#I could still see God's fingerprints all over my life that year.

[thegreenleavesofspringinsunlight]

I know it's not really the done thing to ask for prayers regarding divorce, but I'm going to do it anyway. In every way except legal he has departed indeed - physically, financially, spiritually. At this point, I'd really, really like to get it squared away legally, too.

The lawyer is supposed to call me Tuesday to discuss options going forward. As evidenced quite plainly by him failing to file within the required year, and many times before on a smaller scale by him failing to keep our phone appointments, he is not dependable.

The energy company refused to admit fault re: the electric bill. They've been up to chicanery for a year but I can't prove it.

The apartment management personnel never ironed out the $1700 water bill.

My mother has been exceptionally trying of late. I'm now 80% she's developing dementia in addition to the disability from the stroke.

She wants to go this week to get my permit renewed, which would be a net good but very stressful to do. Also I'm not 100% sure I'll pass the vision test and there's no one in the area who accepts my medicaid.

God is just about silent. I did ask for one thing the other night (that I could watch an episode of Psych) and He did provide it (I did watch an episode of Psych), but overall I've been feeling very trapped and lonely and miserable and hopeless, like things will never be better this side of Heaven. And I'm grieving a return to circumstances that I longed for twenty years to escape from and thought I had and are back now.

I won't say I feel abandoned by God, per se. I don't think that. I do feel... unimportant. Like I don't matter. Like my children don't matter. I hear the pastor repeat the promises and I see them on tumblr and it's like they just don't apply to me. They're not for me, not for my family. Sure He'll still use us (maybe) to serve His will but His will seems to be that we stagnate to death. I am in a long dark tunnel and I'm still trudging because people keep telling me there's light at the end but all I'm finding is more tunnel, long and dark and monotonous.

My life is impossible, dreary and hopeless. My God specializes in doing the impossible, bringing light to the darkness and hope to the hopeless. (But maybe He just doesn't specialize in me?)

[cowgurrrl]

Keep the Wolves Away

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader

Author's note: Dedicated to my real life Andies. Thank you for making me feel easy to love.

Summary: The worst decision [5.2k]

Warnings: platonic threatening, discussions of bad mental health, so much flirting that (spoiler alert) might be real, possible THE shittiest ex I ever could've written, all the southern pet names, alcohol consumption, the resurgence of an old nude of readers, gaslighty behavior, smoking cigarettes (don't smoke kids), Joel talking reader out of a spiral, two (2) kisses

"So, it's a date." Andie declares once you're done explaining everything to her over FaceTime. You pause your blush application to roll your eyes at her. 

"It's not a date!"

"I'm sorry, so I'm just supposed to believe you when you say you're going to be just friends with the hot, sweet single dad who sounds like he's head over heels for you?"

"He is not head over heels for me." You sound a little petulant, and Andie laughs like she did when you were in high school and trying to hide a crush from her. 

"Babe, he willingly went on a high school field trip just so he could see you."

"His daughter was there. I'm sure he wanted to spend time with her."

"I'm sure he did because he's a great dad, but he also wanted to see you in your element. It's sexy watching someone do the thing they love." 

"Yeah, yeah." You brush her off, and she scoffs. You toss your makeup brush back into its bag and check out your outfit in the mirror. It's nothing insane— just a plain black slip dress— but now that Joel's arrival is getting closer and closer, you're rethinking everything. "Do I look okay?"

"You look stunning!" Andie chirps. "I'm sure your not boyfriend will think the same thing."

"I'm going to get a plane ticket to Austria just so I can choke you out with my own two hands." You threaten, but she laughs so hard you can't stop smiling. Once the trans-Atlantic giggling dies down, the line goes quiet, and you take a deep breath as you pull your mascara out. 

"Are you nervous to see him?" She asks gently. Andie came home for the summer dubbed The Dark Days. She stayed over when the one-bedroom apartment felt too big and got you out of the house when you couldn't stand the four walls anymore. She took whatever he left behind to his new apartment so you wouldn't have to (and gave him a piece of her mind while she was at it). She made you believe in love again. Not sticky, frustrating, unpredictable romantic love but pure, easy, all-knowing love that can only come from long-enduring relationships such as yours. 

For a long time after he left, you thought you were hard to love. Too loud, too bright, too much. Until you were out at a bar with her one night, trying to find the remnants of your independence and self-esteem tucked under sweaty beers and cracked leather chairs, when someone pointed out how similar you and Andie were. "Like two sides of the same coin," the woman told you. Andie is one of the easiest people in the world to love with her quick wit, creativity, and smile. And you realized for the first time if you had even a shred of that, even if only by dint of knowing and being loved by her, then you must be easy to love too. You must be worth the mess and heartache and stained fingerprints. 

So, yeah, Andie was less than pleased to hear that all that hard work could be undone by seeing him again, but she was supportive. 

"I don't know," you sigh. "I'm not a kid anymore. I've had more years without him than I did with him, but it's still scary."

"I know." 

"I don't even know what I'm gonna say to him."

"He'll probably be too busy with the gallery and everything. Maybe you won't even have to." She says, and you groan at the uncertainty of everything. 

"God, why did I say yes?" You ask as a knock interrupts your whining. You end your call with a quick "I love you, thank you, I'll text you" before throwing your phone down. "Come in!" You yell from the bathroom as you rapidly finish doing your makeup. There's a pause on the other side before he jiggles the knob and finally comes in. "I'm just finishing up in the bathroom. Give me a minute." 

"D'you always leave your door unlocked?" Joel asks. The sound of his unsure footsteps reaches your ears, and you smile at the thought of him looking around your apartment like a lost toddler. 

"Only when I know someone's coming over," you say. "Sorry, it's a mess."

"Oh, this is nothin'. You should see Ellie's room." He says, his feet pacing the floor. You swipe on a cute lipstick you never wear and finally step out into the living room where Joel is waiting. He's wearing a black button-up shirt with nice pants as he stands with his back to you, looking at some of the things on your wall. 

"Well, don't you look nice?" You compliment, making him turn around with a shy smile. His eyes roam over you, taking in every detail or sliver of skin he hasn't seen before. His intense gaze reminds you of how he looked at you in the bar when you were sure his eyes would melt you. He looks dumbstruck, and his Adam's apple bobs when his eyes finally settle on your face. 

"Wow… you look-"

"Choose carefully." You tease to take some of the tension out of the room. 

"Beautiful," he says, thwarting your efforts. "You always look beautiful." 

"Thank you. Not so bad yourself." 

"You like it? Ellie helped me pick it out," he anxiously fiddles with the sleeves of his shirt. "Feels weird." 

"What specifically feels weird?" You ask, stepping closer to him to examine his outfit. He smells like aftershave and the cologne he's prone to wearing. Why the fuck do you have his cologne memorized, you think to yourself. 

"I dunno. I think I just feel outta place." 

"Well, you don't look out of place," you say. "These might be what's doing it, though." You tap the top buttons of his shirt, the ones buttoned all the way up to his chin like a toddler going to Christmas mass. 

"Ellie said I should do all of 'em since it's a fancy art thing."

"Well, you should stop taking fashion advice from a fifteen-year-old," you laugh. "I promise it's not fancy enough to justify being uncomfortable." 

"I'm takin' your word for it." He says as he reaches up to undo his top two buttons, revealing freckles across his chest and collarbones and the tiniest sliver of a gold chain resting against his throat. For some reason, you can't tear your eyes away from the veins in his neck or the delicate necklace stuck to his warm skin. "What, it really looks that bad?" He thankfully breaks through your thoughts, and you try to recover by shaking your head.

"No, no. Not at all. You look really nice," you say, clearing your throat. "Let me get my purse, and we can go." You don't even wait for him to respond. You just turn on your heels and walk to your bedroom. In the security of your bedroom, you let out a long exhale and try to get your mind back on track. 

You're just nervous. He's being nice. You're being nice back. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing, you mentally chant. When you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, you almost have to laugh at the fierce blush on your cheeks and the distracted look in your eyes. "You better get it together." You say, pointing at yourself in the mirror like it's gonna do anything to make tonight smoother.

The gallery is packed when you get there. Joel curses under his breath as he tries to find a parking spot, and you try to keep your anxiety at bay. All you have to do is show your face, look at the paintings, and leave. Maybe you can manage to steal a bottle of the cheap wine they're undoubtedly serving. It'll be an hour. Two tops. You can do this. 

You're so in your head that you didn't notice that Joel parked the car or that he was looking at you until he bumped your knee with his. 

"You okay?" He asks. You take a deep breath and nod.

"Just need a second." You mumble. You fiddle with your earrings, your dress, anything to keep your hands busy as you psyche yourself up. 

"When's the last time you saw this asshole?"

"He wasn't always an asshole," you try to redirect, but he raises his eyebrows at you. "Since I graduated college." 

"We don't have to go in." He offers easily, and you give him a look. 

"Yes, we do. My name's on the list and everything." 

"So?" He shrugs. "The world's not gonna end just cause one person didn't show up."

"But you drove all the way here."

"And I can drive you all the way back. Besides, it's nice having a pretty girl in my truck. It wouldn't hurt to have you here next to me for a little while longer." He says, and you laugh, feeling some weight lift off your shoulders.

"You get many pretty girls sitting in your truck?"

"Just my pretty girls." 

"Right." You say, and he smiles, creating familiar crinkles in the corners of his eyes. They look a little deeper in the moonlight, but his eyes shine differently. Your fingers itch to draw them if only to critique your work and find the answer to why he has such an effect on you. You're aware that you're staring, but you also can't find it in yourself to look away. Not when he's staring back at you so fondly. 

"What can I do to help you?" He asks. You feel like you could cry at the sincerity in his voice. You've talked to Ellie about her anxiety, so you know he has some practice in dealing with it, but he's acting like it's second nature. Like this is what he was meant to do. He bumps you again when you start messing with your purse. "Do you want this to be like at the bar? Do you want me to take you home and pretend like we were never here? Do you want me to go in there and crack some skulls? You say the word— any word— and I'll do it for you, darlin'." 

Darlin’. It's what he called you when you promised revenge for almost kissing you at the bar. Normally, you'd be against any form of pet name. Henry was not openly affectionate in that way, and you learned not to expect it from him. But here's Joel, dropping the term of endearment almost every time he's been alone with you. It could be that cowboy accent or his knee pressed against yours, but the nickname fills your chest with warmth and pushes away your anxiety. 

"Any word, huh?" You ask, and he chuckles. 

"My mama raised me not to make promises I didn't have every intention of followin' through on." He says. "What'll it be?"

"I think… I just need you to be there with me." 

"Then, that's what I'll do." 

"Okay." You mumble, and he smiles as a new wave of comfort washes over you. 

"Okay." He says.

"Okay." You take a deep breath and look at him in the driver's seat one more time. "Let's do this." Finally, you open the door and step down from his truck. He's quick to come to your side and offer you his arm before he can even finish locking the car. You smile, tuck your hand under his bicep, and let him keep you upright as you walk in. 

The gallery is full of people who look way more qualified than you— art critics, journalists, and other artists who can actually sell a piece. They barely glance at you and Joel when you breach the doorway, which you're silently grateful for. When a waiter walks by with champagne glasses, Joel quickly snatches two glasses from the tray and hands you one. 

"Here's to us." He says, and you cock an eyebrow at him. 

"Us?"

"Well, we're sure as hell not toastin' to that asshole, are we?" 

"I guess not," you laugh as you clink your glasses together. "To us." You each take a sip, and Joel tries to hide his reaction to the champagne, but you see right through it. "Not your speed?"

"Not at all." He groans as he chokes it down. 

"Don't worry, maverick, we'll get you something else later." You promise and tuck your hand back under his arm as you start walking through the gallery. 

A lot of his newer work resembles his work from college— normal portraits of things like fruits, beds, or people but with unexpected lines of colors lining them like they're vibrating. You even recognize some from your college days. You just never expected them to actually be displayed in this way, not even when you were dating and telling him what a good artist you thought he was. Some have vague titles like "$12" and "Jack," while others are untitled. You can see why it would get taken in by a gallery. There's a very clear skill in how he paints and manipulates everyday objects into something new. It would be impressive if it was interesting. 

Maybe you're just used to the way he paints. Maybe this is exactly what you expected of him. Maybe you thought he would've grown, if not in attitude than, at least, in skill. But it's clear that too many people told him good things about his work, and he saw nothing he needed to change or fix. Somehow, it makes you feel better, not worse, about your own art. 

"So, are these supposed to be good or bad?" Joel whispers to you as you get closer to the next section, and you laugh a little too loudly. The people around you give you nasty looks, but you can't find it in yourself to be sorry.

"Like I said at the museum, I can't tell you that, but…" you glance around to make sure nobody's listening to you. "As someone who saw him make a lot of art, this is definitely not his best."

"Okay, that's what I thought," he says before pointing at a specific part of the painting. "The shape is really weird right there, like he ran outta space or somethin'." You let go of his arm and step between him and the painting, smiling knowingly.

"Did you study for this?" You ask, and he nervously plays with the chain around his neck. 

"I may have… snuck a look at Ellie's notes." He admits sheepishly, and your eyes widen. 

"You were actin' like you were gonna have to rely on me this whole time! You don't need me to tell you what good art is!"

"Yeah, but I want you to." 

"Oh, whatever. C'mon, I wanna hear what else you think." You pretty much drag him to the next section of the gallery, but he's pliant and almost giddy at your hold on him. You take more time in the next part, and he ducks so his lips are near your ear to point out little things he notices. He said he was scared of being wrong in front of people "smarter than him," but all the observations he makes are valid and accurate. He lets you add your own analysis to his and watches you with a smile when you start talking with your hands excitedly. Suddenly, you're not nearly as miserable as you thought you would be, and you're even laughing together as you jump from painting to painting. 

"See, this isn't so bad!" You say as you move to the final part, but your smile and enthusiasm die when you step over the threshold. There, staring at you unashamedly is the painting Henry did of you when you were twenty and topless. He told you it was for his own artistic development, and you were more than happy to do it for him. You just never thought he would've kept it after all these years. Thank God your face isn't visible in the painting, but your rigid posture tells Joel everything he needs to know. He politely turns his back to the painting and steps between you and your likeness. 

"You wanna go?" He whispers at the same time someone calls your name. You take a deep breath and grab Joel's hand for support as you turn around and face Henry. His wavy blonde hair frames his face like it did in college but he's matured. His beard is a little more filled in, and he's gotten a little broader. Other than that, he's still the same person you met freshman year. 

"I'm so glad you could make it!" He says as he approaches. He doesn't try to hug you, and you don't move to let go of Joel's hand. "You look great. I mean, you always looked great, but you know what I meant," he says, looking over you. Only when Joel clears his throat does Henry even look at him. "Oh, sorry, man! We're old friends. I'm Henry." He holds his hand out for Joel to meet halfway, but he doesn't. You think it probably took fighting every single bit of southern hospitality in his veins to stop himself from shaking Henry's hand.

"'M Joel." He says, and Henry awkwardly drops his hand. 

"Nice to meet you, Joel. How are you enjoying the exhibition?" 

"'S alright." Is all Joel offers, not willing to gas up Henry's ego anymore, and you have to stifle a laugh at the expectant look on Henry's face. "Well, I think we were just goin'."

"Oh, so soon? You haven't even seen the last few pieces."

"Are those any better than the thirty identical ones I already saw?"

"Joel," you scold quietly, and his jaw flexes when you look at him.

"It's okay. Not everyone understands art enough to enjoy it." Henry says. 

"Oh, I understand everythin' just fine." You swear Joel would've punched him if he wasn't holding your hand so tight. You step in between them and raise your eyebrows at Joel. His shoulders are squared, and you can feel the molten anger rolling off him, but it softens just a bit when he meets your eyes. You squeeze him twice to let him know you're okay, and he nods. 

"Can you get me a refill on champagne? I think they're still walkin' around with some." You suggest. He gets the hint, but he obviously doesn't like it. He glances between you and Henry like he's trying to make a decision but folds when you mouth, "please," at him. 

"’Course," he says through gritted teeth. "Anythin' else I can get for you, baby?" Baby, that's a new one, you think. 

"No, I'm alright. Thanks, though." You say. Without thinking, you let your other hand rest on his jaw and kiss Joel's cheek. His jaw unclenches when your fingertips graze his stubble, and his shoulders relax when your lips make contact with his skin, but you know he's still upset because you're still upset. Joel smiles and walks away before you can get a good look at the blush creeping up his neck, and you're resigned to watching him disappear into the crowd. 

"He seems nice," Henry says the second Joel is out of earshot, and you have to resist the urge to laugh. 

"He is." 

"How'd you two meet?"

"Through work." You say, knowing that bringing up teaching will make his skin crawl. He sucks his teeth and nods, the champagne in his glass sloshing slightly.

"Ah," he says. "That's nice."

"Yeah," you agree. An awkward silence falls over the two of you quickly, and you're itching to find Joel in the sea of people. Henry notices your lack of attention on him.

"It's really good to see you," he says. "I feel like I haven't talked to you in forever."

"Yeah, that's usually what happens when you leave someone." 

"That's kinda why I invited you here tonight. I wanted to apologize for the way things ended," he acts brokenhearted and torn up about it, but he's years too late for the pity party he's expecting. "I should've talked to you about what was going on. We were just... becoming so different, and it felt like you were always talking to Andie or other people in the program, and there was no way to reach you."

"What are you talking about? I asked you multiple times if we were okay, and you said yes every time. I was talking to Andie so much because I needed someone who would understand me and be able to help." You say, and he waves his hand like he's swatting flies.

"Let's not do this. My therapist says it's not healthy to rehash the past like this. I just wanted to make amends and let you know I'm sorry for how you felt." It's not an apology. Not a real one, anyway. Jesus Christ, what did you ever see in him? Before you can even open your mouth to say something, he gestures to the gallery. "So, what do you think about all this? Crazy, right?"

"It's... something," you say. "Wish you would've given me a heads up about that one before I brought someone with me." You point in the direction of your half-naked body on the wall, and he gives you a confused look.

"I thought I did in the email." 

"Nope, I think I would've remembered if you said something about a half-naked painting of me from college being displayed," you shake your head. "Why do you even still have that? I thought you would've thrown it away or painted over it or something."

"Why would I do that? It's a good piece."

"I know it's good because it's my body. What's weird is you leaving me without a word one day and then keeping a naked picture of me all these years." 

"I didn't even think of it as your body. After a while, it was just a body," he says with no remorse, and you think you might hit him yourself. "Besides, you should take this as a compliment. Not many women get the opportunity to be depicted as art. It's a wonderful thing. You might even thank me one day when you're older." Finally, you see Joel walking toward you with a glass of champagne, and you take refuge in the fact that he's returning for you. "But, from what I can see, they've definitely stayed the same, so you probably don't have anything to worry about." He says like it's a secret or a compliment. You don't even wait for Joel to say or do anything. You just grab the wine from him and throw it in Henry's face. The people in the immediate vicinity gasp as you slap him and shove the empty glass into his hands. 

"Out of all the stupid things I imagined for myself when I was younger, thinking I would marry you was the stupidest," you spit. "Don't you ever try to fucking contact me again."

You feel like a fucking idiot. What did you expect? An apology? Repentance? Regret? He barely apologized when you were together. Why would he start now? God, was he always that bad? How could you have been so blind? How could you have shed so many tears over him? How could you have let yourself be so vulnerable with him and for so many years? It's a miracle he didn't call the cops and try to get the two of you arrested, even though Joel didn't do anything. You think, at least. The second you finished your sentence, you ran to the bathroom to cry and then snuck out through the back to wait outside Joel's truck. For all you know, Joel (rightfully) beat his ass and is on the run from artsy Austin hipsters. 

You put the lit cigarette back in your mouth and take a long drag, the familiar burning in your lungs a sick relief. You quit during The Dark Days because smoking was something he did, and you wanted to rid yourself of any reminder of his impact on your life. Apparently, at the same time you were scrubbing his fingerprints from your bones, he was in possession of and doing God knows what with the visual reminder of your vulnerability and love-sickness and acted like it was nothing. Like it was a compliment. Like it was just an object instead of your body. Andie would be pissed if she were here but especially if she saw you smoking after she braved all those shaky days and nights of nicotine patches and dried fruit and whatever other remedy recommended to help you quit smoking. You half-expect the same anger when you see Joel walking toward you. 

"Before you even start, I know I shouldn't, okay? It's a bad habit from when I was a kid, and I've mostly kicked it. I just... had a lapse. I'll be back on my best behavior tomorrow," you say as he stops in front of you. He doesn't look angry or upset. He just looks concerned and maybe even a little sad. Suddenly, you regret running away from him when all he probably wanted to do was help. You probably wouldn't have bummed a cigarette from a busboy if you let him. "Don't tell Ellie." You plead. His eyes flick over your face before he takes the cigarette from your fingers, puts the lipstick-stained filter in his own mouth, and inhales deeply, making the ember glow in the dark of the night. When he exhales, he blows the smoke away from you and lets the wind carry it in the opposite direction. A considerate smoker. You should've guessed.

