#[ might ditch most of the series???? who knows man ]

[watchmegetobsessed]

OLD GRUDGES (part 1)

A/N: wooohoooo im bringing something new!!! i feel like it happens so rarely it's like a miracle lol anyway, this will be hopefully a couple of parts (probably about 3) and lets all pray i will actually finish it lol

WORD COUNT: 3.7k

WARNING: sexual content

SUMMARY: Harry and Y/N go way back. Working together was like a dream when 1D was still going strong. Now, years later, when they end up working together again, things are very different. Mostly because Y/N seems to be hating Harry passionately. But he has not idea why.

MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST

Everyone loves Harry Styles. It’s a known fact, not just amongst the people who actually know him, but all around the world. He is known as one of the most unproblematic celebrities, someone who gives just as much if not even more respect as he gets, always kind and patient with others, rarely loses his temper. It’s hard to imagine that there is anyone walking this planet who doesn’t see him as a lovable, sweet man.

Well, it might be hard to imagine, but there is actually one person who has a very different opinion when it comes to the british popstar. 

And that person is music producer, Y/N. 

The interesting thing is that their history goes way back into his 1D days. Y/N was an up and coming name in the industry, just started working with bigger names when she got the chance to produce several songs on the band’s third studio album. Harry remembers her as a bubbly, funny girl who is passionate about her job and is also excellent in it. Working with her was easy and motivating, she was always eager to perfect songs to an extent Harry couldn’t even imagine and that’s why songs like Story Of My Life, You & I and Midnight Memories were such hits. Y/N put her heart and soul into them, which eventually earned all the recognition they deserved. 

Harry loved working with Y/N and she was in talks of working on their fourth album as well, but the deal ended up ditched and she went on to do other projects and they somehow had a fallout. It was a shame, but he hoped his path would cross hers again. 

Years and years went by and so much changed by the time their professional ways finally met again. Jeff brought her name up when Harry just started writing for his fourth solo album and Harry gave him the go to do whatever it takes to get her on the project. A few weeks passed and Harry didn’t get any confirmation about her and just when he was about to bring it up to Jeff, he hit him with the news.

“Y/N is in for five songs. Contract should be signed by Wednesday and you can start working next week.”

Harry wondered why it took so long to get her on board, but he brushed it off because he knew she was a big name now herself and had plenty of offers from which she could choose from. He was excited to work with her and simply see her again.

It was utter shock for him when she was the complete opposite of what he remembered. Okay, that might be an overstatement, but Harry could feel something was off instantly.

She was still bubbly and fun, but for some reason, she had a certain iciness and bitter attitude whenever her focus was on Harry. To anyone else it was unnoticable, Harry knows, because he asked Jeff about it.

“What are you talking about? She is awesome,” the manager said with a shrug and Harry tried to tell himself it was all in his head, because if Jeff doesn’t see it, it’s not real.

But it kept happening and it felt even stronger when it was just him and her in a room. Sometimes she even pretended like he wasn’t there, sometimes her snarky comments were all he got and they just strengthened him in his belief. 

He wanted to ask her about it, he tried, several times, but his attempts just bounced right off her icy behavior so eventually, he gave up and there was only one thing left for him to do.

Return what he was getting. 

Yes, it is childish, but he felt like he needed to deal with her unreasonable hatred towards him somehow and this was the easiest way. Was it a smart idea to practically become enemies when working together on his album? Of course not. But it just happened.

And going against each other became their thing. 

They were great in arguing, disagreeing even when they could easily compromise, riling each other up and lashing out on each other when the tension had been building up for hours. It got to the point where others started to notice that something was off between the two of them and when Jeff questioned Harry about it, he couldn’t give him a reasonable explanation.

“She started it,” he said and instantly felt like a kid, telling on his classmate at school. But this is all he could say, because he had no idea why she was acting this way. And he has to live with it while they work together.

Something is off. Harry knows it. Something about the melody… or the guitar… or is it the lyrics? He can’t tell, he has listened to the recording a million times so it all melts in his ears and he can’t identify what’s setting him off every time he hears it. 

“Why don’t we take a break?” Jack, the technician suggests, turning in his chair. “Y/N will be here in twenty, I’m sure she’ll–”

“Okay,” Harry snaps, just so he doesn’t finish. He knows what he wanted to say. 

She’ll know what’s wrong and will correct it in a second.

Y/N always knows what’s wrong and most of the time it’s a perk, of course it is, but today, Harry feels like it’s gonna make him want to crawl out of his body. Maybe it’s because he’s been in the studio for five hours and he got nowhere or maybe because Mitch will have his first ever solo gig tonight and Harry has been worried his fame or relation to him might ruin this experience for him. 

Either way, today he is just extra pissed by the fact that Y/N will be the one to solve this mystery. 

“I’m gonna grab a coffee,” he clears his throat, standing up from his seat. “Do you want one?” he offers, feeling a bit guilty he snapped at Jack.

“Uh, yeah, just an espresso is fine, thanks man.”

“Sure, I’ll be right back.”

Putting on his headphone, Harry jogs across the street to the tiny coffee shop he’s been a regular at. He likes the place because they are discreet and their coffee is just simply amazing, though they swear there’s nothing extra in it. 

He waits for the two coffees at the end of the counter and scrolls on his phone in the meantime. Emails, messages, there’s always something to answer to. He sends out a few replies before he ends up in his calendar. It’s neatly color coded and he takes pride in keeping it up-to-date all the time so he can always be on top of his game, no matter what. 

His eyes land on one particular date. Five weeks from now Y/N’s contract expires and if the five songs are done by then, she’ll be out of Harry’s life again. Seeing how the work is going, she’ll easily outdo that number so there won’t be any reason for talk about an extension. 

An unsettling feeling spreads in his stomach as he stares at the date but he doesn’t have time to figure it out because  he is snapped out of his thoughts when the two paper cups are placed in front of him. He is trying his best to keep a positive mindset as he returns to the studio’s building. With the two coffee cups in his hands he makes a right turn and then stops at the door, seeing Y/N sitting where he did previously, already listening to the recording with Jack with a critical expression on her face. 

Harry doesn’t interrupt them, just stays put and waits for her feedback. When she is done listening, she leans back in her seat.

“It’s the bass. Or more specifically the lack of it. Can you double it? Let’s see how it changes.”

Jack is quick to do as she asked and then he starts the song again and…

Harry wants to scream and laugh in bliss at the same time, because it’s perfect now. He’s mad he couldn’t spot such an obvious thing, but he is also happy it’s finally sorted out. It’s just a shame Y/N was the one to do it and not him. 

“Great, so this is done then,” he makes himself noticed as he walks into the studio and hands over one of the cups to Jack. 

When he looks at Y/N he can see that familiar, irritated look on her face that’s almost always there when he’s around. He hasn’t decided if he wants to physically wipe it off, or…

“Thanks for bringing one for me,” she comments in a bored tone, turning back towards the screen.

“You weren’t here when I went out.”

“But you knew I was coming.”

Harry opens his mouth, but then closes it, because this time she is kind of right. And it irks him even more today.

It’s gonna be a challenging session today, Harry thinks as he takes a seat.

It’s always exciting for Harry to be behind the stage when he’s not the star of the show. Kind of like a whole different world.

He hasn’t been here for long, but he’s been trying his best to stay as unnoticed as possible and let Mitch take the spotlight. Just a few minutes ago Sarah put him on Scout-duty which he gladly took up on, he’s always happy to spend time with the little guy. This time he is letting him explore freely and he’s just following him around to make sure he’s safe. Scout seemingly enjoys the adventure with uncle Harry, who doesn’t really pay attention where he is heading. 

That’s how they end up in the green room where Y/N is.

Y/N and Sarah have worked together a while ago, which is a random coincidence how they are connected outside of Harry. Because of their history, Y/N is often where they are, however she was never around when Sarah and Mitch were playing for Harry. 

Scout runs up to Y/N, arms in the air, asking to be picked up and Harry stops a few steps away from them when he realizes who he just found.

“Hey there, little guy! Are you all by yourself?” Y/N asks, settling the boy on her hip.

She’s changed since they parted ways in the studio. Harry has always admired her sense of style, which mostly consists of basic pieces, almost like a capsule wardrobe, but there’s always something extra, something vibrant on her that makes her sets interesting. Tonight she is wearing a simple black dress with a rather low back cut, simple heels, simple makeup, but she added a silky scarf with vivid colors and shapes around her neck that brings Harry’s attention to the curve of her neck and collarbones, almost as a cheeky invitation for his eyes to her naked skin. 

He has to fight the urge to touch her.

Despite the spiteful relationship they’ve been sporting lately, Harry had to deal with a rather unreasonable desire for Y/N in a physical way.

Unreasonable, because he never thought he could be attracted to someone who pisses him off so easily, yet there’s been plenty of occasions when Harry found himself imagining scenarios he could never admit to her, not when she hates him with such obvious passion.

Tonight it’s not just the outfit, but also the way she’s handling Scout. It’s not just women who find it incredibly hot when the opposite sex is great with kids, Harry can definitely feel something inside him moving as he watches Y/N sway from side to side with the little boy in his arms.

“Uncle Hazza is here!” Scout points at him, answering her previous question. Y/N looks up and because Harry was already looking at him, he catches a slipping moment where there’s no irritation on her face, but it returns quite fast when her gaze settles on him. 

“Ah, hi,” she says, lips pressed together as she nods, acknowledging his presence. 

“Hey. Long time no see.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth he regrets it. Who says that? Why did he even say anything else other than hi? He smacks himself in his mind. 

Part of him expects her to say something like ‘not long enough’ but she just keeps quiet and turns all her attention to Scout. Harry feels out of place, he is supposed to be babysitting, but Y/N is taking care of Scout, Harry knows he is in good hands but Sarah asked him to watch over him. Should he leave? Or just keep standing there awkwardly?

“You can go, I’ll watch him,” Y/N says, as if she could read his mind. 

“You sure?”

“I’m pretty sure I can take care of him until Sarah is back.” Her reply is not just dry, kind of offended, nothing Harry wouldn’t expect from her, but it’s still irking him.

“I didn’t say you’re not capable, I just–”

“I’m not in the mood for this,” she cuts him off with an icy look. Harry is too stunned to reply, just watches Y/N walk away with Scout. 

He almost finds it amusing how easily she can piss him off, not many people have been able to do that, in fact, Harry thinks she does it the best. 

Clenching his jaw he takes a deep breath to calm his nerves and then just lets it all go. 

The after party is always kind of Harry’s favorite. The stress is over, it’s just the relief and celebration that is left.

Mitch’s show went well, that’s what Harry expected, but it’s still great he was right. Seeing his friend be the star of the show was an experience he is glad he could be part of. Now that the core of the group has moved to a nearby bar, Harry has loosened up thanks to the couple of drinks he’s had. 

He’s been mostly sticking to the familiar faces he knows, rotating between the same few people  while enjoying how under the radar he is currently. 

The more drinks he has had, the less he’s been able to control where his gaze goes. To be exact, he’s been finding himself looking Y/N’s way the past hour or so. That damn dress and scarf, it’s like she’s put a spell on him that forces him to keep wanting to look at her. 

Harry is not experienced with feeling like this. Being attracted to someone who he hates, it’s such an ambivalent impulse, he can’t think straight. Or maybe it’s the amount of tequila he has drunk tonight, either way, it’s getting a rise out of him. 

From the corner of his eye he sees her slip out to the back where the smoking area is, he hesitates, shifts his weight from one leg to the other before making the leap and heading after her. He has no plan, no idea what he wants to ro will say to her, but he just feels like he has to talk to her.

Stepping out to the dimly lit back alley he is met with a few people scattered around, having a cigarette with drinks in hand, talking or scrolling on their phone and then he spots Y/N on the left, standing by the wall, cigarette in one hand, the remaining of her drink in the other as she stares ahead of her. 

She doesn’t smoke regularly, but she does enjoy one in certain social settings or when she’s had a few drinks. Harry knows it from years ago, because they shared a cigarette at a party, back then she seemed thrilled to spend time with him, he remembers all the conversations they had while working together, telling each other stories, sharing their plans, Harry truly thought they would remain good friends on this extraordinary journey, yet they ended up here.

As Harry walks towards her, she notices him and he sees her lips twitch in annoyance. 

“Care if I join?” he asks and she just shrugs without a word, avoiding to look at him. 

They stand there in silence for a while, she is lazily puffing the smoke out from time to time.

“Is it still just an occasional thing?” he tries to strike up a conversation.

“Mhm,” is all he gets as a reply.

“Have you tried to put it down fully?”

“Why are you doing this?” she snaps at him, finally looking his way. 

“What?”

“Why are you trying to chit-chat when we both know we don’t do that?”

“And why don’t we?” He challenges her. “Tell me why we are like this in the first place, because I have no idea.”

She stares at him for long moments and he awaits her answer like nothing before, but then she shakes her head and turns to the pin beside her, puts the cigarette out and flicks it into the bin. Then, without another word she is already heading back inside.

It takes a moment for Harry to start moving again, but he is quick to catch up with her in the hall that leads to the restrooms. 

“Y/N, give me a fucking answer!” he demands, grabbing her wrist to pull her back before she could escape, but she shakes his hand off as she comes to a stop, turning towards him.

“I owe you nothing!” she hisses at him. “I owe you no one, but especially you!”

“What the fuck does that suppose to mean?! I never thought you owe me anything!”

“I’m not doing this, Harry, leave me the fuck alone,” she growls and tries to leave, but Harry pulls her back again, determined to get an answer this time. 

“Don’t think I will just swallow everything down forever. I will get to the bottom of this, whether you like it or not. It’s your choice if you make it hard on both of us.”

She is looking back at him with wide eyes, this time his hand remains on her arm as they stare each other down in the empty hallway. Neither of them knows what will be their next move, the tension is so thick, it’s almost suffocating.

But then it all changes.

If someone asked who moved first, they wouldn’t know. One moment they are standing like stone statues, barely even breathing, then the next moment they are kissing like there’s no tomorrow.

It doesn’t take long until Harry has her pressed up against the wall, his hands roaming her body, feeling her up the way he fantasized about before, they are both rough and impatient, she is clawing at him, moaning into his mouth when his hips press against hers and she feels how hard he’s gotten already. 

Blindly, Harry pushes the closest door open which happens to be the staff’s bathroom that someone left unlocked, lucky for them. Still glued together they stumble inside, Y/N kicks the door open before Harry pushes her against it and he locks it before his hand returns to her tempting body. 

He has never acted like this when it comes to sex. He does like to spice things up sometimes, but the way he’s biting her lips or unbuttoning his pants or reaches under her dress to pull her underwear down is just so out of character for him, yet so freeing. 

Nothing is said, but when her hands pull his hard, leaking dick out of his pants, there’s a fleeting look they exchange that says it all, just how much they both want it. 

It’s the fastest pace he’s ever experienced, yet the most passionate too. They moan at the same time when Harry pushes into her and starts moving in a rush, desperate for relief. She’s panting and whining for more, the only form of speaking she is able to as she holds onto Harry who is focused on keeping up his quick and steady pace while holding her left leg up to ensure the perfect angle. 

The animalistic need is there for them both, making them act like this is what they must do to stay alive. It’s messy, fast and mind-blowing and they don’t need much time to reach the peak. As she comes her nails dig into her shoulder and she bites into his bottom lip so harshly it draws blood, but he doesn’t care, only follows her into bliss just a second later. With the last bit of his consciousness Harry pulls out right before he comes, covering her thigh with the white, sticky evidence of just how much he enjoyed the past minutes. 

They are breathing heavily and Harry feels like a thick haze is still lingering around his head, stopping him from realizing what just happened. Y/N however is ahead of him and when reality comes crashing down on her, her instinct to flee kicks right in. Harry is still trying to clear his mind when she grabs a paper towel and cleans herself up as fast as possible and Harry only snaps out of his trance when she is already unlocking the door.

“Y/N, what the— wait!” He can’t go after her as she slips out of the room because he is still pretty indecent, so he has to pull his pants up and can only rush out then, but by that time she is already gone.

He’s quite frantic as he tries to find her in the bar, but she is nowhere to be seen. Harry returns to the rest of their group, hoping to catch her somewhere but she has vanished into thin air. 

“Hey, have you seen Y/N?” he asks Mitch, his eyes still roaming the place.

“Nah, haven’t seen her since she went out to smoke.”

Harry groans and makes his way outside, maybe she’s there waiting for a car, but as he steps out to the street he sees no trace of her. Fishing his phone out of his pocket he doesn’t hesitate before dialing her number. The line rings once, twice and then… it goes to voicemail.

“Hey, this is Y/N. Do whatever you want after the beep.”

“Fuck!” Harry ends the call and he has to stop himself from throwing it against the nearest wall. 

This is not how he planned. Well, he didn’t plan any of it, especially not fucking Y/N like a horny teenager. He wanted to solve this whole issue between the two of them but instead he just created another one.

A stupid, giant one. 

NEXT PART

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[scribefindegil]

[Image ID: A page from the Reigen manga. Panel 1: Reigen stands in a forest looking exhausted. He says, “At least I bought bug spray this time . . .” Panel 2: He sprays himself down. Panel 3: A closeup of his face. He’s dripping with sweat and his eyes are sunken. He says, “Preparations complete.” Panel 4: Reigen loosens his tie as he staggers towards the viewer. His face is sweaty and he has a haggard expression. He says, “All right then . . .” End ID.]

Okay listen it’s been a month since i read this and i CANNOT stop thinking about “At least I bought bug spray this time. . .” It’s just. It’s so Reigen.

This man is dying. He is being eaten alive by a curse that will kill him in less than 3 hours--probably closer to 2 by this point because this place is pretty far outside of Seasoning City. Since Serizawa couldn’t destroy the curse, he knows that Mob is the only person who could get rid of it--and he doesn’t think that he’ll get there in time, if he comes at all. Reigen’s last-ditch plan is to try to trudge into the most haunted forbidden evil woods he knows about in the hope that he can make the curse that’s killing him fight a different, worse curse, and if that doesn’t work at least he’ll die in a place far away from other people and the curse will be prevented from victimizing anyone else.

And what does he say when he arrives at the Evil Death Woods? “At least I brought bug spray.”

One of the things that makes Reigen’s character work is that he is Just Some Guy. A deeply bewildering, paradoxical guy who lies for a living, but still just a guy. Different characters in MP100 are trying to exist in slightly different genres, and for all his absurdity Reigen is the character who is the most grounded in the real world. He worries about his fire insurance during a psychic terrorist attack. He’s the one who goes “Hey, this is illegal?” and “Kids should not be dealing with this” and “You’re supposed to be adults, what is your PROBLEM?” when he’s introduced to the shonen-anime-villain Scars.

And he’s the sort of person who thinks, yeah, dying of a horrible curse in the woods would be bad, but you know what would be worse? That and bug bites. And he’s not . . . wrong, but it’s not something that anyone else in the series is going to think of. It’s such a normal worry in such an abnormal situation. It’s so grounded.

And it’s also . . . weirdly hopeful? I feel like a lot of people talk about this part of the manga like Reigen’s given up and is just marching to his death, but he really isn’t. Yes, he was willing to take on the curse to save Tome, and he’s well aware that he might die, but he’s still trying to get out of it with everything he’s got. He doesn’t have powers, but he’s really clever! He goes into a place with a time distortion effect in the hope that it will buy him more time! He manipulates the curse into turning around so that it gets attacked by the Mimic spirit but he doesn’t! If it had been a more even match between them like he’d hoped, he might have been able to get out of the woods even without Mob coming to save him.

He’s aware of the danger and how much the odds are stacked against him, but he hasn’t given up! And the bug spray feels indicative of this. He thinks he might succeed in getting rid of the curse. He thinks he might need to get out of the woods on his own. And if that happens, he’s going to be so happy about not getting covered in bug bites this time.

