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lustlovehart · 2 months ago

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Hard Stoned Gallery Dance

A/n: This was made like monthhsss ago, so I’m posting it as forgiveness for the lack of work i’ve been doing.

Pairing: [ Monster!Twst ] Malleus Draconia x Reader

Summary: Dancing is a beautiful past time, yet such a pretty act is ruined, when Malleus decides to let his affections for you run rampant. (Wc: 1.9k)

Warnings: Kissing & Licking, Murder/Death of Minor Characters (Not explicit), Possessive traits, Clinginess bordering obsession, a little blood, Biting/Marking

Your head leans itself on the rough surface of the stone wall. You’ve finished your objective for the day, so giving yourself this break is well deserved, ten minutes free of Crowley’s nagging is still freedom despite how it sounds. Your eyes can’t help but look up at the pretty blue sky, it stings to look at but you don’t mind the pain, seeing something so clear is worth it.

That cloud looks like a cat.

…

The taste of indulgence is quickly stripped out your grasp when the familiar sound of dragging stone resonates through the air, grating to your ears.

“Child of hunters, what may you be doing here?” His rock-hard face interrupts your view of the sky, green solid eyes look down on you as he casts a shadow on your visage.

Despite his body being made of pure stone, his eyes give a faint green glow, as if a bioluminescent moss grew there. His hair, his wings, and even his tail freely flowed as if he were just a regular Dragon hybrid. But alas, he is some sort of statue— Oh no not a statue, in his words a gargoyle.

You forgot about the difference one time and in turn, he gave you a 3-hour lecture on the difference between a grotesque and other gargoyles. Never again…

“I’m trying to hide from my boss.”

“Shall I be rid of him for you?” His mouth forms a little o as a small puff of a green flame releases from him.

“That would be a bad idea, I’d lose my source of income.” He quirks an eyebrow up at this., to be fair, you don’t think he has any clue what a “payday” is.

Despite his confusion, he lifts from his bowing form, a hand reaching out towards you in all its mossy glory. You’ve known him long enough to know what he wants.

A dance.

You don’t try to hide your exasperation as you take his invitation, albeit a bit slow. His stone body quickly pulls you up and into him. With how much tamer his form is compared to other beasts you know, it’s hard to remember that he’s part dragon, and even worse is part of the only few monsters who know magic.

So as of right now, this marks your third time dancing with one of the worst monstrosities currently on the bounty list. No maybe not one of the worst… From what you remember from Crowley’s ramblings (which isn’t much since you tune him out when possible) he’s probably the most dangerous.

You get the basic idea, but you’ve never truly seen for yourself why he’s considered so terrible. Is he not just a glorified water spout? Compared to a Kraken and an Incubus, surely his damage isn’t so grand to be warranted as the biggest beast to hunt.

“You’ll always be welcomed in my castle, you would not be short of accommodations either.” his hand rests upon your waist, pulling you closer than need be. His invasion of personal space is akin to a parasite leeching off its host, but you let him feed of you. Whether it’s from fear or a bond, you’re not decided.

Your movements are sluggish at best, but you can still remember the basic steps in the dance, your foot sloppily setting itself down where it should be, the occasional step on stone happening once or twice though.

“Considering the current state it’s in… is that even safe for me to walk in…? It looks like one good shout and the bricks holding the place together will crumble apart…”

“That is just the disguise we give it, as to not alert others of our presence. For you though, I’m willing to make it stand out if it makes you happy.” The hand lying on your waist retracts itself as he takes his other clawed limb and twirls you around, falling back into position when the spin is done.

“… I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll wait as long as it takes.” You know he’s not lying about that. You can distantly recall when a certain mystery monster had told you the tale of a longing dragon who perched himself at the opening of his window to wait for a certain hunter's return.

“Yes, he was so determined to be the first one to greet you, why he even stayed sat at the window for 5 months. It was quite endearing hehe.”

“Doesn’t it take hundreds of years for you to erode? Maybe it’ll take me 50 years to decide, by then I’ll be old and grey and you’ll be perfectly fine.” You take a step forward before the gargoyle's grip on your body tightens significantly, shrieking when he suddenly dips you down unprepared.

His freed hand takes your other arm and lifts it up to rest on his shoulder. Green sparkles are faintly flying around his lips as he slowly leans into the soft skin on your arm. His face leans in and presses chaste kisses on your limb, the gentle texture of his mouth catching you off guard as it tickles your body. Now you get it, he must’ve cast a spell to temporarily soften his lips.

He had attempted to kiss you once without taking this precaution, in turn, you gave him a face filled with discomfort at the stone texture that kept peppering you.

You can still remember the hurt face he had on when he saw your dislike towards his affections.

On his ninth kiss, his forked tongue peeks out from his mouth, licking a stripe up your skin. He finally lifts you up after the assault on your arm, his face only a few inches away from your own. It would’ve been quite the romantic atmosphere, had your nose not catch a sharp smell, and a horrible wretched one at that.

“You could be on your last breath and I’d still wait for an answer. But I hope that won’t happen.”

“Who knows, I work a dangerous job.” what is it?

The both of you twirl in unison despite the lack of music, your bodies in tandem as they move to just the sound of your surroundings. Though, your body is a little more sluggish than his own.

That stench… Is too familiar.

Eventually, your last steps fade out as you stop in your tracks.

“Is something wrong dear hunter?” Your grip on his shoulder fastens, if he was human you’re sure you would’ve broken his shoulder.

“What did you do?”

A smile is lit on his lips, his head tilting to the side, giving you such an innocent look, like he did nothing wrong.

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“The smell… Iron… This whole time I thought it was just the smell of the forest. But…” You swiftly pull a dagger out from your side, throwing it past his shoulder, the tip of the steel piercing into what sounded like wood.

He doesn’t turn back, only continuing to smile at you, as if you’re the only existing thing here, or more accurately, the only thing he cares about.

The bark of the trunk splits in half, falling to the ground, revealing the source of the stench. The top of the tree isn’t green, it’s red and brown.

4 pairs of hands stick from the leaves.

“You… What did you do Malleus–?!“ he’s quick to twirl you again, his grip on you tighter than it’s ever been. Despite your protests, he continues dancing as if you hadn’t seen anything.

You’re suddenly stricken with the memory of your first meeting with the beast, blood coating his mouth when he looked at you, pure admiration when he had finally met the muse everyone spoke so dearly of.

“Malleus, you—!“

“Tell me, dear human, was it not you who spared me?” He dips you down. “Was it not you who saw a beaten beast and allowed him to live?” He lifts you up. “Even as you walked away with a piece of stone you let go of one who’s rendered thousands over the years,” he pulls you in. “Dead” every action with your body is harsh, but not enough to hurt you, never enough to hurt you.

Because why would he ever wish to harm you?

He’d much rather smother you in affection, even when you’re exerting all your energy to kill him as he hugs you.

“It’s because you…”

“Looked so human?” He continues to keep you close, impossibly so, your skin melting into his, not from fawness, but fear.

“How did you know-“

“You’ve spared so many of us because we made you feel something in the moment,” he must be referring to everyone else… The look you gave him is dazed, caught up in the thought of every other monster you let get away. His fingers cage your chin in between them. “But don’t forget what we are.” Sparkles fly, temporarily blinding you.

When you open your vision, you’re greeted by the sight of Malleus, with the appearance of what he looked like if he was human, or at least similar to a human.

His skin isn’t rough and solid, his breaths are warm, and his hair is soft and pretty rather than a soft moss.

His eyes are a nice green, a pretty green. A color you would’ve enjoyed more had he been a human. Such a lively color shouldn’t be backdropped by crimson, yet, it is.

Behind him, several other trees collapse on themself, revealing the other tops, the same as the tree you had just seen. Views of stray limbs and vaguely familiar faces of hunters invade your mind, panic setting as you finally realize a question you should’ve asked long ago…

Why was Malleus so far from his castle?

Before you can react, your ears hear a faint whisper, eyes going heavy as little pings of thorns claw at your shoes. The last thing you see and feel, is his face leaning towards you, his finger loosening itself from your chin.

In a blink of an eye, he’s no longer the human you spared, but the monster you let escape back into the wild.

The fiendish of smiles is graced on his lips. Not because of evil, but because his smile, is so love stricken.

All because of you.

“Seems the little birdy fled the nest without permission.” Your eyes slowly flutter open, the familiar figure of a man bowing on top of you. “Now, I’ll forgive you as we weren’t expecting such a beast to appear-“

He’s immediately cut off in his sentence when a searing pain cuts through his chin.

“Augh—! How could you kick me after I spent precious time searching for you!“

“You’re the reason I’m here in the first place…!“

“I didn’t do anything!“ Despite your annoyance towards Crowley and all he stands for in your life, you can’t deny if someone had seen this scene play out in front of them, they would assume you two to be a father and his bickering child.

You attempt to stand to your full height, faltering at the pings of pain in your ankle. You suck in a breath, looking down as you nurse hurt skin.

There are briar thorns wrapped around your leg, a single rose adorning the stems, and a gentle green hue that contrasts the pure black of the floral life.

“Oh my, what were you doing last night?”

“�� Night?”

“You’ve been gone for 36 hours my birdie.”

You don’t feel any different… Save for the prickle of thorns and fresh bite on your arm.

… Fresh bite?

Despite the indent, it doesn’t hurt, it’s like, he left it there as a reminder of your failures, at least to you. It could very well be his way of staking his claim on your heart.

“It’s a shame you didn’t get him when you could’ve, with your connections, you could’ve spared us a huge loss today…” you’re cruelly reminded of the people that lay to waste hidden in the trees. “We should let today serve as a reminder of what you must do.”

Crowley doesn’t look happy at the sight of so many employees who failed their jobs, yet he doesn’t look grieved either.

You… Truly, you wish you weren’t so softhearted during your missions. Maybe then, this could’ve all been avoided.

A/n: Like I said, this piece was from so long a goo, so i’m so sorry if the plot isn’t to anyone liking, but if it is, i’m happy you enjoyed it!!

#monster!twst #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #vesperwrites #malleus x reader #malleus draconia x reader #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere malleus #yandere malleus draconia

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lovebugism · 2 years ago

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Virgin!Eddie thoughts?

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | quid pro quo

summary: eddie muson is a virgin and doesn't want anyone to know (because being an adult who's never fucked anyone is a total reputation ruiner). but you, his favorite customer, are more than willing to change that. pairing: eddie munson / f!reader word count: 6.5k (holy shit this was supposed to be a blurb) warnings: talks of virginity and masturbation, the word "tit" too many times, a handjob (sorta?) 18+ mdni a/n: you asked for thoughts but i had way too many of them for a single post so i might turn this into a whole virgin!eddie series that will only see the light of day if you guys are into this so... no pressure <3

( MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

You were Eddie’s favorite customer, though that went without saying. It was something both of you were more than aware of. Albeit it, it was a little strange, since he — the supplier of your weed — was essentially paying for your high. He doesn’t mind it, though. He never did. You made it up for him in other ways; and, no, it’s not as perverted as it sounds.

It’s actually much, much weirder.

It was your fourth time meeting with him but your first time without any money to give him in exchange. You’re all pink and fidgeting and feeling like a total loser as you shift on the hard wooden bench across from him.

Your gaze is tilted away from his and down at your hands where you twist the rings on your fingers — “I was supposed to get paid last Friday, but my boss is paying me weekly now instead of every two weeks, so he completely changed my payday on me, and he swears he told me about it, but he totally didn’t— anyway, that’s beside the point. I don’t have any money to give you, or like, at all. Genuinely. I’m gonna be lucky if I get to eat anything other than top ramen for the next few days.”

“Damn,” he laughs, not in amusement at your situation but rather pitying you for it. “That sucks—”

“That sounds like I’m guilt-tripping you, doesn’t it?” you keep rambling. “I’m really not. I’m just trying to be honest. I’m not, like, trying to do you over or anything. I swear. You probably don’t even care. You’re my drug dealer, not my friend, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't— I’m making a total fool out of myself, aren’t I?”

“No, not at all,” Eddie assures sincerely, the hint of a smile curling at the corner of his lips. That’s all he can muster. He feels like the fool right about now because your words sting a little harder than intended.

He always considered you a friend. Or, at least, a whole lot more than just a client. You’re the only customer he has fun with, who he can laugh with, who doesn’t just hang around long enough for him to hand you your drugs like everyone else does, who actually cares enough to make conversation with him.

Maybe that’s why he chose to give it to you for free that day.

Because he’s started to grow fond of you (and because he genuinely believes that you’re in a bad way and that money’s a little too tight for you right now. He knows all too well what that’s like.)

But he asks you for a favor in return when you take the plastic baggie from him. It has him blushing with embarrassment like you’d been just minutes before. He can’t meet your gaze as he says the words, but he can feel the incredulous beam of it piercing holes into him.

“You, Eddie Munson, are willing to give me weed, for free, as long as I… help you pass your next English exam?”

You weren’t repeating it to mock him or to make him feel bad for being a third-year senior. You’re just actually shocked because you know a thing or two about the Munson’s. You know that his Uncle is working two jobs, and his nephew has resorted to drug dealing to compensate for their being strapped for cash. You also know that suppliers giving out anything for free is bad for business, so it’s essentially unheard of.

And aside from all that, Eddie wanting to study — to want to try to be good at something rather than just winging it and hoping for the best — was almost as surprising as him wanting you to be the one to help him. You literally have Gareth, his best friend, in your English class, and he’s way better at it than you are.

You try to find what makes you somehow special but come up short.

