#It’s a hard life when you’re a tiny lizard

[driftingballoons]

Saw @modmad’s starter pokemon prompt, and wanted to give it a try! Geckos were always getting in the house as a kid, so one was bound to stick around sooner or later. As for cursola, I used to love picking up interesting looking pieces of coral from the beach—who’s to say one wouldn’t have been more than it seemed?

[pinkanonwrites]

Imagine if Malleus was turned into a gliding lizard, he'd be so tiny!!

I did end up going with a lizard for Malleus's transformation rather than a dragon, I hope you all enjoy it! I think it suits him well.

GN! Reader, They/Them pronouns, Comfort

+2,100 words

“ I think they just have trouble believing that you can see things from their perspective, that’s all.”

Malleus couldn’t help but cock his head at your statement. “Their perspective?”

“Yeah. They all see you as this all-powerful super mage, you know?” You shrugged in response. “When you think someone is that far above you, it’s hard to picture them actually experiencing the world the way you do. That you actually see things…” You made a vague flattening motion with your hands. “At their level.”

“At their level…” He hummed, hand resting on his chin and thoughts appearing to be a thousand miles away. “Your insight has been greatly helpful tonight, Child of Man. I hope I have not troubled you with these questions.”

“Not at all! If you ever need a hand, just let me know. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Malleus chuckled. “That we certainly are.”

When Malleus had asked you about his inability to connect with most of your fellow classmates on his regular night visit to Ramshackle, you weren’t sure if there was any advice you could give that would actually help him out. Regardless of your direction of his appearance and mannerisms, people would think what they wished about the future King of Fae, and the last thing you wanted was for Malleus to try changing anything about himself. But maybe if you could get him to understand that it isn’t necessarily his fault, it would help ease a bit of the burden.

You can’t say you expected it to end like this though, with Lilia depositing a small, greyish-brown lizard into your hand after instructing you to open your palm to him. First thing in the morning and everything.

“You take good care of him now!” He chirped, and if you hadn’t reached out with your free hand to death-grip his blazer sleeve you’re certain he would have pivoted on his heel and left it at that. But ohhhhh, not today. You weren’t letting another bonkers boy slip right out from your grasp without explaining just what the hell he was going on about.

“What the hell are you going on about?”

“Oh? This was your idea, wasn’t it? For Malleus to get to see things…” He perfectly copied the hand motion you’d made to Malleus the night prior. “On your level.”

“That doesn’t explain the lizard! And were you spying on us?”

“Honey, I’m always keeping one eye on what our dear little prince is up to. That’s my job!” He gave you a playful boop on the nose with the tip of one manicured finger. “And the ‘lizard’ is gonna be your scout for the day! After a day in the life of our beloved Prefect I’m sure he’ll have all sorts of fun commoner stories to tell Malleus about when I come to pick him up.”

“So I’m just… carrying around a lizard all day? For Malleus?”

“That’s the spirit! Why don’t you show our little scaly sweetie here all the cool stuff you get up to then? I’ll be back at sunset to collect him. Have fun you two!” He reached over to the lizard in your palm and gave it a mimicking boop. “And don’t cause any trouble! Any more than usual, at least.”

And with a whirl of sparkles and a flash of a glinting fang, Lilia was gone. You looked down at the lizard in your palm, staring up at you with little, googling eyes.

"I guess… you're coming with me today?"

In response (you think?) the lizard gave you a slow blink and a little flick of his tongue.

"Alright. Not like my day could get any weirder anyway. Should I put you in my pocket, maybe? Or you could-WOAH!"

Instead of letting you decide, the little lizard took a flying leap from your outstretched palm, landing square in the center of your chest and scrabbling wildly against the fabric as it struggled to find a grip. You quickly cupped a hand under the little creature and let it clamber upward until it had found a comfortable resting place on your right shoulder.

"Jeez! A little warning next time? What if I dropped you?" A little webbed foot papped against the lower side of your cheek and you sighed, reaching up to give your new tag-along a pat on the head with your index finger. "Alright, alright, I forgive you. Just be a little more careful, okay little buddy?"

Before you could even finish bonding with your new scaly friend, the door to Ramshackle house blew open behind you. Bursting from the doorway was a whirlwind of ashy gray fur, blue flames, and shrieked, panicked placations.

"I DIDN'T DO IT!" Grim yowled as he veered a hard left and disappeared behind the house. From within you could hear your spectral roommates shouting for your attention, twinkling bursts of magic going off in the distance. If you had to guess, Grim had probably set the living room curtains on fire… Again.

"WATER MAGIC, YOU GUYS! NOT WIND MAGIC!" You hollered as you rushed back into the house. Looks like you were going to be late for morning classes again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Seven class periods, one free study, an incredibly hectic lunch time, and several after-school assignments from the Headmaster later, and you were barely hanging on by the skin of your teeth. Malleus sure picked a doozy of a day to send a little lizard to keep an eye on you, because it felt like just about everything that could have gone wrong did.

You spent all of your Flying class miserably landlocked, as usual, running drills and doing jumping jacks until Coach Vargas had deemed your amount of exercise “suitable.” 

Then during your History of Magics study period you were stuck looking up what ended up to be first-grade level history on the Shaftlands, missing your chance to get any of your actual essay done in-class.

In Potionology you added powdered mint leaves instead of dried, and the resulting mishap quite literally blew up in your face. Fortunately you had been fast enough to block your lizard friend from the blast with the palm of your hand, but you had to stand there soot-stained and miserable throughout the remainder of Professor Crewel’s lecture anyway.

You nearly got trampled by the lunch rush, and if it weren’t for Jack’s quick thinking you’d probably be a pavement pancake right now.

Then, as if you hadn’t had enough to do in your regular school day, Crowley had you visit every single Phys. Ed club and take their photos for the school newspaper. Does he even know how hard it is to wrangle a bunch of mean, sweaty teenagers into letting their pictures be taken? He must have, because that would explain why he made you do it.

Finally back to Ramshackle Dorm, the sun was already setting when you slumped up the steps and collapsed face first into your mattress. Homework could wait. Right now you just needed a chance to breathe.

Vaguely, you felt a small, scaly figure wriggle itself underneath your palm and lift it up. You shifted your head to the side just enough to see the lizard propping up your palm like a makeshift tent, tongue sticking out as he stared you down with big, glossy eyes. You bit back a chuckle.

“Hey, buddy. Good hustle today. Didn’t fall off my shoulder even once.”

It scampered forward, floppy-limbed and frantic, until he stopped right in front of your face. A little, suction-cupped hand papped on the side of your cheek, a tiny show of solidarity in the face of your unending workload. It almost brought you to tears.

“Thanks, bud.”

You rolled onto your side, cupping him carefully again under one palm to keep him steady.

“You wanna know the worst part of today? Worse than running laps or failing history or almost getting trampled?”

He cocked his tiny head in your direction.

“The worst part is now you’ve gotta go home, and you’re gonna tell Malleus all about what a colossal fuck-up I am.”

The little hand papped against your face again, a few times, each with increasing urgency.

“It’s true! What one thing did I get right today? I’ve been tripping over myself just to keep from self-destructing since I got here. Everything you have here, it’s so�� So different! And everyone seems to have no problem with it except for me. I’m just… “

You sighed, tracing a finger up and down the lizard’s soft, scaly back.

“I’m just tired, bud. I wish it was as easy for me as it was for everyone else.”

You trailed off again, one final thought budging to be let free. 

“I wish Malleus was here.”

POOF!

You wheezed, vision suddenly obscured by a thick, purple-black smoke. Despite its sudden, engulfing power, it almost made you feel strangely at ease. It smelled like the forest right after a heavy rain, the slight charge of a thunderstorm that’s only just passed. And as the smoke coiled and curled off over the edges of your mattress to seep onto the floor, the vision of Malleus Draconia appeared before you. He was draped across the bed in a position similar to yours, mirroring your pose with a look of incredible melancholy on his face.

“Oh, my Child of Man…”

“Malle-!?”

Before you could even begin to question him Malleus was sweeping you into a hug, burying your face in the fabric of his uniform. One of his hands held your lower back, the other cradled the back of your head so gently, oh so gently. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been hugged like this.

“The world has been incredibly cruel to you today, hasn’t it?”

Fuck. Fuck. You’d gotten so good at holding it in, at taking a deep breath and saying everything was going to be okay. But in less than a dozen words Malleus had obliterated every wall you’d so carefully constructed since arriving in Twisted Wonderland to keep from having a complete emotional meltdown. Well, there was no use trying to hold it in anymore, not with the way you were bawling into Malleus’s tailcoat, heaving like you were sure you were never going to breathe again.

But Malleus didn’t shush you, didn’t say that everything was going to be okay. He just held you tight, let you pour your emotions out into his expensive shirt, rubbed your back as your sobs became whimpers and finally soft, steady breathing once more. When you could finally pull yourself together enough to throw a sentence together, that’s when you pulled your face out of Malleus’s chest.

“How did…” You rasped. “How’d you get here? Did little buddy tell you? Are you like, psychically linked or something?”

“Ah. No, not quite. My apologies for the deception.” Malleus Draconia, looking sheepish? You never thought you’d see it. “I wanted to see what your days were like in a manner as unobtrusive as possible, so Lilia supplied the idea of a minor appearance transmutation so I could accompany you.”

“Oh. So you… Were little buddy?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. That’s… That’s kinda embarrassing.”

“How so?” You honestly should have seen it sooner, with the way Malleus looked at you with those curious, glossy-green eyes.

“I carried you around all day! I like… pet you, and stuff. You watched me almost blow myself up.”

Were your eyes deceiving you again, or was Malleus actually… Pouting? “My apologies. I never intended to make you feel this uncomfortable.”

“No! No, uh. I mean… It’s fine, really. It was nice, actually, having someone besides Grim keep me company all day. I’m glad it was you.”

He smiled, soft and warm and incredibly fond. The hand still cradling your lower back was rubbing  in slow, soothing circles, nearly enough to make you doze off. “I am glad as well. I’ve always known you to be fascinating, but I never could have considered just how much weight is upon you to succeed.” He cupped your cheek, thumb running back and forth over your cheek bone. “You, my Child of Man, are unfathomably strong. Never once have I considered you to be, in your words, a “fuck-up”.”

Your breath hitched again, and you thumped a palm against Malleus’s chest. “You’re gonna make me start crying again.”

“Then I shall cease my praises. For this evening, at least.” 

Eyelids fluttering, you let yourself curl closer into him, just the slightest bit.

“Thank you, Mal. For… For just everything.”

You knew that you wouldn’t be able to lie like this forever. Tomorrow you’d have to get up and stop Grim from burning the house down once again. Tomorrow you’d have to run laps and avoid getting trampled in the cafeteria and have to justify all the homework you weren’t able to get done tonight. But that was all for tomorrow. Tonight was just you, and Malleus, and what you thought was the ghost of a kiss on the center of your forehead as you drifted from the land of the waking into a, for once, peaceful slumber.

“Sleep well, my Child of Man... My love.”

[skellseerwriting]

Pirates and Prejudice (and Dragons)

James Hook x GN! Dragon Rider!Reader Part 4

Part 1

Reader is disabled (prosthetic foot) and I am not disabled, so if anyone who’s reading this is please let me know if anything is written weirdly or wrongly

Word Count: 2,970

Warnings: mentions of different prosthetics, mention of scars, reader is momentarily self deprecating about their face, Hook (consensually) takes off reader’s prosthetic, brief panic from others, romantic tension

Summary: Hook gives reader a look into his life as a pirate

What do you mean you’re ‘going to take me on an adventure?!’”

Hook let out a free laugh as you approached him at the gate. His eyes glittered something mischievous.

“That’s something you’ll have wait for.” He teased.

You made a fake annoyed face, hoping to have gotten some answers after mulling over all day what he could have possibly meant. He lifted his head in laughter again, eyes closed and elbows up with the back of his hand to his face; an open gesture of being comfortable with you. How could he be so annoying, yet so endearing?

“Well,” He wiped a tear from his eye, gesturing to the path in front of the both of you. “Care to find out?”

You didn’t know whether to be surprised or not at “finding out” that the adventure was at Auradon’s main harbor.

Merlin’s Academy was built extremely close, thank goodness, otherwise you would have never made the trek. The whole time, Hook pulled you along by your hand, barely allowing you to keep up with him. He seemed way too excited to take you on this “adventure”, so you couldn’t help but let his eagerness infect you. It wasn’t until you actually tripped that he slowed down enough for you to pace along next to him.

He didn’t let go of your hand, however.

You tried not to think on that too much.

Arriving at the edge of the busy town, you stood on higher hills and took in the sight.

Yellow houses with blue-tiled roofs were irregularly placed in the area, slowly descending into the the docks that spread along the coast, the widest part of it all. Birds that you presumed to be seagulls called out in the skies, accompanied by the dings of bells far away. A distance farther in the water that sparkled in the sun sat a decent-sized island. It all smelled like fish, you realized with a smile. It smelled like home.

When you deal with giant lizards with even larger appetites, it can be hard hunting enough meat. Due to the land’s lakes, fish was an easier sustenance to obtain. The whole place didn’t smell like this, but the dragon pens and the area during mealtimes certainly did.

Making your way through the bustling town, you dodged and weaved through people trying to make their way somewhere. At one point your hands got pulled apart, so with a giggled “no!” you both instantly tried to reattach them.

The stench of fish got even stronger once you arrived at the docks. Some of it looked brand new, while the particular boards you stood on creaked and groaned.

Placing his hands hands on your shoulders from behind, he finally gave you a splinter of an answer.

“My ship is here today.” He had a boat?

“Which one is it?” You asked, turning your head to look at him behind you. He made a funny look.

“Guess.”

Bringing your hand to your chin in thought, you browsed the large array of boats. Some were new, some were old, some small and some ginormous. You pointed at a tiny dingy.

“Is it that one?”

Shaking his head, he exasperatedly went “Do you really think I’d be caught dead in that? Try again.”

Deciding to continue messing with him, you brought your finger to one covered head to toe in mildew, seaweed, and rot. It looked like it had been anchored there longer than you’d been alive.

Getting a bit fed up, Hook reached his arm over yours to grab you hand and swivel it somewhere else. It landed in front of what could only be described as a very grand, very beautiful ship.

The sides of it gleamed of a dark, rich wood, with rails at the top highlighted in red; Mahogany? Windows near the back sported inlaid, diamond-shaped glass of a spectrum of colors that dazzled, leaving you to wonder how it looked inside when the light shined through. Multiple mast poles held up cream sails that flowed slowly in the wind, promising freedom. To top everything off was a small, dark flag with what appeared to be a skull on it, set high in the sky.

You were in awe.

Hook sucked in a worried breath through his teeth.

“Well, what do you think?”

You turned to look at him, struggling to even think of what to say about the absolute piece of art you had just witnessed.

“It’s beautiful.” You managed to get out.

“Really?” He beamed.

“Yeah!” You nodded.

“Well all right then. Let’s go meet the crew!”

“‘The crew’?”

After he led you to the massive boat, your confusion was quickly dispersed. Once he helped you climb up the rope ladder (you were well experienced with ropes, you told him, so it was no struggle), cheers instantly erupted on the deck. It was packed with men of all ages; some as young as you, to some old enough to be your grandfather. All appeared to have a variety of backgrounds; no two men looked alike. The one thing tying them all together was their shared lifestyle as pirates. They swarmed Hook, clapping him on the back and barking out all sorts of questions of well-being.

“What new treasure have you’ve gotten in my absence lads?” He asked them, before being bombarded with various tales of chases and running from authorities. As they all essentially shouted over each other for his attention, you could just see in his eyes how happy he was to be with them.

It was kind of shocking, if you were being honest. How did a boy like that come to relationships like these?

Once things died down a tad -Hook’s grin still splitting his face, along with those little crow’s feet- he gestured towards you.

“Men! This is my classmate and friend! Make sure you’re kind and welcoming!”

Right after that, many of them started to surround you. You began to feel a little overwhelmed, only more so by the fact that Hook had called you his friend. Looking at these men who started prodding you with questions, you noticed a similarity.

The balding one in front of you wore a black eyepatch on his left. The young one next to you had a simple, small hook on his right hand. Behind him, another man stood on a wooden peg-leg. And to your delight, one with beautiful features proudly wore nicks and scars all over his face and arms.

These people, you realized. These people are like me. James doesn’t pity me, he understands me.

Before even attempting to answer anything they had asked, Hook pulled you away with a “that’s enough questions” and brought you to a barrel to sit on. Next to him stood a jolly-looking man with white hair covered by a red bandana.

“This is Mr. Smee.” He explained. “Smee is my first mate.”

You looked at the middle-aged man before looking back to the young man in front of you.

“…You’re the captain?”

Hook nodded.

“But how? You’re one of the youngest people here?”

He must have found something about your confusion amusing, because he let the expression on his face show without restraint. Then, it faded into something more solemn.

“Smee used to be first mate to my father; former captain of the Jolly Roger.” He said slowly. “Then I took on the title a couple years ago when…” he trailed off.

Oh.

You reached for his arm.

“James, I’m sorry for your loss.”

His glum countenance immediately turned into one of amusement, eyebrows high and lips pursed.

“Oh, he’s not dead. He’s retired, in Fiji.”

You gawked a little. “Oh.”

“I inherited the title from him, but the crew’s been without me this past year while I’ve attended Merlin Academy. Smee here’s been keeping them in check for me.

“Oh! Before I forget…” Hook’s eyes lit up before bringing his attention to one of the many containers that were strewn about the place. He pried open a crate lid with his hook before lifting something out of it in his other hand. After approaching you closely and sitting in front of your feet, he held out a wooden peg leg.

“May I?” Was all he said, and you noticed his eyes held that secret feeling you were coming closer and closer to putting a name on.

“Yes. Please.”

Leaning forward, Hook began a slow, yet warm and soothing process. He cuffed your pant leg up enough to uncover the base of your prosthetic, followed by touching the piece with his hands. He froze, looking into your eyes with a silent question. After you nodded, he proceeded again, gently undoing the straps and slowly taking it off before handing your foot -with the shoe still on- to Smee.

You felt slightly uneasy having a piece of yourself with someone you didn’t know, but since Hook trusted him so much, you decided to do so as well. After that, Hook was very swift with the rest of the job, finishing it moments later.

“Now you’re a real pirate.” He stood up, offering his hand out to you.

“I like the sound of that.” You responded, taking his offer and getting up off of the barrel.

The second you put weight on your left foot, your footing gave out and you tripped right into Hook. He instantly caught you, arms wrapped around you securely, promising safety.

“Easy there.” He cooed. “Can’t have you ruining that pretty face of yours.”

You blinked at him, trying to will the blood not to rush to your face at his compliment. “But my face is already ruined.”

Gingerly, he brought a thumb to your cheek, rubbing it against a rather thick scar.

“No,” he hummed, his eyes anywhere but yours. “The lines that adorn your face are a beautiful map, telling me of your journey in life and who you are as a person. Except I don’t need to follow it to find a buried treasure.”

Pulling away from him a bit -and totally not out of embarrassment- you said you wanted to get some walking practice in. With an “of course”, Hook took your hand once again and led you around the deck; providing little tips and tricks on how to handle the narrow point of the wooden leg. It was even harder with the slight rocking of the boat, but to your delight, you got the hang of it right away. And hey, if you stumbled a few more times, needing Hook to grab you by the waist to hold you steady, who’s to say it was intentional?

For a little while you both hung out on the deck, spending time with the other men there and listening to new and interesting stories they had to tell; real adventures. You were positive that everything Hook had done with you today was nowhere half as interesting as the things he had probably done, but you considered it an adventure nonetheless since it was something exciting you had never experienced before.

Everything was lively and jolly as the wind carried up your spirits and your hair, gifting you the scent of salt. While continuing to hear with eager interest to the impossibly outlandish tales the oldest men had to offer about their travels, Hook eventually nudged you and motioned with his head towards the set of doors beneath the higher deck.

Following him, he led you to a room filled with wonders and things of otherworldly beauty. Silk cloth strung from the ceiling, many with little beads that could cling against each other. The walls were covered with extravagant paintings and mounted heads of mythical creatures. Filling up the room were different kinds of furniture that had gems, jewelry, and apparel sitting on or hanging from every visible inch. Near the back wall sat a garnished heavy desk in front of what you recognized to be one of those beautiful colored windows. The sun had neared dusk and sent the perfect warm rays through it, setting many things in the office alight and glittering like a dragon’s den. Tiny pieces of rainbow blipped around the room, coming from the dangling necklaces that moved to the sway of the boat.

“This is beautiful, James.” You told him for the second time that day, carefully reaching out and touching a necklace chain made out of what you could only presume to be gold. “I don’t see how you could ever leave this room. All the artwork in the world couldn’t compare. It must have taken a lifetime to acquire it all.”

“You’re right, it is hard to leave.” He told you, grabbing something near him out of the corner of your eye. Then, he grinned, adding “But then I’d never get to feel the ocean breeze on my face or the sun on my skin. The rush of adrenaline as I make yet another daring escape. That’s what I live for. Freedom.“

“That’s what I live for too.” You said absentmindedly as you meandered and ran your fingers through various goods. “That’s why I fly.”

“We’re the same in that way. Although, most of this was acquired by my father. But steadily, I’m making it my own.” He moved in front of you and revealed the item he snatched. It was a necklace with a leather string; not nearly as dazzling as everything else in the glittery and shimmery room. At the end, however, laid a single, dark pearl encased in twisted silver wire.

“This was my first addition.” He began, forehead nearly touching yours as you both looked down at it. “I was eight. Nearly drowned getting that oyster.”

You moved your palm under his so you could feel the pearl with your thumb. Your breaths started to mix together.

“It must be really special to you.”

“It is.” He said honestly, then slowly tilts his hand so the necklace landed in your palm. “Which is why I want you to have it.”

You quickly scanned his eyes but found no hints of guilt or regret. You wanted to refuse, but you knew he would never take no for an answer. Instead, you let yourself feel honored at such a gift.

“Thank you.”

You wanted to return the favor, but you didn’t have anything to give him. On the other hand… your brain thought dangerously, and before you could take a second to question the idea, you leaned forward to reward him with a tender kiss on the cheek. His skin felt so soft, and it smelt like the ocean.

Hook gasped.

He gripped your arm tightly, and before you could wonder if it was for a good or bad reason, he tilted his head towards you; aiming for your lips.

A loud thud, along with what sounded like wood splintering, occurred above you. Shouting arrived after it. Hook pulled away, and with a look of annoyance and fear, ran out of the room to figure out what it was. You followed right after, trying to ignore the flustered feelings welling up in your stomach.

