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pucksandpower · 8 months ago

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Fixer Upper

Max Verstappen x interior designer!Reader

Summary: Max Verstappen is the most frustrating client you’ve ever dealt with … but maybe he can make it up to you

“How about some pops of color in here?” You suggest brightly, gesturing around the stark white walls of Max Verstappen’s new Monaco penthouse.

The Dutch driver sniffs, glancing up briefly from his phone. “No thanks. I like it plain.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. Of course he does. You’ve been working with Max for two weeks now trying to decorate his new home, but so far he’s shot down every single idea you’ve proposed.

As an interior designer based in a principality known for catering to the rich and famous, you’re used to difficult clients, but Max may just take the cake. Still, you’re determined to give him the space he desires … if you can only figure out what that is.

“Alright, plain it is,” you say evenly. “But we should at least add some artwork, don’t you think? Something modern and sleek could look fantastic against these walls.”

Max doesn’t even glance up this time. “No art. Don’t like it.”

You inhale slowly. “Okay, no problem. We’ll keep it artless.” Time to switch gears. You gesture to the expansive bank of windows along one wall. “These floor-to-ceiling windows are incredible, some of the best views in Monaco. We could do some fabulous seating here to take advantage of the natural light. Maybe a chaise lounge or two angled toward the harbor ...”

“Don’t need seating.” Max is focused on his phone, thumbs flying. “I’ll just put my sim rig there.”

Your eye twitches involuntarily. His racing simulator setup — in front of floor to ceiling windows overlooking the most coveted views in the principality? Absolutely not.

“Well,” you begin delicately, “Perhaps we could find another place for your sim, one that doesn’t obstruct the views quite so much. I’m sure we could-”

“No, I want it there,” Max interrupts flatly. “I like seeing the water while I drive.” His attention doesn’t waver from the screen in his hands.

You close your eyes briefly and take a calming breath. Alright. No color, no art, and a sim smack in front of priceless views. So much for design aesthetics. Time for a new tactic.

“You must do a lot of cooking,” you say brightly, turning towards the kitchen. “This is an amazing culinary space. We could do some open shelving with sleek finishes to highlight the quartz countertops.”

Silence. Max just gives a non-committal grunt, still absorbed by his phone.

You soldier on. “Or maybe some nice warm wood cabinetry for contrast? I have some fantastic artisan contacts who could do handmade custom designs.”

“Don’t cook much,” he mutters.

Your smile tightens. “Not to worry, we can keep the kitchen minimal too.” Is there anything, anything at all, you can propose that he won’t immediately shoot down? You’re starting to doubt it.

Switching to the living area, you smooth down your dress and try again. “For the living room, I was thinking we could do built-in bookcases along the back wall there, and maybe expose some of the original brick behind for an industrial chic look ...”

Max glances up from his phone to level an unimpressed look at you. “But we’re inside. Brick would make no sense.”

You close your eyes briefly. Of course not. “My mistake, you’re absolutely right,” you say through gritted teeth. Enough pussyfooting around. Time to be direct.

You plant yourself in front of where Max sits on the couch and place your hands on your hips. “Max, I’m going to be honest. I’m having trouble getting a sense of your style and vision for this space. You’ve rejected all my ideas so far.”

He blinks up at you blandly. “I don’t like any of your ideas. This is my place and I want to do what I want.”

You resist the urge to tear your hair out in frustration. “Of course, and I want you to have exactly what you want. But in order to do that, I need you to communicate with me. Tell me what kind of look and feel you envision for your home. Modern, traditional, minimalist? What colors and textures appeal to you?”

Max just shrugs, his attention already drifting back to his phone. “I don’t know. Just make it nice.”

Oh for god’s sake. You inhale slowly through your nose. “Perhaps you could show me some inspiration photos of interiors you like?”

“Nah, don’t feel like it.”

That’s it. You’ve had it with this infuriating man. You know you shouldn’t lose your cool with a client, but you’re at the end of your rope.

“Well, I’m afraid ‘make it nice’ doesn’t give me much to go on,” you snap sarcastically. “I can’t read your mind, Max. So unless you start providing concrete input on what you actually want, I’m resigning from this job.”

You expect anger, or at least surprise at your outburst. But Max just regards you evenly for a moment, then nods. “Okay, fair enough. The truth is ...” He pauses, looking faintly embarrassed. “I just wanted an excuse to spend more time around you.”

You blink, blindsided. “I’m sorry, what?”

A slight flush rises in Max’s cheeks. “I didn’t actually care about the decor that much. I just thought if I kept saying no to all your ideas, you’d have to stay involved with the project longer.” He gives you a sheepish smile. “Guess I took the stubborn client thing too far.”

You’re dumbfounded. And, if you’re being honest, a little charmed. “Let me get this straight — you’ve been wasting my time and driving me crazy for two weeks because you … have a crush on me?”

Max winces. “When you put it like that, I sound like an idiot.”

You have to laugh. “A bit, yeah.” But you can’t help but feel a warm flutter in your stomach too. You’ve always thought Max was cute in a boyish way. Knowing he orchestrated this whole thing just to spend time with you is, admittedly, very flattering. And more than a little endearing.

Max rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to be difficult on purpose. I just ...” He trails off with a helpless little shrug.

You take pity on him. Yes, leading you on a wild goose chase of rejected designs was unprofessional. But the hesitant smile he’s giving you now tugs at your heartstrings anyway.

“Well, I appreciate you coming clean,” you say gently. “How about we start fresh? I’d love to actually get your real input now on what you want.”

His smile widens, grey eyes lighting up. “Yeah?”

You can’t help but smile back. “On one condition.”

He nods eagerly. “Name it.”

“You take me to dinner.” You arch an eyebrow. “To make up for the stress you caused me over the past two weeks.”

Max lets out a surprised bark of laughter. “Deal.” He shakes his head ruefully. “I really made a mess of this, didn’t I?”

“Little bit, yeah.” You grin to soften the reproach. “Next time just ask me out for a drink. It’s a much more straightforward approach.”

“Duly noted.” He smiles sheepishly.

You move to sit next to him on the couch. “So tell me honestly, what kind of look are you picturing for this place?”

Max considers the blank canvas of a space. “Honestly, I’m open to anything you suggest. I trust your taste — I’ve seen your work before and it’s amazing.” His eyes meet yours. “But I do definitely want my sim rig with a view. That part wasn’t a lie.”

You laugh. “We can make that work.” Your gaze travels over the strong lines of his face, the mussed brown hair, the wry curve of his smile that makes your heart beat faster.

As you begin sketching possible layout options, you make a mental note to clear your schedule for dinner soon. Very soon.

***

“Well, this is … quite a space,” you say diplomatically as the hostess leads you and Max to your table.

You’re immediately assaulted by a riot of clashing colors and patterns as your gaze darts around the trendy restaurant he’s brought you to for dinner. Your trained designer’s eye picks out aesthetic atrocities everywhere you look.

An art deco mirror topped by an incongruous ultra-modern light fixture. Fussy rococo chairs paired with sleek metal tables. And dear god, is that shag carpeting?

“Yes, Le Chat Noir is very popular right now,” Max agrees, seemingly oblivious to the decor travesties surrounding you.

You hold your tongue as the hostess seats you. The haphazard decor choices are an assault on your senses, but you don’t want to seem rude on your first date with Max.

A server appears to take your drink orders. You welcome the distraction, busying yourself with the wine list. But as soon as he departs, Max leans forward, an amused glint in his eyes.

“Alright, I know that look. Out with it — what do you really think?”

You bite your lip. “What do you mean?”

He gestures broadly around. “Of all this.”

You hesitate. “The decor is certainly … interesting.”

Max grins. “I can tell you absolutely hate it.”

You wince. Damn, he’s perceptive. And here you were trying so hard to remain poker-faced.

“Sorry,” you say with an embarrassed laugh. “I was attempting to refrain from judgment, but it appears I failed.”

“No need to apologize.” He settles back in his chair. “Please, critique away. I want to hear your professional opinion.” His eyes dance with humor. “Don’t hold back.”

Well, far be it from you to turn down an invitation like that. As your drinks arrive, you take a fortifying sip of wine before launching in.

“Alright, you asked for it.” You set the glass down firmly. “This space is an absolute disaster from a design perspective. It’s like the interior decorator was blindfolded and threw darts at a wall covered in paint swatches and fabric samples. Nothing goes together at all.”

You point above your table. “That light fixture up there? Ultrasmack modern against 19th century crown molding? Make it make sense.”

Max chuckles. “Quite the mashup.”

You lean forward, on a roll now. “And this carpet!” You gesture in horror to the shag beneath your feet. “This trend needs to retire immediately. It looks like an avocado fucked a bear.”

Max nearly chokes on his drink. “A what now?”

You wave a hand. “You know what I mean. Just tragic.”

Sitting back, you take in the rest of the garish space. “The artwork over there is just hideous. And that tufted velvet on the booths makes me want to scream. Who decided olive green was an accent color that pairs well with anything?”

You turn back to Max, on a tirade now. “Honestly, nothing works. The proportions are bad, the color palette is an atrocity, the mixture of styles is absurd. It’s like the designer threw every conceivable element at the wall to see what would stick. I could have done a better job blindfolded after downing a bottle of tequila.” You finally stop for breath, cheeks flushed.

Max has an enormous grin on his face. “Wow. Tell me how you really feel.”

You roll your eyes, but can’t help smiling too. “Sorry for the outburst. Like I said, feel free to tell me to zip it.”

“Are you kidding? I could listen to you shred this place all night.” Max shakes his head, looking delighted. “I’ve never seen you so worked up. It’s adorable.”

You blush, smoothing your hair self-consciously. “Oh hush. I just have … strong opinions when it comes to interior design choices.”

“Clearly.” Max’s eyes positively dance with affection. “I love how passionate you are. And your criticisms are spot on. This place really is horrendously designed.”

You blink in surprise. “Wait, you actually agree? You’re not just humoring me?”

He snorts. “Absolutely not. My knowledge doesn’t come remotely close to yours, but even I can tell everything in here clashes hideously.” He gestures at the table. “I mean, a wooden chair back with a metal seat? Just pick one material!”

You grin, happiness blossoming in your chest. It’s such a treat to have him validate your expert opinions instead of just patronizing them like many dates would. You launch eagerly back into listing all the ways the restaurant decor offends you, with Max chiming in occasional agreement or egging you on for more.

By the time your food arrives, you’ve dissected the lighting, furniture, textiles, and color schemes within an inch of their lives. Max watches you intently the whole time, blatantly enraptured by your critiques. Your wine glass is nearly empty from all the gesticulating.

“Well, I think that covers all the ways this interior design should be illegal,” you conclude, taking a bite of your meal. “Thanks for indulging me. I know I can get carried away analyzing spaces.”

“I could listen to you trash talk bad design forever.” Max can’t seem to rip his eyes away from yours. “I love how opinionated you are. And you look so damn sexy getting all fired up about it.”

A pleasurable shiver runs through you at his heated look. Maybe ripping this restaurant to shreds wasn’t the most conventional date conversation, but it clearly impressed Max. Nothing like a shared hatred of garish decor to bring two people together.

“Well, I’m glad one of us enjoys these tirades,” you laugh. You cock your head coyly. “Maybe I could come over sometime outside of work and critique your place again now that it’s shaping up. I’m sure I can find a few more things to complain about.”

Max’s eyes darken. “I’d like that.” He leans forward with a roguish smile. “Maybe we can get out of here and you can tell me all the ways you’d redesign the bedroom in my current apartment. You know, so we can avoid making those mistakes again while you help decorate my bedroom in the penthouse.”

You nearly choke on your wine, heat flooding your face. And lower regions. Goodness, Max’s flirty side really brings out your inner vixen.

You recover and stroke his ankle lightly with your heel under the table. “I’d be happy to provide any hands-on design consultation you require.”

Max sucks in a sharp breath, eyes blazing. The temperature between you two has risen about fifty degrees in the last few seconds. Suddenly you want nothing more than to leave this horribly designed restaurant and get him alone.

Immediately.

***

“A good mattress is crucial for proper sleep and recovery,” Max declares as you walk into the upscale furniture store together. “We need to test them thoroughly.”

You allow him to lead you to the mattress section, hiding a smile. When Max asked you to come mattress shopping with him for his new bedroom, you’d naively thought it would be a quick errand. But knowing Max, you should have guessed he’d take the task of “testing” mattresses very seriously.

An eager salesperson appears. “Welcome! Are we looking for any mattress in particular today?”

“We want to try them all,” Max announces, eyeing the rows of display beds keenly.

The salesperson falters. “Er, all of them?”

“How else will we know which is best?” Max shrugs as if this is obvious.

You squeeze his arm, charmed by his matter-of-fact logic. The salesperson forces a professional smile.

“Of course, take all the time you need.” He gestures expansively at the floor models. “I’ll be right here if you have any questions.”

“Excellent.” Max wastes no time striding over to the nearest bed. He sits, then lies back experimentally. “Hmm, decent firmness.” He pats the empty space beside him. “Come try it out.”

You curl up next to him, hiding your smile at the salesperson’s raised eyebrows. When you said you’d help Max pick out a mattress, this wasn’t what you pictured. But you have to admit, lying here with him is fun.

Max frowns. “Too much motion transfer when you move.” He sits up abruptly. “Next!”

You have to smother a laugh as you follow him to the next display. This no-nonsense methodism is peak Max. Systematic and entertainingly stubborn.

At the second bed, Max immediately starfishes spread-eagle. “Well? Get over here and test it with me. It’s the only way we’ll know.” He pats the mattress insistently.

You note the salesperson observing this display with thinly veiled disapproval. But Max just looks so irresistibly eager, you can’t help but indulge him.

You crawl onto the bed and cuddle up to him happily. “Mmm, this one’s nice. Great hugability.” You pretend to grab Max in a koala hold.

He laughs. “Agreed, good hugging potential.” Wrapping his arms around you, he shifts experimentally. “But the bounce is all wrong.” He releases you and sits up. “Next!”

And so it goes for the next hour as you enthusiastically demo mattress after mattress with Max. You try them on your backs, sides, fronts, analyzing the firmness levels and motion transfer. At one point you even test out the edge support — whatever that is — with Max insisting you sit together on the very side of the mattress frame.

“Considerable sag here,” Max murmurs against your ear, his arm firmly around your waist. You have to hide your shiver at his warm breath so close. “Could be problematic.”

The salesperson looks like he’s one demo away from throwing you both out. But Max either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He cheerfully drags you from bed to bed, ticking off pros and cons on his fingers.

“Decent lumbar support, but it sleeps too hot.”

“Great responsiveness, but poor motion isolation.”

You’re having the time of your life. Testing mattresses was benign enough, but the excuse to crawl into bed with Max over and over has you both giddy. Each demo seems to involve increasingly creative configurations of your interlocked bodies as you evaluate firmness and ergonomics.

“I’m just not sure this is a good fit,” Max eventually concludes, frowning up at you from where you straddle his hips. His hands rest casually on your thighs, as if finding yourself atop a handsome man in a public place is perfectly routine mattress research.

You smother a laugh and climb off. “Valid analysis. Though some of the testing scenarios still need more data, I’d say.” You shoot him a coy look.

Max grins. “Agreed. Further testing required.”

The salesperson pointedly avoids looking at you both. “Perhaps you’d like to narrow down your top choices? I’m sure you have plenty of notes by now.” There’s a tautness to his professionalism that suggests you’ve stretched his patience to its limit.

But Max seems oblivious. “We’re not done yet! There are still at least half a dozen models we haven’t tried.” He takes your hand, pulling you toward a plush, pillow-topped display. “Now this one looks perfect for spooning. You little spoon first this time ...”

Mattress testing with Max, you’ve learned, is a delightful mix of structured analysis and shameless flirtation. You can’t remember ever having so much fun shopping. And based on Max’s boyish smile and lingering touches, the feeling is mutual.

“Too much dip in the middle,” Max tuts later, rolling you both gently across yet another mattress surface. “Though the close contact isn’t terrible.” His low voice in your ear makes you shiver.

You grin up at him coyly. “We should do an in-depth pressure point analysis next.”

Max smirks. “Crucial data to collect.”

Eventually, however, even Max’s enthusiasm starts to wane. “I think we have sufficient consumer testing results now,” he decides, pulling you up to sit beside him on the edge of a low platform bed.

You laugh. “That poor salesperson was ready to toss us out an hour ago.”

“Hey, we were conducting necessary R&D!” Max’s grey eyes twinkle. “But I am rather tired now ...”

He lies back, resting his head in your lap. You automatically begin stroking his hair and he sighs, eyes slipping closed. You take the opportunity to admire how sweet he looks, lips slightly parted and lashes fanned on his cheeks. Testing mattresses all afternoon seems to have worn him out.

You lean down to murmur in his ear. “Ready to take this mattress research home to really compare notes?”

One grey eye peeks open. “Mmm, home analysis does sound optimal.” His voice is raspy with fatigue in a way that melts you. “Wake me when it’s time to go?”

You brush a soft kiss to his forehead. “Of course.”

He nuzzles into your lap with a contented noise. Watching his breath deepen into sleep, you feel your heart overflow. There are a thousand reasons you adore Max, but these unexpectedly tender moments might top them all.

The salesperson reappears, offering you a pained smile. “So were you able to decide on a mattress today?”

You grin, fingers still carding through Max’s hair. “You know, I think we need to sleep on it a little longer.”

***

“Well, what do you think?” Max gestures with pride around his freshly competed penthouse.

You take it all in — the sleek but cozy furniture, the warm lighting, the pops of color — and smile. “It’s perfect. You have an incredible home now.”

He wraps an arm around your waist, gazing around. “I really couldn’t have done it without you. This place was a disaster before you came along.”

You lean into him happily. It’s been months since you first met Max and began working with him on decorating his new space. It was a battle at times, but you’re immensely proud of the final result.

“I’m honored I could help bring your vision to life,” you say sincerely. Though if you’re honest, the best part of this project was getting to know Max himself. The way his smile makes your heart flutter hasn’t diminished one bit.

Max turns you to face him, his expression soft. “I didn’t just get a beautifully designed home out of this. I got you.”

Your breath catches at the open affection in his eyes. Before you can respond, he dips his head and kisses you tenderly. You melt against him, the feel of his lips erasing any coherent thought.

When he finally draws back, his eyes are darker. “You know, there’s still one part of the place we haven’t officially christened yet.” He cocks his head toward the bedroom.

You bite your lip, pulse already quickening. “Is that so? Well, we should definitely perform a final inspection to confirm everything meets our standards.”

Max grins wolfishly, pulling you toward the bedroom. “Thorough testing is required.”

You laugh as he tugs you down onto the plush king mattress you’d finally agreed on after extensive “research.” The two of you bounce slightly from the momentum, causing you both to dissolve into giggles.

“Well, motion transfer still seems acceptable,” you quip. Max chuckles and silences you with another heated kiss.

You hum approvingly as his hands begin to roam your body. “Mmm, responsiveness is excellent too ...”

