#* WHAT DID THE POSSUM YOURE KILLING DO. WHY DID YOU FEEL THE NEED TO FUCKING S H O O T I T

[systemerrorbonnie]

* everytime i hear abt my grandparents shooting an animal around their house im filled with Indescribable Rage

[redraven393]

watching The Wild Robot Let's gooo

sun is shining and girly is clearly a morning person-love the multilinggual introduction.

someone out there has just wasted what I assume must have been millions of dollars to get this state-of-the-art robot only for it to be stranded in the middle of NO WHERE.

she is every managers ideal sales person omg her Voice acting is soo good!

OPP Gilry NOO (hits by waves) GILRY CLIMB Like a Crab

OH MY GOD SHE CAN MAKE STIKERSS- and she give them to all them.

Rozzem is fukin overwhelmed. her city-girl vibe is not meshing well with the Wild life.

ohhh~ learning mode? guess we doing the talking animal things huh, but from what I see from the day and night cycle it at least took Rozzem 8 days to learn the Animal language.

ROZZEM HONEY NOOO- omg they are all assholes-Rozzem sounded so sad omg honey.

Zeus is being an asshole - the Raccoons are being Assholes!! >:(

OMG NATURE IS JUST BEING AN ASSHOLE TO HER T-T

all of this was just from the first 10 minutes of the movie holly shit.

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OMG WE KILLED A FAMILY T-T Rozzem is not catching a break

THE BABY!- GET THEM ROZZ-

A BABY!!!!- BABY - A BABBY

no wait Rozz honey you cant just left a new born baby what to heck.

that's what you get for ignoring a toddler Rozz, they break your shit.

I've seen this view a lot.

SHUT UP MOM THEIR ACTING IS ON POINT (also night shade salad?)

helo Pinktail- a mom friend Rozz need- OMG did someone die?- he lived YAY

The possum mom and her Kids are great

________________

Rozz a while ago: I need to go back I no longer have a task I CAN'T FUNCTION WITHOUT A TASK so I must left this newborn

PinkT a tired mom of 7: oh honey being a mom is a full-time task

Rozz immediately committed to be a mom: :D happy to serve my task

___________

Rozz Honey, please be gentle with the newborn. oh shit, it's the FOX, what do you want FINK-local Goose EXPERT?

Rozz please tell your manufacturer to add some self-preservation program in you the next time you see them FINK PLEASE AT LEAST HELP THE CHILD

oh yeah no one has named the newborn yet

"Kindness is not surviving skill" The audience would remember that and judge you when the time comes.

OMG Rozz you cant just admit to murder like that get a lawyer first at least

OMG BABY NOOO- oh yeah Rozz? and launching the Baby into the air like last time is???

NEW HOME Project Let's GOO- omg that is a big hole, man is gonna be a cause to a plot point later I can tell.

BABY FIRST WORDS- love that the baby is learning by mimicking Roz & Fink's banter

Roz no you need to encourage the Baby

Yes-yes name for the baby! BRIGHTBILL

home finish, Fink is living that sugar baby lifestyle

it's not copying its taking inspiration you beaver!

Storytime for the baby!

for a fox that was so ready to kill the kid you sure do worry about their innocence Fink

ahh motherhood~

YOU CANT RUN FROM FATHERHOOD FINK- This is to heal your inner childhood

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TIME SKIPS!!!!

oh-oh no- OH NO BRIGHTBILL NOO why cant you inherit you Fox!dad personality instead T - T

THE ROBOT NOISES!!!

oh but Roz did teach him another language POG

glad you're still here with us Fink- and they're not WEIR they are Special.

aww they are so close to one another thoug- omg she is raising him to be a scientist

hi PinkTail and Kids- are they your new litter Pink?

SWIM TIME!- FINK is fukin savage to our boy

it's a swim alright....- aww Roz your mothering Program is on point now- Roz~ you need to let your teenage son do things on his own for once

hi mr. Beaver- huh i didn't expect to find more of them in this island

it may have because my teen years is not that long time ago but GOD do I feel the secondhand cringe

of course! even in the wild we will find Bullies- OMG BB NOO- GO TO HIM, MOM!

SHUT UP YOU PUSSIES FUCKING RAN AT THE FIRST SIGHT OF ROZ

BB call Roz MOM!!- SHUT UP BEFORE I FUKIN HUNT YOU DOWN FOR DUCK SEASON- Fink you are so the GOAT man- BB that is not how you talk to your PARENTS

omg Mr. Beaver hi??? why are you holding a knife??? Mr.Beaver???

off Roz honey we need to get you back in the factory buddy-

oh no the Back story reveal- ahh the Teen angst moments

EYYO BB THAT IS TO FAR !!

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Oh we're back at the crash site? ANOTHER ARM?? there were Other Robots in that POD???

HOLLT SHIT

huh so they reall are just mass-produced- so where are they going to anyway???

Hey other Roz! or Rummige? Rumi is what I gonna call you

Roz honey you need a fukin break or else you might just have a meltdown

----------------------

Roz, a tired mom to a teen goose: I have a Kid

Rumi, just being resurrected a minute ago: Girly Excuse me Wtf??

Rumi, flabbergasted by Roz's problem-solving idea: Gurl we were not meant to be a MOM

Roz still a tired goose Mom: I KNOW BUT I MUST

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OKAY BUT LIKE- shout out to Rumi who didn't even care that she wouldn't survive long, she just saw this fellow robot like her struggling and giving up her own way to be back home and prioritize Roz

Fink is struggling without his bodyguard but is willing to climb a fuk ass mountain to check up on Roz is just AGGAHJYGUIS.

EYY you're in this thing too Fox.

Aww Rozz you're great hon, don't let some teenager make you down like that.

UGH her voice!!! she sounded so longing to be needed!-

"Maybe there is someone small there that needs my help" roughly translated to "maybe there is someone out there that WANTS me to HELP" - IMCRYING OMG

uh oh, winter is coming - Fink really saying that BB has no friends

BB you ungrateful lil shit- tell em Fink.

wait Rozzie Honey if you could have learned the proper way for Geese to fly now why didn't you do the same with the swimming part, Rozzie??

aww i forgot Roz lost a leg :(

OLD MAN MR. PEDDLER YOU ARE THE GOAT

He's UP! - He's down - oh no, yeah Rozz you need that self-preservation program installed soon you either learn em yourself or imma break 4th wall to install it.

THUNDERBOLT! And yeah i love how Rozz is having more friends in the Island

BB gonna be flying like a fukin Predator bird this winter, those fukin bullies won't know what hit em!

hello longneck sir, your group has been terrible to Rozz's son

"we Geese are a cranky lot" sir do you know that your whole species is a fukin menace???

why does he sound like a school principal telling the Protag's mom that she needs to make sure his grade is stable if she want her son to have a shot at the team

Roz honey why do you know the size of your son's heart?

YEAH GET HIS ASS PinkT!

The Forest guys are warming up to the Odds Fam Aww :3

and it's DONE the Boy can FLY! >:D

------------------------

opp it's time everyone- wdym thing between you two is still weird

oh god he's really going away now huh? well at least LongNeck is a good fellow

"this Flight is a gift from Roz to you-" "do you see any others that are as small as you?" - YES! give that kid a lesson in perspective!

noooo Rozzie you don't need to hesitate calling BB your son

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BB: will you be here when i get back? Roz: no me seeing there is still like 40 minutes left: uhhhh -------------------------- Say sorry you lil shit, or like thank you.-ah, and there he goes.

AUYSUGJAVXBXAVXAG FUCK T o T

THE LAST GOODBYE MY HEART FUHCHHKKK

welp, task over yeah Fink now you can go back to your unkind life where everything wants to kill you all the time.

help why do they sound like divorced parents already, the kid literally just left for college not a minute ago

JUST SAY YOU GUYS STILL WANT TO BE FRIENDS OMG

i mean she is clearly running on minimum energy with a deteriorating body because Nature is a bitch so uhhhh

FINK FUKIN COME BACK YOU COWARD

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oh shit there are actually humans defuq I forgot about them.

checking in with Goose Child they are landing in what seems to be a very futuristic corn farm.

OMG ANOTHER ROZ- OH SHIT ANOTHER ROZ

YES, Grandpa LongNeck you know what's up!- UFF and too think all this is caused by a herd of Geese jeez

THAT'S NOT A ROZZEM - WHY DO THEY HAVE A FUKIN WAR MACHINE IN A FARM!!- YEAH LET'S GO BB!-

wait no Grandpa LongNeck - NO

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oh hey! Awww i knew you guys will stick together.- bad storm huh- Rescue MISSION

PINKTAIL!-Lmao Finks no- Thunderstrom!!- MR. PADDLER SIR! (he is still going at it wtf)

ROZ honey you're wasting to much energy love- the BEAR TOO???

ah, shit-this is too much chaos- "the jerk wants to speak" lmao.

YEAH SO DON'T BE A JERK ASSHOLES!

oh no Rozzie please stay safe

The bear's name is THORN

Rozzie you okay hun?- SHE LIVES!!- and to wait for baby- HE'S HERE!!

aw LongNeck- aw Rozzie- ROZZIE STAY AND TALK TO YOUR SON ISTG

uhhh-UHHHHHH- UH?????? - Vontra?- uh?- why she is so touchy???

uh OH , ROZZUM- ISN'T THIS A BIT MORE THEN NECESSARY??

THORN!- THE GANG'S ALL HERE

NATURE vs AI LET'S GOOO

TITLE DROP SHE DID THE TITLE DROP

FIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHTFIGHT

the acting school are doing wonders

NOO ROZZIE- VONTRA U BITCH

YES BB SHOW THEM WHY GEESE ARE FUKIN MENACES

also the forest fire...

give it up Vontra you could never defeat God's biggest mistakes

oh- oh kid- oh kiddo i am so sorry- oh honey

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH- fuck

oh?-oh! ROZZIE!

back to the Gang and the forest fire- hope we didn't left anyone behind-

oh MR. PADDLER SIR! we need your tree!

THUNDERBOLT

RIP i guess hope yu went to hell Vontra

Roz?-ROZ?- ROZZIE?!! WHAT'S WITH FLASH BACK ROZZIE??- ROZZUM WHY DID YOU THROW AWAY YOUR HEART?!- ROZ??!!

oh damn, that is a big Tsunami-

Rozzum?- aww you get a 10/10 finally Roz- oh -oh sheesh-

oh Rozzie- oh BB- Oh Fink- oh god YOU GUYS!

OMG THE ART

wtf Roz you can't make me sad like that.-

well, at least the gang is still as strong as ever- ROZ CAN HAVE WINGS???

nah you guys can't just let her be stuck as a farmer bot after ALL THAT!!

glad Fink and Mr. Peddler are friends now

i see what you did there Dreamwork- give us a "nice" ending but not the actually good one

[heydorothea009]

Bread on Toast - A Future Man Fanfiction

Josh Futturman and his fellow coworker and best friend, Liv Branson, get roped into saving the world as time traveling saviors with, what were thought to be, video game characters, Wolf and Tiger. Not only are Liv and Josh completely incompetent, but they are also emotionally inept- will this cause the destruction of mankind? Only time will tell.

Warnings: strong language, Wolf does cocaine, mentions of violence

Chapter 3: A Fuel’s Errand

Tiger and Wolf had no trouble lugging Carl’s corpse down the stairwell, but Josh and Liv were stumbling down the stairs, carrying what’s her name’s corpse as both of their panic set in.

“Oh my God, oh my God, shit, holy shit, oh my God-“ Liv repeated over and over, her mind racing.

“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT-“ Josh was yelling over her.

“Stop shitting!” Tiger yelled at him as her and Wolf took a sharp turn down the stairs.

“Why didn’t the game say they were human?!” Josh asked frantically.

“We didn’t want to humanize them!” Tiger shouted.

“What’s with the nutsack faces?”

“It’s a biomembrane, it helps them heal faster! Why’d you block our shot?” Tiger responded harshly.

“Oh my God, these are people we fucking work with.” Josh didn’t answer Tiger’s question.

“They’re barely human, they’re grown in labs!” Wolf yelled.

“Why the FUCK did you block our shot?” Tiger shouted again, growing more frustrated with Josh.

“Because killing Kronish won’t help! Okay? His research is already out there, the cure could come from anywhere!” Josh said.

“Yeah, thanks to you two dick weevils.” Wolf grumbled.

“Are there more of these things?” Liv finally spoke up through her shock of having to touch a dead body.

“Of course! They’re sleeper agents, they knew we came back to 2017 and they sent them earlier to hide in plain sight.” Tiger explained, clearly annoyed that Josh and Liv didn’t know this information.

“That’s kinda cool I guess,” Josh said in a strained voice.

“Let’s just leave ‘em here.” Wolf suggested, letting Carl’s body slump to the ground. Tiger let go too and Carl landed flat on his face.

“What? No! We can’t just leave these dead bodies here?!” Josh shook his head frantically. “You also can’t leave anything from the future in the past, it will fuck things up! It seriously could fuck up your future, come on guys! This is time travel 101! We have to get rid of them!”

Tiger leaned her elbows on the railing and shot a glance over at Wolf, who looked equally as frustrated and understanding as she did. “Okay fine, then how do we get rid of them.”

Josh opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at Liv for some help, but she looked like she might throw up at any moment. Then it hit him. “I…I think I know how…”

“The possum incinerator?” Liv asked in a deadpan voice as Josh led everyone (including the dead bodies) into the possum incinerator room. Kronish Labs studied possum semen instead of human semen as a more “humane” way of finding a cure, even though it wasn’t very “humane”.

“How many possums do you kill here?” Wolf asked, genuinely intrigued.

“Enough that we needed to get this possum incinerator.” Josh said, opening the hatch. “People don’t come down here very often though, I don’t think.”

“It’s pretty small, we’ll have to cut up the bodies…let’s get to work.” Tiger motioned for the bodies to be put on the table.

It was a bloodbath. Wolf and Tiger were disassembling the bodies in front of Liv and Josh’s eyes. Liv stood in horror. Josh looked on the scene looking scared, but not as scared as Liv. He was becoming familiar with what Tiger and Wolf were capable of.

“I don’t think I can watch this anymore.” Josh turned his head, feeling sick.

“Hey,” Tiger grabbed his face, the blood on her hands rubbing off on his cheeks and chin. Liv was about to agree with him, but kept quiet, she didn’t want blood on her face too. “You need to watch this, you and this girl need to know how to take down these perfs for when you run into one again.”

Josh tensed up as he felt the wet blood touch his face. “This girl is named Liv and she’s my friend and you’re scaring her. And what the hell is a perf?”

“We call these genetically perfect assholes perfs.” Wolf hurled Carl’s torso into the incinerator. “Not so perfect anymore!” He jeered.

“What was this girl’s name?” Tiger hoisted up the girl neither Josh or Liv could remember the name of.

“I don’t know, Liv?” Josh asked quietly.

“I-I don’t remember.” Liv said at an even quieter volume.

“I just always called her ‘Pretty Smile Girl’.” Josh said. If the situation wasn’t so horrifying, Liv would have found the way he’d said it adorable.

“They’re all fucking pretty, they’re Biotics!” Tiger snapped. “You stab Pretty Smile Girl in the liver? That’s a kill. Stab Pretty Smile Girl in the heart? That’s a fucking kill. But you’ll wanna be real careful with Pretty Smile Girl’s head.”

“Can we please leave Pretty Smile Girl’s head alone?” Josh had to look away. Liv wanted to look away but couldn’t, seeing Pretty Smile Girl’s head swing around in unnatural ways was so deeply unsettling that she couldn’t help but watch in terror.

“No,” Wolf growled, strutting over to Tiger and Pretty Smile Girl’s corpse with some kind of device. “Every Biotic soldier has a brain bomb implanted in their head, makes it explode so they can’t be interrogated.” He held the device over her neck and the device beeped. Wolf pulled out something the size of a pen and stabbed it into her neck. Liv gagged and turned away. “It doesn’t kill them, but it disables the bomb.” He pulled it out, revealing a small ball. The bomb. “Another for the gobulator.” Wolf’s face lit up as he pulled out a small case filled with the tiny balls.

“Is that safe?” Josh pointed to the case and Wolf looked at him as if he were stupid.

“The fuck you think a gobulator does?”

Wolf and Tiger finished dismembering the corpses and threw them into the fire. They were dripping with scarlet blood, looking like Carrie White. Liv felt sick to her stomach, she hated gore. Tiger wiped her hands on her pants and spoke up,

“Alright Wolf, fire up the TTD. Let’s go back to earlier today before Future Man fucked up the mission.” Liv swore Tiger shot her a dirty look. “Let’s go get Kronish.”

Liv furrowed her brows. She felt like everyone around her was speaking a foreign language. She’d never heard of a TTD.

“You guys don’t get it!” Josh said loudly. “Kronish has been doing this research his entire life, someone could just pick up where he left off. And besides, you would have to pull like, a Terminator thing and stop him from ever being born-“

“Or! We kill him when he’s one of those little baby things!” Tiger added excitedly.

Josh shook his head. “No! Absolutely not, we cannot kill a baby!”

“They’re invincible?” Wolf asked.

“No, they’re helpless and very soft.” Tiger said.

“Perfect. Easy kill.”

“Give us a date, Future Man. Or girl, maybe you know.” Tiger said. Before Josh or Liv could speak, (Liv was growing offended by being called “girl”), Wolf interjected.

“Cat fucker! The TTD got damaged in the fight.” He groaned as he held what looked like a tablet, pulling out a vial of neon green liquid. Liv looked to Josh to see if she was missing something, but he looked just as confused.

“Shit…that’s not a lot of Cameronium.” Tiger shook her head worriedly.

“Maybe enough for one jump if we’re lucky.” Wolf studied the vial closely.

“What the hell is Cameronium?” Josh asked.

“It’s the fuel the TTD runs off of.” Tiger explained as if it were obvious.

“What’s the TTD?” Liv finally asked. She had so many questions.

“Time travel device.” Wolf said, speaking to her calmly. He glanced over at her. “We’re time travelers. By the way, I don’t know if Futute Man here explained that to you.”

“Yeah, I gathered that. Is that what you used to travel back to 1969?” She asked Josh. Josh nodded.

“Okay, new plan. We use our last jump to go kill baby Kronish, that’s the new mission.” Tiger said loudly.

“No!” Josh exclaimed as Liv shook her head violently. “We are absolutely not killing a baby! It’s wrong and makes us monsters!”

Tiger thought about it for a moment. “Agree to disagree. Give us a date.”

“I- well I don’t even know when he was born.” Josh said.

“Wolf, choke it outta him.” Tiger said calmly. Liv backed away instantly. Josh looked at her with wide eyes.

“Gladly.” Wolf advanced on Josh. Josh stumbled backwards.

“No, no, no-“ Wolf grabbed Josh by the neck and slammed him against the wall. Liv thought about running, but then again, Tiger might do the same to her.

“Give. Us. A. Date.” Tiger said through gritted teeth.

“If- if you can’t jump back to your time how will you know it worked? What if killing Kronish doesn’t fix it! Don’t you want proof?!” Liv blurted out. Tiger’s eyes fixated on her and Liv’s heart dropped. Tiger studied Liv for a moment, her stance softening, considering what Liv had said. Wolf saw Tiger considering this and dropped Josh. Josh landed on his feet and gasped for air.

“What do you even know about time travel?” Liv added, seeing Wolf and Tiger actually listening to her. “Multiverses? Alternate realities?”

“Time loops.” Josh added, rubbing his throat.

“Time loops! If you're wrong about even just one of those things it could throw off your whole mission, even though I don’t entirely understand what it is.” Liv pleaded. Tiger and Wolf looked at each other, then back to Liv.

Tiger sighed. “Fine. We’ll look for Cameronium here. But then! We’re going back and killing baby Kronish.” Josh let out a frustrated sound.

“Where’s the closest Cameronium outpost?” Wolf asked. Liv grabbed a mop, ready to clean up the crime scene that she was standing in.

“We just learned what Cameronium is, I have no idea.” Josh muttered.

“It’s biofuel, it’s been around forever.” Tiger started getting frustrated again. Josh grabbed another mop and helped Liv.

“Well, what’s it made of?” Liv asked.

“I- plants? I don’t know? You tell us, you’re the scientists.” Liv stopped mopping and looked at Josh, who also stopped mopping. “One of you is a scientist right? You work in a lab?” Tiger added. Josh looked at Liv and Liv just stared back at him. Had Josh told them that they were scientists? She raised an eyebrow at him and grew nervous.

“Those are your science wands.” Wolf said, pointing to the mops.

Tiger narrowed her eyes at them. “What is your job here?”

“Uh,” Liv didn’t know what to say. She looked nervously to Tiger and Wolf, who were impatiently waiting for an answer.

“We’re…janitors?” Josh didn’t even sound sure of his own job.

Tiger and Wolf stared at them for a second, Tiger’s eyebrow started twitching as she got noticeably more angry, letting the word “janitor” hang in the air. Wolf looked a little lost and just stared at them, but could tell what Josh had just said was making Tiger angry, therefore he was angry too.

Josh looked terrified. “Uh, are you guys cool with that, or-“

Tiger slammed her fists on the table. “FUCKING JANITORS?!” She screamed, storming out the door that led to an alley outside. Wolf shoved the table over and stormed out after her.

Josh looked at Liv with wide eyes before dropping his mop and chasing after them. Liv dropped her mop and followed him. They chased Wolf and Tiger through the alleyway.

Tiger spun around, stomping backwards. “Do you know who’s a janitor where we come from?”

“A- a robot-?” Josh guessed.

“Nobody!” She snapped. “Because in a battle of life or death no one gives a dick about clean floors!”

“I knew he wasn’t the savior, I knew it from the moment he jizzed all over my torso!” Wolf turned around too, glaring at Josh.

“Please, guys come on!” Josh and Liv chased after them like little kids chasing after a soccer ball. God, those two time traveling warriors could storm away fast.

“No!” Tiger stopped and Liv and Josh almost ran into her. “You can’t. We don’t need you.” She jabbed Josh’s shoulder with her finger. “You get in the way, you’re weak, and you fucking inspired Kronish to share his cure with the world. And on a personal level, I'm not sure I like you.” She looked at Liv. “You’re associated with him, so I feel the same about you.” She looked back at Josh. “You’re off the team, Fütturman.” She spat, mispronouncing Josh’s last name.

“Even your name’s a disappointment.” Wolf growled. He looked at Liv. “I forgot your name.” The way he spoke to her wasn’t nearly as mean and condescending, but Liv still looked up at him fearfully. Tiger and Wolf turned on their heels and stomped away.

“What- guys, don’t do this!” Josh yelled after them. “Where are you going?”

“To finish the mission without you.” Tiger yelled, not even turning around to look at them.

“You’re covered in brains!” Josh yelled back.

“Eat a dick!”

Josh stood in silence, shocked and defeated. “Well…they seemed nice…” Liv said after a long pause, scuffing the toe of her boot on the asphalt.

“Not right now, Liv, please.” Josh said in a weak voice as he sank down to the ground, putting his head in his hands. Liv looked down at him, sitting with his knees pulled into his chest. He looked so sad. Whatever this time travel mission really was, it really seemed really important to him.

“Josh…will you tell me what happened? Like please actually explain what's going on? You gave me the simplified version in the stairwell, I need the full story to really grasp the situation.” Liv said gently, bending down to his level. Josh looked up at her with those sad eyes that hurt her heart.

“Okay. After I beat my game, they appeared in my room and told me I was the savior and that ‘Biotic Wars’ is actually a training simulation sent back from the future to find me. Apparently the cure Kronish eventually will end up discovering is what leads to a super cure that creates the Biotics. To my knowledge Biotics are perfect and powerful beings who are apparently also our coworkers. I thought I was being pranked when Wolf and Tiger appeared in my room, I was so embarrassed because I was…” he trailed off. Truth be told, Josh had been jerking off when Wolf and Tiger appeared in his room. He even came on Wolf by accident…which he still felt bad about. He cleared his throat. “I- I dunno, I probably just sounded stupid to them asking if I was being pranked over and over. They used the TTD and took me to 1969, but we were still in my house, but like the 60s version. I saw my grandparents, my dad, and my Uncle Barry, and they started beating me up because they thought I was there to rob them.”

Liv started snickering.

“Shut up, Liv!” Josh couldn’t help but laugh too. “Okay, that part’s pretty funny, actually now that I think about it. But Tiger and Wolf stepped in and we were able to get out of the house and then Tiger and Wolf started wailing on these bikers who catcalled Tiger and we stole their clothes to fit in. Then! I found out it was the night of the moon landing-“

“Oh my God, the night Kronish got herpes.” Liv was starting to piece together the story.

“Yes, exactly. So we started to go to CalTech, which was where Kronish’s party was, but I guess someone had called the police, because some policemen tried to stop us. And then I think Wolf might have brutally murdered a policeman…”

“He does seem to like to kill people.” Liv said, nodding along to the story.

“Yeah…so then we stop at a gas station, and I’m all mad at them, and then Wolf goes and breaks some dude’s fingers and I had to teach Tiger what a baby was and that kidnapping is bad. Anyways, we end up at a frat party at CalTech and we are the only white people there…and then Wolf told them their mutant race should die…yeah…” he grimaced at that memory. Liv grimaced too. “He was meaning Kronish and the Biotics but it just came out racist. So then, I infiltrated the party by myself in an astronaut costume while Wolf and Tiger ‘secured the perimeter’ or something, and I cockblocked Kronish by having a dance off with him to get him away from Barberella, the girl who had herpes, and also I think I might have invented the running man and the the moonwalk. I think some other more modern dances were sprinkled in there too, I don’t really remember.” He chuckled lightly. “And then…well, you’re basically caught up, you saw what happened today.”

Liv nodded her head as she took in this story. “Oh my God,” she let out a short laugh.

“Oh! And! I left my phone in the past on accident, and now Steve Jobs and Siri don’t exist.” Josh added.

“…who?”

“Exactly.” Josh shook his head at himself.

Liv giggled. “I can’t believe you invented the moonwalk and then Michael Jackson took all the credit.”

“Eh, he can have it.” Josh looked up at her and laughed. “So, I thought I was supposed to be some savior, but apparently I’m useless.” He sighed, the weight of what just happened settling on his shoulders again.

Liv took a seat next to him on the ground. “Why does it matter so much to you?”

“Because I thought I was finally going to do something great with my life.” He looked up at the sky, he seemed to be fighting tears. “But instead I got verbally abused by Tiger and Wolf and I put your life in danger. I’m sorry.”

“Josh,” Liv said softly. “Do you want to just go home?”

Josh nodded, swiping the back of his hand across his cheeks, trying to make it seem like he wasn’t starting to cry. “Yeah.”

“I’ll drive you home.” She stood up and offered him a hand. “Also, you’ve got blood on your face.”

“I know.” He sighed.

Liv drove Josh back to his house in silence. She parked in his driveway, but he didn’t get out of the car. He sat and just stared at his house with a sad expression.

“Come on, Josh,” Liv got out of the car and walked around to his side, opening the door for him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Josh looked up at her from his seat and then glanced down at her matching gray janitor uniform, which was splattered with blood just like his. “What about you?”

“I think I have a change of clothes somewhere in my car,” she said. “But my friend Josh needs someone to be there for him right now and I am going to make him my priority.”

Josh gave her a small, sad smile. “Thank you, Liv.”

They went into his house, which was quiet. Josh’s parents weren’t home so they didn’t have to worry about them being concerned about their bloody uniforms. Liv helped him wash the blood off of his face at the kitchen sink.

“Hey, thanks mom.” Josh lightly joked. Liv let out a slightly flustered laugh. She was actively trying to swallow the giddiness and butterflies she felt touching his face and being this close to him. “Too bad my parents aren’t here, they’d love to say hi to you.” Josh said. Josh’s parents, Gabe and Diane Futturman, were Liv’s favorite people to walk the earth (other than Josh, but that goes without saying). They absolutely loved Liv, and she’d been to many Futturman parties hosted by them.

Liv grinned as she got the washcloth she was using on Josh’s face wet again under the faucet. “Well, then tell them I say hi.”

After cleaning off Josh’s face and some of the blood that had gotten on both of their arms, Josh headed up to his room to change. Liv ran out to her car and grabbed the t-shirt and leggings she kept in the backseat and changed in their guest bathroom. When she opened the door she saw Josh walk out of his room at the same time with an “I have an idea” look on his face.

“I know how we can help Tiger and Wolf.” He said excitedly.

She looked confused. “…huh?”

“Cameronium or whatever? I know how we can get more.”

“Um…okay?” Liv raised an eyebrow. She kind of assumed they were dropping the idea of helping them at all, they were really mean and scary, and she didn’t care much for them.

“There’s this girl who works at the gaming store I go to, Tracy, she’s dating a chemist! So we talk to Tiger and Wolf, take them with us to the gaming store, talk to Tracy, go to her chemist boyfriend, and find out where to find Cameronium!” Josh looked so incredibly proud of himself.

“Cool, but Tiger and Wolf could be anywhere. They ditched us, remember?” Liv asked, putting her hands on her hips and sounding a little exasperated.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, I saw them outside climbing into the sewer.”

“What?!”

“I should have opened with that, but I found them!” Josh beamed.

Liv hesitated before she spoke. “Um, are you sure that you want to go back to them? I thought they were ‘verbally abusive’.”

“Liv, I want to help them.” Josh looked at her with those again. Goddammit. Liv sighed.

“Does this mean I have to climb into the sewer?”

“Uh…” Josh stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe…”

Liv did in fact have to climb into the sewers. It was a damn good thing she loved Josh, she would never in a million years be climbing down a ladder down into the sewer like she was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle if she didn’t love him. Josh was just barely in front of her as they climbed down. They could hear Tiger barking commands at Wolf. She looked up and saw them climbing down and shook her head furiously.

“No! Nope! No Futturmans, no friends of Futturmans, no janitors, and no people shorter than us can enter!” Tiger’s angry voice greeted them.

“No, guys!” Josh hopped down off of the ladder. “Look, I know you guys are super pissed off at me, but I promise I have an idea.” Liv hopped off the ladder after him.

“No, we don’t need you. We have plans, lots of plans. And leads, Wolf has leads, right Wolf?” Tiger lied.

Wolf was crouched in the entrance of a tunnel eating a rat. He looked crazy, despite the fact he had dried blood covering him. He also looked high as a kite, eyes red and looking like he had hay fever. “I don’t have leads.” He drawled, mouth full of rat flesh. Gross. Tiger glared at him for not going along with her lie. He made eye contact with Liv and lit up. “You! I can’t remember your name!” He said in an unnaturally cheerful voice for Wolf. He was grinning from ear to ear.

“What’s he doing?” Liv asked. Before Tiger could answer, Josh spoke up.

“Guys, please, let us back on the team. I know where we can find more Cameronium.”

Tiger narrowed her eyes. “You do?” Wolf had also stopped what he was doing and perked up.

“Yes, now come on, let’s get you guys cleaned up.” Josh motioned for them to follow. Tiger let out a frustrated groan as she marched over to Wolf and pulled him by his arm to follow behind Liv and Josh out of the sewer and into Josh’s house. Josh and Liv helped scrub the dried blood off of Wolf, who was still high out of his mind. Josh and Liv were scared to go near Tiger, who was still fuming at the idea of letting them help, and let her take care of cleaning herself up in the guest bathroom (assuming she knew how to).

“So let me get this straight, you went to a weed dispensary because you thought it had Cameronium?” Josh asked Wolf as he washed Wolf’s right arm. Wolf had told them about the “adventure” he and Tiger went on and how he “ate street cock” (they were able to piece together that he’d actually had a sausage).

“And I tried these things called macaroons.” Wolf sighed and grinned from ear to ear again. “So delicious.” He pointed to Liv as she washed his face. “You have a name.”

Liv glanced at Josh. Josh shrugged. “Mhm!” She nodded and answered him like she would a three year old.

“I don’t remember it.” He giggled. Josh snorted.

“I’m Liv,” She said, trying her best not to laugh. She kind of liked high Wolf, he was funny.

“Like ‘NO PLEASE!! I WANT TO LIVE!!!’ Like that?” Wolf’s outburst made them jump, but then Josh lost it, doubling over as he started laughing.

“I mean, I guess.” Liv laughed too.

“Is that your name because that’s what your enemies scream before you slaughter them?” Wolf asked.

Liv laughed even harder. “No, my parents just liked it.” Wolf nodded as if to be taking what she said to heart.

“I love it.”

Tiger came stomping down the stairs in full gear, making Josh and Liv’s laughter disappear as she glared at them. “Alright, Future Man, Future Man’s friend-“

“Liv!” Wolf corrected her, and then smiled at Liv and nodded, proud of himself for remembering.

Tiger rolled her eyes. “Right, whatever. It’s time to go.”

“Wait, hold on, Tiger, we need to get you guys some clothes to help you blend in. People don’t wear armor here.” Josh said.

“I think I’m fine.” Tiger said in a serious tone.

Josh didn’t feel like forcing Tiger into his mom’s clothes, he would rather keep his head on his shoulders, so he just dropped the idea. He still grabbed a coat for her to possibly wear over her armor later if she changed her mind. Wolf changed into one of Josh’s dad’s polo shirts and a pair of khakis. He looked like he was about to go play tennis at a country club. The four left the house on foot, making their way to the gaming store, which wasn’t too far away. They walked in and were greeted by two people standing at the counter.

“Hey Tracy, hey Paul,” Josh greeted them nonchalantly. The two people looked up at them, eyes landing on Liv.

“Ooh, Josh brought a girl with him.” Paul teased.

“Oh, this is just Liv.” Josh said, brushing off the teasing as he walked up to the counter. Liv gave them a tight lipped smile. He could have said, “this is just my friend Liv”, but, whatever.

“Break another joystick playing ‘Biotic Wars’?” Tracy asked, clearly teasing him.

“Uh, no, I stopped playing. Those characters were so unrealistic.” Josh said, watching Tiger and Wolf venture further into the store from the corner of his eye. Paul raised a suspicious eyebrow and followed Josh’s line of sight.

He eyed Tiger. “Boing.” He leered. Liv made a disgusted face as he went to follow Tiger.

“Hey Tracy,” Josh asked. “Are you still dating that chemist guy?”

“Oh, Lyle?” She asked, smacking her gum. “No, we broke up, I call him Professor Ex now.” She snickered at her own joke.

“Ha, that’s really funny,” Josh fake laughed as he drummed his fingers on the counter. “Was- was it a, um, messy kind of break up? Or was it chill, like maybe you could casually put us in contact with him?”

“Nah I hate him, he used to wear a button down shirt every time we fucked, I hate him.” Tracy said casually. “Why do you ask?”

“Uhhhh,” Josh looked back at Liv. “It’s, uh, we’re partners in this class I started taking at a, um, community college and we have to interview a chemist and I just thought, you know…”

“Oh that’s cool, what community college are you guys at?” Tracy asked, nodding along and smacking her gum again.

Liv opened her mouth to say a real community college, but Josh panicked and spoke over her. “The- the California Community College.” Liv wanted to smack him. That was definitely not a real college.

“Oh yeah? I’ve literally never heard of that college before.” Tracy said, quirking an eyebrow.

“It’s real.” Josh lied, making it sound less real. “It’s good.”

“Yeah?” Tracy smacked her gum again.

“Yeah, we became friends there.” Liv jumped in, hoping she could help.

“Shopkeep!” Wolf called, watching a tween boy play a video game. “I have some questions about this boy’s murder simulator.” Liv tensed, shooting Wolf a look to shut up.

“Right, because you take a fake class there together.” Tracy continued, unimpressed and ignoring Wolf.

“I swear to you, it is a real school!” Josh said loudly, continuing to make it sound less real.

“Oh yeah? What’s the mascot for your real school?” Tracy asked.

“It’s a falcon-“

“It’s a real bird.” Josh lied again.

“Josh…” Liv said out loud without meaning to in the most disappointed voice.

Tracy rolled her eyes at them. “You guys are terrible liars like Pinocchio, and Pinocchio was wack-“ before Tracy could finish, Paul yelped, catching their attention. Tiger had him pushed face first into the bargain bin, holding his arm up behind his back.

“Why would you talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to you?” Tiger demanded.

“I- I dunno- ow! Ow! Just let me go!” He cried. Liv and Josh scrambled over to them trying to signal for her to stop by waving their hands and shaking their heads.

“Futturman, you know this chick?” Paul wailed as Tiger tightened her grip on his arm.

“Nope, I have never seen her before.” Josh said nonchalantly while shaking his head at Tiger.

Tiger pursed her lips. “Fine.” She said through gritted teeth and let him go. “Next time he loses the arm.”

Paul stood up and looked between Josh, Liv, Tiger, and Wolf. He then glanced back into the bargain bin, picking up “Biotic Wars”. He looked from Tiger to the animation of Tiger on the cover.

