#//now he's going to do what deadbeat dads do best and leave

[ascheming]

"Very good," Starscream all but purrs.

Satisfied that Blades isn't going to injure himself with the weapon, he withdraws and begins the arduous process of checking himself for fleas counting his children.

Once content, he says, "You can keep the gun. Practice makes perfect -- or something of that nature."

Blades did his best to stand how he was instructed and, most importantly, hold the gun properly, letting himself be poked and prodded into place. His rotors give a twitch at the slight tingling sensation. "Ok. Alright this isn't so hard."

Ok. Now all he had to do was aim at the rock again and fire. Easy peasy. Now he knew what he was doing! Kind of. Maybe.

Now that he had a better idea of how the recoil of the gun was, it didn't knock him onto his rear. It still made him wince a little as it kicked against his shoulder. He didn't hit the rock, instead hitting the ground directly next to the rock, but hey! It was progress! "I did it! I missed but I did it!"

[whytheylosttheirminds]

Juno - JJ Maybank

(one-shot, boyfriend!jj x reader, 4.1k words)

summary: You've built a beautiful little life with JJ, but his wild past and your trust issues keep you guarded. When a storm hits the island, you gain the perspective you need to take the next step.

content: fluff/smut, mentions of drinking and smoking. 18+ minors do not interact

When you met JJ, he was wild. Smoking, drinking, surfing - it was all he knew. You were new to the island and attending your first party at the Boneyard when he saw you standing by the keg, laughing with some friends, and his world turned upside down.

From that day on, he asked you out every time he saw you, relentlessly flirting with you. But you had heard about his reputation before your boxes were even unpacked, and you were far too cautious of a person to jump into something with someone like him quickly.

“You don’t give up, do you, Maybank?” You asked him about a year in, after he begged you to leave a party with him for the hundredth time.

“Usually I do, actually,” he leaned in so you could feel his warm breath against your lips, your heart rate spiking. “Just never wanted anything this bad.”

After that night, he had you. When you were a little older and out of school, and after months of begging from JJ, you moved in with him. You rented a little house on The Cut together, it wasn’t anything impressive, falling apart inside and outside, but with you waitressing and him working hourly for a landscaping service, it was all you could afford.

You had never been so anxious about anything as you were to move in with JJ. Your own parents were a disaster, your dad leaving before you could walk, and you grew up watching your mother’s revolving door of deadbeat men disappoint her over and over. Even though you knew JJ was infinitely better than even the best of those men, you had trust issues you couldn’t shake. You didn’t tell JJ about your concerns, not wanting him to take them personally, but he noticed the way you’d toss and turn in your shared bed, twisting your hair in your fingers with worry. 

He swore to himself he’d never let you down the way those other men did. He worked his way up at the landscaping business until he was a manager. Eventually, after giving up partying so you could both pick up a few extra shifts, you had made enough combined to put a deposit down and buy the house you shared. You both picked up second jobs at the Island Club, you’d bartend while he parked cars. When you got home each night, you’d pool your tips, counting them before adding them to the glass jar labeled “Dream House.” On the rare occasion you both had a day off, you’d sit in a lawn chair and keep him company while he fixed the roof, or lay on the bathroom floor while he installed the big claw-foot tub you’d wanted since you were a little girl. Bit by bit, he turned what you loving called The Shitshack into your Dream House.

Even though you were both exhausted at the end of every day, you always made time for each other. You’d split a $5 bottle of wine while playing Uno on the living room floor. Or you’d cook his favorite meals for him while he sat at the counter, your dutiful taste tester. After particularly rough shifts, you’d take a bath, JJ leaning back into you as you rubbed his shoulders and he massaged your calves and feet. 

Those nights would always lead to the two of you tangled up in your bed, or the shower, or on the floor. The beauty of owning your own home was that there was not one place - or position - you hadn’t tried. When you were first together, you had to talk JJ through pleasuring you, no girl ever being as honest with him as you were. He made you promise you’d never fake it with him, and you didn’t, patiently telling and showing him exactly what you wanted. He studied dutifully, storing away every single word you said. Now, you didn’t have to tell him anything, he knew exactly what to do. Hell, he knew your body better than you did.

“Just sit back and relax, baby girl, I got you,” he’d say, smiling coyly as you inevitably came undone for him in minutes.

Every night, whether you’d had sex or just talked about your days, he’d hold you until you fell asleep. And every night, without fail, he’d ask you to marry him. You’d just kiss him and tell him you loved him, falling asleep a few moments later. He didn’t take it personally, he understood why you were hesitant, and he’d wait until you were old and gray if that’s what you needed.

. ⋆ * .♡ *:･.   ݁  ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * .♡ *:･.   ݁  ˖ ࣪ ..   ݁  ˖ ࣪ . ⋆ * .♡ *:･. ˖ ࣪ .

This was the first night in a long time JJ held you in bed and didn’t propose. A tropical storm was raging outside your little house, winds making the walls sway and rain pounding against the windows so hard you think they might break. You’re shaking in JJ’s arms, you’ve always hated storms and this is the worst one that’s hit the island in a long time. He pulls the covers over your head and wraps his strong arms around you tightly, trying to drown out the noise of the storm with soothing words.

“It’s gonna be okay, love,” he promises. “I’m not gonna let anything bad happen. ‘S just a little rain, it’ll pass.”

Even though you were terrified, his confident words were enough to lull you into sleep sometime in the early morning. When you wake up, JJ isn’t in bed next to you. Sun is peeking through the crack in the curtains and the sound of birds chirping has replaced the thunder. You pull on your robe and slippers and shuffle out of the bedroom. 

You brew yourself some coffee, thankful the power is still on, and walk around the house to check for leaks or damage. There isn’t a single problem. You sigh in relief, beyond grateful for all the hard work JJ had put in to make the house so safe. 

Suddenly, you hear voices coming from outside the screen door. You look out to see commotion up and down the street, you set your coffee down and step outside, eyes wide as you take in the storm’s aftermath. You realize with dismay that you and JJ were the only house on the block that seemed untouched. Every other yard was riddled with debris, roofs were damaged, windows broken.

You spotted JJ across the street, helping a neighbor lift heavy branches off of his car. Feeling helpless, you hurried back into the house and pulled out everything you had in the pantry and fridge, making sandwiches and cutting up veggies, loading up the back of JJ’s landscaping van with the food. You parked the van at the end of the street and handed out the food and drinks to everyone, creating a makeshift block party, while JJ made his way house to house to see how he could help with the damage. 

You try to listen as your neighbors discuss the volume of the thunder and share stories of past storms, but you couldn’t help the way your eyes kept drifting back to JJ. He looked so strong and capable, lifting heavy branches, boarding up broken windows, clearing debris. Every neighbor he helped was left laughing, their smiles wide as he eased their worry by just being him. 

Once it starts to get dark, you and JJ invite everyone over for a bonfire and cookout in your backyard. You’re sitting by the fire, watching with adoration as JJ plays tag football with all the kids. He purposely let them win, making them feel like they were ten feet tall. They all dogpile on him in excitement and you laugh along with all the other adults, shaking your head lovingly.

One of the young moms in the neighborhood you had come to know fairly well sits next to you, smiling knowingly as she watches you watch him.

“It’s really none of my business,” she says to you quietly, “but why aren’t you two married?”

You don’t look away from JJ as you respond, “y’know, I had a reason, but I can’t seem to remember what it was.”

After everyone has left, the yard is a mess of solo cups and the fire still burns. You look around and sigh, you’ve been cooking and helping people all day, and you didn’t realize how exhausted you were after getting so little sleep last night. You start to pick up, yawning as you bend down to pick up something off the ground. You feel JJ’s arms around your waist, hugging you tightly. You lean back into him and sway as he places a kiss on your cheek.

“Loved watching you today,” he says, his voice low. “Cooking for everyone, making sure everyone was okay. You’re such a good person, baby.”

You smile at his praise. “I learned it from you,” you say sweetly.

“Nah, babe, you got that the wrong way around,” he laughed. “You think the me you met five years ago would’ve been out here helping people clean up? I would’ve taken one look around and gotten the hell out of here.”

You smile at this, knowing he was right, picturing eighteen-year-old JJ grabbing his board and peeling out of the neighborhood at the first sight of trouble.

“You made me a better man,” he says, his tone serious now.

You lift one of his hands up to your lips, kissing his knuckles affectionately. He holds you for a long while as you look up at the stars, the night clear and calm after the storm.

“I drew you a bath,” he breaks the silence.

“Thank you, but I have to clean up,” you say, breaking from his hold and looking around the messy yard.

He just takes the trash from your hand and shakes his head, “I’ve got it, love. You don’t want your bath to get cold and waste the water.”

You smile at him, knowing his play. “You turned it on before telling me so I couldn’t say no.”

He doesn’t deny it, just kisses you on the cheek and starts picking up more empty paper plates and cups.

The bath water was perfect when you got in, your favorite candle already lit and some soft music playing. Your heart squeezed at JJ’s thoughtfulness as you relaxed into the warm water and let it wash away the day.

From your spot in the tub, you could see JJ in the yard, lit by the moon as he poured water over the fire to put it out. You felt suddenly emotional, overwhelmed by the deepest affection for him. You thought about his comment that you’d made him a better man. It was true that he’d grown so much in the last five years, but you couldn’t take all the credit. Maybe you were the reason he’d begun the journey, but he got to this destination all on his own. No one worked harder than him, or loved harder, or played harder. He provided for you, while still acknowledging how hard you worked, too. He encouraged all your dreams, listened to all of your anxious ramblings, laughed at all your stupid jokes. He never missed the chance to tell you how smart, beautiful, and special you were. He was selfless, always putting your needs before his. Even when you’d fight, he never walked away, never let the night end without trying to come to an understanding, only sleeping on the couch when he knew what you needed most was space. He’s proven to you over and over that he’s become the man you need.

You’re pulled from your thoughts when you hear the bedroom door open and shut. You hear JJ shuffle around in the bedroom for a bit before settling, surely not wanting to interrupt your relaxation. It hits you all at once, finally finding the answer he’s been wanting from you for years.

You drain the tub and stand at the sink,running your hands through your hair and dabbing on a little lipgloss. You rub vanilla scented lotion into your skin, JJ’s favorite. You walk over to the walk-in closet he built for you, digging through the drawers until you find a new pair of pink lace panties and its matching bra and garter set that he hasn’t seen you in yet.

When you slowly open the bathroom door and step into the bedroom, JJ is sitting on the bed in only his boxers, leaning against the headboard as he scrolls on his phone.

“Babe, you need to see these videos of the swells this morning,” he tells you, eyes still fixed to his phone as you start to walk slowly toward the bed. “We gotta get out there tomorrow.”

“Whatever you want, baby,” you purr.

He looks up the sound of your sultry voice, eyes immediately widening at the sight of you in your lingerie. He sits up, moving to the side of the bed and throwing his phone behind him, not even caring when it bounces off the mattress and onto the floor with a crash.

“Damnnnn,” he whistles at you playfully, making your cheeks heat up as you giggle.

“You like it?” You do a little twirl for him.

He looks you up and down hungrily, his chest rising and falling in heavy breaths. He hooks his finger and motions for you, “get over here.”

A rush of excitement flows through you, straight to your core, and you saunter over to him. He spreads his knees apart so you can stand in front of him, between his legs. He looks up at you, his eyes burying into yours as he slowly reaches his hand up to rest on your hip.

“I love it,” he places a soft kiss onto your stomach and you feel goosebumps shoot up all over your skin. He kisses you a few more times before pulling back slightly to mumble, “it’s too bad I’m gonna have to rip it off.”

You moan softly at the feeling of his soft lips grazing over the sensitive skin right above the waistband of your panties. Before he can go any further, you grab his face in both hands and lift his gaze back up to yours.

“You first,” you whisper. 

JJ’s lips spread in a wicked smile, and you instinctively press the pads of your thumbs into his dimples. You lean down to place a quick kiss to his lips before saying, “lay down.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says eagerly as he scrambles back to lean against the headboard.

You slowly climb over him, your knees on either side of his lap, and ever so slightly drop your hips, your core ghosting over his clothed cock. At the slightest contact, he groans, unable to help himself but attach his lips to your neck. He sucks on the sensitive skin for a moment, before running his tongue over the same spot.

“Mmmm, you taste like vanilla,” you smile at the warmth in his words.

“Put on that lotion you like,” you explain as you grind down on him again, just a little harder this time.

“God,” he groans. “You’re so good to me.”

“Not as good as you are to me,” you smile down at him as you start rolling your hips in a steady rhythm. He throws his head back, reveling in the feeling of you, fingers digging into your hips to guide you to continue grinding. You place soft, wet kisses on his neck and chest, offering him a praise between each one. 

“You make me so happy…treat me so well…fuck me so good…make me come so hard…make me so fucking horny…”

His dick twitches in his boxers at the sound of your dirty talk. You continue moving your kisses down his abs, backing up your body to reach lower with each one. 

“Fuck, angel,” he chokes out, “you got me so hard.”

You look up at him with a smirk, you’re between his legs now, face inches from the waistband of his boxers, you arch your back so your ass sticks up behind you, giving him a perfect angle of your body. 

“Can I taste you, J?” You pout, as if he’d ever say no.

“Mhm, do whatever you want,” he pants, brushing your hair back from your face and tucking it behind your ear. Even when he has you in this position, he’s sweet, taking care of you.

“All I want is to make you happy,” you tell him, your intent was to sound sexy, but you can’t help the bit of emotion that creeps in, realizing how true your words are on so many levels.

He sits up when he notices the way your brow is drawn together in sincerity. He kisses your forehead and whispers, “all you gotta do to make me happy is exist.”

This man is perfect, you think, a huge grin on your face. You kiss him back once before laying your hand gently on his chest so he’ll lay back. You keep your hand over his heart as the other pulls down the waistband of his boxers. His dick springs free the second the fabric is out of the way. Even after all these years, your stomach still flips with excitement when you see his cock hard and needy for you. He places one hand over yours on his chest, while his other hand finds its way back into your hair.  

You wrap your fingers around his shaft gently and he sucks in a sharp breath, overly sensitive from how worked up you’ve got him. You drop a kiss to the tip, leaving a dab of lipgloss behind, quick to brush it off with your thumb, the motion making his hips buck up.

You know he’s trying to be patient, not to rush, afraid to pressure you. Your heart swells at his considerate restraint. You reward his patience by flattening your tongue and dragging it from his base to his tip, swirling it over the tip a few times before bringing his cockhead into your lips.

He looks down at you, eyes wide, watching the way your mouth accepts him. You moan softly at the taste of him and it reverberates through his body, making his head fall back against the headboard with a bang.

“Are you ok, love?” You ask nervously.

He laughs and shakes his head at his own clumsiness, “I’m fine baby, you just got me so damn worked up, your mouth feels so good.” 

You smile in satisfaction and return your mouth to his tip. You work him into your mouth slowly, inch by inch, trying to relax your throat as best you can. Even though you’ve done this many times, you’ve never gotten used to the size of him. He knows it, too, looking at you with concern as you start to gag a bit, only two-thirds of the way down.

“Don’t hurt yourself, it’s okay if you stop there,” you pull off of him and he thinks you’re done, but you just shush him as you run your hand up and down his shaft a few times before diving back in. 

When he’s finally all the way in, his tip nudging the back of your throat, you moan to disguise your gag so he knows you’re okay. He seems to relent, tugging slightly at the roots of your hair and gripping your hand harder, you hollow your cheeks and start to bob up and down.

“Shhhit,” he says through clenched teeth. “That’s perfect, baby. You’re so fucking perfect.”

You keep up the pace for a couple minutes, JJ a whining mess beneath you. You adored the sound of him letting go and feeling good. He worked so hard, and always tried to prove how strong he was, nothing felt better than making him finally relax. 

When you moaned around him again, he bucked his hips up subconsciously.

“Wait,” he sat up, “wait wait wait.”

You pulled off of him, startled, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s so good, too good,” he rushed to assure you. “Not gonna last much longer.”

You smiled pridefully, “where do you want to finish, baby?”

“Inside, need to be inside you, please,” he used the hand he was holding to pull you up to him, making you laugh as you fall onto his chest.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” you giggled, placing a swift kiss on his lips.

“Yeah?” He taunts as he flips you onto your back gently, slipping his finger under the strap of your bra. “You finally gonna let me rip these off of you?”

You pull your lip between your teeth and nod, watching JJ’s hands move swiftly to rid you of the lacy fabric. Once he had your bra and panties off, he kissed you again, and you let out a little sigh into his mouth. He studied your face as his hand dipped between your legs, two fingers gliding through your wetness. You whimpered and twitched beneath him as he grazed your clit.

“All this for me?” He asked, well aware of the answer.

“Yes,” you grabbed his shoulders to steady yourself, the pressure of his fingers against you so good your legs were starting to shake. “I’m yours, J. Forever.”

His nostrils flared slightly at the sound of the words, never needing to be inside you quite as much as he did in that moment. He used your wetness on his hand to get his dick ready, sliding in slowly as your back arched while you gasped at the sensation.

“Forever, huh?” He asks as he sinks into you.

You nod desperately, pulling a wicked grin from him as he finally bottoms out. He starts to rock in and out of you, slowly at first, picking up the pace when you wrap your legs around his waist, clinging to him.

“I love you so much,” he says so earnestly your heart aches, pressing his forehead against yours.

“I love you too, you have no idea,” you tell him.

When he shifts his hips slightly so his pelvis rubs over your clit, you clench around him, crying his name in pleasure.

“I think I have some idea,” he teases.

You squeeze him again, harder, making the smile fall from his lips as he groans, jaw clenched.

As JJ picks up his pace, brushing over your clit with each deep thrust, both of you moan, your breaths becoming frenzied and your sweat mixing together everywhere your skin touches.

His words are a tangled mess of I love yous and fucks, yours a chant of oh my gods and his name. You squeeze him again, your orgasm approaching. He watches your face, eyes shut tight and lips parted, your hair a halo around you as he presses you into the pillows with each stroke. It’s the most beautiful sight, he thinks, the most precious person in the world, completely lost in the joy he’s giving her.

He can’t help himself when he whispers, “marry me.”

Your eyes shoot open, meeting his with surprise, and he wishes he hadn’t said it, that he had waited until later like he did every other night, when you were falling asleep and too tired to scold him for his impulsiveness. 

But then, you reach your hand up to caress his face, running your thumb over his bottom lip, looking at him with so much love and affection.

“Yes,” you say.

He stops moving into you and leans away from your face a bit, positive that he misheard you. 

“Wh-what?” He sounds concerned, like maybe he was dreaming and none of this was really happening.

“I wanna marry you, JJ,” you repeat, your voice sure and unwavering. You caress his cheek with your thumb, waiting for his mind to catch up with his ears. 

When it finally does, he places a kiss on your palm and sinks into you again, moving slowly at first in his dazed state, before you lift your hips, reminding him how you like it. He pounds into you, the sounds of skin slapping and heavy breaths filling the room as you near your high.

“You gonna be my wife?” JJ asks, watching your face contort with pure bliss. 

“Yes!” You cry, the wave of your orgasm crashing into you hard, your clenching walls pulling JJ’s from him as he fills you. 

That night, while JJ held you like he always did, your back to his chest, he’s uncharacteristically quiet. You turn in his arms so you can look at him, trying to read his face.

