#Broken Road Productions

[terra-is-tired]

guess who fell off their skateboard yesterday

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. ��Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!” Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[goodpix2021]

Four Days Gone

[babbymochiiii]

🔞MINE: JOHNNY SUH

synopsis: 'you're mine, even if i'm not supposed to make you mine'; where you and your bodyguard have a heated argument while you're at the club with your friends. warnings: afab reader, bodyguard!johnny, "business relationship", reader is a public figure of some sorts, pwp, johnny being a meany, fingering/oral (f), p in v, hair pulling, cumming inside, nipple play, breast play, dacryphilia, multiple orgasms for reader, name calling (brat), sweet names for her (baby, angel), etc. author's note: @jsuh for the gif! @rookthornesartistry for the divider! this fic has come to life bc of a daydream i had due to me reading a bodygaurdxclient story 😖 and let's just say it's lowkey self indulgent just cause of the fact that it was a daydream *sweats* it was hot...so i had to share with yall. also, i'm still working on the lee line fic as we speak just the production of it is rlly slow for me at the point cause i'm hitting a big bump in the road for it. so please hang tight! word count: 4.6k

anon ask related to this post!

NOW PLAYING: 1. if i didn't know better by MACK LOREN 2. PROMISES by EMO

"Hey babes, just want to let you know that your bodyguard is staring mad hard over here." Your friend yelled over the booming music the club was playing as the two of you stood at the bar.   

Looking over your shoulder— just as she said— you can find your bodyguard with his bulging arms crossed over his chest as he sulks in the corner he is in while sending you a hard look from across the club.   

You rolled your eyes at him, before turning around at your friend as you waved a hand between the two of you, dismissing the topic of him entirely. "Forget about him. He's just mad I ended up doing what I wanted without listening to his security measures." You said to her as you rolled your eyes again.  

Your friend gave you an unnerving look before turning her expression back to her drink. "You know—" She stops herself quickly as she felt her face heat up at the words. "—it looks like he wants to eat you alive." She said as she took a quick swing of her fruity drink.   

You arched an eyebrow at her words before a laugh leaves your lips. Causing her face and the tips of her ears to turn red in embarrassment.   

"Are you serious?" You asked her as you chuckled at the silly accusation she made. 

"I mean, his eyes won't leave you no matter what. And on top of it he looked like he wanted to kill the guy that tried to buy you a drink earlier." She said as she played with the rim of her glass.   

You felt your heart thump harder in your chest at her words. But they were just that. Words. Nothing that she says can be true about your bodyguard. Johnny Suh. The bodyguard that was assigned to you due to your agency fussing over your safety because of some unknown person creating threats towards you.   

From the moment you first met, you have been awe struck at his appearance. The way he towered over you, the expressionless look on his face as he looked down at you, the way the black compressed shirt he wore hugged his fit figure, the black jeans he wore how they hugged his large thighs during your first meeting had you clenching your thighs together tightly as you felt yourself become attracted to him.   

No matter how much you tried to drown yourself in some company, or your own, he was always on your mind. Everything about him and the things you wanted to do with him. But you knew there was a border you couldn't cross with him. That was the rule...but who cared about the rules, right? They were meant to be broken.  

Thump, thump, thump.  

Your heart couldn't stop the heavy beating in your chest at the thought of him. You realized you haven't answered your friend and sought out your response as quickly as you could. "There's nothing there, for any of us." You tried not to sound as breathless as you feel as you responded to her. "Besides, it can be the number of fruity cocktails you've been having since we got to the club." You remarked with a smirk.  

"Hey!" She laughed as she gave you a playful shove. "They are good as hell, okay." She said as she downed the rest of her drink in one go. "Anyways, let's go dance!" She giggled as she took hold of your hand and dragged you to the middle of the dance floor.  

Deciding to go with the flow for the night, you followed your friend's lead and started to dance with her. As the two of you danced, having a good time and just laughing at one another over a silly dance move, a sultry song came on.   

You and your friend danced close to one another as you both felt the beat of the music course through your body, completely taking control over the two of you.   

Suddenly, you felt someone come up from behind you and wrap their arm around your waist and bringing you closer to them. The person tried to make you grind against them, but you weren't having it.   

You turned around and pushed at the man's chest. He held onto your waist tightly, refusing to release you from his hold.   

"Let me go fucker!" You yelled as you continued to push at him but all he did was smirk at you as you continued to try and push him away.   

"I believe she told you to let her go." A cold voice speaks out beside you.   

Chills rake through your body, as you look towards Johnny's towering form, as he looked towards the man holding you with narrowed slits for eyes. A warning before a reaction.   

"And what is it to you?" The man laughs as he tightened his grip on your waist, causing you to whimper out in pain.   

Nothing was said on Johnny's end at the man's remark, as he took hold of the man's bicep and held it in a vice grip. This caused the man to let go of you as he tried to pry Johnny's hand with his free hand.  

"Let her go before I fuck you up." Johnny says in a cool, neutral tone, as if this was any other night.   

"Man fuck—" the rest of the man's words were lost as Johnny sent a straight punch to the man's nose. The man wails in pain as he clutches to his now broken nose, where blood started to drip down in a cascade.   

"We're leaving." Johnny said as he took hold of your arm and started to drag you off the dance floor, and away from your friend.   

You looked back at your friend, to which she sends you a wide eye look as she didn't know what to do in the situation.   

"Let me go Johnny! I want to enjoy the night with my friend!" You yelled out as you tried to pry his hold off your arm.   

"It's not safe here and I'd rather not watch you dance with other people and drink yourself away." He said in a harsh tone as he pulled you down the secluded hallway the club has that leads you to the entrance/exist.   

"Fuck off, Johnny! I want to be here. You're always ruining everything! Why can't you let me be!?" You yelled as you felt your anger get the best of you.  

Johnny stops in his steps, before he slowly turns towards you with his own expression of evident anger. "I'm doing my job here. Stop being a fucking brat and listen." He seethed out as he started to walk closer to you, causing you to back up against the wall. He corners you with his towering form.   

"You never fucking listen to what I say to you. And look—" he said as he placed both of his hands on each side of your head. "—it gets you in trouble every. Fucking. Time. And who comes after you?" He questioned you.  

"You—"   

"Exactly. I'm the one saving your bratty ass."   

You were stunned into silence as you looked at the way he breathed heavily after his remark. You felt your chest move up and down to the same rhythm as his. You would be an idiot, if you tried to deny the way you felt a sudden rush of moisture collect in your underwear.   

The look he was giving you made you release a small gasp as you saw what your friend was telling you.   

Pure hunger.   

He looked like he wanted to eat you alive as you looked up at him. You felt your body quiver in chills that causes you to arch your back, causing your hardened nipples to graze lightly against his chest through your thin dress.   

Something seems to snap within him because before you know it, he's gripping the base of your neck and pulling you roughly against his lips.  

Nothing about the kiss was gentle at all. It was all tongue, teeth, and fighting for dominance. This kiss was pure pent-up tension between the two of you, that has been set in place since your first meeting.  

You wrapped your hands around his neck. Your hands tangled themselves in his long black locks as he pulled you closer to him. The sensation of his teeth sinking into your bottom lip causes you to moan loudly at the pleasuring pain that coursed through you.   

He pulled away from the kiss and placed his hand on your lower back. “Come with me.” He said in a low tone as he started to guide you to the club’s bathroom for a more private, and secluded moment.   

Once he held the bathroom door open, he gently pushed you in before he followed suit locking the door in the process.   

You looked up towards Johnny in a breathless state. The whole ordeal was dizzying. You can’t wrap your mind around the events playing in front of you right now. Johnny started to stalk towards you causing you once again to walk backwards until your middle back hit the bathroom’s counter. You looked behind you for a split second, to which Johnny takes the moment you are distracted to lift you up on the counter.   

His placement of his hands on your thighs causes goosebumps to rise and place themselves along the rest of your legs as you felt him gently pull them apart as he placed his body between them.   

“Do you know what you do to me?” Johnny asked as he looked at you with such intense heat that you swear his eyes were intense pools of brown. 

“I —no.” you answered weakly as you looked up at him with doe-like eyes that makes him curse inwardly as he continued his intense stare down.  

Without breaking eye contact, he takes hold of one of your trembling hands and places it on his very evident, aching cock that fights to be released from their tight hold.  

A gasp leaves your lips as you look down at where your hand is. With a trembling breath that escapes your lungs, you look up towards Johnny and see the same hungered look in his eyes.  

“This is what you do to me. From the first moment we met. You have changed everything I stand and believe in.” He purred in a low voice as he squeezed the hand that is on his clothed cock.  

You moaned quietly as you felt the way his cock jumped in your hand. With the way your chest was rising and falling at such a rapid pace, you could swear you weren’t breathing as you basked in the feeling that surrounded the two of you.  

You took your other hand and started to trace it up the arm that held onto your thigh. In the wake of your path, you saw goosebumps following your hand. You continued the path up his bicep and to his shoulder. Once at the top, you followed your hand as it slowly traced down his chest, where his racing heart was trying to escape his chest.   

Johnny started to trace small circles with his thumb in your inner thigh. It was as if a fire had suddenly gone ablaze within your very nervous system as it started to consume your whole being.  

“If we do this —” Johnny cuts himself off as he heard how breathless he sounded. Clearing his throat he continued. “If we do this, there is no going back. You are mine. No other man can touch you. Your body is mine.” He said as he placed his other hand on your thigh while pressing his hands into your skin. “—your pussy is mine. Do you understand?” He says as he leans down and traces your jaw with his nose. 

“Johnny...please.” You whimpered out as you felt yourself getting desperate for his touch.  

“Tell me.” He said as he tangled his hand into your hair.  

When you didn’t answer him back quickly — it was more like you were speechless in what to say to him, you were in awe — he pulled at the roots of your hair tightly, pulling your head back so you were forced to make eye contact with him. “Tell me, angel.”  

“I’m yours...fuck, Johnny I’m yours.” You cried out as you placed your arms around his neck and pulled him closer to you where your lips grazed one another's.  

Without missing a beat, Johnny claims your mouth with the same feverish want. It didn’t feel like you were breathing at all as you let him claim your mouth. You felt the strands of his long hair tickle against your forehead as he presses himself further into you. Johnny’s hands release their hold on your thigh and move them to the bunched-up fabric of your dress. He pushes it up further, showcasing your black lacey thong. Along with the obscene amount of slick coming out from your entrance.  

Johnny’s fingers grazed along your clad folds causing for a moan to leave your mouth and for you to entrap your legs around his slim waist. You felt the sensitivity of your core race up through your body making it become such a high sensing feeling. Seeing the way, you reacted causes for a grunt to leave Johnny’s throat as he starts to cascade down your throat with bites and kisses.  

Distracted by the sensation on your neck, you’ve failed to notice Johnny pushing aside your underwear. The sensation of his callous fingers gliding in-between your folds, makes you pull away from the kiss with a gasp as you look down at him collecting your slick, lubricating his fingers before inserting two fingers into your waiting entrance.  

The stretch of his fingers was both pleasures inducing but brought some pain. Tears brimmed your water line as you tried to accommodate the feel of his fingers.  

“Cryin’ already? What are you gonna do when you take my cock?” Johnny teases as he starts to thrust his fingers in and out of your weeping cunt. “You’re gonna take it like a good girl. Right, angel?” He says as he started to thrust his fingers in faster.  

“Y-yes! Oh—” You moaned out as you felt his fingers start to jerk up inside of you, hitting the spot you deliciously.  

Still fingering you with the fast pace he has going, Johnny uses his free hand to scoot you closer to the counter’s edge where he then went down on his knees and used his mouth to suck on your clit.  

The sensation of his mouth wrapped around your clitoral hood, has you raising your hips off the counter and trying to get closer to his mouth as it made rockets go off in your nerves with a semi-scream moan.  

Not taking his mouth off of where he wanted it most at, he pushes your hips down back onto the counter, and holds them with his free hand. “Never tasted anything so fuckin’ sweet like this.” Johnny moans out as he bit his bottom lip while looking down at your spit-glossed clit and the way his fingers started to have slick cascade down them.  

You were so close to losing it — you were that close to actually losing it completely — he goes down on you again, this time moving his head side to side as his tongue sticks out, collecting all of your sweet juices. The feelings in your legs start to feel like mush as the tightening feeling at the base of your spine continues to build up.  

As if he couldn’t get enough of you, Johnny pulls you closer off the edge to where your hips almost completely hang off of the counter, as a deep husky groan leaves his lips as he felt you gush even more on his tongue. You took one of your hands and glided it against the strands of his dark hair, slightly massaging his scalp before giving it a tug.  

An approved groan leaves his throat as he pushes himself closer to you. His tongue gliding up and down your folds before probing at your entrance where his fingers continue to pump in and out of you. With his tongue joining his fingers, he felt your pussy pulse against his digits causing him to give you a smug smirk. “Such a cute heartbeat baby. Are you gonna cum on my fingers for me?” Johnny said as he looked up at you as he continued his delicious movements.

You gave him a delirious nod of your head as tears started to fall from your eyes at the sensation of being so close to your release.  

“Then come.”  

With just those two words, you felt the tether within you snap with your hips lifting up and your grip on Johnny’s hair tightening while a cry leaves your lips as you come.  

Johnny keeps thrusting his fingers slowly to help you through your orgasm, and with his tongue he laps up your release, leaving you all clean...for now.  

As you gasped for the much-needed air in your lungs, through your half-lidded eyes you see Johnny get up and unzip the zipper of his jeans. With a slight haste in his moves, he unbuttons his jeans and releases his weeping cock out of the tight hold they were in.  

His cock was such a pretty sight to look at. His tip such a flushed pink and leaking pre-cum, and the vein that pulses so meanly along his long, girthy length you felt yourself gush all over again as you tucked your bottom lip between your teeth.  

“Get off of the counter for me angel.” Johnny says in a gentle tone, but the command laid in the undertone.  

Doing as he says, you get off the counter and look up at him, awaiting what he wants you to do next. Both you and Johnny look at one another as each watched the way your chests rise and fall in heavy breaths. You watched the way your arousal and release glistened on his lips and chin. Seeing the way you looked at him made him subconsciously lick his lips.  

Ignoring the way his cock is begging to seethe itself inside of you, Johnny takes hold of your face with both of his hands, kissing you once more. He couldn’t get enough of how your lips tasted. You tasted yourself on his lips and you couldn’t get enough of it. 

Johnny pulls away from the kiss and pulls you around where you are facing the bathroom mirror. In the reflection you saw the way your makeup was running a little bit, and the way you looked so blissed out from your orgasm. The moment you looked up towards Johnny’s reflection, you felt yourself clenching around nothing. Lust, hooded eyes looked back at you through the mirror.  

You felt Johnny press himself against you. His warm and throbbing cock resting against your ass, you pressed yourself further into him. A groan leaves his lips as he looks down at the way your plump ass wants to suck his length in-between them.  

Johnny then leans in towards your ear, another smirk playing on his lips. “Be a good girl and take it, yeah?” He says as he takes the side of your ear into his mouth delivering a small nip causing chills and goosebumps to course through your body.  

You then see Johnny pull himself up, spit onto his hand before he guides it down to his length and pumps himself — getting it ready for your weeping entrance — all through the mirror. The fact that he was about to fuck you in front of mirror had your mind doing all sorts of somersaults as you edge towards that feral feeling growing larger than life in your chest.  

