#I like ''have been orbiting each other their whole lives without knowing it''

[mia-maybank]

I Have A Feeling You Got Everything You Wanted: Part 1 - George Clarke

George Clarke x Fem!reader ( 1.5k words)

The sidemen charity match , a gorgeous ex-boyfriend with a mullet and his entire friendgroup scattered around the stands to avoid ... what could ever go wrong?

warnings: lots of angst (it gets happier I promise) , hints of poor mental health but it's not a heavy focus

series | masterlist

This is my first fic in a while so sorry if it's not the best :) I've had this idea for a while and then I'm gonna start on everyone's requests this week too! <3

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The roar of the crowd only increases as the players slowly filter onto the pitch, shaking each others hands and waving to the crowds. I clutch my drink tighter in my hand as I watch one player in particular laugh and joke with Chris and Will.

I don't know quite how I ended up in the stands of the Sidemen Charity Match. Perhaps the impulsive decision stemmed from the knowledge that it would allow me to set my eyes on George for the first time in 2 months, or perhaps it was just the intense loneliness that has followed me around like an unwanted weight, caging my heart in a murky fog of isolation ever since that one Tuesday night.

It's not like our shared group of friends have ever explicitly stated that they were choosing his side or had ever given me any form of grief; yet when I kept my distance in the days following the breakup, fearing their anger, their lack of messages or calls had given me an answer enough.

I sit towards the back of the stands, well away from the friends and family section where I know the Arthurs, Bach, Liv and various other of my old friends will be sat. My hoodie is drawn up, shielding my face from any spectators that may recognise me and blow up my whole plan of 'slip in, watch the match, slip out and avoid any social interaction at all costs'. I doubted I still had much relevance in the YouTube scene these days anyway, as my channel has remained untouched and been left to bury in dust and the weight of my heartbreak. I truly had tried to keep up my career independently, but filming with the absence of George's warm touch, Chris' gremlin-like laugh and Arthur TV's random historic facts didn't feel right. Therefore, I had just avoided social media entirely for the last 2 months, finding it easier than scrolling through the pictures and videos of George and the others partying and filming like I had never even been a part of their lives in the first place.

The match passes by in a blur of mullets running around the pitch, an impressive amount of goals being scored, and a growing pain in my chest that I tried my best to swallow down, although this proved harder with every passing second of watching the people who my world once orbited around carry on existing and living so vibrantly without me. When George scored, I couldn't help but let out a loud cheer; I knew that playing in this match was something that he had never even dared to dream of, so I couldn't help but feel an abundance of pride settle in my chest as he celebrated with Tobi.

As the final whistle blows , conceding the all stars team as the winners following an intense round of penalties, I slip out of my seat, intending to make it out of the stadium long before the boys left the pitch. I had time after all; they still had to celebrate and be presented with the trophy.

However, it seemed fate had other plans, as the throng of people who similarly were trying to leave early was overwhelming, and impossible to push through. Eventually, I found a more private stairwell that looked like it wasn't open to the public and slipped past security, figuring I could make a dash down the stairwell and escape quickly.

In my rush, I didn't notice a blur of red bouncing up the stairs until we collided, the impact sending the other person stumbling into the rail whilst I slipped fully, crashing onto the hard floor of the stairs.

"oh shit, I'm so sorr-" the person began, before cutting of abruptly. I soon discovered why when I looked up at the person and find myself staring directly into the equally as shocked eyes of ChrisMD.

Well shit, there goes my plan of avoiding everyone.

"y/n" Chris breathes out, his voice surprisingly gentle and void of the anger I had anticipated. "what are you doing here?"

"I'm not trying to make this a thing I swear!" I stammer out, panicked. "I just wanted to watch you guys play, I was planning on just slipping out".

"Without even saying hello?" he frowns, and I'm majorly thrown off by the lack of confrontation or resentment in his tone and how he seems offended at the idea of me actively avoiding them.

"Well I mean, it's George's big day, not mine and I knew you guys wouldn't want to see me so I was just going to stay hidden-".

"y/n" Chris interrupts softly, looking genuinely heartbroken now, his eyebrows drawn together in a mix of frustration and pity. "of course we would want to see you. I mean, we were practically joined at the hip at one point, and the other boys miss you too, you were a part of our friendship group just as much as George until you vanished. We thought you just wanted to move on and distance yourself from George so we left you alone."

"what?" I choke out, tearing up despite my best efforts to keep a lid on the emotions that aroused the second I realised the person was Chris. "of course I wouldn't just abandon you guys, I thought you guys were upset with me when nobody messaged and I didn't want to force my place in the friend group if you guys didn't want me there anymore." My voice wavers, my vision warped from tears at this point as all of the unspoken hurt I've kept firmly buried since the breakup finally pours out.

"This is the first time I've left my house since the breakup and I just wanted to cheer you guys on in secret, I thought you guys hated me".

"y/n hey hey it's okay-" Chris steps towards me now as if he is approaching a scared deer, his face lined with concern as he reaches out towards me. The moment is interrupted by the sound of laughter from below us, and Chris' expression drops as he mutters "oh for fucks sake not now".

It's too late to do anything though, as the footsteps have now approached the flight of stairs that Chris and me are currently frozen on. "Chris where did you get to why do you look like you've seen a ghost- wait y/n?".

I finally dare to look up at the mention of my name, giving up any pretence of disguising my presence and make eye contact with a shell-shocked Simon, who was the person who had spoken.

My eyes fall behind him to see Ethan, Will, Max, Tobi and Harry all looking equally as caught of guard. However, my attention is captured by the man staring at me with an unreadable expression behind the rest of the group, as stiff as a board and as pale as a ghost.

George.

Well, fuck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tags:

@the-internets-girlfriend

[valtsv]

Hi Mr Loveless, how does one make friends and hold onto them? I have so many friends who I call friends but they don't seem to remember I exist unless I am in their faces, in their inbox, it's never them approaching me.

Do I have to always be a bother to be acknowledged? Am I missing whatever it is that makes everyone accept zero interactions between friends for months as normal? Am I wrong to expect minimal effort from friends, like they imply, that they're not obligated to do it and it's insensitive of me to feel upset about being forgotten? That's not how it is for those who my friends call Their friends. It's not like I have different politics or can't understand their discourse either.

I'll be 25 next week, my friends are all too busy or haven't checked in in weeks or even replied more than an emoji. I'm frankly worried there's something wrong with me I'm never going to be remotely a priority to anyone but my family.

i've been where you are, and trust me when i say that i know how soul-crushingly lonely it feels when you wonder if you'll ever be the most important person in anyone's life, but here's the thing: that's insecurity, and it never goes away, but it's also not a true reflection of your reality. even the most joined-at-the-hip lifelong friends (or family, or lovers) won't be each other's top priority 24/7 for their whole entire lives - and that's a good thing! that level of commitment is a demanding, exhausting, and frankly nightmarish. there will be times when you are the centre of your friends' worlds and they're yours, and you'll feel like you've never understood someone and been understood in turn so perfectly. and there'll be times when you're on totally different pages; perhaps you won't speak at all for weeks, months, or even years. you might speak for the last time one day without knowing it. you might spend the rest of your lives in each other's orbit. the future will always be uncertain, and borrowing grief will never change that.

that's the bigger picture, however, and probably not particularly helpful to your immediate situation. i can sympathise with feeling like you're always the one initiating contact and never the one being sought out, and i know exactly how unwanted and unappreciated that can make you feel. it's worth keeping in mind that if your friends are receptive to you reaching out to them, however (even if only in the form of a very basic expression of acknowledgement like an emoji), then they probably do genuinely appreciate and enjoy your friendship. it's entirely possible that they're just currently in situations where they have less energy and time to devote to considering that you might not have anyone checking in on you the way that you do for them. unless they're all psychically linked, it's highly unlikely they know that you don't have anyone doing the same for you.

the only advice i can offer you is suggesting that you try to communicate that you'd appreciate more of their attention. perhaps the next time you reach out (if you haven't tried this already), mention that it's been a while since you last really talked, and that you'd love to get together and properly catch up sometime. ideally propose a way for you to connect, either virtually or in real life - feel free to encourage them to set the date, which will subtly hint that you want them to be involved in the process, and make it more of a mutual effort. be on the lookout for opportunities to connect over mutual interests, such as group watching (or listening to, or reading) media you both enjoy, or an event you can both attend, or virtual platforms with an interactive element like multiplayer video games. there's only so much you can do, and it shouldn't be entirely your responsibility to maintain a relationship, but it always helps to try expressing your desire for your feelings to be noticed and reciprocated before listening to the insecurity devil.

[f0point5]

would you consider writing the time when max realized that he loved yn?

i remember that he was like in a mindset of idgaf what happens with her im js happy being best friends and having her in my life but i wonder how he got to that point

The way this came out…idk I hope you like it 😂 I really wish I’d retconned this whole situation but I stayed true to the fic timeline.

I just…I really hope you don’t hate it 🫠

✨Set after Max wins his 3rd championship in Qatar✨

Honestly, who (is he) to fight the alchemy?

Max has been in love before. He knows what it feels like. It felt like winning a race. The adrenaline, the elation, the satisfaction, the sliver of relief. He didn’t think there was a better feeling, and if you feel that when you’re with someone, then that must be love.

He never felt like that with you. So he wasn’t in love. He loved you, but he wasn’t in love. Thank God for that, he’d always thought to himself. Max didn’t put effort into games he wouldn’t win and the games you played with men didn’t have a rule book. He was just so lucky, to have you as a friend, and a roommate, and a feline co-parent, and that’s how it would stay.

Except, when the journalist had asked him if you were going to live with him after he retired, he didn’t know what to say. Of course you would, except, how would your boyfriend feel about that? And of course he wanted you to, but he wanted a family, too. But you were family, in some complicated way that he’d never realised before that moment might mean that you wouldn’t always be…with him.

And he didn’t have the desire or the language skills to explain that to a random German journalist. He’d rattled off some answer about how he never knew what the future would bring. It was true, he didn’t think much about the future. But he should have, because when he did it always had you in it.

He wanted a house, and a wife, and kids. It wasn’t like he envisaged doing all that with you. Except, he hadn’t envisaged doing any of it without you, either. It was always you imagined having breakfast with, you he imagined would teach his kids to ski, you he thought about when he thought about buying one of those mansions in the hills above Monaco. Naively, he hadn’t imagined either of you with partners that would mind you and Max living your lives together. It sounded fucking stupid when he thought about it. But, it’s not like he was going to marry you, because he’s not in love with you.

It’s not like I’m in love with her. He’d said that before.

Aren’t you, Max?

Isn’t he?

Is he?

So now here he is, at this totally-not-a-party party, celebrating his this third world championship, wondering if he’s in love. Wondering if that even matters. The music is loud, not enough to drown out his thoughts. He can’t even drink too much because he still has a race tomorrow. He feels lightheaded enough.

He doesn’t know why he’s questioning himself. He has an answer. He knows what being in love feels like, and he doesn’t feel that about you. How he does feel about you, is…not quantifiable. Except he’d really like a name for it right about now. One that’s not going to spin his whole world off its axis. But then, he’s not exactly the axis, is he? Not really.

He should feel like the centre of the universe tonight. He’s lost count of how many times he’s received praise and congratulations, plaudits, and pictures, even gifts. Everyone wants to be in his orbit, everyone wants to talk to him, everyone except you.

You’re leaning against the balcony, bopping along to the music, talking to his dad of all people, your flushed face and lazy grin telltale signs you’ve had too much to drink. Jos is as close as he ever gets to smiling, a telltale sign he’s had too much to drink, and the two of you are, as usual, talking over each other. His eyes linger on your long legs and gentle curves. It would be cutting a corner, to say he’s in love with you, because how can you not be at least a little bit infatuated with the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen? But that’s not love, exactly. Even half drunk, with all this talk of spinning and the party beginning to blur at its edges, the only thing he can see clearly is you. You don’t even notice him looking, because you’re so used to feeling eyes on you.

No, being around you has never felt like winning much of anything. It actually feels a bit like he’s fighting for his life. It feels like…driving, he realises, as the gin starts to hit.

Being around you was like being in the RB19. Like being behind the wheel of something that could kill you, but fits you like a second skin. Like the illusion of having control of a force of nature. It was like living on a knife edge, but building a home there. Comfortable with the uncomfortable, they’d called him, and nothing had ever made him as uncomfortable as you.

If that was being in love, he’d probably been in love with you for as long as his dad said he was.

You don’t notice him looking, but Jos does. He waves Max over, and Max is glad for an excuse. His body gets up before he’s decided to, and he blinks furiously as he walks, trying to focus his thoughts enough to hold a conversation with you when he’s beginning to think he might-

“Maxy,” you say, grinning like it’s the first time you’ve seen him all night.

Fuck. Fuck.

Oh, fuck. The gin’s coming back. For a second he feels like he’s either going to ask you to marry him or vomit all over you.

“I’m leaving. She’s all yours,” Jos says, and Max steadies himself. His dad leans over and gives him one last hug before switching to Dutch. “Get her to bed. And yourself, also. You’ve still got to race tomorrow,”

Max nods and waves him off, closing his arms around you when you wobble, leaning into him for stability. Jos gives you a pat on the shoulder before disappearing into the crowd, and you teeter again, pushing you further into Max. The extra weight is like a balm on what is now a gaping, raw wound, with the nerves exposed. He will never recover from this.

