#actually the last time he did this was when he was describing the streets around the convent. which was after waterloo

[little-lynx]

KATNISS AND PEETA’S OUTFITS: BOOK ONE

I started this series with “interview before the games” and finished book one’s outfits with “interview after the games” (let’s say that was intentional). When I started (that was September 2020) I was sure I would finish this series very quickly. Lol. I still nowhere near the end. But at least “Hunger Games” is done! That was painful to look at my first illustrations (some of them I had to redraw completely) and I needed to make it look like a series so I fixed some things. I tried to do this “fixing” not very dramatic at some cases (like the first interview one, which I still kinda like, but I completely changed the way I draw Peeta since then so I didn’t know what to do with him lol) but hell, sometimes I thought it was easier to redraw everything. And I think I would have done if I wasn’t so lazy and always tired and I actually really want to draw new stuff. So here it is, all at once. All the (described at least in one word) Everlark Outfits from the first book!

THE REAPING

To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes. <...> “Of course. Let’s put your hair up, too,” she says. I let her towel-dry it and braid it up on my head. <...> the elaborate braided hair my mother did for the reaping <...> silky braids. / chapter 1 /// We know nothing about Peeta’s clothes. But I assume it should be something like this. Casual. Classic. Light brown/beige.

THE TRAIN

I peel off my mother’s blue dress and take a hot shower. I’ve never had a shower before. It’s like being in a summer rain, only warmer. I dress in a dark green shirt and pants. At the last minute, I remember Madge’s little gold pin. For the first time, I get a good look at it. It’s as if someone fashioned a small golden bird and then attached a ring around it. The bird is connected to the ring only by its wing tips. I suddenly recognize it. A mocking jay. <…> I fasten the pin onto my shirt, and with the dark green fabric as a background, I can almost imagine the mockingjay flying through the trees. <…> I put the green outfit back on since it’s not really dirty, just slightly crumpled from spending the night on the floor. <…> I slept in the elaborate braided hair my mother did for the reaping and it doesn’t look too bad, so I just leave it up. / chapter 3 /// Again we know nothing about Peeta’s outfit, but. But ok, it must be something casual and comfortable soooo… sweatpants?

THE OPENING CEREMONY

I am dressed in what will either be the most sensational or the deadliest costume in the opening ceremonies. I’m in a simple black unitard that covers me from ankle to neck. Shiny leather boots lace up to my knees. But it’s the fluttering cape made of streams of orange, yellow, and red and the matching headpiece that define this costume. Cinna plans to light them on fire just before our chariot rolls into the streets. <…> My face is relatively clear of makeup, just a bit of highlighting here and there. My hair has been brushed out and then braided down my back in my usual style. <…> Despite this morning’s revelation about Peeta’s character, I’m actually relieved when he shows up, dressed in an identical costume. / chapter 5

TRAINING

When I’m dried and moisturized with lotion, I find an outfit has been left for me at the front of the closet. Tight black pants, a long-sleeved burgundy tunic, and leather shoes. I put my hair in the single braid down my back. This is the first time since the morning of the reaping that I resemble myself. No fancy hair and clothes, no flaming capes. Just me. Looking like I could be headed for the woods. It calms me. <...> Haymitch and Peeta come in, bid me good morning, fill their plates. It makes me irritated that Peeta is wearing exactly the same outfit I am. I need to say something to Cinna. This twins act is going to blow up in out faces once the Games begin. <...> “One last thing. In public, I want you by each other’s side every minute,” says Haymitch. We both start to object, but Haymitch slams his hand on the table. “Every minute! It’s not open for discussion! You agreed to do as I said! You will be together, you will appear amiable to each other. Now get out. Meet Effie at the elevator at ten for training.” <...> The other tributes are gathered in a tense circle. They each have a cloth square with their district number on it pinned to their shirts. While someone pins the number 12 on my back, I do a quick assessment. Peeta and I are the only two dressed alike. / chapter 7 /// To be honest the previous version was a lot closer to book description (more tight pants and shoes obviously made from leather and here there are just leather sneakers), but hell, Cinna, Portia, what was wrong with you when you’ve created training outfits? Tight pants? For sword training?! Long sleeve? It’s damn July!

INTERVIEW BEFORE THE GAMES

The team works on me until late afternoon, turning my skin to glowing satin, stenciling patterns on my arms, painting flame designs on my twenty perfect nails. Then Venia goes to work on my hair, weaving strands of red into a pattern that begins at my left ear, wraps around my head, and then falls in one braid down my right shoulder. They erase my face with a layer of pale makeup and draw my features back out. Huge dark eyes, full red lips, lashes that throw off bits of light when I blink. Finally, they cover my entire body in a powder that makes me shimmer in gold dust. <...> I can feel the silken inside as they slip it down over my naked body, then the weight. It must be forty pounds. I clutch Octavia’s hand as I blindly step into my shoes, glad to find they are at least two inches lower than the pair Effie had me practice in. <...> My dress is entirely covered in reflective precious gems, red and yellow and white with bits of blue that accent the tips of the flame design. The slightest movement gives the impression I am engulfed in tongues of fire. <...> The dress hangs in such a way that I don’t have to lift the skirt when I walk, leaving me with one less thing to worry about. <...> Peeta looks striking in a black suit with flame accents. While we look well together, it’s a relief not to be dressed identically. / chapter 9

ARENA

Cinna does my hair in my simple trademark braid down my back. Then the clothes arrive, the same for every tribute. Cinna has had no say in my outfit, does not even know what will be in the package, but he helps me dress in the undergarments, simple tawny pants, light green blouse, sturdy brown belt, and thin, hooded black jacket that falls to my thighs. “The material in the jacket’s designed to reflect body heat. Expect some cool nights,” he says. The boots, worn over skintight socks, are better than I could have hoped for. Soft leather not unlike my ones at home. These have a narrow flexible rubber sole with treads though. Good for running. I think I’m finished when Cinna pulls the gold mockingjay pin from his pocket. I had completely forgotten about it. [Katniss] + a bright orange backpack. + silver sheath of arrows and a bow, already strung [Peeta] + I agently unzip his jacket, unbutton his shirt and ease them off him. + I hand Peeta my knife, since whatever weapons he once had are long gone, and he slips it into his belt. / chapter 10 thank goodness this one was already redone lol

VICTORY CEREMONY

Cinna comes in with what appears to be an unassuming yellow dress across his arms. <…> slips it over my head. I immediately notice the padding over my breasts, adding curves that hunger has stolen from my body. <…> Venia helps me into a pair of flat leather sandals and I turn to the mirror. I am still the “girl on fire.” The sheer fabric softly glows. Even the slight movement in the air sends a ripple up my body. By comparison, the chariot costume seems garish, the interview dress too contrived. In this dress, I give the illusion of wearing candlelight. <…> My hair’s loose, held back by a simple hairband. The makeup rounds and fills out the sharp angles of my face. A clear polish coats my nails. The sleeveless dress is gathered at my ribs, not my waist, largely eliminating any help the padding would have given my figure. The hem falls just to my knees. <…> He looks so clean and healthy and beautiful, I can hardly recognize him. But his smile is the same whether in mud or in the Capitol and when I see it, I take about three steps and fling myself into his arms. He staggers back, almost losing his balance, and that’s when I realize the slim, metal contraption in his hand is some kind of cane. <…> His shirt is made of the same yellow material as my dress, but Portia’s put him in long black pants. No sandals, either, but a pair of sturdy black boots he keeps solidly planted on the stage. / chapter 27

INTERVIEW AFTER THE GAMES

When Cinna comes in, he shoos them [prep team] out and dresses me in a white, gauzy dress and pink shoes. Then he personally adjusts my makeup until I seem to radiate a soft, rosy glow. <…> Then Peeta’s there looking handsome in red and white, pulling me off to the side. / chapter 27

[simpliao]

that was the moment he realised ; (irl) schlatt x reader

– part one , – part two , – part three , – part four , – part five , – part six

summary : a weekend getaway vacation, just what the pair needed to get away from busy city lives. in just enjoying the moment, what once was a silly, dismissive thought to the male, now hits him straight in the face. and for once, he's okay with it.

info : fluff, mild swearing, she/her pronouns as well as reader being described as a woman (pretty girl), sappy, like really sappy but i adore it.

a/n : i actually adore fluffy schlatt, i always got the impression that he hides the fact he's the biggest softie out there to pretend to be more macho than he really is. considering i am sadly very much single, having some fluff like this is a comfort to me. so this is kinda just a comfort post where i have them gush about being in love. <3

The lack of any rustling but that of the leaves of the trees was a different, and almost bizarre thing to wake up to. Almost expecting to suddenly hear the burst of a car horn reminding him of his apartment being right on a busy street; and yet this peace remained. Pure rays of light slipped through the blinds, filling the bedroom with a gentle golden glow. Under his arm, Y/n slept cuddling into his side for warmth; the rented out cottage wasn't exactly the best insulated. With the utmost care, he slinked his arm away from her, mindful to not jostle her awake. Her form wrapped up in a French linen comforter, disheveled sure, but to the New Yorker she was too damn gorgeous for her own good. His eyes lingered before retreating from the room, short steps leading down into the open concept living room and kitchen.

Today was Sunday: the end of the weekend and their last day before they had to go back. It was oddly serene, seeing the living spaces highlighted by morning shine. Just checking the fridge, it was already pre-stocked with bougie shit that he didn't recognise. Even the milk was some kind of unpronounceable brand, acting as if it was above all the other milk brands. The memory of Y/n sometimes buying these kinds of things didn't pass him, a smile grew to his lips as they'd debate if fifteen dollars for specialty cereal was really worth it. That was when she has initially moved in, now he didn't bat an eye when things around their home moved around or suddenly gained new items that he was unsure about.

She slowly changed what was once a stinky bachelor pad into a presentable home, warm and cozy, especially when she made it a point to hang up pictures of the pair and establish a colour scheme for interior designing. Just thinking about it made him homesick, he even started letting her come to the office and change things around just so he could have reminders of her in his space. Although the two started their relationship in private, only really friends and family knowing and teasingly keeping it out of public eye for the sake of privacy. It was ultimately in vain since despite it being Schlatt's wish, he ended up spilling it to his viewers after having her show up in countless streams and endless twitter interactions. (All painfully flirty.)

Considering Y/n was also a public figure, some part jealously irked him when fans would inevitably ship her with other people. Getting it out in the public at least made that mostly die out, his liberal use of nicknames like 'my girl', 'sweetheart', 'doll', and 'pretty girl' even in front of the camera cemented the pair's bond. Considering the two's interactions were thousands of times cuter than her platonic interactions with friends, her fans ate that shit up.

"Good morning." Speaking of which, she groggily came down the stairs with a tired yawn. His shirt dressing her body, and despite what anyone else might've thought; all he saw was a goddess that descended from those steps. “Did I wake you? I was going to get started on breakfast.” Which wouldn’t be anything fancy since Schlatt wasn’t exactly the best cook. “It got so cold without you. I figured if I couldn’t sleep anymore might as well follow the heater downstairs.” She huffed out, fully descending the stairs to approach her boyfriend. Sitting atop one of two barstools of the kitchen’s island. He snuck glances in between of gathering things from out of the fridge. Her features highlighted by early light, easily one of the most angelic things he’s ever seen. Her eyes heavy as she was still in the rices of fully waking up, yet still remaining with a lazy smile as she watched from a short distance. “Take a picture.” She mused, rubbing her eyes slightly whilst teasing the male with one of her devilish smiles. “It’ll last longer.” “Oh shut up.” He dismissed despite holding one of his own.

The scene was serene, Y/n's gaze glued to her boyfriend of close to two years. While he always noticed her far off looks, he never realized it was because she was completely enamoured by him. Always watching over his figure, habitually dressed in basketball shorts and sweatshirts. (Of which she stole constantly, never bothering the brunette considering he adored seeing her wrapped up in his clothing.) Eyes always fixated on his face, whenever the pair were alone she got the privilege of seeing him in his softer side. Grins teasing at times, but commonly genuine and so loving. His intensely dark brown irises so filled with love whenever they met hers, always feeling like when she first fell for him; the butterflies never left. Where could she even begin with his curled caramel brown locks? Her fingers twitched, yearning for the pair to snuggle up and put on a movie; giving her the perfect opportunity to run her hands along his scalp.

In the grand scheme of things, they hadn't been together very long, neither having knowing each other long before completely falling into this state of love. What started as limerence grew to real, seldom true love. In such a simple scene, where the New Yorker had prepared (mostly uncooked) scrambled eggs and (slightly burnt) buttered toast, retiring to a seat beside his lover where the two chatted about whatever came to mind. The pair always having gazes filled with such enamour, adoration like their partner had hung the stars and moon.

"You know, I kind of wish we could stay." Y/n had spoken offhandedly, spooning the yellow mass onto one of her slices of toast. She followed up her comment soon after taking a bite, "I love this cottage... But, I wouldn't mind spending forever anywhere as long as I'm with you." Forever. The word poignant and sticking within his mind, spending forever with her, it was a thought he always briefly had. His insecurities drowned it out, fear of falling out of this kind of honeymoon, fear of her no longer looking at him like he looked at her. He feared that later down the line she wouldn't see him the same, he was scared to commit to her.

And yet, with her affirmation of always wanting to be with him, even if she spoke it in passing with it seemingly escaping her lips and being forgotten soon afterwards, it filled him with some kind of comfort unlike perviously when it'd fill with with anxiety and dread. Rather than worriedly question and wonder about the future, if she was his forever, from this moment on he realised just what kind of bliss that would be. Memories flashed his mind of what they had done this weekend, of what they'd done during the entire duration of their relationship... How it showed no sign of ever slowing down from the past two-ish years of their love. How he wouldn't trade all the money in the world for his darling, his pretty girl.

Just looking at her now, soft smile directed towards him, a kind of beauty he couldn't form into words radiating off her. He could spend forever like this. Mornings of home cooked breakfasts, afternoons working alongside each other and evenings of either going out or staying in. Everything seemed to make him excited, he craved to experience it all, experience it all with her at his side. She was his certainty, she would be it. His number one, his forever.

"Yeah..." He muttered out softly, pushing the mug to his lips to take a sip of bitterly black coffee. "I could spend forever with you too." Just seeing the way her eyes slightly squinted as she smiled made his heart burst, his hand found itself reaching over to brush his thumb over the edges of her lips to rub away crumbs. "You eat like a baby, you know that?" "But I'm your baby." She grinned, letting his hand linger on her cheek as his stare was nothing but overwhelming tenderness. Yeah, she was his. And in that moment he decided that he'd be sure to make it official, more official than just the common titles of boyfriend and girlfriend.

Because, that was the moment he realised... This was the girl he was going to marry.

[fastcardotmp3]

truman show esque "trapped in a reality you think is The reality when it is, in fact, just an experiment in which you are the subject" situation except when Steve gets dragged through the gate at Lover's Lake, when the rest of them follow him into the Upside Down, it's like the place has been adapting since the last time any of their people were here.

The Upside Down made itself into a mirror of Hawkins for a boy who it wanted to keep, but it didn't do so great the first time around. Vines and thick air and cold, it may have memorized the map of the place it was emulating, but it never quite got the details right.

The thing is, it's had time to learn. It was in Will's head, for fuck's sake, took over the bodies of countless Hawkins residents during the Starcourt fiasco of '85, so by the time Spring Break of '86 rolls around, the Upside Down knows.

It's a living thing and it knows better how to be a mirror, how to maybe better keep that boy here next time it gets ahold of him. Only before Will Byers has the chance to stumble his way back through one of the gates being created just for him, just for him and his sister, there are four others who are maybe a good trial run.

It's confusing for them, on the other side of being dragged to the bottom of a lake. It's confusing because it actually looks like Hawkins, smells like it, the water is the same in the lake and the mud feels the same on the shore.

It's less like being dragged to the bottom at all, actually, because the water makes them weightless, makes the transition disorienting rather than a clear crossing between worlds, so when they resurface and it looks the same it's. It's not the Upside Down the way Steve saw it in the tunnels, it's not the Upside Down the way Will or Joyce or Hopper or El described it.

Maybe there are hints and clues out and about-- unnatural chill for the season and tree roots that kick up out of the earth a bit more frequently, a haze to both nighttime and daylight that makes it feel gray and-- artificial almost? But none of that is enough to combat the sense of disorientation, the knowledge in their heads of what the UD actually looks like, and there's this fog in their heads...

There's this fog...

Their people aren't on the shore waiting for them under that starless night sky, but that's actually-- were there people waiting here for them at all?

It was just the four of them, right? It was just--

There are people here, when they decide to, um, "how did you hurt yourself, Steve? We need to-- shit, that needs to be disinfected, like, yesterday."

Robin's worried about rabies but Steve reminds her, "that's an animals thing, I just, like, fell on, uh-- those rocks at the lake? When we were swimming?"

It's too hard to question why they all went swimming in their clothes when it's this cold and dark. The fog is-- it's thick but also untraceable, it's like trying to make a logical decision in the middle of the most absurd of dreams.

It's like darkness encroaching in on your vision when you're involuntarily losing consciousness...

There are people here, when they decide to go find a first aid kit at Nancy's place because it's closest. There are a handful of cars driving around town, Mrs. Brady putting out her trash down the street when they sneak past.

Mrs. Brady, she was-- she is-- she-- but last summer during the-- the issue with-- there was a whole thing and she di--

Nancy's parents are out.

Steve's bites scrapes are oozing and painful and Nancy slaps at Eddie's hand when he tries to snoop at her diary.

The sun rises. The sun only just set. There are people here but they're-- were there people waiting for them on the shore?

There was something, some reason, why they were at the lake and that's important. That has to be important, somewhere beyond the fog.

When they fall asleep in the light of a too-quick morning, like the sun turned on rather than rose, it's not weird that there's no one else in the Wheeler house.

"Stop looking at me, I can feel you," Robin mutters as she dozes off to sleep on the bed beside Nancy, the boys on a spare mattress on the floor.

Everyone else is already asleep.

[writing-havoc]

Hat

♡ Summary: Kaz finds out why you've been acting strange for the last year. He takes cares of it.

♡ Pairing: Kaz Brekker x fem!reader

♡ Fandom: Six of Crows, Grishaverse

♡ Warnings: Talk about r@pe in a past tense, but still describes it a bit, blood, torture

♡ WC: 4.6k

As mentioned, this fic contains mentions and a small description of r*pe. Nothing too severe, but still potentially triggering. If that sort of thing could be triggering, then I suggested against reading this fic. Taking care of yourself is the number one priority <3

To the anon who requested this, I hope it's to your liking!

Please excuse any spelling and grammar mistakes. Hopes you enjoy <3

∘₊✧──────────────────✧₊∘

"Please, Kaz?"

"No."

"You're lame."

Enjoying a quiet afternoon seemed to be an impossible task.

For once there were no jobs to be done, ledgers to be looked through, blueprints to sort, or staff to cover.

So of course you had to come up and demand a trip to a street market.

"And you're annoying." Lie. "Not much either of us can do about these problems."

You gaffawed. "I am not annoying. And there's actually quite a few things we can do about that. Like going to the market and looking around. I've got things to buy and maybe you could find something you like, too." He could feel you wiggling your eyebrows at him.

"Have Jesper tag along with you."

"He's fucking Wylan, I can't go with them."

He chuckled internally. "Take Nina."

"I can't. She's sleeping and Matthias is refusing to leave her side while she does so."

"Take Inej."

"Can't find her."

"Take Pim."

"Working."

He took a deep breath through his nose, seizing the movement of the tip of his feather pen on the paper in front of him. It wasn't even important, just a mess of scribbles.

"Why not go alone?"

You took a moment at that, body stuttering in its swaying motion. He looked up at your face.

"Because going alone is boring."

A lie accentuated by your middle finger lightly picking at the skin around your nails.

"The real reason?"

"That is the real reason!" You got down on your knees, crossing your arms on the surface of his desk and resting your chin there. "I like having people to talk to and get opinions off of before I buy something."

He quirked a brow. A question being asked without the use of words.

You groaned, hitting your forehead on your arms. "Okay, you don't have to give an opinion on anything, but I would at least appreciate your company. Plus!" Your head and a hand shot up, finger pointing right at him. "There's not a lot of people out around this time. At least not as much as there usually is."

Your consideration was flattering.

He funneled his attention back to the piece of paper. He can't read a single thing he just wrote, and he's not even sure what he was attempting to write in the first place.

He sighed. "I need a new hat."

Immediately you hopped up, excitement and strangely, relief overtook your features. Shopping alone cannot be that lonely. "There's definitely a booth or two that would be selling hats." You retrieved his coat and hat from the rack.

Both were in perfect working order.

"I am getting a hat, and then leaving." He stood up and slid the coat on, making sure to not spill anything on his desk. "If you don't get your items before that, then you either brave it alone or walk back empty handed."

You clicked your heels together and saluted him. "Yes, sir."

He shook his head, then grabbed his cane.

As much as he wanted to ignore it, there's no way he could. You were odd, and have been odd for nearly a year. There was a time when you first started being odd that any sort of touching from anyone set you off.