"Don't tell Ellie," he says, handing the cigarette back to you. "Are you okay?"

You shake your head and take a long drag. It's quiet between you two for a while, the only sound being the cicadas and the distant chatter of the gallery. They're probably still talking about the psycho bitch who threw her wine in the artist's face. You don't really care. "I'm sorry for tonight. I don't know what I was expecting, and I sure as shit didn't know that painting was gonna be displayed. I swear, if I had any idea how bad this was gonna be, I wouldn't have invited you." 

"Why are you apologizin'? It's not your fault." 

"I shouldn't have roped you into this. I should've just said no, ignored the email, or came by myself. It's not fair that you got put in the middle of all this, especially when you were just trying to be nice. You're the parent of one of my students, and for you to see that side of me is just inappropriate. I just-" he stops your rambling by putting his hands on your shoulders and making you look at him, the cigarette falling to the pavement in the process. 

"Hey, hey. Stop. Take a breath." He says. Your head hurts from crying, and part of you wants to crawl into a hole and stay there until these feelings go away, but his eyes are gentle, and his hands are warm. You think he might be the only reason you're holding it together right now. "None of this is your fault, okay? Not the painting, not the conversation, none of it. We're both adults, and we can handle these things rationally. I'm not scarred for life just 'cause you lost your temper."

"But I-"

"No, buts. You told me the situation, and I didn't care. You warned me bout the art people, and I didn't care. You threw a drink in that asshole's face, and I didn't care," he says. "The only thing I care bout right now is makin' sure you're okay. Fuck everythin' else." You search his face for anything to tell you what he's telling you is going against his inner monologue but find none. He's completely and wholly concerned about you and nothing else. Not how fast he can get out of this. Not how this might look. Not what other people might think about him. Nothing. You take a deep breath and nod.

"Fuck everything else." You agree. 

"Now, you're gettin' the hang of it." He jokes, and you roll your eyes at him. He takes it in stride, his smile never fading as he looks down at you. You stop messing with the hem of your dress and let yourself relax for the first time all night.

"Thank you for being here, Joel. I really appreciate it."

"Not our best not-date, but definitely a memorable one." He says, and you laugh. You seem to realize how close you are at the same time because you both fall silent. His curls are beautifully draped over his face, and you can't stop watching his tiny expressions. An eye squint. A purse of the lips. A bite to the inside of his cheek. You want to blame your bad night or the emotions, but you can't. There's something more there. Something that's been brewing beneath the surface since he came into your classroom. Something that will kill you if you don't act on it.

You let your hands come up from your sides and tentatively brush against his waist as you stare at him, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn't. He just stares down at your lips, and the hands on your shoulders slowly move across your skin and up your collarbone— leaving goosebumps in his wake— until his hands are on your jaw and your pulse is thrumming against his palm. You pull him closer by his belt loops, and he doesn't hesitate to crowd your space, pushing you into the side of his truck with his body. His lips ghost over yours, just barely touching, and his nose bumps yours. 

"This is a bad idea," you breathe, tightening your hold on him. He nods and presses his forehead against yours. He's still close enough to breathe the same air as him, but the distance feels like miles. You lean forward a fraction as a test, and he doesn't move. If anything, he seems annoyed you didn't kiss him.

"D'you want to stop?" He asks, sounding just as breathless as you feel. You shake your head and swallow hard when he brushes the hair off your shoulder, and you can feel his heavy hand holding you. Your hands skate over his ribs, feeling muscles and a crazed heartbeat, and his jaw clenches. "Then you better do somethin' cause you've been drivin' me fuckin' crazy for weeks." 

Finally, you catch his lips with yours. He tastes like nicotine and smoke, and you know it's going to take a lot more than patches to get you to want to stop doing this. It's gentle and sweet, all relieved sighs and shy touches until you pull away for just a second to second-guess yourself or ask him something. You don't even start to form the words before he's back on you with more fervor. Suddenly, it's like he's everywhere but not nearly close enough. He nibbles at your bottom lip and tests a hand on your sternum, long fingers grazing your throat. The metal of the truck digs into your back, but you stop caring when a little moan slips from his lips when you pull him closer.

This is a bad idea. A horrible one. A bad habit you're gonna need to kick. 

But he might just be your favorite bad idea so far.

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[kats-kradle]

Today has been an odd day, and I couldn’t be happier.

TLDR: it sounds sappy and unrealistic when people say “things get better.” I am living, breathing proof that yes, they actually do.

Seven years ago today, I tried to kill myself. 

There are millions upon millions of blessings I would have missed, and I’d like to name a few off the top of my head:

-only a month after my attempt, the little boy I babysit was born. He and his sister have been a joy in my life and to think I never would have known them is enough to bring me to tears. I’m so humbled by the blessing of getting to watch them grow up.

-I never would have known the joy of writing. It is genuinely one of my favorite pastimes and to think that the stories in my head never would have had a chance to form is astounding.

-the main thought that stopped me seven years ago was my baby cousin. She was a toddler and absolutely adored me. At the time, she was all I cared about. I’m now looking at her when I write this, and she is the age I was. I’ve loved getting to watch her grow.

-my aunt and cousins interrupted me writing this to drag me to do a puzzle with them. I can’t stand puzzles, but I’ve never been so grateful to suffer through one.

-I spent as much time as I possibly could have with my dog before she passed. I got a cat and lost a cat. I didn’t regret a minute. I am still blessed enough to spend hours with my grandparents as they get older.

-I got a job where I get to work with children who weren’t even born seven years ago. All 31 of them are a blessing in my life. 

-I made a LOT of friends this year, good, Christian friends who I love deeply and they love me the same. I met a guy and I can’t wait to see where the Lord eventually takes us.

-I met so many wonderful people on tumblr!

-I’m in college and am so grateful for everything that I have the ability to learn.

-I have been a shoulder to cry on and a friend to talk to. I have been a vessel for the Lord to accomplish His deeds. I have laughed until I was sure I would pass out, I have cried until I was sure I would die, and all the while, I have been alive. I’ve held babies and pet animals and felt the warm sun and cold water. I’ve swam and ran and danced and sang. I’ve marveled at the stars and the clouds and the maker of them. I’ve seen God’s fingerprints all over my everyday life. 

-seven years ago, I was the lowest I’ve ever been in my life. Today, I am the gladdest I’ve ever been that God saved me. 

-seven is an important number in the Bible, and this year I feel the shackles of my suicide attempt falling away. This is the first year I’ve been able to talk about it; no one in my life knows. Over the years I have gone from shame and regret to depression and shock to joy. I pray this starts a journey for me to help others who feel the same as I did seven years ago. 

[tarisilmarwen]

Whumptober 2024 - "Bloodstained Hands"

(WHUMPTOBER TIME BITCHES! :D

Y'all know the deal, I hurt the darlings, you moan and curse at me for it, let's get right into it, I'm really happy and proud of my work this year.

Prompts used were:

No.3 Set Up For Failure: Fingerprints/Wrongfully Arrested/"I warned you."

No.28 Denial: CCTV/Exposure/"They caught me red-handed".

Warnings for depiction of a panic attack and vomiting.)

---

Robin started to lose control of his breathing once they put him in the Trooper squad car.

The sound of the door shutting was unusually loud and echoing in his ears, reverberating inside his head. His chest tightened like the seatbelt was choking him. He stared straight forward through the glass plane separating him from the driver, eyes fixated on the flashing red and blue lights outside, and started to feel it all crashing down around his head.

His mouth was dry, tongue lodged at the back of his throat—breathe breathe, he had to remember to breathe—and he fought against the rising sense of dread under his sternum—he had only ever been in the back of a patrol car once for a fun day trip with Commissioner Gordon, oh god what would he think—as the car rumbled to life and drove away from the scene—the scene of the crime, they were leaving a crime scene, he was a criminal, he had killed someone—

Robin's shoulders curled in and he hung his head towards the floor, making the handcuffs clink slightly behind him and the sound was another auditory bullet shot of adrenaline spiking through him.

He was no stranger to panic attacks. He'd had plenty.

This one was especially hard to shake.

The dread was a cold lake of heavy ice sitting in his stomach. His chest heaved as he gasped mutely, hardly any sound of breath passing through his mouth. His heart sparked with fire pinpricks of adrenaline and all sound was watery, far away and out of reach, muffled.

He... he couldn't... focus.

He was so lost inside his own head, thoughts still spiraling one after the other that he had killed someone, he was a murderer, he'd been arrested that he was almost numb as the Tokyo Troopers collected him from the squad car. He barely registered that they had returned to the Trooper headquarters. If his head had been clearer he might have questioned why he'd been brought here, why Daizo was allowed to bring him to his personal facility instead of a normal district lockup, but all he could think about was the last few moments of the fight, the rage he had pummeled Saico-tek with, the blood—blood? no no it couldn't be blood it couldn't, he would never—that still stained his gloves as they removed the handcuffs.

He was processed. Belt, weapons, and ruined laces removed. Photographed. Fingerprinted. He thought they would have to take the gloves off for it but apparently the Troopers had the same kinds of micro-beam scanners the Tower had. Robin felt nauseous watching the machine work, the back of his head shrieking at him that he was in the system now, his arrest was in the database, Bruce would see, Batman could see his file pop in the Cave's database any time he turned it on now, could read through it and know what a disappointment and failure he was.

Robin was led to a sparse holding cell and left there. He wondered idly why it was so quiet, surely the Troopers should have been up all hours of the night in a big city like this? Coming and going?

There was nothing but the buzz of the air and lights above him and his racing heart and all the noisy little stinging thoughts that smacked against the insides of his skull and repeated their criticisms, denials, and horrors over and over again.

This wasn't real.

This was real.

He had killed someone.

He couldn't have.

He knew better.

Did he really? Slade had always been so fond of pointing out Robin's little inner rage problem.

No, no it wasn't like that this time.

He replayed the fight in his head again and again, tried to remember how much force he'd used. Tried to remember if it was too much.

The pieces refused to click together and make sense. Saico-tek could regenerate a whole blown off arm, how had Robin's pummeling put him down for good? They'd seen the kaiju monster in the city take the same kind of sonic blast from Cyborg straight through its chest, the perfect circular hole where its heart and lungs should be merely washing over and filling with flashes of color, as if it wasn't even made of flesh.

So how...?

Even his brief conversation with Daizo, when the commander came in, didn't straighten anything out. Daizo was insistent that Brushogun was a myth. Robin was ashamed of the way his voice cracked and shook as he pleaded with the man, argued about how things didn't add up.

"Whatever this Saico-tek was, he was alive," the commander pointed out, voice patient but firm, "And now..."

As if Robin didn't know. As if that wasn't the horrible thought that was digging its claws into him and making his head light, his stomach roil and churn.

After Daizo left, the modicum of control he had over himself started to unravel again. He gulped for breath, sides and lungs heaving, shuddering. His vision narrowed, tunneling, disconnecting from reality. The screeching panic alarms cycled higher and shriller.

He clutched pink-stained gloves to either side of his head and bent over in the seat, nails digging into his skin.

He knew he should get hold of himself and think. He knew how to get hold of himself.

He just... couldn't.

***

Despite the unflappable severity with which he'd told Robin how much trouble he was in, there was a part of Uehara Daizo that was panicking.

The Commander did not panic. He had been a smiling, unshakable face in front of Tokyo's news cameras for decades. He was the one who had saved the city countless times, dodged inquiries, silenced all doubting voices to stand atop them all as its shining hero.

And now he realized there was a chance it could all fall apart. Crumble into dust in his fingers.

The boy could not be given any respite to think. He needed to be transferred. Tonight. Not to the municipal juvenile detention center, that was too public. Too out of his direct control. No. He had friends at a private high-security facility just outside of the division line. He would send the boy there. Emphasize to the mayor and the press how much danger a highly-skilled vigilante superhero who had already killed posed to the pubic safety. Robin could be held there indefinitely. Or at least long enough for Daizo to convince the judge for the family court to put his case on the docket much sooner, and rule for him to be tried as an adult.

A few greased palms to ensure he would be released into general prison pop in an adult prison, a specially printed assassin hidden among them, and he would be rid of the nuisance the child had made of himself for good. He would play it off as a tragic accident. He was so rehearsed at covering his tracks it was almost second nature now, it should be enough to deter the... international attention that would inevitably come.

Even in Japan the Batman's reputation was fearsome. Daizo knew he was playing with fire, detaining the Bat's child.

But those worries could be addressed later. Right now, all that was left to be concerned about was the child's friends.

They would foolishly try to save or help him, he knew. They could not be allowed.

It was probably time to visit Brushogan, sic the reprints of his favorite reoccurring criminals on them, before the late-night news broadcast program broke the story of Robin's arrest.

He glanced up at the cameras and snorted. The boy was curled in an almost fetal-position on his chair in the holding cell, clearly in the throes of a terrible anxiety and panic. If he had a medical episode while in Daizo's custody it would look bad, no matter how much the city liked him.

He supposed he would have to send someone in to go calm him down.

Daizo grabbed his coat and pulled it on, sliding his arms into the sleeves comfortably as he made his way down to the bowels of the facility, accessing via special passcard the platform lift that ran under a tunnel through the city, straight to basement of the derelict Wakamono Shuppan.

He stormed into the control room in a bit of a huff, yanking back the chair and stabbing the button to pipe the CCTV feed of the holding cell to one of the screens.

"Look what you have caused, my friend!" he accused the thin gray shadow stuck in the printing press. He pointed sharply towards the quivering red and green figure. "Look what have you forced me to do!"

A dark, rasping chuckle came from the withered husk that was Brushogan. "I did not do any of this," the weak, dry voice countered, and it could have been a trick of the shadows but he swore the man was smirking. "You should have released me... long ago."

Lip curling, Daizo searched the buttons on the control panel.

"I need a Trooper with a bit more personality. A medical technician," he barked. "Someone who can stop the boy from spiraling himself into a heart attack." He found the button and hovered a finger over it, eyes shooting a glare at his prisoner. "Can you handle that?" he asked, derisive.

Brushogun wore a grim smile. "I shall make him like you once were," he said, the silent admonition a mocking bell in his ears.

Daizo pulled his sidearm, leveling it across the distance towards the man's head. "Do not give him any more autonomy than he needs," he growled. "If you pull another stunt like you did with that Saico-tek..."

He let the warning and the threat hang, ominously.

Brushogun bowed his head grimly, pressing one finger to the paper in the printer.

Daizo pressed the button.

***

They both watched the camera feed as a Trooper opened up the holding cell.

"Hello Robin," the Trooper greeted. "My name is Akira Kaito. I noticed you were feeling unwell."

The boy shuddered, vacant eyes becoming present as he tried to blink and focus on the Trooper.

"Are you all right?" Kaito asked, tilting his head in concern.

Robin's face was gaunt, gaze trembling, as he lifted his head.

"I... I think I'm gonna..."

He curled up again, suddenly, as he gave a loud retch, face turning greenish.

Kaito came alongside him, guiding him quickly by the arm to the sink in the back corner. Robin gagged and doubled over as he hurled into it, face hidden from the camera view as he emptied his stomach into the sink.

He coughed for a long time, gasping, wheezing for breath.

"Here. Let me take those," Kaito offered, sliding Robin's gloves off for him, which let him more easily grip the porcelain sides of the sink.

The Trooper surreptitiously pocketed the gloves, for the moment. Daizo nodded in satisfaction. They would be returned later, after being cleaned off. Any standard lab test would quickly reveal that it was ink, not blood. The department trusted him enough that they let him conduct his own tests, he would simply say he had blood evidence off the gloves that matched Saico-tek's. He could rely on the private prison to destroy both them and the rest of Robin's uniform and belongings when he was booked in.

At least he seemed to have stopped outright panicking, though now it looked like he was crying instead; his shoulders were tightly hitched and he smeared hands under his eyes again and again.

"Why didn't I just stay with her?" he was whispering, so quietly the cameras almost couldn't pick it up. "Why didn't I just kiss her? Why did I have to let myself get so obsessed with things... again..."

The despair in the boy's tone was pity-inducing. Even the cold cockles of Daizo's heart felt a moment's regret.

Then he stirred, shaking off that shred of compassion like a flake of dust. He switched the input to shunt the holding cell footage to a smaller screen and began bringing up his network of cameras to cycle through and find the other Titans.

"The others will be finding out soon," he muttered. He leaned back in his seat to watch, as four large screens began tracking their movements. If they were wise, they would heed the ultimatum to leave Tokyo.

But he expected they would be foolish children, like Robin. Brave, foolish children.

Either way, he thought, only he would emerge the hero in the end.

He could not afford to let it play out otherwise.

[talenlee]

MTG: Propagator Primordium

I can’t stop thinking about this card.I am sitting up late at night and trying to imagine something to write about and the only thing that keeps coming into my mind as a thing to write about at all is, well, this card.

This one card.

This isn’t one of my designs, though I can imagine if you’re not familiar with Magic: The Gathering Arena, you might not realise it. I can certainly imagine if I had created this card, you could see my fingerprints on it. First of all, it’s a card with a keyword you probably don’t know, but which Wizards made, and I didn’t. That’s conjure, a digital-only mechanic that puts a newly created version of the card in a zone. I don’t think digital-only mechanics are great, but I do appreciate what Conjure is trying to do, and the way it takes advantage of a digital format. It’s not like Specialise, which is a mechanic that induces a lot of confusion, or god help me the card with a scroll bar in its text field.

It’s a green card that cares about the graveyard, and that’s a thing I’ve loved since getting to play with Eternal Witness when it was standard legal. Yeah I have copies of TERF art Eternal Witness, which probably are going to be valuable at some point but I don’t want to sell them to anyone. I think that green’s use of its graveyard is one of its most appealing things, aside from the generically fat bodies. Give me a chance to play a green card that can promise to survive an early game and make the end game more impressive and I will make excuses, even if I’m going to get run over by red creatures every step.

It’s also a green card that grows slowly over time, pressure in a box that builds up and eventually hits a tipping point. If you’re not seeing it, this thing can build up 3 fungus counters and summon one of the copies out of the graveyard. That copy is then building up 3 fungus counters, and both get two copies out of the graveyard. Because they’re putting brand new cards in your graveyard, they’re never going to run out of things to put on the field, and while it’s only happening every third turn, it’s still relentless and it all grew out of a single card.

Oh and also, it’s a 3/3 for 2 without any drawback.

My Magic: The Gathering history starts at Scourge; after Scourge, we got Mirrodin, which sucked ass, and whose world I disliked, and then we had the first Kamigawa block, a world I loved, and then we got into Ravnica. While I liked Kamigawa, I could feel the brakes being put on the set, I could feel the way that the set was made up of cards that just weren’t as powerful as previous cards, and that’s back in 2005, when the game had 11 years of history to work with. Ravnica, the first time, was the first time I felt the structure of the game doing things that excited me, that I felt the story space of the world forming around a new whole, and also, importantly, addressing mistakes from the previous era.

Like, the way the game works, the balance in the game, what’s strong and what’s weak, are typically described as a pendulum. Sometimes this thing is strong, sometimes this other thing is strong, but it’s never an escalation of all things. This wound up not quite being true – if you do a comprehensive study of tournament results over time, you’ll find that generally, blue and white control decks are very strong, even if there are times when other types of deck and other kinds of colour are weaker. But at this stage in the game’s life, the pendulum wasn’t around a sensible centre; simply put, green’s creatures weren’t good enough, and blue had a lot of its power concentrated in a small pool of creatures and a lot of utility removal effects. There were other things, but those stood out to me a lot.

In Ravnica, as part of a push to show us what creatures could be, showed us a new vanilla creature, to present the idea that green-white, the creature combat colours, had the best creatures at 2 mana. And they gave us Watchwolf.

Watchwolf was an important card. It wasn’t a strong card; in fact, thanks to the environment it got put into, we already had Watchwolf. In Onslaught I’d played with Wretched Anurid, in Mirrodin I’d tried to work with Blind Creeper, I’d even used Nezumi Shortfang (and I still love you, Stabwhisker). Black, in Hand of Cruelty, even had a Watchwolf that beat Watchwolf, and while being a 3/3 was cool, being able to swing an Umezawa's Jitte and run past Watchwolf was better.

But it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter that Watchwolf wasn’t that good, what mattered is what Watchwolf says. Watchwolf says that green and white, in the simplest way, can have a 3/3 for 2. Even now, Watchwolf has never been printed at common, even though we have a lot of 3/2s for 2 in green. A 3/3 for 2 is, still, in my mind, an iconically powerful, important creature for green and white to have as a benchmark for what colours can do. In the same way I hate 3/2 bodies for 3, I really love a 3/3 body for 2.

Which this fungus is! It’s all of these things!

Is this overpowered?

Nah, not really.

Honestly, I think this card is a bit on the meh side. I’ve played it a lot in a sort of ‘naked’ way – just treating it as a big creature for 2 mana that I can use to synergise with other cards. But none of those cards make it better, and it makes those cards better – things that check my graveyard for the number of cards there, or if a card went into my graveyard. And even in that situation, it’s a creature that’s probably bigger than anything my opponent spent the same amount of mana on!