“What’s wrong?” You ask.

“I’m trying to figure out how long I have to wait before I can start asking if we can have a baby,” he admits, his tongue poking into his cheek.

You laugh loudly, swatting his shoulder.

“You really don’t give up, do you Maybank?” 

“On you? Never.”

a/n: in which nat takes a break from all the rafe angst to write some jj fluff. I saw some of the jj girlies say he needs more fics, so i'd thought I'd try writing for him and I had soooo much fun!! also I fear short 'n sweet has a death grip on my one-shots, oh well.

[yeyinde]

when your need grows teeth | John Price x f!Reader

John's the type of man to lock his jaws around what's his, preferring instead to ruin things, puncture it full of holes, and litter it with scars, rather than let it go. It starts when you ask him to pick up your birth control—like dangling a piece of bloody meat in front of a starving dog.  Of course he's going to take a bite.  He thinks you ought to have known this by now. 

SMUT 18+ | gratuitous smut; HEAVY breeding kink, breeding; Dom!John Price; p-in-v sex, unsafe sex; rough sex; mentions of spanking; mutual manipulation; this is roughly 10k of John Plotting and fucking you; John is: unhinged, obsessive, possessive, and Scheming. mentions of birth control tampering but nothing is followed through. No. He’s going to knock you up the old-fashioned way—by making you beg for it.

AO3 MIRROR

John has always had this desire—this awful, instinctual drive in the back of his head to knock someone up. Get them fat, swollen with his child. His. 

And maybe that's the crux of it. Possession. To have something of the most rooted kind. To irrevocably change someone—their anatomy, their body, the chemistry in their brain, their status in life from them (single no dependents) to mother (mother of his child), their very atoms—and create life from the combined parts. 

It's this almost fantastical beast, this unreachable dream for him. 

It's his Shangri-la. His castle in Spain. 

He's not under any disillusionment that this idea of fatherhood, of parenthood, is slightly skewed. That most men who want children don't feel this overwhelmingly greedy desire to fundamentally alter someone in such an irreversible way. It's not quite ownership, but it's the same ilk. A bastardised, unwanted child of it. 

And it's not just this idea of claimation—to forever be the father of their child, even if neither of them stays together; a piece of him will always be there, parasitic, no matter what—but something deeper. Something a bit less—egregious. 

This is, and always has been, about yearning. 

John's the type of man to lock his jaws around what's his, preferring instead to ruin things, puncture it full of holes, and litter it with scars, rather than to let it go. 

Marriage, he finds, is breakable. Divorce, separation. He's always on his worst behaviour in the initial stages of dating, so it's never something he has to entertain since no one ever sticks around long enough for it to be on the table, much less the menu, but the idea of it—of signing papers, of hashing out the split, of being known as ex-husband—leaves a bitter tang between his teeth. It won't do. He needs permanence. Perpetuity. 

Nothing says forever quite like a child, does it? 

And sure—he’s aware that countermeasures exist: custody orders, sole custody, shared; allotted visitations; divisional lines in this new age that keep the parents from ever interacting—but while you can get divorced, you can't unmake a child, can you?

The child would never write him out, either. 

Where deadbeats exist, it's important to note that their counterparts do, too. The ones like him who will gouge their eyes out of their skulls before they ever let what happened to them growing up trickle down and impact their child, polluting the pool. 

Simply put: John Price knows he'd be the best dad there is because he's stubborn that way. 

It helps, he supposes, that he really only has so much love to give out to the world, and greedily, he stashed the entirety of it away in a box to give to his would-be wife and their child. An overwhelming deluge that promises happiness should it ever be unlocked. Pandora's box, perhaps—down to the very essence because if John Price were to ever love someone, then it's probably in their best interest to run from it, this gaping, needy chasm. 

Not that it would ever be a possibility, of course—he’s much too good at compartmentalisation, in taking out his anger, his viciousness, on the ugly world he drenches himself in, the one his hands have a tangible cause and effect principle in place that will forever feed that starving beast inside of him.

Ergo—he’s a staunch supporter of the theory: happy wife, happy life. Though where those men think in a box stuffed full of emotional intimacy, flowers, chocolate, maintaining love, all-consuming and enduring, he takes it to extremes that would have them cowering a little bit. Maybe a lot.  

But that's fine. He only has to make sure his family is happy. No one else matters, save a select few who have a seat at his table during Sunday dinners. 

The rest, though? Spare parts. 

(The ice-cold resolve in those two words is apodictic, brass bound, and he's sure if his higher-ups knew about it, well—

His chest candy would be a hole in the ground. Put the rabid dog down before it has a chance to bite.)

But that all-consuming, devouring, obsessive love he has to give, that begs to be let free, is the reason why it's so tightly leashed. Locked up in a box. Untouchable. Inaccessible. 

It's why he isn't married. 

Ghost once asked him why the women he dated were older. Much older. Menopausal (always). And he'd said something to the effect of it being his type. Older women who wouldn't cower away from the acrid burn of him, who wouldn't hurt their delicate little hands on his gritty surface. 

But the real reason is because he knows better. 

He's a starving dog, and it's just bad form to dangle a piece of meat in front of it. Especially when the hand holding it is his own. 

Don't bite the hand that feeds you, and all. 

(The keen look in Ghost's eyes told him that, perhaps, the man already knew the reason when he asked, and was just satiating himself with kinship—the dark, awful look on Simon's ugly mug after the dredging the underbelly of Price’s rotten, mouldering mudfloor of things unsaid spoke volumes. 

They'd both nodded. Content, then. And promptly ordered a shot of whisky to drown the salivation, the hunger, from clogging their throats. Killing the urge to bite.

A pair of packless, stray dogs.)

But then he found you, and all his careful planning, all his distance, blew up in his face. 

It's always been on his mind since then. Lingering in his periphery—this fevered, tantalising vision of you, round and swollen with his child. 

It's unattainable, of course. A fantasy. 

Though, this—you throwing up in the washroom of his penthouse, undoubtedly knocked up by his machinations—is probably because he kept that desire too close to where he hides his questionable mortality, the one that allows him to throw innocent people to their deaths, and send mothers and fathers to an early grave just so he can rip his fists apart on their bastard offspring in his own brand of catharsis that always bites back when they grow up, hankering for revenge. 

He's always been good at snatching dreams out of the air, clenching them tight in his fists. Taming chimerical wants, whims, until they were docile, domesticated. Making realities out of fiction. 

And really—he’s just not a good man.

He thought you'd have known this by now.

He remembers the first time he growled the words into your ear as he came, your cunt clenching around him like a vice. Desperate for it, he teased after, fingers fucking into your sloppy, leaking hole. Pushing his spend back into you. Half-drunk on the taste of you still clinging to his beard, but mostly just mesmerised by the sight of you—pretty pussy all ruined, swollen from the vicious, hateful pounding he gave it, and dipping with his cum like a faucet. 

(It pissed him off—still does, really—when you waste it like this.)

Gonna fill you up, he snarled, low and wrecked. Gonna make it take—

It was a fantasy. Still is. But the way it took root in the garden of your bedroom, like it belonged—native flora, he thinks, a touch mad with it—had something ugly, oil slick, rearing up from that untouchable place in his head. 

He could really blame you for it—and does. The way your ankles locked tight around his thighs, hands reaching, grabbing at his waist, clawing at his asscheeks to press him in deeper, deeper still, as he came inside of you, cock lodged right against your plug, had that untameable beast cocking its head in consideration after you danced too close to it, waking it from his long, restful slumber. 

You wanted it. Ached for it. He could feel it in the way your walls tightened around him, practically starving for it. Your pretty, glossy eyes rolling back into your head. Drool running down your chin. A litany of pleas spilled from your kiss-bruised lips, begging him for it. Please, John. Please. Please—

Who was he to deny you? 

Even if you made a big, flustered show of waving it off—not something I've ever imagined for myself, you know? and–and your lifestyle, what you do—is something like that even possible for us?—he saw how it curled around your shoulders, dipping its silver tongue into your ear. Germinating. 

He let it. Encouraged it. 

“Something to talk about later,” he indulged, reaching over for a cigar just to smother the urge to breed you stupid. To tie you to his bedposts and keep you full until your belly was swelling with more than just the absurd volume of his seed he pumped inside of you. 

And, oh—

The uneasy smile on your face reeked of disappointment. 

Fuck. Fuck—

John went to the washroom after that, heart pounding out of his chest, and jabbed the lit end of his cigar into his thigh to kill the fever in his veins. To rewrite the desperate, ugly howling in his head with pain instead. 

It worked. Works—

Until you came to him, all watery-eyed and worried, and told him to please, please stop falling asleep with a lit cigar because you think you might just go mad if you lost him to a cigarette fire. And doesn't he see how silly it is, these burns look so bad, John, and I worry—

His teeth ached. He smiled, but it felt like a grimace. A dog holding back the instinct to bare its teeth. 

“Sure, love,” he'd said, and started taking out his anger on your cunt instead, fucking you deep, and stupid. Getting you all cockdrunk, and hungry for the dream that spoiled so badly in the back of his head, he's sure a proper man would call it a nightmare. “Anything you want.”

(Brassbound. Apodictic. You know that, he knows you know that, so imagine his surprise when you come to him, all soft and tender, and ask him to pick up your birth control as if he hadn't spent the better part of two years grumbling every fucking time you took it and wasn't on the verge of tossing the damn bottle out the window, and fucking you until it took—

But—you do know that, don't you? 

Well, then. Whatever his lady wants, right? Right.)

“Can you stop by the pharmacy on your way home tonight?”

He hums, fiddling with the belt of his slacks in front of the mirror. “Sure, love. You feelin’ sick?” 

“No,” you murmur, sliding behind him on your way to the washroom, wearing nothing but a towel tucked under your arms. “I need my refill. For birth control.” 

His hands still. A gnarled, rotted tendril curls over the edge of the cesspool, murky, ink black water splashing all over the place. “Oh, yeah? Still taking that, hm?”

You fluster. Hands waving, chock full of nervous, emotive energy you can't seem to shake off. “Well—yes. I mean, obviously.”

And he'd leave it there, let the spillage dry on the hot pavement, if you hadn't glanced back at him, all damp keenness, slightly skittish, and asked, feather-soft and utterly fragile, “right?” 

Right? A question, he notes. Not a statement. 

He licks his teeth. Tastes something rancid in the gaps. 

“Mm. I suppose so.” He leaves it vague, but drenches it in the heavy weight of his disappointment. Anchors dragging it down. You flit around the space like a house-locked bird, slamming into the walls and ceiling as you try—blind and panicked—to find an escape. Any escape. 

He finds the whole thing utterly charming. Especially when you realise he pitched himself in front of the only exit, thick, heavy hands curled around his belt, cock outlined against his slacks, already thickened, drooling in his pants. 

There's gasp—wet, and sharp—as you take him in. The liquid of his eyes as his want bleeds out of his skull. The flush on his cheeks, the twitch of his cock at the mere mention of you not taking your silly little pills. 

John lets it sit for a moment, taking in greedy lungfuls of your unease as you glance everywhere but at him, as if looking in his direction, breathing in this toxic miasma will give you a contact high. Infectious. Gnarled. 

The little seed that started germinating blooms. 

He fights back the urge to grin, all teeth. Madness staining them black. 

“It's—it’s on—” and fuck, he's never seen you so unsure before, this nervous. You handle him like a wrangler, wrassling his brutish dominance until it's putty in your hands, splitting his head into pieces and galvanising the madness inside until it's scripture for you to peek at whenever you need guidance, insight into him, his essence, his being. 

Your dyadic has always been built on permeance. 

John doesn't think there's a single person alive who understands him as much as you do. The only person who seems content to gorge yourself on his rotted marrow like it was a delicacy. 

Seeing you like this rents his resolve in two. 

“It's the pharmacy near the, uh, the school. The kindergarten.” 

He chokes on a groan, and thinks he tears something in his throat with the strain of keeping it down. There's blood, ash, in the back of his throat.

“Alright, love. I'll pick it up.” 

You smell it, and shiver. 

It's giving meat to a starving dog, and saying, dog, don't take a bite. 

And so, of course he does. 

John picks up your prescription, tossing it in the passenger seat like it personally offended him. And it has. Does. It's what's standing in the way between what he wants, what he craves, and there's a distinct thrum of irritation welling inside of him. One that started when he had to bark out your name at the counter earlier, and the pharmacist looked at him, and calmly, kindly, explained what it was he was picking up. 

Make sure she takes them once a day. Preferably at the same time. This brand of oral contraceptive can be taken with or without food—

Fuck off, he thought—thinks, even now, glowering into the tinted window of the pharmacy. 

He grips the steering wheel tight until his scarred knuckles bleach white under the strain, and sits in the parking lot, staring, unseeingly, at the shops. Pensive. Thoughtful. It gnarls over his expression until he's the picture of that grizzly-like intensity you often accuse him of. All furrowed brows and a pinched, angry twist to his lips. 

There's a series of complex equations running laps in his head. He's no stranger to this process, needing to make life or death decisions in less time it takes someone to snap their fingers, or tentatively stammer out his title. 

This one is more linear than the rest. One plus one, so to speak. But the weight of it is profound. Heavier, even, than deciding between the success of his mission and the life of an innocent bystander. 

(But he thinks he's just selfish like that.)

In his head, he debates the ethics of replacing all of these silly little tablets that stand in his way with sugar pills. 

It would be the quickest path to the end, but the risk-reward ratio ebbs and flows the more he considers things without the miasmic influence of that abomination throwing itself at the walls of its enclosure, howling in an endless cacophony of do it, do itdoit—

A better man wouldn't even have such a temptation. He supposes that's what you deserve, but he already had this particular crisis a few months after he met you, and realised that the things he wanted to do to you would undoubtedly put him on a list. Slapped so hard with a restraining order, his ears would still be buzzing. 

That something about you made his jowls twinge, and his teeth ache, and no amount of stay away from her, Price; she deserves better than you was going to keep his dirty hands from curling around your throat, leaving soot-stains on your skin in the shape of his fingerprints. Brandishing ownership in burst blood vessels; a pretty collar for you to wear because as much as you like to pretend otherwise—

You're a dog just like him. 

In any case, he's the best choice for you. The only one who'd burn the world just to keep you warm, and that's what you really need. Protection. 

And fuck—you toy with that particular urge that has always been etched in fine lines within the walls of bones; dipping your fingers into it, and spreading it over the apples of your cheek. Everything about you prickles along his hindbrain. Renders him from a modern man with modern ideals to an animal who can only speak in growls, snarls; pure primalism, all instinct. 

You're made for each other down to the bone. He's sure he could split your head apart and find that your cranial sutures are perfectly mirrored. Made in the same image: you were grown from his missing rib, and he always meant to be cradled in the brackets of your thighs. 

So, crisis of worthiness aside—because there are none, not anymore—he plots. Plans. Schemes. But his machinations keep catching on the soft fibrils of your wants. 

John doesn't know what he'd do if you changed your mind. 

(Or, rather, he does but that's another madness to unravel with his personal therapist.)

It's with this—the slight brandishing of his uncertainty in your certainty—that he gives up the idea, pocketing it for a later date, and drives home, back to you. 

He doesn't toss the bag on the counter, but sets it up perfectly, placing it as close to the edge where the bin sits under it. All it would take is a breath of wind for it to fall into the trash. 

That doesn't happen, though. You stare at the white, crinkled package for a moment as he sips on his tea, quietly contemplative. With your expression hidden from him, he has no idea what might be going through that pretty head of yours. Disappointment, he can only hope. And then you're reaching for it, fingers gripping the bag tightly in your fist. He hears the paper crumble. It sparks something inside his chest. A bloom of hope that you might just throw it out. Toss it in the bin—

You turn to him instead, knuckles white. 

“Thanks,” you say, and the matter is dropped. 

He goes to tuck that want back where it escaped, leaving slick trails of putrefying rot behind, but—

John peeks in the vanity later that evening, but where he expects to see the little rectangular package sitting in its usual spot between his aftershave and the mouthwash, he finds nothing. Just an empty spot on the ledge, spotlit by the lack of dust. A clean square of white paint, undisturbed. 

His jaw twinges. He wonders if you're hiding it from him, keeping it safe from his machinations, but then he finds it shoved in the drawer with his shaving kit, and the box of condoms he bought when you'd first started dating (for show, naturally—John had no intentions of using them and learned persuasion was your Achilles heel; that and you tended to get a little glossy-eyed whenever he growled filth in your ear, the smell of your cunt heavy on his breath). 

The package is crinkled like you squeezed it tight in your little fist before you tossed it in. 

You're always meticulous in the way you put things in their places. Even the junk drawer is organised, all neat. 

This speaks volumes, but he's not quite sure what it says. They are still here, though. Accessible. One is missing from the pack. It dampens his mood. 

He picks up his toothbrush, and runs through those calculations again to see how he can convince you to skip the one you're meant to take tomorrow. And the next day, and the next, and the next—

He stays awake as you sleep beside him, looking into how many days you can miss before your brand of birth control stops being effective. 

Seven pills in a row. 

He files it away, lost in thought. 

The next morning, he leaves his phone open on the bedside table with the article pulled up. He kisses you awake before he leaves to shower, humming something soft under his breath. 

When he returns, he finds you sitting up in bed with your knees drawn to your chest. There's something pensive about the look on your face. Paper soft, as though it would all blow away at a mere whisper. 

You regard him almost cooly but something raw, fractured splits over the ravine. A waterfall of midnight black sludge rains down. 

(He wonders if it tastes of the same rot, the same madness, as the basin of the untouched recesses of his head—)

“I'm working late tonight,” you murmur after a measured beat, and he can't place your tone. “Maybe we can watch a movie when I get home.” 

John nods, and your eyes drop, scaling down his bare, broad chest as he breathes in the flint staining the air. Your gaze is white-hot when it bludgeons into him, feverish. 

It doesn't take much beckoning at all to have him crawling toward you, towel ripped from his hips and thrown somewhere in the aether. 

As he steals the madness from your tongue, his eyes flicker to the phone still sitting on the table. It looks perfectly untouched. The screen is off. 

That, too, he files away. 

John comes to the succinct conclusion that the only means he has in his arsenal to get what he wants—legally, and somewhat morally, anyway—is persuasion. 

There's no recourse if he can water that burgeoning plant inside of you, make it seem like this is something you want, too. A family. With him. 

(Only him.)

He knows that you see things quite similarly to him. Wherein love is desire. Desire is hunger. And there's nothing more profound to you than to eat the person you love alive. Consumption of every part—the good, the beautiful, the bad, the ugly, and the rotted: skin, fat, muscles, blood, and bones. All of it. 

So, even if somewhere down the road you think you hate him for this, it'll be fine. He'll just consume that, too. 

John Price is a tenacious man. Stubborn. 

(Bullish, he hears around the barracks. Fuckin’ stubborn prick, too.)

It helps that this line of work is perfectly suited for such a peremptory drive to the finish line, no matter the cost. Utilitarian to a fault, despite his rather recalcitrant disposition. It's how he gets his way more often than not. Brutish dominance. Loutish suppression. 

But a near reckless, suicidal loyalty that attracts the sort of beasts this line of work needs. 

But that's work, not this. Not trying to convince you, his sugar-sweet (and viciously diabolical) lover, to bear the burden of giving him a family because society says it's uncouth (and illegal, morally reprehensible, villainous) for him to chain you to his bed to keep the darker parts of himself that want to rip into anyone who had the pleasure—pleasure that no longer belongs to them—of looking at you. 

