#World wide underground

[urtopia]

[mysterypigeon]

he's literally snoozing. he's snuffling. he's sleepy. if you even care

[yeonban]

Negative Character Traits. Below is a list of 102 negative traits to describe your character. Bold the ones that fit. Tagged by: @hunting-songs Thank you!! Tagging: @effigist, @antinomos, @minban, @blindfoldcd, @furiaei, @gameswillbeplayed, @halchron & whoever else wants to do this!

Aggressive - pursuing one’s aims and interests forcefully, sometimes unduly so Aloof - not friendly or forthcoming; cool and distant Arrogant - having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities

Belligerent - hostile and aggressive Big-headed - conceited or arrogant Bitchy - malicious or unpleasant Boastful - showing excessive pride and self-satisfaction in one’s achievements, possessions, or abilities Bone-idle - lazy Boring - not interesting; tedious Bossy - fond of giving people orders; domineering

Callous - showing or having an insensitive and cruel disregard for others Cantankerous - bad-tempered, argumentative, and uncooperative Careless - not giving sufficient attention or thought to avoiding harm or errors Changeable - irregular; inconstant Clinging - overly dependent on someone emotionally Compulsive - resulting from or relating to an irresistible urge, especially one that is against one’s conscious wishes Conservative - a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics Cowardly - lacking courage Crass - lacking sensitivity, refinement, or intelligence Cruel - willfully causing pain or suffering to others, or feeling no concern about it Cunning - having or showing skill in achieving one’s ends by deceit or evasion Cynical - believing that people are motivated by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity

Deceitful - guilty of or involving deceit; deceiving or misleading others Detached - separate or disconnected Dishonest - behaving or prone to behave in an untrustworthy or fraudulent way.* Dogmatic - inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true Domineering - assert one’s will over another in an arrogant way*

Fastidious - very attentive to and concerned about accuracy and detail Finicky - fussy about one’s needs or requirements Foolish - lacking good sense or judgment; unwise Foolhardy - recklessly bold or rash Fussy - fastidious about one’s needs or requirements; hard to please

Greedy - having or showing an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth or power Grumpy - bad-tempered and irritable Gullible - easily persuaded to believe something; credulous

Harsh - cruel or severe

Impatient - having or showing a tendency to be quickly irritated or provoked Impolite - not having or showing good manners; rude Impulsive - acting or done without forethought Inconsiderate - thoughtlessly causing hurt or inconvenience to others Inconsistent - not compatible or in keeping with Indecisive - not having or showing the ability to make decisions quickly and effectively Indiscreet - having, showing, or proceeding from too great a readiness to reveal things that should remain secret or private Inflexible - unwilling to change or compromise Interfering - tending to interfere in other people’s affairs Intolerant - not tolerant of views, beliefs, or behavior that differ from one’s own Irresponsible - not showing a proper sense of responsibility

Jealous - feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages

Lazy - unwilling to work or use energy

Machiavellian - cunning, scheming, and unscrupulous, especially in politics Materialistic - excessively concerned with material possessions; money-oriented Mean - one who makes no effort to understand or empathize with others Miserly - of or characteristic of a miser Moody - given to unpredictable changes of mood, especially sudden bouts of gloominess or sullenness

Narrow-minded - not willing to listen to or tolerate other people’s views; prejudiced Nasty - behaving in an unpleasant or spiteful way Naughty - disobedient; badly behaved Nervous - easily agitated or alarmed; tending to be anxious; highly strung

Obsessive - a person who is affected by an obsession Obstinate - stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so Overcritical - inclined to find fault too readily Overemotional - having feelings that are too easily excited and displayed

Parsimonious - unwilling to spend money or use resources; stingy or frugal Patronizing - apparently kind or helpful but betraying a feeling of superiority; condescending* Perverse - showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences Pessimistic - tending to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen Pompous - affectedly and irritatingly grand, solemn, or self-important Possessive - demanding someone’s total attention and love Pusillanimous - showing a lack of courage or determination; timid

Quarrelsome - given to or characterized by quarreling Quick-tempered - easily made angry

Resentful - feeling or expressing bitterness or indignation at having been treated unfairly Rude - offensively impolite or ill-mannered* Ruthless - having or showing no pity or compassion for others

Sarcastic - marked by or given to using irony in order to mock or convey contempt Secretive - inclined to conceal feelings and intentions or not to disclose information Selfish - lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure Self-centered - preoccupied with oneself and one’s affairs Self-indulgent - characterized by doing or tending to do exactly what one wants, especially when this involves pleasure or idleness Silly - having or showing a lack of common sense or judgment; absurd and foolish Sly - having or showing a cunning and deceitful nature Sneaky - furtive; sly Stingy - unwilling to give or spend; ungenerous Stubborn - having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so Stupid - having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense Superficial - not having or showing any depth of character or understanding

Tacky - showing poor taste and quality Tactless - having or showing a lack of adroitness and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues Timid - showing a lack of courage or confidence; easily frightened Touchy - oversensitive and irritable Thoughtless - not showing consideration for the needs of other people Truculent - eager or quick to argue or fight; aggressively defiant

Unkind - inconsiderate and harsh to others Unpredictable - behaving in a way that is not easily predicted Unreliable - not able to be relied upon Untidy - not inclined to keep one’s possessions or appearance neat and in order Untrustworthy - not able to be relied on as honest or truthful*

Vague - thinking or communicating in an unfocused or imprecise way Vain - having or showing an excessively high opinion of one’s appearance, abilities, or worth Vengeful - seeking to harm someone in return for a perceived injury Vulgar - lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined

Weak-willed - lacking the ability to resist influence or to restrain one’s own impulses; irresolute

* = Depends on who you are. There traits aren't an inherent part of how he'd act with 99% of people, but they do come very naturally when facing off against those he cannot stand or who he believes deserve it.

[m1male2]

The largest and deepest sinkhole in the world is Xiaozhai Tiankeng, in Fengjie, China. Its name means something like "well of heaven" or "heavenly."

With its 662 meters deep, 626 meters long and 537 meters wide, it is one of the most impressive natural attractions on Earth.

In addition to a great variety of fauna and flora, it is home to an underground river that measures a total of 8.5 km that ends in a spectacular waterfall. In the rainy season, a waterfall is also generated at the mouth of the sinkhole.

[devil-in-hiding]

On The Run

Pt 3

At some point, Soap and Gaz fall asleep on the couch, sprawled across one another. Ghost is laid back in one of the recliners, struggling to keep his eyes open as Price’s voice lulls him to sleep from the kitchen.

You're not sure how long the two of you have sat here. It took Price an hour to finally open his mouth. He has hardly met your eye since he’s started talking, hands clasped together on top of the table.

The ache you felt in your chest for these men worsened the longer Price spoke. Proud military men, tired of seeing the monsters they hunted get slaps on the wrist for atrocious crimes. Making plea deals with lawyers, getting one way tickets into luxury cells when they should be six feet underground.

You don’t realise Price has stopped talking till Soap snores, causing Dixon to shuffle at your feet, all four dogs scattered around the kitchen floor. You look him over, taking in the man now that all his bravado has been drained, leaving only the raw human underneath. Blue eyes darkened by years on the force and then years behind bars, forced into proximity with the very animals he and his team longed to put down. You’re looking at a man who fought for what was right and when justice wasn’t served in a way he deemed fit, he settled it.

Price is staring down at his hands, and you’re worried he’s going to hurt himself with how vigorously he rubs his hands together. You don’t think, reaching across the table and grasping one of his hands in yours, running your thumb across scarred knuckles. “Don’t do that.” You scold, and his head whips up to stare at you, eyes wide, hopeful but hesitant.

He looks down at your hand holding his, then back at you. “You’re not…?” He trails off, clearing his throat as he sits up straighter, letting your palm slip into his. You’re not sure what word he was going to use, but you shake your head.

“I’m… I’m sorry you all had to…” You don’t finish your sentence, letting it hang in the air between you. You’re shocked to see tears pool at the corner of his eyes but he’s quick to blink them away.

“You’re not horrified by us?” He asks, and you can tell he’s trying to fight his voice from shaking. You clear your throat, but gently squeeze his hand when his grip loosens.

“You have done… horrible things. Inhumane things.” You start, trying to pick your words carefully as you scoot your chair closer to his. He watches you warily, but there is no denying the growing hope in those eyes. “But I couldn’t imagine seeing what you saw everyday. Hearing the things you’ve heard, having to keep that all to yourself. Seeing… monsters you’ve spent years tracking get served the minimum sentence with a cozy cell waiting for them.” His hand starts to shake, and your heart breaks seeing how hard he’s fighting back the tears pooling in his eyes. “We never would have actually hurt you, I swear on my life. We just… Fuck we had been running for fucking hours through those god damn trees and-“ His voice cracks, and you gently run your thumb over the back of his hand. “Why are you being so nice?” He almost spits the word, but his grip on your hand tightens.

Grounding.

“You did as I asked. You told me the truth.” You mirror his words from the barn, and he barks out a wet sounding laugh before covering his face with his free hand. “And you’re happy with that truth?”

“I’m happy you decided you could trust me enough with it.” You admit softly, and he stares into your eyes, and you don’t feel the need to look away this time. “Anyone else would have gone running for the hills.” He whispers, and you can’t help but smile.

“Not many places to run to, and if I’m telling the honest truth, there are worse things than killing human filth.” You shrug, and he lets out a bewildered laugh. “You can’t mean-“

“I do though. There are people in this world that don’t deserve the freedom they have, that have ripped apart the lives of others and continue living like they didn’t single-handedly ruin someone’s entire foundation.” Your words are a little more forceful than you intended, raw. And Price catches it, sitting up a little straighter, tugging your hand closer.

“You have your own monster, don’t you pretty?” He asks seriously, and you swallow, lowering your gaze to your clasped hands.

“I think that’s a story for another night.” You whisper, and you see him nod, before realization hits, and his eyes widen.

“You’re going to let us-“

“You are going to have to show me that I am not making a mistake by letting four wanted men stay in my house.” You interrupt him, but there’s a smile on your face. The next seconds are a blur and you suddenly find this giant of a man at your feet, kneeling in front of you and holding both your hands in his. His shoulders are shaking, head bent but you hear the hitch in his breath.

“Price..” You murmur, a little nervous but you slip your hands free, slowly running your fingers through his hair, and you hear the sob that leaves him. He bunches up the loose fabric of your sweats in his fist, and you can feel his tears starting to soak through.

“You are a good person.” He chokes out, looking up at you and the look on his face has tears of your own threatening to spill. He looks exhausted, like every ounce of his energy has finally been drained, years of enduring visceral human indecency ingrained into every part of his being. And yet he is gazing at you like you are the first glimpse of the sun after week long rainstorms, constant flooding and devastation, the light breaking through the clouds to spread warmth on a new day.

“You’re still a good person too.”

Those words linger in the air.

You lose track of time as you sit there, running your fingers through his hair, this man who you’ve never met, who invited himself into your home, but has bared the darkest corners of his soul to you all in one night. Grimes had made his way over at some point, staring at Price with a concerned tilt of his head. He never did like when you cried, and you can tell he’s desperate to try and comfort this strange man in his home. He lays besides him, paws outstretched, inching forward ever so slowly.

“He doesn’t like that you’re upset.” You mumble, watching the way his eyes snap over to Grimes. “Even though I terribly upset his mama earlier?” He mutters, he and Grimes staring at one another.

“Grimes has always been a big softy. Dixon is the one who’s gonna hold a grudge.” An answering ‘boof’ comes from beside you, Dixon plopping his head back on his paws after making his stance known.

Grimes scoots forward until he can rest his big head on Price’s lap, nuzzling down and looking up at him expectantly, and Price gives you a hesitant look. You just nod, smiling gently. “You’re gonna be staying with four of them, better get yourselves acquainted.”

“What in the bloody fuck did I miss?” A drowsy voice mutters from the doorway, and Ghost stands there, taking in the sight of Price kneeling before you, still clutching your sweatpants, and you can see the downturn of his lips through his mask when he notices the dried tears on Price’s cheek.

You gently pull Price’s hands off your sweats, and he looks as though you just took away his favorite treat. “I’ll go grab some fresh blankets.” You hum, face warming when you can feel both of their gazes on your back as you walk up the stairs.

“Wait, does that mean-“ You hear Ghost start, and you’re shocked to hear it so soft, but their words are lost as you turn down the hallway. You slip into the bedroom at the end of the hall, making quick work of dusting off the dresser and small TV, gently stacking a pile of clean sheets and towels. This room already had two beds, you just hoped they were big enough for these giant oafs.

You just about scream when a pair of hands grip your waist, and you whirl around. “Price you have got to stop grabbing me now- Oh.”

It was Ghost, eyes unreadable as he stares you down, and you clear your throat, loosening your grasp just a bit but still attempting to push him off.

“You scared me, you need to stop-“

“Thank you.” He interrupts, and your eyes widen as he pulls you closer.

“I- Well you’re welcome, I couldn’t just-“

“Yes you could. You could send out right back outside, hell you could get a goddamn brigade of officers here and you would be justified for it.” He shrugs, but you frown, shaking your head.

“No. From… from what Price told me, you all made your own choices to help those the governments deem lesser than them. You helped people who have watched law officials let them down again and again.” You state firmly, wincing slightly as you feel Ghost dig his fingers into your hips. “Easy.” You scold, and he immediately eases up, but doesn’t let go of you, keeping you pressed to him and your heart skips.

“I’ll just finish-“

“Whoever divorces such a sweet little bird must have absolute shit for brains.” Ghost states, quite confidently, and you can’t stop the shocked giggle that slips past. “Absolute fuckin idiot.”

“You can’t win me over with flattery you know.” You huff, but he sees right through you, dark eyes taking in your flustered expression, and you feel heat burn your cheeks as you avoid meeting his eye.

“Mmm, we’ll see about that. Think it’ll get me pretty damn far.” He grins, and you smack his hands before pausing.

“Wait.” You mutter, prying his right hand off of you and lifting it up, inspecting.

Your teeth made a pretty gnarly imprint, already scabbing. “Ah don’t worry about that. I deserved it.”

“C’mon you big idiot, before you let that thing get infected.” You order, pushing him towards the bathroom and he lets out a loud laugh, the sound causing butterflies to seize your stomach.

“Yes ma’am.”

[lokischocolatefountain]

Warning || Men Like Me

Masterlist

Fandom: The Last of Us Pairing: Joel Miller x Virgin!Reader Rating: 18+ Warnings: girth age gap, virgin!reader, eventual loss of virginity (not in this chapter), gratuitous descriptions of Joel Miller's body, somewhat creepy!Joel, fetishization of youth, dom!Joel, breaking and entering, playboy magazine, objectification, fingering, sexual discoveries. Word count: 6.2k Summary: Joel's warnings about what men like him would do to girls like you only makes you want him more. A/N: Back in the depths of hell again, you guys. Now this isn't the most depraved thing I've written by any means but it's up there. Come say hi in my chat or inbox, I'd love to talk. Keep a look out for follow up parts and pleeeeease give me comments. I am very very desperate.

Joel Miller was a bad man. That much he knew. 

Even as he fixed taps and renovated houses that were falling apart, he could see the blood on his hands. The very hands that packed lunches for Ellie snapped necks, pistol whipped men, stole from a starving child so he could feed his grown brother. But there were lows even he didn’t stoop down to. 

Not that he didn’t have the opportunity. Men always did. And in this world, opportunities had only tripled. Even the Boston QZ, as strict as it was, had an underground brothel. He knew Tess to frequent it and never asked questions. Sometimes she needed to bury her face between a good pair of thighs and wrap her lips around a pretty pussy, and this wasn’t something he could give her. There was a lot he couldn’t give her.

Being in Jackson should’ve civilized him. It did in many ways. He’d reverted to the southern gentleman with table manners. ‘Yes, Ma’am’ spilled out of his lips effortlessly when he spoke to women. He held the door for anyone walking in after him. He even went to Church– sorry, the multifaith house of worship–to help renovate. 

That was where his troubles began. 

There was no point in him going where people prayed. Being back in civilization did not erase his decades of disbelief in a cruel God who would take his baby and keep him on this accursed Earth. But he did because he was back to being a contractor and Tommy asked him to go fix up the pews instead of him. He didn’t have much time, being a new dad and all.

He was on his knees checking out the rotting wood and evaluating how much wood he’d need for building new ones when he was confronted by a pair of legs and a sweet voice. Yours. 

“Lemonade, Mister Miller?” 

He looked up, his eyes traveling up your legs, bare until he got to your knees where the hem of your flowery skirt sat. Pure, unblemished knees, never taken a fall, didn’t fucking creak, and never knelt before anyone but God. You looked down sweetly, eyes wide and innocent like a newborn cow. Everyone had a kind of darkness about them in this world. Everyone except the kids who didn’t know a world outside the insular walls of Jackson. And you, it turned out, even though you weren’t a kid.

He wiped his sweat off with the greasy rag he carried and looked up at you once again. You had a pitcher and an empty glass in your hands. A sweet smile on your lips and hair falling down your shoulders and reaching your breasts. A yellow ribbon sat in a bow where your neckline dipped between your breasts, adding to the innocence of your look.

“Yes please, Ma’am. Thank you,” he said, giving you a nod. Your pretty plush lips curled up, a giggle escaping them as you poured him a glass of lemonade. 

His hand brushed against yours as he accepted the glass, his hand too large to curl around it without making contact with you. You giggled again before retracting your hand and occupying it with adjusting your hair. 

“I’m younger than you, you know? Don’t have to call me Ma’am.” 

“Just being polite. Ma’am.” He took the glass to his lips, mindful to take only a small sip instead of downing it in desperation. Another adjustment to make when food was no longer a scarcity. Sweet, sour, and salty danced on his tongue before it glided down his throat. Just a sip refreshed him. And the sight of a nice girl didn’t hurt the cause either. 

It’d been so long since he had a nice refreshing glass of lemonade. Summers meant worse infestations of infected, not the barbecues, lemonades, and swimming of past. When surviving each hour was under threat, small luxuries like this became out of reach of even one’s dreams.

“Well, guess I should call you Sir then,” you said, leaning against the wall. You held the pitcher up to your chest and the tails of the ribbon on your chest dipped into it, the soft shiny yellow turning dark, tainted.

His mouth watered and fucking hell, it wasn’t the lemonade you just gave him. He took a sip of the drink and licked his lips, imagining how you’d taste if he wrapped his large hand around your neck and pressed his chapped lips to your plush ones. Better yet, if he held your legs apart and devoured you other pair of lips until you were leaking down his mouth. Would you call him Sir then? His cock twitched in his jeans as he pictured you bent over one of these pews, your skirt pushed up and his hand in your hair as he slid his cock in your hole. 

Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck was wrong with him? 

“Made the lemonade yourself?” He asked,  groaning as he managed to get himself back up on his feet. His knees creaked like the floorboards of the houses he renovated, but ultimately supported him as he stood. He towered over you, making you appear smaller, more fragile. 

“Depends. Do you like it?” 

“It’s wonderful, of course. Hot summer day like this…I really needed it,” he said, raising the glass up a little before taking another sip. 

“Well then yes, I did make it.”

He chuckled, feeling himself pulled in by your easy charisma. It was nice to have normal conversations like this once again. No agenda, no need for establishing himself as someone who wouldn’t hesitate to beat someone up if even mildly threatened. It was just…normal. 

“It’s very sweet, Ma’am. Like you I assume,” he added, mentally dusting off the part of his brain where he stored skills for conversing with pretty girls.

You laughed, holding your free hand up to your mouth to cover your lips that widened and revealed your teeth. 

“Is that the southern charm that I hear our townspeople talk about?” 

“They talk about my charm? I didn’t hear.” 

“Oh yes, they do… Joel Miller, charming pants off of everyone in town.”

“Pants? Well that’s disappointing. I was hoping I’d charmed some pretty skirts off.” 

“Lots of experience with that, Mister Miller?” you asked, sliding your hand over the soft fabric of the skirt of your dress. Such delicate fabric. He could fist the hem and give it one tug and it’d rip right off.

