#Radio 4 Appeal
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Remember to tune in on 3 June.
#Tait rhymes with hat#Good times#Charity#Fundraiser#Radio 4 Appeal#World Child Cancer#WorldChildCancer#BBC Radio 4#4 June 2023#Instagram#Thanks sunsetmagic85
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So, yesterday, I remembered to glance at current dramas on BBC Sounds again for the first time in a while, and got a huge and wonderful shock on finding this at the top of the SFF category.
It's a 1971 6 part supernatural series starring Martin Jarvis & Patricia Gallimore. I don't think it's ever been repeated since. At least parts of it were missing for a while, and I had no idea whether the rest of it was extant or not. But I liked the sound of it enough that I bought the novelisation, and it was top of my impossible radio listening wishlist.
Yesterday, I got to listen to Part 1, Part 2 should be broadcast later today!
ETA: You can listen to the link regardless of where you are in the world! (UK listeners just get the Sounds app as well if they want it.)
#radio#audio drama#martin jarvis#the twelve maidens#stewart farrar#margaret govan#peter brent#1970s#sff#it does indeed seem very engaging so far#\o/#anyway if you read the summary it's a VERY 1970s dw-esque sort of thing#so might appeal to the bf crowd too#apparently radio 4 xtra has an email address and you can just say#'hey play this serial from 1971'#and they do#amazing#/gets out rest of list#/is inevitably too weedy to even try asking#thanks to colin and steven whoever you are#you totally made my week
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Winnie the Pooh is inspiring Manchester’s kids to read
It's great news from Wood Street Mission and the Books Forever Appeal! Over 8,000 children's books have been donated so far and amongst them are the stories of Winnipeg the Bear -aka the real life Winnie The Pooh- and the Canadian veterinarian Harry D. Colebourn.
I'm positive that books like these will inspire Manchester's young people to read and with more WSM Book Roadshows planned in our city's schools, Wood Street Mission are still in need of brand new or good condition pre-loved books for children and young people.
In 2022, WSM distributed over 20,500 books to disadvantaged young people across Manchester and thanks to support from the public, it's brilliant that each child gets to take home 5 books to keep. Through such acts of kindness, you are helping to overcome barriers that children in low-income families face.
But did you know that donating to Wood Street Mission’s 'Books Forever Appeal’ couldn’t be easier? You can drop off a book in person or have it delivered direct to the Wood Street Mission, 26 Wood Street, Manchester, M3 3EF, The UK.
Wood Street Mission is located next to the John Rylands Library on Deansgate. You can also visit woodstreetmission.org.uk for more information or to make a secure online donation.
#wood street mission#childrens books#manchester#uk news#winnie the pooh#lindsay mattick#sophie blackall#books#waterstones#west didsbury#chorlton#bbc news#bbc radio#bbc radio 4#hussein al-alak#books forever appeal#books forever#ww1 education#education
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apologies for the lack of art n stuff here lately, folks, i have just not had the motivation to draw lately 😔
#pikspeak#there are things i think about drawing#things i WANT to draw.#but when i think about actually drawing them i just kinda.. lose interest.#idk i think like.. i have been dissatisfied lately w how my art has been turning out#and the thought of putting effort into doing something thats supposed to be fun#only to not like the final product#is just not appealing#and i realize the only way to get better and/or change the outcome is to practice#but. idk. i could just play a video game instead.#anyway. thats the 4 am vent post i am giving u now after how long of radio silence.#im still lurking around here every once in a while so if u wanna talk to me for some reason im sure i will respond eventually
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Meet & Greet... and more? Pt. 5
Pairing: Lando Norris x reader Words: 2066 Click here for Part 4
Please do not repost, thank you, and leave some feedback :)
Lando stood in the lobby of the hotel checking his watch and rehearsing his lines mumbling to himself. A sleek black car parked outside was ready for their drive. Luckily he didn’t have to wait long before Y/N emerged. She looked stunning, even though she was only wearing some jeans and a semi-elegant black top but it complemented her complexion perfectly. Lando’s breath caught in his throat as he took in the sight of her. He approached with a warm, nervous smile.
“I’m sorry if I’m a bit underdressed,” she apologized with a low voice. “I didn’t expect you to ask me out, so I didn’t pack anything fancy.”
Lando’s smile widened and he shook his head gently. “You look gorgeous, Y/N. I’m just glad you agreed to going out with me.”
“Thanks,” Y/N said, her cheeks flushing slightly after hearing the compliment. “You look great too.”
Lando stepped forward to open the car door for her and she slipped into the luxurious interior of the car. He quickly got in the driver’s seat and soon they were driving through the streets heading toward their destination.
The drive was filled with a comfortable silence, interrupted only by the soft music playing on the radio. Lando kept sneaking glances at Y/N, stealing moments to admire her profile and the way the city lights danced on her face. Y/N, for her part, seemed content, occasionally turning to him with a smile that made his heart race.
The restaurant’s terrace that Lando had reserved for their table overlooked the city, offering a breathtaking panorama of the city below. “This is beautiful,” she said and admired the view.
“I’m glad you like it,” Lando said, his gaze lingering on her. “I wanted tonight to be special.”
The waiter arrived to take their drink orders and soon they talked about everything and nothing - shared memories, future dreams and light-hearted banter. Each moment seemed to draw them closer and Lando found himself more captivated by Y/N with every passing minute.
“Speaking of quirks,” Lando began at some point, leaning in slightly, “Years ago I tried to impress my team with a homemade dinner.”
Y/N raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Oh really? How did that go?”
“Well,” Lando said with a mischievous glint in his eye, “I thought I’d go all out and make a fancy pasta dish with some chocolate mousse for after but I got so carried away that I accidentally used salt instead of sugar in the dessert.”
Y/N chuckled, “That sounds like a disaster. How did they react?”
“They were polite at first,” Lando said, trying to keep a straight face. “But halfway through the meal one of the guys said, ‘Well, at least we know Lando can make us laugh.’”
Y/N laughed, imagining Lando in the kitchen with a confused look on his face. “Sounds like you’re quite the chef.”
“More like an accidental comedian,” Lando replied with a wink. “But if you ever want a taste test, just let me know. I promise to stick to the recipe.”
“Deal,” Y/N said with a smile. “And I’ll bring my own sugar, just in case.”
The moment was light-hearted and endearing and Y/N couldn’t help but feel even more charmed by Lando’s playful and self-deprecating humor.
A little while later, while he was telling her about his early karting days, she took a moment to really look at Lando. She couldn’t help but think how he looked like he’d stepped out of a fairy tale. There was something almost magical about the way he carried himself. The sharp lines of his black pants served timeless elegance, while the white shirt accentuated his toned body. His hair was perfectly styled, every lock in place as if it had been sculpted by an artist.
He reminded her of a Disney prince, the comparison making her smile. He had that same kind of defined, classic appeal, a blend of charm and grace that seemed almost otherworldly and she was the lucky one to share this evening with him.
What had started as a simple Meet & Greet for the sole purpose of making her son happy, had turned into something much more. She had come to the event knowing very little about Lando, only the little bits Noah got excited about and told her but he was a toddler, so how much could he really know? But now she was fascinated by who Lando was as a person.
She was surprised at how Lando’s passion, his down-to-earth nature and his genuine kindness had drawn her in so quickly. The more they talked, the more she found herself appreciating the real person behind the public persona. She was falling for more than just the image of the driver; she was falling for the person he was, the one with a great sense of humor, love and genuine care.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Lando met her gaze and Y/N realized that this was more than just an ordinary night. It was a magical moment and Lando was indeed her very own prince charming, making the evening feel like something out of a storybook.
“I have to tell you,” Y/N began at some point, “this is actually the first date I’ve been on since before Noah was born. It’s been a while, but tonight feels... special.”
Lando looked at her with genuine surprise. “I can’t believe no one has asked you out,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re amazing, anyone would be lucky to spend time with you.” He meant every word he said but soon noticed the change in her demeanor. “I hope I didn’t upset you.”
“Oh god, Lando no,” Y/N tried to calm him down immediately, then took a deep breath, her gaze momentarily drifting to the city. “There’s something I’d like to share with you, if that’s okay.”
Lando nodded encouragingly, sensing the gravity in her tone. “Of course. I’m here to listen.”
“Noah’s dad…” Y/N hesitated for a moment before continuing. “I already told you he left shortly after Noah was born, he was just two months old. It wasn’t easy and I’ve been doing everything I can to raise him on my own. I guess I’m just a bit unsure about opening up to someone new, especially with Noah involved.”
Lando’s heart ached as he listened to Y/N’s words. He could sense the insecurity and vulnerability in her voice and he wanted nothing more than to reassure her that he was genuinely interested and understanding.
“I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for you,” Lando said softly. “I want you to know that I respect you immensely for how you’ve handled everything and for how much you care for him. The fact that you’re willing to open up and share this with me means a lot.”
Y/N looked up at him, her eyes filled with uncertainty but there was also hope. “It’s just that I’ve been so focused on protecting Noah and making sure he’s okay. I’d hate for him to get attached to someone else who’s going to leave and disappoint him.”
“I understand that completely but I want to be clear about how I feel. From the moment I met you and Noah I felt something really special. It’s not just about being interested, I’m here because I genuinely care and want to see where this can go.”
Y/N’s gaze softened and she took a small but relieved breath while Lando gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m serious about wanting to get to know you and Noah better. I understand that trust takes time and I’m more than willing to be patient and supportive. I genuinely believe there’s something here and I’d like to explore that with both of you.”
Just then he decided to share a small but - what he hoped - meaningful gesture. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, tapping the screen to show Y/N. It showed the photo from when they first met at the Meet & Greet.
“This has been my phone background from the moment you two left that day,” Lando said, his cheeks flushing slightly. “I have been thinking about you nonstop since then.”
She looked at the photo, then back at Lando, her heart swelling and with slightly shaking hands she pulled out her own phone, showing it to the young man sitting across from her who got a perfect look at the exact same picture on her device. “Looks like great minds think alike,” she giggled softly.
Once they had finished their meal Lando led Y/N to the edge where they stood side by side taking in the stunning view. He turned to her, his eyes reflecting the city lights. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” he said, his voice low and soft.
“It is,” Y/N replied, her gaze fixed on the horizon before meeting his eyes. “Thank you for this night, Lando. It’s been absolutely amazing.”
Lando’s eyes were locked onto Y/N’s, his gaze intense and filled with an emotion that spoke volumes. The air between them was charged with a palpable energy. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from Y/N’s face, his fingers lingering on her cheek.
His eyes softened and he leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to pull away if she chose. Y/N’s own heart raced as she felt the pull of his presence and slowly but surely her eyes fluttered shut. She tilted her face upward, her lips parting in anticipation.
Their lips met in a kiss that was both tender and electrifying. At first, it was a soft, lingering touch, a gentle exploration of what had been building between them. Lando’s lips were warm and reassuring against hers, his kiss a promise of all the words he hadn’t yet said.
Within seconds the kiss deepened, it became more urgent, more passionate. His hands moved to frame Y/N’s face, his fingers threading into her hair as he pulled her closer. The intensity of the kiss conveyed everything they had both been feeling but couldn’t quite put into words. Y/N responded eagerly, her hands grasping the front of his shirt, drawing him even closer. The world around them seemed to disappear, leaving only the sensation of their lips moving together.
When they finally parted, their foreheads pressed together, both of them were breathless, their hearts racing from the intensity of the moment. Y/N opened her eyes slowly, meeting Lando’s gaze with a look of pure happiness and love.
“That was…” Y/N began, her voice trembling slightly and she was unable to put the buzzing feeling in her stomach into words.
Lando smiled, his eyes shining with the same emotion and a soft smile on his features. “I’ve been wanting to do this the whole weekend.”
They stayed there for a few more moments, simply holding each other and enjoying each other’s presence until Lando gently took Y/N’s hands in his, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
“So,” he started with a grin, “when you tell Noah about our date, how do you think he’ll react? Will he be thrilled to know his mom’s got a new boyfriend or will he just want to know if I’m bringing him a toy car next time?”
Y/N laughed, her eyes lighting up with amusement. “Oh, Noah’s definitely going to have a lot of questions, he’s been very curious about everything lately. I’m sure he’ll be excited but he might also want to know if you have any cool stories to share.”
“Well,” Lando chuckled, shaking his head, “I’ll have to make sure I have some good stories ready. Maybe I’ll even bring him a little something again next time. I have to make sure he still likes me.”
“You’re already his hero, so I don’t think you will have to worry about that,” Y/N replied smiling.
Lando’s gaze saddened slightly as he added, “I’m not looking forward to you two leaving tomorrow but I’ll be there to help you get to the airport. It’ll be nice to spend a bit more time with you before you two have to go.”
“That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Lando and we will find a way to make this work.”
_________
Click here for Part 6!
Tag: @barcelonaloverf1life @remmysthings @poppyflower-22 @vickykazuya @hadids-world @ririyulife @deafeningunknowntyrant @lexiecampos @littlegrapejuice @eloriis @yawn-zi @landossainz @taliya8346282844eliviahdgdajs @casuallyeating @dramallama9 @hc-dutch @alana4610
#ln4 x reader#lando imagine#lando norris x reader#lando norris imagine#lando x reader#lando norris#lando fluff#lando fic#lando x y/n#lando norris x y/n#landonorris#f1 fic#f1 fanfic
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In The Night, In The Dark
Edited screenshot and beta'ing done by my dearlest love, @inuhalfdemon
Summary: Alastor x afab Reader x Shadow smut. Easily read as a stand-alone, there's no other context needed to enjoy this instalment, but it is technically Part 5 of my "Girl Talk" series. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4 are all dirty humor and Part 3 is also easily stand-alone smut of the "filthiest" kind.
TW's: Slight dub-con at the very beginning, voyeurism, masturbation, vaginal fingering, anal, biting, threesome, double penetration, squirting, creampie. 8,271 words of romance and debauchery lay before the "Read More." MDNI and plan on a shower afterwards.
Before the Hazbin Hotel . . .
Before you met Angel Dust . . .
Before the seven loneliest years of your life . . .
You had found yourself in the beginnings of a wonderful and complicated romance with The Radio Demon.
You had known him for a while, prior to becoming intimate, and had seen Alastor in a variety of moods.
He could be charming, enthusiastic, charismatic, downright funny, and the life of the party. He could sing and dance the night away, sweep you off your feet, all while being outright goofy. This was the side of him that, over a considerable amount of time, you had fallen in love with.
He could be terrifying; a monster (quite literally), a murderous psychopath, a sadistic and twisted killer who made strangers flee from him and far unluckier souls kneel to him. The kind of man who took what he wanted, regardless - or sometimes because - of who it hurt. This was the side of him that had initially caught your eye and ignited the flame of your darkest fantasies. Heaven help you, there a was a reason you were down there in Hell with men like him. While it had taken you a long while to realize he was the man of your dreams, it had taken you even longer to get his attention.
But now that you had it . . .
You were realizing there was a secret, third side to his personality; one you had only seen glimpses of so far. A distant and cold version of Alastor, where he couldn’t stand to be touched, forwent his chivalry, and yet, in a very twisted sense of the idea, let his guard down. These dark moods settled on him whenever something or someone got under his skin and he had no real outlet for his frustrations. No form of violence or vengeance would settle him, and he couldn’t exactly lash out at you because of it. He felt the new and unnerving need for you in these moments but was also desperate for distance.
It seemed tonight he had finally figured out a solution to this problem.
____
You had just fallen into the first stages of sleep, where the drowsy fog still kept your faculties from you, but you were also halfway aware of what was happening to you.
Pleasantly cool fingers ghosted across your skin, tickling your hips bones and dipping lower to your thighs, lifting you from your dreams. Still half asleep, you automatically assumed it was Alastor, and in your hazy stupor, didn’t question it. It wasn’t the first time he had snuck into your apartment, your room, your bed in the middle of the night. You even encouraged it. So, there wasn’t an ounce of doubt or concern in your mind as you kept your eyes shut and shifted more onto your back, parting your legs just enough to let the familiar long and tender fingers begin stroking over your panties.
