#And out of the 4 there is 3 different fathers

[just-aake]

A Feline Connection Part 7

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader

Summary: Natasha has to face the harsh reality that she can’t help everyone.

Masterlist Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, light fluff

Words: 3790

“Whitney Frost, daughter of Byron Frost—a typical Wall Street tycoon,” Tony’s voice echoes through the phone as he reads out the details FRIDAY managed to dig up.

On Natasha’s screen, she can see multiple files and articles pulled up on Tony’s monitors, the holographic images casting a blue glow on his face as he continues.

“There are plenty of articles about her earlier years. Standard socialite magazine garbage—life of a spoiled rich kid, extravagant parties, lavish vacations. You get the idea.”

Natasha lets out a dry scoff at the irony, her lips curling slightly. 

“Coming from the playboy billionaire who once blew up half of his mansion?”

Tony gasps theatrically, placing a hand over his chest in a wounded gesture. 

“Watch it, Romanoff. I’m helping you here.”

Rolling her eyes, Natasha nods. “My bad. Please, continue.”

Tony huffs, turning his attention back to his screens. 

“After her father’s death, she goes dark for a couple of years. No public appearances, no sightings—nothing. Coincidentally, around the same time, reports start cropping up about a new leader rising within one of the East Coast’s major crime families. Descriptions of the leader consistently include one distinct detail: a golden mask, giving them the title–”

“Madame Masque,” Natasha finishes for him, her tone flat.  

“Bingo,” Tony confirms. “Over the years, she’s pulled off some pretty big moves. Arms deals, arson, major heists—she’s dangerous, Nat.”

There’s a shuffle of papers in the background, and Peter’s voice chimes in. 

“I don’t get it, Mr. Stark. If she was already rich, why turn to crime?”

Natasha doesn’t hesitate to answer. 

“It’s not always about money,” she says. “Sometimes it’s just about power and control.” 

A brief silence follows, the weight of her words sinking in. 

Tony’s expression darkens slightly, and even Peter doesn’t offer a rebuttal. They all know Natasha is right. 

People like Whitney thrive on domination, bending others to their will. 

Natasha’s frown deepens, her thoughts drifting back to the night before—the memory of you leaving with Whitney still fresh and raw. She exhales slowly, the sting of hurt in her chest flaring again, though she pushes it down. 

Suddenly, Tony’s voice cuts through the quiet. 

“Okay, I can’t ignore this anymore. What are you doing?” 

Natasha’s brows knit in confusion as she glances at the screen. “What do you mean?”

Tony leans closer to the camera, pointing a finger at her with exaggerated disbelief.

“Why are you bottle-feeding that cat like it’s a baby?”

Natasha pulls Widow closer, cradling the tiny feline protectively against her chest. In her free hand, she holds a small baby bottle filled with water, offering it near the cat’s mouth. 

“She still won’t eat complete meals,” Natasha explains defensively. “At least this way, she’s staying hydrated.” 

Widow lets out a faint, sad meow, turning away from the bottle and burrowing deeper into Natasha’s arm. 

Natasha sighs softly, her expression tinged with disappointment as she looks down at the cat.

Peter’s voice pipes up from off-screen. 

“Miss Romanoff, I could go pick up some different kinds of cat food if you’d like?”

Before Natasha can respond, Tony waves him off. 

“Great idea, kid. Take my card and have at it.”

“Awesome,” Peter replies, his excitement evident as he disappears from view. 

As soon as Peter is gone, Natasha raises an eyebrow at Tony. 

“Was that really a good idea?”

Tony shrugs, leaning back in his chair. “Eh, it’ll be fine.” 

“So, what is it?” Natasha asks knowingly. She can tell Tony got rid of Peter so that he would not hear whatever it is Tony was holding back. 

“Some tough love,” he says bluntly, his relaxed demeanor shifting into something more serious. He leans forward, fixing her with a pointed look. “Look, Nat, if your friend is running with people like Whitney Frost, you might need to face the facts.”

“Which are?” Natasha’s tone grows colder, her jaw tightening.

“She’s a criminal,” Tony states flatly, the words landing like a stone.

Natasha’s frown deepens, the label grating against her as she reflexively clutches Widow a little tighter. “And?” 

Tony sighs, shaking his head as if she’s missing the obvious. 

“You need to start treating her like one.”

Natasha’s eyes narrow. 

“Did you forget I used to be an assassin?” she counters, her voice tinged with sarcasm.

“And now you’re an Avenger,” Tony fires back without missing a beat. “Not everyone’s like you, Nat. Not everyone wants to change.” 

The silence stretches between them, tension simmering as Natasha processes his words.  

Seeing her still hesitant to accept the fact, he adds softly, “You can’t help someone who doesn’t even want it.”

Natasha frowns, her eyes drifting down to the little cat in her arms. She strokes her fur delicately, and Widow returns a faint purr in response, though she still refuses to move much more than that. 

“Send me everything you have on Whitney and Madame Masque,” Natasha says, her determination resolving. 

She’s not going to give up on you so easily.

Tony studies her for a moment, his expression knowing before he sighs and leans back in his chair. 

“Already done.”

~~~~~~~ ⧗ ~~~~~~~

A deep sigh escapes Natasha as she rubs her tired eyes, trying to dispel the exhaustion. The hours have stretched into the late night, a glance at the window and then at the clock on her tablet confirming just how much time has passed.

Beside her on the couch, Widow is curled into a small ball, her tiny body seeming to shrink further with every passing moment. 

The meal Natasha had prepared for her earlier sits barely touched—a few nibbles at best.

Though, in her tired mind, Natasha can’t help but let a stray thought creep in: maybe her cooking is bad enough to deter a cat. 

The self-deprecating humor makes her sigh again, a sure sign of just how drained she feels. 

Setting the tablet on the table, Natasha leans back against the armrest of the couch, her head tilting to rest against the cushion. She raises an arm to cover her eyes, allowing herself just a brief reprieve, not planning to sleep but needing the darkness to ease the strain from hours of research. 

For a while, the silence wraps around her like a blanket. 

Natasha focuses on her breathing, the steady rise and fall helping her ground herself. 

Eventually, she debates whether she has it in her to dive back into her work for the night when a sudden movement shifts at her side. 

Tiny paws pad up her torso, and then a soft weight settles against her stomach.

A familiar, distinct meow breaks the quiet—a chirping, happy sound Natasha hasn’t heard from Widow in days. 

She freezes, her body going rigid as suspicion blooms in her chest. Breathing slowly, Natasha tries to maintain her sleeping position so as not to give herself away.

Widow’s sudden shift in mood—it could only mean one thing.

“I know you’re awake,” your voice cuts through the stillness, warm and teasing from just above her.

Realizing she’s caught, Natasha exhales softly with a mix of both relief at your presence but also mild frustration at the fact that you were able to sneak up on her again. 

She removes her arm from her eyes, blinking up to meet your gaze.

You’re leaning casually against the back of the couch, your head tilted and resting atop the cushion, a small smirk on your lips. 

“It’s way too early for you to have fallen asleep,” you tease lightly, your voice carrying that familiar playful lilt. 

Your attention shifts to Widow, who’s now eagerly leaning against the cushion to lick at your outstretched hand. 

“Isn’t that right, Widow?” you coo, your tone softening as you address the little cat.

Widow chirps again, louder this time, in agreement and nuzzles against your hand with obvious affection. 

Natasha can’t help but scoff, shaking her head at the way the two of you seem to operate as a perfect team.

Carefully, she sits up, trying not to disturb Widow perched atop her. 

However, the movement brings her face unintentionally close to yours. She stills as she realizes the proximity, her lips parting slightly as the quip she intended to deliver gets caught in her throat. 

Instead, all that escapes is a soft exhale. 

Your smirk falters, replaced by a small, almost sad smile. Your eyes search hers, lingering as if you can see something more beyond her carefully maintained exterior. 

The intensity of the moment steals Natasha’s breath, the weight of unspoken words hanging between you. 

Breaking the tension, you lift a hand into view, holding up a bag of takeout containers.

“I brought dinner,” you say softly, the warmth in your tone cutting through the charged silence.

~~~~~~~ ⧗ ~~~~~~~

Natasha sits cross-legged on the couch, a takeout box resting limply on her lap as her attention drifts away from the half-eaten meal inside. 

Instead, her gaze falls on the two of you. 

You’re seated on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, also cross-legged, with Widow nestled comfortably in your lap. 

The little cat looks more content than she has in days, her tiny paws resting on the edge of the table as she eagerly eats the torn-up pieces of meat you prepared for her. 

A wave of relief washes over Natasha at the sight of Widow eating normally again, her movements lively and natural. It eases the knot of worry that’s been sitting in her chest, but as always, her focus inevitably drifts to you. 

It’s a pull she can’t resist, her gaze lingering on the subtle details in your expression, the quiet ease with which you handle the moment. 

Natasha absently stirs the noodles in her box, her mind turning over the question she’s been holding back since you arrived. It gnaws at her, but finding the right way to ask feels like navigating a minefield.

“How…” she begins, her voice hesitant, but the words falter. 

Natasha bites her lip, uncertain whether she has the right to pry into your life any deeper. 

You glance up at her, catching on to the unfinished question. Setting your takeout container on the table, you tilt your head slightly, offering her an easy opening. 

“How am I here?” you ask knowingly, your voice gentle.

Wordlessly, Natasha nods, grateful but wary of the answer.

“You didn’t look at the USB?” you ask, a touch of curiosity in your tone. 

Natasha shakes her head. 

“I was busy worrying about more pressing matters,” she says, her eyes flicking meaningfully to Widow, who’s still munching happily in your lap. “And anyway, it didn’t seem like she wanted me to have it in the first place.” 

You huff lightly at her words, and with an amused shake of your head, you turn Widow to face you, your fingers gently scratching behind her ears. 

“You were supposed to give it to her,” you chide playfully. 

Widow lets out a small, sassy meow, as if to argue her point, and then wiggles free from your grasp. 

Natasha watches with mild curiosity as the little cat pads over to the side table, where the USB has sat untouched for days. Widow grabs the small device in her mouth and trots back toward Natasha. 

Stopping at her side, Widow drops the USB onto Natasha’s lap with a decisive plop before looking up at her with a smug little chirp, her tail swishing behind her. 

Natasha raises an eyebrow, her lips twitching with the faintest hint of a smile as she picks up the USB. 

“Thank you,” she remarks dryly, her tone soft but teasing.

Widow lets out a pleased meow, circling once before hopping back into your lap, her little body nestling comfortably against you. 

Natasha’s gaze shifts to the USB, her fingers brushing over its surface thoughtfully, before lifting her eyes to meet yours.

“So,” she says, her tone calm but tinged with curiosity, “what exactly am I going to find on here?” 

You glance down at Widow, stroking her head absently as you answer, your voice steady but carrying an undertone of something more. 

“Whitney had a scheduled meeting out of state with some buyers tonight.” 

At the mention of the other woman, Natasha narrows her eyes slightly, reading between the lines. 

“So this is…?”

“Everything you need to finish your original mission,” you reply evenly, meeting her gaze with a serious expression. “The buyers’ identities, their locations, the details of each weapons deal. Enough to track them down and stop the weapons from being used in the wrong hands.” 

Natasha studies you closely, her sharp instinct catching on to the underlying reason for your sudden assistance in her original mission. 

“To shift my attention from Whitney.” 

Your silence at her pointed remark is telling. 

Natasha’s lips press into a thin line, the unspoken truth hanging between you. She tilts her head, her voice firmer now. 

“Why are you protecting her?” 

You flinch slightly at the accusation, your hand pausing mid-stroke on Widow’s fur. After a moment, you let out a sigh, your gaze drifting downward. 

“You know, it wasn’t always like this between us,” you say quietly. 

Natasha stays silent, letting you continue.

“Her dad—her real dad—was the original leader of the organization,” you explain, your voice tinged with something softer, almost nostalgic. “I met her when she was training to take over his position. Or, rather, she found me. I was just a simple thief back then. But not to her.”

You pause, your hand resuming its slow strokes over Widow’s fur as you collect your thoughts. 

“She made me an offer—something I never expected. Another opportunity for my life. To join her. She saw something in me. Something…more.”

The words hang in the air, and Natasha feels a pang of understanding, recalling her own experience from the past. 

“It felt good,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. “Having someone look at you like that, like you’re worth something. Like you could be more than you ever thought of yourself.” 

You let out a soft, bitter chuckle. 

“She’s always been good at that. Making you feel special. Like you’re the only one who matters.” 

Natasha’s gaze softens slightly, her arms folding across her chest as she listens. She doesn’t interrupt, sensing the weight behind your words.

“No matter what she did—how far she went—I always found a way to forgive her,” you continue, your tone darkening. “Until I couldn’t anymore.” 

There’s a long pause, the quiet broken only by the faint sounds of Widow’s contented purring. Finally, you lift your gaze to Natasha’s, the vulnerability in your eyes stark, unguarded, and disarming.

“And then I met you,” you say softly, your voice carrying a bittersweet edge. “And for a while, I felt that same thing again. That feeling from the beginning—when it was just lighthearted, fun, and flirty, intoxicating even.”

Natasha’s breath catches, her chest tightening at the quiet admission. The honesty in your words cuts through the usual banter and teasing, leaving her unsure how to respond.

“But I already know how this ends,” you add, your voice softer now, tinged with resignation. “I’ve seen it before. And I can’t…” You trail off, shaking your head slightly, the words left unfinished. 

Natasha watches you closely, her sharp gaze softening despite the weight of your rejection. She leans forward, her voice low but steady in understanding. 

“It’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.” 

Her tone shifts, gaining a quiet intensity and insistence.

“But you don’t need to stay with her either. We can figure out a way to disengage the bomb without you returning to her. A way to keep you both safe.”

Your gaze lowers, regret flickering in your expression. When you finally speak, your voice is heavy with sorrow.

“I have to go back.”

Natasha’s lips part in protest, her brows knitting together in frustration, but before she can speak, you cut her off, your tone firmer now.

“Not because of the bomb,” you clarify. “But because of what I did to her.”

You rise slowly, retrieving the tablet from the table, its screen still displaying the research Tony sent on Whitney. Sensing the shift, Widow hops into Natasha’s lap, purring softly as Natasha strokes her fur, grounding herself.

Sitting down beside her, you scroll through the files until you find what you’re looking for. Wordlessly, you turn the screen toward her. 

Natasha scans the report, her frown deepening with each line. 

It details a failed raid on a Stark Industries facility, ending in a catastrophic explosion. Operatives were killed or gravely injured. Their leader, however, was not discovered among those found.

“I abandoned her that night,” you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper. “None of that would have happened if I had stayed.” 

“You don’t know that,” Natasha counters firmly, her gaze snapping to yours, her hand reaching out instinctively to rest atop yours.

A faint, sad smile tugs at your lips at her touch, and you shake your head slightly.

“I appreciate the thought,” you reply, your voice tinged with bittersweet humor, “but we both know that’s not true—especially considering how I’ve managed to sneak past Stark’s defenses twice now without any problems.”

The smirk you add at the end is small, almost fleeting, but it carries a sting of truth that Natasha can’t ignore.

You’re exceptionally skilled. She can’t deny that.

Your fingers brush hers lightly, tracing the bandages covering her knuckles. A contemplative sadness crosses your face.

Then slowly, you lift her hand to your lips, pressing a soft, almost apologetic kiss against her skin before lowering it back onto Widow’s fur.

“I’m not innocent here, Natasha,” you continue resolutely, your voice low, as if the words are for you as much as for her. “I never was.”

Natasha’s jaw tightens at your words, but she doesn’t interrupt as you continue. 

“I owe her a lot,” you admit, your voice heavy with the weight of your past. “She gave me a chance when no one else did. She saw something in me that I couldn’t. And yet…” Your voice falters slightly, but you press on.  

“I still betrayed her in the end.”

Your gaze shifts to Natasha, your eyes meeting hers with a depth of emotion that makes her chest ache. 

“You deserve more than to wait for me to eventually do the same to you,” you say softly. “More than I already have.” 

Natasha’s chest tightens, the quiet ache spreading as she watches you, her gaze taking in every flicker of pain and regret etched across your features.

But this time, it’s not sadness that rises within her—it’s anger. Not at you, but at everything else.

At Whitney, for manipulating you. At the circumstances that have pushed you to this breaking point. And most of all, at the invisible chains of guilt that hold you hostage, preventing you from seeing a way out.

Her hands twitch, the urge to reach for you almost overwhelming. She wants to close the distance between you, to grasp your shoulders and shake you free from the weight of your past, to tell you that this isn’t your only option.

But she hesitates, her fingers curling into fists as she forces herself to stop.

Forcing you to accept her help, no matter how badly she wants to, would make her no different from Whitney. It would just be another form of control, another pressure you don’t deserve.

And Natasha refuses to become that.

Instead, after a long pause, she speaks with quiet determination.

“What will happen to Widow?” 

You look down at the small cat, curled up peacefully in Natasha’s lap, and sigh. 

“I can’t bring her back with me,” you admit, your voice thick with regret. “But I’ll stay with her as long as I can tonight. Make sure she’s okay, and I’ll explain it to her—let her think it’s like last time, when she stayed with you while I was away.” 

You glance at Natasha, searching for her response. 

“If…you’re still willing to take care of her?”