As soon as you reached the deck, it was instantly clear what had caused those sounds. The wood splintering came from several crates that seemed (thankfully) empty, and what so happened to make those sounds was a giant, winged lizard.

“Beastie!” You cried, launching yourself towards her. She was snarling and growling at the pirates around her pointing weapons at her, who were terrified out of their wits at seeing a dragon for the first time.

She near instantly calmed down upon feeling your hands on her snout and neck. Mouth closed and heckles lowered, she made a deep purring sound.

“It’s okay,” you told her reassuringly. “It’s okay.” Then, you turned around to the others. “It’s okay,” you declared loudly. “Beastie’s my dragon. She must’ve tracked me here, and likely thought I was in danger. Please put down your weapons; I promise she won’t harm you!”

This seemed to put the mean at ease a bit, but they mostly only lowered their weapons.

“Do it!” Hook shouted, although not unkindly. “Or are you going to question a trained dragon rider?”

Hearing the command straight from their captain seemed to put them into motion, as they followed suit right after that.

“Is this her?” Hook asked, slowly approaching with his arms up. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful creature.” He added in awe.

Beastie prickled a bit, but with Hook’s behavior and compliment, she allowed him to come closer. You took his wrist and placed it against the warm scales.

“Wow.” He breathed.

“Yeah.” You said. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

He nodded absentmindedly. You sucked in a breath, still reeling internally over what had just happened -or didn’t happen- in Hook’s office.

“I have to head back now, James.” He looked at you with sorrowful eyes. “It’s getting late.”

“Right.” He said sadly, glancing down at the floor.

He had Smee bring your foot over as you hopped on Beastie. While your brain screamed at you all the reasons you should stay, he took off the (your?) peg leg and replaced it with its true counterpart. He looked at you like he was about to beg you to not go, to beg you to be with him just a little bit longer. But you knew it was getting late, and he knew that too.

Bringing the pearl necklace quickly over your head to rest at your collar bone, you gave Hook one last look of that secret feeling before flying back to Merlin’s Academy; way too far from the boy you fell in love with.

James hook was like you in too many ways to be healthy. So, you decided then and there that you were going to give him a taste of your freedom.

Part 5

Taglist

@lesbpotmurdocklokistan

[clockwayswrites]

Little Living Bones Part 2

Part 1 WC: 816 CW: necromancy

As soon as he could stand, Danny scrambled back to the teleportation sigil he had scratched into the dirt when he first arrived in Madagascar. He was always sure to have an out, and he really needed one right then. The tiny skeleton was clutched against his chest. Danny could feel the thin rib bones moving as if the little creature was breathing.

Somehow he made it back through the winding streets to the hotel he was staying at. He locked the door, set the skeleton on the tiny desk that was shoved under the window, and backed up as far as he could in the shoebox of a room.

“Okay,” Danny whispered, his voice mostly lost in the hum of the window unit. His eyes were locked with the hallow skull of the little gecko. “So you’re alive now. Again. You’re alive again.”

The gecko tilted it’s head. Their head? They were alive now, they weren’t a thing anymore.

“You’re alive and I did that. Okay, right.” His hands were shaking. When did he start shaking so badly? “That’s… alright. Guess you’re my responsibility now? Good thing you don’t need to eat, I have enough trouble feeding myself.”

His laugh was stilted in heavy humidity of the air. Danny could feel the nerves bubbling up under the sound, threating to turn it hysterical if only he could get any air in his lungs. When had he stopped being able to breath?

Danny sat down hard on the ground, tucked between the edge of the bed and the wall. When Danny had managed to get his breathing back under control and uncurled, he found himself face to skull with the little gecko. Impossibly, the little one looked worried.

Exhausted, Danny rested his head on his knees. “I guess I’m not being fair to you. Here I brought you back to life and I’ve just been ignoring you. I’m sorry little one.”

The little lizard moved in such a way that their bones gave a little rattle. It was kind of a pleasant sound. Danny smiled, just a little, and reached out to run a finger over the skull.

“I don’t know if you’ll, um, last—” though the idea of lizard falling apart to death again made Danny’s breath hitch again “—but even if you’re only around for a little, I guess you should have a name.”

Carefully, he picked up the skeleton and set them on his shoulder. Danny stumbled as he pulled himself up off the ground. “And I guess I should have some water.”

He pulled his dinged metal waterbottle out the side pocket of his rucksack before rooting around in the front one for his notebook. Settling on the rickety chair at the tiny desk, Danny found a blank page to write on. He tapped his pencil against the paper a few times before he he started to just list any name that came to mind.

By the time he had managed to fill most of the page with names and was just scribbling idle lines in the bottom corner, Danny was feeling frustrated. None of the names felt right. He had tried names from all over his travels, but nothing was clicking.

“Well, what name do you like?” Danny asked the gecko, who had crawled down to sit on the desk during the process.

The little thing tilted their head.

“Names, which do you like?” Danny asked again, tapping the paper.

The gecko watched the finger for a moment before waddling over and flopping down on the overlapping curves Danny had doodled in the corner.

Danny gave a tired sigh. “Sure, why not.”

-

A few months later, Danny stepped out of an alley and onto the streets of Paris. He had to consult his half legible note a few times to get to the set meeting place. The hunched, trench coat shrouded form of Constantine was easy to pick out where he was slightly tucked back in a different alleyway.

“Hey, Constantine,” Danny called out as soon as he was close enough not to draw too much other attention. The crowd was sparse, but there were still people milling about even at the late hour.

Constantine turned to greet Danny and froze— going still in a way that for the man was downright creepy. It made Danny’s hackles go up.

“What?” What was that look for? He was clean and fed and had even splurged and gotten his coat dry cleaned before meeting up with Constantine. So what if he’d been alone for several months now.

He’s fine.

He has a pet now.

“Kid,” John said slowly.

Oh, John wasn’t looking at him. His eyes were fixed on the lapels of Danny’s coat and who must be peaking out of it.

“What the hell is that, kid?”

“This is Squiggles, they/them. Constantine, Squiggles. Squiggles, Constantine. No biting, either of you.”

-----

AN: And things completes this little fic: the origins of Squiggles the Undead Gecko! And proof that Danny is a necromancer? Maybe, maybe not. This will probably by the second fic in the story, the first being done by Moku and and explaining how Danny met Constantine! You can find her first part of that in the masterpost.

Stay delightful, darlings!

Please remember that I'm no longer tagging people due to the shadow ban! If you go to the master post, you can subscribe there for update notifications!

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

Excessive Force : Tom Ludlow x Fem Nurse Reader (COLLAB W/ THE INCREDIBLE @johnwickb1tsch) - Chapter One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten

TW: angst, uncomfortable situations, bdsm content, fire, blood

“What in God’s fucking name are you doing?” You ask yourself as you dig out the silky dress and golden bangles to wear tonight on this BDSM safari date. 

In theory, you know you absolutely cannot be Julian’s submissive. After a lot of googling, and a lot of video watching, the conclusion is that your smart, mindless mouth will have you bruised and crying more often than cumming, which sounds unpleasant (something you and your vagina can both agree on). It's not that the thought of his big hands swatting your rear as you lay over his broad lap is unappealing. In fact, you like that vision a lot. It’s the fact that he wants to do much more than spank you. Maybe that’s why he likes you, you realize, because you’re so bad at listening that he won’t need much of an excuse to fuck you up. 

Yeah, great thought to have before a date.

Your phone rings, and you’re not surprised anymore when you see Tom’s number pop up. He’s been calling almost twice a day now, that desperate ring cutting through your daily life so often that you have to keep the tone on silent most of the time. 

You suppose this is just his way of making sure you don’t forget about him while you’re taking back roads and long detours home to avoid his face. Ludlow scares you, but not in a way that Julian’s Mr. Hyde does. No, Tom’s fear factor is that you can’t go two seconds without thinking about him. 

The silky dress sits very nicely on your soft body, hugs and fans and dips in the right places. You can’t help but admire yourself in the mirror; hell, what’s a little bit of vanity every once in a while between you and your house plants? It’s not often that you feel good about yourself in the way the dress and the hairline bangles cinching your wrists make you feel. Eat your heart out, Julian.

Eat your heart out, Tom.

Julian looks good enough to eat, and you just might do exactly that before this night is over. You’re sure he can at least stay hard while you’re sucking the head of his beautiful cock (even without your arms tied behind your back), or you really hope so. I mean, you’ve never won any awards or anything, but the people pleaser in you has never had complaints, either. 

“You look wonderful.” He hands you a towering potted phalaenopsis orchid with a festoon of blooms so dark purple they’re almost black and leans down to kiss your warming cheek. You feel bad for the plastic wrapped flowers, so you ask him to come upstairs for a minute so you can settle them in their new home. 

“Wow, you love plants,” he muses, fingers playing at the waxy tip of your flourishing Queen of the Night cactus in the window.

“Well, I can’t have a cat or a lizard or snake or dog, so.” You give a tiny shrug, clipping off stems into the sink. 

“Snake?” He asks, leaning against the counter and watching you work. 

“Yeah, like a Ball Python or a Corn Snake.” 

“You just keep getting more fascinating, y/n.” You have your back turned, but can still feel his weighty stare, and it makes your skin crackle and pill, distracts you from the task at hand, causing the slippery scissors to veer and slice into your palm, glassy beads of blood forming at the base of the cut immediately.

“Shit,” you say, grabbing a towel from the counter and pressing it into the wound. 

Julian comes to your aid, a knight in shining armor ready to slay those dastardly scissors as he plucks them from you and tosses them onto the opposite counter. “Oh, darling.” He takes your sliced hand, uncovers it, blood immediately pooling into the basin of your palm and dribbling over the spillway of your wrist onto the kitchen tile. 

“Julian, it’s fine,” you tell him, trying to pull back half heartedly. 

“Wait.” The command of his tone makes your heart squeeze out a couple extra rivulets of blood for the floor. Black eyes travel up from your hand to your own, and you honestly have no idea why he is suddenly in this hellish mood again, but fuck, it really does do things for you that you can’t mention in chaste company 

“The floor is getting bloody.” You shift—more like squirm—under his shadow.

“What a waste. May I?” His eyes can’t decide what they want to look at—your crimson stained palm or equally if not more bloody face—and you forget that he asked a question as they hood and darken. 

He tugs you forward a tiny step, then kisses your fingertips, pokes his tongue out to lick at the sensitive skin there. “Y/n?” He murmurs against your pointer, inquisitive and, what? Hungry? Is that what you’re getting from him? 

“Huh?” 

“Can I taste you?” His lips tickle down your fingers, peck the top of your palm. 

Well, at least he’s not whipping your feet. “Yeah.” 

He presses the flat of his tongue against the fresh, oozing cut and licks a long stripe through the carnage. You have to grab onto him because your knees buckle and your vision swims black, but he’s got you anyway, arm wrapped around your waist, holding you up like you’re not made of heavy bone and fat and meat, protecting your pretty dress from that bloody floor. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, full Dr. Mercer mode again, lips still stained dark red, acting as if he didn’t just transform into a creature of the night before your very eyes. Your head and cunt throb in a strange, floaty numb tandem as you surface from the haze. 

You’re a nurse. You see blood all the time, get covered in it, have to scrub it out of your hair and from under your nails and use special laundry soap on your scrubs to avoid having to buy new ones every other day. That’s why you’re so confused as to why you almost passed out at the sight of Julian licking it off your palm in one of the most erotic displays you’ve ever witnessed in your measly life. 

Again? Asks your damp cunt. 

Hush, you admonish, ushering her back into her little broom closet chastity prison. 

“I’m fine.” You wonder why it took moving to LA to realize what a shit liar you are. And then, because you can’t really help asking with a giggle: “Are you a vampire?” 

He chuckles, fails in licking the settling red hue off his lips, and then guides you to sit on your sofa with the towel pressed against your palm. He gets you a cool rag from your bathroom, and presses it to your forehead. “Hold that there for me,” he instructs. “Where’s your first aid kit?” 

“Under the sink,” you thumb behind you. “But I’m fine, Julian.” 

He plucks a tiny kiss on your wrist. “You know, lying to me is bad for you.”

“Oh?” Your vagina asks, “and why is that, Doctor?” 

Julian is too easy. Sure, he prefers to have the upper hand, but as soon as you challenge him, he’s almost squirming with excitement. You wonder if you could make Tom squirm like that, see all the tough masculinity turn soft and peach pink with a well placed, “cuff me, Officer Ludlow.” 

“Because lying is naughty, and do you know what happens to naughty girls?” He leans in as if to kiss you. 

You lean right back, mouth open to taste your own thick residual copper on his sharp tongue, and sincerely hope the answer is they get fucked until they can’t walk. “Enlighten me?”

He boops your nose. “They don’t get kisses. Now, stay here.” 

You glare daggers at his cute butt as he makes to golden retrieve your first aid kit. 

“Thank you, Doctor.” Fuck me, Doctor. You bat your eyelashes at him while he cleans up your cut. It’s big, but surface level, warranting a tight wrap and no steri strips. 

You boldly brush the fallen, velvet hair from his eyes to see that toothy, knowing smile a little better.

“My pleasure.” 

“So…are you into that? Blood?” You’re not sure how else to word it or If there’s even an actual name for the act of eating blood for pleasure. Vladsexual? Bathory Kink? 

“That and other carnal taboos. I suppose I’m a bit of a roue.” 

“Okay, so what else?” 

“I don’t want to scare you.”  

“Too late, Julian.” You make it sound lighthearted, sugarcoat the truth, but if you’re going to get into this shouldn’t you know more about what he wants? 

“I won’t lie.” He looks at you, presses the finishing slice of tape over your gauze wrap. 

You retrieve your doctored hand to cradle on your ribs and maintain his gaze to the best of your ability. “I know.”

“I enjoy pain play. But that’s an umbrella term.” 

“Like hot wax? Caning?”

“Yes. You’ve done some research.” He seems like he’s thinking hard about how to word something, but there’s probably no eloquent way to put what he’s about to say. “Cutting. Piercing.” 

“What about infection?” 

“Aftercare, honey. You make sure it’s nice and clean. Do you want me to stop talking about this? You look paler again.” He rests his hand over yours. 

“It’s like you switch into someone else when these things.. come up? It scares me a little.”

He nods. “Part of the point would be to make you scared.” 

“That would help you?” 

It looks like he understands what you mean by that, and his face droops a little. Seems you’re both still thinking about that last disappointing date. “Yes.” 

“There are going to be people getting hurt at this club?” 

“Yes.” He cards a hand through his hair and it lays back perfectly where it once was. “There are other parts to it. Parts that are good. I would take responsibility away from you, make sure you eat nutritiously and often, give you a solid routine, pamper and spoil you.”

Why does that part sound worse than the getting cut and pierced bits? The thought of someone controlling your life, what you eat and do, it’s entirely unappealing. Maybe you’re a mess, but you like to be independent and free spirited. Tom was right about you wanting someone on your side, someone to take care of you and go to bat for you, but you’d still like to be on the field when it happens instead of tied up helplessly to the bench. 

You’re not saying anything, so he speaks up after a pause of tense silence. “We don’t have to go.”

“I know,” you say, “let’s leave before it gets too late.” 

***

You’ll be honest. You expected people on leashes scantily covered in leather, big medieval tower guards in hooded black cloaks, heavy metal equipment bolted to the walls and floor, maybe a stage with grandstand seats like in a fucked up little leather circus. 

However, the doors of the club are fairly normal, if not painted blood red. Dark, sultry, heavy bass music welcomes you as you walk inside. Most of the interior is classy, but unexpectedly underwhelming. The inside is carved marble, high ceilinged, low lit, tinged with dark red and purple lights. 

It reads like a vampy career fair. 

Banquet hall open floor, a pop up bar in the corner, booths and alcoves swollen with spectators dressed in bespoke club wear from Versace, Valentino, and Chanel. Some people choose to hide their identities with finely crafted leather masks. Some people chose to flaunt their faces openly, and you’re pretty sure you recognize at least one B level rockstar and maybe an actor from a distance.

The first thing you see as you go further inside is a man trussed in intricate rope, hanging from the ceiling. Not too bad. Actually, fairly tame, all of this. Well, more tame than the internet showed you. Mostly heavy bondage, maybe a nipple clamp thrown in here and there. Julian leads you to a carpeted venue with floor cushion seating in the far left corner and goes to retrieve some liquid courage. 

He hands you a wine glass of rosy, sweet liquor and you gulp it down immediately. 

“Slow down,” he says, squeezing your hand in reassurance. 

Instead of calming you, his bossy words incite annoyance. You’re a grown ass woman who needs alcohol to deal with something he wants you to attend, and you’ll be damned if you’re not going to drink as much numbing potion as you like. 

“I could actually use another one,” you tell him, standing and stretching. “Want some?” You eye his nursed, sipped from glass. 

He surprises you by handing you his credit card instead of arguing.  “No, thank you. Get as much as you like.” 

“Julian, I am not taking your card-“

You’ll never stop being surprised at how fast he can be. He’s so slow, thoughtful, calculated in his work that these sudden, long limbed movements startle you, especially when they bring him right against your body. 

He tucks his Chase back into your extended palm, frames your feet, and wraps a covering hand around your collar. “You are taking it.” 

The double entendre is not lost on you, and it brings that too often ache back into your toes and fingers and clit and every tip of your body, really. 

You want so horribly for his beautiful, cervix kissing cock to be inside you instead of swelling up against your tummy. And, you’ve never been a big fan of PDA, but, when in Venice…

You slip your hand between his hard and your soft, and palm that pretty trapped appendage, using your body to press and grind and get a better understanding of how deliciously he would fill you up.

Your power trip of the night is Julian groaning aloud, then halting this indecency and glaring down at you with a monstrous sneer. Before he can speak, you pipe up, soft and feminine, voice tinted with subtle hedonism. “Yes, Doctor.” 

You grab a mixed glass of vodka cranberry and take two extra shots courtesy of doctor money. Liquid courage. It's gonna be alright. Tell yourself that all you want, though, you still don’t feel completely safe here. Which is ridiculous because it’s an adult space with consenting people. Maybe it’s not your physical health you’re worried about so much, but rather your fragile psyche. 

When you get back with another shot and your mixed drink, the show has already started. You nestle down into the cushion beside Julian, and he scoots closer to press shoulders in what you think is an attempt at reassurance until he starts talking in your ear about the scene unfolding before you. 

“She’s bound to the chair with wool.”

“Wool? Why?”

“Fire resistant.”

Your heart slams faster against your ribcage, hands turn cool and clammy. 

“They have a wool blanket ready in case things go south.”

“Are they going to burn her?”

“Not seriously.”

What in the fuck is that supposed to mean? A burn is a burn, right? Whether first or second or third, it can still have detrimental effects on a person’s health. He’s a damn doctor, shouldn’t his years of medical training raise a hand to why this is potentially life threatening?

Despite the protest of your nervous system, you can’t look away. The man in the scene rubs something on her naked skin, in the middle of her chest, almost down to the hairless mound of her sex. “Isopropyl alcohol,” Julian says. He places his warm hand in the middle of your back like he’s trying to manually start your lungs back up. “Breathe.”

You do, let out a big whoosh of air and then take another in. The man lights a torch. 

“Fire torch,” Julian says, voice leagues deeper. His hand travels down, nuzzles into the small of your back and makes you let out a little noise that you’re grateful he can’t hear over the music and bustle of the club.

He presses the flame to her sternum, and she hisses, flinching away from the heat, from the flint that lingers on her skin. He extinguishes that same mini bonfire with his palm almost instantly, then creates more. The orange flame reflects on the tears of her cheeks, illuminates the fear in her blown pupils. 

Julian rubs little circles into your back, hips, grins when he hears you groan as his thumb slips up the hem of his dress. 

It goes on, and Julian has stopped explaining. Stopped moving those skilled fingers.  You’re confused, so you look over at him, and realize that you have not seen monstrous from this man yet—not until now. His handsome features are pulled in such an expression of raw, primal hunger, all for that woman’s pain.

You’ve seen that look on a man’s face before. It did not end well for you.

It’s that look on his face that gets you up on your feet, and you say in a voice you yourself hardly recognize, “I have to use the restroom.”

Julian looks disappointed, but he nods. When you’re confident that he’s not going to leap up and follow you, you make your way in said direction on shaking legs. However, once you round the corner out of sight, you are making a B-line for the exit, moving so quickly you almost stumble over your own feet, the desperate animal running through the woods, away from the hungry wolf. 

[grizzersmamma]

Does your 1fae1 Nikto end up having any children with the reader, like Ghost and Love with their Cabbage?

Had this ask in my box for a while because I wasn’t sure if it was a little too early to discuss it, but of course we can give Nikto and his girl a little baby of their own! I get the feeling this kiddo would have to be an accident, because I can’t see Nikto really wanting to deliberately have a child lmao. Very much a case of “I can’t impregnate my partner because that would require magic” only to realise after getting a positive pregnancy test that the majority of magic depends on intention and, apparently, playing hard into the breeding kink while balls deep in your partner can be considered intent. Who knew?

IDK if this will be canon or not, but I’m always a sucker for fantasy babies, so here we go. Stealing Liebling and Witch from @ghouljams for this short little fic.

You’re not entirely sure how you ended up in this situation, sitting in a little plant store with a seer on one side and an actual witch on the other. A small creature resting in your arms, a creature that, given what you thought you knew about the world, shouldn’t exist.  

At least the atmosphere in the shop is pleasant enough.  

Liebling looks like she can’t quite decide whether to be concerned on your behalf or fascinated with the whole situation. She scratches at her chin, chewing at her bottom lip in thought. Alternatively, the Witch seems to be positively gleeful, cooing at your baby as if she isn’t tempting fate by being so close to such sharp little teeth.  

Your baby’s head tilts upward to look at you... and then so does her other head... and her third one.  

The tiny lizard trills eagerly to you, wriggling when you offer her a soft smile in return. You had hoped that she would be able to maintain her human form while out in public, but the moment you stepped into Liebling’s store she had torn free of her human skin and returned to her natural one. You suppose you should be grateful that she’d held her form for as long as she had.  

It’s been a while since you last had the opportunity to socialise with your friends – looking after a baby while also working has been more than exhausting – but it feels good to actually have people to discuss your less than typical lifestyle with.  

“You’re such a beautiful girl,” The Witch coos at your baby, absolutely taken by the bundle of black scales snuggled up in your arms, “I bet you’re a very good girl, aren’t you?” In response, the baby offers an ear-splitting shriek loud enough to rattle the teacups on the table.  

