#all i really care about is needing a coffee

[cuubism]

Covetous

E | Dreamling | 6.6k

fishbowl rescue, hurt/comfort, sex as a reward, dub-con, the intricate rituals that let you have touch and intimacy without admitting you need it

“Dream,” he says carefully, sitting down on the coffee table across from him. It’s new to him still, this name. Pulled from his stranger’s hoarse throat on their way out of the manor. Dream. His poor friend. Dream looks up at him. His expression is guarded. Wounded. “I owe you,” he says, in his low, sibilant voice, “a boon.” As a reward for his rescue, Dream offers Hob what he's always wanted most. Dream himself.

--

Hob’s beloved stranger is free. Miraculously imprisoned, and then freed by Hob’s hand. And never has freedom looked so fucking awful on a person.

He’s sitting on Hob’s couch like a crumpled bird, wrapped loosely in one of Hob’s shirts. It’s so oversized on him, even more than it normally would be on his narrow frame. His knees are knobby, his cheekbones sharp, hands pressed together in his lap in a mimicry of the way the manacles had bound his wrists. Bruised wrists, bruised throat, shadows under his eyes. God. Hob should have chained up Alex Burgess and thrown him in the glass cage for a change.

“Dream,” he says carefully, sitting down on the coffee table across from him. It’s new to him still, this name. Pulled from his stranger’s hoarse throat on their way out of the manor. Dream. His poor friend.

Dream looks up at him. His expression is guarded. Wounded. “I owe you,” he says, in his low, sibilant voice, “a boon.”

“For what?” Hob says. Dream continues looking at him meaningfully. “For rescuing you? No, you don’t.” He really thinks Hob’s that much of a profiteer?

“We are not even friends,” Dream says lowly, and ouch, that one hurts. “And you have risked the secret of your immortality to aid me.”

Hob refrains from saying that he considers Dream his friend, even if the bastard doesn’t return it.

“I will not leave that debt hanging,” Dream says, voice gaining strength. “Long have I been bound for use of my power and I will not have the same from you, Hob Gadling. Demand something of me, that this debt may be cleared and we be free of each other.”

“Okay, okay.” Hob raises a hand to placate him. He really wants rid of Hob that badly? That’s some gratitude. Insisting on transactional payment, when Hob rescued him because he cared about him? Assuming Hob must want some grand favor from him, when all Hob’s ever wanted is a second of his time and attention?

He lets out a long breath to calm himself. He’s so… frustrated. And angry, though it’s really more anger on Dream’s behalf, now without outlet as his captors are all dead.

“All I’ve ever wanted from you is you,” he says.

“Indeed?” says Dream with a bitter little laugh. Hob has never known him to have a particularly charitable view of things, but his imprisonment seems to have twisted that even further, carved him into a shell that only knows what it is to be hurt. “Not even your immortality?”

“You offered that,” Hob says. “And I would have gone after it whether you were there or not.”

Dream lets out another awful, dry laugh. Hob’s always wanted to hear him laugh, to know if he ever did, but not like this. “Seized it,” he agrees. “Demanded it. What was never for men to have.”

“That’s never stopped me,” Hob says. Dream is not the cause of him wanting to live, even if it was that chance encounter with him that enabled it, in the end.

“No,” Dream agrees. He meets Hob’s eyes again, challenging. Echoes Hob’s words: “All you wanted was me.”

“All I wanted was you,” Hob says. Some of the truest words he knows.

“Why?” says Dream, brow pinching. Genuinely asking. “I have given you little enough.”

Exactly, Hob thinks. Because I get minutes of you every century. Because being with you for those minutes is like touching another plane of existence entirely. Because you’re the most gorgeous and interesting thing I’ve ever seen and your attention, your interest, your approval is like a drug to me.

Instead, he says, “You know me. Greedy to the core. Given enough time, there’s very little in this life that I can’t manage to get. Except for you. Your time. You’re always at a remove. So high above.”