Imagine that though. Imagine making a card so much for my tastes, and it’s… fine. It’s not overpowered. It’s a Graveyard Recursion Watchwolf, and…

It’s fine!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[neckofjewels]

this one is a lil tough

i know people who look up to me, or compliment me on my words and how pretty i can write. but i dont think a single person really knows me, who i exist in front of mirrors and i sort of just want to let my organs spill out and paint whichever picture of me they decide is real. lately, i cant lie to anyone, ive been itching my forearms and urging for any sense of euphoria in my system, ive been off hard drugs for over a year and i barely get time to smoke anymore since i cant find a solid place to stay, but for the first time in awhile ive felt this need for something more. i have a few friends i like spending my nights with, and someone i deeply love, and my mother who i look after, but at the end of the day, i cant promise myself any of that will be there when i wake up tomorrow. people change, and the days change too and we all end up not getting what we want. and i guess thats just been hard because i just want a soul to run to when times get tough like this. god ive seen the worst and my eyes keep burning themselves trying to remember but i feel like i would do anything for a hug right now, and the closest thing i have to that feeling is days where i lived in love with any type of drug i could get inside of my body. i feel so fucking gross for that, like i am a monster kept chained in the closet i was so scared of as a child. and i think other people see me that way too, im still made fun of for those addictions and needs, i remember hanging out with a few friends and leaving the car to go press pills into dust so i could feel alive, walking back with that powder flaking off my fingerprints and being laughed at was the most suffocating feeling ive had ever since i watched myself lose a battle to temptation. and now im just avoiding getting around any substance because i dont know how i will act if i was offered a needle. i guess i feel like a vampire or whatever disgusting addict you see on the news and make fun of. its terrible. i just have nights where i dont fully know where my life is, and i think people have this false picture of me that i cant live up to, and speaking to people is just a pig on a slow roaster turning around until the flesh burns off and the blood is tainted below. like i cant hold anything real for that long before i begin to convince myself i know nothing but hatred and longluster. i dont know what i deserve, but i know i dont feel ok

[therandomavenger]

An Open Letter to the Queer Kids who are being Raised in Christian Families

I’ve been where you are. You’re experiencing attractions you can’t explain, feelings nothing in your past have prepared you for. And you’re terrified. You would be so ashamed if anyone in your life found out, so you soak yourself in shame, you deny that these feelings are real. And maybe you’ve overcompensated, trying to show the people you love that you’d never be like those people, the people everyone is disgusted by, the people they can’t understand, that the ones that, if they are otherwise kind, they pity.

Or maybe that’s not it exactly. Maybe you have the unexplainable sense that the body you were born with does not seem to fit who you are at your core. But that can’t be true, you think. God doesn’t make mistakes, so you’re certain the problem must be with you.

I have a message for you, one I wish I would have heard when I was in your shoes.

There is nothing wrong with you.

You were created by the divine spirit, whatever your faith tradition calls them. And you were made to be exactly who you are called to be.  

All that garbage you’ve been fed? That’s all it is, garbage. It’s garbage that too many people still believe, but it is garbage.

Sure, the Bible has some things to say about this. Or at least people think it does. A lot of what it does say has been mistranslated over the years. And even if that weren’t true, the Bible has a lot to say about a lot of things, much of which even the most devout choose to ignore (Did you know the New Testament explicitly forbids charging interest on a loan, and remarrying a new partner after a divorce?)

My point is that falling in love with someone, no matter who they are, is not a sin. Even the Bible names love as the greatest force on earth. Also, queer people have existed throughout all of history, one way or another, and Jesus never said one word about them.

So, please understand that nothing is wrong with you, even though it really feels like there is. You feel these feelings like they are acid corroding your soul, a secret that if it were to be revealed would separate you from everyone you love.

And maybe it will. But if it does, please know the problem is them, not you.

God, if he exists, does not want you to live a lie. They created you, and if you believe in this type of thing, Jesus died for you. The Holy Spirit indwells you. You truly are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that includes every part of you, even the parts that you think you could never accept.

If you’re like me, you prayed hard to be ‘normal,’ and it has shaken your faith to its foundations that no cure has appeared. There is no cure, because this is not a disease or a disorder. You can’t pray it away because it is one of the many gifts the creator has given you.

Maybe it’s not safe for you to believe these things yet. If so, I understand. I believed I was a fundamentally broken person well into adulthood.

I’ll say it again and keep saying it until you believe it.

There is nothing wrong with you.

I have more good news. You don’t have to make a choice between following your faith and living an authentic life. Granted, you may have to leave the particular faith tradition you are being raised in, but there are many welcoming communities out there, and there are many queer people of faith. People who see the fingerprints of the creator all over you. People who will be ecstatic to meet you one day and welcome you into their found families.

Maybe it’s not safe to come out right now. Maybe you can’t imagine a time when it will be safe. That’s ok. Keep yourself safe. There’s no shame in that.

But sometimes people surprise you. Someday you might get tired of pretending to be someone you’re not, and you will lay down the mask and speak your truth out loud. I wish I could tell you I knew what reaction you would get from the people you love, but I can’t. When I finally spoke the truth to my fundamentalist mother, the first thing she said was that she loved me. I wish I could guarantee that will happen to you too, but I don’t have the ability to read the future.

So, that’s what I wanted to tell you.

There is nothing wrong with you.

God loves you. Jesus died for you. The Holy Spirit indwells you. Falling in love with someone could never change any of that. Being the person you were created to be, even if that does not match your gender assigned at birth, definitely doesn’t either.

You were created to be exactly the person you are. Maybe someday you’ll be able to come out and walk in the light. Maybe you’ll never be safe. That decision is completely up to you. You’re not a coward if you choose safety.

God loves you, and the queer community loves you too.

I just wanted you to know that.

[edie-baby]

Can we please have a smut with Lando where he’s never been that dominant before and decides to try it one evening

whiskey soaked cherries | lando norris smut

summary: Lando Norris decides one day that he'd like to try dominating his partner, and well, he's actually pretty good at it.

word count: 4541

warnings: swearing, smut; face sitting, choking, bound wrists, daddy + sir kink, hint of a breeding kink, aftercare

notes: i'm sorry this took so long, i kind of got carried away

There were always a few indicators when Lando Norris was thinking. It was a common occurrence, the man was an over-thinker till the end, yet it meant he never did anything without being sure. There were levels to his thinking moods however, and they usually gave away the true depth of his immersion in his brain.

Level one: glazed eyes, and slow reaction times. Often when you spoke to him during this time, it would take multiple seconds for him to even acknowledge that you had said something, the journey from his head to in front of you could take a while, but he was usually pretty easy to distract.

Level two: sitting completely still and not blinking. The first few times you saw him lost in thought like this, you were unnerved. He could stare at a spot on the floor for five minutes, unblinking, the only indicator of life being the steady rise and fall of his chest, the rhythmic breaths falling from his lips were reassuring in this state. You had noticed once that he was so lost in thought he didn’t breathe for multiple moments. Your head was against his chest, the subtle movements you had felt for many hours before that ceased, and after a few too many seconds, he gulped down a gasping breath. This level was usually reserved for racing thoughts, strategies and tracks all consuming within his chaotic brain.

Level three: mindlessly walking, parted lips, slow, laboured breaths. You had seen Lando like this only once, walking around his house for nearly an hour, never reacting to your voice, never stopping for longer than it took for him to pivot and turn back around at a dead-end hallway. The day after you saw him like this, he had asked you to move in with him.

Level four: laid still on the floor, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed, lights on. You had only heard of this Thinking Lando, Jon and Charlotte having caught him laid in offices or empty rooms on the floor, looking like a perfectly posed corpse. You questioned him about it, and he had never had a true answer for you, something about the rigidity of the floor was grounding whilst his closed eyes let him wander as far as he wished.

But level five, you weren’t entirely sure existed. So, when you arrived home after work one day to a completely dark house, curtains and blinds drawn with every source of light turned off or obscured, you were rightfully shit scared.

“Lando? Honey, I’m home!” You called, your voice wavering slightly as it bounced off the walls of the entryway, travelling through the house in eerie echoes.

“In the living room.” Lando replied, his voice oddly composed, and you began traversing though the house, avoiding walls and furniture from memory. You were tempted to use the flashlight on your phone to get an idea of what was going on, but figured you trusted your boyfriend enough.

“Hey baby, what’s with the lights?” Your voice was laced with confusion, eyes trying to find the silhouette of the man speaking from somewhere within the room, but you were completely lost.

“I’ve been thinking.” He simply replied, goosebumps erupting on your skin as his hot breath fanned on the back of your neck. You thought his voice had travelled from the other side of the living room, but there was right behind you. You tried leaning back, desperate for some contact in the makeshift sensory deprivation room you had found yourself in, but he was gone. You jumped when you felt his hand brush against your calf, his other hand tracing up the outside of your leg to your thigh. You sighed in relief, the barest of touches from him always made you feel alight with pleasure.

“You don’t usually think like this. What’s on your mind?” You asked, voice breathy as you felt the constantly moving palms on your legs, the skirt you had worn that day a barrier between where you really wanted him, and the rough calloused hands that left goosebumps in their wake. He didn’t dare move the hem of your skirt, choosing to roam over it with lazy strokes.

“I want to try something with you. But, I need your full consent, and we need ground rules.” Lando replied, the languid strokes turning to loving touches, the brief brush of his fingertips against a scar on your knee, the same fingers caressing a path down your calf to remove your shoes.

“You know I’d trust you to do anything. Anything you want to do, I consent to 100%.” Your voice was sure, strong and assured. You felt Lando’s fingers still for a bare moment, a long intake of air telling you Lando was revelling in the romantics of your words. He often did that when you spoke about your admiration for him, honey-sweet words warming his heart like nothing else.

“No, I need you to listen to this. I want your explicit consent.” Lando continued, his words firmer, causing anxiety to swirl in your stomach for a brief moment before you realised exactly who he was. It was Lando, your chaotic boyfriend who screamed instead of laughing. A man you had been hopelessly in love with for nearly three years, who treated you like a goddess, who worshipped you for your flaws as much as your perfections.

“Okay. So tell me.” You stated. There was no question, no anxiety, no confusion in your words. Because you knew this man like the back of your hand, and you knew he knew you just as well, if not better. His fingers, which had still been brushing against your skin like a whisper suddenly gripped into the skin of your thighs, a comforting presence as he prepared to let the words tumble from his lips.

“I want to be in charge. I want to have complete control over you. For you to submit to me. Be one hundred percent mine to do whatever I want to do. I want to tie you up, have you completely at my mercy. I want to pull orgasm after orgasm from you until you’re begging me to stop, that you can’t take it anymore. And then I’m going to give you one more, because I can, and because I get to decide what happens to you. I want to drive my cock into your pussy until tears of pleasure stain those gorgeous cheeks of yours. I want to spank you until you can no longer sit down. I want to wrap my hand around that little throat of yours until you see the stars I see in your eyes every day. I want to cover your body in marks, fingerprints, hickeys, bites, whatever I can to make sure everyone knows who the fuck you belong to. And after all that, I want to cum inside this pussy, because it’s mine and no one else’s.” Lando growled, his grip on your thighs wavering as he detailed his fantasy, one that you were all too happy to bring to life.

“Yes. I consent. To all of it. I’m yours Lando, and I trust you with every fibre of my being.” You spoke clearly, wanting him to hear just how willing you were to help him fulfill the dreams he had obviously been thinking of all day.

At your reassuring words, Lando surged forward, his eyes obviously more adjusted to the dark room than yours as he found your lips with ease, finally indulging you in your own desires of finally having his lips against yours after a day spent apart. His teeth nipped at your bottom lip, an involuntary gasp leaving your mouth and allowing Lando’s tongue to move slowly against yours. His hands, still with a grip on your thighs, slid them apart, which allowed him to shuffle further forward on his knees.

His lips travelled to your neck, nipping, licking and sucking on the flesh that he knew would make you whimper. Your hands, previously resting on his muscled forearms, reached for the lamp next to you, your eyes desperate to see the hungry look you knew was plastered on his face. The warm light flickered on, bathing his tanned skin in rays of honey-gold that only served to make him look more like a God among men than he already seemed to you.

“Get up. Go to the bedroom. When I get there, I want you naked and spread on the bed for me. You’re at my mercy tonight, darling, so you best not disobey or there’ll be hell to pay.” Lando growled, the intrusion of the light having snapped the remaining thread that held the usually sweet, albeit passionate and hungry, man that you had been sleeping with for so long.

Your breath caught in your throat, the dominance Lando was showing shot heat and pleasure to your core in a way you had never experienced. You stood quickly, beginning a fast walk toward your shared bedroom. Charged nerves surged through your body when you heard Lando’s steps trailing behind you, your hands moving in a frenzy to rid the clothes covering the body Lando was about to devour. When you finally got into your room, you only had a black lace thong remaining, so you threw it across the room and dove onto the bed just in time for the shirtless Brit to appear in the doorway with an impressed look on his features.

“I’m surprised, and almost disappointed. I was sure I’d get to punish you tonight, but I guess I’ll have to leave that for another day. Look at you though, all laid out and ready for me like the needy little whore you are. I bet you can’t fucking wait to be wrapped around my cock, to be filled up with my cum and feel it drip down your thighs.” Lando’s words had you keening, your body almost curling in on itself as he spoke all the words, pressed all the buttons that you didn’t know you had. You already felt like you were dripping onto the sheets beneath your body, and from the way Lando’s eyes were transfixed on your pussy, you were sure he could confirm your hypothesis.

He started towards you, kicking himself off the door frame with a smirk that would make you jump his bones at any given moment. His gaze was predatory, planning all the different ways he could tear you apart and put you back together before you would be sobbing with pleasure, overstimulated to the point of pleasing pain. Lando stopped as his shins met the side of the bed, staring down at you like prey. You whimpered, this new dominant side of your boyfriend was ruining you, and you wished for it to never end.

“Please, Lando, touch me.” You whimpered, skin alight with anticipation and wanton lust, your hairs standing on end, waiting for the prickling feeling to dissipate with the touch of his skin against yours.

“Please Daddy. And I’ll decide when you get touched.” Lando growled, the title more of a command than a suggestion, and that alone had your body curling.

“I’m sorry Daddy.” The name tasted like whiskey soaked cherries on your tongue; all sweet and spicy, innocent and sensual, an invitation and an offering. A spark behind Lando’s eyes let you know exactly how much he liked the keening way you spoke, and in barely a moment, his body was covering yours.

Your legs already opened wide for him, allowing his hips to slot in right between your thighs, your wet core lining up with his denim covered cock, already straining against the material purely from words spoken and the way the light from the lamp in the corner made your pussy glisten with its juices. His hands beside your head caged you in, holding the weight of his torso and unbridled dominance from crushing you.

Your breath came out shaky, bottom lip quivering in anticipation of feeling his lips on yours, every muscle in your body working to keep you from launching upwards and taking exactly what you wanted. Lando granted those wishes, diving down to capture your lips in a searing kiss, the frustration he usually held back while fucking you finally manifesting itself as hot, fiery passion. He needed this release, and you were the perfect vessel to release into. Every nip of his teeth, stroke of his tongue and bare touch of his fingers against your naked skin, it was too much and not enough.

“I need you to tell me if you need me to stop, we need a safeword. Use it if I go too far, or if I hurt you, or if you just need a second. Because I don’t want to lose myself in you and not realise I’m doing something wrong.” Lando spoke, breathless from the head spinning kiss, and you almost cooed, there was really nothing Lando could do to you that would hurt you, and it was sweet that he still didn’t understand that fact, but you followed along for his peace of mind.

“Orange.” You replied, almost instantly. The colour was so deeply ingrained in your relationship that you felt it both fitting and comforting, and Lando agreed as he nodded along, repeating the word in his mind and tying alarm bells and stop signs to it.

“Good. Now sit on my face.”

“I’m sorry what?” You squeaked, the request having given you whiplash, and as you stared into Lando’s eyes, no hin of remorse or asking, you realised the man was dead fucking serious.

“Did I stutter?” Lando asked again, his eyes glaring at your face as you continued to try and process the last seventeen seconds, but when your body was flipped from lying comfortably against your mattress to straddling a muscled chest, you realised you’d have to be a lot quicker to keep up with Lando tonight.

“If I have to ask you one more time, you won’t like what happens.” Lando growled, the deep tones of his domineering voice filling the room and hanging heavily in the air. You looked down to his face, his chin barely five centimetres from your pussy, and decided it was now or fucking never. So you shuffled awkwardly up the bed, apparently too slow for Lando, because he hooked his arms around your thighs and dragged your body to exactly where he wanted it. Your dripping core suspended above him, his nose brushing your clit each time your thighs spasmed in your pleasure.

“Is this okay Daddy?” You whispered, your hands gripping the headboard in front of you like a lifeline. Lando’s entire body spasmed, his arms tensing around your thighs and pulling your wet cunt to his face just as a guttural moan tore from the depths of his chest, his arms shaking with the force of containing whatever beast had just been awoken inside of him.

Lando ate you out with a ferocity you had never expected a man to possess, his tongue lapped, tasted, prodded and fucked through your folds like a man starved. His nose brushed your clit every so often, jolting your hips and causing you to ride his face until a swift slap warmed your ass cheeks.

“Sorry Daddy.” You mumbled, embarrassment warming your cheeks as the pleasure built up much faster and harder than ever before. Lando slid one of his calloused digits into your cunt, his mouth moving to focus on your clit, sucking and licking at the bundle of nerves while you clenched around his fingers with a passion.

“You better not cum until I say you can.” Lando’s voice was muffled, but you understood exactly what he meant. Your whimper that followed made Lando chuckle, and you moaned as the vibrations and exhaled breath hit your core and made your entire body convulse, the pleasure was blinding, but your brain was fixated on not cumming until Lando allowed you to.

Your body was so hot with pleasure, your vision coated white to the point you didn’t know if your eyes were open or closed, and your perception of time had vanished long ago. Lando could have been eating you out for five minutes or five hours, you had no clue anymore, all you knew was that it felt so good, and it was Lando making you feel this way.

“You’re doing so good baby, fuck. If you keep making those sounds I might cum before you even touch me.” Lando’s voice brought you back to reality, as you had been so lost you didn’t realise you had been moaning, the sounds of pleasure verging on screams as you passed ‘about to cum’ and entered ‘about to pass out’.

“You make me feel so good Daddy. So fucking good, shit.” Your reply was garbled, moans and whimpers cutting off words. Lando hummed, his lips latching onto your clit and sucking exceptionally hard as his fingers curled just the right way, and you knew you were a goner.

“Cum now baby girl.” Lando mumbled, syllables lost to the flesh of your pussy, but you got the message. The relief that coated your body was like cold water on a hot summer day, drenching your screaming senses in a blanket of calm, your vision returning in flashes of colour, your ears ringing with high pitched screams, ones which you realised after a moment were your own sounds of pleasure. Lando continued his ministrations as you came down, prolonging your pleasure while you regained consciousness and became fully aware of what was happening around you.

Lando stopped, his eyes opening to see you already staring down at him in awe, and he helped you move from your position over his head to laying beside him on the bed, your skin already shining with a thin coat of sweat.

You looked over at your boyfriend, disbelief in your eyes as you stared at the wetness covering the bottom half of his face, and some of his neck. He looked smug as ever, a sliver of your young boyfriend shining through the dominant facade he had on tonight, but as soon as you started picking out the familiar pieces, his eyes turned cold again, the smirk being replaced with a tensed jaw. Your heart stopped for a moment, the one-eighty made your pussy flutter around nothing, and suddenly you were painfully aware of just how empty you felt.

“Can I touch you?” You asked, eyes wide and innocent, your bottom lip pouting as you looked up at Lando, hoping to run your hands across his chest, feeling the muscles ripple beneath the taut skin, to drag your nails across his thighs, dig your fingers into his skin as he fucks you.

“Do you want to try asking that again?” Lando replied, his tone almost patronising as he looked at you, practically vibrating with desperation to touch him. It filled him with unbelievable pride, to have you so wanting just to feel him, it stroked his ego more than winning any Grand Prix ever could.

“I’m sorry sir. Can I please touch you? I want to make you feel good too.” You whimpered, the new title falling from your lips naturally, and though he hadn’t answered you, or granted you permission to touch him, he pounced.

His lips collided with yours, sharing the taste of you in the kiss and you moaned at the sensation, your nails reaching up to claw at Lando’s back. His hands where everywhere, grabbing your tits with rough hands, flicking your nipples with calloused skin, gripping your hips with intent to bruise, desperate to leave the evidence of his claim on you. His lips traced the familiar path to your jaw, up to your ear where he sunk his teeth into the lobe, letting his lips brush the shell of your ear as he whispered sweet nothings to you.

Except the sweet nothings tonight were anything but.