“More ‘n what you got for sure,” he said, loath to hint at how infrequent his encounters had become in the recent past. Tess died, he did a cross country hike with an annoying kid, he needed to maintain a good reputation in his new town. One buried after the other. Enough to leave a man with nothing but his fist and his imagination. He would kill for a fucking Playboy magazine. Literally. He’d killed for less.

“What do you know about how experienced I am?” 

“Been experiencing longer than you’ve been alive, Ma’am.” 

“Oh well. Nothing I can’t learn.” 

He laughed nervously and stuck his hand in his jeans pocket. Surely you couldn’t be flirting… Why would a young thing like this flirt with him? He was in his late fifties looking like mid sixties and you were… He didn’t know. Young.

“If you could teach me, Mister Miller. Give a girl some experience?”

“I’m sure you can find someone else.” 

“Oh. Not your type, am I?” you asked, and he deluded himself thinking you sounded disappointed. No chance. 

He didn’t have a type. Long time since he thought of frivolous shit like that. But you shouldn’t be his type. 

“There’s much more eligible men in town is what I’m saying,” he said, suddenly hesitant to lie. Lying had never been an issue for him. The right thing was to lie, say you weren’t his type so he wouldn’t cross lines. It’d been a long time since he did the right thing.

“I’ll be the decider of that,” you said with a shrug of your shoulder before taking the empty glass from him. “Have a good rest of the work day, Mister Miller.”

Later that night, he wrapped his fist around his cock in the privacy of his room. His mind flooded with images of you spread out for him, sweet lips and a sweeter pussy milking him. He couldn’t even recall the last time he was with a woman. It was Tess, of course. Sometime before she got thrown in FEDRA jail for the last time. Too fucking long ago.

Surely it was only because it’d been a long time since he got his dick wet. He’d never, in his entire life, pictured a woman so much younger spreading her legs for him. Sucking his cock. Crying out his name. How old was she even? Not past mid twenties for sure.

It was wrong, he knew, as white hot spend spurted out of his cock and covered his hand. A sour tang took over his mouth as the fog of unadulterated lust cleared up to reveal the ugliness in his head. He shuddered, feeling like something had crawled under his flesh. He hadn’t felt guilt like this in so long. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

You weren’t even as old as his kid would be had she been alive. 

He’d known men like that back in the day. Grays in their hair and skin like old leather, but pretty young things old enough to be their daughter hanging off their arm. It was obvious that none of them kept these girls around for love or for their personality. It was always sex and the feeling of self-importance when a sweet young thing paid attention to balding heads, beer bellies and limp dicks that needed a blue pill to get up. 

Fucking disgusting. 

He began avoiding you whenever you happened to be in the same space. At the house of worship, the town clinic where you interned, trading days when people exchanged what they had for what they wanted. His eyes never met yours and he always quickly looked away when they stared too long at your uh…feminine features– pretty legs, cute ass, round tits. Where the fuck did you get sundresses anyway? Who kept that shit around in this world? 

He didn’t know that when he avoided you, you took note of him. When he took glances of your features, you memorized his for later in the night when you buried your head in your pillow and pushed your fingers inside your pussy to simulate what it must be like to be with a man. 

He was older. That much you knew from his grey hair, sun-damaged skin, and gait that exuded bone-deep weariness. You knew Tommy had just turned fifty. Hard to miss occasions that meant a free slice of cake from the canteen. Joel had to be in his mid-fifties at the very least. At first glance, he wasn’t what you’d consider handsome. There were younger men in town. Fit and muscular. Didn’t groan and scrunch up their faces when they got up. Didn’t have lines on their foreheads. No bags under their eyes. 

Yet there was something about Joel that was more entrancing. 

After your first meeting when you offered him lemonade, you made sure to visit under the guise of worship. You didn’t know much about religion and were conflicted about embracing a god. The only faith you had rested in your medical instruments and the medicines the town’s chemist concocted. But it was a nice place to meet people, to check on healing patients.

The visits were worth it for a glimpse of Joel’s large hands wrapped around his carpentry tools. When the sun was the hottest, he sometimes stripped down to his tank top, giving you a show better than any film played in the community theater. His broad back looked masculine enough in his flannel shirts. But you didn’t know desire like the first time you saw him in a white tank, showing off his muscular arms as sweat dripped down his tan skin.

When you pleasured yourself in your room, it took time, imagination, your fingers, and a lot of effort to make slick pool in your pussy. That day, all it took was the sight of Joel Miller working. You sat with your thighs pressed together, rubbing them against each other in the most inconspicuous little movements. 

Could it be blasphemy if the God who was supposedly orchestrating everything made this man take his shirt off in front of you?

It made no fucking sense. Joel was old. He looked like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed every goddamn day. He had been chewed up and spat out by whatever the fuck was outside Jackson these days. Hardened expressions, graying patchy beard, hands calloused from carpentry and decades of using weaponry. Features that only indicated a long life lived, not attractiveness.

You were supposed to be attracted to the soft, sweet ones like the guys in the worn out copies of romance stories that the previous inhabitant of your house stashed in the basement. Even his little brother would be a more reasonable target for your lust. Younger, taller, softer, head full of dark, silky hair with few grays. But you wanted Joel Miller with his rough graying beard that would prick your skin were you to cup his cheek like the women on the novel covers. 

Something about him just screamed Man. Something that none of the other guys in town had. There was nothing wrong with any of the other Jackson men, but none of them made you want to take the plunge and lose your virginity. It wasn’t the lack of offers, per se. You’d gotten looks from many eligible Jackson bachelors. You had drinks with a few of them. Dinner with fewer and shared a kiss with more than one. Alright, two. But anything beyond that had you trembling in anxiety. 

It wasn’t anything precious to you, virginity. But you’d waited so long. Focused so long only on survival and then helping to build this town and now training to become a doctor. Whatever passed for doctor these days. With all your life dedicated to everything but your love life, you simply had no experience. What if you messed up and they laughed? You knew anatomy, but that didn’t translate to practical stuff. What if you couldn’t make them feel good? You’d have to see the guy all the damn time in the small town. There would be no escaping the awkwardness.

Sure it was counterintuitive to keep pushing away sexual encounters because you had no experience. But you didn’t know what else to do. You were too old already to not have done anything. But each day that passed with you rejecting perfectly nice men meant you were getting even older for your first time. 

You didn’t know where Joel fit into your need for exploring your sexuality, but it didn’t hurt to stare. God knew everyone else in Jackson did. 

So you stared. Work with his carpentry tools. Riding on horseback into Jackson after patrol. Helping with the fucking sheep. Walking around with Tommy. Carrying his nephew around town. It should be inappropriate to be fantasizing about a man when he was doing something as innocent as carrying a baby. But seeing his large hand cradling the baby’s little head made you want to scream into your pillow and kick your legs. 

“You alright, sweetheart?” 

Your heart fluttered and you let out a nervous laugh at being caught. You smoothed out the wrinkles on your clothes just to make it look like you were alright. Unfortunately you were wearing a pair of fucking jeans. You didn’t even want to know how awkward you looked. 

“‘m alright, Mister Miller.” 

“Joel’s fine,” he said, rocking his nephew in his arms.

Oh fuck, his fucking arms!

“Oh I don’t know,” you said, fidgeting with a belt loop on your jeans. “Wouldn’t want to be impolite addressing you by your first name like that.”

He smiled, recalling your conversation from the house of worship when you called him Sir and had him fucking himself in the shower to the memory. “Ah. ‘cause I’m an old man,” he said, more as a reminder to himself to fucking behave. 

“You’re not that old…” you trailed, looking him over in a way that set fire to every inch of skin that you laid eyes on.

Behave, Miller. You’re out with your nephew. 

“That so?” he asked, eyebrow raised. 

“Mhmm. You don’t look a day over seventy.” 

He snorted, making Miles stir in his arms just a little. That stung a little. It shouldn’t. Your estimation of his age, whether you were serious or not, was reminder enough that he was too old to be lusting after you.

“Thanks. I’m actually eighty-two.” 

You giggled your pretty little giggle, lowering your gaze to the ground and looking back up only when it had turned into a wide grin. “How old are you actually?”

“Old. Fifty six.” 

“Fifty-six isn’t that old…” you trailed as you brought a hand up to his bicep. Joel gulped, praying to the non-existent God that you would stop before praying to the same God that you would keep your hand right there. God answered his second prayer. You squeezed, licked your lips and looked up at him with your doe eyes.

“Checking if the hardware is still working, Doctor?” 

“I’m not a doctor yet.” 

“When do you become one then? Ain’t no Harvard handing out medical degrees in this town.”

“Howard?” you asked, squinting at him. Ah, of course you didn’t know. Harvard didn’t mean the same thing to you. Now it was just like every other building in Boston. Run over by infected. These ones were just the nerdy kind with glasses on.

“That was a thing, too. But I said Harvard. They were big universities back then.”

“Ah. Did you go there?” You asked, with no malice or bite. Oh, bless your heart. No one expected a dummy like him to have gone to university at all, much less Harvard. No one in his family had gone. Sarah was meant to be the first.

“Yeah. Traded some oxy and threw molotovs at clickers in the campus.” 

You rewarded him with a giggle and that was incentive enough for him to keep going. “Guys like me didn’t get into Harvard. Or Howard. Didn’t even go to community college. I finished high school and got a job in construction.” 

“You didn’t go to uh…construction college?” You asked, cocking your head and raising an eyebrow as though testing out the term.

“No such thing. Well, there were civil engineering programs, but I just learned on the job.” 

“Like me.” 

“Guess so. I see you reading from all those fat medical books. But there’s no need to study any books in construction. ‘cept if you wanna be an engineer or architect or something, which I’m not.” 

“Maybe you should write one. We could all do with some knowledge from before. It’s important to document it, pass it on to Ellie and little Miles over there.” 

“I ain’t writing books, sweetheart. Don’t think I even remember how to write much. I’ll just keep to fixing things up in this town. So, if you need some help with your place…I’m happy to help.” It was the least he could do. Maybe as some kind of penance for having impure thoughts about you. Or as a fucked up trade for starring in the mental images he conjured to jack off in the shower.

“There is something, actually. But I don’t have anything to trade for, so I’ll wait until I do,” you said, clasping your hands behind your back and swaying in place in an endearing manner.

“Nonsense. You patched me up just last week. You’ve done enough for the town’s health to not have to trade for anything ever again.” 

“Well, no. That’s not how it should be… It’s people’s health. Can’t put a price on that.”

“Believe it or not, health had a steep price back in the day. Cost four thousand something just to give birth. Double that if they had to cut you open.” And that was just how much it cost when Sarah was born. He was sure it had only gone up by 2003. If he hadn’t worked his ass off, there was no way he could’ve escaped debt. It helped that his Ma and his then wife’s parents helped with childcare. Would’ve been even more expensive without that.

“Damn. I don’t know how much that is, since…y’know we don’t have money now. But that sounds like a big number. It shouldn’t cost anything just to be born.” 

“Tell me about it,” he said, shaking his head. “But listen. Anything you want fixed, I’ll help out. You can give me something later if you’re worried. I know Ellie’s always on the look for new books to read and you seem to have a lot of them.” 

“Nothing Ellie would like. Not like the special limited edition of Savage Starlight or anything. Just medical textbooks and romance novels.” 

“We could trade for the lemonade from that afternoon,” he insisted, desperate to do something for you. Take care of you as you took care of everyone who walked into the clinic be it papercuts or a fucking knife in their abdomen. 

“Alright. Trade for the lemonade it is then,” you said, giving in to his pressure.

“Now tell me. What d’ya need fixed?” 

⌘⌘⌘

It had been a few days since Joel promised to fix your shower for you. Each time he came by and rang your doorbell, you hid somewhere away from your windows. When he caught sight of you in public, you quickly walked away or engaged in conversation with someone else. You didn’t need shit fixed. Everything in your house was perfectly alright. Tommy and his guys had given the place a complete makeover just a couple months before Joel and Ellie arrived. 

You were no paragon of honesty, but you didn’t make lying a habit. There were a few white lies here and there and this was meant to be one of them. It just didn’t fucking hit you that if you lied to a contractor that your shower was broken, he would eventually come over to fucking fix it. All your desperate sex starved brain wanted that day was for Joel Miller to come use his tools in your room and flex those muscles while at it.

So invested were you in that particular fantasy that as you unwound after a long shift at the clinic, it was with Joel’s beefy arms in mind. You stood in front of your mirror, taking in your reflection. One of the magazines you’d found in a box under your bed laid open on the dressing table. Playboy. Entertainment for Men. Each had a scantily clad woman on the cover. And many more inside. 

You made comparisons to yourself and the woman in the center page of the issue.

She stood in front of a dressing table too, but much different from how you stood. Her legs were on either side of her dressing table chair and her hands on the top of it. Between her arms were breasts, big and round and with smooth skin. They didn’t have any marks on them like yours. No moles, no stretch marks. Just plain. And she just stood there, soft brown hair down, tickling the top of her breasts and her lips parted as she gazed at you. No, at the men she was meant to entertain in this men’s entertainment magazine. All she had on was panties that went high up to her flat belly that connected to high transparent socks.

You reached behind your back and unclasped your bra, wishing that you had something nicer like the woman on the cover of another one of the magazines. Bright red and showing off her breasts wonderfully, but pulled down to reveal almost everything. What was the point of a bra then if it didn’t cover or support anything? Entertainment, you decided. Men seemed to be very entertained by breasts. 

Many a man had stared at yours even though you had them behind layers of fabric unlike the naked women of the magazines. Many had conversations with them instead of your face. Some brushed up against them ‘accidentally’. Joel thought he was being covert, but you felt his brown eyes rove all over them. You thought maybe that he too would brush up against it sometime, but he never did. Maybe entertainment stopped at just looking, as in the magazines. 

You wondered if Joel sought out men’s entertainment magazines like this. He was from before everything went to shit, so it was very possible that he did. Did he like the women in these pages, sticking their asses out and looking through the pages at him? Would he be entertained if he saw you like this? 

You didn’t know that if you turned your head to your bedroom door, you would have your answer. Joel’s cock strained against his already tight jeans as he stood awestruck by your figure. He swallowed as you held on to the top of the chair and lifted your knees, one after the other and placed them on the plush seat. You arched your back, a little too much at first before reducing the curve. Your ass stuck out enticingly and he didn’t know whether to grab, squeeze, slap, or spread your cheeks apart and fuck your ass. 

He should leave. 

It was stupid of him to walk into your house with a box of plumbing tools to fix your shower when you hadn’t yet given him a date or time for it. Plus you were avoiding him. Running away with your little friends and picking up stuff to hide your face from his view. He was plenty sure that when he’d rung your doorbell, you weren’t always away from home. 

He should leave. 

Fixing the shower could wait. He could confront you some other day. 

But you were putting on such a pretty little show in nothing but your panties and he was only a man. A bad one. 

His boots stayed put on your hardwood floors as you enjoyed yourself in front of the mirror. You spread your knees and let your fingers between your thighs, eyes closed, lips parted and low whines escaping your lips in just a few minutes. He palmed his growing erection over his jeans, consequences of being caught be damned. He was a foul beast already. What bad was another sin on the list? Besides, you were the one who’d left the fucking door open. 

Your soft whimpers grew into moans as you brought yourself closer and he forced his feet to stay put despite their urge to walk up to you and give you something to really moan about. 

“Fuu– mmm Joel, pleeease.”

He let out a gasp, all his restraint flying out the window as soon as he heard his name from your lips. You couldn’t actually be doing this… There had to be another Joel in town. Younger, better looking, smarter.

Your voice grew needy and the pitch higher as you kept at it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Gimme it, Sir.” 

No, it couldn’t be anyone else. 

Joel toed his boots off and took quiet steps towards you, emboldened by the filth that spilled from your lips. If this old man was what you wanted, he wouldn’t stop himself from reaping the benefits. He wasn’t a goddamn saint. Never was. 

He stopped in front of you, surprised you still hadn’t sensed his presence. As though the universe heard his thoughts, it had you open your eyes. You gasped as soon as you saw him and buckled off the chair, but Joel caught you. You shuddered, unable to cope with the sudden touch. 

“J-Joel?” 

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he said, touching your cheek with the back of his hand. You whined, your body molding itself against his chest. You brought a hand to his arm, feeling the rock hard muscles underneath his sleeves and your other hand worked between your legs.  

Your fingers no longer felt adequate as you felt his large fingers on your cheek. “Want you, please,” you whined, desperate to return to the edge where you had been right before you saw him. 

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me…” he spoke dangerously, soft brown eyes clouded with a kind of desire you had longed to see in him for weeks. 

“Want you…want you to be with me,” you repeated stupidly, your desperation clouding your senses too much for you to say anything else. While in the past you only wanted to get rid of your virginity, your goals had become more specific with his arrival. You wanted him. You wanted his big hands and broad shoulders, to hold on to them as you rode him. To watch his grumpy expressions turn to ecstasy under you. 

“Tell me not to touch you,” he said, his tone low and almost threatening. Any other threat from him, you would’ve heeded. But not this one. 

“Touch me!” 

It was as though something in him snapped at your words. While darkness only loomed over him before, it now completely took over.The hand that previously only caressed your cheek now wrapped itself around your neck. Before you could completely process the move, his other hand slapped yours away. He replaced two of your puny fingers with his middle finger, eliciting a strained moan from you. 

“Touching yourself to a Playboy magazine, huh?” 

You only nodded, unable to form words now that a fantasy of yours had finally come to life.

“Dirty little thing…Thought you were a nice girl and all. Helpin’ out at the clinic, head buried in books all the time. Turns out you actually got your head in dirty magazines.” 

You whined, your pussy clenching and gushing around his finger at the way he was speaking to you. The same man who insisted on calling you Ma’am despite your protests was calling you a dirty girl now. The veil of respectability seemed to have floated away at the sight of you naked and pleasuring yourself. Had you known that this was all you needed to get Joel Miller to touch you, you would’ve done it much sooner.

He added another finger, the girth of him enough to stretch you more than you had done for yourself. You brought a hand up to his shoulder and fisted his shirt, needing something to anchor yourself to. 

“You ever been taken by a man, sweetheart?” He asked, his tone too cool and casual for what he was doing to you. You shuddered, partly from his phrasing– taken, he said. Taken. Like you were a thing. Like the women in the magazines positioned so uncomfortably just so their breasts could look a certain way for the picture. Printed on the cover page with the words Entertainment for Men written on top. You shook your head, feeling small as you confessed it for the first time. 

“Any man?” 

“N-no,” you managed to breathe out, whimpering at the way the bulge beneath his jeans twitched at your simple answer. He took a step to position himself behind you, letting you lean your back against his chest. The angle at which he touched your pussy changed, opening your world up to a wonderful new kind of pleasure. 

“A virgin. Pretty young things like you ain’t for men like me,” he whispered in your neck, making you shiver. His thumb roamed between your legs as far as they could reach, caressed you gently, his softness with you contradicting his warning about men like him. The hand around your neck slithered down your torso, cold air forcing you to face your new desire of having your breath kept hostage. 

He took your left breast in hand, squeezing the flesh like someone starved would hold on to a piece of bread. It felt more like a punctuation to the warning he issued than a part of sex. Just then, his thumb between your legs stopped its search, stopping a little above the fingers inside you.

A moan you didn’t recognize as yours at first filled the room and you buckled forward. Blunt nails sunk into the flesh of your breast as he saved you before you could fall. He hauled you back up, making you collide against his chest. 

You gasped and quickly grabbed the hand between your legs, the sensation too intense for you to know what to do with. His thumb kept on, rolling over something there that set your person on fire. 

“Fuuuck! Joel– I– I– hnnng–”

“I know, sweetheart,” he crooned, keeping at whatever the hell he was doing to make you feel this way. 

“Please… I don’t– what was that?” 

You felt his chest rumble before you heard his laughter. Heat rose to your face and your throat felt strained though there was no hand around it anymore. 

“Never touched your clit? Do you even know what that is?” He mocked, the cruelty somehow not repelling you from him. He forced you to look up at him. Your heart lurched at how close you were to his face. You could see every gray hair, every minute blemish and line.

