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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Text

Didn’t Need Burrow (August 7th-September 13th)

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Ladybug and Chat Noir will be asked to participate in judging a competition that Marinette and Adrien are both a part of. Ladybug will want to vote for herself as Marinette, but Tikki will tell her(once detransformed and while she is snacking) that she can’t because then people will know that Marinette is Ladybug. Chat Noir, meanwhile, will freely vote for Adrien with no repercussions or drawbacks, and Adrien will end up winning the competition. Marinette will admit that she was “so silly” to even think of voting for herself, especially since “Adrien needs the award more so that I do” despite being rich, white, male, and “perfect”(oh, I’m sorry, “purrfect”!), since all of Marinette’s legitimate problems of anxiety, dyspraxia, and the like get thrown out the window because the writers’ perfect sunshine boy incel stand-in has a “saaad home life!”, and Marinette needs to give him pity and put his feelings above his rather than wish for her own success. Cuz Girl Power.

tbh, given the leaks script, I’d reverse that and saying that Adrien voted for LadyNoir as Couple of the Year.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Marinette and Adrien will reveal their identities, and Marinette actually WILL be disappointed that the boy who goofed off in fights and didn’t take no for an answer is none other than her perfect modeling celebrity crush. However, rather than this being a point towards Adrien needing to learn how to improve himself and accept Marinette’s feelings, this scene is used to make HER look bad(because of course it is) and she is blamed for expecting Adrien to be perfect(despite being encouraged and told to see him as such), and told that she should be happy that Chat was hitting on her even when she didn’t like it or it got in the way of battle plans, likely by Alya, because it was her true love under the mask all along. Eventually she “learns her lesson”(ick) and comes to accept Adrichat for who he is, warts and all. Bonus if she has a flashback to when Chat said “if you saw me without my mask you wouldn’t be able to resist me” as she realizes that he was right.

Didn’t Need Burrow? More like “Didn’t Need to Think About This”

i hate it

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Luka will be Chat Blanc "2.0"

But Luka doesn’t have Chat-level favoritism going so Bunnyx won’t be there to defend him from consequences.

Anonymous asked:

We will have Ladybug!Alya in Marinette's akumatization episode. Obviously everyone would think that she is "better" than "old" Ladybug. (Bonus points if Ladybug!Alya don't "alienate" Chat Noir, mostly by catering to his whims)

Oh, of course! No one will miss the “old” Ladybug.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Bob Roth is akumatized into Rip Off, a supervillain with power to copy anything he sees (including powers of heroes)

Okay but that’s genius.

(I know we already had it in “Miraculer” but I like this more.)

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Now that Luka knows their identities, he will push the Love Square in a romantic manner. Stans would be totally fine with this because it doesn't interfere with their endgame :)

Well, obviously!

I’m just waiting for them to basically say that the secret identities don’t matter and, because they like one side, also means they like the other side.

Because forget nuance, am I right?

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: In the end, (after Adrienette gets together) Narrator reveals himself (herself?) as Alya with words "that's how I helped my bestie [Marinette] get a relationship with love of her life [Adrien]" or something similar.

wait, Alya, are you filming a Ladybug biography

why did you include all the humilation

why

That explains her making herself look good though.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Luka will finally reveal that he knows Heroes' secret identities... to Alya, who obviously decide to hide from Marinette that Luka knows her identity (Bonus Points if reason provided by Alya why she is doing this is utterly ridiculous)

AAAAAAAAAAAA

I guess Luka would have to realize that Alya knows. Bonus if he tells her Chat’s identity too so love square shipping can commence.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: "Knitting Fairy" will be name of Marinette's akumatized form.

Can you say “reused design”? I certainly can, we’re used to it.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow:

Luka keeping his knowledge about the identities (esp. Ladybug’s) will somehow blow up in a way for the writers to paint him in a bad light, probably ending with Marinette not trusting him. (As well as no hint of irony that Adrien did the same thing for completely selfish reasons in Chat Blanc).

MiraculousMX: Platonic soulmates!

us: Source??

Anonymous asked:

DNB: If LS gets reversed, Adrien complains about Marinette having other friends. Not just being friends with Luka or any other guys, but friends PERIOD, showing the same jealousy/desire for his 'love interest' to be isolated as Chat Noir. These MASSIVE RED FLAGS are treated as Just More Innocent Sadrien Things, because he's sOoOoOo Sad and SoOoOoO Lonely~

Oh god, now I had an awful thought that this is where Adrien getting jealous of Luka, and Luka feels bad/”knows what’s best” so he either ditches Marinette/finds an excuse to leave or makes sure that Adrien gets his time with her.

Because it’s the love square so it’s “important” that Marinette spend time with Adrien.

Anonymous asked:

Dnb: assuming the Senti-Adrien theory is true, in the season finale, Viperion joins the fight, stops SM from using the ladybug an cat miraculi by going back in time only to use them by himself, wishing for Adrien to be a real boy (and love Marinette). Of course Luka needs to give something in exchange, worst case scenario, his life.

That got really dark.

Though tbh with how much they push Luka and Marinette around, one of them will probably have to give up something huge for Adrien (they both already sacrificed their relationship, so--).

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: If Chat Noir joins Shadow Moth then he is treated by both Gabriel and Heroes as his greatest asset, even through he is still complete joke that is defeated by rest of Heroes faster than Mr Pigeon in "Timetagger". (Bonus points if Heroes defeat him by "Backhand Offhand", Offscreen or he is defeated by "Friendly Fire" from Akuma of the Week due to his own stupidity)

tbh I could probably do more sad math with “how often Chat Noir/Cataclysm is useless,” bonus if it’s put up against characters/Ladybug stroking his ego.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Adrien's fears concerning Ladybug are made more explicit through a nightmare/vision (possibly akuma-induced) of Ladybug calling him unreliable/saying she doesn't need him anymore because she has partners she can actually COUNT on. Naturally, this is treated as Pure Sadrien Hours rather than a fair critique. Bonus if he ditches/forces her to beg for his assistance AGAIN to soothe his poor bruised baby ego.

*“Malediktator” flashbacks, but Adrien instead of Chloe*

Anonymous asked:

Didn't Need Burrow: Adrien/Chat Noir skips out on a fight/akuma attack for some spiteful, selfish reason or another. Ladybug handles it without him, either completely through her own skill or with help from Rena/other heroes. Adrien then angsts about 'not being needed', with Marinette's 'Mistake of the Day' being that she didn't cater to his pity party due to being too busy DOING HER DAMNED JOB.

me seeing that one leaked script where they talk about how Chat/Cataclysm would make things easier: *sigh*

Anonymous asked:

Didn't Need Burrow: Plagg will encourage Adrien to act even more selfishly, skipping more battles and being even brattier. This is so his stans can blame Plagg for being 'a bad influence' on their perfect angel, even when it's clear the two of them are on the same wavelength. Oooh, he's twisting his rubber arm; how AWFUL--! Adrien would NEVER do all these Awful Things he's already done if he didn't have Plagg~! What a bad kitty~!

“rubber arm” jdfkgjndfjgfg

tbh Plagg already is super laidback and doesn’t really like transforming/complains about going into battle, so this isn’t much of a stretch.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: "Gabriel Agreste" or other episodes will reveal that Gabriel flew many, if not ALL of the same Red Flags his son displays on a regular basis. The narrative treats this as though this makes Gabriel more 'sweet, sad and sympathetic' rather than illustrating that both of them are dangerously entitled and generally awful.

This sounded really intriguing as a sort of “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” thing until that last sentence kicked in.

That’s damn accurate to what they’d do too, ugh.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Plagg is the one that discovers that Gabriel is Hawk/Shadowmoth, but is forcibly sworn to silence by Adrien. Bonus if Adrien somehow gives this command without learning what Plagg is trying to tell him -- i.e. he get irritated and orders Plagg to shut up in a way that bars him from EVER saying what he was attempting to say -- so that Adrien's stans can claim it was all a big misunderstanding and blame Plagg entirely for it. Or Marinette. Somehow.

Oh oh oh!

Alternatively, Adrien silences Plagg without realizing that he has that kind of power (like saying, “you can’t tell anyone!” and we see the magic hit Plagg’s mouth), so the fandom can say, “HE DOESN’T KNOOOW THAT HE DID IT.”

Anonymous asked:

dntb: Luka is gonna be villianised in some way for not telling Marinette he knows the identities of both of them

Meanwhile, Alya, slipping the bouncer her free pass.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: After one of the kwamis makes one snickering comment too many, Marinette snaps and tells them all to shut up (with obvious outcome). Narrative obviously equals it to scene between Gabriel and Noroo from "Sandboy" (Bonus Points if Narrative deems Marinette worse than Gabriel, because "Gabriel forbid Noroo from talking as joke")

oh my goooooood

Marinette: *snaps because she’s stressed out*

the fandom: SHE SO MEAN!!! ;o;

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Adrien's reveal as Sentimonster just for additional souce of "sad points" for him

this DNB: i am inevitable

mystic-lionroar asked:

Didn't Need Burrow: The writers' Status-Quo allergy kicks in when someone very pointedly implies Chloe, Lila and/or Gabriel work for Hawk Moth with how many Akumas they tend to cause... only to get reminded point blank that "Hawk Moth is the sole one responsible for this mess, no one else". Cue two episodes later, both the characters and the writers' memories of this scene are erased. What erased it? ╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )╯Why, Marinette can be held responsible for this one, of course! (Me: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻)

╰（‵□′）╯

OH MY GOOOOD

“Crocoduel” also basically already blamed Marinette for two akumatizations so at this point we’re just waiting.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: To further cement the whole 'destined to be' shlock, after the shock of the eventual reveal wears off, we get a call back to how frequently Chat Noir told Ladybug that they were meant for each other and that she 'was the only one who didn't see it'. Marinette agrees that she was silly and foolish for not recognizing it sooner, parroting Adrien's bullshit in order to further cement the notion that she's HAPPILY accepting her 'fate' to be nothing more than his personal prize.

You can’t see it but I have my head in my hands in grief.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Adrien's gross sense of entitlement towards Ladybug will become even more explicit, with him angrily ranting about how he DESERVES to 'get the girl'. No matter how awful and nasty he gets, the narrative continues to treat him as though he's 100% right to be pissed off at her for DARING to have agency or thinking she has a say in things. As clearly, the biggest mistake Marinette has ever made is thinking she gets to have Opinions or make her own decisions. G-girl power...?

Marinette needing to be constantly told what’s best for her by other people and it’s okay because she needs to accept+follow all opinions.

end me

Anonymous asked:

DNB: The double standard between Adrien and other characters will be more noticeable. Adrien will still be put on a pedestal.

Because no one will notice Adrien if they didn’t put him on a metaphorical and physical pedastal.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Foxy Cat and CaraBug

omg Fox Adrien.is one of the worst hero choices I’ve ever heard fjdgjfjdglfkdg

I could at least see why Marinette thought that Adrien fit the snake since the narrative gushes for him so hard.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: As a result of being written by a straight white male writing team, the show starts to use Marinette’s girliness against her. From her love of pink being mocked to the kwamis admitting(in the spirit of another DNB) that they don’t respect Marinette because she’s “too girly”, to her fashion designing being treated as a cutesy but ultimately fickle pastime(in the spirit that all teenage girls’ interests are treated), the show absolutely throws Girl Power out the window in favor of giving Marinette absolute hell for daring to present herself in a traditionally feminine way, treating her femininity as the butt of a joke that no one is laughing at. Bonus points of someone says(or even outright tells her to her face) that she’s “such a girl”, as if that’s supposed to be an insult. Alternatively, this happens to Rose instead of Marinette, as she’s just as girly if not more so than her, or it happens to both of them(regardless of whether or not it’s at the same time).

WOOOOW

I mean, honestly, yeah.

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Things other characters did that were bad will be retconned into things that Marinette did instead, or will otherwise be retconned into being her fault, no matter how improbable or contradictory. Meanwhile, bad things characters did to Marinette or good things characters did FOR Marinette will be retconned into nonexistence.

I MEAN THEY BLAMED MARINETTE FOR “SILENCER” SO--

MATTER OF TIME.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Simultaneous Akumatization of Manon, Chris, Ella and Etta, obviously when they are babysat by Marinette, because otherwise ML Writers wouldn't be able to paint it as Marinette's fault

oh god

please no

I mean, not even just to blame Marinette for it, but I can’t even stand these kids when they’re on their own, MUCH LESS TOGETHER.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: If Adrien gets akumatized, then it would be just Chat Blanc with shoulder pads and crown

Is this a reference to my Miracle Queen post?

Because yes.

Anonymous asked:

Didn't need burrow: In Hack-San Chat Noir will pull a Sentibubler and refuse to listen to Alya with the Ladybug Miraculous as he doesn't have a brain unless he can progress the not so progressive four-sided Hellfire, which is actually still the best-case-scenario. I mean he could just not come at all, since he's only there to flirt with and seduce Ladybug with unfunny jokes.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Adrien causes problems because of Alyabug.

ugggggh

Anonymous asked:

DNB: Alya will immediately have access to things like the creation of charms despite how long it took for Marinette to be able to do that.

Wait--

If she doesn’t, did they literally just give Alya the ladybug miraculous because they knew that Markov wouldn’t have a way of hiding the amulet on him and they didn’t feel like putting it on his model???

Anonymous asked:

Didn’t Need Burrow: Alya’s Ladybug name is “Coccinelle” aka “Ladybug” in French. Or something equally lazy such as The Red Spotted One or the Scarlett Beetle. Even if it sounds cool at first glance, it will ultimately boil down to a plain and obvious name, because apparently EVERY superhero’s name has to so blatantly relate to the animal their Miraculous is based off of. For some reason. Somehow. -_-

fhkgjfdkgdfg okay but “The Red Spotted One” made me laugh.

Anonymous asked:

Hack-San DNB’s:

• Chat Noir will be upset that Ladybug trusted her miraculous to someone else.

• There will be a comment on how Alya was a just as good, if not better Ladybug than Marinette.

• Alya’s performance as LB will be used as another instance to show Marinette made the ‘right choice’ telling her her identity.

• Using the Horse to teleport back instead giving the earrings to Alya will not be mentioned as an option.

• Scene of Adrichat being sad about ‘feeling replaced’.

Especially on that “comment that Alya is just as good, if not better,” one, it probably won’t even be used as a reassurance for Marinette like, “oh, that’s good to know that I’m not the only one who can be Ladybug,” it’ll just be praise for Alya.

Anonymous asked:

Hack-San DNB: Chat Noir gets angry with LB for not telling him she was leaving & she has to apologize for it.

(Despite making sure there was a backup Ladybug to protect Paris, unlike Chat in the NY special who left the city completely unprotected).

Convenient.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: "Dearest Family" (episode where both of Marinette's parents are akumatized) will be about Marinette learning "true value" of Chat Noir

Either that or incorporating Adrien into the family.

Anonymous asked:

Don't Need a Burrow: Psycomedian will be blatant Joker rip-off

You can just say “all akuma in the season will either be rip-offs of themselves or past akuma,” it’s okay. :P

Anonymous asked:

Another DNB for Hack-San, since we see Jagged Stone in the trailer, so if they show it..:

The “most precious possession” of Jagged’s will be Fang and not, y’know, either of his children.

I missed that trailer.

Honestly there could be some funny moments with the concept, but if Jagged is the only joke made about it then yes, I will be very bitter.

Alternatively, Jagged picks his guitar instead.

Anonymous asked:

DNB: In the Alyabug episode, Alya will either be Practically Perfect In Every Way™, or will royally screw up in a way that will somehow lead to Marinette. Either way, Cat Noir will flirt with the new Ladybug, or pull a Sentibubbler. Or both. There may or may not be a comment about how Alyabug's costume is so much better than Marinette's despite being a fashion designer.

dkfgkjdfgjf I adore how this whole thing is just, “there’s so many ways it could go wrong!”

#category: salt #Didn't Need Burrow #other: ask and answer

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faelicy · 4 years

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Miss Faelicy I would love to get your opinion on Bingqiu.

I see people posting things like how they are "problematic" and how they don't really love each other and SQQ only feels sympathy etc. Obviously there were struggles between them as there should be (considering all that happened) and just because sqq wasn't very open and super obvious about his feelings doesn't mean they are not there..this is how I interpreted it. I would love to know your opinion

Hello! This also covers part 2 of the previous ask.

First, massive spoilers for the end of the novel. Second, a disclaimer: I despise shipwars, which I think are behind most of those comments. I hate them because it's usually all in bad faith: everyone's already committed to their interpretation of the ships, and any discussion is just a guise for justifying their preferences.

So to any readers: I don't want anything here to be used as shipwar fuel. This post is about Bingqiu's canon arc and themes. Basically, I don't know or care if Bingqiu is a good ship, but I do think it's a well-written one.

I'll start by saying directly: for most of the novel, Bingqiu is neither healthy nor romantic. And that this is not bad writing, but on purpose.

A relationship that drives one party to mental breakdown isn't healthy. A relationship where that party says it's okay to hurt or kill them can't possibly be healthy. That happened because there was something deeply wrong with their relationship, something that can't be reduced to Xin Mo, miscommunication, or LBH throwing a tropey yandere fit.

And out of all three MXTX novels, only SV lacks a love confession from the MC to the ML. Again, I don't think it's an oversight, or just because SQQ's face is too thin. There are plenty of ways MXTX could have worked a subtle one in if she really wanted to.

In my opinion, Bingqiu's narrative can be split up into four arcs: Qing Jing Peak (ch 1-27), Jin Lan City (28-43), Post-revival (29-55), and Reconciliation (56-81). Other than the first arc, where their relationship is pretty straightforward, Bingqiu spend most of the rest in direct conflict.

I'll give an overview of the arcs here, but what I truly want to say about Bingqiu starts in arc 4, so if you're impatient you can scroll down. But the overview might help add context.

Jin Lan City arc is about LBH's anger at being brutally betrayed by the one person he thought he could trust. Here he tries to force answers out of SQQ, who he believes both hates him and is a hypocrite. He's driven by a desire to return to the past, but his rage and love makes his actions contradictory: on one hand he tries to win SQQ's approval constructively, by climbing to the top of Huan Hua Palace and performing good deeds, on the other hand his belief that SQQ doesn't care about him so it's all futile anyway (reinforced by SQQ's own actions) causes him to lash out destructively, going as far as to hurt and imprison SQQ.

LBH's bitterness is portrayed very negatively, because all it does is instill despair into SQQ, until SQQ ends up believing that he's only been a blight on LBH's life, and that he must make up for it by killing himself. Whereupon LBH breaks down, regressing into a childlike state. Some might ask, why does LBH never bring up the Abyss again afterwards? It's because he gives up here. This entire arc is about getting LBH to let go of past wrongs and to stop seeking answers, whether the reader believes it's fair to him or not. Because SQQ's life is more important.

Post-revival arc then is about SQQ trying to come to terms with a blackened LBH who also loves him. Interestingly, despite SQQ's horror at realizing LBH was romantically interested in him all along, SQQ actually has a very subtle but telling secondary reaction. To explain, let's back up to the first arc.

Starting around ch 9, probably as a sign of his growing affection, SQQ begins addressing LBH as 这孩子, or "this child," in his internal monologue, instead of LBH's name. He does it once each in ch 9, 12, 17, 21, 25. However, once Jin Lan City arc starts, SQQ drops the address entirely. LBH and "child" are never brought up together except for one snarky comment on LBH's tantrum being disgracefully childish in ch 38.

At first glance this doesn't look noteworthy because LBH by this point is no longer a kid. But when LBH kisses him in ch 49, SQQ changes again: right away he returns to using "child" on LBH, and the "this child" address starts popping up at a much higher frequency. By the end of SV SQQ has referred to LBH as a child in some manner at least 35 times (yes I went and counted), with the vast majority after ch 49, and he continues to do so right into the last extra.

Why was SQQ unwilling to use this address of affection for over 20 chapters? Perhaps because he too thought LBH hated him, and couldn't bear to think about him so intimately knowing that. So SQQ immediately falling back into it the moment he learns LBH loves him is a sign of his relief. He's still dismayed at the romantic part, but though SQQ likes to deflect from his real emotions (this is the guy who focused on bad naming sense after being fatally poisoned, who cavalierly commented only after it was all over that he'd expected to die), the fact that LBH loves and doesn't hate him, means a lot.

Here SQQ's feelings towards LBH are at their most complicated. He still assumes the worst of him like in Jin Lan City, but now because of the above, also sees a lonely child whenever LBH is unhappy and lost. It's like he has two filters actively interfering with each other, "crazed criminal" and "pitiful child," and so he flip-flops between pushing LBH away and comforting him. But when LBH drags CQMS into it, and even seemingly takes advantage of SQQ's love for him, SQQ's negative image and frustration with him only grows, until he finally snaps and tells LBH to never come near him again.

At this point SQQ still believes that LBH is the same black-hearted, invincible, devil incarnate that og!LBH was portrayed to be. The Reconciliation arc starts by chipping away at this filter that's been plaguing SQQ for so long. First the revelation that TLJ/ZZL was behind the sowers, thus clearing LBH's name at Jin Lan City. Then we see how unloved he is by his own father; we see him injured and helpless and unconscious. Meng Mo yells at SQQ, reinforcing that image of a vulnerable, terrified child. So by ch 62 SQQ has thrown away the "crazed criminal" filter completely, and in that same chapter they cling to each other and finally make up. Because while it's true that the current LBH is misanthropic, antisocial, and mercurial, SQQ has also finally accepted that he's still the same LBH he'd raised and doted on, back on Qing Jing Peak.

Now I'm going to talk about what I see as the most important part of Bingqiu. Yes, despite the wall of text already.

A common sentiment of Bingqiu shippers about their issues seems to be, "SQQ is dumb and oblivious; he can't figure out what LBH needs even though he loves him because he sees LBH as a novel character," but I think the problem is far more complicated and insidious than that. If that was everything, why give SQQ the epiphany that he misunderstood LBH so early? Why have him think in ch 66 that "truthfully, he'd never really trusted Luo Binghe, and that's why he kept accidentally hurting him?" If he's already realized that he shouldn't treat LBH like og!LBH (he even meets og!LBH in ch 71 to rub it in further), why do we go another 13 chapters believing their relationship is good and well, even giving us a sweet, happy moment in ch 75, only to show LBH having the worst breakdown of the novel just 4 chapters later? Was it all just padding to demonstrate the danger of Xin Mo?

Or is there something else beneath the surface?

In ch 66, the same chapter where SQQ implies he doesn't want to accidentally hurt LBH anymore, he says something telling. When LQG is skeptical that LBH can be trusted, SQQ thinks, 家里孩子不懂事，大人不容易做, or "when your child doesn't know any better, as the adult you don't have it easy." The child here of course refers to LBH, and the adult is SQQ, who's complaining about smoothing over LBH's messes. But what is SQQ implying here?

Doesn't know any better? That's what you say about a toddler who can't think for themselves, not a grown man. LBH is 25 and SQQ thinks he doesn't know better. Doesn't know better about what? LBH's wants, his needs? His feelings? Or even what's good for him?

And then you realize that's exactly how SQQ's always treated him, like a helpless child who can't make his own choices.

It's SQQ who chooses to throw LBH down into the Abyss without trying to talk to him. It's SQQ who decides that keeping silent is the best choice. It's SQQ who believes self-destructing in front of LBH will help, who thinks that breaking off their relationship is for the better. And it's SQQ who scolds LBH into tolerating CQMS, even though they hate each other and CQMS is hostile towards him. Who forces him to leave first at Zhao Hua Temple despite LBH's pleas otherwise, who shoos him out the window when CQMS walks in on them.

Every single one of these decisions, SQQ made believing it was for the best (repair LBH's relationship with his family, help him avoid arrest, not wanting to make excuses, wanting LBH to be free of his hatred), and every single one of them only damaged LBH further. Because SQQ's never listened to him, even once. Never consulted him or considered his feelings.

(And LBH did try to bring up his feelings on one of the matters in ch 75. He insinuates to SQQ that he doesn't like LQG calling him "little beast" or "ingrate." And SQQ's response is to dismiss them entirely, saying that LQG's "not wrong.")

SQQ has always loved LBH, but he's never once respected LBH's agency or personhood. Because LBH doesn't know better and SQQ does, so SQQ must make all his decisions for him.

And this, amplified by Xin Mo, is what finally drives LBH mad in ch 79.

To LBH, the important part isn't whether SQQ loves him, which I think he knew after ch 43 (it's why he can be so daring and pushy with SQQ's boundaries). What's important is that the moment SQQ believes abandoning LBH is justified for whatever reason again, SQQ absolutely will.

Ch 80's two-way noncon (since LBH was basically unconscious and couldn't consent) tends to draw most of the attention, but I actually think that what happens afterwards is one of the most important scenes for Bingqiu. There SQQ tries to sacrifice himself a second time for LBH, drawing Xin Mo's demonic qi into his body. Yet the novel claims that SQQ's actions here are completely different than in ch 43. SQQ himself says that this time he's doing it for LBH, while last time he was doing it for himself. But can the reader see a functional difference?

There is one, in fact: it's SQQ's response to LBH's choice afterwards. LBH decides to follow SQQ in death, even though this would void the point of SQQ's sacrifice. But instead of insisting otherwise, SQQ just accepts it. Because he finally understands that whether LBH's life is worth living, whether LBH will be better off, is for LBH and only LBH to decide.

