📚 Them Changes (✅) / goldrose / angst&comfort

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9 - comment on the chapter

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15 - comment on the chapter

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Hello! Welcome to my blog where I'm supposed to keep you updated on my writing adventures!

(i'm not lol)

The song is so soothing but so is the music video. I love being black and in those horrible times where anti-blackness is downplayed all around the world, seeing all those beautiful people thriving makes me as teary as it makes me happy.

And I love Dave and Tems' chemistry. They're like friends who might happen to be lovers. I'm obsessed.

And Tems is so beautiful in a way that makes me want to be beautiful myself, far from Western beauty standards. Beautiful as the way ENNY raps about Peng Black Girls. Beautiful like my mom, like my aunt, like my cousins, like my grandma.

Benson took no offence, quite the opposite. His kisses sank lower, leaving the cheek to trace a path down the jawline and settle on the neck. Leon allowed it, too kind of a king, tilting his head to give Benson more of himself. He ran his fingers through his blond curls, keeping him close.

“I’m hungry. Feed me.”

Pairing: Joe Goldberg x Rhys Montrose Summary: Joe could have been obsessed with Guinevere Beck. Instead, the universe introduced him to Rhys Montrose. Main tags: AU - Different First Meeting, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Intimacy, Trauma (processing?) Completion Status: FINALLY FINISHED Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 16

Chapter 17:

“I’m ready.”

This is a lie, but you don’t need to know I’m lying, Rhys.

So, I get up from the bench, thinking I might be able to convince both of us that I am ready by acting as if I am. Fake it till you make it, that’s the spirit. But you look up at me with the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, and the cutest frown I’ve ever seen, and I know you don’t believe me. But you get up too. Your hands found my shoulders, and you smile, but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“Sure.”

You smooth out my jacket and remove something—a hair perhaps— out of it. It distracts you for a bit. And then you stop. You look to your right, at the building I’ll be heading to soon. You take a deep breath and look at me with a more convincing smile. Sad, but real. The frown is still here.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

I smile.

“I think I’d lose my nerve if you did.”

I love the sound you make, chuckling. I, too, have a question for you, Rhys, before we part for good. I look down at the shoe box in my hands. I’m as uncomfortable holding it as I am asking you that question, once again.

“Are you sure you don’t want to see what’s in there?”

Pairing: Joe Goldberg x Rhys Montrose Summary: Joe could have been obsessed with Guinevere Beck. Instead, the universe introduced him to Rhys Montrose. Main tags: AU - Different First Meeting, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Intimacy, Trauma (processing?) Completion Status: FINALLY FINISHED Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 15

Chapter 16:

DRAFT – A GOOD MAN IN A CRUEL WORLD

No one is born a drug addict. It just so happens that when a government decides to underfund its poorest cities, buying heroin becomes—surprise, surprise—much more affordable to most than mental health care. I know: unbelievable. I learned that lesson at my expense when I was fifteen. It would take six more years before I realised that no one was born a drug dealer, either. But by that time, I had already killed one.

His name was Bell Franklin. I found it out after his death—after I killed him, really. Until then, I had known him under his nickname: Little. Everyone who bought heroin in East London knew Little. I got in touch with him through a friend of a friend. The same friend of a friend who introduced me to heroin to cope with my anger issues. During our first meeting, Little hadn’t seemed in the least bit surprised to see a stunted teenager handing him £10 for a dose while shaking like a leaf. He was a young man himself, barely into his twenties, and it wasn’t his job to prevent youth from doing drugs. In fact, the sooner the impressionable minds start, the better the business will be. And he needed the business to be fruitful for the only teenager he did care about: his sister, Shelley Hill.

Pairing: Joe Goldberg x Rhys Montrose Summary: Joe could have been obsessed with Guinevere Beck. Instead, the universe introduced him to Rhys Montrose. Main tags: AU - Different First Meeting, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Intimacy, Trauma (processing?) Completion Status: in progress... Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

Chapter 15:

Joseph could not remember the last time he had shed so many tears. As far as he remembered, adults had always described him as a sensitive boy, in touch with his feelings, sometimes as a strength, most of the time as a weakness. His father would mock him for crying after getting injured; the kids at the group home would beat him up for expressing anything else than apathy; Mooney would slap him for drifting away from his backward conception of a real man. Of course, his mother had seen the beauty in wearing your heart on your sleeve, and Nurse Fiona had saluted his empathy; even Candace, at first, would fall for his emotional side.

However, over time, Joseph had learned to hide the part of himself that made it too easy for people to hurt him. Tears of sorrow had been replaced by wordless stares. Cries of anger had been traded for thin smiles. Stuttering of terror had been silenced behind a forged confidence. Each of his emotions had been toned down, buried deep, deep down in his guts—from where they would sometimes rage, hurting his own body.

And yet, unknowingly, Rhys Montrose had unearthed over twenty years of pent-up emotions.

Well, first, I was really caught up in my third bachelor year in Law (which I still failed, yipee). I learned a ton of things about society and who I wanted to be in our system (oh, and I also stopped believing in the law, which is kind of ironic after studying the matter for more than three years, lmao).

