#Summer Nights at the Embassy
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cloth-fabric · 9 months ago
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Night Embassy Tokyo - ss23
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yundeob · 5 months ago
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A NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD ☆ | ATEEZ SERIES
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— featuring ot8!ateez in iconic HOLLYWOOD romance and rom-com movies
— TICKET BOOTH IS CLOSED! 🎟️ : the movies are about to start! all fics will have MATURE CONTENT! MDNI!
sit back, relax, grab your popcorn and tissues, and enjoy the silver screen . . .
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THE PARENT TRAP ☆ | KHJ
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TROPE: exes to lovers! divorced!au
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst, crack, slice of life
AS DIVORCED PARENTS to two twin daughters, you and hongjoong have your fair share of work cut out. Driving to piano lessons, cheering at hockey games, drop offs at each other’s houses, it can all be a little much. But could a relaxing summer retreat as a whole family possibly rekindle past emotions you’ve swept under the rug? . . .
— IN THEATRES
DIRTY DANCING ☆ | PSH
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TROPE: bad boy!seonghwa, enemies to lovers!au , 60s!au
TAGS: nsfw, smut, angst, crack
THAT WAS THE SUMMER before JFK got shot, before the beatles came, and when you were working part time at your aunts summer resort. That was also the summer you met resident heart breaker and cocky entertainment crew member, Park Seonghwa. Remind yourself why you’re suddenly dance partners with him again? . . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
PRETTY WOMAN ☆ | JYH
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TROPE: dilf!yunho x formerstripper!reader, strangers to lovers!au, contract lovers!au,
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst
LIVING IN BEVERLY HILLS comes with its perks. But for two different people such as yourself and multimillionaire business tycoon, Jeong Yunho, both of you can’t seem to find what you’re looking for in the so called ‘Land of Dreams’. So the proposal is simple really… let him spoil you with money, jewelry and clothes while in return, you stay by his side. . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
MR AND MRS KANG ☆ | KYS
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TROPE: marriage!au, established relationship, spy!au, assasin!au
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, ANGST, crack
WHO WOULD’VE THOUGHT picture perfect suburban neighbourhood couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kang would be at each others necks trying to kill each other first. You’ve both come this far in your marriage while hiding your secret identities, but it looks like only one person can remain standing. I guess you both did promise “in sickness and in health”. . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
ROMAN HOLIDAY ☆ | CS
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TROPE: royalty!au, princess!reader x reporter!san, strangers to lovers!
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst
AS CROWN PRINCESS, you’re on a tightly scheduled tour of European capital cities. But after an especially rough day in Rome, you sneak out of the embassy to explore the so called Eternal City, running into no other than celebrity news reporter, Choi San, looking out for his next big royal scandal. . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU ☆ | SMG
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TROPE: college!au, stoner!mingi, enemies to lovers!au, fakedating(?)au, y2k aesthetic
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst, crack, slice of life
YOUR YOUNGER BROTHER Wooyoung is desperate in getting you, his older sister in college, to date so that he can finally date in highschool. The options for potential candidates are scarce, considering men flock away like birds the second you’re near. Good thing campus stoner and weirdo, Song Mingi is the same as well. . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS ☆ | JWY
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TROPE: fashioncolumnist!reader x advertiser!wooyoung, y2k aesthetic, fake dating(?)au, enemies to lovers!au, mutual pining
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst, crack, slice of life
LISTEN, IF IT MEANS getting a promotion at your editorial company as a news journalist instead of pop culture and lifestyle columnist, you’d do anything. And that includes pretending to be the most annoying and clingiest girlfriend to some guy for 10 whole days. But just so you know, Wooyoung likes clingy. . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
ROMEO & JULIET ☆ | CJH
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TROPE: unrequited love, star crossed lovers!au, mutual pining, secret romance (shakespeare be rolling in his grave rn)
TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, ANGST
FOR CENTURIES, a plague of hatred and hostility has been present in the relations between the House of Choi and your own. You know you can’t be together, but yet why do you keep catching that dark haired boy staring at you so longingly? And why do you want him just as bad?. . .
— not yet in theatres . . .
a/n: for updates, follow my blog! this will be a work-in-progress so I ask for your support:(🙏
taglist: @vent-stink @dazzlingstarrs @vcutparis @xpixie @potatos-on-clouds @showingmafandomlove @bibbleypoof @kpop-will-kill-me @avantalem @beabatiny @gabrielle-brugger @nsixns @amaranth1ne @stayminho @myblovedjyh @kkeshia @rebekah-reads @yoonbroom @4kwp @butterflydemons @iwaizumiismybae @soobinsputnik @stayatinykatsy @atitties @justconniez @kitten4sannie @ghostskilledmyaddiction21 @cheolsthicthighs @morethingsfandom @geminiml95 @byuntrash101 @quailbagutte @syubseokie @newworldwritings @urmom26john @sleepy-kat-here @pearltinyy @hjshyhyssnmgwyjh @cursedeastern @starryunho @piratekingateez2001 @jiminbility @paumll @drinkingrumandcocacola @roomsofangel @channies-bbg-room @meanaonthemoon @teeztopia @pommelex @kiln9z @sanhwalvr @youresolivlie @edawg77 @a-0206 @summer-gyu @bvidzsoo @yoongzsmile28 @tournesol155
taglist became too long so find the second taglist here💀 no longer taking requests
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fraugwinska · 6 months ago
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Ok so it’s going to be my birthday tomorrow and your the best writer I know that can do fluff so please for me do an alastor x reader birthday fic. Can be romantic and fluffy and do not rush it. Take all the time you need. Thank you
Happy Belated Birthday, my darling @alastor-simp! <3 I wanted to publish it on your special day, but it wasn't ready then and I didn't want to deliver something sub-par - But here you go! <3 I hope you had a wonderful day and this little gift brings a smile to your face! And thank you for always making me smile with your interactions! <3
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You shuffled in the darkness, sheets clinging to your thighs and entangling in between your arms. Hell's summer nights, not unlike those on earth, were hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. But it wasn't the heat or the stickiness of your skin that woke you.
Tiredly you blinked, trying to focus your eyes to make the room at least a little more visible. There was the typical static noise that always buzzed around Alastor's and your room - something you grew so accustomed to that you weren't able to fall asleep without it anymore. But there was another sound, barely audible, coming from the other side of the bed.
"Al? " You murmured sleepily. He wasn't next to you as he usually was. You had become so accustomed to having him curled around you like a cat, that sleeping alone was a rare and unwelcome thing.
"I didn't mean to wake you yet. Ignore me, dearest, do continue sleeping." He replied with a small smile. Alastor sat by the open window, curtains drawn and only his silhouette visible against the purple and pinkish glow of the Pentagram's eerie moonlight.
"Mmh... are you okay? What are you doing?" You groggily sat up, the covers falling away and exposing the bare skin of your chest to the nightly air. You couldn't make out his expression, but his voice sounded smooth and a little husky from sleep.
"Waiting." He answered simply.
You knew better than to ask him what he was waiting for - there was a reason you and him quickly became 'an item' as Angel loved to tell anyone who'd want to hear it. A couple, Charlie said, though it sounded too mundane to you. Partners was the word you and Alastor agreed on. It was a complex term to describe your relationship with the overlord - he was your equal, your friend and lover and the one person who could truly understand you and vice versa. He was your home.
You stood from the bed and shuffled your feet to his side. You didn't feel any discomfort walking practically naked through the room - after all, it was hot as hell (pun intended), every bit of clothing would've just added to the unbearable heat. And who'd be watching anyway except for Alastor, who had basically mapped out your entire body more than just once?
Alastor shifted on the wide windowsill, making a space for you to sit in his lap. You settled your back comfortably against his chest, head tucked beneath his chin and began to gently caress the arms that instinctively wrapped around you. The nightlife of Pentagram City illuminated the streets below you, there were faint sounds of honking cars, small booms from ongoing turf wars and a steady buzz of voices filling the air - the night was the most lively part of a hellish daycycle for most sinners. In the distance the Heaven's Embassy tower stood prominently erect, counting down the days until the next extermination right below the clock, indicating it was just five minutes before midnight.
"I will wait with you." You murmured, closing your eyes again and relaxing completely in his hold. You wanted to give him the same sense of security that he provided you with, even if all you could do was keep him company.
"You don't know what we'll be waiting for, my love." He said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I don't have to." You replied. Alastor chuckled. He leaned down to kiss your neck softly and you tilted your head in order to give him more way. "I'll always be here, with you, when you need me." You added.
There was a moment of silence as Alastor held you close. Your breathing evened out again, your hands slowly falling from his arms. Your head rolled onto his shoulder and your chest rose and fell gently in a calm, hypnotizing rhythm. Alastor sighed in contempt while you were fighting the sleep, humming now and again to keep yourself awake.
The clock ticked, the volume of the noises outside rose and fell in an ever changing pattern. He waited, his eyes fixed on the fingers of the clock, his hands absentmindedly combing through the silky lengths of your hair.
It was a minute to midnight.
He could smell it in the air. The magic, the static, the energy. His shadow came to his side, a quick nod confirming that everything was in place.
Alastor turned his head, his lips ghosting over the shell of your ear as the clock struck midnight and he whispered.
"Happy Birthday, my darling."
Your eyes fluttered open, you were almost drifted back to sleep when his words reached you and you tried to turn in his arms, but Alastor kept you firmly in place, chuckling at your tired movement. You turned your head back and craned your neck, looking up at him, confused.
"What did you say?"
"Shhhh, love. No questions for now, just listen."
The streets below were suddenly silent, the constant noises stopped abruptly, as if someone had shut them off with a remote control.
You heard a soft melody, like a music box's tune, rising through the window. It was familiar, a song you've heard many times before, and each time it reminded you that it was your favorite.
"Darling, close your eyes." Alastor instructed.
"Why?"
"Come now, dear, do you trust me?"
"Of course I do."
"Then just do as I say, and close your eyes."
And you did as you were told. A shiver ran through your body when the world was suddenly covered in darkness, sleep no longer on your mind - you were suddenly wide awake.
Alastor let go of you, gently helping you to your feet, taking your hand in his and leading you through the bedroom. The melody got louder as you neared the balcony door and you had a strange feeling that Alastor had something everything to do with it.
When you stepped outside, the wind brushed past your naked form and a cold shiver ran down your spine. Your grip tightened on Alastor's hand and his thumb rubbed soothing circles into the back of your hand.
"Keep your eyes closed." Alastor instructed, his hand leaving yours. You felt him move away from you, his warm body no longer a support, and you instinctively reached your hand forward to try and catch him, but you only grasped air.
"Trust me."
You heard the static buzz around you. Alastor was using his powers.
The next moment you felt a soft material wrapping itself around you, the texture of the fabric unfamiliar, but comforting and incredibly soft.
"May I open my eyes?" You asked, a smile on your lips as you guessed his answer.
"Not yet." Alastor's voice was behind you, he was still oozing magic, the energy crackling and fizzing around you. The material tightened around your form and you had an inkling of what it was that he conjured for you.
"Well then, darling. Now, you may look."
You opened your eyes.
Standing in front of you, his red eyes shining bright with excitement, was your partner, your equal, your best friend. His signature suit was replaced with a black, silky dress shirt, a matching bow tie around his neck, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his pants and shoes changed to a darker shade of the same material.
"Wow, you look incredible." You breathed, admiring him in his new attire.
"I am flattered, my dear. But I think you're the one who truly outshines the stars tonight."
You glanced down.
It was a dress, as you suspected. The same style as his, a silky black fabric falling in gentle folds around your calves, delicate lace trimming the hem. It was cinched at the waist, a dark bow tied in the front, the ends of the bow floating down your front. It was the perfect size, not too loose or tight, fitted to your form and hugging you in all the right places, the fabric indescribably cool and soothing on your heated skin.
You were stunned.
"It's... amazing, Alastor, but... What's the occasion?" You asked, still a little dumbfounded.
"Something I've been preparing for for the longest time, my darling." He stepped towards you, a hand stretched out to you which you took without a second thought. He smiled at the undisputed trust, at the instinctiveness of your every move towards him. "Today, my love, is your birthday."
Your eyes widened and a small gasp left your lips. "My... my birthday? How did you..."
"Yes, my love." He leaned in to press a kiss to your cheek. "I cannot restore your memories, but I vowed to gift you at least some parts of your life, if I were able to."
You looked up at him, and his smile widened at the adoration and admiration in your gaze. You couldn't recall anything from your life above, a blank slate waking up in hell, and you only shared how miserable and sad you were about that fact with Alastor when things got serious. He was the only one who knew how lost you felt, how the feeling of a missing identity made you restless and frustrated. You remembered the first time you two talked about it, the look on his face as he realized just how much trust you were putting into him by telling him the truth. Back then, his smile had been laced with incredulity, his disbelief strangely making his face look softer and kinder, more approachable. But in the weeks and months after, when he understood the seriousness behind your words, how much at least having some knowledge of your past life - however vague or unknown it would be - meant to you, this disbelief was replaced first by sympathy, and after a while determination.
Determination, apparently, to figure out a way to find and bring some of those memories back to you. And now he was here, dressed to the nines in the middle of the night, revealing that he had managed to find a significant one - your birthday. Handing it to you as a gift, right when the clock struck to begin it.