“Futturman, did you hire like a crazy strong hooker to pretend to be this girl for you?” Paul asked, shooting Josh a judgemental look.

“No, I didn’t actually,” Josh shook his head.

“What a weird freak.” Tracy said, still standing back at the counter.

“Okay, we don’t have time for this.” Tiger muttered, pulling out a knife out of Paul’s line of sight.

“No! Uhhhh,” Josh sprung to action by dragging Paul away from Tiger. “We’re just gonna have a conversation over here.” He narrowed his eyes at Tiger as she rolled her eyes and put the knife back. He gestured with his head for Liv to stay with Wolf and Tiger so they didn’t get into anything else. Liv, Wolf, and Tiger listened in on Josh’s conversation with Tracy and Paul.

“Look, for the first time my life has meaning. I am going to help a lot of people by doing this, but in order to do that I need to get in contact with your ex.” Josh explained.

Tracy and Paul looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “That’s stupid.” Tracy said. “That’s so stupid.”

“Fuck it, you know what? I’m just going to tell you the truth.” Josh said.

“Oh God, no.” Liv put her head in hands.

“I beat ‘Biotic Wars’ and it turns out it was a training simulation sent back from the future to find the savior, who is me, and now I need to be in contact with your ex so we can get fuel for time traveling. So that’s it, all of the fate of humanity rests on this moment right here and now.” Josh stated as if it were a normal thing to say.

“Oh, yikes.” Tiger mumbled.

Paul and Tracy looked at each other again. “Why didn’t you just open with that, bro?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah dude, we’re here to help! Get that address!” Paul said cheerfully. Liv’s head shot up, stunned that they believed that.

“Seriously?” Even Josh was stunned. Tracy scribbled the address on a piece of pink paper.

“Here’s Lyle, hope he can help.” She handed the paper to Josh.

“Yeah dude, good luck saving humanity!” Paul said.

“Okay…okay awesome!” Josh was in awe that had worked. “Okay guys,” he motioned for his group to follow. “Let’s go! Thanks again guys!”

Liv followed Josh out of the store in shock. “How the actual fuck did that actually work?”

“See guys, aren’t you glad that we’re back on the team?” Josh asked proudly.

“Your cover story fell apart like a shit in your hands.” Wolf said gruffly. He was definitely the same old Wolf again.

“Oh come on, Wolf, I’d like to see you do better.” Josh said, tapping away at his phone as he looked up the address.

“I could and I would do it much better than you. I’m better than you at everything” Wolf said.

Josh sighed and stopped typing. “What’s with the negativity? The plan worked, we’re like a dream team!”

“Okay, you’re both back on the team on a provisional basis and currently you’re fucking up Liv’s chances by being a smart ass.” Tiger rolled her eyes.

“Yes Tiger, you’ve made that abundantly clear.” Josh sighed.

“You remembered my name, Tiger!” Liv was touched. Tiger rolled her eyes yet again.

“Tiger, would you please put on my mom’s coat. You actually look really ridiculous.” Josh said, trying to hand Tiger the coat. Tiger furrowed her brows and looked down at her armor. “Come on, Wolf’s rocking my dad’s shit, just put it on.”

Tiger snatched the coat from his hands. “Fine. Only because you got us the address.”

“And a ride to the address.” Josh pointed to a Lyft that pulled over in front of them. “For Futturman?” The man inside the car nodded.

Josh, Tiger, and Liv loaded into the back seat while Wolf got in the front. “Sunglasses At Night” by Corey Hart played softly in the background.

“Pilot, what is this music?” Wolf asked, perking up as he heard the song.

The Lyft driver looked at his radio. “I think it’s Corey Hart.”

“…I like Corey Hart.” Wolf perked up even more.

“Wolf likes something!” Josh leaned forward. “Turn that shit up!” The driver cranked the volume as they sped away. Liv was sandwiched in between Josh and Tiger. Tiger still scared Liv, so she was sitting very close to Josh. They drove to an unmarked building and Josh checked his phone three times to make sure they were at the right place. The four of them cautiously walked into the lab.

“Hi, what can I help you with?” A man asked as he approached them.

“Hi, are you Professor Karofsky?” Josh asked.

“I am,” the man said.

“I am Josh Pastman of Kronish Labs,” Josh quickly flashed his work badge so that Karofsky couldn’t see his actual name. “This is my sister, Liv Pastman,” It took everything in Liv’s power not to show her disappointment and annoyance on her face. He gestured to Wolf. “My assistant-“

“Corey Wolfhart.” Wolf went in to shake Karofsky’s hand. The scientist immediately felt Wolf’s strength as his hand was being crushed.

“That’s quite the grip you’ve got there, Mr. Wolfhart- ow, you can let go now.” Karofsky winced.

“And this is my other assistant-“

“Tiger.” Tiger said plainly. “I’m the mission commander.”

Josh laughed awkwardly. “It sure feels like it sometimes.”

“Tiger?” Karofsky raised an eyebrow.

“It’s her Burning Man name.” Liv said casually before Josh could come up with more stupid lies like California Community College.

Karofsky seemed to accept this reason. “Ah, I’m never more myself when I’m at the Burn. Namaste. What can I help you fine folks with?”

“Over at our lab we’ve got this special piece of equipment that utilizes a unique kind of biofuel, but unfortunately the manufacturer is kinda jamming us up right now, so we’re hoping you could take a look at it and tell us what it’s made of and maybe where to find more.” Josh explained. Liv was proud, that was a good lie! “Home Depot…Lowe’s…” Josh added, catching Liv give him a deadpan stare telling him to shut up.

“Look kid, I’d love to help you solve your biofuel problem for no compensation, but…” Karofsky trailed off as his eyes locked onto the vial of Cameronium that Tiger was fiddling with. “…that’s a biofuel?” His voice went up an octave.

“Correct.” Liv said, hopeful that he seemed willing to help.

“Let’s take a look at it.” Tiger reluctantly let him take the vial from her. He looked at it under his microscope.

“What kind of machine are you running with this?” Karofsky asked.

“It’s like a centrifuge.” Josh said, sounding as chill as possible.

“What kind?” He was starting to sound skeptical.

Josh’s eyes showed a hint of panic as he stupidly answered, “A really big one.”

“What’s it made of?” Tiger said sharply.

“It looks like microorganisms living in saltwater…I’m going to run this through the calorimeter.” Karofsky said, taking the vial to a new machine.

The four followed close behind Karofsky, watching as he dropped a tiny bit of the Cameronium into the calorimeter. Within seconds of the machine turning on, the glass the Cameronium touched shattered, making everyone jump.

“Jesus!” Karofsky looked down at the vial in shock. “It, um, seems that my equipment is faulty, I’ll have to run more tests in the back.” Liv sensed a shift in his demeanor.

“No. We can’t let that out of our sight.” Tiger said sternly.

Karofsky gave her a weird look.

“She means we don’t have a lot of fuel left so we’d like to make sure that it’s safe.” Josh said, growing anxious.

Karofsky studied the four of them. “Alright. It’s a clean room and I only have two hazmat suits. Your sister and the tennis pro can stay here.” He said to Josh looking over at Wolf and Liv, who exchanged glances. Josh gave Liv a look that she could tell said, ��don’t let Wolf get into any trouble”. That and he also mouthed it to her.

“Stay hard.” Tiger mumbled to Wolf as she walked away with Karofsky and Josh.

“I am hard!” Wolf grumbled defensively. As the door to the back of the lab closed behind Tiger, Wolf and Liv looked at the other two men in the lab, who were quietly staring at them. Wolf took a half step closer to Liv, almost as if he were ready to protect her.

“Hey,” one guy said. “You two wanna try something?”

Wolf’s stance was tense. “Wh- what is there to try?” Liv asked awkwardly, trying to not seem nervous under their stares. Why as men would they be staring at her?!

“You,” one of them motioned for Wolf to come closer. “Dude, you’re going to love this. Eli, go get the stuff.” Wolf looked at Liv with concerned and alert eyes. Liv looked up at him in a similar way. These men made her weirdly uncomfortable. Eli got up and walked into another room.

“What are we trying?” Wolf asked.

“Dude, have you ever tried meth?” The guy asked. Liv looked back up at Wolf in shock. “You wanna try some?” He asked Liv. “Something about you tells me you haven’t ever tried meth.”

“You know what,” she said in the same awkward voice, this time at an awkwardly loud volume. “I’m gonna skip out on the meth, I did some for breakfast.” She laughed awkwardly.

The guy blinked and then started laughing. “No worries dude! I like you, you’re funny.” This helped put Liv at ease.

“Are you allowed to be doing meth at work?” Liv asked naively as Eli came back with a tiny bag of white powder.

“Connor, just tell them.” Eli said, setting the bag down.

“Okay, okay,” the guy, Connor, turned back to Wolf and Liv. “I think you guys might have assumed we were a normal science lab, but this is a meth lab.” He lightly chuckled. Liv looked shocked and Wolf looked lost.

“So,” Wolf cocked his head to the side. “You don’t know where to get Cameronium?”

“What the fuck?” Eli and Connor laughed. “Unless that’s some kind of slang for coke now, no?”

“Then…what the fuck is meth?” Wolf asked curiously.

Liv watched from the corner of the room with eyes as wide as saucers as Wolf jumped up and down and paced around the lab yelling, “I LOVE METH!!!!” at the top of his lungs while Eli and Connor paraded behind him cheering.

“I could nose eat this stuff all day!” Screamed Wolf, trying to lean down and snort some more meth off of the table.

“Wolf! Wolf, I wouldn't do that!” Liv waved her arms, running over to stop him.

“Woah! Slow down dude! You’ll kill your heart!” Eli pulled Wolf away, laughing at his enthusiasm.

“Where can I get more?” Wolf yelled. Eli and Connor looked at each other, but before they could answer Wolf had grabbed them by their shirt collars screaming, “TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!!!”

“Wolf! Holy fucking shit, let them go!” Liv cried. Wolf’s eyes got wide as he let them go.

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled.

“It’s okay, man. Let us explain something to you, what was it, Wolf?” Connor sent Eli to go grab a whiteboard from the other corner of the lab. “And Liv too I guess.”

Shit, Liv thought. His name is definitely supposed to be Corey Wolfhart.

“Step into my office,” Connor flipped the whiteboard around to reveal a detailed graph that read “Trickle Down Economics Of The Black Market”. Wolf looked intrigued and took a seat, looking like he was reading the graph carefully. Liv blinked a couple times. This was fucking insane. As Connor and Eli began giving Wolf a college type lecture on how the drug trade represented capitalism in its purest form, Liv was thinking about Josh…and Tiger too, but mostly Josh. It had been a while since they’d gone into the back with Karofsky, so either the tests were going really good or really bad.

Wolf turned to Liv with the widest eyes full of amazement as Eli and Connor wrapped their lesson up. “Nothing has ever made more sense to me in my whole life. “We have to go tell Tiger.” He bolted upright, excited to spread the news.

“Oh no buddy, see, we can’t let you do that. You’re not going anywhere.” Connor said, pulling a gun from his waistband and pointing it at them. Eli did the same. Liv’s heart dropped and she went pale as a ghost. Wolf on the other hand just simply raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not?” He asked. Then he burst out laughing. Eli and Connor shared glances and they started laughing too. Liv still stood slightly behind Wolf, terrified. She’d never been this close to a gun before, other than the one mounted on Josh’s family’s kitchen wall, but that was a wall mount. These were real and very loaded guns. Wolf was still cackling and Eli and Connor were still laughing along with him.

“Look, you guys seem like nice people, let’s just sit back down and keep hanging out, but we can’t let you go into the back.” Eli lowered his gun. That’s when Wolf pounced. First Wolf took down Eli for lowering his gun, then sweep kicked Connor while he was still surprised. Liv ducked behind a chair as Wolf pulled out a weapon he’d had concealed in his waistband and pointed it at the two drug dealers.

“I don’t give a shit if you won’t let us go back there, we’re going.” He growled. “Come on, Liv.”

Connor scrambled to grab his gun, but Wolf shot it with his, blowing it up. It was definitely a weapon from the future. Wolf grabbed Liv’s hand rather gently for someone who had white powder all over his face and they hurried over to the door that led to the back. Wolf whipped around and pointed his blaster back at Eli and Connor, who were trying to crawl away.

“That’s right, crawl away you little bitches!” He yelled before blasting down the door. On the other side there were more men with guns, Tiger was breaking some guy’s arm, Josh was being held down to a bench while some other guys were holding a giant jar of some rancid liquid over him, and a fight seemed imminent.

“Hard enough for you?!” Wolf shouted to Tiger as he jumped right in and started blasting up the place. Liv didn’t know what to do. She wanted to run away, but where would she run?

Tiger started knocking shelves down onto the gun men, and Wolf’s blaster shot must have reacted with some kind of substance in the lab because fire started to spread.

Liv stayed pressed against the wall in the corner. “Liv! Find the Cameronium!” Tiger shouted at her as she slammed someone’s head against a shelf. Liv’s whole body was shaking. She wasn’t sure if it was fear or adrenaline or both, but she was trembling. Before she could move she spotted Karofsky crawling out of the room and out an exit she assumed led outside, and close behind him was Josh. Liv sprinted in that direction, jumping over shelves and bodies she hoped were just unconscious. Tiger and Wolf dropped the people they’d been fighting with and took off after her. The trio ran outside to see Josh tackle Karofsky off of a motorbike he’d been trying to escape on.

“Get him Josh!” Liv yelled as she came to a stop. Josh and Karofsky got into the saddest, most anticlimactic slap fight anyone had ever seen.

“Maybe the little fucker has some fight in him after all.” Wolf said to Tiger and Liv. They watched as Karofsky grabbed Josh’s leg as Josh tried to smack him to the ground. They looked even dumber in their billowy yellow hazmat suits that they were wearing. “Should I step in?” Wolf asked.

“I think he might have this one.” Tiger said, stopping Wolf.

“Rip his fuckin’ throat out!” Wolf cheered Josh on. Josh had wrestled Karofsky to the ground in the saddest way. They were both just smacking each other. It was hard to watch, but at the same time, Liv wished she was filming it. “…or at least try to rip his fucking throat out!” Wolf corrected himself.

Karofsky tried to crawl away, so Josh grabbed him by the ankle and stopped him as he picked up his helmet and hit him over the head with it.

“Ow!” Karofsky groaned. Josh hit him again, and again until he slumped down on the ground. There was a brief pause as Josh waited for Karofsky to pop back up, but he didn’t, he was out cold.

“Yeah!” Josh threw his hands in the air. “I did it!” Josh pat down Karofsky’s suit until he found the Cameronium and held it up victoriously. Tiger just nodded and Liv turned around so Josh wouldn’t see her laughing. “I really kicked his ass.” Josh congratulated himself.

“Uh, yeah, it was the saddest and most boring fight ever, but you did it Futturman, you’re back on the team.” Tiger said.

Josh perked up. “I am? Oh, thank you! Thank you, I will not let you down!”

“Am I…back on the team?” Liv asked quietly.

“Fuck yes!” Wolf answered before Tiger could respond as she eyed Liv. Tiger sighed.

“I guess we officially have a team of four-“

“WOOOOOO!!!!!” Wolf cheered as he fist pumped the air and ran in circles. Meth was still in his system. Tiger and Josh looked at him, confused.

“He did coke in the lab.” Liv said.

“Liv, you weren’t supposed to let him do that!” Josh said before cocking his head slightly. “…how did you get Wolf to like you so much?”

Liv shrugged. “It must be because I’m so nice and pretty.” She smirked at him and Josh rolled his eyes.

“Are you two okay with being human sacrifices?” Tiger asked, but it came out as more of a statement than a question.

“What?!” Josh cried. Liv took a giant side step away from Tiger and closer to Josh.

“You heard the window-faced man,” Tiger said to Josh, nodding her head at Karofsky’s unconscious body in the parking lot. “We need another time machine.”

Josh reluctantly nodded. “Ohhh…and Biotics must have time machines.”

“And we know we can find some at the laboratory you clean, so we just have to catch one.” Tiger said. Josh and Liv nodded, sharing glances.

“Great fucking plan!” Wolf yelled. He’d been pacing around the front of the building. “Who’s up for a charge down?” Tiger pursed her lips and looked as though she was refraining from strangling Wolf. Josh got a grossed out look on his face. “I’ll take anyone. Or all of you.”

“No.” Josh said quickly.

“What’s a ‘charge down’?” Liv asked.

“Nothing! Nothing. Let’s just- just get out of here before any cops show up.” Josh unzipped his hazmat suit and carried it to the garbage.

As they walked to the nearest place with any phone signal to catch a Lyft or an Uber home, Liv finally noticed Josh’s face.

“What’s on your face?” She asked. It was sticky and looked like he’d poured juice all over his face and then rolled down a dirt mound.

“I was waterboarded with homemade kombucha.” Josh said casually, checking to see if he had any signal.

“Oh…my God?!”

“Yeah,”

“Are you okay?”

Josh thought for a moment. “…no.” He said simply.

[rivka-kopelman]

Delivery Lemur Logbook : 14-A

<view full logbook>

AKA Enjoy What's Left of Your Pathetic Life

New Year's Eve, 3431

sleepy. sleeeeepy.

i think i'm throwing up. This is gross. what's going on

I was injected with.. something not good

Where am i?

My scalp is buzzing. My head is sooo heavy. I'm so tired I can't move. Can't stop the hot vomit running down my chin.

“Did you just,,, barf on me? are you trying to be ironic?”

Then my face really hurt. He punched my face. It feels awful. This is still a dream maybe. I try to tell him I'm going to leave, but all I can do is gargle. Legs are numb. Can't open my eyes. I hear sporadic gunfire in the distance. Wake up. Wake up.

“... Secret Service took back the watchtowers on L-80,” someone reported. “The upper aerodrome and north-68 are still held.”

“Tell Chain-Face and Golf-Ass to get up to L-81 and pour napalm down the lifts. Use it all,,, no point hoarding it now.”

“Yessir.”

Beep-be-beep

“Slurp's crew retook Gloria Street. He says he can press on to the palace if he gets air support.”

“Tell him I said sit and wait,,, don't give him any ships.”

“Right, yessir. It looks like the base at Vi Town was overrun by civilians. Rioters are swarming the ammo dump at camp-11. Gault is telling them where to go.”

“That's annoying,,, cut any fax lines out of Lugdunum we're not using. Make sure Dad knows. What's up with Bolo?”

“Blockade group says they're fucked, sir. Possum Patrol sees how thin we're stretched. Berg made a weak spot and they're nailing it. They're gonna break through.”

“Fuck it then,,, we held till today, that's all we had to do. Tell our guys to run. Conserve ships if they can.”

“...Yes - New transmission. Secret Service are getting into the Gold Dome over the old walkway.”

“Fuckers, okay,,, get over there now. Take Rake Jones and Betty. And call Leaf if you run out of guys.”

“Yessir!”

beep beep-beep ... then dialtone: duuuu

“Bubblegum,,, did you find that stealth pod we pinged an hour ago?”

“No dingus it's a stealth pod, I didn't find it.”

“Go look for it you dumb bitch,,,”

“I'm eating.”

“Eat later, Bubblegum,,, Fuck you, I'll kill you-”

“Man, ice cream cake, fuck you.”

“I'm-”

rrring rrring rrring

“Hang on,,, Hey, what do you need?”

“Hello son. It's time to take care of Madam Gault.” A familiar voice.

“Okay,,,” Beep-boop “Hey Bubblegum. That was Dad. Change of plan,,, We're gonna start Operation Burnt Popcorn. Tell Grass Stain to turn it on in,,,,,,, four minutes.”

*through a mouthful of cake* “Uh-huh, four minutes, oookay.”

duuuu

Cutbarf grabbed me. He found the spot on my face that was bleeding and pressed his thumbnail into it. I'm helpless. The pain is huge, it goes down into my cheekbone, I want to shake and squirm out of his grip but I'm too weak. So the pain goes on and on. Why does he want to hurt me? I'm. I'm just. I want to call out to Lopcorn for help but he's not gonna hear me. That's

so

“Hey dumbass,,, Can't let you out of my sight, so you're coming with me on a little job.” he said. “If you cause problems I'll take out your eyes,,, then I'll go to your mommy & daddy's house in Bobby-Town and cut their heads off and I'll put you all in the septic line. You can swim around in piss and shit and heads until you can't paddle anymore and you drown,,, Okay? Can you walk? Can you stand up?”

I can't. I squeak out a syllable. Cursing, Cutbarf slings me over his shoulder. I'm carried outside at a run, jounced and jostled. This truly hurts like hell.

My captor is dispensing commands over the phone. I open my eyes a crack and see gleaming pink and gold spires linked by innumerable abutments and bridges that twist and curve through hazy oblivion.

So I made it into Lugdunum while I was unconscious, okay

this is where i was trying to go

But i feel only terrible feelings, and i am sickened

- i wish none of this was real

Cutbarf ducks behind a baluster and drops me like a rock. A stampede of tuxedo'd elephants and rhinos rumbles past: The vaunted Secret Service.

I guess the SM is fighting the president's guards for control of the capital.

When they're gone, he carries me up spiral stairs onto a high walkway arching over the vast presidential city. He looks down at a fortified gateway where kids in pink uniforms and war-paint are attacking Gault's elite with flare guns and cutlery.

kshh

“Who's in the air by West-38 gate 20?”

bzzz

“SMVs Hellspit, Bloodtoilet, and Shitman II,” came the grainy reply.

“Bloodtoilet and Hellspit come shoot at the gatehouse but miss,,, let the old lady think we can't get in, or she'll run. Shitman II, fly over their AA and let them hit you, then back off.”

“Yessir!”

bzzz

Cutbarf kicked open air intake duct. In we went.

bzz

“Cutbarf to Noodle-Knife,,, hey.”

“Hey commander what's good”

“You guys chilling by the back door?”

“Yeah man”

“You doing what I told you to do?”

“Yeah. Nobody's going near it. We're all over the palace except there.”

“Hide your ships behind the upper pylon,,, stay out of sight but keep your reactors hot.”

“They'll see us if they scan shortwave.”

“Yes, they will,,, The trap's hidden just badly enough. She won't run.”

“Gotcha. We'll run red hot. Good luck.”

bzzz

Cutbarf comes to an abrupt halt and I puke again. He peers through a grate that casts thin bands of light across his pimply face.

“There's the hag,,,” whispered Cutbarf. He meant President Gault, who was surrounded by a phalanx of giant bodyguards in the room below.

I see the four-minute timer on his watch reach zero and turn red. I hear alarms going off.

“Report!” demanded a shrill voice.

“Radiation spike on Level 82, Madam President!”

“A bomb?”

“Could be – an unusual one. It's small. 1300 zW.”

“What is the z-wattage of the Possum Patrol's artificial hearts?” she demanded.

“Standby... Yes ma'am, that's in the same range as nuclear hearts.”

“They're here! They're here already,” she hissed. “Localize the spike. Immediately.”

“Checking, standby... Palace level. Section D-20.”

“Too close!”

“Get down there! Now!”

Loud commotion. Guns cocking and panicked whispers, running footsteps. It faded away.

“lmao,,,” muttered Cutbarf. It was quiet in the office below for a minute.

kshhh

“False alarm! False alarm! We're at the warehouse in D-20. The insurgents filled it wall-to-wall with microwave ovens and turned them all on at once to trip our radiation safeties.”

“Get back into position as soon as possible, the-”

Cutbarf dropped through the vent into the president's undefended office.

Gault's lips peeled back in a snarl. Her fury made her hideous and frightening. Her voice was very flat.

“You, boy?

“Me.”

“Fine work. Tell Franz I'll see him in hell. And you.”

“lol looking forward to it,” said Cutbarf. He sliced her head off, and looked up at me in the ceiling. “I can't reach,,, help me up.”

I can kind of wiggle around now so I try to reach down but i'm slow and frail and uncoordinated.

He pulled a chair over instead and was able to hop in from that. He slapped me.

“Useless,,, come on. You oughtta be able to walk by now. Go.”

Somehow I start moving. Cutbarf leads me through the tubes back outside.

Bzz

“Got her,” he said into the phone.

“Good. Thank-you, Commander. Now please bring me the Delivery Lemur.”

“On our way.”

Bzz

“Okay Lemur,,, Back to the base,” Cutbarf announced. I flinched when he reached for my arm with his red hand and I fell down. He moved closer and I gasped and scuttled back until I bumped into a wall. He laughed. “Come on. If you think I'm bad, wait till you meet Dad,,, He's the world's worst.”

I have met him.. .

He dialed something on his phone again. “Hey I want my ship.”

A minute later, SMV Barfbag emerged from the mist and took us aboard.

“Department of Defense,” he told the pilot. When the floor started moving I got dizzy and fainted.

My mental clarity was diminished for a time.

I started to come to my senses in an elevator.

Ding ... ding ... ding ... up we go. Or down?

Can't tell .

No idea.

My head hurts but I'm not as impaired as I was.

Cutbarf's got me by the scruff of the neck.

This demon. He killed Lopcorn. And the President.

He's taking me deep into the

Wherever. It's bad. This is very bad I don't want to , uh , uh

- I go away inside, like I do.

tum te tum .

no. wait it's not going to work .. I'm not going to wake up back home . I have no voice and no control. where is he taking me ? I don't want to go.  um.  Is this my last day living?

when this elevator stops moving, my life is over, isn't it? hes taking me down here to kill me. It's . fuck. hes gonna kill me. I'm going to die.

"help me" I gasp.

“No," Cutbarf replied.

Didn't mean you. Miss Menosky can you hear me? please help me. I am in trouble. please help me right now. Please hear me. mocha mocha mocha mo

"yes ~ hi and hello ~ Sorry, I was dreaming! Dreaaaaming ~ Oh! Goodness you're terrified ~ show me what's wrong?"

"This human's bad. He's taking me somewhere, and I'm really really afraid. They're hurting me. I think I'm going to get murdered. can you please do something.”

"Okay!"

Cutbarf hit the floor, limp as an empty bag.

"He wanted to bring you to someone. Oh Deliveremur ~ this boy is very troubled. I'm sorry he put you through all this ~ The normies never showed him any kindness ~ never ever. I'm going to take away his pain."

Cutbarf began to sob like a baby. Snot rolled out of his nose. He curled into a ball. Oh wow .

“He's feeling love for the first time ~ you should pity him, deliveremur,” Mocha thought. “Don't be afraid. His cruelty is all gone.”

Just like that?

The adrenaline in my bloodstream is so thick I'm not able to calm down but she helps me. All the sharp edges of my feelings are bevelled and made soft. Her sweet silly smile is shining in the centre of my heart. The horrible wet black curtains of certain doom are parted and I know my future is warm and full of everything I like. Everything good.

“You're okay ~ Everything will be fine. I've got you.”

“Yes. Thank-you.”

“Everything's okay now.”

“You saved my life. You seriously..” My empty belly is heaving. I cough and spit. “Thank-you. I dunno what I would have done.”

I notice I'm leaning on the wall. I slide down and sit on the floor of the elevator across from Cutbarf. He's sobbing and hugging himself tight, rocking back and forth.

“You always have me, Lemur ~ no problemo!”

“I'm very appreciative. Really, and. I owe you. What's up, what are you doing today?”

“Ummm! I'm up in orbit today ~ I've got the conservatory to myself. Needed some space, ya know ~ but I want to do a new podcast soon. Hey, you should be my..................”

ding

“Huh?”

“if you want ~ come and............”

ding

The warm feeling under my skull is fading. Our mingled mind(s) are peeling apart. It's like forgetting your first language, or losing a limb. “Mocha? What's happening?”

“Lemur ~ Where are.............”

“I can barely feel you. Please, please, please,”

“Lemur? Lemur ~ Hello...................”

“Miss Menosky! Hi hi hi! Hey! Mocha? I can't --”

“It's like ~ You're in a...........................................................”

ding

The elevator doors opened.

I see a dark room. Can't fathom if it's big or small. There's a pillow & blanket fort dead ahead.

I try to get the elevator to take me back up but you need a code.

“What are you waiting for?” someone says.

That's in my ears, not in my mind.

I trip over my own tail as I stumble ahead. The doors close behind me. I duck inside the pillow fort.

A little human is playing a plastic tic-tac-toe game with Franz Welker. He's got two babies snoozing in the pockets of his too-big suit jacket.

“It's good to see you again. Come in, make yourself comfortable. Plum, this is Delivery Lemur,” he said.

The kid gave me a perfunctory wave without taking her eyes off the game.

“Hi,” I say. I sit. It smells like chip crumbs and pee. Plum drops an X on the board. Welker puts his O in the corner so she can make three in a row. Gracefully, the omnipotent warlord lets her win. She tried not to smile, but did.

The sloth bowed his shaggy head. “You win again.”

“Do you surrender?”

“Not today,” he laughed. “Not tomorrow. Let me try it again.”

She pursed her lips so as not to grin too broadly, clearing the board and separating the plastic X&O blocks into neat stacks.

“It's getting late,” said Franz, looking at his watch. “Would anyone like a snack?”

“Yes please,” said Plum.

“Yes please,” I echo.

I mean why not

Franz procured a loaf of bread and two jars containing peanut butter and red jam. He made two sandwiches with meticulous care, using a silicon spatula to spread the pb and j in perfect evenness.

He gave the first sandwich to Plum. She burrowed waist-deep in a pile of cushions and started munching noisily. He tucked a napkin under her chin. She had jam on her face already.

Welker passes me a sandwich. His claws are unkempt, gnarled, yellowed, notched, and dirty. And they're long – even for a sloth. They look disgusting.

“Thanks.”

As it happens, the sandwich is delicious. I eat the crusts only. It's the best, most reliable part. I'm starting to feel less impaired.

I think about Lopcorn. I remember how he looked falling down. Swallowed by that nothingness. No one will ever pull his remains up.

I chew another bite of jammy crust. The sloth's looking at me.

If only he was never born.

I cry as I eat because I won't get to fly around with Lopcorn after I escape.

“Plum, it's more polite to chew with your mouth closed,” Welker said. With a sigh and rolling eyes she obeyed.

I look at Welker's old face and his careless hygiene. I look at his company of well-fed misfits. Plum goes back to chewing with her mouth open and Franz wipes jam off her chin.

There's no reason to keep me alive.

He's affecting perfect harmlessness. I guess when you have the power to do absolutely anything, you don't care about flaunting it in front of Delivery Lemurs.

“You must be missing your companion,” he said. He started shaking his head. “Lopcorn used to live here, you know. I thought he was very special.”

“Me too dude.”

“Ah...” He went quiet for a bit.

Chewing this crust, I start to think about how different I'd feel if my friends were here. What they'd say and do if we were all together.

Under these circumstances, I can't quite imagine it. I'll be getting through this night on my own.

“I'm glad we got to meet again,” Franz said.

“Mmhm.”

“Have carried out the delivery mission I gave you?”

“Sort of. It was a trap, wasn't it?”

He smiled apologetically. “Yes. I am sorry about that. But since you're here, will you tell me what happened between Private Lopcorn and the mutant Rudler Stackland?”

“They had a fight, but nothing came of it. They figured out it, uh, was a trick.”

“So they did. I regret the contrivance. But I do wish I could have seen Mr. Stackland in action.”

“It was gross. And really dangerous.”

“I have a scientific interest in the Zag-IX survivors,” he explained. “What is the nature of R. Stackland's mutation?”

One of his babies stirred. He patted its deformed cranium, crowned with swollen white veins.

“I couldn't really tell.”

Mocha? Mocha? Can you please hear me? I'd like your help again, I really don't want to talk to this guy. Please? Hello? Hello? Aren't you there?

“I see,” he muttered, shaking his head. “We don't need to discuss it tonight. But I would appreciate hearing some more about what happened, in your own time.”

Can't handle his eye contact so I look down. That's even worse somehow, so I look at him again. His broad-set eyes are those of a primeval predator. He's a bottomless ocean of patience. He doesn't care how long it takes for me to fold.  I flinch from the intense discomfort of the whole situation. It's like staring down a dinosaur fossil and you feel its breath.

“I don't want to talk about that, or anything really.”

“Obviously I can't force you,” he said. “I have a difficult job, Delivery Lemur. I'm responsible for protecting everyone. You have no idea of the danger we're in. I wanted to bring the Zag-IX survivors into the Space Military. One mutant can do more than a thousand of my soldiers. Our force has to be as robust as possible.”

“But why? The aliens are a hoax. You made it all up. Once you convinced President Gault, nobody could stop you.”

“Yes,” Franz nodded. “Before you were born, in the Shark War, I carried Jen Gault out of a shell crater under fire. Her squad left her for dead. I found her quite by accident. I got her home. She owed her life to me. I was trusted; That trust represented an opportunity I could not ignore. I knew how high she would rise. After the Floom Expedition, I showed her my brain-scans and said the lesions were marks of alien torture. I told her horror stories about an all-powerful civilization in deep space. What must we do, what must we do...”

“What do you get out of doing this?” I ask. “Building the Space Beams wasted so many resources that all Eight Galaxies fell into poverty.”

“That's not his fault,” snapped Plum. “Everyone thinks Poppy's a bad person but they're wrong. You'll see. And then you'll feel so silly, once you know. The Space Beams are saving us.”

“Right you are, little lady,” said Franz. “Plum is an A+ student, Delivery Lemur. You should listen to her.”

“If there's a good reason, why did you need to make up something like-”

Welker was looking at his watch and his eyes widened a degree. “It is nearly time. You won't want the miss the New Year's countdown. You're free to go. Commander Cutbarf will take you home.”

He typed something on his phone.

Ding

Beyond the cotton-polyester walls of the little fort, I heard the elevator open. 10 seconds passed.

Franz Welker looked over my shoulder.

“Cutbarf? Son?”

There was no answer. Franz threw the flap aside and went out. He saw the prostrate babbling Cutbarf   on the floor, with tears streaming from his eyes.

Welker twitched, staring uncomprehendingly at the boy.

“What's...” he trailed off. When I stood up, Welker retreated a step. He was rigid with dread.

“What did you do?” he rasped.

I think for a second.

Ah yes. It must seem pretty weird to him that a delivery lemur could get in an elevator with Cutbarf and leave him in such a state. Jeez, how the heck can I explain this?

“Just listen,” I say, getting up. A thin metal object falls out of my pocket and clatters to the floor. A shining steel salad fork. The one Rølvag gave me. Oh I still had that.

Welker's eyes fix on it. His posture changes. The tension in his shoulders makes him quiver slightly.

“Plum, grab that before he puts it in your throat!” he barks. She nabs the salad fork and hops up to hide behind Franz.

He spreads his claws like a protective shield over the deformed human infants in his jacket. He's so scared he looks like he's gonna lose his mind. No one ever looked at me like this before.

“What are you?” he asked, his voice paper-thin.

This I know.

“I'm Delivery Lemur (deliveremur).”

“An assassin lemur? Where were you born?”

“I'm a local. Born & raised down in Bobby Town.”

He took a gun off his belt and pointed it between my eyes. “Tell me what you are.”

I pee. Someone save me?

Mocha hear me please?

. .  .

She can't hear me. I'm alone.

“What are you?” Welker demanded again. He's really freaky and 100% insane. Capable of anything. I have no doubt that he'll murder me.

“I'm- I'm- a regular lemur, what do you want?”

“You're not. You can't be a Psy...What did you do to Cutbarf? ”

“I didn't do anything, it wasn't me. It was a podcaster.”

He looked like he was suppressing a panic attack. Welker pulled the veiny babies up to his chest like they were his final shield. He pointed his gun at my heart.

“You can't be here... I can't have you in here...”

He pulled the trigger.

A white blur was in the corner of my eye. A shape appeared before me faster than the echoing pop of the pistol. Displaced air blew apart the pillow fort. Lopcorn caught the bullet. He swept off Welker's hands and feet with an imperceptible motion and slammed him down head-first.

“रRग痛у疼טឈឺיקчть,” Welker bubbled, his four red stumps spraying gore.

Plum ran to him with wide eyes. “Poppy! Poppy!”

I was looking at Lopcorn. He watched the maimed defense minister until he was satisfied that he was no longer a threat, then he gave me the once-over.

“You okay?”

“Are you real?” I asked him.

“Yeah, you?”

“As far as I know.”

He kissed my mouth. I kissed him back as hard as I could, for everything my little life is worth. I really did.

“How are you here?”

“Your friend Stackland was lurking around in one of his stealth pods. Saw me falling and caught me in a web of his fat. I went through Lugdunum from the bottom, as planned.”

“ αίडाμα muកាиរចាប់čeболWьní, त,n” Franz was gasping.

“4+4 Poppy! You can do it! 4+4!” Plum cried, cradling him.

“ж¿ ..o..cho..” the sloth spluttered.

“10+10! Try 10+10, what's that Poppy?”

