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periprose · 7 months ago

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Sweet as Nuka Cola

Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Reader

You're an upcoming actress who has a constant flirtation with Cooper Howard. But even if things seem to be off to a good start, a nuclear bomb, a cryogenic pod, and two hundred years of carnage ruins all of it. Is there something to be salvaged from your relationship with Mr. Howard?

Genre: Mutual pining, flirting, slow-burn, angst, friends to kind-of enemies to lovers (no cheating but maybe it's a little murky?)

Word Count: 11k

“Action!��

“Hello. Yes, it’s me.” You wave at the camera, adorned in a classic-red sweetheart neckline dress. “You might know me from ‘Girls Want It All’ or ‘Next Door Babe.’”

Here, you play up your recent bombshell status. As Ed, the director of this advert, keeps reminding you, you need to sell yourself to make customers listen.

You sway in your dress, squeezing your arms and throwing your waist back to plump and push out your chest. The implication of the sex appeal in your movies keeps people watching.

But you’re still a rather new actress, so America might not know you so well. You’re glad Nuka Cola has hired you– if you want to be a star, you need more exposure.

“Do you enjoy feeling refreshed?” You cock your head to the camera, pursing your red lips. “Well, golly, what a silly question. Who doesn't?”

“That's where Nuka Cola comes in.” You lift a bottle out of the cooler next to you, all gentle in demeanour, showing off the logo of the bottle to the camera, in your perfectly manicured hands. “With triple the amount of caffeine found in competitor's bottled cola, it's sure to keep you feeling up for a long, long time.”

“And it's good for you.” Ed whispers, a last minute adlib you did not agree to, but you're a professional, so you add it on with a little wink.

“And it sure as heck is good for you.” You smile, the infamous smile that's won you notoriety to Hollywood execs for being the newest bombshell on the block, and you throw your shoulders back as you really lean into your image.

“Cut! That's a wrap, everyone!” Ed, wanting to finish early, quickly starts ushering everyone out so not a cent more gets spent.

You immediately relax out of your practised, professional smile. “Any ADR needed?”

“Don't think so, but we'll let you know.” The director is already moving onto whatever his next project is. Advertisements make more money than anything else these days.

You head over to catering, where you're craving– not a Nuka Cola, considering how much sugar is in that thing it's hardly refreshing at all– but an iced tea.

You stretch out your ankles in your kitten heels as you prepare it. If you told your Ma back in Mojave that the worst thing about fame would be the uncomfortable outfits, she'd smack you. So you keep it to yourself– you're grateful, you're humble, you'll never be an entitled asshole like those fucking execs.

“Watch out, I'm behind ya.” A man gently presses your shoulder as he walks next to you.

You know that voice. Famous movie cowboy, devilishly handsome, easy to admire. A career worth emulating.

“Mr. Howard?” You turn to look at him, and it is him. Wearing a tuxedo suit, smiling his classic, rugged grin at you.

“The one and the only.” He laughs in a self-deprecating way, as a man tired with his fame and used to mocking it. “Hey, wait, don't I know you?”

You immediately feel your face heat up. “Probably not– lots of people have mistaken me for Lucky Yates so far…”

“No, I do know you.” He points a finger at you, while pouring himself a mug of black coffee. “I told you mister, I'm not here for a long time. Just a good one, and if you can't provide it for me, I'll be inclined to look elsewhere.”

Cooper Howard does a perfect impression of your girly, haughty tone from “Girls Want It All”, and it surprises you that he even knows your dialogue that well. You're not used to this much attention, especially not from one of Hollywood's most notable movie stars.

He says your name.

“Yeah, that's me.” You say sheepishly– even though you know you have to fake that confidence, it's hard when you've been caught off guard. You're starstruck– you don't know how to operate, now realizing that even celebrities are noticing you. “Just shooting an ad for Nuka-Cola.”

“Ah, that’s smart of you.” He leans in– about to give you a bit of Hollywood advice, no doubt– and you feel yourself turning warm at the attention he’s giving you. “I wouldn’t expect any less from one of Hollywood’s upcoming stars– residuals aren’t enough to make the world go round.”

You know he’s admiring your street smarts, but you have to ask. “Upcoming, really?”

“Miss, I’m not sure many other actresses could’ve delivered that little monologue I just did without, er, pardon my language,” Cooper takes a sip of his coffee, his eyes peering down at you over the perimeter of the cup. “Fucking it up. Pantomiming too much wily, feminine shit that execs love, without that little edge of real, subtle emotion. I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

You giggle a little. “C’mon, really? I hardly got to act the way I wanted to.”

“That’s how it starts. Little moments, little subtleties where you’re letting your real character shine through– it’s noticeable to the industry. More opportunities come that way. But it’s smart to use, uh…” Cooper swallows, a tiny, imperceptible thing that reminds you of your bombshell image, that he must be thinking about it. “Smart to use such attractive imagery, if you get my drift. The public will eat you up.”

The way he drawls that latter part makes you feel excited, but you keep it down– it’s well known Cooper Howard is a married man, and you are not about to be ruined by an affair. Even if he does sound sort of flirty, this sort of complimenting is so common in Hollywood.

“What are you doing in the advertisement shooting lot?” You ask, changing the subject, and Cooper shrugs, a nonchalant ripple of a movement that tells you his general cool demeanour isn’t just acting.

“Promised my wife I’d shoot an advert for her. Vault-Tec, you know?” He admits, telling you he hasn’t forgotten about his wife, either. “Gotta head to the experimental Vault they’ve set up next door.”

“Yes, of course.” You, like anyone else, have seen the ads of Cooper in the Vault-Tec suit– it’s a rather controversial thing to be partaking in, but you think he knows what he’s doing.

“Well, Nuka-Cola.” He hands you an iced tea– one you didn’t even notice him making for you as you were talking to him. “I’ll see you around.”

The Ghoul walks around the wasteland, two hundred something years into the future.

He’s searching for a bounty– Leopold St. West– worth at least 1000 caps, and it’s terribly difficult to find him when every single person claims he’s in all these different locations, not a single one correlated to each other.

So he’s walking around a destroyed neighbourhood, where Leopold was last seen a day ago, if his fellow ghouls are to be trusted. If he had to guess, these are the remnants of China Town– the faux Asian-esque details, the cheesy red colouring, the false authenticity Hollywood loves to portray as “good as the real thing”. God, Coop does not miss some parts of the fame.

He suddenly stumbles over a piece of the broken sidewalk. Coop’s usually pretty agile, nonchalant on his feet– he knows this feeling. He’s going through withdrawal.

“Shit, I need a minute.” He mutters to himself, feeling a bit woozy.

He's only got a couple more vials of drugs, so he can't be using them all willy-nilly. No, he needs to recoup things and go through this carefully.

Shelter is necessary– the longer Coop is out in the sun, the harsher the effects of withdrawal feel. And, if he’s lucky, one of these buildings might have something for him to loot– more drugs if he’s extra, extra lucky.

Coop enters a nondescript building– where a radroach is waiting, and he immediately fires at it without even looking, killing it in one shot– and he sees the sign over the entry way, marking the lobby.

This is some Hollywood executive-owned club. It’s hard to tell– two hundredyears of wear-and-tear will do that for you– but Cooper Howard distinctly remembers this place, maybe in some conversation back then, maybe when he was networking.

Every single thing has a distinct, thick layer of grime over it. Coop thinks of sweaty strippers dancing, actors cheating on their wives– they’re all probably dead now.

He reaches into his satchel and takes a hit of one of his vials– and hopes he can replace what he uses with something here.

There’s not a single bottle behind the bar, and he jostles through, not seeing a chem or a drug left behind by anyone on the floor or behind the counter, and he’s mildly disgruntled over how every place has nearly everything picked clean by raiders, wastelanders– just other people. Coop will always loathe these other assholes.

He climbs the broken stairs with a lanky, languid stretch, making it over a fairly large hole where a corpse waits on the floor below. A raider who didn’t watch where he was stepping. That tells him there should be loot up on this upper floor– at least a bit of it.

He walks to the one closed door in a less-than-discreet hallway, gold sconces and railings marking the way.

“Ah… private office.” Coop jiggles an ostentatious handle to a mahogany door, that is surely leading to an even more pretentiously ostentatious office, and he finds that it’s locked.

A good sign. Most likely no one’s ever been in there, because it’s probably a difficult lock to pick.

It surprises him that no one’s ever just forced their way through.

Coop doesn’t waste time on this though– he just takes a teeny gun out of his bag, fires it, and admires the hole in the door where the handle used to be. The door creaks open on it’s own, and he saunters into a well furnished, dusty office room.

“Nope, nope, nope…” He pushes box after box in the shelves next to the wall, and they fall with loud clatter– loaded with panicky, nuclear-war-on-the-horizon type shit, like canned meats and beans and preserved jams and pickles. “Fuck no.”

He pushes off a toy figurine of Vault Boy down with extra gusto.

Coop looks behind the desk, where there’s a dusty placard reading Adrian Amos II. He grins– one of the worst producer bastards of all time is not someone he’d feel bad about stealing from, even if there was still some conscience left in him. No, sir, Adrian Amos the second did not deserve any sympathy, especially after the way he was known for bitching about salaries, abusing PAs, and having a predilection for going after less-than-consenting women.

Coop grits his teeth, remembering that asshole and how terrible and gaudy this club was back then. Not that it was better now– but he’s grateful for one man’s deserved death, at least.

He jostles open where the second drawer is filled with the glass clinking sound of many, many vials.

“Fucking jackpot, Jesus.” Coop stares down at how many there are– at least 40 or 50– a hell of a lot to just be left behind.

Well, based on the other supplies, Adrian Amos got fucked over and either didn’t make it to his vault in time, or forgot to run to his private club before heading in.

Coop doesn’t give a fuck, though. He starts piling the vials into his cases, and then back into his bag.

There’s a sudden whirring sound near him. “Huh?”

To his left, an imperceptible secret door has pushed itself outwards, decorated in the same dark brown wallpaper as the rest of the room.

Coop looks down and under– he’s accidentally pressed a secret button on the underside of the drawer. “Fuck.”

He doesn’t know what would be inside the secret room– assassins, raiders waiting on someone to dupe? Maybe even synths, just meant to protect Amos when he needed it.

Inside the room, it’s dark, and he can’t make out anything. Coop can only draw his gun rapidly when there’s a blue light suddenly emitting out from the inside.

He’s careful as he approaches– last thing Coop wants is an ambush– and as his vision improves, he sees it’s a cryonic pod, all frosted over so he can’t make out who’s inside.

Coop sighs, ready to leave it behind– he’s not interested in waking up Amos– and instead, the thing whirs, heating up it’s insides with extremely hot steam, and then opens up with a mechanical flourish.

Coop instinctively steps back, coughing “Holy shit!” as the air whooshes past him.

A body falls out, just looking slightly frosted– mostly thawed by whatever the cryo tank just did.

You're on set again, sitting in a free lawn chair while others get ready for their take– it's not for a Nuka-Cola ad, it's just a guest appearance on everyone's favourite sitcom, The Grady Group, where you play an overly promiscuous babysitter who has no sense for watching over kids.

It's comedic, it's an easy way to get laughs– plus it actually boosts the shows’ ratings since you've been in movies and all. You’re done filming already, you’re just sitting here watching the rest of the shoot, dragging out your return to your car, and then back home.

Something about the fictional family you wait on, Gill and Gina Grady, and their kids Gideon, Gessica, and Gwen, it makes you miss having a family of your own. In fact, you have half a mind to call your mother, despite all the bitching she’ll give you about the things you haven’t done yet.

It also doesn't help that Gill and Gina are a couple in real life– named Arthur and Bea Smith, they really, really are in love, and in between takes they're often canoodling with each other.

You're happy for them, if not a little– jealous, despite the fact that you're not interested in dating anyone right now. At least, you thought you weren't, but you find that lately, when you return back to your apartment all lonesome after a shoot, you feel like something is missing.

“Hey. Nuka-Cola.” Cooper Howard strolls over to where you're sitting, and you smile up at him, covering your eyes from the sunlight streaming through the windows.

“Mr. Howard. Shooting today?” You ask, and he shakes his head.

“Not at all. Just lounging around, waiting for my kid.” He sits in the lawn chair next to you, leaning back, crossing one leg over the other. “Janey is on a field trip at a museum next door– I thought I’d kill some time before picking her up.”

“Ah, cute.” You grin. Janey Howard is an absolutely precious kid– she shares her dad’s smile, but has a curious nature that you admire. “Is she well?”

“As well as kids can be at that age, running around all the time.” Cooper shrugs. “You know how it is.”

“Kind of. I actually did used to babysit kids, so I know– they can never sit still or mind their business.” You laugh as Cooper grins.

“So you went method for your guest appearance, huh?” He asks, and you’re mildly baffled.

“How do you know about that?” You squint at him, just being jokingly suspicious.

“Oh, I saw a few clips of your footage. While I was walking over here.” He points over at Stu, the director, standing on the living room set, watching clips on his viewfinder. “Seemed pretty natural to me.”

It almost bothers you that he seems so interested in you and your work, that he always voices support– but he’s well-known for being happily married, for being content in general, unlike you.

Still, better a friend than nothing at all, that’s what you always tell yourself.

“Thanks. But it’s not hard being around kids, is it?” You reminisce being a kid in Mojave, playing with your friends on your street– and then as a young adult, babysitting new kids that still wanted to play with you. “I still sometimes feel like I’m just a kid pretending to be an adult.”

“That never goes away, darlin’.” Cooper laughs, and you blink. “Being an actor, especially, you’re never losing that childhood sense of wonder, you get my drift?”

“Yeah, of course.” You nod. “I just don’t feel complete, I guess. I’m still waiting for the moment I’ll know I’m an adult– like maybe if I get married or something like that.”

“Being married didn’t change that for me either. Neither did being a dad.” He winces, and scratches at his stubble. “Just don’t tell anyone I said that, but I think it’s all apart of being a human person.”

Your face turns a little more glum at that, and he wonders what he said that bummed you out. It’s not his intention– he wants to cheer you up.

“What’s with the sad, forlorn, ‘I’m-a-pretty-girl-come-comfort-me’ look?” Cooper utters as he leans in, and you laugh a little but silence yourself, recognizing his compliment.

It’s dangerous to flirt with this guy, this taken man who has nothing to gain but a bit of affection he may be missing, but you see that he knows his compliment had effect anyways– and he definitely likes that.

You just choose to assume it’s entirely friendly.

“I just… I like the thought of having a family.” You suck in air,at how foolish and girly this sounds, hardly the cutthroat businesswoman you need to be out here. “This is stupid, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it isn’t.” Cooper taps his arm rest, thinking. “You’re hurting, I can tell. You got that same pissed off look most ladies get when they ‘don’t wanna talk’ but they’re holding tons of shit inside.”

Damn this guy, you think, but you decide to be honest.

