#I've made some progress on other parts of the scene too

[cilil]

Hi, do you have any advices for budding writers on AO3 or here?

Hey! :)

I've given this some thought and compiled what I hope might be some helpful pointers, but if there's anything else or anything specific you want to hear more about, feel free to ask again. Also I'm assuming this is about the amazing craft of fanfic and not, uh, building a platform or whatever (I wouldn't be very helpful with that, I'm a nobody x)).

Share what you feel comfortable sharing.

So since you're asking about budding writers on AO3 and Tumblr, I take it you're at a point where you feel comfortable sharing your writing online, which is amazing. Nevertheless, I feel the need to once again mention (just for anyone who may be in the same or a similar situation) that it's completely alright not to be comfortable with it (yet) or not to share everything you write. I share almost everything simply because I'm annoying and it makes me feel accomplished and since I've grown pretty comfortable with it, I might as well; but not everyone feels that way and feelings also change. It's completely alright to write just for yourself or a small circle of friends.

Don't worry too much about "being good".

I will be the first to admit that I deeply relate to struggling with perfectionism when it comes to writing (and other creative pursuits). However, as someone who's been reading fic for many years, tends to be into quite niche and obscure things sometimes and is rarely spoiled by big fandoms' abundance of food, I want all writers, especially new ones, to know that you don't have to write the most amazing, perfect, publishing-ready pieces. What matters is your passion and creativity, which will show in your writing regardless of skill level. Not to mention that fic is free and in fact a tool for many to experiment.

That's not to say you can't strive to improve or be good - by all means, I find it admirable if you want to hone your craft and make progress as you continue to write. Just don't let perfectionism ruin your fun and stifle your creativity.

How to get better without trying overly hard.

Aside from just writing, writing and writing (that is the most important part though), how do you improve without making it a point to do so? Well, if it works for you to read/watch guides or you enjoy specific writing exercises, that's great, but one thing that I find gets overlooked a lot in writing spaces is simply: Reading. Just reading for fun.

I find that I often discover little things in other people's writing that I really like and then I think to myself "wow, that's really neat how they did that, maybe I could take a page out of their book" (pun intended) and make it a point to pay attention to these things when I write. Essentially, it's like creating a nice patchwork blanket which is your style, made up of your own voice and preferences as a writer and cool stuff you picked up on the road.

Let me just name some examples, which, yes, are also an excuse to shamelessly blow some writer friends of mine a well-deserved kiss of appreciation. @sauron-kraut writes incredibly polished short stories with beautiful wording and atmosphere that have a lot of little hidden things to discover and dissect, and I want to steal her ability to set the stage and hide those easter eggs. @a-world-of-whimsy-5 is an absolute legend when it comes to writing medieval and medieval-adjacent stuff, and I learned so much from her fics. @i-did-not-mean-to has a way of writing with such esprit and wit that I always end up in a good mood after, a style of narrative voice I've adored for over a decade, and I've greatly improved my humorous writing in particular thanks to her. @crackinthecup has the marvelous ability to craft extremely emotionally evocative scenes, which have encouraged me to be more courageous and experimental in my sentence melody and structure. @tragedybunny has a way of writing that reminds me of coming home to a warm and comfy place, and I will find out how she did it and how I can do it as well.

So as you can see, it can be super helpful to compare notes with your fellow writers. Never be discouraged by someone else's ability; instead learn and expand your own.

Feedback, criticism and community.

Let me just get one thing out of the way: You don't have to take criticism from everyone. Or at all. As far as I understand, the fanfic community has come to to agree that we're doing this for fun and don't give criticism unprompted/when we aren't sure it's wanted or welcome. As a general rule: Take criticism from those you would also seek advice from. Ask for feedback if you feel comfortable, and if not, that's a valid boundary to have and I will gently smack anyone who presumes to pick apart writing that was made for fun and generously shared with the community for free.

The community aspect, however, should be taken into account on other fronts. While I won't tell anyone they have to interact and believe that, in an ideal world, everyone's writing would just speak for itself, it is helpful to engage with the community. Things you can do (both on Tumblr and AO3 if also applicable/possible) include: Respond to people interacting with your works, interacting with other people's works (for example while you're doing your reading sessions and looking at other writers' styles) and just overall being present, being talkative, going with the flow.

Again, this is not a must. But I will say that pretty much all of us want positive responses and interactions on their work and that just won't work if you expect everyone to show up for you all the time and never show up for anyone else. Engagement, passion and community are our "currency" in the absence of money and reciprocity is an important element of that. A lot of friction and complaints in the fanfic community regarding lack of interaction or entitlement are rooted in misunderstandings of this fundamental principle.

But don't take this in a cynical manner. Seek out what you enjoy, share the joy and passion and you'll make friends just accidentally - which is the part that I find makes fandom on AO3 and Tumblr so much fun! (I don't even want to be a "traditional" author anymore, I want this instead😁)

Find your groove and groove along.

Lastly, make sure your writing is fun for you or else it'll become a chore and eventually get ruined for you as a hobby. This is unfortunately a continuous task as your needs and interests shift - for example you might be in the mood to do an entire drabble challenge one month and during another month you feel so drained that you couldn't do another one. Or you might want to write something different for a change. Or whatever it may be.

Either way, one recent lesson I've learned is that I got too tied up in obligations and it left no space for spontaneous inspiration, so I never got to write what I wanted to write in the moment and it pushed me quite close to burnout. Do yourself a favor and always hold that space for yourself. In practice, this could for example mean that you do one event and on the side write this cool new idea you had, instead of doing three events - which is fun and games until it starts getting too much and you don't have time for your passion projects.

Finding your groove also includes the whole technical aspect, such as which writing programs you use, which device (or none at all), where you write, how to make yourself comfortable, how to get in the right headspace for things. I would also like to encourage all of you to be a bit crazy and whimsical about this: For example I've gone to the perfume store, picked out a scent for a specific character in a specific scene and sniffed it while writing the description several times now. Do what it takes. And say goodbye to your squeaky clean search history - you will research some weird stuff just to get that one line right.

So yeah, these are just my random thoughts on fic writing and what has been helpful in order for me to have lots of fun with this hobby. Happy writing!

[tootkin-art]

Still working on my small diorama for the YCH project, I am done with the modeling and progressing well on the textures. I love painting textures. My ultimate goal is to create something like Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. I bought a PS3 just for that game when it came out (blessed time when I had money) and I'm still in awe at the environments when I play it.

It's bittersweet, to get back to 3D after 10 years out of it. On one hand I missed it so so so much, it gets me very emotional to do it again, and I'm so happy I'm getting back where I left. On the other hand... I would be so much better at it today if I had continued it all this time, I can see it, I can feel it. It makes me pissed at all the people who didn't support me at the time and made my life hell for so long. But I try to focus more on the deep gratitude I have to my partner now, who actively supports me and without whom I would probably still not be back at it. They're the best! I love them so much!

Anyway, I would LOVE to know what you think about it. Please do interact, you would make my day.

[perilegs]

also not to toot my own horn but can we take a sec to appreciate my "coloring" of these clips

original footage (ignoring text and such) -> color correction -> contrast/light/sharpening/etc.

i stole the idea for a dead three Charli xcx von Dutch edit from @getmenaced several months ago and didn't get around to finishing it until now

[kaybreezy3000]

The Boy A Five Hargreeves / Female Reader Insert

Created for an Anon request (rated mature for explicit sexual content)

Warnings: 18-yr old Five, Lots of Smut, Five being soft and also not, CIA setting but with none of the other things happening from season 4

Anonymous asked:

will you do one or just some scenes with Five being soft with a girl he's falling for? Like first kiss stuff or other more intimate things between them? Or any stuff with him letting his guard down for someone for the first time- not with Lila please. Explicit or not explicit. Anything like this. Ty:⁠-⁠*

(For those of you who are awesome and have read all my stuff before this little smut filled story, you might notice some similarities in this one to some things my 16-year-old version of Five went through in 'Number Five and the Girl.' No worries this is much different, but I thought I'd mention it because so much of what I've written already could have filled this request, so I borrowed some ideas from hot little moments I'd sort of done before to add some fun to this Five's adventure.)

Note~This quarter end treat is broken into 5 parts of smutty progression-Your Welcome😂

The Boy

Part One: The Push

Like you had been for the last two months since Five had been assigned as your mentor and you started training with him, there you were, attached at the hip.

Walking down the hall towards your room at the CIA training facility, instead of him treating you to his endless cold glares and his usual lines of belittling bullshit, Five didn’t seem to mind as much that he’d been paired with you. Today, he seemed more than okay with it as indicated by the way he had been eyeing you up like he wanted to do much more than spar with you while the other recruits made jokes about you kicking his ass and him being not that much bigger than you.

After asking him if he’d like to come back to your room so you could change into something warmer and then go get something to eat together somewhere better than the CIA building’s cafeteria, like he’d never done before, Five followed you, but then he was hesitating at the threshold of your room.

Playing the gentlemen and your superior, you could tell that he wasn't going to budge, so you reached out and pulled him in, shutting the door behind him. Five Hargreeves was not the type to be led by anyone, and before this he had been acting like he loathed you, so him giving in so easily was very surprising, but also very encouraging.

You had felt the tension building between you all day. On the outside, Five seemed calm and in control like always, but his eyes gave him away. The way he looked at you told you a much different story when it came to him wanting to keep things strictly professional.

Feeling braver, you started thinking.

Earlier, while you were with him in training, Five and the other agents were talking about how most altercations aren’t the type where you get to stand and face each other, and even worse, during the fight, you usually both end up on the ground where things get dirty. They all said you needed to practice more realistic scenarios, but Five, as your assigned partner, didn’t seem too keen on putting his hands on you in any way that may have been considered too rough, but he also didn’t want to let anyone else touch you.

To your shock, as Five braced himself behind you, directing you to get out of his chokehold, his embrace was more like that of a lover than an attacker, his soft breaths tickling your ear from behind as they cascaded down your neck. When he ordered you to drop to your knees, your mind going all sorts of places, other than where it should have been, you did as you were told, throwing all your weight back into him.

Falling back, your body landing on top of him, he started laughing at you, and his laughter was almost just as alarming as his dimpled smile that had been charming you anytime he had been willing to grace you with it over the last few weeks.

You had just crushed him, almost elbowing him in the dick, but the thing worrying you wasn’t his nuts. You were falling for him-hard.

On your walk back to the dorms, giving Five a hard time about constantly treating you like you were made of glass, you said, “Why not start practicing more realistic takedowns? Why are you handling me with kid gloves?”

Five gave you one of his adorable side smirks as he leaned in, whispering in your ear, “I can be harder on you if you really want, but I’d prefer to do that with you without an audience of assholes.”

Hmmm? You were alone now?

Five was looking around, taking in the general chaos that was the room you’d been sharing with one of the other trainees. His eyes stopped on your bed.

“Sorry. It’s really messy in here,” you said.

Five looked back up. “No, it’s not bad. Don’t apologize. You should have seen the messes my siblings made of things in the house I grew up in. This is nothing.” He laughed nervously.

“Didn’t you say you had five brothers and one sister? That’s a lot of male mess going on. Where was it you said you grew up again?”

Five didn’t answer. Instead, he sucked in his lower lip, wetting it as he looked around again. He glanced over at the few things you were allowed to keep with you while in training. He swallowed. He was staring at you so intently. He was so hard to read sometimes, and this was definitely one of those times.

Now he was making you nervous.

He cleared his throat as his lips turned up again. “I like working with you," he said, casually tucking his hands in his pockets. "A lot actually."

Five had no idea how handsome he was with those animated expressions of his, or how cute he was right now, awkwardly flirting with you. Not wanting to break the magical moment that was happening, you decided to flirt with him right back.

“So, you wanted to see how I handle a little groundwork, but in private?” you dangled while raising both your eyebrows in question.

He shrugged his shoulders while tilting his head to the side. “It’s not a bad idea if you want to be able to defend yourself.”

There was an air of the usual superiority in his tone that was so irritatingly him.

You scrunched your nose. “I think I can defend myself pretty damn well already, Mr. Perfect. I’m warning you now, I know how to get down and dirty. You are the one that’s the closeted softy.” You came forward, backing him closer to your bed as you moved your hand down his arm until your fingers brushed the underside of his left wrist.

Five visibly tensed, as if you’d touched him in a painful way, but there was no sign outwardly why that was. Looking down at the flawless patch of skin under your fingers, he came back to himself. “You're allowed to believe that, but it doesn’t mean you’re right,” he taunted, smiling back at you innocently.

Without warning, you pulled him closer. With a quick spin, you twisted his arm behind him. Then, throwing all your weight into it, you pushed Five on your bed.

He landed on your blankets face down, and you quickly leaped on top of him, pinning his arms behind his back to restrict his movement before he could retaliate.

“Impressive,” he huffed, laughing as he lay there, pretending to be vanquished.

You knew he wasn’t that easy to take down. He let you get him, but you were enjoying the moment anyway.

Your victory didn’t last long, despite your best efforts. Five effortlessly ripped his arms free of your hold. Then he sprang up from the bed, sweeping you up with him before nailing you down on the mattress.

In one swift motion, he had you pinned with your arms above your head. He lay over you, forcing your legs wide with his knees.

“You always need to be alert and ready for anything," he scolded. "Things can change in the blink of an eye. If you let your guard down, you may find yourself in a position you don't want to be in."

The way he was schooling you, you knew he was genuinely trying to teach you something, but you were also surer than ever that he was testing you in a whole different kind of way that had nothing to do with your training.

“Oh, I don’t know about not wanting to be in this situation..." You gave him a playful wink, one you knew would fluster him. "The view is not too bad down here. For all you know, I may have wanted to be in this position. Maybe it was all part of my master plan. Did you ever think of that, smarty pants?” 

Five’s cool smile melted into something feral looking.

All at once he secured both your wrists in one of his hands. Then he painstakingly slowly ran the fingers of his other hand down the sensitive underside of your exposed left arm.

“Oh FFffff! Five! Ss-stop that's, please sto-” you laughed and gasped, wriggling like a manic as you tried to escape his maddeningly gentle touch.

He didn’t relent. His eyes darkened as he looked down at you. You had nothing on but your cropped workout top and equally tight spandex shorts and he was in his usual gym clothes of athletic shorts and a black t-shirt. You’d been training together like that for hours, but all of sudden your lack of normal skin covering clothing was making this feel much different than if you’d been sitting together with him helping you study while he was dressed in his signature three-piece suit and you in your more female version of business attire.

You were in your bed of all places, and that look in his eyes, and the feeling of him pressing himself on you the way he was!

He looked so unbelievably hot and there you were laughing so hard you could hardly breathe. “Seriously, that tickles!”

“Awww,” he drawled, while looking fake sorry for you. “Ever hear that saying, you reap what you sow? I felt you trying to get a rise out of me with those evil girl talons of yours. You made me look like an fucking idiot today on the mats when you dug your fingers into my ribs, and you know damn well what you were doing had nothing to do with self-defense.”

Your frantic pleas to make him stop only seemed to spur him on more, because after that, his hand danced along the length of your exposed side, then down your quivering stomach.

“Five Hargreeves…I think they are right, you don’t fight fair,” you accused in between breathless panting for him to stop.

“Doesn’t matter if you fight fair. It only matters if you win.” The sultry tenor of Five’s voice as he leaned down, humming against your skin, only furthered your inability to think.

To add to your shock, he began peppering kisses along your shoulder, then up your neck to your widely gaped jaw.

Five was not affectionate. He was dangerously smart, aloof, and even scary sometimes, but with that maneuver, he’d just proved that there was more to him than the closed off person he wanted people to stay away from.

His gentle fingers trailed across your abdomen, sending shivers through your entire body. Perhaps feeling you struggling to hold yourself together, or maybe just because he was an arrogant shit, Five suddenly had to bury his loud burst of laughter into your neck, and with it, he let his nose brush against your skin in such a loving way it made you squirm all over again.

“Doesn’t really seem to bother you…me not fighting fair and all,” he breathed. He smiled against your neck as he brought his lips back down to your shoulder.

You were pretty sure he said something else after that, but for the life of you, you couldn’t concentrate enough to register what it was, not when his teeth were lightly nipping at the bottom of your ear and his fingers were moving back up, his thumb grazing over the mounded fabric of your top.

As he let out the quietest moan from the feel of your breasts under his hand, you couldn’t help it either as you hummed in approval while your body reactively rocked up against him.

As soon as you did that, Five abruptly pulled back from his onslaught of kisses, his hand lowering as he attempted to shift himself so he wasn’t lying on top of you as much. He looked down at you, his expression unreadable as he sucked in a breath, as if needing the extra air to voice what was on his mind, but instead of coming out with it, he grimaced and looked away, seeming to think better of it. 

Your faces were still so close, so you rose up on your shoulders, as much as he’d let you, clearing the gap. You quietly said his name, wishing he would just look at you again. It sounded like a plea, and it was.

Five’s lips collided with yours. He released your hands, while at the same time pivoting his weight on both his forearms so he could better control how much of his weight he was pressing into you.

His kiss was urgent, and wild, and beautifully sloppy, like he’d never done this before. 

He was becoming more and more agitated the more he let himself explore your mouth with his breathlessly trembling lips. His breathing was becoming heavier, and you could tell he wanted to move his hips into your pelvis more than he was already rocking and digging them against you.

It must have felt so good to him as is though, because he was getting hard, and the young man, who for the last few months was never the type to show any sign of vulnerability, actually whimpered, and holy fuck was that hot.

Shocked by his own verbal moment of weakness, Five pulled away again, but just as fast, you placed both your hands on the sides of his face and steered him back. Kissing him softly, you let your tongue run along his lower lip.

He shut his eyes. His expression looked so pained. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he whispered. “I am not who you think I am. If you knew all the horrible things I have done, you wouldn’t look up to me the way you do.” He opened his eyes. “On top of all that, I am way too old for you.”

Sure… Okay. All this had to be because Five was just worried that he was your mentor and that this kind of relationship wasn’t something your superiors would be okay with. That made sense, but…

You smiled, then said, “Oh my God, Five! Who says I look up to you? And I am older than you, you self-absorbed jerk who apparently never bothered to read my bio.” 

With that and his exceptionally sour expression that followed your declaration, you started laughing at him, and the entire situation because you were older. Only by a year, but really…What was he talking about?

Five opened his mouth a few times while trying to figure out a retort, so you came at him before he could, pulling his bottom lip with your teeth with kittenish feistiness, and that seemed to rattle him like nothing else had so far, and it sent him coming back at you like a man being torn apart from the inside out.

After that, Five started to let his tongue and teeth explore more freely and it was clear that was something he had wanted to do, only like all of this, he hadn’t been sure of it being okay until you’d pushed him and made the first move.

He always smelled good. You knew that before, but wow. Five tasted like what you'd think comfort would taste like if it had a taste; like the warmth of good coffee mixed with an old-fashioned dinner mint. He was the embodiment of pleasure, and his lean body was built to move in more ways than you’d seen him work it while in the gym when beating the shit out of the other much larger agents.

Having your hands free to do as they wished, you dropped them both down under Five as he lifted up just a little, moving his dick region so it wasn't rubbing as much between your legs as it had been.

You let the tips of your fingers drift down the length of his tight stomach muscles, moving them with a feather-light touch. You inched them along slower and slower after you passed over his navel, going up under his shirt, following the thin trail of dark hair that led from there, down into his shorts.

Five's hands clenched in the sheets at your sides as he fought to hold still. Every muscle in his abdomen shuddered under your touch, quivering in anticipation as you played with the dangling strings that were meant to keep his shorts around his waist.

He pulled away from your kiss to catch his breath, burrowing his face against the side of your neck. “Holy Shit…” he breathed, in between his wet kisses. His body, involuntarily, it seemed, dropped lower, his torso falling flush against the heat between your legs again for just a moment before he quickly readjusted his hips on the mattress next to you.

Before he could fully right himself by pulling back up on his elbows and roll away from you completely, you brought your hand back up to his neck, your fingers lacing through his incredibly soft hair. "It felt good, don’t stop," you whispered.

Looking utterly broken; he began kissing your neck, moving upwards again as he simultaneously started to move his shaft against the side of your leg.

Five nipped at your ear harder than he had been before and the sensation had you digging your nails across his back, and that seemed to excite him even more. In a frenzy, he started to run his tongue along, first the shell of your ear, then anywhere he could get at, and based on the noises he was making, he liked how you tasted.

That boy was good, and not just with a gun while at the shooting range. The ache between your legs was becoming more apparent with each shameless thing he did to you.

When Five satisfied himself with marking your neck, he moved to your collarbone. It felt like he was studying every inch of you with his mouth, gauging your reactions as he went. He first kissed, then licked, then sucked gently along the rolling plains of your rapidly rising and falling chest. It felt so amazing that you had to dig your feet into the bed to contain yourself.

"Fuck," he groaned as he threw his leg over yours and repositioned himself fully on top of you.

You whined as his hardened length nudged between your legs, then cruelly moved away. Thankfully, the sound of your discontent seemed to make Five bolder, and he did it again, then moved his mouth lower, applying kisses along the edges of your workout top, playfully pulling it up with his teeth.

Your toes curled as you squirmed under him in anticipation, and so far, he hadn't even used his hands for anything other than to hold your wrists above your head!

You were both oblivious to the world going on around you when suddenly you pulled your attention away from him because you thought you heard something. Five must have heard it too because all at once he stopped what he was doing. His entire body froze.

“Ahem,” coughed a voice from over Five's shoulder.

You leaned up, peering over him. Even before seeing her, you knew who it was.

“Hey…” you offered weakly, not bothering to hide your embarrassment from your roommate because there was no point. 

She was already smiling like a total goofball, and her expression grew bigger and happier as she took in the extent of your blushing state and that of your equally turned-on partner in crime.  

Loving it, she mouthed, “Is that who I think it is?”

The slow shake of your head confirmed her suspicions. She cleared her throat obnoxiously, then said, “It’s about time you guys got past all your staring at each other with puppy dog eyes of disgusting longing.”

With his face still buried against your neck, Five let out the tiniest sound, like that of the sad little puppy she’d just compared him to, then he growled, “You have no idea what you are talking about because I have never looked at anyone like that.”

“Er, whatever you say… So, ah…sorry guys. I will just, ah…go,” your friend said as she jerked her finger and thumb back towards the hall, but she was still dawdling, enjoying the site of Five, laying there still as could be, trying so hard to pretend he wasn’t just busted while trying to dry fuck you like you were both horny teenagers that were still in high school.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” Five groaned, as he started moving off of you.

Your roommate was leaving at that point, but hearing Five's frustrated oration, she turned back around, shooting you a huge cat just ate the canary grin before quietly shutting the door behind her.

Next to you, Five tipped his head back as he stared up at the ceiling. It looked like he was praying it would fall on him.

He sighed exasperatedly. “Can’t I ever get a break?”

It was obvious Five was upset about getting walked in on because this could mean his job, but you also knew that he had to be upset because he’d just totally been cock-blocked, and if he hadn't been, you weren’t sure what would have happened or how far things would have gone. 

Thinking of the impressively engorged package he was dealing with in his sexy gym shorts, you rolled over, facing him, your lower lip pouty. “Ah, yeah… So....that sucked,” you said, stating the obvious as you tried to suppress your giggle.

Five just stared at you and groaned again. By the look on his face, you were pretty sure he was ready to die, and you weren’t about to let that happen, so you were about to suggest a different kind of sucking, but first you thought you should address his other big concern.

“Hey, don’t worry," you said, laying your hand on his tensed forearm. "I swear she won’t say anything. She already knew I had a huge crush on you. Lots of girls here would die to be in my shoes because that would mean they would get to enjoy your scowls and contemptuous comments all day like I do.” You tried a reassuring smile, getting serious. “Really, she’s trustworthy.”

What you said seemed to help. At least it brought a smile back to Five’s tightly pursed lips.

“You are full of shit,” he shot back, not believing you, but about which part, you weren’t sure. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he continued before you could insist that you weren’t lying about any of it. “If she says anything, I am done, but at least I got to hump you for three minutes, so that was totally worth throwing away five years of my hard work to get myself in this pathetically lame position that I’ve waited a lifetime to totally fuck up.”

He threw a hand over his face, then back into his chocolatey mess of hair.

Somehow, Five managed to sound both irritated, but also so funny, which was just one of the many things that made you like him so much. The light in his eyes was coming back and he hadn’t tried to touch you again, and he'd also not let up on the blanket he was using to cover himself. It was obvious your little moment with him was over, and he was doing his best to calm himself down, but something else seemed off.

You frowned, but you weren’t mad at all because you mostly understood why he’d said all that. You’d feel awful if he was let go because of you. Everyone knew that Five was amazing at his job. He was a bona fide genius the CIA had found at a very young age while he was crushing his studies to get through his PhD. His being a fully contracted agent in the CIA at so young was unheard of.

Compared to him, you were only there as an intern and had years ahead of you to actually get hired and prove yourself the way he already had.

Once you managed to control your brain again, you finally responded, and stopped staring at him like you wanted to be devoured by his perfect mouth.

You took your hand off his arm, then quietly said, “I suppose you’d rather not get lunch with me now?”

His eyes narrowed and he cocked his head in that way of his. “I suppose, it would be better if we didn’t,” he said with eyebrows furrowed slightly, indicating he was upset about something, but if it was about getting busted and potentially losing his job or something more, you couldn’t tell.

“That’s it then…? That is unless you want to stay," you offered, then purposely glanced at your bedding still bunched to his crotch. "You could show me a few more moves?” 

After a few seconds, Five cleared his throat and grinned, making your heart skip a beat. “We better not do that again,” he said, then he looked away. “You go first. I just need a minute. I’ll lock your door on the way out.”

“Okay,” you replied, your heart sinking through the floorboards.