Natasha straightens slightly, her expression softening as a small smirk forms on her lips.

“I promised, didn’t I?”

Your lips twitch into a faint smile at her answer, gratitude flickering in your eyes. 

But Natasha isn’t done. She leans forward, her tone resolute as her gaze locks onto yours.

“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself,” she says, her words deliberate and carefully chosen. “If you feel guilty about what you’ve done, you can always make it right for yourself. You still have that choice.” 

Her words hang in the air, heavy with meaning, an unspoken plea woven into her steady tone. 

Natasha’s expression holds no judgment, only quiet insistence and something deeper—hope.

The silence that follows feels fragile, as if it could shatter at the wrong move. 

Widow shifts slightly in her lap, her tiny body curling closer as her soft purring fills the space between you. 

It’s a faint sound, but comforting nonetheless, grounding you in a moment that feels far too heavy for words.

For a fleeting second, Natasha sees something in your eyes—an almost imperceptible flicker, as if her words might be reaching you. 

But then your gaze drops, breaking the connection, and the moment slips away. 

Without a word, you gently lift Widow from her lap, cradling her with the same care Natasha has come to associate with you, and rise to your feet. 

Natasha sits up a little straighter, her sharp eyes following your movements as you step toward the hallway, your figure outlined by the dim glow of the room.

“Try to get some rest, Miss Black Widow,” you say softly, your tone steady but carrying a subtle finality that roots her in place. You pause just before disappearing from sight, your head turning slightly as if debating whether to say more.

“You, out of everyone, deserve it.” 

The words linger in the air long after you’ve gone into your bedroom, wrapping around Natasha like a quiet echo. 

She stays where she is, her fingers drifting absentmindedly over the fabric of the couch where you’d been sitting just moments ago, as if tracing the memory of you.

The warmth of your presence is gone, replaced by an emptiness that spreads through the room, making it feel colder, quieter. 

Natasha exhales slowly, leaning back against the couch and staring at the space where you had disappeared from her view. 

She knows you meant those words for her, but the ache in her chest tells her they’re something you’ve denied yourself for far too long. 