He had you followed for almost three months after the first scare and nothing came of it. So whatever happened was either done and over with or they were extremely careful.

Over time it got better, so he called Inej off and let it rest, assuming you would talk to her or Nina, or Jesper and himself if you needed to. It doesn't seem like you did, but there's not much he can do other watch and wait.

He gave you his hat, putting it on your head.

"It would look odd if I went perusing for hats whilst wearing one."

You followed him out the door, adjusting the hat on your head. It didn't go with your wardrobe at all, yet it still flattered you. "Since when did you care about what others think?"

He scoffed. "I don't. But you do."

"It's an innate human thing."

"It's a learned trait."

The humidity knocked any response out of you once the door to the Slat opened. It was a bit worse than usual, so anyone other than locals would be staying inside hotels and clubs.

It'll be a good day for business.

The rest of the walk to the street you had in mind consisted of you toying with his hat, putting on in all sorts of ways that truly made you look stupid. Once, you even put it on upside down, the hat staying on for almost five minutes before a gust of wind tipped it forward. He nearly smiled.

The moment you saw the line of shops, your smile turned so wide he worried your cheeks might hurt.

"Okay okay. I know you said you would immediately be looking for a hat, but stay with me here." You were walking sideways, keeping up with his brisk pace. "There's these boot chains and thigh straps I really want your opinion on."

His eyes squinted slightly in confusion. "What would the boot chains be for?"

"Decoration of course." You stooped at the first stall. It various glassware trinkets. A paper tag was attached to all of them with a price displayed in ink. In them he could see a name, which matched the tag worn by the woman attending the stand. "They don't serve much purpose, but I figured I could give them purpose by using them to work on my foot work. Keep the noise as low as possible, y'know."

He nodded, moving along, forcing you to follow. "Inej could always help you with that."

You sighed. "Yeah, but I don't want to feel like a burden. Plus, I feel like it'd make a cool surprise. Impress her with my stealth." You pranced up to a stall a few lots down, the glinting of the chains catching your eye. "She's not the only one that can be sneaky."

"Inej is stealthy because she needs to be. You, on the other, have no reason to be stealthy."

Some of the chains had little trinkets dangling off the individual rings. One had tear drops, another had what looked to be very poorly shaped skulls. The size was definitely the problem, much too small for unskilled hands. Another, which you took interest in, had teeny knives. They surely would make a lot of noise.

Yet, you passed them up, continuing along. "Just because I don't have a reason to be stealthy doesn't mean I can't be." A slight hint of disappointment creeped into your tone. "It just does good to be able to get around without being heard. At least to the untrained ear."

You had him there.

He looked down the street. You were right, not very many people were walking up and down here, but there was definitely enough that he had to be very body conscious. It seemed to continue on for a few meters. Even connected roads had a shop of two.

You stopped once more, at a little stand with leather accessories. He continues on, slightly confused at the way you hurriedly abandon your window shopping to catch up.

That is, until Kaz felt you disappear from his side, getting lost in the trickling stream of bodies that were moving against the general current.

When he turned to look at you, you were hiding. Or at least trying to discreetly hide the fact that you're hiding.

He fully readys himself. Shoulders squaring and eyes scanning his surroundings, hands gripping his cane as he walks in front of a booth and looks around.

There's a moment where your eyes flicker a few booths away and then readjust back in front of you. It isn't much to go on, but he directs his attention that way.

A woman and a child are looking at patterned shawls and wraps, a much older woman attending the stand. Behind her is a man, looking fondly at the both of them, a word or two exiting his lips when the woman turns to ask a question. Standing off towards the corner where necklaces and pendants are pinned to a board is another man, who asks the old woman a question before excitedly handing over a few kruge and leaving with a skip in his step.

This reveals a man on the other side of the booth, staring completely and wholly in his direction.

You seem to notice that Kaz is looking at him, and try to get his attention.

"We really need to get back to the Slat, Kaz."

But it's too late. He's already memorized his face. His eye shape. The mole over his left brow. His complexion. The lack of a left canine as he smirks, eyes narrowing right at you.

The hair on the back of Kaz's neck stands on end.

"Kaz. We need to leave." You move in front of him. His eyes don't hesitate to focus on you, his focus narrowing when you utter a pleading "please" under your breath.

His eyes flicker to the man staring you down, getting one more look, before turning around and heading back in the direction you came.

You never bought anything, he realized, and that's what aggravated him more. If the situation was as he was understanding, you may have been looking forward to going for days, weeks, and didn't because of him.

The walk back was eerily silent, Kaz seething the whole way and trying to keep you within eyesight yet not on your heels. It wasn't until you walked in the doors of the Slat that he spoke to you again.

"Y/n. My office." He told you quietly just before you began to leave to your room. You stopped, your hands balling your pants. He waited a moment for you to think, and then followed you as you turned towards the stairs.

He keeps ample distance between yourself and him, letting you get up a flight of stairs before he starts. You're in his office with his hat in your hands, fingers rubbing the brim for nearly an entire minute before he walks in, letting your thoughts align.

He takes this slow, shutting the door and putting his coat where it's supposed to. He stares at the fabric for a minute, letting his boiling blood cool before he asks the questions he wants the answers to.

"Who was that?"

You let out a shakey breath, gripping the hat so hard he can see it bend and your knuckles turn white.

"Kaz, please. Not now."

"Then when?" He asks, a sharp edge to his voice, completely forgetting about taking this slow. "Is he the reason you've been like this?" He already knows the answer, but he needs the confirmation. He needs it before he does anything.

You look at him, angry tears welling up in your eyes. "Been like what?" You spit the words out, body staying put together and defensive.

"You've been inable to be alone for nearly a year when you go towards the Lid or anywhere in the Barrel, yet for nearly three months you werent able to have anyone touch you or go near you. Everytime you left here alone you were angry and frustrated." He sped towards his desk, opening a drawer and pulling out a candle. He watched as you go on the defensive, taking a step away from the desk. "You couldn't smell this particular scent without immediately shutting down and turning tail to the furthest corner of the building. Do not act and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about."

Tears spilled down your cheeks. "I hate you." You muttered. "I hate you and how- how observant you are. You do not get to make me feel like shit for keeping this to myself."

"That is not my intention and you know it."

"Well you're sure not doing a good job at expressing that." You put your face into the crown of the hat, hands shaking.

He stood there in silence. Watching you slowly break in front of him and try to keep yourself up. He knows he didn't go about this the right way, and internally scolded himself for being such a teenager.

Being as gentle as possible, he grabbed a chair from one side of the room and put it behind you, pushing on the hat to coax you downwards. You sat in the chair, an ugly sob escaping you.

He grabbed a rag in the bathroom, gently dropping it into your lap. It took you a moment to pull the hat away from your face, tears caking your cheeks and snot just barely escaping your nose quickly being covered again and wiped away.

It had to be him, but he needed to be sure. He needed to know who he was, who he loved, where he lives, how he evaded Inej, what his schedule was, even the names of his fucking dogs if he had any. He needs to know what he did to you, and what he has to do to replicate that pain ten, twenty, thirty times over.

Eventually, you stopped crying, the rag having been folded over and over again to find a dry surface was now soaked in tears and snot. You threw it to the side, towards the bathroom, continuing your hold on his hat like it was your lifeline.

"He..." Your voice was harsh and crackley. "He was a friend of mine. From my childhood. I lost contact with him maybe, seven years ago? He saw me last year and wanted to meet up and like the idiot I am, I said yes, without telling anyone where I was going."

The skin beneath your nose was rubbed raw. "He..." You squeezed your eyes shut, bottom lip quivering. "He raped me Kaz. I don't know for how long. All I know is when I met up with him it was light out and when I escaped it was pitch black. He said all kinds of shit like how he's wanted to do it since we were young and he's been dreaming about this for forever and I just, felt so disgusted I didn't want to talk about it. Not to Nina not to Inej... not to you."

The task of keeping himself level headed enough to finish this conversation with you was all consuming. But he managed to clear his head enough to respond. "Thank you for telling me."

"Well, it's not like you really gave me much of a choice."

He winced. "I didnt-"

"I know, you meant well, but still." Your eyes were tired, exhausted, shoulders dropped. "I just... need some time to recuperate. That's all." With a blank expression, you let your hands rest, fingertips grazing over the hat gently before standing.

You handed it back to him. He took it, staring at the accessory as he listened to you begin to leave. Before you closed the door, he called out, "What's his name?"

The door paused, your footsteps haulting. You popped your head back in, eyes facing anywhere except him, and said "Colin. Colin Norling." You wasted not another moment before closing the door and walking away.

He needed to find Inej.

------

The water from the canals sloshed as people passed by, paddles making waves in the water as boats cut through like a knife. All passerbys kept to themselves, feeling the mood of the black dressed boy walking along the edge, some even knowing who he was moved their paddles faster.

Walking to his destination wasn't hard. Not in the slightest. He memorized the path, scaring it into his mind and scratching it into a map on his desk.

He stopped in an alley, a clear shot of the house in question from around the corner. Lights were on inside, but according to Inej he had a habit of doing that every time he left the house. He wishes his house would burn down.

"Is he home?" He asked.

"Almost." Inej replied, appearing at his side. "Coming up along the road now." She nodded to the left, up the road.

He peeked around the edge, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

Not anxiety, no. His mind was clear, feet planted firmly on the ground, watching with set eyes as Colin Norling walked- no, strut down the cobblestone, a smile on his face. It showed off the missing tooth, the mole above his eye lifting as his face muscles shifted.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"No." He damn near growled, voice low. He could feel his throat and chest nearly begin rumbling as his jaw clenched. "You go back and keep an eye on Y/n. They're in a foul mood."

He feels Inej inch away, and then disappear without a word.

Colin opened his door, disappearing inside. Kaz waited for another moment, watching as the house brighter twice, before he walked out from the alley.

He strode over as casually as possible, even smiling at a woman who waved to him before she disappeared inside her own home.

Jesper would be waiting around back with a boat in another canal just behind the row of houses. This needed to be as simple as possible, as quiet as possible, until they got to their designated area.

The moment he stepped into the house, closing the door behind him, he became Dirtyhands.

"Oi, what're you doin' in my house?" The man nearly shouted, shoulders squared and fists curled. He was muscular, but not overwhelmingly so. It was a workers body, made for endurance rather than big shows of strength.

"I'll give you three guesses." He drew the curtains shut, keeping an eye on the bristling man.

"Three guesses? Wha' kinda game are you playin' here mate? Get out my fuckin' house!" He made a move on Kaz, a grab for the shoulder, but didn't make it far before the beak of a cane came in contact with his knee.

It wasnt enough to break it, but definitely enough to hurt later.

Colin cried out in pain, holding his knee.

"For that, you've only got two left."

He snapped his head back up to Kaz, anger in eyes. He couldn't wait to make them bloody.

"What the hell is wrong with you?! I'm not gonna tell you again you fuckin' loony, get out my house!" He was much quicker than last time, but Kaz was expecting it.

He side stepped, then moved backwards as Colin continued to try and grab at him. He enjoyed every moment that he limped and stubbed a toe, each little injury fueling the fire in him and making him clumsier and clumsier.

"Really not gonna guess, Colin?" He asked, placing them back in the exact same position as when they started this merry go round.

He became a little nervous. "How'd you know my name?"

"Lucky guess." He smiled, then brought his cane up and cracked him against the jaw, beak nearly piercing into the meat of his cheek.

Jesper appeared from the back entrance, rushing to catch him before he fell.

"Bloody hell." Jesper wheezed out. "Man could lay off an extra meal every once in a while, saints." He gripped him about the chest, hands threading under his arms and linking his fingers.

"He won't be worrying about meals anytime soon." He walked past Jesper and to the boat, making sure the planking was secure. The surrounding windows were all dim, curtains drawn. Even the woman next door was probably tucked away in bed, none the wiser.

He signaled to Jesper to load him in. "You know where to go."

"Yep. Meet you there in a quarter bell."

And with that he left out the front door, blood on his cane and purpose in his step. He ducked through alleys and through various businesses he had a share in, taking himself over Haverbridge and down Grafcanal until he got to Black Veil Island.

Jesper was coming up on it the same time he arrived, hopping out the moment he could pull it onto the murky bank and grabbed Colin by the chest again, lugging him up by a sack of potatoes.

It was a good thing Jesper worked on a farm.

He stayed above the mausoleum, watching as the moon began to descend. He didn't intend to finish anytime before the sun rose.

"He's all set up."

Kaz nodded, and disappeared below. The room was simple. Stone walls and a wood chair he had reinforced and bolted to the ground. Colin was tied to it, just waking up, with a thick rope. Various candles were spread around the room for light.

It was crude and simple. He didn't deserve any better.

"Wazzah'." He groaned, eyes fluttering open. Bloody spit ran down the corner of his lip, some dried on his neck. "Whuz 'appenin'.".

"Oh I think you know what's happening, Norling." He shrugged his jacket off, setting it down on the cleanest part of the floor. "You're just too thick in the head to catch up."

That got him awake. His head bolted up, eyes nearly rolling to the back of his skull at the change in position. But he recovered just as quickly, eyes squinting to get adjusted to the low light.

Once they finally did adjust, they narrowed almost completely. "You... you stupid fuck. Let me go!"

Kaz sighed. "Not used to being the one being held down, are you?"

His eyebrows crinkled. "What the fuck does that mean?"

He swung his cane again, hitting him in the knee again. The sound of his scream filled him with adrenaline, heart racing, but he kept it at bay.

"Do not play dumb with me, Norling."

"Fucking hell, mate. Wha' d'you want!?"

He raised his cane, relishing in the way he flinched, and dragged the tip of the beak along his thigh. It made a ripping noise along the texture of his trousers, but stayed perfectly intact for now.

"I want you to tell me why you did it." He stated vaguely.

"Did what!"

"Raped Y/n."

He was stunned, mouth a little open, chin quivering. He almost looked like he was going to cry.

"Who the fuck are you? What happened between us is none of your damn business."

That made him angry. He swung his cane again, hitting him right again his shin. He heard a satisfying crack, Colin screaming in pain. His head swung back, fingers splayed and curling, good leg trying to wiggle free.

"Why, did you do it?"

He didn't answer, tears falling down his cheeks.

Kaz unclipped a knife from the band of his trousers, flicking it open and grabbing the man by the crown of his hair. He held the blade just to the left of his esophagus, against the artery, and pressed.

"Why, did you do it?" He repeated, feeling his panicked and uneven breath. Blood was oozing from his head, eyes crossed trying to look at Kaz up close.

"Fuck you." He muttered, going to spit at Kaz.

He seen this coming, grabbing his face over his eyes and shoving the knife into his mouth. It clacked against teeth, but made a decent sized cut on his tongue.

The muscle bled profusely, Kaz forcing the man's head back so far that swallowing and breathing became strained, mouth pooling with blood as he tried to scream it out.

He left go, watching as his head fell forward and a river of red saliva ran down his chin and onto his shirt.

"I'd ask you again, but it doesn't seem like you'll be able to talk. So I will."

He threw his cane aside, the noise startling the man before him. He took his hat, the hat you were clutching just yesterday, and set it down gently on his coat.

"I am going to make the next few hours of life so miserable you will wish for death. You will call upon all the saints you can think of for forgiveness, for help, for an escape, for someone to rescue you. And nothing will happen." He walked around in a circle, watching with delicious delight as he tried to break his bonds. "I am going to carve out your guts while you're still awake, cut off your appendages, and feed them to you. Especially that one."

He pointed down to his lap, watching as pure unadulterated fear swept over his face. He thinks he said something along the lines of "You can't be serious.", but without the tongue it was only a matter of guessing.

Kaz's eyes narrowed. "You will find that I have am not a man of jokes, rather a man of terrible truths." He balled his hand into a fist, knife still in his hand, and gave him a good punch to his stomach.

He heard the vomit before it was coming, stepping out of the way as he spewed all over his knees. The acid definitely didn't do good for his tongue.

"I will make you hurt in places you didn't even know could feel pain. And you will be able to do absolutely nothing about it."

He dug the knife into his shoulder until he hit bone, the screaming now sounding more like gurgling, choking on his own spit and blood.

Blood gushed from the wound, spraying his face, clothes, and the ground several feet away.

For every tear that you shed into his hat, was an hour of pain and torment Colin Norling was sentenced to.

There were 8 drops.

------

He found you at 5th harbor sitting at a tourist berth, feet dangling over the open expanse of water he had once crawled out of.

At the time he had no one. Just a crippling fear of skin and unfathomable rage that gave him all the company he could ever need, eating at him every day from then on.

He would not sentence you to the same fate.

The ocean didn't scare him. That was something he made absolutely sure of the following weeks after his escape from death. His throat itched a little at the memory.

His approach was silent, the heels of his boots lightly rapping against the wood. It didn't feel new anymore, but he knew it was sturdy and would continue to be so for many years to come.

Without a word, he placed the hat onto your head. You didn't seem startled in the slightest, but you still looked up at him.

Your eyes widened at the blood on his shirt beneath his coat, the color staining his face and hands. It took you a moment to process what you were seeing, and when it seemed you did, you took the hat off.

It had two very thin spurts of blood dried into the dark fabric, the fluid turning nearly brown.

"So he's gone then?" Your voice was tight. So, so tight, with emotion. He couldn't see you breathing.

"As gone as gone can be."

The relied was immediate, entire torso collapsing onto your legs nearly sending you off the berth and into the waters below. Your face was buried in the hat once more.

The tears you shed now would have no need to be counted. Instead they would dry and be forgotten. He hoped the hat would bring you relief, a constant reminder that he was gone, and with time you could learn to be dependant again.

Or perhaps you would throw it away, free of the reminder of your defilement, your own peace of mind serving enough reassurance that you were free.

Whichever it may be, it was yours now.

He needed a new one anyway.

∘₊✧──────────────────✧₊∘

Tags:

@b3kk3r-by-br3kk3r @a-candle-maker

[uglypastels]

can you please do a part 2 to that blurb of eddie catching reader reading a dnd guide??! like with them going to his place or somewhere remote to make her character sheet or something and they get to talking and bonding and its all fluff!!

yess!! sorry it took me so long to write this haha. i absolutely love this story tho, and it still might need more but hey, let me know if you want it. i also didn´t include much of the character making since idk what you would actually wanna be, so leaving that up for interpretation mostly. PART 1

no explicit warnings. swearing. angry parents at the end.

Eddie Munson requests open // support your local writers and reblog+comment

Chapter 2: Carmilla

You drove up slowly over the gravel, looking for the trailer that Eddie had described. “White and old as shit, like the rest of them, but we got a little porch going on up-front, with a brown couch. So just look for that.” And look for the brown couch, you did. You found it too, at the end of the road. There were maybe two other trailers next to it, completing the neighbourhood. You could hear a dog barking behind you when you got out of your car. 

Eddie must have heard you arrive, which would have been hard not to do since the car's noise on the road was most likely audible through the entire street. He opened the door wide for you as you neared the steps. 

‘Welcome, my fair maiden,’ He announced dramatically, ‘to my castle.’

You didn’t even bother pushing back the smile it brought to your face. Eddie let you walk inside. The trailer was, expectedly, small, but it had an incredible cosiness to it. It was messy in a lived-in way, and you could see that he had made an effort in his last-minute cleaning before your arrival. The pile next to the sofa, covered with an old blanket, was somewhat telling, and the dishes in the sink looked like they were quickly thrown in there. 

‘So, we can sit here, or in my room, whatever.’ He was still trying to finish up his tidying up, grabbing shirts from all around him. 

‘I’m dying to know what Eddie Munson’s room looks like,’ you admitted, so he led the way. You had no expectations of what it would be. In reality, it could be anything between a Satanic ritualist’s dungeon and your little sister’s play tearoom. What you walked into was… pretty much a typical teenage boy’s bedroom. Messy, a bit dark as his blinds were shut, posters plastered all over the walls. He had piles of books next to his bed, some you recognised, some you didn’t. It was your immediate go-to. Maybe a bit too excited, you sat down on the ground to inspect his collection of paperbacks. 

‘You’ve read Carmilla?’ You looked up at him.

‘Of course.’ Eddie sat down on his bed, the old springs creaked under his weight, ‘I got nothing against Stoker, but this is like, ten times better.’ 

‘I know, right!’ You practically squealed out before continuing your research. It was mostly fantasy and horror, with some books you also recognised to come from your English Lit curriculum. Once satisfied with that, you looked more around you, and your eye immediately caught the sight of a beautiful red guitar. It was hanging between two shelves next to his bed, almost sparkling in the room's dim light. 

‘You play?’ Perhaps it was a dumb question, but Eddie didn’t mind.

‘Yeah, got a band and everything. We play at the Hideout on Tuesdays.’ 

‘Oh, I’ve been there,’ you admitted but immediately realised that maybe you shouldn’t have. But Eddie didn’t miss anything. Instead, he looked at you, eyes wide open in amazement. 

‘You? y/n? Go to a dump like the Hideout? No way!’ He laughed. Not in a mocking manner, more in his usual enthusiastic and slightly chaotically unkempt way of energy. A spark in his eyes lit up, going unnoticed by you, though, about yet another shared interest between the two of you.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ You sat down next to him, challenging him on his accusations against your character. 