[creedslove]

THE PIKE CHRISTMAS 🎄☃️🎁

Marcus Pike x f!reader

Summary: you and Marcus have a daughter together, co-parenting after your relationship ended but one Christmas together might change it all 🎄

Warnings: fluff, mentions of Marcus' disastrous love life, happy ending

A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄🎁

5.7k words

When Olivia was born, Marcus’ life had taken a completely different turn, he had always been a man who dreamed of a family, didn't work with his first wife, then he moved on through a series of relationships that never seemed to take him anywhere until he met Teresa Lisbon. He wouldn't be able to tell why he fell for her as had as he did, he wasn't dumb or clueless as some people assume, he knew she wasn't into him as much as he was into her, and even if that hurt him deep down inside, he thought eventually things would fall right back into place, if she had said yes to his invitation to ditch those pizzas after the end of their mission for pancakes, and then to start sleeping at his place, then going out on a regular basis, until he simply proposed to her in the middle of the hallway at work, it wasn't the most romantic thing he could've done, he was usually a traditional guy, wedding ring, nice dinner, maybe even a serenade and an exchange of love vows before popping the real question, but he did what he could at that moment, what the occasion allowed and thinking of it in retrospect, it was actually a good thing he didn't waste that much time, effort and money into that proposal, because well, even if Marcus Pike was overall a gentle and understanding man, he also would have appreciated if she said no instead of leading him into believing she actually wanted to marry him. It would've hurt him at the time, but just like ripping off a band-aid, it would be quick and straightforward and the pain would go away faster than it did when she cooked him up, giving him hopes for a future together.

So when Teresa broke his heart and treated him as if he was barely an acquaintance to her, he became wary. He didn't like to think of relationships and he closed himself up to any kind of flirtation and stuff like that. He was going through so many changes into his life: a new city, a new position at work, now he wasn't just agent Pike, he was the head of the art department of the FBI, he was a boss, he had more responsibility and less free time, and even if Marcus was aware of his looks and the fact both men and women found him attractive, the fact he was an intelligent man, he made good money and carried a bunch of positive adjectives that could easily get him a possible list of interested women, he chose to step away. So when he met you, he straight up ignored his feelings, the way his palms got sweaty, how pleasant your perfume was and the way his stupid heart skipped a beat whenever you displayed your gorgeous smile at him. A part of him desperately wanted to connect with you, get to know you better, ask you out on a date, and another part of himself begged him not to do it, knowing he wouldn't be able to take another harsh strike of rejection and start over again. Marcus wasn't an old man, he was getting close to middle age, and even if a part of him kept hauntingly reminding him of the fact he hadn't been able to build up a family at that age, he was also so hopeful he was still too young to give up love.

Eventually he couldn't fight his desire for you and a simple lunch between you both escalated to a series of regular dates, and whereas all of his relationships followed the same course of an organized timeline: getting to know each other, officially dating, getting engaged and finally getting married. You, on the other hand, was a complete different ride, it seemed you were going through the same path, following the same stages until you weren't anymore and you showed up at his door on a Thursday night with teary eyes and a pregnancy test in hands, just a few months after you two started dating. That was a whole new ride for him; he was not expecting to become a father even if he wanted to, it still felt too sudden, you both were having more fun than actually having a commitment together, and if he was going to be honest, he didn't actually want to jump into marriage right then, it was risky, scary and he felt it was doomed to be another failure in his love life, he was willing to step up and be a dad to the baby you both were going to have in a matter of months, but he was torn between not wanting to get married just then - as Marcus Pike wasn't opposed to marriage at all - and not wanting to be seen as the asshole who didn't marry the woman he got pregnant. It didn't matter what his colleagues, his family or friends thought of him at that matter, he just didn't want to be seen like that by you. So when you had a heartfelt conversation with him, opening up and listing the reasons why you didn't want to get married he felt a wave of relief over him. You both got to an agreement: you would co-parent your baby, Marcus would pay you child support and everyone would be happy. Even if there was still a lot of mixed feelings, words left unspoken and the prospect of a successful relationship that didn't have enough time to mature on its own, so it was better to close the agreement in being co-parents and friends, it was better than nothing.

You couldn't complain at all, even if you buried deep your feelings for Marcus, he was definitely the best guy to have a baby with, for once, he actually cared about it, he was genuinely happy to become a father even if you weren't a couple any longer, he still made sure to go to all the appointments and exams he was able to, work still got in the way of one or two but he made it to as many as he could. Marcus wouldn't miss the opportunity to get his baby girl whatever he thought she might like some day: toys, clothes, blankets, little shoes. It was a pleasure to spend on her. You still remembered the day he found out you were expecting a girl: he cried. He was never strong enough to hold back his emotions, not when you had a new ultrasound in progress and he could hear his baby's heartbeats loud and clear. And he cried again when you gave birth, he was there the whole time, holding your hand, looking almost as terrified as you were, and the moment her strong little lungs let out a loud wail, you could see the tears running down his cheek freely, warming and melting your heart, mixed up with the pang of not being with Marcus, not going home with him at the end of the day, but with the peaceful assurance you had the luck to find a great man to have a child with.

Olivia was the name picked in agreement by the two of you, but Marcus simply called her Livy, she was his Livy, his sweet tiny little Livy, and even when you asked him why he'd chosen that nickname he shrugged, not having a meaningful or strong explanation, he just liked the sound of it, it made his heart swell with love just to picture the face of that one beautiful princess who would be called his Livy Pike.

The first time you were surprised by the nickname was an odd - but very pleasant evening - you'd spent next to Marcus. He usually had the habit of letting you know when he was going to drop a visit or even call and see if he was allowed to, but that night he got to your place unannounced, looking like he'd had a rough day. He refused your offers to serve him a beer, a glass of wine or even make dinner, he simply asked you to spend some time with you and Olivia, who was still safely tucked in your womb. There was no denying his request, you nodded and lay back on the couch, while he placed his hand on your lap, his face resting against your warm, round pregnant belly and talking to his baby girl. He whispered a bunch of sweet nothings to her, in hopes she would be able to recognize his voice and know how much she was already loved by him. He caressed the sides of your stomach, while your hand went to his smooth, messy hair, playing with his growing curls, exactly the way you used to when you both were a couple, having a glimpse of what life would be like if you two had stayed together after the shock of the pregnancy turned into happiness.

What you didn't know was that Marcus wasn't just having a rough day, it had been more than that, more than just a rough week, it'd been a rough few months. Months of investigation of what was supposed to be pieces of art trafficking, it was supposed to be just about paintings, sculptures and statues being trafficked, but unfortunately, it'd been more than that. It was all a facade for a much worse operation: human trafficking. And that made Marcus so miserable and depressed, he just needed to be reminded there was still something good in the world, he needed time with you and his precious little Livy.

He glanced at your Christmas tree and realized Christmas would be in a few days. He'd been so involved in the investigation and all the tension and stress that comes with it, he had barely acknowledged the upcoming holiday. He hadn't even decorated his apartment like he usually did, he hadn't even bought himself his plane tickets to fly back to Texas and see his family. There was still so much he needed to do but the realization that was going to be the last Christmas he would spend without having a tiny baby in his arms and finally having a little someone call him ‘daddy’, made him smile.

“She'll be here, celebrating with us, next year”

•••

Olivia's first Christmas was going to be printed in Marcus’ memories forever. He didn't actually spend Christmas day with her, as he traditionally went back to his hometown to see his family, but he made sure to get everything done in advance: house decoration, presents, gift-wrapping and everything a dad should be up to on such a special date. Before his baby girl was born, he didn't see the point in decorating only for himself; of course he would set small Christmas tree ornaments and call it a decoration, but that was about it. However, after his precious Olivia came to the world to brighten his life, he felt he owed it to her all the magic he could display. So in a matter of days, Marcus had purchased a brand new Christmas tree, several ornaments and lights and seeing his baby's excited face paid off. One of Pike's favorite memories was when he left a nearly one-year-old Olivia playing with her blocks on the living room carpet for a split second, just to make sure her vegetable soup was ready and returned to find her giggling self ripping off the gift wrap of one of the presents underneath the tree. She didn't know she was supposed to wait a couple of days more, she didn't know technically that was her mama's present, what her daddy had bought you, she just got mesmerized at the bright beautiful colors and went to explore. Marcus felt like he was going to explode into a puddle of love for his daughter. He was truly blessed and forever thankful to you for having got the best present of all.

And so another couple of Christmas passed and his beautiful, lovely, princess Olivia was now a gorgeous and adorable three-year-old toddler, almost going four, which meant Marcus’ heart was often balanced between the pang of seeing his baby grow way too fast and the pride he felt of seeing her blossom into an extraordinary child.

•••

“Higher daddy, higher!” Olivia squealed with happiness and excitement as her dad lifted her up, his grip tight on her sides so she wouldn't slip as she held the angel ornament and put it on top of the tree with tiny little hands. She felt the thrill of being held up so high, because Olivia loved how strong her daddy was and how he always made her fly on his arms; she loved spending weekends at his daddy's place, even if she'd rather have her mommy with them, she still had a lot of fun. Looking around the living, where she had helped her daddy decorate everything, made her happy, she loved the lights, the tree and the little Christmas ballerinas that dance to a sad but beautiful song inside that box. Her daddy had explained to her that it was called “art” and both him and her mommy really liked it, and that art thing made them feel many different things, that was why sometimes something was so pretty that could make her cry.

But Olivia had no time to cry, she was too busy spying the gifts that began to gather around the living room. She knew some were for her, some were for mommy and some were for grandma and grandpa, but most of them were for her. Marcus pulled his daughter closer, snuggling her and feeling her heart beating fast inside her chest. He loved that tiny little princess with all his being, and sometimes such love was overwhelming, as he never really thought he could have something as good as that. He thought of you and his heart dropped a little, picturing what things would have been like if you both had gotten married once you found out about Olivia, he knew you wanted to be free, to work and finish your studies, but he was never oppose to that, if anything, he would've supported you just the same. Even if he wasn't in the right state of mind for a marriage, he still enjoyed picturing you as his wife. He would buy you a beautiful diamond ring, make sure you were happy and satisfied with the life he could provide you, but after some time, he just accepted that maybe the timing wasn't good and his chance was over. Simple as that.

As he put Olivia down and walked to the kitchen with her, he held her hand, who was excitedly waiting for her mac&cheese. His daddy wasn't as much of a good cook as her mommy was, but his mac&cheese was the best in the whole wide world. He served her some in her pink plastic plate and chuckled to see her kicking her legs absent-mindedly while waiting for dinner. Marcus sighed, you were back in his mind, imagine how many family dinners you three could have had together over these years. Of course there were plenty of times you invited Marcus over for dinner, or he did the same with you whenever you were there to pick up Olivia, but it wasn't the same and he just knew it.

“Are you excited for Christmas, baby girl?” He asked Olivia, who chewed her food eagerly, loving the taste of it, seeing her nod and smile.

“I wish we spent it together daddy, you, me and mommy” she pouted, looking like a tiny puppy, which broke Marcus’ heart. He hated that he could never spend that special time with his precious Livy and even more so that you weren't there as well. He cleared his throat and caressed her cheek, her face being tiny against the palm of his hand.

“I'd love that too, honey, but you know, you spend Christmas with mama and I go back to Texas to see grandma and grandpa” he offered her a smile “unless mama let me take you, would you like to go with dada? I bet you'd love to spend a sunny and warm Christmas playing in the pool with your cousins..”

Marcus knew better than anyone he shouldn't really hype up kids the way he just did, but he was also caught in the moment, for a moment he had a glimpse of what spending Christmas day with his daughter would be like, where she could actually visit his parents' home, see his childhood bedroom and the toys he used to play with when he was her age, he would like Olivia to be able to spend that holiday under the warm sun, in one of her gorgeous little dresses, and not in the snowy gray weather of DC. At that moment, he took a decision: he was going to talk to you about it, you had a good relationship, he was sure all it would take was a good conversation and you would let him have Olivia for the holidays, everyone would be happy at end: they would be able to spend more time together and you would have a well-deserved break from the maternity duty.

When you showed up two hours after the time you were supposed to have picked up your daughter, Marcus was aware of your delay, having read the texts you sent warning him of how things at work got complicated and later on how traffic was simply impossible, he did what he could to make your life a little easier, and that included bathing Olivia and helping her into her beautiful reindeer jammies and tucking her in. Then he prepared you a big sandwich, after all, he couldn't cook even if his life depended on it, but if there were two things he could make like a champ, was definitely his mac&cheese and his gigantic sandwiches. He immediately opened the door to you, getting lost into you. You were so beautiful, your body was mesmerizing, your smile was enough to make his heart flutter and for a moment he couldn't believe a woman as gorgeous as you could have been with him, and not only that, you could have had a baby with him. After so many rejections in life, it was still quite difficult for him to believe that was even possible. The way you looked at him, with your eyes sparkling, the same sweet innocence your daughter carried and how small snowflakes were still on your hair, made him fall in love with you just a little bit harder than usual. Even if it was an impossible love to live, it didn't mean it wasn't there.

He invited you inside, which you gladly accepted, greeting him politely and taking off your coat. He guided you to the kitchen, where he'd prepared you something to warm up - hot chocolate - and a big sandwich, sitting next to you, and loving every single minute where he could simply look at your beautiful face and listen to your voice, as you talked about your day, that way, it would be easier for him to daydream you were just a married couple spending some quality time together after a busy day.

•••

“... so all I'm saying is that I could bring Olivia back and then you both could-”

“No”

“But my mom would love to have her over with us for the holidays an-”

“Marcus I said no”

You sighed exhausted at that conversation, you knew something was up the moment you set foot into your ex’s apartment, you thought maybe he was happy to see you, but apparently all he wanted was to convince you to let him take your baby girl away for the holidays. You shook your head and tried wiping away those thoughts. There was no reason you should get on the defensive at that moment, Marcus had always been nothing but nice and gentle to you, he didn't want to steal Olivia away, in fact, his request was even kind of reasonable, even if you weren't going to agree with it. He had such hopeful eyes, those stupid eyes that made you fall in love with him, because you could see the truth in them, the honesty, the kindness Marcus held onto your heart, and those were the same eyes that prevented you from moving on, you would do so much for him if you could, but not that. It was the only thing you wouldn't give up.

He ran his thumb over his bottom lip - an old habit of his that usually went unknown - and shook his head, sighing in frustration. He couldn't understand why you wouldn't give in just a little, he didn't understand why you played so hard to get when it came to that. You had always agreed on everything as a couple and as parents, he didn't see the reason why you were behaving that way.

“Why not?!” He insisted and for a moment you had the impression of talking with a stubborn child. You'd already said you wouldn't agree to it, but he kept on pushing it, and even if a part of you was annoyed and started to get cranky, you had to be reasonable and remind yourself there was no reason to fight, he was just Marcus, your sweet lovely Marcus, who happened to be the best dad in the world and all he was asking was to spend Christmas next to his little girl. You buried your face into your hands, taking a deep breath and organizing your thoughts for a while before you could face him again.

“I said no because you already have your family to spend Christmas with and I don't, Marcus. If I let Olivia go with you, I'll be completely alone, not to mention the fact she's never been that far away from me before, but that's not what worries me…” you finally admitted out loud. You opened your heart to him for the first time in a very long time. After suppressing your feelings and locking them into a tiny box in the bottom of your heart, they were surfacing once more.

“All I'm saying is that, if you take Olivia, I'll be completely alone at Christmas and I don't want that, I don't want to have to invite myself over to friend's dinner parties and stuff like that, it's depressing and Christmas should be about family, so if you are already traveling and visiting yours, it's only fair I get to spend it with my daughter” you explained it to him.

“Our daughter” he interrupted you and you realized you were acting on the defensive the entire time. You felt insecure, always fearing Olivia loved her dad more than she loved you, even if it sounded madness because yes, she loved her daddy with all her ring little heart, but parenthood wasn't a competition, and even if you understood that, you also had another fear: Olivia simply getting used to distancing herself from you, and then your mind took you to several dark places, where you could only picture the worst scenarios of Marcus remarrying someone eventually, simply because he was too good of a man to remain single; and it scared you your daughter would simply choose to be around her dad and his new wife. You couldn't help suffering in anticipation over a rejection that might not even happen but still haunted it nonetheless. He placed his hand on top of yours, the familiar warmth making your heart skip a beat as he looked into your eyes.

“You could come with us, we could all travel to Texas… What do you say?” and it shattered your heart to have to say no to him once more; Marcus was so sweet but also innocent to think that could even be a possibility.

“I can't Marcus” you said and now he noticed there were some tears threatening to spill down your eyes. He was running out of options and needed to know why you were playing so hard to get, before he could inquire with you, you sighed and continued “you know that's not possible…I'd love to travel with you and Olivia, as a family, I'd love to be able to visit your family, but you know I can't, because you know how your mom feels about me, and not only that, your sisters too”

To say Marcus’ family didn't like you was an understatement. They hated you. And they didn't make any effort to hide it from you, not behind Marcus’ back at least. You didn't know if his mom got overprotective due to the heartbreaks he went through over the last couple of years, or if she was one of those obsessive moms who thought no one was good enough for her son. Either way, you could still feel the burning gaze they shot you when they laid their eyes on you since the first time you'd met. It had been on Olivia’s first birthday party and they didn't hide their thoughts on you having a child with Marcus, nor the fact they straight up assumed you were simply a gold digger who was landing a great child support from the newest head of the art department from the FBI, special agent Marcus Pike.

The man, on the other hand, wasn't clueless, he knew his mom wasn't very fond of you, but he couldn't imagine to what extent that was, he thought it was just some normal rivalry and shook his head, apologizing to you, because of course he would apologize. He was a gentleman after all, and he never wanted anyone or anything hurting you. You sighed and licked your lips, a soft blush spreading across your cheeks

“I think what I mean is that I wish we could all spend Christmas together, you, Olivia and me” you admitted “I don't want to be alone, and I don't want you to be without our daughter, I just wish we had a solution for this”

“We do, honey… I'm not traveling anymore, I'm spending Christmas with you both”

•••

When the realization that Marcus would actually spend Christmas with you and Olivia hit, you were in a mix of anxiety and excitement; on one hand, you wanted everything to be perfect, you couldn't wait to have him around and see the joy in your daughter's face. At first Marcus was supposed to come only for the Christmas lunch, but after some thinking you decided to invite him over for the Eve dinner and he could simply stay over, which he agreed immediately, thrilled to know he would get to spend that long with the two of you. Olivia couldn't contain herself, she had already made drawings to her dad, set all her favorite dolls in order so she could play with him and begged you twice to pick a Disney movie to watch, she'd never been that enthusiastic and you'd be lying if you said you weren't excited too. It was like a dream of having a complete family was coming true; both you and Olivia were looking forward to seeing him, picking up dresses to wear and welcome him home, it was thrilling to think of him, it wasn't a secret to anyone how much you really liked him, and though you had wrong timing together, sometimes it felt like things would work between the two of you, and that was what you honestly hoped for. Preparing some easy dinner, you saw how Olivia jumped off the couch the moment the doorbell rang, you barely had time to open the door and Marcus could set foot inside the house before she jumped on him. Marcus was a big man and quite handy too, so he managed to balance a large bag of gifts, a bottle of wine and a toddler in his arms.

You welcomed him inside with a smile, glad to see him, as Olivia finally got off him, running to her bedroom to find whatever drawing she wanted to show him and helping him place down the table the things he brought, you both hugged. He held you in his arms for several seconds, no words exchanged, no greetings, simply acting out the feelings you perhaps had been keeping too buried deep. He buried his face into your shoulder, taking in as much of you as he could, loving your smell and how you still seemed to fit perfectly against his body. He caressed your face and smiled, saying how good it was to see you.

Dinner was very pleasant in his company, Olivia was so excited she seemed like a puppy, which brought you and Marcus to laughter. It was nice having a nice time like that, it felt like you had a family and it was very good. Sharing a bottle of wine, you and your ex-boyfriend were sitting on the carpet, long after your daughter was asleep and safely tucked in, you both were just hanging out, having your fun and chatting about your old times together. You couldn't stop yourself from drooling over Marcus. God, he was so handsome and sweet, he was also smart and polite, which was a very dangerous combination you'd tried first-hand, hence the whole reason why you ended up pregnant. He tilted his head and laughed, making you lose yourself into him.