"Okay," he agreed.

He lay there on his side, head propped up on his arm, you threw on a baggy sweatshirt and some jogging pants. After covering yourself, you turned. “See you later?”

“Sure,” he said, still staring off as if you weren’t even there.

Chapter Two: 

Five Said No, But Morning Glory Says Yes

Right on que, Five woke up with his dick harder than an oak.

He was lying there on the couch in his office, having fallen asleep while working late. Back when he’d started at the CIA, not even done with college yet, he often did this, but that usually involved drinking too much then passing out.

That kind of behavior was nothing new for him, but he hadn’t done that in a while. Relieved that he didn’t have the brain throbbing start of a hangover nagging at him, he kept his eyes closed tight, like he could get his dick to go back to sleep if he willed it.

He tried to ignore it, he really did, but thanks to his physical age and the power of youthful hormones raging, his increasingly bothersome boner alarm proved impossible to turn off.

Taking a long, tired breath, then letting it out slowly, Five started mentally preparing himself for another wake and whack session to add to his already impressive record.

He couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming about, only that you were together, and you were touching him down there or maybe he was touching you down there. Whatever it had been about, it didn’t matter, because once again, Five had woken up before he’d got off, and was ready to send forth his load into an innocent and unsuspecting piece of clothing, only he wasn’t at home, so he’d have to find something else nearby to catch his mess instead. Anything would do, even destroying the shitty plastic tree someone had put on the floor next to his couch.

“Fuck that Ficus,” he breathed. 

His hand flexed, ready to spring into action and get this over with, and in doing so, it rubbed along skin that was not his own. To his shock, his arm was laying over something warm and alive, and that had him immediately realizing the pressure pressed up against his hard-on was not from the couch cushion or one of the pillows.

Five never would have admitted it unless he happened to be using it for his job as a cover story while trying to fit in with other lunatics, but like so often, he was having trouble differentiating between reality and fantasy.

Seeing as how he’d woken up on more than a couple of occasions unsure if his dreams or nightmares were real or not, he couldn’t blame himself for being confused, not entirely, not when the main player in his fantasies was right there squeezed in next to him.

His eyes abruptly focused, taking in his surroundings, confirming what he already should have known. You had both fallen asleep while he was helping you study for your next round of exams, and there you were with him, lying on the couch in the darkness of his quiet office.

He had no idea how he ended up cuddled next to you the way he was, and even though Five had thought about it about a hundred million times since the incident in your room, things hadn’t started back up the way they had that day, and he believed it was for the best, and he’d said as much and you’d respected it, but that didn’t mean it had been easy for him.

Just being around you, doing nothing even remotely flirtatious or sexual in nature was making the tornado of butterflies in his stomach worse each day that he fought to stomp them into submission. There was no denying that, or the perpetual case of blue balls he had from watching you sashay around him in your short skirts and blouses with the top few buttons undone as if daring him to dive into your cleavage again.

He had already touched those perky pillows and he liked doing it way too much. Five liked everything about you. The way you challenged him even when he was being an insufferable jerk. The way you laughed.

Even more than all of that. Five loved the way you smiled at him like you didn’t smile for anyone else.

Being around you made him forget all the bad things, if even for just a while.

It didn’t matter. What he’d done was a mistake. Nobody could ever really care about him if they knew the truth, and you sure as hell wouldn’t believe him. You’d think he was crazy. He’d be fired and maybe even forced into psychiatric care.

It was better this way, but so much for his plan to shut this down, and so much for being good and keeping his hands off when you considered the situation he was in now. In hindsight, looking at the out-of-control horn-ball he had become in the last few weeks, Five knew that he should have scheduled a well-defined whack-off time as a part of his daily routine, then maybe this shit wouldn’t happen when he wasn’t expecting it.

That thought got him asking himself the question, When did I become such a perverted degenerate?

He remembered you reading, leaning back after a while, kicking your heels off. Sitting a few feet away, reading over a briefing Derek had given him earlier that day, Five waited for you to finish your review so he could quiz you again. He felt himself starting to doze off. He remembered how comfortable he was with you there with him. He just wanted to stay like that with you a little longer, with the smell of you filling his lungs, touching his things. He vaguely recalled trying to keep his eyes open and noticing that you looked very tired too.

Now there you were, his arm wrapped around you, laying over your hip, and his hand was in an area that normally he wouldn’t have dared let it venture. It was starting to come back to him each minute he was conscious, and he was almost certain that when he started to wake up, he was grinding his morning monster on your butt, and his hand was touching you between your legs in a very inappropriate way.

It wasn’t just a dream; he had been really doing that, or he was pretty sure he was.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Way to go, fucking creep, he mentally yelled at himself.

He had no right to, but Five had you spooned into him like you were his, and if you were awake, you were definitely able to feel his predicament, and also what he had been doing to you.

He shifted his weight, moving just a little, trying to give you some space and maybe if it was not too late, also try to save some face.

Just as he began to pull his arm off, you started stretching your legs, your feet twisting around his.

“Is it morning already?” you complained.

The smell of your hair filled Five’s lungs again and the pressure from you pushing back against him had his eyes popping wide.

If he had his powers still, he would have blinked away the second he’d realized where he was. That wasn’t an option anymore, but the instinct to do it was still eating at him like the ghost of a spark that kept trying to burst into a flame but couldn’t.

Five was panicking; he didn’t know what to do.

You shifted again, trying to move back, but he found he had nowhere to go. He was trapped between you and the back of the couch.

“I… Ah… It’s not morning yet. I’m sorry I woke you. I must have fallen asleep," Five stammered as he tried to sit up, using the arm under his small couch pillow to push himself up. "I’m going to just-"

You captured his hand as it started slipping over your hip. You pulled him back down and he found himself falling around you again, entrapped in the exact same position.

“You’re so warm, and your office is so cold. Please don’t go yet. I like you as my blanket,” you whined while pushing back, your firm curves warm against his even warmer erection.

Five went ram rod still at the same time you did.

“I am so sorry,” he quickly tried to say, but stopped at that because he found he had no other words that would explain what he’d done. Instead, he forced out the pillow from under his head and then buried his face in it, hiding from his shame like a total jackass.

The clock on his wall ticked for felt like an eternity, neither of you saying a word. You were clearly upset, weirded out, or god help him…Five didn’t know anymore.

Finally breaking the silence, you said, “Five, stop that. You don’t need to be sorry.”

Even though he was still under his shield, Five could tell by your tone that you were trying to console him. Of course, you were the one taking the highroad. Here he was the one almost 42 years older than you and you were the one being mature.

He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head, knowing he had to say something, but still not sure what would make the situation better.

“And to think," he started, "I was worried about what my boss would think if someone here found out about us and talked. It turns out I was worried about the wrong thing. This is so much more awkward and damning than that." He groaned into his shame pillow.

Five felt you move, your hands landing on the throw pillow, forcing him to let go. When he finally had the courage to open his eyes, he was met with yours, and even though it was dark, he could tell you weren’t mad. You had turned your body towards him, and your fingers were already playing with the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck.

Five felt like he was going to die, sure that he would if you didn’t stop touching him like that.

He was thinking about using his arm to cover his face instead of expiring. It was his only option since you’d thrown his pillow out of reach, but then he realized he may have needed more than just his arm to cover him because he could feel everything from his forehead to his chin burning bright red with humiliation. 

You grinned at him in that way he knew meant you were trying to hold back a laugh. “You know, Five... Nobody is talking doom and gloom about this other than you, and why do you think this is awkward?”

“Oh, I don’t know… because of Morning Glory here,” he joked, gesturing down to where the small throw blanket you had pulled with you had thankfully covered the area below his waist, but it didn’t really matter because he knew, and you knew, that he was still sporting a nice sized tent for the second time you’d been alone with him in a week.

You took claim of his hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, keeping your devil-may-care grin on your rosy lips. “Yeah…I don’t really think you can blame that all on it being morning. Unless that clock is wrong, it’s not even midnight.”

You very purposefully moved closer, and all at once, Five felt you press against the villain in his pants with your thigh and he accidentally let out a little puff of airy agitation in response.

“And this isn’t awkward. It’s flattering," you furthered, your sexy smile melting into something a bit silly as you added, “A healthy sexual appetite is nothing to be embarrassed about."

Your intentionally nerdy, sex ed teacher tone had somehow managed to sound even sexier than when you normally teased him, and holy fuck did Five love getting lectured by you you like that.

The dirty old man in him that was thinking about spanking you for trying to steal his role as the teacher didn’t know what to say. You were obviously trying to make him feel better for his little predicament, but he still felt like a creep. Getting morning wood while sleeping next to an extremely hot girl that was way out of your league was one thing, but touching her in her sleep, like that… 

 What the hell was wrong with me? That was not normal! Five privately scolded himself.

“I need to-" He didn’t finish, instead, Five swiftly pushed himself up, and as discreetly as possible made sure ‘woody’ was tucked down against his leg.

He started getting up, and you moved out of his way. He swung his legs to the floor and was about to stand, but he didn’t get any further than that because you quickly turned and swung a leg over his lap, your knees landing on either side of his torso, in effect ambushing him, and preventing his escape as your skirt flared out, covering his lap.

“Hey, not so fast. I am not mad at you, Five. I fell asleep too, so it’s not your fault. Maybe it happened again for a reason. I knew you were dreaming a few minutes ago, so don’t be freaked out about this or what happened the other day. It’s ok, I promise.”

Your fingers moved along his scalp, playing with his hair again. The look on your face was so sincere, but then it quickly changed to something more pensive and playful as you slowly licked your lip then continued. “And just so you know, even if you weren’t dreaming, I would have been ok with what you were doing. You can touch me however and whenever you want. I thought I made that known the other day. You were the one that said no more, not me.”

The more perplexed Five looked, the more devilish you looked. Your fingers dug in as they fell to his shoulders, pulling his shirt even tighter in your grip.

You leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I am so wet for you right now, I am more than ok with how that clever mind of yours works, but the question is, are you, and do you want me to stop trying to convince you how much I want you?”

The things you were saying and your soft breaths on his skin were making Five’s hands shake.

“Don’t stop,” he breathed, just as your lips brushed against his cheek and you began kissing him..

Both of Five’s hands latched on to your hips so fast it was like he wasn’t in command of his own body anymore. He felt like he needed something to hold on to, to ground himself, and his hole punch filled morals weren’t working.

It was so much all at once, with real lips on his, and you on his lap and the warmth of your sex so close to his painfully hard cock. Instead of thinking about how 'wet' you said you were, Five tried to distract himself by focusing on your mouth as it moved against his. You obediently opened for him as he urgently searched your lips with the tip of his tongue, pushing for entry. The second you gave, Five darted it inside, feeling the sweet, candy-like warmth that he was coming to know was simply the taste of you.

Beside himself already, Five moaned into your mouth.

Your tongue met his more excitedly after that, and you both pushed each other for more, hardly coming up for air.

You felt so good. What you were doing to him felt so good; it was like he was in another world, with nothing but the two of you.

It was like it was with Dolores, only not at all. That was survival. She was hard and cold. You were soft and warm, and she was him, and you were…fuck.

Dolores knew him. You didn’t.

Like before, Five knew this was wrong, but his hands slipped behind you anyway, pulling you closer as his hips rocked underneath you.

In moments of desperation, Five had held Dolores in his lap like this so many times, and done the same thing, only this was so much different. He could have lost himself completely in the feeling of you and been a very happy man, but his brain kept trying to reboot and intrude.

Even as his cock was getting a nice little ride, his brain was yelling at him to stop. 'Here you go again! This is so fucked-up, and this is obviously not going to help with your not so little problem, and what the hell are you doing? You’re going to ruin this for both of you!'

He pulled away, his breath coming way too fast.

“We shouldn’t do this… I…I can’t-” he whispered, but he couldn’t help it as he let his lips trail along your jaw, trying to repress his agonized growl.

You weren’t buying it, and he wasn't doing a good job selling it. Seeing where your hips were, it was obvious he was more than capable of doing this.

You softly laughed, your breath brushing his skin as your hands explored, first unbuttoning his fitted vest, then untucking his dress shirt, making his entire body quake with the simplest of touch as your fingers crawled up, exposing him, one small button at a time. 

Not used to being touched like that, Five pulled back, dropping his head as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain some composure. You weren’t having that either. You continued to caress his heated skin with your fingers moving dangerously close to his waistband.

Unlike him, your intentions were very clear as usual, but your voice came out raspy and sweet and questioning anyway, in total contrast to how you were so self-confidently seducing him. “Five?”

He hesitantly opened his eyes and looked up at you. Your cheeks were flushed, and your lips swollen from his kisses, your eyes full of worry.

“Why are you scared?” A crease appeared between your brows. “What you were doing was perfect and I want you to touch me. I wanted you to touch me all night,” you said, practically moaning your words.

Five was so fucking hard; it was almost more than he could take. All rational thought was gone.

When he came back up to meet you again, claiming your lips, you were ready and willing, tugging him closer with his loosened tie. Not satisfied with his state of undress, or with how you were so successfully dominating him, you quickly undid the knot and whipped the length of silk through his collar, throwing it over his head. You traced your nails down his torso with one hand and laced your fingers through his hair with the other.

Five met your advances, letting his hands float under your blouse, exploring the softness of your skin. When his fingers grazed just below your breasts, he stopped.

“Is this ok?” he asked with his mouth still brushing against your lips.

“Yes. God yes,” you whispered as you dropped your head back, moving yourself against him as he risked letting a finger glide over the lacey fabric of your bra. After a few more tentative touches, you made a soft whining sound. Five looked up, and the look you were giving him was so needy that it could have only matched his own. “They way you touch me…it’s like nobody else has ever touched me. Everything is different with you, Five. I don’t know why but it is,” you breathed.

Relinquishing his hold on your curvy hips, Five slid his hand up your back, proudly only fumbling a few seconds to get the clasp on your bra unhooked.

You let the fabric pull away from you so his fingers could slide under and caress your breasts.

Five leaned in, placing his other hand back on your ass as he buried his face against your neck. He wasn’t brave enough to take off your shirt the way you’d done to him, but this was plenty awe-inspiring anyway.�� He relished your body’s reactions to him and the smell of your skin as he lay gentle kisses below your ear. 

Talking to himself in the way he’d spent a lifetime doing and couldn’t seem to break away from, Five asked, Why on earth have I been tormenting myself about this?

He had no answer to that, and Dolores, being not at all on his mind, didn’t chime in and give him any help like she normally did in his times of distress.

Five trailed kisses along your jaw and over your quietly gasping lips as you rocked your body against his cock. He continued to massage your breasts, stopping to feel your nipples as they grew harder, all seemingly because of his tender touch.

You moaned sweetly, letting him know you liked how it felt as he rolled the taut nubs between his fingers. Musing again, Five smiled while thinking that the only thing that would be better would be having your tits in his mouth.

Instead of doing that, he kissed your lips again. The hand Five had on the curve of your waist instinctively pulled you right up against him as his hips jut into yours. The sensation sent him careening, and he had to squeeze his eyes closed and think about something else or Chernobyl number two was going to happen in his pants.

The friction he had thought would help ease things, unfortunately only made it worse. His dick was so hard, it was throbbing in complaint as it lay trapped under his remaining layers of clothes. He could hardly breathe, and even more embarrassing, Five had just let out an animalistically guttural sound that had filled the entire office.

He would have been mortified that he’d done that, but when he opened his eyes, all he saw was your hooded eyes gazing back with no hint of judgment.

He didn’t even realize you had moved your hand from his chest until you were touching him, your palm cupping him tightly through his pants. Five swallowed hard, trying with everything he had not to move as you rubbed along his thigh where his dick had been trapped.

“Fuck-” he croaked out, then bit the inside of his cheek in an effort to be quieter in case there happened to be anyone else in the office working late.

“Do you want me to stop?” you asked.

“Please no,” he begged with his lips grazing your cheek.

You increased the pressure, and Five tried to pump himself up into your hand in response.

“Good, because I don’t want to stop," you said, then you leaned in, purring more assurances as you kissed along his throat and pulled at the top of his waistband with your other hand, loosening the inner clasp so you could zip his fly down and let your hand slide in.

As you very carefully pulled him free, positioning his erection up between you, Five cried out at the feel of you manhandling him. He had touched himself like that so many times, but with you doing it, it felt millions of times more extreme. His hand that had been toying with your breasts lost all function, other than to fall to his side, fisting the bottom of your skirt.

Your skin against his hard flesh had him seeing stars as you explored, running your palm down and up his entire length.

After getting more acquainted with what you were working with, you ran a finger over the tip of Five’s cock, doing that move over and over. That of course made it harder for Five to think and breathe. You spread the wetness that had gathered there, smearing it under your tightened fingers, and by the time your hand wrapped around him even firmer, and you started to really move, the muscles in Five’s legs were quivering and flexing uncontrollably.

As you started jerking him off, feeling like he was having an outer body experience, Five dropped his head back, pinching his eyes closed.

He wasn’t thinking at all anymore. If you'd asked him his name, he wouldn't have been able to tell you.

“Harder-" he begged through clenched teeth.

Your hand obediently tightened.

There was nothing but the sound of wet skin, and sex, and the feeling that he wasn’t in control of any of it for the first time-ever.

Fuck. He was going to come already.

“Plea-” he desperately breathed, gazing up at your determined eyes. You sped up without him having to find the coherent words to ask for it, and he couldn’t help himself as he bucked, moving you with him as his hips repeatedly met your hand. “I am gonna cum-" he warned, but you didn’t stop.

His breath hitched, and his eyes closed again as his forehead fell against your chest.

Falling apart like he’d never done for anyone, Five began to spill.

“Fuuuuuuuuck!” he moaned, the ‘F’s’ repeating as spurts of his seed rocked his body.

Your hand slowed in pace with his erratic thrusts, but your fingers stayed around him as he rode out the final spasms of his release.

Five dropped his head back on the couch, totally drained.

You let go and slid your hand back up, letting the waistband of his briefs snap back in place when once you had him properly tucked in.

Now that it was done, Five wanted to fold in on himself and hide, to run, to…

He didn’t even know what he wanted to do. He could feel all his normal anxieties seeping back in way too quickly even though that had been unbelievable, and you were unbelievable and fuck...

When Five risked opening his eyes, he realized you had grabbed some tissues from the box on the side table and managed to catch his mess, so at least he didn’t make a total fool of himself in that way, or defile CIA property by splatter painting their stupid decorative plant. That would have been just great, blasting jizz all over that, or over himself and you in the wake of his inability to show even the slightest bit of restraint.

Someone was thinking; and it sure as hell wasn’t him.

“I am sorry,” he said, looking up at you regretfully.

You had been beaming at him happily, and to that, your face scrunched in confusion. “Why are you sorry now?”

How does one say sorry for that…Five wondered, then came up with an answer.

‘Ah…because I just blew my wad in your hand, and because I did it so fast, and because I didn’t do anything for you...and I shouldn’t be doing any of this anyway because of more reasons than I can count, and I can count really fucking high!'

Five couldn't bring myself to say all that. It wasn’t that he knew how to do the same thing for you exactly, but still, he knew he was supposed to reciprocate, and he’d watched plenty of porn over the years, so he could have at least tried.

Holy hell, he felt stupid.

“Oh no... There you go again. Five. When you get that look, I know it’s not good. For a guy that normally seems like you have the world by the balls, you worry way too much,” you said.

The urge to do something was there, but then you started to run your fingers through his hair again and Five couldn’t help the extremely relaxed feeling it was giving him, especially after what had just happened. He wanted to give himself over to it, and just like that, he did. He simply let go, letting himself feel every soft touch of your hand.

It felt like love, or what he imagined real love felt like.

He would have been completely at peace with the world at that point, but Five still couldn’t completely shake the idea that he’d messed up and that he never should have started fucking with you to begin with.

He dreamily gazed up at you, still not sure what to say. “That was... Fuck," he idiodically huffed, then tried again. "That felt so good. I’m sorry I didn’t-"

You cut him off with your pointer finger to his lips.

“Stop, Five. Just hush it with the apologies. If you’re worried about me, don’t be.” Your frown melted into a curious looking little smirk. “You looked like you couldn’t take much more, and watching you, like that... Let’s just say that was very satisfying and I am very glad you liked it. I may not have reached the same level of pleasure as you, but I enjoyed myself plenty." You tipped your head to the side, as if considering something.

“You’re not pissed about any of this?” he asked.

“No, absolutely not.” You gave him a sexy grin. “If you’re really worried about it, why don’t we make a deal? Next time we play around, you can call all the shots, and I’ll keep my hands to myself. I’m sure you’ll think of a way to repay me with that vivid imagination of yours.”

Biting your lip, you waited for him to respond.

Five was almost certain that you'd just given him an open invitation to touch you like he had been doing when he woke up, and thinking about doing that had his now semi hard dick twinging with renewed excitement.

If he didn’t stop imagining that, then he would be fighting another massive boner, and the whole thing would start all over again. Hating himself for not being stronger than this, the voice in his head sang, Earth to Five… Do you even have a brain anymore or do you only think with your dick?

“Ok,” he agreed, breaking the silence with nothing more than a one-word answer.

He really, really did want to redeem himself, but he also needed to settle down because he could hear the wheels of Frank the janitor’s cleaning cart coming down the hall outside his door.

Knock, knock, knock…

“Shit,” Five cursed, shifting you off of him as he quickly started righting himself, zipping his fly, then quickly trying to button at least most of his shirt.

Frank tapped again as he was scrambling to pick up all the cummed on wads of tissue laying around on the floor. “You okay in there?” the older man called. “I came past earlier but….but I thought it might be better if I came back.”

“Just a minute,” Five called out, his eyes darting around the dimly lit office, seeing his tie laying over by his desk and your dress shoes laying at the other end of the couch. Your hair looked like you’d been rolling around in the hay with him, minus the hay. Realizing that his hair probably looked worse, Five also remembered struggling to keep quiet, but failing horribly. “Fuck,” he cursed, turning around, his vest flying open as he frantically tore his hands back through his messed-up man mane, only making his less than tidy cut look even worse.

As you calmly picked up your stack of books and the case files Five had kindly let you use for your essays, frowning, he looked back at you from his reflection in the small mirror hanging by the door. The way he looked only made your hardly stifled giggles even louder.

Nice going boner boy. Very smooth and so fucking tactful! he silently fumed while rolling his eyes at himself.

Coming up behind him, you leaned in and kissed his cheek, quieting his troubled thoughts as if you held some kind of otherworldly magic over him.

Five shut his eyes, again letting you make all the moves for him. He cleared his throat, then he opened the door, doing his best to offer Franke a curt-looking smile and wave him inside, so he could do his thing.

“Evening, Frank.”

The white-haired janitor looked from Five to you, his mustache quirking just a little.

Hand pushing deep in his front pockets, Five moved aside, coming out into the hall, letting the older looking man and you move past. “Make sure you read over the notes I gave you on the importance of situational awareness before tomorrow, or there’s no way you’re going to pass,” Five called after you, trying to sound as pompously dick-ish as he normally would.

Turning back, you flipped him the bird.

Five smiled.

Watching you disappear down the hall, he promised himself this was the last time he was going to let you get him.

If he was doing this, which he evidently was, then he was going to start showing you exactly who he was. Then, maybe you’d get that he wasn’t who he appeared to be, and you’d do what he wasn’t strong enough to do, which was walk away from this.

Part Two:  Five Said No, But Morning Glory Says Yes

Right on que, Five woke up with his dick harder than an oak.

He was lying there on the couch in his office, having fallen asleep while working late. Back when he’d started at the CIA, not even done with college yet, he often did this, but that usually involved drinking too much then passing out.

That kind of behavior was nothing new for him, but he hadn’t done that in a while. Relieved that he didn’t have the brain throbbing start of a hangover nagging at him, he kept his eyes closed tight, like he could get his dick to go back to sleep if he willed it.

He tried to ignore it, he really did, but thanks to his physical age and the power of youthful hormones raging, his increasingly bothersome boner alarm proved impossible to turn off.

Taking a long, tired breath, then letting it out slowly, Five started mentally preparing himself for another wake and whack session to add to his already impressive record.

He couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming about, only that you were together, and you were touching him down there or maybe he was touching you down there. Whatever it had been about, it didn’t matter, because once again, Five had woken up before he’d got off, and was ready to send forth his load into an innocent and unsuspecting piece of clothing, only he wasn’t at home, so he’d have to find something else nearby to catch his mess instead. Anything would do, even destroying the shitty plastic tree someone had put on the floor next to his couch.

“Fuck that Ficus,” he breathed. 

His hand flexed, ready to spring into action and get this over with, and in doing so, it rubbed along skin that was not his own. To his shock, his arm was laying over something warm and alive, and that had him immediately realizing the pressure pressed up against his hard-on was not from the couch cushion or one of the pillows.

Five never would have admitted it unless he happened to be using it for his job as a cover story while trying to fit in with other lunatics, but like so often, he was having trouble differentiating between reality and fantasy.

Seeing as how he’d woken up on more than a couple of occasions unsure if his dreams or nightmares were real or not, he couldn’t blame himself for being confused, not entirely, not when the main player in his fantasies was right there squeezed in next to him.

His eyes abruptly focused, taking in his surroundings, confirming what he already should have known. You had both fallen asleep while he was helping you study for your next round of exams, and there you were with him, lying on the couch in the darkness of his quiet office.

He had no idea how he ended up cuddled next to you the way he was, and even though Five had thought about it about a hundred million times since the incident in your room, things hadn’t started back up the way they had that day, and he believed it was for the best, and he’d said as much and you’d respected it, but that didn’t mean it had been easy for him.

Just being around you, doing nothing even remotely flirtatious or sexual in nature was making the tornado of butterflies in his stomach worse each day that he fought to stomp them into submission. There was no denying that, or the perpetual case of blue balls he had from watching you sashay around him in your short skirts and blouses with the top few buttons undone as if daring him to dive into your cleavage again.

