#I know I rotate between the same like six things all the time

[therighthandofvengeance]

Andrei’s virtuosa is Sophie’s punk

(In the end, he wouldn’t want it any other way)

[rboooks]

Can you write a dead on main? Something with a bookstore au please!

Now that I know the ship names, you bet I can! I'll try my best to get through the ones I got requested in the past few days.

Jason liked bookstores.

They were a safe haven for him as a child, even when the fancier ones chased him off when he became a street kid. He adores the various series, the smell of books, and the quiet of stores. Often he thought that they were a small pocket to escape reality.

He had always known he could escape between the pages when everything had been terrible.

Maybe that's what lead him to this store even if it was a bit odd.

It was out of the way by the old docks that Joker used to run, thus making it condemned to the rest of the populace.

An old warehouse turned into a three-story bookstore. The entire first floor was aisles placed in side-way lines with the main counter as its center. The second floor had cozy reading nocks, plush futon couches, pillows, and blankets, complete with a small cafe. The rule was that anyone could take a book off the second-floor walls to read for free.

Employees asked to be informed if any food or damage was done to the second floor since the second book only had one copy of each. The owner would pull one off the bottom floor shelves to replace it.

The final floor had various reading rooms, but Jason loved that each room was based on a book. The room was professionally decorated to the point it left visitors feeling like they actually stepped into the world of the book.

Sculptures, playable settings, phenomenal little details the hard die fans could spot, and even sound systems playing sounds that sounded like the world. Jason could only compare it to Disney World or universal studios. The fact that people could rent the rooms for an hour for only fifteen dollars made them much more popular.

The third-floor rooms- ten in total- would rotate between series after a few months. Hence, the rooms were always different, but inside them were recommended books with the same kind of theme that was always the perfect recommendation, or maybe people just wanted to explore a room of their favorites.

Jason had visited the strange little bookstore with Tim after his brother had gone on a date with Bernard there.

Tim and Barnard had rented the "Hogwarts common rooms" room for three hours. Jason had been amazed by how real the four standard rooms looked, how there were even dragons spitting fire in one corner, moving portraits, a sorting hat ceremony, a small teddy bear decorating corner, and even a wand building second. All for only fifteen dollars. Tim had practically been glowing when he came home with his Ravenclaw bear and his own wand.

And maybe Jason is a huge Harry Potter fan; perhaps it was one of the first things he boned with Tim over, so maybe his brother had taken him to have an experience that he compared to the first time Bruce took him to Universal Studios.

Then he ran into the owner while one of the employees had been helping him pick runes to have burned into his wand.

Jason started to come back for an entirely different reason.

"Hi, Jason!" Elle says when she sees him climbing the stairs toward the third floor. She's the store's co-owner and has gotten to know him on a first-name basis due to how often Jason has visited the store in the past year. If they made a reward points system, Jason knows he be the highest one on the chart.

She's sitting at a table that is decorated like a galaxy. The books for these quarters' room themes are on the table's surface, all with a door key under them and a clipboard for the various hours.

Jason's eyes land on Pride and Prejudice, and his heart leaps.

"Hi, Elle. What's the wait time for door seven?"

She smiles, flipping the clipboard to the time slots. "The Ball at Netherfield Park has a lot of openings today. I got a three, four, six, or seven. When shall I fit thee dance card in milord?"

Jason laughs and checks his phone, ensuring he doesn't need to do anything for a while before saying. "Three will be fine. It's only thirty minutes. I'll go get a coffee while I wait."

She nods, writing his name down for three. She then passes him some disclosure forms he has to sign, forgoes the long-winded explanation of the rules, and sends him on his way, promising to send him a reminder text.

"Just so you know, Ball at Netherfield Park comes with a unique costume option. Five extra dollars to go through our costume section, and you can dress up like Mr. Darcy for a full hour."

Jason shakes his head though it's a very tempting offer. "Thanks, Elle but I'm okay with my street clothes today."

The other shrugs and checks her nails- their asexual theme today, he notes- before nonchalantly commenting. "Too bad. Danny really wanted someone to cosplay with him. Jane Austin's books are less prevalent in Gotham than we thought, and he's been dying to wear his Mr. Bingley outfit. I thought you like to, so I told him to come over when you arrive, but I can text him to cancel-"

"Five dollars, you said? For the full outfit or just like a coat?" Jason ignores her smug expression and quickly places a twenty on the table.

"Full outfit. What do you take us for?"

He glares at her just as the man of the hour himself runs up the stairs. Danny Fenton, founder, and co-owner of Ghost Zone Reads. He's in a light blue Regency period man coat that makes his eyes pop. A pair of white pants that hug his hips and thighs in all the right places, black knee boots, and a black gentle top hat.

Jason's knees go weak at the sight of him.

Danny's face is flush from the run, but his whole face lights up when he sees his sister and her guest. "Jason! I'm so glad you choose the Ball at Netherfield Park experience. I can't wait for our dance."

"Dance?" Jason chocks. Elle chuckles.

"You can't experience a Ball at Netherfield without the ball part dingus." She waves a hand at her brother. "Told him Dick canceled on you, so he offered to step in."

Jason never even mentions Dick to her but he's not about to call her out on her lie. She's doing him such a big favor.

"I always wanted to go to a Jane Austin ball!" He says instead, mentally wincing at how lame he sounds. Thankfully Danny's eyes only light up even more as the other man starts explaining the instructional videos installed in the ballroom mirrors so they can learn the real moves of Contra Dancing.

Jason falls just a tad bit more.

(Elle watches with a fond smile as Jason and Danny get lost in Austin's most significant works. She quickly texts her allies in Wayne Manor under the table. This is a big step in the "Make us in-laws" operation; the Fenton and Wayne children started a few months back. They were all tired of watching Danny and Jason dance around each other. Damian's idea to use Jason's favorite author was working fabulously.)

[caramelcleopatraa]

CAUGHT IN 4K

word count: 3.3k

x: finals are coming up, so i'm gonna be very busy, but i'm still writing y'all (this is the most consistent i've been lol) (excuse any errors of course) Hope you guys enjoyyy! leave comments... please. I love your comments.

content: Imani has a crush on Roman. Their friend group goes on live and her secret comes to the light. She thought that she was going to be rejected and move on, but things never go the way people expect. Roman Reigns x Imani, 18+ MDNI, oral (m recieving), cowg!rl, creamp!e

Imani loved weekend kickbacks. Time to chillax with her favorite people, and get her mind off of things. It was moments like these she waited for. Drinks and joints in rotation, and endless fun for hours to come. Jimmy, Jey, Roman, Trinity Talia, and Imani. She wishes that she was only thinking about the good vibes that circulated in the atmosphere, but she was focused on something else. It wasn’t like she was necessarily trying to focus on Roman, but it was inevitable when she could see him so clearly from the kitchen. She knew that having a crush on him could possibly mess up the bond that the group has, but he was so gravitating, He was perfect in her eyes. She basically textbook described him when Trinity and Talia asked her to describe her dream man: Tall, muscular, sweet, absurdly attractive, charismatic, humorous, dedicated. God, she could go on to name every single one of his attributes that she loved. She tried to brush it off as a mistake at first, but there was no part about this that was a mistake. He had a tight grip on her, and he wasn't even aware. She wonders what would happen if he felt the same way. If those pretty brown eyes she daydreamed about would reciprocate the love she was anxiously waiting to give him. She could only imagine all of the things she could do for him, to him, and provide him. If she had him all to herself, how they would spend their nights alone. How it would feel to be wrapped in his embrace. How it would feel to get lost in him between the sheets for hours, and repeat it again the next day. If she had him all to herself.

“WE GETTIN TURNT!” Talia raised her glass in the air and yelled out to her viewers, watching her through the small rectangular frame. Jimmy came around the corner with uno cards in his hands as the six of us gathered around the table. Roman, Trinity, or Jey would pop into the frame to answer a couple of questions while Jimmy shuffles the cards and Imani gathers multiple bottles to bring to the table. “Mani! They have some questions for you!” Imani joins her party, sitting the bottles on the table and scanning through the comments.

‘Do you get to go backstage with the bloodline?’

“Yes! It's amazing, I'm not gonna lie.”

‘Please do a makeup tutorial!’

“Maybe, I don't have a youtube channel.”

‘Seen any guys that have caught your eye?’

“A couple, but they ain’t nothin’ important.”

“Oh word?” Talia and Trinity both look at her with curious faces, but Imani just giggles and goes back to answering questions. 

“Ooh this is a good one. Kiss, marry, fuck: Jason Momoa, Michael B. Jordan, and Roman Reigns,” Talia reads out loud. That question got everyone’s attention. Jimmy stopped fidgeting with the cards and Roman and Jey both put their phones down impatient for her answer. “Well?” Talia was definitely setting her up, and she could feel it. Thank god for her brown skin that covered her fastly spreading blush. “Do I have to answer this?” “Yes, you do. I'm intrigued now,” Trinity says, as Imani quickly takes a double take at the entire table to see them all staring at her. She sighs before surrendering and thinking hard about the question.

“I’ll… kiss… Michael B. Jordan, fuck Jason Momoa, and marry Roman Reigns.” She instantly regretted answering the question before Trinity pried at Imani to get out more information that everyone was itching to know. “Hmm, why marry Roman?” She quickly swiped her drink off of the table and took a long sip, hiding her face. In all honesty, she wanted to say that it was the easiest choice, but that would only make her sound suspicious. And that was not a conversation that she wanted to have in front of quite literally everyone. “I'm not interested in the other guys like that.” “So you’re interested in Roman?” ‘Wait- wait! Noo that's not what I meant!’

“No, I just wouldn't marry the other two men. It’s not that deep Trin,” Imani says, a failed attempt at dismissing the conversation. “You’ve never gotten this defensive before… don’t tell me that you in your feelings.” She could see Talia smirking at the corner of her eyes. She knew she had to stop this fast. “You’re reaching Talia,” Imani says, laughing to herself. “Oooooh Imani wants the Tribal Chief, huh?” Never in her life had she ever been more embarrassed. “Jimmy, for the love of god, please start dealing the cards,” Imani says, covering her face, her words muffled by her hands. Everyone laughs, finding amusement in her nervousness. She anxiously waited for Jimmy to start dealing the cards so this moment could pass.

11:27 pm

Several rounds of uno and spades passed, and the guests were slowly starting to make their way out. She noticed Talia, Trinity, Jey, and Jimmy momentarily texting throughout the night, which would probably explain why the four of them were explaining the consequence of Imani losing a couple of rounds. “Sooooo we thought of something. Don’t be mad! It’s just a punishment for losing so much,” Talia says, sticking out her tongue. “Your punishment is that you have to ask Roman to fuck you.” ‘ASK ROMAN TO WHATT!?!?’

Her surprised face told them everything they needed to know. “You'll be fine. Uce will probably be down to fuck either way,” Jey says. Imani gave Talia a death glare, making Talia laugh. “You’re trippin’ girl. Just approach him with the right energy and make him want to stay with you. I guess this answers the question of if you have a crush on him or not.” Before she could defend herself, Roman walks in from the restroom and the four of them are gone in the blink of an eye. ‘These trifling’ heifers’

“Guess they all left. I should be on my way out then. Thank you for the food and dr-” She steps in front of him, stopping him from exiting out the front door. He looks at her with confusion. “You okay?” Her heart was beating fast. She didn't fully think out what she was going to do after she stepped in front of him, but it was now or never. 

“Fuck me.”

“...what?”

“F-fuck me.” She couldn't look him in the eye the second time. The pressure weighing on her shoulders was too much. But the thing that was racking her brain the most was how close they were. She felt like this was a disaster taking place in real time. She hears a soft chuckle, looking up to see him lightly smiling at her. “Was this your punishment for losing?” She nods, and his smile stays fixed on his face. “Do you want me to?” 

‘...did he say what I think he just said?’

Her mind is searching for an answer, a reason to say no. But she can't find any. As embarrassing and confusing this was, she had daydreamed about this moment. Maybe he was just being nice and would give her a quick fuck to fulfill the punishment. That idea became her leading thought. “You don’t have to if you’re uncomf-” “Do you want me to fuck you Imani?”

‘Shit he’s not joking.’

She slowly nods, which prompts him to lock the front door behind you. Her head was spinning, trying her hardest to maintain her composure. “Ask me again.”

“Fuck me, please,” She says nervously, eyes returning her shiny tile floors. “I don’t believe you sweetheart. Ask me again.” His hand gently grabs at her chin, making Imani look at him. Once they made eye contact, she knew that she was done for. She was already feeling weak from just looking at him. She took a deep breath before finally saying, “Please fuck me Roman.”

He wasted no time pulling her into a heated kiss. Not that she minded. This felt like a wonderful dream that she didn't want to wake up from. Only this wasn't a dream, it was real life. She finally got to feel the body that she had been drooling over. Right now, he was hers, and she was going to make the most of it. 

Her curious hands creeped along his captivating body while they explored each other’s mouths, dragging her hands up his torso from underneath his shirt. He pulled away from her soft lips to trail wet kisses from her cheek to her neck. “Not shy anymore huh?” She couldn't be shy. Her desire for him had completely taken over. “I really need you right now Roman,” She pants out. 

“Bedroom?” She nods and takes his hand in hers, leading the way to her bedroom. The sway of her hips only made Roman more aroused, as he silently admired her body from behind.

They enter her bedroom and she doesn't get a chance to close the door before being pulled into his arms again, temporarily hoisting her in the air to lay her on the spacious bed. He pulls her into another messy kiss, setting his focus on getting rid of their bothersome clothes. He quickly tore his shirt from his body and she did the same with hers. Their lips connected again, moving in harmony. He started to make his way down her body, but she squeezed his shoulders, signaling him to stop. “I wanna make you feel good first.” Roman was surprised to say the least. He kissed her tummy and replied, “Are you sure?” She gives him a confident nod, with those big doe eyes and her beautiful smile. “Alright, what do you want me to do?” “Let’s switch places.”

She scooted to the side, giving him room to lay down on the bed. She crawled down to his waist, tugging both his sweatpants and boxers down. His dick springs out of his pants, finally free from cloth restraints. Her eyes locked with his before lowering down to lick the underside of him; from his balls to his mushroom tip. A wad of spit drips from her mouth and lands on his length, using her hand to lather him up. His soft hums let her know that he was feeling good, and she was determined to make him feel a whole lot better. 

Her juicy lips start at his tip, giving small kitten licks before taking the tip in her mouth. Her warm mouth felt so good on his dick. He didn't know that Imani was this nasty. She gives him kisses up and down his shaft before taking him in her mouth again. 

She didn’t waste any time trying to tease him. He was big, and filled mer mouth well, but it’s nothing she's never handled before. Before she continued, the warmth of her mouth left him once again. “Can you record this?” Just when he thought she couldn't get more nasty. 

“Record?” She nodded her head. “Only if you’re comfortable.” “I’m more than comfortable,” Roman says, while reaching into his sweatpants pocket. He grabs his phone and opens the camera app, pressing record. “It’s recording, baby.” 

She smiles at the camera, curling her fingers around the base of his dick and tapping him against her tongue. She takes him in her mouth again for the final time, keeping her hand put at the base. She bobs her head slowly, swiveling her head from left to right. 

She keeps moving slowly, making sure to fit all she can in her mouth. Her hand that stayed curled around his base, moved in juxtaposition, stroking the rest of him that her mouth couldn't get to. “Goddamn baby, that mouth feels so good. I need that mouth around my dick all the time.” She moans in response, giving him vibrations that made him feel oh so good. She had him moaning and groaning. She didn't mind that at all. She got a big ego boost that he was so vocal from her mouth working its magic. She took note of every moan, every twitch, and any reaction he made. Right now, she was focused on his pleasure. 

His grip on his phone tightened, trying his best to keep his composure. She moved her head faster, still bobbing up and down, and using her hand to stroke his remaining inches. “Ahh s-shit mama, you keep sucking my dick like that and imma cum in your mouth.” She looks at him, already staring at her every move while she’s giving him euphoria like pleasure. She moans around his dick again, feeling her panties dampen. Her other hand massaged his balls lightly. Her slurping sounds made him close to coming. 

He couldn't take his eyes off of her. Those innocent eyes staring into him as he recorded her doing such lewd things. He tried his best not to tangle his hands in her hair and fuck her mouth full of him. But her mouth felt so good, and he wanted nothing more than to cum in her mouth. He couldn’t help himself when his hands disappeared into her hair, planting his feet on the bed and fucking up into her mouth. She put her hands behind her back, letting him use her as he pleased. His thrusts were quick, but soft, his balls slapping against her chin. “Oh fuck! I’m coming mama, ooh I'm comin’.” He kept her head steady while coming deep in her throat, and she accepted with jubilation. 

She bobbed her head a few more times, trying her best to overstimulate him the most she can, until his hand grabs her chin, lifting her up. “Slow down princess,” He says, ending the recording. She crawls up to meet him, giving him a quick passionate kiss. “See how good you taste?” Roman chuckles at her boldness. “Your turn. Lie down,” He says, trying to sit up, but fails due to her pushing him back down on the bed. “I need that dick right now daddy.”

“You don’t want me to eat that pussy?” She runs her hand through her messy hair. “God yes I do, but I need you to fuck me right now.” Her eyes did more pleading than her words. 

“I wanna record this too,” she says, looking down at his chest, tracing the intricate tattoo. He feels around the bed, finally grabbing the phone and reopening the camera app. “Can you prop it up somewhere? I want you to be able to touch me.” “Already on it baby.” He climbed back further on your bed, propping the phone up against the lamp on the nightstand. While he did that, she slid off her shorts and panties, throwing them behind her. He pressed record again, and instructed her to adjust herself so the camera could capture everything. 