You can’t help snorting at that, shaking your head despite the urge to wince when your ears continue to ring for several long moments. “I wouldn’t quite say that,” you admit, “I’m not sure if she’s more trouble when she has opposable thumbs or when she’s liable to burn the house down with a rogue sneeze.”  

The Witch gives a dramatic gasp, covering her mouth, “no! She’s just a little baby!” she protests, looking desperate to touch your baby despite the danger. Unfortunately for her, your little girl pays her no mind, continuing to chirp at you as if trying to contribute to the conversation.  

It’s still weird to look down at your own baby and see a winged reptile with three bobbing heads. Maybe one day you’ll get used to the strange life you’re now leading.  

[the-archangel]

Finally!

We've all waited for it to happen, for weeks and weeks we've hung on, finally it does and V is awestruck - and maybe Johnny is too. Also, it's accidentally exactly 1000 words long and still very little happens!

“It’s 4AM V, go the fuck back to sleep.”

V had been tossing and turning for hours, Johnny could sleep through that, but now he’s (albeit very quietly) talking to someone over the holo and that’s just a step too far.

“Gimme a minute,” the merc whispers softly to whoever is in the other end of the call, “Just fuck off if I’m disturbing your beauty sleep, no one asked you to lurk on the side of my bed.” he hisses to Johnny.

“Where else am I going to go in the middle of the night? Sides, I’ve been looking after your interests.” V looks at the Rockerboy quizzically. “The egg moves…”

V follows Johnny’s eyes over to the other side of the room, it was on the tip of his tongue to ask what new gonkery Johnny had dreamt up to stop him talking to Kerry when he saw it, the egg moved. “I’ll call you back.” he tells his new input and crawls over the bedding to sit next to his imaginary friend. “What’s it doing?” he asks in hushed tones.

“How the fuck should I know?” Johnny replies, “and why are we whispering?”

V shrugs, if he’s honest the stupid egg had been sat in that bowl for so long he’d presumed it was a lost cause, but there it was rattling around the ceramic and making a gentle tapping noise. “How long’s it been, y’know, moving?”

“Couple of hours. Few more and you’ll be living the high life.”

Johnny receives another confused look, “What?”

“Think of the eddies V, there’s idiots who’ll pay through the nose for an iguana.”

They sit staring a little while longer as the egg jumps and skitters around the bowl, “What’s an iguana?”

The exasperated look Johnny gives V is almost audible, “It’s a lizard,” he tells him surprisingly patiently, “mostly found in South America. Though where a low-rent merc like you found it I can’t imagine. Been looking at that thing for months wondering if it was ever going to do something.”

V goes over to the bowl crouching until it’s at eye level and looking with child-like wonder as a tiny crack appears in the shell. “Got it from Yorinobou’s suite at Konpeki Plaza, wasn’t even sure the lizard was real, it was just sitting there like some kind of weird statue. Thought the egg would make a preem souvenir… though it turns out I got more than one of them that day.”

Johnny nods, “Shoulda maybe stopped at the lizard.” He looks at the back of V’s head waiting for a reaction, receiving none he crouches down beside him joining the vigil. “Look, you can see it through the crack.”

Sure enough, movement can be seen through the growing crack, a tiny nibbling action working on expanding the hole and making an escape.

“I used to know a guy in the market in Japantown that traded in exotic shit like this, doubt he’s still there but someone over there’s bound to still do shady lizard related dealings.” V nods in a non-committal way, he’s mesmerised by the newly revealed pink nose poking through the gap with every nibble. “Ten thousand at least,” Johnny continues, “prolly more, if you’re lucky there’s a few gonks out there ready to get into a bidding war for a super-rare dude like this one.”

“Jackie would’ve really loved this,” V murmurs wistfully, “he’d be calling Misty over so they could sit and watch it together thinking of names and picking out tanks.”

“Yeah well, you’ve just got me. Call it Eddie and let someone else do the hard work.”

The two men continue to stare at the slowly dissolving egg, mesmerised by the emerging hatchling. When nothing appears to happen for several seconds the pair exchange worried looks, but the tiny animal is merely taking a breather from its hard work and soon resumes the destruction of its former home. More of its face is revealed, big eyes and bright green skin, a pink tongue helping it gulp down its first meal. V’s face softens, this may be the most magical thing he’s ever witnessed – apart from that one guy who miraculously came back to life after V’s blades cut his head off, but that was more a cyberware malfunction than an actual miracle.

“What do iguanas eat?”

“How the fuck should I know, bugs or some shit. It’ll do just fine in here.”

V considers giving Johnny a dark look for that crack, but he has a point; Nibbles is often noisily wrestling some sort of wildlife in the middle of the night.

“You’re not seriously thinking about keeping it? Think of the eddies!”

Both pair of eyes swing back to the tiny lizard drawn by the sound of the egg shell quietly falling to one side allowing the hatchling to push itself free and lay panting in the detritus. It’s intelligent eyes roam curiously around the room finally focusing on a surprised Johnny who lifts a finger to stroke it’s head. “It can see me!” He marvels as the creature preens under his touch.

“There’s a tank at Jackie’s place we could use,” muses V.

“Nah, this one’s a free spirit. Let it have the run of the place, it can share bug duties with your ugly cat.”

“The ugly cat you spend most of the day murmuring to whilst you’re both curled up on the couch?”

“Only cuz you’re such shit company. Look, it wants to get out of the bowl”

V gently lets the lizard skitter onto his hand and holds it up to look it over. Johnny leans in looking over V’s shoulder and the men have matching smiles as the hatchling’s tail wraps around V’s wrist. “I think I’m gonna call it Jack.” The brown eyes look straight into V’s and seem to approve.

“Yeah, that’s a good name, I’m just gonna, y’know keep an eye on it for while.”

“You do that Johnny.” Says V grinning.

[fandom-gt]

COMMISSION TYPE: Full Page + 2 Add-on

PRICE: $95 FANDOM: MCU

CHARACTERS: Peter Parker, Pepper Potts

REQUESTED SUMMARY: ”This would be the second half of the continuation for the Pepper/Peter Tiny Mints story.

Pepper continues to undress in front of Peter, giving him a very close look at her pantie-clad ass at one point when she bends over to grab her discarded clothes. He's soon returned to her mouth for more tasting as Pepper decides to unwind by playing with herself as well. Her tongue is much more rough on his face and crotch as her moans vibrate his entire body. This continues for a while until Pepper reaches her peak. Lying exhausted on her tongue, Peter begins to accept that this is his new life as she retrieves him and lowers him back into his container."

WARNINGS: Unaware, objectification, femdom, soft vore

——

If this were a movie, Peter thinks deliriously, this would be the part where the main character’s voice-over narration cut in with a pleasant, comedic, “So, you’re probably wondering how I got here…”

He can hardly believe what he’s seeing. It’s such a baffling turn of events, his mind’s having a hard time processing the fact that it’s all real. It’s one thing to be treated like a mint by your former patron-slash-secret-father-figure’s extremely attractive girlfriend-wife-assistant, it’s another to be standing at less than a quarter of an inch tall, staring up at her mountain-sized body as she begins to strip right in front of you.

Her shirt’s already on the floor, and the skirt doesn’t take long to follow. He’s standing statue-still, stunned in place at the edge of his little mint tin right around crotch-level with her, and so he gets a first-hand, direct view of her enormous hand settling along a zipper three times larger than him. He watches its bassy descent, the deafening volume of it as she drags it from closed to open, freeing a dozen yards of toned lower stomach as the clasps fall apart and the fabric gapes.

And then the entire ocean of fabric begins to droop, falling away and leaving behind bare stomach, bare thighs, and the most expensive black panties he’s ever seen in his entire life. They’re the kind you can just tell by looking at them they cost a fortune; the lace is intricate, the fit hugs her titanic hips perfectly, and they look silky even from the gap between himself and the edge of the desk where she stands.

He should run away. He knows he should run away, but he- can’t. It’s like some primal, lizard-brain fight-or-flight mode has been engaged, brought on by the sheer scale of the woman in front of him – or maybe it’s just that all the blood that should be operating his brain has involuntarily begun to run south. It’s not that he wants to sleep with Ms. Potts – not that she’s not attractive, she’s a very beautiful woman, it’s just not a thing he ever thought about before, but now… Now, every single barrier has been overridden. The force of her femininity, the oppressive presence of her body, it overwhelms his senses and he can’t even explain how completely subconscious it is. It’s like he’s- malfunctioning, like his brain’s short circuiting, like his higher processing is being overridden.

He can do little else but stare as her massive form begins to turn, the size of her sending a current of air to breeze through his hair just from the force of her body twisting in space. He watches the wide, toned expanse of her thigh revolve, until eventually he’s not staring at her front anymore, but the swell of her enormous ass. Which, yeah, obviously when someone turns around that’s what you see, it’s just… for whatever reason, the sight is just as staggeringly shocking as the rest of her, all over again.

If she sat down, she’d crush him, he thinks. Even with all his enhanced durability, even with his superior strength, the weight of her rounded cheeks peeking out from beneath the waistline of her underwear would be more than enough to flatten him. He watches on in awe as slowly, gracefully, Ms. Potts begins to bend over.

And, for one dreadful and disheartening beat, his stomach drops. He’s convinced that’s exactly what she means to do, to sit on him, and he lurches forward to grip his mint tin container’s edge, crying out an alarmed, “No- please, Ms. Potts-”

But she obviously can’t hear him. She can never hear him. And anyway, her hips don’t angle downward in his trajectory, thank god. He just gets a full view of her bent at the waist, her panties riding up between her legs as she scoops up her fallen skirt and shirt. He can just barely see through the gap in her thighs as she bundles up the clothing, tucking them against her chest for a moment, before rising up straight and moving to deposit them into a nearby hamper.

And then she settles down again before him, lowering mile by breathtaking mile, the magnitude of her attention levelled back at him as her enormous blue eyes find his tiny form down, down, down there on the desk. Her fingernails, intimately familiar to him by now, loom in to seize him in a steely, inextricable grip around his waist, and he feels the familiar sensation of being hoisted up.

For one alarmed, animalistically panicked second, he’s afraid of where she’s going to put him. What she’s going to do with him. She just stripped, does she intend to put him in either of those two newly revealed places? Her bra, her panties?

It’s strange to feel relief for once as she brings him to her mouth again. He never thought he’d associate comfort and familiarity with the parting of her dangerous, enormous lips, but after all this time… after weeks and weeks of it, at least he knows what he’s in for in there. For the most part, he knows what to look forward to. The same can’t be said about the confines of her bra or the other dark, wet, hungry space between her legs.

Ms. Potts opens her mouth, and the wet strands of her saliva clinging in webs from the roof to her tongue are like a welcome mat; welcome home, Peter, she missed you in here. Welcome back to the dreadful warm, wet heat and constant stimulation, welcome back to never knowing for sure whether or not you’re going to get swallowed by a woman you admired without her even realizing it’s you she’s been sucking on. Welcome home.

But home… home in Pepper’s mouth is a little different this time. There’s a different energy to her probing tongue, which seems to pin him to the roof of her mouth with a pointed, deliberate purpose this time. That low rumble from the back of her throat strikes up again, but it’s… louder now, a dangerous purr, a thready, breathy sound that washes over him, that vibrates his entire body.

Which, by the way, is a really weird thing to feel when combined with the way her wet, soft-firm tongue seems to keep finding his tiny crotch, the way the bumps of her taste buds keep gliding flatly over it, rough and smooth at the same time, constant friction, never-ending stimulation. He couldn’t help his stirring erection when looking up at her body, and now he can’t help the way he’s responding to it. The way the dread and the fear are mingling with the non-stop rubbing, the way he feels terrified and incredibly turned on at the same time.

He can’t know this from his perspective, but outside in the real world, Pepper has lazily settled herself back onto her bed. Propped up on her pillows, comfortably strewn out in the privacy of her own home, her hand wanders down beneath the obscenely expensive panties Tony bought for her once, a lifetime ago. They feel good in the places they touch, in the places they rub, gliding wetly over her folds beneath the new contours her hand creates as it strains the fit.

Slowly, she runs manicured fingers through her gathering wetness, drags it up to begin lazily circling her clit, all while playing with the little- thing in her mouth. The little person-shaped toy, that she can almost pretend is a real person just for the sake of her fantasies. She can imagine him in there, her little mouth mint, squirming around on top of her tongue, absolutely dominated by it. She plays into these fantasies by seeking out its shape, by looking for places to lathe while her circling fingers begin to pick up a quicker, feather-light rhythm.

Inside her mouth, Peter’s in a new kind of hell. It’s the kind where the giantess he’s trapped in has begun to moan, a tone so bassy and so deafening to his tiny form that he groans along with her for an entirely different reason.

Or, for a mostly different reason. It’s hard to claim it’s completely different, when Pepper’s tongue is relentless in its rough pursuit of his crotch, and he finds himself unable to refrain from thrusting into it, frustrated and reaching an intense peak. An itch he can’t scratch, because he has no control over the pace or the pressure or the setting; it’s entirely at the mercy of Pepper’s absent, distracted tongue. She’s not thinking about getting him off, she’s thinking only about herself, and the way she’s creeping closer and closer to her own climax.

“Please- please, Ms. Potts, I just- can I please just-” Peter begs, struggling to wrap his arms around the wide expanse of her tongue. His arm spread isn’t nearly wide enough, but he clings desperately to the shape of the muscle anyway in a desperate bid to rock his hips, to hold it steady, to find any kind of purchase so he can just- come.

Only, just before he’s about to finish, Pepper’s tongue slams him up roughly into the roof of her mouth, locks him unmovingly in place, her teeth set, every single muscle in her body including the ones that surround Peter go rigid.

And then a long, low, near-deafening whimper unlocks her throat, her tongue, softening them both with a suddenness that has Peter dropping a swift couple of feet, rolling down the steep backward grade, scrambling to get a handhold of any part of her tongue as her throat opens up deep and dark and ominous beneath him.

Pepper’s moaning her way through her orgasm, her mint forgotten, her lips parted and her head thrown back, fingers frantically working to chase the last shuddering vestiges of pleasure. All the while Peter hangs, clinging to her tongue – once his tormentor, now his savior, the only thing keeping him from plummeting down the back of her throat and being swallowed in these short, heated moments that he’s been forgotten and deprioritized.

Eventually, the tongue lowers. Eventually, the hot breath passing over him levels out again, and gravity shifts, and he’s no longer hanging over a pit, but rather collapsed stomach-down on the spongy bed that has been his only company for weeks. It’s over.

For now, anyway. The way Pepper’s fingers lazily enter her mouth and seek him out, the way she doesn’t even look at him as she lowers him back into his mint tin, tells him this probably isn’t the last time this is going to happen.

[fearsome-series]

BOOK ONE

Chapter One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nin

The creature and the wolfman were fighting.

The creature was an old friend to Laura - a companion when she was bored and in a car going through some place in the middle of nowhere with poor reception; sometimes a black dog, sometimes a blue fleshy dog-lizard thing, always fast, always a good distraction from the tree, tree, field, farm, cow, cow, field, tree, cow cycle of rural travel. Or at least he was; her mind’s eye was a bit too crowded now. A bit too concerned about the world and everything to fall for the old trick of rotating a monster in her mind.

The wolfman was new and snarling, paw raised, claws out, frozen in wood - a sculpture in someone’s front yard. The paw looked less like a threat and more like he was waving. Laura stared into its dark wooden eyes for a moment, as the imaginary car-running-creature that once kept her mind so occupied faded out into fuzz. When her parents started driving again, she waved back.

-------------------------------------------------

FEARSOME

#1: The Beast

Chapter One

She woke up when they got to the house - two stories, painted a so-very-respectable white, with a metal shed off in the backyard, towards the treeline - and somehow her feet took her up the front steps and through the clean kitchen and up the steps to her room, but she didn’t have any part in that, near as she could tell. Next she knew, she was upstairs.

Laura paced around her room for the weekend, the life drained from her bones. The hours of travel felt like years, felt like a whole lifetime passing by and whittling her away to just a skeleton and then, at last, skeleton dust. Bone dust. She sighed. This place sucked. It was too nice. No one lived here, but that no one wanted too hard for it to feel like someone lived there, you know? Laura looked out the little window, like a zoo animal looking out between the bars; but instead of seeing goofy faces goggling back at her, she saw all the sights of a rental home in the country: trees, grass, some tiny bird. Excitement. She flopped her messenger bag onto the bed and walked downstairs.

Her father, Chris, stood by the fridge, his face scrunched up as he considered the shelves inside, his thin mustache jumping to attention.

“Where’s mom?” Laura asked.

“In town,” Chris said.

“Which town?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “One of the good ones. You hungry?”

“Kinda.”

“Hi hungry, I’m...hungry too.” He waved at the empty fridge. “Ad said they’d leave it stocked for us. But it’s empty. Bit dirty, too. Heather’s getting a pizza and a few groceries.”

“So we’re, uh, swimming tomorrow, right?”

“We’re going to the lake, but we don’t have to swim if you don’t want to.”

“I know how to swim, dad.” She was nervous, largely on account of being trans at a beach out of the city, and…no, mainly on that account.

“I know you know, but I don’t know if you don’t want to.”

“Uh…”

“We aren’t gonna make you swim.”

“Thanks, but I’m going to try. ‘cause why not try?”

“Laur, you don’t have to try things just to try things. There’s lots of things you shouldn’t try.”

“Yeah, but. Life is short and all that.”

“Laur, you’re fifteen.”

“So I should try things when I’m young and dumb enough to do them.”

“Laur, if all your friends were going to do a daring daredevil jump over the Grand Canyon, would you do it?”

“Yeah? That sounds really cool.”

“It does, yeah. But you don’t have to try things that won’t make your friends think you’re fun and cool.”

“But I should do things that make them think I’m fun and cool.”

“Depends on the thing.”

“Pretending to like bands.”

“Never.”

“Big complicated heists at, like, a Vegas casino.”

“Not ‘til after college.”

“Swimming.”

“Only if you want to.”

“And I…and I think I want to. I want to. I want to go swimming tomorrow,” Laura said.

-------------------------------------------------

Dinner was a stuffed deep dish pizza from somewhere called Rosati’s; veggie, as always (though when it came to pizzas without meat, her favorite was the mac-and-cheese pizza at this one place back home) – Laura picked off some of the green peppers before biting in.

“...so we’ll leave for the beach around 10 tomorrow,” her mom, Heather, said.

“Last weekend of the season,” dad added.

Heather carefully wiped off her greasy hands on a napkin. “Laura, was there anything you wanted to do this weekend?”

She dropped a chunk of pepper. “I...oh. Uh, I don’t really know what’s around here. We could like, go out in the woods or something.”

“I’m not sure we can go back there,” mom said. “But we could go hiking at Big Foot Beach.”

“Yeah. Better than the woods anyway,” dad added.

“You want me to get back to nature, though,” Laura said.

“Nature can be pretty ugly, y’know. Lots of ticks.”

“How do you know there’s not ticks in here? And mosquitoes and, like, spiders.”

“Spiders are good, Laur. They eat all the ticks.”

“Oh, I just remembered, on Sunday we were going to Big Foot Beach, weren’t we?” Mom said.

“Think so.”

“Tomorrow afternoon we have that boat tour, and we’ll have dinner somewhere local…”

“Weren’t we going to that place by the lake? Popeye’s?”

“That was for lunch.”

“The…chicken store?” Laura asked.

“No, they have their own Popeye’s. It’s by the lake.”

“And they don’t have chicken.”

“No. Though now that I think about it, are they vegetarian? Looked like a bunch of fish.”

“We can eat fish, we’re on vacation,” mom said.

“No vacation for the fish.”

“Fish aren’t…”

“Animals?”

“They’re…”

“...down there in the water and when we bring them up into the sun they don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know who’s plucking them out of the world. A chicken at least stares their murderer in the eye first.”

Mom laughed. “How big is this chicken?”

“Yeah, cool,” Laura tore off a piece of her pizza and tossed it in her mouth. In her pocket, her phone buzzed. “Uh...I have to run to the bathroom, be right back.”

She hurried up there. Closed the door. Checked what her friend said…

PUZZLE KEY CHALLENGE: DOUBLE GEM HOUR STARTS NOW!

She sighed. Went back downstairs.

In the living room, their dog, Laika, a Newfoundland, was looking out the window, having taken over the sofa here like she always did at home. “What are you looking at?” The dog looked back at her. Tilted her head. “I don’t speak dog. I don’t know what look and tilt means.” She crawled onto the sofa. Looked out the window. Nothing, but -

Laika barked. Right by her right ear. “Laika!” She jumped off, ducked into the dining room. “Hey, Laika seems kinda…” Kinda...kinda...kinda…

“Restless?” Her dad suggested.

“Yeah! I was thinking I could take her outside.”

“Okay, but be back in before it gets dark. And don’t go into the trees.”

“What if she really wants to go into the trees and she’s too strong for me and she takes me along with her? Into the trees?”

“Well, just try not to let the trees claim you, y’know? Put in a good effort.”

“Thanks,” she said, rushing to grab Laika’s leash and step outside.

It was quiet. Laura normally walked Laika in the city, so walking her when there was nothing around was...weird. It was weird. Laika tugged towards the backyard, and Laura spun around and followed her. Back there, there was only a shed (locked with a padlock), grass, and...the trees. It was sunset, and the shed was bathed in the evening rays of orange, the last little fragment of the day before the coming of night.

“Don’t take me beyond the trees. Something’s gonna happen if I go beyond the trees.”

Laika sat down in the grass. Fixed her gaze on the treeline.

“Do you see anything? Anything? Do you see a tick? Do you see a tick crawling up my leg? Do you see a tick crawling up my leg and biting me and giving me Lyme Disease? Do you?”

Laika barked.

“Is there...a dog or something? Big dog, small dog?”

Bark, bark, BARK.

And Laika turned around and tugged back towards the house; Laura seized the leash with her other hand and held on tight as she raced back up the stairs. “Laika! You aren’t even going to pee?”

Laika scratched at the door; Laura freed up one hand and opened it. The dog raced back inside; Laura staggered back to the dining room, picked off some more green pepper chunks, and ate some more pizza.

-------------------------------------------------

Bottom left, bottom right, top left, top right. Dark.

Top right. Light.

Behind the shed. Watch. Watch the light.

