#(major cw if you’re unfamiliar and look that up)

[an-albino-pinetree]

Hits you with the creatureification beam-

[moody-alcoholic]

Broken

Summary: Ghoap x Reader, throuple. Slow burn (sorry but not sorry). 3.6k words. Reader is female (she/her), army nurse, non descript physical features, names used: Ashe.

CW: Lot's of guilt, lots of self hate, but lots of fluff, hurt/comfort.

Previous parts - masterlist - next part

Enjoy <3

You don’t remember much after being moved to the medbay. You would have brief moments of consciousness, hear snippets of conversations, people moving you, poking you. Your body hurt even with the amount of drugs being pumped through your system. At first you thought it was all a dream, like you were in one of those coma’s were you’re still aware of what’s going on around you. 

“She needs to be moved to Damascus to continue treatment, they can only do so much here.” It’s Price’s voice you think, low commanding, he sounds sure in everything he’s saying. It sounds like he’s talking to someone only the other person is being too quiet for you to hear.

There is always someone holding your hand. Johnny you think, his hands are soft he massages your palm or strokes your head. There are new voices, people you don’t recognise. You never hear Jack again but you hear his name, people talking about him. You never hear Simon’s voice, maybe he thinks you’re still guilty. 

“You can’t move her without the commanders permission!” An unfamiliar voice calls.

“The same cunt who put her in this position.” It’s Johnny’s voice he sounds mad. 

“There’s a helo 15 minutes out, we’re taking her to Damascus, you can tell major Gray to contact me if he has a problem with it.” Price again. 

“You’re not her commanding officer.” The voice pleads. Are they fighting? You can’t tell, everything’s hazy. Sometimes you open your eyes, you see nothing but blinding lights, blurred vision, it sends shooting pains in your head causing you to groan in pain.

You dream too, dream about being home, it’s not your flat you dream of though it’s Johnny and Simon’s. Sometimes they’re there, sometimes they’re not and everything feels wrong. You dream about laying between them, your head resting on Johnny’s chest as Simon strokes your back. You miss him, miss hearing his voice, his kind voice the one you fell in love with.

Do you still love them? Even after everything they’ve done. They never hurt you. That was always Jack, but they let it happen. They were following orders. They would never hurt you. But they let it happen. You try to justify it in your head, thinking about it causes a pain in your chest like something you have never felt before. Betrayal? Anger? Sadness? 

Johnny never leaves your side, you can always sense him. Sometimes he talks to you, sometimes he just sits there, rubbing your hand, stroking your arm. 

“You really should get some sleep, some proper sleep.” That’s Simon, it’s the first time you’ve heard him in what feels like forever, his voice is kind, low, it’s the voice you remember.

“4 days, we let her suffer.” Johnny says, he sounds tired, his voice filled with guilt. It didn’t feel like 4 days, it felt like longer. 

The nightmare's come next, Jacks voice etched into your brain. Always the same questions. 

“Why did you betray 141?”

“Why do you hate them?”

“Are you pretending to love them?”

“Do they know you’re a traitor?” 

When you dream about Jack reality becomes warped, you remember the doctor, you remember your hands pumping on his lifeless body. New memories come, you in the store room taking out insulin. You imagine his wife, his son, sobbing, you have to stand there and watch them as Jack tells them what happened. You’re in a court room, being court marshalled, striped of your medical licence. You look up in the gallery and see Johnny and Simon, the disgust on their face as the charges are read out. The smacking of the hammer as you’re dragged to a cell to spend the rest of your life.

It’s cold you’re lonely, maybe this was all the horrible reality, you were guilty. Jack said you were guilty, Jack said you betrayed 141, he said Johnny and Simon want nothing to do with you. That makes you sad, you love them, you would never hurt them. You need to apologise to them, beg for their forgiveness, if they will even give it to you. After this nap though, your body feeling heavy, sleepy like you’re being pulled into a black pit, it feels strangely comforting as your mind goes blank. 

——————————  

This time when you come too you know you’re conscious. You can smell antiseptic in the air, you blink your eyes open looking down at your hand, the same hand you know you’ve felt Johnny holding, you’re hooked up to an IV. Your head hurts your vision still a little blurry. You turn your head to the other side of the room.

Gaz is sat in a chair reading a newspaper, he looks tired his head resting on his hand propped up by his elbow on the chair arm. You don’t want to disturb him but you’re confused, you need answers. The fever dreams you’ve been having have blurred your sense of what is real or made up. You’re about to open your mouth when he looks up and sees you. He puts the newspaper down sitting up straight in the chair. 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” You’re just staring at him with your mouth hanging open your head scans the round the room again before you look back at Gaz. 

“My head hurts.” You say, you don’t know what to say. 

“Yeah you’ve been out of it for a while.” He says reaching over for his radio on the side table.

“How long?” You ask.

“2 days, I’ll get Price.” He says. You don’t know if Gaz is aware of the situation with you and Johnny and Simon. Where are they? You want to see them, you want to apologise. You look over at Gaz talking into the radio. 

“Do you need anything?” He asks as your hand moves its way up to your head, the dull throbbing pain is making you dizzy and you lie back on the bed. 

“No, I’m okay,” you say automatically, trying to ignore the thumping. You wait for Price to come you feel more parts of your body aching, you want to reach over and grab your chart from the bottom of the bed but the thought of moving right now is horrible. Gaz sits watching you fiddling with his radio until Price walks in. 

“Nice to see you awake.” He says moving to the side of the bed. “How are you feeling?” 

“Confused.” You say, you’re desperate for answers now. Price nods and smiles.

“You’re in Damascus, you were moved yesterday, turns out your injuries were more serious then we first anticipated. You’ve been out for the past 2 days, we’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” Price explained. 

“Where are Johnny and Simon?” You ask before you can stop yourself looking up at Price’s response. He smiles, his eyes quickly switching to Gaz then back to you. 

“I’ll go get them.” Price says, heading out the room. You look back over at Gaz. 

“I remember you coming in during..” The words catch in your throat, you swallow hard. 

“You were always so kind.” A smile appears on his lips. 

“It wasn’t fair what happened to you.” He says as a matter of fact, you don’t know if you believe him, you’re not sure what you believe right now. 

“Well, thank you anyway.” You say looking away, you fidget with your hands, not knowing what to say. Johnny rushes into the room next, making you jump as you see him. It’s like everything goes in slow motion, you don’t know if he’s going to be mad at you, upset, happy. Then a smile spreads across his face and he steps over to you wrapping his arms round you as he buries his head in your neck. 

“I’m so happy you’re okay lass,” he whispers into your ear, you look over your shoulder for Simon but you can’t see him. You wince as Johnny pulls you tighter and you squeeze your eyes shut. 

“Easy Johnny.” It’s Simon's voice. You open your eyes as Johnny lets you go and goes to sit on the chair beside your bed, he takes your hand in his rubbing your palm with his thumb. You swallow, it’s almost enough to make you start crying, you don’t know why. You look up at Simon, he’s wearing the mask of course he is, you wish you could see him without it. Your eyes switch to Price who is standing at the end of the bed.    

“C’mon Gaz let’s give them some space.” Price says. You look over at Gaz, you guess he has to be aware of the situation with you, Johnny and Simon. He smiles at you as you watch him leave the room, his presence is calming, you like him being around. Simon wait’s until he hears the door close before pulling a chair over next to Johnny. You look at them both not knowing what to say, they don’t seem angry or disappointed, you can’t really tell what Simon is thinking under his mask, but his eyes look softer, kinder then the last time you saw them. 

“What happened?” You ask. Simon explains the situation while Johnny rubs your arm. It took them longer then they expected but eventually they were able to clear your name. The soldier with the twisted ankle you were treating, him and the others were able to vouch for you. The time it’s suspected the doctor was overdosed, you were on the other side of the base. The most damming evidence though was the fact that your card was swiped in the medbay store room then at the loading dock within 3 seconds of each other. 

“What about Jack?” You ask. Johnny squeezes your hand. 

“We don’t have to talk about him right now.” Johnny says. You shake your head.

“I need to know.” You say a little harsher then you want. You think back to the doctor, you want justice. 

“He’s been moved to another base, at the moment they’re still waiting for a more thorough investigation to be done before they do anything, it’s all a waiting game right now.” Simon says his voice level. You feel a tear escape down your cheek, shit. You turn away blinking and using your other hand to wipe it. No tears here, you remind yourself. You look back at them.

“Sorry, I- It must be all the drugs I’m on.” You say, Johnny looks sympathetic. Simon leans forward in his chair his hand on Johnny’s neck.

“You are not allowed to apologise for anything, you are innocent, none of this is your fault. Jack will be punished.” You dip your head at Simon’s words. His hand grips your leg squeezing it.  

“Hey, look at me.” He says, you force your head up to look at him. “He’s not going to get away with this, I promise you.” You see Johnny nodding in agreement squeezing your hand. 

“What about the doctor?” You ask. “Has his body been sent back to his family?” 

“Not yet, they need it for evidence.” Simon says, you nod sniffing.

“He has a kid, a son who’s 4 at the end of the month. A wife Alice, she loves to paint.” You squeeze Johnny’s thumb. 

“Overdose by insulin, it can be reversed, if we knew..” You sigh looking at Johnny. “I just want to get out of this hospital.”   

——————————  

It’s a few hours later when a doctor comes to check you out. You’re taken down for a scan, apparently you took a good enough beating from Jack that your brain started to swell. Although when Johnny explained it to you it to you.

 “Your head was going to explode, I’ve worked on bombs that are less temperamental.” That made you smile as you laid in the CT machine waiting for it to be finished, apparently if all this was clear you were going to be discharged. That’s all you wanted, to get out this hospital, you didn’t know what was going to happen now though. Would you be sent home? Have to finish your tour? Your body was still aching and you felt like you were going to be relying on painkillers for a while.

The thought of a medical discharge made you feel sick, you wanted to be near Simon or Johnny. When you’re taken back to the room Johnny is still there, he has never left your side and you don’t want him to, the thought of being alone makes you panic. Great, being tortured has made you clingy. Simon and Price come in a few minutes later, they insist on waiting with you for the results.

“Who’s my commanding officer now? If Jack’s been moved.” You ask. 

“Me,” Price replies. “With what happened, you’re under our protection.” 

Protection?  

The word spins around in your head what do you need protecting from?

“He came to see me, Jack. The second night on the base.” You look up at Price. 

“He wanted me to spy on you all, gather intel and tell him about you and your unit.” You shake your head looking down. “He threatened, me he knew about the flat in Canary Wharf. It could have ended badly if a random nurse hadn’t heard him.” You look back up Price who moves his eyes to Simon then back to you.

“What did you say?” Johnny asked.

“Told him the truth, that I didn’t know anything about 141 and I wasn’t going to be his spy. Then ordered him a mandatory psych evaluation. He didn’t like that.” You can’t help but smile a little. You watch as Price pats Simon on the shoulder and they both leave the room. You flick your eyes back to Johnny, who’s smiling and squeezes your hand. 

“Johnny.” You say squeezing back. “Please don’t leave me, I-I don’t want to be alone again.” His hand reaches up to your face stroking your cheek. He pulls you in for a kiss, it’s nice feeling his hot mouth on yours. You wrap your hands round his neck as he pulls you closer to him. You sink into the familiar smell and touch feeling Johnny’s fingers run up your back. He breaks away from the kiss but keeps his arms around you. 

“We’re not going anywhere.” He says, his forehead on yours. You know he won’t have a choice if he’s called to work, you too but right now it’s what you need to hear. You break as you hear the door to the room opening. A doctor walks in followed by Simon and Price. 

“Good news.” The doctor says picking up your chart. “There is no more swelling and other then a broken rib physically you’re fine.” 

“Does that mean I can be discharged?” You ask. 

“Unfortunately, you’re still dehydrated and your blood sugar is low, that’s only to be expected with you being out of it for the past 48 hours. Regardless I want to run you through one more round of IV fluids and monitor you over night. Then I will be happy to discharge you in the morning all things going well.” The doctor explains. You nod feeling slightly disappointed but understanding. You lay back in the bed feeling somewhat exhausted already you can see through the high window of the room that the sun is already setting. You thank the doctor and he says he will send some food up for you to try and eat. Price and Simon leave following him and you’re left with Johnny again, not that you mind.

You thought Price or at least Simon would be back soon but instead your food comes first. You don’t really have much of an appetite but if you want to get out of here you know you need to eat something. Johnny’s sat there slicing the mystery meat up while you picked at whatever pasta was being served with it. Typical hospital food, dry and tasteless, Johnny ended up eating most of the meat leaving you with the pasta and veggies when you said you were full after half a plate he continued to feed you spoonfuls of what tasted like bread pudding. By the time you were finished you were tired and desperate to use the bathroom. That’s a good sign at least, your bowels are all still in working order. 

“Let me find a nurse.” Johnny insisted until you grabbed his arm stopping him. 

“I am a nurse just help me to the toilets and I’ll be fine.” You insist. Johnny doesn't argue with you just helps you out of bed and to the bathroom down the hall. As you walk you can feel how stiff and sore your body is, how much pain your rib is giving you. You manage to finish up in the bathroom without assistance but lean up against Johnny the whole way back. When you get back into bed you’re exhausted. Johnny takes his seat again by the bed as you pull the covers over your legs. You look at him for a few seconds, watching as his hands run through his fluffy mohawk, his hair could do with a trim you find yourself smiling at him. 

“Johnny,” you say. He turns to look at you reaching out for your hand but you move. 

“Come lay with me.” You say the bed is big way too big for you, plenty of room for Johnny to climb in. You move your body up to the side of the bed. Johnny takes his boots off as you pull the thin sheets back. He slips into the bed and you let him wrap his arm round your shoulders pulling you onto his chest. You can smell him the familiar musky smell you find comfort in. He pulls the sheets over you and you relax into him. He kisses your head. You know this isn’t allowed, this is a military base, you didn’t care feeling yourself in Johnny’s arms again makes you feel safe. 

“Hey Johnny,” You whisper as he kisses your head. 

“Yeah?” He asked his voice low breathing in your ear. 

“I can’t wait to go home.” You say stroking his chest, the thought of being in their flat laying on the sofa or cuddling in bed. Just being in a closed environment with them shutting the outside world off for a few days sounded like heaven on earth. 

“We’ll be home soon.” He replies kissing your head pulling you tighter into his arms. “Just get some rest.” You listen to him closing your eyes, finally feeling safe for the first time in days.

—————————— 

Johnny slips out the bed early before the doctor comes. He checks your vitals then discharges you, Johnny pops in as the doctor is leaving to drop your kit off so you could change out the hospital gown. 

“I’ll be back in 10 minutes and we’ll go see Price.” He says before darting out the room again. You debated changing into your scrubs, the thought of the tight belt round your stomach was not exactly appealing. You change into your standard uniform not wanting to do anything to show Price up. You were expecting to see him already, expecting him to tell you you’re being send home on medical leave. No one comes though, it’s been at least 20 minutes, you’ve already rearranged your bag twice you’ve been so nervous.

Price intimidated you, not in a mean way more just in a boss way. Your mind keeps going back to what he said yesterday. ‘With what happened, you’re under our protection.’ Is that what 141 did? Protection? You heard they were something to do with terrorism, probably counter terrorism. That’s a big thing, you defiantly didn’t want to get involved with that, you’re just an army nurse after all. You hear voices in the door way pulling you out of your thoughts.

“You don’t have to wait I’m changed.” You say pulling your bag off the bed onto the floor. Okay that hurt your broken rib, seems like you’ll have to avoid heavy lifting for the next few days or weeks. 

Price walks in followed by Johnny, then Simon then Gaz. You smile seeing them all. The smile is quickly wiped off your face as Johnny moves to pick your bag up. They look sad about something. Your eyes flick to Simon, he won’t look in your eyes. 

“What is it?” You ask a wave of nervousness washing over you. For a second no one talks.

“Does Chloe have a key to your flat?” Simon asks. That’s random you scoff, thinking you got yourself all nervous for nothing. 

“Yeah of course she does,” you reply shaking your head. Your eyes flick to Price, then back to Simon. Something still felt wrong. 

“She was killed yesterday.” Price says. Your breath catches in your throat, you look at him shaking your head. You feel Johnny’s hand on your shoulder. It’s like the ground beneath your feet is being sucked down, you lean up against the bed to support yourself.

“I’m so sorry.” Price says. Your hand balls up into a fist. You know who’s responsible for this. Who else would have it out for Chloe, why did they want to know about your flat? This has Jack’s name written all over it. 

“How?” You ask, trying to keep your voice steady. 

“Gunshot.” Price says. All you can think about is her dying alone, alone and scared. You should have protected her. This is your fault, you should have done something. 

“This is my fault.” You whisper looking down at your feet. You feel Johnny squeeze your shoulder. 

Chloe’s dead, your best friend is dead and it’s all your fault.

Next part

[strawberrystepmom]

pairing: Gojo Satoru x F!Reader

word count: 6.8k

about: Gojo is many things but you get to know him best as Satoru through the eyes of the people who see him as something else entirely - nothing but a fellow human being.

contents: Told through three non-linear stories. CW: Reader is drinking alcohol in story 1, discussions of non major character death and marriage in story 2, discussions of trauma with Megumi and food mentions in story 3. Established relationship, reader is a sorcerer and teacher alongside Gojo, reader is referred to as girlfriend and my girl in story 1 and he is referred to as boyfriend. A bit of angst/discussion of losing someone you love in story 2 but otherwise it's mostly silce of life fluff.

notes: Happy early birthday to my Sagittarius superstar! ♡ This isn’t birthday themed but i’ve been working on this for a few weeks and am proud of how it turned out. If you read, thank you and I hope that you enjoy.

“I have this thing tonight and I want you to come.”

Generally when Satoru says something like this you roll your eyes, irritated about the last minute notice he’s infamous for, but his grin was so earnest you said yes without thinking too hard about it.

It’s easy to indulge him no matter how hard you try to deny your tendency to give in to his whims and it’s how you’ve ended up stepping into a bar in a neighborhood you have never been in with his arm slung over your shoulder, the moon hanging high in the sky while the stars twinkle above. The atmosphere is practically buzzing before he enters and it’s even louder when the patrons spot him, various cheers scattered around the room and arms raised in the air.

Clearly, they know him and he knows them.

“Hideki!” He points to a man who cheers. “Takahiro!” He points to another who nods. “I don’t remember your name,” he points to a third man who is already tipsy enough that he simply smiles and shrugs. Alcohol helps but you’re sure that Satoru’s smile and demeanor are half of the reason his worst behavior isn’t held against him by anyone in the small group that is clearly regulars to this bar.

Food sizzles behind the counter and you start to ease into the unfamiliar setting, sliding onto a chair and leaning back to watch the master at work, his natural charm infectious and soon it feels like the dimly lit room is practically thrumming with energy, voices chatting excitedly and other patrons typing texts inviting friends to come see the man, the myth, the legend in person.

GOJO SATORU - DARTS CHAMPION!

His name is written on a napkin and stuck in the wood paneling above the dart board with a dart. Seeing the bold characters when you spot them on the wall, you giggle. It’s so like him to do something like this for no other reason beyond what was likely boredom and inability to sleep one random night.

The patrons buzz amongst themselves about Gojo’s appearance, his sunglasses slung low on his nose while he flashes a grin at anyone who comes near him, and you watch from afar with a far more demure grin of your own. His name clearly carries weight even outside of the confines of the sorcerer community and you hide your smile by looking around the dimly lit bar, sizzling coming from behind the counter while the chefs flip yakitori by the skewer sticking through it. Your mouth waters and a beer is placed in front of you without even asking for it, your eyes darting across the bar only to be met with a wink tossed over his shoulder from your boyfriend.

One of the men he was speaking to sidles up to you and offers a polite bow of his head. Returning his gesture, you lift the beer glass to your mouth and take a sip, raising your eyebrows when he speaks.

“You must be the girl he always talks about.”

Raising your eyebrows, the warmth in your throat from the beer you’re sipping slowly spreads through your face out of slight embarrassment he talks about you at all when you’re out of earshot. You can’t control what he says when the two of you are apart and only whatever God reigns above knows what he has said but it couldn’t have been too terrible considering the man doesn’t look at you lecherously or with anything but curiosity. Smiling, you fan your face and tilt your head toward the grills to play off the heat of embarrassment as heat from cooking.

“I certainly hope so.” 

You believe that you are the girl in question but your gut churns at the thought he may be mentioning someone else despite the two of you recently making it very clear you are serious about one another, closing off any lingering attachments elsewhere to focus on your relationship. 

“Oh, I know so. He shows us pictures of you all the time.”

Sipping from your beer, you look away briefly, embarrassed about that as well. Gojo has many photos of you, not all of which are meant for other eyes, and you hope that he has enough decency to keep them to himself. Looking to change the subject, you remember the legendary title held by your boyfriend within these walls and shift in your seat to face the man next to you. He’s probably in his 40’s and looks a little worn around the edges but it could also simply be the hazy vibe of the entire bar making him seem that way. Nothing here seems clean, pristine, or perfect - unlike the way Gojo is elevated by his peers - and it amuses you how easily he has found his place amongst it all. 

“So, how long has he been coming here to play darts?” Your question makes the man shake his head and shrug. “A few months, maybe. Came out of nowhere one night.”

He gratefully bows his head when a dish with a skewer is passed across the bar toward him by the chef and wordlessly, another is passed in your direction. You accept it with a bow of your own, appreciative of how kind everyone has been despite your status as an outsider. It’s easy to feel outcast when you consider how isolated the work of a sorcerer tends to be, something you’ve lamented to your boyfriend on more than one occasion, so being accepted open armed and without question is almost uncomfortable no matter how well you play it off by saying thank you for the meal and biting through a perfectly charred green onion and humming your approval.

“It’s the craziest thing any of us have ever seen. He hits the bullseye without even looking sometimes.”

Snorting as you chew, you keep it to yourself that he’s in all likelihood using his excellent perception to cheat knowing that the average person doesn’t care about Limitless or Six Eyes or anything remotely similar. They don’t know he has been exceptional since birth, they just know he has a mean wrist and hits his mark every single time.  Honestly, you think that may be why he likes it here so much. He doesn’t have to be anything but some guy sipping on a cold soda.

“He has a knack for a lot of things,” you mutter to no one in particular, noticing that your companion has left his seat and walked toward where a crowd has gathered around the dartboard. The show must be about to begin and you settle into your seat, taking another bite and washing it down with a sip from your beer. More people weave past you and Satoru appears almost out of thin air, joking and laughing at the crowd.

“Who thinks I should show my girl over there why I’m the champion?”

The champion, The Strongest, it’s all the same to him as long as he’s the star of the show no matter where he is. 

The crowd erupts and turns to glance at you, much to your mortification as you shrink slightly into your seat and another skewer is passed across the bar. You aren’t shy or apprehensive about receiving attention but it’s the insinuation that you are his girl that makes you feel a little uncertain. It’s a big responsibility to love a man with the world in his palm and there have been many times you’ve wondered if you are even up to the task. Will you be enough to keep him happy forever?

He doesn’t give you much time to chase a trail of darkness in your own mind, your attention grabbed when he shouts your name across the bar and flings a dart. It whizzes through the air and hits its designated bullseye with a definitive slam and the bar erupts into applause and hooting.

“That’s not even how you play darts.”

You’re talking to yourself again but simultaneously biting back a smile while Satoru spreads his arms wide and looks around as if to say, “yeah, I did that.” You want so badly to be annoyed by his pomp but his enthusiasm is nothing if not contagious and the crowd grows more rowdy with each second that passes.

“Now it’s her turn to throw one for you!”

As soon as the suggestion is tossed out, you lift the yakitori to your mouth and take a bite to avoid having to walk toward the opposite end of the bar to do just as you’re being asked. He’s a tough act to follow and although your ego isn’t even a speck compared to his, you aren’t sure you can handle the disappointed aww-ing that would come as a result of firing a shot that lands off of the board. 

“Come on!” 

“Do it for Gojo! Do it for Gojo!”

Just as you’re about to throw your hands up and shake your head, Satoru locks eyes with you and crooks his finger, beckoning you toward him with a smirk that you know you are far too weak for him to deny. Making a show of groaning and rolling your eyes, you trudge across the wooden floors and finally you stand next to him. He throws his arm over your shoulder with an easy chuckle and bends his knees to get low enough to whisper in your ear, voice a rasp.

“Yeah, do it for Gojo.”

He produces a dart between his fingers and you reach to grab it, plucking it between your own to get a feel for it while casting him a sidelong glance that clearly amuses him. You have done this just once or twice at an arcade with darts that do not have the sharpened metal point but this is real and everyone is watching you and you’re doing it for him - the man you love no matter where the two of you are.

You take a deep breath and he removes himself from hovering over your shoulder, giving you ample space to get comfortable. Spreading your feet apart, you make a few motions with your elbow to test the angle you need to throw at and you swear the bar falls completely silent the moment you gnaw your lower lip with your teeth and toss it, hoping some of Satoru’s natural good luck has rubbed off on you. 

Instead, the dart clatters to the ground. For a millisecond, you want to follow suit and fall to the ground and hopefully disappear and never come back but without missing a beat, everyone cheers for you anyway. The eruption makes the building feel like it’s shaking, stomping feet and clapping hands coming from every direction while Satoru bundles you in his arms and pulls you against him. Dipping his chin, he presses a kiss against your temple and you sigh, leaning into it. 

“Looks like the champion is still undefeated!” He shouts and you elbow him playfully in the ribs. This only draws a wicked little snicker from your boyfriend and he bends down to whisper in your ear again, one hand wrapped around your waist. “Better luck next time, baby.”

The crowd continues to cheer and several patrons take their turn approaching and clapping Gojo on the back. It’s surprising despite knowing his Infinity is off because you’re in his arms but you know it means that he’s comfortable. He trusts everyone here and their intentions, at least for now and that’s good enough for you.

You tap his arm once and he lets you go, his eyes following your every movement as you bend to pick up your dart from the ground and hold it in your palm. Smirking, you turn toward him with a twinkle in your eye that he recognizes all too well and the patrons hold their breath wondering what will happen next.

“I think the champion is counting his chickens before they hatch.”