His hands landed on her ass as they both observed themself. His hands felt so good kneading her ass, and she saw his eyes drinking in every part of her body. He couldn't keep his hands off of her curvaceous body, and he didn't want to. “You like it?” Her soft hands massaged his shoulders, making him groan softly. “I love it baby, love this ass.” An unexpected slap to her ass made her jump. “You sound so good, daddy.” His hands move her hips along his dick, grinding her body against his. 

“How long have you been thinking about this?” She shies away from his gaze, a sudden flash of embarrassment runs through her body. She had forgotten about all of her feelings of distress and nervousness and realized that she was running on arousal and adrenaline. “A-a couple of months.” He lifts her hips and grabs his length, rubbing the tip along her slit. A few rubs up and down her slickness before impaling her on his dick. They moan simultaneously, relishing in the mind numbing pleasure. “You been thinking about taking this dick baby?” She gives him small head nods, still captured by the feeling of him inside of her. His hands cupped her chin, turning her head to the direction of the phone, steadily recording them. His hands were full of her ass, moving her up and down his shaft slowly. His unsteady breaths and her elongated moans were harmonious. “Go ‘head then. Bounce that ass on my dick.”

Her eyes focused on him as she steadied herself, her hands placed on either side of his head. She throws her ass back, his thighs catching it every time. His eyes were still glued to the phone, watching her beautiful body on top of him. But it wouldn’t be long until he faced her again, her soft titties hanging in front of his face. She had daydreamed about fucking Roman, and she was finally doing it. It gave her confidence knowing that he couldn't keep his hands off of her body. Her facial expression told her exactly how she was feeling. It was almost overwhelming how sexy she was. Beautiful smile, sexy body, paired with addicting moans that made him want to fuck her all night long. 

“Mmm~ look at you taking daddy’s dick. You’re doing so good,” Roman pants, grabbing at her breasts. His gentle praises and gruff voice was enough to make her cum. His dominating presence, his words, his touch. This man had her mind running laps. Even though he wasn’t putting in any effort, he was hitting all the right spots.

Her words were slurred, eyes rolled back, mouth wide open spewing salacious moans. Her hips slowed down, the constant rhythm created by her ass and his thighs meeting no longer lasted while she hid in the crook of his neck. Her body was decorated with a sheet of sweat that didn’t take away from her golden hue. “Look at me.” She rested on her elbows, locking her eyes onto his. Their faces were laced with lust, an unsatisfied want for each other. 

His strong arms caged her in, preventing her from squirming or escaping. She was still catching her breath while Roman planted his feet on the bed again. He places a tender kiss on her cheek before fucking up into her. She grabbed on to any part of his body that could, her eyes fluttering shut. A harsh slap to her ass makes her scream in pleasure. “I said look at me,” Roman says, demanding her full attention.

“Ohhh- my god! You feel so fucking g-good!” Roman loved watching her unravel. How she screamed for glory while he fucked her. God, he could make this his favorite hobby. Making her cum over and over again. “Mhm- fuckk- keep talking to me baby.” Her mind was foggy. She could only focus on one thing right now, how good he was dicking her down. Roman was making her feel so good. She looked at his phone propped up on the nightstand again to see their reflection. Her ass rippled from his hard strokes. That sight alone had her ready to cum. “Shhit! I’m finna cum on that big ass dick!” “Yeah? You finna cum?”

Her nails dug into his broad shoulders, feeling a knot build up in her stomach. “Cum with me Imani, let me feel you cum around my dick.”

Her eyes shut as she came, her orgasm hitting like a dam breaking, sending waves of pleasure throughout her body. His hips slowed down, but still gave her deep strokes, coming deep inside her. High pitched moans and deep grunts filled the room. His hands lazily grab her hips, allowing her to move again. She reached to grab the phone and ended the video, dropping the phone somewhere as she laid limp against his chest. His thumbs worked small circles as they both caught their breath. “I’m gonna take a shower when I get up, wanna join me?” Imani hears him chuckle, still working small circles into her hips. “Nah, we’re not done. I gotta eat that pussy, Imani.”

If these were the punishments she got for losing in spades, maybe losing wasn't so bad after all.

🏷️ tags :) @reignsboy19 @2-muchsauce @theninthwonder @harmshake @alichesmi @thesamoanqueen @alyyaanna @empressdede @badbitchcentralinc @christinabae @fame-ass-ers @southerngirl41 @cyberdejos2

[dullgecko]

I love a trans Riz moment and one of my headcanons is that goblin names are gendered by the number of syllables (Pok, Sprak, Riz all being one syllable, Sklonda being two).

And we all know that middle school Riz was Going Through It in terms of bullying so he was almost certainly also misgendered constantly by the other kids.

I think that’s part of why Sklonda is so against the other Bad Kids using nicknames for Riz because The Ball is two syllables and they’re accidentally misgendering Riz (according to goblin grammar) and she has had enough of other kids misgendering her son because they think it’s funny.

It’s also why Riz hates the multi-syllable nicknames like Rizbert and Rizwalda and keeps insisting it’s “just Riz”. But equally he also doesn’t want to come out. He’s sure it would be fine, but he doesn’t want to risk it just in case things go wrong. So he doesn’t know how to explain it so he doesn’t say anything, but it definitely hurts every time they do it.

(I think at some point he does deserve to snap at them though, as a treat).

(I’ve been trying to write a fic about this for ages but the words aren’t wording right, so I offer it up as a humble headcanon to be rotated in other peoples brains)

Goblin biology is different from humans or elves or even half-orcs. They're goblinoid not humanoid after all, their anatomy was different and their ancestors could be traced all the way back to the fae realms in eons past. Like with most creatures of the fae realms their relationship between their biological sex and gender is fairly loose, or more realistically practically non-existant. Hells, if you want to be a different biological sex the switch is incredibly quick and easy. Just go and talk to one of your hordes elders and with magic you'd be done within half and hour. Simple.

Riz grew up in Elmville though and Solesians tended to be weird about the whole thing. Sex and gender seemed to be intrinsically linked for some reason and, in order to naturalise better, goblins tended to stick with the gender that most-accurately reflected what was expected of their current biology.

Riz was six years old when he told his dad he didn't want to be a girl and that was that. A quick jaunt up to his families ancestral home, dinner and a minor name change and he was back in Elmville ready for school on Monday. It should have been as easy as that but even after explaining that he was a boy now the kids at his school just didn't seem to understand. They constantly kept calling him by his old name, some of the Helio kids even going so far as to corner him and preach at him about how what he'd done was evil. The bullying lasted for years and followed him all the way through middle school, only adding more ammunition to what he was already dealing with just by being a goblin in the first place.

He thought he'd managed to leave he worst of the bullying in the past when he finally made it to high-school. None of the kids who knew him in middle-school had come to Aguefort so no-one knew that he was a girl before. Just to make double sure though he made sure to dress the part. No one would call someone in a suit a girl, it was the most masculine outfit he could think of after all.

Honestly it was going better than expected. He did wince initially at the whole The Ball nickname but that was fine. His friends didn't know the multiple sylables were a thing in goblin, though his mom still drew her lips into a think line and glared whenever she heard Fabian call him that. They didn't even call him that in a teasing way anymore, it was more of a title so he felt like it didn't have the same kind of connotation.

At the moment though they were teasing him a little bit. It was all good-natured, someone having commented that the nickname Fabian still used for him was weird and they should really think of another one. They'd rotated through quite a few humerous titles but had somehow strayed dangerously into nicknames playing off his own name which he protested.

"Oh! What about Rizbert? Or Rizmothy." Fig waved her spoon towards the goblin, swallowing around mouth full of icecream even as Riz winced.

"Guys no. Just Riz is fine. Or The Ball. I dont mind The Ball. Plus you keep making my name longer aren't nicknames supposed to be short?" He clutched at the glass of his milkshake, claws tapping at the glass as he tried to get them to change the subject.

"Yeah but you cant go shorter than Riz so we need to think of something else." Kristen nudged her shoulder against their rogue, the height difference meaning she just bumpd him directly in the head which made him make a quiet 'ow' and rub his temple where she'd clocked him.

"What about Rizzy?"

"Guys seriously I don't-"

"Rizriz?"

"Please stop."

"Rizbian, no thats too close to Fabian."

"Kristen honestly I don't like-"

"Rizgug! No wait same issue as the Rizbian one. OH how about Rizik."

The goblins eyes narrowed down to thin slits as the last name was said, Riz baring his teeth and slamming his glass into the table with a loud bang that made his party members jump.

"It's just Riz." He spat, venom lacing the short sentence as he pulled his ears back and down. Kristen holding her hands up in front of her in a defensive posture even as the goblin grabbed his breifcase off the seat beside him and slid down under the table.

Riz duck between his party members legs, not able to hear them calling after him over the sudden roaring sound of his own blood in his ears, and stalking out of the diner without another word. Milkshake dripping onto the spot where he'd just been sitting because the glass had cracked when he slammed it down with too much force.

They'd tried to follow after him but it was basically impossible after he left their line of sight, the rogue was incredibly adept at not being seen when he didn't want to be and he really didn't want to be right now.

He managed to drive his party into a mild panic after only a few hours, the goblin marking himself as offline in their group chat and declining their calls after a few rings (including Fabians, which did not bode well considering how pissed off he'd been when he had stalked out). Adaine had even tried to skry on him, but his wisdom was high enough that he easily slapped down her attempt and sent her a single text message consisting of the word 'no' before turning his crystal off completely.

They'd ended up splitting up to search for him across the city, heading for any spots he might go and promising to fill eachother in if they spoted him. Fabian had been circling the town on the Hangman for a while by this point, squinting down alleyways as he passed just in case he could spot their sneaky party member down one of them.

He'd passed the Strongtower Appartments at least twice before he thought to check there as well. Sure, it was a far too obvious a spot but maybe The Ball HAD just gone home.

Fabian hopped off The Hangman outside the front of the apartments, patting its seat and telling it to continue circling and searching without him as he stepped inside. He knew where Riz's appartment was, hells he even had a key these days, so he head there directly and let himself in.

He probably should have knocked before just barging in though, given that there was a rather pissed off goblin woman currently sitting at the dining room table glaring daggers at him. "Ah. Apologies. I did not expect you to be home. Have you purchance seen The Ball recently?" He had paused, half-inside the apartment with his hand on the doornob and very nearly backed all the way out again when she somehow managed to look more annoyed when he spoke.

"I'm not going to confirm or deny if I've seen Riz recently." She put heavy emphasis on his name, ears flicking as she interwove her fingers on the table in front of her. "But, if you have come to apologise I may see fit to pass it along when I do see him."

"Pardon?" Fabians look of genuine confusion made Sklondas demeanour shift, ears flicking into a more curious position rather than the angry one they'd been settled in before.

"You're not here to apologise for deadnaming him?"

"Sorry I'm not following? We were having lunch and he got pissed off and stormed out. We were looking for him because well.... we were worried and he switched his crystal off." Fabian entered the apartment completely, letting the door swing shut behind him with a click as he stood awkwardly in the entrance area.

"You called him Rizik."

"Kristen called him Rizik." Fabian corrected her, noteing that the normally open door to Riz's bedroom was shut. "Fig mentioned that you didn't seem to like when we called him The Ball and was trying to find a new nickname. I recall that may have been among them."

Sklonda rubbed her hands over her face, heaving a sigh before tipping her head back to look towards the ceiling as if asking a higher power for help. "Don't use that name again. Didn't you know it would upset him?" "No?"

The goblin woman gave him a confused look, pushing back her chair and heading over to Riz's room to knock on the door. Cracking it open slightly and chattering at the person hidden inside in goblin before shutting it again.

"Goddamnit kid. How are they supposed to know if you don't tell them." She donked her forehead against the closed door before turning back to face the fighter.

"Look he's fine and home. Tell the others that but he doesn't want to see anyone at the moment. I think he's mostly feeling silly about getting so pissed at you all and storming off because you couldn't have known it would upset him." She pointed a finger at Fabian before waving for him to sit down at the table. The half-elf pulling out a chair and sitting down obediantly when directed to.

"The kids at his last school used to call him Rizik all the time and thats because it was his name. He shortened it when he told us he was a boy and I'm only telling you this because he said i could. Don't tell the others."

Fabians eye went a bit unfocused as he tried to process what he was being told, eyebrows shooting high on his forehead when he finally put it together. "TOLD you he was a boy.... So he wasn't before... Ah. Deadname. Understood. I'll.... inform the others that that particular nickname is completely off the table."

[whoreburslut]

Kinktober: Day 2

•public

gender neutral reader

smut

(i think this is public enough?)

you had planned a road trip with the boys a few months ago, from brighton all the way to scotland. there was you, phil, tommy, ranboo, jack and wil, it was weird that non of you had noticed that all six of you weren’t going to fit in a regular car. so it only makes sense that you would sit in your boyfriends lap, everyone seemed to agree that this was the best solution.

packing the car up and everyone jumps in their seats, wilbur slips in the back behind the drivers seat where phil was stationed. you throw your bag in the boot of the car, grab your blanket and get situated in wilbur’s lap you drapes the blanket over yourselves and get ready for the long ride ahead.

thirty minutes in to the ride, after all the excitement has died down, wil has snakes his hands around your waist with his head nestled in to your back. you relish in his hold for just a moment before phil states that your going on the the country roads so it might get bumpy.

you thought nothing of the uneven ride until you feel wil start to slowly harden beneath you, you rotated slightly so you could see his face, he was flush and glanced at you with want it his eyes. on a particular big bump in the road send you bouncing on wils crotch quite roughly, he bites his lip and grabs your hips with force and pulls you down in to him to stop you bouncing as much.

realising that no one can see how you two are sitting because of the blanket covering you both, you decide to have a little fun. you grind down on to wilbur, causing his mouth to latch on to your shoulder so he stays silent. you reach behind you and start to unzip his pants, he lifts his hip a bit to help you shimmy them down to mid thigh.

you take his cock in to your hands softly move your hand up and down him, you look up to meet his face that’s still resting on your shoulder . his eyes are now hooded and dark and you can feel his grip on your hips tightening, surly this will leave bruises behind. after a few minutes of teasing you bring your own pants down to your knees, you lift up slightly and slowly slide his length inside you.

you take some of the blanket in to your mouth as a makeshift gag so no moans escape you, feeling utterly blissful as he bottoms out. you decide just to let the country roads do their thing, you bounce up and down his dick with the unstable road, the car goes over another large rock making you slam down on to his boner. you gasp and heads turn to you, “sorry wil pinched me” you stutters out trying not to make it obvious. everyone turns away seemingly having bought your excuse, you turn to look wil in the eyes again and he has a stupid grin of his face obviously proud of himself that he made you crack in front of everyone.

wilbur wraps his arms around you really tightly and starts thrusting up in to you, pulling you down the same time he thrusts up, this along with the harsh jolts of the car have yous both on the edge of pleasure. wil reaches his hand down in between your legs and stares touching you, you start shaking as your already very sensitive. “you can come whenever you like darling” he whispers lowly in your ear.

as soon as he says the words you are thrashing on his cock as you cum, his thrusts start to be come messy and out of rhythm, soon you feel hot spurts of cum shoot inside you. wil comes to a full stop trying to regulate his breathing, he pulls out of you slowly and you slouch in to his chest. he pulls your pants up as he knows your tired, and positions you to where he can also pull his up.

he tucks your head in to the crook of his neck and brings your legs to rest over his lap leaning slightly on the other guys, he begins to stroke your hair as your eyes start to feel heavy. you feel his hot breath against your ear once more and hear wilbur mutter one thing right before he loses you to sleep for the next few hours of the ride.

“you did so good baby”

and everyone was completely oblivious to what yous two did in the car.

[mashpotatoequeen]

babies

Thinking about an AU where the Mysterious Benedict Society gets de-aged. Not for forever, but for a week or two. A world where these kids get to be loved and feel loved in times they maybe never got to, and just how special that would be.

I mean, this is a world where a machine is capable of sweeping away someone's mind and leaving them a stranger in their own heads for years at a time. It's a world with duskwort, which can knock out a village with nary a handful in the campfire smoke. It's not too strange or extravagant to imagine a realm where there's some machine or mechanism that can wipe away someone's years and leave behind someone not yet grown. 

Think about it. Kate- who gets shrunk until she's five or six, who is a vibrant ball of energy and is constantly climbing onto shelves and wriggling into unexpected corners for impromptu games of hide and seek. Reynie and Sticky chase her around the backyard and aren't sure if they should be offended or not that she's fast enough to keep them out of breath and struggling to keep up. Constance looks at her- this insurmountable girl she knows folded into somebody else, someone small, and can't quite figure it out how to interact with her, how to coincide them into the same person. Kate just takes her small pudgy hand in hers and drags her around the garden to look at bugs, laughing, and Constance finds it's not so different after all.

"Kate," Rhonda says, "Please, please come down from the ceiling fan."

Kate, slowly rotating and so happy about it, laughs madly. "Never!" she cries, curling around the big wooden panel and wheezing with joy. 

A little dazed, Number Two murmurs, "How did she manage to bring the ladder to the living room? We store it in the basement!"

Moocho whistles guiltily and walks away.