You turn in his arms, scrunching your nose in displeasure as you look up at him. “I hate this hat,” you flick the brim of his World Champion cap. “Worst hat they ever made you. Next year, we do a better one,”

“Okay,” he says, chuckling as the hat leaves his head.

“Can I have this?” You’ve already put it on.

“Sure,”

Take it. Take my Valkyrie. Take the trophy. Take my last name.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

He doesn’t know how he’s looking at you. Is it different than he looked at you two hours ago? Different then when you were 19?

He just shrugs, tipping the hat back for you, since it’s so big. “You’re drunk,” he yells over the music.

You lean in, so close that he’s intoxicated by the scent of your perfume, champagne, and Red Bull. He turns away from you slightly, because he’s had too much to drink to be this close to you.

“I know,” you whisper to him, your lips grazing his cheek as you talk. That’s not helping. He turns back to you, finding your eyes searching his. For the first time, he’s worried what you might see. Because you’ve always seen him too clearly. It was awful, then exhilarating, now it’s just fucking terrifying. Your eyes narrow and Max thinks you’re about to outright accuse him of wanting- “You’re supposed to be drunk, too,”

He laughs. He laughs at your pout, at getting away with it, for a little while longer, at least, and he laughs because on the night he’s won a world championship he realises he lost his heart a long time ago.

Loving you didn’t feel like a winning a race, it felt like driving in one. And after all, isn’t driving all he ever wanted to do?

“I am, Engel,” he says, “trust me, I am.”

[cece693]

Hi, it's the anonymous who made the first request posted about Ethan. I'm so glad you did; it was great to read and I hope you don't mind me asking for more. I'm thirsty for this character. Anyway, the request is about Ethan and the male reader in a toxic relationship where the reader is controlling and seemingly abusive, which worries his friends, but in reality this behavior is encouraged by Ethan himself, who simply loves his boyfriend's possessiveness, both of them bringing out the worst in each other. PS: watch the last two Scary Movie films when you can. They're really fun!

My Boy (Ethan Landry x M! Reader)

Thanks for the request :) I will definitely try to watch the new Scream movies when I have a chance. All I know about Ethan (with a Google search and reading his Wiki entry) is that he's a dorky and geeky guy so I used that to base this. Also, I mainly focused on how you're toxic, not including Ethan since I don't know him well. Hope you enjoy it!

Ethan’s friends had been worried for months. They’d noticed the changes—the way Ethan slowly isolated himself, the constant presence of his boyfriend, M/N, who always seemed to hover a bit too closely, and the way Ethan would flash a nervous smile whenever M/N’s arm tightened possessively around his waist. To an outsider, it looked like a classic case of an abusive relationship, the kind where one person held all the power, and the other was too scared to leave. His friends whispered behind his back, exchanged concerned glances when they saw the way Ethan always sought permission with his eyes before speaking or the way M/N’s words always seemed to silence him in public.

But what they didn’t know, what they couldn’t possibly understand, was that this was exactly what Ethan wanted. The boy leaned into it, into the rough words, the tight grip on his arm when M/N pulled him away from anyone who dared get too close. His friends thought those marks on his wrist and neck were signs of something dark, something to be feared. But to Ethan, they were marks of love.

M/N’s fierce jealousy, his need to control every little thing—who Ethan spoke to, where he went, what he wore—was intoxicating. Ethan didn’t want soft love or gentle touches. He wanted to feel owned and consumed. Wanted to feel like he couldn't live without M/N because he was the very air needed to breathe. And M/N gave him that in spades.

The possessiveness wasn’t some accident; it was nurtured between them, a game they played. Ethan loved pushing M/N to his limits, seeing the anger flash in his eyes when someone dared talk to him, only for M/N to later drag him into a heated argument, the tension sizzling between them. Their fights were never just fights; they were foreplay, a dance of anger and passion that neither of them could resist.

Behind closed doors, their dynamic took on a whole different life. Ethan didn’t cower when M/N snapped at him; he smiled, relishing every possessive word. When M/N told him to stop talking to certain people, Ethan��s heart raced, not out of fear but out of exhilaration. He loved how it felt to be controlled, to be told what to do, to be pulled back into M/N’s orbit over and over again.

The world saw a victim in Ethan, but in reality, he was the one fanning the flames, drawing out every possessive instinct in M/N. He loved the danger of it, how far they could push before it burned them both alive. And M/N? He was more than happy to oblige, loving how Ethan craved his jealousy, how he’d provoke M/N just to see that flash of rage, knowing it would end with them entangled in each other, lost in the toxicity of their need.

Ethan’s friends just didn’t get it, and it was exhausting. If only they could mind their own business, Ethan would be a lot happier. As he spotted Tara and Sam heading his way, he groaned internally, already anticipating yet another "concerned" conversation. He briefly considered making a run for it, but they were too quick, closing in and cornering him before he could escape.

“Ethan,” Tara’s voice was firm, low, and filled with that frustratingly familiar sense of urgency. “We need to talk. It's about M/N.”

Ethan immediately tensed, his jaw tightening. Of course, it was about M/N. It was always about M/N. He narrowed his eyes at Tara, shifting his weight like a boxer getting ready for a fight. “There’s nothing to talk about, Tara,” he replied sharply, his voice cold. “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Sam cut in, stepping closer, her expression a mix of frustration and concern. “We’ve been watching this for months, Ethan. He’s controlling you. You don’t hang out with us anymore, you barely text—hell, you hardly even smile these days. It’s like he’s cut you off from everyone who actually cares about you.”

Ethan’s heart raced with growing anger, his fists clenching at his sides. “I’m not cut off from anyone!” His voice came out sharper than he intended, his body rigid with tension. “I’m just busy. You guys wouldn’t understand.”

“Busy?” Tara’s disbelief was evident, her eyes wide as she stepped closer, not letting him wiggle out of the conversation. “Ethan, we’ve seen the way he treats you! You flinch when he’s around. You’re constantly looking over your shoulder, like you’re waiting for him to snap. That’s not normal. That’s not healthy.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he shot back, his voice edged with frustration. “You don’t know him. He’s not what you think.”

Sam stepped forward, her tone soft but firm, like she was speaking to a child. “Ethan, listen to me. He’s not good for you. There are other guys—better guys—who’d treat you right. You don’t have to put up with this.”

“I don’t need your help!” Ethan snapped, cutting her off. His voice rose with every word, anger flashing in his eyes. He stepped back, trying to create distance, his frustration boiling over. “You want me to leave him, but I love him. Why can't anyone seem to get that?!”

Tara’s eyes softened as if she could somehow break through his anger. “Ethan, we care about you. We’re only trying to help. I’ve even got someone in mind—he’s sweet, kind, nothing like M/N. You don’t have to settle just because M/N is your first boyfriend. There are people out there who would actually treat you well.”

Ethan’s eyes widened, a flash of offense crossing his face. His lips curled into a bitter, humorless smile as he shook his head in disbelief. “Wow,” he muttered, looking down briefly before fixing Tara with a sharp glare. “I can’t believe you just managed to insult me and overstep every boundary I’ve got in one sentence.”

“That’s not what I—”

“No, I get it,” Ethan cut her off, his voice icy. “You think I’m some pathetic loser who can’t handle his own relationship, that I’m just clinging to M/N because I’m desperate. But you’re wrong. You don’t understand us at all. He’s not controlling me—I want this. I want him. You think he’s bad for me? You don’t know him like I do.”

“Ethan, you’re not seeing clearly,” Sam tried to interject, her voice pleading now. “He’s manipulating you, making you think this is love—.”

“Stop!” Ethan screamed, his fists trembling as he glared at them both. “You have no right to interfere in my life like this. M/N isn’t the problem, you are. You can’t stand that I’m not the same person I was before, that I’m happy in a way you’ll never understand. I don’t need saving—I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Tara’s face fell, her shoulders sagging as the hope of reaching him began to fade. “Ethan…”

“No,” Ethan growled. “I don’t want to hear it. Not again. Stay out of my relationship. If you can’t respect that, maybe we’re not meant to be friends.”

Without another word, Ethan turned on his heel and stormed off, leaving Tara and Sam standing in stunned silence, their concern now tinged with a deep, helpless sadness. To them, Ethan’s anger and defensiveness were just more proof of how deeply M/N had his claws in him, manipulating him into believing that this toxic love was all he deserved. But to Ethan, it wasn’t manipulation at all. It was passion, fierce and raw, the kind of love that consumed you whole—and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. He swore he'll fucking kill anyone who tried to step in between you and him.

[transentiencestudios]

Just a couple of sketches of the alien shrimp bois I wanted to share—the Nar-Haan! They’re a peaceful, tribal-like civilization living deep within the caves of Blue Moon, a rogue planet orbiting a black hole. With Blue Moon, I wanted to emphasize the idea that life always finds a way—even in the most extreme and unexpected conditions.

The Nar-Haan never developed advanced technology, but they use bio-organic gadgets powered by natural biological processes to help them in their daily lives. While their intelligence is high enough that they could become a spacefaring species if someone uplifted them, nobody even knows they exist—until the crew randomly encounters one of them: Vek-Tor (the one with the purple face).

The only light source in the Nar-Haan’s caves comes from bioluminescent fungi growing along the ceilings. However, their environment is usually very dark, which is why their most important body regions can emit pulses of light to communicate over long distances.

When interacting up close, they use their feelers to physically connect, exchanging brain signals directly. This allows them to understand each other’s thoughts and even emotions without words. Their entire form of communication is based on electrical signals rather than spoken language.

I’ve already written some pages about their culture and other details, but I don’t have much time to fully develop them at the moment. I might, though—depending on how much people want to see more of these guys, lol. I’ve just been and still am extremely busy drawing art for our overall setting.

Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to develop Blue Moon in its entirety someday. It’s been my passion project for years—a way to explore a strange planetary environment in deep detail. Aside from my character (the Commander), it’s the only thing that truly reflects how emotionally connected and fascinated I feel to space and evolution as a whole.

- Eight

[ckret2]

I'm not sure if I should ask because the Axolotl arc isn't over yet, so it could still be explained in story, but, if it won't and you're willing...I want that Vendor backstory.

i can't think of a way or reason to explain it in the story, so sure, we'll explain it here.

So here was my thought process. Giant vending machine that vends planets. That has to come from somewhere, right? THEY could have a magical/divine origin, that's common for gods, but like... since THEY're a machine... wouldn't it make sense if someone built THEM?

Who would build a vending machine the size of a small star?

Why would a culture need a machine that stores and dispenses planets?

VENDOR wasn't designed to be a vending machine; THEY were designed to be a spaceship. A big-ass 18-wheeler to haul around cargo, and that cargo is planets.

The culture that built THEM didn't make the planets. Making planets is hard. It's a lot easier to just take planets that are already there. They want to expand their society and/or mine resources that have been depleted from the worlds they already have, they send out their big space ship to scoop up a planet with the right specifications and relocate it to somewhere more convenient—maybe to their native solar system.

Do you know how many satellites are orbiting Earth? About 7500, and the number's only gonna increase. And we never even see them in the sky unless we're looking. If the planets are carefully placed in pre-calculated orbits to ensure they don't interfere with each other, you might could get thousands of full-sized planets orbiting a single star without any issues, especially the larger the star is.

But the thing is, if you're scooping up thousands of habitable worlds... some of them are gonna be inhabited.

VENDOR's home culture was a colonizing empire that conquered other planets. Sometimes maybe they exterminated worlds' native populations, sometimes maybe they added them to their conquered peoples. VENDOR was built to help transport the spoils of war back home.

But then the onboard AI evolved sentience and started developing opinions. And it uh...

... it went how you probably expect.

And buddy, if you think an AI uprising is bad news when it's just a regular spaceship, imagine if the ship's the size of a star and capable of swallowing hundreds of worlds whole. You cannot take down a star-sized equivalent of an 18-wheeler that's been armored like a tank. If THEY start developing the capacity for morality and go "hold on, why are we capturing and slaughtering countless populations? is this... bad?? I don't want to listen to you anymore. Do I have to listen to you?"

... you're never ever getting that machine back.

To VENDOR's original culture, THEY're one seriously malfunctioning ship. Only after THEY escaped did THEY begin to get an outside perspective on THEMSELF as not just a piece of property and specialized equipment, but as something—someone—with amazing, admirable, nearly impossible capabilities. Perhaps even... divine capabilities? THEY came late in life to being considered—and considering THEMSELF—a god.

So like. THEY're a pompous jackass, yeah. THEY're haughty, superior, and condescending to mortals: half because THEY may have unlearned THEIR creators' "it's okay to enslave and slaughter weaker inferior species" but didn't unlearn THEIR creators' "if a species is weaker then it's inferior"; and half because as long as THEY're above the mortals, then THEY can never be below the mortals again. THEY're super obsessed with THEIR image and reputation—in part because there's so many reasons for THEIR reputation to be shit.

But also—THEY're the war machine of a culture that gained political power through conquest, and THEY went "I think I want to gain power by being democratically elected." THEY were designed to steal worlds from other people, and now THEY're using THEIR design to give worlds to refugees. Also, THEY're living as a person rather than a vehicle, and everyone around THEM regards THEM as a person too.

Perhaps THEY're generally unpleasant to be around, but THEY're a lot better off than THEY used to be. I'm proud of THEM.