That's all for him. 

(Nasty old bastard.) 

And, of course, because he's ready. Everything clicks. Locks into place. There's no one else out there for him. 

Really, though—it's your fault for prodding that beast in the first place. For letting inside your house, your bed. For thinking it could be tamed. And so. You should accept responsibility for it. 

(Nasty, nasty—)

But just as much as you know him, he knows you. You'll give him a litany of reasons why this shouldn't happen, and none of them will be because this isn't what you want. It'll be filled with reasons why you think he doesn't. 

And that simply won't do. 

So, he plots. Plans. 

The thing is. No one ever taught him how to hold things in his hands without crushing it. 

He doesn't think he can be delicate. Gentle. There's no way to gently nudge you into this. No. 

He'll convince you to yield the same way a tsunami convinces a house to move out of the way. 

Buried to the hilt in your cunt, he growls gospels into your ear about this beautiful Shangri-la, this sprawling castle he has in Spain until you're clenching down around him tight, conditioning your body to come at the thought of swelling with his child. About letting his seed take root, letting him knock you up. 

It's a crass image that he spits into your head—fuck you until it takes, love; breed this pretty cunt every day until you're fat and swollen—serves as the positive reinforcement to his classical conditioning. He'll turn you into one of Pavlov's mutts, salivating at the sound of him groaning into your ear as he fills your pussy up to the brim. He'll reshape you, change your wants until you only come around his cock when he's spitting his release against the plug of your womb. 

And when you make to get up, letting all his spend slip from your sloppy cunt to take your pill, he pulls you closer under the guise of wanting to feel your body on his, murmuring diabolical compromises he has no intention of letting you see through. 

“Later,” he rasps, pulling you closer. His mouth slots across your temple. “Just take it later, sweetheart. Later.”

“But—”

“It’ll be fine.” 

And, as if you'd been waiting for that reassurance, you melt into his hands, wet putty. 

(you take the bloody pill later, and he adds that to his mental calendar, adjusting the maths. He supposes he’ll just have to try harder next time.)

John's desire for you is overwhelming, all-encompassing, and he schemes around his wandering hands, bullying into your messy cunt only moments before your alarm is meant to go off, reminding you to take your pill, reinforcing that irritating little wall that keeps his come from reaching your womb. 

It goes off, but he hardly hears it over the roaring in his ears, the sweet, sweet litany of moans that slip out, staining the pillow with your pleasure. He just keeps fucking you through it, growling mindlessly into your ears about how badly he wants to come inside of you. His warnings, threats, about how close he is intertwining with your desperate begging for him to come, come inside me, John is the most beautiful harmonisation he'd ever heard, and it sews itself into his marrow, polluting the ugliness inside with a new, fresh hell for him to torture himself with. That delicious pleasure-pain that drives him mad—

He fills you up, palm pressed taut to your lower belly as he spits his virile release deep into your cunt. He can feel the heavy outline of his cock against your skin, stuffed full of him, and it's this—the way he moulds your body around him, cock visible through your flesh—that makes his eyes roll back into his head. Makes the urge to fuck, to breed, to claim bludgeon into him, shattering reason, logic. He wants to change you, irrevocably. Forever. To mar you with his touch, his essence. 

“Mine,” he chokes out, ugly and raw. It's a mangled mess in his throat. A threat. “All fucking mine, aren't you, love? All mine—”

His words seem to throw you into another climax, cunt clenching greedily down around him as he softens inside of you, plugging you up. You liked that, he notes, purs. The notion brands itself across his resolve, reshaping it into something that would make anyone else recoil in fear, disgust. 

But you preen at this creature that bares its fangs at you, snaps wicked teeth against your jugular. Fingers threading through its hair, shushing it, soothing it, as you pull it back into your embrace, head tucked against your chest. You lull it into complacency with the heavy thud of your heart, your sweet, earthy scent. 

What a pair, he thinks, and clamps his hands around your wrist when you murmur something about taking your pill now. Need to take it before it gets too late, John—

He makes his move, distracts you with his mouth, his tongue. 

“Just take it after,” he murmurs into your pussy, thighs bracketing around his head. His hands pull your waist down, pressing you harder against his mouth. “Later, love. It'll be fine—”

“But, John—”

The protest dies, turns to ash, when he grunts, sealing his lips around your clit, bullying it with the rasping press of tongue until you're arching your back, riding his face. Thoughts of your silly pill are gone, swallowed by him as you gush, drenching his mouth in your slick. 

And after, when you make to get up again, he pulls you close instead, voice curling around you like smoke when he tells you to take it after. 

“No, love. Stay in bed with me,” he peppers kisses to your cheek, your jaw, chin, sweetening his words, and folds you into the tight embrace of his arms. “Take it in the morning. It'll be fine to miss a day.”

You level him with something that shadows the ravines in your gaze with pure, unadulterated scepticism, but as he scouts the canyons, the valleys, the pretty craters that make up the composite of your eyes, he finds no discernible trace of wariness, uncertainty. The terse line in his shoulders ease. 

But while fossicking around he unearths something else. Something a bit more enigmatic, calculative, than doubt. Equivocal, slippery, it runs from him when he tries to give chase, tucking itself back into the harsh tenebrous that shades the landscape. 

He hums, wanting to ask, but you sigh in quasi-acquiescence, and burrow deeper into his embrace. 

“Fine,” you huff, but he tastes a purring sense of satisfaction in the air. “I'll take it tomorrow instead.” 

“Good girl.” The praise slips out, low and gritty, perfumed with his heavy greed. 

You shiver against him. The hitch in your throat is quiet in the bedroom, but to him, it sounds like a gunshot. 

John keeps meticulous track of the empty pill slots, and notes with a sticky, resinous sense of glee that the numbers are becoming muddled, skewed. Later becomes tomorrow, and your soft acquiesce has days skipped. Missed. 

You can't double up, you huff to him, mournfully slinking into the bed. It's nearly one in the morning. Technically, a brand new day. I absolutely have to take it tomorrow, John. Make sure you remind me—

There's something pointed in your tone. Something oil-slick. He nods, bites back a grin. 

“Sure,” he pulls you close, breathes in the sweet, loamy scent of you—sweat and sex and the lingering remnants of your perfume, your soap—and lets it stain his lungs. “I can do that.” 

You say nothing at all when he doesn't bring it up until well past midnight the next day, offering little more than an exasperated groan, and a huffy roll of your eyes, as if this was just a missed dinner with friends and not a life-changing misstep. 

(The beast purrs. He places his hand over his chest, and feels the rumble under his skin.)

“Need to be more responsible than this, John,” you say, squirming in his hold to try and rush to the washroom to take that pesky little pill. 

“Sorry, love,” he offers, and means none of it. Clings tighter to you. “Got a bit carried away today, is all.” 

“It's not your fault—” something curls out from a dark crevasse when you look at him. “I've been so—off lately, you know? Must be the new batch. Maybe I should call my doctor.” 

He stills. Body tensing, coiling. John tries to speak, but the words are ash on his tongue. He clears his throat. 

“Could stop taking it.” 

It crackles in the air. Hangs heavy like a stormcloud. 

You blink, stunned. But it's artificial, hollow. Pulled from a wicker basket where you keep all your different skins. 

“You mean—what? Stop it all together—?”

You flit in the space once more, but it's less of an injured bird searching for an escape, he realises suddenly, and more of—

A boomslang. 

One rearing up, searching for the perfect place to strike. 

Wishful thinking, though, because you're flustered and skittish once more, a small prey animal he isn't sure what he wants to do the most—sink his teeth into you, tear you into pieces, and devour you whole, or hide you away from the world. 

“I can look for something else in the meantime,” you sound shy, hesitant, and it prickles across his skin. “But we'd need to be careful, you know. Otherwise you might actually get me pregnant.”

He tries to swallow his groan. Chokes on it instead. 

“Sure, sure—” he hacks into his palm. “Of course, love. We'll be safe. I'll pull out—”

Naturally, he doesn't. Makes no effort to even try despite promising you he is. 

“Not my fault your pussy won't let go of me, love,” he grumbles, hand cupping your weeping sex in his palm. The heat of you is searing. Blistering. He thinks he could happily melt inside of it for the rest of his life, and leans down to whisper his devotion into your come-slicked folds, the bitter tang of you, of him, admixing on his tongue. An elixir he could drown in. 

You huff at him after, all glossy-eyed and sex-drunk, and tell him to please try harder, John, I'll have to get plan b tomorrow—

You don't, but the threat of it, the possibility, lingers in the back of his mind, souring his thoughts. 

Next time, and I'll have to, John, you say, featherlight, lips pressed against the head of his cock. A warning, a goddamn tease—

His voice is strained, pinched. “Of course, love,” and he guides your mouth back to his cock, letting the matter fall into pieces when you suck on the sensitive head, tongue licking, coy and kittenish, over his frenulum. 

It's only later, when watches you swallow down his come, that the beast slinks out of the shadows, pocketing the fragments. 

You're off birth control—barely any scheming words of whispered concern needed—but the idea of you taking a little pill to wipe away his efforts has him pulling back. Recalibrating his plans. 

He decides on a different route to the same end. 

Damnation at your own hand. 

John, for his credit, does begin to pull out after that—albeit, with a great deal of agonised reluctance—and instead comes all over your pretty face. 

With thick ropes of his pearlescent spend dripping down the apples of your heated cheeks, he doesn't think he's ever seen a sight more beautiful than this. 

And one with more opportunity.

Slowly, he swipes at it with his thumb and then promptly brings it down, hard, on your clit. You flinch, mewling at the overstimulation, and the threat he brings so close to your raw, unprotected sex. It's dangerous. This thin line he dances along could snap at any moment. Could rain hellfire and fury over his broad shoulders, unmake all the progress he'd steadily built up. 

He walks the precipice, anyway. He pulls his hand away, and brings two fingers up to curve over your cheeks. His thumb, stained with your slick and his come, slides across your bottom lip. 

The pout you give him—all wet-eyed lachrymose—has his spent cock twitching against his sticky thigh. “Fuck, love. Gonna send me to an early grave if you keep starin’ at me like that.” 

“You're cracked,” you slur around his thumb. In retaliation, he digs it into your tongue, and preens—full of nasty, gnarled satisfaction—when your eyes flutter, rolling into the back of your head at the taste. 

With this brief distraction, he drops his come-stained fingers to your mound, and rubs along the swollen rim of your hole. Just touching, pressing. A tease, a whisper. 

You tense. “John—” it's muffled around his thumb, and he isn't sure if it's a warning or a plea. 

He pushes the tips in, barely to the first knuckle, and just pets around your rim. 

It's a battle of wills, now. “No more than this,” he promises, and the undercurrent of his threat rents the air. Makes you bristle. 

You always loved a challenge—especially coming from him. 

“Just the tip?” You tease, spittle running down your chin. Your eyes are dark—midnight skies, ink black—and he's struck by the afterimage of himself in those pools. Made in the same image. 

He grunts, slides into the first knuckle, and scissors them apart. 

“John—” it's breathless. Your teeth spear his thumb, tight around his bone. He wants nothing more than to have you bite down hard, scar his bones with the gnawed meteors of your desire. Your desperation. “Fuck—please—”

You give in so prettily, and he barely has a moment to think about how quick it's been when you angle your hips, hand falling to grip his wrist tight as you slide down his fingers, all the way to the last knuckle. 

You clench around him like a vice. A pretty bow. He fucks you with his fingers, meeting your shallow thrusts with ones of his own, slamming viciously into your pussy as he coos adorations into your ear. 

With his other hand, he reaches down and fists himself over your bare mound, pressing the tip against your clit where it weeps prespend over your flesh. His thumb sweeps across what spills out, dragging it back down to your sopping hole, pushing it inside. 

It's probably not enough to reach your womb, to get you pregnant, but he clings to that tantalising fantasy as he drills his fingers into you until you come, breathlessly begging him to fuck you harder, to fill you up—

He isn't even fucking you with his cock, and you still beg him for it. 

John pushes the tip into your slit, fingers still buried deep inside of your throbbing pussy, and groans with the force of his release. It makes him dizzy, almost nauseous with it, filling his head with nothing but the sweet, wounded sound of your moans filling the room, and the wet squelch of his fingers pulling out of you. 

When he catches the threads of cognisance in his fingers once more, he leans back on his haunches, chest heaving, and brands the messy sight of your pussy fluttering, clenching around nothing, as his spend drips down your slit, over your hole, and pools in the sheets below. 

He's not sure if heaven exists, but he knows the sight of you, breathless and whimpering on his bed, is the closest a man like him will ever come to seeing it. 

The push-pull of this little game stretches on. 

Price likes to see just how far he toe the line before you're whimpering into the sheets, telling him don't, John, don't come inside me, I'm not anything, John—and he's ripping himself away from the tight clutch of your wet, hot cunt, and coming all over you.

The illicit tease of barely pulling out in time, and then scooping up the mess he makes on your face, your breasts, your belly, your ass, lower back, thighs, and spooning it into your pussy until it's a fixture in your bedroom ritual. 

And maybe it's the threat of it all, of playing such a dangerous game, seems to cudgel under his skin the most, ripping apart the thin veneer of that man he once pretended to be—righteous and good—shedding it off with each hiccupped gasp you make when he presses his come-slicked fingers inside of you, murmuring guttural words of affection in the shape of impish mockery (want it bad, don't you, sweet thing; so fuckin’ greedy for it, love—). 

He likes it the most when he can fuck you stupid on his fingers. Cockdrunk, and come-starved (because you are, of course; he hasn't come inside of your cunt in weeks, and doesn't miss the mournfully pitiful whines you give when he pulls out, depriving you of the pleasure of feeling him come inside you), you're too blissed out, swimming in pleasure, to think about what he's doing. 

In fact, he doesn't really give you much of a chance to think at all. 

The next few weeks are filled with him fucking you each night brutally, viciously, snarling low in your ear about how bad he wants to come in you, stuff you full, and then keep you plugged up all night with his cock that it takes, and then pulling out right before, committing the sight of your betrayed expression to memory where it'll sit like a trophy when you finally break. 

You make an appointment with your gynaecologist, and circle the date on his calendar. 

John notes it down. Tucks it away. 

And then he amps up the pressure.

John's fingers root behind your knees, pushing your thighs apart as he settles between them. His gaze drills into your bare cunt, slick and wet, and so ready for him. Eager for it. 

He'd counted the days, and knows that if there's ever the absolute worst time to have unprotected sex, to come inside of you, is now. 

Which, of course, means he has to. The clause in that is ironclad. Apodictic. 

“Bit dangerous,” he rasps, and lifts your leg up, resting your ankle on his shoulder. You fluster beneath him, panting and pretty, and fuck—he’s not pulling out of your pussy tonight at all. “Should I pull out?” 

It's a tease. A test. 

He reaches down as he says the words, gripping his cock and bringing it down against your wet heat. The bare, blunt head of his cocks slaps against your clit, and you arch, keening. Nails bite into the thick muscles of his biceps, and he leans into the sharp sting. Letting it ground him. Centre him. 

This will be your cacoëthes. 

He's been depriving you for weeks, and John knows that you're wanting for it. Desperate. The little twitches your hips give, as if begging him to fill you up, are proof enough of how much you want this. 

This. The dream he dripped into your ears, hot oil congealing over your frontal lobe; infectious and thick. You can try to chisel it off, but the pollution is already damning. Ruining. 

You want this. He wears the axiom like armour. 

And you beg for it—eyes shaded in gut wrenchingly beautiful lachrymose—and John snuffles closer, inching the weeping head of his cock into your tight, warm heat. 

The sight of splitting you open is something he never grows tired of. Something that, without fail, makes his balls ache. His chest thrum. Blood turns to ichor. To wine. He's drunk on the contrast made between you—a garish chiaroscuro of your pretty pussy, soft and sickly sweet—almost nauseatingly so—swallowing down the fat, girthy length of his cock. The thick streams of veins running along the flushed, heavy shaft against your puffy, soft folds is almost hideous. Sinful. He can't equate it to anything else except corruption. The horrific beast sullying the princess. 

And fuck—

The thought alone makes him throb. 

He's sullied you plenty, he reckons, and yet you always look so sweet. Especially now, when your rim is stretched taut around the thick of him, pussy squeezing, clenching around him in a vice, as if you weren't sure to push him out or pull him deeper. 

John decides for you. Opting instead to push your knees down to your chest, nearly brushing your ears, and follows with the bulk of his body until he feels your breath rush out of your lungs. You struggle for a moment, gasping wetly into his ear as his weight—every bearish pound of it—rests on you in the perfect mating press. Your bite into his biceps, keening prettily into his ear as he bullies the full length of his cock into you. Spears you open. Splits you apart. 

He can feel you gush around him, drenching his groin and thighs with your slick. 

Like this—chest to chest, forced to breathe in the same air, the same madness—he likes to just stare at you, taking in the heat simmering under your skin, the sweat beading along your temple, the pinch in your brow as you struggle to adjust to the sheer width of him cudgelling you open. A battering ram you're forced to make room for. 

He takes it all in, each flicker of emotion, each heaving gasp. Burns it into his memory. Lets it soften the iron around his heart. Keeps it there, nestled in the cradle of his limited love, held aloft by indelicate, bearish hands. This sweet thing. 

He can't wait to ruin it. 

If these weeks leading up to this were lovemaking, fucking, then this, this, is mating. Animalistic. Primal. He pushes in as deep as he can, until the tip kisses the ripened seal of your womb, and grinds his hips cruelly into the cradle of your thighs. 

Your nails leave bloodied indents in his flesh. A scar he'll proudly bear the mark of. A tattoo of the time when he turned you into something new. 

His balls are soaked. The sheets, too. He mocks you for it, a rasping growl lodged deep in his throat, taunting you about how fucking wet you are for him. How badly you need it. 

“Gotta plug you up, hm?” He grunts, and sets a pace that serves only to accentuate the sloppy, messy squelch of your cunt. 

His cock pistoning into you, alternating between deep, full thrusts that knock the air from your lungs, and heavy, slow plunges meant to badger the blunt head of his cock against your walls. 

You seem to like it best when he shifts his weight between each thigh, content to just grind into you. Make you feel every inch of him. You cling to him, yowling in his ear about how good it feels, how much you love this, love his cock—

The thick bed of wry, umber curls on his chest, stomach, and groin grow slick with sweat from the intensity of it all, from the shared heat. Pressed tight against you, he feels every quiver. Every flinch. Each moan is made known in a slight reverberation across his skin before he hears it. 

Drenched in sweat, glued to you as he fucks you into the mattress, John feels very much like the beast making a house out of a twisted whim in his head. Feverish, sick, he drives into you with the single minded goal of filling that home up with three. Then four. Five—

As many as you'll let him.

And he almost loses himself to that thought alone. Dancing sugar plums that make his balls tighten. He stems the flood by pulling out of you, letting his heavy cock slap against your sticky, soaked cunt as he heaves into your hairline, sucking in the heady loam, the humus, of your scent. 

The whimper you make when he pulls out of you sounds like a wounded animal, and the noise tickles across his hindbrain. His jaw aches. He bites down on a snarl as you thrash against him, mindless with the need to have him inside of you. It brings a nasty, vicious curl to the ends of his mouth, and he doesn't even bother trying to tamper it down. John lifts his head and lets you see his foaming muzzle, drooling with thick globes of saliva. 