“I just didn’t think it’d be so lonely out here. In Hollywood.” You press your palms together. “Like, everywhere I go, I’m surrounded by classic Americana, the nuclear family– and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m jealous.”

“As a bachelorette, don’t you got plenty of options?” Cooper grins. “I mean, are men not lining up to court Nuka-Cola girl?”

“Ah…” You hum, thinking of dates you’ve had here, settling back in your seat. “I don’t know– it’s cheesy but I want more sincerity.”

“In that case, don’t be jealous, marriage ain’t all that.” Cooper tuts, knowing that you of all people should hear about how it doesn’t complete you. “It’s not perfect, it’s not a magical fairy-tale where everything gets solved, it’s a hell of a lot more work than people let on.”

“Oh.” You knew that, deep down– but hearing it from him really solidifies that for you. It’s a silly dream.

It sounds like he’s speaking from experience, so you quiet down. But you’re not trying to get your hopes up about that or anything.

“And you’re not an idiot, Nuka-Cola. Don’t get into something you’re not a hundred fucking percent sure about.” Cooper clicks his tongue. “If you really feel the urge to suddenly go and play wife with someone, just for me, make sure he’s absolutely worth it.”

“For you?” You raise your eyebrows at that.

“I figure you won’t do it for yourself. Love is blind and all that.” He points at himself. “But if I, as your buddy Cooper, hold you to that? I’ll bet that you’ll vet every single guy.”

“Oh, really.” You smirk at him, your nose scrunching a little. “Is that for my benefit, or yours?”

“Uh…” Cooper is truly caught off guard here. He knows he didn’t intend anything by what he said, but it does feel like… he won’t enjoy the fact that if the next few times he talks to you, continuing become close to you, he’ll have to get the approval of some man.

Some man who wouldn’t even know you as long he has known you. He always likes his chats with you, and there’s an urge inside him not to let you go.

He thinks again that you’re a little too spontaneous. Not easy to dupe, no– he can’t just flirt with you for fun because you’ll always pick up on it, even if he did it by mistake.

“No comment.” He finally answers with a raspy, low tone, one that you barely hear but are satisfied by.

A few months later, you check your face in your little compact mirror before stuffing it in your purse and heading inside Sebastian Leslie’s home. Exciting, yes, because this is the first time you’ve been invited not just to network, not just because a big name has seen you in the movies and wants to flaunt that they know you tangentially.

No, this is the first time you know someone, you’re actually in with a crowd– you’re friends with the host. You don’t feel nearly as awkward walking into Sebastian’s comfortable home and seeing familiar faces that you’re close with, decor that you already recognize.

“There she is.” Sebastian greets you with a tight hug– for a massive flirt he’s actually rather protective of you sometimes. “Love the dress, by the way– is that a vintage Chanel? Black is very flattering on you, my dear.”

You get the sense he didn’t want you to be involved in this industry sometimes, but other times– he likes that you put work in.

“I saw your newest advertisement on TV yesterday.” He comments, and you giggle.

“Was it good?”

“Yeah, amazing as usual– but you gotta do more than that.” Sebastian holds your hand as he pulls you into the crowd of other low-level actors, people who could risk showing up, really, and you fix your dress, a black one with a low square neckline. “Look into Vault-Tec– I’ve been telling Cooper here about how our futures are totally going to be surrounded by their products, even though that fucker does not want to listen.”

Cooper’s lounging in a low sofa in the pit of this living room, holding a crystal glass full of amber liquid, black button up shirt half open– he looks dishevelled, hair slightly askew, jaw off-kilter as he presses his tongue into his cheek, thinking. Lost by something, but still put together as celebrities are. Geez, you really need to temper your attraction to him.

It doesn’t help how he looks at you, either– there’s something deep and reverent about his gaze, like he wants to believe whatever he sees when he’s looking at you– but you have no idea if it’s real, or if it’s just an act like with most of these celebrities.

You used to see him a lot more frequently too, over the last few months. Either at set, or at more fancy parties– most of which he’s been perfectly pleasant and kind to you.

“Of course you’d label me as some fucking chairman for them, Seabass.” Cooper slams back half a pint of whisky, and pours himself some more. “Hey, Nuka-Cola.”

“Hey, Mr. Howard.” You smile gently. You’ve heard about his divorce– everyone has, but you’re not 100% sure why it’s happened, why now when things seemed to be going so well for him.

Well is relative, though. You know loads of actors have decried him privately– no one wants to hang out with the man promoting the end of the world, apparently. It must be a tough thing to only be hired for your wife’s advertisements– and even then, you don’t exactly agree with what they’re marketing, either.

You don’t feel so strongly against Cooper, though. Maybe because you do like him– but also because you know what it’s like to have your image connected to something you don’t really promote. Nuka-Cola isn’t healthy, it’s got enough sugar to induce instant death when drank regularly. But you do it for the connections, the money– and you’re sure Cooper did too.

“Cooper is fine.” He grumbles, and you remember his last name is maybe a sore subject right now.

“Sorry.” You do your best to be delicate as you sit next to him, and Sebastian sits on the other side of you. “How’re you, Cooper?”

“Not bad. If you count being divorced as being alright.” He sighs, and you feel terrible that you even asked. “It’s like I never knew her, man– I thought Barb was different. Or they changed her, I don’t fucking know.”

“She had her eyes set on the prize. As did you, Coop.” Sebastian states, and Cooper turns, affronted.

“We’re all interested in money and glory, Seabass. Fuck you if you think otherwise.” Cooper tenses, and you feel a bit awkward listening in on this conversation.

“What did I say that negates that? I’m as money hungry as they come.” Sebastian shrugs. “I only meant that– despite it all, making money was what you had in common, evidently not the world-going-nuclear shit. Maybe you’ve got a heart of gold, a change of mind, I don’t know, Cooper. But throwing away an easy life just to pay alimony must be fucking awful, so I just don’t think you’re in it for the money anymore.”

“You’re fucking telling me.” Cooper sniggers. “I don’t think Barb cares. I’m here with no career, and she’s out there getting promoted in Vault-Tec. As for the heart of gold… any former marine would’ve been against that shit.”

You want to ask what shit, but you don’t want to overstep your boundaries. You get the general fear of nuclear war– but Cooper sounds more personally affected by it.

Cooper glances over at you. “What do you think? Better to be richer than you can spend in a lifetime, or to be out with a good conscience?”

“I don’t know if I’m that interested in money.” You say honestly, and Cooper raises his eyebrows.

“Really? Nuka-Cola’s a saint, huh.” He chuckles– he’s clearly a bit buzzed.

“No, I’m not. Of course I want to have a career.” You think about this carefully, so it doesn’t sound insincere. “Making money is nice– but I don’t think I have the right to say it should come at the cost of human lives. You know Nuka-Cola is terrible for you, right? ”

Cooper stares at you for a moment too long, and then looks away. “Yeah… addicting.”

He’s definitely not talking about Cola, but you continue on. “Yeah, so just in that way– I disagree with how much power marketing has. We’ve convinced America that they need this– just so some chairman can make an extra dollar.”

Cooper looks at you, renewed by whatever you just said. “Hell, woman after my own heart. That’s damn true.”

“Yes, yes, you two oblivious flirts– there’s no art in filmmaking anymore, just commercialism. Not like it hasn’t been the case for a century.” Sebastian chimes in, and you bite your lip, pretending not to notice how Cooper’s face is smirking bashfully. “But, babe. You’re going to want to make your money before the world fucking ends.”

“What’s that?” You startle, and Cooper laughs sardonically at your surprise, while Sebastian gets up.

“Let me get myself a drink– I hardly want to tell this story sober.” He leaves, and Cooper has half a heart to glare at him– he knows Sebastian is leaving the two of you alone so he can do the dirty work.

Not like his reputation can ever get better, especially by telling this story again with it’s lurid details, but at least it doesn't hurt that he's with you.

“What does he mean by that, Mr. Howard?” You wince at your use of that. “Sorry– I meant Cooper.”

“Ah, call me what you’d like.” Cooper takes another sip of his drink, leaning back in the couch to the point where he is practically lying down and against you. “It sounds good coming out of your mouth no matter what you pick, Nuka-Cola.”

Now that’s a suggestive, loaded line, and you feel a little more comfortable flirting with him even if it’s a bit of a rebound for him. The end of the world is approaching, right?

“The end of the world?” You prod at him, and he sighs, leaning against your shoulder.

“It’s fucking ridiculous, what it is… probably never going to happen anytime soon.” Cooper’s tone of voice is hazy as he examines his last sip of whisky in the glass. “No, no. Just something those fucking commies put in my head. I guess they’re not really commies, are they?”

“Unless you elaborate, I can’t say.” You utter back at him, and he pushes down a smile.

“Alright. Vault-Tec’s been selling this nuclear protective stuff, right?” He says, and you nod, your cheek brushing against the top of his hair. “All I can say is that a few… radicals, if you will, think that Vault-Tec might actually be more involved with it than they say. Like, they might be…”

“Not just protective, huh? More offensive? Everyone’s got that feeling, Mr. Howard. And that doesn't sound like a particularly commie-train-of-thought to me.” You hear the sorrow in his tone, even if he’s trying to make it sound like a rumour. “Did you hear this from your ex-wife?”

Cooper winces here. He still feels slightly guilty about spying on her. A part of him thinks they might’ve not divorced if he hadn’t found out– but he knows he was bound to find out eventually, and he would’ve just delayed the inevitable.

“Maybe, Cola. Maybe you’re just sharp.” He whispers, and you smile and he feels it– your skin is intoxicatingly close right now.

“So, odds are?” You ask, just curious, and he exhales.

“Bad. I have to agree with them.” He admits, and it feels exhilarating to admit this– that Vault-Tec is gonna nuke the world at some point, that the radicals are more like minded to him than he’s wanted to believe in the past. “Even if it didn’t cost my movies, I regret partaking in what they were selling.”

That’s a big thing for him to say– you know Cooper loves acting, he absolutely adores playing a hardened sheriff, the last vestige of goodness in the wild, wild west. All the times you’ve visited him on his set– probably during his last contractual movie, now that you think about it– and he was always so excited to show off the architecture and intricacies of the fictional western town they’d set up, share script details and little character quirks so you could have an insider’s viewpoint. He even donned his cowboy hat on you, saying you wore it like a natural.

He loved being the hero, really.

He lights a cigarette, and takes a puff.

“Most big-name connections refuse to talk to me because of this stuff– I’ve basically been dropped out of phonebooks all together. They think I’m still in on it, they think I’ve only stopped because of backlash–” He stops as you begin to scratch his scalp, still leaning against your shoulder, but getting progressively into your neck area.

Jesus, that feels good. He thinks. He hasn’t been intimate in a while– Barb became increasingly more cold to him over the last few months, as their marriage kept falling apart.

“Backlash, really?” You whisper.

“Yeah.” He stutters for just a moment, because your eyes are peering into his, and for a moment he thinks you could really make it as just a bombshell if you wanted to– then he takes another puff. “When really, I was just backing out of what I thought was really a massive crime against humanity.”

“Are you only telling me this to validate your poor conscience? Remedy that reputation a little?” You ask, and he presses his lips together.

“Well, I'll be honest, yeah. Of fucking course I'd tell the one woman who seems to be like me on this.” He sounds so certain of you, sounds so sure that you're on his side.

And you absolutely are.

“The world’s about to end, Mr. Howard. You're not a bad man for not wanting to support it. I'm inclined to agree.” You inhale deeply, and Cooper stares at you– something stirs inside him as he does.

“Kiss me, then. Humour me– since none of this will matter soon.” Cooper murmurs, lying on top of your chest now, the smoke from his cigarette enveloping your face.

He’s so close you barely have to move to oblige to what he’s said– you're second guessing yourself for just a moment, because it feels like a dream that he'd ask you to do this, so out of the blue, such a picture perfect fantasy that you almost don't care about the impending doom, and you press your lips gently to his in an upside-down kiss, his hair brushing against your open cleavage, but Cooper is insistent and leans upward, kissing you with such intensity that your head is spinning afterwards.

God, now that's a movie star kiss. You think.

He kisses you again as Sebastian returns, drink in hand.

“Oi! You two. Jesus Christ, can't keep your hands off each other, can you?” Sebastian pretends to vomit. “C’mon, if I want to talk to you at my party, I should have that right.”

You attempt to pull away– but Cooper, being a little mischevious, perhaps wanting to show off in a way he hasn’t been able to, sits up right and kisses you again, this time normally, just very slowly and passionately though, slithering an arm around your waist in a way that has Sebastian rolling his eyes.

“Okay, present.” He says, not pulling his arm off your waist.

“Thanks.” Sebastian shakes his head. “I was thinking we should take the mood off with some party games…”

It's about 2 AM when you've finally left the party. Cooper didn't want to let you go– he's crashing at an apartment for the time being, but you really don't want to waste yourself on being his rebound, if he really likes you.

You tell him as much, and he likes that– you really are rather sharp about things.

“Well. Gimme a call when you realize I'm not kidding around with you.” He says unabashedly, holding your hand, kissing it as you leave.

You’re absolutely sure he's drunk, and he's being a little too clingy– but you want to believe him anyways.

You walk back to your car, alone. Thinking about if Cooper is worth the damage it could have on your potential career. But then again– the end of the world is coming, right?

So maybe it won’t matter. And you find that you like this, the secret potential of this option, just hanging out with Cooper in a place that used to be America, no more expectations on you both. There’s also the chance you just both die, though.

You shudder.

You don't notice that there's a man in the backseat of your car when you get in, brandishing a chloroform stained cloth.

The Ghoul prods at the body that's just fallen out of the cryo pod.

Oh fuck.

It's starting to stir, whoever it is, and Coop knows he's ready, if this is really some synthetic android-clone thing, to make their life hell. Get some of his anger out on something that doesn’t matter.

Wait– he recognizes that cherry red fabric. That coiffed hair, frosty after being inside the pod. Oh, Jesus… even the makeup is the same as when he last saw you.

“Ah… shit.” He chuckles to himself in exasperation, because this is beyond belief. “Nuka-Cola, is that you?”

You tilt yourself to the side, eyes bleary, unable to see clearly. Everything’s dark. But you know that voice, you just heard it a couple of days ago.

“Mr. Howard?” You croak out, and he hisses inwards– nobody has called him that in centuries. Nobody knows who he is… except for you, of course.

“The one and the same, baby.” He licks the side of his gums, deciding to stick with his identity for now. “Well, maybe a little different. You wouldn't happen to know what a Ghoul is, huh?”

“What?” You don't know how long your vision is going to stay black for, but you don't like the sound of that. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Eyes haven't been opened for… two hundred years. I'll give you some time, Cola.” He sighs; cracks his neck, while you sink back into the floor. “Just imagine the ugliest horror-picture monster you can imagine. Zombie, no nose. That paint a picture for you?”

“...”

“What was that?” Coop can't hear you when your voice is muffled into the tiles of this secret room. He grasps your hair gently, from the root, pulling your head upwards so you'll speak– clearly you don't have the strength to lift up your body.

