#THIS WAS MY FIRST TIME WRITING FOR HIM

[a-leg-without-fear]

Congratulations leggy!

If you are still taking requests for your celebration, I'll take a medium mocha with Mikey.

Thank you so much, Shiori!! One medium mocha, coming up!! <3

It was a calm, sunny, Sunday morning. Gentle sunlight filtered through the sheer curtains, birds chirped in the sparse trees outside the house, and the smell of brewing coffee floated on the air like leaves in the breeze. Notes of chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla, and that distinct coffee smell that was utterly intoxiating.

The wooden steps creaked lightly under your bare feet. You had been sleeping in your and Mikey's bed until the smell of coffee woke you. There was just something about Mikey's coffee that could wake you from a near-coma.

"'Morning, flower," Mikey called from the kitchen, voice gravelly with sleep. A tired smile stretched across your lips. You rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs to look at your husband in the kitchen.

Shirtless, hair ruffled, sweatpants hung low on his defined hips, toned arms leaning against the kitchen island, dark eyes gazing lovingly at you. If you could take a mental picture of him like this, you would.

"Good mornin'," you replied. There was a light bounce to your step as you crossed the living room. You picked up on the quiet music playing from Mikey's phone speakers. Your elbows made a dull thud sound when you landed on the island in front of him.

"That enthusiastic for caffeine, are we?" he teased, looking pointedly at where your arms had collided with the poor counter.

"More enthusiastic to see you, love," you said. An easy smile spread over his lips, eyes wrinkling in the corners and dimples growing more pronounced.

Mikey leaned over the counter, fingers tucking under your chin, and brought your lips together. You could just barely taste a hint of coffee on his soft lips.

"You do want the coffee, though?" he asked, the words buzzing where his mouth met yours. You chuckled into the kiss.

"If you're makin' it, no man could keep me from it."

[lovelylittlegrim]

Obsessed with Blind! Eddie Munson meeting Steve and them hitting it off like instantly. And Eddie bragging constantly over the phone to corroded coffin/hellfire because Steve is great. He’s funny and bitchy and he makes all these sounds that drive eddie crazy —- anyway, he’s just super excited for his boyfriend to finally meet his friends.

And then when it finally happens it goes different than expected because yeah Eddie knows Steve is great…. What he didn’t know was…

“Holy shit,” Jeff says into the weird silence after Eddie’s introduction.

“What?” Eddie is worried.

“He’s hot,” Jeff says like it pains him to admit. “Like… like really, really hot. Like he might be a model hot.”

“Is he blind too? What’s he doing with Eddie?” Gareth asks under his breath and then grunts like he just got an elbow to the gut for it.

Steve just laughs. “Thanks,” he tells Eddie’s friends.

He doesn’t sound too embarrassed about it or like it’s a joke at all that his friends have concocted and holy shittttt

“Wait,” Eddie says quickly, twisting to hold Steve’s hands, “wait, wait, wait, are you— just how out of my league are you???”

“Eons,” Gareth wheezes.

“I’m not out of your league,” Steve says and Eddie can practically hear the eye roll as he tugs Eddie close and kisses him on the cheek. “Obviously.”

[pixlatedvampire]

It’s best to introduce your Hag slowly through the door first to not scare the others

[yeyinde]

victory lap

“Got a proposition for you, Simon,” the man says, and Simon snorts. He reeks of the same brand of cheap cigarettes as always—stale smoke, day-old tobacco; acrid and unpleasant. It makes his skin itch.  “an’ I told you already, Price. I ain't interested in a team—” “Not a team, Simon.” The look he levels him with is nothing short of malicious. Dangerous. His hackles raise on instinct, everything inside of him hissing to back away. “Got something else in mind.” Then through the door was you. Pretty as a picture— And all his for the night. or: John strikes a deal with young Simon Riley. his cooperation on a team they're putting together in exchange for a night with you. naturally, it goes awry.

18+ SMUT. implied noncon, dubcon. under-negotiated kink. bondage. overstimulation. size difference. size kink. messy, sweaty gross sex. rough sex. unsafe sex. mean Simon. smitten Simon. bullydom!Simon. spit kink. degradation and humiliation. young!Simon (pre-mw2019-2022 when he was still a Seargent; 25-28ish). manipulation. attempts at taming a stray dog that goes as well as you'd expect.

It's John who takes his muzzle off.

Dangles the key on his finger when he kicks open the door, letting his Lieutenant glimpse what lay behind it. Giving a gruff, like what you see? when his eyes finally adjust to the low light flooding in.

It takes him half a second. Enough time to commit the scene in front of him to memory.

It's you, of course.

good dogs get rewards, don't they, Simon?

Waiting for him. Pretty as a picture in sleek silk chiffon ribboned in intricate shibari around your chest, stomach, and thighs. Legs spread on the table; ankles tied down to the sides in nude jute rope. Hands clasped together, fingers laced; wrists tied above your head. The blindfold wrapped around your head is a pale pink ribbon, thicker than the silk on your body. Wrapped twice over your eyes, and tied in a pretty bow behind your head, he imagines.

In the split of your thighs, he finds you already slick. Wet. It drips down onto the table, puddling beneath your ass. The spread of your pussy, glistening in the flushed light; the small, pink vibrator taped to your clit makes his cock twitch. 

"All for me?" He rasps, eyes fixed on your cunt. On how pretty it looks. How inviting. A soft, ripe peach offered in the heat of summer, and he wants nothing more than to sink his teeth into you. Her. "'ow sweet o'you."

And Price, he thinks, eyes slanting sideways as he glances at the man sliding into his chair. It stands to reason that this whole thing, you on a silver platter for a starving wolf, wouldn't have happened if he hadn't seen the look on Simon's face when you first met him. The hunger.

Simon's not stupid, of course. He knew you were off limits the moment Price put his paw on your nape, squeezing once. Owned, claimed. The intention, the message, clear. Mine.

Don't touch.

And the way you lit up, stammering out something about how good it was to meet him, told him everything he needed to know how your willingness to be shackled to his Captain.

But even so—

He couldn't take his eyes off of you.

(and in his intense cataloguing of everything you did, he couldn't help but notice how you kept touching your neck when Price was dragged away for a conversation leaving you all alone in a room rankled down his spine. almost as if you were reaching up to fix a collar—)

The memory alone makes him shudder.

"All yours, Simon," Price drawls from his perch on the throne. Between two fingers, a cigar sits, unlit. Ghost huffs.

The words are a vicious bite to the want pooling low in his belly. "That so?”

The room seems to shake when he steps inside. Floor creaking ominously under his weight. It makes your mouth drop, heavy breaths spilling out between dull teeth. Chest rising and sinking shallowly with a wild sort of nervousness that flits across the expanse of your cheeks, in the tremble of your lower lip. 

Despite your unease, your legs stay open. Held aloft by the rope, he knows, but also—

A testament to how trained you are. 

He prefers his pets wild. Unpolished. Vicious little things that he gets to bring to heel with a sharp bark and rough hand glued to the back of their skulls, pushing their head into the dirt, to the floor, where it belongs. 

Fine china broken at his feet. 

But you—

Manicured. Groomed to perfection. Save for the harsh breaths and the shake in your joints—both an indication of just how new you are at this. A novice. One slowly being crushed under the leather boot of a man who reeks of smoke and whiskey. 

But knowing his captain and the furious need for control, he imagines you're better than some of the seasoned ones he'd come across in his lifetime. No room for errors.

And certainly no forgiveness for them, either. 

His cock twitches again—a heavy, aching weight against his thigh—and he reaches down to cup the thickness of it, crushing the flesh in his palm to stave off the need burning in his loins. The urgency to sink inside of your pretty little cunt rewiring the part of him that likes to mess his pets up first. Ruin them before he takes them. Fucking them to the point of unconsciousness—and sometimes, beyond it. 

But you—

You've been a phantom taste in the back of his throat for months now. A tease between his teeth. Sinking his jowls into you is the only thing on his mind. 

And when you're offered up so enticingly—

Well. 

Price can't blame him much for how badly he's going to ruin you. 

He reaches out, fingers pressing cruelly into the slim, thumb-sized vibrator Price has locked against your clit. A mindless, incessant torture, he's sure. Pushing you over the edge on a constant, unrelenting loop. 

“Messy girl,” he rasps, the starchy fabric of the mask glueing to his balmy skin. 

The reprimand makes you flinch in shame, but the flutter of your cunt belies the contrition that drapes over your brow in a shallow mimicry of sorrow. He can see why Price latched onto you so quickly, and doesn't bother fighting the stab of envy that brims in his chest. 

“Didn't your old man ever teach you any manners?” He mocks, dry and derisively. Quietly amused by the soft mewl you let out, one that only just eclipses the snort from Price. “Daddy's been slackin’, ‘asn’t he? Let his little girl turn into a messy fuckin’ slag.” 

You try to close your legs to no avail, the rope keeping you spread. In part, he thinks, from shame—blistering, burning, and vibrant when it streaks across your face—but mostly from the slick gush that leaks out of your drenched pussy at his foul words. Trying to hide it from him. To keep him from knowing just how much the brassy roll of his ugly words makes your empty little cunt ache. 

“Look’it you.” He rumbles, enjoying the shiver in your joints. The way your head rolls to the side, nose pressed tight to the skin of your arm. “Messy pussy just achin’ to be fucked.”

He adds more pressure until you choke. The scream lodged in your throat. Your toes curl. He hears the soft pop of your joints when you arch your back like a cat in heat yowling for attending. 

“Want it bad, don't you?” He taunts. “Daddy must’a spoiled you too much—” another scoff from Price. The creak of leather. The clink of ice against glass. “Didn't teach you any manners—”

He wants you to beg. Wants to hear the peal of your voice—rough and ragged and begging him to sink inside you; fuck your little cunt until you can't walk anymore—but that's not what he's here for. Not why Price dragged him up to the room. Gave you to him. 

And with the silk gag in your mouth, he knows he won't get it, anyway. Tied in a pretty bow behind your head. Wet with your spit already. 

Simon's fingers slide down, dragging over the folds of your cunt. You're wet. Soaked. Drenched in a way he's never seen before; folds glistening. Thighs wet. Sticky. He licks his lips. Tastes the brine of his sweat. He wants to eat your pussy. Spread you wide on his tongue and make you beg Price to let Simon make you cum. 

The thought roots in his head. Burrowing deep. He can already hear your sweet voice pleading with his captain—please, please let him make me cum—but he pushes it down when Price makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat. 

He knows why he's here. 

And wonders, then, when he steps back and drops his hands to the button on his trousers, how many times you've been punished like this. The thought is a sour smoulder in the back of his head. An ugly, foul thing unfurled over the soot-stained walls of his skull. 

(he'll ask later. get the names of every man Price let see you like this, and pluck the memory of you right from their skull—)

“So needy,” he drawls, dragging his cock out of his slacks as they fall low on his thighs. “Even after this pussy’s been spoiled so much?”

It makes you keen, and the noise is a searing knife to his guts. He groans with it—low and rough, the noise scraping over the flesh of his throat until it hurts. 

“Gonna have to punish you, ain't I? Needy fuckin' thing—” so he says, but his cock is just as sticky as your thighs, weeping a steady stream of pre-cum that pools in the tangle of hair at the base, dusting over his heavy, fat balls. 

He shuffles closer, and reaches out to your knee, slipping his fingers behind your shin. The squeal of naked flesh against the metal tabletop shouldn't make him throb but it does. Cruel man, he thinks, and drinks in the way you wince. 

He presses his cock against your slit, mouth dropping in a harsh pant when he takes in the hideous sight it makes. Your pussy is covered up by his girth. The tip of his cock bobbing over your belly button, dripping pre-cum into the divot. 