Clothes are quickly shed as you reacquaint yourselves with each other’s forms. When you’re finally skin-to-skin, Max sighs in satisfaction.

“I’ve been waiting months to get you in this bed.” His voice is low and gravelly in a way that makes you shiver.

“It was the longest mattress testing phase ever,” you breathe as his lips kiss down your neck.

Max laughs against your shoulder. “Worth it though, right?”

In answer, you flip him onto his back, straddling his hips. “Absolutely.”

You take your time exploring each other, hands and mouths worshiping every inch. Until late afternoon sun filters through the curtains, bathing the room in an almost ethereal glow.

When Max finally sinks into you, you moan softly at the exquisite fullness. “Oh yes, this mattress has great ergonomics,” you sigh dreamily.

Max huffs a laugh, his chest vibrating against yours. “I’ll be sure to mention that in my product review.”

You grin and shift your hips experimentally, making him groan. “The responsiveness really is top-notch.”

“We should still test a few more positions though,” Max murmurs. “Just to be thorough.”

You happily comply, indulging in acrobatic mattress testing that leaves you both blissfully satisfied and out of breath. As you lay tangled together afterwards, endorphins still flooding your systems, Max presses a kiss to your shoulder.

“Well, I’d say the new bed passes inspection with flying colors,” he declares with sleepy satisfaction.

You laugh and stroke his hair. “Agreed. You chose an excellent mattress.” You snuggle closer. “Though the company in it is what I really enjoy.”

Max tightens his arms around you. “Think you can put up with me and my high-maintenance decor demands a while longer?” His voice holds a vulnerable note beneath the teasing.

Your heart swells and you cup his face. “Max Verstappen, I’ll critique mattresses and furniture with you any day. As long as at the end of it, I get to fall asleep next to you.”

His smile outshines the lowering sun. “Deal.”

***

“You know what I love most about how our place looks now?” Max murmurs, his arms wrapped around you on the couch.

You tear your eyes from the awful reality show you’re watching to glance up at him. “Hmm?”

His gaze sweeps over the living room, a small smile on his lips. “All the little touches that are just so you.”

You follow his look around the penthouse that over the past year has transformed from Max’s bachelor pad to your shared home. It’s still sleek and modern overall, but with warm accents reflecting both your styles.

And yes, you realize, your personal influence shows in the decor now that you live here full time. The mugs hung on hooks in the kitchen, the plush blankets tossed artfully on the chairs, the bowls of sea glass collected from beach walks that adorn the tables.

Your heart swells looking at the traces of yourself woven into Max’s space. “It does feel more like home now, doesn’t it?”

Max nods, dropping a kiss to your hair. “It’s perfect. I love coming back after a race and being surrounded by reminders of you.”

You snuggle deeper into his embrace, incredibly touched. “Well, I promise to keep leaving my clutter around to make you feel at home.”

He chuckles. “Please do. It’s my favorite kind of clutter.”

Smiling softly, you think back to when you first started dating Max after working on his penthouse makeover. Who could have guessed that would lead to sharing this life together?

Your gaze lands on a shelf displaying photos of the two of you, and your throat grows tight. There’s you and Max laughing on vacation, kissing right after he won his fourth world championship, curled up with hot chocolate on a ski trip. So many beautiful memories.

“It’s hard to remember what this place even looked like before,” you murmur. And not just the decor — it’s hard to recall your life before Max.

He rubs your shoulder idly, eyes faraway. “I know what you mean. It’s like you’ve always been here.” His voice holds a note of wonder.

You lift your head to meet his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Max’s eyes shine. He bends to kiss you, soft and heartfelt. Your lips curve against his.

When you reluctantly draw back, the television screen catches your eye. You cringe at the fake drama unfolding.

“Ugh, this show is terrible,” you groan. “Can we watch something else?”

Max grins and grabs the remote, flipping through channels. He eventually lands on a home renovation program you both enjoy analyzing and critiquing together. Some things never change.

You settle in eagerly as the show starts, scrutinizing the design choices. Max wraps an arm around you, idly playing with your hair as you watch.

Despite the show’s flaws, being curled up with Max like this fills you with utter contentment. You can’t imagine anything better than coming home to his smile and laugh each day.

During commercials, you fetch snacks from the kitchen, navigating the space with ease. Max trails behind to steal bites, ever drawn to food.

You swat his hand away from the chocolate you’re preparing and laugh. “Get your paws off, those are for sharing!”

Max just tugs you close and kisses the protest from your lips. You happily let him devour the sweetness from your mouth instead, the chocolate forgotten.

Finally you collapse back on the couch together, munching and critiquing the show’s poor tile work. Max throws popcorn for you to catch, his aim as impressive as his racing lines.

Your eyes droop as the evening wears on. The cozy penthouse, tasty snacks, and Max’s warmth — it’s the perfect recipe for relaxation.

When your head nods against Max’s shoulder for the third time, he chuckles and clicks the tv off. “Alright sleepyhead, time for bed.”

You make a half-hearted noise of protest but let him pull you up. Max keeps an arm securely around you as he leads the way to the bedroom, knowing you’re prone to stumbling when tired. It makes you feel so cared for.

He even helps you change into your nightgown, his hands impossibly gentle. As you finally crawl under the blankets, you let out a massive yawn.

“Night Maxie,” you mumble, already mostly asleep. He gathers you close and presses a kiss to your hair.

“Sweet dreams, liefje.” His voice is impossibly soft. You float away cradled in his warmth and the knowledge you’re home.

The next morning, you wake slowly to sunlight streaming in the windows and the smell of coffee. Stretching languorously, you take a moment just to soak it in.

Muffled sounds drift in from the kitchen signaling Max is already up and at ‘em. You smile sleepily. The man has the energy of a hyper puppy.

Before you can muster the will to leave bed, Max appears holding two mugs. “Morning schatje,” he greets with a smile. “Thought you might need some caffeine.”

You beam and make grabby hands until he passes you a mug. The rich aroma instantly perks you up.

Max slides in next to you, sipping his own coffee. His hair is adorably mussed and you gently smooth it down before cupping his face and bringing him in for a long, thorough good morning kiss.

When you finally separate, Max looks pleasingly dazed. “Well, that’s certainly one way to wake up.”

You grin cheekily and go back to your coffee. Max wraps an arm around you and you lean into his solid warmth, trading occasional lazy kisses between sips.

Sun streams over your entwined forms as you bask in contented silence. Eventually you stretch and make your way to the bathroom to start the day, dropping a kiss to Max’s hair as you pass.

You smile seeing your hairbrush by the sink, pink toothbrush next to Max’s blue one. Such small signs of your merged lives, but they mean the world.

Refreshed, you return to Max sprawled on the bed with his phone. He immediately opens his arms in clear demand for more cuddles. Laughing, you collapse into them happily.

Nuzzling into his chest, you sigh. “I know I was practically unconscious last night, but just wanted to say again how special it is having pieces of us both around the place now.”

Max’s arms tighten around you. “You being here makes it a home, not just an apartment.” His voice catches slightly. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

You lift your head to meet his gaze, your own suddenly misty. No words can encapsulate what it means to build a life and home with this incredible man.

So you tell him silently instead, with a kiss overflowing with love and promise: I’ll stay by your side as long as I’m welcome.

Judging by Max’s arm anchoring you fiercely to him, that will be a good long while. You melt into his embrace, spirits soaring.

No fancy penthouse or perfect decor could compare to what you’ve found with Max — a home rooted in love, laughter, and devotion.

One look at his tender smile and you know he feels it too. This is everything.

So you’ll happily leave your mugs around the sink and blankets on the chairs, weaving threads of yourself into his space. With each passing day, it matters less whose belongings lie where.

Because home isn’t things — it’s the man gazing at you like you’re his whole world. And you know as long as you’re together, any place will feel just right.

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dolcettamagica · 1 year ago

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𐙚˙⋆.˚ 𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐚

gangleader!sukuna x reader, modern au

tags: daddy kink, dirty talk, blowjob, sukuna speaks italian, petnames in italien translations: piccola - little one/baby principessa – princess che brava – (what a) good girl sei carina, lo sai? – you're cute, you know? ti piace, piccola? – you like it, little one? notes: minors dni wc: 3.6k

Life was tough. At least your life was.

Living alone in this day and age was expensive and to pay your student loans was almost impossible. Yes, you could go the easy route and just sell your body or some pictures but that really wasn’t your style. You weren’t going to turn your body into a product. So, when a man called Toji came up to you, asking how much you were worth for the night, you rejected him and asked if you could do something else that would earn you just as much money. The handsome man simply smirked before your criminal life started. Ever since then your job was to “exchange fake money with real money”. Money laundering.

And you did just that. Asking your friends to lend you money and giving them back fake money, returning products you bought with the fake money, asking people if they could change one bill for another. It worked. The last few months worked without any problems at all. This month however was an absolute nightmare. Not only did Toji give you way more money than usual, you were in the middle of exam season. You were running behind and Toji warned you that his boss, Sukuna, was not pleased with your current status. Well, it’s not like you could do anything about it anyway.

As the heavy front door creaked open, a wave of exhaustion washed over you, burdened with the weight of deadlines, exams and Toji’s constant warnings. Your footsteps echoed in the dimly lit hallway, each one a testament to the fatigue that settled deep within your bones. With heavy shoulders and a weary sigh, you dragged yourself through the threshold of your home, longing for the solace of your own space. The weight of your backpack seemed to increase with every step, a physical manifestation of the mental strain you had endured throughout the day. As you entered your room, the soft glow of your desk lamp provided a faint comfort, but even its warmth couldn't dispel the overwhelming sense of stress that enveloped you. Toji kept sending you messages, telling you to hurry up and wash the money. Another sigh fell from your lips as you let your backpack and jacket fall to the ground. The moment you turned around you started to scream – a stranger was sitting on your bed.

Sukuna, the embodiment of wrath and power, sat on the edge of the bed, his presence casting a palpable aura of danger in the room. Clad in a white shirt and black pants that hugged his form with menacing elegance, his usually composed demeanor was shattered by a seething anger that simmered just beneath the surface. The fabric strained against his muscles as if unable to contain the sheer force of his rage. With a clenched jaw and eyes ablaze with fury, he exuded an aura of dominance that commanded attention. His fingers curled into fists, nails digging into his palms as he fought to contain the tempest within him. Every breath he took seemed to echo with the promise of destruction, a silent warning to those who dared to cross him. Despite the veneer of sophistication his attire provided, there was no mistaking the primal wrath that pulsed through his veins, ready to unleash chaos upon any who dared provoke him.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“Ain’t no way you’re talking to your leader like this, stupida.”

Realization hit instantly. This was what Toji was warning you from the whole time. It was Sukuna – the gang leader. You heard a lot of terrifying things about him. The name of Sukuna Ryomen struck terror into the hearts of all who dared to utter it. A gang leader with a penchant for unspeakable cruelty, his reign of terror was marked by a litany of horrifying deeds that stained the streets with blood and despair. From the depths of his depravity, tales whispered of Sukuna's penchant for gruesome displays of power — from the grisly dismemberment of rivals left as warnings, their mutilated remains strewn across the city like macabre ornaments, to the innocent lives snuffed out in acts of ruthless vengeance. His depraved appetite for control knew no bounds, his twisted machinations orchestrating a symphony of fear that echoed through the alleys and corridors of the urban labyrinth he ruled with an iron fist. Behind the facade of opulence and influence, Sukuna's true legacy lay in the shattered lives and haunted souls that bore witness to his reign of terror, forever scarred by the horrifying specter of his atrocities.

It was the first time that you actually saw him and it was the first time that you instantly got on your knees for a man. You knew you had to show your utmost respect to this man. “I am so sorry. I–I didn’t know. Please forgive me, Sukuna.”

A grin graced his face as he saw you submit to him so quickly. He loved that fear struck anyone who laid eyes upon him. On top of that: You were a beauty. However he could not just look over your lack of achievements. At first he was impressed by your work. You managed to wash all the money and not have a single cop suspicious of you, you were smart and didn’t tell a living soul about your connection to Sukuna’s gang. So, he decided to give you some more money, he was sure that you were able to handle it. You weren’t and you took none of Toji’s – his right hand – warnings seriously.

“You look good begging on your knees, piccola. You would have made way more money on the streets, you know?”, he snickered, Toji told him about your decision to never sell yourself. Sukuna respected that as long as you still somehow benefited him. “Toji warned you, didn’t he? You’re behind. Why are you fucking up my business, y/n?”

The flicker of a lighter cast an eerie glow upon his features, accentuating the cold calculation that lurked behind his piercing gaze. With practiced nonchalance, he retrieved a cigarette from its pack, his fingers deftly manipulating the slender cylinder with an air of arrogance. Ignoring the palpable tension that hung in the air like a shroud, he brought the flame to the tip of the cigarette, a small ember igniting amidst the darkness. The sharp inhale of smoke filled the room, intertwining with your fear, a sinister dance that mirrored the power dynamics at play. In that moment, as the tendrils of smoke curled around him like malevolent serpents, Sukuna asserted his dominance with a single, calculated gesture, cementing his control over both the room and its trembling inhabitant.

“I–It’s just exam season…and I was given more than usual…I am really, from the bottom of my heart, sorry for everything.” You were frozen in the oppressive atmosphere of Sukuna's presence, your heart hammering in your chest like a caged bird desperate for escape. As he lit up a cigarette with an effortless display of power, you couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down your spine, your nerves alight with a cocktail of fear and anticipation. Your breath caught in your throat, caught between the instinct to flee and the inexplicable pull of his dominating presence. Despite the terror that coiled in the pit of your stomach, there was an undeniable undercurrent of arousal that stirred within you, a primal response to the sheer force of his authority. The way he commanded the room with effortless control sent a shiver of excitement coursing through your veins, igniting a fire of desire that burned beneath the surface of fear. In the face of his overwhelming dominance, you found yourself teetering on the edge of submission, your body betraying you with each racing heartbeat as you struggled to navigate the complex interplay of fear and desire that pulsed between you two.

Sukuna's gaze, sharp as a blade, pierced through your facade of fear with unnerving precision. In the flickering light of the room, his eyes seemed to strip away your defenses, laying bare the tangled web of emotions that churned within you. He could sense the trembling of your limbs, the rapid rise and fall of your chest betraying the fear that gripped you. But beneath that fear, there simmered something else — a raw, primal desire that pulsed with a rhythm all its own. With a predatory grin, Sukuna leaned in closer to your kneeling form, his voice a low, husky murmur that seemed to caress the very air around. "I can see right through you, piccola," he murmured, his words laden with a dangerous allure that sent a thrill coursing through your veins. "You can't hide that hunger from me." And in that moment, as the tension crackled between you like electricity, you realized that you were completely at his mercy, your desires laid bare for him to see.

As Sukuna's penetrating gaze lingered on you, you felt a flush of embarrassment spread across your cheeks like wildfire. Caught in the crosshairs of his scrutiny, you wished you could disappear into the shadows, away from the intensity of his knowing stare. The revelation of your hidden desire left you feeling exposed, vulnerable in a way you had never experienced before. Each beat of your heart seemed to echo the rhythm of your mortification, the weight of his gaze bearing down on you like a heavy burden. Unable to meet his eyes, you lowered your gaze to the ground, willing yourself to shrink away from the searing intensity of his presence. In that moment, you felt small and insignificant, your embarrassment a stark reminder of your own vulnerability in the face of his commanding dominance “Excuse me…?”

Sukuna leaned back again, a smug grin on his face “Come closer, principessa, kneel right in front of me.”

Every word was your command. Slowly you got closer. Sukuna lounged on the edge of the bed with an air of undeniable authority, his legs spread wide in a display of dominance that seemed to fill the room. Clad in sleek black pants, he exuded an aura of raw masculinity that was impossible to ignore. Before him, you knelt with a mixture of trepidation and submission, your eyes downcast as you awaited his next command. The tension between you crackled in the air like electricity, the space between you charged with unspoken desires and untamed passions. The balance of power shifted palpably, with Sukuna reigning supreme over his willing captive, your fates intertwined in the complex dance of dominance and submission.

With a gesture both possessive and tender, Sukuna's hand descended upon your head, his touch gentle yet commanding as he stroked your hair like a prized possession. His fingers traced the curve of your skull with an almost possessive reverence, eliciting a shiver of submission that coursed through your veins. In the silent exchange between you each caress was a silent affirmation of his dominance. With a soft, whispered command, he guided your head to rest upon his thigh, the weight of your submission a tangible presence that settled between. In this intimate tableau, you surrendered yourself completely to his will, your breath mingling with the fabric of his pants as you lay vulnerable and exposed before him, a willing captive to his every whim.

“Sei carina, lo sai? Look up at me with those big innocent eyes. Wanna seduce me, piccola?” As Sukuna's hand firmly grasped your head, a jolt of arousal surged through you, your pulse quickening with an intensity that matched the grip of his fingers. The sensation of his touch, commanding yet possessive, sent a thrill through, igniting a fire of desire that burned hotter with each passing moment. Caught in the vice-like grip of his hand, you felt a surge of excitement welling up within you, your breath hitching in your throat as you succumbed to the intoxicating power of his dominance. The boundaries between fear and desire blurred into nothingness, your body responding instinctively to his commanding presence with a hunger that you could scarcely contain.

“D–Did you just call me cute?”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”, With a deft motion, Sukuna's thumb traced the line of your cheek, his touch both possessive and tender as he caressed your skin with a commanding intimacy. As his thumb lingered at the corner of your lips, a surge of anticipation rippled through you, your breath catching in your throat at the tantalizing prospect of what was to come. With a boldness born of desire, you parted your lips ever so slightly, inviting him to delve deeper into the depths of your surrender. Without hesitation, Sukuna's thumb slipped past your lips, his touch igniting a symphony of sensations that danced upon your tongue. The taste of him was intoxicating, a heady blend of power and desire that left you dizzy with need. You surrendered yourself completely to his touch, you felt a primal connection forming between you, binding you together in a web of desire that defied all logic and reason. And as you savored the taste of him upon your lips, you knew that you belonged to him utterly and completely, your surrender a testament to the irresistible pull of his dominance.

With an air of unwavering confidence, Sukuna basked in your submission, relishing in the power he wielded over you. His gaze, smoldering with desire and dominance, held you captive, each glance a silent command that you willingly obeyed. As he felt you yield to his touch, a predatory smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, his satisfaction evident in the way he savored your surrender. With a voice that dripped with authority, he leaned in close, his breath warm against your ear as he posed the question that hung between you like a tantalizing promise. “Che brava. Wanna make me feel good, piccola? Wanna taste something else?” he murmured, his words laced with a potent blend of desire and challenge.

With a silent nod, you affirmed your desire to delve deeper into the intoxicating dance of submission and dominance that bound you to Sukuna. Your breath hitched in anticipation as you watched him lean back with a self-assured grace, his movements deliberate as he reached for the buckle of his pants. The sound of leather against metal echoed in the hushed room, each click and slide a symphony of anticipation. With each movement, the air seemed to crackle with an electrifying tension, the promise of what was to come hanging heavy between you like a veil of desire. As he freed himself from the confines of his pants, a thrill of excitement surged through you. As you watched him bare himself before you, you knew that there was no turning back — you were his, body and soul, bound to him in a fiery embrace of passion and submission.