“So do you,” she whispers into the empty room, her voice barely audible but filled with a longing that she knows you’ll never let yourself hear.

~~~~~~~ ⧗ ~~~~~~~

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

a/n: Fair warning, I believe there’s only a couple parts left in this series. But don’t quote me on this cause we all know I’ve never been good at predicting the number of chapters left. Again thanks for reading!

If you asked to be tagged and I missed it or if the tag did not work for you, please let me know.

Taglist : @cd-4848, @carifletchersgirl, @skittlebum, @queen-of-chaotic-surprises, @ima-gi--na-tion, @rainix13, @gay4hotmilfs, @imaginexred, @caramelcat123, @2silverchain, @nowthisisliving27, @waltermis, @scarlettbitchx, @self-indulgent-writer, @ashadash0904, @alowint, @littlyamadeus, @so-to-aqui-pelas-fic, @imthenatynat, @transparentflapfarmsludge, @natashasilverfox, @mousetheorist, @btay3115, @samfunko, @wandaromamoff69, @lost-in-the-ice, @ahsatanizgay, @stonemags, @karsonromanoff, @wandanatlov3r, @l1kepeps1cvla, @esposadejoyhuerta, @fxckmiup, @panickedbabygay, @esposadejoyhuerta, @azaleavolkova, @gay4wandanat, @escapereality4music, @caspianalexander007, @henkermen, @xxnaiaxx, @alyssa-bessse, @alianovnasposts

[visualtaehyun]

Since it's already the 21st in Thailand now and I'm impatient to release this lol-

Today is ZeeNuNew's official 4th anniversary! 🐶🐱

So to celebrate, I worked on a little something, as promised: All deleted scenes from the Cutie Pie boxset, subbed and translated by yours truly (to the best of my non-native ability 🙏)

You can find the individual clips by either clicking on the links or, if you're on desktop, I've added them to the header images as well. My hope is that tumblr won't flag this post because any NC scenes aren't embedded. The clips are all hosted on tumblr and you can easily download them like this, too. If this post does get flagged- Welp, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But the clips themselves shouldn't be affected since they're all hosted separately.

RULES: - This is arguably transformative content now because of my translations and the amount of audio fixing I had to do 🤡 But, please, if you share this post or any of the links off-site, do so privately so Domundi don't sound any sirens lol - Do NOT re-upload these clips anywhere! See previous point, plus I do not appreciate having my translations stolen, as is often the case online - If any link doesn't work or ever goes down, feel free to send me an ask or dm and I'll look into it 🙏

Now that you've read all of the above and promise to stick to my rules 😇🔪 you may proceed to the actual content~ Have fun, enjoy, and maybe come talk to me about it <3

clip 1+3 - Get out! clip 4 - Lunch & Lecturing clip 5 - Football

Four scenes of the gang's shenanigans at university. Clip 1 continues into clip 3 so I edited them together. They likely fit into ep.8 which has that same classroom setting with P'Aof's cameo as their lecturer. Clip 2 is entirely the same as in the aired version so I omitted it, even though it would fall under this category of scenes. Clips 4 and 5 are mostly about NuerSyn butting heads~

clip 11 - Start Over

An alternate cut of YiDiao's NC scene in ep.10. The boxset clip includes the entire conversation beforehand which I cut out because there's no difference to the aired version. I also adjusted the volume of the placeholder song because it's deafening at times.

clip 8 - First Time

A longer alternate cut of LianKuea's NC scene in ep.8. There are entirely new angles and cuts in this one! I adjusted the audio levels a bit.

clip 6 - Pillow Talk

Continued from after ep.8's NC scene. This scene is so so dear to me. Fair warning: the audio at the beginning maybe shouldn't be played without headphones lol

clip 7 - Bathtub

A LianKuea NC scene. This one might fit into ep.9 because it was definitely filmed during the same Q as the bathtub scene in ep.9. I did a lot of editing to get the audio levels of the different angles and cuts to be roughly the same volume.

clip 9 - Homophobia

A cut scene from ep. 11. Some lady at Lian's father's birthday party has a whole lot to say about Kuea, Lian, and their families.

clip 10 - Mystery

A LianKuea NC scene. I call it a mystery because I cannot for the life of me figure out where this scene was supposed to go! Logically, it must have fit somewhere between ep.8 and 12 but their outfits never show up again anywhere else. All I know about it is that it was filmed during Q16 and that it uses the same placeholder song as in clip 11. My only evidence- two photos P'Aof apparently shared a few days after that Q + a promotional still from a week before the show premiered.

[southtopaz]

PSYCHO KILLER - SCREAM

Summary: in which Iris Morris has to navigate her personal relationships while surviving a psycho.

Warnings: Fem!reader, angst, mention of violence, swearing, mention of death, Tara Carpenter x Fem reader, multiple parts, slowburn

Word count: +3,5

A/n: this part will follow the events of Scream 6 but it will take place two years later from Scream 5. English is not my first language, so I apologize for any grammatical mistake.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14.

Iris sat in the stark, fluorescent-lit interrogation room, her fingers nervously fidgeting in her lap. She never imagined she would find herself in a police station, let alone facing such horrifying circumstances. The recent attempts on her life and her friends' had thrust her into a nightmare she couldn't have anticipated. Life had a way of surprising her in the most fucked up ways and now she would've to deal with it.

Beside her, Sam and Tara sat in tense silence, the gravity of the situation hanging heavily in the air.

In front of them on the cold, metal table lay a series of photographs depicting the gruesome aftermath of the recent crimes. Among the images were shots of Greg and Jason, their faces frozen in time, reminders of their horrible deaths. The sight was chilling, and Iris couldn't shake the feeling of dread that settled in her stomach.

"It would be nice if someone could explain why they think showing us pictures of dead people is a good idea," Iris muttered under her breath. Just then, she felt a sharp kick to her shin from the youngest Carpenter sister, a subtle but clear warning to keep her comments to herself.

The atmosphere in the room shifted slightly as the door creaked open, revealing Quinn's father, Wayne Bailey. He stepped inside, a brief smile flickering across his face as he took a seat opposite them. In his hands, he held a bag that unmistakably contained a Ghostface mask.

"This was found next to the body at the apartment crime scene," Wayne informed them in a calm, steady voice. He placed the evidence on the table, allowing the three of them to examine it closely. The item—a worn Ghostface mask—seemed to absorb the room's light, casting a shadow of unease over them. "DNA analysis indicates it belonged to someone named Richie Kirsch."

He glanced at each of them, searching for something in their faces. "Does that ring a bell?"

"Unfortunately," Iris replied, her voice tinged with dread as memories of past encounters flooded back.

"We're all familiar with him," Sam added quietly, her gaze fixed on the mask.

"But the one who attacked us had a different mask on," Tara interjected, her brow furrowing in thought. "It was kind of more beat up. Like it was older.".

Wayne's expression shifted as he furrowed his eyebrows in contemplation. "I gotta ask, do you have alibis for earlier tonight?"

"Iris and I were at a party with our friends," Tara answered, her voice more assertive now, eager to distance themselves from any suspicion.

"I was at my therapist's," Sam muttered, a hint of annoyance creeping into her tone. "I can give you his information. You can call to check if you want."

Wayne nodded in acknowledgement as Sam continued talking.

"And then I met Tara at that party, where I tased someone," Sam said, glancing at the police officer. "Unrelated," she added with a roll of her eyes.

Wayne turned his attention to Iris, his eyes narrowing as he noticed her busted lip. "What happened to you?" he asked, gesturing towards her injury.

"I might have punched someone," Iris admitted, her tone surprisingly casual. She caught Wayne's surprised expression and quickly added, "Completely unrelated too."

Wayne blinked at her, a flicker of skepticism crossing his face. "A lot of unrelated things happened tonight," he observed, his tone probing.

"I know, crazy right?".

Wayne didn't respond directly to Iris. Instead, he pulled out his phone and began scrolling through videos, his expression shifting to one of focus. "Was this before or after this happened?" he asked, turning the screen toward them.

The video played, revealing the moment where a woman dumped her soda over Sam's clothes, followed by the sound of both Iris and Sam shouting in indignation.

"Before," Sam confirmed, her voice steady as she watched the footage.

"The point is, we were with people all night," Tara interjected firmly, her tone leaving no room for doubt. She leaned forward, intent on conveying their innocence.

"So, our roommate's dad just happened to pull your case?" Sam inquired, her voice tinged with suspicion.

"That'd be a crazy coincidence, right?" Bailey replied sarcastically, a wry smile playing on his lips.

"Completely unrelated, isn't it?" Iris added, furrowing her eyebrows in an attempt to mask her unease.

"Yeah," Sam echoed, her voice steady but with an undercurrent of tension.

Wayne leaned back slightly, crossing his arms as he continued. "The detective who had the case offered it to me because it involves Quinn. But I can totally give it back if you're uncomfortable. It's up to you."

"It's fine," Sam said, rolling her eyes after exchanging a quick, silent look with Tara and Iris.

Wayne shifted his focus back to the case. "So, if the man who attacked you did steal your license and planted them next to the body," he stated matter-of-factly, "it's probably someone close to you. How long have you known your friends?"

"We moved here about two years ago with Mindy and Chad," Tara explained, her voice steady. "That's when we first met Quinn, Ethan, and Anika."

"I think I can vouch for Quinn," Wayne said, offering a small, reassuring smile, trying to bring comfort to the girls. "So that's one less person we have to worry about."

Iris felt a flicker of doubt at his words. Just because Quinn was his daughter didn't mean she could trust her completely. She could still be the killer, no one was innocent in her mind.

"Do any of you have anyone that might want to target you?" Wayne continued, his tone shifting to one of serious inquiry.

"I would love to say no but we both know I would be lying".

"Not anyone who's still alive," Tara answered coldly as Bailey stared at her in shock.

"Yikes,"

The door swung open, revealing yet another police officer who strode in with an air of urgency. "FBI's here, claiming jurisdiction," he announced, his tone leaving little room for doubt.

"Where are they?" Wayne asked, rising from his seat.

"We should probably follow him," Iris suggested, her instincts kicking in. After exchanging glances, Tara and Sam nodded in agreement, and they all stood up, following Bailey out of the interrogation room. As they stepped into the bustling hallway, they spotted a blonde woman  talking to the man in a suit. Sam's eyes widened in recognition.

"Kirby?" she blurted out, shock evident in her voice.

The woman turned at the sound of her name and walked over, a broad smile spreading across her face as she enveloped Sam in a warm hug. "Hey, Sam!"

Tara looked on, surprised, as Kirby shifted her attention to her. "Tara," she acknowledged with a nod before her gaze landed on Iris. There was a brief pause as Kirby took a deep breath, preparing to greet her as well.

"Hi, Iris."

Iris felt a wave of confusion wash over her. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. "Hey, do we know each other?"

Kirby smiled softly, her eyes reflecting a hint of nostalgia. "You don't remember me, but I used to babysit you."

"Wait, really? When?" Iris's mind raced, trying to grasp the fragments of her past.

"When you were about six or seven, I helped your sister out a lot," Kirby explained, her tone warm and reminiscent. Suddenly, memories began to resurface in Iris's mind. "Olivia was my friend."

Iris's eyes lit up with recognition, she was Kirby Reed one of the survivors of the Ghostface attacks in 2011. "I remember you now" she exclaimed, a soft smile breaking across her face.

"You're with the FBI?" Sam asked, Kirby nodded, her expression shifting to one of seriousness.

Wayne, who had been observing the exchange with growing curiosity, interjected, "You guys know each other?"

"Yeah, we went to Woodsboro High together," Sam said, shaking her head in the slightest. "She was a senior when I was a freshman."

"We share a certain history, yeah," Kirby murmured, then she turned to Wayne."I'm not trying to get into a jurisdictional pissing contest here, I just want to help. I'll show you mine... etc".

Kirby handed Wayne the information she had, one of them being another mask.

"He left this mask at the bodega," she affirmed. "DNA traces of two individuals, Charlie Walker, Jill Roberts, both deceased."

"The Ghostface killers of 2011," Iris said. Kirby looked at her with sadness. She lifted up her shirt, revealing the scar on her stomach. "Charlie Walker gave me this."

"Like I said, I take a special interest". Kirby stated, turning her attention to the three women standing in front of her. "Is this the mask he was wearing when he attacked you?"

"No," Tara replied, shaking her head firmly, the memory of the attack still vivid in her mind.

Wayne furrowed his brow, processing the implications of their exchange. "So he's leaving them on purpose," he voiced aloud, the realization dawning on him.

"Exactly," Kirby added, her expression serious. "Which means whoever's doing this is a student of the killers who came before. Maybe he believes that Sam is the latest in a long line"

"Which means he's insane," Iris interjected, her frustration evident. "That's nothing new."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Sam replied sarcastically, crossing her arms as she glanced at the mask. She felt an overwhelming urge to escape the suffocating environment. "We're getting out of town."

As the three friends tried to walk away from the investigators, Wayne suddenly halted their steps with one firm statement. "I'm sorry, that's not possible."

"Why not?" Iris asked, anger bubbling beneath the surface as she turned to face him. "We are allowed to leave at any moment. This is absurd."

"All three of you are person's of interest in a double homicide, so you're not allowed to leave town, sorry."

Sam opened her mouth to protest, but Tara quickly jumped in, her voice steady. "Are you serious?"

"He's right," Kirby confirmed. "But if we work together-"

"Yeah no thanks, we rather escape".

"We're going" Sam interrupted Kirby as she tried to talk once again.

The three of them burst out of the police station, squinting against the bright afternoon sun that bathed the street in a harsh light. As they stepped into the open air, they were immediately met with reporters shouting and cameras recording.

Microphones were thrust toward them, questions shouted in rapid succession, Iris felt her heart race, a mixture of anxiety and frustration coursing through her. "We need to get out of here," she muttered, glancing at Tara and Sam, who looked equally disoriented.

Tara shielded her eyes from the sun and tried to push through the throng. "Just ignore them! Let's keep moving!"

Sam nodded, her jaw set in a grim line as she tried to maintain her composure amid the frenzy. The last thing they needed was to become the center of a media circus. They started walking faster, trying to navigate through the crowd, but the reporters closed in, creating a wall of intrusive questions and flashing lights.

"Samantha, do you have an alibi for last night's murders?"

"Tara, do you feel safe around your sister?"

None of them bothered to answer any of the questions they were thrown.

"Gale Weathers, Channel 4." Sam, Iris and Tara turned around to glare at the older woman. Just when they thought things couldn't get worse. "Do you ladies think you're the reason the Ghostface killer has come to the Big Apple?"

Sam didn't even bother to answer as she tried to punch Gale in the face though the woman was quick to dodge it. "Nice try, sweetie, but I've done this dance before,".

Then Tara, without anyone expecting it, punched the woman right in the face, making Gale place her hand in her cheek in surprise and pain.

"Good punch" Iris whispered as she stared at Tara.

"Don't take one more step Gale, we want nothing to do with you" Iris snapped at the older woman.

"Are you guys still mad at me?" Gale exclaimed in shock as if she couldn't believe someone wouldn't want to talk to her.

"You said you wouldn't write a book about what happened," Sam shot back at her. "And then you wrote a book about what happened."

"Oh, come on! Somebody was going to write about it. It's what I do!"

"I heard you couldn't sell the movie rights," Tara taunted her.

"It's all about true-crime limited series these days," Gale sighed in despair.

"After everything we went through together," Sam said coldly, she couldn't believe the audacity . "What would Dewey think?"

"That was a low blow."

"Good, I hope it hurts to know that Dewey would be disappointed in you" Iris spoke.

"So was your book," Sam was quick to speak once again. "You called me unstable and a born killer."

"That's taken out of context-"

"That's literally a quote."

"You don't think what you wrote has something to do with what's happening to us?" Tara questioned the woman.

"Come on," Sam muttered to the other two as she turned to leave.

"Hey, I talked to Sidney," Gale added, as she followed them.

"Please tell me she's not coming" said Iris.

"No. She sends her love," The woman answered. "But she's taking Mark and the kids somewhere safe. She deserves to have her happy ending.

"On that much we agree," Sam sighed in relief for the Sidney.

"At least someone should have a normal life".

Then they stopped a taxi and they all got in.

"Hey, I want to catch this fucker as much as you three do!"

"Maybe," Tara shouted back. "Or maybe you're just afraid that without Ghostface in your life, you're gonna fade away."

A few hours later, the group found themselves gathered on a set of benches in the sun-drenched university campus, the air buzzing with anxiety. Mindy had orchestrated this reunion with a singular purpose: to dissect the events surrounding Ghostface. It was one of those beautiful days that seemed ill-suited for discussing such horrific topics, yet here they were.

"Okay, nerds! Listen up!" Mindy clapped her hands, her enthusiasm a stark contrast to the matter. "As terrifying as this all is, I'm actually glad I have the chance to redeem myself for not calling out the killer last time."

"Not this again," Iris muttered under her breath, her eyes rolling in exasperation.

Mindy waved her off with a playful grin. "Okay, hear me out! The way I see it, someone is clearly trying to create a sequel to the requel."

"Uhm, what's a requel?" Anika piped up, raising her hand as if she were in class, her curiosity shining through.

Mindy beamed at her girlfriend, momentarily distracted. "You're beautiful, sweetie," she said, her smile warm and genuine. "But let's hold all questions until the end, alright?."

"Stab 1 took place in Woodsboro". Sam interjected, her voice steady. "And Stab 2 took place in college."

Tara's eyes widened as she connected the dots. "So, we think the killer is trying to copy the movies?" Chad, leaning back with a weary expression, sighed deeply, as if the weight of their predicament was already exhausting him.

"That is one possibility," Mindy agreed with the girl. "Heroes now in college, check. Suspicious new characters brought in to round out the suspect list and body count check." She pointed at Ethan, Anika and Quinn. Anika tensed up at Mindy's declaration while Ethan looked nervously at the group and Quinn just looked confused.

"I don't like this," Ethan blurted out, a hint of panic in his voice. "It sounds like you're accusing us".

Iris raised an eyebrow, leaning forward slightly as she studied him. "That depends. Have you done anything weird lately?" She tried to mask her words with a teasing tone, but the weight of her question hung in the air, making it clear she was serious.

Ethan chuckled awkwardly, his eyes darting away. "If you count weird as going to classes, then yeah, I guess so," he replied, forcing a laugh that fell flat among his friends.

Iris tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "You said you haven't watched Stab, right?"

"Yeah, what about it?" he asked, the confusion in his voice deepening.

"I just think it's curious, that's all," Iris said, adopting a nonchalant tone that didn't quite match the intensity of the moment.

Ethan frowned, trying to decipher her meaning. "I'm not the biggest fan of horror movies, you know that,".

"Sure, but it's not just that," Iris pressed on, her tone shifting to something more serious. "In a situation like this, it's almost suspicious not to be familiar with those movies. Especially with what's going on."

Ethan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "So you think I'm acting suspicious because I don't watch slasher films? That's a bit extreme, don't you think?"

"I just think it's worth discussing," Iris insisted, her eyes never leaving his. "The last time someone told me he hadn't watched those movies was also the last time we got stabbed so...".

"He's also dead now".

"Jesus Iris". Ethan whispered in horror.

The group fell silent for a moment, the tension thickening as they all considered the implications of Iris's words. Mindy exchanged glances with Tara, and Chad shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.

Iris would have continued pressing Ethan for answers, but suddenly she felt a hand gripping her thigh. Glancing up, she realized the hand belonged to Tara, who was silently signaling her to back off. Understanding the cue, Iris fell silent and placed her own hand gently over Tara's.

"Thank you, Iris, for your wonderful comments. I'm sure everyone appreciated them," Mindy said, clapping her hands together in a conciliatory gesture. "But we can't just focus on Stab 2."

"Why not?" Tara asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"It would make sense if this were just a sequel. But we're not in a sequel, because nobody just makes sequels anymore. Were in a franchise!" Mindy's excitement was palpable as she delved into her theory. "And there are certain rules to a continuing franchise"

"I'm shocked" Iris sarcastically said. "This is shocking news"