-------------------------------------------------

Laura ran her hands down her face. Groaned a bit. Still couldn’t sleep. She grabbed her phone off the stack of things she’d left on the floor; she opened her texts. Considered sending a message to Manuel (last message 5:41 PM, Friday) or Summer (last message 7:22 PM, Thursday). Checked the time. 1:04 AM. Yikes. Then she saw the battery. 12%. Forgot to charge it again. Before she forgot, again, she quickly put it on the charger on the one free outlet across the room

She sighed. Rifled through the closet. There were some magazines stacked on a box. Vogue, The Atlantic, The Economist. Boring bullshit. Buried underneath them all, she found a magazine called Fangoria with a vampire lady on the front. BARBARA CRAMPTON BRINGS JAKOB’S WIFE TO BLOODY LIFE.

She paged through it. Past photos of a cyclopean alien with exposed brains and a vampire woman with two long front fangs and a bloody face. And…

She set the magazine down. She’d left the blinds open. She’d left the blinds open and she left the window open. Okay, it was the second floor, who cares? But for one second, she thought she heard...something. Something like...a dog. A growl. Laika?

She got up. Looked out the window.

Nothing but some trees.

Alright, stop scaring yourself and get to sleep, she thought. She tossed aside the magazine, and thirty seconds later, was lights out.

-------------------------------------------------

“You okay down there?”

“Yes, dad,” said Laura, not okay; it was a sunny late summer day, one of the last good days of the season dontcha know, and all around Laura people were going for a swim, going out on boats, playing in the sand. The beach wasn’t that big, and had trees on one side; at the far end was a large brown building with a reddish tile roof.

“We’ll be right back, Laur,” mom said, “stay right here, okay?”

“Okay? Okay. Yeah.”

Good for them, she thought, but she was stuck sitting on this little blanket on the sand and looking at everyone else having a good time around her. Once her parents were gone, she picked up her phone. 

Navigated her contacts.

DAD

MANUEL

MOM

SUMMER

SUMMER’S GF

Are you on the beach yet? :)

          SO BORED

So you are at the beach then

          Did anything happen here

          Anything

          You know every dark secret of every town here

          Are there any here

Well Dungeons & Dragons was invented there

          That’s not a dark secret

It was if you were one of those people convinced the devil invented it in the 80s

          But I mean a dark dark secret

          A unsolved murder

          Cultic rites

          Idk people going missing

Gangsters used to go there in the 1920s!

Baby Face Nelson was seen there the day he died

          Wow

          He died here?

Oh no, he was seen there. He died later on in Illinois

          So you’ve got nothing

Nope :( Sorry

          Don’t be

          What are YOU up to

          Hanging out with Cameron

I actually haven’t heard from him in a few days.

          With Emily

We don't hang out outside school and she is with Alice anyway

           Is Alice that like

           Country chick with the jacket

           Who was weird to me

           outside of queer club once

           Why the hell do they hang out???

I don't get it either

I'm up to nothing! I am just inside today

It does seem nice out but I do not know if it’s the type of warm that feels uncomfortable

           100% is

           Stay inside

           Save yourself!

Her parents still weren’t back. She looked around. Looked for anyone who was looking at her. They all would, wouldn’t they? Snooty people from the suburbs and wherever the hell else, they didn’t want her on the beach. She could almost see them - that lounging woman, shooting a glare up from her book, the two boys making a sand castle pointing, laughing…

She quickly texted Summer.

          Do you ever go swimming

Yeah?

          In public

Hell no

          My parents took me to a beach 😭

          Since it’s ‘the last day of the season’

          “You can swim” YEAH AND NO

Did you tell em you won’t

          No?

See that’s like

The first thing you do

Is tell them how you feel

          Why do I have to TELL people things

          Can’t they just figure it out

          Piece together the vibes

They can’t like

Smell your damn emotions

You’ve gotta use your words

          No

“Laura?”

Heather and Christian circled around a woman on a blanket reading a James Patterson book; Christian knelt down on the blanket and looked her over.

“You don’t wanna go out on the lake, huh?”

“...not really,” she said. “I don’t…I don’t feel comfortable swimming. Or, like, being around everyone, you know?”

“Alright, kid,” Chris said. “How about we go for a walk along the shore?”

They picked up the blanket and walked off.

-------------------------------------------------

Laura hadn’t been to the group before, not in freshman year, but she decided to check out the first one of this year because…why not? Manuel was trans, and so was Summer, and Summer’s girlfriend…Claire?...was gay, so maybe they’d go with her.

They did not, and Laura spent the group kinda just sitting there, not saying much, though a lot of people were there and not saying much. Some of the people in her school’s queer group had more problems, after all, like not being supported at home instead of just not being supported by society as a whole. Laura said her name, her pronouns, then kinda…looked at people, ‘til the group ended.

Outside of the LGBT group, in the hallway up front by the doors and first cafeteria, the one with the big windows looking out, and knowing her dad wouldn’t be by for a while, she picked out someone to shuffle up and say hi to: someone with short-cut green hair and a old, dark blue Air Force jacket covered in buttons, about which she knew, uh, that they were Steph, they/them.

“Hi…?” Laura said.

“Uh, hi,” Steph said, sliding their phone in their jacket’s pockets. “You’re…”

“Laura.”

“Laura.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Alice asked, walking down the stairs; she was tall and lanky, white with tanned skin and scuffed boots, a red jacket, light brown hair with neatly-trimmed bangs and a cross necklace bouncing around her neck.

“Why do you care?” Steph replied.

“You can’t be around them!” Alice pointed at Laura. “Stop thinking you can.”

“I can be around whoever I want.”

“Well, you can do what you like, but you have to know you can’t change what you are. Or…can’t change when the time will come!”

“What, like, the Rapture or something?” Laura laughed. “Hey, Alice, you should-”

“No! I mean - Steph, you know what I mean.”

“Gotta go, Lyra,” Steph said. “Maybe I’ll see you next time.”

“Yeah. It’s…it’s Laura…” Laura said, watching them leave. “Oh, and uh, how about you…how about you…” She couldn’t remember the comeback she thought up late. Nice.

-------------------------------------------------

Wind howled, tree branches raking the roof like shrill claws. Laura wasn’t listening too closely: for she was engaged in a higher task - finding a spot where she could use her phone. It’d been fine earlier, but right after she got back, the signal died.

Sitting on her chair, no. Standing on it, no. Bed, no. Desk, no. Sitting on the desk and leaning back over the perilous void?

One bar.

She frantically texted her friends.

          SO BORED, WTF DO I DO

Manuel replied immediately.

What’s going on? Are you still at the beach? Is Laika being good??? Pet her for me!

Laura texted back. Sent. Couldn’t send. No service. Fine! She pounded the desk in rage, leaned back more. Waved her phone in search of even one -

Tumbled into the abyss. Oof. Her phone bounced off the floorboards next to her. She snatched it up cleanly...a second after it hit a second time and came to a halt. No damage. No bars, but no damage.

“You okay in there?” Her father called out from the doorway.

“No, I’m dead.” She kept lying in the space between the desk and chair.

“Ahuh. Doing a lot of breathing for a dead woman.”

“That can happen sometimes.” For lack of any other ideas, Laura just laid there a while.

“Well, at least you’re having fun. D’you want a book?”

“I guess.”

“I’d like to find a book too. I didn’t bring any and the guy who owns the place must’ve bought all the books for show.”

“They’re fake?”

“No, just boring. Unless you want to read a buncha car repair manuals and a…” He held up a thick tome. “...complete history of concrete.”

“No?”

“Ahuh.” Her dad walked back to the main room. As the door swung shut, she heard barks and radio static filtering from downstairs. Might as well join them, Laura thought, reluctantly coming to life.

-------------------------------------------------

A scratchy classical track ended, and then -

“Is it for your…?” Mom asked; dad shushed.

“This Sunday on All That We Know,” said the woman who announced the show dad produced, “we talk with…”

“Someone not sad?” Laura whispered.

“...an embedded reporter about war crimes in Ukraine. Also, a team who believed they had the cure for cancer - before it all came crashing down. This Sunday on All That We Know, from NPR and Wisconsin Public Radio.”

“Dad,” Laura asked. “Do you ever have any not-depressing news on your show?”

“Laur, there hasn’t been any not-depressing news since Clinton was President. You know that.”

“Yeah…but also…”

“You used to interview tech people a lot,” mom said.

“Yeah. Guys who had the solution to all the world’s problems.”

“Wasn’t the solution always cryptocurrency?”

“Nope, sometimes it was NFTs or the metaverse.”

Heather switched off the radio. Laura glanced around the home: Chris was focusing intently on a book with no jacket, Heather was just generally pacing, and Laika was being her usual lazy self on the floor.

Laura knelt by the dog and pet her head. “That’s from Manuel.”

Laika pressed on with her aimless flopping.

Laura sat crisscross on a table. Uncomfortable, but she knew she could text here; she shot one to Summer. 

Bored.

          KINDA DISTRACTED SORRY

WITH WHAT?

          I’M UH PLAYING VIDEO GAMES

YOU PUT THE UH IN A TEXT

NO ONE DOES THAT

WHY ARE WE IN CAPS ANYWAY

          I’M PLAYING ELDER RING

          THE DAMN

          SLEAZE TROLL SHOWED UP WHEN I CROSSED THE NETHER FJORD

          OR WHATEVER TF

          OKAY LATER BYE!!!

ELDEN

IT’S ELDEN

No reply.

Shit.

“How is there no service here? There was before we left.” Laura asked.

“Someone breathed on the tower funny,” Chris replied.

“Maybe it’s a good thing,” Heather said. “For us to disconnect, get away from the screens. Don’t you think so?”

Laura noticed her dad’s book. “You found a book.”

“Yep, it’s great, this page I’ve been on for the last five minutes is really interesting.”

Heather looked at its nameless cover. “What’s it about?”

Chris looked up from his book and scowled. “...I don’t remember.”

Laika barked. Laura jumped.

“Think she’s bored?” Chris asked no one.

“Can I take her for a walk?” Laura asked.

“I heard there’s going to be a storm in an hour.” Heather said.

“What dog walk takes an hour? Laika doesn’t even chase squirrels. Or bears, or wolves.”

“Don’t have to worry about bears or wolves down here,” Christian said.

“If you want to walk her, alright, but stay close,” Heather answered.

“Where would we go? We’ll be fine, mom.”

-------------------------------------------------

“Do you think I could take a bear?”

Laika barked.

“You just have to make yourself look big, right? ...you’re probably bigger than I am. God.”

Laika growled gently.

“I should’ve told mom and dad I wasn’t up for swimming. Like, before they booked a lake house. …twenty minutes from the lake. But I don’t want to do nothing ‘cause I’m afraid of doing it because of being trans, y’know? …no you don’t, you’re a dog. You don’t have genders. Or do you have dog gender? What are those -”

Laika tugged forcefully on the leash.

Laura finally broke from her rambling and realized that she was surrounded by trees; she looked over her shoulder and could see the home well obscured by branches.

“Laikaaaa! Laika! Stop dragging me into the woods. Stop dragging me into the woods! I know I wanted to go, but now I don’t want to go!”

Laika stared at Laura, tilted her head, and yanked Laura forward again, barking.

“Keep me away from bears, okay? Wait, there are no bears.Don’t go near people. Def people.”

Laika led Laura through a thick bramble of branches - Laika stepping confidently, Laura contorting her way through. The trees seemed too thick; like, on the ride over it was mostly farmland and fields, not these dense forests. It confused Laura, but she only became more confused when they rounded past a big, old, gnarled tree and its thick skeleton of roots into a clearing.

In it was a house - like one of those old Victorian things she’d seen on a school trip to the Mississippi, back from when three stories was a mansion. The fence had broken into rotten chunks of wood, and the path was overgrown with weeds and grass, with only an occasional fragment of stone showing from between the green.

“Uh, I said keep me away from people.”

Laura spun around and tugged on Laika’s leash, but the dog wouldn’t budge, and Laura gave up and let herself be walked right into the house.

The entry area and living room were long stripped of anything useful or decorative, and now it was just full of peeled wallpaper and beer cans Laika pushed through like she was cutting through ice. Graffiti and dust, cans and cigarette stubs. The remains of parties past -

She tripped. Laura glanced down. A crusty boom box, with a cassette whose faded label said TOM’S MIXTAPE 1 - 14 - ‘89. The remains of parties long past.

“Laika, why are you trying to give me tet...tetno...tinnitus?”

She stepped over a discarded bag and to a half-open door. A door with slash marks. A door with slash marks cutting all the way through. Laika nosed it open.

“Laika!” Laura tugged on her leash again. “Laika, back! Now!”

The door swung open.

“What?”

-------------------------------------------------

An altar stood before a stone pillar. Carved faces: a woman, a man with the sun behind his head, a man with the moon, and a man whose face was split in four. She looked at the altar: spent candles and dead purple flowers, and a scroll. Laura picked it up - you’re gonna get diseases, she cursed to herself - and while she didn’t know much about any language but English, she knew enough to know this was no language she’d ever seen.

Laura threw it down. Tugged on Laika’s leash with all the strength she could manage. “Out! Out!” She pushed her feet towards the door. “Out!”

Laika barked, and Laura heard a growl in the house outside. Now Laika pushed, pushed with more strength than she could ever imagine possessing, pushed at the edge of escape, and Laura pulled, tried to pull the enormous dog away, tried to -

Laika ran off into the party room, barking. Something growled back. Laura didn’t know what to do. She sprinted out of the room, slammed the door behind her. A growl. Footsteps. Laura’s own feet raced away from the noise - down the hall to a kitchen, with shattered plates and flies buzzing over unknown trash, and found a window. Tried to open it, footsteps in the hall, felt it lift off the frame, pushed it up, a blast of cool air, she jumped, crawled through, into -

She hit the ground. Jumped to her feet. Ran into the woods until she couldn’t see the house anymore. It was night and Laika was gone. It was dark and Laura was lost and she was all alone.

Laura slowed down, carefully stepped over roots and fallen branches, using her phone to illuminate the way. All it was good for out here. The only other light was what light of the moon shone through the canopy of dark branches.The canopy that was way too thick.

She listened for Laika, but did not call for her. Not this far out, not alone. She heard barks sometimes, but from different angles. Other than that? Dead quiet. No bugs, no snapping twigs, just…quiet.

Laura caught her breath against an old white ash. Huff, huff, huff. She slunk down to the dirt. Oh, God, she thought. I’m lost. I’m actually lost.

She picked up her phone again, and it's pale beam of light swept over a hole in the dirt. Laura swung it back. Under the tree was a paw print. Not a bear, or a wolf’s. Bigger. Laura placed her hand in the depression - it barely filled half of it. Four clawed toes, long, but oddly familiar.

-------------------------------------------------

Through the trees, Laura could now see distant lights: cars and trucks from some nearby highway. Laura wanted to run for it. Run for the road and for anyone and call out for help.

Buzz.

Her phone! Someone was calling her! She pulled it up. Mom.

“Laura, where are you!?”

“Mom! I-”

Low battery. Disconnected. Before it died, she saw her missed calls: mom, dad, unknown?

“Shit. Shit. Shit…” Black. Everything dark but the moon and a flurry of far-away vehicles. She stomped the earth. “Shit!”

Grrrrrurrrrr. A low growl. The same low growl. She knew a bear - were there bears? - is more afraid of you than you are of them. Not possible, she thought, but maybe it’ll get bored.

Stay. Still. Don’t move. Don’t shake. Don’t run. Still, still, stillllll -

Nothing.

She ran. Ran for the lights between the trees. Came to a wide open farmer’s field. Pushed her way through rows of swaying corn stalks.

Soon she could make out a shape ahead of her, between the stalks. A man’s shape. She wanted to run over and say ‘help me’. She wanted to hide behind a tree, wanted to run away, to scream, to do nothing. A man alone in the middle of nowhere was scarier than any bear. She weighed her fear, her exhaustion.

Exhaustion won. She followed the man.

“I’m lost, uh, hey, can you -”

The man turned around, revealing a face. A horrible, horrible face, a face that seemed wrong. Pointed, human, too-human and inhuman and crisscrossed with scars and dark grey hairs, staring with narrow yellow eyes, its jaw opened, teeth, sharp teeth shining in the moonlight -

Grrrrurrrrr!

“What the hell!?” Laura leapt back, turned, started to run.

She charged through the corn, stumbled over clumps of dirt, was cut by leaves. Growls became a roar, and forceful swipes snapped stalks into pieces. Closer and closer, louder and louder -

Something powerful tried to grab her leg. She slipped free, but fell forward. Hit the ground hard. Pain cascaded through her side. Her legs screamed, refused to lift again, streaked with red.

No one will even know, she thought. They’ll take weeks to find her. Months, years, never. Mom and dad and Manuel and Summer will never know.

Laura closed her eyes tight. No more steps, no snapping stalks, no growls. But she knew it was over her. Thinking. The night was still, drained of all life. It was worse than the noise.

A bark. The creature howled back into the darkness, and Laura felt sharp teeth sink into her shoulder, and a deeper darkness descended.

[moonjellywitch]

hi my question is what will my first year of university be like? i started a few days ago and im honestly so overwhelmed and i feel like making friends is so hard and that i will really have a hard time getting used to all this.. i’m wondering if it will get better soon 😭😭 thank u i am pp

Hi!! Oh goodness, first year of university is always so overwhelming. I’m going into my third year now, and trust me, when I say I get it, I mean it.

I pulled the Eight of Cups reversed for you. I have a feeling that university is overwhelming you to the point you’re considering leaving it all together. Eight of Cups reversed is that classic sign that you’re confused, lost, and having a good ol’ “what the fuck do I do?” moment. Take a moment to believe in yourself.

You have this in the bag. University is overwhelming at first, and making friends feels like such a struggle. It feels like punching walls that won’t move and yelling into the void for a response. But, stay true to yourself. Know that you deserve to have friends. You deserve to have the college life of your dreams, and only you can make that happen. Don’t be afraid to get out there and talk to people. Have courage! This may feel like fighting a giant dragon right now, but in reality it’s the shadow of the teeny tiny lizard that makes it seem like a dragon. You are worthy enough! You just need to prove that you’re worthy enough to yourself. The cards are telling you to take that step, boo.

My personal advice is to join a club or try going to student events! I ironically met a ton of my friends through putting a dumb flyer about my special interest around campus and through EDM events.

You can do it! I believe in you!!

[echoesfromtheabyss]

Well, wasp nest at the entrance doorway is taken care of.  

Aaaaand I feel all kinds of messed up now.  

Since this is mostly a way of me to just put this out for later notation, I’m putting a keep reading line.  Oversharing on some of my traumas.

Ok, so I did my research.  Apparently the best thing is gasoline [not available to me] or water and dish soap.  Saw multiple videos of people cupping a nest in a glass [it was tiny] and just hold it there until the wasps are dead then nip the nest into it and you’re done.  

Yeah... um... the wasp died slow.  I mean -slow-.  This was one of them, I suspect the queen, whom I’ve been seeing for over a month now.  I tried repelling them, I tried giving them time to realize it is not a good spot as there is a lot of large animal traffic [ie. me, my wife, dogs, etc].  

But no, nest must be made.  So she kept going.  So now I must act.  

So after watching this poor was drown to death in the slowest manner ever [magnified by the glass and water], another wasp crawls out of the nest and... yup... I have to watch that one die in the slowest way possible.  

I stood there, holding the glass in place, knowing if I pulled or faltered it would for sure mean stings.  So... watch the damn creatures expire in ultra HD magnification.  

Now for the part that fucks me up:  I am a sadist.  I have struggled with my personal image as I consider myself a monster and always on the line of deplorable for the things that cross my mind on a regular basis.  

But I’m sick right now with a really bad flu, so ... it makes me mushy in the brain.  So for some reason my brain is imagining this elaborate story about how I bonded with this damn wasp queen and now I’m killing her in the slowest way imaginable while staring right at her [and she stares at me through the glass].  So betrayed.  

I guess that’s more a different trauma kicking in now that I write it out.  In my weird magical/religious project when I was 20 I literally forced myself to betray every single person I loved.  Just leave and twist the knife emotionally as hard as I could while I left.  For no reason other than a dark personal “”””growth”””” [I spent months after that where I would wake up and cry my lungs out for hours]. 

So for some reason my flu-mushed brain is associating that event in my life with me killing a dangerous pest.  

Like ffs I used to stun grasshoppers and throw them into agitated ant nests to watch them get torn to pieces alive.  Then I escalated to lizards.  It was this odd rush of doing something I knew was horrible.  My hands would tremble, my heart would race in my chest like it was going to break my ribs.  

Something happened to me.  My grandmother’s little worms in my brain.  My innocence was not mine to keep.  My life was someone else’s.   Or maybe that’s just a coping mechanism, an excuse, I built to compensate for the selective amnesia of what she did to me?   I kind of wish I knew what happened then.   Was it her touch that twisted me?  I know her influence did twist me.  She raised me to be her loyal attack dog.  She did so poorly, of course, as I detested her with every fiber of my flesh.  

Idk, overthinking it.

[elyonproject]

PART 1: Wonder & Awe

Written by: Derrick Ellis

Recently I was spending some time with my girlfriend and her children, and her 4 year old daughter who has one of the best imaginations I’ve ever witnessed in a child, had this teeny tiny toy lizard that she was beyond excited to show me. Together we gave him the very appropriate name “Mr. Lizard” but the name MUST be said in a very specific and very silly way as per her request. So now every time that I see her or speak to her mom on the phone she comes bursting into the room, eyes as wide as they can get, to loudly proclaim “MISTERRRR LIZURRRDDD” is here! Over and over again laughing as hysterically as if it's the first time she’s heard it or said it. In her eyes you can just see all of the gears in her mind moving as she thinks about all of the silly and wondrous possibilities that “MISTERRRRR LIZURRRDDD” has to offer her. It’s as if she holds in her hand a key to a doorway to a whole new world of all kinds of new possibilities and potential…all of it…because she has “MISTERRRRR LIZURRRRRD”!

There is this primal sense of wonder and awe in the face of a child when they’re fully absorbed in the moment. They’re thrilled with this sense of anticipation… *Just what kinds of experiences are right around the corner?* It is something to behold…this pure…unbridled joy..

Life… has a way of beating that wonder and awe out of us doesn’t it? You get betrayed. You pour time, and energy, and money into something..and then it blows up in your face, it doesn’t go the way you thought it was supposed to. Or you lose something… or you lose someone…

It’s as if there’s this ever so thin layer of hardness that begins to build around your heart. Then you’re burned again and it’s like that layer gets a little harder and a little thicker.

So you roll your eyes more frequently. You’re a bit more cynical, a bit more jaded, a bit more skeptical. You pull back, you retreat. Like “why would I stick my neck out if I’m going to get shot at like that again?” And so ever so gradually with your arms folded over your chest you begin to become one… more… spectator…

I don’t believe that this is what God intends for us. As it’s written in the Psalms… “Taste and see that God is good.” Taste..is about the full engagement of our senses. Taste.. is about our belief that there’s way more going on here than we first realized. Taste… is about our flesh and blood encounters with the divine… and people, places, and events. Taste… is about your awareness that God is as close and near as your breath.