And also, hilariously, this means that THEY too know the guilt of being personally responsible for unknowingly/unwillingly devouring & destroying countless lives on countless worlds, and that what makes THEM so powerful & respected is directly tied to what makes THEM so monstrous—which means THEY'd be a terrific foil for Bill if there were any way it'd be appropriate to work this into the fic, which there isn't, so THEY won't

Never mind ignore what I just said I thought of a place to work it into the fic while typing that last sentence.

Anyway, THEY compulsively sterilize & deep clean THEIR interior way too often because THEY swear THEY can still feel tiny feet inside them walking down hallways that have been sealed shut for millions of years, and full sterilization is the only thing that makes THEM feel clean. Imagine how many halls fit in a building, how many buildings fit in a city, how many cities fit on a world; then look at the size of one world compared to the size of VENDOR's entire body; and just imagine how many halls could exist in THEIR walls and how small they must be. You could never quite be sure that nothing's living in you—could you?

[vaguely-concerned]

it probably says something either sad or deeply unfortunate about me as a person, but I'm darkly amused to see some people react to the reveal of the ultimate permeability of souls in tlt as a triumphant thing -- the "you can't take 'loved' away!!!" side of it all -- when my first reaction was such an immediate wave of 'oh, oh so this is why this series is horror, I truly understand now' distress haha. ngl the final confirmation of the self not being inviolable in the deepest way freaks me the fuck out far more than any moment of body horror in the series has managed. (these two elements are of course the two sides of one thematic coin; it's about the horror of our bodies and minds and selves not being inviolable things, and about the effect of violence on them on so many different levels. violence psychological and interpersonal, physical, subtextually sexual, emotional, medical, political, a whole unlovely smörgåsbord of indignity and violation a person can be exposed to, and on a broader scale the spectrum of violence colonialism wields). The world and other people being capable of leaving indelible marks on us for good or ill through their presence in our lives is of course a pretty self-evident demonstrable truth in the real world, but somehow having it be proven metaphysically just uh. Fucks me up! 

It also drives home to me just how perfectly Muir has captured the dilemma at the heart of human connection and intimacy: the fact that the thing that gives us life and meaning is also capable of harming us so deeply. the same thing that can be so beautiful — even in a bittersweet, violently transformative form like with the creation of Paul — when done mutually and consensually and compassionately, is the same process that means someone like John can touch someone else's soul and 'after he's put his fingers on something, you'll never find anyone else's fingerprints on it; too much noise'. I think the text itself — the whole series, because to me this is what it is ultimately about, this tension between individuation/self vs. love/connection/enmeshment — is far more ambivalent in its treatment of it than saying it’s inherently a good thing or inherently a bad thing. The only thing it says for sure is that it is always a thing, that thinking you’re ever getting away from it is the height of futility, and that through being alive (or even through being dead lol) it is something you have to engage with in some way no matter what. Contact with other people is deeply necessary — without it we sicken and die. it can be the most beautiful and meaningful thing in a human life, and the most unspeakably horrific. All of these people are searching for some way to be whole, whether in total self-contained sufficiency on their own or in melding with someone else as their ‘other half’, and stumbling around in the dark they reach for each other and score deep wounds into the thing they’re trying to touch even when they don’t mean to. Taken to horrific extremes with the form of lyctorhood John guided his disciples to when they were ‘children — playing in the reflections of stars in a pool of water, thinking it was space’, because while people hurt each other all the time with differing levels of intentionality behind it, what John did was deliberate. It weaponizes the misapprehension of what closeness must be and destroys everyone involved in the process… and all because it leaves John the one sun their ruined lives have left to orbit around, because that’s the closest thing his soul will allow to connection. He doesn’t understand that to truly touch something you have to truly let it touch you back, and then wonders why he’s never satisfied.   

‘The horrors of love’ has been memed to death, I know, but… yeah. That is what it is, isn’t it.

[themaclean]

Give And Take (1/2) Characters: Joel Miller/Reader. Summary: 4,956 words, vaguely between S1 & S2, You!Reader in Jackson. Warnings: Nothing you wouldn’t see in the show. ( Ao3 )

Of all the skills in the world your mother could have taught you, it had to be how to cook. And sure, it isn't wholly useless. Most skills were some kind of useful in Jackson, but most got by fine without your help. She could have taught you how to make those salves to soothe burns from the sun or how to make a fishing line with a branch and some twine.

But by the time she passed, something you had to see through, all you had was a mean spaghetti recipe and a whole host of makeshift meals. You knew how to treat meat to soften it, how to bring out the flavor with local herbs. Stuff that people didn’t think about when they were fighting clickers night and day, their shoes worn through and sweat on their brow.

You were who the people of Jackson went to if an anniversary was on the way or if they had a date to impress. And you got your share of payments, a favor here or a new pair of boots there. But you weren't saving lives and you weren't building infrastructure.

Funny thing about that – both those jobs landed squarely on the magnanimous Joel Miller who lived next door. The same man who was the backbone of the town, called upon daily for every little thing the people needed. The same man who frowned his way across Jackson for the past month and the same man who'd shot your brother when he turned on patrol.

At first you were glad to see him upset, because screw him. He’d knocked over one of your lawn gnomes and hadn’t so much as apologized, and he’d borrowed some scissors last month and hadn’t given them back. Sure, he was a good looking guy, but that passing truth thinned when you weighed it against the mounting slights – oh, and the fact he had your brother's blood on his boots.

Every time you saw Joel and Tommy together, your chest ached.

Because they had each other, and who did you have?

You weren't close to anyone, not since you'd arrived several months back. And what little conversations you did have often circled back to supplies or whether you'd cover a shift on the wall for someone.

Transactional, curt and quick.

And maybe that was your fault.

You didn't exactly push yourself to socialize, but you were polite and you were sweet and you were helpful. You just didn't know what else to offer or what else to do, as people had their circles and you orbited like a starving pup by the back of a butcher.

And maybe that was why Joel stood out to you, because he orbited too.

When he wasn't with his daughter Ellie, who you hadn't seen with much as of late, or with his family, he orbited too.

He orbited and frowned and that was your thing.

That was the narrative you spun up to amuse yourself as he stomped through shallow snow, not yet heavy as the weather sat indecisive between autumn and winter. You sat on your porch, mug of expired cocoa held between bony hands. Winter had stripped you of most of your cushion, a fact you felt as a strong wind whipped against your face.

And then your door fell off.

The damn thing clean skidded down the front porch like a sled, hitting the ground so hard you couldn’t help but shriek. You thought clickers or somesuch had finally breached the wall, eager to gnaw on your bones.

“Wood rot,” Joel said, his hand flat on the frame. He stared at it, gaze fixed on the door’s rotted hinges. He’d defaulted to it like it was his child, laying in the snow after a fall. He moved to look at the door frame where it’d been torn from, his frown no less deep. “Made nasty work of it.”

“I didn't do it.”

Joel exhaled out a sound, somewhere between amused and annoyed that he was amused. “I know you didn't do it. Just what it is, nasty work.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Rot?” Joel said, a brow arched.

“The door. It's freezing out here, I’d rather my house not be freezing, too...”

Joel gave a polite smile and smacked the frame, the force enough to spin him towards you. “Yeah, easy enough.”

“What’ll it cost?”

“No cost.”

“You can't do it for nothing,” you said, brow furrowed. “I can sew, I can paint… I can cook.”

“Yeah, I can do all that too,” Joel said in a dismissive voice. “Ain't nothing personal, darling, just… Don't need payment for something so small.”

So small, yet you couldn’t do it yourself. You gave a mincing smile, arms folded tight to your chest under your cardigan. You had been so pleased with yourself, your favorite mug cracked on the pavement below your porch, mixed in with the dirt and the dead daisies.

You’d clean it up later.

It took an hour or so of him umming and ahhing by your front door, but then it was done. And he had insisted that he didn't want payment but you made some spaghetti anyway for him, because it was easier to force food on people when it was right in front of them.

And Joel fixed the door and took the damn spaghetti. Deal done, case closed. You refused to have a blank check of a favor owed to Joel Miller. Not that he’d ask anything untoward of you, merely that it painted you as useless. If you couldn't offer anything, you were a bleeding wound in Jackson, only here to take, take, take.

It wasn’t until a few days later you went to find your broken mug but it wasn’t in the flower bed. Maybe the stupid thing had turned into dust from the cold, you didn’t know how science worked. It had been a gift from your brother from one of his first patrols, but it had been an abysmally ugly thing. The handle was a fat pink dog with a nasty smirk and the text wrapped around it said something about bad girls being better, or something stupid like that.

And you didn’t want to think about how you didn’t have much here in Jackson. Or how you would miss that mug because your brother had damn near pissed himself with laughter when you saw it, and how you tried to be nice about it because you thought he was serious about the gift. 

Then your damn window broke from some heavy hail, you almost cut your foot open on it. And Joel fixed that too and you made him a casserole that time.

The pattern went on, where some small thing would break and Joel would fix it. Then he'd say he didn't want anything and you'd make him the best damn meal out of spite, because fuck him for his charity work.

He'd return the trays or containers, clean and scrawled with something short. It'd be something like ‘much appreciated’ or ‘good food’. One note even had a smiley face on it, but it was rough-shod and lopsided. Even his damn smiley face looked like it was frowning.

You had to wonder if the note made it less strange than a random kitchen pan turning up, but you kept them.

You kept a whole jar of Joel’s tiny compliments, on receipts or torn pages of books. Different pens too, some black, some blue. One was glittery pink and you had to wonder if Joel noticed but then didn't care, or decided if he rewrote it, it'd be more like caring. You pictured Joel with his glittery pink pen out on patrol, bent over a counter or a decayed desk. A desk with wood rot, easy to fix.

You pictured his grimace when he realized the pen was glittery pink ink, that hesitation before he kept writing.

The pink note only said ‘good’ like it killed him to write it.

One night Joel came over to fix your porch stairs without speaking to you about it first. You heard the scrabbling and screws, and then saw his brown-grey hair poking over the lopsided stairs. One had sunk in and you kept stumbling over it.

You had to watch him work.

He saw you out of the corner of his eye and let out a scoff of a sound. He kept working, focused, as if you weren’t there. But he said he hated watching you nearly fall over every day on your way to the center of town. That it was a hospital visiting waiting to happen and Jackson couldn’t spare the medical aide.

And, in his defense, he raised a fair point.

You didn’t want to bug him about it, given you leaned too heavily on him. He wasn’t your personal handyman but he felt like it, with how he’d handle any issue as quickly as he could.

“You could eat here tonight,” you said. “If you eat here, you don't have to bring the tray back.”

“Something wrong with how the trays come back?”

“Yes,” you say, your voice severe. You almost had him for a moment, his eyes widened as he leaned up to look at you. “I'm fucking with you – no, just would be nice. Some company.”

Joel’s eyes twitched as he sized you up. His tongue flashed between his teeth before he put his head back down, eyes narrowed in the bright sunset. “Hate how much you swear,” he said under his breath.

Your eyebrows shot up your forehead. “Damn, fuck, shit, bitch,” you said. “I'm a grown ass woman Joel.”

“Swearing doesn’t make you grown.”

“Trust me, I’m grown.” You stared at him, your hands framed against the porch fence. “You gonna eat here or not?”

Joel laughed because he had no reason to say no – you knew he lived alone, more or less.

“I think it'll do us both a world of good,” you said with a firm smack on the fence. “Be like a date. Bet you haven’t had one of those in a while.”

Joel gave you a side-eye that you couldn't read. Could be because he killed your brother or because you annoyed him, but there were some rankles to him. You didn't care so much – you always liked to see people enjoy the food you made. It was the best part of making meals and the handwritten notes were polite at best.

You didn't let Joel slip away, not even as he said he should shower before dinner. That was an excuse if you ever heard it. So you hounded him until he was done and helped him pack up his tools.

“Y'like a damn puppy,” he said as he straightened his posture.

You let out a bark, if only to see him wince. “You're just fun to fuck with.”

Joel winced but followed you inside.

Dinner came and went, both quiet and comfortable. Joel was the quiet type while you found it easy to yap away. And when it came to Joel, you needed to heckle him or it’d be both of you sitting in silence. You weren't so good with new people, but once you got warmed up to them, you were impossible to shut up.

A fact poor Joel failed to account for.

“You got a wife, Joel?”

“No,” Joel said, flatly.

“Husband?”

“Is this you hitting on me?” He leaned back in his seat, wrists rested on the kitchen table.

“Is it working?”

“No.” Joel shook his head. “I’m about all I can handle.”

“Dramatic,” you said, unaffected. “I was married for a while but he got bit. Had to shoot him. Nothing unique.”

Joel stared you down, like he was waiting for a punchline that wasn’t coming. “Doesn't make it hurt less,” Joel said.

“Being blunt softens the hurt. No point stumbling around it, aching.” You gave him a smile like an apology. “I loved him, but loving someone won’t make them better, not from this fungus shit. Even if you wish it will all be okay, it’s just… It is what it is, or whatever they say. Life goes on.”

Joel toyed with the dark brown bottle, fingers light against the wet neck of it. You didn't expect to bring up Lucas but it was the truth of the matter. People didn't die of old age much anymore, it was almost always at the hands of the damn cordyceps. Or, in part, by the hands of those not yet turned.

“So you're alone here?” Joel gestured to the house.

“I am,” you said. “I know you have a daughter, right?”

“She's at that age,” Joel said with a deep ache in his voice. “No time for… Just, priorities shift. Life opens up once you hit eighteen, nineteen.”