An ooh spreads across the bar and you grin to match Satoru’s toothy one, holding your arms open to offer yourself as a contender. His glasses slide down his nose a little and he pushes them back up, covering his eyes enough that you won’t be able to tell if his abilities are on or off.

“Finally, a worthy opponent!”

His words send the patrons into another frenzy and you laugh although the only person who can hear it is the man standing closest to you, the one who wants to make you laugh the most. You join his side and he wraps one of his arms around your shoulders again while plucking a dart from his pants pocket and moving to toss it again.

“Good luck,” he mutters while looking down at you with a smirk and he lands yet another shot perfectly without even looking. 

It’s always evident when either you or Satoru have a rough day. Your shoulders slump and smiles become half hearted, hiding the frustration simmering inside of you. His need to cling to you becomes more intense than ever, you are the desperate reminder he needs that he’s human after maiming curses, and that’s how you’ve ended up walking hand in hand back to his apartment.

The two of you were lucky enough to make it off campus before sunset and you can count today as one of the handful of times that you’ve been reprimanded by Principal Yaga thanks to a mission that leveled the bottom floor of a local preschool. Thankfully no one was injured but you were reckless and deserved the reminder of the innocent that needed protecting. That’s why you do what you do.

Gojo, well…he is rarely not in trouble but today hurts worse because he got you in trouble, too. The two of you are rarely paired up for missions after the Great Restaurant Destruction of 2012 where he leveled a small family restaurant in Yokohama in an ill guided attempt to impress you but now that three years since then have passed, Yaga insists it’s to keep at least one instructor on campus at all times. 

No matter what occurred today, both of you seem a little zapped. His steps are heavier and slower and you’ve been quiet the entire walk to his apartment from the train station. It has been awhile since the two of you have spent any time over here, too busy with work and crashing at your place that is closer to campus than his if you have a night together, but it’s nice to get a change of scenery. His neighborhood is far nicer than your very normal one and you enjoy taking in the sights of how he lives when he’s not with you.

Down the sidewalk, an elderly woman catches your eye and you see her struggling with a few bags. Nudging Satoru’s ribs, he looks down at you and then down the sidewalk and immediately shouts, holding his arms in the air.

“Baba!”

Before you can reprimand Satoru for being impolite and skipping all sense of formality, especially toward an elder, the woman turns her head with a smile and offers a small wave in his direction. She’s slightly hunched in the shoulders likely due to age and her hair is a beautiful pale gray, the fading sunlight catching the hollows of her cheekbones. Your breath catches in your throat as you’re reminded that there’s nothing more beautiful than to grow old, something you pray often that yourself and Satoru are able to do together. Especially after a day like today.

“That’s Mrs. Ikedo, remember?”

You nod at his words, vaguely remembering a conversation the two of you had about Satoru helping her move some things from her home into storage a few months ago. Mrs. Ikedo steps slowly in the direction of the two of you and he takes a few long legged steps toward her and offers his arm to help. She swats it away playfully and you smile watching the interaction, almost identical to how the two of you behave often. How does he so easily find stubborn women to surround himself with?

“Where have you been, young man?”

Witnessing the two of them interact, you wonder how much she knows about the life Satoru leads. Does she know about his abilities? The danger he willingly puts himself in to keep people safe? He doesn’t see it as dangerous, of course, his incredible belief in himself outweighs all other possibilities but there is always a chance he’ll never come home regardless. A breeze blows by as the ominous thought of him never coming back bleeds into your mind and you shiver slightly, pulling your jacket closer to your body.

“You know me, I’m a wanted and busy man.”

She laughs and you smile despite only being on the fringes of the conversation. The sun dips lower in the sky, dusk coloring the world in warm amber, and you’re almost too lost in your thoughts when he joins your side once more and pulls you close to him. He doesn’t caress all of your sadness away but the way his thumb massages your side even through your jacket helps you feel more grounded.

“Baba invited us in for a cup of tea. You up for it?”

It would be impolite to say anything but yes so you nod, letting him lead the way to the home you know belongs to her because it’s four buildings down from his. The longer you’ve been standing here, the more you recall about her because he has mentioned her more than once. 

“Thank you for inviting us, Mrs. Ikedo.” You smile warmly in her direction and she walks slowly beside the two of you, her grocery bags now slung over Satoru’s free arm despite him jokingly picking up the lightest one and then asking her to handle the rest. 

“You don’t have to be so formal with me, this one sure isn’t.”

She jerks her head in the direction of Satoru who chuckles and waves his arm, the reusable bags hanging from them rustling against his shirt. Your formality is almost always a balm to his brash nature so you too easily fall into the role. Gratefulness warms you against the cool evening air and you lean further into your boyfriend’s side.

“Remember who is carrying your bags,” she pats his forearm and you follow her inside of her home, taking your shoes off at the door and looking around. It resembles the home of every other elderly person you’ve ever been into - covered in various collectibles and photos. Smiling faces and one you can easily recognize as her a long time ago, hair cropped to her chin in a tidy bob.

“Satoru looked at that one and asked me what century I was born in.”

It would be best to reprimand him for rudeness once again but instead, you giggle and rub your palms together to warm them. Winter has arrived and while there isn’t yet snow on the ground, the air feels chilly even indoors and you will welcome a cup of tea between your hands as soon as you are able. Mrs. Ikedo leads you through her home and into the kitchen where Gojo places her shopping bags on the counter, sighing.

“I just remembered I have something for you from Gifu,” he says with a sigh and a stretch, pretending the bags were any kind of a hassle for him. “Is it okay if she stays here while I run home to grab it?”

The woman nods and you fight the urge to be annoyed that he’s leaving you in a stranger’s home no matter how kind she may be. This day keeps going on and on and you are fighting off a pout and an attitude when a warm mug is offered to you with a smile, the lovely scent of green tea filling your nostrils and calming you down. 

“He’s quite something, isn’t he?”

You laugh, head bobbing in agreement. That is certainly one word to describe him and many have said the same thing to you in the past. He is something, the word takes a life of its own and has a different meaning to everyone who says it. To you, he’s your “sometimes not but currently yes” boyfriend, a man who has known you since you were fifteen years old and still had baby fat making your cheeks chubby, your best friend most of the time but you understand why others struggle to see him that way.

“He knows it, too. Most people say that’s the worst thing about him - he knows who he is and brings him everywhere he goes.”

The woman laughs and ushers you in the direction of the sitting area of her home, inviting you to sit down at a kotatsu that she flicks the switch on to heat up. You will be the last person to ever turn down the opportunity to warm up and you kneel on the ground, holding your mug against your legs that are tucked beneath you.

“I was surprised when he told me he’s a teacher.” You nod again, understanding that this surprises many people that the mouthiest man in the room has apparently been entrusted to create future well adjusted adults. “I figured he would be a model or something judging by the size of him. What do you feed him?”

“It always surprises people when he tells them that he teaches but he really has a way with the kids.” You respond with a giggle, sipping your tea as you finish speaking and letting the warmth seep through you. The strain of your shoulders starts to relax and you lean back, comfortable. “He keeps things fun for them so they don’t realize they’re learning most of the time.”

She hums and nods.

“He brought that Hakari over here last year because he told me the boy needed to learn a little hard work.”

That’s an amusing sentiment from someone who doesn’t work very hard himself, you think, but you remember the issues he had with Hakari last year and how only a few of them resolved themselves going into his second year and now he’s your problem - attitude and all. Despite his hands off approach to work, he is a good kid deep down and you know the support of the man the sorcerer community basically views as a god probably helped bolster his confidence. That’s what makes Satoru so good at what he does - the weight that his praise carries. All people dream of being told they’re doing a good job by the star in their field.

“He was right about that. Hakari is my student now and it must have helped him a little bit, he shows up to class three days a week now instead of one.”

She grins at you and sips from her tea, settling beneath the warmth of the kotatsu with a contented sigh.

“You’re a teacher too, I recall Satoru telling me. You seem more suited to the role than he does.” She nods and sips again, placing the cup in front of her when she’s finished. “A lot more nurturing.”

It always embarrasses you a little bit to know that Gojo talks about you when the two of you are apart. That’s not to say that you don’t talk about him because you do. In fact, you gush. Your sisters and friends get tired of hearing about it during the good times and put you on temporary bans against talking about him at all. It feels more vulnerable when it’s him doing the talking, though. 

“Thank you for saying that. I’m glad I get to work with him, he’s definitely one of the best parts of the job even on bad days like today.”

A comfortable silence falls between the two of you for a moment and you know she’s appraising you but you aren’t sure on what criteria. Are you slouching? You’re certain that the mascara you put on this morning is likely flaking beneath your eyes by this point and you look a mess but you doubt she’d care too much about that kind of thing. 

“Would you take some advice from a nosy old lady?”

She sure is funny. You find yourself laughing at her again, nodding gratefully. You are warm and relaxed and you can see why he has made friends with this woman.

“Of course. All of the best wisdom comes from nosy old ladies.”

Sighing, she leans forward and makes a face while moving her legs. 

“This cold…terrible for my joints,” she laments while settling back in. You sip your tea and watch patiently, scooting closer to the warmth of the kotatsu yourself. 

“He loves you.” You choke on the mouthful of tea you were swallowing and she chuckles while you wipe the corners of your mouth and cough. “The person you want to spend the night with after a bad day is the person you love. Don’t push him away or punish him for not understanding everything yet, he has a lot to learn too.”

You’re shocked by the wisdom and you blink at her dumbly. Words aren’t coming to you easily and she can tell, smiling kindly and watching you grip your mug for dear life.

“Give him time. He’ll grow to be the man you’re married to for 70 years.” She nods toward the wall behind you and turning your head, you gasp to see a portrait of Mrs. Ikedo and who you are assuming is the now gone Mr. Ikedo by her side, matching grins in wedding kimonos. It’s overwhelming to be compared to a couple that clearly had so much love in it and you blink tightly, willing yourself not to cry and embarrass your boyfriend in front of his friend. 

“Take it from me, the ones who need a little patience are the ones you have the most fun with.”

Sniffling, you nod and sip from your tea again. You hope that she won’t hold it against you that you’re struggling to find the words of appreciation for her sentiment. Blessedly, you hear her front door open and Satoru hums while taking his shoes off and entering her home, whining when he sees the two of you are comfortable without him.

“Sorry for interrupting,” he mutters sarcastically while joining your side, kneeling and sliding a decorative box across the floor in the direction of his friend. You lean your head on his bicep and he smiles, glad to be touching you in any capacity. You are his comfort and his Infinity always off when you’re near, something that the woman across from you likely has no idea about. 

There is a wall between him and the world and you are what reminds him of what exists between the two places. You make him more..human.

“If you brought me another set of tea cups I’m going to throw them at you,” she mutters while opening the box but a delighted grin quickly replaces her teasing frown when she sees a ceramic frog inside the box. Lifting it out, she shows it off and you smile.

“Another for the collection. You know me too well.”

Satoru shrugs and you see it rather than feel it, making a note to ask him a few more questions about just how close he and the widow are when the two of you get home.

At 8 am on a Saturday, a knock rings through the Fushiguro children’s apartment and Megumi rises from where he sits on the floor reading with a groan, his sister scrambling to get up behind him to see who could possibly be visiting them this early. He would assume it’s Gojo but usually he just invites himself in so it has to be…

You.

Megumi opens the door wide enough you can see his eyes and you wiggle your fingers in a wave. The morning sun shines behind you and his sister appears behind him and says your name excitedly. Suddenly he feels annoyed and shy and a million other things he can’t explain because he’s twelve and the world is nothing short of frustrating at that age anyway.

He almost got into a fight at school this week and that’s why you’re here. Satoru is off in Iwate on a mission and as his guardian, he received the phone call while “decimating a den of second grade curses” (his words) and debated even telling you about it. His concern for Megumi outweighs all else though and he asked you last night to check up on them today, just to see how he seems. Tsumiki is always the angel of the household and right now she’s pushing past her brother to let you in even though he’s reluctant. He knows you must know, that big mouthed overgrown idiot-

“Good morning, I’m here to make you breakfast!”

Megumi’s mean thoughts cut themselves off when you offer to cook and he moves enough that the door can open, letting you slip through a narrow crack with a smile. He knows you’re a capable cook and he’d be silly to shoo you off when you’re offering so kindly.

“What’s for breakfast?” He asks as you toe your shoes off and enter the apartment, taking a deep breath along the way. It’s clean as always, the futons are folded, it’s small but cozy and you smile seeing pictures of Satoru and the two of them hanging on the walls. Megumi can pretend he doesn’t like to be around him but there are many signs that point to otherwise, a little smile evident on his face in each framed image. 

“I was going to ask you the same thing! What do you want?”

Breezing through the living room, both of them follow after you.

“We usually have rice with a fried egg on top,” Tsumiki chimes in while she trounces to your side. She’s almost taller than you are and it amazes you how time flies. It wasn’t all that long ago you were braiding her hair and polishing her fingernails for her, her brother shyly requesting you paint his thumbnails alongside hers.

“I’m not asking what you usually have, silly, I’m asking what you want to have.”

You raise yourself up on the balls of your feet slightly to reach high enough to affectionately rub the top of her head and it makes her giggle, the two of you finally making it through the kitchen where her brother is already waiting.

“Depending on what you have in the cupboards, I can make just about anything,” you offer with a hum at the end, wondering who will offer up a suggestion first. You know the two of them are shy about their needs and often pretend they don’t have any lest they concern their guardian or anyone else he has around to help out with the situation but you try to encourage them to speak up when they can. They’re both good kids; wonderful, even, if you consider the situation they’re in.

“How about something fancy? Oh, I can make some French toast.”

Despite himself, the surly almost teenager smiles and shrugs. His sister practically dances out of the kitchen, walking back toward the small living room space of their accommodations, her unabashed sweetness the perfect foil to her brother whose mouth remains in a flat line while his green eyes scan over you, hunting for ill intent he will never find. 

“Why are you here?”

You look up from combing through cabinets to find even the most basic ingredients and make a note to give Satoru a piece of your mind for keeping the kitchen mostly stocked with convenience food rather than what they need to make meals, meeting Megumi’s uncertain glance. He rests against the counter and for a moment you realize that he is no longer the unruly haired child the two of you used to take for the occasional picnic and day at the museum with Tsumiki. He’s growing up and you feel guilty for making things confusing for him thanks to your admittedly confusing dynamic with the man who more or less cares for him, his de facto big brother. 

Megumi and Tsumiki both have experienced a lot in their young lives and all of the attempts everyone in Satoru’s life have made to help them have a normal childhood cannot fix the pain of loss and the anxiety of not knowing what comes next. Neither of them are apt to open up about all of it, satisfied long ago with the thought that their parents ran off together and never returned, and part of you hopes they never find out the truth. There is safety in ignorance and what have these last four years been besides an attempt to keep them as safe as two children can be?

Stepping away from the cupboard, you turn to face him and lean your own hip against the countertop, attempting to meet him on his level. 

“I’m here because the two of you got good grades and I wanted to celebrate with you. Is that okay?” His skepticism practically wafts off of him and you snort. “We got good grades three months ago.”

You sigh, knowing you’ve been caught in an admittedly bad lie but you don’t bother to elaborate the real reason knowing he’s well aware. Changing the subject is probably the worst way to handle it but hey, you aren’t here to discipline him so you assume the role you’re better at and that’s comfort.

 “Can’t I just do something nice for you two? You don’t have to earn everything.”

A shadow falls over his face and you notice it, leaning forward on your elbows slightly to look at him. He is a boy with big emotions even if he hides them to appear stoic on the surface, something you have worried for years that Satoru is not equipped enough to handle given he rarely blinks at his own distress before compartmentalizing it. There’s more than meets the eye for the enigmatic man who ties all of your lives together but children aren’t always the most capable of picking up on that, seeing him as an overly happy nuisance rather than someone who covers up anguish with smiles. 

“People have been doing things for me my whole life even if I’m not acting my best.”

Tilting your head, you wordlessly ask him to elaborate if he would like to and he sighs. The way his shoulders slump gives away anything he’s trying to hide and the nurturing part of you fights the urge to make him spill knowing it would surely backfire. You’re aware he has mixed emotions about his relationship with Gojo thanks to the few times you’ve been able to get him to open up enough to talk about how he feels indebted to the man for saving his sister more so than saving him but that’s a big load to carry for a twelve year old. To keep things as light as you can, you take a card from Gojo’s book and play it off as nothing, propping your chin up with your fist and keeping your elbows on the counter.

“So? It’s not like they’re asking you to pay them back. We all have times where we are not our best.”

The unspoken part of your statement is that Megumi knows he will eventually have to become a sorcerer someday but given his abilities, it was inevitable no matter whose care he came into. Perhaps this is some form of payment for the guardianship he has been given over the years but you don’t believe that Gojo sees it that way on more than a surface level, a debt paid with flesh is hardly one that the cornerstone of sorcerer society would care to collect on from a child.

“Listen,” you use the weighted silence in the kitchen to your advantage and keep your tone low and even while speaking. You’re sure that if Tsumiki were listening that she would hear you anyway but you don’t think too hard about it. “All anyone wants is for you and your sister to be safe and happy. We stop in because we care about you and want you to know that you always have people on your side.”

Watching him carefully, you hope that your words bring him some comfort and you swear that a trace of a blush comes across his cheeks. The tips of his ears are red which always gives him away and you reach to pinch his cheek, to which he responds by slapping at your hand and groaning, scrunching his nose. 

“We love our little Megumi, what can we say?”

He rolls his eyes but something about him feels definitively lighter so you feel as though your job is done. You open your mouth to speak again but you’re stopped when you hear the front door open, Megumi looking over his shoulder to see who could possibly be here.

“Pancakes!”

The shout comes from the front door and you recognize the voice immediately. A smile comes across your lips and Tsumiki stands up in the living room and rushes to the door to greet Satoru who just arrived at the apartment with still hot breakfast in takeout bags dangling from his arms.

Megumi rolls his eyes but his usual frown is replaced by the hint of a smile. He leans against the doorframe with his arms folded over his chest and watches his sister greet Gojo gleefully, already thanking him profusely while he heads toward the kitchen to see you standing there. He raises his eyebrows, feigning surprise, and you roll your eyes as he holds up his arms and shows off the bags.

“Celebrating the two little geniuses in apartment 9-A!” 

You nod and he sticks his tongue out at you while he passes, shimmying past Megumi to place the bags on the counter next to you. Wordlessly, you try to indicate that the smart boy has already picked up on the lie and to not proceed with it by widening your eyes and shaking your head but he misses the cue.

“I had the same idea.”

Megumi scoffs and lifts himself away from where he leans, stepping quietly toward the enticing smell of a fancy breakfast looking between the two of you while gathering plates from the cupboard to his right.

“Yeah that’s because you guys are exactly alike.”

Tsumiki opens her mouth to reprimand him for being rude but you shake your head, smiling as you lean over toward her brother.

“Yeah but which one of us do you like better?”

This finally draws a chuckle from the usually sullen boy and you nudge him playfully, a shy smile on his face that he dips his chin to try and hide. The curve of his cheek gives him away and you decide to leave him be for now until he leans in and fake whispers, plates between his palms.

“You but don’t tell him.”

“I heard that!”

Feigning offense, Satoru scoffs and holds his hand to his t-shirt clad chest. You smile up at him and he winks down at you, the two of you aware that the Fushiguro siblings are watching your every move. Megumi pushes past you to begin unpacking the bags after handing the plates to Tsumiki who giggles and leaves the three of you alone.

“So I’m not in trouble?” Gojo sighs and claps Megumi on the back, shaking his head. “No but if you start a fight you better win it or else you will be.”

You gasp and smack his bicep with the back of your hand, frowning while Megumi genuinely laughs and starts opening containers that smell so good it makes all of your mouths water. The discussion isn’t over but it’s paused for now and that’s something all of you can accept.

“What? I’m just saying,” Satoru argues while picking up a container and heading toward the set table. “Haven’t I always taught you to finish fights that you start?”

Megumi nods, following after the man with another container. Their relationship is unconventional but he can’t deny that he has learned not just that but much more from him. Each of you sit and you notice Megumi perk up a bit, Satoru using his chopsticks to put pancakes on each of the plates.

“To winning fights!”

“Hey, I thought it was to good grades! And he didn’t even fight!” Tsumiki interjects and you laugh, hugging her shoulders. Her brother scoffs at the white haired man next to him while he pours criminal amounts of syrup over his plate and for a moment, you think that maybe this arrangement is more comfortable for them than it seems.

[holy-puckslibrary]

━ 𝐬𝐰𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠.

main masterlist

pairing(s) — JT COMPHER x reader (main); TYSON JOST x reader (side); COMPHER x JOST (brief) wc — 14k synopsis — what's a reunion without some groveling?

note — this takes place a few of years after part one, go out with a bang (post-college/college au — tyson and kate are now out-going seniors!) sorry not sorry for the length of this behemoth, i got carried away per usual <3 there are more parts to come, and i would absolutely love to hear any theories/predictions if yall have any!

specific content warnings listed below the cut.

cw — cameos on cameos on cameos, we're at a party so drinking and mention of dr*gs + yacking (no description), drinking games, sorority terms/processes, me getting too invested in multiple subplots and potential background ships, soft!service!dom!JT makes my peabrain go brrrrr, everybodies a bit masochistic because i, registered heathen, am masochistic, reader’s wearing a short skirt for plot reasons, slight compher x josty, oral (reader receiving 2x), unprotected piv (i know, i know, i know i need help), me letting my brat self take the kink reins, praise baby praise, angst AND IM NOT SORRY, + happy fluffy bits... possible cliffhanger??? 

Staring up at the Alpha Chi house is like stepping back in time. 

Like trying on an old pair of shoes you found while deep-cleaning your closet only to find their once-perfect fit gone. Growth is funny that way; you never realize just how far you’ve come until it pinches you.

You’ve outgrown this place, though not from a lack of love or any great tragedy. It occupies a different place in your mind, just as you’re a different person than you were three years ago. 

Your younger self would balk at this development, wouldn’t believe it’d one day feel too small. You can’t fault her for that near-sightedness. In college, your whole world existed on one street. You had everything you needed then between two stop signs.

But your world is bigger now, and your needs are different too. 

Still, it feels good to try on your past for the night. Even if it's a tad ill-fitting. 

The drive between your new life and your old one hadn’t been too bad, but that’s probably because you didn’t do much of said driving. JT got the engine going before you could even make a grab for the keys and, despite spending the last year in the literal trenches of clinical rotations and shelf exams, refused to switch at the halfway mark. Yet, your boyfriend is practically vibrating with excitement as you cross the all-too-familiar threshold hand-in-hand. 

“This is so weird,” JT remarks, his lips low to your ear. His musky cologne, warm and woody, does its best to soothe your nerves.

As you survey the crowd, you nod. 

He didn’t need to elaborate further for you to understand because you were already thinking the very same thing. Watching students, the vast majority as unfamiliar to you as you are to them, milling around your old haunt stirs an odd, uncanny feeling akin to a surreal dream. You’re well-acquainted with the setting, almost to an uncomfortable degree, and you don’t think you’re all that different, but everything still feels foreign.

All the right pieces are there, and you’re sure you’ve put them in their proper places, but the image won’t behave.

You quickly realize the only thing that’s misplaced is you. Grief hangs from your back like a wet blanket. 

“Look what the cat dragged in, boys!”

A burst of riotous laughter shakes much of the gloom from your system.

Gabe Landeskog barrels into your boyfriend like an overgrown puppy. Gray-blue eyes twinkling under the rainbow of LEDs, he embraces you both in a warm hug, not minding that the spontaneous act of affection has just cost him an entire Solo cup.

“Compher and the missus,” the blonde addresses you both with a wide grin and a big palm to a cheek each; he gives JT’s a quick pat but merely cups yours. 

His breath still smells of spearmint and something spicy, an imposing combination your eighteen-year-old self could never find comforting. Just another thing that's different now. If you could package the scent for all the little moments of nostalgia, you would. 

“I was starting to think we’d have to drag you from the city kicking and screaming, but alas! You've left the cozy, vanilla bubble of your own volition for a weekend of debauchery with your favorite degenerates.”

JT’s affectionate eye-roll is big and dramatic even in your periphery. The levity brings a smile to your face. It grows wider and wider, enduring until your cheeks burn. If anyone deserves some light-heartedness, it's your sleep-deprived, perpetually-stressed boyfriend.

“A night, Landy. We’ve got to be back by tomorrow night to relieve the dog sitter,” your boyfriend amends with a pat to Gabe’s flushed cheek, returning the favor. 

The older man groans like the overgrown boy he is and will always be. “Look at you, Mr. Responsible. All domestic and shit. With a fur-baby and everything. I bet it’s as well-trained as your firstborn.”

Your eyes follow the line drawn by Gabe’s strong chin past the entryway through to the room used for table-top drinking games.

Half-kneeling on the rickety table you helped customize a few years back is Tyson Jost, head tilted to the sky as he guzzles down the center cup. More beer spills down his chest than into his mouth, effectively turning his white tee sheer. The crowd is comprised mostly of giddy sorority girls who don't mind a bit. 

Free booze and a free show—lucky them!

Once the plastic cup is empty, he crushes it in his palm before sinking the balled plastic into the basketball hoop on the adjacent wall. The converted dining room swells with hoots and hollers so quickly you would’ve thought Tyson emerged from some mythic quagmire, blood-soaked and victorious. But there are no winners in Rage Cage; everybody loses.

Tyson’s loopy grin falters when he registers you and JT on either side of Gabe.

You would like to say nothing’s changed between the three of you over the past couple of years. That you’re just as close as you’d been in college, that distance hadn’t done as much damage as it has.

You'd be lying if you did. 

You tried your best to keep him in the loop; you really did, but that didn’t end up mattering much.

JT hardly had time to socialize with you most of the time, and you’ve practically lived together since graduation. He, like you, tried, but at some point, his bandwidth could no longer accommodate Tyson’s sporadic texts and calls. Many of which came in the dead of night, when your boyfriend’s head was either buried in a textbook or in the pillow beside yours.

Whenever you could, you invited the forward to spend the weekend in the city with the two of you. You even went so far as to offer to put him up in a hotel between your and JT’s respective apartments, knowing your adult salary could stretch further than the Atomic tips he was splitting with Tyler. He always had something conflicting going on, and it didn't feel like your place to question the authenticity of his reasons, so you just kept extending the invitation, hoping things would align eventually.