"Rule one: Everything is bigger than last time. Bigger budget, bigger cast, bigger body count. Longer chases, shoot-outs, beheadings. You got to top what came before to keep people coming back"

"Beheadings?" Chad questioned fearfully. He was taking notes of everything his sister was saying.

"Beheadings." Mindy repeated back to her brother. "Rule two: Whatever happened last time, expect the opposite. Franchises only survive by subverting expectations. If the killers last time were whiny snowflake film nerds with letterbox accounts instead of personalities, you can bet the opposite will be true here"

"And rule three: No one is safe. Legacy characters? Cannon fodder at this point.

Usually brought back only to be killed off in some cheap bid for nostalgia. It's not looking to good for Gale and Kirby" Mindy said, glancing at her friends. "Oh, and that's not even the worst part!"

"This is the part where she tells us the worst part" Chad muttered not looking up from his notebook.

"The worst part is franchises are just continuing episodic installments designed to boost an IP. Which means main characters are completely expendable now, too. Laurie Strode, Nancy Thompson, Ellen Ripley..."

"What the fuck is she talking about?" Iris whispered to Tara.

"Just say yes and nod".

"I mean, even Luke Skywalker, they all died so their franchises could live on. That means it's not just the friend group. Any of us could go at any time, especially Sam and Tara" Mindy finished her rant. "Well so do you Ris".

"Thanks Mindy, I especially liked the part you told me I was going to die".

"Wait, any of us?" Ethan asked, glancing nervously around at his friends. Mindy nodded, her expression serious.

"Am I even in the friend group? Am I, like, one of the targets here?" He questioned, his voice rising with a hint of panic.

"Mm-hmm," Mindy replied again, her tone unwavering.

"Am I gonna die a virgin?" he blurted out, causing everyone to exchange bewildered looks.

"Definitely," Iris shot back, her tone matter-of-fact, which made Tara and Chad snort quietly in amusement.

"That was a weird overshare," Mindy cringed, shaking her head. "But it does lead us to our current suspects: Ethan, the shy, dorky guy that no one would ever suspect, precisely because he's so shy and dorky."

"Why am I on the suspect list?" Ethan asked, trying to keep his tone serious. "Just because I happen to be Chad's roommate?"

"Roommate lotteries can be juked," Mindy scoffed at him. "You could've fixed it to get next to us".  Ethan's expression darkened, clearly offended by the insinuation. "Also Iris had a point."

Mindy shifted her focus, turning toward Quinn with an expectant look. "Let's not forget Quinn, the 'slutty' roommate," she continued. "A horror movie. classic".

"Sex positive, but...thank you?" Quinn told her not knowing if she should be offended or not.

"So, how did you end up living with Sam, Tara, and Iris?" Mindy asked Quinn, her curiosity piqued.

"I answered their ad online," Quinn replied like it was obvious.

"Okay, say no more," Mindy said, a sly grin spreading across her face. "You've already implicated yourself enough."

"It was an anonymous ad, Mindy," Tara defended her, a trace of irritation in her voice. "And you know we vetted her. Plus, her dad is a cop,"

"And that makes it more likely that she's the killer, because having a cop dad is a great cover. Mindy shot back, her tone accusatory. "Do you not remember how these movies work, Tara?". Iris shrugged in agreement, a thoughtful look on her face, while Quinn shot them both an offended glance, clearly not pleased with their insinuations. Iris mouthed a quick "sorry" to her.

"Is she always like this?" Quinn whispered to Iris, her voice low enough to avoid being overheard.

"Yep, you get used to it," Iris replied with a smile. "It's part of her charm, really."

Mindy, not missing a beat, continued her theatrics. "And finally... Anika!" She blew kisses in Anika's direction. "Never trust the love interest." Anika's smile faltered at that remark. "Last attack proved that point, didn't it?" Mindy pointed a finger at Sam and Iris, the latter grimacing in response.

"Okay! So, we have our rules and we have our suspects," Sam said thoughtfully, leaning forward on the bench, her brows furrowed in concentration.

"But wait. What about you guys?" Ethan muttered, motioning towards the rest of the group.

"I think it's pretty safe to rule out the five of us who went through this two years ago in Woodsboro," Mindy declared confidently, though Iris shot Ethan a wary look.

"Agreed," Chad chimed in, nodding his head.

"Um, not so fast," Quinn interjected. "What if the trauma you all experienced caused one or more of you to snap?"

"That's literally bullshit," Iris retorted, crossing her arms defiantly.

"Yeah, or maybe the fame you gained from surviving those killings made you thirsty for more," Ethan added, his gaze sweeping over the group. "Let's be honest here, some of the theories online about Sam are..."

"Don't you fucking dare," Tara said, glaring at him, her voice low but fierce. Ethan looked down, wide-eyed.

"Okay, she's right, though," Anika attempted to defuse the tension. "I mean, if we're all suspects, then you're all suspects".

[knight-says-nanana]

An analysis on Ed’s comic childhood, how that impacted his OCD*, and how that translated to the Gotham TV show

Alternatively: GTV Ed’s Biography

*(and also how it very clearly gave him cptsd but they don’t explicitly Say that bc DC is full of cowards)

Normally I’d say comics don’t impact tv continuity, especially for a show like Gotham where so many things are changed, but the thing is? Cory Michael Smith specifically went out of his way to read the riddler comics when he accepted the role of Ed Nygma. He acted accordingly and did an amazing job trying to salvage the show’s poor writing. There are many tiny moments where he does things that reference Ed’s typical backstory despite the show, in all its 5 seasons, never bringing it up

Childhood wise there are typically two widely accepted routes

1 - his mom was around but neglectful and off her head with drugs n alcohol

2 - his mom left when he was a toddler due to not being able to handle his father anymore, which kinda kickstarted the abuse being focused onto Ed instead

I will be continuing this analysis with #2 because it is the most popular and explains his abandonment issues

Comic Based Childhood

So this guy basically grew up with Only his father. His father who is a dumbass, an alcoholic, blames Ed for his mother leaving, incredibly abusive physically, and couldn’t accept that 1) his kid is smarter than him or that 2) a kid so Weird cough traumatized and neurodivergent cough is anything but an idiot

A major sticking point was that he always thought Ed was lying, constantly, about everything. This will be important later.

And when Ed finally started going to school and getting A’s?? Yeah no Obviously he had to have been cheating so Mr Nashton just got More angry with him. Could Ed have dropped his grades on purpose to avoid this? Yeah. Did he? Absolutely not. Academic success was the one thing he could be proud of and the only thing that gave him any sort of praise or validation. He was clinging to it for dear life.

No matter the universe, this is a guy who craves attention.

There is difference between academic success and school life itself, because Ed is awkward n dorky n, especially at this point in time, anxious n quiet. So he didn’t have friends. In fact it’s usually written as either him having been bullied or being ignored entirely

The boy was not doing ok at all. So understandably he ran away as soon as possible and changed his name.

Now, this is the first point where Gotham’s canon ties into this in a Very interesting way

We know Ed’s official birth year from the ID card in the show. It’s canon. In season one he is 26. We know this. And it’s is insane for a few reasons!!

He is So Much Younger than his coworkers holy shit

Bullock is old enough to be his dad and he’s not nice, no wonder Ed doesn’t like him

He works in forensics. At 26. And he’s implied to have been working there a year or two before Jim joined the precinct.

Now, I had GENUINELY assumed that he was in his 30s like Jim. BECAUSE HE WORKS IN FORENSICS. But no he’s just actually a botched Spencer Reid because he’s 26 in season one.

A degree in forensic science takes 4 years.

If you want a masters it’s an extra 2 years.

Factoring in the time he would’ve needed to spend interning and working just to QUALIFY for a job at the GCPD???

If we assume he ran away n got into college at age 17 and got his bachelor's he’d be 21 by the time he graduated, 23 if he got his masters which of course he would, and then that leaves us only 3 or 1 year/s for internships and stuff before he joins the GCPD. What. What.

No wonder his apartment is so shitty!!! This is a man with hella student loans

But yeah! Hes only 26 and his 40 year old coworkers are bulling him for being weird. I’d hate my job too.

Bullock is 48 and I’m fully convinced he, like me, thinks Ed is at least 32 (Jim’s age) because. What.

So yeah that’s his general backstory, NOW the ways that plays into his mental state and how his actor managed to fit it into the show

So, you can reasonably assume he’s traumatized.

And!? There are so many subtle moments in the show where Cory acts his character accordingly for this. He flinches when people raise their voice, he’s visibly spooked when men in the GCPD get huffy (usually it’s Mr James Anger Issues Gordon). He’s skittish as a mouse. In the watermelon scene, when Gordon busts into the room, Ed immediately falls over himself to explain what he’s doing in there. The guy was terrified. Of James. Who’s never done a thing to him.

Beyond that? CPTSD -beyond the regular symptoms of flashbacks, triggers, and hyper awareness- also includes difficulty regulating emotions, feelings of shame/guilt, and trouble staying in relationships.

Ed Nygma is a damn textbook case. He has meltdowns, he falls into substances, he does ANYTHING but cope when he’s overwhelmed. He is constantly trying to prove he’s smart, there’s a gut deep shame when he doesn’t hold up to genius standards. And you’ve seen his relationships.

Basic info ab OCD: it’s an anxiety disorder and the two main things are obsessive compulsions and intrusive thoughts, both of which are present in Gotham but not handled nearly as well as they are in the comics

Compulsions first!

These tend to stem from subconscious thoughts and people won’t always know Why they have a compulsion but they’re generally a way of preventing a vague yet all consuming Bad Thing.

Now, with Ed one of his major sticking points in comics AND the show is he cannot tell blatant lies, especially not with yes/no answers.

This is part of why he compulsively leaves clues for absolutely everything and tries to be so vague when he is lying. He also jumps through hoops so that he won’t need to lie.

Lying = incredible all consuming dread and anxiety, so he just Doesn’t and uses his little hints and clues as a loophole. Very obviously from his father’s influence.

In the show this is shown multiple times but just for a few:

Lucious asking if Jim is at Ed’s house and when Ed tries to say no he seems almost forced to correct himself

The compulsive clue in “Tom’s” note, even when no one had asked him if he knew anything he still couldn’t keep it entirely to himself. The note is a loophole. Technically he told on himself. They just didn’t figure it out. (Well. Kristen kinda did but denying it aka lying sent him into an anxiety attack the moment she left. So.)

When Sofia Falcone was torturing him to find out where Oswald was, he told her. He just told her via a riddler he knew she didn’t understand! No need to lie!

In the car ride to the docks Oswald also calls him out directly by saying he’s so predictable because he’s driven by obsessive compulsion. This is the most the show acknowledges it.

Beyond his compulsions he’s got explicit intrusive thoughts regarding a few big things. (Should be noted that these tend to drive compulsions but not always.)

being viewed as stupid

Ergo his criminal history just being a big show to prove how smart he is. Again, his fathers influence.

being actually stupid

Not knowing things stresses him out So Bad and he takes it So Personally. He NEEDS to know everything. The world is a puzzle and he is Going to solve it.

Side note: That’s why I do LOVE that Gotham made him a forensics specialist!! He’s always had, to quote a DC podcast where he’s talking to Batgirl “-and you have that terrible all consuming pathology which comples you to find answers” “AnD i HaVe tHaT tErRiBlE aLL cOnsUmiNG PaThOLoGy wHiCh coMpELs mE tO FiNd AnSwErS- Yes.”

Biggest for last: being like his dad

This one is specifically fun because it was almost represented so well. ALMOST. His entire relationship with Kristen was downright molded by it, as shown in the file room anxiety attack. Yes that’s what I’m going to call it.

He is constantly fretting over being like Tom, even when he clearly isn’t because he is disgusted by Tom. No mysoginist is going to see someone with the same thoughts as gross. No guy who thinks women should be “put in their place” is going to have such a physical reaction to hearing that be said. No abusive pos is going to have that reaction at all. At least, not in the way that situation went down or in the way Ed’s afraid of being. We aren’t discussing emotional harm or Nygmobblepot today. But he frets anyway. And if we chose to interpret his riddler hallucination as a Really poor way of representing intrusive thoughts? Yeah. Yeah. His brain is making him panic about doing exactly what he hates so much.

*it should be noted that compulsions are often reinforced by intrusive thoughts. specific example: if he lies he will be saying something wrong, he can not be wrong, everyone is going to think he’s an idiot if he’s wrong. You can see how the two things connect. This applies to the majority of compilations in some way.

Now, a moment where I deviate from discussing what Did happened because I’ll forever mourn this particular writing fuck up:

His thing with Kristen could’ve been perfect. It could’ve been the best live action riddler origin to date. Because this is a guy with OCD who’s very traumatized and would have a strong personal reaction to finding out a friend is facing domestic abuse. That would make his relationships complicated too because of the thought loop it would create off the risk of “turning out to be the type of person he hates” or “what if I hurt her like I was hurt.” That would have been so compelling? AND? AND YKNOW WHAT? MY BIGGEST GRIPE? HIS FIRST PUSH INTO VIOLENT CRIME BEING STABBING AN ABUSER WOULD BE PERFECT. It would be on point. Exceptional foray into crime and murder. BUT THEY DIDNT PLAY IT LIKE THAT. No instead it’s highly tainted by “who gets the girl” and I just. N o. Ugh. They fumbled it!! They fumbled it So Hard. THEY MAKE HIM CREEPY AS FUCK TOWARDS KRISTEN. Like- physically blocking her into small spaces and imposing on her and talking over her when, if they HAD actually leaned into the OCD on purpose, he would probably be hyper aware of not doing.

[randomfoggytiger]

With the help of your analysis, I started wondering if CSM and the syndicate chose Scully to be a "mole" in hopes of one day turning her into one of them as they did with Krycek.

Perhaps, because of their knowledge of Mulder's penchant for porn, they thought that she could be a distraction and a wrench in his plans. Once they could turn or initiate her, afterall she was young and relatively inexperience and possibly easily influenced (at least in their eyes), she could help manipulate Mulder ala Diana. They didn't expect Scully to be as strong-willed and connect to Mulder as she did.

I wonder what the plan was with Mulder and Scully had Gillian not gotten pregnant. I think I read that one of the writers or directors wanted to create some angst between them by having them turn against one another at some point. I could be wrong.

Another issue that my brain was trying to reconcile is who is the "boss"? Is Mulder technically Scully's "boss" or manager and is that why he seems to order her around. OR, is Scully technically the boss since she begins by monitoring him and reporting back about his doings to CSM/Belvins? I know they are supposed to be "partners" and on equal ground, but are they. Honestly, no matter what, Scully is in control because she has Mulder wrapped around her tiny little fingers.

Okay, let's answer this in chunks! >:DDD

Neither Mulder nor Scully is the boss. They both report to Skinner, and he holds them equally accountable for mistakes made on the files. If Mulder had been "the department head" in anything other than name/title only, then he would have had a lot more one-sided punishment from Skinner for the basement's escapades: hierarchy and rank bring require more responsibility. Which is what Mulder wanted to avoid (amongst other things-- like spies. Speaking of which:)

I think the Syndicate had a different goal than CSM for assigning Scully.

Blevins thought they could reign Mulder in; and his groupies constantly raged at CSM's or Deep Throat's interference whenever Mulder was "saved" or bailed out from various scrapes. They wanted Scully to debunk his work: Blevins admitted as much in Pilot. If they wanted to sexually distract Mulder from the files, they wouldn't have thought to recruit-- or let CSM recruit-- Diana Fowley out.

CSM kept trying to thwart or kill Mulder in Season 1-3; but canon rewrote that motivation in Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man to become one of deep curiosity and interest. In Season 4, we learned he sent Scully down because she would complement Mulder's work and hopefully lead that doe-y eyed younger man closer to the Truth-- specifically, to what CSM believed was the Truth: his beliefs and goals, his Syndicate. In Season 6, he lamented that Jeffrey was a lame buzzkill and not comparable at all to "Bill Mulder's son." It's not until Amor Fati-- David Duchovny's episode, really-- that we were given a more cogent reason for CSM's actions: he is more than willing to sacrifice Mulder for his own selfish gain. "Every man just wants to live a normal life" (loosely quoted) was what CSM believes, for himself and for Mulder; and we saw him constantly get mixed up with women left and right-- Tena Mulder, Cassandra Spender, Diana Fowley, nearly Scully-- trying to find a snippet of that normal life (the opposite of Mulder and Tena Mulder and Bill Mulder's strategy.) It's also in Amor Fati that CSM influences Mulder to wonder if Carl is his father-- an idea canon left mostly on the back burner the entire show. Here, we realize he wanted to draw Mulder to "the Truth" not for Mulder's benefit but for his own: either to join his side, or to leech off his brain (metaphorically and literally) like a parasite.

Mulder's pornography/phone sex is very different than an actualized sexual relationship with a woman; and the Syndicate, I believe, factored in that difference. As previously mentioned, the Consortium would have been aware that Mulder recruited his own girlfriend onto the files when he discovered them. Yet, they chose to-- or allowed CSM to, which I think is the case-- pull Diana away with an elevated position in Europe. Blevins and the group explicitly sent Scully in to debunk and humiliate Mulder's work. They could have chosen anyone else, including a planted spy; but they didn't feel the need because they thought it would be a one-and-done case-- that Scully would wrap her partner up tight and deliver him for slaughter. Further, I think they selected Scully because she was an excellent agent who, they assumed, wouldn't respect Mulder or his theories... and she inadvertently reinforced that impression by calling him "Spooky Mulder" in Blevins's office (after that exchange is when she was told about the job.)

Those are my thoughts, anyway.

[ultimatebottom69]

...If i tell you all IRL that my step-mother actually made jokes about my lityle brother huge balls when he was birthed and how she was extremely graphic about how early on in the pregnancy every doctor and X-ray graphic showed it so she felt forced to do another kid to have a daughter.

Would you believe me ?

I can't I can't I can't I can't

[seven-stars-in-his-palm]

the thing i love about bill cipher is that even after i've learned all of this stuff about him, seen him at the most vulnerable he'll ever get, seen him at his most innocent, i still can't give a flying fuck about trying to justify his actions. yes he's traumatized, yes he was twisted into what we know today, and while it gives a semblance of context to why he did what he did, it doesn't matter. he still ruined ford's life. he still drove and baited multiple humans to suicide. he still tormented every human he saw as his ticket out of the consequences of his own actions. he still took delight in his actions. he was willing to commit genocide for fuck's sake!!! (freezing all of the humans into statues). trying to explain away what he did does not get rid of what he did, but it certainly puts it in perspective. you won't be catching me being a bill apologist any time soon <3

[autumnoakes]

man... rhoam's "redemption" in aoc really sucked, huh?

like botw SHOWED us, several times, how much pressure rhoam put on zelda to unlock her powers, despite her telling him, several times, that it wasn't working. he got angry and banned her from doing not only something she saw as useful, but something that she was clearly very interested in and passionate about because she "wasn't dedicating enough time to her prayers." yes, his diary expresses regret for it, but at the end of the day, if zelda saw that it wouldn't mean much to her. the actions rhoam took, and the way zelda grew up under so much pressure that she nearly died as a child in one of the springs (this is in urbosa's diary, iirc) mean so much more than his regrets and his intentions. it took him nearly 10 years to realize that he fucked up, and by that point it was too late. the calamity had returned, and rhoam had lost any chance he had at making things right with zelda.

meanwhile, in aoc, all that's there is some half-hearted scene in the temple of time that's supposed to make everything better? yes, aoc had a very different and arguably better outcome than the calamity that led to botw, but the damage was still done by rhoam. it's still the same hurts and abuse and trauma that he put his daughter through all because of the prophesized calamity.

[sabraeal]

You mentioned having to work at finding Soowon's voice for To All the Ghosts, and I believe you mentioned struggling with Shirayuki's voice in early fics, so my question: do you have a process for finding characters' voices?

Lots of screaming and crying 🤣

Mostly it's something I find through drafts. Some characters come easy (Suzu, for one, because he is such a weirdo), but new characters are always a process, some more than others. Lili was much easier, because she's a character you can KNOW through her dialogue. She wears her heart on her sleeve and so just by reading the manga you have her voice.