Johnny takes hold of the base of his cock and starts to align it to your entrance. He teases your entrance with his tip, slowly putting it in before he pulls it out. This causes you to whimper at his teasing, but all it does is draw a chuckle from him as he glides his cock in-between your folds.  

The fat of his head hits your clit in continuous glides that almost makes you see stars.  

“Johnny please —” you cry out as you hang your head down as you tried not to cry over the edging feeling he gives you.  

“Please what? Use your big girl voice for me angel.” Johnny teases as he continued his teasing.  

“Johnny please fuck me! P-please fu—” the rest of your sentence falls into a scream as you felt Johnny thrust his hard length into your entrance in one go.  

The burning sensation of the obscene stretch he gave you made your toes curl as he started to fuck you slowly, letting you somewhat get used to his size.  

“What was that?” Johnny laughed as he saw the way the lustful blush takes over your face and chest. You instantly felt yourself getting dumb on his cock as he pounded into you so meanly.  

The way your walls sucked him in drove the two of you crazy. You felt the way his vein pulsed within you that it made you clench down onto him. Johnny swore under his breath at the tight feeling you were creating around his pulsing length. 

“Fuck — keep clenching me like that angel and I'm not gonna last long for you.” Johnny said as he held onto your hips tightly.

Incoherent words fall from your lips as you savored the delicious feeling of Johnny’s cock gliding in and out of your sopping entrance. Johnny traced his hand up from its place on your hips and brought it to the front of your dress. He pulls the fabric down, causing your breast to spill out from their hold. Johnny takes both of your breasts and places them into each hand of his, giving them both a squeeze causing the two of you to moan. Johnny takes one of your hardened nipples between his fingertips and pinches it.  

Moan, after moan leaves your lips as the sensations your bodyguard is giving you. Behind the noise of your moans, you could hear the sound of skin slapping against one another and the squelching sounds coming out from your entrance.  

You felt a hand wrap around your hair and tug it backwards making you look into the mirror to already see Johnny looking at you with such a lustful look you honestly believe you could cum on the spot.  

“Look at me as I fuck this pretty pussy of your angel.” He speaks roughly as he continues to plough into you. “Look at how. You. Take. It.” Johnny emphasizes with each hard thrust into you.  

You bit your lips as you watched the way Johnny started to get lost within your wet walls. You saw the way his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he tossed his head back, relishing the feeling. It was like seeing a switch flip within his mind as he looked down at the connection between the two of you.  

Johnny's hair fell in his face and started to stick to his sweaty skin as he started to deliver merciless thrusts into your abused whole that it had you on your tippytoes.   

“Fuckin’ take it. Take it like the good girl that you are baby.” Johnny groans out as he heard your cry of how good he’s hitting your walls.  

Johnny snaked his hand around your waist and down to your front. His fingertips started to press down onto your clit and moving them side to side, causing you to moan out loudly.  

“Whose pussy does it belong to?” Johnny questioned as he continued his movements on your swollen clit.  

“Y-you — oh God!” you moaned out as he started to hit that one spot inside of you making you see stars. 

A jolted slap was heard in the room as Johnny’s hand came down on your clit with a sharp slap. A cry-like moan falls from your lips as you push yourself back against Johnny.  

“Whose does it belong to?” Johnny said again as he delivered three more slaps in a row to your stinging clit. 

“You! Fuck — you do Johnny!” you cried out as you started to feel the same tightness feeling at the base of your spine start to coil.  

“That’s fucking right. You're my baby. This pussy is mine. Let me find out you’re letting another man touch what is mine and I’m going to mess you up.” Johnny seethes as he pounded into you even harder than before.  

The repetitive sensation of Johnny hitting your spot within your walls makes you see double the stars than before. “I’m gon—” Without warning you started to come around Johnny’s length. You felt your body shiver at how intense the orgasm was. Your legs started to shake as you started to feel the overstimulation take its course considering Johnny hasn’t relented to his intense pounding.  

Johnny was so close to his release as he continued to pound into you even as you tightened yourself up. He continued to stimulate your overly abused clit, drawing cries from you. “Give me one more angel. Just one more for me.” Johnny said as he sounded restless trying to get that one last orgasm for himself.  

“Nngh! S-so full and—and big! Feel so good!” You cried out as tears started to fall from your eyes as the overstimulation started to take its course officially through your body.  

“That’s right baby, fuck — I make you feel so good.” Johnny said in between his teeth as he felt his balls tighten up, ready to release their load.  

“Where do you want me to come angel?” Johnny asked as he wrapped his hand around your throat, as he looked at your fucked out expression through the mirror.  

“Inside of me! Please, please, please.” You begged as you made eye contact with Johnny through the mirror. The way your eyes glistened with unshed tears, the flush on your face, the way your hair clung onto your sweaty forehead, and just the fucked outlook you were giving him was enough to make him blow his load inside of you.  

Strings of curses left Johnny’s lips as his stomach clenched and thighs shake slightly as he let go inside of you completely. The feeling of his sticky ropes painting your walls, caused you to go into your third orgasm of the night.  

As the two of you rode out your highs together, the weight of the situation between the two of you started to settle within the two of you. As Johnny pulled himself out, cleaning you and him in the process, a deathifying silence fell. You weren’t sure how to approach the topic. Do you say this was a one-time thing or are you guys actually together now?  

“What I said about you being mine —” Johnny says as he helps you straighten your dress out and clean a bit of the running makeup on your face. “—I meant it.” He says in a gentle tone.  

The moment those words left his words, you felt breathless at his slight confession. “Johnny I —”  

“Please spare me if you’re going to reject me after all this.” He said as he played with a lock of your hair. 

“I was going to say, I understood what you meant.” You said as you placed your hands on his chest, closing the slight gap between the two of you. “I don’t want someone else when I have you.”  

Johnny leaned down and you met him halfway where the two of you shared a passionate kiss, sealing the promise you have for one another.

[starseungs]

from the past, beyond the present, and into tomorrow. ksm. ( teaser )

kim seungmin x fem!reader — following the last wishes of her beloved grandmother, y/n finds herself moving back to her family's hometown. deep into the countryside and miles away from the bustling noise of the city, the change was supposed to be a new experience. that was, if only the mayor's son didn't bring along years of unknown familiarity with him.

GENRE/S — drama, slight angst, slight fluff, just sentimental, soulmates au, multiple lifetimes, high school au, a slowburn • teaser: 2.1k words (10k+ overall fic)

WARNING/S — y/n gets referred to with she/her pronouns, setting is heavily influenced by japanese environments (but still made vague enough for other preferences), main characters are aged eighteen, possibly more to be added upon release.

NOW PLAYING — tracing that dream by yoasobi

( ✒️ ) this is the product of seungmin covering one of my favorite songs ... now im gonna make him a shoujo anime love interest !!! and yes the teaser is long asf. i, too, am concerned about the total word count of this fic. (road to 20k wc i guess)

( 📌 ) STATUS: UNRELEASED • TAGLIST IS OPEN !

2024 ⓒ starseungs on tumblr. do not steal, repost, or edit.

You had dreamt of a specific scene once when you were thirteen.

At least, you were the one who considered it a dream. It was something you had tried to bury in the depths of your mind—locked away in a tiny chest placed in the furthest corner and behind closed doors. If it were someone else, you knew that they would’ve already exhausted all means to figure out what the dream meant.

After all, it certainly wasn’t every day that you got to dream of something that felt so vividly real to the point you could’ve sworn it was a memory.

But it wasn’t. It could never be.

Why?

Because in no reality could an authentic memory be of a time that shouldn’t even exist yet.

“I won’t ask you to congratulate me,” the vessel you were seeing the world through spoke. In the scenario being played out, you could feel yourself smile warmly. You could only guess why the positive action was contrasted by such a somber tone of speaking. “Never once have your eyes lied in front of mine.”

The sound of joyous laughter that surrounded the area almost felt too jarring to compare to the mood present between what was supposed to be you and another male. He sat completely still, unmoving amidst the dim evening despite your earlier comment. Flickers of embers from the sizable-looking campfire reflected in his eyes, telling of the fact that the absence of a response was not because of a lack of focus but rather his inner thoughts getting swallowed up by the burning flames.

His looks would range him older than eleven. Yet, you didn’t seem phased by it—not even in the slightest. Perhaps this was something you should have expected. The voice that came out of you was notably not one of an eleven-year-old either. So you gave up on the matter.

Instead, you waited for an answer to what you had previously uttered. Even if it was just a simple hum that came out of his mouth.

He let the fire crackle a bit more.

“Does it make me a bad man to say that I envy you?”

The breath that you didn’t even know you were holding escaped your lips the second he spoke. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you mean,” was your reply.

The silence came back for a second. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem as heavy as the one you two had just broken. You watched his movements, almost mesmerized, as he took his eyes off the fire. The concentration only faltered when his sight came up to meet yours. “You’re off to go do greater things over in the big city,” he starts. “And yet, here I am, getting left behind in this quiet town. A place not a single soul even yearns for—where everyone starts off but never stays.”

It was odd. The way you felt your heart race at his words.

To be completely honest, you didn’t think much of what he had just said. You didn’t even know exactly what it meant—both for you and for him. Yet, the sudden spike of adrenaline in your veins told a different story. It was making you feel breathless while also making you tear up.

“You could always come with me.”

He shook his head. Did he just reject your offer? “It’s no use. My life’s responsibilities will still lie here. What would I even gain from leaving this place?”

Another beat. You could care less if it was of silence or your heart. In what seemed like a blink, the environment felt too overwhelming for you to function in. It was almost like you were sinking. Down deep to who knows where.

Though muddled, you tried your best to bring yourself back to the forefront by listening to the variety of other sounds outside the small bubble you two had created. Children running around screaming with laughter, adult men howling with amusement at whatever conversation they were in, and a female voice yelling to prepare the fireworks.

How fun. A celebration right next to a brewing storm. All under the same night sky.

“But,” you forced the words out. “You also have your own dreams.” His eyes softened at the mention. The way your heart shattered echoed a little too strongly throughout your body.

“That’s why I’m letting you go like this.” The young male smiled, making sure to let you know it was only directed at you. “So that at least one of us gets to achieve them.”

Your lips quivered. “Why do you speak as if I’m never going to come back for you?”

Silence again. You were beginning to develop an intense dislike for them.

“That’s just the way the world works,” was the response that came to soothe your growing anxiety. “It doesn’t revolve around a certain person. And it certainly doesn’t revolve around me. Go and live the life you want without any regrets. When the time comes that you’ve done everything you’ve wished for in life, come and find me again.”

A shake of a head.

“I could always just stay.”

A weak chuckle.

“Then, neither of us will be able to grow.”

A clench of a hand.

“What if I take too long?”

A minute passes by. You’ve come to really hate these momentary pauses.

He stands up. “There will be no such thing,” the young male assures you, moving closer only to stop at arm's length. You fought the urge to reach out and hold him. “Even if it takes multiple lifetimes, I’ll always be here. Waiting for you.”

“What if you forget about me?”

The world fell into one last hush. Your well-held tears finally started falling one-by-one, just like the first drops of rain. He sighs at your state, taking another step forward.

“I really don’t think I ever will.” He cups your face gently to look at him. “That’s why to you, who my heart will always choose in every lifetime—”

A loud bang. You watched as the fireworks bloomed into the sky through his glistening eyes.

“—Please live well until you come back to me.”

Hushed whispers filled the room.

You should’ve expected this. No matter the place, all high schoolers were bound to be the same, either one way or another. If you really had to make sense of it, your best guess would be that it was simply human for them to act this way. Universal traits are what makes a species. Perhaps you would’ve found it much more uncomfortable if the students in front of you didn’t find your situation interesting. After all, the genuine interest seeping out of those youthful eyes did make the atmosphere a lot lighter. At the end of the day, you could never actually fault them.

Still, enduring the poor attempts of adolescents trying to keep their curiosity hidden for more than a tick of a clock was harder than you thought. A part of you so badly wanted to believe that it was because this whole ordeal was tiring—bothersome, even. Unluckily for you, your brain knew a little bit too much for its own good.

Next to the classroom’s front door, one of your female classmates drops a pen accidentally. You watched it roll down two seats away, only to stop underneath the chair of a guy who was animatedly discussing something with another that was to his right. The latter enthusiastically reciprocated the conversation; his seemingly dominant hand spinning a blue-colored pen while doing so. You balled your hands, only to release them not even a beat later. They felt slightly damp.

You were nervous.

“Settle down now, class!” The homeroom teacher, Mrs. Cheon, ordered. Like well disciplined soldiers, the students quickly ceased all sound. Their undivided attention made you swallow heavily. “Starting today, we have a new addition to our class. Let’s all listen to her introduction.”

Your eyes almost popped out of their sockets at her order—only barely holding back from painting shock all over your face. This was not the plan you were made aware of. You wanted to protest. Throw a tantrum like a little child at the way she had just thrown you into a den filled with lions with no choice but to fend for yourself. Back in the faculty room, she had clearly stated that she was the one who was going to introduce you to the class. What was the point of asking you all the standard information about yourself if she wasn’t even going to use it?

Mrs. Cheon merely stood there, anticipating for you to start. Her neatly managed fingers were laced together behind her back, presenting the dark purple dress she was wearing in all of its glory. You kind of wished it was brighter; just so you could complain about her blinding you without seeming rude. Now you realized that you shouldn’t have trusted her words in their literal sense. It was foolish of you to believe that all you had to do for your formal introduction was to stand there until you were settled.

You took a discrete, heavy breath.

“Hello to you all. My name is Y/N,” you start off as cool as you could manage. “Eighteen. I just moved here from the city, so I am still in the process of getting familiar with the environment. Please take care of me.”

If you could give yourself a pat on the back at that moment, you would’ve. Unfortunately, you had yet to get a grasp on how things worked around here, so it was probably better not to do anything that would make you stand out more than you already did just by being new. And who even transfers schools two months into their last year of high school? Plus, with their stares so intently directed at you like they were studying a fascinating specimen, you couldn’t lift a single finger anyway. So you settled for pursing your lips instead.

A male student with puffed cheeks from the second row raised a brow at you. You bit your cheek lightly. Great.

“It seems like that’s all for Y/N’s introduction,” Mrs. Cheon says, clearing her throat. You internally glowered at the way she awkwardly moved on. You could only wonder how painful your introduction now seemed. “You’ll be seated next to Seungmin. Raise your hand, please.” She ordered.

To which not one soul followed.

If you had not enforced every single ounce of control you had, you were sure your jaw would’ve dropped to the ground. This was already proving to be one of the worst moments of your life, and yet life seemed way too eager to make it even more unforgettable. Your eyes snapped to the figure sitting on the slot in the back row, right next to the windows.

Granted, you already knew who this ‘Seungmin’ was. It was quite obvious, really. The only other desk free to use in this entire room was the one next to the guy you were currently burning a hole through with your gaze. He was staring out the window without a worry in the world, seemingly lost in his thoughts. His posture screamed relaxation, and anything more than that meant infusing into the wooden chair he was leaning back on.

While normally you would have found this guy relatable, right now you could just wish that he finally acknowledged Mrs. Cheon’s call so that you could now erase your presence for the rest of the day.

Luckily for you, it seemed like your homeroom teacher was also getting impatient.

“Kim Seungmin!”

The male with the same name as the one just yelled out leisurely broke off his staring contest with that one cloud in the sky to give you two at the front a glance. It was then that you finally got a good look at him.