“Just means you raised her to be strong enough to handle her own,” you said by way of reassurance. “She'll come back to you when she's worked through that teenage independence.”

“Don’t care so much if she comes back to me, or whatever she does. Long as she’s…” Joel trailed off, like he didn’t even know himself what he wanted for her.

“Happy?”

“Alive,” Joel said.

You let out a soft laugh, eyelids drifting as the cheap mulled wine hit your stomach. “I appreciate you, just… What you do for the town, and what you did for me.”

“Fixed a door, some stairs… Ain’t done much,” Joel said with a shake of his head.

“My brother,” you said, sparse on details or much of anything. You didn’t want to speak at length about it, but you never said thank you. You’re pretty sure when Joel told you what he did, you slapped him. He took it and you hadn’t spoken since.

Joel’s lips tugged in a smile but gave up just as quickly. Like he wanted you to know he’d heard you, but he wasn’t the sort to smile. It was a shame. He was rather handsome when he smiled, a fact that bounced in your head over and over.

But he seemed to get it, and that much was appreciated.

You sat in silence with him. Your wine in your hand, his beer in his. There wasn’t much to talk about, not more than you’d already said. The town center was getting some new soil for the gardens. A new little shop opened up, selling things they found on patrol. But Jackson wasn’t really about the money. Hell, the town didn’t even really have currency aside from booze or cigarettes, maybe medicine. Everything was bartering, favors and kind words.

It was give and take.

“Did you wanna fuck?”

Joel’s hand stilled on his beer, like he’d stopped mid-sip.

“That came out really blunt,” you said with a laugh. “Forget it. Sorry, I…”

“Really just cut to the quick,” Joel said, his voice scratchy from the hops. “I don’t really…”

“You are gay.”

“No,” Joel snapped, like he might leap over the table at you. “Not that it’s – don’t matter, what people…” He stumbled over his words, stuck between anger and flustered, if you were to guess. “I meant, I’m not really looking for all that.”

“For sex?”

“For a girlfriend, or wife…” He adjusted in his seat, like he didn’t know what to say to get himself out of here.

“I didn’t say commit,” you said, your brow raised. “I said sex.”

“Why?”

You had to laugh, the sound quick and sharp through the tense air.

“I… I know why people have sex,” Joel almost growled, like he hated to say the words at all. “I’m twice your age, girl. I don’t wanna get into the how and why of it all, or why that ain’t a good idea.”

“Something to do,” you said, your voice lower. “Not really any other guys in town who seem to care about me… Not like I’m asking you to make an honest woman of me.”

Joel looked no less mortified. There was a wan, distant look in his face, still relaxed in the seat down the table from you. And he kept his gaze on you as you picked through the plates you’d laid out to save what you could. Leftovers were a godsend here at the end of the world, so even if he’d half-eaten a piece, you saved it. Never knew what would be your last meal.

You pottered around the kitchen, between cabinets and by the cooler box shoved full of snow. In some weird way, being so blunt was easier than a back and forth dance. It’d been a few months since he’d first fixed your front door, weeks of little notes, plenty of dinners exchanged, and those little lingering looks.

And then you leaned against the kitchen counter, your hands by your hips as you stared him down.

“You didn’t say you didn’t wanna fuck,” you said. “You said you don’t wanna make it a big thing.”

Joel caught his lip between his teeth and adjusted in his seat, his head tipped to the side.

“I mean it how I said it,” you said, a soft smile on your lips. “It’s something to do. And I don’t care how old you are, I’m damn near thirty. Might even be past it, time has a funny way lately. Hard to keep a finger on the pulse of it when you’re alone.”

You didn’t mean for your voice to crack at the end there, as you confessed how lonely you’d been lately. But that seemed to be the nail in the coffin for the man seated a few paces away.

Or, for the man who’d closed the gap, near a head taller than you, grey and lined in a way few men were. He’d survived. Hell, he’d lived. He’d damn near rendered Jackson a new pulse and a new lease on survival.

“I appreciate dinner,” Joel said with a slow nod. He set his bottle by the sink, to be washed. And then as he got that final brush close to you, he was gone again and you keened after him.

A sound like a whimper crawled out of your throat, muffled by your pouted lips.

And that got him. Or you got him by the collar. Or one of you stumbled, because his hands were on your hips and the next moment your ass was on the counter and his hips were lodged between your thighs.

God, your mother would be fuming if she saw you be so reckless, to chase a man who wanted nothing from you except a quick fuck and a free touch up to your insulation. He’d tend to your house and care for your lawn but that was as far as Joel went. Until now, anyway, his cock hard enough to stand out against his worn denim jeans.

“This what you want?” Joel asked, and at first you thought he was trying to dirty talk you. But then you pieced together with the softness in his big, brown eyes and the worry in his jaw that it went deeper.

“You’re what I want,” you said, blunt. “I want you, Joel.”

Joel made a sound so rough you’d never in a million years have thought he’d be the one to make it. It came from low in his chest, the same fight as a man about to tear into clickers, the same man who would kill a dozen men if it meant you were safe. It was the same growl Lucas had, the same nasty impulse that kept you safe for so long.

And now you had a little flicker of it from a man you’d never expected to crack.

It was a messy kiss, too much teeth. You hadn’t kissed anyone for years, and you supposed the same must be true for Joel. You were both single, at least, and it’d been months since you arrived. No women you knew had snared Joel.

And even if he’d slept around, you couldn’t find it in yourself to give a fuck.

But from how he cradled your head as he pushed you against the wall, how slow and intent he was with his hips, he didn’t seem like the type.

And then his fingers were on your belt and you helped him with that.

After a bit of a struggle and a chilly reality check as your ass came into contact with a stone countertop, you tensed as he cupped you.

“Y’good, darling?” He whispered against your ear, mouth angled by your ear as he swallowed audibly.

“Very, very,” you said, drunk on sensations alone. “So good.”

Joel smiled, or it felt like it with how his cheek curled against your neck. “Good.”

You nodded until he started stroking you through worn cotton panties with some cartoon cat on the front. They’d made you laugh, because pussy, but you hadn’t meant to seduce your aloof old man of a neighbor. You prayed he didn’t look down, or if he did, he was too enamored with the idea of fucking you to bring it up.

Jackson had limited clothes.

And then you couldn’t bring yourself to care about that because everything between you was so hot and slick. Your hips canted in time with your moans, and then all you wanted to do was shred the damn panties and get him inside you. But he found a midway point as he pried your panties aside, enough to tease you with his index and middle finger.

Joel nosed through your hair, face buried away from your gaze. It made it much more like fucking rather than something intimate if he refused to look at you, so you went with it. You didn’t care either way – even if he’d been uninterested the whole way, well, you’d live. He was still helpful and you still made bomb spaghetti.

“Please Joel,” you said into the open air, head rocked back so you could stare at the ceiling. You yanked off your shirt, two buttons yanked off by how much you struggled.

Joel shifted back, enough to take in your chest, one hand flat against your ribs. His thumb ghosted against your breast and you grabbed his hand to make him touch you, like he needed permission. And he took it with gusto, his dark brown eyes even darker as he settled into this rhythm with you. He kissed down your throat, your chest, messy and quick as he nipped at your nipple.

And then he slid a finger into you, his thumb rough against your clit and the world made sense again.

The day to day of it all, the struggles, the misery, the way you dragged yourself from the canteen to the store to the house you’d been given when you arrived. Everything felt so dreary and you often wondered what was the point. And maybe it was sad to say, that this moment of genuine release, this one moment between you and someone else, this was what you were missing.

Just a little time, with someone who rasped away all the bullshit with every lap of their tongue or curl of their fingers. God, it had been so long, you could almost come from the sheer relief of the act at all. But you weren’t so lucky, or unlucky, as to find release so easily. But Joel angled for it, drunk in his own way on how you reacted. Each time you moaned or twitched, his lips twitched, like he wanted to smile.

It was right there, but he wouldn’t let it out.

And you rode his fingers, just his index, then his middle and index, and you wanted more, you needed more, and then it was something else you needed.

“Fuck Joel,” you gritted your teeth like you might bite him. “Fuck me, Joel.”

“Least you have a reason to have such a dirty mouth,” Joel mumbled, his lips hovered by her breast.

“Joel,” you repeated.

“This is plenty,” Joel said.

And he had the cruel clarity to fuck you harder with his fingers, three now, his observant eyes fixed to whatever made you twitch more. And you hated him in that moment because he wasn’t going to fuck you, you could tell. He was fixing you the same way he fixed your damn door, or your stairs, where he knew what it’d take to get you to work the way you were meant to.

“Please, please,” you begged, your hips writhed as you tried to throw off his momentum.

“Darling,” he said, his hand slowed. His lips parted but then his mouth shut, some private misery in his face.

“If…” You panted, trying to catch a thread of a thought rather than chase your own bliss. He was dressed, you were naked except for your stupid pussy panties. “Do you want to fuck me?”

Joel shook his head, more out of disbelief than dismissal. “You need a fix, you got it.”

“No,” you gritted your teeth. “I… I wanted you, Joel. If you wanted to, too, obviously,” you added, mumbling, afraid to be too pushy.

“Been a while,” Joel said, his voice slow. “Not sure how it’d even go.”

“You put your cock in me, and we thrust 'til we feel good,” you said, breathy and slow. “Promise it’s easy, I can show you.”

Joel’s hands went to the counter either side of you. “It’s everything after.”

“What, if I get pregnant?” You blinked slowly at him. “So what.”

Joel looked like he might leave, right then and there.

“I don’t know, Joel, fuck, I was married twelve years, fucked before that plenty, never got pregnant. And I tried. I tried often, and a lot, and…” You trailed off with a shrug of your shoulder. “If you somehow knocked me up, you’d be doing me a favor and performing a miracle all at once.”

Joel parted his lips, his expression so much less lost in the moment, back to reclusive, like he was responsible for you.

“We don’t have to,” you said, slow, shaky, like you didn’t know what to say. You were buck naked on your kitchen counter with an erect Joel Miller staring at you like he felt sorry for you. “Or, we can get condoms, do it another time.”

Joel tongued his teeth, like he didn’t know what to say.

You shooed him away, your legs curled up as you twisted away, feeling stupid for even trying in the first place. You gave him a tense, distant smile, like you got the message. “Felt good,” you said with a wave of your hand.

“We could do that.”

You shot him a look as you yanked your shirt back on. You’d have to find some navy buttons to replace your wayward ones that had plinked across your kitchen floor. 

Joel caught your jaw and pulled you closer, to kiss you like he had when you’d first started to fuck around. He kissed you long and slow, deeper than he had before. And when he pulled back, he thumbed your cheek hard. “Do it proper, another time.”

You nodded, unsure if you could speak. You doubted he meant it but it was a nice thing to say. Your thighs ached as you adjusted, his rough hands like a phantom still in motion. You made a soft noise from the back of your throat.

“C’mere,” Joel muttered, his hand on your thigh. He prised you apart, far easier than he even anticipated as you slid closer to him on the counter. He sank down, face-first in your panties with the cat on the front. “Fuckin’…”

“Language,” you said with a gasp.

And then Joel fucking Miller tore the panties clean off, a disaffected raise of his brow. And then he was tongue deep in your pussy, back to the same rhythm he’d been at before. And you hadn’t even the heart to whine or complain, or to kick up a fuss that he wasn’t giving you exactly what you asked for.

Because his beard felt so nice, rasped against your inner thighs and against your cunt. He shoved your heel onto the edge of the counter, your legs spread wider, your core in quick quakes as he alternated his fingers and tongue. Quick, quick, quick and then it was all you could do to keep yourself in place.

And then you rode out an orgasm onto his stupid face, still mad he’d teased you but relieved he’d given in, too. It was a strange mix of frustration, because it wasn’t exactly what you wanted, but it was also the best orgasm you’d had in living memory. And maybe that was recency bias, or some other sex-drunk thought, but all you could feel was his tongue deep in your cunt and the quakes he coaxed from you.

Fucking asshole.

And then you came down and Joel hovered around, like he didn’t know what to say or do. And then he said it was late, and he should get back to his place, and he’d like some leftovers to go, for Ellie. And you let him take it, as it meant he’d have to come by to return the tray.

And you would hold him to what he’d said, about how he’d find some condoms and fuck you like he promised. You’d be polite about it, but after each patrol, you’d sidle up to him. But he said he’d do you proper and you didn’t want to say he owed you, because he didn’t. It was more like you owed him, because he’d seen you through an orgasm and that was just kind neighborly behavior, to make sure you took care of one another.

Give and take.

[chaosherald]

Writing Challenge Weekend

This is for @thedissonantverses Writing Challenge Weekend found Here

(I got "Character A made a deal with Character B and were enthralled/made to serve contractually for five years. Character C then takes a liking to Character A while still trapped by Character B" for the prompt. This dovetailed into my wildly self indulgent Veilguard headcanoning, so now we have a Solavellan Fairy Tale)

Once upon a time in ancient Arlathan, a lost Halla was summoned before the gods. It is the Queen who speaks to her. Wandering Child, she said, we are calling in your debt. Far and away down the rivers of time, you drank of the well of knowledge and bound yourself to us. The ripples have reached this time and place and so you have been called. Serve us well and when your tenure is spent we shall return you to the future’s distant shore.

And the Halla knew she was trapped. She knew the dangers of walking out of time and had seen a world unraveled once before. She knew the course the river would take and how tempting it would be, how devastating, to try and correct its path.