It's the first time he respects LBH's agency. And this is the only reason why he and LBH can finally begin building a healthy relationship on the mess they've had up to now.

So that's what I see as the true beauty behind Bingqiu. It's about communication and mistaken assumptions, yes, but it's also about the nature of love between parent and child. The romantic developments were left to the extras, I believe, because this was the main story MXTX wanted to tell with them. Their relationship as lovers only starts afterwards, hence why SV ends with, "the story between you and I, has only just begun." It was never meant to be a whirlwind romance where they fall in love cleanly. It might not to be to everyone's tastes, but an incredible amount of thought was put into the narrative, and that's what amazed me when I first finished this novel.

(This post went on way too long and I ended up cutting off a huge chunk of tangential stuff and how SQQ came to his realization in ch 79: he didn't do it alone. It took him seeing the LBH in TLJ and the himself in YQY for him to understand. In fact, YQY and og!SQQ's relationship has a similar parent-and-child dynamic. I've touched on it before on twitter; if there's interest I might try writing that up here too.)

#scum villain #svsss #scum villain's self saving system #sv meta #spoilers #fae's meta #translation notes

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lambden · 3 years

Text

What better way to break in a new blog than by immediately posting fic? In honour of Nightmare of the Wolf, here’s some Vesemir and Filavandrel!

(read on AO3)

M, 2.9K words, no warnings, Vesemir recognizes Jaskier’s lute when he arrives at Kaer Morhen

Vesemir has been expecting this day for decades. It’s rare for witchers to meet a trusted companion out on the Path, and even rarer to find one who wishes to travel alongside them. But the reputation of witchers has changed in recent years, for better or worse. Their focus is no longer on maintaining the traditional practices of their schools, but on protection— of other witchers, and of helpless commoners. Perhaps the humans can sense that change.

More curiously, the folklore surrounding witchers has changed. Vesemir very badly wants to meet the man who has done so much to change the narrative, but years pass and all Geralt brings home every winter are stories. The younger witchers entertain (and tease) him but no one ever asks where the bard goes during the cold months that Geralt spends at Kaer Morhen. Perhaps even Geralt doesn’t know.

Finally, after hundreds of stories of Geralt-and-Dandelion, Vesemir receives a letter one autumn before he himself has even considered the journey home. His chest warms as he reads Geralt’s careful penmanship, noting how the ink blots at the start of each new sentence. The paper and wax are fine, suggesting that Jaskier used his academic connections to perhaps land Geralt a few contracts near Oxenfurt. Geralt’s lettering may be nearly flawless but his message is stilted, reminding Vesemir of when his pups were nervous children. Does Jaskier really make him act this awkward? Their relationship must be serious, then.

I am hoping you will welcome my guest with open arms, or I fear he may freeze over the coming months. Vesemir looks for a signature but there is none, save a very fancy G at the bottom. No returning address has been provided either, and while he could easily pen a missive to Oxenfurt, it’s probably best not to respond. Each day Nilfgaard only grows stronger, and crueler. Perhaps Jaskier has been caught up in their hunger for power. Vesemir folds the letter up and hides it in his saddlebag.

When the frost begins creeping in, the oldest Wolf begins his trek up the mountain. He’s almost always the first one to arrive; Coën had beaten him to it once and apologized for weeks, and Vesemir would do anything to avoid that again. And if he makes an effort to arrive early this year so that he can make the Keep look as important as it is, well… nobody needs to know.

It takes a week and a half before Geralt arrives, Jaskier in tow. Vesemir spends the time flushing out a bat infestation and dealing with the most perishable of his spoils from the past year. The White Wolf seems to bring the cold with him most years but Vesemir, cognizant of Jaskier’s inferior body, made sure to set out enough furs in advance. As soon as he hears Roach’s hooves approaching he starts a roaring fire, and when the inner doors of Kaer Morhen burst open, Vesemir is ready to make a great first impression.

Upon seeing him, Geralt smiles right away, crossing the room to greet him. Vesemir looks him over; no obvious new scars, no missing body parts. Must have been an uneventful year, but… Geralt is here, safe and alive, so Vesemir allows himself some private, selfish, unwitcherly joy. It’s the sort of thing Deglan would have lectured him for. He finds he doesn’t care.

“I got your letter,” he tells Geralt, who nods solemnly. “I thought it best not to reply. Is Nilfgaard on your trail?”

“Our trail,” Geralt sighs, stepping aside so that Vesemir can meet his companion. “Vesemir, this is Jaskier.”

The bard, dwarfed by a large fur coat, moves forward so that Vesemir can properly scrutinize him. He certainly doesn’t look his age, but Vesemir knows he’s travelled as far as any witcher has gone, and seen sights no human should really have witnessed. “Oh, I’ve heard plenty about you, Jaskier. I was wondering when Geralt was finally going to bring you along for the winter!” That makes Jaskier perk up, and Vesemir chuckles. “I promise that no harm will come to you here.”

“Thank you,” Jaskier says. “Geralt doesn’t like sharing much about the other witchers, but I’m sure you must have a wealth of stories for me to hear!” Sure enough, Geralt frowns. “And I don’t know how much help I’ll be with hunting or gathering, but I would be happy to regale you on the coldest nights—”

And before Vesemir can read into that unfortunate phrasing, Jaskier shrugs off his fur coat to produce a lute. He must have been wearing it strapped around his front on the journey through the mountains, not wanting to condemn such a fine instrument to being jostled around in Roach’s saddlebags. Vesemir squints at the red-brown wood and the golden details under the strings. They almost look like a particular elven design.

Oh. Vesemir’s realization nearly bowls him over. Geralt and Jaskier stare at him, respectively concerned and curious, but Vesemir can’t take his eyes off the lute. “My apologies, I… I forgot something in my chamber. Make yourselves at home, and… I’ll leave you to it.” He leaves without any further explanation, hastening to his quarters and abandoning the pair of them to their own devices. He can still feel their gazes drilling into his back but he suddenly feels weaker than usual.

---

“I heard there was a witcher skulking around this forest,” the spy says. Vesemir is almost relieved to hear them speak; he’s been glancing over his shoulder for nearly an hour now to try and reveal an invisible pursuer. He should’ve known he was right. Just because the spy doesn’t lumber like a human or reek of magic like a monster doesn’t mean he won’t be in trouble.

He stops in the middle of the path, still facing forward. He’s got a sneaking suspicion that the second he turns, a very unfriendly knife is going to introduce itself to his ribcage. Or perhaps an arrow, although he hasn’t heard the sound of anything and he’s been listening very closely.

His pursuer approaches. Fuck, they’re light on their feet. If Vesemir was just an average bandit, he’d be done for. He braces himself for an attack, balling his hands up into fists at his sides. The stranger continues, tone still pleasant enough, “Why not stay in town? A warm bed must beat trudging through mud in the early hours of the morning trying to find ground. I’ll give you some advice, witcher; there’s no dry ground. You’re heading towards a swamp.”

“They wouldn’t let me stay in town,” Vesemir admits, already grumpy. He whirls around and sees the stranger; a lean man, just slightly shorter than him. The long hood of their cloak casts a dark shadow over their face, blocking them from view. “If you’re here to rob me, I hate to disappoint, but you’ve followed me all this way for nothing.”

He holds up his empty coinpurse; not to prove himself, just to complain. The stranger titters, a lovely, high-pitched sound like glass clinking against glass, like chimes. Like birdsong. Vesemir’s eyes narrow. “That’s a shame,” they say. “You do love coin.”

There’s something disturbingly familiar about the words. Vesemir decides to gamble with his own life, stalking forward until he’s face to face with the stranger. Up close, his scent is even stronger. Frowning, Vesemir is about to reveal the man’s identity when he does it himself, pushing his hood back. His hair is tied up in complex braids unlike any Vesemir has ever seen, only a few loose strands hanging down over his forehead. But it would take more than a lifetime for Vesemir to forget that face.

“Fil,” he declares, delighted, and doesn’t think twice before crashing into the elf. Filavandrel laughs again and though it makes Vesemir feel a little silly, the sound still fills his heart with joy. He embraces his friend tightly, clinging to him for so long that both their boots sink down into the flooded dark soil of the forest. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s like I told you.” The elf pats the back of Vesemir’s neck, unwittingly sending a shiver down his spine. Vesemir’s grip tightens. “My scouts said I might find a witcher lost in the woods.”

“I’m not lost,” Vesemir grunts, finally pulling away. “I just… don’t know where I’m going.”

“Come to my camp,” suggests Filavandrel. As if he even had to ask.

Unsurprisingly, elves make their camps much differently than witchers do. When they arrive Vesemir doesn’t immediately see any sort of bedroll, and then he feels embarrassed for looking. He never feels this way around anyone else; he can make bawdy jokes with Sven or blatantly hit on Luka, but in the company of Filavandrel aén Fidháil, shame bursts through him so easily.

Maybe he just has a thing for pretty blondes who he leaves behind.

Except Fil is here, smiling indulgently as Vesemir gapes like a fool. “It’s nice,” he finally manages to say. “Want me to set a fire?”

“A campfire, sure. Not a big one,” Filavandrel teases. Swallowing, Vesemir turns to a firepit that the elf must have fashioned himself. He takes a bundle of wood that’s already been cut and easily ignites it, all the while trying to figure out why his heart is pounding so damn loud. Thank fuck that Filavandrel isn’t a witcher.

“Have you eaten?”

“No. You?”

“I was going to have some bread, and go hunting in the morning.” There’s a small noise and when Vesemir turns to look, his friend is holding out a large chunk of bread. It doesn’t even look that stale. Vesemir sees that Filavandrel has taken a much smaller piece for himself and growls about it, but the elf snatches the smaller piece away before Vesemir can lunge for it. “I don’t want to hear any self-sacrificial bullshit about how witchers don’t need to eat. Take the damn bread, Ves.”

“... Fine,” Vesemir relents, cowed. He accepts the bread, fingertips accidentally brushing over Filavandrel’s when he takes it. It’s fucking delicious, melting in his mouth almost instantly. Seeds and herbs have been baked into it too, and Vesemir savours every bite, moaning. “You should quit being a professional elf and start a new life as a baker, fuck.”

“I can do both. It’s an old recipe, needs a stone oven. And what does being a professional elf even mean?” Filavandrel reaches up to shove him, except they aren’t very far away from each other so the push nearly knocks Vesemir off his balance. Before he can tip over onto the grass Filavandrel grabs him by the collar of his gambeson and tugs him back, and, well. Vesemir may be a witcher, but parts of him are still human.

Neither of them has to say a word; he opens for Filavandrel like he’s been thinking of nothing but this since the second they laid eyes on each other. Honestly, he sort of has. Fil runs a hand over the shaved part of his head, pressing his palm against the back of his neck to pull him in closer. Vesemir moans, chasing the taste of something sweet and acidic and magic. It certainly isn’t the fucking bread.

Afterwards they lie together by the smoldering remains of the fire, both too spent to clean themselves or dress. Vesemir glances over at the cinders and thinks about making an exit soon. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to stay with Filavandrel. He’s comfortable here, especially right now, and his friend always makes his heart feel lighter. But the Path calls to him; lying here without his weapons or armour, Vesemir can nearly hear Deglan’s scolding. And that thought is enough to ruin anyone’s afterglow.

Before he can move, Filavandrel sits up, arching his back. Vesemir turns to watch him, nearly salivating at how he looks in the low firelight. His hair is radiant, and his skin isn’t nearly flushed enough. He’s beautiful. Ethereal. Selfishly, Vesemir wishes that he’d left more marks.

Fil climbs to his feet and crosses the campsite to retrieve something out of reach. Vesemir cranes his neck to try and peek, and Filavandrel laughs kindly at him. “I was just thinking that something’s missing.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Vesemir says, lowering his head back down onto the ground. “I should have kissed you more.”

The elf pauses at that before finally demanding, “Kiss me later.” A note resounds through the air, clear and beautiful; then a chord, and another. Very soon their little clearing feels more like a fairy circle than a campground as Filavandrel plays music.

He finally walks into view, still naked, still beautiful. Now holding a lute. Vesemir tries to sit up so that he can properly see the performance but Filavandrel is faster, moving over him and then sitting atop his stomach, resting his back against Vesemir’s thighs. He plays the entire time, fingers moving adeptly over the instrument.

It’s a beautiful lute, probably made of some holy dark red wood. The golden design etched into it is mesmerizing, and the strings could have been plucked from the mane of a unicorn. Vesemir hardly spares it any attention, too wrapped up in the sight of a naked Filavandrel straddling him and singing.

He’ll only realize decades later that the elf was probably trying to court him.

Someone knocks on the door to his chambers and Vesemir jumps to his feet, caught off-guard by the sound that plucked him from his memories. He finds Jaskier waiting outside his room, toying idly with the sleeves of his doublet. Vesemir shakes his head, holding the door open for Jaskier even as he apologizes. “I’m sorry for running out earlier. I meant to give you a tour of the Keep, hopefully Geralt will have stepped up in my absence, but I am sorry—”

“No— please,” Jaskier interrupts. Once more he pulls his lute from around himself, holding it out to Vesemir. “I just… Your countenance changed dramatically upon seeing this, so…”

Fuck. “Yes,” Vesemir sighs, staring at the lute. Jaskier has managed to keep it in good condition after all this time. “I… Filavandrel and I are old friends.”

The bard’s eyes bulge out of his head but he enters Vesemir’s chambers, heading straight to the desk to perch on the edge of the chair. Vesemir finds another chair for himself, moving its previous occupant— a stack of books— onto the floor. In his defence, he hadn’t expected the tour of Kaer Morhen to begin in his personal chambers.

“He didn’t mention knowing any other witchers,” Jaskier hums. “How did you meet him?”

“You’re sure you want to know? It’s sort of a long story.” The bard just nods, eager and polite. Instantly Vesemir can see why Geralt likes him. “Alright,” he obliges, reaching for the bottle of wine on the desk. They’re going to need it. “We met long before you would have been born…”

---

South of Kaedwen, the seasons are more aligned than any other part of the Continent. The winters are crisp, the summers lazy. Filavandrel likes to spend his summers here, where the canopy of trees is thick enough to provide shade but thin enough to provide colour. Everything is verdant, the flowers calling to him as he passes each one. When he was a child he had longed to visit towns and experience human delights like festivals but now he knows better. The elves live off the land well enough anyway.

Some of the younger people in his company these days have that same yearning, and some of them even manage it. One elf who resembles Toruviel always runs off to see some different show, take in some new performance. If Filavandrel thought that she could get away with it, he would pay for her to attend Oxenfurt— she’s very good. And the upside of her risking her life just to listen to music is that she’s got a very good memory, and she always brings the songs back home.

Today she’s singing some new ode to a witcher; not that bigoted anthem of lies that the bastard warbler from Posada somehow spread through the Continent, thank the Gods. This one seems to revolve more around making the right choice, and how a real hero does good deeds not for coin or his own profit, but just to be good. Filavandrel thinks about the few witchers that he’s had the misfortune of contacting over the years, and under his breath he scoffs.

Cheesy chorus aside, the lyrics seem to have some merit. The first verse is all about some terrible monster that was taking young girls, transforming them into half-beasts. The hero witcher’s judgement fails him and he blames himself for years, even losing a lover in the process. Filavandrel scowls; despite his own experiences with witches, he doesn’t want to listen to a song written by yet another prejudiced bard.

Then the third verse lands. The witcher grows old and wise and has children of his own, and he regrets his inaction and he tries to reach out to contact his lover. But at that point his lover, who devoted his life to protecting those in danger, was too busy being King of the Silver Towers. Filavandrel stops dead in his tracks as he realizes which witcher this must have been inspired by.

The elven king huffs, starting to compose a route in his head. He thinks a trip up north is long overdue.

#vesemir #filavandrel #nightmare of the wolf #the witcher nightmare of the wolf #geraskier fic #my writing #hey did anyone else see young vesemir talking to his friend fil in the bath and think we were gonna get a Bath Scene Part Two: The Remix?

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nomazee · 4 years

Text

always (coming back to) you

pairing: hinata shoyo x gn reader genre: best-friends-to-lovers/coming of age (?) warnings: mild angst, slight spoilers for the manga timeskip word count: 1.4k

hinata shoyo loves a lot, but it’s always been you.

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(note: this was sitting in my google docs for a while now. it’s something i looked back on every once in a while and smiled because i think this is one of the works i’m most proud of. i love shoyo as a character so much and i love writing about him and twisting him as i see fit to write narratives upon narratives about him. i hope everyone who reads this enjoys :) thank you to @bearykei for beta-reading this! it was interesting to have someone with such a drastically different writing style beta-read my work and i really enjoyed seeing all your edits :0 thank you so much mwah)

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Hinata Shoyo loves you.

He found this newfound feeling to be odd, at first. It made his chest ache a little bit, but it was a good kind of ache—the kind of ache that comes after spiking a volleyball really good. The kind of ache that rushes through his body after a grueling night of practice. The kind of ache that reminds him of all the hard work he’s put into the things he loves.

Shoyo loves, he loves so hard, and it’s something he can’t help. It’s a trait that’s been wired into his brain since he was born—flooding through squishy, tiny baby fingers and a mind not yet exposed to all the world has to offer.

Shoyo loves his mom, loves his sister, loves volleyball, and loves you. He’d never be able to rank these things—if he ever called anything his “favorite” he’d be too guilty to function. But he knows, definitely, absolutely, certainly, that he loves these things—and he loves them very much.

Hinata Shoyo loves you.

He first experiences this in his last year of junior high, sitting in the grass (it’s damp from last night’s rain, but he ignores your complaints about it), half-melted popsicle in hand as he talks to you about volleyball—because that’s all his world is at this point in his life. Barely passing school, and volleyball (the former is only there to keep the latter going.)

“And I want to get better,” he tells you. You’ve heard this so many times before, and he knows you have, but not once have you ever complained about it. “I’m short, but I’m good. I know I am.”

“I know you are, too,” you tell him. He spares a glance at you, and your eyes are shining, your attention all on him, sticky fruit-popsicle melting down the side of your hand. You don’t seem to mind it, though (ironically enough, with you complaining about the wet grass just before.)

Something stirs in his lungs, circulates like spinning tumbleweeds (like the ones he sees in those weird American cartoons that he watches with you,) and it makes him ache, but it feels good. You’ve complimented him tons of times before. He’s not sure what makes this so different, what makes this sudden pain kick up in his system. Shoyo looks at you, really looks, and he doesn’t think anything is different, actually. Everything is the same.

He brushes it off, and even when the pain comes back every time he sees you, he pointedly ignores it.

Hinata Shoyo loves you.

He realizes this in his last year of high school. You’re sitting on the same patch of grass you’ve always sat in, though it’s no longer damp, nor are there any popsicles to be found. It’s quiet, it has been for a minute, and when Shoyo looks at you, there are shattered silver stars gleaming in your eyes.

You’re hurting. And he knows it’s because of him, because he told you he wants to leave the country, because he told you he wants to leave you (whether that be an intentional desire or not), because this marks the end of innocent adolescence, and the beginning of dreary adulthood and sole self-reliance.

Shoyo’s lips part. He’s clumsy with words of consolation. He’s only known how to brush things off with playful distractions and make weird volleyball metaphors, but he doesn’t know… this. He doesn’t know what to do with this. With you. With the ever-aching feeling swirling in his diaphragm.

“I can…” He pauses. “I don’t have to go—”

“Are you insane?” You’re bordering on a shout when you whip your head towards him, brows furrowed in what looks to be aggravation and eyes wide in disbelief. He blinks at you. All of this is unfamiliar, every aspect of this conversation—the look in your eyes, the crease between your eyebrows, the anger in your voice, the fear and sadness that had planted itself in your expression just moments before. Shoyo is treading knee-deep in unfamiliar waters and he doesn’t know what to do with the violent tides that sweep beneath his feet.

“I would— I would never hold you back from your dreams, Shoyo,” you spit at him. The meaning of your words is well-placed, but the tone of your voice makes his eyes widen in fear and his form shrink back. “Never. I’m your b—est friend, and this is what you’ve fought for your whole life. I wouldn’t hold you back from this just because of some stupid, selfish wish.”

The force behind your voice crumbles, tears welling up in those shattered-silver-stars as your expression twists—it’s ugly, and it’s raw. A sob escapes you and God, Shoyo has never felt so strongly for something in so long.

He breaks. He sobs. You fall into each other’s arms, clutching onto one another desperately as if that will keep Hinata Shoyo from flying away.

(It doesn’t.)

(Shoyo never asks you what your stupid, selfish wish was all about.)

Hinata Shoyo loves you.

He tells you this after years of waiting. He doesn’t tell you this at the airport when he leaves for Brazil, or in the one visit he took back to Japan during his time playing beach volleyball on the other side of the world. He doesn’t tell you this during the calls you share with him in his early mornings and your afternoons. He waits, because Hinata Shoyo has learned how to wait.

Shoyo has landed himself a place on a professional volleyball team. You’ve voiced your elation over this fact countless times, over calls and text and blurry selfies of you with tears in your eyes and a stupid, wide smile on your face. Work has been busy for you, but when he tells you “Come to my game, it’s a big one. I’m seeing Tobio again,” you don't hesitate for a second to call in sick and buy a ticket.

(It’s expensive, and when Hinata finds out how much you paid for it he chastises you playfully, claiming that he would’ve gotten you a ticket for free.)

He wins. Of course he wins. Shoyo flies and laughs and plays and he wins. He catches your eye in the crowd after the game ends and he smiles, reserved for you and you only, and you can’t help but smile back.

You meet him hours after his game ends—interviews and cleaning up and whatnot take an awfully long time. You both sit on a park bench, having walked quietly side-by-side for half an hour until he reached a spot he deemed perfect for the evening.

It’s not the same patch of grass you both used to sit in, but it’s something, and you think Shoyo is more than enough to make up for the lack of a familiar atmosphere. It’s a bit cold, but you think it’s a shame you remembered your jacket—glancing at Shoyo, you find that he looks so much warmer than the fabric you’re wearing.

Shoyo is glancing at you too, soft smile and warm eyes and gentle flush and all, and his head is ringing loudly trying to process every detail of your presence.

Hinata Shoyo loves you.

(God, he loves you so much. So he tells you.)

It’s a very simple ordeal.

You open your mouth, and he thinks you’re starting to say something like “that was a good game!” or any other mundane praise, and he knows that he should let you speak. But he’s been building up this adrenaline for years now, and nothing can stop him when he says “I love you” in that gentle tone he reserves just for you.

You stop talking. Shoyo thinks that maybe a rejection is coming soon, but he can’t bring himself to be so upset about it. Because he did it—did what he’s been yearning to do ever since that one afternoon in his last year of high school, and the thought alone makes him invincible to whatever comes out of this very spontaneous confession.

He tilts his head towards you. You’re staring at him. He smiles again, wide and unabashed and warm. He feels your warm lips on his and he knows he should push you away for the sake of his PR team. But, God, Hinata Shoyo is invincible right now, and getting caught in some mundane “scandal” misinterpreted by the media is the least of his concerns right now.

(Hinata Shoyo loves you.

He tells you, now, in subtle ways, like the way he drags his fingers against your face when you’re still sleeping, the way he kisses your temple in half-hazy consciousness, and the way he traces the ring on your left ring finger with his lips.)

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taglist: @akaashi-bby @tsukisemi @peteunderoos @virgomooning @losertsukki @vhskenma @alysken @webworld @tendo-sxtori @tanakas-hugs-and-kisses @wompwomphq @shehellamad (strikethrough cannot be tagged!)

#hqradiostation #hinata x reader #shoyo x reader #shouyou x reader #hinata shoyo x reader #hinata shouyou x reader #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu oneshots #hinata oneshots #shoyo hinata x reader #haikyuu #haikyu!! x reader #hinata shoyo #hinata imagines #shoyo imagines

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vocalyunho · 4 years

Text

Strawberry Kisses

pairing — Yunho x reader (fem, referred to as ‘she’)

genre — fluff, smut

word count — 3k

warnings + tags — third person narrative mode, this fic portraits a hypothetical reader, all characteristics & traits are used incidentally, Yunho’s hella whipped and soft for reader + Yunho with butterfly hair clips, finger sucking, inexperienced reader, handjob, fingering, clit play.

synopsis — Yunho will never forget the first time he heard her needy voice, the one that proved everything she wanted without having to say a word.

Yunho thought she was a work of art, one he couldn’t take his eyes off of. Regardless of how many times he had told her, she could never control the pink blush that creeped up her cheeks every single time. He wanted her to accept it, he wanted her to know he meant it, but she never did. She belittled herself and Yunho hated it.

Every little flaw and every (in)significant trait of hers was precious to Yunho. They were the reasons why he fell for her in the first place. Later, though, he found more of them and now he can even make a list, preferably on papyrus, -for dramatic reasons- like those you see on cartoons. He already knew she’d make fun of him for even thinking that, but he knew exactly what he’d put on that list, one by one...

Her lips were always plump and cherry colored, though if he kissed her, she tasted like strawberry and Yunho could never get enough of it. The way she’d nibble on her bottom lip after they kissed, like they shouldn’t have, made his head spin uncontrollably. Even the wrinkle of her nose whenever she laughed had his heartbeat increasing in a matter of seconds. But what he admired most was the hope and the million little galaxies that danced in her eyes every time she looked at him. Yunho could easily get lost in them and he had noticed that he had, a couple of times before. The galaxies only disappeared the times she was upset. Then, the disappointment or anger were all he saw in her in the form of a soft gaze. Her cheeks would turn red and her eyebrows would either furrow or raise, each time forming little wrinkles on her forehead that Yunho wanted to caress. Her lips would pout and, maybe, tremble if she couldn’t control her emotions, but these were, always, only temporary.