His black hair was cut short, brushed down into bangs, but not enough to cover a notable undercut. Despite his clean appearance doubled by the meticulously ironed uniform that hung on his figure, his face was grim in a way that showed great dislike for the situation. You wanted to scoff at the frown decorating his lips, sending everyone the clear message that he had just been bothered. Fighting off the urge to twitch an eye at the slight scrunch of his nose was proving to be the most difficult challenge of the day.

“Oh?” He reacted monotonously before raising his hand as requested. That obviously meant he did hear Mrs. Cheon. “Yeah, here.”

You grit your teeth, already feeling an overwhelming sense of annoyance radiating out of you. From what it looked like, he felt it too—shifting his gaze from Mrs. Cheon to meet yours. Yet, your eyebrows furrowed as the feeling dissipated the moment your eyes locked.

Huh.

How come he seems awfully familiar?

FIC TAGLIST ━ STATUS: OPEN — ASK OR COMMENT 🫶

@fairyki @hysgf @euncsace @comet-falls @starlostseungmin @ameliesaysshoo @hyunverse @wnbnny @xocandyy @minluvly @moon0fthenight @estellaluna @hanjsquokka @starlostastronaut @soobnny

[seat-safety-switch]

There’s something that we all can learn from stage magicians, and that is the value of having a friend in the crowd. If you’re picking a card out of a deck of cards, that’s hard. If you’re picking a card out of a deck of cards where your drinking buddy has agreed with you ahead of time that it will be the ace of diamonds, that’s substantially easier. You might think that this scam, such as it is, is only limited to the performance of magic tricks. And you’d be wrong.

There is another place in modern society in which ridiculous performances, shocking coincidences and underhanded collusion work together to enrich tricksters. It’s called politics. You can bring your drinking buddy with you to a city council meeting, make him sit far away from you, and suddenly he’s a “concerned citizen” who agrees that it’s “just common sense” what you are proposing. From there, herd mentality takes over, and suddenly a room full of real-estate obsessed seniors are screaming at The Mayor, wondering why in the fuck you won’t let them leave a broken car in the middle of the road for a month or two I thought this was a free country.

Once you’ve learned this trick, you can see it all over the place. Unpopular policy gets washed through a series of studies, think-tanks, and media surrogates into being the product of consensus. The guy playing three-card Monte on the street has already been beaten by a couple folks, surely it’s your turn to win next. And that guy at the bar surely can’t be an undercover federal agent, because he just told us all how much he hates cops and loves Plymouth Darts. Sure, he had to check his phone a few times while he was trying to tell us all this, but he seems legit.

Now that you know how to deceive others in a crowd, it’s up to you on how to use it for evil. Just don’t become a stage magician. I guarantee you that I’ve poisoned that well already, because I waited until Mister Magic here started a show at the community centre and then stole a bunch of the audience’s batteries out in the parking lot.

[otomes-world]

Lucid dreaming

I haven't been the most productive writer this year. I'm also late with the congratulatory gift, but I'll continue anyway. This isn't exactly a New Year's themed work. I wrote it as unexpectedly as I posted it today. Thanks to everyone who's been with me this year! P.S. You can put here any of your favorite characters. Happy holiday my dear 0/

The sky was light purple with clouds running past, always hurrying somewhere. There was silence all around, broken only by the sound of footsteps on the stone-paved road. On the sides there were statues of various villains from different fairy tales. Why your consciousness decided to choose them was a question you would like to know the answer to.

This was not the first time you have found yourself in this place. Sometimes the locations were cut out illustrations from a fantasy book, and sometimes they seemed so real that sometimes you were surprised to wake up.

You remembered the very first one from the dream best. It was dark, the source of light was only the lanterns glowing green. Except for the full moon - because, of course, it had to be full - which was burning, a bright noticeable spot, already at this stage not boding anyting well. The road led you through a landscaped park and, it seemed, there was nothing unexpected in this. Until it turned and before your eyes appeared an ornate metal gate, the wicket door standing open. As if inviting you to enter.

In the distance, a castle stood proudly, its sharp towers piercing the sky.

Hearing a horse neighing behind you, you turned around abruptly and woke up. Blinking and trying to catch your breath after the sudden awakening, you replayed such a real scene in your head. As if you had already been there, which was a stupid statement. You were not the type of person running around abandoned buildings and shouting into the void with a flashlight: "Give me a sign!" However, dreams are dreams, and work and getting ready in the mornings were still necessary.

The cold water finally drove away the remnants of sleep, and the amazing dream would have been forgotten in the routine, if it had not been repeated the next night.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Throughout the year.

The bell caught your attention, and you looked up to greet the new customer. It was raining outside, and many people were rushing to hide under the shelter of the roofs of small coffee shops and stores. Yours was no exception.

Well, the cafe wasn't exactly yours. You just worked there as a barista, because, firstly, it wasn't difficult. Secondly, the pay was pretty good. Thirdly… you started working there as a teenager, and now the small establishment had become an integral part of your life. A second home, no matter how saccharine it may sound. You loved this place, and that was only thing that matters.

Usually, the hustle and bustle took up all possible free time and there were no thoughts for unnecessary reflections, but on such a melancholic day with an equally thoughtful accompaniment, it became an exception.

Despite the fact that dreams, against your will, also tightly merged with your everyday life, you could not deny how real they felt from time to time. The texture of objects, the wind on your skin, and even the banal emotions of what was happening. The only thing that kept you afloat was the next awakening after the invisible timer ended. Whatever you saw, whatever place you visited this time, in the end you opened your eyes in your apartment. You walked to your favorite job along familiar streets. You saw the same faces of passersby running through the shop windows to their business.

Everything was as it should have been.

However, you couldn’t shake the feeling that something was slowly starting to change. You no longer felt lonely and restless in the world of dreams. As if you were being thrown into moments when someone was nearby. Even though you couldn’t see each other, the suspicion in the subcortex of your consciousness made itself known.

You first noticed this while sitting in the library, whose shelves with books stretched as far as the view could reach. It was quiet and, taking the first manual on flying on broomsticks that came to hand, you opened it to a random page and dozed off, propping your chin up with your hand. Sleeping in a dream was ironical but the sun shining through the window made you sleepy.

The chair next to you creaked, and you instantly opened your eyes. There was no one nearby. Frowning, you left the book, stood up and walked around the seats, peering around the corners. It was definitely a chair. As if someone had moved it to sit at the table. When you returned to your place, you discovered that the book was closed and put on the edge of the table.

Ghosts didn't exist, you repeated to yourself. Although you were actually asleep, so in the world of your consciousness they could be as real as, for example, you. The realization made you shudder unpleasantly, but not from the cold. The desire to return to the previous place disappeared and, casting another wary glance at the book, you turned to hide in the depths of the library. While away the time until you woke up.

From that moment on, you constantly began to notice someone's invisible presence. Moreover, you could swear that this someone noticed you. You simply did not have direct evidence of each other's existence.

Doubts gnawing from within deprived you of peace during the period intended for rest. Until, finding yourself in the library, you walked to the nearest table to grab a piece of paper and a pen. It looked and sounded stupid. Trying to find an explanation for the oddities in a dream was like asking unnecessary questions in a computer game.

"Are you here?"

Leaving a piece of paper and a pen nearby, you stepped away, turned on your heels and left. If the pen suddenly flew in and started scratching something, you couldn't promise that you wouldn't fall over on the spot. The anticipation was driving you crazy, but it was a necessary decision to try to calm yourself down.

After making a few circles, forcing yourself to read the spines of the books, trying to distract yourself, you walked back slowly. The items were where you left them, only next to your inscription there was another one.

"I'm here"

You dropped into a chair and not taking your eyes off the paper, afraid to touch it. You sat there until you woke up again.

A sigh escaped against your will, forcing your eyes shut and open a couple of times, you tried to straighten up. You probably weren't the best employee today, but the work shift flew by unnoticed. It was time to close. Stepping out into the hall and sitting down on one of the soft chairs, you rubbed the bridge of your nose. That incident wouldn't leave your head and although you never repeated such experiments, it was enough to turn your whole understanding of the dream world upside down. It was one thing to travel to an unknown place and quite another to realize that you were not alone.

The bell on the door rang - someone had arrived. Damn it, you forgot to close the door and turn the sign over. Pulling yourself together, you raised your head to meet an unknown man. Although he was outwardly calm, you noticed how interestedly he was looking around.

"Excuse me, sir, we are closed," you addressed him, drawing his attention to you. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, but you definitely hadn't met before. You remembered most of the cafe's customers. "You can come in tomorrow, we are open from 8 am."

You looked at each other for a while. This gave you another chance to look him over. He was dressed in some sort of uniform: a black jacket and pants, a colorful vest, a white shirt and a striped tie. Then he closed his eyes and answered more cheerfully than you expected.

"Oh, that's too bad," his expression didn't match the bad - for him - news. "I was hoping to get out of the rain."

You glanced at the door behind him, and sure enough, the rain didn't seem to be letting up. A sentence you would never have uttered to anyone in your right mind was out of your mouth before you could stop yourself.

The stranger's eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a happy glint in his eyes. For some reason, the unexpected remark rang in your head like a bell, even though no one was coming in. Without waiting for his answer - your intuition told you that he would not refuse - you went to the door and turned the sign over to "Closed".

"I need to close and clean up, it'll take me," you glanced quickly at the clock by the counter. "Half an hour or so. You can wait there until I'd finish but after you'll have to leave."

You did not believe in fateful meetings, but perhaps this was one of them? It sounded cheesy even to you, so you ignored the man who had settled down on a chair near the display case. Of all the places, he decided to choose this one.

With sheer willpower, you forced yourself to get down to work, already regretting your words. It was too late to take them back and throw him out into the street.

Surprisingly, he did not try to start a conversation with you, limiting himself to rare glances, for which you were grateful. If he suddenly decided to continue the dialogue, you would have caught a nervous overstrain. Enough impressions from this day.

You walked over to where he had been sitting, seemingly a moment ago, to wipe down the surface. Then you froze. There was a white paper napkin with just three words on it,

You finished wiping the tables and looked around the hall. As you got to work, you completely forgot about the man's presence. Turning to the counter, you found that he was no longer there. When did he leave and why didn't you hear? It saved you from unnecessary interaction, though.

"I'm here."

[bluecollarmcandtf]

Which one do you want?

Just off a quiet highway somewhere in the Midwest, you might see James advertising my new product. He used to own this car dealership with his wife, but she's long gone. James hasn't thought about her since I pulled out my pendulum and put him in a trance. He just spends his days standing on the side of the road holding up that sign like I told him to.

You can see I marked him at 40 bucks, which is well over what he's worth, but I like to keep him around to advertise and flag down potential customers. His abs are visible even in the rain, and the neon underwear I put him in is sure to catch every driver's eye.

If you pull into my dealership, I'd be happy to show you my selection you can choose from...

Tyler, here, used to be my brother-in-law, but my sister dumped him real fast after she found the guy was a cheater. Since, he wasn't family anymore, I had no reason not to hypnotize every thought out of his head.

She has no idea I did this to her ex, but it won't hurt to have Tyler out of the picture for good. I like to give him a little punch in the gut every time I pass. It's my form of ongoing payback. He only ever reacts with a stifled groan since his mind is mush, but it's still cathartic to see him in pain.

Tyler will probably go fast since he's so traditionally handsome, but the vengeful part of me hopes a more sadistic client will take him off my hands.

Next is Caesar. This guy used to work at the auto garage next door, but when I saw him I knew I had to have him. He put on a real tough guy act when I introduced myself, but a pudgy working man like him should act accordingly in my opinion.

After introducing his gaze to my pendulum, he practically fell into my arms. I had my fun warping Ceasar's personality to be more like that of a submissive dog, but even that got a bit old. Sure, I made him love and cuddle me like the perfect partner, but he tracked mud everywhere and he always seemed to stink.

I hope whoever pays for him doesn't mind always telling the oaf to hose himself down every once in awhile. I suppose they could just use Ceasar for the cheap manual labor and just forget about his hygiene entirely.

This is Mike. He's a real piece of trash. I caught him trying to steal one of my cars in the middle of the night. He sure was shocked when my army of hypnotized hunks ran out and apprehended him, per my command.

He might look mean, but trust me, Mike's been thoroughly hypnotized and broken in just like every other dude on this lot. He wouldn't be standing there holding that 'For Sale' sign all day if he weren't!

Now, I know that his lack of hair might be a turn off for a lot of folks, so I'm willing to go down on the price. 20 dollars is already pretty low, but I want to make sure you all can afford your own hypnotized hunk. It's not like it's too difficult for me to go out and find a couple more idiots to fill their place. Hell, if you really need it, I might sell you a guy for a dollar!

This boy in blue is Lt. O'Riley. I don't know what his full name is. I'm just going off what it says on his badge. Now, I know that hypnotizing an officer of the law is risky, but O'Riley was being a real pain in my neck, always poking his nose in my business.

I hypnotized his partner too.

I think that guy's name was Brooks or something, but he was real ugly. I would've never been able to sell his fat ass, so I had him hand over his police uniform and turned him into my handyman, who's meant to be neither seen nor heard. He wears an old pair of dirty coveralls now and takes care of all the maintenance work. He's probably off scrubbing my housing from top to bottom right now since it's the middle of the day.

You could do that to officer O'Riley too, if you want, or maybe you keep that precious uniform on him. It's up to you.

This last guy is Don, and I know what you're going to say! I'm a little light on product at the moment, but don't worry.

I'm planning on driving into town real soon and restocking. Maybe I'll grab a few more officers this time. The police department is right down the street from that Halloween store. I could grab a couple more cops and put them in some stupid costumes.

Customers love a themed product, right?

Anyways, Don here didn't do anything to piss me off. He actually stopped in after seeing the sign. He wanted to purchase one of my brainless studs and pimp him out to all his friends for cheap cash. I liked the idea, but Don was far too handsome to just walk off my lot.

I offered to give him a tutorial of my hypnosis, and the guy naively agreed. His car has been collecting dust in the back ever since, and he's been added into the lineup of hot men standing for sale.

So, please come by if you're interested in taking any of these guys on a test drive! Let me know which one sparks your interest!

No need to be nervous.....unless you're a handsome man yourself. Then I might just have to use my pendulum on you!

[anxiouslyeccentric]

Just finished my latest project, I dub it the Wii Balance Skateboard!

Had one of my 3 Wii balance boards sitting in the trunk of my car next to my skatebaords, and thought, "oh ive got an awful idea"

Sourced some trucks, bearings and jelly wheels from a local skate shop i frequent and drilled some holes, and viola! Looks awesome and rides like the worlds heaviest pennyboard!

When i brought it over to the skate shop to show the finished product, i was surprised to find a Pride parade going on, and got a ton of compliments and picture requests! My very first pride was both an accident and a very fun time! This is definitely the most physical game project ive done, most of the stuff i do involving software and data manip, but im very happy with the finished product!

I should say i certainly dont recommend doing this or attempting to ride it, it's pretty fragile and even tho i spaced the wheel as far apart across the board as i could while keeping structural integrity, even the regulars at the skate shop had a lot of trouble staying on it XD. All that said it is a very fun and flashy way to get around on a nicer road! Bonus points for waving the broken wiimote i had laying around to steer!