After finally taking the leap and signing a lease together, you decorated the guest room with Tyson in mind. He’s yet to see it, still.

Your little Kate, on the other hand, needs a frequent flyer program.

A small part of you felt this shift was inevitable once JT went from best friend-slash-unrequited crush to full-blown, live-in boyfriend. Despite Tyson’s insistence on you finally hooking up and “putting everyone out of their misery,” his smile didn’t meet his eyes when JT broke the news that it wasn’t a one-night thing.

Maybe his “little crush” hadn’t been so little after all. 

If that’s the case, you can't blame him for avoiding your slice of grown-up love like the plague. It just would've been nice if he hadn't left you in the dark, wondering where and how you fucked up enough to get iced out.

Tyson responded to every third or so text of yours, so you mostly kept up with him and his life through Kate, who briefly dated him between ill-fated Gunnar stints, and social media. You weren’t sure how often he spoke to JT; after several attempts that ended with your boyfriend clammed up and irritated, you stopped asking.

Judging by how tense he is beside you right now, you have a pretty good guess.

“Yikes,” Gabe drawls. “Trouble in paradise?”

You remain carefully quiet, allowing your boyfriend to decide what, if anything, to share. This—whatever it is —feels like it's more so between them two than Tyson and yourself.

JT clears his throat so hard it cuts through the music blaring through the packed house—some remix you don’t remember learning the words to. “Trouble? Nah, Josty’d have to give us the time of day for that.” 

Gabe laughs, but you know JT isn’t trying to be funny. You can taste the undercurrent of bitter resentment. It’s impossible not to without an artificial buzz.

There’s no time to dwell because a flurry of red hair darts through the crowd dispersing out of the dining room and straight into your arms. A fresh, but faintly-candied scent tickles your nose as the cool metal of a bracelet digs into your neck. 

Kate.

“Fuckin finally!” The almost-grad squeals directly into your ear.

Definitely drunk. Or high—or both. 

“Don’t look at me,” you say, beaming when she pulls back. “I wasn’t driving.”

Kate swats JT’s chest with her open palm. “And this is why we don’t let you drive anywhere, Grandpa.”

The playful jab makes your smile deepen. His driving made her tardy to a ZBZ charity gala one time over a year ago when she made the mistake of hitching a ride with you, and she’s probably brought it up a million times since. Kate pretends to hold a grudge, JT pretends to find it aggravating, and you get to sit back, enjoying the warm camaraderie overfilling your cup.

The pair have been friends almost as long as you've been friends with either of them, but since your graduation, they’ve settled into something more serious and more genuine. Where your connection to Tyson wilted outside the conveniences of college, your relationship with Kate matured and flourished. She’s more than just your chapter-appointed Little Sister to JT now, having become more of a true sister than anything else. Hence the juvenile teasing.

“Well, we’re here now. Alive.”

Your little snatches your hand in hers, tugging you away from JT, who feigns offense.

“And now I’m stealing your girlfriend in retribution for making me wait. Go do… whatever it is you two heathens used to do at parties. We have a pong title to defend.”

“Excellent idea, Madame President,” Gabe declares, hands roughly massaging the male ginger’s shoulders. He tosses a wink in Kate’s direction.

Before the other ginger can drag you away for good, your boyfriend catches your free wrist, pulling you back to him so his lips can find your ear. Breath hot, he drops his voice an octave, “President’s bathroom. One hour. Nod if you understand.”

Your chin dips, quick and subtle confirmation.

“Good girl.”

As your respective keepers separate you, JT shoots you a wink of his own. Then, you lose him in the crowd.

Kate leads you through the sea of party-goers to the living room, her grip on you tight and comforting. Her thumb rubs small circles on the inside of your wrist as you approach the table, almost as if privy to your worry. Kate is incredibly perceptive; she can read someone’s mind without even looking at them. With you, her Spidey senses transcend county lines, so it’s no real surprise she deduced your current condition from no more than your erratic pulse thumping against her palm. 

When you reach the bustling folding table commandeered for the BP tournament, Kate does all the talking.

It’s not too hard to get on the bracket despite the late entry with two newly-minted Alpha Chi brothers manning the post. The absolute last thing they want to do is get on the bad side of the president of their sister chapter (Kate) and the girlfriend of a legendary former chapter president (you). The pairs for the current game are only a couple of throws in, so it’s going to be at least ten minutes before it's your turn.

“You, my dear, look thirsty,” Kate declares through a mischievous grin.

You let her pull you towards the kitchen across the hall but have more difficulty than you expect actually getting there. Every few steps, someone stops either you or Kate. Mostly the latter, but she’s quick to show you off to whoever’s trying to seize her attention. Apparently, Kate’s been building quite the mythos of your time on campus, and it’s very… dizzying, to say the least.

“Kit-Kat!”

Kate abandons the poor freshman boy shooting his shot (and missing fantastically) in favor of the feminine voice sliding into the conversation.

In the blue-ish hue washing over the small space, you’re having a hard time placing her, but she seems very keen on making your acquaintance.

“Blake Meyers,” the newcomer announces, extending her hand with a smile.

You take it, giving her your name and a matching expression in return. The flattened vowels are distinct and recognizable, as is the last name. 

“Meyers?” you ask, attempting to work it out.

“Ava’s younger sister,” Kate interjects. “And one of our best steals this past recruitment.”

Blake blushes so brightly her freckles disappear.

You remember that feeling. What it was like to have an older member, especially someone as established and accomplished as an outgoing ZBZ president, go out of their way to make you feel special. You have zero doubt Blake will be walking on air for the foreseeable future, any of the common little doubts about whether or not she made the right choice vanishing.

“I was really hoping I’d get to meet you tonight,” the freshman tells you bashfully. “Kate gave the most beautiful speech about you and your legacy on Preference Night, and when she told me you might be coming with your boyfriend, I had to put a face to the name. And Jenny was the one who pref-ed me, so it seemed like—I don’t know, a non-negotiable?”

Jenny is one of the twins Kate took her junior year, and she couldn’t have picked better. It gave you peace of mind knowing your Kate would have good people around her once you couldn’t physically be there for her.

You won’t be surprised if Jenny takes Blake as her little. Kate pref-ed her, and before that, you pref-ed Kate. It’s basically a family tradition.

Not long after you thank Kate for her generous words and Blake for her kindness, Thomas, one of the new initiates in charge of the beer pong table, flags you down for your game. Not ready to end your conversation, invigorated by the breezy, jovial chatter your new life lacks, you tug Blake along with you.

Between exceptionally beautiful throws (if you do say so yourself), you learn more about Blake and her roommate and fellow ZBZ spring initiate, Emory. They pepper you with questions: about your first-year college experience, advice on getting the best room possible on the sophomore floor for mandatory live-in, whether or not you got anything particularly valuable in the various leadership positions you held, and what fraternities to steer clear of. You’re more than happy to answer them all. Kate sprinkles in comments and jokes occasionally, but she mostly defers to you so she can celebrate the end of a smooth second term as president.

Once Kate and you have successfully defended your title, you pass the torch to the future of your chapter. Blake and Emory make quick work of the first challengers and are close to a similar sweep with the second pair when your little remembers her earlier mission: refreshments.

This time, you both keep your heads ducked as you speed through the dancing bodies and make a beeline for the dinged-up lockers propped against the wall. You can’t help but smile when you see her reach for the lock—your old lock.

Every upperclassman (and a few select friends of the chapter, like Alpha Chi Sweethearts such as Kate and, once upon a time, yourself) is assigned a secure, personal locker in the oversized kitchen for quick access to personal items. During parties, they essentially become personal coolers. At your very last formal chapter meeting, you will-ed the hunk of metal down to Kate, along with the more sentimentally valuable items you wanted to leave behind with her.

“Wait, can you even drink?” Kate asks you from where she’s kneeling. Sarcasm scrunches her brows together.

“Hilarious,” you reply with a playful glare. “And before you loudly ask about the non-existent fetus like the devious bitch you love being, don’t. Unless you want to give JT an aneurysm."

Kate fishes out two slim, chilled cans as she grumbles about how boring you two have become in your “old age.” She shoves a ratty sweatshirt—an old favorite of Tyson’s—back into the small locker, quickly refastens the lock, and scrambles the dial. Then, she returns to her full height beside you.

“So, do you want to tell me what that wink from Gabe was about?” you ask, brow cocked.

“Do you want to tell me what your horndog of a boyfriend whispered in your ear?” Kate counters.

“Touché.”

Kate cracks open a Spindrift Spiked and slots it into your waiting palm. She taps the rim with her own, then sighs back against the cluttered kitchen island. She’s going to crack, you know it. Kate, even when she has a secret she wants to keep, never stays quiet for long. Especially not when you’re the one doing the asking.

“Okay, so, d’you remember how Tyson was, like, completely apathetic after we broke up right before Heaven & Hell last Halloween?”

You nod, recalling how irritated she was over FaceTime while you helped her pick a costume out of your box of hand-me-downs. You did your best not to laugh because Kate was clearly distressed, but it was kind of hard not to when she was buried in a heap of red and white feathers, wearing a too-small tutu dotted with rhinestones.

Kate takes a sip of the spiked strawberry lemonade before elaborating, “Well, I was understandably pissed—Don’t give me that look, okay? I know I broke up with him, but he shouldn’t have been that blasé that soon—so, I hatched a plan.”

You shake your head, laughing. Kate and her schemes.

“I wasn’t planning on taking Gabe as my date, but when I ran into him at Atomic the day before… I don’t know; I just couldn’t resist. I mean, Tyson worships the man. If anyone’s getting a reaction, it’s Landy. I had to.”

“And?” you prod. 

“And…” she stalls, eyes darting around the kitchen in search of pesky eavesdroppers, cheeks lit up like a Christmas tree. “…we might’ve done it in the backseat of his truck.”

“I’m scared to ask where.”

She buries her face in your shoulder. “The venue’s parking lot.”

Your eyes bulge so hard you, for a split-second, worry they’ll pop out of your head onto the sticky hardwood and land amongst the discarded cans.

“And I didn’t tell you because I was so scared you and JT would hate me,” Kate moans into your skin. She shifts to peer up at you, hesitant. “You don’t, right?”

“I don’t think I’m even capable of hating you, Katie-Kat, let alone for something as silly as banging a hot blonde,” you giggle, and she’s quick to join you. Lowering your voice, “Especially the hottest of hot blondes.”

“I’m so telling JT you said that,” she teases, pulling away.

You shrug and take your first sip. “Go ahead. He’ll agree.”

“And this is why you’re my favorite couple,” she says, bumping her hip against yours. “The worst part is Tyson didn’t even care about that either! At the post-game, when he saw my lipstick smeared all over Gabe’s neck, he high-fived him. Tyson fucking high-fived him for screwing me. His ex-girlfriend! How supremely demented is that?”

“I wish I had an explanation for you, but I don’t. I’m starting to think I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.”

Kate takes hold of your unoccupied hand and squeezes it three times.

“I’m guessing things haven’t gotten any better?”

You shake your head, eyes downcast like there’s something super interesting between the floorboards. “I know he’s busy, and we’re busy, but he’s acting like our friendship meant nothing.”

“Not to start a therapy session in the middle of a rager, but did you... did you ever actually talk about That Night? I know you said JT whispered, but how positive are you that Josty didn't hear him?"

A few months after That Night, your guilt was on the brink of hemorrhaging. It was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped; you broke down in the middle of Talladega Nights. Fucking Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. All fat tears and snotty, incoherent spiraling, your chest heaved as JT rubbed your back. He was quiet, more concerned than confused, until you calmed down enough to explain what’d been weighing on your conscience. 

Then, your boyfriend looked clueless—because he was. JT didn’t remember his heat-of-the-moment pseudo-promise to taint Josty’s image of you.

After a scene or two, you broached the subject you’d both been avoiding since getting together. You wanted to apologize, and not that you needed JT’s permission, but you felt it wasn’t entirely your amends to make. He agreed but was adamantly opposed to operating on assumption alone. If Tyson was truly upset by the pillow talk he overheard, JT reasoned, he was old enough to be frank about it.

You found yourself agreeing, but also not? On the one hand, you could see this being an instance of your anxious mind making a mountain out of a molehill, finding fault where there’s none. But you knew Tyson, and you knew how sensitive he could be. 

Something shifted that night. You’d known then, too, even in the hazy afterglow. His despondency wasn’t subtle, and it wasn’t uncommon for his dejected expression—his forced smile dipped in feigned nonchalance—to visit you in therapy sessions or in your nightmares.

But every time you typed and re-typed one remorseful novel after another, every time your gun-shy thumb hovered over his contact, every time you nearly drove out to your alma mater to track him down… You couldn’t get yourself to see it through. 

At first, it was the nerves, the fear of hearing his pain and seeing his anger. Then, it was your own temper, stoked by indignation, that rose with every sign of withdrawal. Now, it’s just plain, garden-variety sadness.

It was—is disappointing how cleanly he severed ties. There one day and gone the next, no blow-out fight or melancholic hear-to-heart. Tyson was there; he was within reach, but at the same time, not at all. The casual dismissal is worse than outright rejection; the door ajar but wholly uninviting.

"In the moment, I was certain he didn’t. Now? Fuck, the percentage drops every time I replay it in my head,” you murmur, remorse bogging down your confession. "I know you made a point not to bring it up when you were together, but did he ever, I don’t know, say anything?"

Kate shakes her head. "No, sorry. But it's not like we actually did much talking anyway."

You snort despite your woes.

“Alright, that’s enough doom and gloom for one night. How’s my nephew?” Kate asks, bright smile chasing the blues away with all its might.

It’s a distraction and a good one, too. She listens intently as you prattle on about the bi-weekly training sessions you’re starting next month to help with the leash pulling and the ridiculous pet parents you’ve met at the dog park near your apartment. She inquires about the fluffy lamb she brought over the last time she stayed with you—it lasted all of a day in his over-excited grip—then gushes over another variation she saw last week while getting litter for Salem, her diabolical tuxedo cat.

By the time Kate has your phone in her hand, swiping through the designated album and asking more questions than each picture really warranted, you’re feeling a bit better.

Noticing the clock, you stumble through a totally-not-suspicious excuse to venture upstairs—alone. Kate shoots you a knowing look but doesn’t give you a hard time. To be honest, she’s just glad you came tonight. Instead of a witty jab or half-hearted guilt trip, she slips a gold foil square into your unsuspecting palm and sends you on your way with a supportive swat to the rear.

Access to the second floor during parties is typically mediated by two to three gatekeepers, depending on the scale and projected rowdiness of each gathering. Three’s the magic number tonight: two up-and-coming juniors and an outgoing senior. They grant you passage with little more than a nod of acknowledgment.

“What? No riddle this time?” you tease over your shoulder.

The senior, an engineering major with a penchant for brain teasers, answers with a hoot. Cale Makar shakes his head, both amused and flattered you remembered his signature move. His puppy crush on you is an open secret. “I was given strict instructions to ‘keep the shenanigans’ to a minimum with you, Your Majesty.”

“JT?” you venture a guess, hand paused on the paint-chipped banister. He’s the only one who still sprinkles in the silly nickname these days.

“Landy, actually.”

Well, close enough.

You shouldn’t be surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time the former chapter president enlisted Cale, his little, to assist in your and JT’s more salacious antics.

As soon as Gabe had the defenseman under his wing, he was putting him to work. Not that the younger blonde particularly minded, as his affinity for creative, slightly devious schemes rivaled that of Kate’s. It was Cale, you later found out, who ran interference during Semi Formal… while you were defiled on the balcony.

“Still doing his bidding, I see.”

He counters with that lopsided “Get Out of Jail Free” grin. “What can I say? The man puts up a mean bribe.”

As if cued, Cale’s companions, who you now recognize as Alex Newhook and Bowen Byram, step into view. In Alex’s raised grip is a case of Labatt Blue, and in each of Bowen’s, a bottle of bottom-shelf cabernet. You doubt the trio would notice or mind the subpar quality, though. Between their happy heads, Cale fists a bottle of champagne you know he’ll misplace before he can polish it off.

“Jesus, how drunk is he?” you tease, the follow-up to an exaggerated gasp.

Sure, the quality’s shit, but their haul is far more valuable than your appraisal of their job; it’s a frat house, not Buckingham Palace.

“Not drunk enough to not see you here with us.” Cale’s voice tapers off, his pale eyes tracking someone stalking down the hall before nervously flicking up to the ceiling, “…and not up there with JTC.”

JTC — Talk about a blast from the past.

An anticipatory tingling erupts between your inner thighs just knowing he’s up there right now waiting for you. This is the part of your “homecoming” that excited you most and had been since the moment your boyfriend pinned the invite from the alumni association onto the fridge.

As blissfully domestic as your life together has become, it lacks the spontaneity your college life had been brimming with. Your sex life could never be categorized as mundane or clinical, but you’re finding it difficult to replicate the adrenaline rush stealing secret moments inherently provided.

Sometimes, in your more (admittedly) desperate moments, you’ve caught your fingers moving beneath the sheets to mindlessly chase the thrill of those fleeting intimacies, despite how awful the constant wondering and wallowing felt then or, maybe because of it, pain and pleasure are uniquely human indulgences sought in equal measure. When intertwined, they’ve been known to satiate masochistic cravings the way a sad movie or a sprawling, high-speed rollercoaster might.

However, this time, your risk-spurned euphoria will be at your own hand. The newfound agency—the ability to choose when, how, or if any risk is involved—has you darting up the stairs with a fire under your soles.

Before you round the corner and disappear down the hall, you make sure to call out, “Thank you for your service!” accompanied by a two-finger mock salute. You don’t stick around to catch their responses, though.

As you make your way down the dim corridor, you run smack into a very giggly Sarah Jones, just shy of your destination. Eyes distant and wide, she attempts to apologize for something—Something about sabotaging the Big-Little pairings your senior spring?—but it’s more bubbles than actual words. You nod along, still not quite sure what you’re accepting an apology for but too antsy to forge ahead to play detective. Your purposeful strides went unnoticed in her cloud of intoxication and nostalgia, but Erik Johnson, who’d been JT’s vice president, mercifully ushers his inebriated fiancé out of your path by the shoulders.

You offer him a faint smile of gratitude as they head in the opposite direction.

Over the music, you faintly hear Sarah begin chattering on about something unrelated, your reunion long forgotten already. You can’t help but chuckle a little on behalf of your younger self, who would’ve gawked at snobbish Sarah Jones drunk and voluntarily slumming it in a ramshackle house on Greek Row. And sporting a rock from a Degenerate on Ice (her nickname for your brother fraternity, not yours), too? That would’ve been the icing. But, the older, more mature, once-weekly-therapy iteration of yourself is happy she’s happy.

Thoroughly amused but happy nevertheless.

As you reach for the tarnished doorknob of the president’s suite, the rickety door flings open to reveal your boyfriend, all flushed cheeks and frenzied eyes.

JT pulls you inside, lips easily taking possession of yours, the heel of his lived-in/loved-on sneaker nudging the door shut. The hinges groan in protest to the rough treatment. Still fussy as ever. This house is a goddamn time capsule, you muse. Neither of you has the patience for benevolence. If it jams, it jams. That’s a future-self problem. Diligence now would only slow you down.

And would a prolonged stay on memory lane really be all that bad?

Your boyfriend cages you so close that when he manages more than panted praise between hot-and-heavy touches, the words barely fit in the gap between your mouths. “I was beginning to think you stood me up, sweetheart.”

The light-hearted accusation is semi-whispered, somewhat hoarse, in the way his voice always sounded when he came home from a long shift at the hospital downtown or post-game at the height of his collegiate career. JT isn’t a hard person to read—downright wolfish when he’s homing in on a target—but the low, raspy tone makes his intent glaring.

Your body thrums with anticipation.

“Never,” you croon back. A breathy moan sweetens your voice, courtesy of the calloused hand inching up the back of your bare thigh, bypassing the hem of your skirt with no effort or resistance. Arms looping around his neck, you make an inquiry: “Is there a reason we’re in your old bedroom instead of, I don’t know, the king-sized bed in the honeymoon suite you insisted we spring for?”

Tufts of faint copper tickle your cheek. Your boyfriend lands a kiss on your crowd-warmed forearm. Then, much to your displeasure, he steps out of the tight embrace.

“Y’know, I remembered something earlier when I was downstairs,” JT supplies in an apparent non-answer.

He guides you, as understanding rises in your mental periphery, through the barely-lit space toward the Jack-and-Jill bathroom between this room and the next. Then, he flicks on the secondary light, the dimmer of the two, before tugging you over yet another threshold. His fingers twitch at his sides, lascivious.

You stare back at him expectantly, vision tunneling as you wait, wait, wait.

The latch might as well have been a starting pistol; the subtle click ringing in your eardrums like the sonic crack of a live round; his breath a plume of smoke from a charged muzzle well beyond its flash point. Pent-up, needy tension burns hot and burns brighter. Residue from the night prior aflame; you, a moth seduced.

JT drives forward. Stalking, like a cat on a bird, until he’s pinned you to the door. His dash was easy, made short and hasty by the starting block eagerness in your dilated eyes.

Mouth descending on your sensitive neck, hips grinding his want into your squirming form, harsh belt buckle nudging just right with each sharp rut.

“There’s still one thing left on my college bucket list.”

He sinks the candor in with his incisors. Not hard enough to break the skin, but that was never his intention. The sting is a reminder. Of your shared past, of his unwavering desire—of who is in charge.

Message received. Loud and clear.

JT leans away to admire his handiwork. One big hand poised at your jaw, and the other braced beside your head, keeping your shyness from blocking the perfect view; you’ve never been able to hide from him and never will.

His curious thumb deviates from the original objective to caress the skin, now splotched violet and angry. Softly, at first, like he’s committing the damage to memory. Then, emboldened by a sudden piercing hiss forcing itself from your throat, JT pushes down on the tender spot. The cruel, unexpected pressure pulls pitiful bleating cries from your undulating chest.

This is no longer an expedition to gather intel; it’s a primal instinct.

For a few moments, he just holds you like this. A cloistered existence made worthwhile by him occasionally digging deeper into the column of your throat, the pressure taking on a raptorial quality. Your boyfriend wears his herald grin at a rakish angle. It unfurls with refined delicacy, an effective diversion for his next endeavor. Breathe like a precision instrument; the sharp phantom-edge fans across the sucked-raw skin with unhurried ease.

There isn’t enough alcohol in your system to dull the twinge — and you’re glad for it. It’d be a crime to dilute a burn this good, this all-consuming. You crumble between him and the door, your world only this big. His name tumbles out with a pulled-candy moan, completely devoid of dignity.

JT’s chest rumbles beneath your clammy palms. “You gonna be a good girl and help me tie up loose ends?”

His strawberry-blonde crown dips to nuzzle your cheek. Hot tongue tracing an experimental line, JT groaning as it does. The muscle trawls for tears you didn’t realize you shed, humming through the pursuit. The low-pitched moan sends a chill straight down your spine right to your toes.

The hand gripping your jaw lowers so his fingers are able to coil themselves around somewhere more advantageous — your neck. Your eyelids flutter, woozy. His firm squeeze, just enough to make everything spin and keep you still, has become blissfully familiar over time, but your breath still hitches like it’s the first.

“Hm, sweetheart? Don’t be rude. I asked you a question.”

Your lips part, a barbed retort to his condescension on your tongue, but all you can push out is the strangled yelp of a wounded animal.

The hand by your temple no longer rests against the door. In the fog, it snuck up under your skirt; JT never meant to get an answer out of you; he just likes to watch you squirm. Likes to have something to reprimand you for.

His nimble fingers dance over the thin, sodden material pulled taut over your heat. Less touching, more hovering. Small, lazy movements that betray how well he can play your body. They float above the tingling bundle of nerves, further movement pending, contingent upon your obedience.

“P-please,” comes your pouted whimper.

“Focus for me, pretty baby. Tell me what I want to hear. Come on, let me make things easy for you. I can feel how badly you want to — and you aren’t in a position to be difficult, are you?”

You give in, and though the words you babble are largely unintelligible, JT’s ultimately satisfied.

“Such a good listener I’ve got myself. But you’re always to eager to please, aren’t you? You might throw stones from behind that tough girl act, but it’s just that: an act. I have a puddle in my hand to prove it.”

His frankness sears your face.

You’ve acquired a tolerance for his raunchy silver tongue through months of close proximity, but the mechanism is shoddy at best. Stalls and misfires galore. Against all odds (said “odds” being his fingertips toying with the edges of fabric between your thighs), you summon up a tawdry retort from the growing arsenal. “Don’t l-let it go to waste, Compher.”

It's not your best work, but much better than the slurred gurgle that preceded it.

He loves how you manage to be any sort of cheeky with him, even with your head swimming, stuttering and all.

“I don’t think it matters, sweetheart. I know there’s no shortage. Plenty more where it came from.”

With your knee, you nudge his hard-on and supply some honey-tongued snark of your own. “Is that your ego, or are you just excited to see me?”

Your boyfriend chokes out short-lived mirth. Then, with an accompanying smile, his tongue presses to the inside of his cheek. Amused, but by the sting of the remark’s undeniable truth, not your cleverness. The protrusion moves just below his bottom lip as he swipes the muscle over his teeth, a half-second sardonic gesture. It calls attention to your impudence without dignifying it with a verbal reply.

His brow lifts to negate any confusion, feigned or otherwise. “Are you going to keep being a brat, or are you going to let me fuck you with my fingers?”

You gulp down your ready-mixed wisecracks.

“Nothing to say now?” JT taunts. “Funny how that works.”

Fuckin’ wisenheimer. His voice is so haughty you have to bite your lip to keep your foot out of your mouth, unwilling to jeopardize your impending pleasure for short-term gratification.

Your boyfriend’s smugness—and your subsequent annoyance—becomes irrelevant when your panties are roughly pushed to the side, and his thick finger slips past your taut entrance. Tip to knuckle in one succinct trust; your startled gasp drowns out the noise rising up through the floorboards.