He had already touched those perky pillows and he liked doing it way too much. Five liked everything about you. The way you challenged him even when he was being an insufferable jerk. The way you laughed.

Even more than all of that. Five loved the way you smiled at him like you didn’t smile for anyone else.

Being around you made him forget all the bad things, if even for just a while.

It didn’t matter. What he’d done was a mistake. Nobody could ever really care about him if they knew the truth, and you sure as hell wouldn’t believe him. You’d think he was crazy. He’d be fired and maybe even forced into psychiatric care.

It was better this way, but so much for his plan to shut this down, and so much for being good and keeping his hands off when you considered the situation he was in now. In hindsight, looking at the out-of-control horn-ball he had become in the last few weeks, Five knew that he should have scheduled a well-defined whack-off time as a part of his daily routine, then maybe this shit wouldn’t happen when he wasn’t expecting it.

That thought got him asking himself the question, When did I become such a perverted degenerate?

He remembered you reading, leaning back after a while, kicking your heels off. Sitting a few feet away, reading over a briefing Derek had given him earlier that day, Five waited for you to finish your review so he could quiz you again. He felt himself starting to doze off. He remembered how comfortable he was with you there with him. He just wanted to stay like that with you a little longer, with the smell of you filling his lungs, touching his things. He vaguely recalled trying to keep his eyes open and noticing that you looked very tired too.

Now there you were, his arm wrapped around you, laying over your hip, and his hand was in an area that normally he wouldn’t have dared let it venture. It was starting to come back to him each minute he was conscious, and he was almost certain that when he started to wake up, he was grinding his morning monster on your butt, and his hand was touching you between your legs in a very inappropriate way.

It wasn’t just a dream; he had been really doing that, or he was pretty sure he was.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Way to go, fucking creep, he mentally yelled at himself.

He had no right to, but Five had you spooned into him like you were his, and if you were awake, you were definitely able to feel his predicament, and also what he had been doing to you.

He shifted his weight, moving just a little, trying to give you some space and maybe if it was not too late, also try to save some face.

Just as he began to pull his arm off, you started stretching your legs, your feet twisting around his.

“Is it morning already?” you complained.

The smell of your hair filled Five’s lungs again and the pressure from you pushing back against him had his eyes popping wide.

If he had his powers still, he would have blinked away the second he’d realized where he was. That wasn’t an option anymore, but the instinct to do it was still eating at him like the ghost of a spark that kept trying to burst into a flame but couldn’t.

Five was panicking; he didn’t know what to do.

You shifted again, trying to move back, but he found he had nowhere to go. He was trapped between you and the back of the couch.

“I… Ah… It’s not morning yet. I’m sorry I woke you. I must have fallen asleep," Five stammered as he tried to sit up, using the arm under his small couch pillow to push himself up. "I’m going to just-"

You captured his hand as it started slipping over your hip. You pulled him back down and he found himself falling around you again, entrapped in the exact same position.

“You’re so warm, and your office is so cold. Please don’t go yet. I like you as my blanket,” you whined while pushing back, your firm curves warm against his even warmer erection.

Five went ram rod still at the same time you did.

“I am so sorry,” he quickly tried to say, but stopped at that because he found he had no other words that would explain what he’d done. Instead, he forced out the pillow from under his head and then buried his face in it, hiding from his shame like a total jackass.

The clock on his wall ticked for felt like an eternity, neither of you saying a word. You were clearly upset, weirded out, or god help him…Five didn’t know anymore.

Finally breaking the silence, you said, “Five, stop that. You don’t need to be sorry.”

Even though he was still under his shield, Five could tell by your tone that you were trying to console him. Of course, you were the one taking the highroad. Here he was the one almost 42 years older than you and you were the one being mature.

He took a deep breath, trying to clear his head, knowing he had to say something, but still not sure what would make the situation better.

“And to think," he started, "I was worried about what my boss would think if someone here found out about us and talked. It turns out I was worried about the wrong thing. This is so much more awkward and damning than that." He groaned into his shame pillow.

Five felt you move, your hands landing on the throw pillow, forcing him to let go. When he finally had the courage to open his eyes, he was met with yours, and even though it was dark, he could tell you weren’t mad. You had turned your body towards him, and your fingers were already playing with the ends of his hair at the nape of his neck.

Five felt like he was going to die, sure that he would if you didn’t stop touching him like that.

He was thinking about using his arm to cover his face instead of expiring. It was his only option since you’d thrown his pillow out of reach, but then he realized he may have needed more than just his arm to cover him because he could feel everything from his forehead to his chin burning bright red with humiliation. 

You grinned at him in that way he knew meant you were trying to hold back a laugh. “You know, Five... Nobody is talking doom and gloom about this other than you, and why do you think this is awkward?”

“Oh, I don’t know… because of Morning Glory here,” he joked, gesturing down to where the small throw blanket you had pulled with you had thankfully covered the area below his waist, but it didn’t really matter because he knew, and you knew, that he was still sporting a nice sized tent for the second time you’d been alone with him in a week.

You took claim of his hand, pressing a kiss to his knuckles, keeping your devil-may-care grin on your rosy lips. “Yeah…I don’t really think you can blame that all on it being morning. Unless that clock is wrong, it’s not even midnight.”

You very purposefully moved closer, and all at once, Five felt you press against the villain in his pants with your thigh and he accidentally let out a little puff of airy agitation in response.

“And this isn’t awkward. It’s flattering," you furthered, your sexy smile melting into something a bit silly as you added, “A healthy sexual appetite is nothing to be embarrassed about."

Your intentionally nerdy, sex ed teacher tone had somehow managed to sound even sexier than when you normally teased him, and holy fuck did Five love getting lectured by you you like that.

The dirty old man in him that was thinking about spanking you for trying to steal his role as the teacher didn’t know what to say. You were obviously trying to make him feel better for his little predicament, but he still felt like a creep. Getting morning wood while sleeping next to an extremely hot girl that was way out of your league was one thing, but touching her in her sleep, like that… 

 What the hell was wrong with me? That was not normal! Five privately scolded himself.

“I need to-" He didn’t finish, instead, Five swiftly pushed himself up, and as discreetly as possible made sure ‘woody’ was tucked down against his leg.

He started getting up, and you moved out of his way. He swung his legs to the floor and was about to stand, but he didn’t get any further than that because you quickly turned and swung a leg over his lap, your knees landing on either side of his torso, in effect ambushing him, and preventing his escape as your skirt flared out, covering his lap.

“Hey, not so fast. I am not mad at you, Five. I fell asleep too, so it’s not your fault. Maybe it happened again for a reason. I knew you were dreaming a few minutes ago, so don’t be freaked out about this or what happened the other day. It’s ok, I promise.”

Your fingers moved along his scalp, playing with his hair again. The look on your face was so sincere, but then it quickly changed to something more pensive and playful as you slowly licked your lip then continued. “And just so you know, even if you weren’t dreaming, I would have been ok with what you were doing. You can touch me however and whenever you want. I thought I made that known the other day. You were the one that said no more, not me.”

The more perplexed Five looked, the more devilish you looked. Your fingers dug in as they fell to his shoulders, pulling his shirt even tighter in your grip.

You leaned in and whispered in his ear. “I am so wet for you right now, I am more than ok with how that clever mind of yours works, but the question is, are you, and do you want me to stop trying to convince you how much I want you?”

The things you were saying and your soft breaths on his skin were making Five’s hands shake.

“Don’t stop,” he breathed, just as your lips brushed against his cheek and you began kissing him..

Both of Five’s hands latched on to your hips so fast it was like he wasn’t in command of his own body anymore. He felt like he needed something to hold on to, to ground himself, and his hole punch filled morals weren’t working.

It was so much all at once, with real lips on his, and you on his lap and the warmth of your sex so close to his painfully hard cock. Instead of thinking about how 'wet' you said you were, Five tried to distract himself by focusing on your mouth as it moved against his. You obediently opened for him as he urgently searched your lips with the tip of his tongue, pushing for entry. The second you gave, Five darted it inside, feeling the sweet, candy-like warmth that he was coming to know was simply the taste of you.

Beside himself already, Five moaned into your mouth.

Your tongue met his more excitedly after that, and you both pushed each other for more, hardly coming up for air.

You felt so good. What you were doing to him felt so good; it was like he was in another world, with nothing but the two of you.

It was like it was with Dolores, only not at all. That was survival. She was hard and cold. You were soft and warm, and she was him, and you were…fuck.

Dolores knew him. You didn’t.

Like before, Five knew this was wrong, but his hands slipped behind you anyway, pulling you closer as his hips rocked underneath you.

In moments of desperation, Five had held Dolores in his lap like this so many times, and done the same thing, only this was so much different. He could have lost himself completely in the feeling of you and been a very happy man, but his brain kept trying to reboot and intrude.

Even as his cock was getting a nice little ride, his brain was yelling at him to stop. 'Here you go again! This is so fucked-up, and this is obviously not going to help with your not so little problem, and what the hell are you doing? You’re going to ruin this for both of you!'

He pulled away, his breath coming way too fast.

“We shouldn’t do this… I…I can’t-” he whispered, but he couldn’t help it as he let his lips trail along your jaw, trying to repress his agonized growl.

You weren’t buying it, and he wasn't doing a good job selling it. Seeing where your hips were, it was obvious he was more than capable of doing this.

You softly laughed, your breath brushing his skin as your hands explored, first unbuttoning his fitted vest, then untucking his dress shirt, making his entire body quake with the simplest of touch as your fingers crawled up, exposing him, one small button at a time. 

Not used to being touched like that, Five pulled back, dropping his head as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain some composure. You weren’t having that either. You continued to caress his heated skin with your fingers moving dangerously close to his waistband.

Unlike him, your intentions were very clear as usual, but your voice came out raspy and sweet and questioning anyway, in total contrast to how you were so self-confidently seducing him. “Five?”

He hesitantly opened his eyes and looked up at you. Your cheeks were flushed, and your lips swollen from his kisses, your eyes full of worry.

“Why are you scared?” A crease appeared between your brows. “What you were doing was perfect and I want you to touch me. I wanted you to touch me all night,” you said, practically moaning your words.

Five was so fucking hard; it was almost more than he could take. All rational thought was gone.

When he came back up to meet you again, claiming your lips, you were ready and willing, tugging him closer with his loosened tie. Not satisfied with his state of undress, or with how you were so successfully dominating him, you quickly undid the knot and whipped the length of silk through his collar, throwing it over his head. You traced your nails down his torso with one hand and laced your fingers through his hair with the other.

Five met your advances, letting his hands float under your blouse, exploring the softness of your skin. When his fingers grazed just below your breasts, he stopped.

“Is this ok?” he asked with his mouth still brushing against your lips.

“Yes. God yes,” you whispered as you dropped your head back, moving yourself against him as he risked letting a finger glide over the lacey fabric of your bra. After a few more tentative touches, you made a soft whining sound. Five looked up, and the look you were giving him was so needy that it could have only matched his own. “They way you touch me…it’s like nobody else has ever touched me. Everything is different with you, Five. I don’t know why but it is,” you breathed.

Relinquishing his hold on your curvy hips, Five slid his hand up your back, proudly only fumbling a few seconds to get the clasp on your bra unhooked.

You let the fabric pull away from you so his fingers could slide under and caress your breasts.

Five leaned in, placing his other hand back on your ass as he buried his face against your neck. He wasn’t brave enough to take off your shirt the way you’d done to him, but this was plenty awe-inspiring anyway.  He relished your body’s reactions to him and the smell of your skin as he lay gentle kisses below your ear. 

Talking to himself in the way he’d spent a lifetime doing and couldn’t seem to break away from, Five asked, Why on earth have I been tormenting myself about this?

He had no answer to that, and Dolores, being not at all on his mind, didn’t chime in and give him any help like she normally did in his times of distress.

Five trailed kisses along your jaw and over your quietly gasping lips as you rocked your body against his cock. He continued to massage your breasts, stopping to feel your nipples as they grew harder, all seemingly because of his tender touch.

You moaned sweetly, letting him know you liked how it felt as he rolled the taut nubs between his fingers. Musing again, Five smiled while thinking that the only thing that would be better would be having your tits in his mouth.

Instead of doing that, he kissed your lips again. The hand Five had on the curve of your waist instinctively pulled you right up against him as his hips jut into yours. The sensation sent him careening, and he had to squeeze his eyes closed and think about something else or Chernobyl number two was going to happen in his pants.

The friction he had thought would help ease things, unfortunately only made it worse. His dick was so hard, it was throbbing in complaint as it lay trapped under his remaining layers of clothes. He could hardly breathe, and even more embarrassing, Five had just let out an animalistically guttural sound that had filled the entire office.

He would have been mortified that he’d done that, but when he opened his eyes, all he saw was your hooded eyes gazing back with no hint of judgment.

He didn’t even realize you had moved your hand from his chest until you were touching him, your palm cupping him tightly through his pants. Five swallowed hard, trying with everything he had not to move as you rubbed along his thigh where his dick had been trapped.

“Fuck-” he croaked out, then bit the inside of his cheek in an effort to be quieter in case there happened to be anyone else in the office working late.

“Do you want me to stop?” you asked.

“Please no,” he begged with his lips grazing your cheek.

You increased the pressure, and Five tried to pump himself up into your hand in response.

“Good, because I don’t want to stop," you said, then you leaned in, purring more assurances as you kissed along his throat and pulled at the top of his waistband with your other hand, loosening the inner clasp so you could zip his fly down and let your hand slide in.

As you very carefully pulled him free, positioning his erection up between you, Five cried out at the feel of you manhandling him. He had touched himself like that so many times, but with you doing it, it felt millions of times more extreme. His hand that had been toying with your breasts lost all function, other than to fall to his side, fisting the bottom of your skirt.

Your skin against his hard flesh had him seeing stars as you explored, running your palm down and up his entire length.

After getting more acquainted with what you were working with, you ran a finger over the tip of Five’s cock, doing that move over and over. That of course made it harder for Five to think and breathe. You spread the wetness that had gathered there, smearing it under your tightened fingers, and by the time your hand wrapped around him even firmer, and you started to really move, the muscles in Five’s legs were quivering and flexing uncontrollably.

As you started jerking him off, feeling like he was having an outer body experience, Five dropped his head back, pinching his eyes closed.

He wasn’t thinking at all anymore. If you'd asked him his name, he wouldn't have been able to tell you.

“Harder-" he begged through clenched teeth.

Your hand obediently tightened.

There was nothing but the sound of wet skin, and sex, and the feeling that he wasn’t in control of any of it for the first time-ever.

Fuck. He was going to come already.

“Plea-” he desperately breathed, gazing up at your determined eyes. You sped up without him having to find the coherent words to ask for it, and he couldn’t help himself as he bucked, moving you with him as his hips repeatedly met your hand. “I am gonna cum-" he warned, but you didn’t stop.

His breath hitched, and his eyes closed again as his forehead fell against your chest.

Falling apart like he’d never done for anyone, Five began to spill.

“Fuuuuuuuuck!” he moaned, the ‘F’s’ repeating as spurts of his seed rocked his body.

Your hand slowed in pace with his erratic thrusts, but your fingers stayed around him as he rode out the final spasms of his release.

Five dropped his head back on the couch, totally drained.

You let go and slid your hand back up, letting the waistband of his briefs snap back in place when once you had him properly tucked in.

Now that it was done, Five wanted to fold in on himself and hide, to run, to…

He didn’t even know what he wanted to do. He could feel all his normal anxieties seeping back in way too quickly even though that had been unbelievable, and you were unbelievable and fuck...

When Five risked opening his eyes, he realized you had grabbed some tissues from the box on the side table and managed to catch his mess, so at least he didn’t make a total fool of himself in that way, or defile CIA property by splatter painting their stupid decorative plant. That would have been just great, blasting jizz all over that, or over himself and you in the wake of his inability to show even the slightest bit of restraint.

Someone was thinking; and it sure as hell wasn’t him.

“I am sorry,” he said, looking up at you regretfully.

You had been beaming at him happily, and to that, your face scrunched in confusion. “Why are you sorry now?”

How does one say sorry for that…Five wondered, then came up with an answer.

‘Ah…because I just blew my wad in your hand, and because I did it so fast, and because I didn’t do anything for you...and I shouldn’t be doing any of this anyway because of more reasons than I can count, and I can count really fucking high!'

Five couldn't bring myself to say all that. It wasn’t that he knew how to do the same thing for you exactly, but still, he knew he was supposed to reciprocate, and he’d watched plenty of porn over the years, so he could have at least tried.

Holy hell, he felt stupid.

“Oh no... There you go again. Five. When you get that look, I know it’s not good. For a guy that normally seems like you have the world by the balls, you worry way too much,” you said.

The urge to do something was there, but then you started to run your fingers through his hair again and Five couldn’t help the extremely relaxed feeling it was giving him, especially after what had just happened. He wanted to give himself over to it, and just like that, he did. He simply let go, letting himself feel every soft touch of your hand.

It felt like love, or what he imagined real love felt like.

He would have been completely at peace with the world at that point, but Five still couldn’t completely shake the idea that he’d messed up and that he never should have started fucking with you to begin with.

He dreamily gazed up at you, still not sure what to say. “That was... Fuck," he idiodically huffed, then tried again. "That felt so good. I’m sorry I didn’t-"

You cut him off with your pointer finger to his lips.

“Stop, Five. Just hush it with the apologies. If you’re worried about me, don’t be.” Your frown melted into a curious looking little smirk. “You looked like you couldn’t take much more, and watching you, like that... Let’s just say that was very satisfying and I am very glad you liked it. I may not have reached the same level of pleasure as you, but I enjoyed myself plenty." You tipped your head to the side, as if considering something.

“You’re not pissed about any of this?” he asked.

“No, absolutely not.” You gave him a sexy grin. “If you’re really worried about it, why don’t we make a deal? Next time we play around, you can call all the shots, and I’ll keep my hands to myself. I’m sure you’ll think of a way to repay me with that vivid imagination of yours.”

Biting your lip, you waited for him to respond.

Five was almost certain that you'd just given him an open invitation to touch you like he had been doing when he woke up, and thinking about doing that had his now semi hard dick twinging with renewed excitement.

If he didn’t stop imagining that, then he would be fighting another massive boner, and the whole thing would start all over again. Hating himself for not being stronger than this, the voice in his head sang, Earth to Five… Do you even have a brain anymore or do you only think with your dick?

“Ok,” he agreed, breaking the silence with nothing more than a one-word answer.

He really, really did want to redeem himself, but he also needed to settle down because he could hear the wheels of Frank the janitor’s cleaning cart coming down the hall outside his door.

Knock, knock, knock…

“Shit,” Five cursed, shifting you off of him as he quickly started righting himself, zipping his fly, then quickly trying to button at least most of his shirt.

Frank tapped again as he was scrambling to pick up all the cummed on wads of tissue laying around on the floor. “You okay in there?” the older man called. “I came past earlier but….but I thought it might be better if I came back.”

“Just a minute,” Five called out, his eyes darting around the dimly lit office, seeing his tie laying over by his desk and your dress shoes laying at the other end of the couch. Your hair looked like you’d been rolling around in the hay with him, minus the hay. Realizing that his hair probably looked worse, Five also remembered struggling to keep quiet, but failing horribly. “Fuck,” he cursed, turning around, his vest flying open as he frantically tore his hands back through his messed-up man mane, only making his less than tidy cut look even worse.

As you calmly picked up your stack of books and the case files Five had kindly let you use for your essays, frowning, he looked back at you from his reflection in the small mirror hanging by the door. The way he looked only made your hardly stifled giggles even louder.

Nice going boner boy. Very smooth and so fucking tactful! he silently fumed while rolling his eyes at himself.

Coming up behind him, you leaned in and kissed his cheek, quieting his troubled thoughts as if you held some kind of otherworldly magic over him.

Five shut his eyes, again letting you make all the moves for him. He cleared his throat, then he opened the door, doing his best to offer Franke a curt-looking smile and wave him inside, so he could do his thing.

“Evening, Frank.”

The white-haired janitor looked from Five to you, his mustache quirking just a little.

Hand pushing deep in his front pockets, Five moved aside, coming out into the hall, letting the older looking man and you move past. “Make sure you read over the notes I gave you on the importance of situational awareness before tomorrow, or there’s no way you’re going to pass,” Five called after you, trying to sound as pompously dick-ish as he normally would.

Turning back, you flipped him the bird.

Five smiled.

Watching you disappear down the hall, he promised himself this was the last time he was going to let you get him.

If he was doing this, which he evidently was, then he was going to start showing you exactly who he was. Then, maybe you’d get that he wasn’t who he appeared to be, and you’d do what he wasn’t strong enough to do, which was walk away from this.

Part Three: Closeted Softy

One second you and Five were heading down the hall, making your way to the conference room where, in an hour, he was going to be delivering a class to other trainees on interrogation tactics, then the next, your head was spinning from how quickly Five had latched on to you and swung you around, pushing you inside a maintenance closet.

It was dark, but not completely because the light seeping in from under the door filled enough of the cramped space for you to see that a jug of industrial cleaner was sitting on a shelf, inches from your face.

Something behind Five jingled, like a set of keys or something else metal.The points of his dress shoes nudged against the tips of your toes as he moved in closer, pressing you against the wall, so you couldn’t get away. You started to open your mouth, but before you knew it, he crashed his lips into yours, silencing you.

As he pinned you in his embrace with his strong fingers digging into your hips, his kiss quickly grew deeper and more desperate, making your heart beat faster and faster. Then, suddenly, he broke away, peering at you with his striking green eyes full of the devil.

“My turn,” he said, his smile exposing more of his charmingly boyish dimple in the dim light.

His warm fingers started sliding up the length of your arms, an unexpected coldness tickling your skin as he went, bringing your hands together. The weight of his body pushing against you, Five recaptured your lips with his again, then he pinched his fingers around the metal rings he’d just sneakily slipped around your wrists, tightening the handcuffs that you had no idea he’d had with him.

“Five, wha-"

As soon as he had you strung up, the chain of the cuffs hung up on one of the hooks above your head that would normally be used to hang a mop or broom, Five’s hands moved down, pushing you into the wall even tighter. "No hands, remember,” he mumbled in way of explanation before biting down on your earlobe, his teeth stinging your flesh as he suddenly pinched your nipples through the fabric of your blouse.

You gasped in shock, feeling Five's breathily laughed sigh of happiness over it, then you felt his velvety whisper. "Was that good?"

“I think you know it was,” you breathed as you squirmed in frustration, wanting to touch him, to run your fingers along the lines of his handsome face, then down his lean frame, but able to do none of that as he peered at you through the darkness with a lopsided grin.

Five's eyes smoldered, the soft green glint in them nonexistent. Lowering his head, he started softly licking one of your nipples through your shirt, his saliva wetting the fabric so there’d be no way you could hide it when the door reopened.

“You regretting doing this with me yet?” he asked when he pulled away.

All you could do was let out the most pathetic sounding whimper, so he did it again, only this time smiling against your peeked flesh before he bit down, making your body crane up against his. That’s when he reached down between you, and started palming himself.

Five jerked his chin to the side and slowly swallowed, his Adam's apple moving accordingly while your eyes drank in the sexiness of his nervous tick.

All at once, abandoning his own need, his hands were sliding up your skirt, moving between your legs. His breath hitched as soon as he felt the heat of your desire for him wetting your satin underwear.

A growl crept up from inside Five’s throat as he pushed the garment aside, slipping it down your legs where it got trapped at your ankles, further proving how helpless you were. At the feel of his hand sliding down, you squirmed over the new sensation, but instead of giving you what you wanted, Five paused, letting the wetness of your arousal paint the tips of his fingers.

“Oh fuck, I fucking love this,” he breathed as if transfixed. That breathless declaration, along with the gentle movement of his fingers, softly and carefully stroking, hit you hard. You reactively clenched your thighs together as fresh wetness spilled between your legs.

You whimpered as he cursed again, and his finger started sliding a little harder.

You bucked against his hand because it felt so good. Equally moved, Five feverishly started kissing you, but his hand remained, lodged between your legs.

Trying to chase the gloriously erotic feeling he was giving you by feeling more of him, you tried to push closer to him, but he wouldn’t let you, dodging it by moving himself back out of your reach.

“MMmmmmfff!" you cried, breathlessly breaking away from his mouth. "Yes, Five, there!” you urged and panted, then you had to hold your breath because that was way too loud and his finger was moving just right against your clit and…”Ahhh-ah-Ffffiiiiiivvveeee!”

Standing there, his silhouette in his black suit only making him look all the more sinister, Five smiled so sweetly. “That’s it, say my fucking name.”

“Fffffuuu- Five, yeeeeeesssss,” you moaned, when his index finger moved harder and faster.

Your breathing was becoming more labored, and your heart was beating so fast it felt like it might explode. Your body was moving of its own accord, your hips helplessly wiggling against his hand. Unable to control himself, Five started to thrust himself against your leg. “Tell me you want me to fuck you,” he growled as your body rammed back against the wall from the momentum of his attack.

His index finger pushed through your folds, flirting with entering you before sliding back upwards, pressing into your clit with just the right pressure. The handcuffs dug into your skin as your back arched off the wall while he licked at your earlobe in long hot hungry swipes.

“Say it!”

“I want you to fuck me! Please, Five!”

Only furthering his claim on you, and proving none of this was in your control, Five bit down hard and sucked at the skin on your shoulder as his finger flew around your nub, gliding faster and faster in a semi-circle like motion, pushing upwards, then down with no mercy. 

You bucked and thrashed. “Yes, like that,” you frantically begged.

Five slowed his pace to a stop, denying you. 