“... I said I can still smell you on me” he repeated himself, snapping you out of your daydreaming and making you nearly spit out your wine. He had said what?!

“What?!” The blush spreading across your cheek had a little to do with wine, the way he simply dropped those lines and placed a strand of hair behind your ear made your heart race.

“I meant from earlier, when we greeted each other and your perfume is still lingering on me… I like it” Marcus was a little drunk, you could tell it, he'd always been a cute drunk, always snuggly and willing to progress love words. You chuckled and stroked his cheek.

“I'm glad you liked it… would you believe me if I told you I am wearing it for you?” You decided to instigate him just a little, surprised and amused to feel his hand pulling you closer by the waist, his face so close to yours you could feel his faltering breathing before he finally kissed you. Sealing your lips together, you wrapped your arms around him, deepening the kiss more and more, moaning softly into his mouth, wishing and hoping that moment would last forever. His lips were just as soft as you remembered and the more you leaned against him, the more you desired Marcus. He was tall, strong, he always smelled so perfectly and all you could think of that moment was why did it take so long for the two of you to set things straight? Even if you weren't setting things straight, why did it take you guys so long to actually kiss and simply enjoy each other's touch. You couldn't actually tell, but perhaps that was a Christmas miracle. Breaking the kiss was hard, but the way Marcus’ big hand stroked your cheek, so gently as he looked at you as if you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, was worthy. The way he whispered your name and invested in another kiss, not having enough of you. He wanted more, he didn't want to be just Olivia's dad, he wanted to be there for you too, to hold you after a long day of work, to be able to kiss and stroke you gently and make you his. He didn't need a mistletoe to kiss you over and over and even if it technically wasn't Christmas yet, that was the best gift he could've got.

“I need you” he whispered against your lips “I'm tired of hiding my feelings for you, tired of pretending I'm glad when I'm not, when all I want is Olivia and you in my life, baby girl”

You could've jumped out of happiness right there and then. Marcus wanted you, just as much as you wanted him; it wasn't just delusional to think of a future together, all you had to do was say yes to him. When you were about to kiss Marcus once more, Olivia waddled into the living room, with her special Christmas PJs and messy bed hair and jumped onto his lap.

“Hi daddy!” She yawned cutely and snuggled him, which caused the two of you to chuckle in a soft blush and put your kiss aside for a little while.

You wouldn't be able to tell exactly what time you fell asleep with your family, but when you did wake up, you were in your bed - Marcus had carried you to the bedroom as the gentleman he was, Olivia had been tucked once more between the two of you and drifted off to a sweet slumber, which didn't prevent her from waking up extremely early and squealing at the top of her little lungs in excitement once she spotted the presents Santa had left around the living room, making you chuckle, as she tugged your sleeve and took you to the tree.

“Where's daddy, mommy?” Her beautiful sparkly eyes stared into your own at the same time Marcus walked in with a tray full of fresh made pancakes. Of course the sweet, lovely Marcus Pike would wake up early and make breakfast for his family. Placing the plate down, he smiled at his daughter's excitement, as she shredded all those colorful sparkly gift wrappings. You turned to him, calling him for an embrace, as he wrapped his arms around the two of you.

“I want us to have this every year, everyday of a family waking up together, please honey” Marcus whispered against your neck, and in return, you simply kissed his lips, showing him exactly your answer, you wanted the same too.

Olivia got her toys, her plushies and her cute summer dresses, you gave Marcus new bass strings and a brand new shirt that would just look perfect on him, tightening to the right places, and in return he gifted you a golden bracelet. But in reality, what you had gifted each other was Olivia and you were both about to gift her a brand new family, one that started at Christmas and would go on for as long as there was love between you all.

____

[stusbunker]

Spotless: Arpeggio

Chapter Twenty

Featuring: Dean Winchester/Reader, Dean/Bela

Other characters: Sam/Madison, Bobby/Annie, Pam/Lee, OFC Gibson, Ash, Benny, Cesar/Jesse, Kevin, Cas, and Charlie

Word Count: 4031

Warnings, etc: Mutual pining, recreational drug use, surprise birthday guests, Dean being a giant kid, actually it's everyone, more history and an uh-oh, unbeta'd

A/N: You know how you outline bullet points that you need covered in a chapter and then you write all day long and forget one of the biggest ones until literally the last sentence? Yeah, me neither.

Anyway, I can't believe we are TWENTY whole chapters into this beast. Thank you all, so SO much for hanging around. xoxo Stu

Series Masterlist

Dean’s morning began with a blow horn blast compliments of Sam, who then received a bitch slap from his very frightened and at odds older brother. 

“Rise and shine, jerk. It’s the last year of your thirties!”

Dean groaned and buried his head beneath the pillows, poorly hiding from anymore horns. “Hephha waaff to wff agy hpp birfay”

“WHAT?! I can’t hear you?!”

Dean flipped Sam off and rolled over. “Helluva way to wish a guy Happy Birthday.”

Sam laughed. “Don’t worry, that’s not all.”

He pulled out a bag of the greasiest breakfast burritos from a shop around the corner from Charlies that they had discovered after being up all night gaming, drunk and caffeinated out of their minds. 

“Oh my god, you do love me!” Dean snatched the bag out of Sam’s hand and grabbed a burrito and cradled it to his chest. He looked up at Sam and said fervently, “I take back every mean thing I’ve ever said to you.”

“No you don’t. You’re just hungry. You want me to leave you two alone or should I take it back downstairs where the coffee lives?”

Dean stared down at the warm lump in his hand and honestly considered eating it right away, but Sam was right and scrambled eggs and peppers were not something he wanted to clean off his sheets whenever he found them again after the coming festivities.

“Yeah, thanks, let me grab some clothes and I’ll meet you down there.”

“You got it,” Sam took the burrito back as Dean dropped it into his outstretched hand. 

“No fucking with it now, I know how it’s supposed to be wrapped,” Dean warned with a firm pointer finger.

Sam rolled his eyes and his hair along with them and stalked out of Dean’s room towards the backstairs that led into the kitchen.

They ate breakfast in relative silence, coffee and contemplation and all that. Just two brothers celebrating a year that both of them were worried wouldn’t come. Aging might be a bitch, but it is definitely better than the alternative. And for the Winchester brothers, a blessing they weren’t ever quite sure they deserved.

Charlie and you slinked in just after noon, after Dean and Sam had half-heartedly worked off their breakfasts and showered for the day. You had the most obnoxious balloon cowboy hat for him while Charlie presented him with a ‘birthday prince’ sash that he was under orders to keep on all day.

Dean eyed you both with a simmering shame-twinged annoyance. This wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. He already got looks when he went out as it was, plus only a douche of a grown man demands strangers acknowledge his birthday that way.

“Guys, come on. I’m not— this is a little ridiculous,” Dean didn’t want to be ungrateful.

You sighed. “Okay, fine, spoilsport. Just let us take a few pictures and you can ditch the hat.”

“Oh! The hat was the best part!” Sam lamented.

“Can it, Sammy,” Dean snipped.

Charlie chuckled. “Okay, but you can totally wear the sash where we’re going, because nobody else will even be there to see you in it, just your friends.”

Dean pursed his lips and looked the redhead in the eye, she wasn’t going to let him win. “Great—- just great.”

Lee and Benny were gonna have a field day with this one.

“Atta boy! Say CHEESE!” Charlie chirped, taking way too many shots and angles with him and his birthday attire.

They hung out and shared a joint, picking at a cheese tray that Sam had pulled out. Sure they had places to be, but that was the beauty of being the guest of honor, everything revolved around Dean-time. And as absolutely narcissistic as that sounded, Dean could get used to that kind of schedule.

The party bus arrived just before two. It was actually the band’s touring bus, which meant it was roomy and stocked to the brim with alcohol and edibles. Bud itself was never left on the bus to dry out. Inside were Benny, Cesar and Jesse, all moderately sober as they were also acting as light security detail for the day. Pam and Lee brought Gibson along, which told Dean wherever they were headed was going to be fun, however wholesome. Madison and Annie were there with Bobby upfront driving ‘The Proud Mary’ as the bus was so lovingly called. And around the table in the small kitchenette were Kevin, Ash and Cas.

Holy shit, Dean had to blink.

He turned around on the stairs and looked at you, who were the only one daring enough to pull this off. “Are you kidding me right now?!”

“What?” You smirked and batted your eyelashes with fake innocence.

Dean looked at you and felt something in his chest crack.  But before he could get overrun by the emotions, gratitude, fear, even anger, Sam cleared his throat.

“In or out, Dean, air’s on.”

Dean nodded and blinked away the awe. “Thank you,” he grunted beneath his breath and turned to the cheers and jeers of his people.

“There he is!”

“Birthday boy!”

“Hey Winchester, I like your do-hickey,” Benny teased.

“It’s a sash, dumbass,” Cesar quipped, flicking the brim of Benny’s cap.

“HAPPY BIRTH-DAY,” Pam started offkey and then everybody joined in. Dean nodded along, faux-conducting and fighting the blush on his cheeks with every out of tune note.

He bowed as the song ended and then griped, “Yeah, okay, enough of that. Let’s get this shit started, shall we?! Uh, Gibson you good to DD on the way home, buddy?”

Everyone laughed.

“UNCLE DEAN! I can’t drive yet.”

“You sure?”

“I’m only six!”

“I don’t know,” Dean said thoughtfully, bending to look the stringbean over. “I think you could pass for seven or eight maybe.”

“Nuh-uh!”

Dean ruffled his hair and pulled him into a hug. “Fine! I’ll let Bobby keep his spot for today, but when you get your license, come talk to me about a job young man,” Dean promised.

Dean eased onto the bus, with you and Sam on his heels until you broke off to find a seat. He nodded and accepted hugs and high fives before he made his way to the table in the back, well that section’s back. The bunks and the bathroom were down a short hallway past the eating area and bar.

“Hey guys, thanks for coming,” Dean said broadly, but his eyes couldn’t stop looking for Cas’.

“Of course, man! Gotta celebrate another trip around the sun,” Ash exclaimed, his hair bouncing with his enthusiasm.

Kevin sniggered as he looked up at Dean and back across to Cas. “You know he’s real and everything.”

“He even speaks,” Cas deadpanned, turning his glare at Kevin.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Happy birthday, Dean.”

Dean felt the lurch of the bus entering traffic and panic resurfaced. “Good to see you. But, uh, we’ll catch up at some point? I gotta,” Dean sputtered and thumbed toward the general direction of the side-by-side seats along one wall.

“Of course,” Cas nodded, but gave Dean a tentative smile. Dean felt lightheaded but he felt better when he had a solid seat underneath his ass. Talk about a mindfuck. 

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and silently thanked the universe that he agreed to these super secret, group, birthday shenanigans.

The adventure park was suspiciously abandoned, even for a weekend day. But Dean took it as part of the present, no paps, no families with kids too young for school clogging up the Skee Ball lanes or having accidents on the go karts. He was kind of amazed y’all were able to pull this off, but it was far enough away from the busier parts of town that maybe you had scored a good deal. Or maybe Dean didn’t want to think about how much you and Sam and probably Bobby had shelled out for the day.

Even after years of his own success, Dean felt guilty whenever people spent money on him.

“Okay, line up for your wristbands. Everyone gets one, if you run out of tokens, tough luck. Laser Tag and Go Karts are available if we ask, just make sure there’s a big enough group to make up for the staff being pulled to those locations. Pizza will be set out as a buffet at five. I’ll get pitchers of water and soda out in the meantime,” you used a teacher's voice over the rowdy crowd as they beelined out of the bus and up to the gates.

Dean was almost giddy; he was so excited.

You bestowed a lanyard over his head, instead of a wristband. Which meant unlimited tokens for games and a turn in the vortex machine where paper tickets floated around and he was supposed to catch them for prizes. He was banking on letting Gibson take that responsibility, but hadn’t said anything because he knew Pam hated to spoil him, especially on someone else’s birthday. Oh well, being a surrogate Uncle held some leeway afterall.

“First one to the gokarts is a rotten egg!” Ash called out, making everyone turn on their heels and book it through the doors.

Dean laughed at the reversion to grade school taunts, but definitely tripped Sam on his way passed.

Somehow, Bobby and Annie got the first kart, but then again Dean didn’t remember seeing them as you made your little announcement, so they must have had a head start. The line was a mass of people bickering for a turn, which color kart they wanted, or which number if you were Charlie and Kevin. Dean had his shotgun attached at his hip, bouncing on the soles of his feet. But everytime he glanced up and saw Cas talking to Sam or nodding at something Pam said, he had to do a double take.

In all, they filled nearly all the available twelve karts. Dean and Gibson were in number 11, Lee, Benny, Pam, Cas, Ash, Kevin, Cesar, Jesse and Charlie all drove solo. While Sam and Madison, Bobby and Annie paired off. No one could get you in one of those things if they tried, and they all knew better than to try. Which Dean was grateful for, he hated rehashing your shit for other people’s understanding.

They did four lap races for almost an hour, with Dean sneaking past Bobby for the final victory. But everyone (except for Ash and Charlie) had lost count of their stats by the time they got inside to chug some soda and hit the arcade area before dinner.

Dean was sweating, faux satin clinging to his back through his shirts as he polished off a cup of flat cola. But he couldn’t keep the grin off his face long, seeing all of his favorite people milling around, trying to one up each other or just beat one another to a coveted game. It was the stuff of childhood birthdays he had only ever dreamed about, but you had made possible.

Lee held Gibson on his shoulders as they took Sam on at the free throw alleys. Charlie and Madison were playing some kind of shooting game while Kevin and Cesar watched them, obviously impressed by their stances with the fake rifles. It made him think of Jo and Big Buck Hunter for the briefest moment, but he tucked that away and chose to relish in the moment instead. Cas and Jesse were at the air hockey table and Bobby and Ash huddled by the wall of Skeeball machines, not partaking themselves, just watching you as you sank ball after ball into the 300 or better rings.

Dean couldn’t pick what he wanted to do next, so he just watched for a few minutes, soaking in the joy around him.

Eventually, his stomach chose for him. The pizzas were delivered in a tidy row down a side table of every cheap topping option available. There was even a mushroom option, which was probably the only thing close to a vegetable in the place, but it meant Sam couldn’t bitch. Everyone chowed down, standing and sitting in hodgepodge groupings, laughing and debating on what to do next.

Pam was comparing Cas’ and Kevin’s tattoos as Dean approached, paper plate firmly in hand, chewing as he silently butt into the conversation.

“Looks good, I mean, he’d hate them, but you know that would only be for show,” Pam said about the late Rufus.

“Yeah,” Cas agreed, pulling his arm back.

“Crotchety old bastard,” Dean added between bites.

“May he rest in peace,” Pam added, respect and mirth flitted in her eyes.

“So, Cas, how’s the kid and the band and fucking everything?” Pam changed the subject.

“Uh, we’re—- making progress,” Cas said simply, clearly unsure what to do with Dean’s presence. He worried at his lip ring like he always did when he was uncomfortable, but Dean was too damn curious and stubborn to take the hint.

“They’re finding their sound, it’s kind of cool to see it happen. You should go with me sometime to their rehearsals. It’s very organic,” Kevin explained. “It’s like they can sense what the other is thinking and just go for it.”

Dean couldn’t even pretend that that didn’t sting.

He cleared his throat. “So, where do you guys practice?”

“Oh— my place,” Cas said.

The fact that Kevin had been hanging with Cas and getting tattoos was one thing. The fact that he was in on this new band and its budding chemistry all while getting to spend time in Cas’ space was nothing short of getting his knees kicked out.

Not to mention, Cas had barely a townhouse with only one extra bedroom. He always preferred to live simply, as he put it.

“How does that work?”

Pam crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows, seeing where this was going better than Dean. “Are you a garage band, Cas?”

He just shrugged.

Dean chuckled under his breath. “That’s what you meant by organic,” he said to Kevin.

“Not exactly— that’s part of it, but I don’t know if it’s like some gene thing or a psychic connection. They’re just really good together.”

Pamela inhaled as Dean squinted at Cas, who had gone stock still with Kevin’s words.

“Gene thing?”

“Dean—,” Pamela warned.

“Oh, crap,” Kevin said, realizing too late that Dean was apparently more in the dark than he’d known.

Castiel remained silent, eyes boring into Dean, waiting for the explosion. It made Dean sick to realize that Cas was afraid of him, of his temper, still.

Dean set down his slice of pizza and squared his shoulders, trying to keep it civil. To not be that guy anymore. “Cas, come on man. What’s that about? He some long lost cousin or something?”

“Jack’s my kid, actually.”

Dean sputtered. “Yeah right, nice one.”

Everyone glared at him.

“You’re serious? How? When? I would have fucking noticed if you had actually boned down some chick—- I mean how old is he?”

Cas rolled his eyes and Dean had the sinking sensation that absolutely none of this was his business. But Cas had been his best friend for most of their lives— it was important information to have, even if it was twenty years too late.

Kevin and Pam silently agreed to disappear, but Dean couldn’t pinpoint the moment it happened. They were there and then they were gone.

“Dean,” Cas chastised.

“No— I deserve to know. I mean, what the hell? A kid?”

Cas raised his eyebrow, the one with the damn ring in it and Dean wanted, not for the first time, to yank it out.

“Kind of like I— like we deserved to know you were in an underground fighting ring? Like you had some sort of deathwish pact with a pimp and a known murderer?”

Dean felt an icy chill run down his spine, his hands instantly turned to fists and he had to breathe to keep the rage at bay. But his chest was so tight and the shame had become worms in his stomach. He wasn’t going to puke at his own birthday party, not from something as pathetic as his own mistakes. Alcohol would have been an easier taste in his mouth.

The party continued around them, but Dean didn’t reply. He couldn’t.

Cas seemed to register that and looked down at his boots before meeting Dean’s eye once more. “Dean, I’m sorry— that— that was uncalled for.” 

Dean swallowed down the bile and exhaled.

He unclenched his fists, shaking them slightly to feel something other than overwhelming emotion, the kind he’d need a few sessions with Missouri to even name.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean grunted, head down as he got himself together.

“Dean— we should talk, but I can’t really explain myself in front of everyone.”

Dean hummed.

“It’s just— I think there’s a lot we never got off our chests and it only made the last couple of years harder— on both of us.”

“It seems like everyone else already knows your business, Cas. Just kind of sucks to be the last to know.”

Cas nodded, eyes still tight, still on guard.

“But I guess the way I was— kind of makes sense. I didn’t deserve to know.”

Cas’ face softened. “Dean— that’s not. Let’s not, right now. Later. Okay?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Dean inched around the corner, weapon drawn and head on a swivel. He couldn’t see much, but endless nooks for the enemy to hide. The arena was dark, out of necessity, but it only added to the adrenaline pumping through him. Dean nodded to his teammate and they spun around the next edge, fingers on their triggers as they stood back to back. 

He really wished they had communication between the other members of Green Team, but that was just rich people thinking for a family entertainment center. It wasn’t like they were storming the beaches of Normandy here.

Something moved in his periphery but before Dean could turn you shot behind him, getting Kevin square in the chest. You both watched as Kevin fell dramatically to the floor, one down, five more to go.

“Nice shot,” Dean said out of the corner of his mouth.

“I feel like that was too easy,” you replied, searching the area while you whispered.

“Might have been a scout,” Dean agreed.

“Yeah, but—” 

He felt you shift behind him and he rounded to cover you, but Benny was already there, a near wall of guns behind him. 

“It was a fire fight!” Ash screamed out of his spot above them, taking Charlie out with the distraction.

You kept your body turned, lessening their target and fired without even blinking, but Sam had height on you and you ended up taking each other out. Dean, unable to make a shot connect, cursed, turned tail, and ran, ducking down a ladder and trying to loop back on Benny and Pam.

Three down to his team’s one, that he knew of, still good odds.

But then he saw Jesse sitting with his back against a wall, clearly down. Dean needed to find Cas and Cesar yesterday. Or they wouldn’t be able to call it in their favor. He crouched down and checked his back, without you to watch his six he felt extra exposed, though he kept to the edges, using the shadows to his advantage.