“Can’t wait to fill you up with my cum. Watch it drip out of you and then fuck it back into you with my fingers. Gonna make you a mummy, huh? Have you walking around the paddock with my baby in you. That way everyone knows you’re mine and that I was the one that fucked you so good.” The filthy words being fed right into your ear, along with the strong grip on your hips and the rolling of Lando’s hips pressing his bulge into your core was going to make you go feral.

“Fuck me, sir. Put your baby in me please. Wanna be a mummy for you.” You purred, the words rolling off your tongue in waves that sent shivers down Lando’s spine. He leant back, sat back on his haunches as he took in the sight of your body, still trembling slightly from the powerful orgasm. He slowly undid his belt, your eyes trained on the movements his hands made, biting your lip as you got one step closer to seeing his cock, a sight you could and would never tire of. With his belt gripped tightly in his hands, Lando made a decision he would never regret.

He scooped your hands up in one of his, the other holding the belt, and positioned your hands above your head, fingers brushing against the headboard. He looped the belt through the wrought iron, fastening the leather around your hands tight enough to keep them there, but not tight enough to do any damage to you. You tugged on the restraints lightly, pouting when you found there wasn’t enough give to touch Lando while he fucked you into the mattress.

Lando gave the restraints a few investigative tugs, and when there was little movement and he was satisfied with the results, he leaned back, staring down at you yet again. You were starting to think he was getting more enjoyment out of just staring at you than anything else.

With heavy breathing and the occasional squeak of the headboard as you attempted to break free of the belt holding your wrists hostage, Lando finally began removing his sinfully tight black jeans. He pushed them down his legs with a carefree attitude, as though he had all the time in the world, whilst you were squirming around on the bed, desperate to get a look at, a hold of, a taste of what was hidden now by the thin black cotton that stretched over his painfully hard cock.

“If you keep squirming like that, I’ll tie your ankles next to your wrists and fuck you like that. Is that what you want?” Lando growled, pausing in his tantalising show of getting undressed to glare at you. You halted almost immediately, the image of Lando plowing into you while your wrists and ankles were bound together. You gulped, the vision was certainly tempting, however your pussy wouldn’t be able to take such a beating.

“No sir. I’m sorry sir.” You whimpered back, your words sent shocks of electricity through Lando’s body, and having abandoned his teasing display, he tore his underwear off and climbed onto your bed in a hurry.

He wrapped his hand around his cock, pumping a few times and letting out a shuddering sigh. His eyes cut to yours, a blazing fury warming them from the usual cool blue green to a warm green that made your pussy flutter. He slid the tip of his cock through your wet folds, biting his lower lip to contain the moans that were ready to fall past his lips. Your fists clenched around the belt, desperate for something to hold onto.

Lando thrust his hips into yours, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth motion. You both moaned, the sweet relief of finally wrapping your velvety walls around his cock was overwhelming. Quite quickly, Lando set a punishing pace, his hips rolling out of you before snapping back to meet yours, his pubic bone putting delectable pressure on your clit, forcing moans out of your lips at an alarming rate.

His hands held a death grip on your hips, keeping your squirming body in its place while he used your body for his own pleasure. Your moans became louder, his hips forcing his cock deeper into your cunt, but Lando didn’t like that.

“You shut the fuck up and take my cock like a good little slut, yeah?” He spoke, his right hand reaching up to wrap around your throat, his fingers squeezing around the sides. The pressure only added to your mounting pleasure, Lando squeezing intermittently when you let out a particularly loud moan, reducing you to a pile of whimpers and pleas.

His hips began stuttering, the pleasure he was feeling overwhelming the perfect pace he had set. You wrapped your legs around his hips, pulling him further into your hungry cunt, clenching around him like you were trying to pull his entire being into you. And maybe you were, if he kept this up, you were never going to let him out of you again.

“Fuck, I’m so close.” He whimpered, the first show of your usual Lando shining through, his hips moving with a renewed vigor. You couldn’t form words, his cock brushing against your g-spot with each thrust, forcing your body higher up the bed, your arms still bound above your head. The hand around your throat squeezed harder, and for a moment all you saw were stars, the pleasure of your second orgasm ripping through your body like a tidal wave. Each atom in your body was torn apart and stitched back together with the threads of Lando’s hot seed and rough hands.

Lando pulled out of you, watching his cum drip down your thighs for a moment before he jumped from the bed, hurrying into the ensuite as quickly as he could on shaky legs. You could hear the tap running, and after a few moments, he returned with a wet rag and your favourite lotion, leaving the bottle on the side table while he cleaned the mess between your thighs, becoming entranced with the sight for another moment before he finished up, tossing the dirty cloth into the ensuite. Lando crawled up the bed to you, undoing the belt that had begun to rub your wrists raw, and with your finally free hands, you cupped your boyfriend’s cheeks, pulling him into a sweet kiss to stop the steam train of thoughts inevitably running through his head.

With soft hands and caring eyes, Lando began rubbing the lotion onto your red wrists, kissing the skin briefly, then leaving another sweet kiss on your lips.

“Was that okay?” He whispered, insecurity rearing its head yet again, and you couldn’t help but giggle at the nervous look he was giving you.

“More than okay, baby. That was amazing. 10/10 would try again.” You giggled, caressing his shoulders with slow hands, grateful to finally be feeling his skin again.

“Well, I wouldn’t be mad at that. I have some ideas.” Lando replied, a cheeky lilt to his voice as he laid down beside you, pulling the covers up to cover you both.

“Oh, do you now? I’m all ears.”

[yummyyume]

Maribat soulmates AU

I wrote most of it a year ago, but never got around to posting it. It’s probably been done before, but I’m a sucker for soulmate AU, so you people are getting it anyway. 

Hope you all like it!

I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors, English is not my first language. I hope it’s still intelligible.

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General headcanons for the AU:

-Soulmates share the same skills set. When one knows how to do something, the other can do it too. They have the same proficiency, but it gets adapted to their body type, their way of life and their personality and behavior. (ex: Marinette and Damian can both use the katana, but they don’t parry the same way or use the same combinations of attacks.)

-They know when the skill they’re currently using come from their soulmate. It’s like a small acknowledgement at the back of their mind.

-When they meet face to face, they recognize each other immediately.

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-When Marinette really starts to talk, Arabic and Mandarin words are as present in her vocabulary as French words.

-Sabine is delighted that her baby girl’s soulmate has roots in her culture too. Tom starts looking up Arabic words to try to understand what she is saying. With only a baby pronunciation to get by, it is slow going.

-When Marinette is old enough to understand that she could speak Arabic and Mandarin thanks to her soulmate, she decides that it’s not a fair trade. She gets two languages from them and they only get one! She settles on learning Italian with Nonna Gina.

-Marinette is very agile and light on her feet.

-She knows that baking is her skill, but cooking is her soulmate’s. Every time she helps her maman with diner, she feels like someone is backing her up at the back of her mind. A warm presence easily overlooks. Like ‘oh yeah, it’s your skill. Thank you for sharing.’

-Arabic, Mandarin and cooking are the only thing she really gets from her soulmate. Or so she thinks. Assassin’s skills aren’t exactly useful in the day to day life of a French bakery.

-When she becomes Ladybug, she thinks that the acrobatics are thanks to the magic suit. Until she finds herself with a sword in her hands and suddenly, she isn’t so sure anymore.

-Ladybug’s suit includes a black utility belt made of little pouches with self-sealing flaps and full of all sort of things: zip ties, a gas mask (perfectly functional despite its small size – don’t question the magic), an infra-red flashlight, a fingerprint kit, skeleton keys, smoke bombs, flash bombs, a rebreathing apparatus, a miniature voice recorder, a basic first-aid kit. Everything is bright red with black polka dots. Even the zip ties.

-After a careful inventory of her utility belt, Marinette acknowledges that probably half of it is the result of soulmate influence. Tikki had told her that generally her Chosens only use their yo-yo and Marinette would never have thought of zip ties on her own.

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-Damian knows that he has a soulmate because he can speak French and Italian like a native when he only ever learnt Arabic and Mandarin.

-He scoffs at the thought of a soulmate. He’s an Al Ghul and his grandfather’s heir, he has no need for such frivolities. When he’ll met his soulmate, he’ll either recruit them for the League or kill them, depending on what his mood will be that day and their level of uselessness.

-He starts learning English when he’s nine following his mother’s orders. If he’s to be his father’s heir, he needs to be able to communicate with him and the various ‘children’ the man adopted over the years. He thinks his soulmate is helping him by learning English words he hasn’t learnt yet. He doesn’t dwell on it.

-It isn’t until he starts living with his father in Gotham that he starts to see soulmates in a new light. Richard Grayson’s soulmate is Starfire. Timothy Drake’s soulmate is Superboy. He can’t win against either of them. Maybe his soulmate won’t be useless after all.

-Damian has a hard time falling asleep in a house full of highly trained strangers at first. He starts exploring the Manor, before ending in the kitchen. Following instincts that aren’t his own, he makes chocolate-chip cookies. While preparing the dough, he can feel a warm almost-there presence at the back of his mind. He starts doing it every night. Sometimes he tries new recipes. They all turn pretty good. No one ever bother him.

(-They have all already checked the camera feed to see what he was up to. And if baking is relaxing him, they aren’t going to comment. He’s enough of a prickly porcupine, no need to put him even more on the defensive.)

-Damian grows to love his family. And maybe his soulmate, whoever they were.

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-Amelia Brody is Marinette’s class interpreter and tour guide for the duration of their school trip in Gotham. She’s cheerful and excited to show her city to those children. She’s a bit weirded-out by the class dynamics but put it down to French people, until it’s time to tour Wayne Enterprise.

-They’re just finishing touring the open-to-visitors part of WE when she realizes that Marinette is rooted to the spot and facing the ‘employees only’ elevators a few meters away.

“Marinette?” she calls, coming closer. “Is everything alright?”

The girl blinks at her, eyes wide, before looking back at the elevators.

“I-I don’t… I’m sorry… I just… Soulmate?”

Some of the other teenagers scoff.

“Quit making a scene, girl.” Alya rolls her eyes.

Amelia has been getting to know those children for days and she saw how Marinette was treated, how everyone believed Lila’s grand tales and it’s not her place to interfere, even less so when she doesn’t have the full picture, but when she sees Marinette force herself to take a step back, shoulders hunched up, she swipes out her phone to call security and informs them of the situation.

A few minutes later, a dark-haired man cheerfully joins them. Amelia is standing like a barrage between Marinette and the things her classmates are murmuring about the girl while Caline Bustier imitates a pot plant. (Amelia is going to write a long report on this class, just watch her). Still, Amelia is very relieved to see Dick Grayson. (She manages to keep the fangirling down to a mental squeal, thank God)

“So, you’re feeling your soulmate is upstairs?” he asks Marinette.

“I’m sorry,” she replies like a reflex, looking down at her shoes.

“Don’t be! Let’s go see if we can find them!”

Everyone piles up in the elevator. There’re so many people working at WE that the elevators are all very spacious.

It’s not quite a skill that make Marinette push the top floor button, but it’s not that different from muscle memory. Her soulmate has pushed this button so many times, that Marinette doesn’t even hesitate. Dick’s eyes lit up at her actions. After all there’s not a lot of people at the top floor who can be her soulmate. He doesn’t quite like the tone of her classmates even if he can’t understand what they’re saying, but the tour guide’s expression is a sign to behold, so he doesn’t think he’s imagining the insults.

-When the elevator’s doors open again, Marinette makes a beeline for the central office just as the door opens and a young man with dark hair and green eyes exits with a puzzled frown.

Their eyes meet.

“Hi,” Marinette blushes, incapable of looking anywhere else.

“Hello,” Damian replies, voice soft.

[gukyi]

in the frosty air | a jjk drabble

summary: two weeks ago you and your roommate slept together. which would be fine, if you knew you both felt the same about each other. but you don’t. and now it’s christmas, and jungkook is still gorgeous and gentle and wonderful and here, and and you don’t really know what to do about that.

{college!au, roommates!au}

pairing: jungkook x reader genre: this is just an angst train tbh, but it has a happy ending! word count: 1.6k warnings: mentions of past alcohol consumption, this centers around everyone’s favorite capitalist holiday, being sad in the wintertime a/n: OHHHHHHHHHH *internet breaks* anyway yeah i’m back baby!!! here’s a little drabble to celebrate because i can’t help myself when it comes to jungkook. love me or we both go down coming soon!

“This Christmas is pretty fucking lame, isn’t it?”

You whip around at the sound of his voice. “Oh, hey. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I figured,” Jungkook chuckles, bending his head down as he crawls through the open window to join you on the fire escape. The temperature is freezing and the wind is stinging your skin, but it didn’t really feel right to be spending tonight inside. “Saw the window open. Thought you might be here.”

“Yeah. I was probably gonna head inside soon, though.” In the hopes that you would be curled up in your bedroom before Jungkook even got home. Seeing him lately has been hard. “How did your final go?”

“It was alright.” You don’t have to keep looking at him to feel Jungkook taking a seat next to you, crossing his legs over each other as he stares out into the city below you. It snowed a few days ago, and the sidewalks are still covered in that dirty slush that always lingers, wet and cold and black from car tires. Just being beside you makes your heart race, makes your chest tighten. “I was pretty stressed out about it, but then I just sort of remembered that I did my best and that was all I could do, you know?”

“That’s good.” You wish you had that mindset. You spend days studying for an exam and once it’s over, you spend days dwelling on all the things you might have gotten wrong. It’s a philosophy you apply to most aspects of your life. Why you did the thing you did. Why doing the thing you did was the worst thing you could have done. How you will recover from it. If you even will. 

Jungkook sighs. You turn to look at him, just briefly, glance at his side figure, and notice he’s wearing nothing but a giant zip-up hoodie. Isn’t he cold? “It doesn’t really feel like Christmas.”

“Yeah.” You don’t have anything else to say to that. It doesn’t. Which is a damn shame, because you and Jungkook spent the entire beginning of this month turning your tiny, two-bedroom apartment into a winter wonderland. You got a tree to put up next to your TV and decorated with the weirdest ornaments you could find. You hung up those dangly white Christmas lights on the balcony of your fire escape, the ones meant to look like icicles dripping from the metal railing. The radio has been playing nothing but Michael Bublé and Mariah Carey. And yet.

It’s not hard to wonder why this Christmas is such shit. Your spring internship fell through a week ago. Your parents rented a lake house and assumed you wouldn’t be coming with. All of your other friends have gone home already. And Jungkook, perhaps the last person in this whole goddamn city you would have wanted to spend time with, you can’t even bear to look at. 

“How did your finals go?” Jungkook asks, trying to keep the conversation going. 

“They were fine.” At least that torture is over. But living with Jungkook, seeing him every day and knowing that what you have done you can never undo--it’s endless. 

There’s silence. It’s like the two of you simultaneously have no idea and know exactly what to say. Like the words are lingering on the tips of your tongues but your lips are sealed shut. Opening them won’t be like a can of worms. It will be a dam, a waterfall of I’m sorrys and What nows. One week ago, in the heat of the night and in the haze of drink after drink, you and Jungkook made the worst mistake two roommates could ever make. 

“Are you going home this break?” You blurt out the words before you can stop yourself. 

Jungkook sighs. “I’m not sure.”

“It’s okay if you want to.” I get it. I’m not sure if I’d want to hang around and see me either. 

He shrugs. “I just haven’t decided yet.”

He knows that you’re staying. The two of you were so looking forward to spending Christmas together. Now look at you. Jungkook was the perfect roommate. Then everything changed. 

“Okay.” He’s probably just trying to figure out a way to let you down easy. 

Next to you, Jungkook rustles a hand through his pocket. “By the way, uh--I just remembered. I got you something.”

You don’t even have time to object before Jungkook is placing a small fabric box into your open palm, resting on your lap. You look down at the item, at the way your hand seems to envelop it. 

“You didn’t have to--”

“I wanted to.” Jungkook is firm in his response. “Besides, I got it a while ago. Figured now is as good a time as any to give it to you.”

There’s not really anything else to do except open it. Carefully, with trembling fingers, you pull off the lid. Inside sits a dainty silver locket resting amongst a pile of folded tissue paper. You gasp, your breath coming out in smoke in the cold winter air. 

“Oh my God, I--”

“I overheard you talking on the phone saying you wanted one,” Jungkook admits sheepishly. “I wanted to give it to you before I forgot.”

Fingers shaking from the cold, you pull the locket from the box. It dangles from its chain, a delicate little thing, barely the size of a fingerprint. Even on this hazy winter evening, it still catches the light.

For the first time tonight, you look up at him. His eyes are a swirling brown, a deep chocolate. They are unreadable. He offers a small, guarded smile your way, lips pink in the chilly air. “Thank you,” you tell him honestly. This is one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for you. 

You can’t accept this without returning the favor. Wordlessly, you get up from the fire escape, rushing indoors for a moment as you grab your gift from your bedroom. It’s been sitting in there for at least two weeks now. You hold your hand behind your back as you make your way back to the fire escape, sitting down next to him once more. 

With a small flourish, you reveal your own present. They’re drumsticks. 

“For you,” you tell him, that same small grin on your face. “Since you’re always drumming on everything. Thought you could use something to do that with.”

Jungkook looks positively starstruck. He takes the sticks in his hands, feels the wood with his fingers, tracing over the logo at the bottom. You aren’t very well versed in the world of drum equipment, but your friend in the orchestra told you it was a good brand. 

“Wow, Y/N,” he says, mouth agape. “This is... this is the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever gotten me. Thank you.”

“Always.”

And that’s the truth, isn’t it? No matter what you do, no matter what you say, you will always be there to give Jungkook what he deserves. To make his life just the tiniest bit better. Doing thoughtful things for him has never required effort on your part. There is just a part of you that will do them, because he deserves it. Because he is so gentle, and loving, and kind, and wonderful. 

You sit there for a little while longer, relishing in the brief respite of your gift exchange. It’s softened the ice, warmed the air, broken the tension. Even if only a little. But it’s enough to keep you out here, sitting next to him. It’s enough to keep you from drifting away. 

“I don’t regret that night.”

The words feel like biting wind. 

“What?” You turn to him. 

“I don’t. I’d do it again. A thousand times over.” Jungkook is resolute. He looks at you, eyebrows furrowed in determination. 

“Jungkook, what happened that night--”

“Is something I’ll never forget,” he finishes. “Do you know how fucking long I had been waiting to do that? To hold you? Kiss you? To spend the night with you?”

Each syllable presses deeper into your chest, imprinting themselves on your heart. You stare back at him, too shocked to say anything at all. 

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same,” Jungkook adds on, quickly backtracking. “I sort of... got that message when I woke up that morning and you were gone. But I just wanted you to know that that night didn’t change anything about how I feel about you.”

Jungkook’s got it all wrong. You were the one who fucked up. You were the one whose feelings won’t change. “I thought you were the one who didn’t feel the same.”

Jungkook chuckles, this sad, forced cough. “Are you kidding? I’d do anything to relive that night. You’re my favorite person in this whole world, Y/N.”

If the weather were just a little bit warmer, if the wind wasn’t as dry, perhaps tears would fall. But instead, you blink back at him and it feels at once like your heart weighs a million pounds and nothing at all. “Me too,” you choke out. “I never want to be without you.”

Your fire escape is barely big enough for one person, let alone two, but that doesn’t stop Jungkook from reaching over and pulling you in, pressing a chilly kiss to your frozen lips, the heat of his mouth warming you up from the inside out. It’s cold tonight, yes. But Jungkook makes you feel like it’s summer all year long. 

You smile against his lips. They feel like home. They taste like peppermint lip balm and coffee and ice. 

“Do you want me to stay?” He asks. As if he was even thinking about going home anyway. 

“Yes,” you whisper back. 

It feels a lot more like Christmas now. 

“Then I’ll stay.”

↳ don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback! i missed you guys!

[dreamwritesimagines]

Twisted 17 - Mind Games [Spencer Reid x Reader]

A.N.: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves! Here’s the next chapter, I hope you will like it as well, and please let me know what you think of it! ❤❤ Ily, kisses! ❤❤❤

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Murder, serial killers, violence, manipulation, mentions of sex, drinking, smoking, angst.

Word Count: 4700

Summary: Love demands sacrifices.

Not even once in your life had you ever imagined yourself in handcuffs, in an interrogation room on the wrong side of the table.

You weren’t even at the FBI headquarters though. The police had taken you to the station after the hospital, taking a blood sample and your fingerprints, then they had handcuffed you and left you there with a glass of water.

Of course they suspected you. Of course they thought you had murdered him.

Murder was your father’s legacy, after all.

You traced the handcuffs over your wrists, already feeling the bruises forming there. The shock still hadn’t worn off but you were starting to think it was a good thing. It felt as if you were watching all of this from behind some kind of glass window, perfectly aware of every single emotion but unable to actually feel them.

Spencer had said when you felt threatened, your body produced nervous energy, some sort of a fight or flight reaction but for once you weren’t trying to do any of that.

You just sat there, completely frozen.

“You look calm,” the police officer spoke, making you look up, trying to ignore the faint yelling coming from outside, possibly from the end of the hall.  

“I’m sorry?”