“Is that, like, really weird?” he wonders meekly, scrunching his nose and peering at you through his lashes. His eyes are the color of chocolate syrup, you notice then. Like, exactly. And they have a sort of sheen to them beneath the sun, like he's trapped a star inside of them.

“Yes,” you answer with a laugh that's as light as air. “Considering you could’ve offered literally anything else. Like, I don’t know— groping my tits or something.”

It’s what you were half-expecting. Not because you thought Eddie was that kind of guy, but because that’s how it often went down, at least in porn. A busty (broke) blonde orders a pizza, a man with an enormous dick delivers it… It’s a tale as old as time, really.

Your words make him tense for the second time in five minutes.

He almost wants to be offended that you’d think of him that way, but his yearning far overpowers his wounded ego.

He’s got a soft heart. That offer never would’ve crossed his mind, and even if it did, he’d never be stupid enough to say it out loud. But he didn’t realize how much he liked you until right then. It wasn’t just a friend caring for another friend, but a boy with a crush on a girl eons out of his league (with boobs he would happily touch if she’d let him).

He clears his throat and irrationally prays that you aren’t a mind reader.

“I’m down if you are,” he answers with a playful lilt to his voice that makes you giggle again. He’s happy to hear it. Your laugh is like being basked in sunshine. He wants to keep it in his pocket when he gets lost in the shade.

That’s the moment that started it all — the strange friendship that formed out of practically nothing. Who knew what being poor, free weed, an historically low GPA, and a missed opportunity for tit-groping could do to two people?

From then on, all your weed was free. As long as you broke down all the themes in Of Mice and Men for him, of course. And then, when he ultimately aced that paper, he wanted to run his D&D campaign by you — “So, you know, it isn’t totally lame when I show it to the rest of Hellfire.”

“Of course, it’s gonna be lame,” you deadpan from across the rotting bench. “It’s Dungeons and Dragons.”

He goes red at that, a flash of pink blotched around his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He glows cherry with embarrassment and smiles faintly as he looks down at his hand, fidgeting with his silver skull ring. It’s cute. Too cute. The kind of cute that makes you grin to yourself without even thinking about it.

“I’m kidding, Eds—”

Eds. That was new, the boy remarks to himself. Not the nickname itself, perhaps, but the fact that you were the one calling him by it. You’re getting more comfortable with him. He likes that. It gives him a false hope; that one day he’ll be a friend to you and not just your dealer.

“—It sounds really fun actually,” you assure him with nod and a twinkling gaze that proves you sincere. “As long as you’ll smoke with me during.”

“I don’t really like to use my own product…” That was a lie. Mostly. He didn’t like to smoke his own stuff because that burned a hole into his profits. But that didn’t mean he didn’t do it. It was far too tempting to have a tin full of so much weed never more than just a few inches away.

Now he’s got a pretty girl in front of him, wanting to smoke with him, wanting to spend time with him. Hell’s freezing over as they speak and that certainly calls for a celebratory smoke session.

A smirk pulls at his pink lips and he tilts his head, bringing his ear to his shoulder, as he looks at you with a glimmering umber gaze.

“But I’m willing to make an exception. Just for you.”

Eddie swears you blush at that, but he catches only the shortest glimpse of your crimson cheeks before you duck your gaze to the table. The beam on your face is only half-washed away, however, when you turn up to look at him again. You look shy, almost, as you peer at him through your lashes.

“You’ll basically have to start from scratch too, you know that, right? I don’t know anything about that shit.”

“Well, I’m glad I can be your first,” he quips.

You laugh again. It’s like the pinky-orange of a sunset. He could paint it if he had the right supplies. And a set of hands that were good for things other than rolling die and playing guitar.

It was his first time, really. In every aspect of the phrase.

It was the first time a girl’s ever offered to hang out with him and not the other way around. The first time a customer’s ever offered to share their weed with him. The first time someone’s ever wanted him to explain his favorite hobby and not care that he’s been rambling for the better part of an hour.

He doesn’t even notice that he hasn’t shut up since he started talking, mostly because you aren’t giving him that look of annoyance people usually have when he hasn’t gotten the hint. Most couldn’t care less about goblins and villains and battles and knights and princesses — princess knights.

It’s more interesting than you ever hoped a board game could be, but less so as enchanting as the glow Eddie’s got about him as he rambles on and on about something that makes him so happy.

He’s beaming and he doesn’t even realize it. He has no idea he could light up an entire solar system with the smile on his face. You’d tell him if it didn’t feel totally inappropriate.

It takes two weeks to perfect the campaign, which isn’t at all long if you compare it to the year it took him to build it from scratch. When the Cult of Vecna (you pat yourself on the back for coming up with the name) is polished and Hellfire worthy, Eddie starts giving you weed... just because.

There’s nothing left for him to offer in exchange. And he isn’t going to turn his favorite customer down for anything.

“What? No tutoring? No D&D campaign?” you wonder with furrowed brows and a face contorted in confusion.

Eddie shrugs and swings the baggie full of greenery back and forth with the tip of his pointed finger. “Nope. I’m passing English and the campaign’s all finished — the guys love it, by the way. Thanks to you. You’ve helped me out with enough shit, so… just take it.”

“Well, now I just feel bad,” you reject with a scrunched nose, displeased at the idea of taking something and not doing anything for it in return. He can hardly afford it to begin with, much less without anything in exchange. “You're basically paying for my weed already. I can’t just take it.”

“You could,” the boy lilts with a sardonic nod. “My hand's getting a little tired here, sweetheart.”

You huff and reach across the bench for the plastic baggie. Your face is still twisted with an absentminded annoyance and your gaze still uncertain. “You sure it’s okay?”

“Yeah. Cross my heart.”

“Fine.”

“Unless groping your tits is still on the table, of course,” he squints playfully over at you and then smiles softly at the recollection of the conversation from many moons ago.

It was supposed to be a joke. But you’re not laughing.

And when you nod at him, he isn’t either.

It’s got him nearly choking on air and sputtering for a response. “No, I was— I was just— It was a joke. I was just kidding.”

“I know. But, I don’t know, I’m down if you are,” you shrug. “That’s what you said before, right?”

And Eddie has no idea what to say to that. Of course, he wants to. There are a billion things he wants to do. He wants to graduate, he wants to play a show at the Madison Square Garden with Corroded Coffin, he wants to bend you over this table and fuck you silly.

He could do all those things if he were a different person, but he wasn’t. He’s just some guy who can’t pass an English class he's already taken three times, with a mediocre band that plays in front of about five drunks (if they’re lucky), who has a crush on a girl who’s offering to let him feel her up for a short-lived high.

He repeats that last part to himself in his head a couple times. It sounds like a dream he had once. He pinches the skin of his wrist, just to make sure, and winces when it starts to hurt.

It’s real, you’re real, and that’s the scariest part.

Because he’s never actually seen boobs that weren’t projected from a television screen through the grainy film of a VHS tape, or pictured in a crinkled magazine he stole from a gas station — let alone touched one. And the second he puts his hands on you, and you feel him shaking like a leaf and totally unsure of what to do, you’ll know that.

That is, if he doesn’t come in his pants first.

He’s terrified that when you do realize that he’s a complete and utter, absolute and proper virgin, you’ll think he’s significantly less cool. And he can’t have that.

It’s bad for clientele. They’ll stop seeing him as the mysterious metalhead from the wrong side of the tracks but rather as some teddy bear who’s never actually been inside a woman.

He could probably handle the potential drop in income and the talks around school. Hell, he could even handle all the shit Jason Carver would spew at him if he knew. But the idea that you’ll stop wanting to hang out with him — he isn’t sure if he could take that.

He doesn’t notice that he hasn’t said a word until you’re speaking again. And even then, it’s all muffled like he’s underwater.

“I can come over tonight, if you want.”

No, he thinks to himself. That’s far too early. I have to lose my virginity and learn everything there is to possibly know about sex first.

“I... I can’t. Hellfire,” he answers, almost slurring, still caught in a stupor.

“Tomorrow, then,” you challenge at his rejection. You cross your arms and lean over the table as you squint at him. The wind rustling through the trees carries the warmth of your floral-vanilla scent over to him, like a lullaby, or a magic spell.

As though he needed something else to make him all stupid.

Suddenly you're ten feet tall. Eddie feels like an ant. You could crush him if you wanted. You have all the power and the look you give him tells him that you know that. He fidgets on the hard wooden seat but can’t seem to break your stare. His voice is tight and a few octaves higher as he answers — “Yeah. Tomorrow sounds good. Great, even.”

“Cool,” you’re suddenly beaming. You stand from the bench and saunter off, tossing a look and a wave over your shoulder as you shout, “See you tomorrow, Eds!”

He has to jerk off after that one. He counts himself lucky that he made it to his van before he exploded completely.

Eddie has to become a sex god in twenty-four hours and he doesn’t know where to start.

So, like any master procrastinator, he doesn’t. He just worries about it all night and the following day. He turns himself into a big ball of anxiety (if you touched him, he'd probably shock you) and it’s left him in the sort of worry that doesn’t let him sit still for too long.

Wayne’s sitting in his recliner, trying to eat his late lunch before he heads off to work the graveyard shift. It’s hard to enjoy his sandwich or the latest episode of Miami Vice playing on the television ahead of him when his nephew keeps bouncing in and out of the room. Making brief conversation, rearranging the knickknacks on the coffee table, coming in just to stand in place for a few minutes before leaving again to rustle in other parts of the small trailer.

At one point, he comes in with the fucking vacuum and nudges at the man’s work boots until he kicks his feet up. Wayne’s never seen him do a chore in his life.

“What the hell has gotten into you today, boy?” the man complains through turkey, cheese, and bread.

“Nothing. What are you talking about? I’m perfectly normal.”

He’s never been normal a day in his life either.

Eddie disappears out of the room a second later with the whirring of the vacuum in tow. Wayne shakes his head to himself. “Boy’s gonna be the death of me,” he mumbles and takes another too large bite.

It’s unlike Eddie not to tell his uncle things, especially things weighing so heavy on his chest that they're starting to feel like pure steel. But his uncle doesn’t ask any questions, and Eddie’s grateful.

How the hell is he supposed to tell Wayne that a cute girl is coming over and that he’s jacked off three times at the thought of her?

Once in his bed, the first thing he did that day when he woke up from a dream about you that felt a little too real; the second in the shower when the cold water wouldn’t kill the boner he’d gotten; and the third in his bedroom, in the shirt he’d peeled off hardly ten minutes beforehand when he got into a bath. It made him feel dirty again though his skin was perfectly clean.

Wayne would think he was joking. At least with the “cute girl” part. He’d probably pat him on the back for the second one — “oh, to be young again,” he'd mumble to himself while simultaneously deciding to leave well enough alone.

Eddie’s so nervous he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

You’ve got him practicing what to do in the mirror, trying to plan the conversation, ironing out the wrinkles of what might happen. “Hi—” he starts but then shakes his head and clears his throat. His voice is deeper as he continues, “Hey, how are you doing? Oh, that’s cool, I’m good too— shit, this is so fucking lame.”

He wonders how you’ll go about it. If you’ll offer first, or if he needs to ask. If you’ll make small talk or if you’ll just straight up take off your shirt. He’d take either, honestly.

He jerks off one more time, just for good measure, after Wayne’s left for work. He’s already tired and his dick is practically raw with how much it’s been tugged at, but he hopes it’ll stop him from getting hard the second you walk through the door. And he figures with the amount he’s come that day, he’s a whole less likely to do it in his pants when he touches you.

You knock on the door at 7 o’clock sharp, like you planned it down to the minute.

He straightens out his leather jacket when he stands abruptly from the couch. He rushes to the door and then hesitates with his hand on the rusted brass handle — because he doesn’t want to seem too eager, right?

He leans to the side to look in the dirty glass mirror hanging by the coat rack, brushing through his curly locks in attempts to tame them. Then he shakes his head so they’re wild again.

He finds you standing on his porch in a tight-black sweater that dips down at your chest; the pendant of your necklace sparkles under the yellow nightlight perched on the outside wall. It’s paired with a white nylon skirt that stops at your thigh.

He’s only seen girls on TV in the suede boots you’re wearing — the kind that’s tight up to your ankle with a short and chunky heel. They match the color of your skirt. He wonders if they were expensive and how much you’ve worn them; they look brand new, like you’ve brought them down from the top of your closet just for him.

You’ve got a stack of thick tapes in one hand and a brown paper bag of snacks in the other.

“What… What’s all this?” he wonders, not displeased at your effort but shocked by it nonetheless.

“Thought we could have a movie night,” you shrug then slide by him and into the trailer. He shuts the door behind you and watches from afar as you set the sack down. It’s not quite flat on the bottom so it topples over and spills some of its content onto the coffee table — red hot chips and sour gummy worms.

“You mentioned that you’d never seen Fast Times a couple weeks ago, so I decided to go rent a copy at Family Video, right? And then I started talking to Robin and she started showing me all the new movies that just came in, so I got a little carried away—”

You're rambling, he notices, almost like you’re nervous.

It makes him feel slightly better, knowing this obviously wasn’t your first time hanging out with a guy (or being touched by one, if he ever got to that part), but that you were nervous nonetheless. Like you wanted this — whatever this was — to go well just as much as he did.

Eddie puts the tape into the VHS player when you’re headed back from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn in hand. You sit it on the table before plopping yourself in the middle of the couch — the boy across the living room has no idea you spent the two-and-a-half minutes it took to cook the snack debating on where to sit.

You feared sitting too far on one side might spook him from sitting next to you, that he’d think you didn’t want to sit next to him. So you place yourself snuggly in the middle of the decade-old sofa and hope you don’t seem too eager.