When she talked, her hands would fly everywhere, gesturing, showing, bringing the conversation into life as if what she talked about was the most majestic thing someone would hear. Yunho cherished her for that because she made him love the little things. She talked about them like they were the most important thing ever and the way her eyes widened and her body tensed, proved it.

When she walked, sometimes it seemed like she did it hesitantly, not really wanting to go anywhere, as if someone had forced her to go. Other times, she jumped around while walking, little legs moving fast, backpack bouncing up and down on her back and phone struggling to stay in the little pocket of her pants. However, Yunho always managed to keep up with her and her pace.

As for her fashion, it wasn’t stable. Though, she did have a fair amount of mom jeans she wore on a daily basis if the occasions let her. Yunho didn’t know they were called ‘mom jeans’. In, fact, he didn’t know jeans had names. When she first told him about ‘mom jeans’, ‘boyfriend jeans’, ‘bootcut jeans’, he felt like his entire life was a lie. So many different types and he had no idea! After he got a hold of her taste in fashion, he started noticing other small details about it on her. She liked tucking her shirt inside her pants, she loved colored cardigans and oversized sweaters and he couldn’t help but notice the way she rolled up the bottom of her jeans. Her ankles and socks were on full display most of the time, and even if she had told him this was just a fashion statement, he knew this was her way of letting the world know of her bisexuality.

Necklaces were her favorite accessories. She had hundreds of them and Yunho didn’t complain because he found them hot. He always had a thing for necks and especially hers, so seeing her decorating it with pretty necklaces did something to him and his newly discovered kink. The rings were her second favourite accessory, Yunho had found out. Just like her neck, her fingers were always decorated too and, sometimes, she’d even lend some of her dearest rings to Yunho. Not the one her grandma had gifted her, though. This one was always on her index finger and no matter what, it never left its spot.

Her voice was soft and when she talked it was like honey was dripping from her lips right into Yunho’s ears. He’d figured out it was the timbre that made it so special, not the tone neither the words she used. When she talked about her day, Yunho would zone out sometimes not because of boredom but because he gave more attention to the vibrations of her voice and its rhythm, unintentionally. He loved listening how it changed depending on how she felt, one moment she was happy and it echoed like a melody, the next minute she was disappointed and it came out in whines through pouted lips, but he never found it annoying. However, she had a terrible singing voice and even if she knew it, she liked singing her heart out in karaoke’s or during showers, making Yunho make fun of her afterwards, which always led to giggles from them both and occasional make-out sessions on the couch of her small living room.

You can tell, he loved the variety of emotions she showed only through her voice, but his favorite one was her desperate voice, the one that proved need and the one only he had ever heard. He’ll never forget the first time he heard it. It was a night they had decided to stay in and watch movies instead of going out in the coldness of winter. They were cuddling, after having watched Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone. The ending titles were lowly playing in the background as they talked about the books and how she loved them but Yunho hated, because he found them boring. She was a pouting mess from the disappointment that her boyfriend didn’t like the books she’s been reading since she was young but Yunho couldn’t stop staring at her lips, not giving a damn about the books and the movies.

“how can you prefer the prepared world of the movies, instead of the one you can create by yourself while reading the books?”

Her eyes glistened and the pouting revealed a dimple on her chin, Yunho had never seen before.

“the prepared world entertains me more”

He shrugged with heavy eyes, and moved his hand up to take her chin between his fingers. His thumb brushed the dimple, pressing on the small dent before resting on it. She didn’t respond to his previous answer, instead she remained silent and after a while Yunho travelled his thumb up to her lips which stayed closed. Her eyes were on his, totally leaving their previous conversation in the past, and as he pressed his thumb on her glossed lip she let it fall open slowly.

Yunho didn’t think much of it and after playfully pulling her bottom lip with his thumb, he pushed the digit inside her mouth. She whimpered and her eyes fluttered but before Yunho could pull it out, afraid that he shouldn’t have done something like this, she wrapped her lips around it. Her tongue brushed hesitantly the underside of it, her nostrils expanding to exhale through her nose in an attempt not to let his finger leave her mouth and Yunho only stayed there, watching her closely. His lips opened agape loosely, the feeling was new both to Yunho and her but they loved it.

He felt himself starting to lose control of his body. His bulge had already started creating a tent on his grey sweatpants and he could do nothing to stop it. She moved her head backwards to take his thumb out of her mouth only to lick the tip and press it in again. Yunho groaned at the sight, momentarily picturing his cock replacing the finger between her lips and as she kept bobbing her head, ever so slowly, soft moans vibrated his thumb.

She was sitting on his lap with her back against the couch and Yunho’s back against the sofa arm, their bodies creating a cross and, at a sudden moment, he felt her pressing her legs together. Everything was so new. His free hand rested on her exposed thigh, but no one’s eyes left each other’s. She was in her underwear, with only a yellow t-shirt -that was his- covering most of her body. It wasn’t weird, she’s usually dressed like this when they stay in. His fingers trailed the flabby skin on the inner side of her thigh until he stopped it right under her panties and when he squeezed it, she flinched with a louder moan getting trapped inside her closed mouth.

“fuck”

She left his thumb with a pop and the pouty lips were back, tempting him to sin.

“I…don’t know what that was, I’m sorry”, he had told her but he knew exactly what that was, both of them knew.

“Yunho, I need you”

Her voice was small, similar to the one she used when she whispered into his ear during class, but not similar to the context. Her eyes became puppy-like and as he was about to think this was the cutest state he’s ever seen her in, her hand moved to rest on top of the small tent on his crotch. Yunho’s breath hitched, her palm was on top of him, slowly closing her fist and taking him in her hand as she did. He needed her so bad, too.

She noticed the sudden difference in his body language “is this okay?” she asked hesitantly, ready to stop her action, if needed.

“y-yes please keep doing t-that”

She wasn’t very experienced, neither was he, but it was like her hand was moving magically on him. She mentally decided that his sweats were too much of an obstacle, so her hand went slowly under it and under his underwear too before grabbing him with her entire palm. A worried lip got trapped between her teeth because she had no idea of what to do next, but the friction she offered, felt like heaven to Yunho.

In a moment, he giggled and she looked at him worriedly, a pink blush already creeping up her cheeks. Yunho pecked her lips and gave a caress on her thigh to reassure that he loved all of it but he never told her what he giggled for. He never told her that he found it too cute that her hand was too small to wrap around his length completely. She seemed to forget fast about it though as he groaned close to her lips and, at that, she gave him a squeeze that made him jolt. His pre cum had already spread through her movements, giving her the chance to go faster and she did. Only a tad bit, though, because she wanted him to feel it all. Her thumb stopped on his slit after a few strokes and Yunho moaned loudly, feeling his body getting weaker. His head fell back as she massaged it and the rough texture of her digit against the little opening had curses slipping out his mouth in whispers. The moment she pressed particularly hard on the tip, he brought his head back up so fast that his hair fell on his face.

Now it was her turn to giggle, her confidence boosting, and before he could push the loose strands back, her free hand grabbed one of the butterfly clips on her hair and placed it on Yunho’s. With a small clicking sound, it stayed there, the bright blue color of its wings contrasting the pink of his hair. It felt surreal. One of her hands did something so innocent while the other sinned.

Yunho felt his heart skipping a beat. It was going too fast, anyways, but seeing her being thoughtful even in this case, sent the butterfly from his hair right into his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to pin her down and make her see stars right that instant, but instead she was the one who was leading him to that.

Yunho grunted loudly. She changed her movements into quicker and shorter ones, pumping only the middle part of him and making the lewd sounds echo louder. Her short nails got barely dragged over the sensitive skin of his cock and Yunho hissed, letting his face take an unreadable expression.

“do you-do you like that?”

“baby girl y-yes, keep doing that”

Shock waves were sending electricity throughout his body, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with force and the slight sweat that glistened on the side of his neck proved he was close.

A weird feeling travelled all the way from where her hand was pumping him to his ears, turning them the same hue of red, his tip had. He felt like his entire body was burning, a burn that had his mind spinning and his legs trembling. He knew exactly what that was and how close to release she had brought him, but he didn’t want it to end like that.

He tried his best not to give into it and with a move slower than her strokes, he rested his hand on top of hers and her gaze met his “I’m sorry baby b-but...” he inhaled sharply “...I’d much rather come inside you than on your hhand”. Her eyes widened and her little shenanigans stopped but Yunho got the chance to calm his breath and move the hand that was on her thigh, upwards, closer to where she needed him the most.

“Yunho-”, she gasped. Her legs closed, trapping Yunho’s hand in between them and her own hand that was on his member found his wrist. He pressed a finger against her panties, making her tighten her hold and bite her lip. Yunho had noticed from moments ago the little circle stain of wetness that had formed on her underwear. He knew he was the reason behind it but he also wanted to be the reason behind her relief. Just some inches above the stain, he found the magic bud and pressed on it, receiving a low moan from her. Her head fell against the couch and her hand, even though on his wrist that was between her legs, didn’t stop him. Yunho circled the bundle of nerves, feeling it swollen against his thumb as her moans became more frequent, and progressively more loud “does that feel good?”

She didn’t dare to open her eyes or bring her head up “y-yes”

He chuckled but his concentration was on how her expressions changed in a matter of seconds. Just before, she was giggling, leading him to his climax, yet now she had given into him and his touch and Yunho couldn’t help but think that, maybe, this is how she’ll look when he’s inside her. He was still hard, but tried his best not to touch himself. His middle finger pushed the fabric of her panties to the side slowly, and before giving her a warning he pushed the digit in.

“ohmygod Yunho-”, she cried out and her legs fell open. Yunho brought her head up by the nape until their faces were inches away from each other’s, their brows were furrowed, their noses were already touching and Yunho could feel her heavy breath against his lips. Only when he kissed her, did he realize how dry her lips were. It was the first time they felt like this, like all the moisture had left them, though the strawberry taste was still planted on them.

“I’m gonna c-cum”, her eyelashes fluttered close and her voice was barely a whisper.

“will you do it for me?”

“y-yes”, he twitched.

Her hips started moving against his fingers, the friction becoming more intense and the wetness increasing. Yunho was sure that if he detached his hand from her heat, he’d see a string of her soft silk connecting them, but he didn’t stop. He needed to see her falling off the edge for him, because of him. She convulsed and he felt it, but Yunho added his index finger in her warm hole too. Moans filled his open mouth and high pitched cries he couldn’t get enough of, as he pumped them slowly. The whole place was spinning for her, Yunho being the center of her attention, and the only colours she could tell apart were the ones of his hair and the butterfly clip’s. Her upper body was trembling too, now, and Yunho wrapped his free hand around her waist to keep her steady, but she cried out louder “pplease don’t stop-”

“come for me honeybun”

They hadn’t realized how their foreheads never left each other’s, nor how the entire couch was shaking. The pumping of his fingers quickened and so did the circles on her clit. Her eyebrows were furrowing and unfurrowing on their own and the squelchy sound of her wetness getting fucked into her, echoed in the almost silent living room.

Electricity travelled throughout her, when her high reached her and her body stopped functioning almost completely except for the sudden flickering of her muscles. Her jaw went completely slack and her notes were as high pitched as before, only now the waves of her voice were trembling too. The hold on Yunho’s wrist tightened sensibly and as she came, he pulled his fingers out of her seeing the thick, white liquid glisten on them.

Her moans were weak but full of need and her chest was rising and falling fast, until her body stopped jerking and she moved her hand from Yunho’s wrist to his palm to intertwine their fingers. Her release got spread between their hands but she didn’t mind it and bit on her lip in an attempt to stop her sounds, before resting her forehead against his again “Yunho-”

“take me, right here...pplease”

#ateez smut #ateez fluff #yunho smut #yunho fluff #jeong yunho smut #ateez yunho smut #kpop smut #kpop scenarios #kpop fics #bias tag: ♔

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cakesunflower · 4 years

Text

Just My Kind [Teacher!Calum AU] Part 7

A/N: helloooooo i am back!! i’m sorry it took, like, forever for me to update this story omg. but i’m back with some more Odessa and Calum content hehe. happy reading!!

Her fingers in his hair was gentle, threading through the blonde strands lazily as opposed to the tight grip she’d had on them moments before. Neither of them made any indications of moving from their position, with Calum half laying on top of Odessa, face all but buried into the crook of her neck as his left arm lay across her bare stomach, their legs tangled together under the sheets, which were brought up to rest just below Odessa’s collarbones. The silence between them was comfortable, intimate, as they reveled in the afterglow of finally giving into one another, their breathing evening out and bodies melting into one another.

She was warm under him, skin soft and smooth against his own, and Calum felt his eyes flutter as Odessa continued running her fingers through his hair. As much as he was coming down from a high that shook him to his very core, Calum’s mind was still playing catch up with what had just occurred. Being with Odessa was something Calum had been thinking about for so long—since they’d become friends and he got to know her. And the more he became familiar with her, the stronger the urge to be with her became. Knowing Odessa was a privilege—getting to be with her went beyond that.

While her fingers raked through his hair, his own lightly trailed along her bare side, arm still resting across her body. His lips felt electric, an effect of kissing Odessa, selfishly wanting more. Instead, Calum broke their silence, voice soft as he said, “I know how to skate.”

Odessa’s hand didn’t stop its movement. Without evening glancing up at her, Calum could hear the amusement in her voice as she asked, “What?”

His cheek remained resting on her shoulder, left leg tangling with her right under the covers. “I know how to skate,” Calum repeated with a wry smile. “I just pretended to be struggling ’cause I knew you’d hold my hand.”

His reasoning sounded foolish, childish, even to his own ears, but Calum stood by it. He’d gone weeks without having much interaction with Odessa, a distance imposed by her without so much as a word to him, and they’d finally been getting on track after she’d explained it to him. But childish or slick, Calum got her to hold his hand, and the feeling of her gloved fingers wrapping around him was one he welcomed immediately. Of course, the sensation of her glove-free digits wrapping around his when his body hovered over hers, lips meeting lips as he jutted his hips towards where she’d been craving him most, was ten times more thrilling and wonderful.

“I know you were,” Odessa surprised him by answering, the smile evident in her tone. “You’re too good on your feet.”

Calum raised his eyebrows, feeling his grin widening as he lifted his head to look down at her, brown eyes meeting glimmering blue. His chest was pressed against hers, the pendant of a necklace Ashton had given to him—as well as Luke and Michael—dangling between them. “So you wanted to hold my hand too, huh?”

Odessa smiled, lips pink and kissed, her dark hair splayed against the white pillow. “Just a little,” she hummed before using her hand tangled in his hair to bring his head down, and Calum complied instantly to connect their lips.

Returning the kiss, Calum’s left hand slid up from her side to cup her jaw, her lips parting to deepen the kiss as Calum pressed into her. A low, appreciative moan sounded from Odessa’s throat at the sensation, and Calum’s lips smiled against hers, reveling in the familiar way her fingers tightened around his hair. Every kiss sent a shockwave of electricity through Calum’s veins, like every cell in his body was being reignited with the thrill of kissing Odessa, something he’d been yearning to do for so long. She was a breath of fresh air and Calum hadn’t realized he’d been suffocating until this moment.

“You gonna stay here tonight?” Odessa murmured, lips brushing against his as she spoke. They were so close, Calum could feel her long lashes fluttering against his own skin, could smell her fruity perfume he’d become so intimately familiar with—a pleasant combination of strawberry and vanilla.

His eyes met hers, a small smile tilting at his lips. “Can I?”

Her arm slid around his neck, nose bumping his own as she smiled, “Please.”

It was the best night’s sleep he’d had.

The next two days at Big Bear were spent indulging in the amenities of the resort. Calum enjoyed going on the slopes, either by himself or with a couple of students who genuinely enjoyed his company, and then joined Odessa whether it be going tubing, to the village, getting food, visiting the zoo—whatever they felt like taking part in. Though their chaperoning duties were never ignored, Calum made sure the two of them could selfishly steal away moments together, absent from the eyes of students and fellow teachers. Odessa never complained, all too compliant in his mischievous acts, a silent and mutual agreement that it was alright for them to have these instances with one another.

Too soon was the trip over, and by Sunday evening, the school buses were pulling into the school’s parking lot. The teachers who’d chaperoned waited for all of the students to go home before leaving themselves, which didn’t take too long given that every student had either driven to the school themselves or were carpooling. It only took a few minutes for the parking lot to empty out, and shouldering his duffel bag, Calum walked alongside Odessa to where her car was parked, just two spots away from his own.

The bus ride back home had been far more pleasant than when they had been heading to Big Bear. This time around, conversations between them flowed freely, the tense silence from the other day nowhere to be found. They had found a new familiarity between them, a sweet kind of intimacy, that allowed them to be more comfortable and open with one another than before. Of course, they had to be careful with what they talked about—they had been on a bus full of students, after all.

“You know, I still have to take you out on a first date,” Calum said casually, the loose gravel of the parking lot crunching under his shoes.

Odessa cast a look at him, eyebrows lifting in mild amusement. “Is that an observation or are you asking me out on a date?”

“Both,” Calum responded with a small grin. “Preferably before the madness of midterms week drives us up the walls.”

She scoffed as they reached her car, keys already in hand as she pressed the button to unlock the door. But Odessa made no move to get in, instead leaning back against the door, carry-on at her side as she gazed up at Calum. The sun was beginning to set, the sky cast in a pretty blend of pinks and purples, a soft glow on them—on her. Calum had quickly come to realize Odessa looked beautiful under any light, natural or not, and he was inclined to spend as much time as he could just by simply staring at her.

“You know most of my schedule,” she told him pointedly, shrugging slightly. “If you wanna go after school, that works. Or the weekend. Whichever.”

Calum hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head to the side. They were the last two in the parking lot, the rest of the teachers and students gone at this point. “Any preference of what you wanna do?”

“I’m fine with a simple dinner,” Odessa told him truthfully, smile quirking. “There’s this Mediterranean place I’ve been wanting to try downtown—if you’re down.”

He wasn’t surprised by her request; out of all the women Calum had come to know, Odessa was the most relaxed. There was nothing simple about her, in the best of ways, but if all she truly wanted was to have a nice dinner, then he would make sure she got it. Honestly, Calum didn’t care what they did—as long as he got to spend time with her. Calum took a step towards her, diminishing the small bit of space between them, dark eyes never leaving her bright blue. “So down,” he chuckled quietly.

Her smile widened a bit, biting her lower lip as she did so, and another thought reluctantly crept through Calum’s mind. With a slight tilt of his head, he asked, “Is this something you wanna keep between us—for now? Until you talk to Paige?”

Calum didn’t know the extent of what Paige said to Odessa—surely it was willful enough to push Odessa into putting some distance between him and her over the past few weeks. She had told Calum that she didn’t want him talking to Paige unless it had to do with his own relationship with Paige, because Odessa wanted to talk to her on her own as well, and Calum respected that decision. He just wanted to be careful with how they moved forward, not wanting to mess things up before they got started.

Odessa paused for a moment, a thoughtful glaze over her eyes as she looked away briefly, mind turning. Calum waited patiently as she let out a long breath. “For now, yeah,” she answered slowly, dragging her gaze to meet his once more. “I don’t want us to tell, like, Luke or anyone and then have them hide it from Paige, you know? If she finds out then she’s just gonna spin it into some ridiculous narrative,” she said with a roll of her eyes, like that very situation was one she could easily see coming to life.

He nodded along and with a quick note of the tension in her shoulders, Calum proceeded to try and ease some of it by smirking boyishly. “You sayin’ I’m your dirty little secret, Ms. Kline?” he mused, taking a step towards her, feeding into the constant need of wanting to be close to her.

Pink dusted across her cheeks and Calum reveled in the effect he had on her, lifting her chin to maintain their gaze as he wound his arms around her waist. Her hands gripped his arms, her own mouth quirking as she replied, “You seem pretty excited about that title, so I’m gonna say yes.” Calum couldn’t help but lean down and press a gentle kiss to her smiling lips, feeling her hand reach up so fingers could graze along his jaw. Odessa let out a soft breath when they parted. “No matter how I phrase my words, I know Paige’s gonna be pissed. And I don’t really care about that but I just—I don’t know, I wanna be prepared for the shit she’s gonna say, you know?” The pink in her cheeks darkened, eyes sheepishly meeting his as she added in a mumble, “That probably sounds so stupid.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Calum instantly reassured her, but a muscle in his jaw feathered at the idea of Paige running her mouth at Odessa. Maybe he was to blame, too. Maybe he’d given Paige some sort of false hope, or never was clear on his lack of interest. If Odessa had something to settle with Paige, then Calum knew he did, too. “You take your time and do what you have to do, Essa. I’ll be here the whole time.”

Her response was in the form of a grateful smile followed by another kiss, which Calum welcomed wholeheartedly.

*****

“Do you think it’s weird that this doesn’t feel weird?”

Odessa raised her eyebrows as she sipped at her Coke, lips curling against the rim of the glass before setting it down. With a teasing smile, she asked, “Did you expect this to feel weird?”

Across from her, Calum chuckled lowly, arms folding on top of the table as he leaned forward. “Not at all,” he replied smoothly. Then he grinned, the smile that always caught Odessa’s breath. “On the contrary—I’m relieved there’s no first date awkwardness, you know?”

She did know. Odessa had been on enough first dates to recognize when they would lead to a longer relationship or if they’d end right there. Before every first date, Odessa remembered feeling the anxious nerves that always accompanied the excitement, the worry of whether or not the man she was with would be interested in her enough to want to see her again. But before, she’d gone out with men set up by other friends, men she hadn’t known quite well.

This time, though, she knew the man who sat across from her. For the past few months, she’d gotten to known Calum; they became friends, a lot closer than she had expected them to grow. But he understood her, he gave her a sense of balance she hadn’t known she needed. He was her friend; someone who’d gotten to know her quite well, who Odessa was so unbelievably comfortable around that she never once felt as though she had to be someone else around him. He’d shown her exactly the kind of sincere man he was and Odessa hadn’t realized whatever walls she may have had disappeared almost immediately upon their introduction.

“I’m not surprised there’s no awkwardness,” Odessa told him with a knowing laugh as her blue eyes met his brown. “Are you?”

“Absolutely—I’m surprised we’re actually here.”

Odessa raised an eyebrow, a playful glint seeping into her eyes as Calum took a sip of his drink following his words. The two of them were sitting on the outdoor patio of the Mediterranean restaurant Odessa had told him about, lights strung up above them and potted plants making up the perimeter of the patio. “Really?” Odessa questioned with another laugh. “After what happened on the trip, you’re surprised we’re on a date?”

Calum grinned widely, boyish and handsome as the smile he wore called for the crinkles to appear in the corners of his warm brown eyes, illuminated by the glow of the lights above them. “Just relieved to know you didn’t lose interest,” he teased in return, throwing her a wink.

Odessa leaned forward as well, her eyebrows flicking up, grin ever present. “Maybe I’m just in it for the free dinner.” Not that she would let him pay; she was perfectly fine with splitting the bill. She shrugged one shoulder, relenting, “But I guess the company’s not half bad.”

Half bad, my ass. Odessa’s grin couldn’t be anymore genuine if she tried. Was it silly of her to feel so thrilled, so giddy, over the fact that she was currently having dinner with Calum? They’d gone out to eat a number of times before, but this felt different. And not just because they’d already slept together, had already crossed the line from being friends. No; right now, with the busy buzz of other restaurant patrons around them mingling with the noise of the city, with the lights above them twinkling and bathing the man in front of her in a warm glow, Odessa knew all of this was different.

It was a step towards reaching a happiness she hadn’t thought she’d get. And, no, she wasn’t letting her overall happiness depend on a man, but she would be a fool not to acknowledge the relief that warmed her at the notion of being on something as simple as a date with Calum. And maybe that was silly, given that they’d slept together before this night, but she didn’t care. All of her focus was on Calum and that, by simply looking at him and knowing him, she was well aware that he was just as eager and excited to be there as she was.

As the two of them enjoyed their appetizer of hot pita bread with hummus and tzatziki sauce, Calum asked, “Can I be honest with you, Essa?”

She sat up, a curious tilt in her head. “Always.”

“I didn’t think I’d get to have this chance.” Odessa blinked at him, momentarily unsure of what he meant, and a corner of Calum’s lips quirked up in a small smile. “Figured that we were only ever going to stay friends—nothing more. It’s why I never asked you out sooner because—another truth? I wanted to ask you out within one week of knowing you.”

Odessa could truly feel her heart leap into her throat at Calum’s confession, unable to help the way her eyes widened ever so slightly. That long—he’d been wanting to be with her for that long? That was only slightly longer than Odessa wanting him—slightly. But still, the admission had her heart beginning to race. “Really?” she asked, and she would be embarrassed by how breathless she sounded if who she was speaking to was someone else. But with Calum, Odessa never truly felt insecure. “Only after a week of knowing me?”