"My darling?" Alastor tilted his head, catching your attention. "Is everything alright?"
You didn't answer. How he found it out? No clue. How long did he know? Didn't matter. Did he find anything else? Didn't care. He had brought to light something you gave up on having so long ago, something so meaningful to you, that in that moment you couldn't find the words to express it in a satisfactory manner. You moved forward instead, arms rising to circle around his neck and using your own, meager powers to levitate yourself to bring his lips as close to yours as possible and his grin grew wider in response.
Alastor laughed and licked your lower lip playfully. "I take that as a yes."
And his lips finally met yours. The kiss was slow and gentle, no hurried movements or demands of any kind. Alastor could be a selfish partner, especially in taking claim over you. But not today, not right now he wasn't. He was only giving, not taking. Pouring every ounce of feeling he had towards you - impish joy and mischievous happiness and passionate desire and cocky pride - back into you, transferred through gentle swipes of his tongue against yours and wistful sighs that felt cool against your lips. It was a rare display that you weren't the only one that trusted their partner wholeheartedly - Alastor surrenderred to you willigly, gladly, and it weighted on your heart even more than the actual gift he intended for you.
When you broke away from the kiss you could swear there were sparks visible flying between you and him. Your breaths mingled as your foreheads rested against the other's, and you took the moment to collect yourself and speak.
"I have no idea how you did it, Al, or if I even want to know, but this is... Incredible. Thank you." You purred, nuzzling his nose affectionately.
"Of course, I am quite impressive, my love. But we are far from done." Gently, his long fingers gripped your chin as he pushed you away a little, encouraging you to open your eyes. His smile was a little wild at the edges and his eyes glowed with an excitement that promised mischief and thrill. You've seen this look before.
"Come now, darling. If we're to celebrate your most important day, we might as well make the most of it." He pulled you into a dance, your favorite song playing from within him - the perks of being the Radio Demon. You felt your dress gliding over your legs in smooth waves, and the soft fabric of his shirt under your fingertips as he swung you into another turn. With your past being his present, you thought, the real gift was a future with Alastor by your side.
And this future would be worth sacrificing your memories all over again.
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mariacallous · 3 months ago
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Glad people are finally finding out that these Pro Palestine protestors are ratfuckers-by-design at best (and Republicans at worst) and that's why they support Trump:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/dnc-palestinian-gaza-protests/679524/
One month ago, an NBC News headline reported:
Protesters made a tiny footprint at the RNC in Milwaukee. Other than a modest daytime march on Monday afternoon, the first day of the Republican National Convention, there were virtually no protests over the event’s four days and nights.
Obviously, the story from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago is already proving different.
This is part of a pattern. Gather any large number of Democrats together, in almost any city or state, whether at rallies, fundraisers, or presidential appearances, and pro-Palestinian protesters will try to wreck the event. These actions have been building to threats of outright violence. Pro-Trump and Republican events, meanwhile, are almost always left in peace.
Of the two big parties, the Democrats are more emotionally sympathetic to Palestinian suffering. The Biden administration is working to negotiate the cease-fire that the pro-Palestinian camp claims to want. The administration has provided hundreds of millions of dollars of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza. President Joe Biden’s terms for ending the fighting in Gaza envision a rapid movement to full Palestinian statehood.
By contrast, former President Donald Trump uses Palestinian as an insult. His administration moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights. In 2016, Trump campaigned on a complete shutdown of travel by Muslims into the United States; Trump now speaks of deporting campus anti-Israel protesters. He has pledged to block Gaza refugees from entering the United States.
Trump wants to tell the story that he and his party will enforce public order. He alleges that Democrats cannot or will not protect Americans against chaos spread by extremist elements. The pro-Palestinian movement works every day to create images that support Trump’s argument. As a visibly annoyed Vice President Kamala Harris asked protesters in Detroit earlier this month: Do they want to elect Donald Trump?
Not all pro-Palestinian demonstrators are thinking about the election. Many seem driven by moral outrage or ideological passion. But for those who are thinking strategically, the answer is obvious: Yes, they want to elect Trump. Of course they want to elect Trump. Electing Trump is their best—and maybe only—hope.
To understand why, cast your mind back a quarter century.
In the election of 2000, Vice President Al Gore faced Texas Governor George W. Bush. Gore probably would have won in a straight two-way contest. But that same year, the progressive advocate Ralph Nader entered the race as a third-party challenger—and he pulled just enough of the vote to tip the Electoral College and the presidency toward Bush.
Nader later professed regret for running as a third-party candidate. But at the time, Nader understood exactly what he was doing. Defeating Gore and electing Bush was the intended and declared purpose of Nader’s candidacy. Nader detailed his logic in many speeches, including this one to the summer-2000 convention of the NAACP:
If you ever wondered why the right wing and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party has so much more power over that party than the progressive wing, it’s because the right wing and the corporate wing have somewhere to go: It’s called the Republican Party. And so they’re catered to and they’re regaled—like the Democratic Leadership Council, they’re catered to and they’re regaled. But if you look at the progressive wing … they have nowhere to go. And you know when you’re told that you have nowhere to go, you get taken for granted. And when you get taken for granted, you get taken.
To paraphrase his argument even more bluntly: If progressives caused the Democrats to lose the presidency in the election of 2000, then Democrats would take progressives more seriously in all the elections that followed.
Nader’s logic was not altogether wrong. In many ways, the post-2000 Democratic Party has shifted well to the left of where the party was in the 1980s and ’90s. But catering to the party’s left has cost Democrats winnable races, and with them, key priorities: The Iraq War and 20 years of inaction on climate change head the list of progressive disappointments since the 2000 election, and the list extends from there. Whether or not the shift was worth the price, Nader was neither ignorant nor deceived. He identified his goal and willingly accepted the risks for himself and his movement.
So it is now with the pro-Palestinian demonstrators of 2024.
They start with a fundamental political problem: Their cause is not popular. Solid majorities of Americans accept Israel’s war in Gaza as valid and fiercely condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks as unacceptable. The exact margin varies from poll to poll depending on how the question is asked, but when presented with a binary choice between Israel and the Palestinians, Americans prefer Israel by a factor of at least two to one.
The brute fact of those numbers makes it very difficult for pro-Palestinian activists to win elections. In this cycle, despite all the emotion stirred by the Gaza war, two of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress lost their primaries to pro-Israel challengers.
From the point of view of any practical politician: If a cause is so unpopular that it cannot help its friends, why listen to its advocates?
The only answer to that question, again from the practical point of view, is the message of the protesters in Chicago: Maybe we can’t help you if you do listen to us, but we can hurt you if you don’t!
Think of it another way. Since the bloody attack by Hamas on October 7 and the Israeli response, pro-Palestinian protesters have marched and agitated all over the United States. They have occupied college campuses. They have impeded access to Jewish schools, businesses, and places of worship. They have posted impassioned words and images on social media.
Yet all of their militant action has barely budged U.S. policy. Arms, intelligence, and economic assistance continue to flow from the United States to Israel. U.S. military forces cooperate with Israel against Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Yemen. Although the U.S. has imposed restraint on some Israeli operations, Israel has mostly been allowed to fight its own war in its own way.
These were President Biden’s decisions, not Vice President Harris’s. But she was the second-highest-ranking member of the administration. If Biden’s deputy inherits Biden’s office, the message is clear: His administration’s record of support for Israel carried no meaningful political price. All of those street demonstrations and campus occupations will have amounted to so much empty noise. All of those articles arguing that Gaza explained Biden’s troubles with young voters would be exposed as ideological wishcasting.
If Harris wins, the pro-Palestinian movement will have lost.
If Harris loses, however, pro-Palestinian protesters can claim that they were responsible for her defeat. That claim might not be true—in fact it probably would not be true—but try disproving it. The pro-Palestinian movement would have at least some basis to argue: You lost because you alienated us.
If Harris wins, she may want to do something about the pro-Palestinian cause—for humanitarian reasons, for reasons of diplomacy and geopolitics, for reasons of Democratic-constituency management in particular congressional districts. But she won’t have to do it. She’ll know that the protesters tried to beat her, and they failed.
If Harris loses, however, future Democratic candidates will tread more carefully on Israeli-Palestinian terrain. Even if they privately doubt that the party’s position on Gaza explains anything truly important, they will be worried by advisers and donors who will believe it or who will want to believe it.
But what about Trump? Why aren’t the pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Chicago more fearful of Trump’s possible return to the presidency?
Although the pro-Palestine cause attracts support from progressives, it is not exactly a progressive cause. Americans associate progressivism with secularism, feminism, and gay-rights advocacy, among other causes. The Palestinian national movement, especially now that Hamas has effectively replaced the Palestine Liberation Organization as leader of “the resistance,” has become markedly religious, patriarchal, and socially reactionary. But it is also a movement fiercely opposed to American global hegemony—and that is its “anti-imperialist” appeal to Western progressives.
If you oppose American global hegemony, Trump is your candidate (as a long list of anti-American dictators have already figured out). Trump fiercely opposes the alliances and trade agreements that magnify American power and make the U.S. the center of a huge network of democratic, market-oriented countries. Trump’s “America First” bluster is actually a pathway to American isolation and weakness that will further remove American power from the world.
If you wish America ill, of course you wish Trump well. The far left and far right of U.S. politics may disagree on much, but they agree on that.
The protesters in the streets of Chicago are not acting aimlessly or randomly. The people on the receiving end of their protests would benefit from equal clarity. The protesters want chaos and even violence in order to defeat Harris and elect Trump. They are not ill-informed or excessively idealistic or sadly misled. They are not overzealous allies. They are purposeful adversaries.
The Chicago-convention delegates should recognize that truth, and act accordingly.
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mortalfaerie · 2 months ago
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hi here's my take on the gravity falls kids grown up since they're 25 now
Mason "Dipper" Pines
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after wierdmaggedan and disposing of the journals, he still has a keen interest in mysteries, just not necessarily of a supernatural nature. he's aware of the supernatural that's all around them, but content to let it rest.
he gets really into history and archeology, and bonds more with ford about this - even though ford is a physicist, he appreciates dipper's enthusiasm
he's trans (i'll die on this hill) and continues to socially transition in high school, and starts testosterone around 16.
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he also starts going more by his chosen name (mason, choosing one that starts similarly to mabel) but still lets close friends and family call him dipper. he stops covering his birthmark, though he still likes hats
he's suspicious of mabel's new friendship with pacifica in high school, but he warms up to pacifica ("paz," as they end up calling her) over time. he realizes they have a lot in common and she's actually a lot of help on his mystery hunting
paz's blooming interest in political science lends itself very much to his interest in history, and they spend lots of hours as teen up late on the phone together (seemingly everyone but them can see the writing on the wall, but it takes a few more years for them to realize their feelings)
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he continues to be a massive nerd, and has at least one dd&md podcast he religiously listens to. he and mabel go to conventions in california together.
his favorite place remains gravity falls over the years, and he goes back at least once each summer.
he and pacifica both commit to UCLA and become closer there. he majors in archeology & anthropology. despite their very different social circles, they seek each other out. she has at least one twat boyfriend in freshman year that dipper confronts on her behalf (even though she didn't want him to)
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he and paz almost kiss at his going away party for a semester abroad in greece, but he panics and runs off, leaving her confused and hurt. it takes a while for them to regain their footing, but they end up hooking up the night he comes back from greece. due to a comedy of errors they don't end up *going all the way* that night, and it's not until they're at the pool a week later that she realizes he's trans when she sees his top surgery scars (thanks rockslide @ ao3)
he was 99% sure she knew so it's a surprise moment for him, and he worries she won't be interested now, but she's pretty non-plussed. they start dating that summer.
her parents disapprove and she ends up putting her foot down and cutting them off for how they treat him, and his family ends up practically adopting her. they are each other's biggest supporters in everything.
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he gets offered a spot in a phd program in london, which stresses him out until he finds out that paz applied for a posting at the us embassy in london and got it, so they move to england together
he studies pre-modern civilizations and religious rites (a la stonehenge, etc) and has just finished his coursework and moved from phd student to candidate. he's just started to write his dissertation on potentially matriarchal societies in pre-modern britain using burial site data from major burial sites of religious significance.
he and paz have a cat name tyrone, or ty. they've been together for almost four years now, and he's thinking about popping the question - they're young (25), but he's pretty certain that for him, it's always going to be paz.
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freelancearsonist · 9 months ago
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Some Fools Fool Themselves
➔ Javier Peña x fem!Reader - 2.7k
➔ You were meant to be a mission—an insider that Javi could wring information from on some of the biggest names in the trade. It didn’t go to plan, but maybe that’s not so bad.
➔ Rated MA for unprotected p in v sex (don’t do this irl pls), oral (m receiving), throatfucking, handjobs, creampie, spanish dirty talk (both javi and reader - translations in footnotes), reader has female anatomy and uses fem pronouns, reader wears a bikini, smoking/nicotine use, cheating (reader is married this is the mob wife fic you all asked for), kind of angsty but mostly just porn with the slightest sprinkling of plot for ✨flavor✨ [please let me know if i missed anything at all :)]
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The bright, glaring yellow waves of sunlight reflect off the surface of lapping pool water and cast it in a nearly green light. Javi’s dark eyes are transfixed on it through his polarized sunglasses as he marinates in the beating hot Colombian summer sun.