“Don’t know your own fucking body but you want a man? You don’t know what you’re handing me on a silver platter. I ain’t like the other guys in town. I walked across the fucking country and lemme tell ya, there’s no pretty things like you out there. I’m starved.” 

“Take me, then,” you begged, using his own words from earlier. “Please. Whatever you– a-aaah!” 

He ramped up the pressure on that spot– your clit– and with it, took your ability to speak coherently. It was as though he’d done it on purpose. You hated it. To be so bereft of control. To be a puppet in someone’s hand. For someone to acquaint themselves with parts of you that you didn’t know of. But it was too much to fight, so you let go. Let him play with you. Take you. Like a thing.

You renounced control of your lips too, his name slipping out effortlessly like it did when he caught you. Then you renounced what was left of your dignity and began begging relentlessly. For what, you didn’t know. In his hand, you’d gone from woman to pupper, your strings pulled by a man, your voice now his. Sounds that would be indiscernible from that of a wounded animal emanated from somewhere deep within you. 

Perhaps none of this was real. Why else did your own voice grow so distant from you? Why did your vision become blurry? Your thighs shook uncontrollably and your heart felt like it was beating out of your chest. Your eyes clenched shut, depriving you of your blurred vision. Your toes curled. You wanted to shrink into yourself, shrink away from all this goodness. You went higher and higher, soaring like a bird. Every nerve ending in your body felt electrified, awoken like one switch turned on every light on last winter’s Christmas tree. 

You let out a loud cry, the soaring bird in you reaching its peak before beginning its fall to the ground. You could hear your breaths again, labored but doing everything to stabilize itself. Your thighs still shook. Your chest rose and fell. A hand caressed your hand. Behind you, something strong supported your back. Kept you from falling backward. 

“Joel…” 

“I know, I know…” he whispered into your head. You opened your eyes and looked up at him, surprised to see a softer visage. He picked you up off the chair like you’d seen him lift giant logs before. With ease. You didn’t protest as he carried you. Didn’t protest when he laid you out on your bed. 

He bent down and picked something up. No questions, no instructions. He simply spread your leg away from the other. Cold air touched the gushing mess dripping out of you and you shivered, feeling a sudden need to cover yourself but unable to defy him. His hand was on your pussy again. His hardened, calloused fingers behind a soft fabric this time. He wiped upwards, collecting the mess he made out of you. When he lifted the fabric up, you realized it was your panties. 

He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans and then looked back at your face, the intensity of his gaze making you want to run. Problem was your weak legs wouldn’t take you anywhere. You didn’t screw your eyes shut. You didn’t pull your blanket to conceal yourself. You looked back at him, defiant. Like you were trying to prove something. I can handle a man like you. 

“Be a good girl from now.” 

That and a condescending pat on your pussy and he was gone.

⌘

Part 2

[rivetgoth]

I feel like part of what’s kinda wild to me about the weird “born in the wrong generation but in an alternative 80s punk goth queer way” crowd that idolizes this nonexistent 80s that was like a goth alt GNC queer safehaven is that without fail every time I actually talk to older goths or other older alt people or even just older queer or nonwhite people who were actually there in the 80s they’re IMMEDIATELY like “oh you were NOT missing out hahaha.” Like at best the coolest things they’ll talk about is getting to see some OG alt bands live in their prime or getting to see a cool movie in theatres, that IS genuinely cool, like major jealousy to anyone who got to actually witness Skinny Puppy or Ministry live in the 80s ykwim, but literally ALL of these people will then immediately start talking about how much people sucked, how much mainstream culture sucked, etc. It was literally Reagan-era AIDS crisis. Dystopian literature took off for a reason. Racism was a massive society-wide issue. War on drugs was in full swing. Even just the insanely racialized pushback against disco during that time is of note tbh. Massive brand commercialization was getting worse and worse. Whenever I talk to gay people from that era they express so much relief about how much the world has improved since then. I was talking to an older woman in her 50s who’s been in the goth scene since the 80s who was saying that back in the day if she went out dressed in her goth clothes she was called a faggot on the street. I remember her jokingly being like “well at least they were saying it to me and not actual gay people I guess haha…” There are aspects of 80s culture, especially 80s subculture and counterculture, that I really really enjoy, obviously, and certain sentiments surrounding big art trends of the time that I love, but it’s just kind of ridiculous to me that YEARS after collectively mercilessly mocking the trend of white girls saying they miss the 50s while ignoring the fact that Stonewall and the civil rights movement hadn’t happened yet, no-fault divorce didn’t exist, and lobotomies were still acceptable, I’m seeing posts nearly daily on this site that are like “well if I had been born in the 80s art would be good and music would be good and there’d be a queer alt community for me, but instead I was born in the tiktok poser generation 💔” like girl I’m sorry but you ARE the tiktok poser. Get offline and go FIND your community. Your issue is not that you were born in the wrong generation, you literally just do not know how to find modern underground subculture. Because it is underground.

[v-arbellanaris]

one of my favourite parts of dai, which i don't usually speak about, is when you get to halamshiral, and they announce the inquisitor. at least half my inquisitors recruit the mages as free allies of the inquisition, and yet at halamshiral, the inquisitor is credited as vanquisher of the rebel mages, crusher of the vile apostates of the mage underground. sera says 'he's so full of it! that's not how it went.' and it's vivienne who says 'remember to smile. this is all for show, my dear.'

this, amongst many moments, really encapsulates the heart of the story inquisition is trying to tell, and there's a hundred little moments that build towards this story. i have talked before on this blog about the original purpose of the inquisition, in-world, which was both to bring the mages back under chantry control and, if necessary, to recreate a loyal templar order. that is explicitly the context in which the herald is brought into as a character - that is the 'problem' they are to address, the same way the warden's narrative problem is posed as 'there is a blight that needs to be stopped' and hawke's problem is posed, interestingly in a dual-layer kind of way which is both 'i need to keep my family safe and secure' and 'how did we get to this [gestures at the aftermath of da2]?'. the narrative then goes ahead to fill in that story. and even in these stories, throughout, there are so many things building up to the narrative beats in inquisition. everything from the portrayal of the grey wardens as a heroic force in dao and how quickly the origins goes to show the wide depth of perspectives and feelings you can actually have around being conscripted and how the joining ritual - and jory's death - expose the true heart of the order's utilitarian approach, to loghain's status as the hero of river dane and his role in the rebellion and the man he actually is under that mythos, to the entire narrative of da2 being framed around this "champion" who the chantry is painting as a deliberate saboteur and conspirator (with the grey wardens) to bring the chantry and the circles down, to the ameridan reveal in jaws of hakkon, and the evanuris reveal in trespasser. there is so much story and deconstruction throughout the series of the 'chosen one' narratives - each story's protagonist has been a "chosen one" who was never really chosen, survived through chance, and shouldered responsibility for a wide variety of reasons. and their actions become legends and myths that consume any trace of who they really were. and this culminates in an extreme way in dai, because the role of the herald - which is who your pc is before they're the inquisitor - has religious significance, and in-world, andrastianism is the most dominant religion. and the religion is SO culturally pervasive, to the extent there are no governing bodies in the entirety of thedas are secular, and most are andrastian-aligned. even orzammar's belief in paragons and the stone is aligned to a religion, even if it's not andrastianism - atheism and secularism is something entirely unthinkable within a thedosian society. so of course the impact of the herald of andraste is different to the hero of ferelden or the champion of kirkwall.

but i think it's disingenous and outright insulting to insist that this was done well, or with finesse, or that the narrative tools used to convey these themes should somehow be overlooked in light of the mere presence of The Theme in the Narrative. i've spoken before on how often the writing in dai doesn't want you to think - it removes the options to argue, to present you with a statement that is The Objective Truth, as though if enough of your companions repeat the statement, it will become true. and i, myself, and plenty of people in the fandom - particularly people of colour - have been vocal about the implications around the framing of these Objective Truths, when you consider the real life analogues that these Truths are drawn from, by bioware's own admittance. that's not even touching the inherent problems with the narrative push of "imperialism is better than chaos". therefore, i cannot and do not understand responses to criticisms of dai that essentially come back around to "well, you have to understand that the dai pc is not written to be a leftist, they're written to be a centrist" - inquisition, especially, rewards conservatism specifically, as a first point. as a second point, why would having an option to have a pc with leftist or progressive views - not just progressive for thedas, but progressive according to modern values - take away from either the deconstruction of chosen one narratives or the idea of losing your identity that's pervasive throughout dragon age as a whole?

i have spoken to the blank-slate feeling to the inquisitor as a deliberate writing choice, one that people suggest is actually feeding into the themes of dai, but i argue that it's actually a deliberate writing choice so that new players come in without any opinions or experiences of the world at all, and thus become more primed to accept Objective Truths from the companions. thus, criticisms -- certainly mine are -- around the lack of options to argue with your companions stems not from wanting to be right, but from being allowed to have a different opinion. how does having a different opinion to what's publicly acceptable, or desirable, actually not enhance the themes of identity loss in dai?

yes, you cannot decide that your warden does not become a warden - but you live through the experience of becoming a warden, to show why it's necessary. you are allowed to have complicated opinions about being a warden, and act based on those opinions. yes, you cannot choose to not play as hawke, but you can choose exactly what kind of hawke you want to play - someone pro-templar, or pro-mage, or someone who starts out at one end and comes out of it the other end, someone who values family or money or status and prestige, someone who is funny or diplomatic or violent. you have a choice. and when the inquisitor doesn't have any background at all, there is no justification for why the inquisitor needs to be a centrist, or why they would be one. my circle mage pc could have been part of the rebellion. my cadash could have been someone kicked out of orzammar as a child or someone who lived in dust town before they got to the surface. the lack of backstory for the inquisitor, similar to the warden or hawke, actively weakens the story - how do you write a story about someone losing their personal identity to their growing myth/legend, when there's literally nothing that is ever establishing what they've lost? how do you write a story about someone losing their personal identity, or being subsumed by their role, when there's nothing to indicate their personhood? how much more jarring would it have been to have been proudly and loudly and unapologetically pro-mage and pro-rebellion the entire game, only to get to halamshiral and be called vanquisher of the rebel mages? all of your personal politics and values disappearing and smoothed over in such a visibly visceral way? how much more gutting would it have been to have these values, and speak to them, and argue for them articulately, and still never be able to change your companions' minds, instead of constantly being put in a position where your companions get the last word in on absolutely everything, right down to arguments about slavery with dorian? how much more intense would it have been to have had a wide array of options in dealing with main quests and situations, only to have it boiled down to one thing or one of two decisions, with all the complexities stripped from it? how can you say that being forced to be centrist as the pc is central to the story being told, and not something that actively hampers the themes dai is trying to draw on?

i especially don't know how people can insist to overlook how - as in the methods chosen here - bioware's writing team in dai pushes the deconstruction of the 'chosen one' narrative that is present throughout dragon age. inquisition choses to do this by doubling down and retconning and two-sidesing every single complexity under the sun - from suggesting mages oppressed themselves by rebelling/not every mage even wanted to be free of the circle (while offering limited voices otherwise, and making sure to clarify the voices calling for mage freedom are Evil and Bad), to blaming the dalish for being slaughtered by the exalted marches in the dales, right through to the decision to make ameridan a dalish elf and yes even the decisions made around the writing for the evanuris. and we have to be clear about it, that if the overarching themes of dragon age are deliberate, then this was also a deliberate writing choice, to further emphasise the idea that history is written by the victors, that stories warp and change over time, etc etc. the series' successes in storytelling have been around the subjectivity of absolutely everything; there is no objective truth in dragon age, there is something that happened, and then there is 50 different opinions about it. the codex entries are not objective truth, they're biased reportings from people with agendas and pre-existing beliefs and notions. you can live through the battle of ostagar, and there are still 50 different perspectives on it, and all of them valid from that person's standpoint. inquisition takes a hard swerve from this, to insist on Objective Truths, not because it was the best way to make their point - they've been making their point with subtler storytelling for years - but because it's lazy, racist, colonialist writing. and worse, still, is that this writing is then forced as Objective Truths to you, the player character, with no way to argue even when you have the knowledge, or your pc could reasonably be expected to have the knowledge to counter this information, or to even argue about the interpretation of the "Evidence" you find of these Objective Truths.

and i suppose, if it's not your stories and histories being co-opted, it's easy enough to say having those choices don't matter to the overarching theme. i suppose, if it's not your religions or cultures being borrowed and frankenstein'd into this fictional world and the religion and culture you do identify with are primarily portrayed as inherently correct and superior in a way you were never taught to question, it can seem like questioning those beliefs and opinions in your companions and in npcs is a waste of effort. it's not, but i can see how it might feel that way.

inquisition itself, as a game, does not simply deliver a theme - the narrative tools used to deliver that theme throughout the story are frankly abhorrent. on top of that, key decisions in the plot have little to no immediate, serious consequences (for example, siding with the mages or templars only really has narrative consequences for who you face at fall of haven and in the temple of mythal; there are almost no consequences for kicking the wardens out of orlais; etc etc). companion character quests revolving around whether or not to change and strive for better, or to stay with their old regressive patterns have absolutely no narrative consequences because the world re-sets to status quo. 2/3rds of your choice for divine essentially reinstate the old systems, and only one (vivienne) actually makes any systemic changes to those systems, and the game mechanic itself is incredibly slanted towards choosing the divine that brings everything back to "normal". all following mentions of the media neatly dodge the question of whether you have made any lasting change at all. all to push the narrative that change isn't really possible, because society will always go back to the status quo. and if you try to challenge that status quo, you will just make things worse, so it's better to just stay as it is. nothing matters, no change is permanent, and anything you try to do, people will warp for their own agenda anyway, because you are not you anymore, you are a caricature people will use to justify the way things are and insist it is how it must continue to be.

which is a stupid hill to die on, if you're going to defend the ways inquisition tells its story. even trick weekes themselves find it a trite and bleak storytelling mechanism. when even bioware itself is going "our next narrative will Not be that" - will even be the opposite of that, that it's bullshit not to try to change things at all - it's as good as an admission that the ball was dropped on that in the previous installment.

anyway, i just think it's actually incredibly disingenuous and insulting to address criticisms around narrative framing and the limitations of character responses and choices in inquisition as if its overlooking the story's themes, or somehow missing the point that has been staring us in the face since origins. we know the themes they intended to convey. that still doesn't mean inquisition satisfactorily delivered. which i frankly think even bioware themselves recognised and are actively trying to do better in for da4.

[reasonsforhope]

hey, how do you cope with people saying we only have a small amount of time left to stop the worst effects of climate change? no matter how hopeful and ok i am, that always sends me back into a spiral :(

A few different ways

1. The biggest one is that I do math. Because renewable energy is growing exponentially

Up until basically 2021 to now, all of the climate change models were based on the idea that our ability to handle climate change will grow linearly. But that's wrong: it's growing exponentially, most of all in the green energy sector. And we're finally starting to see proof of this - and that it's going to keep going.

And many types of climate change mitigation serve as multipliers for other types. Like building a big combo in a video game.

Change has been rapidly accelerating and I genuinely believe that it's going to happen much faster than anyone is currently predicting

2. A lot of the most exciting and groundbreaking things happening around climate change are happening in developing nations, so they're not on most people's radars.

But they will expand, as developing nations are widely undergoing a massive boom in infrastructure, development, and quality of life - and as they collaborate and communicate with each other in doing so

3. Every country, state, city, province, town, nonprofit, community, and movement is basically its own test case

We're going to figure out the best ways to handle things in a remarkably quick amount of time, because everyone is trying out solutions at once. Instead of doing 100 different studies on solutions in order, we get try out 100 (more like 10,000) different versions of different solutions simultaneously, and then figure out which ones worked best and why. The spread of solutions becomes infinitely faster, especially as more and more of the world gets access to the internet and other key infrastructure

4. There's a very real chance that many of the impacts of climate change will be reversible

Yeah, you read that right.

Will it take a while? Yes. But we're mostly talking a few decades to a few centuries, which is NOTHING in geological history terms.

We have more proof than ever of just how resilient nature is. Major rivers are being restored from dried up or dead to thriving ecosystems in under a decade. Life bounces back so fast when we let it.

I know there's a lot of skepticism about carbon capture and carbon removal. That's reasonable, some of those projects are definitely bs (mostly the ones run by gas companies, involving carbon credits, and/or trying to pump CO2 thousands of feet underground)

But there's very real potential for carbon removal through restoring ecosystems and regenerative agriculture

The research into carbon removal has also just exploded in the past three years, so there are almost certainly more and better technologies to come

There's also some promising developments in industrial carbon removal, especially this process of harvesting atmospheric CO2 and other air pollution to make baking soda and other industrially useful chemicals

As we take carbon out of the air in larger amounts, less heat will be trapped in the atmosphere

If less heat is trapped in the atmosphere, then the planet will start to cool down

If the planet starts to cool down, a lot of things will stabilize again. And they'll probably start to stabilize pretty quickly

[oddinary4bts]

Chasing Cars | ch 8 (jjk)

☆summary: when your brother goes to study on a semester abroad, your life collides with his best friend Jeon Jungkook, who's coincidentally your roommate. Will you survive the collision, or will you crumble into dust?

☆pairings: brother's best friend!Jungkook x younger sister!female reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI, this chapter contains mature content)

☆genre: forbidden love?au, college!au, slice of life!au, smut, angst (as usual a lot of it), fluff

☆warnings: peach, curses, luxury, impostor syndrome, alcohol, jungkook's family, they are so gone for each other my dude, explicit content: hickeys, dom!Jungkook, big dick!Jungkook, jerking off, oral sex (male receiving), exhibitionism (sort of but not really), protected sex, Jungkook is a teasing hoe, marking, ass slapping, praising, clit play

☆word count: 13.5k

☆a/n: NEW YOOOORK!!! My second favourite chapter of this series bc it's just so asjgsrjgsabfgo but I'll let you guys be the judge of that haha enjoy reading <3 and thank you to @moonleeai for beta-ing, you're the best <3

☆series masterpost

☆add yourself to the taglist here!

☆☆☆☆☆

If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol

☆☆☆☆☆

Friday, March 8th 

The sun is high in the sky, the snow melting on the side of the road, and Jungkook’s car is eating the miles towards New York, the music you’ve been listening to since you’ve left loud yet enjoyable.

Or maybe what’s truly enjoyable is the smile on Jungkook’s face whenever you meet his gaze while you’re bolting a duet, singing over the music.

Scratch that, you’ve been enjoying yourself because you’re with Jungkook. It doesn’t matter what you’d be doing - as long as it’s with Jungkook, you know you’d have fun. Even as his car slows down almost to a halt as you near the city and face its traffic, it doesn’t deter you.

No, Jungkook’s wide grin and his hand on your thigh keeps your mind far too occupied to be able to produce anything other than serotonin, and you think you deserve it. Especially after the uncertainty of the last few weeks, you deserve this moment with Jungkook.

This moment, away from reminders of Taehyung and of how you know this relationship is bound to explode in your face one day.

You shove that thought away as Jungkook’s giggle fills the car, and you glance at him, smiling brightly.

“You’re not really going to put some Taylor Swift on,” Jungkook complains, yet it’s at odds with the amused light in his eyes.

“I sure am,” you reply, and the song Welcome to New York starts playing. 

You know it by heart, and Jungkook watches you in awe as you sing. If you weren’t rational, you’d assume he’s looking at you with heart-shaped eyes, but you know better than that.

You’re just his fake girlfriend for the weekend. Nothing more. 

Nothing more than the fact that you will meet his entire family, including his extended family, tomorrow. He doesn’t seem like he cares, and you’ve been trying to pretend that you don’t care either, but it is making you feel anxious.

You’ve never had a boyfriend that you’ve met the family of before. Or actually, you’ve never had a boyfriend whatsoever.

Jungkook knows his way in the city. You’re not surprised - he grew up here, and he told you he usually spends his summers back home as well to work and make enough money for the year. What you’re surprised about is that the streets down which he starts driving once you’re passed the traffic and into the city proper look expensive, exuding wealth that you could only ever wish to know.