[ohbo-ohno]

you said ghost lives to serve and i screamed at the top of my lungs how dare you. he never sits still in your shared home. constantly cleaning and upgrading and fixing so you don’t have to. it’s in his blood and his bones to serve in any way he can and now i’m sad🧸

wait i lied im not leaving i love this

ghost only knows how to serve - it's all he did in the military, and it's all he has left now. he genuinely doesn't know how to not serve someone. you're like a beam of light when he finds you - someone good and sweet and soft who he can help. he can offer to fix your ovens, he can help you by bussing tables when you're too busy.

you mention that a bird pooped on your windshield and when you leave the bakery at the end of the day your car is squeaky clean

you lament that your favorite shade of lipstick is about to stop production and ghost drives to every makeup store nearby and buys them out of their stock, offering them as a tip the next morning

you mention needing to find a plumber because there's a leak in the kitchen sink and he almost looks offended, leaves with his tea and come back five minutes later with a toolbox and gets to work

you complain about being stuck on the side of the road for hours waiting for roadside assistance after getting a flat tire, and he gives you his number, tells you you call me next time something like that happens, i'll take care of it for you. (catches himself just in time to not say i'll take care of you)

he comes to your house for the first time when you mention your broken doorbell. fixes it right up for you

he weeds your garden for you while you plant flowers - he's still only comfortable destroying, not growing. you bring him inside for a warm drink and tell him thank you, ramble on about how important weeding is for a garden, and you don't even realize how much it means to him

(also this ghost worships you in bed)

[fangsandfeels]

Bioware had continuity issues before...

...but with Veiguard, I feel like this time it just didn't care and was in a hurry to bury the DA world as fast as possible, so it could proceed to finishing Mass Effect off the same way.

Spoiler-y nitpicks and thoughts below

Once again, I'm all for the premise of almost none of the higher beings and deities of Thedas being kind or benevolent - and all of them turning out to be not what they seemed or were promised to be.

It fits the undergoing theme of every group in Thedas subtly believing that their true gods will come and fix everything, and every atrocity, every bloodbath, every sacrifice will be worth it. For the plot to take away that hope and expose how deep the wounds go, how absolutely wrecked this world is (and you can never un-wreck it , would have been absolutely logical and very in tune with the general tone of the series.

The Old Gods

If Archdemons contain not the souls of the Old Gods, but the key to the Evanuris mortality, why was Solas mad at the Grey Wardens for killing them? Why did Mythal/Flemeth needed to preserve the soul of an Old God? Wouldn't she, a betrayed and angry goddess, want to sever her traitors' connection to immortality? Instead, she wanted it "a piece of what once was, snatched from the jaws of darkness". Something, that meant to be saved from corruption and destruction. But now Solas dismisses it by saying that Old Gods were never a thing, it has always been the Evanuris using dragons as their conduits and immortality placeholders?

Then why did you give Grey Wardens so much crap for killing these dragons, Solas?!

Yeah, we can argue that Solas was worrying about the Evanuris not being able to sustain the Veil due to losing their immortality, but he was going to bring it down anyways? So what difference would it have made anyways?

Something doesn't add up.

I think, the most logical thing would have been to leave the Old Gods as the raw magic incarnate - truly a relict from the world back when magic was everywhere. So, it would have make sense for Flemeth, Morrigan and Solas want to preserve it - despite all the destructive potential, it has always belonged to this world. It would have also explained why darkspawn need to infect the slumbering Old Gods - as ancient magical beings, they are attuned to the world, and the taint means to exploit that connection.

2. The taint and the Blight

If the taint is the product of the Titan's anger and desire for vengeance...why can Ghila'nain use it like her own personal Play-Doh? I'd imagine, the pure concentration of wrath and anger should be particularly deadly for the Evanuris - because it's directed against them, first and foremost. I don't mind the Titans being as the general source of the plague - it would explain the Deep Roads and darkspawn behavior. A twisted wish to be whole again, an unfulfilled desire to keep fighting - a constant, never-ending call to arms. It also would have been a nice callback to the state of the Mother from Awakening: she woke up only to realize and remember what has been done to her, which broke her mind and made her desperate to either die or return to that mindless state of rage and destruction. So do the Titans feel, knowing they were mutilated and plundered, broken apart, and are in too much pain to ever forgive or know peace.

If Titans were so connected to the physical world, the taint changing everything it touches would have made sense: life itself twisting and contorting into a weapon, against an attacker it can't see or find. This is truly tragic, horrifying and realistic - taint as a wound that cannot heal, that festers, and rots but never closes. It's a very accurate depiction of trauma caused by a genocidal war.

Therefore, it would have made more sense if the Evanuris were fucking terrified of the taint and the darkspawn because of how devastating it was to them and because they had no clue how to destroy it - they could only contain it and hope it works.

Maybe Ghila'nain tried to master it but barely survived and went mad, modifying her body and "perfecting" herself as a result. It would still have been possible to keep her obsessed with taint - mostly out of pure denial that something can be beyond her control as she believes herself to be the Goddess of Creation.

Also, you can still have your scarier version of more active and virulent taint - just make it change in response to the gods appearing in the physical world. Make it spread more actively, make the darkspawn go into frenzy, make it look like the new Blight is starting - but now it's as if blindly searching for something or someone. Wouldn't that be fucking creepy?

Maybe, for the first time in a long while, the South of Thedas isn't the one to take a hit - instead, the darkspawn are flocking to where the gods are.

(Of course, the question is, why the taint doesn't target the elves specifically? Because of them losing their immortality - the taint isn't exactly sentient, so it perceives them as part of physical world)

It would have posed such an interesting and controversial option for the player: to weaponize the Blight to end the gods.

3. Maker

I remember that the developers mentioned that the Maker never meant to be real. It was meant to represent the humanity's ability to believe in a symbol. But the Veilguard's "the legend about the Maker was actually about magister's breaking into the prison made by Solas and accidentally blighting all around the place" is such an underwhelming conclusion. After all, the Ashes of Andraste meant to imply that there is something. That it's not just a collective gaslighting - but something else.

I feel like they could have made so much with it:

In the context of the taint's connection to the Titans, what if Maker has always been somewhat of an emissary of the taint? It was cut off from the dwarves and locked away - but it needed a way out, right? Even subconsciously, it knew that it has to get out. It was the music that kept playing, the song that called. So, it reached out to other beings of the physical world, whispering to them and beckoning them. Andraste, due to probably being a Dream Walker or extremely sensitive to the Fade, caught a glimpse of that events, but was never able to make sense of it, which led her to fill in the gaps, which led to the creation of andrastianism. Therefore, Maker didn't leave the Golden City - once the taint was released, it fulfilled its purpose.

What if Andraste willed the Maker into existence? Since Fade is attuned to people's dreams, thoughts, and inner worlds, maybe Andraste's connection to it was so strong, it channeled her pain, her wish for justice and salvation into a figure that she believed to be the Maker? What if she was even able to perform miracles with the Maker as her avatar, turning people into believers? So, logically, when she died, the Maker stopped responding: she was no longer there to sustain him. No amount of prayers and sermons, of repressions and murders, of crusades and chats would have made the Maker return - because the only person actually capable of that was burned and killed long ago. This would have also explained why some spirits believe in Maker because they saw him in people's dreams - the Maker never existed in any other shape and it couldn't manifest completely because his image differed based on individual person's imagination and convictions.

After all, the true horror of living is realizing that nobody is control. Nobody is coming to fix things for you. There is no hope - only the consequences you are forced to live in.

[littlemissstel]

Pit Stop - Shiu Kong

On your way to the mechanics your car breaks down and who better to call then your handler?

SFW, no use of (Y/n), name used is "Doll", not proofread, pre-relationship

dividers by @saradika-graphics

You were feeling good about yourself when you woke up this morning. For some reason your body decided to wake up at 6 am yet you have never felt more rested in your life. You had no jobs today- you didn't need to work for the next year if you wanted to with how much your last hit paid and you finally tried that viral french toast recipe that had been sitting in your "favourites" folder for the last 6 months.

You felt good.

And in your productive haze you had decided that you felt good enough to finally go to the mechanics and fix the irritating engine warning light that had been incessantly pestering you for as long as you had the car...Now especially since another light had just come on.

It was almost time to be re-serviced anyway, so what could go wrong?

"no...no, no, no, no- please no"

You were begging your car as it spluttered back. If it could talk you had no doubt it would be swearing at you right now.

The car moved sluggishly as you pulled over, it wasn't a busy road surrounded by nothing but bushes, trees and discarded litter; and you couldn't help but feel a wave of embarrassment as you came to a stop. Turns out the blinking light wasn't just for show.

"fuuucckkkk"

So what do you do now? You had no one to call...well you should probably start with a breakdown service but then what would you do? Even with your hoard of money you'd rather not pay their prices and, if needed, there's no way a tow truck could fit down these roads.

Going down your list of contacts one caught your eye. Shiu.

He seemed the obvious choice, no? The man drove cars for a living if you take out the other details and you're sure he liked you enough to come get you. Maybe you could persuade him by taking him to get those steamed rice rolls he enjoyed the last time you grabbed lunch together.

The debate in your head could go on forever but, either way, he was your only choice. And so you called, the phone ringing for only a second before he picked up.

"Hello?" his gruff voice was instantly welcomed by your ears.

"Hey, are you free?"

"I can be, why?"

You paused for a moment, sheepishly, before releasing a sharp exhale.

"My cars broken down on the side of-" you looked for a sign, "- in the middle of nowhere. I'm kind of stuck. If you're not too busy can you pick me up? I can send you my location and get someone to deal with the rest later."

"Sure. Be there soon"

"Thank you so much"

And with that the call was finished. Simple enough. You could laugh at yourself for overthinking.

It wasn't another twenty minutes before you saw Shiu's car pulling up behind yours, he came into view wearing his signature suit, though his blazer was discarded allowing your eyes to linger on his broad shoulders. You hopped out to meet him half-way with a grateful smile on your face.

"Thank you again"

"Don't worry about it, you really weren't joking when you said the middle of nowhere though Doll. What were you doing? Having a picnic?" He replies walking over, voice dripping in sarcasm. Believe it or not, you don't have to spend a lot of time with Shiu to realise the handlers sassy personality, just somewhat focused, otherwise you'll miss his double sided remarks.

"No, thank you. I was on my way to the mechanic-"

He stifles a laugh.

"A bit late don't you think?"

"Well it wasn't my intention was it- what are you doing?" you ask as he lifts the car bonnet.

"Checking what's wrong. You have problems with your car and don't think to call the man who works with them?"

"I didn't think you'd want to help me out with something like that...I wouldn't. And it was just the engine light before."

He catches your eye, amused.

"I am hurt Doll."

His arms flexed as he tampered with the car, eyebrows knitted into a subtle frown, he focused- you couldn't help but stare. You had known Shiu was attractive, it wasn't a secret and you were sure he knew it too. You've heard the (watered down) stories he's told you about this twenties and though he jokingly refers to himself as an "old man" he carries enough confidence to show he isn't really bothered by it. You were sure he knew you thought he was attractive too, especially with the amount of times he's caught you staring.

Like right now.

"Doll."

"Yes?"

He walks closer to you slowly with a smirk on his face and you start to feel self conscious with the way his eyes stay attached to yours, not straying for a second.

"Your cars fine...Just low on coolant fluid."

"Right...It did say that..."

He shakes his head.

"Thank you for coming out here though, maybe i could take you to the restaurant we went to last week? As a thank you?" You quirk a brow staring up at him expectantly.

You both stay there for a second, matching each others foolish smiles.

"Didn't know fixing your car would get you to ask me out Doll."

Shiu is my husband.

let me know what you think and please feel free to use my inbox to talk or request <3

[theficpusher]

If This Is To End In Fire by Jiksa | E | 4306 Apocalypse makes it sound a lot more glamorous than it actually is.

It's Been a Minute Since I Called You by winterschild | nr | 5336 “Hi, mum. It’s been a minute since I called ya. I know you won’t get this, but I’m going to leave a message anyway.” He didn’t want to feel alone. In order to cope with grief, Louis has been paying for his mum's phone so he can leave her voicemails to calm him down. One day, when he forgets to pay her bill, the number disconnects and is later given to Harry Styles, a baker with a kind heart. On a drunken night, Louis leaves another voicemail, but how will Harry respond to this man, who sounds so broken? OR This is a self-indulgent, Louis centric fic about grief and a very kind person who takes concern for the small Doncaster boy with a somewhat broken heart.

Always Keep You Next To Me by lululawrence | nr | 8325 Louis jumped when the passenger side door opened and Greg somehow folded his entire lanky frame into the car. “Hey, thanks for waiting for me,” Greg said with a small smile before buckling up. “Do I get the honor?” Right. Louis couldn’t drive safely with Will’s remains in his arms. It was just ever since his mom had handed the urn over to him last night, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to let it go. He’d even curled up around it on Will’s childhood bed as he called his cell over and over again, just to hear his voice once more. Fuck. When Louis' twin dies, Louis decides to take the birthday road trip they were meant to take together with Will's best friend Greg instead. As they both mourn Will's death and celebrate his life, Louis and Greg become closer and maybe start to heal a little bit too.

Keep Driving by dead_tobeginwith | M | 11726 The first time Louis picks him up, it’s raining. He slides into the backseat smelling like hospital, like plasters and cleaning products and burnt coffee. He shuts the door and leans against the window, folding his arms protectively across his chest. He sighs heavily and closes his eyes. There’s a crease between his brows. It must have been a long day. Louis feels it when one of his knobby knees starts bobbing an uneasy rhythm. Bad news, then. Or waiting for bad news. Sometimes purgatory is the worst kind of hell. Either way, he says nothing. Louis watches his breath fog the window in the rearview mirror. When he drops him at the station, there’s a little frowny face fading in the misted glass. _________ OR Louis works as a driver contracted through the local cancer institute. All of his clients are associated with the hospital—mostly patients and their families heading home. One rainy afternoon, he picks up Harry.

You Might Want to Marry My Husband by Rearviewdreamer | nr | 24528 When Harry’s husband dies, he asks one thing of him; to find love and happiness again without him. It’s a request that Harry is happy to disregard, until he meets the one person who is impossible to ignore.

like a timebomb ticking by infinitelymint | M | 31734 Louis loses everything. Harry's still there.

we should open up (before it's all too much) by disgruntledkittenface | M | 43129 “I’m not–” Harry breaks off, his voice strangled as he clutches his phone in his hand. He takes a breath and looks up, trying to keep the tears threatening to spill over at bay. “Louis, I’m not very good company these days. I–” “Harry,” Louis interrupts, his raspy voice soft and soothing. “I get it. Sometimes it’s just easier to be alone, yeah?” Harry nods, blinking back the last of his tears. “But it can get lonely,” Louis states. Harry nods again even though it wasn’t a question, finally looking back at him. “So why don’t we try being alone, together?” Struggling with grieving and depression since his dad died, Harry has never felt so alone. It’s too much to cope with on his own, but he feels like a burden when he tries to open up with people. Then he meets Louis.

Plant New Seeds in the Melody by 28sunflowers | E | 58700 After losing his husband in a tragic car accident, the last thing Louis needs is to keep running into popstar Harry Styles, who David was quite fond of. Obviously, that’s exactly what keeps happening. But as their unlikely friendship blossoms, Louis realizes that, maybe, having Harry in his life was the only good thing that came out of his adverse circumstances. Harry could be just the right person to help Louis find trust and intimacy in someone new.

shelter as we go by fondleeds | nr | 75094 Louis looks at him like his words might break him, glass about to splinter, one wrong footfall away from shattering into a million tiny pieces. “Hey,” Harry breathes, and he knows, meeting Louis’ eyes, that his words could break him easy as anything. He almost wants Louis to bring his boot down. - AU. Nova Scotia, 1968.