“Stay still,” he growls, low and dangerous. It's as much of a warning as it is a command, and the way you react, tensing, coiling tight—the flash of unease. Shock. And then the need. Achy, heavy. He feels it against his jugular when you shiver, moaning his name into the space between you where it reeks of desperation. 

To soften the submissive tremble in your jaw—and maybe to temper down the challenging talons sharpening in your gaze—he nuzzles his cheek against yours, peppers wet kisses to your skin. He licks across your jaw, bites down on your flesh. 

He tastes salt and sin on your skin. 

(His eyes roll so far back into his skull he thinks he might get lost.)

“Gonna cum on your pretty cunt if you don't stop squirming, love.” 

And John loves you most for your waspish intelligence—the ire smouldering in your throat. The way you bite back just as hard, never afraid to bear teeth when he snarls. He doesn't think he could ever love someone too soft—not without tearing them to pieces. To shreds. 

But you wear plush, tender conchoidal skin over jagged, rough obsidian. He'll ruin himself if he ever tries to rip you apart. 

Like this, though—you melt. 

All that keen, vicious intelligence snuffed out. His scheming Cleopatra tamed on his cock. 

Your heels dig into the back of his thighs, urging him closer to your sex. “Come on, John, just fuck me, fuck me already—”

(Tamed, though, perhaps being a misnomer.)

He huffs into your neck. “Impatient little quean.”

It gets him a sharp bite to the tip of his ear, and the floor roars so loudly in his veins, he gets dizzy from it. 

“Fuck—”

He's pressing back into you again, into your warm, tight heat, and it's nirvana kissing his nerves. Liquifying his spine. He rolls into you with a weighted groan, buried to the hilt once more. 

But even with the respite, he knows he won't last. 

John needs you fucked stupid, docile and soft just for him, and sets out to do just that. Pounding into you with a spiteful twist of his hips that he knows will leave you a little sore, and tender tomorrow. But the idea of spreading your puffy, achy folds apart and soothing the slight hurt with his tongue for hours until you're sobbing into the cushions quells any hesitation that rears, begging him to slow down. 

Go easy on your pretty cunt.

(As if.)

John batters into you until your eyes glaze over, and your chin, cheeks, smear with drool. Until the challenge in midnight black melts into submission. Docile, and malleable. Perfect for him to mould. Shape. 

Reshape.

He glues to you, touch starved and tactile, and basks in the liquid heat that blooms from deep within you. 

“Gonna cum soon,” he snarls, broken by the heave in his chest as he fucks into you, starved. “Gotta pull out, love—”

You're gripping him tighter, anchoring him to your body. You haven't come yet. Something he dangles in front of you like a threat. 

He watches the slow crawl of realisation crest over your messy face, and thinks he falls just a little bit more in love with you at the sight of your little pout. 

Loves, even more, the way it breaks apart when he pounds into you harder, viciously, watching drool dribble off your chin, and reason leak from your ears—

“Please, John—” the sound of your whimpering has him grunting, head dizzy with the saccharine sweet taste of it on his tongue. “Please, please—come inside me. I–I want you to–to fill me up—”

“Yeah?” He taunts, mean and breathless. “Want me to come inside your sloppy cunt? Dangerous, ain't it? Jus’ might take, sweet thing. Is that what you want?”

You're howling a litany of sin into his ear, desperation drenches each clamour of his name, each orison uttered, begging him to come, to fill you up, and then—

“Fuck—I want it so bad—” his head is filled with static. Whitenoise. “Want it to take, John—”

He comes inside of you, cock pulsing so hard it feels like a sob. Filling you up. Wishing on all the stars that it takes—

As a reward for your good behaviour, he spreads you out over the sheets, and growls his approval into your sopping pussy, drenching himself with the taste, the smell, of you, promising to wear it like a perfume so everyone knows how good you are for him. Him, alone. 

(His, his, his—)

When you come, you nearly smother him, and he thinks he sees a glimpse of nirvana in baby soft yellow before he's pulled back by your shaking hands brushing the hair off his sweat-slicked forehead. 

“Are you okay, John—”

He rolls you under him, fucking into your drenched pussy like a man starved. That tantalising vision glues itself to his hindbrain, so close he can scent the fresh dew of fresh milk, and warm bread in his nose. Feel the bump of your stomach. 

He's almost angry about it, about being ripped away from that dream, and takes his aggression out on your sloppy, leaking cunt. The way his come trickles out, staining the mattress below and the back of your thighs has him growling darkly into your nape. 

“Keep it in,” he snarls, words sharpened on the whetstone of his need. “Keep it all inside, love.” 

“Ah, John, John—” something falls from your split-slicked lips, and his fingers bite into your hips. Punishment for the slurred backtalk. 

“I'll spank your ass if any of it leaks out—”

It does. Of course it does. 

He bends you over his knee, and slaps his broad, rough palm over each cheek ten times before deliriously shoving two thick fingers into your sloppy cunt, stuffing his come back inside your tender, swollen hole, rough and mean, as you howl, squirming in his lap about how you promise you'll be good next time, John, please—I'll keep it all in, I swear, I—

“You fuckin’ better, love.” He groans, and thinks about cumming on your messy face, all slick with sweat, and drool, but decides against it. A waste, he thinks, and leans over you to shove the thick, twisting length of his angry cock inside you to the hilt just spit his release against your seal once more. 

“That was…” You're still panting against his chest, eyes dazed, and body laxed. Melted wax over his chest. “Intense,” you settle on after a beat. 

There's a hiccup in your breath when he hums, chest rumbling with the sound. 

“Mm, but you liked it, didn't you?”

Of course you did. Of course. The evidence of it is drying, tacky and slick, on his groin, his thighs. 

You burrow into his side, peeking at him from over the thick bed of wry curls that clot over his chest. “You're fucking me like you haven't in years, John. Makes me wonder if you have an agenda.”

He considers your words. The weight of them. Wonders just how much you've clued into, but huffs when he catches the same look in your eyes as the one reflected in his own.

Cheeky little—

“Can't I just want to fuck you? Not everything has to be about schemes, love.” 

The oil of his lies, the sticky resin of his evasion makes you huff into his skin.

In all his meticulous planning, he'd picked up several books on this particular topic, and scoured every available, reputable, site he could find. John knows what to look out for by now, and keeps a keen eye on you—one that very quickly dips into obsessiveness, but you're kind enough to call it overbearing. 

Jesus Christ, John, why are you asking me how many times I pissed today? 

He just needs to wait things out. 

But rather irritatingly, he's called away overseas for the next week. 

Ah, well. He'll have to try harder next time. 

He arrives in Heathrow mid-morning, and follows Laswell into the office. There's a mountain of reports to fill out—things that, rather irritatingly, require his signature—and resolves to spend the rest of the day hunched over at his desk, even though there's an itch in the back of his skull demanding he go home. 

It is always like this, though—both the post-mission ritual of banal paperwork that seems almost comical considering what he'd just done, and the undeniable urge to flee back into the sanctuary of your shared home. 

His bones ache for it. 

Laswell huffs when he lingers by the exit, and he swallows a groan. 

While he was away, you'd been silent. Moreso than usual. 

Where he'd have expected an update on what was going on—the mundanity of your life that he clings to when the beast in his head whets its talons a little too sharp, digs into a little too deep—you’ve gone silent. Not radio. Not completely. But the information you give is sparse. Cagey.

You don't tell him about the visit to the gynaecologist, offering nothing but a quiet hum into the receiver, all blase and nonchalant, and a simple, equivocal: “good.” 

He tucks it away, lets the matter drop. 

If he timed things correctly—barring your impish prevarication aside—then something will begin to show soon. You would have mentioned something. Some nominal change to your physical well-being, but when pried, pressed, you huff. 

“I'm good, John. When are you coming home, anyway?”

He raps his knuckles on his desk, still smarting from the punches he'd thrown recklessly this past week, too keyed up to let his anger simmer instead of boil, and thinks. About you. About this. 

A week isn't a lot of time—he’s been called away for months in the past—but this feels like it's lingering. Time stretched and distorted. Elongated. And a part of him feels chipped, fractured after touchdown. 

It wasn't as if this particular assignment was any more, or less, dangerous than the ones he went on before. If anything, it was comparatively mild. Muted. He honed into his training, and did his goddamn job. And yet—

Yet. 

You lived in the spaces he occupied. The air he breathed. The water he drank. 

He brought you with him, something he's never, ever, done before. Perched pretty on his shoulder, he heard your voice in his head with every step he took, every radio call. 

But it was hallucinatory. Chimerical. You weren't there, you were here, but the problem lies in the lack of a divide that usually bifurcates the world into two fractions: his job and you.

It eats at him. 

He brought you where he's never taken anyone before. Never let them in. 

His thoughts were asunder. Pulled in all directions, but the centre was always you. His compass pointing north. He wants you. Needs you. His whole being has been recalibrated with the needle aimed toward you. 

An alert on his phone shakes him from his reverie. 

He reaches for it, slides his hand across the lockbar. The notification pops up. A message from his bank. 

His card—the one he gave you, the one you've used all of once to buy a chocolate bar when he gruffly, surely, complained about you not spending his money—has been used. 

Curious now, he opens his app, eyes scanning the threadbare purchases—all mostly interest fees and service charges, bar one. It was recently used at a drugstore for under twenty dollars. 

He doesn't know what this means, what you're playing at. He makes to text you, but he gets an email next. 

Thank you for your purchase; here is your e-receipt. 

His heart does something strange in his chest. Turns in on itself. Goes all askew. 

Not only are you using his card, you're using his account, too. He clicks it, eyes scanning through the purchases (only two), and blinks. 

A card, and—

His want takes the shape of a hand, presses against his jugular. 

—a pregnancy test. 

He knew when he started this game that this was, of course, the inevitable outcome, but having it here, right in front of him—in that sneaky, noncommittal way you always do things; behind his back, and in the dark, like you enjoy watching him try and sniff out the truth—has his belly knotting up. Churning. 

A pregnancy test. 

Fuck—

(and out of all the ways to tell him, you cheeky little—)

He's up out of his chair before he's even aware that he's standing. 

“Laswell,” he gets out, and can't be sure how his voice is so measured when his head is being shredded into pieces. “I'm out for the rest of the day. This whole bloody week, too—”

“Something bad happen?” 

His hands shake when he pulls his jacket on, slips his car keys into his hands. “No. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm going to be a father. A bloody dad—”

It's on that sentiment when his voice breaks. Shatters. He clears his throat, blinks furiously. Fuck. Fuck. It's happening—

Shangri-la sits in his fist, taking the shape of an e-mailed receipt. 

In his periphery, he sees Simon's head come up. Watching him. Measured. 

Laswell, too, eyes him with a degree of wariness. He supposes to them this means the end of everything. 

She breathes in. “Tuscany would be my choice.”

“Oh?” He tears his eyes away from the screen, gracing her with a steady, unflinching look. “Was thinking something a bit more local. Liverpool.”

It gets a scoff, one full of disgust. “She'll divorce you within the year.” 

“I'm having a baby, Laswell. Not getting married.”

“Oh, no?” It's a challenge. “I seem to recall something about someone being a proper gentleman, or was that just the lie you told your unofficial missus?”

“We'll get married. That's not up for debate—” an intern makes an alarmed face, like perhaps it ought to be. Had he not been holding nirvana in his hand, he might be a bit more cautious with his madness. Too bloody bad. “Wherever she wants—Tuscany, Udaipur, fucking Siberia. I don't care. What I’m a bit more concerned with is my expectant wife.” 

“Soon-to-be,” she volleys, just because she knows it's the sort of thing that will itch under his skin. 

“Already is, Laswell.” He gripes, flat. “Or damn near close to it.” 

“If she knows what's good for her, she'll say no.”

“Lucky me, then, that she doesn't.” 

Lucky him, indeed. 

On his way out, Ghost utters a heated congratulations to him, and John can see his gaze is absent. Turned inward, mind whirring. Reeling. He can hear the gears grind from where he stands, and if the ink-black madness in his lieutenant’s drifting, pensive eyes means much of anything, then John sends a silent hail mary to whatever unlucky person was misfortune enough to unleash the muzzle on that particular dog. 

Well. It's not really his problem. Until it is. Until it becomes one. But since it's not something that'll impact him in the next five minutes, he tucks it away. “Thanks.” 

He doesn't linger. Doesn't, really, even remember the ride home, head buzzing with thoughts that keep twisting around themselves, driving him mental. Things like, is it real? what if you were joking. what you weren't? 

Oh, fuck—

You better not be. 

But you wouldn't. You're conniving and wily, but you're not cruel. 

This is happening, then. 

You've been playing house with matches inside of a tinderbox. He shouldn't be surprised when it all goes up in flames, in smoke, but as he walks through the door, and glimpses the pregnancy test perched innocently on the counter beside a card—congrats, daddy (and the caricature of a man in a pinstripe suit nearly makes him gag)—he feels all the maligned pieces inside of crack. 

It shifts—

You walk out, hand cupped protectively over your lower belly. Eyes gleaming like a wild cat crouched low in the tussocks surrounding the savannah, watching him an eager sense of anticipation, excitement, and just the slightest edge of what he can only imagine the unfortunate mate of a black widow sees before it's consumed. Spare parts. 

It thrums inside of him. Ignites this wicker basket he calls a heart until it's cinder. Ash. Soot. He breathes it in. Tastes you on his tongue. 

John doesn't have the words. Can't think beyond the steady brag of his burning heart. 

His. His.

—and then it all falls into place. 

Yours.

He dotes on you with an almost unhinged devotion, murmuring stilted, gruff words of muted affection into the shallow bump on your belly. Ones that you, politely, pretend not to hear. 

A new bedtime ritual, one he adheres to with an almost obsessive need. 

Until it becomes too much. 

“Go and get my prenatal vitamins from the washroom, please. I just need five minutes without you smothering me, you stupid bear of a man.”

“You love it,” he grumbles, but acquiesces, giving your small, barely there bump a pat. “I'll be back soon.”

“Oh, no… please take your time.” 

Despite the prickle in your tongue, your eyes are soft. Warm. Melting him just a little more. 

John pulls away, and doesn't even pretend the reluctance to be apart is feigned. 

“It's in the drawer,” you call, voice stretched. Echoing. “Next to your shaving cream.” 

He pulls the drawer open, scanning the contents briefly, before finding the purple bottle in the back. Why you chose here of all places to put the bloody things—

His knuckles knock against the old box of condoms, tipping it over. There's a strange rattle as it falls, and his brows furrow at the noise. 

Curiously, he reaches for it. Shakes it as he picks it up. The same sounds spill out. He pops the flap of the box open, peering inside, and—

A gruff chuckle crackles in his throat. 

Inside the old box of condoms—the ones he never bothered to throw out, or use—is an accumulation of all the pills you'd meant to take. 

His jowls ache. He rubs at his jaw with his hand, and feels the skittish patter of his heart thudding out of his skin. Madness in his veins. 

John closes the drawer with his knee, and then tosses the box of condoms in the bin, leaving it for you to find later when you're inevitably wracked by another wave of morning sickness. A little shred of vindication for this little game you made him play. 

Though he supposes turn-about is fair play, and the number of pills in the box is less than the months he spent scheming for this vision of his.  

In the back of his head, the beast purrs.

“Do we need to play these games again for the next one,” he rasps. “Or can I just fuck you until it takes.” 

You blink at him, wide and owlish. Full of faux innocence as you coax the beast out of hiding. “I don't know what you're talking about, John.” 

More games, then. He thinks he might crack open your ribcage and rest his weary head on the frantic beat of your heart. 

“Mm, don't know what I'd do without you,” he says, guns aching. He reaches for the pack of gum (no smoking around the baby or you'd toss him off the balcony), and pops a spearmint into his mouth. “Might live longer, I reckon, but—”

Your elbow digs into his side. “You sure about that?”

He just kisses your crown in response, and places his heavy, scarred hand over the curve of your belly. The beast inside purrs, content for now. Satiated. 

When he looks into your midnight eyes, he finds your own beast slumbering away. 

A match made in a tinderbox, he guesses, and kisses you until you're dizzy. His very own Shangri-la sitting pretty inside his bed, nestled in the castle in Spain you helped him build.

Will help him fill. 

[phyrestartr]

PR Stunt (Only, Right?) | Sukuna/M!Reader | Teaser!

#NSFW in full, bottom!reader, top!sukuna, Sukuna owns a body shop, reader is a performer, kinda meet cute, ABO dynamics, mpreg, yes there are always babies involved because i love dad sukuna, surprise baby, sukuna is a dickhead (what else is new), teaser not edited lmao

Note: This is just going to be a one-shot since it's already pretty much completed, just need to finish off the tail end and then go back and edit. Wanted a break from writing the other stories for a bit, so I hope you'll enjoy the full story when it's out

tags: @better-imagination-9 @better-imagination-9

“Did you sleep with (L. Name) (F. Name)?” 

The question caught Sukuna off guard; normally, Uraume didn't inquire into his personal life in regards to who he had and hadn't slept with. They were a friend, yes, but moreover they were the bookkeeper and helped with securing clients and arranging meetings–celebrities and their managers were fucks that Sukuna didn't like negotiating with. Best to leave the yapping to someone with a cooler head.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Sukuna asked as he rolled out from under the newest commissioned vehicle. 

Uraume walked to him, iPad in hand, and turned it to him, stone cold. 

Sukuna sat up straighter and squinted at the screen, annoyed. You’d probably just made up some salacious rumour and spread it throughout your friend circles; or worse, you wanted revenge on him for something he probably definitely did. In that case, Sukuna could somewhat understand. But still–

(Name) putting on weight? What’s happening to the former bombshell babe of Japan?!

Pregnant with a baby boy?! The secret's out!

(Name) returns to the stage after giving birth to a baby boy–but who is the father?

(Name) driving a Ryoumen Sukuna rescue vehicle?! Could he be the deadbeat dad we've been looking for?

Sukuna sucked his teeth after skimming over the article titles presented to him. 

“...No proof.” 

“Ah. Then please explain this,” Uraume requested, still polite as ever, as they flicked to an additional few images the scumbag paparazzi had caught of you. 

One was the car mentioned. Sukuna remembered it like it was yesterday–the joy of restoring a Porsche 911 back into its former glory was unmatched. You happily paid for all the parts and too often swung by to see the progress being made on the old thing. Obviously, Sukuna was more than happy to oblige. 

The next was of you holding a little nugget of a baby against your chest as you walked down a street in Shibuya. Nothing too damning, nothing too inspirational. 

But the last one–

“The fuck?” Sukuna mumbled as he snatched the iPad from Uraume’s hands and zoomed in on the now-toddler sitting with you in that damn Porsche, grinning brightly beside his mum while you ruffled his hair. His very, very pink hair. 

Sukuna took a breath while he thought. He didn't have to think too hard, though, not when he still dreamed about you and the short-lived fling between the two of you. 

“A Porsche 911, huh?” Sukuna grinned as he looked over the beat up, rusted beater of a car. He could still see scraps of its former glory, of the beautiful thing she used to be. Heaven knows she would've become an irreparable hunk of junk if you hadn't bought it from a scrapyard. 

“Yep.” You beamed. “So you think you can make her pretty again?” 