(I'm thinking of Kate being young, before the burden of being left behind truly settles on her shoulders. Who looks up at Milligan and cries out, "Daddy!" with her whole tiny chest, face planting into his knees and laughing uproariously like it's the funniest thing in the world. I wonder if he cries, this man who lived outside of himself for nearly a decade; a Kate who's five or six is still a Kate he never got to hold.)

(Kate wipes away tears with her pudgy fingers, and tickles him until he laughs.)

If Sticky shrinks, he becomes a little boy who hasn't yet learned the anxieties of the stage lights. He's a little shy, maybe, and quiet. (He was the sort of kid who didn't talk at all for three years and then burst out into full sentences.)  Regardless, he smiles more easily than any iteration of the boy they've ever known. Reynie holds him on his lap and they read books together, page after page after page, and wonders how anyone could make this small version of his friend feel unwanted. Kate carries him on her shoulders and races around the backyard with him clinging to her back like a tiny koala. Constance accidentally makes him cry, too blunt and awkward and unused to holding hands smaller than her own. They still get to be friends, though, after the learning curve. She just makes sure to be more gentle.

Sticky is adorable, by the way. He's iddy biddy and he's got round little cheeks and everyone's piling SO much affection on him. "You're so cute!" Kate enthuses, and cuddles him like a stuffed animal as he flails. 

Constance, watching this, crosses her arms and turns up her nose. "I'm cute," she declares, blustering. Mr. Benedict pats her head, fond, and she grumbles but doesn't pull away.

(I'm thinking of the Washingtons, picking up this version of their kid, and it feels like being deposited into the past. It must hurt to see someone so precious, and know that he'll go through so much, and in so many ways it will be their fault. Sticky curls up between them on their bed that night, and he's little, he's so small, and they hold each other's hands over his tiny head, and they whisper promises to themselves that they're going to be better, that their own Sticky will keep growing up and growing older and he'll always, always know that he's wanted.)

Reynie stumbles into being ungrown, and he's three or maybe four. He's got BIG expressive eyes and he's lived in an orphanage his entire life. Consequently, he hasn't been out much and absolutely nobody is familiar, leading to him spending the first few hours crying and hiding before they finally manage to coax him out with the cat the Perumals had gotten him. (They bought it when they had moved out of Benedicts' and into the house next door, because Number Two is allergic.) The cat gets lugged around by its armpits for the rest of the day, almost as tall as Reynie is, and purrs like a tiny motor boat the whole time. Number Two takes two Benadryl and doesn't complain. 

Kate is pleased to find that Reynie is much more enthusiastic about being thrown into the air or being turned upside down as a toddler than he is as a teenager, and takes full advantage of it the moment they're able to coax him into letting go of Moby Dick the Great White Cat. Sticky follows Reynie around and reads him books and lets him try on his glasses, even though they're too big and fall off his nose. Constance is determined to be his favourite, and piles him with snacks and red faced hugs and plays games with him and indulges his subpar poetry. Reynie's just happy she wants to be friends. He's never really had a friend before.

(Miss Perumal gets reintroduced to her son and it's like an ache reborn in her chest. She never knew her kid this young, was never able to hold him close to her chest and have him nap on her shoulder as she walks up and down the hallway. Reynie, hardly grown and already a little lonely, takes her face in his small hands and whispers, "You picked me?" like it's almost too good to be true. 

"Yes," she whispers back, and presses a kiss to his brow, to his cheek, to his nose. "Oh, yes, lovely one. Always.")

Constance, when she gets de-aged, becomes an infant. She's tiny, only a few pounds, her cheeks still red and ruddy and hair hardly a blonde wisp on her head. Her pinkies aren't longer than a nickel, and her toes no bigger than a bean. Everyone takes turns holding her, and Milligan and the Washingtons have to teach everyone how to support her properly in their inexperienced arms. Constance Contraire, for once, is not contrary at all and sleeps through everything quite soundly. 

She wakes up, occasionally, and they all hold little contests to see who gets to feed her the bottle. Rhonda's wins one and Constance flails until she can hook her fingers around one of her braids and settles again, content. Number Two, who is always awake anyways, holds her when Constance starts wailing at night and has a miniature staring contest with her tiny younger sister, wiping away milk and cooing about homemade onesies.  Everyone tries to avoid diaper duty. Nobody gets out of it.

"I think that Constance would like to climb a tree," Kate says, eyes sparkling, terrifyingly sincere and holding a baby carrier. Milligan manages to dissuade her, barely. 

Sticky, on his turn to hold baby Constance, looks bewildered the whole time. "It's crazy how you're going to grow up and become a whole entire person," he whispers to her when nobody's looking.  Constance throws up on his shoulder. Oddly enough, it soothes him.

At some point she ends up in Reynie's arms and he spends the whole time thinking very hard about how much he loves her, how special and wonderful she is, how lucky he's been to have her as a friend. He's not sure how her big brain works, this small. Maybe she can hear him, can understand it, but if she does she gives no sign. She falls asleep more quickly on his shoulder than anyone else, though, and he's secretly pleased.

Nicholas Benedict, several years away from since he's had to worry about falling asleep upon strong emotion, finds himself quite overcome upon cradling her tiny frame in his arms for the first time. He sits down rather abruptly on the couch, tears springing to his eyes, and smiles down at her guileless eyes. "Hello, my dear," he says, soft and gentle and sure, and presses his lips to her tiny palm. 

(Constance, who is so small as to be all instincts and wonder, feels loved all the way through.)

[sehtoast]

Tender Threads CH6 (Homelander x OC)

chapter six: mentorship

chapter directory | slow burn, hurt/comfort, fluff, spidersona as original character, original trans male character, smut, sublander

summary: time to learn the ropes, bug boy. hope you're ready. it's just one week with homelander, how bad can it be?

She hates me.  She fuckin’ hates me and there’s no two ways about it.

Why else would Stillwell do this to him?  A mentorship?  Mandatory training? Benjamin had half a mind to be irritated with Starlight for being the reason this was even a thing.  That mugging she stopped the other day– same one she got in trouble for?

Yeah…

Now Benjamin had to suffer for it.  Learn the ropes, Stillwell had said.  Learn to be a Vought hero.  One week with each member, sans Noir due to the more sensitive nature of his missions.

At least it goes reasonably fast. Most of it, anyway.

From Starlight, he learns to use his position and influence to uplift outreach programs and charities, along with applying his image for promotion to a wider audience.  Despite his annoyance with the whole ordeal, Benjamin finds that he doesn’t mind Starlight one bit.  In fact, the two of them got along splendidly, sharing their life stories from their silly small town upbringings and how different their lives had become.  By the end of the week, Ben freely keeps his mask off around her and hardly minds her knowing about his secret identity.  

A-Train was a bit of a jackass if Ben was being entirely honest, and he spent most of the week watching the speedster practicing his fraction-of-a-second laps or signing his image away to endorse yet another sports company.  With him, Benjamin began to connect the dots of which supe represented what facet of life as a Vought hero.  Starlight was charity; A-Train was product licensing.  By the end, though, A-Train had begun to grow on the bug.

The Deep managed to be the worst week by far.  Benjamin spent his time listening to the aquatic supe drone on and on about sea creatures.  Their feelings, what they said to him, what they said about Benjamin, which fish at the aquarium found the bug attractive– Jesus fucking Christ please save me– how beautiful the sea is, and just about any other mindless drivel that disphit could ramble on about.  With him, Ben learned about scripted saves.

Few, if any, rescues performed by The Seven were authentic.  Some, but certainly not all.  Real ones seemed to only occur on a right-place-right-time basis.

And absolutely none of The Deep’s saves were legitimate.  Together, they tackled a staged smuggling bust at the harbor, much to Ben’s embarrassment.

His week with Maeve was spent sparring and bonding over cocktails and martinis.  Wasn’t hard to find the connection between the note of alcoholism in her file and the way she drank.  Had Benjamin been trying to keep up, he’d have probably needed his stomach pumped.

To each their own.

Four weeks turned to five, which was the one Ben had been most petrified to reach.

A week with Homelander.

He’d been so anxious the night before that he barely slept at all.  Must have been when the sun was rising that he finally dozed off in the warmth of his fuzzy blankets and silky sheets, bare legs rubbing between the textures like some kind of snuggly cricket until sleep overtook him with a force.

He doesn’t even wake for his alarms.  The trickling of light through the curtains fails to rouse him.  Life is… fine.  His dreams are nothing, but sometimes that’s all they need to be.  Just simple, comfy nothingness, that’s all–

“Mmm, cozy little setup you’ve got here.”

Benjamin barely registers the words as his eyes blink open, vision bleary, just to shut them again.  The cool air wafting about with every rotation of the ceiling fan tickles his shoulders.  The bug gives a weak groan and stretches his legs, poking one out from beneath his knitted blanket to splay across the bed.  Instead of its usual plush resting place, it lands on something firm.

Did I leave something...?

Ben slides his leg over the intrusion, trying to get a feel for whatever it is.

“You could buy me dinner first, you know.”

Huh?

Ben sucks in a deep breath and lifts his head, blinking slowly until–

“The fuck!?”  He yelps, scrambling toward the edge and clutching a cover to his bare chest.

“About time, sleepyhead.”  Homelander says, grinning from ear to ear as he lays beside the bug as if there were nothing wrong with any of it.  “Please, what’s with that face?  I can’t be the worst thing you’ve ever woken up beside.”

“Wh– why– what–”  Ben sputters, brain too foggy to coherently tell him to fuck off, too startled to give him shit for such a brazen violation of his boundaries.

“You overslept.”  

“So you got in my bed?”  The bug asks exasperatedly, eyes wide in disbelief.  “D’you know what boundaries are or–”

“Do you know what an alarm clock is?”  Homelander quips, all too happy with himself.  “Just go get ready.  The more time you waste, the longer we both have to be out tonight and I don’t particularly don’t wanna drag this one into tomorrow and overlap the days.  I also like to sleep, you know.”

“I–”  Ben shuffles to move out of bed, but stops.  “Can you like… look the other way or something?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’m like… very naked under here.”  Ben blurts.

Homelander looks at him, hums, then covers his eyes with his bare palm.  “Fine,” he says.  “Won’t look.  Scout’s honor.  Just go get ready.”

Benjamin will never know that Homelander cheated his way out of that little promise.  Didn’t count as peeking if he didn’t peek– which he didn’t. He did, however, peer through his hand to see the bug scurry away with a little knitted blanket wrapped around his body.  Not that the blanket could stop him from seeing anything anyway.

There isn’t much that he hasn’t seen at this rate.  He’s watched Benjamin shower, seen him get ready or undress after a long day, seen him peel the spandex suit from his body and slump into bed as naked as the day he came into the world.  Hell, he’s seen even more than that.  Not like there was much awareness on Benjamin’s part back when Homelander had caught sight of such performances, but all the same… 

The first sight of Benjamin’s bare body caught him off guard.  Along the lower ridge of his pectorals sat two long scars, each running from his sternum to just below the pits of his arms, light pink in color and not terribly jagged.  Seeing them up close before the bug woke had been exhilarating in its own right.  Even more so to peer through those covers and catch that special sight that always left him unwittingly licking and suckling at his lips.

Ever the curiosity, it seemed. 

Homelander chooses to remain in Benjamin’s bed while the bug hurtles through his morning routine.  While Ben showers, Homelander rolls and buries his nose in the ruffled sheets.  The warmth of them is… different.  He’s done this before, tons of times actually.  He’d plopped himself into Ben’s bed back at the bug’s old apartment and relaxed before heading back to the hustle and bustle of the tower, but basking in it?   Inhaling Ben’s fresh scent, committing it to memory, the lingering heat making it seem like the bug was right there–

He almost hates himself for feeding this fixation.

Almost.

Their first stop for the day is the set of Homelander’s current movie: Homelander Origins.   Just an ordinary introduction to the entertainment industry, right?

“Oh Jesus– oh fuck!!” 

Homelander has him by the arms, dangling him thousands of feet in the air, flying at a mach whatever-the-fuck.  Ben’s body streamlines horizontally, almost perfectly parallel to Homelander’s as they zip through the clouds.  The bug’s stomach is practically in his throat and he’d long since threatened to barf in his mask only to be told that such an occurrence was a personal problem.  Turns out, Benjamin hadn’t totally conquered his fear of heights.  Diving off the Empire State Building was one thing, but this? This was a whole ‘nother ball game– practically a form of fucking torture.

Only after he stops wailing like a big baby on his first roller coaster ride does Benjamin wonder how big the shit-eating grin on Homelander’s face must be.  He must be thrilled to be instilling such terror in the bug after being held up due to Ben’s inability to wake up on time.

Benjamin spends the bulk of the flight staring up at Homelander, finding, as predicted, a satisfied smile splitting his features from ear to ear.  Every so often he looks down and winks, blue eyes twinkling with excited mischief.

“Well, you know what they say.”  Homelander chirps as they begin their descent– slower, thankfully.  “First time flying is always the hardest.”

The bug all but kisses the ground.  “Concrete!  Oh, beautiful, beautiful concrete!”  

He can practically hear Homelander’s eyes roll.

Once the theatrics are wrapped up and Benjamin’s stomach ceases its acrobatics, the two make their way inside of the studio hangar. In truth, Ben never thought he’d be setting foot in a Vought set– ever, actually.  It’s intimidating.

Which, of course, turns him into a bit of a lost puppy.  He stays practically glued to Homelander’s heels, even when it’s time for the makeup chair.

The bug watches with fascination as Homelander gets his on-screen face applied and his windswept hair fixed up.  The makeup artist doesn’t look overly thrilled to be working on him, but his captain barely seems to care.  In fact, he keeps his eyes shut, almost as if he refuses to look in the mirror at himself.  It was only when he would gaze in Ben’s direction to say anything that he bothered opening them at all.

The next half hour is spent rehearsing his lines, and Ben is far from a stellar actor.  Homelander complains more than half of the time that the bug’s line delivery is subpar, that there was no way for him to get his head in the right space because of his pathetically unconvincing delivery, that there was a snowball’s chance in hell that the bug could ever actually swing his own movies– any number of jabs.

Ben simply laughs it off.  “You plucked me off the streets, y’know.”

“And?  What, you can’t read lines like a normal person?”

“Apparently not, Mister Shakespeare.” Ben giggles.  He’s got his mask off while they’re alone in the dressing room, which somehow feels less vulnerable than usual.  Perhaps knowing that Homelander’s been looking through it the whole time has desensitized the bug to the idea of it, or maybe it was the fact that he’s been literally face to face with him so many times now whether by having it yanked off his head or just simply not having it on to begin with.

Homelander just shakes his head, drops his script on the table, and motions for Ben to follow.

Watching him perform his scenes is a whole different kind of beast.  All that talk about being in the right headspace seemed like just a load of hot air.

Homelander is flawless.  Line delivery perfect, body language spot on, expressions perfectly emotive… truly the whole package of an incredibly talented actor.  Ben watches, almost totally mystified until the director’s insistence to have multiple takes of the same scenes gets boring enough to warrant fiddling with his phone instead.

Beyond his own antics, the only other thing left to entertain him was Homelander’s half-hearted little tour guides around the set between breaks.  So you know what to expect when it’s your turn, bug boy, he’d said.  Homelander’s oddly patient throughout, showing little if any irritation when Ben asks objectively stupid questions or wants to swing by the snack table.  Though he does give some commentary.

“Careful,” he chides.  “You do wear a spandex suit.”

“Mhm,” Ben hums in return, chewing on sliced bell pepper.  “It’s vegetables, dude.”  But that’s exactly the kind of shallow commentary the bug had figured he’d be walking into after joining.  Hell, Vought tried to stick him with a meal plan for exactly the same thing Homelander just said.  High protein, low sugar, low carbs…

Yeah fuckin’ right.

They kick back again for a while in the dressing room to chat.  

“So how’d you even end up joining The Seven anyway?”  He asks, red webbed feet kicked up on the table in front of the couch.  This was overdue.  If Homelander was going to be metaphorically up his ass, breaking into his home, monitoring his performance, showing him the ropes, and whatever else ol' stars and stripes may cook up, then Ben was going to at least try to bond with him.  If he was stuck with the guy for the rest of however-the-fuck-long that contract was, then it only made sense to make the process less painful.

A flicker of… something flashes across Homelander’s face. “Oh, you know… Knew a guy who knew a guy.  Saw me in my little league games, threw me an offer right out of school.”

“Huh,” Ben purses his lips.  “Sounds like a blast.”

“Doesn’t sound like you mean that,” Homelander says.

“Well… You’re not wrong.”

Homelander’s lip twitches and that same little break in composure sweeps his features once more, disappearing just as fast as it came.

“Sorry,” Ben says with a tight lipped smile.  “I just… I dunno, actually.”  He huffs a small laugh.  “Y'did better than me, at least.  I was waiting tables right out of school.  Hey, what was school like for you, anyway?”

A tense moment passes, though Homelander’s irate energy seems to dim.

“Why do you care?”  Not a question terribly like him, being Mister Center-of-The-Universe and all.  He’s never asked anything like that before when Ben has inquired about him– granted that’s only been a small handful of times, but... "I'm not here to play fucking Twenty Questions with you."

Ah, yeah... Hit a nerve. 

Which means there's far more than what meets the eye to that picture-perfect story Vought's flung around on every screen and print medium that'd run it.

“I just–” think, Ben.  Think.  He worries his lower lip between his teeth for a second, anxiety bubbling.  If he lies, Homelander will know.  He’d already seen that super power earlier with an assistant who lied about why they were late.  Honesty was the best policy… “It’s– I just–”

Homelander arches a brow.

Ben lets loose a heavy sigh, letting as much tension free as possible.