He smiled, boyish and playful. “Honestly, Luke talked about you enough before you ever moved here to make it seem like I already knew you,” Calum said, and Odessa sent a mental thanks to their tall blonde friend. “He’s one of my best friends and if he liked you that much, I knew if I ever met you, we’d get along well. And then he told me you were going to be my new colleague and it felt almost too perfect to know we had something as significant as our careers in common.” He paused, letting out a short, almost sheepish, chuckle. “That probably sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t,” she assured him. Odessa bit the inside of her cheek, a brief silence between them, her gaze never leaving his as she finally asked, “And when you actually got to know me?”

There was nothing but uncompromised truth in his dark eyes, in his words, as he instantly responded, “You were better than anything I could’ve imagined.”

Her cheeks flamed at the compliment, heart erratic, and for a moment Odessa remained breathless because of how Calum gazed at her. She didn’t think she ever was the subject of someone’s pure attention the way she was of Calum’s. He stared at her like he couldn’t get enough—stared at her the way she thought about him. Dipping a piece of pita in hummus, Odessa found herself mumbling, “You give me too much credit.”

Not insecure—shy. Not used to being admired the way Calum did her. None of the men she’d been with before made her feel this way—like she was freefalling but wasn’t at all afraid, knowing there was someone to catch her at the bottom. Knowing that Calum was there.

“No, I don’t,” Calum hummed. And the way he looked at her, Odessa knew that he knew her shy demeanor was just because of that—shyness, not insecurity. Which was why his lips curled into a smirk, leaning back in his seat as he gave a one shouldered shrug, “But I guess that’s alright—given that you so obviously thought the same thing about me when we first met.”

There was a wickedly playful glint in his eyes, and Odessa felt her body relaxing and warming at the same time. The smile returned to her lips, widening as she said, “I’d say you’re full of yourself, but you’re not wrong.”

“Really?” Calum asked, eyebrows shooting up as if that were news to him, as if he hadn’t just acknowledged it seconds ago. Leaning forward once more, the mischief sparking in his eyes, Calum jerked his chin. “Go on—what was the first thing you thought when you saw me?”

Her response was instant. “That you weren’t as tall as Luke.”

Calum’s expression fell flat and Odessa burst into laughter, unable to keep it in at the sight of the pout on his lips and narrowing of his eyes. “Nobody’s as tall as that fuckin’ giant,” Calum grumbled, resembling a petulant child, which only made Odessa laugh more. But she noted the twitch in his lips, knowing he was struggling to keep a straight face.

Odessa’s laughter softened as she decided to give him the truth. “I thought you were handsome,” she told him factually despite the warmth in her skin. “And that yellow was a really great color on you.” Oh, she definitely remembered the yellow button down he’d worn on her first day of teaching—and the tattoos on full display she’d become intimately familiar with recently. “And then I got to know you and realized you’re more than just a pretty face.” Afterall, there was so much more to him than just that breathtaking smile.

The same smile he was giving her now, but before Calum could respond, their waiter returned with their food, Odessa’s mouth watering at the chicken platter placed in front of her. As the two of them reached for their utensils, Calum said, “You know, I’m glad we waited until now to do this.”

Odessa glanced up from where she was placing a napkin on her lap. “You are?”

“Think about it—” Calum grinned, and Odessa was positive that he hadn’t stopped doing that since the moment he had picked her up, which made her heart flutter all on its own. He spoke with his hands, the few rings he wore, along with the chain bracelet, glinting as it caught the light. “We built a solid friendship over the months which only served to help you realize how into me you are—” Odessa let out a startled yet amused laugh at his casualness and Calum snickered. She wasn’t necessarily going to argue with him, and he knew that. “And because of that, we realized how much of a perfect fit we are and we’re finally doing this.”

Her cheeks were hurting from how much she was smiling, absolutely smitten by Calum and how damn easy this was with him. So effortless. She smiled at him, knowing he could tell she agreed by the look in her eyes as she repeated, “A perfect fit, huh?”

His smile turned wolfish, a wicked glint in his eyes as he leaned forward, deep voice dropping low as he said, “If you’d like another demonstration, I’d be more than happy to show you, Ms. Kline.”

Odessa’s cheeks flushed, images of what they’d gotten up to at Big Bear flashing through her mind without warning, and she could feel her heart picking up its pace at the smirk Calum wore. Like he knew exactly what she was thinking about that was warming her skin. She dropped her gaze to her food, pulling her smiling lower lip into her mouth before she looked at him once more. The heat in his gaze was enough to melt her as she found herself saying, “Maybe after dinner.”

It hadn’t been difficult to keep that promise.

After dinner—they’d spent a little over two hours at the restaurant, lost in their chatter and each other’s company—Calum had asked if Odessa would want to come over for a drink or two, and who was she to reject such an offer?

And yet their wine sat forgotten on the coffee table, glasses half drunk before Odessa and Calum’s interest shifted to one another. She wasn’t one to wear dresses often, but Odessa damn near celebrated the decision to wear a summer dress on her date with Calum—and appreciated the warm weather of California. Her dress, a dusty pink spaghetti strapped number, worked in her favor as she straddled Calum’s lap, knees bent on either side of his thighs, her hands grasping his jaw as he kissed her like she was the breath of fresh air he was desperate for.

His own hands had disappeared under the spread of the skirt of her dress, his touch warm against the bare skin of her thighs as the rings added a chilling sensation. Odessa couldn’t give a shit about the wine and she knew neither could Calum. It had been his subtle way of inviting her home with him instead of outright crudely suggesting it, and she knew that he knew she would understand what he was asking from her. Odessa was more than willing to give him exactly what they both wanted.

“I really did intend for us to have a couple of drinks, y’know,” Calum spoke against her lips, voice a deep rasp that sent shivers down her spine.

His lips were so soft, faintly tasting of the bottle of red they’d abandoned, and Odessa couldn’t get enough of his kisses. “Sure you did,” she smiled, right hand reaching up to push back some short blonde curls that fell across his forehead. Her nose brushed against his, hooded gaze on Calum as she mused, “We could go back to just drinking, if you want.”

That wasn’t at all what he wanted. They both knew it.

That wicked glint returned to his eyes that dropped to her mouth. “Maybe later,” he dismissed before capturing her lips in another searing, heart stopping kiss.

Odessa’s shoes had long since been kicked off, and as her fingers buried in the soft locks of Calum’s hair, he smoothly pushed himself to his feet as Odessa’s legs automatically wrapped around his hips. Calum moved them around his house efficiently, never once breaking the kiss as they entered his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him in case Duke woke up from his slumber in the living room and trotted inside. Couldn’t have that.

Odessa couldn’t hope to keep track of every piece of clothing that slid off their bodies, too wrapped up in the kisses Calum dizzied her with, both of their bodies moving on their own accord to undress and become as close as they could. She was vaguely aware of the soft mattress beneath her, aware that she was almost completely naked as her hand slid up the expanse of Calum’s bare, tattooed chest, fingers hooking around the chain of his necklace as he loosely bit his lower lip, watching her heatedly as he slipped her underwear right off her legs.

She was greedy for him; for the taste of him, for the feel of his skin against hers—everything Calum had to offer, Odessa desperately wanted it. He was a sight to behold as he kneeled above her, blonde hair mussed from her fingers and lips kissed and swollen. The glaze of his eyes as he looked down at her, hunger and need ever present, was enough to set her skin on fire as Calum finally leaned down to connect their lips.

Odessa could feel the cool metal of his necklace brushing against the base of her throat as his teeth nipped at her lower lip before his tongue slid in, his left arm propping him above her as she felt his right hand slide down her body. Odessa was sure Calum could feel her heart racing, their chests pressed together, and she gasped against his mouth at the shock of his finger brushing against her folds.

His lips, teeth, and tongue teased her neck and throat as he pushed a finger in, and Odessa dug her fingers into his back as he pulled sounds out of her that sang like music to Calum’s ears. He never ceased his ministrations, taunting her with one finger and then two, his lips never leaving her skin before silencing her moans with deep kisses.

His fingers worked her expertly, thumb playing with her clit as Odessa groaned against him, fingers digging into his back as her hips moved on a mind of their own, grinding against him. Calum chuckled against her lips breathily, voice a deep rasp as he mused thoughtfully, “I was planning on taking my time with you—”

“Later,” Odessa ground out, the mere thought of having to wait to feel him inside her in the way that mattered driving her crazy. Because, knowing them, there most likely would be a later, and Calum could do whatever he planned then.

He smirked, looking all to like a man who knew exactly what he was doing to her, his fingers never ceasing their movements, tongues sliding together in a dance they’d never tire of. Calum was sinfully slow in his movements, purposefully taking his time in drawing out the release Odessa sought, not even allowing her to creep to the edge when he pulled his fingers out.

She let out a pathetic whimper against his lips at the loss of contact, a shaky breath escaping her as Calum broke the kiss. She knew she looked as flushed as she felt, watching as Calum brought his hand up, two fingers slick with her, and her heart raced as she watched him lick his fingers clean.

“As sweet as you look,” Calum commented after pulling his finger out of his mouth, and the sight of it had a new heat pooling in Odessa’s core, hands eagerly grasping at his jaw before pulling him down once more. She tasted herself on him, moaning into his mouth, his hand tightening its grip on her hip as she felt the delicious scratch of his stubble against her skin.

Lost in his kisses, Odessa could vaguely hear some shuffling as Calum pulled out a condom, breaking the kiss as she watched him tear open the package with his teeth, brown eyes never leaving her blue.

He was between her legs, large hands gripping her hips, and through her indulgent haze, Odessa flicked her eyebrows up when Calum paused. With a small grin, he mused, “I want you to know I don’t normally do this after the first date.”

A huff of a laugh escaped her, his touch electrifying her veins as he peered down at her. Skin on fire, Odessa breathlessly responded, “Glad to know I got you to deviate from your usual routine.”

His grin widened, eyes dark as he drank in the sight of her, naked and ready for him. He looked like a man starved, ready to devour her. She was desperate for it. Calum leaned over her, lean body covering hers and Odessa’s throat locked in anticipation when she felt him brush against her entrance. Calum’s hair brushed against her forehead, lips slanting against hers as he murmured, “You’re the exception.”

He slid into her and Odessa clung to him, never getting enough of him, the need to be close to him in every way burning through her. Not for the first time Odessa wondered how she went so long without this; without the delirious sensation of Calum fitting inside her, the warmth of his skin seeping into hers, or the way everything else in the world melted away when he kissed her like it was the last thing he’d ever do.

They’d kept themselves away from each other for longer than either of them would’ve liked—it was a realization they’d come to on that night at Big Bear. They would be damned if they kept away from one another now.

*****

The next two and a half weeks hurried by in a blur. Midterms came quickly and Odessa, and fellow teachers, were swamped with grading exams, more or less hounding students for missed assignments, and calculating all of their grades as the semester wrapped up. But then the holiday break rolled around, and despite the excitement of the festivities, Odessa felt at peace.

Her mom had finally arrived, alongside her boyfriend, Mitchell—Mitch—and her grandparents’ house was full of joy and love and presents. School wouldn’t be back in session until January second, so Odessa took whatever time she didn’t spend with her family making lesson plans for the second half of the school year. But Odessa felt so relaxed in the company of her family—of her mother who she hadn’t seen for a while and the overall festive fun that surrounded them. They’d decorated the tree, she had baked enough cookies with Grams to feed an army, and enjoyed beating everyone else in various rounds of Scrabble. Her grandfather had half a mind to kick her out of the game, claiming it wasn’t fair an English teacher was playing against them.

Being surrounded by her family had put Odessa to ease. She hadn’t seen much of her friends, everyone too busy with their own families to venture out—especially Calum, who was in New Zealand with his mother, their only form of communication a few texts throughout the day. Not that Odessa minded; he hadn’t seen his mother in a while, like she hadn’t seen her own. She understood his need to spend as much time with his mom, just like she did hers.

Truthfully, Odessa was grateful for the holiday season. It allowed her to put off a conversation she wasn’t too keen on having with Paige—though one, she knew, she would have to have sooner rather than later. When winter break was rolling around, Odessa had sheepishly confessed to Calum that she wanted to wait until after the festivities to talk to Paige, though she had been nervous he would somehow interpret her putting off the conversation as her not taking her blooming relationship with Calum seriously. But to her great relief, he had agreed, saying that he’d been thinking of talking to Paige after Christmas time, too.

“Besides, I’ll be a whole ocean away—it’s not like she can keep flirting while I’m in New Zealand,” Calum had joked during their last lunch together before he had flown off.

Odessa had rolled her eyes at him, sourly telling him that Paige would probably find a way. Calum had chuckled and kissed her, and Odessa had promptly put any thoughts of Paige out of her head.

But now she sighed. It was Christmas Eve and she was sitting on the back porch, looking up at the dark sky glittering with stars, as the taunting voice in the back of her head called her pathetic for putting it off for too long. She tried to justify it by telling herself that, as much as Paige annoyed her, Odessa wasn’t in the business of being a downer on the holidays. Besides, it wasn’t like she was avoiding the problem; she was very much aware it was there and needed to be fixed. She had no intention of Paige continuing whatever pursuits she had on the man Odessa was in a relationship with.

Not that anyone actually knew about them, save for Odessa’s family. Still, though, her and Calum were together and if Paige wanted to be with him without anything being held over her head and pressing down on her like a weight, she would need to talk to Paige sooner rather than later. Clear the air and either once and for all distance herself from her or start over. Though, if Odessa was being honest, she was more inclined to go with the former.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

Odessa looked over her shoulder to see her mother step out, two mugs of what Odessa could smell as rich hot chocolate in her hand. “Yeah, I’m good,” she answered with a small smile, patting the space next to her. “Sit.”

Handing Odessa one of the mugs, her mom settled down, arms braced on her knees as she looked at her daughter. “So what’s going on with you? You had your lost-in-thought face on before.”

Odessa quirked an eyebrow, pointing out, “How would you know? You were standing behind me.”

Her mom scoffed, shooting her a look. “You think I need to see your face to know?” she returned, and Odessa’s lips tilted up. “Come on—spill.”

Odessa stalled for a moment by taking a sip of the hot chocolate, the warm drink delicious on her tongue as the cicadas chirped in the night. “There’s nothing to spill, honestly. I’m just dreading my inevitable conversation with Paige.”

“Ah,” her mom nodded, eyebrows flicking up in understanding. Despite her mom constantly being away because of work, Odessa still found time to let her mother know the on goings of her life. The two of them were quite close, especially after everything they went through with Odessa’s dad, so there was no way Odessa didn’t let her know about the situation she was caught in with Paige and Calum. “Do you want my opinion?”

Odessa shot her a wry smile. “We both know you’ll give it anyway.”

Her mom grinned, gripping her mug in both hands. The porch light above them softened her features, showing off the few streaks of grey coloring her otherwise dark hair. “I don’t think you owe Paige anything.” Odessa blinked in surprise, not at all expecting her mom, of all people, to say that. “From what you’ve told me, there was never a relationship between her and Calum—it’s not like you swiped her boyfriend, honey. It was just bad luck on her part for wanting someone who has an interest in you and not her. That doesn’t make it your fault. Or Calum’s.”

“I—that’s not how she’s going to see it,” Odessa said, stumbling over her words as her mom’s registered in her head.

“And how are you to blame for that?” her mom challenged with a raise of her eyebrow. She clicked her tongue, turning so she was facing Odessa, their knees brushing together. “Look, if you want to talk to her to clear the air, to get her to stop pursuing Calum, then that’s fine. But I sincerely hope you’re not going to apologize to the girl for being in a relationship.”

Odessa blinked at her mother, letting what she said sink in as her grip on the mug tightened. No—Odessa wasn’t going to apologize to Paige for being with Calum. Apologizing for that meant that Odessa was sorry for it, which she wasn’t. The relief and happiness she had felt when she realized he felt the same way about her, the contentment she had experienced that night in her hotel room, were all feelings she could never be sorry for. Seeing him in the hallways at school after they got back from the trip and having that knowledge of them being together was giddy enough to drive her up the walls.

How could she ever be sorry for it?

“No,” Odessa said absently, distracted by the conclusion she came to. She could feel her mom’s gaze on her as she finally looked at her, giving a determined nod. “No apologies. I have nothing to be sorry for, and I’m not going to let her make me feel like I do.” Because knowing Paige, that’s exactly what Odessa would be in for.

Not this time.

tags: @irwinkitten @loveroflrh @astroashtonio @meetashthere @loverofhood @captain-what-is-going-on @angelbabiesss @singt0mecalum @hopelessxcynic @lfwallscouldtalk @bodhi-black @findingliam-o @softlrh @highfivecalum @malumsmermaid @erikamarie41 @quintodosuniversos @longlastingdaydream @babylon-corgis @lukehemmingsunflower @miss-saltwatercowgirl @pastelpapermoons @conquerwhatliesahead92 @rotten-kandy @neigcthood @ohhmuke @mindkaleidoscope @5sos-and-hessa @trustmeimawhalebiologist @vxlentinecal @pettybassists @vaporshawn @lu-my-golden-boi @visualm3nte @isabella-mae13 @dontjinx-it @lifeakaharry @neonweeknds @antisocialbandmate @ixcantxdecidexwhosxmyxfave @calpalbby @grreatgooglymoogly @sunnysidesblog @miahelizaaabeth @dramallamawithsparkles @kaytiebug14 @hoodskillerqueen @bitchinbabylon @empathycth @xhaileyreneex @tpwkcal @sublimehood @madbomb @raabiac @britnicole11 @outofmylimitcal @wildflower-cth @wildflowergrae @bloodmoonashton @vxidhood @gosh-im-short @notinthesameguey @mycollectionofnuts @cthwldflwr @everyscarisahealingplace @socorroann @talkfastromance4 @calumftduke @musichoney @treatallwithkindness @partlysunnycal @dead-and-golden @kaeleykaeley @harrys-sun-flower @br-hoe

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cyclogenesis · 3 years

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i have to tell you that the second i saw cal and ash on that mountain getaway a couple weeks ago, i thought about how desperately i would love a sequel to your turks & caicos fic set during that trip. (this is not a request, i promise, i just wanted to tell you bc that is one of my fav fics of all time)

Aw anon!! 🥺 Gosh I hadn't even thought about that when I was in my feelings about the mountain getaway pictures, which is wild because I am just remembering now that I started a fic after the honeymoon comment initially happened (like, very soon after, because @elliebirdthings was at that show and told me about it and we were freaking out haha), before we knew that they went to Turks & Caicos, and I had them taking that trip to a cabin in Maine.

Just for kicks, because this message made me smile and I love you for that, here's the beginning of that fic. It's unfinished obviously (not even any kissing!), but there's some nice stuff in there I think. This fic was going to be titled A whole fucking lifetime of this after the American Pleasure Club album which was a title I should have kept, goddammit. Also randomly in here I have them driving to the cabin while listening to My Bloody Valentine, who Ashton later called out as one of his main influences for Superbloom.

1600 words of unfinished Cashton under the cut! 😘

The day after the last meeting about the promo schedule the dressing room conversation turns, as it does, to plans for the break. It’s a month out, but they’ve to a man developed a fetish for planning their free time carefully as soon as the schedule’s set. Planning things makes Ashton feel like a grown-up. He likes renting cars. Sometimes he scrolls through AirBnB for hours just to see what’s out there.

“I’m going straight back, we got Dodgers tickets,” Michael says.

“I remember when you used to say ‘we’ and it meant you and me,” Calum says. He wiggles a little from where he’s snuggled against Michael on the couch like he wants to get away, but of course Michael doesn’t let him. Ashton thinks he probably wasn’t really trying.

“Aw, you’ll always be my first love,” Michael tells him, squeezing Calum to him more tightly. “You wanna make out just for old times sake?”

“I do not,” says Calum, but he lets Michael give him a big kiss on the forehead, his face squinching up happily.

“I just wanna get away for a bit, no work or social media or anything,” says Ashton, ignoring their tomfoolery. “A little cabin by a lake somewhere.”

“Oh yeah?” Luke says. “Where are you and Cal going this time?”

“Maine,” Calum says, at the same time as Ashton says, “Why would you assume we’re going somewhere together?”

A small silence falls over the room.

With dignity, Ashton says, “Calum and I are going to Maine.”

“Just get out in front of it this time,” Michael advises. “Let everyone know it’s another honeymoon. Take control of the narrative.”

“How many times can you go on a honeymoon before you have to acknowledge that you’re married?” Luke asks nobody in particular.

“It’s a bro trip,” Ashton says firmly. “For bros.”

“It’s very bromantic,” Luke says. “It’s okay, I’m not hurt I wasn’t invited. I love going back to LA and jerking off alone.”

“It’s nice that we’ve all got plans,” Calum says. He’s settled peacefully back against Michael, Michael absently petting his hair.

“It’s not a honeymoon,” Ashton insists.

Whatever, Ashton called it what he called it, okay? Might as well control the narrative.

Over drinks at the bar after their last show Calum asks, “Where would you want to go on your honeymoon, anyway? Somewhere new?”

Ashton pokes at the ice in his cocktail with his straw. Aren’t they supposed to not be using straws anymore because of the ocean or whatever? Ashton loves the ocean, it’s very important to him. Also this cocktail sucks. “Can I try your drink?” he asks. “I don’t love mine.” Calum has something with ginger in it, and bubbles. Calum slides his obligingly over, and Ashton passes his own over to be fair.

“I like yours better,” Calum says after a sip. “You wanna trade?”

Sometimes Ashton does believe in soulmates. “Yes, thank you.” He takes a long drink. “It would be nice to spend more time in Italy. Not one of the tourist-y parts though, somewhere quiet. Up north, maybe, one of the smaller towns.” He tries to picture what it would be like: olive groves, blue skies, stone churches. An old villa with lemon trees and a view of the hills. He’s so used to traveling with the band or just with Calum that it’s hard to picture anyone else there with him. They’re all as prone as anyone to get swept up with girls to the exclusion of most everything else, but Ashton can’t really imagine a future without seeing Calum all the time, without talking to him every day. Maybe he and Calum could just get married around the same time and they could all go on a honeymoon together.

“Yeah, that’d be pretty nice,” Calum says, looking wistful. Ashton wants to take a picture of him, capture the way a curl rests against his temple, how the blue neon lights behind the bar hit the glitter he let Ashton smear on his cheekbones before the show. They made a no social media pledge for this trip but Ashton’s bringing his camera anyway. He has to keep in practice, doesn’t he? Anyway, it’s important to capture these memories.

“Maybe we should just go,” Ashton tells him. “Why not? Who knows how long it could take for me to fool someone into living with this forever?” He sucks down the last of his drink, feeling sorry for himself now. What if he falls in love and she moves in and Calum stops coming over in the morning to walk to their favorite coffee shop together, and stops picking Ashton up so they can go hike Runyon, and stops bringing Duke over like he owns the damn place and doesn’t care about the dog hair that Ashton has to hoover off his couch pillows? That would be terrible. Worst of all, what if it was Ashton that suddenly wanted those things to stop?

“I’ll live with you forever,” Calum says, too busy flagging down the bartender to intuit Ashton’s emotional crisis. He gestures to Ashton’s empty drink. “Another one of those, right?” His own is still half full. Maybe he didn’t really like Ashton’s better after all.

“Yeah, thanks man,” Ashton sighs.

Calum bumps his knee against Ashton’s, the barstool squeaking beneath him. “Ash, you’re gonna find somebody if that’s what you want. Anyone would be the luckiest person alive to be with you. Maybe we could do Italy after the tour wraps, we’ll finish in Spain so it won’t be far.”

The thought cheers Ashton a bit; that’s a decent amount of time to get on AirBnB and see what he can find that’s available. It’ll be nice to have something to look forward to, Italian sunshine and limoncello and the quiet.

“Mike and Luke will definitely give us shit though about planning another honeymoon while we’re still on this one,” Calum says.

“Let ‘em,” says Ashton.

It’s not a long flight but it’s a bit of a drive from there to get to the cabin. But Calum said he wanted something remote and quiet, so it’s worth the wait, the drive in the dark. There’s moonlight, anyway, and Calum took the wheel, getting them the rest of the way there in their little silver Prius rental. He puts on My Bloody Valentine and sings along, low and comforting to listen to after so many days straight of playing, of promo. Halfway through the trip Ashton thinks he sees a shooting star, maybe thought he dreamed it until he felt Calum’s soft nudge of knuckles against his arm, heard his quiet, “You see that, bro?”

The way gets bumpy, thick with trees, dark and hard to navigate once they turn off the main road. At the end of it all there’s the cabin, looming in the dark, lights left on for them and the key exactly where it’s supposed to be. It’s past one a.m. but they still give the place a wander, stopping at the largest bedroom facing the lake. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows Ashton sees trees, darkness, the black glitter of water under starlight. Calum asks, “You want this one?”

Ashton looks further and just sees more darkness. “It’s kind of unnerving at night,” he says. “Anyone could be out there.” The other bedroom has smaller windows, but the point stands. “Do you wanna just watch TV or something in here and then decide?”

“If we get axe murdered here I hope our ghosts come back and leave a one star review,” Calum says, but he’s already shrugging his duffel off his shoulders and kicking off his shoes.

The host left them a bottle of pinot grigio so Ashton pours up a few glasses while Calum strips down to his boxers and gets in bed. The boxers have cartoon pugs all over them. “I can’t believe that’s the lingerie you’re wearing for our honeymoon,” Ashton says, handing him a glass. “I also can’t believe those boxers even exist.”

Calum raises it to him in a salute and takes a sip. “These boxers are fantastic, but I guess if you want me to take them off…” he trails off, eyebrow raised, thumb hooked in the waistband pushing them down past his hipbone, then further until Ashton can see the crease of his thigh.