It only increases when he parks his car in the underground parking garage of a huge skyscraper which apparently holds condos and the like.

At least that’s what he says. 

“Leave your bag in the car,” Jungkook tells you as you’re about to fetch your duffel bag from the backseat. 

You cock an eyebrow in question. “Aren’t we here?”

He smiles mischievously, eyes shining in the white neon light of the underground garage. “I’m taking you shopping.”

“Why?” you burst out, looking down at yourself. “Are my clothes not good enough?”

He walks around the car, pulling you away from the car door by the hand before he shuts it behind you, leaning against it. 

“Trust me, peach, your clothes are perfect for me,” he says. “But I much prefer you without the clothes on.”

He winks, and you punch him in the shoulder, cheeks flaming.

“You’re insufferable,” you grumble.

“You like it.”

“I don’t.”

He smiles as you fake-glare at him, until you both start laughing. He extends a hand for you to take, and you let him engulf your small hand with his large one as he pulls you towards the elevator.

“Seriously though, I’ll get you a nice dress for tomorrow night,” Jungkook says as you reach the elevator, and he presses the call button. “Not that I don’t trust what you’ve brought,” he quickly adds before you could say anything. “More as a thank you for doing this for me.”

You narrow your eyes at him, yet you nod your head. Because who would say no to free clothes?

Certainly not you.

Jungkook pulls you behind him in the elevator when the doors slide open, and then presses on the ground floor. Once you get off, he’s quick to guide you down a hallway that looks straight out of a fancy hotel - marble floors reflecting the light of the sconces on the walls, abstract paintings at regular intervals on the wall to the left, over dark oak tables with white flowers in crystal vases. 

The hallway even smells expensive, and you throw a curious glance to Jungkook.

“Where are we?” you ask, unable to help yourself.

He glances at you over his shoulder, winking at you. “Home.”

“This is what you call home?” you ask, thinking about the small apartment you grew up in on the poor side of the city you hail from.

He shrugs. “I feel more at home back in college, but yeah, I grew up here.”

“Jungkook,” you say, tugging on his hand to stop him, but he’s determined, his steps unfaltering.

You grumble under your breath, yet you follow him out into the early evening setting sun, the doors of the building golden. You don’t ask the questions that are burning in your mind - what do his parents do for a living? Why didn’t he mention he was rich?

Why does he live in that small, old apartment with you and Taehyung if he can afford so much more?

The questions spin in your head like they are a tornado of thoughts, and they only increase in speed as he pulls you to an Yves Saint Laurent store, pushing the door open as if he owns the place.

Could he…?

“Jeon Jungkook!” a middle-aged lady greets him, her face lighting up as you come into view. “We haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Hey, Mrs Smith,” Jungkook answers. “Meet my girlfriend.”

He tugs on your hand, forcing you to step out from behind him, and you blush as the lady appears. She’s tall, though you believe it might be because she’s wearing stilettos, and her skirt and blazer combo makes her look like a businesswoman. 

The nametag on the blazer is a clear indication that she isn’t, though. No, she visibly works here.

“Hello,” you awkwardly say, not knowing what else to say as she looks you up and down.

“Are you here for a new wardrobe?” she asks, the question directed towards Jungkook as if what you’re wearing is the ugliest outfit anyone has ever come up with before.

You try to not take offense, yet you find yourself momentarily clenching your jaw as Jungkook replies, “No, just for a dress for Junghyun’s engagement party.”

Mrs Smith nods, and she motions towards what looks like a small scene in front of multiple mirrors. It’s the kind of thing you’ve seen before in period pieces, where the seamstresses take the ladies’ measurement. So you’re not entirely surprised when Mrs Smith pulls out a measuring tape from a hidden pocket in her blazer, and you let her do her work, your eyes on Jungkook as he watches with an amused smile on his lips.

“You could have warned me,” you say, and Mrs Smith looks up towards you, the frown on her features convincing you to shut up until she’s done.

Jungkook only laughs, saying, “I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

He does. He certainly does, and though it’s pissing you off, there’s something endearing about the way he’s watching from that couch, the small smile on his lips softening his features. 

You fall silent as Mrs Smith keeps working, and soon she’s sauntering off, the sound of her stilettos click-clacking slowly fading. You immediately climb off from the little scene, storming towards Jungkook.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were rich?” you ask.

He shrugs. “Does it change anything?”

“It doesn’t.” You look around, not quite believing that you’re standing in a designer store. “But then it does.”

He pouts, the expression so adorable you feel like leaning in and kissing him. It’s startling, and before you can do anything, Mrs Smith comes back with a light blue dress she wants you to try on. You follow the lady to the dressing room, and Jungkook offers you a wink as you glance at him over your shoulder.

Mrs Smith leads you into the room, and it’s way too large for just a dressing room. She leaves the dress on a hook against a wall, in front of a tall standing mirror, and you thank her as she gets out, gently shutting the door behind her.

Which leaves you alone with your thoughts, and with the fact that Jungkook wants to buy you a designer dress. 

You take a look at the dress. It’s beautiful, the colour eerily similar to that of a summer sky, yet maybe somewhat a little paler. You step towards it, searching for a tag, but you can’t find any. The softness of the fabric is a clear indication that it is probably worth more than everything you own combined together, and you anxiously take off your clothes to put it on.

One look in the mirror makes you feel like a princess. Like you’re the one someone might write a story about, or sing a song to. Even though your hair is a mess and you’re not wearing any makeup, you feel more beautiful than you’ve ever felt before.

The dress hugs your curves perfectly, enhancing them in all the right places. It looks like it was tailor-made for you, and for a moment you believe you’re in love.

You really do think you’re in love when you shyly step out of the dressing room for Mrs Smith to finish zipping the dress up, and Jungkook looks up from his phone to look at you.

The smirk on his lips slowly dies down, and his gaze doesn’t move from you as you step closer. You don’t think he’s blinking, or even breathing, and you truly feel like the most beautiful woman in the world right now.

“Do you like the dress?” a female voice to your left says, but you can’t look away from Jungkook.

You’re entranced, and it seems that he is too. Like you’re the center of the universe, or maybe that’s him - it’s hard to tell.

“We’ll take it,” Jungkook says after a moment, and he gets up. 

Towering over you, he tilts your head back with a finger on your chin, and you gulp as your gazes connect.

“On the family tab?” Mrs Smith asks. 

“Yes.”

“How much is the dress?” you can’t help but query, turning your head towards Mrs Smith.

She regards you with an eyebrow cocked, before glancing at Jungkook. “10,350 dollars, miss.”

Your mouth falls open as she walks away, and you immediately look back towards Jungkook.

“No,” is all that you say.

He flicks your nose. “Don’t cause a scene, peach.”

“I’m not causing a scene,” you say through gritted teeth. “This dress is worth more than a year of my share of the rent.”

“And? Your point?”

You roll your eyes, folding your arms on your chest. “I’m not letting you buy this.”

“Well too bad for you, it’s already paid for.”

He winks at you again, and then plops back down on the couch, his smirk widening into a grin that makes butterflies come to life in your stomach.

It’s a feeling you don’t like, so you turn your back on him, heading back to the dressing room. With new respect for the dress, you slowly take it off, treating it reverently. Once it’s safely back on the hanger, you put your clothes back on, hands shaking a little at the enormity of what Jungkook just did.

Though, to him, it doesn’t seem like it was a lot. Indeed, when you get out of the dressing room, leaving the dress behind because you don’t dare touch it again, Jungkook springs up from the couch, offering you his hand.

And even though you feel like maybe you don’t really know anything about him, you take his hand. His fingers close around yours, gently, and he offers you a smile that makes you warm like spring days, when the world is coming back to life.

And as you walk behind him, you think maybe, maybe this weekend is a great opportunity to get to know him better. To get to know the man that hides behind the cocky behaviour, the one you’ve seen on multiple occasions already.

Though it should scare you, the thought only makes you hold onto Jungkook’s fingers a little tighter. He reciprocates, and it’s with a heart beating wildly that he waits with you for Mrs Smith to bring the dress over, safely hidden in a dress bag. Jungkook takes it for you, and then he pulls you behind him.

You’re soon swallowed by the New York city bustling crowd, though Jungkook is a lighthouse in the storm and you feel safe.

You feel safe with him, and that, more than anything, scares you.

*****

“You’re shitting me,” is all you say when Jungkook leads you into his room, once you’re back at the condominium in which he grew up.

You’d gathered enough information to know that he was rich. But you didn’t think he was rich rich - the condo he grew up in is on the two highest levels of the skyscraper, with an unparalleled view of Central Park that’s making you feel like you’re a bird soaring in the sky.

Jungkook laughs behind you as he shuts the door, dropping your duffel bag and his next to it. You’ve been carrying the dress up, treating it like the treasure that it is, and Jungkook gently takes it from your hand as he walks away, disappearing in what you can only assume is his walk-in wardrobe. 

He pops back out a few seconds later, minus the dress bag, and he offers you a smile that’s even more blinding than the city view. “No, I’m not,” he says.

You chuckle, cheeks burning for a reason you don’t quite understand, and then you scan his room. It’s cold, empty, void of the quality that makes his room back at the apartment feel like his. This room is impersonal, the kind of room you’d see in interior design magazines, with the black bed covers and equally as dark walls. Light comes from behind the bed frame, yet the true beauty of the room is that of the city, and you take it in as you step closer to the floor-to-ceiling window that is the wall at the foot of the bed.

“I can’t believe it,” you murmur. “This is so beautiful.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

You slowly nod, glancing towards Jungkook. “I can’t believe you chose to live in that shitty apartment with Tae when this is what you were accustomed to.”

He shrugs, not answering anything, as he instead heads to where he left the duffel bags so that he can carry them into the walk-in. You follow him then, curious to see what the rest of his bedroom looks like.

The walk-in is empty, save for a corner that holds a couple of suits you imagine to be from different designer brands. You notice a few dress shirts over there too, but your gaze focuses on the PC setup that’s in between two walls of shelves.

Finally, something that feels like Jungkook.

You walk towards it, rolling the chair back so that you can sit in it. Jungkook drops your duffel bag on the shelf behind you, and you turn your chair so that you can face him.

“You want to play?” he asks.

“What games do you have?”

He leans towards you, and you catch a whiff of his cologne as he turns the PC on. 

“Honestly I don’t remember what’s downloaded on the PC,” he truthfully replies. “Just check out my Steam account.”

And then he’s walking towards the other side of the walk-in, heading towards what you can only assume is the bathroom. You spring up from the chair, and it rolls behind you from the sudden motion as you jog to the bathroom.

You’re not surprised to see just how expensive the bathroom looks. Black tiles cover the floor, and they climb the walls of the walk-in shower next to which a wide-standing cabinet with glass doors is. A proper look at the shower shows that it’s one with multiple shower heads, and you already know the shower you’ll take later will be heavenly, clearly the best you’ll ever take in your life. Jungkook leans on the counter, folding his arm on his chest as he watches you taking everything in, your gaze wide from awe.

“You don’t even have a bath,” you comment, and Jungkook bursts out laughing.

“I never needed one. But if you want to take a bath, there’s one in the bigger bathroom on this level.”

“Isn’t it connected to like… your parents’ room or something?” you ask.

He shrugs. “Yeah, but my parents haven’t stayed here since I was five,” he reveals. “They prefer staying at hotels.”

You furrow your brow. “They have such a nice condo and they don’t even enjoy it?”

Another shrug of Jungkook tells you that he, too, doesn’t understand his parents. 

“If you want, I can give you a tour of the whole place,” Jungkook suggests after a beat of silence.

Your eyes light up, and you nod forcefully. “Yes. Please, I’d love to.”

He laughs at your enthusiasm, before motioning towards the toilet. “I do have to go to the bathroom first, if you’ll excuse me.”

Cheeks burning, you mumble an apology that makes him laugh as you step out of the bathroom, and he gently closes the door behind you. Embarrassed, you make your way back to the gaming setup, and you watch the landscape picture of the welcome screen. Pressing on enter reveals that Jungkook doesn’t have a password for the computer, and a moment later his Steam library appears in front of your eyes.

Obviously he’s got every game you can imagine, and you don’t have time to go through the whole library before he’s out, ready to give you the tour. And the rest of the condo is just as impressive as Jungkook’s bedroom is, though the whole thing feels… empty. Void of life. Which, you assume it is considering his parents don’t live here most of the time, and his brother owns a city house with his fiancée. 

Your favourite part ends up being the kitchen, even though you don’t cook. But who wouldn’t like the beauty of the marble counters, of the white cupboards and of the impressive glass chandelier that hangs over the long dinner table?

You end up sitting on a stool at the island, watching Jungkook as he moves through the kitchen. He finds instant noodles in the pantry, and he comes out of it with a wide grin on his lips.

“Found dinner,” he says.

You laugh. “You’ve got such a nice kitchen and all you’ll cook are some instant noodles?”  

He narrows his gaze at you. “You have a problem against instant noodles?”

You snort, shrugging your shoulders. “No.”

He doesn’t seem convinced, but he drops it, focusing on making food for the two of you. It takes a few minutes, but he’s soon sitting next to you, two bowls of noodles wafting steam in front of you. It smells good, if not a bit spicy, and you grab the chopsticks he put out for you.

“Thanks for the food,” you tell him, flashing a grin to him that makes his features soften in a far too dangerous way for you.

So you look away, cheeks dusting in pink, and you start eating. Though the noodles are indeed spicy, you endure the burn, finding that you actually enjoy it a little bit. Maybe because it’s distracting you from the thought that you’re with your brother’s best friend - you ought to stop thinking about it anyway.

Here, Jungkook isn’t Taehyung’s best friend. Here, he’s just Jungkook, and you’re just you.

Saturday March 9th

You feel like an impostor. 

The venue for the engagement party is luxurious, nestled on the top floors of one of the many skyscrapers of Manhattan. The people in attendance are all dressed to the nines, as if trying to impress. 

Or you’re just impressed because you’ve never seen so many designer clothes in such a place before. 

The floor is made of shiny marble, the ceiling high. A huge, glass chandelier hangs from it, and multiple columns are decorated with shiny golden garlands. In one corner, in front of tall windows overlooking New York City, a photobooth is set up, but you’ve remained clear of it so far.

You and Jungkook are both aware that you can’t risk having pictures of you taken. Not when they could easily be found by Taehyung, or by other people from back at college.

Like Ria, who questioned you for hours when you said you were going to spend the weekend in New York…

You know you’ll be grilled when you get home, but you push that thought aside, much like you’ve been putting all thoughts of your regular life aside. Jungkook has been making it easy - his smile and laughter, ever so constant yesterday evening, has been grounding, and though he does seem anxious right now, he’s remained by your side, making sure to put you at ease.

You haven’t met his parents or brother yet, but he’s introduced to some cousins that approached you, some of them surprisingly only speaking Korean. Jungkook bridged the gap between you and them, translating when needed, and they have now moved to the refreshment table, adorned with a pyramid of champagne glasses you’ve imagined toppling over at least fifteen times since you’ve arrived.

You really do feel like an impostor at the sight of all the easy luxury. Of the Louboutin high heels, the Louis Vuitton purses, the expensive suits and dresses everyone is wearing. The vast room smells rich, and it truly isn’t your crowd.

“Smile, peach,” Jungkook says, nudging you with his elbow.

Your gaze slides to him, and as it’s been doing since you finished getting ready earlier, your breath catches in your throat. There’s just something about the pale pants and the light blue dress shirt he’s wearing that makes him seem even more attractive than you’ve always found him. Maybe it’s the way the fabric stretches on his chest, revealing his hard-earned muscles. Or maybe it’s the vulnerability in his gaze.

He doesn’t seem more comfortable than you in this crowd.

“You smile,” you throw back at him, and he immediately does, a low laugh shaking through him.

“Do you want something to drink?”

You look down at yourself, wincing. “I’m afraid I’ll ruin the dress.”

“So you’re just going to stand still the whole evening because you’re afraid to ruin your clothes?” he teases.

You clench your jaw, rolling your eyes. “Precisely.”

“Loosen up, peach,” Jungkook insists, and there’s something in the way he says it that makes you think maybe he needs you to.

Maybe he truly does need your support at this fancy party. So you find yourself accepting to get drinks, and you’re almost done with the first glass when Jungkook tenses next to you, freezing like a deer in headlights. 

His doe eyes are on the doors, and you look in the direction to see an older woman and man walking in, the woman’s hand on her husband’s arm. You see a little bit of Jungkook in them - the woman’s eyes are Jungkook’s, and the man has the same nose and lips - so you immediately know that they are Jungkook’s parents.

The woman scans the room, and her eyes stop on you. In the distance it’s hard to tell if she looks happy to see her son - she barely even reacts, though she tugs her husband in your direction. You glance to Jungkook, but he really does seem frozen.

“Are you okay?” you ask, resting a hand on his arm.

He startles, toying with his piercings with his tongue before nodding curtly. “All good.”

You look towards his parents, and they’ve already crossed half of the room.

“Is that…” you trail off, knowing how rhetorical the question is.

“Yep.”

“What should I do?” you ask, tugging on his arm.

His eyes snap to you, and they’re void of the warmth you usually recognize in them. They’re like chips of ice - empty, cold, and something aches in your chest.

“Just be yourself.”

You offer him a small smile. His gaze is quick to drop to it, and you see the moment it warms. You see the moment he realizes he’s not alone, not right now, even though this is all but a subterfuge.

You’re not his girlfriend, but you’ll sure as hell try to be the best friend you can be for him right now.

“Jungkook,” his mother says as she stops in front of you, and your gaze slides to her.

She looks regal, standing ramrod straight with a steely look on her face. She spares you a quick glance, cocking an eyebrow before resuming her attention on Jungkook.

“Mother,” Jungkook replies in the same cold, formal tone.

“Glad to see you came around and decided to come.”

Jungkook doesn’t reply, but he wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer. “I wanted to introduce Y/n to the family.”

Heart beating out of your chest, you look up to Jungkook, observing the firm set of his jaw. He seems determined, like a man going into battle, and you wonder if that is what it is.

If Jungkook brought you here to rile his family up.

His mother finally truly takes you in, her eyes skimming over you. “I don’t think we know each other,” she says, and there is so much contempt in her voice you furrow your brow.

“I don’t think so,” you answer, trying to sound as polite as you possibly can. You bow your head, meeting her gaze when you straighten. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Jungkook’s father pats his wife’s hand. She lets him go, almost reluctantly, and he walks away, heading to a group of men that seem far too happy to see him.

You wonder if you should take offence to him walking away when you just tried to introduce yourself, though the way Jungkook is staring at his mother lets you know that the true opponent of this battle is the woman in front of you, and not the man that just left.

“Likewise,” she replies, and this time she doesn’t hide the contempt from her voice at all. It drips to her features, and she scrunches up her nose in disgust, looking down at the high heels you’re wearing.

A simple pair of high heels you’ve bought for your high school prom, that you’ve been reusing whenever you have the occasion.

“Nice shoes,” Jungkook’s mother says, and you can tell that she means it as an insult. 

You clench your jaw, cocking an eyebrow as you get ready to reply, but Jungkook intervenes with a stern, “Mother.”

“You thought dressing her up in a nice dress would make us forget that she’s not from our class?”

The insult is stark, and you widen your gaze as your heart rate spikes, your blood heating up in your veins.

“Excuse me?” you let out, unable to resist.

Jungkook’s mother meets your gaze. “At least she’s got a tongue on her.”

“And I’ll ask you to make a fucking effort for once,” Jungkook spits.

She frowns. “Do not curse, boy. It doesn’t suit you.”

He laughs, a short, dry sound that makes the hair dress on your arms. She clenches her jaw, a muscle feathering under the skin, and you wonder where Jungkook learned to be warm. Where he learned to smile like he’s lighter than a feather, like he’s never known any atrocities. Because standing here, you realize just how cold his upbringing must have been like.

And it’s strange. The little boy in the picture on his bedside table was all smiles, eyes crinkling with joy. You’d assumed the picture had been taken by his parents, but now that you’ve met his mother, you highly doubt she’s ever been the source of a smile on Jungkook’s lips.