Jesus invites us to this taste. To experience the new thing that God is doing in the world. And he says that to experience this you must “come like a child”.

Now there’s a distinction to be made here. Childlike is much different than childish.

Childish, is essentially a posture of the heart. It is a hardness, it is a refusal, it is the resistance of that which isn’t thoroughly familiar. Childish, is the stomping of the foot, the crossing of the arms, the cynical and jaded “there’s nothing new here”...

But Childlike… is the way in which you are open to the wonder and awe that is around us, every single moment… of every single day…

There is a great deal of misunderstanding, especially in religious and faith communities about the very nature of this “taste”. And there are, in these days, all sorts of very strange, ongoing heated discussions and debates about trying to get the words right. As if Jesus’s highest intention for us is that we would have correct doctrinal thinking. If that’s the case then Jesus would have said “Blessed are those who are more right than everybody else.”

It’s one thing to talk about it. It’s another thing… to taste.

It’s one thing to be right. It’s another thing… to be overwhelmed.

I actually think this is why you hear so many people using this cliche, which is such a cliche that it’s become so very true for so many people when they say “I am spiritual… but not religious.” I think essentially what people are saying is that the very institutions that were supposed to cultivate and nurture this wide eyed sense of wonder about life in God’s good world, have failed at some very profound and fundamental level. Essentially becoming so caught up and so deeply deeply obsessed with defending, and analyzing, and holding everything up to this predetermined set of criteria, that they, at some deep deep level, lost the ability to be surprised… to be filled with wonder and awe…

It’s interesting that when Jesus talks about what we consider to be criteria, or results, or proof or whatever you want to call it… what Jesus says is that his followers, his people, the ones that are open to the new thing that God is doing in the world, the ones that said yes to him and trust him, he says “you’ll know them by their fruit.” and fruit comes because you have first tasted… you have tasted of God’s love, joy, peace, and grace… and it completely transforms you from the inside out, into a new kind of person. This is the kind of fruit that Jesus speaks of. Perhaps this is why when he speaks to his disciples he says those two words to them.. He says.. “Follow Me…”

It’s as if he’s calling each of us to return to that childlike sense of wonder, awe, and anticipation. He reaches deep down there through all of those layers of hardness into our heart and says… “Follow Me…”

He calls us and confronts us with this invitation to leave behind all of the reasons we have to be jaded, and bitter, and cynical… because let’s be honest… what you look for, you will find in this world. He calls us to leave behind all of our reasons for folding our arms over our chest and becoming one more spectator. He says… “come… follow me, move beyond all of that.” We all want to be successful… but what we really want… is joy… and peace… wonder… and awe… That is our REAL desire.

Jesus invites us to an experience, to a taste of the full, vibrant, dynamic, beautiful, electric life of God. Which he insists is available to every single one of us, right here, right now.

So my hope is that you may rediscover this childlike sense of discovery and anticipation, That you may be open to the new thing that God is doing right here, right now. And that you may be wide eyed and filled with wonder…and awe…

[jedipoodoo]

Get This Right (Hunter x Pregnant!Reader)

Word Count: 1090

Warnings: None

Notes: This has been in my brain all day and I'm writing this as I f a l l a s l e e p so I may not be the happiest with it in the morning. I was just tired of the Hunter tag not updating. You know what they say, be the change you want to see in the world.

PART ONE | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Hunter had to know something was up. He could read you like a book.

There was hardly a time or place to talk about it, being tossed from mission to mission by Cid and unable to find space or privacy above the ship in their precious downtime. Something always needed attention, from the budget, to repairs, to training Omega, to Wrecker’s affinity for Mantell Mix, the two of you barely had time to fall into bed before you collapsed from Exhaustion

It wasn’t until Cid announced drinks on her in honor of your latest success that the two of you were able to catch up.

“Count me out. I’ve got some research I’ve been working on,” You nodded to Echo, and ducked back inside the Marauder before settling in front of the navicomputer. You could hear Hunter on the ramp.

“Take Omega with you?” He asked Echo. Echo must have grunted an affirmative, because Omega cheered and her tiny boots pattered on the dust of the hangar as she ran after Tech and Wrecker.

Soon enough, you felt Hunter’s arms around you, pinning you to the back of the chair as he leaned around to kiss your cheek.

“How are you, love?” He asked.

“Exhausted,” You entered your query before reaching up to thread your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“You?”

“Better, now that I’m with you.” His hand slid down your shoulder to your hand as he collapsed into the other chair in front of the console.

“What’re you looking at?” He asked, glancing at the screens.

You bit your lip nervously. “Do you remember Idaflor?”

“Idaflor?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Was that with the lizard that stole our power coupling?”

“Just before,” You giggled, manipulating the image onscreen to show the details of the planet. It was semi-arid, mostly uninhabited with the exception of several farming communities.

“We didn’t actually go there, just talked about it. But that was-”

“Just before Pantora, when we ran into Shand for the first time,” Hunter leaned forward.

You nodded. “I know why we didn’t head there afterward, but I was just curious, as to what it might be like there.”

Hunter glanced at the holo of a farmer showing off his hard-earned produce, “You interested in a farmer’s life?”

You failed to hide a snort, “Well, the image of you in overalls and a straw hat is tempting.”

“Is it now?” His chest puffed out as he folded his arms and smirked at you.

You flipped through several more holos to show him. “Tech would have a field day developing irrigation systems, and Wrecker would love raising farm animals. Omega could run around without worrying about getting into trouble, and Echo wouldn’t have to worry about hiding his prosthetics.”

Hunter gazed at you, his eyes soft, “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” You admitted sheepishly. It was now or never, you had to tell him.

“It just seems like a nice place to raise a family.”

Hunter nodded, and his eyes flicked back to the screen for a moment.

Then he paused.

He turned you to face him, staring deep into your eyes.

You breathed deeply. Did he get it? Did he understand?

Hunter stared at you for a moment longer. Looking, listening. Slowly, what had seemed so off about you for the past few weeks clicked into place for him.

“You’re pregnant?”

You had talked about children before, back when the war raged around you and the idea of peace and settling down seemed so far away.

It still did, you realized. Even with the confirmation from the medical droid and the instinct you felt deep in your soul. How could you bring a child into this world? The world where a tyrannical Empire reigned in terror over innocent minorities and you, your husband, and his vode were dragged all over the galaxy to make even the slightest scrap of credits. That wasn’t the kind of life a child deserved.

But hearing Hunter say it made it sound so much more real.

You nodded.

“I’m pregnant.”

Hunter took a deep breath as you confirmed the truth. He gently took your face in his hands, pressing your foreheads together.

“You’re scared,” He whispered as you trembled beneath his touch.

“Terrified,” you gulped. “You?”

“Terrified,” He agreed. His forehead was still pressed against yours, a soothing, steady presence as you forced your heartbeat to calm.

“What are we gonna do?” You asked, timid and quiet.

“First question, do you want the baby?” Hunter asked, he backed away only a bit, just enough that he could meet your eyes again.

“Yes,” You told him, “More than anything.”

He nodded. You knew him well enough to know his answer to the same question. You could see it in every question Omega asked, in every energetic shove from Wrecker, in quiet nights with his head resting on your lap while Echo and Tech talked nonsense.

“Then this is a happy moment,” He murmured, his thumb coming up to wipe away the single tear that trickled down your cheek.

“The happiest moment of my life,” he kissed your forehead.

“But Hunter-” The words caught in your throat even as he waited patiently for you to continue.

“Is this the kind of life we can give a child?” You asked.

He slid his fingers into place between yours. “Then we’ll make a new one.”

“And what about Cid? Your brothers, the Empire-”

“One thing at a time, my love,” He said. “We can do this.”

You nodded, leaning in to kiss him on the lips.

“I love you,” You gasped, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” He said immediately. He couldn’t hold it back anymore, and a smile quirked up in the corner of his mouth, half-hidden by the shadow of his tattoo.

“We’re going to have a baby.”

The joy is contagious, and you let it bubble up in your chest like a hot spring. “We’re going to have a baby,” You giggled.

He pulled you to your feet, wrapping his arms around you tightly.

“I love you,” He said, unable to say anything else, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

It’s the song he sang in your ear as you pressed your face into his chest.

You could do this. You could do this.

Clone Force Ninety-Nine had a one hundred percent success rate under their sergeant.

Now to see how they fared against an infant.

[hanayumi]

𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭

—ft. xiao, diluc & venti || fem!reader (sfw)

snippets of moments when they feel extra special with you.

XIAO bears the weight of sin like no other in teyvat. when he feels the inherent darkness skulking around the borders of the safe haven he shares with you — finding a way to seep in so as to corrupt his mind with fire and ash — his go-to remedy is to take you to the very top of wangshu inn, to watch the twinkling stars in the sky, and to hold you close so that he hears the drumming pulse of your heartbeat.

your legs are going numb from how long you’ve been sitting up here, but you can’t bring yourself to move when he’s all snuggled up to you like this. his eyebrows have not a crease in them, unlike usual, and his hand rests lightly on your thigh, lips pressed into a thin line — a lingering ghost of a smile.

you know he hates words when they’re unnecessary. before you bribed him into becoming your friend with home-cooked tofu he had avoided you like the plague, only forcing out harsh grunts as you handed him the delicate dish. it must’ve been a huge burden to him, then, to figure out the tiny yet impactful nuances of romance, rediscovering each part of his existence with you now included in the equation. now, you’re content just to breathe in his presence, feeling the cool breeze gliding past your skin as you run your fingers through his dark tresses.

his radio silence only masks the fuzzy feeling blooming in his chest — a particular feeling that in the past, only graced him during passing moments when he was shown inexplicable kindness unbefitting of his status. one that was beyond difficult for him to place — always escaped his comprehension — until he confided in you one day and you said with a smile that made his heart flip; why, that’s happiness, my love.

yea. he supposes he’s happy. beyond ecstatic, even. he should find it odd that someone like you — who can’t even wield a weapon to save her life, nor be blunt enough to tell someone the cold hard truth in order not to hurt their feelings — could have him keeling and falling to your feet with a soft call of his name, much like now, when you’re rubbing your knuckles against his cheek, making his world bleed colour like it never has before.

but it’s not odd at all when you’re head-over-heels in love, he deduces.

∗

contrary to popular belief, DILUC is not an avid alcoholic — and the same can be said about you. but there’s a certain quality to the angel’s share at sunrise, when it’s too dark to be considered day yet too bright to be considered night. a placid silence lingers, save for the occasional shifting of barstools and clinking of whiskey glasses — though if he wants to he can always kick everyone out (not that he hasn’t done so before for the sake of privacy). he’s usually up early to take over charles’ shift and you always want to tag along.

today you’ve decided to try your hand at making your own specialty drink. you’ve watched for ages the precise movements of his digits as they glided over intricate concoctions and delicate cocktails — all fruits of his labour that’ve no doubt been polished to perfection. but how hard can it be to make grape juice? couldn’t hurt to try. so you take great care to prepare his favourite drink, using the freshest, ripest grapes that you stole from the vineyard and even adding your own personal touch (which proves to be a mistake more often than not — hey, was that a lizard’s tail that you knocked inside by accident? oh well, you’ll find out later), and he watches you with a clenched jaw and a terrible terrible feeling cinching his gut.

you present the drink to him looking like a cat that’s just brought in fresh kill for its owner. there is no other way to describe it. with a pained breath, he gulps down the horrid mixture in one go, ignoring the pungent smell causing his eyes to water. the ‘grape juice’ burns a red-hot trail down his sorry throat.

his fingers grip the glass so tightly they tingle white.

really, it’s the thought that counts you know? and how can he tell you the truth, when you’re looking at him so expectantly, and your hands are reaching across the table with such an endearing grin plastered on your face?

he stares unblinkingly for a hot second, as if coming to terms with the drink’s unique flavour — something feels scratchy and his tongue has gone numb. why? he doesn’t know why.

“so? how’s it taste?” your voice threads deep and warm through his skin, snapping him back to reality. you laugh softly at his stunned expression, making a playful joke about your drink being so delicious that the masterful diluc is left speechless. in an instant, his myriad of frenzied thoughts grind to a halt. nibbling on the inside of his cheek, he decides that the drink may haunt his dreams to come — but in the end, your company is as exquisite as always.

a little white lie hovers on his tongue, sweet like the grape juice he loves so.

“it was delightful, my love. shall i give a few suggestions for improvement?”

∗

ah, VENTI adores hearing you sing. granted, in your opinion, you couldn’t be trusted to carry a tune to save your life, but there’s such a fine and tender lilt to your voice whenever you’re singing lullabies to him that he just can’t get enough of. he feels particularly sleepless tonight, so he takes you by the hand and leads you to the great tree at windrise, sitting you down in the cool shade and demanding to hear your dulcet tones.

how could you refuse? you start to come around the longer his bottom lip juts out in a petulant pout (he always gets his way like this — brat). “fine,” you say, flicking his forehead. grinning when he yelps, too.

for someone who loves letting his voice fill the silence, he falls oddly quiet the second you open your mouth. you realise with a tiny startle that he wasn’t looking to make fun of you after all. your voice is shaky and a little croaky from lack of sleep (i wonder whose fault that is?) — a toad’s symphony compared to his angelic voice when he sings to you; but his satisfied smile makes a flutter of ease blossom in your stomach. letting out a tiny noise of content, he snuggles himself closer into your side, eyes fluttering shut just as you fall into a comfortable rhythm.

“your voice is so pretty, (name),” he mumbles in a daze. “don’t… don’t stop, kay?”

it’s times like this that make you feel as if he’s just like a little kid — with childish needs and greedy wants, but a candy-sweet personality, so much so that you can’t help but give in to his every whim.

you stroke his cheek with a soft smile. whispers of tall grass carry your voice across a barren meadow, extending further than your eye can see. then you hear his sleepy humming alongside yours — and you smile wider. when he sings, it’s as if he breathes the life of the universe itself, drawing you in with every rise and fall to his pretty voice.

“why’d you stop?” he frowns, pausing suddenly to meet your gaze. his hands grab onto your waist, squeezing slightly. glimmering pools of teal beg you to continue your song. he’s pouting again, and the sight makes you want to pinch his cheeks.

“show off,” you huff, but you can’t help the broad smile that tugs insistently at your lips. “i didn’t say you could stop either, you know.”

the city of freedom looms ahead like an island of hope under a blanket of stars; his head buried into your chest feels oddly like home.

[snackhobi]

pairing: taehyung x reader / word count: 13.3k / genre: fluff, friends to lovers, smut (NSFW, 18+)

summary: you’re used to being in love with taehyung. you’ve had a lot of time to get good at it, after all—by this point you’re the world’s expert at keeping your less-than-platonic feelings hidden from him, what with the amount of practice you’ve had.

but then he signs up for a massage therapy course, because apparently you can never catch a break.

or: the one where taehyung gives you a full body massage and then some.

warnings: sexually explicit content, massage with a happy ending (literally 🤧), cursing, edible massage oil/lube, fingering (f), unprotected sex (be safe when you have sex please), multiple orgasms (f), oral sex (m), cum swallowing, pet names, body worship?, brief mention of shower sex

a/n: I swear this was meant to be pwp. this was literally meant to just be pwp with some massage shenanigans. and then I blinked and it had become a soft 13k fic which honestly… kicked my ass quite a bit. but I hope you enjoy it!! thank you as always to @hobi-gif​ for beta reading this and encouraging me and putting up with me changing this multiple times, what would I do without your support miss hope?

--

Taehyung goes through a lot of different phases.

He just finds so many things interesting. Photography, art, art history, music, fashion, thrift shopping; heck, there was even the time he got weirdly into making tea and became some sort of connoisseur, going through the whole rigmarole of buying the loose leaves and weighing them out, checking the temperature of the water, brewing for a precisely measured amount of time.

You still remember the look on his face when you said it all tasted like hot leaf water to you.

Because, of course, as one of Taehyung’s best friends and his roommate, you’re inevitably swept up in everything he does. You’re used to the weirdly acrid smell of photo development fluid and how cold dark rooms can get. You use phrases like chiaroscuro and sfumato to describe the simplest things after listening to Taehyung do the same for so long. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve tripped over his saxophone case when he leaves it lying around the apartment. You regularly wear the baggy t-shirt with the face that Taehyung had painted on it—even if you still refer to it as the Squidward-House-Shirt despite the fact you know he was inspired by Basquiet and Schiele and not the Easter Island themed stone head that Squidward lives in.

You don’t mind getting dragged along with whatever he does, honestly; you don’t have time to attend every class, but go with him when you can. It’s always good to expand your horizons. You also love watching Tae’s face whenever he learns something new, the various expressions that flit across his features—from wide eyed excitement and eyebrow raising astonishment to the more solemn side that appears whenever he’s taking something in and thinking deeply about it, turning it over in his mind, mulling on it.

(You love watching Tae’s face all the time, actually, but that’s a whole other can of worms you’d rather keep shut.)

However, the latest course he’s signed up for is not one you’d been expecting.

“Massage therapy?” Your face twists in equal parts confusion and surprise.

Taehyung’s dropped this latest nugget of information while you’re cooking, trying to fry some rice while also peering at the phone screen that’s been thrust into your face. You’re not bad at multitasking, per se, but Taehyung’s iPhone is drifting so close that you’re almost cross-eyed and it’s blocking you from seeing what’s going on in the pan. 

“I had a coupon,” he says, as if that explains everything. (It doesn’t.)

“Scooch,” you say, and he immediately moves so you can turn the gas off.

“Jiminie and Jungkookie say that my massages help with dance, and that's just from Youtube tutorials.” Taehyung continues to talk as you bustle around the tiny kitchen. He’s already set the table so now he’s free to watch you finish doing the rest of the work. “And Joon-hyung says I have the perfect hands for it.”

You fumble with the pan as you’re scooping the steaming rice into a large bowl, only just managing to save food from scattering everywhere. You’ve thought about Taehyung’s hands a lot, about how large and long fingered and beautiful they are, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Really? Huh. That’s nice.” You stare at the pan, fixated on getting every grain of rice so you can avoid looking at Taehyung’s face. And hands. Which are still cupped around his phone. Which looks so small in his big, pretty grip.

Jesus Christ.

“It means I can give you massages if you ever start to get tense.” Taehyung sounds pleased, lovely grin on his face at the prospect of being able to rub his hands over you. As if that isn’t going to make every single one of your muscles lock up and turn you into some sort of coiled rope of a human being, which is the complete opposite of what a massage is supposed to achieve. 

“Great.” Despite your inner turmoil, your voice is level and steady as you meticulously scrape the last grain of rice into the bowl, chasing the tiny fleck of white around the huge pan. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Sounds fabulous. Can’t wait.”

Of course Taehyung would sign up to learn something that he could use to help his friends. He’s so big-hearted and loving. Big-hearted and loving and kind and funny and affectionate and beautiful and deep-voiced and so entirely overwhelming in every single way imaginable. 

You do what you always do when confronted yet again with your all-consuming crush—you bottle that shit the fuck up until he’s not in the room.

And then you have a miniature breakdown at Pickles.

“I am going to die,” you whisper-scream. “He’s going to offer to massage me and he’s going to get a bottle of massage oil out and he’s going drizzle it onto his massive hands and I am going to fucking die.”

The bearded dragon cocks his head as he stares at you. Taehyung had come home with the reptile one day, tank and all, saying that someone on Facebook had been giving him away because they were moving house and could they just look after him for a little while, please, pretty please? Until they found a good home for him? Please?

That was over a year ago. (You’ve always been bad at saying no to Taehyung.)

“I hate my life,” you lament to the lizard, but then you hear the noisy flush of the toilet and know that Taehyung is going to emerge from the bathroom soon, so you have to wrap this miniature meltdown up pronto. “I wish I was a bearded dragon too, you know. All you do is get fed and sit under the heat bulb. Your life is so easy. You don’t even know what capitalism is.”

The silence you get from Pickles is far more support than you get from your human friends once you tell them. Yoongi just raises his eyebrows while Seokjin and Hoseok laugh outright in your face, just like they always do when you cry to them about Taehyung.

You need new friends. These ones are defective. (If only you’d kept the receipt so you could return them.)

“We learned how to do neck and shoulder massages today!” Taehyung says brightly after the first session.

You hum in response. You’re rewatching Pacific Rim together, cuddled up against Taehyung’s side, and you don’t have to turn your head to know what expression is on his face. There’ll be that little upturn to his lips, happiness at learning something new. That warmth in his eyes at being able to share it with you, even if you couldn't be there with him. Those little freckles on his face, under his eye, his nose, his lip; the one you’ve imagined kissing more times than you can count.

“My teacher says I have a natural talent with my hands,” he adds, and you’re so grateful that you can blame your sudden intake of breath on the scene that’s playing on the screen, as high stakes as it is. 

“That’s nice,” you say, and mentally pat yourself on the back at keeping the strain out of your voice. You've had a lot of practice at this. “I’m not surprised, though. You’ve always been good at doing things with them.”

That’s not a euphemism. Taehyung’s always so careful when he makes things; you’d learned how to fold different origami patterns together, matching crane for crane, lotus for lotus, and he’d always been so delicate with his fingers. He’s always so careful and considerate with you, too, fingers splayed wide across your shoulder as he squeezes you closer to his side, leaving you breathless.

“I wish you could come too.” Taehyung sounds disappointed. “We always have so much fun together.”

For the first time in your life you’re grateful that your manager at Olive Chicken is such a hardass and won’t let you swap shifts, so you’d had to miss signing up for the massage course with Taehyung—because you know there’s no way you’d be able to keep it together if there was some sort of tandem practice in class or whatever. Your crush on him is filled with equal parts of tenderness and lust and you’re well aware of that. You’d rest your hands on the soft skin of Taehyung’s shoulders and back, the lust would overwhelm you, and you’d immediately burst into flames like some sort of demon stepping over the threshold of a church. 

Why oh why did God have to make Kim Taehyung so hot?

Why oh why did God have to make you so… not?

You know Taehyung doesn’t see you in a romantic light at all. You’re grateful for this deep, platonic relationship you have, and you love him to pieces, but holy hell is it hard to walk around with Kim Taehyung looking the way he does and wanting to jump his bones while simultaneously being aware that it’s never going to happen. Whenever he smiles at you, or touches you, or holds you, it’s in exactly the same way as he treats any of his friends—and as happy as you are to be one of those friends, it also kind of kills you inside. 

