#There is an excessive amount of fucking in the PT

[problematicsubmarine]

It's honestly weird the ST is really the only part of Star Wars I don't really multiship

[inf3ct3dd]

ellie headcanons ..!

warnings : literally none, perfectly sfw 😍😍

content: loser!ellie x reader, more ellie-focused than relationship focused (sorryyyy 😞😞)

authors note: i’ve literally never done headcanons omg 😓 this is js my random ramblings 🔥🔥🔥

pt. 2 ! taglist!!!! masterlist!!

- send you an excessive amount of reels. every 5 seconds. cute cats, random facts about space, stuff she thinks is funny, it all goes to you.

- definitely had a “rock collection” when she was little, but she was so ???? excessive with it??? like every time she saw a rock she picked it up. she walked so weird bc her pockets were just FULL OF ROCKS.

- also, was literally the grimiest kid ever. playing in ROLLING IN the mud, going snail hunting when it rained!!! she was the kid that would go in the bushes and mess w rolly pollies all the time for NO REASON.

- is weirdly good at fishing?? joel took her all the time, and shes a self proclaimed “fishing master”

- WAYYY clumsy. always running into a wall, tripping on air, or missing steps on the stairs (smh its cuz of that damn phone 😒😒)

- im so into the whole “adam sandler” fits cuz its so true. esp during the summer, its some stupid t shirt that says “master baiter” and a pair of old basketball shorts.

- speaking of t shirts, she’s def the type to own an absurd amount of dumb t shirts.

- gets all her clothes from like, walmart and goodwill. she does not CARE!!!

- cuts her own hair too 🤞🏽🤞🏽 shes soooo self sufficient 😍😍😍

- bites. she is such a biter.

- speaking of, i feel like she js has to have something in her mouth constantly. gum, random pieces of plastic, bottle caps, pens, anything 😞

- speaking of mouths (wow sierra so many connections!!!) she def had braces , but she hates wearing her retainer so her teeth are like ever-so-slightly fucked up

- is AMAZING at committing to the bit. she will drag it for DAYSSS if you don’t tell her to stop. once did a (awful) british accent for 4 days until you threw something at her and told her to shut the fuck up

- definitely not shy, just kind of…odd. she’ll talk to anyone that talks to her, she just doesn’t really approach people.

- weird obsession with pickles. has a pickle stuffed animal with a mustache and glasses that she bought from goodwill

- hangs up so much stuff on her walls!!!! tickets, old notes, cards, pictures of people, drawings, old tickets, literally anything she thinks looks cool

- obsessed with rollercoasters!!! she took you to the fair for your first date

- also like- very good at fair games. she’s so cocky about it too, you’ll go home with like 20 stuffed animals she won for you and she’ll carry ALL OF THEM with the stupidest smile on her face

- wears all of joels old contractor-workwear clothes during the colder months

- trys so hard to be “mysterious” but she’s never actually doing anything so she just does stuff like not telling you what movie she’s watching or what she’s eating

- also just texts you 24-7!!! like every time she’s doing something she’s like “i made a quesadilla” “i went to the store” “i took a shower” she just looooves keeping you updated

- tries to raise one eyebrow but ends up just squinting one eye. so funny 😞😞

- really good at solving rubix cubes???

- definitely had a fuck ass bob at one point

- GLASSES. that is all. glasses.

- listens to so much dad rock, midwest emo, indie, she LOVES male manipulator music!! but like she isn’t like thatttt shes so niceeee 😞😞

- mostly calls you babe/baby, she’ll call you really dumb pet names as a joke like “pookie” 😭😭

[pub-lius]

WAKE UP ITS HAMILTON TIME (hamilton pt 1)

everyone thank richard for getting me to put all my knowledge about alexander hamilton in one place. if you're at all new or confused, @thereallvrb0y once asked me 3 years ago to tell him everything about every historical figure i can, and since then i have been doing that. now we are onto the last one on the list he gave me, and studying hamilton is literally my life's work, so here it is. on tumblr.com. for free.

my sources for this are Ron Chernow and Hamilton himself and a strange amalgamation of knowledge from different museums, documentaries, interviews with historians, and other otherwise publicly accessible knowledge that i have compiled into the vast library inside my mind! you can find my notes in the link in my pinned post. let's go (this historical research is sponsored by the ghost of freddie mercury and my aunt who made me a whole pot of coffee)

Background Information

Ron Chernow loves to talk about how the island of St. Kitts and Nevis was formed, but that's not fucking important. What's important about Hamilton's birthplace is that it was positioned in the Caribbean in such a way that made it a very easily accessible port, however the coastline was pretty smooth which made it generally unideal for mooring ships.

Source: The St. Kitts' Scenic Railway; Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the US Navy by Ian W. Toll, p. 112 ("Basseterre Roads was not a good natural harbor. It was little more than a dent in the otherwise smooth coastline that ran along the western side of the island. There was no pier- visitors were obliged to run their boats directly onto the beach, sometimes surfing in on waves that broke heavily as they reached the shore.")

Now, notice that St. Kitts and Nevis is, in geographic terms, to the right-ish of the Caribbean. That means when you're coming from Jolly Ole England, you might make a pit stop in St. Kitts and Nevis. So if you ignore the fact that the island has no natural harbor (at least not a good one), it might be a good economic prospect for a young merchant, right?

Well, not if that merchant is James Hamilton, because he was an idiot. And I say that lovingly, or at least more lovingly than Ron Chernow did. Ron Chernow also emphasized that St. Kitts and Nevis was filled with the 18th century version of Shameless, and also Jewish people. Ron Chernow might not hate Jewish people, but he does hate the character archetypes in Shameless. In Shameless terms, James Hamilton was like Frank Gallagher.

Disclaimer: knowledge of Shameless is not necessary to understand that being compared to a guy named Frank is not a good thing

I've already made posts about Hamilton's parents and brother (here, if you'd like to read that ig. weirdo), but I want to talk about the things that Hamilton would have learned from his parents. Later in life, Hamilton vaguely alluded to his father's failings in business being due to an excessive amount of generosity and not really understanding where he should and shouldn't spend his money. This did not by any means make Hamilton stingy with his money, or even smart, for that matter, but it did make him want to be something specific: independent.

James Hamilton's tragic flaw was his dependence on other people, whether it was his older brother or Rachel Faucette or his business partners, etc. Due to the position and order in which he was born, James was never destined to be a leader. He wasn't exceptional academically like other non-first-born-sons, such as James Madison, or dispositionally inclined to organize and inspire, like George Washington. He was just a dude, and he was a dude who was not built for 18th century society, especially not in the Caribbean. From what we can tell, James Hamilton was a gullible, moderately intelligent man with symptoms of autism and non-descript mental health issues. He was basically fucked from the get-go.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (p. 12-16); Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 25, p. 89, letter to William Jackson, August 26, 1800 ("In a capacity of a merchant he went to St. Kitts, where from too generous and too easy a temper he failed in business and at length fell into indigent circumstances.")

Rachel Faucette was like James Hamilton's polar opposite. She was forced to learn how to provide for herself, not being able to rely on anyone, because that could be ripped out from under her feet at any moment, and the only thing concrete in her life was herself. She was a woman, and that was what most women had to learn at some point.

Rachel was also perfectly poised to be the clear moral guide for young Hamilton. When James Hamilton left, he basically sacrificed any reverence his son might have for him, and instituted Rachel as Hamilton's sole role model for his developmental years and i just burned the shit out of my hand with coffee.

Disclaimer: James Hamilton had nothing to do with me burning the shit out of my hand with coffee, I promise. You can't blame all your problems on deadbeat dads

If you're a Sigmund Freud fan, (good opener, I know), you're aware of the Oedipus Complex, and that's not exactly what I'm talking about, but yk. look it up. This theory proposed by Freud was only partially rejected by the psychological field (due to the fact that not everything is about wanting to fuck your mom and kill your dad, and also that's not the story of Oedipus Rex like. at all??), but the part that still rang true was that children do have a unique attachment to the opposite sex parent.

Psychological studies show that children tend to describe their opposite sex parents more favorably than same sex parents. Why? I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, I'm an 18 year old who drinks coffee like he was 5 kids to raise.

Source: "The Relation between Attachment to Opposite Sex Parents and Attachment to Romantic Partners" by Gary L. Grogan and Dr. Mary E. Pritchard, p. 10 ("However, most significant for the present inquiry were the findings that respondents described their opposite sex parents more favorably, and same sex parents more critically.")

This statistic is visible in Hamilton's descriptions of his parents, and must have been enhanced by James Hamilton's early departure in his son's life, the consequences from that which seemed constant, but also by the reputation his father had built on the island he left Hamilton on. Hamilton would grow up to see his mother not only providing for herself and her children, but also overcoming the consequences of James' actions, which provoked resentment towards his father, and admiration towards his mother. This will develop as a theme throughout his life, but we'll touch on that as he grows up. He isn't even born yet! So let's get on to that.

Source: so when I say Hamilton's description of his mother, I really mean HIS son's, but JCH most likely got this description from his father, Life of Alexander Hamilton by John Church Hamilton, vol. 1, pg. 42 ("...a woman of superior intellect, elevated sentiment, and unusual grace of person and manner. To her he was indebted for his genius."); for the sake of my reliability and reputation, I'll include JCH's description of his grandfather for comparison, Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton by John Church Hamilton, p. 13 ("Hamilton's father does not appear to have been successful in any pursuit, but in many ways was a great deal of a dreamer, and something of a student, whose chief happiness seemed to be in the society of his beautiful and talented wife, who was in every way intellectually his superior.")

Early Life

Alexander Hamilton was born ginger on January 11, 1755, and I don't entertain the argument that he was born in 1757 because I'm not an anarchist and I believe society has laws (I'm actually lying, I'll talk about the birth year debate in the college section). Hamilton was not, however, born black or Jewish. He was also, potentially, born not James Hamilton's son.

"Wh- WHAT?! *cries*" I hear you say, and I know, it's shocking information, but yes. First off, Hamilton was not black in any percentage more than the Pillsbury dough boy is black. This theory comes from the fact that Rachel Faucette was a lower class woman and therefore we have no proof that she WASN'T partially black. I don't even have to dispute that for anyone with a gram of critical thinking skills to see that that isn't a valid historical hypothesis.

The Jewish thing has a little more merit to it, and there's a whole book about it that I haven't read. There is some evidence to suggest that Rachel Faucette's ex husband, Johann Lavien, could have been a secret Jewish person, and possibly caused Rachel herself to convert, and she tried to pass on that to Hamilton by having a Jewish woman educate him when he was a toddler (that last part is a true fact, and is the earliest piece of information we have about Hamilton's education). If this is true, (and it's nearly impossible to prove true or false because well if Lavien was a secret Jew, it was a secret), it did not impact Hamilton's religious beliefs in any way, and he identified as a Christian throughout his entire life.

We'll do a paternity test on Hamilton later, just hang tight. See, this is how I get you, I say something controversial, and then I don't talk about it until 16 paragraphs later.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 9 ("A persistent mythology in the Caribbean asserts that Rachel was partly black, making Alexander Hamilton a quadroon or an octoroon. In this obsessively race-conscious society, however, Rachel was invariably listed among the whites on local tax rolls. Her identification as someone of mixed race has no basis in verifiable fact. (See pages 734-35 [this is in Chernow's Acknowledgments, and he just talks about how he used a paper trail to come to this conclusion, and thought genetic research would only confuse the evidence. He also discusses that there is a small chance that Hamilton fathered a black child named William Hamilton, but I can go ahead and tell you that's false due to the fact that Hamilton had just arrived in America when William was born -HWS]) The folklore that Hamilton was mulatto probably arose from the incontestable truth that many, if not most, illegitimate children in the West Indies bore mixed blood."); Life of Alexander Hamilton by John Church Hamilton, vol. 1, p. 42 ("...rarely as he alluded to his personal history, he mentioned with a smile his having been taught to repeat the Decalogue in Hebrew, at the school of a Jewess, when so small that he was placed standing by her side upon a table); Ibid., vol. 7, p. 710-11; Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 26, p. 774, "Comments on Jews"

Hamilton's education began with his mother, who is almost definitely the person who made him fluent in French by the time he came to America. Despite limited access to books (34 books in both French and English to be specific), Hamilton still studied everything he could from a young age, with an early love for learning new things and proving that he was smarter than you. However, most of his education was in the School of Hard Knocks Community College, which was amply provided by the environment around him.

In the height of the British Empire, the Caribbean was essentially a social prison for anyone who broke the moral laws of the colonial, Eurocentric society of the time. This included pirates, prostitutes, drunks, thieves, and basically anyone who didn't fit the mold for a member of high society and/or someone who could serve high society and their lives of luxury. Hamilton, by birth, was one of these people.

Hamilton's father moved the family to St. Croix right before he left, which was a dramatic shift from Hamilton's life on St. Kitts and Nevis. In St. Croix, everyone knew Hamilton's mother as the disgraced ex-wife of Johann Lavien, and therefore knew her two sons as "whore-children", which was a word usually given to illegitimate children. Here, Hamilton was roped in with the degenerates of society, and it was practically said directly to him that he was destined to be unholy, unclean, worthless, and disgusting. Could you believe that this would have an impact on his mental health?

Along with seeing the poor lifestyles of the inhabitants of the Caribbean, Hamilton also saw glimpses into a very different world: ~rich people~. There were few rich white people on the islands, and they owned vast amounts of enslaved people, with the black to white ratio being 8:1 in the Caribbean. These enslaved people were forced to live in horrible conditions, and Hamilton saw it everywhere- his mother owned three people, but they were often rented out to garner profit for the white family, rather than working a plantation as others in the Caribbean did. Violence towards enslaved black people was only part of the violence young Hamilton witnessed in the Caribbean, some of which came in the form of dueling *insert ominous music*

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 18 ("To the extent that dueling later entranced Hamilton to an unhealthy degree, this fascination may have originated in the most fabled event in Nevis in the 1750s [a duel between two men where one of them was killed"); Ibid., p. 19; Ibid., p. 23-24

James Hamilton abandoned the family in 1765, and the reasons he did so are debated, but most likely are due to debt. However, there's another possibility that I've alluded to before: Hamilton's paternity.

So, remember, Rachel Faucette is not a perfect angel, and she also didn't particularly care for matrimony. There is a chance that she was with other men besides Hamilton and Lavien, and though we have no evidence that she was, there is an interesting character I'd like to throw into the mix.

Thomas Stevens, a moderately rich guy, was a merchant who lived on King Street in Charleston, St. Croix, with his wife Ann and his son Edward, who was born a year before Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Stevens was a very generous guy, and Edward Stevens would later be lifelong friends with Alexander Hamilton. And uh. They looked almost exactly the same. I really wish we had a portrait of Edward Stevens, but according to literally everyone, it was hard to tell the difference between him and Hamilton. Now, statistically, we all have some kind of doppelganger out there, but like what are the chances that they grew up down the street from each other and their parents had suspiciously close connections? Now, I'm not saying that Hamilton should have been Alexander Stevens, I think that's pretty irrelevant, but it is possible that Thomas Stevens... you... ARE THE FATHER!!!

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 27-28 ("Nevertheless, in the absence of direct proof, the notion that Alexander was the biological son of Thomas Stevens instead of James Hamilton would clarify many oddities in Hamilton's biography.")

The Hamiltons' life post-dad-desertion was actually somewhat comfortable due to Rachel's kickassery. She established a little store for a source of income, relocated a couple times, rented out the enslaved people (as one does, i guess, that's such a wild phrase), and kept a pet goat for milk and cheese and idk soap or whatever else people make with goat milk. Her sons would help out, possibly providing an origin for Hamilton's incessant need to be productive at all times without resting. At times, they were supported by his aunt Ann Lytton Mitchell, who he would remain loyal to until his death. During this time, as he was old enough to understand what his father did, is probably when his fiercely loyal, chivalrous and family-driven attitude developed.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 22-23; Ibid., p. 28

I'm so hopped up on caffeine I could do a triathalon.

Hamilton and his mother were both afflicted by a strange and unspecified illness in the winter of 1768. The primary symptom was a severe fever, and they were treated with purgatives, medicinal herbs, and bloodletting. Nothing helped, and Rachel died at 9 pm on February 19. Hamilton miraculously survived.

Immediately, Hamilton and his brother James had everything they owned taken away, indebted by bills charged against them by local debtors. Their half brother inherited whatever else belonged to their mother, which brought up the marital scandal all over again, beginning a legal battle that lasted for around a year. In the end, the two Hamilton brothers were left with two things: jack shit and fuck all.

Custody of the two boys was appointed to their cousin, Peter Lytton. In my notes, I described him as "white trash" and "insane", including the quotes, so idk who said that. Peter Lytton lived with his black mistress and their illegitimate child. He killed himself on July 6, 1769, and what's strange about that is that we don't know if he shot or stabbed himself. I don't know who got confused about the difference between a knife and a gun, but that isn't my problem.

To make a bad situation worse, Peter Lytton didn't leave the boys anything in his will, and neither did his father, who did "his best" to help. His best could have been even just mentioning the name Hamilton in his will, but whatever, I guess.

These events held very important lessons for the young Alexander: 1) nothing lasts forever; 2) everyone dies; 3) the legal system is terrible; 4) rich people hate you; and, most importantly, 5) the only way out was up.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 22-27

On His Own

This marked a split between Hamilton and his older brother, but this didn't seem to affect him as much as what happened with his parents- possibly because he wasn't biologically his brother, but I don't really care about that. What's more important is that Hamilton was almost entirely on his own, with inconsistent housing, so he couldn't always rely on the Stevenses. He was in a very similar situation that his mother was in at one time not long ago: alone and self reliant.

Hamilton was already working for the mercantile company, Beekman and Cruger. This company was later renamed, so I'll just say that Hamilton worked for Cruger, who was a business man with ties to New York. Hamilton worked as a clerk at this import-export business, giving him the responsibility to monitor intake and outtake as well as the organization of papers and just generally keeping everything in line. Due to the international relevance that was St. Croix, Hamilton often used French in his business dealings. Here, Hamilton perfected his handwriting into that elegant mess we know and can't read, picked up information on shipping/navigation, and learned his famously proficient math skills, particularly in relation to finance and economics.

Hamilton's famously maniacal work ethic began here, but so did his yearning for military valor. The first piece of personal correspondence we have from Hamilton is a letter to bestie Edward Stevens, and was made very famous from The Musical.

"Im confident, Ned that my Youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate Preferment nor do I desire it, but I mean to prepare the way for futurity. Im no Philosopher you see and may be jusly said to Build Castles in the Air. My Folly makes me ashamd and beg youll Conceal it, yet Neddy we have seen such Schemes successfull when the Projector is Constant I shall Conclude saying I wish there was a War. I am Dr Edward Yours Alex Hamilton (sic)"

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 29-30; Alexander Hamilton to Edward Stevens, November 11, 1769, St. Croix; Library of Congress, Image 13 of Alexander Hamilton Papers: General Correspondence, 1734-1804; 1734-1772

When Cruger left St. Croix for New York due to medical reasons in 1771, he left 16 year old Alexander Hamilton in charge of his primary source of income. And you're probably thinking that's a stupid idea. Because it is.

BUT ITS ALEXANDER HAMILTON. SO IT WAS FINE??? Well, fine for everyone besides the captain of the HMS Thunderbolt.

The Thunderbolt pulled into St. Croix's busy harbor after crossing the ocean and manned by a veteran captain, however Hamilton was not satisfied with the outfitting of the ship nor the quality of the goods that had been transported.

"Reflect continually on the unfortunate voyage you have just made and endeavor to make up for the considerable loss therefrom accruing to your owners." -Alexander Hamilton to Captain Newton, February 1, 1772

You can really see Hamilton's "I'm better than you and I know it" attitude shining through, made more shocking than ever than the fact that he was SIXTEEN YEARS OLD and talking to a man who was LITERALLY TWICE HIS AGE. The only reason he didn't lose his job over this is because he was right. The mules that had been transported were in such poor health, Hamilton had to pull strings to get them sold, and the wood was too waterlogged to be sold on the open market, so he sold it to a private buyer who was able to find something to do with them. He showed quick thinking, confidence in his abilities, and managerial skills. It was these skills that would later appeal to George Washington, not his financial abilities, and led to his most important appointment.

Source: Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 1, p. 23, letter to Tileman Cruger, February 1, 1772 ("It would be undoubtedly a great pity that such a vessel [the Thunderbolt] should be lost for the want of them [cannons]."); Ibid., p.4, letter to Captain Newton, February 1, 1772; Alexander Hamilton: A Biography by Forrest McDonald, p. 128 ("Taken aback, Washington replied, 'I always knew Colonel Hamilton to be a man of superior talents, but never supposed that he had any knowledge of finance.")

Cruger's firm also engaged in the Atlantic slave trade, as did the majority of trading firms in the Caribbean and the American south. It was this exposure to the abhorrent conditions on slave ships and the violence African people faced in the triangle trade that shaped Hamilton into a vocal opponent of slavery- when it was convenient. More impactful was the fear he developed of slave revolts, as was very common in the Caribbean because of the disproportionate slave to free/black to white ratio in the islands, and this would later define his views on the French Revolution and public protest in general. He and Thomas Jefferson had this in common.

Hamilton continued studying books in his free time, and the local newspaper, the Royal Danish American Gazette, began publishing poems from an anonymous young writer- obviously it was Hamilton. His poems ranged in subjects, and aren't particularly good, but they're better than any poems I've written angrily in my journal about my evil exes, so that is to his credit.

Hamilton's poems took a religious turn, most likely traceable to the arrival of Reverend Hugh Knox, who took in Hamilton as a mentor. Clergymen were a hot commodity in the hell hole that was the Caribbean, and Knox had a lot of work on his hands, but he took a particular interest in Hamilton, specifically in getting him out of the aforementioned hell hole. He saw that Hamilton was incredibly intelligent and hard working, almost to a fault- he was probably the first person who was genuinely concerned for this dude's health over how much he worked.

Fun fact, Knox also had personal ties to the Burr family, but that is literally only a fun fact and not a sign that Burr and Hamilton were star-crossed lovers in fair Verona or whatever Chernow has deluded himself into thinking.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 32-33; Ibid., p. 34

Source: National Guard Bureau, "Examining Lessons from Katrina 10 Years Later"

Then, a massive hurricane struck the Caribbean on August 1, 1772. It was incredibly damaging, causing mass destruction in St. Croix, and this is most definitely one that we in the south would evacuate for. Even my dad would evacuate for this one, and it took a lot of convincing to get him to evacuate for Katrina.

In reaction to this event, Hamilton wrote his famous letter to his father detailing and reflecting on the storm. And finally, I'm giving y'all my analysis of this letter that I keep saying I'll do. However, this post is already incredibly long, so I'm going to do it in a google doc and attach it here.

Source: Alexander Hamilton to The Royal Danish American Gazette, September 6, 1772

The letter was published to The Royal Danish American Gazette, which spread around the afflicted community. Knox's congregation gathered money for the anonymous young author (now not very anonymous) to sail to the American mainland for his education. Originally, Hamilton went to study medicine, due to the high demand for doctors in the Caribbean (his knowledge of anatomy would remain helpful throughout his life). However, at some point he decided he would not be going back to the Caribbean, and switched his focus to law, but we'll discuss that more in part two.

Source: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, p. 37-40

Well, there's part one. I did all of this in one day because um. I don't know, but it is now one in the morning and i have to wake up earlier than normal. so that's fun. i hope y'all enjoyed. shout out to my mom for proofreading half of this, and shout out to my aunt who gave me coffee, that was a horrible idea. i'll be back with part two at some point, which will probably be more concise because hamilton's childhood in the caribbean is where most of the theories are, so yeah. love y'all.

[jedi-enthusiast]

Debunking the "The Jedi are Evil" Theory Made by The Film Theorists PT 4

Point 4 - The Jedi are a Cult

(TW: Human Trafficking, SA in regards to Human Trafficking)

Oh boy! We've finally gotten to the point that every single anti-Jedi idiot makes when they claim that the Jedi are evil!

Let's see what exactly Matthew says about it:

"The Jedi Order is a irrevocable cult that lands somewhere between an involuntary boot camp and human trafficking!"

Wow, that's quite a claim! Surely if you're making a claim like that, you've checked to make sure that the Jedi Order fits at least one of those definitions, right?

Let's check!

---

Cult Definition:

"A relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices, especially relating to religion, that are regarded by others as strange or sinister or as imposing excessive control over members." - via Oxford Dictionary, according to Google

The Jedi Order is about a group of 10,000 during the Prequels, so not exactly what I would call small--but sure, I'll give you small, since that's a pretty negligible amount of people in the galaxy.

Their beliefs and practices are rarely seen as a bit odd by people who aren't Jedi and/or haven't ever interacted with the Jedi, but for the most part people just regard their practices as hard to follow--since they practice a lot of self control and emotional regulation (which is healthy)--but ultimately good. Their beliefs definitely aren't regarded as "sinister."

The only people we see that even come close to believing that are the protesters in TCW, but they just think the Jedi are wrong for fighting in the war. It's nothing about their beliefs or practices.

And the Jedi certainly don't exercise "excessive control" over their members.

Many of the members dress differently, we're shown that the Jedi often disagree with each other and interpret their philosophy differently, the Jedi can leave the Order whenever they want, many members of the Order also practice the cultures of their homeworlds, people are literally appointed to the Council for thinking differently because the Jedi want to have differing viewpoints brought up, etc.

They even bend their own fucking rules sometimes to help their fellow Jedi!

Once a female Jedi fell in love and got pregnant and hid it, and Yoda and Dooku literally had a conversation where Yoda said point blank that they would've helped her, if they'd have known about it!

Literally the only things that the Jedi are anal about are:

1. Don't kill or hurt people, except as a last resort.

and 2. don't turn to the Dark Side (and I've already outlined why that's bad).

And even when people do turn to the Dark Side and hurt people, the Jedi fucking help them! They, of course, hold them accountable for their actions, but they try to help them turn back to Light and do better in the future!

---

Welp, they obviously don't fit the definition of a cult. Let's see about the next definition--involuntary boot camp.

Involuntary Definition:

"Done against someone's will; compulsory." - via Google

Boot Camp Definition:

"A place for training soldiers, especially new recruits." - via Google

Considering that parents willingly give up their children to the Jedi Order and then those children--when they grow up--choose to stay, since we've already established that they can leave at any time, I'd say that the Jedi Order definitely isn't involuntary.

And, as I've said before, the Jedi Order is a religious institution--not a militia--and even the work they do for the Republic is primarily diplomatic and peacekeeping ventures. So they're definitely not a boot camp either.

---

Wow, that's two definitions down that the Jedi definitely don't fit!

This next one's quite a serious claim, though, so the Jedi must fit this one--because it'd be pretty tone deaf and shitty to make said claim without it actually being true, right?

Human Trafficking Definition:

"Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation." - via Wikipedia

HOLY SHIT, YOU COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG!

The Jedi do not "trade" their initiates, they do not force them into labor, and they certainly don't sexually exploit them--what the actual fuck is wrong with you to make this claim?

Especially when nothing we're shown is even remotely close to coming near this definition--even in the worst bad-faith reading of SW media.

Wow, so not a single thing that Matthew assigns the Jedi is actually something they fit the definition of. Imagine that.

[fuck-your-proana-blog]

After PT failing yet another one of my chronic pain issues caused by my anorexia, over exercising and osteopenia from said anorexia, I was sent to pain management again. They're doing one test next week to see if cutting off the nerves that are damaged in my spine is enough or if they're going to have to surgically fuse a bunch of my vertebrae together!🫠

Think anorexia and an excessive amount of exercise is going to make you "beautiful" and solve your problems, and not just give you more of them? Think you'll just get skinny and effortlessly stay that way for the rest of your life, mostly pain free? Think that your ED isn't going to ruin your mind and body in irreversible ways?

YOU'RE WRONG.

And if you don't believe me and think you're just "different" than the rest of us who have destroyed our bodies/minds with EDs for a decade+, you're wrong again!

I can't do any more exercise- PT included- I live in a recliner with a heating pad while my husband waits on me and I feel like a useless burden (even though he doesn't treat me that way). I can't stand for more than a few minutes without having to lean on something because the pain is that extreme. It's hell.

And I can't just restrict to lose my recovery weight because the whole reason I chose recovery was to save my deteriorating teeth (also due to Anorexia) with that surgery I had last year, which will be undone if I ever starve again.

You wanna know why we so rarely see elderly or middle aged anorexics? BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING DEAD.

Recover now or suffer a fate that, to me at least, is worse than death.

[pilot-posting]

Loading Halo Port Connectivity...

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╰┈─) Pilot Profile Access... Granted

Pilot: Em, MIP 12.A 🏳️‍⚧️

Rank: Corporal

Role: Mechanized functions technician, asset damage prevention.

Mech: Haratora-Zed, Class-X

Age: 18.

Synapse Connctivity: Sensitive. At-risk of addiction or mind-meld.

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heyo! I'm Em, I'm currently writing a short story called "Asynchrosis" in a series of parts here on my Tumblr! Here are links to each individual part in order!

All story parts are tagged under #asynchrosis

Pt.1, Pt.2, Pt.3, Pt.4, Pt.5

Links to story related asks!

Srynthetica1 (how does jacking in feel?), Anon1 (who's we? why class-x? how combat?)

tags, #asynchrosis for Asynchrosis, #ems got mail!! for asks #emersons scrawlings for generally writing posts

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Wait? Who are you?

I'm Em, I'm a very normal trans person who absolutely does not let her weird obsession with what is essentially just robot-fucker v*re infect her every day life. I absolutely do not impulsively buy techwear clothes to cosplay a mech pilot who's a little bit down on her luck and I totally don't want someone to hypnotize me into believing I have cybernetic implants. I, in no way, want someone to dominate me so deeply that they force me to treat them like a pilot treats their handler and I don't want them to clicker train me to be able to force me to obey them.

On another note, my pronouns are IT/she. I use she/her self referentially because it's easy but PLEASE use it/it's for me. "Ohhh but that's degrading" IT'S NOT AND EVEN IF IT WAS I'D LOVE IT.

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DM's and ASK POLICY

I prefer asks! I love answering questions in a way which is productive to furthering the knowledge of everyone who enjoys the work I make! DM's however are HEAVILY encouraged if you want to degrade me, treat me like a whore, stick your fingers in my mouth, or hypnotize me.

Asks can also be horny! Send me horny prompts in asks, tell me how badly you want to be put into synchrosis~

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IS IT HORNY???

They always ask IS it horny not HOW is she horny,

Anyway, yeah! I'm pretty much always able to get into the mood unless I came like under 10 minutes ago. You can do with this information whatever you want.

With that said, what're my do's and don'ts?

DO!

DO ANYTHING YOU WANT TO ME IF YOU'RE ALSO A TRANNY, I LOVE MY PEOPLE AND I WILL GLADLY BE AN ACTUAL CUM DUMP FOR Y'ALL

Degrade me

Hypnotize me

Force yourself onto or into me

Cut me, stab me, or perform invasive surgeries to cause me to meld in greater amounts with the perfect machine form I yearn to control

Cum inside me or on me!

Fuck my throat, or keep me under your desk, I have an oral fixation :3

Bind me up, suspend me, gag me, blindfold me, really anything that limits my awareness of myself is actually pretty ok.

Squish/bite/lick my chub

Make me call you names like master or owner.

Make me less person more machine!

DON'T!

Knife/gunplay is fine. Snvff however is unbelievably disturbing.

Gore is fine to the degree that my organs stay mostly in the same place they started, in regards to roleplay.

Don't engage in excessive praise. This sounds really depressing but I'm not used to it and it can cause me to panic!

Don't bring any bodily fluids except for blood, cum, and sweat into roleplay or sexting!! I don't like p*ss and sh*t lmao

Asking me to commit to major lifestyle changes without me expressing my interest beforehand will probably result in me caging up. I like kink lifestyle, but I want to take my own pace.

Do not interact if you find me attractive because I'm trans UNLESS YOU'RE ALSO TRANS.

But yeah I guess all you need to know is I got horny when a Legion first forced my Titan up onto the barrel of it's predator cannon and fired about 400 rounds of 40 mm anti-aircraft grade rounds through the midsection of my Ion in 2016.