While you’ve been thinking, Jungkook and his mother were stuck in a staring contest, a battle of will that Jungkook wins. Indeed, his mother sighs deeply and then turns towards you again.

“Where do you come from?” she asks.

You gulp under the scrutiny of her gaze, yet give her the answer.

“What do your parents do for a living?”

You tense, for that is an answer that even Jungkook doesn’t know. 

“My mother is a nurse,” you reply. You feel Jungkook’s curious gaze on your profile, but you resist glancing at him. “And I do not know my father.”

Jungkook’s mother blinks once, and then she focuses on her son. “Junghyun will be happy you came.”

She leaves without saying another word, and you’re left staring at her retreating form, wondering if it’s just you or if she’s the rudest person you’ve ever met.

“I apologize for this,” Jungkook says, and his arm drops from your shoulder.

You immediately miss it.

“I think I’m starting to get why you wanted me to come with you,” you say, and you finally meet his gaze.

He’s slightly pouting, lips barely jutting out, yet there’s something endearing about the expression on his features. “I honestly didn’t think she would be flat-out rude like that.” He downs what’s left of the champagne in his flute and then puts it down on the tray of a server as she walks past. “I promise we can go home as soon as Junghyun shows up and sees that I came.”

“We can stay longer too,” you reassure him. “I can handle the aristocracy.”

The frown on his features melts, and he lets out a small laugh. “The aristocracy?”

You nod. “Yeah. Because obviously we aren’t from the same class.”

“Fuck, peach,” he grumbles, shaking his head, yet there’s an amused sparkle in his gaze that makes you feel warm all of a sudden.

It’s like you forget all about his mother, and about his avoidant father. It soon becomes clear that he is avoiding Jungkook, not you, and you feel bad for the man beside you. 

He deserves a family that treats him better than the one he has, or so you believe. And it’s not like you know them at all - the dynamic is just off, and it’s unlike what you’ve personally known growing up.

If you forget about the fact that you don’t have a father and that your mother worked so much while you were growing up that you barely saw her.

Junghyun and his fiancée show up an hour later, fashionably late. You and Jungkook have been drinking more, and you feel buzzed from the alcohol, warmth swimming through your body. It’s only amplified every time you meet Jungkook’s gaze, every time he tugs you a little closer, and you think you’ll be drunk by the end of the evening, just because of him.

He’s inebriating after all.

Junghyun notices his brother across the space, and unlike his parents, his face breaks into a large grin, one that resembles that of Jungkook, and he immediately makes his way towards you. He’s much more relaxed than his parents, with an easy going vibe to him, and the way Jungkook relaxes makes you think that Junghyun, contrary to his parents, is not an asshole.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming,” Junghyun says as he stops in front of you, immediately pulling Jungkook into a tight embrace.

Jungkook beams under the attention of his older brother. “I thought it’d be a good surprise.”

“It sure is,” Junghyun agrees as he pulls away. His eyes slide to you, and you offer him a tentative smile that he easily reciprocates. “And you are?”

“My girlfriend,” Jungkook says before you have time to say your name. “From college.”

Junghyun nods, meeting your gaze again. “Nice to meet you.”

You echo the sentiment as his fiancée - Nara - stops next to Junghyun, politely greeting Jungkook. 

You end up speaking with the pair for a little while. They both are a lot more welcoming than Jungkook’s parents, and Jungkook seems to be vibrating with happiness by the time they have to move away, needing to greet the other guests in the room. Meanwhile the sun has set outside, and you take a moment to admire the view as Jungkook goes to grab a refill for you both.

“I must admit he has a lot of nerves to bring you here,” a voice says next to you, and you turn to notice his mother, her arms folded on her chest.

Though your heart skips a painful, anxious beat in your chest, you only face the world outside again. “And why is that?”

She scoffs. “He’s technically engaged to someone.”

The world stops turning, and you glance at his mother. She sports a small, wicked smile, like she knows Jungkook didn’t tell you.

“What do you mean?” you can’t help but ask, your hands turning clammy.

She shrugs. “His father and I have discussed it with another family. We’ve deemed it better if they marry.”

“Does he even know her?” you spit.

She chuckles condescendingly. “Look at you. You really think you fit in our world? Your mother clearly hasn’t raised you for it.”

You fully face Jungkook’s mother, nails digging in your palms as you clench your fists. “I’ll have you know that my mother raised me well, and raised me to know privilege where it is. Just because you happened to be born rich doesn’t make you any better.”

Her gaze widens, and you see Jungkook walking back towards you, two glasses of champagne in hands. He notices his mother, a muscle feathering under the skin of his jaw, and you don’t care to stay next to her before you start heading his way.

You meet in the middle of the room, and you wonder if your vision has grown blurry. You only understand your eyes have filled with tears when Jungkook curses under his breath, glaring at his mother over your head.

“What did she tell you?” he asks, voice gentle.

You shrug. “Nothing,” you lie, blinking the tears away.

But she didn’t tell you nothing, did she? 

“I’m really sorry,” he apologizes. “She’s…”

“It’s whatever,” you insist, interrupting him. “I just want to spend time with you.”

You just want to spend time with him because you’ve learned he’s technically engaged, if his mother wasn’t lying.

Does he even know it?

You successfully blink your tears away as Jungkook hands you a champagne glass, which you down in one long gulp.

“I’m flattered, peach,” he teases.

The champagne bubbles down your throat, and you swallow with a scrunch of your nose. When you’ve finished the glass, you hand it back to Jungkook, who takes it with one eyebrow cocked. He looks like he wants to say something, but then his brother starts to speak with a mic. The room ushers to silence, forcing everyone to listen to the speech. Jungkook’s frowning, eyes still on you, but after a few seconds he turns to look at his brother.

You wish you’d be able to listen to the speech, to focus on it, but all you can do is keep on blinking back the tears from snapping at Jungkook’s mother.

Here’s to making bad first impressions. 

And it’s not like it truly matters - you’re not even Jungkook’s real girlfriend. You’re just a friend, someone he brought along as a shield from his family. 

Or so you’re starting to realize. You can’t even blame him. If your mother was remotely similar to his, you’d always make sure to go home with someone to support you. 

The least you can do is be that for Jungkook.

When Junghyun finishes his speech, his fiancée moves closer to him, and they share a sweet embrace that looks a little too practiced for it to be genuine. Or it might just be you - if it had been you in their position, you’re pretty sure you would have wanted to kiss your fiancé stupid. But then again, you reckon it might be improper in this social class.

Jungkook’s mother might have a point - you really weren’t raised to know how to act around rich people.

Except Jungkook, that is, but that’s because you didn’t know he was rich before yesterday, and you doubt he cares anyway.

“Are you hungry?” Jungkook asks as servers start walking around with different appetizers, all of them looking far fancier than anything you’ve eaten in your life.

“Huh,” you let out as one of the servers stops next to you. “What’s this?” 

“Crab cakes,” the server answers, flashing you a quick, polite smile.

You glance at Jungkook. “I’m allergic to seafood.”

He snorts, and then wraps an arm around your shoulder. “Let’s go find something that doesn’t have seafood in it.”

You end up finding small vegetarian burgers, and though they are barely bite-size, you enjoy a couple of them despite their dryness. It’s not enough to satiate your hunger, and especially not enough for Jungkook, so when he suggests going out to a restaurant nearby, you jump on the occasion to say yes.

“Then wait for me here,” Jungkook indicates, and to your surprise he kisses your forehead before slipping away, heading towards where you can see his brother and father conversing. While he speaks to them, probably explaining that you’re going to go eat somewhere else, you admire the view again.  Cars zoom down in the streets below, each and every one of them carrying a different person with their own little life.

You feel small so high over the city. It’s sobering, and you feel like your mind is clearing from the buzz of the alcohol, from the remnants of the guilt you had for snapping at Jungkook’s mother. 

You glance over your shoulder, eyeing Jungkook as he stands as if frozen, his brother speaking in his ear. Junghyun slides his gaze to you, and you offer him a tentative smile that the man ignores. You’d even think that his eyes harden, but it’s hard to tell in the distance. Especially as he pulls away from Jungkook, claps his shoulder once and then walks away, his father in tow.

Jungkook doesn’t move for a few seconds, and you wonder what it is that Junghyun said. Because the moment Jungkook turns and you see the look on his face, you know it must have been something harsh.

Jungkook looks like he wants to cry. It’s so vulnerable, so different from his usual cocky persona that you immediately make your way towards him.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

Jungkook just blinks looking at you, his eyes shining from unshed tears. You grab his hand, squeezing once, forgetting all about his mother being an asshole to you. No, all there is right now is Jungkook, and you want to make sure he finishes this evening with a smile on his face.

He deserves it after all.

“Hey, so where’s that restaurant you mentioned?” you query, switching tactics. 

Jungkook keeps looking at you for a few seconds, but he soon blinks a couple of times more, taking a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

He pulls you behind him in the crowd, and you don’t know what look he has on his face, but people literally jump out of the way. He’s walking quickly, and you struggle to follow him, but you know he needs to leave.

You’ve seen the sorrow in his gaze, and you don’t blame him for wanting to get away. Indeed, you just want to flee in the night too, and you’re thankful the moment the elevator doors slide to a close after you’ve retrieved your coats, and you’re finally left in a quiet silence of just you and him.

Jungkook looks at you, gaze heavy, and a second later he’s on you, hands cupping your cheeks as he backs you into the wall. You startle, yet you’re quick to melt in his touch, to kiss him back with the same intensity he offers you.

His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, and you let him in, moaning softly as he drives his knee between your legs.

You didn’t expect him to kiss you. Especially not when nothing happened last night, some sort of awkwardness lingering in the air from being in his childhood room. But he kisses you languidly, all tongue and lips, his piercings pressing indents in your lower lip, and warmth pools at your core as the elevator goes down and down.

Anyone could walk in and catch you kissing, yet it doesn’t deter Jungkook, and neither does it deter you. Indeed, it only spurs you more, and your hands drop to his waist so that you can pull him closer.

The moment ends when the door slides open to reveal the ground floor, and Jungkook steps away from you, eyes dark with lust and shadows you don’t want to interpret. He smooths his shirt, offers you a tight-lipped smile that makes your heart clench in your chest, and then he’s walking out.

You’re quick to follow him, cheeks burning as someone at the reception eyes the two of you. You ignore them, hoping they can’t see how your lips are swollen from the kiss, and you all but have to jog to catch up with Jungkook by the time he reaches the doors.

He holds it open for you, yet you can’t meet his gaze as you step outside. Not when the engagement party was such a shitshow, not after he kissed you like that only to leave without saying anything.

The bustle of the New York City life engulfs you as you step out on the street, Jungkook in tow. To your surprise, his large hands close around yours, and you glance up to meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry about…” he trails off, motioning over his shoulder.

You purse your lips. “About kissing me?”

The shadows partially lift in his gaze, warmth replacing them. “I’m not sorry about that at all,” he teases. “But I meant, about my family.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you reassure him, squeezing his hand. “I’m happy I could be there with you.”

He remains silent for a few seconds of you holding each other’s gaze on the sidewalk, and then he cracks a smile, though it doesn’t entirely reach his eyes. “What would I do without you, mmh?”

You laugh, and it sounds truer than it feels. “What would you do indeed?” you tease.

He chuckles, pulling you closer so that he can hug you. You wonder who needs it the most - him, or you? Because the second his arms wrap around you, you snake yours around his waist, hiding your face in his chest. He smells good - like Dior Sauvage, you think - and for a moment you just want to stay right here, in his arms.

Until his stomach grumbles, a low rumble against your cheek that makes you burst out laughing.

“Someone’s hungry,” you tease, looking up at him.

He meets your gaze, nodding once. “Peach, I’m fucking starving.”

That makes you laugh even more, lifting the heaviness of the atmosphere somehow, and it’s with a smile tickling your lips that you make your way to the restaurant - a kebab place on the first floor of another skyscraper. You eat your fill, laughing around with Jungkook, doing your best to keep the shadows out of his gaze.

But they never fully lift, and you’re not close enough to him to ask what his brother told him that upset him so much. 

Mostly, you’re not close enough to ask him if he’s truly supposed to marry someone, or if his mother just said that to scare you off. It’s like walking a tightrope, and you’re one wrong move from falling to your death.

Yesterday, you would have said that Jungkook would catch you but today, the haunted look that creeps up on his gaze once in a while makes you think that perhaps he wouldn’t catch you at all. And though it saddens you, you don’t say anything.

You’ll have a better occasion later. 

At least that’s what you tell yourself as Jungkook loosely holds your hand after the restaurant, while you walk around aimlessly. He’s telling you stories about growing up, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he occasionally falls eerily silent, you’d think that he’s happy right now. He looks the part, beaming at you whenever your gazes connect, and it’s too easy to reciprocate.

You think it’s a good thing - you’re comfortable with Jungkook, even if the whole engagement party was weird. It only gets better when you near a club, and Jungkook stops with a mischievous look in his eyes that finally looks a lot more like the Jungkook that you know from college.

“Do you want to go clubbing?” he says.

You snort. “It’s not even nine pm.”

“And?” he presses.

“You want to go clubbing this early?”

He shrugs, grabbing your hand again to pull you towards the doorman. “We can sit and chat before the party starts.”

As a matter of fact, the party is already started inside the club. Indeed, it’s like you step in an alternate universe the moment you walk in, the crowd thick as they sway to the beat. You only understand that it’s a concert of some famous DJ when you’re stopped at the coat check because you don’t have any tickets.

To your luck, the girl informs you that there are a few tickets left, and you insist on paying since Jungkook bought you the overpriced dress you’re wearing.

The one you’ll likely ruin while partying.

The thought sobers you a little, up until Jungkook, buzzing with excitement, pulls you towards the bar after you’ve left your coats at the coat check.

“This is going to be fun,” he says over the loud music. 

You nod, though your mind is lingering somewhere back at the engagement party. “Are you okay?” you can’t help but ask.

Jungkook falls serious, clenching his jaw once. “It’s about my family, isn’t it?”

“Yes and no,” you say, worrying at some dry skin on your bottom lip. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. Tonight has been… weird.”

It’s unfortunately your turn to order, as the barman stops in front of you, and Jungkook quickly orders two gin and tonic for you both before resuming his attention on you.

“I know,” he agrees. “Family events are always weird around here.” He winces, shrugging his shoulders. “And if you want to speak about it, we can tomorrow. But right now I really just want to have a nice evening with you.”

He looks hopeful, lips jutting out in the trace of a pout, and his doe eyes hold so much softness you find yourself folding immediately.

He’s right - you want to have a nice evening with him too, and forget the shitshow that the engagement party was.

“Well then,” you say, offering him a corner smile that hints at mischief. “I hope you’re ready to party.”

He brightens, like the stars shining when there’s no light pollution. “Damn right, peach.”

The barman puts your drinks on the bar, and Jungkook hands you your glass. You grab the lime on the rim of the glass, squeezing it in the drink properly before dropping it amongst the ice cubes. Jungkook watches you, mirroring you after a few seconds.

“To partying,” you say, raising your glass.

Jungkook echoes, clinking his glass with yours and you both drink, the alcohol fresh and cold on your tongue. 

You linger by the bar long enough to finish your first drinks, talking about everything and nothing. By the time you’re taking your last sip, Jungkook is reminiscing about a party last semester, where Taehyung had tried hitting on a girl only to get rejected.

“He complained about it for weeks,” you remember. “Even though he was sleeping with…” You frown, unable to remember the girl’s name. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

Jungkook laughs. “Tae fucks around too much to remember everyone, I know.”

“As if you’re any better,” you tease, pushing him playfully.

He pouts, eyebrows bunching together as his doe eyes narrow. “I’m better now.”

“Are you?”

He moves closer to you, and your heart trips on itself in your chest as he rests his large hand on your waist, pulling you closer. “I definitely am.”

You don’t know who makes the move first. You just know that a second later, you’re cupping Jungkook’s cheeks, and his lips are on yours again. This time, he tastes of gin and lime, and a swipe of his tongue on your lower lip makes you sigh, your hands sliding to the back of his head to get lost in his soft hair. His hand rests flat on your back, as if to keep you from stepping away.

Like you would.

You don’t ever want to step away from Jungkook. Tonight, you think it doesn’t matter that he’s Taehyung’s best friend. It doesn’t matter that he is supposedly engaged to someone else. Right now, it feels like he’s yours - you’re foolish enough to believe that he is.

“Let’s dance,” Jungkook murmurs against your lips when he pulls away, his forehead resting against yours.

“Let’s grab something else to drink first.”

You grab Jungkook’s hand, pulling him closer to the bar again. He follows, his thumb soothingly rubbing circles on the back of your hand, and he doesn’t let go when you lean against the bar, attracting the barman’s attention.

“Are you up for some Jager bombs?” you suggest.

He smirks, looking downright devilish with the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “I’d never say no to Jager Bombs.”

That’s how you find yourself downing two shots each, and you’re getting pretty tipsy by the time the show starts, and Jungkook pulls you onto the dancefloor. You dance and dance, the atmosphere electric, Jungkook’s laugh so contagious you think you might have caught a happy disease. Because you can’t stop smiling, you can’t stop laughing. 

It’s like the engagement party never happened and frankly, it’s what you needed. 

Jungkook pulls you closer in the middle of the crowd, kissing you languidly. You’re quick to kiss him back, to push your tongue in his mouth the moment his lips part to allow entry. He grunts in the kiss, in the intensity that takes on the two of you even though you’re in public.

You want him so bad. You’ve always wanted him badly, but right now it’s making your blood sing in your veins.

But the evening is young still, and so you return to dancing, your back pressed against Jungkook. You sway your hips to the beat of the music, and he guides your motions, head hanging low. He occasionally presses soft kisses on the side of your face, and your eyes flutter shut in contentment.

If you’d die right now, you think you’d die happy.

“Peach,” Jungkook whispers.

Your eyes flutter open as you glance at him. The intensity in his gaze makes you feel smaller than a speck of dust. “What?”

“Should we go home?” he asks.

You glance towards the scene, where the DJ is clearly in the middle of his set. “The show’s not over yet.”

“I know.” He nips at your jaw, and you tilt your head to the side to allow him access to your neck. He’s quick to press an open-mouthed kiss there.

You turn in his hold, finding his lips again. This kiss is hotter, like fire blazing bright, and you, too, want to head home. You want to get lost in him, in this moment of him being yours out in public like this.

“Fuck, JK,” you whisper when you pull away, breathing raggedly.

“What?”

“Kissing you like this, where anyone can see…” you trail off, glancing at the crowd.

Nobody is paying you any attention, yet you feel like you’re the center of the universe right now. Or maybe that’s Jungkook - he’s the center of your universe.

“It’s turning me on,” you finish in a breathy sentence meant just for him.

“Peach,” he says, voice low and husky. It ignites even more warmth inside of you, and you think you’re about to melt in his touch. “Then I’ll bring you here more often. I’ll show everyone that you’re mine, mmh?”

That you’re mine. You like the sound of those words in his mouth far too much, even though part of you wants to reply that you’re your own self, and don’t belong to anyone.

Perhaps you want to belong to him, and that in and of itself is a far too dangerous thought. But New York shines tonight, and you feel infinite.

You are infinite, as long as he’s by your side.

You stay for the rest of the DJ’s set, despite you both wanting to go home. Jungkook is touchy, yet respectfully so as you dance, never really touching you where you want him, but his hands lingering near every fiery spot in your body. The Uber ride home is spent in tense silence, as is the walk up to the elevators of his building.

He holds your hand through it all, refusing to let go, and you like it.

You like everything about this moment, right now. Like you’ve stepped into an alternate universe where you really are his, and you pray you’ll never have to leave.

The elevator doors slide open, and Jungkook pulls you in. You’re disappointed when you notice a middle-aged woman already riding the elevator from the underground parking lot, and Jungkook politely nods to her as he presses the button for the highest floor.

Fortunately, the woman gets off on the eighth floor, and you’re left alone with Jungkook. He’s quick to spring into action, pushing you back against the wall so that he can steal a languid kiss of tongues and lips, of getting lost in him until you fully lose touch with reality.