‘You’re just so… you.’ He had leaned back on his elbow, so you mirrored his movements. ‘But you keep surprising me, so I’d say anything is possible.’ His voice had turned soft, intimate, sincere. It made heat rise up to your cheeks and made you turn to look away from his big brown doe eyes.

‘Right, so how does this whole thing work?’ You cleared your throat after a second, sitting up straight, trying to get the conversation back on track to what you had actually come for in the first place. Mostly, so your heart would stop beating so loud. 

‘It’s not difficult, but might take a while, depending on how thorough you want to be– and in my experience, the deeper you go, the better,’ he walked away to search through some of his stuff in a cupboard. As he did, you looked around a bit more and noticed the pair of handcuffs hanging casually on a nail in the wall. You quickly looked away, just to see Eddie turn back to you, a sheet of paper in hand. He must have had it prepared, you thought, considering how quickly he had made it appear. 

‘Here,’ he handed it to you. The sheet of paper was covered in little boxes and lines for you to fill in, making it look like a test you had not studied for, but Eddie had you covered. ‘I know it looks like much, but we’re just gonna go one by one. Start with your own name, on top.’ He handed you a pen. 

‘I get points for writing my name down?’ you smiled, remembering what your middle school teachers used to say before a quiz. 

‘Oh, for sure,’ Eddie grinned and watched you write down your name– well, tried to write it down. Holding the paper on your knee made it crumble up under the weight of the pen. So, Eddie quickly bent down under his bed and pulled out a thick folder– the same one you had seen him with in the drama room– and handed it to you. You placed the paper on top, which was much better to write on. 

‘We could get you to pick a name now, but I think it will be easier, unless you have one already, to do all the other stuff first. That way you’ll have a better idea of who you are, so the name will fit better.’ That sounded fair to you. ‘So we can start with race and class. You read about those, I assume?’

‘Uhh, yeah. Class is like your occupation, right? And race is like… a species?’ 

‘Yeah, exactly,’ Eddie smiled, and it quickly urged you on to join in. it was just that type of infectious laugh that he had. And it was pretty. That was the only word that you found fit to it. Pretty. The way he would look down at the mattress when you tried to make eye contact, and the dimples in his cheeks appeared, it made your stomach fill up with wild butterflies. You tried to control them, but it was hard when he was sitting so close to you. The only thing between you was that folder and the piece of paper. 

‘Do you remember the different classes? Did something stand out to you while you were reading?’ 

‘I think I kind of want to be a Thief,’ you considered, ‘What do you think?’ 

‘I’m just your guide through the vast unknown, milady,’ he waved his hands around mystically, ‘I can’t tell you what to do or not to do… unless you’re about to make some really dumb choices– but it’s up to you.’

His comment made you burst out laughing, and it didn’t really stop after that. You continued on filling up the spaces on your page, bringing your character to life. Eddie explained any term to you that you had not come across in your research. He helped you with tough choices, giving you the pros and cons lists of both sides. Just like that, hours went by. You hadn’t even noticed how much time had passed until you noticed the blackness behind the curtains. A panicked gasp escaped you.

‘Shit. My parents will kill me. I told them I would be home for dinner.’ The curses didn’t stop coming out of your mouth. How could you not have realised what time it was? 

You got up quickly and folded the page a few times so it would fit in your pocket. You had to get home, like right now, preferably, ten minutes ago.

‘I’m sorry- Thank you so much for everything, Eddie. I really had a great time.’ you rushed past him, too quick to let him say anything in response, but did leave a kiss on his cheek. It had been a spur-of-the-moment instinct. A moment filled with anxiety-fuelled adrenaline. Only once you were standing at your car door did it go through you what you had actually done. Had you just kissed him?

And then you turned around, and he was standing right behind you. 

‘You really got to stop running away from me.’ Well, he hadn’t been right behind you but was leaning against the railing of the steps at the trailer’s front door. Even in the evening darkness, you could see he was smirking at you. 

‘I know, I feel like a broken record,’ you laughed. You had your hand on the car door, and everything in your body told you to get in and drive home. It wasn’t that late yet, maybe your parents wouldn’t be too mad? But you stayed. You watched as Eddie walked over to you. 

‘Just don’t let it happen again, ok?’ He said once really standing in front of you. ‘I like you way too much to watch you walk away from me.’ And he leaned in. For a second you thought he would kiss you. A figment of your imagination even made you think that you felt his lips against yours, but that wasn’t true. It would be too good– no, what the hell. 

Eddie leaned over you to grab the car door and opened it for you. 

‘Your carriage awaits.’ 

‘Thanks,’ you said, now way too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. 

Any other night if you would have missed your curfew, you would have been filled with panic over your parents’ reaction, but not that night. You drove him with your head in the clouds. All you could think about was Eddie and how his breath tasted so sweet. Like those caramel candies, the ones he had offered you that one time in class. You had almost, actually completely, forgotten about that day but it brought it all back. 

It was a minuscule moment, a bit silly probably, and you couldn’t imagine him remembering any of it since it had happened months ago.

You were in Miss Click’s class, dozing off while someone was giving a presentation about god knows what. It was dark in the room, the only light source being the projector and the heat from outside was slowly creeping into the room, making it very easy for you to start to doze off. 

Psst, you heard coming from next to you suddenly, want one? And next thing you know, someone held up a hand full of golden wrapped sweets in front of you. You looked over to see Eddie, he had already been chewing on one, his big eyes nudging you on to take his offer. 

You can take two if you want, he whispered, and you remembered since you had been late that morning and been starving ever since you woke up. The lovely result of skipping breakfast. With a thankful smile, you grabbed two sweets and popped them in your mouth, savouring them throughout the rest of the class. 

The next time you spoke to him was in the drama classroom. 

But as you drove into your driveway, you realised that that had also been the moment that you had fallen for Eddie Munson. That was all it took. A small act of kindness led you on to start feeling an unconscious connection, that didn’t even brew properly until now. 

You grabbed the character sheet out of your pocket and looked at it, smiling like an idiot. For once you couldn’t wait to go to school next Monday, as that would mean you got to see Eddie again. Maybe you could even sit at their table? 

Although, that would be weird. What would your friends think? What would the Hellfire Club think? They had no idea who you were. Because how could you know that in the last week, they had spent all their lunch periods keeping Eddie from staring at you. It was enough that he was called The Freak, no need to add Creep to that now. They were waiting for you to join the club, even if only if it meant that, with you there, Eddie wouldn’t feel the compulsion to constantly talk about how pretty you were. 

How could you possibly know all that?  

You folded the paper up again, and stepped out of the car–

‘y/n! Where the hell were you?’ The front door of your house smashed open, revealing your angry mother, awaiting an explanation as to why you had been over two hours late.

part 3

Leave a review behind!

-----

tagging: @stydia-4-ever (per request)

[astaroth1357]

How the Obey Me Cast Would Protect MC

Lucifer

With all his (considerable) might.

Keeping his human safe in such a dangerous place is a point of pride to him. To attack them, then, is to besmirch that pride… and you can imagine the consequences of that.

Cold and brutal, but also swift and effective. Lucifer will have any attacker who comes at them cooked to a crisp then served to Cerberus by lunchtime.

If someone were to actually hurt MC, he'd take it as a failure on his part and seek to "fix" it by any means necessary. An eye for an eye is not nearly strict enough, even a light bruise will make him go for the heart.

Mammon

To his dying breath.

They are one of the best things to happen to him in centuries so do you think that he's going to let them go easily? Of course not!

Mammon is no slouch. He's second oldest and second strongest, so any intruder better take him seriously. His speed is his greatest weapon and he'll end a fight before it gets to start.

Mammon would 100% lay down his life if it meant keeping MC safe. He wouldn't think about it nor hesitate and his attacks are pretty reckless in kind. Anyone who hurts MC won't be able to hide behind his self-preservation, they're always going down even if he's going with them.

Leviathan 

With the force of a Grand Admiral.

Usually, Levi prefers to stay out of confrontation. Not because he's too weak to fight but because he's often too much to handle.

This man's opening move is to summon a seven-headed sea monster that floods the local area and chews his opponents to pieces... How much worse do you think he can do when he's serious?

Levi isn't put into the spotlight very often and he'll rarely enter a fight head-on, but for MC he'll win any battle, any time. He's bringing a tank to a water balloon fight and he doesn't care who screams, "HAX!!!"

Satan

Like a beast without a cage.

Don't be fooled by his brains and good manners, under all of that lies a bona fide demon.

"Savage" doesn't even begin to describe Satan when he's pissed and being a threat to MC will get him there in a millisecond. He's every bit as remorseless as Lucifer, but without the careful efficiency. Breaking every bone takes time.

And again, that's only if he considers someone a threat. To anyone who actually hurts MC, there'll be so little left Simeon will have nothing to pray over... Promise.

Asmodeus 

As if they were a part of himself.

Asmo has gone on record many times saying how much he loves himself - he could kiss a mirror, he loves himself that much. But when MC stepped into his life, they became a part of him too.

So all that anger he gets when he sees a chipped nail? The fury he feels when someone ruins his hair? He feels the same when someone hurts MC, but tenfold. 

The people who hurt them aren't just attacking his image, they're attacking his soul - and he responds in kind. No punishment is too steep at that point. Even if it was his charm, he'd say they did it to themselves.

Beelzebub 

Like he's sworn an oath.

In the Celestial Realm, Beel was ready to lay down his life for Lucifer. He doesn't see much of a difference here, really.

Defending his loved ones is in his DNA - it's how he thinks and operates. The moment the MC befriended Beel, whether they knew it or not, they had a bodyguard for life.

He's already lost one family member but he'll never lose another. He'll be the first to leap to their defense and the last to ever call it quits. Satan may leave a little, but Beel will make sure there's nothing left when he's done.

Belphegor 

Like there's finally something worth fighting for.

Being as lazy and lethargic as he is, most people wouldn't pick Belphegor as their protector, but for MC? He'll wake right up.

Belphie had been running on autopilot for a long time after losing Lilith... If he had any reason to fight anymore, it'd be for Beel but it's not like his twin needs the help.

The MC is different… so human and as fragile as ever. Though it feels like they could disappear at any moment, he'd never let it happen. He'd burn everything to the ground first.

Diavolo

With the power of a King.

Just take a moment to actually appreciate how insane someone must be to want to hurt MC with the Demon Lord at their back...

Does this even need elaboration? He would maim them, eviscerate them, send an army to trample their bones, then resurrect the pieces to do it all over again!

For the good that the MC has done him, his realm, and the world at large - he wouldn't settle for anything less. But of course, no one would be that stupid anyway… Right...?

Barbatos

Quietly, from the shadows.

Barbatos knows where he fits in the world. He doesn't need any fame or glory, nor to be looked at as some kind of hero (because he most certainly is not).

Barbs will take every measure possible to be sure that threats are dealt with, but always behind the scenes. He's a man of many talents, thus it never takes him very long.

The MC is his Lord's guest and very important to everyone there… Their stay shouldn't be marred by something as trivial as fear. They can just keep going about their day as usual and he'll keep the threats buried out of sight... literally.

Simeon

Without mercy.

All the kindness in the world can't hide one thing, Simeon is a living weapon - plain and simple - as an Archangel it's in his job description.

Loyal but pragmatic, Simeon will do or say what he needs to in order to get the best outcome he can. He's an angel, but he'll bend or even break the rules when MC is involved...

If they're in danger, he will defend them however he can and with all his might. There's no room for forgiveness or talking things out. He's risked everything for them before and he'll do it again and again…

Solomon

Even if the world burns...

To say that Solomon has a "different" way of looking at things would be charitable. Either from prolonged corruption or centuries of a lonely life: his methods, priorities, and even logic can be a bit iffy to others…

Likewise, for reasons only he knows (perhaps the emotion called "Love"), he's decided that the MC is worth protecting above all else. He will hold true to this.

The stars could be falling and the planet cracking to pieces sending mayhem running through the streets as the Three Realms collapse around them - but he will do everything in his immense power to safeguard the only thing that matters - his MC.

[zodiacs-web]

I never request from anyone so this is weird, but i am desperate bc theres nothing :'/

What about Qin Shi Huang with a fem!reader who kind of reminds him of his mother?

Smile/outfit/long hair (pls the long ass hair, i am a sucker for long asf hair😩)

But she is chaotic,careless,doesnt take anything seriously,laughs all the time, and flirts with everyone and everything.

(But not the submisive "blushes😳💅🏼" type, if he tries to flirt with her she'll be like "careful boy, i am ovulating😩" like a sly confident,'arrogant'(for humor purposes) strong beautiful woman who was also a fighter(¿???

Basically the: "the world could be ending, but i am going to spend my last minutes in bliss with this margarita" "he can be a psycho but he can also be really hot" "I think i just busted an ovary" "Omfg i am so hot" "Are you the EmpEror? NOBODY TOLD ME HE WAS THIS FINEEEE- CHINA TAKE ME WITH YOU"

But the similarities she has with his mother is that despite enjoying annoying people,having no morals and doing whatever she wants, her actions aren't actually damaging and she's honest and purely kind at nature(but you never get to see the kindness?)

I'm sorry, i am a very detail oriented person so i wanted to make sure i described it right, sorry if it's too much i kinda got carried away

I currently have my corrector in spanish so forgive my weird english

Have a wonderful day Queen👀❤

My Type of Queen

𖥔 Qin Shi Huang x F!Reader

𖥔 Synopsis: Chaotic reader

𖥔 What's in the web: swearing, dialogue from the ask, unedited

𖥔 A/n: I love the way you worded your request anon. You have a wonderful day as well!

𖥔 Reblogs are Appreciated!

Arrogant winds flown from the bottom of the mountain, a long day after keeping the guards grubby hands off a rich man. You spotted the nearest and familiar little cart that always housed you. Long hair swung from side to side as you finally made it to the area with your body in hazardous pain.

"What a fuckin' pain! Hey! Baldie, gimme your special!" You groaned as you sat on the flimsy wooden chair.

"Haha! (Y/n), always having a mouth against me. Anyways, how've ya been?"

"I've been doing well. But the man was loaded with riches, and YET, he tried to scam me by giving me half of what he offered. After all that help, and he does THIS!! Ugh."

"I bet he was a pain! No one can get past you with that attitude." He laughed as he passed a plate of peking roasted duck to the woman.

"Thanks, baldie!"

"You're never gonna drop that nickname, are ya?"

Giving him a signature smile, you grabbed the chopsticks and started prodding at the duck. The cut pieces shone as you moved them off the plate and into your mouth. A pleasure filled sigh left your lips as the flavors of the duck filled your senses. Suddenly, you remember something from the encounter again.

"Hey! Ya know, he also tried to flirt with me." The man before her nodded, amusing you in any way. "He got his panties in a twist when I did it back to him. Saying women shouldn't act like this. Shut up!"

The man laughed, knowing your arrogant nature was somewhat disbelieving, yet amusing. You then slowly chewed on your duck, feeling an unusual yet strong presence growing near. The sounds of those around you quickly caught your attention. They let out gasps from the sight before them.

You grabbed hold onto the shelf, that hung out of the cart, and leaned back. The view of people covering the street pissed you off like make some room, your view is more important. You leaned back into your original position and stared as the baldie prepared even more food.

That could either mean two things: 1) Somebody important was nearby or 2) there's a festival and he could get money from both. Doesn't matter. After all, his way of living was in the trash can. A giggle left your lips as you went back to feasting on your duck.

As you ate, the whispering and moaning of the crowd grew louder. Covered eyes stared in dread as your appearance quickly entered his view. You looked just like her, the hair, the outfit and smile all looked just like her.

Though some parts of you were much different yet, that didn't change anything. Of course, his curiosity got to him. Despite the fact that he was going to dine in another place that was much more rich and fancier for him, according to his advisors.

Silently, he sat down on one of the chairs next to you, eyes giving glances to you as the cover helped him hide it. Soldiers positioned themselves around him. You stared down at the duck while you saw him in your peripheral view. Slowly chewing on the soft skin before swallowing it to start a conversation.

"Who're you? And what're ya doin' causing a ruckus here?" You interrogated him all while grabbing a piece of duck and shoving it into your mouth.

"Me?" He grabbed a small menu from shelf in front of him, skimming it as he pondered. "I just wish to feast, why does my status matter?"

"You brought a town to us. Why doesn't your status matter?" You responded, body turning to face him.

You were serious, and you never got this serious so fast. There was just something about this guy who screamed, "Well, everything." But there was this curiosity too that made you want to know more about him.

"What are the soldiers here for?"

"Protection," He responded.

Your eyes glared at the man causing the soldiers to tense.

"Hey sir. I think I'd like Xiao longbao (soup dumplings)."

Baldie nodded before preparing the dumplings.

"How important are you that you need soldiers?"

"Well, as an emperor, I think all the protection I can get."

The emperor.

"You're the emperor!!!?? Ah~ I NEVER KNEW YOU WERE SO FINE~ HEY! HEY! TAKE ME WITH YOU!!!"

Your sudden outburst caught him off guard as well as his soldiers. You acted so different, that was he expecting just a few seconds ago. The serious type that turned out to be so chaotic, yet so lovable. He just loved the energy you gave. A smile decorated his face as he relished in it.

"What makes you think I'll take you?"

"I'm hot. Don't you see?"

Baldie laughed, the emperor taking a glance before looking back at you.

"Heh. That's true. Maybe I can take you in some ways."

He smirked, head turning to face you. A grin appearing on your face.

"Oh? Careful boy,...I'm ovulating."

Of course, he was taken aback, again, by your words, you were so out there that he couldn't believe it.

"Before we go on our way, can I perhaps have your name?"

"(Y/n) (l/n). And you, pretty boy?"

"Qin Shi Huang."

[sassy-ahsoka-tano]

Rainy Days - Professor Butler Pt. II

Character/Fandom: Austin Butler

Requested: yes! - several of y'all asked for part 2 haha

Prompt: You've been seeing Professor Butler for several months now, and you're getting tired of all this sneaking around. Is he gonna grow a pair and commit or not? [ Fem!Reader ]

TW: None!

Rating: Pg-13   ||     Word Count: 4061

A/N: this is the ghost of mila since i'll be at a work event when this is posted lmao 👻

happy birthday to the sexiest man alive 2022 🥴🥴 i hope y'all enjoy part 2. also i did not know that Agnetha from ABBA was dead and i am...very sad about that

Read part one here!

🦋 mila

─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────

You spritz yourself one last time with perfume before hectically grabbing the strap to your purse and blasting out the door. You’re running late to meet your…well, you aren’t really sure what he is to you. He’s everything and nothing at the same time. As far as everyone else is concerned, he’s professor to you. But in private, in the quiet moments when it’s just you and he, he’s so much more than that. Boyfriend, lover, friend with benefits. You aren’t sure what title fits your relationship best. And never have you used any of those words to describe him. Boyfriend is too formal, lover too sexual, and friend with benefits too distant. He is your…your Austin. That’s the only word that feels right to say. And as you glance at your watch, you realize just how late you are to meet him.

You sprint across the street and a car beeps at you. You throw up a hand and mutter a ‘sorry’ even though you know they can’t hear you. After you round the corner to get to a bridge, you stop and take a moment to collect yourself. You brush your hair back and push it into place, straighten your clothes, dab some sweat from your forehead. You take a few deep breaths to calm your racing heart that’s beating out of your chest, not from the sprint to the park but from the thought of getting to see him again. No matter how many times you do this, how many times you meet him for your - what’s become a weekly - walk through the park just off-campus, you never stop feeling like you’re sneaking around. You never stop getting that adrenaline rush that comes with doing something forbidden. Perhaps that’s because there is always a chance, just a small one, that someone will recognize the two of you together.

You smile as you approach your usual meeting place: a fountain in the middle of the park, a secluded area where you’ve never actually seen another person besides the two of you. Even from the back, you can tell the figure sitting on the bench is him, his gorgeous blonde curls reflecting the golden rays of afternoon sunlight. You peer over his shoulder to see a book flapped open on his lap, as usual, and bite your lip at how academic he is. How handsome he is just doing the thing he loves most. You always cherish these moments, and you’ve gotten very good at picking them up after pining after him in class for so long. These candid moments of him just…existing. You’ve never seen a man exist so charmingly before. You slink up behind him, making sure to be as quiet as possible, and throw your arms around his chest. You allow your lips to hover by his ear.

“Hi Aus,” you whisper in a low voice. 

When his head jerks up from the words on the novel’s page, you can tell your surprise attack was successful. You take advantage of the distraction, running your fingers across the half-open flap of his dress shirt. He chuckles deeply and tilts his head back, a handsome smirk resting on his lips. He reaches up to remove his sunglasses, pushing the golden locks aside with the frames. His other hand moves to rest on your arm, stroking your skin with his thumb.

“Hey you,” he responds. “You’re late.”

“Fashionably,” you roll your eyes.

“You were never late to my class,” he counters.

“I would never disrespect the curriculum like that.”