He was big. Bigger than you were used to. It was veiny, long, thick and circumcised. “Ti piace, piccola?” Him speaking Italian turned you on even more. It suited him – his aura, his appearance, his dominance.

With a mixture of trepidation and eagerness, you lowered yourself before Sukuna, your heart pounding in your chest with a heady mixture of anticipation and desire. As you met his gaze, you found yourself ensnared by the raw intensity of his eyes, their smoldering depths fueling the flames of your arousal. With trembling hands, you traced the contours of his thighs, your touch a silent prayer for permission as you inched closer to your purpose. And when you felt the heat of him against your lips, a thrill surged through you, your mouth watering with a hunger that mirrored the primal need that pulsed within your veins.

“Brava piccola.” With a commanding yet tender touch, Sukuna threaded his fingers through your hair, guiding your movements with a firm guidance that left you breathless with desire. As you wrapped your lips around his cock, you savored the taste of him upon your tongue. With each eager suck and swirl of your tongue, you sought to please him, your own pleasure intertwined with the intoxicating thrill of his approval.

As the heat of passion consumed you, Sukuna's dominance surged to the forefront, his grip on your hair tightening with a commanding force as he pushed your head down onto him with an urgency that bordered on ferocity. He started fucking your face, with each rough thrust, he plunged deeper into the depths of your mouth, his movements guided by an insatiable hunger. The air was thick with the heady scent of your shared arousal, the sound of your ragged breaths mingling with the wet, slick sounds of his cock going deep into your throat. In the depths of your submission your senses were overwhelmed by the dizzying whirlwind of pleasure and pain.

“Hmm…fuck, you feel perfect, piccola. Was made to suck my cock. Look at you, taking it in so good.”

With each forceful thrust, Sukuna primal desire surged forth, his movements a testament to the raw intensity of his need. As he plunged deeper into your mouth, you felt yourself teetering on the edge of oblivion, your senses drowning in the overwhelming tide of sensation. The taste of him upon your tongue was intoxicating, a heady blend of power and passion that left you trembling with desire. Suddenly he pulled you off his cock, leaving you out of breath, your cheeks soaked with your tears.

You lowered your head, licking and sucking his balls as you started to jerk him off simultaneously. As you lavished attention upon him, your mouth and hands working in tandem to pleasure him, he unleashed a torrent of dirty whispers that sent shivers cascading down your spine.

“My good little girl.”

“You’ll make daddy cum, piccola.”

“Fuck, makes me want to make you mine, principessa.”

His voice, low and husky with desire, filled the air with a symphony of erotic promises, each word a tantalizing invitation to delve deeper into the depths of the shared ecstasy. Your own desire surged to dizzying heights, your arousal palpable in the slick heat that pooled between your thighs.

As the crescendo of pleasure reached its peak, Sukuna's primal instincts surged forth, his release imminent and inevitable. With a guttural groan of satisfaction, he surrendered himself to the relentless tide of ecstasy, his body tensing with the force of his climax. In a torrent of raw passion, he came, his hot seed spilling forth, coating your face with its warmth. You gasped in surprise and ecstasy as you felt him release, your skin bathed in the sticky warmth of his essence. And as you looked up at him with eyes glazed with desire, you knew that in that moment, you had become a vessel for his pleasure, your own desires subservient to the intoxicating power of his dominance.

As Sukuna beheld the aftermath of his release, a smug grin spread across his lips, his satisfaction evident in the arrogant tilt of his chin. With a sense of ownership that bordered on arrogance, he surveyed you before him, your face adorned with the evidence of his dominance. His gaze lingered on the trails of his cum that glistened upon your skin, a testament to the primal power he wielded over you. With a low chuckle that reverberated through the room, he voiced his approval, relishing in the sight of his essence decorating your face like a badge of honor.

“Suits you, piccola. You look pretty with my cum all over your slutty face. Should take a picture as blackmail material.” For Sukuna, there was no greater pleasure than seeing his cum adorning your face, a physical manifestation of his power and control over you. He gazed upon you with a possessive gleam in his eyes, he knew that he had claimed you completely, body and soul, in a fiery embrace of dominance and submission.

With a swift and fluid motion, Sukuna straightened himself, the clink of his belt buckle punctuating the air as he secured it with a confident flick of his wrist. His movements were calculated and precise, every gesture a testament to the unwavering confidence that defined his persona. As he stood before you, your gaze lingered on him, your breath catching in your throat at the sight of his commanding presence. With a final glance, he bestowed upon you a smug smirk, a silent acknowledgment of the power he held over you.

“Would love to fuck your sweet lil’ pussy right now but I still have some business to attend to, piccola. By the way, you have two more weeks for that money. Next time around it won’t end this way.”

Without another word, Sukuna turned on his heel and made his way toward the door, his steps echoing in the quiet room with a sense of finality. His departure left a palpable void in his wake, a reminder of the fleeting nature of their passionate encounter. And as he disappeared into the shadows, you left alone with your thoughts, your body still humming with the remnants of the pleasure you gave him. You knew that you would forever be under his spell, your desires forever entwined with his in a web of lust and submission. Though you did wish that he would have did something to you.

Just when you decided to play with yourself you heard your phone ring – a message from an unknown number.

Ciao piccola, wait for daddy. I’ll be back in two hours. I want your pussy to be soaking wet.

#𓂃⊹ ִֶָ 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀 #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x y/n #jjk x you #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu sukuna #jjk sukuna #sukuna jjk #sukuna ryomen #ryomen sukuna #sukuna x reader #sukuna #sukuna x y/n #sukuna x you #sukuna smut

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fanaticsnail · 4 months ago

Text

Better than to break tradition

Masterlist here

Word count: 3,700+

Beautiful Doflamingo cowboy art by @skullfacedlady. Absolutely gorgeous, as usual.

Synopsis: Rival ranches, the Donquixote family and your own, find neutral ground after a successful rodeo tournament. Coming to your aid, at the crowning of a cap on your head, you and Doflamingo know far better than to break tradition.

Themes: Doflamingo x f!reader, gendered terms used, cowboy au, bronc rider Doflamingo, rodeo clown Rosinante mentioned, regular sized Doflamingo in a semi-modern au, smut, 18+, MDNI, NSFW, P in V sex, unprotected, semi-public, creampie, plot, feelings, enemies to lovers.

Notes: Fic dedicated to @skullfacedlady, @queenmimi2817, and @feral-artistry for their ideas and thoughts about this cowboy on his horse. I am terrified of horses, but I did my research to get things as right as I could. Please forgive for any inaccuracies, I had a lot of fun writing this and this au is eating at me. First Rosinante drabbles, now this.

Sitting beside your father and his allied cattlemen, the amount of murmuring was so foggy your mind could barely pick up on any meaningful sentence uttered between them. Especially when your gaze was too focussed on avoiding the rubied lenses of the bronc rider readying his mount in the wood and iron cage atop a wild bronc.

Donquixote Doflamingo, ‘the Joker' of the arena, would always seek you out in the crowd when he entertained. All he ever did was show you how much he could reign in and control the beast beneath him with a firm grip and a mischievous grin. No matter how truly untamable the beast would be, bucking wildly to shake him off, they would find all their thrashing was met with absolute control and composure from the blonde man in the saddle.

The blonde-haired man would sit atop him, pelvis to the sky, chin tucked into his chest, and holding on for dear life while taming that beast for the money and reputation it garnered him. He was a rodeo king, and that air of cockiness would follow him everywhere.

While he often received praise falling from his entourage’s lips, all he ever wanted was that soft call of your own. Yet, there you sat, upturning your chin to face away from him while ignoring comments about him from your father’s troup.

The rivalry between you ran deep. Truth be told, neither of you truly knew where the little spat started. It could've been initiated when Doflamingo approached you with that cocky swagger in a bar, likely unknowing who you were and who your father was, offering to buy you a drink in return for a dance and your time while only being met with rejection. It also could've been when your father purchased a large quantity of cattle from the auction house that Doflamingo wanted to keep for himself at his family's ranch.

It could've been the snarky comment from his lips referring to you as a ‘buckle bunny', only good for chasing cowboys and taking cock. That comment resulted in an all out brawl between your family’s ranch workers, and the Donquixote troop. You held your own quite well, impressing a few of the crew with your battle-ready mentality, but it did lose you the place in line to be crowned ‘rodeo queen' - another slight against you made by the hands of Donquixote Doflamingo.

Either way, you refused to give the blonde the time of day. He was a bronc rider, and you were your father’s daughter.

Being from rival homesteads would keep you apart regardless. Your father would never permit you to speak to the likes of him, especially while your arm was laced within his in the stands sat beside his allies. Not after the amount of comments thrown his way about the blonde’s tendencies to take lovers and leave them immediately thereafter. Your father was protective, defensive, and ready to go to war for you - just as you would for him in a heartbeat.

If that war was due to the flashy smile of Donquixote Doflamingo thrown at you, he'd jump down into the stands and wage it there and then. It didn't help that the amount of comments from his allies suggesting a match be made between you and Doflamingo to solidify a new alliance was thrown in the ring more often than not.

At the sound of a gun aimed at the sky, the gates opened for another show flawlessly executed by ‘The Joker' in the ring. The dark horse bucked, kicked, spun in hasty circles while Doflamingo demonstrated his skill by holding on with a single hand while the other aimed at the sky clasping his white stitched, pink cat. Many a person would've been thrown extremely quickly from a stallion such as this, but Doflamingo’s skill and flare was simply too much for the beast.

The longer the display progressed, the more cheers, jeers, and gasps were heard from the ring surrounding the arena. You rolled your eyes, squeezing your arm laced within your father’s while you pouted to depict your level of impression.

At the sound of a loud gasp and your father tensing up to straighten his posture, you immediately turned your attention to the ring. Doflamingo was cast from the horse, and the beast was rearing to charge him where he stood. With quickened haste, Doflamingo’s entourage snapped immediately into action: his coach pulling him aside, and his younger brother, the rodeo clown commonly referred to as 'the heart of Doflamingo’ caused a large, clumsy, flailing distraction to usher the beast over towards him rather than his brother.

With 'the heart' jumping and distracting the horse’s charge, Doflamingo scurried out of the arena and climbed up on the side.

“He’s going to jump back on, isn’t he?” shocked voices called from the side. You unlaced your arm from your father, staring into the arena and rising to your feet. As Rosinante sprinted faster and faster while being chased by the stallion, Doflamingo made contact with his eyes on yours. He smirked up at you, shooting you a wink and placed his pink hat back atop his head while waiting for his brother to pass him.

As soon as Rosinante made it to the stand with the bronc behind him, Doflamingo immediately jumped back onto the horse with a large uproar from the stadium. You rolled your eyes at him, sitting back down beside your father, but now continuing to watch him with little interest cloaked behind your usual stoic demeanor.

“Are you sweet on him now, darlin’?” your father spoke from beside you, prompting you to immediately snap your head over towards him and shoot him an accusatory glare.

“Are you joking, Dad?” you spit in disgust, glancing back down to the display of Doflamingo now sitting atop a tamed beast and urging the beast to trot along the perimeter of the stand, “I would rather chew sand than start courting with him.” As the bronc was calmed and steady under his hands and straddled beneath his hips. You couldn’t help the wandering of your mind at the motion of his hips against the great horse, but you refused to allow the blush to creep higher the longer your eyes lingered on the motions.

After the rodeo event was concluded and Doflamingo was successful in another show, several members of the district ranches approached you for a drink or a dance in the hall. While your father was off elsewhere discussing cattle and stallion purchase, you were a hot commodity. You enjoyed some attention from time to time, but this moment alone with a string of unwanted suitors was grossly hard to manage. None of them seemed to take ‘no’ for an answer, all competing for a moment of your time and vying for an opening to dive between your legs in a bid to grant them an audience with your father.

“This seat taken, sweetheart?” a particularly handsy gentleman asked. His talon-like grip trailed over your shoulders, grazing your skin and causing a physical shudder to rise on pebbled gooseflesh on your skin. You attempted to cast off the suitor, who began groping you and prodding you in a bid to get a rise from your temper or a giggle, you felt a soft warmth drape itself silently over your head.

No words were spoken as you witnessed the man begin to grumble and groan the silent protection placed upon your head. As you gazed upwards at the color, your own eyes rolled at the unwritten rule of the rodeo. Looking up at the white and pale pink hat with a stitched white brim, you scoffed and rode your thumb and four fingers to the tip of the broad suede. You would never dream of removing it, mainly to keep unwanted attention at ease, but also for the fact that the person who placed it on your head was a person you had begrudgingly come to admire this night from afar.

You would never dream of offending the knight found in the rescue of Donquixote Doflamingo. Not immediately after such a successful endeavour with the bronc, anyway.

“So many suitors, sweetheart,” he gently whispered in a gruff purr into your ear, taking a seat beside you at the bar and shooing the already dissipating crowd, “You forced my hand, really.” Turning towards the man beside you, you rolled your eyes before narrowing them towards the taller man beside you.

“Oh, and how did I force your hand?” you scoffed, turning in your barstool towards the tall blonde at your side, “Unless this is you staking your claim on a prize, rider, I see no reason for your cap crowning my head.” Doflamingo leaned forward, his eyes half-lidded beneath his pink showman's glasses. The flicker of danger was momentarily flashing in the bat of his blonde lashes, stealing the breath from your chest as he leaned in further.

“You do make such a pretty prize,” he growled lowly, his lips almost reaching your own in a sultry brush, “And now all I'm picturing is a part of this forsaken building to claim you in properly.” Before you had time to react, his arm was around your waist and hooking beneath your knees.

“You're joking, right?” You scoff at him with a humorless laugh, drawing your hand up to place it on the top of the suede brim, “One: you hate me and I hate you,” you speak firmly, beginning to lift the object from your head, “And, two: you and I both know that this is just superstitious-.”

“-You’ll keep my hat on your head if you know what's good for you, princess,” Doflamingo uttered firmly, peering at you over the brim of his glasses, “You and I know far better than to break tradition. Way I see it, you've got three choices as to what happens next.” He reached up and firmly pressed the hat back down atop your head, securing it in place while gazing dangerously into your eyes.

“We can sneak off to the bathroom where anyone can walk in to hear you screaming my name,” he chuckled, moving his hands from the hat to fall atop your shoulders, “We can fuck right here in front of your daddy and all his business partners in the next room,” Doflamingo whispered against your skin, with his lips almost close enough to taste, “Or we can go to the stables near the bronco you watched me tame earlier, showing the poor stallion how you train your cowboy to behave. Your choice, princess. Either way you choose, you're gonna be riding me somewhere tonight.”

In any other circumstances, you would have fought more against this chain of events. Firstly: your father should've taken you with him in the back rooms to conduct meetings with his allies and business partners, not leave you unattended with the unruly cowboys. Secondly: the sway and buck of Doflamingo’s hips on that horse had your mind wandering somewhere in the gutters each time he gazed at you while on the ride. Thirdly: who were you to break with tradition at a time like this?

Taking one quick swig to drain your drink, you turned your palm up and clapped him on the cheek with a single word falling from your lips.

“Stables.”

“Atta girl,” he shuddered in delight, lacing your arm within his and escorting you away from the bar like the perfect gentleman. He enjoyed gazing at those eyeing him off in envy, truly knowing how great the prize he had claimed truly was. Doflamingo had a lot of casual hook ups at events like this, but this was the first time he had ever claimed a partner with his hat on their head.

As his eyes met with that pink brim, he felt his heart anxiously patter in his chest, relishing on what he was to expect from the encounter to come. Sure, he had a small hang up on your history together, but there was never any hatred from him on his part. He loved to tease, and knowing he could get a rise and see some fire from a respected cattleman’s daughter brought him some joy in his daily life.

Slowly drawing you down the steps towards the stables was an easy task. The air grew thick and tense as your own expectations rose within you at what was to come. Your mind wandered back to the sway and rock of his hips above the bucking bronco, arousal pooling at the complete control as his hips gyrated and moved with every harsh kick.

At the doors to the stables, the Donquixote gentleman opened the door for you and gestured for you to go before him. You rolled your eyes and stepped inside the doors and allowed your gaze to adjust to the darkness lurking within. The scent of horse and hay lingered on in the stables, the barn empty aside from the horses resting after the matches in the arena.

The taller gentleman strolled in behind you, latching the door closed and turning to gaze at each of the empty stalls. As he parted his lips to ask you for your choice of room, he found your lips immediately clashing against his own in a fit of passion. His breath caught in surprise, immediately reciprocating the aggression you placed upon him with every kiss. Tongues and teeth bruised and consumed one another’s kiss as all clothes aside from Doflamingo’s hat upon your head shed your persons.

Pushing him into an empty stalls by using your body alone was an easy feat, considering his eagerness to relinquish control to you. He had no chance to utter a word as you laid him on his back and crawled through the hay to straddle his hips. Already feeling the slick arousal pool through your walls and gather at your entrance, you braced one hand on his stomach and another girt his girth to align with your cunt.

“Woah-? What-? Wait-!” died on his lips as you took him inside you with a single thrust downwards. Sitting comfortably while your walls contracted and adjusted to his size, you clamped your eyes shut while your belly expanded to comfortably sheath him within you.

“A little hasty, aren't you?” he groaned, his hands moving to your hips to hold you steady. “That bent on getting this over with, rider?” You opened your eyes and narrowed them down at him at the taunt of the earlier name you called him.

“Oh, please,” you leaned down with sarcasm dripping from your voice, still holding his cock deep within your core, “Don't act like you're not waiting for this little superstition to be complete so you can go partner up with someone else-.”

“-Don't,” he uttered sharply, moving his hand to caress your cheek and draw you in closer. He moved his unoccupied hand up to remove his glasses to gaze into your eyes without the pink filter. Ruby eyes met yours, sensitive to the light and shrouded beneath blonde eyelashes. “Don't you dare. You don't know how long I've wanted to see you riding me, cowgirl.”

“Cowgirl, now?” Your voice depicted your feigned shock as you tested a soft roll of your hips while your faces were inches apart. “What ever happened to ‘rider’, ‘princess’, or ‘buckle bunny’, huh? And what do you mean by that, Joker?” Doflamingo laughed, thrusting up to test your hold over his crotch, allowing another moan rose as he lost himself to the feeling.

“I don't mean half the shit I say,” he whispered alongside the echo of your name to follow, “And what I do say is to get a reaction from you, princess. Now take your damn time, I'm enjoying this.” He rocked you on his lap, enjoying the way he could easily maneuver your motions over his cock while your face was so close to his own.

You bore down on his lap, enjoying the feeling of his cock inside your cunt and warming it with your body. He hitched his breath as you tensed around him with a flutter of your walls. He allowed his mind to go blank as he revealed in the heat of your pussy claiming his raw cock inside of you.

“A-And, I mean from the first time I saw you, I wanted you,” he confessed, tilting his head up and gazing at you through half-hooded lashes. “Prissy attitude, hard working girl, easy to agitate and tease, and so fucking gorgeous. Now show me how you ride, cowgirl.”