“You kidding? I'd pay you to let me fix this thing, baby.” Sukuna caught sight of your security stepping forward, but you waved them off without a second thought. 

Sukuna smirked. “But it’s not gonna be cheap.” 

You nodded. “Well, do what you have to. I'll pay whatever you need, handsome.” 

“Yeah?” Sukuna asked, looking your neatly-manicured appearance up and down; you were dressed like you were meeting someone of great importance (and  you were, obviously), with your hair groomed perfectly, outfit fit for a premiere, skin flawless. 

“Mhm. And I tip well.” you looked him up and down in kind, grinning as you bit at the nub of your sunglasses.

“Done.” 

Every time you came to check on his progress, genuine excitement flooding in your motormouthed Words, you'd go home with him and fuck him silly. 

And now, you were the momma to his baby. Allegedly. 

“I–so what the fuck does this have to do with anything?” Sukuna ran a frustrated hand through his hair after Uraume took the tablet back. “Bitch isn't asking for anything, he's not asking me to be his public fucking baby daddy, not asking me to pay for nothing?” 

“No,” Uraume conceded, “But he and his PR managers have reached out concerning this.” 

The man groaned and stood. “Fucking hell. Can't stand fucking PR teams. Thw fuck did they want?” 

“They want to make a statement about Touma's father.” 

Sukuna froze.

“Touma's a good name for a boy, right?” 

You asked the question so suddenly, so out of nowhere in the quiet of the afterglow. The city lights sparkled and winked at you both through the towering windows keeping you safe from the outside world. In hindsight, Sukuna would wonder if the city was excited for him. For you. 

“What, for a mutt?” Sukuna drawled, puffing on a blunt while he played with your hair and drowned in the tingles left in the wake of fingers drawing circles on his bare chest. 

“For a kid,” you chastised With a laugh. “I like Touma. Or Touka for a girl. Ayato's nice, too. Maybe Kazue.” 

“You better not be pregnant.”

“I'm not, I'm not. I'm just getting baby fever, I guess.” You hummed and left a sweet kiss against his tan skin. “I guess being around a big, bad boy like you's got me feeling domestic.” 

Sukuna laughed, dazed and happy. “You wanna ruin this pretty lil’ body for a fucking kid? Be my guest. Just don't come looking for a booty call after you've ruined yourself like that.” 

“Oh, don't worry,” you cooed. “I won't.” 

Man. Man. 

“A statement.” 

“In other words–”

“I'm not the fucking father.” 

“This might be a good way to get Yorozu off your case,” Uraume suggested, and Sukuna perked up. 

“Right. She fuckin’ hates kids.” 

“So, if you were to have a son, and it's revealed you've been quietly trying to make things work behind the scenes with (Name), then hypothetically–”

“I'll take the runt.”

[oatmilk-vampire]

Birthday Blues

Read part 2 here.

Steve hates his birthday.

He knows he may not be the only one who gets "birthday blues" but he feels like it's a lot deeper than just the blues.

When he got closer with Eddie and learned of his own shitty upbringing, he thought it'd be a bonding moment for them. Eddie has to hate his birthday too, right?

Wrong.

Despite Eddie’s mom dying when he was only six, and Eddie’s dad being a deadbeat, leaving Eddie on his own before Uncle Wayne took him in, Eddie loved his birthday.

The Munsons may not have been rich but Wayne always did his best to provide Eddie with new(er) clothes, or dice, or guitar picks. A new album or poster for his bedroom walls. Maybe even his favorite food at the diner--something they didn't do often as they usually survived on box cereal and spaghetti-Os.

And when Al Munson finally rolled into town conveniently around his only child's birthday, well he'd give the sort of shitty, low-commitment gift only a father could give.

And Eddie looked forward to it all the same. One or two shitty presents in six years is better than none when it comes to his father. He'd take what he could get.

So, when Eddie's birthday comes and goes and Steve gets invited to his and Wayne's get together with the kids, and then a later party with the members of Corroded Coffin--well of course Steve goes. And he showers Eddie with love and meaningful but still kinda pricey presents, because he can. And he wants to. Despite the merciless teasing he endures. The look on Eddie's face makes Steve feel like he's the one that got the greatest gift of all.

This, of course, all falls apart when Eddie points out Steve's own birthday must be coming up, and he's right. And because he has no tact he announces in front of everyone who realizes in horror that they've gone years of knowing Steve and celebrating his birthday exactly zero times.

Steve's equally horrified now because now everyone is tripping over their feet desperately trying to make it up to him with cakes and ice cream and movies and handmade cards and weird action figures Eddie probably would have liked better.

It's only after Steve gracelessly accepts all of their gift-giving, and fends off at least three panic attacks and two migraines that he has to put on his bitch voice and scream that the only thing he wants for his birthday is to be left alone.

And like usual, the kids do not listen.

Until Eddie steps in. He makes them go, Robin too, even if she is pissed about it. But they go when Eddie assures them that Steve probably just feels a little overwhelmed right now and needs some space.

He's close to leaving too, knowing he may have made a mistake and should probably get out of his hair... But then Steve starts crying and Eddie has to stay.

It's not loud or ugly, just these little, tiny pitiful things like Steve is trying his damnest to not cry. Like the act of tears falling would kill him.

Eddie cautiously slides next to his shaking form on the couch, careful not to jostle him too much.

He bites his lip as he experiments with placing a hand on Steve's shoulder.

Steve tenses under his touch until Eddie speaks,

"Stevie, I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. None of us did."

His parents were hardly around. Never gave him practical toys he wanted, just whatever they thought a boy should have to shape him into a "proper young man", if they thought he needed toys at all. No parties. Ever. He briefly wanted to throw ragers when he realized he was old enough and his parents wouldn't be home, they never were, but those made him feel even worse so he got used to spending the day like any other. All alone in a big, empty house. Not a home.

Eddie continues to rub soothing circles into Steve's back as he lets it all out, explaining his woes as best he can through a sore throat and runny nose. Eventually he pulls Steve into a proper hug-turned-cuddle until his breathing steadies and he isn't shaking anymore.

"I'm sorry." Eddie holds his breath, hoping it doesn’t trigger another panic attack.

"No--don’t be. Thank you."

"For what? Making you cry?"

"For caring enough to bring it up, even if it was a lot. But mostly for being here, after. Just..."

Steve didn't have to finish his sentence. Eddie knew what he was trying to say.

Thank you for staying. Thank you for holding me. Thank you for loving me.

"Always, Stevie. I'll always be here for you."

Steve squeezes him, and Eddie squeezes back once, twice.

He doesn't say it, but Steve understands.

Happy Birthday... I love you.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

You Make Me Wanna 1

Warnings: dark elements, noncon, age gap, best friend's dad trope other dark elements. Proceed with caution.

Note: Please let me know what you think as it helps me a lot with ideas and I love interacting with you all.

Part of The Club AU

You stumble through the open doors into the cool night air. The sweat on your skin chills you as your warmth melds with the evening temperature. The pulse of the club thrums through you as it follows you out, barely contained by the walls. 

You glance at the bouncer as you pass. He’s uninterested as he peers into the shadows across the street. You pull at the front of your shirt, airing it out as the heat of alcohol nips in your cheeks. You’re not in too deep. Three vodkas and water between to even it out. 

You sigh and lean against the brick, pushing your head back as you let your eyes close. There’s a tick in your cheek as you cross your arms. For all her nagging for you to come with her, Faye hadn’t been much of a wing woman. Maybe that’s what she’d expected of you. You don’t know, you just came to dance off the long week. 

Before you came out, you couldn’t separate her from the guy she was batting her lashes at. She swore before you came that she wasn’t looking to hook-up. Not again. Last time was just too weird. And you agreed, last time was the final straw. You’re done with those awkward encounters. 

You open your eyes and set your head straight. You would think she would be a lot more cautious. Considering where she came from. Or maybe that’s why she’s so reckless. She’s a bit too old for teenage rebellion. 

You stand and roll your shoulders. You’ll go back in and entice her away from that creep with a shot. You’re going home together. Just like she promised. 

“How did I know you’d be here?” The deep rumble has your ankle bending as you take a step, your clunk heel turning sideways. You know that voice, all too well. Fuck. “Where is she?” 

You face Walter as he marches up on you. Better known to you and all Faye’s cohort as ‘Mr. Marshall’. The no-nonsense detective who never has a good word or a smile for anyone. You’d hate to have a father like him. He makes you thankful you don’t have one. 

“Inside,” you shrug and go to spin away. 

“You just left her in there?” He snarls as he closes in from behind. 

“I’m going back in--” 

He grabs you and spins you to face him, his large hand tight around your arm. Despite the new strands of grey in his curls, illuminated by the lights of the marque, and the fine lines around his eyes, he’s still an imposing man. And strong. You wiggle, trying to tug away from his grasp. 

“Eh,” one of the bouncers calls over, “let her go.” 

He huffs but does as he’s told. He doesn’t want a scene, not that he couldn’t flip his badge out and swing his weight around. He never seems to shy away from that. 

“I came out to get some air. I didn’t leave her--” 

“No, but you brought her here,” he looks up, “that’s more than enough.” 

“I came here with her, I didn’t bring her here--” 

“Whatever. This shit might fly with your deadbeat mother but it won’t get far with me. Faye never started sneaking out until you came around--” 

You scoff, “she’s twenty-one. She’s an adult. And trust me, she was doing a lot before I ever met her.” 

“Take me to her,” he growls, “now.” 

You roll your eyes and the rumble stays in his throat. You wave him off and pivot on your heel. You clop forward and show your stamped wrist to the bouncer. They stop Walter and he sighs. You don’t wait for him as he stops and shuffles around. You don’t look back, knowing his badge will gain him easy entry. 

He catches up with you as spectrum of blues and purples haze over you from the coloured bulbs. He presses close as drunken clubgoers crowd around you. You search along the bar where you last saw Faye. 

“She was with some guy--” 

“Some guy?” He blusters, “are you serious?” 

You take out your phone and key in a message to her. You hit send and pop your head back up, scanning the writhing bodies. You don’t want to stay here with Walter, you can feel his anger roiling off of him. It would be better if you could find Faye first and sneak out of there. 

“I’ll check the ladies,” you offer. 

He doesn’t say a word. You set off towards the bathroom and sense him behind you, following you. Great. He trails you all the way down the hallway and only stops outside the black door. You push inside, doubting you’ll find Faye but all too happy to get space from that overbearing grump. 

You don’t bother checking the shoes under the stalls or the other faces in the mirror. You take out your gloss and redo your lips. You fix the collar on your cropped polo and turn to check the curve of your ass in your leggings. You look good even if your eyes are bit glassy. 

You look at your phone again. No answer. You can’t hide in here forever and you somehow don’t think a sign will stop Walter forever. The vodka fills you with doubt. You wish you were sober. 

You drag yourself back through the door and shrug at Walter as he meets you with a furrowed brow. 

“Not in there,” you say, “she’s probably dancing--” 

“You know, you won’t get far in life spending all your time in pits like this. You should go to school, grow up.” 

You ignore him. You’ve heard a million lectures from him, usually aimed at his daughter, but you don’t have to listen to him. He isn’t your father. He doesn’t know shit about you even if he’s profiled you as a bad egg. 

Your phone buzzes and you stop at the end of the hallways. His arm hits yours and you squint at the screen. He leans in, reading over your shoulder. 

“Shit!” He snarls sharply. 

The drunken message makes you cringe, ‘see u 2morrow. Got a hottie wit a botty.’ 

“Come on,” he grabs your elbow again. This time there’s no escape as he marches you across the cramped dancefloor. 

“Walt-- Mr. Marshall, what are you doing--” 

“Finding my goddamn daughter.” 

“But--” 

“But nothing. This is your fault. You’re not going anywhere until she’s home,” he sneers as you stumble in time with his long strides. “Then I never wanna see your face again.” 

[cursed-peanut]

A/N: Hello everyone! My name is Peanut and this is my first post on this account! I’ve posted online before but it’s been a few years since then so I might not be the best 😭 Please forgive me. For my first post, I decided to write some yummy angst 😋 I hope you enjoy and consider following me if you enjoyed this.

— Peanut <33

————————————

I hate you, Toji Fushiguro || Toji Fushiguro x Reader & Megumi Fushiguro + Reader Drabble

Summary: You are the only stable and constant parental figure Megumi has ever had and he hates that his deadbeat dad has you rapped around his finger despite Toji clearly showing he only wants you late at night for the sake of his own pleasure.

Genre: Angst

Warnings: ANGST, unrequited love, absent parents, swearing, GN! Reader, hints at spoilers for season 2 JJK??, not proofread, possible spelling and mistakes, lmk if I missed anything.

————————————

Megumi doesn’t know his mother, he was never given the chance to meet her. But he’s okay with that because you fill her absent role.

You were originally just someone Toji used to hookup with every now and then, so naturally you had bumped into Megumi a few times. You were kind and caring every time, however these moments weren’t what made you replace her role.

No, that came much later when you found out Toji would sometimes leave Megumi and his sister Tsumiki alone months on end.

You couldn’t sit by and watch that, so you stepped in and stayed at the Fushiguro’s flat and took care of them. Looked after them. You were more than a parental figure to him, you were his parent. Fuck Toji and his absent ass, at least his mother had the excuse of being dead. Toji however just seemingly up and left one day.

Sure, maybe he comes home every so often, but it’s never for long and he’s only either arguing with you or he’s staring at you intensely, his eyes full of lust. Then on the contrary, there’s you. You are always there. A stable and constant figure in his life other than his sister.

Now it’s common knowledge that Megumi is very mature for his age, so while it shouldn’t shock you, it comes as a surprise when one day he tells you;

“Stop hoping dad will fall for you. We both know he’s not going to. He’s too stuck in his own mind to be able to love someone else.”

You swallow thickly. What is up with this six year old? How long has Toji neglected him for him to mature this quickly? You stop preparing dinner and move over to the young boy, crouching to his level and placing your hands on both of his shoulders, offering a warm smile.

“Don’t worry about it ‘gumi-chan. Even if your dad doesn’t love me back, that’s never going to stop me from caring for you and Tsumiki, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Megumi is relieved to hear this, but he’s still worried about you. You’re hurting yourself by hoping Toji cares to one day love you.

“I…Okay.”

And that was the end of that conversation…until it wasn’t.

Later that year, a strange white haired man with black sunglasses came to their flat telling him he came to take him in. Before he could reject this weird man, you came out of the flat asking who he was. Turns out he’s called Gojo Satoru and he came with news about Toji.

At this you immediately invited him in, offering him something to drink, he says a glass of water will do fine. Once you give him his glass, he tells you Megumi should probably not be here for this conversation.

After Megumi’s allowed back into the main living space, he knows something has happened to Toji. Your head is hung low and your cheeks are damp with red eyes, clearly you’ve been crying. You wipe your face and beckon him over.

“Megumi, come here.”

He walks over to your place at the kitchen table and takes the seat next to you.

“This kind man here has an offer for us. We can either stay here and in two years time we join the Zen’in Clan, or we go with this man and live with him. You will need to train to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer once you’re older if we decide to go with him, so I thought I’d ask you-“

“If we stay here and join the Zen’in Clan, will you and Tsumiki be happy? They’re wealthy, right? We’d be okay financially-“

“I’m sorry to interrupt, however,”

You and Megumi turn to Gojo.

“If you want your sister and mentor to be happy, I can guarantee you they will be far from it if you join the Zen’in Clan. Trust me.”

“…well then, let’s go with him if he’s our best option.”

You smile at him and side hug him, placing a soft kiss on the crown of his head.

“Alright. Explain to Tsumiki and pack your things. I’ll come help you and Tsumiki in a second.”

Megumi slips out of his chair to head back to his room. Once you hear the soft click of Megumi’s door, your face drops as you place your face in your hands. You laugh bittersweetly.

“He really knows how to fuck things over, huh?… Did he really not say anything about me to you?”

“I’m sorry Mx. L/N, not a peep. If I knew you were in the picture, I would’ve knocked instead of talking to him directly first.”

You quietly hum to your self, whispering:

“Who would’ve thought I should’ve taken the advice of a six year old?”

The little six year old in question is on the other side of his bedroom door, listening to the conversation through the thin wood. So he was right, something did happen to Toji. He had warned you to let go of Toji. He knew one day Toji would hurt you one final time. Leaving you completely broken. Despite knowing this, he was seething inside and out. No one should make you feel like this. Especially not his sorry excuse of a father who only gave you the time of day when he wanted some pleasure.

He hates Toji Fushiguro. He hates him for never being around for his family. He hates him for neglecting him and Tsumiki to the point where they can’t even remember what he looks like. He hates him for a plethora of reasons, the list could go on. But, above all, he hates Toji Fushiguro for using you. He grits his teeth and clenches his fists. Just thinking about that despicable man makes blood boil.

“I hate you, Toji Fushiguro.”

————————————

Please don’t copy or take as your own. Likes and reposts are appreciated!

[ashwhowrites]

Harrington!reader, Steve’s little sister. Popular, a cheerleader, first time senior and Chrissy’s best friend. But she has a secret that only her best friend knows. She’s had a crush on Eddie Munson since middle school. She’s afraid to tell him, thinking there’s no way he’d be into her. Until one day in the cafeteria, Jason Carver calls Eddie a freak. She confronts him, and punches him in the face, breaking or spraining her hand/wrist. Guess her little secret is out, and she may never be popular again.

I feel like I wrote a fic like this, but I couldn't find it, so here we go! I hope this is what you were looking for and you like it <3

Never proofread

Liking the freak

Y/N Harrington was a popular cheerleader, her status even higher than her older brother's. A status that everyone knew. She tried to be a lot nicer than how Steve was. She didn't want to be popular for being an asshole.

The worst part about being popular was knowing people disliked her because of it. And there was someone she was always worried hated her, Eddie Munson. He was known to hate the popular crowd and she couldn't blame him. They made his life hell day in and day out.

But she always had a soft spot for him, ever since middle school. She was embarrassed to admit she had a crush on him since, but she didn't believe for a second that he would like her back. She doesn't think there's one bone in his body that would like her. She wasn't mean to him, but she never helped him out either. Just stood in the back and tried to avoid problems everywhere.

Chrissy knew, her best friend, and Chrissy thought she should go for it. But Chrissy also knew her boyfriend, Jason, would turn on Y/N in seconds. Chrissy also understood Y/N's fear of Eddie not liking her back. Their crowds just didn't mix well.

Jason was on another rant about who knows during lunch. Y/N got good at drowning him out, picking at her lunch as she admired Eddie from across the room. She could tell he was mocking Jason and she found herself laughing, even though she couldn't hear him. But then he looked up, his brown eyes meeting hers. He lifted his eyebrow, almost to ask "What are you doing looking at me?" But she found herself frozen, not looking away.

"YO, FREAK. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT HER FOR?" Jason yelled, immediately grabbing everyone's attention. Y/N snapped out of her daydream and glared at Jason. Now the whole room was staring at their table, trying to see who the freak was looking at.

Eddie rolled his eyes and stood up, "SHE WAS LOOKING AT ME!" he yelled back. He told the truth, but of course, Jason wouldn't believe that.

Jason scoffed and looked back at Y/N, "Dude, a girl like that would never look at you unless she was making fun of you." For once, Y/N was involved in the problem and she figured this would be the time.

She stood up, ignoring Chrissy's pleas for her to sit back down.