“Everything I can find about you online is like, too pristine.”  Perhaps not the best way to say it, but at least it was mostly the truth.  Online really meant in Vought’s files, but Homelander didn’t need to know that.  At least not yet.  “Everyone else– ‘cept Noir, I guess– has like any number of rough spots in their life, and Vought fuckin’ loves to milk ‘em for sob stories.  I mean, just look at A-Train’s struggle movies.  Half that shit is blown out of proportion.  And I know 'cuz I asked him during my week with him.”  Benjamin leans back against the couch.  "I just... I don't believe the bits they put out about you guys, y'know?  S'just money to them.  So... yeah.  I wanna ask.  Maybe get to know you now that you're my boss and all."

“Is it so bad that I’ve had a perfect life?”  Homelander counters, almost too nonchalantly. That flicker returns, betraying him.

“No, just–”

“Does it make you jealous?”

He’s getting defensive…

“Look, man.  I’m sorry.”  Ben raises his hands, sitting forward.  Best to end it before Homelander gets pissed off. “M’just curious about you is all.”

Homelander stares him down for a moment, blue eyes boring into browns that couldn’t quite hold his gaze for more than a flash.  An all too forced smile cuts into Homelander’s face, though the intensity of his gaze fails to falter.

“No worries, bug boy.”

And, just like that, he’s standing to head out for his next scene.

Huh..?

The flight home was much less horrifying than the first time around.  Perhaps Homelander just lacked the energy to torture Benjamin more, as evidenced by his nearly child-like ‘fucking finally,’ groaned once the director announced the day was over.  

This time around, Homelander lets Ben hang on with his arms wrapped around his neck and one of his own around the bug’s waist. The proximity was a little awkward at first, but Benjamin eventually got used to it.  It’s all still pretty terrifying despite the fact Homelander even flies slower.

Benjamin embeds the setae of his fingerpads into Homelander’s suit just to be safe.

He didn’t bother to wear his mask, either.  Once they were in the air, there was no point.  Who would see them?  What phone camera could possibly catch them at such a height?  Besides, the cool air helps too.  Ben’s exhausted in his own right, and the battering of wind against his head helps keep him from dozing off, though he does eventually find it in himself to nuzzle his face against Homelander’s neck to spare his face from the whipping wind, although he does so quite timidly.

It’s odd all around.  Trusting the man who threatened to murk his parents to not drop him.  Burying his face in the neck of the man who stalked him for weeks on end.  Finding it… not totally awful?

Yeah, maybe that was the worst part.  If that somehow meant Homelander was growing on him, well...

Ben always was bad at keeping his nose out of trouble.  And right now, it is very much buried in trouble- literally and figuratively.

Homelander has to shuffle him away from the creeping tendrils of sleep threatening to overtake him.

“Huh…?  Oh.”

Home.

At least, as much of a home as it can be.  They’re hovering outside the exterior access panel to Ben’s tower apartment.  Homelander even brought him close to the wall…

“Thanks, I…” Ben turns his head to yawn, giving a few slow blinks.  “Mm…”

“Get in there before you fall asleep on the wall,” Homelander orders.  The smile is all too obvious in his tone even if Benjamin doesn't quite catch it in time.

The bug gives a weak laugh huffed through his nose.  “Right, right.  G’night, Homie…”  He doesn’t turn around to see if that half-cocked nickname won him a look of confusion, a smile, or potentially even ire.

Benjamin doesn't even bother trying to snack on something before bed.  He simply shuffles to his room, peeling the suit away with every step and kicking it to the floor before flopping into bed and burrowing under his blankets.  He stares at the other side for a while, finding sleep elusive despite how beat he is.

“Can’t believe he got in my bed,” Ben thinks aloud.  He runs a hand over the top of the covers where Homelander would’ve laid.  

Wonder what shenanigans he has planned for tomorrow…

[oneatlatime]

The Library

Ground hog pipe organ. That's really quite twee.

Since when is Sokka concerned about the time crunch? Although he's right about the whole 'no plan' thing.

Katara is such a little sister sometimes.

Is an ice spring a thing? I feel like we wouldn't have invented refrigeration if ice springs were possible. What a cool idea though.

Dentists aren't a thing in the avatar universe.

Does sword guy sterilise those swords between drinks? How clean are the insides of the sheaths? Why is someone so overqualified working as a blender? How boring is this town that master swordsmen resort to being Magic Bullets to pass the time?

Has it ever occurred to Aang to try to maintain a little mystery around his identity? At the start of the first season, people's first thoughts when seeing an airbender were probably "wow! the fire nation missed one!" but by now it has to be well known that the airbender ping ponging around the earth kingdom is THE avatar. It's not like he didn't have other options. He could have waterbended the smoothie away. He could have asked Katara to waterbend the smoothie away. If I were feeling angsty, I'd say that a child of peacetime just doesn't have it in him to be sufficiently suspicious/cynical to feel the need to disguise himself. But I'm not feeling angsty, so I'm gonna say that Aang had a moment of dumb. Understandable, given he's twelve.

Nevermind! Aang accurately assessed how little he needed to hide himself because this professor is a dumb too!

Cool it with the phrenology.

Finding lost civilisations all over the earth kingdom is apparently a worthless accomplishment. You know, I don't like this guy.

Clam lamp. Coconut lamp?

That fox joke did not land.

This is the Taj Mahal.

Toph's still on probation. Gotta work six months* before you get the benefits package! * or until the world ends with the comet, whichever comes first.

Sokka wants to vacation in a library. I love how unrepentantly nerdy he can be.

Hey. Professor idiot. Wanna find your unfindable library? Go recruit Zuko. That kid finds so well it gives me flashbacks to Hufflepuff jokes.

Not sure what this implies re: the sapience of sandbenders.

The sandbenders have to have learned that move from airbenders. Also isn't that really inefficient? Rotational force goes 360 degrees but they only want force in a single direction. They should have modeled their sandbending on waterbending instead and created a giant wave behind their sleds for them to surf along.

That chin needs scritches.

I hope they're bringing lots of water rations with them. How much water do you thing Appa needs in a day?

Would Sokka, who lives at the South Pole, know what a fox is?

Everyone keeps forgetting stuff this episode. Library is buried? You have two earthbenders and two airbenders.

Love the attitude.

This has been bugging me for a few episodes now so I might as well mention it. I know it's an artistic choice, but: having fingernails the same colour as fingers squicks me out.

Sokka's turn with the dumb. Why would you climb up to the library when three of you can fly? Appa can hover. Just walk down his tail to the window.

That's twice now they've forgetten Toph's blindness. I love her attitude towards them forgetting.

Sokka's boomerang is one hell of a multitool. Whatever it's made of, it's indestructible.

"Don't worry buddy. I'm not making you go underground ever again." I hope that's not ironic foreshadowing.

Stuffed head of anthropology might be an improvement.

The vocal effect on this owl is neat.

Dammit. Now stealing from the pirates is justified.

Why do you even have that? Why did you stuff it down your shirt? Just why?

*Heroically refrains from going on a rant about the value of non-written sources, oral tradition, and pejoratively labelled 'folk' knowledge.*

The Ears!!! Those cute little ears. They have no business being so floppy. Appa & Toph, the duo I never knew I needed.

Appa is a very good listener.

LEFTY SHOUTOUT!!!

Sokka has not only forgotten that he's after a map of the fire nation; he's also stolen the declaration of independence.

Two things: First, this is the best boy. Second, Sokka seems to be a cat person.

You think the Fire Nation, a Nation that knew enough astronomy to correctly predict, plan for, and harness the power of a comet to complete a very successful genocide, doesn't know there's an eclipse coming up and has planned accordingly? Like come on. They named the comet after their Firelord. They obviously know how astronomy works. It would take literally one eclipse, depriving them of their bending once, for the whole nation to become suddenly very invested in predicting the movements of celestial bodies. They know this. I promise you they have safeguards in place. Pick a less obvious time to attack.

So is the owl gullible as all hell or did he let them in to give them enough rope to hang themselves?

Badass line about justifying war. Although equating protecting the people you love with hoarding library books does not hold water.

This owl has far too much neck.

HOW strong is Toph?

This owl sure is destroying a lot of his books.

Sokka doesn't know that Toph is holding up the library right? And there's no way for him to know how quickly/slowly the library is sinking. So this date checking montage makes no sense. Maybe he will find out the date, but if he's sealed underground then it doesn't matter that he learned it.

Do not like.

Very much DO NOT LIKE.

Did they just kidnap Appa?

Should have told him to yip yip. Does Toph know Yip yip?

I am a big fan of Sokka style. Although I'm glad this show aired a decade before Gangnam Style came out, otherwise the memes would have been insufferable.

The owl is going to eat you as soon as it wakes up. Did you see a cafeteria? A water source? Even if you hide from the owl you'll be dead in a week.

Massive points to Toph for holding that up as everyone inside was delaying for stupid reasons.

No.

No you have to give me back Appa before the episode ends. That's the rules.

Final Thoughts

Unacceptable.

This episode felt contrived, everyone involved except maybe Toph had some epic moments of dumb, and to top it all off they stole Appa. I am not amused.

There was lots of setup and little story here. At least that's what it felt like. There were some fairly lame lines that came off as ham-fisted exposition. The ground hog choir was about the only funny bit. Maybe it's the utterly unacceptable ending bleeding backwards and staining the rest of the episode, but I did not like this one. It honestly would have benefited from a Zuko b-plot, and I do not say that lightly.

[helaelaemond]

It's All For You - Billy Washington x reader

Pairing: Billy Washington x female reader

Word count: 2.9k

Fic summary: Your relationship with Billy over the years has its ups and downs. The ups are great, and the downs almost destroy you. But through the years, you learn that it's him. It's always him. It always will be him, no matter how much it hurts. Multi chapter.

Chapter summary: You and Billy have been friends throughout your school lives. It's now the summer ball closing your time at sixth form together, and you're both desperately hoping that the other will be brave enough to cross the line between friends and... friendlier.

Content warning(s): alcohol, smoking

Rating: Teen

Tag list: @sylas-the-grim / @myfandomprompts / @arcielee / @babyblue711

Masterlist

Chapter 1: Everything I Do

"Oi, Billy, get over here!"

Billy grins as he joins the group of friends all posing for a photo, and with a plastic cup of beer in his hand, he leans close. Half of the group is already tipsy, and as everyone crowds close, some of the girls lose their balance on their strappy heels. One, a friend he's known since they were six, grabs onto his arm to stop from falling over and his drink is knocked from his hands.

"'ey, you alright?" he asks with a laugh. The phone clicks away, capturing blurry moments of teenage joy.

"Oh, my god!" she cackles, and the other girls help him to stop her from toppling over.

On the other side of the group, you glance over in amusement. He catches your eye for a moment, and you both blush.

The music blasts out of the hired speakers in the huge marquee the school has hired out for the event on the school field. The summer ball - nothing more than a low-budget prom for those leaving sixth form - has already been going on for a few hours, and the evening is finally beginning to cool. You need a bit of a break, though, and make your way over to the bar.

"Two bottles of water, please." You took three shots at pre's, and at afters you'll probably have a good few more, but for now you just need something to help the headache.

"I'll get these."

You look up at the familiar voice, and your smile returns. "One of these was for you, actually." You hand one of the bottles to Billy.

"Oh, thanks." He takes it, and your fingers brush together for a moment. He drops his chin and looks down, biting his lip as if he's trying to stop his smile, and then he glances back at you. "Good timing then, eh?"

"Yeah." You take a long chug of water, and he does the same. "You look nice this evening, by the way."

"Yeah?" He fiddles with the knot of his tie. "Mum thinks I scrub up nice."

"Your mum's always right." You've known Billy since you started at the same secondary when you were 11. You've been in the same social circle since you were 15, and Mrs Washington is one of the parents in the regular taxi rotation. It makes you hopeful, knowing that she likes you a lot. Boys care what their parents think, right?

He laughs quietly. "Yeah, she is. You look nice, too."

You want to tease him. If it was anyone else, you'd ask "only nice?" but this is Billy. You can't tease him. Everything is different with him, really. It has been for years. You settle on an uncharacteristically shy "thank you."

He looks at you for a moment too long. It makes your heart leap. It gives you hope that has been your constant companion for years. He hasn't given you more than hope, though.

"You're still going to Tom's afters, right?" he asks.

You nod. "Yeah. I think all of the usuals are. Are you?"

Billy smiles. "D'you want me to?"

It makes your stomach flip. It's the bravest, most suggestive thing you think he's ever said to you. You shrug, but grin, blushing. "You're one of the usuals, aren't you?"

"I guess so."

"Then yeah, I do want you to. Who knows when we'll all be together again after this?"

He chuckles. "Aw, don't say that. We'll always be mates."

You don't know about that. But you can't bear to disagree, not when he looks so happy.

You nip home to quickly get out of your formal dress, and you scrub your face clean of the party makeup you had so carefully applied hours earlier at your friend's flat. You peel off the lashes your friend had struggled to put on, and brush through your hair that another friend had pinned. Thinking of them now, your heart swells. They had teased you as you all got ready, asking if you'd make a move on Billy at last.

"Oh, c'mon, everyone knows he likes you!" Sofia said as she carefully carved out an eyebrow with concealer. "I don't know that!" you protested. Devi gripped your chin. "Stop moving! I can't get this lash right." "Sorry! Sorry, keep going." "He's totally in love with you, though. It's so obvious." "Then why hasn't he done anything about it?" you whined. "Because he's a tall, lanky, beanpole of a boy who doesn't know the first thing about talking to girls." Your eye began watering as Devi poked it with the misplaced lash. "He talks to you lot just fine." "Well, yeah," another friend, Abbie, interjected from where she was sat cross-legged in front of the mirror. "We're just his mates. We're not girls to him." "You're teasing me." You laughed dryly. Devi pulled your ear to force you to look at her, and you yelped in pain. She grinned. "We're not fucking teasing you. Why would we lie about this? You think we want to set you up for failure?" Sofia crawled behind you and began brushing your hair. It was funny seeing her with one perfect brow, and one practically bald. "Billy likes you. He's probably in love with you, but nothing is gonna happen unless you make the move first." You sighed and looked down at your hands. Mum had taken you out to get your nails done, and the long acrylics shone in the light of Abbie's bedroom. "What if I make a move, and he rejects me?" Devi replied first. "We'll pin him down and shave his head." "We'll pin him down and cut off his balls," Abbie offered. You couldn't help but laugh at that. "Wow. What an offer." You paused for a moment while Devi finally set the lash in place on your eye. You looked in the mirror at your reflection and saw a pretty girl stare back. It made you reach for a shot of London Dry - tasted like paint stripper, but the cheapest Tesco could offer - and you winced. "You really think I have a chance with him?" Devi rolled her eyes, but Sofia squeezed your shoulders. "Absolutely. Trust us. You just need to go for it." "This 'will they, won't they' has been going on since GCSEs," Abbie added as she wrapped a thick strand of hair around her curler. "Tonight's your last chance." "Well," you replied, blinking. "I guess if I reject him, I never have to see him again." Devi nodded confidently. "That's the spirit."

Dad took you to Tom's - it's only a twenty-minute bus ride away, but he had insisted. It helps, though, as you've got a small overnight bag with a few bottles of booze that you don't feel like worrying about on public transport. Both your parents are fine that you're going to an afters with drinking - they know your friends, and they trust you all to be sensible. Besides, it's better to do that kind of thing in a safe environment, rather than getting pissed in a park, or something.

The car ride seems to last forever, but eventually you get there. Billy is arriving at the same time. Your heart leaps.

"Hiya, mate," Dad says when Billy approaches the car as you get out.

"Evening, sir," he replies politely.

"How many times have I said? You can call me-"

"Thanks, Dad," you interrupt with a laugh.

"Yeah, alright, alright," he chuckles. "Here, Bill, you'll look after my girl tonight, yeah? Make sure she doesn't get into trouble?"

"Course I will," Billy replies with a smile. "Don't need to worry about her. Besides, there's only a handful of us, nothing wild."

"Glad to hear it. You want a lift home in the morning?"

"No, thanks, Lana's coming to get me."

"Alright. Best to my parents, yeah?"

He nods and smiles. "Yeah. Have a good one, sir."

Before Dad can reply, you close the car door and turn to Tom's house. You link your arm through Billy's before he can talk to your dad more, and you ring the doorbell.

"Hi," he says quietly.

You glance up at him. God, he's so tall. It makes you blush again. "Hi."

He's dressed similarly to you now; out of the evening finery, he's changed his suit for jeans and a soft, black tshirt. You wear something similar for this, although you've made sure to replace your heavy party make up with something lighter that still makes your eyes pop. At least, that's the effect you're hoping for.

"You look nice," he tells you, just like he did at prom.

You laugh quietly. "I'm not looking anything special."

He doesn't respond. Instead, he looks down. You almost say something else, but then Tom opens the door and cheers you in welcome. He brings Billy in for a hug, and then you, and you kiss him on the cheek. Reaching into your bag, you produce the two bottles of vodka, and he cheers again.

"I bloody love you, d'you know that?" Tom tells you with a loud laugh. He kisses your forehead and then drags you into the kitchen, where everyone else is. Both you and Billy are welcomed by the friends you saw an hour ago in cocktail dresses and ill-fitting suits, and most of them are already getting their units in. Everyone is relaxed, and everyone is happy.

Billy sits alone in the front room, wringing his hands. It's the early hours of the morning, and the loud music has been traded for something quieter. A few people are in the garden, using the barbecue pit inappropriately, and a few people are getting off in the bedrooms upstairs.