Under the cover of darkness, the scent of hay surrounding your bare bodies, you sat comfortably to the hilt on Doflamingo’s cock. Straddling his hips, you demonstrated the skill of riding by grinding your cunt over his steely shaft. Rolling your hips to his rough bucking had your twin peaks steadily rising, the man beneath you not shying away from being verbal with his pleasure. As he groaned out, you simply panted as you bucked against his pelvis, hips clapping noisily with every, rough, down thrust.

Doflamingo refuted your silence, using everything in his power to expel explicit and pornographic moans from your lips. His hands flew to every piece of your flesh he could find purchase on. Playing with your clit, pinching your breasts, grabbing fistfuls of your ass to impale you on his cock, Doflamingo grew frustrated at your stubbornness to not cry out for him.

“C'mon, cowgirl. Wanna hear you cry for me,” he whimpered, bucking up each time you ground yourself down. “Don’t make me flip you- oh fuck,” he threw his head back as he felt your walls suck him in with every thrust down, “Just like that, baby. Good girl. J-Just need you to-,” he moved his thumb towards your pearl at the top of your pussy and focussed on slowly pressing it with coaxing pressure as you rode him once more. You let out a soft gasp at first, sucking in your breath through your teeth, before a needy mewl spilt from your lips that Doflamingo rewarded with harder contact to the top of your clit.

The Donquixote cowboy enjoyed every sound he coaxed from you from that point. Hearing your voice only heightened his desire to watch your body bounce atop him like the rider you had always been. Doflamingo was the wild stallion you controlled, his moans fleeing his lips like mewling and braying of the beasts he rode.

“That's it. Ride my cock all loud like that,” he encouraged, bucking wildly up into you. Planting his feet in the hay, the wet squelching of hips clapping together upped in frequency and rapidity, “Fuck, you're more wild than anything I've tamed. Fucking use me, girl.” Your abdomen tightened, the pinnacle of your rapid climax approaching like a rapid cantor to the finish line. With one extremely needy whine, Doflamingo moved his hands to grope your ass, planting you against him while he lost himself further in the feeling.

“F-Fuck-! I'm c-cumming. Y-You better be cumming with me, baby, ah-...” he whined up into you, feeling you match his pace and ride him through it to harmonize with your own body meeting your high, “Atta girl. Keep going. K-Keep taking me. Fuck yes, take it.”

Your hands groped at his shoulders, anchoring your body to his as you felt the floodgates shatter of your high. White flashed behind your vision as you screamed out his name, pleasure blooming in your chest with the ignition of lightning in your eyes. You released his left shoulder beneath your hand to hold his hat atop your head: ensuring it was planted firmly on your head while you cried out for his name.

Pussy gushing over his shaft in rhythmic contractions, you milked his cock of his own messy release as he painted your walls further in the viscous splashback of his cum. Pearlescent spurts fled from his body into yours at the roar of your name, branding your souls together as he flooded you with his seed. Both heaving and panting, you slumped onto his chest and shrouded both of your faces beneath the broad brim of his hat. He chuckled up into you, gently slapping your ass while kissing your cheek. His smile continued to hold as he gazed possessively up into you.

“You rode this cowboy well, sweetheart,” he praised you, bobbing his head up to flick at his cap on your head, “And you're gonna do it again, aren't you? You're still wearing my hat, means you're mine… right?” Slowly rising to gaze down at him, you notice the uncertainty behind his eyes. He wanted you to want it, yearned for you to want him again in any capacity. He needed you to need him again. Who were you to be to refuse him?

“It's still on my head, isn't it?” you quirk back at him, gently leaning down and brushing your nose with his, “Means I'm yours until I take it off.” He chuckled as he scrunched up his nose playfully at you.

“I'm gonna glue that fuckin' thing to your hair, princess,” he chuckled in jest, flicking the cap crowning you, “You take me so well, I don't know how I could ever want anything else.” His hand moved to cup your cheek, moving to press the tip of his nose against yours in a soft brush innocently of his flesh against yours.

The sounds of braying, snorting and whinnying beside you caused the two of you to resolve into a fit of giggles, laughing like the youth in the arena up to mischief in an empty stand. He rolled you gently off him, ensuring the hat remained on your head while making the hay comfortable to hold you atop of. He began whispering sweet nothings, grazing your skin in featherlight kisses where you left a gap open in conversation. Doflamingo was obsessed with you from the first time he saw you, and now that he had his hat crowning your head, that cowboy would never let you go

Tag list: @mfreedomstuff @daydreamer-in-training @since-im-already-here @gingernut1314 @writingmysanity @i-am-vita @indydonuts @feral-artistry @the-light-of-star @empirenowmp3 @racfoam @sunflowersatori @carrotsunshine @skullfacedlady @jintaka-hane @thenotsofantasticlifestory @ane5e

#one piece #x reader #Donquixote Doflamingo #Doflamingo #Doflamingo x reader #Doflamingo smut #cowboy au #one piece smut #x f!reader #skullfaced snail

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a-minke-whales-tale · 2 months ago

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Delusion, Clinical Zoanthropy

I am a clinical zoanthrope. I have schizophrenia. If you have read my posts or blog before this should be no surprise as I am quite open about it. These labels that have been put on me affect nearly every aspect of my life, and greatly affect how I interact with the community. There is often a lot of discussion surrounding ideas of physical identity, delusion and if these things should be acceptable within the community or how to handle these topics.

Length: 3676 words

TW: delusions, reality checking, mentions of medical abuse

The year before last, I had spent quite a bit of time working with another academic to construct a historical materialist analysis of therianthropy. Historical materialism for people who are not familiar is a method of analysing history through the lens of production and class society. In particular, given the apparent wealth of historical therianthropy among “primitive” society, and the narrow niche of modern therianthropy, as well as my own treatment at the hands of the medical system, I wished to understand the origins of the oppression of therianthropic identity. I have to date not completed the project for a number of reasons - limited available literature regarding the transition from pre-class society to slave society particularly regarding religious and spiritual beliefs, personal health and time, and forcing myself to create a complex system of double bookkeeping and analysing my experiences through a materialist lens essentially constantly and forcibly reality checking myself constantly was very taxing.

Although I did not get to the state to write and publish the paper, I did learn a fair bit, and I think the most important concept within this discussion is the concept of delusion and how we define it. There is a common vulgar definition of delusion as believing anything that is not real or not backed by scientific consensus. But then there are many things people believe which is not backed by scientific consensus. While certainly there are people who would say that anyone who believes in ghosts or the Christian God are delusional, nearly half of the people in my country believe in God, however we lack any materialist evidence at this point for such a thing. The state of being identified by others as delusional comes with some pretty serious consequences, it should be noted though that these consequences are not applied to people who believe in God. Similarly, there are times when scientific consensus is simply wrong. Is the man who rejects the inherent inferiority of the [Sub-saharan Afrikan] race because of their skull shape and “thick skin” delusional? We today would collectively say no. For a man in the early 19th century, this would have been scientific consensus even if now we should find such a thought abhorrent. Was he then delusional? (Though some people did try to justify slaves escaping as a mental health condition Drapetomania, and historical terms like madness are often connected to modern terms like delusion and psychosis). I think often modern humans can create an almost religion out of science and progress and belief in their own rationalism - that not only is there absolute objective truth, but they can and do know it all in this particular moment, and that the society they exist within does not effect an impact on their view.

It is important to understand that delusion has a fairly specific definition and caveat when talking in a medical definition. That important caveat is that the belief conflicts, or is not standard, within their culture or subculture. Not only that, the belief must be very fixed and firmly set which does not respond/change to the presence of outside evidence. This cultural context is an important factor in the diagnostic criteria for delusions, as well as dissociative disorders like OSDD and DID (it may well be important for other conditions diagnostic criteria as well though I lack experience to speak on that topic).

Delusions -are- very much socially defined. I make the joke often that a rich man hears the voice of God he runs for office, I hear the voice of a spirit and need to be on antipsychotics. There are a number of examples namely in SEA where the experience of transforming into another animal would be considered entirely within the range of normal possibility (though notably with tigers primarily). There are also cultures and practices in which physical transformation is not considered delusion but a normal part of ritual notably among the Xan peoples. Among some Siberian cultures as part of hunting some will take essentially the mind of a wolf. In South Asia there are also recorded practices in which a person’s soul is bonded to and moved to an animal’s body in the night. Most people those reading this might encounter day to day would think these are surely delusions, but for those people, it is just a normal part of life and culture.

Most people here would collectively agree that therianthropy is not a delusion, however from outside the community many easily could argue it. You -are- human, you can look at your body and it and see that it -is- human. If you argue for past lives, there exists no evidence supporting that and no evidence supporting the existence of spirit or plausible explanation beyond hallucination despite many attempts to measure their existence. Nor do you have the instincts of that animal because you are clearly a human, and any "instincts" you might have are phantoms of the mind or attaching to a certain animal as a way to manage your life. However neither of these explanations would be acceptable nor would they convince you that you are wholly and entirely human.

Similarly with transgender identity, people here would collectively agree that is not a delusion. But 60 years ago? Or among transphobes? You are experiencing a delusion. You are obviously a wo/man, and no amount of hormones, [presentation], or [surgery] will change that. We would all collectively say fuck that shit, but you know who agrees under certain circumstances? WPATH in their Standards of Care directly notes among certain conditions of transgender identity as delusion (or at least in their old SOC before informed consent became common). It is common for people with schizo-spectrum disorders and higher level structural dissociative disorders to be denied care, or to face significant pushback. But this can also be true for all sorts of other “less serious” conditions such as austime, adhd, depression etc. This is something I have faced, and who knows how many others have faced it as well.

But what a delusion is very much defined by perspective and culture. It is easy when sitting on the "non-delusional" side of a cultural belief, to believe the order of things is logical. However, when I must construct materialist explanations of experiences, a task for which I am forced as part of double bookkeeping, the differences between my "delusional" experiences, and others "nondelusional" experiences especially in regards to therianthropy is one of degree, not of kind. Do not make the mistake to think that in other scenarios, other cultures, your experiences may be seen as delusions, and in other places, mine as natural and grounded in reality.

My experience as a clinical zoanthrope has left me often feeling quite divorced from the community, that I am separate, unwelcome, or an interloper in what is supposed to be my own community. I have been in the community for a while, but only at certain points felt comfortable to really call myself therian, a feeling which is again waning. There is a strong push constantly against physical identity. Even the most (in)famous phrase in wider culture about therians is the “on all levels except physical I am a wolf”. However this pushback against physical identities, especially from the concerns over P-shifter cults and abuses, created an environment that for me to be tolerated, I would have to constantly “show insight” or really reality check myself, and ensure all the others there knew that I knew my experience was not real and was not like their experiences were (that theirs were real and different). I still often have to do the dance describing my experiences, and even in the terms I use for myself as a clinical zoanthrope is indirectly that same dance.

The therian community often prides itself on how accepting it is. Though to be honest, I really have to question if this is the case. I have always felt unwelcome by the broader community. But so have very many others. It always strikes me that whenever I really share my experiences, how many others really relate to that feeling of not feeling wholly secure or belonging within the community. My orca friend, Ike, has talked quite a lot how they simply did not join the community for so long for feeling unwelcome. Sharing my experiences on a discord server a few weeks ago I learned another member was also a zoanthrope but had never shared it for fear of ostracization. A number of others expressed sentiments of feeling not total included, some for shift strengths, some for things like sexuality, theriomythics often get excluded, etc. Heck, by some accounts even the transition to the term Therian away from Were was an effort to include more people besides just shapeshifters.

Really when you think about it, it is not surprising so many people feel excluded in various ways. Therians have all these lines that you have to sit inside of and not cross to be acceptable to the community. But when you try to actually measure those lines many are not only extremely blurry, but vary person to person. Indeed my own experience is that there are people that do accept me, even if the wider community does not, and that is really the only reason I stayed.

The community has historically for instance a pretty hard stance on delusion and hallucination. The question though is, when does a shift move from being a socially acceptable phantom shift, to an unacceptable hallucination. For me in particular, my sensation of shift goes through a fairly long process of getting more and more intense, but it is also really a quite smooth process. It is like following a colour line, when does ‘blue’ truly begin? The first sensation is often a slight tickling, and very light phantom touch that you can sort of see through the feeling on your body. Beyond that the sensation gets more intense and becomes bothered from having things push against or intersect it. Further it begins to have not only form but colour and texture, but still if I look at the limb I cannot see it, I still see a human limb, though I do not expect it. Further the visual appearance comes in more and more until eventually my human parts are gone, transformed into animal parts I can see and I can touch. When we write it out like this it is pretty separately defined, but in the process this occurs for me, it is very smooth.

After enough quantitative change, there is a qualitative change, but where and when that occurs is hard to say. I think the first two experiences are very common among therians. I think the third experience is also fairly common but that starts to get more and more into the blurry lines, and if you cannot see where that line is you are likely to downplay your own experiences for fear if you say too much, you will be excised or ostracised from the community. But this fear also has the doubly cruel aspect that you can never really know where that line is because many people downplay their experiences to make them palatable, and so though many others might share in these experiences, people simply do not speak of them because they only see either extreme being shared, the particularly minor shifts being accepted, or the extreme shifts being sorted into delusions. I think it creates a false binary from a spectrum of experiences.

So many of these blurry lines exist though. What age can you be taken seriously? What platform do you use? How many kintypes is too many? Theriotypes being too common? Theriotypes being too rare? Are paleotherians acceptable? Are theriomythics acceptable? Can a dragon be a therian? Can an otherlinker or copinglinker have their identity so long it becomes therian? Are beastly animals from fictional settings acceptable or should they be with fictionkind? What sort of sexual and romantic expression is allowable? Is transspecies an acceptable identity? Some of these are blurry, some of them are clear, but they all wiggle around in different ways of some people will find them acceptable and some not. This leads to people self-censoring to the safe answers that they know are acceptable and prevents them really exploring their own identities, but also these questions within the community as it learns and grows and becomes more inclusive. In a certain irony, therianthropes as a community, are actually quite demanding in their conformity while preaching of their acceptance.

There has been a significant push in recent years to give greater levels of inclusion to therians with both delusional identities and physical identities. People are generally more accepting of zoanthropes and at points I have felt comfortable even to call myself therian and not just a member of the community. But there are also a number of additional terms, namely endel and holothere, which cover these experiences. However, something I note often when people talk why I as a clinical zoanthrope can be acceptable, while P-shifters and at times holotheres cannot, still comes down to that I acknowledge my experience as delusion. When I read the experiences of at least some p-shifters and holotheres, often the difference really is not so great, I often see their experiences mimicking or mirroring my own. I do use the word clinical zoanthropy, which on some level does indicate an understanding I know that at least others see my experiences as not real. This is a pretty common feeling among zoanthropes, we use this word, we know the humans think our experiences are not real, but they are incredibly real to us.

The question then is what should be done with us? There is a lot of comment that allowing us in the community to share our experiences or not reality checking people is encouraging delusion. People also say that delusions are harmful and that we should seek medical help. There are quite a few people who even wish to excise or isolate those who are anti-psychiatry and anti-recovery from the community.

If I am forced to analyse my experiences through a materialist and distant lens, it is quite clear my experiences are heavily rooted in delusion. I am a scientist, and there is no means under current knowledge to explain what I experience except hallucination - still I believe it fully. My knowing this is the only logical explanation does not lead me to believe it, to truly believe it inside. I mentioned before I had to give up on projects I did really enjoy because forcing myself to continuously deny my experiences and continuously reality check myself, brought to me very much distress. There are times I have wanted to be reality checked, but for vast part that is the remainder it is really distressing. It is distressing to be told a core part of your identity is not real, to be told the you that exists isn’t the real you, and sometimes see people mourning the “sane you”. Individuals in the community are not going to solve my “delusion” by reality checking myself or others.

Nor will them blocking me from the community or ensuring I do the dance for them encourage my “delusions” away. Delusions are heavily fixed experiences, and though you can encourage them in certain ways (think the example of people making “in your walls” jokes at schizophrenics), us talking about and sharing our experiences with each other and in our own community helps us feel understood and a sense of belonging. There are so few of us to start with, and the community closest to us either often disallows us, or makes us sit at the edge never really able to join. All banning us does is further isolate us, and for many delusions reinforces that we will never be acceptable or tolerable to others and it is best we are alone so we don’t hurt others with our presence.

I cannot speak on every person’s delusions, but I can speak on my own. For the question of if delusions are harmful, I think it often asks the wrong question. Who is it harmful to? Under what framework? Who thinks it is harmful? What does the patient want? I think one could say that my delusions of turning into a whale do harm me. I have trouble to interact with humans, I cannot work a full time job, I struggle in relationships, many nights I lay on the couch stuck for hours simply unable to move. These are all pretty negative things no? But it fails to ask why are these things harmful? A doctor looks through a very human framework and sees that I cannot do the human things and sees that I must have a poor quality of life and these delusions need to be addressed. But I am a whale and it is a core part of me, these things can be distressing, but whales cannot interact with humans the same way two humans would, work a full time job, have relationships with humans, and if you stuck them on a couch they would also not be able to move. This all is distressing and perhaps harmful, but then what other option is there? What the humans offer to me as solution is far worse.

I am anti-recovery, at least for myself. I think it is important to ask what does recovery look like? For me recovery would be to return to the water where I belong. But the humans would certainly say otherwise. For them recovery would look like fitting into and functioning within human society - having a job, a house, a car, a husband, kids, going on holiday, etc. I am not a human and I do not wish to be a human and live among them. However what is worse is how the humans would go about fixing that. I have been locked in hospitals, I have been strapped down, I have been sedated, I have been put on horrible meds that destroyed things I cared about and have often left me a shell of a person (there is a reason they were marketed as a chemical lobotomy). Some things I have gotten better in over time, and I can hold a job for the moment, even quite technical and difficult jobs.

However, the damage done to me from the humans was severe. Although I can talk about being a whale as delusion, the why is really far more impactful and distressing in my life. I was taken from the water, turned human, and am a useful thing for the humans. This understanding of myself as merely a tool and something the humans can do whatever they want with me is the real distressing aspect of my life. For me, the ‘help’ I received at the hospital only strengthened and set this delusion in so much firmer. I can look back at certain experiences, I can see the humans don’t have the technology to do what they did to me, but then I also have those years in the hospital, those years where everything was very apparent and clear and something that others can confirm and it seems to only further make plausible the experiences of the past, and those in the present the fear for what the humans will do to me. I know that I am deteriorating, I am struggling more and more, but nothing the humans offer me will make things better, they will only hurt me more, and if I ask for help, and reject it, they will only see it as proof I need the help more and force it onto me, which will only further reinforce that delusion.

If someone wishes to see a doctor and talk about therian things, I do often warn them of caution for what happened to myself and I do not want others hurt that way. I also urge them to think about what they want as the outcome from that discussion or what they hope will happen. A lot of mentally ill people have been hurt by doctors who thought they knew best, and once something is said, it cannot be undone. However, in the end they are free to decide what they will, and are free to navigate the medical system if they think it will benefit them.