Javier has never questioned his dutiful determination before. He’s never wondered if the ends actually do justify the means. He’s been in the palm of Uncle Sam’s hand for so long that the lines have become blurry—that the consideration of moral superiority doesn’t cross his mind anymore. Not that it ever really has; that’s why he’s so well-suited for the job he’s in. He follows his orders, no matter the cost.
And that’s why you pose such an issue to him. You make him question everything. Every move he’s made, every goal he’s been so set on accomplishing for so many years. If he sends this shiny-sinister iceberg of a drug hierarchy tumbling down the way he’s always believed it should, you’ll be buried in the debris. And maybe, at first, that knowledge didn’t bother him. Maybe he even believed that you deserved that—to be crushed by the weight of your own empire.
If he did, he certainly doesn’t anymore—and it’s killing him.
He’s never been so shaken and unsure. Maybe that’s why the water has caught his eyes—it’s a visual representation of how he feels. Rippling and indecisive, desperate to cling to you yet eager to let you go just like the droplets that part from your form as you lift yourself onto the concrete lip of the pool.
You stride toward him with slow movements, and the dilemma vanishes completely from his mind.
”You look stressed,” you murmur as you kneel beside the lounger he’s sprawled himself out on and take his hand. “What’s wrong?”
”Just tired,” he hums in response. He runs the rough pad of his thumb over the back of your hand in an unconscious effort to sooth your worry over him. “Long night at work.”
You don’t know what he actually does—as far as you’re concerned, he’s just a lowly janitor at the embassy. You can imagine that such menial labor is thoroughly exhausting, though, and you’re determined to help ease his sore muscles.
”Flip over,” you instruct—and like a good agent, he follows orders.
For fingers that he’s noted time and time again are so much daintier than his own, they work wonders on his sore muscles. They work with skill and intuition, magnetically drawn to the worst knots in his back. The pressure is perfect, and it has him practically drooling.
When those skilled fingers of yours hook into the waistband of his swim trunks and start tugging them down, he doesn’t even think of resisting.
You’ve learned to do something that no one and nothing else has managed to accomplish in all his lifetime—you quiet his swirling mind. There’s nothing beyond the bubble of you and him. Nothing to worry about, nothing to accomplish. No ulterior motives to his presence here, shirtless and lounging like he owns the place. Like this isn’t your husband’s house that he’s supposed to be searching for intel. 
You coax him to roll over again onto his back. He can’t miss the heat of your gaze—the way your eyes shamelessly skirt down the broad expanse of his torso to take in the softly swelling length of his cock. He knows you relish in these moments—when all you have to do is look at him to get him going. You’re proud of yourself for it, for the effect you have on him.
It’s easy to forget, when you have him completely at your mercy like this, that you’re just as weak for him as he is for you.
”Missed you,” you mumble into his lips as you straddle his lap. 
He takes your hips in his steady grip—guides the pace as you rock against him. “It’s only been a couple days.”
”I know,” you whisper. You grind down harder than he means to allow you, drawing a deep groan from his diaphragm. “Still missed you.”
And then, because he finds it nearly impossible to lie to you: “I missed you too.”
He licks eagerly into your mouth before you can say anything, and you accept his tongue without complaint. Your fingers now move to his face, practically clawing in desperation to pull him closer and deepen the already heated kiss.
It’s been nearly a year of him hanging around here, playing his role in the act of your affair. He has you figured out to the most minute details—he knows all your wants, all your needs. He knows the exact sounds that he can draw from you when he sucks over the pulse point on your neck: a squeal as you begrudgingly push him away and mumble something about not leaving marks. He smirks and moves on to the next spot, knowing that you can’t resist for long. Knowing that you don’t even want to in the first place.
He knows that you’re eager for him in the same way he is for you—to please, to take care of. He sees it in action when you reach down and wrap your fingers around his length; when you let out a little breath at the way your fingers can’t quite fit all the way around his girth. You act surprised every time, no matter how many times he finds you in his lap like this. And he loves it—loves the way you practically soak through your little bikini bottoms at just the feel of him in your hand. 
“That’s it, bebita,” he murmurs close to your ear. “Fuck, that feels good.”
You hum your appreciation at his words, a silent thank you in the twist of your wrist and the tightening of your grip. It makes his hips jump, cock throbbing under your touch as he tries to fight your slow pace in favor of more intense stimulation. But you aren’t having it—you pin his thighs down with your weight so you can languish in torturing him.
He actually growls as your pace slows—a deep, rumbling, animalistic sound that goes straight to your panties. His restraint is slipping second by second the longer you tease him. He’s throbbing, aching in your grip; he would be embarrassed over how quickly you’ve reduced him to such a primal state if he had any blood left in his brain.
”Dámelo.” There’s nothing pleading or polite about his tone. This is a command, an instruction; an order you don’t dare disobey.
You pull away quickly, but you’re back before he can even process your absence. You’ve shifted to the end of the lounger, face deliciously close to where he’s aching to feel you.
”Relax, Javi,” you hum pleasantly. “Déjame cuidar de ti.”
”Then don’t be a fucking tease.” There’s an evident smirk in his tone, and it makes you smile as you slowly trail your tongue along his length, from the seam of his balls up to swirl around the thick, leaking tip of him.
He grunts as your lips seal around him, one thick-fingered hand coming down to gently urge you deeper. He’s not shy of being greedy with you; he knows how much you love the authoritarianism of his dominance. To let go of your mind and let him take the reigns. As much as you love to play at a power struggle, this is what you want in the end. To be controlled, to be guided. To take exactly what he gives you, exactly the way he gives it to you.
“That’s it, baby girl,” he groans with a buck of his hips that pushes him against the back of your throat. “Take it all.”
And always eager to please, you try your best to do exactly that. You open your throat as much as possible to accommodate his girth and do your best to tamp down the gag reflex that he’s bullying awake. Your nails dig into the meat of his hips as you let him guide you deeper, further—he’ll admire the little crescent moon marks later, alone in his government-issue apartment.
His unoccupied hand slips down the back of your neck and tugs at the string of your bikini top. He doesn’t get quite the view he wants with you choking on his cock, but reaching down to gently pinch and tug at your nipples is enough for him—especially with the little moans and vibrations you let out around his cock.
He tugs your hair a little harshly to pull you off of him when the pleasure compounds. You whine at the loss of his taste, and he groans at the shiny spit that links your swollen lips to his cock.
His breathless moan goes straight to your neglected cunt and makes you squirm with arousal. “Shit, sweetheart. Christ, you’re a fuckin’ dream.”
You shake your head and muster every ounce of seduction your lust-addled brain can generate as you trail open-mouthed kisses over his clenched thighs. “I’m real, Javi. And I really want you.”
Normally, he would want to get his hands on you. He would want to press his fingers deep into your cunt and languish in the embarrassing squelch of your arousal as he works you open for him. He would want to pull orgasm after orgasm from you until the pleasure is so blinding that you can do nothing but slump into his arms and take it. But you’re impatient today; it’s been more than a week since you last saw him, and that means it’s been more than a week since you felt anything remotely pleasurable. Your husband didn’t marry you for love, or even lust—he married you for convenience, for security. For cover to keep up appearances. 
Maybe Javi’s been taking advantage of that all this time—how deeply you crave the connection that you’re constantly deprived of. Maybe he should call this off now, before he takes anymore than he already has from you.
But he’s not selfless. He has his flaws, and his biggest one is that he’s irreversibly fallen in love with you. He craves that connection just as deeply as you do.
Your desperation bleeds into his veins and makes him dizzy with arousal. He nods as his throat bobs around a deep gulp. “Alright. Dealer’s choice.”
You only have to consider for a moment before you flip in his lap, bracing yourself forward on your arms in between his legs with your ass pressed snuggly against his cock. You grind lightly against him, and it’s almost enough to make him lose his head.
But just as quickly as his sensible thought leaves, it’s right back where it belongs. He grabs your hips harder than he should to drag you against his solid length and relishes in the deep moan you emit.
”Take what you need, baby,” is all the encouragement you need from him. You take him into your hand again and rise up onto your knees so you can tease his spit-soaked tip against your entrance. You look over your shoulder so you can see his reaction as you trace him around your slit; you relish in the hard set of his jaw, the clenched teeth that you can see through his parted lips as he fights the urge to slam you down hard onto him. He’d only be feeding into the bit—he knows your sole mission is to make him lose his composure. 
But it’s so hard not to when you’re looking at him like this—like he holds your very soul in the palm of his hand. The trust, the admiration, in your gaze is nearly enough to make him choke.
Thankfully, you choose this exact moment to sink down the length of him.
The sheer size of him is overwhelming on a normal day, and even more so today when you’ve not had your usual preparation. He bullies his way deep enough to fill your chest, stretching you to your very limit and maybe even past it.
But he’s prepared for it, for how staggering he can feel at first thrust. He grounds you to him with heavy hands on your hips and fits you snug against him. He whispers up at you, little encouragements and sweet nothings. His praise rings sweet and clear as he tells you how good you feel, how warm, how tight, how wet. He basks in the feeling of you soaking him all the way to the very base—in the feeling of your sweet juices dripping down him to soak the coarse patch of hair above his cock.
You pause when you feel his tip kissing your cervix, moaning in tandem with Javi at the way he twitches within your snug walls. It’s like the first time every single time you take him—you wonder if that’s what keeps him coming back for more. You’ve never heard him say he loves you, but you could believe it when you’re like this; when he starts rocking up into you with the sole intention of finding that one little spot that’ll have you shaking and sobbing in his arms.
”You’ve got this, baby,” he grunts in reassurance. “You’re takin’ it so well, honey. Tan perfecto.”
The praise runs up your spine from where you’re connected with him and lodges itself in your brain—it plays on repeat while you start bouncing your hips in an effort to match his pace. It draws a deep, heady grunt from him and pulls him into action. One hand grabs a harsh handful of your ass while you spear yourself on his length, and the other hand slides up the curve of your waist to find a nipple to roll between his expert fingers.
It baffles you, his ability to multitask. When you’re like this—filled to the very brim—all you can focus on is the delicious friction of his cock dragging against every sweet spot inside you. But Javi has a precious ability to attend to as many erogenous zones as he can all at once—something you admire more than you can put into words. His ability to rip you apart is completely unrivaled.
There’s a desperate fury to his touch as his hand slides over your hip from your ass, wrapping around you to circle your clit. It’s harsh and fast—the exact pressure that makes you tremble and scream.
And you do; you come with a cry of his name, cunt clenching around him in a vice grip that almost makes it impossible to keep up the pace. But he tries anyway—anchors your hips in his large hands so he can thrust up into you through your high.
The lounger creaks dangerously beneath you, but the sound is lost to your ears when you’re so thoroughly blinded by your pleasure.
Within a few moments Javi follows you, growling deep in his diaphragm as he spills himself hot and thick into your soaked pussy. 
You don’t think it’s ever been this messy before. All you can focus on is the hot, sticky mess slipping down your thighs. Javi can tell that it’s uncomfortable for you, so he reaches down and grabs your discarded bikini top to wipe away as much as he can. You’ve got plenty of others—and even if you don’t, your husband will buy you a new one without question.
He discards it back on the burning concrete once he’s satisfied with his clean up job, then leans back on the lounger and grabs a cigarette from the open pack on the table next to him.
He tries not to smile too much when you stay in place and snuggle into his chest. He really wasn’t a cuddler before you—but now, all he wants is to feel your warmth and weight against him.
It’s not nearly long enough before you look up at him with your pretty eyes and say, ”He’ll be home soon.”
”I’d better beat it then.” He flicks the ash off of his cigarette and pushes himself slowly to his feet—finds his swim trunks discarded on the ground at the foot of the lounger.
”Hey?” He pauses, brow furrowing at how small and timid your voice sounds in just that one word. He’s never heard that quality to your tone before, and it worries him.
”Yeah?”
”Just… please come back sooner,” you mutter. “I missed you.”
Javier Peña is a weak, weak man within these walls. He smiles the softest smile he can muster and pulls you into his arms to press a gentle kiss to your hairline. For a moment, he forgets that you’re not really his. “Okay. I will, baby.”
And he means it, even though he knows he shouldn’t.
THE END
➔ Translations: bebita - baby dámelo - give it to me déjame cuidar de ti - let me take care of you tan perfecto - so perfect
➔ A/N: thank you as always to @shakespeareanwannabe for putting up with my incessant questions and beta requests 🥹 title is from “love hurts” by nazareth
➔ Want to see more from me in the future? Follow @freelancearsonist-updates and turn on post notifications to be notified when I post new fics!
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brf-rumortrackinganon · 2 months ago
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I discovered my best friend is following ARO on Instagram. When I confronted her over this horrific betrayal, she said, “I think I like her now!” My devastation knows no bounds.
I was discussing this with my boss, a fellow royal watcher, and we decided I need to make a PowerPoint presentation, complete with citations (we are lawyers, after all), “shining a light” on MM’s numerous atrocities and proven lies over the years. I thought you would be invaluable in such a venture. Any suggestions to include would be very much appreciated!
Old ask from March 18th
Ok, so I didn't mean to sit on this one for (checks calendar) 6 MONTHS. ohhh, that's worse than I thought. Sorry, anon. Your ask got completely buried.