“Most people would be traumatized if this happened to them, they’d be crying, shaking…” he motioned at you, “But look at you. Still as a statue. You look pretty calm.”

“Would you rather if I were crying?”

“I’d rather if you were acting like a human being,” he said, “Why are you so calm?”

Why were you so calm?

Because your mother had taught you this much. Showing emotion when you were afraid meant weakness.

“My father was a serial killer,” you stated, looking him dead in the eye, “I’ve had a complicated childhood.”

“Yeah, I’d say…” he leaned in slightly, “You know, I’ve watched that documentary about your father. His interviews too.”

You raised your brows as he sniffled, trying to look like he was nonchalant about this whole situation.

“And I’ve spent sixteen years on this job,” he said, “After a while, you don’t even need anyone to speak for you to know what they’ve done. It’s all in their eyes and little girl,” he clicked his tongue, “There’s nothing behind your eyes but ice and death.”

You couldn’t cry. You wouldn’t cry. Not in front of people, not even if they tried to kill you. No matter how much they tried to hurt you-

No emotions.

“Impressive,” you managed to say, “Very poetic. Have you ever considered changing your career?”

“You know what I think?”

“I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”

“I think you wanted to follow your father’s footsteps,” he said, “I think you killed Anthony, and all those other people. It’s not even your fault, is it? Some people are just born broken.”

That was more than enough to make your eyes snap up to his and you could feel the lump in your throat but you bit your tongue so hard that you swallowed blood, making sure to keep your expression still.

“Nothing to say?”

“You’ve already decided what to think of me,” you said, “And I already told you what happened. What more do you want to hear?”

“Right,” he scoffed, taking a look at the file in front of him, “You went to bed around 12, didn’t wake up whole night, when you woke up you found him like that. Lying in a pool of his own blood, in your kitchen.”

“You don’t look like a whiskey girl.” an unfamiliar voice made you turn your head and you lowered your glass, tilting your head. The guy smiled at you, and stole a look at the whiskey glass you had put on the bar.

“Yeah?” you asked, “What girl am I then? If you’re such an expert?”

He thought for a moment, “Hmm, wine?”

“Depends on the occasion.”

“What kind of an occasion does whiskey call for?”

“Apparently an occasion for meeting guys with bad pick-up lines.”

He let out a chuckle, “Yeah, I swear I’m normally smoother than this.”

“I would hope so,” you grinned, and offered your hand, “Y/N.”

“Anthony.”

“But you failed to mention the part you texted him to come to your apartment.”

“I didn’t text anyone.”

“We have your phone Y/N.”

“I didn’t text anyone,” you repeated, “Someone must’ve drugged me and taken my phone, the same person who killed him, the same person who obviously broke into my apartment.”

“How convenient.”

You clenched your jaw.

“I always wake up during night,” you said, your voice completely calm and controlled. “Always. I never woke up last night, there has to be a reason for that.”

“If you’ve been drugged, it will come up on the blood tests.”

“Good.”

“While we wait for that,” he said, “Why don’t we go over what you did last night?”

You took a deep breath, “I woke up,” you said “Went to work. I left work at 7 to go to my sister’s place. I left there around eleven, came home and went to bed.”

“Nothing else happened.”

“Nothing else happened,” you repeated and he sat up straighter.

“Okay. Well just so you know, Dr. Spencer Reid—” he started and your head shot up, your heart slamming against your chest, “He is giving us his professional opinion at the moment, about this case and what might have really happened this morning. Do you have anything you want to change in your story before he’s finished?”

You gawked at him, blinking a couple of times before you turned your head to look at the one-way mirror on the wall.

The BAU was there, behind the mirror.

“….They came back?”

“We’ve sent them the report, yes. They landed an hour ago.”

It was as if somebody was trying to claw your stomach out of your body as you stared at your reflection in the mirror, trying to ignore the burning behind your eyes before you turned to the officer.

“I don’t have anything to change,” you managed to keep your voice stable, “It was a terrible thing, it definitely was but I didn’t do it.”

Someone knocked on the mirror, making you and the officer look that way before he pushed his chair back and left the interrogation room. You closed your eyes for a moment, focusing on your breathing through the blinding headache but opened your eyes when the door opened again.

Luke.

He offered you a small smile and pulled himself a chair.

“Hi.”

“Hello,” you swallowed the lump in your throat, sitting up with your back straight, your hands clasped.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you stole a look at the one-way mirror, “Is he there?”

“Reid?” Luke asked and shook his head, “I had to basically wrestle him out of the hall, he’s…he’s not allowed here. Conflict of interest. He’s giving his statement at the end of the hall as we speak.”

You nodded, digging your fingernails into your palms. “Okay.”

“He also called your sister on our way here. Couldn’t reach her, but left a message. Listen, he can’t request it on your behalf, but you need to ask for a lawyer.”

“I didn’t kill Anthony.”

“I didn’t ask if you killed him, I’m saying you need to ask for a lawyer.”

“Does he think I did it?” you asked and Luke shook his head again.

“No,” he said, “But it doesn’t matter what anyone else believes at this point, Y/N. Ask for a lawyer.”

You kept your back straight, rolling your shoulders. “If Spencer left a message to Mina, she’s coming.”

“Is she a defense lawyer?”

“No but she knows a lot of them.”

He took a deep breath and put the bottle of your pills on the desk, “The officers also found this.”

You tried your hardest to focus, moving your wrists to help with the soreness of the handcuffs. “They’re prescribed.”

“I can see that. The side effects say confusion?”

You arched a brow, “I’m sorry, do I sound confused to you right now?”

“No, you sound way too controlled right now, I may as well have been talking to a robot.”

You gritted your teeth, trying to control the panic bubbling at the pit of your stomach, sending anger through your veins.

“I’m not confused,” you stated, “Besides, I haven’t been taking them lately.”

He threw his head back, pressing his lips together, “God, Y/N, you can’t say that. A psychiatrist prescribed you something and you—“

“They’re just for nightmares, they don’t make you…” you took a deep breath, commanding yourself to stay calm, “I didn’t kill him. I found him like that. It was terrible, but I didn’t do it.”

Someone opened the door again and Emily Prentiss cleared her throat.

“Luke,” she murmured, “Spencer.”

You could feel your heart skip a beat upon hearing his name but kept completely still as Luke left the room and Emily and JJ walked into the room.

“You’re taking turns now?” you asked and Emily cleared her throat,

“Me and JJ are the only people in our team who haven’t spent as much time with you, so we figured it would be better if we interrogated you.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Emily pulled herself a chair as JJ crossed her arms, standing by the wall.

“Can you walk me through what happened this morning?”

You took a deep breath, “I woke up,” you said, “With a headache. I knew something was wrong, I felt it. My window was open, the front door was half open and my phone wasn’t where I left it. I stepped outside my room, saw the blood, went to the kitchen and saw—“ you gritted your teeth and clenched your fists, “Saw my ex-boyfriend there. Dead. Lying in a pool of his blood.”

“But you heard nothing.”

“I never sleep for the whole night,” you said slowly, “Check my blood test. Something happened last night.”

“We don’t have your blood test results yet, but there was no sign of any sexual—“

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” You cut her off, a shiver running down your spine, “That’s not it. Whoever it was, they didn’t touch me, they wanted…”

“What did they want?”

You shrugged slightly, “I don’t know. They wanted me to see it I think. My…my father’s crime scenes.”

JJ took a deep breath and pushed herself off the wall.

“And you don’t think it’s a little too convenient?”

You pulled your brows together, looking at her and she stepped closer to the table, her eyes fixed on you.

“Two victims so far,” she said, “The ones that we knew that were in the same place as you, they had some connection to you. That woman who was killed at the charity ball, you didn’t get along when you were kids, you turned her down as a client before she was killed, and now your ex-boyfriend ends up dead, in your apartment because you sent him a—“ she scoffed, “I’m sorry, someone sent him a late night text, inviting him to your apartment.”

“JJ,” Emily started but JJ held up a hand while you tried to wrap your head around it.

She had a point. Two victims so far had some connection to you and that was not a coincidence, it couldn’t have been.

“You think I did it,” you rasped out and she scoffed.

“I think you had something to do with all of this,” she said, “I think you’ve been trying to manipulate Spencer for something. The best case scenario, you were cheating, that’s why Anthony was there and something went bad, the worst case….” She shook her head, “You’re behind every single murder we’ve been looking into, and Spencer was just a tool for you. He’s my best friend, and if I find one single proof that you put him in harm’s way, I swear to God I will destroy you.”

Two people had ended up dead, and that was your fault. The copycat was going after people who had some kind of connection to you, and apparently no one except you and your family was safe.

The idea was way too painful to even exist inside your head, but it was clear as day. JJ was right, you were putting Spencer in harm’s way just by being with him, and if it were him, if you had seen him lying in a pool of his blood, his eyes wide open—

You dug your fingernails into your palms until it hurt before you managed to lift your head, that invisible wall which kept you safe from anyone and everyone who could possibly see anything you felt going up again.

“You…” you trailed off, your throat burning, “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Emily asked but before you could say anything, someone slammed the door open, making you and the agents turn.

Mina.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” she asked no one in particular and stepped aside so that 4 lawyers could walk inside before the police officer rushed to you to remove the handcuffs off your wrists.

“You’re not saying another word,” she snapped her fingers, “Come on, we’re leaving.”

“We’re going to need her to sign some papers,” the officer said as Mina grabbed your wrist to pull you out of the room, making you hiss in a breath and she froze, lowering her glances to check your sore wrists for any bruises.

“What did they do to you?”

You shook your head silently, and something in Mina’s gaze shifted. You had seen it only a couple of times, including that time you were getting stitches after some girls in your classroom had ambushed you in the bathroom, and more importantly, you had seen that look on her face when Lily had fever that one time and you all had to rush to the hospital and the doctors said she couldn’t see her.

It was fire, similar to yours, ready to burn everything in its path.

“Don’t say anything to anyone. You two,” she motioned at the two lawyers, “Read whatever she’s supposed to sign.”

The lawyers approached the desk by the door as Mina put her coat over your shoulders, rubbing at your arms as you swayed slightly on your feet, trying to focus.

“We’re leaving, okay sweetheart?”

“Miss—“

“No,” When Mina turned to the police officers and the BAU team, any trace of softness in her voice disappeared, “You don’t talk. If you don’t want to get into even more trouble, you’re going to listen to me right now.”

The officer that had been with you at the interrogation room just blinked a couple of times, obviously taken aback.

“Do you have any idea what you just did to yourself?” she asked, “What you did to this whole precinct? Because allow me to explain, my sister was a victim in this scenario, and you tried to pin this shit on her to make her a scapegoat,” she shook her head, “We will be suing you for defamation of character—“

“Mina, your sister—” JJ started but she snapped her fingers at her.

“I haven’t even started with you yet, wait for your turn.”

“Mina…” you murmured but she didn’t even look like she could hear you,

“Where was I? Defamation of character because press will be all over this, intentional infliction of emotional stress and wrongful arrest and hey, to make things fun we will also be requesting the security footage in the interrogation room and if I see one very small slip of anything that wasn’t supposed to be said and done in that room…” Mina tilted her head, “Well, let’s just say that by the time I’m done with you guys and this whole precinct, the only thing you will be able to afford is going to be a typewriter and a desk.”

One of the lawyers came to tell you the document was alright to sign and as soon as you approached the desk, a door by the hall opened and Spencer stepped out.

It was almost excruciating not to be able to run to him. He looked as shocked as he was and he took a step towards you but JJ stepped in front of him as you grabbed the pen, ignoring the way your name spilled from his lips in a whisper.

“Oh, hi genius.” Mina called out, “Were you getting a glass of water while your team was hounding my sister or something?”

Spencer looked almost confused only for a moment before he turned to look at JJ who deliberately averted her glances from him.

“Mina, this is not necessary,” you croaked out as you signed the papers and she shook her head.

“No, this is very necessary, trust me. You need to show these people what you’re capable of or they will try to fuck you up, case and point.” She turned to Emily, “You’re the one in charge, I suppose?”

“I am.”

“Good. Consider this your warning, because the next time anyone in your team, including the puppy dog eyes over there gets any closer to my sister, we will be getting a restraining order for each and every one of you.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, still swaying on your feet and you hugged the coat around you tighter.

Not that you could do anything other than watching this.

“Your sister is an active part of this investigation, your father specifically asked for—“

“My sister is a civilian,” Mina growled, “She has no responsibility for this case, you do. How about you surprise me and do your fucking jobs?”

You took a breath to say it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t their fault but Mina turned to look at you.

“Get in the elevator, we’re leaving.”

You were way too tired to fight her, way too tired to even stand there so you followed the army of lawyers to the elevator, while Mina shot the officers and the BAU members a fake smile.

“Pleasure, let’s never do this again,” she said, and got in the elevator with you, and you tried to keep your expression still, Spencer staring at you until the doors slid close.

“4 lawyers?” you managed to say, “I don’t think even Bundy had four lawyers.”

“Tell that to mom,” she said, “She was on the phone with a congressman the last I checked.”

You couldn’t even smile at that, but Mina let out a breath before pulling you into a bone crushing hug, making the tears rush to your eyes as you wrapped your arms around her.

“Never do that to me again, you hear me?” her voice cracked for the first time and you nodded slowly.

“I won’t,” you said, “I promise.”

                                                   ***

It was as if someone had pulled all your energy out of your body. You were exhausted, you could barely understand what anyone was saying but you knew there was no way you could sleep anytime soon.

The blood test, as the lawyers had informed you, finally came back and just like you suspected, they had found traces of chloroform in your system. That and your team of lawyers combined were more than enough to get rid of any kind of accusations against you, so at least you had that.

On the other hand, the fear, the guilt, the sadness were still there inside of you, even if you felt way too numb to reach it.

You wondered if Spencer would have a scientific explanation for that.

Your mother had insisted you would never step a foot into your apartment again, she was already looking for a new apartment for you, one with multiple security systems and until that happened she had told you you would be staying at her house.

The damn thing was way too big anyway and you and Mina had grown up there so you figured it would serve as some sort of shelter.

If it even existed for you.

“Here you go sweetheart,” your mother pushed the tea cup towards you, “Drink it, it’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine.”

Kenzie heaved a sigh, “It’s okay if you’re not,” she said, “No one expects you to, anyone would be traumatized.”

“The real estate agent already sent me three apartments,” your mother said, “Huge windows, you love a bright apartment.”

“Mom,” Mina said silently and she heaved a sigh.

“It could help her distract herself,” her head shot up, “Y/N, you should go on a vacation! Somewhere far away from here.”

“Somewhere peaceful could be nice?” Kenzie added, “I think that’s a good idea.”

You and Mina exchanged glances.

“I heard Fiji is lovely this time of the year,” your mother said and you let out a breath.

“Mom, two people died because of me,” you croaked out, “I’m not going to Fiji for vacation.”

“Honey, you could use some peace,” she held your chin carefully and lifted it so that she could look at you better, “You look so…”

“I look like how I feel,” you said and turned your head when the doorbell rang, making Mina sit up straighter.

“Who’s that?” she asked when the maid walked in.

“Spencer Reid?”

“What?” you and Kenzie asked at the same time, your heartbeat getting faster and Mina jumped on her feet but you stopped her, shaking your head.

“It’s okay,” you sniffled, nodding to yourself, “It’s….it’s fine. There’s no point in dragging it out.”

“Dragging what out?” Mina asked you but you walked out of the living room and reached the front door, trying to ignore the warmth filling your system as soon as your eyes caught the sight of him. You stepped out of the house and he pulled you into a tight hug, burying his nose into your hair and inhaling deeply as if it helped him calm down while you just stood there, desperately trying to keep the tears at bay.

You had to do it. No matter how much it hurt you, no matter how much you didn’t want to.

No matter how badly it would rip your heart out.

“You okay?” he asked you, his fingers pushing your hair behind your ear, “I tried your apartment but I figured…”

“Yeah, I’m not going back there,” you shrugged your shoulders, “I’ll move out, it’s fine.”

“Do you want to stay at my place?” he asked quickly and you closed your eyes for a moment, every cell in your body begging you to change your mind.

You couldn’t though. You’d rather die than see him lying in a pool of his blood, all because of you.

“Don’t say that,” you whispered and opened your eyes again, “Please don’t say that.”

He looked almost confused, tilting his head to the side like a puppy before it dawned on him.

“Is this about the file on me?”

You shook your head and he took a deep breath.

“About today?”

“I didn’t send that message,” you said, “To Anthony, I mean. I wouldn’t…. I wouldn’t cheat on you.”

“I know that.”

“And I didn’t kill him. I don’t know if you heard, but the blood tests came back positive for—”

“I never doubted that, not even for one second,” he insisted, “With or without blood test.”

“You might be the only one,” you murmured and he paused for a moment.

“What did JJ say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Because we had an argument on the jet on our way back here and whatever she said…”

You shook your head again, trying to smile.

“I get it,” you murmured, “She’s your best friend, she’s protective of you. That’s normal.”

“Yeah but if she thinks that you’re capable of—”

“I want to break up.”

You could swear the words burned your mouth, some invisible hand clutching your heart tighter and tighter as you willed yourself to keep your eyes on the street, because you were sure that every wall you built to keep your emotions under control would crash down the moment you looked at him. Out of the corner of your eye you could see that he froze and he blinked a couple of times, as if he was lost.

“What?” he asked silently and you tried to swallow the lump growing bigger and bigger in your throat.

“Y/N, wait—no,” he said quickly, breathing hard, “Listen, whatever they said to you today during the interrogation, if that’s what this is about—”

“It has nothing to do with that,” you forced yourself to say, crossing your arms and he took a step closer to you.

“Whatever the problem is,” he rasped out, “We can solve it, okay? Don’t do this.”

That was when it dawned on you.

It wasn’t enough to push him away. You had to make sure to burn that bridge so that neither of you could ever find your way back to each other.

“It’s not one of your cases Spencer, you can’t solve this one,” you muttered and finally turned your head to look up at him, your stomach churning at the sight of betrayal on his face.

“I don’t understand.”

“You—it’s—“ you stammered, trying to find the words, “It’s going way too fast, alright? It’s going way too fast and it’s going to fucking crash, and I can’t—“ you cleared your throat when your voice cracked, “I’m not going to crash with this, I can’t.”

Your father had taught you this way too long ago, when you were too young to even question it.

Stab the prey, twist the knife, pull it back and watch them bleed.

Stab the prey.

“I mean come on Spencer, we’re not in love or anything,” you shrugged your shoulders, “Should be easy enough.”

He stared at you for a couple of seconds, his mouth slightly agape and his brows furrowed, shock written all over his face.

“We’re not in love?” he repeated, “You…you don’t love me?”

Twist the knife.

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

His eyes searched your face, as if looking for any kind of clue that could tell him you were lying, or that it was a trick but for once, it was in vain.

You’d had spent years learning how to control your emotions and your expression when it came to heartbreak.

Pull it back.

“It’s not my fault if you’re in love,” you said, each word making you hate yourself more and more, “I can’t be held responsible for that.”

Stabbing yourself would’ve been less painful, you were sure of that but you knew you had to keep going. One last step, one last sentence and you would be done.

Watch them bleed.

“I never told you to love me.”

Then, silence.

You had to give it to him though, it took him faster than it would’ve taken you to pull yourself together if you were the one on the receiving end of this. He blinked back the tears, clenched his jaw and in a second, his gaze turned cold, exactly like yours.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, nodding, “You didn’t.”

But you had forgotten one small detail. 

Spencer knew how to withdraw that knife and stab back.

You cleared your throat and turned around to get inside the house but before you could step in, you heard his voice.

“I was wrong.”

You looked over your shoulder, clutching at the straws to keep it together, “I’m sorry?”

“I was wrong,” he stated, his voice was distant and held no trace of its usual warmth, “Before, I mean. In terms of behavior and psychology, you’re exactly your father’s daughter.”

With that, he walked away from the house, and you just stood there for a moment before stepping into the house and closing the door behind you, that comfortable haze of shock slowly withdrawing from your mind like mist. That hand squeezing your heart twisted it in your chest and you tried to breathe, pressing a hand on your chest.

“Sweetheart?” your mother called out as she stepped into the hallway, then slowly approached you, “You okay?”

It was impossible to stop the tears rushing to your eyes now and a gasp escaped from your lips as you shook your head.

“Mom,” you whimpered, “Please, my—my heart hurts...”

She rushed to you and shushed you gently, pulling you into a tight hug and caressing your hair as you slipped to the ground and you buried your face to her shoulder.

Then the sobs came.

Chapter 18

[a03bkdk]

fantasy bkdk fic rec list

a certain kind of magic by eatdirt

((4590-1/1))

“Forgive me, kind witch! I—I do not wish to disturb you, but I’m afraid it's urgent!"

Katsuki will later blame his bewilderment that anyone—let alone a human boy in filthy rags—would drag themselves all the way out to his home on the outskirts of civilization, for why he stalks down the stairs and cracks open the door.

“Are you a fucking idiot?” he growls.