Simon pulls his hips back, letting his cock glide over your silken flesh. The wet squelch it makes when he thrusts forward, cockhead tapping on your belly, has him grunting like an animal. It's obscene, this. The way he can't even see your folds over the wide spread of his cock. Pussy tucked neatly under him. 

He can't even begin to imagine how you'll take the full length of him inside of you when his cock nudges past your belly button when he lets his balls rest on your molten slit. Poor thing. 

He doesn't know if Price stretched you before this. Got you ready for him. But the man makes no move to intervene when Simon pulls back until his head slips down your seam, bracketed between your plush, swollen folds, tight against your entrance. All he has to do is—

Push

And the tip of his cock slips in. 

You make another noise at the sting, and he thinks you might be crying but his eyes are riveted to the spot where you open for him. Pussy so small, so tiny, compared to his cock in a way that's sickening. Garish. But your little cunt drools on him. Rim fluttering like a heartbeat on his glands, pulling him deeper. Enticing him to sink inside. All the way. Until he can feel the hitch of your breath on his cock. 

He leans back to get a better view, the motion forcing another inch inside of you. The noise is slick. Giving as your silken flesh parts around him, eagerly taking him in. But as wet as you are, as pliant, the stretch is unbearable. It chokes the air from his lungs when you tighten up around him—

“Fuckin' hell—” he snaps, his upper lip curling up beneath the mask. Your cunt makes him angry. Suddenly, viciously. The fury drips down his spine, pools at the base of his cock. His hand slips out from between your thighs, roughly grabbing your waist. Holding on tight as he jerks his hips harshly against you. 

You feel good. Perfect. Wrapped snugly around him. A hot, wet embrace. And he huffs at the bitterness that clots in his lungs; the surge of pleasure so blisteringly intense, it nearly makes him gag. Makes him sick. 

Price has this every night. 

The thought alone is a poison. It needles in deep, lashing at him with foul, rabid teeth. Cruelly, he pushes deeper, sinking his cock in another inch, another, another—mindless in this pursuit to tear you apart well before you're ready for it. 

He wants it to burn. To ache. Wants to be the worst fuck you've ever had; cock too big for you to take, but he feeds it to you in full. Gives you all of it. Every inch. Until your stomach churns with every press of his cockhead against your cervix, his glands sliding over that spot inside that makes your knee jerk and your eyes roll. 

Wants you to remember him as a beast. To think of his cock and feel nauseous. 

To sink deep inside of you—brutal and savage—until you can still feel him in your pussy for days. Each step causing a sharp pang in your lower belly. 

It's awful, he knows. Terrible. But he forces himself into you anyway, feeling your flesh split around him. A blunt, unyielding pressure until his balls tap against your ass, pussy spasming around the fat length he punishes you with. He's sure he's deeper inside of you than anything—any man, cheap silicon—has ever dreamed of being. Kissing places in you that nothing has ever touched. Feels it in the nervous flit of your muscles pulsing around him—this foreign thing bludgeoning into uncharted territory, stretching you wide. Almost virginal all over again. It makes him groan. 

Your pleasure is a muted ripple down his spine. The vibrator forcing you into enjoying the sharp sting of your rim pulled taut around the plug of his cock, skin blanching from the strain. He wants to stay just like this—grinding his hips into the backs of your spread thighs, cockhead chiselling into the molten seal of your womb with every gyration until the line between pleasure and pain begins to blur. Until you gag from how badly having your walls battered burns, hurts, but the bloom of pleasure deep inside your groin keeps you in place. Makes you arch your back, wanting more. 

Desperate for it. 

But this isn't what Price wants, is it? 

No—

He voices his impatience with a muffled grunt. Get on with it, Simon is pinched out between the silver of space between his teeth, the butt of a burning cigar keeping his jaw unhinged. The heady, sour-sweet stench of smouldering tobacco, nicotine, staining the words. 

You clench at the sound of Price's voice, pretty pussy drawing all tight around him. Perfectly trained. Sweet thing, he thinks, pulling out of you slowly. Just a few inches. Feeling your skin glue his; the glide of your walls over his shaft sickeningly good, nauseatingly so. He holds it for a moment, staring down at you through the eye holes of his mask, breathing heavily. Sweat drenches his skin. Tacky, hot. The starchy fabric clings to his flesh, peeling away each time he moves his head. 

The exertion of fucking his cock into you shows through the muted pulse of his joints, muscles aching from the strain of pushing forward. 

(Holding himself back.)

You blink at him blearily, eyes misted with tears. A smaller puddle sits on the table near your temples. 

Up close, he can see the full detail of the intricate shibari binding you tight. The sleek pink ribbon weaving over your chest, your breast, stomach—hishi karada, Price said. At the base of your neck is more silk in a mockery of a collar. And he wonders if you miss it, then. The solid weight of leather on your skin. If your hands weren't tied up, he imagines they'd be there. Holding firm. 

Just like the night he first met you. 

The silk rope, the loss of your collar—

“Your dad's a cruel man, ain't he?” He mocks, sliding his fingers over the delicate trim of silk bound tight under your heaving breasts, peppering across your nipple, down the slope. Resting at the base of your throat. The thin slip of fabric is not enough to give you what you need. The pressure, the friction. The sense of being owned. “Didn't even give his little girl a collar.” 

More of that tantalising shame rake over your expression. Tears dribble out in hot drops, spilling down the side of your face. 

He hums, slips this fragility into his back pocket. “Want me to give it to you, little girl?” 

He spits the words out like they're wrong. Awful. Takes in your flinch, the downward twist to your lips, and shoves that, too, into his pocket. 

Simon has no intention of waiting for an answer, for permission—he reels back, hand still splayed wide over your sternum, and pulls his cock out more until only the flare of his glands peaks out. He's soaked—glistening with your slick. So wet that it drips out of your plugged hole, gliding down the cleft of your ass. 

He wonders if you always get like this—

Bites that thought clean through with an angry groan, and pries his fingers out from the back of your knee, dragging them to the end of his mask. Rucking it up over his skin, bunched against the bridge of his nose. 

If the mess of his mouth, chin, the crooked, angular slope of his nose horrifies you at all, you don't let it show. Content to quietly sob on the table, eyes flickering between the thick plug of his cock between your thighs and the Price. 

He hates you, he thinks. And then he spits on your pretty pussy, right over your taut rim. Watches the foamy mess bubble, drip down to the skin behind his mushroomed head. When it pools there, he pulls back until the widened flare of his glands slips free. You whine—a noise of bright hot disgust, humiliation—and he lets it burrow under his skin, trickle down his spine. Then he pushes forward, popping the head back inside of you. 

The spit—his spit, too. 

And he does it again. The same thing. Pulling out, spitting. Feeding it to her. Letting it rub against the slick, wet (wetter now) walls of her cunt. 

Price doesn't say anything about this claim. Schoolboy possession—childish and immature when you're used to fine leather gripping tight around the slope of your neck.

Still. 

He pulls on your proverbial braids until it burns. 

The hum of the vibrator takes some of the sting away when he shoves inside of you again, cockhead bullying into your cervix with an unmatched cruelty. Leaking slick, steady, over your seal. Drooling, thick and viscous, against your walls. Staining you. 

Ruining you.

Each breath is punched out when he bottoms out. Forced from your lungs. Winded. He knows it hurts almost as much as the thick bludgeon of his cock pressing deep, but as he scrapes and claws at the rot concealing over his humanity, morality, he finds nothing inside of him left to care. 

He stops looking. Stops searching. 

Simon fucks into you with vigor instead, laughing mockingly at the lewd, sinful squelch of your cunt. “Think that's the sound of all my spit, birdie? Or is your sloppy little cunt always this fuckin’ messy?”

Each piston makes his pelvis slap into the vibrator; he can feel it through the tangle of coarse hair spooled above his cock. Buzzing incessantly against his skin. The spike of sharp pressure has you yowling beneath him, hips twisting, turning, trying to flee from the brutal onslaught. Pleasure and pain balancing on a knife's edge. 

He holds you there. Dangles you above the precipice just because he can—

A lazy flick of his waist. The savage grind of his hips. The softened bulge of his lower belly tapping against the plastic toy—

And it breaks you. This careless, effortless attention he pays to you has you tightening up around him like a knot, a vice; cunt squeezing, squeezing, before you shatter. Wave against a cliff; you spasm on his cock in a series of shallow, tight throbs pulsing along to the rapid fire of your heartbeat. 

His eyes are locked on your face. Pretty, lachrymal. Tears bleed down your temples, soaking into your hairline. Puddling underneath. 

His own little sea of your miserable pleasure. 

Eyes rolled into the back of your head. Toes curling. Hips jerking, twisting. Trying to run from the ugly, awful way he makes you cum. Makes you gorge yourself on pleasure. Force-feeding you pain with each sloppy, brutal thrust into your sopping, messy cunt—swollen, bruised; battered. And his—

—ice clinks against glass. A clicking swallow follows. The hollow thud of glass on wood. Scraping over the veneer as it's pushed back into place. Tobacco is chewed up by flames, popping and sizzling; smoldering with each inhale as the playwright watches the show he weaved together unfold—

—his. 

The silk around your neck comes loose with each thrash of your head rolling from side to side, shaking with quick, successive no, no, no’s that go unheeded, ignored. Every animalistic rut of his hips makes you change your mind, anyway. Turning those devastating no’s to yeses so eager, your teeth clack with every thrust. 

As it slips, sliding down the sweat-slicked column of your arched throat, he finds a stripe of red. A scab. Right at the knot where your collar would sit. A pretty gem in the middle. Your name, or maybe something that would amuse Price more than the perceived idea of your autonomy—bitch in glinting gold. His name and number etched into the back. 

if found, return to John Price. 

A foldhold, perhaps. Tailor-made for his boot. 

He hunts, Simon knows. Walked in reeking of leather and smoke when they first met and casually mentioned how good he was at Big Game hunting. A threat, then—however thinly veiled and erring on the side of mordant humour it was. But he wonders if Price personally made the collar you mourned the night he swung you into Simon's path. 

Your neck was bare, then. Blemishless. 

A collar too small. Tightened too much. Punishment, he supposes, and feels a sick sense of satisfaction roll down from his nape to the bottom of his spine where it pools in his groin—hot, molten oil—as he wonders just how much convincing it took you to agree to this. To spread your pretty legs for the ugly brute Price dangled you in front of. Who watched you all night from the corner of the room, chest heaving and eyes wide, wild, and furious. Reeking of rot. Want. To let him rut you like an animal while Price watches from the corner of the room—

A bead of sweat follows the phantom trail. 

“Fuck, birdie,” he's rasping, voice uttered wrecked. Mangled in his throat. “So fuckin’ tight f’me, ain't you? Must want me to cum inside this pretty cunt—”

You shiver. Knee jerking. There's a real sense of panic in your eyes when they dart over to Price, silently nursing another glass of scotch. He follows your gaze, catches Price glaring at him with his chin dipped low to his chest, peering out through his lashes. Brow furrowed. A flat line. 

Simon doesn't stop thrusting. Keeps a steady pace despite the anger brimming inside of him as the pleasure grows. Festers. 

Then—

Barely discernible: a nod. 

Shadows fall over his cheeks. He brings the glass back to his mouth with a surly mm between the mouthful. An irrevocable fuckin' get on with it. 

And Simon does.

The look he gives you pure predatory hunger. Victory in the potent stench of charred bones. He lifts his chin, stares down at you—all spread out like a gift to a god—and surges forward with a rabid hunger brimming in his guts. Unquenchable. Horrific. 