He shrieked like he was being boiled. “πό想νοςčč伤ččč베다”

Who does that remind me of?

“Try again! Come on now! What's 10+10!”

“Tw..болен벌 twe!” he shook his head back and forth. “Th.. Twenty. Twenty. Plum?”

She hugged him tighter than ever. “Poppy! You're hurt. What do I do?”

“Take Natasha,” he wheezed. Plum extracted one of the infants.

“Run and wake up Milo right away.”

“Yes! Yes sir!”

She scampered off.

“Call whoever you want,” said Lopcorn. “You're done, Mr. Welker. Pa. This is a citizen's arrest.”

“I am surprised that you would saddle yourself with the karma of such a decision. I did not think you would get over your cold feet,” Franz spoke clearly. He had quashed his strange outburst, and gave no visible sign that he was in pain, despite his ghastly injuries. “You've grown. I congratulate you.”

“Thanks. Now you want to tell me it's an act of self-destruction?”

“I have nothing to teach you, Lopcorn. You've gone your own way. You are your own man now. If you were one of us, you'd know: Our victory was sealed six years ago. There's nothing you can accomplish here. You're going to die a meaningless death.”

A hatch opened in the floor and Plum came back in with a big rooster. Baby Natasha was strapped into a little saddle on its back.

“Good morning, my friend,” said Franz.

Plum put on a big pair of earmuffs. She put another pair on Franz and put baby-sized earmuffs on the two babies.

This rooster was of the Jersey Giant breed. He's as haggard and rumpled as one lightning-struck. His comb was tall and bright red. His blank, baggy eyes were rhythmically swelling and contracting.

“Is this Milo?” Lopcorn asked.

“Ba-Kaw!”

The sky came in. Milo's voice knocked half the building off, and the hundred or so floors above us exploded. Then Milo looked right at me and opened his beak. Lopcorn grabbed me and jumped. We sailed a mile through the air and landed in another tower. Right away another soundwave shattered it to tiny bits, every tile and nail and floorboard undone. He jumped with me again.

“Ba-Kaw!”

My eardrums feel like hot potatoes. The entire city block violently disintegrated under us. Huge chunks of Lugdunum are breaking off and falling into the fog. We retreat and retreat.

“Looks like Welker found a mutant for himself after all.”

“Yes,” I agree. “Let's run away.”

“I'm gonna go kill them somehow,” Lopcorn decided. “Run somewhere and hide. I'll find you.”

“Run and hide with me.”

“Not yet,” he said.

“But. We can just get away.”

“I'm-”

The distant echoing cry of a baby was suddenly close. The thing was right there, with its wailing young rider thrashing in the saddle.

“Ba-Kaw!”

Lopcorn tackled me off the roof a millisecond before the whole structure and the six behind it blew up.

We landed in a crowded intersection where Secret Service rhinos were brawling with the soldiers. They noticed us but before they could even awkwardly pause, Milo erased the street and everything in it with a single breath.

Lopcorn took me under his arm and we ricocheted through the twisted girders and toppled walls. I'm not tough enough for this kind of thing.

“Hey! Slow down!”

Lopcorn doesn't react to my voice. Blood is streaming out of his ears. He looks over when I start waving my arms.

“Oh. I'm deaf,” he said. A statement of fact.

He's been in front of me for all of this, taking the clangor face-first.

“You need a doctor, come on, we'll find somebody.”

“Can't hear you.”

I realize he's woozy and off balance. Then Milo caught up.

“Ba-”

The cracks in the road were distended by a mesh of red veins that uncoiled in the shape of a gum-line, sprouting yellow teeth. Milo was eaten by a giant mouth. There came a muffled “Ba-kaw!”

The jaws were sundered and a tide of blood washed us away. The steaming gore congealed instantly into a trillion long-nailed fingers that drove at Milo from all directions.

“Ba-kaw! Ba-kaw!”

The shockwaves of his voice atomized everything. The broken fingers bubbled and oozed and morphed back into the human figure of Rudler Stackland.

“Ah, hi guys, what is with this chicken?”

“Whaat?” cried Lopcorn.

“He's gone deaf,” I explain.

“Oh... That's not good,” Stackland muttered, wincing. “I don't know how to fight a guy like this. He has mutated vocal cords, that's certain.”

“What do we do?” I ask Lopcorn.

“Whaat? Are you talking about killing the rooster?” he yells.

I nod. “We need a plan! Plan!”

“Rip his head off,” Lopcorn told Stackland. “Just keep trying until we get it.”

“That's – That's the strategy?”

“Can't hear you! I'm going to attack! Help or don't!”

He was off like a shot. Stackland grew a hundred legs and sprang after him.

“Ba-kaw! Ba-kaw! Ba-kaw!”

Even their combined effort was no good. Milo's deadly voice repulsed them over and over.

The air is dust and death and chaos. The whole city was being destroyed. Many had fled but no organized evacuation had begun. A writhing ball of fingers and toes and hair rolled bolder-like through the endless avenues snaking between the old gold skyscrapers. Stackland picked up tremendous velocity (it is dizzying to watch) and aimed his rush at the rooster. He couldn't connect. Milo opened his beak and his cry knocked down buildings like dominos and scattered bloody chunks of Stackland for miles around.

While Milo looked left, Lopcorn appeared at his right like a little cannonball. But it was too easy for Milo to simply turn his head; Lop retreated before the "Ba-Kaw!" carved another canyon through the cityscape. Milo waddled jauntily through the wreckage. Twinkling glass shards fell like snow around him from two buildings that had collapsed against each other, stuck like an A-frame. The sight is awe-inspiring.

Stackland's stomach unleashed a fuming fountain of gastric acid but it was was blown back. He gushed high curtains of blood to obscure Milo's sight, then he charged in from one side and Lopcorn from the other. It was enough to make him swivel and shout twice, but they still couldn't touch him. Milo stepped right up to Stackland and said ba-kaw and burst him. A grotesque profusion of guts and globs and sinew were sprinkled all over the the plaza. Lopcorn ran rings around him, changing directions suddenly and leaping and diving at random. It would only take an instant to close the distance and kill him, but there was no safe way to approach.

I'm so useless sitting up here. Can I figure something out... Is there some classic weakness that all roosters have? I don't know much about roosters.

There must be something, I'll look it up.

As soon as I connect to the internet, all I see is shelter-in-place alerts: the Bolo blockade has been breached, and Possum Patrol has entered the system.

The Space Military is in complete disarray. Tens of thousands of Possum Patrol modems are connecting to Cloudout's federal wifi-sphere and they're spamming every website and fax provider with a text file. I might as well see what it says.

hear the truth, tell the truth

hear the truth, tell the truth

know it,

know it,

tell everybody

hark! we are peaceful

This is the yarn of Forefather Grak:

this is the darkest archive of misery and torment in the whole history of the world

franz was made to eat it. and eat it he did

we possums were there , we've told and retold it . we were there

this is the truth

aboard the Callier long ago

with the preachers and the scholars and the stern stalwart leader, enlightened Franz with his dreams and principals, Franz the veteran and scientist and artist and friend to all. We agreed he was the one who should stand to the fore and meet the aliens

at the end of the  thirteen year journey to the Floom, there was no kaleidoscopic citadel of higher intelligence, no hive or mind nor hivemind. there was a dim little bubble of dark matter that spun clockwise

and Psy Brigade, who were aboard, were bored , and they simmered and they ground their teeth, because they were really all Drifters who pedalled pleasure and pain;

they ate the memories of the traumatized, if they could pay

always carrying the hurt, always holding it, always feeling it.

They are really wretches

the Callier mission seemed a simpler payday so off they go

but 13 years was too long to wait. and to reach a pointless destination: it was too wretched.

psy brigade mutinied and they killed the crew

slowly they did it

they poured out their bank of madness and suffering

The Catfish Pope, a gentle fellow, reached his escape pod thanks to the sacrifice of our kin

on the bridge,

I, Grak, Boss of the Possums, tried to protect Franz but they broke my will

Franz fought them the hardest

so they saved him for last

while i was going mad I saw him crawling

they made a river of pain from brain to brain to brain. Curse them forever!

It was their long-awaited unburdening

they made him their final reservoir

Hark! Drifters can only forget things by making someone else remember it.

they put their full hoard in his mind, and 36 lifetimes was the sum

he didn't die. His spirit held. I, Grak, saw him moving. he shook like a leaf and wriggled like an insect. inch by inch he was crawling

he was going to the helm

he kept his wet eyes on it, forward and forward, forward, onward

as he bore the unbearable grief and horror and insanity, for life after life, every tragedy, every moment of it

he slithered for an hour or a thousand years across the bridge and reached the control panel

he vented the oxygen from the crew quarters and killed them all

then he steered the Callier into the dark matter

there are no aliens in the flume

[the end]

That's weird! Mr. Welker went through something so messed up?

I can't imagine what kind of suffering could drive someone to choose emptiness and pawn their memories. How does it feel to experience 36 lifetimes of that?

It reminds me of Drywowl, who was so traumatized by drifters that she lost her sense of self. She cried like a faucet all day long. Nothing would calm her down, but she liked watching us play board games. Something about the dice or the straight lines or the silly simplicity.

But Drywowl's fine now – Miss Menosky fixed her up in a second. If only she had been on the Callier.

A tremor knocks me off my feet and out of my reverie. I find myself in the midst of the corpses and the groaning near-dead and, slumped bleeders caked with the grey powder of broken concrete or white plaster. The crackling din of the battle and Milo's haunting cock-crows split the ears. Geese and goats and salamanders and all sorts run to and fro, trying to escape both upwards and down, or tucking themselves into hiding spots. They dig through the rubble for buried friends. Then they hear the rooster again, and they're too close this time, and they explosively die.

I call out to her. I shut my eyes and try to go away, to recede. I think her name, I think it over and over and over.

“deliveremur ~ what's going on? are you safe there?”

I'm surrounded by dead bodies i'm trying not to look at them.

She has me and she takes care of me now

~Shhhhh

i'm relieved and i'm okay. I am loved

Miss Menosky! I can feel her/you. What happened in the elevator? How did we get disconnected?

It was so strange ~ it was like your mind was being blotted out and I couldn't find you. All folks everywhere are in such a panic today! I was ~ getting very very concerned!

I though, can you do me an emergency favor ?

yes ~ yes?

There's a rooster here destroying the city. Can you get in his head and make him fall asleep like you did with Cutbarf?

...What rooster? I'm not feeling any rooster around you.

Use my eyes and you'll see it. I'm a mile or two away. Hes down in the square.

That ~ is ~ very ~ strange. I see what you're seeing ~ but I can't feel it! Is that rooster a living thing? With a brain?

he must be, right?

I glimpsed the human on Milo's back and sensed/shared Mocha's revelation. it's deformed.

those pale, thickened cranial veins.

That little baby has sindla syndrome ~ I'm allergic, all psys are. I can't go in the rooster's mind with that sick girl right there ~ she's like a black cloud around him.

How perfectly inconvenient. What are the odds of that?

The battle was not going well. Stackland was trying to amalgamate enough little pieces of himself to form a viable body but Milo spread him like paste thinner and thinner until he covered the city like a spilled smoothie. Lop looks like a buzzing fly, a petty annoyance to the invincible rooster.

Jeez can we really not win with the greatest psy plus Lop and Stackland?

Mocha thinks Aren't you forgetting someone? She means me.

Yes. I must save everybody.

Okay.... what's the logical thing?

I think and think. how to stop a rooster. or just his voice. how to stop the sound. maybe if we were underwater... but that would take a whole ocean. hmm. Sonic vibrations cant go through antimatter, but I don't have any.

Vibration, resonation...

What if I could get a second mutant rooster and get them to say ba-kaw backwards? It would make an inverted sound-wave, like noise cancelling headphones. And then punch him right in the face!

ah that wont work.. what can I do, I've got nothing to work with. I got lots of floss. can we defeat Milo with dental floss?

Can we? Nah that's the stupidest thing yet, it's not like he's

oh we can totally win with floss.

I text lopcorn my idea.

he hides to type an answer and there's a lull in the cacophony.

[lol that would take like a thousand miles of floss]

[I have &30,000,000R worth of floss right on my phone]

[you do. this is the stupidest thing I ever heard but okay. text stackland.]

A moment later he hops up to my perch. I give him my phone. He nods and he's off again.

Though spread as thin as varnish across half of Lugdunum, Stackland's body is still functional. He starts to foam, excreting bubbly saliva.

Lopcorn comes in low, zigzagging through the froth. Milo sees him. Lop gets near, fakes left and right and (dropping something) left again then jumps up. Milo screams at the air but Lop sailed over him.

“Ba-Kaw!”

This one's bad. The city has taken so many of these that a whole quarter of the superstructure is shaken loose. Lugdunum starts to tilt.

A tiny hand, pink and boneless, sprouts from Stackland's paste on Milo's left and feebly reaches for him. Milo blasts it – Lop dives in from the opposite side. Milo steps back and twists his neck, locking his eyes on the incoming hare and blows him away. Again, Stackland musters a tiny attack from the left, just a single finger – mercilessly answered with a full-power sonic-boom. Keenly he anticipates Lopcorn's accompanying attack and repositions himself, but it didn't come. Lop was long gone.

Milo had stepped backwards, into the zigzag trail Lopcorn had made through the spit bubbles.

A dental floss snare tightened around his foot.

Two miles away, Lopcorn held the other end of the trap: my phone. He ran circles around Milo who screamed and screamed, but Lop was out of range. He looped him twice and thrice. The rooster's legs were caught. He tried to shimmy out, keeping his eyes locked on Lopcorn.

Since all the buildings had been flattened, he had a clear field. I've never seen Lop run this hard. Poor guy's been fighting all night. Around and around and around – He's wrapping Milo up like a mummy, spooling out my whole investment.

“Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw!”

Milo's desperate blitz is apocalyptic. But he can't hit Lopcorn. Struggling against his bonds, he starts to lose balance. Finally, he tries to get his beak under the floss to gnaw himself out.

With the threat of reprisal on pause, Lopcorn pulled the line taut and dashed faster than ever. The rooster was bound from hackle to spur. He rolled and bucked wildly.

“Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw Ba-Kaw!”

He hooked his lower jaw in the tight strands and chomped and tugged and screamed.

Lopcorn circled closer and closer.

Milo twisted and shook with visible distress. Baby Natasha was lurching uncontrollably in the saddle and her earmuffs fell off.

“Ba-Kaw!”

The floss snapped – he freed himself. Natasha's head exploded. Lopcorn had launched himself straight at Milo and couldn't change course. The monster took a deep breath. He opened his baneful throat.

Mocha, right now!

Milo sat down placidly. Lopcorn's kick got him in the sternum, fatally caving it in and splattering him. Nothing was left but a dark smear and a puff of feathers.

Ahh it was probably not necessary to kill him. With just an extra minute I could have explained about...

Lopcorn came and got me.

“That was pure luck. He must have run out of steam at the last second.”

Back at street level, I knocked on Stackland like he was a door (what else can I do) and a little ear formed in the gory ooze.

“Hey, it's Delivery Lemur (deliveremur). Are you okay?”

A mouth forms next to the ear.

“I'll be fine... I need... a bit...”

“Okay. Yeah have a lie-down. Nice work with all the spit. And all the other stuff.”

“..thanks..”

Lopcorn leaned down over the little ear.

“Nice fight. You did good.”

Stackland made a thumb and gave a thumbs-up.

We went back to the half-wrecked department of defense. Franz had not been moved. Plum was tending to his four stumps. She squealed when she saw us.

“Poppy, they're back.”

The sloth looked up at the sky rather than at us. He wheezed hoarsely in and out for a tedious moment before he spoke.

“Oh, you're monstrous. You killed him,” he groaned, turning away in revulsion. “Milo had an important role in the new world. The next few years are going to be much more difficult. I wish you hadn't killed him. That was monstrous of you.”

“What did you do?” demanded Plum. She rose, her eyes streaming. She started pummelling Lopcorn ineffectually. He ignored her.

“Your demon chicken blew out my eardrums, so I didn't hear anything you just said,” he said. “And I wouldn't listen if I could.”

“Yes, yes. Come here, Plum. Stop that please.” He held his stumps up in token of surrender.

Plum gave Lopcorn one more jab and a mean look, and sat back by Welker's side in a huff. His blaring max-volume phone showed Berg Lazerson and Anna Siong broadcasting from the president's office. The live overlay showed Possum Patrol ships overrunning the Cloudout armada and dismantling the Space Beams. Lopcorn broke the phone under his foot as he hoisted the mangled handless footless sloth.

“We're gonna find a judge for you to confess to, then I'm giving you to Berg,” he announced, and started walking toward the center of the city. Plum followed with a sullen frown, carrying the other baby. “You can explain to the world why you blockaded Bolo, and made doomsday weapons, and unleashed a mutant on Lugdunum. None of it worked, by the way. Whatever pointless secrets you were trying to protect about the psys on the Callier are all out in the open.”

I want to talk to him about that. I'll interject, uh...

“I will make a thorough confession. The need for secrecy has passed,” Welker said. “You can lock me up, or behead me. Everything I've done has been to preserve our civilization from torture and extermination. I saved the world.”

If not from aliens, then...

“You means the psys?” I ask. “I think I understand now. Mr. Welker, I know someone who can fix you. I know you were tortured by Drifters and you're suffering constantly.”

“Delivermur?” Lopcorn prompted. “What are you two talking about?”

I hold up a finger. “Just a sec. Mr. Welker, you're wrong about the psys if you think they want to hurt us. They're really nice.”

“Your opinion is meaningless. You're fortunate, lemur, or whatever you are. You have never been felt pain. True suffering will never touch you. You are so fortunate that you will never understand.”

Maybe so; I'm still trying to compute what he meant about saving the world. I have to think for a moment.

“What was in the dark matter anomaly? Were you firing the Space Beams at for six years?”

“A wormhole.”

His watch beeped [11:59 PM] and started a countdown.

“A – huh? A wormhole to where?”

“Its terminus is just outside Galaxy 2.”

Galaxy 2...? That explains the 'impossible' timeline of the Callier's return.

Lopcorn stops walking

“All that continuous shooting...?”

“Yes. Perfectly measured, and angled, and timed,” Welker said. “In a few seconds seconds, the gravitic drift of the Sheol nebula will reveal the far side of the wormhole, and what I've done will be apparent, but it's too late to stop it and too late to flee. At the same instant, six years worth of bombardment will reach the local side of the wormhole and strike every inhabited planet in the Psy Sanctuary.”

“But wait, just wait,” I say. “You don't need to get revenge, I know someone who can take your pain away. I swear. It's no problem. It'll be like it never happened. You can be yourself again.”

It was midnight.

Beedeebeebeep-Beedeebeebeep-Beedeebeebeep-Beedeebeebeep

<Part 2>

[mrbigbrother]

A word of encouragement to Lindsay Ellis

good evening Lindsey Ellis, I hope this letter finds you in good health. I am the opposite of everything you likely ever believed in. I lean right from the center, i don't like anything or anybody, I'm not a published author, my youtube channel is small and it sucks.

I am unfunny, not good looking,have a cringe sense of humor, not exceptionally good at a certain skill, not relatable, and take myself way too seriously.

But here i am writing you this public letter. And it's something that I would like to do more of because there are a few youtubers that i have some condolences to give over the death of what was, and a word of encouragement to what can still be, and still is. so let's get into it.

Lindsey Ellis, even if the likelihood of you actually taking time to read this in its entirety is slim, it will still be here. it has been one hell of a ride huh? I remember your time on that website that we do not talk about anymore and should not be named but it rhymes with Flannel Possum. Those were the days huh! at least before the dark times. of course for some, those were the dark times. But this isn't about rehashing the past. No, it's about moving forward. I just wanted to make clear that I have followed your content from the very beginning. I was an angsty teenager who could recite whole George Carlin stand ups from memory in those days, and it was kind of nice hearing others echoing the same sort of "i wasn't born with enough middle fingers" kind of attitude that got me through those times. I feel very much the same still. Yet more humble. the post-cvid world feels like it's 100 years away from the year 2019, when i had stumbled upon Lindsey's channel and recognized her as "hey it's the Nostalg…"

sorry.

It was a good feeling after the whole #changethechannel. I was gearing up to try and start pursuing writing, and I found the publishing videos you made to be among my favorites that i often still refer to when navigating that labyrinth.

Addressing the bullshit: I mean, i liked the Hobbit movies. I don't think Jk Rowling is a bad person. (she just wrote bad books that I don't understand why adults read them.) So there are plenty of times that I would disagree with you, even strongly on various matters. But you don't have to agree with every opinion someone might have. King Diamond once said that even Christians and Satanists can be just as good of friends if they wanted. And that's what i live by. I'll always hear you out and try to see it from your perspective. And at the very least show respect for it. that is the complete opposite of the current age of discourse.

You were bullied off of the internet for no discernibly good reason. There isn't a good enough reason to do that. Not over an opinion. At this point, Twitter is the fucking Antichrist. It did just like an antichrist would: it connected us all. Now we're receiving the mark of the beast, and the world nears catastrophic doom as we march toward the canyon looking down at our digital tombs, plunging us deeper into the comforts of a new dark age…people need to get off of the internet and just live fucking life.

And Lindsey, I will always, always, respect your decision to do just that. Because this shit is really ruining lives dude. Goddamn, the best thing we ever created is now killing us. Who'da thought right?

The bullshit that you were put through happened and there is no undoing it. There is no need to undo it. You just need to embrace the haters that come from all directions. from the angry incels that stalk your channel, to all of the other angry left wing incels that turned on you the minute they smelled blood in the water, because that's all these self righteous people are: They are the kind that don't get laid and have lots of anger and resentment that ultimately leads to them eating each other, and even eating at themselves. (insert clip of orson welles shark monologue from Lady From Shanghai.)

And i am sorry Lindsey. I mourn with you. It wasn't your fault. Twitter is a lot like The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: It was just your turn fam. Everyone who watches your channel (your real audience), all know what your convictions are and how much they mean to you. But the wounded animal that you tried to help, can and will only bite and maw you to shreds if it can. Its brutal. It's not fair. and it's the truth.

so, where does that leave us, as in you and the audience that I speak for…it leaves us in the same place we are always going to be found at: at our desks and work benches, typing our lives away and shaking our heads at the melodrama in the same damn spirit of George Carlin, Harlan Ellison (and for me) my grandmother who too held her middle fingers up to this world before she died. Only if we are up to it.

the world doesn't get better. you get better.

And Lindsey, from one Tennessee borne to another: I might not be saying this with the right words so forgive me, I'm just a stranger who gets a kick out of your work on my beloved YouTube, that i have had to watch fall into the same spammy soulless content it always does. But your career is an interesting one. Youtube is a lot more interesting, with you in it.

But hey, What do i know. I'm just another late twenties asshole that will linger around who ever will have me until i'm told to fuck off. And the people who dogpiled on you with their unearned moral superiority, just like they have so many others…well you sure told them to fuck off, and that takes a big pair of proverbial balls. That's what I respect. And my word of encouragement to you, is that I genuinely miss your channel and i am not the only one; There's a lot more people who miss you too.

I'm not asking you to come back. But if and when I see you at it again, it will put a smile on my face. (thanos vibe)

From a Fan, and a friend, I wish you well Lindsey Ellis.

coughnostalgiachickcough

Ta Ta - Jake

[shixen]

3: Final Mission

Alright so somehow between this movie starting and the last one ending Cobra has been captured by Kuryu and is being tortured

Damn Cobra looking kinda bad chained up like that though, he makes it really work for him

President put in jail, President taken out of jail

Are they gonna snipe Kohaku?

Take any of them except Masaki, he's my favourite

"Your face, its burned into my memory" more homo-erotic lines

Oh damn they shot Hiroto

Where are you going with all the gender Ryu??

What Saigo is a good guy now??? No more ACAB

Why are they wearing bananas? They're here for you and they know who you are and what you look like?

Dan, Chiharu, and Tetsu have no damn loyalty

Cobra is going rogue, doing dangerous shit for attention. We've all been there

Well that was a silly move cobra

This Warriors chick has a serious drinking problem

OH MY GOD ITS TAKESHI

Jesse is helping him for some reason

Okay now we're dealing with drugs on a pharmaceutical level

Oh my god they put chemicals in the water and turned all the delinquents gay

Ohhhhhhh thats why Smokey coughs. What a fucking 5 movie pay off

How did Mugen and The Amamiya brothers become professional whistle blowers?

Oh my god Genji just fuck off already

Hiroto so sassy

Damn Masaki pop off

Didn't Hiroto just get shot like last night?

Genji why did you even bring the sword, you never use it well

I wear crystallised toxins on my neck like a treasure

Oh fuck Smokey is going blind

Haha 4th wall music cut

I get the feeling when Pho sees how these nameless city kids are getting treated he will be parting ways with Jesse

Yes Masaki those are goat's, good job

Tsukumo where did you get that jacket from though for real?

Amamiya bros are incapable of not looking like models at all times

Cobra got grabbed by the hair again. Old dudes love manhandling Cobra. It's the baby girl energy he exudes

I mean it makes sense that the yakuza are way more brutal than theyre used to

Poor Murayama he's just a little crazy guy

All the boys are coming through for Cobra

Shit is so gay. Like unbelievable that they've framed shit like this

Why is Smokey the only one thats sick?

Yes queen! Build a new shanty town, one that's not on top of toxic chemicals that are killing you all

Ooooh Smokey is the evidence they need

Smokey's female lead moment

What a protagonist story

Was there a blackout? What was that?

He fucking dead though

They should have destroyed the body tbh if they were trying to hide evidence

Are they just whipping golf balls off the roof in the middle of town

Buried in the lovely toxic earth

Bring back Shion at this point honestly, rude boys need more support

Murder is a valid option at this point

Tetsu's dad is swole af

I think we'd all feel a lot better if we started punching stuff again instead of feeling emotions

Rocky said fuck what you're up to but we'll protect the ladies by going with you

Hyuga where are your shoes?

The convenient child evidence we had has been taken

These people are actually insane

Give Takeshi a better haircut and he's good to go to take over for Smokey

Stop running old man theyre here to help you

Shes got covid

Fucking Genji again

This dude is so lame

He looks so constipated  how could the director do that to him??

God Oya high is so baller

The slinky possum is all up front of the rude boys but I have no idea what his name is

Come on Masaki one more sherlock moment

Heeeeelllll yeah brutha

Chains beat sword

You know Masaki is a leg guy cause his ass is so phat

Slinky possum is Yu, good to know

The fact that the Rude Boys are literate enough to be sent after the written evidence astounds me

Picking which wire to cut off their own gang colours is hilarious

Oh my God Takeshi got straight up lit on fire

Oh fuck hes stuck there, noble sacrifice. Its what Jorge from Reach would have done

Daruma clan might be actual terrorists

High octane press conference

Trust these homeless people, reporters are really good at that

Okay Saigo maybe not ACAB

Dont just stand in the place thats still rigged to explode maybe

Ryu is such a throw away character

Who are these grown women? They're in every movie but I have no idea who they are

I guess the boys really girlbossed there way out of this one

Where did the Mighty Warriors even go? Bastards

I am watching every HiGH&LoW movie back to back and simply allowing my brain to drip out of my ears

Its how I want to go out

I am taking notes for introspection though, to report my findings

[platypanthewriter]

Hook Possum 1/4

Art by @monsdasarah​ for Harringrove Big Bang!

Steve had told the manager of Camp Butternut Springs every year of his life that the mildewed, papier-mache-masked, six-foot-tall opossum mascot was terrifying.  The mask was chipped and patched, fixed with different colors of gray over the mangy glued-on fur.  Its long, stained rat tail had drug through the red camp dirt for decades, and by the summer of 85, the dirty thing looked like it had been dyed with blood.

Hook Possum looked more like a zombie than a possum, with its mesh eyes staring in their ragged, uneven sockets, its lovingly molded teeth half broken off and stained with grime.  Inexplicably—but later, retroactively, mythologized by a ton of camp folklore—it had a hook hand off a pirate costume, gleaming in the sun.

Every goddamn year the goddamn manager had the goddamn Hook Possum outfit on some poor camp counsellor, out greeting campers—the goddamn moron—and every fucking goddamn year one of the already-homesick and worried new campers burst into sobs at first sight of the horrifying thing.  Steve wondered whether the manager was actually in the huge, blank-eyed Hook Possum costume this year, like a prick, because it was even bigger than usual—as tall as Steve, with its ripped ratty ears, and broad-shouldered in a way Steve suspected wasn’t padding.

The hook hand didn’t exactly help.

Steve grabbed the first wailing child he saw around the waist, then two more, and stomped over to the damn possum.  “Here, look, Hook Possum’s not scary,” he said, and they all screamed, because it was so clearly a lie.  

Hook Possum, somewhat to his credit, dropped to a crouch, his shoulders hunched, and Steve thought maybe it wasn’t the manager, just some poor camp counsellor that got roped in, because the manager probably would have roared like a lion—just for fun—and the kids would have wet themselves all over Steve’s lap.  

“Hook Possum just lives here!” Steve told the screaming infants he was holding.  “If you get scared at night,” Steve shouted over their desperate wailing and struggles, “—away from home?  Hook Possum is here to keep you safe.  Right?”

Whoever was playing Hook Possum flinched, and its creepy head jerked around to look at him.

“HELP!” shrieked the kid under his arm, his voice nasal, because he was holding his nose against Hook Possum’s fug of mildew and B.O.

“Nobody has ever yet been murdered by Hook Possum,” Steve gritted out.  “Right?!” he prompted the moron in the mascot suit again, nudging a fur-suited leg with his shoe.  “Hook Possum is like a...camp guardian!  Right?”

Hook Possum stared at his face, which was chilling—after Steve’s first visit to Camp Butternut Springs, Hook Possum had featured in every one of Steve’s childhood nightmares, and the costume was even worse after nearly two decades of wear—but Steve was as tall as the thing now, and he set his jaw.  

“Hook Possum is friendly, right,” he growled, and Hook Possum gave a jerky nod, making a weird choking noise, like maybe it had already eaten a couple of kids.

“Y-ye-ahssss,” the thing hissed, and Steve was tempted to push the whole mess, including the person inside, under a bus.  “Safe as houses,” said the possum, just as strangled-sounding, but it was better than staring silently, so Steve grinned ruefully at the kids, who were quieting as they realized they weren’t murdered—not yet, anyway.  

“You’ll get used to Hook Possum,” he said cheerfully.  “We all do.  Eventually.” 

It had occurred to Steve one night when he was fourteen, and firmly over his terror of Hook Possum, that the perfect cover for an actual serial killer would be a terrifying full-body costume everyone was trying to ignore.  He and Tommy had followed the costume around every time it had someone in it, looking for suspicious behavior.  Years later, he’d donned it himself, and for the first time in his life didn’t fear getting murdered by Hook Possum.  He only worried he might die of heatstroke in padded fur boots, gloves, and a bodysuit in July in Indiana, except for a few startling glimpses of himself in the mirror over the sinks.  

His suggestion every week in the suggestion box was still ‘burn the Hook Possum costume and bury the ashes under a rock’, though, because he was a rational human being who understood what needed to be done.

When he’d talked Robin into applying with him at the camp instead of the video store, he’d snuck the costume on and leaned into her cabin.  She’d screamed satisfyingly, and nearly killed him with an oar.  She’d argued for burying the ashes of Hook Possum in seven different locations around the US, lest it rise again, and they’d put that in the suggestion box, to no response whatsoever.

 It was pretty obvious the current Hook Possum wasn’t used to the cheerful voice necessary to offset its...everything, so Steve did his best.  “Are you guys telling me you’re afraid of possums?” he teased, and the littlest kid, a girl, reached out and lightly batted its nose.  The smell of cigarettes wafted up.  

“I’m afraid,” said the boy, thickly, and Steve nodded slowly, feeling nothing but respect for a smart child.

“Hook Possum protects you guys,” he told them, sitting them on their feet.  “From whatever, you know, else.”

“What could be out there,” the scared boy whispered, his eyes widening, “—that’s worse than—”

“...yeah,” said Hook Possum, in a weird squeaky voice like a Disney mouse.  “Yeah, that’s what I’m here for, I’m here to protect you guys from...nightmares?” he suggested, glancing at Steve, who shrugged, nodding, because it was a pretty good idea.

“You’re soft,” said the littlest kid, grabbing one of the other snifflers by the wrist, and shoving it into Hook Possum’s fur.

“You stink,” said the boy, and Steve elbowed him.

“I’m a possum,” hissed Hook Possum, and the kid nodded.  

“That makes sense.”

Steve muffled his laughter, but he was pretty sure the possum heard, because his crooked, whiskery mask jerked up, and his terrifying mesh eyes stared into Steve’s soul.  He smelled like long winters in a damp shed, and cigarettes, and B.O.— because it was worn every year in the summer in Indiana—but the smallest kids were gathering around and asking questions about possums, and Steve had to call upon his knowledge from years past, and explain things like how possums were too awesome to get ticks.  

Hook Possum listened intently—or maybe just glared at him, smoke drifting from its eye mesh—until Steve was a little annoyed, and mentioned that mother possums carried babies around on their backs.  That was probably way too mean, because the whole horde of children grabbed hold of Hook Possum’s every appendage, and he flailed his hook only once before vanishing in the giggling pile.  

“Here, here, no—” Steve yelped, unable to watch a human being consumed by piranha, and he reached into the laughing, yelping pile and hauled Hook Possum up by the arm, dusting him off.  Two small children dangled from his other arm, and one had him around the neck.  “You have to be nice to Hook Possum!” Steve told them.  “Who’s he gonna stay up protecting, huh?  The kids who’re nice to him, or the little, uh, cusses that knee him in the...shins?”

“...the nice ones,” came a small, grumbly voice from one of the criers, and “Probably the nice ones,” from a little girl who sighed heavily, and another kid just said, “Fine.”  The dude in the possum suit just panted against Steve’s shoulder for a second, and Steve let him, familiar with getting dogpiled by small children with weaponized knees.  

“...jesus,” came a faint whisper from in the possum suit, and Steve pinched him, even though he was grimacing with sympathy.  He lifted the kids off Hook Possum—once the littlest ones had decided he was safe, they tried to drag him around and show everyone how brave they were—and the human in the suit tried to wipe his face, or something, and smacked his hook-hand into the head of his costume.  He sighed, and Steve squeezed his shoulder, and patted his back, ushering the kids away.

“What are you doing here,” Hook Possum wheezed, as Steve pushed him back to sit on one of the picnic table benches.  “What are you doing here,” he repeated, sounding bewildered.

“My dad owns the place,” Steve said in a low voice, as the littlest boy ran back to the buses, screaming about how he’d met Hook Possum, and Robin and Nancy looked over, resigned.  “That’s why it pays so well.  We went to him and told him he could have a staff that would work hard, or he could have three underpaid girls who want it on their resume for becoming teachers, and the second week they’d all have nervous breakdowns.  Why, do...do I know you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at the blank mesh eyes, and trying to place the weird squeaky voice.

Hook Possum nodded slowly, but Steve was pretty sure he was still staring.  Maybe it was just the mesh eyes.  “...oh,” he said quietly.  “Your...dad.  Owns...it.”

“Yep,” Steve said, shrugging.  “I mean, he owns the company that owns a bunch of camps, you know, but—anyway, you’ve never been a counselor before, right?  I can show you around, if you want.  What’s your name?  How d’you know me?”

Hook Possum stared at him some more, and then said, even higher, like Mickey Mouse, “He’s, like, the owner’s boss?” he asked weakly.  “...name’s Hook Possum.”

“What the fuck,” Steve muttered, staring back into the mesh eyes, but then he saw Robin’s arm fly up as she was consumed in a wave of children, and he clapped Hook Possum on the shoulder and ran off.  

 He saw the guy later, too, still in the costume, even though it was July in Indiana.  He was talking to Max Mayfield, so Steve wandered over.  “You need some help getting out of that?” he offered, because nobody would stay in a horrible hot stinking furry sweat bag by choice.

“No,” said Hook Possum, too quickly, and Max groaned into her hands.  

“Uh,” said Steve, who was starting to wonder if they’d found some possum-obsessed weirdo for a counselor.  “You must...really like possums.”

Max burst into giggles, laughing harder than Steve had ever seen her, and Hook Possum’s long face swung to look at her, then at Steve, then back at her, and then he stomped away.  Because the costume had big, dirty, saggy fur paw-booties, he had to lift his feet high, like a cartoon, and Steve started snickering too.

Hook Possum hunched his shoulders, and scuttled around the edge of one of the cabins, out of sight.  

“Oh my god,” Max cackled.  “He’s finally found his true identity!  Trash rat.”

“Is...is that...Billy,” Steve asked, the thought of Billy Hargrove, camp counselor, hauling off and punching kids, or murdering them, suddenly much less funny.  “What—isn’t he back in Hawkins?!  How’d he get here?!”