Or, the one where Katsuki is a witch in a weed-infested swamp and Deku won’t stop coming around.

the shrinekeeper and the harvest god by bkdkwritingsdump

((smut-30148-18/18))

Izuku keeps the shrine of the harvest god, a minor god mostly worshiped by farmers and ignored by everyone else until the yearly harvest festival. During a spring thunderstorm one year, a mysterious man named Katsuki shows up at his shrine seeking shelter from the rain, but ends up over staying his welcome by a few months. In that time, Izuku not only begins to become suspicious of his identity, but finds himself longing for something more between them.

cupid, draw back your bow by almasaga

((i dont remember if there is smut-16496-2/2))

Cupid remembers the oath he took, remembers the broken arrow, remembers the wrath of his mother and goddess, remembers his roots, remembers that he is a god.

But when he hears him he forgets it all.

“Are you there still?” Asks a voice, clear and never wrong. The only voice he wishes to hear.

“Always,” he says and it blows through his beloved.

solar by kindaopps

((smut-7037-1/1))

Here he is, a god, wanting a mortal.

deku by mirachadoodles

((smut-20852-9/9))

Neither seemed willing to look away in the tense silence that fell, drawn to one another as if by a thick and brilliant thread.

The boy viewed him thoughtfully, as though he recognized him from another life, as though he knew him.

It was odd—he felt the same way.

---

Or, shortly after Katsuki's dragon went missing, a naked man attempted to break into his family barn. Izuku had no memory of his past life, and apparently had no idea how to be human, either. He was just acting on instinct.

a cat named deku by  silentsongbird

((6662-1/1))

Bakugou begrudgingly takes in a stray cat that has been hanging around his home. He says he's motivated by the weather turning colder, but he just can't resist the little fur ball. One night, Deku decides to let him in on a little secret.

if the stars align, then for us they were meant by runawaydeviant

((smut-17485-6/6))

Katsuki and Eijirou crash land in a forest to the south of their homeland. Injured and stranded, they befriend a local nature spirit, who is much more than he first appears to be.

soulmates in steel and (p 2)mine is yours by lalazee

((3000-1/1)) (p 2(smut-2509-1/1))

Midoriya Izuku returns to a tribe long lost and forgotten to claim his rightful throne. At least, that's what King Katsuki assumes of him.

(p 2) One large, calloused hand spread sparks down Izuku’s chest, ribs, rested at his lightly bruised hip. Izuku knew fingerprints still remained from last time, and the last, and the time after that. He felt more like a dappled deer now, all those spots smattered across his thighs, ass, hips, wrists. King Katsuki was certainly a man who marked his territory.

but the entrails are the best part! by supercrunch

((15278-1/1))

The boy straightens up. He’s about half a head shorter than Katsuki, face soft and youthful and sweet. He turns to look at him properly. His dark hair shines in the dying light, basket of blooms looped over one arm and mouth quirked into a tiny half-smile. The sun hits his face and makes his eyes a bright greeny-gold, just like emeralds.

Katsuki likes emeralds.

“Pretty,” he says, reaching out and picking the stranger up around the middle. He’s surprisingly heavy, although Katsuki doesn’t mind. “I like you. Come see my nest.”

The boy hits him.

He’s stronger than he looks, turns out. Katsuki drops him and falls onto his back, pain blooming across his face. Birds sing. The sky’s a lovely shade of orange, clouds floating lazily by. The boy scarpers. He leaves his basket of flowers behind, footsteps thumping on the ground and fading away as he escapes.

The sun sets. Katsuki, lying flat on his back with a bloody nose, decides he’s just fallen in love.

happenstance by merrywetherweather

((78566-22/22))

When Katsuki was just a child, his mother, the King of Lucia, took him to enact diplomacy with the Midoriya's, the royal family of the neighboring country of Tayloria. After that day, his fate was sealed, his marriage arranged to the Midoriya's elusive omegan child.

At the age of twenty, he leaves for Tayloria again, this time, to finally wed his fiance and cement the allyship of the two kingdoms indefinitely. Only, his fiance turns out to be the child he had met on his very first visit, a naive, idealistic young prince who wants nothing to do with marrying the prince of Lucia.

Good thing he just assumed Katsuki was only part of his fiance's entourage.

An arranged marriage between two princes aob au where Katsuki tries to abide by Izuku's desire for a natural romance to develop without letting Izuku know his true identity.

plums by Ivillpunchyouinthethroat

((14116-3/3))

There’s a boy stealing plums from the garden below the balcony Katsuki’s lounging at for the night.

Correction.

There’s a boy stealing plums, very badly, from the garden below the balcony Katsuki’s lounging at for the night.

mermaid AU breathe In by contrarybee

((series-smut-3 works-45236 in all))

Midoryia Izuku was born in captivity. He's never known the ocean.

His human carer Yagi-san tells him they're getting a new merman in the aquarium, one that they hope Izuku might like. Having been alone since his mother's death, Izuku is beyond excited to have a new mer around, but Bakugo Katsuki might prove to be too much. Or maybe he's just right.

fishy by warschach

((smut-19417-1/1))

Izuku’s convinced his hot co-worker/neighbor, Katsuki, is a mermaid-or merman- you gotta consider genders even with mythical creatures- and plans to prove it.

(or this is kinda like the show ‘Monster Quest’, except Izuku actually finds said monster, falls in love, and have sexy times.)

home is where the waves crash. by tiredwrites

((4105-1/1))

Izuku thrashes in his cage, the fins that line his large tail flare with a dangerous purpose. The claws his fingers taper into slice through the water and catch the light that filters into the clear water of the aquarium tank he's in.

His gills flare in irritation as he flips around, muscled tail ramming into the three-inch glass barrier with a thundering BAM!

Bioluminescent sacs under clear scales flare and glow, flashing a brilliant toxic green. The team that had brought the merman into the tank watch the mer flail and roar, flexing the powerful jaws that can often unhinge, like a snake.

only the roses know by katyastark

((13193-5/5))

Izuku didn’t want to marry a foreigner. The person he wanted was here… somewhere. He didn’t have a face or a name to ascribe to his admirer. Only roses. For every name day and holiday since he was thirteen, he had received a perfect orange rose. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. The roses never failed to make him feel doted upon. It was their secret, and Izuku cherished it more than anything else in the world. He didn’t want to give that up for some stranger, for an alliance through a loveless marriage.

torn fur, blunt teeth by scribespirare

((smut-43013-17/17))

After eight months of being collared, Izuku is finally free. But a dark, stormy city is no place for a lonely shapeshifter on the run.

ignorance leads to bliss by nikawithspice

((smut-3941-1/1))

A brave wandering adventurer swoops in and saves a beautiful prince from danger, gets dragged to a celebratory bonfire and has a night that he could only have dreamed of!

Or, the one in which Midoriya Izuku accidentally gets married to a Dragon Prince but wouldn't have it any other way.

[helliontherapscallion]

Unexpected Encounters (Adrenaline Junkie Part 8)

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7     Part 9     Part 10     Part 11     Part 12     Part 13     Part 14     Part 15     Part 16     Part 17

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: minor swearing

Word count: 2,775

You walked down the now worn cobblestone path towards the main plaza of the village by Philza’s house. Whistling the first verse of the L’manberg national anthem, you wove slightly at the crowd of people gathered at the stands that littered the sides of the street. 

The village was much larger than the entire L’manberg nation. It had several different precincts with a large, diverse group of people and a few hybrids living there. It also had more amenities like shops, a library (which, to your delight, grew expansively to include more books on inventions, some being exclusively about yours. They were proud people that embraced whatever fame comes out of the area), and multiple towering office buildings.

Everything’s changed since you’ve last been here a year ago. What was now more modern used to be traditional. What was loosely populated was now bustling with people. What used to be barren was now chock full of shops and apartment complexes. It was kind of jarring to see this much change in a little over a year.

In retrospect, it was jarring how much you changed in a little over a year. The hallucinations have finally almost completely stopped along with the nightmares. They only came about once a week now. You were slowly reincorporating green back into your wardrobe. Your phantom pain has retreated into your subconscious. It was always going to be with you, so you got used to the constant pain and tingling feeling. You learned to appreciate the small things in life and just live in the moment so you would have something positive to look back on in the future.

You invented several different gadgets to help your brothers win the L’manberg War of Independence such as a portable TNT launcher, handheld long-distance communication devices (which you affectionately dubbed walkie talkies since you could walk and talk! Wilbur and Tommy were not as enthusiastic of the name as you were), and a redstone powered crossbow that continuously fired arrows until you released the trigger. Though all of your inventions were practically your babies, they did not come anywhere close to trumping your magnum opus: your metal fully functioning wing. 

After several mishaps and failed attempts, you finally made your wing correspond to the electrical impulses in your muscles so that it copied the movements of your flesh wing. It’s built out of a lightweight hollow iron and has feather shaped metal pieces protruding off from it to emulate your other wing. It was a sleek silver color that always caught a ray of sunshine and reflected it to another place. It was basically permanently attached to your body by now due to it being a pain to take on and off. It was just easier and more efficient to keep it on constantly. 

People around you stared, some in awe and some in admiration. A stark difference from when you first lost your wing. Sometimes, you resented them for treating you differently just because your name became more widely known, but you were always a firm believer that everyone deserves a second chance. Even attention seeking, unscrupulous assholes looking for cheap brownie points from their peers because ‘I knew them before they were discovered! I knew them personally, we were, like, really close!’ So for now, you tried to ignore the ugly indignation bubbling in your gut and threatening to spew out in a string of hurtful words. You were sick of being angry, especially now that L’manberg is at peace. 

You passed several people who pointed at you and whispered amongst themselves. Ignoring them, you continued onward with your head held high and your wings folded in tightly to avoid children grabbing and pulling them with their grubby little hands. It always took you a while to clean and preen them after people touched them. You hated cleaning off fingerprints and grime from the smooth metal.

Walking with a sense of purpose, you continued onwards passing multiple shops and stands until you finally reached the butcher. Opening the decorated glass door, a little bell chimed alerting the burly man behind the counter of your presence. Like the others, he stared wide-eyed at you with his lips slightly parted in shock. Great, another exhausting encounter. 

Putting on a polite smile, you broke the silence of the meat shop. “Hello, I’m here to buy half a pound of fresh ground beef. Would you by chance have any in stock?” That seemed to snap him out of his stupor.

“O-of course, I’ll get that for you right away.”

He disappeared into the backroom where frosty fog rolled out in tiny clouds. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Maybe he wouldn’t ask any questions or try to get to know you on a personal level.

He returned in a hurry, slapping the wrapped beef onto the counter and giving you a price. Reaching into your wallet for the cash, you paid him generously. “Keep the change.”

“I-thank you, Mx. Minecraft.”

Putting the beef into your satchel, you gave him a more genuine smile. “Don’t mention it.”

Briskly walking out, you made a beeline for the village’s main entrance. You couldn’t stand the feeling of constantly being watched and talked about anymore. Why couldn’t they treat you like a normal person? In your opinion, you were, well, you. Nothing was special about you.

As you were about to cross the threshold of the village, you heard footsteps behind you.

“HEY! MX. MINECRAFT I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.”

Stopping dead in your tracks, you closed your eyes and took a few steadying breaths so that you wouldn’t lash out at this person. You just wanted to go to your childhood home and have a nice, peaceful dinner with your dad. Was that too much to ask? 

Opening your eyes and plastering on a fake smile, you turned around and greeted him. He was a young boy, probably around eleven or twelve years old. His clothes and shaggy auburn hair were disheveled and he had dirt smeared on his face. “Hello, to whom may I owe the pleasure?”

He put his hands on his knees and tried to talk between gasping breaths. “Mx, my name’s Arthur Fox, i-it’s truly an honor to meet you. I’ve admired your work since before the war in L’manberg. You’re an amazing inventor and I wanna be just like you when I grow up. I- oooh I’m sorry, I’m rambling aren’t I?” He kind of reminded you of Tubbo in a strange way.

“No, you’re fine Arthur. Thank you for being a fan of my work, but I must get going. I have an important meeting to attend to.” You weren’t exactly lying to the young boy. Turning on your heel, you started to walk off only to feel a hand on your arm.

“Mx, I need to talk to you.”

“I really have to get going, Arthur. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“No, it’s important.”

You struggled to keep the smile on your face as you shrugged his arm off as politely as you could. This kid is determined. Too determined. “So’s my meeting. I have to go.” You started to walk off into the beaten forest path.

“Do you know about The Warden?”

You halted abruptly and sharply turned around. You let your smile and polite stature drop into pursed lips and sharp eyes.

“...Of course I do. Everyone does.”

Flinching slightly, he quickly recovered his confident facade. “No, that’s not what I meant. Do you know about The Warden?”

“Like I said,” you played stupid, “everybody does. Who doesn’t?”

He puffed his cheeks out in frustration. “Ugh, how could someone so smart be so stupid at the same time? I mean you met it didn’t you? It took your wing.”

You took a step forward and narrowed your eyes, fully facing him now. “How do you know about that? Who told you?” 

He stepped back. “I-I heard rumors a couple of years back that it got someone. I heard your name thrown around here and there.”

You gave him enough of a warning that you didn’t want to talk, but he ignored it and now he has to reap the consequences. At this point, you were so tired and drained from everyone trying to be buddy-buddy with you that you finally snapped. The only thing you wanted was to go home, you did not need this right now. 

“Well, Arthur, you shouldn’t pry into other people’s business. I’ve told you time and time again that I have to leave, yet you persist to stop me. Why? And where are your parents, didn’t they teach you any manners?”

He looked downwards and fiddled with his fingers. “They’re dead. T-The Warden took someone important to me. I… I thought you might be able to help me.”

Shit, you just yelled at a grieving orphan. You were a massive asshole weren’t you? Your eyes softened slightly and you frowned. “...I’m sorry for your loss. Is there anything I could do to make it up to you? Dinner perhaps? We can talk about how I could help you afterwards.”

He glanced up at you. “But-but what about your meeting.”

You winced. “Uh, I’m moving it forward, we have more pressing matters.” You paused awkwardly. “Do… Do you have anybody to ask permission? Any siblings?”

His shoulders drooped. “...No. I’m all by myself.”

Shit, you yelled at a grieving homeless orphan? God what kind of role model were you? 

“C’mon, kid. We’re going to my house.” 

His wordlessly followed you and avoided looking into your eyes. The walk to your childhood home was very awkward, neither of you attempted starting conversation. You sighed.

“Look, Arthur I’m sorry for yelling at you like that. That was really uncalled for, I shouldn’t have yelled or gotten mad. It’s just that- The Warden’s a… touchy subject for me.”

“It’s alright, Mx. Minecraft. You can make it up to me by… making me dinner and showing me some of your blueprints?”

He looked up to you with hope filled, sparkling eyes. You snorted. “It’s a deal, kid. We’re almost there.” 

You could see the silhouette of the house in the nearly setting sun. It was still the same as when you left a year ago. 

“Ya know,” you sighed out, “this is actually my Dad’s house. I’m just visiting him for a couple of weeks.”

“Where do you live then?”

“I live in the heart of L’manberg with my brothers.”

“That’s cool…” He trailed off. You frowned, it seems that he was nervous to meet your Dad. You probably should’ve mentioned that Philza was there to him before taking him here.

You stopped, grabbing Arthur’s shoulders. “Kid, you don’t have to worry about meeting my dad. He’s probably the kindest, most genuine man I’ve ever met. He’ll welcome you with open arms, that’s what he did with me and my three brothers. He adopted us all.”

He gave you a small smile. “Alright, Mx. Minecraft, I trust you.”

“Oh, please don’t call me ‘Mx. Minecraft’, it makes me feel ancient,” you lolled your head back and dramatically groaned out, making him giggle. “I just turned twenty, buddy. Feel free to call me (y/n).”

 Putting your hand on his shoulder, you led him to the front door. You twisted the old door knob and pushed the wooden door open.

“Dad, I’m home and I brought the beef!”

He popped his head out from the kitchen, his messy blond hair flopping onto his face. He gave you a joking smile. “Took you long enough, any longer and I would’ve locked ya out.” 

You watched as his eyes wandered over to Arthur. He frowned, revealing his frilly pink apron that Wilbur got him as a joke. Oh, you could just hear the gears in his head churning.

“...(Y/n), who’s this?”

Grinning sheepishly, you replied. “Dad, this is Arthur Fox. Arthur, this is my dad Philza Minecraft. I promised him dinner and somewhere to stay for the night. Do you have some of Tommy’s old clothes Artie could borrow for the night?”

He sighed, shooting you a we’ll-talk-about-this-later look. “Yes, they’re in the attic. I’ll grab them after dinner so he could shower before going to bed.”

Arthur timidly spoke up. “Thank you, Mr. Minecraft.”

Your dad softened and gave him a gentle smile. “It’s no problem, Arthur. And please, call me Philza. Mr. Minecraft makes me feel old.”

Arthur let out a loud laugh. Despite everything he went through, his laugh still sounds like an innocent child’s laugh. You chuckled, kids always had a silly little laugh. Philza grinned at him, a child’s laughter was something that he missed.

Arthur wiped at his eyes as his laughter died down. “I’m sorry, (y/n) said the same outside.”

“I did,” you smiled lightly at Arthur before looking back at Philza with mischief, standing up straight and putting your hands on your hips. “But I was funnier.”

“Pft, you wish. I was saying that before you were even born. So, I win because I’ve been saying it longer.”

“Whatever ya say, old man. Funniness over age.”

He playfully glared at you, placing an offended hand over his heart. “I’m not that old.”

“Ya kinda are, Dad. You’re practically turning to dust!”

He gasped. “I am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Are too!”

“Am no- wait Dad, that’s cheating!”

“You still said it though!” He sang out, grinning at you cheekily.

“No, that doesn’t count!”

Arthur’s amused brown eyes bounced between you and Philza like he was watching a tennis match. Every so often, he would giggle at something one of you said. You both took your banter to the kitchen where you and Philza started to cook. Dinner was done and the table was set in no time. There was pleasant small talk as dinner neared an end

Your dad swallowed his last bite of beef and turned his attention towards Arthur. “So Arthur, how old are you?”

Arthur gave a small grin. “I’m ten.”

“Do your paren-”

You loudly coughed, throwing a discreet glare at Philza. Mouthing ‘don’t’ from behind your hand, you took a big sip of your water and stood up. “I’ll wash all the dishes. Arthur, would you like to look at some of my blueprints while we wait for my Dad to get you some clothes?”

His eyes shined with excitement. “Yes please!”

You chuckled, putting the plates in the sink and walking down to your old workshop to grab one of the blueprints you left in a filing cabinet. You grabbed the first draft for your prosthetic and the final draft for the automatic farm.

Upstairs, you situated the blueprints in front of Arthur at the dinner table. “Okay buddy, learn to your heart’s content. I’m gonna do the dishes. If you need something just give me a shout.”

Walking into the kitchen, you filled the sink with warm soapy water and got started scrubbing. You moved your wings around subconsciously as you wiped the pots and plates clean of grease. Humming in satisfaction when you were done, you dried your hands and sat next to Arthur who was looking at your designs with complete awe. 

“You like them?”

He nodded his head so fast you thought it might fall off and started to fling questions at you. You smiled fondly at him, it was nice to see someone so interested in how your inventions were made and not just how they worked. 

You two were mid conversation when Philza walked into the room with a bundle of clothes in his arms. You grabbed Arthur’s hand and led him up to the bathroom. You bent down and rested your hands on your knees, looking at him.

“Alright buddy, everything you need is in there, clean towels are in the closet. When you’re done, I’ll be in my room just over there,” you pointed to your door. “Last door on the left. I can show you where you’ll be sleeping for the night when you’re done. Does that sound okay?”

He gave you a gap-toothed smile. “Yes, thank you (y/n)! You’re the best!”

He closed the bathroom door and you stood there. You felt… oddly fond for the boy you just met only hours before. 

Philza cleared his throat and pinned you to the wall with a stern look. “(Y/n), explain now.”

“I will, but let’s talk in my room so Arthur can shower in peace. Poor boy needs it.”

He sighed and walked into your room. You had a long talk ahead of you.

(A/N): so, how do you guys like Arthur?

Taglist (comment if you want to be added):

@acecarddraws  @goldenstarofthunderclan  @ravennightingaleandavatempus  @dirtydiavolo  @yeiras-world  @immadatmostthings  @hee-hee-haw  @jackalopedoodles  @m1lkmandan  @vanhakirja  @im-a-depressed-gay  @coolleviauchihadreamerlove  @questioning-sanity  @camisascam

@bongwaterflavoredgatorade  @kakamiissad  @jayistrash4  @lifestylesleep  @speedymaximoff  @sun-shark-tooth  @appetiteofapeoplepleaser  @lestrangenymph  @kinismanditory  @dragons-lurk-here  @rinzyx05  @the-wandering-pan-ace  @sparkling-gayyyy  @angelic-scent  @shinipii  @dont-hug-me-im-a-fander  @izzydimensional  @used-avocado  @laura--444

[flowesona]

Wicker Man - yandere! jungkook x reader

so my child @babeejk​ wanted a y! sugar daddy jungkook, and i live for nothing if not to fulfil her jungkook obsession so here we are. 

word count: 2.1k

pairing: y! jungkook x gn! reader

Most people (Y/N)’s age would spend their Friday night partying, hanging out with friends, trying new things. But (Y/N) was spending the best days of their life entertaining a young, rich CEO who would no doubt dump them for a new pretty face in a few years.

