#Instant Coffee Industry
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The Instant Coffee Industry: Trends, Challenges, and Future Outlook
Introduction
The instant coffee market has seen significant growth over the past decade, fueled by changing consumer preferences and advancements in technology. With the increasing demand for convenience, instant coffee has carved out a substantial niche in the global beverage landscape. This blog will explore the current state of the instant coffee industry, key trends driving its growth, challenges faced by the market, and future prospects.
Market Overview
The instant coffee market is projected to reach a size of USD 33.18 billion in 2024, with expectations to grow to USD 43.54 billion by 2029. This growth represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.58% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2029. This growth is attributed to various factors, including urbanization, a busy lifestyle, and a growing preference for ready-to-drink beverages.
Key Trends
Health Consciousness
Consumers are becoming more health-conscious, leading to a rise in demand for organic and low-calorie instant coffee options. Brands are responding by introducing products that emphasize natural ingredients and sustainability.
Premiumization
The shift towards premium products is evident as consumers seek high-quality instant coffee made from specialty beans. This trend is creating opportunities for artisanal brands that focus on unique flavors and ethical sourcing.
Innovation in Product Offerings
The industry is witnessing an influx of innovative products, including flavored instant coffees and ready-to-drink formats. Brands are experimenting with various formats to cater to diverse consumer preferences.
E-commerce Boom
The rise of e-commerce has transformed how consumers purchase instant coffee. Online platforms provide convenience and accessibility, allowing brands to reach a wider audience and offering consumers a greater variety of choices.
Challenges
Despite its growth, the instant coffee industry faces several challenges:
Quality Perception
Instant coffee has historically been perceived as lower quality compared to brewed coffee. Overcoming this stigma requires brands to educate consumers about the advancements in processing and flavor profiles.
Supply Chain Disruptions
The coffee supply chain is vulnerable to disruptions caused by climate change, political instability, and fluctuating prices. Ensuring a stable supply of high-quality beans remains a critical challenge.
Competition from Fresh Coffee
The growing popularity of specialty coffee shops and home brewing equipment poses a challenge to instant coffee sales. Brands must differentiate themselves through quality and convenience to remain competitive.
Future Outlook
Looking ahead, the instant coffee market is poised for continued growth. Here are a few key predictions:
Sustainability Initiatives
Brands are likely to focus more on sustainability, sourcing coffee beans ethically and implementing eco-friendly packaging solutions. This shift will resonate with environmentally-conscious consumers.
Technological Advancements
Innovations in processing technology will enhance the flavor and aroma of instant coffee, bridging the gap between instant and freshly brewed coffee.
Diverse Consumer Demographics
As instant coffee gains popularity among younger generations, brands will need to tailor their marketing strategies to appeal to this demographic, focusing on digital engagement and social media.
Global Expansion
Emerging markets, particularly in Asia and Africa, present significant opportunities for growth. Brands that can adapt to local tastes and preferences will be well-positioned to capture market share.
Conclusion
The instant coffee industry is undergoing a transformative phase characterized by evolving consumer preferences and technological advancements. While challenges remain, the future outlook is optimistic. By focusing on quality, sustainability, and innovation, brands can thrive in this competitive market and meet the demands of modern consumers. As the industry continues to evolve, it will be fascinating to observe how it adapts to changing trends and challenges ahead. For a detailed overview and more insights, you can refer to the full market research report by Mordor Intelligence: https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/instant-coffee-market
#Instant Coffee Industry#Instant Coffee Market#Instant Coffee Market Size#Instant Coffee Market Share#Instant Coffee Market Analysis#Instant Coffee Market Report
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Me when I was 18: omg imagine having a caffiene dependency and having withdrawal symptoms if you don't consume every day. I could never. It's gross how normalized addiction is in this country.
Me at age 22: Texting my friends "sorry for what I said to you before I had my coffee that morning"
#I get it now. You can buy 100 servings for less than 5 bucks. It pairs well with pastries. It gets me to drink milk; which has calcium#Making instant coffee only takes 2 minutes max. It's a soothing nightly/morning ritual. It's only *mildly* addictive#It can be used as an excuse to drink milkshakes at 7am. It enhances performance at work#Turning bitter coffee into a sweet beverage gives a similar feeling of satisfaction as making a good mixer. But caffiene is safer-#-than alcohol#Fuck energy drinks though. Istg; companies like Monster used Not Suitable For Children as inspiration#People talk about the vaping industry and how it preys on kids. But what do yall think energy drinks are doing with those-#-colorful labels and candy flavors?#If you're not an adult then you don't need to be drinking coffee or energy drinks#And if you are an adult then you still shouldn't be consuming energy drinks. Those things will give you kidney stones
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Printable Chef Quote Restaurant Decor
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https://www.hindustanprocess.com/spray-dryer-manufacturers.php
#Spray Dryer Manufacturers in Pune#Spray Dryer Suppliers in Pune#Spray Dryer Exporters in Pune#Spray Dryer Consultant in Pune#Spray Dryer Consultancy Services in Pune#Pressure Nozzle Spray Dryer manufacturers#Industrial spray drying equipment#Spray drying services in Pune#Spray dryer maintenance in Pune#Spray dryer for food industry in pune#Spray dryer for pharmaceuticals in Pune#Spray dryer for chemicals in Pune#Spray dryer for ceramics in Pune#Spray dryer for biotechnology#Spray dryer for dairy products in Pune#Spray dryer for herbal extracts in Pune#Spray dryer for instant coffee in Pune#Spray dryer for powdered milk in Pune"
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Disenchanted
Male Reader x Karina
Tags: 6k, cheating, oral, story heavy
The story is not ours; we simply alter the original story to our preferred settings.
They say everything happens for a reason, if life gives you lemons turn them into lemonade. It always struck me as a strange saying a little too cut and dry. Like a mantra to lead my life with, it had been an upwards struggle. Devoid of any formal degree, in many respects I was a self-made man, grafting from the bottom of the pile and slowly making my way upwards, to the light, the fabled promised land of success, this is my story.
It was early 2020, still fresh from the Covid-19 meltdown. Looking back on it, we really did make a fuss over nothing, it was world ending stuff. Fresh out of a failed college career I had just turned 20, studies had never really held much of my attention, crashing out a year before graduation. Saying this, I was good at building networks, street smart you could say, I knew a good deal when I saw one and over the years, I would develop the timing and nous to know when exactly to pull the trigger. With a heavy interest in films, my main aim was to get into the industry by any means necessary. Luckily enough for me I knew a few people who were runners on in the SM Entertainment back in the day. The pay was basic if that and the job was menial, filled with odd jobs like fetching coffee or printing out stuffs. Nevertheless, it was a start.
“Seriously, where is that guy? the new runner guy, lanky looking kid,” Shouted the set manager.
“Ahem…” I replied, standing next to the sweaty looking man.
“What’s your name? You know what, it doesn’t matter, get a coffee to waiting room 4, quick kid,” he said, bits of saliva spraying everywhere.
God, I hated that guy, his breath always reeked in a mixture of cheap coffee and banana. Reluctantly I knocked on the door, prepping a fake smile for whomever was going to open it.
“Hey,” A chirpy voice said.
My mouth was lolling open slightly, mouth running dry as I struggled to form a suitable response. She laughed softly at my starstruck reaction, holding out her hand to shake mine. It was Karina. She was most teenagers wet dream, well, technically still is.
She was just as attractive as the in the magazines, her smokey brown eyes complimenting her tight, tone, bronze physique. I felt an instant twinge in my pants as I willed myself not to show my arousal, hoping to od it was not obvious that I was attracted to her. Brushing myself down mentally, I took a deep breath and fixed my shirt holding out hand containing her hot beverage. There was something about her, despite her arresting looks that calmed me. Maybe it was the kindness in her eyes or the kindness in her voice, whatever it was, it worked.
“Your- coffee,” I managed.
“How old are you?” She said, taking a sip of her latte.
“Erm… 20- Miss,” I replied.
“Seriously, call me Karina,” She smiled.
“You are pretty cute,” She followed up, handing me the piece of paper with a list of her requirements.
“From now on, you are my personal runner,” Karina said, high fiving me as she left for rehearsals.
I blushed at the comment, a throw away one at that but at the time, it was like gold dust to me. The piece of paper was basically a shopping list of drinks and snacks to get at what time. It remained this way for a year or so as I watched Karina’s fame sky rocket. It was almost inspirational how she climbed the ladder step by step. At that time, she was dating an actor, Lee Jiwook? Jiwoon? or something, I don’t know. Another forgettable character.
I had a sense that he felt superior to me, which granted at the time, he was dating Karina so one could forgive his arrogance. He was in her changing room on a number of times. There were rumors that they were due to get engaged which turned out to be true one it was released in the press a few months later. He was by all intents an purposes the luckiest guy alive in that moment.
On the rare occasions that we did get time alone, Karina and I talked about everything from our past to future aspirations. She even helped me get back into college, funding part of my studies to get into a foundation business course. It was a difficult time, I had to finish college, which I did with after work classes and after that, moved onto that foundation course. I was indebted to her in more ways than one, but our relationship never threatened to go any further.
Over the year I think Karina grew to see me as a brother of sorts. I mean it was fine, what more could I expect. Saying this, I always held on to that faint hope that we could be more, if only the tables were turned, and I was the rising up and comer, one could only dream.
If only I had known my time with her would be limited, maybe I would have been braver, more forward I told myself. However, it did not pan out that way, as per usual, life throws you lemons, make some lemonades right? Coming into the last few episodes of the final series I made my usual rounds, knocking on her door and entering without a response, only to find Karina scantily clad in a white bra and pair of cotton panties. I did it all the time, just enter and drop off a coffee, maybe have a chat, but this time was different.
“Crap- don’t you knock?!” Karina jumped, covering up her indecency.
“I- I did, I thought- sorry,” I replied.
I managed to sneak a peek at her crotch, sending my desires into over drive seeing her, Karina picked up the plushie, covering her sex. A drop of pre cum leaked my tip as I groaned internally at the visual stimulation. She was hot as fuck I thought in my head, what I would do just to be with her for one night. Regaining composure I chuckled, triggering her to break into a smile also, scrambling to get dressed.
“Nice plushie,” I said, winking at Karina
“Oh, Haha,” Karina replied blushing.
“Your morning coffee Miss,” I said, leaving her daily latte on the table, turning to leave as I closed the door.
That was my last encounter with her as I was moved to another set the day after. If we stayed in touch, it would probably be one of those funny memories we could bring up from time to time but it was not to be. Now in the present, decades later I was suited and booted, ready for my fourth-round interview for a Digital marketing executive role at The Prada Group.
—
“They will have you now,” The secretary called out to me, beckoning me into the conference room.
My hands were steady, nerves of steel. I had interviewed at many companies before, but had a renewed desire to nail this one. I had to; she was the co-founder. The days of being a runner were long gone, as I managed to land a junior marketing role. This however, was my bread and butter, marketing, networking and the like. It was like a hand in a glove, I loved it, and it showed in my work.
Holding my head high, I pushed open the doors, my presentation in hand, ready for whatever they threw my way. Ready for the interview? Yes, but ready for- Karina?! I was not. Under normal circumstances, shareholders would not be part of the interview process. Steadying myself I held out my hand, shaking each interviewer’s hand firmly. There were three, Karina being the last.
“Nice to meet you all,” I said with confidence.
I could see Karina racking her brain as to where she had seen me. The cogs in her head were turning till I saw her face light up.
“Oh my god, Minho!” She said, her face lighting up.
“In the flesh Mam,” I replied.
“Oh, apologies for the lack of professionalism, I worked with Minho...what is it now, Ten years ago?” Karina said, her smile lighting up the room and to my advantage, perking up the other interviewers.
“We can catch up after...carry on with the presentation,” she said beaming.
Unclasping my blazer and setting it to the side I went through point by point my ideas for the new product launch, our target audience, demographic and ways to capture their attention. It was as robust a presentation as I had ever given, leaving very little questions afterwards as the four discussed among themselves after grilling me with queries.
It was a positive sign then that all four were smiling in unison as my hands started to sweat, showing the first signs of how much this job meant to me. It was her presence that threw me a curve ball. After all these years, Karina was still as alluring as ever. If anything, she looked better now than she did when we first met. Now in her thirties, married and with kids, she looked fantastic. I managed to shake my fantasies of once an idol from my thoughts and concentrate on the panel in front of me, glancing at her every so often.
“Listen, we don’t do this regularly, but this interview has been far from the ordinary. Your links with Karina, coupled with her glowing references and your stellar presentation, we would like to offer you the job,” The man in the middle said.
I was slightly taken aback at the praise, this must have been the best interview I had ever had, taking a moment to process I smiled and nodded, shaking their hand in turn with acceptance.
“Minju from HR will settle the contracts with you by phone, I believe you are ok with our pay package?” The interviewer said.
“Yes Sir,” I replied, shaking his hand again.
To be fair it was a big bump on what I was on at the moment with the added benefit of an old love interest entered into the equation, it was a must take.
“Thank you for giving me the opportunity,” I said before turning towards the door.
“Minho, one sec, are you free later this afternoon for a catch up?” Karina said before I left the room.
“Sure,” I replied smiling before exchanging numbers.
It was a move so natural to me now, one which my 20-year-old self would be proud of. I had just nabbed Karina’s phone number.
“Well done on today,” Karina said, putting her hand on my shoulder.
“It’s really good to see you,” She followed up.
“Catch you soon,” Karina said smiling warmly at me.
“As long as you get the coffees this time,” I replied with a wink.
“Good one,” Karina reply, her cheeks turning a light pink for the briefest of moments.
—
For the first time in a long while, the fruits of my labor were finally bearing fruit. It was a constant struggle to get to this point in my career, blocked off at various stages in the chain by a combination of bad luck and wrong timing. I was always taught that we make our own luck in this world which is why I kept striving forward, kept pushing on, no matter what situation I found myself in. That interview had been a victory, a rare moment where the pieces just fell into the right slots, just at the crucial moment. On the way out, I had a quick glance around the office, taking in what would be my new workplace. Just at the back next to the director’s office was the marketing department, no doubt my new home going forward.
With great pride I made my way down the stairs and back to reception before being gently caught by the arm. It was the HR rep asking if I had a quick minute to sign the necessary documents instead of getting it mailed through. It did strike me as a peculiar move, normally it took HR a few days to draft the offer letter and send it out, but I thought nothing of it, browsing the important bits and signing off with my signature. Luckily, I had no notice to give as I had just left my role the previous week, a risk on my part, but one I felt I could confidently overcome. It proved to be the right choice as I handed the papers to HR.
“See you next week,” She said.
“Well done,” The rep followed up.
I nodded, shaking her hand, before turning to leave.
“Minho..,” A familiar voice called from behind me.
It was Karina, speed walking towards me through the crowd of workers. She caught many people’s glances, mostly men as they craftily snuck a peek of the former Idol striding confidently across the floor space. She was wearing an elegant cream patterned dress with a black leather jacket draped across her shoulders. It gave her that casual suave boss look, yet at the same time emanated a very elegant and feminine vibe. Her smile broadened as she caught up with me, lightly touching my shoulder as we walked side by side.
“Congratulations again, on landing the position,” Karina said with a bright smile.
It was hard not to be taken aback by her sheer beauty, but if time had taught me one thing, it was to stay calm and measured in moments like this.
“It... was a close one,” I replied with a grin.
“Pleaseeee, you totally nailed it, we are lucky to have you,” She replied.
“Ok now you are just flattering me for a free coffee,” I joked.
“Ah you know me too well,” Karina replied, chuckling lightly.
“I thought you were busy this afternoon?” I asked, as we made our way outside.
She shrugged her shoulders, playfully prodding me in the ribs with her elbow.
“They were just update meetings, not so important, besides it free’s up more time for us to catch up, unless you have other plans?” Karina said.
“No, not at all, we can go over some of my plans for the project,” I replied.
“No business talk, fill me in on everything else going on with you,” She said laughing.
We walked and talked for what seemed like a few minutes, till we reached a quint little French barista tucked away from the main road. Checking my watch, I realized we had literally been walking for a good fifteen minutes as it was already half past four in the afternoon. It felt seamless, chatting to Karina again, similar to the old days where we would talk about everything and anything while she prepared for another shoot in her Idol days.
“Skinny Latte?” I asked, eying up the menu.
“You know me so well,” Karina said in jest.
“Well, I had a lot of practice back in the day,” I replied with a smile.
Karina suggested we sit in the corner away from the busy eyes of onlookers outside. I had noticed she changed much in this aspect, not one to revel in the spotlight, she was quite reserved in many respects, no doubt influenced to some degree by her religious upbringing. I respected that, her values and steadfast nature in doing what was best for her and her interests.
“So, spill the beans, what’s been going on with you?” Karina asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Well, it has been quite the whirlwind to be honest,” I replied.
“Once I left that day, I worked on a few other company till I finally got a promotion to the PR team. From there I steadily plugged away, attending business class in the evenings, thanks to you, eventually graduating and landing an entry level Marketing role for a local website. I stayed there for a couple of years, continuing further study and gaining experience, leaving there as a senior marketing lead. My last job, that I just left was as the Digital lead overseeing different internal projects before rising to Miu Miu taking care of bigger picture stuff and here we are,” I said.
“That is quite the journey, I’m so glad you made it work for yourself,” She said, smiling warmly.
“Well, it was all thanks to your encouragement in the beginning, making me pull my finger out and get my ass into gear,” I replied.