Dream nods as if this makes sense to him. A more acceptable explanation than that Hob might simply want to be with him. And it’s not untrue. But it’s certainly not the whole truth.

“It is agreed, then,” Dream says.

Hob frowns. “Sorry. What is?”

“All you have wanted was me,” Dream says, as if Hob should obviously know where he’s going with this. “Let the boon be sealed.”

“I don’t understand—”

Dream glares at him. He has always been quick to anger, but now it leaps off his tongue, smolders and burns for the slightest opportunity to rage. Well. That makes two of them. “Do not toy with me. I am not oblivious. I have seen the way you look upon me—”

Hob chokes.

“—so do not play at ignorance. If I am what you want in reward, then let it be done.”

Hob feels himself pale. Is he actually suggesting…?

“Dream—” He starts to reject him out of hand. To suggest some other favor if Dream is so hell-bent on it. Information, maybe, about Dream’s life, all the things Hob’s always been obsessively curious about. But.

Dream is not wrong. When Hob had said, all I ever wanted was you, he had meant it more broadly, but Dream’s interpretation of the statement is not incorrect. Hob does want him. In his bed. In his life. Has since he first saw him. Definitely has since Dream had looked at him from under his lashes like that in 1789, given him that damned smirk. He’d thought, in that moment, that Dream might want him too—it was one of the things that had given him the boldness to claim friendship a century later.

Hob wants him, wants to touch him, and have him, and see what he looks like when he’s losing himself to pleasure. Wants it feverishly. Painfully. And the way Dream is looking at him— there’s want there. In those shadowed eyes. In that body, bent and forced into an unnatural shape. He’s not looking at Hob with revulsion at the prospect. He did come up with it himself. And. Hob’s not sure he’s a good enough person to turn down his one chance at that offer. He’s not sure he’s a good person at all.

“Fine,” he says, and Dream looks briefly surprised, and then resigned, accepting. Like he had, fleetingly, thought better of Hob, but was not wholly surprised to be proven wrong. That hurts, too. But if Dream won’t even let them be friends, with the understanding and care contained therein, well, so be it. If Dream’s angry enough to do this to himself, then maybe Hob is, too.

He expects Dream to tell him how exactly this is supposed to work—presumably he has specific rules defining it as a debt and marking it paid—but for a long moment he just keeps sitting there in the aftermath of Hob’s agreement. Crumpled. Hands twisted together, bruises on his fingers. So Hob takes his hands, pulls them out of their violent twist. Dream lets him, going limp. That resignation. That, Hob doesn’t like.

He leans down and kisses Dream’s knuckles, then turns his hands over and kisses his palms. If he’s going to live out the long-held fantasy of having sex with his old stranger, then he’s going to do it the way he imagined. Not whatever way Dream expects of him.

When he looks up again, the cold touch of Dream’s hands lingering on his face, he’s just quick enough to catch Dream looking at him not with resignation, but with longing. It flees his face as soon as their gazes meet, but the afterimage lingers behind Hob’s eyes. Slides under his ribcage like a knife.

“Come on, darling,” he says, the endearment slipping out like that very knife pulled from a wound. He stands, pulling Dream to his feet with him. Now is probably not the best time to do this, but he suspects Dream will insist on it, wanting to be free of Hob—of their debt—as soon as possible so he can carry on his business unimpeded.

Hob leads Dream to the bedroom well aware of the blade he’s hanging over his own neck: if he does this, Dream won’t come back. He’ll clear their debt and that will be it, he’ll return to his mystical world and cut contact, end their prior agreement, knowing well exactly what he can expect from Hob, and that Hob really hasn’t changed at all.

Unless. Unless Hob can give him a reason to come back.

Dream is silent as he follows. He stops in the middle of the bedroom, feet bare on the carpet, Hob’s shirt hanging loose on him, face set in a harsh frown that trembles and wavers when Hob turns to him and, instead of pushing off his shirt and dragging him forward, takes his face between his hands.