Jungkook was a sweet gentleman. Always made payments on time, and usually never pushed the boundaries. But there were instances where his hands crept a little too far for (Y/N)’s liking, or his grip on (Y/N)’s arm got a little too tight in the presence of his friends.

He was peaceful enough that Friday night, having ordered takeout for the two of them and put on a movie. Clearly, he needed the company of (Y/N) more than their body as most of their previous sugar daddies had coveted.

With (Y/N) placing their plate down onto the coffee table and relaxing into his arms to watch the movie, it was almost like they were dating. Jungkook didn’t dare push this idea often, happy to stick to the simple domesticity they had as if they were already in love and nothing needed to be said.

He pressed a kiss on the back of (Y/N)’s neck, enjoying the fleeting feeling of his lips on their skin. 

“You seem tired, baby. Want to go to bed?” The film was reaching its climax, but (Y/N)’s eyes were barely able to stay open.

“Mmmmm.” They replied, not protesting as he lifted them like a bride and carried them into his room to rest on his king sized bed.

(Y/N) had allowed a gentle smile to settle on their lips, their eyes having drifted closed. Jungkook settled himself beside them, feeling equally as at peace.

“I wish every night could be like this.” He mused allowed. “Would you like that, baby?”

(Y/N) was only his for two nights a week - Fridays and Saturdays, wherein he would often have them stay for the night.

“Mmmmm.” (Y/N) gave an ambiguous grumble as he hooked his arms around their chest to spoon them.

“Really? I can’t wait, baby. I love you, so much.”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

The morning after, (Y/N) woke up to an empty bed. Unusual, considering that Jungkook loved to wake up beside them and talk in the morning. Brushing that aside they stood up and padded out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

Jungkook was seated at the counter, glasses perched on his nose and his laptop in front of him next to a steaming cup of hot water (allegedly, it had health benefits but (Y/N) had never understood it).

“Good morning, baby.” Jungkook had a bright smile, beckoning them to join him at the counter. (Y/N) followed his instructions, hopping onto the stool beside him and leaning on his shoulder in a move they knew he adored.

“I’ve been working hard for you this morning, baby. You know, I want to get this done as soon as possible so we can be together.”

“That’s good.” (Y/N) hummed in reply.

“How do you feel about the moving company getting there at two today? That’ll give us time to have lunch on the way.” Jungkook ran his hand down their arm, soothing them as he noticed how they tensed up.

“What?” 

“So you can move in, baby. Of course, you don’t have to bring everything here and I’ll be more than happy to buy anything extra you need-”

“Wait, wait, wait a second.” (Y/N) breathed out slowly. “Moving in?”

“We talked about it last night. You agreed, didn’t you?” (Y/N) scrunched up their nose, trying to recall the conversation but drawing a blank.

“No, I never agreed to that. And I never would. It’d break the terms of our contract.”

Jungkook had such a sincere look of hurt in his eyes that it tugged at (Y/N)’s heartstrings.

“We don’t need that contract, baby. We just need each other. You know I’ll give you anything you want, right?” 

“And what I want… no, what I need… is for some space. This is just my part time hustle, I still have college and a life outside of this. I want to keep it to two days a week, otherwise it’ll blur the lines between you as a sugar daddy and you as a boyfriend.” (Y/N) tried not to let their irritation show as they spoke.

“Fuck the lines, (Y/N)! We don’t need any of those labels, I just want you to be mine as much as I am yours!” Their companion’s grip on their arm had grown tighter to the point that his nails started to draw blood. Realising this, (Y/N) pried his hand away and stood up.

“I’m sorry if I’d misled you. But I’m not looking for that kind of relationship with you, I’m just looking for strictly business. If this doesn’t work, maybe we should end this.” 

Jungkook stared at them incredulously.

“Well…” He bit his lip, deep in thought. “Fine. Life will go on, I guess. I’ll call up the moving company and cancel it. Let’s not end this beautiful thing we have over a silly argument.”

(Y/N) nodded, although they had a horrible feeling in their stomach that it was not the end of the conversation, and Jungkook would stop at nothing to get his way.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

(Y/N) had chosen to make Thursday a ‘me’ day. They cooked themselves breakfast and lunch, did some online shopping and applied a face mask. They had zero intentions of visiting anyone else, when all they wanted to do was de-stress from life.

As they were lighting a candle and listening to some Beethoven, a shrill alarm rang out.

‘Huh. They don’t normally hold the drill today.’ (Y/N) shrugged, waiting for it to cease. However, it didn’t stop.

After a few minutes, (Y/N) grabbed their phone and stepped outside, only to see people hurrying down the stairs. 

“Hurry! Fire!” One of her neighbours yelled, jogging past them. 

Their eyes widened, but sure enough they could see smoke curling throughout the air and they knew they had no time to lose. Leaving their apartment with only their phone in hand, (Y/N) followed their neighbours down the stairs and out of the building, standing on the pavement as they watched the flames licking at the building and smoke billowing out of the open windows. Soon enough there were fire engines on the scene and ambulances to deal with the people who’d inhaled too much smoke. 

(Y/N) found themselves sitting on the pavement, numb with shock. To think everything they owned was going up in the flames was terrifying, even as they saw the firefighters doing everything to minimise the damage. 

“(Y/N)! Baby!” Their state of shock was broken by someone yelling their name, and suddenly they were pulled into a tight hug.

“Baby, thank god you’re okay. I don’t know what I would’ve done if something happened to you.” 

“Jungkook?” (Y/N) instantly recognised the voice. “What- How-”

“I was in the area when I heard about what happened. I came as quickly as I could.” Jungkook pressed a kiss to (Y/N)’s forehead. 

“You need to rest. Come back to my place, okay?”

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.◦.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

(Y/N) had ended up staying there far longer than intended. Their apartment had been completely wrecked by the fire, since it had started on their floor. Every possession of theirs, gone so quickly, although of course Jungkook insisted on replacing whatever they wanted.

Jungkook seemed to be very much content with their prolonged stay. In fact, he’d been working from home for the first few days to make sure they were settled in and not feeling too lonely. (Y/N) would sit with him in his home office, since they didn’t really have much else to do, and scroll on their phone until he inevitably called them over to cuddle with him. 

The young man had become progressively bolder with his skinship, never holding back from pressing kisses to their neck or holding them a bit too tightly to his crotch. They hadn’t done ‘it’ yet, but with how he was acting it was only a matter of time. 

They were just sitting together, (Y/N) scrolling through instagram and Jungkook answering some emails when the desk phone rang. Jungkook reached around them to answer it, holding it to his ear for a few seconds before putting it back down.

“Your nintendo switch has just been delivered. I need to go down to the lobby and sign for it. Are you okay waiting here for a few minutes?” Jungkook pouted, as (Y/N) nodded in reply.

He pressed a kiss to their cheek before standing up.

“Don’t miss me too much, baby.” He smiled before leaving. 

(Y/N) let out a breath they didn’t realise they’d been holding in whilst he was there. But now, they were bored as ever. 

A chime rang out, and (Y/N) found their attention drawn to Jungkook’s phone, sitting there innocently. They reached over and picked it up, only seeing a text from his mother asking about dinner plans next week. But they noted how he’d changed his lockscreen to a picture of them, from a few nights ago when they’d accompanied him to a formal event and he’d asked one of his colleagues to take a picture of them together.

(Y/N) suddenly had something to do. They set about trying to unlock Jungkook’s phone, first trying their fingerprint and face ID but to no avail. Then, realising that he had a numeral password they tried typing in a few dates - his birthday, his parent’s anniversary. Then, out of sheer boredom and with only one attempt they tried their own birthday only for them to be granted access to his lockscreen.

‘Jeez, he needs to get a life if he’s that whipped for me.’ They sighed, as they scrolled through his phone. Nothing was particularly out of the ordinary, until they checked the photo gallery, to be met with tons of pictures of them. Screenshots from social media, snaps from their ‘dates’, selfies with them fast asleep in his arms. It was enough to make (Y/N) shudder with fright.

Another message popped up.

‘I need the other half of the payment, sir, or I will be contacting the police.’

(Y/N) clicked on it, expecting business talk only to be met with something else entirely. Fear settled in their stomach as they scrolled up through the messages.

‘(Y/N) has been evacuated outside, doesn’t seem to have been hurt.’

‘Someone’s called emergency services, but the fire should spread far enough that (Y/N)’s apartment will be damaged.’

‘I’ve started it, it’s spreading quickly.’

It didn’t take a genius to realise what had happened. 

(Y/N) dropped Jungkook’s phone on the floor in shock, standing up immediately. They’d walked right into his arms without hesitation, they’d played into his plan perfectly. Jungkook always got what he wanted, no matter the cost.

‘I have to get out of here.’

(Y/N) started for the door, only stopping to tuck their phone into their pocket. They were just by the entrance to the penthouse when they heard talking outside.

They knew they had to hide, but it was too late. 

Jungkook burst through the door, accompanied by a stern faced delivery driver carrying a large box. This was subsequently placed by the door and he made a swift exit, avoiding (Y/N)’s existence the entire time.

“Ah, baby I missed you. Here, come and see what I bought for you.” Jungkook beckoned to them, but one look at their face told him he’d read their mood entirely wrong.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He cooed as he approached them. “Tell me, and I’ll fix it for you.”

“Get the hell away from me.” (Y/N) snapped. Jungkook froze. “I know what you did. What the hell is wrong with you? I could’ve died in that fire?”

His face became stern.

“I would never have allowed that to happen. I just wanted to give you a little push to move in with me, that’s all.” 

“You’re insane!”

“And you’re too stubborn to progress our relationship!” Jungkook bit back. “Can’t you see how hard I try to make you happy? Is that not enough for you to love me?”

“I never want to see you again.” (Y/N) huffed, trying to show past him only to be caught in his iron grip. 

“You’re not going anywhere.”

(Y/N) struggled, but Jungkook’s determination was stronger than their body weight.

“Maybe I am crazy, baby. And you know what that means?” He leant in close, so (Y/N) could feel the warmth of his breath. “You never know what I’m going to do next. So don’t try me unless you want to get burnt.”

[get-shiggy-with-it]

Ch. 3

18+ MINORS DNI

Pairing: Shigaraki x Dabi (just this part), Tomura Shigaraki x fem!reader (very brief and vague reference to Dabi x Hawks)

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: smut and feels, it's literally just smut, blow jobs, friends(?) with benefits, blow jobs, anal fingering, light degradation (both for shigs and reader), could maybe be interpreted as slight dubcon, dirty talk, slutty dabi, dabi is an asshole, so is tomura, reader has gender neutral pronouns, I'm keeping it fem cause Shigs hates women and calls them that

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6

Summary: In which the boys share in some good ole roommate bonding activities and Tomura has a blow job induced epiphany.

AO3 Mirror

Taglist: @dillybuggg (shoot me an ask if you want to be tagged and make sure to check my rules!)

Dabi’s mouth was wet and so fucking warm as he swallowed around Tomura’s dick.

“Oh fuck…” he groaned as Dabi hummed around his length and did that thing where he flicked the ball of his tongue ring over Tomura’s slit.

Bright blue eyes stared up through deceptively long lashes, smirking at the way Tomura drooled as he got his soul sucked out the tip of dick. The mattress underneath him creaked despite the negligible weight of both their bodies. Dabi settled on his stomach between Tomura’s pale thighs leaving fingerprint bruises in soft flesh.

They did this sometimes, though he wasn’t quite sure when exactly it started. Dabi had been his randomly assigned roommate freshman year and he grew so used to living with him that the two of them had just silently, yet mutually agreed not to fuck something up that wasn’t broken. They both berated each other for their strange and somewhat disgusting habits—Dabi would say that Tomura was a gross shut-in creep who needed a fucking shower and Tomura called Dabi out on his slutty pastimes and obsession with piercing the hell out of every available inch of skin.

And sometimes they sucked each other off.

It was overall not a terrible arrangement—Dabi got his fill of dick and Tomura could no longer be made fun of for being completely inexperienced. Plus, as much as he was loathe to admit, Dabi was really fucking good at oral. Like, demonically good. He’d been going down on Tomura for so long now too that he’d learned all the things that had him spilling onto that pierced tongue in minutes.

Tomura jerked from his thoughts when two, lube slicked fingers prodding at his ass.

“Dabi, what the fuck are you—” he protested, wiggling his scrawny hips up the bed and inadvertently letting his cock slip out of the inviting heat between his roommate’s lips.

He couldn’t see much other than the shaking mop of black hair and pale hands with chipped black nail polish digging into his legs, yanking him back.

“Shut up freak,” Dabi slurred, words slick with spit and Tomura’s precum. Dabi said it tasted like battery acid, but it never stopped him from guzzling it like he did with cheap whiskey and cigarettes on the weekends. “I know you like it.”

He did like it, but Tomura wasn’t about to contribute to the fucking evil grin Dabi was giving him as he circled the tight ring of muscle, slipping in a finger to the first knuckle.

Tomura’s head flopped back on the pillows as he bit back a low moan, “Fuck off.”

“If you say so,” Dabi shoved his finger in roughly, squeezing a second in behind it and letting Tomura bask in the burn of being stretched too quickly before ripping his hands away.

“No!” Tomura wailed pretty fucking shamelessly and grabbed the retreating wrist, placing Dabi’s tatted hand back on his dick that throbbed and leaked painfully.

“Dude, what’s gotten the fuck into you?” his roommate asked, smirking still, but pumping Tomura's cock loosely nonetheless. “Our walls are thin as hell, you know I can hear you jerkin' it in here every night, and now you’re practically begging for me to suck you off. Usually I gotta come to you.”

He was infuriatingly right again.

Tomura had indeed asked for him to do this, which was definitely out of character for him. Most of the time when they ended up in this position, it was because Dabi spent hours hounding him about it or just fucking dropped to his knees and whipped Tomura’s cock out in the middle of a movie night or snuck into his room while Tomura was gaming and swallowed him whole just to laugh at the way his online friends reacted to the noises.

He’s just been so pent up lately, and you insisting on fucking touching his arm or sitting on the floor between his feet at League meetings was really not helping it.

“I don’t know,” Tomura lied, both to Dabi and himself in the hopes that the head of black hair would just go back to bobbing on his dick like he so desperately needed it to.

“Bro, I have fucked with enough people to know when they’re wishing I was someone else,” Dabi scoffed and ran a blessedly hot tongue from base to tip and suckled softly at the blush pink head before pulling back with a wet pop. “So who is it?”

“I’m not fucking thinking about anyone,” Tomura hissed, fisting Dabi’s spiky, black locks and thrusting into his mouth till he felt the contractions of Dabi gagging around his length. “Usually you're jumping at the chance to get dick in your mouth, so why does it matter?”

Dabi pulled back, wiping the silvery string of spit leaking past his lips away and scowling as his fingers ghosted over Tomura’s balls and sank back into his pliant ass.

“Seriously creep, I’m five seconds away from ghosting and you can fuck your hand like the sad little bitch you are. So tell me their name or I’m walking right now.”

Tomura huffed as he felt Dabi’s long, rough fingers pulled from him again and the heat of his mouth growing farther away.

“Ugh fine, it’s that bitch I’ve been working on the English thing with.”

Dabi made a face like his brain was buffering.

“Seriously?” he asked, mouth gaping in a way that had Tomura even more furious his dick wasn’t buried in it.

“Yes!” he shouted and grabbed Dabi’s cheeks in both hands, sinking past his waiting lips and practically purring when he felt them close around the base as his long tongue massaged the shaft. “Oh god yes…”

Dabi rolled his eyes, managing to look smug even with a cock stretching his lips taught against the piercings. He used to try and tease Tomura about how small his dick was, but it was hard to believe him. Especially with how he choked sometimes when Tomura got rough with him despite his boasts of lacking a gag reflex. Not to mention how he looked now, jaw probably aching with the stretch and loving every second of it.

Tomura lazily bucked his hips up and whined high when the fingers in his ass curled and thrust against that fucking spot he hadn’t known was there until Dabi found it for him.

The pleased sound he made tapered off into a growl though, when his roommate with questionable benefits pulled off again to run his slutty fucking mouth.

“Tell me about it,” he mumbled, kitten licking at Tomura’s cock and running the ball of his piercing through the slit again. Tomura gulped when he pulled it back into his mouth to swallow the bead of precum he’d collected. “I’ve seen your fucking paramour around before, pretty serious about school though. And kinda out of your league too, not gonna lie. So, what would you do if your cute little partner was here instead?”

Tomura bristled at the insult but couldn’t keep his pissed off look when Dabi went back to sucking his cock like a pro and curling those fucking fingers against his prostate. When he did speak, he blushed hard at the way his voice cracked and sounded like he was crying.

“I don’t fucking—holy shit—know,” he gasped and Dabi hummed both to egg him on and to get a whole new wave of precum gushing out of Tomura’s dick.

“C’mon man,” Dabi groaned, and Tomura distinctly heard the sound of a pants zipper and felt Dabi’s hips canting against the sheets.

That fucking masochistic whore. He would get off to Tomura dirty talking about someone else while he sucked his dick.

He considered stopping the whole thing right there, but then Dabi was sinking a third finger into his ass and thrusting hard while he hallowed his cheeks around Tomura’s cock and sucked—

“Tits!” Tomura cried and covered his burning, red cheeks with his hands. “I want to put my fucking face in them and taste them in my mouth. Sometimes I can see the outline of their nipples when we’re working and the air conditioning comes on and I want to suck on them so fucking bad I can’t think about anything else the whole night.”

Once he got started, Tomura found the words just spilled from him like a dam had burst. Dabi, the depraved bastard, groaned loud and ground his pierced dick harder against the mattress as he continued to deepthroat Tomura’s cock and fuck his ass at that perfect angle.

“Sometimes when they drag me to their stupid club I lose the rounds cause I—oh god, oh fuck—just imagine them in my lap, sitting on my cock and fucking writhing and squeezing me while we face off. Such a fucking—Dabi more!—stereotypical try-hard, bitch but I want to be inside them so fucking bad,” he felt actual tears stinging the raw corners of his eyes when Dabi sped up on his dick.

Tomura scrapped his nails against Dabi’s scalp, holding on for dear life as his breathing became even more ragged than usual. His friend’s cruelty streak reared its ugly head as Dabi sensed the tensing of Tomura’s balls and the clench of his tight ass and slowed down a fraction, keeping him teetering on the edge of an explosively pleasurable release.

“Fucking asshole,” he growled, but didn’t dare try to fuck Dabi’s face lest he make good on his threat to leave Tomura high and dry. “I just—shit, ah, don’t stop—they talk to me sometimes and I just wanna suck their tongue into my mouth so they shut up and I need to hear them fucking falling apart or using that stupid, stuck up teacher voice on me and fucking my ass—Dabi Fuck—is that what you wanted to hear?”

Dabi, because he got off on being a little shit, gave him one last delicious swallow before pulling back and fisting Tomura’s sopping wet cock. The fingers had stopped thrusting and were now pressed hard against his prostate, sending shocks through his body and making him twitch violently as his blood rushed with endorphins. He never stopped grinding his own dick against Tomura’s cotton sheets the whole time.

“You got it bad huh, don’t ya creep,” he mused, letting a fat glob of spit fall from his lips and keep his palm slick. “That’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk about fucking anything, much less another actual person.”

“No I fucking don’t, “ Tomura writhed against the pillows, giving in to the undeniable urge to simultaneously fuck up into Dabi’s hand and ride his fingers.

“Who knew you were such a desperate whore, falling for the first person to show you a modicum of attention,” Dabi jeered and squeezed the tip of his dick hard, listening to Tomura let out a choked sob. “I’m actually kinda proud of you, bro. My little incel baby’s growing up.”

Dabi cooed at Tomura, sinking sharp teeth deep into the meat of his thigh and sucking a bruise into the flesh.

“You’re the one—nghh—getting off on it,” Tomura clapped back but didn’t bother denying it again.

There was a sense of dread growing in his gut alongside the mounting pleasure of his orgasm that Dabi was currently holding hostage. Dabi may have had a dickish personality just as massive as the actual dick that was currently painting his comforter in stains, but he knew Tomura.

And he did, admittedly have much more experience with these types of things.

“Fuck yeah I am,” Dabi grunted. “Last time I let you return the favor you bit my fucking cock. I gotta get off somehow.”

“Don’t say rude shit to me and I won’t bite you.”

“Watch it, Tomura,” Dabi huffed and nipped at his thigh again. “You should be thanking me for my services.”

“Not if you’re gonna keep running your mouth instead of sucking me off,” he tried to sound intimidating but he was well and truly wrecked and couldn’t find the energy to give his words an edge.