Anyway. I actually have been keeping a list of Meghan's lies and falsities. I don't remember when I compiled it (I feel like it might've been a 2022 thing) and I forgot I had it for a very long time. We'll probably need to crowd-source some updates to this list.
So buckle up, y'all.
Grew up an only child
Never had relationships with Sam or Tom
Grew up poor eating Sizzler buffets for splurge dinners
Didn't know who Diana was
Didn't know that Diana did Panorama interview
Lied about having a SAG card to be cast in Suits
That she was being written off Suits because she was marrying Harry
Doesn't have any family except Doria
Paid for college herself with student loans
International relations and theatre degrees from Northwestern
Merch tour of Aussie with Jess
Didn't want to serve Archie on a silver platter
Couldn't do a photo call at the hospital after Archie's birth
Wasn't in contact with Oprah
Wasn't working with UK Vogue
Lilac blazers
Couldn't wear the same color as anyone else
Could only wear neutral clothes
Wasn't dressing her child like a Victorian ghost doll
Going to get her UK citizenship
Gave up her Hollywood team
Spectacle wedding for the public
Eloped three days before with the Archbishop of Canterbury
Loves her engagement ring
Received permission from Queen to name her Lilibet
Loves Africa
Loves charity work and philanthropy
Red carpet for wedding
No tabloids in the US
All Americans have a 5am work ethic
Paparazzi chases
Plagiarism
Korean spas as a kid
Collaboration with Scobie on FF
People letter
Archewell donations and income
Family she never had
Gave up everything
IVF twins
Pregnancy announcement not at Eugenie's wedding
Loves kids
Dog too old to fly
Dog hit by car
Couldn't decorate with royal collection
Kate made Meghan cry
Warm friendly relationship with Queen
Best boss ever
She made her own banana bread
Suicidal thoughts night of Cirque du Soleil
Advised by Obamas
Children refused titles because of racism
She refuses children's titles
Pen pals with Hillary Clinton
Witnessed the LA riots
Independent grassroots journalism
Hit the ground running
5'5
worked at the embassy when she only attended a study program
Didn't know she had to curtsy to the Queen
Didn't know how to curtsy
BRF took her passport, car keys
Not allowed to go out unless just for work
Climate change/private jets
Evicted from Frogmore
Royal Family refused to help Meghan with her mental health
That Meghan was silenced
Privacy in LA
Archie was denied 24/7 protection because he wasn't a prince
Family gossip about Archie's skin color
Palace forced Meghan to take her name off Archie's birth certificate
Egg in wedding food
Not allowed to have scents in church
Meghan said the palace was locking up the birth certificate
Angela refused hair trials
Bond girl
Fire in Archie's nursery
Linked, not ranked
Archie too young to fly (summer after his birth)
Lied about her age (to work in Hollywood, narrative since corrected since marrying in)
Belly padding
Bot farms on social media
Miscarriage
Zoom calls with Cambridges during lockdown
Zoom calls with the Queen during lockdown
Flowers on Philip's casket at funeral were from Sussexes
Sussexes were invited to the Beckham wedding
Royal christening for Lili
Lili baptized
Invited to the diplomatic reception before The Queen's funeral
BFF/dog-walking buddies with Jennifer Aniston
Photoshops the children's appearances
Jimmy Fallon interview in Dec 2022
Time 100th Anniversary coverage
Bodyguard 2
she’d have 40 photographers taking pictures when she did Archie’s school run.
Sussexes declined invitation to Westminster wedding
She made the strawberry jam herself
50 jars of jam
"The Bench" was a bestseller
Visiting/staying with Oprah (Oprah was across the country at her father's bedside)
All the times she said she'd be a secret presenter at Hollywood award shows
Uvalde
Can't tailor her clothes to fit because they're from small brands/labels.
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eowynstwin · 8 months ago
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Do you have any recommendations for longer cod fics with plot?
Yeah, plenty!
A few from @391780 (and their ao3) (if you decide to explore their other fics PLEASE read the tags first, early writes some very dark work that may not suit you):
The Arrangement
The ad reads "Looking for a woman (25-45) to enter a discreet and unusual arrangement, with monetary compensation. Must fill out application and send photo.", and for some reason that you can't even fathom yourself, you apply. AKA John Price, who knows better than anyone what a liability having a spouse or partner is, decides that the only way he's going to find a beautiful soft woman to put up with his absurd schedule and dangerous job is to simply hire them.
the space in between
a shortcut through a construction site at night leads you to a run-in with john price, leader of the local crime family. (or, mafia Price romance with a desk jockey who didn't sign up to be a crime boss' obsession or sole confidant)
Into Your Veins
Ghost is a vampire during a zombie apocalypse, sent on a mission from Price to recruit you to join the little gated community of survivors that he's rounding up. You're a survivor who just wants to be left in peace to tend your garden and occasionally clear out your moat and booby traps of the undead. Neither of you gets what you'd planned on.
Then we have milk0 on ao3
Incompetent People
You share a group chat with your team and you sometimes wish you didn’t. (or, a very fun fic that started as a group chat piece and has evolved into a poly 141 romance. Otherwise known as my favorite fucking trope ever. The reader character has such a fun voice, I adore this fic.)
Next of course is @ceilidho (emphemeron on ao3) (same deal as with early—read their tags if you explore more of their fic, they also write darker work)
take me home, country road
You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description. Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au
Following up with @alittleposhtoad (smoggyfogbottom on ao3)
"it's gonna get me by the end of the night"
A year after the attack on the Urzikstan embassy, Stacy Davidson struggles to move on. Whumptober Prompt: No. 23: “It’s gonna get me by the end of the night.” Shadows | Stalking | “Who’s there?” Note: I picked Gaz x OC because this ship doesn't exist on ao3, and I wasn't sure how to classify it for searching purposes. Stacy has a minor role in the game!
oh bury me not on the lone prairie
You are a doctor on the frontier, recently widowed and left to fend for yourself. You cope by keeping a strict routine, one that is threatened by the arrival of four strangers one hazy summer night. (141 western AU)
a handsome stranger on a cold autumn day
You work at a small-town library doing the same thing day in and day out, until a handsome captain approaches your desk.
rounding out this list is @lunarvicar who is on hiatus but still fully worth reading. (you can find them here on ao3)
exit row
ghost is that hot guy at the airport you wish you could talk to. good thing your seats are next to each other on the plane and you can fantasize alllll you want. (or, you hook up with Ghost in an airport and meet, months later, after you join the 141. he is not happy about it. or is he?)
to the flame
Moth has barely escaped her first captors, but tumbles headfirst into the care of the 141. She has to decide whether to trust them and their prickly leader, Captain Price - who also happens to be the sexiest motherfucker she's ever met.
a stranger at the table
tudor era AU. John Price is an old friend of your new husband's, come to help on the farm for a season. Your vows are tested in ways you could never have imagined.
All of these I've listed are multichapter fics, but every single author's one-shots are just as good. I highly recommend reading those too!
Now I'm just going to list a few writers who you really should just take the time to go through their masterlists, because you can't go wrong with anything they write.
@yeyinde
@peachesofteal
@moondirti
@charliemwrites (dark fiction, be aware)
@ohbo-ohno (also dark fiction)
honorary mention of @guyfieriii who has removed most of her cod fiction from tumblr due to a frankly disgusting amount of harassment, but I'm sure if you ask her very very nicely she'll send you where you need to go. (seriously. be nice. or you'll see me in your bedroom holding a knife at midnight)
P.S. if you're reading this, and i've expressed love for your work in the past, but you are not on this list, it is NOT intentional exclusion. It is my absolutely horrible memory. I love you and please link your own work if you'd like!
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creedslove · 1 year ago
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MACARENA 🎊
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Javier Peña x f!reader
This came out after a delusional thought I had here and here 😳
Summary: Javi is a little carried away at a party and he's dancing, shocking everyone around him
Warnings: fluff, pure fluff, drunk!Javi being adorable, a love sick puppy 😭
A/N: idk besties, I know it's silly AF but my heart asked me to do it 😭
0.5k words ~ drabble
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"Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena
Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegría y cosa buena
Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Macarena
Hey Macarena, ay"
"How many has Javi had?!" Connie asked her husband with a frown on her face, not recognizing the usual grumpy, serious agent in front of her. Steve only scoffed and took another sip of his beer as he shrugged and wrapped his arms around his wife, so amused to watch a scene he thought he never would: Javier Peña dancing. 
Javi had many qualities that drew feminine attention, but dancing never seemed to be one of them, as he had never displayed his abilities before. Not even when he was out at bars in Colombia, or during parties at the embassy. Of course, this party was different after all, they weren't under unbearable stress for having to chase Pablo Escobar, worrying about their lives constantly. Javier wasn't the same bitter, broken man who needed to seek comfort in the arms of beautiful strangers. Instead, they were in Laredo, in a beautiful summer night, everyone was happy and celebrating, most of all Javier, who had drunk a few too many and danced without a care in the world, suit jacket long lost somewhere in the party, white shirt becoming see through with sweat and spilled drinks and tie loosened around his body. 
He was happy and for the first time in a long time, probably for the first time in his life, he felt carefree like he didn't have to look over his shoulder all the time, worrying about threats and all the horrible scenes that very often still tormented him, but this time he had other priorities, he had other people to worry about. 
When he spotted you amongst the people, he pulled you by the waist, eyeing you up and down and grinning at the sight he had of you. 
"Looking good, cariño" his smug face was enough for you to giggle, his red cheeks, sweat beads falling down his forehead making your heart melt. 
"You're looking good, Mr.Peña" you winked and placed both hands on his cheeks, squeezing them softly and leaning in for a peck, but got stopped by him 
"Sorry, you are gorgeous cariño, but I'm married now" he smirked and raised his left hand, showing you his golden band and caused you to roll your eyes "yeah? Is your wife pretty?" 
"Gorgeous!" He laughed and pulled you closer, nuzzling your neck and looking down at your beautiful, wedding dress "my wife is my queen, she saw right through the asshole I was and could see something good in me, she found love in me, she gave me a chance to live a life worth living, to have the chance to build a family with her and well, if I hadn't married her, I would propose to her right now" he said sweetly. 
Javi was exactly the kind of drunk you loved, he was affectionate, giggly and he danced. You leaned in, kissing your husband, your heart melting at how beautiful his words were. 
You were married to the man of your dreams and he loved you just as much. 
____
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mojave-pete · 3 months ago
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Republican Security Council
We feel so sorry for poor Michelle Obama and we hope she is not struggling financially.
Her Twitter bio describes her as a "Girl from the South Side" of Chicago. In her speech last night to the Democratic Convention, Mrs. Obama spoke of her mother and said “She and my father didn’t aspire to be wealthy. They were suspicious of folks who took more than they needed." What would they think of their daughter now?
According to Forbes, Michelle Obama has a net worth in excess of $70 million. The family has three residences and each one has a value in excess of $10 million. Her 30 acre beach front summer home on Martha's Vineyard has an estimated value of $20 million,
The Obama family beachfront estate in Hawaii was built on the site of the mansion used as the primary location for the 1980s hour-long action TV show Magnum P.I. The land alone cost $9 million in 2015, and despite having its own beach, the property has two swimming pools. They also own a mansion in Washington, DC's exclusive Kalorama neighborhood near the French embassy.
According to her Speaker's Bureau, Mrs. Obama receives $750,000 for an appearance and she received a $65 million advance for her memoir "Becoming". The combined Obama family wealth prior to the presidency was $1.3 million.
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falloutboylyricss · 1 month ago
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Fall Out Boy and Places
note: this post only includes names of specific places, both real and fictional
Evening Out With Your Girlfriend
"I'm deep with futures like Chicago / No, Glenview never meant a thing to me, she never meant a thing to me" - Growing Up
Take This to Your Grave
"Pete and I attacked the laws of Astoria with promise and precision" - Saturday
"Landing on a runway in Chicago, and I'm grounding all my dreams of ever really seeing California" - Homesick at Space Camp
Chicago Is So Two Years Ago (title only)
"But there's a light on in Chicago, and I know I should be home" - Chicago Is So Two Years Ago
From Under The Cork Tree
none
Infinity On High
"Put love on hold, young Hollywood is on the other line" - The (After) Life Of The Party
"And everyone's looking for relief, United States versus disbelief" - You're Crashing, But You're No Wave
"New York eyes, Chicago thighs, pushed up the window to kiss you off" - I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Fingers
Folie à Deux
"Erase myself and let go, start it over again in Mexico" - I Don't Care
"Let's hear it for America's suitehearts, but I must confess, I'm in love with my own sins" - America's Suitehearts
Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet (title only)
"Plant palm trees on Lake Michigan before it gets cold" - The (Shipped) Gold Standard
"Said, 'I'll be fine 'til the hospital or American embassy'" - What A Catch, Donnie
"And you're a bottled star, the planets align, you're just like Mars" - 27
"A Roman candle heart, keep us far apart" - Tiffany Blews
"Have you ever wanted to disappear and join a monastery, go out and preach on Manic Street?" - 20 Dollar Nose Bleed
West Coast Smoker (title only)
"Got my degree in the gutter, my heart broken in the dorms of the Ivy League" - West Coast Smoker
Save Rock And Roll
"Did you trip down twelve steps into Malibu?" - The Mighty Fall
"Bel Air baby, did you get dressed up?" - The Mighty Fall
"But we are alive here in Death Valley, but don't take love off the table yet" - Death Valley
"When Rome's in ruins, we are the lions, free of the Colosseums" - Young Volcanoes
"Americana, exotica, do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?" - Young Volcanoes
PAX AM Days
"Cargo and despair, all American made" - American Made
American Beauty/American Psycho
"You know you look so Seattle, but you feel so L.A." - Irresistible
"She's an American beauty, I'm an American psycho" - American Beauty/American Psycho
"Take me down the line, in Gem City, we turn the tide" - Uma Thurman
"In between being young and being right, you were my Versailles at night" - Fourth Of July
"There's a room in a hotel in New York City that shares our fate and deserves our pity" - Twin Skeleton's (Hotel In NYC)
MANIA
none
So Much (For) Stardust
Heaven, Iowa (title only)
"6 AM, Mulholland Drive, Moonlight Sonata and I" - Heaven, Iowa
Misc.