Hob’s never had Dream this close. He can make out each strand of Dream’s hair, and the precise shade of his eyes, sea-storm blue. There’s defiance, there. Fire. Challenging Hob to take what he feels he’s owed. If he dares.

Challenge. Not resentment. Not revulsion.

So Hob kisses him.

He’s not a saint.

He’s not a saint, he’s exactly what Dream thinks him to be, greedy, and hungry, and unchanging. And he has wanted Dream for a very long time.

It’s easy to kiss him, the way it’s easy to slide a razor across one’s skin, the blade so sharp it barely stings. It’s easy to take his mouth, press inside, bite at his lower lip, hook his fingers around the sharp hinge of Dream’s jaw. Catch him. Gather him. Press warmth into his skeletal frame. It’s easy. It feels natural.

It feels natural like hunger. Natural, like seeing Dream standing over him in the inn that very first time, and the bright exploding sense that all before this had been obscured by smoke, and now for the first time he was seeing.

Dream makes a sound low in his throat, a moan quickly bitten off into a growl. Hob half-expects him to be passive, to decide he just wants to get it over with, but he’s not. He kisses back. Angrily, as if to punish Hob for his audacity, bites at Hob’s lip, grips his hips hard, the sharp points of his fingers digging in. It’s the intensity Hob always expected of him, when he fantasized about his stranger wanting him; it’s the low curl of his voice around Hob in the inn — you… dare? — grown claws.

Hob dares. Hob’s always dared. He dares to push the shirt, his shirt, off Dream’s shoulders, and he dares to pull his own shirt off over his head. He dares to walk Dream back towards the bed, and guide him up onto it, and to kick off his shoes and to follow him. He dares to study Dream’s bare form, laid out before him, but that is not a sharp dare, that is… a caress. A dream, in which he might hold his stranger close and trail fingers along every inch of his skin and his stranger none the wiser but feeling it, maybe, as a far off breath over the back of his neck. Stolen, that dream, but given back kinder.

Hob studies the gorgeous, bruised, sharp lines of him, the smudge of his hair, the shadows of his eyes, elegant fingers and sprawling legs and precise, round nipples, the stillness of him in repose, mouth slightly open, watching. Dream is more charcoal sketch than man, a memory of a lover drawn in the late hour, strong, pressed lines, and careful shading. If this all goes terribly wrong, if he can’t convince Dream how he really feels, that’s how Hob will remember him. As a shadow, a daydream, a vision filtered through the prism of the past.

He leans down from his place between Dream’s legs to kiss his sternum, then his belly which shivers at the touch, then low on his pelvis. Dream doesn’t move. When Hob looks up at him, he’s watching intently, eyes gone dark. With a measured touch he lays his fingers along Hob’s temples, dragging them to the corners of Hob’s eyes, nails sharp like claws, a sheathed threat. God, the audacity of Burgess to think he could keep this thing chained. Hob closes his eyes and, shivering with dangerous pleasure, lets Dream run his fingers over them, then retreat.

Dream’s sharp nails frame his cheeks. His voice rumbles above Hob, the turning of clouds, his tone fond, almost, but dangerous too. “My rescuer…”

Yes, Hob thinks, always.

“You have saved me,” says Dream. “You have returned me to my realm. And to myself.” The words have a sense of finality. “Now. Seize your prize.”

Seize, no, Hob thinks, but prize, yes. Dream is a prize, every second with him is. One Hob’s done little enough to earn, but takes eagerly either way.

“Take your reward of my body,” Dream continues, thumbs stroking Hob’s cheeks. “But know this.”

Hob opens his eyes and looks up at him. Dream’s voice is portentous. His eyes are swirling pits, dark, shadowed, and alluring.

“Know this,” he repeats, holding Hob’s gaze, “one cannot have a dream and remain unchanged. And to be so close to the Endless…” he runs his thumb over Hob’s lower lip. “Even more so.”