This is directly linked to my second point, which is: the state of the world was and still is very much shitty. I don't need to spell it out to you: you've seen my last chapter (which is chronologically not the last chapter since I published it in May 2024) or even, I don't know, the news. I think part of me needed to take action, however small, in the real world. I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here, really, I'm just saying that I did not have the force to engage in my passion—writing—in peace anymore.

So, I participated in protests. I volunteered. I joined committed student circles. With their help, I organized a month against discrimination in my university. I wrote my final thesis in English, on the power of social movements to change society for the better, more efficently than the judiciary. I read books on sociology, and read books on politics, and read books on history, and gosh, did I miss reading! At the end of the school year, I was drained and had to delete social media because the never-ending flow of bad news was becoming too much. But now, I think I have found some kind of balance. Besides, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine proposed to create an anti-racist and decolonial circle at my university this year, and you BET I joined him right on the spot! You bet I'm back being an activist—I've never ceased to be one—but I'm also back being an artist—I've never ceased to be one. I think in a way I'm trying to say that you, too, at your level, can somewhat contribute to shaping a fairer society. I swear you can. I swear we can.

Finally, I faced a lot in my private life too. Still am. But I think...things are getting better? Oh, and also, I'm thin-skinned, and thought nobody cared anymore about my writings, so I guess it was easier to leave it there? But you know what? I care. I do care about that story, and it deserves a proper end. And I want to be proud of myself for finishing it (famous last words lol). Besides, it's truly unfair not to consider everyone who left a kudo or a comment, bookmarked or subscribed. I'm truly grateful to y'all.

So yeah, we are so back, chat. See you in October at the most to read what should either be the last chapter or the one before (you already know the song, right?).

Take care people, xoxo

Pairing: Joe Goldberg x Rhys Montrose Summary: Joe could have been obsessed with Guinevere Beck. Instead, the universe introduced him to Rhys Montrose. Main tags: AU - Different First Meeting, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Intimacy, Trauma (processing?) Completion Status: in progress... Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11

Chapter 12:

“Did you always want to own a bookstore?”

“I’d say I’ve always wanted to work with books.”

The two men were lying on their stomachs, side to side, arms folded beneath their heads. One was resting his eyes, worn out by the previous rounds, yet not opposed to testing his limits, the other was fighting to keep his eyes open, admiring the features of his partner. Joe did not need to see; he could hear the genuine interest —and the fatigue setting in. He carried on his explanation to satisfy the author’s curiosity. He sounded just as tired.

“When I was younger, I wanted to be a professor. A literature professor. Have my own class of students who would’ve chosen my course just because they heard it was easy and bore them for two hours with a lecture on the meaning of…blue curtains in books or something.”

The detailed scene earned the bookworm a soft chuckle from the writer.

“I could be wrong but you sound quite inspired by this life perspective. Why is it you’re selling books, then, instead of…teaching their secrets?”

A bitter laugh came in response.

“Well, Uncle Sam isn’t as generous as the Queen of England regarding the cost of education, Rhys.”

The cost of going to college was undoubtedly the main reason preventing millions of people from pursuing their education in the United States. Scholarships and financial aid were not guaranteed and did not cover the cost of a bachelor’s degree. [Imagine doing a PhD in this economy.] A loan could provide the remaining sum but would inevitably lead to a debt to reimburse in a dozen years, regardless of the completion of the degree. Most families would save money in advance to relieve their children in case the time came, but Joe knew his parents could not afford to spare money.

Money could have, though.

My name is Mahmoud, and I'm a 17-year-old from Gaza. The ongoing war has devastated my city, destroyed my school, and made daily life incredibly challenging.

Despite these hardships, I'm determined to continue my education and build a better future. I've been given a chance to study abroad, but I need help to cover the costs of leaving Gaza, as well as living expenses and other essentials abroad once the crossing opens.. 🙏

If you can, please consider donating or sharing, your kindness can truly make a difference, and thanks for your time. ❤🍉

https://gofund.me/bd3ccf0b 🔗

Hello Mahmoud,

I’m really touched by your story :) I’ll put your post on my page and give what I can. I’ll be really happy to follow your progress and I hope you’ll be able to pursue your study!

Pairing: Joe Goldberg x Rhys Montrose Summary: Joe could have been obsessed with Guinevere Beck. Instead, the universe introduced him to Rhys Montrose. Main tags: AU - Different First Meeting, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Intimacy, Trauma (processing?) Completion Status: in progress... Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10

Chapter 11:

It would go down as a night to remember. A night of thousand and one shared pleasures. A night that would stay engraved in their hearts.

Countless times before the sunrises on the streets of New York, chasing away the darkness and its secrets, two men who had been nothing but strangers for almost three decades had considered and reconsidered the beauty of sexual intimacy, far from the fear of being seen, the shame of their carnal desires, and the anxiety to perform.

Good heavens, how long had it been since sex had ever felt this good?

They had sex, one, two, three times — or at least three is the number of memories Joe would hold on to in the morning — with shorter or longer pauses in between. Ten minutes, thirty minutes, one hour, not in this particular order. Each passing second seemed to raise their hunger, leaving them craving more, more, more.

In another universe, under another form of life, perhaps they would have sunk into each other…