“I said, how is that any different from before?”

“Oh, she's still a jokester.” Coop scoffs– despite himself he snorts– and he lets go of your hair so you land back on the floor with a thump.

“–Ow!” You flinch, and then turn over so you’re on your back. “Still an asshole, huh?”

“Me?” He grins maliciously. Ooh, maybe he can use some misplaced anger on you. “You're the one who didn't call back for several weeks.”

“How could I? You can see I've been trapped in a cryo thing for… however long. Did you say two hundred years?” You flatly ask, and Coop still thinks you're lying.

“Yes, and bullshit. You probably had a couple weeks since I last saw you to call me.” He states, and he doesn’t actually hold a grudge, at least not that much of it in comparison to all the other horrid shit that’s happened to him– he just thinks it's funny to push your buttons after all of that, like looking into a mirror of the past– and you groan.

“No, I didn't. I got in my car after Sebastian's party, and some goon sprayed something in my face, I passed out, and he drove me here.” You start, and you begin frowning in such a way that Coop almost feels bad.

“Why you, sweetheart?” He shakes his head. “You weren't exactly high up in popularity yet.”

“Exactly. No one would miss me.” You spit out bitterly, remember the end to that night, where you were so unaware of your surroundings, and terrified of being assaulted as you were pushed around into this room, blindfolded.

“Adrian fucking Amos, the fucking Second, thought it would be great if I just became his permanent doll during the apocalypse.” You swallow, and Coop sits down next to you, to listen more clearly. You shift towards his body heat– and to his surprise, he still likes that. “See, his daddy has shares in Vault-Tec, so he decided before nuclear fallout happened, he wanted a guaranteed sex slave from his favourite advertisements.”

“Nuka-Cola.” Coop utters with the slowest drawl, concluding your statement– and you like that.

“Yeah, Nuka fucking Cola.” You grimace. “Then he undressed me, put me in this little number, and threw me in the pod. I barely remember this shit because I was so out of it.”

“Shame. I always wondered why you never called me back.” Coop circles back to his little grudge– but he also feels bad, feels some level of guilt that neither he nor Sebastian had the sense to look out for you back then, and you were practically assaulted (maybe actually so if you didn't remember).

“Yeah, because I wanted to miss out on that piece of ass. Sure.” You joke feebly, and Coop laughs despite himself.

“Honey, you're gonna run away screaming when you finally see me. Don't worry about it.” He shakes his head. “The real world's a lot more fucking difficult than would'ves and could'ves.”

“Okay, explain. If you're willing to owe me that much.” You start, and Coop gets reminded of that fateful night a couple hundred years ago, where he was the one to clue you into the impending nuclear war.

Not even three months later, it was all over, and you were nowhere in sight– if his mind ever did drift to you, the what-ifs and who-knows that still persisted– he would always assume you were dead.

Now he thinks you're just unfinished business.

“Fine.” He taps your shoulder, and you lean a little closer towards him– you touch his hand, and instead of flinching as many people have in the past– you trace the tough, callused skin there.

He thinks there’s something wrong with you. Why do you seem drawn to him anyways? You’re completely fucking up his tough guy, lone-wolf persona by being here, and he wants you gone. He pulls away his hand, ignoring how your face falls for a moment.

Coop inhales, and then starts. “In October 2077, they nuked America, bombed it all to hell. By they, I think we both know what I’m implying.”

“It wasn’t the Chinese.” You interrupt, and he shushes you.

“Yeah, Cola.” He starts playing with his fingers, feeling like you don’t deserve to be here right now. That you should’ve just stayed dead. “Vault-Tec destroyed it all.”

It’s no good. He’s an old man, and you’re still as soft and young as ever. He’s always haunted by his past, like with Barb and Janey, and then Sebastian’s voice in every single Mr. Handy robot he comes by, and then finally, his last couple memories with you.

“The last two hundred something years have been filled with carnage, death, unspeakable horrors that your pretty little mind could never comprehend.” He grits out, pushing past the past and remembering that this is who he is now– a killer– and you stare at him vacantly, because his tone is so much more serious suddenly. “Nothing is the same. Everyone has blood on their hands, water is a fucking commodity, if you’re not watching out for humans to betray you, hideous creatures like me roam the ground, and that ground? Sands, deserts, barely a hint of green. It’s nothing worth coming back to.”

“So you’re saying I’m in hell.” You suddenly inhale harshly, and Coop ignores the urge to check on you.

The last thing he needs is an extra person to take care of– especially someone who doesn’t know the Wasteland. So it’s better now that he just weans you off and leaves you here.

“Yeah, sweetheart. And I'm the devil.” Coop sucks on his teeth again. “If you had any sense, you’d go back into that fucking freezer until some utopia is born four hundred years from–”

You flinch, and he stops.

“Oh, God, my eyes–”

The sight comes back slowly then all at once. Light everywhere, overwhelming your senses.

You blink, tears rolling down your face.

“Maybe it would’ve been better if you stayed blind, Cola.” He stares at you as you rub your eyes, taking in the state of the room.

It’s a warning, but you look up at him again anyways. And Coop waits for the utter horror, for the sign that he really has transformed into a monster, so he can hurry up and leave– this entire conversation with you is just him finishing Cooper Howard’s past with a bow. A shiny, Nuka-Cola-red bow.

“...” You swallow, and then bite your lip, tilting your head up at him. “Couldn’t let go of the cowboy identity, huh?”

Coop furrows his non-existent eyebrows, disliking how hard you’re making this, how clever you still seem to be– you also seem way too relaxed with him. He has half a mind to fire a warning shot at you. “Yeah, okay, darlin’. You’re just avoiding facing that horrific, bile-inducing sensation in your throat, aren’t you?”

You shake your head, disagreeing immediately. “You might look– a little less like how I remember you, I guess… but you’re still you. I see it, and apparently so do you.”

How dare you? Coop thinks, how dare you intertwine his two images together so easily when he could never be the same man again, when just seeing an old VHS tape of one of his movies pains him?

“Yeah, no thanks. If this is your way to get me to valet you around, I’m not that man anymore, Nuka-Cola.” He resents the way you think he could still be good– just because his western image brings him a little comfort nowadays. “Not a sheriff anymore.”

Your face drops, but you seem to take that information readily. “Yeah, I figured that based on your outfit, the little blood splatters on your pants… if that’s how the world is, then so be it.”

You’re saying things that on paper should be right– but Coop is getting more and more disgruntled with you, and you feel like you need to separate yourself from him. Yes, tough, because to you it’s been all of forty-eight hours since you kissed him– but you can see, no matter how deep the original Cooper Howard is inside this new Ghoul, you’re not going to be able to bring him out.

You stand up, on shaky, bare feet, and motion for Coop to move out of the way. Independent woman to the end, you are, and you want to get your bearings without him.

Coop internally sighs. He doesn’t believe for one second you’ll survive out there– and he really doesn’t need to spend the time seeing you die, so he turns around, and leaves you here.

He never did find Leopold St. West, much to his chagrin– you really, really messed up his day.

It happens. Sometimes he’ll see Janey in another person’s eyes and freak out, and have to boil it down by murdering random raiders.

But now Coop is just spiteful. He’s always figured that a lot of what happened to the world was just a bunch of rich people picking and choosing a destiny for themselves to the detriment of everyone else, and now he’s aware that included you, too. To casually be grabbed away by some man, just because he was rich… Coop isn’t unsympathetic to how you ended up, even if he treated you quite poorly. It’s sickening.

Two hundred years of quiet, always-dwelling agony, the first few years out of fear for being alone, and the next few years spent conspiring about what could’ve happened to his family– and then here you are as confirmation of his worst theories.

No wonder he enjoys his casket time.

Coop sighs.

Vaultie is hard to keep track of. She got away with murder this time at the organ harvesting clinic– so Coop finds it easier to stop working with her, to move when he wants to.

The Govermint (really just Booker’s shitty gang) was rather easy to dismantle. The two sheriffs that he killed required no expertise on his part.

He’s thinking about the fact that since Moldaver is still alive, and apparently that fucker Hank MacLean, then that means there’s a good chance Barb and Janey are too– perhaps he could go and find them.

It’s an odd urge, though. Everytime he thinks about it, he wonders how he’s actually supposed to connect with them again– they’ve been fractured for so long, and he’s changed, and there’s a good chance neither of them would accept him like this.

But you did, didn’t you? You were on the verge of saying yes, you’d accept him– as if nothing had changed.

Coop grumbles. The big, significant difference is that you were infatuated with him, but Barb divorced him, and Janey was too young to make that choice. He considers that it could be a pipe dream, but he still has hope– for Janey, at least.

He thinks you’re probably dead anyways. He hasn’t seen you in several months, since that day where he unceremoniously woke you up– and he hopes it stays that way.

He's chilling in another small, scrappy area of the wasteland. Nobody bothers the Ghoul, not when he's casually fiddling with his gun and and chewing on a toothpick.

A man runs past him, holding a significantly valuable piece of Brotherhood equipment. Maybe worth thousands of caps if he knows his shit, and he does. That’s a fusion core, and they’re not exactly mass producing those anymore during the apocalypse.

Coop points his gun at him, finger on the trigger, seconds away from creating a bloody mess–

A blade thwacks into the guy’s neck, blood spurting as he falls and chokes. A person– a woman– jumps on his back, her face obscured by a deep green bandana . She yanks out the knife, stabs a few more times for good measure– and Coop knows the game, he’s not surprised he’s not the only one to go after this guy.

He’s pretty good at killing casually, and he barely even moves from where he’s standing, aiming the gun at her.

No way is he letting easy money pass by him.

He’s about to pull the trigger extra-quick when she yanks the bandana down, taking a deep breath as she sweats, and Coop actually misses.

It’s you. You stare up at him from where you’re squatting over the body, and your gaze hardens, furrowed brows, dark lashes, intensely dark pupils. You purse your lips, press them together, jaw set in a stern fashion, recognizing him but refusing to hear him out– and Coop doesn’t know why he’s not firing, but he’s almost… enamoured with how you are now, almost taken aback by your new nature.

Not so taken aback that he doesn’t immediately start firing when you take the fusion core and start running.

And Coop doesn’t want to actually kill you, he just wants to incite some damage. See how far you can take it.

You interweave through random gaps in the metal scraps of this little abode, seeking shelter as you do so, and Coop’s gunfire only ricochets off them with cartoony sounding “pings!”

He manages to graze your left thigh through a small window, and you inhale sharply, stopping as you grit through the pain.

Coop grins to himself. This little cat and mouse chase is what he expected, what was predictable from you– you’re smart enough to stay on the defense, but you would probably never attack him, avoiding him because of your sad feelings of the old times, never resort to carnage unless you needed to–

You shove past the walls where you’ve been roaming, and manage one kick against his stomach and he manages to grab you and restrain you, your back against his front.

You grab his own jacket for purchase, and instead of pulling forward– you push back, landing on top of him with a thud that surely hurts him. Coop clenches his teeth, back against the ground now, but you scramble, straddling him. Hands around his throat, knife pressed against one of his tendons. Not outright strangling him, but just enough pressure that he knows you’re seriously threatening him.

Holy fuck, have you changed. Just like Vaultie, maybe you’re showing your honest self– and Coop supposes it may have been his mistake to underestimate you.

“Got a whole new outfit… I like it.” He admires your new leather jacket, cargo pants around your thighs pushing his arms down, a blouse fashioned out of your old Nuka-Cola dress. Tough combat boots dig into his thighs as you push against him. “Don’t fucking start–” You squeeze a little harder and he groans, the tip of the knife pushing in. “With your on and off, hot and cold bullshit.”

Ooh, it sounds like you have a little bit of a grudge over how you were treated.

“Get over it, Cola. It was centuries ago, whatever we had.” He spits out, and you have a glint of sadness in your eyes.

He knew you were a little too gushy for your own good– not even he adapted that quickly to the wilderness of the Wasteland. He waits for you to make the mistake, apologize, break down– and then he can take the core and get out of here.

But you’re still firm in your grasp of him, your weight pushing him down, blade against him.

You’re not angry about back then. You’ve come to terms with that.

You’re angry at the state of the world.

“You know what I fucking hate, Ghoul?” You spit in his face, and he blinks, spittle now on his chin. “You are all so selfish. I got left behind, likely for dead, right, and nobody gives a shit, whatever. But instead of me hoping that the leftover crumbs of society would at least try to be, I don’t fucking know, more hopeful and kind, or at the very least, not be so fucking greedy and transparently trying to be the new party in charge.”

“You’re living in a dream world.” Coop interrupts, and he’s rewarded with you carving a small, little cut on his cheek, a rapid movement you hardly think about, and it causes him to inhale sharply, a drop of blood smearing across his face.

“Oh, no. I’m not asking for everyone to hold hands and play family.” You laugh suddenly, and then somehow lean in closer, and Coop finds that in some fucked up way he enjoys the pressure against him. “It’s bullshit, that kind of image making– you and I both know that. But for all this supposed talk against the rich billionaires who ruined our lives, how are we not just emulating them?”

Coop is actually drawn to silence.

“Maybe you actually got fooled by self-image, Cola.” He murmurs. “Or maybe that’s just people’s true nature.”

You don’t like that answer. You don’t actually want to believe that, but the more you think about it, the more it’s probably true. People lie all the time, but the amount of outrage you’ve heard from people the last few months, bemoaning Vault-Tec and all those rich fuckers, you were inclined to believe they wouldn’t act the exact same way.

Just at a different level. Power corrupts all, you guess.

You loosen your grasp a little. “Thank you.”

It’s honest, and Coop doesn’t like how much he does like your nature of trusting him– how even as this new, terrible version of yourself, you still trust him, and you still ask for his advice.

He doesn’t know what to make of this, but he thinks maybe he can get some use out of you yet.

Coop wrangles his arm from out under your thigh, where you’ve accidentally let a gap through, and shoves you over.

You fall with a gasp, hitting the ground, and he stands up and kicks you for good measure, while you screech in pain.

Coop picks you up by your throat, and you instantly move to fighting– your blade against his stomach, teeth gritted in resolute urge to kill– but he’s got his pistol at your neck, and the way he brushes it against you is almost like a lover’s embrace.

“One thing I hate is a fucking liar, Cola.” He grumbles, and you glare at him. “You’re not some innocent– why else do you got a fusion core in your pocket?”

“I never claimed I was a good woman.” You shake your head. “I just wonder why the Brotherhood, the Enclave, hell, even some of the Raiders… everyone wants the ultimate piece of the pie.”

“Besides, you’re the one who kept saying to survive out here I’d have to be a killer.” You remind him, and he looks down at you, thinking. “The world’s grieving– I don’t blame it for that, I feel the same way.”

You’ve still got a way with words, he thinks, and he was right. He can use you for his benefit.