“Good,” Hob says. He doesn’t have to think about it; what more could he want than to be changed by Dream? He already has been.

Dream’s eyes flash with surprise, but slide quickly into satisfaction. It’s sick, almost, that look, like he would see Hob made twisted and wrong for what he wants, for what he’s taking. Fine. Good. Maybe Hob deserves it. The thought doesn’t make him want to stop. Dream can pierce him with his claws and undo him and Hob will only keep looking for him in every shadow.

He feels blissfully on edge from the danger. He ducks his head, Dream’s hands slipping off him, and goes low on Dream’s body, pressing his lips to the base of his cock, where he’s half-hard. Interested.

In Hob’s earliest fantasies of getting his mouth on his stranger it had not been like this. Dream had been powerful and strange and Hob had wanted to worship him, and to have Dream’s touch in his hair speak approval. But this Dream has no haughty approval left to offer him, only ashes and rage. And all Hob wants now is to taste him. Touch him, as Dream said, and be changed.  

He kisses his way up Dream’s cock, swipes over the head with his tongue, wraps his fingers around Dream’s bony hips. Then takes the head of his cock fully in his mouth, pulling a shallow gasp from Dream. His thighs tremble, his hips twitch up into Hob’s mouth. His stranger, always so controlled, must be terribly sensitive after having no pleasure at all for so many years. The thought causes an undeniable thrill.

He relishes in the weight of Dream on his tongue. In the shivering sighs of Dream above him, even more. His hands come to Hob’s hair, and his grip is not hesitant, it’s sharp. But he doesn’t try to move Hob. Only connects them through that point of pain.

He tastes metallic—not only his prick, or the drop of pre Hob pulls from him, but his skin too, when Hob pulls off and kisses his inner thigh, and the crook of his hip. There’s a tang to his skin that sticks to Hob’s tongue. He thinks it’s a relic of the magic that captured him, or the magic that had gotten him out. He wishes he knew the true taste of Dream’s skin.

Hob raises himself up on his arms, goes back up Dream’s body to capture his mouth. Dream tips his head back, baring his throat. Gentle now, instead of fighting. Hob bites under his jaw, wringing a cry from Dream’s lips. He adds his own bruise to the ring of them already painting Dream’s neck, then kisses over it, and the others besides, kisses pressing just hard enough to edge into pain.

Dream moves under him, legs wrapping around Hob’s hips. Hob gets one hand between them and finally unzips his trousers, takes himself out, grinds his cock against Dream’s. Rough fabric drags over Dream’s skin. Hob finds he likes the thought of it showing on Dream’s thighs later, the raw friction of them. He doesn’t like to see Dream battered, bruised, but with his bruises—well. That’s a different matter.

Dream catches his jaw and turns Hob back to his mouth, pulls him into a biting kiss, his tongue sweeping over Hob’s teeth. Then he meets Hob’s gaze, a hint of that dark imperiousness that Hob knows so well back in his eyes.

“If you intend to claim me for yourself,” he says, voice frayed at the edges and dripping shadow, “then do so fully. I will have all of your passion for me. Or nothing.”

Hob swallows hard, throat sticking. “That is quite a lot of passion, my friend.”

If anything, that only makes Dream seem more satisfied. “So it seems.”

Does he know what he could get Hob to do for him, in another situation? Here, now, Dream is for him—or so he’s set the bargain. But there is little Dream could not twist Hob’s passion for him into, if he only asked. It’s a dangerous thing to feel, and yet Hob is not afraid of it. There are worse things to lose oneself over than obsession with a strange, dear friend.

“I’ll have you, then,” he says. “If you insist. For now. But, you should know: if you find yourself trapped like that again, you can call on me. All of that passion also means that I will come for you.”

Dream’s eyes flash. “I will not be trapped like that again.”

Hob takes his wrists and presses them down into the bed, mimicking the circles of bruises bestowed by the manacles. “You were trapped once.”