For myself, I struggle to believe that doctors would really help me and instead work to help myself and my cetacean friends so that maybe someday we could swim again and swim forever. That we can fix ourselves and heal. That in time the deep scars across our bodies might start to fade and look like the scars of other captive cetaceans. That instead of surviving merely trying to please the humans to not be hurt, that we might actually -live- and have the life we were denied.

We are still people with agency, agency to choose our own path, to choose what brings us joy, to decide what we want from life, and from our healthcare. Or at least we should be granted that agency. We should not be excluded from the community or forced to dance around our experiences as not real for the comfort of others who happen to lie on the other side of the sane-delusional line, afterall the positioning of that line is very arbitrary and could easily swing to find yourself on my side of that line.

~ Kala

#therian #therian discourse #clinical zoanthropy #clinical lycanthropy #clcz #therianthropy #actually schizophrenic #physical nonhuman #physical therian #reality checking #tw reality checking #tw delusions #tw mentions of abuse #kala discussion

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snowyh2o · 10 months ago

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Just a random thought about how Alastor and Vox must’ve been really good friends before everything fell apart. Because Alastor knows how to make a video ad, he knows how to set things up for a movie/video shoot, things that had nothing to do with his medium, that he probably learned how to do because of Vox, because he was willing to try and learn from or for Vox. And Vox literally welcomes Alastor back home when he finds out he’s returned, has literally counted the years Alastor’s been missing when no one else seemed to know, and fashioned his clothing style to match Alastor’s (assuming it’s not just a case of everyone gets a pinstripe suit!), uses the same techniques Alastor taught Charlie about how smiling can be a tool to keep you ahead of the game.

And how it all fell apart and it wasn’t just Vox that was hurt in the process. Because you can’t tell me the man who hates TVs and modern tech due to its association with Vox doesn’t feel anything for what friendship they had and lost. Who snarls at the mere sight of him on a screen (admittedly while also dissing Alastor), who went straight back to his radio tower to diss Vox right back (and absolutely crush him lol), before threatening him against taking action, privately, twice. Alastor’s just better at hiding how much it’s affected him, and doesn’t let the bitterness of what used to be consume his every waking thought.

And maybe that’s the difference between how they view their old relationship and how the fandom seems to view it. Alastor’s upset about it, sure. He’s bitter now about Vox and everything Vox represents because he’s a past friendship that failed, but he’s also moved on with his life. Vox hasn’t. Vox still obsesses over Alastor, in the way he dresses, the way he talks, how he presents himself. It’s all reminiscent of Alastor. And when he finds out Alastor’s returned, the first thing he does is draw attention to how Alastor’s back! Talk in a roundabout way about how much he’s missed him! Has wondered where he’s been? Sends a spy into the hotel to, well, spy on Alastor! And when that doesn’t work, Vox continues to stalk Alastor through his drones instead. (And then gets off on seeing Alastor get beat up.)

Vox very much has not moved on from whatever friendship they’d had before. He hasn’t moved on from Alastor. (Or from his heavily implied obsessive crush).

We don’t know what happened between them, aside that it’s complicated and sad, that they were friends, and now they’re very much not, and that maybe part of the reason why is because Alastor rejected Vox’s request to join his team (upend his entire life to partner with Vox, assuming Alastor always worked solo and what the Vees currently have is what Vox had wanted with Alastor with his request). We can assume maybe part of why they fell apart was because Vox wanted something more from his relationship with Alastor, something Alastor could not and did not want to give him. Or maybe they just grew apart, grew distant. Vox constantly upgrading and changing and keeping up with the newest trends, chasing whatever new Thing that’ll keep him relevant, while Alastor remained set in his ways because he’s not looking for the approval of the masses.

Anyways, all this to say: when I, and I assume most other OneWayBroadcast fans talk about one-sided radiostatic, it is specifically about how Vox has a one-sided romantic/sexual attraction/crush on Alastor, that Alastor does not return, that has now turned into a one-sided obsession over Alastor. Not that their entire friendship was completely one-sided. I think saying that Vox was the only one who was ever invested in their relationship is a rather bad faith interpretation of Alastor’s character, but also does not do their relationship justice at all. It minimizes Vox’s responsibility in the fallout of their friendship, and puts the blame only on Alastor. It takes away all the juicy complexities of Vox’s character, how he’s bad person who’s done and is doing bad things, and paints him as an innocent victim to “Alastor’s manipulation”.

That’s not to say Alastor was completely innocent in the fallout either. But I hear a lot more about how the fandom woobifies Vox in their relationship than I do Alastor.

#hazbin hotel #alastor hazbin hotel #alastor #Vox #vox hazbin hotel #Alastor analysis #Alastor meta #hazbin hotel analysis #hazbin hotel meta #radiostatic #onesided radiostatic #onewaybroadcast #<- tagging those because it’s mentioned though the post isn’t about the ship #Aroace alastor #aromantic alastor #asexual Alastor #<- mentioned #am I vagueing something I saw in the Aroace Alastor tag? maybe #but this is something I’ve seen and heard from other people elsewhere #about how only Vox cared and Alastor was just ‘manipulating’ him #and other bad faith interpretations of Alastor’s character #I’m sorry if someone moving on from past relationships makes them an irredeemable monster to you #but Vox’s feelings are not Alastor’s responsibility #it’s on Vox and Vox alone to deal with it #that he’s chosen to obsess over it instead of moving on and getting together with Val #is alllllll Vox

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munson-blurbs · 3 months ago

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BUUUG oh my god i also watched wicked last weekend and i literally have not moved on 😭 i haven’t listened to ANYTHING else aside from the soundtrack and it got me thinking.............theater girlie reader performing i’m not that girl and absolutely nailing the song because she’s actually pining over eddie 🥲 (i also relate to the song because jonathan bailey isn’t in love with me lmao)

Did somebody say...Wicked and pining? I'm in.

Warnings: idiots in love, dual POV, light angst, mutual pining, happily ever after, I don't know what year this takes place in because Wicked opened in 2003 but there's nothing indicating modern!Eddie

WC: 3.5k

Divider credit to @strangergraphics

It wasn’t love at first sight for Eddie. It was love at first sound.

He was cleaning up after Hellfire on a rainy Friday afternoon, determined to race home and check the sofa cushions for change so he could order a pizza. If all else failed, he could always dip into his primary income source, kept locked tight in his lunchbox.

Hellfire Club continued to be the best part of his week, as it had been since he’d joined six years ago as a gawky freshman, but there was something comforting about the stillness after everyone else had left. Sometimes Eddie didn’t get that privilege—especially when he was tasked with giving Henderson a ride home. The kid wouldn’t shut up if his life depended on it. But today, he reveled in the peace while he placed the game pieces back in their box.

He barely registered the small commotion in the adjoining auditorium as you took the stage and began your vocal warmups. You couldn’t take any chances of straining your voice; not when your years of hard work and dedication to the Drama Club finally paid off.

You trilled to the top of your register before taking it back down, repeating it over and over until you felt ready to practice. Ready to become Elphaba Thropp.

You were wholly unaware that Eddie Munson stood just on the other side of the wall, whistling a Black Sabbath song under his breath. Maybe that was good, considering your ridiculous crush on him. Like he’d ever notice you—a theatre nerd who never stepped out of line. You certainly weren’t one of the cheerleaders he constantly tried to impress.

There was no mistaking the way he blushed and stammered around Chrissy Cunningham, playing with a few strands of his curls as he shamelessly flirted with her. You could deny that the sight of it all turned your stomach, but everyone and their mother would know it was a lie.

A relationship—even a friendship—between you and Eddie would never manifest naturally. You didn’t have many classes together, and it wasn’t like he showed up to them anyway. Rumor had it that he and Chrissy only started talking because she bought weed from him, but the idea of meeting up with him in the woods, alone, overwhelmed you. And Eddie Munson definitely didn’t frequent the school plays.

You thought about this now, the way you would never measure up to the girls he wanted to be with. Closing your eyes, you inhaled deeply and let the emotions course through you.

Frustration—towards yourself for harboring a crush on someone so unattainable.

Envy—of Chrissy Cunningham, who happened to be playing Galinda, and the other cheerleaders who didn’t even have to try to get his attention.

Dejection—because though Eddie had never outright rejected you, each day that you continued slipping under his radar twisted your heart more.

You took it all and put it into the song.

Hands touch, eyes meet Sudden silence, sudden heat Hearts leap in a giddy whirl He could be that boy But I’m not that girl

Eddie was deciding whether to splurge for the meat-lovers pizza or stick with just pepperoni when he heard the voice of an angel coming from next door.

Don’t dream too far Don’t lose sight of who you are Don’t remember that rush of joy He could be that boy I’m not that girl

His ears pricked up. Who was that? He’d been at this school for six years, and he thought he knew everybody.

He rushed over to the adjacent wall, body moving faster than his brain. One sneakered foot caught on the leg of his Dungeon Master throne, sending him tumbling to the ground. In a moment of desperation, Eddie grabbed for the closest object in his vicinity—a mannequin, clad in a Captain Hook costume from last semester’s production of Peter Pan. It came tumbling down along with him, both hitting the ground with an unmistakable thump.

The voice stopped singing mid-verse.

“Shit,” Eddie grumbled, picking himself up and brushing the dust off of his ripped jeans. He waited for a moment, then another, in hopes that the song would resume.

But there was only silence. Once cherished, but now a punishment for his own clumsiness.

I should go over and apologize. He dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came. Except…what if it was just a coincidence? What if she didn’t hear any of that? I’ll look like a total moron.

Instead, Eddie continued cleaning up, hoping the pink flush staining his cheeks would fade by the time he left school.

Every so often we long to steal To the land of—

A crash cut you off, your gaze flicking from the pretend audience to the stage door. Who was sticking around school on a Friday afternoon?

I should make sure they’re okay.

You started towards the door, stopping in your tracks when a sinking thought washed over you. What if the person had made noise purposely so I’d stop singing? What if I check on them and they tell me that I suck? I’ll look pathetic.

Fighting back a cringe at the notion of being humiliated, you scooped up your backpack and hurried out of the auditorium.

Practice would have to wait until Monday.

Eddie tried to hide his newfound fascination with the mystery girl who sang her way into his heart. Week after week, he insisted on cleaning up after Hellfire alone on the off chance he’d hear her rehearsing.

But after that first time, there was nothing. Not a single note. Sure, other people used the auditorium to practice, but none of them were her.

It was a rainy Friday when she finally returned. The weather—torrential storms all day—meant that Dustin would not be walking home. He begged Eddie to drive him, insisting that if his mom picked him up, she would thoroughly humiliate him.

Having met Claudia Henderson on multiple occasions, Eddie could attest to that statement’s truthfulness.

And while having Dustin around to clean up after Hellfire wasn’t a bad thing, he filled the room with incessant chatter and expected Eddie to respond.

Eddie, however, was in a world of his own, losing himself in the somber lyrics and trying to tune out whatever the freshman was blathering on about.

Every so often we long to steal To the land of what-might-have-been

“And then her dad took away her computer! All because she helped me change one measly grade!”

But that doesn't soften the ache we feel When reality sets back in

“I mean, it’s completely unfair. Her siblings are batshit crazy and he can’t be bothered to care. But Suzie lies, probably for the first time in her life—”

“Henderson, can you just shut up for two seconds?!” Eddie hissed through clenched teeth, his nostrils flaring. His gaze softened slightly when he saw the shock and hurt on his friend’s face. “Sorry, man, I’m just…”

“Christ,” Dustin scoffed, regaining his composure. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”

Eddie cinched the dice drawstring bag closed, not making eye contact with Dustin. “Nothing. Just tired. Long week,” he added lamely.

Blithe smile, lithe limb She who's winsome, she wins him Gold hair with a gentle curl That's the girl he chose And Heaven knows I'm not that girl

Dustin noticed the way a smile tugged at the corners of Eddie’s scowl. A knowing grin spread across his face.

“Why, Mr. Eddie. Look at you,” he said, donning a posh accent. “You’re lovesick.”

“W-What?” Eddie sputtered.

Dustin rolled his eyes. “It’s a play on a quote from Wicked.” When the older boy kept his nose wrinkled in confusion, he continued with a huff. “Wicked. That’s the show the Drama Club is doing. That’s where the song is from.”

“Oh.” Eddie shook his head. “Yeah, it’s a, uh, a nice song.”

He fidgeted with his rings, spinning the skull around his finger until perspiration built up beneath the band.

“Maybe we should see the show.” Dustin hoisted himself up onto the table, letting his legs dangle. “Y’know, actually watch your lady love on stage rather than secretly creep on her.”

“First of all,” Eddie pointed a finger at him, “she is not my ‘lady love.’ I don’t even know who she is. For all I know, it’s Jason Carver with a killer falsetto.”

The notion, while ridiculous, was the only way he could stifle the butterflies fluttering in his stomach at the term ‘lady love.’

“A possibility. Or,” Dustin countered, “she’s the love of your life, waiting just beyond this pesky wall for you to sweep her off of her talented feet.”

To his credit, Eddie considered the idea for a full second before shaking his head. Metalhead, music snob Eddie Munson watching the school musical? If anyone saw him there, he’d never live it down.

Dustin, however, was relentless. The boy had a litany of tricks up his Weird Al shirtsleeve.

“Well, I’m gonna go. My friend Robin is in the band. I wonder who else will be there?” He tapped his finger against his chin, feigning ponderance. “Oh, that’s right! Steve Harrington. You remember Steve, right? Great hair, great with the ladies…maybe he’ll even talk to your ‘friend.’”

Eddie’s blood boiled in his veins. Harrington showing up and being your knight in shining armor, parading around town with you on his arm—

“Fine. I’ll go.” Eddie grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “But you keep that jockstrap with a toupee away from her, got it?”

“Alright, alright. Jeez.” Dustin put his hands up in surrender. “No need to be so testy, Nessarose.”

Eddie wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.

Opening night.

You didn’t allow yourself to peek out behind the stage curtain for fear of someone seeing you in your green makeup, but if the loud chatter emanating from the audience was any indication, it seemed to be a full house.

Fred Benson came backstage a few moments later, wearing his stage manager headset and a huge grin. “We’re sold out!” He waited for the cheering from your fellow cast-mates to die down before announcing: “Places in five.”

Five minutes. Five measly minutes until you became Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West.

And if that wasn’t enough to send nerves spiraling through you, the next sentence you overheard certainly did:

“Eddie Munson is here?!”

No. No, no, no.

“Are you serious? I thought he only listened to shit that makes your ears bleed.”

Whatever stage fright you’d already been battling paled in comparison to what you currently felt. Eddie Munson, the man who unknowingly served as your muse for unrequited love, was sitting in the audience.

When Chrissy Cunningham laughed behind you, it all became clear. He was here for her. He wanted to watch her flit across the stage, tossing her blonde hair and waving a magic wand.

Well, at least you’d barely have to act when Galinda got the man Elphaba pined after.

Eddie sat straight up in his seat when the lights dimmed, clutching the bouquet of roses close to his lap. He didn’t want to risk putting them on the floor and stepping on them, so he did his best to hold them in place without constantly crinkling the cellophane.

They weren’t anything special–he’d gotten them from the refrigerated display case at Bradley’s Big Buy–but he hoped they were enough.

Chrissy came onstage first, wearing a poofy baby blue ball gown and a sparkling tiara. Eddie’s stomach flipped. Was Chrissy the girl he’d heard singing? No, she couldn’t have been. Her voice sounded nothing like the mystery girl. Chrissy’s voice was light and airy, like a princess. The other voice had a slight heaviness to it, like it held some pain.

So…not Chrissy. Good to know, but that still left him with more questions than answers.

He clapped when the audience clapped, pretending to focus on the plot while actually scouring the stage for clues. Maybe she was one of the chorus members; that would definitely make it more difficult to pick her out…

Resignedly, he sat back, summoning every ounce of music training he’d acquired over the years to pick out the sound of her voice among the crowd.

Nothing.

“This is bull—” he started to grumble to Dustin, but then his gaze fell upon someone…green. Even covered head-to-toe in pure stage makeup, her beauty shone through.

Eddie just sat there, fully entranced. He didn’t want to allow himself to believe that this was the girl—because if she wasn’t the one he’d been obsessing over, then he was totally screwed.

Please, he silently prayed, please let this be her.

Please, you silently prayed, don’t let Eddie be here.

Though you willed yourself to keep your eyes on that dark spot in the back of the auditorium, you couldn’t help but scan the audience for him.

And there he was, sitting between Steve Harrington and one of the freshmen who followed him around the school like a little sheep. He had a dopey grin on his face and roses in his lap.

Roses, you realized, that he’d present to Chrissy as he held her and congratulated her on an incredible performance—

Focus. You shedded your own skin at the stage door and took on Elphaba’s green hue, and you needed to act like her, not you. And her first song was upbeat and hopeful. Heartbrokenness would have to wait.

She sang. After what seemed like endless dialogue between her and the teacher—Ms. Horrible? He couldn’t remember, nor did he particularly care—she sang.

And from that first note, Eddie knew.

It’s her.

He almost didn’t want to believe it. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe it, because how could someone be so beautiful and talented? No, this must be someone who sounded similar, but the girl who sang that melancholy song would be someone else. Someone he didn’t feel wholly inadequate when he approached her.

“Shh!” Someone hissed behind him. Only then did he realize that he was flexing his hand around the rose stems, the cellophane crackling under his tight grasp.

Eddie muttered an apology, never taking his eyes off of the stage. God, she was breathtaking. He could practically hear her calling his name:

Eddie…Eddie…

“Eddie!” Steve’s annoyed voice snapped Eddie out of his stupor. “Move your foot, man!”

Eddie looked down to see that he was sitting at the edge of his seat, legs spread far enough to nudge Steve’s sneaker with his own. He quickly composed himself, hoping the dark auditorium masked his pink cheeks.

“What the hell is his deal?” Steve whispered to Dustin.

The younger boy shrugged. “Pretty sure he’s in love with the girl who plays the witch. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

Eddie barely heard the exchange, too wrapped up in the way the notes seem to float from Elphaba’s lips, ethereal in nature. Normally when he listened to showtunes—which wasn’t very often, but his uncle was partial to his Annie Get Your Gun record—he would pass the time thinking about how he could rearrange the song to fit a more metal vibe.

But for the first time in a long time, metal is the last thing on his mind. He wants to know more of Elphaba’s story, how she went from a shy college student to one of the most well-known villains in cinematic history. The rest of the world had gone quiet, like a background noise he easily ignored.

The few scenes without Elphaba were torturous enough, but Eddie soon realized that there was something even worse than that. Someone, actually.

Fiyero Tigelaar.

He watched the man in a makeshift Shiz University clutching the stuffed lion toy, already sensing some sort of romantic tension between him and Elphaba. There was no denying the way Eddie’s body tensed when a green hand rested on the man’s cheek, so loving and tender.