[slutforsilverfoxes]

Sleight of Hand

[A/N: I DID IT! I finished my Steve x reader undercover op fic, and I kind of love it??? I hope those of you who were looking forward to it enjoy it too 😈🖤 Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to write this as a full blown fic! Over 5.7k words hehe whoops]

—————

When your former mentor had contacted you about an opening at her coral reef research lab, moving from Camden to Oahu had been a no brainer. You’d packed up your life in New Jersey and been on a plane to the Aloha State within a week. Your favorite cousin, who’s truthfully more like the big brother you always wanted, had been elated to hear the news, welcoming you at the airport with open arms and two simple rules.

“Always answer the phone when I call so you don’t worry me to death,” Danny had said, holding up one finger, “and two,” he added a second, “you’re an adult and you can date anyone on this island-”

“Thank… you?”

“-but stay away from this schmuck.”

The schmuck in question had simply rolled his eyes, draped a beautiful lei around your neck, and greeted you with a warm hug. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Steve.”

Your confident promise to your cousin had been broken a whopping two months later- and no, you hadn’t ignored one of his phone calls.

“Did you get me a beer?” you ask with a teasing lilt to your voice, wringing out your wet hair before dropping down onto the bench beside your boyfriend. A quick glance around reveals that Danny’s over by the shrimp truck with Kamekona, and you lean forward to steal a kiss before putting some space between yourself and your favorite brunette.

“I surely did not,” Steve sasses back and takes a swig of his ice cold beverage. “Alcohol and diving do not mix. But I did happen to get a mango smoothie from that one place down the road this pretty girl I know really likes.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm,” he responds, a goofy grin spreading across his handsome face. “But, uh, she didn’t show, so I guess you can have it.”

You laugh and give him a playful shove, then let out a content hum as you pop the straw through the lid and take a grateful sip. “So good,” you moan in delight, and Steve has to bite his lip to refrain from making a comment when he spots Danny approaching the table with your regular orders.

“Hey, you.” Your cousin greets you with a kiss on the cheek before taking up residence on the bench across from you and Steve. “Why’re you sitting all the way over there, huh? You like that clown better or somethin’?”

“This guy?” you snort, taking your lunch off the tray and rifling through the napkins in search of a fork.

“Ouch.” Steve winces as if burned by your comment, and you surreptitiously squeeze his thigh beneath the table.

“So tell me about this case you’ve got,” you coax your cousin to change the subject, spearing some grilled veggies on the plastic fork’s tines and scooping up a respectable mound of rice on top.

“So there’s a diamond smuggling ring-” Danny starts, and you immediately cut him off with, “Shut up, that doesn’t happen in real life.” You turn to Steve for confirmation, but there’s no provocative arch to his eyebrow or twitching of his lips to suggest this is a joke. “Are you serious right now? BFFR, Danno.”

“I don’t- I don’t know what that means. Why are you making me feel old?”

“Be fucking for real,” you and Steve supply in unison, and you smile proudly at him. “You’re learning!”

“Between you and Gracie, I keep up, okay?”

“Oh, between my baby cousin and my daughter, you- okay, that’s excellent,” Danny proclaims, his tone indicating it’s anything but. “Anyway, they’re using poker games as a cover to uh, collect their product, shall we say.”

“There’s enough rich people on Oahu with actual diamonds?” you ask, incredulous. “And here I am working like a pleb for paper currency.”

“Word,” Steve seconds your statement, raising his beer in a toast. You clink your smoothie against it before taking another refreshing sip and asking, “So how’re you gonna catch them?”

“Well, there’s a high roller tournament on Friday night that we’re betting they’ll hit. We wanted to go in undercover and flush them out but…” Steve trails off and gazes at you thoughtfully, but Danny’s shaking his head before the words have even formed on the brunette’s lips.

“No, absolutely not. Don’t even think about it, Steve.”

“What?” You turn to him, excitement coursing through your veins at the way his eyes have lit up. “Think about it! And tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“You could go undercover with me to the tournament, help me gather some intel. Maybe we get you to confirm the diamonds are actually in their possession and-”

“No!” Danny chimes in again. “What’s the matter with you, huh? These guys have killed two people, Steve. It’s too dangerous for her.”

“First off, fuck that-”

“Language.”

With an eye roll, you amend, “Forget that. More importantly, shouldn’t Danny go undercover? You kind of suck at poker, Steve.” You feel a sharp pinch at your side and you yelp in protest, slapping at the Navy SEAL. “It’s true, you little-”

“You’re not going,” Danny says definitively. “What about Tani?”

Steve shakes his head. “Tani and Junior have already questioned two of the men involved. They’ll be made before they even get to the table.”

You cross your arms and level your cousin with a smirk. “Sounds like you need me, Danno.”

“Then I’m going with you,” he declares.

“Yeah, no, hard pass,” you backpedal. “Even as a former thespian, there’s no way I can convincingly play arm candy for you without it being weird.”

“So, it’s settled then, little Williams,” Steve says with a grin. “You and me. Friday night. The high roller table at the Ilikai Hotel.”

__________

“This whole affair is giving very much Ocean’s Thirteen,” you remark as you lean into the mirror to line your puckered lips with Devil’s Den red. “The diamond heist, the poker game… it’s all so exciting.”

“Except this isn’t Hollywood and a bullet will actually hurt,” your cousin ever so graciously reminds you, trying to tug the slit ends of your dress together and then grunting in displeasure when the action reveals more of your bare back. “You’ve gotta be kidding me with this dress, babe,” he tuts. “Why’s it so expensive if it’s missing half the fabric, huh?”

You shrug and answer with a smile, “Don’t ask me! Your buddy picked it out.”

“Oh yeah, I bet he did,” Danny grumbles under his breath. “I mean, you’d be the most beautiful woman in the room if you were wearing a paper bag, but this- this dress-”

“Danno,” you laugh, completing the finishing touches on your makeup before turning around to squeeze his shoulder. “Remember one of the first things you said to me when I stepped off the plane?”

“Don’t date Steve?” he offers hopefully with a grimace.

That ship has sailed and it’s not docking anytime soon, you think wryly. “No, you goofball,” you respond instead, “that I’m an adult. Everything’s going to be fine!”

“Alright, okay, but just- just promise me you’ll be smart tonight and play it safe.”

With three fingers held aloft, you answer solemnly, “I promise.”

“And don’t let Steve talk you into doing something stupid, okay? No honeypot insanity or trying to sneak into rooms or anything, you got it?”

You press your lips to your cousin’s cheek and then wipe away the smudged lipstick. “Relax, Danny. The man’s a former SEAL. What could possibly go wrong?”

You open the door of the en-suite bathroom with a small smirk tugging at your lips as Danny splutters on behind you in answer to your incendiary question.

As soon as your stiletto touches down on the carpeted floor of the luxury hotel room, you’re hit with an enthusiastic, “Woah, baby!”

“You like?” you ask with a grin, holding your arms out at your sides and giving Tani a spin to show off the dress.

Tani laughs appreciatively and lets out a low whistle. “You are smokin’ hot. I am looking… disrespectfully,” she concludes after pretending to mull over her word choice. She sneaks a glance over at her boss who’s trying and failing to draw his gaze away from the high slit that’s showing off a majority of your leg, then steps closer to you and drops her voice. “And I’m not the only one.” You shush your friend quickly and she ducks away from your playful smack with another peal of laughter.

“Wow,” Steve breathes out, practically sporting heart-eyes as he drinks in the black silk hugging every curve of your body. His piercing blue eyes blaze a trail of heat from the stilettos on your feet to the low bun your hair is swept into, and you feel your skin grow warm under his attention.

“You look pretty wow yourself,” you remark, appreciating the smart tux he’s donned, the perfectly tailored suit accenting every defined muscle on his powerful body. The blush on your face deepens when your gaze meets his, catching a glimpse of a hungry predator on the prowl.

“No, but you, Y/N,” Steve counters, his voice a low growl, “you just- I mean- wow.” He looks ready to pounce, and you’re positive he would forego the event in lieu of spending the evening in bed if there wasn’t a case riding on your performance tonight- and your cousin who you’re keeping your relationship a secret from less than a foot away.

Danny snaps in his face, directing the brunette’s attention to him. “Don’t you gawk at her like that. Paws off my baby cousin, you hear me? Better use the right head tonight, Steven, I swear.”

You dart your eyes over to your boyfriend and make an intentionally obscene gesture with your hands, indicating which head you’re thinking about. He covers up his laugh with a cough, then hurries to reassure his partner. “Danno, c’mon. I’m a perfect gentleman. Aren’t I, Y/N?”

“You’re an animal, is what you are,” your beloved cousin continues his tirade, answering for you. “Just remember I’m watching, huh? I’ve got eyes on all the cameras.”

“Alright, people, focus now,” Lou admonishes gently, handing you and Steve small communications devices that you fit snugly into your ear, out of plain sight. “Y’all remember the plan?”

“Stand there and look pretty. Don’t get shot at,” you dutifully list off your objectives for the op with an exaggerated waggling of your eyebrows while Steve tests the microphone tucked away in his bow tie. “As an unofficial member of Five-0 now, do I get a gun?”

“Are you insane?” Danny cries as Steve asks, genuinely, “Where would you even hide a gun in that dress?”

Unable to resist, you shoot him a coy smile and challenge, “Wouldn’t you like to know, Commander?”

“Woah.” Your cousin holds his hands up between the two of you and declares, “Flag on the play. Don’t- Don’t do that. No flirting. Get in, entice Lee to steal your fake diamonds, get out. Deal?”

“We’ve got it, Detective,” Steve huffs, bending down to adjust his ankle holster.

Junior approaches then with a gorgeous looking diamond necklace and announces, “Got our bait here, boss.”

“Excellent,” Steve says, taking the jewelry from him and motioning for you to turn around. He gathers the necklace in one hand, his fingers drifting across your shoulder and collarbone to grasp one end before he fits it snugly around your neck. The simple touch has your veins flooding with heat, but you tamp down your reaction, keenly aware of the multiple sets of eyes on the two of you. “Tight enough?” he murmurs, and you nod in response, not yet trusting your voice.

“Oh, and one more thing!” Lou reaches into his pocket and pulls out a box, opening it with a flourish to reveal one simple silver band, the other studded with diamonds. “Little extra bling for good measure.” Your cheeks flush at the sight, and you turn your face away from Steve while you slide the wedding ring onto your finger.

One glance at its mate on your boyfriend’s hand has you weak in the knees, and Tani whispers, “Girl, you are down bad.”

“Shut up,” you hiss, fighting the blush threatening to give you away. Steve approaches with one eyebrow raised in curiosity, and you clear your throat before taking the arm he’s offered to you. You tuck your hand into the crook of his elbow, pressing yourself close to him and sending a sharp look to your older cousin when you feel his eyes boring holes into the two of you. “Knock it off, Danny.”

He cups your face between his hands and pulls you closer to press a kiss to your forehead with an apologetic smile. “Be smart. Be safe. I love you. You watch her back, okay?” He directs the last comment to his best friend with all the gruffness of a father sending his daughter off to prom.

“I will, Danny,” Steve answers solemnly, squeezing your hand.

“Alright, buddy. But not too close, okay? Remember, I’m always watch-”

You pull the door shut behind you with a sigh. Steve guides you down the hallway towards the elevators, and your grip on his arm tightens at the prospect of what you’re about to do.

Steve immediately intuits your nerves and offers a soothing, “Hey, you’re okay.” He takes your left hand in his, his right hand coming to rest on the small of your back so you feel completely enveloped by his steadying presence. He lets his thumb drift back and forth across your skin, just above where the fabric drapes at the base of your spine, and your comms come crackling to life. “Higher.”

Steve shifts his hand up with a chuckle, and your cousin begrudgingly remarks, “Better.”

The moment relieves some of your tension, and you shake your head before pressing the call button for the elevator. The lavish gold doors open to reveal an already sizable group dressed to the nines and clearly heading to the big casino-sponsored event downstairs. Steve applies gentle pressure on your back to guide you into the elevator, and as you descend each floor and the crowd grows, you’re forced closer together in the corner. “You’re wearing a new perfume,” Steve comments, his lips right by your ear to avoid your conversation being picked up by his mic.

“How observant,” you reply. “My boyfriend bought it for me.”

“He has excellent taste,” he continues the charade, and you resist the urge to roll your eyes at the compliment. With the crowd in the elevator blocking the camera’s view, Steve allows his fingers to glide down your spine until they reach their intended destination, and he sucks in a sharp breath when he realizes you’re not wearing anything under your dress. You smirk to yourself but quickly lose the upper hand, forced to swallow down a gasp when the elevator doors open into the lobby and Steve brazenly palms your ass while calmly stating, “Target acquired.”

“We see him, too,” Junior affirms. “East corner of the lobby, talking to the concierge.”

“Come on, darling,” Steve croons, settling into character- or rather dropping your usual act. “Let’s go win me some more money to spend on you.”

__________

“No entry without invitation, sir.”

You crane your neck to look up at the beefy bodyguard at the entrance to the high roller section. His biceps must be the size of your head, if not bigger, he’s got at least 6 inches on Steve, and his hulking form is completely blocking your view of the room behind him.

“Honey,” you murmur, “you brought it with you, didn’t you?”

Steve gives you an easy smile and pulls a gold-plated poker chip from the breast pocket of his tux. “Of course, my love.”

“Alright, enough with the cutesy nicknames,” Danny gripes, and you’re forced to stifle a laugh at Tani admonishing him in the background. The security guard pulls back the velvet rope to let you pass, and you duck behind the curtain to cross into the high roller area.

The room is a sea of expensive suits and sparkling cocktail dresses. A thick cloud of sweet-smelling smoke has settled in the air from the Cubans lit around the room, and the distinct symphony of ice clinking in glass tumblers joins the hum of dealers murmuring at their tables.

“Why don’t you go get us a drink and I’ll find a table to join?”

“The usual?” you purr in question, running your manicured fingers across the lapel of Steve’s suit.

“That’s perfect,” he assents, squeezing your hip before releasing you to do your own recon. Then you feel his fingers lace through yours and he murmurs, “Y/N, wait.” When you turn back to Steve, he tugs you closer by your connected hands and presses his lips to yours in a kiss that has your head buzzing before a drop of alcohol has even hit your tongue. “Lee’s watching,” he whispers against your mouth by way of explanation.

“Then let’s give him something to look at,” you respond with a glint in your eye, winding your arms around his neck and pulling him in for another kiss. Steve’s left hand comes up to rest on the nape of your neck as the other caresses the diamond fitted snuggly against the hollow of your throat, making sure that it catches the light just so as you lay the groundwork for your operation tonight.

“He’s practically suffocating her,” Danny cries in the hotel room upstairs, hands raised while he stares at the two of you in disbelief. “What’d I say about ‘not too close’, huh? Animal.”

“Okay, lovebirds, get some air,” Lou chuckles over your comms. “Seems like our man Lee has his eye on the prize now.”

Junior leans over to Tani as he watches the two of you part ways on screen, tracking your path to the bar with a skeptical brow. “Is it just me, or was that… intense?”