He lifted his head, looking up at you appraisingly, then he slowly slipped his finger inside you. As it disappeared, your walls involuntarily clenched around it, and looking diabolically thrilled, Five moved his digit deeper inside you.

You moaned, so broken and quiet that it finally seemed to bring a little of that familiar light of worry to his eyes. “Does it hurt?” he quietly asked.

Lost in the feeling of him inside you, you shook your head.

Once your tightness could be felt along the whole length of his finger and his palm was pressed up against you, Five began to slowly move in and out to the same pace as his thumb swirling around your clit.

“Oh my god, Five,” you gasped, as your whole body struggled against his.

“Does this feel good?” he asked, determined to keep you talking as he angled his finger up, letting it drag, making you bucked up, proving that was a move worth repeating.

“Ff-fuck. Ff-feels so good,” your words trailed off as you pinched your eyes shut.

“Say that you are nothing but a little prick tease and all you want is my cock, or I’m leaving you in here and not coming back,” Five demanded, his voice sounding so low and cold.

You didn’t understand. You said nothing.

“Do it!” Five angrily hissed.

“I’m a prick tease and I want your cock,” you obediently cried.

Five pulled out of your warmth, then gently buried his middle finger and index fingers together inside you, doing it so slowly.

Watching you intently, Five gradually increased the pace and angle of both fingers. He moved them in and out, again and again, the soft wet rhythmic sound of him moving inside you, and your panting for more, driving his wrist harder and faster. Unable to stop himself, he pushed his mouth against yours, fighting to be inside you even more than he was, but soon his own breathing became too unsteady, and he was forced to pull away for air.

“Fi-ve....I am almost there… Plea-se don’t st-op!” Your teeth pierced the bottom of your lip as you closed your eyes.

“Look at me,” he demanded, and just like that you did. You were covered in a sheen of sweat, about to double if the cuffs hadn’t been holding you up and he looked like something dark had consumed him, something terrifying.

“Please…let me go so I want to touch you,” you said as you gasped and bucked against his hand, your wetness warmly slipping against his palm as his long fingers felt like they were touching your soul.

“Do this for me, like this, and it will be over,” Five lovingly urged, and that change in how he’d spoke to you and what he’d said confused you even more.

"Five!" you cried as his fingers abruptly changed pace again, violently slamming in and out of you.

Your legs all at once tightened around his hand and your insides began to clench around him. Your entire body tensed, then shuddered. You weren’t breathing at all for moments on end. When you did, it was strained, but Five’s fingers kept going at it hard, letting you ride out every moment of the orgasm he’d forced out of you. 

When the clinching sensation around his fingers gradually began to slow to where he could no longer feel it, Five finally stopped moving them. You went limp against him, breathing heavily as he let you drop your head to his shoulder. 

As he held you, you were letting out shaky noises of contentment, and you were sure by the way his hand trembled as he ran it up and down our back that he wasn’t feeling very steady either. You felt like you could cry it was all so much, but then, adding to your dismay, that was when Five pried himself away and you heard the sound of him starting to open his pants.

Opening your eyes, your entire body still pulsing in time to your frantic heartbeat, you were treated with faintest glint Five’s heartbreakingly infectious pale green eyes that never seemed to cease in their infinite power over you, that, and his long, hard dick in his hand as he slowly and methodically stroked it like a man that knew exactly what he was doing and didn’t care at all that he was killing you.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he said while peering at you, still strung up, locked to the wall, unable to get away unless you screamed, ending all this madness of this for both of you.

Coming forward, the ends of Five's hair tickled your heated cheeks, his erection coming all the way to the height of your navel as he whispered in your ear, “Don’t worry. We’re almost done.”

Moving back so you could see all of it, his leisured motions as he massaged his cock, Five ran his hooked index finger round the tip, carefully spreading the moisture dripping out of him down his entire length, then he began to work himself in earnest, sliding his hand effortlessly over his shaft.

Just looking at him doing that made your insides throb all over again. Tiny shivers of satisfaction danced up your spine as a low growl resonated deep in Five’s throat.

The way he was looking at you as he pleasured himself spoke of so much without him uttering a word. There was a flicker in his eyes, something pained.

His breathing was becoming more labored as he gave himself over to the feel of his hand.

His thighs were tensed, holding him upright as the expensive wool fabric of his dress pants slouched to his knees. He was so beautiful.

“I’m- I'm almost there," he gasped. 

He came at you, whipping aside your skirt with his free hand, just in time for the milky white burst of cum that started to spill out of him. It spurt out, up onto your stomach, and between your legs, dripping down your thighs as he shuddered and grasped, erratically jerking his hand at his sensitive tip with the final jolts of his release.

When Five felt the final waves of tension in him ease to an end, he let go of his cock, but not before giving the thickly engorged length one final pump, that made his eyes fall shut.

Stumbling forward, he collapsed into you, shuddering all over again.

“Holy fuck,” he breathed while shakily wiping his forehead with his forearm.

“You can say that again,” you agreed as his face nuzzled against your neck.

Looking out of it, Five glanced down between you. Even in the darkness he could see what he’d done, his release glistening all over your body and clothes.

“That was not exactly what I meant to do to you,” he apologized, as he immediately reached over to the shelf, swiping a roll of paper down so he could start cleaning his cooling seed off your stomach and even some that had flung up between your breasts, leaving chalky stains on your black blouse that there was no way his efforts could remedy.

As Five attempted to erase the visible evidence of what he’d done, to you, his expression appeared to be a mixture of fascination and shame, and before seeing that look on one face, you weren’t even sure those two emotions could happen at the same time, but with Five, you were starting to realize anything was possible.

Throwing the soiled towels to the floor, he silently reached up, releasing you from your restraints. Still not letting you go, his warm fingers rubbed your wrists, so tenderly as he lowered your arms and pressed a soft kiss to your temple, everything about his behavior so unlike his urgent kisses and crazed demands from before. 

It felt so good to be worried over by him like that. He pulled you firmly against him, his chin resting on your shoulder. The hold he had on you felt possessive but also is heartbreakingly desperate as you both took in the uncertain afterglow of something neither of you could put to words.

After a few minutes, you tried to push away enough to look him in the eye, but the moment you did, Five turned away from you and popped the door open.

“Five, what’s wrong?”

Not answering you, he stepped out, then he stopped a few feet from the door and looked down at his shoes, with his dark hair falling over his face.

“Five, wait,” you snapped at him when he started to walk away again.

Mid-step, his hands clenched at his sides. “No. Go back to your room and change, then go straight upstairs and tell them you need to be transferred to another office,” he quietly said, then walked away.

Part Four: Not Five’s Dolores

You did go straight to your room like Five had told you to do, but you didn’t go upstairs and request a transfer. You ended up being late for the session Five was leading, thanks to having to change, and fix your tear-streaked makeup, and pull your head together enough to face him, but as it turned out, as the other trainees filled out of the conference room an hour later, he wasn’t even in there with them.

He'd bailed and another agent had led the class.

Over the next week, Five was nowhere to be seen, which meant you had no mentor and had to buddy up with your roommate and hers, a middle-aged guy who was not at all as easy on the eyes as Five, but at least he hadn’t ruined you. That was about the best thing you could say about Barry Carponelli and his questionable shirt stains paired with the oppressive smell of stale cigarettes that always seemed to be wafting off him.

Five did not smell like that. Five was…

Five was an asshole.

After another training session, sparring with Agent Smelly, you slung your gym bag over your shoulder, ready to be done with all of it.

“Hey, kid,” Barry called after you. You turned. “You know, before I came down here to teach you girls how to do more than those pansy ass moves Five is always doing in here with you, I heard someone say that smug little prick was finally back. If I took that many days off, I’d be fired. I have no idea why they put up with him. You’re better off without him,” he said, then plucked a smoke out of his pack and strolled past, leaving you filled with renewed purpose.

This wasn’t over until you said it was. Fuck Five.

Racing up the stairs to the admin offices, you went straight to Five’s door, just as his assistant Derek was coming out. “Is Five available,” you asked.

“No. He just left for the day,” the small statured blonde male answered, looking at you curiously. “Do you need me to leave him a message?”

“No,” you quickly replied, glancing at Five’s office door. “I think I left one of my notebooks in there the other day. Do you mind if I go in and look for it?”

“Go ahead,” Derek said, opening Five’s office door wide, making it clear he’d be keeping an eye on you.

Politely nodding your thanks, you went in, heading for the couch, but as soon as you heard Five’s assistant getting distracted by someone else, you darted for the desk.

Pulling on the drawers, you realized most were locked. “Shit,” you quietly cursed, looking around the clean surface of Five’s workspace, but then you saw it. Sticking out from under a paperweight that was shaped like an umbrella that had been turned backwards by the wind, you saw a piece of mail. It was personal. It was a bill with Five’s address on it.

You smiled. “Found you, you bastard.”

A few hours later, just before sunset, you were in a shady neighborhood that was not at all where you’d expected Five to live based on his job and his outward appearance being that of someone that looked like they had much higher standards than the rundown building you were standing in front of.

Going inside wasn’t much better. Since the elevator was broken, you had to step over countless piles of trash in the fire escape stairwell on your way up the fifth floor.

By the time you had gotten to his door, you were second guessing yourself.

Raising your hand to knock, you finally came to your senses. Confronting Five would do nothing to change what had happened. First thing in the morning, you would put in your transfer paperwork.

Then, just as you were lowering your hand and turning to leave, a tall curly-haired guy, several years older than you, or more, opened the door. He looked as startled as you, his eyes crinkling in the corners as he looked you up and down.

“Tell them, I am not coming, and stop coming over without calling first! I told you I am fine!” Five yelled from somewhere in the apartment.

Saying nothing, the stranger looking back at you as he stood there wearing the strangest poncho made of bubble wrap, lifted a finger to his lips, silently motioning for you not to say anything, then he came out.

Once he’d shut the door, he said, “Hi. I am Klaus, Five’s brother. And you are?”

You said your name, and just as fast, his eyes lit up. “Right… I thought maybe it was you…” He grinned. “So…” He pulled his lips to the side. “I suppose you were here to tell off that angry little shit rat in there?”

“I was, but I changed my mind.”

“Since I’ve heard all about you, and I’m sure Five has told you all about me and the rest of his wonderful family, and your plans have changed, and it looks like neither of us have shit to do now, would you like to join me for a stroll to this really nice smoothie place a few blocks away? It’s got the best add-ins, like lemongrass and all sorts of other healthy crap that really boosts the old immune system and keeps the reaper away.”

Five told you nothing about Klaus and almost nothing about his personal life that didn’t relate directly back to his work at the CIA. He’d used you to get his rocks off and that was that, but you didn’t say that because something told you this peculiar Klaus guy already knew that his brother was a first class asshole..

Opening your mouth to decline, Klaus must have seen it coming, so he stuck out his bottom lip. “Pretty please… This neighborhood is scary, and I walked all the way over here to check in on that grumpy old man child and he’s being such a dick head, and I know something’s up with him other than his normal lonely mopey thing, but like always, he won’t talk about it. He’s always shutting us out and I know he likes you and something happened and-"

Taking a risk, you cut Klaus off. “You know what, I am in the mood from some anti-grim reaper juice.”

Giving you a toothy smile because he’d totally got you, the next thing you knew, you were being escorted down the street by Klaus Hargreeves, with him babbling on and on about things that seemed so far out there that they should have been part of a science fiction comic book rather than about what it was like growing up as part of something he called, The Umbrella Academy.

Hours later, after confirming Klaus was not on hallucinogenic drugs, or drunk, or just plain out of his mind, you had heard an earful and then some. After everything Five’s brother had told you, about them all being born with superpowers, their horrible alien father who adopted them, their  lives going to shit, to them all being stripped of their pasts and powers and left to fend for themselves in this new timeline, you didn’t know what to think.

It was clear that Klaus believed all of it. And he was very interested to hear your version about what had happened between you and Five, and when he did, like you’d suspected, he was not at all surprised by it.

“You’re the only one he’s ever done any of that with, and I mean like the only one, other than his plastic woman relationship thing. Five is not the bad person he thinks he is,” Klaus said, just before parting ways. “He’s just been through hell and back, over and over, and sometimes, I think he gets stuck not knowing how to move on from all that, you know…”

You didn’t know. You didn’t know what to think about any of this. What he’d said happened to Five was so bad, it was on another level of awful and unbelievable. Nobody would be okay after that, no matter how strong they were.

Piecing together the strange things Five had said to you, things like him being older than he looked, and that he’d done unredeemable things, it made sense now, but still…

Wow.

You did your best to act normal and not too weirded out. You liked Klaus. Klaus was the kind of person that was hard not to like, but it was hard not to be very weirded out.

Saying goodbye after you’d made sure Klaus was only a few blocks from his sister’s house, well out of the dangerous area of town that Five lived in, you were left alone again with your thoughts going haywire.

It was late, almost past midnight. Not even thinking about where you were heading, soon you were back, looking up at Five’s building.

Questioning your sanity, you lightly tapped on his door.

He didn’t come.

You knocked again, only louder.

A whole minute later and after several more knocks, startled and swaying as he flung his door open, Five blinked his eyes rapidly at you as if trying to clear his vision.

You looked down at the half-drained liquor bottle in his hand and the fuzzy dog slippers he had on his feet. To match his look of disheveled drunkenness, Five was wearing nothing but a dark blue bathrobe that came to just below his knees.  

“This was a very bad idea,” you said, under your breath, already turning to go.

Five’s voice cracked as he said your name. “…Please come back. I didn’t mean to-”

He wiped at his eyes.

Five took a small, very defeated looking breath. “I tried to leave you alone, but I just..”

“You just what?” you asked, coming back when he didn’t finish, stopping right in front of him with your fingers tapping at your hips.

Five held your accusing stare but just barely. “I just… I don’t deserve you and you could do a million times better than me.”

“Why because you’re a 63-year-old, ex-temporal assassin who’s stuck inside the body of an eighteen-year-old asshole who’s got his panties in a twist because he can’t teleport anymore?”

Forcing himself to stand up straighter even though it was clear that he was a drunk mess, Five swallowed, his face looking entirely serious. “Actually, we don’t call it teleporting. It’s called blinking, and you’re right, I can’t do that anymore, and if I wore panties, yes, they’d be in a twist about it.”

“Teleporting! Blinking! Five! What the hell difference does it make when I just walked into the twilight zone!”

Eyes wide, Five reached out, pulling you inside his apartment.

It was small, dimly lit, the furniture minimal. You could see almost all of it in just one quick glance. An outdated, beat-up kitchen on one side, two reading chairs next to an overflowing bookshelf made up his clean, but tiny living area. There was a bedroom door filled with darkness off to your left. Everything was old and used, but cozy looking. It was exactly the kind of unassuming hideaway you would have expected the extremely traumatized person Klaus had told you about would feel safe.

It was the embodiment of Five: the old man who’d cared about everyone else, but had given up on himself, and the innocent boy who’d been used and abused, who would never be able to stop fighting and hoping for a chance at something better.

“Do you believe it? Everything Klaus told you?” Five asked, looking at you with glossy eyes.

“I do.”

“Then why are you here?”

Pointing to the chair you were pretty sure Five had been sitting in based on the way the other looked like nobody ever sat in it, you let out a loud exhale. “Sit,” you ordered.

Five turned and stumbled back to his chair, dropping down in it clumsily, where he proceeded to almost spill his liquor, then slumped like a sad child that had just been told to go sit in the corner.

Coming over, kneeling in front of him, Five tried to put his legs together before you could position your body in a way that prevented it, but he didn’t move at all fast enough.

“Not this is how it’s going to go,” you said, gripping his knees. “I’m going to ask you something and you’re going to tell me the truth. Do you understand?”

Five nodded.

“Do you have feelings for me?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“What kind?” you countered.

“The kind that I shouldn’t have.”

You shook your head and spread his knees farther apart, making his terry cloth robe spread, exposing the snow-white skin of his inner thighs. “Elaborate,” you pushed. From what you could tell, Five wasn’t wearing any panties, just like he’d said. He wasn’t wearing anything.

The line between his eyes deepened as he answered you. “I have the kind of feelings for you that make me wish I was someone you could love.”

Slowly, you started moving your hands from his knees, heading under his robe, stopping just shy of the danger zone. “You don’t get to decide how I feel about you, Five. I can think for myself, but if you decide to push me away, that’s on you.”

Again, he nodded.

“I like you, Five and that means the you that I thought I knew but then decided to fuck things up and make me cry my eyes out.” You smiled even though that made him look even more miserable. “And I like that frisky old man in you that you’ve been trying and failing to keep hidden. Both are good men even if they act like jerk offs sometimes.”

A tear slipped down Five’s reddened cheek.

“You say you don’t deserve it, but I think, from what I’ve heard, you deserve the world, Five Hargreeeves.”

Five looked down at his lap, holding his breath.

Very carefully, your hand moved over him, gathering the silky length of flesh descended between his legs, lovingly fondling him.

“You need to realize that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, or what you’ve lost. You’re still worthy of love, and even if you weren’t and all that crazy shit your brother told me turned up to be some kind of dream I’d had in a moment of insanity while wallowing over you as I drank a delicious smoothie, I’d still want you. Even if you looked like the white-haired man grumping around up there in your head, I’d want you because under it all, you are sweet and kind and too smart for your own good and all kinds of scary sexy and I like all of that.”

As you relished in the feel of him getting hard, Five looked utterly defenseless even though you knew that was far from the truth. His tear-filled gaze was lazy and appreciative as he gazed at you, lying your heart out to him as you stroked his ego and his cock.

“Do you still want me?” you asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

You brushed aside the rest of Five’s bunched-up, funny old man robe, then came forward, resting your forearms on his warm thighs. Your hand tightened around his cock and kept moving as you looked up at him, his eyes looking droopy as his head rolled to one side.

“You don’t have to do-” Five started, but before he could finish what he was going to say, you were nuzzling him, your face at the crook of his leg and torso, tenderly kissing him there before you slowed your hand to a stop and licked the length of his dick, from the base to the tip, like it was the best thing you’d ever had in her face.

Five shivered.

Without hesitation, you started to suck, slowly running your tongue around and around the drip of translucent fluid that had already started leaking out of him.

“Mmmmm,” you hummed as you tasted him, the smooth pattern of your mouth moving over him, making Five grasp at his armrests as he tried and failed to bite back a broken moan.

Your contented humming continued as you let your tongue spread the wetness so you could push your mouth down, taking in more of him. Feeling the vibrations from your throat, Five’s head dropped back against his chair. He reached down with his left hand, shakily brushing your hair to the side so he could watch you sucking him off.

When your mouth met your fingers, you stopped working downward and began to move your head back up, never letting up with your tight lips or your tongue as it pressed along his length.

“Oh shit, that feels good!” Five whispered, his fingers moving through your hair as he very tentatively placed his hand on the back of your head. More soft curses came out of him on quickening breaths as you buried your nose in the small tuft of dark hair between his legs, taking him until your nose hit his pubic bone.

Gripping you tighter, holding you there and finding no resistance, Five deliriously questioned, “Are you sure this is okay?”

The second he let up, your head bobbed, your mouth making the most perfectly erotic squelching sounds as tears started to run down your red cheeks. Still, you didn’t stop.

The sight of him breaking you, but not, and you letting him do it, and the feeling of you loving him like this even at his lowest, sent what was left of Five’s restraint out the door.

Straining not to push you too much, Five’s hips started rocking upwards as you latched on to his upper leg with your other hand, supporting yourself as he pushed his cock deep, sending himself down your throat each time he rolled and fucked his body up into your mouth.

He was the one mostly dictating the speed and depth of each thrust, and the act was brutally degrading, but you didn't seem to care. Even the sound of you forcing your breaths through your nose was a turn on, and Five had to force myself not to say the string of dirty praises he had running through his head.

“I’m so... cl-close,” he stammered instead, in-between hardly contained grunts of the word fuck while forcing your head down and up again.

With his heels digging into the floor for leverage to lift him with each jerk of his hips, something in Five felt like it was shattering.

He took you all the way to the hilt again, holding you there until you started gagging and digging your nails into his leg. Then he did it again, and again.

Overwhelmed by what he was doing and how sick it was of him that he wanted to feel and see you struggle like that, in between thrusts, he let out sob like cries of thank you, and please, and fuck, and with those desperate words helplessly coming out of him, that deep seated feeling in his stomach that followed was impossible to ignore.

“I’m gonna come,” Five wept as he fisted your hair and frantically pumped himself in and out of your mouth as he began to ejaculate down your throat.

He kept incoherently moaning as his hips thrust in angry bursts of momentum.

When his body was done and his shudders had ceased, dizzy enough that the room felt like it was spinning, Five finally let go of you and you fell back on your heels, whipping at the line drool that had dripped from your mouth. You looked up at him, your nose a little runny and your eyes still wet, but somehow you still managed to smile for him and that broke Five even more.

Reaching out, Five ran his thumb across your cheek, collecting a remaining tear before his hand flopped to his side again. “I am so sorry for everything,” he whispered.

“I know,” you whispered back as you covered him back up, pulling his robe around him like he was helpless, which he was. When you walked to his bedroom and he didn’t follow because he was physically incapable at that moment, Five didn’t get to see your smile, but as you looked around in the dark at his boyishly blue quilt and saw the small, worn stuffed animal puppy dog lying on his bed, you knew once again that you weren’t wrong about him.

Snatching up a blanket that was neatly folded and placed by his pillow, you came back out, laying it over him.

Leaning in, you brushed Five’s hair from his forehead before you kissed his cooling skin, then you tiptoed away again. Turning back as you placed your hand on the doorknob, you saw him sleepily watching you, clearly wanting to say something, but like so often, not being able to find the right words.

“Goodnight, Five,” you said, then you left.

Part Five: Perfectly Wrong

The next day, the second you entered his office, Five rushed to the door, locking it, then he grabbed you by the waist, tugging you closer. “Where the hell have you been, I have been losing my mind up here,” he declared while lowering his head to yours, bringing your faces within a whisper's length. 

“I have been working, that’s why I’m here, remember?” You laughed then said, “I wasn’t scheduled to meet with you until afternoon.” You looked at the clock then smiled. “Which is right now.”

Five didn’t look satisfied with that, so you kissed him, then pulled away, leaving him cutely puckering at air with his dark lashes fanning his cheeks so handsomely.

“For a man that once could control time, you seem very confused about how it works,” you teased.

“No shit. If that isn’t the understatement of the year,” he smarted back while giving you an adorable smirk. “I am impatient, impossible to deal with, and so horny for you that they should lock me up to protect you. All that made me think you’d changed your mind about me, that or I’d dreamed you coming to my apartment last night to tell me off, but then, instead, I ended up getting the first blow job of my long pathetic life and finished that mind blowing experience by getting tucked into my recliner like the big baby invalid I am.”

“I didn’t change my mind about you, and you didn’t dream that. I still like you, and our totally taboo, mentor fucking with his student, scandalizing age gapped, dirty talking, panty wetting, dry humping, cry fest of a relationship we have. Speaking of my training and it being your job to see to it that I succeed, I can’t quite understand how things work around here as they relate to my future and what they expect out of me as a fully sworn in agent.”

“Oh...? You read the 3000 page mission statement, but you still need my help figuring that out?” Five offered back, playing along.

You leaned in and whispered hotly in his ear. “I do. Will you help me?” 

“I’d do anything for you,” Five breathed back, nudging your nose with his to make you smile as he peered at you through the strands of his hair that had just fallen in his face.

“Maybe you could lay it all out for me, right here on the top of your desk? Show me how you navigate all these complicated protocols and endless hours of typing up boring intelligence reports. With all the talking and writing up briefings, your fingers and mouth must get so tired. I know mine do. What then? What other tools do you have on you to get you through those super hard, long days?”

Five tipped you back on his desk, his hands moving down your back to support you until you were resting on your elbows. “As a fully sworn in agent, I steer myself around any obstacles in my way, ruthlessly and rudely ignoring anything and anyone that dares to get in my way.” He pushed the bulge forming in his pants between your legs. “When it comes to protocols, I throw them out the window and do what I want because I have never been good at following anyone’s rules but my own. And when I get tired of talking and my fingers get fatigued from all the typing, I say fuck it and really start breaking the rules and let my dick do the talking for me, proving why it was a very bad idea to make me your mentor and that I’m a huge pervert. Would you like me to elaborate on that?”

“Yes,” you said, burying your fingers in Five’s hair, using it as an anchor to draw his mouth to yours as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders while trapping him with your legs around his waist.

Sliding his hands under your bottom, Five pulled you closer to his need, brushing his face at your neck as he sucked on and kissed, his warm breaths tickling your skin.

“Tell me what you want. I mean it, I’d do anything for you,” Five insisted, all teasing aside, speaking into your skin as you gripped his firm backside and fooled around with his hair in that way he loved.

“Because you're a bad boy and I am a very bad girl, I want you to break all the rules with me right now,” you whispered. 

Five let go of your hips where his hands had been rhythmically tugging you against him.

“Jeez-us, fuck you are trouble,” he breathlessly hissed as you reached down and started undoing his pants.

Five couldn’t contain his groan as you pulled his dick out and started to rub him. You flashed him your teeth as you smiled, enjoying yourself immensely as he careened into your grasp.

Giving you the hardest look he could muster considering what you were doing to him, Five pulled your hands away, guiding them both back behind you so he could press them down on his desk, under the pressure of his palms.

“Leave them here,” he sternly ordered, though there was no holding back his amused smile.

You nodded while sucking in your bottom lip as you coyly looked up at him from underneath your lashes.

Once Five was sure you were going to stay put, he let go of your hands, then he pressed himself closer to you again while bracing you from behind with one hand, bringing the other between your legs, yanking your panties aside.

As his fingers slid inside you, you dropped your head back, watching him with narrowed eyes.