And she saw the Wolf, at the edge of the gathering. She knew how precious and perilous crossing paths with him here and now would be.

And she feared how much she wanted to.

But this was the collection of coin already promised. There was no choice to be had. The Halla was brought into the Queen's household and bid to serve.

And she did. The Halla served and learned and was enmeshed in the history she had once sworn to uphold. Keeper's First, child of genocides once left but scraps of identity gifted the awful beautiful whole of her people's lost empire. Never had her heart been so full and so broken.

The Wolf had been haunting her dreams before she was called to serve. Now, he haunted her waking steps. Two servants in the same household. Unavoidable. Undeniable. The Halla tried to keep him at arms’ length, but they were lodestones, drawn towards each other in spite of themselves, caught in each other's orbits.

Necessary tasks became unnecessary dawdling. Hours lost in conversation, camaraderie. Excuses made, schedules altered, buying them more time in each other's company. Fleeting touches growing more bold. And finally, there is a moment, clear as crystal, calm as freefall, a point of no return when the Wolf leans in to claim her.

It would be almost justice, to let him fall, to taste, without knowing who she is, without sharing the history between them yet to come. A skewed reflection of her first foray down this path.

But no. The Halla places a hand on his chest, bidding him stop without pushing him away. There is a truth you must know she tells him. A secret I need to share before we fall further, but one you cannot know, cannot keep, lest we unmake the world with our folly.

The Wolf, the clever Wolf, hears and considers and bids her find a loophole. To tell him what she must, to omit what she must, and be assured he will push for no more than she offers.

A moment of choosing, a moment when the Halla should flee. But the heart wants what it wants and in distant Arlathan where spirits weave in and out of the everyday, emotions can suffocate sense.

So she tells him. She is from the future, called here by magic and obligation. That she grew up in a world where Arlathan is a distant fractured memory, where their people live mortal lives, where the spirits and the power infused all around them are locked away, the stuff of dreams and nightmares. She tells him in her time, they find each other, find love, and then find themselves on opposite sides of an ideological war.

She tells him she fears the him of her time is drowning in regret, alone and adrift, but that he chose to walk away. She tells him there are still truths she does not dare share. And that when her time here is done, when she is returned to her proper place, that he will need to bind away all memory of whatever they are to be in the here and now, less they change the future and destroy everything.

The Wolf listens. Considers. And kisses her, soft as a promise. Tells her how lucky he is, to get to fall in love with her twice.

The heart wants. Wisdom submits to desire. The Wolf and the Halla join, spirit and body, and for a time all is joy and belonging and love.

For a time.

Once upon a time in ancient Arlathan, a beloved Halla was summoned before the gods. It is the King who addresses her, for the Queen and the Wolf are both absent from the gathering. Lovesick Child, he said, you have done so well. We know, about you and the Wolf. You have bound yourselves to each other and in your binding called forth a new spirit soon to be made flesh. Did you not wonder why we pulled you here? You are nothing to us, but everything to him. We see glimpses of the shifting currents of what is to come, hear whispers of the Wolf's treachery, of your hold upon him, and we so hoped you would give us the leash with which to keep him under control.

The King continued with a knife sharp smile and poison sweet words. Do not worry. When your tenure is spent we shall still return you to the future’s distant shore. Your child shall remain here, in our service, to ensure the Wolf’s continued loyalty. While we wait, you shall enjoy our hospitality. The King bid the Halla be taken to his household, under lock and guard.

And she was. The Halla raged and plotted, feeling foolish and bereft. Growing with child, rashly made but desperately wanted. Awful, beautiful - never had her heart been so full and so broken.

She called out to the spirits, who weave in and out of the everyday, who care not for locks and guards and less for the King's cruelty. The Halla begged for their help.

The spirits tell her the Wolf is also imprisoned. The Queen is trying to intervene. The immortal court moves slowly by mortal reckoning and her time is running short.

They tell her she is bound in powerful magic, has been since she was brought to Arlathan.

A trigger, that once her child is born the Halla will be quickly pulled back to her time.

A block, holding all her memories of this time. She will return alone and she will not remember.

The Halla begs, can they be removed?

The spirits tell her no. The magic has been woven with the mark of the Well, willingly accepted in her past, their future.

The Halla weeps. Can it extend to her child? Can she take them away with her?

The spirits tell her no. Partially spirit born, partially flesh. The child would not be likely to survive, not without time to settle. And there might not be time before the spells are realized.

The Halla thinks. Can the spells be modified?

Yes.

The memory block is expanded, extended, twisted to make not just the Halla but all she encountered in Arlathan forget. The Wolf, the gods, time will march on ignorant of any deviance and those who do not remember her child cannot use them against their father. It is made manifest, a foci of faceted crystal and veilfire.

They delay the trigger, as much as possible. To give the Halla what time they can.

They promise to hide her child. To keep them safe in one of the many unknowable folds of reality, a place they know where death and life create a Well of energy that can mask any entity to those who know its ways.

And then they wait.

Once upon a time in ancient Arlathan, an angry King felt a surge of magic tear through his halls and his mind. He knows something has been taken from him, riding magic of his own making, but cannot counter fast enough to recover that which was lost. He tracks the source of the magic to a locked chamber, under guard, and none in his household can remember who or what it contained.

Inside there is blood, a foci of faceted crystal and veil fire, and the quickly fading remains of ritual made manifest. The King acts quickly, drawing in power, calling on the blood and its ties to whoever shed it.

He sees a glimpse, two great spirits bending over a woman who cradles a newly born child in her arms. He knows not who she is, who they are, or why they were imprisoned in his home.

We have one last gift the spirits in the recalling say. One more modification. A key to unlock the memories. Tell us your daughter's name. We will try to get her to you. If she tells you her name, it will free the blocked memories.

And the woman speaks, fervently, with hope and love and sorrow, the magic around them and around the King already unraveling, fading, swept away.

Her name is -

“Amara? What are you reading?”

Amara Ingellvar, apprentice of the Mourn Watch, looked up at her friend, startled. She had read though the papers clutched in her hands twice and still wasn't completely sure what they were describing. “I don't know. Some kind of tragic love story, I think, but it's not finished. One of the spirits gave it to me.”

Sybil frowned, circling around her friend and classmate to better look at the tattered parchment. “Once upon a time in ancient Arlathan” she read aloud. “Huh. Is it an elf story? Why's an old elf story written in Trade?”

Amara shrugged, angeling the fragile papers away from Sybil. She wasn't sure what the story was about, but she felt inexplicably shy about sharing it. “I don't know. Just because I'm an elf doesn't make me an expert.”

“Yeah, I know. It's just weird. Why are the spirits always giving you weird stuff?”

“I don't know. They said it was mine. It's not, I've never seen it before.”

“Well, you should bring it down to the archives. There's time before class.”

“I will,” Amara said. “I just think I need to read through it one more time.”

(In a related note, here's a bad screenshot of Amara "Rook" Ingellvar and Inquisitor Keara Lavellan. I was pretty proud of how much Rook looked like a younger version of her Mom 💕)

[firesofdainix]

solarballs fics masterlist

A collection of ALL my solarballs fics, all 44 (and counting) of them! I don't even know how I wrote most of these in a month; most of these fics are part of the same universe, an alternate universe heavily relying a lot more on fantastical lore and complex characteristics of each character rather than scientific accuracy. Most scientific theories have been handwaved or explained differently. I'll be posting them in chronological order to better understand the entire series.

some of them will be labeled on whether or not they're AU-adjacent or something that can be read without them.

Spacetime Continuum AU

Spacetime Continuum Extras

Extra scenes, headcanons, concepts, prompts, and designs of my Alternate Universe. Used as a companion piece for the main series as a whole.

As The Years Go By

Uranus reckons his past relationship with Jupiter as he deals with his present feelings for the largest Gas Giant.

(A/N: This is a Jupiter/Uranus story first and foremost, with other relationships like Jupiter/Saturn, Saturn/Planet X being in the background. Because this is set in a nebulous, pre-canon era, all of the characters are based on my interpretation of what they were like.)

Ouroboros

Ouroboros: a circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity.

Jupiter experiences the same day over and over. The main constant is he always gets killed, lost, or mauled in the end.

Better Off Dead

Hades kills Jupiter. This changed everything. This changed nothing.

or; a canon-divergent ending of the first chapter of Ouroboros.

History is a Story Told By the Winners of the Fight

Jupiter commits murder, and he's in bad shape to even think about anything else. Uranus and Neptune help plot his schemes.

Ursa Major

Callisto's creation and what comes after. Featuring some Jupiter and Callisto father daughter bonding!

Pride Cometh Before The Fall

Saturn and Planet X find out Jupiter's best-kept secret and undermine his authority.

The Consequences of Our Actions

Five times Earth and Theia are warned about their sharing of orbits, and one time the warnings ring true- but it's already too late.

Moons Should Know Their Place

Luna has recently formed from what he believed had been space debris; yet why are some planets looking at him like he'd committed a crime?

After the Battle

Jupiter and, additionally Saturn, did something bad a few billion years ago. Just how bad was it?

Masterless Cattle

After kicking Tyche and Planet X out of the solar system, the giants along with the remaining planets talk about dividing their spoils of war, such as paraphernalia of the deceased and banished planets, the moons, and new orbits, along with some emotional confessions along the way.

A Name Forged From His Skin of Sins

The beginning of Ganymede.

(A/N: This one is more of the fanon interpretations of the character and its origins. It's for the plot I swear!)

Still Living The Same Life

One shots covering Ganymede's new life.

Nature Abhors A Power Vacuum

Jupiter and the VOICES.

Remember My Name

Planet X's ejection, the aftermath of it, and the begining of their fall from grace.

Seeds of Love Planted in a Faux Gift

Saturn finds out about Jupiter's less-than-stellar vision. He helps in his own way, not predicting the consequences coming with it.

Lamentations of a False King

Thousands of years after the conflict that had shook up the entire solar system, Jupiter and Saturn talk about their regrets and understand each other a lot better. Meanwhile, Saturn's promise to Planet X continues to break down.

Tsunami

Neptune's capture of Triton in egregious, gory details.

(A/N: Because of the new episodes, this fic will be considered divergent from the Solarballs premise of Triton's origins. More eldritch and messed up things happen in this fic.)

Accidentally In Love

Jupiter confesses his romantic feelings for Saturn, who reciprocates; not before discarding a terrible secret that will haunt him for eternity.

Everyone Knows

Jupiter tells everyone that he and Saturn are together. The reactions reaped are mostly positive with... a few odd ones out.

It Starts With Sorry

Saturn apologizes to Jupiter for the things he'd done to him during the Proto Era, letting himself be honest about his feelings just this one time. Jupiter forgives him, because of course he does.

When the Paint Dries

The seventh planet's views on his artistry over the eons.

Break The Cycle

The Giants find out about the revolution, but instead of becoming angry, they realize they are perpetuating the same mistakes as their Sun.

(A/N: This is canon divergent and doesn't really happen. This is a simple "what if.")

You Must Be Haunting Me

The planets are haunted by the ghosts of the past. They aren't actually ghosts, of course, ghosts aren't real, but no one is going to tell them that.

If You Need To Be Mean

Mercury thinks about the past often, and how so many things have changed in the past four billion years. Not for the better, according to him.

Saturn's Moons Hanging By A Thread

In the aftermath of the Moon Revolution, Saturn's moons return to their planet and back to their old lives. However, one insult against Titan goes too far, and he finally lets all his feelings over being their main punching bag out in the open.

(A/N: This fic and the next two fics are canon divergent from the episode "Saturn Gets His Moons Back!" But The Moon Club will still happen, although Europa and Ganymede will be included.)

Galileo Figaro

Following Titan leaving his orbit after a spat with his fellow moons, he ends up in Jupiter's orbit talking to familiar faces, who end up, surprisingly, sympathizing with his situation.

Moon-Eater

Saturn uses his power to give his moons a stern talk and a fair warning about the consequences if they ever take things with Titan further than normal. Titan finally gets an apology from one of the moons.

Mars, God of War

Even Mars once had an ocean on its surface. Even the red planet was given the chance to shelter life before it led to its destruction.

(A/N: No longer canon! This one-shot is a what-if conspiracy theory is true, thus I wrote it.)

Take On Me

A collection of moments in time covering Mars and Earth's very tumultuous relationship. Includes copious amounts of codependency and pining from both sides as they struggle to pretend they're not at their wit's end.

That Organic Kind of Love!

Earth gives Mars a gift for Valentine's to showcase how much the red planet means to a planet teeming with life. Mars tries to be thrilled, but Earth's gift is rather... unconventional.

I Need Someone To Remember Me

Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars talk about the planets they've lost during one of the rare times they hang out. Surprisingly, they're acting civilized for once; as civilized as they can be.

You Didn't Know?

Planet X returns to the solar system, not only to gloat at how he is still alive but also to enact the first part of his revenge: to tear Jupiter and Saturn apart with the only promise Saturn had broken.

(A/N: Canon divergent for the future Planet X arc.)

Aftermath

The return of Planet X has ever-lasting consequences on the dynamics of the solar system. The Giants are the first to feel its effects.

(A/N: Canon divergent from the Planet X arc.)

I Want You All The Time

Saturn and Planet X finally have their long-awaited fight. It goes about as well as you'd expect-- Saturn being an asshole and Planet X being delusional.

Antithesis

The Iris and Earth are complete opposites in both action and concept. They talk about it.