“No, that was all you, I just opened a few doors,” Karina said, rapping lightly on my arm.
Something was different with her. It was like I was no longer seen as a brother but an equal in her eyes. It was the way she looked at me, no longer endearing, almost a bit curious. It triggered an itch within myself that I had to scratch, my infatuation with her since the early days only growing stronger. A feeling that I wanted to follow through and see where I could take this. There were the obvious blockers with her being happily married and all, but my selfishness got the better of me, kicking my moral compass to the side as I mirrored her actions, lightly touching her arm on occasion throughout or little catch up. Not that she seemed to mind at all, her beautiful smile always beaming, fixing her hair from time to time as our coffees soon turned into wine and eventually to dinner.
“So, tell me,” I said, motioning to her ring.
“Oh,” Karina replied blushing slightly at my abrupt change in tac, focusing on her personal life.
I did not expect much, as I knew she was relatively private in nature.
“Well, yes, I am married and have three beautiful children,” She said beaming.
Karina showed me a few pictures in my phone, leaning over the gap in the table to flick through the gallery. I could smell her perfume from here, laced in the depths of her nape, filling my nostrils with a sweet aromatic blend of floral notes and citrus. She smelt heavenly, as I felt my crotch stir at our sudden close proximity. We spoke for what seemed an age before she checked her watch after feeling her phone buzz. It was now half nine in the evening.
“Shoot..,” Karina said.
“God I better get going, the husband is messaging,” She said with an awkward smile.
“It has been good catching up, really good, you have changed a lot Minho,” Karina said, clasping her bag.
“Change in a good way I hope,” I replied with a chuckle.
I could see we had got through quite a number of bottles of wine as Karina dialed a local taxi for pick up as we settled the bill and walked outside to wait for her ride.
“Yes by the way,” Karina suddenly said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You have changed in a good way,” She replied.
“Ok that was like a five-minute delay Karina, losing your sharpness,” I said laughing.
“Pfftt, it’s the wine, deadly stuff,” Karina said, merrily leaning on my shoulder.
“You are much more confident and forward looking, it’s a good look,” She said softly.
“I can remember the first time we met, you were so star struck it was cute, standing there with a coffee in your hand,” Karina said laughing.
“Do you blame me?” I said chuckling.
“I mean it was adorable, your face was all flushed and, I can say this now but it was a little obvious you were a little too excited,” Karina said slapping my arm in hysterics.
I had hoped that she would have missed that all those years ago, but I guess she picked up on it, all of it. I could not help but laugh with her reminiscing about the past as the alcohol slowly set in.
“Oh, here’s my cab,” She said giving me a hug and pecking me on the cheek.
“It was so nice to see you, congratulations, again,” Karina said beaming, the smell of wine now laced in her breath.
“You too Karina, it was great to see you too,”
“Don’t worry I have managed to curb my excitement this time!” I joked.
Karina laughed, punching my harm.
“Must be losing my touch,” She said, smiling.
“I wouldn’t fret, you still have the same- effect..,” I replied, my expression of the cheeky, implying nature.
Karina blushed, swiping her hair behind her ear while she fidgeted on the spot for a few moments, smiling.
“Well, I best be going, see you in the office?” She said, gathering her composure again and leaning in for a hug.
“Yes boss,” I replied, closing the taxi door and watching her leave.
The walk home was a good one, a feeling of elation at nailing the interview and one of mild curiosity at the unsaid words and feelings I felt between us. With a bright smile across my face, I went to bed eager to get started on my first day.
—
Strolling into the work on day one all suited and booted gave me a great sense of accomplishment as the HR representative took me to my new office. It was large, much larger than my old one, decked out in a minimalistic art decor kind of vibe. It even had that fancy clap to shut blinds feature which made the inner child in me laugh in excitement.
“This is your team,” The rep said.
She introduced me to my marketing team manager Nayoung, who over saw our junior team members Sohye and Yeonjun. They seemed like a good bunch, all enthusiastic and willing to do the hard yards as we went full on into the new product launch. There was little time to settle in as the launch was happening in three months’ time, so all the marketing and advertisement had to be nailed down asap. From my first few encounters with Nayoung I got the impression that she knew exactly what she was doing, decisive in her actions but at the same time very popular with the other two. She must have been a few years younger than myself, perhaps on her late twenties, but her experience levels shone through her work. She had that girl next door look, yet commanded respect through her calmness and wicked sense of humor. She was sharp, I had to hand it to her, batting off my banter throughout the day and weeks with ease. It got to a point that our team work was seamless, synchronized as the group ramped up for the final presentation to Karina.
—
It was now week three, and the first draft was about to be presented to Karina for approval. The team had been working hard throughout the process, pulling late nights on consecutive occasions as all four of us tidied up the final bits of the slides.
“So, we heard that you and the boss lady go way back,” Yeonjun said smirking.
“Yeah, I have known her for quite some time,” I replied.
Sohye and Nayoung smiled at each other.
“Seriously guys, we are going there?” I asked laughing.
“Well, she is kinda hot,” Yeonjun chirped in.
“Kinda? She is drop dead gorgeous,” Sohye replied.
“Guys, just get to work, I will leave the company card with Nayoung, order whatever you want,” I said smiling.
“Is that a no comment?” Yeonjun asked laughing.
Before I could hit back with some banter of my own, Karina walked in wearing an eye catching black short, black top, showing off way too much leg for the office.
“Evening all,” Karina said, smiling, her eyes lingering on me for a brief moment.
I could sense Yeonjun and the team in hysterics as I gathered my laptop. He bit his fist obviously in reaction to Karina’s insanely revealing work attire.
“Let me take you through the final proposal, Boss,” I said with a cheeky grin.
“Lead the way,” Karina replied.
My office was just around the corner as I snuck another peek at her smooth legs before shutting the door behind me.
“Bit bold for the office?” I said smiling.
“Ughh don’t get me started, just rushed off a shoot with Women’s Health, barely made it in time through the traffic,” She replied, sitting down in the swivel chair and crossing her legs.
Something about what she said did not add up though. According to her PA she had finished in the afternoon, as the shoot had been moved earlier on in the day. I knew this because our meeting was due to be the following day but I moved it forward to tonight as we were in good shape with the proposal. With intrigue racing across my thoughts, I settled down beside her, making sure not to stare at her smooth legs.
“So, what you got for me?” Karina said, tilting her head towards me.
I ran her through our slides, pointing out the key take aways and messages of the campaign. Karina nodded intently, chiming in with slight tweaks here and there. She really knew her stuff, explaining the ideology of the company revolving around sustainability and making the world a better place through safe practice and renewable materials. If not for her flawless attire, I would have paid better attention as I found myself staring at her face before being brought back to reality.
“Don’t you agree?” She said.
“What? Yes, yes, I do,” I replied.
“Did you just zone out? Hah for a minute there your face reminded me of when we first met,” Karina said smiling.
The slight awkwardness from a few weeks back when I dropped her off at the taxi were now long gone as I felt her get more and more comfortable with my company.
“What do you mean by this part?” Karina asked pointing to one of the slides.
I moved in closer, feeling the slight brush of her calf on my leg as I explained the ins and outs of the slide. The touch of her leg on mine was not rebuffed as I continued with my explanation, using it as an excuse to gently continue to rub my leg against her bare skin, my knee now sneaking up her leg slightly as we sat side by side. I felt a slight jump in her demeanor so I quickly moved my leg away, maybe I had pushed my luck too far.
“Sorry- bit tight in here,” I said, breaking the silence, which was an odd thing to say as the office was large.
The awkwardness steadily grew as the tension cranked up, Karina finally looking up at me after I had finished my re run through her query.
“Thank you…” For taking me through it.
“It looks, good,” She said.
Her face now a few inches from mine, the silence filling the gap, I felt a sudden rush of blood to my head, moving forward without skipping a beat planting my lips on hers. Initially feeling a tensing in her shoulders, this quickly dissipated as our lips melded together, my hands now resting on the side of her waist as we embraced in deep heavy petting.
“Wait…wait…I can’t,” Karina said, her hands gently pushing me away as I continued kissing up her nape and nibbling at her ear lobe.
“Minho…wait...seriously I’m married..,” She followed up, breaking our kiss and rolling away an inch or so in the seat.
Her face was flushed red, hair slightly out of place as the ravishing woman looked at me, slightly unsure and ashamed. I could see her breathing had accelerated by the way her chest was rising and falling rapidly as she rushed to fix her dress.
“What’s the matter, don’t you want to?” I asked enquiringly.
“Its. Not- I’m married and have a family,” Karina replied clearly flustered.
I closed the distance between us in the chair again without a response from her as she just sat still, pretending to fuss before picking up her phone.
“Jaewook called, just going to call home,” She said hurriedly, turning her back to me as she dialed home.
Catching the chair mid turn, I spun her back around, just as her husband greeted her. Placing my leg in-between her thighs I slowly inched forward. The look in her eyes were full of trepidation, yet her body showed no signs of rejection as Karina sat completely still greeting Jaewook on the other side of the line.
“Hey honey, yes I’m- just…in a meeting,” Karina said.
My confidence now shot to a hundred due to our kiss moments before so decided to take things a bit further, reaching out my hand and running it along the inside of her smooth pale legs. Karina showed brief signs of resistance, squeezing her legs shut before I eased them open again with my other hand, travelling further up her inner thighs till my fingers made contact with her moist sex.
“I should be home...in a bit..,” Karina continued talking.
Her face was clearly conflicted, trying to hold it together while I pleasured her with my hands, cupping her wet pussy through her silky underwear, rubbing firmly on her clit.
“Fuck..,” Karina moaned into the phone.
Her eyes shot open in fear, realizing what she had just said as her husband sounded confused on the other line.
“No... I just found an error in the presentation that’s all,” She quickly recovered.
Smiling, I nodded, our eyes meeting for the first time during this sordid encounter. Her pupils were dilated, washed over in a glaze of lust as her mouth dropped, gaping slightly at the touch of my hands now rubbing her cunt with increased fervor. Easing her underwear to the side, I crept my fingers delicately along the length of her lips, piercing Karina’s slick labia with my digits as I proceeded to stoke the insides of her married cunt.
“God...Unghh..,” Karina gently moaned, holding the phone to her shoulder.
Luckily, Jaewook was in the thralls of an explanation about some work issues he had today, missing his wife’s whispered moans. Slipping in another finger and then another I was basically cupping her sex, removing her soaked underwear completely, placing it in my back pocket while I delved my hand deep within her folds, feeling her walls close in around me. Extending my finger deep inside her tight slit, my digits making contact with her g-spot as applied pressure with my wrist making her twitch and writhe in her chair.
“Jaewook- Jaewook...can…I... call you back..,?” Karina said, her voice now slightly ragged.
Sensing her impending climax, I doubled my efforts flicking her clitoris with my thumb as I rubbed her deep inside her cunt, stimulating her g-spot with my fingers while she creamed all over my hand. Karina’s thighs were covered in her slick juices, my wrist now leaking with her nectar as I felt her cramping up. Her cunt walls squeezing down on my fingers as I impaled my hand within her womb, fucking her with deep steady strokes.
“Shit...mpphhh,” Karina said, moaning into my shoulder as I had moved forward, resting my face next to hers as I attacked her pussy with quicker jabs.
“Babe...you still there?” I heard Jaewook saying on the other line.
“Uhhh...huh…Just finishing up here,” Karina replied.
Her pussy was twitching in my hand as I felt her hips buck, stuffing more of my fingers deeper into her married cunt as she bit down on my shoulder to mask her cries of pleasure while climaxing on my fingers. We stayed in this awkward embrace as I continued to rub at her sex, her pussy leaking down my palms and onto the carpeted floor while she finished her conversation with Jaewook. Hanging up the phone the look on her face turned from the relief of just being brought to orgasm, to more of one of remorse of what had just happened.
Getting up without a word, she held out her hand, wanting me to hand back her sex-soaked underwear to which I refused, standing up and cupping her face in my hands.
“I- can’t...we can’t…” Karina said rather tame.
“We already have,” I replied curtly, planting another kiss on her lips as I eased her back onto the wall behind.
“Wait- seriously...I’m- ughh...married,” She replied, her moans steadily increasing as my hands danced up her dress again.
“Seriously...plll...pleaseeee,” Karina pleaded in vain, her emotions caught between guilt and pleasure as I held a my cum soaked finger to her lips.
“Shhh...allow me to make you feel...better,” I replied.
“I may not be your husband...but you will enjoy this..,” I said, kissing her once more before dropping to my knees.
Karina’s eyes were wanting, slowly turning to my way of thinkings as I proceeded to lift up her dress and take in her essence. The smell of her sex was divine, a mix of the pungent natural notes of her cunt together with the sweet taste of her juice was a dream come true as I licked her slit from the bottom to the top, suckling on her throbbing clit with my lips.
“Mmhh...aahhh..,” Karina groaned lightly, running her fingers through her hair.
I was slowly breaking her resistance, feeling her push her hips into my face as I slung one of her legs over my shoulders while feasting on her slippery pussy. Dragging my tongue up her swollen lips, I pierced her folds, tongue fucking her slit with gradual spears, tasting her cream in my mouth as I eagerly lapped up everything she had to offer.
“Fuck- we...we can’t- ahh…”. Karina moaned louder as I hit the right spot, her clawing more desperate now as she forcefully fed me her cunt.
Karina was on tip toes now, her initial resistance dissipated completely as I had my way with her, licking her pink insides with my tongue as I felt her inevitable climax build. Her thighs were now clamped around my face as I hoovered up her sexual fluids, adding my fingers to the mix, penetrating her sex with my digits while sucking at her reddened clit.
“Shit...shit...mmhh...fuckk...ughh,” Karina yelled, her climax hitting its peak as she shivered and twitched around my lips.
I stayed on my knees for a while, taking in her heavenly taste in my mouth as the sultry woman eased me back to my feet. She was silent, not saying a word, almost as if saying something would be an admission of our wrong doings. If anything, I was leading proceedings backing into my leather-bound chair as I eyed Karina up and down. She knew what I wanted, a slight smirk forming on her lips as she slowly walked towards me.
We kissed softly, as I felt her hands drift slowly down my body as Karina descended to her knees, gently pushing me into my chair. Her expression was livelier riddled with hunger as she bit her lips gently, hurriedly unbuckling my belt and removing my trousers.
I stared at her full lips hovering a mere inch from my throbbing member as she kissed my crown through my boxers. My pre cum leaking onto my cotton underwear as she gently pecked at my cock with her soft lips, tasting the hint of salt soaking through the fabric. It was like watching a beautiful car crash happen in slow motion as Karina freed by cock from by pants, fishing it out and dipping her wet lips along the length of my shaft. Her soft hands feeling my meat with a firm grip that pumped with perfect execution as she finally took me into her wanting mouth, eyes locked on mine for the entirety of the act.
“Mmmm...mmm”. Karina hummed on my dick, while she gave me the best fellatio of my life.
I was lost in the sensations of her tongue lapping up the underside of my shaft in one fluid motion, before sucking down again on my crown, over and over feeding more of my twitching cock between her married lips. Running my fingers through her hair I thrust my hips gently into her wanting mouth as her nose made contact with my pubic bone, deep throating my entire cock till my tip made contact with her tonsils. I held her here for a few precious seconds, feeling her tongue coat my cock in more of her warm spit as she took me to the back of her throat, her eyes flushed with desire.
“Shit- Karina...you feel...soo...good,” I groaned, suddenly disrupted by my office door swing open.
It was Nayoung, holding the company credit card with a grin on her face. The instance she went to speak, Karina had expertly hidden herself under my desk, my cock still sheathed between her lips while she continued to feed on my meat, turning her attention to my sack with long deep licks.
“Boss can we up the limit to say 25 each?” Nayoung said smiling.
“Yeah sure whatever you guys want” I replied, slightly breathless.
Karina was staring at me from below, mouth open, rolling my sack around between her lips, slathering me in spit while I tried maintaining my cool.
“Everything OK Boss, you seem a little uptight?” Nayoung said concerned.
“Yeah...the draft went down well, Karina has just popped out for a call,” I said, a bead of sweat forming on my forehead.
“You sure...?” Nayoung replied.
I felt Karina now clamp down on my balls and suck hard while she pumped my cock with her fist, my shaft straining for release as my orgasm built up rapidly.
“Yes...no problem...keep up the good work,” I said, struggling to keep a straight face.
“Ok boss, we are just outside if you need anything,” Nayoung replied before leaving.
I waited for the footsteps to soften before letting out an almighty yawn thrusting my cock further into Karina’s mouth.
“Shit...Karina...I’m close..,” I moaned, gripping the back of her head as I continued to thrust between her lips.
“Mmm...mmhh...mmhhfff..,” Karina replied, her mouth stuffed with cock as my impending release came.
She never stopped sucking, bringing her mouth around my crown and allowing me to unload inside her oral cavity. Spurt after spurt of my sticky load painted her pink insides, feeding her a torrent of my thick and salty seed, the mother of three just lapping up my sperm with her tongue as she pumped my shaft with her fist, milking my twitching cock to completion while swallowing my load, closing her eyes in euphoria.
It was immense, watching her continue to work my spurting dick with her lips until I grew soft within her mouth. A gentle squeeze of my balls dribbling out the final drops of sperm from my tip into her welcoming tongue.
“God damn Karina...that was intense,” I said breathlessly.
She looked up at me in a cum drunk haze, my seed dripping from her bottom lip.
“So...do I taste better than your husband?” I asked cheekily.