He lifts your arms over his head, still holding onto them as he uses his thick thighs to push himself to stand. He turns, holding you out at arm's length to take you in. You’ve worn your favorite sundress today, one that you know makes your breasts look amazing. You know he’s noticed that when his eyes drop down to your breasts and then return to your eyes.

“What about this curriculum?” he asks, jerking you toward him. You crash into his chest and giggle, sliding your hands up the shirt and onto the nape of his neck, absentmindedly playing with the extra curly hair there. He leans down, gently brushing his lips against yours. You smirk against him, darting your tongue out to touch his lips before you lean back.

“Oh, I prefer the internship portion of this curriculum. You know, the practicum component where I get to put my skills to work.”

He smirks before pulling you taut against him and crashing his mouth down onto yours. He slips his tongue between your lips, wet and warm as it traces figures along your sensitive skin. You moan into his mouth, your fingers crawling their way into his hair. His hands slip to your ass and he hoists you up onto his hips, walking backward until your back hits what you assume to be the trunk of a tree. You moan again as his hips press into yours. You bite onto his bottom lip, pulling it out and he groans in response before releasing your lips.

“You’ve been studying, baby,” he growls, breathless. “A+.”

You just smirk and hop down. He intertwines his fingers into yours, spinning you around to his side. He snatches his book up, and you start on the path that you’ve trodden so many times before. You both know it by heart now, so you can focus your whole attention on each other.

“What are you reading, Aus?” you ask, gesturing to the book.

“Agnetha Faltskog - The Girl With the Golden Hair.”

He flips the book to show you the cover depicting a beautiful blonde woman. You smile.

“Who’s that?”

“She was one of the members of ABBA. Unfortunately, she died not too long ago, so I wanted to read more about her. It’s very interesting so far.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I love ABBA.”

“They’re one of my favorites. They were certainly a talented group and they produced tons and tons of hits.”

“Enough for two movies and a musical,” you reply with a chuckle, and he laughs. “Hey…”

You stop, glancing down a path that you both gloss by every time you take this walk. You point toward it, pulling on his arm.

“Why don’t we go this way?”

Austin shrugs and redirects his steps to go down the path you’ve chosen. You get back to talking about ABBA and what he’s reading. Then, you talk about what you’re reading and doing. You trudge along the path, making conversation until you start to hear noises in the distance. Your eyes tear themselves away from Austin’s for the first time in a while to notice that you’re approaching a clearing in the woods.

As you emerge into the clearing, the sounds of old 80s music and roller skates on wood flood into your ears. An outdoor roller rink. You smile and point. Austin nods but as you take a step closer you feel him release your fingers and, just out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he shoves his hand into his pocket. For some reason, a sense of embarrassment seeps into your chest.

He does this frequently. Whenever you’re out in public where other people might see you, actually. You know that Austin lives in constant fear of being found out and tattled on by a student or a faculty member. So far, you’ve accepted and lived with it since you understand the risk it poses to his career. But you won’t lie and say that it doesn’t bother you. Actually, as you walk toward the rink to look closer, your brain starts to run through all the times he’d released your fingers, distanced himself from you, he even acted like he didn’t know you on one risky close encounter. It’s a bit embarrassing for you, especially since you’re sure that anyone can see the adoration you hold for him on your face. As you step up to the rink, you’re starting to get a little pissed off, actually. You glance over at him to see a dumb smile playing on his lips as if everything is just dandy. In the afternoon light of the day, he looks so handsome.

But you kinda wanna punch him in the face right now. You should be able to grab his face and kiss him, snuggle underneath his arm, hold his hand. You’re basically a couple…aren’t you? Suddenly, your body is overwhelmed with the need to know if what you feel for him is returned. Until this moment you haven’t questioned it, but now…

Your fingers dance along the banister and onto his fingers. You grab at them, but he snakes them away and shoots you a look like a parent would to a disobedient child. You clench your jaw and then try again, this time sliding your entire body in front of him. He steps back, away from you, and shakes his head.

“Don’t do that.”

You can tell by his tone and body language that he’s starting to get irritated. Good. You smirk, your fingers traveling to his belt loops and hooking into them to yank him against you.

“What? I just wanna be close to you. Don’t you wanna be close to me?”

You press your chest into his and drop your hands to his pelvis, curving them ever so close to his crotch. He sighs deeply, moving his fingers to your shoulders and attempting to push you off of him. But you stay clinging to him, refusing to be removed.

“Come onnnnnn. Just one little kissie. No one will even notice.”

He falters for a moment, and you can practically see the conflict in his eyes, a mixture of disappointment and temptation. He wants you, you can tell, but he doesn’t know if he should take you. Although your heart is racing with the embarrassment of your actions, you’re just so tired of hiding. You could never say it out loud, but you’re pretty sure that you’re in love with this man. You’re not expecting a marriage proposal or anything like that but just some recognition would be nice. You just want to flaunt him, show the whole world that he’s yours.

You hook your finger into the belt loop of his pants and yank him harder against you as your other hand pulls down on his neck. You strain your own neck upward, pushing your chin out to try desperately to connect your lips to his. He begins to move down toward you, but his head jerks back harshly and hands fly to your wrists, sternly removing them from his body. He pushes you back, holding you at arm's length again.

“No. I’ve told you no before. We just can’t do it. It’s inappropriate. That was the deal when we first got together. I told you that we wouldn’t be able to tell anyone, at least not until you graduate in May. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk either or both of us getting into trouble with the university.”

You stare up at him, the unfeeling coldness in his eyes making your fingers clench into fists at your sides. As you calculate your next movement, splats of chilling rain begin to fall onto your skin. You aren’t completely sure what overcomes you, but you find yourself reaching out and firmly shoving his chest. He stumbles back a few steps, his eyes widening and mouth popping open with shock.

“How can you treat me like this?” you shout. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t like sneaking around and hiding? Did my feelings ever even cross your mind?” You know that what you’re saying is bullshit, but you say it anyway. “No, I’m sure they didn’t. You don’t want us to get in trouble with the university? Us, Austin? Or you?? Don’t think I haven’t heard the gossip that you’re up for tenure already. God forbid the university board should find out that you’re having an affair with me. Bye-bye tenure. That’s the real reason isn’t it?”

“Don’t be petty, Y/N. Of course that’s not the reason. But I just can’t go around shouting to the world that I’m fucking a student,” he spits back.

“So that’s all I am to you, then? Just some student you’re fucking?? I’m just some kind of sugar baby to you, is that it? Someone to pass the time with, something to use?”

“No!” he yells back, taking a step forward so that he’s towering over you. You stick your neck out, challenging him.

“Then what the hell am I to you?”

“Y/N…”

“No, answer my question. What am I to you? Am I your girlfriend or not?”

He says nothing, and you can tell that he’s trying to contain his emotions in the presence of the other people around, some of which could be faculty or students.

“Answer. Me. Austin.”

He stays quiet, his eyes flicking around to take in all the bystanders who are beginning to notice your little quabble thanks to the volume of your voice.

“Fucking answer the question, Austin!” you yell even louder, reaching out to shove him again. “Just say it. Say I’m your girlfriend. Say it!”

“You’re not my girlfriend!!”

His sudden shift in tone shocks you, and you feel heat crawling into your cheeks as you glance around at all the observers watching your drama go down. When you glare back at his eyes, they flash with a moment of concern and guilt. He says nothing and realization begins to dawn on you.

“Whatever. You know what, I don’t care. I’m leaving. Don’t contact me, and I’ll drop your stupid class. Goodbye, Professor Butler. I hope you enjoy your tenure.”

You spin on your heel too quickly for him to respond. You know that nothing you’ve said is true nor does it make any logical sense. But you are so infuriated, so frustrated, so enraged that you just want to be anywhere but next to him. The rain begins to fall harder. And harder. And harder. The drops are freezing cold and you find it ironic. The timing. It’s almost as if you have started the downpour that’s ensuing.

In a matter of moments, what are just a few raindrops pitter-pattering here and there turn into a full-fledged shower. You cross your arms over your chest, shivering as your skin and dress start to soak through. You trudge through the grass which is quickly becoming a muddy mess, not caring what you might look like. You’re pretty sure you’re crying but with the raindrops trickling down your cheeks, you can’t be sure. Just as you’re about to cross the street, you feel someone’s hand on your arm. Whirling around with rage, you raise your arm to strike whatever is clutching onto you.

Austin’s open palm wraps around your wrist to stop it from colliding with his perfect face. You cower as soon as you make eye contact with him, immediately recognizing the fury in his face. His grip on your wrist is firm but not painful.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls, and you’re thrown back to all the times in the past few months that you’ve been with Austin. The times that he’d fucked your brains out with eyes like that. The first time that you’d slept together, when he had asked you that exact same question.

“Going back to my dorm so I can get drunk off my ass and update my Tinder profile,” you say, half-joking and maybe half-not.

“Y/N, don’t be like this. Why can’t you just understand? I need this job.”

“Do you? Do you need it more than you need me? Cause if so, then I guess all this bullshit in the past few months has been for nothing.”

You try to pull away, but his hand snakes onto your waist, pulling you against him.

“I need it because of you, don’t you understand? I want to be able to help you! Your student loans, your books, food! Whatever you need. I want to be able to provide for you!”

You have to admit that the sentiment makes your heart flutter for a moment, but you push that feeling down. You’re enjoying the power of your anger too much and making him feel guilty is way too fun.

“You don’t need to provide for me,” you shout. “That’s why I’m getting a fucking college degree. So I can provide for myself.”

You turn to stalk away but whirl back around when something occurs to you.

“So that is it, then? I am just some kind of sugar baby to you. You disgust me.”

This time around, with the combination of your rage and impatience, you’re strong enough to rip away from his grasp. You stomp quickly across the wet sidewalk, splashing puddles of muddy and dirty water up onto your legs.

“You’re not my fucking sugar baby,” suddenly Austin is right next to you. Damn his long legs. You try to speed up, but this is pretty much the fastest you can physically walk and you just have no chance against Austin’s lanky figure. He’s matching your pace with every step.

“Then why won’t you say that I’m your girlfriend? Make up your mind, Austin. I can’t keep sneaking around and waiting for you to accept me. To be proud of me. To show me off. It’s embarrassing to have to tell everyone I’m single when I’m not. I’m embarrassed that you don’t want to show me off. Is there something wrong with me? What, am I not good enough for your hoity-toity professor friends?”

“No. That’s not it. You’re very, very bright and an amazing person. We both know that-”

“Then why? Why won’t you accept me? Why do we have to continue to hide? I hate this. I hate lying to my parents, my friends, the people who are closest to me. Because you know what?? I want to tell them. I want to tell everyone. I want everyone to know. I lo…I like you so much. So so much, and I can’t tell anyone about it! No one!”

You’re definitely crying now. At this point, you’ve both stopped in the middle of the street. Your fists are splayed out behind you to offset the force of your screams. You’re breathing heavily, between the fast walking, the crying, the freezing rain shaking your body, and the anger. Shockingly, not a single car is passing by on either side of the street. You should probably move and that thought crosses your mind for a quick second, but lord knows you’re too stubborn to move before he does.

“And you think it doesn’t kill me? Not to tell anyone about you? Not to show you off? Goddamn it, Y/N/, you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever known. You’re beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous, the hottest person I’ve ever seen. You’re ethereal, it’s unreal. And you’re funny and quirky and quick-witted. And so smart and sure of yourself. You’re so talented and everything about you makes my heart race. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you, but I cannot ruin your life. I will not ruin our lives like this. I need the job so I can…”

He hesitates, suddenly realizing how many confessions he’s just spat at you. Your heart is thudding against your chest so loud that it’s drowning out the sounds of the harsh rain on the rooftops of the buildings along the street. You don’t know what to do. He loves you. He’s said it. Officially.

But he needs the job so he can…what??

“So you can what?” you ask, your eyes flicking between his.

A moment of tense silence passes between you as you wait for him to answer your question. You take a step forward, leaning your head up to gaze into his deep blue eyes. You raise your hand to his face, brushing a thumb over the slick cheek covered in cold rain. You watch as a few drops of water roll off his plump parted lips and you want more than anything to suck all the drops up. To taste the water on him.

Just as he’s about to answer, you jump at the sound of a loud beep. You glance to the side to see a black sedan racing toward you. Austin instincitvely pulls you against him, spinning around so that his back is facing the oncoming traffic. His arms slide under your armpits and lift you up so that you’re hovering above the ground. He walks forward onto the sidewalk. The car drives past with a beep, the window barely rolled down as the driver angrily shouts obscenities at you.

You continue to walk backward, pulling Austin underneath an awning on the nearest building. You press your back against the brick wall, absentminedely sticking your tongue out to catch a drop of water falling off your nose. He slides in next to you and you both try to catch your breaths.

“So you can what?” you ask.

“What?”

“You were saying that you…you need the job so you can something, but you didn’t finish.”

“Oh…it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” you ask, reaching to grab his hands. “Maybe I can help. Is something wrong?”

“No, no. It’s nothing like that,” he gazes into your eyes and then chuckles, shaking his head. “It’s…just some dumb idea I had.”

“What? You can tell me. Anything.”

He glances up at you again, and you can tell he’s weighing his options.

“Well…it’s stupid, but I was just saying that…I need the job to start saving for a…ring…”

Your breath catches in your throat and with the wet air and rain dripping down your face you start to cough. You bend over at the waist, coughing your lungs up as Austin rubs your back soothingly.

“Woah, woah, baby girl. Deep breaths, honey, deep breaths.”

“A…ring?” you sputter. “Like a…like a wedding ring?”

“No, no!” he holds his hands out in front of him with wide eyes. “Dear god no. I may be older, but I’m still way too young to be ready for marriage. No, I just thought that…well maybe you could wear it and think of me. And that could kind of show people that you’re taken.”

“So…like a promise ring?”

“Uh…yeah, like a promise ring, I guess.”

You watch the Adam’s apple in his throat bob up and down as he gulps nervously. You bite your lip to keep the smile from spreading too widely across your face.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I do want to show you off. I really do. I just truly don’t want you to get in trouble. The university has a very strict policy about this kind of stuff, even if it is consensual. And more than that, I want to be able to provide for you if I ever get the chance to. I know it’s crazy to think this far in the future since we’ve only been seeing each other for a few months, but…like I said out there. Y/N, I’ve never loved anyone as much as I’ve love you, baby.”

His hand reaches up to cup your cheek and you lean into his touch.

“I just wanna make everything good for you. Like I told you before, this won’t be easy, but I’ll take care of you. And maybe…maybe we can head up to my parent’s house this weekend. They’re hosting a dinner with some of their old friends and they invited me. I wasn’t gonna go so that I could stay here and spend time with you, but maybe I can bring you along.”

A huge smile spreads across your face. You raise yourself up on your tip-toes to press a chaste kiss to his lips. He kisses you back and you can feel the corners of his mouth curl up into a smile. When you pull back, you nudge his nose with yours.

“I love you, too. And I would love to go.”

“Alright. Let’s do it. But in the meantime, let’s get you inside before you freeze to death,” he says, wrapping his arms around you and guiding you toward the corner of the sidewalk. “I like you wet but not like this.”

─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────

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[jawnasaurus1]

WHY IS THE SHERLOCK FANDOM OBSESSED WITH 1895?

1. 221b Poem

If you’re a part of the Sherlock fandom, which if you’re reading this, there’s a high chance you are… then you’ve probably heard a lot of people mention something along the lines of: “It is always 1895”. This line actually originates from a poem named ‘221b’ by the poet Vincent Starret.

After extensive research, the year of 1895 does not prove significant to this specific poem other than it was the years of childhood for Vincent himself, when perhaps he read Sherlock Holmes? Though this was one year following the published ‘Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes’ in which ‘The Final Problem’ took place as Sherlock fell to his “death” at the Falls Of Reichenbach so I struggle to see the significance myself. (please comment if you know)

In the modern day, the last line of that poem however has come to represent the repression of the Baker Street Boys in that they will never be able to outwardly homosexual because it’s 1895 and it’s against the law.

2. THE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE

Some of you may also recognise the date of 1895 to coincide with The Trials Of Oscar Wilde- who was an Irish poet and playwright, sentenced for ‘gross indecency’ (acts of homosexuality).

Now this is all relevant when taking into account Doyles relation to Wilde. In 1889, both Arthur and Oscar were invited to dinner at the Langham Hotel in London with a publisher for the Lippincott magazine. The two authors were very fond of each other and Doyle later wrote that Doyle complimented his lesser known work which definitely would have gotten the Irish poet in The Scotts good books.

After the Trials, Doyle wrote that it should have been a matter for the hospital, not prison. Considering the stigma around homosexuality in the 19th century, to say this would have been very progressive and quite a risk as well. It’s clear Doyle liked Wilde which, for the Sherlock fandom, creates hope that perhaps Conan Doyle did purposely sub-textually make johnlock canon.

More significantly perhaps to this, is Doyles possible link to The trials in his own Sherlock short story, The three students, which begins with:

What makes this more bizarre, is the fact that due to the time at which the story is set, John and Sherlock had to spend time apart… to what? Avoid suspicion? Why are the suspicious?

3. BBC SHERLOCK

BBC Sherlock mentions the year 1895 a lot. Whether that be Johns blog stuck at the number or the time setting for The Abominable Bride, it is definitely not a coincidence that Mark and Steven chose these dates as extended metaphors to tell us that “It is always 1895” even in 2010.

Firstly Johns blog:

In ‘A scandal In Belgravia’, John complains that his blog counter has been stuck on 1895 throughout Christmas and later on, Sherlock believes the blog has been hacked as a message to tell him the password to Irenes phone.

Now, the fact that Johns blog is stuck at 1895 is very telling in that Moffitss want us to understand that, although we are in modern times, for Sherlock and John, feelings between them are still repressed as if it were 1895. We see that Sherlock is quite angered by the blog being stuck at this number which could correlate with the fact that he does not want to hide his feelings towards John anymore due to stigma.

Secondly, the abominable bride, which Steven Moffat stated was very importantly set in 1895 for some bizarre reason… because it doesn’t come into the plot. The Abominable Bride is described by many as Sherlocks gay fever dream, quite understandably.

Although the year 1895 doesn’t directly appear to be of much importance, the ideas revolving Sherlocks sexual life certainly does. Sherlock and John share an… interesting conversation IN A GREENHOUSE on the topic of Sherlocks sexual urges, keep in mind that this is all in Sherlocks head. This is interesting because it means that Sherlock wants John to question him in real life and to start that conversation with him. (the exaggeration of “greenhouse” referring to the metaphor that they are not hidden as the walls are glass, they are open to each other and to the world.)

At the end of the episode, Sherlock stands melancholy like at the window, looking out longingly as the world around 221b progresses in age, but, for the Baker Steer boys, “it is always 1895.”

[jedifarmerr]

Wasteland Series (Fallout AU)

Chapter 8

Pairing: Frankie Morales x F!Reader/OFC (No y/n or physical descriptions)

Rating: E (18+ blog)

Word Count: 6.5k

Chapter Warnings: language, angst, revelations, mentions/discussions of death.

Series Masterlist

Boston was a nightmare. 

The landscape was ever changing, more buildings crashed and collapsed and barricaded the streets. This time, it took four hours just to arrive at Ted Williams Tunnel. Midway across, they found it flooded. Some part of the road must’ve eroded and sank into the harbor, making it now impassable. 

So much for a shortcut. 

They had to backtrack and instead travel by the safe, drawn out caravan route that went through Everett and stunk of rancid Brahmin patties. After 36 hours, they finally reached Paul Revere Park. Just in time for lunch.

Frankie watched as she and Benny skipped rocks across Charles River. The flecks of gravel and rubble bounced across the calm water. 

“My bets on her,” Santi said before plopping down on the ledge beside Frankie. 

“Easy money. Ben doesn’t stand a chance.” He’d already lost the first round and easily suckered her into another rematch – best two out of three. 

Will was trying to help him out, but his sound advice came in that big brother tone that Benny never listened to. Besides, Ben would never take the time to search for a perfect stone, instead picking one at random closest to his feet. While she, on the other hand, weighed a few different rocks in her palm before choosing. 

She strutted over to Benny and then got into position. Ladies first. Her stone skipped three – four times before sinking. Benny puffed out his chest with confidence as he winded up his hand, then threw the stone. 

Thunk. 

Gray water splashed against Benny’s mud-brown boots. 

Santi coughed out a laugh. “Goddamnit, he’s actually shocked.” 

Lucky for Ben, the second round went better than the first. 

“She let ‘em have it,” Frankie said and Santi snorted in agreement. 

For a long moment, Frankie’s gaze followed her along the rocky bank as she searched through clutter and debris and scraps of the past for the winning stone. His eyes flickered to Benny, who was staring at her with a pained expression. When she turned around, he plastered on a smile. 

Santi cleared his throat. “She asked about you last night.” 

Frankie clenched his jaw, so tight that his teeth hurt. 

“She’s…worried,” Santi started before taking a deep breath. “Wanted to check and make sure you were alright-” 

“I’m fine,” he defended, but his voice lacked any real conviction. He certainly didn’t sound fine, he didn’t look too great either. The bags under his eyes only darkened and grayed after another sleepless night. He couldn’t find rest ever since Benny’s news. 