Tendons flex under Hob’s hands. “Now you will bind me yourself?”

You bound me first, Hob thinks. As fast as a dog on a chain, as firm as a dog coming back and back again to the house where it was once left. Waiting. It’s a miracle he doesn’t want to force Dream to stay, just to stop waiting. It’s a miracle, given everything, that he finds the thought more sickening than anything else.

“We went over that, didn’t we?” He kisses each of Dream’s wrists, over his pulse, then releases him.

For a long moment, Dream leaves his hands where Hob pressed them, studying him. “I suppose so,” he says, considering.

That pain returns, what had first pierced him through when Dream proposed this ‘trade.’ You don’t think better of me? Perhaps Hob doesn’t deserve being thought better of. You don’t trust my friendship? It hurts more than anything, to think Dream believes Hob could do that to him. For not believing it to come as a surprise.

It hurts so much he nearly abandons this whole exercise, this pretense that— that he could actually want to take something from Dream, could want some reward from him, no matter how tempting it is when dangled before his face. The thing is that Dream is the great love of Hob’s life, and he isn’t Dream’s and he’s had to try to come to terms with that, and Dream’s body under his is making it harder, not easier.

“Hob.” Cold fingers find his jaw, and Hob realizes he’s closed his eyes, head hanging low. Dream tips his face back up, runs his thumb over the corner of Hob’s mouth, and Hob opens for him. There’s a new look in Dream’s eyes now, but he can’t quite read it. “Seal the bargain.”

The intensity of him bolsters Hob’s confidence, sets the want stirring in him again. He knows Dream doesn’t mean a kiss, but Hob kisses him anyway, sealing them together. Dream burns under him. His fingers frame Hob’s face, fire in each point where their skin touches. Dream wanted Hob’s passion. Well, he can have all of it.

He digs in the bedside drawer for lube, Dream tracking him with his gaze. He looks curious as Hob pours some out on his fingers, hitches Dream’s leg up further and reaches between them, pressing a finger to his entrance. Dream opens easily to him, gasping as Hob’s finger slips in.

“You needn’t— go to this trouble,” he breathes, unsteady. “Surely you need no reminder that my form is not human.”

“I’m not interested in your pain,” Hob says. Clearly, in this form, Dream can be hurt, the proof is all over his skin. Hob’s fantasies about him are myriad and sometimes dark but none have ever involved Dream hurt so Hob can take his pleasure. “I think you’ve had quite enough of it already, don’t you?”

Dream’s eyes flash in offense, and he opens his mouth to speak. Hob just holds his gaze, daring him to say that he wants to be hurt. But he doesn’t. His mouth closes again. The look on his face slips to something softer and hesitant, another crack opening in his assumptions about what this is. It’s almost trust.

Hob thinks that Dream would claw the expression away if he could see his own face. Better, then, that only Hob can see it, so he can hold it close, treasure it for longer. This is what Hob really wants, his real prize. Dream’s trust.

Even when you give me license to do something horrible to you, he thinks, I won’t.

Hob is a selfish man, but his most coveted treasure, often lost, always lusted after, is Dream’s regard. He doubts he’ll ever truly have it, but each flicker of new belief Dream shows him is a precious gemstone and he clings to them.

“Very well, then,” Dream finally concedes.

His body shivers, then sinks into the mattress as Hob starts moving again, working in and out of him. Dream is so serious and stoic that Hob had thought it would be difficult to get him to relax at all, but Dream just gives to him. Hob pushes a second finger in, and Dream groans, arching his back, gripping Hob’s shoulder with bruising fingertips. God he is beautiful like that, leaning into pleasure.

Hob meets his eyes, then, as he works him open, and catches, briefly, that look again. And that look—oh—it’s wanting. He wants.

It’s revelatory and exhilarating to see. Hob would do horrible things for that look. Anything to make him feel good.