“Uh, no!  No, no,” Max said quickly, grimacing and waving her hands.  “Definitely, um, not, no.  It’s, ah, he lives on my street.  He’s, um, saving money to move out.”

“Oh,” Steve said, relieved.  

“The pay’s really good here,” Max explained, too fast.  “—and, uh, mmmm...hiiiis dad’s kinda shitty, so he needs money to get out of his house.”

“Well, he should be able to,” Steve told her, giving her two thumbs-up so she’d make a face.  “We’re practically all seniors, that’s what a lot of us are doing, that or paying for college.”

“...yeah,” Max sighed.  “He can...move away.  Finally.”

“Sounds like you’ll miss him,” Steve said, grinning at her, “—he the brother you never had?”

“...yeah, he um.  He sort of is,” she said, swallowing, and Steve patted her shoulder gingerly.  

“Uh,” he said cautiously, “Um, you...you know you can always give me a call, right?”

“Thought you had kind of a problem with my family,” she sighed, and he shook his head.  

“I’ve got no problem with you.”

“...yeah, that’s what we thought,” Max muttered, maybe, and Steve frowned at her.  “Go away,” she told him, sighing, “It’s fine.”

 They got everybody sorted into cabins, and Steve saw Hook Possum ducking into a bunk in the counselor’s cabin.  He stared for a long moment, watching the enormous possum negotiate its tail and its creepy, vacant-eyed mask and lie down on the lower bunk.

“It’s hot as Satan’s asshole in here,” he groaned.

“...what are you doing,” Steve hissed.  “They cannot be paying you enough to stay in that thing.  There is not enough money in the world to stay in that thing for more than a couple hours.”

“Ah, fuck,” said Hook Possum, sitting up and smacking his head on the upper bunk.  “Shit fuck,” he groaned, “—I can’t see in this thing—”

“Then take it off,” Steve told him, sitting next to him on the bunk and reaching in to feel for the ties behind the guy’s neck, but Hook Possum grabbed Steve’s hand, scrambling back.  

“No!  No, uh,” he stopped, then tried again.  “I need the money,” he said softly.  “I need it—”

“Okay, okay, did you agree to some—some massive bonus bullshit to keep this damn costume on?  Because you’re gonna die of heatstroke in there,” Steve told him.  “I don’t care how much he offered you, you can’t wear that thing all summer—”

“No, I did, I agreed to—to bonus bullshit to keep the damn costume on,” Hook Possum whispered, the fingers in his paw-glove squeezing Steve’s arm, hard.  “I can’t take it off.  He’s—he’s giving me a huge bonus.”

“Fuck,” Steve breathed.  “You’re gonna die in there, I’m not kidding.  You can stay in the shade, or—and we can bring you ice, lots of ice, you could try an ice pack on your neck—”

“I need this job,” the guy said, and Steve nodded, letting him go.

“Okay, okay.  We’ll figure this out, but if the manager comes out, I’m kneeing him in the balls, because—”

“No!  I need the money,” Hook Possum hissed, the weird cartoony voice even odder in a serious conversation.  

“Jesus,” Steve said, sighing.  “Okay.  I’m gonna check in with you, alright?  If you start to keel over, I’m taking it off, we’ll figure out something to tell the manager.”

“Don’t take it off,” said Hook Possum, like he was the last soldier holding the line, and Steve got caught up in it, like a moron.  

“I’m not leaving you in there,” he said, like the trenches were getting shelled.  “I’m not letting anyone die in a possum costume,” he said, to remind himself they weren’t at D-Day.  Hook Possum sighed, his shoulders slumping as he growled.  “And you can’t sleep in that thing, jesus,” Steve said,  “At least change at night.”

“You’d—somebody’d see me,” Hook Possum said, and Steve shook him, a little.  

“We aren’t possum spies, nobody’s gonna tell.”

“How do I know you’re not possum spies,” Hook Possum hissed back, and Steve started snickering.

“Okay, okay, um, curtain?  What about a curtain, we’ll just staple it up here and nobody’ll see your, uh, late night transformation.”

“Oh,” said Hook Possum, snickering a little, like he did realize how ridiculous it all was, and looking around.  “That...might work.”

“Gonna transform out of your outfit like a shitty Cinderella,” Steve sighed, and Hook Possum laughed harder.  “You’re gonna have to shower in the dead of night,” Steve told him.  “I’ll let everybody know it’s just, y’know, just our resident possum.  Creeping around.”  He started laughing again, and Hook Possum elbowed him.  “How are you gonna eat?”

“Shouldn’t be feeding the wildlife in the cafeteria anyway,” Hook Possum pointed out.  “There are signs everywhere.”

“...you know you’re a human, right,” Steve told him, trying not to giggle.

Hook Possum shook with laughter against him.  “I’ll just climb into a trash can and knock it over at three am.  It’s the way of my people.”

“Oh my god,” Steve wheezed.  “I’m gonna get in trouble for feeding the wildlife and letting a possum nest in here, aren’t I?  I’ll sneak you burgers, I promise.”

“Why,” Hook Possum laughed, edging away.  “It’s not your problem, Harrington—”

“Hey, Max likes you, you’re part of the weirdo family we got going on,” Steve said, clapping the guy’s shoulder, and the possum mask swung towards him again.

“...does she?” he asked, snorting softly.

“She does,” Steve confirmed.  “She said.”  Hook Possum stared like a creepy puppet, and Steve was unable to resist reaching up and patting the dusty, greasy fur between the costume ears.  “You’re one of us, now.”

“...once you feed wildlife, it can create a dependency,” Hook Possum said, batting Steve’s hand away, but he was laughing audibly now.  “I read that in a flyer.”

“I can’t believe they handed a possum a flyer about possums,” Steve said, and Hook Possum snorted.

“Right?  Like who the fuck deals with wildlife by handing them flyers, what a moron.”

“I didn’t know possums could read,” Steve said, and Hook Possum kicked at him, completely missing.  “What a smart possum you are.”

“Fuck you, if I could see in this thing—” 

“Oooo, you gonna murder me with your little—your plastic pirate hook hand?” Steve asked, and Hook Possum laughed harder, letting himself fall sideways to curl up on the bunk.  

“Fuck you,” he mumbled again, wheezing with laughter.

Steve wondered who he was—whether he’d defended Max from Billy, or just showed her some skateboard tricks.  Whether he was younger, maybe—Steve didn’t know most of the freshmen—and what he’d look like in about ten minutes when he gave up on the incredibly stupid idea of living in a possum suit for the whole damn summer.

 Steve got hauled into setting up the welcome dinner, sitting the tables out, and putting cleanish rocks on the stacks of napkins to keep them from blowing away.  Hook Possum was useless at it—he nearly dropped the plates, and then bumped into a table because he couldn’t see, almost overturning it, and finally Steve put both hands on his furry possum shoulders and walked him over to a group of smaller kids who were milling around, bored by the orientation speech.

As he wandered by later, he heard Hook Possum telling them “Possum Facts.”

“Possums are gonna be the next police dogs,” he was saying, as Steve stared over.  “They’re gonna yell ‘Fly, my pretties!’ and the perp will be overwhelmed by possums.”

“That’s good,” said one solemn little kid, softly.  “I’m afraid of dogs.”

“Hook Possum is here to protect us,” said another one.  “You can find him if you’re scared of dogs.”

The first kid nodded, wide-eyed, and Hook Possum stared at one, then the other.  “...uh, yeeeah,” he said, slowly.  “Sure.”

“He’ll fight the dogs, Robin said,” said the first kid, and Hook Possum’s mask jerked towards her.  

“Wait, what?!” he hissed, and Steve ducked away, smothering snickers.

 Dinner was uneventful, as usual, in that there was so much chaos Steve was deadened to it, automatically reaching in to stop Dustin from using his spoon to catapult peas at Erica Sinclair and starting WWIII.   

He snuck off when he saw Hook Possum tiptoeing away like a stealthy cartoon.  “D’you need me to feed the wildlife?” he asked, and Hook Possum yelped, spinning around, so his tail whipped Steve in the legs.  

“Holy shit,” he panted, in his weird squeaky voice.

“Sorry, forgot you were a possum on the edge, man,” Steve told him, clapping a hand to his shoulder, and Hook Possum started laughing again, cigarette smoke trailing out of the eyeholes of his mask.  Steve watched it.  “...you have no idea how fucking creepy that looks,” he said.  “It’s eerie.”

“Creepier than my big blank eyes?” Hook Possum asked, and Steve wished he could see the expression of the person in the suit—whether it was resigned, or entertained, or what.  

“D’you want me to get you some food?” Steve asked.  “I can’t see you using the tongs, or like...seeing the buffet very well.”

“Also, I’m filthy,” Hook Possum said, raising a dusty paw.  

“That too,” Steve agreed.

“...I can get something later,” Hook Possum said, laughing a little.  

“You still have to eat, man,” Steve told him.  “And drink some water, at least.”

“What’s going on back here,” came Max’s voice, and they both swiveled.  She had a tray in her hands, and her eyes narrowed.

“Harrington was offering to feed the wildlife,” said Hook Possum, and she snorted.

“You’re a camp counselor, set a good example,” she hissed, waving Steve away.  “Didn’t you see the flyers, Steve?  You can’t feed possums.”

“Everyone saw the flyers, they even gave them to him,” Steve said, pointing.  “Possums probably can’t even read.”

“I barely can, in this,” Hook Possum admitted.  “I had to hold it up over my eyeholes.”

“Hrm,” said Max.  “Okay, Steve, go away, Nancy said to tell you you’re on dishes.”

Steve sighed, and left them to it.

 When he was done, he found an old tatty camp flag in the storage shed, half faded and ripped—he remembered somebody getting in trouble, in years past, for leaving it up all winter—and nailed it up over Hook Possum’s bunk with pruny fingers from the suds in the cooking tent.  He put a hook where the grommet could lift it away, in case Hook Possum’s struggles with his mask caught on the fabric, and then stepped back to look at his handiwork just as Robin wandered in.  

“That’s...really something,” she said, raising his eyebrows.  “We all get one of those?”

“No, it’s for the possum guy,” Steve told her, hooking the flag’s bottom corner up to show that the bunk was slightly easier to climb into.  “He’s like...contracted to wear the damn thing 24/7.  He gets a bonus or something.”

“That’s bullshit.  He’s gonna die of heatstroke,” Robin said, and Steve nodded, shrugging.

“That’s what I said.  Anyway, I told him I’d hide the bunk so he didn’t have to, like, lie there in the costume all night.”

“Playing possum,” she snorted, and Steve grinned, imagining the dude in full possum array, sprawled on his back like roadkill.  

“Sexy,” he snorted, and she waggled her eyebrows.

PART ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 149

So, I was super busy on my normal queueing day and wasn’t able to set this up. And by ‘super busy’ I mean ‘doing laundry, weeding flower beds, and taking several naps’, bc I have upwards of 24 niblings and a super-full time job that make me exhausted.

I’m not kidding, I recently told @baelpenrose “I had a birthday party to go to, yes it’s the third Saturday in a row, don’t worry about keeping track because there are SO MANY”. 

What doesn’t make me exhausted? Y’all. The likes, the comments, the reblogs, the ‘hey, this person reads my stuff AND Bael’s stuff’ ( @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @drbibliophile, looking at you in a very loving way). Also the speedrunners... all of you who have ever, at any point, found this fic and decided to read every single chapter as quickly as possible ( and have or haven’t shamed me for needing to update the masterpost or page links), you keep me going like nothing else. I, too, like a good binge read, so I know I’ve done something worth... something... when someone else binges like that.

“So the Ark is semi-organic?” I glanced over and resisted the urge to trail my fingers along the walls of the corridor.

“That would be the closest Terran approximation, yes,” they confirmed. “It is not sentient in any form, but all exposed surfaces, for example, are grown in-place of a material native to our home planet.”

“So cool,” I whispered. “Is there a benefit to that, aside from being more sustainable?”

Noah rubbed two liw alongside their sensory organs, and let out a soft buzz - essentially rubbing their face with a sigh. “It is very rare for any species that achieves sentience to reach a level of technology that allows for faster than light travel without what you refer to as sustainability being included in every aspect of their culture.”

“Oh.” I felt ashamed and focused on my feet for a few steps, paying close attention to the feeling of the deck plating through my soles, any uneven textures that I came across turning into canyons of perception.

“In the case of the material coating the surfaces of the Ark,” Noah continued, clearly picking up on my discomfort, “it serves a largely hygienic function, much as Else currently provides.”

“So, that’s what Xio was referring to when she said that Hujylsogox ships largely decontaminate themselves?”

“Indeed. Where my species absorbs impurities from the air and any surfaces we come in contact with, the lining of the corridors, rooms, and vents can purify the rest within a Galactic week.” That worked out to eleven and two-third days as we currently measured them on the Ark, or fourteen and a half days on Earth. “Biofiltration is a very common way to sanitize spaces that often house multiple species to avoid destructive interactions, although the coating we use is known to be the most efficient organic solution.”

Surrendering, I ran my fingers over the wall.  Even knowing that it was grown, it still felt like sandstone under my touch. “If it is so efficient, why don’t the Ekomari use it on their ships?”

Their fingers on both vomu clacked as they tapped them together. “In absence of another organism to ingest the larger particulates, sypo is what you would consider to be too efficient.”

“Feathers clog it up?”

“Like you would not believe,” they hummed deeply - a groan, clear as day. “It actually ends up starving the sypo.”

Unbidden, my mind’s eye flashed back to the nightmares that Else had shown me early on: large flakes of the walls falling away and littering the corridor floors. “So, that was a very real thing?” There didn’t seem to be any reason to clarify, given how clearly the images had blared in my head.

“Correct. We believe that Else understood the nature of the material and was trying to show you what was happening in a way they thought you would understand.” A heavy liw gently patted my shoulder. “They meant well, even if they did not realize that it would backfire.”

I was about to ask what the Ekomari use in place of sypo as a biofilter, but my databand signaled me. Judging by the fact that it chimed, flashed, and vibrated against the bones in my wrist, this was incredibly urgent. “I’m sorry, Noah, one mom - ah, fuck…” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I mentally braced myself for what I knew would be coming in the next several days.

“Wisdom, you are distressed.”

“Departmental notification from Pranav and Zach that they will be doing system security testing over the next week. Which means Derek will be doing his best to hack into our systems and take them out, while Pranav and Zach take notes of vulnerabilities and then fix them afterward.”

The face-rubbing sigh was back. “They are not including basic ship functions in this testing, correct?”

I shook my head, relieved that I could at least provide that assurance. “Negative. Only the systems that humans will be replicating on our own once we are on Von.”

“This is still terribly inconvenient. These tests increase tension across the Ark to quite difficult levels to be around.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. It’s mostly from what happened Before, at least for the older members of the crew.  I mean, we got a Global Parliament out of it, but… there were a scary few years before we got there. And then the End happened, and the hack felt like some kind of warning looking back.”

Noah buzzed thoughtfully. “You are speaking of the gap in data we found when we were trying to download your planetary database.”

A part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that Miys continued to refer to the internet as a ‘planetary database’, but the topic was so upsetting that any kind of joy felt obscene right then. “It was… another terrorist attack, honestly.  They weren’t unusual, as terrifying as that is - I mean, you admitted yourself that not all of us were worth saving.  There was a petrochemical hack maybe five years before this one, and the attacks had been ramping up slowly even before that.  But this one.”  I shook my head trying to clear the thoughts from my head. “What we were told is that this group knew we would never take action against climate change, something about how the rich corporate would never take it seriously until they had to actually live in the nature they were destroying.”

“You are doubtful of this.” Noah’s statement was far from being a question.

Couldn’t blame him, since I didn’t believe half of what we had been told, or maybe that it was only half the story. “I wasn’t old enough to remember, but it is a recorded fact that there were actual people on Earth who had more wealth than any single country on the planet, and one was particularly known for building his fortune on the backs of employees who were worked to death or nearly to death.  It’s hard to believe that had nothing to do with it, you know.”

“If being reminded of this event causes such distress among your people, why run so many tests?”

“The hack killed people, Noah. It destroyed entire small countries, caused a lot of violence and wars. The ultra-rich may have been the targets, but the casualties were mostly people who never knew what was happening.  We want to make sure it can’t happen again.  That’s why we warn everyone what’s going on, so they know it’s not the same thing, but still do the testing.”

More clattering of vomu signaled Noah thinking again. “Your global economy depended strongly on the concept of wealth and the concept of money.  But with the current economic model you exercise, such a data security breach would not impact it.”

I shrugged. “We still worry. Not to mention the fact that, at some point, someone may try. We can try all we want to avoid the catalyst of the original events, but some of our better qualities can be just as terrible with just a twist.  Curiosity, confidence, and justice and easily turn into pride, vindictiveness, and prying. Which can lead to blackmail. And that’s just one example. Still sure we’re worth it?”

Another thoughtful buzz with some mild clicking. “I have seen your people endeavor to save a species that could have destroyed you.  I have seen you, specifically, mourn someone who deliberately attempted to end not only your life but the lives of the entire Ark.  There is much evidence to give us faith in your compassion.”

All I could do was shake my head. “I’ll try to have faith in your faith,” I murmured with a weak smile.

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[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Stump Day Review or The Why Are You Booing Tom He’s Right Holiday Special

Before we start a special credit to @jess-the-vampire​ who I discussed the episode with during the writing process and brought up a LOT of good points that ended up going into this review. She clearly hates it as much as I do and had even more good reasons for it.  Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everybody! And today we got a big, fat, grotesque lump of coal to smash to pieces. And after a long, draining, if worth the effort scrooge review, and with this being something I needed to cross off my to do list this holiday season, I put this one here as I could use the cathariss of giving this steaming bowl of elephant piss a good thrashing. As you can tell unlike my usual reviews, I do not like this episode. This isn’t the FIRST i’ve not liked i’ve covered, but it is the first rather infamous one to me i’ve covered and not just a dead possum of an episode I ran into while reguarly covering an otherwise good show like “Quaraller’s Pass” or “Strife of the Party”. This one’s had it coming, making my top 8 worst christmas specials list last year, and while not the series worst outing, that’s a toss up between the finale and marco jr, it’s easily one of them. So while usually I like diving deeply into something good and picking apart while it’s good, if not ignoring any bad aspects, here i’m just going to take a hammer to this thing to explain why it dosen’t work and why it sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. I might be overstating it a bit but probably not.  Nothing really new has happened since the last episode so the only new thing to cover is why i’m doing the episode here instead of after Monster Bash. And the simple reason is that like the Ducktales Halloween and Christmas specials, this episode clearly does not take place in the same time frame of the episode before or after it, with the next episode, The Bog Beast of Bogabah, taking place the day after Monster Bash. It’s most likely they simply held this episode over till Christmas and it dosen’t really fit in AFTER the huge game changer that is monster bash, especailly since the next three episodes after this all take place in rapid sucession, two on the same day one the day after them. So yeah i’m doing this one first and putting it ahead of monster bash on my episode guide for clarity’s sake. 

Good, so with all that settled, let’s unwrap this complete works of pauly shore shall we? We open on the titular Stump Day, essentially mewni’s christmas complete with Cocoa, carols and a gay couple and their equally adorable child. And Star, unsuprisingly is giddy for it as the actual chlidren, and wearing an adorable santaesque dress complete with horns on her santa hat. Seriously you cannot tell me tom didn’t get that for her. Fucking precious. Marco is more just confused and has his hood up and one of Star’s cousins asks uncle river to tell him the origin of stump day. River’s response.. is easily the best joke of the episode. 

“(in a jolly tone) ha ha, you don’t tell me what to do”

He does so anyway though: Basically when settlers arrived on Mewni they found themselves cold and griping with each other, and soon found a blizzard had struck.. but by huddling together under a magic stump, they all learned to get along or something like that and now once a year everyone gathers in warmth and camraderie.. or else. Before Marco can understandably question what “or else” means in this context, Star butts in when one of her cousins chastises the younger one who asked river the question for beliviing and says he’s real. It’s a nice touch as it fits star perfectly to still belivie in mewni’s horrifying version of santa. I forgot just how adorable and likeable the character was before the final season shot that to hell. How her energy could be infectious and how Eden Sher really brought her all to the performance, which is still the performance of her career and hopefully like Rider Strong she’ll do more voice acting eventually.  So that night as Star tucks in after wonderful  night of sleep, and to avoid her dad’s usual drunken chorus of Tom Jones “Sex Bomb”, and gets woken up by Marco who leads her to the dining hall because a windows broken to fix it with magic. Star entirely buys this flimsy story.. but as Jess pointed out, and as I missed hence the credit up top... she dosen’t bring her wand. She.. dosen’t bring her wand.. to go fix something with magic. Now i’ll grant next season shows she CAN fully do magic without it, and while not as powerful like her mom still has plenty of punch behind it.. especially when she does the rainbow fist thing. But it’s still.. weird she dosen’t think to grab it and feels out of character. While Star’s learned by this point not to rely on it, and as we’ll see gives it up entirely, one of the few bits of her character development that actually sticks, it still seems resonable she’d take it with her wherever she goes.. and usually SHE DOES. And her jammies, which are also adorable, seem to have pockets so the animators had no reason to not just stuff it in one. It would’ve made their job harder yes.. but then don’t have marco use an excuse that directly requires it then and draws attention to the fact the wand is missing, and the fact you blatantly just hoped we’d forget about it as it’d ruin the climax. 

It’s far from the worst thing in this episode..trust me we’re almost there. But this does bring me to a point.. so far the episode is GOOD. The comedy’s good, the setup for what’s about to happen is good, the holdiay setting is warm and inviting but weird enough to perfectly fit mewni, and River, much like his VA and homosexual talking boat portrayer Alan Tudyuk, is a national treasure as always. Whelp it’s all down hill from here bitches! Giddyup. 

So Marco announces a SUPRISE PARTY! And everyone’s there: Tom, Kelly, Ponyhead, Starfan14... oh yeah this is the first ep i’ve coverd with Starfan14 isn’t it? Starfan14 is star’s insane fangirl, voiced by series creator Derfron Nercy herself, who star happily tolerates despite clearly wanting to wear her skin. We’ve all been there. Also Jackie is transparently missing, though at least it’s SOMEWHAT reasonable as she and marco broke up a few .. months ago? I mean it is winter on mewni for this episode but the end of season 4 and the series is set at the start of summer, yet months still pass..... 

Confusing timeline aside, Jackie has every reason not to attend a party thrown by her ex for the girl who confesed she had feelings for said ex and it’s probably the only good decision Marco makes this entire episode that he wisely decided to give Jackie some space. And it says something a decision made entirely off screen that was probably because the creators genuinely forgot Jackie once she was out of the way so they could shift the love triangle stuff to Tom, Star and Marco instead of you know.. not doing that because most love triangles are annoying at best and utterly insufferable at worst. Case in point this episode but I can give out more about this aspect of things in a bit with more context. 

And to his credit, and as Jess backed me up on, Marco’s gesture is genuinely throughtful.. at least to start with. He got her a choclate fountain, brought all of her friends, and geninely just thought Star never celebrated her birthday on her birthday because it was you know the same day as christmas. As someone whose birthday is a week before christmas, December 16th if you were curious, I understand the pain of having your birthday in the same month as christmas. Of having all your presents clustered at once and of having to manuver around a very stressful season, though it does sometimes have perks like getting to celebrate your birthday and christmas, it also means your birthday is secondary and always will be to most people due to proximity. And Star has hers ON mewman christmas, so it’s even worse. So from Marco’s perspective, TO START, his best friend constantly had to share her birthday with her faviorite holiday and just wanted to do something nice. SO FAR, he’s done nothing wrong and just means well. That’s... about to end.  Star.. instead of being greatful.. starts muttering no before going on an manic rampage and destroying everything including hte band’s insturments. And apparnetly star’s gotten some flack for her behavior.. but I understand it. To her the stump is VERY real, and will be very angry if someone else celebrates so to her all she’s doing is saving her best friend from the holiday equilvent of the trees from evil dead, and when Marco asks about it she GENUINELY is sorry, getting he meant well, that he was being sweet, and that he did a lot of nice stuff for her.. she just can’t celebrate not because she loves the holiday but because again, from her persepctive, the stump will kill them all if they don’t support it. She is genuinly affraid for her friends lives and given she could go grab her wand and fight it, clearly thinks she, with all her CONSIDERABLE powers, cannot win this, and neither can tom whose powers are almost entirely fire based. Star is just trying to protect her friends from being horribly murdered. And she turns out to be entirely right about it so no, star was not a jerk here. A bit over the top, but she was not insensitive, she was not mean, she just didn’t want a party for understandable reasons.

So let’s get to actually insensitive shall we?! Marco’s reaction to this is at first confusion as he didn’t realize the stump was real, though Tom, Kelly and Pony are convinced it’s not. Also this episode implies Kelly is from mewni, but she turns out not to be so why she knows about the stump I genuinely don’t know. They think it’s just a baby thing.. though in Tom’s defense he dosen’t phrase it that way, thinks star still beliving is cute, which for a teenage boy finding out his girlfriend belivies in santa is very sweet and mature of him, and is trying to be nice about it even if he doesn’t believe.  But Marco.. his response to his friend having a good reason for not wanting to have the party.. is to complain about how much effort he put into it and try to guilt and bribe her into having it by mentoining he got her faviorite cake flavor, rainbow. Just.. WOW. I’ve seen some bad turns from characters, but WOWWWWWW. Holy shit.. I mean at least other jerkass marco episodes before this had SOME reasoning to them. Sophmore Slump had him clearly sublimating his feelings for star combined with the usual obnoxiousness of someone having gone abroard for the first time, which as Letterkenny recently went into, the only thing worse is Stillborn Puppies. Nothing else. 

And with Lint Catcher while he was presumptive and not blameless.. river still outright lied to him. Here? It’s clear star dosen’t want this, cake can be refigirated, he only takes a loss on the choclate fountain and he could still just let everyone have some and say it’s for stump day to appease her. He dosen’t have to take a loss on this finacially or morally and there would be no harm done. But that’s.. not what HE wanted, not waht HE set up and he wants what HE wanted, which was to impress star with a thoughtful gesture. But that’s the thing bud: Gestures aren’t about you or what you get. Their about doint something nice for another fucking person. It’s the whole point of christmas and birthdays: To just give someone something to be ncie and to celebrate the day and them respectively. If she dosen’t WANT your gift for understandable reasons and isn’t being rude about it you don’t have any leg to stand on you seflish twatwaffle. 

So already Marco is not coming off well.. and if you know this episode you know it gets worse. Oh god it gets worse. So first PONYHEAD of all people calls out Marco.. and for once, PONYHEAD, the most selfish, most unresonable and a character whose tolerablity varies on the episode, tells him he’s being selfish and is only pressing on because of his need to control things. So not only is Ponyhead right but the episode LIKELY wants you to feel she’s wrong because she’s pony which is not how this work as she knows star well and thus, while unaware she still belivied in the stump, which tracks as while it’s obvious she does Pony is so up her own whatever she has that functions as an ass, it’s understandable she’d miss some details. So no Pony’s right, and the fact PONY is one of the more resonable people in this episode is both a sign of the apocalypse, which is thankfully starting to recede, and a clear marker of just how bad Marco’s being if someone who torments him and disagrees with him out of principal is entirely right. 

Oh but it gets worse as next up, Tom steps in and tries to get Marco to back out, admitting he told him this was a bad idea. Now granted Tom did mess up by not stepping in to stop this a bit.. but he A) didn’t know how much his girlfriend genuinely belivied in the stump and B) Probably assumed Marco meant well, as would I before he whined about not getting his way, and decided it was worth a try. So he’s not that bad, and while it is a bit ehhh to try and take back credit for this when he participated, it’s still minor and Marco is still being a huge dick who refuses to help shut things down when it’s clear the party is only causing star to have a panic attack and assault some humble marachi players. He sees nothing good is coming from this and just wants what star wants. Also it paints Marco in a worse light as he was warned about this, and was so obssed with making it a suprise party because that’s how his plan went, he refused to just.. talk to her about it. Hell he could’ve just casually asked “Why do you never celebrate your birthday on your birthday”. It’s an easy question, dosen’t give the game away and allows him to gage if this is a good idea or not BEFORE baking a cake , hiring a band and getting a chocolate fountain. Instead he just went ahead with it.  And he did so.. because this ISN’T about making Star happy. This is abotu HIM making star happy. Him showing her how thoughtful, and considerate and sweet he is and how he’s always been there for her and how maybe she should be with him instead of Tom. I mean it just comes off that way.. he made it a suprise party because in his head that’s how it worked and she was super impresed and left tom that day to be with him in some elaborate fantasy. Granted the episode dosen’t say this.. but it sure as hell acccidently implies hte hell out of it by having marco act like a selfish ass who refuses to take what STAR wants into consideration, and just wants to get his fantasy back on track. What supports this to me is how he treats tom, you know one of his best friends: He, again, accuses him of forgetting.. then calls him a bad boyfriend.. a bad boyfriend for NOT wanting to force a celebration on his girlfriend she does not want, and for not forcing it on her. For you know GROWING AS A PERSON.  Beacuse here’s the pickle pumpernickle: This thing Marco’s doing? Is exactly the kind of thing a pre-character development TOM did, that was rightfully framed as bad. Being controlling, wanting things to go JUST a certain way instead of letting them flow naturally, not getting the hint star isn’t intrested, and not caring about what she wants and only what you want. Marco is doing the same thing Tom used to do. And for starters i’ts already bad because you know MARCO WAS THE ONE WHO FINALLY GOT IT THROUGH TO TOM THAT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR WAS TOXIC AND SELFISH. But apparently when it’s Marco himself doing it it’s fine. If there was ever any clear evidence Marco regressed as a character, there it is.  Him actively unelarning a lesson he taught someone else and then getting combative when that person rightly tries to call him out. Marco is just insufferable in this episode: He’s being selfish, creepy and posseive and he’s apparenlty supposed to, at least on some level BE RIGHT.  But.. we will get to that. Consider a pin put in this rant. 

So Tom overreacts, and throws some fire at marco, which is genuinely wrong and Kelly’s right to call him out, and then headlocks him asking marco to say he’s a good boyfriend. Marco screams out ‘NEVVVEEEERRRR”

I just made this, by hapinstance, while watching the video I put up there. I.. I did not think i’d get to use this so soon but my god. Just my god that’s a terrible thing to say.  So the party soon breaks down elsewhere as Kelly is mad at tom for.. understandable reasons again the guy she has a crush on was just nearly set on fire, even if i’m still on Tom’s side overall here, it’s still not right. Janna points out it’s probably because she has a crush on marco, which while acurate dosen’t mean she was wrong and Tad pops out to be upset about that. Even though you know you two are broken up and as Kelly points out he needs to move out. Pony is mad she’s not getting any attention and Starfan is mad because star’s mad. Star results to desperate measures, opening the windows to try and repeate the act of the settlers.  She didn’t however count on the Janna factor as she throws the stump in the fire, which is in chracter. What’s not, and again I give Jess full credit for this one, is that everyone just starts.. warming around the stump and not caring like a bunch of jackasses not caring about their close friend, and in tom’s case, girlfriend’s feelings. Also tom and marco apparently stopped fighting just to be this stupid. 

But naturally burning the symbolic stump is a bad idea and the real one attacks. Protip: If you live in a world of magical nonsense, maybe don’t discount the magic stump. Everyone’s captured, including moon and river, with River also being suprised and replying to Star’s annoyance at him not beliving with “Sweetie it’s a stump!”. Alan Tudyk is a god and I feel you all should acknowleddge that. But yeah everything seemsm to be bad but everyone apologizes, if not for the right things in Marco’s case, and Tom says “I’m sorry i’m a bad boyfriend!”. You .. you aren’t. You did nothing wrong. I feel like this is tom for the last agrivating 6 minutes of the episode

He did SOME THINGS wrong but he is NOT a bad boyfriend. He is throughtful, kind and while he has flaws, SO DOES STAR. He is not a bad boyfriend for not wanting to repeat past abusive actions! GAH. Let’s just get on with it. They all hold hands, they thiunk this is what made the stump go away but Star is sure it was just going to kill them, Moon and River have a thousand yard stare as they realize they both have to get repairs for this room now and do an extra big stump day next year to make sure it dosen’t come back. And Marco apologizes to star.. for not beliving her. Not for forcing this on her, not for causing all of this, not at all to tom, but for not beliving her while star FUCKING APOLOGIZES TO HIM.  Pin removed, bullshit falling to the floor... Trunks if you would. 

Thank you. Star DID NOTHING WRONG. Tom DID LESS WRONG THAN MARCO. WHY ARE THEY APOLOGIZING. Why is this little shithead getting everything he wants as the party happens after all, if a day later, and he gets to dance with star, while everyone else is painted as being in the wrong? That’s what makes this special so putrid: that MARCO is apparently in the right for doing the same , if on a smaller scale, manipulative shit tom used to do before he grew as a person, yet the episode sides with him, props him up and teases Starco. If it’s Starco it’s okay apparently and that’s.. not okay. You can’t .. build a ship on a character acting like a jackass. That’s not how this works. Marco was wrong, he was bad and he should FEEL bad. Instead he’s just a creepy jerk this entire episode, being entitled, manipulating star, screaming at tom.. and gets REWARDED FOR IT. Fuck this episode. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: I believe I said Fuck this episode.  This is easily one of star vs’ worst episode and much like the season after this episode it gets worse the more you think about it. I put it on my worst holiday episodes list for a reason.. and frankly even with the decent first 4 mintues it should be higher. It’s an unplesant mess that throughly ruins Marco’s character and takes him from a kind, upstanding, polite and bright young man to a creepy manpiulative jackasss. Fuck this episode and have a happy holidays. 

[jeongi]

tell me no lies | jjk (m)

↣ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 | ceo!jungkook x robber!reader

↣ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 | 15.1k

↣ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 | ceo au. criminal au. robbers au. angst. smut. minimal fluff.

↣ 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐱 | explicit language and sexual content. oral sex (f + m receiving), unprotected sex (pls use condoms u fools), creampie, gagging, hair pulling, fingering, dirty talk, biting/marking, mild spanking, choking, multiple smut scenes.

↣ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 | You chose to rob your boss, however; you never expected to fall in love with him.

↣ 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛 | this is part of the ‘under fire’ collab for @btssmutclub‘s summer project! 

↣ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | tell me more lies  

You can hear Jimin attempting to stifle his laughter behind a cough, his pink bangs being the only thing you can see of him from the ground. His attempt to do so is futile, and Jungkook’s glare only sears daggers at him before the doe-eyed boy is hovering above you, alarmed and equally bewildered. 

You’re splayed onto the office floor playing possum, thanking the heat of the summer mixed with the beaming flare of fluorescent lights above you to have worked together in aid of a successful performance- conjuring up one single droplet of sweat to roll down your forehead. You know this ruse is beyond stupid, but if your luck holds out, you’re certain your plan will work out seamlessly.

“Are... you okay?” Jungkook asks, head tilted, genuine concern marked in the furrow of his eyebrows and an indecisive hand coming to rest on your arm. You almost huff in annoyance, trying to remember why in the world you agreed to do this (because this certainly was not in your itinerary for today). Of course, it was Jimin’s plan to fake a collapse- quite frankly a wonder on your end how he even managed to convince Namjoon and Yoongi to accompany you on this mission. Ramping up your acting skills, you muster whatever dignity you have remaining to sell this performance. With your eyes rolling back, a wrist coming up to your forehead and a dramatic sigh falling past your lips, you wail in fake pain.

“Jungkook, I-I don’t feel well at all, I think…I think—”

“You should go home if you’re feeling ill.”

“No!” Both you and Jimin shout in protest but your synchronicity only causes more suspicion to arise with another glare thrown at the pink-haired boy- this time from you.

You fake a cough. “No, no, I have a duty…as your uh, assistant, so a nurse or something will suffice just fine...”

Jungkook studies you with great intent, lips pursing when you send him a subtle stretch of your lips. Upon seeing your coy smize, his eyebrows relax as he swipes a tongue on the inside of his bottom lip- an effort to keep himself from chuckling. With a tilt of one eyebrow, he clears his throat as he speaks. “Well, the nearest hospital is an hour’s drive away…I think I have a first aid kit in my office. We’d better get you looked at there,” his voice is laden with sham worry. First aid for a faux faint. You almost snort at how convincing he’s trying to be, playing his part to his best efforts. Extending a welcoming hand towards you, he helps you off the floor and after another dramatic moment, you take it. He pulls you up gracefully and you don’t fail to take notice that he never seems to let the hand go as he leads you off the office level. Jimin only watches you from his desk.