He's spent the night trying to get enough liquid courage to approach you. It's worked now and again, to a certain degree. He's played against you in a messy game of beer pong, and he's stood next to you and taken a hit from the single blunt being passed around. When he put his lips around it after you, he felt giddy knowing that it had just been against your mouth. If he closed his eyes, it almost felt like a kiss.

Time is slipping through his fingers. He's about to get up from the sofa when the door opens, and there you are. There are butterflies in his stomach. God, you look so pretty. You looked pretty at prom, with fancy hair and a special dress and long lashes that hooded your eyes, but now... now you're just... you. You're perfect. Just as you are.

"Hey," he says quietly. His voice cracks.

You smile. "Hey. Want some company?"

He nods, and leans back on the sofa in a charade of comfortability. Still, his knee is bouncing nervously. He takes a long sip of Stella from the can. "Having a nice night?"

"Yeah. People are starting to go to sleep, though, I think. Thought I'd see if I could bag a sofa."

"Oh, yeah, sure." He moves to get up. "Have this one."

"No, you don't have to go, Billy." You smile up at him and grab his wrist. It makes the breath catch in his throat. "Stay. Please?"

He looks down at you through the dim light of the living room. There are no lights on, but outside, the street light filters through the privacy nets. It sends an unnatural orange across the room. His heart is in his throat. You look so perfect here. He obeys you, and sits back down.

"Where's Tom?" he asks quietly after a moment, struggling to catch a topic to fix on. But he wants to talk to you about anything at all.

You laugh quietly. "Shagging Sofia's brains out, I think."

"Oh." Billy's cheeks flush. Even hearing you mention sex sends bolts of heat through him. God, do you know what sex is? Do you want sex? Do you wanna have sex with him? God, what does your skin feel like? Fuck, he-

"I wonder if they'll make it official for the summer," you muse. You don't notice how he shifts slightly where he sits.

"I dunno. She's going up north for uni, right?"

You nod. "Sheffield Hallam. But there's trains to Sheffield, so..."

He nods. "Tickets are mental, though. Not sure he could afford them regularly on an apprentice wage." He looks up at you. "You glad you're not going to uni?"

You nod and smile and lean your head against the back of the sofa. "Yeah. Maybe I'll go when I'm a proper grown up," and you put air quotes around the phrase, making him laugh, "but for now I just wanna get a job and see how it goes."

He mirrors you. "Me too."

"I'm gonna stay at the cafe until after the summer, though."

"Yeah?"

You turn to face him a bit more, pulling one knee up on the sofa. He swallows and bites his lip. "Yeah. I don't wanna work too hard just yet. I want one last summer of fun."

Billy smiles slightly, wondering if the yellow light hides his blush. "Me too. We're only young once, right?"

You nod, and a comfortable silence falls between you. He watches as you trace a pattern on your knee. You can feel his gaze on you, and after a while, you look up. His pretty, blue eyes lock with yours. Both of you stop breathing for a moment.

It feels like a spell is put over you. If either of you speak, or move, perhaps it will be broken. So you just look at one another. It makes your heart race. It gives him butterflies in his stomach. Seconds pass. Heat pricks his skin.

He finds courage that has evaded him his whole life. He breathes your name. The spell remains heavy between you. "I... I don't know how to say it."

Your voice is a whisper. "Say what?"

"I..."

You shift on the soft sofa and lean a little closer to him. You're both sat fully facing each other now, and you rest your hand in front of his on the cool leather. "Billy..."

He swallows thickly. "I want... to spend the summer with you."

You blink. You're not sure what he means. But there is something vulnerable in his eyes that you don't often see. "Yeah. I mean, we're mates, we'll see each other."

"Not as... not as mates."

Between you, he stretches his fingers slightly, and suddenly your fingertips are touching his. Nothing else exists.

All you feel is where your skin meets his.

All you see are his eyes. His mouth.

He whispers your name again. "I... you know how I feel. Don't you?"

"I don't know," you breathe unsteadily.

His thumb runs up the side of your finger, and the intensity of the feeling makes your eyes close. "I... I like you. Like, really like you."

This feels too good to be true. "As a friend?"

"No." When you don't pull your hand away, he finds the strength to weave his fingers through yours. God, you feel so small in his hand. He wants to hold you, to protect you, to make you feel so good. "As more than friends."

"Billy."

The way you lean forward without realising makes him want to cry with relief, with want. He's never kissed anyone before. He's never wanted to kiss anyone but you.

With his free hand, he gently touches your cheek with his knuckles, and his touch glides along your jaw. A very soft noise of delight escapes him when his fingers glide over your hair. And then he leans forward, and he kisses you.

In the morning, you wake up to the sound of people rattling around the kitchen. It sounds like a clean up from last night. That's the tradition - if someone hosts, everyone else has to help clean up the next morning, no matter how bad the hangovers are.

It takes a moment for you to remember where you are. You're on the sofa with someone between you and the back of it. Looking down, you see very familiar hands around you. Billy is pressed tight behind you, and his arms are strong. You press against him slightly, and when he makes a noise of acknowledgement on the skin of your neck, you shiver.

"Billy," you whisper. He murmurs your name in response. You turn over in his arms and press your forehead against his. This tightly wrapped against him, your nose bumps against his. "Did you mean what you said last night?"

He nods, still half asleep. You're still a bit foggy from it, too. Luckily, you don't get hangovers, so at least there's no pain. "I want you," he whispers hoarsely.

You kiss his cheek, and it sends sparks through your whole body. "I want you, too."

Relief like no other you've ever felt washes over you. You pull yourself from his arms and stand up. When he buries his face into the cushions, you laugh and tug his hand. "C'mon, Billy. It's time for clean up."

With a groan, he drags himself up off the sofa, and stands up with stooped shoulders. Your eyes close when he touches his forehead against yours again. You feel sweaty and unclean, but it's such a sweet moment that it's easy to push aside. For a moment at least. Billy tries to kiss you, and you pull away with a laugh.

"Clean up first," you tell him.

Again, he groans, but he is smiling. "And then?"

"And then we have the summer of our lives."

[atalossofwords]

PACIFIC RIM AU - Vere/Ais/Leander

I started this for fun yesterday, and it is most certainly OOC, but I felt the need to share before I lost interest. Feel free to DM to chatter about the three of them! I have a major case of brainrot.

There is some slight NSFW at the end!

This was either shaping up to be the best idea the program ever had, or a trainwreck of imaginable proportions.

"It'll be a mess." Ais said, crossing his arms as they leaned back to watch the recruits enter the gym. Leander couldn't help but look, eyes admiring the view of muscle flexing and tattoos peeking behind short sleeves.

"Oh, c'mon. You don't know that." He said, puppy eyes in full effect. Ais didn't have to say anything to transmit his incredulity at Leander's optimist, the ghost drift between them still high after just ten hours out of the Jaeger. "It could work out!"

Ais raised an eyebrow, gesturing between the both of them, and then to where Kuras and Mhin were huddled together. Leander had to give it to him, this time. "Okay, maybe not with us, but there's more Rangers here."

The thing was, Leander was more excited for the idea of it working, for the US to have their own three-person Jaeger, than for the reality of it. Leander and Ais had been piloting for two years, fucking for one, dating for closer to six months; he couldn't see adding a third into their mess.

Kuras and Mhin had been piloting together for hell knows how long, and Leander still couldn't figure out just what they were, to each other, besides codependent.

There were other Rangers, of course, but none stationed permanently at the LA Shatterdome like them, and yeah, they were training new recruits to look for three-way compatible Rangers, but it would cut a lot of corners if they could just slot a third into an already established pair.

Besides them, one of the rotating Rangers snorted.

"As if. The well-trained recruits all went to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Anchorage. This is the bottom of the list." He scoffed, gesturing at the folder he was holding; Leander and Ais traded a glance, the same thought on their head. Who even uses paper folders nowadays? "There's even a fucking prostitute on this list!"

Leander shrugged, not arguing that. He himself came from a well-off family, and having enough money to enrol on the program was a given. Plus the status certainly helped his father, even if they didn't talk anymore. Ais didn't talk much about it, but he was from a military family; he was basically raised on the program.

Of course, breeding didn't mean shit in the face of screaming Kaiju, but with each Jaeger built, being a Ranger was less about protecting the world and more about prestige and fame.

"Excuse me, but I rather prefer self-employed." Someone said, near the recruits. Leander looked over, ready to see some pissed-off girl ready to defend the candidate he was talking about or something, pumped up to make fun of the older Ranger a little. A recruit who would talk back to a Ranger was someone Leander could put up with long enough for a spar, at least.

He could feel his jaw go slack the moment he caught sight of who it was; not a girl ready to defend someone else, as he expected, but most probably the prostitute in question. There was no other reason for someone that pretty to be in the Shatterdome.

Beautifully tanned skin, a lean body which somehow looks incredible on the standard-issued training clothes. High cheekbones, a sharp smile with lips Leander could obsess over for hours, a heavy-lidded gaze made even more sharp by the pink-ish colour of the eyes, red hair half tied back up away from his face.

He sauntered over, and Leander had the wild impression he ought to have a tail, swaying in time with the man's steps.

"But, of course, I'm not expecting someone like you to spend much time with a sex worker. Let me guess..." He hummed, tapping a well-manicured finger on his chin, the other hand on a cocked hip. "Three minutes? Two? Not much more than that, certainly."

Leander could see the older Ranger puff up, ready to start a yelling match. His partner, a serious-looking woman, did not seem inclined to intervene. Leander could bet she held the same distaste for the recruit's profession.

Ais, on his side, whistled low. They traded a glance, grinning at each other. They'd pay to see the recruit beat up that asshole.

Seemed like command had something similar in mind, because just as the guy had started to shout and the recruit was looking about two seconds from actually biting the Ranger's throat out, one of the officials stepped in, telling them that if they were going to fight it out, might as well test for compatibility while they were at it.

Kuras and Mhin drifted closer, and Ais grinned at the other Rangers.

"I give it two minutes." He said, tilting his head at where the recruit was tying all his hair back in a bun. The range is trading some words with his partner, too low for them to hear.

"Hm. Too long." Is Kura's opinion, which makes both Ais and Leander do a double-take. The older Ranger shrugs. "He called Mhin a freak more than once." This would explain why the tiny Ranger is hiding in Kuras' shadow, and Leander scowls. Mhin may be reserved, but that's no reason to badmouth them.

They all watch as one official introduces the two fighters, Senior Ranger Trevor, partner to Ranger Kodak, and recruit Vere Antares. He makes them bow to each other, and hastily step back.

(Leander makes a note of the name, Vere. Shouldn't be too hard to track him down, with his contacts. If the tests go wrong, and Vere truly does sex work, Leander and Ais can surely pay him a visit.)

It's clear, two blows in, that they are very definitely not Drift-compatible. Leander can recall, with a shiver down his spine, how his first fight with Ais went; eyes locking together, blocking before the other even finished their attack, more a dance than a match. Vere and Trevor fight like the goal is to hurt, like they're waiting for the opportunity to cause real damage.

Leander is actually surprised; even without compatibility, Rangers are skilled fighters. They have to be, to pilot a Jaeger. Vere is holding his own very well, for a supposed civilian.

Honestly, watching him, Leander is fascinated. He fights like it's a dance, all graceful twists and nimble advances, using Trevor's weight against him. He ducks below a blow, aims for a knee, retreats quickly when it doesn't connect. It's almost a minute before Vere knocks Trevor's staff away, and like the brute fighter he and his Jaeger are known for, advances for close combat.

It's then that things escalate.

Trevor tries for a grab, Vere ducks, aims a kick, gets his leg tugged closer, and throws his head back, out of the way of a punch. From there it loses all grace and technique, both men throwing punches and pulling hair like a couple of drunk uni students, mean enough that Kuras has to intervene and drag Vere away to the infirmary.

The rest of the session is quite boring, to be honest. The recruits run against Trevor and his partner, no-one doing more than a minute. Kuras is still on the infirmary, so the official present runs them all against Mhin instead, and they are all free to go, with plans to run them all through Kuras, Leander and Ais tomorrow.

That last look on Vere's face, though, lip bloodied over a snarl as he insulted the Ranger, hair a mess from the tussle... Leander looks over at Ais, and knows immediately they'll be thinking about that tonight.

–

They do better than just think about it. They find Vere's fucking only fans.

In short order they have unlimited access to a wide variety of videos, photos and audio, everything from downright porn to sensual ASMR to some posts linking Vere's SFW youtube content, which seems to be GRWI videos and some vlogs.

Of course, because none of them really has the time to look into it all, Leander ends up getting fucked into their bed with the laptop open on the side table, a video of Vere riding someone else's dick like his life depends on it.

If they were better people, they probably would feel an ounce of shame about doing this to a possible coworker.

Luckily for everyone involved, they're definitely not better people.

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Light on the Darkside - Chapter Seventeen.

Huge thanks as ever to my little audience for your continued support of my story :)

Previous chapters - One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed.

Words - 3,551

Warnings - 18+ throughout. Topics cover depression, suicide and eating disorders. Minors DNI!

“They’re gonna think I’m shagging you in here, you know,” Steve spoke as 4am rolled around, listening to music playing quietly as he and Andrea lay side by side on his bed. 

She shrugged. “Hmm, the absence of sexy sounds might negate that.”  

“Oh, and I’d make you do all of ‘em. The entire fucking orchestra!” 

“Even the clarinet?” 

He threw his head back, laugh booming, that same laugh that had attracted her to him in the first place. “Especially the bloody clarinet!” 

She reached for him, stroking his face, marvelling at how lovely he was. On the inside of the slightly uncouth, very sexually free man lay a person of much greater depth, one whom she shared so many common interests with. God, it had hit her hard, just how much she liked him. It very much went the same for the man himself, too. 

“I meant it though, when I said I’d wait for you to be ready.” It was the tenth time he’d stated that emphatically in the last four hours. “I know I’m a man whore, I know. But with you, I wouldn’t be. Never fucking met a girl like you before, Ands.” 

Blushing, she hid her face behind her hand, laughing softly, sinking deeper into the pillows. “Nope, you ain’t doing that just for me. Not with the absolute flock of bloody women I saw checking you out tonight.” 

“I will, though. Just you see. You can’t have casual sex and nah, I don’t want it to be casual when you finally let me, so there you have it. Gone and got me attached to ya an’ all that.” He paused, leaning in close, nose touching hers. “Ya dickhead.” 

God, the sparkle of her laugh, Andrea poking him in the cheek with her fingernail before leaning to offer a soft kiss. Kissing was fine, just as long as that was all it was. Much to his surprise, he was fine with that, too.  

As he’d sat there talking to her, both becoming hugely excited that the things they were into were shared in passion by the other, his other rotation of women had flitted from his brain one by one. He should have been scared, that at twenty-two and after only knowing her for eleven hours, he was ready to hang up his very much single and ready to mingle status for her solely.  

He wasn’t, though. Not at all.  

Why? He’d found her.  

He didn’t tell her what he’d revealed to James and Ella either, that somehow he knew intrinsically that she was the girl he’d marry one day. He sensed he’d likely scare her off with such a rapid declaration, but he knew. He just knew, something deep within his soul was touched by the magic of hers, giving him a feeling of complete peace unlike any other girl he’d ever been with. And he hadn’t actually been with her yet in the physical sense.  

What was more? It wasn’t scary at all. He’d gone from twenty-two and unwilling to be tied down, to ‘yep, here she is. This one here. This is the girl’ in the space of an evening. He only felt sublimely peaceful about that, too. The fact he didn’t feel scared at all was what sealed it for him.  

“What are you grinning at?” she asked, her hand wandering to stroke the scruff where his short, dark beard flecked his neck. 

Looking down at her, he reached to rub the apple of her freckled cheek with his thumb, his smile widening even more. “You’ll see.” 

“Don’t you be getting any ideas!” 

He chuckled, resting his head down. “Furthest thing from my mind, honey.” And it honestly was. While they continued to cuddle and chat, things were certainly a lot less calm across the other side of the flat, James and Ella still enjoying themselves after a brief nap. 

The pace did not take on anything close to the raging desire that had bubbled up between them after that sleep, though, more a soft adagio, a slowly hummed symphony, James pausing to look down upon her, drinking in the moment, the soft blue of her eyes, his hands stroking her face and neck.  

The divine glide of his lips over her collarbones, those warm kisses tingling upon her skin had Ella feeling heady right from the start. Her hands toured his back, delighting in the play of such hard muscles, his own gliding down her sides as she arched against him, the prickle of his teeth at her nipple jolting her, lips sucking, tongue swirling.  

His mouth lowered, the press of his hands at her waist tightening, the circling of his tongue around her navel evoking a spread of heat to flush through her core. He lowered more, kisses sprinkled just above her pubic mound, gently biting where her neatly trimmed, blonde curls grew, growling, making her giggle. 

She anticipated his toying of her, her body jolting with need against each press of his lips. “Don’t you dare tease me.” She prodded his cheek, James biting her finger, sucking it into his mouth.  

He chuckled deeply. “I’m not.” That gravelly rumble, it made her heart skip several beats. “I’m enjoying you. Now, shut up and let me take my fucking time, innit.”   

Moving back up, he began leaving hot, open-mouthed kisses over her chest and down her sides, keenly watching her skin bounce, goosepimples summoned forth, the faintest of moans slipping from her parted lips. Just that alone had him waging battle against his own resolve, not to give in to the thirsty longing he harboured to wrap his mouth around her cunt and suck.    

He set his teeth against the rise of her hip, a sharp nip shocking her, the swirl of his tongue soothing, his lips gliding to her inner thigh. The scent of her was beyond comprehension to his burning senses, Eden stirred within him.   

He watched her while running his tongue up her thigh, the pleading in her eyes, the soft, lustful quakes of her heavenly body. Kissing his way back down again, he teased her slit with the quickest, briefest of licks, not even delving to the pink splendour within, mouth gliding up her other thigh.    

Heat trickled down her spine at the promise of where his mouth would settle, her pulse rapid, breathing escalated, his hands stroking her legs as his tongue toured the rise of her hip.  

“This is teasing, BFG.” 

He shrugged, moving his long curtain of hair until it splayed over his scratched up back, grinning smugly. “Be patient, little.” 

Pushing her legs further apart with a strong press of his hands, his mouth began to lower, not able to hold himself back. Each kiss from her hip to her pubic mound was placed slowly, agonisingly slow, little flicks of his tongue making her quiver, until he levelled with her sex and finally, took a long, languid lick.    

The noise she made caused his cock to throb, the softest of moans, kissing at her before his hands moved to spread her open, his tongue delving right in, the sensation knocking her sideways. He might have already had his mouth around the petals of her sex multiple times that night, but he was so damned good at it, it was like the first time every time.  

His tongue rolled a slow, firm circle around her bud, eyes opening, watching her as she viewed him, his lips wrapping to suck. The action had sparks crackling through her, the softest of exclamations leaving her mouth as her hips twitched. She felt like she was burning in water and drowning in fire, her head thudding back on the bed as her hands rooted into the silky midnight of his hair.  

His fingers held her spread, tongue circling at her opening, groaning at the taste of her silky arousal, dipping inside her, the heat of her core astounding to his senses. Another long drag from the flat of his tongue had her mewling, her back arching from the bed, heaven surging through her strongly.  

She keened against each lick, her muscles tensing as he began to focus in on her clit again, tongue swirling her little, potent bud, her moans escalating as glimmers shot through her, James chuckling gruffly as he witnessed her spiral. “Does that feel good, babe?”  

“I... oh... fuck!” she tremored. His sexual gifts lay very much with his mouth, as his girlfriend knew well by that point.  

He licked at her keenly, her clit swelling against the wet heat that drove cool fire throughout her, her body buzzing as her breaths escalated, his cheeks hollowing as she hissed out a moan.    

One hand gripped her thigh, the other moving to plunge two fingers inside of her, his response at the viscid clench a sharp bite at her inner thigh. Ella shook, her head spinning with the sheer eroticism of it, of him. His fingers curled and crooked, stroking her deftly, seeking her sweet spot and pressing hard when he found it, evoking a shrill cry.    

Those cries continued with every breath as he began to build her, the lightning bouncing beneath her skin as heat sizzled up her spine, her legs tensing. He worked his tongue against her faster, exorcising her release as she shook uncontrollably, her hands tugging at his hair. The heat of it snapped through her like a summer storm, tumbling through throbbing bliss as she came, left shaking in the wake of it.    

He took his time, returning his mouth to hers, trailing kisses all over her body, Ella still panting hard when his lips finally captured hers again, her hand gliding down his chest, the gentle drag of her fingernails making him shudder. When she closed her grasp around his cock, his chest tightened, groaning low, biting her nipple while she turned him onto his back. Moving astride him, she guided his cock to her, sinking down, her mouth dropping open.   

She was a little sex sore, but god, that did not mean she wanted to cease. He sat up beneath her, arms tightening around her as she slowly began to rock against him, hands flexing upon one another, tongues entwining when his lips returned to hers. 

She was spread wide around him, the aqueous clench of her cunt pulling him in, flexing softly, splitting her until she saw sparks. She hissed as he pushed up a little deeper into her, rutting her fully, moving his mouth to hers. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” he whispered, one hand moving to stroke her cheek as their kisses deepened, both feeling as if they were riding the crest of a sun kissed, sparkling wave. 

His kisses were devouring, the stroking of his hands consuming, his hips rolling in perfect sync with hers, Ella feeling overcome by him, that moment, everything. How could a union so perfect exist? With him, it was beyond euphoria, gilded in nirvana, a rush of unstoppable glimmers.  

The rhythm, the roll, the heat of it, it bordered on almost intolerable. Her nipples were sucked on in turn, James moving to lay her on her back, driving into her hard, his hand clasping her jaw, turning her head to demand more kisses. He stole them from her lips thirstily, tongue swirling with hers, his groans barbarous, making her walls pulse around him, his cock dragging slowly.  

He held back the desire to pound her into the bed, to just enjoy the skitters of slow ebullience, but it slipped from him as he watched her, pulling her legs back against her chest. The sight of her cunt splayed, glistening and hot around the thick of him, those moans… how she had him fixated entirely, in just the way she softly moaned. Those sweet purrs were the catalyst to him speeding up each thrust, watching her mouth fall open, hand gently gripping her throat before feeding her his thumb, watching her suck it.    

“Fuck me harder, please.” she breathed, licking the tip of his thumb, her eyes a blaze of lust and everything that was sin-drenched beauty. Her words shot right to his hips, and he did as she demanded. He fucked her so hard, she screamed, the pleasure of it daggering, her insides crammed so full of his thick cock, every nerve ending alight with sizzling pleasure. 

“Fuck, you look so fucking pretty when you’re getting shagged ragged.” His eyes closed tightly as he felt a wave of utter bliss lap against his spine, rolling through him as he came deep within her, knocked sideways by the force of his orgasm, grinning as he leaned to kiss her.  

She couldn’t answer for wailing, James winking at her through a very satisfied smirk, loving how much she was thriving on it.  

The twitches of his cock took her there, sent her to the edges of euphoria, her nails dragging his chest, the rumble of his groan causing her insides to throb. He slowed a little, kissing her ankle, giving her long, more contained strokes, his thumb moving to begin rubbing pure sparks of pleasure at her clit, Ella completely lost to the rapture of his fuck.   

“James, you’re... still hard?” 

He looked down at his cock and then back at her with a wink. “It happens sometimes, I can come and keep going. Don’t complain, innit.” 

Complain? Oh, no. Never.  

After a few moments of slowness, power and speed drove him wildly once more, her soaking walls flexing around him, his thumb rubbing with more purpose as her flutters became harder on his cock. His eyes never left her as she came again, her body arching off the bed, consumed by a bonfire of pleasure. He slowed to allow her to recover, moving to begin kissing her neck, his hands running through her glossy, blonde tresses, the little quivers of her body against him scintillating beyond words.    

The pleasure kept prickling at her, biting, sharp, his cock daggering her a little quicker again, mouth moving to indulge upon her throat, his teeth leaving red crescents from soft bites, his groan deep. He arrowed her with all-in, all-out thrusts, a slight rotation of his hips making her soar through endless constellations as her still sensitive walls were split wide around him.    

“I think you need to get on your back,” she suggested, James’s eyebrow arching curiously.    

“Nah. I like having you pinned.” She had ammunition for such a notion.  

“Oh, don’t want to watch my tits bounce while I ride you into the bed then, no?” He knew he was being played, but he was willing to let her. Clutching her body to his, he turned over, Ella pushing herself up and sinking down further, the depth of him incredible.    

He expected her to be frenzied as she leaned down to kiss him, her hands touring his chest, squeezing his nipples, her mouth moving to his neck and pecs before she straightened again. Instead, she began by giving him deliciously teasing alternation, riding him rapidly one minute to slow right down the next, delighting in the thick head of his cock dragging her creamy heat slowly. How she fucked him was simply mind-melting, sparks crackling, making his heart thunder, his groans causing her insides pulse with desire.  

He rolled his hips up, rutting her deep, pulling her down to share heated, syrupy kisses as he trawled her cunt, her slick muscles twitching around him as he stroked her breasts, pinching her nipples into stiffened peaks. He’d never fail to feel proud of her, that he was part of the reason why she now loved her body and had confidence in it instead of hating something so beautiful.  

She rode him with a hard grind, her nails stroking his chest as he gripped her hips, loving the view of her atop him. A soft gasp spilled from her throat as he moved his hand, thumb at her clit again, groaning gutturally as she moved against him in the most sexual serpentine he could remember experiencing with a woman. Lord, she was good.    

They both began to climb the ladder leading to nirvana, ascending, glowing, moving determinedly as they chased their releases. Sweat gleamed their bodies, Ella’s voice breaking a howling cry as he propelled himself up into her faster, his fingers at her hip digging in hard as he felt himself towed headlong into bliss.  

He groaned wantonly as his cock twitched, his thumb frantic at her clit, wanting to take her with him into the realms of utter beauty. Nerve endings throbbed until it was upon them both, glimmering rays rising, his sunlight illuminating her horizon as she cried out uncontrollably. Each clench milked the release from his spasming cock, filling her with cum, his growl all gravel, eyes closed, breathless, swimming in ecstasy as she collapsed atop his chest.    

They were asleep within ten minutes, Ella waking up with a sizeable hangover at just gone half past ten the following morning, still on top of her boyfriend beneath the covers. The room was freezing, a very bleary James rubbing his face as he stirred, muttering something about tea as she pulled on fresh knickers and one of her big sweaters, leaning to kiss him.  

“I’ll be back with it in a minute.” 

“Nah, I’ll be with you in a sec. Gonna need a fat joint to smoke. Head is fucking ruined. Ugh. I ain’t getting drunk again.” She could believe he likely meant it, too. It was no mere idle threat from the size of his hangover.  

Leaving the bedroom, she clicked the boiler into life, the November cold very much felt in the flat when the heating went off. Filling the kettle, she looked over to the sofa to see Snedders beneath blankets, his soft snores filling the space, coming round the side of where the counter ended to check on her sleeping guest. 

The airbed was vacant of Andrea.  

Bolting back to the bedroom, she pointed through the doorway, eyes wide as a naked James was pulling himself into his jeans. “We have a situation! A big time situation of the Andrea not being on the airbed type!” 

He closed his eyes with a small groan, his laugh rumbling. “He’s a bad lad.”  

“He’s a fucking man whore!” she cried, moving from the room again just as Steve’s bedroom door opened, the man himself walking out casually, still in last night’s clothes.  

“Alright, Ells,” he chirped, taking two mugs and beginning to decant coffee and sugar into them. “Surprised you can stand up with the fucking nailing Jim was giving you through the small hours.” 

“Innit,” her boyfriend smirked, heaving himself up to sit on counter. 

“Less of my sex life! You’ve been in there with my friend all night!” she charged him with, pointing at him sternly. 

“Yeah, I have. Proper fucking knackered, too.” 

“Steve!” she growled, smacking him between the shoulder blades. 

“Oi, calm it, Greenhall! Ain’t what you’re imagining. We stayed up talking, just talking, until about eight. She’s quality, your mate.” Folding his arms, he then arched an eyebrow. “That’s all we did, ask her yourself.”  

“He isn’t lying, Ella,” Andrea called. “He was the perfect gentleman. Well, as much as he’s capable of being."  

James’s face was a picture of confused. “You’ve had a woman in there all night and you didn’t shag her brains out?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Steve?” 

He laughed, pouring water into the mugs, adding milk to Andrea’s and giving them a quick stir. “See you two later.” With that chirp delivered, he made his way back into his bedroom, something Andrea muttered making him guffaw with laughter. Ella and James could only share perplexed looks.  

“But he's... and she... and...” she stated, gesturing with her hand at Steve’s now closed again bedroom door. 

“I think we’re still asleep, babe, because nah. Ain’t no way he wasn’t bouncing her on his dick for half the fucking night. That’s top grade suspicious behaviour, innit?” James spoke, rubbing a heavily ringed hand down his face with a slight groan. “We got any paracetamol? Fucking need some. My head hurts. Total bullshit, this hangover crap.” 

She was mid-way back from fetching the pack from the bathroom when the phone began to ring, racing to grab it so it didn’t wake Snedders from his slumber. 

“Hello?” 

“Ella, it’s Carole. Is my son there?” 

Her stomach dropped instantly, walking with the cordless phone and handing it over to James. “It’s your mum.” 

Taking it from her, he had two simple words. “Fuck off.” Clicking the button, he placed it down, shaking his head. “She needs to understand I’m done with her shit.” 

Ella could hardly blame him for that, returning the phone to the base unit, seeing it begin to ring again. “If it ends in two one two eight, it’s her again.” James called to her, Ella checking the display to see that it did, cancelling the call.  

Carole tried another four times that day, being hung up on every single time. Those calls continued to persist over the next week, every time the same. From James’s standpoint, he was truly done with her nonsense. His mother, though, was nothing but a very adamant woman. 

[smol-nevi]

You know...I took the entire last raid tier off from FFXIV. I was so burnt out. I couldn't even look at it. I got to such a peak with what I was doing on an individual level that I've got an orange aDPS parse in P5S (that's the one that's just your damage and your own buffs, mostly good for tracking rotation improvements). For the more common rDPS metric I had straight purples. That was without any parse runs and a not-hardcore group. I literally could not get a better parse under those circumstances and I kept beating my head on trying anyway until I wasn't even tolerable to be around.

I'm actually excited about Dawntrail? I'm cleaning out my inventory a bit (major feat, I've been playing since ARR and I have five retainers). I did something like three runs of Delubrum Reginae last night with my partner because they want to finish a relic and I just love Bozja that much.

I'm so tempted to spend some time in Eureka farming bunny boxes alone while everyone else is leveling and doing Dawntrail...

It feels nice to be able to be back. I'm not sure if I want to raid yet or not, but I'll play it by ear (aka if someone I know needs a dancer/ranged phys, I'm in, lol). Whatever the case though at least I know I proved whatever I thought I needed to with my numbers, and I'm a lot better at spotting burnout in myself and others now.

See, the difference between burnout and no burnout is that I couldn't even remember what I used to do for fun outside raiding, and it didn't sound fun if I did remember. Then I quit, slept for a while, eventually got my shit back together, and suddenly horked up an entire novel—of fanfic, but that counts—within 4 months, and then another in another 4 months. (Tellingly, both of them plus the third one I'm working on are about a lot of things, but they're all heavily about the devastating mental effects of burnout.) Now I'm like, do I even want to raid, if I could be doing all this other cool stuff? And yeah, kind of. My FC and our friends had a huge photoshoot to say goodbye to Endwalker and it reminded me of what's good about raiding: shooting the shit, laughing when things explode, being social around people on a schedule. I got way too focused on the math and not the people.

Slightly in my defense, it is hard to keep your head up when you run the same content for that many months. We cleared P4S week 31 and P8S week 34, if I'm remembering right. But also, absolutely not in my defense, until I intentionally took a short break during the P8S slog I had missed one single raid day since the second tier of Eden, and that was only because I'd had top surgery the literal day before and couldn't hold the controller yet for long enough without it seriously hurting. By the next raid night I was already back in it. I've never had perfect attendance in anything so that was a very hard record to let go of. What I needed was to let it the fuck go about six months before I actually did.

Anyway I'm literally just rambling because that's what I do, but I'm excited to be back. I think I'll level pictomancer because yeah, everyone is, but that's fun too. Bandwagons can be good or people wouldn't get on them. Dancer has been my main since Shadowbringers dropped and one of my favorite memories is still spending hours rolling over the Gyr Abanian maps with a bunch of half-dancer, half-gunbreaker fate trains like a steamroller covered in blenders and bayonets, laughing with strangers. I'm hoping pictomancer and viper will be that way too. It was good shit and I'm looking forward to it. I'll have a slightly late start because I've got a friend visiting through Friday, but that's fine. The point is friends anyway, and I need to remember that this time.

[autistic-autumn]

Does this count as music for the exchange? https://youtu.be/VHrUfj6s2R0

okay now I'm no longer either drunk or hungover I can finally get to this.

I think you might however be forgetting I do a lot of contemporary music and microtones and additive time signatures don't scare me. I can also tell this is a really dodgy musescore rendering as all the percussion has odd amounts of reverb and I'm 90% sure that bass flute is just the regular flute soundfont. I couldn't tell you if it was musescore 3 or 4 though. I can also look at the score and spot about 100 errors because it hasn't been nicely typed but if I was to go into every one of them this post would be about 2000 words long. Dynamics and articulation are a bit shoddy though, particularly for woodwind, and the sheer number of percussion staves is quite ambitious.

That being said 11/8 is a lot of fun and there are a lot of fun ways you can do it. This is the standard cut the last beat out of the bar technique that leaves you with 3+3+3+2/8 (or more of a 6/8 + 6/8 depending). The microtones don't particularly stand out to me but they are a nice coloristic effect. The fact the microtones are used only on certain notes makes me think it's more tuning system thing. That being said the notes that are detuned are interesting as they appear to the the 3rds of chords but not exactly the direction I would expect them for a tuning system such as just intonation.

Now I haven't' checked the entire score but here is an example:

What is notable here is that this is a Am7/E that moves to a Dadd11. The piece isn't in G major, but the effect remains the same. Normally however minor thirds are tuned about 16 cents flat, so if you want to make it line up perfectly with the harmonic series you would want it to be slightly sharp. Here's it's a quartertone flat which is a very neat effect. The same thing happens with a number if F quarter sharps. It still mostly sounds like an alternate tuning system or something similar but in such a way that isn't causing a huge layer of dissonance.

Now I know the music exchange is only meant to be one but this did get my classical musician senses tingling so you can get multiple with a brief analysis of the piece after. I've tried to find stuff that do interesting this with dissonance, microtones and rhythm specifically.