As if sensing his friend’s inner turmoil, Dustin turned slightly and whispered, “don’t worry. Rumor has it that he’s more into Boq, if you catch my drift.”

That information allowed Eddie to relax a little, but only for a moment before Elphaba began singing again.

Hands touch, eyes meet Sudden silence, sudden heat

“That’s the song,” Dustin announced to Steve.

Steve nodded, offering a smirk. “So that must be the girl.”

Body wrought with emotion, you could only hope you could stave off the tears until you got offstage. It would be almost impossible to cry and remain on-key, especially given just how low you–not Elphaba–truly felt.

Blithe smile, lithe limb She who's winsome, she wins him Gold hair with a gentle curl That's the girl he chose And Heaven knows I'm not that girl

You could get through this. It was no secret that you weren’t Eddie’s type. The girl he chose would be Chrissy Cunningham or someone like her, not the dorky theatre girl who only came out of her shell while performing.

Don't wish, don't start

Wishing only wounds the heart I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl There's a girl I know He loves her so I'm not that girl

No, you were definitely not that girl. That girl was backstage, touching up her makeup and probably giggling about the flowers she’d receive from her metalhead crush.

The applause might have been thunderous; it might have been completely silent. You didn’t know. All you could think about was getting off the stage before you got another glimpse of Eddie and the stupid bouquet he was giving to Chrissy.

The rest of the show was spectacular. Maybe you were a bit biased, considering you were the lead, but it couldn’t have gone any better if you’d tried. You’d even managed to stay in character, keeping your focus on your scene partners rather than the man in the audience who held your heart.

You couldn’t wash off the green makeup fast enough, an arduous process that your castmates thankfully expedited with a plethora of baby wipes and makeup remover. Despite everyone’s best efforts, your face and hands remained tinged with a green hue. You supposed you’d look like that for a few days after the show closed.

“Excuse me?”

You turned around, still in costume, to see Eddie Munson now standing before you. The two of you were alone, the rest of the cast having cleaned up before you did.

“I think Chrissy’s with her friends,” you blurted out.

“Oh. Cool.” Confusion creased his brows for a second before he continued. “You did, um, an amazing job tonight. Seriously, I was just…wow. I never knew being anti-establishment could sound so beautiful.”

You smiled, fiddling with a stray black thread on your dress. “Thanks. Elphaba really is a badass.”

“Yeah.” Eddie’s eyes flicked over your face. He noticed you looking at the flowers in his arms. “Oh, shit–these are for you. I hope you like them and you’re not, like, allergic or anything.” He shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “Maybe I should’ve gotten poppies instead, since, y’know…that was Elphaba’s thing.”

“I love them!” Too enthusiastic. Well, at least you didn’t say you loved him. “You didn’t have to get me anything, though. I’m just glad you liked the show.” Timidly, you admitted, “I’m kind of surprised to see you at the school musical, honestly.”

He scratched at the back of his neck. “Can I level with you for a sec?” When you nodded, he sighed. “I didn’t even know the school was doing a musical. I’m only here because I heard you practicing from the Hellfire room, and my friend told me about the show.”

You froze. Did you hear him correctly? Eddie was here because of you? Because he wanted to meet you?

“I wasn’t expecting you to be so green,” he added with a nervous laugh.

You quirked up an eyebrow. “You weren’t expecting the Wicked Witch of the West to be green? Please tell me you’ve seen The Wizard of Oz.”

“Of course I have! It’s a classic. I just didn’t know what Wicked was about.” He raked a hand through his curls. “Anyway, if you’re not busy tonight, I was hoping you might want to hang out? Maybe go to Benny’s and split some cheese fries?”

Your heart skipped a beat. “Y-Yeah! I love fries. And cheese.” You cleared your throat, trying to ward off the embarrassment. “Let me just get out of this costume and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Cool. I’ll go tell my friends to fuck off or whatever.” Eddie smiled, shaking his hair out of his beautiful brown eyes. He started towards the door before half-turning to add,

“And, by the way, you look beautiful even when you’re green.”

#eddie munson #eddie munson stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #stranger things #fanfic #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson angst

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cheolaholic · 3 months ago

Text

ring of love; csc (09)

summary; agreeing to join vernon spectate an underground boxing match wasn't how you'd expect to spend your friday night. you also didn't expect to see seungcheol, someone you've lost contact with for years, become a part of the ring.

modern! au • boxer! au • hhu focused • multiple kinds of tropes • fluff, angst, smut

chapter warnings: stalking, creep behaviour, reader receives an inappropriate package, mentions of Richard Ramirez, mentions of a threesome.

a/n;; AND WE ARE BACK TO UPLOADING BABY!! Have an early Christmas Gift <33

Something feels… off – that was the best way you could put it. A few months have passed since you started your part-time job at the cafe, but you can’t help but shake off a sense of uneasiness. You couldn’t really put a finger on it, but it’s as though someone was watching you; maybe even following you.

You feel a pair of eyes wherever you go around campus, sometimes even up to the front door of your apartment’s main entrance. It can’t have been Seungcheol or either of the boys because while Mingyu and Vernon had done an absolute shit job at “keeping a close eye” on you; you knew they would never go to such lengths to cause you such discomfort.

“Nonnie?”

“‘Sup?”

You were both sitting in the cafeteria with Vernon halfway through his food while you were poking at the sad excuse of a meatloaf. “What would you do if you felt as though someone is following you everywhere?” Vernon’s ears perked at the implication that you may be dealing with a stalker, becoming alert as he gave you his attention. “Have you seen the guy?” he asked, growing worried when you shook your head.

“When did it start?”

You shift a little in your seat, “I don’t know… Maybe a few weeks after getting that job at the cafe?”

Vernon frowns. He knew you were pretty, hell, that was the reason why several boys from his major came up to him to try and get your number. He’d always reject, saying that he wasn’t comfortable giving out your number so easily; or that if they wanted your number, they should grow a pair of balls and ask you themselves. But, he’d never think that someone would go as far as stalking you.

“Have you told Seungcheol about this?”

“He… He’s still avoiding me…” you mutter sadly, “I mean, yeah, he does reply to my texts and he even gave me the study materials I needed for my exams; but… y’know, he’s still being avoidant…”

‘Damn… It’s been months and he’s still hung up on that wet dream.’

“But, he should at least know this is going on, right?”

You shake your head again. You recall the many times Seungcheol has gotten you out of trouble, or gotten himself into trouble for you while growing up. While he brushes it off as something he’d do for you in a heartbeat, you can’t help but feel as though you were burdening him. You remembered there was one time you had accidentally broken one of his mother’s China, you were maybe 10 years-old?

Your parents had gone on a short business trip to New York and thus, you stayed with the Chois. You had accidentally bumped into a chair and the plate fell out of your grasp. Seungcheol took the blame for you, telling his parents he wasn’t looking when he set the table. He had gotten an earful from his parents, telling him he should’ve been more careful because the broken shards could’ve hurt you.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Cheollie? I-It was my fault, why are you–”

“I know, pup. But, whatever trouble you might get in, I’ll always bail you out, yeah?”

“But–”

“No ‘buts’, pup. I’ll protect you no matter how big or small the mess is.”

“Look, ___, I don’t know what’s making you think you’re a liability,” Vernon pauses to take a sip of his orange juice, “Because based on my observation, Jesus, I sound like Wonwoo hyung now… But, based on my observation, he’s more than willing to do anything for you. Study materials, late night snacks, emergency pad runs – he never says no to you.”

When you suggest that he may be doing it because he feels a sense of responsibility towards you, that he’s spent a majority of his life looking out for you; thus he’s compelled to do so even when you’re an adult, Vernon dismisses it immediately. “Look, I’ve seen Seungcheol hyung with some of the girls he’s dated. Sure, he does the usual boyfriend duties but, I don’t think he’s ever been as doting on them as he is with you.”

You look back down at your uneaten cafeteria food, feeling your appetite leave the more you stare at it. “You aren’t a liability, ___. Cheol cares for you like you mean the world to him.” You sigh as you set the fork down, pushing the tray of food away from you. “Maybe I’ll tell him if things go too far… You know any good food spots that’s still affordable? The cafeteria food today is just… nasty… I don’t know how you managed to eat this?”

“Oh, you got the meatloaf surprise,” he answers and motions you to follow him, “I usually go for the chicken katsu or jjajangmyeon! Not the best, but they’re sure as hell better than the meatloaf.”

“Speaking from experience, I presume?”

“Girlie, I had the worst food poisoning in my entire life! Anyways, have you heard of this Open Mic the school’s planning to host?”

“This assignment requires you to work in pairs,” your professor announced, “And, I’ve done you all a favour by choosing your partners for you.”

The class groans, you included as you cross your fingers and beg the Academic Gods to give you a reliable partner. “I understand that you’d all don’t want to get paired with someone whose work ethic you aren’t familiar with, but believe me when I say that it wouldn’t kill you to work with others.”

You continue to chant your prayers quietly as she begins to read out the names. “Lee ___ and Lee Chan.”

You let out a sigh of relief. You’ve worked with Chan for a group project while you were both freshmen and you’ve mentally noted him as one of the more reliable classmates. Though, your course doesn’t require you to do much group projects so that freshmen project was the first and last time you’ve interacted with, until now that is. Chan gently knocks the empty desk space next to you to pull you out of your train of thought.

“___, right?” he asked, a big smile on his lips as he took a seat next to you, “We were in that one project two years ago, right?”

You let out a small laugh, “That’s me and yes, we were.”

“I’ve seen you around campus with Hansol and a few other seniors! You work at that cafe near campus too, right? How’s the job treating you?”

‘That’s… a lot of questions…’ you think to yourself. But, you politely answered his question anyway. You tell him how you never knew cafes put so much sugar in their drinks until you started working, leading you to order your drinks with less sugar. “The pastries are freshly baked, too! I don’t know where news or rumours of them being leftovers or stored overnight came from, but they aren’t.”

You notice how Chan leans in slightly, his eyes scanning your face.

“Y’know, you’re actually prettier up close.”

His statement… To say it weirded you out would be an understatement – you were creeped the fuck out. Could he be the guy that’s been giving you the heebie-jeebies as of late? You sure hope so, or maybe not. But, either way, you tried to brush off the anxiety that’s beginning to rise in your chest.

“T-Thanks…?”

Chan opens up his laptop, tapping on a few keys on the keyboard and moments later, you receive a small text from the chatroom of the platform your school uses. “I sent you a link to a Google Doc! We could just write out our parts and brainstorm how we can link them together once we’re done!”

You nod your head, clicking into the link.

“Do you live nearby, ___?”

“Mmm… No, I actually commute to school. Occasionally, Vernon would pick me up from Sujeong Central since it’s a five minute walk from my apartment.”

It takes you a moment to realise you’ve just exposed your residential address. When Chan asks if it’d be okay to go back to your place to discuss the assignment, you reject immediately. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude or harsh,” you explained, “I’m just uncomfortable with having people I’m not familiar or close with over at my house.”

The boy nods in understanding, muttering a small apology before turning his attention to the professor as she explains the assignment.

Mingyu and Wonwoo leaned against the former’s black 2022 Genesis G90. You were working your night shift and the group, excluding Seungcheol, have taken it amongst themselves to be your personal bodyguards. They’d drive you home if you’d work the night shift, wanting to make sure you actually got home safe and not having anyone trailing you.

“Any luck in finding out who this creep could be?” Mingyu asks, looking into the windows of the cafe and returns the small wave you gave him.

“So far, zero,” the older replies, “Whoever this creep is, they’re good at covering their tracks or not being caught.”

“Do you think they’re from our university?”

“Given the location of this cafe, I’d say yes. But, we also have to factor in the dodginess of her residential area.”

“Do you think we’d catch this guy? I honestly hate seeing ___ getting so worked up over this…”

“We just need more time.”

Lost in their conversation, the two men failed to notice you picking up a box on one of the cafe tables. There was a printed paper stuck on it, stating that it was a little gift addressed to you. You thought it was cute, a customer having a crush on their barista like in the movies or books you’ve read. But, when you opened it – it was far from a romantic gesture. Mingyu noticed you frozen in place, a look of fear on your face as you stared into the box in your hand.

Nudging Wonwoo, they entered the cafe and approached you to ask what was wrong. When the older male peeks into the box, he immediately grabs it to set it aside. “Do you remember who sat here?” he asks.

You shook your head. It had been a busy day and with the amount of customers coming in and out, the crowd just blended in together; and why would you remember the face of a random stranger?

Mingyu continues to comfort you as the older begin to examine the contents of the box – several pictures of you around campus and in the cafe were printed out, alongside a pair of… men’s underwear. ‘With men like these existing, it’s no wonder why women choose bears,’ he thinks to himself, remembering the hot internet debate a few months prior.

“Do you still want to go home?” he asks as closes the box, “I’ll hold onto these until we catch the bastard.”

When you shake your head, they suggest you stay over at their place for the time being. “Are you sure? I mean, that’s nice of you both to offer me that, but I don’t want to –”

“Mingyu hasn’t been bringing girls in since hell week of his semester started,” Wonwoo adds, allowing you to resume your closing shift, “He’s cleared up his schedule too, so you’re safe from hearing two or more models having sex.”

“And, what about you?” you questioned, “I remember Cheollie mentioning you both had a threesome before.”

The man only shrugs, “Only if I feel like it. I’m either studying, gaming or streaming the majority of the time.”

“Well… If it’s safer, then I suppose I’ll take you both up on that offer. But, I don’t have any spare clothes… Should I head back home to get them?”

Mingyu mentions some of the models he slept with left their undergarments and several clothes behind. “Some of them could be your size, plus you can keep them too!”

“Wouldn’t they want them back?”

“Nah, a lot of it has been sitting in my closet for years now.”

“And, they’re loaded – they could just buy another one.”

Given how many girls Mingyu would have over, it’s no surprise that their apartments would have feminine hygiene products. But, it does surprise you to see how expensive the products were. “Oh, a majority of the models I know and fool around with only use luxury or high class brands.”

“And you bought it just for them?”

“Believe me, ___,” Wonwoo hands you a cup of tea, “If Mingyu isn’t shoving his dick into every female model he finds attractive, he’d be a good boyfriend.”

They lead you into a spare room, letting you get comfortable before they start going over the details of the creep that’s been giving you trouble. “My bet is on that Lee Chan you’re partnered with,” Mingyu says as he takes a seat next to you on the bed, Wonwoo asking him why as he takes a seat on the empty gaming chair at the desk.

“I mean, if you think about it, he said you were much prettier up close; which is already creepy in and of itself. Plus, he asked if you lived nearby and if he could go back to your place to work on the assignment!”

“On one hand, that’s a fair point; but maybe the kid is just a loser in a cute boy’s body that doesn’t know how to talk to girls, too. He probably lacks some kind of social cues.”

“Are you defending a creep’s actions now, Woo?”

“Jesus, Mingyu, I’m only giving the kid the benefit of the doubt.”

When you tell them that it’s unlikely Chan is your stalker, Wonwoo is quick to end that train of thought. “___, I’m only giving Chan the benefit of the doubt. But, that doesn’t mean he’s off the hook just yet, considering the things he’s said to you.”

“But, he looks like a sweet guy!”

He raises an eyebrow, “Just because he looks like a sweet guy, doesn’t mean he’s actually a sweet guy.”

“Yeah, like that Night Stalker dude from L.A.,” Mingyu chimes in, “Think his name was Richard Ra… Ramuda? Ramida?”

“Richard Ramirez.”

“Yeah, him! Sure, he’s got some looks, but dude’s a literal murderer! Hell, I can’t believe people would want to bang him!”

“I mean… I would fuck ghostface if given the chance…” you mutter under your breath, getting a judgemental look from the model. Thankfully, Wonwoo justified your statement. “I’m with her on that ghostface statement. It’s a niche market or target audience, it has its appeal.”

“You’re both freaks, but at least that’s a fictional character. Moving on from both of your masked people's kinks, ___, I think it’s best you let Seungcheol know about this.”

You insisted on not telling Seungcheol, continuing with the whole not wanting to be a liability defence and that you were a big girl now; you can handle yourself just fine! No matter how hard the two men tried to persuade you, you wouldn’t budge. For a brief moment, Mingyu could’ve sworn he saw Seungcheol inside you because he too shared the same stubbornness. Realising they can’t get you to change your mind, the men gave up and bid you goodnight.

“You can stay here for as long as you’d like!” the model tells you, “Maybe, even forever!”

Wonwoo scoffs, “As if Seungcheol would let her.”

gamerwoo: hey hyung cheol: sup gamerwoo: ___ would kill me if she found out i told you this gamerwoo: but just a heads up gamerwoo: she’s got a stalker gamerwoo: will let you know when you need to step in

taglist (unable to tag a few ㅠㅠ)

@yoonclip @1004luvangel @catjunhui @mystikha @spk93 @tinkerbell460 @yoozuku @dnylwooo @christinewithluv @limbomoon @plutoxxxworld @i-give-up-1234 @m1ngyuc0re @yunloyal @leclercloverbot @bettybeako @billboard-singer @ocyeanicc @krupyadoorrahe @seobinnieshi @xcynthiaaa @k411z @disneyprincesshuri @sunnyapp @khxsh @staygenezy @loufi8iepuff @ursweetener @noisypapergalaxy @wonwootakemyheart @sugainpinksweater @leah-rose03 @thisisnotthelastofus @yearnoclock @kwonhoeshi @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @ru-lin @deobiforever @belladaises @cheoliekkuma @duskunt1ldawn @hyneyedfiz @marshmallowshouse @ak6ko @chwevernonlover @jejuboo-s @tsukinluv @atinytinaa @gyros-cum-sock @soupbinlily @jungwoos-luvr @ener-energy @watermelon-sugars-things @cyberpunkhwx @ddaengpotate @nightwingsrobbinhoods @chaerrylov3r @joshuaahong @wonussmile @uliceeeeeeee @wonwoo24 @shinetogether17 @simplejihoon @luvkpopp @minhui896

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mesetacadre · 5 months ago

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Hey do you think you could watch and give your throughts on youtuber Jonas Čeika video "marx was not a statist"?

Thank you

Quite honestly, the title alone already betrays some amount of anarchist metaphysics, the concept of stateism is a purely idealist notion which only works if you are a liberal about authority. But regardless, I still watched the full thing.

The video starts with a very semantic-focused discourse on how marx never used "socialism" to mean the lower phase of communism, and way too much time on the terms transitionary period/DotP as if they weren't two terms that refer to the same thing. In the case of socialism/lower phase of communism, I think he's obfuscating. He focuses the discussion on whether Marx used a certain term in the same way we do now. This would be like spending a good 5 minutes of a video presenting, with an almost accusatory disposition against modern communists, how the bolsheviks called themselves social-democrats, pretending like the terms haven't simply evolved. He promises an "active engagement with marxist theory" and he starts by arguing semantics. He even acknowledges this possible criticism, but you also then have to defend why that criticism is not valid, instead he acts like merely acknowledging it will make that criticism invalid. I'm also spending this time on this specific point because, later, he also forgets how Marx used the word "socialism".