(Because you know you don’t have a chance, have never had a chance, and will never have a chance.)

The idea of offering to massage Taehyung is one that makes you want to melt into a puddle of horny goo. But when he offers to massage you, it’s because you’re a convenient practice partner who he’s comfortable with. It’s no big deal. You could strip naked and slather yourself up in oil and stand in front of him with your bosoms heaving and say ‘Have at me, big boy’ and Taehyung would say: ‘Sweet! A chance to practice deep tissue massage! Gee, thanks for being such a great pal!’

The kind of deep tissue you want Taehyung to massage is very different to whatever he’s talking about.

… Anyway.

You manage to avoid Taehyung using his apparently magic fingers on you for a surprising amount of time, though you’re kept up to date with his progress, because he shares everything with you and tells you about everything and you always, always listen. Because, more than being your crush, he’s one of your best friends and you love him.

Which is why you try your best to be gentle, graciously refusing his offer of a shoulder massage after he sees you wincing, even if with anyone else you’d just tell them to back off with zero hesitation.

“It’s fine,” you say, flapping a hand at him. “I just slept on it funny.”

“A massage would help! It won’t take long, I promise. Five minutes? Please?” 

Taehyung’s looking at you with those big puppy eyes of his, pleading. You waver. You’re torn between being steadfast and avoiding a situation you’ve literally had nightmares about (Taehyung had offered to massage you, and you’d said yes, but then you’d fallen over as you were walking to him and suddenly a lasagne had appeared in your hands and you’d spilled it all down your shirt and he’d pointed and laughed and laughed and you’d felt so embarrassed that you’d woken up, cheeks burning), but then he pouts and you give in like the spineless and lovesick fool that you are.

“Five minutes,” you say, and Taehyung nods emphatically, looking pleased.

(You have the backbone of a chocolate éclair.)

You send quiet thanks to whatever God is listening when he doesn’t ask you to take your top off and doesn’t break out a bottle of scented oil. Instead he just asks for you to straddle a chair, clutching a plushie against your chest to cushion where it leans against the backrest, and tells you to get comfy.

“Just relax,” he says, as you desperately try to remember how your body works and coax it to relax like Taehyung wants you to. You fail miserably. You feel like a ball of rubber bands, each muscle a layer of tighter and tighter elastic that’s circled around you. “Lean forwards a little?”

At least Taehyung can’t see your face from this angle. You have no idea what sort of expression is twisting your features; consternation and horrified anticipation, probably. You're basically throttling your plushie, taking out your tension and frustration on the poor thing, Rilakkuma's placid face morphing into a twisted expression of sympathy under your grasping fingers.

“Perfect,” Taehyung says. The sound of praise in his deep voice has your insides turning into overheated syrup, hot and thick, dripping down and pooling between your legs. You hate yourself. Getting turned on by the most innocuous words from your best friend, really? Get it together.

The second you feel Taehyung's warm hands touch the back of your neck, your shoulders hunch up faster than a whiplash, a turtle sucking its head into its shell. Your friend laughs.

“This is the opposite of relaxing,” he says, voice warm with amusement. 

“You surprised me.” You dig your nails into Rilakkuma's soft brown fur. Taehyung just thinks you're not used to being massaged, not that you're being weird because it's him that's touching you. Because he touches you a lot. He’s just never done it like this. “Sorry.”

“It's fine,” he replies, unruffled and oblivious. “Let me try again?”

You bite your lip, desperately trying to quell the mix of arousal and tension that’s churning in your stomach, begging your muscles to unwind. You’ve kept your crush a secret from him for this long, you can keep that energy up. (You have to keep that energy up.) “Um. Okay.”

You’re still tense when Taehyung puts his hands on you again. The touch is warm through your clothes, firm but careful, digging into the sharp line of tension laid across your shoulders; despite the way your heart is threatening to launch itself out of your chest, you start to loosen up, because holy shit that feels nice, actually.

You melt against Rilakkuma and smother the bear's face in your chest. “Your teacher wasn’t kidding when they said that you’re good with your hands,” you mumble. 

You’ve never gotten a proper massage before but it feels so damn good that you can’t help but unwind, turning to jelly at the confident presses of Taehyung’s fingers and palms into the soft skin between your neck and shoulder. A little sigh spills past your lips when Taehyung starts to work at the part that’s been twinging after you lay crookedly on it, limbs akimbo in your sleep after a long night at work. “Oh, right there, Tae.”

Taehyung goes still for just a second before continuing, trailing his fingers over your shirt. “Here?”

Your eyes have drifted shut so you can focus on the sensation of that tension being pulled out of your body. “Yeah, right there,” you repeat, massaged into a state of lazy euphoria. The breath you let out is long and deep, catching in the back of your throat at a particularly firm rub of Taehyung’s hands; if you weren’t so blissed out you might be embarrassed at how much the noise you make is like a moan, but as it is, you don’t even notice. You just let out a little sound of discontent when Taehyung’s fingers stutter in their motions, displeased that he’s stopped even for a second.

By the time the massage is over, you’re so relaxed that you feel like you could melt into the floor, a wobbly puddle of unwound muscles and loose limbs. It’s official. You’re a massage convert.

“Holy shit.” Your eyes flutter open as you lean away from Rilakkuma so you can turn around. They’re the first coherent words you’ve spoken for a while; small sighs and sounds have been dripping from your lips and it’s only now that you’re able to regain your breath. “Tae, that was amazin—”

You’re met with the sight of Taehyung’s back as he power walks away, steps rapid, a little shaky, awkward. Before you can ask what’s wrong, he’s stepping into the bathroom. 

“I need to wash my hands,” he says without looking at you, before the door slams shut.

You don’t remember Tae telling you about how quickly you have to wash your hands after finishing a massage. But, thinking about it, you suppose it makes sense—you know, with massaging multiple clients or whatever—even if it’s surprising exactly how fast he’d hoofed it away from you. It sounds like he’s switched both taps on full blast as well, noisy even through the wooden door, and judging from how long he’s in there, he’s being very thorough. Hand washing must be a lot more important than you’d realised. 

Once Taehyung emerges, his face is a little flushed, cheeks a soft red. You wonder if the hot water tap is playing up again and filling your dinky bathroom with hot steam, and make a mental note to look into it. You smile at Taehyung from your perch on the sofa, Rilakkuma plopped on your lap, smile spread across your features; one that Taehyung returns, as pink-faced as he is.

“How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“So much better, honestly,” you admit. It’s incredible. He hasn’t even finished the course yet and he's already this good. He really does have magic hands.

“I’ll have to give you massages more often,” Taehyung says, though the end of the sentence trembles a little. He must be light-headed after all the steam in the bathroom.

The thought of more massages doesn’t fill you with as much mind-numbing trepidation as it might have earlier, utterly languid as you flop across the sofa, muscles uncoiled after the lovely touch of Taehyung’s even lovelier hands. No wonder people rave about spa days if they leave you feeling like this. Maybe if you’d been staring at Taehyung in the eye when he’d been touching you, then you’d feel a lot more awkward—as it is, it’s no worse than usual. Your crush is still all-encompassing but you also got a massage out of it, so.

“Sounds great.” This time you don’t even have to fake your excitement. “Now come sit your butt down so we can order some takeout and decide what to watch.”

When you bend down to speak to Pickles later, the bearded dragon is lolling on his favourite branch. “There’s still a high chance that I’m going to die,” you say in a low voice, before you flick the lights off so the lizard can sleep. “But he hasn’t broken out the oils yet, so I think I’ll be okay for now.”

--

Your luck doesn’t last.

“Strawberry and champagne, lychee martini, mint mojito, white chocolate, or tropical coconut?”

You look up from where you’re painting your toenails. “Huh?”

Taehyung bundles into the room and throws himself onto your bed, flopping on his belly and ignoring the way the mattress is jostled. You, of course, are used to his antics, which is why you’d swept your open bottle of nail polish up before he could spill it everywhere.

“What do you think sounds best?”

“Well, that depends,” you say, squinting at your toes and carefully sweeping the polish over the freshly buffed nails. “For candles, I think they sound pretty nice. For sauces to pour over a steak, I’d say I’d give them all a hard pass. What’s it for?”

“Massage oils,” Taehyung says blithely, too busy staring at his phone to see you muffle a curse when your hand slips and you paint your entire little toe blue. “I was wondering which you think sounds best.”

“Oh. Uh.” You fumble to clean your toe and salvage the now-terrible pedicure you’re trying to give yourself. It was only a matter of time before massage oils were going to become part of your life. Taehyung never goes into things half-hearted, so of course he’s going to invest in oils, too. God’s sake. You can never catch a break, can you? “Why these ones in particular?”

Taehyung pauses for a suspiciously long time, but it gives you the chance to furiously rub at your toe while he’s distracted. “We get a free bottle from the course,” he says eventually.

Huh. Okay. “That’s pretty neat. What was the last one? Coconut? Stick with the basics, can’t go wrong with that, right?”

“Coconut is always tasty,” Taehyung comments absently, and you glance up from your Smurf toe.

“Agreed, but it’s not like you’re about to eat massage oil, are you?”

Taehyung pauses, and then buries his face into his phone screen—suddenly very intent on rereading the list of ingredients in each bottle, it seems. “No, of course not, you’re right,” he mumbles.

He’s almost finished the course. He’s not going to be an accredited masseuse or anything, but you definitely think he could be, if he wanted to—you’ve never had less tension in your shoulders and neck in your life. Taehyung always eases his way into your personal space anyway, casual and effortless after years of friendship, but now you’re used to his fingers sliding over the back of your neck, a gliding touch, sending tense little goosebumps over your skin while simultaneously making you melt. 

“It’s pretty cool that you get free stuff, though.” Your toe is clean, thankfully, no longer blue. “And not just, like, a generic bottle of oil or something. They all sound really fancy. I didn’t realise that you could get massage oils that were scented like that?”

Taehyung makes a non-committal noise, which is uncharacteristic of him, but you’re too focused on repainting your final nail to pay it too much mind, letting out a loud huff of triumph when you’re done.

“Get me a bag of shrimp crackers, please?” You have a sudden craving but you don’t want to penguin waddle to the kitchen and risk getting anything on your wet nails. “Ya girl is hungry.”

“Got it.” Taehyung rolls off the bed without protest. You’re used to his antics, and he’s used to yours, indulging you whenever you feel lazy or want him to do something for you. “You need me to feed you?”

“I wasn’t going to use my toes to feed myself,” you laugh, but Taehyung ends up feeding them to you anyway.

When you recount the list to Seokjin later, his face crumples in a way that’s equal parts offended and disgusted. “They all sound terrible,” he says. “White chocolate should stay in chocolate form and not be turned into an oil. Why does massage oil even have to smell like anything?”

You’re both holed up in the tiny smoking nook behind Olive Chicken; neither of you smoke, but it’s a good excuse to go outside and get fresh air during longer shifts. 

“Hey, don’t ask me, I’m not the one who’s taking the course. I think lychee martini sounds interesting, though.”

“Agree to disagree.” Seokjin unwraps one of the complimentary chocolates the restaurant gives to diners with their bill, swallowing it whole. “Besides, we all know Taehyung could approach you with dirty, used fryer oil and you’d let him dip you in it.”

You slap the next chocolate out of his hand before it reaches his mouth. He’s unmoved and simply plucks another from his pocket, which is apparently bulging with them.

“Yoongichi,” Jin says, calling to the delivery boy, who’s just appeared from the dark like some tired-eyed spectre of fried chicken. “Tell me this. If I were to ask you what smell of massage oil you’d prefer, what—”

“I would say that I really could not care less.” Yoongi flops down on one of the rickety fold-out chairs before silently accepting a chocolate from Seokjin’s stash. “And then I’d ask why you’re asking me in the first place, seeing as you’re the one using it, not me. If Taehyung’s asking what massage oil you’d prefer, Y/n, it’s because he wants to rub it all over you specifically.” Yoongi munches on the chocolate, already filling in the blanks without needing to be told the context. You really are that transparent, huh. “Please, we’ve been over this.”

Jin pouts. “You ruined my set up. I had a whole speech prepared.”

“Oh no.” Yoongi remains blank-faced. “How terrible.”

“I hate both of you,” you say. “I’m going to tell Pickles how mean you are.”

“I bet if that lizard could talk, he’d tell you how tired he was of you two dancing around each other, just like the rest of us,” Yoongi says.

There’s no dancing around, though, no matter what your friends say. Well. Not on Taehyung’s end anyway. You’re out here doing the fandango, castanets and all, while Taehyung just stands stock still, oblivious.

You let out an incredibly long sigh. Seokjin hands you a sympathetic chocolate.

The massage oil doesn’t make an appearance in your life for a little while, though. The end of the course comes and goes, Taehyung proudly flapping the laminated certificate at you, wobble-wobble-wobble, filling the apartment with the sound of rippling plastic. But no coconut oil.

The scent of ‘tropical coconut’ has started to haunt your dreams, in a way that’s both good and bad; when you wake up in a sweat, heart pounding, it’s not because you’re having nightmares, let’s just put it like that. It’s like there’s an invisible countdown that you can’t trace and it’s only a matter of time before it ticks over and the shoulder massages (that you’ve gotten very comfortable with) edge into something different. Taehyung’s going to innocently offer to give you a backrub and uncap that bottle of scented oil and you’re going to explode into a mess of putty under his hands.

Well… then again… you had been worried about that with all the shoulder rubs. Now look at you. You weather those like a champ. Sure, your skin tingles and you run hot and you think about the sensation of Taehyung’s hands gliding over you whenever you’re alone, but you’re basically fine. Your friend who just so happens to also be the great love of your life remains none the wiser.

You bet a full back rub would feel great after a long week.

Which is why when Taehyung steps into the apartment with a look on his face that you immediately recognise as tiredness, you sort of wish you knew how to massage people, too.

He falls into your arms with little fanfare. It’s been one of those days, one of those ones that everyone gets, even Taehyung—he’s usually so Switched On and Exuberant and Alive, and people don’t seem to realise that even he feels exhausted, sometimes.

“You alright, bubs?” You can’t massage him but you can rub his back soothingly, let him snuffle against your neck. Sometimes you think about that little space between your chin and collarbones as Taehyung’s, a hollow that’s perfect for him to press his face into, hair tickling your chin as he curls up into you. His and his alone. “Did something happen?”

He just shakes his head.

“Okay,” you say.

(Close proximity and skin on skin with Taehyung doesn’t always have your pulse rising and your heart racing. Sometimes it’s just this: quiet and soft, your heart bright with fierce affection for this boy, the only thought in your mind that you want him to be happy, forever.)

The long silence is broken by the sound of Taehyung heaving in a breath before letting out a long, exhausted sigh. 

“Thank you.” His voice is quiet and low, far less energetic than his usual self.

“Nothing to thank me for, Tae,” you reply. “Always here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just burrows closer, draped over you, until he murmurs, barely audible. “Why?”

Your face twists. “Why, what? Why am I always here for you?”

“Yeah.” Taehyung squeezes himself impossibly closer, skin warm against yours, forehead pressed to the skin of your neck. You can’t see his expression from this angle.

“Because you’re one of my best friends and I love you,” you answer, immediately. You don’t even have to think about it. “Because you’re important to me and if there’s anything I can do for you, I will. I’ll celebrate the good things in your life with you, and I’ll be at your side during the bad times, just like you are with me. Please don’t ever forget how much I love you, okay?”

There’s a pause, and then it feels like all the tension leaves Taehyung’s body, slumping his whole body weight against you. “Okay,” he murmurs. “I love you too. Thank you,” he says again. You just reply by squeezing his shoulders.

He’s a little quieter for a few days after that. You’re not sure why, because he’d perked up after a lazy evening of lying around and eating too many snacks, flopped against you like an oversized, clinging starfish—but you’re gentle with him nonetheless. 

(Well. You’re always gentle with him. It just takes you half a second to fold in the face of his whims, rather than a whole, full second.)

So when the dreaded bottle of oil finally appears, you’re far less ready to fight off Taehyung’s insistence on a full body massage, caught off guard after days of indulging him. Fuck. 

“You’ve had a long week!” Taehyung insists as you scrabble your way over the sofa’s backrest so you can hide behind it, clutching a cushion to your chest. “You need to relax!”

Without looking you fling the cushion over the sofa. Judging from the fact that Taehyung doesn’t make a sound, you’ve missed. “I was feeling perfectly relaxed until you started yelling at me about it! Why are you so obsessed with the idea of me being relaxed?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond. Oh, crap. Maybe you did hit him with the cushion?

You pop up from behind the sofa. Nope. It's an embarrassing distance away from Taehyung, who’s got that surprisingly large bottle of oil held loosely in his hands. There’s an expression on his face that you can’t decipher; a little crestfallen, a little unsure, but there’s something else there, too, something you can’t put a name to.

“Taehyung?”

“I just… wanted to help,” he says. “You’re always there for me when I’m not feeling great, and you calm me down, and I wanted to do the same for you.”

You immediately feel like the worst human being alive. Take the feeling you get whenever you accidentally step on an animal’s tail, multiply it by infinity, and that’s only just a drop in the ocean of awful, awful guilt that you’re drowning in. 

“Oh, Tae,” you say. Your voice comes out so much softer and sweeter than you mean it to, but you can't help it. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. It’s really nice of you to be so concerned. You just surprised me. You do help me relax and your massages are great.” (You tell him that often enough that he should know it, but it never hurts to repeat a compliment.)

His face lifts. It’s like the sun bursting forth from the clouds after heavy rain, and you have to resist the urge to shield your eyes, blinded by the brightness and beauty. Kim Taehyung is so unfairly gorgeous (but what else is new?). “So I can give you a massage?”

Despite the fact the prospect makes you want to fling yourself into space, when you’re faced with Taehyung’s dark eyes and wide smile and large, warm hands, you cave, because of course you do. If, way back when you’d first been frying up that kimchi rice and letting Taehyung thrust his phone into your face, you’d been told you’d end up in this position, you would have laughed outright. Haha, yeah, sure, like you’d be stupid enough to let yourself be wrangled into such a vulnerable state in front of Taehyung, nowhere to run, helpless under his fingers. Not.

But here you are. Whipped for Kim Taehyung, forever and always.

The pastel blue towels under your stomach and chest are soft as they shield you from the cold, hard floor. You’re incredibly aware of how chilly the apartment feels, air prickling against your bare skin; you shift to try and get comfortable, glancing over your shoulder to fiddle with the towel that’s draped over your hips and ass, making sure it’s covering everything. Taehyung insists on authenticity (as if you’re not lying on the floor of your apartment rather than on a massage table) and he says that it’s normal to be completely naked for a full-body massage, even underneath any towels that are covering you up.

Authenticity is also why he’s in the other room, warming up the massage oil, because that’s apparently a thing?

(You’re going to die.)

It doesn’t matter that Taehyung will only be able to see the back of your head, your shoulder blades, the small of your back, a slip of your thighs, your calves. None of these things are especially scandalous; all the parts of your body that someone might find more interesting are out of sight, pressed against the floor or hidden under a layer of Egyptian cotton microfibres. 

And yet you can’t help but be hyperaware of how you’re entirely unclothed. Even if it doesn’t bother Taehyung—what with, you know, the fact he’s not interested in you like that and doesn’t find you attractive at all (sigh)—embarrassment creeps hot and uncomfortable under your skin.

It just feels so crazy intimate to be laid out like this, even if people do this all the time, happily strip down to let professionals rub the tension out of their body. 

(Then again, most people aren’t best friends with their masseuses and haven’t harboured long, one-sided crushes on them, either.)

Just breathe. You can do this. You love the shoulder massages that Taehyung’s been giving you; just think of this as a shoulder massage. 

… A shoulder massage that involves warm oil, near-nakedness, and Taehyung’s hands sliding all over you.

… You are going to have a very long venting session with Pickles after all this.

You’re so distracted by your own self pity and distress that you don’t register the sound of Taehyung entering the room; the little pause when he steps over the threshold, feet stuttering, just for a moment. It’s only when he’s kneeling down that you notice his presence, body jolting from surprise before you let out a slip of high laughter.

“Jesus, Tae,” you say. In any other circumstance, you’d be clutching your chest. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” He sounds genuinely apologetic.

Your cheek is pillowed on your arms. When you turn to look at your best friend you immediately regret it; he’s settled back on his ankles, knees spread wide, and you come eye-to-eye with his crotch.

In an effort to look away from his clothed dick, your gaze flies up to his face, which might be even worse. He has this intense look in his eyes, and wow, alright, you’ve never been able to see Taehyung’s face as he’s been massaging you, but you never realised exactly how seriously he seems to take it, judging from his expression.

(Do all massage therapists look like that when they work?)

“That’s alright.” You’re a little breathless, but you’re going to blame that on how your boobs are smooshed into the floor, and not on anything else, nuh uh. Shoulder massage. It’s a shoulder massage. It’s just like a full bodied shoulder massage. (Maybe if you repeat it to yourself often enough then you’ll actually start to believe it.) “Uh. Do you need me to… do anything? Or do I just lie here?”

Taehyung’s expression lightens a little at the uncertainty in your tone, smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “You’re perfect right where you are,” he says, and then he reaches for the bottle of oil.

You turn your head away again, cheeks burning. There’s no way you’ll be able to handle the visual of him slicking his fingers and palms up. “Cool,” you say, voice only a little strained. “Coolcoolcoolcool.”

(It’s not cool.)

You don’t have a visual, but you do get the auditory experience thanks to the relative silence in the apartment. Goosebumps ripple down the back of your neck and trail down your spine at the sound of Tae’s hands sliding against each other, thoroughly coated in the warmed oil, and you’re so glad that you can blame it on the chill in the air.

At first, it’s okay. Taehyung starts at the parts of your body that are used to receiving his attention, though it’s different without the barrier of clothing in the way, not to mention how easily his palms glide over you, the air full of the light scent of coconut. It’s different, but manageable, and you think you just might be okay; as always, his touches are firm but careful, and your body is used to this by now, relaxing.

But. The second you feel Taehyung’s touch between your shoulder blades, you stiffen with a shiver. The oil is the perfect temperature against your skin, but you’ve always had a sensitive back; you can’t help but clench your fists, digging your fingers into your palms. Relax. Just breathe. 

“You’ve got a lot of tension here.” Taehyung’s voice is low as he digs the heel of his palm into the dip of your spine.

It’s because you’re touching me there, you think to yourself, but just let out a non-committal hum of agreement instead. 

You feel Taehyung's hands, a repeated sliding motion between your shoulder blades; the tension starts to leak out of you again, but your breath hitches in your throat at how you're pressed downwards and into the cotton towels beneath you, nipples hardening against them.