—wants you to eat you alive. Consume you whole. Leave nothing for Price to pick at, to mourn over,

settles instead for ruining your pussy. For fucking you raw. Cumming deep inside of your quivering cunt even when he knows you don't want that. Are silently begging Price to reconsider. To get this ugly fucking mutt off of you—

It churns his guts. Makes him viciously excited over the image that brims in the back of his head, tears raining down your cheeks as you bring a shaky hand to your aching, swollen cunt, feeling the thick, viscous glob of his cum leaking out.

Or before that, when you have to lay there and take it. Feeling his cock throbbing, pulsing as it spits cum inside of you. When he pulls out, and a milky trail follows, dribbling down between your cheeks. At his mercy the whole time, too, because Price won't get up right away to untie you. You'll have to lay there in his filth, feeling it ooze out of you—

He wants it. Badly. Feels it scorching his hindbrain, burning him up from the inside out. 

Later, he thinks, he'll fuck you with more finesse. Make you cum on his fingers—stuff them inside of your sore, aching cunt to the last knuckle; give you three of them to squeeze around, to cling to, and watch the ink on his bruised, scabbed skin disappear inside of you over and over again, pulling them out all slick, pearlescent with a mix of his cum and yours. On his tongue, too. Keep you in this pretty frogtie, unable to push him off—or pull him closer. Forced to take it. To let him lap at your pussy until he quenches this uneasy hunger festering inside of his stomach, growing bolder, greedier at the sight of you splayed out like this, exhausted already even though he's only just begun. 

Fuck you again, too, just because he can. 

all yours for a night, Price had said, sealing your fate with a sharp, decisive nod. 

He plans on making the most of the twelve hours until sunrise that he has. 

This, then, the appetizer—

It curls over his shoulders, tar-stained fingers digging into the tight coil of his muscles, easing the tension in increments. Soothing out the fear that still clings to him of missing out. Still, very much, that hungry little mutt on the side of the street, peering into the bakery at the family's milling about, smiling happily. Content to ignore the brat in rags glaring at them from an alcove with bruises on his chin, and a black split on his lip. Diving for scraps because the alternative is going to bed with an empty stomach in a house that reeks of flat beer and stale piss. 

There's nothing to miss out on here, it reasons, when he has you all night. All his. 

“Beg me,” he huffs, sniffing through the balmy, damp mask when it slips down his crooked nose. “Beg me not to cum inside you.”

All you can do is make a small, keening oomph behind the loose gag, words muffled by wet silk. His head rolls back, eyes narrowing down at you in mocking delight—catlike, leonine, in the dwindling glimmer of sunlight spilling through the crack in the curtains. 

“C’mon,” he taunts, rolls his hips into you just to hear the loud, wet squelch of your pussy taking the full, fat length of his cock. Lets the noise box through his ears in a vicious, heavy punch. “Or I'll cum inside you—”

He's already there. Edging toward the precipice. 

Simon grabs the tops of your thighs, digging his fingers into your skin, and pulls you closer to the edge of the table until your ass lifts. It opens you up wider for him, knees notched wide, nearly level with your ears. The new position lets him push in deeper, fucking you in full now. Balls slapping against your ass with every brutal stroke. 

He leans down, knee lifting to the table as he climbs on before dropping the full heft of his weight onto you. Forearm braced above your head, the other catching the column of your bare, scratched neck in the wide spread of his palm. 

The size difference before was intoxicating. A rush that pooled in the back of his head before rocketing down to his spine, filling his cock, but this—your knees bracketing around his waist, spread so wide they're forced down flat to the table below in a split that lets his cock sink in deeper, head tucked against his collarbone, swallowed whole beneath him, is his undoing. 

Arched over you like a beast, he grunts. Ruts into your sopping cunt and feels the whines that spill from your throat at the rough way he batters into you. 

The softness of his lower belly grazes the vibrator humming on your clit. The pressure makes your eyes widen, and roll into the back of your head. Neck trapped in his hold as you thrash beneath him, sobbing in earnest. In dismay. 

He's sure it hurts. The pleasure careening into overstimulation—the kind that burns, bellows too much, no more. He huffs out a derisive snort, and eats your misery from your parted lips, dipping his head down to catch the seam of your mouth in a mockery of a kiss. The silk wrapped around your head, tucked neatly into the corners of your mouth, keeps it from being anything more than a messy smear of his scarred, torn lips and your muffled gasps. The band prevents him from really tasting you, and he makes do with curling his tongue over your teeth, catching the drool running down your chin. 

It's gross. Messy. He slurps you up, and hums in pleasure when he tastes the brine of your tears. 

“Gonna cum,” he grunts into the silk before catching it between his crooked teeth, nibbling on the wet hem, sucking on your spit soaked into the fabric. 

Your pussy spasms around him. Eager, he thinks—pulsing like a heartbeat and starving for it. It blooms under his skin, burning hot like a fever. His tongue slips under your gag. Eyes glued to yours, listed in quiet, merciless delight when you grimace as he slides it along yours, nearly gagging you on it. 

It's almost sweet. A pastiche of loving making—as close to the real thing as he's ever come. The thought is a bludgeon to his head, making his ears ring—

And he runs from it. Rears back from the sloppy kiss, eyes creasing, brow furrowing, as you stare up at him with wet, glossy eyes, rheumy with tears. Silently pleading for something he can't discern. He feels that trail of anger coiling in his guts again, sitting low in his belly as his hips stutter to a slow, softer roll. 

His finger lifts, settles on the corner of your unhinged jaw, holding your head steady. There are lines, he thinks. Walls, divides. Protective armour—

And some shouldn't be crossed. 

Simon spits on your gag. Squeezes the huff of disgust from your throat when he feels your chest expand with it. Bullies himself closer, smothering you under his weight. Owned, then. Claimed. 

You can't close your mouth around the gag, or fingers digging into the muscle of your jaw. He keeps you like that, degraded. Dehumanised. A vessel for him to use as he likes—

Nothing more, nothing less. 

Sinks into your bruised cunt again, hips slapping meanly into yours in a way he knows must ache. Sets a choppy, deep pace; humps your pussy and grinds the weeping, swollen head of his cock into your battered cervix. Loses himself in the messy, plugging rolls of his hips; the wet, tight slide of your skin—flushed and clenching around the thick of himself he feeds to you, over and over again. Mindless in the pursuit to ruin you further. Stain you with his cum—

The problem is:

You feel like heaven. Pussy wrapped tight around him. Silken walls hugging his aching cock until it feels like he's melting into the hot, wet squeeze of it. So good it hums inside his head like a purr, rattles his thoughts around until the ugly, bitter anger is turned inside out. Flipped. 

He thinks about lines again as his sticky, wet balls glue to the slick skin of your ass, peeling off in a way that has pleasure peppering along his spine, spooling in his lower back. He did that, caused it. Made you so fucking wet that his knees slide in the messy spill of it leaking all over the table. The loud squelch of him slamming into your cunt echoes in the room—shrill and bone-melting. Ego-feeding. Enough to gorge his pride on it until its belly threatens to burst at the seams. Overfull. 

Simon grunts. His face is soaked. The damp fabric of his mask is too drenched to even mop it up, sticking to his skin as sweat rains down from his shorn hairline, misting over his eyes. His upper lip. The dip of his chin. He's more water than man. Liquid. Melting into you. 

The heat is unbearable. “Gonna cum in this pussy,” he snarls, and it sounds like a threat. Is one. He's going to burst inside of you, molten and thick. Been a while, he thinks, and feels his balls draw up. Tightening in a promise as he fucks himself into a syrupy stupor above you. 

The inside of his ears are wet, and he thinks it might be his fucking brain leaking out—

The tight coil of his body snaps before he does, giving out in a heavy groan. He catches himself before he crushes you beneath him, still mindlessly thrusting into your cunt, cock pulsing, throbbing. Growing thicker, thicker, as he heaves into your temple, breathing in the pine scent of your skin. Loam, sea. Sweat. You smell like Price beneath it all—leather and smoke; scotch and wood—and his lips curl into a vicious snarl, teeth bared at the man in the corner, silent observer to this blasphemous confessional where he spills his guts inside of you, and you eat them up like they're made of gold dust. 

It rushes him. A kick to his soft stomach, a boot crushing his ribs. The force of it hurts when it hits, surging up from the base of his spine, too fast for him to brace for. Tensing, coiling. The pressure knocks the air from his lungs, makes his hips stutter. Joints whining, twinging with pain. 

He moans low and brassy, mangled deep in the rot of his chest, and cums deep inside of you. Sloppy, mindlessly rutting into the spread bracket of your thighs as pleasure burns across the back of his neck, his spine. His hips roll, shaking. Melting as he spills, spits thick globs of cum out, cockhead bullied tight against your plug. 

All you can do is heave beneath him, whining at the molten spend he pours into you. Poor fuckin’ thing—

His lips are sticky, slick with sweat. He rubs them against the tacky skin of your temple, your cheekbone, babbling nonsense out on a purr—

Breedin’ this tight little pussy right in front of your old man, birdie. Got ‘im watchin’ his little girl take my thick fuckin’ load inside o’her. Fuckin’ hell—

—things that leak out between the cracks in the armour. The thick veneer. Made worse, his personal hell, when he feels your hips bump into his, taking his cock deeper inside as you squirm under the heavy weight of him. With your thigh flexing, squeezing his hip, it almost feels like you want more. All of him. For him to crawl deep inside of you, cocooned in the bracket of your ribs—

“Needy fuckin’ thing,” he rasps, words slurring. Eliding into mush. Nonsense he'll come to crush between his teeth later when he buries himself back inside of you over and over again, feeding blood to this vicious seedling inside of him. 

Through the pounding in his head, your gasping little hitches in his ear, the undeniable silence from Price weighs on him even as the aftershocks of his release mute the noise in his head. A dense, hazy fog clouding over all thoughts. 

It doesn't feel angry. Jealous. If anything it reeks of victory—

He grasps through the blanket, the murk, with lazy hands until he finds what he's looking for, and—

Oh. 

Right. 

(“Got a proposition for you, Simon,” the man says, and Simon snorts. 

He reeks of the same brand of cheap cigarettes as always—stale smoke, day old tobacco; acrid and unpleasant. It makes his skin itch. 

“an’ I told you already, Price. I ain't interested in a team—”

“Not a team, Simon.” The look he levels him with is nothing short of malicious. Dangerous. “Got something else in mind—”)

Then through the door was you. Pretty as a picture—

He stares down at you now. The base of his cock is soaked with your slick, flesh throbbing, pulsing, as he cums inside of you. 

It's this—you, crying over the feeling of him spilling so deeply inside of you while your old man watches from the sidelines, unable to do anything but sit there as Simon fills his baby girl up—that he wanted. Wants. Needs, he thinks, more than the stale, humid air he breathes. A place of his own. Home. Even if it's made of paper mache, carved inside of someone else, someone who already has a collar. A brand—

But that's the point, isn't it?

A sick feeling curls over his shoulders as he thumbs the slim vibrator off of your clit, staring down at the swollen nub at the apex of your mound. Sore and sensitive and flushed bright. Bruised like an apple. Abused for hours. Poor thing, he thinks, even as he rubs the flat of his finger over it. 

His cum seeps out around the softening plug of his cock. But it's still thicker than anything you'd ever taken before, he's sure. Sick with the deep sense of satisfaction that rolls over him at the thought. 

It's worth it, then, even as the dawning realisation trickles over him like hot oil—

“What d’you like, Simon?”

A pretty bird in pale pink chiffon. Too good for the likes of him. Afraid of him, too. Cowerin’. Cryin’ somethin’ awful when he sinks his ugly, fat prick into them—

Price hummed. Curled his index finger over the top of his cigar, tapped the thick wrap twice with the tip of it, and then brought it to his lips. A flash of teeth beneath his beard—nicotine-stained; crooked in the low light—before they sunk into the butt. 

There was something measured in his stare. Predatory. 

Victorious. 