"I was staring. It's not his fault. Leave him alone." Y/N confessed, giving Eddie a small smile as an apology. But Jason kept going.

"For what? Don't tell me you like the freak?" Jason accused her, she was stunned for a second. Not thinking Jason would go immediately think of that.

But what was the point of lying?

"I think he's attractive and I'd like to get to know him." She said, crossing her arms as she stood confidently. Trying to ignore the way everyone gasped like it was that serious. Eddie looked stunned, his table looking between her and him a thousand times. Dustin smiled and went for a high-five, but Eddie smacked his hand down with a glare.

"You can't do that!" Jason tried but Y/N didn't care. "Why? Because you say so? Like I'm going to listen to you." Y/N grabbed her backpack and was heading toward Eddie to prove her point.

"Fine, go with the freak Harrington! Just like your loser brother. But don't come crawling back when you realize he's just as much trash as his deadbeat dad." Jason thought he won when she froze. Her back to him as she stared at Eddie. He looked embarrassed and almost looked like he agreed with Jason. Y/N knew what it was like to struggle with parents, she had Steve at least, but Eddie didn't have anyone.

Y/N did the first thing that came to mind, she turned around, knuckles clenched as she punched him straight across the face. Chrissy gasped and checked on Jason, but had a proud look on her face.

Jason was knocked to the floor, caught off guard as he stared at her. Screaming started and teachers were rushing to her. Before she knew it, she was being grabbed by teachers and thrown out of the cafeteria. But as she was dragged out she caught Eddie's eye. He winked and sent her a smirk.

Maybe the Harringtons weren't as bad as Eddie thought.

Tags!

@bmunson86 @mxcheese @ladymunson @michaelfuckinglangdon @z0mbie-blah @biittersweet @mirrorsstuff @somethingvicked @micheledawn1975 @ago-godance @magnificantmermaid @tlclick73 @hargrovesswifee @cityofidek @manyfandomsfanvergentreblogs @silky-luxe @lokiofasgard616 @loving-and-dreaming @eddiemunsonsbitch69 @thegemaqua @ashlynnkennedy @strangerthingsstories5255 @harringt8ns @pleasinghellfire @whoscamila @stusdollface93

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

the crowleying of your mascot's hair.

Good morning maggots, as I write this it is 11:53 pm on the uh, asmi10kpocalypse/10khaos (both stunning names, whichever of you came up with them please walk on stage and take a goddamn bow) and I have awoken from deep slumber.

The Good News: My hair is dyed! The Bad News: It was torture that I nearly fainted from!

Okay well uh, we know what I'm best at, and it's summaries of chaos. So without further ado (much ado about nothing ahahah everything is a 10k reference now), here we go:

It starts, as it will end, in my room in front of the laptop screen.

Now, as you know, I said I would dye my hair after I scarfed down my lunch. I do that and I also take a nap because fuck yeah, sleep.

I check tumblr one last time, grab my phone without charging it, tell my mum I'm dyeing my hair, and begin the walk to the salon.

On my phone is Arthur, @howmanyholesinswisscheese, who as a cishet deadbeat dad of a lot of us, is the worst person to ask for hair advice, but I do it anyway. I need a reference photo for a haircut.

Arthur helpfully scours the internet and comes up with options that include: Gay, hot history teacher, Joe Locke but something's off about it, same as above but different slightly and I can't place it, top 20 haircuts for crazy people, top 100 teen boy haircuts for teens, mullet slash hot history teacher, Hozier, why does the teen boy have a beard, Aussie AFL player, and Chris Hemsworth.

His words, not mine. Does anyone want to check in on Arthur's history teacher because I am getting very concerned for that man.

So I pick a haircut and land up at the salon. Arthur also tells me my hair is wild and I have needed a haircut for too long. Thanks dad.

The hairdressers are not pleased when I point to the red shade and tell them to bleach and dye my entire hair.

They inform me it will look like shit.

They keep asking if I'm sure. I say, with increasing annoyance, that yes I am.

Arthur is in the phone enabling me, yelling that I need to do it for crowley and "THEY DON'T GET TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO"

The hairdressers then say they're out of red hair dye, I can either do a magenta or come back the next day.

Arthur tells me to leave and go to another salon.

So I do, and I wind up at the salon right next door (Arthur and I cheer for capitalism), an extremely seedy looking place with a poorly painted stairwell that could well be haunted.

I tell the hairdressers there what I want, and they also argue with me about how it will fade, look like shit, etc etc.

Arthur says "THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT, THEY'RE JUST HAIRDRESSERS"

He tells me that if Crowley can keep the Bentley together through hellfire through sheer will, I can do the same for my hair.

Finally, they huddle in front of a laptop, muttering, and agree to take me on.

I am then also hair-shamed by the stylist, who tells me in no uncertain terms that if I don't cut my hair as soon as it grows out even slightly, it looks "kharab", which is Hindi for... 'substandard, inferior, bad, shoddy, deficient'. Thanks, mate.

The haircut is done. What follows then is on of the top five most excruciatingly painful experiences of my life.

No, I'm serious. The bleaching and dyeing. It was. Fuck.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

JUST THE MEMORY HURTS

OKAY NEXT PART OF THE SAGA I WILL REBLOG THIS IT IS GETTING TOO LONG

IF YOU WANT THE HAIR REVEAL THEN YOU WILL HAVE TO SIT THROUGH THIS LIKE I DID, I'M AFRAID

[metis-iphigenia]

its like 2 am and im very tired so im sorry if this doesnt make sense i just want to talk about why i love scott summers.

•one of the reasons i love scott summers is because he is a flawed character who is quite doomed by the enviroment he was raised in. he makes mistakes a lot and learns that his actions have life altering consequences, later on he actually works on them.

for an example, in x-factor; scott left madelyne with their son nathan because the original 5 of the xmen were getting back together.(also the news of jean grey being alive) later on, Nathan is in the hands of apocalypse and mr sinister, later gets infected with that stuff etc.(idk how to explain sorry) and scott becomes aware that maybr if he didnt leave, maybe if he stayed he wouldnt lose the son he always wished to have. he is consumed by his guilt and grief. at least to my interpretion.

this is why i dont like actively calling scott a deadbeat dad because in the end he did come back for nathan.(he shouldnt have left in the first place i get that too) but calling him a deadbeat dad in my opinion just ignores his character as a whole.

or in xmen animated series, where in like the first episodes he has to leave morph. wolverine is angry at him justifibly(but its also not scotts fault(and morpherine canon guys)) scott does his best later on to be more careful to lead the team in missions, trying his best to not leave anyone behind etc its not very underlined that he does this but you can see it when you look for it.

•and not only that, i also find him very relatable and think his anger, frustration against the world very relatable. i also agree with his ideals.

cyclops ideals are a perfect balance between magneto's and professor x's ideals from my observation.

im gonna speak in xmen 97 terms because explaining my opinions is easier that way

professor x(as much as i admire what he stands for) is trying to help mutants but he is working towards tolerance, not acceptance. and like said in xmen 97, tolerance really is extinctence(i think this is how you spell it?? idk sorry english is not my mother tongue)

magneto doesnt want acceptance nor tolerance he just doesnt want humans(because of the years of opression he has faced, leading him to fight back against id but be the opressor as the time passes because humans(yes mutants are humans too) are corrupt like that)so he is trying to cause war for mutant liberation but his actions are causing people to be prejudiced about other mutants and causing them to be more violent towards them. even in the apocalyptic future, camps are being made for mutants because magneto himself started a war.(i will talk about my views on magneto on an another post because he really is a very interesting character corrupt by his own cynicism)

however what scott is working towards is acceptance and he is aware that if he just stands quiet to all the violence towards mutants and just busts his ass to save humans, he is the same as professor x, working towards tolerance. so now he uses violence to make people aware that mutants are going to live with them if they like it or not because he knows sometimes to be heard you have to scream. but his ideals towards mankind never changes because he doesnt hate them he hates their ignorance.

i do believe that since his mental health was declining(becasue of the years of opression and brutality he and his people have faced)he has done some things that were definitely problematic but this brings me to my first point of him facing the consequences of his actions.

overall, i do believe cyclops was right, i just think he also went about it wrong in some ways and that led to people not understanding him.

i find his backstory very interesting too(even though in changes but to me the orphanage later jack winters and professor x is the true one) i think about him being gaslit into forgetting his own little brother but him never faltering once and believing his own mind instead of someones tongue,his time with jack winters

(which i believe the interpretion of it being abusive because of the signs etc and how more impactful it makes that the first mutant he had ever actually known had hurt him instead of helping his own kind. it a parallel to our own world where even the opressors have managed to turn us against eachother even though we are all opressed by them, shunned because we are minorities)

later on him coming to live with professor and still being in a place where he is being used(i believe with my whole heart that professor saw scott as his son and sometimes forgot that they didnt share the same flesh but that doesnt change that professor did use scott, even without meaning any harm because professor in the end wants the best for all mutant kind but forgets to think about them as individuals)

•anyway to cut it short:

> i love scott summers because he makes mistakes AND learns from them, faces the consequences. and because of his mentality and the things he faced throughout his life that led him to making those mistakes.

there are lots of main characters in media who never really gets called out of the things they do(for example, annabeth from pjo with how she treated tyson, i love annabeth but it was just awful, also piper and her overall character(i chalk it up to rick riordan writing her badly because she is sorry to anyone who loves her))

>i love his upbringing and reading about it in any shape or form

>another reason why i love scott is because hes so bbg and miserable in a way i want to hug him so hard but also strangle him yknow

>>>>>TELL ME YOUR OPINIONS OF SCOTT SUMMERS WITHOUT BEING RUDE PLEASE!! if there is anything you dont agree with, you can always write it with the condition of being kind and not rude!!<<<<<<

[joekeeryswife]

For you, For her - e.m

hello angels! i hope everyone’s doing well. here is part two to deadbeat dad (the eddie version, steve version out soon!) i’m really excited about this one and i hope you all enjoy reading it🩷 if you enjoy rockstar!dad (or even just regular dad!Eddie) send me some requests!🩷

(here is the Steve alternative ending!)

taglist(feel free to add yourself🩷): @theshireisonfire @thankingjoe @livsters @sadbitchfangirl @hellfire1986baby @ladyapplejackdnd @alexxavicry @juleshadalittlelamb @hollandweather @lovurry @bibieddiesgf @plk-18 @m-rae23 @hargrovesswifee @missabsey @chxrrySprxut @idkjoequinn @plutosllama @emma77645 @birdysaturne @thefrontofmymind @pbs-theundeadmaggot @keirasreplies @tiannamortis (if there’s a line through your name i cannot tag you for some reason, make sure your tags are on. also lmk if you want to be deleted from my taglist 🩷)

"hey, what's got you up so early?" Eddie's manager Steph said leaning against the kitchen side as she drank her coffee. it was 8am and she was surprised to see him up this early. let alone up, dressed and ready to leave the house. he used to wake up every afternoon with a different groupie leading them to the front door where he promised to call them which he obviously never did.

but Steph hadn't been at his house, which he shared with Gareth, since Eddie went to your house to see Penny. she had absolutely no idea what he was doing for himself, for his daughter, for you. he hadn't even slept with anyone since he spoke to you.

"i've got to go see my daughter" it had been almost two months since Penny's party and he had been bettering himself for her. he would turn up practically every weekend to take her out and do something she'd like. sometimes he'd even come round on the wrong days just to spend time with her, it made Penny's face light up when he actually showed up when he said he would and it was beautiful to see.

"no, you can't go today we have that party later and we all want you there" Steph shouted as she watched him slip on his shoes and grab his keys off the side. he stopped and turned to her, Eddie was very easily influenced but he knew if he didn't turn up that his girl would be stopped from seeing him and he couldn't handle that.

"i'm sorry Steph but right now my kid is the only thing i care about, enjoy the party" with that he walked out the front door leaving her stunned. Eddie Munson never ever turned down a party.

the last time Eddie went to a party was the day of his daughters birthday, he knew it was horrible of him and he honestly hated himself for doing that but he had stopped partying, he had stopped drinking and doing drugs which had shocked everyone. his friends, his family, the press and he was proud of the person he was becoming.

after the situation which happened a week after Penny's birthday he went to Wayne and was shouted at by him for hours. Wayne was furious that he even have the audacity to show his face after what he had done to his daughter and after he told Eddie that he was ashamed of the person he had become, he changed up real fast.

he went home that night and listened to the voicemail Penny had left him 'daddy. are you coming to my party, i miss you' it had broke him. he listened to the voicemail over and over again which made him sob for hours. his girl wanted to see him and he failed, he failed her. after hearing her say that she missed him, he knew that he could become a better person and he did.

it had surprised you to see Eddie standing there a week later, dressed casually and he explained to you that he was trying his best and you appreciated that. yes it took a little bit of time before Penny opened up to him again but he was grateful that you had given him the chance to see her, to tell her how sorry he was.

he didn't want to be known as the dad that didn't care because he did. he was grateful that Corroded Coffin had gotten the recognition they deserved, but he wishes some days that they hadn't so none of this would have happened.

he wished that things would go back to how they were when you were all a family, you made time for each other, loved and cared for each other and he was highly at fault. he wasn't showing you or Penny love, care or affection and it was his fault your relationship broke down. that's one of his biggest regrets.

the knock on your front door pulled you out of your thoughts. it was early, 8:32am to be exact, and the only person that you knew was coming round was Eddie. but that wasn't meant to be until later, Penny wasn't even awake yet.

you opened the door and saw Eddie standing there with a small, anxious smile on his face. "i know it's early but i thought it would be nice if we all spent the day together. we could let Penny pick, only if you want to. if you're busy i can come back later when i was meant to-" you shook your head and smiled.

"i think that's a lovely idea" you moved to the side so he could come in. Eddie let you and Penny stay in the house when the two of you broke up, he had some sort of a brain and you were grateful you did stay there. it was filled with beautiful memories and you would hate it if you did have to leave.

"she's not awake yet but she should be soon, she's gonna be really happy to see you" you smiled, Penny couldn't really remember what it was like when Eddie was here but all she wanted was for Eddie to come home so you could be a family again. she wanted to see her dad every day, she wanted him to be here with you and her.

Eddie sat down on the sofa and you sat next to him, keeping a bit of distance. "look i need to talk to you, it’s easier to do it now because she’s not awake" this made your smile drop and anxiety fill your body, he took a deep breath, obviously thinking about how he was going to say whatever he was thinking.

"i'm really sorry for everything i've done these past couple of years. i've been an awful person and i've hurt you both and i'm really grateful you're giving me a second chance to be Penny's dad" he grabbed ahold of your hands and looked into your eyes.

it was like every time you looked into them you were mesmerised, his eyes were one of your favourite things about him and you were happy when you saw Penny had the exact same eyes he did.

"i'm sorry i left and i'm sorry for not being there for you, i'm sorry for not being there for Penny and i hope you know that i have changed and i am never leaving her again. i was honestly the biggest asshole and there is nothing i regret more than how i treated you both, especially you. you've done it all on your own and you've raised her so well. you are an incredible mum" you smiled again, grateful that he was taking accountability for his actions, you were also grateful for the small praise he had said.

getting told you were a good mum always put your mind at ease. there was always the thought of you not doing it correctly but parenting didn't come with a book. you had to figure it out on your own and to get reassurance just made you feel like you were doing it your best and apparently, according to Eddie, you were an incredible mum which you were and he meant every word.

"thank you for saying that ed's" Eddie's cheeks flushed at the nickname, he loved you. he really really loved you and his biggest regret was leaving you for the band. he wished he treated you differently, he wished he could go back in time and talk things out with you and listen to what you had to say, he wished he showed you both the love and affection you deserved but he didn't and he hated himself.

he was brought up by Wayne who had told him to respect women and when he left he knew he was wrong. but he was easily manipulated into doing things even if he didn't want to like the partying, the groupies, the drinking, the drugs and when you do them a few times you get hooked and he couldn't stop.

he done them to be well liked, he done them to fit in with a crowd of people he hated, and now he had finally stopped doing them he felt like himself again. he felt like a person and he could actually hold a conversation without itching for the alcohol or the drugs.

"she's really sweet y/n and thank you for giving me a second chance to be her dad. i can’t describe how much it means to me" you squeezed his hands as a sign or reassurance. the both of you turned to the look at the stairs when you heard Penny was finally awake and walking down them, rubbing her eyes as she tried to wake herself up.

"morning sweetheart" you said as she walked into the living room, she yawned and looked to see both you and Eddie sat next to each other. "daddy" she squealed, she was definitely awake now. she ran to him and jumped into his lap making you pull your hands away so the two of them could hug.

"what are you doing here" she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck. you watched the two of them and your heart melted, it was adorable. "well i missed you so so so much i couldn't stay away. so me, you and mama are spending the whole day together and you get to decide what we do" Eddie ran his hand up and down her back as she cuddle into him.

"really?" her eyes widened and excitement filled her small body. her mum and dad would be spending time with her for the first time in forever, literally. it had been years since you and Eddie had spent a whole day with Penny and honestly you were excited.

she picked up her head from his chest and saw him nod. "what did you want to do then honey?" you asked, there were two obvious places she would pick. either the beach or the zoo, Penny loved the beach but she also loved the zoo so you were sure she would pick one of those.

"please can we go to the zoo? i want to see the giraffes" they were her favourite animals which Eddie actually didn't know. "well, why don't i help you get ready, that means mama can get ready and we will be out the door quicker?" Eddie looked at you and then back at Penny who was smiling widely.

"you still remember how to bath her?" you joked which Eddie only nodded. he remembered but it had been years since he had been this sort of environment. "i'll run her bath, you just have to wash her and wash her hair" with that you left Penny and Eddie downstairs to run her a bath.

"you excited baby?" he pushed her hair out of her face and kissed her cheek, he missed moments like this. she nodded, her dimples showing as she smiled. Eddie was excited to spend the day with the both of you, he hoped that you could act like a family again.

-

"mama, daddy look there's a baby giraffe there" she squealed, Eddie was holding Penny who was pointing to the baby giraffe who had just come outside from the enclosure was with its mum, she was filled with excitement. "yeah honey, it's a baby giraffe. isn't it cute" you stood next to her and stroked her cheek.

"it's so cute" she said, her eyes never leaving the two animals. "what makes them your favourite animal angel?" Eddie turned his attention to look at Penny who was practically mesmerised with the giraffes.

"they are just so cute daddy. oh and mama told me they are friendly" as Eddie listened to Penny talk he realised how much he had actually missed, when he left you Penny could only say a few sentences and most of the time he would be speaking to himself but now he could hold an actual conversation with her.

"that's right. they are friendly" he had absolutely no idea if they were friendly or not but if it made Penny happy knowing they were friendly he'd go along with it. "do you want to go see any other animals Penny? or do you want to stay here for a bit longer" the three of you had been staring at the giraffes for at least thirty minutes.

"can we stay here just for a bit? i just want to look at the baby for a little longer" you looked at Eddie who nodded "yeah we can. but only for a little bit though, we have other animals to see remember" he tickled her tummy making her laugh loudly and fall back into him.

the three of you stood watching the small giraffe run around the huge open field for a few more minutes before you and Eddie heard someone speak to him. "i'm sorry to interrupt you man but my son is the biggest fan of Corroded Coffin, would you mind if he got a picture with you? i know you're with your family but this would mean the world to him"

the two of you turned around as the man spoke and you smiled at his son who looked like he was holding himself back from running to hug Eddie.  he looked no older than 7 with his dad stood next to him and looked mesmerised by Eddie actually being in his presence.

the father held a grey polaroid camera "of course, you don't mind do you?" Eddie turned to let you hold Penny whilst he took a photo. "not at all" you held Penny who was still looking at the giraffes running around the field whilst Eddie knelt down next to the small boy.