“Say, Nuka-Cola. Why don’t we take some of those fuckers down?” He stills. “Not randoms. The power-hungry pie-eaters, like how you so eloquently put it.”

You don’t fully trust him again, but you’re into the prospect. You don’t want power, and you know he doesn’t either, but it’s not just looting. No, no, this is something akin to revenge.

“Alright.” You whisper.

“Alright. Okay, I won’t shoot if you don’t cut me.” He speaks softly, slowly, trying to cajole you out of attacking– and you move as he does.

The threatening air of before is gone now, and the Ghoul has only a odd stare for you, something that makes you feel watched, almost reminding you of two centuries ago. It could be that he doesn’t trust you either– and so you walk onward with a gap between you two, heading to wherever a faction that needs fucking up could be.

Coop strolls inside the makeshift bar as you make conversation, staying within the shadows. It’s not on official Enclave grounds, it’s simply a nearby bar where members have been known to hang out.

He doesn’t exactly mind being the one to pick up the slack of killing people– he can tell you’re good at charming people what with your former bombshell acting techniques, your silly, soft blinks, the way how your skin still looks smooth and untouched.

Was it all a lie with him? Aw, shit, why does he care? He really doesn’t have time to wonder if he’s been manipulated by you– he won’t be manipulated by you now, when he gets rid of many the people who represents obstacles in his way to finding still-existing Vault-Tec members.

Yes, that’s all this is to him. Another step to finding Moldaver, Henry MacLean, then his family if he’s lucky. And you’ll get some rage out of it, so he doesn’t even consider this to be that bad of an evasion of his.

You laugh at something the guy next to you says. Coop catches a bit of it, of him asking how you look under that big jacket– and you mentioning you’d like to see him without that government get-up, too.

He grits his teeth. He’s not fucking in love with you, or anything stupidly juvenile like that– but he definitely felt something before when the two of you were fighting, or when you had conversations during the long, arduous talk here– you bit into a piece of his jerky when he offered it, and he laughed in surprise that you didn’t spit it out after he revealed it was feral ghoul ass jerky.

He also found that his gaze kept being drawn to you, too. You kept up with him, you were capable of hunting and searching on your own, you took lives when the need arose, and you had his back, even if he didn’t ask for it.

You made him subconsciously draw from the past, reminiscing about a time with you and a future he never thought he’d revisit. And now he can’t ignore that, so he needs to let off some steam.

There’s a splatter of blood across your face as the guy in front of you splutters, a bullet hole shot through his forehead. Little pieces of flesh hit the bar counter as he falls, and you gasp.

Coop is kind of quick with it now– he fires off, and because these “politicians” are unprepared, he’s able to kill off more than half.

You get over your shock quickly and fire your own tiny pistol at random, managing a few kills, but the Ghoul takes the last one and looks back at you, with an intrepid glance that you can’t figure out.

“What the hell was that?” You call out, and he doesn’t respond, instead beginning to pilfer the bodies, looking for shit to take. “Hey, Ghoul…”

“We came here to kill off those guys.” He answers you, but it’s not really an answer.

“Yeah, but I thought we agreed on discussing this shit as we were doing it. What happened to signalling?” You approach him, and as you get close enough, he turns around and stares unnervingly into your eyes.

“I did signal, sweetheart.” He clicks his tongue, lying through his teeth.

“Bullshit.”

“No, I did.” He points at you. “It’s not my fault that you were too busy schmoozing and flirting to notice.”

“Wow.” You laugh exasperatedly at his antics, while he tilts his head. “You’re really obtuse, you know?”

“Nah. I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re gonna say you’re not jealous–” At that word, the Ghoul snarls, ready to tell you exactly how little he cares for you, and you motion for him to zip it. “But at the very instance of seeing me flirt, mind you, in the most fake way possible, you lost it. You can’t even tell the difference between my genuine flirting and the fakest, schlockiest shit?”

“...” Coop frowns, because you’re right– he did kind of let his mind go wild over nothing in particular.

Even worse, it means he’s made it apparent to you that he still harbours some feelings for your long-ago relationship. And that’s definitely a potential weakness– he does not want you to believe you can just work him around.

“Fuck you.” He spits, and instead of your face flinching in hurt, you stay neutral.

“I know you think you can come close and then shove me off every once in a while, because you’re fucking terrified of what it means that you’re not as hard as you pretended to be, that you still have a bit of human emotion inside you.” You tiptoe up to his face so he can’t avoid you. “I don’t care. That’s your problem.”

You turn to leave, to continue looting the bodies– and Coop’s hand wraps around your wrist.

He hates what you’ve said, because it’s absolutely provoking the worst issue he has– he can never just let go. Two hundred years of this has made him a different creature altogether, spiteful; evil, but Coop knows as well as anyone that his transformation doesn’t negate his original nature, buried deep down.

It was a lie on his part– people are not as evil as he made them out to be, it’s the cycle of this situation that perpetuates that shit. Violence begets violence and all that. He can’t seem to say this to you, though, because he can tell you already probably knew that.

What is this fuckery, that you’re able to generate such a sense of guilt in him?

“Show it to me again. Genuine flirting.” he says instead, and he knows it’s stupid as hell to say something like this. “It’s been hundreds of years, you can’t expect me to fuckin’ remem…”

You grasp his arm back, making him quiet.

He’s half expecting you to punch him, but you see something you like– something that finally satisfies you, and you kiss his cheek, where you cut him much earlier in the day. It’s a soft bruise, mostly healed over in the way ghouls heal– but it’s overwhelmingly, embarrassingly hot there now as you pull away.

“I won’t forget the difference next time, Nuka-Cola.” He tips his hat at you in a mockery of his acting as a dashing cowboy once upon a time.

“Won’t be a next time.” You shrug. “I would hate to have to flirt with someone again just to get you to notice me.”

This severely bothers him, like you haven’t been an annoyance in his mind this whole time. And then he wonders if you’re an idiot, like you have no idea the effect you had on him back then, and even now. Hell, even that overly-chaste kiss has him remembering how he felt at Sebastian’s party when you humoured him the first time.

Do you think the only thing he’s burying is some empathy for the human race?

He can’t just let you be this wrong about this, no fucking way. And it’s with this in mind that the Ghoul feels his reserve melt as he tightly grabs your face and kisses you. Not a soft, movie-star kiss of the past, but one more hungry, his lips swallowing yours, pressed sternly, firmly, like he’s not gonna let you go. He parts his mouth ever so slightly, trying to catch a reaction from you.

You’re caught off guard, and he’s glad. He likes that you don’t know what to do with yourself, that for once you’re floundering rather than him, and you barely remember to kiss back until a couple seconds later when your hands grasp the base of his skull. You’re tracing grooves, calluses, skin that’s been eroded by his ghoulishness. You feel like he tastes ever so acidic– perhaps from the radiation emitting from his body– but some weird part of you loves it, and you part your lips as you kiss him harder, wanting to feel his tongue.

Your lips are just as soft as he remembers– but there’s more excitement now, more of an urgency as you kiss him, so he takes your invitation and swirls his tongue around on yours, disgustingly vulgar and perversely fast, yet lingering to enjoy the sensation, and he kinda loves being a corrupting force, being the ghoul who eats up this sweet human girl, and he tightens his grip– it almost hurts you, how tightly his hands weave around your waist suddenly– and then before you know it, he pulls away.

He wipes his mouth, never taking his eyes off of you.

“So. Did I taste like Nuka-Cola?” You joke, and he laughs in your face.

“Nope. Darlin, you haven’t been the Nuka-Cola girl for hundreds of years. They replaced you not long after you vanished.” He smiles widely at how your face drops. “I can show you some of the new girl’s billboards, if you’d like.”

“That would explain the lack of revenue.” You raise your eyebrows. “Then why do you still call me Nuka-Cola, Cola, etcetera?”

“That’s how I remember you.” It sounds too sweet, too nice that he keeps your nickname on tabs, so he twists his lips in a sneer. “Plus I don’t remember your name.”

“Oh.” You bite your lip, finding his insult more funny than anything else, and turn around to take items from the bodies around you. “Okay, Mr. Howard.”

It was the optimal moment for you to joke back, calling him the Ghoul, but in classic you-fashion, you decided to extend an olive branch to him– reminding him that he’ll never just be the Ghoul to you. And even if Coop knows he’ll always remember you by Nuka-Cola, he has a fondness for you that he doesn’t neglect anymore– and he murmurs your name so softly, but just enough that you turn back and look at him, and smile with pleased recognition.

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hana-no-seiiki · 5 months ago

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YANDERE HUSBAND x GN CELEBRITY!READER

— based off of a dream i had of a childhood friend/crush. hiatus not over tho lol.

— morally bankrupt reader. clingy husband. the usual yandere stuff.

YANDERE! HUSBAND who was your childhood best friend. Your parents shipped you two since you could speak.

YANDERE! HUSBAND who had a crush on you since forever. He doesn’t even remember a time where he didn’t get butterflies and an aching need to be the only one close to you

YANDERE! HUSBAND who’s the biggest flirt. He knows you the best. Although you were completely oblivious. He’d always try to be around you, compliment you, tease you.

He’d give you matching keychains, and would beg his parents to buy whatever gift he’d think you’d like.

YANDERE! HUSBAND who sadly had to move away for a while. He comes back during high school. And the first thing he asks while he’s there? To be put in the same class as you.

Now that you two are older, you finally started to notice how much of a tease he was. Always grappling unto a piece of your attention.

You acquiesce and begin to date him. Not necessarily feeling anything for the guy but thought it was high time that you finally settle down. It was the perfect storyline you could share once your ambitions were fulfilled.

That and cause your parents would only let you go to acting school if he married you.

Which you two eventually did before college. Was it rushed? Definitely. Did you even love the guy? Nuh uh. But you had places you had your sights set on. And he was the only path.

YANDERE! HUSBAND who drops out to be your full time househubby. His parents could always give him a job at their corporation anyways. There was no real pressure for him to study and get a job.

YANDERE! HUSBAND who almost always supports your acting career. Watching all your shows, movies, and interviews. Basically buying out all the merch you featured in. And paying advertisers across the globe to have your face plastered everywhere.

YANDERE! HUSBAND who unfortunately stops you from having any romantic or sexual scenes. Essentially blocking you from any roles that could be your breakthrough just cause it could have a tiny kiss or so.

Your anger at his blatant attempt to have control over you began simmering. Ever so slowly reaching the surface. Not improving at all when you found out he’d been trying out a job that his mother gave him.

Fuck the gifts. Fuck the yachts and cars he’d swarm you with. Why did he get to do what he wanted and you didn’t?

So you follow him to work once, only to catch him in a compromising position with a coworker.

You didn’t care about him or his business beneath the sheets really. So you had to thank the gods above that you knew exactly what and how to do the following act.

Cry. Scream. Throw things at them.

The coworker already left. Shuffling as they tried to hide from your anger.

Your husband is unresponsive. Catatonic. Even more of an excuse to hurt him.

You call him filthy, uncaring, the worst man to ever exist. Hell, even some of your true feelings come out as you yelled about how you regretted ever being with him.

You find out later from his mom that he had been framed. That this coworker was just trying to get money out of the heir.

Still, you wanted out. He had already served his purpose and you needed to expand your horizons.

A week later of radio silence from him as you prepared the divorce papers he walks in.

Covered in red his hands caressed your face,

“You called me filthy did you not? So I cleansed myself with their blood.”

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere imagine #yandere fic #yandere oc #yandere oc x reader #yandere core #yandere husband #male yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere male x reader #yandere headcannons #yandere hcs #yanderes #yandere x darling #darlingcore #yanderecore

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catboybiologist · 6 months ago

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So.

Re: tumblr bans of transfemmes.

Let's ignore PhotoMatt for a moment. Manbaby tech CEO doubling down on a stupid decision and making himself look like more of an ass doing so is not a new phenomena.

Tumblr has consistently said, in both public statements and leaked internal communication, that they're essentially running a skeleton crew.

They keep saying that they don't have the resources to moderate, manually review posts, have any kind of appeal process, or anything. So, as people have widely received communications about, they seemed to have automated a significant portion of the moderation to operate solely on the quantity of reports (probably with a basic filter, eg quantity of reports regarding a certain post, within a certain timeframe) to automatically ban or shadowban accounts.

And so, they wipe their hands, both to the users, the public, and their own consciousness, and go about their automated operations.

All of this is likely true. Tumblr, at this point, is essentially abandonware internally, a kind of weird vanity project/dumpster ground for server infrastructure for Automattic. Likely, they don't want the bad press of "shutting down" fully. Or maybe the trickle of revenue they get here just barely exceeds operating costs, so why not keep it around?

Whatever is the case, the bans are a result of an automated process working in the background. I'm giving them some benefit of the doubt here, of course, we can't know anything for certain- but it seems like the individual bans are not based on any specific, manual action.

And that doesn't fucking excuse anything.

Because at some point, multiple people sat down at tumblr, and decided how to cut costs.

And they decided that the bare minimum of report abuse prevention was one of the first things on the chopping block.

Before the boops. Before GUI reconfigures.

They decided to cut something that is necessary to manage online communities.

They decided to cut something that ensures any targeted group will have any kind of community online.

And then, after all of that, the only manual intervention is doubling down on the shitty decisions that the automated systems make, and plucking reasons out of their ass for why they were the right decisions all along.

It's pure silicon valley brain. Blame the computer often and always. Use it to shield the active decisions you made when designing the computer that way. Treat it as a fact of life as opposed to something they actively made decisions for.

Is tumblr staff hitting the banhammer on each transfemme one by one? No.

Is tumblr staff deliberately crafting a system that allows TERFs and other conservative bigots to get rid of the "undesirables" for them? Yup. But they sure as hell are trying to not say the quiet part out loud. If they can always point the finger somewhere else, to the advertisers, to the automated systems, to the TERFs, then they can always have juuusssttt enough plausible deniability.

But being the "queerest place on the internet" requires concious acknowledgement that queer people will be targets of harassment, and you will have to protect against that.

Side note, this is why I do try to keep my blog at least somewhat SFW. Its one of the main reasons why I choose not to reblog all of the posts I'm tagged in- if the post is overtly NSFW, I've probably seen it, appreciated it, and consciously decided my level of interaction with it mostly based on how "tumblr friendly" it is. Is that bowing down to them? A little. It's also my choice. I value the community I have here. The pushes that y'all have given me gave me the strength to transition, and honestly gives me a lot of motivation to research HRT biology as much as I can, among many other things.

Yeah, I post pictures that are clearly meant to be found attractive in ways that are generally not socially acceptable , but never actual NSFW. I would like to think that I'm pretty safe from bans, but hey. Who knows. I don't want to lose my follower base, and the community around it.

And yeah, I'm gonna annoyingly remind you of the other places to find me, make sure to check my pin. If you don't know where to go, just find me on reddit and go from there, I'll post about it if anything happens.