And—

He gets it. You were a dangling lure in the deep, dark of the abyssal layer. A glimmer of light in thick murk. Iridescent. Dazzling. He was always meant to sink his teeth into you, wasn't he? Always meant to take a bite—

hook. line—

—sinker. 

Or—

It would be if the fish Price caught wasn't a leviathan. 

—in the scorching trail the oil leaves behind, something bestial, primordial, inside of his cocks its head in consideration. he can make a feast from this, it says; and so, he does—

“Need my help, Price?” Simon drawls, arms crossing over his chest as he stares down at him, quietly amused, and John feels the pulse between his temples starting up again the same way it had all those years back when he bumped into the man with you on his arm. 

He grunts. “Sendin’ you to Mexico.”

“Tha’ so? I might be busy.”

He sucks in a deep breath, reaches for his cigar. The itch claws behind his eyes, in his gums. There's a headache, too. One he knows won't be soothed over with the numbing bliss of nicotine or a shot of scotch. Not when he'll have to slink home afterwards, this massive behemoth nipping at his heel, and deal with the aftermath of what happens whenever he sets Simon loose on you:

an icepack pressed tight against your aching cunt, a glare fixed on your face as he dotes on you after you made him clean up the absolute mess Simon left behind with his fingers and tongue—

“never again,” you'll hiss, wincing with each pull of his knuckles on your sore, bruised walls. “I mean it—”

(you always say that but the look in your eye whenever he pulls out the silk—the new assortment that Simon bought for you himself—tells him otherwise—)

He presses the heel of his palm into the crease between his eye and bone, rubbing until he sees phosphenes spark behind his eyelids. 

“She'll be in silk,” he grouses, sucking his teeth in irritation. “And you'll be on fuckin’ plane to Mexico the next morning, Riley. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, sir,” he draws lazily with a half-hearted shrug, but Price can see the mutt inside of him panting with glee. He pretends to huff. Then: “I want her in white this time.”

The fuckin' prick.

—Price’s gamble of using you to lure the big, bad dog in works. but maybe a little too well. because now his sergeant expects one every time he's sent on a mission. and they send him out a lot. 

—he now has a key to his captain's house. lets himself in whenever he wants. finds you exactly how he asked for it. usually tied up in silk, crying, and struggling to get away when he stalks inside the room. on your knees, begging him so sweetly not to fuck your throat too hard. you have work tomorrow. or fighting him off as best as you can until he pins you down, works his cock inside of you. 

—in full view of the cameras, of course. non-negotiable. Price gets to see everything his brutish sergeant does to his pretty bird. everything. 

—Simon is the one who keeps you company when Price is sent off to work with the CIA. keeps you stuffed full of his cock in the bed you share with Price, his little girl sobbing into the pillow that reeks of smoke and leather and sex as Simon forces every inch of his stupid fat cock inside you

[loveanddeepdick]

cw: piv sex at the end, sylus is a bit rough hehe

sylus who (surprisingly to most people) is the most respectful out of the l&ds men.

sylus who holds every car door for you, leaves you a different array of flowers every week, makes sure you never use your own card, and opens every door for you. he has his large, scarred hand on your lower back at all times so he can assure you're by his side.

"focus on staying with me, sweetie. i don't want you getting lost somewhere you're not familiar with"

"sylus, i can handle myself!"

"i know you can. but as your man, i can't have you doing all the work alone, can i?"

sylus who loves teasing you. when you two are sitting anywhere near each other, he'll have his hand on your thigh. if he's sure that no one can see his girl, he'll trail his hand dangerously close to your crotch, grazing the top of your pussy, even dipping down a bit to give a small feather touch to your clit before returning back to the place above your thigh.

sylus who buys you any item you lay your eyes on. a new weapon, a new purse, new shoes, new clothes, they'll be at your doorstep in no time. after a while, you stopped telling him things you like since you started feeling guilty for spending so much.

he wouldn't have any of that. he sent luke and kieran to spy on you, finding out your password in only a day. he wasn't going to snoop through your messages, no. he had the utmost faith in you. instead, he would go through every shopping app you had and every website store you visited, clearing out every cart so it'd be empty and even spending extra on express shipping so it'd arrive as soon as possible.

sylus who tries to stay as respectful as possible when he finds that you've been shopping for adult toys. he knows you'd never buy it but he loves the sheer look on your face when he hands you the box.

"sy.. what is this?", your face goes ghostly pale as you recognize the logo on the box

"oh? trying to play innocent?"

sylus who's respect is forced out the window as he has you bent over his lap, fucking you with the dildo you'd personally shopped for.

"sy-sylus, please, i want your c-cock!", you cry out before he abruptly pulls the dildo from your pussy, leaving the tip in to tease you as he subtly shifts it in and out.

“oh? you want my cock? thought you wanted to play with some measly toys, sweetie”

“n-no, sylus,” you sobbed from the lack of stimulation, “‘need you so bad..”

“how bad?”, sylus smirked and you could swear that you could feel it burning in the back of your brain.

“really bad, sy. i need you in my pussy—“

you couldn’t even finish your thoughts before you were manhandled onto the bed. your ass was thrown up before he landed a sharp spank with his gloved hand.

“you wanna be fucked with this cock, baby?”, sylus grunted before the sound of a zipper could be heard.

“yes, please, sylus!”

“fuck.. take it—take it”.

sylus thrusted his erect cock roughly into your pussy, holding you in place as you squirmed from his girth.

“you trying to run away after i finally give you my dick?”

“n-no, sylus!”

“that’s not my name, sweetie”, sylus grinned before giving you another spank.

“please, please, fuck me with your cock, sir”

he groaned at the sound, grabbing your hips before he started ramming into you again.

sylus is respectful in every way. except for when he’s jealous of a dildo..

[ceruark]

what the cat dragged in

[yan! michael kaiser x fem! reader, childhood friends au.] synopsis: your grandfather once cautioned you against feeding strays. it’s a lesson you wouldn’t fully learn until many years later. words: 4.6k cw: yandere themes - obsession, possessiveness, implied stalking, slight dubcon (no nsfw). a/n: [head in hands] this was supposed to be a drabble

“You be careful with that, now.”

At the sound of your grandfather’s voice, you glance over your shoulder, fixing your attention on the man standing in the doorway, propped up against his cane. Your knees and face are smeared with mud, as any seven year-old’s would be. 

You turn back around, cooing gently at the scraggly kitten that eats the canned tuna out of the palm of your hand. You lift your free hand to scratch at its head, smiling as it nuzzles into your hand before going back to the food.

“Why?” You ask innocently. “It’s so cute.”

“It’s a stray,” your grandfather says, voice dripping with disgust on the last word. “If you feed it, it’ll keep coming back.”

You frown. Would such a thing be so bad? If the poor little guy was hungry, you would happily indulge it; after all, withholding such a vital thing to its survival would be cruel.

“But it’s hungry,” you whine. The kitten polishes off the rest of the tuna before looking up at you and meowing loudly, bumping its head against your palm. Your heart soars at the endearing action.

“I’m serious,” your grandfather snaps at you in the tone that tells you you’ll be in trouble if you don’t listen. You give the kitten one last pet before reluctantly retracting your hand. You bite down on your warbling lip and blink away tears when it meows at your sudden absence in confusion and protest.

You walk over to your grandfather, and he takes your small wrist into his hand. He takes in your crestfallen expression and sighs, shaking his head.

“It’s for the best,” he says softly. “You don’t want strays getting attached to you.”

You look up at him with big, watery eyes. “Why not?”

“Because no matter how much you feed them, they’ll always be hungry, and then they’ll never leave you alone.”

Despite your grandfather’s warning, you continue to feed the kitten.

You’re careful to do it somewhere he won’t catch you, though. It’s summer, so you’ve been spending a lot of your time in the park that’s only around the block from your house. Turns out the kitten has been spending lots of time sunbathing there, too, so you make sure to start sneaking out some canned tuna with your packed lunch.

You walk past the swingset and toward the large, twisting slide that you’ve gotten used to finding the kitten under this time of day. Your small purple lunch bag bounces against your leg as you skip happily, swinging your arms animatedly. The tune you’re humming gets stuck in your throat and dies as you duck under the play structure and find a small figure already huddled beneath the slide.

A boy in a black hoodie two sizes too big for his frail body sits criss-cross on the floor. Bruised hands gently pet the kitten, which is curled up in his lap and purring softly. He can’t be that much younger than you— probably only by a year— but he seems far smaller than the kids in the grade below you at school, concerningly so.

His head snaps up as your feet come into his line of his vision, wide, impossibly blue eyes locking onto yours. He flinches so hard that the kitten yowls and jumps out of his lap, startled. He curls in on himself defensively and his breathing becomes labored, yet his wide eyes never leave you, tracking your every movement.

You blink in confusion at his reaction. “Um,” you start to say, but you’re cut off by a loud meow cutting through the air.

You turn to the kitten, which has now settled at your side and is pawing at your lunch bag. You giggle— of course, it’s already come to know where its next meal is coming from. You pick up the bag and unzip it, producing the canned tuna from inside it. You grunt as you tug at the tab a few times, but finally it gives way and comes off cleanly. You place it down, and the kitten eagerly prances up to it and starts eating out of it.

After a long moment of watching it eat, your eyes drift back to the boy across from you. His eyes are locked onto the kitten with such focus that it’s concerning.

Then, you realize he’s not looking at the kitten— he’s looking at the tuna sitting on the floor.

You reach back into your bag and take out a sandwich secured tightly in saran wrap. You unwrap it then split it in half, extending your arm out to offer it to the boy.

His eyes dart down to the sandwich and back to you, but he doesn’t make any move to take it.

“Here,” you say, waving your arm up and down in emphasis. “You can have some, if you want. Mom always packs too much for me, so I’m okay sharing with you!”

He glances back down at the sandwich and hesitates for just a moment more before his hand shoots out, snatching it out of your own and quickly bringing it to his mouth. You avert your eyes back to the kitten as he eats it, slowly working through your own half of your lunch.

When you’re done, you peek into the bag to see what else your mom packed for you. There’s a small bag of chips, an orange, and a banana. Maybe it’s a little selfish to keep the chips for yourself, but the boy seems to be just as eager when you set the fruits in front of him, so it’s probably fine.

He finishes eating before you do, and slowly, he inches closer toward you and the cat. He begins petting it again, stealing glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking. 

Finished with your snack, you crumple the bag up and throw it into your lunch bag before zipping it back up. You brush your hand off on your pants, leaving a smatter of chip dust behind that your mom will probably chide you for later. 

You look up at the boy, who is already staring at you. He flushes red and is about to look away when you hold your hand to him and introduce yourself.

You tilt your head toward him with a warm smile. “What’s your name?”

Michael waits for you under the slide the next day, and the next, and the one after that.

Days bleed into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. You become permanent fixtures in each other’s lives. You bring snacks and books, bandages and a gentle touch and an unspoken oath to never ask, never pry. He brings nothing but himself, but for you, that is enough.

Your mother never asks why you pack extra food, or where it’s ending up. She likely just chalks it up to you being a growing girl, and for that, you are grateful.

There are some days, though, where you’re being looked after by your father, who chides you for taking more than you need and makes you put the extras back in the pantry. On those days, you apologize to Michael for the smaller portions you both have, but he simply brushes it off. He says he couldn’t care less if you show up with no food at all, so long as you show up.

At some point, it stops being about the food, you just fail to realize it. Michael never breaks his habit of trailing behind you like your own shadow, and he’s not exactly a sociable person (in fact, his glare alone scares off any other kids your age who try to approach you two), so you figure there’s still something he wants from you. And because of your upbringing, hand-holding and leaning against each other and hugging is something so normal to you that you cannot even begin to suspect that there is something much different he’s actually after.

You’re fourteen and he’s thirteen the first time he kisses you.