Your heart sinks to your ass when Eddie sits so far on the edge he’s practically sitting on the arm of it.

You muster a smile and try to make a joke of it. “I don’t have cooties or anything, Eds.”

“Promise?” he lilts. The way his voice shakes is purely for comedic effect. Obviously.

“Cross my heart.”

He hopes that by playing it off, you won’t notice how anxious he is about sitting next to you. But when he plants himself beside you, just close enough so that the rough fabric of his jeans scratches your knee every time he fidgets, it’s a little like sitting next to a rock. You spend the first half of the movie wondering if he’s nervous too or if he really just didn’t want to sit this close to you.

The film keeps playing and he keeps snacking — eating chips and Oreos and popcorn in a rotation before combining all three and marveling at the taste; “You’ve got to try this!” he exclaims to you with raised brows and wide eyes. He eventually forgets to be nervous.

That is, until Fast Times hits 53 minutes and 5 seconds.

The smooth bass of Moving in Stereo plays lowly in the background as Phoebe Cates rises from the pool water, clad in a small red bikini. The chlorine-laced drops of water glisten off of her tanned skin. “Hi, Brad. You know how cute I always thought you were,” you quote quietly along with her.

Your eyes are as glued to the television as Eddie’s when she starts to unlatch her top, like it’s the first time you’re seeing it too. You joked to Robin once that you couldn't wait until they made this movie in 3D.

Eddie gets hard as a rock, then. In every sense of the phrase.

“She’s hot, right?” you ask him.

“Yeah,” he answers. He clears his throat when the word comes out too tight. “Totally.”

“That’s how I knew Robin was gay, you know? We watched this when I slept over at her house one time and I woke up in the middle of the night and found her playing this scene over and over again,” you confess with a laugh and hope your best friend won’t be too angry you told him this. “She was sitting, like, two inches away from the screen.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. And when we made out afterward, that really sealed the deal—”

“Holy shit—” he sputters before he can stop it. “—Are you joking?”

Please, say yes before I come in my jeans, he thinks to himself.

“Why?” you challenge, shooting him an arched brow over your shoulder. “Does that change anything?”

“What? No! Of— Of course not!” It just makes you, like, ten times fucking hotter, that’s all.

“Good,” you nod and then turn back to the television. You move on quickly, and Eddie’s grateful. You keep telling the story like it’s one you tell all your friends.

“I asked her why she was watching it without me, and she said she got bored, but I already knew why she was watching it, you know? I guess I just wanted to hear her say it. So I just came out with it — ‘If you want to look at a pair of tits, I’m literally right here.’”

Eddie’s so entranced by your words it’s like you're telling him a bedtime story. He’s looking at you so intently, his gaze locked to your profile like he’s trying to commit it to memory. And when you finally turn to look at him again, he can’t seem to turn away, to even pretend like he wasn’t just hopelessly staring at you.

“So, then it became this whole thing, right? Like, I’ll show mine if you show yours. And then she got all awkward and nervous and lost in her head, kinda like you right now, and then I leaned in…” you trail off quietly, doing it in time as the words leave your mouth. So teasingly and breathtakingly slow. Eddie finds himself drifting closer to you, too, like a bayman to a siren’s call. “Just like this… And then I—”

You don’t have a chance to finish your sentence.

Eddie’s already kissing you before he realizes what he’s doing. Your noses knock together, the tip of his crushed against the side of yours. The sweet flavor of your strawberry chapstick evades his mouth when your lips press together.

He’s as shocked as you are.

He’s wanted to kiss many pretty girls in his life, but this was the first time he's actually ever done it.

You feel his face burn red against you when he realizes what he’s just done. He tries to pull away from you, but you keep him there with a hand on the back of his head; deepening the kiss and telling him that you want this — that you’ve always wanted this — without actually saying the words.

Refusing to separate from him, you maneuver yourself to face him more as press yourself against his side and tuck your knees beneath you. You caress the rough pad of his tongue with yours all the while, one hand balled in the shoulder of his t-shirt and the other anchoring itself to his curls.

You wait patiently for him to take action. To grip your waist. To lay you back on the couch. To climb over you and take what’s his.

He never does.

He hardly even touches you. He’s got one palm on your hip, but it’s so featherlight that it’s barely even there. His other hand is clutching the pillow on his lap with a white-knuckled grip, like he’s fighting to contain himself in some way. But you want him to let go. To lose himself with you.

The cushion had been there for most of the movie, something to keep in his absentminded hold and get crumbs all over. You wonder, now, if it’s a shield for something else.

Your lips click wetly when you part from him. A small smile forms on your mouth when you notice a string of spit threatening to connect the both of you. It breaks apart, landing cold below your mouth, and you wipe it away with the back of your hand.

“Are you hard?”’ you wonder through bated breaths, coming right and just saying it.

Eddie’s eyes go somehow wider and his mouth falls agape. “Uh… No?”

Giggling, you ask, “Is that a question?”

“Maybe.”

“So what’s the answer?” you pry.

“Honestly?” he starts with a heavy breath and heavier eyes, still trying to joke. “Whatever makes me sound super cool and mysterious and sexy.”

“I’ve always thought you were all those things,” you confess with a soft laugh, twisting a strand of his hair with the tip of your finger.

“…Really?” he can’t help but wonder. Those words are about the most shocking thing that’s happened so far this evening.

“Yeah,” you nod, then tease: “Because you've never lied to me.”

So tell me the truth, he can hear the words jumbling around in your head. So does. He swallows thickly and then admits, voice cracking halfway through his confession, “I’m so hard that it fucking hurts, sweetheart.”

You’re smiling like the Chesire Cat at that, big and sly and mischievous. You have all the power and you know it.

“Can I make you feel better?” you whisper to him, lilting like you're taunting him. You mean it, though, and he knows that because you’re already tugging at the pillow in his lap. You don’t fight to snatch it away completely. You leave just enough room to allow him to say no. But his grip on the thing relaxes and allows you to slide the cushion slowly from his crotch.

He can’t say the words because his tongue is suddenly heavy in his mouth and his throat is closing on him. So he just nods, peering at you with eyes hooded with ecstasy.

You go back to kissing him, then, unhurriedly this time. You allow yourself to feel all of him, to hold his face in your hands and explore all the bits of him you never got the chance to before now. You do it more so in an effort to get him to relax, to forget to be nervous, but it only half-works.

He gets more comfortable with himself with time. The hand on your waist finds a more confident purchase there and the other climbs up to your face, cradling your jaw while his ringed fingers get lost in the strands of your hair. Then he starts to kiss you back harder, more earnestly than before, like he’s trying to prove something. Trying to tell you everything like this than with words he can’t seem to say out loud.

He forgets to be nervous again when your lips fit together like pieces of a puzzle — the kind with the funky edges, the kind you know goes together because there’s only two in the whole bunch like it. He stops worrying if he’s doing it right.

His breath is warm and heavy as it fans against your cupid’s bow. He’d rather take in small pieces of oxygen like this than stop kissing you now. You feel the same way as you straddle his thigh, careful not to move with too much haste that it knocks your lips apart.

Eddie’s legs part for you on instinct. When you settle more comfortably against him, he can feel the warmth radiating between your thighs through the thick fabric of his jeans. He wishes he was naked right now, more so that you were, so he can feel all of you, bare against his skin.

But he takes what he can get for now. And tries not to burst completely at the thought that the only thing separating you from him was the thin layer of your cotton underwear.

It’s hard not to think about your own pleasure like this. You could so easily move your hips against his thigh, let the rugged fabric of his jeans and your panties do all the work against your clit and bring you to a swift release. You want to. You’re sure Eddie would want you to if you asked him. But it strangely seems less important now.

Because you know you’re minutes away from making Eddie come so hard his legs shake. And you always wanted to know what he looked like when he came.

Your hand worms out of his hair and down his neck. Your fingernails trail lightly over his skin, leaving visible chill bumps in their wake. Your palm falls down his chest and stomach, smooth like drops of summer rain. The print of his Def Leppard tee is rough and cracked with age. You wonder how long he’s had it, how often he’s worn it, as your hand settles again. This time on his belt.

For a split second, he’s anxious about you seeing his dick. What if you think it’s too small? He thinks to himself. What if you think it’s too ugly? But then he realizes you’re not even trying to take off his jeans. You just rest your palm over the rough material of the denim and grip him through it.

A groan crawls up his throat and out of his mouth. His head falls backward and lands against the back of the couch.

He’s bigger than you thought, and warm against the tender skin of your hand, even through his boxers and his pants. It’d be ever warmer if you were feeling the real thing, you discern, but you figure you’ll save that for another time. Because even though it’s not the real thing and there are so many layers separating your fingers from his cock, Eddie’s letting out small and breathy moans that tell you that you’re touching him just right. The more you squeeze, the louder he gets.

“Is this okay?” you whisper to him.

“Are you kidding?” he retorts with a breathless laugh. “I feel like I’m in heaven right now.”

“Just wait until you come,” you giggle. It makes him moan again. His eyes fall shut because he knows he’s moments away from feeling what it’s like — not to come, obviously, but for it to be from your hand and not his.

You massage him through his jeans, feeling him grow somehow harder with each caress of your fingers. Peering down at him, you can see his jaw clenching, the way it moves his temples, and the muscles in his neck straining as he climbs the peak of pleasure.

“If you think this feels good now, just wait until you're inside me,” you purr to him.

“Oh, fuck,” he drawls shakily at your words. He doesn’t know if you’re being serious or not. He wants so much to believe that it’s a promise, though. The idea that he could unbuckle his belt right now, free his cock from its restraints and slip your panties to the side and take you, just like this, with you on top of him and riding him for all he’s worth, that nearly does him in.

But he’s fighting to keep it at bay. To let this moment last as long as he can. Because it’s entirely likely that he’ll come and you’ll never want to do this again. It’s even more likely that he’ll wake up from this way too vivid fantasy he’s concocted in his brain. How good can dreams get until they’re nightmares again?

The hand on your hip darts to wrap around your wrist.

“What’s wrong?” you ask him, gaze sober and sincere.

Eddie breathes out a tremble sigh of relief when you slow your motions against him. “I just…” he breathes heavily. And swallows. “I really don’t want to come in my jeans.”

You’re smiling again at that, pleased at how good you're making him feel. Like the pleasure is foreign to him. He can feel your grin as you lean down to kiss him. It’s a chaste peck, like you're just sprinkling yourself there so it can linger the rest of the night.

Your kiss is far more fervent against his neck, wetter and more passionate. His skin has a faint taste of salt, like he’d been sweating. And he was, for the entire day that he anticipated your arrival, though there was never an ounce of him expecting this. You bite at the strained tendon and marvel as he shudders beneath you.

“It’s okay,” you leave your promise against his skin. “I’ll wash them for you after. Like a good little housewife—”

It was a joke and he knows it because you’re laughing at the absurdity of your words, at the reality of them. You’re probably the only person in the world giving your drug dealer a handjob for free weed and then offering to wash his damp bottoms when he comes in them — calling yourself his fucking housewife. But, for a reason he can’t explain, that’s what gets him.

Not marrying you, perhaps, but the idea that he could have this feeling forever. That you could bring him to complete and utter, blinding bliss and then take care of him while he comes back to earth.

You give him an especially tough squeeze that sends a moan spilling roughly from his throat. His hips jerk up to their own according, his thigh jamming into your clothed pussy — he swears he hears you moan — and his toes curl in his boots.

He doesn’t let go of your hand as he comes. He grasps your wrist and presses you further against him. His grip is almost too tight but you don’t mind it, not when you can feel the denim growing damp with the evidence of his orgasm.

Eddie doesn’t feel anything for a while after that. It’s just pure pleasure for several long moments. The fuzziness of his climax, your hand pressed against him, your warmth still pressed against his thigh.

But then the high fades away like a rolling summer cloud and he starts to feel the wet patch forming in his clothes. The fabric of his thin boxer starts to stick to him and he almost feels gross, like he’s a teenager again who can’t so much as look at a woman with needing to come.

But then he sees the way you look at him, grinning like a cat who got the cream — because, in some ways, you are. You look like you're proud of him. Like you’re secretly wondering how many times you can do that before it’s too much. He wants to find out too.

You plant another kiss to his lips. Just because you can.

“Take your pants off, Munson,” you mumble against his mouth, kissing him one more time for good measure before pulling away again.

“Oh— shit— wait, really?” he sputters. “I thought you were joking about— about me being… I— I don’t know if I have any condoms.”

He totally does, in an unopened box under his bed, collecting dust.

You don’t need to know that, though.