Your breath came in quicker, louder pants as he worked you up. Long, slow, torturous touches that burned you up on the inside and left you wet and swollen on the outside.
By the time you fully awoke, you had already soaked through your panties – simple little cotton things that didn’t even match the t-shirt you had put on before bed. It’s not like you had been expecting company, and Alastor – well he didn’t find sexual appeal in anything you wore anyway.
Still with your eyes closed, you turned your head and reached an arm out to the other side of the bed, wanting to reciprocate the delicious foreplay he was pampering you with.
“Hmmm . . . Al’,” you breathed his name, still reaching for his body but when you finally heard his voice, it didn’t come from where you expected it to.
“I’m here.”
But he wasn’t.
Here was right next to you in bed but his voice was coming from there. From somewhere past the foot of the bed and much too far away to be connected to the hand that had just slid itself under the elastic band of your underwear and was finally giving your pussy the direct contact it had been begging for.
You opened your eyes and true to what the flutter in your heart had told you, Alastor was not what was lying next to you in bed.
It was just darkness.
A deep black mass of a thing that vaguely resembled your lover. The only part of it that had any detail was the forearm and hand that was still doing rather pleasant things to your body, though your mind was ringing with alarm bells.
“It’s alright, my dear,” Alastor’s voice assured you and your head whipped around to face him, your ears triangulating easily on the direction of his voice now that you were awake and alert. “It’s me . . . well,” he chuckled without humor, “mostly me.”
It dawned on you then just exactly what was happening. In the simplest of terms, Alastor was having his shadow finger-fuck you in bed . . . while he watched. The realization left you feeling shy and unsure of yourself in a way you hadn’t felt in very long time.
You looked Alastor in the eyes, trying to gage if this was really what he wanted, but only found a quiet, deep rage in those beautiful ruby orbs of his. It unsettled you but it also really turned you on.
“I want this,” he said, his words assuring you, though his tone was commanding. “But if it’s too much for you . . .”
He trailed off and looked away and as he did so, the shadow pulled away from you. The brevity of its departure made it more obvious that you had indeed been enjoying its touch and your walls clenched longingly at the thought of its return.
‘I’m okay with it,” you replied quickly. Maybe too quickly, if Alastor’s raised eyebrow was any indication. “I mean . . .” You hesitated, being more careful in your word choice. Even if your answer disappointed Alastor, you would only upset him more if he ever found out you weren’t explicitly honest with him. “I’d like to keep trying. If you’re really okay with it, that is.”
“I wouldn’t even let it look at you if I wasn’t, let alone fuck you like I intend it to,” he replied with a deadly low tone.
You swallowed.
“And if I say stop?”
“Then we’ll stop. Of course.” He nodded, his eyes softening for just a fraction of a second, letting slip that sliver of decency he still kept close to his heart when it came to you.
“Okay,” you agreed. Alastor stood and walked over to you.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered, letting his eyes roam over you sprawled out on top of your sheets, the damp spot visible on your underwear, even in the darkness of the room. “Now, let’s have a better view of you going forward, shall we?”
He pulled your panties slowly down your legs, letting the pads of his fingers dance across your flesh, leaving goosebumps in their wake that his claws gently raked against.
It was the last direct touch he gave you until after his shadow had shown you what it could really do.
Alastor walked back to his chair that was leaned against the opposite wall of your bed. A chair that you didn’t own or had ever seen before. Which meant he had materialized it just for this.
Your eyes about bugged out of your head as he undid his buckle and his trousers and pulled his already hard and throbbing erection free before taking his seat. He sat like a King on his throne, legs wide apart, shoulders straight and confident, and one hand gripping the armrest while the other took hold of the base of his cock. Meanwhile his eyes stayed locked on you.
As if a silent command had been issued, the swirling mass of shadows next to you began to thicken, reaching for you once more. This time you were ready for it and kept your legs wide and raised your hips up as the ghostly dark hand found your heated center. It explored you thoroughly, running multiple fingers over and between your folds, toying with your clit and the sensitive line of eager flesh that led from it to the very center of your weeping cunt. You got the distinct impression it was like an eager student, who had been watching and observing its master, and was now ready for its own hands-on learning.
The shadow shifted, moving closer to you and you tensed a little as you expected it to crawl over you, but then it . . . disappeared?
No.
It went beneath you.
You watched, fascinated, as it slipped itself between your body and the sheets and then you felt it, lifting you away from the mattress by barely an inch. It felt almost like a thin layer of water between you and the bed, not so solid that it didn’t give into the natural swells of your body but definitely solid enough to feel.
There was the slightest tickling at your neck that then began to intensify, and you blinked in wonder as the darkness morphed into a face next to yours. One that looked very much like Alastor’s, but far less detailed. Those eyes though, although green rather than red, were very much the eyes you knew so well and adored.
Even in the haze of arousal that the hand working your pussy was clouding your judgement with, you came to understand the relationship between Alastor and his shadow in an intimate way that no other act but this could bring you.
While it had a mind of its own, a body of its own, Alastor and it were inexplicably connected to each other. Your real lover, the man watching you from the chair a few feet away, could see through those green eyes and could feel what those hands felt. It was Alastor’s mouth and his shadow’s mouth that bit down on tender flesh where your neck met your shoulders, teasing the skin there until it was marked and bruised, but never breaking skin.
This was how Alastor could find comfort in you without pushing the limits of his own touch-adverse body when he fell victim to his darkest moods.
You let a moan slip from your lips as the shadow’s fingers found a perfect rhythm of strokes from clit to center and felt every bit of reservation ease from your body as you gave in to this strange and unique form of sex.
Another hand materialized on your other side, snaking its way up beneath your t-shirt, tickling your ribs and cupping the bottom swell of your breast. You moaned again, arching your back, and felt it pinching your nipple. It squeezed and rolled it, stimulating it until it was peaked and taught.
You felt your pleasure building, increasing at a rapid pace you didn’t know you had in you, brought on by the delicious exoticness of the silky coolness of the shadow’s flesh against yours. Desperate for more contact, you turned your face into it, nuzzling the side of the head next to yours and felt something similar to hair but it floated softly through the air as if underwater.
Then you remembered Alastor and your eyes shot to him but rather than meeting his gaze, you locked onto the throbbing member in his grasp and the way he was slowly pumping himself as he watched you. His tip was red and swollen, almost as tense and angry as his dark expression, and even in the dim light of the room, you could see the bit of precum glistening at the top, ready to spill over and run down his shaft.
And still his hand was slow and methodical on himself, just a causal rise and fall along his entire length, purposefully drawing out his own pleasure.
Just as the wave of your first orgasm began to crest, the shadow slipped its fingers inside you, at last giving you some sensation of being filled as it curled what felt like two long and slender digits up and into the spongey sweet spot. You cried out and threw your head back as it rubbed its palm against your clit and pumped into your depths. The wet squelching noise it pulled from your body was drowned out as you voiced your ecstasy. You came with shaking legs and an arched back and you had never felt closer to the man who was ironically across the room.
As you came down from your orgasm, a kind of blissed out clarity overwhelmed you. Now you felt truly free to love and adore and desire every aspect of Alastor, even his darkest most detached part of his soul. He would feel it, he would understand it, and he wanted it.
The shadow didn’t stop its task as your orgasm came to a close, but it did slow its pace with an expert understanding of how your body worked. Letting up on the pressure of its palm against your clit, it ever so gently worked your inner walls, keeping you from the overwhelming sensation of overstimulation – at least for now – and letting your pleasure rebuild upon itself, riding the cascading wave of your last orgasm to quickly reach a new and second high.
At first you merely panted. Open-mouthed and head thrown back into the strange and thin shoulder supporting you from beneath, you were dazed into feeling nothing but the tantalizing fingers working their magic on you. But then it quickened its pace, knowing just the moment when your body was ready for more and you whimpered, a pathetic wanton little sound, that almost sounded like a response to pain.
The pressure of the shadowy palm returned to your clit and surprisingly sharp claws dug into your breast. You stared at Alastor, eyes roaming between his face and his lap. He was not meeting your eyes, not when his own was so clearly locked onto what was happening between your legs, truly enthralled by the scene of his shadow’s hand fucking your pussy, the view from his vantage point perfect for such voyeurism. His cock was positively weeping at this point and your mouth watered at the sight of the single stream of salty liquid that spilled from his tip and without breaking rhythm, he coated his entire length with a thin layer of it. You wanted to take him in your mouth, feel the weight of him on your tongue, let the musky taste of him overwhelm your senses and mix your saliva with his own fluids to increase his own pleasure. But he didn’t move a muscle towards you, and you were fixed to the bed, helpless to pull away from the shadow that had you in its grip from beneath.
You came again, lost in the thought of pleasuring Alastor in return for what he was doing to you now. This orgasm was longer and more intense than the first and your cries filled the room but this time you kept Alastor within your view and didn’t miss his smile widen in approval as he watched your hips rocking with reckless abandon into his shadow.
Feeling spent, you let your body melt into the dark and fluid body beneath yours, thinking it might be over now.
But then you heard the distinct tsk that often came from Alastor whenever he teasingly disapproved of something you had said or done and your eyes shot back open when you realized, he still hadn’t come.
You weren’t sure you had much more in you and trusted Alastor when he had said all you had to say was “stop” and he would, but your twisted curiosity wanted to see where he would take this if you allowed it. So, you said nothing as you met his gaze, seeing his cock in your peripherals still being worked by that hand as steady as a metronome.
“That was just some foreplay, my dear,” Alastor said and then tilted his head at you, as if considering something. “Tell me you haven’t grown curious as to what its cock would feel like inside of you.”
Your cunt ached at his words, unearthing a level of desire in you that you didn’t know existed up until then.
“Well, I certainly am now,” you say, feeling more and more like your usual confident self with every passing second.
You felt the shadow beneath you thicken, lifting your hips just a fraction higher, and you bent your knees slightly, pressing the bottoms of your feet into the mattress, catching on quickly to the position his shadow was putting you in.
“That’s it,” Alastor said, a mix of pride and authority in his voice as he appraised you. “Good girl, just like that.”
You felt the tip of something wider than the fingers at your entrance, teasing and undulating the shallowest parts of your walls and you bore down, helping to guide it in until it was fully sheathed within you, the angle of penetration not allowing for anything deeper.
With black arms and hands wrapped around your torso, the shadow that was an odd mix of two and three dimensions began thrusting up into you, and you leaned your weight of your back into it, embracing its hold on you as it fucked you from beneath.
It must have been quite the show for Alastor; your legs spread wide, your pussy on full display, as its dark and pulsing shaft came up from underneath you and penetrated your most intimate of places, all the while its hands roamed beneath your t-shirt, groping and teasing at your belly, your ribs, your breast, and your hard and aching nipples.
For a while, it was mostly silent in the room. Just the sounds of your soft moans and heavy breath were enough to dominate the air, though in-between the gentle, lusty notes of your voice, more carnal sounds were heard. The squeaking of the bed frame, the wet, slippery sound of the infernal, inhuman cock pounding into your core, and the very subtle, hardly there at all sound of Alastor’s fist working his own member and the occasional hard intake of breath from him.
He was finally getting close, though he was clearly desperately holding out for more time.
Eager to see his release, that moment when he would lose control, you began meeting the shadow’s rhythm with a more active enthusiasm than you had been showing.
You took one of the hands from beneath your shirt and guided it slowly back down between your legs, and it did as directed, meeting your clit with eager and quick circles that had you immediately moaning and crying out. You were going to come again and soon and you craned your head forward to get a good look at Alastor.
“Oh fuck, this feels so good,” you said, your words affected by the shakiness of your breath and the ever-present steady rocking of the shadow beneath you. “Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
His answer was simple, direct, and still you could hear how close he was in that one quick word.
“Mmmm,” you moaned, squeezing your eyes tight for a moment. “I’m so close.”
You heard him breath harshly through his nose, your affect on him undeniable. You didn’t often dirty talk like this with him but if it was a show he wanted, a show he would get.
Biting your lip, you grasped at the wrist resting on your pelvic mound, directing Alastor’s view back towards your sex. Then you looked down at yourself, at the shadowy hand that blurred around the edges but circled your swollen clit with a perfect, rapid motion and the darkness beneath it that was glistening with your slickness as it pumped in and out of you.
You twitched and clenched at the sight of it all, edging ever closer to your next orgasm, and wondered at how Alastor had lasted as long as he had.
“I’m gonna come,” you said desperately, looking back at Alastor with your neediest expression. “But I need – I need . . .”
“You need what, darling?” he asked, impatiently. You noticed his speed quicken as he pumped his cock though you were sure it was an unconscious decision on his part. Suddenly you felt like you were the one in control of the situation and let the next words flow from your lips, certain of the affect they would have on him.
“You,” you breathed. “Come for me, Alastor. I want to see it.”
The motion of the cock inside of you matched that of Alastor’s hand on his own member as the two quickened the pace in perfect sync with each other. His eyes narrowed, possibly feeling conflicted at his own loss of control but succumbing to his own desire nonetheless.
“Yes,” you sighed, giving into the sensations as well, as you moved your hips back and forth to meet the shadow that was filling you up.
You felt your body tense, felt the swelling and constricting of all your lower muscles and organs, and you thought for a second you had lost, that you were going to come once again without Alastor, but then you heard the deep, masculine grunt from your lover and looked in time to see his cock twitching in his hand, the first milky rope of his cum spurting out over his tightened fist and your orgasm hit your body like a ton of bricks.
It was a lucky thing you were in Hell because whatever noises tore from your throat were not meant to be made in Heaven. A rush of blood went to your core, your pussy clenching impossible tight on the wide shaft that still had your legs spread wide, urging even more wetness from you that coated your inner thighs and ran down your ass to pool in the sheets below you. All the while you couldn’t peel your eyes away from the wonderous sight of Alastor coming undone in front of you, spilling his seed for you and making a creamy mess all over his hand, torso, and trousers.
In the silence afterwards, it was all you could do to lay flat on your back as you felt the shadow finally retreating from your body, and you blinked up at the ceiling above, positively lost in the thoughtless post-orgasmic bliss you were experiencing.
As if from a great distance, you heard the shuffling of clothes and knew Alastor had stood and had begun undressing himself, but he didn’t approach you.
“Finish undressing her,” you heard him say, “and have your way with her.”
Excuse the fuck out of me, you thought.
He was talking to his shadow as if you weren’t even there, as if you weren’t an active participant in this, and that just wouldn’t do. Alastor may have been The Radio Demon, Hell’s most powerful and prominent Overlord, but he hadn’t fallen for you because you were the type of soul to just . . . take things lying down, so to speak.
If he still wanted you and his shadow to go at it another round, it would be on your terms.
Those shadowy limbs reached for you again but you sat up, meeting its green eyes with a steel gaze, hard enough to halt its approach.
It solidified completely for the first time that evening, collecting its darkness into the same size and shape as Alastor’s body, and you weren’t sure if it was in acceptance of what it was reading in your expression, or as a challenge. Either way, you were ready.
You braced your hands on its shoulders and swung one leg over its hips, feeling the press of its hardness between your bodies, pinned against its stomach and your mound. Reaching between yourselves, you took the erection that was uniquely as dark as night but also as hard and velvety as the other one you knew so well, and lifted yourself up on your knees enough to line its tip up with your entrance. With a boldness that was encouraged by the sheer offense you had taken at Alastor’s words, you bore your gaze into those wide green eyes as you slowly sank yourself down, feeling every inch of it as you took in its length and bottomed out. There was a pressure, deep in your gut, as its swollen tip pressed against the very end of your deep and tight walls, and you let yourself groan as you knew Alastor would be able to feel just how completely his shadow was filling you up now that you had shifted positions.