#I hope this rant is at least somewhat intelligible #im in lab late night and typing this out as fast as i can in between experiment steps #stay safe out there yall

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ayyy-pee · 7 months ago

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𝔼ℙ𝕀𝕊𝕆𝔻𝔼 𝟙 - 𝕀ℕ𝕋ℝ𝕆𝔻𝕌ℂ𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ𝕊 ℙ𝕋. 𝕆ℕ𝔼

Discord 18+ - Twitter - Last Episode - Next Episode - Masterlist

Pairing: JJK Men x Female Reader

Episode Summary: The season has begun! Which one of these contestants will be the first to make an impression on your heart?

STORY TWIST: READERS WILL VOTE AFTER CERTAIN CHAPTERS TO CHOOSE WHO GETS A ROSE AND MAKES IT TO THE NEXT WEEK. KEEP A LOOKOUT FOR THE VOTING LINK AT THE END OF CHAPTERS

Story Warning: DRAMA, lying and scheming, REVERSE HAREM, profanity bc I can only be me, arguments, fights probably, heartbreak and tears, (more to come)

Artist Credit: momoya348, Umbra3terna, ilameys,maoyaoyao519, _0_0219 Divider Credit: Cafekitsune (Tumblr)

A/N: sorry it took so long! i said it would be up the next day but yall know i lie

Apparently, you were the perfect pick for the show. At least, that’s what the producers had told you as they spent weeks screening you for this and prepping you for what was to be expected.

“She’s not heavily involved in society, but can still see curses,” they’d said.

“And none of the Sorcerers would know her either since she’s practically nobody in society,” they’d note.

“No expectations from someone like her,” they’d comment.

And all the while, you sat there, letting them pick apart your life.

A window – hardly useful, new to Kyoto so the chances were slim that you had met any of the men who had signed up for the show, a nobody, just…there. Unimpressive, plain, hardly a step above the non-gifted. And somehow, you were supposed to win the heart of one of these men.

- - - - - -

Jesse stands before you, a wide smile on his face when he asks, “Feeling nervous?”

“Just a little.” That feels like an understatement

“Anything you’re looking for in one of these Sorcerers?” Jesse pushes. You’ve honestly got to give it to Jesse. He’s a great host. You’ve gotten more comfortable with him in the short time you’ve been speaking. You think he’s a nice person. At least while the cameras are on.

“Nothing in particular, Jesse,” you respond. “You know, I’m pretty open right now. Just looking to find someone who speaks to my heart.”

Now you’re just pulling things out of your ass, because where did that come from?

“Good, good.” Jesse pauses briefly, taking a dramatic inhale of breath before he speaks your name. “Alright, listen. The first man who will be competing for your heart should be pulling up here shortly. Best of luck. But, I have a strong feeling there’s going to be someone out here for you that will end up sweeping you off your feet…” He leans forward and embraces you once more. Then he turns and speaks directly into the camera, where all the viewers at home can see. “Remember, this is a very special season in more ways than one. While our Bachelorette tries to find her soulmate, you, the viewers at home, are in charge of choosing who will not be receiving a rose for eliminations.”

Your head snaps to the camera and you see the cameraman swivel the large machine so that Jesse’s head blocks your wide eyed, open mouthed stare.

“Hopefully these men know how to make an impression, because that will greatly sway you viewers. Be sure to tune in…” He claps his hands together. “And with that…let the journey begin.”

Jesse is off before you can even call after him, not sparing you a glance as his assistants swarm around him out of view of the camera. There’s a lot of movement that follows as Jesse leaves you standing outside of the Bachelorette mansion in what now feels like the frigid cold. Was it always this freezing? Was your dress always so tight, so suffocating? You feel like you can’t breathe.

The viewers. That’s what Jesse had said on live television. The viewers would be deciding who moved forward?! That was not what was advertised! This was not what you were told would be happening! You were supposed to be choosing for yourself!

How could you possibly find the love of your life among a group of Sorcerers you’d be meeting for the first time in your life. Not to mention, you had to depend on the viewers of the world to decide who was your soulmate?! They didn’t even know you! How could you trust them with your heart? How would they know who would be the one best suited to take care of it?

Hell, you don’t even know who would be the one best suited for that. But the only thing you are certain of is that this is a mistake. A very big, very stupid mistake.

How could you have let Utahime talk you into this? Let this be the last time you’re swayed by that drunkard!

Your eyes dart around, trying not to catch the attention of the many people surrounding you at the moment. The crew is busy fiddling with the lighting. The sound team is checking and adjusting mics. The cameramen are moving into position to catch every possible angle. And suddenly you feel more exposed, more vulnerable than ever. You need to get out of here, quickly.

Spinning on your heel, you take a single step forward in an attempt to dart past all of the commotion, hopefully unnoticed. But the moment you turn around, you hit a wall. At least what feels like a wall. But the only thing standing between you and your escape is one very tall man dressed in a nice and clearly incredibly expensive suit.

Your gaze climbs up this man’s body and you’re met with a pair of the most insanely (and downright terrifying) pair of blue eyes you’ve ever seen in your life. They sit behind a pair of sunglasses (it’s nighttime?) so dark, you can’t see a thing through them. And atop this man’s head sits a head full of stark white hair. He’s so…unnatural looking. Almost alien-like, but beautiful nonetheless.

Still. It doesn’t change the fact that less than two seconds ago, you’re absolutely positive that this man was not here.

“Hey there,” he says, a lopsided grin on his face.

It’s then that reality crashes down on you. That this strange-looking man appearing out of thin air feels real. And you let out a blood-curdling, earsplitting shriek that has the staff gasping and screaming along with you. You quickly stagger backwards. And because you seem to be blessed with nothing but bad luck tonight, your heel of course catches in the ridges of the outdoor tile. You’re sure to be tumbling to the ground soon and you can only pray the cameras aren’t trained on you when you inevitably hit the floor. You squeeze your eyes shut and wait for the impact to come.

But it never does. You’re sort of just…floating there. You hesitantly peek through one eye, aware that you’re now in the arms of the man who had appeared out of nowhere. His eyes stare down at you, a hint of amusement behind them as he holds you to his chest. Well, you think it’s his chest? It feels like you’re touching him…but not? It’s such a strange sensation. Is this his cursed technique? It has you reaching up and almost pressing your hand to the man’s chest. That is, until you realize what you’re about to do. Aghast, you scramble out of his hold and straighten yourself up.

What was it the producers had told you in preparation? Stand tall and confidently. Even if you don’t feel confident, you’ll at least be able to look confident.

Well, you definitely don’t feel confident, and you doubt you look confident either. But you clear your throat quietly anyway, folding your hands in front of you and offer this man a polite smile.

“Thank you,” you mutter.

He chuckles, slipping his hands into his pockets as he peers at you from over the rim of his glasses. He purses his lips together, taking you in. Then that grin from earlier is back, like he approves of what he sees. “Any time.”

You’re not sure who the hell this man is. If he’s a contestant on the show, he shouldn’t be here yet. He’s supposed to be pulling up in a stretch limo and let out in front of you so that introductions can be done properly. You wait for him to introduce himself, but instead he just stands there, a shit eating grin sitting on his lips. Like you’re just supposed to know who he is.

Should you? Maybe you should.

He waits there…staring, annoyingly if you’re being honest.

So you wait, too. Because isn’t he supposed to be impressing you? Not the other way around. He’s clearly a sorcerer. You can feel the light airiness his cursed energy exudes, but you can’t for the life of you pinpoint who he is. Maybe it’s your nerves. Maybe you’re still on edge from this entire experience. Or maybe it’s the way your heart is still racing from him scaring the absolute shit out of you fifteen seconds ago. Either way, this guy seems awfully sure of himself and his expectation for you to show him some sort of reaction to his presence.

But you can’t place who he is. Mentally, you want to kick yourself for the way you always checked out, daydreaming about cheese fries instead of listening to Utahime give you the 411 on all of the sorcerers she knew. It would probably come in handy right about now.

When you don’t give this stranger the reaction he’s waiting for, you watch as his brows slowly knit together behind those glasses of his and his mouth turns down with a scowl.

“I thought a sorcerer would be more…” He waves his hand in the air lazily. “...excited about this.”

You fix him with a deadpan look. “You popped up out of nowhere, then almost knocked me on my a–”, you glance over to one of the cameras quickly. It stares back at you, one of many giant eyes suddenly hovering to catch every expression and word from you and televise it to the world. So really, you should be more careful about what you say. “I mean…you came out of nowhere and scared the crap out of me!”

You toss in a laugh to lighten up the mood, and let the man know you’re not upset even though deep down your heart is still hammering against your ribcage from his annoying little stunt.

Annoying…

…Stunt

Suddenly it hits you. Through the fog of cheese fry filled memories, you can hear Utahime’s drunken slurring come through.

“Everything’s a fucking joke to him. He takes nothing seriously. I hate that guy so much! Him and that dumbass blindfold and that damn forcefield he keeps up around him. Gojo Satoru can kiss my ass.”

And because he’s Gojo fucking Satoru, he can see the instant you realize he’s him written all over your face.

“Looks like you finally figured it out.” He’s as cocky as Utahime told you he was.

Even still, you hadn’t paid it any mind because you hadn’t expected the strongest sorcerer in a thousand fucking years to be standing in front of you on a damn dating show.

He saunters over to you, long legs quickly closing the distance. Then he’s taking your hand in his and bringing it up to his shiny pink lips. And you must look like a deer in the headlights, staring up at him with wide eyes, mouth open slightly as The Strongest, places a soft kiss to the back of your hand.

“I’m Satoru,” he breathes against your skin, and from your peripheral, you see the cameras move closer to catch this gesture.

They’re so close, you can even hear the staff whispering worriedly behind you: “Wait, wasn’t everyone’s montage supposed to be in black and white?” and “Why are his photos in color?” and “Something about his eyes? I don’t know.” and “Management’s gonna kill us.”

When Satoru pulls away, he’s smiling down at you. You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to his height. “You’re…stunning,” he speaks with an air of disbelief. And you can’t help it. You swoon for him immediately. It’s kind of pathetic, really. “As The Strongest, I think I’m the only one here capable of taking care of your heart.”

Again, you hear the staff behind you, men and women alike sighing and quietly squealing. You respond with a sweet smile and a genuine laugh because, although a little cheesy, that was definitely a good line. “Maybe so.”

You think he likes your cheekiness, because he’s beaming now. “Definitely so. And I can’t wait to prove it.” He kisses your hand again. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.” Satoru gives you his most radiant smile and you can’t help but return it. “I’ll see you inside.”

And with that, he’s gone in an instant, like he was never there. It’s just you, with your hand still in the air and the impression of Satoru’s cursed energy before you…and the impression he’s already left on your heart.

You turn to the camera, pressing your hand to your rapidly beating heart. “He’s so charming.” It comes out as more of a sigh and you think you can hear Utahime groaning, see her rolling her eyes all the way from her couch. But you can’t help it! You just met the Satoru Gojo!

Unfortunately, you don’t have time to dwell too much on Satoru’s unique entrance because shortly after he poofs out of sight, you hear the sounds of tires approaching. With a wide grin to the camera and the audience watching, you spin back around and try to calm your nerves for the next arrival.

“We’re already off to a good start.” The cameras move into position, ready to capture everything. “Looks like the next contestant’s coming. Wonder what he’ll be like.”

Just as you finish speaking, a long, black and luxurious limousine rounds the corner and pulls into the lengthy driveway. You steady yourself, feeling optimistic after your first meeting. It’s as though all the nerves and apprehension you’d felt earlier were washed away. You can’t help but feel giddy now, eager to meet this next contestant as the limousine comes to a stop.

But as the driver exits the vehicle – a small, sweaty and almost sickly looking man – he comes around to the back of the limo and opens the door...only to see that the backseat is empty. He peers inside, then whips around when he finally sees there truly is no one in there. You can see his face begin to go almost green, his black rimmed glasses fogging as he stutters out, “H-has Gojo-san a-already arrived?”

He’s trembling, this poor man, and you simply give him a nod. Was he supposed to be bringing Satoru to you? If so, he failed miserably at his task.

The driver looks like he’s about two seconds away from passing out and the camera crew pick up on it, scurrying forward to catch his expression. He’s panic-stricken, murmuring to himself and it’s just loud enough for you to make out a “I hope Gojo-san doesn’t hit me when he’s back. How did I not notice he wasn’t there anymore? It was so quiet in the backseat. I must have simply enjoyed the rare peace I was given and didn’t question it...Oh, I’m so dead–”

He hurries back around to the drivers side without sparing a glance back, quickly hopping inside and taking off. The tires smoke and screech as he speeds around the corner, driving far too fast for any limousine to be moving.

The cameras pan back to you, and you smile uncomfortably, an equally uncomfortable laugh bubbling up from your chest. You shrug to the audience because what can you even say to that?

Dealing directly with sorcerers is already proving to be more chaotic than you imagined.

The next limo pulls forward not long after Satoru’s and the nervous pale man, and one of the most striking men you’ve ever seen steps out easily. He makes eye contact with you immediately, confidently. And it sends chills up your spine. He’s just barely shorter than Satoru, with a face carved by the gods, shiny blonde hair that looks so soft and probably smells incredible, and deep brown eyes that have definitely seen some shit in his line of work. They house deep bags under them. You wonder when the last time he got a good night’s rest was.

The man strolls across the driveway, so handsome in his khaki suit. You take that time to let your eyes rake over his form. Utahime didn’t tell you that these sorcerers were so damn big. If you had been given a warning, you’re sure you wouldn’t look like an idiot drooling over only the second guy you’ve seen tonight.

When he’s about arms length away from you, he stops suddenly and bows. It’s a perfect 90 degree formal greeting and you return it politely. This man must really care about customs and tradition. Surprisingly, you find that quite attractive.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he greets when he stands. His voice ignites goosebumps along your skin. It’s deep, rough and if you’re being honest, fucking sexy. “I’m Kento Nanami.”

“For now, you can simply refer to me as Nanami until we become more familiar.”

His words confirm your first impression of him. This man carries an air of confidence that makes you feel like you can trust him with your life. You know that sounds dramatic, but it’s a trait that is highly valued in the Sorcerer world. You’ve never seen a battlefield in your life, but you think that if you had a cursed technique, you’d want to go head to head against a curse with Nanami.

The cameras have moved forward again, just in time to catch you grinning like a goofy idiot. Nanami is the polar opposite of Satoru, in a good way. He’s far more serious and stoic than Satoru, but for some reason, you have a feeling that there’s more to him beneath the surface. You’re willing to bet he’s a lot more sensitive and caring than he lets on. You’re hoping you get to see that side of him soon.

“It’s so nice to meet you too, Nanami. You can call me by my first name. No need to be formal with me.”

Nanami presses his lips into a thin line. Like he doesn’t want to agree to that, but he doesn’t argue about it. And though brief, you see his eyes quickly snap up and down your form, taking you in so fast you almost miss it. “You look beautiful,” he tells you. And while his voice gives nothing away, you see the tips of his ears grow a little more crimson.