"what's your name bud?" you heard him say as he hugged the young fan. "Ozzy" he seemed shy but watching the interaction was adorable. "woah sick name. i assume you're named after Ozzy Osbourne who is my personal favourite"

you turned back to look at the open field and kissed Penny on the cheek, you could hear Eddie talking to Ozzy and his dad. Ozzy and his dad were thanking Eddie for taking the time out of his day to even acknowledge them, let alone have a conversation and take a few photos with them.

"thank you again Eddie, you're amazing" with a quick hug from Ozzy and a handshake from his dad the two of them left to allow Eddie to get back to the two of you.

"he was adorable" you said as Eddie stood next to you. he nodded agreeing, opening his arms so he could take Penny back "yeah he was" he held Penny in his arms and kissed her forehead a few times. she didn't even feel the affection because she was still infatuated with the giraffes.

-

after a long day at the zoo you and Eddie decided it would be best if you went back to yours for dinner which had happened to be one of the best dinners any of you had. it was just the three of you being together, spending time with each other as you ate and talked about anything that came up.

it was nearing Penny's bedtime, spending the whole day with Eddie had made you realise your feelings for him hadn’t gone away. before he left he was an amazing dad, even if he was tired from work he would make the effort to look after Penny whilst you were able to do a few things for yourself and now that he had finally realised what he’d been missing out on he was becoming that amazing dad again.

you hated when you would see the newspapers where Eddie and a random groupie would be on the front cover, white powder on his nose with his already pale skin looking even paler. he just didn’t look like your Eddie and at that point he wasn’t anymore and it broke your heart.

you missed when the two of you would put Penny to bed and would watch her sleep in comfortable silence, she always looked so peaceful when she slept and it was crazy to the two of you that you both created such a beautiful baby, she was utterly perfect.

the three of you were sat on the sofa, Penny asleep whilst laying on top of Eddie who had cuddled her since the minute the three of you got home. “it’s getting late, you want to help me get her ready for bed?” you looked down at Penny who was snoring softly.

he nodded and stood up carefully making sure his grip was tight so she wouldn’t fall. the two of you walked up the stairs, you behind Eddie looking at the sleepy girls drooling on his shoulder.

once the two of you were in her bedroom you picked out her pyjamas and got her dressed, careful to not wake her up out of the peaceful slumber she was in. once she was dressed you laid her down in her bed and pulled the covers over her, tucking her in and with a quick kiss on her forehead you moved out the way so Eddie could say goodnight to her.

this was the first time in three years Eddie had been here to tuck her in and say goodnight. he knelt down to look at her, her curls where all over her face so he gently pushed them back and kissed her cheek, she sighed peacefully and that felt like your queue to leave her to rest.

Eddie didn’t want to leave though, he wanted to stay with the two of you and never leave again but he knew it didn’t work like that. the two of you went downstairs and a comfortable silence filled the space. “so, i guess this is my time to leave” he joked, scratching the back of his back awkwardly.

“you can stay for a bit if you want. maybe it would be good for us to talk?” he looked at you to make sure you were 100% sure and that he was actually hearing you correctly. “i- uhh, are you sure? i can leave if you want” you laughed and shook your head.

“i think it would be good for us to talk” you turned to walk to the living room and sat down on the sofa, knees brought to your chest. you could hear his sock covered feet following you and he sat next to you quickly after.

“we haven’t really had a conversation and i think it’s good for me to tell you now” you were still madly in love with Eddie and spending the little time you had together had made you realise it, you were with him for five years before you broke up and your feelings don’t just vanish into thin air.

he was confused at first, what was there to talk about? “i know you left me and i understand why you did, it was hard for me to get it at first but i do understand. but i do want you to realise that just because you left doesn’t mean my feelings for you just went away” he looked at you feeling guilty about the past.

“i’m not gonna sit here and say what you did was okay because it wasn’t. you hurt me a lot and you hurt your daughter. you had time to go and sleep with whoever you wanted and do whatever you wanted and i had to be strong and look after Penny all by myself. it was hard to see you not make an effort for her and what made it even worse was every time i did see you it hurt me so much because you didn’t even look like yourself” you felt your chin quiver as tears filled your eyes and his eyes glossed over with tears of his own as he listened to you talk.

“i always wanted to help you, i always tried to reach out to help you but i couldn’t get through to you and it hurt me to see you doing the stuff you did and i would see your face everywhere and i was trying to i guess grieve our relationship and i couldn’t. i didn’t want that to be the end of us Eddie because my feelings for you never went away. they never left my body and that’s why it hurt”

you both had a few tears rolling down your cheeks “i need you to know that i do love you, i love you so much Eddie and i can’t help how i feel. i would dream about how we used to be and i missed it, i missed you and if you don’t love me that’s okay i’ll live, but please don’t leave Penny again just because i told you this. she needs you” you sniffled and looked down at your knees, cheeks blushing as you wiped your tears.

“you have no idea how long i’ve been waiting to hear you say that” you looked up at Eddie how’s eyes were bloodshot, tears rolling down his cheeks which a huge smile on his lips, his dimples showing. he moved closer to you and wrapped his arms around your shoulders, bringing you into him.

after three years of yearning for his love, his affection you finally felt his lips on yours. the kiss was filled with passion, filled with every ounce of love you had for each other.

“i love you so much” he said between a few small kisses you two shared. “i love you too” you spoke softly into the practically silent house. “i’m never leaving either of you ever again, i promise” he kissed you one more time, the two of you smiled into the kiss, it was like nothing had changed when you kissed each other.

in the space of a two months Eddie had changed for the better. he’d long forgotten the drugs, the alcohol, the groupies. god the words made him feel sick. he changed for you, changed for Penny and now the two of you could continue your life and expand your beautiful family.

[eikichi-supremacy]

ik ppl hate fictional deadbeat moms but im an avid enjoyer. my feminism knows no bounds truly/j

like i get it she did a bad job. but shit she still did a job that's for sure!! like. she did it do you understand. 14 year old girl is pregnant. it's disgraceful. a shameful stain on her family. yusuke doesn't seem to have grandparents or anything so besides yusuke's bio dad she's got no one. and then when yusuke is a toddler the father disappears and considering who he is and what he's like that's probably for the best. gonna go out a limb and say that yusuke was maybe 4 or 5 when his dad cleared out so. at 18 and entirely alone. atsuko looked down at this little thing. this baby because he's still a baby to her this is a baby who only has her. Not even 4 feet tall with the biggest brown eyes looking to her for everything because he quite literally has no one else.

he doesn't know she's a failure yet. he doesn't know people will look down on them just because he exists as he is. he doesn't know how hard this is going to be from now on. all he knows is he loves his momma

so she doesn't cry. she just meets his big innocent eyes and goes "it's just you and me kid" and yusuke doesn't know that that's a sad thing.

so she takes care of him the best she can and it still sucks but yusuke doesn't know what the standard she should be held to is yet. for a small time she is the greatest and best person in his world and he's the only one who thinks so

then he meets keiko and her parents and finds out that his normal is actually dysfunctional and that his mom actually isn't all that great. that living day to day in the bottom of a bottle isn't healthy. so she's no longer praiseworthy but this person he's responsible for. just like that the roles reverse. because while she was all yusuke had yusuke is also all atsuko has. he doesn't respect her but he still punched the motherfucker in the mouth that called her a tramp. she taught him how to do it.

atsuko comes to terms with the fact that Yusuke doesn't really need her anymore, probably never did so she doesn't bother to care when he skips school or beats whoever he wants to a pulp or gambles because at 14 she was expecting so what the fuck can she really say about him. he sneers at her as he makes her coffee. atsuko lights another cigarette

it feels like betrayal when her son dies. at 14 she had him so how can he die at a sorry age like that. i wasted my teenage years on you for what? so you can die and leave me here? you fucking brat. how can she recover from this? yusuke was all she had. he hadn't looked up at her with an admiring gaze since he was 7 and stopped hugging her goodbye soon after but still he was hers he was hers and then he was gone

but then he comes back. and she doesn't get much better as a mom or as a person really. she tries harder than before maybe (keeping him in school) but yusuke never expected her to. he's made up of her bad habits and uncaring attitude but he's so much better than her. became something good something strong despite how shitty of a job she did raising him.

she's not proud because she has no right to be but something like it tugs in her chest when she sees him feeding the people he cares about at his little ramen cart looking as happy as the first time she'd taken him out to park.

yusuke's dad suggests taking another crack at the whole family thing and she wants to laugh in his face. the only family she'll ever have is that little boy who's stronger and braver than she'll ever be.

she doesn't want to see him laying cold in a casket ever again. he's meant for life, a soul as bright and durable as his. atsuko hopes he lives to see the sun explode

[thekingofwinterblog]

The Problem With Yasopp

So like many people I was genuinely surprised by Netflix One Piece, adaption, which turned out the exact opposite of pretty much every single travesty that america has made when adapting Manga and Anime.

It certainly was not without flaws, for one thing it needed to be at least 3-5 episodes longer in order to fix it's pacing issues if it wanted to get all of East Blue into one season, and the fight scenes while very well choreographed, didn't exactly sell me on the superhuman strength of most of these characters.

However, there was one thing that genuinely pissed me off, in large part because the american adapters changed something they didn't like, in order to fit "western sensibilites" and in doing so, completely missing the point, and frankly tragedy of the original context.

That of course, is the character of Usopp's relationship with his parents Yasopp and Banchina, and the rather sad tale of plans going completely arry due to twists of fate.

In the west, the character of Yasopp has been a rather contentious one, for several reasons, but also one that has been a bit altered by the changes from Japanese to English.

Yasopp is critiqued heavily by people who don't like him for abandoning his kid, and his wife to seek adventure on the high seas. Now this is not untrue, but there is a bit of context here that's a bit lost in translation.

And you can really tell that, because the way Netflix portrays Yasopp leaving is the surface level one you might get if you just read Syrup Village arc, and you don't pay any attention at all to the timeline given.

In the neflix series, it's explicitly said that Yasopp left Usopp and his mother while Usopp was still a baby. That is such a common reading, that it's actually what the One Piece Wiki claims happened(Another example of why you should always be critical of Wiki's).

The actual Manga tells a different story.

Yasopp left Syrup village right before Banchina unexpedetly got sick with the disease that ultimatly killed her.

When Usopp is so touchy against Kuro about him badmouting his father, it's not in the context of him idolizing some father he never met, because Usopp and Yasopp knew and loved each other dearly. Usopp's wish to see his dad again isn't some wish to meet the father he only knows through stories, but to reconnect with the dad he loved so much growing up and was sad when he left.

And then of course there is the glory of mistraslation. If you've read this part of the manga, you might rightly be wondering, what sort of woman would be proud of the man who abandoned her to take care of their kid while he sought adventure.

The answer, which the english translation does not give, is a woman who was the one to convince him to go out on that journey in the first place.

Because that is what happened in the orignal manga. It was Banchina, for reasons we don't fully understand or have the context for, eho convinced her husband to go out and seek his dreams.

That's the reason why she is so certain Yasopp will NOT be coming home, but why she is also not bitter about it. She was the one who encouraged Yasopp to go out to sea, while she stayed home and took care of their kid, until he grew old enough to care for himself, and seek the seas himself if he wished.

The story of Yasopp, Usopp and his wife is a genuine tragedy, but not because Yasopp abandoned Usopp before he ever got to know him, but because Usopp's parents made plans for the future, that while not perfect by any stretch, seemed workable enough... only for the entire thing to come crumbling down after Yasopp left due to something as mundane as a random disease.

One can certainly make an argument that this was NOT the best course of action for Yasopp and Banchina to take, but it's not the complete deadbeat dad who abandons his baby trope that the Netflix series portrays it as.

Further hammering in that this was a bit more complicated than that, Yasopp seems to have been one of the very first crew members Shanks tried to recruit, having sought him out not long after Roger died... And Yasopp seems to have flat out rejected him, as he stayed with Banchina for years and years afterwards.

It adds a lot of context to the idea that Banchina was the one who ultimately convinced Yasopp to go out and chase his dreams while she took care of the kid... Because it took years and years for it to ultimately conclude at this course of action. Yasopp would continue to reject Shanks offer to join him for years to instead to take care of his wife and kid, until about a year before Shanks met Luffy, when his wife told him to go.

It's a hell of a lot more nuanced and interesting than what Netflix did, that's for damn sure.

[carnivalteller]

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘

billy loomis/reader/stu macher

summary: you’re exploring new relationships after a rough breakup with one of the more ‘popular’ boys.

tags: arguments, jealousy, crying, emotional hurt/comfort, eventually making up, protective billy and stu, small fights, toxic ex boyfriends, brooke and emma are good friends

recap: Billy digests his best friend’s words. Sidney, or the two people that provide him with shelter when his asswipe dad and deadbeat mom throw him out, the people who hold him and laugh with him… the people he’s grown to care for. “Whatever man.” Billy grumbles, getting up. “Don’t go, dude…” Stu sighs, yet Billy leaves, shutting your door behind him. He wouldn’t go far, Stu knew that. He’d probably go for a walk and clear his head then come back. Melting into your hold, Stu decides on taking a quick nap, tired after the confrontation. He can only hope that things smooth over.

🎪 please do not repost, plagiarise or translate my work, even with ‘credit’. reblogs and feedback are okay/appreciated! recommendations to other people on other platforms is okay/incredibly sweet :) ty!

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄

── ⋆⋅ ▬ι═ﺤ ⋅⋆ ──

Billy didn’t come back that night. Stu explained to you briefly why and what had transpired. You were upset, as you had the right to be, yet Stu was nice about it. The two of you decided on going to the local coffee shop, and Stu gets to know your friend Emma a little more. She’s sweet and gives you both your coffees on a ‘friend-discount’. The two of you chat briefly before leaving before you held up a line, and Stu notices you seem a little happier. He has no shame holding your hand in public. The two of you weren’t entirely official, yet you both kind of enjoyed the PDA. Billy never indulged it, always rather standoffish in public. You never pressure him, giving him a kind smile and only sometimes gently touching his arm or back in public when he’s busy doing something.

You and Stu walk into the local DVD store- which doubled as a comic store too, deciding on picking some new horror movies for the typical movie night you all held every Friday. You’ve stepped away, letting the ‘horror movie connoisseur’ (as Stu called himself) do his work. You’re browsing new issues of comics, none of them really catching your eye as you wait for Stu to come over. “Y/n?” A familiar voice makes your blood run cold, and you tense. You don’t turn, pretending not to have heard him. “Y/n, is that you?” A hand grasps your shoulder, forcing you to face him. Chandler. Your asshole ex boyfriend who left you high and dry on prom night whilst he banged Jennie Hawkins in the locker room. You were so lucky Stu and Billy were there for you. “What do you want, Chandler?” You ask, pulling away. “Look, babe- I’m so sorry-“

“Oh my God, don’t even right now. Get away from me!” You interrupt, pushing him slightly. Chandler doesn’t move, and keeps going. “Would you just listen? It was a one time thing!” He complains, grabbing both your arms in a tight grip. “Really? Because Brooke said otherwise. Did you really forget she was friends with Jennie for a while.” You deadpan, pushing against his chest; only for Chandler to tighten his grasp. It was beginning to hurt, so much you thought he might leave bruises. “That bitch doesn’t know anything! Come on, babe- don’t you trust me?”

“Get the fuck off her man!” Another voice snaps, pulling Chandler from you, yet almost pulling you with him. Shocked, your ex lets go, stumbling into a rack of comics and tumbling everything into clutter on the floor. “What the fuck dude?!” Chandler straightens up, puffing out his chest. “What the fuck is right, you didn’t hear her? She doesn’t want anything to do with you.” Billy snaps, ready to swing. “Oh- I know you. Billy Loomis, right? Town heartthrob.” Chandler chuckles, jutting his finger into Billy’s chest. The other narrows his eyes, readying to fight, even if everyone was looking. “You definitely stole her from me.” Chandler snarks, and Billy huffs out a sour laugh. “Nah, man. Not me, but thanks for the opportunity.” Billy gives a smile, it’s teasing and mocking. Chandler grows red in the face. “Oh yeah? If you didn’t steal her from me-“

“Hey, man. She’s not an object. Quit talking about her like that!” Stu frowns, approaching behind Chandler. All focus shifts to him. “She’s my girlfriend!” Chandler snaps, and Billy huffs out a laugh. “Not anymore she’s not.” He crosses his arms. “Didn’t we make that clear on prom night?” He reminds, and Chandler lets out a sour laugh. “You’re fucking both of them aren’t you, whore?” You sink back a little, back hitting the shelf. You want the world to swallow you whole and never spit you out again. “I knew it. I fucking knew it! Whatever. You’re fucking ugly and bad at giving head anyway. Enjoy my sloppy seconds freaks.” Chandler goes to storm off, but Billy snatches his shoulder, fist connecting with your ex’s mouth with a satisfying crack. Chandler stumbles to the floor, cradling his jaw in pain as he whines. A few choked noises escape his mouth as he attempts to talk, blood spilling past his lips. Billy leans down to his level, face close to his. “Enjoy broken teeth, asshole.” He snarls, grabbing your hand tightly as he extracts you from the crowd that had gathered. Stu decides on spitting at Chandler and flipping him off before trailing after the two of you.

“What the fuck-“ you begin, yet Billy raises his hands. “Look- Stu probably told you everything but I wanna say I’m sorry.” He tells you, and you scoff out a laugh. “Okay, sure. You’re ‘sorry’, but that doesn’t excuse assaulting my ex!” You complain, and Billy laughs. “He’s a fucking prick! You know that better than anyone!” He argues, gesturing with his hand. You notice some blood seeping from his knuckles and sigh. “He is, but you can get into serious trouble if he presses charges!” You cross your arms, noticing Stu lingering by. “Look, whatever, thank you for helping me… but I have a quick question.” You state, not letting him respond. “If you didn’t come back to mine last night, where were you?” You ask, relishing the silence. You already knew the answer. “So I went to Sidney’s so what?” Billy replies, and you let out a short laugh. “You slept with her, didn’t you?” You challenge, narrowing your eyes. Billy falls silent, not openly wanting to admit the truth. You roll your eyes, pulling his collar away from his neck. “You fucking slept with her. Are you kidding?! I couldn’t give a rats ass if you wanted to truly be with her but don’t give me false hope in the meantime!” You snap, eyes watering a little as you storm off. Stu gives Billy a sad look before jogging after you. “Baby, wait up.” He calls, falling into step beside you. “Come on, let’s go back to the café. You’re upset.” He mumbles, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and gently rubbing your arm.