"I wanna put the Midwest home again" - Alpha Dog
"Sometimes, when I'm in Heaven, I get forgetful of the Earth" - Lake Effect Kid
"And joke us, joke us 'til Lakeshore Drive comes back into focus" - Lake Effect Kid
"I love you, Chicago, you make me feel so summer fling" - City In A Garden
"You know the world can get my bones, but Chicago gets my soul" - Super Fade
"Captain Planet, Arab Spring, L.A. riots, Rodney King" - We Didn't Start The Fire
"Oklahoma City bomb, Kurt Cobain, Pokémon" - We Didn't Start The Fire
"Nuclear accident, Fukushima, Japan / Crimean peninsula, Cambridge Analytica" - We Didn't Start The Fire
"More war in Afghanistan, Cubs go all the way again / Obama, Spielberg, explosion, Lebanon / Unabomber, Bobbitt, John, Bombing, Boston Marathon" - We Didn't Start The Fire
"Stranger Things, Tiger King, Ever Given, Suez" - We Didn't Start The Fire
"Elon Musk, Kaepernick, Texas failed electric grid" - We Didn't Start The Fire
"Great Pacific garbage patch, Tom DeLonge and aliens / Mars rover, Avatar, self-driving electric cars" - We Didn't Start The Fire
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cloth-fabric · 2 years ago
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Night Embassy Tokyo - Spring RTW 23
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doonarose · 1 year ago
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Precarious, But Worth It
Rating: Explicit, nsfw, no minors
Summary: Aziraphale returns to the bookshop, more cynical and in need of Crowley’s help after months of frustration and failure in heaven. They have the fight they need to have, shouting a lot of the stuff that they probably should have said quite pleasantly to each other several centuries ago. Crowley pries a love confession out of Aziraphale and then one thing leads to another and that thing is exactly what you think it is: finally getting off together against the desk.
(Un)rationale: I tried to write a quick little fight and fuck fic based on all the wonderful headcanons floating around about Aziraphale and Crowley really just needing to scream at each other for a bit and then make out like teenagers.
It grew into an 8000 word fight and fuck epic that still achieves exactly what I set out to do, it just took over my life for 48 hours. Which is fine, I haven't committed smut in almost a decade.
You can read and see the warnings at AO3 of just read the fic under the cut.
Aziraphale returns to the bookshop at three in the morning on an uncommonly warm summer night. He tries to barge straight in and upon finding the door incomprehensibly locked, expends more energy that appropriate yanking on the doorknobs until the planks of wood are shaking in their frames. Aziraphale assumes he can swan right back in, but he can’t. The door doesn’t even unlock in response to a particularly demanding miracle because Crowley is on the other side, sprawled in his armchair, urging the doors with every ounce of available willpower to remain impervious.
Crowley flicks his wrist and an old, dusty pair of sunglasses wriggles out from under some papers on the desk and fly into his hand. He slides them on with a sigh that’s just a little bit shaky.
Finally, Aziraphale relents, and it goes quiet for a moment. Then he starts pounding, fast, heavy, hard-fisted knocks against the wood. “Crowley, I know you’re in there! Let me in! This is my bookshop!”
Anger boils in Crowley’s blood, anger and shock, that Aziraphale could even think for a moment that he would just come back and walk in and start up whatever again. Because that’s why he’s here, he needs help, or he got bored, or he decided it was time to come back. Crowley allows the front door to swing open but maintains the invisible barrier that protects the entire space from anything outside that he doesn’t want coming in. He doesn’t bother getting up and is extremely careful not to even look in Aziraphale’s direction.
“Not your bookshop, not anymore,” Crowley says, voice snaking from low in his chest, quiet and oh so dangerous.
Aziraphale seethes, “Let me in.”
“Absolutely not.” Crowley tips his head back and sinks further into the armchair.
“How are you even keeping me out?”
Crowley stares at the ceiling to stop from looking at him, he wonders exactly what Aziraphale is looking at, he wonders how he can look and not implode. “Not your bookshop anymore, not a heavenly embassy, it’s mine,” is the only explanation he offers.
“Well, you still can’t keep me out.” And Aziraphale moves to step over the threshold in a flourish of his new angelic light grey overcoat which sparkles with its silver embellishment. Now Crowley watches, as fascinated and cruel as a schoolboy with a beetle under a magnifying glass, as Aziraphale’s body shifts into the door frame only to be bolted back with a flash of white lightning that burns hellish hot through him, making him yelp.
Crowley doesn’t move, remains expressionless behind the glasses, holding still even as Aziraphale cries out and recoils. But now he’s looking at him. Aziraphale’s not wearing anything Crowley’s ever seen him in: beneath the long grey overcoat is a crisp white shirt and a necktie and slacks of muted slate grey. Even his white hair has been brushed flat into carefully controlled waves. It’s sterile and exactly what Crowley imagined. Even the embroidered pattern on the overcoat looks meaningless.  
Eyeing the threshold again, Aziraphale whines, “Crowley, you have to let me in.”
Crowley chuckles darkly. “Done that one too many times, I reckon. Fool me once and all that.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“Second coming, I’ve heard.” He’s had enough, Aziraphale is back because he needs help, which doesn’t matter because there was never any reason that would have make him coming back now okay. Not after months of being gone, not after he left in the first place. Crowley stretches like a cat waking up, teases the idea of getting up and then settles back into place. He watches as Aziraphale notices for the first time the state of the bookshop, the dust and the scattered books and the dozens of lush green plants sitting atop them.
“That’s heaven’s plan, isn’t it?” Crowley says. “God’s judgement for all, erased to non-existent oblivion if you’ve ever stolen some bread, or used Her name in vain or any sin, really.” He grips the arms of the chair to stop from propelling himself up and over to Aziraphale, form saying it an inch from his face so he might actually listen. Too late for listening. “Any moment of pride or laziness or gluttony and you’re done for. Seems fair,” he says with a sardonic hiss. “Seems right.”
“Crowley, invite me in, I need to talk to you.” Aziraphale’s pleading but Crowley isn’t falling for it, acutely aware it’s a ploy, a manipulation, just the trickster angel employing the needy tone of voice he’s used for millennia to get Crowley to do his bidding.
“Absolutely not. How dare you even deign to return.”
“If you weren’t waiting for me to come back, then what are you still doing here?”
That makes Crowley pause because he’s worked very hard not to think about that, not to ponder how many centuries he will mope around the bookshop before he flings himself into some far-off corner of space – definitely not Alpha Centauri. He lies: “I wanted to be here when you realized just how catastrophically you fucked everything up,” he bites every word out, letting them trip bitterly off his tongue.
Aziraphale doesn’t look even the slightest bit bothered and Crowley hates him for that. No shame or embarrassment or regret, chin in the air, defiant, which just makes Crowley’s blood boil in his veins.
“You’ve being juvenile about things.” How dare he use that singsong, playful tone with him now. After everything.
He can’t sit still anymore, propels himself up and stalks the half a dozen steps to the door to say it: “Oh, fuck you. You destroyed everything; I’m allowed to be furious about it.”
Aziraphale looks around pointedly, leaning in as close to the bookshop as he dares. “Everything looks quite fine here, although you could have taken a moment out of your wallowing to dust.” It’s cutting, how easily Aziraphale swipes at him. 
Low and warning, Crowley just says it again because it’s easiest now to just stay angry. “Fuck. You.”
Except for just a moment, Aziraphale’s countenance fails, his hands fidget in front of him and Crowley sees past the shimmery white-grey outfit, the flattened white hair, and he clocks the fear and uncertainty in Aziraphale’s eyes. Crowley thinks he looks astoundingly anguished with his pursed lips and his deadened, defensive eyes, looks like he’s on the brink of collapse, and then that’s gone.
“If you don’t let me in both of our names are going to be scratched from the Book of Life, it could happen any moment now.”
That is a serious threat, but Crowley is still so angry. “Frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“Liar.”
They stand in stalemate, Aziraphale now leaning against the doorframe, waiting, until Crowley asks, “Why would they want to scratch you, Archangel Supreme, Effervescent Warrior-Chief of the Angels, from the Book of Life?” But he is a liar, he does give a flying fuck, perhaps not about himself, but even in his darkest, most wretched hour, he never wished Aziraphale never existed. Just the thought twists tight around his heart and chokes the breath out of him. Never seeing Aziraphale again was awful, but he had made his peace with it. Never having known him at all was unfathomable. Crowley knows immediately that he’s going to give in and help, he doesn’t have a choice.
He clicks his fingers returning the bookshop threshold to normalcy and turns to walk back into the room, trying to get his heart and his skin and his face back under control and hoping Aziraphale doesn’t notice. “Tell me what you’ve done?”
***
The anger simmers just below the surface as Aziraphale explains the second coming and heaven and why he’s back. Crowley sits with his arm across the back of the sofa, skin turned overly warm even though he’s in his thinnest jeans and just a woollen turtleneck. Aziraphale sits primly, still dwarfed by the grey overcoat that he chooses to keep on, in the armchair pulled back from what used to be his desk.
Crowley’s still angry at him for leaving and now also for coming back, he’s livid that he’s being drawn back into something worse than life and death, but that’s nothing compared to how furious he is to have to care about Aziraphale again. He keeps circling back to the idea of him never having existed, that Crowley would never have known him, wouldn’t even know to miss him.
Perhaps, most of all, he’s angry that it’s becoming abundantly clear, that Aziraphale gets it now. He’s returned from heaven cynical and candid, no longer speaking about that place, or the people in it, with any sort of adoration or wonderment, rather like it’s all gone sour on the back of his tongue. He only shows any sort of respect for God Herself, and even that is fleeting and wholly immaterial to their predicament.
At the end of all the exposition, all Crowley can offer is a drawn out, “Wellll…” and then “We’re fucked, basically.”
Aziraphale huffs and silence falls between them. Crowley should just kick him out; the situation is dire, but he has as much chance of fixing it on his own as he does with Aziraphale there. The minutes tick over, the grandfather clock’s second hand audible in the stillness of the room.
Aziraphale’s voice cuts through, quiet and careful, “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt sooner?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why did you wait until I had to leave to say what you said?”
Crowley fights the urge to throw a punch, or at the very least the hardest backhanded slap he can muster. He grips the back of the sofa with one hand and his own thigh with the other and stares Aziraphale down from behind the glasses. “You don’t get to ask me that.”
“Was it because you were scared?”
Crowley stares at him harder, eyes locked, Aziraphale unflinching even though he must be able to feel the crackle in the air, the threat of bodily harm if he continues.
“Was it because you knew that if we started something it would get back to our respective head offices and there would be consequences – ”
Crowley cuts him off with a sneer. “They would have discorporated both of us in an instant, and then hell knows what the punishments would have been. Eternal torture for me, I reckon. And perhaps something worse waiting for you in heaven.”
Aziraphale just nods and folds his hands in his lap. “And then after Adam, when we finally had our own side and no head offices, what about then?” He gives Crowley the chance to answer but he doesn’t. Then, “Were you still too scared?”
It’s like Aziraphale’s needling at him on purpose and if Crowley’s entire being wasn’t burning up he might stop to wonder why. He holds his voice remarkably level: “Fuck you Aziraphale, and I really, genuinely mean that. Was the point of this whole night to come back here and mess with me? World’s ending, book of life, blah blah blah, last chance to go and mock the snake? Has heaven turned you that cruel, that quickly?”
Aziraphale looks taken aback, as though that wasn’t what he was going for at all, but that’s certainly where he hit. “I’m simply asking why you chose to do what you did when I’d already told you I had to go to heaven – ”
“Because when else was I going to get the chance to say it? I wanted to speak first – not that it would have made a difference – because you’d already made up your stupid little mind, chosen heaven, and you were leaving.” Crowley clamps his mouth shut, presses his lips together and casts his eyes up; Aziraphale does not get to see him hurting.  
“And I was wrong,” Aziraphale says softly. “And I – I apologise, I’m very, very sorry Crowley. But I’m back now.”
Crowley keeps staring at the ceiling, hating that he can feel his eyes growing wet. He’d sooner scratch them out than start to cry. He keeps the crack out of his voice, “Don’t suppose any of it matters now. We’ll both pop out of existence sometime soon and this entire conversation won’t have ever happened.”