When he does define the lower stage of communism, he engages in a very mechanic and economicist view, with the simple train of thought: No money (replaced with vouchers) > no capital to accumulate > no classes > no state. I think that just by asking how these vouchers will be regulated and how access to wealth restricted to the use of those vouchers, the conclusion that the substitution of money necessarily leads through that chain to the disappearance of the state becomes, very transparently, downright infantile.

In his point about how the Paris Commune changed Marx's view on the state, he cites excerpts in a very misleading way. The whole point starts by pointing out that, in the preface to the 1872 edition, the experience of the Paris Commune led Marx and Engels to the following analysis: "...the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes". This, along with a disregard of the importance of the specific policy points they outlined in the manifesto, and the importance of absolute centralization, means to him that Marx and Engels, actually, completely disregarded the use of the state on the road to communism. To quote Lenin: "Listen, comrade from Tiflis, one may prevaricate, but one should know the limit...."

What the video doesn't directly address (and although he talks about the text extensively, It's important to cite ideas where they actually come from), is that this quote, although it appeared in the 1872 edition of the manifesto, comes from Civil War in France, a longer text on the Paris Commune. This is a more complete context of that quote that the video never gives [ID in alt text]

That quote is the beginning of a chapter in which Marx describes how the Paris Commune governed itself, and how it broke with the series of revolts that happened throughout the period of feudalism, how the class character of the Commune marked it as the significant event that it is. It is true that the Commune's aspirations for the entire world was for its form to be replicated even in the smallest hamlet, and it may even be true that this influenced Marx to generally reject centralization of the state. However, what the breadtuber obviates throughout the entire video, is that a small state is still a state, and furthermore, that revolutionary strategy is not dictated by what is right or wrong, but by what can be done to advance the cause of the emancipation of the working class. It is one thing to reject the state outright, and another very different thing to acknowledge that it is necessary to take control of the state to emancipate the working class, even if you abstractly oppose the concept of a state. Not only to take control of the state, which is the point of the original quote, it is necessary to create our own worker's state, in whichever form it best suits the concrete reality: "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes". Jonas says that the proletariat should, instead, create "radically democratic working class institutions". These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves.

Instead of understanding that point, he goes even further. Jonas has understood that, by praising the measures taken by the Paris Commune (which, let's remember, failed after two months!), Marx and Engels began to believe that "[the state] is by nature bourgeois". Maybe Jonas started reading Bakunin instead of Marx without realizing, this is perhaps the most liberal and historically illiterate portion of the 30+ minute video essay. Again, comrade from breadtube, one may prevaricate, but one should know the limit. In fact, Marx even says in the same text being discussed: "It is generally the fate of completely new historical creations to be mistaken for the counterparts of older, and even defunct, forms of social life, to which they may bear a certain likeness". The irony needn't be explained.

As if Jonas hadn't misconstrued the text and Marx enough, he shows the quote: "... although there is nothing socialist in them except their tendency...". At first I was unable to find this specific quote in Civil War in France, not in any chapter nor in the footnotes. As it turns out, this quote is not from Civil War in France, as Jonas so succinctly cites it, but from the draft of the text. First, it's simply dishonest to cite such a cherrypicked line from a draft and passing it off as something Marx published.

There might be a myriad of possible reasons why this idea did not make it into the final text, but in order for the audience to correctly follow along, it's necessary for them to know where an idea comes from. Beyond this, which I find misleading enough, the video makes the point that with this line, Marx is clearly differentiating between a dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. But hang on, didn't Jonas spend the first 5 minutes of the video explaining that, in the times of Marx, socialism was understood to be a reformist and petit-bourgeois stance? So, then, how could this out of context, unpublished line be Marx making a distinction between lower-phase communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat? This is the phrase's context [ID in alt text]:

The actual point of this portion is not even related to what Jonas makes it out to be. Here, using "socialist" as another name for utopians, Marx makes the distinction between previous movements of utopians, those socialist sects, and the Paris Commune, because even though their goals, the emancipation of labor, may appear similar, there is nothing socialist [utopian] in them because their means are not utopian, but the beginnings of scientific communism. So, then, not only did Jonas go back on the first point of the video to dunk on the evil stalinists, and not only did he completely remove the context of a phrase by failing to cite properly, but he also failed to even understand the points made in the text he's cherrypicking. Is this what passes for "active engaging with marxist texts" in breadtube?

After this portion, which I still consider the better half of the video, he veers into talking about socialism in one country, first by, again, very blatantly removing important parts of the texts he talks about. The quote he shows, from Principles of Communism, is as follows: "Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone? No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth [...] into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others [...] It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries [...] It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range." It is true that Engels states that communist revolutions cannot be confined to the national scale, but those ommissions hide a lot of nuance that is very relevant to discussing Marx and Engels' positions on the national/international question. This is the full quote [ID in alt text]:

Marx and Engels were unable to completely and correctly analyze the imperialist form of capitalism, which hadn't yet fully crystallized, economically speaking. According to them, since capitalism was the most developed in places like England or France, the proletariat was also more developed, and the socialist revolution would happen first in these places, and propagate outwards. This notion was proved false by both theory (Lenin's imperialism) and by practice. Lenin identified that, as imperialism settled down as the highest stage of capitalism, the imperialist chain could only be broken at the weakest link, which was Russia at the time. I'm insisting on Lenin's theories because Jonas also claims Lenin to the "not statist" camp, and the video very quickly loses any originality by defaulting to the narrative of Stalin betraying Marx and Lenin by rejecting the world-wide revolution in the short-medium term as a pre-requisite for the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat. I think that going more in depth into this will only make this response unnecessary longer, but to end it, I think it's apt to end with a Lenin quote which directly refutes this anti-Lenin betrayal notion:

A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism—about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.

Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world—the capitalist world—attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states. The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic, which will more and more concentrate the forces of the proletariat of a given nation or nations, in the struggle against states that have not yet gone over to socialism. The abolition of classes is impossible without a dictatorship of the oppressed class, of the proletariat. A free union of nations in socialism is impossible without a more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle of the socialist republics against the backward states.

On the Slogan for a United States of Europe, V. I. Lenin (1915)

Overall, I think this video lacks any kind of rigor or respect for the texts discussed. Citations are pretty predominantly misleading or incomplete in some way, he extrapolates fantastical ideas from texts he doesn't appear to understand, and more in general, the way the video is concienved reeks of dogmatism, the arguments overwhelmingly boil down to "Marx said this (according to me), so it must be true". There is no actual engagement with texts, but there isn't even a will to engage with history. Marxism does not end with Marx and Engels, it's a philosophical and political framework that extends beyond the gospel of incomplete quotes. Even if Marx and Engels really did believe such anti-materialist ideas as "the state is bourgeois by nature", it would not change the facts that the history and experiences after the Paris Commune should also have weight in order to reach conclusions.

#ask #anon #seriousposting

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seilnakyle · 24 days ago

Text

rereading some Batman Family (1975) and the way Dick continuously forgets about his poor college girlfriend Lori the second he’s around Babs is so 😭

HE IS A MENACE OH MY GODD 😭 😭 😭

She and Babs seemed to get along fine thankfully, no cat fighting, I can hardly blame her for not trusting HIM around HER tho 😬😗

And it reminds me how it was immediately back on the second Dick was around Babs again in Nightwing Year One, with Babs again gently reminding him to keep things “business”

And it’s funny how people who don’t know what they’re talking about sometimes say they hate Babs for “cheating on Dick with Bruce” something that only happened in a btas comic completely unrelated to main comic canon, when Dick’s tendencies to emotional infidelity have been a canon thing in comics since the 70s. I love Dick and I absolutely reject the idea of him actually being a cheater in a serious relationship (sleeping with Babs while engaged to Kory) but this boy was flirting with and then fully confessing his feelings for Babs while being in a whole relationship in 1975 😭

This is also the reason I can never exactly buy them as “bestie exes” because even when they were broken up, Vicki Vale was talking abt their “Hot unspoken tiger heat” 😳

even though they stayed friends, they never really…stopped being in love. They would continue to pine for each other and continue to speak of and think of each other as “the one that got away” pretty much until they got back together in modern comics.

#just my take #dick grayson #nightwing #barbara gordon #dc comics #dick x babs #dick x barbara #comic talk #comic meta #batman meta #Dc meta #dc comcis #comic panels #batfam #batfamily #my post #batgirl #dickbabs

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sixeyesonathiel · 2 days ago

Text

a guide to ditching the world’s most persistent nerd!

CH03 – you can't flirt your way out of protein deficiency

pairing - nerd!gojo x baddie!reader

summary : gojo satoru has been the bane of your existence since kindergarten. you invited him to play during recess? he chose studying instead. you tried to give him chocolates? he rejected them for the sake of your dental health. you called him boring and never looked back.

years later, you’re a party girl with daddy issues, and he's the smartest, richest, greenest green flag at your elite university. when you're paired up for a project worth 60% of your final grade, you think you can slack off—except gojo keeps finding you at every exclusive club, dragging you back to work like the menace he is.

you flirt to distract him, he humors you. you push, he pulls. you seduce, he tucks your hair behind your ear and looks at you like you're the most precious thing in the world.

oh no.

tags -> modern au, university au, tooth rooting fluff with a side of light angst, unresolved romantic tension, suggestive themes, gojo satoru is a green flag menace, reader has issues, power struggles but gojo is unaware he's in one, forced proximity via group project, reader tries to ditch gojo satoru and fails spectacularly, pining disguised as irritation, rich kids and their rich kid problems, the art of denial, humor (i hope), eventual happy ending

previous | series masterlist | next

chapter summary : step three in ditching the world's most persistent nerd : do not wake up in gojo satoru’s condo. do not let him steal your custom-made designer heels. and absolutely do not, under any circumstances, let him blackmail you with breakfast.

the pillow collides with satoru’s face with a satisfying thud, muffling his startled inhale. for a moment, he remains perfectly still, as if processing the sheer audacity of your assault. then, slow and deliberate, he peels the pillow away, adjusting his glasses with unhurried precision before leveling you with a heavy, unimpressed stare. sunlight filters through the windows, casting sharp edges across his cheekbones, his messy white hair catching the morning light like spun sugar. meanwhile, you are already smoothing the sheets, fingers lazily combing through your hair, entirely unbothered by your own violence. if anything, you look like the picture of elegance, stretching out against the expensive cotton sheets like a pampered house cat.

satoru exhales—not a sigh of frustration, but something closer to amusement, something too composed to be truly exasperated. “good morning to you too, princess.” his voice is dry, lightly teasing, but entirely unshaken, as if being assaulted first thing in the morning is just another tuesday. you narrow your eyes at him, suspicion curling in your chest, irritation already simmering beneath your skin. “i swear if you pulled anything—” your tone is accusatory, sharp, but he only raises a brow, the barest trace of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. “you drooled on my notes,” he deadpans, “if anything, i’m the victim here.”

silence. long. seething. you refuse to acknowledge that piece of information. instead, you inhale, tilting your head as if the past five seconds of conversation never happened.

you shift, swinging your legs over the edge of the bed, only to realize something is missing. a second passes, then another, before it clicks. your heels. your very expensive, very limited-edition, custom-made heels with your initials engraved inside. your stomach twists. your eyes flicker to satoru, sharp with suspicion, and you feel it immediately—the way he knows you’ve figured it out. “…where are my heels?”

satoru takes an obnoxiously slow sip of his milk, because of course he drinks milk—because coffee is too bitter for his celestial tongue. he exhales, gaze flicking toward you, and—without a single ounce of remorse—says, “confiscated.”

your mouth falls open. you blink. “excuse me?”

he hums, completely at ease, swirling the milk in his glass like it’s aged wine. “can’t have you running off before breakfast.”

breakfast? he’s delusional.

you immediately push the blankets aside, scanning the room in a frenzy. where the hell did he put them? you check under the bed, inside the closet, even peek into the ensuite bathroom, but they are nowhere to be found. behind you, satoru leans lazily against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching your efforts with the deepest amusement. “you can look for them,” he muses, voice rich with smug satisfaction. “but statistically speaking, you’ll give up before you actually find them.”

you clench your jaw, seething. statistically speaking, i am going to strangle you.

straightening, you cross your arms, eyes burning into him. “satoru, it’s saturday. you have to let me go.”

he tilts his head, expression unbothered. “do i?”

“yes!” you throw your hands up. “we’re not in class, i have no obligations, and you have no reason to keep me here.”

he hums, feigning thoughtfulness. “mm. incorrect.”

your brows furrow. “incorrect?”

his gaze sharpens, and something in his tone shifts—soft, but steady. “it’s not about keeping you here,” he says, voice smooth, deliberate. he takes another sip of his drink, placing the glass down with a quiet clink. “it’s about preventing you from running off to make another irresponsible decision.”

your arms tighten around yourself. your nails dig into your skin. “what irresponsible decision?”

he lifts a single finger, all patience, all calculation. “the one where you ignore our project, go out drinking, and pretend like the deadline doesn’t exist.”

your nostrils flare. “i wasn’t—”

his second finger goes up. “the one where you text me at two a.m. saying ‘i’ll make up for it, pinky promise’ and then disappear for another twenty-four hours.”

your mouth opens, then closes.

his third finger lifts. “the one where—”

“okay!” you snap, hands flying up in frustration. “i get it.”

he smiles then, all smug victory and soft amusement, sipping his stupid milk. “thought so.”

whatever. if you’re going to be stuck here, you might as well be comfortable. your dress is tight, your patience is thin, and gojo satoru is still standing there, too smug for someone who just kidnapped you over a stupid project. you exhale, tilting your head as if this entire situation isn’t already ridiculous. “at least let me change before you start your villain monologue.” he hums, unsurprised, already reaching for something. with an infuriating lack of effort, he tosses a neatly folded pile of clothes onto the bed, not even looking as they land perfectly in place.

you narrow your eyes, picking up the fabric like it’s personally offended you. oversized sweatpants, a soft cotton t-shirt—his clothes. obviously. your fingers smooth over the material, taking in how annoyingly soft they are, how they probably cost an obscene amount despite being so plain. gojo watches you with lazy amusement, arms crossed, waiting. “don’t flatter yourself,” he smirks. “they’re just extras.”

you scoff, holding the shirt between two fingers. “you expect me to wear this?” the fabric is light, draping between your hands like it was made to be comfortable. he shrugs, unbothered, like he hasn’t trapped you in his condo. “unless you wanna walk around in that tiny dress all morning.” you inhale sharply, hating that he has a point, hating that you agree. without another word, you snatch the clothes and turn on your heel. “where’s the bathroom?”

he gestures lazily down the hall. “take your time. i’ll be making breakfast.”

perfect. time to find your damn shoes.

the second you step out of the bathroom, fresh clothes hanging loosely around you, you’re focused. satoru is too relaxed, too confident, which means your heels are hidden somewhere close. you watch him carefully, studying the way he moves around the kitchen, looking for any subconscious tells. does he glance toward a certain cabinet? does he tense when you walk too close to a particular area? he’s sharp, but so are you when you wanted to be.

casually, you wander through the condo, trailing your fingers along the furniture as if admiring the interior. you open a drawer. satoru doesn’t react. you walk past the living room. nothing. but the second you get too close to the coat closet—his grip on the spatula twitches. your heart leaps. got him.

nonchalantly, you inch toward the closet, watching him carefully. his jaw ticks, just slightly, as you place a hand on the door handle. then—swiftly—you throw it open. jackpot. perched neatly on the top shelf, your heels gleam under the soft lighting, practically mocking you. you reach up, fingers brushing the leather but then—

“ah, ah, ah.”

an arm snakes around your waist, pulling you back before you can grab them. warm, steady, effortless. your breath catches for half a second before you twist in his hold, eyes burning into his smirking face. “bold move, princess,” he murmurs, voice rich with amusement.

you struggle, pushing at his chest. “let me go.”

“mmm, no.” he kicks the closet door shut with his foot, still holding you in place, like he isn’t taking any of this seriously. “gotta admire your dedication, though. i almost let you have it.”

“almost?” you glare, seething. “you were this close to losing, gojo.”

he chuckles, releasing you—but only so he can reach up and grab your heels himself, lifting them with ease. you watch, horrified, as he dangles them just out of reach, like a goddamn villain. “what was that about me losing?” he muses, smirking.

you grind your teeth, so close to committing a felony.

and then, before you can lunge for them, he tosses them onto the highest shelf, where even your most expensive stilettos can’t help you now.

“better luck next time,” he winks, already walking back to the kitchen.

you hate him.

statistically speaking, you are going to commit a crime.

the plate lands in front of you with an air of finality, accompanied by satoru’s insufferable smirk. he leans back, arms crossed, watching you with the quiet satisfaction of a man who knows he’s about to be annoying. steam curls from the freshly prepared food, filling the kitchen with the kind of rich, savory aroma that should be appetizing. but instead of appreciation, you only narrow your eyes at the dish, taking in the suspiciously nutrient-dense arrangement. the omelet is folded too perfectly, golden edges sealing in the spinach, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes like some overpriced brunch order. beside it, the whole-grain toast is adorned with smashed avocado, a poached egg, and a pretentious sprinkle of chili flakes, sitting next to a bowl of greek yogurt, granola, and freshly sliced strawberries.

you stare at it like it personally insulted your entire bloodline. after a long, drawn-out pause, you lift your gaze, voice flat. “…why does this look like something from a wellness influencer’s meal prep vlog?” satoru doesn’t even blink. “because it has nutrients.” your lips press together, fingers tapping against the edge of the plate, contemplating violence. “you say that like it’s a threat.” he shrugs, unbothered. “your body probably doesn’t recognize them as food.”

you scoff, tilting your head, fully prepared to dismiss him and his ridiculous health agenda. “why are you even doing this?” he leans against the counter, adjusting his glasses with the same ease he delivers his next words. “logical reasoning. i can’t have you dropping dead or getting sick when we have a project to finish. given your current eating choices at the cafeteria, you’re at risk of becoming a liability.” your brows furrow as he casually lists off the stove evidences of your supposed malnutrition—your tray with a single iced coffee and a single croissant for lunch, multiple days in a row. the overheard joke from some acquaintance claiming you live off champagne, wine, and spite.

you hum, feigning intrigue as you lean forward, propping your chin on your palm, eyes gleaming with amusement. “so you watch me?” you purr, tapping a manicured finger against your cheek. “i didn’t take you for the obsessive type, satoru.” he doesn’t even flinch, simply reaching for his milk—because of course he drinks milk—before replying, “you wear billions yen worth of clothes to school every day.” he takes a slow sip, completely unfazed. “you’re hard to miss.”

your lips curl downward as you cross your arms, glaring at him. you hate him. you hate that he’s right. but most of all, you hate that your stomach growls, traitorous and weak, at the sight of the food. satoru, always prepared, simply sets his glass down and gestures toward the plate. “i’ll leave it here,” he says smoothly, “but you’re not getting your heels back until at least 75% of it is gone.”

your fingers tighten against your arms. “50%.”

satoru doesn’t even blink. “70.”

“60.”