He heard whispering and he immediately hit the deck, rolling until he was flush with wall length-wise. But the voices stopped about ten feet away, either on the level above him or around the corner out of sight. Dean waited, gun drawn and senses on overdrive.

The telltale electronic chime of a chest plate activating sounded off and the voices turned from whispers to shouts of shock. Someone had gotten Pam. 

Which meant that Lee and Benny were the only ones left from Sam’s team.

And Lee was alone looking to the rafters from the sounds of it.

Dean army-crawled around the corner and got Lee from underneath, his cackle of victory the only way Lee even knew he was there.

“You sonofabitch!” Lee griped, helping Dean up before disappearing to the land of misfit toys, aka following Pam to the nearest exit.

Cesar appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and nodded Dean back to the rest of the team. Cas and Ash were still alive and kicking, strategizing on how to find or draw out Benny. But before Dean could turn and let Cesar back into the huddle, his chest piece crackled to life: Benny had shot him in the back.

Dean waved him off, trying to catch up with Benny’s trail, as Ash and Cas flanked him widely. They tried to cast a broad net, but instead they left too much space and Benny wound around them and took Ash out without Dean or Cas even seeing him.

Dean looked at Cas and Cas nodded, doubling back and letting Dean take point. 

It felt like hours, but really it only took maybe five more minutes of creeping around the obstacles in the center of the arena for Dean to catch sight of Benny. His sturdy frame ducked behind a pillar as Dean slowly followed. But he was too slow, because Benny had spun around and had his gun on Dean’s back plate before Dean could move.

“Bang bang,” Benny taunted, but he didn’t pull the trigger. He wanted Dean to surrender, but that wouldn’t do anything unless… Benny didn’t know Cas was still out there.

Dean held up his arms, but he didn’t drop his weapon.

“Alright, cher, nice and easy,” Benny coaxed Dean to turn face him.

“You got me,man,” Dean huffed, playing it up.

“Well, even the Birthday Prince loses sometimes.”

Then Benny’s chest flashed to life.

“What the—”

“And sometimes they still win,” Cas’ deadpan interrupted Benny’s surprise.

“Nice one, Cas!” Dean held up his hand for a high five, but Cas just cocked his head as the overheads snapped on, blinding them all in sudden light.

It wasn’t the first time that Dean thought Cas had some super-human senses. And he was happy to think that it probably wasn’t the last time either. Not anymore.

Everything considered, Gibson won the day. Every single adult, even Kevin, forked over the prize tickets they had wracked up on their wristbands for Gibson to exchange for a four foot long stuffed dog from some show or another. Dean fist bumped him and helped him carry the thing back onto the bus. But before Dean could haul himself up the first step, Sam pulled him back to the curb.

“Here— don’t say I never got you anything.” Sam handed him a massive rainbowed Slinky.

“Holy shit! I didn’t even see that! This is awesome,” Dean geeked out. “Thanks, man.”

Sam just shook his head and grinned.

Everyone got back on the bus and started in on the adult beverages as you sorted the tab and made sure everything was alright with the staff. Dean sat on his hands, forcing himself not to run back in and add on his own tip. He really did trust you, but some habits were hard to break. 

“Ready?” Dean heard Bobby ask you before cranking the door shut.

The bus rumbled off the curb and into the neverending traffic of the city at night. But they had everything they could possibly need on board. And when you sat down in the spot beside him, Dean couldn’t think of a single thing that could make his birthday any better.

He looked over at you and smiled, soft, just a hint of it on his lips, trying to keep himself from saying something stupid. You rolled your eyes and smiled back. And yeah, today might have been one for the books. But there were still chapters left unwritten between you two and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to wait anymore to find out what they’d said.

Then his phone rang. “Dean? Happy birthday! How did you want to go celebrate?”

It was Bela.

He had completely forgotten to invite Bela.

And apparently, somehow, so had you.

Fuck.

Tagging:

@deans-spinster-witch

@mrswhozeewhatsis

@cosicas-cuquis

@fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like

@suckitands33

@ladysparkles78

@deans-baby-momma

@stoneyggirl2

@sassy-pelican

@leigh70

@globetrotter28

@winharry

@lastactiontricia

@rockhoochie

Chapter 22: Dolce

[jinitak]

Rant about the book Jom is reading

The book Jom is reading from is Khan Chang Khan Phaen, a Thai literary classic. It is folklore from Siphon Buri and was only written down long after it was conceived.

The story by modern standards is quite problematic, I have summarised the story below but there is a TL;DR below this paragraph;

Khun Phaen (previous name, Phlai Kaeo), Wan Thong (previous name, Pham Phi La Lai) and Khun Chang were childhood friends, Shun Chang is handsome whilst Shun Phaen is balding. Wan Thong would fall in love with Khun Phaen and Khun Chang would fall in love with Wan Thong and they marry but he was sent to command an army to Ching Mai. During his absence, Khan Chang came up with a scheme to get Wan Thong to marry him, by lying that Khun Phaen was killed in action, it worked and Wan Thong was unwillingly married to him. When Khun Phaen came back, he found what happened and tried to get Wan Thong back, despite him finding a wife in Chiang Mai already. He kidnap Wan Thong from Khan Chang, getting a 3rd wife in process. Each side would kidnap Wan Thong back and fourth a couple times which led to a trial by Phra Phanwasa (meaning the Queen mother), the matriarch of the Kingdom, which ended in Wan Thong being executed for not wanting to commit to either men.

TL;DR a woman gets stuck in a love triangle between a man she loved which betrayed her trust and a man she didn't love who treated her well but their relationship was based on lies. In the end she was executed for not committing to a relationship. (Who could blame her to be honest)

Parts of this epic is actually mandated in Thai schools (I had this for one of my Thai midterms, lol) and in the education system, they focus on the literary rather than the historical context behind the epic.

Many scholars such as Sujit Wongthes believe that this epic is actually a story about a fictional hero of the Suphannaphum Kingdom, one of the kingdoms that would become Ayutthaya in the 14th century. The Suphannaphum dynasty would rule Ayutthaya for much of its early history, which might explain how the story is so widespread.

Sujit believes that many aspects of the epic is representative of the early history of the Suvarnabhumi (not the airport) region, such as

Khun Phaen being a name for the Hindu god of creation, Brahma

Khun Phaen's magical sword, the "Fa Fuen" is named after an ancestral god of the Nan and Luang Prabang region.

When presenting the "Fa Fuen" to Phra Phanwasa, she placed it next to the Chai Si sword, which is representative of the Lao-Khmer origins of Ayutthaya.

All in all, Sujit argues that this folklore is more rooted in the ruling classes than the popular folk. This analysis of Khun Chang Khun Phaen is not present in the episode though, as this would ruin the mood of it so much.

But its inclusion even though it seems out of place (Suphan Buri is in the central parts of Thailand whilst the story is set in the north), is actually not that weird. In the period of the series, Bangkok has just had a major reforms to local administration, ditching the Mandala system in favour of western style centralisation based on colonial administration in the Dutch East Indies. This had the effect of Bangkok suppressing Lanna culture and a "Siamisation" of Lanna. Yai's family who I presume is local administrators sent from Bangkok shows this very cleary, he doesn't try to blend in with locals, he speak the central (Siamese) tongue and reads Siamese literature.

The inclusion of this epic rather than using something most Thai people already know to create the scene, it also creates the historical backdrop in which the series is set.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. I might talk about Sunthon Phu, which Yai recited whilst drunk and also talk about the historical context behind the series too. Please tell me if you are interested.

[netherfeildren]

Did the loneliness die that night?

A Fear of God story : Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: Birdie and Joel's first time.

Content Warnings: Unprotected sex; Creampie; Rough sex; Oral sex; Angst; Hurt/Comfort; Descriptions of medical procedures; Size difference; Size kink; Mutual pining; Emotionally constipated idiots

A/N: Title is from Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnet XVII

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 7.3K

Read on AO3

“You should head home now, honey. No point staying so late. I think we’re done for today.”

“I will, Connie – soon. Just gonna read for a bit.” He pauses the tidying up of his papers to turn and look at you with those milky, discerning eyes of his. He’s been complaining recently that his vision is getting worse – his eyes tired and weak earlier and earlier in the day. You know he’s getting ready to call it quits soon, leave you with the gargantuan responsibility of running the clinic and caring for the people of Jackson all on your own. Your mentor, your friend, your champion – ready to ditch you.

You don’t think you’re ready. You don’t think you’ll ever be ready. You also know it’s not fair to categorize it as that. He’s tired. He deserves to rest. 

You also don’t think he’s going to give you much of a choice in the matter pretty soon. 

“You felt alright today?” He likes to check in on your confidence levels every now and then, knows you like to second guess yourself behind his back.

“Yeah… good. The surgery went well – I thought.”

“Yes, you were excellent. I have no doubt that our patient will recover beautifully.” He winks at you, slips his coat over his frail shoulders. You let a small smile unfold across your face, excellent, yeah, okay. If you could count on anything it was Connie as your number one hype man. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, my dear. I might be in a little later in the afternoon,” he warns, and you roll your eyes into your book where he can’t catch you. 

“Sure thing.” 

You sort of lose track of time into the night. Mainly because a large part of you is loath to go back to your quiet and lonely house. 

Sometimes it feels a little as if you’d spat out your heart in the woods where your sister was killed before you found Jackson, pieces of your memories. And this continuation of whatever it is that you’re doing now, building a life, living, going on, fucking bullshit, is a play act you’re putting on for yourself, for the people you take care of now, Connie who counts on you and relies on you and has been planting the seeds of his future and that of his patients in the soil of your mind. Too many responsibilities for a half girl living a half life. 

What was in that framework of a carved out house, that carcass of that fake life you pretend at when the sun’s high in the sky? Archeological remnants of a person you aren’t anymore, bones of a girl that, in too many ways, had died out there with her sister. 

Too morose. Too morose. Unnecessarily dramatic. 

You have a good thing here, this you know. A second chance, a place to do good. Those things are important. But what else? Nothing but stagnation and the waiting shoes of a great man who expects the world of you, and who you’re more afraid of than anything that you’ll be able to do nothing more than disappoint. Connie expects much from you. His past repeated in bright, shining colors in a world gone to rot. An impossible feat. How to make the most intelligent, most amazing person you’ve ever known, that expects the world of you, understand that all you have to give is little more than nothing?

But besides all that? Besides the crushing weight of expectation and inevitable failure and the certainty that you’ll never be able to be good enough for a world categorized in the before – what else is there for you here?

You stare blindly out the warped glass pane of the window. The house the clinic’s been accommodated to is old. Old, sturdy bones. Reliable. Like the house could weather any sort of storm. Remain standing and provide refuge to any of those who’d seek shelter here. This is what you need to make yourself into. 

But what else is there for you besides this? 

The question rings screaming in your mind. That terribly fraught, agonizingly selfish, humiliatingly ungrateful thought – when yes, you already have so much, but wait, there’s still something, something missing – that whispers that you still want one more thing, something else to fill that hollow ache inside of you. 

You wish someone would just tell you – set the answer before you, feed it to you by hand. Tell me, tell me how to fill the ache, and I’ll do it. You’ve always been good at following orders, doing what you’re told. You like to be told. You like the comfort and security of it. 

And then the bell above the front door chimes – it’s late – and there he is, stepping through your office door. 

“Joel–”

“Went by your house – what’re you still doin’ here? It’s late.” Sometimes it’s like he can read minds. Strange, mercurial wonder of a man. 

You take him in. “Your hand–”

He lifts up his bloody palm, dried rivulets of rust snake up his forearm and down his fingers. “Yeah… got caught on an old nail.” He shakes his head, looks back at you with a grumpy frown, “It’s late, sweetheart. You should be home.”

“I got distracted reading,” you say offhandedly, already up and moving around to collect the supplies you’ll need to patch him up. He really focuses on the most inconsequential details at the most inopportune times. “Come here–” you start dragging a chair over from Connie’s desk towards your own, a murmured, let me, from him, trying to pull the thing from your grasp. You shoo him away, “Sit,” you order, settling the chair in front of your own and pulling your desk lamp to the edge. Stubborn man. 

He falls heavily into the chair, an exhausted sigh following in his wake. “Always getting yourself into messes you shouldn’t be,” you say with a small smile, shaking your head at him. He only grunts. 

“You alright?” he asks gently.

“Yep, I’m okay. You too? Well…besides this.”

“Yeah, I’m alright, sweetheart.” You can’t stand it when he calls you sweetheart, it makes you all soft and desperate and wet. He’s quiet for a beat, and then, as if he can’t help himself, he asks, “Seen Ellie recently?” She doesn’t speak to him, and you don’t know why or what the extent of their relationship is, but you know something isn’t right, that there’s history, and that it hurts him. You know he worries for her because he always asks how she’s doing since you and she had become friends. 

“She came in this afternoon – she’s good,” you say quickly, seeing him sit up slightly at hearing she’d been in the clinic, “She just dropped by to say hi… she’s fine, don’t worry.”

He settles back in the chair. “Ain’t worryin’” he grumbles, another grumpy frown. He’s quiet for another long moment while he watches you set your needle in your forcep, gather the antibacterial to sterilize the wound. “Nancy in?” 

The old nurse who helped you and Connie out with the clinic and lived upstairs was a true wild child at heart. “She’s out with her girlfriend.”

“It’s almost midnight… isn’t she like seventy?”

“Seventy-four, but she has a young spirit, and love has no age,” you give him a pointed look. 

“Jesus,” he sighs. You grip the thick bones of his wrist in a firm grasp, drag the tips of your fingers over his palm, down the lengths of his fingers so that he’ll uncurl them. You think you hear what might be the resonance of something deep and rumbling coming from his chest that has your insides going hot and wet and soft. You want to tell him to not make sounds like that when you’re trying to focus, but you hold your tongue and begin to clean out the gash in slow, methodical strokes.  

 He tilts his head back when you start to drag the needle through his skin with a murmured, here goes. His neck is so thick, strong, the muscles and tendons popping starkly with his exhale, and okay, focus, focus, it’s time to focus now. You start to close the wide gash in his palm with a neat percutaneous closure, a simple interrupted suture with your safely guarded and jealously hoarded Vicryl – Connie has a contact that re-supplies you every few months. 

“Your hands are cold.” 

You pause your sewing to peek up at him. “Sorry.”

A shake of his head, “Should get the heat workin’ better in here.”

“It’s fine,” the drag of the suture through his flesh.

“S’not if you’re cold.”

“I’m fine, Joel.” He hums a displeased sound. 

You can feel his gaze searing into the skin of your face. Your cheeks are burning hot, the backs of your knees sweating. You hate it when he looks at you like this, have caught him several times, more and more frequently, and it fills you with a belly full of fizz and nerves, head dizzy and light. You’re certain that if he were to keep his eyes on you long enough you might get so lightheaded you’d do something really dramatic like faint or throw yourself at him and tell him he’s the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your entire life. 

“Got the longest lashes I’ve ever seen,” he says after a beat, so softly, and you feel your blush burn fever bright and self-respect-meltingly hot. A spearing twist of embarrassment and lust and the deepest sort of yearning you’ve ever experienced in your life boils through you so intensely that you even feel your eyes smart at his words. A tick starts up in your left eyelid from how nervous he makes you. All your anxiety and adrenaline being channeled to that one tiny, singular nerve to keep your hands steady while you sew his skin closed.

“Th– thank you,” you stutter, stupid, you should say something more, something better. What you’d really like to tell him is that he’s beautiful – rough and rugged and beautiful and that you see it, despite how hard he tries to hide it behind his eternal frown. You see him. He hums, and you register the tilt of his head out of your periphery as he settles in to inspect you. You’ve got both your knees tucked between his parted thighs, and as he settles in his chair deeper, he spreads them even wider, pushing his hips forward to slouch low, and fuck, you know you shouldn’t be looking, but you can even make out the thick weight of his cock beneath his jeans. So inappropriate, you chastise yourself, you’re the man’s physician, you’re tending to his wounds, he’s come to you in a vulnerable state, you shouldn’t be ogling and objectifying him. But on the back end of that thought is the whisper that there is absolutely fuck all about this man that is even the slightest bit vulnerable. For Christ’s sake, just look at him, so fucking thick and broad and strong and handsome, with the cockiest air of slight menace you’ve ever come across. You think that there is very little that could make a creature such as this vulnerable. You press your thighs together, pressing one foot on top of the other to squeeze yourself as small and tight as you can, cunt a twisting, wet ache. 

You’d wanted him from the first moment you’d laid eyes on him. It had been something almost intrinsic, instinctual. You’d seen him and all your brain and your body had been able to scream at you was that one, that one, we want that one. So perhaps you do have an answer for that screaming question that wants for more. Sometimes it feels like the two of you have been circling each other like blood in the water all this time. Like you both know, even if you can’t admit it just yet, that it’s just a matter of time until this strange, tense dance the two of you’ve been caught in comes to a head; cracks and splinters like a fault line and swallows you whole.

“When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“Twenty years ago.”

You roll your eyes. “We’ll get you one of those then.”

A soft, uncaring grunt. “What were ya readin’?” Really, the most inconsequential things…

“Boring stuff.”

“Tell me.”

You pause again to look up at him, his gaze entirely sincere and demanding. “Foye’s Principles of Medicinal Chemistry, it’s the two thousand and two edition. Last one that came out before…” you shrug, “It’s a text Connie values highly. I’ve probably read it a dozen times front to back at this point,” you laugh as you work slowly. One of the things you admire most about the way Connie practices medicine is how precise and methodical he is in all his movements and decisions. He works with intention and care and a measuredness that’s something you’ve tried very hard to emulate as best as you can. 

“Hell, sweetheart… you do really’ve got a mind that amazes me.” And his voice is so soft, so contemplative as he says it. As if he too possesses that great depth of ability to be as methodical and patient and precise as you’d like to be. The cadence of him is so profound, almost vibrational, as if the words are carried on a frequency that only he exists on. You pause your sewing once again to glance up at him, and the way he’s looking at you… distracting. You are a weak girl, never one for much bravery or outlandishness, content to always follow the path laid out before you by other more exacting hands, but the way he looks at you, the fire in that gaze, you feel like you could do anything, be anything, and he’d take it in stride, be able to handle it. His gaze makes you want to be brave and reckless. 

You turn your eyes back to his hand, almost done now. “Ah, well… not so amazing, I don’t think. I was always just well suited to books and studying, and in a world like this… wasn’t so useful, I suppose. My father wanted me to do this, he was a physician – a real one–”

He cuts you off, “Hey, you’re a real doctor too. Don’t diminish what you do here, it’s fuckin’ amazing.” He knocks his knee into yours.

“Don’t jostle me, or I’ll stick you,” you scrunch your nose at him. 

-

You’re fucking flirting with him, provoking him, that little scrunch of your nose that always makes him feel like he’s two paces away from death, the lilt of your words ending in an upwards flutter like you’re singing at him, beguiling him. He feels utterly beguiled in this moment. He wasn’t lying when he’d said you’ve got the longest lashes he’s ever seen in his whole life. Long and thick and fanned out so that they cast shadows across the planes of your skin. You look like you’ve got the softest skin ever spun together, weaved on a loom just to come here and bring him to heel, and he wants to taste you so fucking badly, to sink his teeth into the back of your neck like prey and force you to your knees – utterly deranged thoughts that you seem to force out of him with those eyes and those lips and that voice. Your hair is long and shinning and he can smell you, sweet and soft like the evening after a summer rain. It makes him hard. 

The first time he’d laid eyes on you, he’d been shocked into stillness, speechlessness, thoughtlessness. So pretty and soft and then when he’d spoken to you, your mind, you’re so fucking smart, the sound of your voice, the pure, utter goodness you constantly exude. He wants to be let inside. He wants to be allowed to feel all that goodness and sweetness from the inside out. 

He’d forced himself to turn away from you then, to run the other way like a goddamn coward with his hair on fire. That was how much his initial reaction to you had scared the living hell out of him. 