It’s a sunny day, but not too hot; there’s a nice breeze in the air that keeps you cool as you sit in the grass, idly popping grapes into your mouth as you watch Michael kick a ball into a wall over and over again, as is customary for you two these days. As always, he eventually wears himself out and finds his way over to you, collapsing beside you and leaning his full body weight against your side as you complain and futilely try to push him off.

“Micha, get off,” you whine, shoving at his shoulder. He doesn’t budge, and instead sighs in irritation and wraps his arms around yours to stop your attempts. “You’re heavy!”

“Your fault for feeding me so much,” he mumbles into your shoulder, prompting you to roll your eyes. “Seems like oversight on your part.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d grow up to be this annoying.” Your words lack heat, of course— you don’t really mean it, and even if it wasn’t evident by your tone, it’s evident in the way you relax into his embrace. “Seriously, though. You’re all sweaty. It’s gross.”

Michael gives one last aggrieved sigh before releasing you. He reaches for the water bottle set beside you and drinks from it, and you go back to your grapes.

A comfortable silence settles between you two as you observe the other people in the park. It’s summer, so it’s busier than usual, which means Michael will probably leave sooner rather than later.

You turn to look at him, but as always, he’s already looking down at you. 

You tilt your head to the side. “Do you need something?” You ask playfully.

Michael stares at you a moment longer, the wind rustling his hair into his face. Then, he leans down so quickly that you can’t react before he presses his lips to yours.

It’s soft, gentle. It’s barely there, his desire contained by a hesitation you haven’t seen within him in so long. 

When you don’t respond, he pulls back, his face carefully smoothed over into a blank canvas, but you know him better than that. Fear dances in his eyes, fear that he’s overstepped and swung a sledgehammer straight into your friendship.

You blink rapidly, trying to pull yourself together. “Oh,” you say, smartly, and then feel yourself flush red as you fully process what just happened. 

“Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. It sounds wrong coming from him, and you reach out to grab his arm just as he starts to withdraw into himself.

“Hey, look, it’s fine. I just— you just caught me by surprise. That’s all.”

He looks back at you, and you feel your breath catch in your throat. His blue eyes are shining, but there’s something dark in them that you haven’t seen before, something you can’t quite place.

“It’s fine?” He echoes in question.

You feel your face grow hotter.

“Yeah,” you whisper back, “it’s fine.”

When he leans down this time, you respond in kind.

You’re always the one to break off the kisses shared between you two.

At this point, you’re convinced he’s not human, given the way that lack of air never seems to be a problem for him. If anything, he seems more annoyed by the fact that you’ve stopped kissing him than the fact that he’s nearly panting from how long he’s gone without taking a proper breath. 

He’s insatiable, you quickly find out. Shockingly, for a few weeks following your first kiss, he spends more of his time kissing you under the slide than playing football. When you get tired or want to take a break, he just opts to hold you in a tight embrace until you’re ready to kiss again or have to leave. 

Eventually, his initial enthusiasm dies down, but his way of kissing you never changes. Shallow, rapid kisses swapped between inexperienced middle schoolers, but he never lets up, always eager to meet your lips again and take in your breath in place of oxygen.

You never put a name to whatever’s happening between you two. You’re not friends anymore, that much is clear, but you two don’t have the means of going out on dates, either.

Regardless of what you are, he becomes clingier than ever following the shift in your relationship, and a small part of you can’t help but feel like you’re suffocating.

“Micha.”

He looks up from the ball at his feet, skillfully dribbling it despite the fact that his focus is elsewhere. It’s impressive; hopefully, one day, you’ll be able to see him play professionally.

Your heart sinks to your stomach and sits there heavily. Would that be the next time you see him? On some screen, miles away from him, years from this moment in this time?

You’re moving out of Berlin. Your father’s being suddenly transferred to an office in Cologne, and you have just five days to get all your stuff packed up and ready to go for the train ride on Sunday. You have a shitty starter phone— your parents aren’t keen on you having a smartphone, yet— but Micha has nothing. You suppose you could write to him, but that would put him at risk if his father got to the mail before he did.

When he catches the look on your face, he settles the ball at his feet and locks his full attention on you. “What’s wrong?”

You swallow, averting your gaze to the ground. “I’m moving,” you mumble.

A thick silence settles between you two. The soft breeze is sharp in your ears, like deafening static reverberating through your head.

His voice comes out sharp, digging in a way you’ve never heard it before. “What?”

“I’m moving,” you repeat. “I’m leaving. Dad’s job— we’ve got to go to Cologne.”

He doesn’t respond for so long that you finally force yourself to look up at him. His face has gone completely blank, and there’s only something dark in his eyes, something completely unreadable to you.

His voice is tight when he asks, “When are you coming back?”

“I—” You sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t think I am. I think the transfer’s permanent.”

He looks down, seemingly mulling over your words. When he looks up again, his gaze goes is cold, and he hums, straightening out. “No.”

You blink, confused. “No?”

“You’re not leaving.”

You furrow your brows. “What?”

He looks down at you derisively, seemingly irritated that he has to repeat himself. “I said you’re not leaving.”

“I can’t just not leave,” you spit out. He’s starting to be ridiculous, and his condescension has never been something that bodes well with you, having only been on the receiving end of it so few times. “I’m not gonna have any family here.”

He jostles the ball between his feet as if this is another one your shared mundane conversations. “So we’ll just run away together.”

You narrow your eyes at him in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”

He slants a side look at you. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Oh, sure,” you say, voice getting higher with each word, “just two teenagers running away and figuring out how to make ends meet. Can you please take this seriously?”

His foot comes down on top of the ball, hard. He flicks a finger between you two. “I am the only one taking this seriously.”

“This,” you echo, incredulous. “A stupid relationship.”

He kicks the ball to the side and turns to face you fully, and that’s how you know you fucked up. Each word bites as he asks, “Is that all this is to you?”

“You know I care about you, Micha,” you say carefully, “but asking me to throw away my family to stay with you is insane.”

Something shutters in his expression, but it’s gone before you can even register it. “I knew it,” he spits, “you’ve never cared about me as much as you’ve led me to believe.”

You grit your teeth. “Are you serious?”

He shrugs. “You obviously don’t value me as much as I value you.”

“Oh my god,” you snap, “you are fourteen. Get the fuck over yourself.”

“You think this is meaningless because we’re young?”

“I think,” you hiss, “that we have our whole lives ahead of us. I wouldn’t ask you to stay by my side if you had bigger and better things ahead of you.”

He continues to stare at you in icy silence. You sigh, frustrated.

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll work itself out,” you say.

Michael tilts his head, as if considering this. His eyes wander your face, committing every bit to memory. Then, he walks over to you, seizing your wrist in his hand. You step back, a bit thrown off, but he lightly tugs on your arm, pulling you back toward him. 

“It will work out,” he says, eyes boring into yours. “I’ll make sure of it.”

He leans down and presses a familiar, gentle kiss to your lips.

“Then you won’t have to leave me ever again.”

This time, when you pull away, he lets you go. Seemingly without a care in the world, he turns around and picks up the ball, heading toward the trail that he takes home.

You return to the park the day before you leave, but you don’t see him. You wait for hours, but he never shows.

The unease twisting in your gut doesn’t unravel until the train speeds away from the station, leaving Berlin behind you.

You’re about to turn eighteen when you see him again.

Not in person, but on a screen like you expected. The name Michael Kaiser sits in a scrolling bar across the bottom of the screen which plays footage of him playing on Bastard München’s youth team, his long golden hair flowing behind him beautifully. The news anchor says something about him being one of the most promising players of the new generation— not that that’s something you need to be told.

Your friend says something from across the table, ripping your attention from the screen. You don’t notice how tense you’ve gotten until you relax again.

Despite the lingering feeling of unease his memory leaves you with, you’re still glad he made it, after all.

“Who’s this?”

You’re back home for the holidays during your second year in university. Your studies have taken you back to Berlin, albeit a part you hadn’t grown up near and is still new and fresh to you. “Home” might not be the right word, though— you’re spending Christmas Eve at your grandmother’s house. She’s been hosting your entire family the past couple years since your grandfather’s passing forced her to relocate to a smaller house, an attempt to fill the empty home with warm presences.

Currently, she’s playing with a small, bedraggled dog that has wandered onto her porch. It’s wheezy and staggers when it walks, indicative of its old age.

“Oh, just a sweet little thing,” your grandmother replies as she pets its back. “You know, your grandfather always hated it when I would feed the strays. I did it a lot back at the old house on the other side of town, but there’s not too many animals on this side, so I don’t really do it anymore.”

You consider the dog. Its fur is matted, but nonetheless, its tail wags so hard from your grandmother’s attention that its whole body shakes with it. It sneezes pathetically.

You shove your hands into your coat pockets. “So this is a new one, then?”

“Well, not quite.” Your grandmother chuckles. “I first met this little guy back at the old house. I’ve been feeding him since he was a puppy! Seems he found his way back home on his own.”

“Huh.” Your eyes snap back to her. “I didn’t think they could actually do that.”

She laughs some more. “The most determined and loved ones can.”

You retreat back into the house. Your younger cousins jump on you immediately, demanding you play whatever nonsensical game they’ve thought up this time. You shed your coat, and with it, your lingering distress at your grandmother’s words.

“Oh my god, do you have a secret admirer?”

Your roommate’s voice pulls you out of your shocked state. The dread freezing your veins gradually thaws out, and you kneel down to pick the bouquet of flowers off the floor in front of the entrance to your shared apartment.

Blue forget-me-nots, with some blue roses interspersed throughout.

It’s October now. Just under a year has passed since Christmas, but your grandmother’s words are fresh in your mind, as if you’d heard them just yesterday.

You fumble around with the bouquet, movements becoming more frantic when you can’t find what you’re looking for. “There’s no card attached to this.”

“Well, duh,” your roommate says. “That would defeat the purpose of a secret admirer.”

Except, it’s not a secret who sent you these. You might have been able to brush it off if it was just the forget-me-nots, but the roses speak for themselves.

You flick your wrist out to the side, shoving the bouquet into your roommate’s chest. She grabs onto them, so you let them go in favor of getting the door unlocked.

“Figure out what to do with them,” you say as you enter the apartment.

She trails in after you, hot on your heels in incredulity. “Wait, you’re seriously not going to keep them?”

“You know I’m not interested in a relationship right now,” you say breezily, feigning a calmness that contradicts your racing heart. “It’s a sweet gesture, but I don’t want them.”

“I mean—” Your roommate stammers a bit before her words peter out. She sighs, then starts rummaging in the cabinet beneath the sink. “Alright, whatever you say.”

She ends up arranging them in a nice glass vase you weren’t aware you two even own and sets them in the center of the dining table. They mock you until they wither and die, and you can finally dispose of them.

By the time February rolls around without any further incidents, your guard has lowered significantly, which is, of course, your first mistake.

You’re lounging on the couch in the common space when there’s light knocking at your apartment door. There’s mostly college students renting in this unit, so it’s not uncommon for someone to stop by and invite you to some party or other, and with Valentine’s around the corner, there’s sure to be plenty.

You set your laptop down on the coffee table and get to your feet, sliding your feet into your slippers and crossing the room to get to the apartment entrance. You reach up and begin to undo the locks without checking the peephole, which is your second mistake.

You pull the door open, and immediately, everything freezes in place.

His eyes are as blue as the day you met him, only his gaze is far sharper than they were even on the day you left. 

The television and billboards really don’t do him justice. He’s fully grown into his figure now, the diet and training regimen of a professional athlete filling him out in ways that the portioned-out food fed to him from your hands could not. His hair is choppy, but a face that gorgeous can make anything work. It’s pulled up into a messy bun made to look regal by the glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. The blue rose on his neck is stark against his skin, and you eye the thorny vines that trail down and disappear beneath his shirt.