‘Cute.’ You can’t help but think. Yep, he’s so clearly adorably soft and shy underneath that hard exterior. Interesting. It gives you a small boost in confidence for a second. Someone as attractive as Nanami finds you beautiful. Of course you feel good about yourself.

“You’re very…”

‘Very what? Sexy? Ripped? Built like a fucking house?’

“...good looking yourself.”

‘Yeah, reel in the horny, please.’

Nanami gives you what looks to be the smallest smile you’ve ever seen and much like how you reacted to Satoru, you swoon for him too, heart racing in your chest. You can't help it. He’s just so cute!

“I’m happy to be here. Really lovely meeting you. I'll be seeing you again soon.”

With that, he gives you another bow and that shy smile that you can’t wait to see again. Then he’s moving past you and into the mansion to join Satoru. The cameras face you now and you mouth “wow” into the lens. When you turn back around to ready yourself for the next contestant, you hear the mansion’s door swing open behind you and what you swear is the faint sound of Satoru screaming, “NANAMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII”.

You hope to know more about Nanami soon. He really seems as though he has a lot to offer once he opens up. You’d love to be the one he opens up for.

Just like after Satoru, the next person arrives shortly after Nanami and the cameras move into position quickly. The limo has barely parked when several people who are definitely not contestants (how did they all fit in there?!) jump out from the vehicle and swiftly form a line along the pathway to you.

There’s a shirtless man with heart-shaped nipples that opens the door and after one very long minute has passed, a man exits the vehicle.

Right away, you’re taken aback by how breathtaking this man is. His long black hair is lustrous, voluminous and hangs freely down his back with half of it tied up in a top knot. He’s as beautiful as the two men before him, standing tall in a dark blue form-fitted suit.

His deep violet eyes scan along his surroundings until they land on you at the end of the path, waiting for him. He meets you with a smile so sweet, it almost scares you. And as he strolls towards you, you see why. Every person who had lined the path previously falls forward as the man passes, bowing at an even more perfect 90 degrees than Nanami did just moments before. They offer him praise as he goes.

It’s freaky, downright strange. It’s almost like they worship him.

Now, while everyone in the Jujutsu world knows who Satoru Gojo is because of his reputation, he was actually quite a rare sight. Always busy, always out and about keeping Japan from being wiped from the earth. It wasn’t easy to catch sight of Satoru unless he wanted you to see him, you were a student or staff at the Tokyo campus, or unless you were an unfortunate curse coming face-to-face with him. And so, a little small town Window like yourself had no idea what he looked like in person and a brief description from Utahime hadn’t helped much.

But this man heading your way? Everyone, even Windows, knew who he was and what he looked like. His reputation preceded him, and not in a good way. His air is a lot more intimidating, menacing even. And he’s just as pretty in real life than in any picture you had seen. They did not do him justice. So you were ill-prepared when you realized that heading towards you, with the most stomach churning aura was none other than the worst Curse User of all time, Suguru Geto.

When he reaches you, without a word, he waves a hand and those kneeling behind him shoot up to standing position immediately. They chant “Thank you, Master Geto” in unison, bowing once more before they all pile into the vehicle and leave the vicinity.

It’s creepy…and intriguing all at the same time. You’d never seen anything like that before. So all intel given to Sorcerers and Windows alike weren’t exaggerating. This man really was operating as some strange cult leader. And now the show has captured all of that live on camera.

How was he even able to get on the show anyway? He’s a curse user, not a Sorcerer.

He peers down at you, brows knitted together as he takes you in. He’s quiet for quite some time. Even the crew is on edge, the tension palpable.

When Suguru meets your gaze, it’s almost as though he’s not looking at you at all. More like he’s looking past you. He raises a hand, reaching towards the side of your head, and your eyes drift shut, only for a brief second before you hear a soft whirring right behind your head, and can just make out a soft blue glow highlighting the man’s features.

It’s over as quickly as it began, and when Suguru brings his hand back, he holds a small black and gold ball in front of your face. You peer up at him again, and his eyes are closed in a pretty crescent shape as he beams down at you.

“There must be some mon– humans on staff if there are little flyheads buzzing around freely like this.” He’s making a face, like he’s holding down vomit just having to utter the word humans and for some reason this makes you laugh. Out of finding it genuinely funny? Out of fear? Out of nerves? Who knows? But, your laughter dies down after a few seconds and your eyes fall to the ball in his hand again.

“Did you just…absorb a curse?” You’d heard of his cursed technique, but obviously hadn’t seen it in action before. Until now.

Suguru chuckles softly, the sound making you shiver. You’re not sure if it’s in a good way or not. “I would need to swallow it later to truly absorb it, but I’ll spare you the sight for now.”He tucks the curse into his pocket, then he’s taking your hand in his and bringing it up to his chest where he presses his lips to the back of your hand sweetly.

Right. Him and Satoru used to be the best of friends. You’re sure they’ve used the same pick up lines on other people that they’ll probably end up using on you. You’re only hoping they’re here for genuine reasons. But more than that, you just hope that they’ll be able to coexist with each other.

“Absolutely breathtaking,” Suguru purrs, his lips curling into a bright smile. “More than I was expecting.”

You’re not sure what he means by the last part, but who cares? You’re fucking swooning again.

No wonder he and that blue eyed bastard were so close at one point. Two beautiful men that know how to say all the right things. It makes you feel shy, like a child trying to talk to her schoolyard crush and the cameras are quick to capture your expressions and broadcast them to the world.

“Thank you so much. You are, too.”

And because he’s Suguru Geto – charismatic, playful, manipulative – he leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to your cheek. It’s your first kiss of the night from any of the men so far, and this one has your stomach doing flips, has your heart crawling up your throat.

You give him a wide smile and he shakes his head like he’s just in disbelief. “Beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you acknowledge again.

“I’m so glad to be here. Can’t wait to get to know you more.”

“Likewise.”

Suguru kisses your cheek again before he waves goodbye and heads towards the mansion. You watch as he retreats, and for a second you think he doesn’t seem that bad. Except…he’s a fucking mass murderer.

You really need to pull yourself together.

There are still four more people to meet, but so far, you’re enjoying this experience. You don’t think you’ll mind meeting the others and you’re definitely looking forward to spending more time with the men already inside.

At least, you think so. Because just as the director calls “CUT” for commercial break, the hairs on the back of your neck stand high as you feel the telltale rush of two very opposite sources of cursed energy flare from inside the mansion. Those in the crew with even a smidge of cursed energy feel it too, because their heads snap over towards the building the men will reside in as well.

IN THE MANSION

“And then Yuji was like– what if we just put Panda in the exhibit? How much do you think it will freak everyone out when he stands up and just starts talking?!” Gojo speaks to Nanami enthusiastically. He’s waving his arms retelling the story, bursting into raucous laughter. “I swear that kid is hilarious!”

Nanami stares patiently at the wall ahead of him. In all honesty, he hasn’t heard a word Gojo has said. That’s usually how things go between them. Gojo rambles, Nanami grunts with feigned interest and eventually, Gojo gets bored and leaves to bother someone else. Unfortunately for him, with none of the students around or Principal Yaga, Nanami is now his sole target.

But Nanami doesn’t care about that right now. He’s thinking about you, and how he should have said more, made more of an impression. Now he’s inwardly beating himself up since he stepped into the house and was greeted by his colleague. He wonders if he’ll stand out among the other contestants. He should have put himself out there with you instead of scurrying off as soon as he had the chance.

It’s just that…you’re a lot more stunning than Nanami had anticipated and the moment he saw you, he’d reverted into formalities and awkwardness. It reminded him of how he was in high school.

Nanami is drowning out Gojo with thoughts of you and how he could possibly get more one-on-one time with you later tonight when he hears Gojo suddenly shut up. He peers up briefly, catching sight of Gojo’s scowl, brows furrowed harshly as he stares hard at the entryway. Another contestant must be here, one that Gojo isn’t particularly fond of.

And Nanami knew exactly who that would be.

The moment those soft steps carry in Curse User, Suguru Geto, Nanami instantly finds himself in the center of a pissing match of their cursed energies fighting for dominance in the room. Unlike most Sorcerers and curses, Suguru doesn’t fear Gojo in the slightest. Most people would cower away, move to the other side of the room and take a seat. But not Suguru. In fact, he strides right over to where his two old classmates sit on the sofa – Gojo on the end, Nanami in the center and now, Suguru on the other end of the sofa.

He grins tauntingly at Gojo, who holds his stare. “Nanami,” he greets, not even bothering to look at the blonde. His eyes are locked on his target. “Satoru…”

“Geto-san,” Nanami nods curtly. “Didn’t think we’d be seeing you here.”

Suguru hums cheerily. “Well, I suddenly found myself in the market for love.”

Satoru snorts, rolling his eyes. “You? Like you’d know how to love anyone besides yourself.”

Nanami sighs between the two men, already feeling his annoyance begin to build up. He had not missed these petty arguments.

“Oh, you know I’m capable of loving more than just myself,” Suguru purrs and Nanami can feel Gojo’s cursed energy waver slightly. Beside him, Suguru chuckles happily. Probably because he got the reaction he was looking for and so easily, too. “Anyway, Nanami, I’m truly surprised to see you here. You don’t strike me as someone interested in romantic relationships.”

Nanami doesn’t reply. Instead, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, feeling a headache already coming on. There were days where he had hoped to have Geto and Gojo be able to coexist in the same space again, as chaotic as they were together. But if it was going to be like this, they may need to get sent home quickly.

Wait–

Nanami’s eyes shoot open, scanning the room until his gaze falls on the bar across the massive living area. This is the perfect chance to get some time alone with his thoughts.

“Excuse me,” he interjects, pardoning himself from whatever was going on with the two men beside him.

It was time to think about how he can make a better impression, get some time with you after the others have arrived. Maybe even secure a rose tonight. He’s only interested in moving forward with you. And while Gojo and Geto are too busy taking sly digs at each other on the sofa, Nanami’s thoughts are cooking up a petty scheme to get rid of those two as soon as he can.

“You’re lucky I don’t blow a hole through your head right now, Suguru,” Satoru threatens, scowl deepening if possible.

But Suguru just smirks, leaning back against the sofa. “Well, you always were good at blowing my head, weren’t you?” He closes his eyes, smiling wide, like he’s reminiscing on some sweet memory.

It makes Satoru…feel weird. Suguru knows just how to get under his skin in ways that remind him of the old Suguru. But he’s not him anymore. Outside of this, he’s his enemy. In this house, he’s just his competition.

Satoru is here for you. He hasn’t seen his ex…friend in years and it’s bringing up all of these strange feelings that he hasn’t had to face in so long. And to make matters worse, Suguru is here for you, too. Now there’s just another person in the way of him winning your heart. Suguru was always popular with women and men.

Nanami? Satoru could absolutely win against him. Don’t get him wrong, he loves Nanami, thinks he’s great and respectable and maybe he’d be a great fit for you. But Satoru would be an even better fit for you. Perfect, even.

But with Suguru here now, there was real competition. And now The Strongest was beginning to doubt himself.

BACK OUTSIDE

“When’s the next contestant supposed to show?” The director calls to someone in the cast.

You’ve been waiting for a while now, and you’re pretty sure you should have been on commercial break twenty minutes ago.

“They’re having car issues,” someone calls back, a phone pressed to their ear.

Great, more waiting. Not that you have anywhere to be. You’re simply here to look pretty and smile when a Sorcerer shows up.

The mansion seems to have calmed down, those cursed energies dissipating and you hope that wasn’t the result of the guys killing each other in there. You don’t know all the gory details of Satoru and Suguru’s relationship. You just know they’re the strongest modern day Sorcerers at the moment, that they used to be extremely close when they were kids and then when Suguru snapped, their friendship quickly went up in flames.

If they had any contact after Suguru’s defection, you’d have no clue. But with the way those cursed energies went into overdrive the moment Suguru entered the mansion, you’re concerned with how their history will affect their time on the show.

You can’t say that you’d hate to be stuck between the middle of those two. How could you? You’re literally on a reality show about being the center of attention for multiple men! And so far, everyone is sexy and charismatic and–

The intense screech of metal scraping along the concrete disrupts your thoughts, and the cameras pan around just in time to catch a limousine rounding the corner and approaching the driveway. The rear tires are completely blown out, the metal wheels barely carrying the vehicle forward. The sounds make you want to cover your ears and hide. The car’s bumper hangs from the back, dragging and knocking loudly along the road as the car moves along. Sparks fly haphazardly across the ground and the smell of burning rubber almost has your eyes watering.

From the corner of your eye, you see another camera swinging around to catch your reaction which is that of astonishment.

“Who is this?!” You speak into the lens, eyes wide like saucers.

The sudden noise of the engine popping and sputtering, surely giving out, pulls your gaze back to the vehicle. It’s stopped for all of three seconds before one enormous fist bursts through the blacked out windows and sends shattered glass flying. Behind you, several people on the crew gasp. That same hand pats around the outside of the car, tattooed muscles flexing until it finally lands on the handle of the door. The chauffeur exits the limo and backs away as quickly and quietly as possible, abandoning their passenger.

And it isn’t until that large hand tears the entire car door from its hinges with little to no effort and tosses it aside carelessly that you see why. Out climbs the largest being you’ve ever seen in your life. No shirt – because how could you dress the four tattooed arms he possesses?! And surely wearing a shirt has to be quite uncomfortable when you have a mouth on your stomach!

It’s clear who this is, because everyone in the Jujutsu world is educated on the strongest curse to have ever existed. And yet you still can’t believe what you’re seeing with your eyes. You need someone else to confirm it for you. And so you turn your head towards the camera, staring straight into it as you shakily ask the audience…

“Is that **BLEEP** Ryoumen Sukuna?!”

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amazinglyspicy · 2 years ago

Text

PIRATE SAFELY!! But pirate ;)

Hello! I’ve gotten a flood of new followers thanks to an addition I made about NOT torrenting from the Pirate Bay, so I want to address it better.

If you’ve come to check my blog for more piracy resources, advice, guides, etc, then check out some of the links in this pinned!

First and Foremost, Do not do Anything without an adblocker. Ublock Origin is the best.

Resources/Wikis: 🌟Top recommendation is the Free Media Heck Yeah Wiki, frequently updated, maintained, and transparent, as well as has a welcoming community behind it if you have questions. The rest are for redundancy's sake and for anything not found in FMHY, though most Wikis on this topic tend to repeat the same info. 🌟

VPN Comparison Chart - General Rule of Thumb, DO NOT use any VPN recommended by Youtubers, influencers, or any other shill with a profit motive. Large marketing budget does not equal good privacy practices. Do your own research.

-Since both Mullvad VPN and IVPN are planned to now suspend port forwarding support, the next best choices for torrenting though a VPN seem to be AirVPN and ProtonVPN.