“No, no,” Ashton says hurriedly, “I’m just saying, what’s wrong with a nice pair of footie pajamas? Keeps you warm. Keeps you modest.” Nevertheless he shucks his own clothes except for his own (very grown-up, perfectly normal, in a flattering shade of dark green) boxers and joins Calum in bed. Calum’s already stopped paying attention to him, too busy trying to figure out how to work the remote. He finally gets the screen to flash on, and Ashton stays quiet, sipping his wine while Calum flips channels, finally landing on something in black and white. Cary Grant comes on screen but Ashton still isn’t sure what movie it is; Calum seems interested enough, setting the remote down between them, so he doesn’t complain. The wine goes down easy and Ashton does too after not too long.

He rolls onto his side and sees that Calum’s eyes are already closed. It doesn’t look like he’s asleep yet; it always takes him a bit, leaving him in a dozy stage for about ten minutes during which he might respond crankily to any communication or with adorable mumbling affection. Ashton turns the sound down and says, as quietly as he can, “TV off?” Calum’s eyes don’t open, but he nods a little. “Okay. You want me to go sleep in the other room?”

Calum moves then, a sleepy shift of his body, fumbling a hand up and blindly patting the sheet until he makes contact with Ashton’s hand on the remote and squeezes it, links their fingers together like he can’t quite figure out how to make it work. It feels nice. “’S’okay,” he murmurs. “Stay here.”

Ashton didn’t feel like getting up anyway.

#asks #anonymous #cashton #my fic #5sos #extremely hurtful btw to look at my 5sos unfinished fic folder #1k of lashton living together #2k of cashton h/c #2k of ot4 #4k of mashton that was going to become ot4 #6k of calum/ashton/luke which is the one i'm probably most mad about it bc there's so much good stuff in there #rip my sweet children you were fun while you lasted #OH MY GOD and the almost 5k of michael/luke in an au where 5sos were a queercore band #i am sorry stories!! i wanted better for all of you!!!!!

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imaginethathaikyuu · 4 years

Text

forever in one night.

miya atsumu - word count: 5877

still not accepting requests for the miya twins. don’t send them. they will be deleted.

disclaimer: this is my first time writing for atsumu, and please note that i ended up writing him far cooler than he actually is, simply for the narrative’s sake. honestly, i think i could have done a better job at capturing his character and who he is, and i know that in canon/fanon, he is a lot dorkier and very often lamer than i’ve written him; pls look over it a little bit. of course, i would love any feedback you have. thank you.

* nsfw below featuring: dirty talk, blow jobs, “casual” sex, mentions of one night stands, mentions of atsumu’s previous relationships, friends to lovers, atsumu being really bad at feelings

Dry hands.

That’s the first thing you noticed when Miya Atsumu put your face between his palms: just how abrasive the pads of his thumbs were.

He saw your small flinch. It should have been his cue to back off. He didn’t. Instead, he hummed your name in a way he hoped you’d like, and pulled your face closer to his.

“Tell me, how long have you wanted me?”

“Since I realized I didn’t have a chance with Osamu.”

He laughed. His nose scrunched up and there was a crinkle in the corner of his eyes. It was cute, but for some reason it didn’t look real. None of the smiles he gave you ever did. “Ouch.” One of his hands fell from your face, taking place on your knee instead.

Even in this intimate setting, the man in front of you was daunting. You expected that, though. That’s what made you interested in him years ago. He didn’t drop that intimidating gaze for anything - he didn’t let his guard down for even a second.

It made you wonder how many times he’d done this if he was so confident and ready, if he didn’t mind faking laughs and touching you wherever he pleased, if he had his walls built before you had a chance to get so much as a peak over them.

“A while, then?”

You shrugged.

“Don’t be shy, I know you aren’t shy.” He ran his fingers through your hair; you scooted even closer to him and rested your head on his shoulder. He smelled warm. “Tell me,” he was whispering, “how long have you wanted me, princess?”

He looked down and watched as you bit your lip. He had a feeling you’d like the nickname.

“Probably not as long as you think,” you replied. It was honest. “I really did have a crush on your brother.”

“When?” Atsumu asked with a playful scoff. You shook your head.

“In middle school…”

You eyed the expanse of his neck, the sharp curve of his jawline, the freckle underneath his chin, the prominence of his Adam’s apple - you wanted to kiss every inch. To remember every detail.

“Until our second year of high school, I guess.”

No one had ever told him that they liked his brother first, but Atsumu wasn’t surprised. Osamu probably would have been a better fit for you. At the same time, however, you were a better fit for Atsumu - it’s no wonder his twin never showed interest.

Atsumu still felt a sense of pride in getting the girl, even though his brother couldn’t care less.

And it’s not like he had you. This wasn’t going to be anything more than a typical one night stand, and whether you knew that or not was none of his concern.

“Your honesty is cute,” he told you. “So you’ve liked me since our third year, Y/N? That’s a long time of pining.”

“No,” was your short reply, and you left it at that because you didn’t feel like being honest with him anymore. You wanted to kiss him. You wanted to see if he’d let you leave a few marks with your mouth. You wanted to savor this moment of faux intimacy, feeling like you were his and he was yours, being in his arms and smelling his cologne and seeing him so up close, because you knew this wouldn’t last forever. It’d probably go by too fast.

So you let yourself kiss his neck. And you were too happy when he didn’t push you away. His chest seemed to deflate with a long exhale, and you hoped that was a good sign rather than a show of annoyance.

It was neither. Atsumu was purely along for the ride. You just hadn’t noticed that the control you currently had was given and temporary.

He planned on taking it back after just a few kisses, but he hadn’t expected it to feel so nice; your lips were soft and gentle and kind, you were kissing him on all the places he liked to be kissed - places others had rarely taken the time to show attention to.

He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy it even though he knew he shouldn’t. And he thought about the short date he had taken you on - not even an hour ago the two of you were sat in a cafe. Of course he was eyeing you up the entire time, and of course you noticed but didn’t care.

You had been waiting far too long to be on that end of Atsumu’s gaze. Years of watching him flirt with everyone but you made you hungry for it, and Atsumu liked that. He liked knowing that you wanted him.

And he wanted you, too. He really did. He liked you a lot. It was a shame, though, that this would likely be over before it even started. Before he even had a chance to get you.

But he’d let you get a taste of him. And maybe, if you were able to handle that, then…

Before he could even realize, you had slid your leg across his lap and were well on your way to sucking a good sized bruise into the side of his neck.

“Well aren’t you brave.”

And then you bit down, holy shit - with all of his experience holding the moan and keeping his cool, right now he couldn’t stay quiet if he tried. “F-Fuck, Y/N,” and the sound made your hips jolt forward.

You had managed to find Atsumu’s one weakness very quickly - most of his partners never get the chance. Knowing you, he should’ve seen it coming.

“You’re feisty, aren’t you?” His next words came to him as if they were a light turning on, a heavenly gate opening, a pants zipper coming undone. “What about putting that mouth to even better use, hm?”

You pulled back from him to nod, but it wasn’t good enough for him. He took your chin in his hand and tapped your bottom lip with his thumb - he was completely enamored by your mouth. He couldn’t remember the last time he wanted someone’s lips around him so badly.

“You want me?”

Another nod. He was getting frustrated.

“Say it, tell me,” he said. “Do you want my cock in your mouth, princess?”

He’d said those exact words so many times that right now he felt like he was reading from a script. And for some reason, he really regretted saying something so generic to you.

But your eagerness lifted his spirits. “I do,” you told him, “Please, ‘Tsumu…”

Even though any other time he hated hearing that nickname in bed - or his name at all, for that matter - he’d let you get away with it, because you were familiar. For some reason, it felt right. You were close. You had always been. A neighbor, a classmate, a friend - now, a date. So he’d give you more leniency than he would with anyone else.

He’d let you say his name, kiss him, leave a hickey, because he felt that was the decent thing to do. It wasn’t because he wanted to hear it, feel it, have it. It was because he knew you more than he knew his other frivolous partners, and he had an innocent soft spot for you. Innocent.

That’s what he’d been telling himself for awhile. Every time his late night thoughts drifted to you, every time he was embarrassed to be caught staring, every time he wished for this very moment. His feelings were innocent and trivial and barely there.

The man was a professional at lying to himself.

“Let’s go to my room, then.”

You stood up and led the way because you didn’t need him to take you there. You already knew where his bedroom was in this small apartment after you had been here countless times - never doing this, but always kind of wanting to be.

“You cleaned your room!” you said, absolutely delighted.

“You expected me to bring a date into a dirty bedroom?”

“I don’t know what I expected from you,” you replied, and he had to admit that you had a point. “I kind of got used to seeing your underwear on the ground and dishes on your nightstand.”

“You’re right,” he chuckled, “you already know the real me. There was no sense in cleaning, then, was there?”

“Yes, Atsumu. There was.”

“You’re supposed to be puttin’ that mouth to better use,” he grumbled, hands on his hips, attempting to size you up. All it did was make you laugh.

Without thinking you said, “Your accent is so cute,” and before you could stop yourself you put your hands on his cheeks - the same way he had done to you earlier - and pulled his face close to yours, giving him the sloppiest pecks on the lips just because you felt like you could.

And he let you, but he wasn’t patient, even though he enjoyed the affection. He wasn’t necessarily reciprocating but you didn’t notice, and you made it quick, so he didn’t have to complain.

He pulled back, examined your face, and ignored the feeling he got in his chest when you matched his eye contact. Then, he tapped your lip with his thumb again, and thought up another overused line.

“Get on your knees, princess.”

Not all of his lines are grand - sometimes he just had to get to the point.

Yet again, something felt off.

You fell to your knees, of course. You were more than ready to do this for him. Atsumu was almost proud of you for it. He brushed your hair out of your eyes and recalled what his next words were meant to be.

“I’m not going to be gentle,” he said, and for some reason he couldn’t look you in the eyes when he did. His confidence seemed to disintegrate and he didn’t know why. “I… I’m just warning you, because, you know - you might not… be able to handle it.”

Why was he saying all of this to you? His words weren’t hot, and it’s not like he’d been planning to treat you rough, but what else was he supposed to do? He wasn’t going to be tender and loving - this wasn’t supposed to mean anything. So why the hell did he feel so awkward when he was meant to look cool?

This is going to go just like it always does. Atsumu would be too much for you, because he was too much for everyone. But you’d give it your best shot until he was finished, and then he’d drive you home, wouldn’t let himself give you a goodbye kiss, and tomorrow he wouldn’t text you back.

Rinse and repeat.

All he needed was that reminder.

“Do you think you can handle it, princess?”

But god was it hard to look down at you and not completely falter in his intentions.

You nodded, absolutely ready and hardly taking him seriously. “I think I can,” you said, giggling.

“I can go easy on you if you need me to.”

“No,” you replied. “I want everything you can give.”

Those words took his breath because he knew you meant them.

“Then I’ll give you everything.” He wanted to bite his tongue, hold those words back, but he couldn’t. He was being just as honest as you were, and he was tired of saying things he didn’t mean.

He heard his zipper coming undone. “Everything?”

“Everything.” He was watching you with a keen eye, absolutely loving the view of you on your knees for him. The few dreams he’d had back in high school about doing this were unexpectedly coming true. “You have my word. As long as you show me you can take it, darling.”

You yanked at his tight jeans and he laughed at your effort, then shimmied out of them so you didn’t have to work so hard. He slipped his shirt off quickly as well.

You had to force your next words through the lump in your throat as you eyed the outline of his girth covered by his tight underwear. “I’ll do my best,” and your voice had lost its confident edge because you were done forcing it.

Atsumu spoke low, “I know you will.” His hand slid onto your jaw, his fingers curled into your hair. With that hand he pulled your face against his thigh, and now the tip of your nose was just grazing his bulge. “Give me your best efforts, sweetheart.”

He had a tight grip on your face and you knew his free hand was raring to take hold of your hair. And as your hands slid up the muscle of his thighs, as your fingers teased the skin beneath the underwear hems, as you pressed your face into his stiffness in a show of desperation, something in the room shifted.

He was looking at you differently. You could see it. He wasn’t eyeing you up out of curiosity like at the cafe, and he wasn’t trying his hardest to give you a flirtatious gaze anymore; he was just watching you. Really watching. Simply because he wanted to be looking at you.

You pressed into him even harder; to Atsumu, it literally looked like you were nuzzling into his cock. He pulled you even closer.

“So cute.” The words just slipped out. Maybe they weren’t the best, but he was hardly thinking. And as you pulled his underwear down his legs, the rest of his thoughts seemed to land on the ground with the fabric.

Atsumu was more impatient than he usually was. As you took your sweet time he felt like he would go crazy. But he didn’t know that you were going slowly on purpose - not to tease, but because you needed a few seconds to remind yourself this was real.

And you looked at him. His thighs were gorgeously sculpted and his hips were perfectly prominent and you still wanted to kiss every single inch of him: the place below his belly button, the smooth skin at the top of his legs, his inner thighs, the small scar above his knee. Because he deserved it. Because he was perfect in the funny way you always knew Atsumu to be. Because you just wanted to.

Above you, he was getting restless. You didn’t care. You kissed him anyway.

“You look nice,” you said with your lips against his lower stomach, and he wondered what you meant. Usually girls made simple comments about the places he always pulled their mouths to before they could say too much. Or they said nothing at all. That was usually his preference.

“Stop teasing.”

You looked up at him. “I wasn’t teasing. I meant it.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He had to pick his resolve up off the floor because this was going too far off script. “You aren’t doing what you were told to do, princess.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“You still want to, don’t you?”

“I do,” you said before licking your lips.

“Good,” he replied. He pulled on your jaw - you got the hint to open your mouth. With his other hand, he guided his length to your lips. “I’ve been dying to see my cock between these lips all night.”

When he finally got to see that sight, the way it made him feel confirmed that this would be over far too soon, but the rest of the night would be long lasting.

You were eager and Atsumu thought it was cute. You tried your best right from the start, didn’t even try building yourself up, but he wanted you to take your time. It may help him last a bit longer.

“Look up at me, princess.”

But this view wouldn’t - with your eyes wide and your mouth full of his cock, you looked up at him with a confidence you weren’t even aware of but Atsumu could see. He loved it. His hips jerked once, then again, and on that second thrust he felt his dick slide in deep - it made him gasp and try it again, but you pushed his hips back when you gagged.

He was feeling cocky when he said, “Can’t you handle me, princess?”

“‘Tsumu…”

“Ah-ah,” he tutted. “None of that, no whining. Tell me. You can’t handle this, can you?”

You didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to give him the benefit of being right, didn’t want to make him regret this. You wanted to give yourself to him. If that meant pushing yourself and stretching your limits thin, then you would do it.

You would make yourself his.

“I can,” you said. The tears that poured from your eyes defied you. You clawed at his hips, desperate and sad. “Please, ‘Tsumu, let me. I want you so bad…”

Atsumu supposed he should’ve gotten a kick out of this. Usually, he did. A beautiful girl brought to the point of tears begging for him should have gotten him even more excited. That was usually his goal.

This time, he felt guilt.

He ignored it.

“Okay.” He swallowed hard. “See if you can…”

His words trailed off as you tried again, perilously attempting to take all of him into your mouth and down your throat. You weren’t doing any better than before, but Atsumu didn’t find himself caring.

“What a pretty sight,” he mumbled, and then you looked up at him with those glossy eyes and once again, he was a goner.

You watched his resolve fall apart. The stoic mask he’d been wearing all night was crumbling, and underneath was Atsumu in all of his gorgeous glory. Eyes squeezed shut, blonde hair hanging in his face, mouth fallen agape, moans leaving his throat coming straight from his chest. And it only made you push yourself even more - this is all you’ve wanted and you were getting it. His fake smiles, teasing words, snarky attitude were all gone, all because of you.

He gripped your jaw harder. You held his hand in place there.

“That’s it,” he said as you let his cock slide even deeper, “That’s my good fucking girl.” He moaned loud as you let him fuck your throat, as your lips reached his base, as you choked on his thick length.

He felt himself teasing the edge and that’s all he could focus on. He couldn’t see the tears pouring from your eyes. He didn’t hear your strained noises around him. He couldn’t feel how tightly you were gripping his hand. All he wanted was to cum in your mouth and down your throat. Any second now, you were going to get him there.

“So fucking good,” he moaned - he didn’t even realize he was saying it out loud. “Your mouth is fucking - goddammit - it’s so fucking good,” and he couldn’t believe how much he meant those words, he couldn’t believe how good you were making him feel.

He was moaning and cursing and so close to cumming; you were hoping that this was enough for him.

It was more than enough. You had given him more that he’d ever had. His hips didn’t still, there wasn’t a single falter in his movements. His moans getting louder was the only warning he gave you before you felt his eruption shoot down your throat. And it was hot - it really reminded you of a volcano erupting, and you focused on that absurd thought to get you through it, because the last thing you wanted to do was fall apart when he needed you to stay together. If you stopped now, this entire thing will have been for nothing, and you had to show him that you could handle him. Anything he had, anything he’d give, you could take it and then some.

You felt your throat tighten, threatening a nasty gag, and you held on for as long as you could before your body took over. Atsumu was already pulling away but you pushed his hips to force his length out of your mouth and the coughing started, tears streaming down your face, and you watched your control shatter.

Atsumu hated hearing it. It made it hard to feel good about what just happened.

You heard him walking away and your heart sank.

You were only trying to find your composure, but it didn’t change the fact that you couldn’t manage to hold yourself together for him.

That was it. Were you really that bad? He wasn’t even going to help you up off the floor?

Maybe he was too much for you and you weren’t enough for him. You knew Atsumu’s standards were high, they always had been, but you tried your best and hoped you would be enough. Maybe you weren’t.

You weren’t expecting him to come back. He sank down in front of you and grabbed your face, pushing your hands away, then brought a warm damp cloth to your skin.

You were confused, to say the least. “I’m sorry -”

“Someone made a mess of herself,” he said with a smirk, doing his best to ignore the feeling in his stomach and the words you were trying to say. Pretending to be cool because it was the only thing that would keep him sane. “But I have to say, princess, you do look beautiful with my cum dripping from your mouth…”

You were flustered all over again. “Atsumu…”

“I’m only being honest.” He wiped your face clean; tear stains were kissed away and the evidence of what you’d done was erased from your mouth. “What do you say I return the favor?” His tone was lacking its usual edge. His voice sounded softer - gentle, even.

“You want to?”

“Yeah, of course,” he replied. Pretend to be cool. “It’s only fair.” Another line from his script, but one he meant. “What, you weren’t expecting me to get you off?”

“I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“I know,” he replied, not even knowing why he said it.

He supposed he’d made his decision for how this would go.

“Wanna go lie down?”

“Only if you’re coming with me.”

He took your hand and helped you up. “Cumming with you sounds lovely.”

You hid your eye roll as you turned away from him, but of course you agreed with what he said.

“Just lie down,” he told you, following behind you to his bed. You sat and he pushed you softly, offering some encouragement. You fell back easily and he quickly followed. “I’ll take care of you, Y/N. Promise.”

You got a head start by unbuttoning your top for him, and you hoped he could tell that you were ready to move this along. He watched you pull your shirt off, leaving you scantily clad and a sight for his sore eyes.

He dipped his head down to kiss you, wanting this to go smoothly, and kissing you was natural and easy. It was one thing he didn’t have to think about doing, and he was done thinking so much tonight.

You continued blindly stripping as he gave you lazy kisses, and he pulled away to watch your bra fall to the bed. And you made him lose his breath.

“You’re so pretty,” he said honestly, kissing your jaw and pulling you closer. His hands moved up and down the expanse of your waist. Your skin was soft and warm and he loved touching you in these places he’d never seen before.

Before he could trap you underneath his hips, you tugged your skirt down. Atsumu didn’t help at all, he was too focused on kissing your chest, but you got it off.

“‘Tsumu, just put it in.”

“Already?”

“Don’t you want to?” He raised a brow at you, and you lifted your hips up to feel for what you were suspicious of. “You’re already so hard again. I want you just as bad, Atsumu, so please…”

Everything he did following your words was pure instinct. Your underwear was pulled off in seconds and then he was lining himself up, with your help, to position his length at your entrance; he was inside of you before you could even think about asking for it again.

And Atsumu felt you on every part of himself. He felt like he had been devoured, either by you or by his feelings for you, and for the first time ever he felt happy to feel this way.

He was going to lose himself in you - he knew that. Hell, maybe he already had. But he was okay with it and he was admitting it to himself now.

Being with you made him feel so much, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He’d just keep fucking you, taking you as well as he knew how, and let himself feel however he wanted, because not holding back made this worlds better.

Atsumu very rarely kissed with purpose. Kisses were only ever a means to an end - the only times he shared a kiss with someone was when it was initiated by them or when he needed an excuse to shut them up and get things started. But hovering over you, watching your pretty face contoured with pleasure and looking up at only him, he couldn’t stop himself from kissing you. His lips seemed to fall onto yours on their own.

You moaned into his mouth and his eyes rolled back because a kiss had never felt so good. He brought a hand down to your face, his thumb ran along your cheekbone, touching you so gently you thought you’d be brought to tears.

As his lips molded to yours, the movement of his hips slowed. Your legs wrapped around him, pulled him into you and held him there, and he was trying to rock into you hard.

You pulled your lips free just so you could moan his name and Atsumu was in heaven.

“God, fuck,” he moaned - his voice was ragged and thick, “say my name again, baby, please.”

If you weren’t in such a daze you would have said something to tease him - if Atsumu wasn’t so blissed out, he would have just made you say it rather than tell you to, but neither of you were thinking that clearly. Unlike usual, he wasn’t thinking two steps ahead. And you were so lost in the moment that you had stopped reminding yourself to savor it.

So you moaned his name again, because you’d have done anything he asked. Atsumu so desperately needed to clear his mind and get a hold of himself but it felt way too good to be out of control for once - at this point he wasn’t sure if either of you were controlling this, but he really hoped that you were lost at sea with him.

All he knew was that he loved the way his name sounded when it was coming from your lips; he wanted to hear it so badly that he’d push his new need for having your lips on his to the back of his mind.

It was only then that he remembered what this was supposed to be.

A one night stand. A quick fuck. This wasn’t supposed to matter - not to him - but those original intentions had gone out the window. He’d thrown them out himself and hadn’t even realized it. How had he not realized it?

He was pulled out of those thoughts easily when he felt your delicate hands caressing his face.

“What is it?” you asked him, because he’d completely stopped everything. You didn’t know that something had changed.

“Nothing,” he lied, shaking his head. He nudged your nose with his own. “It’s just - you’re…” He swallowed hard. Thick. “...Addicting.” The shaky breath he released was nothing but a sign of his vulnerability. “I hope this never ends.”

You kissed him again, soft this time for the sake of making it short. “Fuck me, Atsumu,” you said, your lips grazing against his as you spoke, and Atsumu was intensely aware of the fact that he was the only person in the world who could hear your words. “And make it last forever.”

He would.

He wanted to do anything you wanted him to do. He’d do whatever it took. Forever was a long time but if it always felt like this then he didn’t mind.

You pushed the sand dunes of hair off his forehead, smiling up at him as you did. Even when his thrusts into you increased, you didn’t lose it. And he never wanted to look away from you.

Atsumu had dropped saying that stupid nickname in favor for moaning your name, because it was the only word he had never called anyone else and he’d be damned if he treated you like you were just something to be charmed and used. Not again.

“Fuck - fuck, Y/N,” he moaned into your neck. You arched your back into him; his hands wanted to roam your body but if he didn’t keep holding himself up with both arms he was sure he’d collapse. “Y/N!”

Your nails raked his back, trying your hardest to pull him impossibly close. Even though he was as close as he could ever be, you felt like it wasn’t enough. You were sure there was some part of him you still hadn’t gotten.

He was giving you everything, though. Just like he’d promised.

Both of you felt so incredibly good; you were drunk and Atsumu was high - your fixes were each other. And you were both about to peak.

It came slower than you expected - it really felt like Atsumu was building you up one thrust at a time, and each time his hips collided with yours you felt just a bit closer to cumming. You were curling your toes in preparation and your head was rolling around the pillow beneath it, shaking back and forth as if you were denying it because an orgasm meant this was over.

And then you heard Atsumu moan loud. He hadn’t finished, not yet, but he was definitely about to. Something about it told you to just cum, and as his hand found yours and held on tight to it, you did.

He grunted and cursed and came when he felt you tighten so much, pulsating around his throbbing cock desperately. It felt like your body was begging to be filled by his dick, by his cum, by him. And there was no place he’d rather be.

Everything was you. You were all he could feel or smell or hear; the warmth of your cunt, your perfume mixed with sweat, your delicate whines of his name; your hand squeezing his, your shampoo that was so familiar, the sounds of him sliding in and out you. And he was thinking about all of it at once.

He had never felt so good in his life, he knew that for a fact. He squeezed your hand hard and filled the room with broken moans as he thrust even quicker than before, trying to carry on this feeling for as long as possible.

Even when he had finished and the over stimulation got uncomfortable, those thoughts didn’t go away, because unlike every one night stand he’s had, this one wasn’t over the moment he came.

He didn’t pull out. He didn’t let go of your hand. He didn’t even stop moaning. There was one thing Atsumu wanted, and it was to kiss you.