For the life of him, he could not figure out what possessed him the other day in Arturo’s basement. He’d completely lost his mind when he touched her skin. Still, he could feel the ghost of it on his fingertips - soft and smooth and burning with betrayal. He curled his fingers into a fist until his knuckles went bloody white. 

“Fish.” Santi’s voice was low and strained and swelling with some emotion that Frankie couldn’t quite identify, but he knew that he didn’t want to hear. Stiffly, he shook his head but Santi didn’t listen, but that was nothing new. “Just cause her parents work for them, doesn’t mean she’s the enemy-”

“Isn’t she?” His voice cracked. Frankie didn’t know. He hung his head, dragging his palm over his chin. 

Frankie had expected it, after all. They all did. Even Benny in all his denial knew deep down that she had ties to Vault-Tec, somehow. 

He’d thought it might be her dad, but more so her mom, who she didn’t say much about. She didn’t share much about either of them, but one night, in Diamond City, Benny had asked about her parents. What are they like? She described her father as a good, kind man who enjoyed crosswords and muscle cars and cared far too much about having a green lawn; whereas her mother was simply – beautiful. From that alone, he got the sense there was some rift in the relationship. At least, it would be an explanation if she didn’t know about Vault-Tec’s plans. 

He’d hardly considered the possibility of it being both parents. 

Nevertheless, she was a fucking prodigy. The very company that he swore to destroy coursed through her veins and he could not rationalize how she didn’t know. She had to know because how could her parents not give a sign or a warning or even a hint. 

She giggled, her head tipping back with a sweet sound that stung him like a bee. A part of him believed her to be innocent. Or perhaps, he desperately wanted her to be. He wasn’t sure – the last few weeks had completely split him open. Above all, he didn’t want to get fucked over and be made a fool of. 

He couldn’t live with himself. 

Frankie stiffened as he cleared his throat. “Doesn’t really matter. She’ll probably end up hating us, anyway.”

Santi responded with a frown, and nothing else. They had fucked up waiting this long. They should’ve told her last night while in the video game store. He doubted she’d be too thrilled when she found out about them being sworn enemies of Vault-Tec. 

She’d left the vault to save her family. Rifts or not, she loved them enough to risk her life. He didn’t know if she’d side against them. 

He wasn’t getting his hopes up that she would. 

—-

The library was a mess of hardcover shells and disintegrating pages, but there was something cozy about it. Even if it smelled like mildew and dust and damp fabric. 

“Did your families come from the vaults?” She asked them that night, seemingly out of the blue. It was inevitable, also somewhat shocking that it hadn’t come up sooner. 

Frankie kept to the corner, quiet as the others shared about their ancestors – the founders of an off-brand vault line: Treasury Inc. 

It wasn’t a household name, more like a local Kroger grocery store compared to the likes of Target or Walmart. Still, she knew of it. 

Massachusetts was the only state with Treasury vaults, which were congested mainly around Salem. They’d had plans to expand - to bring a cheaper, yet quality option to the people, but Vault-Tec wasn’t about to let that happen. 

Vault-Tec filed a patent infringement lawsuit, which according to her had been a hot topic around water coolers. A real battle of ethics.

What would the courts deem more important: The pocketbook and pride of a big corpo or the safety and well-being of the American people?

Technically, the latter won out, but the stipulations ruined any chance of expansion. Treasury could build new vaults, yes, but not within a certain radius of Vault-Tec’s or their land. 

So, Vault-Tec went out using their billions of dollars and bought up pockets of land, just to let them rot. A detail that many left out, even her parents it seemed since she said: 

“I’m glad they were still around. I always wondered what happened to them. I don’t remember hearing much about them after that.” 

Right then would’ve been the perfect opportunity to tell her the truth. 

But none of them said a thing. They seemed unable to say it. Maybe because once they did, everything would change. 

Minutes later, she bid them goodnight before closing the door to the janitor’s closet. They all agreed to tell her tomorrow. No exceptions.

Time was running out. 

—-

There was a chill in the air, but you couldn’t tell if it was from the encroaching Autumn or Frankie’s vow of silence breathing down your neck. It’d been over two days since leaving Diamond City, and he was still acting strange. A little less willing to talk or joke or glance anywhere other than his feet. 

You were back on the road and honestly, they all seemed a little off today. The conversation was practically non-existent. Not even with Benny. You wondered if it had anything to do with being at the halfway point between Diamond City and Sanctuary, where you were stopping for lunch. 

The small settlement, Covenant, was secreted from U.S. Highway 1 by grassy hills, thick cypresses and white ash trees. Unlike Diamond City, the fence was unfinished, mostly short, temporary barbed wire with a few completed sections of cement. A sign hung above the gates: Est. 2245. Among the engraved names of founders: Connie and Blake Miller. 

The town almost reminded you of a show you watched as a kid on Saturday’s. Little House on the Prairie. Dirt roads. Farm Animals. Stalks of corn. Wooden cabins intermixed with the few buildings that could be repurposed. Before the war, a large chunk of this area had been cleared out to make room for apartment complexes. You didn’t even think they’d broken ground, yet. 

Everyone here seemed to know everyone – even the guys were on a first name basis. You wondered why they didn’t talk about it more on the way here? Where were the stories of a toothless Benny? Or Will as an awkward pre-teen, if that was even a thing. 

You tried not to overthink it as you arrived at the oxidized mailbox with Miller written in sloppy white paint. A two-story cabin on the very edge of town where their Uncle Blake and Aunt Connie lived with their daughter Mary. 

It was a heartwarming reunion, full of hugs and smiles and firm kisses on each cheek. It made your chest ache. You’d never been that close with your family. Your cousins were, at best, distant acquaintances and aunts and uncles, who never called or even left a birthday message. 

Your mother’s side of the family was not a very warm bunch of people, just like her. Rotten with wealth, self-absorbed and only smiled when putting on a show. She was never an affectionate woman, not even with Alice or your dad. It just wasn’t in her makeup. 

On your dad’s side, it was just him and his parents, who were already gone by the time you were born. He spoke of them highly, though, so that must’ve been where he got his attentive disposition. Despite frequently traveling for work, he never missed anything big. If you had a recital, he’d take a red-eye just to be in the front row. For him, nothing ever seemed too small. 

“And this here is Blue,” Benny introduced you, gripping your shoulder to integrate you into the circle. 

“She’s a friend of ours,” Will added in a flat tone – don’t ask. He gave Blake an inscrutable glance that didn’t sit right in your empty stomach. 

Still, you didn’t let it show and instead followed them inside with a runner-up, beauty queen smile. It would’ve earned a standing ovation from your family. 

In the dining room, everyone smushed around the long table – you at the very end, right beside Frankie. Mary was directly across from him. She appeared to be younger than her cousins with khaki, freckled skin and coppery hair similar to Benny’s. She stared at you, her piercing ocean eyes peering over a steamy cup of tea with rapt curiosity. Will nudged her in the shoulder and she smiled weakly. 

Lunch was lukewarm crimson stew with freshly picked herbs from the small garden out back. Most of the conversation revolved around Covenant. Their seasonal hauls and upcoming socials and how they’d soon take stock for winter. They were praying this year wouldn’t be as brutal as the last few. 

Covenant was facing a bit of a problem, though. A ghoul problem. Every night for the last week, a few would wander in from their hide-out, an elementary school close to Melrose, which was about a half-hour walk. Maybe 45 minutes. They’d tried to take care of it on their own, but got overrun. Someone named Donna almost died – Mike’s leg was broken in eight places. 

“Don’t worry about it, we can help,” Will offered, “Five extra sets of hands will definitely help.” 

Wait – 5? 

You stared at the last drops of soup, stirring the wooden spoon around the bowl. You would’ve viewed this as good practice, if it was anything but ghouls. Even though they were past their expiration date and you knew they couldn’t be saved, they were still people – people who lived and breathed and moved alongside you. The idea of mowing them down bothered you. It disturbed you. 

What if you knew them?

You supposed, in a matter of life or death like the surprise attack in Boston, it would be different. But if possible, you’d prefer to avoid them entirely. 

Frankie must’ve sensed your anxiety as he pulled you aside as Blake scrambled out the door to gather the troops, the guys went to suit up. Frankie eyed Mary, and her prying gaze snapped to the ceiling. 

He stepped in front of you, crowding you into a corner. He was like a shadow or a shield or a fucking massive wall. It was the first time you’d been alone with him since Diamond City. 

“What’re you thinking?” Frankie’s voice was low, almost rusty. 

“I don’t think I can do this, Frankie.” You stared at the center of his chest, unable to meet his eyes. “I think I should just stay here.” 

“Stay here?” He pointed a finger at the floor, and you nodded. He frowned, rocking back on his heels and you thought he was going to say no. 

“Connie and Mary are staying,” you reasoned. Mary didn’t want to go, and Connie couldn’t because of an old injury. 

Again – he glanced at Mary. You wondered if she had dirt on him or something because why else would he care. 

“If it was like - mole rats or cave crickets, sign me up, but I don’t…” 

Frankie shook his head, not making you finish that sentence. He scraped a hand over his chin and sighed. Fine. 

“If that’s what you want.” 

Once you nod, he turned around and went over to Connie. She was happy to let you stay. He’d lied that you also had an old shoulder injury that flared up, depending on the day. She guided you outside and onto the front porch, detailing a tea recipe that did wonders for inflammation. 

Soon, the front yard was filled with clusters of people. Blake, along with two other leaders, got to go on horseback. Lucky them. 

Mary and Connie went to say goodbye to Blake, and Frankie took their place. He propped his hip against the railing of the front porch and clutched the shoulder straps of the green tac-vest that made him look impossibly thick. 

He wet his lips, glanced over at the busy yard before meeting your eyes. “Sure you don’t wanna come?” 

You smirked – tilted your head. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna miss me.” 

He snorted. He looked more like the Frankie you’d seen in Diamond City. “Only in your dreams.” 

“Bold of you to assume, I would ever dream about you, buddy boy.” 

Frankie rolled his eyes, rubbing a thumb between the crease in his brows. “Behave yourself, alright?” 

And you promised him – you would. 

—-

You’d spent the first fifteen minutes listening to Connie reminisce on her days out in the field before she excused herself to clean up lunch. Mary offered to give you a tour of the garden, and you accepted. 

The air smelled with the remnants of a storm, the linger of morning rain and wet mud. The sky was pale and gray as a platinum slate. Still, there was more color to the land here. It seemed like every step due north breathed new life into the earth. 

“I’m the only one that’s not married out of my friends, and all of them have kids, but I don’t know. No one here really does it for me. I’d much rather live in Diamond City, like you.” 

Mary had assumed you were from Diamond City, so you didn’t correct her. Technically, you were born in Boston, so close enough. 

It was like your dad always said: Honey, it’s not really a lie if there’s some truth in it. You see, it’s more of a roundabout. No one gets hurt.” 

Of course, he’d say that as he turned into Cow Spots Creamery after lying to your mom about going to the drugstore, conveniently located across the street. Still, you thought it could apply here, as well. 

You would’ve been perfectly content to listen to Mary ramble about her life, but she switched gears. 

“Does Frankie snore?” 

“Uh. I don’t think so. No?”

“Interesting. I always thought he would. Don’t you think Santi smells so nice?”

“When he showers, yeah.”

Mary giggled at that. “You must like traveling with them.” 

You shrugged – little did she know, you didn’t get much of a choice. 

“You’re so fucking lucky.” Mary let out a wistful sigh. “Seriously, my friends might make a voodoo doll of you. They’re so jealous. They couldn’t stop staring at you when they saw you talking to Frankie on the porch.” 

Your brows furrowed – head tilted. Suddenly, a lot of things made sense. Holy shit. No wonder everyone knew their name – no wonder everyone stared at you in Diamond City. You were traveling with the wasteland equivalent of a boy band. 

Wait. Would that make you a groupie?

Oh god. “Well, they can rest assured - I’m not, it’s not like I’m with any of them. I’m not dating them-”

“Well, duh.” She barked out a laugh, then shot her hand over her mouth. “Oh shit, not that - I didn’t mean it like that.” 

“No, it’s fine. Really.” 

“It’s just they’re never actually with-with anyone. If only, am I right? But ya know, people in their line of work - they never settle down.” 

You nodded along, even though you didn’t know what their line of work was, technically. You assumed it had something to do with exploring the wasteland. That made sense. 

“I mean, personally I get it.” Mary continued. “I don’t know if I could marry someone who's gone all the time, and risking their lives? Out there’s bad enough, but with the Vaults? Forget it.” 

You froze in place – ice coated your veins. Vaults? 

Mary blinked at you, and she must’ve expected an answer. You swallowed and your throat felt blocked. “Oh, yeah. Totally. One hundred percent.” 

“Do you know if they found any more vaults?” She whispered, leaning in closer as if sharing a secret. “My parents never tell me anything, it’s so annoying. They act like I’m still a kid, but anyway - I just thought since they’ve been gone so long, there has to be a reason.” 

Your hands shook at your side. Your heart was shooting into your throat. It felt like you couldn’t breathe and she was staring at you again for an answer. It took you a few seconds for your brain to switch into survival mode. This was life and death. You needed to play this cool and get the fuck out of here. 

“You know, I don’t think they did.” Your voice didn’t waver and you frowned, like it was a bummer. 

“Damn. Well, they’ll get ‘em one day. I just know it.”

Digging your fingernails into your palm, you forced a smile and nod. You couldn’t believe you let this happen. You should’ve known they were up to something. Liars. You never should’ve gone with them. You felt truly stupid and shit. 

You shook yourself – no time for that. You needed to leave before it was too late. 

Luckily, your gun was strapped to your thigh. There was enough food and water inside your bag. You scanned the landscape and found an outhouse, just a few feet away. 

Bingo. 

It was now or never.

—-

Frankie wondered if he could find her in time. His hands coiled around the leather reins as he guided the horse along the caravan route. She had to have gone this way, she knew it was safe. He’d been an idiot, ignoring his gut to not leave her alone with Mary. 

He’d known something was terribly wrong when he spotted Mary wailing outside the gates –  her face red and blotchy as she sobbed uncontrollably. 

She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone. 

It was still ringing in his ears. They fucked up. They should’ve told her last night, but he didn’t have time to regret it. He didn’t even have time to ask Mary how long she was gone or what exactly was said that spooked her enough to flee from them. 

He’d turned to Blake, grabbed the reins hard and pleaded for him to let go. I need to find her. A horse was his best bet to catch up with her. Frankie might have been fast, but not fast enough to catch up with a girl who had a solid head start and was scared out of her mind. 

Quickly, Blake had dropped the reins and ordered the other two off their horses. Frankie didn’t even wait for them before bolting towards Boston. 

The wind whipped his cheeks and stung his eyes as he frantically searched tree lines. He didn’t know how long it was before he stumbled across three dead bloatflies on the side of the road. Another two, just a few feet away. She’d been here, she’d been in danger all because they’d been selfish idiots who didn’t want things to change. She could’ve died. 

An intrusive image of her lifeless and swarmed and cased in slime invaded his mind and he snapped it away with a flick of the reins. He couldn’t think like that. Focus. 

He kicked his heels into the horse’s side and kept searching, searching until finally - he saw a smudge in the distance. 

For a moment, the heavy weight in his chest lifted as he realized it was a silhouette. It was her, he knew it. 

It appeared she spotted him too. Immediately, she picked up speed. 

“Blue!”

She broke into a sprint. She bolted away from him as he shouted her name, guiding the horse over fallen stems and branches and knocked over signs.

The sun caught on her tear-wet cheeks as she glanced over her shoulder. She was too busy looking at him to notice a pothole in the street. 

“Watch out!” He tried to warn her, but too late.

Her feet caught on the uneven pavement, and she yelped as her knees collided against the asphalt. 

With a hard yank to the reins, the horse came to an abrupt halt. He was close enough that even if she decided to run, he could quickly catch up. 

Dismounting, he heard the click of a gun before his feet hit the ground. The chase might’ve been over, but she wasn’t giving up that easy. 

Frankie lifted up his hands in surrender and slowly turned to face her. No sudden movements. The barrel was leveled with the center of his chest. 

The fear oozed from her like the blood spilling down her knees. He met her eyes, but saw no signs of a cold killer, just a frightened little girl coming face to face with the monster from under her bed. 

“Don’t come any closer.” Her voice trembled, the gun shook in her unsteady grip. Even if she did shoot him, the bullet would stray to his bicep. Somewhere less lethal than his heart. 

Nevertheless, he remained still, firmly rooted to his spot. Her gaze flickered over his shoulder where two more horses were fast-approaching. She was outmatched - outgunned. He watched the defeat wash over her, though she still didn’t drop the gun. She didn’t surrender.

Benny didn’t even wait for Will to come to a full stop before jumping from the back of the horse. He rushed towards her and she swung the gun in his direction. 

“Stay back.” 

Will and Santi slowly dismounted. 

Benny frowned, “Blue-”

“Don’t you dare call me that. You - you fucking sicko. You’re all fucking sick!” 

“Blue, please. It’s not what you think. Just let us explain-”

“I don’t gotta let you do anything.” She grimaced. “I…I trusted you. I trusted all of you and it was just, what? A game-”

“It wasn’t, I swear! We were gonna tell you!”

“Oh, really? When?”

“Tonight,” Benny croaked and she let out an ugly sound of discontent. She didn’t believe him, and why would she? “Blue I know. Okay, I know we fucked up. We really really fucked up here and we should’ve told you sooner. I’m sorry. We’re sorry. Just please.”

Frankie had never seen Benny like this, so desperate. He was half-expecting Benny to fall to his knees and kiss her feet as he pleaded for her to listen. 

She seemed to notice his desperation as her face softened. Still, she continued to aim the gun at his head. 

“Blue, just hear us out.” Santi stepped up with his hands level with his chest. “That’s all we ask.” 

“Guns on the ground, then I’ll hear you out.” 

Immediately, they complied. Santi handed Benny the reins to his horse before taking the lead. Santi would be the best at explaining this. 

Her arms had to ache because she slightly lowered her gun; her finger hovered near the trigger. 

“Now, I don’t know what Mary told you-”

“That you’re looking for vaults,” she interrupted, “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

Santi nodded.

“Why?”

Santi went silent as he thoughtfully scratched his stubbly jaw. “We help them.”

“You help them…what?” She scoffed. 

Santi shuffled his feet, loose rocks scratching the soles of his shoes. “Look, this isn’t easy to explain but there are people trapped-”

“Are you fucking joking? This is your-” She barked out a laugh, a wild sound of disbelief. “In case you forgot my family-”

“No.” Santi winced, shaking his head. “It’s not.”

“-is still down there and last time I checked-”

“It’s not the same-”

“None of you did a damn thing to help-”

“They worked for Vault-Tec.” She drew back like he slapped her. “Your parents. Didn’t they?”

Her eyes darted around the semi-circle. “How do you-”

“You told me.” Benny stepped up. “You didn’t mean to, but you did - at the mayor's.”

She gulped. 

“Your vault’s different from the others,” Santi explained. “The others, they didn’t get frozen. No, they’ve been living down there ever since and they’re stuck and they can’t get out-”

“Well, then it must not be safe enough, yet,” she reasoned. 

“Come on, Blue.”

“No. No. Listen, the overseers will open the vaults as soon as it’s deemed safe enough.” She sounded rehearsed, as if reading off a script that she’d heard a thousand times. “Once the nuclear radiation reaches-”

“Then, how come we got out? How come we’re just fine? Diamond City. Covenant. Come on. You’ve been out here for a month, and you’re fine. We’re all fine, Blue. It’s been safe for a long time.”

Her brows furrowed as she surveyed the land. It was as if a lot of things were starting to become clear. 

“Well, where did the workers go? I mean - their kids. Whatever. What happened?”

“They’re still down there running it.”

“So, why won’t they let them out?”

Santi glanced at Frankie with a pained expression. Frankie gave him an encouraging nod. 

Santi took a deep breath. “Blue, they were never going to. This was always their plan.”

It seemed to take a second for the words to register. She flinched, her eyes hardened. “Are you - are you saying you think my family did this?” 

Slowly, he nodded. “I’m sorry.” 

She backed up, slanting her body away from them. No. That’s - no. My dad, you don’t know him. He would never, he’d never do that. They wouldn’t.” 

“Blue.”

She insistently shook her head. “No, you - you’re liars. You’ve been lying this whole time.” 

“This isn’t-”

“Stop it. Just admit it. Admit you’re lying. Say it! Come on. Say it. Say it…say it. Please.” 

“I’m sorry,” Santi croaked. “I wish I could.” 

Her eyes watered as she looked at them, the landscape, her own trembling hands and she lowered the gun. It dropped lifelessly at her side. 

Frankie watched as the world crumbled around her. 

—-

The back of Frankie’s shirt was wet with tears and snot and her subdued sobs. She was on the back of his horse, her arms wrapped around his torso, his fingers clutching his shirt.

He refused to take her back to Covenant. He would not parade her through the streets like a prized buck, bloody and broken, on his stead’s back.

Instead, he found an old golf course about a quarter mile from Covenant. He offered to stay with her as the other three returned the horses and gathered their supplies. 