Soowon is a much more private character. No one truly know him, not even himself, so you have to piece it together from everyone around him. How he reacts to people. All the things he doesn't say. And so I'll use my first draft to get down lines and actions, stuff I'm generally solid on what he needs to do...and then really flesh out the internal narration in the second draft. Why is he doing this? How does he feel? And since he's incapable of looking an emotion straight in the face, how do i convey that without saying a word of it? 😅

Shirayuki was a similar challenge, because she's so nice. She might get sassy, but she's not snarky. So first draft was what I wanted to get across...and second draft was walking it back to be NICER.

[milo-is-rambling]

Damn yesterday me telling my friend I could bring her a stick of butter today but now all I want to do is day drink and smoke weed and watch sunny and cry about everything

[save-mohamed-family]

My campaign is verified and added to the Gaza Donations page with number 192.

Thank you for documenting my campaign from the following accounts:

@sar-soor @heba-20 @el-shab-hussein @90-ghost @soon-palestine@ibtisams @marnota @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @i-am-aprl @northgazaupdates @fallahifag @fairuzfan

I love you all 🙏🙏♥️🌹

I am Mohammed Almanasra, 32 years old, married, and a father of three children: Abdulrahman, 6 years old, Sarah, 4 years old, and Lina, 3 years old.

My story began with the loss of my parents and four of my sisters, who were bombed and lost their lives along with their children after the events of October 7 and the severe war on Gaza. Now, I am facing a severe injury to my leg, which is at risk of amputation if I do not receive the necessary treatment. My wife, children, and I are displaced, without parents or siblings, and my wife is also suffering from uterine cancer.

Recently, I moved to the south of the Gaza Strip, fearing for the lives of my children. We left behind our memories and our new home, for which we had not finished paying the installments, in addition to losing my job. Currently, I live in a tent that does not protect me from the heat of summer or the cold of winter, and without the minimum necessary livinng basics including water, food medical care, clothe and even bedding .

I suffer from a chronic asthma and severe attacks from tightness and an extreme allergy in the ear and I need medicine that are not available, or very expensive .

Under these difficult circumstances, after five attempts at displacement and narrowly escaping death from the bombing, I am trying with all my might to protect my family, the most precious thing I have.

My dreams were shattered, and my house was destroyed, and I found myself living in a tent no larger than 4 square metres. My work turned from a tailor to a street vendor in order to barely buy a few crumbs of bread to feed my children.

Look at what happened to my children because of the intense heat and the insects that thrive in the summer season. Every day, I take them to the hospital to treat them due to poisonous insect bites. I implore every kind-hearted soul to help me protect my children.

My son, Abdul Rahman, has a deep passion for playing football and is a devoted fan of Real Madrid. He always dreamed of playing football at his school, but the war prevented this dream from coming true.

Where are you, Real Madrid fans ?

Help Abdul Rahman achieve his dream.

Every donation will make an enormous difference in helping me save my family.

I feel very sad and embarrassed to ask for help, but I have no other options left. I know that this request is difficult, but I also know that there is still humanity and living consciences and I believe in miracles.

Your support during this extremely difficult time will give us hope in the midst of devastation and despair.

If you have any inquiries or questions, feel free to ask me, please!

To everyone with a compassionate heart,

To all who understand the essence of humanity,

This is a message from my innocent children, who trust that their words will reach everyone who truly understands the meaning of childhood.

We cry out to you, asking you to feel our sorrow and pain, and to extend a helping hand to us in this time when we are in desperate need of your mercy and compassion.

My name is being repeatedly added to many public and private donation campaigns. Please, be a support for me in this difficult situation.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1yYkNp5U3ANwILl2MknJi9G7ArY4uVTEEQ1CVfzR8Ioo/htmlview

Sincere greetings & thanks

Mohammed & the family

[al-luviec]

I ran out of tag space but oomf had some good notes

smthn easy for today (sorry)

[ghostbsuter]

Those were quite the news to hear.

To think that the Duo of Jon and Damian would grow into a Trio...

He wondered how the girl did it, Elle Nightingale, she must have fit right in.

To say Clark and Bruce weren't surprised would be a lie when those two boys brought in their new third companion and proceeded to roughhouse Robin-Superboy style with her.

And she seemed to retaliate just as hard.

Both fathers wondered if she was the child of a former colleague or another vigilante, that or she was a meta/alien.

So when they went to Central City to meet Elle's parent and let the kids have their fun— well.

They didn't expect a young adult– barely out of the teenage years— greeting them with a grin in a hoodie.

"Sup."

And down the rabbit hole they went.

—

Over the weeks of meet ups, Clark and Bruce have gathered around 4 different kind of responses to their questions of Elle's other parent/relationship with elle.

It went like this:

("Brother? Aww, you flatter me. I'm her dad, actually.")

("Hm? Elle's other parent? She doesn't have one.")

(A shrug. "I decided I wanted to have a kid. Elle is the result.")

("Plasmius has always been a moron. Elle! On his next weekend, rob him broke!" To which he got an enthusiastic nod from said girl.)

They've gathered;

1. Danny and Elle weren't meta-humans. Instead, at least, half something/alien.

2. Whoever Plasmius is, he was involved.

3. The boys know. Elle seemed to have shared some of her past with them, and they're holding onto the promise of safekeeping and secrecy.

[bugpill]

If I see any more misinformation about Kamala Harris to dissuade people from voting I will explode.

1. She did a lot of work as a prosecutor to dismantle the system. When she was DA in San Francisco she was labeled as being “soft on crime” which she in turn claimed was “smart on crime”. Harris made a program called Back on Track so that low-level nonviolent drug offenders could enroll in school rather than doing jail time. She has believe and continues to believe that supporting people prevents crime far better than criminalizing people.

Yes, she put people behind bars. I know she called herself the “Top Cop” and I fucking hate that. However, the number of people who served time in jail was significantly reduced due to her program. She’s not a saint, but she tried to reduce harm as much as she could in her position. Since then, she’s called for even more action in terms of legalizing marijuana and I believe recently fully endorsed it publicly.

2. She is not transphobic. Harris backed the state of California when it tried to deny gender-affirmation surgery to a trans prisoner, but as attorney general, she could not deny the state’s Department of Corrections as a client of hers. Essentially, she had no say in the denial of surgery herself, as she had to represent the department’s interests over her own. Once she realized what they were doing, Harris actually worked behind the scenes to get that very policy changed so that any inmate who needs that care could get it. Additionally, she has lead efforts to put an end to gay and transgender “panic” defenses in criminal trials.

3. Kamala Harris is Black. For some reason, people like to say that she isn’t, and that she’s Indian and pretending to be black… for what reason? Depends on who’s telling the lie to begin with. Kamala Harris is Black and South Asian. Her father, Donald Harris, is a Black man who was born in Jamaica. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in India. Speculating about her race with so much evidence towards the contrary is so wrong. If anyone tells you shit about this, just send them her whitehouse.gov biography.

4. Harris (reportedly) has different opinions than Biden on Palestine. Whether or not she makes a clear stance against Israel, I don’t know. That hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll remain hopeful until further notice. She reportedly tried to push Biden towards “a policy on Gaza that was both more humane and in alignment with international law” but wasn’t listened to. The only reason why this is one of my points is that I’ve seen a lot of people stating that she is totally behind every decision and stance Biden made as president, which isn’t necessarily true. I don’t want to give her credit for being pro-Palestine if she isn’t, just to be clear. That is not what I’m trying to do here.

I desperately want her to stand for a free Palestine. I cannot make the promise that this will happen. All I can hope for is that her policy will be less harmful than Trump’s- who wants Israel to “finish the job” and promises to “throw (pro-Palestinian protestors) out of the country”.

Conclusion: the fact of the matter is that people make shit up all of the time. Sometimes it’s propaganda they accidentally absorb, sometimes it’s deliberate misinformation. People often take rumors as facts, and we need to be more vigilant about it. What I know is that some people will do anything for you to not vote tor Kamala Harris, when in reality she’s our only hope here.

Is Harris my favorite person ever? Absolutely not. Does she share my exact views and opinions? Nope. Would I rather vote for someone who more aligns with my personal views? Yes.

Is voting for Harris the only way to stop Donald Trump and Project 2025? Yes.

Disclaimer for the blog: To be 100% transparent, this is only my (Fanya’s) opinions. Although this is a shared blog, I cannot claim that my stance and my voice speaks for everybody involved in this blog. Some members are not American. Some may have different takes. All I know is that all of us are anti-Trump. Don’t go after my friends if you have beef with what I’m saying. I’m trying my best here.

[gutsby]

Hating Game

Pairing: dbf!Joel x Reader

Summary: Celebrating your dad’s birthday at the yacht club becomes damn near unbearable when Joel Miller brings a date along too. Jealousy and hate sex ensue.

Warnings: 18+. Food fight turned hatefuck (don’t ask). Cockwarming and semi-public sex on the bridge deck. Oral (m! and f!receiving). Daddy kink. Dirty talk. Age gap. C*mplay. Katoptronophilia. Orgasm denial. One risqué Viagra joke. Drinking games. Descriptions of vomiting. Joel cockwarming you while smoking a cigarette <3

Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4

"Can ya try that one more time, sweet pea? For daddy?"

You can. Try, anyway. Controlling your tongue while he’s buried so deep inside you is a far harder task than expected, though. Especially when he’s so still.

Joel sees it. Feeling a twinge of pity, he leans over your body and digs his hips even deeper—not thrusting, but still granting a modicum of friction as he takes another drag of his cigarette. The hot, heavy throb of his girth pulses like your own fucking heartbeat, and your eyes roll back.

An orangutan on roller skates would’ve had more grace.

A grizzly bear in hibernation might’ve been more lively.

A fucking cross-eyed octopus reciting Shakespeare would’ve been less strange, alarming, and painfully awkward to see than your father’s best friend the week after he’d railed you senseless in the front seat of his car.

Joel Miller had shown up with a date, for Christ’s sake.

Of course, you’d been three cocktails deep and playing stack cup with a random group of gentlemen on the bridge deck at the time, but that was almost immaterial. This was your dad’s fifty-first birthday party—one of the rowdiest nights the Austin Yacht Club had yet to see—and yeah, you planned on getting belligerently shitfaced on Dirty Shirleys and obscene amounts of catered food.

You’d never thought to bring a date of your own, though.

That was just distasteful and crass, all things considered.

Presently, you slammed your ping pong ball to the tabletop and watched it make a wide arc over your cup.

“Fuckfuckfuuuuuck,” you whispered low as the man four spots down made it in, and the man after him bounced the ball straight into his own on the first go. He moved the tall, swaying stack of red Solos immediately to your right, and you knew from the jump you were fucked.

Tommy Miller was a master at stack. You could already see the sly smile on his face from the corner of your eye.

Just as Mötley Crüe gave way to Hall & Oates on the speakers overhead, Joel’s brother crammed his stack of cups over your own and made a smug, triumphant bow.

“All you, kid,” he grinned and slid the second to last cup in your direction.

You could’ve cursed his whole bloodline, Joel included.

There was no way in hell you were getting stuck with death cup again—the last, cruel punishment for the loser of the game a mix of three different types of liquor, soda, and a spritz of Natty Light. Filled to the brim and waiting to be downed by whoever didn’t sink the final shot.

You squared your shoulders and locked the fuck in.

Bounced the ball once. Twice. Christ, this was hard. The man to your left was struggling too, but he seemed just as determined and twice as skilled, and you were pretty buzzed. A second later, he made it in and, of course, slid it right back to Tommy, who was practically overcome with laughter.

“MILLER! MILLER! MILLER!” Men were not creative when it came to chants. Or beating fists on furniture.

“Quit shakin’ the shit!” Tommy roared, tapping his ping pong ball deftly onto the table’s surface.

You blinked a few hazy, anxious thoughts out of your head and tried with everything in you not to miss this shot. The instrumental bridge of ‘Maneater’ was sinking its teeth in your soul and taunting your nerves to no end.

You took the ball, swallowed hard, watched the cup, and flicked your wrist, at last, from a singularly perfect angle.

The ball was a millisecond away from making it in.

Tommy Fuckstick Miller managed to stack you first.

A chorus of obnoxious, wholly drunk howls rang loud in your ears, and suddenly, the attention was back on you, the unhappy victim of the game’s most gruesome drink.

You didn’t hesitate. You pinched your nose and guzzled from the cup before the torment could go on any longer.

You did well at first.

Opened your throat like a pro and cleared it down to the last fourth of the drink, to the point where you could see the slick white bottom side of the cup clear as day.

Your mouth had just flooded with the final draught of death cup when a familiar guitar riff caught you off guard.

You weren’t sure why it had to happen that way, but after being forced to listen to the song some five thousand times on your road trip with Joel, the tenor of Billy Joel’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard to you now. Grating. Nauseating.

Vomit-inducing.

Swiftly, you ran to the nearest railing and lost your last drink—and your whole dinner—over the side of the boat.

You yakked into Lake Travis like you never had before.

And, just as that stupid, forever-tainted song surged on, you heard footsteps approaching. A moment’s pause. Then a hand on your back. Patting gently and, seconds later, lowering a cup of water to the side of your head.

Your face was still dangling upside down off the yacht. You didn’t want to be touched.

“Go to hell, Tommy,” you muttered.

“You first,” he said, chuckling.

You didn’t sit so much as slump back onto the deck with your head in your hands. The whole boat had gone sideways in your mind, and Tommy’s outstretched arm looked more like a bubbling lump than a friendly gesture.

You groaned at the sight of the cup and shook your head.

“I’m alright, okay. I’m good.”

Then, when the cup didn’t waver:

“Can they change the fucking song already?!”

Tommy cocked a brow and squatted down next to you. He set the water aside.

“Got a problem with dad rock or somethin’?” he smirked.

You shook your head no—it wasn’t the music that was making you sick but the man Tommy called his brother that made you wanna vomit again. The thought of that man tangled up with a svelte brunette who looked fresh off the cover of Sports Illustrated when he couldn’t even be bothered to shoot you a text after the condom broke last week. Like he just didn’t give a shit if you were alive, dead, or pregnant with his child. Unfortunately, you had nothing more to throw up, and your eyes were on fire.

Tommy slung an arm around your shoulder and pulled you into his side. Took a handkerchief out of his pocket.

“No more Dirty Shirleys for you, young lady,” he chided, dabbing lightly at the tears that had trickled out.

“No more men for me,” you grumbled quietly.

You couldn’t see it then, but you could feel him trying not to smile. He tugged you closer.

“Boy trouble, huh?” he said, “Whose ass needs kickin’?”

Your brother, actually. Curb stomp that fucker, please.

You shrugged instead.

“Some guy from school.”

Tommy nodded, waiting for you to elaborate. When you didn’t, he just assumed you wanted to keep it to yourself—which you did—and squeezed your shoulder softly.

“Well…you know you’ve got your dad, me, and Joel to beat the shit outta any guy, any time, any place, right?”

You wished it were that simple. You wiped your nose and nodded all the same.

“And…” Tommy started again, working slow to get you back on your feet, “Most guys your age don’t know their ass from their fuckin’ elbow, honeybun. Don’t take it too personal if he’s dumb enough to lose a gem like you.”

The corners of your lips twitched slightly at his words. Almost smiling by the time he had you up on your feet.

“Thanks, Tommy.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”

You might’ve rolled your eyes when he pinched your cheek, but the water he held back up for you to drink looked far too appetizing, and you knew he meant well. You took the cup from him and started to chug.

Again, you’d almost made it through the whole refreshment when a sound threw you off. Abruptly.

“Where have you two lovebirds been?!” Tommy chirped.

You lowered your water and almost regurgitated again. Bile jumped up in your throat, and you just narrowly managed to keep it all down with a cough and a sputter.

Joel and Ms. Centerfold were at the far end of the deck.

Joel was tucking his dress shirt back into his pants.

Are you fucking kidding me?

“Gettin’ nasty on her daddy’s yacht? That’s bold,” Tommy cackled, nudging you playfully.

Your face was bloodless. Every last ounce of pretense and decorum had spilled out with your dinner, before, and now you were just staring at Joel blankly. Numb.

You watched him shove the last clump of his shirt under the waistband and straighten up slightly. The woman at his side flashed you and Tommy a blinding white smile.

“Might say the same for you,” she called back. She seemed to be eyeing you both with a half-curious look.

Tommy made a face as if to say ‘yuck—what the fuck?’ and threw his arm around you again, shaking you lightly.

“She’s like my little sister, Ashton. You’re fuckin’ gross.”

Little sister. Nice. Like a knife twisting inside your gut.

If Joel took any notice of the comment, he didn’t show it. He just stood there, dull and impassive as a loaf of bread. Every coarse lineament of his face was unreadable—just as bleak, bland, and uncaring as the eyes staring out of it. Then he fished around in his back pocket and pulled out his lighter and a pack of American Spirits. He passed the latter to Ashton and leaned over to give her a light.

Throwing yourself off the boat seemed like the most logical next move out of anything available to you.

That’s when you knew you were off your shit and needed to leave the bridge deck—immediately.

“Need a drink,” you mumbled, starting off the other way.

Tommy was hot on your heels, following fast after you.

“That’s— that’s actually the last thing you need, I think, sweetie. How ‘bout some lemonade?”

“Can you spike it with bleach?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Tommy followed you down the staircase straight through to the galley, past the throngs and pockets of partygoers crowding the main dining area. Hitting the bar was a bad idea—wait staff knew you well enough to sense when you were utterly trashed, sad, or both—so you slipped toward the wine cooler and quickly sidestepped Tommy.

“No! No way. Nuh-uh.” He was still trying to block your access to the fridge when you grabbed hold of the door.

“Hair of the dog, Thomas.”

“That’s not a thing. That’s— you just projectile vomited off the deck, dude. You need a breather.”

You stopped just long enough to let Tommy pry you off the refrigerator handle and back to the kitchen island. You were pissed off, sure, but also not nearly prepared for another drop of alcohol if you were being honest with yourself. Your head was still spinning when you sat down on the counter.

Once you were settled, Tommy got to rifling through the cabinets, and you pressed a hand to your forehead.

“So how long’s that been going on?” You couldn’t help it.

“Wha- oh, Joel and Ash?” Tommy hummed from deep inside a cupboard. He came out with a small blue box.

You winced at the nickname. Watched him go from the pantry to the sink, fill a glass halfway, find a spoon, and tear the box in two, along with a couple chalky tablets.

“They’ve been…weird.” The sentence was punctuated with a pinch of his brow and a frown. He started stirring.

“Weird how?”

Your feet were dangling over the edge of the island; you pretended to gain a sudden interest in a smudge on the toe of your shoe.

“Weird like…I don’t know,” Tommy tossed the spoon in the sink and turned back to you. Holding out the cup, “They’ve been ‘friendly’ for years—Ash is a coworker of ours—and Joel swears it’s nothing more…but I dunno.”

He ended his speech again with that weird intonation and grimace, like he wasn’t so sure if he believed what he was saying himself, then shook his head and shrugged. He watched you take a sip of the Alka-Seltzer and urged you to get the whole thing down. It tasted like shit.

“Christ, that’s salty,” you coughed.

You didn’t want to keep going, but Tommy tipped the glass back in your hand and made you finish.

“It’ll help with your stomach,” he said before strolling over to the caterers’ fridge to look for bland food options.

“So if they’re not a thing, why’d he bring her here?”

You didn’t care what Tommy thought of your questions. He knew you were eager to hear the tea in any situation.