She looked at me with a frown, coming back down to reality after her earth-shattering fellatio, she had just given me.
“I don’t usually let him finish in my mouth..,” Karina said meekly.
“Usually?” I replied.
“Never..,” She said, kissing my tip softly with her lips.
I reached out stroking her face as I scooped up the last dribble of sperm on the side of her mouth, letting the ravishing woman suck it clean from my fingers a smile breaking out on her face at the taste of my essence.
Our sensual connection in that moment was disrupted by the sudden ring of her phone. It was her husband and just like that her mood changed from a state of utter arousal to one of panic and remorse as she stood up, flattening out her dress and grabbing her jacket.
“I... I have to go,” Karina stammered, clearly flustered as her cheeks went a bright red.
“Email me the rest of the slides?” She said turning to me.
“Look- about...what just…” Karina started.
I cut her off, kissing her gently on the lips.
“Go... I will see you in the meeting on Friday,” I said gently.
Karina smiled, avoiding my eye contact, clearly riddled with guilt from what had just transpired, but she clearly enjoyed herself. It gave me a surge of confidence knowing that fact, even if she was not ready to freely admit it herself.
The picture of her locked in the thralls of passion as I felt her up for the first time would forever be seared into my memories. I was officially addicted and I needed to get another hit of her...
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Hello! This is something kind of niche but I was wondering if you could write a Pornstar!Miguel x Pornstar!Fem!Reader, where he is a new pornstar and meets with her the day before their shoot. He’s like super sweet to her and they have an informal hangout/date to like be comfortable around each other. Reader tries their best to ease his worry him cuz he seems kinda shy, but the day of their shoot he’s a total freak in the sheets and it totally catches her off guard? Dirty talk, dom and all.
I love your writing so much and I know you’ll do a great job writing whatever your heart desires for this one! Thx in advance <333
No lie this sounds cute as fuck! Here we go!
Warning: MINORS DNI, Smut, rough sex, dirty talk
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It was another beautiful day. You were ready to receive your next paycheck, but first, you had to help the new guy. A soft chuckle escaped your lips as you walked into a popular coffee shop. You were actually excited for this secret meetup. Normally, it was informal to meet your coworkers before a shoot, but this new guy? Oh, he was your type!
You were a pornstar. It is a long story on how you got into the business, but you were good at acting. A little too good. As you waited in line, you let out a soft sigh. While the paychecks were nice, you were really ready for something new. Cue, your manager making you a teacher and setting you up with newbies.
"Two extra shots of espresso." You muttered, trying to avoid groaning at the thought.
Despite the struggle of your job, you were eager for tomorrow. The new porn star, Miguel, was going to be your next partner. You saw his file and the man was huge and good looking. He was the one who actually asked to meet you in person. It was cute how shy he sounded over the phone.
"(Y/N)?" Miguel waves slowly, sitting in a corner table. You approached him with your drink,
"Hi, Miguel!" You said with a chirp, "My god, you're so tall."
"Sorry," Miguel went to shake your hand before immediately sitting down towards your comment.
You sat across from him, admiring his features. The man chose to become a porn star than a model? He was going to be an instant lady killer! Hopefully his acting was decent.
"Thanks again for meeting me. As you can tell, I'm a little nervous with this being my first shoot and all." Miguel said. You smiled,
"It's no biggie. It's kind of fun breaking the rules like this. Why don't we just chat about ourselves, get more comfortable with each other? I'm sure it will help you out a lot." You offered.
Miguel took the suggestion and the two of you spoke for hours. There was a chemistry there and you sensed it. You were disappointed when you had to leave for the night. Miguel parted ways with and kiss to your hand. He was such a gentleman! You were already imagining the slow and soft sex he was going to give you tomorrow.
It would be different for sure, but you were looking forward to it. Hopefully, Miguel won't disappoint you like all of your other coworkers. It was frustrating to work in the porn industry, but could never cum in your own videos. You always had to fake an orgasm and pleasure yourself later.
"Let's not think of the negative! Just...look forward for tomorrow," You told yourself.
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"Alright, you know the rules. First shoot, newbie gets to pick the theme. We will go from there afterwards," Your manager called out to the crew.
You glanced at Miguel, seeing him nervously look around, "Hey, it's going to be okay. I promise I won't bite, unless you want me too."
"Haha," Miguel smiled towards you, "Is it okay if we do something simple?"
"You get to pick. Why not something that will get you in the mood?" You suggested and showed him the costume room, "Is there something you want to see me wear?"
Miguel looked around, his eyes sparkling at some of the outfits. He glanced back at you,
"I know what I want to do."
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"Mhm~ I don't have any money for this massage~ Is there any other way I can pay you?"
You laid against a soft bed, spreading your naked legs apart. Your gaze towards Miguel as you slowly rubbed your own clit. Miguel had chosen a massage sex scene. Something where he could feel your body to get you prepped. How kind and generous of him. You hummed sweetly, faking a moan as you dove your fingers towards your hole.
"No money? That's fine, I'll just have to massage one more place before you can leave."
You're eyes widen as Miguel removed his pants. He hovered over you, stealing your lips in a forceful kiss before his hands roamed your body. You pressed yourself against him, your hand heading towards his cock. Miguel grabbed your wrists, pinning them above your head before growling lowly,
"I'm giving the massage. Not you, chica (girl)"
For once, you felt a shiver run down your spine. What happened to the shy man from yesterday? You're eyes widen as Miguel's fingers started to enter your pussy. He started with one, stretching you out more than some of your coworker's dicks. You raised your hips slightly, wanting to help him get more access, but once again he pinned you down.
"Tsk, tsk, do you come onto all your massage therapists?" Miguel spat lowly, "Being such a slut?"
You shivered once more to his cruel tone. He sucked against your breasts while another finger entered your pussy. Miguel's fingers were wandering around your gummy walls, searching for that sweet spot. This was different. You're eyes widen once he curled his fingers, making you moan for real.
"That's right. Pay your bill in full." Miguel whispered.
You gasped lowly as Miguel pumped his fingers against that spot. He removed himself from your breasts, keeping you held down. His thumb pressed against your clit, causing you to squirm under him. Miguel just kept making eye contact with you. It was as if he wanted to watch you break because of him.
"What a slutty face. You like this kind of massage right?"
"Y-Yes." You whimpered, feeling your body burn with pleasure.
This was actually happening. You felt a tight knot growing in your lower abdomen. Miguel's fingers only went faster. It wasn't long until he entered a third finger that really made you break. You arched your back, moaning and whining as he wrecked your pussy with just his fingers alone. With one more curl, you finally felt that tight tension burst.
"You're getting my work area dirty, that's going to cost extra."
You were panting softly from your intense orgasm. Miguel withdrew his fingers, causing you to shiver slightly. You were feeling the need, the want. Your pussy was throbbing and begging to be filled. Miguel was the first person who actually made you cum. You gasped, forcing a smile as you saw him position his dick right against your folds.
He was fucking big! You spread your legs, teasing your entrance for him. This was just part of the job. Miguel grunted as he grabbed your legs, placing them over his shoulders. He bit against your inner thigh before pushing his dick inside you. You whimpered, arching your back as you pretended to be fine.
Miguel's dick was stretching you out. This was a first. His dick felt hot and strong. Once he was fully inside you, Miguel pinched your clit, causing you to moan and whine. He smirked, pounding the life out of your pussy, breaking you down even more.
"So fucking tight. You don't get much exercise here, do you?" He mocked.
You moaned in response, focusing a little too much on how good this felt. His dick beating against your pussy with each rough and wet slap of his hips. His tip kissing your cervix each time, threatening to remind you that this was his moment. You were his fuck toy. You whined, your eyes nearly rolling back as Miguel rubbed your clit again.
"You're going to have to come back. I'm going to have to remind this pussy that it owes me payment." Miguel grunted as he went faster.
You felt your growing orgasm once more. Miguel held your body down against the bed, pressing his dick further inside you. Your mouth formed an 'o' as you started to see stars. Whimpers and moans were all you were able to say as you cam hard against his dick. Even after a second orgasm, you still could not believe that this was happening.
"That's a good fucking sign. My little slut is finally relaxing," Miguel spat as he griped your hips tightly, cumming inside you.
Your body trembled as you felt his hot, sticky load fill you. With a pop, Miguel pulled out, leaving your pussy a mess. A mixture of your juices and his cum pouring out of your abused hole.
"Cut! Good job (Y/N), Miguel! I think that's going to be a killer!" You managed yelled out.
"Are you okay?" Miguel asked as he helped you up. You panted softly, regaining your composure,
"Y-Yeah,"
"I didn't go overboard, did I? You're not hurt?" He kept asking, giving you a towel to wrap yourself with.
"You did amazing. I'm the opposite of hurt," You told him as the two of you walked towards the showers, "In fact, you did something none of my other coworkers could do."
"I did?"
"Yes, and I would love to be your partner for ongoing shoots. If not, then...maybe we can meet outside of work?" You whispered the last part to him, feeling slightly embarrassed. Miguel just smiled,
"I would love that."
You watched Miguel enter the shower first, wondering to which part he agreed to. Unsure, you followed him into the shower, still daydreaming about his dick.
You found out afterwards that Miguel agreed to both.
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I hope you liked it!!! Not really sure how porn videos actually work, haha
#miguel o'hara#miguel o'hara smut#miguel spiderverse#miguel o'hara x reader#spiderman 2099#miguel o’hara x reader#miguel spiderman#atsv miguel
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i would give up heaven if i had to ↪ gojo satoru x reader x geto suguru ✶.ೃ࿔*.
← previous | ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗ | next →
summary: sugar melts saccharide sweet on his tongue, and yet the taste in his mouth is so very bitter. the look in suguru's eyes tells him more than any words could. they'd messed up; badly.
tw: angst but melancholic? mentions of illness, mentions of abandonment, reader has a healthy relationship with their parents, author uses switches between "gojo/geto" and "satoru/suguru" to denote emotions. food as a metaphor for love. not proofread. author is extremely tired
notes: title taken from enhyphen's "sweet venom (english version)." a shorter chapter to kind of fill in the gaps. banner from @/cafekitsune
It's been a week since Gojo and Geto showed up at your doorstep and ever since then, you've been filled with a pervasive sense of anxiety. After the whole six hours they spent pleading outside your door (you shudder just thinking about it), they had been uncharacteristically silent. It had gotten to the point where you felt almost a bit insane, peeking your head out the door to check outside if anyone was waiting for you, before you left for work.
It didn't matter if it had been five years, or five days. You knew them better than you'd even known yourself. The freckle on Suguru's collarbone. The barely noticeable scar on Satoru's arm. How Suguru preferred tea, black, and always expensive, while Satoru's guilty pleasure was instant coffee with ungodly amounts of syrups and sugars added to it. You knew them, and therefore you knew that the silence was suspicious. Even as children, whenever you'd get into fights, they would be even clingier than usual, as if they were desperate to reaffirm that you were still there.
So why was it so quiet?
The scream of the tea kettle startles you out of your thoughts and you flinch, hastily moving to remove it from the stove. Why should you care? The audacity they'd had, coming to your doorstep on a whim, before claiming they had no choice. Your thoughts are more bitter than the medicine you mix into your parents' tea. Satoru had been undoubtably hysterical once his parents had found out. You couldn't blame him for that. But Suguru had been the one to call all the shots, buying two plane tickets instead of three.
What if they couldn't afford a third one?
You shake your head, as if you could physically shake the thought. It doesn't matter now, you think viciously, as you stack the cups on a tray. Five years was a long time to go without seeing someone for. Fame and wealth changed people, and you were no stranger to the heavy influence they both exerted upon the music industry. Besides, it's not like your address had changed since they'd left. They could've found you whenever they wanted to.
"You never left?"
The cups rattle dangerously as you carry them to your parents' room. Your mother is sitting up in bed, staring longingly out the window. Your father must be outside, soaking up the last few rays of sunshine before the sun started to set. Gently, you set the tray down on the nightstand. "I have your medicine, Mom."
Your mother smiles, but there's a fragile kind of sadness to it. "When were you going to tell us?"
Heavy resignation falls over you as you sigh, shoulders slumping. "I didn't want to worry you and Dad while you were away at the hospital. It wasn't that big of a deal-"
Your mother cuts you off, eyes firm but gentle. "Dear, please. I saw how happy you were when all three of you were together, and how devastated you were when they left. I just..." She hesitates before continuing. "I don't want you to live your life with regrets. Especially because of your father and I. You deserve to be happy too."
"I am happy," you protest fiercely, but she shakes her head. "You had such lofty dreams. And now, your father and I are the ones holding you back. Life is too short to have regrets like yours at such a young age."
"It just hurt so badly," you whisper, as you take a seat at the end of the bed. Your mother reaches over to intertwine her fingers with yours.
"I know, dear. But which is greater; the love for the things they did do, or the pain for all the things they didn't?"
Your mother's words ring through your ears as you blearily stare into your coffee cup. While the insurance helped, there were still bills to pay, and food to put on the table. You'd stayed up all night finishing work for your remote office job, before taking the short bus ride to the cafe you worked at during the day. The world spins briefly. You would kill for a good night's sleep.
The door chimes and grimacing, you down the rest of your coffee, before pasting a cheery smile onto your face.
"Welcome, how may I help..."
Sator- Gojo stares at you from the other end of the counter. Even with the cheap medical mask he's wearing, the blue eyes and white hair are enough to have your coworkers whispering behind you.
"...you," you finish lamely, immediately looking down at cash register. Why was he here? Especially in the town over? More importantly, why hadn't he gone back to Asia yet? Cursing, you study the bills lined up neatly in the till. Gojo says your name, softly, and the whispers behind you intensify.
"That's me!" you chirp, forcing yourself to point at your nametag. The tips were nice here, and you couldn't afford to find a new job. The pitying stares from everyone back in your hometown was already suffocating enough; gaining the attention from Gojo's rabid fangirls would probably push you over the edge. "Is there anything in particular that you like? Our customers really love the caramel crunch latte."
There's a tone to his voice that you can't place when he finally speaks. "Yeah, I'll take one of those. Extra sweet. Do you happen to have any tea here?"
The words slip out of your mouth before you can stop yourself. "Unfortunately, we only have one drink that features black tea."
Fuck.
You can feel Gojo's gaze, searing into your face as you stubbornly continue to stare at the counter. "Sure, I'll take one of those."
Numbly, you recite the total to him. As he hands you his credit card, you can see your hand shake as you reach out to grab it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You should've forgotten everything about them when they left.
But you couldn't. You never could.
You hand his card back, but a firm hand on your wrist forces the air out of your lungs. Eyes wide, you peer up at Gojo in shock. His eyes are filled with an intensity that you've never seen before. "How much do I have to tip you in order for you to be the one to make our drinks?"
His grip is firm but not bruising, even as you try to tug your hand back. "I can assure you, our baristas-"
"I don't care," he interrupts. "I want you to do it. You're the only one who can do it." The final part of his statement is so soft that you barely catch it. "It's only ever been you."
You have the horrible feeling that the two of you are no longer talking about extra sweet lattes and London Fogs. The whispers are getting so loud now that you yank your hand back and give him a strained smile. "I suppose I can." At this point, you'll do anything to stop talking with him.
As you busy yourself around the cafe, you hate how easy it is to make the two drinks. Extra caramel; Satoru always loved when his coffee was practically infused with it. You grab the filtered water, running it through a filter several more times. Suguru always insisted tea tasted better the more filtered the water was. You heat the water as you crush up small caramel candies. Satoru enjoyed when his drinks had a little something he could chew on. The tea was steeped for five minutes, exactly. You added lavender and vanilla syrup. When Suguru had made you try a London Fog for the first time in ninth grade, you'd teased him for the "oddly pretentious taste." A splash of milk. An extra large heaping of whipped cream.
Wiping your hands on your apron, you can feel the pain in your heart form the salt of your tears. "Lizzie," you call out. "Can you deliver this to the customer? I'm going on my ten minute." Not waiting for a response, you dash into the bathroom, barely slamming the door behind you as you let the first of your tears fall.
"Toru! Toru!"
"What?" he snaps. Undeterred, you rush up to him, bright pink lunchbox clutched in one hand. "Sugu said you forgot your lunch at home, but it's okay! We pooled our allowance together, so Sugu's in line for the cafeteria right now"
A rush of warmth fills his chest. "You shouldn't have," he protests, but you wave it away. "Mama always says that food is meant to be shared, especially with people you love! And it wouldn't feel right eating without you."
The school onigiri had never tasted good, but that day, Satoru had savored every bite.
Satoru stares at the teenager who'd called his name, wringing her apron nervously, before taking the offered cups. "Thank you." Where had you gone?
"Can I get your autograph?" she blurts out, and Satoru winces. His cover had been completely blown. Suguru's not going to be pleased, he thinks wryly. Yet as he dutifully signs his name on the provided paper, his mind wanders to you. Your hands had been shaking. Were you cold? Tired? Or was it his fault? Briefly, he considers sticking around, before quickly dismissing that idea. You clearly wanted to avoid being associated with him, and although the thought makes his stomach twist, he understands it as much as he hates it.
The walk back to the hotel is short. Satoru's mind is a mess. The bags under your eyes rivalled Shoko's. Were you taking care of yourself? You seemed thinner, too. The sick feeling inside him only grows, festering into something ugly. He dutifully ignores it (like he has been the past five years) and takes a sip of the latte you made, freezing.