She’d stopped crying about ten minutes after they left. Now, she was staring at the algae-green pond. Catatonic. Still as a rock. He thought this might be worse than her wailing. 

There was still so much to tell her, but he couldn’t right now. There was only so much she could handle. 

At the crunch of boots on grass, she flinched, but didn’t turn around. 

“How’s she been doin?” Will knew the answer, so Frankie just shrugged. She was doing as well as anyone could in this situation, he supposed. 

Benny stared at her longingly. None of them knew what to do - where to go from here. 

What now?

He would not drag her to Sanctuary. But they also couldn’t just wait out here, in the wide open, until she was ready. At least, they needed to find a place to bunk up that was safe. 

“What do you want?” 

For a second, Frankie thought he imagined her voice, until she repeated herself. 

“You brought me all this way, so you must have some reason. So, what is it?” 

“We just want your help,” Will answered. Simple and honest.

She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes were red and puffy, her lips nibbled down to bits. 

“With what?”

“Finding the vaults,” Santi said, and she instantly turned back to the pond. “We’ve been looking for a long time and even though we’ve found some, we know there’s a lot more. So, that’s where we would want you to come in.”

She shook her head. “You say it like I got some choice.”

“You do.”

“Yeah?” She chuckled. “What is it? Help or be killed?”

Benny stepped forward. 

“What? We would never-” he stopped himself, then cleared his throat. “Blue, that was never our plan.” 

She hung her head and Frankie wished she would just turn around and look at them. Perhaps, she could see how much they meant it. 

“Say I know where they are, what happens if I don’t tell you?” She seemed to be testing them, how far did this leniency go. And why not? He reasoned she didn’t have much to lose. 

“Look, I won’t lie to you. I think we’d always hope that one day you’d come around, but if not, then we’d figure something out.” Santi shrugged. 

At this point, she was their responsibility. 

For a long moment, she went silent. 

“How do I know you’re not gonna fuck me over?” 

“You don’t,” Frankie said, “You’re just gonna have to take our word for it.”

He wanted to say they were the good guys, but he didn’t feel like much of a good guy, right now. This was all fucked.

“Can I think about it?”

“Of course. Take all the time you need.”

——

She insisted they keep going, keep traveling. She didn’t speak. Her pace was slow. Her feet dragged behind her like a sack of bricks, and it took nearly two days for them to reach Swampscott.

They settled in a rundown mansion with a sturdy roof, plenty of legroom, and a mile outside the Sanctuary’s patrol route. The last thing they needed was anyone finding them before she made a decision. They planned on staying here until she did. 

That night, she was wrestling through yet another nightmare. Frankie hated waiting for her to wake up, being helpless. He wished he could go in there and stop it. 

“Daddy! No!” 

Frankie jolted. The sound of her short, panicked breaths were distressing. She couldn’t seem to get a full breath in. She was hyperventilating. 

He could hear a zip, a pattering, and he jumped to his feet before the door swung open. 

“Frankie,” she gasped - breath hitching. 

“I’m here. It’s alright. Come on, let’s get some air.” 

He grabbed the lantern, then guided her outside, to the balcony on the second floor. She sat on the ledge, her feet swaying and dangling in the chilly night air. He kept a safe distance until she patted the spot beside her. 

He offered her a drink from his water canteen once her breathing evened out. 

“Thanks.” She gulped it down, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand. 

The songs of bugs filled the silence. Frankie wished he knew what to say. God - he sucked at this shit. If only she’d waited another hour to have a nightmare. She could’ve had Benny comfort her, instead. 

Frankie looked at her. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

She sighed, then scrubbed a hand down her face. “I had this friend - my best friend. Her name was Nora and she was with me that day.” 

Frankie blinked - his lips parted in realization. Nora. 

“She was so fucking scared and Nora was never scared. So, I promised her - I told her I wouldn’t let go,” she continued. “I didn’t even think about her being a member or maybe I just didn’t think it would matter. I don’t know, and we made it all the way to the gates before-”

When she met his gaze, her eyes watered. Shiny. Even shinier than the moonlight pond in this overgrown backyard.

“I begged my dad to save her, but he - he didn’t.” She sagged with a shuddery breath. “The synths killed her right in front of me.”

Frankie grimaced, winced. For a second, he thought about grabbing her hand to comfort her, but instead gripped the ledge. 

She looked away, out at the trees. 

“The worst part is, I’m glad they did.” She scoffed and it sounded very resentful. “If I couldn’t save her, then at least I know she didn’t turn into a ghoul. Everyone else, I gotta live with that, but not with her. It sounds so fucked up-”

“No, it doesn’t. I’d feel the same way,” he said and she gave him a sad smile before staring up at the starry sky. “I’m sorry that happened to you.” 

She huffed, the heaviness flared her nostrils. 

“You know, my mom and sister didn’t say a damn thing about it. They watched her die and acted like it didn’t happen. My dad, though, said sorry.” She licked her lips - pursed them thoughtfully. “He also said something I’ll never forget: you can’t save everyone.” 

It was a fucked up thing to say. Especially knowing what her dad would do - what he’d done made Frankie’s bones rattle. 

“He was right, you can’t save everyone. I couldn’t save those people that day. Hell, I could even save Nora,” she said - very bitter. “It’s too late for them.” 

Again, she looked at him. There was a sharpness, a hardness in her eyes. 

“But it’s not too late for the people in the vaults.” 

Frankie’s lips parted - his breath caught in his throat. 

“I’ll help you guys,” she said, soft yet assured. “But I have a few conditions.”

[angelamajiki]

PAIRINGS: Father! Yandere! Enji Todoroki x Daughter! Reader

CW: yandere, incest, soulmate AU, fluff, slight angst, nsfw, kissing, praise kink, virginity kink, size kink, bathroom sex

A BNHarem Collab!

AN: my longest piece to date! the prompt this month was sex work, so i decided to stretch the prompt and do sexual slavery. wanted to go for a softer version of daddy endeavor, so please enjoy <3

5.2k words

The mark on his wrist was one that was shared with yours. Enji had given up on finding his soulmate, deciding that his career and legacy were far more important than some silly marking on another’s body. Love was something he thought he could go without. But when he saw your bright eyes gaze up at him, your chubby hand wrapped around his index finger, his heart had fallen hard—such a sweet, gentle thing. No traces of fear, of disdain, of disgust for him as a human being. Just pure curiosity and unconditional love. His heart leaped for his little girl.

Enji was determined, then and there, that he would never fail you, not like he forgot the others.

Oh, what plans he had for you, his precious princess. He couldn’t wait to spoil you, to marry you and start a new family once you were old enough. Rei realized this as well. Her youngest daughter, her last hope at salvaging her broken family, was to be had by her husband. The thought frightened her, especially after seeing the adoring look in her husband's eyes when she saw him cradle you for the first time. It was so unlike the stoic nature he held for the other children when they were born, only caring to see that they were healthy before leaving off back to his agency, never giving them more than a fleeting touch. It was nothing like when he held you, snarling at any nurse who dared to take his soulmate from the grips of his arms.

Something that had Enji’s conviction more so than his career was something to be feared. Your mother swore to herself that she would not let her husband ruin you.

Once he fell asleep with you tucked in the crook of his arm, a social worker came and collected you to be sent to a foster home and be set up for adoption. It was better than falling into the hands of the monster of a husband.

After the death of Touya, the pair decided to have one more child in hopes of fixing their broken family, but Rei now knew it was for naught. Nothing could save them know, especially now that Enji had nearly burned the building down when he discovered that his little girl was gone, just hours after he had finally found you.

Rei alerted the commission as well for your protection, that utter bitch of a woman. They very well couldn't have the number two hero caught in an incestuous bond with his daughter, now could they. All information of your whereabouts was hidden from him, blacklisting him from working with any foster children, lest he loses his hero license. Enji may have lost you for the time being, but his patience grew as he did. They couldn't keep him from you forever. You'd be reunited one day; he knows it.

The first time he saw you again was when you were fifteen. It was your birthday and the day he had become the number one hero officially, plenty of reason to celebrate. Usually, he would have taken the time to sit near the rose bush he planted in your honor in his courtyard on your birthday, renewing his vows to find and love you to the best of his ability. Enji took great pride in keeping your memory alive with the bush for his beautiful little rose gone too soon from his grasp. But there you were, mere meters from him.

The foster home you stayed at took you out for dinner when he was meeting with Hawks after the billboard awards. Your eyes were unmistakable, a perfect cerulean just like his own. He was so close, yet so far. My, how you had grown since he saw you. Unlike him, you bore your mark proudly on your wrist, not ashamed to admit to the world who your soulmate was. Not like you actually knew who it was anyway.

Enji was prepared to leave Hawks at the table; a new flame lit under his ass, one far more exhilarating than the thought of being the number one hero. He was up and on his way to speak to you before Nomu attacked him. Damn villains, they'd pay for separating the two of you once again. But his conviction only grew stronger. It wasn’t hard to find you after that; he knew what city you were living in. Instincts lashed out at him, demanding that he go sweep you up and hide you away. No, no. That would make you frightened; he can't have that. He’ll watch from the sidelines, waiting until you were of age to make a move. He was curious to see just how life as a foster child was treating you.

Growing up in the foster system had been a nightmare from hell for you. A cursed child is what they saw you as when your skin sprouted flames every time it was touched by the human hand, burning everything and everyone who came in contact with it. From the moment your quirk manifested, you were an outcast, an untouchable, unlovable freak. Someone destined never to feel the touch of their new parents, their lover, their soulmate.

It wasn't long before you realized that you would remain in the foster system until you aged out. Who would adopt a child they couldn't hug when they cried, hold their hand when they crossed the street, snuggle up to when it was chilly outside? Any potential parent was taken aback by your quirk once you reached for the warm touch of mommy and daddy, only to singe their hand or burn a hole in their shirt.

You learned quickly that your touch was something to be feared, that you were something to be feared. You supposed that’s why you looked up to him so much. So much so that you thought about him late at night when the loneliness seemed to drown you in the sea of your insecurities.

Endeavor was the only one who could understand you, understand your quirk. If only your soulmate mark could match him, maybe you feel the warmth of another human being without hurting or mauling them with your power. Abrasive he may be with the media, but there something about him that was so comforting and endearing to you. In your eyes, he was simply misunderstood, a gentle giant amongst the mass personalities of the other pro heroes.

Watching his interviews brought you comfort when you were lonely, his merchandise made you swell with pride and confidence, and his posters on the wall reminded you that you were never alone. It was a silly crush, but it made you feel better about your miserable life.

You even got to see him on your birthday! Well, not exactly. You happened to be in the same restaurant when your foster parents took you out for your birthday. It was apparent that they just felt bad for you, having looked after you for 15 years only to still have custody of your sorry ass. You were almost certain that they were going to kick you to the curb the morning of your 18th birthday.

Too bad they never had the chance. That fate would have been much kinder than the reality you faced now.

Once the Paranormal Liberation Front had effectively ripped society up by the roots and let the tree of life rot for the world to see, your foster parents packed their shit and left the country while you were at school. You’d been alone in the world ever since and were snatched off the streets, ready to be sold into slavery by the villains of the world. Your quirk was the only thing keeping you from being bought like a bitch from the auction floor.

Enji, on the other hand, was more than eager to do just that. After his public smear campaign by his allegedly dead son, he was dead to the world, finally abandoning his family for good in hopes of finding his beloved daughter. His life was dedicated to searching for you, having managed to track you down through his vigilante work. He likes to lie to himself and say that he’s continuing to fight for the greater good, but Enji does it just to have the chance to see your sweet face again. There wasn’t much to go off of, but he’d rather see his fiery end than to give up. That's how he found you at the auction.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Another auction night was approaching, which meant another night of humiliation and being displayed like a slab of meat for a crowd of degenerate wolves. Your quirk was the only thing keeping you from being sold; no one wants a fucktoy they can’t touch. It reduced you to physical labor for your captors, but you were better fed because of it. That didn’t mean they still didn’t try to sell you.

After being stripped down into nothing but a collar, leash, and a muzzle, you were brought to the stage and shoved in front of the ravenous, roaring crowd. You could feel their stares seep into your bones, the grime from the floor on your bare feet only adding to the overwhelming sensation of disgust you couldn’t even begin to describe.

The crowd’s excitement was raucous, jeers and shouts echoing off the halls of the underground auditorium. Masks covered their faces for the sake of privacy lest a vigilante break-in and hunt them all down. Even in the lawlessness of the world, heroes were still crawling everywhere to trail after even the slightest scent of villainy. Doesn't mean they’ll win, but hey, the death of a hero is just the same as the auction was to them.

“Up next, a darling girl with a fiery quirk!”

That was your cue. A handler had a fierce grip on your leash, giving it a few tugs for good measure as the crowd laughed at your stumbling. The auctioneer began to list your qualities and physical attributes, including your quirk.

“And she’s a virgin!”

Added for good measure, the crowd fell silent after listening to the abilities of your quirk. You couldn't hate it anymore; it's what was keeping you from being someone’s onahole until the day you kicked the bucket.

“Can I get $10,000?”

Ah the starting bid. The silence was relieving. Just a few more moments and you'd be off that damn stage.

“No? Going once, going twice, going-”

“One million.”

A booming voice came from the back row, the depths of the shadows to further hide the masked man who just bought your life. Why did it sound so familiar?

“Outstanding! One million dollars for the young lady!”

“Going once.”

It couldn't be.

“Going twice.”

This can't be happening.

“Sold for one million!”

No!

You were supposed to be unwanted, just like you have been your entire life! Yet some mysteriously familiar man outbid the entire auction for little ol’ you.

“Off the stage, bitch.”

The handler snarled, yanking you off the stage and causing you the fall and bruise yourself in the process.

“Watch it!” He spat, picking you up by the roots of your hair. “The merchandise needs to be handled carefully before reaching the customer. Let's hope he doesn't mind some bumps and bruises. For your sake.”

“That won't be necessary; I'll be taking her as is. Immediately, if you will.”

The mysterious man stood had already made his way backstage and behind you, standing formidably over your stark form. Your hair was released, dropping you back to the floor.

“Excellent, sir! I’m more than happy to get this welp off my hands.”

A brief exchange was made while you recovered on the floor, shaking in fear as the situation weighed heavily on your already broken self. The handler took the money and returned to the back room, leaving the two of you alone together.

The stranger crouched down to you and extended a hand to brush the stray hair out of your face, touch remaining tender and gentle when you flinched harshly.

“My poor girl, what has the world done to you?”

His coat enveloped your body as he scooped you up in his arms. The scent of him comforted you more than you would have liked to admit. Teakwood and coffee grounds filled your senses as he held you flush against his chest, leaving the auction house with a renewed sense of vigor.

You were placed in the backseat of a car before he dressed you in simple pajamas.

“Rest. You deserve it.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━﹤⋆

At some point in the car ride, you let yourself fall asleep only to wake up in a cozy king-size bed wrapped up in a soft blanket next to a warm fireplace. The false sense of comfort lulled you for a few moments before your situation hit you like a ton of bricks. The anxiety you'd had known your whole life had finally kicked back into gear, forcing you out of bed and into the rest of the house.

It was daybreak, the sunlight slowly trickling in through heavily curtained windows as you walked through the halls and into the kitchen. The man was standing over the stove, sans mask, dressed in a wife-beater and his pajama bottoms. It couldn't be-

“Come in; breakfast will be on the table in a moment.”

Now you were certain.

“Who are you?” Your voice barely above a whisper. “Why did you buy me at the auction?”

A deep, rumbling chuckle flowed from the man.

“I think you know the answer to that, little one.”

His focus was retained on the meal in front of him. “I’ll explain myself over breakfast. Now sit.”

You couldn't help but feel compelled to obey him. While sitting, you took the time to honestly look him over for the first time in your life. Never did you think you would be so close to your childhood crush in such a domestic setting.

He had noticeably greyed but still possessed a majority of his red hair. Muscles were still taught and budging, but he had grown a little bit of a belly. Endeavor was as handsome as ever, aged like a fine wine that you couldn't wait to sip on.

The food was placed in front of you as he took the test next to you.

“Eat and have some water. Then we’ll talk.”

Once again, you obeyed him without question and refrained from eating like a rabid animal. It wasn't even a question, so much so that it is evident that you hadn't had a decent meal in a long time. You were still muscular from the labor you did for your handlers, though.

And Enji liked that about you. How resilient you were, he loved that you inherited his strength but still possessed Rei’s gentle nature. Not that he wanted to credit that woman for anything, but he couldn't deny the obvious. You were his strong, beautiful little girl who had to endure so much because his bitch of a wife decided to separate you from him.

But he was here now, ready to give all his love and protection to his only love. It took everything in his power not to swoop you up from your seat and hold you in his arms until his last breath.

Enji watched you eat, pride swelling in his chest at the thought that you liked his cooking. He couldn't help but wonder what your favorite meals were as well. There's certainly all the time in the world to get to know his little girl now that he had you. And he was never going to let you go.

Your breakfast was devoured quickly, both out of desperation for a real meal and answers to your questions.

“Why did you buy me from the auction?”

It was a complicated question, but you wanted a simple answer.

“I’m your soulmate.” His wrist was on display as he reached across the table to hold your hand.

For the first time in your life, you felt safe. Your one, shining hope was meant to yours and he wanted to be yours. You didn't even question how he knew at all.

His touch was warm and slightly rough, but it was welcome all the same. Even though your skin was lit aflame at his flesh against your, he paid it no mind. He was built to take your quirk, to take you.

“Endeavor…”

“Please, call me Enji.” His thumb rubbed over the palm of your hand. “I’m sure you feel better after having something to eat.”

“Why don't you go take a bath? It’ll help you relax, I can take care of your dishes.”

It was strange how insistent he was on taking care of you, but you can't say you don't enjoy the attention. He seemed to care for you in a way that went beyond caring for a partner, or in your case, a soulmate. But who were you to judge? It wasn't like you had a lot of experiences to use as a comparison.

Making your way back to the bedroom, you took the time to study the house you were in. A traditional, well-kept home, it practically looked like it was untouched. And maybe it was; buildings and homes fully intact were hard to come by these days, let alone ones that were clean and warm.

Enji seemed to lull you into an instinctual sense of safety, even though he bought you out of slavery. Just because he was your soulmate didn't mean that he had good intentions for you, but somehow, his presence alone filled a void in your heart that you had forgotten was even there.

Once you made it to the bathroom connected to the master bedroom, you drew yourself a bath just like Enji had instructed you to do. It wasn't the wisest decision to let your guard down like this, but the man already had plenty of opportunities to fuck you up by this point.

The water was warm and inviting when you sank yourself into it; you couldn't remember the last time you had warm water to clean yourself with. It made you feel light and hazy, slipping into a headspace you had long forgotten—a place of safety and comfort.

Three raps on the door pulled you from your haze as Enji entered the bathroom with fresh towels. Despite the fact that he had already seen you naked, the intimacy of the situation only left you feeling more vulnerable than ever.

“Let me help you.”

He kneeled next to you outside of the tub and pulled a lavender chamomile shampoo from the tub’s shelf. There was room to protest, but you couldn't find yourself willing to do so.

Water was poured over your head before he started a lather in your hair, gently scrubbing your scalp for a while. Even this simple touch made you shudder, it was a long time since you last felt the warmth of someone’s touch. And everything about this man was warm, for you at least. His words, his touch, his heart.

Conditioner was added to your hair as well before he moved onto washing your body. The scrub was gentle across your skin, his hand following after it to help keep the suds from rising too much. Strong hands massaged your back and your neck, both of which needed the much-deserved relief.

“So tense.” He murmured, mostly to himself.

There was a comfortable silence shared between the two of you as he massaged out all the knots and kinks that had built up over the years with your handlers. His touch should have made you flinch but you found yourself pressing into it. A small moan escaped your lips as he worked through a particularly tender spot on your neck.

“Are you enjoying this?”

His lips ghosted your ear as warm breath tickled your cheek and neck.

Your face flushed with a fiery warmth from a combination of the steam, your embarrassment, and the man whispering sweet nothings in your ear as his hands worked at your tired skin.

“Let me help you relax, sweet thing.”

Enji picked you up momentarily to slot himself behind you in the tub. Placed on his lap, you gasped when you could feel his erection hard against your back. Fear started to trickle into your veins as you squirmed slightly, attempting to get out of his grasp.

“Shhh, it's alright, you're okay.” His hand made its way to your throat and rested there gently, stroking over your artery with his thumb. “I’m not going to hurt you, sweetheart. Let me show you how much I've missed you.”

His touch made you feel alive, feel wanted for the first time in your life. You couldn't help but whine when his other hand made its way down your body, gently groping your breast as his lips were pressed to your ear.

“Do you trust me to take care of you?”

His fingers toyed with your nipples, obviously skilled.

“Do you trust me to make the sweetest love to you?”

Another whine caught in your throat as his hand went further, cupping your sex in his much larger hand. He kneaded gently, pressing a soft kiss to your temple when you writhed in his grip.

“Please! Enji-”

Shushing you gently, Enji’s thumb made its way to your clit to stroke in small circles.