“C’mon, Junes,” she laughs breezily. “That is theater at its finest.”

“One scotch on the rocks, and one vodka tonic that’s light on the tonic,” you place your order at the bar, absentmindedly letting your fingers drift over the diamonds as you peruse the top shelf.

“Easy there, cowgirl,” Danny coaches in your ear. You look around for the nearest mounted dome camera and make a face at it. “Real mature, kid.”

You feel a heated gaze on your back, and you turn to flash a coy smile at Mister Jason Lee, the suspected brains behind the smuggling operation, before collecting your drinks and making your way back to Steve.

“He’s interested,” you murmur in his ear as you bend down to place the glass between his hands on the table. “But we need to really hook him. Better start throwing some money around, hotshot.”

“Go ahead, baby,” Steve says animatedly, attracting the attention of the other players around the table. He makes a big show of closing his eyes and letting you bet for him, clearly unaffected by winning or losing a few hundred on your blind faith. As you lean over to push a stack of chips towards the pot, you hear an appreciative titter around the table and turn to find Steve with one eye very obviously peeking- but definitely not at what your hands are doing.

“Naughty boy,” you scold playfully, and he offers his palms in an act of mock deference.

“Can you blame the man?” one of the other players barks out through a raucous laugh, and you smile politely even though their leering eyes make your skin crawl. When you bend to retrieve your drink, Steve moves closer with a grin and whispers in your ear, “If one of them so much as breathes in your direction, I’ll break off every one of their fingers and feed them to ‘em, okay, mama?”

Acutely aware that Danny and the rest of the team are watching your every interaction, you suppress a shiver and murmur back, “Sir, yes, sir.”

Steve has mixed luck on his first few hands, but you’re sure to make a big show of celebrating each win with a kiss that has the older women in the room clutching their proverbial pearls and Lee hanging onto your every move. You toy with the necklace as a nervous habit each time Steve places his bet and let your fingers trail across his broad shoulders as he studies each hand, squeezing affectionately every now and then.

“I hate this,” Danny declares, a dismayed frown tugging at his lips as he watches you on the live CCTV footage. On the small screen, you drape your arms around Steve’s neck and press a kiss to his cheek before murmuring something in his ear that’s too quiet for the hidden mic to pick up but has Steve grinning like a fool. “I hate this. Why did I let him talk me into this? Putz.”

“Relax, Danny,” Lou attempts to soothe his ruffled feathers. “They’re doing great.”

“Hey, hey, look!” Tani calls to garner their attention. “They’ve lured Lee in. He’s about to make contact.”

“Good evening,” he opens politely, pulling out the chair next to Steve.

“Evening,” your boyfriend offers in kind.

“Do you mind if I join you for the next hand?”

“Not at all,” you purr. “Perhaps you can help break my husband’s current losing streak.”

“With a good luck charm like you on his arm?” Lee counters smoothly. “Impossible.”

“From your mouth to the cards’ ears,” you laugh airily. “Let me go get you another drink, my love,” you say to excuse yourself, running your hand down Steve’s arm to collect his glass. “Can I get you anything, Mister…?”

“Good girl,” Tani praises you quietly over your comms.

“Lee,” he supplies. “But please, call me Jason.” He raises the remaining amber liquid in his glass with a smile then says, “Perhaps when I finish this drink, I’ll have what your husband’s having. Clearly he’s got excellent taste.” The way his eyes wander across your body isn’t lost on you.

“Arrogant son of a bitch,” Lou scoffs to his fellow team members upstairs. “Not even using an alias.”

Steve notices Lee’s hungry gaze straying from his cards to appreciate your form against the backdrop of the expansive bar and remarks, “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Indeed,” he agrees, swirling the expensive liquor in his glass before taking a sip. “Women like that are hard to find. As rare as that diamond around her neck.”

“Laying it on thick there, buddy,” Danny comments over your comms, and you steal a glance over to the table. “Take the bait, Steve.”

“Only the finest for my girl.”

When you return to the table with your and Steve’s drinks in hand, he hooks his ankle around the chair beside him and tugs it close for you to sit by him. “Slick move, double-oh-five-oh,” you murmur appreciatively in his ear before nipping at his earlobe. He seems extra possessive now, his hand either resting on your thigh, or your hip, or the back of your neck, always maintaining some form of skin to skin contact while the other holds his cards, and you can’t help but wonder what transpired between the two men.

Leaning over, Steve presses his lips to the point where your pulse thrums along your throat and asks, “What should we bet, beautiful girl?”

“Hm?” Your gaze is hazy, more so drunk on Steve’s touch than alcohol, and the unbidden thought that you can’t wait for this guy to be in cuffs so you can take your man home crosses your mind. You run your manicured fingers down his cheek and answer coyly, “I want you to go all in.”

The two of you dutifully ignore Danny’s protesting in your ears at your overt innuendo as Steve pushes his stack of chips to the center of the table.

“A bold move,” Lee declares with a whistle.

“What’s a few thousand when I have a million on my arm, hm?” your boyfriend counters with a sly glance in your direction.

“Let’s make this a real game. I’m all in, too.”

The dealer flips over the river card, and Steve’s arm tenses beneath your fingertips. The other few players around the table toss their cards aside with a sigh, but Lee looks over at the two of you with a grin, presenting his hand- a flush- with a flourish. He stands to collect the pot but Steve holds up one finger.

“Not so fast, my friend,” he laughs, his confidence making your body grow warm. Steve lays his hand out on the table with a smug smile. “Full house. Aces over eights.”

You let out an excited squeal, genuinely delighted at such a triumphant win, and pull Steve toward you by the lapels of his jacket to mold your lips to his. He makes an appreciative noise low in the back of his throat and his hand comes up to cup your neck in an overtly possessive manner that has you melting into his embrace. You feel his fingers playing with the clasp resting at the nape of your neck, and then the necklace falls into your lap, the next phase of your ruse in full effect now.

You pull back with a gasp and pout at Steve, your eyes wide. “It broke!”

“Then I’ll buy you ten more,” he answers easily, shrugging off your concern. “Go put it upstairs and don’t give it a second thought, okay?” He presses his lips to yours once more and gives you an affectionate pat below the dip of your dress when you stand that has you blushing. You can practically feel Danny’s laser eyes through the screen where he’s watching you.

You make sure to wobble the tiniest bit when you move, steadying yourself on Steve’s shoulder with a laugh. “What was our room number, honey?”

He shares a knowing look with your mark, then jokes, “How many vodka tonics have you had, hm? How many fingers am I holding up?” He has his fist raised and you smack at his chest with an eye roll. “217, my love,” Steve supplies before taking your hand and kissing the wedding band adorning your ring finger.

You head upstairs to the empty room the team had rented for this very purpose and place the necklace in the carefully concealed safe in the cupboard. When you return to the table, you find Steve alone.

“Where’s our friend?”

“Turned in for the night after that big loss,” your boyfriend supplies, winking at you. “Shall we?”

He offers you his arm, and after collecting his winnings, the two of you make your way to the lobby to lie in wait. “You’re going to be insufferable about that win forever now, aren’t you?”

“You said I was bad at poker,” Steve reminds you.

“You still are,” you fire back. “Dumb luck one time does not a skilled player make.”

“Jeez, boss,” Junior’s voice comes crackling in over your comms. “Want some ice for that burn?”

“Would you just- would you shut up and focus on the room, please?”

After a few minutes of waiting with no sighting of Lee, you lean into Steve’s chest and ask the team, “Anything?”

“Girl, hop off the mic,” Lou admonishes you, and you jump back from Steve. “We can hear you when you talk normally. Damn.”

Leaning back in, this time you whisper, “Sorry, guys.”

“Hey, McGarrett?” Tani speaks calmly but you can hear an edge of tension to her voice. “At your 4 o’clock, there’s two guys in suits who’ve had an eye on your table all night. I thought they were watching for potential card counting but they seem to have taken an interest in you and Y/N.”

“Copy,” Steve says quietly, pulling you closer to his body in a protective move in case all hell breaks loose.

“Let’s just show them we’re not a threat,” you offer.

“You want to go back in?”

“I was thinking of a more… hands on approach.” As the clicking of Italian leather shoes on the polished floor grows closer to you, you spin Steve around and push him against the wall, crashing into him for a heated kiss. His strong hands caress your bare back for a moment before one stays put to hold you against him while the other deftly undoes the knot holding your bun, your hair cascading down to its full length so Steve can use it for better leverage. You can’t help but moan into his mouth as he kisses you like a man starved until you’re shaken from your stupor by yelling approaching the lobby.

“Hey! Five-0! Stop running, dumbass!”

Without opening your eyes or breaking your kiss, you stick your foot out at the opportune time, making contact with the ankle of your diamond thief’s leg so he goes sprawling. There’s a faint splash to your right, and when you pull away for a breath, you can see your necklace winking at you from the lobby fountain.

Danny catches up to the scene and yells, “Hands- hey! Hands!”

Lee raises his hands above his head with a sigh, but your cousin continues on, “You two! Yeah, let me see your hands, too!” You turn to find Danny’s gun aimed at the diamond smuggler, but his fiery eyes are trained on you while Tani and Junior wrestle the other two lackeys to the floor nearby. You exchange a look with Steve, then feel the warmth of his palms leave your bare skin as the two of you slowly raise your hands as well. Clearing your throat, you offer meekly, “We’re really into method acting?”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Danny growls, slapping zip ties on a defiant Lee and ratcheting them tight before hauling him to his feet.

“Hey, man, ease up,” he whines and Danny barks, “You shut up.” He continues lamenting his woes audibly as he leads the thief to the waiting squad car, grumbling, “Had enough of all of you. My baby cousin and my best friend. Christ. What am I gonna tell my aunt?”

Steve whistles low under his breath when Danny’s out of earshot, then mutters, “That could’ve gone better.”

“On the plus side,” you comment, “he still referred to you as his best friend.”

Tani shoots you a sympathetic smile when she passes by with the man she apprehended, but Junior wastes no time leaning in and playfully tutting, “Bus-ted.” Steve raises one eyebrow and he tacks on a hurried, “Sir.”

—————

With Lee and his crew stewing in interrogation and HPD clearing the scene, you’re left sitting on the couch in Steve’s office like kids who got sent to the principal for misbehaving in school. The three of you must look ridiculous from the rest of the team’s point of view- you clad in spare clothes from Steve’s wardrobe in his office that you’re positively swimming in, your 40-plus-year-old boyfriend in a full tux with his bow tie and top few buttons undone, hand pressed over his mouth to avoid saying something that will further incense your cousin, and said cousin still dressed in his shirt and tie pacing the floor in front of you with his hands flying to emphasize every point he makes.

“And you-” Danny pauses his pacing to point an accusatory finger at his best friend. “How old are you, huh?” The finger changes angles to point at you. “And how old is she?”

“Do you want me to actually answer the quest-”

“No, Steve, they’re rhetorical questions! I know how old you are, and I’ll tell you! Too old for my baby cousin, that’s how old, huh? What’s the matter with you?”

“Why don’t you let Y/N speak for herself, Danny? Gotta let her grow up, buddy, c’mon now.”

“Thank you!” you cry. “Can I say something?”

The blonde and brunette duo turns to look at you with the same infuriating, incredulous look before simultaneously deciding, “No.”

“Alright, y’know what?” You slap your hands against your thighs and stand with a huff. “You two-” You point back and forth between Steve and Danny before continuing, “You work out your little marital spat. Daniel, when you’re ready to talk to me like the adult I am, I’ll be with Tani. After I drink some water. Because I’m still buzzed.” With that, you attempt to walk out of your boyfriend’s office with your head held high but are thwarted by the door, pushing on it to no avail.

“It’s a pull-” Danny says quietly, and Steve jumps in at the same time, “Pull, babe, you gotta pull on the-”

“I got it,” you bark at them, tugging on the glass door with a grumble about architectural intuitiveness.

After a long conversation with Steve and a short interrogation with Lee and his associates, Danny finds you nursing a bottle of water in Tani’s office, as promised. She slips out as your cousin takes a seat next to you, pulling you into a hug that you allow yourself to melt into even though you mutter all the while under your breath about his overprotective nature.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t just tell me you were seeing Steve.”

Woah. What?

“What?” Danny laughs. “You were right. We should talk about this like adults.”

“Did I say that out loud?”

“The ‘Woah. What?’? Yeah, you did, babe, it was very much not an inside thought.”

“Excellent,” you laugh, nodding solemnly. “Well, um, thank you for that. And sorry for not coming out and just telling you.”

“Guess I made it pretty hard for you to tell me, huh? What with the two rules and-”

“Yup.”

“But everybody else knew or-”

“Tani knew, cause she’s my girl, y’know. Grace figured it out pretty quickly. Pretty sure Lou’s had a feeling since at least Thanksgiving, honestly.”

Danny sits back with a start, pulling away from your hug. “How long has this been going on?”

With a sigh, you realize it’s time to come clean. “You remember when I wanted to go on that dive with you, and you said I should take Steve since you don’t ‘do water’? Well, Steve took me to this really beautiful dive spot and we kind of made a day of it so…”

“That was like-”

“A while-”

“Like seven months ago!”

“I mean, we didn’t exactly start dating on that day- well, no, we kind of did,” you correct yourself quietly, biting your lip with a grimace, but Danny’s already halfway across the floor back to Steve’s office. Lou takes the opportunity to poke his head in to check on you and you draw out a slow, “So Lou…” He raises one eyebrow in question, and you dare to ask, “Would now be a bad time to tell Danny about Will and Grace?”

—————

Tagging you beautiful people who commented for me to finish writing this 🖤

@the-silentium @ilovewriting06 @jamie2305 @kelssssxd @cassadilasworld

[knivestothroats]

The Professionals masterlist In The Woods Somewhere masterlist | Professional//Victim masterlist

Here's a long ass update to make up for me posting infrequently. CW: human trafficking, captive whumpee, death threats We're gonna take it back now y'all

Day One

Something was deeply, deeply wrong. 

Tommy hadn’t been taken anywhere without Caius for more than five goddamn years. If he was being whisked off to a client, he hadn’t been prepped, and his handler wasn’t there to keep him subdued. Whatever pills Rory had given him back in the basement had worn off, and the panic was starting to set in. Did Caius even know he was here? 

The car came to an unexpected halt on a dirt road, a few short paces away from an old truck pulled off to the side. There was nothing else around for miles, nothing but endless forest. Even if Tommy could break away, he wouldn’t get far. The thick shock collar around his throat guaranteed that much. 

The windows slowly rolled down. They were letting him out here?

Rory got out, as did the driver of the pickup. The client(?) leaned against their truck, one hand in the pocket of their bulky denim coat, the other holding a small duffel bag by their side. They exchanged a few words that Tommy couldn’t hear, then peered right at Tommy. It sent a chill down his spine, like he was prey being spotted by a predator. They unzipped the bag and showed the contents to Rory, before closing it again and slinging it over their shoulder. The two of them shook hands.

Rory returned to the car, walking up to Tommy’s side. He reached through the window, unlocking the cuffs from around the door handle and reclosing them around Tommy’s wrists. 

“What are we doing?” Tommy asked. 

Rory opened the door and took hold of Tommy’s arm, pulling him out. 

“Where’s Caius?”

Rory didn’t answer, just guided Tommy toward the stranger and their truck.

“You never take me to clients,” Tommy continued, trying to keep his voice from sounding frantic and panicked. “I wasn’t briefed at all!”