“You’re really all in?” he asked, knowing you were, only wanting to hear you say it again.

“Yes, Five. I want all of you,” you begged, as you looked down at his cock, then up at him distraughtly.

Gripping himself, Five slipped his fingers out of you, replacing them with the softness of skin on skin and the warm, girthy head of his cock, gliding it back and forth as he wet himself at your entrance, then prodded and rubbed against your clit, back and forth.

“Fuck me, you're amazing,” Five cursed, unable to contain it when he finally felt what it was like to do this with his bare cock slicked against a body that was warm and forgiving.

He rocked himself against you, marveling over the simple pleasure of it, and he could have probably been held rapt forever by just that, but you’d said you wanted it all, and fuck..so did he.

“Are we okay like this?” he asked, meaning without protection.

“Yes, please…fuck yes!" you moaned, and he swore the look on your face could have killed a lesser man.

Getting the go ahead, Five ran his cock through your folds again, making sure he was wet enough to enter you. Then, carefully, drawing it out with a slow steady motion, he started pushing himself into you. Your warm walls clenched around his rounded tip, fighting it, but you didn't tell him to stop, so he moved inside deeper, whimpering because it felt so good to finally feel what this was like.

With Five’s thick cock opening you wider than it seemed possible, you threw your head back, panting his name and assurances to keep going, forcing your body to accept him. Feeling your tightness quivering around his length, unable to contain himself any longer, Five slowly started to move in and out, watching your face carefully for any signs of pain.

Once it was clear that he wasn’t hurting you, he smiled darkly, then very lowly warned, "Be quiet, or I’ll give you a reason to get really loud and then we both will have to start looking for new jobs.” 

Immediately going faster, his hips thwacking against you harder and harder, Five leaned forward over you again, kissing the exposed area of your neck and upper shoulder. 

When you let out a loud gasp, his hand flew over your mouth, then he increased the pace and angle of hips, rolling them in and out, fucking to a softer rhythm that felt so fucking good and made him look even more like he was the God of fuck he was.

“You are so fucking tight. This feels so…fuck,” he breathed before whipping his head back, trying to get his hair out of his eyes. As if he wasn’t doing you just fine already, hoisting your legs up a little more, Five pulled himself out a little, attentively working his tip in a way that pushed upwards, increasing the pressure building inside you in a way that made your head rolled back on your shoulders and your legs around his waist go limp.

“Oh, fuck, Five, yes, like that,” you cried out from under his hand.

“I fucking love you so much,” he moaned back, his eyes on yours as he bore down on you.

His dick pumping back and forth inside you even faster, Five’s brain took a second or two to catch up to what he’d just said. Breaking out in a sweat, his hand coming off your mouth, letting you breathe, he suddenly looked horrified, but that was only until you began to wildly thrust yourself back against him, using your ankles by digging them into his back.

Your fingernails tore into his back through his vest and dress shirt as he pushed his tongue against yours.

Slipping farther and farther into subspace every time his cock barred inside you, the more intense the lightning storm inside him got. His thoughts had grown hazy, and all Five knew was he was in heaven. 

He was slamming into you, harder and harder, and all you could do was hold on, keeping yourself locked to him as you clung to the sides of his desk. You felt that sweet aching pressure down in your lower abdomen. Your back arched. You felt your heart pounding between your legs as Five began to come violently cum, his cock throbbing inside of you as he fell into stuttering movements, having been totally taken off guard by the intensity with how hard the height of his pleasure hit him.

The scent of his cum in the air, of sweat gathering on your bodies and the sound of your heavy breathing, the sounds of your lover’s kisses returning to your lips, urgent, insistent, desperate….

It was perfect.

Five didn’t stop working his hips, pulling his cock in and out of you. Bringing his hand between your legs, all it took was the slightest touch of his fingers getting into the game and a few more pumps of his hips, making his cum drizzle hotly out of you onto his desk and you were falling apart, your body trembling through your equally intense release.

Slowing to a stop, Five smiled into your neck, slowly kissing you as he ran his hand down your side. He didn’t want to pull away, but he also didn’t want to force you to stay like that, spread out with him heedlessly leaning between your legs. On top of that, he could hear Derek talking just outside his door.

After a moment more of proudly grinning over what had just happened, he pulled away.

“Are you sure about me?” he asked, uncertain, yet playing it like a joke, not so brazen and sure of himself when you weren’t withering against him.

“I am sure, and that was, holy fucking wow, Five,” you praised, as you reached out, tenderly brushing back a piece of his hair that had stuck to his forehead.

Five’s ego was quickly restored. You always knew exactly what he needed, when he needed it. It was as if you understood him better than he understood himself and you were ok with who he was even when he wasn’t.

“You are making this way too easy for me,” he pointed out. 

“I ah… I should probably go,” you said as you grinned at him, momentarily distracted as he looked down at your legs dangling around his. He was so fucking hot.

“Shoot,” he laughed, rolling his eyes to his ceiling, then back to yours. “I meant to show you that my mouth is good for more than delivering sarcastically slights and even better clever commentary. Maybe there’s still time,” he teased, hands moving under your legs as he lowered himself, about to throw your legs over his shoulders and bury his face between the mess he’d made between your legs.

Derek knocked on the door.

“Fuck,” he laughed, jumping up, swinging your legs together, whipping you upright like you weighed nothing. His jaw pumped in agitation but that didn’t change his massive smile. “As much as I hate it, we really need to save that lesson for another time. Not that I care if I get fired, it’s just…You know,” he rambled, racing to zip up his pants and tuck his shirt back in.

“Another time then,” you chirped as you scooted off his desk, your heels landing softly on the floor.

As Five went to the door, unlocking it, before Derek tried to open it and come in, you came up behind him, hugging him from behind, your cheek falling against his as he tried to turn back. “I love you too, Five,” you whispered, then let him go just as the door started to open.

Stepping past Derek, you looked over your shoulder at Five, and said, “Thanks again for helping me, ahh…with figuring all that out.”

“Anytime. That’s what I am here for,” Five replied, his hand running over his mouth to hide his wicked grin.

As Derek looked at him in question, clearly aware that something was up, totally smitten, Five took the file he was handing him, but his eyes remained glued to you.

“It looks like those few days off did you some good. Are you feeling better?” Derek questioned, as he looked over at the papers pushed off of Five’s desk that were now laying on the floor. He smiled. 

“Yes, much better,” Five breathed, coming to his senses, but only after you’d turned the corner, blowing him a secret kiss.

For the first time in his life, Five knew what it was like to feel the love he’d always longed for, and it was all because of you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~As always, thanks for reading. Let me know if you liked this. ❤️~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Spy x Family CODE: White - FULL MOVIE SUMMARY [SPOILERS]

Now that I've finally read through the entire novelization of CODE: White, I'm ready to share a full summary of everything that happens - basically spoil the whole movie for those interested 😅

But before I get to the summary, a few notes:

I didn't translate every line from the novelization as that would have taken way too long. I go into more detail for scenes I was particularly interested in (like Twiyor scenes), or scenes that were easy to translate. But I still made sure to mention everything that's important to the story. If I gloss over some parts more than others, it's either because they were difficult to translate, or I didn't think they were that important. But even so, the "summary" still ended up being way longer than I anticipated!

I have not seen the movie myself yet, so everything in the summary below is based on the novelization only (of which there were two versions released, with slight differences between them). Obviously the novelization is an accurate adaptation, but there is a chance that a few things are different between the novelization and the actual movie, and/or the novelization may have left out some dialogue or minor scenes.

And lastly, it goes without saying but BEWARE OF MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! Not only that, but please be considerate of where you share these spoilers. Remember to properly tag this post if you reblog it and think twice before you share any of this information on other social media. Most people don't want to be spoiled to this degree!

Again MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!

The movie starts with an introduction to the characters – we see Twilight carrying out a mission where he has to disguise himself as someone's wife. Meanwhile, Yor is doing an assassination mission. They both come home at the same time and are greeted by Anya. Bond has a vision of Anya and Loid getting sick from Yor's cooking, so Anya suggests that Loid cook instead.

At Eden, Henderson tells the students about the cooking contest and how the principal will be the judge. Loid is on the roof, reading Henderson's lips. A falcon flies overhead and drops him a note with an F cipher. He goes to meet with Sylvia at one of the WISE hideouts. She informs him that she has another big mission for him, but when he objects that he couldn't take on something so big in the midst of Operation Strix, she hands him a photo of a man and child. She explains that the man is Major Depple of the Army Intelligence Department who has a lot of important people backing him, and since they hadn't made enough progress with Operation Strix, the higher-ups decided to pass it onto him.

As Loid leaves, he bumps into Fiona. Her hat gets blown away with the wind and he reaches to catch it, just as Yor and her coworkers are across the street. From where Yor sees them, it looks like Loid is kissing "the mysterious woman." Loid and Fiona have a fake conversation – he compliments her hat, she says it was made overseas, etc – while they're actually doing their secret "spy talk" (like they did when she first visited him at home). He tells her what's happening with Operation Strix, and she tells him that she had tried to warn him that it shouldn't have been left up to ordinary citizens who don't know anything, and that she should take on the wife role. Meanwhile, Camilla and co. tell Yor about the three signs of cheating: one, an increase in travelling; two, a change in clothing taste (to match the taste of his new lover); and three, suddenly giving gifts (because he feels guilty).

Later that evening, Yor is still feeling anxious about Loid's possible "lover." When Anya gets home, she tells them about the cooking competition. Loid recalls from his data that the principal's favorite is the melemele pastry. If Anya could get a stella from the competition, that could help get him back into Operation Strix. He says that he read in the school newspaper that the melemele in Frejis is supposedly the best, so they should go there and try it for themselves via a family vacation over the weekend. Yor thinks back to the "increase in travelling" sign of cheating that Camilla told her about. Loid tells her that only families are allowed at the Frejis restaurant they're headed to, so she decides to go, though she's still conflicted about whether this is actually a sign of cheating or not.

They have some family time on the train to Frejis, though Loid still makes Anya study. They play cards and get food (Anya has a corn dog, Yor has a sandwich, Loid has a hamburger). After coming back from the bathroom, Anya notices a key by one of the sinks. Bond is with her, and through him she sees a vision of the future – in the vision, she goes to car 8 and opens a trunk with the key while overhearing two men mention that it's a key to a treasure of the Republic.

Back in the train car, Loid brings up Anya's terrible handwriting while Yor mentions that they had practiced handwriting the other day. Loid says that Yor's motherly side is really coming out, which causes Yor to get flustered and makes her think that it's not her skills as a mother he could be dissatisfied with but perhaps her skills as a wife. She gets even more flustered when she notices a couple across the way kissing and starts nervously moving her lips, to which Loid asks if something's wrong. She stammers that her lipstick didn't warm up and is itchy, then says she's going to look for Anya since she's taking a long time.

Meanwhile, Anya and Bond find the luggage compartment and locate the trunk from Bond's vision. When Anya goes to grab it, Bond tries to stop her. At first she thinks that she shouldn't just do whatever she wants with other people's stuff, but then she remembers that the men in the vision said it was a treasure of the Republic, a treasure that could possibly help achieve world peace. She opens the trunk and is disappointed to find just a chocolate in it. But when she hears the two men, Domitri and Luca, open the door, she gets startled and accidently knocks the chocolate out of the trunk. It bounces off of Bond's nose, and when she tries to grab it, it falls into her mouth. She hides when Luca and Domitri come in to look for the trunk.

They describe the ship sticker on it, and when they find that it's been opened and the chocolate stolen, they say they're going to kill whoever took it so the secret won't get out. When Anya accidently makes a noise, the men take notice. Domitri takes a flower out of his pocket and points it towards the dim light in the car, saying that his "flower fortune telling" will tell him who's hiding. They then notice Anya escaping into car 7 and give chase. They lock her in car 6, but when she starts screaming for Papa and Mama, Yor breaks open the locked door. She asks Anya who the two men are and Anya says that they're chocolate thieves who were being mean to her. Yor beats them up (after telling Anya to cover her eyes) just as the train arrives at Frejis station (Anya seems to feel bad that she sicced Yor on them when she was the actual chocolate thief). When they get off the train, Loid says that they should start heading to their destination (as Yor starts building a snowman). After they get their luggage and leave, Luca and Domitri emerge from the car they were in and say they need to contact the colonel.

The shop that has the melemele is called "Restaurant Rubble and Bonds." Since pets aren't allowed in the restaurant, they leave Bond outside when they go inside to eat. After ordering food along with the melemele, the waitress tells them that they're getting the last melemele. Bond watches them from the window, but then a waitress comes over and feeds him the special pet plate, which he happily eats. As the Forgers are eating, Loid tells Anya that she shouldn't eat with her hands, and that using a knife and fork are proper manners. Yor watches and notices the turtleneck sweater Loid is wearing, which makes her realize it's something that he never wears. She then thinks of Camilla's second sign of cheating, a change in clothing taste. The chef comes over and tells them how the war in Frejis was mostly fought in the sky, and the aircraft displayed at the front of the station belonged to a two-man team famous for shooting down planes during the war.

There's a brief scene where Yuri overhears his coworkers at the SSS talking about Frejis, and he of course wants to go since he knows Yor is there now. But the boss won't let him, so he makes a bit of a scene.

Back at the restaurant, the chef continues to talk about the war and how he lost everything at that time. His decision behind making a restaurant catering to families was so people could experience the homemade food that he remembered his mom used to make. Loid can't help but relate the chef's backstory to his own. The melemele is finally ready and brought to the table.

Just as Anya is about to dig in, Colonel Snidel and some other soldiers enter the restaurant. The waitress and chef try to tell them that only families are allowed, but Snidel says that the military have authority in this area, even when it comes to food, and could close down the restaurant if they wanted to. They order the melemele, and when they're told that there isn't any left, one of the soldiers takes the melemele from Anya. Loid politely tells the soldiers that his daughter was really looking forward to eating it and if they could possibly order a different dessert. Snidel asks if they're tourists that came here to eat the melemele. Loid replies that they travel around trying delicious food. Snidel challenges Loid to a competition – if Loid wins, he'll give them back the melemele. The competition involves trying the three cakes that were placed on the table and correctly naming every type of sugar in them. Even though Loid correctly names them, Snidel also mentions the exact number of grams, making his answers the most accurate. Everyone's bummed that Loid lost, but he says that they could try coming back again. However, the chef tells them that they won't have more until Monday, which is when the Forgers have to be back in Berlint for the cooking competition. Yor asks the chef that if they provide their own ingredients, would he make it for them, and he agrees.

The Forgers go to the Frejis marketplace to get the ingredients from the list that the chef provided. Having already memorized the list, Loid moves at super speed to every shop and quickly finds most of the ingredients. When he goes looking for the orange syrup, a man from a cosmetic shop asks if he'll buy one of the many lipsticks there for his wife. He picks one out, mentioning how back on the train Yor had said that her lipstick wasn't working out and if this one is a nice color. She's embarrassed at first, but then agrees that it's a nice color and accepts…but then she's reminded of Camilla's last sign of cheating: suddenly giving a gift (meanwhile Loid is just thinking how putting on the happy couple appearance is part of the mission). With all three signs of cheating having taken place, Yor says that she's going to the bathroom and dejectedly walks away. Loid wonders if she's just tired from the trip and if she'll be okay. Anya then calls Loid over to a shooting game booth that has the orange syrup as one of the prizes. After attempting the game and failing, Anya reads the booth owner's mind and realizes it's rigged. Loid gets suspicious as well and is able to masterfully shoot down the orange syrup while also exposing the owner's scam.

Loid is ready to look for the last ingredient, but then Anya runs off to ride the mini train. Yor rejoins them, having put on the lipstick while she was in the bathroom. Loid says it suits her and asks if she'd like to get a drink somewhere. They go to a café booth where Loid orders coffee. But Yor, thinking how she needs to confirm the whole cheating thing with Loid and can't open up without the help of alcohol, orders several cups of heated wine. She finally gets drunk enough to ask Loid if he has a lover.

From the train, Anya looks over to see Yor grab Loid's scarf and pull him to the ground. Anya freaks out about "Papa and Mama flirting." They're both on the ground now, with Yor hovering over Loid before she finally passes out. She wakes up on a bench, where Loid asks if she's okay. She apologizes for what she did, but thinks that Loid will definitely want a divorce after what happened. When Anya reads her mind, she thinks of what Becky told her about divorces and how they cause families to fall apart. She then hears the ferris wheel attendant calling for people to ride, saying that it'll be a happy, "flirty" experience. Anya tells Loid and Yor that she wants to ride the ferris wheel, but then ushers them onto the gondola without joining them, much to their surprise. She tells them to get "flirty," to Loid's dismay. Yor tells Bond to look after Anya.

Yor realizes that she must look really bleak right now and it's making Anya worry. Loid asks if she's okay and she again apologizes for her behavior earlier. Loid replies that she's been acting weird for a while, causing Yor to finally admit that she saw him with his "lover"…someone with a large hat. Tears start welling in her eyes, so she covers her face with her hands to hide them. Realizing that the person she's referring to was Fiona, Loid explains that she wasn't a lover, just someone who needed directions to the art museum. Feeling embarrassed about her mistake, Yor looks away from Loid and out the window. She sees Anya and Bond below, the former waving happily at her. Yor waves back before mentioning if Loid could want a divorce, to which he light-heartily replies "no way." Yor says that she's lacking in a lot of ways, not just as a mother but as Loid's wife. Loid then takes her hands in his, looks straight into her eyes and reminds her of the promise he made via their marriage proposal.

He says the marriage vows again before stating that he has no intention of breaking his promise. As Loid gets closer to her, Yor's face reddens and her heart races until she finally breaks – she smacks Loid on the cheek, sending him flying out of the gondola (which had reached the ground). But he adjusts himself in midair and lands gracefully on his feet. Yor grabs their belongings from the gondola and hurries out. Upon seeing Loid's swollen cheek, Anya panics that Papa and Mama were fighting and the Forger family is over. Loid and Yor object to this, with Loid saying that they weren't fighting. Anya then says that they were flirting, but they object to that as well, faces red with embarrassment. Anya just grins at them.

The clock tower bell chimes, signaling 5 o' clock. When Loid muses that it got so late already, Yor apologizes that it was due to her passing out from drinking too much. Loid asks if she and Anya will go back to the hotel while he gets the remaining ingredient, cherry liquor. He thinks to himself how it's something rare that would not likely be sold at a store, so he'd have to get it through illegal means, which means that Yor and Anya can't accompany him.

Snidel gets out of his military vehicle in front of a flying battleship. He's greeted by several soldiers who tell him that route negotiations with the Arbo Republic have ended and adjustments to Type F have been completed. Snidel suddenly shoots and kills one of the operations leaders, claiming he's a traitor who leaked military information to WISE. Luca and Domitri then arrive and inform him that the microfilm was eaten.

Meanwhile, Sylvia meets with a bunch of WISE agents at their Berlint hideout. She tells them that they lost contact with their Frejis agent, suspecting that Snidel has taken action. She says that if the microfilm reaches the Arbo Republic, it could lead to an all-out war between the East and West. She doesn't think their agent had gotten the microfilm, but she knows Twilight is currently in Frejis, so he may be their only hope. She orders a couple of the male agents to meet with Twilight at Frejis and get the microfilm. However, Fiona interrupts and requests that Sylvia leave the mission to her instead. Sylvia objects, but Fiona is already leaving the room and on her way, thinking over and over to herself "A mission with senpai, a mission with senpai, a mission with senpai…"

Back at Frejis, Loid looks everywhere for the cherry liquor – he sneaks into a moonshine factory and even the wine cellar of a wealthy man, but still can't find it. He calls Franky at his tabacco shop in Berlint, inadvertently interrupting Franky's flirting with a pretty girl. He asks Franky if he can get the cherry liquor and that he needs it by tomorrow morning. Franky says he'll try but it would take him half a day to even get to Frejis, but Loid had already hung up.

At the hotel, Yor unpacks while Anya admires the hotel amenities ("Hotel TV!" "Hotel toilet!" "Hotel bed!") She then takes her toys out of her bag – among them are crayons, a sketchbook, a rubber duckie, and a toy gun. She pretends to shoot Bond with the gun, then points the gun at Yor and asks if she's the "boss." At first Yor is uneasy about partaking in Anya's game, but then she gives in and pretends to be the boss who wants the treasure. This makes Anya even more fired up and she says "Let's battle, polite lady boss!" The three of them continue playing.

Loid returns to the hotel and finds Anya's drawings of the ferris wheel and shooting game booth on the table. Anya's sleeping on the sofa while Yor puts a blanket over her. Loid says that he's going out again because he found the liquor at a neighboring town. Since it's a bit far, he's taking a car that he's borrowing from the hotel. Anya wakes up and calls Loid a liar since he said he would be back soon but came back so late. He apologizes, but then she reads his mind as he thinks about the fact that if Anya doesn't get a stella soon, Operation Strix and their family will be over. Anya says she wants to come along with Loid, but when he turns her down, she sadly goes back to the bedroom with Bond. When Loid starts to leave, asking Yor to take care of Anya, Yor asks him how many seats there are in the car he borrowed. He answers five. She then asks if they can all go together, since it's a family trip.

In the bedroom, Anya hugs Bond while thinking about the sad state of the family. Bond suddenly has a vison of the cherry liquor behind the cash register of a store at the plaza. At first Anya wants to tell Loid about it, but then she thinks that her secret would be revealed if she did (Loid would say "How did you know that? You can read minds? And Bond can see the future?") After realizing she can't tell him about it, she looks towards the window...

Meanwhile, Yor tells Loid how happy it made Yuri to be with her all day for special occasions like birthdays and family outings, and that it's the same with Anya. Loid thinks back to how happy Anya was when they were doing things together on the trip, such as playing trump, playing in the snow, and eating at the restaurant. He picks up the toy gun on the table and thinks back to how grateful Anya was for being able to play "spy" at the old castle. As he returns the gun to the table, Yor tells him how Anya was looking forward to so many things on this family trip, like eating sweets and playing together. She says she understands Anya's feelings since she's made Yuri feel lonely before. She tells Loid that Anya was really looking forward to being with him and how lonely it is to be separated from your family. She asks again if they could all go together to get the liquor at the next town, even though it's passed Anya's bedtime. When he starts thinking of the possible harm of bringing Anya with him, he pushes those thoughts aside and agrees with Yor.

Suddenly, room service knocks at the door. When Yor says that she didn't order any, Loid looks through the peep hole and sees Fiona disguised as a maid. He then says that he forgot to order a large bathrobe and steps outside. In the hotel corridor, he asks Fiona why she's here. She repeats "room service" while actually saying "it's a mission" in spy talk. Loid says that she can talk normally since it's just the two of them, and asks if she could be quick since he's also on a mission. She starts blabbering internally about how she's alone with him – LOVE!

Back in the room, Yor hears a noise from the bedroom, and when she goes to look, the window is open and both Anya and Bond are gone. Meanwhile, Fiona explains the mission about the microfilm to Loid. When she mentions Colonel Snidel, Loid thinks back to his encounter with Snidel and the military back at the restaurant. Yor suddenly comes out of the room and tells Loid that Anya ran away through the window. She had left a note behind, but when Loid goes to read it, the handwriting is extremely messy – he can make out the word "sorry" (misspelled).

Anya and Bond arrive at the shop in the plaza from Bond's vision. She buys the bottle of liquor and happily walks with Bond back to the hotel, thinking that now the Forger family will be okay. At the same time, the military is looking for girls that match Anya's description, using a picture that Luca drew of her. Bond starts barking when he notices Luca and Domitri pull up in a car behind Anya. Anya and Bond try to run away, but Luca pulls Anya into the car. Bond bites Luca's arm but gets pushed away. As they drive off with Anya in the car, they run over a can in the road that hits Bond in the head. Bond howls sadly as he watches the car disappear. Back at the battleship, Snidel says that it will depart as soon as they get the microfilm.

Loid and Yor run through town calling for Anya. They find Bond collapsed on the side of the road. Loid asks if he's okay and if Anya was with him. Bond barks and tries to gesture about what happened, but Loid and Yor can't understand him. However, Loid notices something in Bond's mouth – Luca's armband that he had bitten off. Loid recognizes it and is in disbelief that Anya got caught up in the military.

Then Fiona, still disguised as the hotel maid, pulls up in a car nearby and calls to Loid saying that he dropped something. In "spy talk" however, she says that he should prioritize getting the microfilm over Operation Strix. Loid thinks for a minute, then says loudly (so Yor can hear) "Ma'am, I would like to ask a favor…"

Meanwhile, Anya is brought before Snidel. Upon seeing him, she shouts that he's the guy who ate her dessert. He says that more important than the melemele, she ate their chocolate. She then states that he's the boss of those thieves. Luca and Domitri reprimand her for not using polite speech in front of the colonel. Snidel asks if she's been to the toilet since. Anya reads his mind as he thinks about how they hid the microfilm in the chocolate, and it's better to wait until she poops it out before killing her. Anya then realizes that the chocolate she ate on the train had the "treasure" inside, and if she poops, she'll be killed. Anya then nervously says that she's so cute that poop has never come out of her body, but then admits that she's lying upon seeing Snidel's cold gaze. Snidel instructs Luca and Domitri to take Anya with them and inform him if she poops. Anya begins holding her butt and starts shaking in fear. Domitri asks if she has to go, but she says she's just cold. She knows she mustn't poop or she'll be killed, but the more she thinks about it, the more she has to go!