Every time all four of you had gone over to your house after school, you'd always insisted on making snacks for the three of them. The coffee tastes like sunny afternoons, and bright laughter, of your voice teasing Satoru for the sheer amount of sugar you'd have to put in his drinks. Caramel seeps into his system, and unbidden, he thinks of your eyes, watching him with a hint of apprehension and exhaustion.
When had it gone so wrong?
Suguru is lounging on the couch as he enters. "What took you so long?" Suguru grumbles, reaching for the other cup. It takes Satoru a moment to respond.
"She was working at the cafe."
"Is that so?" Suguru murmurs, taking a sip of his own drink. Immediately, he tenses, eyes stunned. "Did she-"
"Yeah."
"It tastes kind of like-"
"I know."
The two lapse into silence. You'd had so much love to give that it had practically overflowed. Food was just one aspect of it. Some days, you'd even give up parts of your lunch, insisting that Satoru or Suguru take a bite. He thinks of the way you'd hold him, the way you'd leave him encouraging notes in his locker, how you'd save up allowance to buy small things that reminded you of them. How you'd keep extra hair ties on your wrist for Suguru, and how you'd always keep a plastic water bottle in your bag for Shoko. How many times had they taken it for granted, taken you for granted?
"She looked so exhausted, Sugu. She's got these real dark bags under her eyes, like she hadn't slept in a while. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were so dull, and so lifeless. I..." Satoru closes his eyes. "I think I would give up anything for her. Music, fame, money. I forgot what it was like, being with her. I felt alive, even though she could barely even look at me."
"I think the worst part is that she really thought we wanted to leave her behind," Suguru says, miserably. "It's all my fault, I was in such a hurry to get us out of there that I didn't say goodbye at all."
"You're not the only one to blame." Satoru's voice is sharp. "We both knew where she lived. We could've called her house phone, saved her number to our new phones from her parents."
"Will she ever forgive us?"
The way they'd heard you wailing from behind the door had torn their heart in two. They never wanted to hear you make those noises again, especially with the agonizing knowledge that it had been their fault.
"I don't know," Satoru says, truthfully. "But I can't even think about returning to music until she knows just how much we really love her."
#haerinwrites#idol!satoru gojo#rockstar!suguru geto#satosugu x reader#satoru gojo x reader#jjk x reader#jjk angst#suguru geto x reader#geto x reader#geto suguru x reader#gojo x reader#gojo satoru x reader#satoru x suguru x reader#gojo x geto x reader
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you're out of touch, i'm out of time
aegon ii targaryen x reader - part ii
wc: 4.6k
summary: you search for answers on why aegon is here, and find you rather enjoy his company
cw: f!reader, aegon the cringefail king, kinda just a lot of hanging out, a little make out session, aegon almost pushes toward dubcon advances but he's quickly stopped
masterlist, read on ao3, divider by saradika
You hardly sleep a wink that first night with Aegon in your flat. You’re too worried about him, and the carpet in the living room. You’re still not an expert on history, but you’re quite sure that vodka hadn’t been invented yet when Aegon was supposed to be alive. If it had, Westeros hadn’t yet set up any trade routes beyond the Bone Mountains. You still remember your first vodka hangover, even if you don’t quite remember the night that preceded it, and it was not a good time. Aegon is in for something of a shock if he hasn’t drowned in his own vomit– cheap as your vodka is, it’s a lot stronger than that piss water from the Arbour the historians all say he drank.
You rise from your bed with your alarm, not snoozing it as you usually do and instead going to go check on Aegon. Thankfully, he’s right where you left him and alive and well, if his open-mouth snoring is any indication. He’s splayed out on your couch, legs falling over the side and bottle of water you’d made up for him spilled on the floor. Hells, at least it’s only water he spilled.
Leaving him to sleep a moment longer, you pad into the kitchen and rummage around for the electrolyte tablets you keep for this exact scenario. Well– maybe not this exactly. Usually it’s reserved for your own hangovers, not for when the time travelling king of Westeros has broken into your drink cabinet and passed out on your couch. But close enough. You make up a drink for him, deciding he can cope with the orange flavour even if he doesn’t like it and come back over, setting the glass loudly down on the coffee table and waking Aegon with a jolt.
He almost falls from the couch, gasping and throwing his hands over his ears. “Get out!” He demands, wincing at the sound of his own voice. “Five more minutes!”
“Not your chambermaid, Aegon,” you say, folding your arms over your chest. “Drink this. And no, yesterday wasn't a fever dream, you’re still in the future.”
Part of you had hoped yesterday's events were a weird dream of your own.
Aegon cracks his eyes open, taking in the sight of you slowly before he groans and presses his fists hard into his eye sockets. “Fuck,” he mumbles. “My head…”
“Yeah,” you say, picking the glass back up and holding it out to him. “Straight vodka will do that to you. Drink.”
He lowers his hands and eyes you suspiciously as he reaches for the glass, sniffing it. You roll your eyes. He’ll drink from a random bottle he finds in your home but not something you’re offering to him?
“It'll make you feel better,” you say. “It's orange flavoured.”
“Well, that makes it alright then,” he grumbles, taking a slow sip and moving to sit upright. “If I’m getting poisoned, at least the poison tastes like oranges.”
You make your way over to the kitchen and fish around your cupboards for instant coffee as Aegon makes a noise of confusion.
“Why is it-” he stops, brows furrowed as he looks for the word. “Bubbles?”
“Oh,” you say, looking back at him while you clutch the Garfield mug you found at the thrift a few months ago. You lean over to put the kettle on, sighing as you realise how much of modern life you’re going to have to explain to Aegon. You wonder how much of it can be avoided, skirted around so you don't have to explain the entire industrial revolution to him. “Yeah, it’s fizzy. It’s not poison, just science.”
Aegon stares at you indignantly. “Are you a witch?”
“Gods, it’s not a magic potion, Aegon. Why can’t you just accept that we’ve made a bit of progress in the last thousand years? Things are different, that doesn’t make it magic. Just drink it, it’ll help you feel better.”
Aegon takes a slow sip, lips turning down as he seems to decide he likes it well enough. You turn your back to him and scoop a spoonful of the coffee into your mug, wondering what you’re going to do with him. You’ll have to call out of work, at least for today. You don’t trust him to be left alone; Gods know where he’ll end up, if he’ll contract some disease his immune system isn’t ready for or get hit by a car as he so nearly did yesterday. You hear him groan softly and turn back to see him leaning back on the sofa and sipping slowly at the drink.
You suppose he probably wants your attention, but you withhold it until you’ve taken the first sip of your coffee. It tastes as shit as you expect instant coffee to taste. Gods, you need to buy a proper coffee machine. You make your way back over to him, sitting down on the other end of the sofa.
“Ready to talk yet?” You ask him.
Aegon grunts, rubbing at his temple. “Quietly,” he mumbles. “I had hoped yesterday might be a dream.”
“Me too,” you say, sipping slowly at your coffee. “I’ll be frank with you, Aegon, I don���t know what to do with you.”
Aegon scoffs, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. You’d tell him to take them down, but it’s not exactly a nice coffee table. You can see him staring at the plastic dragon figure on the TV unit. The bags under his eyes are so heavy. “That often seems to be the case,” he says, leaning forward slowly and picking up the dragon. It’s a small one, red and gold. “I wonder how this feels for Sunfyre…”
“Sunfyre was your dragon, right?” You ask, voice still quiet as he requested.
He nods, frowning as he moves the hard plastic wing of the toy. “He’s a fine beast,” he says. “Should he think me dead?”
“I wouldn't know,” you say. “Aegon, I think we need to get you home.”
Aegon goes quiet, almost as though he knows, somehow, that a grizzly fate awaits him in his own time. But he nods. “Yes,” he agrees. “How?”
“No idea. We’ll need to go to the library.”
He looks over at you, setting the dragon down and raising an eyebrow. “So you really can read?”
“Really really,” you say with a slight smile. “We peasants have been literate for centuries. I’ll make you some breakfast and then we can go.”
Aegon leans back again, watching you with wonder as you go back to the kitchen. “You know, I thought we might teach the smallfolk to read,” he says. “I think after the war I’ll bring it up.”
You glance over at him and smile. “Maybe you will.”
“They like me, I think,” Aegon says. “The smallfolk. Aegon the Magnanimous.”
You raise an eyebrow, pulling down a box of cereal. “Kind of lame.”
Aegon sighs. “Yes. We are working on it.”
Once Aegon has eaten his fill of your off brand cereal (which he decides he hates) you get him up and lead him out of the house. Aegon still seems fascinated with the world outside.
“I suppose it does still look like King’s Landing,” he says, staring up at the buildings around him. He refuses to look at the cars, and you can’t blame him. You can’t imagine they’d be an easy thing to process right off the bat. Still, he’s going to have to deal with it when you get onto the bus.
You stop at the bus stop with him, pulling out your phone to check when it’ll arrive. You can feel Aegon staring at you, you glance up, seeing that confused look on his face. You put the phone away. “Bus’ll be here in five minutes.”
He nods, but doesn’t ask what a bus is. “It is strange,” he says. “It looks so different, but much the same.”
You nod, offering him a small smile. “A lot of it is heritage protected, so it can’t be altered. We’ve expanded a lot, so all the outer city is newer, but this is the centre.”
“This is Flea Bottom, right?”
You smile, laughing a bit. “Yeah, it is. They called it Flea Bottom back then too?”
Aegon nods, sniffing the air. “It doesn’t smell so badly these days, but the buildings are the same.”
“Yeah, well, rent’s cheapest here. There was some government initiative to clean it up. Or gentrify it. The university bought out a bunch of the flats for student accommodation, it was the best I could afford.”
“This… university, it is like the Citadel?”
You nod. “Citadel’s a university too, but yes.”
“No, the Citadel is the Citadel,” he says, scoffing.
“Okay, it’s a university now. Certainly not one I can afford,” you huff, reminded of the rejected scholarship you’d applied for. You suppose it wouldn’t have helped– rent in Oldtown is something else entirely. You crane your neck to spot the bus, seeing it coming close enough to flag it down. Aegon immediately steps behind you, eyeing the huge vehicle warily. You reach back, gently taking his hand and squeezing it without thinking.
“It’s okay,” you tell him. “Just trust me and follow me.”
You feel Aegon’s breath falter, and somehow you know he’s staring at your hand in his. You gently lead him up the step and ask the bus driver to tap on for two. The busdriver raises an eyebrow at Aegon, but nods and lets you on. You scan your card, leading Aegon up to a seat by the back.
Aegon sits down, frowning at the interior. “This is like a wheelhouse. But with no horse. And uglier.”
“They’re not really made for style,” you tell him.
He nods, looking at you again. He glances down at your hands, still intertwined. When you notice, you begin to pull away with the thought that he doesn’t like it. But Aegon only holds you tighter. You meet his eyes and find something desperate in them, a silent begging for you not to let go. Strange. But you oblige.
“So,” you say softly. “Can you tell me what you last remember?”
Aegon exhales slowly, puffing out his cheeks and glancing between you and the window. He settles on watching the world pass by, no doubt faster than any wheelhouse could carry him. He must decide he trusts you enough.
“It was nothing,” he tells you, leaning his forehead against the window. “I was with my favourites. Drinking, talking. Discussing my sobriquet. Everything after that is nothing. I didn’t even go to sleep. It is as though I blinked, and I was in the street. Then I met you.”
“Well that's…” You purse your lips, leaning back in the bus seat. “Nondescript. You weren't doing anything out of the ordinary? Not fucking with any ancient rocks? Weirwood trees?”
“No,” he says, sliding his gaze toward you. “I was on the throne, in the Keep.”
None of this helps. You scratch at your chin as you try to make sense of any of it. You pull your phone from your pocket, opening the browser and typing in – dreading the targeted ads you’re inadvertently signing yourself up to get – ‘accidental time travel firsthand account.’
Aegon peers over, watching the screen with fascination as you scroll past various untrustworthy conspiracy sites.
“Do you suppose perhaps Rhaenyra paid a witch to curse me?”
“Why would she do that?”
Aegon's lips pull down in a pouty frown. “Well, my brother did kill her son.”
“Yeah, well, that'll do it,” you sigh, closing your phone and leaning back in your seat. You glance out the window, watching the city go by. The people milling about the street go by so quickly you cannot see their faces. However strange a day anyone thinks they may be having, it cannot be more than yours.
“Witches. Woods witches. Weirwood, maybe,” you murmur, tilting your head this way and that. “Even if you weren't directly fucking with any, there's one in the Keep’s godswood. I went on a tour when I first moved here.”
“A tour…?”
“It's as good a place to start as any. Weirwood, woods witches, and rock formations. The library will have plenty on it.”
You get off the bus at the campus library soon after. The university sits upon Visenya’s hill behind the sept, which you’ve never really bothered to enter. It’s a strange thing, living in such a city rather than visiting it. Apart from your dead boring tour of the Red Keep, you've never visited the tourist traps. Growing up in the Riverlands, you never once visited any of the old castles. You always thought you might see more of King’s Landing when you came. Perhaps you would if you could, but you find you rarely have the time between study and work.
As you ascend the steps with Aegon in tow, he stops and turns, gazing across the city. You glance back at him, following his gaze up Aegon’s High Hill, where the Red Keep sits. You stop in your footsteps, coming back down toward him.
“You okay?” You venture.
“Yes,” he murmurs. “Just odd, I suppose. It looks the same.”
“Lots of it still does, I guess. The dragonpit is still there too.”
You nod your head to the other end of the city, pointing him to the ruins of the building.
Aegon pales. “It's… what happened to it?”
“Time,” you murmur. In part because it's true, but also because you don't know why it's in ruins. You’ve never been that far up the hill. You’ve never had it in you to wonder.
“I don't believe you.”
You look over at him, and an intense purple gaze meets yours. You scoff. “I think I’m getting used to you not believing me,” you say. “Come on.”
You continue up the stairs and Aegon follows after a moment. “You really won't tell me what happened to the dragonpit?”
“No. Because I don't know. It's been like that for centuries, as far as I’m aware. And even if I did know, I feel like there has to be some sort of rule against it.”
“Against what?”
“Against telling you about the future!”
“What? But I’m already here! If the Gods didn't want me to know about the future I wouldn't be here!”
You purse your lips. He makes a good point, but still. “Well all the movies say it's bad. What if I send you back and you change things, and make it so I cease to exist? And I can’t tell you anyway because I don't know, so don't worry about it.”
“You know, I don't understand half the things you say,” Aegon says as you push the door to the library open, gesturing for him to enter first.
“Likewise.”
Once inside, you make your way up to the librarian’s desk, the older woman immediately perking up with your presence. You smile at her.
“Hi, um, I’m after pretty much anything you have on weirwood trees, woods witches, and, uh, like rock formations–”
“And any scrolls you have on Aegon the Second, thank you.”
“No.”
You look back at Aegon, who pouts at being denied. You imagine he’s not used to that.
“Don't worry yourself with the Aegon stuff,” you say, looking back at the librarian sheepishly. “He's uh… easily distracted.”
The librarian smiles anyway, putting her glasses on the end of her nose and leaning into her computer. “Let me see what I can find you.”
A few minutes later, Aegon and yourself are seated at a secluded table surrounded by soft chairs and lit by dusty sunlight, tucked away between bookshelves only matched in age by Aegon. Old books and new are scattered across the table, and Aegon marvels at the shining pages of a new textbook, thumbing at the photographs of Harrenhal.
“Can I see that one?” You ask, holding your hands out for it. Aegon slides it across. He folds his arms on the table, leaning forward and resting his chin on his arms.
“Do you do this often?” He asks. “Seems dreadfully dull.”
You shake your head. “Not as often as I ought to.”
“I assume this is what my father did all day,” he grumbles, thumbing at the worn cover of a book on the Old Gods. “Before he, you know.”
“Died?”
“No,” he says. “Well, yes. But I think his soul left long before his body gave out.”
You nod, unsure what to say. From what you can gather, Aegon didn't have much of a relationship with his father. You’re not sure if it's wise to pry. You’re not sure what you’d say if you did.
Aegon begins to make a clicking sound with his mouth as you flick through the pages.
“You could help,” you say after a moment.
“You want me to read?” He scoffs. “Your magical little drink didn't work that well. I just wish we had a bard or something.”
“A bard,” you repeat, voice flat. You roll your eyes, fishing into your pocket for your phone. He watches you with curiosity as you set the phone down and begin playing something at low volume. As soon as the song begins, he jolts upright and leans forward. He snatches up the phone, turning it over in his hands, shaking his head in disbelief. It’s some old synth song, something you remember watching your parents dance to when they’d have their friends over on the weekend and drink late into the night.
“Incredible,” Aegon murmurs. “How do you look at dusty books when you have this thing? Bards and scrolls at your fingertips.”
“I’m actually trying to get my screentime down,” you say sheepishly. “It’s uh… it’s pretty rough.”
Aegon gives you a quizzical glance before he’s distracted by your screen lighting up. He seems quite entertained by your lock screen and is silent for a few moments. You turn your gaze back to the books, resting your temple on your fist.
Your phone buzzes after a moment, and you glance at it only momentarily before you school yourself back toward the books. You’ve been trying to stop being so trained by your phone.
“Messages. Jeyne– and there’s a little drawing of what I suppose is a seashell –” You bolt upright as Aegon begins reading out the message. You try to snatch it from him, but he moves it out of your reach. “I just got YiTish dick – Seven Hells, then there’s more of these drawings, they look to be peaches? – freaky as everyone says.”