HOWEVER, AirVPN has no evidence of a no logging policy (aka there’s a chance they keep records of what you do on their service) and ProtonVPN has no method of anonymously signing up and use a subscription model instead of a preferable pay-as-you-go model. So take that as you will.

(NOTE: You do not need to pay for a VPN if you are only directly downloading from a server or streaming off of websites! But it’s probably a good idea for privacy reasons anyways.)

A very good Comprehensive Torrenting Guide! -eye strain warning

And another one!

-If you torrent you need a VPN depending on how strict your government is on copyright laws. This works on a case by case basis, so I recommend looking up your own country's laws on the matter. Generally speaking, use a VPN to torrent if your country falls under The 14 Eyes Surveillance Alliance. More info on what that is Here.

A Note about Antivirus: - If you're using trusted websites, and not clicking on any ad links/fake download ads (Should be blocked by ublock), then you don't necessarily need any antivirus. Common Sense and Windows Defender should be enough to get you by. If you would like to be certain on what you are downloading is legitimate, then run your file through a virus scanner like VirusTotal. Keep in mind that when scanning cracked software some scans may flag “false positives” as the injectors used to crack the software look like malware to these scanners. Once again, the best way to avoid malware is to use trusted sites listed here and use an adblocker at all times.

If you have any questions on anything posted, need help finding things, or just need some clarification on any terms used, shoot me an ask or message! I've got a few years experience with not paying for anything I want, and LOVE to help others with this kind of stuff. But if you don't trust me, since I am a random stranger on the internet, that's fine (I wont be offended promise)! Do your own research!

INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE!

Last updated: February 16th 2024

#piracy #torrenting #vpn #pirating #media preservation #warez

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lycandrophile · 4 months ago

Note

I bet the transfem tag doesn’t have half as much transmasc porn deliberately tagged wrong as the transmasc tag has transfem porn

For every transmasc post I see there’s two porn accounts to block

Just pisses me off. I want to see posts about transmascs!!!

while i think you are probably right about the fact that there isn’t going to be as much transmasc porn in the transfem tag (though i can’t say i’m 100% certain, it’s not like i’ve ever scrolled through both tags and actually counted) and i do find the amount of porn in our tags frustrating, i want to talk a bit about the way this issue is being framed.

the thing you have to remember about porn bots is that you can’t think of them as real people. the whole point of them is to make money by pushing those links into popular tags so as many people see them as possible. they want people to click the link, so they show it to as many people as they can. so when you see these posts, you have to keep in mind that there’s not an individual person sitting behind a screen making specific decisions about whose tags to fuck over or what kind of porn to advertise, those decisions are most likely made based on some sort of algorithm designed to make as much money as possible.

so let’s think about it critically — why might we be seeing so much transfem porn in transmasc tags?

well, a lot of these bots are probably using our tag because tumblr has a lot of transmascs who use those tags. the trans communities on different sites are going to have different demographics, and if you’ve ever seen a poll going around with different choices for transmascs and transfems, you’ve seen just how dramatic the difference in numbers on here can be. these bots are targeting our tags because there are a lot of us here and we tend to be very active which means the bots have a better chance of getting clicks, not because an actual person decided they wanted to fuck over our tags specifically.

and why does the porn tend to be transfem porn? i can’t say for sure, but i’ll tell you my theories. first of all, i’m guessing these bots are using trans porn because tumblr has a lot of very active trans tags, and they probably take that into account — they assume that people in trans tags are more likely to want trans porn. the tag matches the link’s key words in that way, so that’s what their formula for getting clicks thinks we want to see. and i’m guessing it’s transfem porn specifically because there’s just more of that — transfem porn is much easier to find than transmasc porn, and it’s also probably seen as a better bet for these bots because being more popular means more people will want to click it. and that doesn’t stem from people preferring transfems over transmascs or anything like that, it stems from the rampant fetishization of transfems. these accounts aren’t actual transfem sex workers choosing to put their content in the transmasc tags, they’re bots doing what they think is going to make money. they don’t care how transfems feel about it being used and they don’t care how transmascs feel about seeing it instead of what we were actually looking for.

so while i absolutely share your frustration with our tags being overrun with porn, i don’t like how the issue has been framed by a lot of people as a transmasc vs transfem issue. i get how on the surface, it seems like our tags are having more of a problem with it and that must be for a reason, but the reason doesn’t actually have anything to do with our identities — it has everything to do with what bots think is the best way to get us to click their links.

this problem has nothing to do with transmasc vs transfem, and everything to do with the fact that tumblr won’t take care of its bot problem. if you want to get mad at someone for the fact that you can’t see the content you’re looking for without wading through countless porn bots, that’s where your anger should be going: toward the site that hasn’t done anything about it.

i wanted to lay this all out because while you didn’t explicitly blame transfems for this issue in your ask (you more so just said they don’t have to deal with it to the degree we do), i’ve seen posts with a similar tone that do imply that transfems are somehow behind this issue, and that honestly frustrates me more than the issue itself. blaming transfems for this isn’t fair to them — this is a bot issue, not an issue with real people on the site — and it also doesn’t do us any favors because it makes people less likely to take us seriously when we talk about things that are actually specifically targeting our community spaces.

and even though you didn’t take that explicit blaming stance in your ask, i think this issue being brought up as a “transmasc issue” at all reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of exactly why it happens the way it does. so i want this to serve as a reminder that when we have a conversation about something in our community, we have to think critically about the way we’re framing that conversation and make sure we have a good understanding of the root of the problem at hand.

because this really isn’t an issue that should be framed as transmasc vs transfem. i’m sure it’s not any less frustrating for transfems to see porn that fetishizes their bodies plastered all over the site than it is for us to have to dig through that porn to find the content we’re looking for. and it’s not really an issue that has anything to do with the fact that the tags are for transmascs at all. you say someone is deliberately mistagging into our tags, but it’s deliberate on a level that has nothing to do with the individual tags being used.

if we want to have conversations about the ways transmascs are uniquely mistreated, that comes with a responsibility to make sure the things we talk about are actually examples of a unique form of mistreatment and not symptoms of a totally different issue. we have to be careful not to pick the wrong battles, especially if doing so could artificially pit us against transfems who haven’t actually done anything wrong.

i worry that the struggles we’ve had in making our voices heard within our community have made some of us start to see our transfem sisters and siblings as the enemy by default, so i want to strongly caution everyone contributing to these conversations to think deeply about how you’re framing what you’re saying and if it’s actually appropriate before suggesting that any particular issue is a matter of transmascs vs transfems. there are definitely situations where the root of the issue is lateral aggression or intracommunity conflict, but this isn’t one of them and the fact that so many people have interpreted it that way really doesn’t reflect well on us.

i’m just as annoyed by the porn bots in our tags as the next guy, but this isn’t the way to go about having that conversation.

#i was avoiding this conversation altogether bc it has nothing to do with the power dynamics and intracommunity dynamics i talk about here #but now that it made its way into my inbox i want to make *why* i wasn’t talking about it clear #i’m gonna put this in my usual tags not because i think they apply #but because i think it’s important for the people who use those tags to see this #i want yall to really take this to heart and think carefully about how we have these conversations in the future #transandrophobia #transandromisia #transmisandry #virilmisia #virilphobia #anti transmasculinity #transmascphobia #ask answered

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guiltyreverie · 1 year ago

Note

Hiya

Saw that you were looking for some request to help get you out of your block (I hate when that happens) so I was wondering if we could get a Zoro x F/GN reader with the prompt "Holding your hand under the guise of not getting lost in a crowd" The swordsman isn't as touchy as Luffy but I think he'd find a way to get that physical touch.

Thanks 🌴

Hey anon, thanks dear for the request 🫶🏻 I love this idea!! It has me all 🤭 giggling and kicking my feet. Also I hope you’re satisifed with this 🤍

Crappy Love Confessions

Pairing: Zoro x gn!reader

Tags: grumpy x sunshine, established relationship, Zoro thinks he’s being slick but you got him all figured out, slight insecurity/jealousy

Warnings: none, just fluff

Writing prompt: “Holding your hand under the guise of not getting lost in a crowd”

Summary: You arrive in a new town and you end up exploring it with your boyfriend by your side

A/N: I mostly wrote this in the middle of my lectures - I hope the person behind me had a blast reading this 😭 and ngl as much as I love grumpy men, they’re lowkey so hard to write (BUT I WELCOME THE CHALLENGE)

Word count: 1.5k

Loud chatter, salesmen shouting and advertising their products filled the air, the smell of various restaurants, children running about - the tunes of a new city filled your senses and you stare around in awe; almost every time it‘s the same deal and every single time you‘re still amazed by this feeling.

Luffy‘s hand met your back and finally pushed you off the boat. “Come on, y/n.“, he was drooling and you looked at him in amusement, “I smell meat!“ - he was already gone - a chuckle escaped your lips at the antics of your captain.

“Cutie-chan“, Sanji gasped dramatically and he grabbed your hands to check if you‘re alright, “are you-„

Zoro‘s grumble interrupted him and the both of them are about to butt heads again; you‘re ready to intervene and prevent the town from getting destroyed by these two but Nami was faster.

“Don‘t you guys have things to do.“, she pointedly stared at Sanji, since he was the one that needed supplies and ingredients for the next few weeks.

Sanji is about to make a flirty remark but stops himself when he sees Nami‘s glare, she pushes him off the deck and Zoro towards your direction, then proceeds to hum around about ‚not having too much fun‘ and your cheeks flush slightly; nonetheless you grin at her and shout back “no promises.“

Zoro looks at you, or well, more like scowls at you and if you didn‘t know any better you‘d think he was mad at you.

Your head tilts slightly to the right - inaudibly asking what‘s wrong.

“It‘s nothing“, he tenses up, and you can see something is bothering him in his eyes - now you could go about this in two ways, either you pester him and force him to tell you or you respect his boundaries and let it be.

You figured he‘d eventually tell you himself once he‘s comfortable enough and let it go, instead you focus on the rumbling town in front of you and smile and start walking, you knew Zoro would follow you either way so you don‘t bother calling out to him.

The both of you check out the shops, while you grab some utilities you also check out the snack vendors, all while Zoro is right behind you following every footstep and holding your bags for you on one arm and the other empty for, probably any worst case scenario he can imagine.

When you see a sword shop out of the corner of your eyes, you smile and turn towards him: “Do you want to check it out?“

He glances at you, then at the shop, he seems to contemplate it, overthink it even; you let out a sigh and step towards the shop: “Come on“, you nudge him, “it‘s at least worth checking out.“ and nudge him into the shop.

You stand beside him, observing him fondly while he checks everything out in deep concentration and gets anything he needs; when you’re ready to check out and leave the store you notice a small dagger - perfect to replace the one that broke recently.

You test out its feeling around your grip and its secureness and smile to yourself in satisfaction - you’ll get this one.

What you fail to notice is your boyfriend staring at you in admiration - for someone so kind you were deadly when threatened - in fact it’s the reason he was so drawn to you in the first place. All you needed was two little daggers and no one stood a chance against you, your bubbly self would disappear and it would almost seem like you had been replaced with the best assassin to walk the earth.

When you glance back at him satisfied with your choice, your breath halts for a moment; the way Zoro was looking at you right now? It almost made your face flush in embarrassment, his eyes were filled with endearment, admiration and something else you can’t pinpoint right now - he always had a hard time vocalizing his feelings for you but he didn’t have to, you always knew how much he cared for you without saying anything.

You clear your throat in an attempt to dissipate the butterflies in your stomach and smile at him: “You got everything?”

He keeps staring at you mesmerized: “yeah, i got everything I need.”, your face flushes slightly and the butterflies you tried to dissipate earlier come back, he didn’t mean just his sword supplies - not with the way he was staring at you.

“Alright.”, you nod and make your way to the cash register and pay up.

Zoro is already outside, leaning against the wall, while waiting for you, when you get out he promptly gets up and walks beside you, he seems to contemplate something, you were about to ask if there’s anything else he wants to check out when grasps your hand. Your face flushes when his large calloused hand wraps around your smaller softer one and you grin brightly - the warmth inside you only growing bigger and bigger.

He looks away, his voice slightly hoarser than before: “I can’t risk getting lost.”, you raise an eyebrow in amusement, his blushing ears clearly betraying his actual thoughts.

“Sure.”, you smirk clearly unconvinced by his reasoning.

Now the both of you walk together, your hands intertwined and you hum happily looking for your next destination.

The both of you walk around more until it’s late in the evening; your feet hurt from walking around all day and you decide to finally go back to the ship.

“Zoro”, you pout, the sting getting worse and worse.

He sighs slightly then proceeds to let go of your hand before he kneels down in front of you: “Hop on.”

The warm feeling in your chest, once again, consumes you - god you love him - you get on his back and wrap your arms around him while he grabs the back of your thighs and picks you up.

Fondly you kiss his cheek: “Thanks, dear.”

He ‘hmphs’ slightly and grumbles: “you’re too light, do you even eat?”

“Y’know I always finish Sanji’s food”, you grin, “you just lift abnormal weights.”

He tenses up slightly when you mention Sanji: “Don’t mention his name.”

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, Sanji and him always fight but he usually didn’t react this badly at his name being mentioned; finally, it clicks in your head and you manage to connect the dots.

“Is this about this morning?”, you lean your head on his.

“I don’t like when he’s being close to you.”, he sighs.

You smile and hold him tighter: “I don’t care for him, in the same way I care for you. No amount of flirting from his side can change that.”

“It’s not that. I trust you, it’s just..”, he seems to gather his thoughts, trying to put them into words and you let him - he needs to realize just how important it is to let you in. His jaw tenses up and he clearly seems uncomfortable being vulnerable, even if it’s you he's talking to. “It just makes me think that I can never be as vocal as him; He doesn’t mind crappy love confessions or public affection.”

It takes you a few seconds to even process his words - was he insecure?

“Zoro”, you motion for him to let you go and you quickly step up before him, grasping his face, “I don’t want crappy love confessions or public affection or anything else, I want you.”

“Ok but what if me being me isn’t good enough at one point and you want to do better - you certainly can, if you want to.”, he looks at you, the uncertainty finally clear in his eyes and it pains you, leaves you wondering for how long he had been harboring such thoughts.

“No, fuck that, I don’t want better, because there is no better.”, you bite your lips slightly, “ for me? You’re the best pick, Zoro. I love you, the way you are and I want nothing more than for you to keep being yourself and it’s not going to change any time soon. You hear me?”, you hold his face once again and genuinely look at him, he needs to believe you, trust that you won’t leave him.

“I’m just being stupid, aren’t I?”, he smiles at you a little stunned.

You smile and shake your head: “No, not stupid. Human.”

He raises an eyebrow slightly at your choice of words but accepts it nonetheless. He kisses your forehead earnestly and once again kneels for you to get on his back.

You grin and hop on, hugging him tightly.

He clears his throat: “I love you, too, by the way.”, your grin brightens - and he says he isn’t the type for crappy love confessions.

Together you guys walk through the bustling town back to the ship, the warm sunset fitting the atmosphere inside your chest.