Back at the Frejis plaza in front of the station, Loid boards the old fighter plane that was parked there. He's able to operate the communication device and listen in on signals from Snidel's flying battleship. He manages to catch some of Luca and Domitri's conversation with Anya, including them saying that she's in this mess because she ate the microfilm. Upon realizing that Anya ate the microfilm, he breaks into a cold sweat, but quickly regains his composure as he gets off the plane and meets with Yor, who was waiting worriedly outside. He tells her that he thinks Anya is with the military, since he heard from the radio signals that they seem to have taken custody of a girl around five years old. Yor asks why Anya would be with the military. Loid knows that he didn't have any time to come up with an explanation, so he cuts the power cable on the plane and climbs back into the cockpit. As the propellers begin spinning, he asks Yor to stand back and tells her that he'll return soon. Yor thinks back to the two men who attacked Anya on the train and realizes that they might have been from the military, but she can't tell Loid about that or he'd know that she beat them up. She recalls what she said to Loid earlier: that they should all go together because it's a family trip. As the plane leaves, Yor jumps onto it and forces open the door at the bottom. Loid continues to pilot the plane into the Frejis sky, unaware that Yor is also on board.

Back at the WISE hideout, Sylvia thinks to herself that "the fate of the world depends on getting that microfilm…we're counting on you, Twilight."

Back at the battleship, Anya is trying hard to resist the urge to go to the bathroom. She moves her body back and forth to try and hold off the urge, which only makes Luca ask if she has to go. She says no and that she's just doing a dance she learned at school.

Meanwhile, Fiona infiltrates the Frejis air traffic control so she can communicate with Loid on the plane. She tells him the location of Snidel's battleship. Loid compliments her on being able to get the information so quickly, causing her to say that she's ready to be his lifelong partner anytime and asks again if he'd let her have the wife role for Operation Strix…but the communication line had already been cut.

Back at the battleship, Anya is still doing her "dance" to resist the urge to poop, but she's practically at her limit (Luca and Domitri had also prepared a duck-shaped potty for her). She's sweating, tearing up, and her stomach is rumbling. When she feels her consciousness wavering, a bright light suddenly fills her eyes. She finds herself standing in a beautiful meadow filled with colorful flowers and poop shaped clouds overhead. She hears a voice and looks up to see a divine-looking old man surrounded by light. He has a poop shaped crown and he's holding a staff with a poop shaped top. He tells her that he's the god of poop.

He says, "You've fought well, warrior Anya. You've tried your best to protect world peace but...enough is enough." He puts his hand on her shoulder. She can feel his compassion flowing through his palms. "Relax your butt and rest, warrior Anya. Let's go to the peaceful garden of the toilet!" Anya tries to fly through the sky like the poop god, but ends up falling into the ocean. However, she's saved by waves of toilet paper that lift her towards a temple lined with statues of the poop god. A toilet is enshrined in front of the statues. The poop god gives a shout, and the toilet paper carrying Anya turns into a giant duck potty. The poop god waves his staff and the duck speeds out of the water, heading towards the bathroom above the alter. The lid of the toilet opens with another shout from the poop god and the duck moves faster. Finally the duck bursts into a ball of light and Anya falls, laughing, into the shining toilet.

Back in reality, Anya finds herself on a bed in a room on the battleship. After hearing her mutter to herself about "what's the god of poop?" Luca excitedly asks if she's ready to poop and puts the duck potty on the bed. As soon as Anya looks at the duck, she comes to her sense and says, "no, I'm good." While Anya stays with Domitri, Luca reports to Snidel that Anya still hasn't pooped yet. Snidel tells him to cut open her stomach. Luca is taken aback by this and tries to protest, but after Snidel presses him, he reluctantly agrees to do it.

Meanwhile, Domitri is trying an exorcism ritual to get Anya to poop – he makes her lay on the bed with a banana, corn, and a pineapple along with coffee beans between them, all the while singing a song about "yellow three." When Luca returns, he asks Domitri what he's doing. Domitri replies that according to his coffee fortune telling, "yellow three" is lucky. Luca then tells him Snidel's orders and asks if Domitri would do it. Since neither of them want to, they decide via rock-paper-scissors, and Domitri wins. Anya reads Luca's mind about how he's going to cut open her stomach while Domitri holds her down. She starts shaking and thinks of Papa and Mama.

Meanwhile, Loid flies the plane close to the battleship and contacts them on the radio. He says that his plane is in a state of emergency due to a fuel system failure and would like to request an emergency landing on the battleship. When one of the soldiers tells Snidel that an unknown aircraft is requesting permission to board, Snidel demands that they shoot it down. Loid steers the plane out of the way of the sudden hail of bullets while Yor, still hiding in the back, hangs on as the plane starts shaking violently.

Back on the battleship, Domitri holds Anya while she screams for Papa and Mama. Luca approaches with a knife.

Back outside, Loid desperately steers the plane to avoid the gunfire from the battleship, including homing missiles. In the back compartment, Yor isn't able to see what's going on, so she thinks to herself that Loid's driving is…rough. Loid manages to dodge the missiles, but one of them explodes next to him, causing the fragments to fall on the plane and damage the left wing. He knows that crashing is inevitable, so he steers the plane towards the battleship. The impact of the plane crashing into the battleship shakes the room where Domitri, Luca, and Anya are in. They all lose their footing and fall, causing Domitri to let go of Anya. She then runs away and through the hallway while they give chase.

Loid jumps out of the cockpit with his bag of spy tools and onto the battleship as the plane crashes. He thinks to himself that he first needs to confirm where Anya is and heads through a narrow passageway. Meanwhile Yor makes her way out of the back part of the plane only to be greeted by a huge gust of wind. She's surprised to be on the outer part of a battleship. She peeks inside the cockpit to look for Loid, but he's not there. She remembers that Loid said Anya was with the military, so she must be on the battleship somewhere. The opening to the bottom of the battleship is too narrow, so she decides to go via the top, breaking into a fast sprint.

The soldiers find the plane wreckage and Snidel gives orders to search for survivors. When one of the soldiers tells him that there's a woman running along the outer part of the battleship, he thinks he's joking. But then he looks at the monitors and sees Yor for himself. He commands that they kill her, since she decided to come aboard using that plane, that makes her an enemy. The turrets at the top of the ship begin firing at Yor, but she swiftly dodges them. One of the soldiers readies a grenade, but she takes off her coat and throws it at him, causing him to lose his balance and fall backwards. When the soldier falls through the deck onto the catwalk, the grenade falls from his hand. Yor gets away just as the grenade explodes, causing the area around the hatch where the soldiers were firing to burst into flames. The soldier watching from the monitor shouts "Explosion on deck 3A!" When she encounters the soldiers, Yor politely says that she came to pick up her husband and daughter, but the soldiers were already unconscious from the explosion. She heads further into the ship. The fire continues to spread through the battleship. Snidel commands the soldiers to go put out the fire, and when asked what to do about the woman, he says to send out Type F.

Meanwhile, Anya is still running away from Luca and Domitri (while still holding her butt). She manages to elude them by slipping into a room without them noticing. She listens by the door, and when she hears that they went off to look for her elsewhere, she breathes a sigh of relief. As she turns around, she notices a toilet in the back of the room. Tears start welling in her eyes…after a long and painful battle, she finally won.

Loid hides in a small room while soldiers are running through the corridors. He wonders to himself what the explosion was and if the plane crash could have possibly damaged the ship's hull. He peeks through a gap in the door and notices an officer who appears to be a captain based on the number of stars on his badge.

After giving orders to the soldiers, the captain walks towards the door. Loid pulls him in, knocks him out, and gags him. He then steps out of the room, now disguised as the captain, wearing his clothes and donning a mask with his face.

The sound of sirens are blaring through the battleship. Yor notices the soldiers desperately trying to put out the fire and apologizes to them. She again says that she came to get her husband and daughter and asks if there's anyone who knows where they are. One of the soldiers looks up and shouts "It's that woman!" The soldiers begin firing at her, but she jumps out of the way, grabs a nearby fire extinguisher and throws it at them, knocking them down like bowling pins. She's confused as to why they're shooting at her, then thinks that they could be part of the bad guy group that attacked Anya on the train. She picks up two knives that the now unconscious soldiers dropped. She then thinks of Anya being in trouble, without anyone protecting her, and her face becomes clouded with anxiety as she tightly grips the knife in her hand.

Meanwhile, Anya happily bursts out of the bathroom with a refreshed look on her face, toilet paper rolling down her feet…only to bump right into Luca and Domitri. Domitri stands proudly with toilet paper around his feet, boasting about his toilet paper fortune telling. Anya's face goes pale. Snidel is informed by one of the soldiers that the child has been secured, and he commands that they bring her to him.

As she continues looking for Loid and Anya, Yor arrives at the entrance to the air cell and pries open the heavy door. She's met with a blast of hot air. The fire has spread all over the spacious room. As she goes further in, she feels a murderous intent behind her. As soon as she starts to look over her shoulder, gatling guns begin firing at her. She jumps out of the way as bullets are showered on her. She goes further down in the air cell just as a gigantic figure appears, slowly moving towards her with heavy footsteps. She politely asks who he is, but Type F doesn't answer. He reaches towards her but Yor kicks him to the ground, only to have more bullets fired at her that she subsequently dodges. She pulls out the knife and pounces on him, managing to knock off his helmet. She asks him to stop attacking but instead he presses his forehead against the knife, making a very inhuman metallic sound, breaking the knife. The arms of his cloak, that had been engulfed in flames, burn off to reveal that he wasn't holding gatling guns, but his arms themselves are guns. The rest of his cloak burns off, revealing a body made entirely of weapons. After he calls Yor an "intruder," she readies the other knife, realizing she has no choice but to fight him.

Meanwhile Loid, still disguised as the captain, gives orders to the soldiers to help them put out the fire. When one of the soldiers asks where the hostage is, Loid questions him and he explains that she's a child about five years old and that officer Domitri took her to the bridge.

At the bridge, Anya is tied and gagged in front of Snidel. Snidel is upset that they missed getting her poop, but Luca says that it could still be in the sewage tanks. Snidel says that it could also still be in her body, which makes Anya even more afraid. Snidel tells them to keep her in the room downstairs and he'll "take care of her" once all the chaos on the battleship is over, while also ominously adding that he brought an extra big knife to enjoy kebobs. He then orders them to go into the sewage tanks and find the microfilm or else he'll cut them like kebobs too.

After leaving Anya in the room, Luca and Domitri grumble about how they're in such a mess because of some greedy kid, and Luca groans that he's still sore from being bitten by the stupid dog. Suddenly Loid, still disguised as the captain, gets the jump on them and knocks them out. He wonders why Anya isn't here since this should be the only bridge on the ship. He enters the room where Snidel is and says that he's going to report on the status of the firefighting operations, but Snidel dismisses him, saying that he's busy now.

In the room below, Anya can read Loid's mind but she can't move or talk due to being tied up and gagged. She realizes that she's tied to a telephone pipe that leads to the room above, so she slams her head against the pipe to get Loid's attention. Just as Loid is deciding to back off so as not to make Snidel suspicious, he hears the banging in the pipe and notices a hatch right below it. He realizes that Anya must be under there, so he pulls off one of the buttons on his uniform and pretends he's going to pick it up when it rolls near the hatch. However, Snidel says "wait, captain" and asks him when he began to smell like...a city. Snidel then immediately shoots at Loid, who manages to dodge, but the bullet grazes the face mask that he's wearing. Snidel continues to fire at Loid, who hides behind a console in the room. Snidel asks if he's the traveler from Rubble and Bonds and says that he shouldn't underestimate the nose of a gourmet like himself. Realizing he's been found out, Loid tears off the captain's mask. Snidel and the other soldiers begin exchanging gunfire with Loid.

Back in the air cell, Type F continues to shoot at Yor, his gatling gun arm having now turned into a grenade launcher. She narrowly dodges his attacks and grabs a fire extinguisher set (with an axe) from the wall. They end up crashing down through the floor, with Yor slamming the axe onto his chest as hard as she can. However, this only reveals a firearm magazine in his chest hatch. The magazine sends bullets into the gatling gun. He aims at Yor again but she jumps away in time. As they stare each other down in the flame filled room, she wonders what she can do against an enemy who can't be damaged by knives or axes.

Meanwhile, Loid continues to exchange gunfire with Snidel and his soldiers. Snidel opens an attaché case with a gas mask and grenade that he calls "Type G." Anya reads Snidel's mind about the grenade being a poison gas grenade that he's been developing and wants to test out. She starts panicking, trying desperately to break free from her binds so she can warn Loid about the poison gas. An image of Loid covered in wounds as he tries to save her flashes in her mind as she thinks "It's Anya's turn to save you!"

Snidel pulls out the pin from the Type G and throws it over to the console where Loid is hiding…just as Anya breaks free. As the rope suddenly breaks, she falls and rolls across the floor, hitting her head against a console in the back of the room. A green light illuminates on the console. Suddenly, the windows in the bridge open and gas starts getting blown all over, much to the confusion of Snidel and the soldiers. Loid uses this opportunity to make a move.

As the gas eventually leaves the room through the open windows, Snidel's men are shocked at what they see through the dissipating gas – their leader Snidel wrestling with…another Snidel! One Snidel tells them to shoot the imposter while the other says that he's the real one. Loid (disguised as Snidel) thinks to himself that since Snidel is the only one with a good nose, he just has to fool the others. Snidel brandishes his knife and threatens to tear off Loid's "imposter skin" and turn it into pork scratching. But Loid gets the upper hand and manages to grab Snidel and cause him to lose his balance, saying that his "imposter" skin isn't so flimsy that it could be cut off by the likes of Snidel. He wraps his left arm around Snidel's neck and tightens his grip, causing Snidel to drop the knife in his hand.

The soldiers are still confused about which is the real one as Snidel's body falls to the floor. Loid says "Do you think I'd lose to a fake," fooling the soldiers into thinking he's the real one. He tells them that they're to head to the Arbo Republic as soon as possible and that they're abandoning the ship. He commands them to use the land route instead. Carrying the body of the real Snidel, the soldiers leave with shouts of "all personnel abandon ship!" When he's finally alone, Loid takes off his Snidel disguise.

Meanwhile, Type F's right arm is overheating but he tells Yor it's no use waiting until he runs out of bullets. Even though his chest plate was torn off earlier, all Yor has left is a broken knife…until she feels around in her pocket and pulls out the lipstick that Loid had bought her. She lowers the knife and tells Type F "this is your last warning, please stand aside. I only came here to get my husband and daughter." But Type F just says that they should all perish together along with the future of the East and West. He then readies another round of bullets. Yor dodges and makes a wide circle around him, dragging the lipstick along the floor. She slashes at his chest with the knife, causing the knife to break. As he jeers that a knife won't work on him, he looks confused for the first time when he notices a line drawn around him with the lipstick, leading up to his chest. She says that she heard that lipstick is half oil. He tries to shoot at her again but it's too late…the flames along the railing run down the lines of lipstick, igniting the weapons embedded in his body, causing him to explode. After confirming that he's been destroyed, Yor continues on her way.

Back on the bridge, Loid opens the hatch to the door where Anya is and jumps down. She's overjoyed to see him as he asks if she's okay. She clings to him and buries her face in his chest. Just then, something falls out of her pochette – the cherry liquor. She tells him it's what Papa was looking for and he realizes that's why she ran away from the hotel. Upon realizing this, he can't help but smile, and Anya smiles too when she reads the thoughts he won't say. Just then they hear a loud explosion. Loid holds onto Anya as the ship shakes from the explosion. "Anyway, we better get out of here" he says.

Meanwhile, Yor opens the hatch at the top of the air cell and makes her way to the outer part of the airship where she sees Loid and Anya. They're both surprised to see her. "Mama!" Anya says as she runs to Yor, who gently hugs her while asking if they're both alright.

Loid asks the same of Yor while also asking why she's here. After hesitating a bit, she admits that she came on Loid's plane and that since it was an "outing," that they should have gone together. She then asks if the people on the airship are actually the military. Loid pauses since he can't tell her the real explanation, but then Anya speaks up about how she ate their important chocolate on the train and that's why they were after her. Loid thinks to himself about how they must have hid the microfilm in the chocolate, but he can't tell that to Yor. So he says that chocolate theft is rampant in cold regions because people believe it will keep them warm...they'd even steal from a military ship. Yor believes him and comments that there's a lot of scary people in the world. They both scold Anya for what she did: Loid asks what the heck she was doing eating that by accident (while in his mind he's glad that she's safe) and Yor says that she shouldn't do whatever she wants with something that belongs to someone else. Anya guiltily says "sorry" and they both can't help but smile at her. They hear more explosions and Loid says that they need to get off the ship. Anya points towards the window and they realize that the ship is heading right towards the city of Frejis. Loid begins operating the device on the console. Yor asks if he knows how to operate it and he says that he knows how from when he did it as part time work when he was a student. Yor is impressed, but Anya knows he's lying.

Down in Frejis, people notice the large, burning battleship descending towards the town and begin running all over in a panic. On the battleship bridge, the ceiling blows off, causing an extremely strong wind to blow. Loid realizes that the propulsion system and lifting platforms are dead, and wonders if it's even possible to make a safe landing or even change course. Behind him, Yor and Anya are holding onto each other while the latter shouts "You can do it, Papa!" Loid says not to worry since the rudder is still intact. However, when he grips it, he can hardly get it to move and the ship is still losing altitude. Debris from the broken ceiling rains down on his head, causing him to lose his balance. Just then, he feels something on his right hand…Yor's hand. And on his left hand, Anya's. "Please let me help, too" says Yor, "Anya too!" says Anya. Working together, the three of them are able to move the rudder little by little.

The Frejis clock tower looms before them but they're able to steer the ship so that it narrowly avoids colliding and only grazes the side of the clock tower. The ship continues to lose altitude, heading towards the surface of a large frozen lake. Yor hugs Anya close to protect her as the ship shakes violent from the impact of the landing. The battered ship glides along the surface of the water at high speed, whipping up a cloud of steam. The frozen water crashes onto the ship, putting out the fire. On a hill not too far away from Frejis, Bond and Fiona stand near Fiona's car and watch with bated breath as the battleship crashes into the lake. "Senpai…" "Borf, borf, borf!"

Back at the ship, the Forges escape from the collapsed bridge and onto the roof. They look in wonder at the pretty scene before them of the glittering ice particles shining against the city lights like diamond dust. Suddenly, water that had collected on the deck roof pours onto them like a waterfall, leaving them soaked. They're perplexed for a moment before Anya bursts out laughing with a "waku waku splash!" Then Yor also laughs. As he watches the two of them laughing, Loid smiles softly.

Suddenly Anya sneezes and Loid notices something in her mouth. Loid realizes it's the microfilm, smaller than a fingernail. He wonders if it had somehow gotten stuck in her teeth. When Yor asks what it is, he clutches the microfilm in his hand and replies with a smile, "it's a return ticket."

The next morning at Berlint, Yuri listens to the news at his desk at the SSS: "The flying battleship that landed in Lake Frejis last night appears to have been an accident during a training flight. The committee has announced that it has already begun interviewing the manufacturer and the military." He remembers that Frejis is where Yor said she was taking a trip to and he wonders if she's okay. His lieutenant then opens the door and requests some documents. Yuri asks why the SSS has to be the ones to clean up this incident, and the lieutenant replies that if the people found out that the military was behind it, that would be troublesome. After the lieutenant leaves, Yuri muses to himself how it seems that WISE intervened in the incident though there's no solid information. He wonders how they could have possibly done it, then thinks "it must have been him…Twilight."

At the WISE hideout, Sylvia reads the newspaper headline which states that there were no survivors of the battleship incident. She compliments Loid, saying that even though the SSS put out the fire so to speak, he managed to not leave a trace of the Forgers' involvement. Loid replies that yes, the Forgers were just enjoying a normal family vacation. He takes out a wine bottle from his bag. Sylvia peels off the label, revealing the microfilm. She then tells him that he's back in charge of Operation Strix, much to Loid's surprise. She hands him a photo of Depple at night with a strange woman and says that his affair was exposed and he was disowned by the father of his wife. Loid smiles slightly when he notices that the woman with Depple in the photo is a WISE agent – in other words, he had fallen into their trap.

Afterwards, Loid meets up with Yor, Anya, and Bond at the park by a fountain. Yor asks how his patient was and he replies that it wasn't a big deal considering they called him out of nowhere. Anya asks Loid why there's no fish in the water and he flatly replies because it's a fountain. She then calls to Yor, taking her hand and leading her to the fountain. As Loid watches them happily talk about something, and Bond following along and enjoying himself, Loid lets out a sigh, but his expression is surprisingly soft. He thinks that even though he's able to continue Operation Strix, he can't let his guard down and needs to keep focusing on acquiring stellas. Anya reads his mind and is overjoyed that the Forger family isn't finished. Loid says that they should go home now since Anya has to "train" to make the melemele for the cooking competition tomorrow. Even though they weren't able to eat a real melemele, they at least have the ingredients for one. Anya asks to hold Loid and Yor's hand as she happily chants that she's going to make a yummy pastry. When Yor says that she'll help too, Loid and Anya politely turn her down. They then head home together.

At the Eden classroom, the students are preparing their cooking ingredients. Becky says that she's going to make an orange layer cake that she learned from training with her pastry chef. She asks Anya what she's going to make. When Anya replies "melemele," Damian overhears and comments that it's an old pastry. Anya tells him that if she makes something good, she wants him to have it too. Damian's face reddens as he shouts that he'd never eat anything she makes. With a shocked face, she asks if he really hates it that much. This makes Damian's face redden even more as he shouts that he'd vomit if he ate her food. He runs off with Ewen and Emile following. Becky comments that he's the worst while Anya thinks that the friendship scheme is a failure. Just then, Anya and Becky turn towards the direction of an explosion sound.

Later that day, Anya shows Loid and Yor a note from school saying that the school kitchen broke down so the competition was postponed and the judge was changed to the vice principal due to scheduling conflicts. Anya laments that since it's not the principal, the melemele won't work. Loid thinks for a moment and says that he remembers reading in the school newspaper that the vice principal is crazy about the berry pudding from the southern region. He asks if they should go, and both Yor and Anya agree. Loid opens a map and points out the southern region. He says it's warm there so they shouldn't need a lot of luggage. Anya is excited about going to the ocean and wonders what playing cards she should bring while Loid thinks it would be a good opportunity for her to learn how to swim. Upon hearing all the talking, Bond comes over from where he was sleeping and gives a happy "Borf!"

Meanwhile at Frejis station, Franky trembles in the cold and shouts "Hey Loid, I bought the cherry liquor!!!"

-----

Afterword: Congratulations if you've read this far! When I first started this project, I honestly didn't think I would write this much for a "summary" 😅 I thought it would just be a few paragraphs tops. But as I translated, I was like "oh, this is interesting, I should write it down!" And I just kept going with that and didn't want to stop! Some may wonder why I would want to spoil myself to this degree, but for me, reading about the movie (in a language I'm not fluent in) is still no replacement for actually seeing it for myself - the novelization doesn't convey every line of dialogue, character action/expression, voices, etc. But now that I know what to expect, I can get myself hyped for the scenes I'm looking forward to seeing while also not getting my hopes up for something I won't see. I don't care to do this for most things, but I'm the opposite when it comes to my hyperfixations like SxF! I'm also not going to give my thoughts on the movie until I see it for myself. But I will say that based on the novelization, even though I thought a few things could be better, overall I think it will be a ton of fun and can't wait to see everything in full animated glory!

Again, please remember to be cautious about where you share spoilers and to properly tag posts on social media. And if you end up sharing large portions of this summary elsewhere, a shoutout to my blog would be nice...I spent many hours working on this!

[rainstormwrite]

The new update is now public.

Hello again, people!

That's it. This is the day.

The new update is now public.

(You're required to start a new playthrough if you don't want any game-breaking bugs, by the way.)

What's done:

All three routes are finished.

All the POVs are rewritten to be in the third person (they actually feel way better than I thought they would be).

Some parts of the first fight scene are fixed and clarified.

Some pronoun bugs are fixed.

What's planned:

…

Writing another update, obviously.

Word count:

Including command lines: 271245 Excluding command lines: 260837

But, I would ask you to temper your expectations in terms of the new content's single playthrough length. I'm going to paraphrase this from my previous post: the actual amount of content that was added with this new update is somewhere between 15 to 25 pages (approximately).

Even though the word count increased from 53k to 260k, the only event to happen in this update is one conversation/confrontation (ridiculous, I know). This is primarily due to the overwhelming amount of variable text that changes depending on your earlier choices and due to the number of routes you can take. If you're interested in the reasons for me to decide to do that, check out my previous post.

So, basically, each reader will experience the new content very differently but may not get as much satisfaction due to its shortness. If that is the case, I can only suggest you make another playthrough with different choices, but, if that's not your cup of tea, I would totally understand. But, overall, the game is very… how do I put it..? Multiple-playthroughs-friendly, I'd say.

Safe to say, the update will be incredibly polarizing, no doubt, but I'm always open to feedback.

And, even though I haven't found any bugs or inconsistencies, I am obviously aware that someone else may find them, so, if you are that someone, please report the bugs to me.

I think that's all regarding the update itself, so go ahead and play it. Hope you will like it!

PLAY THE UPDATE

Now, onto other interesting things…

From this point onward, I'm starting to take writing seriously, and that's why I've finally decided to open my Patreon page.

I've made a free introductory post there that explains what I'll be offering, but, right off the bat, I want to tell you that I can't offer you things that other creators are usually offering: Q&As and What-if scenarios. If we're talking about Q&As, I don't want to do them because I consider mystery to be a big part of my work, so I don't really want to wiggle around every question that people will ask me because it won't be fair to them and won't feel good to me. As for What-if scenarios, I don't want to write out some hypothetical scenarios when I can spend that time to progress the plot forward in the actual story. And, trust me, if I'm going to spread my attention too thin, I'm never going to finish this project… And I don't think you and I want that.

What I will provide, however, are progress updates, sneak peeks, early access, and monthly side stories, which the community will be able to choose by voting.