“Fuck,” you breathe as Jungkook leaves a trail of hot kisses from your jaw to your neck. 

He sucks a hickey below your ear, and you can’t help but moan lightly as you drag your hands through his hair, leaving it dishevelled.

The doors of the elevator slide open, and Jungkook startles, taking a step back from you. One glance down reveals the proof of his attraction for you, and you really are aflame, burning from the inside out.

“I need to take a shower,” you say. 

A cold, cold shower, before you combust irreparably.

“Okay,” Jungkook lets out, and he grabs your hand again to pull you to the door. 

You don’t know how he does it, but he refrains from kissing you when you’re in. You’d expected him to jump on you - you practically wanted him to - but Jungkook, ever so the gentleman, only leads you inside and to his room. 

You take in the city skyline, the beauty of being so high you feel like you’re flying. The city sparkles, lights shining on and on, and you glance at Jungkook.

His eyes shine with undiluted lust and another emotion you can’t quite put your finger on. You just know it’s ten thousand times better than the shadows that had lingered in his gaze after the engagement party, and you want to cling to it.

“Do you want to take a shower with me?” you suggest as he helps you out of your coat.

“Want me to wash your hair?” he teases, flicking your nose.

He’s your Jungkook again, and an excited thrill goes through you. 

“Yes,” you say, smirking. “Maybe if you’re nice I’ll wash your back.”

He narrows his gaze, though his lips curve upwards. “I’m always nice.” He puts your coat away in the walk-in wardrobe, emerging without his own coat, too.

“Are you?”

You let out a yelp as he bends to pick you up bridal style. “Always,” he says, pecking your cheek once as you wrap your arms around his neck.

“You scared the shit out of me,” you grumble as he carries you to the bathroom, putting you down on the counter. 

“I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not even a little bit sorry,” he teases, and he steals a quick kiss on your lips before stepping away from you to turn on the shower.

You watch him as he does so - he’s beautiful, with his dishevelled hair and big doe eyes he casts on you as he glances over his shoulder. He’s still smiling, his features so soft you can’t help but smile back, your heart fluttering in your chest.

“How hot do you want the shower to be?” he asks.

You smirk. “What kind of hot are you talking about?”

He rolls his eyes, though his light laugh fills the air. “Water temperature, dummy.”

“Doesn’t matter,” you say, shrugging your shoulders. “Just put it how you like it.”

He nods, and he does so, adjusting the settings until the multiple shower heads are on, and steam soon starts to waft out of the shower.

Jungkook walks back to you, toying with his piercings. You scan his features, lingering on his eyebrow piercing, and then spread your thighs so that he can step between your legs. He does so, wrapping his arms around your middle, and you rest your head on his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

He picks you up, putting you down on the floor. “Gotta get you out of your dress, mmh?”

Your heart once again hitches in your chest, and goosebumps rise on your arms as Jungkook lightly brushes his fingers up your skin.

“Turn around, peach,” he tells you.

You obey, and you watch yourself in the mirror as Jungkook unzips your dress. There’s something so intimate about the moment that your pulse skyrockets, butterflies making a mess of your stomach.

Jungkook finishes unzipping the dress, and he pushes it off your shoulders, pressing a kiss on the naked skin he’s revealed on the back of your shoulder. You feel apprehensive, like he hasn’t seen you naked before, and you gulp as he lets go of the dress, and it falls to the floor to pool around your ankles.

“You know,” Jungkook breathes as you shiver, the air colder than you expect. Your nipples perk on your chest, and Jungkook is quick to wrap his arms around you so that he can tease the sensitive buds with his fingers. “Every time I see you, you get more beautiful.”

“Jk…” you breathe out, cheeks burning under the intensity of his gaze.

“It’s true,” he insists. He turns you around, his eyes lost in yours. “There’s something about you…” he trails off.

He never finishes the sentence as you stand on your tiptoe, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt. Your mouths collide, and you sigh against the plump softness of him, kissing him softly, tenderly. He kisses you back just as softly, his hands holding you by the waist.

“Peach…” he sighs.

Your eyes flutter open to find him already looking at you, and you do feel like the most beautiful woman in the world when he looks at you like that.

“I think you’re supposed to undress too,” you whisper.

He chuckles softly, taking a step back from you. “Wanna help?”

You gulp again, your throat feeling dry, yet you raise trembling hands in the space between you so that you can reach for the buttons of his shirt. You focus on the task at hand, on every inch of honey skin revealed by the buttons coming undone. Jungkook’s intense gaze doesn’t leave your face as you undress him, and soon you’re pushing his shirt off him, resting your hands flat on his chest.

His heart is racing under your palms, the only indication that this is affecting him just as badly as it’s affecting you.

You meet his gaze as he takes charge of taking off his pants, and soon they’re on the floor with your dress and his shirt, and you both stand in your underwear, gazes embracing.

“I’m so going to take my time with you tonight,” he breathes, cupping your cheek. His thumb gently swipes at your skin, and you instinctively lean your head into his palm.

“Yeah?” you let out.

He tilts your head back with a finger under your chin, and then he’s kissing you again, as if to prove it to you with actions rather than words. “Definitely,” he says the second he pulls away. And then his hands go down your body, slowly, finding the hem of your panties. “Can I take this off?”

You nod, and he drops to his knees. Your eyes widen, yet he only busies himself with taking your underwear off, helping you step out of it once it’s around your ankles. He gets up again after, and he pushes his boxers down.

You’ve been avoiding looking at the obvious bulge in his underwear, but his dick stands proud and tall the second you glance down, already leaking precum. 

He’s been wanting you badly, and it shows.

“Shit, Jungkook,” you breathe.

“I know,” he lets out. “I’m fucking hard for you.” He chuckles, and grabs your face to force you to meet his gaze again. “From the mess I saw in your panties, I know you’re already soaked for me too.” He pecks your lips, and then your forehead. “But shower first, right?”

You kiss again, and this time he sucks your lower lip into his mouth, teasing it with his teeth.

“Shower first,” you repeat the second you pull away.

He smirks, winking at you, and then he walks over to the shower, leaving you there with your heart beating out of your chest. You take a deep breath, trying to tame the wild beats, and soon enough you follow Jungkook, right when he steps in the shower. He holds the glass door open for you, closing it behind you once you’re in, hot water splashing you.

You face Jungkook, and he looks at you with his head tilted to the side, a smirk playing on the corners of his lips.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing,” he answers. “Pass me the soap?”

You nod, gulping, and you look away from him to find the soap. You grab it, handing it to Jungkook, and he gently takes it out of your hands.

“Turn around,” he tells you for the second time tonight. “I’ll wash your back.”

“Shouldn’t you start with my hair?” you ask.

He chuckles. “So bossy. Wet your hair then.”

You obey, and soon enough Jungkook is rubbing shampoo on your scalp, and your eyes flutter shut as you relax into the touch. He rinses your hair when he’s done, and then takes care of the conditioner.

“You like being pampered, don’t you?” he teases.

“Only if you’re the one pampering me,” you fire back. 

He laughs, and he presses a soft kiss on your forehead again. “Then I guess I need to pamper you more.”

You’re falling. You know exactly what’s happening, and you wonder if he feels it too.

“Let me take care of you,” you say once Jungkook is done with washing your hair.

He smiles down at you, nodding once. “Okay.”

And so you wash him, cleaning his back first. You teasingly rub his ass, and Jungkook throws you a glare over his shoulder that makes you burst out laughing. Once you’re done he turns around, and you gently rub his chest, a smile still curving your lips upwards as you fall in comfortable silence.

He isn’t so hard anymore. Yet, when your hands get lower on his abdomen, his dick twitches, and he’s quick to get hard again. You cock an eyebrow, looking up at him.

“I barely touch you and this is how you react?” you tease.

He grabs your jaw, his grip firm. “And now you’ll clean my dick too, won’t you?”

You blush, nodding once as he lets go of your jaw to cup your cheek instead. You wrap a hand around the base of his dick, and then you stroke him once. His lips part, and he pulls on his piercings before looking down at himself. 

“Let me…” he trails off, and you nod, stepping away from him to let him clean himself. You quickly wash yourself as he does so, cheeks burning so much you wouldn’t be surprised if you were purple.

Once you’re both cleaned, you face Jungkook again, and he offers you a soft smile. Unable to resist, you look down at his dick, reaching for him again.

“Now that you’re clean…” you let out, and you smirk. “Maybe I can actually take care of you?”

You don’t know where the courage comes from, but you’re not going to waste it. Indeed, you immediately drop to your knees, and Jungkook redirects the shower heads away from your face.

“Yeah?” he lets out. “You want to suck me?”

You nod, biting your bottom lip, and then you jerk him off once, eyes moving to his dick. It’s pretty, though not as hard as he was earlier, and you tentatively swirl your tongue around his tip, before sucking on it lightly.

Jungkook curses under his breath, leaning a hand against the wall as if looking for support. “Don’t be shy,” he says.

You smirk again, and this time you drag your tongue on the side of his dick, from base to top, before wrapping your lips around him again. You hollow your cheeks as you take most of him in your mouth, and Jungkook moans softly when he hits the back of your throat.

“Shit…” he lets out.

You suck harder as you pull almost all the way off, and then you truly get to work, eyes fluttering shut as you suck him, jerking him off in time with the motions of your head. Jungkook holds your head, letting you set the rhythm you feel comfortable with, and soon you’re moaning on his dick, the vibrations making him curse.

You take him all the way in, looking up at him despite the tears blinding your gaze. He’s got his head thrown back, lips parted as he breathes heavily, chest moving rapidly. You wonder if you’d be able to make him come like this, and you suck harder, holding in the gag reflex that’s threatening to interrupt your ministrations on him.

“Peach,” he moans, and then he pulls out of your mouth.

A string of spit connects his tip to your lips, and you’re quick to lick at it, to taste the precum that’s dripping from his slit.

“That feels good?” you ask.

He nods. “Way too much,” he replies, chuckling breathlessly. “I’m going to fall in love with your mouth if you keep sucking me like that.”

You don’t need more to spur you into action, and you go back to sucking him, pouring everything you have in the action. His dick gets harder and harder in your mouth, and you know he has to be close. So you tentatively tease his balls with your free hand, and he moans as you squeeze lightly.

“Peach,” he lets out, and it sounds whiny. “Stop. I want to fuck you now.”

You pull out, offering him an innocent pout as you keep jerking him off quickly. “You don’t think you’d be able to go for round two?”

He chuckles, slightly shaking his head. “Not when I drank. And I really just want to make you feel good too.”

Only for that reason do you let him pull you up to your feet, and you reluctantly let go of his dick as he pushes you against the tile wall, mouth immediately finding yours in a ravaging kiss. You moan as he pushes his tongue in your mouth, and you go back to jerking him off, unable to keep your hands off him.

He hisses as he pulls away from the kiss, and then he glances towards his discarded pants on the floor beyond the glass door of the shower. “I have condoms in there,” he reveals, and then he meets your gaze again. “But you deserve better than to be fucked in a shower, mmh?”

You gulp, nodding once as he steals another quick kiss on your lips, and then he turns off the shower. You stand in the steam for a few seconds, holding each other’s gaze, and then Jungkook pulls you out of the shower, wrapping a towel around you. 

You’re quick to dry yourself, lust and desire clouding your mind, and you don’t hesitate when Jungkook grabs your hand, pulling you towards his bedroom. The walk-in is cold as you step out of the bathroom, but you busy yourself with watching the strong muscles of his back, and the tattoos on his arm. It’s distracting enough, and soon Jungkook turns to face you again, kissing you deeply before pulling away.

“Do you want me to close the curtains?” he asks as he steps away from you, enough so that your eyes fall to his erection.

“You think people can see us?” you let out, casting a quick glance towards the tall windows, and the city beyond.

“Maybe, if they’re looking up here,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s never bothered me, but I’ve never been with anyone in this bed, so…”

Your gaze widens. “You’ve never fucked here?”

You think it’s blush creeping on his cheeks as he scratches the back of his neck. “I’ve never brought a girl here at all.”

You let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry what?”

He winks at you, eyes going down your frame. They stop on your perked nipples, and he toys with his piercings.

“You’re the first girl who’s ever come here,” he says. “The first one I’ll fuck in this bed. And maybe I do want the city to see me fucking you. I want them to see how beautiful you are when you come.”

You’re speechless as he strolls towards you, and his mouth collides with yours, his lips moving like he’s a starved man against yours. He pushes you towards the bed, and you fall on it the second the back of your legs hit it. He looks at you, wetting his lips, and then winks.

“I’ll be right back.”

He disappears back into the walk-in, and you prop yourself up on your elbows to watch him as he retrieves a condom from his wallet. He inspects the tinfoil package on the way back, making sure that the condom is safe to use, and then he rips it open, pulling the condom out.

He puts it on, rolling it down his dick as you watch with your heart beating wildly again as it knows what’s to come.

No one has ever fucked you as good as Jungkook, and you can tell he won’t disappoint tonight either. No, the intensity in his gaze can’t be mistaken, and the second he kneels between your legs you spread your thighs wide open, offering yourself on a silver platter.

“Already?” he teases, and he strokes himself slowly. “I thought you’d need a little bit of foreplay before.”

“Trust me,” you let out. “I’m already wet enough for you to rearrange my guts.”

He smirks, and he moves closer, close enough to rub his dick on your folds. “You are.” He says it like he’s surprised, but the second he starts rubbing his dick on your clit you’re gone, unable to form logical thoughts. “So you want me to fuck you? To rearrange your guts?”

“Jungkook,” is all you can reply.

He teases your folds again, pushes in just enough for his tip to part them. “Tell me what you want, peach.”

“I want you,” you say, and you don’t care how whiny you sound.

You feel like you’ll die if he doesn’t fuck you into oblivion.

“Where?” he asks, and he pulls away to rub his dick on your clit again.

You clench your jaw, reaching for his dick, but Jungkook is quick to grab your hand with his free one, pinning your wrist over your head.

“Be nice, mmh?” he says in your ear, and then he straightens.

“I want you inside of me, Jungkook.”

“Yeah?” He pushes in, though he stops when just his tip is in. “Like this?”

“Fuck, stop teasing,” you grumble.

Jungkook laughs, and a second later he slams home, his dick splitting you open as he pushes almost all of himself inside of you. You moan, your eyes fluttering shut, and he barely gives you time to adjust before he grabs your waist, and he starts pounding you, setting an unforgiving pace.

His thrusts are quick and hard, and you see stars almost immediately, your walls clenching around him. It doesn’t slow him down, only makes him readjust himself until he hits a better angle, and you moan loudly as he drags against the sweetest spot inside of you.

“Jungkook,” you moan.

He bends down, slowing just long enough to lean on his elbow, and then he holds your shoulders as he jackhammers into you again, so hard his bed bangs into the wall repeatedly.

There’s no one to hear you fucking here. And he knows it - it’s like he’s keen on rearranging your guts, and you’re a whining, moaning mess as he fucks you hard. You hold onto his back, nails digging in his skin and Jungkook grunts in your ears as his pace never falters.

You know he’s got good stamina, but tonight feels different, like he’ll fuck you until the sun rises.

“Shit, peach,” Jungkook lets out, and he pulls out of you so suddenly you’re left gasping for air.

“Wh-” you start, but he flips you over, repositioning himself so that he can push inside of you again. 

He doesn’t move right away, instead massaging your ass cheeks as your walls clench around his dick, begging for more. He slaps your ass, not hard enough to hurt but enough to sting, and you clutch the bed sheets, pushing your hips back into him.

“You want some control, mmh?” he asks, and he pulls back just enough to allow you more movement.

It doesn’t take you long before you take advantage of it, fucking yourself back on him, rolling your hips when he hits your cervix. 

“You’re so big,” you let out on a whine. “So deep.”

“And you take me so well, peach.” He slaps your ass again, massaging the sting away. “Like your pussy was made for me.”

“It was,” you reply right away.

Jungkook thrusts once, and you rock forward on the bed from the intensity of his motion. Luckily for you, he was holding your waist, and so his dick doesn’t leave you empty.

“Good girl,” he says, so low it sounds like a growl, and then he’s back to pounding inside of you, and you’re a mess, trying to hold yourself together as you clutch the sheets.

Jungkook leans on one hand, snapping his hips into you again and again, and he wraps his free hand under you, blindly searching for your clit. The second he touches the sensitive bundle of nerves you moan loudly again, and he doesn’t need more to start rubbing figures on you, quick circles that send you into orbit so fast you barely realize your orgasm has hit you until you come down from the high, legs shaking as your vision keeps going in and out of focus.

Jungkook stops moving for a few seconds, bending down to press a feathersoft kiss on the side of your face. “You came hard,” he states.

“Holy fuck,” is all you can reply.

“One day, I want to feel you come on my dick without a condom on,” he says, and then he’s fucking you again, though this time he’s clearly chasing his own high.

Yet it feels good, far too good, and you come again - did you actually stop coming in the first place - as he rams his hips into yours. Jungkook milks it out of you, whispering filthy praises to you all along, and once he’s sure you’ve calmed down, he pulls out, flipping you on your back again.

He steals a kiss on your lips as he pushes in again, and this time he fucks you slower, deeper, lips never leaving yours. You lose trembling hands in his hair, run them along his back, and you wrap your legs around his waist for him to fuck you deeper. He doesn’t disappoint, and you take all of him in you as he pushes in, and then pulls almost all the way out.

“I’ll fall in love with your pussy,” Jungkook whispers against you. 

He rests his forehead against yours, and your heart fills with far too many emotions - none you can voice. 

“JK…”

“Peach,” he answers in the same tone, and then he kisses you again. The second he breaks from the kiss he straightens, going back to kneeling between your legs. “Now be nice and let me come, mmh?”

“Come for me.”

“On it.”

You don’t know when he comes. All you know is that you’re swimming in far too much bliss when he starts fucking you hard again, and you lose touch with your body. It’s like you’re floating somewhere close to the ceiling, or maybe amongst the stars up above. You’re floating, and Jungkook grunts and curses as he fucks you, his motions growing sloppier, and soon he stills deep inside of you, hands holding your waist as he releases loads and loads of cum in the condom.

You wish he’d come inside of you so you’d feel it drip out of you when he pulls out. It’s a dirty thought to have, yet you can’t help it - not when you’re literally swimming in ecstasy, feeling like you’re buzzing.

Jungkook lies down next to you, resting a hand on your stomach as you try to regain your breath. It takes you a while - long enough for him to kiss the side of your face and promise he’ll be back as he disappears in the bathroom - but you do come down from the high, the bedroom and the city beyond the windows finally coming back into focus.

It’s raining. You didn’t realize it before, but raindrops are racing each other on the window, and you get lost admiring the view as Jungkook cleans himself in the bathroom.

He comes back with a wet washcloth for you to clean yourself, and you thank him as he offers it to you. You know you have to go pee before you sleep though, so you brave the walk to the bathroom, legs feeling like jelly under you. You manage to make it to the bathroom and back, and Jungkook welcomes you back into bed with a tired smile on his lips.

“Come here,” he says, and he opens his arms for you to nestle in his embrace.

You do so, pushing one leg between his as you wrap one arm around his waist.

“Feeling okay?” Jungkook asks.

“I think I’ll need weeks to recover,” you tease, and Jungkook’s answering laugh makes you feel like you’re the luckiest girl in the universe.

“Does that mean I can’t fuck you for a few weeks?” he asks, and you hear the pout in his voice.

It makes you smile against him.

“Mmmh,” you let out. “Nah, I want you to fuck me like this again tomorrow.”

He laughs again, and his arms tighten around you. “Then we better get a good night of sleep. We need to drive back home tomorrow.”

Back home. Together. Because, even if he’s Taehyung’s best friend, which you’ve conveniently forgotten all weekend, he’s also your roommate.

You share a home, and you think there’s beauty in that thought.

You yawn, nuzzling your face in his chest. “I don’t know about you but I’ll sleep like a rock.”

“And snore?”

“I don’t snore,” you answer, frowning slightly.

Jungkook chuckles and then kisses the top of your head. “You snore a little. Not as much as me though.”