[twotiime2]

Reality Adjustment, pt. 5

[[ Discord log to follow, yadda yadda, this one is SUPER long! Best read in Dark Mode! ]]

[[ tw for: Themes of not trusting your perception of reality, frequent use of casual ableist language. Later on there are mentions of animal death, some implied light nsfw descriptions, and a whole lotta Fake Nonsense Science Jargon since neither of us have any formal education related to any sciences. Toward the end there's a scene that includes some accidental fantasy racism, but it's very brief and handled with more than a generous amount of apology and guilt... and then that goes straight into Fiction territory. this is an isekai now. ]]

After some shuffling things about and repeated neuralization of Otome, the pizza dinner was back underway and back on course. As it turned out, Otome knew the following things - and nothing else…

The Technocratic Union was a super secret conspiracy agency (probably of the government, or some global international thing?).

The Union did spy stuff using cutting edge technology that the commercial market wasn't ready for.

Normal people weren't ready for the supertech stuff because of some quirk of ultra-high technology science something.

Nobody could ever learn of the Technocracy, or the weird science quirk thing would happen to everyone, everywhere, or something.

The Union was basically MiB, like in the movies, but… whatever they dealt with was secret. Might be aliens. Maybe not. Who knew?

Simon worked for Q Division, the tech support and computer R&D department.

There was also the money group, the MiB spy people, the biolab freak science people, and the space research people.

The Union protected the world from super dangerous forces that defied reality somehow (Cthulhu, Demons, Aliens, whatever?)

The Union was super into Loyalty and Secrets and Trust, keeping your mouth shut won tons of brownie points.

The Union had seemingly unlimited authority, resources, and money. And thank God too, because they'd need it to fight Demons.

Otome's knowledge of anything deeper was limited to guesses and things she kept to herself, either because she wasn't sure she was right, or because she was pretty sure that Simon had one of those Memory Pen Flash things and he might flash her and leave her if she knew too much. So, she was a Good Girlfriend™️ and kept it to herself.

And of course Simon was brilliant with super secret agency technology that might be from space or another dimension. After all, he was certifiably insane and a walking checklist of eccentric quirkiness. He was perfect for the job!

Once all of this was known and settled, and pizza had been redone in detail - Simone/Edith had some real talent for detail - they began the dinner again from when Otome had just put down the drinks and rejoined Simon and Simone. This time, she was kept clear of any clues as to Simone's reality-breakage, excessive special effects, or any questions about reality's limits and the depths of the Union's activities.

- - - -

Instead of asking Simone, Simon asked Otome, "So, when did they come out with new Mountain Dew flavors? They only had original green-yellow lemony-limey whatever for… ever." He waved his hand in a vague circle from the wrist, as he was trying to describe the flavor of Mountain Dew.

At the end of the sentence, while waiting for her reply, Simon stroked Edith's back, all the way down to the tip of her tiny tail. It was genuinely such an adorable form! So very distracting. And he was, again, not much of an animal person, before.

- - - -

Otome thought while she chewed, and after swallowing, said, "I have no idea. But it sounds very Googleable."

- - - -

His eyebrows screwed up. "…The doctor said something about a Google, and now you've used it as a verb. What the fuck is a Google? Like, I know a googolplex, but I feel like that isn't something you would usually consult for obscure bits of information. And he had no idea what Dogpile… was. I guess."

- - - -

"Isn't a dogpile when there's a bunch of guys on one girl?"

" That's a gangbang. Big difference. "

"Google is a search engine. Like, the search engine. So much so that Googling something is a slang term for looking it up. On most devices, if there's a search bar for you to type into, chances are it defaults to the Google search engine. They're so big now, as a company, that they own YouTube, FitBit, Waze, and a bunch of others, plus they own investment capital in Robinhood, Duolingo, Uber and… well, a bunch of other stuff."

She paused, noting his expression. "Uh… they're a search engine that got crazy rich and owns like ten percent of all the names people think of when they think of the tech industry."

- - - -

Simon closed his eyes and tilted his head, consternation clear on his face and in his knit brow.

"Rmm. So much jargon that flew over my head. That explained everything. Thank you for the simplified version."

He finally took another bite of his pizza, still delicious as before and hitting a craving he hadn't realized he was suffering. "And, uh, you were thinking of a gangbang. Dogpile was a search engine that launched toward the end of the century- it'd pull results from everywhere, even like, other search engine results- and, personally, MetaCrawler had nothing on it. Shame it's not being used anymore."

- - - -

"I thought you still used 'Crawler? Oh, I guess you wouldn't remem- yeah, they're still around. You're the only person I know who uses it, but it's around."

" They relaunched in 2017. "

When he clarified that she'd referenced a sex act, Otome choked a little on her japanese soda, turning red. After clearing her throat, she said simply, "Oh."

"Uh… yeah, not that. Hey… is it wrong to ask what the 90's were like? I mean, we were in diapers during those years in the real world, so…. what was it like? I know how they show it on TV, but that's…. that's fake, right?"

- - - -

He gazed at her over his pizza.

"…I have no idea how they show the 90s on TV. If it's anything like they did the 70s and back, probably not. I'm not sure what to tell you."

- - - -

She pondered that for a moment, and shrugged. "That's fair. And probably accurate. It's just a little awkward having you back, but not… really being able to talk about anything we'd normally talk about."

She touched his hand with hers, but only along the outer edges of their hands, since they both had pizza-hands.

"But I'm trying."

- - - -

His gaze softened, and he reached to touch her back.

"…I appreciate the effort. On the bright side, we can have a movie marathon where you show me your favorites of the last twenty years? And introduce me to mine, again? Totally blind, not even having seen the trailers during ad breaks on TV." He considered for a second. "And the ones you hate. Especially those. If you can sit through them."

- - - -

Her head tilted. "TV has ad breaks during the shows?"

- - - -

Aaaaand his gaze hardened again. "Tell me you're not fucking with me again. Did they finally get rid of the two-minute breaks between five minutes of show?"

- - - -

She shrugged, "I have no idea. I don't watch TV. I stream everything, and I always have. I mean, I think we had TV when I was like, super little? But I don't remember it."

- - - -

Seriousness gave way to consternation. "Tell me what you mean by 'streaming'."

- - - -

She winced. "Oh! Oh, right… sorry. Streaming has replaced a lot of TV for a lot of people. It's when a streaming service, like Disney+ or HBO, or YouTube, keeps a big library of watchables in their servers and users subscribe - usually for a monthly fee, but not always - to the services they want, to watch the things they want to watch, when they want to watch them. We could go log in to Disney+ right now and watch Snow White… on a television, a computer, a cellphone… any device with a screen and an internet connection. It's like hitting play on a video file, except instead of having the movie on a flash drive, the movie is on Disney's computers… and you need to make sure your internet connection is solid enough to watch it without any screwups. But you can do it anytime you want… if you have a subscription."

- - - -

"…Huh." That explanation sounded very logical and also fucking impossible given what he had known of technology's capabilities in the 90's. They didn't even have external storage that could hold one movie-length video in the common market, much less that could hold multiple, or internet connections strong and fast enough to access those video files on external servers, then play them. He chewed as he thought about that, staring into the middle-distance.

The Union had brought technology a long way in the last twenty years.

They didn't quite have Mobius's sentient-nanite tech in the Consensus yet, but boy, were they well on their way.

"Wow. Do you even still keep hard copies of the shit you can stream? I am gonna have so many questions."

- - - -

"Yes. Because… what if it's not streaming anywhere when you want to see it? Not every service can sustain more than a hundred titles in active rotation at a time, while some can handle several hundred. Usually, the shows and movies go on rotation from one service to another, and sometimes, it's just… not showing. Or they decided not to stream it for cultural reasons… like some of the old racist stuff in cartoons and movies where celebrities tap-danced in black face and stuff. And then there's …. you know…. adult material. That doesn't stream anywhere."

" Except for every porn site ever. "

"Unless you count things like PornHub, but… that's not a real streaming service."

" I'd make a joke here, but it's too easy. And a little gross. "

- - - -

"Fair." He nodded to Edith, in response to her, not that Otome knew that. "…Well, at least it's not all online-only yet. I have to say, with a clear head and in retrospect, having everything exist only in a digital space is just asking to lose humanity's cultural history to a disaster way less impressive than burning a whole library to the ground. Data decay was already a bit of a problem, I can't imagine how bad it effects things now."

"But, uh, it's not great that they're deciding what is and is not available to people that are paying them for the ability to watch the things in their archives. They're- you're- paying for the service expressly for access to that company's stuff, so it's… really shitty they hold anything back without it being a restriction of their tech rather than their policies."

- - - -

Otome paused. "Uh… Boybot? Most of your video games are online only. Some consoles and computer games are only online gaming capable."

- - - -

Oh, that brought a distressed grimace. "Jesus Christ."

And then a disappointed shake of his head. "Why??"

- - - -

She looked confused. "Because it's easier and cheaper for indie game devs to publish and distribute through Steam on PC, or through Online Marketplace for Polystation, Sintendo, XXXBox, and the rest? They can just put up a few paragraphs of description, a few screen shots, maybe a video file trailer, and sell their game for $5 or $20, without having to pay for marketing and packaging and stuff. And it keeps clutter to a minimum."

- - - -

He looked at her from above his glasses, head half-hung from where he shook it. "Is that true? Or is that just what those companies want you to think? I- well, I admit, I don't know anything about the gaming scene now or its variety of content. But without those companies cornering the market, would it actually be that hard for individually-published titles to be distributed? Word-of-mouth or of-text on like, bulletin boards, used to work fine. And game hardware was simple enough, they could be made into console cartridges without too much trouble."

"My collection was… my collection. From their publishers. But they were my copies. What happened to that?"

- - - -

She looked thoughtful and nodded between bites. "Something we've discussed many times. Skipping to the end, I don't know what the Union is capable of, and I don't know what could be if things radically changed… I just know what is. Without knowing more, I don't think I can really know enough to feel that strongly about something I can't change."

- - - -

"Hmph." He harrumphed over his next bite of pizza. "The decline of physical media is a crime to people's right to the things they pay for, based on capitalism's own rules of exchange. Fucking stupid, full stop."

Simon sulked for an entire slice, and its bones.

- - - -

She offered a sad smile, "Okay, Che, calm down. At least you're still you on some things."

- - - -

He paused, considering her remark, and then nodded. "Good. I never liked how the Union supported that crap; it was like, part of the main thing I left 'em for."

It only occurred to him after a few bites that he was still working for them in this reality. "…In. The life in my head. I just heard the dissonance."

- - - -

Otome did look confused, but then nodded when he explained. "So… they put you inside the Matrix, but back in the 90's… and you left, in the simulation? Must've sucked."

"Caution here. I wanna know too, but you should keep it to a minimum. Unless you wanna do this pizza thing a third time?"

- - - -

He raised a brow and glanced at Edith, noting her warning, but continued to Otome after a moment.

"…Yeah. I had an alternative offer that gave me the same creative freedom without all the fellating of Capitalism- or, at least, as much. It was still kind of the Union anyway, though- just, like, an offshoot. I think maybe some of the drugs they put in me while they were trying to keep me alive fucked up their Matrix sim in more ways than just crazy dreamscapes interspersed with details of my actual life."

- - - -

"You think maybe the offshoot thing was part of the… whatever the doctors called it? The psychotic reaction thing?"

" Bored now. I'm going to go upstairs and do something more fun than talking about capitalism and crap. If you take too long down here, I'm going to walk down here naked and force you to have to try and carry on your conversation with me being lewd or whatever. That way, you don't bore Otome to death, and I still have something to do. "

The kitten hopped down and stood as a girl once more, before finishing her root beer shot.

" You better pray I find a comic to read or something, or I'm comin' back down here in my birthday suit."

- - - -

Simon pouted at Edith. "Aww, come on, we're establishing personal belief baselines! What do you wanna talk about, Eed? Besides how much pizza to leave in the box for you when I bring it up, or whatever you consider 'lewd'."

- - - -

Edith rolled her eyes and sulked, shoulders slumped. "But that's boooooring!! Can't we go take something apart, or blow something up, or juggle chainsaws, or something? I'm falling asleep over here! You're my boyfriend, darnit! You're supposed to keep me entertained!"

- - - -

"Oh, I'm supposed to keep you entertained? When I haven't hardly had any time with either of you, t'do anything yet, much less time for myself to let this reality set in? D'you want things to go back to kinda-normal, or do you want me to be trying to figure out how it is you want me to entertain you while also trying to puzzle through my life with Otome without any time to hang out with her? I'm sorry you can't exactly participate in the conversation, here, but it's not my fault you don't care about the things we're talking about."

He had half-turned in his seat to face Edith, legitimately frustrated with her self-centeredness and perceived lack of care for the differences between what he knew and what was. It may have been self-centered of him to be wanting more to catch up than to just spend time, but, he felt it wasn't unreasonable for someone in his position to want to do so, before they tried to do anything else.

"If I could fucking hang out with both of you at the same time, that would be great, but guess what? I can't do that. So."

Simon fixed her with a more legitimate, annoyed frown.

- - - -

Otome blinked in surprise at his outburst, and so did Edith. The latter hesitated, before going upstairs, muttering something about staying out of his way.

His girlfriend looked where he was looking, then back at him. "Is everything okay? Did I do something?"

- - - -

Simon suddenly felt kind of like he had yelled at a child harshly, for just wanting his attention while he was busy with something else, and all of his annoyance deflated into guilt. He turned back to Otome, that guilt coloring his face.

"…Ugh. No." He wiped one pizza-hand on his pants, and then ran it through his slightly-damp hair. "Edith wants to do something, because our conversation is boring her to sleep, and said I'm 'her boyfriend, aren't I supposed to entertain her?' but like, having these kinds of foundational conversations is kind of important, and… god damn it, does my having come out of a hospital maybe an hour ago, not knowing a goddamn thing about the life you guys know, not take priority right now?"

He stared at his pizza, suddenly far less hungry.

"…I guess that is kind of self-centered, too, but… things aren't gonna settle back to normal in a day just because I'm awake and home, you know? I'm not… I'm basically not the me you guys know, and I have to get to know you guys without any prior idea of what you're like or what quirks you have or what your favorite colors are. I get you've been missing your-me, but-" He looked up at Otome from above his glasses. "-that's not - I can't be relieved to be back, because I didn't know you two and haven't known I had anyone like you to miss."

He ran his hand through his hair again, and rested that elbow on the table, half-burying his face into the crook of his elbow while that hand hung in the air slightly above his head, playing with a curl between his index and thumb.

"I've barely landed, why can't she let the jet-lag wear off a little before dragging me around?" he muttered into his arm.

- - - -

Otome's hand was patient and her tone comforting, as if this particular anguish were a well worn road under their feet.

"I quote an expert in the field, when I say, 'Because Edith is part of what drives you and vice versa. Every perfect score, every new program, every brilliant breakthrough, every obsession, every time you got up and did the impossible, when all you wanted was to stay in bed… was, partly, her fault. Because she doesn't let you stay in your ruts, ever.'…"

Otome paused and then offered, with a shrug, "Maybe she thinks you need to be something besides hanging out with your girlfriend, if you want to get better. Usually, her tantrums annoy you, but lead you to the next big thing. I always know when you're about to go off on some crazy marathon project because the first tell-tale sign is you and Simone being inseparable and you complaining about it in bed, talking about how you need a break from her."

She shook her head, hands up at her sides, "Or… maybe she's just being a twit? I mean, you are the only one she lets see her."

- - - -

He listened, and watched Otome's body language, still sulking in his arm while she spoke.

Then sighed out of his nose, slightly fogging up his glasses from the air being redirected upward by his arm.

"I… I dunno, what she said doesn't feel like a tantrum? She's just being insistent about doing something instead of talking about "capitalism and crap". That something might be her, honestly? But. I don't wanna neglect you, by spending all my time on my first day with her, and I also feel like I'm neglecting her right now. I don't know what the right thing to do here is."

- - - -

Otome took his hands in hers - her own having been cleaned at some point he hadn't noticed, but the dirty napkins beside her told the story none the less. "Simon… it's not a competition. I love you and I know you, and I know I'm not the only woman in your life. I've known that since we first started dating. We've talked it out endlessly and we found a way that works for all of us. And you have no idea what it is, and I get that, too. And yes, sometimes, Simone - cat or girl - is a little needy. But, monkey… when Simone gets antsy, it's a sign. It's always a sign. Sometimes it means you're going to do something at work that gets you a raise. Sometimes it means that I'm going to need to buy us a new microwave or toaster or blender, and start keeping little fire extinguishers around the house. And, in one memorable case that shines above all others, it means I'm going to come home to clouds and wind and a snowstorm happening in our living room, with the tile floor in the kitchen being turned into an ice sheet."

She touched his cheek softly.

"And I've made peace with that. Maybe she's being a selfish brat. Maybe she's getting triggered by all your heightened brain activity from the accident. Maybe she's horny. I have no way to tell. And it's none of my business. But whatever is going on… it's okay. We'll get through it. I'm not going anywhere."

- - - -

His eyes searched her face.

She seemed genuine, and caring, and her touch made him raise his head a little bit, if only to lean into the touch of another person in such a familiar area. The softness of her treatment made him sigh, more in relief of a little of the stress he had been holding than in the accumulation of that stress.

"…OK." It was quiet, and he couldn't look at Otome's face for more than a moment, comfortably. "I- I think I should probably go apologize. Sorry, 'Tome."

Simon turned his face into her palm, holding her hand still with his own, and put a small kiss into it, then pulled away from her, gently, leaving the pizza and drinks in their places. "I'll try and come back down later. I really don't want to like, favor one of you guys to spend time with, and make the other one feel left-out… so I'm gonna try t'make time for you, even if you guys had a system going that worked, before. You deserve my time, too."

Then, after another lingering look, Simon left the kitchen to see Edith in her room- or wherever he ended up finding her.

- - - -

He found her dismantling a controller on her bed with tiny tools, and a flashlight strapped to her head. Her movements were slow and she didn't seem to be very into it, her face still making her seem quite rejected and saddened. When she noticed him out of the corner of her eye, she shuffled around a little on her butt, on the bed, to keep more of her back to him. Her voice was heavy with reluctance, but soft in tone.

" . . . . . Hey. "

- - - -

He tried to approach gently, and sat down next to her in an area that he hoped didn't displace any of the controller pieces she had already removed, without encroaching too much into her space.

"…Hey."

Uncertain what to start with, or how to approach this sort of thing, he just opted for the straightforward route.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Eed. You've been open and genuine and energetic with me all day… and I haven't given you that, back, at all; I've been too caught up in how overwhelmed I am with… everything, without actually asking you how you're doing. And then, after I totally swapped my attention to someone else… I got upset with you when you wanted your own needs met. That wasn't fair. I'm sorry."

- - - -

She kept working quietly for several seconds, before saying.

" I know. It's not your fault. "

She reached up and turned off her headlight before she looked at him, her red eye greatly magnified by a worker's loop flipped down over her eye to help her work.

" Your head's not in the game, Boybot. You need to accept three things: first, this is real. You're not going to wake up from this, on some weird planet's victorian era, or something. Second, your life is only off by twenty years. Sure, that means a lot for friendships and relationships and family… but everybody knows that and nobody is asking you to make that go away or to catch up all at once. Everybody is being super cool with your time-brain thing. And it means that you have some tech homework to do and a few new company names to learn. Buuut…. that's kind've all it means. This isn't Venus or a space station in a universe you don't know, and it's not some weird hyperviolent cyberpunk future in the year 3050-something. It's… 2023. Woo? Most of the countries are still the same. Heck, most of the elected representatives and major companies are even still the same. Electric cars are more common and so is gun violence. Homosexual and transsexual people have more rights and respect now… unless you just suck at being nice to people who are different. "

She removed her headgear, leaving her ponytail a tangled mess in its wake.

" So…. stop acting like it's a weird new world that has to be deciphered or interrogated. It's new. New is good. New is interesting. New means potential to be better. Stop acting like a victim. I'm sorry you lived a false life in a cyber realm. But I keep trying to take your mind off of it and help you focus on what's ahead, and you won't stop watching the rear view mirror and questioning the now. We're in the car, bro. We're going places. The world passing you by is scenery, not a tragedy. So hands on the wheel. "

She held out her small tools to him.

" Keep your eyes on the road. "

- - - -

It took him a minute of looking down at her tools to mentally chew on what she had said to him. A lot of the smaller details were insensitive at best, but the message she was trying to get through to him was also a little hard to swallow: "Stop lingering on what happened, and start focusing on what you'll do now."

The 'false life in a cyber realm' was real barely half a day ago, to him- it was fresh, and a hard space to emerge from when the space he was entering felt like so much more- but for Edith and Otome, Simon was just trying to recover from a lengthy, bad dream, and they knew what to expect from him, and had their own ideas of how to help him through it. The dream would fade, and he'd settle back into reality and into the same patterns of behavior they knew him for, because, as he had said to Edith when they 'first' met: he was who he was, "whether that's who this reality expects or not."

He couldn't change what had already been done, but he could decide what to do with what was left. And if he was going to do it well, he had to build up his resources, workspace, and knowledge, in order to use all of his tools effectively; it didn't matter what happened before this point, except that all of those moments were stepping stones that brought him to now.

And he needed to focus on now and stop thinking of his life as over. It had just begun again, hadn't it? He just had a little catching up to do.

Edith could see all of these thoughts playing out as Simon considered them, uncertainty and slight insult slowly evolving into a kind of courage: the determination to move forward, to take that next step, after the path he thought he was supposed to take had crumbled in front of his feet. He just had to pivot and keep moving, and he would get wherever he needed to go.

Simon took up Edith's little tools, then, and released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"Right. Let's get moving."

- - - -

Eed dragged out two of the consoles, their controllers, and some cartridges. She walked him through dismantling them, anytime he hit a wall, explaining modern methods of sealing products… though, there wasn't much need, since it was mostly the same - just with more and smaller screws, holding down more things. Nothing was glued, but there were a few pieces where plastic tabs were fit together in a way that would (normally) require special tools to open - to help keep the technology and its repair and modification, proprietary.

"I guess you don't remember anything about what we were working on, huh?"

- - - -

As he tinkered and took things apart, noting the newer methods of holding the plastic together and applying the effective dismantling techniques to future pieces, Simon listened and watched Edith with the senses he wasn't using on his current project. The circuit boards weren't very different, at least, even if the consoles themselves had gotten more complicated and required more bits on the board to control their new features.

"Can't say I do, no. Tell me about it?"

- - - -

"Well…" she said, watching him work, "Your mind seems pretty preoccupied with code and program stuff and whatever. When we first met, you were the same way… but…"

She watched his reaction carefully, almost like she might be worried about how he'd react.

"… we'd gotten pretty far beyond that, even before you learned about Q Division. That's why you wanted to join it, to work with their gadgets. But you were getting frustrated by their restrictions, before the accident."

- - - -

Simon paused, at that, and looked over at Edith with a raised eyebrow.

"Beyond that? Like how? Applying those principles to hardware?"

- - - -

"Kiiiiiind of, yeah. I mean, we've been at this - I know you don't remember - for fourteen years. We went through coding, hacking, wrote our own OS, brought down a few crappy companies' websites for awhile, had some close calls with police and stuff… then we made our own computer designed to run our OS, and explored the Net in ways that were really cool and Matrix'y… but…"

She slumped a little. "It was fun, sure… but you realized that…. it didn't mean anything."

- - - -

He tilted his head and pulled his brows together, then, uncertain. That seemed like a lot! He had made his own ZackAttack-esque Web-interface computer, for his own custom OS! That… didn't change anything for other people, but as steps forward, those were huge!

"…Uh-huh?"

- - - -

"So like… we did some cool stuff, some fun stuff, we made things for the Web, even got inside of it and did some TRON Matrix stuff for a couple of years… it was a ride."

She watched him work at the console, following his hands with her eyes.

"… But the Crash changed all of that. The Union guys call it the Dimensional Anomaly. Tech-heads in particular, they called it the WhiteOut. And we barely escaped it alive. This massive surge of extradimensional energy that blasted the entire digital webspace into nothing. Like Nothing nothing. Even the mundane internet was riddled with signal and domain errors and service problems, for like a week. The whole planet's internet was crap, and everybody was struggling to find or access even the most basic services. And then, suddenly…. it all came back. Everything except for the digital space… that got wiped clean. A lot of it's been rebuilt, but the WhiteOut still lurks online like a roving power surge virus or something."

"But it got you thinking about how… virtual reality wasn't as safe as you'd thought, as a 'world of the future'. Because if mankind moved into the virtual universe… it could be wiped out without warning, by something nobody was able to stop."

She offered him her headstrap, with the flashlight and the magnifying loop eye lens attachment.

"So you started exploring ways to apply new science ideas that might've worked inside the web, outside the web. Sometimes, it goes really badly. Sometimes it works great! But the Union… has some pretty strict rules about what should and shouldn't be. So innovation has to stay within limits. That was the part bugging you."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself. "…Yeah, I was saying that before- how data decay could totally wipe out humanity if we moved to entirely-virtual space. I didn't know about the WhiteOut, though…" He took her headgear and fixed it to himself, after having made sure nothing he was working on would fall or move out of place when he took his hands off of it.

"Maybe all those Web-spiders fucking up the Web and connections to it and computers was like, my head's way of remembering that… I saved this really cool User from being murdered by that, actually- he went by ZackAttack. Nice guy. A little condescending, if I'm being honest, 'cause he figured the only reason I got past his door encryption was it being too old and not as secure as his newer stuff. I think he had been trapped in the Web for like, a week, before I found him and got him out- and I had to do that after Morpheus updated Zack's old computer to be, like, made of his nanites and safe from the web-spiders."

He shrugged. "Not that any of that matters. It was just, like, one of the last things I did before things went sideways for me."

"So, we were trying to make Web constructs and functions work in Meatspace? What've we gotten to work so far? What did they not like us trying?"

- - - -

"The spiders… are a whole other thing. I'll spare you the details, your memory loss is a blessing on that one. It makes sense that they'd make their way into your nightmare fuel."

"The Union doesn't know about--"

Her next two words sounded more dramatic, being slightly louder and sounding as if they were spoken through a series of echo-filters and were dubbed over her actual words in the after-editing of the audio for his real world moment. And it happened that way every time she said it.

"--'The Lab'. If they ever learned of 'The Lab', they'd probably label you a deviant or a threat to their Consensus. It isn't so much that we were making web constructs in the real world, so much as we were figuring out how to dig through all the junk code that the Union has decided is 'reality' and 'physics', and find the real source code for reality's laws, so we could build machines and utilize forces that had been overwritten by and large, but were still there in the underlying code that reality really runs on."

- - - -

Simon stopped his work and looked at Edith entirely, then, eyes sparkling despite his slight difficulty understanding.

"…We were trying to hack reality and unbury some cool shit?"

Memories bubbled up of being stuck in a padded cell, with voices speaking to him- just hack reality to get out. He wasn't sure when they happened, but he was certain it was a reality he briefly woke up in- and one that he got re-awoken in at least twice, when he didn't respond correctly the first time. But he still remembered the first time.

…It was before Allison's reality. Right before.

"That sounds fucking awesome. But I don't remember how we accomplished it."

- - - -

"Hacking reality is something we tried, but… it went bad, really fast. But it was technically possible. What we were onto more recently was… well, okay, here's an example."

She sat facing Simon more fully.

"Anti-gravity. Possible, or impossible, and why?"

- - - -

Simon squinted at her, and set his current project on the floor so that he could focus on Edith fully.

"…Theoretically possible? I didn't do a lot of research into it, but, I'd imagine pushing against the force of gravity in order to achieve lift is definitely not the same thing. Not sure how you might turn off gravity in an area, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible."

- - - -

"Turning it off wasn't the question. Is Anti-Gravity possible? And you answered… yes. Yes, it is. Gravity is what everyone thinks it is… but it's not only what everyone thinks it is. And it's not everything that everyone thinks it is. The stuff that it isn't, was laid down via conspiracy by the Union over many, many years… and everyone believes it, which makes it quasi-real. That's the Junk Code in this example. But under it all are actual laws of gravity. That's the Source Code. And we were working on ways to sift the Source out of the Junk, across all kinds of topics. Computers run on some basic rules that can be broken, and some foundational laws that can't. Everything else above and beyond that are rules and conditions imposed by the software and hardware you attach to it or install into it. But strip all of those away and it's still a computer, able to parse the simplest commands via the most rudimentary programs that they all understand."

"Reality is a computer. Add new hardware - like land and air and water, animals and humans, sun, moon, stars, the universe - and new software - ideas and scientific or religious beliefs that are taken as widespread fundamental truths - and you get The Real World."

"Some of that Real World is kinda crummy… so you dig through the code and wiring, find what you can do without and what you can't do without… and make new hardware and software - new physical objects and new ideas on which they function - accordingly."

"If…. if enough people can be made to accept the new programs and devices, then the Computer stops being one model and becomes another. Upgrade."

"That became your new slogan… Don't Escape. Upgrade."

"It came to you during one of your big slumps… you read a girl's breasts - I mean, her t-shirt - and the phrase you saw stuck in your brain and made you change your whole way of trying things away from the virtual and computerized and toward mad science, as you put it."

She held out her hand in a sweeping slow gesture.

"The shirt said…. The Road Not Traveled Never Reveals Its Secrets."

She shrugged. "Since you already knew the secrets of computers, you went a different direction."

- - - -

Simon's eyes went fuzzy while Edith explained to him and he imagined these concepts in application. The rules of reality, of the decorations on top of the fundamental forces that made the rest possible, were just commonly-believed "truths". Like the face of a webpage. The common User thinks of that as the page, but anyone who knows better would be able to look at its code, its foundation, and if they also knew the language of its source code, change anything about its face.

Those same principles could apply to Reality, too- if he knew the language Reality was written in, he could do anything with it, within the capabilities of that language in its application. And even those capabilities could be bent with some creativity.

"So… anything about reality I thought could be better, we went about trying to figure out how it worked, and then used its foundational ideas to try and upgrade that facet of reality? Or was there more to that?"

"…Can I see the- uh- The Lab?"

- - - -

"I think you're thinking of much broader, sweeping changes than we were ready for. We're still learning what is and isn't Source or Junk. But… yes."

Eed held up a single finger between the two of them, drawing his attention sharply.

"Otome must never learn of The Lab. We never go to The Lab. We go to Polka Practice. She has no idea what that really means, but she knows it's code for 'I have to go do my super secret stuff for awhile'. She'll leave us alone, and won't follow us or ask to come along."

Edith lowered her finger and scootched off the bed, stretching as she stood.

"We haven't been to The Lab in a couple of years. Because of the Union. But you're off the grid, for now. Doctor Gemini and his Sidekick ½ can finally get back to work!"

- - - -

All of this seemed absolutely ridiculous, which also seemed right up Edith's alley, and made it all charmingly funny. Simon couldn't hide an amused grin. "Polka practice? We couldn't come up with anything better than that?"

Still, he got up, leaving her cute gadget-headpiece on the bed with his half-deconstructed electronic, and made to go to the door.

"I gotta admit, that's stupid and hilarious and really exciting. I can't wait to get into it."

- - - -

SERIOUS TONAL SHIFT HAPPENS HERE

- - - -

Edith ran down the stairs and was waiting for him in the driveway, behind the steering wheel of a …. car? [[a/n: this is a link to the image for the car! ]]

"C'mon!! Let's get going!"

She pulled on big leather gloves, before fastening goggles over her eyes and putting an old bomber's cap on.

- - - -

Simon called out the door behind him on his way down the stairs, "HEY OTOME WE'RE GOING TO POLKA PRACTICE I'LL SEE YOU LATER!!!"

His big grin never faltered, despite the complete absurdity of this situation, as he got swept up in Edith's energy and jumped into the passenger's seat next to her. Then buckled his seatbelt- or, would, if the car had them.

It didn't.

Suddenly a little nervous.

"Wooh!! Oh, man! This is crazy."

- - - -

"Crazy!? Crazy is for beginners, Bay-Bay!! We're going straight to Psycho!!"

Many gears, levers and dials were adjusted in rapid succession, and off they went!! No seat belts, no doors, no roof, just Eed and her 1890's Driver's Outfit, ripping through traffic at … 76 knots? The car's digital speedometer measured speed in knots!?