First one here is Béla Bartók - Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm No.6 Been recently learning this one on the piano and it's a fair bit of fun. As the title suggests, it's a Bulgarian rhythm that is directly notated as 3+3+2/8.

This part here in the score is particularly fascinating I think (about 0:28 seconds into the video). If you actually study what's happening it's a fairly basic call and response in the two parts, both moving down in 5ths each time. However the first phrase in the right hand sounds as Gm while the left hand plays the counterphrase at the tritone in C#m. And this is repeated downwards a 5th each time. There is also the fact the rhythm doesn't quite like line up as you would expect as both are playing 3+3+2 but offset from each other (hence the stems going over the bar). it finishes by repeating in unison two octaves apart, which is a classic of the early 20th century. This is genuinely one of the most difficult passages in the entire piece just because of how fiddly it is to get those rhythms to stand out at the tritone while playing at speed.

Phrases like this are also interesting because it's fascinating harmony. It's Bb/d - G - Eb/Bb - C/G (in the following bar on the next system). This particularly fascinating to me because the Bb - G are effectively done as chromatic transposition, as is the Eb - C are. But the relationship between the G- Eb is what's known as a chord rotation. I can't easily explain it in a tumblr post but it's a fascinating post-tonal technique used on fair standard chords, and it's used a number of times throughout the piece. Basically the relationship between the chords and the phrasing isn't entirely random.

Bartok was also living in the early 20th century and so his enharmonic notation isn't quite there sometimes. Here is the worst spelt C major and F major chords I've seen in a while (treble and bass clef respectively.

I think you would get killed for trying to write enharmonics like that these days but it was like 1930 and they hadn't figured out how to write harmony like this yet.

SECOND PIECE: Joshua Mallard — State Machine 90% sure I've put this in one of my music ramble posts but it is pretty neat. The youtube channel that uploaded it is a great place to find huge amounts of contemporary music but the three movements are genuinely a really neat example of a lot of contemporary styles. You'll notice the first movement sounds fairly dissonant and jaggard, despite the fact it's time signatures aren't particularly complex and there are no microtones (not including the gliss at the end). The second movement is full of weird ways of playing with microtones and has a really neat way of notating it. The third movement is anyone's guess but I'm sure you can figure it out enough if you want the score. As odd as the score looks it's genuinely a lot easier to parse on a first glance than the Bartok's is, so a full rant isn't really necessary.

Third piece is my own because I'm a freak. I did amazingly forget to get the one recording I have of it (not the best recording but still far better than musescore). This means you're stuck with the extra crunchy musescore rendering that barely gets half the notation in. I've got the rendering below and you can find the score here. The notation still needs some tidying but it's not entirely terrible.

The piece is about the great abyssal plain at the bottom of the ocean. It's the name for the great black expanse of mud and rocks 1000's of meters deep. Part of a suite I'm writing on sinking deeper into the ocean for piano quintet.

You might also notice some funny things in the score:

Musescore hates this. That's a cluster chord on both black and white notes on the piano. You literally get your arm and place it ontop of a bunch of notes. The strange notes in the cello are artificial harmonics, which I don't have time to explain but musescore hates it. Like the piece you sent in there are a few places where I've adjusted the time signature to something additive to throw it a bit, although the bigger rhythmic interest is the fact that the 3/4 sections are effectively a lot of polymeter. I had almost the entire piece in 6/4 because it's the lowest common denominator but I had to try conduct it at the tempo it's in the it just fell apart with how long each bar was. Some of the parts are effectively playing 4/2 (or 2/2 I guess?), some 12/8 (6/8?) and some 3/3 so just had to find something I can squeeze everything into to make it work.

There is also the fun part with the sost pedal that musescore cannot do. When you hold a bunch of notes down with the sost pedal they remain as part of the piano's resonance as they don't have dampers on them. What I've done is tell the player to do a cluster chord on all the low white notes and then leave it in the pedal while playing a C# in the middle of it. The C# clashes really nicely against the low diatonic notes that resonate behind it without the full and kind of washy sound of the full pedal. This only really works on grand pianos or any piano with a sost pedal, but if you have a real piano you can try this technique by just holding down the white notes with your arm and playing a black note in the middle of it all.

Anyways huge post over. You hit my music autism mode in exactly the right specific way so you get this. Feel free to send in more stuff.

[fcble]

SEA CHANGE — noun. a profound or notable transformation.

Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange. — The Tempest, William Shakespeare

In which Byeonghwi loses a friend. FEATURING: Lim Byeonghwi, Kim Gicheol, Lee Jaeseop, Andrew Han WORD COUNT: 3.8k WARNINGS / NOTES: Smoking. Drinking. A direct sequel to First Love, would definitely recommend reading that first 👍.

FROM: UNKNOWN, 11:18 PM why are you an idol? byeonghwi???

Byeonghwi stares at the texts on his phone, chopsticks stilling over the takeout container he’s sharing with Mingeun. That’s his name. He’s an idol—he debuted last week. His hand hovers over the block button. It seems much too early for him to have stalkers or fans or stalker fans. While he stares, two more texts arrive. One of them is a series of question marks. The second one reads, it’s gicheol. should have said that first.

Byeonghwi doesn’t want to believe it. It’s been about a year and a half—a year, four months, and six days to be precise—since the last time they talked.

tell me something only we would know, he sends back.

we used to hang out in the rail tunnel. you told me there was supposed to be another development there until the project was abandoned.

His phone clatters to the table. Mingeun glares at him. Normally, he intimidates and maybe even scares Byeonghwi. Right now, nothing he could say or do would sour Byeonghwi’s mood.

He takes one more bite, then pushes the container closer to Mingeun.

“You can have the rest,” he says with his mouth full. Byeonghwi doesn’t wait for a response—or even a glance—before he scoops up his phone and tosses his disposable chopsticks.

In the privacy of his own bedroom, he looks at the messages again. What do you say to someone you haven’t talked to for some time, but thought of every day? Can they pick up where they left off? Byeonghwi has thought about this day for months. All the questions and witty opening lines seem to have left his brain.

i missed you, he types. Then he deletes it. why did you stop talking to me? He deletes that one too. are you mad at me for achieving your dream? i thought about you every day. i miss you. Delete, delete, delete.

While he’s worrying about what to say, Gicheol sends another message. i have to go. i’ll explain everything when i can. tell me what you’ve been up to. what’s being an idol like?

Byeonghwi thinks he doesn’t have much to share. Then he starts typing. He tells Gicheol about moving to Seoul, his days spent awkwardly in Andrew’s tiny apartment, hiding himself and his stuff from the landlord’s occasional visits, before they moved in with the rest of the group.

a debut is an accomplishment, he writes, but a lot of things stay the same after that. It’s only been a few weeks. He doesn’t know what authority he has to say that. He doesn’t tell Gicheol about how high the tensions run between them sometimes: Mingeun and Haksu have to stay on opposite sides of the dressing room or they’ll come to blows, Haksu spent a week sleeping on the couch of the other dorm for reasons still unbeknownst to Byeonghwi, Andrew managed to make Jaeseop snap with his holier-than-thou attitude.

In turn, Gicheol gives his full story in bits and pieces. His texts come at all sorts of time of day, with no reasoning or schedule. Byenghwi responds whenever he can, which isn’t any better than Gicheol’s timing. Sometimes days or weeks pass before either of them respond. Gicheol explains that he’s using a burner phone, one that he shares with a few other trainees. They rotate who’s responsible for hiding it every week. He tells Byeonghwi not to write anything too personal, on the off chance someone else reads the messages, or his agency confiscates it.

i memorized your number now, Gicheol says at one point. we don’t save contacts in here. i thought i knew it. i didn’t learn what it really was until i went home and asked ㅊㅇ. i’ve sent so many messages to wrong numbers.

He abbreviates Chaewook’s name to his initials, but Byeonghwi understands what he means. Byeonghwi wonders why Chaewook never mentioned it.

you went home? he sends back. If only he had stayed. Byeonghwi’s gone home for Chuseok and Seollal, and he’s never seen Gicheol.

halmeoni died a few months ago. i was there for the funeral. The words are short and succinct.

i’m sorry, Byeonghwi types back.

It takes Gicheol so long to write back that Byeonghwi thinks he’s left. It happens sometimes: he’ll disappear in the middle of a conversation and come back to continue it days later.

you don’t have to be. 

The words are colder than Byeonghwi expected. He thinks back: did Gicheol ever have a good relationship with his grandmother? He can’t recall him doing anything other than stealing her cigarettes.

let’s not talk about that, Gicheol sends.

Byeonghwi listens to him. He always does.

Gicheol’s company keeps him under lock and key. It isn’t until he debuts—slightly over a year after Byeonghwi—that he gets a small amount of freedom. Byeonghwi lives with too many people, and, for some unknown reason, is apprehensive about introducing his friend to his group members. He invites Gicheol to the Zenith Entertainment building under the cover of night instead.

Byeonghwi watches the road from the dance practice room. Mingeun and Eunsu are usually the last to leave, but today, Byeonghwi had assured them he could clean and close up the room. They probably expected him back hours ago. He’ll deal with their questions and scrutiny when he gets back. For now, he’s much too excited by the prospect of seeing and talking to Gicheol in person again.

A celebrity van slows to a stop below him. Byeonghwi doesn’t wait to ensure it’s Gicheol. He flies down the stairs, taking them two or three steps at a time, until he bursts out into the cool night air.

Gicheol stands on the sidewalk, leaning against the car, speaking to whoever is driving. He steps away as Byeonghwi approaches, face partially illuminated by the dim light of the copywriting sign.

Unable to stop himself, Byeonghwi throws his arms around his friend’s neck, panting slightly from his run. Gicheol hugs him back, and Byeonghwi feels his heart swell as if it’s about to burst. To his surprise, he can feel Gicheol’s shoulder blades through the fabric of his jacket.

They stay like that for a moment, until Gicheol manages to muffle. “Hwi, I can’t breathe.”

Byeonghwi lets him go. He studies him, piecing together the Gicheol from his memory, the Gicheol from the music video he spent hours poring over, and the Gicheol that stands in front of him now. He looks older and tired and worn-out. Byeonghwi chalks the first one up to the years that passed since the last time they saw each other, the second one to his debut promotions, and the third… He’s not sure where the third one comes from. He thinks back to how he felt after his own debut promotions. Byeonghwi was tired, definitely, but he was carried through it with the contagious energy and excitement of his group members. Maybe Field Day doesn’t have that luxury.

The van beeps politely. Gicheol waves as it begins to pull away from the curb.

“Let’s go up to the rooftop,” Byeonghwi says, tugging Gicheol inside.

He uses his phone flashlight to illuminate the path to the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

“The elevator doesn’t go all the way up,” Byeonghwi says. “We have to take the stairs outside.”

He leads Gicheol through the deserted fifth floor to the stairwell. “The copywriting agency has the first two floors,” he explains. “Zenith is on the third and fourth. Taein-nim is trying to buy out this one too. I don’t know where he gets the money from, or why we’d need all the space.”

It’s then that Byeonghwi realizes how much he’s been talking. It was never like this before. He remembers listening to Gicheol talk much more. Even in their text conversations, Byeonghwi is more of a listener. He pushes away the discomfort. He misses talking to Gicheol, and now he has more words than he knows what to do with. That’s all it is.

He puts his shoulder into opening the rooftop door. It creaks open, hinges protesting the entire time.

“Barely anyone comes up here,” Byeonghwi says apologetically. He has to do the same thing to get the door to close. “It’s mostly the copywriters on their breaks.”

Gicheol turns in a small circle. Byeonghwi doesn’t know what there is to see. It’s dark—the only sources of light are the moon and the streetlights down below. The rooftop area is fenced in and completely devoid of any furnishing, other than two uncomfortable stone benches.

“It’s nice,” Gicheol says eventually.

“You don’t have to lie,” Byeonghwi says, perching on the edge and leaning back against the rail.

Gicheol sits next to him. “It is,” he insists. “DCAF doesn’t have anything like this.”

“Your company fucking sucks.”

Gicheol looks surprised. Byeonghwi rarely swears. He feels strongly about this, though. Gicheol’s company limited his contact with everyone else, didn’t debut him for over two years, replaced Byeonghwi’s friend with this hollow version of him, and—

“Have you been eating?” Byeonghwi asks. Remembering how he could feel Gicheol’s shoulder blades when they hugged, he takes in the way Gicheol’s clothes seem to barely hang onto his frame and how his cheekbones are so pronounced it makes his whole face look sunken.

“Enough,” he says. He reaches into his jacket pocket. Byeonghwi knows exactly what he’s reaching for.

Gicheol retrieves his cigarettes. The packaging is still new and shiny, like he just opened it. The branding is different, Byeonghwi notices. These are Camels. It was always Marlboro when he used to steal them from his grandmother.

He fumbles the box open, and offers it to Byeonghwi first. Byeonghwi doesn’t have the heart to tell him he only used to smoke because Gicheol did it, because he wanted to say yes to everything Gicheol asked for. That, and no one in Fable is forthcoming with their cigarettes like Gicheol is.

So he takes one.

Gicheol holds one in his mouth while he finds his lighter in his other pocket. “Like old times,” he says through closed lips.

Byeonghwi nods. He watches Gicheol cup his hand around the end of his cigarette and light it, the small ember burning like a beacon in the dark. Gicheol passes him the lighter and he does the same.

He’s almost forgotten what it’s like. He holds back a cough—he’s better than that—as he’s warmed from the inside out. It’s a feeling that often goes hand in hand with the time he spends with Gicheol.

“Congratulations on your debut,” Byeonghwi says.

Gicheol takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t feel very different.”

He doesn’t need to be told that. He also doesn’t think he should say he knew that first. Byeonghwi still feels like the same person who left Jecheon a little over two years ago, that same naive, idealistic kid chasing after his friend. Back then, he didn’t know if he wanted to be Gicheol, or be with him. Back then, he didn’t have the vocabulary or experience to fully explain how he felt.

He’s working up the courage to admit all of this, when Gicheol suddenly says, “Why did you become an idol?”

Byeonghwi can’t give him the same cute answers he gives in every show where he’s asked the same question: he started learning how to dance with a friend, and discovered he liked it and was good at it. He thinks about what he told Taein—he could want to be an idol, eventually. He doesn’t know when that will be true.

“It was because of you,” he says before he loses his nerve. “I did it because I like you.”

Gicheol’s expression is inscrutable. Byeonghwi’s heart is thumping so loudly in his chest he’s surprised Gicheol can’t hear it. He wipes his free palm on his pants. The paper of his cigarette is damp where he’s holding it.

“If I could go back in time, I would tell you not to do it,” Gicheol says.

It’s too late for that. It’s too late for his feelings to change. Byeonghwi is here, he’s been an idol for a year. He’s not going to quit because he’s asked to.

“If I went back,” Byeonghwi says, “I’d do the same thing every time.”

Gicheol clearly missed the part where he confessed. Byeonghwi doesn’t remember who he was before he met Gicheol. He doesn’t know who he’d be now without him either.

“How long have you thought that?” Gicheol asks. “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?”

His words pierce Byeonghwi through the heart. He doesn’t think it’s weird at all. It takes him a moment to piece together an answer that won’t completely alienate his friend. In the beginning, he was content to be friends with Gicheol. It was somewhere else along the way that his feelings shifted to that all-consuming fire within him, all for Gicheol’s attention and company and heart. And all of that happened before Byeonghwi was aware of it, before he realized his friendship with Gicheol had a different tone from his friendship with anyone else. He can’t say any of that.

“A while,” Byeonghwi says vaguely, regretting bringing it up in the first place. He changes the subject. “I know it’s hard—training and being an idol—but I like that it brought us back together again.”

“How can you say it’s hard?” Gicheol asks. “It was so easy for you. You passed your first audition. You debuted before me. You never worried about your agency going bankrupt or that one small mistake could mean you’ll never debut when you spent so many years trying. You don’t have a fucking nicotine addiction encouraged by your fucking company because it helps you lose weight.”

His words pour out in a torrent. Byeonghwi is at a loss. “I didn’t mean it like that—”

Gicheol steps closer, waving his cigarette through the air, forcing Byeonghwi back against the railing. He feels the cold metal press into his back.

“Then what? In what way did you mean it? Nothing could have been harder for you than it was for me.”

He stares unflinchingly at Byeonghwi, as if daring him to respond. Then Gicheol backs down. He drops his cigarette butt to the ground and crushes it under his heel. “That’s what I thought. My manager will be back soon.”

Byeonghwi watches the ember disappear into the darkness. He wants to say something. His mind races, trying to think of anything he could say to rescue the situation. He wishes he could turn back time.

“I don’t think we need to see each other again,” Gicheol says, like they’re going through a break-up. In a way, it is. Byeonghwi's never lost a friend like this before.

He swallows the lump in his throat. He’s never argued with Gicheol and he’s never been able to tell him no. He’s not going to start now. “If that’s what you want.”

He leads Gicheol back down the stairs and the elevator in darkness and silence. Gicheol’s manager is already idling by the curb. Byeonghwi watches him climb into the passenger seat. He doesn’t even say goodbye.

As the van pulls away, Byeonghwi stands under the copywriting sign, staring at the remnants of the cigarette he forgot he was holding. It’s his last remaining connection to Gicheol. It’s a piece of trash. He can’t bring himself to throw it away.

By the time he reaches his front door, Byeonghwi’s entire body feels leaden. It takes all his effort to put the key in the lock and turn it. The lights are still on inside. It isn’t surprising. Byeonghwi figures at least one person has to still be awake.