Thank God you're on your front so Tae can't see what effect he's having on you.

“Better?”

Taehyung's voice is always deep, but you'd swear it was even deeper in this moment, pitched low. Maybe that’s because the sound of blood pumping is filling your ears so it’s hard to discern. At this point, who even knows? Not you, that’s for sure.

“Yep.” Why are you so breathless? You haven’t moved at all, but you sound like you’ve just run the 100m sprint, winded and weak. “So much better.”

You regret agreeing to this. You are so out of your depth and there’s no way you’re going to be able to hide exactly how much this is affecting you and you want to collapse in on yourself and shrivel up like a sundried tomato, tiny and wrinkly and underwhelming. 

Taehyung shifts to reach more of you and you squeeze your eyes shut so you don’t come face first with his crotch again, shielding yourself from the view of his loose linen trousers stretched almost taut with how wide his knees are. It’s both a blessing and a curse—a blessing because you’re saved from aforementioned view, but a curse because your sensation of touch is heightened, and all you’re aware of is his hands sliding down your sides. You’d swear those fingers were so long he could circle your waist with ease.

(Massages are meant to relax you and yet you’ve never felt so tense in your life.)

Taehyung clicks his tongue against the back of his teeth. “I can’t get a good angle like this,” he mutters.

Before you can think anything or say anything, you become aware of the sound of moving and shifting and—

Your eyes fly open. Taehyung’s straddling your thighs, heavy and warm, and you suck in a breath so sharp and fast you can feel your chest expand, brain full of the screaming clang of warning bells. There’s no way this is a normal masseuse thing. There’s no way. It’s intimate and entirely too physical and there’s absolutely no way that this is something Taehyung learned in class. 

(What is he doing?)

But then any coherent thought in your brain slips when his hands settle on you again.

They so, so lightly brush the hem of the towel that preserves your modesty, and you can’t help the full-body shiver that wracks through you. You suck your lips into your mouth, swallowing down the noise that threatens to bubble up in your throat. There’s the sensation of fingers trailing up the line of your spine, feather light, smoothed by the slide of oil, and you feel like molten lava, burning hot and bright.

“Taehyung.” Your voice is high and faint.

His fingers splay down your ribcage and run down your sides, confident and smooth, warm with that coconut-scented oil, and you’re dying, you’re living; you want to disappear, you never want this to end. 

“Taehyung,” you repeat. Your voice shakes.

He hums, low and indulgent. “Yes?”

“M-my thighs,” you stammer, unable to articulate yourself. Why are you on my thighs, oh God, you’re so warm and heavy on top of me, oh God oh God oh God.

Taehyung completely misunderstands you. “Oh? Of course.” He sounds nonchalant. “I’ll massage those next.”

You can feel the drag of his linen trousers against your skin as he moves down to rest on your calves, and hear the bottle open as Taehyung drizzles more oil over his hands, far more than he could possibly need. His palms feel so broad and warm against the smoothness of your thighs, touches firm and confident as he digs his fingers into the muscle, and, oh, fuck, this is, this is too much—

Your legs jump when Taehyung hitches the towel up, just a little, baring more of your body.

“Fuck.” You can't keep quiet any longer. “Tae, I’m fine, I’m feeling way less tense now.”

He’s still, for a moment, before his hands slide up the back of your thighs. “Are you sure? You want me to stop?”

It’s only then that you realise how deeply Taehyung is breathing, fast and low, voice rough and gravelled. His fingers rest in wait, warm and slick with oil; you’re so close to losing any modicum of modesty, only one motion away from that towel being rucked high enough that there’s nothing protecting you from Taehyung’s touch and eyes.

“I haven’t finished yet, though,” he continues, digging his thumbs into your skin as he pulls his hands down your thighs, mindlessly following the motions he’s been taught. “There’s still more to go.”

You could twist around to look at him but you’re almost afraid to look at his face, afraid of what you’d find there. He sounds as affected as you are, but there’s absolutely no way. There’s no way.

“You don’t need to do the whole massage if I’m feeling relaxed, right?” 

(Because you’re feeling so relaxed right now, of course, and not like you’re about to go supernova and burst into heat and light. Absolutely.)

(But.)

(But. Taehyung’s hands settle at the back of your knees, swiping the sensitive skin with his thumbs. You can’t see his face, but you can feel something in that touch, something more than skin deep, like it’s sinking into you, through skin and muscle and bone, in in in, settling inside you, a flicker of—of—)

“Want to do this perfectly for you,” he murmurs. You clench your hands at the husky note in his voice, nails digging so hard into your palms it hurts. “You deserve the best. I want you to feel good.”

He must be able to see your back rise and fall as you breathe in sharply.

“Taehyung.” Almost pleading. 

“Yes, love?”

You suck in another sharp breath. The pet name sounds so soft and sweet in his mouth, somehow, even with the heated edge to his voice. One that’s definitely there. You’re not imagining it. 

(You’re not.)

“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he continues.

Before you can think, you nod.

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

You’re trembling. Taehyung’s still heavy and warm across the back of your calves, sliding one hand to the inside of a knee and up the soft skin of your inner thighs. You instinctively shift them apart, as far as you can with Taehyung trapping your legs, and, oh, his hand is going higher, oh—

His hand is so big, cupping your overheated sex. It’s hard to tell where the oil ends and your own arousal begins, flushed wet and hot; when he dips his middle finger between your lower lips, long and gentle and firm, you let out a noise you didn’t realise you were capable of. The angle is off, a little awkward, the motions of Taehyung’s fingers stifled by how you’re lying flush to the ground, but God, you’re so turned on it barely matters.

You’re hyperaware of everything. The soft touch of air on the cooling oil across your skin. The fall of the towel, bunched around your waist, slowly slipping to one side. Taehyung’s hand, his fingertips easing through the heat of you, sliding over your clit, over your entrance, slow and soft and amazing. 

“Again,” you plead. “Again, Tae, please.”

“Feels good?” He asks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod, cheek still pillowed against your arm.

“So good,” you say. “But I want more, please, Tae.”

“Anything you want,” he murmurs.

Taehyung’s hand shifts between your legs again, so hot, so big, so reverent. The slide is smooth as his fingers press into your folds, practically gliding. You twist beneath him, letting out a noise of displeasure when he draws his hand away, but then he lifts off your calves. You let him thrust your legs apart before he resettles between them.

Just as you’re distracted with the towel being tugged away from your hips, baring you entirely, Taehyung slides a finger into your weeping cunt.

You whine. It's so long. Now that your calves aren’t trapped, there’s nothing to stop you from rutting back against his fingers. He splays his other hand over the soft flesh of your ass, encouraging the rolling motion of your hips, and you’re gasping, wanton in your noises of desire and pleasure. One finger becomes two, and then three, Taehyung’s voice a low undercurrent to your stuttered moans as he presses them as deep as he can.

“Just like that, angel,” he breathes. “Want you to feel good, keep making those pretty noises, let me know how good it is—”

“Taehyung,” you whine, dragging the syllables of his name out when he curls his fingers inside you, so amazing, hitting you in all the right places.

“Baby.” He sounds wrecked, words sliding together, and you haven’t even touched him yet. “You’re so hot n’ wet, fuck. So perfect. Just like that, keep moving like that.”

You can hear the slick sounds of his thrusts into you. He’s already learned what you like, twisting his fingers in a way that leaves you breathless; they’re so fucking long, sliding into your greedy cunt with ease, reaching so much deeper than your own can. His pretty lovely hands are on you, inside you, and you’re heady at the thought.

“There, Tae, don’t stop, please, p-please.” The coil twists tighter in between your legs, a taut thread that’s ready to snap. He listens, repeating the motion that’s pulling you closer to the edge, eyes wide, staring at the way you’re writhing underneath him; the way the oil on your back and legs shimmers in the light, the evidence of his touch all over you, shining. “Tae, oh, God, right there, yes, yes, yes—”

Your entire body goes tense and then you’re cumming around Taehyung’s fingers, clenching your thighs together, trapping him inside as you buck your hips. You grind back against his hand, a loud moan falling from your lips, drowning out the noise of awe that Taehyung makes when he feels your walls pulsate around him. You're warm and tight and wet, arousal flooding thick against his skin, and he lets out a stuttered groan, fingers buried knuckle deep inside you, feeling every wave of pleasure that rocks through your core.

You’re panting by the time you settle back down and barely make a sound when Taehyung drags his fingers out of you. When he leans down the oil on your skin feels tacky against his clothes, material sticking to you, chest to back, hips to ass. You can feel the hot curve of him through his trousers, his cock heavy, getting harder—and it feels sososo good.

Taehyung’s face is so close, now, chin hooked over your shoulder. Even though you can feel the hardness of his cock pressed against you, the smile on his face is so gentle. Your heart thrums in your chest.

“So cute n' pretty,” he says, and presses his nose to the soft curve of your cheek. Rather than coconut, all you can smell is his shampoo, familiar and homely and heady. “All over. God, I can’t believe you’d let me touch you like this. I’m so lucky. Was that good, baby?”

“Yes,” you say, and then, because you’re still floating in a light haze of disbelief: “I’m the lucky one.” 

Taehyung laughs, low and quiet. It’s a honeyed moment, dripping slow and sweet, even sweeter when he tilts his head forward. His lips are soft against your cheekbone, your jaw, and when you turn towards him, they’re even softer against your mouth. You can feel the shape of his smile, and it tastes so bright, small kisses that turn open mouthed, so perfect. Because you’re kissing Kim Taehyung, your Taehyung, something you’ve been dreaming about for so long, now—even if this entire situation is pretty unbelievable, honestly.

When you pull back, his eyes spark with unadulterated joy. He’s warm and heavy, pinning you down against the towels that are soft against your front; arching your spine, you lean back against the weight of Taehyung’s body, his cock fattening up through the layers of clothes that separate you. He lets out a breath of surprise before he grinds down, pressing that hard heat against you, and your cunt clenches.

“Can I finish the massage?” He asks, sounding almost eager, even with the rasp of lust in his voice. You can’t help but laugh, an affectionate giggle that has you knocking your foreheads together.

“Of course,” you say, and he catches your lips again, swallowing the last of your laughter, sweeping his tongue over your lips, inside your mouth, wet and hot and a little messy, but good. 

“You need to be on your back,” Taehyung continues, slow after the kiss is broken, and, oh, okay, that has you shivering. “If you want to?”

Of course you want to.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let me move.”

He shifts to give you room, but not before pressing a kiss to the back of your neck, the bump of the top of your spine, lips sliding against the oil that he’d rubbed there earlier, goosebumps erupting over your skin.

“So good to me,” he whispers. You don’t think he even means for you to hear it. 

(It’s said without thought; not thoughtless, no, but a soft little thing that says so much. A thought that’s slipped across his mind and fallen from his lips, warm and tender. Like you’re always good to him, and he sees it, he knows it, he feels it, he thinks it, and he’s almost in disbelief about it, because you’re so good to him.)

You feel warm and languid after cumming, loose-limbed as you flop onto your back. There’s no going back now. There’s no going back from this moment, naked and vulnerable under Taehyung, nothing hidden away any more—the soft fall of your breasts, your stomach, the lines of your hips, your fingers tightening in the towels spread beneath you as Taehyung’s eyes drink you in, wide and overawed at the sight of your flushed cunt, ripe and slick and ready for him.

(There's no more hiding how much you want Taehyung to have you, body and heart alike.)

You can see the shape of your body silhouetted on his clothes, where the oil has seeped into the material from how close he’d been pressed against you. You can see just how affected he is, cock straining against the loose linen of his white trousers, and you bite your lip to try and stifle the sound you make.

“Look at you,” Taehyung breathes, kneeling between your legs. “You’re so perfect.”

Your cheeks burn. “Taehyung, please,” you say, embarrassed. You really aren’t, especially in comparison to model-gorgeous Kim Taehyung, eyes dark and full of heated lust, hair falling in his eyes, effortlessly beautiful, always.

“You are,” he insists. “You have no idea how perfect you are.”

Before he reaches for the massage oil, he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, sloppy and messy. Your pussy throbs at the sight. And—you were also right about the visual being too much to handle, breath catching in your throat as you watch it drip into his broad hands. His palms shine as he rubs them together, interlacing his fingers, so graceful in their motions. You’re so wet from your orgasm, only getting wetter as you stare back at Taehyung, whose gaze has been heavy on you the whole time.

He starts at your collarbones. It’s even slower than before, and you ease underneath him, revelling in the softness of his touch. He sweeps his hands over your shoulders, down your arms, circling his long fingers around your wrists before lifting one of your hands. Your eyelashes flutter as he presses a kiss to your palm, a motion so full of adoration and tenderness it steals your breath away, and you squirm, shy.

“Tae,” you whine. “You can’t just do that.”

Of course he doubles down, lifting your other hand and repeating the motion, letting his lips linger between your head line and your heart line. “I can,” he says, words warm in your cupped palm. 

“I hope you didn’t do this in class.” Your voice is too weak for it to come out as the joke you mean it to be. 

Taehyung just shakes his head, mouth brushing over the tips of your fingers. “Only for you,” he says. “Did the whole class for you. I wanted—wanted an excuse to touch you more,” he admits, and your heart feels like it’s going to launch itself out of your throat.

“Then touch me,” you say, trying to sound confident even if your cheeks burn.

And he does. He lets your hands drop, gliding his touch back up your arms, down your body, over your legs; he massages your thighs and calves, digs his thumbs into the arches of your feet, circling his fingers around your ankles, shackles you don’t want to escape from. You feel so relaxed and lax, somehow, even if every touch has you biting your lip, anticipation roiling  in your stomach for what’s to come, Taehyung laying your legs down softly before he shifts back up, hands held out towards you—

—then he cups your breasts in his big, big hands and your back arches, fingers sliding over your nipples, glistening with coconut oil, circling them with the pads of his thumbs. You let out an embarrassing whine.

“Oh, Tae,” you beg. “More, please.”

“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

You smile at another soft, unexpected pet name, flustered, but then your eyes slide shut when Taehyung bends down to kiss your neck as he continues to run his hands over the swell of your breasts. He trails his lips over your oiled skin, shifts down, drawing a line from your neck to the valley of your chest, the hard line at the center of your ribcage.

“Tae,” you murmur, and then, feeling bold under the heat of Taehyung’s dark eyes— “Baby.”

He hums before laying another sloppy kiss against your sensitive skin. You can feel the curve of his smile in the kiss. “Yes, love?”

“Is it really okay for you to… you know… get that oil in your mouth? I don’t want you to get sick,” you say, concerned, even through the haze of your arousal. His lips shine with it, at how he’s been trailing his mouth over all the parts of your body that he’s touched.

There’s a short beat, and then Taehyung buries his head against your neck—in that little hollow that’s his, in a motion he’s done dozens of times. Except this time you’re naked and he still has fingers splayed across the soft skin of your chest, nipples dragging underneath his palms.

“You’re always so considerate.” His words are muffled against your skin. “It’s fine. It’s edible.”

“You got edible massage oil from your course?”

Taehyung hesitates. “No,” he admits. “I bought it. It’s edible and, uh. Safe for intimate use.”

You’re silent, just for a moment, and then you can’t help it. You start to laugh. 

“Kim Taehyung,” you say, body shaking with amusement. “Did you buy edible massage oil that you can also use as lube?”

Taehyung pulls his face away from your neck and glances up. You’re giggling at him, and he feels so full of love and affection; he can’t help but join in, both laughing at him, loud and carefree.

“It’s why I asked which one you liked,” he confesses, once he can catch his breath.

“I can’t believe you lied to me,” you say, but you don’t mind, really, and he knows it. You lift a hand to push hair out of his face, running your fingers down his scalp. He leans into your touch with a smile, bright and lovely, before he abruptly shifts one of his hands down so he can lick a hot, wet stripe across the skin of your breast.

That stops your laughter pretty fast, surprised hiccup shifting into a broken moan when he engulfs your nipple in the heat of his mouth. “O-oh,” you gasp. “Oh, Taehyung—”

“Been thinking about this for so long.” Taehyung’s eyes are lidded and dark as he leans back, watching the way you react to his touch, arching up towards him. “Wanted to touch you like this so much.”

“Wanted it too,” you breathe. “Wanted—oh, God, Tae, fuck—”

It’s overwhelming. Not just the way Taehyung is flicking his tongue over each of your nipples, pressing his lips against your skin, no—but the idea that he’s been hoping for this, too. Each wet motion of his tongue over your pebbled skin drags pulls out of you; Taehyung’s cock twitches at a loud keen that’s drawn from your lips, a wet patch of precum seeping through his boxers and trousers, darkening the fabric, even though you haven’t touched him yet.

When you reach out to grasp him through his clothes, his hips jolt forward and he bites off a surprised gasp, cutting through the sound with his teeth. He feels long and heavy as you stroke him, thumbing over the wet patch at his tip, hot, even through all those layers between your skin and his.

“I want to feel you, Tae,” you say, staring at him. “Inside me. Please.”

His breath hitches when you tighten your fingers around his shaft and drag your hand upwards, slow and intent. 

“The oil isn’t condom friendly,” he admits, abashed. 

“Then you can cum in my mouth,” you reply. No hesitation.

Taehyung’s eyes are so wide, but then he smiles, eyes squeezing into crescents, mouth turning up into that lovely, broad grin of his. He looks so sweet and sincere, and you feel like you could explode, stuffed overfull with love for him.

“You really are perfect,” he says.

“Only for you,” you reply, your smile just as bright.

He lays one final kiss to your chest, above your beating heart, before he starts to strip. The oil has obviously soaked through his shirt and onto his skin because it sticks when he peels it off and carelessly throws it aside. 

Just like his heart, Taehyung’s body is soft and lovely. You sit up so you can touch him properly, catching him off guard when you pull him in for a kiss—one he eagerly leans into, and without the shirt in the way you can feel the way your skin slides against his, softened with oil. 

There really is no one as beautiful as Kim Taehyung. You drag your hands over him, so warm and wonderful under your palms; his chest, his cute tummy, his waist, his hips, the soft skin above his red, neglected cock. He’s radiant in his nakedness, every easing line of his body so perfect as he kneels in front of you, the flush of his skin, the heavy weight of his arousal, head shining with precum, so wet it’s practically dripping.

You lean in to kiss his neck and nip at his Adam's apple as his hands slide over your shoulder blades and down your back, the parts that make you shudder.

“Want you, Tae.” You whisper into his mouth, a soft secret that isn’t really a secret at all, not any more. “All of you.”

“Going to give you everything you want.” The words flow out of him with ease. “Everything you want.”

His chest and stomach shine with the massage oil that’s rubbed off from your own skin. You run your hands across him, and when you finally grasp his cock without the barrier of cloth in the way, he’s almost burning under your grasp, thick, his entire body shuddering when you pump his length. So sensitive to your touch.

“I’m goin’ to make you cum again,” he promises, and you love it, the way he talks when he’s losing himself. “Bet you’ll feel so good around my cock, so perfect.”

A shiver skates through your body. Taehyung’s fingers dig into your skin when he feels you trembling under his hands, and all you can think about is how you want him in you.

“Please,” you say. “Please, wanna make you feel good too—”

“Hands and knees, angel,” he rasps, and, God, yes, those words cut straight through you, sharp and electric.

Maybe you should feel embarrassed at how quickly you obey. The towels underneath you, so carefully placed at the start, perfectly flat, become rumpled as you shift into position; you arch your back, wanting to look as good as possible, and glance over your shoulder to see if it works.

Judging from the look on Taehyung’s face, it does. He looks like he’s never seen anything more awe-inspiring, eyes wide and mouth a little slack, dumbstruck. But then his jaw snaps shut and he splays his hands over the soft skin of your hips, your waist, your ass, shuffling closer to you; you feel the curve of his cock slide against your skin and you bite back a noise of need.

“Fuck, so beautiful.” He ruts forward, and you can feel the wetness of his precum slicking against you, a beaded line drawn across the sheen of massage oil. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”

“Tae,” you plead, already overwhelmed with need, heart squeezing at his words.

“Just one more thing, angel, I promise.”

It’s a good thing that the bottle of massage oil is so big, considering how liberal Taehyung is with it. You gasp when he uses one hand to spread your ass and before you can react there’s a drizzle of oil falling onto your skin, down-down-down, over your cunt, dripping over your inner thighs; Taehyung catches the excess with his palms before he slicks himself up, spreading that sweet coconut over his throbbing cock.

(You wonder what it’ll taste like when you lick it off him.)

When you feel the blunt head of his cock nudging at your pussy, your entire body lights up in anticipation, nerve endings on fire, every inch of your body singing under Taehyung’s touch—and when he finally sinks in, it’s almost effortless. He’s thick and long but everything slides so easy; you gasp and he moans, both lost in how your body opens up for him, hot and wet. By the time he’s bottomed out you're a quivering mess, collapsed onto your elbows. You’re so full. You feel split open in all the best ways, wanting to draw him in impossibly deeper even so.

Taehyung is gripping your sides, hands unmoving even with the slick oil underneath them, fingers digging into your skin. He’s breathing so loud, and when you experimentally shift your hips, he bites back a noise that cuts through that breath.

“How’s it feel, love?” His words slur together in arousal, but the hand that strokes your back is slow, thoughtful. “Feel good?”

“Fuck me, Tae, baby, please,” you beg. It’s so, so so much, so good, amazing, hotter and bigger and harder than anything you’d let yourself imagine, your entire body taking Taehyung and holding him in, in, in. “Please, I need it, it feels good but I want more, please.”

When he pulls away it’s slow and torturous and he goes so far he almost slips out, cock nearly sliding out of your folds. You whine, a little shameless, mostly needy, but then—

The snap of his hips drives you forwards, towels shifting underneath as you scrabble for a hold on something. Each sharp motion of Taehyung’s body has you choking for air and letting out whimpers and gasps, drowned out by the slap of skin on skin; his hipbones meet the soft flesh of your ass, again and again, but all you can focus on is the thick heat of his cock inside you, in-out-in-out, the press of his balls against your clit, everything so wet and smooth and slick.

You can feel how you’re losing yourself to that heady place that’s golden bright with feeling, lust and sex, the rest of the world gone, unimportant. There’s nothing but this—Taehyung touching you, filling your body so well, so perfect, helping you chase that high that’s growing faster and faster, that precipice of pleasure that he’s going to throw you over again, intent on it.

One of his hands trails up your back, between that sensitive dip of your shoulder blades and into your hair, locks tangling with coconut oil before he urges you up. He doesn’t yank or pull but his hold is firm and you end up back on your hands, arms trembling as you try to keep your balance, back bowed, overwhelmed. 