He works Dream open like that, breathing in his quiet moans and the flex of his body under his hands. The way he tenses and relaxes in lengthening waves, played like a song at Hob’s fingertips. Then he settles between Dream’s thighs, Dream’s legs bent up around his hips. Such a vulnerable position he’s let Hob bend him into after so long curled in that sphere. It makes his breath catch; he has to treasure it.

As he lines himself up, he seals their lips together again, wrapping himself over Dream and pressing him under his weight, kissing him deeply. Dream gasps against his mouth as Hob pushes in. Hob breaches him so easily. Dream just opens to him.

Hob moans, overcome by the heat of his body. His grip tightens in Dream’s hair and Dream tilts his head back, exposing his neck for Hob to kiss. Hob kisses under his jaw, tastes his hammering pulse, drags teeth over the vulnerable skin of his throat, wrapped in bruises. Gives an experimental thrust of his hips and relishes in the way it punches Dream’s breath from his lungs. It’s delicious the way he responds, the way he feels, how sensitive he is, the sense Hob gets that if he could just play him right he could bring him out of his cage and make him feel, could be the first in a very long while to have and hold this creature and bring him pleasure—a gift, a privilege.

So this, then, is getting everything he’s ever wanted, and nothing at all. Dream delivered to his hands but as a sick prize, a one off trade for friendship. It makes the rising pleasure congeal in his throat, but Hob can only do what he always does. Make the most of it. Prove himself. If he can.

He sets himself to that task.

He covers Dream with his weight. Sets up a steady rhythm that has gasps and moans pushed from Dream’s throat. Dream’s body is tight and hot around him but better is each sound Hob can wring from him, those pleasured cries that curl through Hob’s belly like magic spells. He must be doing something right, to get those sounds, Dream must want it, must enjoy it. Dream thinks he himself is the reward, but no, it’s his pleasure—if Hob could bottle it he thinks it would make for greater power than whatever Burgess was trying to force from him. If Hob could keep it, he would be the richest man in the entire world.

“That’s it, darling,” he praises as Dream meets each of his movements, fingers gripping tight at Hob’s back. And instead of growling at him for calling The Lord of Dreams darling, Dream just shivers. “There you go, love. Is that good for you?”

“Hob,” Dream says, a ragged breath. Hob kisses him, catches that sound, and all that Dream shows him, that Dream gives him, pours all of it back into how he fucks him, steady, powerful rolls of his hips saying, I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Familiar, if now sweeter, to stepping into a vaulted basement, finding a well-known stranger through a haze of violence, chained hands and twisted limbs, and sure, strong touches, I’m here, I’m here, can you hear me? I was dreaming about you.

All that and Dream thought he wanted a reward.

All that and Dream made the reward his own starving body.

Hob pulls him close, wraps his arms around his back, presses his nose into Dream’s throat and breathes in. That way they’re pressed all together, skin-to-skin, he can feel each rise of Dream’s chest and the shivers still running through him and Dream’s fingers finding his hair and digging in. He was down there for decades, Hob thinks. Decades.

“Do not stop,” Dream orders. Hob hasn’t stopped moving, though he has slowed, now that they’re pressed so tightly together. But he follows Dream’s word. Doesn’t stop. Keeps rocking into him. Dream’s cock rubs against his belly, pressed between them. Meanwhile Hob kisses up Dream’s throat, over the bruises there, and under the sharp line of his jaw.

Decades.

Hob can’t fix it, but he can fill Dream up with everything he feels. Can rock them together, so close they could be one, can wrap his arms around Dream’s back and feel Dream’s thighs tightening around his hips and Dream’s breath over his ear. He can want, so hungrily, and taste Dream’s skin and hear the slick sounds of their bodies connecting and, in the corner of his hearing, his own imaginings of this moment almost loud enough to actually hear—

No. No those aren’t his dreams. Dream is panting and with each breath Hob feels skin— heat— care— want— these scattered flashes of feelings, and when he kisses Dream again, catching his mouth, Dream tastes like ash, and static, and his eyelids have fluttered shut.