He watches you work slowly now, that plush lip pulled between the edges of your teeth. The feel of the needle sliding through his skin is almost erotic, and he knows that he’ll remember this only as a gift afterwards. The slight sting of the laceration secondary to the blissful agony it is to have your hands on his skin. He wants to kiss you. He wonders if you’d let him. He wants to own you, even if for a moment, to feel like you belong to him, like you’re his. To hold something as beautiful and good as you in his hands. You should be in his arms right now, impaled on his cock. Christ, he can feel himself thickening in his jeans. He feels even hungrier now than before he got here. Seeking you out, going to your house to ask you for help even though he knew he shouldn’t. He’s been so clumsy lately, uncharacteristically so. He wonders if it hasn’t been his subconscious’s way of getting him into situations where he’d need mending, just as an excuse to get himself close to you. He thinks this must surely be the case, entirely transparent and desperate and pathetic. 

You finish the sutures in his palm, and he can’t even feel the hurt at this point, so hypnotized is he by the look of you deep in concentration, trying to mend him. You obviously can’t see that there’s no mending a man like him – not in any real way. But there’s a tiny voice at the back of his mind that whispers that if anyone could, it’d be you. 

You tie off the line of stitches in a tiny little square knot, and reach for a roll of Curlex to wrap his hand in. You’re so small compared to his brutish size, your knees tucked between his spread legs. You’re not wearing shoes, just some thick knit socks pulled over your feet, slouchy and scrunched around your ankles. The size of your thigh compared to his has his mouth going dry. Delicate and built so finely – like a little bird. He wonders if your bones might be hollow like a sparrow’s too, if you’d fly away from him if he dared touch you, and at that thought, that dazed thought, he can’t help himself. He is a weak man, after all, when faced with something so fine, and as you wrap his hand in the bandage he sets two of his fingers over the curve of your knee, rests them there. You jolt slightly, and he stares, hypnotized, at the point of contact. He feels you pause your wrapping for one second, the burn of your gaze on his face, and then you resume your work. No comment, no admonishment. No… he doesn’t think you’d let anything distract you from your work, from what you’ve set your mind to. You seem like the type of person who once your mind has been fixed on something, you see it through to the end, no matter what. He admires that about you.

You reach for a vial of something, a syringe, a softly murmured, undo your shirt, but Joel is shocked frozen. His eyes glued to the place where he’s making contact with you. He hears the soft exhalation of your breath through your nostrils, and then you’re reaching forward to undo the top few buttons of his shirt. He looks up at you then, eyes focused on your task, brow scrunched, you drag your fingers over the skin of his chest, through the hair there, along his collarbone and over the thick hill of his shoulder as you push the fabric covering him back. You do not look up at him, but he thinks he might be able to feel the heat of your blood thrumming beneath your skin. He sits there and lets you do with him what you will. 

When you bring the syringe to the hard muscle of his upper arm, a murmured, small poke, he does not feel it. The needle sinking into his flesh is secondary to the texture of your knee beneath his two fingers. With only his index finger and thumb he circles the joint of your knee, sliding slowly over your soft leggings. You’re so warm here, it feels like the heat of you is singing the tips of his fingers. Good, you should always be warm, always be comfortable. Perhaps the heat in the house isn’t so bad after all. He thinks, for one fleeting moment, that perhaps he should take the burn as a flare of warning, do not touch, something this good and beautiful, is not for the likes of you. But if he’s honest, he couldn’t give a fuck. After all, Joel’s never been very good. He’s always been a little on this side of too violent, too angry, too fractured, too hungry. And now that he’s got his hands on you he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop. The thought of that, the truth he can feel in it, makes his bones hurt, but he is hypnotized. He grips you more firmly in his hand, squeezes gently to feel the soft give of you. You finish with your stabbing of him, fuss with the bandage some more, and he flexes his injured hand once, still watching the place where he’s touching you, feels the tightness of the stitching, but nothing hurts right now. It couldn’t. It feels like his very bones are on fire, flaming within the confines of his skin, but it still doesn’t hurt. You bring your hands to rest in your lap when you’re finally finished. It’s his turn now, and he slides his hand further up your thigh, squeezing gently as he goes until he reaches your arm and grips the bend of your elbow, mumbles your name softly, cups the sharp angle of it in his palm, slides down the underside of your forearm to your wrist where he drags his thumb over the lacework of blue-hued veins there, beneath the fragile membrane keeping you held together. He thinks that the inside of your wrist might just be the softest thing he’s ever felt in his whole life. 

He can sense the cadence of your breathing ricochet up to a hitched, nervous little stutter, and he finally looks up at you, his thumb still strumming that gentle stroke over the staccato of your pulse. He can feel the beat of your heart in your wrist and he wants to feel it against his tongue, wants to feel you pulse around his cock. Your gaze is fevered, manic, full of fire and a shout that sings, finally, finally, finally, you’re touching me, I’ve wanted this just as long as you have. He can see it in your gaze, and an understanding filled with a juxtaposing poignancy he can’t quite comprehend washes over him suddenly. He thinks he might’ve always understood you, from that first moment, that first sighting. There was something in you that called to him, and he’d tried to resist, as of yet, but he is about to fail spectacularly, to fall into you gloriously.

He wraps his other hand around your opposite knee and brings it up and over the wide expanse of his thigh, and then pulls you bodily into his lap. You let out a soft, perfect little gasp, and then you’re there, straddling him. Both of you pause for a second, taking each other in. Your eyes are so wide, a little wet, he thinks you might be a little overwhelmed by him, hopefully as overwhelmed as he is by you. The feel of your lush ass sitting over his cock has him going almost lightheaded for a second. It’s been a long time since he’s touched a woman, and for him to now make his return to physical intimacy with you, he needs to tread very, very carefully. 

You bring one soft, small palm up to his face and cup his cheek, and he thinks he says your name again, but he isn’t entirely sure. His mind’s gone away from him a little bit. He can see each individual, ridiculously long lash up close like this, the strange amalgamation of colors in your eyes, deep and swimming with wanting him – fucking Christ – he might unman himself right here and now, at that look in your eyes, the peeling, dryness of your soft, plush lips where you’ve chewed on the flesh in concentration. You cup his jaw, drag your short nails gently over the stubble on his cheek and through the thick of his beard. He listens to the soft thwick, thwick of your nails catching on his whiskers, and the both of you shudder at the feel in tandem. You have a way of shaking yourself, as if to loosen your muscles, and he thinks, yes, yes, he wants to be let in, this is his chance. He brings his hand up to cup your own jaw, the hollow architecture of the fine bones, his other hand slides down the slope of your spine to curve over the softness of your ass. “Open up, little thing. Let me kiss you,” he says, his voice is almost unrecognizable to himself, low and gravely. He’s sure you can hear the want in it. 

You give a short, wide-eyed nod, and he presses his mouth to yours – watches the flutter of those long lashes shut, he can feel them ghost against his cheeks as he kisses you. Like a bird’s wings. 

He takes your mouth in long, slow, wet sweeps; licks his tongue into you and tastes the sweet inside of your mouth, runs his tongue over the surface of yours.

I’m inside, I’m inside, I’m inside. 

His hand on your jaw slides to tangle in the hair at the nape of your neck, tugs your head back to open you to him, to deepen the kiss, to take you and taste you as deeply as possible, and you moan, drawn out and whining and for him. Your moans, like your words, end on a little lilt that sing to him, and at that sound he loses himself. He thinks you take him away from himself because he is suddenly made ravenous and of only tenuous control. He groans low in his own chest, his hand on your ass pressing you more firmly into his hard cock, grinds the searing heat between your legs into himself. “W– wanted this for so – for so long,” he presses wet kisses into the corner of your mouth, your jaw, the slope of your neck, pulls the neck of your flannel to the side to lick into the dip of your clavicle. He undoes the first two buttons of your shirt, the tops of your breasts, the flawless skin, the soft contours of you – “Too beautiful for your own damn good,” he growls, pulls you tighter against himself, you’re not going fucking anywhere. 

He wants to keep you. 

He lifts to his feet then, suddenly, taking you with him, gripping you beneath your thighs to wrap you around his waist, and with one brash hand, he sweeps the papers and books off your desk, hears the clatter of your instruments hit the ground, and plants your ass down on the edge of your desk, grips your jaw to hunch over you and eat at your mouth. Your fingers tug at his hair and beard and open shirt, trying to pull him closer to you, your knees hiking up on either side of his waist to press the heels of your socked feet into the base of his spine. 

“Me too, Joel. Me too. Thought it’d never– never happen,” you pant into his mouth, claw harder at him. 

And fuck, to hear that you’ve been waiting for this, waiting for him to come and take you for himself. If he was not already a thing made of thrumming, uncontrolled energy, then he most certainly is now. You pause to look up at him then, a momentary respite of your frantic clawing, and you give him the sweetest curve of a small smile, the moment so private, so acutely intimate, it makes his knees shake.

You move to reach for his belt, but he holds you at bay, taking both your wrists in his grasp and pressing your hands back to the desk, forcing you to lean backwards so that he can kiss at your neck, taste your skin, he nudges his nose beneath the collar of your shirt to get at your clavicle, bites the strap of your bra between his teeth to drag it over your shoulder. “Baby, if you touch me now, this’ll be over before it’s even began.” He bites into the thin muscles of your neck, and you keen for him, sucks a mark into your skin he hopes you’ll wear for days. He wants you marked and branded by him. Your knees hitch higher at his sides and you press your heels into the small of his back, grinding yourself against the line of his cock. You let out a breathy, urgent sort of noise, rolling your little cunt as best as you can against him with your hands restrained as he’s got you. “You want that?” he grunts, giving you more pressure with his hips. Please, please, please, you’re full of the most delicious sort of supplications, and you’re so pretty and so desperate for his cock, and he must handle you with care. 

“M’gonna eat your cunt, sweet girl.” You whine low. He pulls back to take you in, glassy eyes and a deep flush starting at your chest and sneaking up the column of your throat. He tucks his fingers into the cups of your bra and scoops your breasts out. Fuckin’ gorgeous, bends his head to suck one perfect nipple into his mouth and pulls hard on it, enjoys the song of your mewling. He nips gently at the sensitive bud, gives the other one the same adoring attention, and then drops to his haunches before you. The look in your eyes is slightly manic, maybe a little apprehensive. “It’s alright, don’t be scared. Gotta get you ready for me.” All you do is nod. He hooks his fingers under your waist band and starts to slowly drag your leggings and panties down your legs, pulling one foot out, not bothering with the other. One of his hands slides slowly up the back of your calf, the other pulling your leg over his shoulder and spreads you wide by the bend of your knee. Exposing you to him completely. He groans low in his throat, “Knew you’d be beautiful, but I didn’t expect this.” He looks up at you.

“Joel–”

“Yeah…” He leans forward and presses his tongue into your slit, dragging slowly up towards your clit. He thinks he must growl like some sort of animal because you let out a breathy little hiccup, nervous and stuttered and try and press your knee in his grip closed. Nuh uh, he mumbles into your skin, grips you more tightly. He focuses on your clit, kissing and petting at it with his tongue, brings his other hand up to press gently at your entrance. You’re fucking small here, he begins to push a single finger inside and you start to really unravel at that, fucking tight too. He can’t wait to shove his cock into this tight, wet heat. He gives you his entire finger to the knuckle, drinking down your slick, holds there for a moment, and then begins to add a second finger, pumping them slowly, making room for himself inside of you. He scissors his fingers, twisting his wrist slightly from side to side, stretching you in new ways with each careful thrust. Slow and methodical and precise, ever aware that he is handling a delicate thing right now. He watches your face, your eyes flutter closed, your hips tilting to welcome his hand as he fucks you open. All the while he continues to lick and kiss your clit. His fingers find that spongy, sensitive spot inside of you, and you keen as he starts to pet at it, hooking his fingers and beckoning your orgasm forth. He feels your muscles begin to quicken, your head falling back on your neck as your flushed tits heave, trussed up as they are in your bra, and you're so slick, you’re melting down his fingers and into his palm, sweet and salty and musky. And you start to come for him, whining low and needy, your knee hitching up by his ear to press your little foot into the meat of his shoulder, trying to push him away and sit on his face at the same time. You tilt your hips further and roll your pulsing cunt onto his face. Goddamn, you’re fucking beautiful. He is mesmerized. His eyes never leaving your face as your gush all over his face and open mouth. He drinks it all up, licking and sucking and kissing, all while his fingers continue to work you through the contractions of your orgasm. 

Joel, Joel, Joel, you sing his name for him like a little bird. 

When the throbbing pulses have finally gentled he surges to his feet, licking his palm clean of your slick before he presses his mouth to yours and lets you taste yourself on his tongue. He undoes his belt and frees himself. Thick, brutish cock, the swollen head is an angry shade of red verging on purple, precum leaking from the slit. The fat head of it compared to your tiny, fluttering hole is obscene. The threads of his control snap in slow motion, one by one by one, and when you look down to take him in, the size of him, your eyes go big and round and that little foot is back, toeing at him to futilely press yourself away from him. He circles his fist around the thick length as he presses the head to your swollen clit, starts to slide the underside slowly through your wet cleft. 

“No, no, no, no, Joel. That– it isn’t going to fit. No– it’s too big.”

“It’ll fit. I’ll be gentle, don’t worry.” He presses the head into your clit again, hard, and you whimper. “Have you done this before, sweet girl?” Your blush flames even brighter if possible, and he watches the fluttering of those long lashes as you say quietly, “Once,” looking down at where the two of you make contact. One of your small hands has snaked up to grip at his shirt and anchor yourself to him. 

He slides one hand under your thigh to lift you while he lines himself up with the other, and then slowly starts to press inside. And fuck, so, so tight, your walls still slightly fluttering and trembling from your orgasm, hot as sin– “Jesus Christ–” he grits. He holds for one second, only halfway in, but no, no, it’s too much. “Shit, baby. This– This isn’t going to last very long, I’m sorry,” and then grips your ass and shoves all the way inside, hard, almost brutally, all the way to the end of you. You keen high and breathless, clawing at his shirt and skin as he feels you pulse and struggle around him, your muscles working to accommodate his size inside of you. He feels his tip bump your cervix, and he grinds there for a moment. Fucking Christ. 

“It’s too much, it’s too much, please, Joel – I can’t.” There are tears in your eyes. His cock makes you fucking cry, and he likes it, and he wants more. 

“You’re alright, you can take it,” he soothes, pulls out and then shoves back in. You’re impossibly wet, the slick, sucking sound of your pussy trying to keep him inside resounds in the quiet office. He starts to fuck you hard, in even measured strokes. You have to come on his cock. You have to, he has to feel it. “Easy now, settle. Yeah… just like that. Good girl.” Your wet eyes glisten with tears and your mouth hangs open, panting. You’re trembling, the much smaller body trying to force itself to take something so much bigger and remain intact, but he bends his knees and angles his thrusts up to fuck into your g-spot, and he starts to feel the fluttering of your overwhelmed muscles begin to quicken for him again. 

“Christ, you’re huge,” you squeeze your eyes shut, head falling back on your neck, and a single tear rolls down the smooth slope of your cheek. He bends forward to lick it up, fucking animal, and then licks into your mouth, tasting all that glorious desperation. When he pulls back he watches the fat base of his cock stretching you, red cunt, swollen and split down the middle obscenely. He’s sure your little hole is gonna gape for him once he’s done with it. The sight is so fucking pornographic he begins to feel his heavy balls tighten, a searing heat pooling at the base of his spine. 

“You’ve gotta fuckin’ come for me.” He bends to bite the swinging weight of your tit, sucks hard at your nipple as he starts to thrum at your engorged clit. Your hand twists in his hair, the other supporting your weight behind you. You start to roll into his thrusts, and he can’t hold it anymore, he can’t. He wraps a hand around your throat, stiffens and shoves hard and deep, an animal sound ripping from his throat as he feels you clamp down on him, his fist coming down hard on the desk beside you as he growls the start of your name between clenched teeth that turns into a guttural wordless snarl. He doesn’t even try to stop himself when he feels his balls pull up, almost painfully, and he starts to fill the wet heat of your cunt with his come, marking you as his. Fucking his. 

Your contracting muscles pull his spend deep into your womb, and you sing breathy, little sighs of gratitude right into the shell of his ear, heaving tits pressed up against his chest. He dips his chin to lick at the soft mounds and pulls out to spurt the last thick stream of come over your swollen folds. He rubs the spend into your clit with his thumb, pushes the little white trickle into your fluttering hole – he was right, it is gaping for him. His head feels trapped underwater and there’s a rushing noise in his ears. And then a terrible sort of bliss ruining realization settles over him, fuck, how careless can he be, filling you up like this. 

-

His limbs seem to snap with horrified realization. “Shit,” he spits, pulls away from your grasping fingers so quickly you’re forced to catch yourself on the edge of the desk without his support. “I– I’m sorry– I shoulda asked before. I shoulda pulled out, I’m sorry.” He turns slightly to tuck his wet cock back into his jeans, do up the buttons of his open shirt, and you slide off the edge of the desk onto shaky legs, bracing yourself on your chair to keep upright. Your knees knock together pathetically. 

“It’s– it’s okay. My period’s in a few days. We’re okay.” We. You flinch slightly at the word. There is no we in this situation between the two of you. The look on his face is making that painfully obvious. There’s a light in his eye that gleams peculiarly of anger – of fury. That seems to demand: how dare you make me feel like this, how dare you tempt me like this, how dare this thing we’ve both wanted for so long feel so good. Because it had, it had felt so, so good. 

The awareness of the emptiness he’s left in his wake at his withdrawal is almost painful. You feel stretched thin and filled to the brim at the same time. He’d filled you impossibly full, ramming up against your cervix, and then somehow seemingly pressing even deeper. You’re going to be sore for days. Your flannel is long, reaches mid thigh, hiding the vulnerable sight of your used sex from his eyes, but you can feel his come start to slowly seep out of you. 

He runs his hand through his unruly curls, over his mouth and beard. He’s facing slightly away from you, as if he can’t bear to look at you, and the sight of him like this, fucking coward, almost regretful or embarrassed makes a small pinch of hurt and anger curdle in your gut.

“Are you– was that okay?” he asks softly. You push your leggings and panties off your ankle with your other foot, wrap your arms around yourself. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” you say quietly. You think you almost see him flinch at the sound of your words. 

“Alright… okay–” he swallows. “Okay. That– that was the only time. Alright? That– that can’t happen again. I can’t – I’m not lookin’ to start anything up.”

“Okay.” What else is there to say? You can lie to yourself and say that once will be enough. That you can survive on only one time. You’ve always been very good at lying to yourself. 

He nods once. He’s so uncomfortable, and it makes you angry, nods again, “Alright. Good. I’m sorry again… and thank you,” he lifts up his wrapped hand. 

“Sure, Joel.” He turns and stalks towards the door, but pauses when he reaches it, seems to shuffle back and forth, weighing his options – the risk – and then turns, stalks back to you and takes you in hand. He wraps one large palm around your face, from your cheek to cup the curve of your jaw. The tip of his index finger presses into the outer curve of your orbital bone, his thumb on the edge of your mandible to angle your face up towards him, the other at the small of your back to press you up and into him, “Lemme just… I just want to–” he mumbles and takes your mouth with is. He licks into you, a soft groan of appreciation, of hunger, rumbling out of him. He likes the taste of you, he likes the feel of you, you know he does, even if he wants to pretend at recalcitrance. 

He is a thrumming effigy under your hands. There is something immensely sad and vital simmering just underneath the surface of his skin, and you think: he is so important. You know it now, right now, perhaps, since the first moment you’d set eyes on him. It feels like he owns you – already, in this instant – like he always has, and he’s just been biding his time, an apex predator toying with its food before he decides to gorge himself. You moan into his kiss, let yourself go soft and pliant, sceding all control, all of your will to him. He pulls back, tucks his thumb beneath the cleft of your chin to tilt your head back and peer into your eyes. 

“Sure…” he murmurs. He goes after that, out into the dark night. You stand at your window and watch the span of his broad back as he walks away, the wet feel of him sliding down the insides of your thighs, and you think that you might become quite a monstrous thing under the guiding hand of this desperate want, this terrifying loneliness that seems to abate only in his presence. 