Looking over your shoulder, you saw him standing frozen in place, his hands paused on the buttons of his shirt, and though he looked surprised, you could see him processing this change in you. There was something new in his expression, a kind of anticipation, as if he couldn’t wait to see where this new plot twist would lead him. He hadn’t expected this of you, but he wasn’t about to step in and interfere.
Before you had turned back around, you felt the shadow’s hands with those unnaturally long and slender fingers grasping at your hips and reaching around to squeeze the swell of your ass and pull you closer. Still looking at Alastor, you did as the shadow encouraged and rocked your hips; just once but in an exaggerated, slow and hard way that was clearly just a prologue to the rough and hard way you were about to ride his shadow. You could see Alastor’s jaw tense in response and smiled.
Oh, he could definitely still feel everything his shadow did.
You turned back to the shadow and leaned away from the torso that was pressed against you just enough to be able to cross your arms in front of yourself, grip the edges of your t-shirt, and slowly raise it up, giving it a good long and torturous show of exposing your mid-drift. The hem of your shirt caught on the bottom swell of your tits, pulling them up with the fabric before you lifted your arms more, letting them bounce free, your nipples reaching into hard little rosy peaks as they were exposed for the first time to the cooler air of the room. Then your shirt was up over your head and tossed to the floor, utterly forgotten as your arms came back down and wrapped around the shadow’s neck.
You could finish undressing yourself, thank you very much.
You rocked your hips again and then a second time, as slowly and teasingly as before.
“Alastor likes me on top more than he’d ever admit,” you said to the shadow, taking your turn to talk to it as if Alastor wasn’t in the room. “Likes the way I ride his cock hard and fast. Is that the way you want me to fuck you?”
Alastor said your name from behind you, almost warning you, but you ignored him, instinctually knowing he still wasn’t going to interfere.
The shadow remained silent, unable to speak, but you felt it twitch inside your cunt.
You began in earnest, bouncing yourself up and down its shaft, holding tightly to its neck and shoulders.
“Like this?” you asked again and the shadow pulled your face closer to it until your foreheads touched, its glowing eyes looking at you with such open need and adoration that words weren’t necessary. “Hmmm, yeah, just like this,” you agreed. “You feel so good. Just like him. But right now . . . ” you trailed off, digging your own demonic claws into its neck and feeling not quite flesh but something of its essence did give way beneath your talons. Still riding it, never once losing your pace, you kept eye contact as you continued, “. . . right now your cock is the one I need.”
The shadow pulled you roughly to it then, holding your body tightly against its own, just enough to let you continue rolling your hips, letting you lift yourself up just a few inches off its length before gliding back down, continuing the devilishly rapid pace that you had set, pumping yourself up and down its cock over and over and over again.
You lost yourself then, thinking only of the shadow inside of you, beneath you, wrapped around you. It felt like it was everywhere at once, teasing and nipping at your skin, touching and stroking your body inside and out. The full-bodied man behind you was almost forgotten, but not completely. In the back of your mind, you stayed aware of his presence, his eyes on you as you took command of your own pleasure and used his shadow for yourself. And you never forgot who this shadow was a manifestation of and who was really feeling the way your body was pressed against it.
Indeed, the very thought of this new and exciting being that you had accepted into your bed still being a part of Alastor just fueled your passion. Made you cling to it a little tighter, clench your aching and dripping pussy down harder, and roll your hips a little more sensually.
You had started with a brutal pace, as if to prove a point that you weren’t to just be ordered around and used, but the longer you went, the more minutes passed by, the more the mood shifted.
The way the shadow was looking at you, as if you were giving it a gift it could never have conceived of, as if it truly appreciated the way you had embraced it, reached deep into your heart.
This was supposed to just be a senseless fucking. A reprieve for Alastor, to strip away and be done with whatever had put him in such a sour mood. And you knew that it had simply been expected of you to go along with it. You were already a much more physical person than he was and had already proved to him that you could take anything he could throw at you when it came to intercourse.
It had been one thing to let his shadow fuck you and for him to watch. It was even better that you had enjoyed it; he and his shadow had both wanted that. To watch you and feel you come for it, multiple times.
But then to want more of it, to not only accept but embrace this darkest, most malevolent part of his essence, his very soul, turned this night into something else entirely.
You were beyond just “okay” with all of this; you desired every bit of this shadow entity, would let it do anything it wanted to you, all because of how deeply and desperately you loved Alastor.
And there was something even kinkier to that, somehow. That two fucked up people, who had maimed and murdered and devoured others, had ended up together and brought each other’s walls down, saw the absolute worst and most vile sides of each other . . . and liked what they found. You adored this darkness, reached for it, wanted it all around you and inside of you, to let it fill you up until there was nothing left but you and the man you loved.
The change didn’t happen all at once but rather over the course of several minutes but eventually you found yourself not fucking this shadow with wild and raunchy abandon, but properly and passionately making love to it.
There was a sweetness to the way you rolled your hips now, a tenderness in the way your hands roamed over its body, an acceptance in how your chest pressed against its own until it could feel the steady beat of your undead heart reverberating against it. It left you impossibly wetter than before and you leaned into this new sensual expression of your desire, daring now to even press gentle kisses along its neck.
Then there were fingers tangling in your hair, pulling your face towards it, and in with the most foreign of sensations, you realized it was kissing you. Dry but liquid lips crashed against your own, the ghost of a tongue lapped and danced its way into your mouth, but those teeth were very familiar. Their sharp sting a reminder of who this really was as it bit and sucked on your lower lip, just the way Alastor liked to do.
All at once you came, before you had any kind of warning. You cried out and panted, open-mouthed and slack jawed against the shadows lips as your body tensed, the lovely roll of your hips turning into rapid, unsteady jerks you had little control over. Alastor’s shadow held you close as you rode it out, continuing to grind against it as wave after wave hit you deep in your core, and it kissed and sucked on your neck and shoulders as your orgasm went on and on. Its kisses were strange, soothing and soft, but didn’t leave the same kind of cool, wet spots on your skin afterwards like you were used to. Its mouth had been the silkiest, smoothest texture your tongue had ever tasted but not heated and moist like Alastor’s. The mix of differences and similarities prolonged your pleasure into the longest, most stimulating orgasm you had ever experienced.
When it finally ended, you smiled against the shadow’s mouth, and its permanent grin widened in response. You nuzzled your nose against it, and it cradled the back of your head, taking the moment to enjoy this newfound intimacy. Its body was steady against yours even as you still fought to catch your breath and you laughed softly at the irony of having such a sweet and loving moment with one of Hell’s most deadly entities.
Hands gripped your shoulders from behind and pulled you away.
“My turn,” Alastor said as he forced you onto your back and crawled on top of you.
There was a second where you felt surprised and disoriented, but you recaptured your senses quickly and spread your legs to accommodate him, bringing your arms up and around his shoulders as his lips crashed hungrily against yours.
It didn’t take you but a few seconds to realize this was Alastor, completely stripped bare, both literally and figuratively. Free of all clothes and reservations, this was the lover you knew best, and he was finally ready to have close, direct contact with you.
He lingered at your mouth for a moment, demanding entrance, his tongue hot and rough against yours as he reclaimed your body for himself. Then he shifted, biting as often as he kissed, as he left a trail of marks along your jawline, throat, collar bone, and breasts.
“Touch me,” he asked, his tone guttural and full of static, almost pleading with you, before he took one of your nipples in his mouth, letting its peak slide between his teeth and then coming back down for another painful suck.
You started by running your fingers through his hair, letting your fingertips massage the tension you could feel in his scalp, before you turned your attention to his ears. You rubbed them first at the base and ran a hand up each of their sides, feeling the thick leathery skin beneath the short and dense fur. You circled the pad of your thumb against each tip, earning yourself a moan from your lover who was still intently sucking at your breasts, and then moved your hands to the base of his antlers. Pressing your fingers down, you stroked the flesh of his scalp where the antlers protruded from, having learned months ago that they became unbearably itchy whenever Alastor was irritated.
“Oh, my love,” you whispered to him. “I’m here. It’s okay now. I love you.”
He shuddered at your words, his breath coming out in hot pants that tickled your chest and gave you goosebumps, despite the heat.
“I love you,” he replied, lifting his head and moving his body back up until you lined up perfectly.
Without needing any other words to continue, he found what he was looking for in your expression and guided himself into you. You relaxed your tired muscles as his cock filled you up, welcoming the embrace of his true self and the more familiar, solid body you were used to.
You both sighed as he bottomed out and a second later, when he began to move within you, your lips met once more.
You returned his passion, letting your hands wander up and down the expanse of his back, feeling his lean and slender muscles waver between taught and relaxed at your attention. Letting your reach extend lower, you cupped his ass, pulling him tighter to you, encouraging deeper, more meaningful thrusts out of him. Then you found his upright tail, with an erect ridge of fur along its bottom length that you caressed and ran your fingers through, holding back a giggle as you felt it wag from side to side within your grip.
How you loved his tail; the most expressive, innocent part of his anatomy. It was no wonder he hid it from the world. It was positively adorable and always gave his true feelings away, but you were happy to keep its existence to yourself. It was your little secret you kept just between the two of you; a part of him he saved for your enjoyment alone.
At this point, you were getting a little sore, but you persevered, enjoying the sweet pain of being taken so many times. You were still plenty wet, more than enough to have to lean on the aid of lubricant, and the longer Alastor continued his slow and steady pace, the more you became ready for more. It was like his cock was dragging the last reserves of your desire out from within, inch by inch, stoking your pleasure from a smoldering ember into a refreshed, raging fire.
And you knew what you would need to push you over that final edge.
He had his face buried into the crook of your neck, completely absorbed in the feeling of you beneath him, but when you whispered his name, he lifted himself up enough to look into your eyes.
“I want both of you,” you said with a husky, strained voice. “All of you.”
He slowed his pace but didn’t stop completely as he grinned at you in understanding.
“So greedy,” he teased.
“Only because I want you so much.”
“And what a monster I have created,” he agreed.
The sensation of the shadow beneath you returned, where it had been when this whole thing had begun. From between your back and the sheets, you felt yourself rising up, but unlike before, there was much more than just a single layer of blackness beneath you, with only hands and a face reaching up from the sides. This time it was as real and completely solid as when you had been riding it from on top, and you felt yourself pressed between two very corporeal, masculine bodies.
The shadow wasted no time in reacquainting its hands with your body and reached between you and Alastor to begin rubbing and circling your clit, while the other arm caressed every inch of your body it could reach.
Something pressed itself between your lower cheeks and you felt the silky touch of it against your ass. Not quite a finger; it didn’t feel exactly like how Alastor occasionally touched you there, but it wasn’t wide enough to be the shadow’s cock either. A tendril, toying and caressing your tight and sensitive hole, playing with the flesh there just how you liked. The slender tentacle wormed its way into your entrance, swirling and stretching you just the slightest, giving you a shallow, pulsing feeling down there that added to your pleasure in a new and tingling way.
The shadow’s face appeared at the side of your head, and as Alastor dipped his mouth to your pulse point, yours met the shadow’s. Your fingers scratched into Alastor’s scalp and your tongue sought out his shadow’s. Wet and hot flesh danced against silky coolness. A warm body above and inside you and a misty, dark embrace took you from behind and below, and you had never felt so complete.
The tendril of shadow playing at your ass began to spread and widened and your eyes flew open as you felt the familiar, rounded tip of a cock nestled just within your entrance. It began to slide in further, easily and smoothly, as if already lubed up, but you tensed up between your two lovers.
“I don’t think- ” you gasped, knowing Alastor would feel what was happening without you having to explain. “I don’t think I can take it all.”
Alastor let go of his biting task at your neck and met your worried gaze, and you noticed he had a trace of your blood glistening on his lower lip as he smiled warmly at you. Each cock had stilled within you, one fully buried to its hilt in your pussy, and the other just a few inches inside.
“I think you can, sweetheart,” Alastor said, and his eyes darted over to his shadows for a second, before returning to yours. You felt the shadows lips on the other side of your neck, as if to sooth your worries with its touch, and Alastor continued to speak. “We can stop whenever you say the words,” his voice dropped a little lower, and his eyes shined brighter for a moment, “but you’re the one who asked for more.”
The darkness in his gaze did as he intended, and you felt your cunt gushing with desire and you willed the muscles around your ass to relax as well. You felt the slick affects of Alastor’s words dripping out of you, coating the base of his cock, and slipping down further to soak the hole the shadow was now continuing to push into.
Alastor pulled away first, then slid his length back in with an easy grace, and as his tip reached its end inside you, the shadow from beneath pulled away. Back and forth they went, in perfect, unnaturally well-done synchronicity, pumping and stroking and filling you up beyond what you thought your body capable of accepting.
And those fingers between you and Alastor, never stopping, working your clit with circles that seemed to complete a single rotation with every thrust of cock inside of you.
Now it was Alastor that was kissing you, as his shadow licked a trail from shoulder to jawline, cradling a breast in one hand, its thumb rubbing and pressing against a nipple in time with the action of the other hand against your throbbing bundle of nerves at the peak of your sex.
It was so much, all at once, and you could hardly move, pinned as you were between the two bodies. You were completely at their mercy as they fucked you together, two halves of one entity, working in tandem to draw out every sigh and moan of pleasure from your lips.
The deep intense pressure of it, of being penetrated so completely, of having two utterly gorgeous bodies worshipping yours and taking turns to move within you, was sheer, Hellish bliss. It ached and burned and stung and stretched you out and it was fucking amazing.
There was a rising tide within you, like a looming tsunami on the horizon, much more intense than even the last orgasm. It felt like you were pulling away from yourself, being dragged deep within, where nothing else existed but the two sets of lips on your flesh, the four hands caressing your body, the two cocks diving into you harder and harder with every passing second. Every desperate gasp of air you took in the only motion you seemed capable of making until those last few seconds.
One of your hands gripped at the shadow arm around your waist, nails digging in desperately, as you arched yourself forward and bit onto Alastor’s shoulder, and the massive wave of pleasure rocked your body like a freight train and something released inside of you.
You felt the rush of fluid from inside and out as your orgasm exploded out of you. The heat of it trickled down your thighs, soaking all three of your bodies where they were joined. Now the sound of Alastor’s thrusts, him and his shadows, took on an even wetter, more lewd noise and before you had processed what had happened, before the shaking of your body subsided, and at the very tail end of your own orgasm, Alastor found his own release.
His seed filled you up, hitting your cervix and coating every inch of your inner walls, as if to replace the essence of yourself you had just squirted all over him with his own. To mark you from deep within, just as he had done to your flesh when he first climbed on top of you.
And then the greatest surprise of the evening came when you watched as his shadow slithered out from beneath you and into Alastor; melting into him like two pictures being molded into one.
It shouldn’t have shocked you as you had seen this happen with your own eyes on countless of occasions but still, in the heat of the moment – or, well, technically the heat of the last hour or so – had made you forget that Alastor and his shadow spent more time as one than they did apart.
Alastor had literally split himself in two in order to experience what you two had just done and the realization of it made a fit of laughter burst out of you.
You covered your mouth in shock, your eyes widening as you looked up at him, but as he titled his head, those large deer ears of his flopping a little to the side at his confusion, you laughed even harder.
He was still inside of you, already softening, but his eyes were growing harder as they stared down at you in growing irritation. But you couldn’t help yourself, the absurdity and debauchery of the whole evening left you not knowing what else to do with yourself but laugh.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you gasped through your laughter and he rolled his eyes and grunted as he pulled out of you and laid on his side, still watching you.
You had just about composed yourself when you took in the sight of him, perched up on one elbow, an eyebrow raised at you, his dick soft and flopping on full display for you, and you snorted with laughter again, burying your face in the bed beneath you.
“I had anticipated many reactions from you, but this was not one of them,” he deadpanned.