- - - -

Simon was trying really hard to just take this in stride and believe Edith knew what she was doing. They were completely destroying all road laws, driving insanely fast, with minimal safety features in the car and a windshield that did basically nothing for him or Edith in terms of its namesake. He had to hold onto his glasses for dear life, when he wasn't holding onto his seat with white knuckles or laughing with exhilarated terror. She was not kidding.

Over the wind, he yelled to her, "Can other people see this??"

- - - -

"Nope!! Imaginary car!! Invisible but veeery solid!"

She continued slicing and weaving through other cars, before yelling, "HOLD ON!"

Which is when she jerked the wheel hard to one side, lifting the car from four wheels to two for a moment, taking a left hand turn across active traffic without waiting for the light, dodging cars and settling back down on a smaller four lane road.

- - - -

Simon clenched his asscheeks and gripped the seat with his hands so hard he probably ripped the leather a little bit. Imaginary car!! So, still up in the air over whether he was certifiably insane and that level of belief just allowed things to manifest in reality, or if she was some imagination-fueled being who was just really into his specific brand of weird. Cool. Awesome. Please don't kill him by accident with no way to fix it.

When they leveled out, it took him a shaky second to relax a little bit from his whole-body muscle cramp, but he managed, somehow.

"J-Jesus Christ."

- - - -

"Atheist, actually. Or maybe agnostic. I dunno."

The car then came to a very abrupt halt, showing him the value of the padded dashboard and low-laid rise behind the short windshield as his face slammed into cushion and leather quilting.

"Ta-Da! And I never even drove before. Hah! I just learned by watching you, and then ignored all that slowing-us-down signs and lights garbage you do. Not bad, right?"

Edith pulled off her Driving Accessories, leaving them in the seat, and hopped out.

They were perfectly parallel parked…. between two other cars?… outside of a mansion… castle… thing!? That his shades claimed was an empty lot.

Because why wouldn't this be his evening!?

- - - -

"Mrph." Great. It took him a second of checking to make sure his nose wasn't broken before he got out of the "car", also pulling his glasses off to make sure they hadn't broken and then turning them off so that they wouldn't try to capture the rest of this insanity.

The mansion/castle/laboratory was… impressive, on the outside, even if "reality" said it was an empty lot. He jogged a few steps to catch up to Edith after that second of admiring the building.

"You are so lucky I had faith you knew what you were doing." She didn't even know how to officially drive!!!

- - - -

"Oh, c'mon… imaginary friend, imaginary car, imaginary mansion, imaginary mad science lab…. I'm in my element!! What could go wrong?"

She pulled out numerous keys on a long chain from her back pocket and began unlocking numerous locks on the gate. The gate itself had many warning signs posted to it.

BEWARE : SCIENCE !! CAUTION : SCIENCE INSIDE MAD SCIENTIST AT WORK, COME BACK LATER PROUD REALITY REBELS WITHIN FOR SCIENCE!!™️ YES, WE CAUSED THE BLACKOUT NO SOLITICERS HOT TECH GIRLS WELCOME NO TRESPASSING CLOWNS WILL BE EXTERMINATED IF CAUGHT SCIENCE!!™️ WE DO WHAT WE MUST, BECAUSE WE CAN!!

Eed finally finished unlocking the gates and put her keychain away, swinging it open for him. "Doctor."

She beamed at him with open adoration and admiration.

- - - -

He was… thoroughly confused, but entertained, and followed along with her by walking past with his chin high, shoulders straight, and hands clasped behind his back. "Thank you, ½."

He had no idea what to expect within the property. This was really stretching his idea of what imagination could do.

- - - -

As he crossed the threshold, Simon found himself wearing an outfit similar to Edith's 'For Science!™️' attire. His was more grand, of course, because he was the Doctor, and wore a long lab coat over his apron, with the words Dr. Gemini sewn into it. When she finished closing up behind them, and hurried to catch up, Eed was wearing her outfit as well, her own lab coat saying Sidekick ½.

She walked along, one step behind and to his right, mimicking his stride and posture.

"Welcome home, Doctor Gemini… to Half House!"

The door unlocked itself and opened before his approach. Inside was a blend of victorian antique and cassette retrofuturism styles, in all things. The wooden walls were wallpapered from halfway, up to the ceiling, though electronic panels and retro-computer clunky tech were set into the walls, framed by finely polished wood, making it stand out elegantly from the wallpapering.

- - - -

[[ a/n ]]

- - - -

He had no idea what the hell most of this stuff was for beyond ornamentation.

The hard time he was having taking this at its face manifested as dropping his 'professional' affectation to take off one glove and run a hand through his hair. This was getting to be a lot.

"You know, initially, I thought we were just gonna walk into the closet, or something. For some reason this," Simon gestured to the grand spectacle of the room, "is way harder to fully let myself believe is real. You work on a level of imagination I'm not totally sure I'm up to yet, Sidekick."

- - - -

He saw her remove her own glove and run her hand through her hair as well. "Yes, of course, Doctor. It will take some time for your neuro-mnemonic-pathways to re-integrate into appropriate patterns of cognitive activity and actualization."

She grinned. "I'm a science!"

They were then interrupted by an elderly male voice that was very clearly computer-generated, despite its british accent.

"Ah! Doctor Gemini! I am so deeply elated to see you alive and well, sir. Welcome home."

An automaton approached the pair.

- - - -

Simon flinched away from the automaton, very much not expecting the auto-butler or his aesthetic despite everything that surrounded them. "D'ah!! Uh-! Th- Thank you!"

He leaned down to Edith. "Who is this?"

- - - -

She leaned up and into him and whispered sideways, "Your butler, Mister Gearwhistle."

- - - -

He considered this, then nodded. "Right."

"erhem. Thank you, Mister Gearwhistle. How have things been in our absence? I heard from my Sidekick that it has been a few years, now, since our last visit- I'm not sure how closely you've been monitoring things on the outside, either, given recent events…"

Definitely play along. This was so weird.

- - - -

The butlerbot made its way into the room using a limited range of motion that never the less emulated human movement quite well. His metal mustache moved when he spoke.

"I never bother with the outside world, good Doctor. Much too dirty. And so uncivilized. No, sir, none of my business. Quite the opposite. Besides, I've been far too invested in maintaining the Imaginarium in your absence. Miss Half has been kind enough to assist me from time to time, during your long travels, sir."

Despite having been turned 'off', his glasses still notified him in the corner of his vision, that he had left known space and could not be located by GPS at this time, nor could his glasses connect to a network. This seemed more like a safety advisory, than anything else, in case he didn't know his own situation.

Sidekick Edith 'Eed' ½, stepped forward to deflect on Simon's behalf, by holding up a 'stop' hand toward Mister Gearwhistle.

"The Doctor has no time for pleasantries, I'm afraid. We must away to the Imaginarium, right away!"

The robot nodded, stepping aside.

"Yes, yes, of course. The Great Work never sleeps, does it, Miss Half?"

She took the lead and said quietly, as if to herself, in a very serious but immature play voice, "Science Never Sleeps."

- - - -

Simon mentally frowned at his glasses still tracking his position and network status- he'd have to find a way to genuinely turn them off, later. But it was good to know, he had to admit, that he was really off the grid, even if that was definitely outside the realm of possible. None of this was possible. It was kind of cool, though.

He followed behind Edith at a steady pace with his long stride, eventually almost catching up to her, to stay within the narrative of the one who knew what he was doing and was in charge. He was totally just letting her lead.

And had no idea what the Imaginarium was, beyond what it sounded like.

- - - -

She led him to a full phone booth standing against a wall at the end of a hallway on the first floor. After opening the door for him and letting him step inside, she followed and closed the door behind them. A small wall phone was set into the rear wall of the booth and Edith picked up the receiver, wound a revolving lever on the right and then dialed a number on a rotary dial, and hung up the phone.

The interior of the phone booth then began to descend into the floor. An elevator with a secret code, it seemed.

At the speed they were going, it looked like they'd have a moment alone.

She looked at him, searching his face. "Worried, huh?"

- - - -

He pulled his glasses up, then, and gave her a nervous smile. "I am way out of my depth right now."

- - - -

"I grew up here," she said softly, before leaning on his arm like he were a pillar.

"Half House has been my home for as long as I can remember, except for when I moved in with you. And then, Otome moved in, and I didn't want to be forgotten, so I stayed around. I thought for sure if I moved out, you'd… move on. You know?"

The elevator continued slowly rolling down its path on what sounded and felt like well maintained wheeled tracks at a steady pace.

"When you started trying to break the laws of reality in the real world, and not just the digital one… I knew I wanted to share the house with you, and make it yours. It's changed a lot since then, thanks to your presence and imagination."

She bounced lightly on her toes as she stood back upright. "You're not out of your depth, Boybot. This is your pool. It only goes as deep as you want it to. If you see water that's too deep? Don't swim in it. Go back to the shallows and get used to the water some more."

Her arm slipped into his. "I believe in you. You may not know what the heck is going on… but you can… because you have… so if you want to…. you will. Sooner or later. I know you will."

- - - -

Simon fixed Edith with a gently confused and sympathetic look, smiling very slightly in fondness and aforementioned sympathy.

"So… you existed here before you were in school with me? Or revealed yourself to me, I guess? And even after that, it was your house you went home to after school- and what that airship was thematically based on?" It was a lot of questions, but less of an interrogation and more of Simon trying to get her timeline straight. He shook his head gently, eyes closed. "You might've given me the reins, but this is still your horse, Eed. What are you?"

- - - -

She nodded in response to his questions and guesses. "The house used to be the airship, actually… but otherwise, yes."

To his last question, she simply gave him a slightly sad but most reassuring smile as she touched his cheek. "I'm what you needed. I still am, and happily. And I will keep being, for as long as you need it. And I'll love every moment."

The elevator began to slow, before settling into what felt like a cradle at the bottom. There were no windows on the outside this time.

"Deep breath. And try to remember… we worked together for years down here. Okay?"

- - - -

That didn't really answer a damn thing. Simon's eyebrows knit, and he frowned at her, but when she released his face, he pulled down his glasses and did his best to steel himself for whatever was behind that door. He was sort of expecting a Frankenstein-esque mad science lab with a slab in the middle and lots of machines around the outside of the main space. It probably wasn't that, though. That was for making monsters, not breaking the rules of reality.

- - - -

When she slid the door aside, what was revealed was… actually fairly close to what he'd imagined… except bigger… with sections and areas….

And a fucking train.

"Welcome… to the Imaginarium!"

- - - -

Simon had to take a long minute to let the enormous, full, crazy area sink in. There was a train! IN the room! Why?!

He took a step out of the elevator-phone-booth, sidling past Edith, in order to not feel trapped in the tiny space. It wasn't much better when he was surrounded by all of… this, if he was honest with himself. And all of this was way more than he imagined when Edith first broached the subject of figuring out the foundations of reality, to him.

He turned back to her, stomach fluttering, honestly feeling a little queasy but trying his best to just trust the unreality of the space. And the potential flexibility of his sanity.

"…Ready to start the tour?"

- - - -

She looked confused, before comprehension crept across her face. "Oh! Oh, oh…. no. No, no… no. This place isn't really a… tour… kinda situation. You just wander around, until something makes you curious enough to engage, and then…. you start futzing with it. Eventually, you figure out what it is, how it works, and from there…. you figure out how you could make it better, or why it isn't working. It's an Imaginarium! Like…. like a laboratory, but for your mind. There's nothing in here that your mind can't handle… and if you get stumped, there's always something else to work on. After awhile, you start having a few things you're working on at a time, going back and forth between them."

She walked in, gesturing all around in a slow spin while she walked.

"In here, reality is whatever you need it to be… right up until you Throw The Lever!™️ and see what will really happen. And then you tweak and tweak… and it gets better and better, and so does your understanding of how it really works."

"Reality's code doesn't have a neat, tidy console to read off of. That's why people Experiment. But in here, you're not limited in your experiments to what the Union has signed off on. Only reality's source code determines what can and cannot happen, in here."

"We've worked together on hundreds of projects over the years. We built that train!" she said, smiling.

"It runs on psychic energy… more or less. So no matter where we go… if there are people - or even just a boatload of animals - it'll stay fueled up. And it can leave Earth. That was kind've the whole point of making it. We needed some stuff from other dimensions, so we needed a way to get there. We had some spare parts for a locomotive so we went with that."

She pointed toward an alcove with green-liquid tanks and giant tesla coils. "We invented living Pocket Demons right over there. But only three."

- - - -

He stared incredulously as she pointed to devices, and stopped at the tanks with wide eyes and a straight face.

"…Which ones?"

- - - -

"Sparksqueak, Watortoise, and Grassaurus."

- - - -

"…Pikachu, Squirtle, and… Bulbasaur? Where are they?"

- - - -

"They…. they died. Old age, a few years ago. We were only able to give them a life expectancy of four years. But they also provided blood and organs, as signed donors, for future works. We have a template still in the Genesis Engine, but… we never came back to that project."

- - - -

Oh. That was sad. He gave Edith a sympathetic little frown and set a hand on her shoulder. "…Oh. I'm sorry."

Losing a pet was always hard, as far as he was aware (having not had any pets he was aware of), and he hoped the sympathy at least helped. It probably didn't though.

"…Are the scientist getups part of the expected reality in here?" he had to admit it was not his usual look, and a little stuffy.

- - - -

"No. We just thought it would make being down here more fun, to do it in character."

She carefully removed her goggles. "Sorry… "

She muttered under her breath, "Still better than suits, though."

- - - -

He patted her further, then took off the gloves and gently cupped her face with one, bare hand. "Hey, no need to apologize. This is already nuts, okay? And they are way better than the suits. Definitely appreciate that. But I'm not quite used to it enough to need to play pretend in the imaginary-workshop I just got invited to see and work in. Okay?"

- - - -

She nodded, offering a light shrug as she shed her outfit in its entirety as if it were a single bathrobe, leaving her nude as her science outfit pooled in layers on the floor. Little ripples of prismatic and beautiful rainbow sparkles wove their way from her toes, to her ankles, knees, waist, chest, shoulders, and then the top of her head - and in their wake she was wearing her shortalls outfit again, with a ballcap that said SIDEKICK across the front and had a little white hat-pin on it of her Simone kitten form as a cute anime kittyball.

She wore big, wide circular glasses around her mismatched eyes and her hair was in a curly ponytail now, with frizzles sticking out all over.

"So… do you want to see the Genesis Engine, then? Or maybe take a look at the Vampire Detector? We could play in the Ball Pit of Doom, if you prefer, and learn about physics! Or, I guess we could climb inside the Tesla Dome…"

"I dunno… what, about reality, would you like to tinker with, break, fix, and improve?"

- - - -

Oh, shit, she was naked!! And then did a Sailor Senshi into a mechanic-girl! Simon's face went beet-red, with the blush artfully extended off of his face to either side without his intent as emphasis of just How Much he was blushing and flustered. "Buh- uh-!!"

Why couldn't he change outfits like she could? Super not fair. But also, she had adorable tits and a great figure and her muff was just. Hoo-boy. He turned around to try and hide his burgeoning arousal, rubbing the back of his head while the other hand went to his hip.

"W-well! I kind of just wish I had a way to catch up on what I already knew, quickly! I have never needed remedial classes and honestly it kind of sucks!"

- - - -

"Hey!! That's a great idea!!"

She ran over and hugged him tight.

"Inside the Imaginarium, we can fix your memory! As an EXPERIMENT!™️"

She looked around frantically. "We just have to find something that works with the mind… Hypno-Helmet? No, too invasive. We wanna unlock old memories, not write new ones. Forget-Me-Stick? No, you already forgot. Hrmmm…. there's gotta be something around here!"

Eed hopped off on a walk that was almost a skip. "If I were a Mental Experiment, where would I be?"

- - - -

"The loony bin, usually," Simon sighed back to her, after he had unfrozen from being hugged by the previously-naked cute girl.

"But that's for the failed ones. Could we like… apply hypnotherapy principles to the helmet's system somehow? I think I remember seeing shit on TV about how therapists can use hypnosis to help people unblock traumatic memories…"

Yes, he did still have a half-stiffy, no, he was not going to acknowledge that.

"Hey, how do you change your outfit like that?"

He jogged lightly to catch up to her, again.

- - - -

"Sure we can! We can do anything we want! That's the whole point of this place. Huh? Oh, my clothes. Sorry. I just shed one costume to make room for the next one, and called for it. If the thing that you call for is close enough, it comes right to you."

She reached out to her side, and he saw her concentrate for a second, and a brass sphere flew off of a table across the room, straight at her and into her waiting hand.

"See? But if it's too far away for that, like these clothes were, then they have to come to you - or in this case, me - through a channel in reality. My clothes know how I wear them, so… they appear already where they know I'll want them to be."

She held his hand and slipped the little sphere, roughly the size of a golf ball, into his hand. "You used to be able to do it, but stopped when the Union told you it wasn't acceptable. Do you want me to teach you again, or should we get right to work figuring out how to wire a hypno-device to do memory recovery?"

- - - -

Edith's hand got held onto, gently, after she gave him the little ball. She was soft and warm, and he wanted to hold her hand for a second longer.

"…It'd be nice, if you could show me some easy tricks before we get into things. Some pre-work prep, maybe."

- - - -

Edith nodded and wrapped her fingers around the hand he was holding the ball with.

"Feel it. Really explore it, with your senses - most importantly, with your mind. Your mind takes in the temperature, the texture, the shape… but also the weight and density. So don't just feel it with your hand… explore it. Become familiar with it. Everything about it. Toss it around, catch it, juggle with it…. whatever it takes, to get to a point where you know the ball well enough to feel like you could almost treat it like a part of yourself. Like if you toss it up, you'll catch it just the way you want to, without thinking about it. It'll take some time… but it's the fastest way."

"You see, space… isn't space. Space is full. There's no such thing as vacuum, because even a void is something. It's filled with a devouring hunger that drags all light and air and life into itself, but… that's still a thing. It's a force, like gravity, or an idea that can be physically observed, like time."

"But space… the amount of room between you and the ball… is filled with a whole rainbow of unseen forces. If you can become familiar enough with the ball, with the metal and the weight and the feel of it… not just as a ball, but as a thing that is kind've part of you - or could be - then you can throw the ball… and use that unseen force to catch it. Like undo'ing the throw. Or taking back a bad idea. You can pull it back to you, through that space, by tugging on the ball with the space itself… like pulling a yoyo up by its own shifting momentum on the string."

"It's actually harder to figure out, than it is to do. Most of this stuff is. Takes forever to learn…. but once you get it, it's easy. Like basic math, or riding a bike! It's a struggle, right up until you can do it!"

- - - -

Simon frowned at her, looking with an intensity that surely meant he was paying very close attention to her words, visualizing the concepts in his mind while she spoke and trying to understand them from her description alone. It was a little difficult.

"Almost like the ball is a yo-yo, or… the air can be moved back into place where it moved it, sending the ball back in the direction it came from…?" He was having a little bit of a hard time grasping the concept, and that was frustrating.

- - - -

"Kind've. Stick with the yoyo-part… the ball is the yoyo… you must have a good, deep, touch-memory for the yoyo and the way it moves on the string, to make it doooo anything. So the ball is the yoyo… and the string… that's the hard part. The string is the space between your hand - usually the middle or upper middle of the palm, since that's where you started learning it from the first time - and the object - in this case, the ball. The string only exists… if you can hold it in your mind hard enough to get a kind of phantom sensation of it in your hand or imagination, or, preferably, both."

"If you can get used to tossing it and catching it, and feeling it and whatever… always trying to remember that string is there, when the ball leaves your hand…. then when you've finally got it down… you'll be able to let the yoyo fall and then tug the 'string' back up toward your hand. Except, instead of a little tug with your wrist or finger, this tug is more like a mental tug, inside your hand, to reel the string back on."

"Got it?"

- - - -

Simon spent a little while after Edith's explanation just… holding the ball. Tossing it between his hands, back and forth, feeling its weight and how it hit his palm until he Knew the feeling, or, at least, thought so- then, took some time tossing it upward, trying to catch it while looking and then trying to catch it without looking and then trying to pull it back to his hand on an invisible little cord. When he felt comfortable with those motions, he finally started trying to treat it like a yo-yo… It had been a little while, and Edith did her best to encourage his Actual attempts to move it with his Will, or give him some coaching, but he was really starting to feel the mental strain before he even got to the point where he started dropping the ball and trying to pull it back up.

- - - -

Finally having had enough of his inability to grasp the concept (obviously he just wasn't there yet, to his infinite chagrin), Simon threw the goddamn brass ball across the room - instantly regretting his outburst. He instinctively tightened his hand, still outstretched, as if to try and catch it even though that moment was long gone… and yet… he felt the space around the sphere clamp down on it, like a perfectly fitted round velvet pocket of air that just gripped the orb suddenly, stealing all of its momentum. The brass sphere simply remained where it had been, some six yards away, perfectly still in the air. It didn't bob, it didn't rotate, there was no motion at all. It was as if the ball were caught in time and space alike.

The instant his concentration faltered, it fell to the floor with a loud clang and rolled along a little bit, until it came to a stop.

- - - -

Now he sort of understood what Edith meant when she said it was more often something that was harder to get than to just do.

Simon stared angrily at the sphere for a moment, on the verge of a headache for the third time since waking up, and reached for it in order to pull it into his palm (from the palm-point relative to his middle knuckle) by… pulling it through a tunnel in the gas of the air, a vacuum from his palm directed at just that little asshole ball.

- - - -

It took longer than he would've liked, and he was just about to give up, when he felt it… she was right. There was an unseen force… not quite gravity, not quite space, and certainly not the air. But it was there… a kind of psychic tether, between his hand and the brass orb. It flickered in and out of existence, erratic and wholly untenable and at the very edges of his perception… but when he finally found his sense of it and managed to hold on to it in his mind… to keep the tether there… the tension in his arm, as if flexing a muscle behind his wrist, pulling from somewhere in the air behind his physical hand, he touched the ethereal. He felt the line, made of nothing, completely invisible, intangible, nothing but dream and imagination, latched onto a scientific principle that offered no proof of its own existence… and he drew in the distance between his palm and the brass ball, causing it to fly from the floor and whip painfully back into his grasp once more - as if it had been dragged straight to him by a high-powered tow cable under great force.

He had called it back to himself. Reclaimed it, from the floor. He had reduced the space between the ball and himself and become 'whole' again, in that vague way.

And now that he knew what the sensation felt like… now that he knew what mental, imaginary feeling he was trying to feel, what sensation he was searching for… he knew that he could do it again. Maybe not every time, it would take practice. But he'd just outright broken the known laws of physics as they pertained to forces like kinetic and potential energy, gravity, inertia… but he'd done so by applying a law that he hadn't known existed.

Part of the hidden source code of reality. A force unnamed and unknown, long buried by the Technocratic Union and erased from the Consensus. He'd found one. He had no idea what to call it, of course… but he knew it was there, what it felt like, and a vague impression of how it worked, what it did… a space between spaces.

She was right. Even nothing, was still full of something.

- - - -

Completely mentally exhausted, frustrated, and really at most limits of his stamina, Simon Castor threw his arms into the air and exclaimed, "WOOOO!! YES! I fucking DID IT!"

And then he threw the ball with all the force of that tow cable, and wanted to stick it into the wall hard enough to make a crater. FUCK that ball.

- - - -

The ball flew across the room, tinked gently against the wall, then returned to his hand once more.

- - - -

Simon made a frustrated growl and plopped his ass onto the floor. He couldn't remember where Edith had taken the little ball from in order to return it there, but god damn it, it had come back, and he was fucking tired now.

- - - -

The ball, sharing his exhaustion… fell from him resting hand, limp and rolling along the floor until it came to a stop. Simon could almost feel the ball's frustration and exhaustion, as tired of this exercise regimen as he was.

- - - -

Oh, aw, that garnered some sympathy from him toward the little object. He called it back and held it in both hands, trying to share that feeling of shared accomplishment, too, with it.

"Hey, man, you did great. Thanks for working with me with all that crap."

- - - -

Edith sat down beside him, seemingly out of nowhere. "Once you get better at feeling things out through the aetherium, you'll be able to try finding the ball when it's nowhere nearby… and the next step after that is calling it to you through the space in between, the way I do with my clothes. But… I don't think you'd be able to do any of that outside the Imaginarium. After all…"

She looked around. "… this place is kind've like an emulator, letting us work through reality's settings. But outside, the Union's rules kick back in, in full. That's why we work in here, until a device is totally ready to be applied out there. You wanted to bring some Q gizmos in here to fix them up and work on them, but you said you were pretty sure that they'd somehow find out the Half House existed if you did that, and come deconstruct it or something."

- - - -

Simon nodded to her, still holding and looking at his little ball friend. "Yeah, probably. Unless we took it apart at home and removed anything they could use to track it, but, y'know, with that… aetherium?… the guys who made it can probably track its individual pieces, too. Any luck with that thing? What've we gotten to work outside, so far?"

- - - -

"Any luck with what thing? OH! The Hypno thing… I'm so sorry, I got distracted by the Digitracer. Outside? Well, we've got the MVD - the Mobile Vampire Detector, it's a handheld little version about the size of a keyfob. There's also the Death Ray, the Barrier Shield, Encrypto, and…. uh…. there was something else…. "

She looked off into the distance, absently.

"…. OH! Oh. Um…. yeah. The other thing. Don't worry about the other thing."

She waved her hand at him, all Jedi-like.

"There is no other thing."

- - - -

He frowned at her, totally not mind-tricked at all. "You mentioned it, now I gotta know what you're talking about."

He would ask about those other things after she spilled these metaphorical beans.

- - - -

She reddened a little. "Can't we just pretend you didn't hear that one? Oh! Where's your neuralizer?"

- - - -

He pressed the button on his glasses that made them into mirror-shades. "Nuh-uh. Come on. You can open up a little, and if you're blushing that much, I'm certain it's probably fine since you've been coming onto me since we got home."

- - - -

"Some things are private!"

- - - -

He snorted. "Eed, if you're my imaginary friend and we're in my imaginary mansion slash mad science lab, and it's all mine by rights, nothing is private here. Come onnnnnn."

Simon crossed his arms, still holding the little ball in one hand.

- - - -

Her face fell flat and she sighed. "Fine. But don't judge me."

She reached behind herself and held out her hand, which was now covered in a bright pink and purple wad of writhing tentacles with little ridges, the hues fading beautifully from one into the other and back. It uncoiled and one bright blue eye with an octopus-like figure '8' pupil opened sleepily. Upon seeing Simon, it tensed, shrieked like a horror movie scream queen and slapped him across the face with one of its tentacles, covering its writhing amorphic body mass with other tentacles, before trying to hurry back into Edith's hammerspace.

"He's sensitive."

- - - -

He was not prepared for the tiny tentacle monster, nor for being slapped in the face with one of its brightly-colored tentacles after it screamed at seeing him. He was definitely staring at it and now the situation was completely ridiculous.

Simon very quickly averted his gaze so that it didn't feel so… violated? Was it for violating Edith? He wouldn't have been surprised, though its- his- sensitivity was surprising. Simon now sported a tentacle-print red mark on his face.

"S-sorry, sorry, I have to admit I was not expecting a little tentacle monster! He is fine to exist outside??"

- - - -

She nodded. "His name is Kaiju II."

She blushed as she made sure the little monster was tucked away in the nowhere. "You tried to make one for Otome, but it didn't survive and it turned out that she has a tentacle phobia. But Kaiju I was able to divide and reproduce before dying, and Kaiju II survived. So, I adopted him."

- - - -

"Oh, shit, a phobia? I thought her mentioning her nightmare-version's lack of tentacles was like, a reference to her preference for hentai. I wonder what caused the phobia."

Once Kaiju II was away, he turned back to Edith.

"…Sorry about the first one. You guys… had a lot of little experiments die, huh? I don't… really think experimenting with life is generally a good idea, myself."

- - - -

"It wasn't about experimenting with life, that was just how we dug through the metaphorical code. Curing diseases, seeing which medical conditions are real and which ones have been created as byproducts of Consensual Science, seeing if humans can be made better by weeding out weaknesses that've been bred into them… you have to create life, to have life to study. Even the Vampire Detector required experimenting in the Genesis Lab."

- - - -

He nodded along, though did seem uncertain about one thing. "…Let's. Not do the eugenics experimenting anymore. If that's okay. I really feel like creating life only to give it diseases we wanna cure is extremely immoral."

- - - -

She looked at him in horror, "Who would do that!?"

- - - -

"…Was that not what you were just implying we were doing??"

- - - -

"No!! That's awful!! We didn't create Kaiju to make them sick! We didn't even grow a whole vampire just to tear out its heart! That's just cruel! You only grow the stuff you need, or lifeforms you think will be beneficial in some way! Like the Conductor Worm!"

- - - -

He gazed at her with alarm. "…Conductor worm?" He was thinking of MiB2's big worm.

- - - -

"Yeah. After a few too many accidents in the Voltaic Icosahedron, we designed and tinkered and when it was finally ready to be a stable lifeform, we used the Genesis Engine to create a little worm. It enters the body and feeds on your bioelectrical field, growing like a second nervous system all throughout the body. It takes days, and keeps you fatigued, but once fully grown, a healthy Conductor Worm is able to absorb and redirect otherwise dangerous amounts of electrical current through a human body without damaging tissue or jolting the system."

- - - -

"Ohhhh." He nodded to himself. "Okay, yeah, that sounds like a smart thing to have done. Kinda fucked up, given it's an organic parasite instead of like, some kind of wearable grounding apparatus or something, but still pretty smart. We could change the whole face of the electrician position."

"I thought you were talking about a parasite that controls people, or, like, the giant subway worm from Men in Black Two."

- - - -

She just looked at him. "He has a name. It's Geoffrey."

- - - -

He held his hands up in a mollifying gesture. "Right! I couldn't think of it right away, sorry, it's been years since I saw that movie."

- - - -

"And a wearable device has limits based on what the Union's done to material conductivity and dispersion tolerance. But an organism is limited only by its own biology. Why would we be making mind control worms down here? What kind of mad science do you think we were into?"

- - - -

He shrugged helplessly at her, eyes wide, tone defensive. "I don't know!! I have no idea what you guys were doing down here!"

- - - -

"'We' guys, Boybot. You and me. You'd never go for a mind control worm. Especially after seeing Star Trek II. The original, not the reboot franchise."

She leaned on his shoulder.

"Do you still wanna work on that Hypno-Helmet recalibration, or do you wanna break after learning how to contract spacial aether?"

- - - -

He considered for a second, lips pursing, gaze wandering around the room.

"…I do feel like I just completed a solo mathcounts competition when I was supposed to be part of a team."

Then leaned his head onto hers.

"And I'm not sure how to apply trauma therapy principles to a device I don't remember making in the first place. What do you think?"

- - - -

"I think we didn't build the Hypno-Helmet. We fixed it… but it was already down here when we found it. But, I get what you mean. I don't know anything about therapy stuff either… but does that matter? It's not much different than reversing the function of your Neuralizer, is it? Except that the Hypno-Helmet can do more than make people forget. And since hypnotherapy is already a thing that has been made part of their Consensus, we don't even have to rip out junk code…. just wire it into the helmet somehow."

- - - -

Simon considered her ideas further, nodding absently along. "That makes sense."

Leaning up off of her, Simon used the arm not under her head to turn himself and cradle Edith so that she didn't just fall over as he got up. "I think that settles it; how about we get working on that helmet? I don't wanna lose steam, you know?"

- - - -

She stood with him, using his arms as leverage. She still didn't weigh what a person should, even a shorter framed person like her, not by half or better.

"Steam isn't bad, but it's terrible for the environment, because of the coal and lumber and stuff. Carbon! That. Buuuuttt….. we were working on a Phlogiston Collector and an Aetheric Energy Converter, before you stoppe--…. oh, you mean like… right. Got it."

Edith took his hand and led him toward the HypnoDrome, which was apparently one of the chambers that branched off of the main lab via a corridor large enough to drive a … train… through.

- - - -

Simon looked at her curiously as she led him into this branch of the Imaginarium. "Phlogiston Collector? And Aetheric Energy Converter? So we were working on clean, efficient energy alternatives?"

He did note her continued lack of mass, but was caught up more with the energies Edith suggested than the continued problem of her existence.

- - - -

She nodded. "Some of our designs need more juice than conventional power can provide. Best solution? New power."

She gestured around the pipes and bundles cables that lined the wide and tall tunnel, whose metal grate flooring and general vibe made it seem like the interior of an oversized nuclear submarine.

"Their Consensus refuses to allow anything to run on Essence, sooo… gotta find alternative power sources. The world won't accept them, especially not as commercially viable alternatives… but we can use them."

She frowned. "Stupid Consensus."

- - - -

He patted her tugging hand with his, smiling in sympathy. "Yeah. Some of the restrictions on reality are stupid. I'm excited to see past them again."

Casting his eyes around, Simon found himself somewhat disliking the haphazardly-bundled cables and maze of pipes running around the place, and he frowned to himself. Couldn't they have kept things a little tidier? Or was the pursuit of progress more important than aesthetics, now? If he had cared enough, his room full of wires and cables and things would have, ideally, been streamlined and organized and had all of its cables at least carefully laid out to keep them out of the way, but, well, he hadn't cared enough to do all of that at the time. At least, not in the history he had in his head.

Maybe with a girl to impress with his work, this-him's formative years had been different… and certainly would've been happier.

- - - -

They entered the HypnoDome, a vast… well, dome… with a black and white spiral design that was a little disorienting, painted all across the wide ceiling. It didn't move, he didn't think, but it sure tricked the eye into seeing it move when he looked up at it, which threw the room into a slight tailspin.

All around were enormous tesla coils, electrodes… were those vacuum tubes?… control panels, various work stations… the air here smelled of burnt ozone.

Eed smiled apologetically, "Sorry for the mess, we had to store the Symphoniator in here, because it kept damaging things in the Voltaic Icosahedron. On the bright side, we can work to music, if you don't hold anything metal up too high!"

- - - -

The dizziness made Simon hold onto Edith a little tighter, forcing him to hold his attention on her rather than gazing at the ceiling for even a moment more else it might make him hurl. That concentration expressed itself as a very intense stare at the girl, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set into a hard line.

"Symphoniator? And you keep mentioning the icosahedron, what were we doing with that?"

- - - -

She nodded to his first question and gestured to the room at large. "I have Sweet Home Alabama programmed into it, still, if you want me to turn it on. The Voltaic Icosahedron is where most of the direct energy work gets done."

- - - -

He gazed at her. "…What is a Symphoniator? I mean, I'm not huge on that song, but if it's cool I'm not gonna say no."

- - - -

"It uses voltaic shock and plasma discharge, in phased bursts, to burn the air in ways that create music when set up in advance to fire at different phase frequencies and time intervals."

- - - -

That sounded like just enough plausible bullshit to work, so Simon shrugged permissively. "OK, sure, playing music with electricity, why not?"

And he sat through a demonstration of tesla coils playing "Sweet Home Alabama* through the room, loud enough to make his ears ring and definitely at a frequency that made his headache just the slightest bit worse. He winced on every low note, the buzzing of the electricity hitting a bad spot on his range of hearing, but, over all, was sincerely impressed by the performance.

"…Cool. What else do we have on this thing? Can you do a playlist of songs for it?"

- - - -

"We have over nine hundred songs programmed."

- - - -

"Then why is it not playing right now? Besides my headache."

- - - -

She grinned and went to one of the control stations and began punching in various songs and setting it to shuffle and run, as the room lit up with strobing blasts and strings of electricity in blue, purple, yellow, orange, green, and pink. When she returned, she came back with a gumball-looking thing.

"Chew on this and suck all the juice, until the whole thing is dissolved. Cures headaches and hangovers."

- - - -

That was sincerely impressive- more impressive than the tesla music, if he was honest with himself. Given his chronic migraines, he hoped they had a whole mess of these at home. Simon took the little ball and popped it right into his mouth, very much hoping it was well-flavored, too.

- - - -

It was like chewing on a Whopper, except instead of chocolate and malt, it was crunchy blue raspberry that slowly dissolved into chewy juicy bits.

Eed came back over to him with a large helmet that encompassed the whole head, and trailed spiraling cables from a big box unit on the back of it.

"We'll need to tune it to your current brainwaves before we can begin. I think. I don't actually know how this thing works, but it did help get rid of your lisp some, and it can make curly fries. So, I think we're good."

- - - -

The curly fries comment did dampen his enthusiasm a little bit.

"…But it's not gonna fry my brain like those fries, right?" He thought the Union helped him get rid of his lisp, but, well, who's to say what is and isn't from this crazytown science lab anymore? He took the helmet from her and looked it over, trying to gauge how it might be tuned and calibrated as he usually did: fiddling.

- - - -

"It shouldn't fry your brain. It never has before."

The interior of the helmet had a range of speakers and viewscreens, as well as ample cushioning. The exterior had little to work with. The box section on the back, though, had a veritable switchboard of tiny wires and plugs, going to and from different holes in a neat arrangement, as well as four dials and three toggles. It looked like he'd made tiny stickers with tinier writing, trying to label them - but some ended with question marks.

- - - -

That did not inspire confidence in the apparatus. Still, Simon took it over to some kind of seat and plonked it onto his head after sitting down, then gave Edith a double thumbs-up.

- - - -

He heard her put her goggles back on and felt her hooking numerous cables into the back of the helmet, and then the clicking of dials being turned as a low hum gradually grew in intensity, underneath the music happening overhead. And then, he heard Edith throw a loud, frankenstein-esque electrical lever as she screamed without warning, "FOR SCIENCE!!™️"

The inside of the helmet flared to life with violently bright polychromatic flashes of light and barely audible pulses of sound from all around his head, while also spraying him in the face with a fine strawberry-scented mist.

- - - -

The mist was definitely the most unexpected part of this experience, though the rest would've made a migraine instantly if he hadn't just had the little gumball that defeated his headache. Instead, it threw his sense of balance off entirely and made tingles run down his neck and spine from the sound waves, and basically blinded him with all of the flashing lights, while he mentally tried to weather the shock of sensory input and also the discomfort of being misted in the face for no good reason. Silently, Simon was grateful his glasses kept the helmet from just spritzing him directly in the eyes.

As it worked, he yelled to Edith (or thought he was yelling, was he yelling? Could she even hear him?), "Is it working? What's with the strawberry mist?!"

- - - -

His eyes were rapidly growing to sting, and then burn and felt as dry as sand. Blinking hurt.

"It's our not-legally-patented moisturizer to protect the eyes from the mimetic desiccation dangers!"

- - - -

"Oh!" He reached up to take his glasses off, then. Ow ow ow.

Except he couldn't get his hand into the helmet. Shit.

Simon scrunched his face around and tried to intentionally displace his glasses to get them out of the way of the scented mist. It mostly worked, to which his eyes were grateful.

- - - -

The mist helped immediately, just as his headache was gone and showed no sign of returning, despite him still having some medicine-ball still in his mouth (it lasted a little bit). It felt weird at first, but he quickly got used to it, just like he would have gotten used to walking through fog in a breeze.

The weirdness show continued on, surrounding him with increasingly aggressive and overt and wildly chaotic displays of intensity… and then the whole thing shut off with a loud 'thwack' noise, of … maybe a breaker getting tripped? He smelled smoke.

- - - -

He very quickly took the helmet off of his head, worried it might start an electrical fire or something. AC/DC zapped in the background.

- - - -

The smoke was coming from a small fire located at the rear of the helmet, but just as he noticed it - once the helmet was removed - he was hosed with a fire extinguisher that left him… cold and uncarbonated and smelling stale air with a bitter tinge.

"Sorry. I didn't know you were taking it off. I think it worked! One of the things in the back exploded a tiny bit and set fire to some stuff, and it tripped the circuit over there!"

She pointed excitedly to the wall, where the lever she'd thrown earlier was now broken and looked like it was also on fire a little.

"So now we just need to fine tune it and strap you back in, rev it up…. fix the wiring… and see what happens!"

- - - -

That was just the calibration process. Okay! Okay. At least he didn't have a headache, and his ears weren't pouring smoke, though the helmet being slightly on fire was not terribly encouraging, either. For Science!!™️…?

Simon actually opted to take his glasses off for this one, setting them on a table nearby. "Y'know, I think maybe we should cut the music so that you can listen for any like, warning noises. And I wish you had told me about the mist! My glasses totally got in the way."

Still, he turned the helmet around and examined the wiring, where it had shorted, and how he might be able to fix it, or even entirely prevent the short from happening again.

- - - -

Edith shrugged, "Who wears glasses inside a helmet? That one's on you, Boybot. And don't worry about the music, there's never any warning sounds for most of these things. The sound of progress is a lot like the sound of catastrophe… it just depends on where the fires break out and how bad they are."

When he got himself a better look at the burnt helmet's inner panel, he saw that one of the labeled stickers was lightly singed. It read, AUDIO REGULATOR B-3? and the fire seemed to have started there. The cable plugged into that port ran to another port that was labeled POWER SOURCE - CHANNEL 3.

As Simon scrutinized the connections in the adjacent spaces, he realized that 'Audio Regulator B-3' was definitely mislabeled. Audio regulators elsewhere were plugged into ports along the left hand side of the lower grid; this one was in the upper middle, where other power regulation ports seemed to be. So… one of the wires had been feeding energy from a regulator, into a regulator, and wasn't allocating that power to anything else, anywhere.

Further examination showed him that he had already sorted most of the switchboard's ports - and it looked like he had been able to refit the holes into new places in the grid so that it made more sense to him - and he was able to quickly rearrange several plugs in ways that he was pretty sure would set the machine to (1) not burst into flames this time, and (2) induce memory regression and recovery without any active participation from a second party… by giving it a list of questions to pose during regression and hooking that list into the secondary input port. He was pretty sure the primary input port just went to psychedelic bullshit recorded for playback inside the helmet.

It was… completely haphazard and improvised, and yet he felt fairly certain that it would work, based on what he'd seen.

Maybe this was what being crazy felt like… total certainty based on practically no information.

- - - -

Simon checked around him for a few label stickers and a pen to write on them with, so that he could re-label what he had just done and add some notes about the primary input port's recording. Then all he had to do was come up with the questions to put into the secondary port…

"OK, Eed, I think I've got what we need to do here- follow me on this. We should give the helmet some questions to pose during the process, through the secondary input port, that should induce the regression and recovery of my memories without you needing to do much of anything."

During the explanation he pointed at the secondary input port, now newly labeled.

- - - -

"Then who's going to ask the questions?"

- - - -

"…Probably the screens and audio through subliminal messages or something, based on what we write in a program we have the helmet run?"

He raised one eyebrow at her.

"I dunno, man, this is all improv, you know that."

- - - -

"We don't know the OS the helmet runs on, or even if it uses modern programming concepts. It seems to be purely mechanical, like… like analog tech. No digitals. If you write the list down, I could plug a microphone into that port and read off the questions every so many minutes, so you hear it while you're under? Or we could pre-record the questions and plug the cassette deck into the input and hit play? We have options, I guess, is what I'm saying. I was going to plug the Opticon into the helmet's output and record whatever you experience, for later review, too - just to see if maybe it helps you make sense of things more, or maybe like if you don't remember what you remembered, because you were under at the time. I dunno… just seems like we should come at this a few different ways, to be on the safe side."

She gave him a slight hug. "Science wouldn't be science if it worked exactly the same time, every single time, would it? No, then it'd just be…. I dunno, facts or something. There's gotta be some risk and some doubts and some kind of chaos element for it to be real science."

- - - -

He chuckled at patted her between the shoulder blades, then gave a slight squeeze. "Right. Sure. Whatever fucked up, crazy take on things makes you possible, I'm all for it."

"The problem is, I have no idea what sorts of questions should be asked to kick my brain back into its previous gears. Do you have any ideas about that?"

- - - -

She pursed her lips and hopped up on a worktable, wiggling numerous gears and small tools away from the spot with her butt.

"I don't know therapy stuff. I'd say we could google it, but there's no internet down here. We still have the Society of Oracles and Scholars - or the SOS for short - that people turn to for answers in times of need… but I wasn't going to throw you that far down the rabbit hole, this soon."

- - - -

Simon nodded, setting the helmet down into his lap. "Or… Maybe we go find a book in that enormous library wing?"

- - - -

"Oh, I mean… maybe? Most of those books aren't for anything so… mainstream. They cover lore of other dimensions, astral physics, demiplane navigation and creating worlds, portal construction, dreamscapes, Otherworlds, dragons, stuff like that."

- - - -

He blinked at her, eyes owlish. "…Oh." And then waved his hand dismissively. "Well, pssshh, of course all that exists to be researched down here, I mean, that's super important shit to our SCIENCE!!™️, but it kind of sucks that it isn't a universal library where we could look up anything." It was definitely a little sarcastic, but the sentiment was genuine.

"If that's not an option, then I guess the SOS is what we should consult… Or we should go upstairs or outside to ask the internet."

- - - -

"That depends on whether or not you're ready to board the train and make the short trip into another world, to ask a question. If you'd rather go upstairs, I'd understand completely, and will happily wait here while you Google. Just pull out your phone, hit the multicolor 'G' icon and type your question. And the internet will answer. Just avoid results that say sponsored, or ad… they have laws requiring that, now."

"If we take the train, we'll both need to change clothes. I can't go home looking like this, everyone would stare at me funny."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM WARNING.

- - - -

"……." Simon stared at Edith for a long second.

"So you're a fucking extradimensional being?!"

- - - -

"Not exactly, no. Just because it's another world, doesn't mean it's another planet or another dimension. I keep telling you, I'm Imaginary. I don't understand what's so hard about that."

- - - -

He frowned. He thought he had figured it out! He thought he had finally found an explanation for The Girl Nobody Could See But Him. Alas, she continued to confound him, and that was also frustrating.

"Sorry. I don't- imaginary people were not on my radar until I met you, so I'm just. I guess not understanding how you're so…" Simon gestured to All of her. "Crazy and your own person and possibly my completely made-up girlfriend and--"

He stopped himself, covering his face with his hands. "God damn it."

"Imagi Nations. You're. You're literally a person from the realm of imagination. You're not- I dunno why you attached to me as my imaginary friend, but like, you are a "real" person in the person sense- you're just not from this reality and your native laws work way different? Like a fucking Toon?"

- - - -

She frowned in return, her frown turning into an angry scowl at the end as she hopped off the table and leaned over to look him in the eyes from her mere five feet in height (give or take, it was hard to tell) while he sat on the testing chair, lifting a hand part way and pointing it upward under his chin.

"Did you just call me a fucking Toon, you self-righteous, racist, rigid-minded Meat Sock!?"

- - - -

Simon's eyes went owlish over his fingers for a totally different reason this time, and he physically shrank into the chair, giving her the upper hand in the power dynamic of the conversation.

His voice was small and aghast.

"oh shit that was racist??"

- - - -

"Simon, you just told an imaginary girl that she was--"

She held up a finger for each thing he'd said, counting them off with her other hand as she spoke.

"--a quote 'fucking extradimensional being', crazy, 'My Own Person' - real nice, by the way, very self-centered and invalidating of my right to exist without you - made-up, for fuck sake, a real person…. and a FUCKING TOON!!!"

She slapped him hard across the face.

"You…. you….." she seemed at a loss for something vile enough to call him, in her moment of anger, before she found the perfect insult to hit him with for his sudden onslaught of specist rhetoric.

"You Human."

She fumed, arms crossed.

- - - -

It may not have had the same impact that she was expecting, but the slap was unexpected and did hurt his feelings more than just being called "human" did. He had basically been human his whole life, and all of her Imaginary shenanigans had been stretching the bounds of his idea of what was possible, hardcore. Basically this whole time Simon had been staving off some kind of nervous breakdown by just moving forward like he had agreed he would earlier.

He turned back to her, holding his bright red cheek tenderly, eyes a little wet from the sting, and squashed down any guy-feelings about being hit that would have made him yell back, hit back, get angry, anything that wasn't the sincerely horribly guilty and apologetic he knew he needed to be, instead. Simon tossed the helmet to the floor and slipped out of the chair to stand on his knees in front of Edith, hands clasped in a gesture of pleading.

"Holy shit, Edith, I am so fucking sorry," he started, looking up at her. "I didn't- I wasn't meaning to be racist, or invalidate your individuality, and I am so, so fucking sorry that I was anyway. I didn't know that language was so fucking awful, and I won't say it again, I promise, I am so fucking sorry, Edith."

- - - -

She looked down at him, confused as hell, but also touched. She'd clearly never expected him to take the argument this direction. After a huffy moment, sentimentality won out and she sighed and helped him stand.

"Okay…. fine…. I guess. Apology accepted." She sounded like she was really trying to let it go. He could tell that they'd had this fight before, from her reaction, and that she wasn't used to it going like this.

"Um… so… I don't remember what we were talking about."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM SCENE OVER.

- - - -

He gave her an enormous hug as a "thank you" without actually saying the phrase, because he knew that was not appropriate when you had just hurt someone so profoundly, but trying to comfort them at least helped, right?

"When I remember what it all is, I am so treating you to all of your favorite stuff. But, uh-" he let her go and held her shoulders, "We were gonna go to the SOS and ask about restorative hypnotherapy? I actually wanna go now and see what it's like, now that I get it, and asking the internet would be the boring solution."

- - - -

She looked him up and down, as if re-evaluating him somewhat. "You… cannot… be all stiff-brained and uptight and… that stuff you just did…. if we go. You know that. Right?"

- - - -

He nodded enthusiastically. "No, yep, no, I get it, not doing that anymore and if I do please slap me again."

To be entirely truthful, understanding what Edith was and how she worked as an entity was a relief to Simon's mind, rather than a strain- of course this imaginary space is Real, of course this imaginary girl is Real, why shouldn't they be? Just because they worked on different principles than his idea of Real, it didn't make them any less so, he just had to operate under the assumption that it all was a "reality" with different rules to it. Like the Web, or a waking dream, or Seeing monsters in the way Hunters did. Working on a level that was not a Human one. Totally reasonable. If she knew how he was wording this in his head, he would probably have the daylights slapped out of him.

Simon smiled nervously at her. "Please."

- - - -

HERE'S ANOTHER TONE SHIFT.

(( mentions of parenthood moving forward. ))

- - - -

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and pulled a little whistle rod from her pocket and gave it a blow - making the loud sound of a steam whistle, that silenced the electrical music playing around them. He heard the locomotive start its own engine down the large hall and the wheels and their pistons begin to turn as it tried to come toward the whistle's call.

"We'll change once we're aboard the Prismaticka."

The steam engine - only a single locomotive engine of exceptional size, since it also seemed to contain living space and such... like a steam engine locomotive that was also a road RV - came chugging slowly into view, spewing multicolored water vapor out of its smokestacks and rainbow sparkles as sparks from its wheels and gears.

- - - -

Simon was infinitely enthused by the train's fantastical exhaust and rail sparks, and Edith saw his face light up. "Oh, shit, that's fun," he had a smile in his tone. "Can't wait to remember how to call for my own clothes, though- what do we have on the train? Er, Prismaticka?"

He held one of her hands in his, and squeezed it gently.

- - - -

"We lived on board for a year and a day, while we traveled across a handful of years and lived as basically husband and wife. When we returned, only a day had passed, just like I'd promised. Uh… speaking of which… do you like kids?"

The locomotive came to a halt in front of them and its door slid open, folding in half as stairs unfolded down and locked into place for them.

- - - -

His eyebrows raised into his hairline. "Jesus Christ it's a Doctor Who time-train," he mumbled to himself, before she got to the 'kids' part, which had him pale spectacularly.

"…Kids?" Oh, despair. He could not tell Otome if he and Edith had kids.

- - - -

"Yeah. Do you like them? Or no?"

She grabbed the handrail and hopped up onto the first step, before climbing the steps and going aboard.

- - - -

The memories of ghost-pale kids with sharp teeth and black eyes jutted into the forefront of his mind; Simon tried to shake them away and remind himself that was likely not real. He hoped those weren't part of this Consensus… everything they dealt with was. A Lot.

But normal kids? Simon considered, while he climbed up behind Edith. "Uh, well, it turns out I can kinda get petulant back at them if they're being snotheads," he confessed, remembering the Peter Pan-esque adventure he and Madison had been on, "But in concept, they're fine? Do we have kids, Edith?"

- - - -

She hesitated before answering, quietly. "Only a couple."

And then hurried past the driver's compartment, which had no one in it. The interior styling was nearly identical to the wooden finery of the airship he'd seen. Every window was circular and stained glass, and the doors were wooden with stained glass interiors, that folded in half when slid to the side. Nice crimson carpeting laid along the walkways of the floor, while powerfully blue carpeting laid directly overhead of those paths, from which tiny chandeliers hung and lit the way in scintillating tinted colors.

"The wardrobe is back here in the master bedroom!" she called from down the hall. He passed a short staircase upward on his right and another directly opposite it going downward on the left, that looped around to keep going up or down respectively. She was in the space beyond, straight ahead, through another set of doors.

- - - -

Simon followed Edith, totally quiet. Oh. They did have kids. And she still let him have a girlfriend?

He couldn't get over the fact that he had kids. What the fuck. He hoped he had been a good dad. He also wondered where the hell the kids were. Part of him wondered what the kids were.

The space of this train was frankly ridiculous, having two more levels at least and this many rooms for each… he decided not to pay much mind to that, as it was Imaginary and didn't have to fit inside the façade of the train it was in, instead following Edith into the master bedroom.

- - - -

The 'master bedroom' was a suite in various wooden hues with a red floor and a blue ceiling, luxurious furniture and many color-tinted mirrors and stained glass windows, in a circular floorplan. On the wall hung a beautifully painted portrait of a family crest… a clockwork gear that was red on the right, blue on the left, steel along the outer edges and digital pixel-fade toward the center where it faded into nothing. The gear served as the circular frame inside of which was a vibrantly rainbow hued butterfly whose body was actually a collage of super tiny paintings that blended together to create an overall rainbow hue effect, while the wings were stained glass.

It was their crest.

She was already dressed in vibrantly colored, overly elaborate and mildly-steampunky Victorian elegance. Her hair was a series of coiled curls and a woven loop in the back, ears and neck adorned in tasteful jewels and gold, while her flowing gown and buttoned collar with its tied bow were hues of blue and red, violet and pink, with the faintest hints of outlying green or yellow here and there.

She held out a bright, vivid blue hat with a stark red satin band around the base of it.

"Your city wear, Mr. Gemini."

- - - -

Her dress was stunning. The room was stunning. The entire space had an elegance to it that really married their styles well; was she some kind of nobility where she was from? Simon took the hat, absentmindedly, preoccupied with all of the detail in Edith's clothing, and then came back to himself with a realization: "Ah, shit, my glasses are on the table--" he set the hat down and made to leave the room, then stopped himself. Maybe he could…?

Simon tried to pull his glasses into his hand, knowing their weight and feeling by heart given he had worn them all of his remembered life, without pulling the air around them- rather, he wanted the space they occupied to be in his hand, instead of on the table. He hadn't tried this yet, so he wasn't sure if it would work, but maybe if he just tried to feel it hard enough…

- - - -

A different pair of glasses appeared in his hands, answering his summons. They felt… somehow more familiar in his hand. They carried the same style as everything around him, each lens colored to match his eyes, and the frames were delicately etched with tiny artworks of pixellation, gears, and even some super-tiny binary code engraved in gold along the hinges. It read GEMINI.

"The hat will dress you. When… um, when you're ready."

She blushed a little and turned to sit ladylike on the edge of their enormous bed as the train began to move again.

- - - -

Hell yeah he did it!!! Simon pumped the other fist in silent celebration, even if it wasn't the exact pair of glasses he had been looking for. He then turned back to Edith, grinning, and took the hat back up.

"I kinda figured, when you just handed the hat to me," it was his turn for a sailor senshi transformation! He put on the hat after rolling it along his arm (a trick he had picked up for fun since it seemed cool as hell), holding it by the tips of his fingers gently on the top.

- - - -

The hat sent a ripple throughout Simon's body; his clothing was blasted away in a cascade of red and blue beams, before new, elegant, Victorian-styled attire befitting a gentleman with title and holdings of the era, slid across his body in scintillating pixel crawl at high speed. As the glow of his naked flesh died down, the transformation left him clad in stark white and black, gold and silver, one cufflink a ruby and the other a sapphire, his beautiful, tinted, round-framed spectacles sitting gracefully on the bridge of his nose and his top hat having turned from red and blue to black and white.

- - - -

He did a little twirl and then bowed to Edith, one leg crossed over the other and left hand sweeping his hat off to hold it in proper fashion. The other hand was held gracefully behind his back.

When Simon came back up, he was beaming. "This doesn't match your dress by a long shot, but it's still really spectacular. Did we design these ourselves?" He settled the hat back on top of his head.

- - - -

"We had them made by a specialist. He felt it fit our family dynamic best to have one of us wearing one set of our stark contrasts while the other one wore the other set."

She smiled softly and joyously from her seat.

"You look quite dashing, Mr. Gemini. I… I'm sorry about… I know this will be a lot for you, going back now, the way you are. There's so much you won't be ready for. I suppose it won't be as happy a reunion for you as it will for the others. But, we can at least consult the SOS and make sure that your memory restoration is free from glitches or complications."

- - - -

Her speech was suddenly far more demure and eloquent- Simon supposed it was probably her preparing to go home and getting into a suitable mindset. The outfit did make him want to be a little more polite, though, too. He came over and sat next to the girl- his wife, actually (still wasn't over how incredible that was)- and rested a hand on her thigh, over her dress.

"It's alright. I opted for this, didn't I? Whatever happens, at least I'll have you there to bolster me." His hand pressed gently down, in a way he hoped was comforting.

- - - -

She gazed up at him, much more openly in love than she normally let herself seem and laid her hand lightly upon his.

"Not just me. I may be the one who found you and stayed with you, but… there is the matter of my… sister."

- - - -

His eyes widened in alarm. "…You have a sister?!" Not that it was a problem, but, he had not been expecting that. Why hadn't he been expecting that? He had a brother, and she seemed to have a lot in common with him.

- - - -

"We're half sisters. I found you, but… earlier on, you two… got along better. I was pretty jealous at the time. She seemed like she was so much better for you than I was. I mean, I'm just an Imagen, very rustic by comparison… but Chip is a Cypherian, so much more sophisticated and advanced in their ways… and so much more forward and bold in their attitudes. And you did so adore Cypher, as opposed to Imago."

- - - -

Those were definitely the names of places and the people from them, but he had no idea what they were actually referring to, and thus just blinked owlishly at her and tilted his head (only slightly, so his hat didn't fall off) like a dog who was trying to find the source of a sound.

- - - -

Edith smiled.

"Imago is what you would consider an Antiquarian culture, whose sciences and technology are befitting a bygone era, but are fueled by a more free-thinking approach to innovation and industry. Cypher is a realm of lights and dark places, where everything works and moves very quickly and life is fast and dangerous. Like your cyberpunk fictions. Chip's father was a Set. I think his name was Ram or Rom?… My father was a Gemini. But very few Sets attended the dual wedding. It was a sad moment for poor Chip, but she understood. Most Cypherians don't find Imago to be a very suitable place for… much of anything, really. And they believe our social ceremonies are much too long. They'd rather hold marriages over a video conference, so nobody has to stop what they're doing, to attend."

- - - -

One eyebrow raised, and he frowned, gently. "Oh. That's a shame. What's a Set, and a Gemini? Am I a Gemini? Your- wait, I'm married to both of you? Or did your mom marry two men? Or both??"

- - - -

"Well, our mother did marry both of our fathers, yes… but yes, you did marry us both, in a beautiful dual ceremony. We're twins, you see, we were both conceived during the same… uhm… evening. The Geminis and the Sets are both very respected Kin Houses. And since our mother was a Libra, it made perfect sense for her to have two husbands, one for each aspect of her sensibilities. My father, the erudite and cultured gentleman of refined tastes and eloquence, and Chip's father, the fun loving, brash, bold, spontaneous adventurer of an exotic domain."

- - - -

He nodded. At least that was understandable. "…Right. Let's get my memory back before I say something really insensitive about all of this by accident, hm?" He leaned his head against hers, turning to breathe in the scent of her and give the top of her head a little kiss.

"At least I know you stayed with me, and Chip didn't. I guess she had more important things to be doing than hanging out in my reality."

- - - -

"Chip was undecided on the matter, at first. I found you first and that meant you belonged to me… but I knew you were more her type, back then, and I was willing to share. And it went really well for awhile… but the Digital Realm - the Web - in your world was just too dangerous. That was why we spent a year and a day roaming the worlds, after the wedding… trying to find a way to undo the WhiteOut threat, so we could all live together. But… we never found a way. It was just too deeply ingrained into your reality and affected too many parts of what she'd be doing. So, she stayed behind, in Cypher, with Simon II. Taylor wanted to live in Imago with Simone and Edward. But we returned to Earth."

"And then, a while later… you met Otome."

Edith kissed his cheek.

- - - -

He blinked owlishly again. "…Me and Chip have kids too? Christ, I need to keep condoms around." That was a phrase he never thought he would have to say. And he didn't even know what Chip had been doing in the Web. And he realized he had married these girls early, before he met any Earth girls he would click with at all. Was that sad? He decided that was a little sad.

Given a couple of the kids's names, Simon still wasn't that creative with names, apparently. "Why did the kids stay in Imago, and not come with us? They could fill out Half House, couldn't they? …Was Half House your dad's before it was mi- ours? I mean, it's all Victorian Steampunk, and that… isn't really my jive, as much as it seems like it's the Imago aesthetic."

- - - -

She lowered her gaze a little. "You… weren't ready to raise children on Earth. Too expensive, you said. And you were probably right. Besides, the Gemini have always had nannies and house servants raise the children and they spend a lot of time in school. They'd be about the right age though, to start spending time with us, if you wanted to bring them home? Well, the three we can pick up, anyway. We can go to Cypher while we're traveling, if you'd like, too? You can meet Chip and Simon II all over again. Maybe she knows more about recovery from bad implants, now that I think of it…"

- - - -

She didn't answer his question about the House, but that was fine. "…Mmm. I feel like that'd get complicated, trying to hide them, and our life with them, from Otome. Unless you finally let her in on," he waved his hand around, "this. Which didn't seem like it was going to go well."

"And, I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable having Mister Gearwhistle raise our kids while we're busy with other stuff? I'd rather we have a more personal role in their lives, if you're alright with that- it just seems. Really impersonal, and a good way to get them to resent us."

"…How long ago did all this happen?"

- - - -

"The last time I tried to include her more in our lives, she thought I'd become some kind of poltergeist manifesting your insecurities about your relationship with her into a weird psychic phenomenon. You have to remember, m'Lord, she knows just enough to make some very wild guesses and consider them utterly possible, but not enough to know when she's being irrational about them."

"Mr Gearwhistle would never raise our kids! He's a butler, not a nanny! Besides, they're practically grown now. And they've never been to the Real World, but they keep asking to go. Um… which 'all of this' are you referring to? We've had a busy life."

He noticed bright light coming in through the stained glass windows around them. They were outside, somewhere. Somewhere silvery-white, from the look of the gleam through the stained glass. He didn't see any other colors or details moving by though, just light.

- - - -

It was probably some space-between-realities they were moving through, like the inside of a wormhole, or the time between selecting a hotlink and actually popping into the space it linked to. Like a loading zone. Simon didn't pay the lack of color much more mind.

"I- well, I guess if they keep asking t'go…" he was visibly uncomfortable at being called "M'Lord", and generally with her suddenly extremely polite mannerisms, charming as they were. The M'Lord really struck him with just how formal Edith's speech had turned, though. "But, I uh, I meant… the wedding, and the kids, since, if they're grown now, but we've only known each other a little over a decade, time must be pretty dilated between worlds…"

- - - -

"Time doesn't dilate, that's a Humanism. It's just different, in different places, at different times. Like how some days take forever to end and others zip past too soon. Clocks measure time out by their pre-approved portions and keep track of those portions, but the rate at which they actually occur is highly variable. The machine is a machine and doesn't experience time the way self-aware beings do, so it just ticks away… but to the person watching that clock, time only passes at the same speed for the person and for the clock, while the person is watching and counting along with it. Once they stop paying attention, time changes again."

She shook her head. "Time is really no reliable measure of how long something is anyway. But they're all well into their teens now. Practically young men and women! And we've visited them several times, each year. They know about your accident, don't worry. They'll just be glad you're okay!"

- - - -

Well. That did make a bit of sense, he had to admit, and just nodded as confirmation of that, to Edith.

"…Right. Well, at least we visit them semi-regularly, and they know I have no idea who they are or how… well, maybe they don't know I can't remember our life, but at least they know something went really, very wrong with my brain and I'm gonna be weird because of it. Weirder? Weirder."

- - - -

She glanced at the windows. "Would it be alright if I opened a window? I always love this part of the journey home."

"Would you like to know anything about your children, or just… be surprised? You go back and forth between asking many questions and asking none, so I can't tell."

- - - -

Simon raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, yeah, of course you can open a window. Is it not just, like, featureless white, outside?" He helped her stand from the bed, if she so desired, intending to follow her to the window to look out at their surroundings once he had a clearer view. "I mean… I have no idea what to ask. What are they like, I guess? Who takes after who? Did we want kids, or were they… y'know, an acci- well, a happy accident?"

- - - -

"Very happy accidents, as I recall your cries of passion, my darling."

She smiled back at him over her shoulders when they'd reached the window, before unlatching it and swinging the two curving halves open, outward. A sweet breeze blew inside the cabin, smelling of spring rains, winter snows, wildflowers, and fresh cheese. Beneath the Prismaticka locomotive was a railway track made of mirrored crystal and glass, with supports and railings that ran into the infinite universe below as the train made its way through its own prismatic vapor trails across the expanse of the solar system. Earth loomed large at one end of the winding trackway which followed no clear path through its own maze of scaffolding, each strut reflecting the lights of moons and stars and cities. They were near enough that Simon could clearly make out the whole of Australia as the planet spun slowly beneath them, and the movement of the clouds and the waves of the seas. Far too near was Luna, bright white and pock-marked with her shadows and craters, her dark side glittering with the lights of megacities unseen by human eyes. Only just beyond the moon were the enormous asteroids that spun and drifted lazily yet beautifully, a ballet of stone in the dark velvet of space, lit only by the delighted faces of billions of twinkling stars that collected themselves into the vibrant ribbon of the Milky Way in the furthest distance - clear and bright and vivid in its splendorous colors to Simon's eyes. Giving silhouette to the wafting ocean of drifting solar rock was the great red eye of Mars, watchful and judging, unwilling to offer gentle approval of anything it beheld. But behind him was Jupiter, off to one side of the Red Planet with her wife Saturn, her rings' scintillating hues glistening in the reflections of the unseen Sun.

Edith leaned her elbows on the windowsill and rested her chin on her folded hands, gazing out upon the Solar System That Could Not Be. "Isn't it lovely?"

- - - -

And it Sure Fucking Was, wasn't it? Mars wasn't that close, by any estimation of human observation, nor were Saturn or Jupiter- and he didn't see Venus or Mercury on this side of the train at all, though, given their position relative to Earth, it was likely that didn't matter one wit to where they actually were out in all of this vast insanity. Simon marveled for a while, stunned into silence at the sight, taking in perceptible Truths that Could Not Be if he held on to Human ideas of what Was and what Wasn't.

It seemed he really couldn't do that anymore if he wanted to have any chance of holding onto any semblance of rationality, not that he had a firm grasp on that when he came-to in the hospital this morning.

His hand came to rest on Edith's back, both to share the moment and to ground himself a little bit, nearly dizzy from the vastness of the space before him. He completely forgot what the subject of their conversation had been.

- - - -

They gazed together, quietly and with awe, at the view of the cosmos as the train whisked along its path at speeds that could not be reached through bodies that were much too close together, along a track that may not have ever existed… only when the silvery glow of the moon's bright side had finally passed and the lands far below were the towering starscrapers of vast mega-metropoli lit by neon that shone upon roads that looked like the fine strands of complex circuitry from high above, and the horizon loomed angry and red under the light of Mars, did she finally close the window. The scent of cheese and wildflowers had become one of cigarettes and bourbon, the smell of rain and snow remained but had been joined by the tinge of unhealthy city air.

She lit a blue raspberry candle to brighten the scent in the room, with a wooden match, and retook her seat upon their bed.

"All of your children are roughly the same age - two sets of twins, one from myself and one from my half-sister. We didn't even know that Imaginary women could take child from a Human, but… well, the honeymoons proved that theory wrong."

She offered a loving smile.

"Our children are Simone and Edward. She's the older by a few seconds and is still in that rough period of needing to prove herself to everyone… including herself. She's always been a bit bossy toward her brother, but she looks out for him as well. She, of course, refuses to accept a woman's life in Imago, just like I did. She wears the pants, between them. Edward prefers skirts and the clothing of young ladies, though never to excess. Timid and shy, he's a very sensitive and loving boy with a big heart, who will find a wonderful husband or wife to care for him someday. Where Simone refuses to accept her assigned gender, Edward often asks what it's like to be a woman, and prefers domestic affairs and hobbies, in contrast to his sister's rambunctious adventures. Taylor is your daughter by way of Chip, and she's as adventurous as Simone, and as kind and gentle-hearted as Edward. Her brother Simon II is more reclusive and introverted, preferring the anonymity of Cypherian schools and online organizations to actual in-person friendships."

- - - -

Blue Raspberry seemed to be a theme with their miscellaneous items, he noted, as he came back to ground from the lofty sights of the passing system. He didn't mind the smells of cigarettes, bourbon, or City; they reminded him of Noir media, of the more mundane, gritty cyberpunks that came around after Bladerunner, and that movie's entire aesthetic. It reminded him of the kind of person he on-and-off wanted to be: a gritty, skilled, tough fighter with a soft spot in his heart hardened by lead, alcohol, and grief. He was also grateful that wasn't his life, though, as it seemed like a hard one and Simon didn't really believe he was cut out for that sort of suffering.

Once Edith smiled at him, Simon took his seat beside her, resting his hand once again on the small of her back and listening quietly until she took a pause.

"…Simon II reminds me of myself when I was- in the sim, when I was growing up, and in-person interactions were complicated and I felt like nobody in the world liked or understood me. Taylor, though, is kind of like if my brother- if he even exists- were kind instead of nice. He was definitely the more adventurous of us, and outgoing, and he could find a friend or asset pretty much anywhere he went; I was jealous of him a lot." He stared into the middle-distance toward the door out of the room, watching snippets of made-up memories that felt real as she did beneath his hand. "…My whole family, on my dad's side, we always ended up with twins; I never knew my uncle, or aunt maybe, but I'm sure Dad misses them. It's too bad Sie' doesn't want to come see Earth with Taylor… I'm sure she'll miss him, too."

- - - -

"Her brother is the only one who has seen Earth. He watches, through the Digital Web… despite the dangers."

She sighed softly. "He just can't seem to pry himself away from the Virtuality."

Edith laid her head on his shoulder.

"Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for you. Shackled to a world you can't change, desperate to fix it like it were one of your inventions, or a program that needed troubleshooting. Having to live in a place that never quite feels like home… but never having anywhere that ever really does. I've done my best to be there for you, to be by your side, always… but you still seem so alone sometimes, all up there in your own head."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself; that made sense, too, for Sie to go out of his way to watch the world he couldn't be part of, even or especially if it was dangerous for him. That self-destructive and isolation-reinforcing behavior was one Simon himself was very familiar with; it was why he really, deeply hated romantic movies of most kinds, before. He would have to take Edith up on the offer to visit Cypher, so that he could at least commiserate with Sie, if not ask Chip about malfunctioning implants and their interactions with devices that could simulate the experience of an entirely different life.

He rubbed Edith's back in a way he hoped would come off as reassuring. "…I can certainly say that without you, it was a totally different kind of painfully lonely. I think having you in my life really influenced it, and me, for the better, even if sometimes being in-between everything still gets to me and feels like too much to handle. You're probably the best thing that ever happened to me, Eed."

- - - -

She smiled up at him and kissed his chin. "That part goes without saying, Sir Boybot."

She sighed happily at the little backrubs. "If you go to see Chip, let her know that I still miss her, please? And try not to get shot too many times, this time?"

- - - -

He grinned back at her, and leaned down to actually plant a kiss to her lips, chaste and quick. "You don't at least wanna come with? We can do the TRON-suit thing, like the poster on your door!"

- - - -

She gave a light laugh and shook her head. "I wish! No, I'm afraid I… I just can't. Not after what happened. i know you don't remember, but… I can't risk returning to Cypher. There's too much that could go wrong. I miss my sister, but… it's safer this way, for all of us."

- - - -

Simon tilted his head at her, then decided, "…I won't ask. You don't have to relive the memory if it's bad enough you can't go back- I'll remember when I get my head on straight."

Finally, he looked at the window they had recently left, trying to gauge where they were by the color of light outside. "And… how much longer 'til we get to Imago?"

- - - -

"Just as soon as you wake up, my darling husband."

END SCENE

[mythvoiced]

-. wenzhe-core (pt. 5) SPECIAL EDITION: yu qianru-core

tol wifey

[insert] protection squad president, she will start shit on your behalf

not easily flustered or embarrassed or is she just very good at hiding it

don't hit on her just be direct she doesn't like weird verbal flirting (she likes joking around and playing and the kind of flirting that is also yknow FUN but finding pick up lines and setting them up and then acting all smug, BLEAH)

mechanical engineer baybay

very good with her hands, very sexy hands

somehow acespec but the jury's still out on how exactly

very efficient, annoyingly efficient, if you're the kind of person who likes to tease folks or learn something with someone don't do it with her because she'll roll her sleeves up and Figure It Out

if you see a tall girl carrying the backbags of several other people that's her

she's chivalrous but less in a 'allow me to woo you' kind of way but more in a 'give that to me GIVE-'

very bad at handing off responsibility she's either gotta do everything on her own or you have to RIP it out of her hands

excessively competitive but not actually at anyone's expense, it's about? proving something to herself? she loves challenges, she LOVES personal challenges, she's Very Intense actually

if you're scared of dating women who are boyfriends don't ask her out

she knows wenzhe is bisexual she's known him almost all her life and she's very confident in her own queerness and he's so fucking obvious

nothing gets her going as much as correcting a figure of authority does

wenzhe may seem slightly Out Of His Boots but qianru is the one you actually have to look out for

she's not even all that deranged she just refuses to make herself 'bite-sized' for people and wears her neurodivergency TITS OUT

gosh they would have been THE audhd couple of the year

wenzhe recognized he was crushing on her sometime in high-school and repressed that shit so fast

i will NOT TALK ABOUT HER DEATH i am maKING MYSELF SAD

probably panromantic or demiromantic

i am not sure if qianru was also romantically interested in wenzhe, she certainly adores him in a vibrantly queerplatonic way and if they idea was 'spend the rest of my life with him' she'd say 'yes' but is it romantic?

she actually also knows EXACTLY who his male crush in high school was, she knows exactly, she was sitting around him and he'd get these sparkly eyes straight out of a shoujo whenever the guy would walk in

she knows way too much about that guy as a result because she kind of stalked him to figure out if he's any good

i was not joking when i said she's the one you actually have to look out for

she had to stop when people started spreading rumours SHE was into him because she could see the negative visceral reaction that had on wenzhe and fuck

between the two of them, wenzhe's??? softer????

qianru doesn't like people 'protecting her' or 'looking out for her' she likes small gestures of kindness but doesn't like when people try to fight her fights or underestimate her ability to fight her own so she really rarely reaches out and often even backtracks when she does

she prefers being the one Who Looks Out and she's Very protective of wenzhe

from an outsiders perspective, if you met them casually, wenzhe is a relatively relaxed extroverted kind of guy with a bit of a bitch-face when he thinks no one's watching him who's always poking and prodding at her, whereas qianru seems like a relatively introverted bookworm-ish kind of girl who brushes him off with tsundere vibes

in REALITY wenzhe's mental health has a always been a little more on the fragile side of things, he gets in his head a lot, has a noteworthy amount of misplaced resentment, and this really tires him out so his relaxed is usually just mentally exhausted, his extroversion is partly an act to help him mask, and he only pokes and prods at qianru because he's comfortable with her

and QIANRU is quiet because she isn't particularly verbal, she can absolutely pop off given the right conversation topic but her quietness is not meek or submissive, she just... doesn't talk a lot, and that is commonly associated with bookworm-ish shy characters, which qianru is not, she's a very active person, she likes hiking and trying out sports sitting somewhere, reading is not for her, and she is the absolute opposite of a tsundere, she's very direct with her feelings, it's just her way to tease wenzhe back

also i'm not saying oh, you can fuck with her just don't touch her friends, no bro, don't fuck with her either, she's also her own very best friend don't do it man

wenzhe needs qianru more than qianru needs wenzhe, wenzhe needs qianru in his life, qianru wants wenzhe in her life

if you've read this far and went HMM qianru is a lil similar to hyun, well that's the thought i got but consider this: hyun is aggressive, not violent, but her stuff is aggressive, qianru is 'simply' direct, yknow? hyun will weaponize brutal honest, qianru will not tell you shit that doesn't have to be said, and well that's another post anyways lmao

also hyun will not take one for the team but YOU KNOW WHO WILL? qianru, qianru is the head of the team, she comes up with the crazy plans, she's the one who suggested breaking and entering to retrieve balls as a child, a classic qianru line is 'i have a plan'

[audioaujom]

5: Stalked by Kizami [wrong end 2 ★4] (pt. 1)

Corpse Party Hub, < prev, next >

This is wrong end [2 ★4] from Chapter 5! Kizami is my all time favorite character from Corpse Party, so I had to let him show up and do his thing more than a few times. There’s a good handful of alts containing him, Ranboo, and several other friends coming up this month. This one was super fucking long, so enjoy the first half! The ending will come out next Friday. Enjoy!

Pairing: Ranboo, Wilbur, Kizami

Word Count: 2727

Chapter TWs: Character Death, Depictions of Death, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Disembowelment, Blood and Injury

--

“Um… yeah, you know what dude? I think I’ll be cool on my own for now.” Ranboo mumbled uncomfortably, watching the way Kizami’s shoulders shook with his quiet laugh. “I, uhhhh, I can look for my friends myself.”

“What are you talking about? I’m the only one you need.” Kizami was no longer laughing, turning to look at him with an eerie smile as Ranboo took a tentative step back. “Besides, there’s no way out of here. Everyone is going to die. So we can just be best friends until our dying breaths, however soon that may be.”

“Yeah, uh… Peace, dude.” Ranboo was backing away as fast as he could, Kizami only watching him with empty eyes.

“Hey, I wouldn’t recommend going that way. Something dreadful just happened downstairs only a moment ago.” 

“...what?”

Kizami’s laugh was nothing short of unsettling, the sound freezing Ranboo on the spot as the two shared an intense amount of eye contact.

“Oh god, what did he do now? I need to get out of here, fast.” Ranboo snapped himself out of his daze, turning and running through the doorway that led to the steps down to the lower floor. Checking back over his shoulder to make sure Kizami wasn’t following, he cleared the two flights in record time, hurrying through the doorway at the bottom. He glanced around, smelling the sharp metallic scent of blood before he fully recognized the crumpled body on the floor. “Wait… Wilbur?” Wilbur—the guy from the other school stuck here and the one he was currently looking for—was surrounded by an ever-growing puddle of blood, presumably flowing from the stomach wound he was clutching with one hand while the other attempted to prop his body up even a little. “Are you alright?!”

“Ran… boo…?” Wilbur squinted a little as Ranboo ran up to him, crouching beside the older boy to try and get a better look at his wounds.

“Your stomach is bleeding really badly… I… need to find something to stop that.” Ranboo’s voice slowly trailed off, his thoughts spiraling rapidly as he was more talking aloud to himself than to his friend as he anxiously bit at the inside of his cheek. “C’mon, think! Think think think…”

“No, you…” Wilbur was excessively pale, his complexion only worsening as he seemed to notice something off in the distance behind a still rambling Ranboo. “You need to get— get… out of here… Now.” 

“What? No way, you’re losing a lot of blood really quickly! That’s… pretty bad!” Ranboo countered, checking in his pockets and huffing as his eyes started to scan the surrounding area for anything that would be even remotely useful.

“No, you… Go, now!” Despite how weak his voice sounded, the urgency that seeped into Wilbur’s tone was enough to break Ranboo from his train of thought and back to the boy in front of him. “Right now, hurry!” 

“If I don’t do something, you’re going to die!” Ranboo shook his head, not noticing the panicked look Wilbur kept throwing over Ranboo’s shoulder to something behind him he couldn’t sense. “It’s fine, I can just apply some pressure until I come up with something more long term. Yeah, that works. Just stay with me, okay?”

“No, please!” Tears were misting in Wilbur’s eyes as Ranboo knelt closer to him, the latter guiding his hands back to his stomach to put more pressure on the gaping wound. “You don’t… you need to go!” 

“Oh, Wilbur! Who on Earth could’ve done this to you?” Both boys froze in fear as the voice spoke up from directly behind Ranboo, the mock concern enough for the two to share a panicked look before Ranboo turned his head to glance over his shoulder.

“You—!” Kizami was standing unnecessarily close to him, and he cursed inwardly for not noticing him sooner as a hard kick collided with his side and sent him flying over Wilbur’s body nearly halfway across the room. He collided hard with the floor, his winded lungs unable to gasp for more breath as he watched Kizami loom over Wilbur—horrified.

“That’s for not listening to me, Ranboo.” 

“Kizami! You need to stop!” Wilbur’s voice was a little stronger, his recognition of Kizami catching Ranboo off guard. “Kizami!” Kizami ignored his name being called, starting to stroll past the body on the ground before Wilbur’s tone suddenly shifted. “…I’m sorry.”

Kizami stopped, looking down at Wilbur with an expression that screamed of disinterest and disgust. “Huh?”

“I should’ve done more to help you.” Wilbur admitted, Ranboo frantically looking between the two as Kizami let out a curt laugh and crouched down beside him.

“What are you going on about? Have you really deluded yourself into thinking you could’ve done something to change me?” Kizami cocked his head to one side, smirking. “Either way, you won’t be regretting that for long.” 

Kizami stood up, but before he could make a single step in Ranboo’s direction Wilbur reached out to grab onto one of his legs and send him crashing to the floor. Kizami caught himself on his hands at the last second, turning a hateful glare to Wilbur. “Hey! That hurt, you know?!”

“That was kind of the goal, asshole.” Wilbur grumbled, before wincing as he remembered all of his wounds and Kizami slowly got to his feet. Already aware of what was to come, Wilbur watched Kizami slowly approach him, flipping open a knife that he drew from one of his pockets. “He—Hey, what… are you going to do with that?”

“Exactly what you’re expecting me to do, what else?” Kizami was smiling as he knelt in the puddling blood beside Wilbur, the bloodstained knife glinting in the dim lights of the room. He grinned down at the blade, giving Wilbur a moment to throw a pleading glance at Ranboo that told him, “Go while you still can.”

“Am I really that much of a threat to you in this condition?!” 

Kizami paid this no mind, wrestling Wilbur’s hands away from his stomach and suddenly grinning much wider. “Now, what to do with you?”

“Kiza—!!” Wilbur’s attempt to reason with Kizami was caught off in a gut wrenching scream, Ranboo covering his mouth in horror as Kizami’s knife easily slid into Wilbur’s already gaping wound. Kizami slowly and deliberately dragged the knife across the front of his stomach, more blood leaking out as the flesh on either side of the line slowly peeled away from the other. Digging the knife deeper and eliciting another scream, Kizami laughed as some blood splattered out onto his face and neck. Ranboo could only watch as his body felt rooted to the spot, Kizami discarding his knife and rolling up the sleeves of his button up before placing his hands on Wilbur’s stomach. 

“Now tell me, how does that feel?”

Wilbur coughed up blood, managing to shake off enough of the pain to deadpan, “Like you cut my stomach with a knife.” 

Kizami smiled wide, pressing a bloody hand to his chest as he heaved a hardy laugh. “You never cease to impress me, Wilbur. It’s truly a shame you’re already bleeding so heavily, and I have another friend to attend to.”

As both of Kizami’s hands pried Wilbur’s stomach open, Ranboo felt vomit rising in his throat when Kizami suddenly plunged one of his hands all the way into the wound. Wilbur already looked half-conscious, his face pale and blank as he must not even be registering such intense pain as Kizami appeared to be rummaging around for something. After a moment that surely felt much longer than it was Kizami slowly withdrew his hand, which was now a fist closed around what Ranboo would guess to be Wilbur’s intestines—spraying blood in a wide arc in the process. Tugging more length out of Wilbur’s stomach, Kizami giggled to himself as Wilbur finally seemed to register what was happening with wide eyes and another gargle of blood in his throat.

“Whoops, I think this is supposed to stay inside. I don’t know how to put it back, though… So I guess I just have to find a new place for it!”

Wilbur weakly grabbed at Kizami’s bloodsoaked hands—still clutching his intestines—even as Kizami easily batted the advances away, forcing Wilbur to lie down on his back as he tugged hard on them again, earning a new wave of blood. Stretching it a little in his hands, Kizami looked thoughtful for a moment before straddling Wilbur’s body and starting to wrap the intestines around his throat.

“I’ve always wanted to try this, you know. I’m so lucky you’re still conscious.”

Kizami pulled it taunt, Wilbur choking on another mouthful of blood as he tried to reach for his throat, his hands instinctively recoiling from the slimy texture slowly constricting his airway.

“I’ll remember this for a long time, my friend. Thank you for the pleasure.”

It only took a few moments for Wilbur’s eyes to slide shut, his body falling limp to the floor as Kizami started wiping his hands off on his pants after letting go. He rubbed his hands together, only serving to smear what blood was left on them, before leaning down as he noticed something on the floor beside the body.

“What’s this? A key? ‘Science lab’. Huh. Guess you won’t be needing this anymore, will you?” Kizami chuckled to himself, slowly raising back to his feet and throwing a glance back over his shoulder at where Ranboo was still lying on the floor. “Isn’t it awful the way spirits kill people? You wouldn’t want that to happen to you, right?” Kizami took Ranboo’s lack of answer as an invitation to continue speaking, his eyes never leaving him as Wilbur’s blood slowly ran down his cheeks. “Everything is fine now. I’ll protect you. You don’t have to worry, I won’t let the spirits get to you. I’ll protect you from such a horrible fate.” A sickening grin spread across Kizami’s blood stained face, him slowly turning to face Ranboo—who finally felt as if he could move his legs again. “I’ll just put an end to you myself! Isn’t that a mercy?”

“Oh man, no fucking way!” Ranboo scrambled to his feet faster than he expected, the terror of what Kizami would do to him if he caught him enough to cause his legs to shake a little and him to stumble as he ran for the doorway just behind him.

“Hey! No fair! No running the halls~!” Kizami called, laughing, as Ranboo ran into the next room. Heavy footfalls followed him, urging him to run faster. “Wait for me!”

Instantly running for the front door to the building he entered through, Ranboo tried to open the doors only for the handle to not budge and for the whole frame to rattle with effort.

Locked. Great.

Long strides then cleared the rest of the room with ease, a glance over his shoulder to see Kizami’s wide grin in the doorway behind him urging him to easily clear a jump over a fallen bookcase and leave through the opposite doorway. “No no no no no, no way this is happening. Absolutely not.” Already panting for breath, and stumbling through the next room, Ranboo frantically looked around for any way out. “This is actually the worst. Like actually actually.”

The decrepit rooms and hallways blurred together as blood pounded in his ears and his footsteps thudded on the creaky wooden floorboards. 

I really gotta memorize the layout of this place…

His gaze whipped around furiously to find which way to go, locking in on a flight of stairs just as Kizami’s voice calls out from behind him, “Be a good boy and come with me!” 

“Great! That feels great! It’s not weird at all, no way!” Ranboo mumbled to himself through panted breaths, barreling through the door to the stairs and running up them three at a time. “Not weird and creepy and gross and a lot of other adjectives I don’t have the brain for while running like this.”

Taking a second to collect even a little of the air he’d lost on the top landing, Ranboo waited until he heard the door at the bottom of the stairs creak open to dash out onto the next floor—now knowing exactly how far behind him Kizami was. He quickly found an empty classroom, hurrying inside and hiding himself in a crevice between two bookcases barely large enough for him to squeeze into. Holding his breath was painful as his lungs still screamed for air, but he did his best as Kizami slowly lumbered down the hall outside.

“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you, Ranboo, you hear?!” Kizami’s voice boomed through the walls, a chill creeping up Ranboo’s back as he froze in place nervously.

“Yes, unfortunately I do.” Ranboo mumbled, steadying himself briefly against the wall behind him, trying to quietly catch his breath even a little bit. “Really starting to wish I couldn’t.”

Kizami’s steps slowly quieted as he walked further away, Ranboo straining to hear the second he was far enough away that he felt comfortable enough to duck out of the classroom and bolt for the staircase again.

Not caring about noise and instead looking to put more distance between them, he jumped down as many stairs as he could at a time, clearing the two flights in record time and emerging back into the first floor hallway.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Kizami called, his voice echoing in the stairwell as the door swing shut behind him.

“Not your best line, dude.” Ranboo called back, before running as fast as he could back towards the front door, adding on to himself, “I’m not even hiding right now.”

He no longer heard Kizami’s footsteps behind him as he ran back to the front room, once again trying desperately to get the door open. After several attempts that worked less than stellarly, he finally gave up and decided to search around to see if he could find a key to unlock it.

Using the shoe shelves as cover, he hunted around as quickly as could while keeping an ear out to make sure Kizami hadn’t managed to catch up to him. Sneaking back out into the nearby hallway, he looked both ways before quickly jogging out to check the nearby classrooms.

Suddenly, Ranboo felt two arms wrap around him from behind, stopping him in his tracks as a familiar voice leaned down to whisper, “Gotcha.”

“AHH! Oh my god, where did you even come from?!” He couldn’t stop the scream he let out, his instincts taking over as he tried to thrash around and pull away from Kizami. “Let— Let go!!”

This crazy guy really means to kill me, huh?

“Live rabbits are so incredibly noisy.” Kizami commented, disgusted, before letting go of Ranboo just long enough to pull his knife back out, swinging the blunt end of the handle excessively hard at the side of Ranboo’s head. The impact had him seeing stars, the world around him momentarily falling out of focus as he lost his balance. “There, isn’t that better?”

Even slightly disoriented from the hit, Ranboo managed to stumble away from Kizami and use a nearby wall to start to collect himself. Breathing deeply, he tried to continue down the hall to put any amount of distance between the two even as he could only manage a slow stagger. He only made it a few steps before his head started throbbing, reaching up to feel the warmth of blood spreading across his fingers. The momentary shock was enough for Kizami to catch up, landing another blow to the same spot and causing him to nearly black out. He felt himself get caught just before he hit the floor, his arm being thrown across a pair of shoulders as he started to be dragged down the hallway, half-stumbling along with Kizami no matter how hard he tried to pull away.

“Come on, don’t be so afraid! I’m here to help you.” Ranboo could hear the smirk in Kizami’s voice without having to see it, a sudden burst of nausea in his stomach causing him to allow Kizami to support his weight as he was aware he couldn’t actually get away from him. “Lean on me, I’ll get you somewhere safe.”

[afr0-thunder]

[Poor Chronicles Pt. 17]

*BEHIND STARBUCKS EDITION*

Still no Wi-Fi, I might just have to get used to this until winter arrives. Circumstances may not even change then, but that’s life.

I have decided to end my ramen noodle diet, after I finish the last of it. I have dedicated my life to starving. I will only be drinking water and eating chicken salads at work. My housemate has touched my hot sauce bottle for the last time. I’ve thrown out 3 hot sauce bottles at this point. One 1/3, 1/2 and 4/5 full (Added 1/8 full). My experiment is also over. You can survive 30+ days with just ramen noodles daily and x amount of chicken salads. You CAN “get big” from this diet, whether it be fat or muscle. You CAN consume your “daily calorie intake” from this diet. It’s allegedly 2000, but 10 packs is 1900. “Sodium” is just a periodic table element, you won’t die. Relax. Isn’t that like salt? You literally eat beef and pork all the time.

I almost forgot my savings update:

$13 > $29

THE DISRESPECT CONTINUES! My former favorite coworker said he had to apologize to me. I say, “For what?”. Thinking he was about to apologize for asking if I was from the suburbs. He says, “*stutters* Back in March, when I was leaving and told you ‘Always stay strapped!’” and he flashed his gun. “You looked scared”. My face dropped, then I started laughing and said, “That’s not the first time in my life that I’ve seen a gun”. I actually wanted to say, “I held a gun before you were even conceived.”, but being a good influence is more important. Also, there is nothing “cool” about comparing toughness, especially with a minor. Mexicans are insane. Why would you assume an African American is afraid of that?

My African American manager, who said I’m on a “Broke Nigga Diet”, and I were talking about “Black History Month” and he made a joke and said something along the lines of me being a “Half Nigga”. I was in disbelief that another African American recognized me as biracial and just said, “I’ve never been a half nigga in my life.” while trying to laugh about it. I feel like my unique (good looking) physical features make me a target for this kind of identification, but neither of my parents are of another race, so I don’t know what the fuck he is on, but he needs to lay off of it. Guaranteed if I was uglier, me being fully African American would never be in question. Every time after that when he came to joke with me, I half heartedly made jokes about how he said I was a “Half Nigga” and used the word “Half” excessively for no reason. He realized I was pissed and offered me donuts, but NAY! Shitlist! ETERNALLY! Hate being called one of…THEM!

The respect for people I work with/underneath continues to dwindle. If anything drops it lower, I shall try to update you all.

At the end of the shift, he asked a female coworker and I about our belief on Gods. I used this time to tell him that I was God. He was saying ridiculous shit like “Multiple Gods”, “I feel like I’m a God too”, “People believe in different Gods”. I neglected to mention they all worship the same God, but use different names to address them, (Ex: Allah) they just have “separate” beliefs. They are all pretty similar, just no one notices or follows. He later said “I sound like the Devil”. I neglected to mention he was literally embodying the devil at the moment. I said “How? I literally just preach a righteous path and positivity (to you all)?” (Not verbatim, in essence). I added, “The devil hates on God and wants to be just like him and always has.”, hence why he is the Devil. I just ended the argument with “When we’re all dead, I’ll remember this conversation about how I tried to tell you I was God and you didn’t believe me…”

In other news, I’m getting my first baby momma (the doctor) is named Mary. I thought, “Can’t be. Damn bitch, you got an old bitch name.” But then I thought “Has to be, because why would God not have his Virgin Mary? Right.”. I think “Mark and Mary” is sort of cute. Her ass must be ridiculous because I can’t imagine one that meets my standards, but who knows? I believe she’ll be a “nerd” (Terrible word, almost means autistic), so she’ll share my love for learning and make the most uninteresting topics, fun. Jesus Christ was just an earlier portrayal of our son(s). He technically has not existed yet. My son(s) will serve as a more pure example of my beliefs/way of living, for those rejecting MY life’s examples and in denial of what it portrays.

I’m not sure how I will run into all of them, but I’ve been getting that we’ll all have to crowd somewhere altogether in the meantime. Which sounds cool, crazy and potentially comfortably uncomfortable. No I am not marrying any of them. White people invented the modern concept of it and marriage licenses. The government is ran by white people. White people literally had almost our entire race enslaved for centuries and lost control, I am never listening to any one white ever again. They can have everything and still fumble.

Watching TV right now. It’s a church concert. Some of these religious white bitches are cute.

In short, I need to move, but I’ll be stuck here for some time. I sense unspoken hostility. Apparently, if you’re light skinned, no matter how dark you are, you’re half white. African American no longer means smart, I guess (Relative to Sentence 3). I knew we had some slow ones, but damn. If you always speak formally, white people (Mexicans) will think they are more “gangsta” than you…hilarious. There is apparently other people who think I’m not the only God in existence, but the others engage in the most ridiculous, sinful activities (and are fat). Looking for a short, dark skinned big booty bitch. You can give white people anything and they will lose it all.

- MH (2023)

Ogden Park is not the biggest park I’ve ever seen. It’s potentially Washington Park, but fuck that neighborhood AND George Washington. Disrespectfully.

[10/01/2023]

[zbeez-outlet]

Hello. I would like to request a Levi Ackerman x femreader in the canon universe about how Levi reacts to her fainting from over-exhaustion. Loads of angst and fluff would be appreciated. Hope that's okay. Thanks :)

Let Me Care for You

Levi x FemReader

Canon Universe

Pre-relationship

Concept: See request above!

Summary: Levi doesn't wear worry well. Stress is different, he can navigate stress as easily as his ODM gear, but worry settles heavy in his chest. It simmers under his skin and puts him on edge. He can't control worry like he can stress. But he's worried about you, has been since you got your promotion to Squad Leader. The transition is challenging, he knows that, and the extra work is killer on the sleep schedule. Today is different though, today something is wrong. You've stumbled three times down the hall since breakfast and it's barely noon.

Warnings: Angst, sleep deprivation, fainting, minor head injury, small amounts of blood (nothing excessive), mentions of nightmares (please let me know if I missed anything)

A/N: This is the first request I've received! I hope you like this piece, if you're interested in requesting, please check out my page for more details! I'm available to write for multiple fandoms or for anyone else in AOT. Thanks for reading! And for those who are curious, Left Behind Pt. 4 is on its way!

"There a reason you're staring, Shorty?" Hange pokes his cheek childishly, tongue sticking out and nose all scrunched up, but he doesn't turn to indulge them despite the annoyed twitch of his brow. For the record, he's not staring, not matter what Hange's inane teasing rumors about him. "Think you'll set her on fire with just your glare?"

"What are you blabbering about now, Four Eyes?"

But then Hange's right in front of him blocking his line of sight to you, an action that has a snarl pulling at his lip. They sing your name while swaying back and forth on their heels. "You've been watching her since she walked in the mess hall. What's that all about?" They're almost nose-to-nose with him now, he can feel their breath thick with the stench of stew from lunch waft across his cheeks. He almost gags. "Oh, oh, oh I know! I know! I know! You've got a crush!"

Levi chokes on air, eyes gaping at the fucking insane scientist he has the misfortune of calling a friend. "What?! No, Shitty Glasses, don't go spreading shit like that around!" He swallows whatever blush is threatening the curve of his cheeks and goes for a generous gulp of his tea.

Hange pouts, sliding off the table where they'd perched during the interrogation, and wilts back in their chair. "Then what's the problem? She's just in line for a cup of coffee."

But that is the problem. Coffee.

You don't drink coffee, or at least you didn't. One of the first things he learned about you as a person and not as a soldier was your passion for tea, nearly as vital to your character as his own addiction to the stuff. The two of you swap new blends whenever you get the chance.

Lately, you've been drinking coffee. The new habit almost has him as on edge as the darkening weights under your eyes or the slight shake in your hands that had never been there before. And he knows exactly when it started.

Two weeks ago you were promoted to Squad Leader and were assigned a battalion of team leaders and cadets to train and prepare for the next expedition still a month away. He remembers the meeting when Erwin made the announcement. He remembers your salute when you heard the news, powerful and confident and honored by the opportunity. He remembers feeling proud even though the accomplishment was all yours. Your hard work. Your passion. Your talent. You. He remembers sharing a pot of your favorite tea blend in his office that night, listening to you excitedly rant about your new position with a small hidden smile on his lips only a fraction of the size of your proud grin.

He hasn't seen you smile since. Levi pretends he doesn't miss it, doesn't miss you, but the teapot in his quarters has gone unused since that night.

Now you're drinking coffee, and something is wrong. He just doesn't know what. Yet.

A hand waves in front of his face making him sigh aggravatedly. He looks to Hange and raises a delicately arched brow as if to say, "What the fuck do you want?"

"You gonna answer my question?" They prod, gaze swiveling between him and you in such an obvious manner that it sets his teeth on edge. "What's with the staring, Levi?"

"Nothing," he growls and ignores any squawking comments from Hange when his eyes return to you. "Back off Shitty Glasses." Levi doesn't need people thinking he watches you...even if he does, but only because there's something bothering you and he can't figure out what it is or why you haven't come to him about it! And, yeah, maybe a part of him is hurt that you haven't come to him for help because he'd like to think you're both at a place in your relat...companionship that you can talk about things, anything really. Which, okay, he's not the best at doing that, but he knows if he got better about opening up, you'd be there to listen.

Levi just wants you to trust him with whatever is going on. Maybe part of him is scared that this is a sign you don't trust him.

None of that really matters though when he sees you stumble, barely catching your mug before it could slip from your trembling fingers, as you make your way out of the mess hall. That's the third time he's seen you trip on nothing since breakfast.

You didn't eat then either, just filled that damn mug with coffee and disappeared back into your new office.

Grumbling under his breath, Levi stands from his seat and marches toward the kitchen with half a dozen of Hange's questions bouncing off his back. The cook is more understanding than Levi thought he'd be when he asks for your lunch rations for the day, even being so kind as to include a small piece of bread and a clean glass of water because he noticed your absence at breakfast as well. Levi thanks the man so sincerely he almost cringes at himself, but the grateful smile he gets in return settles any discomfort. He makes a mental note to keep an eye on how the cadets treat the cook and to talk to Erwin about the budget, see if there's any room for a raise in their expenses.

The roll he keeps wrapped in a napkin hanging securely between his fingers, your bowl of stew balanced on his palm, and the glass of water cold in his other hand. He hasn't been in your office yet, but he's willing to admit to himself - and no one else - there were times he lingered by the door over the last two weeks.

He's not a stalker, he's fucking worried. And maybe he does miss you, just a little.

He knocks with his boot and frowns when he doesn't hear anything from beyond the door. No call of who's there, no shuffling or mumbling, no footsteps. He knocks again, a bit louder this time, and his curiosity turns into frustrated concern when all he hears is silence again. That same weight settles in his chest, the one that tells him something is very wrong.

Turning the knob with his elbow is actually rather easy, and so is nudging the door open with his hip. What isn't easy is the sight that greets him in your office.

That damn mug of coffee has been tipped over, a bitter brown puddle soaking into the mess of paperwork overtaking your uncharacteristically disorganized desk. Something stutters unpleasantly in his chest when he spots your feet poking out from behind the rich wood, splayed across the floor. Swiftly, Levi places the food and water on a clean edge of the table, skidding around to the other side of your office only to find your prone body limp on the ground.

Levi kneels beside you with an airy call of your name, turning your body onto your back so he can assess what happened and not focus on the racing of his heart or the tremble in his jaw. First he checks your pulse even though he can clearly see your chest moving up and down with each breath. Your heartbeat is slightly erratic, but nothing drastic enough to cause alarm. He's sure it's a combination of anxiety and the exhaustion heavily straining your body that's speeding up your pulse, not any kind of life-threatening injury. Still, Levi can feel a sting of fear jostling the air in his lungs.

"You idiot," he mumbles, allowing his fingers to trace the dark bruises under your eyes when he notices a scrape on your forehead. His teeth clench, a familiar anger he so rarely directs at you bubbling under his skin. "Shitty little brat, you should have asked for help..." Levi trails off with a frustrated huff.

Tapping your cheek, he holds his breath as he attempts to stir you from unconsciousness. Your nose scrunches cutely and a groan rumbles in your throat. He watches as your beautiful eyes blink open, a film of confusion and dizziness shining in your gaze. It takes a moment for your eyes to focus on him, but he's patient, more patient than you have any right for him to be when all he's been is patient for two fucking weeks while you adjust and learn and, apparently, self destruct.

"Levi?" He ignores the way his heart swells at the way you say his name. "W-what happened?" You're looking around now, sitting up with the pressure of his hands supporting your head and between your shoulder blades.

"You were stupid and overworked yourself so much that getting a disgusting cup of coffee was enough for your body to shut down," Levi deadpans, a stern lilt to his voice.

Just from that, you look thoroughly chastised, shoulders curved inward and shame bleeding into the bend of your spine. You won't meet his eye and it has Levi sighing at the way your avoidance upsets him. The two of you sit there for what seems like hours to him in the silence, so when you move to stand, he jolts to brace your arms and support your back. "Careful, you've got a sizable bump on your head from the fall," he adds just in case you're dizzy, helping you into the designated desk chair in every office.

He eyes it distastefully, almost certain he has a very detailed imprint of that very chair in the skin of his back. You deserve better than nightly backaches and a sore neck, but Levi holds his tongue and steadies you in the seat anyway. He frowns at the way you wilt in the chair, elbows resting on the desktop to keep you upright - only just out of reach of the pool of coffee - and fingers digging into your tired eyes.

Without a word, he lets himself into your adjacent bedroom, noting the perfectly made and untouched bed, and presses on into the bathroom. There's a first aid kit that's stocked in every bathroom in the building, so he swipes it from under the vanity and wets a spare rag in the sink. He wants to at least take care of the gash on your forehead before he starts the lecture he can already feel forming on his tongue.

You haven't moved when he steps back into the office, still hiding behind your hands and uncomfortably hunched over. Levi sighs for what must be the hundredth time - and certainly won't be the last - and leans on the desk next to you. Softly he grips your wrists and pulls your hands from your face. Your eyes are shining, waterline on the verge of overflowing, and you still refuse to look at him.

He decides he won't be the one to speak first, focusing instead on the cut above your grimaced brow.

You flinch when he dabs at the blood that dripped down your temple. Levi pauses for a moment, wondering if you'll say anything, but when you stay silent, he goes back to the task at hand with a lighter touch. The blood comes away easy enough, staining the rag an unseemly red. Blood never really bothered him before, it's been a part of his life as long as he can remember, but something about the sight of your blood has his stomach churning.

With the cut sufficiently cleaned, Levi digs through the first aid kit for some antiseptic cream and a bandage. He gently swipes the cream over the cut, hoping you don't notice when his fingers linger just a half a second too long on your skin. The bandage goes on next and then everything just feels...quiet and still and stifling.

"I'm sorry." Your voice is clipped, aching passed your unused vocal chords in a way that makes him thirsty. Levi grips the glass of water by its rim and holds it in front of your face. Relief crashes into him when you accept the water easily, delicate fingers grasping around the glass.

While you drink, Levi turns to collect the food he brought as a way to distract him from the curve of your gulping throat. He places the bowl of stew and the napkin-wrapped roll in front of you with a mumbled, "You skipped breakfast, eat."

He doesn't stay to watch if you follow his order, instead going to collect a towel to soak up the coffee - the stench of which has already coated the walls of your office. Nose scrunching, he tries to focus on the fragrance of you just beneath the bitter air, soft with tea, breezy with your floral perfume, and something so intoxicatingly you that he can almost block out the coffee. Levi spends a few minutes soaking up the putrid drink from the fine wood of your desk before he notices you're just staring at the cooling bowl of stew, having made no move to eat it.

There are tears streaming down your face.

Again, Levi rounds the desk to be next to you. He turns your chair to face him and takes a knee in front of you. You sniffle, bright exhausted eyes finally meeting his own, and his chest stings at the fear he finds there. The frustration. The shame. The sadness. It takes everything in him not to cradle you close, to run his fingers through your hair and chase your worries away with gentle words. He's not good at those things, he knows he'd screw it up, he'd make it worse. Instead, he tries to push understanding to the forefront of his expression, hoping you'll take that first step, you'll talk to him. You'll choose to trust him.

Your mouth opens and closes a few times before you finally speak. "I - I don't think I can do this, Levi."

"Do what?" he asks even though he's pretty sure he knows the answer.

"I can't be responsible for them...I - I can't be a leader." Your lips quivers, and your breath catches on the verge of a sob.

"Bullshit."

"W-what?" Levi would crack a smile at the incredulous look on your face, eyes all wide and lips gaping, if he wasn't so worried about the tremor in your arms or the cold sweat threatening your brow.

"You heard me. Saying you can't do the job is utter bullshit."

"Levi - "

"No, I'm not just going to sit here and listen to you spew shitty excuses for why you think you can't do this job." He almost cringes at the harsh way the words cut between his teeth, scared he may have just screwed up entirely. Maybe this is the reason you didn't come to him because you knew, and clearly rightfully so, that he'd just be a jerk about the whole situation. Levi takes a deep breath, hoping to soften his words with the extra oxygen, and meets your shimmering eyes again. "You've worked harder to get where you are than anyone else here. You spend everyday trying to improve yourself, learning as much from the green cadets as you do from your veteran superiors." He bravely places his hand over your fidgeting fingers and continues.

"Your soldiers trust you. Your comrades trust you. Erwin trusts you, so much so that he fast tracked you to Squad Leader without a second thought." Your name falls from his lips like he cherishes the shape of it curving his syllables. He fights the urge to caress your cheek by squeezing your hands. "It's not that you can't do the job. You're more than qualified, you're more than capable."

"Then what's wrong with me?" You ask desperately, the words shaking in your throat.

"Nothing is wrong with you," he says sternly, making sure to hold your wallowing gaze with his own more frigid one. "You're afraid, and that's okay."

A shaky breath quakes in your chest. "It is?"

"You think none of us higher-ups are scared?" He quirks an eyebrow when you just stare at him with your jaw hanging a little dumbly. "It's our choices out there that brings back as many soldiers as we can, of course we're scared - except maybe Four Eyes, but they lack the sanity for fear, so I wouldn't recommend them as a role model." You crack half a smile and he basks in the warmth it brings him.

"Look," he continues passed the success of any one of your smiles, "the only thing holding you back right now isn't your fear, it's how you're coping with it."

"What do you mean?"

He scoffs, eyes flicking between the bandage on your forehead, the coffee mess on your desk, and the piles of paperwork. "You just fainted in your office, you're really asking me that?"

A blush crawls up your neck and tints the tips of your ears. You bite your lip, which he finds extremely distracting in this very serious moment between the two of you. "Point taken, I guess." You idly start tracing shapes on his knuckles, further distracting him, and the tingly feeling gives him goosebumps he's relieved you can't see beneath his uniform. "What should I be doing, oh knowledgeable Captain Levi?"

The fact that you're teasing him at all has a smirk threatening his lips. He stands, abruptly jerking your chair back toward the desk. "Start by eating, there's even a roll for you. The cook noticed you weren't at breakfast, he wanted to give you a little extra." Levi nudges the bowl closer to you, only turning back to the task of soaking up the coffee after he sees you take your first bite.

The only sounds in the office for the next several minutes are the clinking of your spoon in the metal bowl, Levi's furious scrubbing at the dark stains in the wood, and the occasionally satisfying tearing sound when you rip your roll into pieces to dip in the stew. It's comfortable like the nights you stay up late, a pot of calming tea shared between you, and existing in a language that only the two of you are fluent in.

Yeah, okay, he's missed you a lot.

Levi glances up when he hears your frustrated groan. The bowl is empty and so is the water glass, the only sign of the roll being a few wayward crumbs on the napkin. You're staring at your drenched paperwork, and already he can see the stress tensing your shoulders and reigniting that crippling doubt in your eyes.

He wants to cover your eyes and steer you away from what's troubling you, but again, he waits for you to speak first.

"It's going to take hours to redo all of that work," you grumble, flexing your fingers before reaching for the fountain pen at your side. Your fingers hesitate just above its sleek brass surface. Levi needs only a second to convince himself this is a good idea and takes your hovering hand into his own gentle grasp.

"What you need to do," he starts, using two fingers to direct your face to his by your chin, "is sleep. I'm thinking you haven't done much of that since the promotion."

Fear flashes in your eyes again, and he knows that fear. Maybe better than anyone. "I see them...when I sleep, I see all of them. Dead or dying, blaming me. It hasn't even happened yet, but I know it will. In a month, it's going to happen, even if it's just one." You grip his hand back tightly, feeding of the strength in his hold. He'd give it all to you if he could. "How do I stop seeing them?"

But he doesn't have a good response this time because, really, the only honest answer is, "You don't." You nod, like you expected that - which you probably did, after all nightmares were more common in the corps than pleasant dreams - and sigh with a weight he never wanted to see on your shoulders.

"Then how do you sleep?"

He chews the question for a moment, rolling it between his teeth with his tongue, and comes to the most satisfactory answer he can come up with. "You remember their trust, how much they rely on you. To protect them, to lead them, you have to take care of yourself. Eating is a part of that. Sleep is a part of that. It won't always be restful or last long, and rarely will it ever be kind, but your body needs sleep to function."

"Okay, but..." you trail off as if unsure of what you're about to say. You only continue when he nods, ready to accept whatever you want to ask of him. "How do you sleep?"

Except that.

Levi grimaces, pulling away from you slightly and almost immediately wishes he hadn't when he sees the new furrow to your brow. He decides on a non-answer. "In my desk chair most nights, after enough hours of paperwork that my mind is numbed into sleep for a few hours." He shrugs like it's no big deal and ignores the spark of concern that lightens your eyes. "I find tea helps me relax into it more easily." He doesn't say that the nights you share a new blend and talk into the early morning with him are the nights he feels most rested.

He eyes your mug distastefully, that bitter coffee stench still lingering in his nose. "Coffee doesn't help."

An actual laugh bubbles between your lips and he feels an unwarranted amount of pride bloom in his chest. "It helps with the 'avoiding sleep' part."

"That part doesn't seem to be working in your favor." Levi contemplates you for a moment and realizes he really doesn't want you to sleep in the desk chair. He abruptly tugs you to your feet despite any feeble protests, barely remembers to grab your empty water glass, and steers you into your bedroom. It takes barely a fraction of his strength to lower you onto the unused bed, and he idly wonders if you have been sleeping at your desk or if you've been diligently making the bed every morning you managed to sleep.

"No I - Levi, I can't." You try to rise, only to huff when all he has to do to keep you seated is press his hands onto your shoulders. "The paperwork, I have to - "

"Here's what's going to happen," Levi grumbles, making sure to hold your eyes with his own. "You're going to sleep. I'm going to get you some more water, I want you to at least take off your boots if you don't feel like changing. You need a few hours of rest before you'll be able to focus on anything."

"But - "

"No, this is me helping you take care of yourself." He places a heavy palm on your head, fingers ruffling your hair. "Let me do this."

You hesitate a moment longer before giving in, nodding and smiling at him so gratefully Levi feels the warmth of it from his toes to the crown of his head. You squeeze his hand on your shoulder and whisper with sleepy eyes, "Thank you, Levi."

He goes to fill the glass in the sink in your bathroom before you can see the blush he feels heating his ears.

When he comes back, glass full and cheeks blush free, your boots are haphazardly crumpled at the foot of the bed and you're already passed out. All you did was lay back before falling into a deep sleep, legs hanging off the edge of the mattress and head nowhere near your pillow. Chuckling dryly under his breath so as not to wake you, Levi places the glass on your nightstand and carefully maneuvers you further up the bed so you're actually on it entirely, tucking you under the quilt he hopes to one day hear the story behind - because it certainly didn't come with the room like his own starched sheets - and cradles your head in the cushion of the pillow. He allows himself one simple indulgence and trails a callused finger down the soft curve of your cheekbone.

Levi can already imagine the dark circles under your eyes lightening and fading when a purely content smile pulls at your lips and you sigh in your sleep.

The door clicks shut softly behind him and he makes his way back to your desk. He sits in the familiarly stiff chair and picks up your brass fountain pen.

Levi decides he might as well help you get a head start on that paperwork.

Tag List:

@leviackermanmyhero245

[venusiangguk]

gold rush pt. 3 | jjk (m)

>>pairing: jungkook x reader

>>genre: pwp, v little plot, smut, kinda fluffy, college au (kinda), established relationship

>>word count: 9.9k um?

>>warnings: pegging!!!, butt stuff!!!, sexy anal!!!, sub jk, soft dom oc, crying why do i always make everyone cry, fingering (m), strap on, dildos, vibrators, sex toys, sex shop adventures, explicit sex, like so explicit this bitch is basically 10k, mutual masturbation, coming untouched, kisses, aftercare in the form of snacks, titty squeezing, dirty talk, excessive use of pet names, yoongi exists

>>notes: i wasn’t gonna write this bc ur girl does not know the first thing about pegging, but jk sucking the strap came to me in a dream and i had to do it. it was highly requested so i hope u like it! i wrote and poorly edited this whole thing today so im sorry for any mistakes !! 

>>summary: jk wants the strap, and jk gets what he wants !!

pt.1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

The sun is shining, and there’s just the perfect amount of breeze to cool Jeongguk as sweat runs down his temple. The soccer pitch just got cut, making the ball much easier to control, and therefore much easier to aim at Jimin’s ass. It’s cool-down time, so the team is in groups of three, idly kicking the ball between each other, for the last few minutes of practice. All in all, a great day to talk about getting pegged with his best friends.

Jeongguk glances around the field, making sure the other groups are far enough away from him and his friends before clearing his throat. “So… do you guys like… get pegged?”

When Taehyung passes the ball to Jimin, Jimin completely misses it due to the fact that he is looking at Jeongguk like he is the most pitiful human on the planet. Jeongguk adjusts his shin guard to avoid the scrutiny.

“Gguk… honey… are you dumb?”

Taehyung’s jogging back after retrieving the ball that ran astray. “No, Mini. He’s straight.” He kicks the ball to Jeongguk. “If by ‘pegged’ you mean fucked in the ass by a real dick, then yeah. We do.”

Jeongguk receives the ball with a ‘rainbow’ and juggles it from his thigh to his laces, balancing the ball for a second before kicking it to Jimin. He nods, contemplative. “Nice.”

“Okay ace.” He passes to Taehyung, before throwing Jeongguk a teasing look. “You thinking about taking it up the ass, Gukkie?”

“Perhaps I’m contemplating.” He sniffs nose in the air.

Taehyung laughs. “Got your button milked once and now you wanna take a phallic shaped object? Proud of you.” He places his hand over his heart, like the mere thought of Jeongguk getting railed makes his heart warm.

A whistle blows, and Jeongguk kicks the ball up to his arm, tucking it into the curve of his trim waist. “Why does everyone call it a button? And it hasn’t only been once.” He sounds exasperated and so so tired.

His friends jog to bump shoulders with him as they make their way to the locker rooms. “Hey, jokes aside, I think it’s cool you’re like comfortable enough, or whatever, with __ to explore the things you like.” Taehyung says.

Jeongguk rolls his eyes. “Okay Dad.”

“No seriously!” Jimin insists, holding the locker room door open for them. Fuck the rest of the team. “She seems good for you. Babys you like you need.” Jimin laughs.

Jeongguk’s shirt gets caught on his head as he squawks. “I don’t just like being babied, fuck you.”

“Okay so she also entertains your sadistic side. She’s the full package.”

Jeongguk looks down with a blush. He shrugs his shoulders lightly before bending over to get out of his gear. “She’s pretty cool I guess.”

Taehyung knees him while he’s still bent over making him stumble a bit. “Awe, Jeonggukkie is in love.”

“Shut up.” Jeongguk smacks him in the face with his smelly sock.

“When you gonna do it?” Jimin asks, buttoning his new pants. 

Apparently they aren’t showering today. Jeongguk will just have to stop at his dorm before heading to yours to help you study. That reminds him that you have a test on Friday, but are free this weekend. He just so happens to be free as well. The team they were supposed to play had to forfeit because their coach got caught sleeping with one of the cheerleaders. Sucks, but good for Jeongguk and his little asshole.

“Maybe this weekend.” With their backpacks on, they start the trek back to the dorms. It’s nearing night now, the sun just starting to set in the sky. Jeongguk pulls out his phone to tell you he’s stopping by his place before heading to you. You reply quickly.

baby🥺💘😏🧠🙄👊🏻:

okie

wanna have sex instead of helping me study 

me:

yeah but im not gonna 

just think about how good the sex will be when u get an a 

baby🥺💘😏🧠🙄👊🏻:

🙄

When Jeongguk pockets his phone, Taehyung speaks up.

“You think she’ll be down?”

Jeongguk doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah, probably.”

Ever since the first time you made him cum untouched, butt stuff has been a moderately regular occurrence for you both as a long-term, healthy, pro-ass eating couple. Honestly it was mostly him getting his butt played with, but he supposed it made sense. Like Jimin explained to his once naïve self, it was just biological- or something. Whatever. He wonders if three fingers will be enough to fit a fake dick in his ass. He asks his friends.

“Eh…” Jimin starts, looking up like he’s thinking. “Maybe, but you might wanna try to get to four, maybe five if you're using hers, since she’s tiny.”

Jeongguk’s mouth falls open and he pales. Taehyung notices and laughs.

“Don’t get scared. It’s just better to over-prep than under-prep. And like obviously you work up to it, she’s not just gonna shove her fist or her cock up your ass.”

Her cock. A little tingle settles in Jeongguk’s lower belly at the statement. He’s been thinking about this for a while, looking at porn in his free time. Seeing the way the guys moan on their girls’ strap always gets him hard. Seeing how hard their cocks get when the toy hits them just right. He throbs when he sees the guys cum just from the strap, no hands. Maybe he should fuck you when he gets to your dorm instead of helping you study. His cock is feeling a little plump.

“Alright well… Bye, thanks for being gay and answering my anal questions!”

As he’s pressing the button to his elevator, they lived on opposite sides of the athlete dorm and there were different elevators for each of the wings, Jimin chirps, “Don’t forget to empty your asshole really well, and don’t eat the day of! Also buy extra lube and put a spare blanket down!”

Jeongguk winces. Valuable information indeed, information he mentally pockets, but did he need to yell it in the dorm common room?

“Noted!” He yells back at the elevator dings and opens up. Jeongguk pretends like he doesn’t meet the curious, kind of confused gaze of one of his teammates. He must have walked in while Jimin was yelling and only caught the end of the conversation while waiting for the same elevator. Jeongguk gets in and immediately closes the doors. He can catch the next lift.

~~~

Jeongguk’s got his head in your lap and you’re running your fingers through his long, silky hair. He showered today, so waves of his aromatherapy lavender shampoo are wafting up to you. Sweet boy. He seems sidetracked, occasionally sighing and subtly twisting, but is still more or less purring on your thigh, feet tucked up onto the cushion of the couch. Netflix is on the small tv that was left by the last person who lived there, you’re mac book connected via HDMI. You’re not really paying attention. Mind kind of tired from all the studying you had done this week. Jeongguk fidgets a tiny bit again, wiggling like he’s trying to get comfortable. He huffs a sigh.

“Hey,” You say softly, getting his attention.

His body curves at the waist, causing his t-shirt to bunch up and show off the dip of his hip bone. He looks up at you with wide eyes. He seems surprisingly awake. Must have some busy little bees buzzing around his mind. He makes a little questioning noise.

“You okay? You’re kinda fussy.” You murmur.

He groans. “I-  am just thinking.”

“About?” You drag the word out in a singsong-y manner.

The way Jeongguk’s face flushes is so pretty, you have to stop yourself from cooing. 

He moves himself from your lap and sits facing you. He looks like he's thinking about what to say, or how to say what he’s thinking so hard about. 

Eloquently he states, “I’m horny.”

You glance at his cock. Not quite hard, but a little happy and excited. You chuckle, leaning towards him, giving him a playfully sexy look. “Okay, let’s fuck baby.”

Jeongguk blushes even more, cheeks tinted red, while he leans away from you.

You pout. “What?”

Again he pauses, a small pout on his lips. He seems to be in a soft, needy, difficult mood. You’re probably going to have to pry what he wants to say out of his mouth.

With another uncalled for exasperated huff, Jeongguk rolls his eyes and moves closer to you before catching you by surprise and swinging a leg over your lap. He’s facing you while he straddles your thighs. His arms are looped around your neck, he’s playing with a little bit of your hair, twirling the long length around his fingers. You smile up at him, gently. Your palms squeeze at his narrow hips encouragingly.

“I want to try something new…” He says. He sounds nervous and looks at you the same.

“Mhmm.” You say, fighting a smile. 

“Really bad. Like I want it really bad.” His hips roll, probably unconsciously from the way he closes his eyes to ground himself. 

You peek at his lap, and his cock is bulging, the fabric of his sweatpants doing nothing to help hide it. You bring your hand to it, and massage him through his pants.

He whines and pushes against your palm before a hand comes down and grabs your wrist, stopping the movement. “Quit it, I’m trying to talk.” He’s so petulant and whiny.

You move your hand away and place it back on his hip, giggling a little. “Well spit it out, then.”

He scowls. You reach up and smooth the wrinkle in his brow before trailing it down and cupping his cheek. He softens immediately, melts like butter in your hands. His eyes close and he lets out a soft sigh, body relaxing a little.

He’s whispering, kinda giggling out of embarrassment, when he says, “I want you to fuck me.” He pauses, peeking at you through his lashes. “Like for real.”

Almost instantly a little spark ignites in your belly, and you feel your pussy get that telltale heartbeat. You didn’t want to push Jeongguk into anything, but you’ve been thinking about taking the ‘next step’ with your… ass-plorations for some time. But you figured he would get to the same point on his own, and would come to you when he was ready. Turns out you know him as well as you thought you did.

“Yeah?” You rub your free hand up his side. 

He nods quickly, eagerly. You pinch his cheek lightly, and he retaliates by trying to bite at it. To avoid the attack it finds his way back to his waist.

“When did you want to? Tonight?”

He wiggles impossibly closer to you. Kisses you quick before nodding again. “Yeah. I um. I already like prepped… mostly. I prepped what I could by myself.” He pauses with a cute thinking face. “You will probably have to help me a little. But yeah. I got ready for you just in case.” He nods.

You hum, glancing at the old clock on the wall, another gift from the prior tenant. 11:52 pm. 

“If we hurry, we can make it to a sex shop? They don’t usually close until 2 or 3 in the morning.” You suggest.

Jeongguk bites his lip, smiling excitedly. “Really? Can we?”

You roll your eyes playfully. “Yeah, duh.” You lean up and give him a speedy, but thorough kiss, smiling into it. “Been wanting to peg you for so long.” 

His face scrunches endearingly. “Don’t call it that.”

He hops off your lap, and goes to grab the keys, wasting no time. He stands by the door expectantly. His cock is, extremely obviously, sticking out. Someone didn’t wear his briefs today.

“Can you like… kill that?” You’re laughing as you tug on some sweats of your own, having only been lounging in your panties and one of his shirts. Your usual at home attire.

He looks down, and has a smug grin on his face when he looks at you again. “It’ll go down in the car. Hurry up!”

~~~

A dildo looks so much bigger when one is looking at it knowing that it will be inside of them within the next few hours. And there are so many options and colors. Some vibrate, some have fake pubic hair on them. Some have balls that are squishy and feel eerily… accurate.

Jeongguk isn’t having second thoughts, no. But he is having thoughts. Very overwhelming thoughts. 

You’re next to your boyfriend, glancing between him and the varying selection of fake cocks displayed in front of you both, trying to gauge his reaction. He looks a little pale, but tentatively excited. Curious at the very least.

“Which one do you want?” You ask.

“No idea.” He responds, eyes wide.

Like most store clerks, one shows up, almost like they have a built in ‘customer needs help and has no idea which dildo to get to peg her super hot boyfriend’ radar. 

“You guys need help?” He is a small man, with a monotone voice. He looks like he would rather be anywhere else at 12:30am on a Saturday night. 

“NO!” Jeongguk says quickly and loudly. Very loudly.

Both you and the store clerk flinch, looking at him shocked.

Jeongguk shifts on his feet. “No.” He says in a more socially acceptable tone. “No- I’m sorry. But we’re uh-” He grabs your arm and pulls you closer. “We’re good, thanks.”

The clerk looks between you and Jeongguk and the dildos. “Um… Alright.” He starts to walk away before he turns back around. “Well if you change your mind, I’m Yoongi and I’ll be at the counter. If your toy is electric I’ll test it in the back before you leave… We uh- provide batteries with your purchase if needed…” With one last glance, a very judgmental one in Jeongguk’s opinion, Yoongi takes his place at said counter. His eyes flicker to you guys every once in a while.

“Baby,” You grab Jeongguk’s face between your palms and make him look at you. You squeeze and his lips poke out making him look like a guppy. He blinks. “I know you’re nervous, but it’s going to be okay.”

He rolls his eyes, guppy face and all. “Well obviously. I just- We don’t need help.” He wiggles out of your grip, much like a… guppy.

You grin, trying not to laugh, and just be the supportive girlfriend you are. “Okay, did you decide which one you want?”

A side glance. “Not yet…”

You walk up and go to grab a pink sparkly one.

“Uh, not that one.”

You quirk an eyebrow and move your hand to a larger one.

“No.”

You play a little game of dildo hot or cold until you have a better idea of what Jeongguk wants. His preference seems to be skin tone, close to his own, with a more realistic feel. Normal balls though, not squishy. Also no faux hair. You thank him for that. If you actually had a penis it would surely be waxed. Bless Jeongguk for doing the same. As for size, he leaned more towards a very normal, moderate size. Maybe 5 or 6 inches at most, not too thick. Smaller than himself. One last option.

“Do you want it to vibrate?” You ask, holding one in your hand testing the numerous different settings.

He shakes his head, answering quick. “No.”

He pauses.

“Wait.” He thinks. “Maybe. Should we? You could use it too?” 

Sweet, kind, considerate angel. Always thinking about you and your pleasure. Couples who share the strap last the longest.

You shrug, pointing out, “I could use one that doesn’t vibrate too.”

He looks offended and sounds snotty. “Uh, you don’t need to.”

“Whatever. Why don’t we get both?”

You had a point. He pretends to ponder it, before nodding, already persuaded. “Okay.” 

“We need the harness now.”

You begin the harness hunt, walking through the store, coming across many a things, but for some reason you both keep missing them. They’re nowhere to be found. 

“Maybe they’re sold out?” He tries.

“Doubt it. Let’s go ask.” You grab him by his pinky and try to drag him to the counter. He resists. 

“Let’s not.”

“Koo.” You say giving him a look.

He whines, throwing his head back. Borderline throwing a fit. You hold your ground, smiling.

He’s easy to give in. Being a brat just on principle. “Fine but you’re talking.”

You stand on your tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “Of course, baby.” With his pinky in hand, you make your way to the counter.

The store clerk, Yoongi, if you remember correctly, is sitting behind the counter hunched over smiling at his phone. He doesn’t seem to notice you’re there.

You clear your throat gently, “Excuse me?”

Yoongi jumps, almost throwing his phone. “Fuck!” He exclaims. His fists come up ready to fight before he sees it’s you and Jeongguk. He then places his hand over his heart. “Shit, you scared me.” He chuckles, recovering quickly. “How can I help you?”

You stare at him for a moment longer before speaking up. “Um yeah, I was just wondering where your harnesses are?”

He leans on the counter, head in his hand looking kinda bored. “Hanresses? What kind? Hanging harness? Body harness?”

You glance at Jeongguk and he looks like he’s going to die.

“The um- strap on harnesses?” Your voice goes to a whisper when you say it, despite it just being you guys in the store.

Yoongi sits up, and looks at you, and then looks at Jeongguk. A look of understanding comes over his face along with an amused smile. He nods to himself, while getting up to help you. “Nice. Follow me.”

Jeongguk gapes at the ‘nice’ and looks at you in disbelief. You pat his butt telling him to get going. 

With some help from Yoongi you pick out a harness that looks supportive and comfortable, the ring that holds the dildo, compatible with both the ones that you plan on getting. It’s a simple adjustable black one. Yoongi recommended wearing something under it if the straps dig into you and irritate. He seems bored, but he’s actually very good at his job, and very knowledgeable.  

Finally you’re at the counter. You place all the items in Yoongi’s reach and he’s just about to tell you the total when Jeongguk perks up.

“Wait!” He says before scurrying off.

It’s quiet for a split second. Before the clerk speaks up.

“He’s cute.”

You smile, “Thanks, he’s mine.”

Yoongi laughs, small little fish teeth and gums on display. Must be a Pisces. You know Pisces teeth. “Does he have any cute friends?”

You nod. “Yeah, but they are dating.”

He shrugs. “Don’t care.”

“Uh… I can give you their Instagrams?”

He pulls out his phone, and follows them right there after a quick glance at their pages. Confidence is nice.

There’s a short lull in the conversation. And Jeongguk seems to be taking his sweet time getting something you guys must have forgotten. Or the poor things lost. It’s a big store. You speak up this time.

“Do you have like a manager I could leave a review for? You were really helpful, and seemed like you really knew what you were talking about.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I own the place. You think I would be here on a Saturday night if it wasn’t obligatory? Thanks, though.”

“Oh.” You say. That was pretty impressive. The store was quite successful based on the reviews. You would make sure to let Jimin and Taehyung know Yoongi was a business man.

“Okay, I’m back.” Jeongguk announces. “Sorry I forgot where it was.”

He places 2 (two) large bottles of lube on the counter. You cough out a laugh.

“Baby, we have lube at home.”

“But do we have enough?”

“I think maybe one more would be more than enough.”

He ignores you, looking Yoongi in the eyes for the first time tonight. “Add both please.”

Yoongi nods, looking a little scared of Jeongguk’s seriousness, and does as he’s ordered.

After Jeongguk pays, and you both are making your way to the exit, Yoongi calls out, “Good luck, tell your friends to follow me back!”

“Uh- Okay?” Jeongguk yells back. When you’re in the parking lot, he asks, “What the heck was that about?”

You shake your head, laughing to yourself. “Don’t worry about it.”

~~~

As soon as you get back to your dorm, the atmosphere is thick, full of tension and nervous anticipation. Jeongguk’s fidgety, eager to get started. You’re not far off, but contain yourself a little more. Need to keep control of the situation in case Jeongguk gets deep into his mood.

You guys are in the bathroom now, each one washing a toy before you use it. You make sure to unwrap the harness and the lube as well, both at Jeongguk’s insistent request, ensuring you don’t have to stop and deal with it later. 

“Let’s just get undressed in here, it’s where my hamper is.” You say already tugging your shirt over your head, tits bouncing freely. Jeongguk went without briefs today, and you went without a bra.

Jeongguk quietly follows suit, and you don’t miss the way his hands are trembling a little in anticipation. When you’re both naked he kisses you quickly, and jiggles your boobs a little just because they are there and because he can, before saying, “Okay, lets go.” He’s out the bathroom before you can even respond. You laugh to yourself and gather the stuff he forgot in his excitement.

When you walk out with your hands full, you see Jeongguk spreading out a blanket over your comforter.

“Whatcha doin?” You ask curiously, placing the items on the nightstand.

“Gets messy. Wanna save your bedding.” He states.

You squawk, grabbing the blanket he set up on your bed. “Not my baby blanket you monster.”

He laughs, abs tensing. You notice he’s already hanging a little heavy between his thighs. “Sorry. Was the first one I saw.” He walks over to the couch and replaces the blanket that’s hanging over the back with your baby blanket and resets up. “Better?” he asks, extended his arm towards your bed to show off his work.

You nod, and take the few steps needed to close the space between you both. Your hand runs down his belly, and you feel his muscles jump, and you see little goosebumps sprout all over. His hands come up to cup your tits. You kiss softly where his heart is. You look up at him.

“I love you.” You smile.

He blushes. “Love you.” He whispers, before he leans down and slots your lips together.

It’s eager from the start. Your bodies press together, as your hands roam. When he takes a breath and surges back in, your teeth click together is his haste, before his tongue slips into your mouth. He groans into you, his hand going down to cup your ass, squeezing and pulling you impossibly closer. 

You feel his cock against your belly, almost fully hard already. You reach down to wrap a hand around him, wanting to help him get there before you get started. He hisses, thrusting forward instinctively before pulling away. He looks like he hates that he does.

“No- I,” He’s already short of breath, chest rising and falling a little bit faster than normal. “I wanna watch you cum. With the toy.” He reaches around you, grabbing the vibrating dildo. “Please?” He asks. His eyes are fervent.

You take the toy in your hand, and kiss him again softly. “Yeah, baby. Whatever you. It’s all about you tonight.”

He shakes his head. “Always about you too.” 

Your heart beats, happy in your chest. You thought about it earlier in the night, but Jeongguk really was the best lover. He always, always made sure you were taken care of, before, during, and after sex. He was so vocal and communicative, genuinely wanting you to know it was always about both of you, even if one was receiving more attention. He was caring like that in and out of the bedroom. You were so lucky to be his.

“You’re too good to me,” You laugh, climbing onto the bed. You settle back against your pillows, propping some behind you so you can see him, and watch him while you get off. He takes his place in front of you, looking at you expectantly.

He’s impatient, placing his hands on your knees, spreading you open so he can see your cunt. You let him get you into position before saying, “Keep your hands to yourself now, okay?”

He nods, eyes never leaving your pussy. He licks his lips. “Okay.” It’s said in a distracted kind of far away tone.

You hum as you bring the toy to your mouth, getting it wet. You wouldn’t need any lube, you would be dripping in no time. You don’t waste any time putting your free hand down between your legs and spreading your pussy lips, so your clit and the pretty pink center of your cunt are displayed for Jeongguk. You glance at him through your lashes, when you hear a small gasp fall from his lips. He’s already got a hand around himself. Just the tips of his fingers stroking his length, at a leisurely pace. 

“She’s so pretty… You’re so pretty.” His eye flick to your face before zeroing in on your center again.

“Tell me how to do it baby. Tell me what you want to see.” You say, voice salacious and soft. You circle your finger slowly around your nub, dipping inside just a bit to spread your slick around.

When he swallows, it’s audible, his Adam's apple jumping. “I want you to turn it on low, and put it on your clit. I want you to feel good.”

You smile, and drag the tip of it down your body to just above your clit, turning it on the lowest setting before making contact with your sensitive nub. Your legs jolt, almost closing when you feel the vibrations. Even the lowest setting was strong. Your head falls back, and your legs spread more for him once you get used to the strength of the toy. “Fuck…” You breathe.

“Does it feel good?” He asks, greedy for your pleasure.

You nod, eyes still closed, focusing. You move the vibrator in small circles over your clit. You can hear Jeongguk’s breaths speed up.

“Turn it up.” His voice gives away that he’s speeded up his hand on his cock too.

You do as he says, looking at him as you do. He’s sin personified. He’s on his knees, sitting back on his feet, so his thighs are flexed and bulging. His abs tense when his palm twists under the crown of his cock. His eyes almost look black, pupils blown so wide, lust taking over his face. He’s got his plump bottom lip drawn between his teeth. He looks up from your pussy and catches you staring. He smiles shyly.

You keep your eyes on him as you bring the toy back down to your core. A short high pitched moan falls from your lips, as your brows knit together, before your eyes roll back. He groans, your expression enough to make his cock start to leak.

“Feels so good, Jeongguk.” You moan. The vibrator is right where it feels best, pulsing against your clit, causing pleasure to bleed into your veins. 

“Yeah, baby?” He asks, he’s breathless, sounds like he’s in love. With you, your cunt. “Tell me.”

“‘S just right Koo, could make me cum just like this…” 

He curses, and you open your eyes just in time to see him grip the base of his cock, keeping himself in check. “Not yet, baby. Little longer, please.” Still so polite and good for you, even when he’s the one telling you what to do.

He has you keep the vibe there, for a while longer, right in the spot that’s gonna make you lose it. He watches as a tiny clear drop leaks from you pink little pussy. It looks like it’s heavy and about to drip down to the blanket under you. He doesn’t notice your legs shaking until you’re gasping, “Koo, I’m almost- I’m gonna-”

“No!” He says quickly, his hand reaches out to pull the vibrator from your cunt just before you get your high. Your pussy aches and throbs, wanting to cum so bad. 

Your chest is heaving when you ask, “Are… are you edging me?”

He shakes his head, even though your eyes are closed, trying to catch your breath. “No, no! I just. I got distracted.” He looks at that small drop of slick again. Fuck, he wants to lick it up and drink you down. “You’re leaking.” He states.

You laugh, breathing getting back to normal. “Yeah?” You reach your hand down to collect the distracting little droplet and bring it in front of you. You press the sticky finger to your thumb and then pull them apart to see the clear strings stay connected even as you pull. You hum, before offering your hand to Jeongguk. He sucks in a breath.

“Want some?” 

He’s quick as he crawls between you legs, cock fully hard now. He watches you as he sucks your fingers into his mouth, tongue swirling around getting every last bit, before he sucks off with a pop!

He crawls farther up your body to kiss you deep, wanting you to get a taste of yourself too. He pulls back just a bit, and whispers against your lips, “I want you to fuck yourself with it, okay? Just for a little bit, then you can cum?” He’s phrasing it as a question, knowing he really doesn't have the final say, not tonight. But his voice is shaking from how turned on he is, how could you ever say no?

“Sit back.” Is all you respond. He does as he’s told.

You buzz the toy over your clit again, just because you can. Wanting to see how long Jeongguk can be good before begging. Turns out it’s not long at all. 

“Put it in…” He moans. You look at him and his mouth is parted, and his eyes heavy as he watches you. His hand is moving fast over his cock, sticking straight up to his tummy. “Please.”

You drag the toy down to your slit, and tease it there before just barely pushing it in just a fraction of the length. Jeongguk whines, high and desperate. Apparently you’re moving to slow for him.

“More,” He begs. 

You sigh, “You’re so needy tonight, baby.” He nods, agreeable.

When the toy sinks inside of you all the way to the hilt, you and Jeongguk both moan a quiet, “Fuck.” simultaneously. You’re coherent enough to laugh a little at the jinx, but he seems to barely notice, too focused on watching the toy sink into you, and then come back out to vibrate your clit again. You keep up this teasing pattern, again waiting to be told what to do by him, waiting to see how long he makes it this time.

“Harder, do it harder,” He’s panting. Moaning every word that leaves his lips.

You do as he says, and finally push the toy in at a pace that gets you climbing to being close again. You won’t be able to come like this though, and he knows that. Knows that you can only cum from penetration with him. He leans over and grabs the other toy from the end table, spitting on it and spreading it around until it's covered well.

“Use them both, want you to cum for me.”

With two toys in your hands, one in your cunt, filling you up, and one on your clit, making your legs shake, you do your best to make yourself cum. But it’s not enough. A soft whine falls from your lips, you’re so close, but you need more. More than you can give yourself.

“Faster baby, faster. You’re so close.” He whispers. He got both hands working now too, one stroking and one down tugging on his balls. 

You whimper, “I can’t my arm hurts. It’s tired.”

Immediately he stops pleasing himself and gets right to pleasing you. Your pleasure taking priority. “Shh, don’t worry, I’ll help you baby.”

Jeongguk sits between your legs, and takes over the toy fucking into you, and turns up the one on your clit. With him pushing the toy in at a pace that you couldn’t do yourself, and the other toy vibing your clit incessantly, it takes barely any time at all for you to cum. You were so close already, just needed him to push you over. 

Your legs are shaking and your toes are curling, when you cry out, “Baby, I’m gonna cum.”

“Do it, baby. Wanna watch.” He’s quiet, paying close attention to your body and the reactions he’s helping pull from it. He’s part of the reason why your face looks so pornographic as you finish. He’s part of the reason why your back is arching off of the bed. He’s part of the reason why your toes are curling, and why your legs are shaking, and why your pussy is contracting over the toy he’s still thrusting inside of you, working you through every last second of your orgasm. He reads your body cues, and slows down and pulls it out when you start to come down. You look blissed out, and you bring a hand to your hair and fluff it a little before laughing.

“That was good.” You sigh smiling, and when you look at him an image forms in your head, and you have every intention of making him carry it out.

Right before your eyes, Jeongguk wraps his lips around the toy that is going to be inside of him in just a short while, sucking off your slick. He laps his tongue around it trying to get it all. He’s obscene. 

“Gimme,” You say sitting up with an extended hand. 

He pouts at being interrupted, but does as he’s told. He takes your spot on the bed, and you head to the bathroom, stopping by your dresser on the way.

When you get to the bathroom, you close the door and get to cleaning the toys once again. After, you get to the stuff you grabbed from the wardrobe. A lacy pair of black panties, and sheer black thigh highs with matching lace adorning the tops. You slip into them, and then move on to the strap on. You hold it in front of you and try to make sense of which part goes where, and which holes your legs go into. It takes a second, but you get into it, adjusting it so it's nice and snug. Your outfit probably won’t help much with protecting your thighs, but at least the little part above your pussy will be safe. You look at yourself in the mirror. Not too weird or scary yet. You glance at the dildo on the counter.

It’s not too big so hopefully it’s not too… jarring when you see yourself with it. You get to work, slipping the suction base of the non-vibrating toy into the ring that’s meant to hold it in place. You look at it sticking out from your crotch and take a deep breath before turning to the mirror.

You gasp, before cackling quietly. You knew it was going to be weird. Like you knew. But actually seeing yourself with the whole get up is funny. Right now at least. You know it’s going to be sexy, once you get used to it and into the moment and inside of Jeongguk. You wonder how he’s going to react. Only one way to find out.

While you're walking to your bedroom from the bathroom, the dildo bobs, and you're giggling distractedly until you lift your eyes to let your boyfriend know you're ready. Again you’re met with a scene so indecent it belongs in a porno.

Jeongguk’s eyes are closed and soft moans are falling from his lips as he strokes his cock. He’s got three fingers in his ass, opening himself up for you, for your cock. Such a good good boy. He was so patient and productive while you got ready for him.

“You’re so good baby,” You murmur softly.

Jeongguk blinks his eyes open slowly, and rolls his head to the side to look at you. He doesn’t even falter in his movements at all, hand still moving, fingers still thrusting. He smiles a little when he sees you, but his eyes are hazy and he sounds lust drunk when he simply says, “You look sexy.”

You blush and a fond smile graces your lips, any embarrassment or self consciousness you were feeling prior to seeing him spread out for you on your bed, quickly vanishing.

You settle on the bed between his legs and watch for a moment as his hole takes his long fingers in. “Want me to help?” You ask quietly.

“Mhmm,” He nods, eyes closed still, tongue peeking out from between his lips. He doesn’t take his fingers out, though.

You grab the lube next to him, and flip it open. “You gonna get out so I can get in?” 

He shakes his head. “Nuh uh. Put one in with mine.”

Something about that makes your body tingle. Inside of him with him. Opening him up. You can’t explain it, because you don’t really even get it yourself, but it makes you buzz and feel almost high.

You slick up your middle finger, and drizzle some more on his for good measure. He jumps slightly, and then giggles softly.

“Cold.” He says.

“Sorry,” You say distractedly. Your finger is lined up with his now.

“I’ve never done 4 before so you… have to go slow…” He pauses as he speaks, letting himself moan freely when his fingers graze over that secret spot that he’s grown to love so much.

“Tell me to stop if you need to.”

He doesn’t reply, just stops his fingers so you can wiggle yours in next to his. At the first push against his hole, there’s resistance. Very much expected. He’s quiet, teeth gritted, but he never says stop, knowing his body wants it, and knowing it will accommodate what he wants. After the second knuckle, your finger sinks in, almost gets sucked in, by his hole.

He lets out a shaky breath.

“You okay, baby?” You check in.

“Yeah just… full.” He moans when you wiggle your finger experimentally. “”S good. Move it some more.”

You do, and his start to move with yours. You can feel his fingers curl inside of himself to reach his prostate, and it’s pleasant in an out of body way, knowing when his face is going to contort in pleasure, and when he’s going to cry out, when you never really knew before. You’ve milked him before, of course, but feeling him do it to himself from the inside? It’s kind of thrilling.

“Pull, stretch me out.” He moans, voice impatient and needy.

He gets kinda slutty when something’s up his ass.

He swears when you do, his finger rubbing insistent circles on his prostate to distract himself from the minor sting of the stretch. His moans, start to raise in pitch and his hand that’s on his cock, still jerking it, starts to speed up. You can tell he’s close. He clenches against your finger that’s still stretching him open.

“Fuck,” He says, on a breathless giggle, “Take them out. Or I’m gonna cum.” He’s still stroking his cock, like he doesn’t wanna stop.

“You c-” 

“No. Out.” He demands, hand finally pulling away from his cock, and his fingers inside stop. You gently ease out of him.

When Jeongguk’s fingers slip out, you gasp. His little pink hole is clenching on nothing, still open just the tiniest bit, thoroughly stretched.

“You know how you always say my pussy is pretty?” You ask, fingers tracing around the puffy stretched rim.

He makes an affirmative noise, watching you with hooded, lazy eyes as you touch him. He even spreads farther so you can touch and see better. You marvel at the difference between the embarrassed boy you made cum untouched a couple months ago, and the one in front of you now, so comfortable and relaxed. It makes you happy.

“Well, your butthole is pretty.”

He snorts, and kicks you lightly. He smiles at you, soft and sluggish. “Just fuck me.” 

He sounds so wistful and just ready.

But you’re not.

You grip the base of your cock, and stand up. You walk to the head of the bed, next to his confused face. You stay there waiting for him to get it. He doesn’t.

“You want me inside of you right baby?” You ask, voice gentle.

He nods, eyes no longer hazy, but wide and confused. He looks between you and your cock.

“I think that means you have to get me ready. Get me nice and wet, right?”

You can physically see when Jeongguk gets it. When it clicks for him. His eyes darken, and he licks his lips. “Yeah… You’re right. I should… help you.” He whispers, sitting up. You back up enough for him to have a place on the floor.

Jeongguk on his knees for you isn’t a new sight. He’s eaten your pussy like this before, you either grinding onto his face, or him holding you still and making quick work of your clit. But Jeongguk on his knees for you to suck your cock? New, and lewd. 

He looks nervous, kind of hesitant. A hand is raised midway, like he isn't sure if he should grab it. 

“Lick it, baby.” You encourage.

He glances at you, doe eyes seeking approval as he leans forward and gives a kitten lick to the tip. You nod, letting him know he’s doing well. His hand comes up and replaces yours at the base and he opens his mouth enough to wrap his lips around the head, and he swirls his tongue.

He pops off, and strokes up to where his mouth was and spreads the little bit of spit. The silicone is still dry though, so he spits on it more, straight from his mouth. You suck in a breath.

“Fuck, you’re so hot baby.” You whisper a breathy moan as his hands move up and down your cock. He adds his mouth again.

He hums a little, before backing up and looking at you again. “Does that feel good?” He asks.

You laugh lightly, in pure awe of him. He’s so sexy, and so sweet, and so incredibly lust inducing. Your pussy aches behind your cock. “Feels so good, baby. You’re doing so good.”

He hums, still stroking you off. “I really want it inside me…” He says, hinting that he’s ready.

You have mercy on him, having fulfilled your newfound personal fantasy enough for the night. Maybe you could revisit it another time. But now it was time to fulfill a mutual fantasy.

“On the bed, hands and knees.” You tell him.

Excitedly he hops back onto the bed, and gets into position, his hole on display for you. His back is arched and you can see the plush swell where his lower back meets the top of his cheeks. You settle behind him, and his shoulder to waist to hip ratio, is sinful. He’s always had the daintiest waist, strong, but still so small. But at this angle, it’s cinched and the way his legs are spread makes his hips look wider, accentuating the dip at his middle. You rub your hands over the narrow curve, all the way to his cheeks, grabbing handfuls of the muscle. There’s a slight give when you squeeze your hands.

Jeongguk’s head drops, and he lets out a shuddering sigh, he’s got the chills again, and he’s got a constant thrum coursing through his body. “Please…” He moans, so quietly, so desperately.

You kiss the small of his back before grabbing the lube left abandoned on the bed. You lather 2 of your fingers, and push them into Jeongguk’s hole making sure he’s nice and slick. There’s no resistance at all, hole loose and ready enough for them to slip right in. Then you lather your cock, probably with too much lube, honestly, but you wanted to be so sure that he didn’t feel any more pain than absolutely necessary. You knew the first initial push in would be the worst, but you were hopeful you both had stretched him out enough to at least minimize or diminish it altogether. 

You grab the base of your cock and line it up with his hole. It flutters, when you barely press against his rim.

“Ready?” You ask, giving a heads up.

“Yeah.” He says softly.

He’s tight. His hole sinks in with the tip of your cock before the rim gives and swallows around it. Jeongguk tenses and his hands grip the blanket under you. 

“Shit…” He groans. He sounds like he’s clenching his teeth.

You rub soothingly at his lower back, fingers dipping when you run them over the dimples at the bottom of his spine. “You’re doing so good baby.” You tell him.

“Doesn’t really hurt, I’m just stretching.” He says through his teeth. “I can take it though, keep going.”

You grab the lube and drizzle more directly onto his hole. He doesn’t mention the cold this time, too focused on taking your cock. You push against him, and feel yourself sink deeper into him. It’s like after the tip was in, his body knew what to do to take the rest. The slide wasn’t a swift, fast stroke, but it was a smooth and slow glide. When you bottom out Jeongguk’s arms give out from under him, his face going to the bed. 

“Holy fuck.” He keens, resting his head on his arms. Your hands are constantly on him, soothing him in any way that you can.

“Tell me when.” You whisper patiently. He nods. With his head turned to the side and pillowed on his arms, you can see his eyes are squeezed shut. The inhales and exhales you can see in the expanding of his ribcage, tell you that he’s taking deep breaths working through the stretch, getting himself used to it.

“Okay… Ready.” He murmurs.

You pull out just a bit before pushing back in. Jeongguk moans softly. Spreads his legs even wider, arches his back even deeper. He’s pushing his ass out for you, his body begging you to make it feel good.

You keep a slow pace, kind of nervous to speed up. 

“You can go faster, feels nice.” He says. He’s been puffing out little gasps of air every time you bottom out with your slow pace.

With his consent, you grab at his hips and pull out to just the tip, before swiftly pushing back in, fast and hard. His cheeks bounce on the impact. You grab one and jiggle it a little, thrusting into him again, drinking down the whines that slip out.

“You’ve got such a bubble butt, I never noticed before. But it like… bounces.” You say, wonder in your tone. 

“Thanks, can you like tell me about it later?” He asks, voice strained.

Point taken. 

Your thrust game is kind of shitty, in reality. It’s hard to find a rhythm, your hips not used to moving this way. But Jeongguk is moaning freely underneath you, just happy to have something inside of him after thinking about it all week. So you keep going, and eventually, the pattern comes to you, still kind of messy, but now you’ve got him cursing beneath you. You’ve got one hand on his ass, the other braced on his arched spine.

A particularly good thrust has Jeongguk burying his face into the bed, teeth biting at the bedding. “Yeah fuck-” He groans with his mouth full of blanket. With his hands now free, he brings them behind him and settles them on his cheeks and spreads.

You watch clearly as your cock sinks into Jeongguk’s ass. You’re out of breath, but you make sure to tell him how good he looks, how pretty his hole looks swallowing your cock, like it was made to take it.

“Wanna ride you.” He says. His voice is pitifully wrecked and he sounds so thoroughly fucked, you feel a little proud. Still, you’re grateful for a break. You don’t know how he fucks you like he does. ‘Topping’ is tiring. You pull out of him, and realize that when you were in awe of his hole at taking your fingers, it was premature. Jeongguk’s hole after he takes your cock is vulgar. It’s properly gaped now. Not huge, but around a fingers width.

He rolls over, and settles on his back like he just needs a moment. His chest is heaving, similar to yours. You hop off the bed, and a needy keen comes from him. You glance back at him, and he looks like he’s going to get up and follow you, but you hush him gently.

“I’m just getting some water, baby. I’ll be right back.” 

He huffs flopping back onto his back. “Hurry please.” He whines.

You get back as soon as possible with a glass of water for you both to share. He sits up onto one elbow and makes a grabby hand for the cup after you’ve had your share. You swat his hand away and hold the cup to his lips. He hums, gulping the water down. He’s happy to be coddled and taken care of. When he finishes with a cute little gasp, you place the cup to the side, and brush your hand through his sweaty hair. 

He butts his head against your palm and laughs. His eyes shut, and crinkled at the corners. His water break seems to have perked him up. His cock hasn’t deflated one bit. Rock hard and red, throbbing against his tummy. It’s messy and wet too.

You’re about to ask if he touched himself while you were inside of him, but before you can, you’re getting manhandled until he’s on top of you. He’s got your hands pinned above your head, and he smiles at you playfully, before leaning down to kiss you, deep and slow. He sucks on your lip, and slowly grinds his cock onto your belly, soft whines spilling from his tongue. He brushes his nose against yours as he sighs into your mouth, finally allowing himself the pleasure of paying attention to his cock. 

He doesn’t allow himself relief for long, however. He’s sitting up and looking from side to side for the lube before finally spotting it. His movements are quick and hectic, like he’s too excited and overly eager.

You rub your hands over his strong thighs. “Hey, slow down. You don’t have to rush. We have all night.”

He sighs at your touch, and nods softly. He whispers. “Yeah… okay. I love you.”

The little affection makes you swoon, absolutely smitten. “I love you.” You squeeze at his legs, tenderly.

He hums. “Gonna ride you now.” He opens the lube and continues with eager actions, almost like you didn’t even slow him down just a moment ago. You smile fondly to yourself. Jeongguk’s too busy slicking up your cock again to notice the mushy look.

He’s got a hand reaching behind him and he’s gripping your cock to line it up with his hole. He wiggles to get into the right position before slowly starting to sink down. His eyebrows are pinched, and his mouth falls open. But his eyes roll back when he bottoms out. His hands are braced on your stomach.

“Oh, I love it like this.” He whimpers. His legs tense at your sides, almost like he’s trying to close his legs at the pleasure he feels from your cock being tucked inside of him, hitting all the right places. He starts to grind on your cock, soft pleasured little mewls just tumbling off his tongue.

He looks so good, whining, grinding on you with his weeping cock displayed. But you wanna see him lose it on your cock. See him fall apart at how good it feels, not watch him bask in it.

“Bounce on it.” You say, voice sounding almost as fucked out as his. You know your panties are soaked through at this point, pussy pulsing and neglected, tucked away behind the strap.

Jeongguk nods. “Yeah, wanna.” 

He’s lifting himself off your cock to the tip before sliding down on it again, hard and fast. It punches a sharp gasp from his lungs. He finds a pace he likes and keeps it up, his thighs tensing, and his abs flexing as he tests his stamina, chasing that euphoric feeling he wants so so badly. He’s so strong and fit, bouncing up and down on your cock as loud unabashed moans fill the room. 

The force of him riding you makes your tits jiggle, bouncing around until they catch his attention. He groans before his hands find them, squeezing hard, using them as leverage as he pulls and drags his hips over yours. Your cock must be rubbing over his prostate because he’s losing his mind. All kinds of noises leave his mouth, and the expressions he makes are filthy.

“Fuck baby. You make me feel so good. The best- I-” He eyes squeeze shut and his mouth opens in a silent moan, overwhelmed, before a guttural groan sounds from deep within his chest. “God. Wanna cum on your cock, baby. Fuck me-”

You laugh, wonderstruck, and kind of deliriously high on the satisfaction and fulfillment you get from seeing Jeongguk feel so just…. Good. “Yeah baby? You’re gonna cum for me? All over my cock?”

He whimpers and nods as he gets back to bouncing, a desperation to his movements that wasn’t there before. His cock is slapping against both of your stomachs with nasty wet noises due to his precum getting everywhere. You feel some fly and hit your neck, his cock just dripping, weeping and begging to cum. 

It won’t be long though, before he cums. You feel the way his thighs tense, and he gets that confused look on his face, and he’s got that puzzled pitch to his moans. It’s the way he always gets when he cums untouched, always in awe that he can do it himself, without a hand around his cock. His whole body is flushed and hot to the touch, sweat making him glow in the soft light of your bedroom lamp.

He throws his head back, neck extended, and veins bulging, before looking down at his bouncing cock. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” He’s so whiny and noisy when he moans.

“Yeah?” You ask again, “Do it baby, show me how. You can do it, cum for me.” 

He’s nodding frantically, “Yeah- I’m gonna... Fuck, yes- Yeah, I’m-” He bounces a few more times, silent aside from the obscene squelching noises of your skin meeting, before his body tenses one last time before that string in him snaps. “Cumming-” He chokes it out. His moans don’t stop the whole time his cock shoots out his load, landing on your tummy. The moans even turn into cries, actual tears filling his eyes and falling down his cheeks. His body jerks and twitches with his orgasm. But still, he’s grinding on you, your cock still rubbing that spot inside of him, it’s like he never wants the feeling to end, even if it’s devastating, bordering on too much to handle.

You smooth your hands all over his sweaty body, before firmly placing them on his hips, stopping him. “Hey. You’re good, you did so good baby, you don’t have to keep going.”

Jeongguk’s cries are quiet, and he takes a few deep stuttering breaths to try and calm himself down, nodding with your soothing words. He rubs the back of his hand at his eyes, trying to dry them. It doesn’t help much, he’s calmed himself some but a few silent tears still make their way out, along with some soft hiccupping breaths.

“Lay down, and wait for me, hmm?” You whisper gently. He nods and lifts himself slowly, wincing at the sore ache in his hole. It’s more prevalent now that the pleasure has subsided. He all but collapses onto your pillow. 

“I’m gonna get some more water, and a towel okay?”

He grunts in response.

Before you go, you strip out of the gear, just tossing it on the ground, eager to get back to Jeongguk after getting the things you need.

When you get back, he is in the same exact position, and you laugh lightly. 

“Baby?” You ask, making sure he didn’t fall asleep.

Another grunt.

Good, he would hate you in the morning if you left him to sleep being so messy.

“Sit up, I have water and snacks and cleaning supplies.”

His head pops up. “Snacks?” His hair is sticking up on one side.

You laugh, endeared. He’s not crying anymore either, a good sign that he will be okay in just a little while after some kisses and love.

“Yeah, I got some of those seaweed chips you like, and some water.”

He sits up, leaning back on the pillows knowing the drill for after butt stuff. You hand him the water and the chips. He eats first.

“You hungry?” You ask, fitting yourself between his legs with the warm washcloth. He opens easily, munching away. You both are far past after sex shyness.

He talks with his mouth full. “Yeah. Jimin said not to eat the day off.”

You hum curiously, but don’t question it. Jimin partakes in butt stuff much more than you both. 

You’ve got all the lube cleaned off his thighs and cheeks, now all that’s left is his hole. You do it as gently as you can, knowing he’s sore just from how red and swollen and puffy it is.  But he still winces.

“How bad is it?” He mumbles.

You hesitate. “Um… You’re gonna be a little sore.” You tell him simply.

He groans, before downing his water. When he’s done, he says, “Practice is going to suck.”

You nod in agreement. It was. You wrap the used cloth in the blanket you used to protect your sheets, once again just tossing the bundle to the floor.

“Worth it though,” He smiles, pleased.

You chuckle as you find your place by him. He’s set his refreshments aside and lets you curl against him. His body sags with exhaustion when he feels your warmth press into him. You plant kisses on every inch of skin you can reach. He purrs.

“Why’d you keep going?” You ask, between smooches.

“I don’t know… it just felt so good. I guess I didn’t want it to stop.” He’s quiet, and his words are said on a sigh.

You nod, your kisses making your way to his lips. You just kiss him, slow and easy, for a few minutes until he yawns into it. He giggles.

“I’m so tired man.”

“I bet man.” You tease.

He kisses you one more time before asking, “Will you tickle my back until I fall asleep?” It’s hopeful and so sugary sweet.

“Yeah roll over.”

It’s barely a few minutes before you're met with his soft snores. You kiss his shoulder blade, before following right behind him.