#x reader #fanfiction #one piece x reader #one piece #oneshot #writing prompt #zoro x reader #zoro #roronoa zoro #zoro roronoa x reader #roronoa zoro x reader #zoro x yn #zoro x you #zoro roronoa x you #zoro roronoa x y/n #op #op x reader #guiltyreverie

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wyervan · 12 days ago

Text

@r0tting-rat & @amarynthian-fortress I hope you don’t mind each other’s company in this ask.

I also hope u don’t mind that I tried writing for this ask. Also it’s halfway through November 😆 hope your not too sick of Halloween. I know I never am 😝

It’s been a reeeeally long time since I’ve written much of anything 😳 but I wanted to try it out again and both you guys are such amazing writers and i would be totally open to your feedback and suggestions 🥺🥺

DCA Slasher AU

content warnings: general spookiness i guess lol? oh but also characters describing acts of graphic violence :D

🌞🔪🤡🪓🌜🩸 💫 👾 🌞🔪🤡🪓🌜🩸 💫 👾

The October air is refreshingly cool as you step out from your car. Looking up into the fading pale sky, you see pink cirrus clouds lining a glowing sunset. You stand there for a moment and inhale deeply, briefly in awe of the color of the light. A sudden whistling breeze rattles the branches of a balding tree, sending a flurry of yellow leaves skittering across the parking lot.

Remembering that you have somewhere to be, you turn on your heel, slamming the car door a bit too hard and startling both yourself and a crow that was sitting on a nearby fencepost. It chides you sternly for your disruption with a caw.

Ignoring the jeer, you start down the sidewalk toward downtown, joining a half a dozen others leaving the lot, all of them dressed in varying degrees of costume.

Apparently for Halloween this year, the town had sectioned off a whole six block radius of shops, restaurants, and other commercial establishments to encourage business and tourism for the holiday. Blockades prevented cars from entering the area for the evening while vendor booths and pedestrians filled the streets. Local businesses handed out goodies to the trick or treaters, usually working in some advertisement of their wares and services.

You found yourself actually excited for this Halloween in a way that you hadn’t felt since you were a child. You even dressed up! Ahh—kinda. You just pulled something from your closet and did your hair in a way that made you look like that one character from that show that you watched two seasons of three years ago.

But you had promised Sun you’d wear a costume tonight. You had left work much earlier than usual, vowing to return to the arcade now and stay late to assist with the festivities. Your outfit was quick enough to put on that you had managed to sneak in a nap before heading back out.

You pass kids in costumes. They walk and chitter to each other excitedly, yelping happily and playfully pushing each other around. A smile spreads widely across your face at the sight of their joy. Parents or scowling teen siblings follow closely behind. Now inside the blockades, booths displaying all manner of seasonally-themed crafts, foodstuffs, and trinkets line both sides of the street, people flitting from vendor to vendor. Candy bowls sit ripe for pillaging at the edge of every station.

Enjoying the sights and sounds, but not wanting to get caught up with the fair, you stick to the sidewalk. You round the last corner and across the street you see a small crowd of strange creatures gathered in front of the arcade—a cat, a wizard, two pirates, Shrek, and multiple Disney princesses.

Their attention, you see as you cross the street and finally step on to the curb in front of the arcade, is entirely focused the clown crouched in front of them. You stop behind the group of kids and the clown’s eyes raise meet yours, flick down your form, and then refocus on the little girl in front of him, all in half a second.

“Mr. Sun, we know magic isn’t real. My cousin showed me that trick and then he showed me an entire book about fake magic! It’s all slide a hand or whatever…”

The clown, dressed in pale bright yellow and burgundy stripes, shakes his mane and brandishes a card with bear and the number 4 on it to the girl (one of the pirates). His already wide grin stretches further.

“Little Captain Shelley, if magic wasn’t real, then how did I know that this is the card you actually wanted, hmm?” he says.

Shelley the Pirate opens her mouth to retort, but before she can say anything, the clown suddenly flicks his pinkie and flips the card once, twice, thrice… and then there’s a bar of chocolate grasped between his gloved fingers instead of the bear card.

The other kids give small gasps of delight. Shelley is quiet and wide-eyed for a moment before a shy smile breaks over her face and she snatches up the chocolate bar, dashing away giggling to her parents standing a few paces away. They scold her lightly for not saying “thank you” to the clown, who is now passing out candies to the remaining trick or treaters.

You look around, taking in the decor that you and your bosses sweated over just this morning. You had watched as Sun hung string lights from the eaves at painstakingly even lengths. The goofy-looking giant spider that you had wrestled with earlier sat fat and content in a gauzy net of cobweb pinned over a window. A fog machine situated in the entrance between the two sets of doors into the arcade spilt thick mist out onto the pavement.

You spy the other clown fifteen or so feet away, slumped in a fold-out lawn chair next to the arcade’s doors. His deep blue hat and pants, accented with yellow stars, stand out starkly against the ruddy red of his seat. He’s already watching you—head propped up in one hand braced against the chair arm, the other idly fishing through the bucket of sweets he has resting in his lap.

“Star light, star bright, won’t you grant me candy tonight?”

You pull your attention back down to the red and yellow clown to see that the trick or treaters have ran off to raze other pastures, leaving him alone with you. He’s looking up at you now, cheeky grin cradled in his palms... then suddenly springs from his haunches to his full height—easily six and a half feet. The bells on his wrists chime abruptly with the motion. He weaves his fingers together, palms out, and brings his arms out and over his head, spine arching with the force of a full-body stretch.

He drops his long arms and takes one stride to close the distance between you. He leans a bit to the side, hand going absently to rub at his left knee, and gives a dramatically contented sigh. “Ahh. Little monsters and princesses may come and go, but the Star always returns to the evening sky,” waxes the clown—who is your boss of course, because that’s the kind of life you lead now.

Ah. And he’s in character. More so than usual.

“Starlight, what kind of treats did you bring us?” he asks, bright blue eyes wide, chin tucked to gaze steadily down at you.

“Oh shit. I forg-“

He leans further in toward you, face suddenly less than a foot from yours, and you jump a bit. He raises a single slender finger as if giving an instruction, or about to shush you.

“Language, Star, especially when there are children in the vicinity. Anyway, it’s fine, fine, fine. We have more inside” Sun steps back and gives a dismissive wave. “Moony, could you get the two other five pound candy bags from the breakroom, pleeease?”

Moon’s head rolls lazily to give Sun a dead look, long strands of black hair spilling across the stark light side of his face.

“You can have all the licorice, red and black.” Sun states.

Apparently satisfied with this, Moon’s head lolls back to a neutral position. He sets his candy bucket on the sidewalk, gets up with a low grunt, and trudges through the fog and into the arcade. You turn, opening your mouth to ask Sun what he’d like you to do now that your here, but he’s already prancing back to his post—just in time to excitedly meet a Mario and Luigi pair.

You walk over and take up Moon’s nearly empty bucket of candy. Hmm… you wondered if Moon had been eating most of this himself, judging by the numerous empty wrappers mixed in with few yet untouched pieces of chocolate you see at the bottom of the bucket.

“Trick or treat!” Two pairs of children’s sneakers enter your vision.

You look up to see a couple of familiar faces—Gregory and Cassie, both wearing blocky helmets and body pieces made of tinfoil-covered cardboard and covered in glued-on switches, buttons, and dials. They have their arms and legs stuck through wide flexible tubing and are holding lumpy pillowcases filled with their spoils.

“Oh, hey guys. Robots—nice. How’s the haul been tonight?” you ask.

The styrofoam balls that top the antennae attached to their helms bounce in the air when they look at each other and nod their square heads.

“Pretty good. Wickson’s down the street was giving out caramel apples. Think you can top that?” Cassie says.

You glance down at the meager dregs of what was left in the candy bucket. But before you can offer up the scant pickings and apologize, Moon’s voices rasps from behind you.

“Kid, don’t you know treats aren’t for brats?” Moon’s arm brushes your shoulder as he remerges from the arcade, two bags of assorted candies clutched in one fist. He looks down on Gregory, lips pulled into a slight sneer. Gregory faces him fully and juts up his chin at a defiant angle.

“Sounds like a sore loser talking.”

“Kid, I already beat your score again this morning. Ain’t got nothing to be sore about.” The sneer turns into a smug lopsided smile, displaying a sharp canine. You have to bite your lip to keep from laughing. Moon had forgone his usual nap on the break room couch, choosing instead to stand hunched over an arcade cabinet for the entire morning upon seeing GREG in mocking neon green at the top of the high scores. His desperation was evident by eleven when he snapped at you for vacuuming too close to the power cable.

“Yeah? Well, I’ll be back in this weekend.” Gregory promises, narrowing his eyes and attempting to awkwardly cross his tube arms in front of his blocky shell. “Your scores aren’t safe.”

Moon rolls his eyes and brings the hand holding the candy bags up, releasing one into the bucket you’re holding. Unprepared for the sudden weight, you almost drop it. He grips the top of the other in both hands and splits the plastic seam. Then he offers it stiffly to Gregory and Cassie.

“Here. Before I change my mind. Pick what you want then scram. No licorice though.” The kids don’t hesitate, hands diving into the bag to fish out a Banana Laffy Taffy and an Almond Joy. Both of them crinkle their noses at the choice the other made. Cassie smiles sweetly and thanks Moon, starting back toward the vendor booths. Gregory also turns to leave but then gives Moon another narrow-eyed look. He brings two fingers up to his own eyes and then turns his hand so that his fingers jut toward Moon—the classic gesture for I’m watching you—then he waddles away, tube legs impeding his movement slightly.

You set the candy bucket down in Moon’s chair and turn to face him, hands coming to your hips.

“Kind of lazy, don’t you think, to just be wearing your work costume for Halloween?” you tease and flick the bell of his hat resting at his shoulder. Moon just shrugs and gives you a bored look. His thick dark eyebrows flick up.

“Yeah, and what are you suppose to be? Some sort of nerd businessman?”

“No! What? You don’t know? I’m that one guy from that show with all the other people who all do the thing together.”

The street light above you two suddenly flickers on. You look up at the sky. In the half hour or so since you had left your rental, it had already darkened to a bruising indigo. You look back to Moon and in the stark orangey light, you spot a dark reddish mark on the white half of his shirt that you didn’t see before. You peer closer and raise a finger to point out the stain just below the blue ruffle collar he wore around his neck. “Hey, you got something right there. Jeez, is that blood?”

You scan him over again, looking for any sign of injury but find nothing concerning on what two-toned skin you could see… but looking at him carefully revealed an even larger stain on the dark-side of his costume, deepening the charcoal color of the fabric to almost black.

Glancing back up, you see a strangely stiff expression frozen on his mouth. But Moon’s eyes are intense, slightly wide, trained carefully on you. A spark of something jumps in your stomach under his gaze. You look away and try to break the weird sudden energy with a joke. “You know you should really be more careful while you laze about on—“

“Last time I wore this, I killed someone.”

This statement, spoken flatly, makes you forget your awkwardness and look back at him again sharply, mouth slightly agape. A moment passes while you stare at him blankly… then two… then a small impish smile settles on your face.

“Yeah? Did you suffocate him with a balloon animal?”

“I hit him in the back of the skull with a heavy statue from his mantle,” Moon says in the same matter-of-fact tone. You’re slightly taken aback again, but then he continues steadily “And when he woke up, I smashed his knees with a bat so he couldn’t run away.”

“Ah, the ol’ Tonya Harding. Classic,” you deadpan.

Moon’s face suddenly dips down closer to yours. His eyes have widened further in somewhat alarming glee and a slow smile was beginning to stretch his lips. You jerk slightly at the sudden closeness but stand your ground, not wanting to be the first to give into this odd game.

“And I took a knife and peeled strips off him until he begged for me to kill him… then I stuck it in his throat… and watched him choke to death on his own blood.”

“Moony, my old friend—my partner in clown, brother of bells—“ You break away from Moon’s gaze to see Sun approaching, his hands gesturing in a whirling motion in the air. “I’m SURE what you’re blathering to them about is very important—BUT, I need to pull our shining Star away so that they may attend to the prize counter. Some children inside will certainly be wanting to exchange their hard-won tickets for treasures very soon—mhm!” He finishes with a hearty confident nod.

“Sun was there. It was his knife.” Moon breathes, close to your ear, then he leans back from his hunched position over you and you find you can finally take a full breath.

Sun’s jester shoes stop-short mid-step with a violent jingle and a harsh scrap. His gesturing halts and his expression freezes in a wide but strained smile. He hums a nervous, sort of giggly noise of confusion.

“I beg your pardon?” Sun asks through his teeth, head tilting at a sharp angle.

“Moon was just telling me about what you guys do in your free time. You didn’t tell me you guys were suppose to be dressed as the Killer Klowns from Down the Street. I don’t even see any blood on your costume, Sun.” This actually earns you a low devious chuckle from Moon, which makes you feel an embarrassing bloom of pride. Sun doesn’t seem to find it so funny.

His eyes flick to Moon, to you, to Moon, and then back to you, and then Moon again… and then again back to you. His smile doesn’t drop.

“Ah yes… well, you know how hard even fake blood can be to get out of clothes.” Sun says in a constrained, somewhat aloof tone. He’s staring at Moon again with a strangely pointed look in his eye. “Wouldn’t want to scare anybody with stains like that after the holiday, now would we? They’d think we were a couple of lunatics.”

“You guys are kind of nuts though, you know.” You state. This draws both their gazes to fix on you again. “You bought this place didn’t you? With its history and everything.” You stick a thumb back in the direction of the arcade. “Pretty crazy. But you turned it into a cool place.” A smile lights your face at a feeling of genuine appreciation for your current situation in life. Sure, your showers were mostly cold water and your car was probably gonna fall apart on the drive home, but you had a pretty cool job with two people whom you now considered to be more your friends than bosses.

“Aight, I’m gonna head inside now.” You pivot with a wave and turn away from Sun and Moon, feeling the heavy weight of their twin gazes on the back of your neck. The sky is now nearly black, cold, distant stars glinting. A gust of wind picks up and sends fog swirling around your legs as you enter the arcade. The air, pleasantly cool only an hour ago, now bites chillily at your exposed face and throat.

🌞🔪🤡🪓🌜🩸 💫 👾 🌞🔪🤡🪓🌜🩸 💫 👾

Okay that’s all folks :D This was what I was working on most of the week. I started the first paragraph and was like “this is really hard!” then skipped to halfway through to some dialogue I knew I wanted. It’s hard to find the most efficient words to describe the scene and characters.

I’m happy with it! but I feel like it might read a bit stiff? Maybe you can tell I’ve read and watched too much historical fiction. Worry sometimes I come across a bit stuffy or old fashion-sounding.

Idk idk like I said at the beginning, it’s been a very long time since I’ve written any prose. Hope you liked it~ most probably definitely will do more, it just takes a lot of time and thought.

Please leave me your thoughts~~

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