So, I'd advise you to read through the new update first, decide whether you're willing to put up with my approach to the content, and then consider subscribing if what I offer on Patreon is enough for you. If, after all that, you decide to become a member, I'll be very grateful to you. If not, I will still appreciate you being interested in my work and taking the time to read through it.

Thanks for tuning in, and have a pleasant day or a peaceful night!

[cursedmagician]

so. let's talk about that episode shall we?

major ii 17 spoilers under the cut, and lots of theories. read at your own risk.

divider by strangergraphics ✮⋆˙

I have no idea what to even think about that episode. I watched this at about 8 in the morning my time, and now I am in shambles and have been for the last several hours. I'm going to dump all my theories in this one blog post.

my first topic, and the elephant in the room - THIS IS NOT THE LAST ACT. NO WAY.

I've seen people asking if this is the last act and therefore the last ever episode in the series, and to that I say... obviously not. there's still so many plot points to be resolved.

like, for example, why would they add in a scene of the prime shimmers going to the contestant grounds if they weren't going to do something for it later?

yes I know that they were already used as merely a small plot device to allow the episode to progress, but when you think of it in the grand scheme of things there must be something more to it.

also, and - I may be going crazy here - but there might possibly be some sort of parallel of when cobs tells mephone to go "home" with him. we now know that all those previous theories of mephone being made with the shimmer egg are correct, because of fan. since that is the case, I feel like it would make sense for mephone's true home to be with the prime shimmer, right?

I feel like this could be a plot point in the next act. mephone feels more at home with the prime shimmer than he does with cobs (obviously). he would meet them and realise he feels strangely connected to them, and then he figures everything out which leads up to him discovering his true family. and I hope cobs rots and dies FOREVERRR

another point to add onto this is that remember how soap and mic took that photo together in the last episode?

well, soap was going through her recently deleted.

on apple (and I'm assuming meeple as well) devices, it takes 30 days for photos in the recently deleted photo to be fully erased from the device. before that, you can restore and fully erase as many photos as you like.

at the end of this episode when everything created by melife has been erased, baxter is seen walking up to soap's phone here.

in a scene where everything is gone, don't you think this is weirdly symbolic? they didn't have any other reason to show this which leads up to the next theory.

mephone is most likely going to find a way to bring everyone back through some way, and it might be through this system. I'm not saying I know how he's gonna do it, but this will totally be some sort of factor in the next act. hopefully.

second topic - what about bow and bot?

and I know what you all are thinking. I know that bow is definitely not gone, since she obviously isn't supported by melife anymore. (I'm a little curious, bow mentioned that she can't escape the confines of purgatory mansion, but since now that's been deleted, would she be able to roam free? just a thought...)

the same could be said for bot, since they were made by fan and test tube and not by melife. but there's been some speculation going around saying that since bot was made out of materials from test tube's lab, they would be deleted too right?

I actually think that's not necessarily the case.

we have no idea if test tube's materials or her lab was made out of things generated by melife. for all we know, she could have ordered the mechanical parts from overseas. she could have dug up the space she needed for the lab herself.

all we know is that the locations made for the game itself are generated by melife. however, test tube's lab has really nothing to do with the contest because it is its own thing.

so I think this entire theory is genuinely plausible. bot might still be out there somewhere, and I'm not going to say on the invitational island because we don't know if that entire thing was deleted too or just the floor's face. they genuinely might be making their way over to the season 2 grounds right now, wondering what is going on.

which could possibly make way for a bow and bot meeting, AND they might team up too to save the day!! that definitely feels like a direction that adam would be going for, and I personally would totally stand for it.

third topic - can mephone X be avoided or stopped somehow?

here's what I'm thinking.

lightbulb actually managed to dodge mephone X here, and even though yes she did get got in the end, you can at least delay the process or maybe even outrun them altogether.

there must be a reason as to why only the person who is being targeted can see mephone X, but that's a theory for another day.

now, this part is less of a theory and more of an idea - that is supported by numerous twitter posts - but what if you are able to see mephone X with another me device thingy?

think about it, what if taking a picture or just going through the camera app enables others to see them, therefore allowing the contestants to potentially disable mephone X for good?

assuming my theory is correct and they do come back somehow, I doubt that adam forgot about this plothole completely. there must be more significance to this in the future.

we all know how the main writing team writes. they think of everything, down to the small details, and the reference previous things that were thought to be insignificant before!! reminds me of bfdi in a way.

fourth topic - misc stuff/yapping

and well of course I had to dedicate an entire section to just my yapping alone. I know I'm still pretty new to blogging, I don't have many posts yet, but I think it's worth it to just leave my thoughts out here for people to cry over also.

firstly... OJ and paper's last conversation was an argument. lol!! XD!! also it was so funny as to how paper got so ticked off after salt said OJ is her boyfriend. I understand that he might have still felt pretty heated after everything that had been going on, + the argument they had earlier. and I know that OJ is very important to paper. but I still think it was really hilarious. some could say jealous. "he's not your boyfriend he was MINE!!"

ALSO!!! also also also THIS fucking scene...

this is gonna haunt me for the rest of my life man. what the fuck. imagine if slasher movies were like this... like jigsaw or something. if I saw this in a slasher movie I would be terrified for my LIFE (something these contestants don't have).

I really really liked the scene where paintbrush was crying over lightbulb btw. jazzy did an amazing job at that, and they said that they didn't even cry to be able to voice it!! she's a very talented va, I aspire to be like her someday...

another thing I wanted to mention is this tweet made by brian a while ago (screenshot I nabbed from me_phone4 on twitter) yes this is absolutely going to be for inanimate insanity. no questions asked. hope is on the horizon guys.

ok I think that is the end of this post. likes and reblogs are appreciated, and also reblog if you want to add onto my theories later!

for now, signing off!! - CURSED MAGICIAN

[saffron-words]

Introduction and UtsuKare Translations Master Post

Some of you might recognize me as that Russian translator of Utsukushii Kare books from Wattpad. I decided to revive my tumblr to compile all the links and explanations here for those of you, MBM fans, who can't wait for official English releases of the books.

I could never keep a blog, so for now here I'll just tell how it all came about, and you can find links to all my MBM translations at the end (feel free to just skip the wall of text). So a couple of years ago I finally bowed down and decided to read Utsukushii Kare series in Japanese for language practice, even though I found the summary unappealing and I'm generally suspicious of overhyped media (as far as BL novels go, these books seemed to be The most hyped-up series in Japan). Much to my surprise, I loved it so much it was hard to move on. And while I waited for a chance to buy book 3 and Interlude, I gobbled up everything else related to the series that I could. The manga was only just starting, I didn't like dramaCDs (but I'm in the minority), and the drama somehow revived my love for watching Jdramas, even though I thought that this part of my fandom life has been over for years. When the second season started airing, I made a new friend in the Russian-speaking parts of the Internet who was even more obsessed with MBM than I am, and we fangirled to our hearts' content. At some point I promised her to translate the big sex scene from the end of book 3 as a gift for all the talks. I did, and since back then there was nothing for book 3 in any European language, as far as I know, I decided to post it online and give a link to English-speaking UtsuKare fans too. And since Wattpad doesn't allow copying text, and the browser translator feature from Google Translate was really inadequate, I also put up a link to the translation made with Deepl. As far as machine translators go, it is noticeably more comprehensible, and I didn't have the time (or skills to do the book justice, really) to translate it to English myself. Anyway, after this excerpt I thought I could manage one more important scene from book 3, then one more, and then I finally gave up and started translating it properly from the beginning. I also started correcting mistranslations in Deepl-versions that I kept doing for English readers, so some parts of the book are now much more readable than others. Now the third book is done and I started to work on book 2, Nikurashii Kare. I also translated several stories from Interlude and plan to do at least one more, but that is put on the backburner for now since I want to do as much of the book 2 as I can before book 4 in the main series comes out. Yes, we're getting a new Hira and Kiyoi book! This year too, probably. And unless it completely disappoints me or something terrible happens IRL, I plan to translate it as well.

So here are the links to everything I've translated from My Beautiful Man book series:

Book 3 "Nayamashii Kare" which continues the story past the movie (completed). The text is in Russian, but there are links to decent machine translations to English at the beginning of each part (I've also run through most of them and corrected the mistranslations). Or you can use the in-browser translation feature, but the results would be less readable.

Book 2 "Nikurashii Kare" which was technically turned into season 2 of the drama and the movie, but the script has deviated so much from the book, at times it's like a completely different story (in progress; about 1/4 of the book will be done with the next update which I plan on posting soon). I don't make Deepl translations for this since the official English release will be out in a couple of months.

Stories from other books in the series. The first part is a short scene from Nikurashii Kare, and the rest are stand-alone stories from Interlude. One of them had also been translated to English by Mauli before, but I didn't use her version when working on mine. The rest of the stories have never been translated by anyone else, as far as I know. These, too, have links to Deepl-versions at the beginning.

Disclaimer: my Japanese is not yet really on a level good enough to translate fiction, and there are bound to be mistranslations even if you read the original Russian versions. But I'm cross-checking myself on everything to try and keep those mistakes to minor things. I also know how to translate so I made sure that the text flows well, doesn't feel choppy and retains the same vibe that I get from reading the original.

[accioepiphany]

I've come to peace with the way I feel about season 3. And I think it's still glorious at times and if you take each episode by itself, quite great. But as a whole, and as a series that needs to follow a group of characters it does gets lost and erases some of the characters' traits and progress that we had already seen, which by the end produces an accumulation of disappointment that is hard to rub off.

I do think its main issues could be summarized in three of the non-negotiables Carmy kept breaking throughout the season:

Focus

Carmy clearly gets out of the walk-in with the goal in mind to fix all his wrongs and he thinks the way to do that is by hyper focusing on his wrongdoings. Somehow, if he is aware of his mistakes he will be able to be one step ahead of them. Or at least that is what he thinks… you have him asking Ebra if he is fucking up, he takes Syd’s notes on a dish he creates as if it is his mistake that he didn't think of it better. But that's where he is wrong. This is not about him. And Syd calls him out on it in episode two, when she tells him that he is making it again about himself. He is so focused on himself that he fails to see everyone else's suggestions and attempts at collaborating with him. He is unfocused on the team…

And so is the show. It lacks so much focus on where the characters should go, it's part of why it feels so aimless. It's trying to do ten things at the same time and none truly. It´s trying to make Claire happen while never really giving it space and actual scenes. Just a bunch of flashbacks. It wants to take us into Carmy's brain without being too certain of what's in there, hyper focusing on his trauma and forgetting the Carmy we met on season 1 who was an asshole, but one that cared. So the focus is not on the people, which is so ironic with having Chef Terry say people forget the food but not the people they had it with.

Which brings me to the second point:

Vibrant Collaboration

Carmy’s non-negotiables have trapped him in a prison of his own that has closed up any attempt anyone might have of actually collaborating with him. So his vibrant collaboration is actually him imposing his ideas on everyone and maybe letting them work over them. Which is why we don't see many of the scenes we had in season 2 of him brainstorming with Syd. Just him being stubborn.

And the show also lacks a proper integration of its characters. Giving way too many screen time to the Faks, the people less integrated to the kitchen. Failing to incorporate Tina's and Marcus' ideas, which they are so enthusiastically developing, but never even get the chance to share. except for sparse acknowledgements by Syd, Nat and each other, that doesn't really take them anywhere. We get beautiful conversations among some characters that lead to nowhere, no consequence, and just because of that, makes them feel repetitive and a waste of time...

Every Second Counts

Which leads me to one of the prime phrases of The Bear, one with so many layers, that is what made it such a protagonist last season and what made Forks so poignant. It's the embodiment of being in the present, and not wasting time, because every second it's precious, which is why if you are not living it, consciously, to its fullest, then what are you doing?

And Carmy is so trapped in his past, thinking this is what will make him not waste time, that it ends up being the opposite, because he cannot just be in the moment and enjoy what he currently has at all.

Sadly, this season has a similar problem and has too many flashbacks and side-plots that drag and just doesn't move forward and kind of waste the very valuable seconds each episode has.

I still love this show and its characters, and I still truly believe it can pivot in season 4, specially if the creators were trying to set the ground with season 3 for maybe more action in season 4. But, I think it's also important to point out when it doesn't go well, as everyone did this season with Carmy, trying to tell him his non-negotiables where ruining everything. I just hope, different from Carmy, the creators of The Bear can listen and change.

[hushed-chorus]

Hey folks! I hope you've all had a class-act of a week.

Regarding writing, I've made good progress on year three of Those Glowing, Magickal Years. I have three chapters drafted and I'm mostly editing and problem-solving bits of character development. But I did add a scene to chapter eleven that I am quite fond of.

Otherwise, I've been thinking about writing more broadly, and what I want to get out of it long-term. To that end, I've signed up for creative writing classes. It's a short course, but will hopefully give me a better idea of where I am and where I want to be. As it will have homework (and my health limits my laptop time), my fandom writing will slow. Hopefully I'll have year 3 of TGMY largely done before it starts.

Here's an except from upcoming chapter 10. Simon's on his way back to Watford and going over his list.

Maybe I should stop thinking about the food. Besides, there’s so many other great things at Watford.  Like magic, of course. Magic. My magic is still shit, but I love it anyway. Being around it, seeing all the things it can do. I especially like seeing my friends cast magic. Especially Penelope and Baz. And the football pitch. Baz and I sometimes play at lunch. It used to be part of our competition, seeing who was the best at things, but he’s proven he’s better than me over and over and now we play five-a-side for fun. He’s even been showing me some of his moves. I think I’m getting better. I even tackled him without fouling before the summer holidays. Then my room. Our room, I mean. We do our homework together, and he helps me with things I missed or didn’t get in classes. We even had a sword fight in there once, using the fake swords, until he accidentally hit a bit too hard and the Anathema numbed his hand. Now we spar out in the hills, where we won’t be seen and Baz won’t get embarrassed. I showed him loads of sweet moves, but I always beat him. Baz isn’t top of my list of people, though. That’s Penelope, because she was my friend first. She’s a genius problem-solver. I still owe her an adventure after she missed out on the counting sheep stuff. I don’t think she’ll ever stop being jealous of Baz.

Hello tags below the cut!

@artsyunderstudy @facewithoutheart @captain-aralias @raenestee @cutestkilla

@ivelovedhimthroughworse @larkral @stitchyqueer @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @ileadacharmedlife

@confused-bi-queer @aristocratic-otter @whogaveyoupermission @nightimedreamersworld @fatalfangirl

@thewholelemon @onepintobean @shrekgogurt @theearlgreymage @martsonmars

@blackberrysummerblog @orange-peony @valeffelees @j-nipper-95 @rimeswithpurple

@wellbelesbian @imagineacoolusername @youarenevertooold @iamamythologicalcreature @supercutedinosaurs

@alexalexinii @bookish-bogwitch @cosmicalart @bazzybelle @theotherhufflepuff

@that-disabled-princess @prettygoododds @mooncello @noblecorgi @roomwithanopenfire

@alexalexinii  @emeryhall @monbons @brendughh @run-for-chamo-miles

@brilla-brilla-estrellita

[demodraws0606]

Okay so I have made a really bad post trying to descredit Eden taking the tape as something super important so I'm just gonna drop the actual post I was preparing instead of trying to catch Eden!Culprit theories with a half baked post.

The main issue I'm having with Eden!Culprit theories right now is mostly because of stubborness that since Eden took the tape then she HAS to have done it even though if she was the culprit it would make 0 sense as to why she wouldn't just take the tape after Teruko and Ace left the room ? Like someone could've easily told her to take the tape, it's not that hard and it just makes more sense with the other evidence layed out for us.

The main reason I accepted Eden as the culprit before is because there were no possible culprits since Levi was pretty much confirmed innocent and there was still a likelyhood of Eden working for someone. However, this pretty much now rendered null and void. I swear all of this makes it sound like I have some grudge against this theory but I really need to put this subject to rest before the answer is probably revealed to us on friday. I want to make sure this theory is dead in the ground even if it's just for me personally, because it just has too many holes for me.

Also sorry if this seems mainly just a repeat of stuff I've already said, I'm not really good at structuring my posts :')

I've seen the argument that Arei actually wasn't knocked out with the turpentine because why would they bind her wrist then. However, we know she had to have been knocked because there is no struggle shown, either on her body or the floor of the playground. Weither she was suffocated or knocked out, the tape was still used on her wrist so this can't be something to be used against the idea of turpentine knocking her out. This means there is high likelyhood that it was used because it would make no sense for the culprit to just suffocate Arei before killing her (and again suffocating would show more signs of struggle than what we see on the crime scene).

There's also no other items that Arei could've been suffocated with other than the rope which would've left marks, the ball of starch clearly is stuck together most likely by turpentine which means it would've been used to knock out someone.

This would mean the culprit had to have used the turpentine to knock out Arei as well, meaning the culprit had to have gotten their hands on the turpentine.

I also refuse the idea of Eden trying to kill Ace, not only because I just find it ridiculous from a character standpoint but mainly because we know it was Hu's murder weapon that was used against Ace (the wire) considering there is no evidence of any other wire existing in this killing game that would be sharp enough to slice someone's throat. Hu's wire is part of the weapons which is evidence alone that it would be sharp enough to harm Ace bc otherwise what purpose does a wire serve. I don't believe for a second that Hu would just have her weapon lying around for anyone to yoink, unlike the turpentine which we know had to have been used by Nico and Rose when they were painting together.

In fact the story has made it clear how complicated taking someone weapon's is by having Arei's weapon only being available after she discarded it. The same can be said of the turpentine which was used out in the open and would make it easy to take with Rose's absent mindedness. If taking someone's weapon was just as easy as that, they wouldn't have given us the scene of Arei throwing out her rope like that in the first place.

Eden also has no reason to want to replicate Ace's murder onto Arei, there's basically no logical motivation behind that. In fact the progression between Ace's attempted and Arei's succesful murder proves alone that it's the same culprit (if the turpentine's existence wasn't enough). We can see the progression of the culprit trying to avoid the same mistakes they committed with Ace's failed murder (trying to snap Arei's neck to avoid the possibility of her getting saved last minute like Ace, bounding her hands potentially to make her more stable to lift upwards).

We don't even know if she figured out how the murder even worked considering it was completely undone when Teruko and Eden saw it.

Even the timing of when Eden knew about the clothing is off. We know the ball of clothing is probably sticky due to the turpentine because there is no other leads to explain why this ball of clothing is even a thing in this murder case. Turpentine is both clear and sticky, which would explain how the ball of clothing is both clear of stains and sticking together like that. Considering also that we know for a fact Ace was knocked out, and I don't think the culprit straight just shoved a jar of turpentine on his face, they most likely used some sort of tissue to smother them with (meaning it couldn't have been used to asphexiate Arei). This means the ball of clothes was used in Ace's attempted murder.

Eden only knew about the clothing change from Hu, we can only assume the same day that Ace's was murdered and probably not long before the attempt. This both clears Eden going to the changing room as the ""ball of starch"" was most likely already created before that, the only arguemnt it could be used for is that she was trying to retrieve it but it barely makes sense.

In terms of the timing of when Eden knew about the clothes and Ace's murder, if Hu only told her the same night that Ace was almost murdered it makes the timing insanely more difficult to justify. Unlike Hu who would have the pieces ready way more in advance.

All of these contradictions cannot be debunked by saying "well Eden took the tape", as it could easily be explained by the culprit asking her to take the tape from the gym or her just taking it without purpose and then the culprit getting their hands on it later.

The Eden!Culprit theory is barely hanging onto one piece of shakey evidence that can easily be broken by one justification.

If Nico can't be the culprit despite having the turpentine (well I don't think they do but 99 pourcent of Eden!culprit theories rely on Eden not really committing the attempted murder of Ace) then Eden doesn't have to be the culprit taking the tape.

The only way you can argue Eden is the culprit is if she tried to kill Ace, however this is impossible because of Hu's weapon. This is basically the summary of my main issue with the whole Eden!Culprit theory.

[salisburyliam]

My WORST to BEST ranking for Heaven's Secret 2 LIs

Oh boy I finally did it!!!! never want to read this book ever again, lmao

NOTE 1: We all know that HS2 has its flaws —S1 feels like a fever dream— but personally one that really irks me is not being able to choose whether or NOT you want to marry your LI. I mention this because many LIs routes are (negatively) affected by this sudden marriage imo

NOTE 2: Winchesto you deserve so much better than Rebecca.

7. Dino - He's never been a character I've been particularly fond of, but at least in HS1 he had some narrative importance (the dynamic with Lucifer was a lot of fun too). His relevance in HS2 is, well, zero & I personally don't feel the chemistry between Vicky and him at all. That being said. Of all the LIs, the only one with whom the wedding makes absolute sense is with Dino - he's 100% husband material.

Being good should not be equivalent to being boring… but in Dino's case, it is. 4/10

6. War - His dynamic with Vicky is… okay-ish? I guess??? They are a hot couple (I personally love his design & his laugh is sexy af) but the connection is lacking & there is no emotional intimacy whatsoever. They keep saying they're in love but are theeey? You don't know each other. Also, if you decide not to k*ll him and don't romance him later in s2 he's literally just a background character. 

I don't think this man is ready to be a husband - he should get therapy first. 5/10

5. Hunger - If it were a matter of rating characters, Hunger would be in the top three. His first appearance is one of my favorite scenes in the book along with the board game moment, lmao. But if it comes to rating him as a LI… The relationship feels rushed, to say the least. Marrying a character who appears halfway through the second season makes no sense at all - their wedding scene is just weird.

You guys met like five episodes ago. How about we start by dating first? 6/10

his smile is unsettling lol 4. Malbonte - Replaying this book so many times has made me really appreciate Malbonte. A soldier who will do whatever it takes to win. I love how everyone assumes that he always, always, has a plan (he usually does). But as a LI? His main emotion is rage and pure indifference. As a husband for life, I don't understand how that could work: I can imagine Vicky asking him how his day was and Malbonte's only response being '….' 😐🙄 Go boy give us nothing!

Seriously though. I really love him as a character, but he needs to join War in that therapy thing. 7/10

3. Astaroth - The first interactions are awful & personally his sprite doesn't help either (he's literally a male M*ley Cyrus) but he has so much chemistry with Vicky, it surprised me. Their relationship feels organic as you progress, but just like the rest of the characters that appear in the second book, it all feels rushed. The wedding option should ONLY have been available for characters that appeared in the previous book - with new ones it just feels unearned.

Still, it had potential. 8/10

2. Mimi - The only female LI (how's that legal) and one of my favorites. tbh I think she's TOO good for Vicky??? lmao. A character who is impossible not to adore (even judgy Rebecca gives her approval), in-laws anyone would love to have, and a route that is equal parts endearing and passionate. I confess I kinda miss her sprite from the first book tho

The only reason she's not at the top of the list is the motherf*cker below. 9/10 

1. Lucifer - Simply put, they feel like soulmates (he was my LI in the first book so that also plays into it). I haate his behavior in S1, but even with that rocky start the dynamic between Vicky and Lucifer is, and will always be, one of my favorites. They have everything: chemistry, banter, passion, vulnerability moments... I love the contrast of the Lucifer from HS1 with the Lucifer in the final episode. That's growth.

I sincerely hope the third book focuses on their married life and, hopefully, Lucifer being a girl dad 😍😍 10/10

CREDIT

[lampochkaart]

hi I wanted to get your opinion on this since I've never seen anyone talk about it so idk if it's just me who thinks this. but. do you think miu's murder plan is bungled purely for plot reasons? bcs I don't know why she would choose to murder kokichi instead of shuichi.

she chooses the rooms everyone searches in so she could have made shuichi search the roof and kaito search the other room behind tsumugi and then logged out kokichi and framed him. it doesn't really make sense why she wouldnt kill the one guy who helps most in trials and frame the next smartest guy who no one is gonna believe if he tries to figure stuff out. I know the poison thing gets cleared up quickly but it still doesn't prove the innocence of the person who gets logged out.

it's weird cause her plan was almost perfect but that part is just fucked up a little? I'm thinking that they don't really explain why since she needs to try and kill kokichi for the plot progression. you would assume bcs maybe she has some beef w kokichi but she seemed pretty apologetic and apprehensive to do it. my only guess is maybe she felt most comfortable killing kokichi and would feel bad if it was anyone else but she would have to get everyone else killed in the trial so idk.

Hi!! That's an interesting thing to think about

I'm actually not really sure about her plan being "perfect". Thing is, yes, she could've lied about anything in the virtual world. But also she would've still been the most suspicious person there, because she modified the game and literally begged them all to go there. And judging by how quickly she's getting nervous when she's pressured during the trials I really don't think if she would've been able to lie for long. So I'm not sure if she had much of a chance of getting away with murder of anyone.

As to why she decided to try to kill Kokichi and not Shuichi, well. I think there are two possible reasons for that. First of all, Shuichi had a "protection squad". If Miu had killed Shuichi she would've got on a bad side of both a guy with a short temper, who had punched people before, and of a *literal asassin*. Because, don't forget, Maki's best friends not just with Kaito, but with Shuichi too. Yes, they probably would've been very suspicious of Kokichi at first, but if he would've been able to make them question Miu more, this would've become a a very stressful and dangerous situation for her.

Kokichi, on the other hand, didn't really have the group of people that would be so eager to avenge him. Another person who doesn't really have a "support system" is Himiko, because after Ch.3 she lost hers. So, technically Miu could've went after her. But maybe she didn't want to, because they all kinda shared a scene at the end of the third trial. Plus, people would've been mad at miu for going after someone who's already in a bad place. And, not to be rude, but Himiko doesn't help much during the trials. Same goes for Gonta. People like him and also killing him wouldn't make a class trial easier for Miu. Tsumugi is generally just overlooked. And killing Maki or Kaito would create the same problems as killing Shuichi (people from the friend group who'd survive would come after her).