You meet his eyes again, apprehensive. His face is impassive, but the intensity of his gaze betrays him and keeps you pinned in place.

You clutch the doorknob so tightly your knuckles go white.

“Michael,” you say softly, and he frowns slightly at that. “What are you doing here?”

How did you find me? The unasked question hangs in the air between you two, but neither of you reach for it.

“Who’s Michael?” He asks airily. He steps forward, and hooks a finger under your chin before you get the chance to move away from him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your Micha already.”

You swallow thickly. “I haven’t,” you mumble.

He hums. His thumb brushes against your chin lightly as his gaze trails over your body. When it lands on you again, his eyes swallow you whole. “You look good.”

Heat floods your cheeks in spite of the dread settling in your stomach, and you look to the floor again. “Thanks.”

You attempt to step back, but there’s a hand that finds its way to the small of your back before you can. The hand on your chin tilts your head up, up, until you’re forced to look at him again.

“I spent so long waiting for you, liebling,” he says. “Is this how you greet your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” You sputter. “I don’t—”

His thumb presses firmly against your lips, quieting your protests. “Friends don’t make out, do they?” When you don’t respond, he adds, “We never did break up, you know. I’m glad to see you haven’t cheated on me in my absence.”

You finally reach your breaking point, all the agitation and unease within you spilling over. You shove at him as hard as you can, but if he didn’t budge all those years ago, he certainly wasn’t budging now. You shove at him again, this time trying to use the movement to push yourself away rather than push him, but he swiftly grabs hold of both your wrists and tugs you back toward him. Caught off guard, you careen forward and crash into his chest. His arms snake around your waist, an iron cage holding you firmly against him.

“Micha,” you hiss, “let me go.”

“Now, liebe,” he coos, releasing his hold on you just enough for you to shift and properly look up at him. “You know what that will cost you.”

You glare up at him, but to your chagrin, he seems perfectly content to simply hold you and gaze down at you. As seconds bleed into minutes trapped in his hold, you crack under the pressure. 

You tilt your head up fully, and Michael lowers his head just enough to be within your reach. You close the distance between you two, intending for the kiss to be short, shallow, and sweet, just like your first.

You honestly should know better at this point. One of his hands comes up to cradle the back of your head, and he pulls you back in just as you’re about to get away. 

The next kiss is deep, far more passion behind it than anything you two shared before you left. He bites at your bottom lip, and forces his tongue in when you startle. A whimper leaves your throat as he continues to lick into your mouth. You reach up to try to shove at his chest, but he places his other hand over it, rubbing his thumb against your knuckles in a mockery of a soothing gesture.

You gasp out when he finally breaks for air. Your lips sting from the sudden release of pressure, and a thin trail of saliva lines your bottom lip. You stumble back, but firm arms are there to catch you again.

You look up, and his pupil-blown eyes cause that unease to settle over you once more.

Gently, he brings your hand up to his lips and ghosts your knuckles over them.

There’s a glint in his eye as he asks, “Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”

Never satisfied. Insatiable, and now, somehow finding his way back to you.

You should have listened to your grandfather when you had the chance.

[pipedreame]

I am such a slut for Danny having supernatural strength and being able to kill someone with a single slap because he’s used to fighting ghosts who are built Sturdy (and literally can’t die, that is very helpful in a sparing partner) so he has to learn such meticulous control when he moves to Gotham where he starts regularly getting into scuffles with humans who think he’s an easy target (he looks like he has the sturdiness of a wet newspaper) and the whole time he’s more stressed about not drawing the Bats attention by being too good or accidentally killing someone so he has to walk that fine line of acting like a scrawny loser and dipping out at his first chance without being clocked as a meta.

Danny, laying on the ground and getting kicked repeatedly by a thug: *tries to angle himself so the guy can kick out a knot in his back*

Danny: *deadpan* oh, ow, stop that hurts, oof

Robin, watching from the rooftop and recognizing the dramatics from the Supers: father there is a meta

Batman, also watching and having flashbacks to Clark’s earlier days: *so so tired and already mentally getting the adoption paperwork ready*

[bunnyscryptarchived]

got the urge to do the 'orange peel theory' trend with rafe "can you peel this for me?" 

rafe laying on your bed, just minding his business when you come holding an orange next to his face. he doesn't even spare you a glance before muttering "no" concentrating on finishing whatever business he's doing on his phone.

"rafe" you whine, bottom lip pouted. "please?" 

"you're perfectly capable of doing it yourself" “but my nails.. i just got them done, i don’t want to ruin them” his right eye twitches as he ignores you, being his usual grumpy ole self. you huff and attempt to peel the orange yourself, trying to use the pads of your fingers instead of your nails. you don’t notice the side eye he's giving you. tongue in cheek, as he watches you struggle, but just before you can throw a fit, it’s aggressively snatched from your hands making you jump a bit. he sits on the edge of your bed and starts to peel it for you. “thank you rafey” you smile sweetly. "yeah yeah -just need me to do everything for you huh baby” letting out a low chuckle. he finishes and tosses the peel in the trash and hands you the oranges but not before eating a couple making you whine. he tugs you by the hair, bringing your face down to his. “are there any other problems you want me to solve for you?” staring at him with big lovey dovey doe eyes, bottom lip tucked in between your teeth as you shake your head ‘no’. his lips press flat as he hums, tilting his head a bit “a’ight now” lips hovering over yours, he calls you a spoilt brat before puling you into a deep kiss. 

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[mail-me-a-snail]

TRUE BLU ii.

You wanna keep believin' you're just a copy, then go ahead. 'Cause you? You ain't got nothin' else.

chapter 2 of my "blu team are clones of red team and blu sniper is feeling very normal about that (lie)" fic is up now! had to post a day early because i am ridiculously busy tomorrow and wont be able to post it on time :P

anyway, happy reading!

[toastysol]

Just remembered the first time i played Cyberpunk and how I was prepared for Johnny to be an asshole, but I honestly was not prepared for how pathetic he was. Like he's actually so pathetic in his memories. Everyone wants to punch him in the balls, no one wants to talk to him, he's so desperate for more drugs he comes crawling back to the woman who just broke up with him, minutes after telling her to fuck off cause he doesn't give a shit about her. He immediately then gets stabbed through the back by some goon. His ripper confirms he never takes care of himself and never listens to anyone. Idk what my point is. He's pathetic.

[mrcatlion]

I have been consuming Zack Lives AUs and would like to offer the headcannon: Zack keeps a habit of taking initiative for transporting Cloud to places even after Cloud wakes up. Usually grabbing and leading Cloud places, but sometimes ends up with Zack full on hoisting Cloud over his shoulder and starts walking.

[thekittyokat]

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

[wriothesleybear]

Imagine giving your boyfriend, Dr. Ratio a rubber duck that looks like him as a joke. He does make a comment saying it's idiotic, but he actually keeps it in his bathtub. Every time he looks at it while he's bathing, it makes him feel a warmth in his chest because it's a personalized gift you got just for him. You notice it hanging on the side of the tub the next time you bathe with him and tease him for it. "Hm. I guess it wasn't that idiotic of a present since you kept it in one of your most sacred places." He just ignores your teasing and continues reading his book.

The next time you two decided to take a bath together to relax, you notice another rubber duckie next to the one you gifted him and it looks just like you. You make a comment on it and he's nonchalant about it. His reasoning being "It seemed fitting that you should have one as well since we usually bathe together". All you can do is blush, taken by surprise from his words. He notices this and smirks. "What's wrong dear? Too shy to give one of your teasing remark?" All you can do is look away, moving back to lay on his chest. You quietly say, "It's cute." He slightly chuckles, a fond look graces his features. He wraps his arm around you, bringing you closer into him and rests his face into your hair, leaving a faint kiss to the crown of your head.

[keferon]

Two Peas in a Pod: part 4/?

Hopefully the dialog isn't confusing.

______________________________

"Still dizzy?" 

"Not really," Jazz answered with a comfortable smile, though stole a quick glance over to the gate. The first since Blaster had arrived for the morning routine. The other mer wasn't awake yet last he saw, but he was shifting more. The medication had obviously long worn off by now, but Jazz still hoped they weren't in too much pain. 

But Blaster noticed and it prompted him to pause his checks to ask, "did he wake up last night?" 

"Kinda? He could have been talking in his sleep though." 

"Hm, there's a good chance he'll be up soon, then." 

Jazz's expression of his usual cheerfulness shifted, just slightly and if it had been anyone other than Blaster, they would have missed it. He flipped the clipboard over in his lap and rested his elbows against his crossed legs. 

"You're nervous," Blaster pointed out gently and gave Jazz an encouraging smile. "Is this about their injuries, or is this about making a friend?" 

The mer's face soured and he looked away. "I thought I wasn't supposed to ask." 

"That was about the gate, and I'm sorry about that." It was just the two of them on the pier, but Blaster still practised a surveying sweep of the area with what looked like stretching. Then with a lower voice, he continued, "The Vet Chief wanted to fully isolate them from you, to keep them in a transfer-crate, at least until the injuries had a low risk of reopening. I argued that it would put them under a lot of undue stress, and you because you knew the Mer was here. Which is part of why it took so long for–" 

"–and it's fine to say this now?" Jazz snapped and turned back to him with a small scowl. 

"Jazz, how many staff members were in your area yesterday? When we talked about the gate?" 

He paused, trying to recall. Blaster was with him and the group that went into the bay had five… seven? 

"There was thirteen, Jazz," he supplied, knowing that any answer coming would be incorrect. It was a lot of people, and with Blaster already known for making waves on the regular, the sudden addition had eyes and ears on him. That, and because he had fought so hard against the 'great idea' brought up in the first meeting after emergency treatment had ended. "You didn't even clock the vet on standby at the pier entrance." 

Jazz huffed and laid out flat, resting his chin on his crossed arms. Okay, so he wasn’t paying attention to who was around. "Then what is it about the gate? I get the bit about climbing the walls, but…" 

"That one is on me, I was – am – being overly cautious. Not of you, but of others misunderstanding your excitement or anxiety as aggression. And I know how persistent you can be when something catches your interest. But that's not the point, what is, is that if the team reports you showing signs of aggression, they'll… remove him." 

Now looking worried, Jazz glanced from Blaster to the gate. "But what if he shows aggression?" 

"We're expecting that, at least at first." Blaster wanted to reassure him, but there were still too many unknown variables. "Unknown place with an unfamiliar face, and likely limited communication. There is bound to be backlash." 

Jazz looked down with an expression of growing despair, before dropping his face against his arms. His words muffled, "so whether he stays or not depends on me being able to talk with him." 

Blaster reached out and placed his hand on the orca's shoulder. "Listen, buddy, this might be hard to hear. But let me explain, okay? … So far it looks like there are no issues and the current plan is to have him released once he recovers." As he feels Jazz tense, Blaster frowns in understanding and begins to rub his shoulder to comfort him. "There is only one reason that the aquarium wouldn't go through with it, and honestly, I don't want that to happen. It's all sorts of fucked up and would only make things worse– but I don't want you to distance yourself from him. I want you to try and befriend him." 

"… why," Jazz asked weakly, cursing him for telling him the truth – for reminding him of the truth – for breaking his small piece of hope of not being alone anymore. If he was going to be taken away, if he was just going to lose him no matter what, then it would hurt less if he just ignored him. 

All sorts of answers bounce around in Blaster's mind. From wishful thinking – because I want you to go with him. To long term goals – anything we could learn could help Mers everywhere. But he settled on as close to the truth as he could. "Because I'm trying to make sure that no matter what happens, it's the best result for both of you. But I can't do that if the two of you can't at least work together. So, I'm asking you to try." 