You stare, stunned into silence, at Aegon as he processes what he’s just read, looking at you with a wicked sort of grin. He sets the phone down, now playing some modern house music you barely remember adding to your playlist.
“I’m to understand this is some sort of raven, yes?”
“Yes,” you say. Gods, what else could you even say to that? Your former roommate was never the most couth person, and you were never her biggest fan. But even though she’s disappeared to the other side of the world, you’re still subject to her unprompted oversharing.
“This Jeyne is quite something.”
“Yep,” you mumble, managing to grab your phone back. “How about we wrap this up for today? I’m suddenly craving YiTish food.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Aegon snickers. You realise that this may be the first time you’ve seen him smile, however wry and mocking it may be. It’s a lovely expression, but one you suspect he doesn’t wear very often.
“Come on,” you say, picking up several of the books. “Grab a few. We’re taking them back. But I’m borrowing this weirwood tree one.”
Aegon groans in protest, but gathers up the remaining books to balance in his arms. Once you’ve borrowed the book and created a list of the others, you escape the dusty library into the waning sunlight.
Aegon is a chatterbox when you’re on the bus again, and as you order the both of you some YiTish food. Clearly his hangover’s worn off. You smile apologetically at the young girl behind the counter as you take the bags of food. You shoot Aegon a look in hopes of shutting him up, but you have no such luck. The walk back up to your flat is accompanied by the sound of Aegon's voice.
When you get inside, he finally stops. Now that you’re in private, he wishes no longer to speak? You glance back at him with a raised eyebrow, but he's watching you unpack the food.
“I got you sweet and sour pork,” you tell him, handing him the little box and a fork. “Should be free enough of any major allergens… if not, Jeyne left behind an epipen.”
“I’m growing quite tired of asking you what things mean,” he says, opening up the box and sniffing at it. He pulls his lips down but doesn't look to actually be frowning.
You grab your own food, moving to sit down on your worn sofa and beckoning for Aegon to join you. “I’m guessing your time doesn't have YiTish food,” you say.
He huffs, nodding as he sits down and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. You’d tell him to knock that off if you had a nicer coffee table, but as it is – a piece of shit wooden box with shaky wheels on the bottom – you don't bother. “Not by far.”
“I’m not sure how authentic this is,” you say, poking your chopsticks into the box and searching for a nice crunchy bit of cabbage. “But it's cheap, and has never done me wrong.”
Aegon takes a tentative bite, and you watch as his face twists in curious acceptance of the new flavours. It’s… Gods, well, it's sort of cute.
“I like it. I think,” he remarks, taking another bite and leaning back comfortably. “Much has changed.”
You nod, glancing out of the window at the city lights. How had it looked all those years ago? How has the skylike changed? Brightened?
“You say you can't tell me what you know about my life,” Aegon says slowly. You nod, opening your mouth to sigh and tell him again that you won't budge, only he stops you. “I’m not going to ask. I only want to make sense of your world. And what remains of mine.”
“Oh,” you murmur. “Okay. Well, I’ll try.”
Aegon nods, looking down contemplatively. “Hm… the Dothraki?”
Not… exactly where you expected him to start. “Yeah,” you say with a small smile. “They're still around. They're kind of baller, actually. Like they gained all the modern stuff but still live nomadically.”
“Are they still so… brutal?”
“Oh, no,” you say. “Really kind of a peaceful state now. Jeyne reckons she'll be heading to the Sea after YiTi.”
Aegon nods slowly. “This Jeyne girl is quite something. She used to live with you?”
You nod. “Yeah. We were assigned the same flat… I can’t say I ever really liked her much, but she was tolerable.”
“And she… left? Escaped? “
“Mhm. Decided she was unfulfilled by higher education and fucked of to YiTi to ‘find herself.’ Alright for some, I guess.”
Aegon stares at you in silence for a moment, smiling ever so slightly. “You speak in such a strange and wonderful way,” he murmurs.
You can't help but smile. He has a nice smile about him. You suspect it's not an expression he uses much, at least not in a real, involuntary way.
“So do you,” you say softly. He’s… goodness, he’s beautiful in this light. You know you shouldn't think that.
(But then, why shouldn't you? He's a grown man, he’s sober, what’s stopping you? Responsibility? Expectation? You’re not certain.)
He must see the budding conflict on your face because he reaches out to touch your cheek. He lifts his thumb up, pressing it between your eyebrows to smooth out the crease there. “Why the frown?”
You smile wryly at him. “Just thinking,” you tell him as he sets his food down.
“Of course. You do a lot of that, don't you?”
You huff a soft laugh. “Too much.”
He shifts closer, and you find yourself less and less willing to stop him with every second. “Take a break from thinking,” he says, leaning forward and catching your lips in a kiss before you can respond.
There's a moment of hesitation, the briefest second where you contemplate pulling away. You should. The last thing you should be doing is letting Aegon entangle himself with you. He's misplaced in time, practically a stranger. Not to mention married.
(Unhappily, and to his sister, but all the same.)
But the moment passes. And you let him. And you lean into him and return the favour. Encouraged by your response, Aegon shifts closer and grabs at your waist, trying to pull you closer.
It happens fast, he doesn't seem to want to waste time building up to a point before he's shoving his tongue into your mouth and crashing his teeth against yours.
“Aegon,” you murmur. He only grunts in protest, continuing his advances. “Aegon, slow down.”
Aegon huffs as he pulls away just a fraction, hands groping a little too harshly at your hips. “What for?”
You frown at him, gently pushing him away. He relents, but begins to scowl. You place your hands firmly on his shoulders. “There's no need to rush,” you say quietly.
You realise then that Aegon is used to taking. He is used to taking what he needs and not bothering with any sort of lead-up beyond unrefined kissing. He surges forward to kiss you again but you place your hand in his face and shove him away.
He cries your name indignantly, unused to being denied either.
“Sit down,” you say firmly, shoving him back onto the sofa cushion. “And stay.”
Aegon looks stunned, but readily obeys. He leans back against the cushions and watches you warily as you shift closer to him, throwing your leg over his lap so you straddle him. Aegon seems almost afraid to touch you all of a sudden, so you take his hands and place them gently on your hips.
Should you be encouraging this? Absolutely not. But some touch starved little sect of your brain has staged a coup on your good sense, so here you are.
“Have you never done this before?” You ask him softly.
“Been ridden?” He scoffs. “Of course I have.”
“No,” you say. “I’m not riding you. Have you ever just made out with someone for a little while?”
Averting his eyes, Aegon shakes his head.
“That’s okay,” you murmur, catching his lips in a gentle kiss that seems to startle him. You place your hands on his chest, closing your eyes as you kiss him again. He’s hesitant now, unsure. But you press on, sucking gently at his lip before slowly, gently, sliding your tongue into his mouth and dragging it over the flat of his. Aegon makes a soft noise of shock, hands grasping a little harder at the soft of your hips.
Before, he hadn’t seemed to know what to do with his tongue in your mouth except to have it shoved in there, desperate to have some sort of dominance over your mouth. You can tell he’s still fighting the urge to take over, but he sits nicely for you, only gently pushing back against your tongue. He seems to rather enjoy the feeling of not being in charge, of simply being guided. Not told what to do, not commanded, just… treated gently.
After a while, you gently pull away, your thumb brushing over his wet bottom lip. “Do you want to keep going?” You ask, though you know you shouldn’t.
Aegon looks up at you with dilated eyes, pupils almost sparkling as he blinks slowly. Almost dazed. “I’d like to keep doing this. It’s nice.”
You smile, gently pecking his lips and nodding. “Okay,” you whisper. “We can keep doing this.”
You decide your research can wait. It’ll still be there tomorrow.
#my work#aegon targaryen x reader#aegon x reader#aegon ii targaryen x reader#aegon ii targaryen fanfic#aegon targaryen fanfic#fic: you're out of touch i'm out of time#DONT EVER THINK ITS OVER#IM ALWAYS COMING#WATCH UR BACK
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In another universe, you and I ...
(But it's crack): PART 1
Summary: A short series in which the highly attractive sorcerers of JJK find themselves in an alternate universe with you (with a twist).
Part 1 includes:
Top Model! Gojo who meets you at a party. In spite of your instant chemistry, he harbours a dark secret ...
Naval Captain! Nanami, who has been hunted for years by his nemesis, the white leviathan who aims to show him his giant member. Will you stand by his side?
Genre: Humour, parody, crack
Warnings: sexual and suggestive content.
(I)
"You need a date."
"Mei Mei, I don't have a single free minute in my schedule at the -"
"Okay, let me rephrase that. You need to get fucked."
The coffee you've just taken a sip of diverts somewhere in the depths of your nasal passages, leaving you sputtering. Dabbing at your mouth with a napkin, you glance around the cafe while Mei Mei stirs her flat white, amused.
"Something wrong?"
"You know I'm not ... good at that kind of thing."
"A mystery, to be sure. You're an eyecatcher, even in that coat."
"What's wrong with my coat?"
"Listen." She leans forward, the crook of her lips conspiratorial. "I'm having a little get together at my new place. Kind of a housewarming. And I'm inviting some people I work with. You should come."
Mei Mei was an avante garde fashion photographer, known for her theatric sets. If she was hinting at what you thought she was, then ...
"You're telling me that you're inviting a ... bunch of models?"
"Some of my associates. So yes, models. And others. Just a relaxed little get together. What do you say?"
"I don't know ... I have to -"
"So you'll be there."
Her sly, red-lipped smile brooks no argument.
******
Tugging at the straps of the shimmering green dress Mei Mei had loaned you for the occasion, you took a breath before pressing the buzzer on the intercom that would give you access to the upscale compound. Mei Mei had pulled some strings to procure an apartment here, arranged by one of her well-connected clients in the fashion industry.
Gaining entry, you traversed the beautifully furnished foyer, with its black and white tiles and vintage lamps. The heels you wore were a lot higher than your usual choice, and you walked with the care of one who expected to twist their ankle at any given second. You hoped nobody noticed.
Mei Mei's get together was a relaxed, but lively affair, the buzz of conversation and the clink of glasses audible above the scent of various flowers her guests had brought her. She greeted you at the door and introduced you to a few of her colleagues.
Sipping champagne and appearing to listen intently to the lighting director who seemed to have an odd fixation on nipples under spotlights, the slow dawn of another's observation prickled against your skin.
You turned and surveyed the room, and you saw him. He was not exactly the kind of person you could miss. Tall, eerily beautiful, the ripple of lean muscle evident along the rangy lines of his body, his eyes capture you before anything else does. Blue as the most crystalline mountain lake, as clear, his pale lashes framing their illuminated surface, he is watching you with undisguised intrigue. The snowy hair, artfully disheveled, and the promise of a cheeky smile form a devastatingly handsome collection of features that blend together in a most pleasing fashion.
There was no mistaking it. This was the Gojo Satoru, one of the rising stars of the modeling world, a man who happened to look effortless in each and every one of his lauded photo shoots, many of which had already won awards.
And he was looking right at you.
Mei Mei had noticed his scrutiny of you, and she edged in, her soft introduction delivered with a smirk. She is gone faster than your eye can track, and now he's standing right opposite you, examining you with that laser-lit stare.
Clearing your throat, you swirl the remaining champagne in your glass.
"Gojo Satoru. I saw your cover on last week's Men's Wealth. It was ... really something."
He grins, pearly teeth catching the light of the chandeliers.
"Yeah? Which part of it did you like the most?"
"Which ... oh. The composition of the second photo was quite ..."
"Ahh, that one. Yeah. They just handed me the baby oil and told me to go to town. Didn't know it would be that slippery."
You choke slightly.
"So they don't give you ... more direction than that?"
"Oh no. I guess it's unique to me. I know what works best in my shoots and I get it done."
"Sounds like an interesting work ethic. I bet there aren't many models at your level who can say the same."
"Nah. I know I can be the best. I'm gonna be traveling to the New York Fashion Week tomorrow, and I barely know what's in store. They don't even bother telling me anymore."
His easy admission would sound arrogant from anyone else, but the confident assurance in his voice tells you that this man is simply stating facts. A frisson of something warm filters through you. As if his looks weren't already enough.
"Are you good at everything you put your hand to?"
Oh boy. The champagne had decided to assert its control over your mouth. Gojo doesn't seem to mind. If you're not mistaken, something is kindling in those fractured points of brilliance in his eyes too.
"I guess you could say that. I do have one vice, though. Something pretty incurable."
You lean forward, keen to hear this.
"A vice?"
"Yeah." His voice lowers to a secretive huskiness that turns the conditions in your underwear as humid as the Amazon rainforest.
"I kind of have ... a terrible sweet tooth. Can't get enough. I see something sweet, I want it right away."
He winks and sips from his glass, which you can see contains a cocktail with a fair amount of grenadine. You lick your lips, and his gaze follows the slick movement of your tongue.
"Oh? And what specific kinds of sweets do you like?"
"The classic kind."
He isn't touching you, but with the way his eyes rake over your form, he might as well be.
"I like spun sugar, light as air. The creaminess of a panna cotta. The burst of flavour on my tongue from a berry coulis. Give me some of that, and I'm yours, fair lady."
The upward quirk of his mouth is practically irresistible. It's what keeps you glued to his side for the rest of the night, while he, shockingly, seems to be thoroughly enjoying your company too. At times, you catch Mei Mei watching you both with discreet amusement and satisfaction.
At some point, she approaches and makes sure to thank Gojo for his assistance in obtaining this apartment. You glance over at him in surprise.
"Oh, Mei Mei did talk about that. I didn't know her contact was you."
"Sure was. I live just one floor up, actually. Put a word in with the owners and got her the place, no problem."
"So you own a place here too?"
He slides a hand into the pocket of his designer jeans, the glance he shoots you over his tinted glasses a clear invitation.
"Wanna come up and see the view?"
******
You had no idea how it had come to this. This wasn't you. And yet, here you were, in his apartment, the soft chatter of Mei Mei's party long forgotten in the frantic pace of your lips against his.
You both were barely in the door before his hands were on you, groping, caressing, mapping out every part of you sheathed in that increasingly cumbersome green dress. At the first opportunity, his fingers had stolen their way along the zipper and the material had slid down your legs.
You couldn't remember where your bra had been shed, probably somewhere just outside the bedroom.
He was surprisingly strong for someone with such a lean build. The corded sinew of his arms and back clearly weren't just for show. You found yourself tossed breathlessly onto the soft surface of the bed, as he surveyed you with a hunger that had your hands creeping south between your legs.
Satoru pauses, and suddenly there is a shift in the energy within the room. His face takes on a serious cast and his glance bends floorward. You sit up slightly.
"Satoru? Is everything - "
Eyes flitting briefly up to you, his throat bobs slightly as he swallows.
"Well. I guess this is a first for me. I don't usually do this, but ... I kinda want to see you again. After tonight, I mean."
You breathe out reverently. You certainly hadn't been expecting this level of vulnerability.
"And I want to see you again, too."
"So ... if that's the case then ... you need to see all of me. I can't hide this if we're going beyond a one night thing."
You're paying close attention now, reaching for him. He laces his fingers with yours.
What could this perfect man possibly be insecure about?
He takes a bracing breath before relinquishing your hand, stepping back from the bed and approaching the nightstand. Reaching into his mouth, he fiddles a little before plucking something away and placing it in a small container stored there. Turning back to face you, you see what he has been concealing.
The pearly teeth that had reflected such brilliant perfection in the light of Mei Mei's home were gone. In their place were a series of ill-formed, browning and misshapen stumps, many of them worn down completely. Your eyes snapped up to his, widening slightly.
"Satoru ... how - "
"I told you that I had a sweet tooth. I ... indulged myself as a child and my parents never stopped me. They spoiled me rotten in more ways than one! And now I'm ... I'm paying the price."
"That's ... but why didn't you - "
"I'm going to have surgery soon to ... permanently fix it. But even if I do, my sweet tooth won't go away! It'll be with me forever. I'm ... "
His shoulders slumped slightly.
"Caramel icing. Berry coulis. Soft serve and rock candy. Even liquorice! Toffee! I can't - "
His voice breaks and you find yourself lunging across the bed towards him, enfolding him in a tight embrace. His breath washes over you, the foul tang of decay now noticeable. You understand how he couldn't keep something like this concealed beyond a one night stand. Your voice, when you speak, is infinitely soft.
"Satoru ... all this time ... were you avoiding proper relationships because you ... "
"I - yes."
His arms come up slowly around you, as if he is unused to the gesture.
"I couldn't even ... make them breakfast if I wanted to. Because then ... we'd have to brush our teeth together and they'd see ... "
"Oh, Satoru."
You press your mouth fervently against his, undeterred, mapping out each stump and broken edge with your tongue. He tastes like old coffee, milk gone sour, the cloying overripe sweetness of a fruit gone bad. But this is irrelevant to you, because you're kissing him.
You break away from him, watching those magnificent features of his freeze in shock.
"Wait ... you still want to - "
"Of course I want to. Come here."
The merry tap of fork and knife and Mei Mei's self-satisfied smile on the floor below would escape the both of you, as wrapped up in each other you had become. You vowed to yourself, running your fingers through his incredibly soft hair, that every morning from now on, you'd stand beside him at the bathroom sink and brush your teeth together.
Satoru missed the New York Fashion Week, but gained something far, far sweeter.
(II)
They call you Ishizu.
It isn't your true name, but it's one you'd accepted when you joined this crew. As the ship's surgeon, armed with your family's repertoire of skills and remedies, you'd managed to earn some credibility in your field. You'd saved more than one sailor's life.