“Tell me about it,” you complain, even though his soft snores had acted like white noise yesterday, helping you fall asleep despite the unfamiliar environment.

He yawns, pulling even closer. “Peach?”

You hum in answer.

“Thank you for this weekend,” he whispers. “I don’t know how I would have done it without you.”

“Jungkook…” you trail off, wanting to argue.

“I’m serious,” he insists. “You’re…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, and you pull away just enough so that you can look up at his face. “I’m what?”

“You’re you,” he answers, as if that explains anything.

And when you see the softness clinging to his gaze, you think maybe it does.

Prev | Chapter 8.5 | Next

☆☆☆☆☆

my two precious babies gosh we need to protect them at all costs fr :') did you guys like this chapter? Let me know what you think!

All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2024. Do not copy, repost or translate.

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil,

I read all your books, but today I’d like to share my story about The Graveyard Book. It’s a bit long.

I remember that I listened to the audio book in almost pitch black in a park, before I actually read that book. It was in winter, and the park was covered in deep snow. I walked through a path between some dark and tall pine trees. There, your voice read the story in my headphones. The story began with something about “a knife in the darkness”.

I wasn’t exactly existed to the rest of the world at the time. I have development disorder (Ok I have autism but not the smart kind that most people would have imagined), I have intellectual disabilities, I was very delayed in development, and it took me years to learn the simplest things most people would learn as toddlers. I was homeschooled at times and when I actually went to school it was in an untraditional way.

Now I’m not sure what was happening when I heard/read The Grave Book for the first time, but I remember I wan’t anywhere in this world and wasn’t really doing anything. I was in between.

I love the idea about the goblins’ underground world very much. I also love the idea about befriending ghosts. I dreamt to have ghost friends. I literally dreamt about me chasing after some ghosts, hoping they can be my friends but they were too social-phobic and they always scattered away.

But most of all I love what Bod said, ‘I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want…I want everything.’

This was exactly what I thought at the time. I’m disabled, I can be uncomfortable in many environments, I get tired easily, I get into troubles or difficulties very often. I can’t stand the noise, but I wish I could be in the Rock music concert and actually enjoy it without pain. People thought we don’t want them. But I want them, I want everything.

Well, I guess you know what happened next: “Between now and then, there was Life; and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open.” I did this and I’m still doing it. I’m nearly thirty now, but I feel that my life had yet to start. I went abroad, I came NZ just as you did. I’m in a university and I haven’t graduated.

And I’d like to think that when I’m in my 60s I can do everything, just like you and my elderly friends, I’ll get a very big dog and a very tiny house, I’ll be able to play music with other people in my garden, and we dance.

You will dance.

[salaciousdoll]

✩˚｡⋆ ⋆ ⋆ Reflection and invisibility ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ˚｡✩

･˳ . ⋆ Featuring Risotto Nero x La squadra!Fem!reader ･˳ . ⋆

୨⍣୧ ⁺⁎˚ ⋆━━ Be advised to the warnings of Risotto and Reader both being Assassins in Passione, Boss!Giorno, Au where everyone is alive and thriving, smut, hardcore fucking, katoptronophilia( fucking in front of mirror), body worship, reader is a stand user but it’s not used( none of their stands are except illuso, voyeurism, dirty talking, degradtion kink up 1000 in here, there’s praise here and there, dick drunk reader and pussy drunk Risotto, backshots, reader has a voice kink, Risotto cracks subliminal jokes here and there( he’s a little jokester when he was fighting doppio in the anime), pet names in Italian( I really tried here but pet names such as bunny, slut, beautiful, doll, Angel, etc.), your ex is Bruno, Risotto has dick piercings( frenum ladder), Risotto makes you count the amount of thrust he gives you, edging, and mention of somnophillia at the end. Oh and Dark content. Wc: 2.7k

Minors do not interact, 18+ Only!

ෆ ‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿ ෆ ̟ ̇ ┈•ﾟNote from Salaciousdoll: This is my first time writing for JJBA as a whole and my first time writing for Risotto as well… I really hope you all enjoy this fic even if you don’t watch jjba, hope I can convince you babies to watch it with this fic. If you know Italian please tell me if the words are wrong. ‘Grazii assai mia bellissima, bambola’= Thank you very much, my beautiful doll, ‘Angelo’ = Angel, ‘ coniglio’ = bunny, ‘Bambola’= doll, ‘sudicio’ = dirty , ‘troia’= slut

Salaciousber Masterlist

Risotto Nero was a man everyone either heard of or came into contact with. Both encounters could build up the emotion of fear and the feeling of danger, nothing else. The man could kill without a blink of an eye or a movement of cringe. To everyone else, he was a man who they feared just by either his tall stature or his black sclera eyes combining with the red pupils to compliment them.

Risotto was the scary man , your parents warned you about when you were younger, yet when they always told them stories, you never believed them. You had to see the boogeyman yourself in order to actually be scared. Those thoughts lead to your failures and success in the underground world. The failures of almost meeting your end and the success of getting to see Risotto— being able to keep him between your white manicured fingers. Risotto grew to be obsessed with you just because of your beauty and perspective of him. You didn’t judge him by one look of his eyes, not that he cares what other people think. He only cares when he thinks of the person as a colleague or more. You were more. His love, he adored since you came to his team after transferring from Bruno’s gang.

Bruno Buccirati was your first love but wasn’t your last. Risotto may be the last man you fall in love with, especially since you’ve been in a relationship with him for three years now . At first, you didnt talk with one another outside of missions and the missions he assigned. He wasn’t the one for small talk and you weren’t either, the lingering ghost of love you had for Bruno was in the air everywhere you walked and every mission you did. You couldn’t get him off your mind and the rest of La squadra were fed up with your closed off personality, so they complained to Risotto about you. In response to their concerns over the total of two months you were there, he had no choice but to make the first move.

It wasn’t easy for the both of you to talk to one another since he made it clear that you needed to get your shit together and perform your best on missions, otherwise he might as well start planning a funeral for you now. “ Do you want to die?”

You stared at him with wide eyes because that was the first thing coming out of his mouth after calling you in. You shook your head and looked away. He stared at you even more and under his dangerous but alluring eyes, you couldn’t help but to get a little aroused and nervous. A bad combination of feels to have, especially in front of your boss..

“ No, boss.”, You say to the wall and he didn’t like that one bit.

Risotto's deep voice said your name with malice in his tone, “ I didn’t know I was a wall.” You wanted to laugh because you didn’t think he had humor, yet he proved you wrong so maybe you’ll open up a bit more. When you didn’t look at him at all, he took it as disrespect. “ Look at me when I talk to you. You’re supposed to respect your superiors, did Bucciarati not teach you that. Maybe the perception of Bucciarati being painted as a noble man was another lie he shown everyone because no noble man would allow their colleagues to disrespect an su-”

“ Excuse me, Capo… I would rather not talk about Bruno right now. And I’m just nervous, so forgive me for disrespecting you. It’s not my intention to do this unforbidden action.”, You say to Risotto, who raised a pale blue eyebrow at you. You didn’t want to hear Risotto talking about Bruno like he doubted his existence or portrayal of his existence to the people who adored him— you being one of the people who adored him. The more Risotto stared at you, the more he could see that you were obedient and respectful after all. You two stared at each other a bit longer than usual taking in each other's features. You noticed his beautiful and unique eyes, his full lips, the creases under his eyes from the lack of sleep probably or just a result of getting older, his nose, a nose you see yourself riding any moment if you continued staring. He noticed the shape of your eyes, how your nose looked, eyebrows, big cheeks, and finally your lips. Your plush lips with the perfect shape to them. He loved how thick and full they were— always shiny with lipgloss he sees you apply every 2 minutes also. He wanted to bite them but that’ll have to wait now.

He cleared his throat, “ I asked that question because it seems your head is in another place on missions with your squad members, some of them voice their concerns and I’m here to let you know that you can’t slack off into dreamland unless you want to die. Your stand is powerful and you are powerful, so I need you to start showing me that you're powerful and useful as they say. Don’t let it happen again, understand?”

You nodded your head and he huffed before speaking, “ You’re dismissed and { reader’s last name}, you’re going on a mission with formaggio to shake up Riccolo— Boss orders. So get prepared to leave with him in 15.” You nodded your head and left the office.

You used to hate that Giorno moved you to the team you decided to save just because you knew formaggio from a one night stand. That night was fun especially since you just moved from your home country to Italy with your sister two weeks before. You were a foreigner and it was visible yet Formaggio didn’t care unlike half of Italy would. Bare minimum really but that’s not the reason you fucked the man. He charmed his way into your panties and you had him wrapped around your finger even before you gave him some, basically the first time he saw you He was a good fuck, but not as great as Bruno or your Capo now.

Now, though, you were on top of the moon from moving teams, even after four years, because you were too busy getting bent over in front of the mirror by your Capo. His rough hands were squeezing your stomach making some of your tummy melt in between his long, thick fingers, “ Give me one more, bambola. One more for me.”

You couldn’t hold on for dear life. Your left boob was massaged softly as he pounded into you from behind. The feeling of his red eyes was enough to make anyone fold and you were long gone. You folded as soon as he kissed your neck while you were standing in front of the mirror with your new bra and pantie set you got from your favorite lingerie store. “ I— I can’t, Ris’ pleaseuhhh.”

Your moans mixed with your cries of pleasure as he rolled his fat and long cock inside of you. His frenum ladder piercings were adding on to your pleasure because of the cold metals grinding against the walls of your dripping pussy. You felt every vein of his cock as he fucked into you like he’s never gonna see you again. He couldn’t help bending you over to pound inside of your sweet fat cunt because of how amazing you looked in that set. He loved worshiping and showing appreciation for you and your body. Your body was his favorite piece of art— he could stare at it for hours. Your a live painting that he could worship and fuck anytime he wanted.

“ Fuck, coniglio, you’re pussy is taking me so well. My perfect girl. Gonna squirt for me.”, Risotto grunt out his response as his hips snapped into your plump ass creating ripples, which was his favorite thing to watch. He loved watching any part of your body shake or jump. Fuck, you are his heaven. The heaven he will never get to see since his hands were tainted with hundreds of people’s blood.

The wetness of your pussy and the slaps of hips meeting was heard so loud in the room as your eyes rolled back into your head, “ You’re tearing me apart, Ris’ please slow down~” he loved how you stretched the word down out. It shows how brain dumb you are right now for him. Brain was filled with nothing, becoming nothing but mushiness. Just the way he liked you.

“ Slow down you say?” Risotto slowed his hips down and watched your expression in the mirror prior to turning himself invisible. “ Want you to look at yourself being stretched and fucked dumb on my cock in any pace. Whether it’s fast or slow, you still couldn’t, guhahh— you naughty little slut; You dare squeeze me that tight after I told you to loosen up for me.”

Risotto dropped his hands from holding you and bunched up the hairstyle you had in your hair before long stroking your pussy— deep and slow. He let out a wicked chuckle, “ Look at you… shaking all because of my cock, right my little angelo. Look closely in the mirror for me and then I want you to, shit! Your pussy is trapping me inside.” He couldn’t focus on what he was trying to say. Risotto was only this vocal with you. His deep voice was everything you needed to hear in your ear. Voice was sending a strike of thunder inside the blood in your body, allowing you to become even more turned on. His voice alone could get you off, so this act being an add on is what your dreams are made for. You brought his dirty talking and surge of pleasure out of him, none of his past hookups got an inch of words from him. Only moans and that’s if they pulled it out of him.

Risotto slapped your ass causing you to move forward into the mirror. Your fingerprints were imprinted in the big 48’ tall and 83’ wide mirror in your room. You were so glad you brought this mirror. You can use it for this exact reason. Risotto yanked your head back enough for you to see you and his invisibility in the mirror. It was like you were getting fucked by a ghost, spooky and freaky. Such a wonderful feeling.

“ Pay attention to the mirror, tesoro. Now choose a number, any number.”, his groans were heard right after he finished his sentence. You moaned when you saw his eyes staring at you through the mirror. You couldn’t even form words because of how slow and dragged his cock was going inside of your sobbing pussy.

Your fingers bunched up on the mirror and you knew you were close to squirting on this mirror. As his cock dragged in and out of you, you tried to form an answer to his questions. Nothing but moans and fumbling words in between were heard. You were really fucked out and he wanted to cherish the sounds forever.

Risotto continued fucking you with groans in your ear prior to biting your ear lob causing you to scream, “ Do you want me to ask the rest of your teammates? They’re watching, you know. Watching how you come apart on my cock, watching how your tits bounce back and forth as I fuck you like the sudicio little troia you are.” Your eyes widen at that information and his words. You finally took a deep look into the mirror and there stood every last member of La Squadra staring or smirking at you through the mirror, damn you illuso and your fucking stand. You shouldn’t have gotten turned on at being watched, but you couldn’t help it.

Risotto felt your pussy grab his cock like she never wanted to let him go. He hissed when he felt you squeezed tighter, stopping his movements all together. You whined and looked back at him to see his eyes looking at you with lust and anger. “ Number.” You tired to fuck back into him, but his finger nails dug into your hips causing you to bite your lip letting out a short muffled scream.

Your lips quivered as you answered him, “ 10! Ris’ please fuck me. I need to cum.” Risotto smirked at you, yet you couldn’t see it due to his invisibility. You only saw his eyes, which was more than enough for you. Risotto then dragged your back to leave a little space before the mirror.

He bent you over to a 90 degree angle and gripped your wide hips with his big hands, “ Count every thrust I give to your sweet pussy, 10 counts for two rounds. Two rounds because how much I’ve had to repeat myself with you.” Tears started to pour out of your pretty eyes as he grabbed your hair in his hands and snapped his hips forward causing a huge ripple on your ass.

“ Fuckkk! One.”, Your moan was so loud that you didn’t even care if someone delivering your packages for today heard you as you heard the house doorbell ring or was that ringing in your head from how hard he thrusted inside of you.

Risotto pulled out of you leaving the tip in, snapping his hips inside of you again, “ What’s the number? I seem to forgot already, bellissima. Help me remember.” You hated how he teased you as he rolled his hips around, mixing your juices inside of your pussy in the process. His piercings was a foreign feeling inside of you, no matter how many times you two fucked or made love, the metals felt so good inside of your pussy and you will always tell him that whenever you want sex or just wanted to compliment him to catch him off guard.

Risotto repeated this technique for two times in a row with the count of ten each time so it was twenty in total. He made you squirt on the first round at the number 5. He did nothing but chuckle at your pathetic display of shaking, “ So pathetic, can’t take this but was surely running your mouth the other day about how you can take me. You know what you are right now.”

He grabbed you up by your hair— your sweaty back was to his sweaty abs as his arms were now wrapped around your tummy. He whispered in your ear as his team looked on from a distance inside of the mirror at your pathetic attempt of holding on, “ A rookie. You know how much fun I like to poke at rookies.” He threw his head back at the feeling of your pussy and you wished you could see his facial expressions, “ Brace yourself.”

Risotto gripped your body like a mad man and fucked you like a caveman. Pussy was squirting non stop as he slammed into you over and over until he came inside of you with a loud groan.

“ Aughhh, good fucking girl. So good. Shit!l have to get you pregnant. Have our children run around our new house I buy for us, away on the, hahh!, countryside, away from everyone. Just you and me.” , He moaned as he snapped his hips inside of you three more times. His warm cum fills you up so gloriously. You couldn’t do anything but lay limp in his arms— still standing up with him. Your body did shake in his arms so I guess that was doing something. Risotto smirked and turned himself back to his visible self, kissing your head prior to looking at his teammates with his famous death glare. Basically telling them to fuck off and leave him and his lady alone. They obeyed his silent order all due to Prosciutto understanding what Risotto is saying.

“ Grazii assai mia bellissima, bambola”, Risotto whispers to your passed out figure in his arms. His dick always made you pass out from the length, piercings, and girth. He massaged your stomach as he walked to you to bed, carefully laying you down and going to get a towel to clean you off, can’t have you sticking in stickiness and wetness, otherwise he’ll fuck you in your sleep. You already granted him permission to perform somnophilia a few days ago too. Maybe he’ll try it out later.

ෆ ̟ ̇ ┈•ﾟTagging: @chosoist @honeybleed @simpingfor-wakasa @happygoluckyalexis @mastermindenoshimaalicia @angelshub @bxrbie1 @sylisan @lilvampirina @deftrow @uzxotic @tayler17-84

ﾟ•┈© all right reserved to salaciousdoll, she does not give permission to steal, plagiarize, and translate.

[cypherscript]

Linchpin Part 2

"I am not familiar with this group. Batman? Superman," Wonder Woman asks the two with the most hidden knowledge of Man's world.

Hal Jordan just groans into his hands, "Not those buffoons. I used to hear jokes back when I was in the Air Force. They're almost as bad as the area 51 conspiracists. Always claiming our bases were haunted by high level ecto beings. Ghosts aren't even real!"

Batman is listening to something on his earpiece, "Ghosts are real, Lantern. One is a member of the JL Dark "

"When was anyone going to tell me?! Now I look stupid."

Red Robin mouths to batman, 'Now?'

Batman pointedly ignores that and continues, "That knowledge has always been available if you read the reports properly. Regardless, Oracle has provided me with some more information on this organization; a comparatively small G-List government group tasked with hunting down, capturing and experiment on beings of ectoplasmic origins or ghosts to civilians."

T̵̪͗h̵̬̊ē̴̤y̵̪̅ ̸͇͗h̵͙͂ẽ̸̘l̶̎͜d̸̗̃ ̵̼̆o̴̪͐ȕ̷̞r̸͚̚ ̷̗́c̸͚͐i̶̙̔ť̵̟y̷͔̚ ̷̧̒h̴͕͑o̵̼̊s̸̰̈t̷̙͝a̷̯̓ģ̶͊e̴̦͐,̴͔̋ ̸͉̒t̵̩͌ḩ̴̋r̵̜̐e̵̙͝a̷̡͋t̵̜͌e̷͉̕n̸̼̾ě̸̩d̴͎̕ ̸͖̏o̵̱͒ụ̴̑r̴͈̚ ̷̨͂p̴͓̎e̴͍͝o̸̼̍p̶͕̋l̴̛͔ȇ̵̟/

(They held our city hostage, threatened our people.)

Ť̵̹h̷̙̓e̴̯͗ ̵͎̑G̷̣̀r̷͜͠e̴̩̽ą̴̍ẗ̷̪́ ̵̜͌O̵͕̿n̸̲͒e̸̤͝ ̴͇̄t̴͈̋r̴̡̍i̶̩͊é̴͙d̷̞͋ ̶̬͌t̸̮̀ö̸̢́ ̸̯̎f̷͍̽r̸͚̿e̶̬̎e̶̯͠ ̶̡͛t̴͙͗h̴͖̓e̷̥͝i̸̞̎r̶̳͑ ̶̭͐c̷͔̀ì̵͎ẗ̶̙ỷ̴͚

(The Great One tried to free their city.)

B̵͔͆a̷͖̔b̵̧̑y̶͕͒p̴̪͝o̶̰͗p̵̪͛ ̴͒͜s̸̱̊a̴͇̐c̸͍͠r̴̩̃í̸͕ḟ̶̤ǐ̷̘c̴̛̱ȇ̷͙d̵̮͆ ̴͓́h̴̙̓i̵̲͌m̵̗̌s̶̥̓ë̶͜ḻ̴̑f̶̖͝ ̵̥̆j̸̫̆u̷̮̍s̷̖̀ṯ̷̀ ̵̨͑t̴͔͛o̵̦͘ ̴̗͊g̷̠̎e̷̱͗t̶̘́ ̵͔͠t̷͎͆h̸̬̀o̷̟͆s̷̤͝e̸̹̓ ̴̮̈́j̸̛̮ê̶͓r̸̤̈́k̷̮̄s̷͎̽ ̶̨̅o̵̖̊u̴̺͑t̶͍̃ ̶̭̂ö̵̮́f̶̖̕ ̸̺̌A̶̯̋m̸̯̿i̴̲͆ẗ̵̡́y̷͕̓.̸̛̭

(Babypop sacrificed himself just to get those jerks out of Amity.)