"Right," because he doesn't need to be kept here to survive… he just needs time to heal. Where I – "–right. Okay, I'll try… but where do I even start?" Jazz took a deep breath to compose himself before he lifted his head. 

"Well, why don't we see if sleepy-head is waking up? Maybe he'd like breakfast." Blaster offered, first with a reassuring smile, but then twisted it into something more mischievous. "And maybe you could find out if he's got a beautiful name, too." 

It took a second to realize what Blaster was getting at, and for the first time in his life Jazz felt bashful. "W-what are you talking about?" He hid it terribly. 

"He's beautiful~" he whispered dramatically, and Blaster learned that mers could in fact blush. 

— 

When Blaster left to get food for the wild mer, Jazz calmly made his way over to the view port. Only to be taken by surprise, he was looking directly at Jazz. Though, glaring, might be more accurate with how his face was pulled tight with focus and the sheer intensity of his stare. 

But otherwise, they were completely calm. Jazz wasn't sure if that was a good sign or bad. Yet, it didn't stop his nervous excitement from returning. He waved with one of his best smiles – one without teeth – and greeted him with a friendly, "hello!" 

What he got in return was a slightly more intense furrowing of their brow – irritation or confusion? 

"Oh! Sorry, habit." Jazz switched to mer. {Hi!} 

The tension didn't leave his face, but there was slight movement and, again, Jazz didn't know how to interpret that. But he did answer, {||၊|။||||•။၊|။|။|၊|။||၊၊၊|?} 

"Uh…" Yep, didn't understand any of that. 

Then the door opened on the edge behind them and Jazz for a moment thought that it would startle the wild mer. But they didn't even flinch. And while their eyes remained on him, Jazz was fairly sure now that they had been using their sonar to track the human's movement. 

"Are they still asleep?" Blaster asked, puzzled. 

"Nope, very much awake." He shifted lower to try and get more than the man's boots in his sight. 

"Ah…" He sounded uneasy and began to make small careful steps around the edge closer to Jazz while he spoke as calmly as possible. "Well, I'm going to keep talking, just so you don't think I'm trying to sneak up on you." 

When he reached the point where he was straight across from the wild mer, they lifted their head to turn their glare on the human. Blaster to his credit did not flinch, but he did freeze. "Whoa– that's – wow, t-that's quite the look." 

A series of slow clicks came from them, but their lips did not move. Jazz didn't think it was echo-speak, as it reminded him of his own searching clicks when he was trying to get a better picture. "Oh! I think he's trying to see what you have." 

The wild mer glanced to Jazz, becoming silent once more before looking back up at Blaster. 

"Fair enough, alright new buddy, I'm going to be real slow about it okay?" Back to narrating his actions calmly as he knelt down. Showing the long pole with a thin, blunt hook, "just an arm I don't mind losing if you decide that you don't like the breakfast I brought," and poured out the fish from the bucket. 

Still the wild mer glared, unblinking and watching every little movement. 

"Okay… I'm not sure what to make of this, so far everything has been nothing like previous encounters." 

"Ya, didn't you say he'd be freaking out?" 

"You got anything to calm or reassure our new buddy here that I ain't going to hurt him?" Blaster was doing his absolute best at trying to remain calm, but even his hands were starting to tremble under the pressure the wild mer was giving him. He wasn't even moving, just watching, but it felt like the human was being stalked. 

Honestly, Blaster was probably one bad move from being lunged at. Though, if that was the case, he had maybe one chance to get away. The hammock would throw him off on the first strike, the supports could probably take two or four hard thrashings before it snapped under the mer's strength. Injuries be damned, this mer was in peak physical condition. 

Jazz gave a small chirp to try and gain the other's attention, and failed, but continued with trying to talk. {It's okay, you're safe.} 

He was given a very tiny dip of his finial facing the gate – a tell that he had heard him? 

{You're safe,} Jazz repeated. 

The mer didn't look away, but he did at least respond. {•၊၊|•|၊|။။၊|။•|||။||||။၊|။•၊၊||၊|။||||။•၊|။•၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|။•} Though, far too fast for Jazz attempt to understand. 

"I'm hoping you two are talking about your favourite fish." Blaster joked to cover his nervousness. 

Jazz sighed and admitted the truth, "I haven't a clue to what they're talking about…" 

"Just let me know if I should run, kay?" He shifted slowly on his knees, trying to find a comfortable spot without making himself too vulnerable. 

But Jazz hadn't given up yet. {Hungry?} He tried instead. 

More chirps and clicking that didn't translate. 

{Hungry? Yes? No?} 

The heavy huff that came from them caused Blaster to flinch, but the mer finally focused on Jazz. There was clear irritation in their face now on top of glaring. And the damns broke, he started ranting at him loudly. 

"Hey, don't yell at me, I'm trying okay!?" Jazz glared back, not backing down. Though wasn't all that intimidating with him just having a little porthole to look through. 

"Jazz, buddy, please don't aggravate him." He, after all, was the one in the room with the wild mer. 

"He fuckn' started it!" 

Silence came quickly as the wild mer plunked his face into the soft floaty that had been his pillow. Blaster would have found it utterly hilarious if not fearing for his life currently. With another heavy and long huff, the wild mer looked back at Jazz, still glaring, but slightly less than before. {•|||။||||။၊|။•၊၊||၊|။? Yes? No?} 

Jazz blinked at him for a moment, depending on the question, no could be a yes. {No…?} He answered tentatively instead. 

{It's safe? Yes? No?} And he pointed his nose towards Blaster briefly, but clearly wasn't happy about it. 

{Yes!} Jazz nodded vigorously and smiled for extra encouragement. Out of all the staff, Blaster was safe, Jazz held some trust in the human after all. {[Blaster] safe.} 

"What about me?" 

"He asked if you're safe and I told him you were. Relax a bit or something to show him." 

Easier said than done. Blaster cursed, but did his best to ease the tension from his shoulders and smile a little. Even, daring to slowly lift a hand to wave. 

The mer did not seem convinced, but his glare lessened some more and looked over the human with more curiosity than before. 

{Hungry? Yes? No?} Jazz tried again. 

There was a long pause, but they sighed and answered. {… yes.} 

"Progress!" He cheered and then stuck his hand through the little window. "Blaster, hand me one of the fish. He's hungry, but I have a feeling that he'll trust you more if he sees me eat what you have." 

"Okay." He made sure that it was clear as possible what his intentions were. Taking a fish under the gills, Blaster looped the blunt hook in and out the mouth. Then, very slowly, began to feed the length of the pole towards Jazz's waiting hand. Once Jazz felt the tail touch his palm, he grabbed it and waited until Blaster twisted enough for the fish to slip free. Then the pole was just as slowly drawn back. 

The whole time the wild mer watching the exchange intensely. 

Jazz pulled the fish over to his side, chirped for the other's attention before he swallowed it whole. Smiling once more as he said, {safe.} 

Blaster had to admit, he was surprised when the mer shifted slightly in the hammock, and then cautiously held out his right hand. The glare never left, but this one felt like a threat, that if he messed this chance up, there would not be another. 

Though this was the first time Jazz had been able to see any of his injuries. The colourful tape-bandages almost covered every inch of his skin from his hand up to his bicep. It reminded him that just yesterday he had been mortally wounded. Which was probably a key reason the wild mer seemed so calm, they had only started to recover and every action was either painful or exhausting. Likely both.

Jazz watched closely as Blaster went through all the careful steps as he had with Jazz and held the fish out. The only difference, was that the human's grip was loose, just in case the wild mer decided to try and yank him into the water with it. But they didn't, doing exactly as they saw before, allowing Blaster to release the fish and retreat. The whole process was so slow that the wild mer's arm started to shake from being held out. 

But both Jazz and Blaster let out a breath of relief as there had been no backlash. 

He eyed the fish in his grip with a mild sneer before he swallowed it and then held out his shaky hand for another. It was clear that the pain was getting to him, but nothing in his expression showed weakness. 

The feeding got easier and quicker as Blaster relaxed a bit, not fearing that a normal pace would come off as threatening to the wild mer. 

When the shaking got bad enough, the mer rested his arm back in the hammock, but kept his eyes on the remaining fish. As if to convey he wasn't finished, just needed a break. Blaster was more than happy to comply and gave him a few praises, even if they didn't understand. 

"Hey," Jazz called gently, chirping for the other's attention. He waited until they looked his way, then pointed at himself. "Jazz," and then to the human, "Blaster," and back to himself once more, "Jazz," before pointing to the other mer with a questioning tilt of his head. He hoped it was clear what he was asking for. 

When the silence stretched on for a bit, the human also joined in. "Blaster," to himself and to his mer, "Jazz." 

There was a brief moment that Jazz could see that they were working over something, opening their mouth a few times before the sound of a sharp zip came out. "… 'tzz?" 

Jazz snorted, before breaking into a few chuckles. "Ya, missing the Ja, but you'll get there. I'm Jazz." He placed a hand over his heart. 

The gesture was reflected, {•၊||၊။} 

It was his turn to try and work out the sound in his head. Jazz tried the word out soundlessly on his tongue once. It was like a popping roll? {•၊||၊၊၊၊၊?} 

{•၊||၊။} they repeated, firmly correcting him. 

"Nice to meet ya, {•၊||၊၊၊၊၊}!" While the mer scowled at him for not even trying to fix his pronunciation, Jazz just smiled brightly.  

"So... what is his name?" Blaster asked for a translation, very interested in the development between them.  

Jazz laughed, "I have no idea." 

______________________________

Don't ask about my attempt to make sound-wave-like-text, it's gibberish, lol, and going forward only •၊||၊။ (Prowl) & •၊||၊၊၊၊၊ (Prowler) will be used until Jazz has a English (common?) name to attach an understanding to.

Keferon, I just wanted to say that every comment or tag you leave on the fic is like serotonin being injected into my veins. Every silly little image is like rolling down a grassy hill in the warm sun while I laugh with manic joy. When you add art, it's like an adrenaline shot to the heart that makes me want to run across the globe just to frantically wave hello with both hands, give you a hug and run back to get started on the next part.

And the next part will be Prowl joining Jazz in the main pool and Jazz learning just how fast he is, even while injured. >:)c

-GLC

𓆝 Previous 𓆟 Next

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Me looking in my inbox and seeing that there's two peas in a po

Odjndgdjdkfhdkm PLEASE. Blaster is so nervous EVERYONE IS SO NERVOUS Ooohhhnooo he's gonna freak out and kill everything he can reach oh no we all know how all those wild stupid creatures are oh no watch out While Prowl is trying to blow their pancakes with mind

And I juswannasay I love it so much ehehejgknfbfkdn THE SOUND WAVE SPEACH? I LOVE THE LOOK OF IT EHEHEH

Always a big fan of creative ways of showing imaginary languages. This thing?? ||ll•|Il It looks hella stylish >:O

Aaannnndd I got excited and made some art hehe

[psychotic-nonsense]

In October of 1967, Steve Harrington is born in Hawkins, Indiana.

He's raised there, forced to live under the strict expectations of his parents, Richard and Samantha. Barely escapes their clutches, freedom fueled by the kids and adults that take the role of guardian and family when the time is right. Keeps himself in check with the always impending apocalypses that arise beneath his feet.

In June of 1985 - when Steve Harrington is 18, while Richard and Samantha Harrington are visiting New York for an extended work trip - Veronica Harrington is born.

She was carried and raised in secret from their hometown. They take care of her between their business hours, dropping her in the hands of nannies and babysitters galore. They don't even think of Indiana during Veronica's early childhood, too focused on work and making sure their daughter starts up right.

In October of 1986 - when Steve Harrington is 19, aged further by ending the Vecna War, yet tamed by his newfound love in Eddie Munson - Richard and Samantha Harrington return to Hawkins.