You watched as your friend procured a hand of bananas and some bread. He gave the fruit to you and took the bread over to the toaster, where he dropped in two slices. You couldn’t quite tell if he was contemplating an answer, didn’t want to spill, or hadn’t heard the question at all. He snagged a plate and a butter knife while you peeled apart your snack, silently dying to know the truth.

At length, Tommy shrugged. Again.

“‘Cause Joel’s a goddamn drama queen and doesn’t know what he wants, I s’pose,” he said.

Ain’t that the truth.

Then, after a minute:

“Had his panties in a wad ever since he went to Boston.”

You stiffened hearing that. You couldn’t pretend to be invested in your shoe scuff, the floor, or the food in your hand any longer. Your eyes flitted up to Tommy to see if his expression had shifted any.

It hadn’t—he was just looking for strawberry jam.

“You hitched a ride home with him then, didn’t you?” he asked casually.

You swallowed and nodded. You watched Tommy retrieve the two freshly-warmed pieces of toast that jumped up to greet him and, having found the jam he wanted, slapped them both on a plate and lathered them up. You muttered a quiet ‘thank you’ as he slid them over.

You were almost too scared to ask more questions, but you knew you had to find out. About Joel, Ashton, anything Tommy might’ve gleaned about your trip home from Boston. You found you could hardly sit in one place and had to step off the counter to eat your food.

“Joel’s been, uhh…how do Gen Z’s say it? Trippin’ balls?” Tommy reached for a banana himself and started in.

“Tweaking,” you corrected him.

“Tweakin’, yeah. Joel’s been a real fuckin’ tweaker lately.”

“In what way?”

“Just…shuttin’ himself in is all. Wouldn’t talk to me or your dad or anybody for days after he got back. Didn’t show up for our monthly Bingo matchup at Mando’s—and he hasn’t missed one of those in almost six years.”

You pursed your lips, equally mystified. You knew just how seriously your dad and his friends took those games—how rare it was for Joel to turn down any opportunity to drink, play Star Wars-themed Bingo, and shoot the shit with his buddies over Coors Light and cheese curds. You took another bite and waited for Tommy to continue.

“And there’s— there was this…thing he— I dunno.”

Suddenly, it seemed your friend had lost the power of coherent speech, and he was rubbing the back of his neck, flashing a half-sheepish smile, and shaking his head. Contemplating whether he should share something with you and ultimately deciding against it.

You raised both eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nah, it’s dumb, really.”

“Tell me.” You took a far-too-large bite of your banana and had some trouble getting it down.

“Well, he…” Tommy trailed off, shifting his gaze from yours to take a look at his own shoe, for a second, “When me and your dad were riding with Joel to a work site…we, uh…found a box of Plan B in his glove compartment.”

Half-chewed banana and toast almost flew across the room while you spluttered and choked and just barely managed to cover your mouth to keep it all in.

“Right? Threw me for a loop, too,” Tommy grinned as you beat your chest with a fist and fought to keep yourself breathing, ��Your dad damn near had a baby when he picked that little box and those booty shorts up himself.”

When he what?! You wanted to scream, just picturing your straight-laced, conservative father flipping a Plan B box between his hands, in shock, and then…your shorts—when the fuck had you taken your shorts off again?

Right, when you were busy trying to scoop some more of Joel’s jizz from your cunt as he raced you both to CVS.

Good times.

You held your hair back and leaned over the sink, spitting two more chunks of banana and bread down the drain. Tommy reached around behind you for the spigot and filled another glass with water as he tried not to laugh.

“Easy, now,” he said, patting your back like he’d done for you before, “Joel didn’t happen to mention this lady friend to you now, did he?”

“No,” you choked. You wiped your mouth clear of any spit and food residue and slowly blinked down into the sink, feeling an old wave of nausea begin to settle over you. Accepted the new glass of water from Tommy and hoped he wouldn’t notice the tremor in your hand as you did.

The man seemed completely oblivious. Still standing close behind you, Tommy rubbed circles in your back and leaned a little closer.

“Death cup really got ya, huh?” He smirked, and you realized then that he very much was like an older brother. This whole situation with Joel was fucked on so many levels and would be fucked tenfold if Tommy ever found out.

You turned around and felt yourself steadied between two warm, broad palms—‘Wanna sit? Lie down?’—and then you were shaking your head, reaching for another banana and trying like hell to seem semi-composed, though every neuron in your brain was firing away at a million miles per second and your legs were feeling like scrambled eggs.

“I’m okay.”

“Yeah?”

Suddenly, one of Tommy’s hands had moved up to brush a few strands of hair from your face, and you felt your skin radiating raw heat. A deep-seated anxiety, too.

He’s going to find out—what if he already knows?

What if Joel tells Tommy?

What if Tommy tells dad?

Your mind was reeling, on fire, still working in earnest to find something to tell your friend to say you were fine, just dizzy, and definitely not fucking his big brother.

Your brain was drawing blank after blank after blank.

Just then, a clatter sounded nearby. Both of you jumped.

When you shot a look to the source of the intrusion, you nearly folded into Tommy from secondhand humiliation.

“Nice hands, feet,” the younger Miller called over to Joel, who was currently trying to recover the dozen-odd pots and pans he’d knocked over at the threshold of the room. You stared at the two in a mixture of confusion, disbelief, and disgust—the latter reserved exclusively for Joel.

You set your drink down, held your hand over your stomach, and pretended to head for the bathroom.

“Be right back,” you muttered, brushing past both men.

You knew you wouldn’t be back at all if you could help it.

Still clutching your banana in one hand and your raucously churning tummy in the other, you climbed the galley stairs fast to get back up to the bridge deck. You almost tripped over both your heels trying to make it up the steps so quick, desperate for solitude and quiet.

Another hair metal hit from the ‘80s was playing overhead, but fortunately, the deck was free of people. You stumbled over to one of the catering tables, looking helplessly for something that might settle your belly, but no, this sickness was coming straight from your head—from that insufferable munch of a man, Joel Miller.

You gingerly approached the railing behind the table and prepared yourself for another round of dry heaving.

You rested both elbows on the metal, looked out toward the dark, glassy water beneath you, then hung your head in abject defeat. You slid your tongue across the roof of your mouth and waited for the vomit to come.

The only thing that followed were footsteps.

Heavy, thunderous sounds making their way up the stairs.

“Stay back, Tommy. Please.” You raised a hand to the man approaching softly behind you, not turning your head, “That Alka-Seltzer stuff didn’t work for shit.”

“Shoulda stuck to water, sweet pea.”

That made you pivot.

Not a quick tilt of the head or a twist to the side, but a full-fledged 180-degree spin on your heels, hand to your gut, what-the-FUCK-are-you-doing-here turnaround.

You stared ahead and felt sicker than you had all night.

Then, pointing one crooked, accusatory finger his way without thinking, you hardly knew or heard what you were saying before the words came out. It sounded a little something like, “Joel, you goddamn fucking idiot.”

Joel didn’t flinch.

In fact, he seemed supremely unfazed.

He just held your fuming gaze and frowned.

“You tryin’ to fuck my little brother or somethin’?”

Your hand had closed around your banana on the table before his words had hung in the air for even a second. You flung the fruit full-force at his head, enraged.

Unfortunately, you were drunk and your aim was shit. Your yellow boomerang-like weapon of choice barely made it within three feet of its target before it glanced off a light fixture and struck the ground with a thud.

Accuracy be damned, you weren’t quite done.

“You left the fucking Plan B out for my dad to find?!”

Just when Joel tried to answer, or perhaps hurl another accusation in your direction, you stuck your hand in the closest catering tray you could find—a serving of green peas, as it was. You lobbed a handful at the man as he started to draw closer, and this time, you managed to land a pretty hefty spray. Joel only rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t leave it there—you did,” he retorted.

“My shorts, too?!”

You grabbed another fistful of peas and threw it. Joel was able to dodge it right before making it to the other end of the table. He gripped the edges of the wood in both hands and stood stern—imposingly—opposite you.

“Your shorts, your fuckin’ problem, sweets.”

Just when you reached for another green pea projectile, he surprised you and made for the tray right beside it.

Shortly, a glob of garlic mashed potatoes struck the front of your dress and slid slow, almost sluggishly down the pristine pink silk fabric before falling at your feet. Joel’s aim was evidently much better than yours.

You brushed what chunks of food you could get off your chest and pinned him with a wide, incredulous look.

“You’re a Grade A fucking asshole, you know that?”

“You’re a bit of a shithead too, potato tits.”

“FUCK you!”

“Already DID!”

You would’ve flipped the whole table if it were in your power to do so. Would’ve toppled all the tables, kicked the chairs, took a lighter to the curtains and sent the goddamned yacht down in flames if you had to—that was how much you despised the man in front of you.

Instead, you threw your hands up and stormed off.

“Maybe I will fuck Tommy!” you barked as you started toward the stairs, “I’ll fuck your brother’s brains out, and you can screw Ashton all you want, how ‘bout that?”

You’d made it about two feet before Joel grabbed hold of one of your wrists and yanked you back. You didn’t hesitate to throw a gruff—and ultimately fruitless—punch that hit him square in the chest. He didn’t budge.

“You don’t mean that,” Joel sneered. He shook your whole frame with one simple flick of his forearm.

“I’ll tap your whole bloodline like a keg, Miller. Try me.”

Again, you tried to shake him off, but the hand only constricted around you tighter. Then it was walking you backwards, slowly, almost carefully, until your back was to a wall and your eyes were searching his, angry as ever.

“You’d break your daddy’s heart with that one,” Joel said just above you, voice lowered considerably.

“Yeah?” you challenged, “Maybe if I was less of a shithead I would care what my dad thought. But I’m not. So I won’t.”

“Wasn’t talkin’ about your father, darlin’.”

Joel was good.

He was an insufferable ass and he was good.

Then you remembered the radio silence over the past seven days and the fact that he may or may not have fucked someone else earlier that night—possibly right where you were standing—and he lost all appeal real quick. You shoved him hard in the chest once more.

“Don’t play that shit with me. You, of all people—” You made as if to read him the riot act but cut yourself short, deciding it wasn’t worth your time explaining human empathy to a man who believed bootcut jeans and all things Ely Cattleman were peak fashion, and just learned what ovulation was last week. Then, sliding along the wall and trying to head to the stairs again, you felt Joel’s leg slot between your own.

“What did I do?” he said, curious.

Before you could answer, his thigh had stirred in place, grazing lightly over the spot the hem of your minidress had exposed to him. You ignored it.

“Doesn’t matter,” was your non-answer.

Joel seemed intrigued by the ambiguity and only lowered his head to get closer to yours—‘Then why’re ya so mad you’re throwin’ dinner food at me, darlin’?’—puffing warm breaths on your neck and only smiling when you flinched back. He took your response as a cue to keep pressing, both figuratively and physically.

“Just wanted attention or somethin’? That what it is?” Joel’s voice was as saccharine as it was taunting, words paired with a hand circling light across your thigh. He wasn’t moving in, and it was tearing you to shreds inside.

“Fuck your attention, and fuck you, Joel.”

Words hardly reflecting how you felt internally.

Swiftly, then, the hand at your leg was raised to your face—cupping it with a bit more force than you expected. Joel’s grin stretched even wider.

“Attention and discipline,” he mused aloud, “Two things dad never gave his little girl growin’ up, I see.”

Before you could reply, he was squeezing your face even tighter and nodding his head, as if already anticipating your answer. Then, somehow lower, “Such a filthy mouth on her, too. Never knows when to keep it shut and how to be polite to someone who fucked her so nice already.”

You might’ve whimpered if you didn’t also want to throat punch the motherfucker and knee him in the balls. When Joel started stroking your cheek, you groaned instead, and you hoped he would hear it as chagrin, not arousal.

“I can help with both of those, y’know—” His thumb rubbed a little harder, and his leg moved up. You pressed your hands flat to his thigh to keep him from teasing, but the man would do no such thing to oblige you. In fact, he just shifted his leg back and forth…and back, again. A ripple of bliss from the friction sparked low inside you.

“I can give you attention, and I can scrub that mouth clean if that’s what you really need,” Joel continued, “Just say the word, darlin’.”

“Fucker.” That was your word.

And it worked well enough for Joel.

In the next instant, he had you half-carried, half-dragged across the deck and thrown onto the table where you’d lost that dreaded game of stack. Solo cups still littering the surface, and puddles of beer soaking in through your dress, you made a sound of disgust and tried to thrust yourself up, just to fail. You squirmed and swatted at the man standing in front of you, who easily kept you pinned to the surface with one palm laid calmly on your belly.

He reached into the back pocket of his trousers and retrieved his lighter and cigarette pack.

“Someone could catch us,” you hissed, helpless, unsure of what else to say to show you weren’t giving in just yet.

Joel lit up in four seconds flat. He sucked in a breath.

“I roped off the stairs coming up,” he replied.

He what?

You moved back, slowly, on the surface when Joel worked a hand to his belt buckle, and you heard half a dozen plastic cups fall to the floor behind you.

You would not be his date’s sloppy seconds—ever.

Joel yanked at your thighs and pulled you back to be straddling his hips, shrugging his pants down; you couldn’t bear to keep looking when he lowered his briefs.

He took another drag and eyed you hungrily, happy to see you all sprawled out and pretty before him. The tight fabric of your dress had cinched over your hips and left you bare to just panties, making him grow even harder.

“Joel.”

He worked his dick out of his pants and moved the head to trail slow along the seam of your barely-clothed cunt. Even through the lace, he could feel how wet you were. He notched the tip at the space where your panties had parted just slightly to the side and felt your arousal pool even wetter around the end of his member. He grunted.

“Joel, I—”

“Daddy’s gonna give ya attention, sugar. Hold still.”

You couldn’t. Wouldn’t. You splayed your fingers over the hand that was trying to guide his cock into you and clenched your jaw—every carnal fibre in your being telling you not to do what you were about to try anyway.

“You fucked her didn’t you?”

Joel flicked the ash off his cigarette, “No.”

“You brought her here.”

“Had to.”

Your face was flushed and likewise flooded with smoke, curling slow from Joel’s lips before it painted the air an opaque, muddied grey above you. You wriggled your hips away from his, and for once, he didn’t try to stop you.

“I saw you tucking your shirt in. Tommy said you fucked!”

“Tommy’s about one fry short of a Happy Meal, honey,” Joel puffed once more, “He’s always sayin’ shit like that.”

Incredibly, he’d managed to use about a dozen funny words in that old Texas lilt and still say so little to actually answer your question. When the pinch in your brow told him you weren’t quite satisfied, Joel let out a sigh.

“Ash spilled pebre on my shirt. I had to change.”

Oh.

“And you—” you started.

“—have no fuckin’ right to know, one way or the other, because you’re the one who said we’d just ‘fuck and forget it,’ remember?” Joel interrupted, reminding you of your own curt words from your Bronco boning session.

Again, you tried to speak and found yourself spoken for, Joel carrying on as casual as ever as he sucked the last life-breath from his cig and stared you down, cynically.

“Your dad’s the one who made me bring her tonight. Said I seemed ‘down’ since the last gal I fucked wasn’t around—I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was his daughter—and here we are,” Joel smiled, wryly, and flicked his cigarette into the lake. You would’ve liked to tell him littering was a crime that trashed us all but refrained.

You were too busy staring at his lips, wondering why he hadn’t kissed you yet. You reckoned all the pea flinging, swearing, and swinging might’ve played a small part.

At length, Joel slid a new American Spirit out of its pack and wrangled you back to his hips as he lit up again.

“Happy?” he said, after a beat.

You weren’t sure whether to nod or cross your arms. Beckon him in with both hands or kick his bunched-up pants, belt, and boxer briefs away altogether and keep the bratty act going. You didn’t like being wrong.

At any rate, it didn’t matter. He’d called you on your bluff.

Still smoking, still smiling, still happy as a clam at high tide, Joel pressed his length straight up to your folds and watched you squirm on the wood underneath him.

“Gonna listen now?” he hummed.

“Uh-huh.”

Good, his wretchedly deep brown eyes seemed to say. Good that you were here, good that you were spread wide and supine beneath him, good that you’d gone all soft and pliable under his touch and were watching him now with a look that said you’d let him do just anything.

Good that he could fuck you.

Great that he wasn’t planning to—not fully, anyway.

Joel wasted no time taking your answer in the affirmative to slip past your panties and push deep inside your sweet cunt. When your walls stretched and cried all around him, he sighed and gripped your legs even tighter. He gritted the cigarette between his teeth and brought your ankles to rest over his shoulders, sinking in even deeper. Then he had to hold steady inside you and keep you flat on the table in front of him, and just when you whined to fuck me now, Joel, fuck me right now, daddy, please, he stilled. He took a big, long drag and didn’t move an inch.

He’d teach you some discipline one way or another.

“Joel, please,” you groaned again, hands bracing the table to start fucking up and down on his shaft, before he put a stop to that fast and held you firmly in place, “Please, Joel, I need you so fucking bad, daddy, please.”

Joel tapped his ash to the side and ignored your pleas.

He felt your walls contract around him and tried not to grunt. He focused instead on the smoke overhead.

“Wanna say that nicer?” he asked, deadpan. Then, staring expectantly down at you, while you flushed and struggled to stay still, “Keep that mouth a little cleaner?”

Fuck, did he have that father-figure tone down to a T.

You laid there before him and almost forgot his cock was wedged inside you for a second. He seemed so sincere.

“I wan— want you to move, daddy, I-I-I don’t know how else to say i— FUCK!” Your pussy spasmed around him when the tip of his pubic bone grazed your clit. That squeaky clean mouth of yours was nowhere to be seen.

“Mhmm,” Joel nodded anyway, pretending to be observing your behavior as he might for a clinical trial. Like he was testing a new drug, not his dick inside your cunt, practically clenching in Morse code around him.

“Can ya try that one more time, sweet pea? For daddy?”

You could. Try, anyway. Controlling your tongue while he was buried so deep inside you seemed to be a far harder task than you could’ve ever expected, though.

Joel sensed it. Feeling a twinge of pity, he leaned over your body and dug his hips even deeper—not thrusting, but still granting some modicum of friction. The hot, heavy throb of his girth pulsed inside you like your own fucking heartbeat, and your eyes rolled back.

“Fucking shitsucking DICK BITCH CUNT! FUCK!”

Sounding every bit the uncouth novice in a COD lobby chat circa 2009, you knew you didn’t have the faintest hope of earning Joel’s strokes now. You hated yourself for it—and Joel, too, for subjecting you to such cruel and unusual punishment for just needing to fuck him hard.

You were desperate and heated. Five seconds away from yanking your sex off of his and going to town with your own fingers, you felt a palm press down on your tummy.

Damn Joel and his super-sized hands.

You could barely breathe, much less pry yourself off.

Joel was quiet and calm. Stuffing you full and puffing away at his cigarette the whole time. He smirked.

“Ain’t that difficult, honey,” he said, hardly losing his will or his sympathy when you shot a raw glance his way, “Stay still on this cock and ask daddy nicely, ‘s’all ya gotta do.”

He could tell by the look in your eyes you couldn’t stand to play nice—but needed to cum. He watched you swallow your pride, soften your eyes just a bit, and when you felt you might implode from all the feeling, whined,

“Please make me feel good, daddy, please, I need it.”

Joel breathed and eased back just an inch, lowering his hand to thumb softly at your clit. You keened.

“That’s my sweet girl.”

Still just rubbing that bundle and looking down while you came unraveled, Joel thought you perfectly sublime. He’d kill to keep you there like that, eyes rolling and skin soaking the table beneath you both in sweat and arousal. He stared down at the place your bodies were connected—a sliver of his cock visible and soaked with your juices—and he felt a wave of desire crest over his mind. Panting, quietly, he brought one hand to your hip and kept the other working furiously over your clit, trying to ignore the urge to rut inside you. It was self-discipline for him, too.

He wouldn’t let you know that yet, though.

He crushed the cigarette between his teeth and kept still.

“Ya like that, sugar? Like daddy stuffed inside this pussy, makin’ ya beg real pretty for me?” His husky Southern drawl ran like molasses off his tongue, thicker now when he was balls-deep and half-drunk off your cunt.