You choked back more laughter, sighing as you rolled onto your back for a moment, catching your breath. With one last little chuckle, you turned your head back towards him.
“Blame it on the endorphins.”
“Endor- what?” he asked, more confused and irritated than ever.
“Endorphins. They’re produced when you have sex. And you just ripped five fucking orgasms from me and made me squirt – which I’ve never done before. You fucked me silly, Al’. Deal with the consequences.” And you giggled some more, drunk and giddy on the rush of hormones and love you were feeling at the moment.
His whole body softened then and he reached forward and took your hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss to your knuckles.
“I suppose after the day I’ve had, your laughter is the best medicine I could have asked for.”
You snuggled closer to him, pressing your body into his, and curled up into his longer form.
“Stay with me tonight? Please?”
He kissed your forehead.
“But of course,” he said softly.
You heard the soft snap of his fingers and with a poof felt the bedding beneath you change into freshly clean and soft sheets that weren’t soiled by sex, sweat, and a variety of other bodily fluids. The sticky mess between your legs also disappeared . . . almost. You felt a thick wetness still deep within you and suspected Alastor had purposefully left just a bit of his cum in you, a little secret to keep you marked as his.
A few minutes went by and as you dozed back to sleep, you noticed the change in rhythm of his breathing, and the slackness in his expression, and knew he had fallen asleep before you had.
You sat up halfway, studying his sleeping form, noting that his ever-present smile had disappeared. It wasn’t the first time you had slept in the same bed as him but you always fell asleep first and he always woke before you. This was the first time you had been treated to the site of Alastor’s sleeping form and you took a minute to marvel at how beautiful he was like this.
Then you leaned forward and pressed your lips between his eyes, where that mysterious “x” often showed itself when his more demonic forms came forward.
“I love you. Both of you,” you whispered and then settled into his arms, drifting off into dreams of shadow and darkness.
Part 6
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"I had to talk to you."
Repost from other account
2.4k words
CW: Heavy flirtation, canon divergence (S4 end events didn't happen), College Student!Steve, Steve has shit eyesight
October 13th, 1989
Steve sighs, leaning back on the drivers side of his 1983 BMW. Burgundy paint starting to chip on the hood, the car becoming less appealing day by day. Girls passing by not even looking in his direction anymore. He was old news in Hawkins after people found out he had finally started at a college half an hour away in Fort Wayne. Just starting his life like everyone else did 4 years ago just wasn't appealing to most girls.
At least not Hawkins girls.
But at this point he didn't care. He was proud of himself for pulling his life together after all the bullshit he had been put through. With saving an entire town too many god damn times. Cutting his dad off when his parents divorced. Moving out to get a rented house with his best friend Robin. Just what he learned he needed over time.
Getting into a good school by himself with no help was just a cherry on top of the fuck you sundae he graciously served his past problems.
He was satisfied with what he had right now.
Dustin walks out of the new game shop in the newest strip mall to grace Hawkins. Steve looks up, pushing his Ray-Ban sunglasses onto his head.
"You made it out before, Robin. I'm surprised." Dustin glanced at the instrument shop a few doors down, then back to Steve. "You get what Eddie needed?"
"Mostly yeah. She's still getting her trumpet fixed?" Steve shrugs at Dustin's question and slides his sunglasses down in place again.
"She probably got distracted looking at something shiny and new. You know Robins crow brain sometimes." Dustin laughs, looking into his bag, shuffling a few things around inside.
Steve looked over at the liquor store at the end of the strip mall. Looking back at Dustin, he taps the top of the car. His head snapped up, eyes a bit surprised at the sudden noise.
"You want anything?" Steve asks, tilting his head back towards the store.
"Coke? If they got it." Dustin simply replied before getting in the back seat. Steve nods and walks to the liquor store.
The bell chimes over his head as he walks through the door. He takes in the warmth of the store and the radio playing over the speakers on the ceiling. Such a nice contrast to the crisp Autumn air outside.
He turns heading down an isle of assorted liquor bottles and bar accessories before finally stopping at the fridge. Humming along to the song over the radio, mumbling the lyrics to 'I wanna know what love is' absentmindedly.
Sliding his glasses down his nose, he squints at the selection. All the labels are blurry the farther he is, he steps forward rubbing his eyes and sure doesn't help with the florescent lighting blinding him from above.
God I need to get my eyes checked.
Opening the fridge, he grabs the 3 soft drinks and a 6-pack for later when he hears a metal scrapping and whoosh next to him. Followed by a muffled but panicked "Shit!"
Looking over, he sees the back of a squatting woman struggling with a metal shelf slipping out of one of the fridges.
Walking over, he quickly puts his things down and pushes the shelf back in. The metal shelf, cold against his warm skin as he reaches into the fridge, fixing the fasteners back into place.
An issue he's all too familiar with working at Family Video. The fridge racks always got loose and every time it happened he was always made to clean them up. He could only imagine the mess a bunch of glasses and beer would have made.
"Thank you so much!" The woman speaks as Steve stands up, slowly closing the door. Looking back, he finally sees your face. His lips slightly part as you continue talking, he can't hear a word you're saying right now.
All he can hear is the very oddly convenient Foreigner song playing over the store radio as he takes in every detail of your gorgeous face. From your shiny hair to your bright smile. The vibrant colored nail polish on your fingers you're waving as you talk. You're unfamiliar, he's never seen you before, but you're an absolute stunner of a woman.
Steve never thought of himself as a love at first sight kind of guy. But right now he was undoubtedly being proven wrong by the spark he was feeling, not to mention the nervous knot in his stomach.
"But really you're a life saver... Thank you." You stop talking, looking at him. Your face falls as he perks up, realizing he's just been staring like a complete idiot this entire time.
"You're welcome!" He spoke, choking almost over how inappropriately loud he was for a second. Feeling the effect of not talking to women for a while really hit him. You look down at his soon-to-be purchases.
"Full Sail Amber. Good beer." You comment, making him look at the floor and nod.
Crouching down, he grabs his things and stands cracking his head on one of the fridge door handles. His sunglasses fell off his face and onto the floor. He stands up wedging his soft drink between his side and arm. Rubbing his head with a hiss.
"You okay?" You ask with a slight chuckle. Bending down, you grab the sunglasses, Steve moves his hand, grabbing the bottom of the door handle to shield your head from injury.
"Yeah, thanks." Before he gets to put his hand out to take his Ray-Bans back, you slide them on his head with a soft smile.
God she's so fucking pretty.
"You're welcome. And thanks again for... Saving me from paying for a full shelf of beer." She turned down the isle to another part of the store.
Part of Steve wants to follow you and try chatting you up, but the slight embarrassment of hurting his head just keeps him from doing so.
He turns, goes to the front of the store and makes his purchases. Heading outside, he walks to his car, finally seeing Robin in her usual spot, the passenger seat. Opening the driver's door, he slips in.
"There you are!" Robin looked at him, her trumpet case in-between her legs on the floor of the car.
"What's with the face?" Dustin asks, Steve looking at him in the rearview, glaring.
"Shut up Henderson." He hands them their sodas, moving to close his car door when he hears the bell from the liquor store chime.
Out you walk, starting across the parking lot to a top-down red 86' Volkswagen Cabriolet. Steve freezes, staring again. He really can't help but stare.
"Oooh." Robin and Dustin both taunt him, making him sigh. He needs more friends, fewer annoying friends.
"She's pretty." Robin says looking at Dustin.
"Too pretty to talk to, apparently." Dustin adds, laughing as he looks back at Steve.
"I talked to her in the store." Dustin raised his eyebrows, pushing his baseball cap up a bit.
"You asked her out?"
"No." Steve watches you load your bag into the back seat and start pulling the top up on your car.
"Not too late!" Robin smiled, taking a sip of her drink. Dustin looked at her.
"He's not gonna do it."
"No, he's gonna do it."
Steve feels like he has a devil and an angel bickering on his shoulders right now. His foot meets the new asphalt of the parking lot as you open your driver's door.
He's quickly out of the driver's seat.
"Holy shit he's doing it." Dustin comments as he shuts the door on them.
He stops at the bumper of his car, hearing your car engine click over. Music pours out of your open windows before you turn it down quickly.
The universe is screaming at him to talk to you when he starts hearing that familiar Tears for Fears song, 'Head Over Heels'.
Please don't pull away, please don't pull away.
He nearly sprints across the parking lot out of fear of missing his chance. Upon reaching the car, he knocks on the back window, pulling you from looking for something in the console.
"Hi..." He says awkwardly, approaching the window. Leaning on the door, he smiles as you smile back.
"Hi. You need something?" He gets so agitated that you smirk up at him.
'Why'd you have to be so God damn pretty?'
"Sorry if this is weird, but I had to talk to you." He started, finally being able to say something. Your eyes go half shut with a soft nod.
"Talk to me?" He nods, clenching the door frame for a second. "Go ahead then. Talk."
His eyes go wide in surprise at your sudden confidence. Steve stammered for a second.
"Uh... At the risk of sounding crazy or desperate... You're probably the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life." You can feel your body warm up as he gives the most genuine smile you've seen on a man in a while.
"Mmhm, go on."
"Are you by chance single? Or like... Are you even attracted to men at all?" He asks, sheepishly smiling.
"Yes, and yes." Your smirk slowly turns into a grin as he squats to eye level now, feeling a bit more confident after your answer.
"I'm Steve, by the way. Steve Harrington." He smiles again hearing you reply with your name. "Are you new to Hawkins?"
"I am actually. I just moved here from the city and needed to stay nearby for school."
"Where are you going?"
"Trine University." His eyes go wide, the same school he goes to. What are the odds?
"Really? I actually go there too. Education major." You look him up and down. You never pegged him for the teacher type.
"Software Engineering major."
"So you're smart and gorgeous. Good to know." He smirks, finally feeling like himself when talking as your flush finally becomes noticeable. "You like movies?"
"What kind of psychopath doesn't like movies?" He laughs at your response, leaning in closer to the window.
"Lemme be more specific. The new Halloween 5 movie came out today. You interested in seeing it? Maybe with me tonight at the drive-in theater in Lafayette. We can have dinner after. All my treat, of course." He can see the sparkle in your eyes, that spark he felt looking at you before is still lingering around him.
"What's in it for me?" You playfully ask. He cocks his head to the side, leaning it on his arm for a second.
"A fun night out with a gentleman, I promise I'm fun." You chuckle, rolling your eyes, he knows you want to say yes. "Please?"
He'd never said please before when asking a girl out. It didn't feel embarrassing like he thought it would. You turn your attention back to the console looking for something.
Pulling out a napkin and pen, you quickly write down your number and address. Turning back, you hold it out to him as he takes it.
"I'm free at 8. And dress nicely. You're taking me somewhere decent after the movie."
"I'll take you to the most expensive restaurant I can find if that's what you want. I don't care. As long as I get to see you again." You laugh at his bluntness, it's like music to his ears.
"That won't be necessary. I don't need to be spoiled."
"What if I want to spoil you?" That caught you off guard as you didn't respond right away. He let a soft breath escape his mouth. "You like roses?"
"White roses." You reply, he nods, standing up again and folding the napkin, storing it in his back jean pocket for safe keeping.
"I'll be sure to remember that." You two just stare at each other in silence for a minute. No man's ever looked at you like Steve has right now, it makes your heart race from nervousness.
"I'll see you at 8 o'clock then." You look past him for a moment and back to him. "Tell your friends I said hello since they like to stare so much."
Raising an eyebrow, Steve turned his head. He sees Robin poking her head over the roof of the car and Dustin sitting on the rolled down window frame. They quickly hurry back into the car, noticing they've been caught. He should be embarrassed, but he fully expects their behavior from being friends for so long.
"Ignore them." Steve says, sighing as he looks back at you. "I'll see you at 8."
He turned away towards his car, trying to stay as confident as he was before turning his back. Reaching his car, he pops the door open, clutching it for dear life as he silently collects himself. Robin poked her head across the driver's seat to look up at him.
"You good dude?" She asks, concerned but also excited as he just nods.
You pull out of your parking spot, stopping behind his car and honk once to get his attention. Dustin pops his head out the back window as Robin looks out her open door. Steves head snaps up at you as you lean on your window frame, chin on fist with the most shit eating grin on your face.
"See you at 8 sexy~" You called to him. And then you have the balls to blow him a kiss before peeling out of the parking lot.
Steve silently gets in the car. Robin shuts her door as Steve does his. Dustin sits forward looking at Steve, who's just gripping his steering wheel, the adrenaline starting to wear off.
"Dude, she's so into you, into you!" Dustin breaks the silence as Robin nods.
"And I'd say it's the same for Harrington here." Robin grins as a massive smile spreads across Steve's face.
He starts excitedly thrashing frontwards and backwards. Enough to shake the car and look like he's about to rip the steering wheel from it's column. He lets out an excited yell, causing his two friends to laugh at him.
He let out a long breath, looking at them.
"She says hi by the way."
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Five reasons you’ve cried while pregnant
Simon Riley addition
John Price addition
Johnny “Soap” Mctavish
1. It was just the beginning, three months of being pregnant, and Simon wasn’t prepared for the roller coaster of emotions.
“Honey! What’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Simon asked, in a panic.
This was the first time you’d been so emotional and you were too embarrassed to tell him what was wrong. “Nothing, it’s stupid.” You say staring at your sweet dog. Simon looks over at Biscuit who is happily wagging his tail, he’s confused, “Biscuit is just having such a great day! Look at him wag his tail!” You cry even harder while you pet him. Simon knew it would be a long few months after that.
2. Month five is when your cravings started, and you ate everything in sight that looked appealing. Simon had just made a casserole and you were already two bowls deep. He sees you frown as you finish the second bowl, “what, love?” He asks you, tears now rolling down your cheeks.
“I just ate two bowls, and I’m still hungry. I’m going to be so fat.” You sobbed. Simon gets up to grab you another bowl as you sob. He sighs and hands it to you as you still cry, “thank you,” you sniffled.
3. Simon and you were on your way to your 6-month check. The radio played quietly as you talked to him about your plans for the day. All of a sudden you stop talking as the tears start up, Simon sighs, “what’s wrong love?”
“I love this song,” you say quietly as tears fall.
4. Simon lays in bed next to you just returning from a short but tiring mission. All he wanted was some sleep. You follow him to bed, also wanting a nap but he fell asleep quickly leaving you to your thoughts alone. Felt lonely again.
Simon never sleeps deeply so he wakes to your quiet sniffling next to him and opens his eyes to see you staring at him. He raises an eyebrow waiting for an explanation, “you fell asleep before me so I got lonely.” You tell him cuddling closer to him
5. You stood at the pet store looking for Biscuits dog food when you suddenly got distracted by the adoption center, they had so many cats ready to be adopted but you saw one, she was blind in one eye and she was young.
You could feel your tears start to slip when you pulled out your phone, Simon answers immediately while still in his meeting, “what’s wrong sweetheart?” He asks, in a panic while he leaves the meeting room.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting.” You cry, Simon knows it’s your hormonal breakdown by the way you whimpered.
“It’s okay love,” he says as he looks into the room full of his teams who all stare at him waiting to see if things are okay.
“I was at the pet store and I saw this kitty. She’s blind in one eye and she’s so little and sad and I want her.” You cry quietly.
Simon sighs into the phone, “One. Get one cat. We don’t run a zoo.” He says making his teammates chuckle. They quickly silence themselves when Simon shoots them a glare.
He hears you squeal in excitement making him smile under his mask, “thank you!” You say hanging up.
#simon ghost riley#simon riley x you#simon riley imagine#simon riley x reader#ghost x reader#simon riley x y/n#simon riley#ghost x you#ghost fanfiction#simon ghost riley x reader#ghost mw2#mw2022#mw2#mw2 x reader
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Alastor with a mommy kink
warnings: smut (obvi), fem!reader (i can write male as well, just ask), sub!Alastor, p in v, oral f! receiving, mommy kink (also obvi), most likely poorly written. this is my first time writing smut
Alastor doesn't find sex appealing, and he never has. he died a virgin, and he never had a problem with that. sure, he'd have his little flings, but he never went all the way with them, deeming it unnecessary.
that is, until he met you.
he couldn't seem to take his attention off of you when you were in the same room as him, eventually deciding he'd take you to Cannibal Town on a date 4 months in to meeting you.
it was no surprise that you said yes to that offer. you'd be crazy not to. Alastor was a gentleman, a handsome gentleman at that.
5 dates in, and you both agreed to put a label on the both of you, him properly claiming you as his girl through one of his broadcasts.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Alastor walked in to the bedroom you both shared, a needy look in his eyes and a whimper threatening to leave his lips.
you immediately took notice and placed your book on the bedside table and walked over to him.
"Alastor, you okay?" you ask, placing a hand on his arm. you heard the scratch of radio static when you did that, and when your eyes met his, you noticed the almost begging gaze boring into you.
"my dear, it seems as though i'm having some...cravings" Alastor says, and you tilt your head, confused.
"what, like, cannibalism cravings?" you ask, and he shakes his head.
he grabs one of your hands gently and guides you to the bed, laying you on your back. he strips himself of his coat, bowtie, and gloves, folding them neatly on the desk nearby. by the time he had made it back to where you were placed on the bed, the middle of your white cotton panties were stained grey.
Alastor reaches for the hem of your sleep shorts, tugging them down quickly along with your panties. he climbs onto the bed, causing you to slide back until your back was against the headboard.
Alastor looked up at you with almost innocent eyes, his red irises boring into you affectionately as he lowered his face down to where you needed him most.
he licked a stripe up your slit, earning a moan from you in return. he put both of your thighs on his shoulders, burying his face deeper in your heat.
he circled your clit with his tongue and stuck a finger into your glistening hole, making your eyes roll back. you gripped his hair on the crown of his head, your wrist resting between his antlers. you pushed his head in more as you moaned loudly.
Alastor stuck two fingers inside you, immediately curling them, making you squeal with pleasure. you back arched up and you felt the coil inside your lower stomach tighten. apparently Alastor did too, because he added a third finger and fucked his hand into you harder. you threw your head back and damn near screamed bloody murder as you came on his face.
after coming down from your high, you look down to see Alastor sucking his fingers clean and wiping his face with the back of his hand.
“you taste divine, my dear.” he said, and before you could protest, you were on top of him, his hands securely on your waist.
“please, remove this tacky material before i shred it.” he said, tugging at your shirt.
to avoid any issues, you quickly tug it up and over your head, not caring where it landed. you reach for his pants and tug down the zipper, easily unbuttoning them and taking them off of his slender legs.
you fold them neatly and toss them onto the chair close to the bed, knowing he’d have a fit if they were wrinkled.
you reach up and unbutton his shirt, doing the same and tossing it to the chair. you lean down and kiss him hungrily, allowing him to guide you onto him.
as you slid down his hard length, a soft moan slipped from both of you. your knees gave out and you sunk all the way down, your clit brushing perfectly over his pelvic bone.
"oh my god." you moan, your head falling limply. with a laugh, Alastor places his hands on your hips and begins to move you up and down, making whimpers and moans seep through your lips.
you move your hands onto his biceps and hold onto them tightly, trying to ground yourself through all of the mind-fuzzing pleasure you're feeling from Alastor's cock seeping in and out of your dripping hole.
"mmmmh, fuck." Alastor groans, his radio filter absent. that alone had you closer to the edge than you'd like to admit. Alastor twitches slightly inside of you, making your body give out more due to pleasure. you lean forward slightly, allowing Alastor's cock to hit the spongey area deep inside you. you let out a loud moan, mumbling gibberish, your mind too clouded with pleasure to even function.
you feel the coil in your lower stomach start to tighten and whimper. "Al, 'm gonna cum soon." you say softly, small whimpers and gasps littered through your sentence. you feel Alastor twitch again, and more frequently, making you assume he is too.
you unintentionally clench harshly onto his twitching cock, making him groan loudly. "mmh, mommy!" he yelps in pleasure, making your eyes snap open.
"what?" you asked, surprise and confusion bubbling with the extreme arousal and pleasure coursing through your veins. "what'd you say?"
Alastor's neck turns slightly red, along with his cheeks. "I said- mmh- I said mommy." he admits shyly.
the word you'd only expect to hear from miniature you's came from the lips of your partner. you didn't expect it to, but it did wonderful things to you. It made your clit ache and the coil in your stomach tighten.
"fuck, say it again, please." you beg, moving your hands to his shoulders, allowing him to hit deeper. he groans out and fucks up into you pathetically. "fuck, mommy! oh, close!" he grunts and whimpers helplessly, making the coil in your stomach snap.
you whimper and throw your head back, your hips rolling against his to help you ride out your high. your eyes roll back and you see stars as you cum onto him, clenching harshly onto his pathetically hard member.
he whimpers softly and bucks up into you once more, releasing his hot seed into your cunt in strips. the feeling alone is almost euphoric, causing a moan to slip from your lips. you sigh in pleasure and slump down onto him, exhausted and comfortable, despite him still being buried inside your deliciously tight cunt.
"that was nice.* Alastor says softly, making you snap your head up. "the way you sounded didn't seem like just nice to me." Alastor looks away, his grin slightly strained, making you laugh. you lean up and place a small kiss on his chin.
"it's alright, i think mommy sounds hot coming from your mouth." Alastor's head turns slowly to face you, making you laugh loudly. his eyes are wide and his smile is very strained. you feel him buck up into you and sigh. time for round two.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
holy shit that took so long to write. I'm so sorry! I'm about to move houses, so I've been packing and staying stressed tf out 😭 but I hope you enjoyed this!
#hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel x reader#hazbin#alastor#alastor x reader#alastor x you#hazbin hotel smut#alastor the radio demon#alastor fanfiction#alastor hazbin hotel#alastor imagine#alastor smut#hazbin alastor x reader#hazbin hotel alastor x you#hazbin alastor#hazbin hotel alastor
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On February 16th 1954 the writer Iain Banks was born in Dunfermline, Fife
Banks was a son of a professional ice skater and an Admiralty officer. He spent his early years in North Queensferry and later moved to Gourock because of his father’s work requirement. He received his early education from Gourock and Greenock High Schools and at the young age of eleven, he decided to pursue a career in writing. He penned his first novel, titled The Hungarian Lift-Jet, in his adolescence. He was then enrolled at the University of Stirling where he studied English, philosophy and psychology. During his freshman year, he wrote his second novel, TTR.
Subsequent to attaining his bachelor degree, Banks worked a succession of jobs that allowed him some free time to write. The assortment of employments supported him financially throughout his twenties. He even managed to travel through Europe, North America and Scandinavia during which he was employed as an analyzer for IBM, a technician and a costing clerk in a London law firm. At the age of thirty he finally had his big break as he published his debut novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984, henceforth he embraced full-time writing. It is considered to be one of the most inspiring teenage novels. The instant success of the book restored his confidence as a writer and that’s when he took up science fiction writing.
In 1987, he published his first sci-fi novel, Consider Phlebas which is a space opera. The title is inspired by one of the lines in T.S Eliot’s classic poem, The Waste Land. The novel is set in a fictional interstellar anarchist-socialist utopian society, named the Culture. The focus of the book is the ongoing war between Culture and Idiran Empire which the author manifests through the microcosm conflicts. The protagonist, Bora Horza Gobuchul, unlike other stereotypical heroes is portrayed as a morally ambiguous individual, who appeals to the readers. Additionally, the grand scenery and use of variety of literary devices add up to the extremely well reception of the book. Its sequel, The Player of Games, came out the very next year which paved way for other seven volumes in The Culture series.
Besides the Culture series, Banks wrote several stand-alone novels. Some of them were adapted for television, radio and theatre. BBC television adapted his novel, The Crow Road (1992), and BBC Radio 4 broadcasted Espedair Street. The literary influences on his works include Isaac Asimov, Dan Simmons, Arthur C. Clarke, and M. John Harrison. He was featured in a television documentary, The Strange Worlds of Iain Banks South Bank Show, which discussed his literary writings. In 2003, he published a non-fiction book, Raw Spirit, which is a travelogue of Scotland. Banks last novel, titled The Quarry, appeared posthumously. He also penned a collection of poetry but could not publish it in his lifetime. It is expected to be released in 2015. He was awarded multitude of titles and accolades in honour of his contribution to literature. Some of these accolades include British Science Fiction Association Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Locus Poll Award, Prometheus Award and Hugo Award.
Iain Banks was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the gallbladder and died at the age of 59 in the summer of 2013.
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Listen 🎧 Radio 4 Appeal 7:54 a.m. GMT+1
Remember to tune in on 4 June to hear Caitríona tell Cynthia’s story.
#Tait rhymes with hat#Good times#Charity#Fundraiser#Radio 4 Appeal#WorldChildCancer#World Child Cancer#BBC Radio 4#4 June 2023#Instagram Story#Instagram
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Unwanted Soul _ Part 8 = Requested
[Yandere!Alastor x Owner of his Soul!Reader]
Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 2.5 (ask) — Part 3 — Part 4 — Part 5 — Part 6 — Part 7 — Part 8 (here)
Everything was quiet and calm. Too peaceful for your liking. If you know Vox, and you do, he’d be patronizing the hotel and telling demons from all over the Pentagram how vile the hotel and Charlie’s project was. It was so weird that things were this normal, like nothing ever happened
Sensing your uneasiness, Alastor would stay by your side to comfort you with your favourites, even bringing you to his radio tower when he had his broadcast to do. You were either sitting in his lap while hugging him or wandering around his office organizing papers. When those weren’t enough, Alastor offered to take care of the matter
You saw through his wording and knew he was going to duke it out with Vox if you so much as nodded your head. Even if it was a joke in your mind or just a subconscious reaction to his appealing offer. But no, you didn’t want to send Alastor into that ridiculous place
“Darling, it’s a lovely day for a nice stroll!”
“...”
Alastor came to your side, leaning down to hug your form in his arms while you stared out into the city from the balcony seat, “You know, someone else is faring much worse.”
Your eyes looked away from the sigh, nuzzling into Alastor, “I’m just worried…”
“Unlike the princess,” Alastor took your hand in his and kissed it, “You have me as your sword and shield, anytime, anywhere.”
You also observed everyone else’s reaction. Alastor, Lucifer, and Husk weren’t bothered at all, just another day in Hell as their attitudes say. Niffty wasn’t even aware of what actually gone down and continued as normal for a different reason. Angel was checking his phone constantly, maybe to see if Valentino yelled at him or something cause of Vox
Worse of all was Charlie. She was a wreck the day after. She was the owner of the hotel and the ringleader of this dream to redeem sinners to bring them to Heaven. What if you didn’t say anything and let things happen? She doesn’t doubt that her father won’t help her, but by the time she snaps back to it, it would have been too late
Vaggie was with her all the way, comforting her girlfriend and trying to get Charlie back to her cheerful and bright self. Though it was all for not since Charlie didn’t even arrange activities for everyone to do like always, to them, it was like a repeat of what happened before Charlie recruited the cannibals and Vaggie brought them weapons
You knocked on the door, waiting for some reaction. You got the information from Vaggie that Charlie was indeed in her room, just that she wasn’t in the mood for anything. You already had Alastor distract Vaggie for you to do this. So you opened the door and closed it silently behind you.
“Vaggie… I say I’m not hungry.” Charlie groaned, wrapped up as a burrito on the bed with her back facing the door.
“I’m not Vaggie.” You plainly spoke when you walked over to her form.
Charlie gasped and momentarily turned her head to you before groaning again, “Why are you in my room? Don’t you hate it when others do that to you? Where’s the politeness?”
“Well, I have Alastor to cover for me, and last I checked, there was no Vaggie at your door. Plus your door was unlocked so I came in.” You sat on the opposite of the bed, your back facing hers. “Also, I didn’t think there was a politeness activity. Not that I learn things like that, I’m an irredeemable sinner anyways.”
“Why are you here?” Charlie spoke, muffled by the blanket that she used to hide herself. “I’m not making whatever deals with you.”
You blinked with a stoic look on your face, though it wasn’t like she could see you. The hotel needs Charlie, as much as its demons won’t admit it, the princess was the hotel’s shine. However relutant they seem to be during her activities, they still participated and bonded in the end
It was important that Charlie bounce back quickly before Vox makes his move in the open. Who knows, he might be planning something right now. You really can’t afford for that. Another battle wasn’t what’s needed
Then again, you find yourself asking why are you helping this hotel? At first, it was a good excuse to send away Alastor. Plus it was an interesting idea, to see redemption happen. Perhaps it was because you saw that angels weren’t as holy as you thought? Perhaps it was how easily a sinner died from Adam’s beam?
Perhaps it was because you grown attached to these sinners without knowing
You saw Charlie like a former you. All cheerful and innocent, so trusting and accepting. She had what you don’t. Unlike you, she had Vaggie to support her. Unlike you, she had a group of weird but loyal friends that stand for what she believed and dreams of. Unlike you, she had a loving father that supports her
And unlike you, she had power and authority of her own
Right. You were envious. You didn’t join her, you didn’t let her approach you because it was too familiar to that weak you that brought you to your death. As much as you hated your life, you didn’t want to die. You wanted someone to save you from that desire, someone to be by your side too like the stories you read and the shows you watch
You shook your head and forced away the thoughts to focus, even if it brought out bad memories, you can count on Alastor to comfort you. “If it makes you feel better, you can yell at me.” That got Charlie to peek at you, “If it makes you feel better, you can hit me too, I’ll recover. I must have made you so stupid. It was… my fault.”
“What!? No!” Charlie suddenly burst open like a butterfly from her cocoon, she grabbed onto your shoulder, staring at you with firm eyes. “I’m mad at myself that I didn’t think things through and just accepted it all! I’m ashamed that I’m not as knowledgeable as you are, and they are my people!”
You stayed quiet as you listened, watching Charlie slump down as her hold on you loose.
“I’m… I’m not as talented as you are. You stayed in your room and do whatever you do, but you’re so… uh… capable! And treated. And cool.” Charlie listened on things you don’t even agree with, but you kept it to yourself, this was about Charlie, not you. “I wish I was you…”
“No. Perish the thought.” You firmly stated when she said that. She looked up at you, her eyes widened when you didn’t even know your face made one of disgust and self-loathing. “You don’t want to be me. You shouldn’t be me.”
This time Charlie was quiet as she listened to you.
“Listen to me good. You are a literal sunshine that I feel like I need to wear sunglasses when I’m around you. A princess you may be, but you treat others like equal without boundaries and without a power dynamic. It’s rare. When people have power, they abuse it. In some way, no matter what. That includes me with Alastor.” You ranted on, “Charlie, you are this hotel’s angel, I’ll go as far as to say you’re this hellish place’s angel.”
Charlie’s eyes watered and hugged you like no tomorrow, you allowed her and looked at the shadow in front of you, forming into a familiar shape. You smiled back and blinked with a nod, Alastor’s shadow left and you soon had Charlie back on her two feet
You watched from the sidelines with a satisfied smile, opting to stay in the background while everyone else enjoyed Charlie’s shine. Alastor formed beside you and had his arm around your waist, praising that he didn’t expect you of all demons to be able to cheer Charlie up from that state
From experience, you learned that it wasn’t easy to bring someone out of their depressive episode. It takes someone who understands and opens up their wounds to help another heal. You’ve done that too many times to count. Back then, you thought you had grown numb and continued without caring for your own well-being. When you realized what you had done to yourself, it was too late to change
But the peace didn’t last too long
As you expected, Vox sent an employee of his to give the hotel a message. Because they rudely declined his support and destroyed his products without asking or at least telling him, he wants compensation. In a week’s time, someone, and only one demon, as a representative of the hotel was to come to the V Tower to discuss the specifics of the compensation
If no one came or anything was done wrong, there would be a declaration of war between the Vees and Charlie’s hotel. It was even noted that Lucifer can’t interfere because he was merely a guest, nor can Angel since it too was a guest of the hotel, only members of the staff can participate
Alastor was quick to side with the latter option, thinking an all-out battle/war would be better than submitting to whatever compensation Vox wanted. Vaggie agreed along, saying that it wasn’t worth the risk to send one demon to the lion’s den
Especially after nearly everyone was hypnotized by Vox’s TV screen and that was when he wasn’t even in person. Wouldn’t the hypnosis be even more powerful when they stand in front of him?
“I’ll go.” Your words broke the ongoing discussion, everyone turned to you while you blinked. “What?”
Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that because what resulted was Alastor getting extremely close to you with radio dials for eyes and voodoo symbols started appearing around him while the room was filled with static. “Darling, Dear, My Love, why would you even suggest something like that?”
You patted his head, avoiding the extending antlers. “Because I’m immune to Vox’s hypnosis or any mental attacks. That includes druggings that would alter my thinking and decision-making.”
Your reasoning didn’t soothe Alastor’s mind at all as the static continued.
“I’m the perfect person to go, I know about Vox and the other two.” You eyed Lucifer for some backup.
Lucifer sighed and stepped up to testify, “Yeah, Pager here collected those three’s information before.” He eyed Alastor, “Up close back when Pager’s still all workaholic and crazy good with infiltration. Not saying Pager’s not as good now.”
“WHAT!?”
“Beloved…”
You looked away with an innocent look, “That was all supposed to be confidential, so it wasn’t exactly my place to tell.”
One way or another, you ended up going just as planned. Charlie and the others watched you leave with Alastor. You suppressed the urge to push them away when they gave you a group hug, you found it off that Husk and Angel was gone, but then Lucifer seem to have overslept, so…
The hardest part was reassuring Alastor you’d be fine and boy did he come up with all sorts of excuse to keep you away from the meeting. Good effort, but meaningless when you knew Alastor too well. He wasn’t the only one to learn a lot about their partner
Alastor compromised with staying in your shadow and observing the entire situation. He’d accompany you along the way to the tower and leave, materializing when you exit as well. You also had to call for him whenever you were in any sort of danger
All agreeable terms. It’s a wonder that Alastor didn’t force you to skip the meeting on the promised day. You gave him a kiss before he had to hide in your shadow. Then it was show time
“I’m here to see Vox.” You told the demon at the front desk, your hand hovering over where your book was the moment you entered the building. To conceal your identity, Alastor has you wear an oversized coat over your attire. Mostly to hide your pages for emergencies.
“You need an appointment to see Mr. Vox. He is not the type of demon you can just see. Please leave or feel free to browse the VoxTech products.”
Your eyebrows furrowed from the monotonous voice and the lack of welcome. Vox was really summoning Charlie like some lapdog. “Tell him a representative of the hotel had arrived to see him. He’ll know what I mean.”
“Please leave or feel free to browse the VoxTech products… Otherwise, I will call security to remove you by force.”
“Fine.” You raised your other hand to show your phone with an ongoing recording, “But we fulfilled your request, a representative came as asked and you, Vox, are the one that is refusing to speak to us. If it’s a war you want, then you’re getting one!”
A sudden jolt of electricity was in the air before the demon of the hour showed up with that grin that reminded you so much of Alastor’s. Your blood boiled at a memory that surfaced. But this was business and then you can leave with Alastor by your side to remind you that you’re loved and cared for.
“Ho, ho. No need for that.” Vox smiled, his TV for a head tilting to the side as he stared down at you with neither respect nor posh. “If you want, as a sign of goodwill and that I’m innocent in my lateness since it was my employee’s that’s incompetent…”
You leaned back a bit while Vox leaned forward to you, gesturing to the demon at the front desk that was already shaking from fear.
“I can always… torture them for your entertainment.”
Note: Ta da~! Vox is officially out now! How's this one?
Circe Y.
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Rat Bastard - Part 4
Pairing: You x Kyungsoo
Rating: M (Mature)
Word Count: 9000
Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Cahoots envy, UST
PSA: this couple is called the Rat Couple and their individual names will be Rat Princess and RatSoo (or Rat Basard when we are mad at him)
Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby
Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
You were playing a game. It involved lots of fast moving and tricky words that this small group of people shouted out with cheers or groans depending on how good or bad they felt the words had been. You didn’t really get it. The explanations at the beginning went too quickly and you might have nodded off during the vital parts.
Obviously you were losing this game. It was a drinking game but you had nothing invested as your drinks no longer contained any alcohol. You had almost no other reason to keep playing except for boredom which, you were surprised to learn about yourself, was a pretty good motivator.
You’d been given a virgin drink to sip on by a thoroughly-scholded, Javier. He could hardly meet your eyes after being accused by his coworkers of ‘nearly killing the only girl we have.’ The marker board had come out again. There was now a ‘wall of shame’ section and Javier’s name was written in angry looking capitalized red letters.
‘A category five!’
‘I just didn’t expect an adult to have such a low alcohol tolerance.’
‘How could you tell her where the patio door was?’
‘Why were the drinks so strong?’
‘You told me to get her drunk!’
‘Just last week some guy died from falling off a stool. People have died from much less.’
‘The wall of babies conceived during the Serenity Sands Resort Singles Retreat is something to be proud of. Adding a death toll to the wall is not.’
‘Cat-Te-Go-Ry Five!’
‘We add to the population, we do not subtract.’
‘To be fair, it’s as if she has almost no sense of survival.’
Your mumbled and slurred declarations of how completely fine you were had gone unheard.
You’d long been eliminated from this game by the time your mind began to sharpen to what was actually happening. It was after Kyungsoo won a prize. You hadn’t even realized there were prizes, but the whole group of people were gathered around a table with various odds and ends, one of which was up for grabs each time a game was won. Because the seven of you were trapped here in this bunker for a week with minimal possessions, a few items had been brought over from the hotel, things that normally would not be so valuable but given the current state of things, these items suddenly had a whole new appeal.
There were a few emergency ponchos for the rain, pairs of waterproof rain boots to keep muddy flood water from seeping inside of your shoes, bug spray, lip balm, ear plugs, wet wipes, a big bag of marshmallows and lots of other snacks, a powerful flashlight and separately, a big pack of batteries for the flashlight or whatever other item needed them. The winner would need to either win both or be in cahoots with the person who won the other. Your eyes zeroed in on the high thread-count luxury blanket with real down feathers and beside it, a cheaper and lighter blanket with such a low thread count the package didn’t even advertise it. You remembered that your beds back there were made up with the bare minimum, just a fitted sheet, a sad pillow and a bed sheet that was so thin it would have been transparent if that room had any windows other than the tiny ones in the bathrooms.
Your now sharper mind began to really understand the stakes. This wasn’t only a drinking game. You’d be stuck here for a week. The small radio that Kyungsoo just won put a blinding smile on his face and you looked around the room at the stacks of items the other people had won. Sara won a neck pillow and an eye mask for sleeping. Mr. Chen, ever the diplomat, won a pack of bar soaps that he promptly ripped open and passed one around to everyone, leaving one sad little bar down at your feet with a pitiful smile. Roxy had won a jumbo pack of ramen and a camping stove and Jun had won butane fuel for the stove. It seems some cahoots were already in the works. The pair didn't even bother to separate their stacks of prizes.
Then and there you made a promise to pay attention to the rules of the next game and you actually felt a wave of relief pass through you when you realized that the next game wasn’t one that required much difficult thinking but only required you to be quick with your hands. Or more specifically the tiny stretchy sticky hand that you’d been given. Everyone got one and the smallest white button that had fallen off of Javier’s sleeve was placed on the surface, in the middle of the big table.
The object of the game was simple. First one to grab the button wins. There were a few practice throws allowed before the battle began and the table erupted in quiet chaos and giggles as everyone quickly realized that these things had very little control or aim to them. You simply threw it vaguely in the direction of the button as fast as you could and if you got lucky you might grab something other than some other player’s sticky hand.
The practice round was declared finished. Not a single hand grabbed the button on the table and clear reminders of the rules were announced before a countdown was called out and it was time.
You needed to win something. Once the go was given, you and everyone else was frantic with it. Slapping sounds echoed all around the room and there was screaming and yelping as hands came close to the button. You were moving so quickly you hadn’t realized you’d bumped up elbows with the person beside you and in the excitement you’d reached a hand out to hold him back. Kyungsoo was creeping into your space. The only thing you could do was fight him off with your free hand. You reached for his forearm and pulled him back, trying to get his tossing hand back enough so you could break through. The sound of everyone’s laughter was like a drug. The mood of the game was so fun and exciting you hadn’t even noticed that it was the sounds of Kyungsoo’s giggles that paired so well with your own. That it was a sound you’d never before heard in your life, the mixture of both of your laughter with his laughter and the two voice tones blended so beautifully together you had to force your eyes to look away from the giggling profile of his face so you could focus on the game.
Through the struggle and the giggles when you pulled your sticky hand back quickly you shot it forward again and to your absolute shock your hand landed square on top of the button in the center of the table and quickly whipped it backward, trapping it right in front of you on the table. You reached down with a shout and gripped that button and you stood up in happiness as the entire rest of the table groaned at the loss.
You’d done it. You’ve finally won something. You were jumping up and down with excitement and you couldn't help the drift of your eyes over to the man who sat beside you with a pretty smile still on his face. He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, letting the straight black strands fall back into place slowly and his dark eyes watched you for a few moments with that breathtaking smile taking just a bit of your oxygen and making it stutter inside of your lungs. You’d been denying it to yourself, refusing to admit even inside of your head just how beautiful he was, but again and again you would lose that battle. It had been getting worse lately, the longer stretches of time you got to actually look at him and the longer stretches of time when you actually held his brown eyes with your own.
Someone steered you to the big table of prizes and handed you an enormous multipack of batteries. Batteries that would power any one of these hand held devices such as the flashlight and even that small radio that Kyungsoo had stashed underneath his chair.
The weight of this prize brought a change inside of you. You had won the power, quite literally. Everyone who won an electronic device needed you. You had what might be considered currency.
“Roxy, I’ll give you the batteries for your portable fan for one pack of ramen,” you said as you sat down and her eyes widened and she nodded her head, ripping open the multipack of noodles and tossing them over to you in exchange for two small batteries. You had so many of them and curious eyes were now offering small trades.
Once the trading had started you noticed others making small deals as well. Kyungsoo gave Roxy a can of spam for some ramen and you looked at the several cans he had left and then down at his powerless portable radio but you lost the nerve to say anything to him when he looked at you. You just looked away and avoided his eyes until the next game started. The sticky hands game was quick and popular, more prizes were handed out, and you all played it again and again until all the sticking power wore off and nobody was able to grab ahold of anything anymore.
If you were meant to be avoiding this man those plans went out the window with the announcement of the next game. This one would be played in pairs and your eyes touched upon every single person in this room except for the man sitting beside you begging to God they hadn’t already settled on their person. Of course they were all taken, the dirty rats.
“Okay so you, and Kyungsoo,” Mr. Chen clapped his hands, “excellent, that works out perfectly.”
You’d cooperated with him already. You’d both worked quite closely and very well together in the kitchen when he was cooking blindfolded, but that was before the blowup outside. Before you hurt his feelings for real this time, he called you an asshole, and you drunkenly tried to blame your cruel, hateful words on the actions of the other people in this room when you got caught by him. Even as upset as he had obviously been, he still swooped in and caught you before you could fall off the patio and hurt yourself. But he’d not said a single word to you since, and even only looked at you when absolutely necessary.
This game was more physical. There was a big bowl of flour and two spoons and the task was to hold the spoon with your mouth and use it to scoop flour. You were then to transfer the flower scoop to your partner’s spoon and they took it to another bowl which sat on a scale. The fastest team to transfer 40 grams of flour won. The prize was the pair of blankets and while you weren’t about to share your new high thread count luxury blanket with this man, you could be convinced to give him the cheap one.
“There’s a catch,” Mr. Chen explained and you groaned in annoyance as you took the spoon back out of your mouth to listen to the added condition of the game that was being explained. “You must both stand within the same square on the tile during the flour transfer. Touching each other is allowed.”
You both looked down at the floor, realizing that these floor tiles were tiny. Maybe your feet and his feet would fit if you stood exactly on one side of the tile but it would have to be very close. In fact, everything about your bodies would need to be close for this.
Sara had her hand raised and Mr. Chen quickly added that pregnant persons with big bellies could use up two tiles. Everyone else was limited to one.
When the game began, Kyungsoo was standing closest to the flour supply so you simply stood at the halfway point, placing your feet carefully within your tile. From the looks of his shoes, it was likely he could manage to fit one foot between your two, and the other on the other side while remaining within the perimeter lines. He was coming with his spoon suspended in his mouth and a mountain of flour filling the spoon. He was coming with a big white spot of flour on his chin and several white spots down his cheek and what was probably hidden all over his white shirt and when he reached you, you felt him place his first foot in between yours and carefully place the other within the tile. With his feet in place the warmth of his body quickly followed and you felt the length of him pressing up against your body from thigh to chest. Oh god.
Your eyes were wide open and he looked into them with a quiet urgency in the small grunt he gave you. His head tiled the smallest amount, not enough to spill his flour but enough to tell you that your spoon was not at the right angle to receive and that you should tilt your head.
You could feel your heart beating inside of your ears with him standing so very close to you and you had to remind yourself that this was only for the game. This was only to win the prizes, your blankets. You would sleep warm and comfortable tonight if you won those blankets.
A commotion beside you called your attention briefly and you began to turn your head. Someone had coughed a faceful of flour on their partner and someone was coughing and laughing noisily.
Kyungsoo’s hand reached up and you felt the warmth of his palm land over your cheek, pulling your face to look at him again. He’d lifted his other hand just high enough to wrap around the small of your back and you felt the gentle pull there as he pulled you in closer to where he stood inside this tile. He was just refocusing you. He was only directing your face so you could tilt your head into him to gather all of the flour he brought to you and you held your breath as his head tilted further and the white flour fell into your own spoon.
He let you go and he stepped back, inhaled a deep breath as he moved, his eyes widened with a nod of his head and you quickly turned around to take the spoon to the scale. You had more than 10 grams already. You only had to do this three more times to win. You glanced around at the other teams, one who was still transferring, and the other who had gone back to square one covered in white flour all over their faces and hair.
Your waist and your face felt all dumb and tingly, your skin was acting unreasonable to be so undeservedly affected by his touch. He wasn’t even touching you because he wanted to. This was for the game. It has just been so very long since a handsome man actually put his hands on you.
When you returned to your tile, Kyungsoo was already coming with another spoonful. He was less careful with his touch this time and you felt the strong warmth of his hand that he placed on your waist the second he reached the tile and situated his feet. Your hands lifted to lightly touch the side of his waist to keep your balance and this time as he was turning his head to dump the flour, half of the flour seemed packed on his spoon, refusing to budge. You had to touch him more, you lifted your hand and guided his face more. You could see the moment the powder dislodged and plopped neatly inside of your spoon and you were glad you were holding your breath because you nearly laughed in excitement to see it fall. You were rushing to the scale, careful to not jostle your precious cargo any more than necessary.
This had been a bigger spoonful. Your totals were 25 grams already, much more than any of the other teams.
You gave him an encouraging nod of your head and he had a smile in his eyes that sent him rushing back to the bowl before you could even make it back to the tile he was waiting with both of his arms outstretched for you, hands falling easily into place now, faces tilted in a position with him that to anyone who might be viewing this from the back may seem romantic. It was definitely close enough to kiss his pretty lips if not for these blasted spoons.
You had your flour scoop secured and his eyes widened marginally when you lifted a hand to lightly brush stray the white powder off his cheek before you turned to deposit your spoon.
You were almost there. The sense of urgency moved your body and you rushed back to where he stood waiting for you with his spoon positively loaded up with flour.
You collided with him with more force than you had before, your desire to win clouding your judgment and with the impact you felt more of his firm body pressed against you. You felt more of the hardness of his thighs that flexed when you placed your own over him, straddling his legs so you both would fit perfectly in this tiny space. When his hand pulled you harder into him he used his entire hand and forearm and you were reminded of the position he caught you in out there in the rain when the thumping of your heartbeats seemed to scream even louder than the torrential rain hitting the roof of the patio; when the heat you felt between his legs pressed into you sent an overwhelming wave of warmth and attraction radiating through your belly and brought along a damp flush to your skin.
You didn’t have time for all of this. He was tilting his head into you and his hand was on your face, cradling your cheek, your jaw, your ear, slipping down the smoothness of your neck and his eyes were closing as he lightly exhaled through his nose. The flour moved. You caught the bit of some of it falling off the spoon and you felt the tickle as some of it fell over your bare chest.
Impossibly and as if he had been possessed, you felt the smallest brushes of his soft, warm fingertips along the skin below your collarbone, brushing away the little mess he had made of you there.
When his eyes pulled up you were staring into his face and you didn’t have time to decipher any of this because you needed to be moving. You hoped it would be enough. You spun carefully on your heels and you could feel the shadow of him following your journey as you made it to the scale and poured the contents of your spoon.
“43 grams!” Mr Chen shouted and you heard groans of disappointment from the other two teams, you heard the metal clanging as discarded spoons fell to the floor or landed and echoed on a table and your body felt as if it might be on fire from just how much Kyungsoo had been touching you during the game. Every single cell that his skin had touched felt electrified and when you spun to look into his face you caught the most beautiful smile of genuine happiness there.
It pulled the smile of celebration from your own chest and you laughed and leaned into him, lightly bumping your shoulders against his bicep, not quite trusting yourself to openly celebrate so freely with this man.
You felt it then, the smallest reach of his arm that he lifted and wrapped lightly around your waist, you felt the small pull of him there as he did it and you gasped in surprise to feel the brush of his fingers that landed over your hair. He was grinning and brushing flour out of your hair. He was happy and he was so beautiful and you smiled back at him, tapping away some of the flour that had fallen from his chest and when his eyes reached into yours you caught the shift as the smile slowly flattened out and he cleared his throat, pulling his eyes quickly away from your face and pulling both of his hands back to himself.
If you hadn’t been holding them together your hands might have been trembling.
It was time to claim your prizes so you steadied your expression as quickly as you could, making excuses about how sometimes the nature of celebrating wins involved tiny touches and achingly deep eye blinks with each other and trying to ignore the longing you felt to feel the temperature of his skin pressed up against yours like that again. This was getting out of hand.
You both looked down at the two blankets, one of them clearly more superior than the other and Roxy suggested you both have a competition to see who got the good one.
Someone said arm wrestling, someone else suggested a straight up fight for it and Kyungsoo snorted with laughter and reached out to grab ahold of your wrist, wrapping his fingers easily around it he lifted your arm and shook it wildly.
“I could snap her in two,” he said and you pulled your wrist back from him forcefully, not quite having the strength to fully break free from him until you felt his grip relax and he just let you go. You knew he was right but that didn’t stop the wave of undeserved confidence that surged through you; foolishly believing deep down inside that if you fought dirty enough you could probably take him in a fight. You’d go for the weak points first, obviously the crotch shot, then the eye balls, and you’d end with a throat punch that would send him to the hospital. You’d completed two self defense courses in your life and you knew if you hit him right now, when he wasn’t expecting it, you could win. As long as you didn’t give him any advanced notice of what you were up to.
You’d always had trouble with intrusive thoughts. You reached for him quickly from behind and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, reaching your hands around for his neck and he gave the smallest grunt of genuine surprise to find you so suddenly and aggressively climbing on his back like a flying squirrel might stupidly try to attack a gorilla. His grunt of surprise changed into a small grunt of effort and you felt a sudden but definite shift inside of his back muscles.
You should have known better than to attack from behind. Not someone with such a strong back as he had. You felt his arm muscles contract and he reached his hands around to grab you, you felt him bend at the waist and you felt him spin right inside of your arms. He had the upper hand in less than a second and you could yourself fully encased and trapped well inside of his arms as he casually lifted you right off of your feet and plopped you back down, lifting you up easily just to show you that he could. He took two quick steps with you trapped completely inside of his arms and you moved like a puppet. His hands had reached down, squeezing you tighter when you struggled against him and he grabbed ahold of both of your hands, keeping you from being able to tickle him or pinch any of his skin, as you had instantly tried to do. You were completely trapped.
“See,” he whispered into your ear, the heat of his chest laid against your back and you fell back into that same familiar feeling of being pressed up against his body, “you can’t beat me, Princess.” His voice skipped over your neck traveling slowly up your earlobe until his words sunk down deep within your ear.
You turned your head toward his voice and you felt the softness of his cheek press against your own and as he spoke you could smell the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. You might have been the more sober of the two right now. You were also the most desperate. You wanted that blanket badly. You moved into the head turn and you let your lips land against his skin, just high enough on his cheek to find his ear with your message to him.
“I’ll give you batteries for your radio,” you whispered against his skin, using the same low tone and sultry whisper he had used on you seconds earlier and you allowed your lips to pop the smallest bit, letting the softness of your lips play every so lightly with the softness of his earlobe. “Please let me win,” you whispered into his skin. The effect moved through him like a wave. It rippled through the muscles that held you tightly within his arms. You felt the nearly silent groan that originated somewhere deep inside of his chest that echoed throughout your back and with the groan you felt him cave in.
“Come on, that’s not a fair fight,” someone shouted from the back of the group, “he’s a man, and she’s a woman, how is that fair?”
But you could feel it, he had been ready to give in. He was relaxing his grip and you leaned against his back, pushing lightly against him as if you were really fighting this strong man off of you for show. As if you even wanted to get the heavy weight of his entire body off of you.
“Rock, paper, scissors,” someone else shouted, “ play for the blanket.”
He had let you go. You’d taken a step away from him and you turned back around to look into his face. His breathing seemed just a little bit hard for such a tiny struggle with you and you noticed his cheeks were quite pink as he looked into your eyes. You saw the smallest movement there. He blinked his eyes once as he lifted his chin the smallest degree. It felt like a gesture of agreement and you caught another motion as he lifted his hand and made a discrete fist with it, lifting his chin once more with a nod.
He accepted your terms and he was going to play rock.
The others were already shouting the commands to begin the rock, paper, scissors round and you had to quickly play your hand. You shot out a flat hand for paper and it landed squarely over his closed fist as he played the rock that he had promised you he would play.
“She’s the winner!” Javier shouted and you smiled wide and genuine — your evening was finally beginning to look up a little bit. You jumped up and down in happiness and you rushed to the table to grab your blanket and curiously you could still feel his brown eyes watching as you did it. There was an odd expression on his face for someone who had lost the round. His eyes followed you around the room as you’d celebrated your little win and you could have sworn you could see the smallest smile on his lips when he went to the table to retrieve his loser’s blanket. You couldn’t quite understand why he would have looked pleased by this. You won and he lost.
Oh right, his batteries. He must have been happy about getting batteries and a blanket out of this deal. If you were a blanket-less pauper, you might have also been happy to receive such a low quality crappy blanket.
You couldn't quite remember the last time you felt so happy to win something so dumb. You just knew this would solve all of your nighttime problems. You skipped up to him holding your prize and you quickly stuffed it under your seat next to the other goodies you’d either won or traded to obtain, feeling pretty damn good about how the rest of the week might go. If you had to, you’d just spend the whole week in bed under this blanket and catch up on all of the missed sleep you’d ever missed in your life.
When you stood up, Kyungsoo was standing right behind you with his hand outstretched toward you in a surprisingly congenial gesture of a handshake for a job well done. ‘Good job,’ his posture said, with a pleased smile on his smooth face. You reached your hand forward fully ready to make this change in your relationship with the man. Like a pair of coworkers who got along sometimes. Not friendly by any means but still able to get the job done if they were being paid to. You’d accept his congratulations. He was right, you had done a really good job of winning this and he should be thankful to you for how well you could walk with a spoonful of flour and dump it into a bowl without spilling a speck. If only that was a skill you could market. Your balance and coordination should be studied.
The second the skin of your palm touched his and you gripped your fingers around his hand to shake it, he pulled his hand back abruptly and came back hard with a swift smack of his hand against yours. Was this some sort of trendy side-five, not a high-five or a low-five, but a side-five?
“No, idiot. Batteries.” He said gruffly after swatting away your hand shake. He wasn’t here to make peace at all. He was here to claim what was his. His face didn’t look as grumpy as he usually did, but he seemed to be back to calling you names.
“I’ll give them to you in the room.” You said under your breath, a little bit of your earlier joy from having won something so precious deflated by the return of his crappy behavior.
He leaned his head closer to where you stood, “don't want the others to know that you’re a cheater?”
“I didn't cheat. I just made a deal. Something I wanted for something you wanted,” you said with a flippant dismissal and all it got from him was a doubtful scoff.
“Always playing a game, huh,” he remarked under his breath and it pulled your focus back on him for a few moments. There was something under the surface with his words. Something darker than the golden aura of winning.
Your memory flashed to the blurry drunk view you had of him and the actual hurt you saw in his eyes. The hurt you had trouble really understanding because it felt so unwarranted. There had never been any pretense to the way you felt about each other. You hated him and he hated you and people who hate each other don’t get to look that hurt when someone says something hateful, it’s a given. He said awful things to you all the time although now that you really got to thinking you were having a hard time finding an example of something truly mean he said to you. Something that wasn’t just a reaction to something you did first. Try as you might, you couldn’t bring up anything concrete. The nature of your very specific problem you had with him, that he had so callously rejected you back then kept you on edge around him so much that nearly every interaction you had with him had you on the attack. You always came out swinging first and asked questions later.
“Hey, Kyungsoo — I really, really didn’t mean all that stuff I told Sara about you —” this was difficult to get out but you really hated sitting on an unspoken apology when you had done something wrong.
If Kyungsoo’s unwavering focus was what you wanted — if his deep dark brown eyes looking into your face with every bit of his attention focused up close on every single centimeter of you from your eyes down to your lips, then you certainly had gotten what you wanted. His eyelids pulled wider when he realized what you were saying. His lips parted and his tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip.
You inhaled to continue, “I was … drunk, yeah, but I still don’t — I didn’t —,” you couldn’t get any more details out, not with as closely as he was looking at you.
“I-It wasn't for you to hear, it was for her. I’m sorry if that was super mean of me.”
“It was,” he agreed, “mean,” he added for clarity and he inhaled to speak again, lifting his chest and shoulders with the breath and lifting his hand to run over the length of his face. You could feel the agitation in every motion of his body. The drink he still held in his hand rattled with the movement.
He half spun with it and came back, his voice teetering along the edges of anger, “it wasn’t for me to hear? That’s it? I was supposed to hear you saying all of that shit? Is that your apology attempt?”
“No, that’s not — that’s not what I mean,” he had to be the most difficult person to make your point with.
“Then what do you mean?” His lips closed as he pulled his bottom lip inside his closed mouth, his eyebrows lifting in question, “hmmm?” he prodded again. You figured you had about five seconds before another argument and another fight erupted and this time you didn’t even have a high balcony to hurl yourself off of.
“I know we don’t get along, but I don’t even really hate you. Not really. I mean, we got off to the worst start ever, not that there ever was anything to start, that’s not what I mean,” you sighed in frustration — this was so difficult to explain.
“I don’t hate you. I don’t think it’s the absolute worst thing in the world to be here with you. Actually working together on these games today, it seems like maybe we work together well, at least.”
Some of the wildness you’d seen in his eyes a few seconds ago had left with your rapid explanation. He still watched your face with rapt attention and the burdensome feeling under the scrutiny of his eyes had your face blushing and your voice cracking a little bit. You felt silly for having such a strong reaction to something as simple as a conversation with the goal of clearing the air.
You chuckled lightly to yourself, both with how silly you felt being this nervous and with the very beginnings of the thought that crept through your mind.
“This is only the first day,” you laughed lightly to yourself. Kyungsoo did not laugh or even smile. His lips were pulled into a flat line and he didn’t respond right away with any indication of what he was thinking.
“Maybe,” you closed your eyes and inhaled a breath, “maybe we could just be … f-friends?” You could feel the shape of your mouth pull into a grimace when you said it. The upward inflection put the ball squarely in his court to decide what he thought about your call for a truce and maybe even some of those cahoots you’d been dreaming about.
Kyungsoo didn’t respond right away. His eyes watched your face very closely and you caught the hard clench of his jaw and the half lidded blink as his eyes closed down. He inhaled the smallest breath and just under that tiny breath and using only the air and almost no volume of his voice you could barely make out a response from him
“‘Friends’” he whispered and you thought you might have heard a follow up response “friends is the last thing I want to be with you.”
He said it so quietly you doubted you’d even heard it the second the next inhale sounded out from his lungs. He cleared his throat at a normal volume and opened his eyes, that same pretty pinkness coloring his cheeks as he inhaled again, deeper and more committed this time and on the exhale he spoke. The words were slightly tinged with the alcohol on his tongue.
“Friends,” he said with more commitment, “umm, maybe… let’s just hold off on that for now.” His eyes formed a squint that matched the grimace you’d had on your face earlier and with his soft but decidedly sharp denial you felt the heat slip up your neck and touch along both of your cheeks. “It's just — the things you do and say always feel like a trick and I’m getting a little burned out tonight.”
His rejection of you time and time again burned against your skin but you needed him to expand on the first thing, that whispered, just under his tongue response that set off weird bubbles inside of your stomach with the strangeness of the sound of those exact words.
You had to speak. “What did you say the first time?”
He shook his head slowly back and forth as a response.
“‘Friends is the last thing I want to be with you’ — does that mean you really do hate me?”
His lips were closed and his head was pulled back. The pretty hair layed flat atop of his head after the distraction of his hand running through it had taken your attention from his dark eyes for a split second.
“I think I’m the drunk one now,” he said as a final response to your questions and you could feel the door slam shut. He downed the last of his drink and headed away from you toward Javier at the bar who was already ready with another one.
You watched him walk away from you and he didn’t turn back around.
You felt almost ready to give up. Ready to crawl into your bed, under your new blanket and block out the rest of the world for a solid week. You’d just avoid him entirely to save yourself any more humiliation. Not only did he not want to go on that date with you, but this handsome, charming, funny, and talented man didn’t even want to be friends with you. Even that was unbearable to him. How awful of a person were you?
You reached down beneath your seat and gathered your things, catching Sara’s worried eyes as you made your way toward the door to this kitchen that led back to that dark and scary hallway that would take you to your bed.
“We're calling it a night — already?” Mr. Chen’s voice broke through the laughter and giggles from the others who were still hallway through their drinks and clearly not ready to call it a night. You were fresh out of any more ability to be social and happy when you had been so obviously put in your place again and again.
“She’s feeling a little done so we are taking her things to her room — might settle in already,” Sara spoke up for you and soon was by your side linking her arm with yours as she helped you with the door, “don’t stay up too late, we might have a long stormy night ahead of us!” She called behind her toward the group in a cheerful voice. You heard an agreeing sound from Mr. Chen as he declared the same sentiment to the rest of the group.
Apparently the eye of the storm was supposed to come ashore within the next few hours and nobody knew how much sleep was possible with such a scary and loud event happening outside. Once through the doorway a click sounded out and your pathway was illuminated by a tiny flashlight she had in her hand. You knew for a fact that she hadn’t won that in the games and she gave you a knowing smile and a wink.
“Shhh, I got you one too. Nobody would dare search a pregnant woman,” she giggled and her brightness paired with the little metal cylinder she slipped into the palm of your hand brought your rotten mood up just a tiny bit.