Kokichi isn't well liked. Yes, people would be upset and would try to find the killer as usual, but none of the people were really attached to him. Exept for maybe Gonta, who would feel upset, but he's not really a threat to the killer in regards of investigation. I still think that Miu's plan wouldn't work and she would've been found out. But I think Kokichi made more sense as a choice for her to kill.

But those are just some thoughts about different possibilities. The main reason why I think Miu went after Kokichi is because... She was aftaid. She was really nervous about working with Kokichi and building all that stuff for him. She was very anxious because Kokichi was putting a target an his own back and by working with her he was doing the same to her. We know that she was very paranoid about it and was trying to put some distance between herself and him to avoid getting targeted. She probably was feeling like very soon the mastermind or whoever else would come for her. And that was putting her on edge.

It's hard to say what was going on in her mind then. Maybe she tried to kill Kokichi because she thought that it would kinda help her get on the mastermind's/Monokuma's good side. Like by killing him she would prove that there's no funny business here and she would not be killed, because maybe she thought the mastermind might hesistate to let her go after she would've won the trial, or that she might have a chance of bargaining for her life if she would've lost. Ultimately we have no idea what she was thinking. But my personal theory is that Kokichi's actions (and maybe behaviour too) were stressing her out, so she decided to get him killed just to be safe. It's true that she was nervous and apologetic about killing him, because, yeah, she didn't really have a beef with him. But she also was very anxious and stressed so, I think, it might have been the reason that pushed her to murder.

And lastly I just want to adress that while, yes, she would have gotten everyone killed after the trial if she would've won. But she wouldn't have killed them directly. Maybe she would even got to leave before they would be killed so she wouldn't have to watch. Either way, killing someone directly is much harder than indirectly causing their death. It could also be why she chose to kill Kokichi in the virtual world. Because that would've made this feel more impersonal. She would've killed Kokichi's avatar, which, yes, would result in his death, but she wouldn't even have to see his corpse right away. So killing an avatar alreasy distances her from the act of murder, but letting everyone die from making a wrong choice would separate her from it almost completely. We're not discussing here any lasting consequences of those actions, but as far as the immediate feelings concerned, psychologically it would be much easier for her to just make everyone pick the wrong culprit.

Of course we can't know for sure what Miu was thinking and why she tried to do what she tried to do, it's all just a speculation. It's just how I personally interpret Miu's thoughts and actions in this case.

I hope that reading my thoughts was interesting. Thank you for the ask and have a good day!

[kaiowut99]

Duel Links Re-Translation Mod Project (Announcement post I guess?) - Dark Yugi In-Duel Line Re-Translation Test (WIP)

(Alternate project tagline: #LetYubelSayLove)

(Forgive some video stuttering, my Nvidia game recording thing was a bit buggy 😩)

~~~~~~~~

So. For the longest, I've been hella curious to figure out where the text for Duel Links is in the file assets, the in-duel lines in particular--as I'm sure most folks know, the English dubtitle text applied for the English dialogue is, nine times out of ten, inaccurate or decently simplified vs the Japanese audio played on the same line, and it's a bit wild that we still don't have a second English option for a more faithful take this long after Konami gave us the Japanese voices natively on Steam and made modding the game to get them a thing of the past. But for all my occasional searching through the files, I had little luck due to encryption and junk; at some point in September, I got curious and did more digging and was able to find some card text, at least, but nowhere near as much as is in the game now, and still no dialogue lines.

And then, 2-3 weeks ago, I saw that Aura (Octomaidly over on Twitter, part of @entamesubs handling Studio Bridge-era YGO fansubs for SEVENS+) had been working with a couple of folks to decrypt and re-translate the in-duel lines for SEVENS characters and came across her video on Twitter sharing her progress; I immediately reached out to find out how they're doing it and mentioned how I'd like to try and re-translate pre-SEVENS stuff, lol. (You can watch her latest video demoing her re-translation for GO RUSH world here; find her work as it develops on the NexusMods page for it.)

After connecting with Aura and the folks helping her and getting set up to work on things, I set up a quick re-translation for Dark Yugi's lines, had it all imported for a test-run, and recorded this demo test vs Kaiba to see 'em in action; I did fix a few things since recording this, like some line breaks here/there, but also fixed the one mention of "Dark Magician" in the cut-in shot since this was a test of my OCG-name translation (more on that below) and thus "Black Magician" should've been there--but all told, it looks pretty good overall!

All that to say that this is now another lil' project on my list 😅 It's very cool that this is finally doable and I'm looking forward to working with Aura and co to make it happen--though do note that it'll be at a bit of a slower pace since work on my finalized GX subs (currently revision work on 117-119 is underway) and Tag Force Special is a bit higher priority. That said, the nice thing is that working on in-duel lines in TFSP kinda does half my work for me here, lol; maybe half of Dark Yugi's lines, for example, are recycled verbatim from TFSP--the only difference being that Shunsuke Kazama is actually voicing him--with the rest being lines newly added for him in DL, from lines for dueling other characters to cards he didn't have lines for in TFSP, and this should be the case across the board for anyone who showed up in TF[SP].

My intention is also to work on two translations: one with OCG card names and one with the TCG names, as we're doing with TFSP, and I'll be starting this off by working on the first five characters from each series that appeared in TFSP, since that's how I'm working on the story events there (so for DM, working on Dark Yugi, Kaiba, Jounouchi, Ishizu, and Mai first), and then once done through VRAINS, that might probably be the first version of the mod I'd release. Or maybe I'll release a version as I get each set of five done; we'll see lol. I do plan to contribute my translations to Aura's project, as well. (Also we just recently dug up event dialogue text so those will be re-translatable, too; doing this for the older series' events that likely won't get reruns will at least be worth it since you can spend Gems to get those event scenes)

But overall, it's pretty encouraging--stay tuned!

[kat-thepoet]

Veins of Violet

Logan Howlett x Female Reader

Part 15: A change of scenery

A/N: This ones a short one but enjoy!

Previous Chapters ☞ HERE ☜

3.3k words

It's been two weeks since I arrived at the X-Mansion (not counting the week I was in a coma), and my memories are still as elusive as ever. Every day feels like a blur of confusion, each one bleeding into the next with no real sense of progress. The pieces of my past are like scattered puzzle pieces, tauntingly close but just out of reach.

I found out that Laura is a mutant—though, like everything else here, no one really told me directly. I saw it with my own eyes. She was in the lab with Hank and the blue girl—Raven, I think they call her. Laura extended her claws, sharp and metallic, and I felt a strange mix of fear and familiarity. It was like déjà vu, but twisted into something unsettling. The realization that Laura is a mutant made everything feel even more surreal, like I'm living in a dream that I can't wake up from.

Since then, I've been keeping my distance from everyone. It's easier that way. There's a part of me that doesn't want to get too close, to avoid the inevitable questions and the awkward silences that follow when I can't remember something important. I've built up walls, shutting out the confusion and the pain as much as I can.

The only people I've been able to tolerate are Vanessa and Charles. Vanessa, with her warm smile and easy laughter, has been trying to catch me up on pop culture, as if seeing familiar movies and hearing familiar songs might jog my memories. It hasn't worked—not really—but I appreciate the effort. There was one moment, though, when she showed me a scene from It—the old version. For a brief second, I remembered watching it with someone. I could feel their presence next to me, hear their breathing, but when I tried to see their face, it was like looking through a fog. The memory slipped away before I could grasp it, leaving me with nothing but a lingering sense of loss.

Charles has been a somewhat good support—probably the best I could ask for in this strange situation. He's the only one who truly understands what's going on with me, the only one who doesn't make me feel like I'm a problem that needs fixing. He's been trying to help with my headaches, using whatever techniques or powers he has, but we've only been able to keep the pain under control. He can't read my mind because something is blocking him from doing it, maybe he thinks I'm doing it subconsciously, but who knows. The voices, though—they still linger, always on the edge of my mind, like a distant echo I can't quite silence.

And then there's Logan. Ever since our conversation in the backyard, all he does is stare at me. It's like he's waiting for something, but I don't know what. Avoiding him has been tricky—he's everywhere. Every time I turn around, it feels like he's there, those intense eyes watching me, full of something I can't decipher. It's unnerving, and I don't know how to handle it.

Wade, on the other hand, has been a different kind of problem. I thought I could trust him—I wanted to trust him—but he's said nothing about the last two months, nothing to help me understand what I'm missing. Every time I bring it up, he changes the subject, cracks a joke, or finds some excuse to leave. It's frustrating, and it hurts more than I want to admit. So, I've decided to avoid him altogether. It's easier than facing the disappointment of his silence.

Hank has been a little helpful, though he's mostly focused on checking my vitals and helping Charles figure out the extent of my powers. He's not as involved emotionally, but I appreciate his calm, steady presence. He treats me like a person, not a project, which is a welcome change.Together, we've discovered that I can manipulate reality. It sounds crazy, but it's true. I can change the way things look—like two weeks ago, when I changed my clothes with just a flick of my wrist. It's not hard to do, but it requires a level of concentration I've never needed before. I have to focus intensely, blocking out everything else to make it happen.

And then there's the flying. That was a shock. I discovered it during a training session with Charles and Raven. We were fighting against some machine bots, and one of them pushed Raven off a balcony. Without even thinking, I flew up to catch her. It wasn't something I knew I could do—I just did it, instinctively. 

These abilities are strange, foreign, yet somehow they feel like they've always been a part of me, just hidden beneath the surface. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time, and I can't help but wonder what else I might be capable of—what other secrets are locked away in the corners of my mind, waiting to be discovered.

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It was 1 in the morning when I finally made the decision to leave. Last week, I overheard Raven talking to Charles in his study about a guy named Magneto. Apparently, he's in a sanctuary for mutants. The conversation stuck with me, a seed of an idea that took root and wouldn't let go. I decided then that I'd give myself a week—one week to see if I could gain my memories back, to see if something would change. If not, I'd leave to find Magneto.

Well, it's been a week, and nothing's changed. The memories are still as elusive as ever, and the frustration is eating away at me. I'm grateful to Charles for keeping me here, for trying to help me, but it's not enough. There's an edge in me that I can't quite escape, a restless, gnawing feeling that I don't belong here, that I need to do something—anything—to take control of my life again. It feels like it's driving me crazy, this endless waiting, this constant uncertainty.

I don't know what I expect to find with Magneto, or if he can even help me, but staying here isn't working. I need answers, and if I can't find them here, then I'll have to look elsewhere. Even if it means leaving behind the safety of the mansion, leaving behind the people who've tried to help me, I know I have to do this. I have to find out who I am, or I'll never be able to move forward.

So I packed a small bag with the essentials and made my way quietly through the halls, careful not to wake anyone. It wasn't easy to leave, but the decision had been made, and I was determined to see it through. As I approached the front door, I hesitated for a moment, my hand hovering over the lock. Just as I was about to turn it, I heard a low, rough voice behind me.

"Where are you going?"

I froze, my heart skipping a beat. I turned around slowly, and there he was—Logan, standing in the dim light of the hallway, his eyes sharp and focused on me.

"Logan, I—" I started, but he cut me off, his expression darkening.

"You're not leaving," he said, his voice firm, almost commanding. "Not like this."

Anger flared up inside me, a mix of frustration and desperation. "You have no right to tell me what to do," I shot back, my voice rising with the intensity of my emotions. "You're not in control of me. You're no one to me."

Logan stepped closer, his posture tense. "I won't let you go," he said, his voice low and determined. "It's too dangerous. You don't even know what you're doing."

"Get out of my way, Logan," I demanded, my voice shaking with anger. I wasn't going to let him stop me, not when I was finally taking control of my own life.

Logan's eyes narrowed, and in a swift movement, he reached out to grab my arm, trying to pull me away from the door. "I can't let you do this."

The touch of his hand on my arm was like a spark that ignited something deep inside me, something powerful and uncontrollable. Without thinking, I reacted, my telekinesis surging to the surface. With a wave of my hand, I pushed him away, the force of it sending him flying back into the couch with a heavy thud.

Logan looked up at me, shock and something else—pain, maybe—flickering in his eyes. But I didn't stop to think about it. I couldn't. I needed to leave, needed to find answers, and nothing was going to stand in my way.

I turned away from him, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps as I unlocked the door. Then, without a second glance, I pushed it open and stepped outside. The cool night air hit me, and with a final burst of energy, I lifted off the ground, flying into the night, leaving Logan and the mansion behind.

As I soared into the sky, the wind whipping around me, I tried to push the image of Logan's face from my mind. But it lingered, a reminder of the choice I'd just made, and the path I was now committed to.

I was on my own now, and there was no turning back.

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As I flew through the night, the wind rushing past me, I reached into my bag and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. It was the one I'd taken from Charles's study—a place I knew I shouldn't have snooped around in, but I didn't have any other choice. Desperation had pushed me to do things I wouldn't normally consider, and now, this scrap of paper was my only lead.

Unfolding it carefully, I glanced down at the hastily scrawled address. It was where Magneto—or Erik, or whatever he called himself—was located. Last night, after I'd made the decision to leave, I'd looked it up on a computer in the library. The sanctuary was in a remote area, surrounded by trees, isolated from the rest of the world. The map had shown that it was about 20 hours away by car, but maybe, just maybe, it would be faster flying.

I stuffed the paper back into my bag and focused on the horizon. The night was vast and dark, the stars scattered across the sky like tiny pinpricks of light. There was a sense of freedom in the flight, in the vastness of the sky around me, but there was also a weight—a reminder of everything I was leaving behind, and everything I still didn't know.

I didn't know what I would find when I reached Magneto's sanctuary, or if he could help me at all. But I had to try. I couldn't stay in that mansion, surrounded by half-truths and lingering questions. I needed answers, and if that meant flying into the unknown, then so be it.

I had been flying for three hours now, the cool night air whipping against my face as the landscape below me passed by in a blur. The adrenaline that had fueled my escape from the mansion was beginning to wear off, and with it came a sharp pang of hunger. My stomach grumbled in protest, reminding me that I hadn't eaten since lunch. I decided to stop at a diner that popped up on my GPS, nestled in a small town just off the highway. It looked like the kind of place where the coffee was always hot and the food was comforting in its simplicity. Before I entered, I used my powers to change my outfit into something more appropriate for the scenery—jeans, a cozy sweater, and a pair of boots. I needed to blend in, not draw attention.

Pushing open the door, I walked into the diner and immediately felt a wave of warmth and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. The place was quiet, with only a few late-night patrons scattered at various tables. I chose a table on the right, away from the windows, and slid into the booth. As I picked up the menu, my stomach grumbled again, louder this time, at the sight of pancakes and bacon. I could almost taste the syrup and crispy bacon, and I realized just how much I needed this break.

A young woman with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing a pink apron approached me with a bright smile. She had a friendly, easygoing demeanor, the kind that put you at ease right away.

"Good evening, hon," she said, her voice cheerful. "What can I get for you tonight?"I glanced up from the menu, returning her smile with a small one of my own. "I'll have the pancakes and bacon, please," I replied, my mouth already watering at the thought. "And a cup of coffee."

"Coming right up," she said, jotting down my order on her notepad. "Anything else for you?"

I shook my head. "No, that'll be all. Thanks."

She nodded and turned to head back to the kitchen, leaving me to settle into the cozy atmosphere of the diner. As I waited for my food, I let my mind drift, the events of the night playing over and over in my head. The tension from earlier still lingered, but the prospect of a warm meal and a brief moment of normalcy was enough to help me relax, if only a little.

As I ate my food, savoring the warmth of the pancakes and the crispy bacon, my mind kept drifting back to the interaction I had with Logan just a few hours ago. No matter how much I tried to focus on the comfort of the meal, his words, his face, the look in his eyes—they all kept replaying in my head.

I stabbed a piece of pancake with my fork, my appetite fading as the memory of our confrontation crept in. The way he had tried to stop me, the desperation in his voice, and the moment I pushed him away with my powers—it all felt surreal now, like something out of a dream. But it wasn't a dream. It was real, and the guilt of leaving like that, of pushing him so forcefully, gnawed at me.

Logan had been so determined to keep me from leaving, to protect me from something I couldn't see. But why? What was it that made him so insistent, so unwilling to let me go? And why did it bother me so much that I had left him there, looking at me with a mixture of pain and something else I couldn't quite place?

I took another bite, but it tasted like ash in my mouth. No matter how justified I felt in leaving, no matter how much I knew I needed to find my own answers, a part of me couldn't shake the feeling that I'd hurt him. And that realization made me uncomfortable, like an itch I couldn't scratch.

Why did it matter so much? Why did he matter so much? He was just a stranger to me—a stranger who clearly knew more about me than I did about myself, but a stranger nonetheless. So why couldn't I just let it go? Why did his presence, his words, linger in my mind like a ghost that wouldn't leave?

I sighed, pushing my plate away slightly. The food had been good, comforting in a way, but it couldn't fill the emptiness inside me. It couldn't answer the questions swirling around in my head, the questions that Logan had only made more complicated.

As I sipped my coffee, I tried to push the thoughts away, to focus on the road ahead, on the task at hand. But it was harder than I'd expected. Logan's voice, his eyes, the way he'd looked at me with something akin to sorrow—it all stayed with me, no matter how much I wanted to leave it behind.

And I couldn't help but wonder if, in leaving, I had made a mistake that I wouldn't be able to take back.

I finished my food and left a generous tip on the table, trying to push aside the lingering thoughts about Logan. As I walked out of the diner, I quickly changed my clothes back into my suit with a flick of my wrist. With a little jump, I launched myself into the air, flying in the direction of Magneto's sanctuary.

The hours passed by in a blur as I flew, the landscape beneath me gradually shifting from towns and highways to dense forests and mountains. My mind wandered, but I kept my focus on the task at hand, pushing down any lingering doubts or second thoughts. This was what I had to do—no turning back now.

After a few more hours, my phone buzzed, indicating that I had reached my destination. It was now 10 am, and I realized with a small sense of satisfaction that it had only taken me half the time that Google Maps had estimated. Nice, I thought to myself, feeling a small spark of pride at my ability to cover ground so quickly.

I pulled out my phone, intending to check my exact location, but I was greeted with four unread messages. One from Charles, asking me to come back, two from Vanessa, and one from Wade. I couldn't help the surge of annoyance that flared up. I guess Logan already went to tattle-tale, I thought with a scowl. Typical. I didn't even bother to open the messages; instead, I turned off my phone and tucked it away. I didn't need any more distractions.

As I descended to the ground, I decided to change out of my suit. I didn't want to seem threatening, especially if I was about to walk into a place filled with mutants who might be on edge. With a flick of my wrist, I changed my outfit into something more casual and approachable—boot-cut jeans, a small green tee, a leather jacket, and matching leather boots. The look was practical but still had an edge, a balance I thought would serve me well in the situation I was about to face.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves, and began walking towards the entrance of what I assumed was the sanctuary. From a distance, I could make out the inside through the surrounding fence and trees. It was unlike anything I had expected—stacked semi-truck containers, arranged in a way that made them look like small, makeshift apartments. The scene was surreal, a patchwork of steel and nature blending together, creating a unique, almost otherworldly environment.

As I stepped closer, I could see people—no, mutants—moving about inside the sanctuary. They seemed to go about their day with a sense of purpose, but there was also an air of wariness, as if they were always on alert. It made sense, given that this was a place where mutants sought refuge. The thought sent a shiver down my spine, a reminder of the reality of the world I was now a part of.

Finally, I reached the entrance, a large metal door that stood tall and imposing. The surface was smooth and cold, reflecting the muted light of the overcast sky above. I hesitated for a moment, my hand hovering over a button on the side of the door. This was it—the point of no return.

I pressed the button, and a soft, metallic hum echoed through the air. A moment later, a small speaker crackled to life, and a voice, deep and measured, came through.

"State your name and purpose."

I swallowed hard, my heart pounding in my chest. There was no turning back now. "My name is Violet," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I'm here to see Magneto. I need his help."

There was a brief pause, the silence stretching out uncomfortably. Then, the speaker crackled again, and the voice responded.

"Wait there."

The connection cut off abruptly, leaving me standing alone in front of the massive door. I couldn't help but feel a sense of unease, wondering if I had made the right decision. But there was no time to second-guess myself. I had come this far, and I wasn't about to turn back now.I waited, the tension in the air almost palpable. After what felt like an eternity, I heard the heavy clank of gears turning, and the metal door slowly began to slide open. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for whatever was on the other side, and stepped forward into the unknown.

Next chapter: Part 16: The inevitable

[kurosagileo]

alrighty its post mortkranken thoughts time! under a cut so that spoilers are easier to avoid

(did one for obscuary here)

for a spoiler free thought first off, though, i think the time between episodes both works for and against the story. it's a good pacing so far imo, even if it's disappointing there's not much to do in the game between episode drops. there's enough time to let people analyze the most recent episode and secrets revealed, come up with guesses as to how things connect, and when that starts dying down, there's time to hypothesize about the next episode because teasers have started dropping. Game wise, there's time for people who have been playing for a while to get farther in cases so that once the episode does drop, it's easy to go through whenever you're ready. On the other hand, the time inbetween, the teasers can possibly hype a episode up a bit too much, i think that happened with obscuary and may have contributed to how the episode felt unbalanced (at least to me). High expectations mean there's a lot that could go wrong when things end up differently. I don't think they should release the episodes sooner, that would be an overload, just something i've been making note of and trying to not expect too much from a new episode so that i enjoy what comes out rather than being disappointed with what didn't

spoiler wise, i'll follow the format i had for obscuary!

jiro is winning the idgaf war and i absolutely love that for him. I think the writers did a good job of makng him the straight man to yuri's antics and thoroughly enjoyed scenes with him

yuri... is so silly i love him sm i want to kiss his cheek so that he bluescreens on the spot. i love that he seems like he's gonna be a scientist with questionable morals leaning to the evil side but then he ends up being so expressive about every little thing. he's smart but not manipulative mastermind ike if he's thinking something you Will know it

there's an interesting dynamic between the two which I'm looking forward to learning more about. Some of the few times where Jiro outwardly emotes are during interactions with Yuri. (Also with pc with the body lmao)

now for the story content, not an analysis of what things might mean but just overall storytelling

I think this did well with bringing the standard back up from the obscuary episode. for my thoughts on that, feel free to check out the other post i made. it was far more balanced with the investigation driving things, mc getting closer to the two ghouls, and the progression of mc's curse for the overarching story. the cameos from all of the other characters was exciting to see while going through, and was great for showing how different characters interact with each other. I think each of those small moments showed a lot about the characters.

for a few examples: alan's regrets for not saving naoki, highlighting how much he values being able to save people and blames himself for not doing enough even when he couldn't stop it; leo taking the documents, seeming to just do it to be antagonistic, but actually genuinely helping out both mc's investigation and alan's ass if the files went missing; ren and ritsu talking about ramen in the store, they're getting closer despite ren not liking working at his job and always complaining that ritsu is there, clearly they're starting to become friends; the three vice captains meeting and the absolute tension there

i could go on, each of those little cameos was meaningful imo, not all of them served to progress the main story, but they're important to see, to show how the ghouls are interacting with each other and how they act when mc isn't investigating their house

I think the investigation portion was a little rough near the end. The case wrapup wasn't as satisfying as I'd like, I think the best two episodes for that so far were vagastrom and sinostra, but the framing of it makes sense considering yuri's stigma. (specifically the part of the wrapup where we found the patient was behind things, the fight at the end was something i really enjoyed) It's something that lets yuri process everything instantaneously, so it makes sense that the answer is just given in a monologue, even if it ends up being somewhat unsatisfying. Yuri is a character who likes his monologue, and he's found everything out and is confident in his answer. I don't think that he would present the information in another way

The foreshadowing in this chapter was...... well it could've been more subtle. I kinda wish that while Jiro was leading mc through Mortkranken, there would be more attention drawn to multiple things, aside from exactly what would be relevant. I think that may have also led to the unsatisfying reveal

the very ending with the assembly was also well done, imo. it reiterates that the faculty want mc to gain the trust of the ghouls and is doing so. but it also calls into question where that request is coming from. right now, mc is very much being used by the faculty. she was pushed into the investigator role, pushed into being a student, pushed into earning their trust, threatened with a possible punishment for not being able to prove it. it serves her as well to grow close with the ghouls and be an investigator, and she clearly is, but I really don't think that's anywhere near the reason the chancellor put her in that position. we always keep the spy thing in the back of our minds while reading, while she's essentially also advertised as a spy to the ghouls

the phone call between hyde and sho was both surprising to see, but also not. Sho has a campus chat with hyde where he says that he's using hyde to get ahead any way he can. Learning that hyde is giving secret missions, it's unsurprising that Sho is one of the students he's using. I think this would be too obvious for the whole spy/traitor thing, however... there was one other campus chat that came into my mind, the one between subaru and leo. Subaru's waiting for MC for lunch, Leo approaches and sees he's got food from Sho's food truck, and comments on how Sho is really good at the friend act. Acting like he's a friend to customers to convince them to buy more. While the likely reading is Leo just lying to mess with Subaru (and honestly I wouldn't doubt that), I think it could also be that it's a true analysis of Sho.

He is good a the friend act. Sho has no problem lying to someone to appear nice. He did it to an old lady looking for a train station in the vagastrom episode. Leo told her he had no clue where it was, Sho gave her instructions and after she left, Leo asked how he knew and Sho told him oh I didn't. A lot of Sho's flaws are looked over because he's nice, when he is kinda an asshole a lot. I don't think that he's using a friend act on Subaru, but it's genuinely hard to tell. The scene at the beginning of the episode was cute, but depending on how you read it, it could be Sho playing it up for the bet with Leo.

I doubt the phone call from the end will actually be how we learn about the traitor, but I also think that Sho has a lot more resources than most to be a traitor