You end up in the far end café booth, crying softly as Emma and Brooke sit across from you and Stu. “He sounds like a cunt.” Brooke deadpans, pushing her cuticles back with a wooden stirrer. “Brooke!” Emma gasps, nudging her. “What? He does.” The blonde responds, glancing at Stu who sighs a little. “He can be, but still- he’s a good person.” He defends, unsure if he even can. “Is he? Do good people cheat?” Brooke asks sarcastically, watching Emma get up. “I’m gonna get everyone a refill.” She sighs, picking up the mugs. “Oh, Ems! Get me a strawberry and cream frappe please.” Brooke smiles innocently, “and an extra hot chocolate for y/n.” She adds on, grasping your hands and laying them before her on the table before grabbing some nail polish from her purse. “It’s self care time, baby, don’t worry.” Brooke smiles, gently patting your hands. You smile a little, sniffling. “Thanks, Brooke.”

“No problem.” The popular girl chirps, carefully pressing back your cuticles and deciding on filing your nails before applying the first coat. “Don’t get that everywhere or my boss will kill me!” Emma scolds, setting the drinks down. “Yeah, yeah. We won’t.” Brooke waves her off, blowing on your wet nails. You nudge Stu’s outer thigh with your knee, meeting his gaze with your watery one. You smile, it’s weak and small. “Thanks for coming after me, Stu. You didn’t have to.” You tell him, and he smiles brightly. “Of course I would. I couldn’t just let you wander around and get lost or hurt or harassed, or something.” Stu shrugs, leg linking with yours under the table. You carefully pick up your mug, sipping your coffee. “Uh, oh… trouble at 12 o’clock.” Brooke mumbles, sipping her frappe as she looks over your shoulder. You turn, and sure enough Billy is there. “Aw he brought flowers… maybe he is sorry.” Emma mumbles as Stu untangles his leg from yours, getting up to confront his best friend. You turn away from Billy’s kicked-puppy look, paying attention to Brooke as she begins telling a story.

“What’re you doing here man?” Stu asks, voice tired. “I uh… I ran all over town looking for you guys. I wanted to say I’m sorry, to both of you.” He mumbles, averting his saddened gaze. “I was just… mad… I had no where else to go, so I went to Sid’s.” He sighs, and Stu chuckles a little. “You did have somewhere to go. You could of come back.” He challenges, and Billy flinches. “Yeah… you’re right.” He admits, plastic wrap around the flowers crinkling in his nervous grasp. “It’s alright, man… but I’m not the one you should apologise to.” Stu looks at you, watching you giggle with Emma and Brooke. “You’re lucky she’s not in meltdown mode, her friends are great.” He adds on, and Billy nods. Mulling up his courage, he approaches the table. Brooke gives him an unsure look as he stands next to the table. You dip your head a little, mood seemingly deflating a little. “I uh… I’m sorry, y/n.” He mutters, and Brooke plainly laughs at him. “That’s it? You cheated and that’s what you have to say?” She snarks, and Emma sighs. “Brooke…” she silently scolds, and she simply giggles. “Its okay, Billy.” You sigh, and he feels like the world just forgave him unanimously. “No, it isn’t.” Brooke snaps. Well, almost the whole world.

“No Brooke it’s fine. We’re not even official and I’m just a clingy mess. I’m sorry, Billy. You can see Sidney if you want to.” You sigh as Stu leans over the back of the booth, head resting atop your head. “No, don’t be sorry, you’re right. It’s stupid of me to even consider seeing Sidney… if I want to be involved with you, I’ve got to let her go.” Billy sits beside you, meeting your gaze. You give him a small smile as he hugs you tight, ignoring Emma’s soft ‘awe’. “Hey, what about me?” Stu jokes, hugging you both over the booth. “Um hello? What about my nails.” Brooke interrupts, and you pull away. “Sorry, Brooke.” You mumble, smiling at her as you give her your hands.

The day ends rather nicely, and you head home. Your mother’s car is in the driveway, and you smile. Walking inside, you let Stu close the door behind you all. “Mom..!” You call, and she peers around the border of the kitchen door. “Hey, honey! Have you brought friends?” She asks, dipping back into the kitchen. The smell of food fills your senses and so you walk into the kitchen. “Yeah. It’s Billy and Stu, remember? From prom night?” You ask, and your mother thinks for a brief moment. “Oh, of course. It’s hard to forget them.” She smiles, checking the oven. “What’re you making?” You ask, noticing how tired her eyes looked. “Your favourite, lasagna.” She smiles, and you perk up a little. “Thanks, mom.” You smile back, and she nods. “I try. This one isn’t homemade this time.” She jokes and you fondly remember the two of you crying with laughter over the mess of a lasagna. “There’s enough for your friends.” She states, glancing at the two as they awkwardly hover by the door. “Hi, mrs l/n. Been staying out of trouble.” Stu smiles, and she chuckles. “As long as you’ve been getting into plenty.” She replies teasingly, watching his smug smile rise. Her attention shifts to Billy, watching him shuffle anxiously. “Are you alright, hun?” She asks softly, and he immediately nods. “Yes, ma’am.” He responds, almost automatically. “Oh, dear. I’m way too young to be a ‘ma’am’. Sharon will do.” She smiles, and you chuckle as Billy nods.

“Stay out of trouble, and try not to make too much noise tonight! I’ve got to get up early!” Your mother calls up the stairs after dinner. “Yes, mom!” You reply, walking into your room with a large stretch. “Home sweet home.” Stu jokes, flopping onto your bed. “Throw me the movie, I’ll put it on.” Billy states as Stu rifles through his bag, throwing some new low-budget horror film his way. “This looks awful.” Billy deadpans as he examines the front cover. “Read the back, man. It seems interesting.” Stu replies as you join him on the bed. “Whatever you say.” Billy mutters, skimming over the blurb before putting it into your dvd player and turning on your tv. He joins the two of you, your body squished between them. “You staying tonight?” You ask softly, and Billy hums. “Yeah. I’m staying.” He responds, catching a glimpse of a small smile on Stu’s lips. “Great.” You mumble, wrapping your arms around his torso as you huddle into him. Billy hums, arm wrapping around your middle. Stu’s arms encase you both, as per usual, and as per usual you fall asleep about half an hour into the movie. Billy stays close to you, arms wrapped tightly around you. He feels happier with you than he has the past week talking with Sidney and he’s not planning on leaving you again.

[jaymari-lyn]

Fight or Flight (A Byler one shot)

“It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”

The words rang painfully in Will’s head. It felt like a slap in the face, except he felt the sting in his heart. That kind of sentence spoken aloud already hurt enough, but to hear the words fall from Mike's lips made it infinitely worse.

Will felt the hot tears strain against the corners of his eyes. A fairy, a queer, a boy who doesn’t like girls—that’s all he’ll ever be, even to his best friend.

Will’s fists clench instinctively and through a fit of bubbling anger words begin to tumble from his mouth faster than he can catch them.

Words that he can never take back.

“Well, maybe it is!”

The deafening silence that follows that sentence is louder than any of the yelling that had taken place before. Mike stands in visible shock and so does Will. The next action either of them makes will define their friendship moving forward and they both know it.

Will knows it.

So he makes the most reasonable, self-preserving decision and grabs his bike to leave. He wants to run and never turn back, like the coward that he is. To just run away from his problems, his consequences, from the whole damn world entirely. Run away from everything, even from MIke.

Only Will Byers is a boy who loves very deeply and with his entire heart, so he doesn’t really want to run from Mike. He wants nothing more than to rush into Mike's arms and stay, but that could never—will never happen. Not in this universe, at least, or probably any universe. For in what universe could someone like Mike Wheeler ever love someone like him? Besides, Will is still just a coward, so he goes to run.

He’s swinging his legs over the seat of his well-loved bicycle—the one he would ride with Mike as well as the rest of the party—when Mike is broken from his trance-like state. In a swarm, he is suddenly all over Will, hands, body, words, and anything else that he could do to get Will to stay.

Mike’s lanky frame was now standing in the way of Will’s poorly thought-out escape.

Well, Shit.

Will didn’t even want to hear what he had to say since it was bound to be all those awful things he was sure Mike was thinking. Hearing them spoken would truly be a physical manifestation of his nightmares.

However, instead of hateful words or slurs, all Mike does is call out Will’s name, mixing quite a few swears in there as well.

“Will, please! Fuck! Shit!” cried out the Wheeler boy. “Don’t go, Will, please! Fuck!” The desperation in Mike’s tone startles Will, and even Mike himself.

He doesn’t care about you, Will’s brain reminds him.

As the surprise settles in the atmosphere like a thick layer of dust, rage fills up every fiber of the brunette’s being. Now that he’s had time to let the hurt subside a bit, Will realizes that he is so incredibly, awfully, nauseatingly angry.

Angry at Mike for treating him like shit lately, angry at the world for making him hate himself, angry at his deadbeat dad for somehow making him hate himself more than the world ever could. He was even angry at Mom and Jonathan for ever letting him think that there was nothing wrong with him, that he even deserved to exist. But most of all he was angry at himself for being a mistake.

Looking through his tears, he saw that Mike’s hands were still firmly placed onto his forearm and wrist, keeping him in place. Will could break free if he wanted, bike away, and try to extinguish the thought of Mike Wheeler from his brain forever, but he didn’t, he stayed.

Deep down, there has always been a part of him that no matter how much he was able to hate himself, he could never, ever, hate Mike. It’s that little bit of Will that wanted to rush back to him in the first place. And if Mike was going to be the stubborn asshole that he always is and try to stop Will from leaving, who was Will to resist the boy he was so terribly in love with?

However, just because he was going to hear Mike out, does not mean that intense fury has gone away. Will wasn’t used to this feeling, being mad at Mike, but he found himself unable to care, unable to give a shit about the terrible want to hurt Mike back. Mike, the one person who Will thought cared about him most, the person Will cared about most, had finally intentionally hurt him like he always knew he would one day—all it took was Will letting a bit of the real him shine through. God, he was so stupid for ever thinking that there was a slight chance Mike could love him.

“Is this all real? Or is it like the doctors say, all in your head?”

“I don't know. Just please don't tell the others, okay? They won't understand.”

“Eleven would.” Eleven, El, the girl that Mike loves. Will distinctly remembers holding back tears in that moment at the thought of Mike loving someone that wasn’t him, now Will is quite used to the thought, but it still cuts him deep, like a dagger piercing his heart.

“She would?” 

“Yeah. She always did. Sometimes I feel like I still see her. Like she's still around but she never is. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy.”

“Me too.”

“Hey, well, if we're both going crazy, then we'll go crazy together, right?”

“Yeah, crazy together.”

Will still feels like that, like he’s going crazy, only this time he doesn’t have Mike there to go crazy with him. He’s all alone in his insanity.

“Will,” Mike lets out softly, yet his grip on Will is still firm and strong. He was using what the rest of the party would teasingly call his “Will voice”, it was stupid, but it always had a way of making Will melt. He tried to suppress that thought. He was mad–no, furious–at Mike! Yet, Will still couldn’t get the feeling to fully go away when Mike looked at him with those kicked-puppy-looking eyes. Will was so in love it was not even fair.

The rain he hadn’t yet noticed until this very moment poured down hard onto the two of them. Each raindrop reminded Will of every tear he had shed, every tear he was shedding right now.

Will mutters a “What?” low enough that it is almost unheard, but Mike's careful ears pick up on his question.

“I’m sorry,” is all Mike can answer. Will finds it to be quite a pathetic answer.

“‘I’m sorry?’ Really? ‘I’m sorry?!’” Will's voice raises at the second “sorry”. “That’s all you can fucking say?! What are you sorry for Michael? For treating me like a fucking afterthought for the past 5 months, If you even bothered thinking about me? For ignoring me and walking all over me and expecting me to just take it? For only being my friend when it was convenient for you?! There’s a lot of shit you should be sorry for, you’re going to have to fucking specify.” The rage burns Will’s tongue as if he had just swallowed fire. He looks up to see Mike's jaw hanging loose, and his eyes welling up with tears.

Mike looks as though he’s lost for words, simply keeping his gaze locked on Will. He shakes his head, seeming to also shake away whatever trance he was just in as well. “All of it. Everything.”

“And what am I supposed to do?!” Will is now shouting, bound to gain an outsider's attention if he continues. “Just accept that you're sorry and move on?! Be your friend again just to be hurt all over again?! I’m sorry, Mike, but I can’t live like that! I can’t continue being your friend knowing that I’ll always care about you more than you’ll ever care about me!”

“That’s not true-” Will doesn't let him finish.

“It's not fair! It’s not fucking fair! None of it is! Why are you pretending like you care? I know you don’t, Mike.”

“I do care, Will! I care so much! More than I should care! I care!” Mike changes his grip to hold Will’s shoulders and shakes him to further get his point across.

Will begins to laugh through his tears, it’s a maniacal laugh born from pain, sadness, bitterness, and anger. “Then why did you do it? Why couldn’t you be a decent fucking friend to me?” The question hangs in the air, like the dark clouds lurking above them.

Mike’s voice is trembling now as he averts his eyes from Will. “I-I don’t know, Will.”

“No more lies, Mike! Why?” Will repeats because he's going to get a real answer from him if it's the last damn thing he does.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Mike is both screaming and fully sobbing at this point.

“Why?” Will’s voice is stone-cold.

“I CAN’T TELL YOU, ALRIGHT!?”

“Why!?”

“BECAUSE I CAN’T!”

“WHY!?”

“BECAUSE I’M FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU, WILL!”

Both the boy's eyes widened in shock at what fell from Mike’s mouth. Mike’s hands fall from Will as he begins backing away, the most terrified look Will has ever seen is engraved on his face.

It’s hard to believe that what you've wanted for so long, the thing he’s wished upon every star for, the thing he prayed for to a god he doesn’t even believe in, all he’s ever dreamed of and yearned for since they met on that swingset, is something you can actually have. He wants to analyze everything Mike has ever said to him, every brush of legs on their movie nights, all the times they held hands while the other was scared, from horror movies to supernatural dangers, every soft gaze Mike held with him. Will wants to know if Mike loves him the way Will loves him. He wished he could read his mind, instead of being left with mixed signals and unexpected love confessions.

While Will thought, Mike was currently trying to make a quick escape while muttering one “I’m sorry” after another. Will then realized that his thinking was keeping Mike away, so he stopped thinking and let his impulsiveness take over.

Will found himself dropping his bicycle and running towards Mike to envelop him in a hug. He’s tense at first, but once Will nestles his face into the crook of Mike’s neck, he relaxes and rests his hands in a tight grip on Will’s back.

“I’m sorry,” Mike apologizes, his lips so close to Will that the words melt into his skin.

Will pulls back a bit, locking eyes with Mike, the chocolate brown of his irises looking as beautiful as ever. “You don’t have to be sorry. Mike, I love you too.” Will finally takes that leap of faith, saying the thing that has haunted him for years aloud. It feels good, it’s something he truly wants to admit, it’s no longer a secret that he’s left to carry alone.

Mike shakes his head in response, looking like he’s searching for a reason as to why Will doesn’t really love him. “You-you don’t get it. I don’t…I don’t love you as a friend.” 

Will’s breath quickens as his left hand moves to hold onto Mike’s forearm, similar to how Mike held his just minutes prior. It seems silly that Mike believes this, despite everything Will had confessed so far that evening. “Neither do I,” he tells him after a long, thoughtful pause..

The mutual confession rests heavily between them, neither knowing exactly what to do next. Society had told them over and over again that what they felt for each other was wrong, that it was something to hide and bury deep down until people like them couldn't feel it anymore. But here they were, admitting their love for each other in the quiet of the night

After a few moments, their faces begin to move closer, like two magnets attracting, and then their lips then find each other in a slow, hesitant kiss. It happens so quickly that it’s hard to tell who made the first move, but Will swears it was Mike who leaned in first.

It’s perfect by Will’s standards. There's those butterflies that everyone talks about fluttering in his stomach, there's the brand new feeling of warm lips on his, locked in a kiss that is slowly building up in both passion and speed, but there's also a familiarity of Mike that makes everything seem natural. As if he was always supposed to kiss Mike, and hold Mike, and love Mike. And, God, does he love Mike! He loves his smile, his laugh, his terrible jokes and puns, how caring he is (even if he is a shitty friend sometimes), and just about everything else that makes him Mike, even his bad moods and hot-headedness. He loves the soft side of him, the side that’s vulnerable and kind, and willing to let his guard down and cry. He loves the Mike he sees and the parts of himself that Mike is willing to bear to Will. He utterly and completely loves Mike, more than words can express.

A hand finds Will's hair, somehow pulling him closer until there's no room between the two (not that there was much beforehand). Their chests rise and fall against each other as they pull apart, both of them trying their best to breathe.

Mike smiles a gorgeous yet goofy, love-struck grin that Will wants to keep looking at forever. He returns his own loving smile and leans in to ignite another kiss.

In this moment Will no longer feels like a mistake, he feels so right with Mike. If being gay means having this, then he’ll take all the insults and beatings that he can, as long as he has Mike Wheeler. And if Mike can love him, maybe Will can find it in himself to try and love himself too. Maybe he can find whatever it is about him that Mike loves and learn to love it too. He wants to not only love Mike but love with Mike as well.

The two young boys continue to kiss in the rain, both completely soaked, but unable to care. They kiss as if it will be their only chance to do so, even though it’s only just the beginning of a lifetime of kisses shared between the best-friends turned lovers.

[levmemes2]

playlist sentence starters (pt. two)

songs from one of my playlists. think party culture, catholicism, and hooking up with death in a bar bathroom. feel free to edit wording/pronouns as needed. some suggestive lines/implied nsfw.

"you're such a tease."

"i'm the perfect sacrifice."

"you'll learn right now that i don't play nice."

"what's your favorite scary movie?"

"i'm waiting for my life to start."

"you're as self-absorbed as me."

"he mistook my silence for punishment."

"no one's ever gonna love me like that again."

"i was little. i was weak and naive."

"i grew up too quick."

"i was little, i was weak, and i was perfect, too."

"people forget i'm human too."

"would a little anger kill you?"

"again, we do not want to kill anyone."

"you've got some evil deep down inside you."

"let's get on with living while we can."

"i just don't want you to go crazy trying to keep this all together."

"if you're gonna have a mental breakdown, this is not the place."

"you are the only thing and everything i need in my life."

"no one's going to listen until you mean every word you say."

"i'll love you until my breathing stops."

"did she moon over other boys?"

"when you have less, you have more to lose."

"i would prefer the girl you were, not who you're trying to be."

"i get off on getting hurt."

"at your worst, you're still my best."

"was he yours if he wanted me so bad?"

"you're acting like your deadbeat dad."

"i'm the greatest thing that you could have."

"dionysus would be proud."

"light carries on endlessly, even after death."

"the universe was made just to be seen by your eyes."

"tonight, i'm yours."

"i've waited my whole life to be loved like this."

"how's the castle built off people you pretend to care about?"

"how do you lie without flinching?"

"how you think is the kind of thing i'll never understand."

"there are things to ruin."

"i'm hopped up on blood and pheromones."

"i stick with real things, usually facts and figures."

"i don't like guessing games."

"what if when he knows me, he's only disappointed?"

"take me, baby, or leave me."

"folks would kill to fill your shoes."

"don't you want your girl hot?"

"i make lists in my sleep."

"love will never be forever."

"i want you to know that i'm happy for you."

"i wish nothing but the best for you both."

"i'm sure you'd make a really excellent mother."

"are you thinking of me when he fucks you?"

"it's not my fault you're like in love with me."

"get her number."

"i got a lot of people leaning on me, and all i want to do is make them proud."

"i love him, but not like i love [name]."

"what if this is all i get?"