Hob’s breath catches wet in his lungs. He hooks an arm under Dream’s thigh, hitches his leg up and presses in deeper, wringing a cry from Dream’s mouth. With the sight of Dream bent open before him, taking him like he was meant for it, heat rushes through Hob, his thighs and chest and belly burning with it. He bears Dream down hard into the bed, instinct taking over as his hips stutter quick and he comes.

Dream moans, low and ragged as Hob spills in him. Hob struggles to breathe through the tight heat of Dream clenching around him, overwhelming now, Dream’s limbs wrapped around him and heartbeat shaking under Hob’s chest. He almost pulls Dream close like any other lover, driven by the sleepy satiation and the pleasure of touching him. But Dream isn’t like any other lover.

And his erection is still pressed to Hob’s belly, and Hob won’t leave him wanting, whether that was considered part of the bargain or not. He carefully pulls out, and moves back down Dream’s body to take him in his mouth.

Dream goes tense, startled, and comes in his mouth with a gasp. Hob swallows him down eagerly, every drop, then looks up in time to catch Dream with his head thrown back on the pillow, neck craned, eyes closed, mouth open, thrown into in a shock of pleasure. Then he sags back to the bed, tension fleeing him again.

Hob’s very glad he didn’t miss that moment.

The urgency of arousal gone, Hob presses his face deep between Dream’s thighs, inhaling. Just feeling him.

Tentative fingers find his hair.

“What are you doing?” Dream asks, voice low and hoarse.

He seems… surprised, Hob thinks. By the indulgence. What, did he think Hob would get to have him and then cast him aside? Callously decide he’s had enough, declare their exchange completed, instead of devouring everything he might be allowed?

“Feeling you,” Hob says. He strokes a light hand up and down over his hip. Gentle, now, not charged with desire. He’s been wondering, since rescuing him, when the last time was that Dream was touched. Long before that, even: did that strange creature in the inn that first night they’d met have anyone who dared to lay hands on him?

He looks up again to find Dream studying him from under his lashes. “Truly,” he says, and if there’s a bit of a shake in his voice Hob won’t mention it, “you remain quite daring in seizing what you want, Hob Gadling.”

“Try not to do so much seizing, nowadays,” Hob says.

“A better man,” Dream says. The tone is somewhere between mocking and considering, like he can’t quite decide if he wants to be sarcastic about it or not. “Yet, you agreed to the exchange.”

Hob kisses low on Dream’s pelvis, then his belly, which shivers at the touch of his lips. “Are you surprised? I’ve always been a selfish man. And you offered me the grandest treasure I can imagine.”

“I am your grandest treasure?” Dream says, voice faint. “I was Roderick Burgess’s great treasure,” he says, but without the bite in it that there would have been before. He tentatively touches Hob’s temple, then cheek, light fingertips like he could impart some much-needed wisdom into Hob’s brain through the touch. “Would you, too, keep me for your own pleasure, Hob?”

“I’d keep you for your pleasure,” Hob says without fully thinking it through, and Dream’s eyes flash—almost offense, as before, but more so heat. His fingertips scratch at Hob’s skin, sharp as claws. “No, Dream, part of what makes you so beautiful is that you can’t be kept.”

Hob’s stranger is no ordinary lover to be plied with sweets into staying, no ordinary pet to be collared in jewels. Hob well knows what it is to think of him, to want him, to wait for him, to wish, more than anything, for his brief arrival, the sighting of a rare bird, the passing of a once-a-century comet.

“It is the chase, then, that’s compelled you all this time,” says Dream, like he has all of it figured out now. And like he’s maybe a bit disappointed by what he’s figured.

“It’s the wishing,” Hob says. I always knew I couldn’t keep you, he thinks, pained, but that didn’t stop me from wanting you. Dreaming about you.

Dream’s expression softens, ever so slightly. “What does it mean for you, then, that you’ve had me? Fulfilled this dream? Will you grow bored, and move to other pursuits?”