You’d both made it all the way down the long hallway to the door of the bunks and you were thankful for the bathroom light Kyungsoo had left on before he left this room because it was empty, deserted, and quite spooky even with the lighting, you couldn’t imagine what it would be like at night when the lights were turned out. You looked all the way down to the end of this enormous room where his bed waited for him and you wondered just how many spiders stood between you and him in this big room.
“What happened? Did you two argue again?” She pleaded with her kind eyes, you could see the sincerity in her face and you sighed deeply as you unwrapped the new blanket and spread it out over the top of your bed. Something about your mood made this pretty, comfy thing feel just a little bit less than before.
“Yeah. No. Not really. I don’t know. I apologized to him for what I said. He neither accepted or denied it. I asked if he wanted to at least be friends and he doesn’t. So—” you lifted your eyebrows with a hopeless shrug.
“It’s the first day.” She said with a softening of her voice. She didn’t offer any promises or give you any more false hopes. All she had was a flimsy fact that you knew as well.
“I think I’ll shower before he gets here,” you grabbed your clothes and bath towels, also grabbing your swimsuit just in case the man happened to walk into that bathroom as you were sudsing your hair in the open layout wall of showers with no doors layout of this bunker style bathroom.
Sara said her good nights and you quietly changed into the solid black bikini you’d been toning your body and dieting for months to look amazing in and when you caught the reflection of yourself after rinsing the shampoo of your hair in the industrial mirror that was half rusted and cloudy with how old it was, you were thankful that at least you could still pull off a look this sexy even if your ego was thoroughly shattered by him.
That you could still look and feel pretty even after being rejected over and over again by the only man you’d ever agreed to be set up on a blind date with; the only man you’d ever been interested in enough to even consider deleting your dating profiles for and the man who you’d drive a solid hour facing the setting sun to reach the east side location of the swankiest restaurant in town to meet him that evening even if it meant braving rush hour traffic on the hectic and terrifying freeway to get there.
These showers worked on some sort of a timer. You pressed the button for a good amount of water pressure and flow and after several minutes the water would wind down, asking for another press of the button if you wanted more. You’d finished cleaning and rinsing and you were toweling off your legs after wringing all of the wet out of your hair. The water was still running noisily but had been winding down when you took your first steps out of the showering area and made your way toward the concrete tiled bench built into the wall where you’d left your folded clothes and the sound of the winding down trickle of the shower was replaced with a different and unexpected sound. It was the sound of a gasp, the quick intake of air made through the open mouth of an adult human being, a man. A man you knew.
The sound startled you enough to spin around and the towel you had over your head and nowhere near covering your bikini clad body slipped out of your surprised fingers and pooled down at your feet.
Burning into your skin was the deep brown of his eyes and he stood at the open space just at the foot of where his bed ended and the bathroom began with a true deer caught in the headlights look on his face.
He must have been pretty drunk. His eyes sank slowly down from your face, slipping lower and his mouth hung open, that same look of genuine surprise still spelled out all over his face.
“S-Shit, I’m,” he inhaled through his open mouth, using every last morsel of willpower left inside of him to pull his eyes up from where they’d been lazily lingering around your hips and with the single word he had left to squeak out you got the smallest, “sorry.”
You bent down to pick up the towel and spun around turning your back on the man. You weren’t in the mood to open up another hateful conversation with him right now. All you wanted was to have the strength to ignore that look you’d seen in his eyes just now so you could slip past him and go hide under your covers.
It was uncomfortable to put dry clothes over your wet bathing suit but the alternative was to strip down naked with him standing right there so you could dress yourself properly.
You felt too flustered and too much in a hurry for that and Kyungsoo was still very much frozen in place in the doorway. Drunk and slow. An immovable object.
You slipped on the silky nightshirt over the bathing suit. It would dry eventually. This nightshirt curved the shape of you and hung down to the middle of your thighs, it didn’t come with shorts and you didn’t usually mind. You hadn’t packed your bags with the idea that you’d be haunted by this bastard all night long and you might be better off sleeping in grubby sweat pants and an old t-shirt.
You needed to leave the bathroom. You’d made the requisite numbers of steps to reach the doorway and in any other situation with a normal, not inebriated, drunk or not, non-friend that he proudly proclaimed himself to be, the expectation was that he would bow his head, stop looking at you like he’d just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and move out of the damn way.
When you reached him in this doorway; he did not move and his eyes remained fixed on you. Something must be wrong with him. The look in those eyes felt different from any looks he had shot you before and something warm and achingly slow tickled a path down the length of your spine starting somewhere in between your shoulder blades and landing softly and deeply, well inside of your belly.
Kyungsoo was not moving out of the your way, you had to touch his arm lightly to push against the warm weight of him and when you did it, his hand moved, his soft rounded fingertips reached forward and you felt the smallest brush of them over the back of your hand, you felt the smallest touch from his reaching fingers that sent the biggest jolt of electricity through your startled brain because this was not allowed. It was not expected and it was not something he would ever be caught dead doing to you.
Why? Why would he touch you here and like that when he in all other places was filled with so much disdain for you. The shockingly noisy thumping inside of your chest echoed inside the hollow of you and you felt the stickiness of the gravity that must have been holding him here in this place. That gravity grabbed ahold of your feet so tightly and the stubborn things refused to move. You could see your destination but his fingers were touching the back of your hand and there was a burning just below your eyelids pulling your lids open, demanding that you open your eyes and look into his face.
He was watching you with the slowest blinks of his eyes and his lips were parted as he breathed through his mouth. His breathing felt so light and careful you wondered if he could manage to get any oxygen from it at all the moment you were caught inside of his eyes you felt like a prisoner here.
That warmth that has spread over your spine flooded and surged inside of you, finding a home between your legs and you felt not only trapped but now helplessly compelled.
You were leaning. The breath from his lips smelled like liquor. You were leaning and the brush from his fingertips moved as he touched lightly at first over your waist and then his hot palm was resting just over your hip and he took the smallest step into you, taking what was left of your air from you when the heat from his body cascaded into your much colder skin. The silk nightshirt did nothing to insulate his temperature and you could not escape this. The moment he lifted his hand and laid a palm just over your jaw you felt too lost to keep your eyes open.
The millimeters of space that separated the two of you evaporated when the warmth of his soft mouth touched your lips and when he pulled your bottom lip into the space of his open mouth and sucked, his hands clenched hard into the flesh of your hip, slipping around to dig roughly over your ass, his hand slipped around behind your neck and his mouth devoured and demanded from you as that unimaginable heat you felt between his legs pressed into you, begging you to have mercy on him; have mercy on yourself; put both of you out of your miseries.
Your skin felt aflame. You couldn’t remember another time in your life when you’d felt so desperate and completely consumed by another person in such a short amount of time.
You wanted him. You’d give anything to have him and yet the small gasps for air from his lungs in between the kisses had the tiniest grunts of complaints under their tones.
Tiny curses came from deep within his chest. Your mind reeled and sharpened to the sounds he made and that same desperation reminded you of the very last thing he’d said to you. That he wanted nothing to do with you. That he didn’t even see the possibility of being friends with you. That you would always only be an enemy to him. Untrustworthy and unlovable. You felt it then, it broke through the rough nibbles of his teeth against the soft skin of your neck and you gasped in a breath to ask him a question — your conscience could not let you stand for this without asking.
“Kyungsoo, I thought — that you didn’t want this — what — what are we doing?”
You were an idiot. It felt like it had to be asked and yet your body clung tightly to him despite it all — just because of the possibility that he didn’t mean any of this, that it was just the alcohol driving this desperation, that this was the kind of mistake that would destroy the both of you in the morning — you simply could not let this happen if any of those were a possibility.
“Kyungsoo, is this — a mistake?”
Your questions pulled his face up and the darkness had built inside his eyes to such an extent that it took him several seconds of looking into your face for you to see the shift of understanding to break through. With the understanding came the painful and horrible when he pulled his hand up to cover over his parted mouth and mumbled the quickest “I’m sorry,” before he covered up any other terrible words he might have been about to say to you.
You felt his retreat with the temperature drop.
It had been what you feared. It was only the alcohol taking ahold of his body and making it betray his heart. For inside of his heart, there would never be a place for you. The crushing feeling you felt inside of your stomach pulled your shoulders down and you were sure the look on your face would be close to tears but he wasn’t looking at you anymore.
He had separated his body from you and your wounded feelings flared up hot, desperate for something to ease some of the pain. You found none.
Kyungsoo was shaking his head back and forth and another soft apology landed with a dull thud against your hollow chest. The echo sounded like the beat of a funeral drum.
“I — I’m going to bed,” you whispered with what last bits of your voice you could find to work and paused briefly to ask something else just for the sake of your own wounded ego, “Does this make us even?” His eyes pulled up from his dazed focus down on the floor and he looked into your face when you asked the question.
“And I know it didn’t mean anything, Kyungsoo. I knew it was just the alcohol. I was just drunk then and you were just drunk now.” You pushed the corners of your mouth up as hard as you could stand and they may have even moved up a tiny bit.
You hoped to God he was too drunk to have noticed the wetness that settled heavy inside of your eyes and you were suddenly and eternally thankful that your bed was as physically far away from his bed as possible.
Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
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On the changing age demographics
Woke up in the wee hours this morning, turned on the radio, and listened to a discussion on the BBC about the aging population, and how there are not enough children being born in certain parts of the world to keep pace with old people dying, and "What to do? What to Do?!" to make having an raising children more appealing.
And there was much talk about giving families money for each child they have, and raising the retirement age, so we don't have to pay as much in Social Security programs, and easing work requirements for immigrants.
And I lay there thinking: this is one more argument for switching to a 4-hour workday, instead of 8-hours, so a two income family can split the time in taking care of the kids you're bringing into the world. The Japanese government has been trying to promote the idea of people having more children, but their culture is still heavily burdened with the work grind, and no one has the time or energy to raise more kids in a way that the kids deserve.
And also an argument for 15-minute and walkable cities, so the kids can get around town and play with their friends, without relying on their parents to drive them everywhere.
It's not about creating "incentives" for adults to "produce" more children. It's about creating world where children can live joyfully.
#demographics#late stage capitalism#child rearing#global warming#it's all connected#thoughts in the wee hours
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mer my dear mutual mer i would like to ask you how do i get into lifesteal
HELLO FARLANDS!! you've come to the right place. Step into my office.
this is an interesting question with a variety of different answers. a lot of the time people seem to direct you towards videos rather than stream vods, which does makes sense, because they're more accessible and the barrier to entry is definitely less daunting.
but lifesteal videos aren't episodic, they're designed for a viewer to be able to jump in with little to no context at any moment. they throw a lot of information at you fast as hell, and events spanning hours and hours of footage are condensed down in ways where most of the meat gets cut off. i have a hard time absorbing information from or remembering what happens in lifesteal videos because of the editing styles... i don't claim that this isn't in large part a taste thing, but in videos you miss the complicated character moments, and the sense of pacing/chronology, and all of the things that happen that don't translate well to video logic. and you don't get to see (as much of) the dimension of things where the fact that everyone is trying to make videos can be character and story relevant information. all of these things are what make lifesteal season 4 my favorite minecraft roleplay ever in the world. i guess i would say that i do like lifesteal videos, but mostly in relation to the livestreams.
all of which means that while pretty much any lifesteal video ever produced can make for a perfectly serviceable starting point, it doesn't really get you any of the things about lifesteal --i-- care about. and you're asking ME. So.
what is the deal with lifesteal in general?
you probably know at least some of this already, but for the sake of the thing:
lifesteal is a server based around a mechanic where, upon killing someone, you gain one of the hearts off of their health bar up to a maximum of 20. if you lose all of your hearts you're banned, but this is temporary and players can be revived. it's also a server where you're free to steal and destroy builds to your heart's content, and people toy with breaking the rules they do have often. so it naturally follows that lifestealers are generally interested in pvp, and have a social system where the most important relationships are your teammates, who come before basically anything else. lifesteal IS roleplay but it isn't scripted, and what they mean by unscripted is that the outcomes of a conflict can't be predetermined, because that would defeat the point—if something goes wrong, it goes wrong. (and hopefully, it goes right for somebody else.)
why season 4?
short answer, because it's the one that has the guys i care about in the situations i care about. the long answer is at 9k words and not even close to done yet so you're gonna have to wait a bit on that one.
the medium answer: while you could go back and watch through season 3 in detail, or try to just start watching season 5 and keep up with stuff live as it happens, that's not what i did. i have it on good authority that the mer guide to lifesteal season 4 works, because i did that, and also because my friend whose initial reaction to lifesteal was "wow this subz guy is loud..." and then radio silence for months has since sat through 30 hours of princezam building stream of his own free will. see review below:
lifesteal can be sort of an acquired taste. i think a lot of the time it either clicks for you or it doesn't, or you have to see the right thing and then suddenly the appeal starts making sense.
luckily, the aftermath of zam betraying mapicc & ro in season 4 tends to have this effect on people, and it's a good jumping in point! i didn't actually start watching season 4 chronologically, i started by bouncing around the last couple weeks of the season and quickly discovering that it was bonkers fucking crazy and i needed to know more about this "eclipse federation" thing... so i don't really think knowing how it ends makes it less fun to watch, and if you wanted to just poke around at random and see what's up i wouldn't stop you. i went back and sat through everything between that aforementioned betrayal and the end of season 4 chronologically after i already knew how things ended up and it's thoroughly enjoyable that way. maybe even better than the alternative, because you're less likely to get caught up in how frustrating some of it can be. but if you would rather know as little as possible going in you can definitely give it a shot, and i do think there are parts that are probably even more fun if you don't know what's coming.
how do i do that though?
and here is my gift to you. when i watched through season 4 all i had to go off of was the vod archive spreadsheet, which is great & wonderful & awesome & the best thing ever, but it does kinda just have you clicking links blindfolded if you don't already know what's going on.
so eventually i started keeping track of vods as i watched, in a google doc. it has clips and/or timestamps and summaries for basically every vod in the second half of season 4. it's a little embarrassing because it records a bunch of my initial reactions to stuff but c'est la vie. it's also 85 pages long (it was 105! i edited my notes down!), but again you can jump around to get a lay of the land if you want, and how much stuff you skip is completely at your own discretion. have at it.
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On 3 September 1995, Jeremy Brett, famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in the Granada TV series of the same name, spoke on behalf of the Manic Depression Fellowship (the predecessor to Bipolar UK) on BBC Radio 4’s The Week’s Good Cause (still running under the title the Radio 4 Appeal). As he explained, his interest was as much personal as it was philanthropic:
“I started my acting career in repertory and have over the years appeared in many plays in London and New York and the National Theatre under the banner of Laurence Olivier. Now, why am I telling you this in The Week's Good Cause slot? Because this week's charity is the Manic Depression Fellowship and I myself have been diagnosed as manic depressive, so I know what I am talking about and I need to remind you that I am a successful actor before admitting to having a severe mental illness.
“When I was admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in 1986, I…I was so confused I couldn't relate to anything or anyone around me. All I could do was lie face down with my fists clenched in my face. I believe I have been coping with these severe mood swings for many more years than I like to think, but being a member of a profession where being a little mad helps, my moods were tolerated far more readily than if I worked in a bank or a school.”
“And it is my success which gave me the courage to admit publicly that I had this illness, as an encouragement to others that it had not stopped me from being employed and leading a fulfilled and successful life. It is an illness which can be treated and managed. It comes and goes, and in between the bouts of illness people are well.”
Sadly, Brett died a matter of days after this radio broadcast, of a cause not directly related to the state of his mental health. The courage he showed in putting his own story at the service of a mental health support charity may have been equalled by that of others since, but it has not been forgotten.
#jeremy brett#granada holmes#bipolar disorder#mental health#mental illness#bipolar disorder awarenes day
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