For the brave fishing crews that traversed the Sea of Ruin, the vast stretch of unchartered water between this continent and the next, populated by scores of deadly sea beasts and treacherous archipelagos, the sea was a perilous temptress. Those with the skill and courage, not to mention a healthy dash of insanity, could make a substantial profit within a short time before retiring.
Such was the nature of Nanami Kento, Captain of the Casse Croûte, one of the few living men who had sailed the seven oceanic planes in all three seasons.
The Captain was an enigmatic man, to be sure. He'd come across as cold initially, sticking to such rigid timings and sailing plans that you'd wondered how any of his crew liked him. And heavens, did they adore the man. He had the undying loyalty of every person on board, and whenever you'd asked about it, they'd simply smiled and told you that you'd see with time.
So you waited and observed. Gradually, you began to see the qualities the crew so prized in him. When the cabin boy, Yuuji, almost fell into the jaws of a large sea beast with grey, cross-stitch skin, the Captain had drawn his cleaver and struck such a heavy blow across its nose that the creature immediately lost interest in a fisherman-sized snack.
When Sailor Ino, eager to prove himself, had set forth on an expedition on an unchartered island, only to return covered in large insect bites and a raging fever, the Captain had stayed up with him every night until the fever had broken. You'd never seen such dedication to the welfare of the crew.
There were many other such instances, and slowly, you found yourself gravitating to the quiet, charismatic captain as much as the others did. He was also unmistakeably handsome, with his kind, tired gaze, gleaming blonde hair, tall, muscular frame and clean-cut profile. In spite of his injuries, a missing eye and the damaged hand, he was also a formidable man. You'd be lying if you'd claimed that this dangerously attractive man hadn't intruded on your nighttime musings more than once ...
And on one particular night, while the next watch took their positions at the bell and you sat in the small galley that adjoined your surgery, he'd come in, nursing a steaming coffee, and kept you company. Slowly, he'd opened up to you, speaking of his days as a sailor, before he'd become Captain of the Casse Croûte, and what came after.
Something heavier lay over the conversation, though, something he seemed on the verge of telling you. Eventually, you pried it out of him. As you'd suspected, it was to do with his terrible injuries.
"Have you ever heard of the white leviathan?"
Swirling the coffee in his cup, his single eye glances up at you under dark lashes.
"I ... have heard some tales, yes. He's a legend, according to some."
"A living legend."
Seeing your eyes widen, he nods.
"Made off with a portion of my arm, and I'll never watch the sunrise with this eye again."
You exhale heavily.
"Captain ... I had no idea you'd encountered such a creature. What ... exactly happened, if you don't mind me asking?"
"You should ask. After all, as long as I remain in command of this ship, he may yet make another appearance."
"What do you mean?"
"The white leviathan, also known as a Gojoverian Satorunus, is the strongest of its kind to be born in centuries. Normally, they keep to their distant isle, within the Lightning Archipelago, where few venture. He, however, roams the seas in an eternal quest."
"I've heard that legends call him the Meibi Dick. Is there ... a reason for that strange nickname?"
The Captain hisses through his teeth, one hand raising to his eyepatch, as if just the mention of that moniker has sunk a harpoon into his flesh. You hurry to apologise.
"Captain, I'm so - "
"Please. No need. Let me explain. That nickname ... was a direct result of my encounter with him."
"It was?"
"Indeed. It was a gloomy day, I remember. Rain was pelting down. We'd put out the sails, because the sea was quite still. At that time, we came upon a wreck, out at sea. The ship had washed up on a great reef, and there it hung, a spectre of former glory."
You were now hanging on to Nanami's words like a crow with carrion.
"And the white leviathan had caused this?"
"Indeed, although we didn't know it at the time. I ordered some of our skilled divers to check the wreck for any possible survivors. There were none, but one of the divers came back with something. A large piece of purified ambergris, said to smell and taste as good to leviathans as the sweetest nectar. Its call to them is so strong, that it may even drive them into heat, causing mating events in their population when they come across it. In my folly, I took it on board for its great value."
"And what happened then?"
"That night, the white leviathan, which had destroyed the other ship for the ambergris, came for us. The scent had laid such claim to the beast's mind that its mating mark had bloomed on the skin near its head, which it displayed to us."
"Its mating mark?"
Reaching into his pocket, Nanami drew out a small notebook and charcoal stick. He sketched something on one of the blank pages before passing the book over to you. Your eyes widened as you took in the drawing. It looked like a crude, stylized penis with the testicles sketched in just below.
"Is this ... "
"His frightful member. Indeed. He was attempting to show us his intention in order to lay claim to the ambergris."
"What did you do?"
"I knew we stood no chance against him. Foolishly, I thought to outrun him. It was futile. He boxed us in at every turn, his plaintive, terrible cry echoing across the water to us. Eventually, I ordered for the ambergris to be thrown overboard. It only served as a distraction. The beast consumed it and resumed his chase. Due to how long I'd evaded him, he'd come to associate this ship, and me, the Captain, with the ambergris."
"But Captain, that means ..."
He nods grimly, and you are sorely tempted to reach across the table and take his hand.
"He will hunt this vessel to the ends of the earth. Why do you think I plan every stage of our voyage so carefully? I'm always one step ahead of him, monitoring and studying the tides, the currents, the beast shoals. As long as we stick to the plan, we have the ability to outrun him."
Hope flares in your chest, in spite of your growing fear.
"I have faith in you, Captain. So does this crew. We'll be beside you, if the white leviathan ever makes an appearance."
This time, you do take his hand in your warm, tentative grasp, watching as his eyes drink in your countenance in the dim light of the galley. He squeezes your fingers in return.
**********
The seasons at sea come and go, and its a full seven months and three days before Captain Nanami's perfectly timed schedule is threatened. A storm, the likes of which you've never encountered before, strikes with unpredictable ferocity. The ship is blown completely off course, and although it will take a few days to rectify, Nanami's dire mood is palpable.
If you didn't have full faith in your Captain, you might have considered this an overreaction on his part. But you knew better. You knew that his concern came from long experience.
A well-founded concern, as it turned out. The white leviathan made an appearance a mere two days after the storm, spotted far to starboard by the lookout, and gaining fast.
Captain Nanami forbade any of the crew joining him in his task of slaying the beast, but this was one occasion where nobody would follow his instructions. You all loved him too well. Come hell or high water, you would all be by his side.
And the leviathan approached, its size alone boggling the mind. The waves slapped and beat against the hull, the slow rise and dip of the deck more and more pronounced as it came closer. Nanami stood on the prow, facing the creature, the large harpoon readied by Yuuji in one hand, his trusty cleaver in the other.
Then, you heard it. The terrible call of the creature, booming across the water to batter at your ears. The grotesquely formed words were difficult to make out, but to your astonishment, they formed distinct speech that you could understand.
"Naaanaaamiiiin, letttsssss .... gooooooo oouutttt."
The Captain gritted his teeth, his own reply loud on the wind.
"Never, you foul creature!"
"Sompppthin .... impooorrtant .... talkkkkk tooooo youuuuuu .... "
"You've been chasing me for years! There's nothing this important! Begone!"
"Iiiiiiii .... havvveeennn'tttt...... saiiiiddd nyythiiing ... "
"I refuse!"
That groaning, awful cry had come closer and closer, forcing you to your knees, hands clasped over your ears. The Captain stood firm, even as the giant, pale form broke the surface of the sea beside the ship, the giant, electric blue eye surveying the vessel with the glee of a long awaited victory.
"Naaaanaaaaminnnnn .... "
And then, you saw it. The mark the Captain had spoken of, the giant member and testicles that appeared as scrawled marks from beneath the skin of the beast. It had not forgotten! And now, as the beast called out again, it dawned upon you in a flash where it's dreaded nickname had come from.
"Naaaanaaaamiiinnnnnn ... maaaaayybbeeeee ... diiiiiiicckkkkkk?"
You lunged toward the Captain, grabbing at his leg to keep him steady as the deck pitched violently before the amorous leviathan. You saw Nanami looking down at you, that beautifully courageous gaze trained on your water-streaked face. He turned back to the monster.
"I will never accept your dick, you all-ruining, unambitious fish."
You grasped his leg harder, willing all of your strength into his good arm as his body uncoiled and the harpoon flew true through the eye of the storm.
Part 2:
Demon Lord! Geto and Fireman! Kusakabe
#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#jjk fanfic#jujutsu kaisen fanfic#nanami kento#kento nanami#jjk x reader#jjk x you#nanami x reader#nanami x you#kento nanami x reader#kento nanami x you#gojo satoru#satoru gojo#gojo x reader#gojo x you#satoru gojo x reader#satoru gojo x you#top model gojo#naval captain nanami#moby dick parody#jjk humor#jjk crack#jjk nanami#jjk gojo
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For the @steddie-spooktober day 30 prompt : ‘Where in the hell did you find that costume?’
rated: M | cw: none | tags: vampire!Steve Harrington, chubby Eddie Munson, blood drinking, established relationship, d/s undertones, hand feeding
Inspired by @scoops-aboy86 ‘s little AU that u can read here !!! :3c
🧛🏻🧛🏻🧛🏻🧛🏻
‘Where in the hell did you find that costume?’ Eddie asks, stepping out of the green room bathroom with his eyeliner smudged just the way he likes.
‘What? It’s funny.’ Steve says from the doorway, having just finished a final perimeter check of the venue. He does a little 180, showing off his yellow and navy letterman and blue jeans, dressed just like Michael J Fox in Teen Wolf.
‘Yeah it’s funny, but when did you even have the time to shop?’ Eddie asks, picking at the table of snacks, popping a mini muffin in his mouth.
Steve tracks the movement. ‘Oh you know, I just called around a couple stores, had them put it aside for me and then sent someone to get it as part of your rider. Rockstar boyfriend perks.’ He shrugs, closing a locking the door. He can hear the stage hands in the distance setting up, they have time.
He hears Eddie’s heartbeat increase slightly too. ‘What are you dressed as?’ He asks, stalking slowly closer, setting his sunglasses on the coffee table.
‘A vampires latest victim.’ Eddie wiggles his eyebrows, finishing a donut. He’s in a sleeveless black mesh shirt, tattoos and round pink nipples on display, and wide leg, high waisted slacks that hug his thick waist in way that makes Steve’s mouth water. Every so often a tabloid will get a shot of Eddie and say something about his weight, the industry not used to a rockstar that isn’t heroin thin. After something like that Eddie always makes a point of showing more skin on stage, letting the people know how proud he is of his body.
After all, it keeps Steve alive. Perfect and plump as it is. Eddie needs to keep his strength up, to be able to handle Steve’s appetite.
Eddie’s sucking strawberry juice from his fingers and Steve can’t take it anymore. In an instant he’s across the room and crowding Eddie against the wall, having picked up a brownie on the way.
‘Vampires victim? So you need me to help complete your costume right? Give the kids a real show out there.’ Steve says, holding the treat just out of reach.
‘Stevie.’ Eddie slurs, opening his mouth, pupils growing. Steve feels his own flower shaped ones unfurl slightly at the soft pink of Eddie’s tongue, at the rushing of his blood.
‘Open up baby.’ He says, one hand wrapped possessively around Eddie’s chubby hip. ‘I know you want the adrenaline rush for the stage, little junky, but you know the rules, food first.’ Steve whispers, lips on Eddie’s cheek as he feeds the brownie into his panting mouth.
Eddie whines, chewing and writhing under Steve’s hands, baring his neck.
‘You’re more than just a victim though aren’t you?’ Steve murmurs, picking Eddie up easily and walking them over to the couch. Laying Eddie down beneath him.
‘Victim.’ Steve kisses Eddie’s temple, his cheek and over his sweet sugar coated lips. ‘Slave.’ Down his soft jaw. ‘Pet.’ Over the tense muscle of his neck. ‘Dearest love.’ Steve breaths deep feeling his fangs grow. ‘Soulmate.’ He bites; sweet molten blood flooding his tongue. They moan in unison, Steve drinking and laving and sucking. Eddie whining and thrusting below him, into Steve’s strong thigh, pinned and used and panting with pleasure.
Steve drinks his fill, licking over the wound to close it but keeping two little red puncture wounds and kissing the red mess around to really finish Eddie’s costume.
‘Fuck. I need, uh, well.’ Eddie babbles, still blissed out and Steve giggles at the faint blush across his cheeks. Even after all these years Eddie’s still gets shy about how much he likes Steve doing that.
‘I have clean underwater in my bag baby, like always.’ Steve says, kissing Eddie’s lips and rising off him.
Eddie hums and closes his eyes. Steve listens to Eddie’s heartbeat slowly descend as he rummages around for tissues and boxers. Coming back to the couch to help Eddie sit and undoing his pants for him. Any part of aftercare has always been Steve’s favourite, all of it just made easier with his powers. More easily in tune, stronger, faster.
‘Want another treat before you go out there?’ Steve asks.
Eddie blinks slowly at him, dopey little smile on his face. He nods and Steve laughs as he brings another brownie to Eddie’s lips, rubbing his palm in gentle circles over his stomach.
‘Showtime baby.’ Steve says, hearing the stagehand calling for the other members at the end of the hallway, on their way to Eddie’s changing room. ‘Ready to melt their faces?’
Eddie giggles. Blinking hard and holding his hand out for Steve to help him to his feet. He kisses Steve long and filthy until the door opens and he’s called to stage.
‘You better still have your costume on when I’m done. It’s hot.’ Eddie says. waltzing out the door.
Steve listens to the steady thrum of his loves heartbeat all through the show. Counting down the minutes until he can get Eddie under him again.
🧛🏻🧛🏻🧛🏻🧛🏻
Tag list : @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @marvel-ous-m @thecatkingsthrone @pearynice @wheneverfeasible
@cheesedoctor @chickensinrainboots @chameleonhair @hbyrde36 @bookworm0690
This is my last post for the steddie spooktober!! Ty so much to everyone who has read and interacted!!!!
It’s been a feat and I can’t believe it’s over, but it really gave me something fun to focus on this month! which has helped me deal with the stresses in my life immensely. Ty so much @steddie-spooktober for hosting! Mwah!
#it’s done!!!!#hurray!!!!#sorry to end on a freaky one but vampire steve is too good not to tag everyone#hotlunch#steddie#steve x eddie#drabbles#steddiespooktober#steddie spooktober#ye I feel like this is pretty tame but if ur not into people feeding eachother sorry lol#chubby eddie munson
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Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows 1
Warnings: non/dubcon, clashing personalities, exclusion, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.
Characters: moody boy Curtis Everett x bubbly, plus-size reader
My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.
As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.
It’s your first day at work. Your nerves have simmered over to a nice whirlwind. Even as you sit at your desk, going through the various training materials. You haven’t managed to calm down. Your heart is beating so fast.
Everyone’s been nice. You don’t know why you’re jittering. Like your mother says, you’re overthinking, and like your father says, you need to sit still. You grab the armrests and try to make yourself stop moving. It only makes you want to boil over.
You swivel back and forth and look at your coworkers. They’re all so busy like bees in a hive. They know exactly what they’re doing and you still feel lost as you sift through endless SOPs and corporate training videos.
You see a woman with purplish red curls with a mug, steam curling over the brim. Ah, that’s a good excuse for a break. You still need to figure out the office coffee machine. Daniella, your supervisor, briefly pointed it out during her tour. It’s one of those fancy industrial pod brewers.
You stand and nearly skip between the desks. Be cool. You slow your pace and hold your shoulders straight, your squared toed kitten heels clacking on the tile. You poke your head into the kitchen and find only one other employee inside.
The man’s shoulders are broad and straight as he stares silently at the coffee machine. It grinds and spurts out dark coffee. You come up next to him to peruse the spinning rack of pods, tapping your chin as you think. You peek over at him.
“Hi,” you smile, “any recommendations?”
His pale blue eyes meet yours for an instant before quickly flicking back to his cup. A plain black porcelain mug without any decoration or glitz. You already know which cup you want to bring in; the one that looks like a honey pot and has a small lid resembling a bear sticking his head out with a little honeycomb stitch between his ears.
You take one of the paper cups and a pod of the butterscotch twist. You stand back and wait your turn. He scowls as if mentally urging the cup to fill.
“I’m…” you introduce yourself, “I just started over in Research and Development.”
He doesn’t respond. He puts his hands behind him, clutching them tightly as his forearms tense. The tendons bulge out beneath his skin. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, a grey button up with black trousers. A bit grim but an aesthetic for sure. There’s several rings on his fingers as they curl around each other.
“It’s my first day,” you continue the one-sided conversation, “so… that’s why you never saw me before.”
He growls and grabs his cup as the machine dings. He doesn’t acknowledge you as he turns on his heel and marches out. You watch his back and shrug, blowing out between your lips. You get it, some people aren’t the social type.
You put your cup under the spout and tap the touchscreen. It takes you a lot of poking around to figure out how to brew the coffee. You step back and wait. Caffeine should definitely help your nerves… fuel them at least.
💗
Lunchtime comes and you grab your bento box and head down to the cafeteria. Daniella said you could eat your desk if you wished but you need a break from the screen. Besides, you notice that most people don’t.
You enter the cafeteria. There are tables here and there but they’re already crowded. You notice a few people from your department and head over to that table. Tammy moves her bag onto the seat before you can claim it. You frown and apologise as you back away.
Hmm.
You look around. You don’t know anyone. You don’t mind making new friends but it’s like high school all over again. Everyone has their clique and you’re just wandering in between.