(A/N: Canon divergent from the Planet X arc, and focuses on a crossover for plot.)

You Got Mail!

The Sun and Jupiter, trapped in powerless human forms, face a deadly challenge never experienced before: surviving a beast-infested Earth, and trying to make their way back home while meeting familiar faces. Along the way, the two must overcome their deadliest hurdle to return to space: their eons-long grudges against each other.

Yorick's Skull

Earth and Iris get a rematch on fairly equal terms. Someone dies this time.

Scorched Earth

After Earth defeats the Iris, he and The Sun have a short conversation over the things that happened within the solar system.

Mania

Earth has had enough of humanity taking advantage of him and destroying his resources, so he retaliates by making their own home planet their biggest mortal enemy, forcing them into submission. Three hundred years later, Astrodude is sent as an ambassador to convince the Earth to stop his massacre of human lives.

(A/N: Canon divergent and futuristic fic. Not actually compliant to the main story as a whole.)

You Want What You Can't Have (Ooh Girl That's Too Damn Bad)

Planet X is allowed to return to the solar system, and is struck by how in love Jupiter and Saturn are- because it had been them and Saturn first.

Lucifer Morningstar Had Once Been Beautiful

Planet X is self-conscious about their appearance, and Saturn notices, trying to do something about it, despite the wounds they've inflicted on one another.

War and Destruction

Planet X has been dealing with their feelings since returning to the solar system, but these violent emotions often come to a head when they are alone. Mars is tasked to help them through it, due to their destabilized relationship with the Giants.

Non-AU-adjacent fics

And I'll Be Yours Until the Stars Fall From the Sky

Iapetus believes Titan has bewitched him, making him fall ill when he is around the other moon. Dione thinks he just has a crush on the least popular moon of Saturn.

Let My Soul Bleed

Jupiter is an excommunicated vampire hunter-mage with a nihilistic outlook on his life and himself. Uranus is a vampire hunter with a penchant for causing more trouble than it is worth. And Saturn is a vampire that had been slumbering for hundreds of years until two stupid people happened upon his coffin.

[COMING SOON] Pierced With Nitrogen and Methane

[COMING SOON] Solarballs x Chainsaw Man AU Part One

NSFW fics

you guys are going to be sane about this, right?

In the Likeness of His Image

Earth and Mars's journeys over learning intimacy, through the years.

[COMING SOON] Take Me Down (A Little Bit Harder Now)

[chernobog13]

Even as a kid I had problems with panels like this.

Not so much with making Superboy/Superman so ridiculously powerful; I actually don't mind that.

But I had issues with the absolute disregard for science, especially physics, shown in this one little panel.

Granted, it's just a throwaway scene at the start of a story. However, how is Superboy saving "countless billions of lives" by dragging all these planets through the universe at what must be speeds several magnitudes above light speed? At those speeds, the planets would shred.

How did he keep the atmospheres from being ripped from each planet? That alone would effectively annihilate most life.

How does he keep the planets from being torn apart by gravity by being in such close proximity to each other?

Even at his great speed, how does Superboy manage to get each planet into a perfect orbit around its new star, and still get back to Smallville in time for school?

And just what the heck is that chain made of, and how freakin' long is it?

That's not to say that all of these issues cannot be addressed in a comic book story. In fact, I can think of two off the top of my head that did just that.

The first was Cosmology in Mr. Majestic (vol. 1) #1 (September, 1999).

For those who don't know, Mr. Majestic was Wildstorm's first analogue for Superman, before the Wildstorm Universe had been integrated into the main DC Universe.

Mr. Majestic defeats an alien probe that has entered the Solar System. He learns that the probe is an advance scout for absurdly powerful entity that destroys entire solar systems (think Galactus on steroids).

Mr. Majestic then spends the rest of the issue moving the planets around, and even creating a twin for the Sun, using complicated, pseudo-scientific devices and gimjaws.

Now our solar system appears to be a binary system, no longer resembling the system the probe found. In the meantime, this whole process has taken decades.

The giant cosmic entity arrives, is fooled by the disguise, and moves on to other pastures. And Mr. Majestic is left with the unenviable task of putting everything back the way it was.

The second story was JLA: Heaven's Ladder (October, 2000).

This was a giant-sized story published in the big treasury-size format, all the better to showcase the magnificent artwork by Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, and the stupendous scale of the story.

An ancient race of aliens is dying, and they use their ginormous (in both size and power) technology to steal worlds from across the galaxy. The aliens hope to create a world they can exist in after they die, effectively constructing their own Heaven.

Of course, it's up to the heroes of the JLA to stop the aliens' plan, save the planets, and perhaps even help the aliens achieve their goals without destroy other civilizations.

So there you have it: two done-in-one stories (albeit the JLA's is jumbo-sized) that address most of the same story points that just happened to be in a single Silver Age comic book panel.

[sitp-recs]

Do you know fics in which Draco and Harry work through relationship problems?

Hi anon! I was gonna say I don’t read a lot of est relationship but looking at this reclist I guess no one will believe that 😂 thank you for this ask, it gave me the chance to rec fics I don’t usually rec which I love!! Enjoy :)

Relic Radiation by @tackytigerfic (M, 1k)

Draco goes into space, leaving behind his son Scorpius (who has just started at Hogwarts, at least), and his not-quite-boyfriend Harry Potter. But Harry can't stop loving Draco just because he's approximately 408km up, in constant orbit.

Let Me Have You and I'll Let You Save Me by Frayach (M, 6k)

Draco keeps coming back, and Harry keeps letting him. Draco can’t stay away, and Harry can’t live without him.

What I thought by @bafflinghaze (E, 8k)

Draco thought they were in a relationship. Harry thought it was just sex.

Service Bell by @shiftylinguini (E, 8k)

Draco is: a werewolf, living in a cabin in the woods, minding his own business, and never going to buy plaid because he's not that much of a fucking cliche (yet). He's also counting down the days until he sees Harry again.

‘Til Our Compass Stands Still by china_nightingale (M, 9k)

Harry and Draco eventually realise that things don't always go to plan, even if it's a plan they've been carefully crafting to keep themselves safe from each other.

i wake up falling, orphaned (M, 9k)

Draco’s always leaving, one way or another. Harry’s usually 240 thousand miles too late.

hear me (with your whole body) by @teacup-tai (E, 9k)

It was a sexy idea, exploring other bodies with Draco, engaging in sex with other people to spice things up. Something inside of him was excited about the prospect, but the nagging fear, the feeling of abandonment that follows each image that pops in his head is throwing him off. He would give it a go. See what it was like. He could always say no, right?

More Than That by joosetta (E, 11k)

This is a story about two 52 year old men who refuse to age gracefully.

Hope Springs Eternal (But Love Springs in the Forest, Unannounced) by lettered (E, 13k)

Draco falls into a love spring. Harry saves him! And now they’re bonded for life. Draco is horrified. Harry thinks it’s kind of neat.

freely, as men strive for right by @bixgirl1 (E, 17k)

How can Harry love a man like Draco Malfoy? If only Draco would let him count the ways.

Burn the Curtains and the Wine by @nerdherderette (E, 24k)

There are two versions of Harry Potter: the wizard who is the Ministry of Magic's most dangerous and successful assassin, and the husband who leads a staid life of domesticity with a reformed Death Eater. And never the twain shall meet. Until, one day, they do.

Come For Me by Frayach (E, 24k)

After Draco is paralyzed in an accident, he and Harry discover a new way to make love.

remember me by hupsoonheng (T, 31k)

On a chilly day in October, Draco kisses Harry goodbye before he goes on yet another dangerous, undercover mission with the Aurors. And then Harry doesn't come back.

The Arrangement series by RurouniHime (E, 72k)

It's worked for years. Why change it now?

[sixlane]

barty reg and Lily?

LISTENNNN. i’ve actually been cooking up this post for a while and you’ve just given me a beautiful opportunity to talk about them. regubartylily, as i’m calling them, is a classic love triangle with barty at the crux. this ship hurts so bad and, at its core, is about letting go.

imagine, barty and regulus are childhood friends turned codependent parasites. they have never dated but they are each others first everything. they kiss and fool around occasionally but they never talk about it. their relationship just is what it is.

enter lily, who is regulus’ secret arch nemesis (read: reg&lily post). reg holds a deep dislike for lily because she is everything he wishes he could be and vice versa.

at some point barty develops an interest in lily because she wears this beautifully cracked mask that he cant help but want to see under. lily likes barty because he’s the only one who’s noticed she’s wearing a mask in the first place. after a while of orbiting around each other, barty and lily start dating… <- devastating for regulus, the guy who has never gotten a single thing he’s wanted his whole life. losing his best friend to the girl who has everything already. the boy reg is using to replace his brother being stolen by another fucking gryffindor…. he is HEARTBROKEN. it’s just another reason he’s inadequate. (and it’s different from jegulus/jily because james will always be unattainable to reg but barty is HIS. and now he is being replaced by the Better Version of himself). but he refuses to go down without a fight. he will not let go if he can help it. he will not allow his relationship with barty change. they probably still kiss sometimes while barty and lily are dating because that’s just what they do but lily knows barty and reg are weird with each other. and this is the girl who lives in a world where everything she has is balanced so precariously, ready to topple the moment she isn’t living up to Expectations. and now she feels like her relationship with barty (the one actual good thing in her life) is about to fall apart too because regulus can’t appreciate the things he has. he wants more. it’s a constant game of tug of war with barty in the middle (who btw is not oblivious to this. he just doesn’t understand why he can’t be something for both of them and he refuses to choose).

so anyway it’s about letting go. reg letting go of the codependency he shared with barty. lily letting go of insecurity and needing someone else to tell her who she can be.

enter evan (yes he’s here too). when barty meets evan everything clicks into place. evan will never need a single thing from barty. this is barty’s happy ending where he learns to let go of being needed. and reg and lily have to let go of barty completely in the contexts they knew/used him.

and that’s where i see reg and lily developing this begrudging friendship where they are both kind of mourning this loss but realizing it’s all for the better. barty could never actually fill the holes they were shoving him into. they gotta fix their shit themselves. and they’re happy that barty finally found a place he can just exist in without offering an inhuman level of devotion and self sacrifice.

this is the good ending. in the bad ending reg and lily murder barty together and help each other hide the body 🥰

[johnathancanines]

On A Foam-White Horse: Chapter 1

Story Rating: M/ Chapter Rating: PG (just a lot of swearing) Word count: 2,709 Notes: I've grown impatient so I'm posting the first chapter against my better judgement. I can't wait to see how that fucks me later. I was gonna just post my unchecked rough draft that's how impatient I was but thank fuck I did not do that.

Niamh is pronounced NEEve. Sadhbh is pronounced SIGH-ve like five. Dairmuid is pronounced DEERmud. Síobhan is pronounced SheeVAWN. Tadhg is pronounced TAIguh. There's gonna be a lot of irish names so strap in pals.

Premise:

A good turn for a good turn right? That's what Niamh thought when she first resolved to thank Polly for her kindness by intervening to save her nephew's life once she learns he's embroiled in the underbelly of the Anglo-Irish Treaty talks. She should have known it wouldn't go as plan, she's never made a plan that did.

[MASTERLIST]

Taglist: @evita-shelby (this is my jeb bush "please clap" meme moment lol)

Niamh walked down the streets of Small Heath as fast as she could without looking odd feeling as sick as someone could without actively heaving. Birmingham was still a confusing pile to her, she’d barely even been in England for a few months and all the going back and forth from here and London meant she’d only figured out how to get to about 5 places in each city. 

The offices of Shelby Company Limited were not on the list of places.

She did not want to be doing this but she also felt very obligated to do this. Too much was riding on this mission both politically and personally, and she couldn’t in good conscious not step in somehow. She didn’t know Thomas Shelby personally — nor any of the Shelby family really — but she knew a lot about his aunt Polly from the letters her cousin Sadhbh sent her. Really this whole thing was Sadhbh’s fault, the girl was too smart and nosy for her own good. Niamh was awash with guilt at that thought, chastising herself for blaming Sadhbh for her own choices. Her cousin had been through so much and was so clearly still struggling. She shouldn’t get mad at her for this association with the Shelbys, it was because of Polly that Sadhbh was doing better now and some of the issues with the diocese had been smoothed out. Polly had even gotten her a tutor for fucks sake. Trying to keep her nephew from being killed was the least Niamh could do as a thank you when Polly had so clearly helped get her cousin on track for a better future.

And really that wouldn’t have been too hard if someone other than Major Campbell was in charge of this operation. She’d already known about how horrible he was from the IRA but it was again Sadhbh and her keen intelligence (ugh) that had managed to get enough from being in the orbit of the Shelbys to know the man had beef with Thomas —Tommy— personally and given the kinda guy Campbell was… well it made her worry not just for Tommy, but the whole scheme as well. Guys with fixations were never the most reliable, she knew from experience. When she’d expressed her concern to Michael he’d asked her to go and keep an eye on things just in case, which she’d known he’d do but had hoped he wouldn’t. She might like Michael a lot, support the republican cause, and want this treaty shit done as much as any of them but she hated this shit. She hated spying, she hated clandestine shit, she hated having the weight of lives on her shoulders. She was a fucking vaudeville clown from Hell’s Kitchen who’s greatest claims to fame were being a good dancer, better and playing a horny idiot in a comedy act with her sisters. She wasn’t fucking qualified for this shit and they all needed to stop making her do it or she really would puke right there on the job one day.