-

He’s on your front porch two nights later, that was the only time, yeah, sure, urging you backwards as soon as you’ve got the door open, his hands in your hair and his tongue in your mouth with a rumbled, just one more time. Taking you for himself, once again. 

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

[lethalchiralium]

Diamondback | Prologue

a/n: HEIBDEJFB i’m so excited for this one don’t even. I know it’s short, leave me alone 🥲

warnings: cussing, mentions of cheating/pregnancy (not reader), maskless!simon riley

summary: The heat was something else. With a heavy heart and nothing to lose, you’ve ditched your ex-fiancé to chase your childhood best friend across the country to a small town in a wildfire prone area of the United States - Pine, Arizona. It’s nestled in a valley and is where your best friend, Alex Keller, calls home. He’s following his passion, his dreams, and it soon enough, you’re following it too; but the flames are getting too close and soon you’ll be in the line of fire of your best friend’s superintendent, John Price, and his assistant, Simon Riley.

SERIES MASTERLIST | >> NEXT

Alex Keller was a man of his word. 

With his phone now slipped into his pocket, he moved with light steps from his locker and across the room to his Superintendent’s office. It was getting late, most of his fellow Hotshots had already gone home for the night. He was almost set out to leave too, having already put on his street shoes and his bomber jacket when you had called him. You’ve been his best friend since the first grade, essentially his second sister; he’d do anything to help you, so when you had called, his heart broke and anger flooded his body.

“Where are you gonna go? Your mom’s not the best choice-“

“Please tell me I can crash with you.”

“What?”

“Please. I’ll even work in your little firefighter station too.”

“You can’t just join a Hotshot crew, Y/N-“

“I know as much about fire and firefighting as you do, maybe even more.”

“That doesn’t mean you have the physical capabilities for it! It’s grueling, it’s exhausting-“

“Oh, I know you are not trying to mansplain your job to me.”

“What? No! No, it’s just-“

“A little hiking and extra upper arm workout is nothing. Put in a good word, would you?”

“I mean, I can- But be for real, you can’t uproot your life! You love being a fire watch.”

“Yeah, and I loved Justin. Shit can change, Alex.”

Alex knocked on the door, hearing faint voices of approval granting him entrance. He opened the door, revealing the warm light that had been on for a few hours. At the desk sat his Superintendent, John Price - a man with expertly groomed facial hair and the drive of a wildfire. He was physically and mentally maintained; he was everything a Superintendent should be. Across from him sat Alex’s Assistant Superintendent, Simon Riley - a man with the sense for fire science and for weather. The more physically maintained of anyone in the crew, he was the best at keeping the 141 Hotshots on their toes. The two of them worked incredible as a team and were the reason why the Pine Fire Department in Arizona was allowed their own Hotshot crew - Alex respected them.

Both looked to Alex, equally surprised he was still in the firehouse.

“What do you need, Keller?” Simon was the first to speak, Alex took a breath.

“Look, I know you guys are still looking for a new Hotshot, I may have a possible candidate.” He placed his hands on his hips, watching as Simon looked to Price. 

Price’s eyebrows furrowed. “Go on.”

Shit, how do I tell them that she’s just leaving her job ‘cause of that douchebag? “Uh, so she actually does- did, did fire watch in Yellowstone, she was a Hotshot for like… a year before? Anyway, she’s uh, she’s coming to live with me and wanted to know if she could interview.”

Price looked to Simon, who looked back to him. With a knowing glance shared between them, Price looked to Alex.

“She do drugs?”

Alex shook his head.

“Convicted of a crime?”

“No sir.”

Price’s next question was as blunt as it could’ve been. “Did she kill somebody?”

Alex blinked for a moment, stuttering, “Well-Well no! I mean she might, she has a good reason right now.”

Simon snickered, “Doesn’t everybody?”

Price glared at his Assistant Superintendent before he looked back to Alex. “When’s she gonna be here? ‘Cause we might be mobilizing soon.”

Alex looked at his watch. “She’s on a plane now.”

His Superintendent looked pleased before looking at Simon, then to his own watch.

“Have her be here by 9 tomorrow morning.” The man’s blue eyes were sharp as they looked back up to Alex. “If she washes out, it’s your ass on the line.”

“Yes sir.” 

The Hotshot still stood in the office, the Superintendent looked to his Assistant, who spoke. “Why are you still here, Keller?”

Alex cleared his throat. “As a good employee, I’m saying that she would be a great hotshot. As her friend…”

Both Price and Simon’s eyebrows raised. 

“She’s a bit… intense.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“Y/N, I swear! I don’t know a Natalie!”

A vase shattered against the wall next to your fiancé’s face, he shouted in fear - but you wanted him to feel your fucking rage. 

“You are a fuckin’ liar!”

A mug nearly hit him in the face, only to explode into a million pieces next to him. “Stop!”

You weren’t done. No, you were far from done. With a quick hand, you grabbed your former favorite framed photo of your engagement - a time where you were truly happy. It was a stark contrast to the scene now; you had made your way through the kitchen into the living room, throwing things to keep your fiancé, Justin, far away from you. “You got her-“ You chucked the picture frame at him, it barreled against the wall and shattered on impact. “fucking pregnant! You got a girl pregnant!”

“I didn’t!” He tried to take a stop forward but your hand was on another picture frame, ready to throw it, so he paused as he held his hands out. “It’s not fucking mine! I don’t know her!”

Another picture frame was thrown at him, he moved out of the way as you made your way to the front door. Your hand fished into your jacket pocket as you threw your backpack over your shoulder, throwing the small keyring at Justin. He took two steps closer, but you ripped open the front door.

“Where the fuck are you even gonna go?!” He shouted, face red with anger. You gave him a nasty look.

“Somewhere you won’t fuckin’ find me, ‘cause we are over. We will stay over, so if you harass me,” You snarled at him, taking a step backwards and out of the house. “So help me God, you’ll be meetin’ Him faster than you can say sorry.”

And you slammed the door behind yourself, hands shaking and tears threatening to fall. You had no one here in Montana, no one where you could hide and you sure as Hell weren't going to have your mother say "I told you so". With a shaking hand, you dug your phone out of your pocket and dialed the one person you always knew you could count on.

With two rings, he picked up and tears pricked your eyes. "Alex."

Taglist: @all-good-things-have-an-ending @warners-wife @random0lover

Copyright © 2023 lethalchiralium. All rights reserved.

[traffic-was-a-b1tch]

anthem of the heart

(jake kiszka x reader) 18+

summary: you and your best friend move into a new apartment after college, wanting a fresh start in nashville. however, you come to find that your neighbors are musicians. very loud musicians who like to keep you up at night. especially one, who likes to bother you on purpose. you would hate him… if he wasn’t so hot.

warnings for overall series: eventual SMUT!!!, angst, mentions of past abuse (not jake), abuse (not jake), mentions of past sexual assault (not jake), sexual assault (not jake), enemies to lovers, cursing, let me know if I missed any. (i’m still making this series up as I go along so it might change)

warnings for this chapter: HEAVY ABUSE!!! (reader seriously beware), beating, crying, cursing, regrets, happy ending!!!

author’s note: hello everyone! I just want to say again that I appreciate all of you who have missed this series! and again: it is FINISHED! I will be posting all the parts right after each other! enjoy!

• • •

Chapter Twelve:

you woke up to the taste of pennies in your mouth and pain everywhere.

you were crumpled on your living room floor, big combat boots at your eye level.

“come on, slut. wake up!”

you brought yourself to look up at him, pain blossoming in your neck. he was wearing a mechanics uniform and had ditched the mask on your couch. he smirked at you, holding your phone tauntingly.

“who is ‘jake’? he’s been calling nonstop for the past ten minutes.”

your breath hitched at his name. “jake- please.”

tanner landed a swift kick to your stomach causing you to gasp and cough violently.

“don’t fucking say his name! i’m the only important man here. he isn’t here to save you this time, huh?”

you gagged in pain as you held your stomach, not daring to say anything else. just then, your phone started ringing again.

“no! ja-“

“shut the fuck up! i’m gonna see what your little boyfriend thinks about this.”

he clicked answer and put it on speaker, displaying the screen and letting you see what he was doing.

“baby?” jake’s voice cracked through.

it brought instant tears to your eyes and you started softly weeping. you missed him so much. you needed him.

“baby, are you there?”, he continued.

“hello, jake.” you could tell in tanners eyes and tone that he had something malicious planned.

you guess that jake had heard tanner pleading for mercy enough times at their last meeting to recognize his voice, because jake’s response was cold to say the least.

“what the fuck did you do to her, bastard? where is she?”

“oh calm down, jake. the slut’s right here.”

“let me talk to her. right fucking now, you monster.”

tanner mocked concern, “oh you want to hear her? can do!”

with that, he kicked you in the ribs. your gasps and pain-filled grunts filled the silent room and traveled to jake’s ear.

“oh no, jake. it seems that her phone is about to die! oh well! say goodbye!” he leaned the phone down to you. by this time you had gained a little strength back, enough to form words.

“jake, i’m so sorry-“

“and times up.” tanner ended the call promptly and threw the phone across the room. it landed on the wall and fell to the floor, shattered. he crawled over to you and rolled you on your back, pinning your arms above your head.

“come on, whore. give me what I want.”

“I don’t know what you want!”, you cried.

“I want you to say it. say that you still love me and that i’m the only one for you. that nobody could ever replace me, especially this jake bitch.”

you shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut at the thought. he was the worst, most revolting person you’d ever met. you waited four years on him because you were scared of him. you weren’t gonna let him have this.

“oh yeah? you will.” he transferred one of your wrists to his left hand, holding both there roughly. he wrapped right one around your neck, tight, effectively cutting off your oxygen. you started to panic, gasping to no avail.

in your last attempt to escape, you kneed him in between his legs. his face contorted in pain and he let go of your throat to hold his balls.

“fucking bitch-“, he choked out.

you used this time to run.

you ran out the door with him quickly following you. you ran down two flights of stairs and were almost to the lobby when you felt the shove that sent you down the stairs and into the wall.

he had taken two stairs at a time to catch up with you, and now was standing over you, landing blows. his arm cocked back and his fist met your temple.

the world went black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you woke up in a hospital bed.

the sharp smell of bleach filled your nostrils and made your groggy mind focus a little. you looked around at the white walls, seeing a person on the couch to your right.

it was jake.

he was in a hoodie and jeans, asleep only about five feet from you.

you assessed yourself. you were covered in bruises, all over your arms and legs. the room was cold and you were only dressed in a hospital gown, so you squirmed underneath your blanket, trying to get warmer. the slight shifting sound made its way to jake and his eyes blinked open. when he realized that you were awake, he immediately got up and knelt at your side, grabbing your hand.

“oh, baby. i’m so sorry. I never should’ve left. baby, please know I will never do that to you again-“

“shhhh. it’s ok, it’s ok”, you calmed him. “what happened.”

you could see him mustering up courage to say his words.

“after the phone call”, he winced, “I called the police. I was at the airport so there was no way i’d get there on time to help. but I left immediately after I called them.”

“but, wait”, it was all coming back to you now, “what about the tour?”

“they cancelled the first few shows to give me about a month with you for recovery.”

you nodded and smiled softly in appreciation.

“what happened to him?”

you really did want to know what was going to happen to tanner but you could tell jake was having trouble remembering all of it by the tremble in his voice and his uncomfortable body language.

“they found you in the stairwell. he was still there, beating you.” his nostrils flared in anger by just talking about tanner. “they arrested him. he’s going to prison for a long time.”

you sighed in relief. you could see tears prickling in the corners of his eyes before he squeezed them shut and kissed your hand repeatedly. when he looked back up at you, you motioned him over.

“come here. hold me, please.”

he stood and leaned down to wrap both arms around you and hug you. his dark brown hair fell off his hoodie to your face as he held you. you couldn’t help but breathe in and smell his cologne. it was a small detail that made all the difference to you. he smelt so good. comforting. you had missed that when he was gone.

“i’m so sorry. I was so wrong”, he pleaded.

“it’s ok. I was wrong in some ways too. that will never happen again.” you rubbed his back, trying to calm him.

“i’ll never let you go again. I promise.”

you needed to hear him say that over and over again. you needed that. but there was something he needed to hear too. something you should’ve told him a long time ago.

“jake?”

“yes, baby?”

you pulled him off of you to look at you.

“I love you.”

his face looked overcome with relief and joy.

“I love you more.”

he went back to hugging you, now tighter than before.

you sighed into him.

you felt safe again. happy. loved.

and you felt it all with him there by your side.

he was your safety. he was your happiness. he is your love.

all of your love.

• • •

I love a happy endingggg! 💞 be on the lookout for the epilogue to tie it all up in a pretty bow!

taglist: @gvfpal @hollyco @piratejakesgf @sunandthemoontwinflames @kiszkas-canvas-deactivated20240 @jjwasneverhere @anythingforjtk

[deadendtracks]

final response to this post by @divinekangaroo!

“some of these might be considered trauma responses but my preference is to think he is/was always going to be this way *somewhat*#because he is this way.the particular traumas he went through were able to be framed in ways that allowed him to continue…for a while Also curious about this -- what do you think are the characteristics he has that were "always going to be this way" The key ones:  - That he struggles with actually connecting deeply with people, reading sexual cues/flirtation, because he actually connects too deeply – he holds back to avoid embarrassment if he’s misread something. Some of this leads to an inclination to prefer sex that is openly a transaction (prostitutes) because it relieves any dialogue around intimacy or connection. He can treat sex as a physical need without having to think about the other.

I can see him possibly struggling to read sexual cues/flirtation as a young man though I don't actually think he has that problem at all as an adult, post-war. I think he's just very blunt about bringing things out in the open -- and can be awkward about it in his bluntness (or doesn't care if he's being awkward/borderline rude). His reasons for doing so (with May, for example) are interesting to dig into. He does not misread the cues that Mosley is giving him; but in this case he does *not* bring it into the open bluntly.

In May's case he absolutely knows she wants to fuck him, it's not in question. He's more about putting it out there on the table as something he doesn't want to dance around (since they're alone and there's no worry about propriety). There's a lot of class stuff going on there, I think; all the talk about working class cock from his brothers and from Ada. What he isn't sure about is *why* she wants to fuck him and what she wants to get out of it. Which is why he asks if he represents something to her.

I'm not sure about him struggling to deeply connect with other people as a young person pre-war. One of the ongoing themes of the series (especially in s1) is how drastically he's changed by the war, how unrecognizable he is to his family and the people who knew him before -- it suggests this inability to connect is a result of the war and not something that was present before. At the same time I can see him being more shy around people outside his family and friend circle as a kid/young man, so I don't fully disagree I guess! Maybe it's that whatever struggle he had before the war it became terribly compounded after when he couldn't really feel anything period, which puts up a barrier when trying to connect to people. The idea Knight and CM talk about Tommy "thawing" throughout the series comes to mind. He's so emotionally frozen (and the strength of this isn't consistent; he thaws a bit and refreezes in reaction to circumstances).

Part of his aversion to connecting to people this way has to do with this 'traumatic freezing' I think -- by s5-6 when he seems unable to prevent himself from thawing, the result is increasing instability, anxiety he can't control, moral injury he can't ignore, and spiralling mental illness. So the 'freezing' of the earlier seasons served as protection even as it kept him more isolated from connecting to people. He's not really able to connect well even after he starts 'thawing' because by then he's feeling totally out of control.

Sorry that was a digression, I think.

Either way I don't think he holds back out of fear of misreading something; I think he's quite good at reading people and situations and that doesn't seem like something that wouldn't have been present pre-war.

I do think the way he treats sex as a transaction was most likely not the case before the war.

- Deep connection is unrelated to sex, and that he’ll always look for deep connection with someone over the sex. If both, ok wonderful, but if the sex makes the connection complicated he’ll ditch the sex and find that elsewhere. (I really think of Alfie in this space.)

Yeah I think this could work both pre- and post- war.

- Connection comes before physical/sexual attraction. People are physically neutral to him until he feels something for them first. For example, he couldn’t be seduced by a hot woman into a vulnerability in the way, say, Arthur or John probably could?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think of both Grace and Tatiana here. With Tatiana and no or limited connection, he pretty much flips her attempted seduction on its head and notwithstanding the essentially of them having ‘sex for the cause’, his sexual participation instead forges that double (is it triple by this point?) cross with her instead for their mutual benefit, rather than her sexual seduction exposing vulnerabilities in him for her people to exploit. With Grace, the connection comes well before the sex and it’s connection which exposes him/makes him vulnerable, not the sex.

Yeah. Any potential subtext about sexual trauma aside, I do think it can be difficult to untangle how he may have been prior to the war from how he was after -- it's such a profound impact on him, including on his sexuality and his ability to connect to people.

[doodlegirl1998]

Nighteye is comically terrible. He's the lamest person in the series. Even more pathetic than All For One.

Dude has the ultimate power but acts like a constant punk about it. When you think about it, there's a way of interpreting his power that dismantles any argument for not using it. He believes that the future is written into stone once he activates his power and sees a future. The act of his observing something speaks it into reality. So by not using his quirk, he thinks this means he can still change the future and decide fate himself. He believes that only when the quirk is used does everything follow a preordained path. Which is stupid. His quirk lets him SEE the future. Nothing implies it CREATES a future. The more likely answer is that all events in the MHA universe are predetermined and his quirk allows him to view the events that'll happen. That's what the implications are for an unchanging vision you cannot alter. It means nobody here has free will. So when you look at his actions, he becomes a moron. -Either Mirio was fated to receive OFA, or he wasn't. There's nothing he could do to change that. The guy could take out a gun and shoot Izuku in the face, and he wouldn't be allowed to succeed or even get in trouble for it unless it was fated that he do so. -Him abandoning All Might for wanting to continue being a hero is asinine, because All Might had no free will. If you saw him get killed by a villain in the future, then clearly he didn't quit being a hero. By Nighteye's on logic, he doomed All Might to die by forcing him to follow an unchanging, immovable path that would lead to this end result. So why is this little punk upset when the guy does what he saw him doing in the future? He ditched All Might when he needed hm the most, just because Nighteye couldn't control the man, for something Nighteye initiated.. Absolutely pathetic. -An unchanging future and everyone being locked into their actions means free will doesn't exist, and you actually shouldn't worry about anything anymore. Why bother getting upset if someone commits a crime? It was fated. If someone dies? It's fated. You can't change anything. The people you save are the ones that fate decides you can save.

It would also bring compassion for villains you face. They never had any choice in what they did because the hands of fate pushes them to do this. They're all puppets of a higher power that, like train tracks, all leads to a destination they have no control over. -If Nighteye predicted in his youth that he'd be a pro hero and the sidekick of All Might, he could throw himself off a building every single day leading up to that event and would always be saved or prevented from doing so. If we take this at face value, we learn that people have "plot armor" and must live and be relatively healthy to act out their assigned roles. He could hypothetically have interfered in the lives of every LOV member to try and help them and provide them with resources that would make them not turn to villainy. But it wouldn't work. They were fated to be criminals. The way he uses his quirk is a complete denial of the likely reality of his power, and he's objectively a garbage hero in comparison to what he could be. Imagine if he had his sidekicks each write down detailed journals of the day, while always wearing bulky watches that have their exact coordinates, as well as the time of day, month, and so on. At the end of every day, they slowly flip through the journal so that they can show the Nighteye who is watching them what's going on and what he needs to know about. It's scores of future events, summarized. You can't prevent any of the events you see, but you can arrest people moments after they do crimes. It goes even harder than 1984 and would give the heroes an unbeatable advantage. Actually, he could live in a huge intelligence building created by the government where all of the stuff they learn about is sent to, so he can examine the future and report back. The person he observes is a worker whose only job is to catalog and collect all of every day's events and put them in super computer, which lists everything he needs to know, along with the time and date. He could examine years into the future to learn a staggering amount of information. And he can use this power once a day. They could "lock in stone" decades worth of events in the favor of their country. Imagine them leveraging the thousands of heroes they have access to, letting them jump people 10 on 1 moments after they did a crime. It would add a level of efficiency and power that's unprecedented and that no other country could replicate. This could also make Japan really rich by helping them invest in the stocks in foreign countries or jumping on trends/creating inventions and innovations early. They could just declare the use of Nighteye's quirk to do things like this legal. Some sort of homeland defense law would do it.