Rory brought Tommy to a halt in front of the stranger, grip still firm on his arm.

Except… no, it wasn’t a stranger. 

Tommy recognized those cold, deep eyes; the way they watched him with a viscious hunger. 

Fletcher.

They had met at an event he’d been taken to as a product demonstration. Fletcher had taken an interest in Tommy, talked to him like a person instead of an object to be broken, and then was called upon by Caius to torture him in front of a crowd. And they delivered. 

They must’ve given in to temptation and finally rented Tommy to get to torture him again. But still… why wasn’t anyone telling him what was going on? 

“We good?” Rory asked. 

“We’re good,” Fletcher responded, eyes still focused on Tommy. “You can put him in the passenger seat.”

Rory pulled Tommy around to the other side of the truck and gave him a shove to step up into the cab. He secured his cuffs around the inner door handle again before shutting him in.

Why are we taking their truck?

Fletcher handed Rory the bag. Rory traded it for one much smaller he pulled from his coat pocket, dropping the handcuff keys into it before giving it over. 

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Rory said. He scurried off, past the back seat, past the truck entirely, and back to his own car, throwing the duffel bag in the trunk.

“Wait, wait, aren’t you coming?!” Tommy called after him.

Rory hadn’t answered any of his questions before, and he wasn’t going to start now. He got into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove away.

“Rory!” Tommy yelled as if there was any hope of being heard. “Where the fuck is Caius?!”

Tommy jumped when the door slammed shut opposite him. Fletcher, settling into the driver’s seat, kept staring at him with this look. Their face was expressionless, but their eyes were focused, like a sighthound.

Tommy curled in on himself, pressing against the door. His heart was hammering in his chest but he could barely move, caught somewhere between flight and fawn. 

Fight had died long ago. He worked with what he had left. 

Did Caius know where Tommy was, what was happening? Why would he not be here? Could he possibly trust Fletcher to take Tommy alone?

The truck started, and they pulled back out onto the road, heading in the opposite direction. Tommy stole a glance at Fletcher, searching for some sign of intention. 

What kind of body language says, “I am looking forward to killing you”?

But Fletcher wasn’t looking at him at all anymore; they just kept their eyes on the road. 

Tommy wracked his brains for anything he knew about Fletcher. 

He knew they liked to torture people. He knew they were a professional at it. They reveled in the reactions they elicited by causing pain. And he knew first hand that they were very, very good at it. 

Other than that? Not much. At the event where they had met, they were dressed up in a suit and tie. Now they wore a jean jacket over a flannel shirt, hair tucked under a beanie, cargo pants tucked into boots. Their truck was not new, though it seemed well maintained. There was a thin chain of charms hanging off the rearview mirror. What did any of this mean for him? His vision was going blurry.

“Please… don’t cry the whole time,” Fletcher groaned, putting their hand up. “It’s a long drive.”

Tommy hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. He hunched over and wiped his face on his sleeve the best he could.

“Sorry,” he sniffed quietly. “Where… are we going?”

“Back to my place.”

“And Caius is… okay with this…?”

Fletcher looked at him finally, raising an eyebrow. “They didn’t tell you anything?”

Tommy swallowed and shook his head. 

Fletcher turned their attention back to the road. “You’re not on a job; I bought you. Like, permanently, not for the night or whatever.”

Tommy felt cold suddenly. The truck was moving too much - he was dizzy. 

“No…” he said under his breath.

Fletcher raised their eyebrows at him again. “Yes.”

NO. NO. That fucker doesn’t get to just - what, throw me away, after all this? He took everything from me, made me exactly what he fucking wanted, and now - now he couldn’t even spare a damn goodbye?!

How could he get rid of me?!

He wanted to scream, and shout, and thrash and fight and demand god to strike down that dirty bastard. And yet, he was frozen, paralyzed by the weight of it. His chest ached like his ribs were curling in around his heart, crushing whatever was left of it in a fatal embrace. He wished it would. But the pain didn’t end, it just pulsed endlessly inside him. And he knew god would not strike Caius down, just like he hadn’t any other time Tommy had begged. 

As his situation started to sink in, his teeth started to chatter like he was freezing. He had to bite down to suppress it. He slowly turned in horror to Fletcher, as he realized the stranger beside him decided his fate. 

Fletcher was his master now; that’s what mattered. He had to find out what they wanted from him and deliver it.

“What, um… what do you want from me?”

“Mm…” Fletcher drummed their fingers against the steering wheel. “Household work. Teaching assistance. Punching bag.” Fletcher shrugged. 

Household work made sense - that wasn’t scary. Punching bag made sense, too, although he didn’t feel as good about it. 

“Teaching assistance?” Tommy echoed.

“Yeah, I run a training program for mercs and mobsters,” Fletcher explained. “It’s easier when I have someone to demonstrate on sometimes.”

“Demonstrate… what kind of things?”

Fletcher sighed, shrugged, shook their head. Fuck, he was annoying them already. 

“Like, holds, target spots, maneuvers, whatever,” was Fletcher’s explanation. 

Tommy didn’t ask any further questions, fearing Fletcher’s ire. He turned and watched the scenery out the window. This little trip was the most he’d seen of sunlight since he’d been sentenced to the hole, and he tried to soak up as much of it as he could. He pressed against the window, his face following the arc of the sun like a sunflower. There wasn’t much to look at other than fields and trees, the occasional train track cutting through. Farm houses and industrial buildings became more and more scarce as they drove. Fletcher turned on some music to fill the silence.

After what felt somehow both like a long time and far too soon, Fletcher slowed the truck. Tommy whipped his head around, trying to figure out why they would be stopping again on an empty country road. 

The truck turned seemingly at random and drove into the trees. It grew dark under the canopy of the branches above, and still the truck tunneled deeper.

Tommy’s anxiety bubbled up inside of him again.

They’re taking me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me. Caius always threatened that people would pay good money to snuff me, and he finally accepted an offer. All that stuff about housework and teaching was bullshit - that’s why their explanation was so flimsy. 

God, they were still driving. The truck was moving slowly, winding its way through the undergrowth and trees, but they were deep enough that Tommy couldn’t see the road.

He tugged on the cuffs again. What were his chances if he tried to run when they unlocked him? As long as he ran back the way they came…

They were nowhere near town. Maybe it was better just to hide somewhere until Fletcher… gave up on looking? And then, what? Build a shelter and fire with his bare hands? Hunt and forage for his food until he found his way back to civilization?

He tried to size Fletcher up, but the likelihood of him being able to overpower them seemed slim, considering the fact that they just told him they literally teach a class on how to hurt people, and he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Still, no harm in trying if he was going to die anyway. But… if Rory gave them the keys, Fletcher probably held the remote to his collar as well. Tommy’s breathing quickened and he couldn’t stop the tears from spilling over again. 

The trees were beginning to turn vibrant shades of yellow and red, flittering down lightly when the breeze came through. 

At least it was a pretty place to die.

“Ugh, why are you crying?” Fletcher demanded. “There’s no way you liked those guys!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Tommy wiped his eyes against his shoulder. “I’ll stop. I’ll be good. Okay? I can do whatever you want. I’m - I’m really good at - at doing whatever… whatever I have to do.”

Fletcher glanced at him.

 “...Yeah.” It was blunt, like he had stated the obvious.

“You want me to beg, I’ll beg. You want me to shut up and I’ll shut up. I can help around the house, I can help with the training, I can - I can take a beating, I can do whatever you want. I can make you feel good. I can be useful, I just need to be alive to do it.”

A look of realization crossed Fletcher’s face. “You think I’m going to kill you.”

Tommy hesitated to respond. “I think… I can… prove that it’s better if you don’t.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Fletcher scoffed. “Do you know how much I just spent on you?”

Tommy studied their face, trying to determine if they were telling the truth.

“A lot of people would spend a lot of money for that,” he answered quietly.

Fletcher chuckled. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“If… you’re not going to kill me…” Tommy spoke carefully, watching for any signs that he was making Fletcher angry. “What are we doing driving out into the middle of the woods?”

“I live here.”

Tommy looked out the window. “You live… in the woods?”

He flinched when Fletcher suddenly reached out and clapped a hand on his shoulder, giving him a sharp grin.

“We live in the woods.”

Just then, the world became light again. The truck entered a clearing, and pulled up to a house. 

It was so out of place it was disorienting to look at. 

“What…” Tommy was dumbstruck. “What is this place?”

“My house.” Fletcher parked and unbuckled. “I call it the lodge.”

“The Lodge” was well-built, modernized with solar panels on the roof without straying too far from a rustic look. It was huge for just the two of them, with a sizable clearing ringing the building. Swathes of land on the side were occupied with gardens, rows studded with crops of all sizes and shapes. 

It was also distinctly in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Nowhere to run to, even if he got a chance. 

“Well,” Fletcher said lightly, pushing the gear shift into park. 

“Welcome home.”

~

“Alright, here’s the tour,” Fletcher said as they led Tommy inside. They left his wrists cuffed and guided him with a hand cupped around his elbow.

“This is the common area - living room, whatever you want to call it. TV, movies, books.” They pointed at the shelves as they spoke. “You’re allowed in here. This is the kitchen, help yourself to pretty much whatever. Some stuff will have people’s names on them, obviously don’t eat those. The rest is fair game. Just use common sense. If I meal prep I will let you know.”

“Wait, wh-” Tommy didn’t get his question out before Fletcher pulled him along.

“This is gonna be your room.” They opened a wooden door into a small room, sparsely furnished with a twin bed, bedside table, and dresser. An old lamp sat crooked on the table, and an odd extra chair sat beside the dresser. 

What struck Tommy the most was the window. A big, beautiful window looking out on the grounds, filling the room with sunlight. It was a far cry from his basement cell for that alone. Graying blinds were cinched up to the top of the window frame, and he couldn’t imagine wanting them closed. His eyes welled, but he had only a moment to look before Fletcher was dragging him off again.

“We’ll come back around.”

They led him down the hall. “Bathroom is here. There are three trainees living here right now.” 

Oh. The students. Tommy hadn’t realized they would be living here, too. The pit of anxiety in his stomach ached, a stark reminder of the danger he’d almost forgotten for one brief moment. 

Fletcher pointed at a set of closed doors. “Trainee room, trainee room, trainee room. Don’t go in there. That at the end is my room. Do not go in there. Upstairs is another bedroom and my office. No reason to go up there. Definitely don’t fucking go in my office. This door leads to the basement. It’s storage and, uh… miscellaneous.”

Fletcher led him back to the living room and pulled a box off the shelf. They popped the lid and dug around inside, withdrawing their hand victoriously clutching a sturdy-looking strap. A small black device was mounted on it, decorated with a blinking green light the size of a pin.

“Here, take a seat buh- bud.” A look of irritation crossed their face when they stumbled, but it passed just as quickly. 

Tommy sat cautiously on the couch, and Fletcher sat beside him. 

“Give me your leg.”

Tommy was hesitant, but with an impatient look from Fletcher, he twisted to reluctantly lay a leg across their lap. Fletcher pulled up his pant leg, bunching the fabric up around his calf before wrapping the band around his ankle. Tommy got a sinking feeling. Fletcher seemed less strict, but then immediately went for overkill. He already had the implanted tracker and the collar - how much more did they need?

With a jarring pull, Fletcher tightened it, a quick clickclickclickclickclick telling Tommy it was locking into place with the adjustment. They gave it a few hard pulls, satisfied when it didn’t budge. 

“Alright now, that’s going to stay on. If you try to mess with it, it’ll send an alert to my phone, and I’ll make sure you can’t run the old fashioned way.” Fletcher gave him a wolfish grin, and Tommy instinctively shrank away. They pushed his leg off and stood, beckoning him up and replacing their grip on his arm. 

“Shall we?”

Fletcher led him past the kitchen and through a glass door that opened out behind the house. They went through a gate in the chicken-wire perimeter around their farming plot. 

“This is the garden. We’re going to be spending a lot of time here. I try to guild it so it’s more self-sustaining, but it still requires tending and harvesting. Here we got onions, that patch is potatoes, the sisters are over there…”

“The sisters?” Tommy repeated, looking around.

“Corn, beans, and squash. Let’s see, we got lettuce here, sunchoke, tomatoes, carrots, peas. These are stinging nettles, so don’t touch them without gloves, but they have a lot of uses. The greenhouse is mostly herbs - I make tea blends. And squash growing on the ceiling. Also have backup crops of some of these, in case animals get at them too much. The shed has got normal shed stuff. Tools, mulch, firewood, snowblower, shit like that. Uh, don’t go in there either.”

“Wh-why?”

“Because I have axes and shit in there. Let’s go.”

Fletcher led Tommy across the clearing. They made it a few feet past the first trees when a loud beeping began emanating from Fletcher’s pocket. They stopped and pulled out their phone, holding it up to show Tommy before clearing the alarm. 

“You cross the treeline,” they pointed at the monitor around his ankle. “That thing will let me know. It has GPS, so I’ll know exactly where you are. And that’s just a redundancy, because your last owners gave me access to your tracking chip.”

Tommy’s stomach twisted, the familiar feeling of being trapped anchoring him again. 

“Okay. I understand.”

Fletcher led him back towards the house. “You have until the treeline.”

“Wait, wait,” Tommy slowed his steps, causing Fletcher to stop and look at him. “You mean I can walk out of the house and go all the way to the trees?”

“Yes, that was the perimeter,” Fletcher said. “I set it at the edge of the clearing all the way around. Just don’t go into the woods.”

“But I can… leave the house?” Tommy asked in disbelief. Even as he said it, it felt foolish. He must not be understanding. “Like, you’re making it sound like I can just… walk out and wander around outside.”

“Yeah. Until the treeline,” Fletcher repeated.

Tommy was speechless. Fletcher continued to lead him back inside, taking him to his room.

“That was the lodge in brief, any questions so far?”

“Um, yeah, I mean… I have a few, if that’s okay. I just - I just want to be able to… do a good job here…”

“Okay.”

“Um… the kitchen.”

“Yep.”

“You said I can help myself to food.”

“I did.” A pause. “Is there a question?”

“I guess… not?” Tommy said. “I just, um… like, how much… can I eat, I guess?”

Fletcher shrugged. “Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. I think you can handle that.”

It felt like a trap.

“And I can eat… is there like, going to be certain foods set aside that I’m allowed to have?”

“Mm, not really. If I do a big batch of food I might set some aside for you but for the most part, no.”

“So how do I…”

“If it looks like it belongs to someone - like, has someone’s name or is clearly someone’s leftovers - don’t eat it,” Fletcher said. “If it is regular, unclaimed food, go ahead. Just use common sense.”

Common sense hadn’t been a factor in Tommy’s decision making very much in the last several years. It was more dominated by anticipating and heeding the whims of whichever unreasonable freaks he was with at the moment.

But, there was nothing else to be said on that subject. He moved on to the next.

“You said I couldn’t go in your or the trainee’s rooms.”

“Correct.”

“How am I going to clean them?”

Fletcher furrowed their brows at him. “Clean them?”

“Well, yeah… I figured… I would be cleaning the house, right?”

“I mean, yeah, probably,” Fletcher conceded. “But they’re adults, they can clean up their own space. No one wants you poking around their stuff. And you’re definitely not allowed in my room. Or my office.”

Tommy nodded. “Understood.”

“Anything else?”