“You should ask them out,” Dabi continued, ignoring the failed attempts at banter. “Bring ‘em over or some shit. Maybe then if I lock down that blonde piece of ass I’ve been talking to, we’ll both have much more interesting things to go down on.”

“Your whore ass is the one always jumping me, don’t act like it’s a fucking chore,” Tomura groaned as Dabi started licking at his cock again, pressing sloppy, half kisses on the tip as he jerked it in his fist.

“Not my fault I get bored sometimes,” he replied and closed his eyes as Tomura clenched particularly hard around Dabi’s relentless fingers. “But seriously, you should go for it. I’d kill to find out if you’re just as bad at eating pussy as you are sucking dick.”

“Fuck y—” Tomura started to say when Dabi reared up till they were chest to chest and their foreheads knocked together.

“I fucking will if you don’t shut up, creep, and I think it’d be so much better if you handed your fucking virginity to that pretty little partner bitch instead,” he said and stunned Tomura into silence when he licked into his mouth.

Dabi had kissed him before, but Tomura could count the number of occasions on one hand and almost all had been when his punk ass roommate was drunk as hell and in his feels about some tortured past. But Dabi’s eyes were bright and lucid now, blinking down at Tomura as he dragged their tongues together, flooding his mouth with the faint taste of cigarettes and jizz.

Their cocks brushed together too, the stimulation making Tomura whine into Dabi’s lips, who dropped a merciful hand down, taking them both in his fist and began pumping.

He didn’t stop as he pulled back, grinning down at Tomura like a fucking maniac—all shitty tattoos and silver piercings. The little barbels that stuck through Dabi’s nipples brushed against his own and made him moan at the cool metal and hot skin on his sensitive chest. Tomura was fucking sensitive everywhere, as Dabi had helped him discover, probably from a lifetime of being touched more by cheap sweatshirts than human hands.

“Now,” Dabi grunted as he thrust loosely against Tomura’s cock and his own fist before pulling away to settle back between his legs. “Shut up and cum down my throat—gotta give your virgin ass a refresher on mind shattering orgasms, so you know if that bitch is any good or not.”

Tomura’s tongue was halfway around a witty comeback when Dabi swallowed him to the hilt once again and started working his ass even harder. He really fucked hoped the neighbors were not home to hear him get his shit rocked at 2pm on a fucking Tuesday, cause Dabi might have been flunking out of his classes but he’d get a goddamn A plus for sucking dick.

The hand on his thigh, spreading him open, migrated to his hip so that Tomura could snap his legs shut hard around Dabi’s ring littered ears as he guided Tomura to grind down on his hand. The pressure in his gut built up exponentially higher now that Dabi wasn’t trying to hold him on the edge of climax. It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for him to acquiesce to Dabi’s request, as he tightened up in a full body clench before gripping Dabi’s hair and spilling rope after rope of hot, sticky release straight onto his roommate’s tongue.

Dabi, the fucking slut, made a show of swallowing every drop that spilled from Tomura’s abused cock, milking his prostate the whole time and only letting Tomura slip from his mouth when he was soft and finally spent.

The fingers in his ass remained though, still for the most part and slowly dipping in and out every so often. Tomura whimpered and clenched but was somewhat thankful for the remaining feeling of fullness.

“So, did you really mean all that?” Dabi asked with his signature smirk. “You really want your group project partner to cockwarm you and fuck your tight little ass?”

“Fuck off,” Tomura scowled and smacked Dabi hard across the face with an errant pillow.

Dabi yanked it from his grasp and tossed his ammunition onto the floor. “Hey, it’s not actually too bad in here,” he wiggled his fingers for emphasis which elicited an embarrassingly high gasp from Tomura, “give ‘em my number if you need a reference for asshole tightness.”

“Get the fuck out of my ass and my room,” Tomura kicked at Dabi’s back as it shook with laughter that lacked it’s usual jeering bite.

“What? Saving the cuddles for your new S/O?” he shot back, nuzzling his cum and spit covered face into Tomura’s neck.

With their chests pressed together, Tomura could feel the cooling, sticky remnants of Dabi’s own release coating his stomach. He squirmed against the sensation and pushed at the offending chest until his friend flopped down onto the scant space left between the mattress and the wall.

“Ew,” Tomura ran a finger through the mess Dabi had left smeared on him. “I’m taking a fucking shower.”

“God, finally!” Dabi exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air and producing a cigarette from god knows where. He let the paper rest between his lips unlit. “I should have thought about getting you fucked out on the reg earlier, creep, if it’ll stop you smelling like ass.”

Tomura launched the discarded pillow which hit it’s mark with a dull thump.

“You better be fucking gone when I get back,” he hissed and stumbled naked, on shaking legs into the hall and to their shared bathroom.

Dabi’s cackling followed him until the door shut and the lock clicked behind him.

Tomura turned the water on quickly, letting steam cloud the mirror before he jumped under the spray. The only products on the shelves were Dabi’s for the most part with the exception of a store brand bar of soap and some 3 in one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.

Tomura knew he should clean himself more often, but his skin was so fucking raw all the time it hurt to do, so he mostly avoided it unless the smell got really unbearable—or Dabi was painting him in jizz whenever the opportunity presented itself.

He tried to get in and out as quickly as possible so he didn’t have the opportunity to think too hard about the admission his fuck buddy roommate had pulled from him mid blow job. Because if he did—in his post nut, clingy state—he’d most certainly imagine you were with him, tits pressed against his back and your soft, insistent tongue dipping past his lips, tasting like fruit gum and expensive cafe drinks instead of nicotine and cum.

And he really couldn’t handle that. Cause Dabi was right, he had something fucking bad for you and the thought of another rejection loomed large.

When he did towel himself off and shuffle, still naked back into his bedroom Dabi was nowhere to be seen. Tomura’s phone however, was left sitting right next to the jizz stain on his sheets. He frowned at the open balcony door where Dabi was no doubt smoking and snatched the device before tumbling onto the pillows.

He powered it on and scrolled through his notifs before one caught his eyes. You and Dabi were really the only people that ever texted him, but the contact name above this one had changed.

bitch (endearing)

— hey, starting an impromptu round of Smash soon if you’re interested <3

The stupid text heart made his chest throb and he stared at Dabi’s new nickname for you, not even noticing the fucking grin that tugged at his cheeks.

He bit his lip to stop the twitching when it pulled too hard at the chapped skin and scrambled for his clothes before shooting a quick confirmation text back. Tomura opted for his only pair of black jeans this time instead of sweats and the least stained sweatshirt he owned.

Dabi peaked around the corner when he heard the clink of Tomura’s keys. The bastard was smoking in just a pair of underwear that left half his ass on display for all the whole fucking street. He smirked, quirking his eyebrows and bringing his hands up to slip his index finger through the circle he made on the other hand in a silent, vulgar gesture.

“Screw off,” Tomura shouted over his shoulder and made for the door.

“Wrap it before you tap it, bro!” Dabi called after him, cut off by the subsequent slamming.

Tomura took the stairs two at a time, pulling out his phone and tucking the hood over his damp hair, this time to hide the growing smile playing at his lips.

[fabricated-misslieness]

Daniel Le Domas x gender neutral reader

Yo I hate Alex that motherfucker but also I think it’d be easier if Daniel killed Tony in the forest and then ran away with Grace, but I guess it’d be safe to bet that others left for the forest when the car got flipped.

Also for some reason my gifs aren’t workin

Requested: No

Word Count: 2847

Warnings: suggested use of drugs because Emilie exists, mentions of hypothetical violence, some angst i think, mentions of a gun in a world war themed board game

Normal AU where Le Domas are a ‘normal’ rich family, still weird, but no deal with the devil.

Servants, lavish parties, gourmet food, expensive alcohol, this was the life you might be inheriting. You say ‘might’ because you’re not married, nor are you getting married. 

Your partner, Daniel Le Domas, was born to a rich family, so he was entitled to all these privileges, not that he seemed quite fond of them. Deep down you knew he was, but he for sure didn’t make it clear.

“Don’t worry,” Speak of the devil. He reassures you, squeezing your hand as you walk down the halls to the music room. A music room, for god’s sake! Not speakers, not a radio, but their butler playing the piano. At least they didn’t have a ballroom, that would just be way extra. “We’re a normal family, I promise.”

“Normal?” You raise an eyebrow, gesturing to a nearby seemingly ancient, though you exaggerated that, portrait of a newlywed couple. “All the portraits I’ve seen so far are newlywed couples.” 

“That’s normal for rich families.”

“Haha.” You say sarcastically. “But seriously, you can’t even paint them in normal clothes? Not even family pictures of one of your many vacations?”

“First of all, who said we even had vacations?” You assumed they did, seeing as they were wealthy. Doesn’t the average rich person go on vacation twice a year? Whatever, who were you to assume? Though the thought of it is still a little peculiar, so you decide to question it.

“You don’t? No little tour over Europe? No visiting the seven wonders in the span of a week?” You go on and on, suggesting outlandish places.

Daniel nudges your side playfully to get you to stop. “No, haven’t even toured the US.”

You laugh, nudging him back. “You’re no fun, for a board game family.” You pluck a nearby board game from it’s shelf, Yankee Bayonet. Initially, you’d been attracted because of the gun on the box. It's world war one or two themed. “Well, can’t blame you. Don’t know how this would seem fun. What’s it even about?” You put the box back on display before Daniel can scold you for touching it.

“Honestly, I don’t know. There’s so many games, and I’ve barely played a quarter of them. That one, however,” he points at a box further down the hallway, “that one I play-tested as a kid. It’s somewhat fun.”

“Somewhat.”

As you near the end of the hallway, your eyes land on a portrait of Charity. You stop, which makes Daniel stop too. For a second, he’s confused, until he looks up at the portrait. Immediately, he turns to survey you. Among every emotion dancing in your eyes, he catches disturbance, nervousness, and most importantly, a splash of disgust. “Charity.” You say a little bitterly.

“Charity.” He repeats. “That’s where our painting used to be.” He cups your cheek and pulls you to look at him, putting his other hand on your shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

You shake your head, putting one hand on his hip and the other on the hand resting on your cheek. “It’s nothing. If I’m going to be with you, I’m going to have to face your family.” Daniel smiles, giving you a quick peck on the nose. He’s glad you’re so willing to get to know them, especially with how much he’s down-talked them, to put it lightly. “The only thing that confuses me is why this is still here. She’s your ex-wife.”

“They took a liking to her.” The both of you grimace. “She was just as crazy as them. Honestly, I don’t see what they see in her. But,” He takes your hand and presses a kiss on it. “I won’t let her bother you. If you want, I’ll even flaunt our relationship more than I would’ve.”

You shake your head, turning towards the next corridor. “No need. I’ll be fine.”

Famous last words, “I’ll be fine.”

You were not fine, in fact, you were a fish out of water. Standing next to the family, you felt severely underdressed, even when you’d gone out your way to wear something fancy. Though that wasn’t the biggest problem. They were all very distinct, but they fit into the family. Of course, they were family, but it made you feel like an outcast.

“(y/n),” Becky greets you with a smile. You offer her a hand, but she gives you a hug instead. You barely manage to reciprocate it. “I’m delighted that you came for a visit."

You give her the best smile you can, hoping she doesn’t notice it’s fake. “I’m glad I’m here with you.” You’d really thought that meeting the family would go smooth, honestly though, how could you? These were rich people, your lifestyle, mannerisms, nothing was even remotely similar to theirs.

“Oh, thank you.” She hands you a glass of champagne which you gingerly take, just to be polite. “I hope you can bring my son back to his old self. He’s never been the same since the divorce!” Before she can take you off towards a couch somewhere, Daniel stops her. He’d excused himself for some whiskey when you made it to the entrance and promised he’d make it quick.

“Mom.” He scolds lightly. He takes the drink from your hands and leaves it on a servant’s tray, knowing you’re not one for fancy champagne.

“Daniel.” Her face lights up. She gives him a quick hug, which you notice Daniel is a bit uncomfortable in. “Haven’t seen you in a while.” She teases.

Daniel nods rather stiffly, moving to your side and taking your hand almost immediately. “Been busy.” The whole family knows that ‘busy’ meant being with you, yet he covers up for it anyway.

“I know, I know. They’re a nice catch, by the way.” Becky pats you on the shoulder, a gesture both you and Daniel seem to dislike. “Well, I better not keep you for any longer. I’m sure the rest of the family is eager to meet you.” For some reason, you highly doubt that. 

Becky leaves you for another glass of champagne. Daniel turns to you once she’s gone. “You okay?” He holds your hands in his in the hopes it’ll comfort you.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He can tell you’re lying, you’re not hiding it very well. He gives you a knowing look, pushing you to tell the truth. “Alright, I’m not okay. Charity and your aunt have been eyeing me up since we arrived, your dad looks way older than your mom, Emily and Finch seem too happy to be real, your nephews are creepy, and Alex and Grace both look like they want to leave. That’s not reassuring, now is it?” Your ever rising tone makes Daniel squeeze your hands to stop you.

“Honey, they’re harmless.” He knows that’s an awful way of reassuring someone, but he knows that no matter what he says, you’ll still be doubtful.

You frown, letting out a sigh through your nose. “I know they’re harmless, but..” You bite your lip, trying to find a way to sugar coat your words. “Charity looks like she wants to kill me and your aunt looks like she could skin me alive without even blinking.”

“Look,” He brings his hands to cup your cheeks. “there’s nothing to worry about. From now on, I won’t leave your side. And if I need a refill, I’ll bring you with me. I love you.”

You sigh again, closing your eyes. In the end, you nod, opening them back up to look at him. “I love you too.”

“Good,” He brings you in for a chaste kiss. “Let’s go fuck them, like mom says.”

"She really says that?"

Daniel was right, they were harmless. Well, you hadn’t talked to Charity, but at least you’d talked to the second person giving you a serial killer look, aunt Helene.

Turns out the stink eye was her resting face and that her husband had died tragically. It was the main reason she looked so miserable. She was most likely merely reminiscing about her husband while looking at you two, the newest couple in love. If anything, it made you feel bad for her.

"I'm pretty sure I saw her take a pill like a shot in the hallway." You side glance Emilie as Daniel pulls you off to the side. You were just done talking to her, and somehow, even with all that parental stress, her smile was genuine. She was happy and extremely friendly. Well, so was her husband, but even he had a bit of awkwardness in him. "She's not suffering from anything, is she?"

Daniel shrugs, "Not that I know of."

He sits the both of you down on a loveseat out of earshot from the rest. "Now, we only have to wait until dinner." You nod. "But I have something to tell you. When somebody marries into the family, they have to play a game. It's just tradition. Play the game and you're part of the family, but win it, and you'll gain respect. Might as well get some practice in, right?"

"Did you just propose to me?" You mean it as a joke, but Daniel shrugs and reaches into his pocket. It's a wonder how people aren't looking over right now, well, apart from Charity.

"This is a claddagh ring. It's been sitting in my pocket for ages." He says as he pulls it out of the box. The majority of the ring is normal, but in the middle is a heart with a crown on it. "But, it's up to you how you want to wear it."

"So is this a proposal or..?"

He gives you a quick rundown on the meanings. On the right hand crown pointing towards the fingerprints is single and looking, towards the wrist is taken, on the left ring finger crown pointing towards the fingertips is engaged, and pointing to the wrist is married. Obviously, you're not married or single, so that leaves taken or engaged; and he's giving you that decision.

"You want me to choose?"

Daniel looks like he's regretting his spontaneous and presumably drunken decision. But with a swig of his drink, he smiles again. "Yes. I mean, we've talked about marriage and all but I wasn't sure if you'd be ready. I'm still not sure, but now that you know about it, you might as well wear it."

You admire the ring as you weigh your options. Daniel takes your free hand, absentmindedly playing with your fingers, especially your ring finger.

Engagement is the brightest thing in your heart and mind, despite that, it still finds doubts. Your in-laws, they were weird. But they didn't have anything to hide, they were harmless. On the plus side, you loved Daniel.

That was the final push. You grab Daniel's left hand, sliding the ring down his ring finger with the crown pointing to the fingertips.

Daniel's left hand curls around your right, the metal feels cold against your skin, despite all your fiddling. You look up at him, seeing his brows furrowed with confusion. You speak up before he can, "I might as well be proposing to you, if you're giving me the decision."

Daniel laughs, giving you a kiss followed by an eskimo kiss. He isn't usually one for eskimo kisses, but you figure it's happiness. "Okay, but I'll buy you one."

"Deal." You give him a final kiss before pulling him off the seat. "What should we play?"

"Well, first we have to go to the game room."

"The game room?"

You were hoping the game room was the room with the double doors painted with the name 'Le Domas', seeing as they were a board game family, but apparently not. "It's reserved for family, so technically you're not allowed in. But, we have a game room for parties." Daniel explains on the way. Rich people and their special rooms…

Once inside, Becky plucks a family board game from the shelf, no doubt a Le Baile product. Before you can join them at the couch, however, Charity pulls you off to the side.

Daniel follows, putting his arm around your shoulder protectively. Charity glares at him for a second before turning back to you, it was clear she wanted you alone. "Care for a game of chess?"

"Usually, we play more traditional games, stuff that would be here during my great-great-grandfather's time. He founded the company but the family tradition comes from before most of the games they've created." He whispers quickly into your ear. Due to the quickness, you almost fail to comprehend his words, but luckily you understand them.

"Alright." You agree to the game. Charity leads you over to the chess table, where conveniently, the chess board is already set out.

Daniel pulls a chair from seemingly out of nowhere, setting it down to your side, much to Charity's distaste.

"I got chess when I married in." Somehow she manages to avoid bitterness in her tone. "You should go first."

God, you barely knew the basics.

"So tell me about yourself." Charity speaks up.

You give her a quick rundown, which hopefully doesn't reveal any information that she could use to her advantage. "Interesting." She takes your bishop. "From what I've heard Daniel say, I expected the worst." 

Daniel narrows his eyes at her as a warning, though Charity doesn't see. Her eyes are glued to the board.

"I don't know why he'd leave me for you."

"Charity." Daniel warns her.

Charity holds her hands up in mock surrender. "I'm only speaking my mind. But I'll stop now."

She does stop for the remainder of the game, nevertheless there's no doubt in your mind that she has a lot more to say. She beats you quite easily, though she seemed disappointed when the reward was not getting to remarry your new fiancé. It's either that or you'd read her wrong.

"You have much to practice." Becky remarks, taking a sip of her champagne before continuing. "But, you'll get there." She smiles.

You smile back, standing up from your chair. Daniel does so too, almost protectively. He stares ahead towards Charity. The two seem to be having a glaring contest. You decide to ignore them, "I don't know about that."

"Oh, sure you will." Her eyes trail towards your hands when you intertwine them.

"I didn't see that there before. Claddagh ring, left ring finger pointing up." She continues to stare, a little disrespectfully. She notices this before it becomes moderately disrespectful. "You're engaged." Her smile widens.

Her words catch everyone's attention. Almost immediately, Emilie runs over with the brightest smile you'd ever seen.

"Congrats!" She exclaims, reaching out to hold your hand but stopping when she sees it connected to Daniel's. "I can't wait to have you in the family!"

"Thanks."

"They're not normal." You remark as you sit next to Daniel on the bed. The family had insisted that you stay the night, and while that was quite sweet of them, you really wanted to get out of there. They were no longer creepy or ominous, but you want a break. You weren't feeling as social as you did when you came in.

"Can't judge what normal is when they're the only family I've met." Daniel brings the blanket over your legs. "Sorry, anyway."

You shrug, planting a kiss on his forehead. "It's alright. Though that proposal was a little spontaneous."

At the mention of the proposal, Daniel shifts his ring around on his finger. "I was drunk, still am. At least I got it out of my chest. Who knows how long I'd keep it in my pocket otherwise."

"Knowing you, it'd be months, maybe a year."

"Hey!" Daniel whines, nonetheless, it's followed up by a laugh.

You can't help but give him a kiss again, this time on his temple. Daniel moves closer afterwards, pulling you into a proper kiss on the lips.

"Did you like them?" He asks when you pull apart.

You shake your head side to side in a more or less motion. "Mostly. Charity is Charity, you know. Your dad seemed to only focus on the engagement, I think I saw Emilie snort something, I don't know what to feel. Well, your mom is nice, maybe a little too nice. She hopes that I make you behave like you, but I wouldn't know how that is."

"So that's what she was talking to you about." He bites his lip for a second. "Well, don't worry. I believe I behave the way 'I used to' around anybody that isn't them, apart from Alex and Grace."

"Reassuring." You say sarcastically, laying down.

"Seriously? Can't tell the difference?" He lays down, cupping your cheek and allowing you to wrap your arms around him.

"Honestly, yeah. It's a little concerning." You nuzzle into his hand.

"Well, don't be. We'll be back home in no time. After breakfast, though, they're going to insist on that." You groan at the thought. Daniel simply laughs in reply, turning off the lamp.

"Goodnight, sweet dreams. Love ya."

"Love you too."