He could alter how law enforcement works in his country all by himself. -The fact that Eri and Izuku could defy one of his predictions implies they might be the only people in this universe with free will. Nighteye was killed before he could grasp how monumental this is. It makes them outrageously valuable as they can change the "script" that the universe runs on.

-The implications of what Nighteye could accomplish if he wasn't useless are incredible, but the man himself is just another abuser designed to beat Izuku down and force him to try and prove himself. Izuku never needed to prove himself to anyone. All Might already declared him worthy, and that's enough. He was guaranteed to be the strongest person on the planet once he got OFA, and all he needed to do was keep healthy and train so he could figure out how to use it. Nighteye is just another in a long line of events that berate Izuku for a problem that would have easily been solved with more time.

Hi @lacunammmm 👋,

Completely agreed. Nighteye's power, just like Eri's, is a massive plot hole and the implications of the wider world building just isn't great - at all.

There's two ways to interpret Nighteye's power:

1) That Nighteye is actually seeing a 'possible future' that he actually makes more likely to occur with his interference and that he's so arrogant he hasn't ever realised this is the case.

OR

2) Your interpretation that you described here that Nighteye is seeing 'the actual hard future,'

If it's the latter, as you described, Nighteye should have never just been a sidekick to anyone. He should have as you described been integral to Japan's future and their government helping them to decide how to quickly defeat upcoming villains and maximise their economy.

Nighteye can see at max 7 years into the future and once a day, that is actually a long time to lock in place especially if he writes a diary of what he sees. But Nighteye's power also comes with a lot of problems;

How can any mystery take place? Nighteye should have forseen it or enough to piece together a lot of what the villains do. The villains should have never been able to win or get the jump on the heroes and yet they do.

How could AM vs AFO happen the first time and have AFO still survive? Nighteye if he forsaw AM's death should have also forsaw AFO coming back which happens at an earlier point than his 'death'...

The problem of the lack of Freewill - as you very rightly explained, the heroes were always destined to be heroes, the villains destined to be villains no matter what. It takes away the impact of things like what Endeavor did to Touya because he was always going to become Dabi, with this logic, no matter what Endeavor did. Also what are the wider implications of Eri and Izuku breaking Nighteye's 'script' of events? Guess we will never know...

What's the point of anything Nighteye did with Mirio? Surely if Nighteye used his quirk, he should have forseen Mirio would never get OFA and with that cast him out of his agency like yesterday's trash (sorry, but I don't buy that Nighteye cared for Mirio beyond using him to be the next OFA successor.)

TLDR - Nighteye's power is very poorly explored in MHA. I explored two ways it could be seen but either way his power is underutilised. He could have been so useful to the government to solving a lot of the conflict in MHA, identifying future events, villains etc, with his quirk.

But instead Nighteye acts like a nonsensical abusive POS nearly his entire screentime (to Izuku AM and Mirio to an extent) and yet we are meant to feel bad when he dies in one of the most narratively manipulative 'redemptive' deaths I have seen on screen.

To an extent Nighteye's quirk could also be seen as massive plot hole if he is locking in hard events, with poor implications for MHAs world as a whole, let's add that as another reason to hate this useless, hateful character.

[rscroogedraws]

Our Beloved Docktor Frogg Part I

Note: The last time I tried to write a L.O.S.E. fanfic was 2013. So, I'm pretty rusty.

In a nutshell: Docktor Frogg is starting to wonder if the grass is greener somewhere else. Maybe he'd feel more satisfied with his career and life overall if he was a mad scientist under an actual supervillain instead of Voltar the Saturday morning cartoon villain flop?

This is also me introducing my fan character Firecracker to what may, potentially, be a new series of L.O.S.E. fics after this one. I also plan on including Professor Venomous from O.K. K.O.! as a minor recurring character in this particular fic.

Without further ado:

“Oh, Docktor Frogg! You got some mail!” Red Menace chirped as he passed over a surprisingly fancy gold embossed envelope.

Frogg nodded and took the parcel. He was relieved Voltar was out doing who-knows-what since the little gremlin would insist on getting first look at the mail just because of how shiny it was. He muttered a few choice words under his breath as he carefully opened said envelope, imagining Voltar scoffing, rolling his eyes, and whining that he never got anything good.

Honestly, Frogg was expecting spam about a credit card for the ‘elite’ supervillain or glossy, unbelievable photos of equipment he’d never be able to afford (or steal) in a million years. Instead, it was a wedding invite. And as soon as he saw the name and picture attached, his heart dropped a little.

There was the beaming and lovestruck face of Professor Venomous holding hands with a shorter man that had teal, swooped hair on one side of his head and one red cybernetic eye. The mystery beau looked great in a powder blue tuxedo, his smile almost hidden behind a big matching tie and a sea of ruffles. Frogg glanced at the letterhead again: “….formally invited to the wedding of Professor Venomous and Lord Boxman.”

Frogg sniffed and closed the letter. Years ago, he found Professor Venomous on a mad scientist forum. His specialization was crafting bio-mass attachments and creating artificial life. He was Frogg’s dream lab partner; a scientist whose demented imagination matched his talent, zeal, and determination to create bigger, worse, and deadlier things. A few of Frogg’s better organic monsters over the years, the ones that lived longer than five minutes, owed their existence to Venomous’ equations and thorough notes.

When Venomous first shared pictures of what he looked like, it awoke something in Docktor Frogg. The man was as gorgeous as he was brilliant. He had a purple complexion that he carefully matched with turtlenecks in the same color family. His dark hair was glossy and combed back into a flattering wing shape. And he wore eyeliner.

Venomous had a touch of Goth aesthetic and Frogg’s heart always skipped a beat around Goth girls with tastefully put-together black outfits and make-up that made her look like the Grim Reaper’s next willing target. That applied to Goth guys too. It also better explained what Frogg previously chocked up as just “admiration” for the icon Rock Gothington.

It hit Frogg like an unpleasant satellite from the heavens above: He’d been crushing on his long-time online friend Professor Venomous. He’d held onto a slim hope, the slimmest most gossamer thread of hope, that Venomous might reach out one day, ask to be partners, and sweep him away from his dreaded day-to-day as a minion for a Saturday morning cartoon flop. Someone else beat Frogg to the goal he hadn’t realized he had.

Boxman. Frogg blew out a breath. Lord Boxman.

If Venomous had fallen for him, he probably had some blueprints or research worth raiding. At the very least, Frogg might find a devious new idea for a pet project and maybe even a new villain penpal. It’d help buffer his ennui if he had just one more person to talk to that knew what real evil was instead of continuing to insist that playing Ding Dong Ditch on their neighbor Steve was the height of villainy.

“What’d you get, Docktor Frogg?” Red Menace asked with a friendly grin.

“Junk mail.” Frogg deliberately looked away from Red’s face as he tucked the invitation into the inner pocket of his lab coat. “Just junk.”

“Why did you discretely put it away in your coat then?” Red raised an accusatory finger and eyebrow. “That’s the pocket you put important documents in.”

Suddenly the door burst open and Voltar puttered in, tapping his fingers and chuckling sinisterly. Even his antennae curled slightly backwards.

“Men! I’ve found a fantastic new way to annoy the neighborhood!” Voltar made a few showman gestures before sticking his hands behind his back.

Red leaned in curiously. For a moment, Frogg was actually grateful for Voltar’s interruption. As Voltar was pulling out his monumental find, Red shot Frogg a knowing glance and raised his brows. Of course he wasn’t just going to let Frogg off the hook.

Frogg swallowed heavily as Voltar raised a fistful of colorful kazoos.

“I’ve found a treasure trove of horribly played songs on NikNak!” Voltar carried on with a gleeful laugh. “And the fools shared their sheet music! For free! We’re going to learn how to play these songs. The worse. The better. Feel free to ad lib. And we’re going to knock on all our neighbors’ doors. And give them a kazoo concert that will make them groan in sheer agony!”

“I think you’re mistaking recorders for kazoos….” Red interjected.

“I got these from the dollar store for 25 cents. I’m not made of money, Red.”

“Wouldn’t recorders be more irritating?” Frogg said, frowning. “I’ve been to some pretty bad recorder recitals, Voltar. That’s the stuff of nightmares for some parents…”

“And grandparents!” Red added.

“Hmmm…..” Voltar idly scratched his chin and shook the kazoos mashed between his fingers. “I really want to do a bad kazoo concert today.”

With that, Voltar shoved the kazoos at Frogg and Red. Red excitedly started tooting on his while Frogg rolled his eyes and held up the pathetic plastic instrument between his claws.

As if Red’s tweeting and buzzing wasn’t bad enough by itself, Voltar joined in. In his case, he was pitifully trying to play two kazoos at once. Red sounded at least close to competent while Voltar was wheezing and blowing raspberries barely a minute later.

Is this really the rest of my life….? Frogg raised his kazoo and half-heartedly blew into it.

“Let’s gooooo!” Voltar cheered, pointing and marching back towards the door.

Frogg slumped forward and followed the peppy, jaunty strut of his comrades with significantly more somber energy. Maybe today he’d finally discover a Skullosus recruitment poster that didn’t have all the little “take a number” strips pulled off.

Instead of the neighbors, Voltar decided to drag L.O.S.E. to the park instead. Because he was hungry. And there was a specific hot dog cart there that had quality brats-not the cheap meat tubes everywhere else had-and a certain brand of spicy mustard that you just couldn’t find anywhere else in town.

While Voltar beelined for the cart, Red Menace noticed Mrs. Johnson parked on a bench and feeding pigeons. He casually strolled over with a certain grin on his face that better fit a superhero sidekick than a burly evil henchman. The elderly woman immediately perked up when she saw him. She fished out a couple pieces of the awful candy every old person ubiquitously carried on their person and offered Red the ones with the strawberry-themed wrappers. Of course, he gasped with sheer delight and popped one in his mouth.

Docktor Frogg rolled his eyes and looked down at the kazoo pathetically dangling from his claws. He raised it to his lips and started tooting a tuneless ditty. Only he could hear it. Otherwise, he was overpowered by bird chatter and laughing children.

Oh, look. Glory Guy’s superpowered spawn recently learned how to fly. The child was cackling as he flew around in a few dizzy circles, a little gray hare hanging onto his ankle for dear life. Glory Guy’s concerned cries followed a minute later.

Frogg chuckled sinisterly. Maybe in the next ten years Glory Jr. would be a delinquent on the quick path towards a supervillain that could easily rival the likes of Skullosus or greater instead of yet another boring and cookie-cutter boy scout like his old man.

“….you’re absolutely sure?” Speaking of Skullosus, the skull in a jar was sitting across a picnic table from a character Frogg hadn’t seen before. She certainly wasn’t dressed like one of his typical minions and she wasn’t Skullosus’ gender-bent galaxy-conquering girlfriend either.

“Yeah,” she said with a firm nod. “I appreciate the opportunity, but it’s just not what I’m looking for.”

The mystery woman was barely a foot taller than Voltar from Frogg’s rough mental height estimate. She had short gray hair slicked back into sharp quill-like shapes at the base of her neck and cat-like yellow irises. Colored contact lenses maybe? She was dressed in a dark double-breasted suit and silver tie matched with black and white shoes Frogg had only seen in 1940’s movies. Based on her outfit alone, Frogg guessed she was probably a franchise rep for one of the big-name suppliers Skullosus had access to as an A-list villain.

Despite himself, Frogg cast a venomous glare in Voltar’s direction. His boss was happily chomping down on his stupid bratwurst. With a snarl and a few curses, Frogg turned his attention back to Skullosus. Maybe Voltar would be extra slow today and indulge what he liked to call his “foodie” sensibilities. Yes, Voltar, the man whose usual diet consisted of a big bucket of fried fast food chicken or cheap microwave pizza, was a fount of knowledge on fine dining.

At the very least, Frogg wanted to find out who Skullosus’ mystery supplier was. It’d be another brand name to add to his ever-growing list of mad scientist’s equipment he idly daydreamed about.

“I could really use a decent mad scientist right now.” Skullosus tapped the table top. “Do you like foosball? We just had a foosball table installed in the lounge!”

Frogg’s goggles bugged while the woman in the suit rolled her eyes.

“I’m not a mad scientist. I told you I’m more of a publicist. Or spin doctor for a more accurate description. My mad science is ad hoc at best.” She made a “so-so” gesture. “And I don’t like foosball.”

“But it’s so fun to make the little men kick the ball! It’s like….” Skullosus gestured vaguely. “And then the other guy goes-” He gestured vaguely again. “So fun.”

“Have you actually played it?” She folded her arms.

“My son likes it.” Skullosus shrugged. “I also just got orange soda in the employee vending machines!”

“Hire an actual mad scientist. Call me when you need a brochure for the people on your first conquered planet or whatever.”

“Firecracker, no mad scientists-”

“ ‘No mad scientists want to work anymore!’ Yeah, yeah….” Firecracker made a rude, dismissive gesture that eerily reminded Frogg of Voltar.

“Don’t you dare take that tone with the mighty-”

“You can’t eject me out the airlock.” Firecracker grinned in a menacing fashion. “This is a no disintegrator ray zone. Plus, Glory Guy and General Sargent are here.”

He ground his teeth and narrowed his eyes, but huffed in defeat.

“We’re still on for brunch Monday, right?” Firecracker adjusted the lapels of her suit jacket.

“Of course! Galactea is dying to meet you.” Skullosus’ entire demeanor shifted from intimidating to casual in mere seconds. He cleared his throat and tapped the front of his mech suit. “It’s disappointing that we’ll no longer be business associates. Please send any promising mad scientists my way?”

Firecracker nodded as she shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. “Yes. Of course.”

Skullosus nodded again and stood up. Then he ambled away towards Glory Guy who had just managed to catch his ball-of-chaos rugrat.

The gears in Frogg’s head started turning. If only Glory Guy wasn’t here. If he could just find a way to get himself in front of Skullosus-

“Enjoy the show, Goggles?”

Frogg’s thoughts were interrupted by Firecracker looking directly at him with tightly folded arms and a smug smile on her face.

It was that moment Frogg also realized his goggles had extended out a bit. He had unintentionally zoomed in on Firecracker and Skullosus when he got wrapped up in his eavesdropping. Also, he’d only been standing...ten feet away from their picnic table.

“Oh….” Frogg raised the tip of his claw to his chin. “A-ahhm….”

“Skullhead has a bad habit of using his outside voice.” Her smile grew and she laughed a little, her shoulders bobbing. “So, you’re an aspiring Skullosus minion then?”

“Yes.” Frogg pushed the tips of his claws together, blushing in embarrassment. “I’d like that. Very much.”

“I’d hold off from applying right now.” She held up a warning index finger. “Skullosus thinks he can juggle wedding planning with an evil operation that’s about to expand from not-yet world destroyer to galactic conquerer. It’s a circus!”

“...g-galactic conquerer?!” Frogg was salivating a little now.

“I can see the evil little twinkle in your eye.” Firecracker snorted. “Seriously. I’ve been ejected out of his airlock two different times because of pre-wedding jitters! Wait. Wait at least a month. Then he’ll be back to ejecting minions from the airlock twice a week. Only once if he’s in an especially good mood.”

The tone of her voice and imagining himself floating about aimlessly in space made Frogg very, very aware of gravity keeping his feet attached to the earth beneath him. He looked down at the grass and swallowed thickly. “Mm-hmmm….”

“Good news is you’re a shoo-in,” Firecracker lightly clapped Frogg’s shoulder. “I got my foot in the door because Skullosus caught a whiff of mad scientist on my CV. I can only piece together mad scientist scraps with duct tape, gum, and a miracle!”

“What exactly does Skullosus need a mad scientist for?” Frogg asked around the growing lump in his throat.

Before Firecracker could answer, Voltar popped up and sprayed a mix of spit and terribly played kazoo music in her face. There was a big, stupid smile on his helmeted face and he narrowed his eyes challengingly at Frogg and Firecracker.

“Time to move out, Docktor Frogg!” he declared.

Firecracker had a tight-lipped smirk on her face as her pupils shrank and she blinked a few times. She sniped one of the kazoos Voltar still wielded between his knuckles, raised the cheap instrument to her lips, and took a deep breath. She tweeted into the kazoo, as loud and obnoxious as she could. The resulting foghorn bellow was bigger than Frogg thought the instrument was capable of. It was followed by enough wind to push Voltar’s antennae back and at least a gallon of spit.

Now it was Voltar’s turn for shrinking pupils and rapid blinking.

“What was that for?!” he cried indignantly.

“You started it.”

Voltar tweeted the kazoo again, this time waving his hand off to the side with a few conductor-esque gestures as he seemed to try and remember some tune.

“...is that supposed to be Jingle Bells?” Firecracker asked.

“Nightshade smells! Bobbin lost a pin!” Voltar sang off-key. Frogg cringed when Firecracker started playing her pilfered kazoo actually in tune with Voltar. “The Shade mobile lost a wheel and the Cuckoo got away!”

“Oh, my God. I remember when Nightshade had such a cow about that on national TV.” Firecracker snickered. Then her eyes bugged and she raised the kazoo, tapping the air with it a few times. “Can you imagine putting together a choir of these and playing it right outside his house? Bonus points if its kids in Nightshade’s official shirts and carrying his stupid new action figures.”

“Ooohhh, he’d hate that!” Frogg chimed in, an evil smile tugging at the corners of his lips for the first time in awhile.

“Do you have more of these?” Firecracker shook the kazoo again for emphasis.

“No.”A few more fell out of Voltar’s pockets as his eyes shot back and forth like pinballs.

“I’m getting ahead of myself.” Firecracker laughed as she pocketed the kazoo and extended a hand to Frogg. “I’m Firecracker, the spritely and unpredictable! Pleasure to meet you.”

“Docktor Frogg,” Frogg spun his claw once with a little showy flare before taking her extended hand. “The ah...insidious and dement-cru...malicif-ignant.”

“Um, excuse me!” Voltar glared at her. “I’m the illustrious leader of the League of Super Evil, Voltar. But I don’t really need an introduction. You’ve probably heard of me.”

He puffed out his chest and made a display out of looking at his nails.

For a moment, Frogg tensed up and braced himself for an incoming Voltar tantrum. Most people were barely aware that they existed, saw them as minor nuisances that could be deterred with a “shoo” motion and a spray bottle, or worse, asked who they were even after several events that had almost leveled Metrotown.

“Yeah!” Firecracker tapped her palm. “The balloons? You kept everybody on 4th street up all night after popping a bunch of balloons...Where did you find enough?”

Voltar made a pleased noise. “The dollar store foolishly threw them out! They were all there in an alleyway dumpster! Free for the taking.”

While Voltar was laughing as if he discovered the secret behind perpetual motion, Frogg groaned and rolled his eyes.

“That’s where we find all of our equipment,” he snarked.

“Frogg! Don’t give away our secrets.”

“You already gave it away.”

“Do you think there’s more kazoos back there?” Firecracker interrupted.

“I didn’t think to look there!” Voltar sighed. “I actually bought these.” He glared at the kazoos still stuck between his fingers.

“Recorders would be more annoying,” Firecracker said. “We should stock up on those instead.”

“I told you!” Frogg said in a sing-song with a pointed stare at Voltar.

“Wait a minute.” Voltar folded his arms haughtily. “Who said you were joining us on my genius plan?”

“Fair enough.” Firecracker mimicked his body language before leaning in and blowing a raspberry. “But I can find cheap recorders and I know at least six evil parents that would love to use this as an internship opportunity for their kids.”

“I can recruit an entire neighborhood of annoying kids!”

“Brilliant.” Firecracker smirked. “If we teamed up, we’d have that neighborhood plus six kids. It’d maximize how annoyed Nightshade would be!”