You watched his mouth, intrigued, and saw a long line of spit drip deliciously from those pretty, stubbled lips of his to your lower ones, making the spot more filthy and warm as your fluids mixed together. Still, Joel didn’t move a thing more than his thumb—but the sounds from you both were growing louder and more desperate.

The gentle squelch of spit, sweat, and arousal running all down your pussy, paired with those noises you made when you were feeling this good and squeezing him tight, was enough to send Joel straight over the edge. Now he didn’t have the strokes or any motion to focus on before him, just you—he flicked his cigarette away the second he sensed you were getting close yourself.

“Sweet little thing,” he cooed, still rubbing in circles, “How’s my baby feelin’?”

You clawed at the table beneath you and knocked your head back once or twice on the wood, humming a quick, ‘Good, daddy, good’ in the most hoarse and pathetic voice you’d ever used, and Joel smiled. You hadn’t cursed out loud in a minute and seemed to be taking his touches well. He’d have to give you some form of reward.

Gently, Joel pulled back and made a shallow thrust inside you. Both your body and his jolted with pleasure.

“FU—n stuff, fun stuff,” you hissed, trying hard to mask the expletive.

In truth, Joel was struggling too. Just one stroke inside you and that coil inside him was about ready to burst.

“Fun, huh?” he teased, keeping his motions down to quick pistons as he laid his palms flat on either side of your head, “Daddy make ya feel fun-ny, does he?”

“Yeah, he does, he— ah, SHIT right there, right there!”

Evidently, he’d found your G spot.

Joel stilled inside you as soon as the foul word escaped.

You whined. Loud. Almost tempted to burst into tears.

“Nononono, that doesn’t count, Joel! That doesn’t—” Your voice was shortly supplanted by a whimper when the man went back to thumbing your clit, hips rendered still once more and cock wedged deep inside your core.

“What’s it gonna take to make you behave for me, huh? Do I have to talk to your daddy again?” Joel seethed.

You shook your head quick and felt him circle your clit even harder, more punishing now. Your body craved the friction from his cock but could barely contain the words that were coming out now. You pinched your eyes shut, feeling your orgasm creeping closer and closer, and whimpered gently, desperately, ‘Fuckfuckfuuuuuck.’

Whether it came down to making terrible plays at stack cup or getting your clit torn apart by Joel’s thumb, you simply could not keep the filthy language at bay.

You weren’t going to listen, that much was clear.

Joel had no choice but to make you learn a different way.

So, prying his fingers and his cock from your cunt, he reached across for your hips instead—pulling you off of the table and pushing you down to the floor, at his feet.

He smoothed a palm over the top of your head and fisted your hair in one hand, his cock in the other, and brought his hot, swollen, slick-coated length within an inch of your face, stroking fast.

Your gaze flitted from the sight in front of you to Joel’s eyes, back and forth, stunned and in utter disbelief. As you felt your own climax crumble and recede from you at once, the sound jumped up your throat before you could stop,

“What the FUCK is your problem, Joel?!”

“There it is,” Joel just flared his nostrils as he jerked himself above you, “There’s that nasty fuckin’ mouth.”

He pulled your head even rougher and tipped your chin back to meet the scowl on his face. Pleasure had almost swallowed the man whole, yet his expression scarcely betrayed a trace of it, eyes cold and jaw clenched tight.

“If that mouth can’t be good for me, can it open real wide and show me how a dirty slut does it?”

You were beside yourself. Holding his gaze like a bomb might go off in his brain any second—something you’d be happy to see—you scowled as well. Begrudgingly, and knowing Joel wouldn’t ease off of this punishment until he’d made you pay for your language, you nodded.

“What’s’at?” Joel snapped, stroking himself even faster, “What do ya want me to do, sugar?”

You gritted your teeth and silently wished they were crushing his balls to powder between them.

“Want…you…to cum…on my face.”

“Little louder, sweet pea, can’t hear ya from up here.”

The sound of his palm working over his cock again and again, shimmery and slick with your arousal soaking it, was almost too much to bear. You watched, forlorn and silently boiling with rage as Joel stared down at you, as merciless as he’d ever been. Mocking, almost, it seemed.

“Want you to…cum on me, please.”

“One more time, darlin’,” Joel pressed, pupils blown wide with desire, “Be real sweet and say it one more time f—”

“I WANT YOU TO CUM ON MY FACE, YOU FUCKER.”

That sparked the first real smile on Joel’s lips you’d seen in a while, and then he was watching you cockily, nodding.

Before you could even think to blink, stand up, or storm off again, you felt a fat, sticky-wet glob of warmth hit your cheek. Then another. Then another. Then another. You winced and flinched back, but Joel held your head in place, in front of his cock, and gripped you firmly as he unloaded rope after rope of his cum all over your face.

By the time he was finished, your skin was glistening. Coated in the stuff and still blinking through strings of the hot, sticky mess as Joel stood over you, chest heaving fast as he pumped himself through his release.

Must be fucking nice.

When the downpour had slowed to a trickle, two thick fingers swiped at a dollop of cum on your cheek. Then, wordlessly, they moved down to your mouth.

“Open,” Joel commanded.

You’d barely parted your lips a quarter of an inch when he pushed both digits inside. Swirled them around in your mouth and made sure to cover every soft, wet contour and crevice before pulling out with a pop.

He wiped at your other spend-streaked cheek and repeated the action, plunging his fingers in and out of your mouth to make sure you cleaned him thoroughly. This was more of an act meant to tease than anything else, you knew, almost demeaning in the way he stood there and nodded his head while murmuring, ‘’Atta girl.’

You hated how much you liked that stupid show of dominance—and, even worse, how good he tasted.

Joel brushed your tongue with another fingerful and watched you bob your head in time. He hummed his approval and scanned your face for any spend left over.

There was a lot. He paused, as if considering something.

“Drop ‘em.” Joel motioned to the straps of your dress.

You did as he said and pulled both bands down at once. When your breasts spilled out of the fabric, you watched Joel lower his gaze and, fixating on the spot you’d just exposed to him, take two—no, three—careful fingers to collect the remainder of himself and spread it downward.

Joel took his cum and smeared it all over your tits.

He was equal parts meticulous, gentle, and gratuitous in doing so, and he took pleasure in every second.

With a heavy-lidded, glossy gaze trained unwaveringly on your chest, Joel rolled each nipple between forefinger and thumb and fell into a trance. Rubbed you up and down every inch he could find and groaned at the sight. Glazing your skin all over with him and savoring it.

You couldn’t deny the feeling of being marked in a way so degrading, dirty, and adoring at once had a dizzying effect on you, too. The look in his eyes, and the soft brush of his fingers, almost quelled your rage entirely.

Almost.

When Joel pulled your spaghetti straps back into place—and you, in turn, back onto your feet—you yanked away. Forcefully. While Joel straightened up, silently cursed his bad back, tucked his dick in his pants, and started to reach for your waist, you jabbed the fastest, fattest, fuck-your-whole-family middle finger in his face and took off.

“Honey—”

“Don’t.”

“But I—”

“Have some goddamn fucking nerve.”

You’d nearly made it to the staircase again, heels turning to start down the first steps, when Joel sidestepped at lightning speed and blocked off your passage. All you saw then was the front of a starch white dress shirt and a light patch of chest hair peeking out from the highest button, crowding your vision, moving in time with every manoeuvre you tried to make around him. He smelled like sweat and fresh citrus. Perhaps a hint of vengeance.

You wouldn’t meet his gaze when he grabbed your face. Tried to shrug him off when he made as if to pull you into a hug—‘Are you off your shit?! Are you?! People are right downstairs’—and Joel just smiled. Grinned like a jackass eating briars, about five times too smug for his own good, and drew you into his chest by gentle turns.

You weren’t sure why you recoiled when he kissed you.

Hell, you’d done it a dozen times before—albeit a bit more frantically, in a way to say ‘I need to fuck you’ when words just wouldn’t suffice—but this one was different. Deeper. Joel was gripping both sides of your face and still grinning as he kissed you, feeling your muscles slacken some and your frame meld gently into his.

You hated it.

“I missed you,” Joel murmured between kisses.

Hated him.

“How’s my baby been, huh?”

Oh, you know, just waiting. Hating you a little. Hoping we didn’t inadvertently create a baby ourselves, courtesy of your prehistoric condoms.

“I missed you.” Gently. Again.

You tensed in his hold when his lips trailed down to your neck. You felt a low flutter. It was like your feet had been glued to the floor and your tongue left wholly immobile; you let Joel caress, kiss, and whisper down your skin like every cell beneath his touch wasn’t seething en masse.

Your stolen climax. Broken condom. Close call with your father and Tommy. Radio silence ongoing for days.

You couldn’t wrap your head around any of it, or him, or how grossly inconsistent the man’s every move upon you now seemed to be with the way he’d acted all week.

Joel slowly descended your body.

“Like I said, honey…you fuck with my head,” he said soft against your dress, then your legs, then the space in between them.

“Makes two of us,” you grumbled back.

You braced your weight against the railing over the stairs just behind you when he slipped your panties to the floor. Then he tucked them snug into one of his back pockets and brought his face to your wet, aching core.

“Discipline doesn’t come easy, does it?” It sounded like something trapped between a question and a declarative coming out from the side of Joel’s mouth.

Fortunately for you, he didn’t try to clarify which of the two he meant, or do much else at all except eat your pussy from that point on. He kissed your thighs, gripped them tighter, then wedged his face between them while you held fast to the metal behind you. You stifled a moan when his tongue traced over the seam of your cunt.

You didn’t have to like the man to love what his mouth could do for you, you silently reminded yourself.

Love it you could—and would. Without shame.

Granted, you were still sensitive as all hell from your last almost-orgasm of the night, but Joel knew how to work his lips and tongue around it. He swiftly lapped between your folds, teased a finger at your hole, and wrapped his warm lips around your clit to suck once or twice, and you were damn near ready to spiral in seconds. You fisted the soft salt-and-pepper hair at the top of his head and rutted your hips in short, shallow motions against him.

“Good girl,” Joel crooned, welcoming each thrust with another swirl of his tongue, “That’s my sweet baby.”

“Joel.”

You traded expletives for the simple repetition of his name, not wanting the pleasure to stop. Joel hummed and sucked and held your legs around him even tighter.

You sighed, almost whined, and dug your fingertips into his scalp, feeling your climax building quick inside you.

Joel’s mouth was working faster, sucking harder, drawing smaller and crueler circles, lapping eagerly against your arousal and giving it everything he had, it seemed, to work you up to your release. He grunted when you yanked hard on his hair but didn’t stop.

In fact, the bastard just kept trying to talk you through it, fluid movements of his own tongue and lips be damned.

“Doin’ so damn good for me, sweet pea, keep goin’.” There was an apology in there somewhere, working hard to atone for the orgasm he’d denied you right before.

Four more flicks of his tongue and a gentle endeavor to pump his fingers in and out, again and again, right above that soft, spongy pad of pleasure deep inside had you teetering over the edge of a cliff.

You tore your gaze from Joel for a second, preparing for that sweet and lusty consummation, when your head turned to the side just slightly. You almost groaned.

Your own hot, flushed, and fucked-out reflection was the first thing to greet you in a sliver of a mirror on the wall. Just beneath you, as you could’ve expected, there was Joel—kneeling between your legs with his chin tipped up, beard coated in moisture and pleasure and warmth. You weren’t sure why the sight from this angle had such a strong effect, but something about the full view of your bodies in motion gave your stomach a pinch. A burn. You ogled the glass and made a sound audibly higher in pitch than a whimper as Joel suckled and tongued at your clit.

You came just like that—gripping the rails, fisting his hair, rutting your hips, and staring implacably at that mirror.

When Joel resurfaced, you were still fully transfixed.

Gawking at how fucking nice he looked between your thighs. How filthy it all was to be seated on his face and cumming for his tongue while the rest of your father’s dinner party mingled blissfully unaware downstairs.

When you saw Joel rise, you jerked your head back.

You weren’t sure why it felt like being caught, but it did.

Just as you began to murmur some half-assed apology his way, you felt hands on your hips and a rock-hard bulge at your rear as Joel spun you round in front of him.

He shoved you flush against the mirror so your tits were pressed up to the glass. He gave you a quick once-over.

Slid the straps of your dress off your shoulders and shimmied the fabric down your chest, once again.

With your breasts splayed out in front of you and your hands pressing hard on the mirror—as if letting up the slightest bit might send you straight through it—you tried to crane your neck. You felt the sticky squelch of cum and fresh spit painted over your chest, muddying up the glass with every movement you made. Your chin dug deep in your shoulder as you cocked your head to the left, eyes searching for Joel’s behind you.

You heard the clink of a belt, followed by a rustle of fabric. Then a hand slamming close beside your head on the mirror, while another worked industriously to free his cock from the confines of his trousers once more.

“Joel,” you breathed, still tender from your climax.

“Hm?”

He was gruff as he rubbed and smacked your bare ass with his cock. Let it rest on the soft, fleshy shelf between you two and teased his length over that space.

“Did someone take his little blue pill today?” you teased.

“Fuck off.” You saw a flicker of a smirk in the mirror.

No way Joel Miller was getting a full-fledged erection twice in the same ten minute span. That shit didn’t happen outside the realm of porn flicks and a woman’s wildest fantasies when it came to men Joel’s age. He knew it just as well as you but tried to feign indifference when he pressed the head of himself to your folds. He did, however, suck in a breath at the new sensation.

He could do this.

He could cockwarm you raw, tonguefuck your cunt, ravage and render you all but brainless on the surface of that mirror, and still have the wits about himself to take another breath. He could show those shit-for-brains college boys he’d been battling for days in the depths of his mind how much better he could fuck you than them.

Really, Joel was just manifesting at this point.

He hadn’t busted a nut and fucked this quick since Bill Clinton had been in office. All hat and no cattle whatsoever for this pussywhipped cowboy.

“Better hope I go easy on ya, sugar.”

“Best believe I won’t.” You would’ve winked if you weren’t so bone-crushingly aroused and fresh off your peak.

Joel had just chuckled, more than a touch nervous, and began rubbing your warmth to coat himself in it—angling his slightly apprehensive penis up to your cunt when you straightened some. Rather than keep your tits to the mirror, you chose to press your back against him, ass snug to his front and eyes roaming wildly over the reflection of your two forms. Both of you flinched when the head of his cock hitched around your entrance.

Joel’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat just over your shoulder. He pressed a kiss to your skin.

“Gotta be the sweetest thing I ever seen,” he whispered into your ear. Meeting your gaze in the mirror and lifting his hips just so before breaching your folds.

He hoped you’d take it for sweetness and not just a vicious strain of anxiety or weakness as he prepared for the first thrust. He’d need a second, a minute—maybe a goddamned hour, if he was being real honest. You were too damn pretty to be fucked by a two-pump chump.

Joel nudged his nose against your ear and tried to stall. Pausing a beat.

��Never been humped and dumped before, yaknow.”

Wait—the fuck?

That came out wrong.

You cocked a brow and tilted your hips. You didn’t seem keen on talking but had no choice but to humor him.

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” you hummed.

Joel balked at his own stupidity, trying, and failing, to remove his foot from his mouth and remedy his words.

“I mean, I— I get it,” he returned, too fast for his liking, “I’m no texter myself, I just…thought, uh, maybe—”

“Miller. Spit it out.”

Your body was all but leaking arousal before him and the man was trying to divert the conversation to…phones?

Joel winced.

Felt his member deflate with embarrassment just a bit.

NO! No. No. Just…fuck. Stay hard. Please, stay hard.

He’d done it to himself. Tried to hamper sex for a second too long just to give his dick a fighting chance at survival and ended up mucking things up supremely. Per usual.

“You never texted me back.” He sounded blunt now. Rushed.

Joel watched you raise both eyebrows.

“Texted you back?” you scoffed.

“Yeah…texted, called, snipchatted, whatever.”

Your face didn’t change despite the glaring Gen X error.

“You never texted me, Joel!”

What?

Suddenly, the dick wedged between your legs and hovering over your cunt seemed to be the last thing either of you could be bothered to worry about.

“I’ve…been texting you all week. Called a few times too.”

“Like hell you have. You ghosted me and went off the grid this whole fuckin’ week—Tommy said so, too.”

Joel cringed again to hear his brother’s name brought up in this context and shook his head. You were wrong.

“512-867-5309. Been trying to talk to you all goddamn week, see how you were, and you never responded,” he said, indignation creeping into his tone against his will.

At last, your expression dropped.

From furious to frowning to just fucking annoyed. Your lips were drawn tight in a line across your face.

“My number is 512-867-5305, dipshit.”

“Huh?”

“5 at the end, not a 9.”

“…No.”

“Yeah…”

Shit.

Joel Miller had made his fair share of flubs in his life, but fucking up the phone number of his best friend’s daughter whose pussy he’d accidentally cum inside the week before seemed almost criminal. Too fucking asinine and rookie-level dense to ever recover from. He blinked.

“Thought you…hated my fuckin’ guts,” he confessed.

You threw your hands up in disbelief, frustration. Fury.

“I do— believe me, I do,” you snapped, “But not for that.”

‘That’ meaning the last time you two bumped uglies. Joel wasn’t sure whether to take heart or step back.

“What’s’at mean?” he asked.

You pushed your feet a little further apart on the floor and pressed back into Joel. He took that as a decidedly good sign and reached for your hip. Then took his cock, again, which had invariably twitched and swelled up at the smallest motion from you.

“Means we’ve got plenty of reasons to hate each other, but fuckin’ ain’t one of ‘em,” you shrugged, angling your ass in the perfect place for penetration. Joel was just about back to full-mast and buzzing as you spoke, “I can get over the whole…old dude taboo—you being dad’s friend and all—I just couldn't stand the thought of you leaving me in the lurch when shit got weird at the end.”

‘Weird’ meaning risky. Virulent. Damn near catastrophic if it ever came to be that one of Joel's swimmers had latched onto one of your eggs and knocked you up. The fear of pregnancy, and every bloodcurdling, awkward conversation to ensue, had been amplified tenfold by the thought that Joel didn't even care one way or the other and couldn't be bothered to text, call, or otherwise show that he didn't totally regret what you'd done in his car. You could handle a clean break, but leaving it on such uncertain terms had been torture. At length, you sighed.

Joel was nosing behind your ear now, a bit less tense.

A little more laid-back and warm this time around, as he, like you, had gotten to exhale a breath of relief realizing that neither of you had deliberately tried to fuck the other over, or ghost, just yet. You'd been pissed at him all night, and he'd been busy barraging a perfect stranger somewhere in Austin with strings of texts and calls all week, but the two of you were ultimately OK. For now.

“But you still hate me, huh?” Joel spoke low against your skin and felt you soften just a little.

You nodded, careful not to slacken too much.

“Mhmm.”

Now Joel was almost glad to have taken that brief, heated detour, because his dick had made a complete comeback and was aching to tease you some more. He grabbed the base of his length and slotted it slow as ever between your folds. Rolled his hips forward and pushed you both a little closer to the mirror. One of your hands flew up to steady yourself, and Joel’s hand followed. He laid his palm over the back of yours and pressed in.

“It’d be a real shame if you do,” he said, smirking as he notched the tip of his cock just within the tight ring of muscles at the groove of your cunt, “For a second there I was starting to think you might’ve liked fucking me, too.”

In the next second, Joel was easing inside you. Feeling you arch into the motion and grabbing hold wherever he could across your front, he pulled you into his chest and felt a streak of coarse pleasure lick up the full length of his spine. Your walls were squeezing him in a brand new way, a novel position, and he was starting to fear there wasn't any place he could fuck you that wouldn't send him veering for release within his first two strokes inside.

He bucked his hips a little something like an amateur, he thought, getting used to taking you like this. You were moaning, holding his fingers between your own atop the mirror as you squeezed your pussy tight around his cock, and he hoped that meant you hadn't minded the few stuttered, desperate strokes he'd delivered at first.