“I meant for washing them so you can change,” you laugh at his embarrassment. The sound somehow makes him feel better even though you’re slightly making fun of him. You shrug and arch a brow at him, lilting, “But… I’m down if you are.”

have any more virgin!eddie thoughts? or just thoughts about my writing/requests in general? leave them here if you want! ꒰◍ᐡᐤᐡ◍꒱

#stranger things imagine #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson imagine #eddie munson smut #eddie munson #stranger things x reader #virgin!eddie munson #virgin!eddie munson x reader #st oneshots <3 #published by bug

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bakugoushotwife · 1 year ago

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kinktober day three: mirror kink

>>> day three already woot woot! i hope you all are loving it so far, because i know i am! this is past me in the notes but it seems like these pieces are gonna get longer everyday at this rate lmfao. i picked keigs for the mirror because birb need luv

>>> starring: keigo takami (hawks) x curvy!fem!reader >>> cw: brief daddy use, doggy, highly emotional tbh i'm actually sorry, teasing, praise, pet names. >>>wc: 3.5k >>> event masterlist

keigo loves planning nights like these. you’re his special person, and his favorite pastime is making sure you know it. every so often, sometime around payday, he’ll come home with bags on bags, a dopey grin covering his face as he sashays to the bedroom of your shared apartment. he just can’t wait to show you what he got you this time, exclusively keeping his high-paying pro-hero job because it allows him to spoil his girlfriend with lavish riches.

you weren’t high maintenance at all. at least, you didn’t start out that way. you were just you, a simple civilian that worked at the hospital he was brought into during the war with all for one. you were an adorable bedside nurse, sweet and careful in all the ways you tended to his wounds and listened to his nervous ramblings about his friends and students. you talked him through his anxieties, spending precious hours of your shift soothing him and keeping him company. he watched you get in trouble time and time again for messing the shift rotation up with your habit of staying by his side. it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him, to genuinely listen and to touch him with care, a worry an affection in your eyes he wasn’t sure he had seen from anyone before.

it was no surprise that he kept in touch with you once he was discharged from the hospital. and luckily, to his relief, you offered to support him through rehabilitation, helping him with his fittings for his prosthetics and keeping his spirits high when his self-worth was at its very lowest. keigo never had someone to call his, and the first time he met you, that was the last thing on his mind. but you were still there, months later, giving him the idea to try swords and katanas as replacements for his sharp wings. it wasn’t long until he was back on the battlefield using all the support items and your suggestions to make him feel like hawks again. he was still covered with burn scars, but they seemed less mangling than before. it was probably all those salves you put on him, your healing hands doing more for his heart and mind than his body at times.

so when the war was won, and it was time to say thank you for all the things you had done for him, he found himself taking you on expensive dates and paying for your hair appointments when you casually mentioned a new look you wanted to try. he caught himself picking out nail colors and shoes–at one time they were nike’s but now they were prada or jimmy choo. not that he minded, in fact, it was his insistence that you started expanding your palette to the expensive side anyhow. you were more than content to hold his heart and let him pay for your facials, but your whiny boyfriend practically begs for you to take his card and spend every dollar.

you learned early on, if you didn’t spend it yourself, he would do this, take the day away from you, raiding the mall for anything new you didn’t already have hanging in your room-sized closet. you could hear the rustling of the paper and plastic bags rubbing against each other, a knowing smile spreading across your cheeks. and sure, maybe months ago you were just a humble nurse. but keigo’s constant babying may or may not have created a small spoiled brat. you sit up on your knees, crawling to the edge of the bed to greet your loving partner, squealing when his excited eyes and crinkled up nose peek around the corner with a wide grin.

“guess what i got you.” he titters, revealing the evidence of his shopping. he holds his other arm out to accept your waiting hug, stepping close enough to the bed for you to throw your arms around him in greeting. you looked so cute in your silk pajamas, just waiting in your shared bed for him to return to you. you’ve been able to reduce the amounts of shifts you take at the hospital now that you barely have any of your own bills to pay, and that was being generous. he usually paid those too, but you refused to go jobless until you had a ring—and well, let’s just say that wouldn’t be much longer. you had a fresh maintenance day yesterday, the highlights of your hair freshly toned, your brows waxed and tinted, a new set of lashes and nails–you look too good to be true like always, like you deserve for being so good to him. you’re perfect, and he cannot wait to see how you look in the things he bought you, keigo’s special girl.

you hum playfully in thought, pressing your silken crop-top bound chest against his. he can tell you don’t have a bra on, and the thought delights him. you rarely wore anything but your slutty pajamas or the special selection of lingerie he had curated for you. one he was excited to add to tonight. you giggle and press a kiss to his stubble covered jaw, and throw out your best guess. “hmmm, shoes?”

he chuckles, tucking some loose strands of your hair back behind your ear so he could admire your saccharine smile. he hums, nodding. you were right after all, that was part of it. “mhm, good, my little dove. what else?”

you smile under the praises, trying to eye the bags as he snakes his arm around your waist, setting them on the bed for you. “jewelry?” you offer with an arched brow, watching his face for a hint. his amber eyes gleam with pride—and you knew you were right again. he nods, his calloused hand sneaks under your skimpy top and the warm touch makes you press yourself further into his leather and whiskey scented chest.

“the prettiest. i think you’ll like it, lovebird.” he grins, squeezing your hip. “do you know what else i got my pretty girl?” he coos, reaching for a big black dolce & gabbana bag, containing a pretty bowed box. he always paid them extra to wrap it like a christmas gift, watching your face light up as you pulled the ribbon free always melted his heart a little. he passes the box over to you for that exact reason, returning his arm around your back to watch you open it.

you squeal excitedly, giving his jaw another quick peck. you tug the pale bow off the box with great care, and his smile grows. inside lays a beautiful black bra and panty set, one he no doubt wants you to model for him. you gasp at the pieces, lacy and strappy, decorated with black dots against the sheer balconette style mesh. the thong was just a pathetic little triangle piece, mostly to say you had something on, if you had to guess. you beam up at him, giving him a proper kiss on the lips to signify your approval.

“thank you daddy, it’s so beautiful! you’re too good to me!” you sing, freeing the lingerie of their confines to splay it out on your bed. he chuckles and shakes his head.

“oh i could never even give you what you deserve, sweetness.” he hums, reaching for the tiffany & co bag. he holds it out for you next, letting you fish out the boxes inside. for this, he sits on the bed before you, hands tucked into the pockets of his tan coat, smirking up at his darling love. you peer at him over the pile of little teal boxes in your hand, arching your brow. he only chuckles, urging you to open it with his suggestive glare. he’s undressing you with his bedroom stare already, just waiting for you to put on all your pretty gifts so he could further appreciate you in them. you notice him shifting around, trying to hide the bulge he always gets from watching you jump around and celebrate how much he loves you. it was adorable, he couldn’t help but derive pleasure from it.

you quickly tear into these three boxes, finding a pure diamond choker, bracelet, and matching stud earrings waiting to be adorned by your perfect body. you gasp at him, shaking your head in shock. you know how expensive these had to be, and you refused to accept such a crazy gift��especially paired with other things! as spoiled as he’s made you, you still look at him in disbelief.

“what? i saw you looking at these last time. my name is hawks, after all, babygirl.” he winks, plucking the necklace from the box and turning his index in a circle to have you turn around for him in order to dangle the choker around your neck. he clasps the hook and then puts the bracelet on the wrist closest to him, leaving the earrings up to you. he turns you back to him by the shoulders, grinning valiantly–but you can see the borderline hunger lurking beneath. his siren gaze darts over to the dainty fabric still laying stiff and undisturbed on the bed. “open the last box, ‘nd then i wanna see everything altogether.”

he bites down on his bottom lip in anticipation as he passes you the final bag, a big paper bag from—you knew what these must be immediately, and it has you squealing with joy, as you knew exactly why he saved this gift for last. “keigo, you shouldn’t have, i really cannot believe you!” you shift your weight from foot to foot, pulling the slim black box out of the paper bag, pushing the lid off with haste.

he still sits next to you, his hands sprawled out behind him so he could lean back now, bionic wings still attached from the day. he would only remove them before sleeping, still incredibly insecure and lost without his real ones. he admired your giddiness, this emotion flowing from you was exactly the reason he would do whatever it takes to keep gifts like these flowing. you dangle the pricey so kate style red bottoms at him, jumping with glee. you nearly tackle him backward with the force of your arms around his neck, screaming your thanks in his ear. he only chuckles and wraps his arms around you in response, lightly slapping your ass to make you yelp.

“now go and put everything on—been waiting to see you in it all day.” he pouts, jutting his chin towards your walk in closet. in all fairness, it was a second bedroom keigo had converted to a walk in for you. it was decorated with several mirrors along one wall, allowing you to get all the best angles of your outfits and accessories that your boyfriend no doubt provided. you snatched the newest goodies up and scampered off to get changed, feeling the warmth building in your chest and stomach just from the way he looks at you. you knew he had struggled with his own appearance since you met him, and you hated that. sometimes you wish you could spoil him the same way he does you, but he always swears your affection makes him feel like he’s still soaring on top of the world.

you complete the jewelry trio by putting in the stunning studs he got, simple but huge cut diamonds perfectly accenting your features. then you tug on your new set and slip into your shoes, admiring your own reflection in the ballet studio-esque mirroring. maybe he admired you so much because he no longer could look at himself with the same fondness that you gaze at yourself—or him— with. you were stunning, that was indisputable, but it made you sad that your once notoriously cocky boyfriend now shrunk away from the sight of his own appearance. a physical lightbulb may as well have popped up over your head. “mm, daddy? wanna come help me with the buckle?”

he should have known it was a set up. you’ve put on much more involved outfits before without his assistance. when he strolls in, ready to lend a helping hand, you’re already on the floor on your hands and knees—and the lingerie he picked looks heavenly. he can see why the louboutins were so sought after, elongating your sexy legs and exposing the signature red bottoms to him from this angle. you wiggle your perky ass, and he salivates, the semi he’s been fighting turning into a full on boner. you’re looking back over your shoulder at him with that devilish smirk on your face, and it’s then he realizes you’ve tricked him into fucking you in front of your mirror wall. and to his surprise, his cock jumps in his pants as he meets your eyes through one of the panes. you’re unimaginably gorgeous, dripping in diamonds that sparkle in the soft lighting. he can see straight down that bra, and before he can doubt himself, he’s yanking his hard cock free from his sweats and tugging on it roughly. his breathing is heavy already, the worry starting to creep in. at times it was hard to be intimate with you, not because he didn’t absolutely crave you in almost a sinister sense, but because of his own insecurities. he knows you were familiar with him before, though you only met him after the damage was done. yet still, he can’t help but worry the scars covering his face and body will gross you out one day.

“c’mere daddy…wanna look at you like this, make you see how pretty you are.” you wiggle your ass for him again, the globes taunting him into compliance. when he lowers himself to his knees he can tell how needy you are. it must turn you on a bit to think about him taking you like this, though he can’t deny his own curiosity at the idea. his hands smooth down the curve of your back, all the way to the nape of your neck and back down to grasp your wide hips to steady himself. he licks his lips as you wiggle in his grip, making a mewl of anticipation. “please, look…i think you’re so pretty…i like the marks, makes you look all handsome and tough,” you whine so sweetly it makes his cock throb. “‘nd i need you so bad, the you i see in the mirror right now, is the sexiest man alive.”

he chortles and rolls his eyes, feeling the warmth of blush sting his cheeks. he peels his shirt off, discarding it somewhere in the vicinity. “yeah, yeah, hush.” he beckons, spreading your cheeks with the help of you scooting your knees further for him. it did boost his ego to hear you talk so fondly of him. you didn’t miss the old pro-hero you looked up to—you love him as is. he knows it, he’s sure of it, it’s why he spoils you relentlessly, but hearing you say it did things to him.

“nuh-uh, i wan’ you to see…breaks my heart to hear you complainin’ ‘bout how you look…’cause you’re perfect.” you pout, wiggling back on his shaft. he helps guide himself inside, sheathing to the hilt. you do spoil him, you just didn’t realize it. the way you love him was all he needed, with the sweet words spilling out of your mouth and the choking grip your cunt has around him—the view of your face melting in the mirror felt like special treat.

you moan out your delight, throwing your ass back against him to get him to start moving, the view of your pouty face while in doggy kept him paralyzed and utterly drunk, too busy admiring all of his gifts against your skin and the warmth of being inside you to remember to do anything about it. he chuckles breathily when he feels your recoil, giving you an affectionate slap to the bum. he starts to move in tandem to your little bounces, his eyes fluttering shut at the way you squeeze and release his curved cock. it feels so good, you can identify the veins and ridges as they drag through your walls. you don’t close your eyes though, no, your eyes are locked on his form in the mirror. he’s unreal, the slow pace at which he fucks you just driving you crazy. he’s a god, golden and chiseled, his smile enough to give you life on your darkest days. you wanted him to admit it.

you crawl forward a little, out of his reach, off his cock. he frowns at you in the mirror. “come back.” he pouts, making grabby hands for you.

you giggle, shaking your head. “not ‘til you smile at yourself and say ‘i’m the prettiest pro hero with the prettiest princess in the whole world.’” you say, sticking your tongue out at him in the mirror, admiring his naked form behind you. he huffs, letting his gaze drift between your face in the mirror and your ass in front of his face. he crosses his arms over his burned chest, arching a brow at you.

“you know, i could say you’re being ungrateful.” he whines, not able to fully challenge you. you wiggle your ass at him again and arch your challenging brow back at him. for the second time, he huffs. but he realizes that there’s no use fighting you. he learned that lesson when you were his nurse. he would give in, or else. he lets his gaze drift back to your round ass and dripping pussy just waiting for him to come back to you, and he sighs. he loves starting slow just to tease you, but it seems like you have your own master plan in mind. keigo’s eyes drift back to the mirror, where he sees your eagerly awaiting face. you look over his face and body with all the adoration and affection in the world, and he feels that with your confidence, he can believe in himself and give you some peace of mind. he meets his own eyes in the mirror and nods. he certainly has come a long way, and he may never return to his former glory, but if this is the man you love—that’s enough. more than enough. he can be happy to be that man, your man. he smiles at you, then at himself. “i’m the prettiest pro-hero.” he nods with a broad smile as his gaze falls back down to you. “and i have the prettiest princess in the whole world.” he concludes, to which you coo and applaud him. he walks forward on his knees, greedily tugging you back on him, plunging his length back deep with a relieved moan.

he doesn’t waste any time by teasing, either, holding the creases of your hips like they were his own personal handlebars, he slams into your heat, the grip of your cunt so choking he can’t control the loud groans he lets loose. you have to actively focus on holding yourself up, entranced with the sight of his pussy-drunk face, high on pleasure. his cock angles so perfectly in this position, abusing your cervix just the way he likes. it has your limbs shaking as you struggle to keep absorbing the force of his hip and your moans bordering on screams. he just loves you so much, he has to spoil the woman who’s given him everything. he knows you love him like this, that’s why you crawled into that position in the first place.

“that’s my girl, taking it so good for me.” he nods his approval, his arm dipping to support your hips. thanks to the mirror, he can see the tears drop from the corner of your eyes, the wavering of your arms as you struggle to hold yourself up. you nod to his praise, squealing extra loud, you love being his girl. his hand dips to rub a messy pace against your clit, groaning at how you jerk and arch in response. “fuck, i can see everything like this, little dove. you look so pretty…all the diamonds suit my jewel just right.” he pants between punishing strokes, even though he’s giving you the reward of a lifetime.

you nod, forcing your eyes open to watch him rut into you, mouth open in a silent scream while his jaw drops in awe. you’re absolutely perfect. you fold over, falling completely against his arm, clenching down on him so hard it nearly hurt him. you whimper, “gon’ cum daddy, you’re s’good…”

he nods egging you on as he presses into your nerves harder, giggling as your legs shake and give out completely. it sends him over the edge, his eyes glued to your face in the mirror as he shoves his seed deep, continuously fucking it deeper with his hard strokes, only letting up when he was sure you couldn’t take another pump. he smiles at your fucked out appearance, hair knotted and sprawled out, the lingerie shifted just enough to let him enjoy all of you, your tearstained cheeks—and thighs. he leans over to kiss your shoulderblade, staying there to catch your breath. for a minute, all there is to be heard is panting, but soon keigo chuckles again, and scoops you out of the floor.

“now it’s time for the real princess treatment, lovebird.” he hums, taking you towards the bathroom for a fresh bubble bath of your choosing.

#kylee's kinktober event #kinktober 2023 #kinktober #kyleewritesmha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia x reader #hawks x reader #mha hawks #hawks #bnha hawks #keigo takami #keigo takami x reader #keigo takami smut #hawks smut #takami keigo x reader #mirror x hawks #day three

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kallie-den · 23 days ago

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Rescue Hound Chapter One

Kione Monax, a mercenary pilot, is hired to rescue the captured, brainwashed Sartha Thrace. But getting her home and healing her mind prove to be very different things - and Kione's feelings for the hero threaten to pull her into the darkness when she discovers just how malleable Sartha can be

A new Warhound story!! The preceding stories can be found at this tag

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Nothing makes Kione Monax feel good the way being saddled up in the cockpit of a huge mech suit does.

Cause it pays really, really well. Duh.

Provided you’re the best, of course. Kione doubts any of those fifth-rate Imperial grunt pilots they never seem to run out of get paid more than a pittance—not that they’ll ever live long enough to spend it, if she’s the one they’re up against. But Kione? She’s the best. Nowadays, at least. And that means she can name her damn price and the rebels will pay it, no matter how sour the looks on their faces when she comes to collect.

It’s not all about the money, obviously. Kione would be the first to admit that there is a very clear and distinct pleasure in being the very best. To ruling the battlefield like a queen. To tapping into the merciless rhythm of combat, and feeling the beat change when she decides it’s the moment - the moment to kick her Theaboros’s reactor into the red and soar, allowing herself just a single moment to drink in the stupefied, upturned, defeated faces of her prey before she puts them out of their misery.

Fuck, it’s good. It really gets her hot.

But it’s not better than money, because money was what had bought her the Theaboros and its wings, and its state-of-the-art systems, and its fresh coats of paint—for vanity, although sometimes she lies and calls it ‘branding’—and all the fancy drinks she buys for the very best hookers before she buys them too. That’s what life is all about. Not principles. Lots of people get big, stupid ideas in their heads once they’re sitting behind the controls of a sixty-foot mechanical god. If your ideas are big enough and stupid enough they start calling you a hero, and Kione is very, very determined not to end up as one of those. They always die bad.

That’s how scumbag mercenaries like Kione wind up as the best.

Hey, merc, comes a terse voice over a shitty, crackling radio, just as Kione finishes planting the charges, you better be in position.

Kione sighs quietly to herself before she answers: “I am. Plan B is in place.”

Good, says the girl on the radio. Get ready. And remember: no work, no pay.

Kione rolls her eyes. Why do people always feel the need to remind her? Contrary to popular slander, mercenaries aren’t cowards or turncoats. Any mech-for-hire who pulls that kind of shit just saw their very last payday. And besides, Kione refuses to help out the imperials. Just out of self-interest, of course—there’s no place for free spirits like her in the kind of world they’d like to build. She’s bloodied their noses more times than she can count, and you’d think that would win her some actual gratitude from the rebels she fights alongside.

Hell no. Kione had fought with unit after unit, recruit after recruit, and each one proves to be just as naively idealistic as the last. They all think they’re put here to save the world, and they hate that Kione knows she’s only here to make some hard cash. The girl barking orders at Kione over the radio is one of those. An idealist. A firebrand. She’d flashed Kione a nice, mean look before they’d shipped out. Stars in her eyes, hell on her lips.

Kione knew then and there she’d have to fuck her, once they made it back. It wouldn’t be hard. Girls like that always went for her once they saw first-hand how good she was. She went for them, too. She just loved to make them choke on her.

She’s here. Cut the chatter. Everybody focus.

At once, Kione lets go of her sleazy fantasies and gets herself back in the zone. Not for the first time, she wonders about the targets. How many? How well-equipped are they? Guess she’ll find out soon enough. Not that she can see shit right now, hanging from the underside of this colossal bridge.

It’s a good place for an ambush and a great place to get yourself killed if a thousand tons of reinforced concrete come down on your head before you know what’s happening. That’s why Kione’s there. That’s the truth of mercenary work: you get the real shit jobs. The ones they don’t expect you to walk away from.

Suits Kione just fine. She’ll groan and grumble until they pay her double, then prove she’s worth every penny.

For now, though, there’s only waiting. That gets to Kione the same way it does to every soldier. Eventually, her mech’s sensors pick up vibrations. Footsteps on the bridge above. Another machine. A pretty big one, too—but only the one, which prompts some serious fucking questions. Who the hell are they ambushing here? A high-value target, clearly. Maybe an imperial higher-up. But those don’t fly solo. A pilot, then? Some ace? It’d have to be. Kione can’t think of any other reason they’d pay her fees for a gig like this.

It has to be someone good. Someone only she can beat.

Kione finds herself grinning.

More waiting. The target is moving slow. A nice, steady march. It gets closer, and closer, and closer, until Kione can hear each step; can feel them reverberating through her body. Until the enemy is directly above her. The enemy mech’s footfalls are heavy and almost familiar. Despite everything, Kione is all but bursting with anticipation. She loves getting to put a rival ace in the dirt. Nothing better. But she knows she needs to be patient. She’s not the first wave. She’s the coup de grâce.

The radio crackles again. Now! Open fire!

An instant later, the air trembles with the report of a dozen guns. The rebels scattered themselves across the bridge, each pilot picking their ambush spot to secure kill zones and neutralize cover. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The rebels don’t have a lot of advantages over the imperials, but this is one of them: they’re good at this kind of guerrilla shit. As the barrage wears on, Kione’s grin starts to slip. She’s beginning to think they won’t need her after all.

Then, one by one, the guns go silent.

Kione can pick out each machine as it goes dark, just from the sound. No two rebel mechs are alike; consistent supply and production lines are a fleeting fantasy so each machine is somebody’s pet project, customized according to parts and needs. That makes it all too easy for Kione to count.

One down. Two down. Three down.

What the fuck?

It’s hard to believe, but Kione can hear it happening. Up above, the enemy mech pounds the bridge with its footfalls. That thing must be moving like a hound out of hell, dodging beams and missiles, throwing itself at one rebel after another. Its engine is deafening; an insane scream of tortured metal and unholy combustion that fuels the carnage. Screaming is just about all Kione can hear over the radio, too. The rebels’ comms discipline has broken down. They can’t make sense of how fast it's gone wrong.

Merc! Where the fuck are you?

That’s her cue. It’s the moment—and with a worthy foe, too. Kione can’t stop herself laughing nastily into the radio as she retracts the anchors keeping her attached to the bridge and slips into freefall.

And again, when she punches ‘startup’ on Theaboros’s flight system.

Mechs can’t fly, yeah? Everyone knows that. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. You want to fly, you get in a plane. You’d need a stupid amount of thrust to get something as big as a mech suit in the air. A big engine won’t help. The tyranny of the rocket equation will murder you. Weight means fuel, fuel means more weight. The aerodynamics would probably be shit too. And that’s not even getting into the economics problem. Nobody can spare that much reactor fuel for just one machine. The best way to square the circle would be to build the entire thing out of some kind of crazy cutting-edge superalloy, but those are hell to get and worse to maintain. No; a flying mech would be a ridiculous vanity project. The imperials would never sanction it, and the rebels could never afford it.

Good thing Kione Monax has never worked for free a day in her life.

It helps that she built Theaboros smart—or at least, paid other people to. It’s a slender beast; tall, upright, almost human-like in its posture. It weighs a fraction of most of its rivals, and so when it spreads the six sleek, silver pinions mounted on its back, Kione can actually feel them catch the air. Every little helps when you’re fighting gravity.

But what really, really helps is the state-of-the-art antimatter reactor surging to life and pumping out a steady stream of anti-Fermion particles that singe the air around her mech a deep, unearthly red as they annihilate and, for just a fraction of a second each, keep the fundamental forces of the universe at bay.

With that on her side? Fuck yeah, Theaboros can fly. And Kione falls a little more in love with it every time.

It flies now, with her gripping the joysticks, gliding the unnaturally nimble machine between cables and tresses as she boosts clear of the bridge’s superstructure and tilts up, pulling a tight loop that brings her down onto the deck, ready to give her target the surprise of a lifetime.

Except, no.

Kione is the one left with her jaw on the floor when she sees who she’s up against. All at once, she realizes she was wrong before. It’s not someone only she can beat, because it’s the one person she never ever managed to beat, in all the long evenings they spent sparring together.

It’s Sartha.

It’s Ancyor, anyway. Or most of it. Actually, it’s more like Ancyor died and came back wrong. The base frame is still there; Kione can tell as much from that dragging, lupine gait as it lurches across the bridge. The exoskeletal armor is the same too. If anything, it looks even more beat to hell than usual. But beneath that, it’s all wrong. The reactor. The weapon systems. The raised, pneumatic hackles that augment those deadly claws. They’ve all been replaced. Upgraded. Imperial tech. It gives Kione the creeps. It’s like someone’s wearing her dead friend’s skin.

Whatever they’ve done to it, it’s clear Ancyor has lost none of its effectiveness. In its terrible, wake, Kione counts four of the mechs she shipped out here with lying in shattered, ugly heaps. They went down bad. Catastrophic kills. If anything, it looks like Ancyor’s pilot took special pleasure in plucking out and crushing each cockpit. That really gives Kione the creeps. Even Imperial pilots usually don’t sink that low.

At least she knows it’s not Sartha in there.

Unsurprisingly, the remaining three rebels have gone to pieces. They’re backing away, giving up the only tactical advantages they have—prepped positions and unit cohesion—and the radio channel is full of little more than panicked screeching. The squad leader, the girl who was barking at Kione earlier, is trying to instill some kind of discipline. It’s not working. She’s too young. They all are.

Take her down, damn it! she yells, when she sees Theaboros land. This is what we’re paying you for.

“You got it,” Kione mutters.

In all honesty, she’s weighing up the pros and cons of simply hitting the bricks and running. But she reminds herself: this isn’t Sartha. Just a pale imitation.

And besides, there’s money on the line. Duh.

In any case, the choice gets taken away from her when Ancyor turns its awful snout in her direction and starts barreling toward her.

“Shit!”

At once, Kione kicks her mech’s flight system into high gear. She manages to get enough thrust to pull up and clear—but only just. Ancyor is even faster than the last time they fought. Kione wheels around in the air to find her target, extending and clasping her long spear in Theoboros’s right hand. Once the weapon is deployed, its tip starts glowing red-hot as her systems reroute surplus reactor heat. Kione would prefer to keep Sartha’s hellhound at a comfortable distance, but CQC is the only good way to finish a fight sure and quick.

As soon as Kione sets her sights, she realizes that Ancyor has already turned to look up at her. Silently, four openings appear in its torso. An instant later, four wire-guided harpoons are coming right at her.

That’s new. Fuck.

Two of them, she manages to dodge. One, she bats aside with the flat of her spear blade. But the fourth, kept on target by tiny thrusters, buries itself in one of Theaboros’s long, slender legs. That’s not good. The damage itself is fairly negligible. What’s not negligible is Ancyor’s massive weight as it pulls the wire taut and starts reeling her in.

And, at the same moment, launches itself into the air with enough force to crack the concrete under its feet.

Kione’s display is filled with warnings she’s pretty sure she’s never seen before. She dismisses them with a furious gesture, but all she sees on the viewscreen afterward is the ruin of Ancyor’s face coming at her at an insane speed. No time to cut herself free, and no aerial maneuver Kione can think of is going to make a damn bit of difference with another mech weighing her down like an anchor.

So, stupidly, she does the only thing she can think of: she points her jets in the opposite direction and blasts herself straight down toward Ancyor.

Fifty feet in the air above the bridge deck, two meteors collide.

Ancyor has sheer mass on its side, but Theaboros has gravity and thrust. Kione is no rookie; getting her head knocked around in the cockpit isn’t going to ruffle her. She’s focused on what counts: getting this damn dog off of her.

It’s not easy. Ancyor is scrambling all over her, its wickedly sharp chain-claws working to find purchase. It’s clear whoever’s behind the controls knows Sartha’s style. They want to keep the two mechs bound together, grappling, where Ancyor’s sheer savagery makes it invincible.

All Kione can do is wield her long, elegant spear like a brawler’s stick, keeping it between them, leveraging them to try and force Ancyor away. Unfortunately, Theaboros isn’t great at this kind of contest of strength. It’s just not built for it. Desperately, Kione uses the flight system’s jets to throw the two of them into a series of loops, heads over feet, hoping the g-forces will destabilize the beast.

Of course, it’s just as likely that what happens is that Theaboros goes down face-first into the bridge.

Splat.

But maybe it’s working. Ancyor is starting to peel off. The harpoon comes loose and one of its arms slips, windmilling through the air. Kione presses the advantage, wrenching her spear around to make Ancyor’s grip untenable. After one last lunge that goes clean past her shoulder, Sartha’s mech is sent tumbling back down to earth where it belongs.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Kione grins. Get down, dog. The sky is all hers.

Then she notices the warning lights. She stops grinning as she realizes that last lunge didn’t go clean past her shoulder at all. It hit exactly where it was meant to. It ripped off one of her goddamn wings.

Ah. Well, that’s really not good.

Theaboros isn’t dead in the air. At least, not quite. But the thing about wings is: however many you’ve got, you probably don’t wanna be on less than that. Lest she choke her reactor to death, Kione is forced to ease off and touch down on the bridge. Once her baby has cooled off, she should still be able to pull off a trick or two.

Merc? You still breathing?

Kione’s glad radio girl is still here. Judging from the guns Kione hears, her surviving squadmates are too. Maybe they can still do this.

“I have a name, you know,” she grunts.

Yeah? Get us back to base in one piece, maybe I’ll think about learning it.

Kione cackles at that. She likes a girl who can keep her head.

“You can buy me a drink instead,” she tells her. “You already know my name. If you’re not careful, I’ll make you say ‘please’ when you use-“

She cuts herself off when she sees what’s about to happen.

Kione never takes her eye off the ball, but it’s taken her a moment to stop seeing white. Now that she has her sights on Ancyor again, she’s realizing it’s not nearly as debilitated by its fall as she’d hoped. It always was freakishly tough. And it’s doing the worst thing it possibly could. Worse even than coming at Kione again while her flight system’s cooling down.

It’s going after the easy prey.

In a single bounding leap, Ancyor hurls itself at the rebel currently spray-and-praying it with ineffective beam fire. The poor bastard freezes up, and Ancyor lands squarely on their shoulders.

It doesn’t need weapons. Its weight does the work. Even Kione flinches from the crunching sound.

No!

It’s radio girl. So much for keeping her head. Maybe she knew them well. Maybe it’s just one loss too many. Either way, because she’s one of those rebel idealists, she’s doing the brave thing. The stupid thing.

Breaking cover. Trying to save her comrade.

Idiot. That’s exactly what a predator like Ancyor wants

There’s some distance between the two of them, but nothing Ancyor can’t cross in the blink of an eye. It’s happening half the bridge’s length away. Theaboros has a rifle, but the stopping power is nowhere near enough. Kione can already see exactly what’s going to happen. Radio girl is going down. No chance her last squadmate sticks around after that happens, which leaves Kione trapped in a one-on-one. Not good odds.

So, the right move is obvious: ditch. Now. The mission’s a bust. Losing Kione’s pay is better than losing her life. As long as she takes off right this second, she should be able to make it out clean.

All she’s gotta do is outrun the other rebel, right?

Kione sighs. It’s an easy choice. But here’s the rub: she really was looking forward to that drink with radio girl.

So much for letting the reactor cool.

As Theaboros throws itself forward at her command, Kione punches the reactor straight back into the red. The thrust alone has her in the air; Kione works the flight system with a master’s touch, pitching her machine slightly off-axis to compensate for the wing she lost. It’s a rough ride. Her baby’s running too hot. The wingtips are starting to disintegrate. Antimatter annihilation’s a bitch. Kione doesn’t want to think about how much the repair bill’s gonna come to this time.

Instead, she just grins.

You thought your ride was fast, Sartha? Think again.

Ancyor lunges. Radio girl is right under its outstretched claw. Theaboros is hurtling toward them at a truly unwise speed. In the cockpit, Kione is rattling around like crazy—but she doesn’t let up. She only has a fraction of a second. No time to shoot, no time to strike, no time to parry. Only time to do something dumb.

Theaboros rams into radio girl shoulder first, shoving her out of the way. She raises her left arm in a feeble bid to fend off their attacker. The impact with the rebel mech wreaks havoc on Theaboros’s frame.

And then Ancyor’s claws rip her arm off.

Shit.

No time to take stock of the damage. No room to get her balance. No heat overhead to spend on a boost. Ancyor just keeps coming. It switches targets to Theaboros without missing a beat. Kione stumbles back just barely out of reach, wheeling her spear in a furious series of parries and ripostes.

Not furious enough. Nothing’s as furious as Ancyor. It matches Kione step for step, blow for blow. Only a matter of time until one of them lands home. Kione grimaces. At least radio girl is free and clear—not that that’s worth much. Can’t get paid if you’re dead, and she’s sure starting to feel dead. Theaboros has taken up too much damage to put up an even fight.

Kione snorts, despite everything. What, is she making excuses for herself?

That’ll look great on her tombstone. Kione Monax: it wasn’t fair.

It stings that it’s not even true. Now that she’s at the right distance to get a good look at Ancyor, it’s plain enough that it took a fierce beating in the rebel ambush. Radio girl’s crew wasn’t so bad after all. They took some mean chunks out of its armor. All over Ancyor, clouds of leaking coolant hiss and exposed electricals crackle. At least one or two major servos are missing. It must be handling like a pig right about now, but it’s moving like nothing’s happened. Whoever’s behind the controls is just that good.

Which begs the question, doesn’t it?

Who the fuck is piloting that thing?

Sartha Thrace is dead. Kione made her peace with that a long time ago, and she has no time for stupid rumors. But now she can’t help but wonder. Who else could handle Ancyor like this? From their sparring sessions, Kione recognizes all the little trademark moves. Hell, the only reason she’s lasted this long is because she has a sense of Sartha’s cadence. It’s like she’s fighting her friend’s ghost.

No, not her ghost. Something worse. Sartha was never quite like this. Never quite so heedless of herself. Never so proud she wouldn’t simply retreat from this kind of ambush. This animal ferocity—Kione has seen it before, but it was always a rare thing. It came over Sartha only when something drove her to her very limit. This pilot? It’s like she’s got all of that side of Sartha, and nothing but. Her rage and violence, distilled. Purified.

A shiver runs down Kione’s spine. It’s so wrong.

Merc?

That’s her radio girl. Kione rolls her eyes. She’d been hoping the rebel pilot would just run. If both of them die trying to save each other, she’s gonna throw up. That’s just too much.

“You clear of the bridge?”

Yeah.

Thank the gods.

Her distraction almost spells her end. Theaboros is driven yet another step backward and almost trips off the side of the bridge. Kione glances behind. She’s out of space. Shit. Shit! There has to be something left. Kione knows it. She feels it. This can’t be the end. Not of her. Not yet. She’s too good. There has to be something.

A plan B.

Oh, right.

Kione checks her reactor. Flight still isn’t on the menu. It’s gonna be ugly.

“Radio girl?” Kione calls out, as Ancyor brings its claws up for an overhead blow. She raises her spear to meet it. Sparks fly as the weapons meet.

Who- yeah?

“Plan B. Blow it.”

To her infinite credit, radio girl doesn’t hesitate, which means Kione only knows it’s happening when the ten thousand-ton reinforced concrete bridge under her feet suddenly isn’t.

In desperation, Kione throws herself over the edge. A drop is one thing. But getting crushed? That’s what’ll kill you. Unfortunately for her, the bridge is already falling. She can’t kick off cleanly. Best she can do is scramble at asphalt and rebar that’s quickly turning into little more than dust while she overboosts her flight system as far as it’ll go.

It’s good enough—almost. For just a moment, Kione thinks she’s threaded the needle. She’s going to glide clear.

Then Ancyor comes flying at her one last time.

How it managed a leap like that, Kione will never know. The way it screams as it comes at her almost stops her heart. It gets close. Way too fucking close. But Kione manages to wheel her machine around, kicking its legs up and out of Ancyor’s reach.

Not the wings, though. It gets another one of those.

That’s bad. Extremely bad. Kione suddenly realizes she ought to have been more appreciative of only being down the one wing.

Mercifully, Ancyor falls away and disappears into the bridge’s wreckage at the base of the valley. That’s a mercy. But Theaboros isn’t much better off. Spitting smoke and almost completely out of control, the best Kione can do with it is a crash landing.

But hey, any landing you can walk away from. Right? And Theaboros can still walk. It just can’t do anything else.

Kione lets herself throw up in the cockpit. That’s a first.

A minute or two later, while she’s slowly picking herself up, radio girl comes skating down the wall of the valley. Her mech is a bit shit—common enough, for rebels—but it looks a damn sight better than Theaboros right now.

Holy shit, radio girl calls out. You’re alive! You… you saved me.

She’s got that naive awe in her voice, like she’s talking to some hero. Kione frowns. Can’t have that.

“Don’t get used to it,” Kione retorts gruffly. “You die, who’s gonna make sure I get paid? Duh.”

She senses radio girl bristle a little, but it’s not quite enough to penetrate that thick coat of rebel sincerity. Thank you, Kione, she replies earnestly.

Even though it almost makes her throw up again, Kione laughs thickly.

“Told you. You already know my name.”

Now she senses the other pilot blushing.

Well, shit, radio girl says after a moment, as her mech’s head turns toward the ruins of the bridge. We really fucked this up. I don’t know how I’m gonna explain this to command.

Kione happens to disagree with the ‘really fucked this up’ part of that assessment. She happens to think she pulled off a goddamn miracle, actually. But then, she still doesn’t know what they were really after. Who they were really after.

Wait, radio girl says slowly. Is that… oh gods, I think that’s her.

Before Kione can ask, she’s dashing for something she’s spotted in the wreckage. Kione makes Theaboros limp after her. When she spots it too, her eyes go wide.

It’s Ancyor.

It’s almost in one piece. Almost. Tough son of a bitch. Kione half-expects it to come roaring at them again, but once radio girl shifts the bridge pylon that landed on it, she sees that Ancyor has finally given up the ghost. It’s not beyond repairs but the torso is cracked open like an egg, leaking oil and worse in a steady stream. Looks like the protection systems deployed OK, at least.

Which means the pilot might actually be alive.

Sure enough, as radio girl peels away one half of Ancyor’s ruined cockpit, Kione sees her—and for the first time, she’s completely and utterly lost for words.

Lying there, battered and bleeding and unconscious but very definitely alive, dressed just like usual except for what looks freakishly like a fucking muzzle strapped to her head—is Sartha.

Sartha Thrace. The hero. Kione’s friend.

“She…” Kione splutters eventually, overcome. “But… how did… all this, just for…”

Yeah, radio girl answers. All this was for her.

There’s something in the rebel’s voice. Something at once sorrowful and unbearably hopeful. Kione has never heard anything quite like it. But, uncomfortably, she realizes it was in her voice too.

She’s the objective. We’re bringing Sartha Thrace home.

---

I would like to express my gratitude for the generosity of all those who support me on Patreon, and to give a special thanks to the following patrons in particular for their exceptional support:

Artemis, Chloe, Grillfan65, The Secret Subject, Morriel, Dex, orangesya, dmtph, MegatronTarantulas, Madeline, BTYOR, Sarah, Mattilda, Emily Queen of sloths, Neana, Shadows exile, Abigail, Hypnogirl_Stephanie_, Jade, mintyasleep, Michael, Tasteful Ardour, Chris, Dennis, Full Blown Marxism, Morder, S, Brendon, Drone 8315, Jim, Erin, HannahSolaria, hellenberg, Kay, Miss_Praxis, Violet, Noct, Charlotte, Faun, BrinnShea, B, Foridin, Jennifer, EepyTimeTea, Phoenix, Jim, Sebastian, Joseph, Yaoups, Thomas, Liz, naivetynkohan, Basic dev, SuperJellyFrogEx, Katie, Lily, spyrocyndersam13, zzzz, Mal, Bouncyrou, Nimapode, Kunoichiru, Ash, Artemis, Geckonator, TheRealG, Anonymous, J, nathan, GladiusLumin, Ada, Marina, Space Prius, Alex, Michael, Thomas, Dasterin, Djura, Pluto, Daedalus, Joe, Mattilda, Ana, proletkvlt, DOLLICIOUS, Yodasgirl, Allie~, Cusco-, Griffin, Bouncyrou, Hazelpup, Jakitron, Leah, Alan, ravenfan, Ash, ferretfyre, Christopher

#story #Warhound

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its-spelt-hermaeus-mora · 2 years ago

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Already encountered my first struggle

Wings

Wings are a funny thing. Specifically choosing wings. Especially when there’s no prior context to the character.

Wings are often based on how the creature evolved. If, say, an alien race evolved from insectoid ancestors, then they may have insect wings, like beetles or dragonflies. Same with other creatures like birds, bats, butterflies, or even fairies.

Different wings move differently, so for this character’s wings, I have to not only think about how I want them to look, but also how I want them move.

Some wings move in a circular pattern, spinning almost like propellors. Other wings, the more common kind, simple beat up and down (however, these sometimes do move slightly in a circular pattern to achieve directional movement instead of pure lift).

This character isn’t coming from a premeditated race, so there’s no exact evolution path to follow.

I first considered drawing Insect wings, which tend to move in a circle. However, the reason insect can use this to fly if because they have teeny bodies. If I wanted to go with these wings, I’d have to make them proportional to the character’s body, and this fucker already has so much going on and I don’t want it to look cumbersome.

The “more logical” option would be bat wings or bird wings; but I already use these as the wing default in most of my character designs.

I could go with Butterfly wings; that’d leave me only with deciding which butterfly or moth I want to design them after, or just make the design up from scratch.

I also have to think about how they fold. Bird and Bat wings are evolved to be foldable and flexible, though Insect wings would be more compact when resting; Butterfly wings don’t compact at all.

I think I’m gonna fiddle around with different Insect wings to see what I like.

Combining all my favourite charcter design traits into one mf, I’ll keep yall updated

#art #not payday #wing design #wings

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kisskissbanggang · 1 month ago

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₊⊹ All Fics ⊹₊

✦ After Hours - The Reader is whisked off into a whirlwind night when she takes a chance on a lonely patron at the cafe.

✦ Beyond a Shadow - Jisung is feeling spiteful after the Reader seems to be assisting Detective Seungmin in capturing him after the heist they pulled off together. Things only get more difficult as she has to keep up multiple lies to keep her life from falling apart.

✦ Contention - Reader is locked in Hwang Hyunjin’s penthouse for the next six months in an arrangement to either end up engaged, or with the payday of a lifetime–and it’s an easy preference at first, until attention from Hyunjin’s assistant, Seungmin, proves to be tempting.

✦ Death Warmed Up - Unconventional Fluff™️ where Reader has an unconventional job and Felix is an unconventional client who owns a cafe and a lot of dogs.

✦ Disavowed - Reader finds herself in the small town of Pinewood Falls to start a small, new life, but everything changes when she discovers she’s slept with a priest.

✦ Dog Days - Short, certified Fluff™️ about the Reader meeting a certain dog lover at the park one day.

✦ Down That Road - Melancholy, monotony, and an unexpected visitor.

✦ Form & Function - Poor Minho is falling for the cold, soon-to-be divorcee who hired him while he’s designing her guest room, and with unexpected results.

✦ The Hatchet Man of Duckfoot’s Grove - Things get spooky when a series of mishaps take place in her sleepy hometown after a carnival unexpectedly rolls into town.

✦ Hello Stranger - It isn’t until a few years in as assistant superintendent that the Reader finally encounters a challenge, and it’s with a new teacher in her district that’s landed himself in a heap of trouble.

✦ This Home is a Tomb - What begins as a night robbing the Blackstone mansion turns into an unexpected series of twists and turns when the family butler and gardener suddenly return.

✦ Jumpspace Renegade - Reader is pulled into an exciting and twisting adventure through space with a gang of mercenaries when she finally decides to leave her dead end life behind.

✦ No Gods Nor Kings - Nothing has been the same since Chan took the throne, especially when he has his eyes set on Reader, the faithful and doting assistant to Chancellor Changbin… and even more so when her relationship with her boyfriend, Jisung, is on the rocks at best.

✦ Pacta Sunt Servanda - The Reader and her partner in crime, Jisung, are whisked away in the night on suspicion of treason, only to wind up in service to disgraced-in-exile Prince Chan along with his court.

✦ Preoccupied - The Reader gets a bit distracted herself as she gets assigned to keep a certain producer on task in the studio.

✦ Provocation - As it turned out, you brought all sorts of things out of people, Minho and Chan included.

✦ Prowl - The Reader gets caught up in something monstrous when she meets a stranger in a bar one night.

✦ Reckless - Reader has quite the good arrangement with her new idol friend, until things get quickly complicated.

✦ The Sabotage of Simkung House - The Reader signs onto an exciting new variety show, but she isn’t prepared for what’s happening behind the scenes.

✦ The Score - Freak snowstorms, damning polaroids, and pining school faculty that are both recovering from divorce.

✦ Sentiment - Winter fluff, parfumeries, and ruined bouquets

✦ Stand Down - The Reader is roped into something deeper when she notices an old colleague following her.

✦ Standby - Working as an intern under a manager, things get out of hand real fast for the Reader, beginning with the night Bang Chan won’t come out of a green room.

✦ To Those Who Wait - The Reader is faced with a tempting opportunity to make trouble when Changbin applies to be her new assistant.

✦ What You Don’t Know - The Reader is a little surprised to become close with her friends’ new roommate, but is more surprised to expose his little secret.

✦ Young Wings - In her last month as a flight attendant, the Reader runs into a young pilot on a red-eye over the mountains.

#stray kids masterlist #stray kids fanfic #stray kids smut #stray kids x reader #stray kids x you

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paydaywings · 2 years ago

Audio

(Payday Wings Canada)

#SoundCloud #music #Payday Wings Canada #UrgentLoansforBadCredit #everyoneapprovedloansCanada #emergencyloanCanada #instantemergencyloan

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brumeraven · 4 months ago

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🦋: Tombstone Keys || dolls, commoditization, abandonment, conformity, mutilation, transformations, violence, gods?, angels?, curious to know if anyone gets the title since it's fairly obscure and opaque

It's funny, isn't it? What is and isn't fashionable. Changes with the weather sometimes, others times things stick like glue.

There aren't many dolls left anymore. Not much use for them since the gig economy took over.

The doll aesthetic, though?

So hot right now.

Can't go a minute in a sleepy village without seeing a girl with porcelain mask or clockwork gloves or something else "dollcore."

Sometimes a literal doll core, showing oh-so-coyly from a provocatively low neckline, elegant crystal facets nestled in between so much garish flesh.

I grimaced as just such a number went mincing by, sundress all embroidered with primroses, hair coiffed and topped with a canted, raffish arrangement neither quite fascinator nor derby hat. All that kept it from being chintzy was the price tag with more zeros than class.

It might have been a convincing display, if not for her airs.

While a doll might once have been bedecked so by its owner, any would have done all it could to avoid notice, even in such an getup. Certainly, none would have walked with so much...heaving and jiggling of flesh.

I brushed the thoughts away as I followed the girl down the street. There is, of course, no accounting for taste, and yet that saying is so rarely afforded to the more daring of us, those who actually broke norms.

Like it or not, dolls were "in." Or at least their aesthetic was.

Only problem is they weren't made anymore. Hadn't been for decades. On the other hand, given the number produced, it was easy to find old stock to break down for parts.

First, it was just the broken and worthless, of course, but then, well, fashion demands nothing but the best.

Flesh might decay, but dolls never did.

The thought brought with it bitter awareness of the once-taught skin that now sagged and slumped tiredly about my face.

Dolls just...went on existing, no matter what changed, untouched by the passing of the years.

Buyers started scouting estate sales and secondhand stores, desperate to find anywhere a well-maintained family heirloom might have been carelessly tossed out, hungry for the payday such a find could bring, like so many vultures...no, vultures ate carrion; these were predators.

Then, of course, the market caught on, as it always does, and deals became rare as the pickings became slim. There's only so long you can drain an irreplaceable resource before prices skyrocket.

The cheap knock-offs from overseas were simply no match for the real, vintage item.

This girl, well, she clearly had the means to afford it. The parts she wore were pristine, or had been before they'd been scalped. My fingers clenched, not as smoothly as they once had, true, but still with a force than belied their gnarled form.

It was revolting. Sacrilegious. Dolls had been marvels of engineering, masterpieces of ingenuity. Beautiful, yes, but not for porcelain shells and glittering cores. Beautiful because they were a thing made for a purpose, made to last, effective and graceful no matter the task.

The beauty lay in how they'd been made with such care by human hands, the ineffable meeting of the mundane and the sacred.

No, not the mundane...for dolls were not mortal, purposeless things, cursed with free-will and the capacity for sin. Dolls were created, yes, but divine.

Dolls were as angels, wheeled, mechanical things of inerrant purpose and inscrutable construction.

Angels on whom God had turned His back.

Angels now cast from heaven for the sin of having shining wings that pleased the eye, no matter they'd once been used to fly.

She turned to face me, eye vacant, smile vacuous, devoid of everything but life.

I shut my eyes, trying to forgive her sins. It had been her hunger that destroyed, if not her hands.

I didn't fear death as she did. Nonexistence was simply that. This fate, though, how much worse?

That a thing once given purpose might be hacked apart and used as but aesthetic trappings?

I could think of no worse fate.

A pity I couldn't inflict it on her. She'd been made for no reason but a grunting, sweaty collision of flesh, some tepid spurts of what passed for passion.

If anything, well, I'd done her a favor.

The thought amused me as I made the switch, peeled the near-putrid skin off my frame and replaced it with her face and hands.

Some creators found meaning in their creations, whether they wanted to or not.

~🦋

#empty spaces #microfiction #writing #fiction #dollposting #dolls #commoditization #abandonment #conformity #mutilation #transformations #violence #gods?#angels?#curious to know if anyone gets the title since it's fairly obscure and opaque

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illarian-rambling · 1 month ago

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Thanks for the tag @spideronthesun!

OC Deep Dive Tag

Rules: Answer the questions for your oc

In honor of getting the first arc of Starbreaker finished, let's take a look at everyone's favorite fearless captain, Faalgun Falani!

What uncommon/common fear do they have?

Being a Flying City native, Faalgun hasn't been around much in the way of nature or natural spaces. He's not a fan of bugs, trees, or any animal bigger than he is, which is not a high bar. He's also pretty afraid of large bodies of water, as he can't swim.

Do they have any pet peeves?

People who can't follow orders - so he's obviously having a field day with his new crew. Faalgun is a military brat through and through. He doesn't believe in respecting authority for authority's sake, but he also believes that in moments of crisis, it's best to just listen to whoever's barking orders. He just can't wrap his head around people who are defiant on principal (cough, cough, Nyda).

What are 3 items you can find in their bedroom?

Aboard the Starbreaker, he doesn't have a bedroom, but back on the Flying City, you could find many music recordings, some old awards from back in flight training, and, later on, lots of payday loan receipts.

What do they notice first in a person?

If they were born on a planet or in space. There's a notable difference between the way people from both places move - and sometimes, how they act.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

Probably about a six? He's tough, but he's no supersoldier.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure?

Fight, all the way. This isn't always the best move, since he's all of three and a half feet tall, but Faalgun lives for the thrill of an adrenaline rush, and he'll take on anything or anyone if it means that thrill gets to last longer.

Do they come from a big family/are they a family person?

Faalgun was raised in an orphanage, actually. So far as he knows, his parents just didn't have the means to support a child. Despite that, he had a really good childhood. He was especially close with the orphanage's nurse, who took the shy, runty boy under his wing whenever the other kids got a bit too rowdy. As an adult, he would regularly return with donations.

What animal represents them best?

Yes, I know he's a little lizard guy, but I think a hunting dog is the best fit for him. Loyal, unyielding, focused, lives for the chase - but not immune to being pulled off course by other more exciting scents.

What is a smell that they dislike?

The cheap incense used in casinos. It brings back bad memories. Also, anything to do with animals, since he's just not used to it.

Have they broken any bones?

Probably? I'll say he broke a few fingers getting into fights in flight school. Most notably, a broken neck is what killed him.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

"Aw, look at that little guy in the pilot's uniform! His scales are such a pretty blue, and that little ruff of fur looks so soft. And look how his horns stick up from his hat - how adorable! Those big yellow eyes look so tense, though. What does such a cutie have to be worried about?" (As a note, Faalgun hates being talked about like this, but it is an unfortunate fact that he is indeed a 3'5" dragon man with little whiskers that twitch when he's mad. Too bad literally nothing else about him is cute.)

Are they a night owl or a morning bird?

He doesn't sleep now that he's dead, but in life, he was a morning bird after many years of practice.

What is a flavor they hate and a flavor they love?

A flavor he loves is fried chicken. Meat is a delicacy on the Flying City, reserved only for brief stays over any of the planets they visit. Faalgun would go out and party with his friends during landings, where he'd eat lots of fried meats. A flavor he hates is the shitty canned meals he subsisted on once all his money started going to his gambling habit.

Do they have any hobbies?

Not that he'd ever do this in front of someone, but Faalgun really loves to sing. He frequently sings to keep himself occupied while piloting the Starbreaker. Speaking of, piloting is more of a career, but he loves it nonetheless. He could tell you countless facts about different voidskiffs and how they handle.

Boom, surprise birthday party! How do they react to surprises?

He'd be confused at how anyone found out his birthday at first, then grateful for the effort put in. He'd stay and talk with people for much longer than he normally would before retreating to the nearest open space, as he is very much not a party person.

Do they like to wear jewelry?

Not usually. He's pretty spartan when it comes to style.

Do they have neat or messy handwriting?

It's passably neat.

What are the two emotions they feel the most?

Shame and the excitement of adrenaline.

Do they have a favorite fabric?

Sailcloth - not to wear, but because of what it represents. Other than that, put a gun up to this man's head, and he couldn't name you a single fabric.

What kind of accent do they have?

According to the accent map of Illaros in its original form as a dnd setting, he should have a NYC accent. It's probably pretty faint, though.