So he did. He kissed you hard, taking hold of your jaw to keep you kissing back as his body relaxed. He was basically laying on top of you now, lapping his tongue into your mouth because he wasn’t ready to be disconnected from you. He couldn’t handle being apart right now, and you were the only person who had ever put up with his odd clinginess for this long so he planned on stretching it out.

But you needed to catch your breath; both of you were still panting through the kiss, and it was too much bordering on uncomfortable. So you pushed his face away, only a bit, but for Atsumu it was still too far from you.

And he realized that right now, he was feeling the desperation and vulnerability his partners usually feel when the sex is over and Atsumu stops letting them kiss him; when he got too wrapped up in his own weird insecurity to let his clinginess show and the desire for attention and affection was gone.

Right now he was performing without a script. He didn’t have something to say that was practiced and proven successful, something that would make you swoon and fall under his spell.

He was panicking, because he didn’t want to have to convince you to let him keep kissing you. He knew that sometimes he couldn’t help being stuck to people like glue, but that’s why he’d worked so hard to grow out of those things. To see relationships like these as menial and only for pleasure. To not get attached to anyone who would only end up ripping themselves away from him.

He held onto you just a bit tighter, as if that would make you stay. Because despite his fears and doubts and insecurities, he really wanted you to.

“Don’t go,” he said, his eyes shut tight and voice a sad strained.

You were literally taken aback by his words. You needed to take a second to realize what he had just said, to examine his face and see that he meant it.

“Atsumu…”

He finally gave out, falling and tucking his face into your chest, catching his breath and pulling his cock out of you and putting himself back together.

“I wasn’t planning on leaving.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, bringing your linked hands up to his lips.

“I was going to stay until you kicked me out, babe.”

“I was never going to kick you out.”

“Are you sure?”

He scoffed. “Yeah.” It was annoying how you could always see right through him, but right now he wasn’t going to worry about anything besides kissing each of your fingers.

After a long moment, you tried tugging your hand away. “Can I have my hand back?”

He pretended to think about it before replying. “Why?”

“Because it’s my hand.”

He genuinely hesitated before letting it go, because he felt like everything would unravel if he did. He tried not to think about it.

“Thank you,” you said with a giggle that Atsumu loved, and then he felt both of your hands in his hair. His eyes widened at the feeling.

With the head scratches he was really able to relax, and you were basically squished underneath him but you didn’t care.

All Atsumu thought about was you. He wondered if he should tell you, but no words came to him. Anything he said would probably be gibberish, anyway. He couldn’t convey the way he felt in words that would make sense, and even though he knew the two of you should have some kind of discussion he decided it could wait. He felt okay in this serene uncertainty, because he had a feeling you were staying right there with him. He trusted you enough to believe that.

There was only one thing worth saying. One thing that he meant, that you would hopefully understand without explanation.

“I hope this never ends.”

If that moment did last until the end of time, neither of you would mind.

“Then make it last forever.”

this has a part two!

#feedback is appreciated and needed honestly lmao #if u cant tell i cannot figure out how i feel about this fic #i absolutely love some parts but i really dislike other parts #and ive been working on it for nine days straight and just want to be done with it so im posting it as is #ive done literally all i can to it lmao this is absolutely its final form #so yeah #sorry if i didnt do atsumu justice (i really dont think i did) im definitely not ready to write for him i think.....#but yall tell me what you think (in a nice way pls)#miya atsumu #miya atsumu x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #not family friendly

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extremelyblackandwhite · 4 years

Text

handmaid - 27

PAIRING: mob!sebastian stan x ingenue!reader

WARNINGS: age gap, mention of weapons

A/N: more musical references ... who would’ve thought? but now i’m also adding disney references bc referencing is my passion (unless it’s for essays, then screw referencing). also i’m very sorry for being late with this chapter something happened last night and i couldn’t finish it. i hope you enjoy this chapter x

NEXT CHAPTER

- Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six ... - a choir of two voices echoed through the reading room in the Forrest household with one being significantly deeper while the other much higher and almost baby like. However if asked, Y/N would solely deny that being.5 made her a baby and she would constantly put five fingers up in pride of her young age. Accompanying the two voices, there was the soft sound of the very old piano which had been with the Forrest family for more than a century - sept, huit, neuf.

- Fantastic. Play the last three notes for me by yourself this time. - Daniel smiled at the much younger Y/N dressed in a hand-me down white ruffled dress with her hair pushed out of the way by a velvet white string. Y/N giggled, her babyish laughter echoing through the room before she could concentrate on the keys of the piano, her fingers pressing the same combination as just before.

- Sept, huit, neuf ... Sept, huit, neuf. - her fingers played through the keys as her still very badly spoken French came through but that was the life of a lady who was to grow up to stand next to an heiress; educated in the arts and languages, polite and classic, a picture and reflection of true perfection. Fake it until you make it, it’s what her governess told her constantly. - Sept, huit, neuf.

- One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. - Daniel joined in with a lower key, quickly playing through the keys and ending at the nine making Y/N smile in relief. Whenever he changed to English it normally meant the lesson was over and while Y/N loved music, she didn’t enjoy it for three hours straight in the early morning. - You know birdie, whenever you don’t wanna be somewhere try to pretend you do.

- It’s too early. - she whined, head leaned against the keys of the very expensive shiny black instrument.

- Alright, birdie, go on a do whatever it is you do in your free time.

Before he could even shut down the piano’s hood, Y/N was already on her feet, the small sounds of new tiny shoes becoming further and further as she exited the reading room and bolted towards the attic. At 5 years old, the young handmaid had mastered a way to get the high door open by using two tennis rackets tied together with one of her hair strings. After doing this, the stairs came collapsing down allowing her to climb them into the attic.

Looking around like a squirrel afraid of being caught, she returned to the pile of boxes she had found when she was rummaging through whatever had been left there. She wasn’t entirely sure who it belonged to or what it was but she was convinced that it was filled with something that looked pretty enough to belong to a princess. Opening the first box she came face to face with a gold coloured head piece. Curiously, she grabbed it from the box rushing over to a pretty old mirror with already dark spots and a bit of browning. Curiously, she lifted up the headpiece, placing it on her head. Her eyes seemed to wander around her reflection before the headpiece started to slide down, a bit too big of her. Before it could reach the floor, however, Y/N grabbed it, noticing a few letters on the in the piece.

- Y/N, the French tutor is here.

- I’m going.

Y/N watched as Sebastian in awe as he cooked her cheese toastie. Sure, a cheese toastie wasn’t a culinary masterpiece and it was the furthest thing from being a hard task, still she was just entranced by the sight imagining what things could be. Dreaming is a dangerous two edged swords allowing you to envision everything your heart desires yet having the power to keep it as further yet close enough to reach but never have. She could almost see it, she could almost see and hear the future that would never be. With eyes wandering to the piano in the living room, she could see and hear being sat at the piano teaching her child how to play while Sebastian made his cheese toasties in the kitchen. Yet again dreams aren’t reality, reality is much more bitter and unforgiven.

- Look at that, unburned. - Sebastian slide a perfectly white porcelain plate towards her containing the delicious snack.

- I’m rather scared that burning is your only evaluating tool for cooking. - she tried to hold in a little child-like smile but her muscles had more strength. - Thank you.

- Well, angel, unless you can cook better than me I believe you have no right in criticising. - he took a seat very close to her, choosing to instead stare at her rather than eat along with her. At that comment Y/N scoffed, giving him a look that made him question his statement and wonder if she was some sort of hidden stellar cook.

- I would say I can, at least, cook better than you.

- What can’t you do? You’re like this untouchable Edwardian woman. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who is so effortlessly ready to be in high society.

- I don’t belong in high society. - she seemed to stare blankly at the wall of the kitchen and how perfectly straight the back splash had been placed. Every single square perfectly placed yet not noticeable by its own, unless bringing perfection to the whole piece itself. - You just have to pretend you do. No one in this business is gonna give their daughter up to be standing next to someone who’s bound to inherit an empire ... you said yourself, if they shoot at an heiress they’ll shoot at you too. It’s more like picking someone off the street and dressing them up just good enough that you believe they’re untouchable.

- You don’t give yourself enough credit.

- I think you just see me through rose coloured glasses. - she took a bite off the sandwich. - You know what? That’s pretty good.

- Thanks, angel. - he kissed the top of her head. - Hey, how about we do something you really like tonight?

- No. - she held his hand. - Let’s do something you like to do. We never do something you like to do, why don’t you pick?

- Angel, I don’t think you’d enjoy it.

- It can’t be that bad. - she put what was left from the sandwich in the plate, wiping her hands clean from the grease. - You do what I want all the time.

- I like making you happy, angel. - he leaned towards her, placing a soft and quick kiss on top of her nose. - Besides, you haven’t made me do anything particularly torturous.

- No. - she crossed her arms at him, jumping from her high seat. - We are doing something you like doing tonight.

- Okay, angel. Let’s go then.

There was no denying her, or at least he hadn’t built a backbone to deny her yet. Nevertheless, he took her back to the garage yet instead of walking into the unit they had just been in, both of them kept walking and walking passing various units with various numbers, probably belonging to other tenants. He finally stopped in front of an abnormally large unit which had a pin code pad. Quickly and almost mechanically he put the code in which made the door unlock allowing him the open it up. Stepping inside, this unit was way more organised than the last one with what looked like a small version of a shooting range. A mob boss liking to shoot ... original.

- Do the neighbours not complain about the noise? - she wondered out loud.

- Soundproof walls. - he gave her his regular pearly white smile, taking a pair of noise cancelling headphones and googles from the wall. - Besides, it’s my building.

- I’m sure someone probably has complained. - she teased as he put a pair of googles on her face. - Have you ever shot a gun, angel?

- I did archery in school. - she shrugged. Gwen and Dan usually went for the shooting range back when they were younger but Y/N was always one to take that time to herself and stay home either practicing for her lessons or reading. Besides, she was entirely sure she didn’t even know how a gun worked. - Didn’t have a good aim.

- Well, this it’s not entirely like archery. - he opened a black panel, grabbing a matte black revolver before handing it to her. Y/N, however, stared at it untrusting of the object. - You’ve grown up with the mob, don’t tell you’ve never touched a gun.

- They told me not to and I enjoy following rules. - Y/N crossed her arms, defensive of her statement which made Sebastian smirk. - Besides, what if I touched it and it accidentally shot me?

- It’s locked, angel. - he placed the revolver in front of the circle target so he could put the noise cancelled headphones on her, leaving it just spaced enough so he could still talk to her. - Besides, maybe you should know how to defend yourself.

- Okay. - still a bit guarded, she picked up the weapon, placing herself in line with the target while Sebastian was by her side.

- It’s a quick-lock system. - he helped her unlock the gun. - Now, regularly most of the ones in the mob have a quick-lock system so if you’re eve ...

- I don’t wanna think about it. - the memory of the gunshot from earlier had her not in the mood to think about danger. Maybe there was imminent danger to avoiding the probability of her being hurt but half her mind wanted to believe that people wouldn’t shot at her. Sebastian tightened his lips, changing his narrative. - What if it shoot you by accident?

- Angel, that is pointing nowhere near me. - he tapped her elbow. - Eyes on the target and pull the trigger.

Y/N swallowed in dry, looking up from the gun to the bullseye before pulling the trigger. The sound didn’t hit her as hard due to the headphones but she still took a step back out of surprised followed by an upset moan due to the fact the bullet had hit the furthest place from the target.

- Right... - Sebastian placed himself behind her, arms coming up to her, almost mirroring her position so he could move her arms and overall aim in the right position. - Take a deep breathe, pick your target, concentrate and shoot.

- Okay. - she took a deep breath, feeling his skin too close to her in a way which almost made her too weak on the knees to concentrate on the target. Nevertheless, she focused on the bullseye, pressing the trigger which caused a back/forward motion and the bullet when straight into the target making her eyes and smile widen as her ego swelled up with pride. She turned around, pulling Sebastian into a hug. - I did it!

Sebastian locked the revolver, placing it back on the table before returning to a very enthusiastic Y/N yet not very excited to do it again. Nevertheless, Sebastian was happy she at least knew how to use a weapon, just in case. As he opened his mouth to say something, his phone started to ring. God, just fantastic. Sighing in defeat, he put his phone on to his hear, a fairly familiar yet annoying voice coming through. Y/N watched in confusion, not entirely sure who was at the phone but from what she could manage from his words it seemed like he was getting an invite which he was very against. After what felt like a good 5 or 10 minutes of speaking on the phone, begrudgingly he turned his phone off, looking at Y/N with a look which was very indescribable.

- Are you okay? - she took a few steps forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, one of her hands coming to brush his hair soothingly. - Who was it?

- Gwen. She’s spending New Years at the Ritz and she wants you to go.

- The Ritz? I thought she was going to Monaco.

- Seems like she decided to stay in New York and wants you and me there for good measure.

- I know for a fact she does not enjoy your company? Why the sudden change of heart?

- We are getting married in two weeks, angel. I would call it PR but then again, what hasn’t been PR with the two of us?

- Oh ... right ... the wedding. - sometimes Y/N forgot that she was very much involved with a man stuck in his engagement. It wasn’t like he could break it, that was a death sentence and probably the biggest mistake he could make. However, she still didn’t know how she was gonna handle it. Maybe Mr. Forrest was right, maybe she should go to Paris after all of this was over, maybe she should just start to distance herself but how could she distance herself from someone who is just so magnetic without even trying? How do you ignore a magnetic pull? - Well, I guess we should pack ... again.

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mcatra · 4 years

Text

Catra works at burger king part 2

AO3

art by quackleroys part 1

As promised, Adora had taken care of everything even though she never asked her to. Adora and Glimmer’s family as well as Sea Hawk’s parents had paid off the damage like it was nothing. In fact a sparkling new window with the Burger King logo appeared installed at her next shift, looking so pristine it almost seemed out of place in the dingy establishment. Rich people were scary.

Catra had expected the usual beatdown lecture from her regional manager, but to her surprise nothing came. Adora took 100% of the blame and omitted Catra from the narrative, and as much as she hated to admit it she was grateful. No way she could have ever afforded to replace the door when she couldn’t even afford a whole meal at Burger King.

Not with the $3 she had currently in her account. Right now however, she was pretending to be asleep in the back of the student council room until all of Adora’s annoying prefects left. They were currently having a meeting about the annual swimming preparations.

Usually Catra would be more outspoken to represent the students of her old school, but today she didn't want to speak to anyone. She hadn't heard a lick of an apology from the girls, who had just thrown money at the problem until it went away like it never existed. They probably expected her to thank them, and no way were they getting a thank you for something they caused.

They finished up their meeting, chatting about whether or not they should be allowed to wear bikinis or something as they shuffled out.

‘Is it really okay to just let Vice Captain sleep through the entire meeting?’ Mermista complains, and Catra tenses in annoyance.

‘Shh, don’t wake her. I don’t see you sweeping up glass until midnight from when your boyfriend smashed her workplace door.’ Adora chides, and Catra feels a little bit smug.

‘...Fair point.’

The door clicks shut, and silence settles over the classroom. Catra can hear Adora tiptoe quietly over to her.

She half expects for Adora to shake her awake, but to her surprise she feels fingers carding through her hair.

Catra freezes, trying to keep her breathing even. What was she doing?

The touch is soft, gently pushing her hair back and brushing her scalp.

She lets it go on for a few seconds, before she grabs Adora’s wrist, letting one eye lazily open. The blonde's eyes were wide, like a kid that got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

‘Stop touching me so familiarly. We’re not friends.’ Catra says, but there's no heat behind her words. She forces herself to get up, fake yawning as she gathers up her books.

Adora's cheeks are pink, her hands bunched up around her skirt. 'Do you have another shift? I’ll come.'

'No one asked you to!' Catra replies, making her way down the now empty corridor. Of course Adora memorized her work schedule. She starts power walking her way to the school doors, hoping to lose Adora on the way.

All she wanted was to finish her shift, get a few hours of study done so she could get the damn scholarship and graduate. It was for her first choice of university, and they were granting a free ride to the top student of their school. If she could just manage that, she could get a degree and finally get a good job. Catra didn't need distractions by her rival, not everyone could effortlessly get full marks on every subject. She had to struggle for it, if she was ever going to get out of this cursed cycle.

‘Are you seriously following me to work?’ Catra says, deadpan. Adora was scurrying after her like a puppy with separation anxiety. She stops walking, watching the blonde trip over herself in her hurry to catch up to her on the street. ‘Dude I’m begging you, please get a life.’

‘Why not? I want some chicken nuggies.’ She says. Catra shoots her a look of disgust.

‘You’re going to get pimples and DIE from all this junk you eat!’ Catra whaps her over the head with her textbook. Adora winces, and almost walks into a lamp post.

‘Aww, are you worried about my health?’ Adora teases. Catra goes to kick her, but the school captain dodges it, her wide grin illuminated by the setting sun.

‘Eat a damn vegetable instead of coming to Burger King everyday! You’ll ruin your perfect figure.’ Catra shoots back, hoping that Adora would care more about maintaining her sculpted body than annoying her everyday. Wait, that wording was kind of-

‘You think I have a perfect figure?’

The brunette can feel her face heating up, and she knows she’s blushing. She shoves Adora away, turning away so she can’t see her face.

‘Fuck you and your fucking corn-cob abs, stop eating here!!! Unhealthy shite!!’ Catra curses, but Adora just laughs, clutching at her wrists so she can’t hide her furious blushing.

‘Even when you’re angry you can’t stop complimenting me.’ Adora replies, biting back a grin.

‘Don’t make me perma-ban you from the store!’

The day of the swimming carnival finally arrived, colourful flags decorating the outside pool. Hundreds of students were seated on the concrete steps, waiting to compete in the relays, or currently in line to the canteen.

Adora looked good in her one piece swimsuit. It highlighted her muscled back that was currently glistening from the pool water. Her golden hair was damp, curling around the edges. She looked almost ethereal, sparkling in the sunlight.

Meanwhile Catra sat in the bleachers in her ratty t-shirt and shorts watching her, feeling like the embodiment of that one Taylor Swift song. Stupid Adora.

Adora's friends had coordinated their outfits to match their Bright Moon house colours, all pinks and purples. Mermista's house was dressed in blue, while girls from Perfuma's house fawned around the lifeguard on duty. They had even painted their faces with coloured zinc.

How nauseating.

‘You want some hot chips?’ Scorpia asks, plonking herself next to Catra. She nods and scarfs it down, eyes laser focused on Adora’s long legs.

As the day dragged on, they were doing admittedly worse than she would’ve liked. It was proving difficult to get them motivated, and doing 3rd out of 4 houses was not a good look.

‘Scorpia, you’re up for the 100 metre freestyle relay, do not let me down.’ She pats her friend on the shoulder, glaring at the other teams.

‘Aye aye, Cap’n!’ Scorpia grins, doing a mock salute.

Scorpia was against one of their biggest competitors Huntara, another girl from Perfuma’s house. They line up at top of the platforms, and when the whistle blows she dives in.

It’s close, but Scorpia wins by a hair winning the final. Catra grins at her, and Scorpia beams back. Even though Perfuma’s house lost, the blonde was all giddy over Scorpia’s performance.

A voice blares over the loudspeaker.

50 points.

The Horde was now at second place. Catra’s heart starts beating faster, ecstatic. Now they actually had a chance at beating Adora's house! She stands up and swivels around to face her own team.

'Listen up, assholes!' Catra she barks, looking at the sea of mismatched green. Their disinterested eyes blink up at her.

'We're gonna get the most points and we will win!'

She hears a group of boys- Sea Hawks old friends, probably, mutter to themselves.

We?

Why should we try when she won’t even do one race?

I know right. Who even elected her as house captain?

‘Excuse me, what the fuck did you just say?’ Catra growls, marching over to the chad looking teenage boys in her house. Instead of backing down as most people usually did, they glared back at her. The tan one with patches of facial hair named Scurvy stands up to confront her.

‘Miss Vice Captain thinks she’s too good to compete in the relay while we do all the work.’ Scurvy says, and the boys behind him all nod in unison. ‘All of us have already competed and we’re tired.’

‘Uh, does it look like I care? Get back out there so we can beat Adora!’

‘Hell no. We’re boycotting, until you can prove you’re gonna pull your weight.’ He declares, poking a finger at her chest.

By now everyone in the Horde was staring at them, and by their defiant eyes seemed to be agreeing with him. Her position as house captain was slipping.

She slaps his hand away, incensed.

‘What do you think you’re doing, undermining my authority? If I say get back out there, then go! ’

‘Why, too scared to swim? Afraid you’ll lose?’ Scurvy challenges.

Catra grits her teeth. It’s not like she was going to admit to these extras that she was afraid of water. Usually intimidation worked, but they didn’t seem to be backing down either.

As if he sensed her hesitation, Scurvy grabs her arm and his other two friends grab the other. They're surprisingly strong, Catra's arms are like twigs in their grip.

‘Get off me!’ Catra screeches, her pulse speeding up. They start walking her to the deep end of the pool, to the sound of cheering from her house like the traitors they were.

She tries to kick at her captors, but they’re laughing, like it was all a fun game.

Catra feels lightheaded as they approach the edge of the pool. 'Stop it, it's not funny!' She tries again, feeling desperate. Where was the lifeguard when you needed him?

Scurvy gives her a cocky grin, not catching on to her fear. No one seemed to be paying attention to her internal mental breakdown, they had probably thought she was infallible. Unafraid of anything. They swing her back, and then let go.

Catra shrieks as she hits the water, making a loud splash as she falls in. That proved to be a mistake, as she inhales a gallon of water doing so. She splutters and gasps, trying to scramble to the edge but failing. Instead she was sinking, her arms flailing pathetically.

Catra couldn’t breathe, the surface seemed so far away now. She had to be drowning, water rushing through her ears, clawing through nothing. There’s only a rush of bubbles and a pressure on her lungs as they fill up with chlorinated water. People were shouting from above, but it was muffled.

There was a reason why she hated water as much as she did. Their foster mother Shadow Weaver had dunked her head into the bath countless times, holding Catra’s head in place with her sharp nails. She had always said it was to clean her properly, but she knew it was her punishment for just existing in her household. The result of that was her never learning how to swim, and a crippling fear of water.

Catra could feel her legs locking up, paralysing fear coursing through her veins. The more water she inhaled, the more dizzy she got, her limbs feeling heavier than bricks.

Spots appear in her vision, and her lungs finally give out. She had to be on the bottom of the pool by now, but it was strangely calm down here. When she feels her back hit the tile, she blacks out.

The next thing she knows is that a warm pair of lips are pressing against her own. They’re soft, and they kind of taste like strawberry chapstick. Her head is still swimming though, like she was still underwater. The person breathes in air into her mouth, and she vaguely comphrends Oh, they’re giving me CPR.

Before she can react, someone practically body slams her chest and she chokes. Before they can do it again she pushes them off her, she was going to throw up. Catra turns to the side and promptly splutters out the entire pool’s worth of water out of her lungs.

She can feel herself being unceremoniously brought back to life, weakly coughing out the last of the offending liquid. Catra can feel herself swaying from side to side, her hands shaking like crazy.

‘Hey!’

The person’s voice is muffled, but soon her ears pop and she can suddenly hear everything again.

‘Catra!’

Everything was too loud, too bright. There were people surrounding them, blurry colours mixing together like the weirdest acid trip she’s never had.

A warm pressure is on her side, and she hazily blinks up at the loud noise in her ear. Blonde hair, a red varsity jacket.

Suddenly she’s panicking for a whole other reason. Everything hits her at full force now, the crowd, the stares, fucking Adora out of all people giving her CPR. Her greatest weakness being exposed in front of everyone. She felt like a kid again when Shadow Weaver frequently tried to drown her bathing her in front of the other orphaned kids as they watched on.

Sweat beads at her forehead, everyone is talking so loudly and her gut is twisting and she can’t breathe.

She couldn’t swim?

What’s wrong with her?

Someone call an ambulance!

‘No-No ambulance-’ Catra stutters, keeling over. Like she could afford a $400 glorified taxi to the damn hospital. She tries to inhale, but it just comes out as rasping.

Catra frantically scrabbles at her throat, leaving long red marks across the wet skin. She can feel hot tears bead in the corners of her eyes, contrasting with how cold the rest of her body felt.

‘Catra!’

It was Adora again. ‘You have to sit up, open up your airways.’ Catra glares at her, but the blonde manhandles her into a better position. She takes in another breath, and to her relief air starts flooding back into her lungs again.

‘Everyone back away, you’re stressing her out.’ Adora commanded the crowd.

'Here, wear this.' She takes off her jacket and bundles it protectively over Catras shoulders. ADORA is emblazoned on the back in big white letters. Catra looks at it in confusion, until belatedly realizes her drenched shirt stuck to her like a second skin so it was almost see through. She grips the jacket around herself tighter, embarrassed.

The lifeguard and the teachers finally arrive, and she’s carted away from the crowd.

-----

Catra jolts awake to a loud rattling knock on her garage door. She blinks a few times, getting the grit out of her eyes. Since when did she get visitors? The only person who knew where she lived was Scorpia.

The knocking gets louder, more urgent. It vibrates through the concrete walls of the tiny refurbished garage. Catra gets up, still feeling groggy from the fever. Adora’s varsity jacket laid next to her, still smelling vaguely like the blonde mixed with chlorine. Somehow she had made home after the swimming carnival. The last thing she remembered was collapsing onto her mattress after refusing to go to the hospital.

‘Catra? Are you in there?’

What the hell? Is that Adora?