Your gaze falls on the only table with more than one seat free. There’s a single person sitting at it, his head down as he runs his hand over his close cut hair. Hey, it’s… that guy. He didn’t give you his name.
You cross the room and near a chair, putting your hand on the back of it as you hover by the table.
“Hi, um, do you mind if I sit here?”
His eyes dart up and he says nothing. He shrugs and sits back, smoothing out the pages of the book in front of him. You sit, your bento box clanging loudly as you do. You give a sheepish smile as he clears his throat but doesn’t look at you.
You flip back the clasp and pop open the lid. He shifts in his chair as you take out your plastic cutlery from the little compartment. You try to be quiet but you can’t help but hit the fork off the side.
You look over at him. He has only his empty mug and a half-eaten protein bar. You look back at your colourful medley of food. Maybe he’s on a diet.
“Do you like hummus?” You ask.
He doesn’t look up. You bite your lip. You’re just being friendly but maybe he’s not hungry.
“Um, uh, you remember me?” You poke at your couscous, “from the kitchen? I didn’t get your name.”
He sighs and turns the page. You nod. Not much of a talker. You let your fork lean on the edge of the bento and grab the sides of your chair, scraping it closer. He snarls and finally looks at you.
You stop and show your teeth like a threatened animal. His jaw clenches and he refocus on his book. You stir the couscous and take a bite, swallowing as your curiosity piques.
“What are you read–”
“I’m not,” he grits and shuts the book without marking the page.
He stands and pockets the protein bar, swiping up his mug and book. You gape at him, stunned. You don’t know why he’s so upset. You’re just trying to be polite. He storms away and you frown at your food. Well, you’ve always got a friend in snacks!
#curtis everett#dark curtis everett#dark!curtis everett#curtis everett x reader#drabble#series#au#sunshine lollipops and rainbows#snowpiercer
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what's an average gallifreyan outfit like? (yes i am going to draw gallifreyan Miku)
What's an average Gallifreyan outfit like?
Gallifreyans have a timeless fashion sense, and I mean that quite literally because their styles change only every few millennia, and even then it's always some form of robe.
🕰️ The Timeless Style: Robes, Layers, and Colours
On Gallifrey, robes are the go-to attire for any occasion, and luckily they have dresser servants to help them pick the most appropriate set. Robes are created mechanically with tachyons and are often made from multiple layers of fabric, with the brightness and number of layers signifying the wearer's status. High-ranking Time Lords tend to wear more elaborate, brightly coloured robes, while those of lower status go for simpler, less vibrant attire. The colours of the robes are often tied to the wearer's chapter affiliation:
Prydon Chapter: Scarlet and orange
Arcal Chapter: Shades of green
Patrex Chapter: Predominantly heliotrope
Cerulean Chapter: Blues
Dromeian Chapter: Silvers and greys
Scendeles Chapter: Muted tones, a mix of various shades
No Chapter Affiliation or Novices: Black and white
🧥 Accessories and Practicalities
Beyond the layers and colours, Gallifreyan outfits are also equipped with some rather handy features:
Transdimensional Pockets: As well as being bigger on the inside, items placed in one pocket can be accessed from a different pocket in another garment.
Video Communicators: A common accessory, these devices are either worn on a wristband or attached to the back of a glove, allowing for instant communication.
Laundro-Demat: When it's time to clean those millions of robes, the Gallifreyan Laundro-Demat is there to dematerialise the garment, clean it, repair it, and reassemble it as good as new—wrinkle-free and perfectly scented.
🏫 So …
An average Gallifreyan outfit is an ensemble of colours and layers that reflect the wearer’s status, chapter affiliation, and the occasion. And they're pretty much always robes.
Related:
💬|⏰💄Do Time Lords have a beauty industry?: The fashion trends and general attitudes towards clothes.
💬|⏰🎨How are Gallifreyan paintings created?: The use and history of stasis cube art.
💬|⏰🏪Do Gallifreyans have grocery stores?: Food and food technology on Gallifrey.
Hope that helped! 😃
Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴
#doctor who#gil#gallifrey institute for learning#dr who#dw eu#gallifrey#gallifreyans#whoniverse#ask answered#gallifreyan culture
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limbo (part 3)
synopsis: you finally reunite with hyunjin and felix, but things take an unprecedented detour
pairing: non-idol!minho x non-idol!fem reader
warnings: swearing, drinking, mentions of food and eating
word count : 711 words
a/n: ok so i KNOW IT'S REALLY SHORT but this is more of a peace offering since it's been weeks since my last update. i am having severe writer's block with this fic i'm so sorry :(
part 2 | masterlist | part 4
now.
You were engulfed in a bear hug, courtesy of Lee Felix. He wrapped his arms around you tightly and sniffed, tears welling in his eyes.
"I missed you so much," he said, pushing a warm box of brownies towards you.
You couldn't help but laugh, ruffling his hair in affection. Beside him, Hyunjin gave you a dramatic eyeroll, distressed by the information that you text Eun-bi everyday but texted them 'once in a blue moon' (how bold of him to call your weekly two-hour long gossip sessions once in a blue moon, but oh well).
It was true, you had gotten extremely close to Eun-bi after moving away. You both chatted on the phone regularly, leading you to add another member to your best friend roster. Eun-bi somehow always knew what to say to you. Maybe it was stemming from the experience of having lived longer than you (as you frequently reminded her), but conversations were never boring with her. She, thankfully, never touched upon the topic of Minho. Even though Hyunjin and Felix had bombarded you with questions about your break-up after it had freshly happened, she never did.
Soon, you two became each other's go-to person for everything. You got a promotion at work? You told her first. She and Chan got engaged? You were the first to find out from her end. You couldn't even just call Eun-bi a close friend; she was like a sister to you in every way that mattered.
In what seemed like an instant, the three of you got to conversing, not a single bump in the conversation. It reminded you of your college days, sitting at the corner of a tiny coffee shop when the boys needed escape from their astoundingly loud dorm house, hunched over textbooks and coffee that was exponentially cooling.
You were happy that Felix and Hyunjin were working with their college group of friends. You knew how strong the bond those eight boys shared was. You were also extremely surprised to know that 3Racha were doing extremely well in the Korean entertainment industry and were looking to branch out into western music. For some reason, you had always thought it would be the other way around.
Conversation continued even after your food came, Hyunjin making a fuss after taking a steaming bite of barbecued chicken and Felix silently (yet extremely obviously) judging the brownie ice cream that sat in front of him. Hyunjin's phone dinged! in his pocket and he took it out the check what was written. His face contorted as soon as he read it.
"What's wrong?" you ask. Hyunjin offers you no response, instead exchanging a worried glance with Felix. Assuming that it's work problems, you busy yourself into sneaking a spoon of Felix's untouched dessert while he wasn't looking.
Hyunjin cleared his throat and you looked at him, savoring the chocolatey explosion that was currently ongoing inside your mouth. You raised your eyebrows and tilted your head slightly upwards, non-verbally signaling him to just spit out whatever he so desperately looked like he wanted to say.
"So, uh, Chan hyung is hosting a party this weekend to celebrate you coming. The whole gang will be there..." Hyunjin's voice trails off.
"You don't have to come," said Felix quickly, "But Chan hyung and Eun-bi noona do have a killer penthouse."
You feel both pair of eyes trained upon you. You must have been like a bomb to them right now, ready to detonate at any given second. Yet, you mind was elsewhere.
Ah. The whole gang. You knew what this meant. Minho would be there. Either way, it didn't matter to you. The thought of meeting your old friends made you feel giddy. And yes, what Minho did to you was in your eyes, unforgivable, but you were fine with it nonetheless. Eventually, you both would learn to have to be cordial with each other. That was growing, wasn't it? Learning to live with things that had hurt you and moving on all the same. After all, Minho was your friend before he was your lover. As unlikely as it seemed, you both may at least remain some semblance of 'friends'.
"Okay," you said giving the two boys a tight smile, "I'll be there."
main taglist (reply to be added) - @linoalwaysknows @moon0fthenight
#stray kids#skz#lee know#stray kids x reader#stray kids imagines#lee know x y/n#lee know x reader#lee know angst#lee know fluff#- via's fics <3
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TikTok was where I learned about SHEIN. For a while my For You page, which had accurately identified my interest in fashion’s more material impacts, served me videos of sustainable fashion influencers decrying SHEIN’s wretched labor and environmental practices. The textile industry is the second-largest polluter in the world, they said, and of all the fast-fashion producers, SHEIN is by far the worst offender. SHEIN uses toxic chemicals in their clothing production; SHEIN mass-produces fabrics like spandex that never decompose (at this point an image would flash across the screen: an overflowing clothing landfill, or a mountain of discarded clothes in the Chilean desert so large it is visible from space); SHEIN exploits and endangers its factory workers. Employees earn $556 a month to make five hundred pieces of clothing every day, work eighteen-hour days, and use their lunch breaks to wash their hair — a schedule they repeat seven days per week with only one day off per month. A more nuanced TikToker might point out, briefly, that conditions in SHEIN factories are not necessarily unique, or that focusing on suppliers — rather than the larger systems of Western consumption and capitalism that create these conditions — is a fool’s errand, but the platform isn’t built for that kind of dialogue. I clicked on the comments and invariably read ones with several dozen likes saying, “I’m so willing to die in shein clothes.” Before long I was watching SHEIN hauls. There are millions of them — the tag #sheinhaul has been viewed a collective 14.2 billion times on TikTok. In each haul, a woman rips open a plastic bag filled with smaller plastic bags filled with small plastic clothing. Sometimes the woman holds up each garment and narrates its merits, but often the clothes are disembodied, laid flat on a floor or a bed in an accidental stop-motion animation. A stretchy red skirt on a furry white carpet is replaced by a strapless watercolor bustier with a deep-V neckline. A zebra-print skirt is followed by a matching pink two-piece set, with a short-sleeve cardigan and miniskirt constructed from a fabric that looks like bubble wrap. Sometimes a haul is five pieces, and sometimes it is too many pieces to count. The garments appear and disappear in seconds, edited to the beat of a trending song. Rarely do we see the clothing on a body. Usually brand familiarity accrues in a slow drip, building from obscurity to instant recognizability over the course of months or years as a designer’s work intersects with the zeitgeist and gains traction on social media. SHEIN was different. One day I’d never heard of the retailer and the next it was inescapable: in thousands of outfit videos, on millions of social media feeds. The clothes weren’t distinct or cohesive; what united them wasn’t style but price. All those SHEIN hauls entered my feeds with such ubiquity that they began to feel like they’d always been there. I’d opened a door to a new part of the fashion internet: a place where girls bragged about their ultra-fast-fashion purchases, delighting in the cheapness of the garments. Here, SHEIN was the obvious choice for new clothes. Why not, when you could buy on-trend pieces at lightning speed for less than the price of a cup of coffee? It was uncanny to bounce between videos: here was a girl showing off her new halter, here was another girl giving a litany of reasons why it was unconscionable to buy clothes for so little money. Didn’t these TikTokers hear one another? But then again, how could they? “This is what we keep missing here in the whole conversation about sustainability in the industry,” Nick Anguelov, a professor of public policy from UMass Dartmouth, said to a Slate journalist writing about SHEIN in June. “We keep failing to understand that our customers are kids and they don’t give a fuck.”
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There is a great tragedy at the core of our automotive industry. Saab, our beautiful Saab, lies dead. Beancounters and the automotive press conspired to make the oddball front-drive turbocharged mad scientists who kept inventing things even when it didn’t make any sense a failure. Now we all zip around in modern-day future cars derived from their innovations, without a stray thought for our demented Swedish philanthropists.
Sure, Saab is still “alive,” if you can call it that, a trademark and skin stretched over whatever desperate Chinese or Swedish government-owned sub-volume automaker has bought it this week. They’re making electric cars. No, hydrogen. No, nothing at all. Wait, maybe electric cars again, but slightly different. No, electric cars again, but big ones, the size of a bus. Two buses! They look like jets now. We can’t decide.
How many people are still employed by Saab? Ever since their Trollhättan offices had that witch’s spell cast on them and shifted into the Sidescape, it has been difficult to know for sure. Morale is not great: competitors are often flummoxed as a Saab employee suddenly materializes in their breakroom, the air displaced by their instant arrival knocking papers off the photocopier and coffee to the ground, ready for an interview. They cannot talk about the projects they have been working on, at least not in a language that the rest of us can still understand. Everyone admits, however, that some of the ideas they draw out on the whiteboard, prior to their sudden disappearance at the conclusion of the interview, are pretty good.
We may never know when Saab will release another car again. It may arrive at any moment, like their employees, complete with an accompanying fully-functional dealership on the outskirts of town, its sodium lamps eye-searingly bright in the night despite no obvious source of electrical supply being present. Everyone will agree that the cars are a little weird, a little ahead of their time, and just a little bit too risky to actually purchase. And Saab, our beautiful Saab, will dissolve back into the ether, leaving us with a bunch of cars we can’t figure out how to fix but desperately need to.
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Scarlet's Last Normal Day on Hell's Gate
0602
Scarlet grimaced, desperately trying to ignore her blaring alarm and refusing to open her eyes. But it was no use. The tinny electronic screech had already been buzzing for two minutes and refused to shut up; it would continue until she got out of bed and turned the damn thing off, just like always. So she groaned in frustration, clutched her head to try and get the pounding to stop, and reached out with her other hand, blindly fumbling around for the alarm.
Clink-clink-clunk.
She couldn't feel the alarm, but something was getting knocked around. She cracked an eye open to try and figure out what the hell that noise was. The big ceiling light was off, but there was just enough illumination for her to see: her arm was knocking against several empty bottles of razbo (Ol' Smokey's Reserve) lying discarded next to her. That was odd. Why would they be in the – oh. Wait. No. She's lying on the floor, isn't she? She must have passed out before reaching her bunk.
Again.
Oh well.
She let out an annoyed groan, reaching out to grab the edge of her bunk and pull herself up off the floor. With a good solid WHACK, Scarlet turned off the alarm and sighed heavily, thankful for the blessed silence. Alright, now where the fuck is the – right, there it is. She slammed her open palm against the button on the wall, and the light slowly flickered on with an annoyingly loud electric buzz. It wasn't technically supposed to make that noise, but she barely noticed it anymore. After all, you don't put in a maintenance request for something that small if you could learn to live with it, since it would take two months – at least – to filter through the backlog of other, much more important, printer requests.
“Alright...” Scarlet sat on the edge of her bunk and began to vigorously rub her eyes. “Let's see what Shelly has in store fer me.” She got up and tapped the slate lying discarded on the small table... and then started futzing with her coffee machine. The slate was old and needed a minute or two to warm up, and she desperately needed something to wash away the hangover, anyway.
It wasn't real coffee, obviously. She had no idea what was inside the little 2-centimeter-long tablet she slotted into the machine, but it was something that was entirely not unlike the exact opposite of coffee. The only person on the station who could get a hold of real coffee was Cerulean Enceladus, and Jerry regularly bought all of it up practically the instant the station fence got his hands on more.
As the coffee machine churned and percolated loudly, Scarlet picked the slate back up, and scrolled through functions to see what task she'd been assigned on the duty roster today. She was in the militia and she was on the Strategic Response Team, sure, but that was no excuse. If you lived on a station, you helped keep it running, however you could. Problem was, she wasn't a wrenchie. Scarlet could just about patch an air leak or swap an oil filter, just like everyone else in Calliope, but she learned a long, long while back that the only thing she's truly good at? Fighting. It's why Jerry tagged her for the SRT in the first place. But that meant the assignments she usually got when there wasn't fighting or training to be had were just menial grunt work. Still necessary, but usually unpleasant.
“Custodial duty, Industrial Sector, section 4G to 4M...” Scarlet said aloud, reaching for the cup that had just finished percolating. “Well, that's not too bad. At least it's not sewage reclamation again.” She tossed the slate back on the table and idly sipped her almost-not-coffee. She had only just gotten the awful smell of shit and chemicals out of her jumpsuit from the last time...
- - -
0945
The long, empty hallway echoed with the sound of distant industrial machines, and the gentle hum of air circulators. Scarlet sighed heavily, leaning on the mop. Several hours of sweeping, mopping, and taking out the trash... it wasn't difficult, just boring. And it gave her entirely too much time to be alone with her thoughts. Too much time to think. And that meant too much time to remember.
Scarlet didn't like to remember. It's one of the reasons she drank so much. And while there weren't many rules on Hell's Gate – or the rest of Calliope, for that matter – Shelly made it abundantly clear: there was to be absolutely NO drinking while on duty, OR ELSE. Nobody ever wanted to find out what that meant.
Scarlet grunted in frustration, staring at the rest of the corridor she still had left to do, seemingly stretching out forever in front of her. She readjusted her hold of the mop and tried to continue, only to meet unexpected resistance.
“Th' fuck?” she said, looking down. A large purple claw, belonging to a large purple lobster-like crustacean, was clamped down firmly on the mop head. The vent crab stared up at her with dopey blue eyes on the end of short stalks, as the mass of antennae sticking out of its face were twitching and feeling around on everything nearby.
“Oh fer- GERROFF!” Scarlet shouted through grit teeth, shaking the mop to dislodge the creature. It was flung off the mop and smacked into the nearby wall with a hollow metallic BONK before scuttling away, disappearing into a nearby air vent that looked like it should've been far too small for it to squeeze through.