I'll tag @tragedycoded @cee-grice @inkednotebook @mysticstarlightduck @cataclysmic-writer and anyone else who wants to play :)

#writing #writerscommunity #writblr #my ocs #oc deep dive

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zot3-flopped · 24 days ago

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The overlap between Dan Wootton and One Direction is so painful. DW started out on the worst tabloid at the time, the News of the World. He worked initially in showbiz gossip journalism, which is how he has links with Simon Cowell (who kept a few such people as 'friends' in order to get his projects and contestants in the tabloids). He also worked on Lorraine (daytime tv) and now is a right-wing tv presenter on the very worst channel.

Recently it came out that he used to use a pseudonym to get young male wannabes to do 'tasteful' nude photo shoots; he would then blackmail them. He is alleged to have blackmailed, under this pseudonym, lots more men; there's a suggestion that this is how he has had any sort of career advancement. His ex-boyfriend has accused him of being abusive. The man is rotten to the core.

Harry did stop giving him interviews at some point and since then he's written a couple of really strange articles, one of them saying he'd 'given Harry the chance' to come clean about his sexuality (as if it's his business) and since he hasn't graced him with the interview about it, he's going to call him a queer baiter.

Maybe he's still holding out for the payday interview, because if you wanted to out Harry it wouldn't necessarily be that hard to do, going by random people posting-then-deleting things on Twitter.

But even given the fact that this guy is a Grade A Absolute Shit, he has said Larry ain't a thing: funny, that!

Much of Wootton's info was based on behaviours he and other Sun staffers observed in London clubs and at showbiz parties, so if he didn't see or hear about Harry flirting with men there, he wouldn't believe it was happening. Harry is way too discreet for that kind of behaviour so Wootton decided he must be straight.

Agree that Wootton is 'rotten to the core'. He's even been fired by the fascist GB News channel, although unfortunately the charges against him were dropped.

As far as the breakdown of relationships in 1d went, and the future of the band, Wootton was a true industry insider and definitely knew what was going on in 2015. Nearly everything he wrote in this infamous article from nine years ago turned out to be accurate.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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Stinkpump Linkdump

Next Tuesday (December 5), I'm at Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, NC, with my new solarpunk novel The Lost Cause, which 350.org's Bill McKibben called "The first great YIMBY novel: perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful."b

Once again, I greet the weekend with more assorted links than I can fit into my nearly-daily newsletter, so it's time for another linkdump. This is my eleventh such assortment; here are the previous volumes:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

I've written a lot about Biden's excellent appointees, from his National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chair Rohit Chopra to FTC Chair Lina Khan to DoJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

But I've also written a bunch about how Biden's appointment strategy is an incoherent mess, with excellent appointees picked by progressives on the Unity Task Force being cancelled out by appointees given to the party's reactionary finance wing, producing a muddle that often cancels itself out:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/#but-muh-freedumbs

It's not just that the finance wing of the Democrats chooses assholes (though they do!), it's that they choose comedic bunglers. The Dems haven't put anyone in government who's as much of an embarrassment as George Santos, but they keep trying. The latest self-inflicted Democratic Party injury is Prashant Bhardjwan, a serial liar and con-artist who is, incredibly, the Biden Administration's pick to oversee fintech for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC):

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/did-the-occ-hire-a-con-artist-to-oversee-fintech

When the 42 year old Bhardjwan was named Deputy Comptroller and Chief Financial Technology Officer for OCC, the announcement touted his "nearly 30 years of experience serving in a variety of roles across the financial sector." Apparently Bhardjwan joined the finance sector at the age of 12. He's the Doogie Houser of Wall Street:

https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2023/nr-occ-2023-31.html

That wasn't the only lie on Bhardjwan's CV. He falsely claimed to have served as CIO of Fifth Third Bank from 2006-2010. Fifth Third has never heard of him:

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-occ-crowned-its-first-chief-fintech-officer-his-work-history-was-a-web-of-lies

Bhardjwan told a whole slew of these easily caught lies, suggesting that OCC didn't do even a cursory background search on this guy before putting him in charge of fintech – that is, the radioactively scammy sector that gave us FTX and innumerable crypto scams, to say nothing of the ever-sleazier payday lending sector:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

When it comes to appointing corrupt officials, the Biden administration has lots of company. Lots of eyebrows went up when the UN announced that the next climate Conference of the Parties (COP) would be chaired by Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, who is also the chair of Dubai's national oil company. Then the other shoe dropped: leaks revealed that Al-Jaber had colluded with the Saudis to use COP28 to get poor Asian and African nations hooked on oil:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67508331

There's an obvious reason for this conspiracy: the rich world is weaning itself off of fossil fuels. Today, renewables are vastly cheaper than oil and there's no end in sight to the plummeting costs of solar, wind and geothermal. While global electrification faces powerful logistical and material challenges, these are surmountable. Electrification is a solvable problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/09/practical-visionary/#popular-engineering

And once we do solve that problem, we will forever transform our species' relationship to energy. As Deb Chachra explains in her brilliant new book How Infrastructure Works, we would only need to capture 0.4% of the solar radiation that reaches the Earth's surface to give every person on earth the energy budget of a Canadian (AKA, a "cold American"):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

If COP does its job, we will basically stop using oil, forever. This is an existential threat to the ruling cliques of petrostates from Canada to the UAE to Saudi. As Bill McKibben writes, this isn't the first time a monied rich-world industry that had corrupted its host governments faced a similar crisis:

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/a-corrupted-cop

Big Tobacco spent decades fueling science denial, funneling money to sellout scientists who deliberately cast doubt on both sound science and the very idea that we could know anything. As Tim Harford describes in The Data Detective, Darrell Huff's 1954 classic How to Lie With Statistics was part of a tobacco-industry-funded project to undermine faith in statistics itself (the planned sequel was called How To Lie With Cancer Statistics):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

But anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. When the families of the people murdered by tobacco disinformation campaigns started winning eye-popping judgments against the tobacco industry, the companies shifted their marketing to the Global South, on the theory that they could murder poor brown people with impunity long after rich people in the north forced an end to their practice. Big Tobacco had a willing partner in Uncle Sam for this project: the US Trade Representative arm-twisted the world's poorest countries into accepting "Investor-State Dispute Settlements" as part of their treaties. These ISDS clauses allowed tobacco companies to sue governments that passed tobacco control legislation and force them to reverse their democratically enacted laws:

https://ash.org/what-is-isds-and-what-does-it-mean-for-tobacco-control/

As McKibben points out, the oil/climate-change playbook is just an update to the tobacco/cancer-denial conspiracy (indeed, the same think-tanks and PR agencies are behind both). The "Oil Development Sustainability Programme" – the Orwellian name the Saudis gave to their plan to push oil on poor countries – maps nearly perfectly onto Big Tobacco's attack on the Global South. Nearly perfectly: second-hand smoke in Indonesia won't give Americans cancer, but convincing Africa to go hard on fossil fuels will contribute to an uninhabitable planet for everyone, not just poor people.

This is an important wrinkle. Wealthy countries have repeatedly demonstrated a deep willingness to profit from death and privation in the poor world – but we're less tolerant when it's our own necks on the line.

What's more, it's far easier to put the far-off risks of emissions out of your mind than it is to ignore the present-day sleaze and hypocrisy of corporate crooks. When I quit smoking, 23 years ago, my doctor told me that if my only motivation was avoiding cancer 30 years from now, I'd find it hard to keep from yielding to temptation as withdrawal set in. Instead, my doctor counseled me to find an immediate reason to stay off the smokes. For me, that was the realization that every pack of cigarettes I bought was enriching the industry that invented the denial playbook that the climate wreckers were using to render our planet permanently unsuited for human habitation. Once I hit on that, resisting tobacco got much easier:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/03/i-quit/

Perhaps OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al-Ghais is worried about that the increasing consensus that Big Oil cynically and knowingly created this crisis. That would explain his new flight of absurdity, claiming that the world is being racist to oil companies, "unjustly vilifying" the industry for its role in the climate emergency:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/27/opec-says-oil-industry-unjustly-vilified-ahead-of-climate-talks-.html

Words aren't deeds, but words have power. The way we talk about things makes a difference to how we act on those things. When discussions of Israel-Palestine get hung up on words, it's easy to get frustrated. The labels we apply to the rain of death and the plight of hostages are so much less important than the death and the hostages themselves.

But how we name the thing will have an enormous impact on what happens next. Take the word "genocide," which Israel hawks insist must not be applied to the bombing campaign and siege in Gaza, nor to the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. On this week's On The Media, Brooke Gladstone interviews Ernesto Verdeja, executive director of The Institute for the Study of Genocide:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/genocide-powerful-word-so-why-its-definition-so-controversial-on-the-media

Verdeja lays out the history of the word "genocide" and connects it to the Israeli government and military's posture on Palestine and Palestinians, and concludes that the only real dispute among genocide scholars is whether the current campaign it itself an act of genocide, or a prelude to an act of genocide.

I'm not a genocide scholar, but I am a Jew who has always believed in Palestinian solidarity, and Verdeja's views do not strike me as outrageous, or (more importantly) antisemitic. The conflation of opposition to Israel's system of apartheid with opposition to Jews is a cheap trick, one that's belied by Israel itself, where there is a vast, longstanding political opposition to Israeli occupation, settlements, and military policing. Are all those Israeli Jews secret antisemites?

Jews are not united in support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians. The hardliners who insist that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic are peddling an antisemitic lie: that all Jews everywhere are loyal to Israel, and that we all take our political positions from the Knesset. Israel hawks only strengthen that lie when they accuse me and my fellow Jews of being "self-hating Jews."

This leads to the absurd circumstance in which gentiles police Jews' views on Israel. It's weird enough when white-nationalist affiliated evangelicals who support Israel in order to further the end-times prophesied in Revelations slam Jews for being antisemitic. But in Germany, it's even weirder. There, regional, non-Jewish officials charged with policing antisemitism have censured Jewish groups for adopting policies on Israel that mainstream Israeli political parties have in their platforms:

https://jewishcurrents.org/the-strange-logic-of-germanys-antisemitism-bureaucrats

Antisemitism is real. As Jesse Brown describes in his recent Canadaland editorial, there is a real and documented rise in racially motivated terror against Jews in Canada, including school shootings and a firebombing. Likewise, it's true that some people who support the Palestinian cause are antisemites:

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/is-jesse-a-zionist-editorial/

But to stand in horror at Israel's military action and its vast civilian death-toll is not itself antisemitic. This is obvious – so obvious that the need to say it is a tribute to Israel hardliners – Jewish and gentile – and their ability to peddle the racist lie that Israel is Jews and Jews are Israel, and that every Jew is in support of, and responsible for, Israeli war-crimes and crimes against humanity.

One need not choose between opposition to Hamas and its terror and opposition to Israel and its bombings. There is no need for a hierarchy of culpability. As Naomi Klein says, we can "side with the child over the gun":

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/why-are-some-of-the-left-celebrating-the-killings-of-israeli-jews

Moral consistency is not moral equivalency. If you're a Jew like me who wants to work for an end to the occupation and peace in the region, you could join Jewish Voice For Peace (like me):

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

Now, for a jarring tone shift. In these weekend linkdumps, I put a lot of thought into how to transition from one subject to the next, but honestly, there's no good transition from Israel-Palestine to anything else (yet – though someday, perhaps). So let's just say, "word games can be important, but they can also be trivial, and here are a few of the latter."

Start with a goodie, from the always brilliant medievalist Eleanor Janeaga, who tackles the weirdos who haunt social media in order to dump on people with PhDs who call themselves "doctor":

https://going-medieval.com/2023/11/29/doctor-does-actually-mean-someone-with-a-phd-sorry/

Janega points out that the "doctor" honorific was applied to scholars for centuries before it came to mean "medical doctor." But beyond that, Janega delivers a characteristically brilliant history of the (characteristically) weird and fascinating tale of medieval scholarship. Bottom line, we call physicians "doctor" because they wanted to be associated with the brilliance of scholars, and thought that being addressed as "doctor" would add to their prestige. So yeah, if you've got a PhD, you can call yourself doctor.

It's not just doctors; the professions do love their wordplay. especially lawyers. This week on Lowering The Bar, I learned about "a completely ludicrous court fight that involved nine law firms that combined for 66 pages of briefing, declarations, and exhibits, all inflicted on a federal court":

https://www.loweringthebar.net/2023/11/federal-court-ends-double-spacing-fight.html

The dispute was over the definition of "double spaced." You see, the judge in the case told counsel they could each file briefs of up to 100 pages of double-spaced type. Yes, 100 pages! But apparently, some lawyer burn to write fat trilogies, not mere novellas. Defendants accused the plaintiffs in this case of spacing their lines a mere 24 points apart, which allowed them to sneak 27 lines of type onto each page, while defendants were confined to the traditional 23 lines.

But (the court found), the defendants were wrong. Plaintiffs had used Word's "double-spacing" feature, but had not ticked the "exact double spacing" box, and that's how they ended up with 27 lines per page. The court refused to rule on what constituted "double-spacing" under the Western District of Tennessee’s local rules, but it ruled that the plaintiffs briefs could fairly be described as "double-spaced." Whew.

That's your Saturday linkdump, jarring tone-shift and all. All that remains is to close out with a cat photo (any fule kno that Saturday is Caturday). Here's Peeve, whom I caught nesting most unhygienically in our fruit bowl last night. God, cats are gross:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53370882459/

It's EFF's Power Up Your Donation Week: this week, donations to the Electronic Frontier Foundation are matched 1:1, meaning your money goes twice as far. I've worked with EFF for 22 years now and I have always been - and remain - a major donor, because I've seen firsthand how effective, responsible and brilliant this organization is. Please join me in helping EFF continue its work!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/02/melange/#defendants_motion_to_require_adherence_with_formatting_requirements_of_local_rule_7.1

Stinkpump Linkdump

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