“Umm… I guess… not?” He had a thousand questions, but he didn’t want to risk pestering Fletcher too much right off the bat.”

“Okay. Great.” Fletcher paced slightly before stopping in front of Tommy again. “Here’s the thing. I want you to change your name.”

“Oh. Okay.” Made sense. New owner, new identity they would ascribe to him.

“Doesn’t matter what. Probably. Just… something else.”

“Okay.” 

They both waited.

“You don’t have to pick right now, I guess…” Fletcher began.

Tommy raised his eyebrows.

“Oh - I’m picking?”

“Yeah, dude.”

“Wh… well, what do you want to call me?”

“I don’t… really care, dude. You want to go by Davy again?”

Tommy felt a strange jolt at hearing his old name. An immediate tension in his body, accelerated heartbeat like it was a sign of danger.

Not to mention, Davy was long since dead. He was killed to make room for Tommy.

“Not… really,” he said sheepishly, drawing in on himself, afraid to give the wrong answer.

“What about James? A lot of people go by their last name here.”

Tommy put his head down, running his hands back and forth through his hair. Of course Fletcher knew his full legal name. It was just strange to hear it said back to him after so many years.

“Um… I don’t know…”

“Well, think about it,” Fletcher said. “It can be a nickname, I don’t care. Just something.”

Being Tommy felt right, felt natural in his role now. He’d gotten used to it. Tommy obeys, Tommy serves, Tommy gets punished. Tommy is owned by - Fletcher, now. It was an odd thought.

“Well, I’ll let you settle in here,” Fletcher said. “You can take it easy and adjust for the first day.”

They headed toward the door.

“W-Wait,” Tommy called after them.

Fletcher stopped and turned back.

“What about… what are my rules?” Tommy asked. Maybe he should’ve asked when Fletcher allowed him questions, but he had just assumed Fletcher would tell him on their own and he didn’t want to push them. But without Fletcher laying out his rules for him, how would he know how to navigate his existence here? How would he know how to avoid getting in trouble?

“Okay, yeah, um,” Fletcher clapped their hands together. “Mostly, just do what I tell you, when I tell you. Stay out of the places I told you to stay out of. Know your place. Obviously don’t touch any weapons - common sense stuff. Mostly just comes down to following orders.”

Tommy nodded. “Yes, Fletcher. Err…do you have a title you want me to call you?”

“Nah, just my name,” Fletcher said. “I mean, I don’t care if you call me ‘boss’ or whatever, like that, just don’t call me ‘master’ ‘cause that shit’s cringe. No sir or ma’am shit either. Got it?”

“Yes, Fletcher.”

Even though Tommy felt like he should be keeping rapt attention on Fletcher, he couldn’t keep his eyes from continuing to drift to the window. They got stuck there, watching the clouds drift across the sky, the grass and branches bow in the breeze.

“What?” Fletcher prodded. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”

“Oh, no, sorry,” Tommy said, looking back at them. “I just, um, haven’t had a window in a while.”

Fletcher stared at him for a beat. “What?”

“I was in the basement…” Tommy didn’t want to get into it any further than that.

“...Jesus. Okay, well, I’ll leave you to acclimate. Did you eat today?”

Tommy shook his head. He hadn’t been focused on his hunger, but once it had been pointed out, he could feel it stabbing at him from the inside.

“You should probably do that.” Fletcher slipped through the door, adding before they pulled it closed behind them, “You know where the kitchen is.”

@suspicious-whumping-egg @whumpyourdamnpears @generic-whumperz @lonesome--hunter

@whumplr-reader @theelvishcowgirl @sunshiline-writes @dont-be-gentle-please @galesgallery

@2in1whump @sparrowsage @apokolyps @whumpinggrounds

@morning-star-whump @leviiio @alexmundaythrufriday

@defire @jumpywhumpywriter @watermelons-dont-grow-on-trees

@light-me-on-pyre @slightlydisturbedbeans @dislexiher @paperprinxe @desert-dyke

@just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @burtlederp @whatwasmyprevioususername @cursedandtired

@whump-only @misspelledwitch @redstainedsocks @thehopelessopus @im-just-here-for-the-whump

@thatsthewhump @utopian819 @pretty-face-breaker @thesuffererrrr

[racheyace]

The Best Medicine - Part One

This two part story is based off of an ask, the ask part of the story however comes in part two haha

This story is set directly after the events of 'What's Wrong With you?'

“So where are we going?” Luke asked for the tenth time that day.

It had been a week since Luke and Jason had broken up. It had been a long and rough week with more than one mental health day off work and Matt simply couldn’t stand the moping anymore. Deciding that his best mate needed some fresh air and sunshine and more importantly to get his ass off the couch. Matt had organised a weekend camping trip for the two of them.

“Will you quit asking me, what are you Five? I told you it was a surprise, didn’t I?” Matt rolled his eyes and pressed his foot down on the accelerator in impatience.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to go anywhere overly public in my current mental state.” Luke mumbled fidgeting with the cords of his navy hoodie.

In the last week it had been difficult to control his emotions, generally shrinking without warning and finding it difficult to shift back for long periods, hence the time off work.

“We are going somewhere secluded and people free I promise, now quit bitching and navigate to the nearest gas station, I forgot to fill up before we left.” He knew where the gas station was but honestly just wanted to give Luke something to do.

They pulled up a short ten minutes later and Matt got out to start filling the car up.

“Do you wanna go in and pay and maybe find us some snacks, we’re still about an hour away.” Matt asked offhandedly.

Luke rolled his eyes. “You gonna give me your card to pay or am I expected to fund this long road trip that I didn’t ask for?”

Matt just smirked already knowing that Luke would cave.

“Fine!” Luke grumbled and pushed the car door open to stomp toward the service station.

Luke was such a pushover and Matt knew it.

The automatic doors opened, and Luke headed for the snack aisle, he gave the cashier a small nod as he passed by. He browsed the small selection of choices, but something popped out at him that made him freeze and he felt his heart being squeezed.

On a display stand to the side was a collection of Reese’s peanut butter cups, a bright sign telling the consumer that this product was to die for and on sale, the best deal, two for one!

Luke was frozen, watching the scenes flash through his minds eye of all the times he’d surprised Jason by gifting him this particular treat. Peanut butter cups were his favourite and often on sale like this. Luke would get two and they would sit up late watching movies, eating their favourite snacks.

Luke closed his eyes and took a deep breath, nothing worked, his eyes stung and his heart hurt.

Luke had known all of Jay’s quirks, his likes and dislikes to the point where he had at one time kept a stash of peanut butter cups in the apartment for the off chance that Jason would come over.

And now he was gone.

Luke wiped at the tears forming on his cheeks aggressively and opened his eyes.

“No no no.” Where he had once been looking over the tops of the shelves he was now looking at the bottom shelf and still shrinking.

“Stupid fucking emotions!” He glared up at the Reeses peanut butter cup stand before his attention snapped to the sliding door opening.

It was possible that it was Matt coming in to see what was taking him so long but it was also possible that it was someone else entering the store, without a second to lose Luke dived under the shelf that now towered over his head.

His breath came in sharp pants as he eyed the gigantic set of heavy leather boots thundering into the store, they weren’t Matt’s and his brain began to go into full panic mode as they angled toward him. He watched with wide blue eyes as the boot only a few inches now in front of him tapped idly on the tiled floor, sending tremors through his body.

It wasn’t the first time Luke had shrunk in an unsafe place but it had certainly been a while, these days he would usually have a family member or Matt with him and even when he didn’t he had his phone.

His phone!

Luke searched his pockets finding only his wallet, he’d left the damned device in the car. His heart hammered against his chest, he was stranded in an unknown place surrounded by giants who had no idea he was there. There wasn’t much more that could possibly go wrong.

There was some loud crinkling from high above and Luke held his breath as a small canister of pringles hit the floor with a deafening crash and then ominously began to roll toward him. Putting his arms out he stopped the canister from rolling any further, luckily pringles were light or he might have been flattened if it had been something like a bottle of milk.

Anyone else might have just rolled their eyes at their own clumsiness and picked up a different canister of pringles, but for whatever reason Luke’s luck just continued to dwindle. There was a rush of movement and the sound of immense amounts of clothing shifting as the unknown giant crouched down and then a large hand was hurtling at him.

With all the effort in the world Luke held his breath to stop himself from crying out in alarm, and instead ducked behind the pringles and hoped the fingers wouldn’t pry any further once they’d found what they were looking for. Luke’s eyes widened as the large digits spread over the top of the canister and very nearly brushed his head before they gripped the pringles tighter and pulled them back out into the light.

Luke fell to his knees and watched with relief as the giant stood back up and moved away from his hiding spot. Now to somehow get Matt’s attention, he’d have to come into the store at some point, it would only be a matter of time and then he’d be found and he’d be safe again.

Matt meanwhile had decided to have a smoke while he waited for his friend to come back with snacks. Luke didn’t like it when he smoked in the car so instead he saved his nicotine hits for pit stops like this one.

Matt had found a park bench off to the side of the station, a playground was also there but he’d hardly consider it a playground when it consisted of only a small slide and one swing. Regardless it was the perfect place to wait for Luke to finish up in the gas station, with only one other customer having stopped for gas, Luke wouldn’t be too long.

Matt’s eyes drifted to his phone as he took his last drag and crushed the butt on the ground, Luke had been in there for ten minutes, the other customer had come and gone what seemed like ages ago. He’d received no calls or messages from Luke though but that didn’t chase away the unease that was settling into his stomach.

Unable to wait any longer Matt marched toward the sliding doors and stepped inside the store, his worry only increased when his tall friend was nowhere to be seen.

“Did my friend come in here?” Matt called over to the cashier.

“I dunno, I saw him and then figured he’d gone to the bathroom or left.” The older man shrugged and focused back on his computer once more, thoroughly unbothered by his friend’s disappearance.

“Come on Luke, where are you?” Matt murmured to himself, he turned toward the bathroom, it was possible he was simply overreacting and Luke had just gone to the toilet, he could hope.

He took a step toward the bathroom and then froze when a positively miniscule cry of alarm could be heard from his feet, every inch of Matt’s skin tightened, and a sick feeling washed over him as he dared to look down, hi sneaker still hovering mid-air.

Luke was also frozen, he’d been so relieved when Matt finally stepped into the store that he’d run out hoping to call up to his friend or tug at his pant leg to get his attention. He’d completely forgotten how dangerous an unaware giant could be, even a friendly one, Matt’s booming voice had rattled through him causing him to pause and then everything happened way too fast.

Matt’s sneakers turned in his direction and then rose above him, unable to hold back a scream of fear as it glided over his head and then froze mid step directly above his head. Luke wasn’t sure his little heart could take much more as his heart rate escalated once again.

What should have been a quick in and out trip at the gas station had turned into a literal nightmare for the broken-hearted size shifter.

Matt shifted his foot to the side and carefully placed it back down on the floor once his eyes landed on the small, huddled form of his friend as Luke cradled his hands over his head in a desperate attempt to save himself from being trodden on. Without wanting to raise suspicion from the cashier, Matt carefully scooped him up before pushing his way through the bathroom doors and locking it behind him.

“Luke what the actual fuck? Are you okay?” Matt was caught between frustration and concern but focused more on worry upon seeing his small friend flinch from his loud words.

“Sorry dude.” Matt lowered his voice and raised Luke up to his eyes, scanning over him to make sure he was truly unharmed.

Luke curled inward hugging his knee’s to his chest, the whole experience had been too much, from being dragged back to his heartbreak, to nearly being found by an unknown giant to nearly being stepped on by his best friend. Luke began to shake as tears and shame and guilt overwhelmed him.

“I guess I don’t need to tell you how stupid that was, do you wanna tell me what happened?” Matt asked as gently as he could manage.

“Not here.” Luke’s whispered words only just reached Matt’s ears and he nodded before closing his fingers gently around Luke and pushing him into his hoodie pocket.

His fingers stayed curled around his friend as he made his way back to the cashier to pay for the fuel.

“Find your friend?” The man asked gruffly.

“Ah yeah, all good.” Matt said vaguely, tapped his card and then turned and headed back toward the car.

Once seated back in the drivers seat, Matt pulled Luke out and placed him in the centre console cup holder, he was still shaking and clearly upset but Matt suspected there was more to it then a near run in with his shoe.

“Did someone kick a puppy? Seriously, what the hell happened?” Matt asked as he turned the car on and pulled back out onto the road, the sooner they got to their destination the better.

“I-it was the Reese’s.” Luke felt stupid, it all seemed so silly now and yet here he was six inches tall and that overwhelming feeling of loss and sadness had taken him over because of a peanut butter cup.

“What?” Matt asked leaning over a little as he drove to hear his shrunken friend.

“Reese’s were on sale…they were… they were Jay’s favourite.” Luke said pathetically and couldn’t make himself look upward to see Matt’s reaction.

“Oh Luke.” Matt sighed putting the pieces together rather easily now.

“I’m sorry.” Luke choked on the sobs welling inside his chest once more.

“You know that you don’t actually have anything to be sorry about right?” Matt asked, keeping his eyes on the road as he spoke.

“What happened between you and Jay was not your fault, and what happened at the gas station was also not your fault.” As much as he tried to drill the point through to Luke, he knew that his friend wouldn’t hear him at least not right now.

“I should have been in more control.”

“Luke I’m gonna be honest with you.” Matt said quite seriously. “I don’t actually know of any other person who is in more control of their emotions than you are. You can’t be perfect one hundred percent of the time, especially after a break up, give yourself a break.”

Luke said nothing and the car was silent for a while as they drove, Matt hated the current sadness and tension that lingered about the car. There would be no convincing Luke so he tried a different tactic, changing the subject with humour, it always seemed to work for him anyways.

“So my Aunt’s daughter is looking for actors to play parts in her Peter Pan musical next month, I hope you don’t mind, I put your name down for Tinkerbell.” Matt said as casually as he dared.

“You did not.” Luke scoffed utterly unbelieving until Matt choked on a laugh he’d been trying to hold in.

“You didn’t! Matt tell me you didn’t!”

“I mean it’s doubtful you’ll get the part anyway, you don’t really have the sassiness that comes along with Tinkerbell.” He explained. “The auditions on Thursday.”

Matt felt a small object hit the side of his face and he turned to see Luke standing in the cup holder with admittedly a very pissed off Tinkerbell expression on his face and missing one shoe.

“Did you just throw a shoe at me?” Matt smirked.

“You deserved it you gigantic ass.” Luke glared upward.

“Good luck finding that ever again.” Matt laughed.

“Ah shit.”

Matt turned his head again to see Luke’s body expanding slowly inch by inch, he pulled over to help his friend out of the now squishy cup holder and onto the passenger seat. They both held hope that Luke was simply growing to his human height, however there was always the possibility that he could go the other extreme and that meant he’d need a quick escape out of the car.

His growing stopped when his head almost brushed the roof of the car as usual and Matt smiled at him.

“Welcome back.” He said.

“Yeah well now I’ve got one normal shoe and one tiny shoe somewhere in here.” Luke groaned, it seemed his ‘gift’ would never ever gave him a break.

Luke muttered a thanks regardless of his annoyance, he knew full well what his friend had been trying to do and it had worked, and for that he was grateful.

With his mood improved they continued their journey, Matt soon turned down a gravel road that grew rougher and bumpier the further in they travelled.  When their car simply couldn’t go any further Matt stopped and turned off the car.

“We’re here!”

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