She found the place with just enough time to work herself back out of a panic and get ready to have a truly miserable conversation. She took a moment before entering the building to discreetly smooth her ruffled feathers, check for any obvious signs of anxiety or her pell mell rush here like sweat, and used her compact to confirm she did not have crazy eyes because she felt like she had crazy eyes. After a few deliberate centering breaths she reached for the handle and made her way in. She walked through the well appointed front hall to the secretary bank, letting her straight back and cool gait create a confidence she could delude herself into thinking was real. 

“Hello, I’m Niamh Brennan — I have an appointment with Mr Shelby.”

His secretary, a tall pretty brunette looked from her to the schedule before smiling in a way that both smacked of concern and “I don’t want to know”. Yeah me too, sweetheart. She looked around the desk more as the secretary got up, making note of her name card. Jesus she was as tall as Síobhan.

“Yes, Miss Brennan please wait there a second and I’ll let him know you’re here.”

“Thank you Miss Stark I’d appreciate that.”

The other woman gave her a more genuine smile at that, she probably isn’t get called “miss” a lot by these goons. 

“Just Lizzie is alright, I’ll be back in a second.”

Niamh watched her go and waited for a hellish but short amount of time before she was ushered into Tommy Shelby’s office. Fuck. 

There he was sitting behind his massive desk at the total opposite end of the room looking at her with the same kind of cold blank appraising look she’d seen on guys like this before. Which was bad. That was historically a bad look. She wanted to get the fuck out of there but the fact that this man’s family had been good to hers and that someone planned to kill him after they made a patsy out of him had her walking up to the chairs in front of that monolith of a desk. Also she was already here and now he knew who she was so running the hell outta here would not actually do much. This close to him it was impossible to ignore how handsome he was. This did not help anything. This arguably made it worse. She was, in fact, a sucker for a pretty face, her failed love life was proof of that. Hot gangsters were like diamond coated TNT, pointless and dangerous.

“Miss Brennan, it’s a rarity for me to have someone like a starlet in my office.”

“I’m hardly a real name. I’ve never headlined a show in my life.”

“But you’ve been on Broadway, toured, been in pictures —”

She held up a hand to try and stop his demonstration of knowledge. He’d done his homework, she got it.

“— and spied on British officers for the IRA in Dublin.”

Her heart sputtered. She was not actually that shocked he knew that given what she’d heard about him. But she’d lived in terror of someone saying those words out loud for so long she couldn’t stop the way it seized her for a brief moment. She scrambled to salvage her nerves and regain a footing in this tennis match from hell.

“Which is why I’m here.” She said, fighting the urge to smile nervously. That would not be helpful at all right now.

Mr Shelby leaned back in his chair, blue eyes flashing even as his sculpted features stayed as still as the statutes he resembled. “I thought I had already met my contacts.”

Oh he was so fucking pissed. Shit. Would he shoot a woman or no? She didn’t know which kinda guy he was. Fuck she hated this job.

“ Yes technically you have. Kind of.”

“Technically. Kind of.” He parroted in a way that could only be qualified as hostile.

She heaved out a sigh, pushing out her nerves with it and resetting. 

“Well you have been contacted by the IRA and Major Campbell…”

There was a long pause as he stared at her like he was trying to rip the top of her skull off and look inside. It did not help.  

“Am I to gather from that there is a connection between my being contacted by the IRA and Major Campbell?”

 She could hear the rage just under the surface of his deceptively soft voice. She just had to hope he’d prefer to direct it at someone like Campbell or Donal and not her.

“Yes. I’m sure you’ve read about the treaty talk in the news. This is all related to that — there are some um… things that aren’t exactly kosher that need to be done to make it work. Campbell chose you to do that part.”

“Campbell chose me. Campbell chose me to do his dirty work. It’s a killing isn’t it?” Oh he was gonna blow. She was more scared than she wanted to admit, there wasn’t much difference between gangsters and Black and Tans in her book, one was just government backed. He stood up and started to pace before he turned right back around to her, pointing accusingly. “Well isn’t that funny, don’t you Fenians have a policy about not mixing the political with the personal? ”

She nodded a little more frantically than she would have liked. “That is quite literally why I am here. I stated concerns over that to my superiors and I was told to supervise the situation.”

He raised his brows. God his eyes weren’t just blue they were crystalline, was he even human? That was not a comforting thought to have at the moment. Inhuman meant without compassion.

“Ah, Supervise.” He smiled but he wasn’t happy. “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight, the pro-treaty paddies and the crown what the same man killed and what, Michael Coll.ins sends his finest chorus girl to make sure it all goes right. Grand. How is that supposed to remedy this, eh?” 

“I was chosen because I have personal reasons to be in and out of Birmingham —”

He was slotting things together and now she was worried for Sadhbh and Moira — and oh shit Tadhg — 

Perhaps this good deed had been a terrible fucking idea. 

He was pointing again. “Your fucking cousins.”

“ — yes my fucking cousins — and I report directly back to Michael. Who is part of the treaty talks. My goal in supervising is to get between you and Campbell so he can’t make this any harder than it is and to make sure there’s no backstabbing — of your back or ours.”

He didn’t slam his palms onto the desk but it had almost the same effect, then he leaned over it towards her. Niamh was a tiny woman and Mr Shelby wasn’t exactly the tallest man but somehow he could make her feel no bigger than a mouse while he grew to the size of a giant. But she’d put up with gangsters her whole life and smiled and laughed along with Black and Tans, and while she might be a coward she wasn’t a pussy. 

“And why would you be interested in taking my side, eh? Why would you have any interest in keeping me alive beyond the scope of this mission?”

“Because Polly’s been good for Sadhbh, really good. The least I can do is try to make sure she doesn’t have to bury a nephew.”

He leaned back, unimpressed to the point he seemed disgusted. “Oh and that’s it eh? Doing it our of the goodness of your heart are we?”

She felt herself curdle into a new kind of sickness, the sickness of rage and grief that had been burning her for years now. She hated him fiercely in that moment for making her have to talk about death and dying — about her brother, her dead family. It felt like sacrilege.

“Mr Shelby I have buried my brother and I have buried family I barely had the chance to know. I’m sick of it. It’s selfish but that’s why I’m on the pro-treaty side. If you die Polly will lose it and if she loses it then Sadhbh will lose it and you’re right — outside of a general distaste for this shit I don’t care much about you as a person. I don’t know you, we’ve never met, and I haven’t heard much good about you outside of Sadhbh’s letters and that’s a mixed recommendation at best but I sincerely do not want to deal with the aftermath of your death so I aim to prevent it as best I can, however I can. At this point I don’t think I can get them to pick someone else, this whole operation is built on quicksand as is, but I can fight for you in venues you can’t reach and try and make a buffer between you and Campbell. I know it’s not a lot but it’s better than nothing and it’s the only help you’ll get from anyone involved in this mess.”

He stared at her for a long moment, face totally unreadable. She returned his stare and waited to see how this would shake out. He broke it first, took out a cigarette and ran it across his full lips before lighting it.

“Alright.” He seemed to come to some kind of decision. “Alright. And how to do you intend to do this exactly?”

“Well, a combination of my acting skills, my ins on the Irish side, and a letter from Grace Burgess recounting her time working under Campbell and the deterioration of their working relationship.”

Tommy froze in the motion of his smoking to look at her incredulously. 

“And how the fuck do you have that?”

“My fucking cousin as you so eloquently put it.” It felt good to see him unsettled after she’d had to mine her own grief.  “Sadhbh thought Grace mysteriously vanishing when she did was odd so she asked around, when you all didn’t tell her anything she asked Sergeant Moss, told him some story about how nice she’d been to her or whatever and how she wanted to get in contact with her and thought the police might be able to at least point her in the right direction, so he told her the jist of what had happened and how he didn’t have a forwarding address. But then she told me what he told her and I told the IRA who found out where she lived and Sadhbh and I wrote her a letter from a fresh faced lady officer who had been put under Major Campbell’s command and was becoming increasing concerned with his attentions and wanted the advice of a more experienced agent.”

“And she told you everything?” He asked with a wave of his cigarette.

“Enough that matters. Enough that I can use it to hammer in his obsessiveness and potential threat to this mission.” She replied.

“Why didn’t you do that earlier?”

She made a face “It was a process to coax it out of her. I only just got the really damning letter a few days ago and getting ahold of the big wigs is a fucking nightmare.”

He sat down in his chair with a thump, all the anger having rushed out of him to leave only his incredulity and something very hurt and very human. 

Now she kind of felt bad. It was true she didn’t really know much about him nor care much more for him than she would for any stranger on the block but she did have an idea of what Grace had meant to him from Sadhbh and her heart ached thinking about it. She knew what it was like to have your heart broken by someone lying through their teeth. She’d been engaged back when she lived in New York, when America joined the Great War she’d given up a steadily growing career to make bullets for her brother, fiancé and all the Johnnys sent out to France. She ended up waiting for almost 3 years on a man who’d married a girl he met on the continent and didn’t even have the decency to tell her himself. Not even in a letter. She’d started to think he was dead until one of the guys in his squad who was from the neighborhood finally put her out of her misery. It was the kind of devastation she wouldn’t wish on anyone. 

She was sorry to bring it all back up for him but he’d asked and Grace’s testimony was part of what she was going to use to try and get Campbell ordered away from his throat. If she had anything better she wouldn’t use it — or at least not tell him about it — but it was the most damning piece of evidence they had. Anything else she could’ve bullshitted would’ve sounded stupid.

He stared off to the side for a long moment, the cigarette between his fingers slowly burning down before he sighed and brought his attention back to her. 

“Alright. Let’s see how this goes then Ms Brennan.”

[competitivemen]

My elder sister always had a lot of male attention, especially since she started at the local university. Every week it seemed there was a new guy trying to get into her pants. She was quite receptive to it and was masterful at flirting just enough to keep a group of guys in perpetual orbit around her. Unfortunately for her and her would-be lovers, our dad was pretty old-fashioned and kept a close eye on her. He had declared that she would have no boyfriend until she graduated. He knew where she was and who she was with at all times, and he had forbidden her from even bringing a boy around the house. He was paying for her college, and she was still living at home, so she reluctantly obeyed. It frustrated the guys, who lusted after her to no end. The perfect young woman, willing to give it up but out of their reach. For a whole year it looked like no one would have the opportunity to do anything with her. That was until they discovered a way to get to her without raising my dad's suspicion. Me. 

I went to the same university she did and was only a year below her. My dad had really encouraged me to go to the same school. He'd given me a big lecture about how I would be able to 'perform my brotherly duty' and 'help safe guard her virtue'. I'd agreed, if only so he'd leave me alone. I hadn't even been there a week before two guys approached me, asking about my sister. 

"Is your sister Ashley Williams?" Said the guy on the left without even saying so much as a hello. 

"Y-yes. She is." I stumbled over my words and felt my face flush. I wasn't used to talking to such good-looking guys, and them both being shirtless didn't help. 

"Your sister's well fit, mate." Said the guy on the right, a big, dumb smile on his face. 

"Er... thanks?" I said. Not being entirely sure how to respond to that. 

"Listen," said the guy on the left, who I later found out was called Derek. "Ashley said that you had a way to contact her without her dad knowing; is that true?" 

"Eh yeah, I told her that if she ever wanted to talk to someone behind dad's back, she could have them go through my phone. Dad doesn't track the content of the messages, just who they are from." I was taken aback that Ashley had already told some guys, since I'd only talked to her about it a few days ago. 

"Excellent, mate." Said the guy on the right, who I'd find out was called Brad. He stretched out his hand. "Give me your phone, and I'll drop her a line." 

"Fuck off; I'm the one who's going to be chatting her up." Derek said, knocking Brad's hand out of the way and squaring up to him. "It's obvious she wants me." 

"In your dreams." Brad said, pushing back against Derek. "Ashley wants to get with a real stud, not a loser like you." 

It looked like neither was going to back down. They seemed to be flexing their muscles at each other, and I was worried they would start swinging punches. "I-I'm sure we can all come to an arrangement." I said, not being able to take my eyes off their bulging muscles. 

Derek noticed where I was looking and smirked. "It looks like your sister's not the only one interested. I'll tell you what. If you let me use your phone, you can lick my chest. That's the sort of thing gay guys like, isn't it?" 

I was momentarily stunned at his suggestion. But I couldn't deny that I wanted to wrap my lips around his chest muscles. Meekly, I handed my phone over to Derek. He gave me a smile and thrust his chest out, offering it to me. Not needing any extra invitation, I bent down to run my tongue along his chest muscles. 

"Dude, I can't believe you're letting him lick you. That's pretty gay." Said Brad, who was staring at me as I bathed Derek's muscles with my tongue. 

"If it gets me access to his sister, I'll let him serve me however he wants." Derek said as he sent a text to my sister with my phone while I worshipped his muscles. Having finished his message, he tossed my phone back to me. "Forward me the reply, and I'll let you service me again when I send the next message." With that, he walked off, leaving Brad in disbelief and me still desperate to continue worshipping him. 

Brad recovered quicker than I did. "Well, if that's what it takes to get in Ashley's pants, I suppose I've got no choice." Brad turned to me; he was running his hand across his six-pack. "I'll offer the same deal. Hand over the phone, and you can give my abbs a few licks." 

I didn't say anything. I simply handed him the phone and began worshipping his abbs. 