Hob can’t help it, he laughs. “Does the sun get bored of chasing the moon across the sky? You’ve only made me hungrier. Now that I know what it’s like, how will I ever be sated?”

Now that I know what it is to touch you in pleasure, he thinks, how will I tear my mind away from having you as my lover? How will I ever stop thinking about having you, about being with you? It’s a devil’s bargain he’s struck, in more ways than one, and his throat clogs with anticipatory grief. He no longer worries Dream will disappear on him forever, for he seems to have enjoyed himself, but when he leaves for a time to wherever it is he goes in the eons they’re apart he will leave behind a gaping tear in Hob’s heart that may one day scar over but will never fully close.

Dream’s fingers frame his jaw, surprisingly gentle. He tips Hob’s head up to face him. “Hob,” he says. That low voice is a caress. His expression is… almost fond. Hesitantly so. “Truly you are so intrigued by me?”

“Intrigued? More like in love with you,” Hob says, then immediately wants to cut out his own tongue.

Dream blinks once, twice. Says, “…Oh.” And Hob thinks, for the first time, he’s not only surprised him, but truly made him speechless.

Does he truly not know it already? Perhaps Hob has not said it in so many words, but he has never exactly been reserved, never subtle about his emotions the way Dream is, has never bothered to try. He’d thought Dream could read it plainly on his face all these years, and had only taken offense once Hob voiced it, once he implied that there might be reciprocity, for it couldn’t be offensive to be worshiped, could it? But to imply that his vaunted stranger might care for him in return, that was a presumption that could not go unpunished, or so Hob had thought.

“You freed me,” Dream says, working through it as he speaks.

“And I told you I didn’t want a reward, but you insisted.”

“All you wanted was me,” says Dream.

“Your attention,” Hob says. Cards on the table now. “Your interest. Your time.” Your care.

“Oh,” Dream says again. Hob’s really managed to strike him dumb. Is he so used to people only wanting things from him that he can’t possibly fathom it?

“I wasn’t trying to insult you when I called you my friend, all those years ago,” he says quietly.

“No,” Dream agrees, contemplative. “I suppose not.”

His questing fingers trace Hob’s throat. Hob swallows hard.

“Guess you’ll vanish back to your duties now,” he says. Too bitter. “Boon granted and all.”

Instead of vanishing, Dream says, “You… love me.”

“Don’t need to keep saying it if you’re just going to tear it up,” Hob says. “Yes, I saved you because I love you. I killed people for you because I love you, don’t you know I don’t just go around killing for anyone in this day and age? God forbid it was necessary I’d do it again and that time there wouldn’t be any boon.”

Hob’s not sure he strictly had to kill all of them. Could probably have chased some of the guards away in the end. He wasn’t exactly thinking compassionately once he caught sight of Dream in that sphere.

“Did you kill them to gain my favor?” Dream asks.

“No.” He meets Dream’s eyes. “For the pleasure of it. And I would again— not for your favor, but for the way you’d look at me.”

For the way Dream had looked at him, when Hob had dropped the last guard’s limp body to the ground and had pressed a bloodstained hand to the glass cage. The wonder there, when Dream—still his stranger, Hob hadn’t yet gotten his name—had raised his own shaking, bruised, chained hands to touch back.

Hob had been surrounded by carnage and he’d still felt like he’d done something right. For the arbiter of what felt right was no god he’d ever been taught to worship, but the dark figure who’d granted him immortality. The dark stranger he loved, who could have laid a hand on his forehead and bid him do anything and Hob would have done it, and felt it righteous.

Dream lays a hand on Hob’s forehead. His fingers are cold. Hob takes that hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing his knuckles, warming the skin with his breath.

“I believe,” Dream says lowly, “I may still owe you.”

Hob sighs. “Dream, we went over this, you never—”

Dream covers Hob’s mouth with his thumb, stilling his words.

“Such great services rendered,” