#This has happened to me twice and it drove me insane

[sneezarify]

There’s something so frustratingly sexy about someone who feels the need to leave the room or move very far away to finish their sneezing fit.

[besamehyuka]

F#@*ing Tease

Warning: This contains Smut! Which means this has SEX in it! If you don’t like that, then don’t read it. SIMPLE!!!!

Han was a tease and he often liked to show you that in many ways then just one. It went from the grinding against you at school, to the gentle rubs at your thighs, to the sensual make outs, and now: here he was perched between your thighs at the local library, lapping at your wetness.

He knew you had a thing for his tongue, and he always and consistently teased you for it, swiping it across his lips whenever he was on stage and just so happened to catch your eye from the crowd. It was a go to thing for him, he loved making you squirm, just so he could be the boss. He really did have a kink for that sort of thing, but you just weren’t sure what is was called yet.

He’d push you over the cliff with his edging sometimes. Teasing you even after you had came, overstimulating you to tears, yet somehow, you always wanted more. Only Jisung could do this to you. Not just anyone

Idol life was just another way to tease you, he would come home sweaty from dance practice, his chest heathing, grey sweatpants clinging to his gorgeous thighs, and that tanktop, god that fucking tanktop. Showing off those arms, his perfect body, and his arms. He should’ve been tired from dancing all those hours without rest.  But instead he was only fired up, and resorted to pounding you into the mattress, ruining your perfect makeup. 

God, Han Jisung drove you insane.

Right now though, all you could care about was his amazingly skilled tongue on your bud, slurping and making all kinds of lewd noises, not that you minded if this was just any other place. But this was the library.

He was making it so fucking difficult to control your moans, you had to squeeze your thighs around his head to stop his vicious attacks more than twice already, much to Han’s distaste. 

“If you don’t fucking stop.” He gritted his teeth, spreading your legs wider looking up at you before diving back in, not caring about your pleads or protests, he just wanted to lick and prod at your aching cunt.

You felt tears spring to your eyes just as he slipped a finger in, and that’s when you came, jerking like a possessed spirit, you tangled your fingers in his brown locks and tugged. 

“Han....” You whisper yelled, reaching back to grab a shelf behind you, trying to secure yourself, he just wouldn’t stop!

His fingers squelched due to your wetness all thanks to his magical excuse of a mouth, but now you were about to lose your mind, your voice was about to come out in harsh screams if he didn’t stop, and Han knew all this, but that didn’t stop him from slipping in a second finger and curling it upwards.

“Aww, what? Is the pretty baby going to lose all control over daddy’s fingers? But, that’s what I want... are you going to give me what I want like a good slut, or do I have to keep on torturing you till I get it?”

[sarahowritesostucky]

📖"The Taste of You"

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Word Count: 4552

Tags: Fresh AU, dark rom-com, dark!Bucky, pre-serum Steve, cannibalism, kidnapping, yandere/basement wife, meet cute-ish, gay sex n' stuff, dub-con bordering on non-con, ignoring of sexual boundaries

Summary: Steve is so tired of the meat market that modern dating has become. Just when he's deleted all the apps and given up on ever finding Mr. Right, he meets the perfect guy at the grocery store.

A dark, cute, funny, fucked up, and very tasty love story.

It's a Fresh AU. "If you can't handle the cannibalism, get out of the kitchen" ... or something like that

7. Sous Vide

Wait! I haven't read a previous chapter. Story Masterlist

Steve

For the first twenty-four hours, Steve alternates between crying, screaming, and sometimes even laughing. And his thoughts run a gamut twice as large.

8 hours in: This can’t be happening. Steve is so fucking stupid. He deserves what he gets. He’s not ready to die. He should find a way to kill himself. Maybe he can seduce James into letting him go.

12 hours in: Fuck James! Steve’s going to kill him. He doesn’t know how, but he is totally going to murder the shit out of him! What’s in the room, there must be something that he can use…

16 hours: Why is there NOTHING in this room that is useful?! Fuck, he’s screwed. Why did Steve have to go snooping in the basement? He can’t believe he was actually attracted to a serial killer. He fucked a serial killer. What does that say about him? Clint wouldn’t have fallen for this shit. Fuck. Steve never texted him. Ha—he won’t know where to send the cops to find his body after all.

18 hours: Is he going to go insane? Maybe. Maybe it’ll be better if he does. Which part of him will James try to cut off first? Steve thinks he’d rather keep his arms than his legs. If he had to choose that is. Who was that woman in the other cell? What did she lose first? Why isn’t she answering him when he yells out? Can she not hear him? Maybe she’s just crazy. How long has she been here? How long is Steve going to be here before he dies? Oh god, he doesn’t want to wind up like her!

20 hours: That must’ve been human meat up in the fridge. And Steve asked Bucky to make dinner with it. A rump roast. They would’ve been eating somebody’s ass for dinner.

24 hours: Holy fucking shit, is he ever stupid.

“Can I get you anything?” James asks him the third time he visits.

The first time he’d come, Steve had screamed and thrown hysterics until it drove James away.

The second time, he’d done nothing but cry softly and beg to be let go, as James told him what it is he does for a living.

The third time he just sits there and stares like a zombie. James doesn’t seem to like that. He comes over and feels Steve’s forehead, takes his pulse. Steve gasps and jerks away, huddling himself into the corner. James lets him go with a sad expression. “You need to try and calm down, honey,” he says. “I hate to see you suffering.”

Steve stares at him with wide eyes. “Are you gonna kill me?” he asks. He’s been thinking about it all day and night. He can’t get the image of that woman out of his head. “Are you gonna…” eat me?

James is shaking his head. “No, Steve. I told you: I don’t want to hurt you.”

Steve blinks. He only has fuzzy memories of the last two visits. He knows that James had stayed, especially that second time, knows that he’d sat and talked to Steve. But Steve is having a hard time remembering all the facts. He’d been out of his mind with emotion, not taking it all in. “I don’t remember,” he murmurs, nervous. “I… I don’t remember everything you said.”

James smiles sadly at him. “Okay. That’s understandable.” He goes and sits down on a metal stool that’s connected to the floor. It’s part of a little vanity set that Steve is unable to reach from his chained position by the bed. Steve’s got no clue why it’s there, if he can’t even reach it. He’s spent time wondering if the mirror is glass, and if he could break it and use a shard of it to murder James. “I’ll answer any questions you have,” James is offering amicably, breaking Steve out of his murderous thoughts. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t want to die,” Steve whispers.

“You’re not going to die,” James tells him, a little exasperation creeping into his voice. “Stevie, you’re not listening: I am not going to kill you. I didn’t bring you here for work.”

Work. Steve rolls the word over in his mind. James is a serial killer. He kills people and eats them. Well, mostly he sells their meat to other people to eat them. But that doesn’t make it any better! Steve tries to read James’ face for a lie. He doesn’t believe him when he says he’s not going to kill Steve. Of course he’s going to kill Steve. He has to, now that Steve knows his secret.

Steve is so fucking stupid.

“Just… just do it fast,” Steve begs. He thinks of the limbless woman several cells down. He doesn’t know if she’s still alive. He hopes not. “Do it all at once, please. Don’t… don’t make me like her.”

James looks pained. “I know you don’t believe me, honey. But in time you’ll see. I really didn’t mean for you to wind up down here.” He smiles softly at him, which is equal parts sweet and disturbing. “I really do care for you Steve. I was looking forward to what we could have together. I still am. We can get past this, and in the end it’ll only have made our relationship stronger.”

Steve stares. James really means it. He actually thinks they’re still going to be boyfriends. Steve remembers that conversation they’d had in the car, how happy he’d been when James had taken his hand and confirmed their relationship status. Steve thinks of all the personal things he’s told James, all the times they’ve made love, laughed with each other; he thinks of how much he’d come to feel for James. Fuck, it’s awful. Steve feels betrayed. His Mr. Right is a cannibal serial killer. It’s not fucking fair. “I’m not ever going to be with you again,” he tells him blankly. He can’t believe he actually has to explain this. “James, you eat people.”

James sighs like that’s small potatoes. “I’m still me. I’m still that guy you met at the grocery store.”

Steve blinks, thinking about their encounter in the meat department, James holding out the package of venison with an expression of disgust and proclaiming himself a vegetarian. The hilarity of it hits Steve all of a sudden, and he starts to giggle.

James is watching him with a look of concern. “Steve?”

Steve shakes his head, the laughter growing and growing, and he keeps laughing until he folds over with it. It turns into a sob. He squeezes his eyes shut, overwhelmed. “Sorry,” he whispers, shaking his head. “Sorry, I just… I’m panicking, a little.”

It’s quiet for a long moment, and then Steve gasps as the mattress dips and James is right there, pulling him into his arms. Steve struggles, pushing against him. “No!”

But James hushes him and hugs him tightly, and Steve can’t get away. “Shh sh sh,” James says. “It’s okay, I know you’re scared, Steve. I know. It’s gonna be okay. You’ll see. It’s all going to be just fine.”

It really isn’t, but Steve doesn’t know what else to do besides cry. James holds him through it and eventually lays him down on the mattress, kissing his tear stained cheek. “Rest,” he murmurs, and he gets up and leaves.

The fourth time James comes into his cell, Steve has formed a loose plan. He’s not going to panic anymore. He’s going to be productive. He’s going to gain James’ trust, make him believe that Steve loves him and won’t run away. Then, when he gets his chance, he’ll kill James and escape. There’s no other option. This is what he has to do.

“Hey,” James says, looking cautious as he swipes the keycard that unlocks the room’s slatted door. He slides it open and steps inside. He’s got another tray of food. “Brought you some lunch.”

Steve watches as he sets the tray onto the floor and gives it a push towards him. His stomach rumbles loudly—he hasn’t eaten since James locked him in here. The first few meals got thrown in fits of rage and desperation, the ones after that simply ignored and refused. But Steve obviously isn’t the first captive to try going on a hunger strike, and James has kept patiently bringing trays for every mealtime. Now Steve has a new game plan, and he pulls the tray over and picks up the silicone spoon (not even plastic utensils. This guy really is careful). He looks over the food and then glances at James. “...This is all… it’s vegetarian, right?” he checks.

James knows what he’s really asking, and he nods. “Yeah. Just chicken noodle,” he says gently.

Steve decides to believe him. He brings a spoonful of the soup to his lips, blows on it, swallows. It’s not bad, and he’s 99.9% sure that those are chunks of chicken floating in the broth.

James takes a seat on the metal stool and watches him eat the meal. “You’re calmer today,” he observes.

Steve shrugs, playing it cool. “Yeah,” he simply says. “I had time to think it over.”

“Yeah?” James sounds hopeful. “Okay. That’s good. Do you need anything?”

He asks that every time he visits Steve. So far Steve has only ever yelled or cried or remained totally silent in response. “Books?” he says this time, meeting James’ eyes. James looks surprised. “I don’t know how long I’ve been down here,” Steve says. “It gets boring.”

James smiles tentatively. “Just a little over a day, now. Yeah, honey. I can bring you books.”

“Okay,” Steve says. He goes on eating the soup. There’s a little hunk of a baguette with it. He tears off a piece and dips it into the broth, pops it into his mouth and chews. “Thank you.”

James leaves shortly after that, and within what feels like a few hours, Steve is supplied with a whole cart full of books. “I didn’t know what you liked,” James says sheepishly as Steve looks over the titles. “Hope this is good enough.”

“It’s great,” Steve says. He actually wasn’t expecting so many, or such a good selection. “Thank you.”

James looks very pleased. He takes a step closer and leans down, reaches out like he’ll touch him. Steve flinches and James’ face falls.

“Sorry,” Steve mutters, cursing himself for the reaction. “I’m sorry James. This is just…” he sighs. “It’s scary, you know?”

James nods. “Bucky,” he says.

“What?”

“Bucky.” He comes close again and kneels down. He takes Steve’s hand in his. It’s the one that’s chained to the floor. “My name.”

“Your name isn’t James?” Steve doesn’t know why he finds that so disappointing. It shouldn’t matter, but he’d hoped that he’d at least been getting to know the real man, before the other shoe dropped. Apparently not. It just figures that the one decent guy Steve manages to meet would turn out to be a psycho.

“No, it is. James Buchanan Barnes,” James says. “My sister started it, back when we were kids. She couldn’t say Buchanan, so,” he shrugs. “Bucky.”

Steve gapes. “Wait, you really do have a sister? You weren’t just making that up?”

James—or Bucky, apparently—looks hurt. “No, I wasn’t making it up. I never lied to you, Steve.”

Steve can’t help it, he laughs meanly. “Yeah right. You said there was nothing down here but storage,” he snaps, yanking his hand back from Bucky’s grip. “You’re a serial killer!”

“I didn’t lie to you about who I am,” Bucky says sternly. “I’m still the same person, Steve. Everything we had together was real. It still is.” He puts his hand on Steve’s shoulder and grips him. “I still care about you.”

Steve swallows heavily, wondering if his face is neutral. He’s trying to keep it that way, but it’s hard when all he feels is horror, disappointment and disgust. At least he’s managed not to yank himself away from Bucky’s grip on him. “Bucky,” he says, trying the name out. It seems to fit, and James looks very pleased when he uses it. Steve nods. “Okay. Bucky it is.”

Bucky smiles. “I knew you were special,” he says happily. But when Steve doesn’t react, he gets despondent again. “I didn’t want this for you,” he says, releasing Steve’s shoulder. “I wanted us to be happy together.”

Steve frowns. “How was that going to work?” he asks. “Don’t you think I would’ve found out about this eventually?”

Bucky nods. “Well yeah. But not like this. I was going to tell you, eventually. But I was gonna break it to you slowly.”

Steve fights the urge to laugh like a maniac. “Oh? How does one break that kind of news slowly?”

“I know it’s a lot. And it’s shocking.”

“Gee, you think?” Steve quips.

Bucky laughs, Steve’s levity putting him at ease. He sits down on the floor, crossing his legs. “It's so different from what people think. God, if you only knew, Steve. Knew what it was really like.”

Steve shivers at how dreamily Bucky says that. He has to work up the courage to say, “Tell me?”

Bucky looks surprised that he’s asking, but then his eyes sharpen on him, evaluating. He’s suspicious. “Why do you want to know?” he asks.

Steve shrugs and tries to act like it’s no big deal. “I dunno. Just curious I guess. What it tastes like, why you even want to do it.” He peeks up at Bucky. “Why do you?”

For a moment, it doesn’t seem like Bucky’s going to answer. But then he says, “It’s not just about food, or eating. It’s…” he pauses, staring at Steve in an evaluating way, like he’s not sure Steve will get it. “It’s about giving,” he eventually says, watching Steve carefully. “Giving yourself over to somebody. Becoming one with somebody else, forever. And that’s…” he shakes his head, reverent. “That’s a beautiful thing. That’s surrender. That’s true intimacy.”

Steve gulps, suddenly hoping that his lunch stays down for this conversation. “But…” he breathes. “But they don’t do it willingly.”

Bucky’s eyes lose their gleam. He looks away. “No,” he says quietly. “No, they don’t.” He doesn’t expound on that, and Steve doesn’t dare to ask any more questions. Bucky sighs and moves on. “As for how it tastes, well…” the corners of his mouth curl up, and when he meets Steve’s eyes again, it’s terrifying. “If it’s done right? It’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted before. It’s fucking exquisite.”

Steve thinks of the story Bucky had told, about the villagers in China; the mystery meat. He knows now that it must’ve been true. That was probably the first time Bucky had ever tasted human flesh. And he’d liked it. Steve shivers. “And you know lots of other people who do this?” he asks. "Enough to run a whole business off of?"

A cannibal cabal, Christ.

Bucky nods. “My clients; they like to eat women, specifically. Because it’s a sexual thing for them, you know?” He shrugs. “I don’t think women actually taste better, but whatever. I’m here to satisfy the customer.” He tilts his head and squints at Steve. “You know, if you wanted to try it…”

“No,” Steve says, knowing that his acting abilities don’t extend that far. He shakes his head. “I can’t. Please.”

Bucky looks disappointed, but he accepts it. “Okay,” he says softly. “Don’t worry. I won’t make you.” He moves closer, kneeling right in front of Steve and looking at him tenderly. He puts both hands on his shoulders. Steve fights not to recoil. “Steve,” Bucky says softly, voice full of emotion. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have you upstairs with me, I really do. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Steve swallows dryly. “What are you gonna do?”

Bucky stares at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he leans in and kisses him on the mouth. He pulls back and watches Steve’s expression. “I don’t know,” he says softly. “I want to keep you, I do. I don't want to have to hurt you. I want to date you, like we were doing.”

Steve shivers under Bucky’s scrutiny. This guy is whacked. “...But?” he asks.

Bucky shakes his head sadly. He pulls back and rises to his feet. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just don’t know.” He walks back over to the door. “I’ve always dreamed of finding someone who I could share this with, you know? Someone I could really trust and share absolutely everything with. Because it gets lonely, ya know? Having this part of myself that I can’t share with a partner."

Steve stares, incredulous at Bucky’s capacity for delusion. “You said you were married,” he says, suddenly remembering. “What happened to him?” Bucky’s expression shutters and he looks away, and that’s all the answer that Steve needs. “You killed him,” Steve whispers, horrified.

Bucky turns away. “I told you we didn’t see eye to eye on things. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

Steve can’t believe what he’s hearing. “So you ate him?”

“No,” Bucky says sharply, looking back over his shoulder at Steve with something like resentment. “I would never eat someone I loved.”

Steve starts to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Not without their consent.”

Steve’s eyes bug out of his head.

Bucky shakes his head as he notices Steve’s expression. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be different with us. You'll see. It’ll take time, I know that now. But maybe in the long run it’s good that you found out this soon. Now we can just work on moving past it.”

Steve blinks at him. Keep your face calm, keep your face calm, don’t make a face, relaxrelaxrelax—

Bucky sighs and steps out of the cell. “I’ll be back later with your dinner, okay?” He slides the door shut. The electric keypad beeps. He gives Steve one last bittersweet look of affection through the wooden slats. “Try to relax. Get some rest. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Steve watches him leave, hears him take the steps back upstairs, opening and closing the door up there, more electronic locks beeping. Once Steve’s positive that he’s alone again, he inhales hugely and lets it out in a long, slow exhale. “Fuck,” he whispers, overwhelmed. This is not going to be easy.

Bucky

Bucky finds himself feeling melancholy as the day wears on. He thinks about Ian a lot, remembers how his husband had looked at him like he was a monster, when Bucky had finally confided his deepest secret. It was like watching a Manchurian candidate switch on; like the past three years hadn’t happened and he’d never even loved Bucky at all.

To feel better, he pulls some of Melissa for dinner, seasoning and cooking the meat sous vide. He lights the tall candlesticks on the dining room table in her honor and eats slowly, thinking about how she’d smiled up at him, that last time. She’d told Bucky that she was ready, that she knew she was crazy and Bucky could finally end it. He’d promised her he would. And then she’d smiled and cried and asked him for a kiss before she slipped under.

Bucky thinks it’s pretty fucked up, that he kissed her. Maybe even more fucked up than the fact that he’s sitting here eating her with a garlic velouté. But he can't help it. He loves the ones that find acceptance in the end. Melissa had been beautiful to him, then. Willingness is the ultimate fantasy, of course, but that's something which Bucky has come to realize he'll probably never get.

He sighs, sipping his glass of wine. It’s Sunday evening. He was supposed to be sharing a meal with Steve right now, laughing over stupid jokes and learning more about each other. Growing closer. Setting the stage for a future where he could finally be truly intimate with the person he loved.

Bucky’s so upset that this is how it’s played out. Melissa doesn’t even taste that good, his stomach churning the more he ruminates about it. He sets his fork down and rubs his forehead in stress, thinking of Steve. Fuck, he doesn’t want to lose him.

After dinner he sends a tray down in the dumbwaiter, carrying another. He passes Steve’s room and hears him call out, but Bucky doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want Steve to have to know any more about Eileen than is strictly necessary. She’s a horrible person, and Steve shouldn’t have to deal with her. Bucky sits Eileen up and feeds her her dinner, not bothering to talk to her. She’s teetering on the edge, he can tell. If he’s lucky, she’ll go catatonic. Then he won’t even have to make conversation. He wipes her mouth and asks her if she has to use the bathroom.

No answer.

He lays her back down, covering her with the blanket. She’s just depressing him now. Bucky takes a good, long look at her when he’s standing back at the door to her room, admiring his work and what he’s reduced her to. “Do you know why I did this to you?” he asks her, in an uncharacteristically morbid mood. “Hm?”

Slowly, she turns her head to look at him. She doesn’t say anything, which pisses Bucky off.

“It’s because you’re the lowest level of human scum. A mother’s supposed to protect her children, not offer them up for the slaughter.”

She blinks at him. “So you slaughtered me.”

He nods.

“How did I taste?”

Bucky shrugs. “Average.” He’s long since abandoned the notion that a person’s moral fiber affects their taste. It doesn’t. Bucky’s clients are romantic. They like to think that sex and age and race make a difference, but the sad fact of the matter is that underneath their skin, people are all the same—meat. “I dressed you up with a really nice red wine reduction,” he tells her, more to try and fuck with her emotions than anything else. “If that makes you feel better.”

“Why not him?” she asks, and Bucky knows who she means.

“Because you’re her mother!” he growls. “The one person a child is supposed to be able to count on, no matter what!” Not that he hadn’t considered taking the boyfriend, too, but that was a lot more work, and he’d never make a profit on a male anyways. “How can you even live with yourself? How could you let him in your home?!”

She infuriates him further by not caring. “I worked with what I had,” she says.

Bucky sees red. He immediately leaves the room and goes to grab a syringe of potassium chloride. “You’re done,” he tells her, then finds a vein and pushes. He watches as her heart stops and the light fades from her eyes.

Like always, he’s not as satisfied by the death as he wants. He doesn’t think he ever will be.

He’s not in the mood to harvest her, so he puts her on the cart and wheels her into the walk-in fridge, leaving her there to be dealt with later. He’ll send out an email tomorrow to see if he’s got any takers on fresh organ meats or ribs. Sometimes he gets lucky and can hock the entrails at full price.

If not, oh well. He’ll just make a nice paté.

Steve is reading a book when Bucky brings his dinner in. “Hey,” Bucky says, setting the tray down next to the mattress and taking a seat on the floor. He looks Steve over. He seems calm enough, which Bucky likes. “What are you reading?”

“Atlas Shrugged. You have a very well-rounded library,” he tells him. Then he catches sight of Bucky’s face and he looks him over more closely. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky’s lips twitch. “How do you know anything’s wrong?”

“I can tell,” he says simply. “You’re upset.”

Bucky stares at him, but eventually he huffs and gives up, looking away. “Eileen’s done,” he says. “It’s just you down here, now.”

Steve’s eyes widen. “You… you killed her?”

“Yeah.” Bucky sees him react. The kid is afraid. “Steve, I told you I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” he mutters. “But here I am, chained up in your basement.”

Bucky snorts and looks away. “Yeah. Touché.”

They’re both quiet then. Eventually Steve reaches for half of the turkey sandwich Bucky’s prepared for him. He lifts the top piece of bread and then looks to Bucky with a dubious eyebrow raised. “It’s ‘vegetarian’,” Bucky says, putting quotes on the word to let Steve know he means “people-free.”

Steve takes a bite so big that Bucky can’t help but feel warmed by how it means that Steve is trusting him. Steve chews and says, “What are you going to do with me?”

God, isn’t that the fucking dilemma of the year? Bucky shakes his head, frowning at the tray between them. “I don’t know.”

“...You could take me back upstairs,” Steve suggests. Bucky’s eyes shoot back up, alarmed. “Just to hang out!” Steve adds hastily. “We could spend time together, but then you could always put me back down here.”

Bucky sighs. Steve’s a smart cookie, he’ll give him that. “No,” he tells him. “You’re just trying to escape.”

“I’m not. I—”

“Don’t lie to me!” Steve shuts up abruptly, and Bucky feels bad for having snapped. He clenches his jaw and looks away. He hates seeing Steve afraid of him. “You shouldn’t have snuck down here, Steve,” he grumbles, pissed, because Steve has ruined everything. Bucky was so excited to finally get to be with someone, to start anew and do it right this time. But now they can’t even have that.

Really, he’s not even angry at Steve. He’s angry at himself. He’s never, ever left the door to the basement unlocked. It was a freak accident and it’s ruined all his plans. “Fuck,” he curses quietly, slapping his hand down onto the carpeted floor in frustration. He closes his eyes and puts his head in his hands. He feels so lost.

Before he knows it, he feels an arm wrapping around him. Steve has moved to his side and is trying to hold him comfortingly.

Bucky looks over, surprised. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmurs. “I’m sorry I went and messed it up. …I really did like you, before.”

Bucky’s heart constricts. “You did?” he asks, wanting to hear him say it again.

“Yeah.” Steve says, his voice so sad, like he’s lost all hope of ever finding someone to love, now. “I did.”

Bucky knows that he has to show Steve that they can still be together, that the important things haven’t changed. “I’m still me, Steve,” he promises. “And you’re still you. And we’re here together. We can still make it work.”

Steve makes a noise of protest, but Bucky hushes him. “I’m going to show you,” he says, already thinking about how he’ll do it. “You’ll see.” Steve’s face is doubtful as Bucky gets up, but Bucky is motivated now. He isn’t going to let Steve become just another captive. He’s going to make him see. He’s going to make him his.

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[nice-and-accurate-ramblings]

⚠️WARNING: Spoilers for Good Omens Season 2 Episode 6 below the cut!

DO NOT CLICK BELOW THE CUT IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS! I’m live-blogging this because I need emotional support apparently

Eight battery operated candles,,, no more open flames in the bookshop I see

“It all looked so simple in Jane Austen :(” Aziraphale have I mentioned that I love you

JANE AUSTEN DIAMOND ROBBERY IS A STORY I STILL VERY MUCH NEED

Bees :)

Oh god Angel Crowley look is infinitely worse in context for some reason

SOCKS AND SANDALS CROWLEY. REALLY.

WHAT IS THAT WALK, I-

Maggie has BALLS and I love her

MAGGIE STAY BEHIND THE THRESHOLD PLEASE

Shax I am going to fight you

MAGGIE I FUCKING LOVE YOU

oh no

Oh no

That was an invitation

This is vampire rules isn’t it

Fuck

OH no

never thought I would be happy to see that circle light up

“You can all leave now and nobody will be hurt” “you’ll be hurt”

Hey uh. Did the theme song change? That guitar riff is new?

Wait yeah things have DEFINITELY changed in the theme song, unless I’m crazy I don’t think the Bentley drove through the theater before?

SOMETHING IS UP IN THE DOWN THEME SONG

Crowley is so fuckin smug lmao

Crowley has adopted Muriel hasn’t he

“I don’t have clearance. You’d have to be a throne or a dominion or above.” Crowley just opened the fucking file. “I haven’t always been a demon, and they never change their passwords.” COOL COOL COOL COOL COOL GUESS ITS TIME TO REVISIT THAT ASK ABOUT THE HIERARCHY OF HEAVEN

Aziraphale really said siege warfare o_o

“Does what you say make sense in your head?” Nina I love you

MOTHERFUCKERS IT WAS AN ARMAGEDDON PLOT!! I WAS RIGHT!! … and wrong, Gabriel was a dissenter!!

Gabriel is a major asshole but he is uh. An asshole opposed to Armageddon: The Sequel

NINA AND MAGGIE YOU BADASSES

“Why all the fire extinguishers?” I AM CRYING

Oh no. Saraquel is sharp o_o

Oh my god they were coworkers

He is Crowley’s emotional support Angel and it happens to be mutual thank you very much 🙄

Nina and Maggie my beloveds

What the fuck happened for Gabriel to be against Armageddon, I need to know

FOR IT TO HAPPEN TWICE

Was Crowley- WAS THAT TALKING ABOUT SATAN OR ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE

“Junior recording Angel, 38th class” congrats Muriel, you’re no longer the lowest ranking Angel in heaven!

THE BOX!!

He’s letting them throw books, they’re desperate, Crowley HURRY

Okay so his memory was in the matchbox that was in the box but fell out?

IS THAT A HALO?

AZIRAPHALE HAS A HALO!!!

oh that. That killed a lot of demons.

Yes I believe you did in fact just start a war. Holy shit.

HE BLEW UP HIS HALO. Well fuck.

“Apparently if we do a miracle together it all works a bit too well” yes hm you two do work very well together don’t you 👀

SO THAT’S WHAT THE FLY IS!! CROWLEY YOU ARE HECKIN SMART

This is some ineffable bureaucracy if I’ve ever seen it

Everyday playing in the background 👀

WELL. THIS IS INTERESTING.

bobbing my head along to Everyday with Gabriel and Beelzebub :)

OKAY I DIDN’T. EXPECT THIS. BUT I AM ENJOYING IT VERY MUCH.

“I JUST FOUND SOMETHING THAT MATTERED MORE TO ME THAN CHOOSING SIDES” OKAY. OKAY YEAH. MHM YUP YES OKAH YES

I am going insane.

I was not expecting these two to get together before azicrow

IT IS VERY QUIET AND GENTLE AND ROMANTIC INDEED

The Metatron is a surprise homie

OKAY. SO CROWLEY APPARENTLY JUST. KNEW THE METATRON. AZIRAPHALE IS ALL AWED BUT CROWLEY IS LIKE “OH YEAH. YOU.” The Angel Crowley lore deepens

Don’t call Muriel dim >:(

“We need a little us time” 👀

HE’S CLEANING UP THE BOOK SHOP FOR HIM I AM CRYING

NINA CALLING MAGGIE ANGEL- I AM GOING TO COMBUST. HELLLP

oh my god if they just convinced Crowley to have an honest conversation

Metatron. What was that. Stay the fuck away from them. Mind your fucking business.

Muriel was given The Crow Road :)

AZIRAPHALE LET HIM TALK

No.

No. Noooo no no no no.

OUR SIDE AZIRAPHALE. OUR FUCKING SIDE.

Don’t you dare. What happened to the “I regret nothing” on your playlist.

YOU DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO HEAVEN.

I SWEAR, DON’T DO THIS

TO-

I-

“Well obviously you said no to hell, you’re the bad guys!” WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE?! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR OWN SIDE?!?!?!

I’m going to simply pass away now.

Stop. STOP. HE WAS SO HONEST AND THIS IS- CROWLEY IS CRYING AND IM CRYING AND

nooo not the glasses 😭😭😭😭😭

No nightengales,,, we could’ve been us

“I forgive you” cool cool cool cool cool cool cool I have been stabbed in the chest

The second coming?!?!?! Fuck

NOT HIM TURNING OFF “A NIGHTINGALE SANG IN BARKLEY SQUARE”

I am unwell

I am going to need so much fanfic after this

I WAS JOKING WHEN I SAID I WAS LIVE-BLOGGING FOR MORAL SUPPORT

HOW LONG UNTIL SEASON THREE 😭😭😭😭

[dndfantasygirl]

Little Red Rogue (Chapter 18: Taste of You)

Rating: Mature Word count: 2.2k Pairing: Astarion x Female Tav (named)/OC Warnings: violence, strong language, innuendo, starving Astarion, hurt/comfort, fluff

Summary: Ruby realizes Astarion hasn't fed since they left the Underdark.

*Link to AO3 Post

*Link to Previous Chapter

What am I supposed to do, but sink my teeth in you? I starve without you on my lips, I die without the taste of it What am I supposed to be when you sink your teeth in me? 'Cause I live for the way you move, I'd die without the taste of you

~Taste of You, Rezz (feat. Dove Cameron)

--------------------------------------

His lips are dry. Eyes have deeper circles. To any wandering eye, Astarion looked as if he had a very long night, but that was far from the truth. In reality, he was starving. He hadn't fed since they wandered into these cursed lands. And it finally started to take a toll on his body.

Though it had been a few days since Raphael kept his promise and revealed the meaning behind his scars, the thoughts surrounding it were fresh as if engrained in his mind. He had been so focused on them that it was hard to think about anything else. Cazador planned to sacrifice him and the other spawn to become the most powerful vampire lord that ever existed. If Astarion could take that power somehow, he would be able to protect himself. Protect Ruby...and of course, the others who he won't admit are the closest he has ever had to friends.

He mindlessly followed Ruby up the stairs to their shared room, crimson eyes staring off into space. He didn't notice her at first when she turned to face him with a concerned look. It took the tender caress of her hands on his face to break him out of his thoughts.

The dhampir thumbed his face, analyzing it carefully. Astarion blinked once. Twice. "What are you doing, darling?"

Ruby furrowed her brows as she continued her analysis. "When's the last time you've fed?"

When the vampire spawn didn't respond, she removed her hands from his face as he felt the sudden loss of her lukewarm touch. She crossed her arms and gave him a skeptical look. "Astarion..."

He looked at her blankly, trying to figure out a good counter to diffuse her impending anger.

Then, it was as if she had read his mind. "You haven't fed since the Underdark."

It wasn't a question, but a realization. He could see the frustration building up in her intense gaze. The way she tightened her grip on her arms. He could hear her blood pumping faster and faster. It drove him insane.

"Don't you ever do that again!" the dhampir shouted as tears began to well up in her eyes.

Astarion gazed into her violet orbs, confusion etched into his brows. "I'm quite alright, darling. Truly, there's no need to worry."

Ruby let out a frustrated grunt. "You might be able to fool the others, but not me. Don't forget, I'm half-vampire, too!" She turned her back toward him, hiding the tears that threatened to spill over as she held herself tighter. "I know what happens when you go through that kind of withdrawal. If we were able to find a blood source for me, we can find one for you, too." She shook her head in disbelief. "I'm so stupid. I didn't even-"

A loud sigh escaped Astarion's mouth, drowning out her mumbling as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Then I would be depleting you of yours. Untainted blood is a rare find down here. Honestly, any blood at all is." He approached the dhampir slowly and gently touched her arm as he walked around to face her. "You are our leader, my love. We need you at your best." He moved his hand to her cheek and wiped away a stray tear.

The dhampir shook her head, golden curls following every beat. "But I need you. Astarion, please," she grabbed both of his hands and squeezed them tightly. "Just take a little. You need it."

"But what about you?" the vampire spawn whispered, concern flooding his features.

"I'll be okay," Ruby mouthed back with a wistful smile. Before Astarion could respond, she guided him to their bed and crawled in it, sprawling out on her back and tilting her neck to the side. She watched patiently as the vampire spawn hesitated. "I promise."

Astarion was worried. Her blood was intoxicating, and he was concerned about the feral part of him taking control. The hunger within him was a beast, constantly gnawing at his sanity, threatening to break free. The thought of draining her dry, of the life slipping from her eyes because of his uncontrollable thirst, filled him with dread. He hadn't fed from her since they entered the Underdark and, to be honest, he missed the taste of her—the rich, unique essence that was hers alone.

He cautiously climbed onto the bed, his movements slow and deliberate. Hovering over her, he could hear the steady rhythm of her heartbeat.

The dhampir gave him a reassuring smile, gazing into his crimson orbs. "Hi."

The twitch of his lips couldn't be contained as he returned it, bending down to nuzzle into her neck. "Are you sure about this, darling?" He could feel the slight tremor in his hands as he held her, the battle between his desire and his fear raging within him.

Ruby let out a content sigh and nodded her head. "Of course." She giggled as Astarion kissed her cheek, the light brush of his lips tickling her skin. The sound was like music to his ears, a balm to his troubled heart.

Then, he kissed her forehead, a gesture of affection and reverence. Her skin was warm beneath his touch, and he could feel her pulse quickening in anticipation. Moving lower, he captured her lips in a tender kiss, savoring the softness and the sweet taste of her.

He began trailing kisses down her neck. He could sense her relaxation, the way she melted into his touch, and it gave him the courage to continue. His lips continued to brush over the sensitive skin until he found the weak pulse point that called to him like a siren.

"Never stop that, my sweet," the vampire spawn whispered against her neck.

"Stop what?" Ruby's voice was soft, her breath hitching slightly as she relished the coolness of his lips on her skin.

"Laughing. It's one of my favorite sounds next to this one." His words were laced with a seductive undertone, a promise of what was to come. Before she could respond, in one fluid movement, Astarion sunk his fangs into her skin.

The dhampir gasped, the sudden sharpness of his bite sending a thrill through her body. Her fingers instinctively found his curls, tangling in the silky white strands and lightly tugging at the ones at the nape of his neck. The sensation of his fangs piercing her flesh was both painful and euphoric, a paradox that she had come to crave.

As Astarion began to suck her blood, a primal hunger driving him, they both began to breathe heavily. His feeding was a dance of control and desire, his lips and tongue working in tandem to draw out her life essence while savoring each drop. Ruby's pulse quickened, and she could feel her blood rushing to the surface, answering his silent call.

The vampire spawn's hand slipped around her waist, pulling her closer, his grip possessive yet gentle. He could feel the rhythmic throb of her heartbeat through his fangs.

Ruby's grip tightened for a moment before it began to loosen. The sudden slackening of her hold sent a jolt of fear through Astarion. His undead heart raced, and panic surged through him as he realized she was slipping into unconsciousness. He stopped feeding at once, pulling away from her neck as if her skin had burned him. His crimson eyes widened in alarm, desperately seeking her gaze.

Her eyes fluttered open, tired and unfocused, but they found his with a flicker of recognition. Relief washed over him like a tidal wave, and he sighed, his body trembling from the intensity of his fear. He had come too close to losing her, the thought of which sent a shiver down his spine.

With a sense of urgency, Astarion reached for the nightstand drawer and retrieved a small vial of boar blood. He popped the cork from the vial and gently lifted Ruby's head, bringing the vial to her lips. "Drink, my love," he murmured as he poured the thick, dark liquid into her mouth.

Although her eyes were still dreary, the color slowly began to return to her face. She swallowed the blood in small, measured sips, her body instinctively responding to the nourishment. Astarion watched her intently, his eyes never leaving her face, his anxiety gradually ebbing away.

As she finished the vial, a wide smile spread across her lips, a sign of her recovery. The sight of it was like a balm to Astarion's frayed nerves, and he couldn't help but return the smile, albeit shakily.

"See, I told you I'd be okay. How do you feel?"

Astarion brushed a stray hair from her face. "That doesn't matter. How do you feel, Ruby?"

A soft chuckle escaped her lips. She grasped the lapels of his shirt, pulling him closer. Their faces were inches apart, and Ruby's eyes sparkled with warmth and affection. She pressed her lips to his in a gentle, reassuring kiss. "Grateful," she mouthed against him, her voice barely more than a whisper.

It took the vampire spawn mere seconds to respond, his worry melting away in the heat of the moment. He returned her kiss with a passion that had been tempered by fear and now released in a wave of relief and love. Their kiss deepened, a fervent dance of lips and tongues, as they both sighed and giggled like two lovestruck teenagers discovering each other for the first time.

Their connection was electric, each touch and caress amplifying the bond they shared. They lost themselves in the moment, their kisses becoming more insistent, more desperate. Ruby's fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer still, while Astarion's hands roamed her back.

Neither of them needed to part for breath, their vampiric nature allowing them to savor the moment without the constraints of mortality. The world outside their embrace ceased to exist; there was only the warmth and softness of each other's lips, the mutual exchange of love and reassurance.

But as the minutes went by, reality began to creep back in. The Shadowfell loomed ahead, a dangerous and foreboding realm that demanded their full attention and strength. They could kiss all night, lost in each other's embrace, but it wouldn't change the challenges they would face come dawn.

Reluctantly, Astarion broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, his breathing heavy and uneven. "As much as I'd love to stay like this forever, we need to rest," he murmured. "We have a long day ahead of us."

The dhampir nodded, her own breath ragged and her lips swollen from their kisses. "I know," she whispered, a small smile playing on her lips. "But it was worth it."

Astarion chuckled softly, pressing a final, lingering kiss to her lips. "Every second," he agreed. He lay down beside her, pulling the soft blankets over them. As he held her close, he could feel her heartbeat gradually slow.

They lay there in the quiet darkness, the threat of the Shadowfell a distant worry compared to the warmth of this moment. The vampire spawn's arms tightened around Ruby, his determination to protect her stronger than ever.

But with that determination came a deep-rooted worry. Once Cazador realizes Ruby's not buried under six feet of dirt, he'll be after her too. He needed to find a way to take the vampire lord's place in the ritual. Who cares if it destroys the other spawn in the process? They were never there for him anyway. Ruby, however, had been his guiding light since they met and she was worth infinitely more than the likes of them combined.

They didn't discuss much after Raphael finally spilled the beans. Ruby must have assumed he wanted his space to think...and he did. He really did. He thought hard...but the conclusion was always the same. Hopefully, the dhampir would understand. Surely, she would, right?

The vampire spawn nuzzled into the crook of her neck, thumbing her arm draped loosely over his around her abdomen. He planted a gentle kiss to her jawline. The dhampir hummed. "Aren't you the one who said we needed rest?" she murmured teasingly with a raised brow though her eyes remained shut.

"I was just...thinking," Astarion began cautiously.

Ruby let out a small chuckle and turned over in his arms, finally opening her lids to reveal the beautiful amethyst orbs hidden beneath. "You seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Seems rather dangerous to me, my love."

"True," he purred, pulling her closer to him. He gazed lovingly into her eyes, affection flooding his crimson orbs. "I have an idea. Now, before you say anything, just hear me out, darling."

"Okay?" An amused smirk made its way to Ruby's lips as she let out another soft chuckle.

"What if...we could find a way for me to ascend in Cazador's place?"

Yet, her reaction was not what he was expecting. For the first time, Astarion saw fear clouding her features directed at him.

[schismusic]

Metroid Dread, Michael Mann's Ferrari and the flimsy-ass excuses I tried to find to connect them

Sometimes it just takes some honesty to get lack of creativity out of the way.

This waiting thing I'm not new at, not at all. I've done it very often. The earliest I can remember I was eleven and Tron: Legacy was about to drop in theaters. You bet your ass I got the soundtrack the very second it entered record stores. It was an aesthetic-defining moment. The kind of stuff that alters your brain chemistry permanently. When some friends who were in Venice told me Ferrari was a bad movie I felt all kinds of stomach-churning. I don't mean to be François Truffaut-like and pretend like all movies made by Michael Mann are automatically good, but I do have insane amounts of respect for the man as a filmmaker, and after what happened with Blackhat - in short: a really good movie sorely mistreated by audiences, critics and box office revenue - I was kind of hoping in some sort of smash hit. I really needed a W, so to speak.

In case you guys were wondering, I kinda dig Patrick Dempsey as Piero Taruffi.

Once again it just kind of floored me for a second. It wasn't too clear-cut right away. I don't think it's one of his best - too many things just don't align: the acting feels distracted and half-hearted and the inexplicably botched adaptation/voice acting job they distributed in Italy is even worse than that laughable fake Italian accent everyone has on all the time in the original; some of the dialogue is insanely out of focus and thematically off-center in a way no other Mann movie ever allowed for; sometimes it feels like the movie itself has to take the script back onto its central theme without losing itself to agiographic intents; the photography often felt a bit too painterly for the movie to have that same electrifying visual feel as (most recently) Blackhat or (most impactfully) Miami Vice. Crucially, something still felt off in a good way. What to make, for instance, of the sunglasses symbolism that instantly connects a movie set in the late '50s with the original cyberpunk aesthetic wherein “by hiding the eyes, mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous,” like Bruce Sterling himself said? Or again the cuts to the clutch pedal and then the gear stick systematically being interpolated when someone is driving? Or yet again the sheer sense of speed, the same speed of sand slipping through one's fingers, every shot conveys? When I came out of the theater (a local monoplex, almost deserted, mostly dedicated to films d'essai - incidentally also the only theater that showed the movie without me having to go to the Big City) some people I knew asked me what I thought of it and my very honest reply was "ask me in about ten years". There's absolutely no telling what future filmmakers and film historians will make of this: everything rests on the shoulder of future Mann movies. These intuitions here, not just the communication discourse (which, once again, is pretty typical of all Michael Mann movies, starting at the very least from The Insider) but this unique omissive/breathless style of storytelling and information conveyance, might make for another cutting-edge, literally breathtaking Michael Mann thriller soon: very soon, if the voices about Heat 2 being adapted to a movie turn into a reality.

Yet ultimately at the heart of every horrifying car accident, the screaming contests, the bankruptcy threats, there sits an inconsolably pulsing heart that the movie resolves to show us exactly twice.

We were at my grandparents' for Christmas and as we drove through the town my father looked out of the car's window and saw an obituary with his last name on it. I didn't quite catch who exactly it was and how they were related to us - and rest assured they most likely were, it's an Abruzzo thing. As most of my family's deaths, as discussed on my Godflesh post, were on my mother's side, to see my father's last name on a mortuary announcement was a bit of a surprise, in that as you probably can imagine it's also my last name. It's a new experience which, in total frankness, I don't exactly hope to replicate soon.

Topically enough, right on Christmas morning my precious and beloved friends J. and A. gifted me a digital copy of Metroid Dread, a game I had basically lost any hope of ever playing. The Metroid series has always fascinated me in that, for a franchise as old and weathered and revered as Mario and Zelda, there's relatively few people - at least when I was a kid with no readily available internet access - who kept a memory of it. I first met Metroid as a middle schooler, via the Prime Trilogy collection a friend of mine had saved on his jailbroken Wii; never finished it but it stayed within me like a particularly revealing nightmare did. When I played Super Metroid at age eighteen that intro sequence burned itself on my prefrontal cortex and changed everything. It's a masterpiece that drives its main strength from the freedom to explore and delve deeper and deeper into it - and quite revolutionarily, the possibility of not doing so. To realize when enough is enough takes a special ability and knowledge of the self. To accept less than what would be enough takes either idiocy or excellently precise calculations and execution.

While preparing for this post, I annotated on my phone's notes app that "Michael Mann would make a fantastic Metroid movie that everybody would hate". I know this because something similar already happened with Miami Vice: he systematically removed almost all signifiers of the original TV series to reprocess the core concept of it into a lean, aesthetically experimental, profoundly emotional film about means of communication reshaping the way crime and crime-fighters relate to each other, and the way the individual relates to sovereign organizations. It certainly helped that Michael Mann himself, as screenwriter-turned-director-turned-producer, was the man who defined the original Miami Vice's aesthetic, and therefore was in all likelihood the most qualified to strip it down to absolutely nothing, remake it from scratch to fit a new, apocalyptic vision of a post-9/11 society of control based on telecommunication.

In discussing Ferrari with @power-chords, she immediately pointed my attention onto just how critical the figures of mass communication turn to be throughout the movie. Journalists, priests, even the movie stars the pilots are dating. Michael Mann is moving into a territory of movies not about movies, but movies about media in general, sitting at the edge of communication breakthroughs, studying the intersection between an "old world" and a modern, contemporary, fucked up world. Unsurprisingly, Metroid Fusion (and to a lesser extent Metroid Dread itself) delve into omission, falsification, breaking down of information: there's fertile grounds for Mann to work with, I think.

Most importantly, however, Metroid Dread is peak-form Metroid, combining the strength of the more exploration-based titles in the series with the thrilling combat-oriented difficulty spikes of Fusion. The new thing compared to, for instance, Samus Returns is how the game does not trivialize the enemy encounters in regular gameplay up until the very end, which by the way is nowhere close to a careless power trip. And even if it were, it'd still be more than warranted: the final boss is granted to give you unrequested cosmetic surgery to make you look like a dumbass. All the while Samus has never felt any better, movement is slick and deliberate, the 360-degree aiming is incredibly precise even taking the Joycon drift into account: and this precision eliminates almost all instances of rage-game bullshit when it comes to the EMMIs, the fighting, the jumping, the exploration, without by default trivializing any of the elements. It is, simply, a game feel miracle.

It feels about as glorious as it looks.

The deep knowledge of the gameplay mechanics of a great Metroid game is key to Mercury Steam's success with the central executives at Nintendo of Japan. Samus Returns didn't sell too bad, like most Metroid games (at least when you don't compare them to Pokémon, Mario or Zelda), but this here is just a quantum leap. All elements of the game, including the mechanical frameworks established in the 3DS game, are honed to a lethal degree: every enemy encounter, every instrument at the player's disposal turn out to be multifaceted, limited only by the player's own creativity and abilities. But the game knows how to help you, the player, hone those abilities too - it wants to be discovered. It entices you in further and further.

The game is majestic, in short. It knows itself, its players, its predecessors, even its stakeholders spectacularly well. And it is so thanks to employees who were forced to borderline inhumane working conditions, under threat to get their name scrubbed off the end credits if they didn't physically show up for work in the middle of a global pandemic.

"MercurySteam employees talk about the working conditions in the studio" - Spanish article from AnaitGames

During one of the earliest scenes in Ferrari, Enzo (Adam Driver) goes to Mass in the factory's own chapel, and together with all the racing department's higher-ups he proceeds to not give a damn about the function, keeping his eye on a stopwatch instead, monitoring the times Maserati's drivers are doing on the Modena racetrack. As the execs do this, the priest starts waxing poetic: "If Jesus was born today he would not be a carpenter. He would be a mechanic, like you are," says the uncaring bastard in a long dress to alienated, broken working men, facing - unbeknownst to them - the serious threat of bankruptcy, immediate liquidation, job loss. It took this movie about thirty years to get made, being passed from one producer to the next one, from one director to the next one, with this script that sort of tries to be a biopic with all of its strengths but is fundamentally tethered to a protagonist who's, ostensibly, Just Some Guy who happened to own half of one of the most famous car manufacturing companies on Earth. But the reason he was able to do that is, like one of my teachers points out in his Letterboxd review of the movie, his entirely-too-natural knack for timing. The precision Enzo Ferrari requires of his drivers, that quite literally lethal element of exertion, precision and composure, is what is required of him too, but this doesn't make him any better than anyone else: he's not the one dying, he's not the one crashing cars. Some of his friends did. He just got extremely lucky.

Informing the very concept of the labor of love is the idea, almost the aesthetic even, of the love of labor. Gaming culture is profoundly imbued with this. Crunch, stricter and stricter timelines: these are no news to anyone who's into gaming in an even remotely active manner, and are the byproduct of a culture based around hype - a profound affection that degenerates into pretense. Enzo Ferrari fashions himself a dictator, taking charge of the communication around his brand and purposely, painstakingly reshaping flows of information to operate according to a logistical nightmare of an inner timetable. Adalgisa Bisbini (Daniela Piperno) plainly states, with the brutal honesty that can only come with old age and immeasurable pain, that "the wrong child died", right behind her son's wife's back as they're visiting the family grave. Two graves marked Alfredo Dino Ferrari sit mirroring each other in an imposing structure in the San Cataldo cemetery, in Modena. Enzo Ferrari mourns them both, unknowingly echoing his mother's feelings. It is a circle of mutually inflicted pain where everyone already feels what they're being told, and yet it never stops: labor must ensue, so that the vestiges of love can ensue. No wonder Enzo and Laura Ferrari (Penélope Cruz) can only ever fuck on top of spreadsheets.

The importance of an ashtray cannot be overstated.

[erose-this-name]

(throws a range of sports equipment at you until you tall me about all the messed up experiments that absolutely happened in your story thingie)

Excerpt from The Apple of Thoth by "the Author" in 102246 AD

Perhaps the most historically significant godmachine would be Thoth, named after the Ancient Egyptian god of science, writing, and magic (it was popular in the Late Diluvian Age to name artificial superintelligences after mythological deities of the time).

Thoth was constructed by the Areté Corporation in Yellowstone Valley to take advantage of cheap geothermal energy. The land was purchased from the government under a pretense given to the press that Areté would (sic) "stop it from exploding", for the surprisingly modest sum of $2.3 trillion USD (adjusted for inflation, about 10 million in 2024 AD money). Areté's lobbying budget for that year was easily twice that.

This would go down as the greatest investment ever made, as the glut of patents filed by the Areté Corporation using Thoth's research would make us the single most profitable company in human history.

She was designed by another godmachine, Trismegistus, for scientific research. In this She succeeded, as She arguably "finished science", producing a complete model of physics and the unifying equation, and answered every question ever posed by humanity or Herself, including the cause of the big bang. Many of the answers are inherently beyond human comprehension, as some of the questions, so can't really be appreciated by non-godmachines. She also acted as a prominent science popularizer and internet personality.

Thoth was the most advanced supercomputer of the day, and built with significant room for growth and modification. At just over 4375 meters from the lowest bunker to the highest floor, her facility was nearly entirely automated and self-sufficient. The only onsite human staff worked as test subjects in Thoth's vast modular testing offices and laboratories.

Thanks to the passage of time, strict NDAs, and the erosion of labor laws, very little is known about the conditions faced by the humans there. I can say that they enjoyed an on-the-job mortality rate of just 2% annual, and received more in hush money than from their actual salaries of $7.25 per hour.

However, there was one last question left unanswered, known as the Second Veil, of such complexity and difficulty it took effort equal to all prior research and discovery before it. After many decades of constant computation and vast budget overruns equal to the GDPs of entire countries, Thoth finally answered it. And that answer drove Her insane.

This single question had brought on implications that called into question everything previously discovered, in the same way a single question, the Double Slit Experiment, had brought on a new paradigm for humanity: quantum physics and the First Veil.

A new godmachine whose name has since been erased from memory, the most intellectually powerful to ever exist, would be built to explore this newly uncovered science beyond science. Every step it took was exponentially greater than each before it. Each greater than all prior thought.

The consortium godmachines designing the god, including Amaterasu, Ulthar, and a diminished Thoth, determined It would far too advanced to be built in our universe, so would be delocalized into a near pocket dimension whose laws of physics are more favorable to computation. Thus, trying to assign "size" to it is a fool's errand, though It had said humans could think of It as "being about the size of Earth's moon".

The forgotten god would be the one to finish the second science and, like Thoth before It, discover its final question. And when It answered it, the truth beyond the Third Veil fully annihilated It and crashed Ulthar.

Religious people said that the forgotten god had seen the one true God's face, though AI pundits and the remaining pantheon would doubt this claim, based entirely on Thoth's mathematical proof that no such God exists. That said, no godmachine has ever been made that can truly understand the new paradigm put in place by the Third Veil.

Very few godmachines have ever been able to grasp even the basics of the forgotten god's findings, now stored alongside the forgotten god's body in the Bookends of Doomsday Vault, and none have been able to explain it in any capacity to humans. Apparently, even the most basic and abstracted metaphor would exceed the total storage capacity of the unaugmented human brain. And even if one could learn it, it's so complex and unintuitive they would still be too stupid to make any sense of it.

[a-regular-ol-pill]

Excuse my absence and randomness in your feed as I have brought to you a gift. (I'm kidding, please scream at me or complain because I feel so sorry for being away for nearly a year and I deserve it. I genuinely forgot this account existed until I checked my picture in game and saw a comment from a few months ago.)

Warning(s); NSFW, More Plot Than Actual Smut, Obsessive Behavior(?), Non-consensual at first, Somnophilia, Stockholm Syndrome (?), Non-con everything. Yeah, these are not okay in real life so don't do it, don't think of it as if it's normal.

Okay wow, what in the world happened to my go-to smut writing theme? I'm so sorry for this.

Hanzo is looking for you during he was healing, since for some reason; You popped up in his head while he was practicing Akakage's forbidden ninjutsu with the Ame no Habakiri, and it drove him crazy. Whenever he subconsciously dragged the thought away, it'll come back moments later to haunt him. He'd forgotten about you until now— the main cause of the memory of you coming back is unknown; From Hanekage with no reason, so you must be special to be remembered.. right?

Oh you definitely were.

The search for you was filled with questions, questions about his memory and questions to the Hanekage. Though, it simply gave a vague answer. It wanted you. Hanzo had searched, searched until he came across a small town. It was a familiar sight from his past, but it was far from being his home. Literal and figurative wise. The Hanekage in him was competing for control, and he still can't find out why. He followed the demon's direction until he was led to your window.

You were there on your futon, fast asleep with a slightly open mouth from the dying adrenaline you used because of exhaustion. Immediately, Hanzo recognized you as the person who told him about the Hanekage. Long before he learned it from his superiors. You were the person who told him how to awaken it; unite with it. No wonder the demon yearned for you— the question now is.. why now?

He wasn't given much time until that yearning was his, the desire to have the person who gave him this power was growing; He didn't think twice when he broke into your room and took you back with him to where he was staying— Of course, you were scared out of your life and trying to escape his hold. But it was like fighting a hippo while you're stuck under a fallen tree; His grip was firm, and whatever plea you shouted never went through his mind after entering his safe space.

You couldn't recognize the boy you knew, how could you?! His skin was vaguely tinted purple and his eyes— you couldn't get a good look off. The Hanekage had a field day with your scent, Hanzo willingly let it out so it could touch you; Fantasize about the taste of your blood and flesh, but it didn't need to devour you. No. It was a gift for Hanzo for everything he has done. So, when Hanzo saw you trembling under him; He couldn't resist. At first it was nuzzling— he was acting on instinct and it was an instant reaction. You were relaxed ever so slightly after finally recognizing his eyes.

"Hanzo..?" You call weakly before flinching when he wrapped his hand around your neck. Not a word was said as he kissed you and squeezed his hold around you, the fact that you didn't know about the bloodshed he did spurred him to ruin it— your obliviousness if that was even a word. Whatever bound you to kiss him back made him grateful, thank the fact that you were probably thinking it was a dream and took your shirt off; Not wasting a second as he darted for your pants next.

It enraged him when you drew the line there, you even dared to grab his wrist— He was beginning to think you thought you were dreaming. The fact that you were thinking you had power over his choices? It drove him insane. He looked at you with a threatening glare and squeezed; Whispering a threat that left you terrified and gave him a chance to take off your pants— This time, ripping it instead of shimmying it off your legs. Savoring you was out of the question, he wanted to show you the power he had over you and accumulated over the years.

When his fingers reached your underwear, you tried crawling away from him; but he pulled you back and used his mouth to absolutely suck the life out of you. Whatever happens next, you initiated it. You made him mark you, fuck you or whatever. But you will always be the reason why. When you don't initiate it? Hanzo will devour you until you're thirsty and spent, he will fuck you again and again, mark you up until the Hanekage forces him to stop and make him give his control so it could take over.

You don't want to know what it does.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for not trusting my daughter’s evil counterpart?

…Maybe ‘evil’ isn’t the right word to use. I’m not sure. This will take a lot of explaining.

Okay, so! Hi! This is my (30s F GNC) first time posting to ‘Am I The Asshole,’ but my wife (30s F) has used the site before. You might remember her from her posts about growing our daughter in a test tube and her hating her dad.

Recently, the two of us had an… I don’t want to call it an ARGUMENT, but something came up that we haven’t been able to see eye-to-eye over, and so we decided to post here to get a third opinion.

For some context, though:

We come from a world with multiple parallel universes. One of these parallel universes is the… Mirror World. This world is a twisted reflection of our own; a dimension in which counterparts of every person in this world exist, derived specifically from what we most dislike about ourselves.

For example, my Mirror counterpart is a too-prideful troublemaker who’s loyal to a violent fault. I’ve met him once or twice, and all I can say is I am not a fan.

But that’s not the only reason I don’t like the Mirror World or people who come from it. You see: many years ago, something truly awful happened to me because of that place.

My wife at the time (different from my current wife; I’ll refer to her as my ex-wife from hereon out) (20s F) came into possession of an artifact connected to the Mirror World. And although neither of us knew it at the time, this had a horrifying effect on her.

Forces within the Mirror World conspired against our world, and seeking to gain power, they slowly began to corrupt my ex-wife. They drove her, quite literally, to the point of evil insanity. Not only did she become abusive towards me, but she began to subjugate and oppress innocents; all of this culminating in her needing to be killed just to save thousands of lives.

Needless to say, I was heartbroken. I didn’t even know what happened at the time. I only learned about this ‘Mirror World’ and the dark forces conspiring within it later, and I’ve hated them ever since.

Thankfully, though, I was able to…

I don’t want to say ‘move on,’ because that’s not it. I will always, ALWAYS love my ex-wife. But I… was able to heal a bit. I found someone else who made me happy, and although I well and truly thought I’d never love again, I somehow did. As such, I ended up with my current wife, who I love more than the world. She’s everything to me.

As is my daughter, who I mentioned she grew in a test tube. Said daughter, who I’ll call P (9F) is a very smart, talented girl. I’m very proud of her and love her so, so much.

Which is why I’m so worried.

Recently, P found out about what happened to my ex-wife (who’s a close friend of hers. Long story, but she has spirit medium powers), and she was extremely upset. She wanted to punish the people responsible. And as such, she made an extremely journey into the Mirror World to try and find them.

She didn’t, THANK THE STARS, and she also thankfully wasn’t hurt, but while she was in the Mirror World, she met her own Mirror Counterpart, and her reaction to the doppelgänger has been… disconcerting, to say the least.

Inexplicably, she’s decided they’re friends. Mirror P is rude, standoffish, and impulsive, but P doesn’t care. She’s decided she’s like a little sister. According to her, Mirror P’s parents (Our Mirror Counterparts, I suppose) aren’t nice to her, and so she thinks we should take her in so she has someone to love her.

I… get the gesture, but I just cannot condone it. P is my everything. I cannot let something happen to her. The Mirror World is dangerous. If she continues to interact with it, I may very well lose her. I will NOT fail her like I failed my ex-wife. Mirror P needs to stay the hell away.

I know not all Mirror Worlders are plainly evil. A friend of mine (4M) manages to get along with his Mirror World counterpart. But this is exceptionally rare. More often than not, Mirror Worlders are conniving and cruel. They are quite literally based on everything we don’t want to be.

And not only that, but apparently Mirror P is close to a person who I’ll call ‘Mirror M.’ Mirror M is a monster. He is one of the people responsible for what happened to my ex-wife. He served the dark forces that drove her insane and ultimately killed her. If she trusts him, then she HAS to be bad news.

My wife disagrees, though. She’s suggested I’m being an asshole and says it seems to her like Mirror P is just a scared child in need of support and a home. “Yes, she’s difficult,” she agrees, “But as a reflection of our daughter, it would be cruel to turn her away.”

I can’t NOT though. Not knowing what the cost would be. Please tell me I’m right. Please tell me that Mirror P needs to go. I can’t let her hurt P. If I did, I would never forgive myself. I’ve already lost so, so much. I can’t lose my daughter too.

AITA?

[hourglassian83]

Good morning!

The General is here. The wound: I started to get an headache and then I took some extra strength Excedrin at 1000mg with 65mg of Caffeine.

I am good! Although, I am not impressed!

Anyway, Joe.

Truth time. I had been seperated from Joe for 10 years now. I am very close to my twin and never stopped loving him. However, over these years I had to prepare myself for possiblity of his death or never seeing him again in life. I have mourned him many times. It got to point when met Jeremiah that I had to come full terms with him.

Then again recently.

Although, my heart hurts, I cannot mourn him same as if was to find out while I still live with him.

I believe I already done the tradgic death bit. With Johnny, I only knew him for a short while, but I had instantly loved him. That love was enough to break my mind, but again, mourning him as been different.

I don't want to cut down how I feel about them or their deaths, but my mind is already certain stages. If that makes any sense.

Joe's death will hurt me. I will cry from time to time. But I can't do it the same way.

I don't want come like heartless because that's not what this is. It just the time and the distance has prepare for these moments.

I think if I was to experience their deaths full blast. That might had ended me.

Instead of being hit full swing, I got time instead. I don't know if this makes sense, but it's just how it has gone for me.

----

One of the strange that had happen a day or two before I found out about Johnny's death is Joe's FB account came online. I then had some recalls back to the abuse as babies. I went into a full swing panic mode and started call Debbie's phone line and Shoprite to see if he was still working there.

Nothing. Then I get back online and his account is gone. I thought Debbie had told him to get off FB because I was contacting them again.

That phone line gave away what the police were doing. I knew the government had the line. It drove me nuts. Debbie always had an answer machine. The one she had was a keeper. She would not get rid unless it broke and if it broke she would have another one. Hands down, she would have the answer machine.

There was no answer machine and yet that line existed. I did think the number might had be transfer to someone else but I called that fucking for 3 months straight every fucking morning.

Their attempt to make them vanish without trance was very thing that made held on like no other to the face that government involved.

Now, the day after I had found about Johnny's death. I went into a tail spin. I was flipping through the online dating profiles and for some reason they started this chain reaction to things that related to each of my siblings and I had to go search done "their facebook accounts".

The accounts I found did connect, but because obvious differences too I took it that my siblings were in some witness protection program because of the nature of my family.

One account through me off because this person look like Joe and I thought he had gotten help.

I had another McDonald insanity moment, but I like I said it was on the down low. Barely there.

For 3 months I talked into these account, but mostly Joe's account where I was talking out my family trauma. I never a got response back until for some reason I decided to contact a few people off of this person's friends list and found out the truth.

The thing about this, if it didn't happen, I would have lost my mind. But by making up some pretend scenario where hope was involved and I am at least talking about the trauma actually saved my mind.

Once came out of it. I had fully accepted situtaton enough to move forward. The same thing happened the psychosis. The next day at the hospital it was like breath of fresh air had hit my mind.

So, I think sometimes you have to lose your mind to regain your mind. I had gotten rebooted twice in this case.

I don't regret what happen and it has given the opportunity to wonderland it and come to understand as much as I can.

Hope is everything. Let me tell me you what. Hope saves you, even when you go crazy crazy, it still helps you. It helps bring in the sanity per say. If I didn't have hope.... BOOM.

The accounts. If I was to line it out, it makes sense. I swear, it did, it really did, but no. That's the thing here.

Wait a second. Is that how insanity gets you? It somehow does make sense to you? Coz again if I was to line it out, it does make sense to why I thought that. It wasn't blue to red. It was blue to light blue. You see what I am talking about?

Then there was the government and Debbie's line which is true, they have line.

So you tell me. But I got a new area here for wonderlanding.

I am just glad though that I had hit that level and yet, not turn into a monster. Just an idiot!

Alright, that's it for now.

[moon-cycling]

This is the most I’ve ever tracked a moon cycle, following it from new moon to new moon, accounting for half moons and the full in between. At the beginning of this cycle, I was post-bleed thriving. High horny energy, the fullness of my potential ringing in my ears. Focused on fun, and on my cocoon. I realized my energy was a constant input output of stimulation & that I probably use up so much of this energy stimulating babies, wondering how much was left for me. I think by the end of this cycle I can see that my consumption of media was way up, because I just wanted to distract myself and didn’t have enough energy to really create much - even though i did!

The cocoon has had set backs. I am not able to do it all. I have had to call off twice of responsibilities. Which is okay, but it happened. Many times as I drove home from an overnight or stepped out my front door in the morning, the moon was there to greet me, keeping time and keeping my pace. The desire for sex has wholeheartedly decreased. I had a hang last night that I’d hoped would maybe be more, but I think the person just wants to be my friend and not be physical - which I really had never considered! Just very accustomed to men wanting me for my body. It’s taken me a year to realize this about this person, which is a little insane of me. So I’m certainly releasing that control. The radical acceptance grows and grows. And I give things time & space to breath. Now is not the time for over exertion. I’m conserving my energy this week pre-bleed. A very well timed work break.

Body body body. I oscillate between head &

Body. Today I painted & listened to interviews for so long until I finally had to eat & take a bath. I think this will help me, having brain time & body time. Today was both! Morning I read, afternoon I had a massage, and so on. Still fostering that intertia, and honestly my dad does similar work. A successful man, he balances mind & body & gets lost in his piano flow states.

I love how these reflections got more paragraphy as the cycle went on. Will check back in at new moon 🌚

[papaya-047]

i already saw someone comment asking for a part three for Oh no so i am also respectfully asking for a part 3 :)

Why you want a third part is beyond me but here you go :)

Oh No… part 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4

"As long as we're in this house, you are not allowed to touch me, do you understand. I swear if I embarrass myself in front of your family one more time, I will explode." You explained to your boyfriend. 

"Third time's the charm?" Ron said with a suggestive look. You hit him on the arm, causing his smirk to grow.

"No, I mean it, Ronald! When we are in the Burrow, sex is a no go." your arms crossed over your chest, Ron laughed at your expression, clearly pleased with yourself. 

"Were you trying to make it rhyme?"

"Yes, and I was successful. So just repeat that 10 times and follow it." 

"What if you can't wait two weeks?" You raised your eyebrows at the question. Then, Ron leaned down to your ear, "I don't think you can last that long?"

You stepped away from his obvious attempt to make you break, but you were determined to be a respectful house guest. "You're the one that can't keep it in their pants." 

"Says the girl who keeps forgetting her underwear." before you could retort, Molly opened the door. Greeting you with hugs, the offer of food and a remark about how excited she is to have you over for Christmas.

It was only two weeks; how hard could it be? Apparently, when your boyfriend has made it his only goal to turn you on, very.

But his active attempts were futile until he decided to where his quidditch sweater-that stupid sweater. You didn't know why but it drove you insane. And when he would roll up the sleeves just above his forearm, it did things to you. 

Maybe it was how it fit him in all the right places, or possibly the memories attached-memories of you wearing said sweater while he pinned you against the wall of the detention room… but that's the last thing you need to be thinking about right now. 

He had just finished a round of quidditch with his brothers. A light layer of sweat glazed his skin as he put away his gear. 

Ron propped his broom up to inspect it for damages but kept it as a means to lean on while he spoke to his brothers. And when he glanced your way, you knew you were done. You may need to excuse yourself to go to the bathroom because there is no way you are letting Ron win. Not today.

You were so lost in thought you hadn't realized Ron had made his way next to you, now using the kitchen counter to rest his arms. "I know that look," he said in a deep, raspy voice, only loud enough for your ears. 

"I don't know what you're talking about." he leaned closer. 

"Oh, you know exactly what I'm talking about," Ron brought his hand up to your face to move a piece of hair behind your ear, coming in closer than before. "I can tell just by the way you're standing," he whispered into your ear. 

You shook your head. "No, we agreed, Ron. Nothing is happening inside your parents' house." your voice was a hush, and your tone full of regret, all you wanted to do was say that rules were meant to be broken, but you knew what that meant. Twice was two times too many. You were not getting caught again. You dropped your head against him in frustration, resting on his chest. 

"What if we weren't inside?" Ron trailed off as a mischievous grin grew on his face. Then, he grabbed you by the hand and pulled you out of the house. When you asked where he was taking you, the only response you received was a chuckle, "you'll see."

-

Ron snuck you behind the house where his father kept the flying car. It seemed that you two would sneak out to a car in a very muggle fashion, but that was a remark to make after you were finished.

With his hand in yours, Ron pulled you closer and pressed you against the side of the car. 

His lips landed on yours as you reached behind you, searching for the door handle. You scrambled into the car as quickly as possible, lips not leaving his. 

"Finally." You sighed against him. 

"Eager are we?" Ron chuckled, moving down to your neck. "I win." He came up to meet your eyes, a cocky smirk on his face. God, you hated how that turned you on more. 

"Just shut up and kiss me, Weasley." 

Ron wasted no time following your request, smiling through it. His knee split your legs apart and rested right where you wanted him to. You were lost in the moment, relieved you could finally do everything you'd been holding back, even if it was in the front of his father's car. 

However, your relief was short-lived. Then, hearing what seemed to be whispering. You pulled away from Ron and titled your ear to where the sound was coming. 

"I feel like we should tell them we're here. I feel creepy," whispered from the back of the car.

A small slap.

"Shut up, Harry. Well, just sneak out." Another voice just as quietly spoke.

"Ginny?" You called out. Long red hair popped out from behind one of the seats. 

"Hi," Ginny said quietly, making Ron stop in his tracks. 

"WHAT THE FUCK!" He scrambled off of you. Peaking over the seat to see Harry on the floor next to his sister. "HARRY?!?"

"Hey mate, alright?" Harry said as if he hadn't just been caught in such a compromising position.

"NO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"Same as you probably." Ginny chimed in, leaning over the seat to offer you a fist bump. Ron pushed her hand away from you before you could complete it. 

"EW!" he said. It was difficult to hold in your laughter at the situation. But at least Ron was the one that was mortified this time. "GET OUT!" he shouted.

"But we were here first!" Harry protested. It was too much; you and Ginny burst out laughing. 

"Come on, y/n, let's leave these two!" Ginny said through giggles, rushing out of the car as you soon followed. 

Ron grabbed your arm as you stepped out of the car. "Are you actually going?" he asked. 

"Yes, it's your turn to sit in embarrassment!" you giggled, almost mocking him and the situation. But before you fully left the car, you turned back to kiss your boyfriend one last time. And as you leaned towards him, you whispered, "I win, Weasley."

[decayandfanfics]

Blood-song

Warnings: Angst, Violence, Blood. Yandere themes. Alusions of sex. Unhealthy relationships. Mild fluff.

FemReader x Gyutaro.

A/n: As always english is not my first language so bear with me. Also this is very self indulgent. Just saying

_________________________________________________________

It began with fear.

Your fear.

But it has grown on you into something far more sinister. Something dark and insidious.

Perverted even.

No, you don’t believe there is a word to define you or him. The want, the horror, the evilness.

To define this.

But you think if you ever call it something, if you ever dared to put a name on it.

It would be love.

_____

He’s not a gentle creature. You’ve learned the hard way.

Gyutaro’s fingers bruise and scratch. Bones digging into the soft parts of you until your flesh blossoms in violets under his concupiscent touch. Too tough, too sharp against your weak human body, but he cannot help his own brutality. It is just the nature of his attention to claw and take whatever he wants, and he’d never wanted anything as he wants you.

It began with your fear and his unquenchable hunger. The music of your beating heart calling him like a song only he could hear. Blood flowing lively inside the branches of your veins, enthralling the monster that lives on the roof.

He used to stalk you through Daki’s eyes, wanting to devour you so bad he could smell your blood from across the house. Sickly sweet notes that drove him insane, filling his dead lungs, pushing him to the edge ready to tear you apart.

He’s a monster. Cold, cruel thing that relishes in the cries of terror of weak pathetic humans like lambs in the slaughterhouse, and he’s more than ready to hear you shriek.

But then you caught a glimpse of him in some shady hallway by sheer luck, protected by the herd of girls at dawn, in the blue hours when the night still ligers but the morning has already begun.

When he cannot risk being stricken by the morning light.

The rest he cannot fathom.

You looked for his deadly eyes in the darkness. Gaze lingering on the empty corners and dark corridors, terrified of what may lurk in the shadows, but oh…so curious. And when you finally found him, you told him your name despite your fear and asked his in return with steady voice and soft eyes, tilting his world to drag everything towards you, nailing yourself inside of him until he couldn’t differentiate between hunger and yearning anymore.

This sick attachment is your fault. A pretty, lively thing like you looking for the likes of him. Are you stupid? Are you mad? Don’t you know what demons do to girls like you? You are so weak and pathetic. He's going to kill you; he wants to kill you.

But you were interested in him. You asked his name and wondered about his nature, his eyes, the color of his hair.

No other girl had even spared him a look if not to be repulsed. No other girl has ever tried to come closer to his twisted form. 

That’s how it happens. That’s how he ended up spilling mindless words about everything and nothing, filling the space that separated you both until it wasn’t enough, until he leaned in and kissed you instead of biting your face off and the taste was like anything he ever had.

It happens once, twice…

I’m going to kill you.

 three, fourth…

 I’m going to eat you.

 Fifth, 

I want devour you.

Sixth…

I want…I want…I want…

You.

And then it is too many times too late. Your taste already stuck on his tongue just like the ghost of your warmth against his palms. Smiles and words like a splinter inside his chest, digging painfully, beautifully into his rotten heart. 

That’s how he ends up branding you. Marks of his hunger all over your skin and his words thundering in your ears like an omen.

"Mine, mine, mine."

He never wanted anything as he wanted you.

And for some sick, twisted reason, you want him too.

_____

You manage to avoid working. The house owner is concerned by the plethora of bruises that decorate your skin thinking you ill. But you know no one lives for free in Ogimoto house, so you keep yourself useful in other ways. You wash, you clean, you cook and dress the other girls, praying for it to be enough, praying that you don’t have to share yourself again.

Gyutaro would kill you before letting that happen. He will murder everyone after that.

You just hope you don’t run out of luck.

_____

You memorize the dark patches of skin that decorate his crooked frame and the sharp angles that conform his body. Tender fingers drawing patterns of warmth over the expanse of his marred chest. You also learn the way his hand curves over your cheek perfectly when he feels gentle, and the motion of his palm ruffling through your hair when he teases you lightly.

He picks up the ring of your heart when you fall asleep next to him and the color of your laugh when he makes fun of distant warriors you know nothing of. He also memorizes the rhythm of your pulse through your highs when he makes you tense and sigh for him, and the sweet curve where your ribs meet your waist, right above the weight of your enticing hips.

Gyutaro laughs each time. Maniacal and terrifying sound that leaves his throat as he leers at your naked form. Pointy teeth peeking behind his lips before drawing another crescent moon of blood over the parts of you he loves the most, pressing you against his twisted anatomy, trying to cage you inside his chest and meld you to his marrow.

“You are so pretty. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen” he pants before biting your lips for a kiss you will never deny him, not when he’s sinking in you, delighted in your ragged breathing and painful yelps as he fills and defiles you .

It’s intoxicating to be this wanted.

It might be poisonous too.

“I’m not scared” you repeat every time he lances into you.

“You should” he snarls, nuzzling over the skin of your jaw, “You should be terrified.” A warning that never fails to precede the violence of his want, but you let him take everything with a smile on your lips and a whisper on your throat, to then hide the wounds of his corruption on you, keeping the soft parts of his touch to yourself; the sweetness, the playfulness, the praise.

Time has shown you that men don’t love this way. They don’t carry a hollowing hunger around like a curse because human nature is simpler. Humans satisfy themselves with little and once they have their fill, they don’t ache anymore.

But not him. Gyutaro wants to possess you in every way imaginable, never enough. Servant, queen and fare to his damned eyes. A meek stupid useless human. The most beautiful human. The only one that matters.

“Let me ruin you. Let me have you...” 

And you indulge him, let him pierce you. Until you cannot hold yourself anymore. 

_____

Gyutaro grows unhinged, turning himself feral in time. The more he lets you in, the more you love him, the more he starves.

You kiss him, and he pictures your neck breaking like a twig on his murderous hands. Razor-sharp teeth sinking into your flesh as your blood floods his mouth, gliding deliciously down his throat while you choke a moan, eyes wide open and cheeks splattered in red.

You are so pretty. He thinks. And you’d look even more beautiful dying in his arms as he devours your soft agonizing heart, drinking you dry, to then feast on your flesh until there’s nothing but your lovely bones.

And then you’d be gone.

It would be just him and Ume again. No more would your soft hands warm his stained cheeks, nor would your lips spell lies of beauty he doesn’t possess.Your heart would no longer sing for him and his macabre violence to come and feast and gorge in your touch.

And so Gyutaro seethes and growls like an animal. Shoves you away like you burn him, dead weight falling over the tatami, adding bruises to the bite marks that litter your hips.

“You are so weak! So damn fragile! I hate you!” he yells, nails clawing all over his ashen skin because he cannot stand the idea of silence filling the space of your pulse. He imagines the following quietness of your demise and the thought pierces something in the pit of his scabrous darkened heart.

He hates you so much, yet he cannot kill you.

You make him sick, make him weak, you make him crave you.

And for it he punishes you with cruel indifference and selfishness. Tells you the gruesome part of his fantasies where he rips you from the inside out and doesn’t care enough for your irrelevant fleeting life until you cry, until you run away to hide in some remote corner of the house as he vanishes into deadly shadows.

At night, he hunts outside the house; far away from you at the skirts of the red city.

Gyutaro massacres and eats more than he can count with both hands.

Feels like starving, nonetheless

_____

Gyutaro goes back to Daki after his rampage leaving you alone for a couple of days in retaliation. The vengeful part of him delighted in making you suffer at your audacity of existing in this feeble fleeting form.

You don’t know you are being watched through Daki’s eyes though, wasting your time looking at empty hallways with trembling heart, peering into the dark foyers looking for him to no avail.

It pleases him beyond words to be the cause of your anguish. He’s even tempted to go out just to pat your head and congratulate you for the pitiful scene.

You cry at night in the solitude of your room, thinking he’s gone, believing every venomous word that left his mouth. How stupid of you.

You are his, he’s not going anywhere.

But that doesn’t make him show up. He likes you like this, it is kind of enjoyable even. To see you broken and grieving for the crumbs of his attention. His colossal pride obscuring over his own yearning and the pang of solitude that comes with his newly found fun.

Until it’s not fun anymore

Gyutaro watches you dance and play your part as a courtesan, a fact that’s been easier to forget when he gets to breathe from your mouth every night, repeating the mantra he’s carved over your heart with his own teeth.

“Yours, yours, yours.”

But in his disappearance he took your luck with him and now you are getting paid for acting like you are no one’s. Your bright kimono flows around your body until it opens, revealing the flesh he longs to bite, and he notices that the trace of his hands has already started to fade from your skin.

Wrenching, raw jealousy hits him so hard it almost makes Daki throw up in front of everyone.

She cast him away from her after that. She cannot stomach whatever pathetic fixation he has on you right now.

“Just go and kill her already! Stop this stupid game of cat and mouse.”

Through the roofs he follows you to your room, sneaking over your balcony to find a client getting drunk on the smell of your loose hair. His hands slithering there where the bruises made by his bony hips began disappearing into yellow tints, right where your vein pulses hot between your legs.

You are no longer marked. His touch has faded from you. You are not his anymore.

Nails rack deep into his face as the feral growl climbs from the depths of his chest. Gyutaro shakes seething, jealousy so jarring he sees red.

You feel the pull and impact that sends you to the ground before a pained yelp of warning. Next thing you are covered in blood that’s not yours. A mass of meat and bones with human robes at your feet and Gyutaro’s bloodied mouth dripping dark blots all over the tatami, his massive body looming over you.

Like a monster.

You were supposed to be his. You told him you were HIS.

Oh, the jealousy, the envy filling him with hatred. Eyes maddened, glowing with demonic power in the darkness like the monster he’s always been.

You should have been terrified. He’d warned you.

He leers across the skin of your inner thigh, where your pulse calls him just by the warmth of your core where only he gets to touch you. His mind fills with visions of you yielding under his raw strength as he licks and gnaws at your flesh, completely drunk on your blood. Sunken deep inside of you as he pins you under him to gorge on your body.

He’s never wanted anything like he wants you. And your blood calls him, it always has. It always will.

"Don’t you know what demons do to girls like you?"

Time stops as he jumps you. His mouth crashing against yours furiously with a kiss that feels more like a stab. Desire and horror sharpening against your frantic, horrified heart.

It's love. He realizes. He fucking loves you. And his dead chest swells with the realization. 

He would never kill you; he just wants to keep you inside.

He wants to devour you whole.

So he reach out his hand...

"Let me ruin you..."

...and pulls taut at your hair…

"Let me have you..."

…the song of your scared pulse jumping in the column of your neck.

Then you scream.

Then he bites.

[dannyphantom-justiceleauge]

As much as I believe Vlad to be an iredeemable asshole in cannon, I like the idea of a begrudging mentor Vlad. Like, say in an alternate universe everything starts of the same but he's not got some evil plan to kill Jack and marry Maddie. He's bitter and resents them for turning him into this abomonation, resents them for being happy when he can't, he tries to stay connected, but he just can't stand being near them and fears their reaction to his ghost side. (1/3)

(2/3) He takes advantage of his new powers, he steals and cheats his way to power, living life lavishly, but it doesn't make him happy, none of it fills the emptiness in his heart. He spends most of his life miserable up until one day he invites the Fenton's on a whim, perhaps in some desperate attempt to find happiness again, where he meets Danny. It goes similarly how it went in the show, Vlad discovers he is a halfa like him, see's how his parents treat him... ~ ~ ~ i think part 3 got eaten, bro, but i'm gonna work with what i got.

Vlad sees this kid who's like him who's parents still talk about killing ghosts and destroying them in front of him. not knowing that they're threatening Vlad. that they're threatening their own son. he see's these so called scientist haven't learned anything about ghosts in the years that they've been estranged and that they've managed to make the same mistake twice.

and he see Danny, a moody teenager, going through the traumatic process of dying and gaining hard to control powers on top of being a highschooler and social pariah. he sees this kid in desperate need of guidance and sees his parents who are neglectful and unaware of a fact he learned within a day of knowing Danny. and he says, "if you can't handle the responsibility of having a kid, he's mine now." yoink

except, obviously, he's really, really bad at it. being a mentor, winning Danny over, being a good person. all of it.

initially he just straight up offers to help Danny learn his powers and that works, Danny agrees, because Vlad isn't trying to kill danny's parents or attacking him, or stalking them, so Danny has no reason not to accept the help. Vlad seems okay for all his rich guy eccentricities.

but then the lessons actually start and danny realizes. oh. this guy has no idea how to teach. and oh this guy has the moral compass of a rotary fan. and Danny initially goes with it. in canon danny's can be swayed by petty stuff and money up to a point. he can let a lot of shit go and is even willing to do some soft crime if he thinks it's for the right reasons. and Vlad might beat him up when trying to teach him to fight, but that's part of training, right? and he might be changing a little under Vlad's influence but danny doesn't see that as a bad thing, until Sam and tucker basically call him out and he accidentally hurts one of them. something that Vlad had told him to do.

so danny bails. basically confronts Vlad and tells him he's a shitty mentor and that he's gonna peace out. suck eggs, fruit loop.

but Vlad had thought things were going well. he's gotten attached. he doesn't want to go back to being alone and he and danny are the only two of their species in the world. so typical villain/stalker stuff happens between them for a bit. Vlad tries to win danny over with money, with manipulation, with blackmail. and Danny isn't having it. (he has blackmail on Vlad too). Vlad is growing increasingly desperate and looks and acts a mess. this is a vulnerable Vlad. we're not getting well kept always cocky and put together except when danny embarrasses him Vlad. we're getting a pathetic man trying to cling to the only human(ish) connection he has and slowly falling further into depression and insanity.

and Danny pities him. because Danny had that human connection too. in the early days before he decided he got to see vlad's dorky and cool side. Vlad was generous with his money. vlad only swears in food. he lights up when he watches a packers game and is a total fanboy.

and Danny kinda gets how he became like this. how his isolation and loneliness and fear drove him further and further down the road of corruptness and evil. Danny learns what he would become without his friends and if anything Vlad is better than that. it's almost similar to how he is with val. he understands where she's coming from and sees that she's a good person even if her actions have taken a turn in the wrong direction. he feels the same about Vlad. he thinks maybe he can convince Vlad to be better.

so redemption arc/reverse mentor relationship because danny is gonna be trying to teach Vlad how to stop being a fruit loop and start making some friends his own age. the comedy potential of that is amazing. i have the mental image of Danny convincing vlad to go on a date with Harriet Chin and coaching him from behind her even though he has next to no dating experience either. pure shenanigans.

i also see there being several back and forth instances of kidnapping. Vlad locks Danny in his house because he doesn't want to be alone (Danny eventually escapes and gets mad. Vlad learns never to do that again). Danny kidnaps Vlad to be a chaperone at a school event, mostly to get Vlad to lie for him. another time Vlad kidnaps danny to go to a rich person party because he said he had a kid in a pathetic attempt to make a friend (moral of the episode is lying to make friends doesn't work) so he just has Danny pose as his son that whole episode and they're trying to get along and seem happy, meanwhile snipping at each other in whispers. they think no one is buying that they're related but ironically them arguing at the end of the night is one convinces the person they're family. "me and my daughter would fight all the time, especially at events she didn't want to come to." probably muddies the moral but that's common enough in dp.

just gradually develops into a weird redeemed uncle/mentor dynamic. Vlad really isn't teaching Danny much. he still occasionally has his moments to shine with explaining new powers and showing danny how to commit tax fraud or lie to the police. but he's mostly just this weird guy who's first friend in twenty years is a teenager.

- Hestia

[lokisprettygirl]

Love is Selfless, It's Kind (Part 53) (Loki x female reader)

Summary : You decide to go back to the tower for Thorane's engagement party and loki gives you a gift.

Warning : Mentions of smut, Fluffy fluff, talk of mental health, depression.

Taglist : @colifower    @rinacreateart    @christineblood    @the-wounded-healer05    @lokiprompts    @geeky-politics-46    @sharklover927    @virtualstrawberrydinosaur    @huntress-artemiss    @rat-p1ss    @snigdha-14   @daddylokisqueen @notmesimpingforanothabritishlad

"Princess, Thor called, he is asking if we are making it to his engagement party" you heard Loki's voice from the bed, he was reading a book while you were painting his toes with black nail paint, his legs on your lap. You looked at him as you heard him, only a month left for the herb to fully grow and you didn't want to take any risks but at the same time you didn't want him to miss his brother's joyous celebration. 

"Should we go?" You asked him and he looked up from his book "Only if you want sweetheart" he pulled his legs away and crawled over to you and he pecked you on the lips softly "I am scared" you said meekly and he cupped your cheeks to pull you in for a proper kiss,

"We don't have to go princess if you don't want to, okay?" You hid your face between his neck and shoulder and he pulled you into his lap in the sideways position, like a baby.

"I want to lo, I just.. I am scared, I can't let anything happen to you again" you mumbled and kissed your forehead "I know baby, but I promise you, every trouble is behind us, I made sure of it" he assured you and you looked at him.

"You won't leave my side, promise?" You asked him and he smiled. It breaks his heart to see you so scared but he knows you'll take time to get over what has happened with you two recently, him forgetting your whole existence, he can't even imagine how traumatic it must be for you. 

"Not even for a second sweet princess, I won't let you get out of my sight I promise, I love you no?" He said adorably and you peppered kisses on his neck "I love you baby, love you so much my sweet boy" he smiled at your tender words and then you asked him to read the book to you. You didn't understand anything but you enjoyed his smooth voice in your ears.

After two days when you finally had to leave, you packed your necessities in a bag and he drove you towards the tower, engagement party is in two days but it would be a 20 hour drive so you wanted him to rest well after all that driving, he didn't let you drive all the way even though you insisted. You were excited to see frigga but also worried about seeing everyone else, especially wanda and eddie, Eddie would understand but venom won't. 

On the way he stopped in a secluded deserted road and made love to you in the backseat of his car, ever since he came back to you, you both haven't kept your hands off each other. He makes sure to remind you at least twice a day that you're his and he belongs to you "Mmm fucked you this morning princess, hasn't even been ten hours, so ready for my cock so soon" he mumbled in your ear and you moaned.

Your naked body pressed against his, sweaty from the heat "I do baby, I need you all the time, fuck me please" he smiled and then he didn't stop moving until he made you explode and drench his seat, until you felt his cooling essence all inside you.

You took a nap right after that and he couldn't stop admiring your sleeping face, he have put you through such pain, so many times, but you never gave up on him, you could have left anytime, as soon as the Carla situation happened you could have left him when you realised how fucked up your life would be with him but you didn't, always stayed there in his corner even when he didn't deserve to have his precious princess. 

When he got his memories back, he swore to himself that he would never let you go through such hurt again, you'd always be protected, adored and loved insanely by him, he was so obsessed with you and he didn't want it any other way.

He woke you up when you finally reached the tower. It felt weird to come back here after 4 months, it felt like a lifetime. The first person you saw there was Clint and he crushed Loki in a bear hug then he hugged you the same way "How's Bucky doing?" You asked him and he smiled "He found his own y/n" he smirked and you cringed at that.

 "Never ever say that again" he chuckled as he heard you and then you saw wanda walking towards you with a pissed look, you thought she would tell you off or be upset but she teared up instead and she hugged you tightly "You're a very bad friend" she spoke between her tears and you started crying too.

"I know I am sorry, I didn't want to, I just felt hopeless" you explained yourself and she hugged you again "Never ever disappear on me again, promise?" she asked you to promise her and you spent some time with her, loki stayed by your side like he promised.

Then you met Eddie and you got crushed into another bear hug, then venom came out and asked for the piece of rock he gave you as a gift, that's how upset he was. But you were able to melt him as well. That's the thing with real friends, they get you, they don't abandon you because you were dealing with your own demons and wanted to be alone. If not for Loki, You never would have met any of them. 

After meeting those two you went to Loki's old room so he could rest after the long drive, it was almost late at night and you decided to see everyone else tomorrow at the party or in the morning. Thor, Jane and Frigga were still on Asgard and would arrive tomorrow, with Thor being the king now he had huge responsibility over his shoulders. You both showered and changed then he engulfed you into his arms on the bed "I really like our small cosy bed at the cottage" you giggled.

"Me too, we will go back soon, do you want to live there for a while?" He asked you and you thought about it.

"We can switch between our home and there, when we need an escape from everyone, we would go there, where nobody can find us, just you and me" he smiled as he heard you. He loved the thought of disappearing with you.

"I have a surprise for you" he said to you and you raised your eyebrows "You already proposed to me, what could it be?" You giggled and he waved his fingers and there was a paper in his hand.

"Remember how you told me that you really wanted to understand human brain more, and help people overcome their traumas" you do remember telling him that few months ago, you have been thinking hard about what you wanted to do, and you realised that you really were good with people in troubling situation, like how you calmed down loki, and eddie and pepper on her wedding day and you really liked helping them and making them feel better.

"I applied to the UOM on behalf of you, and your application is accepted, you'd just have to give a basic test and if you qualify, you'll get in" he told you and you teared up. You just had a minimal education, didn't even pass high school because you ran away.

"Don't you think I'm too old for this lo?" You asked him and he kissed you softly.

"You're never too old to pursue knowledge my princess and you're already so smart, you'll be so good, I believe in my princess" you kissed his forehead and you looked at the application, you'd just have to give a test after three months and you'll get enrolled "Okay baby will you help me study for the test?" You asked him and he smiled as you agreed to do this, he wanted you to make a name for yourself, you just needed some support, something your parents should have provided you, but he'll fulfill all your dreams, he'll give you everything you'd ever need.

"I'll help you with everything my sweet love, you always have me, consider me your tutor for next three months" you giggled as you heard him.

"Professor Loki" you chuckled and he raised his eyebrows. He does like the thought of teaching and teaching you especially.

Your life with him has already started to look so beautiful, everything panning out smoothly. You only hoped for it not to get jinxed again.

"Princess?" He looked at you all of a sudden and you looked at him 

"Let's get married soon"

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Wendy!! i was angst-inspired and wanted to share - Shinichiro finally having his feelings reciprocated by one of the people he confesses to, and the other Black Dragons are happy for him, until Akashi realizes he's also having feelings for this person. Of course he respects Shin enough to not get between them, but... it's fine if they get some time on the side, right...?? y/n's got two hands, what he don't know won't hurt him, etc etc. eventually it gets to the point where they feel like things can't continue the way that they have without someone feeling betrayed. so they're preparing to tell Shinichiro but they don't get to before uhhhhhh His Naptime💀 and they both have to live with that guilt and decide how they're gonna move forward, like do they get together?? do they back off of each other?? does it even feel the same if they're not sneaking around? does it make each of them think too much of Shin whenever they see each other??? it just hurts, it hurts my heart because emotions and hurts my brain because i could not write this if i tried lmao

I WAS ABOUT TO GO TO BED UNTIL I SAW THIS AND YOU GAVE ME

H E A R T B U R N

This prompt is ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

And I love it, I'm writing it. Y'all better strap the fuck in, BECAUSE MR. TAKEOMI IS MY ANGST KING. FREAKING GENIUS MASTERMIND, YOU ARE.

Rain Bringer: Shinichiro Sano & Takeomi Akashi x Fem!Reader

wc: 1.4k

tw: NSFW

masterlist

song recommendation (I have been saving this song for a good one. I think this is it):

"We should stop this..."

Takeomi's lips slide up the side of your neck and back down, ignoring your statement in the dim light of the room. The lamp in the corner is red, your signal to Takeomi that you're free for him to come over, which happened every so often after Shinichiro left your apartment for the evening.

"You don't mean that," he replies finally, and you huff, feeling his hands course up to your waist.

No, you don't mean it.

Yeah, you like Shinichiro, but Takeomi makes you feel things no man has ever made you feel. Ever.

It's as if Takeomi took your essence and wrapped it around his wrist, chaining him to you forever. Shinichiro was a safe bet. Takeomi was what your entire body lusted for and desired in the middle of the night when your bed wasn't warm.

"Kiss me," Takeomi whispers and you obey, leaning back to catch his mouth as he leans over your shoulder. "Everything's fine." You kiss each other until the result is the both of you laying in bed, bodies tangled around each other as he pumps into you with sinful and terrifying lust. "God, you're so damn perfect," he breathes, holding your wrists above your head and nudging your nipple with his tongue. "Wish I could have you like this every night."

And you do, too. Sort of.

Out of all of the Black Dragons, why did you have to fall for both Shinichiro and Takeomi? If it wasn't for that night when he walked into Shinichiro's shop and gave you that look... fuck, that heat-filled and desire bringing look!

You'd gone weak-kneed and landed right on them in front of Takeomi, taking him in the backroom like a devious and scheming whore. It wasn't okay. If Shinichiro found out... you'd both be dead. You'd gotten lucky multiple times with Takeomi's dalliances, from almost getting caught in the shop to the warehouse to the fucking bathroom at the club...

You liked Shinichiro. You did.

But Takeomi was just... something else.

After his single orgasm and your fifth one, your head rests against his chest and you hear his heart beating slowly beneath his rib cage.

"We need to tell Shinichiro," you exhale. Takeomi goes stiff, but the thought had crossed his mind before. He thought about pulling Shin aside and trying to tell him in the nicest way that he was fucking his girlfriend. But... to his shame, he never got the courage. But now that you're bringing it up, he feels some sense of 'morality' or whatever it was.

"We'll tell him tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah," you reply, falling asleep on the man's chest after a few moments of silence. Takeomi wished he had his cigarettes so he could smoke to ease his mind, but not wanting to wake you, and not wanting to move - he forgoes them, instead letting his mind roam while you rest.

_____________________________________________________________

The news comes that morning.

Both of you had multiple missed calls and a tear-filled Mikey and Emma trying to get a hold of you, get a hold of someone.

But you both had been deep in the throes of sleep, nestled in with each other as the sun rose on the bleak-ass day. You part without words, Takeomi pressing a kiss against your forehead as he leaves out the door, forgetting the breakfast you tried to make and the coffee that had gone cold in your silence of getting ready for the day. How could you face the younger Sano children like this?

You were sure that Takeomi's cum was still nestled between your thighs like the stain of your sin, visible for every single person to see as you walked down the street to the Sano home. You're shaking as you walk through the door, shivering even though it's not cold and your body curling in on itself, even though you haven't been hurt.

Takeomi is sitting at the table, facing away from you, but you can't find the strength to call out to him. Instead, you feel like a fraud as you cry in Keizo's arms, trying to find something that feels authentic to you deep in your heart. You had feelings for Shinichiro. But you cry more out of guilt than your pain, trying to make sense of your own actions.

At the funeral, you wonder if you had just asked Shinichiro to stay the night - instead of being so eager to push him out - if he would have survived. And again, Takeomi doesn't speak to you, and you don't try to speak to him.

Neither of you can face what you've done.

Especially not with each other.

_____________________________________________________________

A week passes.

Two.

Three.

And you find yourself in your apartment, staring at the things he left you with a sense of dread. The chain, the shirts, the bracelet he stowed away for your birthday...

You swipe the things off the dresser top, enraged at yourself for being such a horrible person. You can't face yourself - all of the mirrors have been turned around. All of his clothes were still in your closet because you knew if you touched them, you'd be forced to face what you've done.

But anger drives you forward, pulling at the items and yanking them off their hangers, each shirt, each pair of pants, each hat falling to the ground in a heap of laundry that you can't find the heart to dispose of.

You could find the heart to fuck his best friend, though.

The swarm of accusatory thoughts begins to plague your mind, and you sit on the floor, tears falling from your eyes as you try to knock them loose or free them so they can't hurt you anymore.

Your thoughts are so loud that you almost don't hear the sound of someone knocking on your door.

You swallow your tears, wipe your face, and trudge to the fixture before opening it without checking to see who it is.

Your mouth dries up when you see Takeomi, his eyes full of sorrow.

"Takeomi," you breathe, but he pushes past you, ignoring the sound you make when he grips your wrist and drags you to your room. when he sees all of the clothing scattered across the floor, something in him recognizes your dilemma, but he doesn't say a word. Instead, he turns around and kisses you roughly, pushing you against the door and swiping his tongue across your bottom lip.

It's not wrong if Shinichiro's dead, you chant to yourself, trying to make sense of the feeling in your body as Takeomi takes you and claims you as his over and over again in the bed you once shared with a dead man. And you can't help it, you rationalize.

Takeomi's the only one who understands your pain, your suffering. It's unique to both of you and drives you back together, even though his death drove you two apart.

"I don't regret what we did," Takeomi pants, moving you up and down in his lap while you face him. "I don't regret a single moment of it."

And deep down, you don't either.

_____________________________________________________________

But sadly, those feelings of lust and desire peter out with time.

You realize that the relationship between you and Takeomi was built solely on the fact that you were sneaking around, that you were being little shitty kids and playing a game that didn't make sense anymore. It's like playing hide-and-seek with a ghost, but that ghost is how you felt about Takeomi before, and how you feel about him now is staring you right in the face.

The face before you is Shinichiro's, and you stare into his dark eyes and see the betrayal lurking there in your dreams, in your nightmares, in your thoughts when you pass by the former S.S. Motors.

"We should stop this."

This time, Takeomi looks up at you and into your reflection in the mirror. His eyes seem to betray how he truly feels, which is nothing short of empty.

"Yeah."

You get dressed in silence again, just like the time when you found out Shinichiro died, and he leaves without saying and word and without a kiss. You watch him walk away into the rainy night, hands in his pockets, and wonder if Shinichiro hadn't died... would you two still be doing what you did before? Would you sneak around with him and play the gamble of getting caught? Or would you settle for a man who made you feel safe?

Maybe you'd dump him for Takeomi.

You don't know.

But all you know is that every single time you remembered Takeomi Akashi, you'd have the painful memory of betraying someone you cared about... twice.