T̴̨̉h̸̻́e̶̲̊ỳ̸͕ ̵͚̊r̴̥̔ë̶͈́ṅ̸̫e̸͓͝g̷͔̎e̷̖̕d̴͚͌ ̵̹͒ó̶̤ṉ̵͒ ̷̹̚t̷͔͌h̵̿ͅè̷͜i̴̐͜r̷̪̄ ̵̩̒d̴̛̮ě̴̠a̴̞͛l̸̻̐ ̴̹̿t̴̙̓h̴̯́ó̴͍u̷̠̾g̷̟͝ẖ̵̏ ̸̭̚a̷̤͌n̵͖̎d̷̬̔ ̴̈́ͅA̵̜͗m̵̬̕ȋ̵̠ṯ̸̓y̷̟̓ ̵̺̄P̶̥̉ä̴̫́r̸̪̂k̵͈̑ ̵̥̈́î̸͇s̸͓͂ ̴̡͒n̷̩͛o̵̰͑ ̸̠̚m̵̨̀o̴̭̔r̶̥̔e̵̼̋.̷͙̆

(They regened on their deal though and Amity Park is no more.)

Red Robin takes this new information and inputs it into the Watchtower's computers and pulls up a satellite image of Amity Park, IL and just finds a blackened hole in the ground several miles wide.

Batman's suit groans as his fist clenches before turning away from the table, "Superman with me, Red Robin contact Cyborg. We're bringing this group to justice. No organization should have the ability to wipe an entire city off the face of the earth."

"Right behind you, Batman." Superman quickly takes off after him.

"What about the rest of us," Flash yells at him as he leaves.

"Everyone else should pool their resources together and try to come up with a way to slow down, stop or even reverse the Decay Field. Technology, magic, I don't care even ask your rogues if need be but this needs to be stopped."

______________________________________________

Base Gamma-5, IL

Superman and Batman stare down on an old seemingly unused military base. Superman's eyes shimmering as he looks over the area with his x-ray vision.

"So?"

"Skeleton crew of scientists, minimal guards but there is definitely activity underground."

"Any centralized location?"

"What, hoping for a big open room where all the bad guys can get together and start throwing hands?"

"..."

"Don't look at me like that, I blame Kon and Jon, I don't even know how that phrase became a common thing."

"Hn. I was asking for a central area to reduce any unnecessary structural damage our encounter is likely to cause."

Superman focuses as he resumes looking, freezing in place as a rictus of anger covered his face and he takes off. Explosions of steel and concrete echo through the forest as Superman flies through the base's defenses and high speed. Bruce gives a withering sigh as he fires off a grapple and follows behind Clark.

Shortly after Bruce finds Clark deep into the base, a large metal door ripped off its track and him threatening a scientist. "What is the meaning of this, who is this?!"

"What is this, you mean. It's ectoplasmic scum."

"You better pick your words carefully, that is a dead child in a TANK. I have VERY short patience for people like you."

Batman appears behind him, "I'd listen to him if I were you."

The scientist sneer at the sight of him, "Batman. I see you managed pull yourself out of that ecto-contaminated cesspool you call a city. You still reek of it."

Superman lifts him even higher and shakes him in one hand, "Don't look at him, looks at me and answer my question. WHO. IS. HE."

"P-Phantom. He was an ectoplasmic entity that breached the veil five years ago. He was the strongest power level in decades. The last time something like him was detected was in 1902 in North Carolina. Psychics all over three states surrounding it felt it appear."

"Who killed him?"

"Agent A, just over four years ago. He bagged him in a small town called Amity Park. There's records he had been there for over a year, check them."

"We can't, Amity Park has been a smoking crater for some time."

"What? Did the ghosts do it?"

"You did it, your organization did it," Superman shakes him hard to make his point.

"Superman."

Superman drops the scientist on his ass, "Fine, you deal with him. I'm likely to do something we'll both regret if he stays in my sight. I'm going to go get Phantom's body."

"Why is the Justice League even here?! You should be thanking us for purging this planet of that ectoscum!"

"That is a child."

"It's scum! It just looks like a child, there have been records putting its age at over 2 millennium in Rome where it burned-."

Batman sighs internally before giving a swift jab to one of the scientist's pressure points making him drop like a sack of potatoes. Clark mutters something as he removes the poor boy's body from the vat.

"I don't want to hear it, Kal."

"I didn't say anything, Batman."

"Hn," is all Batman says as he throws the scientist over his shoulder and plugs a USBat into a nearby server and has Oracle let off some of her rage st this organization.

______________________________________________

Flash is staring over batman's shoulder at the body on the gurney, "Is it just me or does he look familiar?"

The boys black and white hair now dry is fluffy over his face, scars litter his form in lightning strike patterns.

Batman gives him a look as he starts scanning the body.

"I mean not like I know the kid, just like I feel like I seen him around somewhere."

"I understand. I also have that feeling but it could simply be the radiation talking."

"Radiation" Flash screams before he zips across the room.

"Low levels, barely over a smoke detector's level."

"You think you're real funny don't you?"

He just raises and eyebrow, "do you have any information on our issue? Have your rogues anything to add?"

"Nah, even the ones from from the future don't know anything. Which is weird if you think about it; how can there be a future if the universe is eating itself?"

"Because time is most likely fluid right now, we're in the middle of the choices that make it set in stone and affect our future."

"Since when do you know about time travel?"

"I have some experience in it, unwanted experience but experience none the less."

"Right... so who is he?"

Batman pulls up a medical record on one of the doctors tablets that soon span into multitudes of windows, "Daniel Fenton. Son of Drs Fenton and Fenton. Saver of the critically endangered purple back gorrilas, Senior at Casper High, suspected meta but proved negative after a lab accident when he was 14. Godson and beneficiary of deceased billionaire Vladimir Masters. Lifetime ban on handling chemistry equipment..."

"Lab accidents? Lifetime ban in chemistry class? Sounds like my kind of kid."

There is a puff of thick sulfury smoke as a british voice speaks out, "Oi Batsy, I heard ya discovered the universe was ending, just came to see if- BLOODY FUCKING HELL. Why is there a dead kid on the table?!"

Batman counts to ten in his head and turns to Constantine, "What have we said about teleporting into the Watchtower?"

"Forget that! What have I said about keeping bloody dead kids out in the open?"

"You haven't."

"I shouldn't have had to, its implied!"

"Hn"

"Wait a second... this kid looks like... no couldn't be. That was ages ago."

"You too" Flash asks him as Constantine ponders on the boys face.

Constantine's face turns sharp, "what do you mean? You think you've met him as well?"

"Yeah but we just can't place it. Who does he look like to you?"

"Reminds me of a protector spirit I made a deal wit a couple decades or so ago. It was tasked to guard a rune for me. Indigenous populace referred to it as the Great One Who Breathes the Cold."

"Oh yeah? A spirit huh," Flash interjects, "What'd he ask for in return, Booberries?"

"An Astrolabe of all things, smartarse."

"He's not a spirit, we can see him so it's not like Boston and he has DNA. We were able to track his medical and public record. I've got what I need, I'm calling a meeting to collaborate ideas on how to fix this."

"Right, Bats, I'll just-"

"Mandatory meeting, Constantine."

"...Right."

__________________________________________

"What about those noxious pits one of your villains constantly uses?"

"We can't use the Lazarus Pits; they don't bring back the dead only the dying."

"Besides," Constantine interrupts, "Body doesn't have an ounce of soul tethered to it."

"What about time travel," Booster asks, "I can just pop back before these MIB wannabes kill the kid. Boom, Problem solved."

"We don't even know what changing that much will do."

"How about a localized time rewind," Raven asks, "If we just rewind him and not everything else."

"Nah, love. Decay field's already in play. The likelihood we rewind him and he doesn't know how to reverse it is to bloody high and we wasted the energy to only fail."

"Lantern, how much time do we have before the wave comes back?"

"The guardian's projected a time frame of two weeks before it returns to the earth."

"Not a lot of time but we've had shorter timeframes to save the universe."

"Hn" Batman turns to the Flash, "If need be we may need you to Flashpoint the event."

ALERT: Intruder in Medbay 1.

ALERT: Intruder in Medbay 1.

"I got it," Flash says before zipping off to the medbay, hoping to graze past the point of the Flashpoint.

"Isn't that the medbay with the body," Wonder Woman asks as Batman gets up to follow after the flash.

"Yes."

Everyone's comms went off with the Flash's voice, "You guys better get down here. I found our intruder but I can't touch him. He's just standing-"

"Flash," Superman puts a finger to his ear. "Flash do you copy?"

__________________________________________________________

Amity Park, IL 4 Years, 4 Months ago

"-Over the body of the kid... Wait where am I?" Flash frantically looking around at what was obviously not medical bay of the Watchtower and instead looks like a back alley of a moderate city frozen in time.

"Amity Park, Wallace," The old man says with a smile in his voice.

"That's not possible. Amity Park was obliterated off the face of the earth."

"Use your process of elimination, Wallace."

Thoughts zip through Wally's head as he comes to the obvious answer, "This is before the city was destroy. Do you know what you're doing?! Time travel causes nothing but problems, after the last flash point I swore I would never do it again!"

"I know more about time travel than you will know in multiple lifetimes. I am known as Clockwork here, I was once the master of time; it was my job to maintain the structure of the timelines even when you 'Flashpointed' a timeline to make sure the right outcome comes to be."

"Then why is the universe ending?!"

"I miscalculated the hatred some of my kind felt towards young Daniel. As such to betray our dimension to those that would sooner purge us. I cannot physically intervene in a past event but you can and for once I give you permission to fix the timeline and save your world. You have two weeks to save Danny Fenton."

"Wait, betrayed? I don't even know how they killed him how do I save him?!"

"You'll figure it out, you always do. By the way you may want to destroy your comm. Time in."

Flash's comm comes to life with his own voice, "I don't know who you think you are-." Flash rips his earpiece faster than could be seen and smashes it into the ground.

"Rightrightright... Right, two weeks to save some kid from bargain bin men in black... How hard can that be?" He spins in place, replacing his costume with his civilian cloths and stepping out of the alley to walk around the city.

___________________________________________________________

Thanks to @phantom-things and @a-lost-time-traveler for the Zalgo text translations. It didn't occur to me that people wouldn't be able to read it even at its lowest setting. I've learned and just parentheses'd the translations. I tried to make the two timeline but I just couldn't get the dead squared idea to flow properly so unfortunately I can only give this one. I'm gonna start working on the part three when I have time tomorrow. sorry if the quality's terrible.

[suiana]

yandere! auctioneer x gn! reader

"800 million!"

"900 million!"

"900 calling once! calling twice! and... sold to the man in white top hat !"

the crowd sighs while the man in the top hat smirks triumphantly, happy with his item. the item being a small ruby heart stolen from the biggest bank vault in France.

yes, this was no normal bidding event. it was an underground bidding event, hosted illegally by thieves, corrupt people, even criminals! and our auctioneer for the night was none other than the infamous ringleader of the illegal bidding centre.

wanted by every country, he's committed countless crimes and escaped unscathed, leaving little clues to where or who he is. in fact, the only clue he's ever left at every crime scene was the title 'auctioneer'. no DNA, no traces, nothing. he was simply a master at escaping.

and he was also a master at taking things that weren't his.

soon, a cage covered by a red cloth gets pulled into the stage. the grand finale. everyone sits in anticipation, holding their breaths as some helpers carefully remove the red cloth. and there, sat a person, you.

"this is our final item for the night and it's none other than... the next heir to the biggest company in the world - y/n!"

the crowd cheers loudly, mouths watering in delight as you glare at all of them. yes, you had been kidnapped by the auctioneer. it was a mistake on your part. blindly trusting a random guy on the streets when he asked for your help... you should've known better than to follow him to a secluded area.

though what's done is done and now you can only hope for the best. that is... for him to bid on you. after all, you knew none of the people in this illegal auction den except for him. and he honestly wasn't that bad. maybe except for how his eyes would glint with desire and insanity at every mention of you... and the fact that he's a huge criminal and wanted in every country.

in the short time he had spent with you, you had come to learn that he had done lots of research on you. observing you since months ago, he practically knew you better than everyone else in your life. understanding why you did what you did and how your processed things. it was a little scary how he knew so much about you, but what terrified you even more is the fact that he has killed others for you.

from murdering those who wish to harm you, to those who want your affections. what..? didn't he want to sell you away?! but why would he do such a drastic thing?! whenever you inquired about his intentions with you, he'd merely smile, saying that it was for the auction. he couldn't possibly be sellin. you away when he'd kill people who tried courting you, would he?! he's not a sadistic bastard..! right?

so you waited with bated breath, hoping that he'd just stick his tongue out and laugh at the bidders, claiming you as his and that the final item of the night wasn't up for sale. though that was only wishful thinking. after all, how could you trust someone who commits crimes for fun?

"mm... I see you all are interested in my y/n... don't worry~ you'll get to bid on them... from hell~!"

he chirps as he snaps his fingers and the sound of gunshoots flood the auction hall. people scream in pain and terror while you sit in your comfortable cage, eyes wide as you stare at the massacre brought about by the guy who kidnapped you.

shit, he was truly crazy-! you inch away from him as he stalks towards your cage, steps heavy and menacing.

"no one is allowed to bid on you. you're mine. because how could I ever auction off the most priceless gem?"

he smiles sweetly at you, though that sweet smile conveys a more sinister feeling. a chill is sent up your spine as his face comes close to you, only the cage separating you from him.

"you're my priceless gem that I'll never auction off darling~ and this massacre is a gift from me to you~"

your eyes shake in fear as you go still in your place. shit, how would you ever escape this guy?!

"and you can't escape from me. ever~! or I'll bring you to another auction... and send another present your way~!"

ah.

so there was no escape.

[dredgesnails]

I love to imagine the magic mountain bases all actually existing completely separately from each other in completely different time periods (almost), despite being physically in the same location.

In the ancient world, pyramids are constructed at the base of a huge volcano to honor the dead and worship old gods. A wide path leads to an entrance into the volcano, far enough in that the heat gets dangerous. Inside, sacrifices are made to the gods, to their king, offerings given up for the benefit of them all. The king is kind and forgiving, loyal to his people, asking for little and giving as much as he can. The gods however, are cruel, and all civilisations must fall eventually. For this one it's after a great eruption, one that shakes the earth with all the fury of the gods, that the pyramids become abandoned, left alone for centuries to erode. Over time new life grows, and thick jungles begin to hide the pyramids from view, until eventually, they’ve become a part of the natural landscape. Venture far enough in, however, and you might find remnants of the ancient civilisation: old writing in a language no one knows anymore, praises given to their old king; the remnants of ancient weapons and armour; the shapes of people who once lived forever preserved in ash and pumice.

~

It's the start of the industrial revolution, and rumours start spreading of an eclectic man and his steamrail full of exotic animals from across the globe. He’s a travelling zoo, of sorts, appearing in the strangest of places (as long as there's a railway line, he'll be there), areas it logically shouldn't be able to reach. He’s got all sorts of animals, from dolphins and turtles to strange, mysterious beasts. Where does he keep them all when they're not on the train? Some say he doesn't exist. others insist he does, that he lives underneath a mountain no one dares to visit. It's an active volcano, they say, dangerous to go near. If anyone dared to explore they might stumble upon the largest, most diverse collection of animals they've ever seen, and, most bizarrely, a large steam locomotive that runs on its own railway track, seemingly on a loop through the volcano itself. The tunnel is so dark the train disappears into it entirely. a young exploration group decide to find out for themselves, years later, and at first they think there's nothing there, until one of them stumbles upon the obvious remnants of a railway line, no longer in use but not so old that it's started to break down. Maybe he did exist after all...

~

In the late 1800s, a small fishing community establishes itself by the mountain. Electricity is new, and with the new machines and motors available to them the community quickly grows into a small village. Something is wrong, though. The rocks embedded in the mountain appear to resemble a skull more and more by the day, water streaming from one eye socket as though it’s crying. Underground passages and tunnels are found by the new residents, all leading to strange chambers. There's something in the water. A young man, one of the first in the village, disappears for a month, and when he returns, he's changed. He insists the ocean speaks to him, to everyone through him. He fishes for hours, days, weeks on end. When his madness begins infecting others, most gain the sense to stay away from him, but not everyone does. There's something in the water.

By the mid 1920s, the small fishing village is still standing, although most of the residents from four decades ago have since left. A young woman, traveling alone in her tiny fishing boat, docks at the village in need of repairs. What was meant to be a one night stay turns into days, then weeks, then months, as she begins to notice strange happenings in the village. A local artist has locked himself in his house, gone mad from something he found in the ocean. A scientist is experimenting with strange materials, and sometimes at night strange noises come from her house. There's something in the water. An older man speaks in tongues, driven mad by the sea. There's something in the water. The young fisher sees him occasionally, staring through her, unseeing. She's begun dreaming of ancient monsters in the depths of the water below her, reaching their long arms out and crushing her and everyone else. When she looks into the sea she can't see anything. It’s just inky blackness.

(No one knows how the village gets destroyed. One day it's here, and the next it's turned to rubble, razed to the ground by forces beyond human perception. It appears no one survived, but strangely, there's no trace of the small fishing boat the young woman had arrived in, nor of her body, and if anyone stopped for long enough in the wrecked city they might hear mumbling at night from underground, the mad ramblings of a man who has seen too much.)

~

Magic mountain row thrives in the early 2000s. They’ve beaten the Y2K bug (it really wasn't that much of a problem, anyway), business is booming at all the independent stores, and the local economy is better than ever. It doesn’t matter that not many people want to live here because new tech keeps Big Ron busy, and Willie Jr is old enough to start working at his father's shop, preparing himself to take over the business. The safe storage containers are always a little open, but nothing ever really goes missing, because no new people means everyone knows everyone. A young boy visits his neighbours for the last time before he leaves with his family; his dad's got a better job somewhere far away and they have to leave now, and besides it’s safer not to live by a barely-dormant volcano (it’s not as cool, though). His new neighbourhood has a lot more kids his age, but he can't help but miss the eccentric nature of his old neighbours. He returns to his childhood home twenty years later to find it empty. Most of magic mountain row is empty now, actually. There are a few places still open: Big Ron refuses to close up shop because Willie Jr, who has taken over the business now that his father's passed, still needs his help from time to time. Anyone still living here is merely clinging to a past they remember so fondly they can't adapt for the future. They're happy, though. They’re happy to remain here until it's their time to go.

~

In the not-so-distant future, a dense city is formed on the mountain. It started out as a smaller town, with traditional architecture and shrines dotted around the place, but as technology advanced and society progressed it grew and evolved into towering skyscrapers, holographic billboards, a rail system that winds through buildings and above streets. Elements of the past still remain - lush gardens lined with cherry blossom trees, the old shrines and temples still standing, a mark of the city's history and longevity. The city stands the longest, weathers the strongest storms, grows and evolves and changes, but all must come to an end, eventually. A rumbling in the earth, a once-dormant volcano waking from its slumber. They have the tech to know it's coming, now, so they all flee before it can hit. Only one man stays behind. This is his city. This is his home. He built this entire place from the ground up, and he’s not going to leave it behind. He makes his way to one of the shrines. Praying to his goddess, he leaves her one final offering, and when the ash settles all trace of him is gone.

~

The apocalypse happens in a future beyond our reckoning. A city lies, abandoned by most, on top of the ruins of civilisations that came before. Once a lively hub of activity and tech and innovation, the city has become a ghost town, occupied only by the artificial intelligences that had driven humanity out. They wander aimlessly, mimicking the behaviours of the humans they used to watch and help, protecting the inner core of their city that keeps everything, including themselves, alive. The humans reside elsewhere, in a bunker resembling the old world, with more vegetation and life than the city had despite being hidden underground. The city’s architects reassure everyone that they’ll be able to return someday soon. The one who designed the robots, a man more cyber than human by this point, just needs to fix a few issues with their programming. He doesn’t want to destroy them but he might have to. His partner, who designed most of the city, will need to commence repairs before anyone can live in the city again. So they leave, vowing to fix the city so that everyone can return to society. No one knows they will never return.