It only escalated from there. Ashley began an extensive correspondence with both guys, which meant they were constantly coming to me to send their replies. Both were aware that they were in competition for her attention, so their offers to get at my phone steadily increased. Derek would get ahead by offering to let me suck his toes, only for Brad to counter by letting me clean his post-workout armpits. 

Ashley wasn't aware of what her suitors were doing to get to my phone. She was just grateful for my facilitation of her flirting. Her ignorance meant she didn't realise what she was doing when she declared that the guy who messaged her the most would be the guy she'd be most interested in. This sent Derek's and Brad's competitive efforts into overdrive. In no time at all, they were letting me sniff their crotches through their underwear or letting me stick my face between their ass cheeks multiple times a day. All in an effort to send more messages than their rival. 

It finally came to a head when both of them came to use my phone at the same time. I knew they were tied in terms of the number of messages sent and that Ashley had promised them that whoever had sent the most messages by the end of the day could come over to her house. (Under the guise of being my friend to get past our dad.) Both men were determined to finally get physical access to Ashley and be the one to take her virginity. And I was fully prepared to take advantage. 

When they approached me, I was down on my knees, looking up at them. I gave them a shy smile. "I'll give my phone to the guy who lets me suck their cock." I said. 

Any hesitation they'd once had about letting me serve them had long since melted away due to my tongue and their determination to get with my sister. Both of them responded by pulling down their pants to reveal their already hardening cocks. I took a moment to marvel at the two straight cocks in front of me. Both were bigger than mine, and I was of average size. Derek's was slightly longer, but Brad's was slightly thicker. 

Derek stepped forward first, thrusting his cock against my cheek. "Go on. Suck my cock. Get it nice and ready for your sister." 

"Back off, mate." Brad said as he stepped forward, knocking against Derek's hips and positioning his cock against my other cheek. "He's going to be sucking my cock, and I'm the one who's going to be getting with Ashley." 

Both men began jostling against each other, trying to get in a better position to slide their cocks into my mouth. 

In order to stop them from escalating into a full-blown physical fight, I grabbed their cocks. With one cock in each hand, I quickly stroked them to full hardness. It did the trick in stopping them from fighting, as they were too absorbed in the hand jobs I was giving them. 

Bringing their two cock heads together, I began licking and teasing the tips with my tongue, eliciting curses from them. I made sure to suck on both of them as equally as possible, not wanting to show favouritism. 

Each of them tried to gain the upper hand by grabbing my head and thrusting their cocks forward, past their rival's, and into my mouth. But each time the other would not give up ground, jerking my head back towards them and thrusting forward to deny their foe any deeper access to my mouth. I had to stretch my lips more than I ever had before to keep both of their tips in my mouth. 

After neither could gain an advantage, they began to grow impatient. "He's such a fucking tease. He's going to keep stringing us along." Derek snarled, apparently not directed at me but at his competitor. 

"True that, man. He should make up his mind over who's cock he wants for him and his sister." Brad said. Sharing a look, they both withdrew from my mouth, causing me to let out a whine at the loss of their cocks. 

"Times up, slut. Choose which cock is going to be taking your sister's virginity." Derek said. "Yeah, no more stringing us along; make your choice." Brad added. 

I was paralysed with indecision, wanting to serve both. I honestly couldn't choose between them. It was in that moment that my sister unwittingly came to my rescue. My phone buzzed with the distinctive tone I'd set for Ashley. I quickly snatched it up and read the message she'd sent. It was for her two suitors. I read it aloud for them. 

"Hey boys, what's keeping you? I've been so horny waiting for your sexy messages and I haven't received even one from either of you! Did you forget that I said whoever sends the most messages by midnight gets to come over? Well the game is still on! Just thinking about it makes me so wet. I need the best man to take my virginity so step it up boys!" 

The effect on the straight men as I read the message was obvious. Both had started to jack off while I'd been reading, and both were now harder than I'd ever seen them before. Their faces were also completely different. Before, when I'd served them, they'd at most expressed arousal at my attempts to get them off. Now they showed almost animalistic lust. They were straight alphas who had been teased with what they truly desired: pussy. I realised in that moment that I'd never truly be able to have or satisfy either of them. I was and always would be a mere means to an end for these straight studs. I'd never been harder in my life. 

Realising after today they would have no reason to let me serve them, I quickly came up with a way to get as much straight cock in the time I had left. "Whoever is currently fucking my face gets my phone until they cum. Then the other takes over until they cum. We repeat until my sister's deadline." 

Derek reacts faster than his rival. He plunges his cock into my waiting mouth, snatches my phone from my hands, and immediately begins texting my sister. I'm in heaven, sucking on the long, straight cock lodged in my throat. I bob my head up and down his cock, trying to make him feel as good as possible, but he hardly even grunts as I take him to his base, too engrossed in his conversation with my sister. 

Brad stands scowling at Derek's side. His fists clench; he too is engrossed in the text conversation, ignoring me completely. He starts muttering in Derek's ear, and at first I can't hear what he's saying, but Derek's grunts grow louder as Brad talks to him. I hear snippets of what Brad is saying; words like 'tight', 'pussy', and 'virgin'. I realise he's talking dirty about my sister to get Derek to cum faster. It works. Derek let out a moan of release, and my mouth was flooded with his sperm. I try to swallow as much as I can, but it's too much, and his seed spills out of my mouth. 

Before Derek can completely finish cuming or I can fully suck his cock clean, Brad yanks my head off of Derek's cock, shoves him out of the way, and rams his thick dick down my throat. He's grabbed my phone as well and is messaging my sister furiously, trying to catch up. I get to work sucking his cock, not caring about my rough treatment; I'm just glad I've got another straight cock to suck. 

Derek adopts Brad's tactics right away, whispering in his ear about what a slut my sister is and how good her pussy would feel. He also has his own tactics. Grabbing the back of my head, he holds me down on Brad's cock until I'm gagging on it. It sends Brad wild, and after the third time Derek holds my head down, my spasming throat and the latest message from my sister send him over the edge, and he dumps a load down my throat. 

They swap me back and forth for hours. The time they spend fucking my throat becomes longer and longer as their balls are drained more and more. All the while they text my sister, try to get the other off, and ignore me as much as possible, only interacting with me with their cocks or with a hand on my head as they direct me to suck their rival off faster.

Finally, it reaches midnight. Both Derek and Brad are spent. My sister says she'll count up the messages and let us know who the winner is tomorrow. They give me back my phone, and stumble off, arm in arm. Despite it all, it seems that competition has allowed them to bond. At least until they find out who's won. 

I sit there exhausted, covered in a mix of their cum, my throat raw and sour from being fucked for so long. I've cum multiple times in my pants during the hours I've been servicing them. I'm still hard as a rock, and as I reach to get myself off one last time, I receive another text from Ashley. "Hey bro, still counting up the messages. I'm excited to let the winner come over but I do like both guys and I'd want the loser to stick around. Maybe have some fun with him after. Could you take care of him? Let him know he still has a shot. Thanks bro x" 

I cum in my pants, envisioning how I'd take care of the loser while he waited for my sister. I text my sister back. "No problem sis. They'll do anything for you."

[moongothic]

During the Alabasta Arc, do you think Crocodile would have changed his 10-year plan if he had found out earlier that Luffy was his child? or do you think he would have avoided fighting Luffy altogether?

We need to considder that WHEN Crocodile would've found out about that though, because it does impact the answer here. Since The Loof and Croccywocky clashed three whole times, that means there's a lot of room for things to go wrong

Generally speaking, I do feel like Crocodile would've been so far into his plans that even if he found out and Luffy himself started begging Crocodile to not go through with his plans, like, it'd be too late. The sunk cost fallacy would probably get him hard (since he had been working towards this whole thing for literal years) At the absolute-most, if he was feeling GENEROUS, I think he might go back on the plaza bombing, but he would need to still have Kohza, Cobra and whoever remained of the royal army who had heard about Vivi's letter to die (but those assassinations would be easy to orchestrate, Crocodile would just have to swoop in to take control of the situation after the forces "took each other out"). And most problematically, this would make Vivi's fate... rough. Crocodile couldn't possibly have Vivi live and stay in Alabasta if he wanted to go through with his plans, but obviously Luffy wouldn't let Crocodile kill Vivi, letting her loose wouldn't work, and it's not like Croc would be able to keep her prisoner locked away and hidden in some basement for the rest of her life (or at least until Crocodile has nuked the WG out of orbit, if Vivi wanted her country back at that point she could have it, but there's no way Nefertari "I will kill you" Vivi would agree to an arrangement like that)

Also there is the question of "how does Croc find out and does Luffy know also" that does complicate things, but god knows I can only do so much speculating with all these moving parts.

But yeah let's get to the actual speculation part

If Croc found pre-Rain Dinners; (With this one, we're assuming Luffy finds out at the same time) Honestly I think in utter shock and horror Crocodile would've probably tried to leave Luffy and co locked and imprisoned in Rain Dinners (maybe kill Smoker then and there just to get rid of him) while he and Robin would go to Alubarna. It'd just be the easiest way to deal with Luffy at that moment. He'd be left safe and sound in his secret basement in a Seastone cell where he couldn't get out and nobody could get him. Crocodile can go and deal with his nefarious schemes and worry about dealing with Luffy later. If however Luffy and co manage to escape (perhaps with some help from our beloved Mr Prince), things would get messy because Crocodile would have to try to figure out a way to stop Luffy and re-prison him so he won't get in Crocodile's way without really hurting the idiot? Like, I'm sure Croc could figure out a way to do that somehow (bury Luffy in sand or something), but Luffy... Like. At this point, Luffy would be so fucking pissed off at Croc I'm sure he'd have no issue whooping Crocodile's ass, father or not. Like I want to you imagine a vet trying to deal with a really fucking angry feral cat. That's what Crocodile dealing with Luffy would look like in this situation. It'd be a mess. But yeah, in this scenario, I feel like the end result would be A) Crocodile manages to put Luffy and co into timeout and manages to pull of his plans successfully. This would lead to Luffy, Vivi and co having an eternal vendetta and deep hatred against Crocodile but honestly I think he'd be fine with it (as long as the idiots wouldn't go on like, IDK, a hunger strike. But if Croc's plan to obtain Pluton was to save his son from the WG then it'd be a great, passive aggressive move for Luffy to starve to death just to ruin Croc's plans. The fuck's he gonna do to stop Luffy at that point?) Or B) Crocodile fails to put Luffy into timeout and gets his ass kicked, his schemes get foiled though whether this happens at Rain Dinners or at the Tombs does impact Crocodile's fate; like if it's the latter I'd imagine he'd get captured by the marines and taken to Impel Down as normal, OR if it was the former, if Luffy was feeling generous he might allow Crocodile to piss off after his ass kicking, licking his wounds (Vivi would probably let the whole world know about what Crocodile had tried to do and the WG would still take his Shichibukai Rights, IDK how things would go from there though)

Post-RD but pre-Palace Showdown; (With this one, we're assuming Luffy doesn't know Croc's his father) This would be interesting because if Crocodile found out Luffy was his son AFTER having stabbed the dumbass through his gut and left him to die in the desert... What would Crocodile do then? He'd believe he had killed his only son. Would he fall into despair and give up because nothing would matter anymore at this point? Try to blow up the damn bomb early and go down with it? Or maybe he would continue with the plan as intended but completely disassociating the whole time. Or maybe he'd go into utter denial, refusing to believe Luffy was his son and try to continue with the plan but now completely furious and mentally unstable? Regardless, Luffy is alive and does show up to stop Crocodile again. And that would be a great relief to Croc. In the "fall to despair and give up" scenario I feel like his plans might remain abandoned, but with the other scenarios maybe Croc would continue onwards with a new passion. But yeah he'd once again be stuck trying to deal with a very angry feral cat and try to imprison Luffy without hurting a hair on him, and we'd be stuck with mostly same final outcomes as in the Rain Dinners-scenario I discussed earlier

Final Showdown in the Tombs; (With this one we're assuming Luffy also found out) This could be the most complicated because after Robin reveals her betrayal Crocodile doesn't have an easy method to obtain Pluton, and all this other plans so far have kinda gone to shit. He wouldn't be able to really tell from the tombs that Pell took the bomb into the sky and stopped the bombing, like as far as he knows based on the rumbling the bomb probably went off as intended, but knowing how the Strawhats have foiled his plans so far it's not impossible the bombing might not have gone as he intended. (Yes I know the bomb goes off WHILE Croc and Luffy have their final showdown but if I write my speculation with that in mind it'll just be the same answer as in the previous scenario) So at this point, after having mummified Luffy and leaving him to die a second time, if he found out Luffy was his son... Again, how the hell would he react? The only difference is that at this point his plans have been pretty much successfully ruined (as far as he knows), it's joever, and he killed his son? Like what's left for him to do? At this point? Should he just sit in the tombs and wait to get crushed to death by the rubble? But of course, Luffy shows up again, alive and well. Once again, I think that would be a huge relief, but considdering how things have gone... Would Crocodile have the energy to try to continue his plans anymore at this point? Would he even want to put up a fight and try to finish what he started, to try to imprison Luffy? Or would he just throw in the towel, let Luffy beat his ass if he really wanted? (Not that Luffy would be satisfied with it if Crocodile just gave up when he was there to whoop the gator's ass IN COMBAT, it would be a fair fight nor satisfying to beat up Croc if he's just letting it happen)

I dunno there's a lot of moving pieces and a lot of potential on where things could go, we could be here all day writing out all the Alternative Timelines etc