Catra forces herself to stand up, her bare feet pattering across the cold concrete. She kicks a few cardboard boxes out of the way so she can manually roll up the door. The automatic function broke ages ago, and her landlord still hadn’t gotten it fixed.

Why on earth she was letting her worst enemy in her home was beyond her, all of the water that went up her brain must’ve made her stupid.

She only has the strength to lift it halfway, the sunlight blinding her in discomfort.

‘Why the fuck are you here?’ Catra growls, however she must not paint the most intimidating picture. Probably gave the impression of a cracked up ogre in a cave.

Adora laughs a little, as she tries to maneuver her way into the garage. She ducks underneath the roll up door like it’s a game of limbo, and to Catra’s satisfaction she bangs her head on it.

‘I brought soup.’ Adora lifts up a small plastic bag full of ingredients. She looks around nervously for a kitchen, but becomes increasingly distressed as she starts to realize this whole place was only one room.

‘So- uh.’ Adora chokes out, clearly embarrassed. ‘This is...where you live.’

Catra rolls her eyes at her attempt to not insult her living conditions. Her furniture consisted of an old mattress, a sofa from someone's front lawn, a rotting table and chair from the council cleanup, and a tiny mini-fridge and a portable stove she got from the dump, all crammed into the small garage.

It wasn’t too bad, as terrible as it was at least it was her space. The landlord never came to bother her and charged half the amount of current rental homes in the area, so all in all it was a pretty good deal.

‘Not what you were expecting, Princess?’ Catra yawns, scratching her back to return to her bed. ‘Let me guess, Scorpia told you where I lived. God knows why I tell her anything, she can’t keep a secret to save her life.’

Adora nods, placing the groceries on the table. ‘I just wanted to see if you were feeling any better after…’ She flounders, looking extremely out of place in her iron pressed pristine uniform.

‘Take a seat.’ Catra gestures to the sofa. ‘Don’t worry, I got rid of the lice ages ago.’

Adora gives her a look.

‘I’m kidding.’ She wasn’t, but it didn’t look like Adora was gonna sit on it otherwise.

Adora gingerly sits down, avoiding the odd looking stains on the fabric. They sit in silence for a minute, as she drinks in her surroundings.

‘So, the boys who pushed you into the pool got suspended.’ Her school captain says, scratching her little blonde poof on the top of her forehead.

‘Good.’

‘How’s your fever?’

Catra sighs into her blanket, rolling around to glare at the other teenager. ‘Fine. How long are you planning to be here, anyway?’

‘Oh, uh-’ Adora gets up to rummage through the plastic bag she brought. ‘Also I was just gonna stick around to um, make you some soup. I brought meds too!'

She triumphantly brings out some Panadol, only belatedly realizing that there was no tap inside to pour Catra water.

‘There’s a hose outside if you want water. You have to boil it though.’

‘R-right.’ Adora says awkwardly, but makes no move to actually leave to go outside. Instead she picks up the contents of her plastic bag and makes her way to the fridge.

‘Oi, don’t touch my food!’ Catra calls out, annoyed.

Adora pauses, the ingredients that needed to be chilled still in her arms as she opens the fridge door.

‘There’s nothing in here though.’

‘Uh, yes there is. Don’t you see that stack of bread? Managed to convince my manager it was expired, so I got it for free. Don’t go touching it.’ Catra says proudly, smug that she had finessed the Burger King system. ‘Also Lonnie never notices the condiments going missing. You can’t use my ketchup and mustard packets for your stupid soup, you hear?’

‘Catra.’

‘What?’

‘How...how can you live like this? I had no idea it was this bad.’ Adora says, kneeling in front of the mini fridge like she was gonna have a first class breakdown.

Why was she the one getting upset? She wasn’t the one who lived here.

‘Kinda rude thing to say as a houseguest, much.’ Catra scoffs, offended. ‘Sorry for not living in the lap of luxury like you do.’

‘But even applying for welfare, surely the government could-’ Adora objects.

Catra could almost laugh at how naive she sounded. ‘What, so they could catch me and throw me back into the foster care system?’

‘You know what I mean. Even Shadow Weaver’s foster home was better than-’

‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence.’ Catra snaps, her blood suddenly boiling with rage. Just the mere mention of her name brings a flood of memories she didn't want to remember. Adora looks back at her, surprised at the sudden outburst.

‘I’d rather die than go back to Shadow Weaver. You know she used both of us just for welfare money?’ Catra seethes, stalking her way closer to Adora. They’re face to face now, the blonde frozen in place.

‘I..’

Years of resentment start spilling over, and Catra can’t stop.

‘Not like you care, since you were adopted out by a nice rich family with your new sister Glimmer. Must be nice to be picked out with your goody goody nice girl persona and forget all about the people you left behind huh?’ Catra grits her teeth, she’s shaking in rage now.

She still remembers that day when the tall rich lady with the pink and purple hair decided to adopt a child to fill the void in her heart left by her deceased husband.

When she picked Adora, even though she was going to be adopted by Shadow Weaver already as her favourite.

How Catra was left alone with nothing when Adora went with Angella, the abuse increasing tenfold as Shadow Weaver took out her anger at her. No one ever asked to see Catra, with her untrusting eyes and feral mannerisms.

‘Who would adopt me, right? What a joke. Now you come in here insulting my place when I made it here on my own, with no one to help me?!’

Adora stares at her in shock, speechless. The words hang in the air, like they were a rope choking them both. They look at each other until Catra’s rapid breathing calms down.

‘I..I’m so sorry Catra. I did try to contact you...but you never replied...’ Adora says, throat tight with grief.

Catra rolls her eyes. ‘Like Shadow Weaver personally hand delivers me mail, got it.’

Adora swallows, lip trembling. ‘I really did try to go back, I did. But Shadow Weaver told me you had run away, and I couldn’t find you anywhere no matter how hard I tried. I thought...I thought-’

A tear drops down Adora’s face, and she quickly wipes it away before Catra can react.

‘So when I saw you had transferred to my school, and that you worked at Burger King, it was like a miracle to me. You were here, and you were alive, and I was so, so happy to see you. Even if you hated me coming to your workplace everyday, or that you thought I was only doing it to rub my good fortune in your face... I just missed you so much, I couldn’t help it.’ Adora exhales shakily. Her words seemed genuine, and Catra felt her heart tighten.

More tears spill out, and this time Catra reaches over to cup her face. She can feel her last remanments of her anger dissipate as she thumbs away the hot liquid from Adora’s red cheeks.

‘Why are you the one crying? IIIdiot.’

‘Mmn.’ Adora mumbles, her hand curling around Catra’s. ‘About yesterday. Seeing you go under the water like that, I just couldn’t bear to lose you again. So I found myself here. I'm sorry.’

‘I get it. I seriously get it.’ Catra pushes Adora’s nose up so it resembles a pig. ‘You big stalker.’

Adora wrinkles her nose. ‘I’m glad you know now though. Eating Burger King everyday was awful.’

‘Then don’t eat here!’

‘But I wanted to see you.’ Adora pouts, and Catra rolls her eyes. So clingy.

‘Just you wait. I’ll take first place and get that scholarship so I can finally get out of this dump.’

The blonde smiles, but it slowly turns serious.

‘Catra...I know you don't want any help but it doesn't hurt to accept some? I'll bring food to you- proper food and not mouldy Burger King leftovers.’

The offer sounded tempting, especially to her empty stomach. But Catra forces herself to resist. She had her pride, and she knew better than to rely on Adora as a steady source of help.

‘I’m not gonna rely on you again, you know. I’m not here to fuel your savior complex, or to alleviate your guilt.’

Adora contemplates for a moment. If she thinks too hard she’ll injure her tiny brain, Catra scoffs.

‘If you won’t accept it for free...How about a trade?’

Catra raises an eyebrow, letting go of Adora’s face. ‘What do you want from me? Let me guess, same thing the other dudes who propositioned me for cash?’ She makes a lewd motion with her fingers, and Adora gasps in scandalized shock.

‘N-no! Wait, did you-’

Catra blinks, before realizing the insinuation. ‘Fuck no! I've never done anything with anyone except for-’

They both recall the CPR kiss from the day before, and they look away, faces burning.

After an awkward moment of silence, Adora speaks up.

‘How about we be friends again? That's all I ask for.’

‘Hah?’

‘Also you have to unblock me and allow me to message you!’ Adora says triumphantly, her eyes suddenly burning with intensity. It catches Catra off guard.

‘What the fuck? You see me at school?’

‘And I get to message you everyday.’

'Once a week.' Catra shoots back.

'Once every 3 days.' Adora says. She's too close, and it's frying Catra's brain.

'Fine!' Dealing with Adora was exhausting. How on earth Glimmer and Bow handled it, was beyond her.

Adora smiles, and it's almost blinding. ‘Great! I’ll start bringing you groceries then! Plus I owe you for the whole door breaking thing.’ She snatches up Catra’s old cracked phone, and starts adding herself as a contact.

‘Wait I forgot about that! Give my number back!’ She tries to swipe for the phone, but Adora lifts it out of reach.

‘Too late! Friendship is about not tallying about who owes who! It's equal!’

‘If I wasn't sick right now I’d pummel you to the ground.’

‘Nah you wouldn't.’ She was right but she wasn't gonna say that. ‘Come on, let’s take a photo together for my contact pic.’

Adora places her arm around Catra, angling the phone to get a good picture.

The flash blinds Catra, and when they turn to look at the screen it’s a less than flattering image. Catra’s face is scrunched up, while Adora has posed, looking flawlessly photogenic.

‘Ughh, do you have to be perfect at everything?’ Catra complains, ducking underneath her arm. ‘Delete it, I look like I’m having a seizure.’

‘Well I love it.’ Adora smiles, adding Catra’s number into her own phone. She’s looking at the photo fondly, sending it to herself. ‘It’s our first photo together.’

God, did Adora need to be this embarrassing all the time?

‘Yeah yeah, you sap.’ Catra grumbles, but she can’t help but smile too.

Flash .

‘You smiled! You smiled!’ Adora crows, grinning ear to ear from behind her phone camera. ‘And I got it on camera!’

‘I’m going to break your phone!’

This new 'friendship' with Adora was going to kill her.

#she-ra #she ra #spop #catradora #catra #adora #burger king au

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

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Anonymous asked:

I swear, at this rate, Marinette will end up being Akumatised and she will then literally put everyone into some sort of a Matrix-like reality just so she can sleep, and I will totally think it's justified. The poor girl needs to BREATHE!

Honestly, she deserves it.

Anonymous asked:

Am I imagining things or did Marinette pluck adrien’s hair and keep it? Wtf?! I know she’s being creepy but I feel so sorry for her character because anytime she’s tried to stop and be healthy she’s pushed back into obsession

...Is this talking about all the way back in “The Puppeteer 2″?

She thinks it’s a statue. You can get on her for doing what she thinks is taking a single strand of hair from the museum’s statue, but at the end of the day maybe Adrien shouldn’t have been pranking her and maybe if the writers hadn’t had Tikki tell Marinette to try acting which is what led her to go over-the-top in the first place, none of this would’ve happened.

Like, people can complain about it, I just don’t like it when people says stuff like “Marinette fOrCeD a kIsS onto Adrien!!!” without giving the context that she thought it was a statue (I’d also add that the statues in the museums are allowed to be touched as Nino touched one of them and there wasn’t a word about it; that doesn’t make Marinette taking anything from a “statue” okay but I’m just not letting the narrative drag me by the hair on this one).

Anonymous asked:

What’s your opinion on when people say Marinette is as bad as adrien? Personally I know she’s done some messed up shit (stalking, pillow thing etc) but she seemed to realise it was unhealthy and wanted to stop until she was convinced to peruse adrien again that’s why I defend her. What’s your opinion

...Unpopular opinion time: I’m okay with like 90% of what Marinette does concerning Adrien, and by that I mostly mean the pictures, perfuming her pillow, and all that stuff. Even the schedule and knowing Adrien’s favorite macaron flavors, I doubt she even got those via “stalking” (something which - when she’s done it - there’s always been another reason, like in “Volpina” with the grimoire or “Oni-Chan” where Marinette verbally stated what her concern was which literally ended up happening so her concern was entirely valid). “Lies” features news reporters literally following Adrien around for his daily life and there’s no way there aren’t tons of magazines talking all about the “sunshine boy” and what he likes.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that most of the choices are harmless. While some are indeed associated with obsessive creepy stalkers, but actual stalkers harass people, force themselves onto them, make threats to get what they want, and call a person repeatedly without relenting. Marinette, meanwhile, basically has a standard celebrity crush with typical cartoon exaggeration thrown in. The only person she’s harming is herself in episodes like “Troublemaker,” and that’s because she’s the writers’ favorite punching bag.

I’m not falling for it, I’ve just grown numb. She can have as many pictures as she wants and can have an Adrien the Fragrance air freshener for all I care (not gonna lie, a product like that sounds hilarious to vacuum money from teenage girls in-canon), because she’s not going up to Adrien and kissing his hand when he doesn’t want it, continuously confessing and making him feel bad for not returning her feelings, and putting Paris in danger because she thinks that Adrien isn’t treating her fairly.

(edit for certain people: no, obviously I’m not saying that everything she does concerning Adrien is harmless; I said 90% and “most of” for a reason, please pick up on this next time)

#category: salt #episode: The Puppeteer 2 #character: Marinette Dupain Cheng #other: ask and answer

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nicka-nell · 4 years

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Just one night - Chapter 3: Next night then (END)

Masterlist | Chapter 2 - That’s not right (Idk…a bit angst?)

Words: 3.640 Chapters: 3/3 (END) Pairing: Keishin Ukai x reader Narrative perspective: second person Warning: fluff, a bit angst, NSFW (the part is marked with NSFW) blow job, daddy kink, a bit violence and authority

You can easily skip the NSFW part. Nothing happens here that is important for the story. So if you don’t want to read something like this, you can skip it without hesitation and go on with the SFW part.

***NSFW - PART***

This time, you’re the one who won’t let him finish, bends back forward, wraps his cheeks with your hands, and pleasantly kisses him. A barely audible moan escapes Ukai as his hands slowly move your body down to your thighs. Little by little you feel his cold, rough hands pushing up your dress and finding their way to your ass.

“Mh… Take off your clothes.” he breathes in between the kisses and looks deep into your eyes. “Come on, little girl. Take off your clothes for me.” he says with more pressure in his voice.

Still looking at Ukai, you bite your lower lip and get up to take off your dress. The muffled sound of the fabric can be heard as you throw your dress on the floor and still look at Ukai. With a quiet murmur he looks at your body and leans back to the couch, his arms leaning against the backrest.

“Everything. Take off everything, little girl.” His voice is deep and his words are like a command in your ears. It’s an order you’ll execute quickly so you won’t upset Ukai. “Oh god…” It escapes Ukai quietly as he sees your shapely breasts. “Get down on your knees and show your daddy how your mouth works. Show me you’re my good little slut.” His voice gives you goose bumps and immediately you get down on your knees. You don’t know why, but this dominant Ukai makes you rub your legs tightly together and to hold back your moaning.

Still, your eyes are on Ukais as the click of his belt buckle is heard, you open the zipper of his pants and then frees his limb from his boxer shorts. When you see his already hard, big limb, you have to lick your lips at the sight. Ukai send out pure manhood for you.

You just want to use your hands and use them to touch Ukai’s best piece when he interrupts you in your movement. “No. Use your mouth, put your hands behind your back.” he commands. Quickly you put your hands on your back and open your mouth to take his best piece into you. “Mh… just like that baby girl.” Ukai moans and leans his head backwards. “Ah you use your mouth so well little one.” With these words he digs his hand into your hair and causes you to take his whole limb into you.

Quickly you choke up and tears form in the corners of your eye, as his tip repeatedly bumps against the back of your mouth. With his hand he forces you to make faster movements and again you have to choke briefly and give a small groan of you as your tears flow along your cheeks. You lose air, and you use your hands to support yourself on Ukai’s thighs and pull your head away from his member.

Hastily you gasp for air, but Ukai leans his arms against his thigh and looks at you with narrowed eyes. “Hey! Who told you to stop, brat?” he hisses. You look at him with big, glassy eyes. He looks so much more manly than before.

“Come on, on your feet. Lean over the couch. I think I need to teach you to be obedient again.” He whispers in your ear as he bends forward and embraces your tender neck with his large hand. As requested by him, you stand up without any contradictions and position yourself on the couch.

A quiet crack is heard and shortly after, you also hear the fabric of Ukais clothes and how they land on the ground. Only a few seconds pass before you feel his cold hands on your hip and his bare muscular upper body pressing against your back. Unlike his hands, the skin on his chest is warm and makes you growl softly. “I think I have to punish you for making me so angry. Right?” he breathes in your ear full of lust. “Yes please.” you moan and lift your hip to push your butt against his body.

In your movement, you feel his stiff member on your ass and notice directly how a benevolent feeling is spreading within you. “Well? Do you want it? Do you want my cock in you, you stupid little brat?” he whispers with a deep voice in your ear. Immediately you get goose bumps again.

“Yes, Keishin please! Give me your cock.” you moan and push your body further to him. “Who said you could call me Keishin, brat!” He hisses, and before you can improve, you can feel his hand on your ass. With all his strength, he’s smack it. “Ah!” you shout. A mixture of pain and pleasure spreads within you. “Ukai! Ukai! I’m sorry, Ukai!” you sob and once again feel his firm slap on your shapely butt. Your skin turns reddish at this point and it starts to poach. “No little one, wrong again, use that thing between your ears.” he hisses. “Daddy! I’m sorry! Please Daddy!” you sob again.

“Are you sorry? That’s good. “Be a good girl.” you hear his dark voice behind you and even before you can say anything, you feel his limb penetrating you with a massive push. “Ah!” you shout. It’s big and warm. You weren’t adjusted to this immense size. A benevolent pain spreads in your abdomen and makes you bite your lower lip.

However, this great feeling of fullness leaves you after just a few minutes. “Well, babe, tell me, what exactly should I do?” With these words, he hits his member against your ass and make you moan. “I want you. I want to feel your cock inside me.” You answer him with a whiny voice.

His deep smile rings out in your ears as Ukai bends back forward. “You are so tight baby girl. I’m coming.” he moans, rushing in and out of you. Faster… Deeper… Harder….

“Now come for me. Come with me baby girl.” He’s so deep inside you that you can’t really relate the pain. You don’t know if it’s pleasant or if it hurts. But you know you’re about to your climax. “Ah daddy I’m coming!” You moan loudly as your eyes roll backwards.

It does not take long until your juice wraps his member and the damp sounds of skin on skin can be heard loud. With shallow breath, Ukai falls on your back and pushes your body against the couch. He’s still inside you, and you feel every twitch in you. Ukai’s heartbeat is loud and his heavy breath tickles the skin on your neck.

“I’m sorry y/n.” he whispers softly as he gives you a loving kiss on the neck and supports himself with his arms left and right of you to stand up. A feeling of emptiness spreads within you as he pulls his limb out of you.

With shaky legs, you fall back on the couch and breathe deeply. Carefully Ukai caresses the place of your butt, which is still red from his hits. “I’m sorry y/n… I was much too rough on you.” he says with a suffering undertone. “No. If you had been too rough, I would have said so.” You try to calm him down with a loving look.

With a barely visible smile, he stands up from the couch and bends forward to lift your still shaky body. “Ah Ukai! What are you doing?” you ask in surprise and instinctively cling to his neck. “First of all, call me Keishin. Second, the bathroom was the first door on the left right? Then let me clean you up, and third, I would like to know with which save word you would have made me stop.” with his last words he grins mischievously.

You look at him with your eyebrow raised. “I would have just said, stop shitty old man.” As soon as you’ve spoken ‘shitty old man’, Ukai’s face is twisted. “Oh my god… can’t you just say nicotine or cigarette or something? Why do you have to drag my old one into this. Do you want me to never have sex with you again?” he complains, whiny.

“Nicotine? Really, Keishin you are impossible!” you laugh up and shake your head. “Speaking of nicotine… I have to smoke a cigarette.”, “But not in here! And if you want to complain now, you get the hell out of here.” You call without even giving him the chance to talk. “Okay, okay.” he pouts and opens the bathroom door, still with you in his arms.

Unlike before, he now gently and carefully washes your body with your sponge and never forgets to give you a few kisses in your neck.

***SFW - PART***

“Tell me… that earlier today…” Ukai tries to break the silence between the two of you as you sit next to each other in a blanket on the couch. “I don’t want it to be a one-time thing, Keishin. Sugawara told me to go on more offensive so you’d understand, and well, that’s what I’ve done. But if it is something one and only for you, then-” even before you can finish your sentence, Ukai looks at you perplexed and interrupts you.

“Suga- Sugawara? Didn’t you two flirt together? Wait… Sugawara knows about us? How did he know before I did? Listen, as long as you’re in school, no one should know!” his voice is serious and for a moment you have the feeling that in his look there is a hint of anger.

“First of all, it was Sugawara’s idea to flirt with him because he wanted to lure you out of the closet. And secondly, Sugawara, Azumane, Sawamura and Shimizu know. They all keep their mouths shut. So it’s up to us whether it comes out or not.” sighing, you fold your arms and examine Ukai.

Sighing, he leans forward and leans on his thighs, his hands in front of his face. “Y/n listen, I don’t care if your friends, my mother or the shitty old man know it. You may only be in school for a few more months but if one of the teachers notices this with us, you jeopardize your graduate. I don’t care if I get kicked out or not. I still have the store. But you still have a lot to do. I’m sure you want to study. So… I mean, I don’t want it to be just something one and only between us. But I think it’s better if we really keep this a secret. Not meet so often, and only after your time at school, deal with it openly.”

“So now you want to go and talk to me again in a few months or do something with me, or how can I imagine that?” His words make you feel uncomfortable. Sighing, he puts his hand to his forehead. “Keishin?” you bend over and reach out for him. But Ukai stops you. Because with his hand still resting on his thigh, he grabs your wrist and looks at you seriously.

With a strong jerk he pulls you to himself. “It would be most reasonable if we stopped seeing each other while you were in school. But I guess I’m too selfish… At school, you are the student and manager of our team. After school, you’ll come to my store with the others. Only then you’ll stay with me and put your sexy ass on my lap. In my store, you’ll be my little girl. We just have to be careful. Besides, my mother will be sad if I don’t take you with me for now…” he laughs and buries his head in your neck.

All right. So at school, you’re sensei Ukai, and after school, in your shop, you’re my old, cigarette-smelling Keishin.” you smile and look at him mischievously. “You can call me sensei after school too. I like that.” he whispers and bites your neck lovingly. “Hey!” you giggle, and smoothly push him away from you.

“Good. Then let’s keep our little secret as secret as possible.” He whispers, and conspiratorially you look into each other’s eyes. Nodding, you put your arms around his neck and seal the secret with a loving kiss.

In school, you do well to avoid each other or pretend to be just a manager and a trainer. In his shop, however, as soon as the students are gone and the doors are closed, you fall over each other.

Today you’re a little tense because you have a game against Nekoma. Besides, today is your last day as a substitute manager. The last day you can see Ukai so much. “There is Kenma!” As the team of Nekoma enters your gym, Hinata’s joyful voice takes you out of your mind.

Quickly their captain becomes aware of you and grins at you with a mischievous look. “Hello you pretty kitten. I’m Kuroo.” he calls to you as he moves in your direction and takes your hand to leave a short kiss on the back of your hand. “I wasn’t told the Karasuno boys had such a pretty manager.” He still bends over to you as his quiet words enter your ears.

“Yes, I’m only their manager temporarily. Today is my last day.” You answer a little annoyed and pull your hand away from him. “Oh, what? Well, let me buy you a drink later after we win. What do you think?” Grinning, he puts his arm around your shoulders and presses you towards him.

“Y/N! STOP FLIRTING WITH THE OPPONENTS AND HELP THE BOYS WARM UP!” angry and loud, Ukai’s voice echoes through the gym. The sleeves of his jacket are pulled up and his hands clenched to fists as he looks at you and the pretty captain of Nekoma.

“I’m sorry. I have to go. Another time I like to drink something with you Kuroo.” you try to sound as normal as possible as you go back to your team with a waving hand movement without looking at Ukai again.

The sets you play are quite balanced. Sometimes Nekoma wins, sometimes Karasuno wins. All are focused on the game and everyone has fun. All except for Ukai. With his arms crossed in front of his chest, he looks at the players on the field without even giving you a look or talking to you.

“Stop being so uptight. This looks conspicuous.” You whisper to him hidden behind your block. “What… I just focus on the players.” He hisses and leans forward. You decide to leave him alone for the time being and concentrate on the game.

After a total of six sets, you decide to say goodbye to Nekoma. “So if this was your last day as a manager, maybe you want to give me your number?” asks Kuroo, who is about to leave the hall. “Eh… Y- Yes… give me your phone. Then I type in the number.” Embarrassed you scratch the back of your head and already feel the angry looks of Ukai.

“Thanks l/n.” Kuroo grins and walks out of the gym. “That was perhaps a few exhausting sets…” yawns Sugawara, who is just hanging the net with Asahi. “That was indeed a lot… You’ve done a good job. I’m proud of you. Now go to the club room, change, pack your things and go home. Eat your food and rest. L/n and I clean up the rest of this place and then lock down the gym.” His voice is serious as he rests his hands on his hip.