“74.”

you groan, grabbing the fork, already regretting every decision that led you here. the first bite is annoyingly good, the kind of well-balanced meal that tastes fresh in a way your usual diet does not. satoru watches as you grumble through another mouthful, amusement flickering in his gaze like he’s thoroughly enjoying this. you hate him. him with his stupid carrot. him with his stupid perfect family. him with his stupidly delicious breakfast.

you shove the plate away with dramatic flair, as if the very act of finishing a balanced meal has physically wounded you. the scrape of porcelain against the table echoes your irritation, your chin tilting upward in defiance. satoru, completely unbothered, lifts his cup with an infuriating smirk. he takes a slow sip, stretching out the silence between you like he’s savoring this exact moment. “there. happy now?” you huff, extending your hand expectantly, fingers curling. “great. now give me my shoes.”

satoru hums, head tilting, eyes glinting with something far too thoughtful for your liking. the pause is just long enough to make your stomach twist, a telltale sign that he is about to be insufferable. finally, with a lazy shrug, he exhales. “hmm. nah.” you blink. “gojo.” his smirk widens, and you know—you know—this is going to be a battle.

“look, princess, i did the work last night,” he says smoothly, setting down his milk with a soft clink. “you owe me at least a couple more hours of focus.” the way he says it—calm, reasonable, completely unshaken—only fuels the fire burning beneath your skin. you open your mouth to argue, to tell him he owes you for this entire ordeal, for stealing your shoes, for ruining your Saturday. instead, he slides something across the floor toward you, the sound soft against the polished wood. cotton slippers.

you stare at them. then at him. then back at them.

oh. oh, so this is war.

your fingers twitch, nails pressing into your palms as you wordlessly slip your feet into the slippers. no reaction. no visible irritation. he wants a fight? fine. you storm toward the door, posture sharp, head high, fully prepared to make the most dramatic exit of your life—until something catches your eye.

you freeze.

the full-length mirror by the doorway reflects a horrifying truth. oversized t-shirt. baggy sweatpants. cotton slippers.

oh. oh, hell no.

your breath catches in your throat, a slow, creeping horror settling in your stomach. there is no reality where you let anyone see you like this. your heels—custom, initials engraved inside—are the only way you are leaving this condo with your dignity intact. your fingers clench at your sides, jaw locking as you inhale through your nose.

retreat is the only option.

the study is set up like a war room, everything meticulously arranged—his laptop open, notes stacked neatly, a fresh glass of milk still steaming beside him. satoru settles into his chair with practiced ease, fingers already moving over the keyboard like he was born to do this. you, on the other hand, drag your feet, slumping into the seat across from him like you’re being held hostage. which, technically, you are. you sigh—long, exaggerated, a pointed display of suffering. three minutes pass before you do it again, just to be insufferable.

satoru doesn’t even glance up. “you sigh that dramatically again, and i’m charging you per exhale.” you shoot him a glare, arms crossing as you sink deeper into your chair. he remains unbothered, typing away, his attention focused entirely on the screen in front of him. the case study sits between you like a physical barrier, detailing how high-end brands manipulate exclusivity to maximize profits. for once, he is the one completely immersed in work, and you are the one plotting something else entirely.

he’s too focused. too comfortable. you need him distracted. so, as he types, you lean forward—slow, deliberate—elbows resting against the table, chin propped in your palm. your movements are fluid, effortless, the kind of ease that comes with knowing exactly what effect you have on people. “you know, satoru…” your voice is honeyed, smooth, the kind of tone that makes men listen.

he doesn’t stop typing, but you see it—the brief flick of his eyes, the way his fingers hesitate, just for a second. “no,” he hums, still focused. “but i have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”

your smile curves slow, knowing, as you tilt your head just enough to let your hair cascade down one shoulder. “you work so hard,” you murmur, trailing a single finger along the edge of his notebook. “shouldn’t you take a break? relax a little?”

he hums again, as if actually considering it. your breath catches—not from nerves, but from the anticipation of winning. and yet—

“fascinating,” he says instead, voice lower now, laced with quiet amusement. “i seem to recall you saying you’d ‘just sit pretty and get the grade.’”

your lips part slightly before you recover, before you let the smirk return, slow and deliberate. “i could help you relax,” you whisper, voice edged with something dangerous, something inviting.

satoru finally looks up.

and oh, he looks.

not in the way you expect—no fluster, no hint of weakness, just sharp, assessing eyes that take you in entirely. his glasses are missing, leaving nothing to obstruct the clarity of pale blue, framed by thick lashes, unreadable and steady. his hair is slightly tousled, the result of him running his fingers through it absentmindedly, a stark contrast to the crispness of his tailored shirt, sleeves rolled up with casual elegance.

he has always been unfairly good-looking, but this—this—is irritating. because as per the disney movies you watched as a kid—nerds aren’t supposed to look like this. nerds should be awkward and fumbling, stuttering when girls like you flirt with them. they should be socially inept, incapable of handling someone like you.

gojo satoru is none of those things.

he is calculating. meticulous. impossible to throw off balance. and worst of all—he’s looking at you like he already won.

your stomach tightens, and you hate that it does. it’s an involuntary reaction, a betrayal of logic, and yet you feel it—low, insistent, coiling beneath your ribs like something dangerous. satoru hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, hasn’t done anything except look at you, but somehow, that’s worse. his gaze, sharp even behind the lenses of his reading glasses, is steady and assessing, pale blue cutting through the space between you like a finely honed blade. he isn’t flustered. he isn’t falling for it. he’s just sitting there, adjusting the sleeves of his neatly pressed shirt with the ease of someone who already knows how this will end.

then, finally, his lips curve into a smirk, slow and deliberate, like he’s humoring you. “huh.” a quiet, thoughtful sound, like he’s observing a puzzle in motion, waiting to see if the pieces will fall into place. anticipation curls in your stomach—warmer now, thrumming—because you recognize this game, have played it before, have won before. but just as you settle into that confidence, just as you prepare to push further, he shifts. a subtle tilt of his head, a glance downward through his glasses, a movement so calculated that it makes your breath catch.

and then he leans in.

closer. slow. mirroring your energy perfectly, matching you in a way that makes your pulse stutter. his movements are effortless, precise, not the hesitant reaction of someone caught off guard, but the deliberate advance of someone fully in control. his breath is warm against your skin, a ghost of heat, and for the first time tonight, you feel the weight of his presence like something tangible. framed by his reading glasses, his gaze flickers down, cool and unreadable, his expression impossible to decipher. he is closer than he should be, closer than you expected, and the moment stretches between you, stretched thin, electric—

then, voice dipping lower, teasing, “tell me—what’s the ROI of this strategy?”

you blink.

“…what.”

he leans back, smooth, unbothered, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as if that’s all this was. his hands return to his notes, fingers tapping idly against the paper, focus shifting like you hadn’t just offered yourself up to be indulged. “return on investment,” he repeats, tone bordering on conversational, as if this is a casual business discussion and not an outright reversal of power. “if i stop working to entertain you, what’s the profit margin?”

your lips shut at that.

but you are nothing if not determined.

so, as satoru turns his attention back to setting up the presentation slides, fingers skimming across the keyboard, you shift slightly in your seat, stretching out one bare leg beneath the table. it’s lazy, absentminded—except it isn’t. the movement is slow, deliberate, just enough to brush your foot against his calf, a soft touch, fleeting, barely there. his fingers pause over the keys for the briefest second, hesitation so minuscule that most wouldn’t notice. but you do.

he doesn’t react.

your lips curve, pressing a little more, your foot nudging against the muscle of his leg, lingering warmth against fabric. you hum, voice dipping lower, amusement threading through your words. “you know…” the suggestion is light, teasing, edged with something playful, something calculated. “this project would be so much more fun if we loosened up a little.” your touch lingers, slow and patient, waiting for the inevitable reaction, waiting for the shift in his composure.

satoru finally looks at you again.

except—this time, his gaze sharpens.

your breath catches, but you keep your smirk, waiting, expecting something—a quip, a flustered look, a flicker of something to prove that this is working. then—without breaking eye contact—his hand moves. fingers grazing over your ankle, warm, steady, barely a whisper of touch. your pulse skips, anticipation curling at the base of your spine.

then, effortlessly, gently—he lifts your foot, his fingers skimming over the curve of your ankle, warm and deliberate. the touch is barely there, almost reverent, like he’s handling something fragile, something worth preserving. your breath catches, pulse tightening in anticipation, but he doesn’t waver—doesn’t hesitate—as he guides your foot downward. soft fabric brushes against your skin, unwelcome, final. and before the weight of the moment can settle, before you can even think to react—he pats your ankle.

twice.

it is the kind of gesture meant for small children, for sleepy kittens curled up in their beds, for something harmless—something lesser. like a parent indulging a tantrum. like you were never playing the same game to begin with.

and then, just like that, he returns to his keyboard, his attention already elsewhere.

you gape.

he did not just do that.

“you’re predictable.”

satoru's voice is calm, absentminded, like he’s merely making an observation. like he has already moved on from whatever game you thought you were playing.

silence. absolute, deafening silence.

heat prickles at the back of your neck, irritation creeping up your spine like a slow-moving fire. this isn’t new. it’s never been new. he’s done this before—stolen the upper hand, outmaneuvered you, made you feel small without even trying. when you were five, chocolates cradled in your hands, heart wide open—only to be met with rejection. when you were fifteen, watching him sit there, perfect, untouched by the kind of ruin that had hollowed you out. it has been years of this, and now, here you are, again.

but this time—this time, you thought you had him. and yet, there he sits, completely unfazed, as if you never stood a chance. your nails dig into your palms, jaw locking, frustration bubbling up before you can stop it. in the game of seducing countless of nameless idiots who call themselves men, you have been winning, effortlessly. and for the first time in a long, long time—you lost.

and you hate it. hate that he saw through you so easily. hate that he dismissed you so effortlessly. hate that he’s right.

so you do the only thing you can do—you tilt your chin up, smooth down your shirt, and pretend like it doesn’t bother you.

(it does. it really, really does.)

you sulk as you scribble down numbers, barely sparing them a glance, not even pretending to check your work. bored, you start reading over satoru’s shoulder, eyes skimming across the words on the screen as his fingers move over the keyboard. at first, you’re only half-paying attention, your chin propped up in your palm, counting the seconds until you can leave. but then—something catches. a tiny inconsistency, a missing link between numbers and reality, something he should have accounted for. your frown deepens, and before you can stop yourself, the words slip out. “…wait.”

he doesn’t stop typing, but his head tilts slightly, acknowledging you. “hm?”

your hand gestures vaguely at the screen, brows furrowing. “you missed something.” that finally gets him to pause, his fingers hovering over the keys. your eyes flicker over the data again, mentally sorting through the logic. “your numbers are right, but this doesn’t account for social perception. brands don’t just limit supply to make something rare—they manufacture desire.”

he exhales, slow, thoughtful. “…elaborate.”

you tilt your head, considering how best to phrase it, tracing a pattern against the wood of his desk with your finger. “luxury brands aren’t just selling exclusivity,” you murmur, the thought coming together as you speak. “they sell identity. people want what they think will make them feel important. it’s not about who can afford it—it’s about who wants to be seen affording it.”

satoru stills.

it’s subtle—the way his fingers stop moving, the way the air between you seems to shift. when he finally turns to look at you, his usual lazy amusement is gone, replaced by something sharper. it’s the first time you’ve seen him really listen, really assess you like you’re more than just a puzzle he’s already solved.

“…huh.”

your brows pull together. “what?”

his gaze flickers over you, unreadable. “nothing. just… didn’t expect you to actually think about this.”

your lips curl, chin tilting slightly. “surprised i have a brain?”

he exhales a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “nah. just amused you actually use it.”

your hand moves before you think, launching a pen straight at his head.

he dodges, of course—leaning slightly to the side without even looking up, still grinning. “that was uncalled for.”

“so is your entire existence.”

he smirks, tapping his fingers against the desk, but there’s something else beneath it—interest, still lingering in his gaze. “tell me more.”

you blink. “…what?”

he gestures toward the screen, expectant. “the whole ‘manufacturing desire’ thing. break it down.”

your eyes narrow, skeptical. “…why?”

he leans back in his chair, arms crossing as he watches you. “because it makes sense. and you clearly have thoughts on it.”

you hesitate. there’s no teasing lilt in his voice, no smug challenge—just a casual statement, an easy invitation to keep going. and for a brief second, something flickers in your chest—something foreign, something unsettling, something dangerously close to satisfaction. because satoru gojo, for once, is actually listening to you.

you should be smug about it. should be flipping your hair, rolling your eyes, brushing it off like his sudden interest doesn’t get under your skin. but instead, you just stare at him, momentarily thrown off by the simple fact that this is is new.

so you scoff, tilting your head, voice deliberately light. “wow. gojo satoru, actually listening to someone else? historic.”

he just grins, spinning his pen between his fingers. “nah. just enjoying the novelty of you saying something that isn’t complete nonsense.”

there it is. the irritation you needed to shove away that strange feeling in your chest.

you huff, grabbing crumpling a sticky note and tossing it at his head. “never mind. i take it back. go back to being insufferable.”

satoru dodges again, still smirking. “too late. tell me more.”

you almost do. almost get caught up in the fact that he wants to hear what you have to say, that he’s watching you like you actually matter. but then reality settles in—the project still unfinished, your actual shoes still out of reach, and the longer you entertain this, the longer you’re stuck here, in his oversized clothes, in his stupid cotton slippers, playing his stupid game.

your lips press into a thin line. focus.

with a dramatic sigh, you stretch out your arms, feigning disinterest. “whatever. let’s just finish this so i can get my heels and leave.”

he smirks, tapping his pen against the desk. “wow. didn’t think you’d be the one saying that.”

you roll your eyes, already reaching for the keyboard. “shut up and pull up the market segmentation reports.”

satoru huffs a quiet laugh but complies, spinning his laptop around. “yes, ma’am.”

afternoon sunlight spills through the windows, stretching long shadows across the study. the air is thick with the remnants of concentration, the quiet hum of progress settling between you. the introduction is done—barely, but enough to count—so when satoru pushes back his chair and stretches, you barely glance up. when he leaves the room, you assume it’s to grab another glass of milk or some other infuriatingly wholesome thing. but when he returns, something gleams in his hand, catching the light.

“here.”

your head snaps up. your heels. your very expensive, custom-made, long-suffering stilettos, finally returned to you. you don’t waste a second—snatching them from his grasp and shoving them onto your feet with the desperation of a woman reclaiming her dignity. the familiar height steadies you, makes you feel normal again, no longer reduced to the soft, pitiful comfort of cotton slippers. before he can say anything else, you grab your dress from the guest room, tossing it over your arm like a war trophy, and stride toward the door without a single glance back.

“alright, thanks for the hospitality, gojo. it’s been terrible.”

you know you look ridiculous—white t-shirt, oversized sweatpants, designer stilettos, party dress draped over your arm like evidence—but you refuse to acknowledge it. if you have to walk through tokyo looking like a scandal waiting to happen just to escape, so be it. commit to the bit. escape with what’s left of your pride. but just as your fingers brush against the doorknob, a hand catches your wrist.

you turn, slow and deliberate, gaze flat, unimpressed. satoru stands there, leaning against the doorway like he has all the time in the world, arms crossed, posture relaxed in that effortlessly smug way that makes you want to throw something at his head. his expression is unreadable, but his presence alone is an obstacle, another roadblock standing between you and your much-needed exit. his voice is calm, too casual, as he says, “i’ll drive you back.” there’s no inflection, no hesitation—just a simple statement, as if it’s already decided.

you hum, tilting your head, considering him for a moment before your lips curve. “aw, can’t bear to let me go yet?” the teasing lilt in your voice is light, effortless, a carefully crafted trap—but he doesn’t bite. doesn’t roll his eyes, doesn’t scoff, doesn’t even give you the satisfaction of a reaction. instead, he watches you, expression steady, the corner of his mouth twitching—mildly amused but not enough to give you the upper hand. when he finally speaks, his voice is smooth, completely unaffected. “no.” simple. final.

your pout deepens, purely out of spite, fingers lazily tracing the smooth fabric of your dress draped over your arm. “don’t worry,” you murmur, eyes glinting with mischief. “you’ll see me in your dreams.” it’s meant to be a parting shot, something to fluster him, something to at least chip at his infuriatingly composed exterior. but satoru just exhales through his nose, something close to a laugh—not mocking, but certainly not flustered, either.

he raises a brow, unimpressed, amusement barely concealed behind his glasses. “i’ll see you in class, where you’ll be late, as usual.”

your eye twitches. annoying. so annoying.

his gaze flickers downward, scanning you, slow and assessing, like he’s only now taking in the full absurdity of your situation. then, finally, his lips curve—barely noticeable, the ghost of a smirk tugging at the edges. “you are about to walk around tokyo in a white t-shirt, my sweatpants, and heels—while carrying your skimpy little dress like evidence.”

you don’t react. just stare.

but of course, he isn’t done.

“probability of people assuming you just got kicked out of some guy’s condominium? 86%.”

your jaw clenches.

“probability of old women on the train side-eyeing you in disappointment? 94.3%.”

your eye twitches.

“probability of you running into someone from university and them recognizing the pants as mine? 78%. higher if they have working eyesight.”

deep inhale.

he taps his chin, feigning thoughtfulness, tilting his head slightly as if going over the numbers again. “probability of them taking a picture and posting it on the university forum with a vague, scandalous caption?” he pauses, lips curving ever so slightly. “mmm. 67%.”

you hate him.

you hate that he’s right. hate that he’s always right, that no matter how much you maneuver, no matter how much you scheme, he somehow stays three steps ahead. but more than anything—more than his arrogance, more than his stupidly smug expression—you hate that you now have two options. one: suffer the consequences of your own stubbornness. two: let him win.

so you choose violence instead.

before he can say anything else, you latch onto his arm, syrupy sweet, bright-eyed and deadly. your fingers curl into the fabric of his sleeve, your full weight pressing against him like a clingy girlfriend, voice dripping with feigned resignation. “you’re right, gojo,” you sigh, exhaling dramatically, batting your lashes. “guess i’ll just have to stay by your side, huh?”

his gaze flickers to you, mildly amused, as if you’ve just done something vaguely entertaining but ultimately unsurprising.

no blink. no hesitation. no telltale crack in composure—just the slow, deliberate way his eyes skim over you, unreadable, the barest hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t even seem remotely affected, only watching you with a kind of detached curiosity, like he’s waiting to see what else you’ll try. then, with infuriating ease, he lifts a hand, adjusts his glasses, and exhales—slow, bored, utterly unshaken. “guess so.”

and then—without a single pause, without even acknowledging your grip—he starts walking.

your brain short-circuits.

your heels dig into the floor, fingers tightening around his sleeve, gaping. this was not the plan. he was supposed to freeze, to stammer, to at least acknowledge what you were doing. instead, he just keeps moving, unbothered, uninterrupted, dragging you along with the same level of concern one might have for a shopping bag hooked around their wrist.

“…you were supposed to be flustered.”

he shrugs, effortless, not even sparing you a glance. “try harder.”

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