“I love…fucking you, Joel,” you seethed at last.

Then, wordless as it was pointed, finding his gaze in your reflection, ‘I still hate you, Miller. There’s a difference.’

He slammed into your ass and quickly got the sense that you liked it this fast—loving, lusting, or despising him otherwise. Almost needed it a bit frantic and rapid-fire when he was fucking you from the back, he reckoned.

Joel looked you in the eye from his view behind you in the mirror and saw it clear as day. He almost grinned.

You were wildly fucked out and in need of quick release.

For once in his life, he could oblige you on that, easy.

He slid his cock in and out, rutting much quicker than he ever thought you’d want it, and he grunted. Slipped a hand between your thighs and felt you pulse around him, involuntarily, when his fingers found your clit. He could tell by that grip, and those febrile little whimpers, that you were loving this just as much as him and probably were as close, if not closer, to a new, shuddering climax.

Joel plunged deep inside your cunt and drew you closer.

Taking your throat in one hand, he nudged your body into the glass and smirked, drunk with the feel of you.

“Ya like it when I fill this pussy, huh? Love feeling me deep inside this needy little hole?” he murmured, slow and taking care to draw out the syllables in each word.

You nodded that you did. Rocked your hips back to meet his thrusts and moaned.

“I love it, daddy,” you managed weakly, “Love it so much.”

The fingers at your clit increased in speed, and Joel rutted into you even harder, relishing the soft squelch between your bodies as he moved. Then he reached for a fistful of your hair and, instead of pulling back like he might normally have done, he pushed in. He pressed your face in the mirror, turned to the side, and pistoned his hips even faster. Felt your moans spill out across the glass and mix with his own, and he couldn’t help but let a raw, primal impulse take over his thrusts—and tongue.

“You make the prettiest fuckin’ noises, y’know that?” Joel breathed, hunched over and close to your ear.

Before you could so much as acknowledge his praises, bob your head, or moan in response, he shifted the hand in your hair again. This time turning your face toward the mirror, he brought your lips within inches of the glass and made you watch him fuck you, again and again.

You trailed your gaze over your full reflection and almost whined out loud, ripe with desire and ready to cum just seeing how good he looked as he took you from behind.

With his brow furrowed, pupils blown, hair a fucking mess, lips parting slightly with the strain of every grunt and moan, and hips rolling repeatedly, furiously into your own, Joel looked about as handsome as you thought you’d ever seen him. You felt the soft nudge of his tummy behind you, the tightened grip on your hip and in your hair, and within seconds, you were nearly there.

“My pretty. fuckin’. girl—” Joel managed through gritted teeth, each word punctuated with a thrust, “—and her pretty. fuckin’. moans.” Then, bringing his beaming, sweaty expression right next to yours in the mirror, “Ready to cum for me, pretty girl?”

You curled your toes into the floor and nodded, slotting your fingers through his own when he planted a hand above you again,

“So— so close, daddy.”

Joel squeezed your fingers back. Kept your faces damn near side-by-side in the mirror and relished the marked change in your features when he grazed that spot inside. You let out the filthiest, fuckdrunk moan and didn’t need another stroke—you came around his cock with a tight, pulsing spasm, seizing his hand, rocking your hips back into his hard as the pleasure washed over your body.

Joel’s cock absorbed every last delicate throb, hot and heavy enough to send the man spiraling himself. He braced his front tight against your body and kept fucking you through your release, groaning a vicious, desperate bout when he felt that deep-seated urge to spill his seed.

Fuck. He’d have to pull out. Now.

Just as his own climax was close at hand—close as he could ever, or should ever feel it while still inside you—Joel reached down for your hip to pull out and cum all over your ass, but he was brought to a stop. Swiftly.

To his surprise, it was you pulling off of him—sliding off his cock and dropping to your knees as if to take him in your mouth.

Thank fuck.

Joel grabbed his dick as quick as he possibly could and moved to start stroking himself over your face, when your hand closed around his own. Stopping him. Again.

You grinned.

Feeling the slightest twinge of retributive pleasure at seeing him like this, just like he’d had you, your smile stretched even bigger. Joel could’ve wept at the sight.

You brought your lips to his cock and grazed it, barely.

“Wanna try something fun?”

He knew better than to let a moan slip at a time like this.

Not when he was sitting at the dinner table; not when he was surrounded by the people he knew and loved the most. Not when he was celebrating his best friend’s fifty-first birthday, and certainly not when that man’s daughter was currently perched between his thighs, out of sight from every eye at the party but his.

Joel lifted the tablecloth. He almost came on the spot.

This was your idea of ‘fun.’

Payback by any other name would’ve smelled as sweet.

Seeing your mouth open wide and your lips curled tight around his hot, throbbing member, Joel couldn’t help but ache for reprieve, or else a split-second lapse of judgment—one where he forgot all sense of decorum and simply went to town on that pretty little face of yours. But, as it was, the rest of the party was totally oblivious to your absence, and he didn’t want to draw attention to it, or him, by roughfucking your mouth.

That would come later.

No, now he would let you glide your mouth gently over his shaft, leaving trails of thick spit and hints of a shiny pink lip gloss in its wake. He’d let you bob your head softly—self-assured in a pace you got to set—and he wouldn’t lay a finger on your face or let a thrust of his get in the way, because this was all about you giving him the pleasure. Maybe making him squirm just a little, too.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t steal a glimpse every now and then and pin you with an expectant look when he wanted something done his way. The room was dimly lit and everyone in it drunk; Joel would gladly take the risk.

‘You can go deeper than that, sweet pea.’

‘Nope, three-fourths ain’t enough, I need your mouth around me whole.’

‘You did wanna make daddy feel good, didn’t ya, sugar?’

He didn’t have to speak a word of it out loud for you to know what he meant. What he needed. You loosened your jaw and stretched your lips even wider, whining just a little when the head of his cock grazed your tonsils.

“Fuck that feels nice,” Joel said aloud.

You froze.

Then, without missing a beat, you heard him continue just as comfortably, speaking to the people around him,

“Y’all feel that breeze comin’ in?”

Sick fuck. You continued to suck him anyway.

One hand braced tight against Joel’s leg and the other moved shamelessly between your own, and you tried not to moan, but the sound escaped anyway. No one heard it, but Joel felt it reverberate down his shaft, and he gripped his glass of Merlot like a vice. Your dad shot him a curious look from across the table but said nothing.

“Can’t get enough’a her, huh?” Tommy grinned beside him.

“What?” Joel faltered. Set his drink aside carefully.

Down below, you dragged your mouth just far enough to take his tip between your lips and suckle. Joel grunted.

“The wine,” Tommy said, still smiling, “You must love it.”

Joel let out another strangled breath that he tried to pass off as a chuckle and nodded.

“Got me on my fuckin’ knees,” he admitted.

And that was the truth. Starved for air and blinking through tears as you knelt down to blow him, it was still you with the chokehold on Joel, and both of you knew it.

Try as you might to convince yourselves otherwise, the man was enrapt. Too spellbound to turn down your offer of sucking him dry under the dinner table just minutes after he’d almost cum all over your face, Joel was in it, and he was in it deep. It was just that small matter of you being his best friend’s daughter that made him loath to admit it. At any rate, he had your tongue licking strips up his cock and felt a sudden, sharp clench in his stomach.

He knew he wouldn’t last much longer. Neither would you.

Joel couldn’t see it then, but you’d practically soaked your own hand from how hard you’d been rubbing your clit—ignoring his orders not to touch yourself there—so turned on from just sucking his dick and needing to feel relief while you selflessly, secretly pleased him beneath the table. While Joel reached for another draught of wine, you brought one hand to his balls and kept the other at your cunt, triple-tasking like the efficient little slut he needed you to be: sucking, cupping, and rubbing all at once to get the two of you off in one minute or less.

You guided him down to the furthest place in your throat, then pushed him even deeper. You gagged just slightly and felt a hand reach down for your cheek. A thumb began to rub at the tears welled up at the corners of your eyes.

‘Sweet thing hasn’t felt a man this deep before, huh? Wanna swallow some more?’

You nodded that you did. Couldn’t actually hear him now, or see much else besides the soft tufts of hair on his belly, but you could feel a light, heady warmth seep into your brain.

You rutted your hips and just hoped no one dropped a fork nearby. Bucked desperately into your hand and felt the heat start to swell to a whole new feeling, and suddenly you were whimpering, whining on Joel’s cock from under the shade of the table and cumming all over your fingers.

Joel returned a quick smile from your father and cracked a joke about the Super Bowl. Raised his hips just the slightest bit and wiped one of your tear-soaked cheeks.

‘Almost there, hon, keep that throat open for daddy.’

All you could do was cry and try your best. Wild feelings from both the slow, deep facefuck he was giving you and the flurry of euphoric aftershocks coursing all throughout your body made it almost impossible to bear, but you obeyed your sweet and strong and steady-handed Joel and sensed a blossoming desire crop up for something else.

You wanted to taste him as he blew his load in your mouth, flooded your tongue with his spend, and painted every inch of your insides with that hot, sticky stuff.

You needed him whole.

Your Joel.

In tune with your thoughts—or perhaps just overcome with a need to see you before he reached his peak—Joel raised the tablecloth the slightest bit when Tommy wasn’t looking. His gaze locked on yours, and his tongue darted quick between his lips. He cocked a brow. Brushed his thumb again and looked down as if to say,

‘Ya want this, darlin’? Want all of me?’

You gave a soft nod, and that was all he needed.

No sooner had you given him the green light than his cum went pulsing out in ropes, coating your throat and eventually your whole mouth as you held still and took it all.

There was so much more than you thought. So much of Joel that had been waiting to give your mouth a proper fucking glaze that once he’d started he just couldn’t stop. Above the table, your dad shot a pointed look in his direction—‘You good, man?’—and it took every ounce of strength in Joel’s body to grit his teeth tight and nod.

He’d filled so much of your mouth it was spilling out.

You tried to hold steady, keep your movements extra slow. You’d heard your dad’s voice and just knew there’d be a lot more on the line than Joel’s dribbling seed if either one of you fucked up now. Your breath caught in your chest, and you felt too afraid to even swallow.

“I just…came,” Joel started, and your head almost cracked on the wood surface from how abruptly you flinched back,

“—to the realization—”

“—that you…are so…motherfuckin’ old, my friend.”

Your father’s laugh was the first you heard, followed by Tommy, his friends, and a dozen other party guests.

The next thing you felt, to your complete and utter shock, was Joel’s cock brushing your cheek. Then your lips. Then your tongue. He slid his still-hard member through the ‘o’ your mouth had made in awe and started to move in gentle motions back and forth, like a man all but aching to get a feel for your wet, sodden walls.

A man who couldn’t risk a glimpse now, but wanted more than anything to see the mouth he’d just filled.

Your father’s words hadn’t even cooled in the air.

Joel Miller, you sneaky, freaky fuck.

As the laughter subsided, and Tommy scooted back in his chair to take leave of your table, you felt a spark ignite. Whether it was yours or Joel’s or both your perverted minds suddenly alight and insane with the same thought, you couldn’t be sure, but you could make out the sound of a tablecloth flipping back up above you.

Joel slipped his dick out of your mouth and grinned. Took a firm hold of your face under the table so his fingers were coaxing your jaw to unhinge before him.

It was the lowest, slowest, menacing sort of sound you’d ever heard from him before, but it was his all the same.

Speaking to you now, softly, “Show daddy, darlin’.”

You thought you might like to see him that way forever.

Eyes honey-soft and glazed, thumb toying at your lip. Chest heaving up and down in time to your own breaths and growing ragged as you opened your mouth to him. He was sated and somehow unfulfilled—a bottomless pit of raw prurience as he stared down and held your gaze. Hair tousled, pants unbuckled, cock resting comfortably against your cheek, the man looked wonderfully undone and half in love with your sweet face peering up at him.

You couldn’t deny you loved doing this, too.

You’d just wished he saw Tommy before Tommy saw you.

[izadi234]

Forget me not

-Warning: Contain yandere themes, neglected! gn!reader, mention of low self-esteem, the writer's first language isn't English. Yan! Batfamily x gn! reader Chapters Chapter 1 (You're here) Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 1

You can't remember a time when you didn't live under the roof of Wayne Manor. Those hallways that for a 4-year-old child seemed chilling and eternal, today you consider a prison. And no, they don't keep you locked up or anything like that, in fact they give you a lot of freedom within this house, but you can consider that so-called 'freedom' as negligence.

Yes, negligence. Of course you had clothes to wear, a bed to sleep in, a roof to shelter in, but what about love? If they could ask you if you have ever felt loved in your home, the answer would be simple.

No not once

Bruce Wayne, your father, may be one of the biggest billionaires in this world but it seems his love and attention was limited towards you. But, with your brothers? It seemed to be an endless well of love and patience that he gave them.

Unconditional love, something you always looked for.

Or maybe he was busy owning one of the most successful companies in the world or cosplaying a vampire to help the city.

Yes… in short, Bruce no longer knew what excuse to give himself for not spending time with you.

And your brothers? They weren't much better. Richard "Dick" Grayson may be very loving and charming but with you? You were just a zero on the left. He didn't think you needed attention as much as his traumatized brothers and sisters. You, being a normal civilian, knew that you were safe from anything, so he only limited himself to greeting you with that little smile that at first seemed warm to you, but now it just cracks your teeth to see it.

As if he were the perfect brother.

Jason Todd was everything to you until it became nothing. You met him in his days as Robin and the truth is he was nice to you and you had a good relationship with him (they are only three years apart). When Dick wasn't at the mansion he would play with you and let you watch him train. He was your greatest confidant, your best friend… Until the Joker killed him. When he came back to life you couldn't recognize him, was he really your brother? A being full of hate and revenge? So much so that even though he saw you once after years, he just turned around.

And although he already has a better relationship with his family, it seems that your loving relationship as brothers ended that day he died. He didn't even look at you, much less talk to you.

What a hypocrite.

You can't say anything about Timothy Drake.  Seriously, and it's not because he's a great brother, it's because you've literally never talked to him.  You only know of his existence because of the times Dick shouted his name in excitement at him every time he came to the mansion and because you found out that Todd wanted to kill him.  Furthermore, your room and his are in the same hallway with the slight difference that your room was at the end.

Spoiled child...

Damian Wayne was a totally unique case.  He was violent and explosive but apparently your father preferred him over you.  Damian considered you a zero on the left.  He never found value in you, neither in your physique (you didn't fight), nor in your mind (you're not outstanding) so he didn't waste even a second insulting you or degrading you.

According to him, you were just a nuisance to the Wayne family and a disappointment to the Batfamily. And it didn't matter if you were going to complain to Bruce about Damian's behavior, he always made excuses for it.

Is this how unconditional love looks like?

Cassandra Cain was another ghost like you inside the mansion... With the only difference that she did pay attention to her even though she didn't talk much.  She was never interested in interacting with you even though you tried several times.

Even a mute could attract more attention than you...

Stephanie Brown.  An extroverted girl who wasn't afraid to give her opinion, but apparently she didn't have any opinion about you.  She always gets excited to see others and she was quick to look for things to do with them.  But, if she saw you, she would just give you a slightly awkward smile and she would get out of there quickly.

She runs away from you like you have the plague.

Barbara Gordon is seen by most of the family as an older sister, however you see her as a grumpy secretary.  You could be the most respectful person in the world towards her but just seeing you next to her asking what she was doing made her look at you as if you were a villain she is looking for.

I'm sure she hasn't seen a villain with the irritation she sees you with.

Duke Thomas is the new addition to the Wayne Family.  You have nothing against him, he is a kind and smiling boy. Who you could even consider to be the kindest to you of all your brothers.

When he first came to Wayne Manor, despite you being a nobody in that family, he took an interest in you. At first you thought he did it out of pity, but when one day you heard him asking Alfred where you were because he wanted to show you something, that's when you realized he wasn't doing it out of pity. And that made you feel special, being the sibling Duke turned to.

But you couldn't help but hate how easily he integrated into the family. How easily they accepted him.

And last but not least, Alfred Pennyworth.  He tried to be there for you and he encouraged you to keep trying to get your family's attention. But even with the butler's attention you couldn't help but long for the affection of your father and brothers.

You are more sure that without him you would have gone crazy in that big mansion. 

For that reason, the only ones you would miss once you left that place would be Alfred and Duke.

"Would you be mad at me if I decided to leave the mansion?”

What a bad way to start a conversation.

You were sitting at the kitchen counter. As was custom you watched Alfred make breakfast, occasionally helping him. The butler, upon hearing your question, momentarily stopped what he was doing. Thanks to his poker face, Alfred didn't show any surprise but you knew well that he wasn't expecting that question.

"Pardon me, master (name)?”

"Would you forget about me if I left the mansion?" you asked

"Of course not!" Alfred quickly answered, his tone of voice a little high. However, upon noticing the change in his tone of voice he composed his posture again.

“I mean, of course I would never forget you, master (name). Why do you ask me those questions?”

"You know why Alfie" you sighed.

Alfred likewise sighed and turned off the stove where he was cooking. He walked over to you and sat down in front of you.

"Master (name)…" he was saying but you interrupted him.

"No Alfred… Could you let me talk… please..?" you asked gently but firmly

"Since I came to this place fifteen years ago I have always been part of the ghosts of this mansion and- and I got tired of being that. For a long time I have been thinking about moving somewhere else, away from this mansion, away from them…” You said that last sentence angrier but you controlled your temper.

"But… I can't leave knowing that you don't agree with my decision. I can't stand the thought of you being angry with me.”

You couldn't even imagine a world where he, Alfred Pennyworth, the man who decided to take your father's tablecloth, was angry with you. But even if he gets angry at your decision, you are going to follow your plan to leave the city.

Alfred smiled slightly and took your hand.

"You know very well that I would support you in whatever my little one does. Unless that decision put your life in danger of course" they both laughed at that comment.

"So that's a yes?" you asked with hope in your eyes and voice

"Yes" he nodded "Just take care of yourself"

You could see in his eyes that there was a bit of fear in his eyes as well as something else that you didn't know what it was and you didn't pay attention to it at that moment.

You should have paid more attention to him in that moment.

"Thanks Alfie" you hugged him regardless of the fact that the table was between the two of you. The butler hugged you anyway, his hug felt warm and safe.

"You don't have to thank me, Master (name)"

Then you broke away from the hug and ran to your room with a big smile on your face. You were finally going to be able to live the way you wanted, without living in the shadow of everyone. Finally free.

Once in your room you started making some calls and organizing your things quietly (not that the inhabitants of this mansion cared much about what you did) so as not to attract attention. In a week, this place will only be a bad dream and you will be able to move from this nightmare to a dream with a happy ending.

Or not?

Hellooo! I hope you liked the start of this story! To be honest, this has been something I have wanted to do for a long time. And Let me remind you that English isn't my first language so if you find some mistakes I would appreciate fo you to tell me in a good way.

Anyway, if you liked it I'll appreciate for you leave a heart.

See you in the next one!!

-Izadi <3