~~~~

you ask for pegging and you shall receive :] i hope you liked it and that it met ur pegging standards askdkhjd as always, comments and feedback and asks and notes are loved and appreciated. thank you for reading friends ily :* 

[foli-vora]

more than words, pt.2

A/N: Really wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction to pt.1 so thank you all so much for your likes, reblogs, kind words and support! I had a few requests to make a taglist so I’ve done it at the bottom - let me know if you’d like to be added! (and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone) so - on with the show!

Summary: The one person who you thought would be happy for you finally getting with someone decent was your best friend. After all, he had set you both up. Who would’ve thought he’d be the reason it all falls apart?

Pairing: best friend!Benny Miller/f!reader, Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales/f!reader

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: swearing

pt.1 / pt.3 / pt.4 / pt.5 / pt.6

+++

You startle when your phone vibrates on the coffee table, the sudden and abrupt noise of it quick to drag your attention away from the true crime documentary playing across your TV screen. You eye it from your spot on the couch, so far, yet only a mere reach away if you could be bothered to stretch the distance. Your eyes fall back to the TV, happy to just ignore it and address it when you eventually have to move from the cocoon of blankets and pillows you’ve surrounded yourself with, but when the reminder alert sounds two minutes after receiving it, a small voice in the back of your head pipes up, saying it could be something important and you sigh tiredly.

The effort to move pulls a low groan from you and you stretch out, snatching the device from the table and back into the warmth before you could tumble onto the floor and really have something to grumble about.

Hey Benny’s mystery girl, how’s your night going?

The text sends flutters through your stomach, your hands immediately clamming up with a brief wave of nerves. This was the guy that Benny was setting you up with – an apparent very close friend and someone who clearly meant a lot to him. Why did you feel so much pressure to make a good impression?

Blankets, cushions and crime show now forgotten, you straighten up and let your fingers hover over the keypad in contemplation.

Do you play it cool? Act like you have a brimming social life, full of fun and endless options, and are not currently sat at home on a Friday night in your pyjamas watching Netflix, eating an excessive amount of snacks? No. No, you shouldn’t put a false image out there. Honesty is the best policy.

Hey yourself mystery fish. It’s a nice and relaxed night on my end, how about yours?

You leave it at that, briefly wondering if you should quickly chuck your phone on airplane mode, delete the message before it could go through and start again.

Did it sound boring? Is that the kind of image you were throwing out there? Maybe you should’ve acted like you were at least doing something productive. But then… what if Benny was there to call you out on your bullshit, knowing you literally have nothing better to do? He’d gladly do it, too.

You roll your eyes at yourself, wondering why you even cared what this mystery man thought about you and your weekend rituals when you had literally never even met. You were who you were, and that was that. If he didn’t like it, then he could take his handsome face and pretty brown eyes elsewhere.

I’m jealous. Stuck out with the guys and all I can think about is sleeping.

Scratch that. Maybe he was a man after your own heart, after all. A picture of a tray of tequila shots and lemons wedges comes through, another text quickly following which had you giggling quietly to yourself –

I’m too old for this shit.

You grin at your screen, opening your camera and snapping a quick picture of your blanket covered legs, snack covered coffee table and bright TV screen before sending it with a little smirking emoji. You’re not disappointed when he replies almost immediately.

Now I’m really jealous – are those Doritos?

Nacho cheese!

The one and only acceptable flavour. Is that Forensic Files? I binged the shit out of that the other day!

OMG it’s so good!

-

Surprisingly, your eyes didn’t feel as heavy as you thought they would when your alarm drags you from sleep the next morning. You could even say you were looking forward to waking up, which was not how your Saturday mornings usually played out.

Immediately you reach over for your phone and unlock it, smiling like an idiot at the Home safe :) text waiting for you. You chew your lip as you scroll through the many bubbles of conversation, stomach twisting in delight as you re-read through the topics you managed to bounce through in the few hours of texting before you had to call it quits at 2:14am and send a final – Goodnight Frankie x

You had paced your apartment after that, ringing your hands together anxiously and eyeing the clock as the seconds ticked past, scowling at your reflection in the mirror as you took your worries out on your teeth, scrubbing them much harder than necessary. Was a kiss too much? Is it too early for that kind of thing? You had only literally just started talking. Should you quickly text and say it was an accident? It’s not like you can say you sent it to the wrong person – the message had his fucking name in it.

The sound you made when you got a – Sweet dreams mystery girl x – in return wasn’t even remotely human and the words swirled around your head long after you fell asleep.

The reservations you had originally developed on being set up, yet again, quickly dissipated the longer you and Frankie exchanged messages. There had been no awkward block of nothing between texts, no dragging up mediocre subjects to keep the conversation rolling… it had just flowed so effortlessly, so naturally – something which had never happened before with Benny’s previous candidates. The only other candidate that you had managed to have a comfortable conversation with was Will, and that was only after you had both agreed that there was no attraction between the two of you.

Over text, Frankie seemed funny – quick witted and sarcastic – and often had you snorting into your drink over a comment or joke made at his own or his friends’ expenses. No, you weren’t even remotely hesitant about this anymore. If anything, your evening of conversation just made you that much more eager to meet him.

It’s much later in the day when you finally message him, having kept the temptation to message him at bay while you tidied up, keeping it short and sweet with a, How’s the head? You chew your lip, eyes flicking over the message with thoughtful eyes before quickly tagging a little kiss on the end and pressing send. Not even two minutes later, your phone goes off on the coffee table and the clammy hands return tenfold when you read over the message a good fifteen times.

Can I call?

Shit. Shit. He wants to call? And like… talk? With voices? What if you stutter? Choke? Oh god, your throat’s dry. It’s dry – how can you talk with a dry throat? You can’t. Fuck. Fuck. Drink – you need a drink –

You quickly run to the kitchen, filling a glass of water and swallowing it down as quickly as you could, not at all caring that it half spills down your chin and onto your jumper. You gasp for air when you finish, slamming the glass down and catching the drips of water from your chin with the back of your hand. You slide across your floor as you run back out to your couch and grab your phone, typing a quick reply.

Yeah sure.

Too casual. Was that too casual? Should you have added a kiss? Shit – it’s already sent. It’s fine. It’s fine. He asked a short question, and he got a short answer. It makes sense. It’s fine. You yelp when your phone starts to vibrate in your hand, his contact name flashing across the screen.

Oh God.

Oh God.

He’s calling. He’s somewhere out there, phone to his ear, waiting for you to answer and you’re what – standing in your lounge and looking at your phone, watching it ring, like an idiot? What are you doing?

You inhale deeply, clearing your throat a little before swiping the green icon.

“Hi,”

Oh God, what was that? What was that tone?

“Hey. Sorry – looking at my phone screen and trying to reply was making my eyes feel like they’re exploding.”

His voice is deep, hoarse from his night of drinking, and overwhelmingly pleasant to listen to. It brings a flush of warmth across your cheeks, an electric tingle across your skin.

You laugh softly, “It’s alright. Tequila wasn’t a good idea, then?”

He grunts quietly and your stomach tightens, throat suddenly dry again at the suggestive sound.

“It never is.” He groans, melting into a long yawn and you start to feel a little guilty. Did your text wake him up?

“I’m sorry, I should let you sleep –”

“No! No, it’s fine. I uh – I really want to talk to you… if you’re not busy.” He adds onto the end, almost nervously. 

“I’m not busy,” you reassure quietly, smiling shyly down at your lap. “I’m all yours.”

He chuckles lowly, and the sound settles deep in your belly, “Good.”

You don’t understand how conversation could just be so... easy with someone you’ve never met. For a brief moment, you worry you might be talking too much, maybe boring him, but when he keeps asking questions, encourages you to continue, you think that maybe he doesn’t mind, maybe he actually is just interested in what you’re saying.

When dinner comes around, you’re in a fit of giggles as you prepare your food, listening to pots and pans bang and clash on the other end as Frankie prepares his own meal. You cook together, eat together, and then settle in front of Netflix together, debating back and forth on what to watch. The evening melts into night, one movie turns into two, and eventually conversation dies down.

Sometime in the night, you roll over, briefly waking to fix and fluff the pillow under your head when a sound makes you pause. Your head jerks up and you look around, finding yourself sprawled across the couch, and a blanket twisted around your legs.

Glancing over to your phone to check the time, you touch the screen and blink in surprise when you see your phone call is still connected with Frankie, who’s quiet on the other end. You move to press the red button but freeze when a soft snore sounds from the device, and a warm flood of affection grows in your heart and spreads throughout your chest.

He’s asleep.

You listen a moment longer, smiling tenderly when more quiet snores reach your ears. Instead of hanging up, you bring the phone closer, tucking it just beside your pillow before laying your head back down and closing your eyes, letting the quiet breathing soothe you back to sleep.

If the strong butterflies turning your stomach were anything to go by, you were in serious trouble.

+

Tags: @anu-simps @seasonschange-butpeopledont @withasideofmeg @you-got-me-starry-eyed @emilykjh​ @peterhollandkait​ @sara-alonso​ @starlightsearches​ @bookishofalder​ @empress-palpat1ne​ @shadowolf993​ @rosiefridayrogersunday​ @canyonmirrors​ @eoz-stuff​ @blackonemasie​ @layniapetrovnaaa​

[tinyyoungblood]

ugliest, strangest, and most magnificent | p.parker

➭ headcanon

summary: the avengers and their handwriting

pairing: peter parker x avenger!reader

warnings: language, mention of suicide letter, pure chaos and crack

a/n: none of these are canon, i’m just having too much fun. but i promise i’m still working on a proper fic lol enjoy x

hc masterlist

* * *

right off the bat, peter’s handwriting is awful. let’s not kid ourselves, that boy is a genius and could not care less about how his notes look like. it’s like he has taken on a very personal quest to compete with every doctor in the country to see who can be the most incoherent. it’s scary

it’s so bad that no one even asks peter for his class notes anymore because, well, for one thing, that boy barely attends classes, and for another, trying to make out what it says will blind you and permeate your eyelids

it is worse than staring death in the face (source: “still horrified and sad” loki)

y/n is probably the only person who can read peter’s medical shorthand. she has absolutely zero (0) problems reading it and the avengers are BAFFLED

she can pick up peter’s notebooks and read them aloud like they’re typed in double spaced 12 pt. times new roman

no she will not explain how or why

this one time, peter helped morgan make really ~extravagant~ christmas cards with glitter and fake snow (it was GREAT) but since she’s like 4 and can’t write, he wrote sweet little words inside the cards for her and then gave it to tony and steve

tony, with tears in his eyes: “this is beautiful, thank you. i’ve never seen anything more beautiful”

steve, whispering: “your eyes are burning too, right?” “i can’t even tell if it’s nonsensical symbols or witchcraft???”

tony’s handwriting is surprisingly neat? like, actually…quite nice

no one really knows why, but he has this thing where the letters just have to be the same size, on a straight line, and tilting at the same angle otherwise he will have a nervous breakdown and fight you in the nearest parking lot (as you do when being confronted with any inconvenience as a grown adult and avenger)

but because that is too stressful, tony barely writes down anything. ever. he just tells F.R.I.D.A.Y. to set a reminder and calls it a day. last time he picked up a pen was in 2009 and that was just because he couldn’t reach an itching spot on his back

the one time he does write something down though, hell breaks loose

“wait is tony holding a pen?” “tony are you writing? am i seeing things? are you ok—are you dying?? let me get the others DON’T MOVE” *distant crashing sound* “gUYS—”

two seconds later, everyone is huddled around tony, straining their necks, and trying to get a glimpse at his little piece of paper

“what do you think it is? a love letter?” “maybe a heartfelt complaint” “probably a plan for world domination” “he’s got those on flash drives, it’s a suicide note” “it’s a grocery list. fuck you guys”

thor has the handwriting of a little child

it’s precious. it makes all his letters and postcards from Out Of Space™️ look like they were written using the comic sans font. he also adds an excessive amount of stardust. it’s wonderful

steve’s handwriting is your typical average jo. he’s an ~artist~ and he is american so he mainly writes in capital letters because he thinks it’s Patriotic and Aesthetically Pleasing

he’s also the only one who will pick up the newspaper in the morning, but it’s mainly because of the crossword puzzles because!! boy oh boy!! he LOVES them!!

he thinks they are SPLENDID and MIND STIMULATING and even though he does have the brains for it, sometimes there are gaps that he just can’t fill, so he writes down anything in fat capital block letters and casually thrusts it in other people’s faces

then he runs off so no one can see his actual answers like cardi b being a jeopardy star

bucky barnes has the handwriting of a founding father

the others find out about this because y/n had asked him to write down a recipe for her since she had broken her arm, so he did, but she just never had the chance to look at it

until one day, y/n whips out that recipe out in the kitchen and peter is standing behind her

“is that……the constitution??”

it’s not, but bucky really got into calligraphy when he was in wakanda. at first, he only did it for fun during his free time with the goats

but now he feels confident in his cursive and doesn’t see why he shouldn’t use it daily

and the more bucky practices, the more he ~dresses up~ his letters

so what starts out as readable-to-the-average-person cursive turns into what looks like 9 loops and random swirls of hell

he LOVES it

and the avengers can tell that he loves it so they keep making up excuses for him to write out stuff for them just to see the little glint in his eyes

“bucky, can you sign this for me?” “why?” “no reason” “peter, i’m not your legal guardian? aunt may has to sign this” “just write down her name” “what??” “i can see you want to. just do it” *proceeds to happily forge signature*

it doesn’t even matter that everyone kinda struggles to read bucky’s pretentious cursive. it’s beautiful. and if you squint really hard, you’ll get the gist

“y/n, bucky left me a sticky note that just says punk. do you know why?” “does it matter? it looks like a prop from a period drama. frame it”

the only person who’s not impressed by bucky’s handwriting is tony alias mr. practical

tony needs everyone to fill out some forms and while handing them out, he looks bucky directly in the eyes to say “and make sure us peasants can read it”

but one day, when tony’s sick and stuck in his room, peter and y/n have the idea to make a little card for tony to wish him a speedy recovery and everyone has to sign it and write a little message

so that’s how tony ends up with the ugliest, strangest, and most magnificent card the world has ever seen. ~handmade~ by the avengers

there’s stardust, and glitter, and neon paint, and a clash of 20 very distinctive and one-of-a-kind handwritings

tony tries to brush it off, but to this day it may or may not still be on his night stand at all times so he can look at it every night before going to bed <3

* * *

am i going to make a series out of this even tho no one asked for it? yes. yes, i am. i hope you guys like reading them just as much as i like writing them bc i’m not going to stop lol thanks for reading! stay hydrated <3

[hiatus-for-forever]

Kinktober 2020 ~ BNHA & Haikyuu!!

Hello, my first Kinktober is here! I’m going to do BNHA and Hq alternate between days like an author I follow but I’ll tag later

Sorry for the inactivity my body is shutting down and I can’t get anything done but I will post this cuz everyone else is. Maybe change some of these but I hope not.

Edit: I made small edits here and there but I switched the original day 8 and 10

EDIT : School’s a bitch and I will finish this when it calms down, for now I’ll unpin it and maybe post random drafts or reblog here and there

Day 1: Kaminari Denki; Sleepy sex Also includes: Quirk play, dry humping, wet dreams,  intercrural sex

Day 2: Sawamura Daichi; Exhibitionism Also includes: Dirty talk, Captain Kink,Karasuno Gangbang pt.1

Day 3: Bakugou Katsuki + Kirishima Eijirou; Rape play Also includes: Excessive amounts of cum, Breeding kink, roleplay TW: Rape, noncon

Day 4: Sugawara Koushi; Creampie Also includes: Praise, Karasuno Gangbang pt.2

Day 5: Midoriya Izuku; Overstimulation Also includes: Quirk play, multiple orgasms

Day 6: Hinata Shoyo + Kageyama Tobio; First times Also includes: Spitroasting, blowjob, doggystyle, Karasuno Gangbang pt.3

Day 7: Todoroki Shoto; Temperature play Also includes: Light bondage, blindfolding

Day 8: Tsukishima Kei; Dumbification Also includes: Begging, Karasuno Gangbang pt.4

Day 9: Shindo Yo; Public sex Also includes: Quirk play, forced orgasm

Day 10: Yamaguchi Tadashi; Breastfeeding kink Also includes: Handjob, Karasuno Gangbang pt. 5

Day 11: Iida Tenya; Spanking Also includes: Sir kink

Day 12: Azumane Asahi; Hair pulling Also includes: Riding, Karasuno Gangbang pt.6

Day 13: Sero Hanta; Suspension Also includes: Corruption

Day 14: Tanaka Ryunnosuke; Biting/marking Also includes: Riding, Karasuno Gangbang pt.7

Day 15: Monoma Neito; Sex pollen Also includes: Slight!Degredation

Day 16: NIshinoya Yuu + Slight!Ennoshita Chikara; Fingering Also includes: Cum eating, Karasuno Gangbang pt.8 (final)

Day 17: Aizawa Shota; Pet play Also includes: Quirk play

Day 18: Miya Atsumu; Drunk Sex Also includes: Slight!Yan themes

Day 19: Kan Sekijiro; Stuck in a wall Also includes: Teasing, Slight!Humiliation

Day 20: Tendo Satori; Panty thievery Also includes: Dirty talk 

Day 21: Amajiki Tamaki: Size kink Also includes: Praise

Day 22: Kozume Kenma; Toys Also includes: Mutual Masturbations

Day 23: Togata Mirio; Vouyerism Also includes: Quirk play

Day 24: Haiba Lev; Glasses kink Also includes: Semi public sex

Day 25: Takami Keigo; Costumes Also includes: Slapping (face)

Day 26: Bokuto Kotaro; 69 Also includes: Face sitting

Day 27: Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu; Squirting Also includes: Dirty talk, Slight!Overstim

Day 28: Kyotani Kentarou; Edging Also includes: Daddy Kink 

Day 29: Shigaraki Tomura; Choking Also includes: Fear play

Day 30: Miya Osamu; Anal Also includes: Almost getting caught

Day 31: Shinsou Hitoshi; Hate sex Also includes: Fuck or die

[streetlight11]

Nets and Bandaids | pt 3 (final)

Summary: They were the strongest members in their respective teams and everyone looked up to them. Except, they could never seem to get along. One day when an incident happened during the seasonal championship, that changed everything between them.

Theme: University au, volleyball players au, enemies to lovers

Genre: fluff

WC: 2.6k

Pairing: Lee Minho x Reader

~~~

Part 1 || Part 2

The next day came and it was a Thursday morning. Y/N entered her morning class in which she happened to share with Seungmin. She took a seat beside him and had just taken out her laptop when both her phone and his, dinged at the same time. It was their group chat.

Just as she was about to reply in the group chat, she received a text from Minho privately. She opened his chat only to see him ask if she was going to the said party. With that being said, she texted him a response.

And then 5 seconds later, the group chat started sounding again.

With that, you couldn’t help but smile as you closed the chat when your lecturer walked in.

That weekend came in a flash as Chan, Changbin, Jisung, Mina and Yeri had met up earlier in the day to prepare the pool party at Chan’s family home. Mina and Jisung went to buy a lot of buffet cuisines while Yeri went to get snacks with Changbin.

Chan tidied the house and prepared some games they could play in the pool and also in the house such as water volleyball, board games, card games etc.

The rest of them either came on their own or together in a bunch. Y/N needed to run errands before heading off to Chan’s house so she was alone. When she arrived at the house, 12 out of 15 people were already there excluding herself. Those who still have yet to arrive were Jihyo, Hyunjin and Minho.

Y/N was still in her sweatpants and crop top as she stood by the snacks counter only to grab herself the big bottle of green tea and a plastic cup. However, she realized there were no ice cubes so she turned around just in time for Chan to top up the chips right beside her.

“Chan ah, do you have ice?” She asked.

“Oh, yeah. They’re in the freezer. The kitchen is down the hall to the left.” He said, pointing towards the right side of the house where there was a hallway.

She thanked him, proceeding to excuse herself. She entered his beautiful house, mindlessly admiring the interior of his family home only to make it in the big kitchen. She went over to the fridge only to open the freezer.

She was just letting the ice cubes plop into the cup when she flinched upon hearing a familiar voice coming from behind the freezer door.

“Hoarding the ice?” A soft chuckle accompanied his speech as she peeked past the door, only to see Minho walking closer to her with a very soft smile on his face.

“Was planning to until you mentioned it. Want some?” She asked, seeing him nod while stretching his hand out where he was holding a cup of lemon tea in his hand. After they were done, she was about to go back to join the others when Minho grabbed a hold of her wrist gently.

“How’s your lower abdomen? Does it still hurt?” He asked genuinely concerned.

“Occasionally it still does but it’s not a terrible pain.”

Minho slowly nodded as the room fell silent, both suddenly shy from the small little cuddle they had that night in the bus. Ever since that day, neither of them really acknowledged it properly even though the rest of them already knew about it since the 5 kids couldn’t keep their mouth shut. 

But even so, both of them weren’t bothered by the fact that their friends saw it. They just didn't know how to acknowledge the situation to each other. With that being said, he decided to break the ice first.

“We should probably head back before those minions start to have weird ass thoughts.” 

“Yeah, we really should…” She said with a light giggle. They both made their way back to the backyard. Jihyo, Mina, Jisoo and Jennie unfortunately couldn’t join them in the pool due to their monthly mother nature calls. Yeri, Lisa and Chungha were already in the pool along with the rest of the guys while Y/N was still seated with the rest of the girls.

“Y/N! Are you on your red light?” Yeri asked with a small pout. The others were now focused on her.

“Umm, n-no?”

“Then what are you doing there? Come here with us!”

Mina beckoned from the other side of the pool as Y/N told her she would join them in a minute. Just then, before she could resume talking to the rest of the girls, she saw Changbin quickly get out of the pool only for Y/N to start running away.

“Seo Changbin! Wait! Let me change at least for God's sake!” Y/N yelled, desperately running around the pool. Changbin however was a tad bit faster as he wrapped his arms around her waist, making her all wet. A shriek left her lips when he lifted her bridal style and soon walked towards the pool.

“Bin ah! Bin ah, wait! Put me down!” She screamed, slapping his chest repeatedly only for the boy to smirk as he stuck his tongue out at her.

“Too late.”

With that, he plunged into the pool with her in his arms, soaking her from head to toe. They resurfaced to gasp for air as she pushed her hair out of her face. She splashed a good amount of water on him in annoyance.

“Seo Changbin! I’m gonna kill you!”

“Hey, I got you in here, noona.”

“I didn’t bring any extra clothes with me, you idiot!”

That’s when his face fell when he realised he fucked up, only for him to apologize as she sighed, knowing she could never be mad at them for too long.

“Oh shit, noona I’m so sorry…” Changbin apologized. She shook her head and told him it was fine before she left the pool.

Minho was silently watching her walk to her bag. She quietly took out her towel and wrapped it around her lower body before she asked Chan where his bathroom was. She took off her sweatpants and squeezed it to get rid of the excess water before hanging it over one of the chairs.

About 15 minutes later, she came back out with a two piece swimsuit and a white see through shirt over it to cover her body since she wasn’t really comfortable with showing her skin openly and a pair of thin shorts.

She hung her wet shirt and towel on the chair before walking over to the pool while tying her hair in a low bun.

“Y/N! Whose team do you wanna join?” Jisung asked as she stared at both sides of the pool.

“Are you guys in your teams already?”

“Not yet but Changbin and Lisa are the captains.” Jisung giggled, making her turn to Lisa with a smile.

“Lalisa? Captain? Wow. I’m impressed.” Y/N teased, earning a laugh from Lisa.

“You can be the captain if you want.” Lisa said, only for Y/N to shake her head.

“No thanks, I’d love to take a break for once.” Y/N said.

Just then, she glanced over only to lock eyes with Minho who was leaning against the wall on the other side of the pool from where she was standing. He had his arms resting on the edge of the pool as he gave her a soft smile, which made her heart pound against her chest. 

This feeling was still foreign to her because she would definitely not feel this way if it was a few months back.

“So, have you made up your mind or should we drag you to one side?” Hyunjin asked with a smirk while Changbin spoke up.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’m taking noona and Minho hyung first.” A smirk appeared on his face as Jisung grabbed Y/N’s hands who was just squatting down on the edge of the pool, dragging her in.

Once she was standing up straight, she couldn’t help but slap Jisung’s chest out of annoyance.

“Can you people stop pulling me in like that? Geez.” She scoffed as she swam past him to go towards the middle while  they started to divide into two teams of 6. Lisa, Mina, Yeri, Jeongin, Chan and Seungmin on one side and Changbin, Minho, Jisung, Hyunjin, Felix and Y/N on the other side.

The game started with them trying their best to move around but the water was making it impossible for them. Y/N’s team was leading with 5 points.

Minho passed the ball to Hyunjin who then passed it behind him where Y/N was and with one swift motion, she launched herself in the air only to dump the ball on their side, earning a solid win.

Her team cheered as Hyunjin and Jisung attacked her with hugs, causing her to submerge underwater. They resurfaced only for Changbin to dive under and soon slot his head in between her legs before he stood up, lifting her on his shoulders. 

A scream escaped her lips as she desperately cling onto Changbin’s hands that were on her thighs.

“Seo Changbin! Put me down!” She screamed. She watched as he tilted his head up with a playful smile dancing on his lips.

“Not yet.” Changbin said.

With that being said, he began to walk around the pool with her on his shoulder before he suggested a game of wrestling.

“Changbin ah, I’m scared…” Y/N whined as he reassured her saying that she’ll be fine and that he won’t make her injured. The game soon started with Yeri on Chan’s shoulder.

“Unnie… I’m sorry.” Yeri said in between laughs as she began to violently push Y/N off Changbin’s shoulders.

“Kim Yerim!” Y/N squeaked when the younger girl pushed her. In less than 5 minutes, Y/N was down. For what she thought would be a harsh impact, a strong pair of arms wrapped itself around her waist as she crashed into someone’s chest. Because of this, her head didn’t get submerged in the water.

Changbin turned around after Yeri’s team was cheering excitedly for winning, only for Changbin to ask.

“Noona, are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Y/N giggled while Changbin and the other guys got ready for another round of competition. However, she realized that the arms around her waist were still there so she carefully turned her head only to be met with Minho’s.

They got quiet for a bit as he couldn’t help but glance down at her lips. Just then, Minho whispered teasingly to avoid the others from hearing.

“Should we give them something to talk about?” A smirk danced on his lips. She glanced back to see them still focused on the game. With that being said, she turned back to Minho with a giggle.

He was already leaning against the wall as she pressed her body against his in the water for support before wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She gently leaned forward to let her lips brush his own before she whispered.

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” Her eyes travelled back to his only for him to shake his head.

“Definitely not.” He said with a smile tugged on his lips. Soon enough, he gently pressed his lips on hers, earning a soft gasp. His hands tightened around her waist as she tangled her fingers in his damp hair, only to hear the rest of them get excited in the back.

“Oh God bless! Fucking finally!” Changbin yelled in excitement while the rest yelled happily.

She couldn’t help but pull away from Minho, hiding her face in his neck while he smiled proudly to his friends.

“Just how long had y’all been waiting for this?” Minho asked curiously as some of them responded in unison.

“Ever since the beginning of your fights!” 

With that, Y/N whipped her head around only to raise her eyebrows at them. She couldn’t believe what she heard. They shrugged, saying they could tell that this day would come sooner or later. Just then, she turned back to Minho, making him steal a quick kiss. This was enough to make her blush.

“Yeah, I started liking you a few months back to be honest. I just didn’t know why at that time so I just continued sort of ‘hating’ you…” He suddenly confessed, making her flustered.

“Oh wow. And you still continued to act like a total jerk? Smooth move Captain.” She teased as he chuckled, sliding his hands up her sides underneath her shirt underwater only to stop just below her swimsuit line.

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit brave now?” She asked. He smirked smugly, feeling him snake his arms around her frame. He kissed her jaw as the noises behind them from their friends busy playing games seemed to be muffled in their ears.

“You can tell me to stop if this weirds you out. I don’t mind.” His voice low in her ear as he kissed the skin beneath her earlobe.

“I’d tell you to keep going but our friends are here.” With that, he pulled away from her neck only to cup her face in one hand before he spoke up.

“Then come over to my place later and we can spend the night all to ourselves.” He whispered as he brushed his lips against hers. “What made you like me?” She suddenly asked, seeing him stare at her with such a soft look.

“I respect the way you lead your teammates. You’re such a good volleyball player and to be honest, I really look up to you.” His voice was laced with nothing but honesty.

“Wait… Really?” She asked, slightly confused.

“Yeah. I know I might seem like I always think I’m better than everyone else. But I actually get really scared that people might compare me to you so I hated it. And I guess I made a mistake of hating you for it. I’m sorry.” He apologized.

With that, she smiled as she cupped both sides of his face before he locked eyes with her very soft gentle ones.

“We’re all human and we have every right to feel however we want to. So I don’t blame you for feeling like that towards me.” She reassured him by kissing him again, only for him to deepen the kiss. He pulled her against him, softly caressing her wet skin making her pull away with a giggle.

“We should probably join them cause I can foresee that they won’t let us live after today.” She said. Minho could only nod in response knowing that was true.

As expected, their friends didn’t have an end to teasing their team captains as they literally teased them almost every 5 seconds. After the pool party, Y/N ended up going over to Minho’s apartment to hang out with him in which they eventually ended up cuddling in each other’s arms in which she fell asleep at his place.

A few days later, Y/N and Seungmin were running late yet again for their volleyball training as she texted in the group chat again for them to tell the coach. But the response she got was slightly unexpected.

They got through training without a single fight between Minho and Y/N, which definitely shocked their coach but Jisung was witty with his reply.

“Let’s just say, the championship changed them Coach.”

With that being said, Coach Kwon simply smiled as he asked them to gather around so that he could give them some new tips and pointers. Ever since then, the two Team Captains had stopped whatever fights they always had during training and Minho even changed the way he supervised his teammates.