“How does that feel, sweetheart?”

You were used to touching yourself, but oh God it never felt like this.

“Good!” You managed to choke out in a wanton moan. “So good! Enji, please, I need-”

A warm pair of lips sealed over yours, silencing you once again. Enji knew how wrong this was, to take advantage of you like this without revealing the truth. But he wanted at least to just once to have you in his arms willingly and eagerly. He wanted to kiss you breathless, listen to your cries and feel your nails dig into his skin as he gave you all of himself without a fight from you. He can worry about revealing himself to you later.

The rough pads of his large fingers started to apply pressure to your clit as his middle finger slipped into your tight hole under the water.

“Don't worry, little one. I'll give you what you need.”

Soft kisses were trailed along your cheek and hand that was on his that was still holding your throat tenderly. Finger pumping in and out of you, Enji whispered sweet praises to you as he felt your hole clench around him.

“Doing so well for me, sweetheart.”

Your breathy moans and whines only served to harden his cock. He felt like a teenager all over again, closing to cumming just from the sound of your voice.

Another finger slipped into your tight core, careful not to overwhelm you too fast. It was obvious you'd hadn't been touched before, not even by yourself. You felt full but greedy for more of his touch.

“Deeper, Enji! Please, can you?”

You were babbling at this point, writhing in his lap as he fingered you nice and slow with thick digits. Enji hummed as he pressed further into, curling his fingers into your G-spot.

Your cry was loud as he began to abuse your most sensitive spot, fully squirming in his arms as tears of pleasure breached your eyes. The sensation was too overpowering for you, making you thrash and arch in his arms.

“Shh, you're okay, sweetheart. You're okay; I'm right here.”

His fingers continued to stroke in a curled fashion, thumb still circling over your twitching clit. Enji kissed you again, deeper and more fierce as he began to fuck you earnestly with his fingers.

“Cum for me, darling.”

Squealing, you gripped his forearm and cried helplessly into his mouth. The build was slow and intense, allowing your orgasm to wash over you in waves of pleasure rather than a blinding, quick light.

“E-Enji!” You wailed. “Enji!”

You shook in his arms, holding onto the larger man for dear life as you experienced your first orgasm. It seemed like Enji knew your body better than you did.

No words were exchanged between the pair of you, but you could feel the tension of your desired hanging thick in the air. This man was going to take your virginity, here and now.

Enji removed his hand from your throat and between your legs in order to maneuver you to sit facing forward in his lap.

“Are you ready for me?”

His honesty made you flush even more. Biting your lip nervously, you hesitated to answer. Were you ready? It wasn’t like you had much of choice; the man could very well take you by force if he so chose to. But you felt safe in his arms, safe with him.

“Let me help you, my love.”

Warm, large hands gripped your backside as he held you steady above his cock. Your hand reached down to line yourself up with his throbbing sex, lowering yourself down on it slowly.

It burned in the best way, stretching you out fully as you pressed your forehead against his chin.

“Good girl, taking my cock so well, darling.”

A pitiful whine left your throat at the praise, hands gripping the forearms that held you in place.

“Can...Can you hold me?” You whimpered. “Please?”

Enji’s arms enveloped you and pulled you flush against his, tucking your head into the crook of his neck as you continued to lower yourself onto his cock. Your breath tickled his ears, making him groan lowly once he bottomed out inside of you.

“Such a sweet girl you are, taking all of me on your first try.”

Another whine responded for you as you ground your hips down on his.

“E-Enji.” You whimpered his name over and over again like a prayer. “Enji!”

“Be still, little one.” Hands back on your hips, holding you in place near the tip of his girthy length. “Let me take care of you.”

Hips in place, the man began to thrust up into you slowly, holding you tight as he stood up from the water. You only gripped and nuzzled yourself into him further, letting out sweet whines and whimpers into his ear while he thrust into you.

Your back was placed against the cool tile of the wall when he tilted your chin up to meet his gaze. Even in this position, he was still at least another head taller than you.

“Look at me when I make love to you.”

Through wet eyelashes, you gazed up at his eyes and let your mouth hang open as he rolled his hips into yours. His eyes shut briefly when he moaned, hissing at the feeling of your wet cunt hugging his cock so well.

“You were made to take my cock, little one.”

Arms reached up to wrap around his neck as he thrust into you, taking his time to make his strokes slow and deep. His hips were flush against yours when you asked him, “Kiss me, please? I want all of you Enji.”

Your bold proclamation stunned him for a moment before yielding, placing a deep kiss and a hot tongue against your lips.

His thrusts became faster as he kissed you with more passion and vitality. For an old man, he certainly had his stamina up to par. Your fingers thread through his red and grey tresses, tugging him closer to you gently as you moaned shamelessly into his mouth.

The pleasure in your core was more intense, fiercer this time around as his thrusts became hard and fast. The sounds of both of your moans and skin slapping against skin echoed off the tiled bathroom walls as the both of you felt your orgasms coming.

“Enji, fuck!” You whined, beginning to squirt on his fast-paced cock. “I-I’m cumming; I’m cumming!”

“Cum for me, princess.”

With a choked sob, you creamed yourself all over his cock, which continued to pound into your hole before he groaned your name and came deep inside you.

Nothing but the sounds of the water sloshing and your labored breathing could be heard as you both came down from your highs.

After a moment of rest, Enji pulled out and wrapped you in a towel before laying you gently on the bed. A towel was wrapped around his own waist as he looked at you fondly, brushing stray hairs out of your eye sight as he sat next to you on the bed.

“I must ask, how did you end up at the auction site?”

What a loaded question, but the intimacy you two shared allowed for it.

“I was kidnapped off the streets after my parents abandoned me when the prison break happened.”

He sighed gruffly and took your hand in his.

“What utter fools, tossing aside a beautiful rose such as yourself.”

His thumb traced over your soulmate mark. You still had yet to know how he knew before ever meeting you.

“It's alright; I never considered them my family. I just wish I could have met mine, but at least I met my soulmate.”

A crinkled smile adorned his face.

“You've done more than meet them.”

What could that have meant?

“I’m your father and your soulmate, little one.”

A rock hit the pit of your stomach as you retracted your hand from his.

“That isn't a funny joke, I'm serious.”

“So am I.” His hand was quick to snatch your back. “What could I possibly gain from lying to you?”

“P-Prove it.”

“Our soulmate marks, I saw yours the moment you were born in the Hosu hospital before my wife separated us all those years ago. I can recite your birthday if you'd like me to, for good measure.”

Fuck, he really wasn't lying. A lump formed in your throat as tears sprung in your eyes.

“Why would you do this to me?” You whispered, barely even able to hear yourself.

“Because I love you. I love you so much, sweetheart. Ever since I saw you for the first time in the hospital, my entire life has changed because of you. All I ever wanted was you.”

Enji was quick to shush your cries, using his free hand to wipe your tears away.

“Will you forgive me for being selfish?”

The disgust and horror filled everyone of your senses, especially when you came to a realization that he was everything you've ever wanted.

What came out of your mouth next stunned the both of you.

“You can apologize by begging on your knees and cleaning me up with your tongue, Daddy.”

TAGLIST: @tomurasprincess @bonesoftheimpala @sightoru @cxnicalsweetheart

[thewildwaffle]

Humans are Weird: Antibiotics

A story prompt from a user on a03. Apparently, this is my 50th short story, or at least the 50th installment of m humans are weird short stories. Hurray!

****

Ni Andu watched a dried sickle leaf roll across the empty courtyard from her window. A deep sigh made her breath fog up the glass. The courtyard wasn't supposed to be empty. Especially not this time of year. The Gauru Ni Moon Festival usually brought visitors from around the world and across multiple star systems right about now. But the disease meant no bright banners were hung. No music echoed cheerily through around the corners and down the streets. There were no wafting scents of fresh fruits and fried breads.

It was amazing and terrifying that something so small that it couldn’t be seen had done all this. The Ni were a proud race, rich in culture, and until now, seemingly sturdy in constitution. Diseases had come and gone in the past, but in such small and freak cases that they were hardly given much attention. It was assumed that Ni immune systems were the best in the galaxy and many other races had even requested to study how they were so effective.

Those prideful memories felt hollow now as Ni Andu sighed and pulled herself away from the dreary sight outside. As a new and reluctant head of the house, she had more pressing things to deal with than moping in the past. Several members of her own family were still sick, two of her hatch mates had been very touch-and-go as of late. She slowly made her way to the cushions where they were sleeping to check on them. To her relief, she saw the soft blankets they were wrapped in rose and fell slowly. She stood there, watching them for a bit in the gathering darkness of their shared humble abode. Matki’s breathing sounded like gravel stuck in a child’s rolling skiffer.

“What are we going to do?” Andu’s wide nose scrunched up as she begged the silent house. “What am I supposed to do next?”

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there trying to think of everything and nothing all at once. It was a good while though and was only interrupted when a small light turned on in the meal room. Andu looked up at the light streaming out of the door’s archway. With a sigh, she gathered her strength to move again to see who was up. As she approached, she heard small claws scrabbling on the stonework floor and storage pods opening and closing.

Sure enough, when she peeked in, Andu could see little Piri shuffling through food storage pods that looked even less stocked than she thought they’d been. There were a few bottled foods, a few containers of ingredient-prepped soup containers, but certainly nothing immediately ready for consumption. Most easy and ready-to-eat foods had been eaten long ago or destroyed when they began to decay and grow dangerous molds. And to a small three-year-old Ni, that basically meant there was no food at all.

“Hey Piri, are you hungry?” Even though Andu had kept her voice quiet, little Piri still jumped and tucked his small thin tail like he was ashamed he’d been caught. Andu smiled comfortingly and stepped into the room to pick up one of the soup packs.

“It’s okay, you’re fine,” she patted him on the head softly, “I think it’s time for a meal too. I’m sure everyone else would agree once they wake up and smell the food.”

“There’s not much left,” Piri’s small voice was so sad and only made the words themselves feel sharper to Andu’s hearts. She tried to think of something she could say to make their situation seem less dire, but nothing came to mind. Instead, she scooped up Piri’s small form and waited until his thin arms latched securely around her scruff before she walked over to get a pot to cook in. She was going to have to add quite a bit of water to this if it was going to make enough to sustain everyone for a meal.

Cooking, even making something simple, helped ease Andu’s mind. There was a sense of normalcy in standing in front of a firebox and stirring a bubbling pot of soup. She tried to ignore how thin it was. Still, the smell made her feel warm and it must have wafted across the house as she could soon hear the tell-tale signs of her hatch mates waking up. She gathered bowls and filled each one. Lowering Piri back down, she handed the young Ni a bowl and carried the rest to the cushions where the rest of the family was slowly waking up.

They ate together slowly, trying to make the contents of their bowl last and talking quietly about anything they could to distract themselves from their situation. Matki was recalling a story from four lunar years ago when Andu had entered a fried bread pastry into a competition. Between Matki’s coughing and Andu interjecting to defend herself, the story kept getting interrupted! She’d worked on the recipe for her pastry for so long and was so proud of it, but the night before, something went wrong when she was making her entry. Whether it was nerves, exhaustion, oversight, or Jentala above forbid, sabotage, it went very wrong. From the way Matki described the judges’ reaction, one might have thought Andu had purposefully tried poisoning them! As everyone chuckled, Matki claimed he still had the video recording from the competition and pulled it out, much to Andu’s chagrin.

Andu pretended to be exasperated by the teasing, but really she was just glad everyone felt good enough to laugh again.

It took a while before she and the others noticed that Matki hadn’t pulled up the video. Instead, his eyes locked on the comm tablet screen.

“Matki?”

“Hey, did you find it?”

“Matki are you okay?”

Matki finally looked up, eyes still wide from whatever he’d been looking at. “They’re coming to help.”

Everyone shared a worried look. What?

“Who are you talking about? Who’s coming?” Andu broke the confused silence.

Matki tapped something on-screen with the pad of a finger and a holographic projection display rose up.

Everyone watched enraptured by the newscast. It was about humans. From halfway across the galaxy, they’d heard about the Ni’s plight and had come claiming they had a cure. They were offering aid and resources to run tests to make sure their medicine was safe and effective for Ni use and make alterations if needed. They were even claiming they’d help distribute the finalized cure the moment it was given the go-ahead. In the meantime, they were also sending ships of food and supplies.

Andu could feel the back of her throat tighten. Was this real? Did she dare hope? There’d been so many reports before about help being promised, well, not help to this extent, but help nonetheless. They’d ended up being just for show and were proven empty once those who offered realized how impossible the situation really was.

But humans? She’d heard they were tough. And stubborn. Maybe they were stubborn enough to see their promises through?

The embarrassing video of Andu’s failed pastry was long forgotten, the conversation instead jumped between wild rumors her family had overheard about humans and speculation about how long it would take for the humans to actually lend aid if they were really coming at all. Andu could see a shimmer in the eyes of her hatch mates as they spoke that she hadn’t seen in a while. Although she wished she could feel the same optimism, she could also see how quickly they were all tiring out. Although they’d slept most of the day, the disease was still taking its toll on them all.

Once the meager meal was finished, she stood to gather the now empty bowls. She noticed Piri quickly scrape a finger along the side of his bowl to snag any last morsel before she came along to collect it. ‘Jentala above,’ she prayed mentally, ‘if help truly is coming, send it along soon.”

With bellies no longer completely empty, everyone settled in, and soon the room was full of sleeping or near sleeping Ni.

Andu slept fitfully. She dreamed, but it was fractured and confusing. Even before the disease came, she had a hard time remembering her dreams once she woke up. It was near impossible now. She did remember a loud humming noise though. As she blinked her eyes and lifted her head, she realized the humming was still there. She rose and searched for the source. It almost sounded like… engines? But that, that had to be impossible - the quarantine…

She looked out the window. Dried sickle leaves were flying around wildly as a large shuttle slowly came in for a landing in the courtyard. Andu opened her mouth to call out to the rest of her family, but nothing would come. How were they still asleep with this racket? Apparently, it managed to wake up Piri, who nearly made Andu jump when he bumped into her side while trying to climb up for a better view out the window.

“What’s going on? Who’s outside?” Piri waited to ask until Andu had resettled herself after being startled.

“I’m not sure yet,” she answered as they both watched the shuttle’s doors slowly work through the unsealing process. Across the courtyard, she could see other Ni’s faces peeking out their windows. As far as she could tell, expressions seemed to range anywhere from fear to curiosity to… was that hope? Wait, had they seen the newscast last night? Did they think this was… there’s no way the humans could be here already, right?

They both watched intently as the doors finally opened and a ramp extended. Soon a line of creatures she’d only seen on screens filed down wearing yellow vests and hauling huge boxes in their arms or on carts they pulled behind them.

“It is the humans!” Piri yelled and jumped down from his perch. He ran to where everyone was stirring on the cushions, “Wake up! Wake up! The humans are here!”

Andu wasn’t sure if she should reprimand Piri for disturbing them, or if she should join in. Instead, she watched as the humans in the courtyard started setting up stations and continued hauling load after load filled with what must have been hexaheebs of food, clean water, and various supplies.

She turned to look back at her family who were trying to rise as fast as their weakened bodies would allow. Matki began coughing violently and had to rest against the wall. Andu went to help support him when a knock at the front door startled everyone. They all stared at the old chirrowood door, then around at each other. It had been so long since quarantine had started, they’d almost forgotten what a knock on the door sounded like.

After a pause, the knock came again, this time followed by a worried and drawn-out, “Hello?”

Once she was sure Matki was standing stable, Andu, being the least sick among everyone, walked to and slowly opened the door.

A human from the shuttle stood in the doorway. They were wearing a mask over their mouth and nose, but it was definitely a human! Their eyes closed slightly and creased in the corners as they nodded a greeting. “Hi, my name is Ali, I’m part of the relief team that’s been assigned to this district. We’ve got food and essentials to distribute and I just need to know how many are in this household and if anyone here is in critical condition.”

Andu blinked at the human for a moment as she took in what they’d said.

“We, uh, we have four adults and one child. There, there were more, but…” she couldn’t finish that sentence. From the look the human gave her, she didn’t need to finish it. Her sinuses stung as she fought to not cry. The first visitor in how long and here she was almost crying in the doorway?

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” the human’s head bowed and their shoulders dropped. “I wish we’d known and could have helped earlier. Is anyone here in need of immediate emergency care?”

At that point, Matki started coughing again. Andu and Ali looked back to see him sit back down until his coughing died down.

Andu sighed and turned back to the human. “None of us are great right now. Matki’s probably the worst out of all of us. He sounds bad, but he actually has started to stabilize in the past few days.”

Human Ali gave a short nod and started writing something on a tablet in his hands.

“Do you,” Andu’s voice trembled, “we heard a report last night about you. That you were coming. That you… do you…” she swallowed and fought back desperate tears, “do you really have a cure?”

The human’s eyes creased again. “We do.”

Andu didn’t need to turn around to know the effect this had on her family. She heard it. She felt it. This time, she didn’t fight back the tears.

“Right now,” Human Ali continued, “it’s in the final stages of approval for Ni use, we’re just waiting for the ‘go-ahead’ and we’ll help distribute it as soon as it arrives. Until then, I’ve got some food and supplies for you. I can help unload and unpack if you need?”

“That… that would be... thank you,” she wiped at her tears. “Thank you so much.”

Over the next few days, more shuttles came and went, bringing more supplies, food, tools, and just in general, a brighter outlook and mood to the entire neighborhood. The humans really were here to help, and they seemed happy to do so. Not only were they good with their promises of aid, but they also delivered on the cure they said they had. Ni were instructed on the drug’s use and administration directions thoroughly for both the tablet and liquid forms of the cure. The effects were quick, and from the reports on the newscast, overwhelmingly positive. The Ni were cured! The plague that had once threatened to wipe out their entire population was gone! Celebrations larger than even the Gauru Ni Moon Festival were planned, songs were written, stories shared and spread. It was wholly agreed by all that this was a historic time in Ni history that they all survived through, and all thanked Jentala above for sending the humans to help.

It went without saying that everyone wanted to know more about the cure itself. And that meant everyone, not just the Ni, but the rest of the galactic community who before, had written the Ni off as a lost cause because of the horrific disease. What was this miracle cure? What other things could it do? Where, by all that is bright and shining, did the humans get it, and could it be easily replicated?

The humans, for their part, were again as open and gracious with their information as they had been with their aid. It was an old medicine they’d discovered long ago on their planet. Considered to be the first “antibiotic,” it was widely used on Earth and had saved millions of lives since its discovery. It worked by interfering with bacteria cell walls and destroyed them by causing them to burst.

It was called

Penicillin.

“Amazing!” “Spectacular!” “So simple, yet so ingenious!” many in the galactic community praised. “How ever did you discover this amazing drug?”

The initial answer wasn’t too surprising, for humans at least: it was an accident.

Andu almost snorted as she read the report to the rest of her family. Granted, the end of the plague was the first time any of them had come in direct contact with humans, but they all had heard many of the stories about human escapades. Wild experiments that on paper seemed more like a drunken brainstorm party that ended up advancing rocket fuel technology by at least 8 lunar years. Crash-landings on category 3 death worlds and they ended up liking them so much they decided to set up colonies. Half of what they did seemed to be mistakes that just went right for them. Apparently, the miracle drug penicillin was included in those stories.

She looked up its history and manufacturing.

Andu felt claws dance down her back as she read more. It came… from mold? Mold?! She looked up from the tablet to the faces of her equally horrified hatch mates. It took them a moment to remember how to close their mouths.

"You mean like mold on old bread?" Piri broke the shocked silence.

Andu blinked and looked back at the report. Old bread? How many times had they not eaten bread fast enough in the warm humid seasons only to pick up a bul of bread and find mold growing on it. It was dangerous, it had to be carefully disposed of, it was… able to save lives?

She returned to the report. The more she read, the more comforted she became in the safety of the miracle antibiotic. That, and she couldn't argue with the results. Her family was around her, now loudly being altogether boisterous together as they "discussed" the humans and all the ways they played with death in order to save life.

Matki snatched the tablet from her claws, wanting to read the report for himself. As Andu was jostled by her now healthy, energetic family, she was just happy and eternally thankful that the humans were crazy enough to play with something as dangerous as fungus, and then kind enough to share what they discovered.

[mariacallous]

There’s an international socialist conspiracy afoot, and it wants to make it easier to walk to the shops. Fringe forces of the far left are plotting to take away our freedom to be stuck in traffic jams, to crawl along clogged ring roads and trawl the streets in search of a parking spot. The liberty of the rush-hour commute, the sanctity of the out-of-town shopping centre and the righteousness of the suburban food desert is under threat as never before. The name of this chilling global movement? The “15-minute city”.

Westminster can often seem like a badly scripted spoof of itself, but rarely has parliament descended into parody as far as it did last week, when the Conservative MP for the South Yorkshire constituency of Don Valley, Nick Fletcher, launched a plucky tirade against the concept of convenient, walkable neighbourhoods. “Will the leader of the house please set aside time for a debate on the international socialist concept of so-called 15-minute cities and 20-minute neighbourhoods?” he asked, in an ominous tone. “Sheffield is already on this journey, and I do not want Doncaster, which also has a Labour-run socialist council, to do the same.”