Nodding, the boys also say goodbye to you and only Ukai and you remain. An unpleasant silence spreads. “So…” you try to break the silence, but Ukai takes only the already dropped volleyball net into his hands and turns around. “Come with me.” he commands. Swallowing, you dare not to contradict him and follow him with quick steps.

With a murmur he puts the volleyball net behind the car with the sports mats, when you start to play behind him with your hair. “Keishin I don’t know what I did to make you so angry but if it’s because of Kuroo… Believe me, I don’t want anything from-” even before you can finish your sentence, you feel Ukai’s hand on your wrist and how he pulls you to him with huge force.

His rough lips land coarsely on yours as he presses you down on the sports mats. “Admit it y/n, you did it on purpose. You wanted to drive me crazy on purpose.” He whispers as he holds your hands over your head on the mat. With his eyes clenched, he starts biting your neck, opening the buttons of your blouse with his free hand, and slowly going down to your skirt.

“K- Keishin…” You’re moaning. You notice how your cheeks take on a reddish color and bite your lower lip. “Daddy will show you what to do with bad girls like you.” he grins and embraces your chest with his hand. The hand that held your wrists just now leaves a cold spot.

Between all the kisses and bites, you don’t hear his pants fall to the ground, and how he presses against you. “Keishin! What if someone sees us?” You ask hastily when you realize that you are in the storeroom and that the door is wide open. “Then you should probably be quiet and suppress your sweet moans.” he breathes to you while he bites your neck again. “Mh…” you try to avoid your moaning. “Ukai-san? Are you still here?” The voice of sensei Takeda suddenly makes you wince. You look at each other with your eyes wide open.

“Shit.” Ukai flees quietly and looks forward. “Come on, get down.” he whispers and presses you down, so that Takeda could only see Ukai’s upper body, in case he should come into the storage room.

Huddled up, you sit in front of Ukai, whose pants are still on the floor, and only now do you notice that even your bag, which you had put in the storage room so that no one stumbles over them during the game against Nekoma, is in the back corner. Quickly you get your phone out of the chest pocket of your blouse and look for Sugawara’s number.

“Sensei… sensei Takeda. Yes, I’m still here. Don’t worry, I’ll be ready to close the gym soon. You can go.” Ukai’s nervous voice is heard. “Do you need help? Just wait a moment, I’ll be right with you.” Takeda calls him and stands before Ukai can stop him in the storage room.

“Oh…is l/n also here?” he asks, wondering when he looks at your bag. Still nervous Ukai looks at your bag and then, for a short moment, down to you. “I’m sorry.” you shape the words with your lips silently.

“Eh yes… so… no she… She went home with the boys. She probably left her bag here.” He laughs embarrassedly and puts his hand on the back of his head. “Oh, okay… I’ll take the bag and take it to the teachers’ room.” Takeda smiles friendly and walks towards your bag. “Oh no…” you say barely audible. Where is Sugawara?

“Oh there it is!” you hear a familiar voice that lets you breathe out. “Sugawara?” Surprised, Ukai and Takeda look at him. “Hello Sensei Takeda. Y/n forgot her bag and wrote to me. I was still here because… Because I wanted to ask you something about graduation for the third-graders.” Grinning, he walks past Takeda and quickly grabs your bag without even looking in your direction.

“So Sensei Takeda? Do you have a minute to go to the teachers’ room and maybe talk about graduation?”, “Uh… Yes sure. Let’s get out of here, Sugawara. Goodbye Ukai-san.” With a waving hand movement, the two say goodbye to Ukai and leave the sports hall.

Sighing, Ukai rejects his head on the sports mats and then reaches out to your hand to help you up. “That was too close… Sorry about that.” he sighs again. But you can’t help giggling. “Sugarawa saved our asses. Besides, it was kind of exciting.” Still smiling, you put your hands around his cheeks and make him look at you.

“Exciting? So that’s what you kids find exciting these days? That was too much stress for me. I think if this continues like that, I’m not getting old.” He laughs, weeping, and lays his head on your shoulder. “I’m really sorry. I should have been more careful. No, actually, this shouldn’t have happened.”

“I think… We’ll postpone that from today to another time? To the next evening?” you laugh out loud. Now he’s the one who has to giggle and give you a kiss on the forehead. “Yes. Next night then.”

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 4 years

Text

Psycho Analysis: The Moonchild

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

I feel like this one was inevitable. As soon as I decided to bust open the doors on literary mediums like books and comics, this guy was always going to loom over me. Well, let’s just bite the bullet and talk about him.

In the final portion of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Centuries, we are introduced to Oliver Haddo’s ultimate creation… a creation he is incredibly disappointed in. You see, the Antichrist or Moonchild is a whiny, miserable young adult strung out on prescription drugs because he went mad after realizing what he was being manipulated into. He is the subject of derision by all who know him, and is treated like a punching bag by most of the narrative, up to and including God literally telling him he’s a bitch. Our villain here is just a miserable, whiny, kind of misogynistic brat who doesn’t even want to be a villain, and in general is just unpleasant and ineffective save for a school massacre he pulls off.

Oh yeah, and his real name is Harry Potter. Kind of an important detail, that.

Motivation/Goals: So as the antichrist, you’d think Mr. Potter might, you know, maybe want to bring about the end of days and all that. But no! He actually pops pills and isolates himself in Grimmauld Place so that he doesn’t do that! He doesn’t want to be the Antichrist and, really, who would? Most of his screentime is thus spent whining, until he ultimately decides to embrace being the Antichrist because he feels he has no other choice. We’ll get into all of that in a bit, but honestly, his motivation is extremely weak despite the incredibly graphic setup we’re given to his downward spiral: when he first discovered he was being manipulated by Satanists, he went on a magical school shooting, shown to us in a first-person perspective to emulate the games that were often blamed for real school shootings. We get to see Harry slaughter Ron, Hermione, Snape, Dumbledore, and so on, we get to see what he did to Hogsmeade and the Hogwarts Express, and absolutely none of it is pleasant.

With setup like that you’d expect maybe a little more intrigue and indecision, maybe some sort of conflict between fate and choice or something beyond Harry sitting around half-naked, high off of antidepressants, being a whiny little bitch, but you might be giving the dude who wrote a porno where the kids from Peter Pan engage in underage incest a bit too much credit.

Final Fate: So Harry has gone absolutely bonkers and it seems that nothing can possibly stop him; our heroes seem to be written into a corner. So what does Moore do? He has God - who in this universe is Mary Poppins - descend from the heavens and have her say how she protects the imaginations of children and how she just straight up hates Harry. Never mind that Harry is quite literally an abused child who was twisted by the cruel machinations of a body surfing wizard, apparently he’s a child not worth protecting or caring about and is unworthy of sympathy. Anyway, Mary Poppins just turns him into a chalk drawing and that’s the end of that.

Great writing, Alan Moore, critically acclaimed creator of Watchmen!

Best Scene: Saying Harry here had a ‘best scene’ is seriously pushing it, because literally every moment he’s on the page the comic just beats you over the head with Moore’s biases. I wish I could put the school shooting sequence, because the idea behind it is legitimately intriguing, but the whole sequence is just interwoven with Moore whacking off his hateboner for the series. But on the subject of boners… well, I think there’s only one panel that can truly and adequately sum up this entire character and how much of a miserable failure he is. Those who have followed me for a long time knew this was coming, but for the rest of you, behold - Harry Potter Dick Lightning:

Final Thoughts & Score: Quite frankly, this is the worst thing Alan Moore has ever done.

I’m not even mad as a fan of Harry Potter; Moore was honestly ahead of his time in hating the franchise to this level. The issue I have is that he doesn’t really deconstruct or criticize in any meaningful way, he just is doing edgy “take that” stuff that you’d expect from a chump like Garth Ennis. Like, the concept here is incredibly solid and intriguing - this version of Harry has been groomed from birth by Satanists to become the Antichrist, with all of his adventures fabricated and all of his relationships manufactured to keep him under the illusion he is a hero to mankind. Upon discovering the truth, he snaps, massacres everyone at his school for their role in his manipulations, and went into exile to stave off the apocalypse, although he ultimately and bitterly accepts his role because he feels he was never given a choice… and he wasn’t! He’s an incredibly depressing and miserable deconstruction of the concept of “The Chosen One,” and yet the whole thing falls apart on multiple levels.

The first is that the Harry Potter franchise already deconstructs the concept of “The Chosen One;” the text goes out of its way to point out that Voldemort’s own actions are what is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by targeting someone with the will and drive to fight back against him. Harry’s not so much chosen by fate so much as forcibly chosen by an evil manipulator… and that’s basically what we have here, but with less substance. Moore doesn’t really comment on anything, instead leading into the second big issue - Harry’s whole role is to be a strawman punching bag villain so that Moore can complain about modern fantasy franchises. Moore seems to view Harry as the epitome of the lazy regurgitation of the same story over and over that modern blockbuster culture so often falls into… except that Harry Potter was an original product developed by one person and had no artificial longevity slapped onto the franchise in the form of unneeded sequels or spinoffs to extend the lifespan of the franchise at the time Moore wrote this. Throw in the fact Moore just in general seems extremely contemptuous of any post-70s pop culture in Centuries and how Harry is ultimately taken down by crusty old characters from older literature really just leads to Moore coming across as a grumpy old man who hates anything new, not helped by his tired criticisms of millennials and their perceived lack of culture. Maybe Moore would have had more of a point if he created this storyline today, but he didn’t. Thus, he has no point and he just looks like a miserable old fart.

Sure, you can argue that maybe Moore’s basic parody of the character by exaggerating his tendencies to their logical extreme and attacking elements of the plot that had been criticized to death by fans to begin with has its place, and perhaps you could even say that the take in the comic is just an extreme take on how Harry acted in the fifth book, what with the lashing out at his friends and his general feeling of a lack of control, and there is some merit to that, or there would be if Moore’s own unrepentant bias didn’t undermine everything. Look, you can hate Harry Potter, but then why slap it into your work? It’s supremely cringey when people insert characters they hate into fanfiction and just completely derail their characters so that they can treat them like garbage with the narrative, and is that not what Moore did here? Is League not just public domain fanfiction? There’s a reason why I coined “Harry Potter Dick Lightning” as a phrase used to showcase a moment where a fanwork’s contempt for a character becomes so extreme that it not only jumps the shark, it rockets over it into the upper atmosphere. Any criticisms or messages Moore is trying to convey is tarnished by his blatant, seething contempt for the character, and that gets in the way of good writing and good storytelling. Having two characters express pity at having to murder an abused child who was warped by Satanists into being a tool of the apocalypse does not make up for how the narrative constantly mocks, belittles, and treats him like garbage to the point he really can’t function as an effective villain that can be taken seriously.

All of this adds up to what I’d argue is the absolute worst villain in all of fiction, bar none. There is just not a single redeeming quality about the Antichrist as a character. None. Nothing. I cannot think of another villain that so completely fails on every single level as this one does. He doesn’t work as an antagonist because most of the bad things he does are offscreen and he doesn’t come into conflict with the heroes until the very end, and most of his screentime features him doing nothing of note. He doesn’t work as a critique, because he is acting as a criticism for things his character never really represented in the first place. He only really functions as the sort of garbage you’d see in My Immortal, where the characters you know and love are turned into evil jerks because the writer hates them - but he even fails at being that, because at least My Immortal is funny about it!

I am going out on a limb and saying that there cannot possibly be a villain that so utterly fails at everything it sets out to be as hard as Harry does. I don’t even want to try and believe it. And so, without hesitation, I am giving Moore’s shallow Potter parody a 0/10. And I pray to Mary Poppins that this is the only one of those I ever dish out, because I really don’t want to imagine what could possibly be worse than Harry Potter Dick Lightning.

#Psycho Analysis #Harry Potter #the league of extraordinary gentlemen #Alan Moore #Centuries #The Antichrist #The Moonchild

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misunderstoodnotevil · 4 years

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Series 1, episode 2

Society classes. The upstairs and the downstairs. The aristocrats, the upper (as Isobel kindly provides) middle-class, the servants. Those who can talk and those who can't. There's a right there, and some have it and others don't. The writing narrative; the protagonists and the antagonists. The good and the bad. Everything is muddled. I could write long essays about each and every character and their interactions with the other characters and focus on the writer's own bias and prejudice (should I dare call it hypocrisy considering it’s clearly shown by the characters themselves?) that reflects on the character like on a newly ajax sprayed mirror. Alas, in this page, we'll stick to Thomas.

Thomas' age is unspecified -mostly due to Rob's age- but, I wonder if he can be older than in his late teens. So, until I'm proven wrong in regards to this, I will consider him a teenager (as weird as it seems). Miss O'Brien seems to be the only ally he has in the Abbey. And the both of them are -for reasons unknown as of yet- the antagonists.

When Thomas asks Mr. Carson if the latter has seen the new "family", his reply implies he doesn't think much of them. "I have that pleasure to look forward to this evening." "Pleasure" is uttered with an air of sarcasm. He won't be pleased to meet them. Cora doesn't want them at the beginning. The Dowager doesn't even try to be polite towards Isobel during their first meeting. Mary doesn't want them. But the issue, the one criticised is Miss O'Brien. Thomas follows his "betters" behaviour if you think about it when he serves Matthew "I will hold it steady and you can help yourself, sir." Everyone has declared Matthew a savage. Even if he isn't.

"Poor old Molesley. I pity the man who's taken that job."

How does Bates know Thomas applied for the job? Because, as Thomas himself says afterwards, Carson told him.

"I thought it might help me to get away from you, Mr Bates. " Why does Thomas want to get away from Mr. Bates. As I wrote for the first episode, all we know is that Bates took the job he wanted and apparently for Thomas, that's an insult as he think Bates can't be as good in the job as he is (and he may be right about it). Again, the issue is Thomas doesn't say anything particularly awful (as opposed to other times) but they frame him here as the "antagonist".

* "She's a match for the old lady. She wasn't going to give in." Thomas says about Isobel (and Violet) to another maid, and he's been heard by Carson who doesn't hesitate to threaten him with his job. "What old lady are you referring to, Thomas? You cannot mean Her Ladyship the Dowager Countess. Not if you wish to remain in this house." It's not as if Violet is a young woman, is she?

When Carson talks with Hughes about Matthew being the heir which is the reason Mary doesn't like him, Carson is not only to justify her dislike of the man but criticise the law. And I don't question the fact he's right about the law not permitting women to inherit their fathers fortune, here is how he treats the woman with the most privilege in the Abbey thinking she should have even more privilege as opposed to threatening the one lower than him with his job.

Fast forward towards the end of the episode when Mr. Hughes calls Violet "an old bat". "I want to see the old bat's face when they announce it. I must try not to look too cheerful. Or shouldn't I talk like that in your presence?" and Carson doesn't mind one bit because a. he has his own problems of humiliation and b. he sees Ms. Hughes as an equal. However, old bat is far worse than the old lady Thomas said. Thomas expressed an opinion based on the interaction he witnessed between Isobel and Violet and he was right. Ms. Hughes in contrast is amused by Violet losing the battle. Even in this case Thomas is the antagonist.

"I don't think that's fair. Not here in the servants' hall."

Cora catches O'Brien speaking against Matthew at the servants' hall and calls out her behaviour. She calmly threatens her in a way. "Your sailing perilously close to the wind, O'Brien. If we're to be friends, you will not speak in that way again" They are not friends. O'Brien is at least right about that. If they were friends she would have been able to speak as she wanted to, like Violet or Mary. They are not the same. O'Brien is there to listen to Cora complains but she should never take it to heart because the latter can easily "remove her friendship". People are treated differently for saying the same things. Because people are not equal. It's not what they say, it's what they are.

It drives me up the wall.

And when Thomas tries to support him but claiming they have a right to speak their mind down there, Ms. Hughes is there to stop him. "Not when I'm in charge! Don't push your luck, Thomas." Don't push your luck Thomas, you have no right to speak or else...!

And O'Brien is right when she says to Anna that they -even the servants among themselves- are not friends she's right, and Anna proves it when she complains to Ms. Hughes Thomas is bullying William. As if Carson and Hughes haven't bullied and threatened him with their power over him his job.

"I'm sick of being a footman."

Thomas is fixing a clock in the yard when Ms. O'Brien finds him. She wonders how Carson permit him to do it, and Thomas has the skill as his father was a clockmaker. It's a bit surprising that that's an information Ms. O'Brien doesn't know because out of everyone else seem to be the closer (he does ask her to dance with him the grizzly bear before he goes with Daisy, as if he's certain she knows how to dance too), but I guess it was a way for the audience to know. Despite the fact she's part of the servants class, O'Brien thinks Matthew is no superior of her m, but instead of wanting to be a step up like he is, she wants to pull him down with her. "I'd rather be a footman than wait on someone who ought to be a footman himself," she says when Thomas admits he's tired of the job. Thomas' ambitions never work. But he seems to want to better himself. Both of them hate their work, but both of them know they need to be well liked by the "upstairs" if they want to keep working.

#Downton Abbey #Thomas Barrow #series watching #should I call this analysis?#noteviltexts #DA watching

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isoscele · 4 years

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Told you it’d be sporadic. Have an entirely unedited entry for @lumberjanesweek Day Four- AU Day.

*jazz hands* Roanokes in spaceeeeeee!

Once the airlock is securely shut and the crew has been shuttled off to bed in varying states of complaining exhaustion, Jen whirls on Abigail. “Are you out of your mind?”

Abigail looks like the kind of person whose picture was all over the slideshows in Academy lectures. The horror story--what happens when the siren call of deep space gets strong enough to feel in the backs of your teeth, when you let it take you over. Abigail is waxy from years without any kind of sunlight, whittled out by a lack of light or consistent circadian rhythms. The bags under her eyes have their own gravities.

“No one told me they were kids,” Abigail says. Her first words since the safety lock failed. The replicator poured her a thermos of tasteless coffee, but her hands are shaking too bad to hold it. “Rosie didn’t--I thought--”

“You know Rosie?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Another sign of spacesickness: her gaze, flitting all around the cramped cabin, unable to rest for more than a few seconds. Scanning for exits.

Jen sighs, and digs in the icebox for something to do with her hands. “My crew is . . . unorthodox.” She has to choose her words carefully. “Sometimes I wish things were different. But you endangered every one of my girls, and you endangered me.”

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” Abigail says. “I just--it has to die. Jen? It can’t hurt anyone else.”

Jen just wants to go to bed. “The protocol for unrecorded extraterrestrial beings requires a committee of seasoned graduates to attempt communication. What you did today could get you locked up for the rest of your life.”

“It hurts people,” Abigail says. “We don’t have time for that bureaucratic bullsh--bull poop, sorry.”

“I’m seventeen,” Jen says, biting down on the familiar exhausted urge to break into laughter. “You can curse around me.”

“The teenage captain of the child crew,” Abigail says quietly. She tries to take a sip of the coffee, winces at the heat. “Jen, is this an adventure story or a tragedy?”

Jen rolls the word tragedy around the edges of her tongue. Abigail, shaky-handed, in Jen’s cockpit, looking for all the world like someone who’s already been chewed up by too many black holes to name. Jen wasn’t supposed to graduate from the Academy for another three years. Most people don’t ask, when they talk to her. “I guess it depends who you ask.”

“Let me guess,” Abigail says. “You tell me if I’m getting it right. Okay?” Without waiting for Jen’s response, she plunges into what is clearly a well-worn narrative. “You’re top of your class at the Academy, but they’ve been pushing back your actual missions for months for reasons you can’t get anyone to tell you. Someone--maybe a friend of a friend, a mentor, even Rosie herself--suggests that you’d be the perfect candidate for the Qiunzella Program, and you sign up because you need the flight hours and it’s not like you’ve got anything else going on. You’re given a skeleton crew of enthusiastic kids whose parents wanted them to have the experience of living on a real certified ship, even if it is the worst bucket of bolts they could find in the hangar. You follow all the programming, meet up three times a day for activities with other ships, keep a constant line of communication with Rosie, and stay well within your boundaries.”

Abigail leans back in her chair, managing to look composed even as it clearly tips her back farther than she expected. “This is the part where I lost the narrative,” she says. “I figure that either something catastrophic happened to pull you off-course, or Rosie didn’t read you the brochure all the way.”

“We’re within boundaries,” Jen says, trying not to chew on the inside of her lip. She knows her tells so much better now, after eight weeks of BS games with Ripley. “Haven’t left the campground.”

“I don’t think it’s your fault,” Abigail says, in a way that makes it very clear whose fault she thinks it is.

“I would know if we left the campground,” Jen says, but she can hear the desperation in her own voice. It was fine when her protegés smuggled some Bellerophonian marsupial on board and started feeding it April’s scrunchies and Jen’s spare AAA batteries. It was fine when they got attacked the first time--surely a simulation--and the second time, and the third time when the hole in the hull was so big that they all might have asphyxiated if Jo wasn’t around. It was even fine when they lost communication with Rosie, when the message boards glitched out one by one until even Zodiac, the last holdout, started sending transmissions that were nothing but forty minutes of static.

They even, by some miracle, got to the other side of today. Even Abigail, with her burnt fingers and twenty years of isolation, is sitting in Jen’s ship and drinking from Jen’s Junior Deluxe Space Camp Plus! thermos and looking ridiculously alive for somebody in her position.

But none of this makes sense because Jen knows how to read the fancy compass attached to the console, and she understands star charts better than half the Academy graduates that go on to be bigshot captains, and she would absolutely notice if they left the campground. They haven’t left the campground.

“There’s nothing here,” Jen says. “There should be nothing here. Like--bacteria and stuff maybe, for collection and recording and teaching the kids how to run a gel electrophoresis and enough satellites to run some of the more complex simulations, but this is--it’s like an amusement park. It’s for kids. It’s safe.”

“They said it was safe when I went, too,” Abigail says. “They’ve always said it was safe.”

Jen grips the edge of the table until her knuckles go white. “What are you saying?”

Abigail takes a long draught of coffee. When she sets the cup down, she looks like a shell of a person, waxed-out and still trembling, head to toe, almost imperceptibly. There’s something in her eyes that reminds Jen of the way she looked, lighting the dynamite, the way her eyes were almost silver in the burn of far-off stars, like little oil spills. She’d been crying, tethered to the hull of her tiny pod by one ankle.

“You’re right about one thing,” Abigail says. “You’re still in the campground. Everything else . . .?” She spreads out her hands, a sort of forced casualness. “I think you already know.”

Molly’s just going back to her cabin, listening for the slow shh of the automatic doors, when she sees a glint of blue in the shadows behind the kitchen. She stops.

“Rip,” she says softly. “Are you okay?”

Ripley nods. The movement is so jerky that she almost looks like an old stop-motion movie in the buzz of the ever-faulty halogen lights.

Molly slips out of the hallway. She’s accustomed to moving silently. She wears socks everywhere on the ship, takes each step with a precision that she’s never seen from any of her friends. You can go a galaxy away from home, but something always follows you. She slides an arm around Ripley’s shoulder in a one-armed hug.

“Jen’s talking to Abigail,” Ripley says. Her face, creased with concern, still stained by a black smudge of charcoal. Her teeth are the color of copper nitrate, from the Popsicle she snuck from the cooler when they got back. “I’m making sure Abigail doesn’t explode Jen and try to take over the ship like in Star Jump.”

“Eavesdropping, huh?” Molly draws closer to the door. She can hear Abigail’s voice, the low scratch of it. She can’t hear Jen at all, but there are two silhouettes in the fingernail of light on the tile.

“Bodyguarding,” Ripley corrects firmly.

“Right.” Molly rubs the inside of her wrists. She can still feel the ghost of the Thing’s claws, cold to the touch and exuding exactly the right amount of pressure to hold her without breaking the skin. Mal disappeared into her cabin two hours ago to write a letter to her mom. Molly can’t imagine finding the words to describe what happened today, can’t imagine letting it cross the threshold of the ship. The fear, and the pain, and the anger burning like nothing else does, in space.

“I made hot milk,” Ripley says, “and I was going to look for the chocolate powder but I got distracted.”

“I think it’s behind the popcorn,” Molly says. “I’ll get it, okay?”

They curl up together, as if conserving heat, in the shadow of the tall block of cabinets. The microwave beeps, quiet as if not to disturb the moment. Molly stirs the cocoa with her finger, and listens for the recurring loop of Abigail’s voice.

It has the cadence of a story. One they might never hear.

April and Jo lie side by side on Jo’s bed. April traces the careful lettering of her journal, red cover and a going-away present and really, really nice. The pens bleed through every page, each entry scattered with omens of the next one.

Jo’s half-asleep and trying to keep her ankle elevated. April’s head is on her stomach. They can feel each other’s heartbeats, much too fast and nearly aligned. The old books Jo’s dads tucked into the bottom of her suitcase are half-covered by the sheets, each opened to a different tea-stained page.

April runs one finger down the margins of the bestiary, and the other across the line of Jo’s scalp. With Jo’s arm wrapped around her, she can almost pretend the bruises on her sternum are merit badges. She flips the page, and stops breathing.

“Grootslang,” she whispers, just to feel the word in her mouth. A rubbery, oiled-down taste. Jo shifts, and opens her eyes, brow tight with inherited fear.

Mal wraps her wrists around her ankles. Touches the tips of her knees with her chin. Catalogs every bit of her body, piece by piece, a framed deconstruction.

“God dammit,” she whispers. Outside her wide bay windows, planets glitter like shed scales. “God fucking dammit.”

#lumberjanes #lumberjanes week #my writing

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