An elevator ride and two flights of steps later, the pair of you confidently stride into Jungkook’s office. You’ve long since abandoned the medical spell charade, his hand releasing your own before he closes the door behind him. You sit on the edge of his desk, crossing your legs patiently, listening for the gentle click of the lock.

“We can’t be too long. I think they’re starting to catch on,” Jungkook says as he turns his attention to you, unbuckling his leather belt with an emphasized leisure. His white shirt is hugged against his taut chest, the faintest outline of his muscles shadowed against the sunlight beaming into the room. You grin and slide off the desk before flopping to your knees. You’ve done this countless times, more times than you can remember and although you have ulterior motives today, you still want him buried inside you. The thought is so alluring already, you nearly moan out loud. You can’t seem to recall the exact moment this had started but you know it had come a long time since it had. Perhaps sleeping with your boss while simultaneously planning to swindle him had started to slant the flow of time, skewing certain events together- you didn’t know, nor did you really want to think about it.

As Jungkook walks towards your eager figure, you’ve forgotten your train of thought, reaching for his belt instead. You forget things often when you’re with him. Pushing his hands aside, you unlatch the leather on your own. Jungkook watches you with intent, the slightest jut of his jaw as you slide the belt out of the loops and tug at his zipper. “I don’t mind that.” This response only makes him release a heavy breath from above you, a smile curving at the edge of his lips as he closes his eyes with a nod. You hate to admit the truth, knowing full well everyone in the office most definitely is acquainted with your little affair. Though to both of you, it has become much more than just that- hasn’t it? You brush off the thought.

Jungkook leans against his wide mahogany desk and helps you discard his pants. Just as the fabric falls past his knees, you take this opportunity to cling the plastic of his access card between the grasp of your second and third digit. It hangs by a singular lanyard clip, the young CEO being all too naive with valuable belongings; you can’t quite decide if he’s humble or too trusting. You feel the shame that you are amongst the people he must trust the most but you’ve endlessly tried to convince yourself that you’re doing this for a good reason. While his eyes remain closed, you unclip the keycard and slip it into the back pocket of your own pants. The card looks similar to yours and so, you replace his with your own as planned- the only difference being that his keycard gains exclusive access to his office. The guilt hits you once more, an afterthought of mindful reasoning behind your actions. Jungkook had become an addiction to you, your personal elixir that never seems to run out. It was truly a dynamic that had blindsided you completely. You’re sure if the others found out about this, you’d be at the mercy of your teammate’s ceaseless teasing and hazing. However there was no denying it, Jungkook had grown on you. Unexpected as it was, it was nevertheless welcome. You muse that it’s replicant of a modern-day Romeo and Juliet- a pair of forbidden lovers. But in this playscript, you’re not Jungkook’s fair sun that kills the envious moon; you’re merely the poison that takes his life. And with that notion, you return your gaze to his eyes, your thumbs skimming the waistband of his boxers.

Jungkook senses your hesitance, head tilting to the side as he brushes a thumb along your cheek. “What’s on your mind?”

Everything.

You bite your lip. “You, your cock...how much I want you.” Which isn’t a complete lie, you’re most definitely thinking about that as well- amongst other things. You kiss the growing tent within the fabric of his boxers and Jungkook’s fingers immediately gravitate to the lush of your hair, head rolling forward. You’re surprised to find him already hard against your touch, his striking member casting a frighteningly implicative bulge within the confinements of his boxers. You run your fingertips over the fabric, feeling the muted curves of his cock against your nails. A shiver ripples through him almost violently.

“You’re so pretty,” Jungkook mumbles, tilting his head down, eyes cast on you and awaiting the warmth of your ready mouth. The silver hoops hanging off his earlobes dangle, gleaming against the sunlight poking through his window blinds. He truly looks breathtaking like this, hair fluffy and curled- dark against his honey skin. You feel your chest swell, pushing the thoughts of your grand swindle to the back of your mind because for now, you must please this man. You find yourself in brief reminiscence, reminding yourself of the first time you were on your knees before him like this- recalling the zeal in his actions months ago when he first demanded your intimacy. His face wears a look you’ve become accustomed to seeing fairly often, even more so given your current endeavours. It is trademark Jungkook: a drop in his near impenetrable defences, a true vulnerability. One that as of late, you’ve discovered your proficiency in routinely exploiting. You let his cock spring free from the boxers he’s still adorning, your eyes meeting his once more. Hair parted in the centre, his dark curls cling to the nape of his neck and hangs over his forehead; you reckon Jungkook needs a haircut soon.

He draws a hiss between his teeth as you trace a vein up his shaft with your tongue, his fingers gripping tighter into your hair. The point of your tongue nudges against the underside of his shaft and Jungkook can only curse silently under his breath. It’s when you fill your mouth with his girth that he lets out a whimper, capturing the plump of his bottom lip between his teeth. “Fuck, _____.” He stutters, along with his hips as they push forward to fill your tongue even further. Your hands instinctively grabble for his waist, fingertips digging into his hips as he thrusts deeper. When you feel him hit the back of your throat, your nose brushing against the hem of his shirt, you gag. Your throat clenches around him with the movement, his hips stilling as he feels you swallow again. Jungkook groans, throwing his head back, continuing a pattern of thrusts to break more gags out of you.

This time, he doesn’t make an effort to pull out, head falling forward to take in the sight of you stuffed to the brim of your lips with his cock. His breath hitches as he feels you swallow around him, teeth sucking in his bottom lip as a thumb caresses the apple of your cheek. Sliding your hand from his waist, down to his scrotum, you gently grasp them in your hold and Jungkook nearly loses his vision from the feeling. He rolls his hips out once more, granting you the privilege of air before he’s stuffing his cock right back into your mouth. “Y-yeah, just like that baby, so pretty with your lips around my cock- fuck.” He grunts, hips gyrating between shallow and deep thrusts. You feel strings of saliva spilling out of the corner seams of your mouth, your throat constricting around his head as he pushes to the back of your gullet. Jungkook pulls out only when he sees the whites of your eyes glaze over with a sheen of fresh tears. You gasp, gratefully with air but with a single swirl of your tongue, you take him in again.

His grip on your hair is tight, eyes locked to yours. Jungkook pushes your head along with the tempo of his hips and you can only moan against his shaft. The vibrations edge him closer to his undoing but Jungkook doesn’t want to finish in your mouth; he wants to feel you. Releasing his grip from your hair, he pulls out of the harness of your mouth, dragging you up to place a messy kiss onto your lips. He doesn’t care for the coat of saliva messily sheened around your mouth as he fervently kisses against it. One hand placed on your waist, and the other cupped to your cheek, he grazes your bottom lip with his teeth before gently biting down. He kisses you once more, soft this time and you can’t help the small yelp that escapes you when he twists you until your back is flush against his back. He grazes the shell of your ear, fingers playing with the waistband of your pants.

“Can I take these off?” You moan in approval, eyes widening as he practically rips the fabric down your legs- along with your panties. You’re now bare, ready for him to indulge in you as you’re urged to bend over his desk with your chest squished against the wooden top. Jungkook skims down your body, a finger tracing down the divot of your spine to the curve of your ass. You shiver against the touch, your lids dropping as you feel a hand grab at the meat of your right cheek. “Beautiful.” He crouches to his knees, eye level with your exposed and sopping cunt. Using both hands, he spreads your ass, humming in appreciation before he’s tentatively dragging his finger between your folds. You’re already so wet, he doesn’t even need to acknowledge it out loud, instead, steadying a digit into you. You exhale a very long breath, resting your cheek against the surface of his desk as he pumps a few times, adding another finger. The stretch of them fills you with greater need and when Jungkook begins a scissoring motion, you whine, pushing your hips back for more.

“J-jungkook...please,” you beg him, eyes rolling back when he alternates between scissors and powerful drags. He shushes you, instead, lips puckering to kiss your outer thigh before softly biting on the flesh. You don’t expect it to turn you on as much as it does, something about it so carnal, it leaves the wind knocked out of your lungs. And then he’s soothing his bite with a drag of his tongue, slowly, consciously moving closer to your needy heat with his fingers continuing to curl into you. You grip the edge of his desk, waiting to feel the delve of his tongue lick you clean but instead, he retrieves his fingers, standing up to his feet. The whine that leaves you rumbles a chuckle from his chest and when you make an effort to lift your body from his desk, an assertive hand keeps you back down.

“Be an angel and cum on my dick first, baby.” You clench- seemingly around nothing and that frustrates you even more. You can’t be frustrated too long, not when you feel the warmth of his hard cock slap against your ass. His broad hands hold the base before he’s nudging your soaked lips apart with the tip of his cock.

However, just as he’s about to push the blunt head past your folds, the rattle of your phone blares disturbs your heated moment, followed by a soft pound at Jungkook’s door. You want to audibly groan in annoyance but you find yourself unable to expel your vexation as he places an apologetic kiss to your shoulder. “Shit,” he speaks under his breath. “Sorry, babe.” His warm breath tickles your skin as he whispers, clearing his throat to mask the moan that nearly escapes him when you purposefully sway your hips against his shaft. It’s mostly out of frustration. The sound that follows the slap to your cheek echoes across the room and you bite your tongue because surely, whoever is outside of the door had heard it. Who were you kidding? They’d probably heard all of it from the beginning. The warmth of Jungkook’s body leaves you as he searches for his discarded clothing. You do the same, reaching down for your pants as your fingers swiftly move to silence your ringing phone.

As you glance down towards your phone, tugging the pants up your legs, Namjoon’s name flashes upon the screen. You decide to decline for now, ready to deliver your successful purloin in person instead. Although, this isn’t even the final heist. You feel a pull at your arm, ripping your gaze away from your phone and your mouth is instantly caught by Jungkook’s. Your eyes flutter closed, the kiss unexpected against your lips. Of all that could have captured your heart, he’s the starcrossed tale you’ve kept hidden for too long; your own Montague. He’s pulling away from your mouth all too quickly, now taking your hand in his before placing a kiss to your knuckles. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats against the skin and when he raises his head, you stifle a giggle at his swollen pout, a tint of cherry red marking it from your own lipstick. You swipe your thumb over the pillows of his lips, showing him your stained thumb as you pull away. Jungkook’s doe eyes are wide as realization daunts on him, but soon they’re settling into half-moons, crows feet forming by the outer corners of his eyelids as he simply beams a set of perfect teeth. “I’ll call you tonight?” You offer a smile back, followed by a curt nod. Of course, he can call you tonight, he’s called you almost every night this week.

Releasing the grasp on your hand, he walks over to his door, carding his slender fingers through his hair and you mimic his actions, smoothing your hair down in hopes that it doesn’t look completely fucked. As you walk out of Jungkook’s office, not bearing to make eye contact with whoever decided to interrupt your unholy rendezvous, your thumb is punching in your passcode to your phone before you’re texting Jimin that you’ve successfully gotten the keycard. Namjoon calls once more at the end of your shift and this time you pick up, ready to deliver the good news.

“Where did you go? We lost track of you- is everything okay?” His baritone voice rings through with the slightest tone of panic. You sigh, shrugging on the strap of your purse as you rush down the flight of stairs that lead to the parking garage. You can faintly see the shoulder of Jimin poking from behind the wall as you reach the very bottom. He’s leaned against the door, head twisting in your direction when he hears the scuffle of your shoes and the echo of your voice.

“Everything's fine,” you state, letting Jimin open the door for you. You’re in a rush as the pair of you make way towards his silver Sedan. He watches as you extract the plastic keycard from your back pocket, a grin beaming at the revelation. “I got what I came for.”

All you wanted was to pay off your goddamn student loans.

That’s all any of you had ever wanted.

It was no secret when people thought of you, they immediately put the five of you together. You were joint by the hip, each other’s parity since freshman year of high school. Hell, you had even gotten into the same damn university- your legacy moving on even after you graduated. Namjoon, the medical student, Yoongi, the computer science genius, Jimin the—

“What did you take in college again?” You ask Jimin as you pull yourself out of your own reverie. You’ve been zoning in and out of the present, your bottom lip surely bruised from how much you’ve been chewing through it. Jimin is sat on Yoongi’s bed across the room from you, and you’re comfortably sunken into a red bean bag chair as your fingers mindlessly play with a Hoberman sphere. He sighs with such a magnitude of exasperation, you can faintly feel his breath hit you.

“For the hundredth time, _____- I took forensic sciences- why do you make me repeat that every few months?” You simply enjoy teasing him because you know he only took it for half a semester. He rolls his eyes at your grin, attention returning to the copy of Romeo and Juliet in his right hand. Oh, the irony. You’re almost positive he’s not even reading it. Namjoon, on the other hand, is restless, pacing back and forth behind Yoongi who is huddled over his desk. His mop of blond hair stick over his chair as he diligently works through a list of equations and codes flashing on his computer screen. Jungkook’s keycard lays beside the keyboard, a carbon copy card placed right next to it.

“He’s gonna find out soon y’know- that his card is missing? He’s not a complete idiot.” You scrunch the sphere in your fingers before retracting it once again. Namjoon simply ignores you. It’s only been a week since you’ve taken it.

“That’s why we’re making a replica and besides, the guy’s office has been unlocked the entire week- he’s too trusting.” Jimin chimes in unnecessarily and you feel that pang of guilt settle back in. You too had thought the same when you had initially stolen it. Though, Jimin insists that you’ve simply “borrowed” it. You’ll give it back as soon as Yoongi pens a duplicate.

“Can you guys just stop talking?” Namjoon snaps, eyes narrowing towards the computer screen as he leans over Yoongi’s shoulder. He’s tense, has been the whole time you’ve had this meetup and you wonder if he’s just as nervous as you are now that your plans are about to be set into motion. Tomorrow. The heist is tomorrow. “How much longer?” His impatience oozes from him and you watch as he squints at the lines of numbers and letters strewn together on the screen. You scoff, though you wouldn’t put it past Namjoon to actually know what the hell all the coding meant- he’s far too brilliant for his own good. He was the one who started this whole stratagem anyway, cultivated a ploy for you guys to make easy money. First, it was RED Hotel, founded by CEO Kim Seokjin. Although an honest man, his partner had been laundering most of their funds towards their own personal gain. By the power of Namjoon’s mind and Yoongi’s ability to hack almost any system, your team had managed to successfully swipe the illegal funds.

Yoongi huffs a breath, shrugging Namjoon off his shoulder as he continues typing away, programming the empty card. “I don’t know, you’re breathing down my neck and it’s a million fucking degrees in here- I might faint.”

“Joon, will you just relax? Let him be in his element.” Jimin prompts, hopping off the bed as he places a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder. He’s much too short to reach it comfortably, having to slant his torso and stretch as far as he can. The image makes you giggle while you watch them bicker back and forth for a few more moments before you’re submerged back into your thoughts.

“You know, when I told you to shut up, I didn’t actually mean it.” You’re pulled away from your thoughts again as Namjoon’s coffee breath hits you. Lowering his gaze, he focuses in on the toy in your hands before he’s crouching in front of you. A hand comes to your shoulder in comfort. “Please tell me what’s wrong?” You think he sees the gulp drift down your throat, your eyes growing visibly wider. Namjoon sighs, fingers squeezing your shoulder. “C’mon, you’ve been quiet all day, what’s going on?”

And before you can even process what’s coming out of your mouth, you’re saying it. “Don’t you think there’s a better way?” Oh God, the silence. You can feel the head of Jimin turn towards you and Yoongi’s as his chair squeaks with a swivel.

“What?” The hand on your shoulder drops beside him and you force your gaze to meet Namjoon’s. You don’t know why you continue, but you do, unable to stop the words rolling off your tongue.

“To make money,” you continue. “Don’t you think there’s another way?”

Namjoon lets out a scoff, raising to his feet as his lips press together in an attempt to already calm himself down. “Like what?” The question is rhetorical and it slaps against you, echoing against the walls. You swear you see Jimin flinch from the corner of your eye.

You try again. “I-I don’t know,” You too raise to your feet, resting the Hoberman sphere on the night table beside you. “We could start our own business or something! Namjoon, I’m tired of this. It’s exhausting, and not to mention completely wrong.” When you look at him, he’s seething, the faintest flare to his nostrils. Your eyes flicker towards Jimin who takes a step towards you but you stop him with a raise of your hand.

“Do you think we have time to build a business?” Namjoon scoffs again. “_____, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” You regret opening your mouth instantly because even you know that there’s more reasoning behind your outburst. “Did you forget why we’re doing this? Who we’re doing this for? Does Hoseok-”

“Hoseok wouldn’t want this for him!” You shrill louder than expected, another wave of guilt washing over you for screaming at your best friend. “What were we going to do? Miraculously pay off his medical bills and expect him to be cured? Fuck, Joon, even the doctors don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him.” You find yourself panting as the words leave you, fingers shooting up to card through your hair. Another silence falls against you, thick against your entire body. The air feels as if you could jackhammer through it with no avail.

“We’re not giving up on him.” Yoongi is the one who speaks this time and your eyes immediately drop to the floor in defeat. “We’ve never given up on each other.” His words hit you like a kamikaze, heavy against your chest. You feel as if you’ve just been punched by him, and you’d reckon actually getting punched by Yoongi would be less painful than his words. The lump in your throat becomes seemingly harder to swallow. You know they’re right. And you know you sound like a shitty friend. All of this is had always been for Hoseok.

What had started off as a simple heist, a small gathering of five lost college students freshly graduated and balls-deep in student debt, swiftly evolved into so much more. Hoseok. The fifth of your group had gotten sick. Really sick. It had transformed into something far more personal, a change of events that wholly challenged your capabilities- giving you new pursuits to follow. After months of experimental medication and surgeries, there were still no answers as to what exactly happened to him- and alas, the bills to save your best friend had inevitably piled up. And since, you’ve made a pact, an oath to protect your friend and each other, together.

Namjoon speaks again. “What’s really bothering you?” His question grips your core and slams you to the ground because you hate that he knows something more is wrong. They’re your best friends after all, you shouldn’t be hiding things from them.

“Nothing. I’m just getting cold feet I guess…” You finally force yourself to look up. Namjoon’s jaw is jutted, lips pressed in a firm line. “I’m nervous that something will go wrong.”

“I’ve blueprinted and revised the plan for months, any potential wrong- I’ve covered it. You know this,” he steps forward, both hands now coming to rest on your shoulders has his eyes invade yours in search of something, anything. “So what’s going on?” You nervously glance at Jimin for what seems like the hundredth time within the past however long this shitshow began. Truth be told, he’s the only one who knows; he’d caught your secret before it had even begun. Jimin warms you with a reassuring smile, egging you to relay your confession. Perhaps he too knew that you were deeper in this situation with Jungkook than you had initially thought. You brace yourself, taking into consideration that you’re an adult and you have control over your own life. You could almost laugh at your own thoughts, who were you kidding?

Inhaling a sharp breath, you give yourself a nod. “Jungkook,” you start, gaze switching from Namjoon to Jimin and then Yoongi. “I-I...uh,” Oh no. “He...we...” You need not finish the words, it hits them. Namjoon more than Yoongi, who simply frowns with a shrug of his shoulders as if to say ‘it could be worse’. Namjoon opens his mouth to speak but quickly closes it, flabbergasted by your unofficial confession. Your eyes are pinned to the ground, feeling his hold on you drop once more. You truly wish the floor would swallow you in this moment. You clench your fists, pressing your lips together.

“You’ve been...” He presses his lips together before starting again. “With him?” It’s so awkward, you now wish the floor would swallow Namjoon too. “I told you to flirt with the guy, not fuck him.” His words slice through and you urge yourself to meet his gaze, a scoff falling past your lips.

“What exactly does ‘distracting him’ mean to you, Namjoon?” That’s all it had started as. A distraction. Perhaps for the both of you, as unconventional as it was, and now...now—

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Namjoon is seething and for what exact reason, you’re unsure of. He drags his palms over his face, an exasperated sigh leaving him when Yoongi cuts in, voice stoic, cool as ice.

“Huh...talk about sleeping with the enemy…” God, you’d like a permanent leave of absence- from life. Your cheeks are surely painted crimson with sheer chagrin, forefinger and thumb coming up to stroke along the bridge of your nose as the weight of the situation becomes a reality.

Now Jimin is speaking up for the first time. “The guy’s hot, have you seen him?” He throws his arms up in defence when Namjoon seers him with a glare. “I had to sit next to him in class for a whole year while trying to convince myself I wasn’t gay… I’m still not completely sure I’m not to be honest and besides, the plan is still moving forward- we’re just a little on edge...all of us.” You remind yourself to stop teasing Jimin about being pointless like you always do. You shoot him a grateful smile. He’s definitely not wrong about the nerves; granted, you’re more nervous than anyone else.

Namjoon clenches his jaw, speaking slowly, cautiously. “You need to get it through your head that with or without you, this is happening. There’s more at stake here than your little…fling.” You know he hates what he’s said because he draws a hiss between his teeth, eyes softening when he offers a tight-lipped smile. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he must’ve hoped though. Somehow, the word ‘fling’ stings you, wondering if that’s how Jungkook saw things too.

But you can’t shut up the part of you that might have thought he’s right, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Somehow, you’re filled with a second wind of sorts, devoid of uncertainty. You know yourself. You know yourself well enough to know that you’re not going to turn your back on Hoseok- especially not over a boy you’ve only known a few months. You just couldn’t do that.

With a nod of your head, the stiff tension that choked the room almost evaporates as Namjoon grins, hand coming up to roughly tousle your hair. You whine audibly, slapping his hand away before the vibration of your phone tears your attention away.

It’s Jungkook.

5:34pm [Jungkook]: Let me take you out tonight.

And suddenly, just like that, your certainty vanishes.

You catch yourself musing about what it would be like had Hoseok not gotten sick. Would everything be normal? Was there even such a thing as a normal? You’re a criminal and although Namjoon would reprimand you for even thinking that, you know that you’re right. He’d rather label you lot as “vigilantes,” before Yoongi’s bound to cut him off with a lengthy speech about labels having been rendered useless in today’s society. ‘If we’re going to be criminals, we’re gonna be lawful ones,’ he’d once said, followed by a vocal discourse on being allowed to be whoever the hell you wanted to be.

Following that, with Jimin’s help, you landed a job with an old classmate of his, the guy being Jeon Jungkook himself. The CEO had hired you personally to work as his assistant at GFC, his film production company. You had even joked with the others that it was security money, just enough to pay off your living expenses. What you hadn’t expected was a proposal from Namjoon and Jimin. They had “coincidentally” been planning this for months- you’d even guess close to a year. Through the grapevine, Jimin had heard of a partnership that had been manifesting for ages. A massive merger with another production company called Gemini Pictures. It would launch GFC as one of the biggest film production titans in the business and if sold, it would bring you millions ... $2.5 million to be exact.

It was certainly more than enough to pay off your student loans, and it gave the slightest glimmer of hope towards a potential cure for Hoseok’s affliction. How could you ever say no to that? It most certainly had not been in your interests to get involved with Jungkook more than just as his assistant. You hadn’t planned to start an intimate relationship, nor had you expected to feel more. Did you feel more? Your head is beginning to pound, your chest tightening as the feeling of disgrace rumbles through you once again. What were you even doing with yourself?

You shake your head and close your eyes tight, trying to force the thoughts out. They first persist, but then eventually yield, a certain gloomy calmness filling you once more. This isn’t exactly a date-night headspace you want to be in right now… But it may be time to get your shit together.

Jungkook picks you up at eight o’clock on the dot. You can’t control your laughter when you see him donning a heavily patterned blue Hawaiin shirt to match his white shorts. His hair is wavy, dark against the setting sun and he’s grinning at you, the faintest indents of his dimples marking his cheeks. He did tell you to dress ‘extra’ casual tonight and you still don’t have a clue as to where you’re going.

Your leg bounces as he drives you to the mysterious destination. The soft thrum of jazz oozes through the car speakers as Jungkook’s fingers drum against his steering wheel with the beat. You twiddle your fingers on your lap, freezing as you feel the palm of his hand rest on the expanse of your exposed thigh. Normally, you’d be itching for him to raise them a little higher, to feel his slender fingers against you but nothing about this particular action infers sensuality. It’s a welcome motion, and you feel the all-too-familiar butterflies flutter once more. When you relax your shoulders, your head twists to view him. Though it’s darkening, the light from the lamp posts you’re driving through brush Jungkook’s face in ribbons. The shadows outline the curve of his ‘J’ nose and the sharp cut of his jaw. His eyes are focused on the road, a soft smile painted warmly across his face as he senses your blatant ogle.

“You’re tense,” he says, giving your bare leg a gentle squeeze. “Something on your mind?”

“S-sorry,” you stutter, ripping your gaze away and dropping to your lap. “This is just nice...really nice.” You admit, silently thanking the coat of shadows that overtake the sure blush that’s painted your cheeks. Your earlier thoughts seem to return, sitting at the back of your mind but they’re soon interrupted as the car rolls to a smooth stop. A low thump of carnival music is heard, followed by the painful shriek of children screeching with joy. Your head instantly shoots up, your vision encompassed by the sight of colourful lights, people, tents and a giant Ferris wheel beaming a million watts of light into the moon-kissed night. Jungkook puts the car in gear, pulling the parking brake before he unclips his seatbelt.

“Well,” he exhales almost nervously as he slowly turns to you. “We’ve arrived.” The cheeky bastard. You don’t answer, preoccupied with awe at the summer festivities ahead of you. Pausing for a moment, Jungkook regards you, a brief smile adorning his face before he exits the car and moves to the passenger side. Ever the perfect gentleman, he opens the door for you, and you’re hit by the scent of popcorn and fried goods as he helps you step out of the car. Your stomach immediately grumbles and you’re certain he had heard it too. You also note that Jungkook really enjoys holding your hand, never releasing it since helping you out of his car. When he does release it, he’s itching to touch you again, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you in for a kiss against your temple.

You take in every bit of the environment around you, the obnoxiously loud music that blares from the game booths you pass by, the smell of deep-fried corn dogs and the various costume figures prancing around the fairground. When he pays for your tickets (much to your dismay and resistance), he makes a beeline towards the burger vendor. “Not only did I hear your stomach let out an imprisoned Wookiee— I felt it transfer through your bones to me.” He’s beaming at you when you throw your head back in laughter.

That’s not the only way Jungkook manages to win over your heart throughout the night. He quite literally wins you over once more with a stuffed penguin, spending what felt like an eternity going after every 10-year old that challenged him at bottle tossing. Six games later, you have a penguin the size of a toddler in your arms, and a Jungkook around your waist.

“What should we name it?” You scoop a spoonful of strawberry ice cream into your mouth as you two walk through the fairground hand in hand.

“Lyara,” Jungkook replies simply.

You cock your head to the side. “Lyara? Oddly...human.” your eyes narrow towards him. “Is that the name of your secret mistress or something? Why Lyara?” You jab, a grin beaming from you as he laughs. You see the familiar indents crinkling around the outer corners of his eyes while he shakes his head no.

“What kind of pervert would name their kid after their mistress?” You’re laughing again, shoving another spoonful of ice cream into your mouth as you nod in agreeance. He shrugs. “I dunno, it’s pretty. For a future daughter.” You pause in your steps, arching a brow his way.

“You’re telling me this penguin is our kid?” He’s laughing again, this time his head of curls bouncing with the shake of his shoulders.

Unfortunately, all you manage to win Jungkook is a bright blue plastic ring. Regardless, he wears it for the rest of the night, demanding that it matches his shirt. The guilt brewing in your chest foams as he joins you in your second ice cream cone of the night. You have an inkling that he senses something is wrong, not letting you stray far into your thoughts as he sneaks you behind tents to secretly make out. It’s when his fingers brush over the front of your jeans shorts that you start tugging him away from the shadows, insisting that you’ve had enough public sex for your own good. Of course, he insists that it’s only public if people see. You’re sure that he’s wrong.

The final event Jungkook takes you to is the great behemoth of a Ferris wheel whose lights illuminate the entire fairground. You don’t feel as if you deserve it when the night’s fireworks pop and flitter just as you reach the top. But you find yourself unable to watch them as Jungkook’s fingers weave into your hair lovingly, pushing aside stray clumps and tickling your scalp before placing a kiss against your lips.

It’s a welcome kiss, sprinkled by a heavy sense of displacement. You find yourself asking if you’re genuinely present.  There’s no sexual intent behind this one, only knocking the breath out of from its rawness. He pulls away, forehead resting against yours.

“The moon’s beautiful tonight, but… I don’t think it’s the prettiest thing tonight,” he says as his eyes rest on yours. You’re speechless for a moment, eyes wide and blinking towards him before you’re breaking into a fit of laughter. His cheesy antics get the best of you, unable to stop the bubble of giggles spilling out of you. Too goddamn cheesy. Jungkook laughs with you, leaning in for another kiss and your teeth clash as you both grin, lips eventually finding each other.

The ride starts to move again.

It begins to drizzle when you reach the parkade of the carnival and by the time you reach your house, Jungkook is pulling out your penguin in defence against the heavy sheets of rain. You both run to your porch in giggles, Jungkook content to walk you to your door. Once in the shelter of your front porch, he hands you back the stuffed animal, tightly clutching it between your arm and your chest. Lyara is drenched at the moment- but so are the two of you. His dark hair sticks to his forehead and runs droplets down his neck. Despite it all, he’s still incarnate beauty.

“Thank you,” Jungkook says, taking you by surprise. What could he be possibly thanking you for? You capture your bottom lip as you smile, feeling the tickle of wet hair drop down the sides of your cheek.

“No, thank you.” Standing on your tiptoes, you’re quick to peck his cheek. “Tonight was...magical.” You’re trying to lag, not wanting this night to end. As you say your last goodbyes, Jungkook places a kiss against your forehead, holding you in place as if he’s hesitant to let go. He says his final farewell and you’re jiggling your keys into the lock before Jungkook is twisting you around to grab your face and kiss you hard against his lips.

You feel as though you’ve been transported years ago, to some now well forgotten high school memory. The electricity is the same, the spark that draws you to him is all too familiar. Surely, some replicant of young teenage love. From forth the fatal loins... You can’t help but become fully entangled with his love; it’s soft, sweet and drips of innocence. A dauntless love, unafraid of any future so long as it was with you. It slowly sears you inside but you can’t escape him. You deepen the kiss, swept away by the affection he so unashamedly provides. You also find difficulty escaping the memory of his fingers hovering over your cunt earlier that night behind the tents.

You want him.

With one arm looping around his neck, the other pushes the stuffed penguin between your chests as your lips latch onto each other for dear life. In your haste to open the door, you both clunk into your apartment, laughter bubbling from the both of you as your keys hit the ground with a loud clank along with the soaked penguin plushie. As you close the front door behind you, he’s pushing you against it, mouth on yours completely relentless. His hands roam across the side of your body, hitching one leg up to his torso as the other hand stays planted against your cheek. He tastes of strawberries and mint.

You squeal as Jungkook lifts you completely against the door, your legs circling around his waist as his arms support under your ass. He begins walking and in what direction, he’s even unsure of.

“Bedroom,” you guide him and he only hums, following the guidance of your gentle directions.  When he reaches your bed, he’s flicking the light switch on and closing the door behind him with the persuasion of his feet. He staggers over to your bed, plopping you onto the mattress as his lips never fail to leave your own.  He hovers above you, torso nudges your legs open as he places himself between them.

His movements that follow aren’t like before, no, nothing like it at all; this had no hallmark trade of frantic hands grasping at too-tight clothing, moving desperately across from each other’s panting bodies. This time it’s far more careful, far more calculated...far more loving. What’s more, is that you find yourself enjoying this to a highly exceptional degree. Jungkook takes him time, lips on every inch of skin that he undresses. He starts with the slow unbuttoning of your shirt, moving onto the latch of your bra before he’s already he’s got you bare underneath him with nothing but a thin barrier of your panties. His fingertips meander across your inviting curves, lips following the trails that his soft hands set. You do the same for him, taking your time to remove the blue Hawaiian shirt he so proudly wore tonight, lips never leaving his. But when they do, a sigh falls from you because he’s latched his mouth around one of your breasts. You’re both now only separated by the fabric of your undergarments, bodies already coated with a sticky damp from the rain and the beginning of sweat. You can already feel Jungkook’s length press against you as he moves onto your other breast, tongue circling over your erect nipple before he’s grazing his teeth over it. As he does this, a hand glides down your torso, past the ridges of your ribcage, down to the curve of your hips until he’s just barely ghosting over your dripping heat. Unlatching his mouth, he grins to look at you, a sly finger pushing the fabric aside before it’s teasingly running up your very wet slit.

“So wet already?” He hums in appreciation. You blush at his words, a moan escaping you when he purposely dabs a fingertip over your throbbing clit. “So beautiful.” His mouth is back on yours, hot and powerful, granting access to your tongue with a swipe of his own over the seams of your lips. Though fervour, the kisses remain gentle, patient as his hands roam up and down your sides. You’re only losing your mind when he’s detaching his lips to suckle against the skin just under your jaw. He does not abandon a single inch of you with his mouth as he skims down your body. From your neck, he’s licking down through the delve of your breasts before he’s kissing and licking down past your navel. You squirm underneath him but he holds you in place, broad hands clipping your hips back as he moves in between your thighs. You can’t even imagine how soaked you truly are in this moment, not when he nips the skin of your inner thighs with his teeth, soothing the bites with kisses and licks. Nothing about it is painful, only an enhancement to your already mind-fogging arousal. Your breaths cut deeply into the air, chest rising and falling with the beat of your thumping heart. You feel the graze of his nose bump against your clothed cunt, a whimper leaving you when the flat of his tongue is hotly placed against the white fabric.

“J-jungkook…” You can’t decide if you want to look, or squeeze your eyes shut to keep yourself from coming already. You choose the latter, not trusting yourself to look. You can already feel it, every brush of his mouth and hands only shooting straight to your clit with that familiar tingle. You feel his teeth capture the hem of your underwear, as he pulls it down your right leg with the tug of his mouth. It’s tantalizingly slow, left hand hooking against the other side to aid in disrobing before you’re laid unclad before him. He hovers over your heat, hot breath fanning over your needy cunt. It ripples a shudder through you, chest deeply rising and falling as licks a stroke over the folds of your outer labia. “Fuck,” you whisper, fingers snaking into his hair as he continues his teasing. You jut your hip up to no avail, his powerful arms holding them hostage to the mattress underneath you.

He simply spreads you further, your cunt glistening for his taking. “What a pretty sight.” His words send an inferno through your chest, a rasp attached to the need his voice. You gasp, hips involuntarily snapping up in his hold as the tip of his tongue lightly flicks against your clit. Closing your eyes, you release a deep breath, licking your lips as he goes in for another kitten lick. Your fingers tighten their grip in his hair, an encouraging push holding him further into your cunt. He knows how much he’s driving you crazy, relenting into your sighs and moans as he finally circles a tongue around your bead. You feel a hint of a smirk against your heat as he feels you physically shudder underneath him. Your toes are curling when he dives in again, this time his tongue steady against your clit, relentless and with a pressure that leaves you arching your back for more. His swirling tongue alternates between flicks and sucks, taking the entirety of your swollen bundle of nerves into his mouth as his tongue shallowly fucks your hole. You’re a moaning mess underneath his mouth, twisting and turning in his grasp until you feel as if you’re hurting his scalp from how tight you’re gripping his hair. He’s not complaining one bit, simply humming against your heat as he slurps, licks and sucks your sensitive bead. You feel it bubble in your chest, every curl of his tongue pushing a tightness into your chest. It grows with each flick, each dab of friction until you’re coming undone underneath him. A whiny, shuddery puddle of limps in his hold as he continues licking you clean through your orgasm. You don’t know what’s different about this time, your orgasm clinging onto your bones as you linger in your high. When Jungkook pulls away, mouth and chin shining with your arousal, you feel a shiver of cool air hit your clit as goosebumps form on the surface of your skin. He kisses the top of your thigh, eyes levelling with yours as he beams a grin.

“Good?” When you nod, he’s grabbing your legs and encouraging you to flip over to your stomach. You let him take control, twisting your body until your chest is flat against the mattress and your ass is out for him in a presentation of sorts. You yelp when he spanks you, the echo of the noise filling the room before the sting is eased with a soft knead from his hand. Spreading your cheeks apart with his broad hands, you can hear him curse under his breath before he’s dipping to press a kiss to your shoulder blade. “You want me, baby?” You can only whimper in response, following a swivel of your hips to indicate just how badly you want him to fill you. He doesn’t leave the absence of your back, one hand pushing your hair away from your neck as the other is lining himself to your sex. His tip is already sticky against your slit and he rubs it over your folds a few times before he’s pushing into you. You both groan, feeling the depths of each other as Jungkook kisses your neck, your shoulders as he’s inching into you. Your eyes are squeezed shut, breathing laboured as his girth fills you to the hilt.