It is not the first time that an online conspiracy theory has made it into the Commons chamber, but it may be one of the most surreal. Simply put, the 15-minute city principle suggests you should have your daily needs – work, food, healthcare, education, culture and leisure – within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from where you live. It sounds pleasant enough, but in the minds of libertarian fanatics and the bedroom commentators of TikTok, it represents an unprecedented assault on personal freedoms.

“Creepy local authority bureaucrats would like to see your entire existence boiled down to the duration of a quarter of an hour,” warned a furious presenter on GB News last week, as if describing a plot line from Nineteen Eighty-Four. The 15-minute city, he suggested, was a “dystopian plan”, heralding “a surveillance culture that would make Pyongyang envious”.

Never before has a mundane theory of urbanism been such a lightning rod for outrage. It’s like suggesting that public parks are part of a sinister plant-worshipping plot to demolish our homes and replace them with grass. Or that public transport is the work of a satanic bus cult. Some online forums have claimed that the 15-minute city represents the first step towards an inevitable Hunger Games society, in which residents will not be allowed to leave their prescribed areas. They see it not as a route to a low-traffic, low-carbon future, but as the beginning of a slippery slope to living in an open-air prison.

As one irate TikToker shrieked, while jumping around his room in disbelief: “You’re going to have to apply for a fucking permit to leave your zone!” (Although he also ascribed the 15-minute city plans to the Tories, so it’s not quite clear which deranged Reddit forum he got his information from).

There are lots of good reasons to interrogate the cute logic of the 15-minute city – could it actually lead to further social segregation? Would wealthy residents, and their money, remain in the prosperous enclaves? Who is providing the services and where do they live? – but the threat of our rights being curtailed by travel permits isn’t one of them.

The conspiracy theory pot was given a powerful stir in December, when the Canadian rightwing culture warrior Jordan Peterson decided to get involved. “The idea that neighbourhoods should be walkable is lovely,” he tweeted, in a post that has since clocked up 7.5m views. “The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you’re ‘allowed’ to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea,” he continued, “and, make no mistake, it’s part of a well-documented plan.” Peterson quoted a tweet that featured the telltale hashtag #GreatReset, referring to the World Economic Forum’s post-pandemic economic recovery plan – widely used in the stranger corners of the internet as a byword for a shadowy global conspiracy intent on robbing us of our freedoms. The anti-vaccine, pro-Brexit, climate-denying, 15-minute-phobe, Great Reset axis is a strong one.

So where did the fear come from? Many of the UK conspiracy theorists highlight that these “un-British” ideas of urban walkability emanate from France, so they must be distrusted on principle. Worse than that, they point out, the ideology has been driven by a bearded Colombian scientist with radical roots. The ideas had been around since the 1920s, but the 15-minute city phrase was coined by Carlos Moreno, esteemed professor at the Panthéon-Sorbonne in Paris, who was once a member of a leftwing guerrilla group in the 1970s. And now he’s coming for your cars.

“Their lies are enormous,” Moreno said in a recent interview , describing some of the claims made by his critics. “You will be locked in your neighbourhood; cameras will signal who can go out; if your mother lives in another neighbourhood, you will have to ask for permission to see her, and so on,” adding that they “sometimes post pictures of concentration camps.”

Moreno first promoted his concept of la ville du quart d’heure in 2016, but it gained international attention when the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, adopted it as part of her re-election campaign in 2020. She promised she would close off roads and turn them into public plazas, plant more trees and turn schools into the “capitals of the neighbourhood”, open to everyone for sports and recreation in evenings and at weekends.

The pandemic proved to be a powerful trial for how a 15-minute city might work in practice, and led to bodies such as UN Habitat, the World Economic Forum, the C40 Global Cities Climate Network and the Federation of United Local Governments championing the cause – which also helped to boost unhinged fantasies that it is all part of a grand global scheme of totalitarian oppression.

More recently, the principles have gained traction in the UK, with Oxford, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury and Sheffield councils considering 15-minute city ideas. Cue outrage from those with no other cause left to flog. “The climate change lockdowns are coming,” tweeted Nigel Farage, in response to Canterbury’s innocuous traffic filtering scheme, while Oxford’s plans triggered similar ripples of incredulous fury.

“Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming,” screamed one alarmist headline. “The latest stage in the ‘15-minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.” The claims had zero basis in fact, but they poured further fuel on the fire of those battling low-traffic neighbourhoods, and their fellow band of assorted culture warriors.

It seems fitting that a leaflet drop warning against Oxford’s traffic filters plan was organised by Not Our Future – a new pressure group led by none other than Fred and Richard Fairbrass of 1990s band turned anti-vaxxers Right Said Fred. Too sexy for their car? Maybe they could try cycling to the shops instead.

[epickiya722]

REACTIONS TO EPISODE 18 - IZUKU MIDORIYA AND TOMURA SHIGARAKI

You already know how this goes. Jokes, opinions, questions all that good stuff. Emphasis on the "jokes" because we're not gonna have a repeat of last week are we?

LAST EPISODE'S REACTIONS

OOOOOH YES!!! OFA USERS EPISODE!!!

Even in a coma, Izuku can't help but worry about everyone else.

Hold up... Hikage (4th User) is barefoot???

OMG YOICHI IS SO DAMN PRETTY!!!

2nd & 3rd's hair colors revealed and... I like them!!

"We'll respect your privacy!" Banjo is the funniest User and I love him.

Okay, I love all of them honestly.

I actually like how they did Izuku's voice here. To describe it... imagine talking into a cup...

HE REALLY TRIED TO HIT HIM!!! AND HIKAGE SAID 'WEAVE'!

"Everyone is a weirdo, except me." Proceeds to do a funny dodging dance to avoid Blackwhip. Yeah, he's becoming one of my faves.

"Old age? At 40?" Had the same reaction.

Ooooh, that explanation!!!

"What did Shinomori have that he didn't?" I KNOW!!! I KNOW!!!

AAAAAWWW!!! TEEN MIGHT AND IZUKU!!! Damn, Yagi always been tall as hell, huh?

"All Might was quirk-less." DING DING DING!!!

And when thinking about, it would make sense for someone to be Quirk-less to hold OFA because yeah, you don't want to overflow the pile so much. Which brings me to the question that if AFO could OFA, which I doubt, you think he would like die that second?

I forgot that there is little to no Quirk-less people... yeah, by the time Izuku would have to pass down OFA, there wouldn't be an available successor.

* shows Nighteye* RIP, my guy. Nice detail since he believed Mirio would have been a better successor and it turns out HE WOULDN'T BE. Ooh, another question. At the time Mirio was quirk-less and Izuku offered OFA to him, you think OFA would have adapted to Mirio or stay with Izuku?

"Are you willing to take Tomura Shigaraki's life?" Damn, Nana, just drop that on him, huh?

"He looked like he was in immense pain because AFO was invading his body." Well, yeah, that, too.

"... in his eyes was hatred." He just needs a hug. Don't blame him though. First, your dad is an asshole. You manifest your quirk that kills your family and destroys your home. You are abandoned on the streets and no one took you on and then you are picked up to be "raised" by a maniac. I would feel all that hatred, too.

En be sitting like me... I also love that 2nd and 3rd are just standing against the wall like they're in timeout.

"He wants to make a comeback." Ah, shit, AFO dropping an album?!

NANA IS BUFF!

Okay, I firmly believe though that all the Users have some bit of muscle definition except for Yoichi. He's the 1st User so he didn't have the time to build his body for it.

"I know how embarrassing it is for an adult to make a 16 year old boy pay for her failure." You and Rock Lock must know each other...

I miss Rock Lock. Hope his family is doing alright.

🎶 THESE WINGS WERE MADE TO FLYYYY!!! 🎶

En looks like he wants to ask "so what's it gonna be?" Or "seriously? That shirt with those pants?"

Izuku is by far the most empathic and sympathetic person there is... damn Cancerian...

LOVE how when Izuku goes to speak his mind about wanting to save Tomura, his mouth forms even more and his voice is clearer. It's like at first, he has to stand there and still to his elders so he was muffled and then the moment he got to speak his truth, his voice comes out to spill his real feelings.

Vestige All Might is crying!!!! 😭😭😭

No, for real, I had to stop and wipe my eyes because I had tears coming up.

I JUST WIPED MY TEARS AND BOOM!!! LITTLE IZUKU!!! 😭😭😭💚💚💚

"Yes. For that, you will have our support." YOICHI, YOU THE BEST!!!

Aaaaw, Nana wanting Izuku to send Gran Torino a "hi", aaaw. Thinking about it, you think Gran Torino was the only person she had by her side until All Might came around?

Nana, please don't cry. I'll cry.

Emotions... THE EMOTIONS

"Is he in bad shape?" "No. He is alright." I DOUBT THAT! LOOK AT HIM!

"These people never give up." You can tell All Might is just done with people.

Best Jeanist just really be not giving a damn when it comes to collars.

That lady was going ham during the interview!!

Endeavor deciding if people are gonna get mad at heroes, be mad at him... WOOOOW.

GOT ME A MIRUKO SHOT!!!

... I am not surprised Kamui Woods got leaves for hair.

OMG HE LEFT THE LETTERS!!!!

"Who should they go to for help when they are in pain?" Well, don't go to the citizens because they don't give a damn.

Can't believe he left in APRIL.

Aaaaa, here comes Vigilante Deku!!! The arc that made me want to pull my hair out!!!

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Disappearance of Trevor Deely

Trevor Deely was born on 15 August 1978. Deely was due to go to a Christmas party that was scheduled for Thursday 7 December 2000. After drinks in Copper Face Jacks and the Hilton Hotel, the party moved to Buck Whaley's nightclub on Lower Leeson Street. Deely left Buck Whaley's at about 3:25 am. He started walking in the direction of his apartment in the Renoir complex, on Serpentine Avenue in Ballsbridge. There was a heavy storm that night with gusts as high as 60 or 70 mph, and there was also a taxi strike. About ten minutes after leaving the nightclub, Deely arrived at his office, and was let in after calling security. While in his office Deely made a cup of tea and spoke to a colleague, Karl Pender, who was working the night shift. He also checked his emails and made a note of things he needed to do in work the following morning. He left the office at 4:03 am, taking an umbrella with him, and continued in the direction of Ballsbridge. 

Around this time he rang a friend of his in Naas and left a voicemail. His friend described the message as saying "‘Hi, Glen, I’ve missed you there. Just on my way home, all going good, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ Or words to that very close effect.” His friend deleted the message, not regarding it as significant and investigators never sought to retrieve it. CCTV footage shows that a man dressed in black was waiting outside the gates of the bank for approximately half an hour before Deely arrived. When Deely arrived, they had a brief conversation. Two minutes after Deely entered the bank, two more men arrived at the gate. While they have since been cleared as colleagues of Deely, the man in black remains a person of interest. By the time Deely left the bank, this man was no longer waiting outside. At 4:14 am CCTV footage shows Deely walking past what was then the AIB bank on the corner of Baggot Street Bridge and Haddington Road in the direction of his flat. About thirty seconds later a man dressed in black passed by the AIB bank. Gardaí said that they believe this is the same man who spoke to Deely outside his office. This man has never come forward to Gardaí, despite numerous appeals over many years since the disappearance. 

Deely's absence from work the following morning was not seen as a cause for concern as it had been a late night. Additionally, his flatmates were away that weekend so they did not know he was missing either. Only when Deely failed to show up the following Monday were alarm bells raised. His work informed his family. After ascertaining that nobody had spoken to Deely that weekend, they reported him as a missing person.

Over the following days Deely's family and friends put up hundreds of posters, handed out thousands of leaflets and went from house to house and business to business inquiring if people had seen him. His friends were able to obtain the CCTV footage used in the investigation. Det. Sgt Michael Fitzgerald, who worked on the case from the beginning said “I’ve never worked on a case where the family were so proactive.” The delay between Deely being last seen and reported as missing meant that vital time was lost.

The Garda sub-aqua team searched the river Dodder and the Grand Canal but did not find anything. They were unable to drain the Grand Canal Basin as it would affect the structural integrity of the surrounding buildings. Deely's sister, Michele, said that she rang his phone a few times the weekend he went missing and she believes that it rang out. According to Dr. Philip Perry, a senior research fellow in the radio and optical communications laboratory at Dublin City University, a phone in 2000 would have gone dead within seconds of falling into the water. However, Michele said she is not 100% sure that it did actually ring.

Two Gardaí travelled to Alaska to speak to the girl who Deely had gone over to see before his disappearance. Deely's sisters also travelled to Alaska separately for the same purpose. The trips did not produce any leads.

Deely's whereabouts remain unknown and the case continues to spark interest. 

[dragonmuse]

In The Kid is Alright, Eddy is new to interacting with Alma and isn’t sure how to be around her. By the next time we see them together, she’s settled into the role of step-parent. How was their process of coming to terms with being a parent and becoming comfortable in that role? I expect there would be some anxiety considering their history with their own parents, and I imagine it might sneak up on them that she’s actually a parent now.

(It's a long and rocky road, but mostly for Eddy, at least, not the kids themselves. She works very hard to keep the pointy parts of herself away from them. )

The first time she thinks of them as hers it's only about a year or so after the wedding. Alma is 12 and Charlie is 8. She has them both with her, Stede is dealing with something at the bar.

"Eddy," Charlie approached them with a frown, his brow all wrinkled up like Stede's which makes them smile.

"What's up?" Eddy asked.

"My shoe broke." He lifted up his foot to show her the toe of his sneakers peeling away. "I was running and I tripped and it broke."

"Huh. Did you bring another pair?"

"Nuh huh."

"Okay then, I guess shoe shopping it is," she decided. She hadn't really had a plan anyway. "Alma, get yourself together, we're going shoe shopping."

"Okay!" She called from the bathroom. "Can I get a pair too?"

You've got a dozen at least,Eddy thought. And you only wear the one most of the time. What the hell do you need another for?

"Maybe," she equivocated.

It took some minor magic to get them all out the door, but within a half hour, they were on the subway. Eddy and Alma clung to a pole, Charlie, after attempting to stand just on his own and almost falling ass over teakettle, wrapped himself around Eddy's free arm. He clung like a barnacle, giggling every time they came to a stop and he almost tumbled over, only Eddy's grasp on his t-shirt keeping him upright. When he fell against her hand, she could feel his ribs, his fluttery tiny heart against her palm.

He was so small in the world. Alma not much larger.

"Come on," Eddy urged them off at their stop. Alma was too big to hold hands, but Charlie had no such compunction, keeping his grip as they mounted the stairs. It was only when they reached street level again that he started his usual yo-yoing, running ahead then arching back Alma kept pace beside her.

"Can we get lunch out?" Alma asked.

"Mm, going to have to. It's almost noon already."

"I'm hungry."

"Me too!" Charlie put in as he circled back. "Can we have hamburgers?"

"We had hamburgers yesterday," Alma groaned. "And I don't even like that places veggie burger. It's so dry."

They'd eaten pizza last night for dinner, so by Eddy's math, she should probably be trying to jam something with the potential for green it down their young gullets.

"Ramen?" She offered.

"Yes!" they both agreed. All right then.

"I saw a documentary about ramen," Alma told her as Charlie ping-ponged around them. "This shop had been in the same family for three hundred years."

"Really?" Eddy listened with half an ear as she tried to remember which side of the street the damn place was on.

"Uh huh, can you imagine? All those generations of people learning how to make noodles. It was so cool. I wish we had something like that, but instead we just have boring Bonnets forever, doing stupid things like stocks."

"Is that it?" Charlie asked, pointing to a sign.

"Read it," Eddy instructed. "You tell me."

"Dry...cleaners...oh." Charlie sighed then rushed on ahead again.

Alma went on describing the noodle making process and at last there was the shop across the street.

"Can I cross?" Charlie asked.

"Wait for us," Eddy instructed and got her hand on his shoulder before he could yeet himself into traffic. "Okay...now."

There weren't tables available during the lunch rush, but the kids seemed happier with the tall chairs around the ramen bar.

"Okay," Eddy wasn't even hungry this early, but she posted up on her chair like she'd survived a ship wreck. "What's everyone getting?"

That bought her a few minutes of peace as they both looked over the menu. She texted Stede their whereabouts in case he got home early and decided on her own meal.

"Can I get it spicy?" Charlie asked.

"It's your lunch," she frowned. "But if you don't like it..."

"I'm going to try," he decided.

"Yikes," Alma muttered.

Eddy let him get it, figuring she could swap bowls with him when he inevitably gave up. They each ordered politely then turned to her expectantly.

"What?"

"What should we do while we wait?"

"Uh...fuck," she rustled in her pockets, came up with an envelope she'd stuffed in there and a pen. "Knock yourselves out."

They figured out some dot game that Alma was clearly going to win, Charlie not even quite following the rules, but the place worked fast so the food was delivered before Eddy had to arbitrate any arguments.

Eddy and Alma's bowls were mostly shades of yellows. Charlie's was a mildly alarming shade of red. Welp. At least it would be a story.

"Cool," Charlie declared, dipped into the broth and sucked down a mouthful.

Eddy ate her egg and considered her life choices. Alma chopsticked enough noodles into her face to choke a cow.

"Bites, Alma," Eddy reminded her.

Charlie was flushed now, but was already inexpertly attacking his noodles with the same verve as Alma with even less tidiness. All right then.

"Can I have a juice?" He asked through a mouthful of noodles.

"Don't talk with your mouthful and no, you had juice with breakfast and there'll be soda with dinner probably, stick to water."

"Can I have your mushrooms?" Alma asked, eyeballing Eddy's bowl.

"Knock yourself out, hate the slimy bastards."

They all finished their bowls. Charlie had blown his nose a few times, but was otherwise no worse for wear.

"That was great!" he said merrily.

"Huh. Okay, Charlie is a yes to spice," Eddy noted, shelling out their debit card. "Who knew?"

"Roach let me lick a ghost pepper once," Charlie sucked down the rest of his glass of water. "I only cried a little!"

Eddy: you let charlie lick a ghost pepper?

Roach: you want free childcare, you get what you paid for

The shoe store was crowded and Charlie wound up glued to their side.

"What size do you wear?" Eddy asked him and was met with a shrug. She turned to Alma. "Do you know?"

"Why would I know?" She looked blankly back Eddy.

"Okay," Eddy scanned the store, found a floor sticker with colorful kids feet and numbers with relief. "Pop off the broken one, kiddo, let's figure this out."

Once they had his size, Alma scouted ahead and located a row of sneakers (gender divided, naturally) and started pointing out options to Charlie, who shrank closer and closer until Eddy wasn't sure if he was attempting to hide or possibly merge with their body.

"Alma," Eddy said gently. "Go find yourself three pairs to try on. No promises, got it?"

"Got it!" She dashed off.

"What color do you want, Charlie?"

"Dunno," he looked down at his single socked foot. Oh right, probably should've had him put the other shoe back on. Whoops.

"You like red, right?"

"Yeah," he said softly.

"Not your favorite though?"

He shrugged.

"Can't read minds, kiddo, talk to me."

"I liked these," he touched his socked toe to the other shoe.

"Oh, you're sad they broke, huh?" Eddy said with some relief at untangling that. "Yeah, sucks. How about we find a pair as much like them as we can?"

"Yeah, okay."

They managed to find a very similar pair in the same brand and Charlie found a smile again. Alma tried on several pairs of sneakers, but then put them all away again and didn't ask for any of them, so Eddy rode that reprieve to the register and then to the overpriced cookie store, handing out sugar and gaining a coffee that she clung to like a lifeline.

They made it back to the apartment to find Stede just getting home himself.

"There you all are," he said as if he'd been looking for them for hour instead of just now hanging up his coat. "How did shoe shopping go?"

"Look, look," Charlie dashed up to him, holding out one foot. "Eddy found the same ones, almost!"

"They are very close," Stede agreed. "Are you happy with them?"

"Yes, they fit really good," he said contentedly.

"I got a garbage cookie," Alma announced with satisfaction. "It had potato chips in it."

"How was that?" Stede gently herded them further inside.

"Really good! Can I watch TV?"

"Yes, of course."

The two of them went to to go tussle over the couch cushions and Eddy sat down on the spindly bench to pry off her own boots. Stede went into the kitchen, to dispense water.

It was as she set her boots down next to Charlie's new sneakers that it hit in her in a wave. There were their big black boots, here were small sneakers and Alma's slightly larger sparkly purple boots. A line of shoes, bookended by Stede's loafers.

This wasn't babysitting. This was Eddy's home, crowded with kids' shoes. They'd just done an errand, got them fed and watered. This wasn't special days out anymore. This just...was.

"You okay, honey?" Stede drifted in. "You spaced out a bit there."

"No, I'm here," Eddy smiled up at him. "Just thinking. When did you start feeling like you were really a dad?"

"When I rocked Alma to sleep for the first time," Stede said after a second's thought. "She was so small. Hard to believe she's the same human almost."

"Does it ever stop being scary?"

"Not so far," Stede slid an arm around her waist, pressed a kiss to her cheek. "But you're pretty brave. I think you'll manage."