They don't ask about what happened to their son. They don't ask about the town. They don't ask questions, just give responses to them. Sneering at Steve's friends, complaining about the state of the house, commenting at the disfunctional chaos their home has become.

In November of 1986, Richard and Samantha Harrington disown Steve.

They just let him go. They at least give him a folder of his legal documents, but otherwise just tell him to get out of their house and never use their name again. Claiming Steve doesn't need anything from the room because the Harrington's own everything in it. They don't call him son, they don't say goodbye, they don't acknowledge who's actually taken care of the house, they don't admit most of Steve's former room has changed with money Steve earned himself, they don't dare to give him any money or care where he goes. They just say they're sick of dealing with an unworthy mistake of a child, and force him out of their house.

In November of 1986, the Party's adults adopt Steve.

He runs to them first after everything happens. Held himself together at the start, but broke down the second the words were out. While everyone was trying to comfort Steve, Wayne Munson and Jim Hopper were the first to succeed. They know firsthand that this family would never be the same as blood, no matter how much that blood has boiled and burned before, but the love will be stronger and it will be here. When everyone seconds it, Steve finally accepts it. He becomes a child of the Party - he's everyone's son and everyone's brother, taking whatever surname he sees fit.

In November of 1986, Steve Henderson and Eddie Munson leave Hawkins.

Despite all this good, Steve can't bear to stay in this damned town a second longer, where everyone knows who he is and will soon know everything he isn't. And it's not like Eddie was looking forward to sticking around Hawkins either, especially without his Steve. The kids are the first to agree, surprisingly, and the adults promise to find a way for the boys to get out. Later that week, when Richard and Samantha leave the house to prepare for Veronica, Steve and Eddie break in to take everything that's rightfully theirs. While they're there, not sure what prompts him, Steve makes a bag of his clothes with shoes and his wallet tucked within it, shoving it into his closet. Dustin's mom uses an old favor to get the boys an apartment in Chicago, the Party has one last farewell, and the two boys are gone.

From 1986 onward, Veronica Harrington is raised in Hawkins, Indiana.

Richard and Samantha are adamant in their daughter coming out exactly how she should. They steadily convince the town to forget the Harringtons ever had a son and lock the room on the second floor next to the stairs without ever touching the inside. They raise her with formality and pride at the top of their expectations, wanting at least one child to come out right.

But Veronica is the spitting image of Steve's honesty and care. She puts on a facade when needed, but even at a young age, she wants nothing more than to be someone's light in the darkness. She plays with every lonely kid at school, and tries to make people laugh at the business parties she's dragged to. It's not received well by her parents, but Veronica is much too strong willed and stubborn to let it phase her.

In April of 1991 - when she's 6 and they're so much stronger around their hearts - Veronica Harrington meets Steve and Eddie Munson for the first time.

It's the year Erica is set to graduate high school. Steve and Eddie have been making the drive for every holiday this year, ordered determined to give her the best senior year she could have. It's Easter Sunday, and Wayne somehow managed to drag his boys away to church - a Munson custom, as even Eddie insisted they go.

While at the snack table post sermon, a little girl comes up to Steve, mistaking him for her father. He and Eddie gently comfort the girl, introducing themselves and offering to help the girl find her parents. That's when Veronica introduces herself, striking Steve deep in his heart. Still, he keeps quiet, even gifting her a little origami crane made from napkins at the table. He calls her "chickpea" for the color of her dress, tells her to keep the crane secret and safe, "If ever you need to find your way back home, you hold that close, and it'll tell you."

Meanwhile, Wayne has come across Richard and Samantha in the crowd opposite the kids. Exchanging formalities, Wayne mentions his son and nephew are in town, news the Harrington's are surprised at, as Wayne didn't seem like the father type. However, trying to keep face, they remain civil and insist on introducing their daughter.

Cue Veronica running to her parents with Steve and Eddie in tow. Cue Steve calling Wayne dad right to Richard's face. Cue the Harrington's immediate leave from the church, Veronica waving behind her with a crane placed carefully in her pocket.

From then on, Veronica Harrington's life changes indefinitely.

Her parents' expectations grow tenfold. She finds out she's horribly allergic to chickpeas. All of her friends must be approved by her parents, and any that don't fit their image are ordered to leave her.

Veronica takes these changes in stride - is her class's top student, captain of the softball and volleyball teams in junior high, keeps the friends she wants in secret from her parents - but she can't help but keep the crane in a little box in her room. Gets a necklace with a little origami crane pendant, holds it whenever she needs to make a hard choice. Can't help but expand herself in secret, learn things her parents would never approve of - lock picking, other languages, sleight of hand, a clothing style that's nothing like the dark blues of her family, all warmth and light. She explores every room in her house, yet is unable to find her way into that room upstairs next to the steps.

In May of 1998, Veronica Harrington discovers the truth about her brother.

She's about to be a freshman. Her class was touring the high school in preparation, and while passing the athletics hall, her eyes hit the swimming trophies. Each row stuffed with trophies, and each one with a name that stabbed her right in the stomach: Steve Harrington.

After that, she couldn't bear all the secrecy anymore. Late that same night, she finally uses her lock picking skills to break into that room. And though it's devoid of life, it is a bedroom, so evidently lived in. It's frozen in time, twisted sheets covered in dust, old papers crinkled from being stepped on but not picked up, old clean clothes still sitting in the hamper. It's a boy's room, clearly, and Veronica is careful walking around this place of memories.

She does still explore, quietly clicking on lights around the room, too cautious to touch the overhead lights. She looks under the bed, finding a bat and a trash can lid, both embedded with rusty nails. A shirt that still smells like fresh laundry yet has a back stained permanently with long red lines down the shoulders. Dozens of stapled documents labeled NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT, detailing horrific events that each have that same name signed at the bottom.

With shaking hands she checks the closet, and finds it mostly empty. All except for a deep green graduation robe and cap, a cream Hawkins High letterman, and a duffel bag hidden in the back corner. The cap has a 1985 tassel, and the letterman has Harrington branded on the back with basketball and swimming patches galore. And the bag, when she checks it, looks like a survivalist pack someone would make in an apocalypse. At the top sits a wallet, and inside is an ID for a Steve Harrington, who has the same face as the one in her origami memories.

And Veronica is done. She wakes up the next morning and throws Steve's jacket on the kitchen table, startling both her parents mid sip of coffee. She finds herself in a screaming match with her father, demanding them to quit lying to her, begging to know who her brother is.

In a fit of rage, Richard tells her. Tells her everything Richard and Samantha never saw in Steve, about Veronica's secret birth, the disownment, Steve's disappearance from the Harrington house and Hawkins. She's reminded of that one Easter Sunday, and is told how Richard and Samantha faked Veronica's allergy to keep her mind from being tainted by whatever curse befell their bloodline before. Orders her to never say that name again.

In a fit of rage, Veronica bites back. Calls her parents cruel and overly expectant. Comes clean about her secret freedom. Says she'd rather be nothing than ever carry the burden of the Harrington name ever again.

She hides away in her room after the fight. Cries in her closet with her origami box cradled tightly to her chest, begging it to take her home because this place isn't anymore, maybe never was. Cries for the brother she never even got to meet, who went through so many horrible things yet still got put through this same punishment. Cries for the future she won't get to have, losing her hope for a new beginning that will now never be.

At the start of June, 1998, Veronica runs away.

She makes it through the rest of May in near silence. She writes notes for all of her friends at the end of the school year, and one for her parents to inevitably find. Finds 75 dollars in Steve's old wallet, stuffs the duffel bag the rest of the way with her belongings, and says goodbye to Hawkins.

She takes the first bus she can find out of town. Doesn't care that it's going to Chicago, doesn't really care where she's going now. She befriends an old homeless man riding the bus as well, becomes another interesting name in his "Book of Wanders (Pronounced as Wonders)." As Veronica's telling the story about unknowingly meeting her brother, she remembers the crane in her bag. She reaches in to retrieve the little box, then the crane, nearly crying seeing how disheveled and unfolded it is. Broken and doomed, just like her. But looking at it now after so long, she thinks she sees something written inside it. Despite it shattering her heart pieces, she carefully unfolds the little crane.

At its center, in old, bleeding blue text, reads, "Find the Swooping Bat if you've lost your way."

The old man laughs then, taking Veronica's hand and placing it onto her chest, over her heart. "It's fate," he whispers in the dark bus. "There's a place called that in Chicago."

Veronica uses her money to rent them both a hotel for the night, giving the old man a warm bath for the first time in weeks. She gifts him the clothes as well, saying it's, "an honorary thanks from my brother, for helping me get here." They bid each other farewell in the morning, the old man telling her to keep hold of fate.

She finds her way to the Swooping Bat easily, hand on her necklace guiding her way. It's a quaint little diner, popular enough to be comfortably warm when she walks in. A young lady in a wheelchair - Max, says her nametag, with pins saying things like, "Summer work blows" and "USC grad or bust!" resting on her collar - guides her to a booth next to the sunrise.

"Anything I can get you today?" Max asks when Veronica's seated.

Veronica's fully ready to order everything on the menu, what with how delicious this place smells, but then she remembers her funds. 5 bucks, if she's lucky. "Just a chocolate milk, for now. Biggest one you have, please." She somehow plays off Max's skeptical look, her eyes sweeping over Veronica's no doubt disheveled and no-food-in-36-hours appearance.

It somehow works out, and Max is wheeling away. Veronica allows herself a moment to collapse, stomach growling in pain and eyes burning with the realization she has no idea what she's going to do now. She just has this last bit of hope to hold onto, and without it, she'll be nothing but a husk.

She's not sure how long she sits there, staring at the sunrise and letting sound and AC whisk her mind away, but there's suddenly a little knock on her table. Her head snaps up, and there's Max again, setting down a giant glass of chocolate milk... alongside a loaded breakfast plate.

"It's on the house," Max rushes to explain, all fondness when Veronica scrambles to get her wallet. "Courtesy of the owner. And between you and me," she whispers with a wink, "just take the damn food, kid."

Veronica stumbles over herself for a moment, rendered near speechless, before she finally comes back. She begs Max to thank the owner profusely, before rushing to dig into the pancakes before her. She's halfway done dousing the stack in syrup by the time Max wheels away, when there's suddenly someone laughing.

"Of course," says a choked-up voice behind her. "Can't have any chickpeas starving in my booths."

Veronica nearly drops her fork. She turns so sharply she gets dizzy. Seven years can't change a person that much, surely, because though he's bigger in the torso and he has glasses on the bridge of his nose and his hair is cut so close, he still has the same softness in his voice and the same slouch in his stance and the same moles around his eyes and his smile is so bright despite the tears in his eyes, and though Veronica can barely see through tears herself, it's not like she needs them anyway to know it's-

"Steve!" she cries, scrambling out of the booth to meet her brother halfway. The relief of it all working out has the rest of her restraint collapsing, forcing harsh sobs out of her and into Steve's shoulder. The siblings hold each other in the middle of a restaurant, a voice in the background asking everyone to leave them be. Steve doesn't stop whispering, even as his chest heaves with broken gasps between tears, "You're save, Veronica, I got you, I got you, it's gonna be okay, you're safe here, it's okay, sis, it's okay..."

"That you, lil' chickpea?" whispers a different voice once they've calmed down. Veronica reluctantly pulls away and finds a man kneeling beside them, a hand on Steve's shoulder and similar tears in his eyes. His hair and tattoos remind her of the tamed wild from seven years ago, covered in black in the middle of church yet glowing brighter than the stained glass, the one that Steve looks at in past and present with a glowing love Veronica never saw between her parents.

"Yeah," she whispers, wiping her tears away before placing a hand atop her necklace. It catches Eddie and Steve's eyes and make them beam with pride and relief. "Yeah, it's... it's me...."