That should be reassuring, in a way. The pain and misery and heartache are all going to have never existed; no point crying over something that never happened. Crowley levels his gaze back at Aziraphale and presses back harder into the softness of the couch.
Aziraphale looks upset, angry, even, as though he expected something else from Crowley. “I really hate that you left us the way you did,” he says.
And the anger wells up again at the cruelty of him. “If you hate me you can leave. Again. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“That is so unfair – ”
“What’s unfair is that you left me, I told you the truth, and you chose heaven over facing up to that. You chose that shithole and all those arseholes and their bullshit instead of choosing me, instead of staying with me!”
“Because I had to,” Aziraphale snaps. “It was the only way to protect you and I thought, I thought, it was a way we could finally be together. And yes, I was wrong, but staying here, I knew Michael would end up in charge and Michael hates me almost as much as she hates you. If I was up there, I thought maybe I could fix things.”
“You thought you could fix me!” That’s enough, Crowley’s face burns with the shame of it and it’s only made worse when Aziraphale’s face morphs into pity and he reaches for him, shifting forward in his chair and reaching out. Crowley jumps to his feet and stalks straight across the shop floor, between the shelves, hiding pathetically, at least long enough to rake his hands back through his hair and slide his fingers behind his glasses to swipe away the tears that keep welling up and threatening to fall.
Aziraphale follows him, around the back of a shelf and appearing in front of him just as Crowley presses his glasses back against his eyes. “What are you even talking about?”
Crowley wheels around again, turning away with his shoulders hunched up high as he fights the urge to throw himself into the fight of it all. He only takes a few steps forward, into the centre of the shop, poised between the stairs up to his right and the door out to his left, both options promising a billion miles of space to run in any which direction. Except Aziraphale needs to admit his part in this, so Crowley turns back to him, stumbling backwards when he’s right there, brow furrowed and mouth set in a frustrated frown. “You just wanted to make me an angel again, all this time and the first opportunity to make me into precisely what I’m not and you thought that was right.”
“What? I didn’t – ”
Crowley speaks over the top of him, “Oh you did, you said, I’d be restored. That for all you cared for me, needed me, you could get heaven to fix me, to forgive me my sins. That’s what you meant when you say you wanted to save me. You didn’t even want me to be me, and instead of… You just forgave me.” It’s too honest an admission, too much, a weight lifted but just more anger settling in its place. When Crowley blinks, he feels the tears spill, catching in his eyelashes and gathering moist behind the glasses.
“That is not…” Aziraphale takes another step towards him and Crowley stumbles on the edge of the rug as he steps back, now trapped in the alcove with the desk and the armchair and all of Aziraphale’s dusty books. “I didn’t say that.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“But I didn’t mean it like that. I wanted you with me to help me. I wanted you with me so we could be us, together… And I didn’t know what you wanted me to say, you were so angry, you just gave up and – ”
“I wanted you to say you accepted me as is,” He didn’t want to have to admit that bit out loud but how could Aziraphale still not know? “I wanted you to choose me, I wanted you to say you loved me. Not that you forgave me, I’m a demon.”
Finally, realisation flickers across Aziraphale’s face, albeit, once again quickly replaced by anger. “But you must know that I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t want you to come to heaven and turn into one of them – “
“Now that you know what they’re like,” Crowley sneers.
“Yes, I mean, no, even before, I wasn’t trying to change you. You knew how I felt about you, and… and honestly, Crowley, I don’t know how many times I can apologise when you are being so wilfully obtuse – ”
“Wilfully obtuse?! And you haven’t even apologised for that particular mistake!” Crowley shouts. “And what am I meant to think, angel? I put all my cards on the table, I’m ready to spend forever with you, but instead you offered to make me your second in command for the literal end of everything and when I said no – for extremely good reason – you fucked off to heaven, anyway. And now you’ve only come back because everything’s gone to shit.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” Crowley snarls. “You’re just back here because you want someone to talk to, someone to solve your problems. You hate that I was honest, that I kissed you, which is just fine because I hate you for leaving me.”
Aziraphale is practically shaking with barely contained rage, defiant in it but also seemingly about to stomp his feet and start screaming for the sake of it. “I do not hate that you were honest, or that you kissed me, and I do hate that I left you, but I am back now and I don’t know what else you bloody well want from me.”
Crowley laughs, miserable and half caught in his throat. “You still can’t even admit you love me!” he challenges, driving the knife into his own heart some more.
Aziraphale roars back: “Well, technically, neither can you!”
That stops everything in its tracks. It’s nonsensical to Crowley for a long moment – of course he loves Aziraphale, of course he does – and it’s unclear what Aziraphale is even getting at. It’s that delay in logical thought that lets Aziraphale say it, voice going soft, still angry, and fiercely honest, “I do, though, I do love you and I think it’s more than anyone has ever loved anything or anyone in over six thousand years. It’s… a lot.”
It punches the air right out of Crowley, square in the guts like a freight train; even though he knew it to be true, he’d given up on ever, ever hearing it. Eventually he takes in a shuddering breath. It doesn’t change anything, though. “I knew,’ he admits, as quiet as Aziraphale now. “I know.”
The anger remains, just beneath the surface, frustration at the world, at heaven and hell and God, pooling and mixing with the abject fear of non-existence and what comes next which provokes the tiniest, most pathetic glimmer of some sort of hope.
Aziraphale watches him, hands balled into fists at this sides. “Do you know, though, really?”
Crowley nods, “I do,” of course he knows but somehow Aziraphale doesn’t seem to believe him, his head shaking just slightly from side to side until it’s not, and he’s nodding to himself, like he’s made up his mind.
"You don’t.” And then Aziraphale’s on him and it’s too much, too fast, and it’s everything.
Aziraphale’s mouth, hot and wet and pressing so insistently at his, hard enough to feel the teeth through their lips and to know he’s stopped breathing. Aziraphale grabs him, rough scratching handfuls of the wool at his chest pulling Crowley into his body and then pushing him back against the desk, catching him there, and then not stopping, pressing up hard and close and Crowley’s forced to slide back, arse on the edge, wood digging into his thighs when Aziraphale step into the gap between them and is covering him completely.
Crowley’s hands searching blindly for purchase on the desk, three books and the plant perched on top of them tumble to the floor and then it takes a split second for Crowley’s body to give in completely and utterly. And then only a second beyond that for Crowley to consciously decide that if this is the moment they’re burned from existence, at least it’s at the very top of their game.
He kisses Aziraphale back, a hand into his stupidly coifed hair, intent on ruining it, and the other wrapping around the middle of his back, hand grabbing at the softer-than-it-looks velvet – he discovers – of the stupid angelic overcoat.
Aziraphale is licking at his lips, increasingly wet and demanding, and not very angelic at all. Crowley chases the touch and closeness, mouth falling open and he can’t help but moan at the feeling of Aziraphale licking inside, searching out the inner heat and slick of his top and then his bottom lip, back again and again and then inside, across Crowley’s teeth and then darting up behind. Aziraphale tastes and smells the way he’s meant to taste this close, the disinfected, bleached smell of heaven dissipating as it’s overwhelmed with earthy, sweet, Aziraphale.  
They kiss raw and open and messy, without any finesse and there’s still a recess in Crowley’s mind that holds onto the anger, and another stuck cornered by fear. Any moment… any moment he won’t just lose this, it will never have happened.
The thought and Aziraphale’s teeth closing around his bottom lip, biting and sucking, pulls a pained whimper from him that he’s never heard himself make before and Aziraphale pulls back, eyes wild, a question there. Are we really doing this?
And Crowley drags him back down. More warm, flushed, heady kisses, too much spit and too many little sounds of surprise and surrender. Aziraphale’s hands eventually find there way up Crowley’s chest to his neck, dipping inside the turtleneck to skirt a thumb over his Adam’s apple, to scratch fingernails across the nape. Around his jaw and into his hair, angling him and guiding him until Aziraphale can pull his lips from Crowley’s mouth and kiss across his cheek, still too sticky-wet and remarkably tender as Aziraphale tilts his face to kiss and then nuzzle at his temple, sucking in the smell of his hair through his nose even as Crowley pants against his neck.
Aziraphale’s hands find Crowley’s glasses and tentatively, he slips them off to reveal Crowley’s amber irises, ignited, glaring, defiant and turned on, his lashes wet and clumped and the skin just beneath his eyes still tear-stained. A soft, gentle, “Oh,” escapes Aziraphale’s lips as he holds Crowley’s face in his hands. “Oh, I never, ever meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry I…” He presses his mouth to Crowley’s temple as Crowley’s eyes flutter closed. Azirapahle presses three small kisses, moving in towards the hollow of his eye socket and then down, ever so careful, kissing at the salt and his eyelashes. Aziraphale’s thumbs press and knead at Crowley’s temples and then he kisses up his nose, from the tip to the bridge to his forehead, and then across each closed eyelid. He traces that path again and again, soft and tender, until Crowley’s left clinging to him, a heavy, hunched weight in his arms, face upturned and revelling in the affection.
When Crowley smiles, easy and open, as his eyes glowing, Aziraphale takes it as his penance served, and returns to Crowley’s mouth. He kisses him deeply, pouring such heart into it that Crowley can almost feel his eyes welling up again. But then, Aziraphale tilts his head, and shifts to kiss from the other side of Crowley’s face, and very quickly, it all stops being tender and soft, and shifts to urgent and hot and desperate.
The unmistakable press and pull of Aziraphale’s tongue in and against Crowley’s, rhythmic and insisting, sets them on the course for more. It bolts straight down Crowley’s spine, out to his fingertips, and into his cock which was already half-hard, but now gives a twitch that he feels reverberate into his thighs. Even in his wildest dreams, he never imagined… Even twelve seconds ago, he thought he would take his chance to kiss Aziraphale until their lips were numb and the sun was high in the sky and then that would be it. That or they’d kiss until they stopped existing.
Aziraphale’s mouth has found his jaw again, no longer content just with wet, warm kisses, he’s biting, raking his teeth along the bone there and then stopping to suck until the blood vessels burst and blossom into marks. It’s pulling needy, downright embarrassing noises from Crowley but he doesn’t have the cognizance to care right now. Instead, he twists his neck to try to give Aziraphale the best access, choking on a moan as his eyes flicker open to catch Aziraphale throwing him a smirk before he latches back on to the spot just below Crowley’s ear and sucks.
Tugging the neck of the turtleneck down, Aziraphale murmurs something displeased, unable to get to enough of Crowley’s skin with the scratchy wool caught between his chin and the column of Crowley’s throat.
As Aziraphale bites another mark into Crowley’s jaw, he murmurs, “You don’t know how much time I thought about this in heaven,” and Crowley arches beneath him.
Crowley had been aware that he was fully hard in his jeans, straining against the denim and dribbling a wet spot into the cotton of his underpants, and now, with the forceful push of Aziraphale’s hips in to meet Crowley’s arch, inching him forward on the desk, he can feel the unmistakable pressure of Aziraphale’s own Effort. It’s equally hard, hot and over-whelming, and, still tripping over thoughts to respond to Aziraphale’s confession, it drags a plea from Crowley, “Fuck, Angel, really?”
Aziraphale kisses the underside of Crowley’s jaw. “I hated it there, almost as soon as I arrived. I missed you. And you’d just kissed me. And so I thought of this, of us.” He tries to kiss down beneath the turtleneck again and growls his frustration into Crowley’s ear when the wool gets in his way. “I wasn’t sure if they would know but I couldn’t help myself.”
Aziraphale’s hands race over Crowley’s shoulders, down his arms and his back, feather-light even through the wool, over his ribs and down to his waist. The material has already ridden up, escaped where Crowley’s jeans have slipped dangerously low around his hips, and there’s a strip of pale naked skin there. Aziraphale’s fingers find it before he pulls all the way back to watch as they caress across, from hipbone to the teasing line of flame-red hair just above the belt buckle. Crowley doesn’t breathe but somehow his belly still trembles, he wonders if Aziraphale can see that the hair grows thicker the further down he goes, that it’s ticklish and painful and burning hot all at once when Aziraphale scratches his nails through it, catching ever so slightly. Surely the unmistakable bulge in his trousers is obvious, too. And he just wills Aziraphale to touch him.  
“I want more,” Aziraphale says, both hands petting back and forth across Crowley’s skin.
“Anything,” Crowley manages.
His hands slip instantly under the wool of the turtleneck, flat to Crowley’s stomach but not wasting any time. Aziraphale pushes them up, over Crowley’s chest and Crowley raises his arms obliging so that the garment can be slipped easily over his head.
Dropping it to the side, Aziraphale looks positively ravenous in the moment he takes to rake his eyes over Crowley’s chest – pale and flecked with red hair, dusky red nipples, and really nothing Aziraphale hasn’t seen before – and then press his whole face into Crowley’s neck.
Biting, licking, blowing cold air just to watch the stretch and tilt that Crowley reacts with, to listen to the sounds he can drag from him. He takes his time but works quickly, finding the spot where he can feel Crowley’s pulse against his tongue before he descends to mouth across one clavicle and then the other.
“My turn,” Crowley growls, only when it’s become a mantra in his head and he can’t stop himself. Aziraphale looks startled, like he was lost in the skin under his mouth. But Crowley doesn’t wait, both hands going to that dreadful, over-starched tie, ready to yank it free and drag it from Aziraphale’s neck –
“Hell, that’s a clip-on!” he’s utterly repulsed and Aziraphale laughs at him.
“I tried to get them to give me a bowtie, or even just a proper tie, but they said this was more practical.” Aziraphale pouts, his lips kissed red and slick, his hair increasingly back to the twisted curls and tufts that Crowley loves. “I think it’s ghastly.”
“Well fuck that then,” Crowley says and then yanks the offending item away, flinging it halfway across the shop. He then sets to work on the buttons of Aziraphale’s shirt which he instantly finds over-starched and the buttons, frustratingly, just a little too big for the buttonholes. Two buttons down though, and he can get a kiss to Aziraphale’s neck that draws a sigh of delight. More buttons and he can lean down his chest, burying his face in the white curls and breathing in before he bites across a pectoral muscle and closes his mouth around a pretty pink nipple.
“Jesus,” escapes Aziraphale, all high pitched and breathless as his hands thread into Crowley’s hair and twist.
That hitches Crowley’s breath and he rewards it with his teeth, gently nipping at the skin just beneath. “Blasphemy,” Crowley teases and then shifts to lick across to the nipple on the other side. In some dim corner of his mind, he really can’t believe he’s doing this, that Aziraphale is letting him do this.  
Rather, Aziraphale is asking him to do it, because his hands are still racing tracks across the planes of Crowley’s naked back and his chest and his belly, rougher each time through the descending line of hair there, scratching lines across his belly button on the next pass, and then teasing at the belt with his thumb. And he’s babbling, still coherent and overly verbose, but clearly struggling: “Crowley… Crowley dearest, I… uh – I need you closer.” He pulls his face up to his and kisses him off-centre on the mouth. “I need – ” he keens as Crowley cuts him off with a bite to his lip. “I need all of you.”
“You have me,” Crowley admits, against his better judgement and all rational thought, and as Aziraphale’s hands drop to his belt with clear intent, Crowley’s own start to push back Aziraphale’s already hanging open shirt and the heavy velvet monstrosity of a jacket that lays on top of it.
Except he simply can’t get the garments off Aziraphale while Aziraphale still has his hands on him. Suddenly, the belt buckle springs open and the leather strap that encircles Crowley’s waist is being yanked all the way free and getting to Aziraphale’s shoulders stops being a priority. Crowley’s hands race to the clasp of Aziraphale’s trousers: another blaster button, then another and then a zip. It’s a race with only winners and a scramble of fingers and fabric and Aziraphale’s still trying to kiss him through it.
Then he gets his hands inside Aziraphale’s trousers, pushes his pants down his thighs, letting Aziraphale’s cock fall into his palm and it’s hot and hard and so very right. They should have been doing this for six thousand years. And then Aziraphale’s hand, hot and slick with spit or sweat – it doesn’t matter – has slipped under the waistband of Crowley’s pants and wrapped around his aching erection.
Aziraphale strokes maddeningly slowly from base to tip and Crowley groans out an, “Oh fuck,” as his own grip tightens around Aziraphale.
Aziraphale continues to stroke, too slow and not quite tight enough but still better than any feeling Crowley’s ever experienced. Crowley’s mouth hangs uselessly open in a permanent gasp and so Aziraphale gives up trying to coordinate kissing him and just rests his head against Crowley’s shoulder. Together, they stare down at the complete lack of space between them, trousers still caught, clinging to their hips, their cocks and hands shades of red and pink and pale cream, coarse curls of starkly contrasting hair scratching against each other. “I’ve got you,” Aziraphale murmurs, all wonderment and potent pleasure. “I’ve always got you.”
He lets his hand leave Crowley’s cock to twitch between them, catching against the backs of Crowley’s fingers where they’re still wrapped around Aziraphale. Aziraphale grips Crowley’s hips and pulls him forward, right to the edge of the desk and it instinctively makes Crowley’s hands loose from Aziraphale’s cock and hip, flung out to grab onto the wood so he can steady himself. His legs come up of their own volition to wrap tight around Aziraphale’s hips. His stupid jeans are still on though, the waistband across his ass cutting into the skin as it’s pulled tight and low, the cold sharpness of the undone zipper framing his dick, uncomfortably tight just below his balls and Crowley has to silently will more give into the material to let him stay like this, wrapped around Aziraphale.
Then their cocks catch between them, lined up perfectly, caught between bellies and scratchy hair and the heat of it all. Aziraphale gives an experimental rock of his hips and it’s glorious if entirely not enough and too dry and at an awkward angle.
And perhaps it’s all too much, too fast. Crowley had given up on ever seeing him again only half an hour ago, had despised him enough to want to never see him again even more recently. And now… now they’re this. Everything and raw and vulnerable and Aziraphale has him.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you for leaving,” Crowley says and somehow he thinks maybe it will come off playful and teasing, but he still regrets it as soon as the words spill out. He’s baiting Aziraphale and for what?
Aziraphale pulls back but his hips remain tightly pressed into Crowley’s, holding him up on the desk. A flash of hurt crosses his vulnerable face and Crowley feels it prickle at his heart.
He wants to take it back, but he can’t, so he just tilts his hips down, rolls them and grinds and tries to get the leverage from his grip on the desk to make them both feel good in some sort of tactile, sybaritic apology.  
Aziraphale chokes on a soft, mewling, desperate sound and then asks, “Do you love me, though?”
Crowley blinks, frozen, feels the heavy breaths being drawn deep into Aziraphale’s belly against him, the coolness of the sweat across his own chest, the thrum and thump of the blood in his veins, all the way down through his cock and right up against the heartbeat of Aziraphale.
He knows. He must know.
“Because you’ve not, technically, actually said,” Aziraphale says.
Oh. “Oh, yes. Yes, I – yes completely – ” He still hasn’t said it, and when he does it’s more matter-of-fact, less romantic than what Aziraphale probably wants. “I love you. I love you entirely, all-consumingly. I’ve loved you since… A long time. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.”
Aziraphale kisses his lips, simple presses, messy and hot with everything that’s come before. “We can work on the forgiveness stuff later then?” And Aziraphale breathes, reaching in between them, hand wrapping around them both and stroking again from root to tip.
“Yes,” Crowley hisses, head falling back for a moment, lax in his relief but his grip on the table and around Aziraphale’s waist still tight, straining. Aziraphale continues to stroke, both of them hard and in hand, haphazard and the pressure relegated more to one side because he can’t possibly make a proper fist around the weight and the heat of them but it doesn’t matter. “Yes, just like that,” Crowley encourages as he brings his mouth back to Aziraphale’s.
Another dirty kiss, sumptuous and slow, just tongues and heavy breathing, grunts and moans as Crowley tries to angle up just right, and Aziraphale tries for the right kind of friction. Unbidden, Aziraphale confesses into the corner of Crowley lips, “I really want to get my mouth on you.”
It draws a new, higher pitched keening cry from Crowley and he’s too close, that could be the end of it except he still wants more. “Next time,” he mumbles, “Next time, I promise,” and he wills that reality into existence.
Aziraphale grunts and his hand retreats, Crowley arches to maintain the friction, lets go of the desk for a moment but almost topples, and then whines to try to convince Aziraphale to touch him again. Aziraphale’s lips leave his and Crowley chases, eyes still closed as he tries to narrow in on the growing pleasure between them – that’s what he wants and he’s gluttonous for it, lusting after it, happily sinful if Aziraphale would just give it to him.
But instead it’s Aziraphale’s fingers on his lips, pushing inside, three of them, and Crowley’s eyes open with a start. “Suck,” Aziraphale says, low and rough in a way that makes Crowley’s balls tighten and his cock throb, a heavy drop of precome pulsing out onto their stomachs.
He sucks, diligently, wetly, refusing to swallow anything until the spit is dripping down his own chin and Aziraphale’s wrist and Crowley’s watching him look absolutely rabid with it. When Aziraphale wraps his hand around them again, it’s slick with precome and Crowley’s spit and from the drag of that first blissful stroke, Crowley wonders if Aziraphale’s miracled up even more slick than he could take from his mouth.
Lips against his, the squeeze and stroke of their cocks together is certainly too much now and Crowley can feel his spine turning to liquid. He can’t kiss, can only breathe and chase the touch with the tilt of his hips and the low, guttural groans escaping his lips.
Aziraphale remains strikingly coherent. “Tell me about next time, Crowley?” and he gives a devilish smile that Crowley can sense against his cheek. “What will we do?”
“Everything,” Crowley manages as Aziraphale’s hand catches just below the head of his cock and twists.
Aziraphale hums against his cheek, begging more.    
“Anything you’ll let me,” Crowley confides, biting the inside of his cheek and then at Aziraphale’s neck to hold himself together.
“Tell me,” Aziraphale says and his thumb slicks across the wetness right at the tip of Crowley’s cock, pressing in on it and swirling it around and then grinning delightedly at the little, involuntary buck of Crowley’s hips.
Crowley breathes out, squeezes his legs around Aziraphale’s waist and he’s so close, he could come if Aziraphale would just let him. “Angel,” he warns.
“I’d let you do anything,” Aziraphale tells him and finally the crack in his voice gives away just how close he is as well. “I want you to take me apart.”
That would have been the end of him except Aziraphale grips the base of them both and then stills. As though he can feel just how close things are, and still wants to drag it out, he unwraps his hand and then and then dances his fingertips up along the damp line of hair to Crowley’s bellybutton. “Tell me about next time,” he demands.
Crowley leaves the mark he’s bitten into Aziraphale’s neck, knowing they can miracle it away afterwards but hoping desperately, that they won’t. He just wants and if Aziraphale wasn’t holding him up against the desk, Crowley’s sure he could have Aziraphale up against a wall or a bookshelf or on the floor. That’s next time, and his hips rock up at the thought. He grabs handfuls of Aziraphale’s arse, his grip under the overcoat but over the fabric of his trousers, and grinds hard against him.
“Next time, everything,” he says and Aziraphale scratches down his chest and grips their cocks together again. He doesn’t move though, stares at Crowley, eyes locked, waiting for the assurance, for a promise.
Crowley licks his lips. “Next time, you’ll let me fuck you, won’t you, angel?”
Aziraphale’s lips fall open and he nods. He starts to stroke again and immediately they’re both shuddering into it, half-aborted spasms of their hips as they both hold taut and try to make the moment stretch but now they really are too far gone, they’re going to come just like this, on a desk, in their bookshop, half dressed, and frantic and not quite forgiven.
Crowley wants to make him come first, though, wants to watch him fall apart, wants that small victory and he can see what his words are doing. Unfathomable reactions from his imperfect, beautiful angel, even as Aziraphale touches him like sin and presses him hard enough into the edge of the desk to leave bruises.
“Next time, you’ll let me open you up with my fingers, you’ll let me take my time, you’ll let me use my tongue.” Aziraphale moans and thrusts up into the fist of his hand, along the length of Crowley’s cock and it makes him stutter. “Or… or maybe you can do all that to me? Next time, or the time after – ”
Crowley doesn’t know how’s he’s still in one piece, the steady leak of liquid from his cock, from Aziraphale’s and now it’s almost too wet, too slick, too hot, too much, the sharp tug and drag of Aziraphale’s hand bordering on pain because he’s been holding himself back for too long, but he needs to take Aziraphale, need to see him fall apart, needs to know it’s just as bad for him.
Crowley arches back, forces his eyes open so he can see Aziraphale, sweating and breathing stop-starting and heavy, chest and cheeks flushed, and one hand working fast over both of them even as the other continues to hold on to Crowley by the back of his neck.
“Look at you, you’re gagging for it,” Crowley reveals before he can stop himself and Aziraphale’s eyes snap open and up and instead of being affronted, he just grins lascivious and shy in equal measure. “My angel and all you want in the world right now is to get those pretty little lips wrapped around my cock so you can swallow me whole and – ”
Aziraphale’s eyes fall shut and he clings to Crowley, hand tightening around them both as his cock spasms and he rocks hard into Crowley’s hips. He breathes out an almost silent ‘Fuck!’ as he starts to come.
And Crowley feels the throb of him, sees him spilling, pearly white, warm and viscous, between them with a look of such deep concentration and bliss painted across his upturned face, and that’s all it takes to push him off the precipice.
Precarious, but worth it, he lets go of the desk with one hand and wraps it over the top of Aziraphale’s, fingers sliding between his and grasping where they’re hard and blood-filled and intimate, tight and hot and sliding as everything inside him breaks like a wave crashing on rocks.
Crowley shudders and chases every last pulse of pleasure, every last twitch from either of them, the back and forth of friction and reaction dragging it out while Aziraphale breathes hot and hitched against his ear and Crowley finds skin to dig his teeth into. They hold there until their hands still, and then their bodies, and finally their breath. Then it’s just Crowley’s hand interlaced with Aziraphale’s around their softening, over-sensitive cocks, and an ungodly mess of spit and sweat and come.
They disentangle slowly, fingers refusing to leave each other’s and their linked hands settling clasped somewhere between their chests. Crowley’s legs unloop from Aziraphale’s back and his feet find gravity and support on the floor even as his jeans slip immediately down to his knees when Aziraphale takes a half a step backwards to give him just enough space to stand in. They lean forehead to forehead and Crowley debates what to do about his pants, about the mess, about the fact that he’s still thinking about Aziraphale’s mouth on him and that that feels like it’s making his blood change direction in his veins.