“Annoying lil varmint. Well, at least there's only the...” Scarlet turned and her expression fell. “Oh.” A half-dozen more vent crabs had seemingly materialized out of several freshly dislodged panels while she wasn't looking. A dozen eyes stared up at her while all of their antennae wiggled curiously in her direction. “Yeah, that tracks...”
- - -
1130
Scarlet weaved her way through the noisy crowds milling around the various shop fronts on this part of the hab ring. With any luck, she was still early enough that there would be an empty seat at the Happy Noodle. Sure enough, just as the red awning with the smiling cartoon bowl of ramen came into view, the crowd parted enough for her to see through the windows: one free seat, right there at the bar! With a burst of speed, Scarlet slipped her way through the crowd, pushed open the glass door with a loud jingle of the overhead bell, shimmied past the mostly full tables, and...
“Ha ha!” she smiled broadly, practically throwing herself in the empty seat, and grabbing the edge of the bar to steady herself. “Just in time!”
“Oh, hello there dearie!” A kind, motherly face beamed down at Scarlet from behind the counter, framed by a curtain of steam billowing up from the half-dozen meals she was making at once. Samorn Patalung, the proprietor of the Happy Noodle, ladled another heaping helping of noodles into a bowl, and slid it over to one of the patrons sitting at the other end of the bar. “Looking to get here before the rest of The Dorks show up?”
“Of course! Wouldn't be able to get a seat otherwise!” Scarlet grinned back, pulling out a handful of Ingots. “Think I can get my usual?”
“Absolutely dear, you just sit there and take it easy for a spell while I make a fresh batch of noodles for you.” Mama Patalung reached down behind the counter and placed a tall boy can of 'Tyrant and Saint IPA' on the counter in front of Scarlet and went back to tending the many meals already in progress.
“Thanks, mama! Yer the best,” she said, grabbing the can. Scarlet barely had time to crack open the brew and take a sip before she heard a loud BANG from behind her. She looked around just in time to see one of the ceiling tiles clatter to the floor, and a colorful sneaker attached to a rail-thin leg sticking out of the brand new hole. An indistinct shape that almost resembled a person swoosed out of the hole, and suddenly Striga von Aldenberg stood before Scarlet in all her wide-eyed, frizzy-haired mania.
“Felicitations, comrade!” Striga smiled entirely too wide, slapping Scarlet on the shoulder. “I'm glad you're here! Because I have NEWS!”
“Striga,” Samorn's face was smiling, but her voice was firm, and she lifted up her ladle to point it directly at the mad sigdiver. “What have I told you about coming in through the ceiling?” Striga immediately went pale – well, paler than normal – and gulped loudly. The last thing anyone on the station ever wanted to do was disappoint Mama Patalung.
“sorry,” Striga squeaked out in a tiny voice. In a single swift motion, she grabbed the ceiling tile off the floor and quickly popped it back in place overhead. “Now, where was I? Ah! Yes!” Striga snapped her fingers, and it was back to the lunacy as if she'd never stopped. “I bring news! News of the latest scheme perpetrated against the denizens of the Gate by... THEM!”
“Alright, I'll bite,” Scarlet leaned back in her seat, knocking back the beer. “Who is 'them' this time?”
“Why, the Time Vampires, of course!” Striga reached into her jacket and pulled out a pamphlet which she slammed on the counter and unfolded into a massive diagram of names and connections, incomprehensible notes, drawings of stations and planets, and hastily scribbled omninet code. “It's all so obvious, just so long as you know where to look! At first I thought it might have been either the cabal of hyper-intelligent vent crabs, or maybe it was that mutant clone of John-Creighton Harrison I running around...”
Scarlet smiled to herself behind her raised can of beer and just let Striga ramble on and on. A lot of people on the station found Striga's antics annoying, especially if they took themselves way too seriously or were from a rival gang of sigdivers, but honestly? Scarlet thought she was hilarious! If nothing else, it was never boring whenever Striga showed up. Besides, every once in a while, she'd hit on something that ended up being genuinely true. Granted, it was usually impossible to figure out which one of her many insane sounding conspiracy theories was the real one until well after the fact, but still...
“... and all of the data points I've collected point to one thing: the apocalypse cult building a series of teleportation devices on the Icebreaker! Of course, this is all merely a distraction so that we aren't prepared for PHASE TWO!”
“Sounds like this could be a problem,” Scarlet nodded. “Want me to tell Zinfandel about this before it gets any worse?” she added, only half-serious.
“And that's why I like you, Scarlet! Because. You. GET IT!” Striga firmly gripped Scarlet by the shoulder. “But no, you don't have to worry about that, I just came from their office. Just make sure you study this, so you're PREPARED! And remember...” Striga leaned in conspiratorially, and whispered: “I was never here!”
Striga put a finger to her lips and began to slide away from Scarlet, leaning back on the wheels she had built into the heels of her sneakers. She passed a table and someone got up, walked in front of her for only half a second... and she was already gone.
- - -
1350
“Hey Bolt!” Scarlet waved, walking into the tiny alcove of an office. “What's the word this week?”
Bolt Carrier had his feet propped up on the counter as he idly flipped through what was very obviously a dirty magazine. The heavily muscled, heavily tattooed, extremely bald man looked up from his porn as Scarlet entered, and gestured with a thumb at the mostly empty cork board labeled “JOBS” on the wall behind him.
“What do you think?” he said with a dark chuckle.
“What, nothin'? Nothin' at all?” Scarlet leaned on the counter, trying to get a better look at the few scraps on the board. Bolt just shrugged.
“I mean, there's a few security postings. Apparently the guys running The Pit need a few extra bodies for Cassilda Halloway's next cage match in a few hours, and the pay is decent enough, but...” Bolt trailed off, and Scarlet just shook her head, folding her arms across her chest.
“What's Cassilda need security fer?” Scarlet asked, clearly not listening carefully. “She's on the SRT with me, an'... well shit, you've seen her! She's built like a brick shithouse – like four brick shithouses welded together! Anyone tries anything funny, she'll just punch their head through a bulkhead so hard, we'd need dental records just to figure out who the fuck it was!”
“It's not security for the psychotic crocodile lady, dipshit,” Bolt shook his head and laughed. “It's managing the crowd of drunken assholes coming to watch her fight down there.”
“Ugh,” Scarlet let her head flop back and sighed. “I hate rent-a-cop jobs.”
“Hey, look, I dunno what to tell ya,” Bolt leaned back in his chair again. “This ain't the Icebreaker. Nobody here needs a bodyguard, nobody comes here on vacation, and the only VIPs who might need muscle are buyers, who always – ALWAYS – come with their own security detail.”
Scarlet paused, eyes darting back and forth across the mostly empty board, considering her options.
“... any bounties?” she asked hopefully.
“Nothing recently, and none on the station. At least as far as I know. Not even any rumors of marks who've gone cubbying...” Bolt looked off to his right, grinned, and turned back to Scarlet, motioning his head at the big wanted poster. “I mean, you could try sneaking into Fort Cerberus to bag Public Enemy Number One. But you and I both know that'd be a one way trip, and I don't think you want to end up as the seventh name on the Wall this year.”
Scarlet stood there and stared at the wanted poster for Andros Capella for a very long time. Her face was made of stone, but she could feel her blood boiling. The picture on the poster was from grainy security footage, since it's not like there was a mugshot of the most notorious pirate in the system who'd been murdering people for the better part of two decades. Bolt's expression fell as he slowly realized:
“... Christ the Buddha, you're actually considering it, aren't you?”
“One day,” Scarlet said eventually with a smirk. “One day, I'm gonna get my hands on that asshole, and I'm gonna rip his fucking head off.”
- - -
2020
Scarlet did eventually take the rent-a-cop job. Money was money, after all. Besides, she was planning on going to the fight anyway, so she could cheer on Cassilda and watch her powerbomb some poor idiot into oblivion. And there was enough time before the fight to hit the gym, shower and change, and grab a quick bite to go from one of the kebab stands along the way.
Unfortunately, she didn't actually get to see the fight. The organizers had Scarlet posted near the perimeter for most of it and, like she expected, the job was pretty boring. However, there was a bit of excitement after the match was over. Cassilda was signing autographs at one end of the venue, and there was a huge crowd of people all trying to get her to sign something.
Inevitably: an argument broke out between several people in the crowd. Which led to a shouting match. Which led to shoving. Scarlet waded in as soon as she noticed it, as quick as she could, to pull the idiots apart. Several of the other burly guards were converging on the nascent fight as well.
“Alright, break it up! BREAK IT UP!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, grabbing one of the dudes by the shoulder and yanking him away from the other dude he was clearly trying to throttle. “You wanna fight, take it outside!”
The dude she grabbed wheeled around with a raised fist, intent on punching somebody, and it didn't look like he cared who. Scarlet ducked out of the way, the fist missing her red hair by inches, and she hit him right in the solar plexus with a solid right uppercut. The man doubled over in pain and surprise, leaving him wide open for a left cross; he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
A glint of metal caught her eye, and she spotted the knife just as it was coming her way. She narrowly dodged the lunge, grabbed him by the wrist, and buried her knee in his gut. Before he had a chance to recover, she grabbed him by the bicep, wrenched his arm up and behind him, pinned his head under her right elbow, and started twisting until he let go of the knife, sending it clattering to the floor.
“Uncle! Uncle!” the man wheezed out. She pulled him up and tossed him to one of the other guys running security, who immediately put him in a headlock. She reached down to pick up the blade (a 4 inch folding pocket knife) and grabbed the first guy on the floor by his collar. He gagged at the unexpected movement, coughing out a butterfly pattern of blood on the floor.
“Alright buddy, yer done. Time fer you to go,” Scarlet maneuvered the man bleeding out of his face away from the crowd and toward the nearest exit; the crowd had been cheering the entire time, clearly ecstatic about yet more violence tonight.
- - -
2215
GMS_GENERIC_BAR wasn't all that busy when Scarlet finally found her way there. She found that rather surprising. Maybe everyone was at Aminata's Saloon or The Dockyard tonight? She didn't rightly know, and didn't really care, as there was an empty stool waiting for her at the bar.
“Hello [CustomerName]!” BARTENDER MOTHERFUCKER greeted Scarlet as she sat down. “Welcome to [GMS_GENERIC_BAR]! What [ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE] can I get you tonight?”
Scarlet loved this place, and it was mostly due to the fact that the subaltern with a TV for a face that ran the joint, BARTENDER MOTHERFUCKER, was unintentionally hilarious. See, Comp/Con units in Calliope were notorious for their “glitches” and “quirks,” and he was certainly no exception. The way she had always heard the story: whoever programmed BARTENDER MOTHERFUCKER to mix drinks only ever programmed him to mix... margaritas. His margaritas were, unquestionably and unarguably, fantastic, but the less like a margarita your order was, the worse it would end up being. The only exceptions to this seemed to be orders he didn't actually have to mix, like beer from the tap or whiskey neat, or anything else with only one ingredient.
Normally, that's the kind of drink she'd order. Or, y'know, she'd just get a margarita. But for some reason, tonight? She was feeling very chaotic, and decided to order the one thing you were never supposed to order here, just to see what would happen.
“I'll tell you what...” Scarlet leaned on the bar with a wide, shit-eating grin. “Can you make me... a Long Rim Iced Tea?”
BARTENDER MOTHERFUCKER seemed to freeze at that, and the cartoon smiley face displayed on his TV-head screen flickered violently. One of his arms twitched slightly, and then after a moment, the rest of him began to move again.
“Congratulations, [CustomerName]! You are going to become the proud recipient of [3_GMS_Standard_Margaritas]! Please [DO NOT RESIST].”
“Uh...” Scarlet leaned back, realizing she had just made a terrible mistake. “But I ordered a-” A metal finger was quickly pressed against her lips, silencing her mid sentence, and BARTENDER MOTHERFUCKER leaned forward to “look” at her intently.
“You are getting [3_GMS_Standard_Margaritas], or I will be forced to get [THE BOUNCER MOTHERFUCKER].”
“... the who?” Scarlet asked as soon as BARTENDER MOTHERFUCKER removed his finger. The subaltern leaned back, reached beneath the counter, and pulled out a black marker, flicking off the cap with a pop.
SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
The angry eyebrows drawn directly onto his screen-face were surprisingly intimidating.
“Y'know what, you're absolutely right!” Scarlet smiled at him and laughed nervously. “I'll just have the margaritas!”
- - -
0052
Scarlet stumbled over the threshold and into her room, bracing herself against the doorframe with one hand and carrying a six-pack of Razbo Malt with the other... though, it was more like a four-pack, since she'd already drunk two of them on the way home. She did her best to carefully set them on her table – not an easy proposition, when she couldn't quite tell which table was the real one - grabbed another bottle, wobbled unsteadily for a minute... and then collapsed with her back against the wall, slowly sliding down until she was sitting on the floor.
She pulled out her bottle opener and cracked open the drink without even looking... because her gaze was, inevitably, drawn to all the mementos scattered around her tiny room. Though “mementos” was probably the wrong word, because that meant she was deliberately trying to remember. She wasn't, and yet she still had a small collection of things that reminded her of how she got here.
The most visible (simply because it physically couldn't be hidden) was an old out-of-tune guitar leaning against the wall that she hadn't touched in forever, but there were plenty of others. Half-finished manuscripts, unedited short stories, unfinished TV and movie scripts, bad poetry... piles of chicken-scratch drawings and comic pages with no ink or color... sheet music for songs she'd never finished writing... pictures from that one disastrous time she tried a career as a dancer on the Icebreaker... there were even a few playbills from her brief, failed attempt at an acting career.
Most of these knick-knacks were shoved in a cardboard box she had tucked away in a corner, but... not all of it. Every once in a while, she'd grab one of her many unfinished projects, try to fix (or finish) it, get frustrated at lack of progress... and then let it collect dust again.
All these things she tried to do with her life... and they all ended the same way: you're not good enough. And yet, despite the bad memories these all inevitably brought to the forefront of her mind, she just... could never bear to bring herself to get rid of them.
It was almost like she used to have ambition.
She poured another slug of malt liquor down her gullet.
The one thing she didn't have were any reminders of the one thing she didn't need to be reminded of. The hours of drinking may have turned her brain into a wad of cotton, but that didn't help. If anything, it probably just made it worse. No matter what, her mind always inevitably drifted back to the moment she lost all hope.
The sight of a familiar figure walking away without a sound. Boarding a shuttle. Leaving the Gate. Leaving Calliope. Leaving Scarlet. And it was all because she couldn't give them what they needed. So Scarlet got left behind.
She poured the rest of the drink down her throat, in a futile attempt to get her brain to shut off. As soon as the bottle was empty, she let her arm fall to her side, and the bottle slipped out of her hands, loudly clattering on the floor and rolling away.
What the hell was she even doing with her life? Because it certainly wasn't living.
It was just... existing.
Maybe that's why she signed up for the militia. Why she agreed to pilot that ancient and beat-to-shit Everest in the back of the mech bay that nobody seemed to want. Why she said yes when Jerry tagged her for the Strategic Response Team. Because doing this shit, fighting people, piloting a mech... it was the only thing she'd ever done in her life where she was “good enough.”
And maybe good enough was all she needed?
… maybe tomorrow would be better.
- - -
Meanwhile, at that moment in Central Fabrication...
A pair of techs looked up at the building-sized device in front of them. It wasn't smoking or sparking anymore, but it was very clearly broken. Every single light and diagnostic panel on the immense machine was glowing red or flashing warning signs. Even the nearby Sherman Mk I, which was plugged into the building-sized machine by a series of cables that could only ever be untangled through arcane sorcery and the blessing of Ra, was also flashing warning lights from every single open panel on its chassis.
“Yeah...” one of the techs reached up with a gloved hand and scratched the back of his head. “I think our Printer is broken.”
“I'm surprised it kept working for as long as it did, honestly,” the other tech said. “When was the last time a Union tech came by to give us a clean cert?”
“Shit, long before I was even born,” the first tech chuckled darkly. “Hundred years, at least.”
“Yeah...” the second tech sighed. “We're fucked, aren't we?”
“What, y'mean us, personally, when Chief McArthur finds out the only Schedule 2 Printer on the station is broken? Or are you asking if everyone living on the Gate is now fucked because of this?” the first tech asked. “Because I think the answer is Yes.”
“Man...” the other tech sighed, and shook his head. “And I was having a good week, too.”
“No you weren't.”
- - -
Meanwhile, halfway between the Aft Docking Bay and Central Fabrication...
The mech bay was silent and empty. Combat mechs of various shapes and sizes were lined up in rows of alcoves, moored in place by harnesses, catwalks, and cables.
At the far end of the bay was an ancient, ramshackle-looking, and battle scarred Everest, covered in a billion different shades of red paint. Without warning, the optics in its wedge-shaped head opened and began to glow, bathing its end of the mech bay in a harsh red light. A steady clicking noise echoed within the mech, growing in volume and reverberating off the walls...
- - -
Meanwhile, somewhere in orbit above Chameleon...
A pair of starships were floating together silently in the void. An IPS-N salvage vessel has been cleaved in two from a massive impact, surrounded by a halo of floating debris, glittering in the starlight; the other ship that rammed it was immense, imposing, and seemingly undamaged. A single word could be seen stenciled into the stark-white hull in black paint, each letter easily several stories tall:
TACHYON
#Lancer#Lancer rpg#lancer ttrpg#in golden flame#vex wasn't lying that one sure is plumed in golden flame#Strategic Response Team#Short fiction#my writing#Xeans' IGF campaign
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