He plans on slipping by as quietly and gracefully as possible. So it’s almost shocking for him to see Jaeseop and Andrew at the kitchen table, surrounded by a veritable pile of beer bottles.

Byeonghwi drops the keys to the building on the table. Mingeun will probably want them back in the morning.

“Hey, hyungs,” he says. It’s supposed to come out bright and cheerful. His voice sounds flat, even to him.

Jaeseop regards him curiously. “Long night practicing?”

“No.”

“Then what?” Andrew asks, and that’s when Byeonghwi realizes he’s walked straight into their trap.

Andrew motions for him to sit, and Byeonghwi complies. Then Andrew takes an unopened bottle, braces the cap against the table’s edge, and slams his palm down once on it. The bottle cap pops off and disappears somewhere onto the ground. He slides the bottle across the table.

Byeonghwi stares at him.

“I used to drink a lot,” Andrew says.

“You still drink a lot,” Jaeseop says.

Byeonghwi takes a sip. It’s lukewarm and bitter. He doesn’t understand how Andrew can stand this. Grimacing, he pushes the bottle away.

Andrew points his bottle at Byeonghwi. "Talk." 

There's nothing he hates more than talking about things that require depth and thought, things that aren't lighthearted and simple and clear cut. He's always been afraid of judgment and cruelty and his own looming feelings of guilt. He's still not sure where that last one came from.

But he should be able to talk to Andrew and Jaeseop. They've fed him and housed him and made sure he graduated high school and acted almost as his parents for the last two years. At the same time, the weight of Gicheol's rejection weighs him down, leaving him feeling trapped and suffocated.

"I met a friend," Byeonghwi says, slowly and deliberately. He isn't sure how much he wants to tell them just yet.

"A good friend?" Jaeseop asks.

"Yes." He answers that immediately. Another moment passes before he adds, "We used to be. It's been some time since we saw each other."

"With good feelings?" is Andrew's question. Byeonghwi never expected to hear those words out of his mouth. Then he takes in the two empty bottles next to Andrew, the third one he's still working on, and the slightest red tinge in his cheeks.

“You’re acting differently recently,” he continues, tongue clearly loosened by the alcohol. Andrew can be forward, but he never leads like that. There’s always a build-up of a conversation longer than a few sentences. "It's obvious. Something's going on."

Byeonghwi feels exposed, laid bare for his two group members to see. He thought he was better at hiding his feelings. Gicheol's obliviousness is nothing short of a miracle.

"So?" Jaeseop this time. He doesn't seem nearly as far gone as Andrew.

Byeonghwi shifts in his seat. The wound feels too fresh for him to talk about it. He can't relive Gicheol's words again, can't say them out loud. That would make them too real.

"I wanted—" he starts and then stops. What did he want? Was he stupid enough to think Gicheol would return his feelings? Idealistic enough to think he wouldn't completely destroy their relationship?

He tries again. "I thought—" The rest of his sentence is lodged in his throat. I thought we could be friends. I thought we could pick up where we left off. I thought it would be like nothing happened. I thought I could pretend I didn't change. I thought I could pretend he didn't change.

"Rejection, then," Jaeseop says with a sympathetic nod.

Andrew reaches across the table and pats Byeonghwi on the arm. "It happens to all of us. You'll get the next girl."

Byeonghwi thought he was content to let them say whatever they wanted to say, whatever they thought would console him after whatever they thought happened to him. Now he thinks he needs to clear some things up. He watches a single drop of condensation slide down the side of the bottle in front of him. 

"My friend isn't a girl." He has to force the words into being, deliberately shaping each syllable with his teeth and his tongue and his lips. He watches the reactions of Jaeseop and Andrew closely, trying to gauge if they'll act like Gicheol, and maybe he's burned another bridge and maybe he should run.

"The next boy," Andrew says, correcting himself automatically.

"You're gay?" Jaeseop says. It comes out like a question.

Byeonghwi rotates the word in his mind. He knows what it means, he just never thought it would apply to him. He nods hesitantly. If the shoe fits, he supposes he should wear it.

He finds his voice. "You don't think it's weird?"

That statement gives them pause. He watches Jaeseop exchange a glance with Andrew—or try to, at least, because Andrew is otherwise preoccupied with opening another bottle.

"Why would I think that?" Jaeseop asks, and Byeonghwi feels himself sag with relief.

Andrew's latest bottle cap clinks to the ground. "Yeah," he says, almost belatedly. “Why?”

Byeonghwi can’t put it into words. Maybe he’s ashamed of himself, or ashamed of the way other people might view him, especially when those other people are Jaeseop—almost renowned for his stringent refusal to break up with his girlfriend to be an idol—and Andrew, who’s only ever talked about and expressed interest in women.

Cheeks burning, he looks anywhere but at the two of them. “I don’t know.”

Andrew pushes the neglected bottle towards Byeonghwi. “You should drink. Get over him.”

“That was his friend,” Jaeseop admonishes. He knocks Andrew’s hand away from the bottle. “Don’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

Byeonghwi doesn’t want to be treated like a kid. He’s an adult. He can make his own decisions. So he reaches over Jaeseop’s arm for Andrew’s cheap American beer and holds his breath as he gulps it down.

Maybe Andrew's right. Maybe he needs to move on—Gicheol obviously has. Maybe he shouldn't have let him define so much of his life and their relationship.

But Byeonghwi can't unlive his life. And if it weren’t for Gicheol, then he wouldn’t be here now, in Seoul, listening to the ebb and flow of conversation, his silence taken as a sign of agreement to a change in topic.

It isn’t until he’s alone a few hours later, after Haksu emerges from his bedroom and asks Andrew to please open bottles quietly with a bottle opener instead of loudly with their dining table and Andrew and Jaeseop finally leave, that Byeonghwi takes notice of the pervasive scent of cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes. It never used to bother him—he’d head home after a long day with Gicheol and his parents never cared, so he never cared. Now, he gets it. It’s faded to a certain acrid staleness that makes his nose wrinkle and his head ache. He retrieves his last cigarette butt from his pocket, scattering ash over his bedroom floor. Then he opens his window as far as possible, and tosses it out into the night.

[bluebirds-yellowflowers]

I noticed something weird. I think I found a subtle clue/potential connection pointing towards the nature of “The Angel” and it seems pretty crazy, but bear with me.

I found something weird. While I was rotating Deltarune in my head as usual, I was thinking about that weird yet seemingly important door in Ralsei’s castle during Chapter 2. Yeah, that’s right. You know what door I’m talking about. The door that people wonder about what could be hidden behind it. 

THAT DOOR. YOU SEE IT, DON’T YOU? You may be wondering why I need to post an image about this door if you already knew what I was talking about, or what it has to do with “The Angel” of all things. Well, for starters, let’s take a look at this thing. 

The most prominent features of The Door is that it has a heart in the center and six wings around it, with strange lines around them indicating that they are fluttering. Almost like an Angel, you could say. Well, what other imagery do we have that suggests The Angel is associated with wings? 

(I’m not sure what “The Crown” atop of this thing could mean, but I think there’s a pretty decent possibility that it could indicate royalty or authority of this castle.)

In Undertale, Gerson mentions that the “Winged Circle” above the three triangles could be “The Angel”, the one who will supposedly free the underground in one way or another.

In Deltarune, while Ralsei is telling Kris and Susie about “The Legend of Delta Rune”, we can conclude two things: in the deltarune that supposedly depicts the legend of Deltarune, the two triangles facing up are Kris and Susie (the lightners) while the triangle facing down is Ralsei (the darkner).

At the same time, the goal of the three heroes are to seal the fountains and banish “the angel’s heaven”, which is associated with the imagery of the Deltarune itself and is more likely to be tied to the winged circle.

Oh also, the colored triangles in Kris’ castle room also gives evidence that the triangles are in fact Kris, Susie, and Ralsei. This could also indicate the winged circle is associated with the “Angel’s Heaven.”

Another indication that The Angel is associated with the winged circle is the church of the Light World, which seems specifically centered around The Angel as some kind of deity. And what’s on top of the church? A winged circle.

Now that we have reestablished the connection between The Angel and The Winged Circle, we can move on to the next part: the weird connection I noticed regarding what could *also* be The Angel.

I have often wondered about the imagery of wings at Ralsei’s castle. 

As you can see here, the Castle also has the imagery of “The Angel”. It has the three triangles representing the heroes and a circle above it, and while the circle doesn’t directly have wings... the castle itself does. Not two wings, but four wings as a matter of fact. So this makes me wonder: could The Angel have more than two wings? Does the castle give a better visual representation of The Angel as opposed to The Deltarune? If so, then could...

Then could this door also be visually hinting towards the true nature of The Angel? But its too absurd. The door can’t possibly be hinting towards the fact that THE ANGEL has *SIX* wings instead of two or four, right? What could it possibly mean? There’s nothing else in the game that shares the imagery of a heart with six wings.

But wait, there is something that resembles the same imagery. Or at the very least, its pretty close. I’ve noticed something that shares almost the exact same pattern of “heart at the center” and “six wings” ‘fluttering’ around it. The parallel is almost undeniable. 

That pattern in the background. Do you see it? The six shapes branching out from the center? Could this image be a direct parallel to the door with six wings? Could this image in the background actually be wings? Could this place be associated with the angel somehow purely because of this resemblance? Or is the six winged object something entirely different from the angel, which could still be two-winged? 

I have no idea what to make of this visual connection. I have no idea if its a coincidence or not, but the fact that they share the same pattern is pretty mind boggling. If these two things ARE connected in some way, then it could suggest that Ralsei’s Castle (and Ralsei) and this realm are connected to each other in some way, if not through what could be “The Angel”, “The Angel’s Heaven”, or some other six-winged entity that is opposed to either The Angel or its Heaven.

[apphiarothowrites]

some omega!Marco thoughts

since this is on my mind currently and I have a googledoc outlining the kind of ABOverse world I want to work within when I finally get around to writing one...

-The Moby Dick is a massive beast and has, in canon, over 1600 people on board. That's a lot of people and too big for a typical "pack" that people like to write about in ABO fics. That's the size of a small town! So I'm thinking that the other commanders, the higher ranked people in Marco's Division, the nurses, and Pops are Marco's "pack." They're the people he's around the most, those are the scents he's most familiar with, and the one's he's most comfortable around. The ship as a whole is tightly knit but there are definite "packs"-mostly each Division is it's own pack and maybe smaller sub-groups of family units or somethin (each commander considers the other commanders, Pops, and their own Divisions their "pack" perhaps?)

-Marco's heats are twice a year. Literally every six months on the dot, you can set a calendar to it (and the Moby Dick absolutely does). I also think that omegan heats synch up like normal human menstrual periods do and, thanks to his fruit, Marco's is the "alpha" cycle of the ship. All other omegas on board are synched to his cycle (omegas who have theirs more often have one or two in between his two, omegas with less will have theirs inevitably fall at the same time as one of his) (it's absolutely because of the phoenix that his cycle is the one that others synch up to)

-Marco's heats have a 3 week pattern. Week 1 is the pre-heat: he feels itchy in his skin, horny, hungry but nothing tastes good or smells appealing, irritable, starts stealing clothes that smell like family and shiny things for no reason, and gets EXTREMELY territorial+over protective of the physical ship. Week 2 is the heat proper: lasts 5-6 days, horny horny horny, record of 13 orgasms in a single day, wears people out if he’s not using the seastone cuff to the point that before he got a cuff people rotate individual days so nobody burnt out. This isn't to say he's completely out of his mind and incapable of logical thought-but he is extremely and acutely uncomfortable with skin hunger and a need to do something (we all know what). He can still talk, still express himself, he's still lucid 99% of the time, he's just unbearable horny with stamina befitting a phoenix. Week 3 is the comedown: where he’s still itchy and horny but oversensitive and doesn’t like it, gets frustrated in his nest with sitting still the first few days but is too weak to really do much, phoenix finally calmed down enough to let his body actually process all the shit it went through to try getting pregnant and now that it’s not it’s flushing the ‘want sex now’ hormones out, wants to over eat, and the extremely over protectiveness and extreme territoriality come back with a vengeance.

-That week 1 of the heat where he's super territorial is BAD. If he senses anything strange/not family on the ship he gets very hostile and agitated until it’s removed or dead. The Moby Dick anchors on uninhabited islands during this period because of the risk of running across other crews or civilians is high enough that even Marco himself is worried he'll overreact and hurt people to a level he isn't comfortable with. Marines try sniffing around? Lmao not for long. The ship is his

(sidenote to the above: I like to think that Ace was first brought on board the Moby just after one of Marco's heats so Marco was at the end of the comedown period and was standoffish/aloof to Ace because he was still feeling agitated. He warmed up to Ace after his body finally decided things were fine. Ace gets a taste of the Week 1 protectiveness during a spar when Ace-only 3ish months into being an official Whitebeard-fights Marco, loses, and Marco visibly considers stomping him to death because heat-hormone brain says Ace might still be a threat and Jozu had to yell at Marco to get his attention back on what he was supposed to be doing) (mark Ace down as scared and horny, terrified and enchanted)

-Marco ate his fruit a year after he presented as an omega. For five years after that, his heats were so intense for his partners that it became a running joke that he'll end up accidentally sexing someone to death (the phoenix basically keeping him at max/peak heat for days to the point that the record for keeping up with him was only 50 hours before the nurses had to intervene and remove that partner from Marco's nest). That's when Marco asked Pops to help him find a seastone cuff (goes around his right ankle and anchors to the right corner of his bed). It gets used exclusively during Week 2 so Marco's heats don't accidentally kill the people who volunteer to help him out.

-Pops, who was a middle-aged Alpha when he found Marco, is pretty much the only alpha that Marco doesn't get weird about when his heats start up. Pops is Pops-father, caretaker, warmth, love, protection, family in spite of no shared blood. Pops is pretty much the only thing that can calm Marco down if he gets into a rage while mid-heat.

-Scent wise: Marco smells vaguely fruity and woody. Like overripe fruit that's burst open over moss. Like a cold spring in a humid jungle. Warm bordering on hot, but comfortable and refreshing. It's very soothing if you're a patient in his infirmary, and overwhelming if you're in the bedroom at the height of Week 2.

-In his territorial phases: the physical ship is the territory. That's his place, his home, and anything unfamiliar gets scrutinized both visually and with haki. If he senses anything weird, he gets increasingly pissy about it until it gets resolved or-the later into week 1 or earlier into week 3 it is-he kinda loses his temper about it. If the shit happening is enemy action, he can and will and has in the past destroyed whole units of Marines by himself (half transformed, snarling and stomping a marine to death like a secretary bird) (Ace gets the secretary bird treatment during that spar at the beginning: leg raised up with flared open talons at the read, Marco's very intense eagle-like stare, a sense of hard observation haki and impending doom before Jozu yelled at Marco)

-During the comedown: marco wants to carb-load like woah. He wants all the heavy foods: fruits galore, bread, rice, beans (which he normally can't stand the rest of the time), all the dairy in the world. Thatch keeps a fridge stocked just for the first couple days of his post-heats because otherwise he will fight people for their plates. It's also the only circumstance in which he feels like he needs to and actively wants to nap and oversleep too. As the week goes on he starts feeling and acting more like himself. By day 7-8 he's totally normal.

-Week 2: marco has volunteers that line up almost literally around the ship. Unfortunately for them, the territorial sense still sticks around to a mild degree. Familiar alphas are easier/"safer", so the other commanders and sometimes an officer from the First Division will lend a hand (usually only for between 8 and 24 hours before Marco wears them out, even with the cuff on). When Ace finally gets into the rotation, he somehow lasts the longest out of the lot (Thatch and Izou chalk it up to the stamina of youth, Ace and Marco privately think it's just because their chemistry is just so damn satisfying that Ace can shorten the heat by up to a day).

-Since I wanna go MAS with ABOverse eventually: sabo gets into marco's heats after Marineford (ace lives, because of course he does, how it happens will get figured out later lmfao) because Ace is kinda out of commission to heal from having a hole in his chest. Marco's very unsure of him, but somehow even after a decade apart he and Ace still smell vaguely like each other. With Ace in the room, Sabo can knot Marco just fine (and when Ace has to step out to make sure they have something to eat mid heat, Marco rides Sabo like a stallion). By the time they get the rough parts worked out, Sabo and Ace find they can manage Marco's heat just fine without the cuff.

-After Marineford, Sphinx island as a whole becomes the new territory for Marco's heat brain. The Moby was massive and the population of the island is actually smaller than the crew had been. He protects them all-week 1 becomes a constant flying patrol of the island (maybe sometimes swooping down to pick at the hair of the kids, especially the ones who have bright pretty hair colors, they laugh and giggle at the giant silly bird who's usually the new doctor in town). Speaking of the kids, he bonds pretty well with them all and tries very hard not to get baby rabies-channels the parental instincts they awaken in him into just being the best physician on the island. When he sees Ace and Sabo being good with the kids? Be still his throbbing ovaries, he is 44-45 he is way too old to be thinking about kids (which is a whole other can of worms for him-the phoenix means he's still at his physical peak but while he isn't sure where either of them stand on the idea of children he can certainly guess from both their comments about cursed bloodlines).

-He is very wary about leaving for Wano at first because his next heat is less than a month away, but it ends up being mostly fine. The whole thing happens in less than a week and the travel time means he has a couple days to spare by the time they return to Sphinx (but not without Shanks making a pass at him after the offer to join the Red Force, just to rile up Ace for laughs). Still cuts it closer than he'd like, but they get home just fine with enough time to get the house prepped properly.