You’ve come to realize your greed with Jungkook’s cock as each ridge hits every curve of your walls with unexplainable bliss. As his hips begin a steady rock, his chest flush against your back. He’s biting down on the flesh of your shoulder- gentle, with a tingle of his tongue soothing across the skin. That’s when you feel a free hand grab a fistful of your hair, pulling it in his hold so you’re forced to twist your head for him to place a heated kiss against your lips. It’s sloppy and hits the corner your mouth more than anything but there’s something so divine about his want to feel your lips as he’s thrusting into you. He fucks you like this, his guttural moans and breathy curses chanted into your ear. It’s when he yanks your hair back that you’re forced to sit up on your calves, back still against his chest. He releases your hair, instead circling the arm around your chest as his other hand moves down to your mound. The pads of his fingertips find your swollen clit, hips continuing a gyrating pace as his fingers caress the bundle of nerves. You’re a mess in his arms, completely given to his touch- overwhelmed by the sensation of his fingers on your clit and his dick rocking into your repeatedly. You moan, curse and whimper as his lips latch around the skin of your neck while he fucks you. His mouth suctions to your neck, leaving a soothing sting as he marks you with paintings of purple bruises. “Mine,” you can hear him say. “All fucking mine.” Your eyes roll back, leaning against him as he has his way with you. He places several marks, one just under your jaw, by your collarbone until your neck is a mosaic of lovebites done by the artist himself, Jeon Jungkook.

You come undone once more like this, clenching hard around him as a final swipe of his fingers have your walls spasm around his girth. You’re crying out loud against him, shaking as he has you twist your head again to place a kiss against your lips. Jungkook’s not done with you yet, now encouraging you lay on your back. He pulls your legs up, resting them onto the crease of his elbow before he’s sinking into you again, the new angle hitting differently. You can finally see the level of sweat built onto his skin, his hair damp and twisted over his eyes. His teeth are gritted, veins in his neck prominent as he begins another pace of his hips into you. “Fuck- you’re so fucking beautiful and tight- wet...I-” He’s spewing nonesense, so lost in you and unable to not taste you. He dips in for another kiss while he fucks you like that. When he pulls away, you feel a broad hand hover over your throat.

Of every sexual partner you’ve had, it’s only Jungkook you’ve let have his way with you like this, raw and unforgiving. It fills you with emotion, near tears as you feel the warmth of his palm press against the base of your neck, fingers gripping. Your fingers instantly latch around his choking arm for support, feeling every groove and ridge of his veins running up the flesh. You feel the air escape you, only enhancing the feel of his cock pistoning into you with great speed. You look at him, face flushed, beads of sweat dribbling down his forehead and so much lust in his eyes, it forces you to circle your legs around his torso to pull him closer. The fingers around your throat tightens, lips hovering above yours before he’s pressing feverish kisses against your lips.

“Baby, I’m gonna c-cum,” he admits and you can tell he’s losing control as his thrusts become sloppier, grasp around your neck also loosening. For the third time that night, you come again. This time, you feel a bead of a tear stream past the corner of your eye, rolling into your ear from the feeling of your third orgasm. From how hard you clench around him, Jungkook comes shortly after. His second painting of the evening being that of his cum spurting against your inner walls. You feel it, hot and sticky- moaning as he continues to messily thrust after his own high. Releasing your neck in his hold, he kisses you with such great need, you’re winded, arms scrambling to hold him against you. Your lips find each other, soft and sweet as you cradle your bodies in each other’s holds for as long as you possibly can.

“I love you,” he breathes, a kiss placed onto the tip of your nose. You don’t expect the words to come out of his mouth, frankly only thinking he’s said this because you’ve just had the best sex in your sexual endeavours thus far. But you love him too- that much you can’t deny. As fucked up as it is, Jungkook had become your safe haven, a person to feel your best self with. With him, there was no talk about your next loot, no generalized overview of your group. With him, you were an individual, a person of value just on your own. To him, you were already his Astraea.

With that, you smile, bumping your nose against his as you pull him against your mouth once again. “I love you too.”

You fall asleep to the soft pitter-patter of the rain that hits against your rooftop and the warmth of Jungkook’s body pressed against you.

When morning comes, Jungkook takes you again. He wakes you with a gentle flurry of featherlike kisses to your shoulder and back, a hand skimming down your bare arm. He fucks you on your sides, your back against his chest as he hooks a leg over his arm to thrust into you more comfortably. You both come undone within minutes, still sensitive from the night before and when he’s pulling out, you’re twisting your body to meet his gaze. His doe eyes gleam, lips stretching into a lazy smile as he takes your hand in his.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” he greets you, the thin line of his dimples marking the edge of his mouth. His face is slightly swollen, cheeks rosy from his orgasm two minutes ago. You smile back, raising your intertwined fingers to places a kiss against the back of his hand.

“Good morning, you nymph.” He chuckles, wholeheartedly, his chest flexing underneath the vibrations of his angelic laugh before he’s yawning. You yawn shortly after, something about the old legend of soulmates yawning at the same time coming into the conversation. You’re not sure how long you talk in bed, his fingers continuing to stroke shapes against your bare skin and your nails massaging along his scalp.

“Was that okay?” He suddenly asks, eyes sharpening onto the litter of marks over your neck. You roll your eyes because of course, it was okay. “I’m sorry about those- heat of the moment.” You know he’s not completely sorry.

“More than.” You reassure him. You half expect your maid from Romeo and Juliet to come rushing through your doors, urging you to get dressed before you get caught. But she never comes in person, only through a quick glance of the clock that sits on the wall behind Jungkook’s head as you look past it. It’s 1pm already- you’re supposed to meet the group at 3pm. You pause, a flitter of doldrums cascading over you as your epiphany hits.

Today is the heist.

You frown, lips jutting into a pout, your chest only swallowing more guilt as Jungkook uses his thumb to crease the etches of your frown lines away.

“I have to go in a little while,” you say with great regret, feeling sick to your stomach already.

Jungkook only hums understandingly. “Okay.” You’re thankful that he doesn’t press you further or push to stay longer. You’ve always admired that he respects your boundaries. “You really are pretty you know?” You snort at his, poking his chest as you roll your eyes.

“Is that all you like me for? For being pretty?” He seems to take legitimate offence to your accusation, an eyebrow tilted towards you as he captures the finger pressed against his chest.

“Hey, I don’t just like you, I love you, okay?” Your voice hitches in your throat, gulping as he simply beams a bunny grin towards you, playing with your finger in the grasp of his hand. “And secondly, I bet you don’t even know the date we first met.”

You blink at him. “What?”

He simply smiles again, bringing your finger up to place a kiss against the tip. “March 14, 2019- now, I should get going huh?” Before you’re able to say anything, he’s releasing your finger and propping himself onto his arms to leave. Truthfully, you’re in too much shock that he’s even remembered such an intricate detail. “Even though today’s my day off…” You knew that though, which is why you chose today of all the days to rob him. You watch his bare bottom flex as he lifts from your mattress, hands on his hips while he searches for his discarded clothing.

When Jungkook leaves, after another round of shower sex (you swear the man has the libido of a freshly blossomed pubescent), you’re left with an utter void pierced through your chest and a dull ache in between your legs. Jimin arrives to pick you up within the hour of Jungkook’s departure, not failing to tease you about the evident markings of your late-night sexcapades. However, it had been so much more than that last night.

You’re once again empty inside.

“Okay,” Yoongi says into the microphone before him. “Testing uh, the communications.”

You can’t help but grin. As informal as he is, he can’t escape your detection at his trying so hard to be a kind of James Bond. Your very own Q, as it were, had managed to give you a myriad of ingenious gifts.

The low-light glasses he has provided you with is a modicum more utility in darkness, but they are by no means completely night vision. Namjoon is reciting the plan for the umpteenth time. He’s pacing, trying to keep it cool and obviously failing. And in contrast, Jimin is so uncharacteristically icy, it almost cools the room. He usually gets like this before one of your robberies, while everyone else is near hysterics. But as usual, you’re quiet. Absorbing the moment. Trying to centre yourself. Surprisingly enough, it’s working- for the most part. Your hammering heart has managed to slow, and your nerves have almost quit rattling. Somehow, in the back of your mind, you know it’s only a matter of time before… Before what? It all comes crashing down? What was it, anyway? What the hell were you doing here?

As if on queue, you squash the doubts. There’ll be none of that this expedition; you cannot afford to let your feelings get in the way this time. After what seems like a mild eternity, Namjoon finishes, and with a final look around the room, his eyes rest on yours. It feels as though he’s looking straight into you, no, through you. You feel him searching for the shreds of doubt you’ve just put on mute. You stare back into his gaze, confident, undertones of defiance. Seemingly satisfied, he breaks away from your eyes. It’s then that you realize he’d seen the marks of your previous night’s escapades littering dark against your neck. You clear your throat and cup your neck in hopes of some shred of dignity left within you.

“Alright, then,” he says at long last, addressing the motley crew before him. “I think we’re ready.”

[Golden Film Closet Headquarters. Time: 9:06pm]

The secret doorway that leads to the rear of the building was put in for a single purpose: evasion of the hordes of reporters that continually plague Jungkook’s day-to-day. It’s a route that Jungkook had to take often, and on one occasion had shared the secrecy of with you- one of your intimate endeavours.

To his own credit, it’s the perfect secret entrance. It stands unassuming and vacant beneath a flickering, near-dead fluorescent light whose buzzing fades indiscernible beneath the cacophony of crickets surrounding you. The rusted door is unmarked, sandwiched between two too-large pillars of concrete that runs up the length of the building itself. A quick cursory glance reveals no cameras. Perfect. Jimin follows close behind you, his hand resting nervously on the can of pepper spray he felt compelled to bring along.

Earlier in the meeting, you had scoffed at such a precaution. It wasn’t as though you had done deep recon into the security shifts, oh no. It’s also definitely not as though you’ve managed to memorize the schedule by now, and know the precise moment when the guards would inevitably change shifts. You know it’s only a precaution, but Jimin’s paranoia nonetheless sends you off with a rather sour taste in your mouth.

You realize sometimes it feels as though you have no credibility with the group. Are they humouring you?

Your thoughts are rudely interrupted by Jimin fiddling with the door. “Giving it five more seconds for the keygen program,” he whispers.  “Just have to make sure nobody’s monitoring the cameras.”

Five seconds? Five seconds lasts a lifetime under the wrong conditions, and these certainly made the criteria. However, you know it was time well spent. Yoongi had outdone himself on the crack program that he had uploaded to Jimin’s phone, or so he had thought. You both would find out soon enough.

After an eternity, the door finally clicks, and the small red LED by the door’s handle swatches to green with a small click.

You slowly exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and Jimin exclaims under his breath. “It… Worked. My God, Yoongi, you’re a genius.”

“Of course it worked,” crackled Yoongi’s voice over the radio, irate and pompous. “What do you take me for, anyway?” Jimin ignores the jab and slowly creaks open the door, motioning for you to follow. You disappear behind the darkness of what lay beyond the doorway, and silently close the door behind you.

Utter darkness encompasses beyond; complete and utter darkness. Your heart begins to hammer as you realize you aren’t entirely sure that you remember the labyrinth of hallways that lead to the emergency stairs.  

“You’re up, _____,” Jimin whispers in the dark. “Lord knows you know this place way better than I do.” The truth of it stings as you recall the day that Jungkook had lead you down the pathways in a successful attempt at evading the press. You shake the memory before it has a chance to take hold, and you draw the low-light glasses Yoongi had cooked up for the pair of you. You slide them over your eyes, and the oppressive darkness suddenly gives way to a static wash of dark olive as the room around you gains clarity. The door behind you is one of two, and the other door lay beyond. It’s the door that you had forgotten about.

“Oh, shit,” you mutter under your breath.

“What? What’s ‘shit’? Talk to me,” Jimin hisses from behind you.

“There’s another door,” you relay. “It doesn’t look like the last one. It might need a key.”

Jimin swears behind you as Namjoon’s voice fills your ear, panicked. “What do you mean, another door? That’s not what you told us.”

You’re silent without a reply, and starting to wonder if this is even the same door that Jungook had shown you before. Without warning, your memory takes over as you recall the day he led you down the passage. As your mind is filled with the warm memories of a simpler time, you also remember that the door in front of you isn’t locked. “What’s the use in locking it?” Jungkook had told you that day. “Nobody’s going to find it, anyway.”

Until today.

Silent, moving like black liquid, you creep forward in the darkness and rest your hand on the knob. It twists, unlocked, and the door swings open.

“Well, I sure feel dumb now,” Jimin says after a silent moment passes.

You hear an exhale over the mike, Namjoon’s voice near shaking as he speaks. “Dumbness aside, we’re on a clock here. You guys have to keep moving.” You proceed through the door into what looks like a utility room. In the corner, you see cameras active, swivelling back and forth, sweeping the room for irregularity. As Jimin starts to enter the room, you yank him out of view of the camera’s field of vision.

“Hey, what are you-” he whispers loudly as you clap a hand over his mouth. With your eyes, you nod towards the camera. His eyes relax, head nodding upon realization.

“Yoongi, the cameras are active,” you whisper into the mic, releasing Jimin.

“Not a problem,” comes his reply, instant and confident. A heartbeat later, he follows up. “... Rear surveillance neutralized. Proceed with caution, as always.” The red LED of the camera fades off without a sound, and the camera stops panning, immobilized. Nervously, you proceed through the room. The last door you find is the one that leads into the main utility hallway, a passageway not known or used by much staff beyond maintenance. This was one part of the building you weren’t quite familiar with; Namjoon had managed to pull the blueprints from a public service building, and the rest was history.

He gets on the microphone. “You guys know where you’re headed?” he asks, a hint of uncertainty creeping in his already nervous voice.

“Don’t worry, nobody fell asleep at your TED Talk,” you reply with a grin he can’t see. Jimin stacks up against the door, running the keygen program from his Bluetooth.

“Five more seconds….and, we’re in,” he says. The door makes a familiar click as the lock is bypassed, and Jimin gently creaks it open to survey. His head still out of the crack in the door, his hand raises in a ‘follow me’ gesture. You take a breath and step out into the illuminated hallway, alone, save for Jimin. At the end of the corridor lays one of the final obstacles to your reward; the door with a physical lock. Yoongi’s technological magic would be of little help here, but your dexterous skills might be.

“Oh great, another door,” Jimin mutters under your breath. “How much you want to bet it’s locked?”

“I’m not sure you want to make that bet,” you reply as you stride towards the door, pulling a bobby pin from your hair and a multitool from your pocket. It doesn’t take long for you to pick the lock. In fact, it might have been one of your faster times. You find yourself thanking the number of times you’ve picked your way out of Skyrim’s dungeons as the Khajit.

I am the Kajit, you tell yourself as the door swings open with overwhelming satisfaction. You turn around with a smirk planted firmly on your mouth, Jimin’s surprised face radiating a sense of smugness you simply can’t let go unnoticed.

“Did you always know how to do that?” He asks, quiet and genuinely impressed. You shrug, and turn to the first flight of stairs, leaving him with his imagination to play hell over his own speculation. You crane your neck upwards, staring up into the seemingly infinite staircase. Did you have a good physed class grade? Would that even matter now?

The staircase is daunting, but there exists no other option. You know that use of any elevators would give you away in a heartbeat. You sigh, and take the first step. And after what feels like an eternity, your legs feel as if they’ve run 150km within the past few minutes.

“Thanks for choosing such a tall building,” Jimin sarcastically breathes between deep pants. “I’m really digging all these stairs.” You try to muster the strength to reply but find none. The final flight to Jungkook’s office stares back at you, mockingly, daring you to come closer. A second wind brings you finally to Jungkook’s floor. Jimin takes his time catching up. “Is this finally it?” he asks, beads of sweat now streaming down his face. The 22 storey-long trek had absolutely beaten your legs to a pulp, and you now stood balanced on wobbly knees. Nevertheless, it had all been worth it. The prize that you had come all this way for lay just beyond another door.

However, you know this door wouldn’t be like the others at all. You know this because Jungkook had told this to you the first time he had taken you up to his office. Correction— the first time he had taken you to his office and left you panting, a sopping, carnal mess of ecstasy laying sprawled on his eloquent hardwood floors. You wonder how many times those same security officers you snuck passed earlier watched Jungkook take you on his desk. The thought makes your cheeks heat as realization dawns on you.

“Yes,” you reply breathlessly. “This is it.” Jimin scuttles from behind you, and boots up the keygen program for the umpteenth time, now frighteningly routine given the circumstances. The door swings open without a hitch, and you stride into the Jungkook’s office. Somehow, it had seemed all too easy. You can’t tell if this means you guys are just getting that good at this, or maybe if…

Yoongi’s voice comes through your earpiece to cut your thoughts. “Surveillance has been looped and spoofed. I doubt it’s going to fool them for long, so chop-chop.” Jimin stays a moment to close the door silently behind you, standing vigilant in the hallway as you walk straight to his computer desk… the very one he had taken you so fervently many times before.

“Okay, I’m at his desktop,” you say into your microphone.

“Amazing,” Yoongi replies. “Now, all you have to do is plug in the flash drive into the computer, and let him do his thing. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Your fingers fiddle with the slick plastic of Yoongi’s piece de resistance, the flash drive that would make a transfer of the 2.5 million dollars you sought. You somehow find the strength to keep yourself from fiddling, but it does nothing to quell the shakes that now grip your hands. Placing the USB stick in the port, you turn it once before it slots comfortably in place.

“Guys?” You radio to the rest of the team. “We might have a problem.” A handsome image of Jungkook now shows on the screen with a box below it, requesting a password.

“If there’s a password, don’t worry about it,” Yoongi reassures you. “I took the liberty of cracking that earlier, too. It should be Bananamilk121397- that’s with a capital ‘B’ and all one word.” At speed, you type in the password.

‘ACCESS DENIED’ flashes before you. You curse under your breath, typing it again, a little slower this time. The message remains.

“Yoongi, that’s not right.”

“What?” comes over the radio. You begin to sweat.

“I don’t know!” you exclaim but in a whisper. “It isn’t working.”

“Damn it,” Yoongi curses over the radio. “He must’ve changed it recently.” You curse under your breath. All the planning, all the recon, everything that had led to this moment, had all been for nothing.

“Are you kidding me?” Jimin hisses. “There’s no way. We’ve come all this way, this can’t stop us now.”

“I don’t think it will,” Yoongi says. “Let me work my magic. I’ll see what I can do from here.”

“Give us five minutes max,” Namjoon cuts on the radio. “Just five minutes, don’t panic- I’m sure we can buy some more time here.” You only close your eyes in exhaustion. This was not going as planned. Barely a minute passes by, agonizingly slowly, before Yoongi’s voice fills your ear.

“Okay, the fucker did change it- listen carefully, 03142019- with an exclamation mark at the end,” he relays.

Your heart sinks through your chest. The date is all to familiar- you had heard it merely a few hours ago.

The password was the date you and Jungkook had first met.

Suddenly, your breath leaves you. You’re left filled with a sense of utter disgust. You do your best to stomach the disgust that fills you. You think of Hoseok, lying immobile and helpless in a cold hospital bed, waiting as the days tick by to his inevitable end. With some difficulty, you swallow the lump that had formed in your throat, and with lightning precision you type out the password.

[PASSWORD ACCEPTED]

“I’m in.” Your voice wavers, holding down the choke of a sob.

“I’m…kind of surprised that worked,” Yoongi replies. “Okay, so, you’re looking for a file called ‘GPI-GFC411’ - all you have to do is transfer the file to the flashdrive and then delete it from his computer.” Yoongi pauses, a breathless laugh following shortly after. “And then? We’ve got ourselves a lot of money, baby.”

The humour doesn’t register with you. At this point, not a whole lot does. You don’t feel the elation you hear in Yoongi’s voice. With some navigation, you manage to find the file, hidden beneath a myriad of folders. However, the sheer mass of the file itself fills you with dread.

“Shit, you guys- this file is fucking massive, it’s going to take at least another 10 minutes.” You’re panicked once again.

Namjoon comes on the radio again, his icy voice filling your ear. “Calm. Down. This isn’t the worst thing. Just transfer the damn file, and get out of there. We can’t afford to waste time anymore.”

You know his words make sense, but you can’t calm down. Here you were in Jungkook’s office, the office where he had given you a part of his heart and soul so many times before. No, you wouldn’t calm down, you couldn’t calm down knowing that you’re part of the force now robbing him. After everything he had done, here you were. Your chest tightens, and before you know it, the tears follow the revelation, silently running down your face.

Ten minutes later, the file transfers. The tears have long since dried, leaving you with a sense of abysmal emptiness in your chest. Sniffling once, you eject the USB drive from the port and without warning, Jimin runs into the office, carefully closing the door behind him. He is frantic.

“Shit, c’mon, we’ve gotta go- I heard some staff come back in.” He drags you away, flashdrive in one hand, your wrist in another. The scene passes by you in an entire blur, somehow muffled in your mind. You hear Jimin, but you aren’t listening. You’ve never felt more disgusted in your entire life as you’re dragged away from Jungkook’s office, torn away from a place you had shared so many memories with someone who professed their love for you not too long ago.

You’ve avoided Jungkook like he’s the plague incarnate. It’s been difficult as his assistant but he hasn’t come to work much as of late. The sense of stress and anxiety that fills you with dread whenever the phone buzzes with his name is beginning to reach a head, and even your team has realized that something is up. No longer are you the clean, flawless porcelain visage of stoicism; your cracks were starting to show, numerous as they are. However, there was no denying the truth; he knows he’s been robbed, the whole office knows he’s been robbed. Things played out exactly as planned. You took the funds under your wing, and passed them onto the team. What happened to everything after your cut was a mystery to you, and you can only hope at least some of it was spent responsibly. Your mind drifts back to Hoseok, thinking back to the few visits you’ve had with him. But on the outside, not much has changed. It’s all the same, you’re just 2.5 million dollars richer.

Your fingers tap anxiously against your cheek as you sit at your desk, replaying the night over and over again in your mind. Even if it has been a few weeks, the injustice you dealt to Jungkook has been all you can think about.

“Hey,” comes the all-too-familiar voice from behind you. You crane your head towards the sounds, eyes widening and a gasp leaving you as a very tired looking Jungkook is stood before you. His dark hair is more dishevelled than his usual curls, shirt lazily buttoned in a half-hearted attempt to pass as a put together CEO. The dark circles under his eyes give away how little he’s slept in the last few weeks, and it’s beginning to show; yet, he still looks breathtaking. Effortlessly so. You haven’t heard much from him as of late, and whenever you did, he had always seemed elsewhere. When he had looked at you, it was as if he wasn’t really looking at you at all. This had made you nervous and had done little more than justify your distance from him. But here he is now, right in front of you. You hadn’t accounted for this, in fact, you dreaded the day it would happen.

“Jungkook…” You start, your mouth now drying. You wonder if you look just as distressed as him. He doesn’t say anything else, offering a tight-lipped smile and a nod before he’s turning to head into the privacy of his office. You scramble to your feet in haste, his cold demeanour leaving an unbearable pressure in the room, a pressure you feel desperate to leave. “Jungkook, wait!” You follow after him. Jungkook pauses right before his door, twisting his body to meet your gaze.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy.” He relents.

You’re taken aback, your head only shaking in reassurance. “No, we’ve both been busy, don’t be sorry. It’s completely fine.”

His lips quirk in the slightest, an empty shell of a smile as he nods, eyes raking over you. “I’ve missed you.” His admission hurts, cuts deep in places you don’t talk about at parties. You’ve missed him too- so much but you can’t bring yourself to saying it out loud. “You look beautiful...as usual” Despite it all, his sage voice and kind words still manage to a blush to creep across your cheeks. You can’t let his suaveness go unchallenged. Just like old times, the words leave your mouth before you can stop them.

“Let me...how about you come over tonight? I’ll cook dinner.” Without warning, his demeanour shifts entirely. He locks up, uncharacteristically stoic, his usual doe eyes radiating a cold criticism of who stands before him. His handsome face turns to stone, entirely unreadable. This isn’t like him at all, and a silent part of you is put screaming on edge. Eventually, he relents, filling you with an undeserved rush of enthusiasm.

“Ah…alright,” he replies after a tense moment. “I’ll come by at seven or so.” The smile he offers is hollow, sympathetic as it doesn’t quite embed the crows feet around the outer corners of his eyes like it usually does. And right before he’s turning away, he leans in to place a chaste kiss against your forehead. As welcome as it is, you can’t help but notice how devoid of passion it feels. If anything, it feels almost…obligatory.

When 7pm rolls around, you’re slightly disheartened when the usual absurdly punctual Jungkook does not arrive exactly on the dot. What’s worse, you’re sure you’ve overcooked the pasta you’ve been preparing to a mushy mess of inadequacy- and burnt the garlic “toast” thoroughly beyond recognition. Now the panic begins to creep in, stemming from your back before it overtakes you, enveloping you in a cloak of messy anxiety. As you plate your gummy boiled dough, you hear the report of a tentative knock at your door.

“Shit,” you curse under your breath as you scramble to set the table. “In a minute!” One of the plates scorches your thumb in your frantic efforts to get everything near picturesque. Oh, who were you kidding? It’s an unmitigated disaster, and you know it. Oh well-  you rationalize it probably is not the worst thing that could happen tonight. The night is still recoverable, you tell yourself.

It’ll be okay.

After a moment, you stride to the door with confidence, tossing your apron across the couch as you do so. You unlock and open the door. Jungkook stands before you, dressed to the nines. You do everything within your power to keep your jaw from dropping. He even put on that dress shirt you adore.

However, he doesn’t come empty-handed. His left hand holds a bouquet of beautiful daisies, your favourite. In his right hand, he holds an envelope.

You’re starstruck.

“Oh my god, what is all this?” you manage to speak. “It’s just dinner.”

“An apology for my absence,” he says lifting the flowers, “and a surprise for you.” The hand holding the envelope flutters indicatively. The flowers bring you as much elation as the envelope brings anxiety… What is he doing? Immediately, you ask yourself if it’s severance pay. Could he be cutting ties? You swallow the uncertainty that builds in your chest.

“Well, you didn’t have to do all that,” you say as you embrace him. Almost immediately, the way he holds you feels fundamentally wrong, almost as if he’s another person, an actor. A ghost in the shell. The warmness that used to accompany his hugs is nowhere to be felt now. His actions feel slow, deliberate, damn near robotic.

When you pull away, your hands come away with the flowers as he releases them into your grasp, your fingers involuntarily curling around the envelope as well.

“Not yet, babe,” he says, snapping the envelope from your grip and well out of your reach. “Not until after dinner.” It takes more than a little effort for you to keep your anxieties from boiling over. Miraculously, you manage to uphold your subterfuge.  

The dinner, as mediocre as dinner could be, passes by without incident. It’s quiet— a little too quiet. Jungkook seems preoccupied, meeting your questions with one-worded answers, and giving lazy details about his day. Something seems to be picking at him, and you begin to fear the worst. An agonizing half hour passes, and you finish your meal. You glance at his plate; it’s only half-finished when he pushes it away in completion. You try to convince yourself that it’s because of the sludge you’ve produced.

“I think I’m done,” he says, his voice no doubt as bland as the meal he just ate. His eyes meet yours, and you see in his gaze a despondency that has turned him into a husk of who he used to be. Across the table, he hands you the envelope with a calm hand. Your trembling fingers take it after a moment, silent and unaware of what's to come.

Nothing can prepare you for the pictures you pull from the envelope.

They’re video stills, screenshots taken from some kind of low-resolution surveillance camera. The angle is unfamiliar; but what familiarity remains lies solely in the face on the picture, crouched in front of the door.

Jimin.

Your face.

Your eyes go to the timestamp in the lower right corner of the screengrab. It’s footage taken the night of the heist.

Frantically, a significant part of you caressed in feral denial, you leaf through the prints, pictures dropping to the table and floor around you. Your heart begins to quicken its pace as you see practically every single step you took to rob him of his livelihood. Your hands shake. Your blood runs cold, and an incalculable sense of guilt beyond comprehension begins to overwhelm you. There were plenty of cameras you and Yoongi had missed; cameras placed deliberately hidden. Plenty of evidence against you.

A thick silence falls through the room, enveloping you both. The deafening silence is so thick you’re sure you could swim through it, swim away from this situation, away from Jungkook and away from the table.

But you remain. No matter how much you will yourself to rise, to look Jungkook in the eye, you simply can’t bring your gaze to his.

When you manage to, you see his dead gaze, any notion of a happy future with you utterly obliterated in the light of your decisions. A part of him had died; the part of himself that he willingly gave to you, a part now sacrificed for a misconceived notion of a greater good. Maybe one day, he would understand. Maybe one day, you would too.

“I’m not going to charge you,” he finally speaks after the painful silence. “I just want to know why.” The slightest crack in his voice sends you to a panic. You try to speak but the words are caught in your throat, nothing coming out but muted chokes. His eyes close, his head dropping slowly in disappointment. “Yeah… I thought so.,” he says, defeated.

It hits you all at once.

The heist. The money. Hoseok.

Jungkook.

Upon the realization of just how badly the situation had deteriorated, you feel yourself begin to crumble. It isn’t long before you dissolve into a chant of well-rehearsed apologies and excuses that spill from your mouth in desperate attempts to get him to understand. Jungkook doesn’t answer, he merely shakes his head and slowly raises from the chair, walking towards the door. You scream after him, clambering to your feet. Somehow it feels as though it’s all in slow motion, like it isn’t really happening. It can’t be happening. Everything was supposed to go off without a hitch.

“Jungkook, please! I’ll give it back, I’ll give it all back-” escapes your lips, tears streaming down your face. He wheels on you, his voice venom, his eyes aflame.

“It’s not about the money, _____. It was never about the money,” he spits accusingly at you. Any shred of what he used to be is gone, burned away in the flames of anger that now hold him hostage. “You didn’t just steal my money- you stole every bit of humanity, love, dignity and self respect I could ever have for someone… let alone myself.”

His words, once so warm and reassuring, slice scathingly through you like a hot knife through butter. You melt at his sentence in all the wrong ways, reaching for him in a desperate act of denial. Your arm is met with his revulsion, a visible disgust as he recoils from touching you. “I’m sorry!” you manage to scream through tears.

“No, you aren’t,” he says, monotone and broken. “You aren’t sorry at all.” He’s turning around again, storming towards your door before he tears it open. You collapse, tears now freely and unabashedly breaking free of whatever restraint you had dedicated there.

You grasp at the door frame, your legs now refusing to support the guilt you carry in your heart. You sink to the floor, your strength leaving you with every sob you heave. You cry his name out once more, your voice wailing against the empty street he now walks into, littered with the first leaf of autumn fluttering down. Despite what had transpired seconds before, you no longer see the hate in his glazed over eyes. You don’t see the disgust that had just saturated his words in venom.

Instead, that look is now replaced with the look of an obliterated man as he walks away from the one single person he ever believed in…

As he walks away from you.

all rights reserved © jeongi

a/n: hi pls dont yell @ me idk ive turned into a monster idk. how are you feeling? :// this was truly, very different from anything that ive usually done so i hope it was okay and still enjoyable to read!! let me know what you think,,,, i promise ill feed u soft jk soon to make up for this. i know. ur hurting. im hurting. we’re all hurting. it’ll be ok, this too shall pass. im right here and we’re going to be okay. jungkook just needs some time to sort it out and so do u. you’ll meet again one day ;)

if you haven’t already, please go check out the rest of the authors who are part of this collab, we have two more fics posting after mine and then we’re done! the masterlist is at the top of this fic. it was an incredible experience working alongside some of my favourite authors and greatest friends, i would seriously love to do this again!! ily guys <3

huge huge huge shoutout to my bb girl @meant-for-dreaming who kept me sane throughout this entire experience. i don’t think i wouldve made it without her. i love u endlessly x

and an EXTRA special shoutout to my afflatus, my muse, my stuffed penguin, @junqkook, you were a true pinnacle to this story and i truly hope i did u justice. i love u so much. 

[ambrial-blog]

The Serpent’s Mate Part 1.

It had been two weeks, two- long and restless weeks since their return from the human realm. 

THERE WAS NO ESCAPING THEM. No matter how hard Blitzo tried, he just couldn't outrun those horrific parodies that followed him into his dreams, chasing away any remnants of sleep. While his mate stirred beside him, Striker had grown increasingly worried about him in the time he had been home. Night after night, the sun-kissed serpent had stood by his side, rubbing his back, waiting for the nightmares to ebb. Blitz flinches in his sleep, shrinking away from his touch. His eyes suddenly pop open, his breathing is hitched. Someone is on top of him, shaking him and calling his name. The guff country drawl echoes in his head. As his body trembles, he clutches his ears, trying to drown out the voices. 

'Blitz, Blitz, can you hear me" Striker calls frantically, fighting to keep Blitz down. 

Striker's voice continued to blend, overlapping with the Boss imp's waking nightmare. Blitz fought him using all of his strength. Seeing the crazed eyes, hearing the high-pitched voice berates him from above. 

"Worthless spec of mud, you don't want to do anything alone. BlitzO - But you are alone, you drive everyone you love away, with your selfishness... too afraid.. the only use I have for your darling, is breeding with you so we can usher in the next generation of superior imps..... . Blitzy...... 

"Shut up, shut up. Shut up," growls Blitz reaching out and wrapping his hands around Striker's neck. 

"It's the truth, sugar-cube..... 

Striker's eyes are wide as Blitz continues to choke him, his claws digging into his neck, his eyes an off-color of amber- all Blitz can see is the swirling mud and those laughing eyes. 

"Sugar-cube..... Striker chokes as Blitz finely open his eyes in horror at what he is doing. He was quick to let go as fear pounded in his heart. He looked at his hands in disbelief at what he had just done. 

Blitz topples off the bed, stumbling back, his blurry eyes lacking focus as he ambles towards the door. Striker tail lashes out from underneath the covers gripping Blitz's hand and leading him back to bed. The country imp stares down into the glossy eyes of his mate. 

"It was just a nightmare Blitz, it wasn't real, can you hear me sugar-cube" Striker's voice held the tell-tale signs of panic and fear. He could feel Blitz's shake underneath him. 

"Let me go, Striker, Blitz hisses, trying to move, but the snake has him pinned underneath him. 

"Not until, you calm down, your acting like a scared colt, Blitzy what's wrong do you want to talk about it?" 

Blitz just shakes his head, but his arms are pinned down at his side, and Striker is straddling his waist. 

'Not until you calm down," Striker repeats. "And I have all night, darling, to figure out what's bothering you," Striker reassures, cupping Blitz's cheek. 

Blitz drinks too much coffee like he is desperately trying to stave off sleep. There is always a cup, or a mug of steaming coffee clasped, tightly in his hand- like it is his lifeline. At the morning meetings that Striker is rarely there due to prior obligations. Blitz is a mess zoning out and then brushing it off when either Moxie or Millie asks what is wrong.

Moxie keeps an eye out for Blitz while they are on missions, reporting anything he found as peculiar to the Goeitic prince- and he found a lot of things strange these days.

It was Moxie's fault they got captured, to begin with- it was his fault, the truth-seekers- got the information that they did. And maybe it was his guilt-ridden conscious that kept the data away from the snake-imp.

At night Striker crushes sleeping pills into Blitz's coffee, returning an hour later to see Blitz passed out at his desk coffee spilled out across important clientele documents, his finger pressed up against the coffee buzzer. The Assassin looked around at the mess figuring Blitz had caught on to what he was doing and was attempting to get somebody's attention. He disregarded the frayed documents that littered the desk. The imp from wrath didn't give a crap about it. It was a dead-end job to him, though Blitz had made an effort to include Striker in the meetings. Moxie always talked over him, puffing up his chest and trying to one-up the Cowboy, still sour at how Striker wanted to strangle him back on the farm. It was impressive that Blitz had started a business all on his own, saving up enough money from his days in Loo-Loo land- then putting Loo-Loo land in the rearview mirror.

But now, it was just plain pathetic the lengths Blitz was willing to go to sustain IMP, let it fall, and from those ashes, "Homicidal Husbands" would arise after Striker took IMP, to the cleaners wringing out their finances on Blitz's behalf.

Striker wasn't the sharing type. If he saw something he liked, he took it. He was a possessive bastard conniving and treacherous but always wanted the best for Blitz without any regard for anyone else. Being the dominant one, it was the Cowboy's right as Blitz's mate to protect his submissive even if it was against himself.

The Outlaw growls at Loony, his eyes overshadowed by his cowboy hat, seeing the steaming mug of coffee in her hands as she appears in the doorway. Picking Blitz up, he headed for the stairwell.

"Loony, be a good girl and clean up this mess for me, before I tell your daddy that it was you who drugged his coffee," Spoke Striker before disappearing up the stairs with Blitz. 

Loony shivered at the ice-cold malice in Striker's voice and the chill in his glare before fleeing to her room, Only to get on the phone a moment later with Moxie and Octavia after shutting, locking, and bolting her door.

Something was unsettling in those eyes. It felt like Striker was plotting against them, then working for them- half the time. But Blitz was sure Striker had their best interests at heart. But ever since Blitz returned, Loony could see the shift in his personality. Which at first, she had chalked up to too much coffee. Now, reared its ugly head, his scent was off, and there was a tangible walking around imp headquarters in a pair of cowboy boots and spurs. 

And she was damn sure that Striker had plans of his own because why would a mate come out of the woodwork's of Blitzo's past without him mentioning something before?. It didn't add up to the teenager.

Meanwhile, Moxie was at a loss for words when he came in one morning to see Striker at Blitzo's desk, his feet cross-crossed, leaning back in a chair with his hands behind his head. His eyes were closed. The anger within the Cowboy simmered behind closed eyelids. It was clear to Moxie that the snake imp had sifted through a pile of finances. Striker's demonic gaze fell upon him.

"Close the door, Possum I'm speaking on behalf of Blitz now, the Boss man, needed some downtime, So I obliged him by coming in today." 

"I don't like where this is going," Moxie stammered, closing the door.

"Relax, I'm not gonna skin ya, vermin."

The Outlaw had been away on business, cementing a few kills and collecting data on a few higher-ups that he would put on his black-list

When he returned home, he didn't know what the fuck had happened. All he knew was that everyone was keeping secrets from him, and Blitz was missing. When he had left, he had made sure everything was running smoothly. Blitz was his up-beat self getting ready for another killing spree.

Kissing Striker and telling him it would be as easy as drowning puppies in the river. Then, the next thing he knew, he was getting a call from an agitated possum who sounded like he had lost a bet. Saying that they were home, but Blitz was not. That Blitz had returned to the Goetic mansion to reward Stolas. Stella cleared things up and painted a picture that had Striker foaming at the mouth.

Striker's molten yellow eyes swirled with all the probabilities that might have Blitz running to Stolas instead of him. Stalking towards the door, he punched a hole right through it before entering the brisk night in an attempt to clear his head.

What is Satan's name that had happened? In the time it had taken Blitz to complete a simple in and out job, he had disappeared. Only then, to wrench the invisible knife sticking out his gut. Only to be found hours later and rescued by that miserable owl. 

Within minutes Striker had Moxie spilling the beans about that night, the horrible acid trip, trapped within the human realm with no way home. The strenuous torturous they had gone through and the truth serum and the effects it had on them. 

The Outlaw was not impressed. 

"Satan Dammit!, why wasn't I there? Then I could have avoided this entire mess." Growled Striker punching a brick wall over and over until his knuckles bled. Tears blinded his vision as he sunk to his knees. A picture flutters out of his jacket and lands in some garbage water near an open dumpster.

The Outlaw was quick to fish it out and looks at it in fondness. It was a picture of Blitz and Bombproof, back on Millie's farm Blitz on top of Bombproof. that stubborn horse had refused to leave the ranch after the confrontation and the botched assassination attempt of the Goetic prince. The damn horse wouldn't let Blitz off him- he had even ridden away from Striker when he tried to hop on. 

"Too slow cowboy" Blitz cackled.

Bombproof snickered as he played keep-away with his rider.

Striker had run, halfway across wrath: on stead, he had borrowed from Lin and Joe to catch up with them. The Outlaw took a ragged breath tracing Blitzo's face in the picture, now his partner wouldn't even look at him, and that fire in Blitzo's eyes was almost extinguished. Striker had to resort to some underhanded tricks to get his mate to sleep- and later, when Blitz finely caught onto who was actually drugging him and what he was doing, he had to bribe Loony.

"I'll rip them apart with my bare hands," growls Striker. "One thing was for sure, those assholes who had done this to his mate, their days were numbered if Stolas wasn't going to help him, he knew one Goeita that would. If only to get Blitz out of her home and be the sole heir to the Goetia fortune. 

That bitch was cold, calculating, and ruthless. Something Striker admired in her even if he was just using her to get what he wanted.

Fizzouali might've had his issues with Blitz in the past, especially burning down Loo-Loo land. But to see him like this, jumping at shadows on the walls. Skittering about. In hindsight, it might have had something to do with all that coffee he consumed. But there was a bitter-broken-hardheartedness about him. that made Fizzouali want to hug him- and never let go.

To be a fly on the wall and get to see Striker, the lone Assassin, slip into the palace wall and pluck some feathers from that ditsy blue blood- oh, he had heard about the fight- the whole ring of pride had heard about that fight. 

Striker had just about enough of hearing of the honesty-induced acid-trip and seeing Blitz crumple before him, hearing him scream! Night after night, nightmare after nightmare. Striker grips Blitz and starts to shake him, calling his name and pleading with him to open his eyes. Only to have fierce amber eyes pop open in fear, to feel his mate tremble beneath him as he tries to peel away only to stumble into the kitchen a moment later in search of an early morning coffee.

It was the last straw. This was all too much for the snake imp. IMP had seen its final days' Striker would keep Blitz home. It was for his own good, Striker told himself as he waited outside the shower to ambush Blitz with a rag soaked in chloroform. Rest was what he needed.

The former ranch hand had kept telling himself.

Blitzo pauses standing in a steam-covered room with a towel wrapped around his waist. He wiped the moisture from the mirror in time to see Striker lurking in the door. He was leaning against it, blocking the imp's fast retreat.

"I canceled all your meetings today, Blitzy, I even called the possum and said you wouldn't be in today."

"You did what?" Blitz screamed at the mirror. 

It infuriated the Outlaw to be shunned by his mate. The look on Blitzo's face as he trapped him underneath him, his tail massaging Blitzo's thigh, it was their thing, or at least it used to be. The eerie trepidation in Blitz's movement as he tried to sneak past the snake imp. Only to have the seasoned Killer grabbing him by the waist and throwing him onto the bed. Covering his mouth with a cloth. He fought off Blitzo's hands, holding them above his head.

"Striker, stop! What the fuck do you think you're doing? Blitz growled with a feral hiss. Craning his neck away from the drug-riddled cloth that inched closer to his face. 

The Cowboy had gotten so starved for Blitz's affection that he was willing to take it any way he could. He punched Blitz in the stomach; gripping his head, he covered his mouth with a drugged, soaked rag and waited. 

Blitz wheezed, crying into the cloth. Tears matted his eyes as he reached up, gripping Striker's arm. 

Blitz's hand slid off his bicep as he shut his eyes. Striker watched his mate slip peacefully into slumber for the first time in weeks. The Outlaw had spent weeks sleeping in an empty bed, while Blitz sought comfort elsewhere. 

The dull ache in his chest crippled him. As the mating mark seared his skin, he gritted his teeth against the pain as he thought about Blitz being unfaithful. 

The Outlaw leaned over, whispering into Blitz's ear. "I'm done, done with it all. I'm willing to fight for you, Blitzy, ready to take you back."

"I'll splatter the walls with his blood, then make you lick it off the walls, I'll have you begging for forgiveness." 

Heck, the way he was feeling that night, the whole Ares Goeita bloodline was in danger, all for the love of a bit of devil. An imp with a damaged heart.

Blitz awoke with a start, early that morning as remnants of a dream started to trickle away, he could feel Striker spooning him from behind, feel the weight of his head resting on the crook of Blitz's neck as the soft trickle of breath ran down his spine. It felt like ages since they were like this, bodies intertwined, tails loosely lapsed together.

"Too bad this couldn't last," he thought, his back growing rigid: His body throbbed and ached with a new mark, appearing on his inner thigh. The Outlaw pulled him closer to his mud-slacked body. 

Pressed up against a growing erection, Stryker moaned in his ear, his voice a high-pitched parody of his own his swirling eyes took him in, rubbing his body against Blitz. 

"The only use I have for you, Darlin, is breeding. I wish you could see yourself BlitzO, a hot mess unable to tell reality from fantasy. No matter, I don't care if you are damaged on the inside or not. All I care about is what's on the outside. Stryker hissed, ripping open his clothes and bending down to kiss his stomach. Even here, where they cannot reach you, you still have a purpose. Stryker flipped Blitz onto his stomach, rimming his finger around Blitz's hole, scissoring him open with his fingers. Keeping pressure on his neck and Blitz's face pressed into the pillow as he slid in. Blitz thrashed, clawing at the sheets, his voice hoarse as Stryker gripped his horns and rode him. 

Blitz gasped as he bucked into Striker's touch, as the hand down his pants kneaded him, his eyes flickered behind closed eyelids as Striker held his arms down at his side, trying to wake up the imp beside him. Goosebumps ran down his spine, his eyes shooting open, gazing up at the shirtless Cowboy hovering above him with a worried look on his face. 

"Sleep well Darlin." spoke Striker caressing Blitz. His body trembled at his touch, his mouth opened, but no words came out. He made a move to get out of bed, his rear end throbbing. He crumpled to the floor, blood staining his pants. 

The Outlaw was out of bed, quick as lighting and at Blitz's side cupping his head. 

“Please-no! No, more Stryker” 

Swallowing thickly, unsure of what to do, he wrapped an arm around Blitz's waist, hauling him up and towards the bathroom. He would call Moxie as soon as he drew a bath for Blitz. But if he had to be honest with himself, he wasn't even sure he wanted to do that. Blood was coming from somewhere. That frightful look on Blitz's face was directed at him, and the way he said his name sent shivers down his spine. 

He held him by the shoulders as he tried to sprint for the door; Striker held him tight as he turned on the faucet in the bath. "Blitzy can you hear me, I'm going to take off your clothes darlin, and than I'm going to put you in hot water, everything is going to be alright," Striker reassured him. He rubbed the mark he had given Blitz, trying to get the imp to smile.

"will find a way around this, Boss-man, hopefully without Goeita interference."

The bathtub bubbled. It wasn't as big as Stolas's, but it was both deep and inviting, built for two. Placing Blitz on the lip of the tub, Striker slid off his pants, locking the door before slipping into the hot soapy waters. Blitz stared at his mate, cocking his head to the side at the tumbled in, Striker catching him as he fell. It was getting harder and harder to tell Striker from Stryker. Blitz knew he couldn't keep this up. That if he kept going the way he was going, to end up blacking out and putting in danger someone he cared about. Striker took a scrubby and began washing Blitz's back, placing his nails around the grooves he found on Blitz's back.

It was a perfect match, but he didn't remember scratching Blitz, not to the point where he cried out of pain.

Everything was coming back to the week; Blitz had gone missing, Striker buries his face into Blitz's back.

"Blitzy, I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me, that you had to depend on the Goeita filth , overlord slaying can wait, sugar-cube I need to take care of you first." 

The wrangler had felt sick to his stomach. Something was attacking his mate and using his face to do it; whatever it was, it originated in the human realm. 

This only solidified his resolve to put an end to IMP and do the same with Stolas.

[soldierallen]

Grief.

Summary: y/n’s grieving the lost of her mom and knowing her best friend watched her mother die, she was going through a lot until he came back.

Warnings ⛔️: DEATH, a lot of grief, pain, anger, hurt, anxiety, BLOOD, wounds, Afterlife. If you can’t deal with grief or death please do not read this! you’re reading at your own risk of being sad or feelings of anxiety

Friend!Bucky x Reader

Evil!Steve x Reader

Based off this quote

“and it wasn’t until i looked around and saw everyone with someone that i realized i never had anyone”

and you were good to me by Jeremy Zucker, Chelsea Cutler

I look around this room, at all these people... grieving for my mother at the wake we buried her earlier it was an attack that the avengers should’ve stopped it was suppose to end she got in a line of fire I watched her die in the middle of the street she worked for shield for years the avengers were suppose to prevent this. She sat next to her brother and her father greeting the guests as they gave their condolences, and she seen Steve Rogers walk in, her rage filling her whole body she kissed her teenage brother’s forehead he just lost his mother she felt so sorry for him

“Get out” she walked up to him quietly to not make a scene “y/n I knew your mother” he said “you could’ve fucking stopped it and I don’t want you here Steve leave!” she said in a whisper “just know that I love you like a sister and I wish this would’ve never happened okay” she walked away and steve felt defeated leaving she hugged her brother very tightly “why don’t you go to bed I’ll take care of everything” “I don’t wanna leave you alone” he said she let go of him hugging her again “I’m really sorry” she said crying a little “me and dad we’ll be okay, I wanna see you some days though maybe stay the night if it’s okay with you”

“I think she’ll budge” a very familiar voice was heard, she turned around “bucky” her breath skipping to see how was there she hugged him so tightly “hey buttercup” he smiled smelling her hair and engulfing himself in her “you’re back?” she said he shook his head yes “I heard what happened, I wasn’t gonna stay in wakanda while you two were grieving” he pulled her brother into a hug “hey buddy” he squeezed the younger boy almost as tall as him just a few inches shorter than bucky, time passed as bucky stood by her as she walked people out and he smiled at her every once & awhile or touched her hand to tell her he was there for her, and when the day came to an end her father sent her brother to bed and her father went to bed as well, She and Bucky cleaned the house in silence with a few words here and there

“buttercup” her eyes perked up as she cleaned the last of the dishes and he wiped the tables down “let’s go somewhere” he put the towel on the handle of oven just like her mother did, she shook her head at the moment “where?” “a place where you can scream” she laughed for the first time in a week “you think I need to scream” she asked and he nodded yes “I know you want to scream I’m watching it on your face” he laughed leaning on the counter she finished washing the dishes and held onto him “you know buck I’m glad you’re here...” shook his head like “I know” he hugged her tight kissing her hair, he put his leather jacket on and grabbed her hand they walked out

“I wonder what it like to be loved” she saw a man and women holding hands at night passing by a car with two men one kissing the other as they stopped at a red light

“but I love you?” he says she shakes her head no, he gives her a confused look “not like that, you love nat.. you’ve always loved nat” he understood what she meant “I looked around a room today filled with people who were married, engaged, who had someone they loved next to them I never had anyone like that buck I feel like I never will and it kills me” she said swallowing the ball in her throat she fixed her long boots trying to stop her from crying

“You will find someone who loves you, I promise” he said putting his hand on her thigh squeezing it for a second “I wonder if anyone’s ever looked at me and said I love her I wish I could be with her” , it was like a sign from her mom she heard a song on the radio and both her and Bucky looked at each other... “you did this you put it on!” She yelled at bucky “I didn’t look change the station” and she did...bucky didn’t do it it was an actual sign from her mother.. her mother loved Stevie Wonder the song isn’t she lovely played so loudly in the car she felt like crying “she always thought you were wonderful buttercup” he smiled rubbing her cheek. Tears fell from her eyes his sympathetic look as he kissed the back of her hand “come on sing, she would’ve wanted this” and finally rage filled her again knowing she didn’t have to die if it wasn’t for the avengers, if they fucking did their job she stopped talking looking out the window as the song played it was already twilight “we’re in mountain territory” he said, “mount marcy?” she was a bit suspicious..

they walked up, “okay do it” he said “like right now”

“yeah” he put his sunglasses on rubbing his hands together, he screamed so loudly it echoed it literally took everything in him not to cry, and she joined in with him crying.. she broke down falling down and he held onto her as she broke, the grief the guilt everything finally hitting her at once the crying felt like it wouldn’t stop. “It’s okay buttercup” she was hiccuping at point tears streaming down her face she couldn’t stop she was so tired. “I hate him I fucking hate him” she cried out “he watched her, Steve watched the light go out of her eyes and knew it was over and he walked away HE LEFT ME ALONE WITH HER” she cried into his arms a few tears falling from his eyes “I’ll never talk to him again.” Her mouth becoming so dry her face was red bloodshot eyes and drippy nose it wasn’t just she’s dead it was that Steve left, he didn’t even try to help her he just got up and left.

“I don’t think I can go-go on, knowing the things Steve did to me-me... my family it’s like I saw something in his eyes that changed-changed he-he had a switch that was turned-d off... he wasn’t human” he cradled her in his arms, listening to her word vomit everything she’s had in her head for the past week.

“It’s okay, we’re gonna figure it out.” He kissed her head. after another hour of silence they sat on the mountain top crying with each other and they got in the car it was comfortable silence but it was silent... “your place or home?” “home” he nodded taking her back, he got out the car and opening her car door she hugged him “thank you for tonight, go back to her and love her until your heart gives out bucky” he smiled “I love you too.” She walked up to her door walking in, she did love bucky but never like that. when she walked into the home a single light was on someone sitting on the couch

“dad?” “not even close” ... “steve” she was taken aback “why are you here” “she got in my way” she couldn’t believe the words she was hearing “excuse me?” her anger radiating off of her “you and your family always get in my way” he was angry “Steve whatever this is we can fix this” she started to get scared.. “you killed your mother, because you came with her you aren’t suppose to come with her you were suppose to come alone” she was getting waves of anxiety she felt sick “Steve, please don’t do this”

“it was suppose to be you” he grabbed her swiftly by the throat her breathing wavering as he choked her “Steve” she breathed out gasping for air “you always get in the way and make me look like the bad guy, well it’s over for you” there was a knocking at the door “it’s Bucky” she said gasping “answer the fucking door and make him go away” he let her go she fell to the floor not being able to breathe, “it’s Bucky? You left your sweater in the car” she tried getting up she looked at Steve with a devilish look “you even think about alerting him I’ll fucking kill you” what did she have to lose at this point she thought...her brother her father.

“hey” she smiled rubbing her neck “you okay?” He asked she nodded he handed her the sweater “I’ll call you tomorrow okay?” “yeah, uh and James can you do me favor close the lid for the trash the possums keep getting in” she laughed, he gave her a look, he knew something was wrong. “Yeah I’ll do it now, see you y/n” he said her name instead of buttercup he knew and he gave her a signal. she closed the door and just as she closed the door she pushed back up against the wall “open your eyes I wanna watch the light go out just like your mother” “Steve what happened to you” she choked as her body was shoved up against the wall “wouldn’t you like to know? Ha” he laughed devilishly “this isn’t you” she cried “it’s me don’t worry” and at that moment she felt herself passing out she blacked out when she heard a lot noise break the door alerting her brother and father she woke up a little watching Bucky and Steve start fighting each other “go” she screamed at her father and her brother to leave the house “go now” Bucky’s mouth was bleeding and Steve picked up y/n off the floor “Stevie this isn’t you” bucky screamed

“It’s always been me, I’ve always been a monster” and just then he stabs her in the stomach “fuck” Bucky’s whole body goes into shock watching Steve stab her he grabs him and punches him until he knocks out “help is on the way” he took off his flannel putting pressure on the big wound he left the knife sticking out he didn’t remove it of course “I called Tony and he’s calling the police we’ll be okay come on, stay awake” he yelled holding her body “you were so good to me, you’ve always been so good to me” she coughed “all these years I wanted someone to love me for there to be someone in a room who truly loved me and it was you, all this time” she touched his face and he leaned into “you’re okay you’re gonna make it through this don’t say shit like that to me” Tony bursted in the door with shield swat and an ambulance “TONY SHE HAS TO GET TO A HOSPITAL NOW FLY HER THERE” “bucky” “PLEASE TONY” Tony nodded his head carrying her “hey buttercup let’s get you out of here” she smiled at him “hi tony” tears escaped her eyes he walked out the house and flew up into the air taking her to the nearest hospital, “doctor cho it’s y/n” as they got to the front doors she nodded as they got her on a gurney sending her in the back he called shield swat “what the fuck happened” he said “mr Rogers killed Martha Nelson and tried to kill y/n tonight” he said, he rubbed his face in annoyance “why how when?”

“Hey y/n ” he smiled at her “bucky...where am I” she asked “ICU” “this doesn’t seem right” “I knew you were gonna question it” he laughed “what?” “you’re dead y/n” he got up “so am dead? you’re dead too?” She started to worry “Bucky’s fine, he doesn’t even know you’re dead yet, do you wanna stay” the man who looked like Bucky but wasn’t Bucky sat down on a chair “I..I can’t go back I need to know if my families okay” “that won’t be necessary” he crossed his legs “what?” “you’re brother dies in” he looks at his watch “12 hours? And you’re father dies of a heart attack in...3 days” her eyes open wide “what” she was panicked and in shock “if you let yourself go right now, that’s the outcome. If you go back your brother lives and so does your father” she couldn’t let them die not because of her, I have to go home even tho I’m grieving I can’t lose them too. “Wake me up get me out of here” she said her eyes opened Bucky on her left side and her father and brother on the right.. “you’re all okay?” She said as the first words of her waking up they nodded their heads crying all hugging her “I can’t believe you died and you’re asking everyone if their okay?, you’re not allowed to die” Her brother said crying “I’m not going anywhere bud, I am not.” She cried holding onto him.

She never felt loved in a relationship but she surely was loved by bucky her brother and her father, that’s all she needed.

[nahimjustfeelingit-writes]

Imagine:

Reader/ OC trying to keep her orgasms on the inside because she doesn’t like how she sounds.

This is going to be pretty long and detailed. Figured I could add this bit into an idea I had. I wanted to write it out just like this 😩.First time using an OC. Enjoy lovelies xoxoxo

Hello, it’s your girl Ebony here and you’re listening to The Love Zone. We already have a caller number one on the line...

“Hello?” Élise timidly spoke into the phone while seated in her dimly lit living room. There was a 100% chance of showers that evening and rainy nights were the perfect nights for her. Alone in a home she inherited from her grandmother in Marigny, New Orleans, Élise decided to call The Love Zone on WQUE-FM, New Orleans mainstream urban radio station. Ebony Starr was a famous Sexologist and radio personality from Bywater, New Orleans. She inspired Élise to start her own podcast that she titled Finally Exhaled which discusses overcoming past toxic relationships and starting new ones.

“Caller number one?” Ebony said into the microphone. Her voice echoed since Élise could hear it twice.

“Yes,” she licked some cocoa butter from her lips, “I’m caller number one.”

“Alright, love, do you have a question for me?”

“I’m a huge fan,” she nervously laughs, “Just...I didn’t expect you...to answer my call.”

“You’re so sweet, honey, thank you,” Ebony made Élise smile, “what’s your name?”

“Yolanda,” that was her mother’s name.

“Yolanda, Pretty name. I know a lot of Yolanda’s.”

“Yeah,” she toyed with her long dreaded hair.

“Why are you up so late, Yolanda? No work for tomorrow?”

It was 11:00 pm. She worked as a waitress in a bar and grill but that was just to keep busy. She was an only grandchild left with her grandmothers money. Her Father didn’t like the fact that she got everything. Typical. He wasn’t around so why did it matter to him?

“Work tomorrow evening,” she pondered for a moment, “Now I remember my question.”

Ebony laughs, “go ahead, what’s your question?”

Wiggling her toes at the fireplace she opens her mouth to speak, “How do I overcome being embarrassed by the way I sound when I orgasm and moan? I’m nervous to even ask this question but it’s been bothering me and I just...I don’t like it.”

“Hmm,” Ebony’s smooth hum reassured her, “Why don’t you like the way you sound, Yolanda?”

“It’s-its because I was told it was ugly mainly. My last boyfriend-shitty boyfriend by the way, told me I sounded like a dying animal,” Élise chuckles, “I want to move past that and embrace the way I sound whenever the moment happens for me again but...”

“You’re afraid the next man will find it just as ugly and look at you weird?”

“Yes, ugh,” Élise closes her eyes, “What the hell should I do?”

“Honestly? Embrace it. That sound is a beautiful sound, Yolanda. One of the sounds of love making. When it’s real and sudden like that it makes you stutter out incoherent words and sounds but only a real man, an experienced appreciative man, would love to hear those noises. How old were you when he told you this?”

“I was 20 years old. That was when we first started dating. A start to a long toxic relationship.” She didn’t mean to vent like that but she couldn’t help it. Her ex, Sean, was such an emotional abuser. He shot her down every chance he got to make her feel ugly. That was for four whole years. She was 25 now and wanted to heal from that.

“Oh, that explains it,” Ebony made a noise of disapproval, “See, boys don’t know a thing, honey. I’m happy you’re not in that toxic relationship anymore and there is a man out there that will love every screaming orgasm you have. Especially if he’s the cause.”

“I know you’re right but gosh,” what man anyway? The closest she’s ever come to a man since then was working at that bar and they all were too pushy and drunks. She was loosing all hope honestly.

“Yolanda, when was the last time you had sex?”

“Over a year ago.”

“You’re craving sex heavy, sweetie. You want to give yourself to someone badly and a year can do that. I don’t think it was only the way you sound it’s a trust thing as well. Sean betrayed your trust.

Bingo.

“I’m better now. I can trust but I just don’t know where to start.”

“There is no rush. Let it come to you, honey. Once it does...accept it. Feel it. If you can listen to yourself moan and shout when you orgasm alone then you can definitely do it in front of a man again. I bet you sound angelic.”

Élise blushes.

“I actually heard that smile through the phone, Ebony laughs, “Sweety, let that moan out, snatch a man’s soul, and feed that craving.”

Élise laughs pleasantly, “I really needed this thank you so much, Miss Starr.”

“Please, If you need to talk you could always come to my meet and greets and workshops in The French Quarter.”

“I’d like that,” Élise smiles wide with her high cheek bones, “thanks again, Ebony.”

“Thank you, Yolanda. Enjoy the rest of your evening, love.”

The line disconnected. Élise places her phone on the carpeted floor and thought about their conversation. She was pining for sex. She wanted her year back. A year of no dick or lips on her pussy. Sex toys over used and calling her name as we speak.

Let’s take it slow with some Beyoncé- Dangerously in Love 2...

Baby I love you/You are my life/My happiest moments weren’t complete if you weren’t by my side/You’re my relation/In connection to the sun/With you next to me/There’s no darkness I can’t overcome/You are my raindrops/ I am your seed...

The rain was coming down in sheets, banging against Élise’s rough top like bullets. There was no lightning or thunder. She was glad that she got the lighting in her grandmothers home fixed because if she didn’t the power would be out and Élise did not want to go into that cobwebbed basement to find candles. Last time she went down there she saw a possum. Élise has on nothing but a retro Voodoo Fishing T-shirt while seated in front of the fireplace. She finally stands, the heat of the flames warming her butt before she walked back to the couch where her crinkled copy of Roar of Thunder, Hear My Cry rested on top of a quilt.

She couldn’t sleep and Beyoncé had her singing with her eyes closed. Grabbing her Walt Disney World coffee mug that had lukewarm herbal tea in it, Élise snuggled into the couch while facing a small window just above the heater in her living room.

I hope everyone is being safe on this stormy Friday night. We have another caller on the line, caller number two?

Élise tunes in.

“I’m still unfaithful to my husband. I can’t shake the need to be with the other man. Just tonight I came home after frantic car sex in an open lot. I want to tell him...I want to tell him I’m happy with the other man.”

“Wow,” Élise loves this juicy talk. She could faintly hear Rihanna-Unfaithful play in the background which causes her to giggle. Ebony was hilarious.

Whew, honey, juggling two men?

“SHIT!”

Élise’s head shot up from the couch. The angry shout came from outside. Maybe someone was locked out the house, she thought. Élise covered herself with the quilt further to listen to more of The Love Zone.

You are killing this man. Just tell him the truth. I can hear the pain in your voice. If you want to end this the right way stop stringing him along and communicate...

Thump

A rather loud kick could be heard from outside. Now, her interest was peaked. Élise tosses the quilt back , tiptoeing to the window with her mug still in hand. She could see a little better only because the house had a porch. But it was still foggy. A man was outside with his hazards flashing. He had to have been out there for a minute with how drenched he was messing under the hood of his car. No lightning or thunder. Just the rain, but the rain was more than enough to make the situation extremely uncomfortable.

Élise couldn’t see him that clearly as he hopped in and out of his car every minute or so, probably trying to warm up before trying something else to get his car moving again. Thanks to the street lamp about twenty feet from where he parked she could make out the type of car. A Ford Mustang 2006. It was parked beside a neighbor of hers that she didn’t like at all. His name was Kevin and he was a white supremacist. Nothing new in the South. No family but she could have sworn she heard screams from his house...

“Fuck!” The man shouts again. Élise felt kind of guilty. She had no idea why. She was sure most of her neighbors saw him stranded out there as well. As quiet as her neighborhood is, something out of the ordinary rarely goes unnoticed. However, the fact that the man was still out there struggling on one of the worst nights, weather-wise, of the year didn’t sit right with her. What harm would it be to offer to let him into her home so he could properly make a call for a Tow service or have a nice cup of tea and a hot meal? Loan a flashlight, or let him warm up by the fireplace for a moment?

Élise stares down at what she was wearing again. That retro Voodoo Fishing T-shirt. Élise went to the closet to grab her red longline puffer coat and black Hunter rain boots. She grabs a flashlight from the closet shelf, trying it out to see if it worked. A couple slaps with it to the palm of her hand made the old thing ignite and she was headed for the door. Élise swung the front door open like a women on a mission. She stomps across her front porch and right down the steps, pulling the back of her coat up over her head to keep from getting her dreads wet.

“Excuse me!” She yelled out from the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from where the man was parked. He looked in her direction, and she could finally make out his soaked face. She was not disappointed.

“Wassup?!” He responded loudly, “This rain is a bitch!”

“Yeah, it is! Do you need some help?! It’s pretty cold out too my place is warm!”

He kept a steady gaze on her from under his hood. He had this look on his face as if that were a bad idea. Now, Élise was regretting it.

“Are you waiting for someone?!” She started up the conversation again. Her legs were so wet now.

“Nah!” He shook his head and from what Élise could make out she saw short dreads fall over his forehead, “Listen, it’s bad out here, sweetheart why don’t you go back inside, huh?!”

“You sure?!” She pointed her flashlight to the house, “My offer still stands if you change your mind!”

“Thanks, I appreciate it, ma!”

Even though it was dark she could see his smile. Damn, he was good-looking. All that out here melting in the rain. Élise turned to run back to the porch only to fall right on the concrete. She felt both her knees hit the ground. She wailed in pain. Her hands planted to the ground and she tried lifting up but her rain boots slipped right from under her. She could feel hot tears prick her eyes.

“SHIT!!! Hey, Ma!” He called out. Élise could hear heavy feet splashing in the flooded streets and then a pair of wet hands grabbing her waist and lifting her all the way up into bridal style. She squinted her eyes up at the nice-looking man with the fucked up car. He started walking back to her porch. He sat her down on an old chained swing chair before removing his black hoodie and tossing it on the swing chair with her. It was probably uncomfortable walking around with heavily soaked fabric. One thing was for sure: he was built. He had on a charcoal gray tee that was hugging his body something fierce. Élise could make out his physique thanks to him being up close and personal now. Then there was those dreads. They fit his rugged look so perfectly. He definitely wasn’t from around here.

“What are you doing out here? It’s bad, sweetheart, you could have cracked your head open on the ground instead.”

She blinked up at him with timid eyes. He softened his stern ones before his eyes closed. His hands finger combed his dreads back before he shook his head to stop the dripping water.

“My bad,” he looked down at her on the swing chair, “you’re probably thinking who the fuck he think he is talking to me,” he laughs awkwardly.

“Not at all,” Élise looked away and down at her lap. He was right. She was so quick to come running to the rescue. It was almost flooded outside.

“Let me see the damage,” He crouches down to look at her knees, “just scraped skin but it needs to be cleaned off.”

His onyx eyes landed on hers before turning back to his car. Élise studies the back of his smooth neck and the curve of his ears. It seemed like forever that he was staring at his car.

“I have everything in my house I can take care of it. Thank you though.”

He turned back with a tilt of his head. His eyes looked up at her house while his fingers lazily drummed on the swing chair.

“My name is Erik.” He reached out to shake her hand.

“I’m Élise,” she grabbed it and noticed some cuts on his knuckles, “looks like you need some help too.”

Erik drew his hand back before covering his knuckles by folding his arms, “Shit, I forgot that was even there.”

“No worries, I’m not afraid of blood.” She clarified.

“You must not be afraid of much talking to a stranger at 12 in the morning in the rain.”

His tone was serious. Élise looked away from him with a shy smile.

“I have a big heart and my shitty neighbors wouldn’t help you out so I figured what the hell I can do it.”

“Not much happens around here, huh?” He asked with attentive eyes.

“No, it’s pretty quiet,” she took in every inch of him with her eyes. The tight charcoal gray shirt was damp and exposing every single muscle. She liked his short dreads, almond colored skin, and long, sexy eyelashes.

“You could have knocked on someone’s door to give you a jump.”

“Ha,” his chuckle was dry, “You don’t answer doors when strangers knock, baby girl. And I don’t trust knocking on doors in this neighborhood. I’m lucky you even stepped out,” he smiled faintly, “like a breath of fresh air.”

“I agree,” she changed it up, “it’s just-“

“Don’t explain yourself. It’s cool,” Erik stands, stretching out the muscles in his arms. His eyes were studying her home with a new found curiosity.

“In this world we live in, you never know what you might find knocking on someone’s door. Most people are suspicious, especially of us black men.”

“True,” she stood with him, wrapping her coat around her, “so...do you wanna come in?”

He licked his lips and placed his hands in his black cargo pants pockets. He looked like he was freezing and she could see his cold breath.

“Erik, I have blankets and dry shirts,” she beemed up at him.

He squinted his eyes playfully at her before his head fell forward with defeat. Success.

“A blanket does sound nice. But, as tiny as you are, I doubt I could fit into one of your shirts.”

Élise thought she saw a flicker of lust in his eyes when he said that. At least, a part of her hoped she saw lust.

“Unless...” He gave her quizzical expression, “your boyfriend got some shirt he left behind.”

Élise blushes, “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

She could tell he was fighting a grin. Élise finally turned to lead the way back into her place, Erik grabbing his hoodie and walking through the door. The second he ended up in there he felt his body defrost and dry.

“Fuck,” he ran his hands over his short dreads, “I’m glad I let my pride down for once and let you help me. A nigga was cold.”

“Uh-Huh,” Élise laughs, “I see your skin warming up, Erik.”

“Oh yeah, I’m nice and toasty now,” He smiles flirtatiously.

“Hungry? Thirsty?”

“Nah, I’m cool.”

“Tow service?”

“Not available and...I’d rather not,” His jaw clenched.

“Well...” Élise shrugs, “looks like you’re staying the night, Erik.”

Erik raised a brow at her before looking around him to get acquainted.

She felt comfortable with him even though he was considered a stranger. Her grandmother would have higher blood pressure than what she already had if she knew what she’d just done. The thought of having some kind of company that night made her feel a lot better and less lonely. Élise finally locks her door and went to her closet to take off her boots and coat. It was all or nothing.

“Closet is free to put your boots and hoodie in.”

She was so damn comfortable around him that she forgot about only being in her T-shirt. Erik stood back with his arms folded watching Élise move and the fabric of the shirt sink in between her ass cheeks. She was sexy for sure. The second she kicked off her boots Erik could see the flesh of her butt... bare flesh.

This girl is serious? He thought.

Ass swinging while she moved. She was a cutie with a nice body. Alone in this big home. All that alone with no man. Shit didn’t make sense. Maybe she was just fucking someone. Erik began walking up to her while she took off her puffer coat to hang. Long slender dreads with shells in it. He wanted to pull on the coarse hair.

“Thanks, Élise,” He was so stealthy that she hadn’t noticed how close he had gotten to her. Elise’s back stiffened and her body tried to step away to give him space but Erik was already taking off his boots and hanging up his hoodie. She caught a whiff of his cologne causing her to nibble on her bottom lip. He didn’t smell like liquor and cigarettes like the men at the bar and grill she worked at. He smelled like rain, sweat, and what she recognized was Gucci Guilty men’s cologne. She remembered that smell from when she was in Macy’s sniffing around in the perfume section. It was intimate and warm at the same time.

“Don’t worry, your blankets will smell like me even when I leave, baby girl.”

She was caught red handed.

“I’m sorry,” she stroked a few dreads from her face, “Your cologne smells really good.”

We’re they really standing in the closet? She dropped the flashlight on the floor when Erik leaned in towards her to smell her now. He was more than comfortable around her. He acted like he knew her.

“You smell like coconut oil,” He gave her a coy smile, “I like that.” Erik crouched down in the small space to pick up the flashlight.

“T-thanks.” Élise licked her dry lips. She needs more cocoa butter.

“So, nice closet,” He teased.

“Yeah...very spacious,” she awkwardly tried to joke back.

Just show me around, ma, since I’m gonna be sleeping here tonight. Unless...you changed your mind?”

He leaned in toward her with a slight raise of his brow and parted lips. He knew he had hers shooken up.

“Yeah, I have a spare bedroom and the couch pulls out into a bed.”

Erik’s eyes trailed up and down her body, “Pull out couch is fine.”

Élise finally let out the breath she’d been holding once Erik stepped away and into her living room. She watched him look around like he was in a museum, staring at her family photos and the art on the walls. Élise has redecorated since moving in two years ago.

“This you?” Erik had a wide smile on his face while pointing to a photo on the ledge of the fireplace. Élise walked over, spotting the photo in question. Oh, yes, when her hair was in a kinky fro, nose piercing, college T-shirt on two sizes too small, tiny denim shorts, and laying in the grass with her ass sitting out and ready to be grabbed.

“Looking like a little rebel,” He picked that photo up studying it with unrelenting eyes. She shuddered.

“Very sexy,” Erik commented and then he gave Élise that look. She turned away from him; she didn’t want him to see the desire in her eyes. She was beginning to have second thoughts about kissing and possibly fucking a complete stranger. No need to deny herself her own thoughts. She’s been thinking that the second he looked up at her from across the street in the rain.

“Where are you from, Erik?”

He placed the picture back on the fireplace ledge, “California.”

Élise was intrigued.

“Why New Orleans?” She followed him to the couch where he started pulling it out into a bed.

“Business,” He kept it short. She didn’t pry further because she sensed that he didn’t want her to know the nature of his “business.”

“How do you like it so far?”

He gathered the bottom of his shirt, bringing it up and over his head while his zealous eyes never left hers, “It’s cool, I’ve been before during Mardi Gras.”

She froze. Was his skin naturally like that? It wouldn’t make since with how neat the bumps were. What would make him do that? He didn’t seem bothered by her eyes taking it all in or the wondering crease in her brow. He wouldn’t tell her, she knew that. The shit was going to eat her alive.

She snapped out of her daze, “I haven’t been to a Mardi Gras since I was 21.”

“Why?” He settles down shirtless on the pullout. His body bathed in the fire. She could feel her tongue tingling to taste his skin. Erik is so sexy.

“It’s so damn wild.”

“Please, girl,” He laughs, “Drunk white people acting a fool ain’t our kind of wild.”

They both laughed.

“When I came that shit was dead i was not partying with them. So, me and a friend hit up some urban spots and listened to some upbeat jazz and ate Cajun food. I met a chick and had some fun with her.”

What kind of fun?

“Sounds a lot better than the time I went.”

Élise stares down at her scraped knees. The crimson peeked through the tiny scratches. Now that her attention was there it was beginning to burn.

“Where’s your bathroom so we can get those cuts cleaned, baby girl?”

Élise pointed to her stairwell, “Upstairs. I can bring it down you don’t have to come with me.”

“Well,” Erik had a roguish expression on his face, “what if I wanna see what upstairs looks like?”

Her wary eyes stared at his wry expression. Erik was definitely being very coy with her.

“You won’t find anything interesting upstairs except for my bedroom.”

Élise’s wistful expression let Erik know without even saying it flat out that she wanted him in her room. He fixed his eyes on her for being that bold with him. She wasn’t so shy. She was a little rebel.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Élise tries to play it off, “I should probably shut up.”

“Let’s go,” Erik stood up, holding his hand out to her. Élise grabs his hand, leading Erik to the staircase and up the creaky steps. It was dark and chilly in the hallway since she didn’t turn on the heat upstairs. She could hear Erik shiver even though his hand was still warm. They made it to her bathroom, Élise turning on the light. She hadn’t changed it around much. Her grandmother still had Élise’s potty from when she was a baby in there. She never let go of things.

“My guess is this house belonged to your grandmother?” Erik finally spoke while standing at the sink.

“Yep. She passed away from breast cancer two years ago.”

“I know how that shit feels, trust me,” Erik opened her medicine cabinet to find a withering first aid kit, “I lost my mom and my dad so I understand.”

Erik motioned for Élise to come to him. When she did he picked her up and sat her on the edge of the sink. Her short yet thick legs swung back and forth reminding her of when she was a child. Erik opened the kit and grabbed some gauze dressing, peroxide, and neosporin.

“You must really enjoy picking me up, stranger,” Élise’s playful eyes sought out Erik’s and the second he smiled revealing those deep dimples in his cheeks she crossed her legs to simmer the heat growing between them. Even the grip she had on the edge of the sing became firmer.

there is a man out there that will love every screaming orgasm you have. Especially if he’s the cause.

Ebony’s words spoke to her again. She was thinking about the sounds she would make if Erik fucked her. He was still shirtless, his cargo pants riding low on his hips showing her that chiseled v-cut of his, and those lashes with his onyx eyes blinked at her like he was trying to read her mind. Lord knows Élise wanted to read his. He was so mysterious and unreadable and that didn’t scare her. It made her want to stake her claim on him. He was visiting New Orleans and maybe she could show him around and they could have some fun of their own. Élise was lonely and friends weren’t enough to fill the void. Not really much family left either. She needed the warmth and comfort of a man.

But Erik looked like the type to break you down piece by piece. She wouldn’t mind him turning her out. Élise didn’t know how long she was staring but Erik’s soft fingers tapping the sides of her thighs broke her out of her dreamy state. Staring down, she could see the fresh gauze covering her wounds. Élise bit into her lip and without being able to control it her high cheek bones puffed out. He made her blush over everything. Why couldn’t he be from New Orleans and not California? Once he left she wouldn’t find another guy around like him. She already crushed on him and she hardly even knew him.

“What did I do to make you blush, pretty girl?”

“What didn’t you do, Erik,” She reaches out for his hands, “let me see.”

He came in closer between her legs, giving her permission to grab his hands and examine his scarred knuckles. It looked pretty bad. Did he beat a brick wall or somebody’s face? She glanced up at him briefly and without saying a word she tended his wounds. His searching expression made her belly flit like butterfly wings. Now, she was rubbing neosporin in carefully. She could feel his eyes leering at her in a sexually suggestive way.

“These are pretty fresh,” she muttered. Élise’s eyes looked from his Adam’s apple bobbing from swallowing spit to his teeth nibbling the corner of his full pouty lip. He didn’t look at her when she said that.

“That’s because they are, Élise,” he says with a low voice. She started wrapping the gauze dressing around his hand. After she was done she didn’t let his hands go. Élise surely didn’t want to. They stood in a comfortable silence and it gave her time to think about his fresh wounds. He didn’t look like the type to go around beating brick walls but faces? That was definitely the answer. And surprisingly, Élise wasn’t afraid. If Erik wanted to rob her or kill her he would have done that already. Instead he was kind to her and he looked at her like he wanted to fuck her. She liked that look a lot.

“Élise.” Erik spoke earnestly.

“Yes?” She said with a soft-spoken voice.

“You’re not afraid of me. Why?”

“Because I know you won’t hurt me.”

She noticed him watching the way her lips moved when she said that. He was admiring the shape of them. Her lips were the perfect proportion. Perfectly symmetrical on the left and the right. Full lips with volume and a plump pout.

“Yeah, baby girl, I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“...but you did hurt someone...”

Erik glides his tongue over his upper teeth, responding but completely ignoring her question, “what if I kissed you right now? That wouldn’t change your mind?”

“No.” Élise said gazing into his eyes.

Erik leans in with his hands bracing the sides of the sink. His lips sparingly touched hers as he spoke. Élise clings to every word while her low eyes stared at his mouth.

“If you lettin’ me put my mouth on yours then you’ll let me put something else on you...am I right?”

Élise has an anxious feeling and Erik wasn’t helping when the flesh of his bottom lip tickled hers every time he spoke. Now, her eyelids were fluttering. Still in nothing but that retro Voodoo Fishing T-shirt and no panties. She wondered if he could smell her arousal towards him.

“Erik-“

“Just answer the question, Élise.”

“Yes, I would.”

“If you’re not afraid of me you would answer my questions,” Erik moved his lips to her ear, his hard chest touching her clothed one. Élise shuddered when his warm breath tickled her ear, “Why are you so comfortable around me with this little ass T-shirt on and no panties?”

“H-How do you know I don’t have on panties?”

“Because,” the hair from his beard touched her neck, “I could see that ass from the back when you were in that closet, ma.”

She hung on to his captivating voice while staring at the side of his neck. Élise was sweating from how turned on she was and he didn’t even kiss her yet.

“That’s what I’m talking about. You act like you know me...what if I would have pulled that shirt up to get a better look at that ass?”

Élise gasps at his words, turning to look at him with alluring eyes. What if he would have done that? He was already so close to her. Now she was imagining him bending her over in that closet and going deep in her pussy from the back. She found that to be very sexy and thrilling. Élise’s grandmother was probably turning over in her grave right now. Her granddaughter letting a strange and clearly very dangerous man into her home and allowing him to seduce her. 

Erik takes his hands to rest on her thighs. He moved them up and down in a slow motion keeping a steady gaze on Élise to see if she would flinch away. No, she was enjoying the firmness of his hands. He knew exactly what he was doing. Élise could feel his fingertips hit the bottom of her T-shirt. Damn...he was so close.

“Élise, you so damn thick, girl.”

“Thank you.” She bit down on her tongue to fight her ugly moan. At least that’s what she thought it was. Her eyes descended when she felt Erik lift the bottom of her shirt. Unhurried and gentle Erik lifts that T-shirt up to reveal Élise’s shaved mound. The phat flesh sat between her plush thighs like a surprise treat.

“Damn, you just letting me do this, huh?”

“Yes,” she let out an airy sigh, “I am.”

“Been too long, ma?” Erik had a wolfish expression on his face, “shit, you nice and phat down there too.”

Erik pulled her shirt back down and Élise’s heart sank before his pillowy lips finally connected with hers so suddenly. Her head almost collided with the mirror from how alarmed she was. Her hands reached up to cup his face while she allowed this man to fuck her mouth with his tongue. She tried to keep up with him but in the end Erik conquered her. His mouth tasted amazing. Now, he was gripping her curvy waist with his forceful hands and practically pulling her into his body. Their heads moved from side to side and their lips smacked and sucked on each other’s. A tiny yelp escaped her mouth when Erik sank his teeth into her bottom lip before drawing back. He licks his lips in one motion all the way around his mouth and Élise was officially hungry for more of him. A man coming in from the rain. A man she would have never expected would be kissing her on her bathroom sink. It was so risky.

“Ahhhh!” She moaned instantaneously. His lips and teeth were on her neck. Shit, Élise actually moaned. Why was she even worried? She actually sounded quite nice. Erik was bruising her skin with the right suction of his lips. If it felt like that on her neck it would feel just as good on her hard nipples and clit. The surface of the sink was moist from her pussy rubbing and gliding along the surface.

“Taste so goddam good, girl,” he flattened his tongue and licked her neck, “so sweet.”

“God, Erik,” she moaned, “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this to me.”

“I can,” He chuckles, “You like that I’m doing this to you. I can tell you’ve been loosing out, ma, got you all sweaty and breathing deep.”

“I just can’t...believe...fuck, Erik.”

His hands grabbed her breasts, circling them and tweaking her nipples through her shirt. He was torturing her at this point. Élise wanted him to rip that shirt off her body.

“You’re driving me crazy,” She whispered, “Erik,” her voice was so hushed and heavenly. The man in question was just as frazzled as her. Panting, a sheen of sweat on his skin, his dick hardening and thickening against her inner thighs.

“Élise...I wanna fuck you.” He grabs her hips to keep her still, “listen to me,” his thumb came up to stroke her dimples chin, “...I wanna fuck you so good, girl. You need to take some good dick.”

“It’s been so long,” she bit into her pouty lip.

“Shit, how long?” He was running his hands through her dreaded strands.

“I feel,” she shivers, “I feel so embarrassed saying it,” Élise’s murmured like she was telling a huge secret.

“You can tell me...don’t be scared, girl.”

“A year,” she closed her eyes.

What the fuck. An entire year. Élise was yearning, longing, craving, and hungry for some dick and attention. Part of Erik wondered if that was one of the reasons why she let him into her home.

“Aye,” Erik soothes her, “that’s a long time, baby girl, but I can help you out with that,” Erik takes her hand to kiss it gently before speaking against her knuckles, “I can make you feel better....”

“Erik.”

“You know you want me to...let me make you feel good...” He kissed her hand again while staring into her eyes. Erik felt her thighs quiver around his waist.

“I got you, ma.”

“Erik,” she kept whispering at him and it had him grunting and painfully hard, “I’m so wet, I can’t believe it...Erik.”

She’s so beautiful. God, Erik needed this right now. He needed her ass.

“Élise, girl, I swear to fucking God-“

“Erik, please, Erik.”

Élise unexpectantly lifts both of her legs to the sink, her entire T-shirt bunched up around her waist now showing Erik all that wet juicy pink. Pussy looking like a wet piece of fruit. A peach drizzled in honey. Tight slit with puffy suckable lips. Erik’s eyes were vicious. He reached out to keep her thighs back since she wanted it that way. Then, in a blink of an eye, he had her pushed back against the mirror with her ass hanging over the edge of that sink.

“Oh? You itchin’ for me, ain’t you? opening up your fucking legs like that. Just telling me I can have it? Girl, I will beat this pussy up right on this motherfucking sink. Fucking playing with me if you want...”

She caved when she saw him spit thickly on her pussy. She drew her lips into her mouth. Élise could feel the saliva practically slap her clit. He was so fucking nasty. She just knew that Erik would have her making all types of noises.

“Still ain’t scared, huh?”

“No.” Her voice shook even though she said no.

Erik’s head went down between her legs. He stuck his tongue out as far as it could go and began licking the underside of her clit back and forth. Élise clenched her teeth, the sounds begging to escape her mouth.

“I don’t hear nothing. If you ain’t afraid why don’t I hear you moaning, baby girl?”

Erik went in again slurping her up and licking in a deadly pattern. She felt him tug on her clit and inner folds. She was ready to cum already.

“Erik, Erik I-Stop it, I’m-Erik, please, please I’m-oh my God you’re-you’re making me-Ooooh you’re making me-“

Like it wasn’t in her own control, Élise moaned as her orgasm erupted from her. Her eyes squeezed shut and the so called animalistic sounds escaped her mouth. She was choking on her moans and she hated that she couldn’t control it but this fucking man...he was eating her. Making up for that year. Every month fueling him to suck and lick on that pussy some more. Even after she came he still covered her with his entire mouth and spit. She waited and waited for him to say she sounded ugly or look at her bizarrely but no. Instead he says...

“Good fucking girl. That’s right, cum in this mouth. Shit, cum all you want, do it, baby girl.”

Thank god for his car breaking down.

“Yes!”

“Uh-Huh, you want some more!”

She nodded her head with vigorously.

“Look at you,” Erik bit his lip while thumbing her clit, “look at you shaking and moaning,” his motions increased, “cumming again? That pussy cummimg for me? she ready to bust for me, Élise?”

“Mmmm, Erikkkk, baybeee!”

“You just keep on going?” He smiled.

“I-I’m sorry,” her body spasmed, “I can make a lot of mess.”

Élise was referring to her squirting habit.

“You can squirt all over Daddy whenever you like,” He inserts two fingers inside of her. She rolled her eyes shut, body vanquished but feeining for more.

“Grabbing my fingers like that? Gon’ head and cum...better yet fuck these fingers. Get you some, ma, pop that pussy on these fingers.”

Her hips lifted to get all of his fingers as he dug deep.

“Ooh...ooh...look at you...got my dick heavy in these pants.”

Élise watched him grab his dick. He was so long. She couldn’t wait to see it. And fuck it. And suck it...

“Damn, shit, I can’t wait to pound that puss.”

She shouted out again, pussy convulsing around his thick fingers. Her throat was raw from how hard she screamed.

“So fucking beautiful. Shit don’t make no sense.”

@tgigoldie @soufcakmistress @chefjessypooh@chaneajoyyy@pananegra@theblulife @becincere @blaqwidow91 @fish-outta-watah@moonlight-night-sky @eyeknowmywrites  @crowngold@njadakillthiscookie@blktinkerbell@luvanxi @sheisexcellent1@chocolatedippedinhoney@brandithecrystalgem@dababydababydababydababy@soulfulbeauty19@btitannaaa@sunkissedebony97 @youngblackndgifted@harleycativy @rbhp@thee-germanpeach @thadelightfulone@bugngiz@palmstreesallday@skylahb @bakaris-shorty @nizzle-mo @truglori @queenflaws @ljstraightnochaser @nickidub718 @vikkidc @thehomierobbstark @rent-emspoons @abluesforlyssa

[sergeant-donny-donowitz]

Three’s a Crowd (Donny x Latina!Reader)

A/N: You don't have to be Latina to read :)

Requested by @golddustwomann18

@owba-chan @war-obsessed @inglourious-imagines @tealaquinn @struggling-bee @frozenhuntress67 @kwyloz @sodapop182

Let me know if you wanna be added to the IB or OUATIH taglists! :)

________________ The basterds had just broken into a prison halfway between Paris and Berlin to rescue Hugo Stiglitz, and offered him a chance to go pro in the nazi killing business. Of course, Hugo agreed. The thing was, Hugo wasn't the only new basterd joining the team that night. In their plans, they managed to inform the OSS. Their general was not particularly pleased with the improvisation, but he couldn't change Aldo's mind. So he did the next best thing. He sent you.

You were outside the prison, just in time, with a jeep parked just out of the remaining guards' sight. Once you heard alarms, dogs snarling, nazis barking orders, and approaching voices shouting in English, you turned the jeep on. "I told you we had a get away car," the kid you'd come to call Smitty jumped in first, and pulled his two best friends, Omar and Hirschberg, up after him. You turned around, and looked at the faces of the men piling into your jeep. One of the last ones had a scar across his neck, and smiled warmly when he saw you up front. "That everyone?" He nodded, and you immediately stepped on the gas, driving away as gun shots fired behind you. As you passed under a flickering street lamp, Hugo looked ahead, and saw you for the first time. You were the first thing he saw in his freedom, and it was almost like seeing a vision. The broken haze that fell over you for the moment that you drove under that street lamp made him question reality... "What's your name, private?" Aldo sighed as he cracked his neck and took out his snuff. "Corporal  Y/n L/n." You glanced up at the rearview mirror for a moment, then looked back at the dark and dangerous road ahead. The basterds looked around at each other. Hirschberg raised his eyebrow, "L/n, huh..." You tightened your grip on the steering wheel, already knowing what he was going to ask. You exhaled steadily, waiting for the same old back and forth. "Where are you from?" You didn't even blink, "Arkansas." You were born there, after all. "But where are you fro-" Aldo stepped in, knowing he'd save that boy from a whole lot of embarassment, "No kiddin'! I'm from Tennesse, but I gotta friend out in Arkansas. We used to go huntin' every year, 'fore all this ya know? He's in the air force now. His family used to make us a mean possum pie." Donny, who had been trying to get another look at you, and trying not to blush whenever you glared at Hirschberg, suddenly turned his attention to Aldo, as did the rest of the basterds, "What the fuck is possum pie?!" You chuckled a little, "Not what it sounds like, I'll tell you that much." You suddenly swerved, and went over something...which was not exactly just a bump in the road. "Did you just run over a nazi?" Donny sounded shocked and ecstatic, as he peeked over the seats with a wide grin, and hovered by you. "I couldn't get my gun fast enough." You smirked a little, and somehow, that mountain of a man managed to slip from the backseat to the passenger seat, while Omar grumbled, "Get your ass out of my face, Donowitz." Donny ignored that remark, and as he sat in the front seat, he smiled at you. His voice was a little softer than it usually was, and he glanced at you, "My name's Donny." Aldo rolled his eyes, noticing Donny's sudden shift, and knew why. "Sergeant Donny Donowitz," he sighed, reminding Donny of his rank and responsibility, then said, "Well since we got us two new basterds, maybe Donny's got the right idea." So, each of the basterds introduced themselves to you, and to Hugo. "Are we still not going to talk about what the fuck possum pie is?" Smitty looked around, genuinely concerned. You laughed, "Alright, alright. It's just a pie that's got cream, chocolate, and lots of pecans. No actual possum." Donny smiled, his eyes gleaming as he looked at you, Hugo scowled a little, though no one seemed to notice. You glanced at Aldo, and playfully remarked, "Only if you get it in Arkansas. Tennessee's got some catching up to do, sarge." Aldo chuckled, "That's how it's gon' be, huh L/n?" Suddenly, there were lights behind you. Nazis were tailing you, and you sighed, and shook your head muttering things you'd never say in front of your mother. The basterds, on the other hand, were scrambling for their guns, and swearing as you swerved trying to lose the nazis.

A nazi swerved in front of you and blocked off the road. You hit the breaks, and steered off the road, and shouted, "Puchica!"  as you aimed your gun out the window, and shot the nazi through the head, then kept driving west. You chuckled, "Got 'em..." The jeep was pretty silent after that, which was rare for the basterds, as you'd soon learn. You glanced up at the rear view mirror and noted the basterds all looking at you, "What now?" "What's that thing you yelled at 'em nazis?" Aldo chuckled.  You laughed a little yourself, as you shook your head once with a nostalgic grin as you looked out west, "It's a Salvadoran thing." "But you're-" You sighed, "From Arkansas, but my parents are from El Salvador. Clear enough for ya, Hirschberg?" He chuckled, seeing you were gonna be one hell of a basterd, and saluted you, "Yes ma'am." You grinned slyly as you drove. One by one, as the threats seemed to dissipate, the basterds began to drift off to sleep. Only Donny stayed awake. In his words, he wanted to 'keep ya company.' By that, he meant talk...and that man could talk. He could make you blush, too, even if he couldn't see it in the darkness of the night.   But, you could make him laugh. By the time it was dawn, he didn't realize so much time had gone by. You'd later realize time didn't seem to mean a thing to him when you were there.

You stopped the car at the edge of a field. "We gotta go on foot from here." "We're in France already?" Omar asked mid-yawn, as he stretched out, accidentaly (or not) slapping Hirschberg and Utivich in the face. You slammed the door shut after you stepped out into the feel, waking the others. "Yup," you started heading down the field, commenting under a sigh, "Nazi occuppied France." Hugo smiled a little as he walked by you, "How could we forget?" You were a little stunned in hearing him actually speak, but... you smiled and talked with him for a while... Which made Donny mutter things under his breath which only someone from Boston could ever dream of repeating. ***** As time went on, Hugo kept to himself for the most part, unless you were around. Then, he'd speak softly enough so only you'd hear, but enough for the other basterds to know that he was speaking to you. Particularly, so Donny would know. Donny confronted him once, but Hugo kept him at bay, saying all you and Hugo talked about were 'things 27 year olds could understand.' By that he meant to say Donny was old. (He was only a little older than you, but still, Hugo loved to point it out every single chance he got). He and Donny would often lock eyes, and glare at each other when either of them began to approach you. Frankly, you were sick of it. You pretended to not know what was going on to avoid any fights, but..things weren't going your way. You kept it to yourself, until Donny brought it up. You and Donny were beginning to get a little more serious. Still, one day, he hesitated to reach for your hand when you knew he'd wanted to for a long time. "What's wrong, Donny?" "Hugo." He didn't even hesitate. That was all he needed to say. You knew this was coming. You sighed, "He's had  a rough time. He's got no one else to talk to." "There are eleven of us. You think he only talks to you because he's-" "Hey." You looked at him with warning eyes, "Don't be a dick." "I'm not! I'm just! I just..." He sighed, and looked at you as you raised your eye brow, and smiled smugly, with your arms crossed, "Yeah?" "I'm being a dick." he sighed. "Huge." "Well..." He chuckled and you rolled your eyes and pushed him playfully, "Don't say it." He laughed, "Fine, fine..." But he was still a little worried, and said "Y/n...You know how I feel about you. I can't just stand by watching all that, knowing he feels that same way about you too and..." "And you know how I feel about you. That should be enough, right?" "Well yeah but..." "You trust me, right?" He sighed, and nodded. You knew he meant it, though he was speaking in a low tone, "Yeah, I do." "Good, then go shake hands and make up." "You want me to what?" He looked up at you, jaw dropped in disbelief, and eyes wide. You sighed, "I've talked to Hugo about it already. I don't want this team to fall apart because of me. So...go." He huffed and practically pouted, "Fine," as he marched off. "Hey..." He turned around, and his stern expression immediately melted when he saw you smiling, with a finger at your lips, as you smirked, “Y mi besito...” ‘And my kiss...’  He sighed with a sly grin, and trotted back quickly so the other basterds wouldn't see, and planted a kiss, then left with a cheeky grin, knowing you were right. He didn't have a damn thing to worry about. Hugo was sitting somewhere in the distance, though, Donny knew he had a good sense of hearing, and no doubt heard all of that. "Hugo." Hugo didn't move for a second, but then he slowly rose to his feet, and turned to face Donny, looking defeated. You really had talked to him already. You were his closest friend, and he'd never really had a friend before the basterds. He'd get over it though. Things like that faded eventually. Donny reached his hand out, and Hugo shook his hand. But the second he was sure you weren't looking, Hugo pulled Donny close, and muttered "If you hurt Y/n,  I will hurt you." Anyone else on Earth who'd heard so much as a rumor about Hugo Stiglitz would have been scared out of his mind... But Donny smiled, because he knew he was never going to hurt you.  He remarked, "Don't worry about it, pal," as he walked off, back over to you. It was obvious to anyone, even Hugo, from the way you and Donny looked at each other. In a way, it kind of broke Hugo's heart. He knew he didn't have  a chance, but still, he smiled. He knew you'd be happy with Donny. The way you giggled when Donny wrapped his arms around you. The way Donny's cheeks turned red seeing that light in your eyes, well, it made Hugo smile. For once in his entire life, he trusted someone. And he'd be damned if he trusted anyone else with you. So, with a sigh, he turned away, and went back to work, sharpening his knives for the next mission, while  Donny talked your ear off, and you made his ribs hurt from laughing, just like you had the night you met, and would every night after that. 

[tartrazeen]

Hank's Arc through HankCon

If the magazines in this game are supposed to be symbolic, then holy shit, does it say something that the first magazine we see in a scene for Hank and Connor is that one for the Eden Club ("Sex with androids is awesome possum, gentlemen"), followed by the second article on 'Is your android spying on you?'

It's a canon fact that androids are hot. That little quip from Ben going, "So, you got yourself an android, huh?" gets us that, "Haha, very funny," line from Hank, which goes noticeably unexplained. There was a great Hankcon theory from igamrgirlzunite explaining this, as well as for that magazine in Hank's room at his own house, and it builds into the famous exchange at the Bridge with Hank asking what Connor really is.

For this magazine though, it's neat to see it symbolize a surface attraction - from Hank to Connor, playing neatly into that does-not-need-explaining-apparently joke from Ben - followed by a deep mistrust for anything Connor says.

This scene can open with Hank feeling neutral because Connor bought him a drink, or pissed that Connor's an asshole. It can also have Hank annoyed at Connor for insisting on coming along because his instructions say to, yet still getting a little boost in their relationship from it. Tying those two articles of the magazine together, we've got a guy who thinks that no matter what Connor's like on the surface, underneath he's a machine designed to fool Hank into being friends (which Hank throws at him in the Machine!Connor path). It's all a ruse to manipulate Hank into lowering his guard, and this first magazine is telling us how Hank feels about that: he ain't havin' it, and it'd be better if Connor just admits that that's what's happening.

If Connor apologizes at the Chicken Feed, Hank comments on it being a brown-nosing program. Later, Hank says Connor's got a goofy voice and weird face. But he's not a guy who's shy about being harsh or blunt ("Well they fucked up" is literally his next line), so for him to pick 'goofy' over 'ugly' or something implies a certain fondness for what he's seeing, coupled with an extreme aversion to being tricked into liking it - so, the canon lets Hank bury it under being a dick.

The magazine at Hank's house later says androids make for better romantic partners (which is what CyberLife specifically intends for the 'other North' - that BL model), but gets followed by the deeper layer/article on androids' active psychology programs.

It's a more elaborate take on the first magazine's symbolism: instead of just being a boytoy, Hank should have a better sense of who Connor in terms of a partner, and would be wondering why in hell Connor takes so much of an interest in him. He's moved on from thinking Connor's spying to learn which details can buy Hank's cooperation, because he's already asked Connor about that at the Chicken Feed. The question isn't *if* Connor was reading up on him - that's assumed. Hank's asking what Connor *thinks* of all of it, what he wants that information for. Just work? Maybe... not all for work?

Even if Connor puts Hank at ease, it only crosses off one of the theories Hank has. This second magazine now has him toying with whether Connor's pitying him for being some broken mess of a man, and planning to go when the mission's done and neatly tying in with Hank's outburst in the bathtub ("You and your fucking mission, that's all you care about").

Worse in Hank's opinion, and *as* a broken mess of a man, he might only be thinking Connor feels pity - or interest - because he can't tell what's sincere and what's just a psychological program any more. That draws on the two conclusions Connor could make to boost their relationship last chapter, but now we see Hank flipping in how he feels about being right: he's much less of a fan, and the personal questions at the Bridge start to *hit* their relationship as those thoughts dig in.

It puts Hank's reaction to the Tracis in better context. Connor shooting them confirms he's a machine accomplishing a mission. Connor sparing them freaks Hank right the fuck out, because holy shit, what if Connor *can* feel and might *actually* like Hank but fuck you, Connor, because if you could really feel, you'd panic when Hank puts a gun in your face, haha Professor Drunk strikes again.

That gun on the Bridge scene is like a precursor to the fucked up Kamski test that's coming. Hank's trying to figure out if all those thoughts he's had and hints he thinks Connor's been laying down are real or from a machine functioning according to plan. That's why it's great that Connor's wink back at the Chicken Feed blends in with Connor getting a report: did Hank really see it, or was he misinterpreting a machine's response to a new message?

When we get to the actual Kamski test offering 'proof' on whether Connor's a machine or not, Hank has backed off on wanting to know for sure. Not knowing leaves room for hope. Hope is safe, and hope comes with plausible deniability. Hope doesn't hurt. Because of Cole, we see how well Hank does with trying to come to grips with a painful reality. When the test is on, he's telling Connor not to do it, but we know he can yank the guy away from there. He doesn't. Because hope is also kinda tempting. The right answer might be waiting - he knows this whole thing is awful, he doesn't want that girl to get shot, but between that test's before and after, we see he's shifted from, "Don't play this stupid game, it doesn't matter, we don't care," to "Don't. Don't shoot. Decide your own fate and show me that you're real."

With how it goes, Hank can either take that as a fucking *rough* confirmation of exactly what he was afraid of (the "I thought you were..." line that trails off) or a pretty hopeful hint that... actually kinda sinks in for once. Hank lowers his guard. It's not a concrete confirmation of anything, obviously, but... it mattered. It's nice.

So that is why, upon meeting the Deviant Leader, Connor choosing to remain a machine is a HARD FUCKING BETRAYAL. Despite everything - despite how careful Hank was, how sure he was, how safe it seemed to try and trust Connor a little - Hank had been right from the start. And there's no coming back from that. Same with being such a dick to Hank that he quits anyway. It's not that Connor's alive but that Hank's alone, and he's too lost in it to care about anything else. He gives in to that darkness.

If instead you make it to CyberLife Tower, you've got the real and final test. It's not about whether Connor's alive or not. Hank knows he is, based on - or even despite of - everything that's happened so far. There's even room to argue that 'alive' isn't that important to Hank, either. He's interested in these androids' freedom, literally and conceptually, so this is about whether Connor freely feels something for Hank. Aliive or not, it doesn't mean it couldn't have all still just been to spy and out of psychological pity.

It's why it matters that Hank's asking questions. Even if you get one right, he just asks another. He knows Connor knows this stuff - does Connor *care*? Was there an inherent, personal interest in learning about things that weren't all just about work? Those personal questions that Hank found so annoying before, back when it could've been manipulation and programming - was that what it was, or was Connor genuinely asking? Was Hank right or wrong?

Connor would've had to put Hank above the revolution to get to this point, refusing to risk him even at the cost of losing these hundreds of thousands of androids they need. It means something. It clicks when Connor puts enough emotion into his 'final answer' for Hank to understand that no matter what it was before, it's real now. It had probably been real for a while.

It's also why 60's parting shot if Hank messes up ("Wrong choice, Lieutenant") cuts deeper in that moment than 60's victory quip when it's Connor choosing wrong ("He really liked you, Lieutenant. That's what killed him"). Both hammer home what Hank has lost, both pin it on Hank himself, but with Connor's memories, 60 can confirm that Hank just failed his own mission: he never learned to trust in what they could've had, and now because of him, they'll never have it.

Unless they do. And then they hug. :)

--

--

Edit: P.S - I lied, yes it fucking does get explained.

More Edit: sweet I found a Tumblr gif of that line

[musekicker]

Poly! Stolas/Blitz/Striker/Moxxie/Millie drabble. Not the fancy event one yet though that’s in the works. This one is.. kind of more cozy? 

Some swears but honestly not as much as normal in these drabbles.

Striker was very good at pancakes. He had made plenty from his time when he was on his own and traveling a lot. Those pancakes in the past did not have as much taste of fluffiness to them considering his ingredients on the trail were a lot less fancy. Having access to such things was one of the perks of being part of this poly group he guessed.

It however had taken Striker far too long in his opinion to convince the usual cook that this breakfast this morning was on him and that it would be fine if he cooked. Striker wasn't sure what to feel about that.

Loona came trudging into the kitchen first. She was clearly hung over from a party she had attended last night. Striker made no comment about it as he placed the plate of pan cake before her.

Loona glared at the pancakes as if they had personally wronged her.

"I need something stronger then this." Loona said.

"Sorry." Striker said. "That's about all I have for you." 

Loona accepted this and picked up the syrup to drown the pancakes in. Then as she started to eat Moxxie and Millie arrived in the kitchen at the same time. 

"What's for breakfast?" Millie asked.

"Pancakes. Made them myself." Striker said.

Millie beamed at the idea of pancakes and was at the table in mere moments. Moxxie took his time, getting some coffee from one of the two coffee machines set up in the kitchen. It important to have more then one with so many people.

Not having had his coffee just yet, Moxxie had to control his instinct to not scowl at Striker as he moved to the table.

Moxxie and Striker time to time would get a bit snippy with each other. This dislike on Moxxie's part had stemmed from their first meeting when Striker had asked who let the possum into the kitchen. Since then Moxxie had just not like Striker. 

Strikers feelings on Moxxie were hard to tell. He didn't seem to actually hate Moxxie, but he did enjoy making the smaller imp mad at him.

This morning was no exception it looked like as the pancakes that were put before Moxxie were different from everyone else in that they were burnt.

Moxxie glared at Striker.

"Really? You're this petty?" Moxxie asked.

Striker smirked.

"You know I am." Striker said.

Moxxie was about to let loose with what he was sure would be a scathing comment when Striker replaced the plate of burnt pancakes with the actual plate of very not burnt pancakes.

"You really thought I was going to feed you burnt food?" Striker asked.

"I don't know with you sometimes." Moxxie said.

Striker shrugged at that, not appearing insulted by the comment.

"Guess I'm a fucking mystery." Striker said. 

By time Stolas walked into the kitchen the last of the giant batch of pancakes have been finished being made and Striker was taking his own share. 

"Good Morning everyone." Stolas said.

There were mumbled greetings back. Mumbled because it was morning and because everyone's mouth was busy with pancakes. 

"Who made pancakes?" Stolas asked, his lower set of eyes set on the two waiting plates of the breakfast food.

"I did." Striker said.

"You didn't have to-" Stolas said.

"Nah. It's fine. I enjoy doing it." Striker said.

Stolas would had mentioned how there were imps on staff who would do that job. But he had the feeling that Striker got a bit... annoyed, whenever Stolas said something like that. Besides, it would be rude to continue to question this kind gesture from one of his partners.

"Well, I'm glad for that and for the pancakes." Stolas said.

He got his plate. It was a full fifteen minutes more before the last plate was claimed.

Blitz was dead last to wake up, looking very groggy as he shuffled into the kitchen. He made a beeline for the coffee machine, chose the biggest size mug, and filled it as much as he could without having coffee spill. He saw the pancake plate, and took it with out comment.

Sitting down between Moxxie and Striker, Blitz started to eat like the food would escape if he didn't eat it fast. At one point he reached out with his fork towards Moxxie's plate to spear a chunk of pancake from the other plate.

"Sir, your pancakes are the same as mine. Why must you take some off of my plate?" Moxxie asked, sounding so tired that even coffee couldn't combat it.

"I like to have options." Blitz said.

Blitz then reached to take pancakes off Striker's plate. Striker slapped his hand with his tail.

"Don't even think it." Striker said.

"Ow! Fuck that hurt!" Blitz snapped.

Striker lifted a eye brow.

"Want me to kiss it better?" Striker teased.

Blitz smirked, thinking of a come back.

"Can we not do this at the breakfast table?" Moxxie asked. 

"Oh don't be a kill joy Moxx, we're just trading innuendo laced come backs. What of it?" Blitz said.

Moxxie sighed.

All in all, this breakfast was fairly peaceful. The occasional squabble was not weird and there were no physical fights going on. 

That was until the syrup ran out.