Hips bucking forward—you just can’t help yourself—you're in search of some friction to marry with the blinding stretch. He’s made the tensile opening accommodate far more in length and thickness, but not like this. Rarely does he create space where there is barely any, having forgone tenderness. Slowly widening a gap with gentle pressure, not demanding room like it’s already his to occupy.

Your surprise drips down his hand.

The bliss—the relief, is palpable. Your head dips into the crook of his neck, and the gravity of the situation felt for the first time.

Before, you didn’t see any substance in a tipsy frat bathroom hook-up. The older you got, the more pointless it seemed, especially with an established, long-term partner. The novelty wasn’t lost on you, of course, but that’s all you’d written it off as.

Countless collegiate nights were spent imagining one like this one. A moment where your inescapable feelings for him would be matched outright. When the pressure of his stifled emotions would build too fast to keep them from boiling over, too mighty in stature. Suddenly overcome by unrequited feelings of his own, unable to uphold all the ridiculous unspoken platonic conventions with the same authority he commands now.

This is important. For your past and present selves. The significance of this overdone, soapy teen drama scenario cannot be overlooked because it underscores the progress you’ve made together. Years of dancing around one another, the unconventional catalyst and nontraditional timeline, every hushed conversation in the wee hours before responsibilities wake, the sleepless nights and the snooze-filled afternoons—this ostensibly clichéd moment is an amalgamation of it all.

One thought rises above the frenzied rest: Was this here all along?

Is this what was waiting on the other side of the aimless pining and the confusion and the hurt?

The journey might’ve been fucking hell, but the view from here is pretty damn heavenly.

Overwhelmed by your epiphany and his dexterous motions, you moan into his skin far louder than your pride would’ve otherwise allowed outside your shared apartment.

His arrogant laughter grates before it really registers. Venom secretes from your salivary glands when it does, but the melted retribution never makes it past your lips. His second finger robs it of the opportunity, and the third sends all thoughts out your ears. The light circles over your clit cloud your vision, nails digging into his jersey-clad back—I’m feeling nostalgic, he’d said. In more ways than one, apparently.

“S’good—wanted this for so long, Compher—k-kept wishing it was you that night, not Miles.”

JT seethes at the admission, curling his fingers until your knees buckle and you’re entirely reliant on him to keep you off the floor. Even as your mind slips further and further away, your hips manage to move in time with his hand. Meeting each stroke with equal hustle and vigor, a clear end goal on the horizon.

Then his thumb drops away, his hand coming to a halt, and he steps back. 

Away.

Frustration pushes the amassed tears waiting in the wings down your cheeks. Emotion runs down your face; a heavy spill indeed.

“I don’t ever want to hear another man’s name outta your mouth when it’s my fingers buried in your pussy.” His jealousy is well-polished. Manicure-smooth, like he’s been maintaining its luster in preparation for this very occasion. "—'specially not the motherfucker that made sure I heard all your pretty sounds through the walls.”

You’d grin if you weren’t so miserable.

That’d been your intention. It wasn’t anything Miles had or did that made him different from the rest of the chapter (who all, at one point or another, tried their luck with JTC’s hot best friend), just simply when he decided to shoot his shot. The only reason you’d been out in the first place was because you reached your breaking point, no longer able to stomach what you felt for JT, and you made sure Miles knew this before you let him call an Uber.

Despite playing for the same team, the pair shared a touch-and-go rivalry. You never knew if the intensity would result in a sweeping victory or an in-house, all-out brawl. If they ever saw eye to eye, you’d of never known. Miles needed no convincing to push JT’s buttons.

There was some heavy petting, nothing more. The only time Miles saw you undress was to change into the pajamas he lent you before knocking out on his futon, leaving you to take the bed. But JT didn’t know that. If sitting in their chapter house’s kitchen at 5 o’clock the next morning didn’t raise suspicion, the non-Compher borrowed t-shirt and ruffled hair certainly did.

Back then, he refused to ask. Even though you could see how badly he wanted to pry. Miles didn’t have anything he worth sharing, so JT was left to fill in the blanks.

You’d tell him the truth later, but right now, you wanted to see what milking his assumptions could get you.

“Did you like what you heard?”

His jaw ticks. Your hips push against his with a knowing simper.

You lean forward, closing the space he forced, lips barely brushing his ear, “Did you get off on it? Fuck your hand picturing yourself in his place… wishing it was my pussy instead?”

You hear the thud before you feel your head against the door or his hand back around your throat, his fingers deep between your walls again. The everywhere-throb makes you laugh. Giggle, really.

He squeezes until you’re no longer capable of mockery. His pace hastens, leveling out only once your thighs have started shaking around his wrist, knees cutting off his circulation elbow-down. Somehow, he keeps going despite the icy tingle. His determination overrides physical discomfort, knowing how close you’re getting. Feeling it in the distinct fluttering around his digits, seeing it in your trembling, swollen bottom lip.

“You’re so full of shit.” His mouth twitches at your throaty moan. A defiant hint of levity circles his pupils; he never stays riled up for long when it’s you yanking his chain. “You’re lucky I love you.”

You kiss him then, messy and crude, love-drunk. He tastes like your chapstick and gin, with a biting citric aftertaste —Grapefruit, maybe?—and you suck it in like you haven’t had a drop of water in days. And, in turn, he drinks down every choked sob and nonsensical half-thought you babble, every drop shooting straight to his loins.

He drives into you with fervor, humming as his tongue slips against yours, iron bulge omnipresent. The hand around your neck loosens but never leaves its post, thumb stroking your pulse point. I know everything about you, his movements whisper. Over and over, in and out. He, just as much as you, gets lost in the repetition.

“Don’t want him, never wanted him. Jus’ you—Always you.” It comes out slurred, mushy like your head, like your heart.

JT’s cock isn’t immune to affirmation and twitches through his too-tight jeans. Groaning, “Go on, sweetheart. Scream my name. I want every single person in this house to know exactly who’s fucking you this good.”

You do just that, writhing on his hand, eventually burying your face into his warm neck when it gets to be too much. He continues fucking you, and you continue crying for him, the pathetic little whimpers muffled now by his body.

JT guides you through the rest of your orgasm, as he always does. He watches your face carefully on the comedown, searching for any sign of regret or discomfort. When he finds none, he cradles your shaking form against his solid chest, the hand that, only moments ago, tore you apart, soothing you back down to earth. Once you’ve settled, he walks you back and away from the door.

A startled yelp falls from your lips when you feel the chilly edge of the countertop. You pull away from your boyfriend, brows furrowing with confusion.

His hand taps the outside of your thigh. "Up."

You’re having a hard time keeping your eyes open, let alone stringing thoughts together, so the command is met with inaction. Impatient as ever, JT wordlessly hoists you where he wants you and sinks down to his knees, big hands cupping yours.

“What’re you doing?” Strained, barely above a whisper.

He stares up at you with dopey, lovestruck eyes. “Come on, Compher. You can gimmie another one, can’t you?”

You aren’t an idiot. Often sleep deprived beyond belief and, more often than not, fucked-out on JT’s… Well, anything—but definitely not an idiot. You knew exactly what that loaded gun of a pet name implied the moment he used it. It first slipped out during a frantic supply closet rendezvous midway through your company’s holiday party, then a few more times in the months after.

It hasn’t lost its sparkle. It does make you more and more impatient each time he flashes it, though.

Fuckin’ tease.

Your fingers burrow in his hair, tugging from the root until his eyelids flutter prettily. “As long as you let me return the favor after—need to taste you so bad.”

“Deal,” he mumbles into your skin a half-second later.

His hands push your already-short skirt up, bunching it atop your hips and out of the way. Your boyfriend takes the time to remove the fabric barrier this time, and you don’t miss the way he tries to slip them into his back pocket without you noticing. Likely because it’d normally be a tease-able offense.

But not tonight, not right now.

Instead, you let a shiver speak for itself. The risqué gesture reminds you of the pair he used as a pocket square when his parents took you two to a celebratory dinner following his white coat ceremony. The rumble of his chuckle tells you his mind went there, too.

JT leans in, big eyes never moving from yours, his warm exhale fanning over your swollen folds. The tooth-marked bruise forming on the side of your throat pricks in tandem response. The action, a repeat of your boyfriend’s earlier antics, naturally yields similar enough results. He catches on, inching forward to—

Something bangs against the door.

His face falls; your heart seizes.

“Occupied!” your boyfriend barks, hands paused but gripping you tightly. He looks like he’s on the verge of exploding.

A full, lilting sound barrels into the door—too-good-to-be-true laughter. His breathy timbre is an unsteady balance of cocksure and skittish; a preference for one side or the other is blurred by the wood in its way. “It’s me, dickhead.”

Then, the curtain is lifted. A pocket of silence ushers in a stillness that cracks like a bolt from the blue.

Shocked doesn’t even begin to cover how you feel right now. You most definitely suffered a concussion somewhere in all JT’s reprimanding; you’re hallucinating right now. That, or the singular seltzer in your system magically turned psychotropic after consumption.

Waiting in the threshold is Tyson Jost. A quarter-drunk fifth of Jack in one hand and that goofy, irrepressible smile plastered on his face. Almost frozen in time—good-humored, untouched. As if nothing’s happened, nothing’s changed. Suave, and standing there like he hasn’t ignored you for months on end, like your and JT’s absence in his life wasn’t felt the way the Tyson-sized void in yours was.

Idle and morose, his eyes are the only defectors to his blasé demeanor. Timid and downturned, akin to a kicked puppy, they beg you and your boyfriend to assuage his guilt. An olive branch, a white flag in the wind. Amid their vulnerability, they still manage to cut into you in a way that feels too intimate, too honest—too much.

The worst part of this charged maelstrom is knowing Tyson isn’t capable of being cruel on purpose, then or now. It's bittersweet.

Careless or callous, it hurts all the same. It’s difficult to sift through the muck and decide which feelings should guide your actions when there’s no easy place to lay blame.

A gnarly, muddy morass of emotion climbs out of your gut and fills your throat, threatening to make an appearance each time you dare to exhale. You’re nervous and confused, elated and optimistic, angry and reproachful. The burn of betrayal rushes up your neck and across the bridge of your nose, but all the words you’ve stockpiled for this rainy day stick to your tongue like tar. Dark, thick, and flammable—your silence is probably for the best.

Bronze eyes, somber beneath the fan of flaxen lashes, adopt a strange aloofness that doesn’t suit his face. Lacquered just so as to protect the gooey softness beneath, the finish does nothing to obstruct or disguise his desirous longing or a brand of blues you’ve never seen in him before.

The intensity of your braided gazes is sanguine at best, duplicitous at worst, but disorienting all the same.

Anxiously, you chew on time; you’re trying your best not to swallow minutes and hours in big gulps. Your attempts to savor their confounding guilty-pleasure flavor are as futile as hoping the animosity would dissipate on its own. Or wishing the distance was just a nightmare you were on the verge of waking up from.

JT’s pulse races against your skin. He’s just as affected, just better at hiding it.

“Took you long enough,” is what JT says in greeting from the floor, dry words flung over his shoulder to curb the growing tension. Blithesome and biting and far more hospitable than you imagined.

All you can do is blink, slack-jawed; there are pieces you’re missing.

JT chuckles at your expression. He pecks your inner thigh to regain your attention. “Fuck now, talk later. Sound good?”

His words crack any and all inhibitions. Like opening the door to a cage, his reassurance grants your mind and heart the permission to succumb to the wave of emotions—lust overtaking the pack with ease.

Eyes still stuck on the ghost in the doorway, you nod your head in agreement. It’s as if you’re afraid your voice might rupture the bubble.

“Figured you’d be a little parched, baby.” Tyson, voice becoming jocular as ever, wags the bottle as he shuts the door behind himself. His tone might be light-hearted, but his gaze is anything but. Starved is the only way you can think to aptly describe the shadow. “And we can’t have that, now can we?”

You barely register JT vacating the prime real estate to accommodate his best friend, and subconsciously, you scoot closer to the edge. You knew you missed him, but you underestimated how needy you’d become if he ever stood before you again.

Both men notice.

Grinning, Tyson takes hold of your jaw. His hand emits a small tremor of unease, hesitant where JT had been demanding. The accidental brush of his fingertips over your boyfriend’s trailed claim rattles free a melancholic whimper. Your eyes glaze over, watering as your neck cranes up at him. He gently tilts your face to the side to assess the damage. You can feel his eyes raking over the marred skin, a sensation akin to your boyfriend’s weaponized breath. Goosebumps rise in their wake.

In reference to the Neanderthal surveying you over his shoulder, Tyson sniggers. “Filthy bastard.”

Charming as ever.

“She deserved it.” JT’s nonchalant shrug is more dismissive than his verbal nod.

Wicked eyes twinkle. “Oh, I don’t doubt that.”

You pinch his side, offended. Nevertheless, you purr at the certitude dripping from his husky vibrato.

He yelps and bats your hand away. “Got you good, didn’t he?”

You nod.

The baby talk-adjacent voice is demeaning, but with your only shield burning a hole in your boyfriend’s back pocket, lying about the effect it's having would be pointless.

Propriety is becoming increasingly moot, as this conversation circling around you carves space for new possibilities.

“Poor thing,” Josty hums, his thumb coasting back and forth over your jaw. His breath is smokey-sweet, honeyed. “M'gonna make it all better. Open up, baby.”

It’s something straight out of an early aughts raunchy teen comedy, the way he holds your mouth open to pour whiskey straight down, doing so without the lip ever touching either one of yours. The thin stream drags slightly as it goes down, but you’d never know watching the pillowy spirit disappear into you. You’re too eager to impress them both to give in and react—to the burn in your throat or the circumstances of this affair. You guzzle the oaky vanilla-clove flavor, smiling dumbly at the toasted aftertaste, all too happy to take anything and everything you’re given.

Still, either by virtue of Tyson’s lingering tipsiness or your inattention, some of the amber liquid escapes over your bottom lip, dribbling over your chin and down in between your cleavage. There isn’t enough time to consider wiping it off; Josty’s mouth is sucking you clean before the bottle even hits the counter beside you.

“Would be a shame…” Tyson starts, briefly interrupting himself with a succession of wet, open-mouthed pecks he’s decided to spoil your décolletage with, “…to let it go to waste.”

JT’s begrudged scoff cuts through the trance. “Jesus, kid. Where’d you learn that? What the fuck have you been doing? Or should I be asking ‘who' you've been doing?"

Tyson flinches at the coarse overtone the questions carry. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of reaction only you’re close enough to feel. He just laughs into your neck rather than humoring JT or feeding into whatever he’s implying.

You’re too woozy to toss in your two cents in favor of either side.

Cold countertop lapping up your wetness, the burning palm cupping your face to aid the pursuit of sugary lips, the memory of his tongue gliding over your sticky skin—your boyfriend a few paces away, watching. That’s more potent than any liquor, mixed or straight. It doesn’t take long for you to pull away, in a there-but-not state of mind, to slouch against Tyson’s chest. Head heavy, warmed and spinning.

Happy.

“Somethin’ special, aren’t you?” Tyson muses as he kneads the tender spot where your hairline meets your neck. You peck his forearm.

“As sweet as this reunion’s been, you came up here for a reason. Get to it; we don’t have all night. I imagine La Tornade will be wanting his bathroom back eventually.”

You whimper at the sharp edge of his voice, even though you weren’t the intended target.

JT’s dark drawl was laden with protective affection for you, his devotion hardened by a hue of discontent reminiscent of a paternal chide. An outsider looking in might not see beyond the mediator-in-shining-armor ruse, mistakenly pruning away JT’s thorny pain and rotted grief, but you know better. The situation and him. While genuine, his defense of your bruised feelings is a trojan horse for his own. He’s conveying his rage how he can: under the guise of selflessness.

Tyson gulps, eyes downcasted, then nods. He understands as well as you do. When he finally looks up, the shadow’s fallen over his face once more, cloud drooped low overhead.

“You’re scaring me, Josty.”

This makes him laugh, his mood brightening a tad. “If anyone should be scared, it’s me.”

In your periphery, you catch JT urging him to continue with a stiff glare.

“I-I’ve been such an ass. I—I just care so damn much. About you. About Compher, and our friendship. When you graduated, m-my whole world changed. Like someone gutted my life, scooped out all the good, comfortable stuff and left me with the shell. I felt like I lost my people. Like I was left behind. And then I had to watch you two get closer than ever—without me. It fucking sucked, and I didn’t cope well. Didn’t cope at all, really. Kate’ll tell you, she took the brunt of my tailspin.”

You can’t help but snort despite the thick emotion welling up behind your eyes. The boys smile, too. Things look up.

Tyson takes your hand in a tight squeeze; his pulse jumps into your palm. “But that’s no excuse for what I did—didn’t do. How I treated you. You were trying so hard, and all I did was punish you for it. For constantly reminding me you guys are there and not here. For moving on with your life like you’re supposed to.”

He claims JT’s old spot knelt between your parted knees. “And I’m sorry. So deeply sorry, baby. Please let me make it up to you—let me apologize properly.”

Tears of his own shine up at you from his flushed cheeks. Gently, you take his face in your hands, rubbing away the spilled emotion with the soft pads of your thumbs.

A silent pardon.

The walls throw back the echo of his low, audible content—of relief.

“Is this okay?” His voice is barely a whisper, dwindling to a hush as the question tapers off.

Too determined to quiet his audible fear of rejection—and to have his mouth on you as fast as humanly possible—to bother with words, you nod immediately.

“With how much she’s been dripping onto the counter since you walked in, what do you think?” JT interjects, mood vastly improved.

Your cheeks and neck heat just as he intended.

The younger forward chuckles, hands massaging up and down your sensitive thighs, gripping them as if holding himself back from lunging too soon.

A predator lurking in the brush, lying in wait.

“I wasn’t gonna say anything. Didn’t want to embarrass her.” He winks up at you, confidence rising to the surface once more. You have to fight to maintain eye contact; he’s that stupidly attractive. “ —was try t’be a gentleman.”

You’re a flurry of butterflies, a whimpering mess.

Tyson wants to tease your body; it’s in his nature. But he won’t. Namely, because he can’t. No matter how good some old-fashioned edging would eventually make you feel, he’s already on JT’s shit list as is.

Besides, he’s only been fiending for a taste since you introduced yourself to him. And there's no time like the present...

Your guttural scream—an appropriate, albeit mortifying reaction to his baby pink lips enveloping your swollen clit—pumps his chest full with pride. Tongue flat, he charts the length of your heat with a gentleness you hadn’t thought your collective excitement would allow for. His hands coast over your legs, syncing with his mouth, until he physically cannot wait any longer. One final pass, one so agonizingly slow your greedy hips thoughtlessly vie for more of anything, brings his wistful, fidgeting digits to rest at the apex of your thighs.

“Pause.”

JT’s clipped command is a bucket of ice water.

Your vocal annoyance is matched by Tyson’s, but you both know how delicate a game you’re playing.

With his thumb still lazily swirling to your clit, Tyson’s inquisitive head begins to turn around. Before he gets anywhere worthwhile, it’s swiftly spun back into place by your boyfriend’s firm hand.

You can’t even convey how hot you find JT’s fingers casually twisting in his friend’s curly mop—just the way you love; all you manage is a warbled, mostly airy cry. Your distressed state worsens watching the show unfold between your lax, parted knees: reluctant, fluttery lashes over neon cheeks; a rosy, glistening bottom lip sacrificed to cage mousy whimpers, his ragged breathing betraying all effort toward feigning indifference to JT’s self-assured manhandling.

Your boyfriend snickers at your expression, a fish lingering open-mouthed for a surface sip, an ill-attempt to supplement a natural mode gone inadequate. No matter how much oxygen your widened jaw draws in, it never feels sufficient. A bottomless pit, a balloon with a fatal puncture wound. Gone before your depleted brain could make use of it.

“Have to make sure he does it right, don’t I, sweetheart?” JT’s voice is smooth and low, charring by the second; he’s enjoying the view as much as you are.

Tyson rolls his tawny eyes. Half-hearted annoyance. “Controlling much?”

“I know what my woman needs.”

The look you share with your friend is unequivocally feral.

And the growl JT hurls back, a low-pitched rumble permeating the tight space with little effort on his part, is just plain mean.

His attitude could not be more arrogant. The cavalier persona makes you shiver, and Tyson’s breath hitch. Humming, your boyfriend tugs on his curls until the two’s eyes are locked. Inescapable. The brunette gasps as he tries desperately to hold his eyes open, waiting with bated breath.

JT licks his lips, triumphant. “Open her up for me, will ya?” Mischief catches in the light as quickly as it falls into your boyfriend’s lap. His grip tightens, and Tyson whimpers like a naughty puppy caught red-handed. “Don’t screw around, ‘kay? She needs all the help her tight pussy can get, and we don’t have all night.”

Panting, his nod is the only affirmative he can muster up. And the only one his limited range of motion will allow for. Smug and pleased enough, JT all but throws his friend into your fire, his nose bumping where you’re most sensitive. 

You actually yelp.

Holding your torrid gaze, Tyson dips his marriage and middle into you. You groan out what you meant to be his name—But who knows? And who fucking cares?—unable to control yourself while he’s finally touching you like this. Finally back.

Tyson finger-fucks you at an even pace, steadily pushing you up the hill. His satisfaction is tangible when he pulls out and away, so very delighted by your wonton hiss of annoyance. Even more so when the volume hikes up in response to the slippery pads of his fingers circling your clit. Your lewd whines harmonize with your audible arousal as he works it back into your fragile skin, playing with your wetness, utterly fascinated.

“What d’ya think, baby? Think you’re wet enough to take another finger?” JT’s tone is as cocky as his stupid rhetorical question. He, however, made no move to conceal his growing impatience.

“Mhmm,” you murmur, head like a rubber ball hitting the pavement. Still, you remember your manners. “Please—c-can I? Can I have another?”

His smile is pure adoration, dreamlike.

JT’s reverent eyes stay with you, but his words pour down over the eager man on the floor as he coaxes you halfway to heaven. “You heard her, kid. Give the lady what she deserves.”

Kid—Tyson hates when people call him that, but he especially loathes JT's usage. There’s barely an age difference, but with the way everyone acts, it might as well be decades. It seems like no matter what he does to prove himself, he’s still the baby. Every additional candle is like an annual slap in the face, a mockery that won’t end.

He can feel anger and frustration curdling low in his stomach just thinking about all the attempts that fell flat, and he decides to put the grumbling to good use. The vibration is red-hot and deliberate against your responsive, slick center, irritation like lighter fluid.

He gives you more than just three fingers. He splays all three—wide. Even as they stroke your soft inner walls, Tyson keeps you stretched so as to leave no slack. Your boyfriend wants you open? Tyson will fucking tear you apart, happily. (Yes, spite is a factor.)

Highly sensitive and spread to the limit, you ascend far quicker than usual. Fisting a bushel of golden-brown curls, nails digging rapt half-moons, you guide his willing face to the necessary places to see yourself through. Every slight adjustment has your entire body jerking haphazardly as it struggles to process the rocketing shockwaves.

JT’s hand retreats—only slightly—to make way for yours, to give you more leverage to fuck yourself through it. Less than a foot away, your boyfriend’s chest heaves in time with yours, his eyes pits of lust you dive into with clumsy enthusiasm.

During one particular, delicious pass, the tip of Tyson’s tongue catches your strained entrance, and when you unexpectedly gush against his mouth in response, he begins lapping over and around your carnal connection.

“Holy shit — Ty, I-I’m — I’m — “

The denouement of your climax is nothing short of glorious, as rude of a sentence interruptor as it was. Half-mewls and purred praise rain down from your loosened lips, eyes screwed shut.

Tyson melts over the way you take control of your orgasm, so unabashed and authoritative. You go after what you want; he respects that majorly. And getting to feel and taste what makes you tick doesn’t hurt either.

Neither do you and your pretty, throbbing walls cutting off blood flow while your boyfriend tugs his hair from behind.

“Just like that, keep fucking her through it. Did so good—doin’ so good for us.”

JT’s praise sends the brunette’s unoccupied hand right to his bulge.

This is the best he’s felt in months.

There’s the mythical balance of bliss-to-tension to key up his senses, shooting white-hot tingles of want from his head to his feet and flaming between his ribs, affection for you. You forgive him, JT forgives him, and, most importantly, he forgives himself.

He feels buoyant with his face coated in your climax, so much so that it runs down from his chin to his neck, staining the collar of his beer-soaked tee; he hopes you might return his favor later.

Josty’s guilty hand is knocked away by a firm toe.

“Y’haven’t earned it, bud,” his mentor chides.

The delinquent appendage flops lamely at his side for a split second, then lifts beside his nose to join its partner at your slick core. As if remembering there’s work to be done, a goal to attain. Beneath this new asset, your achy, spent clit pulses, egging him on with every thump, thump, thump.

Tempting him to do something, to take it further…

He thinks about it. Fuck, does he think about it—you can see the tape winding in his eyes.

JT can read Tyson’s mind through his skull, apparently. “Don’t even think about it, kid. Her last one’s mine, but you’re more than welcome to watch from right here.” —Your boyfriend points to the remaining space between the sinks, knowing it’ll be close quarters for you both— “Just remember: I only said watch. This is groveling, not a treat.”

And Tyson does. Without question or complaint, he’s just fine sitting next to you, sitting pretty.

He’s always been the perfect teammate. Always willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of the role. The only difference is he no longer wants his anxiety to be the sole motivator behind said selflessness.

Finally ready to play fearless.

JT helps you down; Tyson hops up.

Immediately, your attention fractures. Split between messy brown curls and lust-blown pupils and your own disheveled appearance: smudged makeup, knotted hair, mauled neck, and spit-stained, bruised lips. Thank fuck you’re graduated and gone. Otherwise, you’d never live this down—Kate might treat you to a taste of would-be campus humiliation later if she’s feeling particularly charitable, though.

Your boyfriend’s grip is heavy on your hips. Happy to have you back. You feel one hand coast over your lower back and down to grope your ass as if trying to keep you in the palm of his hand. White-knuckle hold withstanding, JT presses his chest flush to your backside and uses his free hand to yank every remaining hindrance to your navel.

He wants you on display.

Your gasp is rivaled only by Tyson’s pitiful whimper and twitching, touch-happy fingers.

The ginger’s chuckle is molten and deep, mouth barely a breath from your ear, his eyes pinning Tyson still.

Your mind rewound back to when he made this proposition, wondering how the hell you got from there to here.

“Bend over, sweetheart. Arch that back nice and pretty so we can show Josty what a good girl he’s been missing out on—what a filthy thing you’ve turned into.”

As soon as you’ve done just that, your boyfriend drives home. It’s fast and dirty; primal. He knows there’s no need, but JT marks his territory anyway.

You watch Josty’s mouth part like he’s about to ask you something. Staring through his eyes as if ducking into his pesky daydreams and up-too-late musings, all specifics watery and indistinct.

Ultimately, you wind up disappointed by silence. But, with the slow return of your boyfriend’s bare cock between your soft inner walls, it dawns on you; JT had used a condom last time. Even made Tyson retrieve it for him. The depth of your relationship is sinking in; that’s what you’re now watching. He’s mulling over the information, caught somewhere between wanting to swallow his guilt one go and choking on his own assumptions.

JT follows your charged concern, performs a similar triage, and then gives you a concise nod through the fogged-up mirror.

I’ll handle it.

At that, your walls noticeably ease, and he shudders, groaning as even more of him sinks deeper to occupy the newfound space. He gets a few strokes out before Josty slots his body between your palms to lean in. Here, he does something that collapses the simple but effective status quo. 

“Fuck, kid. K-Keep doing that.”

Keep rubbing your clit.

Keep playing with you.

Keep being an accessory to his pleasure. To yours.

Be present.

Be here.

“Such a fucking mess, baby. Don’t know how Compher gets anything done with you there, sweet and ripe for the taking.”

The two halves of Tyson’s demeanor are antithetical, and infuriatingly so, a saccharine smile split open by filth. It paints a sordid picture that must stand for itself, as you find it impossible to pluck out of thin air any coherent thoughts.

Be that as it may, your friend did not set out for a reply. At least not one other than the befuddled stuttering you’re doing.

A familiar palm shoots to your raw neck—tender, inside and out—lightning quick. You're yanked up before you can blink. JT mercilessly nips at the gaps in between his tight grip, hips pushed just as firm against the swell of your backside.

Still, he furthers their madcap banter. “I dunno either, Josty. And, believe me, the little vixen sure as hell doesn’t make it any easier. Sometimes I think she’s tryna milk me dry for good.”

If Tyson Jost were ever going to cream his pants—post-pubescence, it would be now.

Like, right fucking now.

The proclamation of your third orgasm is wondrous. Proud. Grateful. One of your hands flies back to catch the nape of JT’s neck to steady yourself as he continues pistoning in and out of you. Tyson's generous touch stays, too.

Your back arches this go around, head rolling against your boyfriend's shoulder before slipping back down towards the counter, free palm absorbing the impact of the abrupt sway. Too much, too much—it’s all too much for your tender muscles and soupy brain to handle. You surrender to the plethora of sensations, each more overwhelming than the last—half-collapsed back against into your boyfriend, half-crumbled forward into his best friend’s damp, tented lap.

“Not gonna last, sweetheart—y’feel too damn good, s’tight and warm, always strangling my cock—know you’re close, too. Gonna give me what you promised, Compher? Please, pretty girl—need to feel your perfect pussy squeezin’ me dry.”

It's refractory; your world goes from washed-out to vivid and back, over and over, as though impatiently flipping between channels.

You’re a tangle of sticky limbs and physical reverie, blanketed by a warm afterglow and cleared air. Body scaffolded by muscular forms on either side, your mind gives your body permission to slacken at last. JT’s arm winds around your midsection when it becomes clear the all-consuming exhaustion is giving way to the relaxation that eluded you for so many months. Tyson massages your arms, your hands still cemented to his knees. Your head drops to his shoulder, too heavy for your bruised neck.

For a long while, no one says a thing. Not intentionally or for fear of disturbing the peace; there’s simply no need. No words exist to shoulder that much weight, none able to capture precisely what emotions swirl between you. Silence says enough—silence says it all.

Banging cuts through your sex-drunk stupor. Again. The abrupt sounds function like metaphorical smelling salts, restoring consciousness and rousing decorum laid dormant. Your mutual, unadulterated bliss circles the drain in the absence of a psychological plug, ripped free, half-baked.

JT reluctantly leaves you empty and dripping, tucks himself away, and cracks open the door—only as wide as is necessary. Behind his imposing physique, you remain hunched over Tyson, waiting for your boyfriend to make the problem go away; you’re too tired to take any initiative.

Golden hair and familiar grey-blue eyes fill the gap, shining in your periphery. Barely a sliver, that’s how much of this your boyfriend’s willing to share with the world. You like that, and judging by his lopsided grin, so does Tyson.

“Paging Mrs. Compher!” Gabe hollers over JT’s head. “Clean up on aisle ‘Kate.’”

Just hearing her name puts you back in action. Damn you, maternal instincts.

You scramble to right twisted fabric and smeared makeup to a soundtrack of expletives. It’s pointless, though, because nothing settles how it should. No amount of smoothing, brushing, or tucking seems to help. Hazy vision and the legs of a newborn fawn don’t exactly lend themselves to effective primping.

And it’s not like you’ve got a hickey-remover magic wand stashed in your purse, either. 

Accept your fate, you acquiesce with a sigh.

Tyson does a piss-poor job muffling his laughter, which lands him a crisp swat to the chest.

As you stumble over, you catch the end of your boyfriend’s irritation. “—and you’re sure there isn’t anyone else to hold her hair back? Why can’t you do it?”

The gears in Gabe’s skull clank so loud you can hear them over the audible chaos seeping into your haven—he’s intoxicated, not stupid.

“CupKate wants her mommy.” The blonde winks at you over JT’s shoulder. His tongue gives a knowing click of approval at Tyson’s equally disheveled state. “And what do you care, Compher? Smells like you three already made your express trip to Pound-town, USA. How was it? I hear the weather’s hot and steamy this time of year.”

“Real mature, Landy, real mature,” JT scoffs.

The sound just revs him up. “Says the fucker who’s locked in a frat house bathroom with his girlfriend and his best friend. One of whom, might I add, looks like they got mauled by a hormonal freshman after a high school dance.”

“Can you two go measure your dicks, I don’t know, anywhere but in the way? I have a child to tend to.” 

You almost have to laugh. At the situation and at the words coming out of your mouth. At Kate, sick to her stomach like a kid who ate too many sweets on a holiday. 

Years have passed, but you’re all still the same.

“Me-yeoh!” Gabe sing-songs while miming what you assume are claws scratching at nothing.

Again, his drink is the sole casualty of his jubilation. A golden wave sloshes over the rim and onto the floor. The spray makes JT’s jaw tick.

The former winger offers a sheepish grin in repentance. “Whoops?”

Your boyfriend steals a glance to check that you’re decent, then side-steps out of your way with an exasperated sigh. His dilated gaze flits over your ruffled appearance, shamelessly drinking in the state of your throat but tripping over the questions dancing in your eyes.

He juts his head in Landy’s direction with a sardonic eye-roll. “Go on. Save your damsel, Mother Hen. I’ll fill you in on in the Uber back to the hotel.”

“Meet you out front?” You ask, and he nods.

You dart back to Tyson, plant a chaste peck on his flushed cheek, and then repeat the gesture with JT and his peeved lips. It’s faint, but they instantly soften for you.

Before they know it, you’re slipping out the door. Gabe gets an affectionate pat on the shoulder as you squeeze by him before you disappear in the direction of the Girls Only bathroom; no significant differences, only marginally cleaner and occasionally stocked with helpful accouterment—chivalry isn’t dead!

Lingering in the wake of your departure, Gabe sways like an inflatable man on the curb of a car dealership. A smirk twists his lips. “Nicely done, boys. Nicely done. Can’t say I thought we’d see the day—or that either of you had it in ya—but I feel like a proud father.” He wipes a phantom tear, the final straw. “Makes you wish you listened to Daddy Landy sooner, huh? Think of all the lost ti—”

JT slams the door in his face. Through the wood, Gabe cackles.

The two men slip back into sync as they wordlessly scrape themselves back together with the time and privacy you were not afforded. 

As JT yanks his jeans back into place, his belt clanking around like a bell’s hourly chime, a black velvet box tumbles to the floor, and Tyson’s stomach along with it.

The air shouldn’t, but it turns on a dime. Their progress is seemingly more fragile than expected.

“If—uh, wow.” A crunchy, anxious bark of a laugh cuts his thought in half.

JT doesn’t interrupt; he holds space for the blossoming discomfort.

Tyson rubs the tense knots along the back of his neck as his eyes drill into the floor. “If I’d known this would be our swan song, I would’ve tried to enjoy it more. I don’t know—savored it, I guess?”

“This,” JT says, scooping up the dud he hopes isn’t hanging fire. “— is what I wanted to talk to you about earlier.”

Before they got into it in the garage, before they’d been forcibly separated by Erik and Nate. Before they, punch-drunk and drunk-drunk, teetered between tears and anger in the shadowy, too-quiet backyard.

They spun in circles until they had nowhere to move but on. To make amends, to stumble through chary half-apologies that mean more than they say.

JT’s alleviation was short-lived; his calm trepidation squashed before it could fly. Tyson now understands why.

Tyson balks. “Me?”

Your boyfriend sighs through his nose, pinching the bridge. He’s bidding time. Digging for the right words but knowing there are none.

“I love her—and I know you do, too. I’m not upset; she makes it hard not to fall for her.”

Tyson’s head hangs lower, chagrined.

JT continues, “I’m going to ask her to marry me, but I didn’t want to do it without talking to you. Without making sure you’d be okay. Eventually. The last thing I wanted was for you to be blindsided or to feel even more left out.”

Tyson can’t help but snort at the sheer absurdity. “Left out… God, how pathetic am I? Getting all butt-hurt over a relationship that isn’t even mine.”

“Pathetic was going AWOL.”

Josty winces. He doesn’t argue because he has zero ground to stand on.

“But feeling something? Far from it.”

“I didn't—don’t want to take her from you. You have to know that, Compher.” The hurt’s been hammered from his voice. Left behind is softened sincerity.

JT’s smile is just as downy. “I do, and you’d be wasting time by trying.”

Josty chokes on an unforeseen bubble of laughter.

You love JT Compher so openly and ardently it might as well be a neon sign plastered to your forehead. He’s always been it for you. There’s never been any competition, Tyson Jost included.

“Thank god we got this ironed out before the wedding,” the older forward chuckles as he leans back against the counter.

They’re side-by-side, as they should be.

“Why’s that?”

JT digs into his other pocket and pushes something into the palm of his best friend, whose cheeks flame tout de suite in response. With a bump of his shoulder, your boyfriend tacks on, “Something to remember tonight by.”

Tyson shoves the memento into his own pocket, then raises a quizzical brow.

Your boyfriend grins.

“The best man pining over the bride while giving the groom the cold shoulder would make for an awkward wedding, don’t you think?”

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[laurancezvahlslefteyebrow]

In the End

-Based on the council’s recent conversations about what happens to the Shadow Knights once Shad is dead-

This is canon to my rewrite, so the final battle takes place outside of Barton. Mentions of my OCs, Eseryt and Björn, but nothing super major.

CW: Some pretty intense violence in the beginning

Laurmau centric but can be read as garauncmau

Enjoy :)

———————————————————————————

Aphmau’s sword plunged into his chest, hard and clean, pinning him to the ground. Her grip was tight, leaving blisters on her once gentle hands. Golden white tears fell from her pure white eyes, the glow illuminating her face. Shad let out a low and gravely groan, his face contorting in pain and anger. He held the blade tightly, making his palms run red with thick hot blood. “Irene..” he growled “You fool.” Aphmau looked at him with sorrow as she drove her sword deeper. Shad cried out before continuing, “I’m the only.. thing- aghh- keeping them… ..alive..” Aphmau tilted her head in confusion. Before she could ask what that meant, Shad’s hand dropped from the sword and he lay lifeless on the ground. They’d done it. She’d done it. Shad was gone. For good. The world was finally free from his rein. Lina would be safe. But Aaron was gone, and he wouldn’t be coming back. Aphmau had hoped to find a way to save him, but in the end she figured he’d want this. Now he can be with his wife and child once more.

Slowly, Aphmau’s.. or rather.. Irene’s wings folded into her back and disappeared, the glow in her eyes faded back to their natural amber color, and the sword she’d used to end the battle dematerialized. She stood there for a moment, listening to the ringing in her ears, when she heard an unfamiliar voice call out. “WE’VE WON!! THE SHADOW LORD HAS FALLEN!!” followed by a couple dozen cheers from every which direction. She turned around to watch the Shadow Knights retreat. Something about them was different. Some of them gave up, allowing themselves to be killed or captured. Others ran into the trees. Some continued to fight, but the red and black shell that covered each of them retreated into their skin.

She took a couple deep breaths before preparing herself to walk towards the excitement, before hearing a familiar voice call her name. “Aphmau!” The voice, nasally yet strong, belonged to someone she’d lost long ago. She turned, before running into his arms. Laurance wrapped his arms around her tight as they fell to the ground laughing and crying. His face was hidden in the crook of her neck, but she could feel him shaking with sobs. “I’m free! Aphmau I’m finally free! Thank you! Thank you!!”Gentle as ever, she pulled away to look him in the face. His hair was longer and darker, pulled back into a messy ponytail. His face looked older, though not in age. He still wore the clothes she saw him in last, though they hadn’t aged a day. He looked at her with teary eyes and a goofy smile. “I’ve missed you so much.” She couldn’t muster more than a whisper, her voice catching in her throat. Laurance chuckled, “I’m sorry I’ve been away.” Aphmau held the back of his head as their foreheads met, “It’s alright..”

“Laurance?!” Laurance and Aphmau each looked towards the direction of the voice. A tall, fair haired man stood about 6 feet away. Laurance rose, holding Aphmau’s hand until he no longer could. “Garroth..” Laurance slowly walked towards the large man, before quickening to a jog, the man making his way towards Laurance as well. They hugged harshly, armor meeting flesh a bit more roughly than intended. But neither cared. They hugged and laughed before pulling away and looking at eachother for the first time in a long time. “You look older,” The brown haired man spoke, “thicker too.” he said poking jokingly at his belly, “Gasp! And is that a grey hair?!” “Hey! Hahah!” Aphmau caught up to the men and they hugged all together. “I’m glad you’re alright Garroth.” Aphmau beamed, “To you as well M’Lady.” Garroth’s spoke, his tone gentle and happy for the first time in a while.

That night a celebration was held in town. People drank, ate, and danced. But most importantly, they laughed. Not a single face was smileless. Even those who had been injured. They were all just so relieved to have this done with.

“Lina is with Hyria in her forest, it was the only place I could think of to keep her safe,” Aphmau held Laurance’s hand, “I can’t wait for you to meet her Laurance, she’s going to love you.. You’re going to love her.” Laurance squeezed Aphmau’s hand gently, “I know I will,” the smile on his face grew and he leaned his head on her shoulder, “I can’t believe we have a daughter.” “She’s so much like you.” “But I bet she has her mother’s spirit.” They laughed together, hoping to stay like this forever.

“Hey, where are you going?” Garroth asked Vylad softly, as he watched him walk off and away from the celebration. “I just need some alone time. Sorry it’s just.. I’m not used to being around this many people at one time. It’s a bit overwhelming… I’ll come back in a while.” Garroth pat Vylad’s shoulder before taking a step back. “I know you will.” Vylad nodded and made for the forest.

The night grew late as Laurance, Aphmau and Garroth walked towards the Inn they’d be staying at. They joked and laughed as they made their way there, when suddenly Laurance fell silent. He slowed a bit and his steps became sloppy. “Laurance..?” Aphmau turned to him. “Hey what’s wrong.?” “Aph I- AGH“ Laurance inhaled sharply before grappling for his head and falling forward. Garroth rushed to catch him, lowering him gently to the ground. “Is he having another episode?? That shouldn’t be possible right? With Shad dead-“ Aphmau dropped to her knees and practically crawled towards them. Laurance lay in Garroth’s arms, unconscious. “Aphmau he’s ice cold. This isn’t normal! Usually these episodes leave him feverish. I- Wait. Is he breathing?!” Aphmau panickedly lowered her head to his chest and listened intently. After what felt like ages, she rose again. “Barely.” Tears began falling from her face as her breaths quickened.

The door to the infirmary swung open and Garroth carried Laurance into the building, laying him gently on the nearest empty bed. Lucinda came quickly after hearing the noise. “Laurance? What happened to him?” “We don’t know! Lucinda please, can you help him?” Lucinda rushed to Aphmau, looking into her eyes mournfully before moving them to Laurance. She looked him over quickly, finding no such wounds that would leave him unconscious. “Aphmau… I think you need to see something.” Lucinda lead Aphmau into the next room, where a large man sat next to a small girl’s bedside. Eseryt. She was unconscious, pale, sickly looking. “Es- What happened? She was fine after the battle! I saw her talking and smiling and- She was fine!” “I know. We were talking when suddenly she doubled over and passed out. But she has no notable injuries.. She’s been unconscious for the past few half hour. Now, when did you say this happened with Laurance?” Lucinda spoke softly, as if to not disturb the already worried man, “..About half an hour ago..” Aphmau seemed to be piecing it together.. What ‘it’ was. “Aphmau.. I have a theory. I believe that Shad’s death may be the reason Eseryt and Laurance are suddenly unwell. They are both Shadow Knights..” Lucinda gently led Aphmau back into the first room and sat her down. “Both.. Shadow- gasp Has anyone seen Vylad!?” She suddenly shot out of her chair, turning to Garroth. “Wha- Vylad? He went into the forest about an hour ago. Why?” “Garroth, we need to find him. Right now.” She left without giving him the chance to ask why, and without hesitation, he led her to the direction in which Vylad left.

It didn’t take long to find him. Leaning against a tree, head down, hands folded neatly. He looked to be sleeping. As they stepped closer, they could see even in the moonlight that he was more pale than usual, almost sickly looking. Garroth knelt down, shaking him softly. “Vylad.?” He spoke, “Vylad. Please wake up. Hey.” Vylad lulled over onto his side, almost like he were dead. Garroth and Aphmau both gasped, before rushing to lift him off the ground. Garroth turned to Aphmau, tears already forming in his eyes. “Aphmau. What is happening?” “Garroth.. I don’t know. But I think this might be my fault.”

[cocogrrrl]

drifters

you're willing to put yourself through hell for him, but a freak accident causes the situation to make him the one near death's row instead.

Kenny McCormick x gn!reader (Killjoys AU) cw: injury, mentions of drugs, usage of alcohol, themes of war wc: 4228 (minus the references in the beginning)

an: although its relatively easy to infer the lore and slang, I've provided a glossary n a bit of lore for those unfamiliar :D hope u enjoy this cause i sure did!

After the Fire Wars of 2012, California has been under a tyrannical rule lead by the quasi-governmental corporation named Better Living Industries. The company promises eternal happiness through "the sanctity of monocromaticism." Better Living Industries subjects the people of Battery City to brainwashing, heavily through the use of drugs to negate all emotions and possibly even memories. They keep an eye on every single one of the people under their control, prohibiting them from anything that can make them experience sort of feelings Killjoys are the people who live in the zones outside of Battery City. They oppose the ways of Better Living Industries and work to survive outside of their rule as well as to take them down. KN - Killjoy Name (Separate from YN) Zones - Area outside Battery City. Cordial - Slang for moonshine. BLi - Better Living Industries, can be abbreviated to BL/ind as well Dracs - (Short for Draculoids) Members of BLi’s SCARECROW unit that are ordered to kill (Usually anything that hold emotional attachment, such as relationships). Cloud - A group, and sometimes encampment, of dracs. Pangea - Culmination of three or more groups. Dusted - To die/be dead. Ghosted - See dusted Route Guano - The main road through the zones. Drifting - A relationship that is not platonic, romantic or sexual, but a combination or something outside of it. Often usually portrayed as go-with-the-flow thing. Ray gun - Shoots lasers! Pew, pew, pew! Used by killjoys and draculoids Phoenix Witch - A mystical creature that resides in the zones, guiding departed souls of killjoys. Ember Bridge - To abandon your team. Clap - A fight (not limited to, but usually) between a killjoy and a drac. Costa Rica - to go downhill. ** Very well aware they are from Colorado 😨 It’s just that the setting is in California. ** Tommy Chow Mein is a major supplier of a multitude of products in the zones. I changed it to Timmy Chow Mein in reference to Timmy Burch from South Park. ** The Trans AM is the car that the fab four killjoys drive.

—————

(I refer to the main four here by their hero names, since creating Killjoy names for them would cause a hell lot of confusion.)

“KN,” you heard Mysterion mumble your name with a slurred tongue against your hair, bodies flush against each other. You only hummed in reply. “So fuckin’ pretty. My eyes are only for you.”

“You’re absolutely shitfaced right now, aren’t you?” You laughed, turning your body to look at him and caress his face.

“I didn’t even have that much.” He rolled his eyes, playfully pouting. “Even if I wasn’t jacked on cordial right now, I’d still tell you that.”

“You’re funny.” You hummed, brushing a hair off his face to lean in and kiss him. Kissing him gently and savoring the quiet you two had together.

“Hell yeah, I am.” He started giggling, giddiness radiating from the smile on his face because of your show of affection.

“You ever think this is gonna end? Like, one day, BLI’s finally overthrown, and we’re left to build a new society?” You mused, playing with the flyaway hair spread all over the pillows.

“God, I hope so.” He sighed, his happy smile turning into one of a melancholic grin.

“Yeah? Do you think you’ll be excited if it happens?”

“When it happens, sugar,” he corrected, bringing a finger up to your face. ”But, I think so. I’m not sure what I’ll do after. I’ll definitely be with my family, but I don’t know what comes next.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, burying your face into the warm flesh of his chest. “It seems like war is all we know at this point.”

“I’m gonna have to unlearn it at some point once this is all over.” He murmured, a hand of his finding itself brushing your hair. ”As fun as it is sometimes, hell isn’t worth kicking ass. I’d rather be elderly on a porch than worry if I’ll live to see the next day.”

“You’ll get there one day.” You hummed.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll make sure of it.”  You were just spewing bullshit out of your mouth. These were promises you knew damn well you couldn’t keep. Even if it was a mere stretch away from you, that reality was covered in thorns. Despite your unfaithful oath, it was your personal mission to keep him safe.

 You felt a kiss laid on the top of your head. “Such a darling, sugar.”

“I know.”

———

“Wait, wait, wait,” you sighed, shaking your head in confusion. “There’s a cloud nearby, and we’re gonna storm them?”

“Yeah,” The Coon, promptly replied.

“Just the five of us are going to attack them?”

“Mhm,” this time Toolshed nodded.

“Aren’t we gonna die?! Unless a Pangea’s gonna happen, it sounds like we’re actually asking to get dusted!” You burst, jaw agape in shock.

“KN, we have no other choice. It’s either that or we wait for them to ambush the diner.” Human Kite sighed, parking a little off Route Guano. You all could see the encampment the dracs had set up not too far away.

“I guess you have a point.”

You felt a hand place itself on top of yours. It was Mysterion’s. He gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It gonna be okay, KN.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“...Thanks, Mysterion.” You couldn’t help but smile at him, knowing his words were tainted in falsehood anyway. There was no way telling of how this was gonna end.

This lifestyle was not one for the romantics. This life was not for the optimist.

Hell sunk itself in the modern day and, as a result, many people of all ages, sizes, and hearts are left to fight for their life depended on it.

You took a deep breath as you five exited the vehicle, finding a few large stones to hide behind. You waited for Human Kite’s lead. At one, you’ll jump in and get in a clap with the dracs.

You could either end up living or be killed, yet both outcomes scared you fiercely. If you survive, then that means you’d have to relive this experience again. If you get ghosted, then it’s game over.

But those two were just mere bad thoughts to the grand nightmare that was losing Mysterion. 

You two weren’t together. You two were just drifters, existing outside of the space of platonic, romantic, and sexual desires. You joked with each other like best friends, kissed like lovers, and persevere like partners—although any sort of action you guys had were few and far between.

You cherished those moments, though. You cherished him. Every single goddamn inch of whatever he had to offer. His touch, his brightness, his smile, his kindness, his scars that littered his body, his heart full of gold that was fueled out of retribution. 

Losing him was your greatest fear, even if you knew he wasn’t yours to begin with.

However, there was no turning back now. You guys were here. For all you know, you could’ve been spotted already.

 Human Kite started to count down as soon as you knew it.

“Five,” he whispered.

“Four,” you held your breath, looking over to the group of unsuspecting Dracs.

“Three,” you tightened your grip on your ray gun you bought years ago at a vending machine—back when you still lived in the city.

“Two,” you swiftly glanced at Mysterion, savoring his beauty with the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second you had left.

“One.” 

All five of you jumped into the scene and started to blast the Dracs—dust from the ground quickly flying everywhere and blinding everyone. Amidst the cloud of sand, you could make out faint, white silhouettes. That’s how you knew where to shoot.

Both hands tight on your ray gun, you shot every Drac you saw, inching closer towards the center of their camp—where it was most dangerous. You had to wipe the dracs out for the safety of not just your friends but even the other gangs that settled near here.

One of them came flying at you, and by the Phoenix Witch’s grace, you were briskly able to dodge it. They barely missed you and instead landed face-first into the sand. Putting one foot on their back to hold them down, you shot them in the head. One zap to kill him, and then another to rid your frustrations.

“KN! Be careful!” A name called out. It was Mysterion, signaling to look behind you. You could see him run towards you.

As you turned to face whatever he was warning you about, you were met with the burning sensation of a ray piercing itself through your arm. “Fuck!” You cursed, nearly tumbling over from the pain. You had to hold yourself up, though, and continue fighting.

The moment you were hunched over, Mysterion was right by your side to help you. As you seethed through the pain, rebuilding the strength to stand back up, he acted as your human shield.

Once you were alright, your injured arm held your ray gun up high, the other hoisting it up by the forearm. You two needed to get out of the center quick. Back to back with your ray guns out, you two made a beeline out of the heart of the camp shooting back at the dracs that sent a hail of lasers and bullets toward the two of you.

When you were merely out of their reach, you felt Mysterion lose balance and fall on you. Adrenaline kicked in and, despite the state of your arm, you were able to hold him up. This would all be great if it weren’t for the red you spotted soaking through the grey fabric of his clothes.

“Mysterion, are you okay?” You only got a groan in reply. “Answer me!” You yelled, shaking his body. He was limp, though. 

Only one thought had bore itself in your mind: you are not going to let him let go like this. He’d be ashamed of you, and you’d be ashamed of yourself.

You peeked from behind a rock you two were hiding behind, checking to see Toolshed, Coon, and Human Kite. They seemed alright, none of them sustaining any injury yet. You had to act fast right now.

It seemed like the adrenaline in your body was the only thing keeping you alive since you mustered up the will to grab Mysterion and quickly get into the Trans AM, setting him in the back.

You took off the jacket around you and wrapped it tight against his torso to apply pressure. You shrugged his jacket off to wrap it around his leg for the same reason as well. You lifted the signature helmet he wore, giving him more air to breathe.

“Mysterion. You stay there, okay? I’m gonna tell Human Kite and the others to go.” You said, doubtful that he could hear you. You shut the door, though, and ran back to the field to find the rest of your group.

You spotted Human Kite, cornered by a bunch of Dracs. He looked like he knew he was fucked. Luckily, since you were from a distance, you were able to shoot a few of the dracs from behind. An easiness was now settling on the redhead’s face. You helped him fend off the rest of the Dracs there. After which, you leaned in close to him to whisper something.

“Kite,” you said, pants breaking up your speech.

“Yeah?” 

“Mysterion’s in the Trans. He got shot in the chest, side, and thigh.”

“Fuck.” He cursed under his breath, worry evident in his eyes.

“We gotta either dust these guys right now or book it.”

“Well,” he scanned the area, checking how many more Dracs are left. “There’s not that much left. You think we can take them down?”

“If you wanna go through it, we have to do it as fast as we can, or else we got a dead body on our hands.”

“I know.” He nodded, running to Toolshed and Coon to give them the news, you following behind. In an instant, they all started to shoot, and you did too. It didn’t long before each and every single one of them was ghosted.

Human Kite was in the driver’s, the Coon called shotgun, and so you and Toolshed were left to take care of Mysterion as the Coon asked the Chef for places with medical supplies.

All you could hear was your own heartbeat. Coon’s incessant yelling on the phone, the sputtering engine of the Trans Am, worried back and forths between Toolshed and Human Kite, and the faint sound of the radio in the back were white noise to your ears. All you stop and think about right now was Mysterion.

​The sole reason why Mysterion continued to keep on going was his sister, Karen, who still lived in Battery City. The two were separated after the Fires a few years ago. Ever since then, it's been his sole mission to find her and protect her. God knows if she’s been drugged by Better Living Industries or not, but he was sure of one thing: he was not going to BL/ind make an orphan out of her.

What about you? Did you have any reason to fight? You were stripped of your freedom and innocence at a young age, sure, but so was everyone else. You had no one and nothing in particular to live for, so really you didn’t have any reason to truly fight at first. 

However, when you learned why Mysterion worked relentlessly hard to take down BLi, you couldn’t help but admire him. From the day when you learned about his motivations, you made it your sole duty to protect him. Though you had nothing distinctly notable enough to live for, Mysterion did, and so you found your new purpose. 

It didn’t take a genius to realize how your worries consumed you. Guilt was not a word big enough to describe the insurmountable feeling of responsibility you had bubbling in your gut. You were embarrassed, ashamed to your very core for your carelessness and stupidity. Had you kept a better eye on Mysterion, he wouldn’t be halfway through Death’s front garden by now.

Once you five had arrived in the diner, Toolshed and Coon immediately rushed Mysterion to a small booth to patch him up. Human Kite, on the other hand, assisted the hole in your arm in the comfort of your room.

“You really care about him, don’t you?” He mused, fixing up the burn hole that pierced your arm. You were lucky that it didn’t go through the bone, only piercing your skin, flesh, and muscle.

Human Kite knew about the two of you—or at least had an idea. Neither of you hadn’t told anyone about anything, but you were sure it would be easy to spot if they looked close enough.

Were you two open about your ‘relationship’? Yes. Were you two obvious about it? No, but you’re certain he would be if he could. You two were always preoccupied with taking down dracs and scheming ways to overthrow BL/ind, so you barely had the time for each other. 

You could only love him in unpredictable, small doses, even if you wanted more than that. That made loving difficult, especially when you desperately longed for any sense of stability in your life. 

“Oh, don’t small talk me like that.” You sighed, rolling your eyes.

“It’s true, though, right?” He hummed, tongue sticking out as he redirected his focus on your arm.

“Yeah.”

“Are you two together anyways?”

“No.” You answered hesitantly, a vague image of a pout on your lips.

“Drifters?”

“You know, you’re really chatty right now. Wonder where that came from.” Despite your rather harsh reply, you did appreciate the conversation you were having with Human Kite. It served as a good distraction for the burning cold sensation that was the after sting of the laser.

Human Kite didn’t seem to take your comment to heart, though. “You’re not denying it, though.” 

“So? I’m not confirming it either.”

“Tell him that you like him.” You sucked in a breath, partially out of your discontentment with the idea and partially because of the raw sensation of a needle and thread being woven into your flesh.

“Kite, he’s literally nearing his deathbed as we’re talking. I don’t think I can tell him that I like him currently.” You humorously replied, a dry look on your face as you spoke.

He shrugged. “If he makes it, then.” 

“When he makes it.” You corrected.

“You’re so confusing.” He sighed, shaking his head.

“Thank you. I pride myself on it.”

———

The next day passes by and Human Kite, Toolshed, and Coon had gone to the Kitchen, where Chef’s base resided, and also did his radio concerts. They went to report the outcome of yesterday’s mission and receive their next one. After that, they would pass by Timmy Chow Mein to grab some more power pups and extra supplies.

That meant you were left alone with the recovering body of Mysterion, which was resting on the booth where he was fixed up the previous day. All you had to do was check if he was breathing and alive—which he was.

However, he’s been unconscious since yesterday, so even if blood pumped through his veins, it still meant he was under unstable conditions. You watched over his rather frail and pale body, shirtless and bandages wrapped everywhere.

His poor state made you worried. It didn’t seem like you guys would be getting out of your current predicament any time soon. Hell, you’ve been going at it for years now, the term ‘soon’ just seemed like a hopeless promise to you.

The dead can be many things. The dead can win, find peace, and be freed from the chains that have held them down, but the one thing they’ll never be are survivors.

But, of course, eventually, most things will come to an end, which meant BL/ind would face its inevitable downfall. The question is if you’ll be able to watch and savor the souls (or lack thereof) crashing down.

Maybe Kyle was right. Maybe you should tell him about your feelings.

What do you have to lose? Definitely your god-knows-what of a relationship with Mysterion, but it’s not like you were going to ember bridge your gang. That would be reckless, and even then you were sure neither of you wanted to see the other leave the troupe and get themselves ghosted (or worse, drugged by BL/ind).

You sat on the seat across the booth, watching Mysterion's features shine from the sun that hit his face, adorning his features further. Mindlessly, you grazed your fingers on his exposed skin. You wondered just when he’ll wake up. 

The question of yours did not take too long to be answered.

You heard a groan spill out of his lips, words you couldn’t make out being mumbled by him. Like instinct, you bolted up from your hunch-over position and observed him with a deeper focus in your eyes. “...Mysterion? Are you awake?”

“KN…” He murmured, eyes slowly opening and meeting yours.

“Mysterion!” You called out, leaping across the table.

“Ugh, what happened?” His voice was beyond coarse because of his lack of use.

You stood up and headed to the dirty kitchen behind the counter to grab a glass of water for him. “Things went Costa Rica during the clap, and you almost died—that’s what happened!”

“Mmf, thank you.” He said, finishing the drink in an instant, setting the glass on the table with a light slam. A heave exited his lips as he collected his breaths.

You knew he just woke up but had he no regard for himself? You’ve just broken the news to him that he almost got ghosted, completely dusted. He seemed to not care at all.

“Of course.” You huffed, brushing off your thoughts and rolling your eyes. You’ll probably get back to that later—when he’s more clearheaded.

“How long was I out for?” 

“A whole day.” You sighed, looking at him as your head rested on your arm propped on the table. ”The gang is out to report the mission to Chef and grab some stuff at Timmy’s.”

“Alright.” He nodded.

“You shouldn’t have come back to save me.” You spoke out mindlessly, voice barely above a whisper. You meant it in a way that you regret what you’d caused because of your recklessness.

He might have taken that differently, though. “I shouldn’t have? KN, if I helped Kite and the others out instead of you, you would be totally dusted right now. That’s for sure.”

He was right, though. You couldn’t get mad at that. You were all alone back there, and the cloud of dracs would’ve ganged up on you. With Mysterion, less damage was observed, yet the injuries all targeted him.

Then again, his life mattered more than yours. He had Karen. You had no one.

“Mysterion, you matter more in the grand scheme of things. You have a family to find. I got fucking nothing!”

“Don’t say that, KN. You’re worth a lot more than you think.” He fumed, but his voice did not raise. Not at all. The look of anger on his face was clear, though.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” You shook your head, taking a deep breath before continuing.  ”I know I matter or whatever, but you have something worth fighting for.”

“You’re worth fighting for, though.” He assured, taking both of his hands to hold your empty one.

You snapped. Words fell out of your mouth quicker than you could process the rate of them going. “And you are too! What you want is so much larger than who I’ll ever be. That’s why I’ve been hellbent on saving you!”

“You have?” He mouthed, horror melting on his face.

Hesitant to answer, you paused, body frozen. “Yeah...”

“I’m sure that’s not just why.” He continued—the terror once present now turning into an upset one.

Strike you confused since you didn’t know or understand what he was talking about. “The fuck you mean?”

“Do you like me?”

“Duh.” You bluntly answered, furrowing your brows.

“No, you don’t get it. Do you like like me?”

“Mysterion, you sound childish.”

“Answer my question.” He demanded, his eyes dark and piercing through you.

Well, you were backed into a corner now.

In the end, though, you had already thought about telling him. This was bound to be found out about at some point. Kite likely knew already, so what’s holding you back from telling Mysterion?

Fear, that is—even if it dissolved into nothing when you were with him.

You took a deep breath before you answer. “Yeah. I am in love with you.

“And so what?” You scoffed, finally straightening your posture to shoot him a look of scornfulness. ”I know I shouldn’t want you this way, especially if our lives are on the line every second of the day, but I can’t help it. I’m so hopelessly in love with you that I’m willing to sacrifice myself to get hurt in the process just so I can hold you for longer.

At this point, even if you weren’t even thinking of what you were saying, you couldn’t care less. You were finally able to set the record straight and tell him the truth. Although, you began to falter and crumble with every word you spoke. 

“I want time to fast forward to a future where we’re together, and everything is normal. I can’t, though. That’s why I settle for second best—which is protecting you and waiting for that day to come.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” You spat.

You couldn’t read his reaction. You were helpless at that very moment. “Sugar…” He mumbled. 

You didn’t want him to call you that name for the longest time. You didn’t deserve a name that praised you to be sweet, to be caring because, when all is said and done, you were a monster.

You only went with the name because he seemed to love calling you that, and you loved him too dearly to stop him from doing so.

Yet, despite the head you held high, you started to crumble. Your words felt selfish and how was he supposed to take you seriously? You’re nothing more than a means to an end. What if he found your confession embarrassing? What if he didn’t want to be with you anymore?

“Shit, I know it’s stupid, but I ju-”

You were cut off by the sensation of Mysterion’s lips on yours.

This was nothing new, though. You two kissed all the time, so why did this one feel so different?

Maybe it was the way it felt like it lasted forever. Maybe it was how your arms were all over each other—clinging desperately as if the other would disappear into thin air if one of you let go. Maybe it was because you could read the desperation and longing on his tongue. The petals of his lips on yours felt like a confession that did not need any words—something holy.

Whatever it was, you didn’t want this to end.

In your mind, the moment you two pulled away from each other with breaths crooked and awry, you knew one thing in that instant: you must’ve been breathing him.

“Mysterion…” You mumbled, forehead beading with sweat pressing against his.

“Kenny. It’s Kenny. Say my name. You already know it’s the real one.”

“Kenny,” you breathed, his name feeling like a cool breeze on your tongue. It’s been years since you’ve last spoken his name.

You felt his lips form into a smile on yours. “YN, YN, YN.” He chanted your name like it was his favorite hymn.

Everything felt like it was in its right place, even for a split moment. It felt that a fraction of a second was all you needed to know everything was alright. To know that everything is, in fact, here. You and Kenny against the world.

“What is it?”

Pulling apart from each other’s bodies, his hands found themselves resting on the space of your shoulders. “I need, no, want you. I’ve wanted you for so fucking long now.”

“Why are you only telling me this right now?” You cooed.

“I was terrified,” he professed. ”I didn’t know if you wanted me as much as I did with you. That’s why I never pursued anything with you. I settled to be needed. It felt more comfortable that way anyway

“Besides, romance isn’t for the zones. If I was with you, my fear of losing you would be too amplified that might even kill me.”

With every word he spoke, you could feel your heart break a little more. He didn’t deserve to think this way, and you didn't deserve him to believe in you like this.

“At least you don’t have to be scared anymore.” You said reassuringly, taking the sides of his face into your hands, thumb caressing his cheek. ”I’ll be scared with you. Two negatives is a positive, right? We’ll find a way to work this out.”

“Please hold my hand as we work things through. Please,” he paused, hesitant to continue his next words. “Be with me.”

You nodded, finding your hand intertwined with his as you laid a soft kiss on it. “For as long as time allows us.”

(You thought to yourself, ‘Perhaps I’m a romantic as well.’)

[stories-and-chaos]

Tarnished pt 24

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[Part 24/?? Word count: 2128]

[Cw: drug use, addiction, overdose, gaslighting]

—————

Fizzarolli was in process of moving his things to Lust. Ozzie was letting him stay in his palace until he got his own place. But the Sin made it clear he was welcome to be a long term resident. Fizz hadn’t decided yet, but the advantages were hard to ignore.

Not to mention, being in Asmodeus’ presence was…amazing. He told himself it was because the sex was so fucking good. While it was true the size of the boat didn’t matter as much as the motion of the ocean, having access to a luxury mega-yacht was just fucking fun. But regular bang sessions didn’t mean compatibility living together. Best to see how things went for a few weeks first.

Before that, he wanted to talk to Barb again. He’d been so busy, running around for Mammon. It had been over a week since that disastrous talk. Fizz belatedly realized she’d probably been high at the time. Likely she’d misunderstood what he’d tried to say and he needed to set things straight before it was too late.

But when he went to her studio apartment, she wasn’t there. Instead a quartet of imps that barely came up to his knees were. The studio wasn’t large by any means but for demons this small, it was probably palatial. They’d set it up as a sort of dormitory within the week since he’d been here last. And none of them had any clue about the previous tenant.

Now he was worried. Unfortunately, he didn’t know any of her current haunts. He had no clue of who she was getting her drug supply from either. Fizz had steered clear of the criminal side of Greed as much as possible; thinking back, Barb had encouraged that. Maybe to protect him, maybe to keep him away from her vices.

If she’d shown up to work at Mammon’s office building… even though it was his day off, he went over. But the office that Barb used was a repeat of her apartment. An unfamiliar imp was at the desk, sorting through the stacks of fan mail. “Oh, Mr. Fizzarolli! We weren’t expecting you in today.”

“Who the fuck are you? Where’s Barb?”

The male imp didn’t even flinch at Fizz’s hostility. “I’m Alphonse, you’re new assistant. Call me Alph. As for your former assistant, I’ll let Lord Mammon explain.” He dialed a number to inform the Sin and directed Fizz to the boss’s office.

“Fizzy my boy! Didn’t think you were coming today. Ya lookin’ pretty worked up, what’s got your balls in a twist?” Mammon looked as jovial as ever, with a scheming glint in his eyes.

“Where’s Barb? What the hell is going on?” Fizz demanded, his tone still hostile due to fear and frustration. “Did you do something to her?” he remembered Mammon’s disapproval with friend at his contest win.

“Whoa ho ho! Relax Fizzy, I ain’t done nothing!” He held up all his hands in an attempt to placate the imp. “Here, lemme show ya.” Mammon spun his computer monitor around and pulled up a clip of security footage. It was the main doors of the building and Barb was standing in front. Even through the grainy footage, he could see the angry tension in her body.

Then he watched as she picked up rocks and flung them with scary accuracy at the doors. He knew rocks wouldn’t break them, but her screamed curses and the sharp cracks of stone hitting reinforced glass made him jerk in fear. His tail wound around his legs as one rock bounced back and hit her face.

Despite his fear and the fact that he was watching footage from days ago, Fizz reached out to his friend with a cry. She was stunned for a moment, then “Fine. FINE, YOU HEAR ME! YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELVES! HAVE FUN BEING A PAMPERED WHORE FIZZ! YOU’RE JUST LIKE THAT TRAITOR BLITZO!” His ichor slowed to a crawl in his veins. Was that what she thought of him? The clip continued, showing her giving the building the middle finger as she walked out of sight.

“One of your new security guards talked to her about missing so many days and she went nuclear. She hasn’t been here since, so I sent some of my guys lookin for her. Mailed her a severance package, the check got cashed so she musta gotten it.” He looked and sounded sympathetic; that scheming glint was still in his eyes though. Barb would have picked up on it, but Fizz was too distraught to notice.

Instead, he trusted in Mammon’s concerned tone. “Sorry Fizzy, but at least you didn’t get mixed up in her shit. Or get hurt when she fucked off.” He squished Fizz’s cheeks between two hands and switched to a sing-song tone. “Can’t have my brand baby’s face getting all fucked up again, right?” He let go of the imp clown abruptly, leaving Fizz off balance. “You know what’ll get your mind off all this? Getting some clown practice with me! Then we can knock out some of those photoshoots we need, whaddya say?”

Fizz shook his head to clear it. “Uh…yeah, sounds good Mammon, sir.” The photoshoot would be exhausting but the clown practice would be a nice change of pace before that. Mammon strived for perfection in his act and from his employees. Fizz was always up for practicing with his idol.

He worked hard enough that thoughts of his former(?) friend hovered just out of reach. He didn’t think about Barb’s situation until he was back in Lust, in Ozzie’s palace. “So how’d things go Froggie?” Oz asked as he prepared dinner for the two of them.

The hurt and anger came rushing back. “Oh, you know, terrible. Guess y’all were right about Barb. She’s ghosted now though, no point worrying about her!” He forced levity into his voice, trying to keep the worst at bay.

“Wait, what? What happened?” Ozzie set down the knife he’d been using to chop vegetables and came over to Fizz.

Fizz shrugged and wouldn't look Asmodeus in the eye. “Guess she hates me now. They had security footage from a few days back. She tried to attack Mammon’s building with rocks and started yelling about me being a whore traitor like Blitzo.” He couldn’t stop the tears welling up at the loss of the last person from his childhood. “No one’s seen her in days. Her apartment already has new tenants.”

Ozzie shrunk himself down to be closer to Fizz’s eye level. He had millennia of experience dealing with the other Deadly Sins. This all sounded sketchy and precisely in Mammon’s wheelhouse. “You sure that’s how everything went down Fizz? It’s just Mam’s word-“

“I saw the tape Ozzie! I heard what she said. She told me to fuck off.”

“Look, I can send some of my people out to find her. Make sure she’s safe at least.”

“You said it yourself, Asmodeus.” Fizz’s voice cracked as he continued. “She’s gotta make her own choices and she made hers pretty fucking clear. She doesn’t want me around and she doesn’t want my help.”

“Mmmm,” Ozzie hummed noncommittally. “If you insist, Fizzarolli.” He went back to the cutting board as Fizz started ranting about Barb and this Blitzo guy. Privately, the Sin was considering his options regarding Barb. He was somewhat limited in what he could do, since Greed wasn’t his Ring. But he could have his employees locate her at the very least. Just without Fizz’s knowledge.

Because Fizz’s words said he didn’t want anything to do with Barb or Blitzo. But his tone and body language told a different story. Ozzie knew all of Fizzarolli’s history by now; he could see the imp woman’s disappearance was hitting Fizz hard.

For tonight though, he could provide food and activities that would distract his partner. Being the embodiment of Lust was useful for distraction.

The next day he did ask his employees that were used to Greed to look for Fizz’s friend. It took a few months but they did find her. The succubi that located the imp reported she wasn’t doing well, but didn’t seem in immediate danger. Ozzie wasn’t going back on his policy of personal choice; he kept tabs on Barb for years, just in case.

Almost a decade later, he was glad he did. Ozzie’s employee that was checking on Barb had struck up a casual friendship with her. But the succubus rushed back one day in a panic. The imp had OD’d. While the ER team had pumped her stomach and stabilized her, she was in bad shape. Ozzie arranged for her immediate care and to get her checked into rehab through his employee. He hoped this would get Fizz’s old friend on the path to recovery, but again, it was up to her to follow through.

Asmodeus didn’t tell Fizz what happened. His partner’s animosity toward Barb hadn’t abated yet. It was just as strong as his disdain towards Barb’s long lost twin Blitzo. Ozzie had seen that firsthand years ago.

It had been a semi-formal meeting of Hell’s royalty. Lucifer Morningstar, the Deadly Sins, and the major players of Ars Goetia as well as other high ranking families were in attendance. Many guests brought along plus ones, with Ozzie bringing Fizz. A large number of Hell's upper echelons wanted to meet the imp, get autographs or selfies.

There were also many lower ranked demons following in their master’s wakes. Especially the Goetia; almost all of them had an imp or two, carrying items and fetching refreshments. One of the strongest Goetia, Prince Stolas, had his bound attendant at his side for the majority of the evening.

Ozzie had noticed the scarred imp by the owl demon lock his eyes onto Fizzarolli. Fizz; entertaining a small group with some sleight of hand, didn’t notice the attention. The other imp’s expression started shocked, then changed to hurt, then banked fury all in a few seconds. But he didn’t approach the clown or leave Stolas’s side. Most likely he couldn’t, considering the sigil mark Asmodeus could see on his neck.

Fizz had eventually felt hostile eyes on him. He spotted the imp glaring at him next to the Goetia. He looked confused, not sure why this stranger was so angry. Ozzie could almost see realization click into place, as if Fizz was matching his memory to the man staring him down. “Blitzo?” he said under his breath.

Then, as Blitzo had continued to glare across the crowded room, Fizz’s expression hardened into similar anger. His eyes flicked over his childhood friend and he sneered.

Even when Ozzie was introducing his business partner to others, that anger didn’t entirely fade. He put on a good show. He always did. But Asmodeus could tell the difference in his companion.

Eventually they crossed paths with Stolas. “Stolas!” Ozzie said cheerfully. “Haven’t seen you in awhile, how you been? Have you met my business partner Fizzarolli yet?”

“Always a pleasure to see you, my Lord Asmodeus. And I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Fizzarolli. I am Prince Stolas of Ars Goetia.” He tilted his head slightly towards Fizz, in a slight show of respect. He did not introduce the imp next to him, but that wasn’t unusual with an attendant.

Ozzie made a show of looking around. “All by your lonesome tonight birdie babe?”

Stolas gave a hooting laugh. “Oh, you know Stella; there’s too much business and not enough gossip at functions like these. Besides, Blitzø is plenty of company for me.”

Meanwhile, the two imps continued to glare silently. Fizz caught sight of Blitzo’s forehead up close and if anything he seemed angrier. Ozzie could see them both seething, not able to do anything with all the royals around. He and Stolas chatted a bit longer before Ozzie made the excuse of “Fizzarolli and I have a lot of his fans to meet still, we’ll catch up later Stolas.”

Stolas for his part, nodded and replied “It seems my presence is requested by my father. Another time Asmodeus. Come along Blitzø.” There was a faint glow at the imp’s neck as the pair made their way through the crowd. Throughout the night, the two imps continued to send furious looks at each other, beneath the noses of demonic royalty.

When Ozzie asked Fizz about the other imp later, a naked Fizzarolli launched into a familiar tirade as he paced around their rumpled bed. Ozzie let him vent everything out, the image of patience. He artfully draped a silken sheet over himself. When Fizz had finally ran out of words, the Sin’s pinup style pose had the desired effect. But afterwards, Asmodeus resolved to have that follow up with Stolas.

—————

<<First <Prev Next>

[midnightprelude]

Major Arcana: Magician, Reversed

Written by @oftachancer and I for the @30daysofdorian event!

Masterpost | First | Previous | Next

CW: conversion therapy (aftermath); successful blood magic ritual; recovering from trauma; adopted children; sexual dysfunction; BLOOD MAGIC RITUAL, THIS IS THE ONE, FOLKS. Skip if you need to, it was hard for me to write.

The white domed ceiling reflected red. Dorian knew this room. His father’s work room. White marble seamlessly inlaid, forming nearly imperceptible patterns across the walls and the floor and the ceiling, an orb of white on white. Only the ceiling looked red. Pink. Orange. Red. Shifting lights altered the intensity of the colors. 

He tried to move, but there were straps around his wrists, his arms, his thighs, his torso. Pinned. Grasped. 

“Don’t-“ Halward’s voice reached him as though from a great distance.

“The blood must be joined,” a quiet voice insisted. Unfamiliar. Tevene. Female. 

Dorian felt pressure at his left arm, then a sharp ache and the rush of heat across his skin. “Pater,” he managed to croak. He felt dizzy, the room slowly spinning around him. “Please-“

“You said he wouldn’t wake up,” his father hissed.

“It is all one, my lord. Part of the process.” 

Dorian groaned as another thin line was sliced into his thigh and the woman began to chant gutturally. 

Dorian pulled at his bindings, searched for the power that had always come so easily to him, but it was gone. Locked away. Suppressed.

“Pater!” Dorian shouted, panicked, voice echoing through the room, the reverberations joining her chant. “Halward. Look at me. Look at-“ Another slice, a shallow one traveling from his chest, down to his hips. He gasped, panting, as runes painted themself on his skin, in his own blood and that of- Floating from some other corner of the room. “Look at what you’re- Look me in the bloody eyes, father.”

“I will. Soon enough.” His voice in darkness. The coward. His whole life, he’d looked up to this man. His whole life, he’d tried to please him, to prove to him- “You will thank me. Eventually.”

A last resort. What else did Halward have left to lose? His son meant nothing to him. Nothing. Less than nothing. A continual stain. A pestilence. A problem, to be fixed- to be-

The blade sliced into one palm, then the other, Dorian’s vision going red, runes dancing in the air.

“I will hate you,” Dorian hissed, pulling desperately at his bindings. “I will denounce you. I will take your damned legacy and burn it to the ground. I am not your son any longer.”

“You will be,” Halward told him quietly. His face swam into view, dark circles and pinched eyes. “It is your legacy, too. You’ll understand.”

Dorian pulled as hard as he could, one of the chains bending, a sharp snap in his wrist sending another wave of agony through him. He fought through it, feeling as though he might faint, and spat in his father’s face before the world, his mind, was consumed by blood.

[chilopodacrudus]

Who do you Want to Be? Chapter 12: The Dripping Tap

CW: Graphic depictions of violence; cannibalism, cults, (extremely NON romanticized) physical and verbal abuse, major character death, death, blood and torture.

Allison had uncovered her ears; staring out into the darkness across the dungeon as she lay in bed. The sound of the tearing of flesh; metal and teeth against skin. She grew numb; the dim hum of dissociation as Piers tore into who was once Jessie. He had made his way through his chest; eagerly gripping his teeth into the man’s heart, it still felt warm, newly still. There was only one thought on Allison’s mind; a thought that has been just under the surface for awhile now.

Piers: Panting; having eaten his fill, desperation in his eye, he managed to mutter out under a hushed tone. “Thank you.” He was covered in blood and gore; he thought nothing of it, though with the latch now shut again came the familiar static and his mind cleared. ‘I had to’ he thought to himself; the justifications starting. ‘He wouldn’t have fed me anything else; he would have left Allison here down with me for days, weeks, I would have snapped, it would have been her instead.’ Half contented with his guilt he finally stood up; shaky and turned his way towards Allison.

Allison: Piers’ movement caused her to begin her descent back to reality; she turned her head to look at him, she shouldn’t have. Her body cringed as her eyes quickly flickered over the scene behind him; sitting up at the head of the bed and holding her head down, fiddling with her hands idly, struggling to look at this man, her hope. She swallowed her words and waited for him to come closer.

Piers: Making his way to her he sat at the side of the bed; clasping his hands together loosely in his lap as he tried to control his breathing. He had nothing to say to her; he knew she had something to say to him however, he felt the tension in her chest.

Allison: “What makes me different Piers…?” She blurted out; panic in her breath but her words came out relatively numb.

Piers: Turning his head to her; fresh blood still dripping from his mouth and metal fangs, eyes narrow but wild, more beast than man. “Nothing.”

Allison: She didn’t know what to expect; this visage of death in front of her but his words cut her deep.

Piers: He continued; his voice an eerie calm. “You don’t have to be anything ‘different’ for me...Allison…” Her name burned his tongue with temptation; he briefly entertained the idea of tasting her too but pushed those thoughts down as he scooted closer to her in the bed and ended up laying beside of her, curled breathlessly on his side, staring up at her, the dim light of their cage outlining her form in his eyes. He thought her holy. “I know you hate me...but now you know me...I’ve done this many times willingly...so what’s one ‘unwilling’ time...it counts for nothing I’m still guilty either way.” His eyes went wide. “I hate liars. I’ve never lied to you.” Allison: She flinched at the intensity of his last words ‘liars’ she looked to the side then back to him and finally gave in; curling up in front of him to stare him in the eye. ‘I don’t hate you Piers’ she thought to herself ‘I don’t have the capacity to hate anyone else; I’ve hated one man with such intensity for so long’ she kept silent. She was in danger; she always was though so she barely even cared. ‘I can still use you’ she continued in her mind. ‘You’re still useful to me...I’m still useful to you.’ There was still something there; the many strings that Piers held inside of him; Johnny had a firm hand on one of them but she had her choice of others, perhaps more, sensitive strings. Her shaky hand reached out and cupped her hand along his face; she tried to smile but couldn’t and simply shook her head. “You need to get cleaned up…” Piers eyes went wide; nearly flinching at her touch, he expected to be hit but was met with...kindness, some unfamiliar type of it. Was he so desperate for kindness as Casey...as Allison...he had felt ‘kindness’ true kindness and he greeted it with the sting of a blade. ‘You don’t deserve this’. He caught her hand with his own; slipping his fingers along hers and leaning his cheek into her palm. His eyes closed; shaky breaths as he felt Allison tuck herself under his chin, felt her arms clench onto the quivering muscles of his back. He met her in turn; trailing his hands along her frame until he found himself holding her tightly, his form looming around her. ‘Maybe you’re different after all…’ There’s danger in that. He spoke to himself; as the mercy of sleep took them both.

[blzzrdstryr]

Hi! If it's doesn't bother you may I request diluc,amber,zhongli and ganyu with their darling died during child birth but as a the child grow up their the exact copy cat of their mother ?

Starring: Amber, Diluc, Ganyu, Zhongli

CW: Death, yandere

Amber

Amber is distraught by the whole ordeal, the realization of your death finally sinking in months after it happened. She just can’t believe it at first, even denying the notion of any harm coming to you, and desperately repeating to herself that everything is fine and you’re still alive.

“You need to travel far, far away and you will eventually return” is what she will tell to herself, spending her days between attending her duties as the sole scout of knights of Favonius and being a single parent. All the words of condolences and pitiful gazes will be either ignored or met with faux confusion, until she comes to accept that you died.

She will collapse then, overcome with grief and self-hatred, the mask that she has been wearing all this time finally slipping and cracking into a thousand pieces, as the full blown hysteria takes over her. Amber will loudly cry on the floor, deaf and blind to the outside world, as her heart processes emotions she kept bottled up for so long.

She will quickly recover, remembering that she has a child to care for. She will be mostly a good, understanding mother, cherishing the kid both as the product of your shared love and the last thing she has left of you. It’s highly unlikely that Amber will restrict the child in some major way, except for rare times their face and voice remind her so much of you, her heart is at the verge of bursting. She will be overcomed by the sudden protective and strict episode, for which she will apologize later.

Diluc

Diluc already has trouble processing his own emotions and your death will only exacerbate this problem. He will shut off from the world upon hearing the dreadful news, scarlet eyes unfocused, as his mind races for the possible explanation.

Why did you die? Didn’t he hire the best medics and doctors? Didn’t he monitor the entirety of your pregnancy? Didn’t he spend a fortune to provide you with the best care he could find? So why did you die?

People like to shift the blame in hard situations, even if there’s no one to blame in the first place, and Diluc is no exception. For a single moment he will feel so much hatred for his newborn child he will start seeing red. This feeling, however, will soon melt and vanish as he will take the infant into his hands, a wave of self-loathing crushing him for just feeling this way towards his child. Your child.

Now with no one to blame, a new thought will appear in Diluc’s head - that he's the one at fault, that it's him who put a child in you, which led to your ultimate demise. He wants to crumble this same second, yet he stops, remembering that he has a child.

Diluc will constantly switch between being the main caretaker and having the kid watched by the multiple maids, while he's away or simply busy with winery business. He wants to be always there for his child, yet sometimes they look so much alike to you, he has to take a step back, lest a wave of grief consume him. Diluc will definitely be an overprotective, strict dad who babies his kid, especially if they inherited not only your face but character too.

Ganyu

Ganyu is very shocked when she learns of your sudden death. She will immediately blame herself for this - adepti blood is a heavy burden, and maybe her being half qilin is what killed you.

Ganyu you will request a leave from her job, to collect her thoughts and spend time with the baby. She lived such a long life, witnessing the archon war and working as Qixing secretary for countless generations, yet this is something totally unexpected.

Ganyu will try to look after the baby, the key word here being "try" as she finds herself very unfamiliar with what she should do next. Her biological "clocks" will also pose a problem for her, as after living in a very strict schedule for such a long time Ganyu finds it extra hard to adapt to the baby's regime, sometimes unable to wake up in the middle of the night at the sounds of their scream.

Ganyu will also feel a certain guilt for bringing the child into this world - she is half human and half adeptus, someone who has never felt welcomed in either of worlds, and she fears that her child will experience the same heartache.

Zhongli

Zhongli is also stunned, but he regains his composure the quickest. An outsider might even think he feels nothing for you, as he calmly asks to see the baby, yet it’s far from the truth. Zhongli is just too hardened by the passing time to break here and now.

He will gently grasp the infant, marveling at the mix of the divine and mortal, his and yours. The reverence he held for you will be shifted towards the child, as he views them as some kind of miracle.

Zhongli will personally oversee the child all the time, yet he will also ask some of his adepti to keep an eye on the kid, lest any harm comes to them.

They will grow up amidst the peaks of Juyeun Karst, as even with the mixed blood they're still pretty strong and will need all the help they can get in controlling and embracing their powers. Adepti will most likely humour and entertain the kid out of their loyalty and sympathy, so the child will grow up surrounded by love, care and attention.

This harmonious picture will be shattered when the child will decide to explore the world and see other nations, as Zhongli can be a very strict and overprotective parent. He will restrict and confine them in Liyue if it means they get to be safe.

[poursomesunaonme]

HEY BITCH>:)))) treating myself to some lovely geto angst<3 (that whole statement is just so alarming to me now that i reread it). let’s go with “title and registration” by death cab for cutie heheh. lyrics: “…when i stumbled upon pictures i tried to forget / there’s no blame for how our love did slowly fade / and now that it’s gone, it’s like it wasn’t there at all / and here i rest where disappointment and regret collide, lying awake at night” go make urself cry<3

heheh hEY BITCH!!! sorry im so annoying yall i thought i’d slide right in at the end of this event hehehe

cw: heavy angst no comfort, major character death & manga spoilers, suggestive themes

your hand freezes mid reach. his smiling face beams up at you. rain pounds on the windshield, effectively muting the thrum of your heart in your ears.

his face hasn’t changed a bit, which of course it wouldn’t, being a photograph. somehow, you had expected any other visual of him to look unfamiliar and strange. but those same laughter lines still deepen on his face. his eyes still crinkle with the force of his radiant grin.

and you can’t move. you’re frozen to the spot, stuck in your seat, halted by his sudden reappearance in your life, albeit in the form of an old polaroid.

the officer gives you a ticket and you let him drive away from behind you. the rain continues to pour around your vehicle, the sweet smell drenching the concrete.

and suguru still smiles as your fingers close around his frame. you’re just barely in the picture; it’s only half your arm and a peace sign that made it in. satoru had offered to do the honors, but unfortunately for you, you had hurt his pride earlier in the day, so this was how he retaliated.

it’s funny how the same man made the move that eternally kept you from your soulmate.

the tears that fall from your eyes match the pace of the rain as you slam your foot on the gas pedal. the tires peal loudly on the wet concrete for a few moments before your car skids forward. the jerky movements would have scared you under normal circumstances, but no pain could match the wound that had just reopened in your heart.

the picture kisses your chest as you tuck it into your shirt to keep it protected from the rain. the warm mattress is a welcome comfort after you strip down from your soggy clothes, collapsing in a weak heap of sorrow.

you press a kiss to the film, but it’s no use - suguru will never feel the warmth of your lips again. he’ll never take you out for boba, or buy you tickets to the toy cranes that you’d like to play for hours until he got you a stuffed animal in one try.

he’ll never skip out on responsibilities on you when you both desperately need a mental health day; he’ll never practice braiding hair under your strict guidance; he’ll never lay his claim on you in the middle of the night.

the shocking reminder of your lover’s untimely demise suffocates you there, as you lay curled up with his picture pressed against your heart.

© all work belongs to poursomesunaonme. do not copy and repost.

[and-then-there-was-whump]

“What is wrong with you?”

I’m trying to get better at writing short n’ sweet fics that still pack in a fair amount of whump! Also, I’m a straight up sucker for villain whump, but not necessarily always in a world of superpowers and spandex - which is what I invariably think of when I read the labels ‘hero’ and ‘villain’. So, I tried using some different labels in this fic; I’d love to hear any opinions on them, as I’m still on the fence about them myself, tbh

CW: swearing, mentions of limping, not sleeping, not eating, implied unfriendly rivalry, mild physical attacks, blood, implied major injuries

“Alright, Antag, give it up - what the hell is wrong with you?”

Antag visibly startled at Protag’s sudden grip on his arm, and shrugged it off with a plastered-on sneer.

“I won’t repeat myself again, Protag: leave me the fuck alone,” he snarled, not quite succeeding in keeping his voice steady. Far from deterred, Protag’s suspicions were only further cemented by the strange, unfamiliar emotion underlying his rival’s tone, so different from his usual brand of venom.

“I’ll leave you alone when you give me some answers, asshole,” he snapped. “You drop off the face of the Earth for days, no one sees or hears anything from you, only for you to finally come back and you’re limping? You - I mean you look like death warmed over, it’s obvious you haven’t slept in god knows how long, and -” 

Protag stopped himself to take a breath before he could get too worked up and give the impression that he was worried, or something equally inaccurate. He took the moment to scan Antag’s impossibly thin frame up and down, unable to keep a grimace off his face as he did so. “...And how long’s it been since you’ve eaten, like, anything?...What is going on with you?”

He also wanted to know why the jerk hadn’t picked a fight with him in weeks, or when the last time he snarkily called him a nasty name in passing was, or why he hadn’t heard any sniggering behind his back only to turn and find Antag mocking him alongside his stupid cronies lately. But these questions sounded more than a little strange in Protag’s own mind, and he wasn’t about to utter them out loud - to Antag or anyone else, for that matter.

The man rolled his eyes at Protag’s questioning, and it dawned on him then that his rival had yet to meet his gaze, even briefly. His eyes were suddenly drawn to where Antag had subconsciously started to rub at where he had grabbed him earlier, as if it...still hurt. 

Antag’s tiny smirk did a poor job in masking the bitterness clear in his voice. “Be careful, Protag; think how disappointed all your little friends would be, knowing how dangerously close you are to caring about what happens to me, of all people.” He shook his head, smirk widening into a sardonic grin. “You’ve expressed concern, thanks so very much - that should be enough to satisfy whatever hero complex you’ve got going on, so you can move on to the next damsel.”

Antag turned to stalk off, but Protag caught his arm again, not finished with him yet. At this, his rival drew in a sharp breath through his teeth, eyes clenched shut in a wince. Within the space of a second, he cursed and jerked his arm back before swinging a fist towards Protag’s face. Protag barely flinched back in time to avoid a bloody nose.

He tried to punch him? Protag was here trying to help the jerk and he actually takes a swing at him?

A flash of frustrated outrage led Protag to growl and slam both hands into his rival’s chest, shoving him back with a force that had him colliding against the wall.

Antag buckled. Features twisted in a rictus of pain, he slid down the wall until he met the floor, slumping over himself. Protag looked on in stunned horror as strangled whimpers began to escape from between Antag’s gasps for breath, one shaky hand going to hover over the steadily growing patch of dark red on his abdomen.

Shit. Protag finally shook off the shock of the last few seconds and quickly went to kneel by his rival, moving to undo the buttons of his bloodied shirt, awkwardness be damned. It was time for some answers. 

Antag weakly tried to push his hands away, Protag ignoring him until, at last, he could see exactly what was wrong with the man he’d been so sure he hated.

Protag felt sick to his stomach at just how much a simple shirt could hide. 

[akwardlyuncool]

After We Fell (2021) - Movie Review

(Based on the novel series After by Anna Todd)

CW: Some alcohol abuse/addiction. (Brief in relation to the entire movie, but still notable.)

Normal Disclaimer: I still have not read the actual books these movies are based off of, so any reference to them is purely thoughts and speculation and a whole bunch of assumptions.

Once again I told myself to re-watch the previous two films in this series before watching After We Fell so that I wouldn’t be completely confused, however I was unaware that this one even existed long enough for me to want to prepare. Basically I saw that I could put it on hold, so I did. I also feel like it’s kinda better to go into these movies a little confused cause it adds to the chaos.

And boy was there chaos! Being that this is the 3rd movie in this series you’d think it would at least try to break away from its obvious pulls from 50 Shades, but it continued to ride some of those coattails very hard. Well actually, I take that back, it tried it just didn’t succeed all that well. If you’re unfamiliar with this story Tessa (Josephine Langford) and Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) (the couple on the cover) have a relationship that is packaged like an epic romance of love and war with a ridiculous battle being fought at all times, except its not epic, it’s mainly just toxic when it’s not being manipulative. Hardin tends to behave in a less than stellar manner, typically very emotionally immature and Tessa finds new ways to pine for him right before she forgives him. I feel like they eased up a little bit this go around, but it was laid on so thick during the first two movies that they’re not going to be able to come back from that.

It feels like everything is spinning around this couple at all times for no reason. There is definite family trauma, among other things on both sides, but the way they let those experiences be the excuse for every move they make, good or bad, is too much. Not trying to say that that kinds of trauma can’t have lasting effects on how people show up in the world, I just think they tried too hard to fit it into every part of the story without actually giving it the in-depth attention it deserves.

Speaking of not giving things the proper attention, After We Fell continued to rush it’s way through this chapter of the story. Many of the major events that took place never got adequate time to really be told in any forgiving way. It was like how fast can I tell this story in hopes that you forget the things we glossed over. Not to spoil anything, but for example Tessa went to the doctor and received some, in my opinion very hard news, however there was no processing of that news besides a few frames of her looking in the mirror and the movie just continues from there. They do that so frequently throughout the film that I question if the people behind this series actually care about these characters. Like I’ve said before, in online book world its quantity, not quality, man.

It keeps you mildly interested for sure, but it’s just not good. That leads me to another irritant I had with this particular film. Now it’s not a big thing, however the spice content was not sexy. My assumption is that the book is far more spicy than the movie was allowed to be. After is a New Adult (Adult books aimed at 18-21 year olds with characters of a “college” age range) book, and not going full spice is something the genre is know for, so this is not all that surprising. I also think they didn’t go full spice because they were once again rushing, thus losing out on any of the sexiness it could have had if they just extended those scenes out a few moments. Not saying they didn’t attempt full adult spice though. (Borderline NSFW) For the record though I’m not asking for spice at all, I just know the story has spice in it and based on that fact I felt the need to critique what was given.

I also need to critique Landon’s character real quick. His character was recast for After We Fell and is now played by Chance Perdomo, which is whatever cause he wasn’t the only one recast, however if you want him to not feel like a after thought and that you care, you can at least comb out the dude’s afro. Like Erykah Badu said, “You need to pick yo afro, daddy.” This series has never really cared for the Black characters/cast and it shows, especially to the Black audience. This critique isn’t about respectability, just the obvious lack of care they’ve shown to them. First Landon’s biological mother was white and then she was Black and then she was recast and I (a Black person) absolutely noticed, every single time.

Note: There was a lot of recasting for this movie, so that wasn’t an issue specific to the Black cast members, like I said, it was just another example of the films lack of care. That being said, do people actually want to be associated with this movie, and if not y’all got bigger issues.

We don’t watch this series because we think it’s good, most of us anyway, we watch cause it’s bad. We know what were getting ourselves into, but simply calling it toxic, New Adult trash doesn’t make for a long enough review. If you’ve seen the first two and like me are cool with watching the down spiral, then go ahead and put this one on. Why stop now?

PS: Was Trevor supposed to be in this one, cause I was fully expecting him to come back and tie up whatever lose ends I thought he created?

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Also check out my reviews of After and After We Collided the first to films in this series, if you’re curious about what I thought of those movies.

[irritatedandroid]

The Fire Burns Bright

A Personal Essay From an Alolan Marowak -Jasper (@irritatedandroid, @irritatedDroid)

Summary: Below the cut, this is a personal essay written by Jasper on his experiences with being an Alolan Marowak fictherian and fictionkind. Personal experience, discussion of awakening, shifts, instincts, animality, culture and spirituality are elaborated on alongside a critical view on community narratives and boundaries.

CWs: In-depth look on death, personal experiences with death

   I find there isn’t enough discussion on the fact that nonhumanity can be approached from multiple different angles and axis, instead treated like a hard binary of animality vs humanity - or if you’re lucky, a two-way spectrum. I’m someone who is nonhuman through and through, but the way in which I can experience being “other” from humanity can shift wildly. A strong sense of animality is brought on when shifted towards my Alolan Marowak fictotype - enough that I tend to strongly identify with the word fictherian. Though that sense of animality is its own thing, and is a wholly separate scale from the nonhumanity I experience when shifted towards my android kintype. But the experiences drawn from being an android could fill an essay of their own. We’re here to discuss the Marowak.

   Both very not human, both very “other”, but a wholly different view upon what it means to be human and not human respectively. And I suspect the scale my Marowak self experiences may be different as well from the scale any given earthen animal may experience. Similar enough to where therianthrope discussion rings loud mental bells of familiarity and understanding, but still something else worth acknowledging. After all, how many earthen animal therianthropes feel the raw instinct of fire breath? Were-dragons however may understand that one well. And yet that animality is not something to be ignored or to set aside entirely even if the axis runs at a slightly off angle in comparison.

   My name is Jasper, and some of you might know me, I’ve been around the community for a couple of years. Some folks even remember the internal grapple with identity and understanding that I had when I started being unable to deny I am an Alolan Marowak. The moment when the Alolan Marowak design was teased, and I had pointed out the familiarity as well as the typing before it was actually shown. There was a moment then when experiences and vague, blurry memories I’d held onto quietly for years without the priority of digging in deeper - as I was already busy with questioning and understanding my android kintype - became an absolute priority of mine to understand further.

   I often half-joke about how my “awakening” as discussed in nonhuman communities was completely rocky, as it was. It was less a solid awakening, and more multiple years of slowly accepting and embracing aspects of my life that had always been present, which I had denied either to ease my own responsibility to myself or to appease others. Folks in the community may recall seeing me step into denial, and to substitute in any possible reptilian, fire-based creature I could in order to try and understand the experiences. Because how could I be a Pokemon? I’d been critical of fictionkin while diving into the community, something which when looking back was likely a compensation for already having been something odd and to be met with criticism - the android. I ran through a number of species when questioning: everything from earthen lizards, to draconic entities, to the elemental spirits of salamanders.

   There were multiple aspects absolutely vital to communicating what I was experiencing, those being a) instinct-driven and wild, reptilian, and b) inherently connected to the elements of fire and spirit. My thoughts could be as unflattering as a scavenger’s instinct, growing frustrated at any leftover food or uncleaned-up animal remains (which sure made living in a populated city interesting, with abandoned scraps of food everywhere and the leftovers of unfortunate urban creatures who tried their luck at crossing Yonge Street), or curious to try and make a meal for myself out of the live insects I keep to feed to my own little old leopard gecko, Saleen. Yes, she was named after a car. No, that is not important. Having her around does however provide an up close frame of reference to draw out my own lizard drives. In terms of food instincts, raw eggs are absolutely another tempter of mine, as my carnivorous scavenger self would have been ecstatic to see a nest of unattended eggs to make a meal of. As I’ve learned due to that raw eggs absolutely suck, please cook them. It’s much better that way. But embarrassing nonhumanity stories will always be embarrassing.

   Some of us Marowak - especially the males like myself - could become quite territorial. And that territorial feeling is something I’ve had to settle in my mind over life. Nowadays it’s decently well integrated, but it does now and then try my patience especially when it comes to setting out what is for me and what belongs strictly to me. Renting a small apartment in a populated city, once again, does definitely force you to keep the “this land is mine and it belongs to me, so screw off before you chase off my dinner” thoughts in check. A bit of human humbling for an animal’s self thought. I’ve of course needed to remind myself a number of times that the tourists in the train station on my way to work, while annoying, won’t manage to chase off the Tim Hortons I’ll be eating on my break.

   But in the wild frontier of the Pokemon world, predator and prey dynamics were absolutely important to know and understand - and those dynamics reach beyond game mechanics such as elemental types and abilities. Even as a carnivore, scavenger and troublesome predator that I was when I reached the age of a full-grown Marowak, I still was in a dangerous spot on the food chain. The worst predators I’ve had to deal with while working to survive in my ecosystems were other Fire types, intriguingly. Even as a small Ground type Cubone. The fact that Cubones wear the skull of their lost mothers was something I am familiar with, my own having been taken down by a Charizard. This natural order of predation is both a major part of my animalistic experiences as a Marowak, but also did tie into my more sophisticated or spiritually-focused aspects that stemmed from my Pokemon identity and lifetime.

   All of this lead to an animality-focused time in figuring out what I was, to the point where when I was in denial of the possibility of being a Pokemon, I identified myself as a theriomythic, fire-oriented reptile. And the animality definitely tends to lead the discussion upon how I live and experience being an Alolan Marowak. I sometimes joke that you could strip that side of my life down to the bare essentials and I’d be a lizard hanging out by a campfire. Though it certainly isn’t every aspect of me, as the Marowak.

   At times I think on the term theriomythic, and how it could be extremely valuable in describing more than just “animal but from myth”, but to also communicate experiencing the self on a spectrum of animality and mythicality. In my case this spectrum is very much there, and the aspects of experience that make up me as the Marowak are scattered along it. All aspects are important to me and how I live as myself, as well as how I understand my own fictional animality and nonhumanity.

   The Marowak, despite being a wild animal in how I recall and experience my species, do have a displayed aspect of culture and even spirituality. Setting aside the fictional wildness of being able to summon up fire at will to defend one’s turf, we’re shown to be able to interact comfortably with each other when it comes time for rituals, such as fire dancing at the sun rise and to mourn the lost. Mourning the lost is a large part of how one can experience being the Marowak as well, as it’s a pretty integral part of the species’ canon lore, starting from when we’re little baby Cubones. For those unfamiliar with Pokemon lore, a Cubone wears the skull of its dead mother Marowak. Adorning bones in a sort of ritual to mourn is something that I can’t say I’ve seen an earthen animal do. If you have then please do let me know, because it interests me a lot. But all I can say about it in my own drives and thoughts is that it’s just what we do, it’s cultural. To cite the Pokedex, “MAROWAK is the evolved form of a CUBONE that has overcome its sadness at the loss of its mother and grown tough. This POKéMON’s tempered and hardened spirit is not easily broken” (Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, 2002).