“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts his train of thought which is probably for the best. “I’ll clean us up?”
He mumbles something, finding his tongue heavy and not quite correctly connected to his brain yet, but it must sound affirmative because with a flick of Aziraphale’s wrist, everything is clean and dry and, even though it’s disgusting, Crowley instantly misses it. His jeans have even inched their way back up his thighs, to the point where they can’t make any further headway because Aziraphale’s still pressed too close to him.
With an obvious look of reluctance, Aziraphale steps further back and Crowley catches his jeans and hikes them back up over his hips.
Aziraphale clears his throat. “I think… I hope…. Well, I think we should probably save the earth. And if not the earth, at least ourselves.”
The hanging dread of everything comes crashing back in, but something in Crowley is defiant in having at least experienced this before he’s wiped from existence. Some romantic, irrational part of him even begins to think that the enormity of his love would survive him never having existed. “Yes,” he says in answer to Aziraphale’s hopeful, beaming face, still flushed and his lips kissed red, a scattering of red marks across his neck and chest and two that are already purple. Aziraphale hadn’t cleaned any of that up and it makes Crowley feel ambitious. “But probably the earth as well. I know you like it here.”
“Yes, please,” Aziraphale says. “And then I think we should talk.”
“Of course.”
Aziraphale’s tucked himself back into his trousers and done up both buttons. His hands find Crowley’s again, clean and smooth, their fingers interlacing and tugging. “Just… I think we can figure this out. I think one day you’ll forgive me, and I promise I won’t ever try and forgive you again.”
Crowley huffs at that, but it’s a foregone conclusion. “I can do better as well,” he admits. “And we will work this out. This and the Book of Life bollocks.” He brings one of Aziraphale’s hands up to his mouth to kiss across the knuckles, immediately turned on again to find them still, ever so slightly smelling and tasting of them both together. Metallic and bitter and filthy and he knows Aziraphale left that there, either for Crowley or for himself and his eyes go wide with the unexpectedness of it. “Just please, please promise we can do this again…” He sucks on a knuckle and looks at Aziraphale through his lashes as he does it.
“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes out. “Yes, most definitely.” Crowley moves to suck at another knuckle but before he can be too drawn into it, Aziraphale’s pulling his hand back with a pout. “Book of life, my love.”
Crowley thrills at the new pet name and tries to keep from preening. “Stop the second coming, save the world, and then lunch at the Ritz?” he asks, shifting to focus on the enormity of the task ahead even as he tries to draw one more smile from Aziraphale.    
Aziraphale gives him a look, a soft little grin and an arch of his eyebrows, a playful warning. “I believe you already know what I’ll be putting my mouth around once all this is taken care of and it is most certainly not lunch at the Ritz. Best get on with it!”
And even though in that moment Crowley’s balks, a choked laugh escaping him as Aziraphale grins, they do get on with it. All of it. Everything.
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shroudkeeper · 1 year ago
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04. prompt / off the hook
Taking time away from my schedule was something I had to comply with the orders of the oyabun; the public must see us together, regardless of whether or not she needed me to be with her or not. Deterring from my set schedule took some adjusting, especially when I handled most of the matters concerning the cargo we received from our collaborators overseas. Usually, such walks were quiet between us: I observed, offered assistance when necessary, and then returned her home before I continued my work.
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Until we crossed the Garlean embassy on our way to the garden this summer afternoon. Nary a hint of rain was found in the heavens, yet a heavy cloud seemed to form above her as we proceeded closer to the ones stationed there.
Strong she may be, fighting horrific monstrosities that dare cross her path, yet mortals were monsters in their own right. I could see their gestures, the lascivious glance made at her passing, the crude remarks that followed. swiftly behind them.
Their words were not kept in a volume made for whispers; deliberately the hyur simpered in her direction, and when she did not react in the matter he wished, the word savage escaped their lips.
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Lady Takahashi was to represent her clan, the grace and poise of a woman who was dignified, but words were no different than invisible blades, and I could see that it had cut into her pride from how her shoulders slackened briefly before she regained her lost composure. I started to wonder if this happened before, and how many moments such as these has she endured?
They perhaps thought little of my presence, for who would dare assault someone right before the embassy? It was asking for trouble that would involve the Sekiseigumi. Even if we had them in our pockets, this would escalate beyond the control of the oyabun.
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Regardless, while they found entertainment at her expense, I burned the image of his features, every detail about his person, into memory. Our clan was not to be ridiculed, least of all one who was undeserving of such unpleasant attention.
She may let him off the hook and ignore their insulting behavior.
But she and I were two different people.
My men were in the area, and with one command, they provided me with the entire schedule of the man, whom I came to discover was named Festus. During the evenings, he would head over to the Shiokaze and drink his koban away with his compatriots.
Unfortunately, tonight.. he would not meet them.
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But me instead.
Patience is something I taught her, that practicing that will grant her all she would need, and that lesson would bear fruit this day. Dressed as a Westerner, I crossed his path when he was found unattended, and under the cover of night's veil, where the lantern's glow did not grace the stone at my feet, gave him a reminder of what the definition of savage truthfully was.
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His flesh bruised faster than a ripened fruit left out too long; malleable it became under the strikes of my fists with each blow to the face. He crumbled like wet origami at my feet in heaves and couldn't gather himself upright when I commanded it of him; I politely would offer my assistance by taking hold of his slender throat to raise him high enough to my gaze. There was no hiss, no curse spat at him, rather I offered a calm warning, one that I hope not to ever find a reason in repeating.
"Disrespect my betrothed again and I shall give you cause to hide your face behind that unsightly mask. Remember the face you wear currently, and who did it to you."
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penna-nomen · 6 months ago
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Music Monday on whatever today is
I've lost all track of what day of the week it is! Thanks for the tag @a-noble-dragon!
Rules: Choose a few fics you wrote that were inspired by a song - not just with song lyrics in title - and share the tune and the link to the fics. If anyone wants to guess which goes with which go for it in comments or tags!
This made me laugh, because a big part of my Caffrey Conversation series is the idea that the Caffrey family is obsessed with music. Many of the stories were inspired by multiple songs, which are featured in the story either as being sung or as chapter titles or both.
For instance:
Caffrey Conversation, set in December 2003. Songs: Meet Me in St. Louis, Little Drummer Boy, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The Alphabet Song (yes, as in A B C D...) -- I had a lot of fun with loopy Neal
Caffrey Choirboy, set in December 2003. Songs: Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming, Various songs by Coldplay and Muse, Young at Heart
In the Driver's Seat, set in December 2003. Songs: Dream a Little Dream of Me, Stormy Weather, O Holy Night, Respect
By the Book, set at the end of 2003 & start of 2004. Songs: BBC's Pride & Prejudice soundtrack, My Sacrifice, The Reason, My Own Worst Enemy, My Immortal, With a Little Help From My Friends, Candle in the Wind
Caffrey Flashback, set in February - March 2004. Songs: Me Against the World, Broken, Young at Heart, Let it Be, Roads Untraveled (not released in 2004 but inspirational for the funeral scene), Nobody Knows the Trouble, The Waiting, Au Clair de la Lune, Coldplay's Trouble, Nothing Else Matters, Fix You, Yesterday, You're so Vain, Why Can't You Behave, You Are My Lucky Star, Wanted
Caffrey Disclosure, set in summer 2004, where one of the cases involves taking down a corrupt music executive by pretending to be up-and-coming rock stars. Songs: Liszt's La Campanella, Let Me Be Myself, Are You Happy Now, Firework (yeah, not released in 2004 but still inspirational for the 4th of July chapters), Carry on Wayward Son, Danny Boy, My Hero, Disappear, Runaway Train, Muse: Apocalypse Please & Time is Running Out, It's Hard to be Humble, I'm Too Sexy, Easier to Run, I Wanna Be a Cowboy, I Love a Rainy Night, Ave Maria, Help Me Rhonda, A Spoonful of Sugar, You've Got a Friend, Eye of the Tiger, Sailing, Fly Like an Eagle, Steve McQueen, I Am a Rock, Hanging by a Moment, I'll Be, Here I Go Again, Tomorrow, Someone Waits for You, Everybody Hurts, The Embassy Waltz
Caffrey Aloha, set in Dec 2004 - January 2005. Songs: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, If Only I Had a Brain, Let There Be Peace On Earth, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Silver Bells, Footloose, Sorcerer's Apprentice song from Disney's Fantasia
Lavender Dreams, set in summer 2006. Songs: Once Upon a Dream, Dream a Little Dream of Me, All I Have to Do is Dream, A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Day Dream Believer, Nessun Dorma, River of Dreams, Impossible Dream, Dream On, Purple Rain, Zing Went the Strings of My Heart, Lay Your Hands on Me, La Bamba
I could go on, but you get the idea...
And I'll tag @thesymphonytrue because I know you're into music, too. Open tag to anyone else who's tempted
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lifewtr · 1 year ago
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and the difference is this | M+ | 1/7
After a horrible moment that leaves her befuddled, Katara seeks out the most undesirable route to her problem. For Zutara Week 2023 (@zutaraweek), Day 5 + 6: Respite, Forge.
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Katara stares at the envelope in her lap. Sighs. The bleak scent of antiseptic clean burns its way up her nose and stings at the back of her eyes, pricking harshly at her tear ducts. 72 hours in this hospital bed, and you’d think she’d be used to the smell of 99.99% nothing by now.
“..checked for underlying abnormalities, of course. There were none,” her doctor, an older woman with a shock of long, white hair, continues explaining details that flow through one ear and out of the other. Katara understands innately, by the tone of the doctor’s voice, that the woman is only trying to do her job in reassuring her that everything is going to be fine; at least, as fine as can be considering the circumstances, but...
‘But,’ Katara thinks as she stares, unseeing, at the corners of the paper, ‘it seems the shock has finally caught up with me.’
Just yesterday—no. Three days ago, Katara had landed in Yu Dao with nary a thought to her wellbeing aside from, maybe, the headache she would surely acquire from the week of back to back meetings that had awaited her. Always the prepared one—always mindful of her blood and the disdain the rest of the world tended to dish at those like her because of it—she had carefully and meticulously planned her trip in order to encounter the least amount of resistance possible. Her cycle was on track. The usual scent and pheromone suppressants necessary to navigate life outside of the South Pole were introduced into her system normally, just two weeks prior. She had even gone out of her way to get well and thoroughly debauched the night before her morning flight—just in case.
Imagine her surprise when, only a few short hours after checking into the lodging at the Embassy and venturing out for something to eat, she’d nearly fainted with the dizzying onset symptoms of pre-heat.
She hadn't been able to get to the nearest emergency clinic fast enough. In hindsight she discerned that returning to the Embassy was the smarter thing to do, but in her bit of panic, in her bit of pre-heat, the only thing that had been on her mind was making it fucking stop.
The emergency clinic staff had gotten one whiff of her—one look at the wad of cash she’d dug out of her purse—and then promptly stuck her in an empty room in an unoccupied wing. Three cups of ice chips and a hefty injection of the fastest-acting heat inhibitor on hand later, Katara remembered who she was, where she was, why, and did not stay for paperwork or questions.
Thank La for money.
Frazzled, upset at her body’s strange bout of betrayal, and undeniably starving after the brief stint of overtime her immune system had just pulled, Katara ordered delivery on her walk back to the Embassy in the hopes that it would arrive before she did. ‘The most random thing just happened,’ she’d texted Suki the details, not one to alarm the entirety of her family if it wasn’t bad-bad, and left a shorter, though similar voicemail for her primary care physician back home. The instant relief of the heat inhibitor and the late-summer air of the evening on her walk back to her lodging had calmed her into concluding that it really was a freak occurrence—it wasn’t her first time in Yu Dao, but she did used to get ill when hopping from country to country as a kid. She’d concluded, with the distant mind of someone used to compartmentalizing their immediate issues in the face of tasks-needing-to-be-completed, that the incident was similar. She took a plane into the city this time around, and maybe she should just stick to boats.
The food she’d ordered had indeed been waiting for her by the time she’d flashed her badge at the guards posted at the Embassy’s western entrance, and then again at the receptionists desk where she gleefully collected it from. ‘See? Everything is fine,’ she’d told herself while swiping the keycard to her suite. She felt good, considering, and then even better once she’d tucked into her steaming plate of korma-smothered komodo chicken. She reviewed a few notes on her tablet while she sipped away at her rose-milk, as she definitely would be at that meeting first thing in the morning, and did not resist when fatigue finally poked at her.
‘Fine,’ she remembers thinking after she had finally showered; after she had taken an actual, no-nonsense moment to observe her physical state with the glow of her own hands. Clean, lotioned, and not at all freaking out anymore, Katara had set out her clothes and gone to bed.
Three hours later she woke up shaking. Burning. Covered in icy sweat and so nauseous that her vision dotted black in her efforts to roll over and flick the bedside lamp on.
“Oh,” she remembers gasping out, guttural and disgustingly sick with the scent of her own over-ripeness; with the aching, pulsating flare of painful need that had suddenly wracked through her womb, “what the fuck.”
read AND THE DIFFERENCE IS THIS in full on AO3! ↬
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