“Baby,” he rasps. “Oh, you’re so tight n’ hot, so pretty, fuck. You feel so good, do you feel good?”

Your answer is almost a wail, so overcome with pleasure, sensation, the glide of his hands over your shining skin, the mix of oil and arousal that drips out of you, only getting wetter with each thrust of his hips into you. “So good, o-oh God, Tae, baby, fuck, oh, theretherethere—”

“Here?”

He punctuates this with a roll of his hips, using the hand still on your hip to pull you back onto his cock as he fills you up once more, throbbing heat. He bends over you, and this time, there’s nothing stopping the skin on skin contact, the slide of his chest against your back as he kisses the soft skin behind your ear, nipping at your lobe, and that’s it, you’re gone. Your eyes slide shut and your mouth falls open as another orgasm crashes through you, legs shaking as you cum around Taehyung’s cock, grinding back against him to drag out that pleasure; the only thing holding you up is the hand still in your hair, the lips trailing up the side of your bared neck, the hard cock inside you, keeping you against him, so many points of connection with Taehyung.

(His chest pressed against your back, heart beating so hard you can feel it, your own heart moving in tandem, matching him.)

He’s been whispering filth to you, heated praise and love, how good you feel, how beautiful you are, what it’s like to see you like this, touch you like this, have you like this. Lovely, pretty, perfect, gorgeous, hot n’ wet n’ tight, fuck, love, oh.

You’re still shivering, the final pulses of your orgasm curling through you with each unintentional shift of Taehyung’s hips, the drag of his length inside your inner walls. You can feel something dripping out of you; oil, cum, you don't know, but fuck, it feels so so good.

“Oh, God,” you say. Breathless. “Oh, Taehyung, oh.”

“Pretty darling,” he murmurs. He swivels his hips, grinding against you, and your entire body jolts with oversensitivity, clit swollen where his balls press against it. You tighten around him and groan at how hot and big he still feels inside, even as you still shiver from the come down of your second orgasm. “Gonna roll you over so I can see that perfect face.”

And when you’re on your back again, fucked out and mussed and wrecked, he just stares at you. You’ve watched his face for so long, seen so many expressions flit across his features, but never something like this—it’s a mix of amazement and awe and tenderness and lust and love, a lift to his brows and a spark in his eyes and a set to his lips.

And when he leans down to kiss you, that look doesn’t leave. It melts and softens around the edges as you catch each other's mouths, as you kiss and kiss, small tender things interspersed with longer, deeper touches, lips and teeth and tongue—his eyes darken and his mouth flushes darker pink, kiss swollen and so beautiful, but that expression stays. It stays for you. 

Kim Taehyung is beautiful and lovely and unique. Kim Taehyung is so far out of your reach it’s kind of stunning, actually. And yet, here you are, existence of his touch over every part of you, in every part of you, lust driven, love full; the carefully balanced weight of his body splayed over you, pinning you down, keeping you close.

“I wanna see you cum, Tae,” you say. “Please?”

And just like he always does, Taehyung indulges you, just like you indulge him. He presses back inside you, cunt opening up for him so easy, so smooth, like his touch has already been etched into the memory of your body, perfect for him. He stays pressed close, face so near as he rolls into each thrust, sweat and coconut oil painted across your skin as your bodies shift together.

He’s been covering you in his words, both heated and sweet, and now you return the favour. You tell him how good he feels, how beautiful he is, so good, so perfect, so considerate, how much you’ve wanted this. So good, so long and thick, oh, Tae, feels so good, ah-ah-ah, baby, you’re unreal, fuck.

You can see the exact moment he starts to reach his high, the way he sucks in air, the way he lifts his chin, starts to thrust a little harder, a little faster, chasing that thread of pleasure that’s spiralling through him, and you urge him on. You lift your hips and clench so tight it has him gasping, hips stuttering, and you press your nose against his jaw, saying give it to me give it to me give it to me, wanting him to feel the same pleasure he’s given you. 

When he pulls out, you’re too busy moving to pay attention to how empty you feel, settling between his legs and swallowing down his shining cock almost desperately. There’s no coconut. You can only taste yourself and when you lave your tongue across his slit it’s all Taehyung-Taehyung-Taehyung, hot and salt and bitter; he gasps and his hips jump and you take it all, lowering your head as far as you can, the head of his cock at the back of your throat before you pull up, dragging your tongue over the pulsing vein at the underside, messy and wet. You drink down the wetness of his cock, your own arousal, mixed with his, the precum that beads at his head, staring up at him, your hands sliding over the sheen of his stomach, his thighs, cupping his balls, everything slick with oil and sweat.

“Oh, God.” Taehyung’s eyes are blown and his hair is a mess and his mouth is wide open as he pants for air, watching. “Baby, baby, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.”

You suck hard, dragging your lips up from the base of the cock to the rounded tip, swirling your tongue, bobbing your head faster—

“Oh, fuck—”

—and you swallow down each wave of cum, swallow down the way his cock twitches as he spills the evidence of pleasure into your mouth, swallow down the lovely noises that shudder out of him, watching him the whole time, never wanting to look away.

When you take your mouth off his softening cock, you draw a line of kisses with your mouth, up the soft skin of his body, stomach to chest to neck to mouth. He licks the taste of coconut oil off your lips, the taste of himself off your tongue; you curl up in his lap, settled against him, the apartment’s cool air even sharper against your skin, magnified by the oil that still lingers.

(Even without the oil painted across him, Taehyung would still shine, even under the weak light from the cheap lightbulb that hangs above you.)

You feel soft and warm and small in the circle of Taehyung’s arms, pulled close, and you can hear the words in his chest as he speaks, a resonance that touches against your skin.

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs. 

You pause.

“Baby, love, darling.” The endearments are sugar sweet in your mouth, soft against his skin before you pull back to look at him, confused, concerned. “Sorry for what?”

“I really—I really was just planning to do a massage, but you’re so…” 

You let out a slip of laughter. The room smells of coconut and sex, but when you lay your head against Taehyung’s collarbone all you can smell is the light tinge of his sweat. You breathe in, deep, like you can hold onto that ephemeral part of him. “Oh, Tae. I’m so what?”

“You’re so good,” he says. “So good and kind and lovely and—and so beautiful. I was going to do the massage to make you happy and then… tell you. About how happy you make me.”

You burrow your head into the hollow of his neck, the way he does to you, shy. “I’m not as beautiful as you,” you reply. “Tae, you are literally the most beautiful person alive, and—God, I’ve. I’ve been. So head over heels for you.”

There’s a pause. “Really?”

When you pull back to fix Taehyung with all the surprise in your gaze, you can see that he’s surprised, too. His hair hangs into his eyes, and he looks a little unsure, like he believes you, but finds it impossible to fathom.

You leave massage oil on his cheeks when you cup his face in your hands, staring at him with wide eyes. “Kim Taehyung, I have had daily breakdowns about the intensity of my love for you to Pickles ever since we got him. You’re the first person I think about each morning—usually because we wake each other up—and the last thing I think about at night—well, usually because you end up climbing into my bed more often than not, but, it still counts,” you say. You’re both tangled together in so many ways already. “You’ve had my heart for a long time, you know. I just never thought I had a chance?”

When Taehyung kisses you, it’s brief, a hard press of his lips before he rests his forehead against yours. “You really, really have no idea how perfect you are,” he murmurs. “I’ve wanted—I want to do everything for you to show you how grateful I am for everything you do for me.”

“You don’t have to,” you protest, but he just smiles.

“I don’t have to, but I want to,” he says. “Like you don’t have to look after me, but you do.”

“That’s because I love you,” you say. “Like, capital L love you.”

You’ve been so afraid of confessing, so convinced that it was an unattainable dream; that Kim Taehyung would never, could never, has never seen you as more than a friend. But the way he’s looking at you now, the way he’s touched you, the way your body still echoes with the feeling of him inside you: you’re not scared, any more. You don’t need to be.

Taehyung’s eyes are so dark and warm when he replies, easy and effortless. “I love you, too.”

Your relationship has always been a give and take, is the thing. When you climb in the shower together, he washes the oil from your back while you massage shampoo into his scalp, laughing when he makes devil horns in his hair. He catches you by surprise when he presses you against the tiles, swallowing your moans when he coaxes one final orgasm from your tired body, rubbing tight circles over your clit as you buck against his hand and water cascades over you both. His cock hardens in your hands, sliding between your legs when you press them together, tight-tight-tight, his length rubbing against your cunt as he fucks your thighs until he’s moaning and shaking and cumming again.

(The water’s cold by the time you finally climb out, but that’s okay. You giggle and kiss as you dry yourselves, each other, excuses to keep touching and feeling, driven by affection, not lust.)

When you’re both clean, and dry, Taehyung’s leg thrown over your hip as he tugs you in, flush with his body under the covers, you press your lips against the line of his jaw.

“Taehyung?”

“Yes, angel?”

You smile and hunch up even closer to him, scrunching yourself up as small as you can to plaster yourself against his side. “Thank you for the wonderful massage. Definitely the best massage I’ve ever been given, ten out of ten, would do again.”

Taehyung laughs, pressing his rectangular smile into the kiss he lays against your lips, and you think that nothing tastes better than the happiness curling his mouth.

“Love you,” he murmurs. Always romantic. “I love you love you love you.”

“Tae-honey-hyung.” And it feels so nice to not have to filter your words, to bite back that second layer of meaning, to try and keep things platonic and chaste when you speak. “I love you.”

And it feels so nice to have your Taehyung beside you, your body still aching with the press of him inside you, a good ache, a nice ache. A physical ache from good love, rather than a heartache from a love you didn’t think was reciprocated. But it is, somehow, each of you so bowled over by each other.

--

(“Hey, Pickles.”

The bearded dragon looks up at you, placid as he lounges in his tank.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that you won’t have to put up with me ranting at you any more,” you say. “Taehyung did break out the massage oil but it’s all good. I didn’t spontaneously combust or anything, like I thought I would.”

Pickles’ tongue flicks out as he shifts, and you smile.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m done,” you finish. “Thanks, Pickles. You’re a real pal.”

Taehyung nuzzles into your neck. His arms are a tight circle around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder as he looks down at the reptile, too. He’s warm and solid against your back, and you lean into him, happiness tingling through you.

“I wonder how much longer we would have taken if you didn’t get that coupon for a massage therapy course,” you muse, and Taehyung chuckles, warm and lovely.

“We would have gotten there eventually. And we would have had each other until we did, anyway. Right, angel?”

Pickles stays quiet as you both kiss, but you can tell he approves.)

--

taglist: @beyoncesdragon​

[ballorawan740]

SCP Scenarios: SCP x Reader - McDonald's Sprite (REQUESTED)

Main Masterlist | SCP Scenarios Masterlist | My Works Masterlist | Rules | Request | Socials | My Original Post

Requested by: @katnotmore123

Bro y'all be simping for Sprite and I'm here simping for 7Up...

I mean I like them both but I just prefer 7up over Sprite... It's like comparing Pepsi and Coke ngl but with a more subtle difference

SCP 073 (Cain)

You came back to the foundation one day with a cup of iced drink and Cain had asked what you were drinking and you showed him

He was mildly confused but soon understood the beverage since he had seen them somewhere on the web (no, not the hub, an advert from McDonald's)

You asked if he wanted to try some and he did, so you gave him a sip

You were slightly annoyed and surprised since you drove over an hour and hadn't had anything to drink and the last thing you wanted was someone taking your drink

But since it was 073, you made it an exception since you hadn't expected him to have any food or beverages outside of site 17

You figured that he had enjoyed it as he reminisced his past about being able to eat plant-based food but no longer could

You felt bad and agreed to get more when you next go back

The researchers had wondered if the drink had ever rotted in his mouth but realise moments later that it's mainly made out of artificial ingredients aside from the natural flavourings

SCP 076-2 (Abel)

I have high doubts that you would be able to persuade Abel to drink such a plain beverage, so you had devised a plan to get him to try

You made a bet with Abel in which the loser has to finish off the drink, not that you'd complain (you unhealthy mf), but you really wanted him to give it a try

Abel accepted and had very much lost the bet

He had taken a sip and you noticed that he's enjoying the drink and teased him

He spat it out and flat out denied it (like the tsundere he is) but continued drinking it anyways

Some of the researchers monitoring Abel's cell found it rather amusing that he enjoyed such a "plain beverage" and did try to tease him about it

Let's just say it didn't end very well as it resulted in somebody's head being chopped off

You both had agreed that if Abel stops trying to breach his containment and be more cooperative, you or somebody else in your team would buy him more Sprite from McDonald's (and by 'buy', I mean kidnapping the whole chain's Sprite dispenser)

SCP 999 (Tickle Monster)

999 would most definitely take the drink out of your hand since his little tingles tell him that whatever you were drinking was sweet

And he was very much right

You were slightly shocked but wasn't surprised since he does have quite a sweet tooth

Every now and again, SCP 999 would ask if you had any more of those drinks and would even ask what they were

You had explained to him that it's a lemon and line flavoured soft drink created by the Coca-Cola company (the more you know right?)

He was intrigued and sweetly requested if you could buy him more and you obliged

You would use your time off to buy a dozen of Sprites from McDonald's and would sometimes buy other soft drinks like Coke and Fanta for 999

Needless to say, you had an orange blob as your personal pet who would give you unlimited hugs since you spoiled him with so many drinks

SCP 682 (Hard to Destroy Reptile)

This mf of a lizard right here is just as stubborn, if not even more than Abel, and would reject trying that beverage at all for the whole entire week

You had to bribe him and the researchers were laughing their socks off from this interaction you both got going

He did give in but was rather hesitant at first

Once you poured some into his mouth, he seemed slightly disgusted from the taste

He would just sit still for a moment as to contemplate then stuck his tongue out as a sign of disgust

But bring the cheeky person you were, you spilt more into his mouth which led to him farting for the next few hours to which everyone laughed

Dr Bright heard the commotion and came to see what was happening

Let's just say he encouraged you to carry on if you want your head cut off but found it amusing regardless

In short, don't ever give him Sprite unless you want to torture him

SCP 049 (Plague Doctor)

Does this bird doctor even drink?!

You mention multiple times about human food and how delicious they are

Mainly McDonald's Sprite and their food since its rather popular

ESPECIALLY THEIR CHEESE BITES/STICKS!!! HAVE YALL EVEN TRIED THEM!? THEY'RE DELICIOUS AF!!!

OMG they've released the garlic ones but I preferred the normal Mozzarella sticks and cheesy bites though

Anyways, back to Sprite, our side chick

049 would be intrigued about this 'Sprite' since you spoke so passionately about it like your life depended on it and requested you to get him one for a try and so you did

When he drank it he was surprised at the foreign taste

He asked if there were more beverages like it and you answered honestly, carrying on with your love for McDonald's and offered to buy him some for a try

Basically, 049 would give it a try since you spoke so passionately for them

He wouldn't necessarily hate it, but he wouldn't love the drink as much

I'd say he would be intrigued to try something new outside of his role in curing the pestilence

SCP 035 (Possessive Mask)

I am so sorry guys, I'll have to make 035 hella short since I can't think of anything interesting for him

DO YALL THINK THIS BOI CAN EVEN TRY?! JUST LOOK AT HIM!!! HE'S A BLOODY MASK!!!

The closest thing for him to try the drink is if you gave his now possessed body some beforehand so 035 could telepathically understand the taste

Like if you just straight up gave him the drink I don't think he would be able to drink it even if he wanted to

If the now dead body never had Sprite, then you ould just describe the tase to him in form of arts (I like to imagine 035 would be into arts, especially performing arts since he's basically a theatre mask)

SCP 105 (Iris)

Our girl here has a high chance that she might have tried McDonald's Sprite

But she just prefers healthier foods (this healthy mf knows that y'all can't keep healthy, that's why she's here to start your New Year's Resolution which is to stay healthy)

You both would recommend food which is healthy or unhealthy and would try them

Iris is more than capable of controlling her diet, but you, on the other hand, have a hard time doing so (don't lie, we all know y'all like junk food)

So, you both compromised in which you can have junk food as a reward, namely your favourite beverage, Sprite

You just love the citrus flavoured, colourless beverage so much that Iris would have to hide the drink from you (ah yes great promotion from me XD)

What would you do without our girl, Iris, eh? (Die from overeating unhealthy food which causes heart attacks and strokes, of course, fun!)

Anyways, sometimes when you're the one going out, you would be the one to buy a few dozen bottles of Sprite from McDonald's (bro do they even sell bottled drinks? Ik they do in KFC from where I live OwO)

Iris would drop dead from the sight of you bringing in so many Sprites into the foundation

She would most likely drink some with you, not because she likes them, god no

It's because there's no more room to store them and she's just a little bit thirsty

SCP 106 (Old Man)

This old man would be so confused by all this food and drinks from the outside world

His first impression of McDonald's was that of a circus since you've shown him the older advertisement for McDonald's since it fits his age (love you 106!!! Not)

And then you gave him a menu, and god did he not have any glasses (boi he do be needing to go to Specsavers fr)

He read Mozzarella Sticks as mosasaurs pricks, the Spicy Veggie One as spicy vag- and what's worse is that he read Double Quater Pounder as double quantum pounding (he even read Coke wrong!)

You and the foundation staff burst out of laughter at his 20/20 eyesight

So one day, you returned to the foundation with some Sprite in your hands in hopes that 106 would give it a go and so he did

He found the flavour somewhat new and strange but still enjoyed it nevertheless (this boi here do be a man of culture, am I right?)

Anyways, 106 loved it so much to the point that during one of the breaches, he disappeared from the foundation and reappeared with 10 boxes of Sprite

The researchers then realised afterwards that 106 had used his pocket dimension to teleport to the nearest McDonald's and stole the boxes of Sprite without even paying

They were even more surprised to find that the workers there were ordinary humans and weren't even fazed about 106 teleporting to their business (Sames here bro! If anyone stole my food/drinks I'd be pissed too regardless of who it is!!! Food is food!!!)

You basically made him addicted to Sprite

SCP 096 (Shy Guy)

(Imma be honest here, idk if this guy eats since he's facing the wall and covering his face like 99% of the time unless some guy saw his face)

You were sat in 096's cell and was debating on what food to get from McDonald's

096 was curious about what you're talking about since he heard you mumbling bout food from this so-called "McDonald's"

So you explained to him the concept of food and that generally speaking, unhealthy foods are tastier and typically served quicker in at places like McDonald's

Imma be real here, I like Burger King's chilli cheese bites a tiny bit more since the McDonald's at my place is stuck with garlic cheese bites atm

It's not like I hate them, but I just prefer the old ones, but it's nice that McDonald's changes up their food every now and then

Anyways, back onto our side chick

You bought your favourite Sprite along with the double quantum pou- quarter pounder

096 was upon curious and so you let him have a bite of your quarter pounder and your Sprite

Let's just say that 096 found it weird and didn't ask about human food again

Dr Jack bright

Jack Bright is very much aware of McDonald's and other fast-food chains since he does have a fair share of memories of eating them with his family and because the bodies he possesses do be unhealthy af (just like you)

You were talking about food with one of your co-workers and Bright just so happened to be nearby and butted his head into the conversation

Your co-worker also just happened to leave for a meeting so you're both stuck together talking about McDonald's

Sometime later, you bought to the foundation some food, including Jack's favourites as he had mentioned not long ago

You both tried each other's food and he was mesmerised by the Sprite since it's been a while since he had it

So whenever you went back, you would buy a larger bottle of Sprite for Jack since he wouldn't have much free time and needed to drink more anyways

Sometimes, when you're both talking about food, you'd make up puns for them or just laugh at your misinterpretations since you're just as blind as a bat (btw I've read somewhere that bats have good vision, they just use echolocation a lot)

Some of the things you both would say would be "Did you hear that McDonald's gave all their employees large laptops for Christmas? They were Big Macs" and "Hey, Ronald McDonald - been watching any good clown movies? Ronald: I'm loving it"

One time, he smacked your bum and casually said to you "Girl, this quarter-pounder will take you to a whole different level of experience" and then left

Dr Simon Glass

Another doctor who has knowledge of fast foods

He's similar to Bright in a way as he doesn't leave the facility as often as he likes since he's constantly busy

Also, he would make terrible jokes and puns using wordplay

When you told him about your favourite drink, Sprite, Glass immediately said "I went to the store to get eight cans of Sprite. When I got home, I realized I’d only picked seven up"

You just looked dumbfounded at his puns and laughed as he continued

He did manage to take a sip and drank the whole can of Sprite instead

You even bought some wrap with extra mayo and told Simon about your friendly chat with the waitress/cashier and mentioned her former co-workers

And you died on the inside because his only reply was "She should go back sometime to ketchup with her old co-workers or she mayo not want to"

To shut him up, you have decided that buying him Sprite would work and it kinda did

Only for a short while though

Dr Alto Clef

Clef is well aware of the fast-food chain called McDonald's

It was hard to ignore it as a lot of people younger than him had kept talking about it, even you

Even worse if it was you talking about McDonald's since you have an obsession with their Sprite

Poor Clef was confused as he assumed that all lemon/lime flavoured drinks were the same

Oh boy was he wrong

You came back with your lunch from you know where and 2 bottles of Sprite

One was from McDonald's and the other from Lidl along with some of your favourite pastries, like croissants and toffee yum yums

You had him try all the foods and both Sprites and he finally gave in to the fact that McDonald's Sprite tastes more superior than the other

Not only that, he made dirty jokes and puns about the food in McDonald's

Like "Baby, you got more legs than a bucket of McDonald's", "Come over to my house and I’ll give ya a happy meal", "Do you work here? Because I’d like to order some fries with that shake" and "Girl when I am done with you, you won't be looking for no toys in this happy meal"

Dr Benjamin Kondraki

Benjamin Kondraki would be the type of person who would be reluctant to try but would anyways since you asked so kindly and gave them those eyes

And by that, I mean a death glare

NGL he doesn't seem like the type of fella to be eating a ton of unhealthy food

I mean he doesn't necessarily eat salad or anything overly healthy, but he does have a balanced diet for the most part and does treat himself sometimes, but not too often

You magically crept up behind Kondraki and scared him unintentionally but you still laughed anyway because you're evil

He looked down and realised that the packaging was from McDonald's and you were holding a familiar clear bottle in your other hand

You were kind enough to share your food with him and he thoroughly enjoyed it

Then after that, you forced him to drink some Sprite since he has PTSD from your unhealthy obsession with it

And yes, he did end up drinking it

And no, he didn't like it nor did he hate it

You were upset that you thought he shot you down about Sprite but quickly regained your happiness since he did tell you about the drink being just above average