   The donning and weaponizing of bones is both symbolic and an act of mourning, but also an example of tool using similar to some of our world’s apes. The Pokedex talks of this vaguely, stating “It has been seen pounding boulders with the bone it carries in order to tap out messages to others” (Pokemon Gold, 1999). The various Pokedex entries theorize on where the bone clubs come from, some entries mentioning a graveyard specifically for Marowak existing in the world, where Cubone and Marowak get their bones. Some entries state this like fact, such as Pokemon Crystal, meanwhile others bring up this as a rumour, such as Pokemon Silver. In my experience, it’s a rumour. I’ve not seen a Marowak graveyard, my bone club first came from my mother. But the main referenced use of the bone club is as a weapon, and also as a method of overcoming grief and turning to viciousness. “It is small and was originally very weak. Its temperament turned ferocious when it began using bones.” (Pokemon X, 2013). In my case, the symbolic use of them is as a tool of war, transforming grief into a vicious will to fight on and survive. Due to this, I hold bones and particularly skulls as a sacred object and have my small collection of skulls I keep as comfort objects. With time, having a large femur bone similar in shape is a life goal.

   Though it does then get taken a step further, when peering in through the eyes of an Alolan variant Marowak. A spirituality that incorporates the dead and lost is brought in and becomes an extra step of important, crediting the Ghost type aspect alongside the Fire. Newer Pokedex entries focused on specifically this variant states “The bones it possesses were once its mother’s. Its mother’s regrets have become like a vengeful spirit protecting this Pokémon” (Pokemon Sun, 2016) and “It has transformed the spirit of its dear departed mother into flames, and tonight it will once again dance in mourning of others of its kind” (Pokemon Let’s Go, 2018). Spiritual awareness is very much accepted to be something that the Alolan Marowak possess and engage with openly, even building monuments to the lost as stated in the Generation 7 Pokedex entry: “Its custom is to mourn its lost companions. Mounds of dirt by the side of the road mark the graves of the Marowak” (Pokemon Moon, 2016).

   Culturally there is a lot to the Marowak’s experience, comparing and including both Alolan and Kantonian variants of the species. The species as I remember are mostly solitary but I do recall clan dynamics and groups especially among the Alolan variant. These groups were less for survival and more for the purpose of those ritual gatherings, mentioned above. At times I was very foreign to these clans, being a Kanto-born Cubone evolved in Alola (a fact supported in canon and proven in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon via the ability to evolve a Kanto Marowak in Ultra Space). Behaviorally and culturally there are differences between Kanto and Alolan Marowak, brought on by how each looks at their situation differently. While an Alolan Marowak processes mourning in a more spiritual way, a Kanto Marowak becomes hardened by anger. “A MAROWAK is the evolved form of a CUBONE that has grown tough by overcoming the grief of losing its mother. Its tempered and hardened spirit is not easily broken,” (Pokemon Emerald, 2004). Because of this there was a separation between myself and the local Marowak that reinforced my solitary nature, and also influenced my introverted and almost outright nomadic nature in my current life and self. The fire dance under the sunrise was one known in canon. These rituals and dances are a custom humans in canon have taken notice to, and can even speculate the reasoning for. “This Pokémon sets the bone it holds on fire and dances through the night as a way to mourn its fallen allies” (Pokemon Sword, 2019). The fact that that cultural dynamic prevailed even through the difficulty of communicating is something that may be surprising, but a number of nonhumans know well that body language and tone of animal vocalizations can go a long way in communicating

   Ignoring these experiences would be a step towards cutting down and denying important experiences that affect me as a fictherian and as a Marowak. There’s important parts of how I experience being this Pokemon that are heavily grounded in a context of a mystical world where visibly potent acts of fantasy are possible unlike the world we are living in here. Some of these aspects can be emulated in more subtle ways through exploration of spirituality, religion and the occult. To dive deeper into that, I used to identify as Pagan, however now I practice what is called chaos magic. Chaos magic is a magical practice that developed in England in the 1960’s, working off of Austin Osman Spare’s occult practice and ideas. Chaos magic gave me an approach and freedom to incorporate what I know and remember as an Alolan Marowak into my every-day spirituality. Tailoring my spiritual beliefs and practices to focus on working with the element of fire, with spirits and the energy of death, bones, and to the very fabric of fiction crossing over into reality was extremely important as an avenue for me to explore the way my fictotype affects me in the modern day, and in the human body. This practice also gave me a bit of freedom to accept working with an entity from my source - Giratina - as a patron deity in pagan circles, which ultimately proved to be extremely valuable in exploring my own Pokemon identity. Practices like energy work, meditation, spirit work and visualization hit close to satisfying that need to be delved into the magical world we see in animation. And yet, even in these more sophisticated and fantastical experiences lie links back to the animality and to an inherent disconnect to humanity.

   One thing I always enjoy in therianthrope and non-humanoid otherkin discussions is an openness to discuss the instincts that are ugly, disturbing or outside of what one’s human morals would ever agree with in this life and time. And in a lot of cases these instincts and memories can become a lot more “ugly” than a scavenger’s drive to eat carcasses or the awareness and cynical eye needed to survive in a completely wild world. At times, a wild creature can have defense mechanisms or behaviors that to our human minds would seem outright malicious. And Pokemon, even in the whimsical canon, are no exception to that. Once again I’ll drag up a few Pokedex entries - as honestly the Pokedex is a wonderful thing for exploring the deeper aspects of a wild Pokemon - to illustrate my point. “When it beats opponents with its bone, the cursed flames spread to them. No amount of water will stop those flames from burning,” (Pokemon Ultra Moon, 2017) and “The cursed flames that light up the bone carried by this Pokémon are said to cause both mental and physical pain that will never fade” (Pokemon Shield, 2019).

   Yes, even the fun and magical world of Pokemon is no stranger to wild animals who inflict effects upon others that seem absolutely awful, and in some cases cruel. But, that’s survival in the animal kingdom, or in this case the Pokemon kingdom. It can be surprising to some that a person who’s fictotype hails from the fun and upbeat franchise that defined a number of childhoods may be hardened to the need to survive in a natural world. The things I know I had done to creatures who my childhood Pokemon fan self would have only wanted to hug, at least at a baseline mental state. In a shift, that’s a different story after all.

   But ultimately, this blend of experiences causes an interesting time in exploring myself within the general nonhuman community as it can be quite split up. Certain narratives of individual communities I can’t find myself fitting into, or find myself sitting in between. I settle into spaces focused on everything from therianthropy, to mythical otherkinity, and to fictionkinity, though there’s narratives and cultural aspects in every separated community that either are foreign to me or that I might confront as they expect clear-cut boxes between them which individuals can fit into. In therianthrope communities I’ve been one to criticize the expectation of a solid line between human and animal experiences, or in general animal vs non-animal with regards to forcing a further divide from the otherkin community. I’ve also been involved in discussion criticizing therian community narratives such as a shifting focus and the model of integration. The model of integration is interesting to me, as I experienced it in a way that I was unaware of at the time, particularly with my android kintype. My android kintype is almost fully integrated into me - I barely shift at all at least mentally. However my Marowak fictotype provides less integration, and my mental shifting will be a lot more noticeable against my baseline self. At times it can be as stark as appearing like a different person, or more accurately like a wild animal. But ultimately the differences in the closeness of each kintype draws up issues for me with the integration model, as well as having found it normalized a severe mental health issue I had with my traumagenic plurality at the time of “least integration”.

   The therianthrope community is far from the only community with narratives that put a barrier between me and relating, especially as members of each community push for further separation between individual branches of nonhuman experience and identity. I have trouble relating to humanoids when heavily shifted towards my Marowak self, and that puts a bit of a barrier between myself and the otherkin community’s more humanoid side - such as elven, fae, divine, angelic, etc. - as well as the fictionkin community’s focus on humanoid or completely story-driven fictionkind. I have no use for prioritized experiences within the fictionkin community such as finding canon-mates and creating aesthetics. Even in some Pokemon fictionkin specific communities I find I cannot relate often. My experience with my “Pokemanity” is heavily wild and animal-based as I was never caught, socialized with a human, or trained. In no way shape or form is my Pokemanity adjusted to interaction with humans, nor is it something that is settled down or subdued for human consumption unlike what my source was created for.

   In both otherkin, therian and even fictionkin communities there is a push towards prioritizing the narrative of a solid awakening. That’s one more focus in the communities that I struggle with, as like I said before, mine was a process of accepting bits of myself which spanned multiple years. Every part of me that is nonhuman has always been present within my life, though for almost two decades muted heavily.

   To draw back into my spiritual practice here, consider a practice known as shadow work. Shadow work is a practice that hybridizes spirituality and psychology, and describes the process of becoming aware of one’s shadow (the id, shadow archetype, or shadow aspect drawn from Carl Jung’s psychology) and working to integrate it into oneself by accepting the repressed parts of oneself that are pushed back and merged into the shadow. The shadow can be known as the unknown dark side of the personality, and I theorize that more nonhumans have undesirable aspects of their nonhumanity pushed onto their shadow than they might think they do, like I had done to my own Pokemanity for a number of years. In my case, I was slightly forced to tear into and meet my shadow aspects of my nonhumanity due to the fact that even upon immediately breaking into nonhuman communities, the specifics of what I was were already viewed with hostility and disbelief. In a way, it strengthened me. But with my shadow opened wide and not much held back, I can be a bit of a fire-starter in spaces where I speak my mind whether others want to hear it or not. And part of that is directly confronting the forced separation of animal vs non-animal, or the arbitrary ideas of what is a human experience and what is not.

   I can only best put forward my experience as a Pokemon through in-depth discussion, which I find tends to come across better in spaces where the experience of being by-and-large a feral animal is allowed without restraint. Ultimately a space I will thrive in most and be most open about my experiences and life as someone who is spiritually and psychologically an Alolan Marowak is one where I can discuss both my animality, my experience with fiction, my spiritual practice and the combination of these things that seem to be pushed into separate boxes. The Marowak serves a lot to my sense of self and to my life, and has psychological affects on me as well. It’s been a part of me that has fought through and survived when my life hit a rocky start early on, witnessing the death of my brother in childhood, and having loss and grief be present all around as I grew. The Marowak is both an inherent part and vital context in my life, as well as a symbol of my own endurance.

   Through it all, the fire burns bright.

Citations

Marowak POKÉDEX: Stats, MOVES, evolution & locations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/marowak

Chryssides, George D. (2012). Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements (2 ed.). Rowman & Littlefield. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-8108-6194-7.

Jung, C.G. 1938. "Psychology and Religion." In Psychology and Religion: West and East, Collected Works of C.G. Jung 11. p. 131

Roberts, Gwilym Wyn, and Andrew Machon. 2015. Appreciative Healthcare Practice: A guide to compassionate, person-centred care. M&K. ISBN 1907830936. p. 71.

[saintqueer]

On Being 13

by saintqueer

Date Written: July 2019

CW: brief mention of an eating disorder

I will be posting a series of old creative nonfiction essays I wrote in 2019-20 every Friday and tagging them #a saintqueer original. Some might be a little outdated but I'm getting my feet wet in the experience of sharing my own writing again. Hope you enjoy! My inbox is always open.

Your name is Jordan. It is 2006 and you just turned 13. You are officially a teenager. Not a preteen. Nor god-forbid a tween. You’re in eighth grade at middle school in the Bay Area suburbs and you just got your first cell phone. It’s a silver LG flip phone without a camera. Modern social media has been born but is not yet widespread. Myspace and AIM are still the name of the game. And your friend’s Top 8s are literally worth crying over. You buy songs you like on iTunes for 99 cents. Songs like Far Away by Nickelback and Jesus, Take the Wheel by Carrie Underwood. That is, until you wizen up and start using LimeWire in 2007. By that time, you’ll think your tastes much improved. You’ll illegally download songs like Buy U a Drank by T-Pain, Wait For You by Elliott Yamin, and everything Chris Brown puts out. Every single feeling you have is so large it’s like it has the potential to kill you. Weird shit is happening to your body. You started puberty early but it shows absolutely no sign of stopping. Things just seem to be getting weirder and more emotional. You cut your own side bangs and they look hella cool.

Ok, let’s pause there. I’m gonna go ahead and break the fourth wall here. Reader, I was planning on doing this entire piece as a kind of immersive second person experience. But. I. Just. Can’t. It’s too hard and writing about being 13 is difficult enough. I think that intro was enough to get you in the right head space of Jordan circa 2006-2007.

Over the last year, there has been more truthful explorations of the adolescent experience in media than ever before. With shows like Pen15 and Big Mouth and films like Eighth Grade, I feel like for the first time I’m starting to come to terms with my own adolescence. Being 13 is really fucking hard. And 13-year-olds get such a bad rap when, honestly, they’re just trying to do the best they can with all the shit they’ve been thrown.

I first felt compelled to write this piece when reading a section of a book from my favorite podcaster, Karen Kilgariff. Karen describes a lecture series she went to in which one of the presenters made a case in defense of 13 year olds. Karen writes that being 13 “is the hardest age you ever have to be because of all the chemicals and hormones constantly raging through your body. It’s like you’re being drugged and then woken up with speed on a daily basis. All social structure implodes and resets itself in a totally unfamiliar way. You’re simultaneously the oldest version of a child and the youngest version of an adult, so you don’t belong anywhere. You don’t get babied, and you don’t get respect.” Basically, it fucking sucks!!!

At 13, my eating disorder was already in full swing and my body-dysmorphia-riddled brain had no shortage of reasons for why my life would be so much better if I weighed 25 pounds less. They would weigh us in gym class, one by one, and assign us our BMI classification (mine was “overweight”). I was constantly dieting, with resounding approval from family and peers; starving my growing body of whole food groups and then binging. My school used to sell these pizza hot pocket things in plastic wrapping called pizza sticks (they were so DELICIOUS). One time, I found an unopened and still-warm pizza stick on the floor next to a garbage can. Wildly hungry from my meager carb-less lunch I picked it up off the floor and shoved it into my mouth, facing the wall, in as few bites as possible so no one would see. OFF THE FLOOR…OUTSIDE. I think it was on a pile of leaves and other trash (though unopened, it was slightly flattened on one side so it might have been stepped on?). This is actually the first time I’ve told anyone that I did that. Blogging is fun.

I was truly beginning to understand that my body was a commodity in society. I couldn’t take up space as a girl and to be beautiful was to be frail. My body was a sexual thing but I was not allowed to be a sexual being. Boys were the horny ones, not girls. But boy, was I! The thing was I couldn’t tell anyone, only the bathtub faucet could know. This was heightened all the more by my church and my faith. Youth group taught me the importance of dressing modestly and how we had to do everything within our power to help easily tempted boys remain sexually pure. I had so much shame that I had any kind of sexuality at all.

A majority of us wanted to fit in when we were 13. And I wanted it desperately. It’s not necessarily that I wanted to be cool, it’s more like I just wanted to belong. I wanted to have best friends. I wanted boys to have crushes on me. I wanted to be wanted. And it never happened for me. I didn’t develop deep lasting friendships until my late teens. I didn’t have my first kiss until I was 21, for god’s sake. My friends at 13 were changeable and excluding. I felt like I was constantly vying for their approval and as I entered high school in 2007, my social life became the center of my world.

Admittedly, high school felt much more enjoyable than middle school. I had established my place in the cool crowd and shirked academics. I stopped listening to Christian Rock and started listening to Lil Wayne and learning how to twerk. I cut class with a friend to straighten my hair with my hot pink straightener in Starbucks. I got in trouble with the cops for underage drinking. I got better at actually starving myself for a few days at a time instead of just dieting. I was significantly better at swearing. However, every single thing still felt like the biggest deal ever and it felt like it would always be that way.

Now, over a dozen years later, I hardly ever think about how it felt to be 13. I always forget that I “fell in love” with a boy named Alex at church summer camp who I saw from afar five times and talked to once for two minutes. It’s hard to believe now that I wrote his name in sharpie on my converse sneakers and sang I Drive Myself Crazy by *Nsync while crying and staring directly back at myself in the mirror.

This might seem unforgiving but I feel like the one redeemable thing about being 13 is that it doesn’t last forever. It ends. You grow and you change and you work through your trauma. If you’re lucky, you get better friends and you go to therapy and do some healing over ten years later by watching tv shows and movies that remind you of every painful feeling. Then you look back and laugh. You laugh at that school dance where Peter said he’d never, ever slow dance with you. You laugh at the school dance less than a year later where you grind provocatively on a dude you don’t know to Get Low by Lil Jon and the Ying Yang Twins. You laugh (hysterically, I might add) at eating that pizza stick off the floor. You laugh at smoking weed for the first time using a plastic water bottle your friend somehow turned into a shitty bong. You laugh at shoplifting your first thong from Ross. You laugh at your self-cut side bangs. You laugh and you laugh and you laugh and then you, finally, move on.

[starkeristheendgame]

If you are okay with it, I was wondering if you could do a body switch soulmate au. When you first make eye contact with your soulmate you switch bodies. You stay in each other's bodies for 24 hours. I feel like this could cause some shenanigans on both sides. Tony hasn't had to be taught anything in awhile and Peter doesn't know how to run a company.

I was a little apprehensive about this idea at first but honestly? I adore it. I am afraid, however, I took this away from the ‘humor’ pathway and plopped it straight down into ‘light angst’. Please accept my apologies for that - And I’d be happy to write something more lighthearted if this doesn’t hit the spot. Keeping your own emotions and mindset out of what you write is hard sometimes. 

Slight AU in that they meet differently to CW. 

TW: Light angst | Slight hurt 

He was going to lose his fucking mind. He could feel each one of his IQ points disintegrating as he stared at the board (an actual digital board, what fucking year were they in? 2015?) and tapped his pen restlessly on the desk. He hadn’t been to school since he was eighteen. The last time he’d been in a classroom was January, giving a motivational speech to Princeton graduates. 

He felt too small and too stifled and if this woman pronounced Epinephrine wrong one more time, he was going to launch his desk at her and snap that stupid board in half. 

Because he could do that, now. Displays of sheer power. Because Peter Parker had been bitten by a genetically modified spider and Tony was currently occupying Peter’s body. 

Soulmates were so, so overrated. 

“Hey, wonder kid. Tap that pen one more time” the girl to his left whispered, and Tony shot her a cool side-eye. MJ quirked a brow at him, equally unimpressed, and nodded to the board. Tony scowled but knew the effect was ruined by the soft, pretty baby-face he currently wore. Curse Peter and his lopsided brows and his huge eyes. Curse soulmates for existing. 

MJ was thus far the only one who’d noticed The Switch. It was only sheer coincidence that Peter and Tony both had brown eyes of a similar enough shade that the telling switch of eye colour between soulmates hadn’t given them away. MJ, however, was astoundingly attuned into her best friend, and it had only taken three minutes in her presence for her scowl at him and ask who the fuck was wearing her friend’s meatsuit. Tony had to begrudgingly admit that he could see why her and Peter were good friends. She’d looked unimpressed at his claim until he’d pulled out his (Peter’s) phone to show the frantic texts from that morning, and then she’d huffed, rolled her eyes, and dragged him to first period. 

He thought lunch would be a reprieve when it came, but instead he found himself staring with growing dismay at a tray of food that he’d refuse even if he was a prisoner, blanching in disgust when a sloppy excuse for a mac’n’cheese was dumped into one of the slots. “I’m going to die” he complained, ushered along by an unsympathetic MJ. “This is cruel. This is inhumane. Dogs don’t even get fed this”. 

“Yeah, well. You’re a billionaire, so. Put up or shut up. I have no sympathy for capitalist elitists”. And, wow, rude. But understandable. He sank down onto one of the bench seats and tried to stop his stomach from rolling at the way the meal wobbled when it was set down. He’d been poking at it for several moments, largely ignored by MJ, when a shadow fell over his table. He looked up and stared with disinterest at the sneering figure above him, before he sighed. 

“Which one are you, then? Neb? Flake?” 

“Flash” the form above him frowned, and Tony waved a dismissive hand. 

“Yeah, whatever. Class killed off half my IQ points and I’m not wasting the rest on you. Off you pop”. He turned back to his pitiful excuse of a meal, prodding the macaroni distrustfully with his fork. The boy besides him gaped, flustered, before turning on his heel and stomping off. When Tony glanced up, the girl was looking appraisingly over her book at him. 

“Maybe you should leave your balls behind. Peter could do with them” she noted, before dropping her gaze again. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“How much money does he actually have?” 

“Sir’s total net worth including assets, liabilities and investments are currently estimated at just short of a trillion, Mr. Parker. In terms of ‘real time currently’ Sir has £515,268,385,012 as of the current hour”. 

Peter was gonna pass out. He was wearing the body of a man with five-hundred billion in the bank. He’d known Tony Stark was rich, obscenely and un-necessarily so, but that was a whole other level. Vaguely unsteady, he sank down on the plush couch, feeling a little green. It had already been a few hours since waking, but he had yet to get used to the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, Tony Stark. 

“Does that bother you?” The artificial voice asked after a moment, sounding impossibly curious. Peter hadn’t thought AI of this level possible, but here he was, talking to a voice that was more realistic than some of the living people he knew. 

“Its...A shock, I guess. I mean, it does bother me, I suppose. Nobody needs that much money. That much cold cash alone could eradicate homelessness in America. But...I don’t know. Its his money, he earns it. He saves the world and stuff. I don’t know how you could put a value on some of the things he’s done”. 

The AI was quiet for a moment, pensive. “Sir’s ‘profession’ is high cost also, Mr. Parker. The worth of the Mark IVII alone is £6,000,500,000”. Peter thought about it for a moment, then gave in, humming softly. He supposed in that sense, having that much money kind of didn’t matter, then, when a huge chunk of it was consumed by saving the world. He’d seen how often that suit got dinged up, and had no doubt repairs and replacing parts was costly. 

“Am I allowed to get something to eat?” He asked after a moment, stomach rumbling a little. He’d spent so much time this morning freaking out and being consoled by JARVIS that he’d missed breakfast and lunch had slipped him by. 

“Of course, Mr. Parker. Several components of the kitchen are automated, but I am capable of guiding through any recipes or devices you are unfamiliar with”. 

JARVIS had apparently activated something called ‘Romeo and Juliet Protocol’ when it had been revealed that Tony had been Switched, and a large majority of the Tower was closed off and protected. Peter couldn’t leave the penthouse and JARVIS had strict control of everything, even down to the doors. Peter was happy enough to just sit there and wait it out, though. As amazing as being here was, snooping was rude, especially when what he could find could potentially compromise the entire world. 

He chose to make a simple, small sandwich which involved nothing more than a single knife and plate, marvelling at the giant fridge and the ridiculous amount of food within. Apparently Mr. Stark had a chef that stopped by once every other day with prepared meals, and was on-call for whenever he required a fresh meal without having to cook it. The produce was organic and far different to the sad, wilting lettuce that could be found at the local Cheap Fresh. 

Technically, if it was plausible, when you Switched you were supposed to follow a specific protocol set up by the Government, but Mr. Stark had ultimately lost his entire mind at discovering his soulmate was fourteen and had immediately demanded Peter stay locked up like Rapunzel while he pretended to be him for the day to throw off suspicion. Peter couldn’t deny that had hurt a little, but he understood it. Soulmates or not it would be the scandal of the century - Tony would be called all sorts of things at best and investigated at worst, and the nature of their age difference meant a lifetime of interference and monitoring by the Government and protective services. He knew it was easier to pretend it hadn’t happened, to hide it from the world. Tony had suggested a private agreement, a ridiculous sum of money in exchange for Peter’s silence. 

He realised he’d been staring morosely at his plate when JARVIS prompted him softly, and he sighed, taking a bite. There was no physical remote for the TV but JARVIS helped him to access a cache of movies and he settled on Inception, his weakness for Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio soothing the ache of his new reality. 

“Am I allowed to ask what running a business is like?” He asked after a while, head balanced on his palm. 

“In what regard, Mr. Parker?” 

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, I’m fifteen. I don’t know how to run a company, let alone run a company and be a superhero. What kinda stuff does he do? Does he attend meetings? Does he fly around the world on company retreats like in the movies?” 

JARVIS sounded lightly amused when he replied. “Sir has delegated much of the daily company operation amongst several trusted employees, but he is still the namesake, owner and CEO of Stark Industries. He does attend frequent meetings, but most of Sir’s ‘flying around the world’ is done for leisure or Iron Man related activity”. 

“Sir spends most of his time in the lab, conducting important work for both his priorities. Sir also does a respectable amount of charity work, investment work and supportive work. I believe his latest venture is funding the entirety of MIT’s PhD graduate projects”. 

Wow. That was...That would be a lot of money. And being supported by someone like Tony Stark was bound to be something to boast about, something that would fluff up your resume a little. 

“Does he enjoy it?” Peter asked after a moment, fingertips raising absently to the arc reactor in his chest. It ached constantly, a low-level background pain that never quite faded out of touch, the odd sensation of a gaping maw in his chest something that had made him heave earlier that morning. Mr. Stark was tired, burnt out, but still going. It made Peter want to spend his twenty-four hours just sleeping, to try and soothe the man’s headache. 

“Sir finds great gratification in his duties” JARVIS replied quietly, though he did not specify which. Peter gave a hum and succumbed to the desire to nap, curled up on the corner of the couch with Inception fading quietly into the background. 

He ate again when he woke up, and blinked when he saw the time. Mr. Stark’s phone had been heavily locked down, but he could still access the message channel between this number and his own. The messages there were disheartening. 

Told your hot Aunt I’m staying at that Nate kids house tonight. I’ll be coming to the Tower, but you won’t see me. I’ll stay on the level below.

Sorry, kid. Seeing someone else wearing me like a Givenchy suit is just too head-spinning. 

JARVIS will keep you safe up there. We switch back at midnight, so try and get some sleep. You’ll wake up as yourself and I’ll get the plan in motion. 

“JARVIS, when was the last time Mr. Stark cried?” He asked timidly, and the AI was silent for a moment. 

“Four years ago, Mr. Parker”. 

“Oh,” he breathed out, vision blurring. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m about to ruin that” and he let the teardrops fall.