“Wait, wait, wait…” Voltar shook his head. “Our goal is to annoy my neighbors. Especially Steve.”

“Okay.” Firecracker leaned in closer. “Let’s give Steve nightmares.”

The cold, icy tone Firecracker used actually sent a slight shiver down Frogg’s spine. For a moment, Voltar looked a bit phased. His yellow pinprick irises dilated a few times and he took a step back. A moment later, Voltar regained his nerve raised a triumphant fist. “Steve will pee himself in terror!”

“Great.” Firecracker fished a business card out of her pocket and slipped it into Voltar’s hand. “Call me when you’re ready to discuss the plan! I’m always excited to team up with other villains.”

With that, she waved and walked towards the same bratwurst cart Voltar was at a few minutes ago. Frogg watched her passing form, wondering why someone that had connections with Skullosus of all villains would want anything to do with L.O.S.E. Whatever her intentions, she could help Frogg start moving ahead in the world. He’d keep a wary eye on her but until proven otherwise, she’d given him a small spark of hope. He was mildly disappointed that the evil scheme was still Voltar’s small-peanuts vision but at least it’d been upgraded to real nuisance instead of mildly irritating; like a housefly aimlessly larking about exchanged for a mosquito nipping at someone’s neck.

“Gross. Did she just ask me on a date?” Voltar held out the business card as if it was a bag of dog poop.

“As if.” Frogg rolled his eyes. “Girls give you their phone number on scraps of notebook paper or napkins with little hearts on them. Or they just put their number in your phone.”

“How would you know?” Voltar looked at him suspiciously.

“I’ve been out on a few dates!” Frogg said, a bit more defensively than he would have liked. “Anyway, business cards are common. A lot of big-time supervillains and minions have them. This would be our first major collaboration with another villain. It might gain the League more notoriety.”

“We’re known!” Now Voltar was getting defensive. “We’re a household name…”

“We might actually get on the front page of the newspaper.” Frogg mused. “Or better yet, convince a social media influencer to make a video about us…”

“It’d be nice to see my face on the front page,” Voltar muttered.

“Alright, I’ve decided! The League will team up with this Firecracker. Only temporarily!” Voltar snickered. “Your nights of blissful slumber are numbered, STEVE!”

Before Voltar started on an evil laugh, Red joined them. He waved casually and held up a kazoo. “I’m ready to toot, Voltar!”

“Change of plans, Red. We’re going back to the drawing board…”

“Can we go back to the drawing board over subs?” Red Menace held up a coupon with a giddy grin. “Mrs. Johnson had a leftover Get 3 Subs free for Gene’s Sandwich Shoppe!”

“I could eat,” Voltar agreed.

“What about Doomageddon?” Frogg asked nervously.

“Oh, I have enough leftover grocery money to get him a sandwich. Besides, Doomy has very specific tastes!”

“Yeah, I bet…” Frogg shuddered. Thankfully, a big meaty sandwich was far more appetizing than Frogg’s string beany body.

Yet another reason Frogg was excited by the prospect of potentially leaving L.O.S.E.

[pixies-and-poets]

@star-arcana​​ Just hopping onto my own post because it’ll be easier to infodump about my favorite terrible man :D

So you’re kinda right, DK64 was K. Rool’s last *major* appearance. I’ve seen a lot of people assume or believe it was his last role as a villain (most people know he was in Super Sluggers as his last appearance until Smash), but this actually isn’t true. He was the antagonist of DK: King of Swing and DK: Jungle Climber, on the GBA and DS respectively. However, most people haven’t played these bizarre little entries in the DK series, whereas DK64 sold like hotcakes, so DK64 was essentially his last appearance where he had any major impact to the public.

That said, K. Rool’s entire story follows a sensible narrative arc, which is one of the things that makes him so interesting as a villain. From being cocky and arrogant and getting humiliated in DKC, to being more brutal and focused directly on cold-blooded revenge in DKC2, in which he caused the Kremlings’ entire native homeland to be destroyed... this was the beginning of the end for his popularity among his own people, as you might imagine. In DKC3, he had to go into hiding in a different Kremling colony, and only amassed followers by controlling a robot to do his dirty work.

So DK64 was like his last ditch effort; by building his people a new mechanical island home, and attempting to blow up DK Isle as an act of revenge, he was able to get back a decent following who were excited by his new plan. Of course, his failure there, and his threatening to endanger his people once more by urging them to fire up the laser before it was ready and thus almost exploding the whole thing, does seem to have turned away almost all of his remaining followers.

Like I mentioned, he did have a few more appearances afterwards. However, both his schemes and his army are laughably small-time compared to before. In King of Swing he literally just steals some medals from a festival, and in Jungle Climber and even Super Sluggers he has like a tiny group of Kritters (the most basic Kremling subspecies) following him around, as if that’s all he has left. And in Barrel Blast he’s got like five weirdos he’s hanging around with, two of whom are just kids lol.

(This is him in King of Swing LOOK AT HOW NON THREATENING HE IS.....I love him)

One of the reasons I’ve been able to cope with his long absence over the years is because it makes logical sense. He isn’t like Bowser who keeps getting infinite chances. His power as a ruler naturally tapered off due to his many failures and the destruction/danger he brings about to his people, and we literally see it happen chronologically in the games. Eventually he would not be able to mount offensives against the Kongs anymore. And that’s why, if/when he returns in a game, I hope they directly acknowledge his long absence and make him more unhinged than ever before. Idk if you saw that amazing fan animation that came out recently, but it does a great job playing off of this whole idea.

[televinita]

People's Sexiest Man Alive would never steer me wrong!

Idly browsing through DVDs at the library, I saw "Thanksgiving" (apparently released last fall and which, like most movies these days, I've never heard of), whose cover gave off immediate Slasher (the series) vibes so I turned it over to read the back.

Whereupon I saw Patrick Dempsey in a sheriff's uniform and IMMEDIATELY said "sold" and put it in my checkout bag without even reading the summary. This is the level of auto-watch we're at here.

Spoilers for the ending, and also Scream 3 I guess, below the cut:

and listen, I knew it was too much to hope that I would get away with a second horror movie in which he is the kindly local law enforcement who neither dies nor kills, but also I didn't! Especially when he immediately became the reassuring and comforting presence to a teenage girl whose entire remaining family kinda sucks. Not even the godawful accent* stopped me, and believe me, that was A Trial.

[*which, I am horrified to learn while googling to confirm what to call it, is real?? "he was instructed to lose the accent in order to broaden his acting opportunities" well I'm sorry to say, whoever told him that was entirely correct. Just like he had to ditch his original nose. I have never apologized for being shallow as hell in my screen preferences.]

Other thoughts:

+ MC's love interests both kinda suck, but as far as the friend group, I'll be damned if I didn't immediately find them all distinctive and interesting within about ten minutes of knowing them. Goosebumps 2023 aside, I have watched so many exhaustingly bland teens in films and TV shows that I assumed my ability to enjoy an actor under about 25 was gone forever, but no! Look! Here they are, being Interesting! ESPECIALLY the lead...Nell Verlaque? Show me MORE, IMMEDIATELY.

[side detour #2: oh my god, she was also in Big Shots?? TUNA are you KIDDING ME this might finally drive me to the seas, the high ones specifically]

+ In other news, the violence and gore made me sick to my stomach (also like Slasher!), and after about fifteen minutes I simply could not watch most of the terrible scenes. Or at least, I didn't want to, but sometimes I didn't turn away fast enough and they got me. I will be having nightmares, thanks!!!

+ Fortunately I will simply soothe them away with the correct AU in which someone else is the killer because of reasons, and after her remaining family members are brutally butchered, Quasi-Uncle Patrick Dempsey simply steps up to offer her a home and several years' worth of trauma therapy. 🤗

[imsailorpluto]

True Beauty - unpopular opinion edition (7 eps in)

Girlie Jukyung should ditch Seojun completely. Setting boundaries is not her thing, fine. But putting this guy on hold would be the smartest choice. He needs to cool off.

Let me explain.

Truth be told, Seojun is problematic and highly toxic. Simple as that. He reminds me of her previous bullies a lot. His methods are completely different, but umm... Hello??? He knows Suho and Jukyung are both into each other yet he's trying really hard to meddle in and play with their heads. Imagine if someone did that to you irl. Would you think that's cute? Probably not.

Yeah he's got a cute face. But he's actually not that great to people around him.

This guy not only drags Jukyung in his own problems and conflicts, but he does so all while presenting her as his girlfriend to a bunch of people, online and offline. It results with our main girlie getting kidnapped and held hostage, quite literally! I know guys are being this disrespectful irl as well, all too often. And we girls love romanticising their stupid behaviour.

I hate this enemies to lovers the show's been trying to pull off. If they make these two fall in love, istg

Jukyung's anxiety levels must be out of the roof because of this immature pabo. My thoughts are that she might fall for him, confusing all the freaking anxiety with butterflies.

Ughhhhh he's catching feelings for sure and I'm not here for it. Yeah, yeah, he's slowly starting to realise how cool our girlie is. After being a complete jerk for many times. Bravo!

And of course I have to say the most important thing. He's doing all this to hurt Suho, intentionally. So now we see him hurting not only one person he actually wants to hurt, but he's using and hurting Jukyung in that process. Seriously. What kind of man does this? The best (worst) part is - it's working. He knows how to get inside Suho's head and has already made both Suho and Jukyung direct victims of his own pain and unresolved anger.

I get that he's hurting because his friend died, but he isn't the only one who lost a friend. Since there's plenty of room for his change of character, I'm assuming that's exactly going to happen in the following episodes.

He is falling for the main girl, afterall.

Even if he changes, after watching 7 episodes of this show, honestly, I wouldn't want to see him with Jukyung at all. She deserves better. She deserves someone who has had an open heart towards her since the beginning, someone who isn't using her kindness for some vicious payback and someone who isn't playing mind games on her and her friends.

Rant over. If you read everything - I am sorryyyy. I really wanted to like his character up until now, I tried. I see lots of viewers shipping Seojun and Jukyung. That's why I'm assuming there's some major change, some plot twist after first half of the series. Ohhh I'm scared to find out what comes next. But yeah... we'll see. It's just a silly show, nothing serious, right? Hahah

Enough talking from me..

Bye bye for now

(⁠◠⁠‿⁠◕⁠)

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

David Fuller: the ‘morgue monster’

David Fuller is a father-of-four who lived in a quiet cul-de-sac in Heathfield, East Sussex, working for most of his adult life as an electrician at hospitals serving the residents of Kent and Sussex.

Those close to him recoiled in horror when the true nature of his character was revealed - as Fuller was identified as a double murder who had spent years sexually abusing dead women and girls.

The family man, 67, with keen interests in birdwatching, cycling, and photography had been identfied as the prime suspect in the so-called “bedsit murders” when Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, were both sexually assaulted and killed in separate attacks at their Tunbridge Wells homes in 1987.

Fresh analysis of DNA had picked out Fuller as the killer and a trawl of his home uncovered a terrifying collection of four million images on hard drives and floppy disks showing sexual offences.

Among the horrific catalogue of abuse was footage of Fuller himself interfering with bodies in the hospital morgue.

He has now admitted the double murder and the sexual abuse of dozens of victims, aged from just nine to 100-years-old, and he is almost certain to die behind bars.

There were possible signs of the horrors to come when Fuller was convicted in 1973 and 1977 for a series of ‘creeper’ home burglaries, involving break-ins through rear windows. He was spared a jail sentence at Portsmouth crown court.

Within the space of five months in 1987, he carried out the murders of Ms Knell and Ms Pierce in the streets of Tunbridge Wells that he knew well. Fuller had met Ms Knell at the SupaSnaps store in the town where she was the manager and he often took in his photographs to be developed.

Her body was discovered at her bedsit in Guildford Road on June 23, 1987, with tests revealing her naked body had been sexually assaulted after the attack and possibly once she was already dead.

On November 24, 1987, Ms Pierce was attacked by Fuller outside her bedsit in Grosvenor Park and the killer dumped her body around 40 miles away in a country lane ditch.

Fuller may have believed he got away with the murders as the years passed by but DNA evidence from the scene as well as a bloody fingerprint would eventually be his downfall, thanks to improving analysis technology and techniques.

SupaSnaps envelopes were found at his home, tying him to Ms Knell, and detectives found a diary entry showing he had visited the Buster Browns restaurant where Ms Pierce worked.

Fuller told a pack of lies to police but investigations revealed he had lived near to, or visited, the streets where both victims were killed. The discovery of the images and videos hidden at his home switched police attention to the now-closed Kent and Sussex Hospital where Fuller had worked from 1989 to 2010 and Tunbridge Wells Hospital where he was employed until his arrest.

Detectives discovered the killer had access to the morgues, using his swipe card to let himself in to abuse bodies after other staff members had left for the day.

He knew which parts of the morgue were covered by CCTV and carried out the abuse out of shot. But footage from his own collection, as well as detailed records of names and ages that he made, helped police to identify at least 80 people whose bodies have been interfered with.

Fuller eventually confessed to his sickening activities and admitted to police that he could not remember when it started or how many people he had abused. He insisted his motives were not sexual, but refused to discuss the abuse further.

A police hotline was set up to deal with hundreds of calls from the worried families of deceased people while the police investigation has widened once more to see if other historic violent and sexual crimes might be linked to Fuller.

He initially denied knowing either of the murdered women, then pushed the case to trial by claiming “diminished responsibility” for the killings. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty as the full details of his crimes were laid bare in court.

Police suspect Fuller may have abused hundreds of dead bodies during his life as a hospital electrician and maintenance worker.

[colorcodedbeanies]

S1E2-"The Cat's in the Bag"

That's right two in one day I'm in a hormones induced fugue. If i focus might knock out a third tonight. This one shorter

TW: Violence, racism, gore description

also note: I use Native American and Indigenous as the general term because they're what I've been led to believe is acceptable but let me know if there's something else I could be using/some grammar hink going on here.

Indigenous people in Breaking Bad are a background element I'm hoping to also make clearer to myself in this watchthrough, especially since it's a throughline that gets picked up again with Better Call Saul and the Kettlemans. There are no major Native American characters in the series, and yet they keep popping up in a way that reads as both prop-like and intended as thematic. This episode in particular opens with a Native American man towing Walt and Jesse's RV out of the ditch, and ends with two Indigenous children playing in the wreckage left behind by their cook. The ABQ area is home to a couple of different tribes. The only reservation that I believe is named in the show is To’Hajiilee, which is occupied by the Cañoncito Band of Navajos. Until provided with other information I'll assume that's the nation to which these unnamed characters belong. Again, I do want to drill in on how badly these characters are props. None of them even have speaking lines. Additionally, its part of the running theme where most brown characters are positioned in opposition to law enforcement. The man who tows them out accepts their bribe to keep silent about anything he's seen. However, given the work the previous episode has done to establish law enforcement as a. deeply racist and b. wildly destructive. There's an argument to be made that this is one of the most human things these characters could do. Rather than concern themselves with something that's not their problem to begin with, they instead keep their mouths shut and profit where they can. I don't want to go too far down this as a overarching read, both because it risks extending the show too much credit and because I think there's a tendency to sanitize the legacy of colonialism into just. White people being corny and Indigenous people giving knowing eyerolls, rather than a system of routine violence. But still, given that this is an analysis focused on race and law enforcement, its worthwhile to me to bring up instances where this is even glanced on.

There's an entitlement to Jesse's space which Walt perpetually demonstrates that really starts to rear its head here. Jesse's just going to have to be ok with Walt storing two dead bodies and a wrecked meth lab in his driveway, because after all, he can't very well bring it back to his nice normal house with his nice normal family can he? Jesse is also expected to take responsibility for whatever happens to the bodies, despite them both being Walt's kills This is played for a joke (resulting in at least one Tiktok audio) but it does have lasting impact on Jesse as he navigates dealing with Emilio's body and Domingo as a hostage. It makes him so uncomfortable that he feels the need to get high just to stay in his own house. All of this is something that either doesn't occur to Walt, or that he just doesn't care about. This is an entitlement that's reflected in Skyler later when she goes to confront Jesse. She barges in his front gate before yelling at him about having the audacity to touch her. The Whites don't understand themselves as criminals. Again, they're nice normal people, not like this "druggie burnout". He isn't protected by things like legality and decency, and anything they say or do to him should be considered reasonable frustration or concern. This culminates in Skyler's line "not that it's any of my business, but you might want to consider a new line of work". This line isn't just ironic, but deeply telling about how the American middle class views drug dealing. A choice, and perhaps even a waste of talent that needs to be scolded back into the fold, or locked away where decent people don't have to see it.

In general Walt's not great at predicting human behavior. He's admittedly having to learn as he goes, but it doesn't even occur to him that his wife might check the call history. Or that she might even notice when he's scream whispering at the phone in the middle of their living room.

This is drilled down on further in the "chiral" scene. Two chemical compounds, seemingly identical, that yet behave very differently. This I believe is meant to be understood as Walt attempting to pitch his joint identity as both druglord and loving father. Can't I be both? And yet the bleedthrough is evident. "Is this going to be on the murder/midterm?" This is also a duality Walt struggles to grant anyone else. After blustering a bit about drug dealers having any kind of administrative structure he asks Jesse if Domingo's "capable" of listening to reason. As a distributor, a "business man", "he should be capable of mutual self-interest". There's a lot you can say here about how white suburbia conceptualizes capitalism, how it should be a system that prevents rash acts of temper, because after all, doesn't trade serve everyone better? Suffice to say this is going to come up again when Domingo talks about majoring in business, and yet again with Tuco.

Final note on the classroom scene, Walt blurting out knowledge is power is a funny little whimper to tack onto his floundering, but its also emblematic of how he attempts to hold onto control of his reality. I think its notable Walt's dialogue becomes more jargon heavy when he's stressed, not less.

No natural transition in or out of this so I'm just going to reproduce this line from Jesse's website in its entirety. "Ethnicity: I'm totally cool with ethnics-Black, Mexican, whatever...as long as you're SMOKIN' HOT, YO!" 0_0. I guess. earmark race as a commodity and move on.

Despite the inherent goofiness of the scene where Walt recaptures Domingo I think its important to remember what a horror show this is from Domingo's perspective. Nearly died in a chemical attack, woke up next to the body of his cousin, dragged himself out, only to be recaptured and locked in a basement for days, barely able to breath the whole time. On some level Walt seems cognizant of that, and it only becomes more apparent the longer he spends with him. Domingo may be a drug dealer who will bring down vengeance on them if he gets away...but he also likes the crusts off his sandwich and asks after his cousin. Again, Walt can't cope with the duality. It doesn't match his image of what a criminal should be.

Enough so that he does exactly what he told Jesse not to do last episode and smokes up. Granted, he uses weed, not meth, but to a post war on drugs America this was pretty similar severity. Walt wastes a good chunk of Jesse's weed attempting to roll the WORST joint I've seen in my life, flaunts his partaking in Skyler's face as a sign of his independence, and then sneers and scowls at Jesse for indulging to cope with melting a childhood friend into meaty chunks. After all, Walt's not a junkie. Walt can be trusted to keep his head even if he loosens up from time to time. Jesse, on the other hand, has an unmanly dependence, and needs to grow up. After all, this kind of thing should be routine for him, right. He's a Criminal.

Walt has a habit of setting Jesse up to fail and then scolding him for it. When Jesse's uncertain if plastic can stand up to acid, Walt refuses to explain. Just barks at him later for not following instructions unthinkingly. When Walt expresses doubt, Jesse attempts empathy, attempts to come up with a paradigm where Walt can make himself ok witih it. I struggle to call it a MORAL impulse but its definitely a kind one.

Skyler asks Walt about Jesse at the doctor's office, a place he where he can't leave and also can't sex her quiet. She's learning to anticipate his resistance to openness. She also frames the information as transactional, "don't you think you OWE me this", in a way I can't help but see in connection to the baby. I'm your homemaker ergo you owe me honesty. Walt responds with a veiled threat. "I love you, and that won't change, so back off". To his mind the only thing his family should concern themselves with is his emotional state. Anything beyond that is outside their purview.

Nice wet meat effect.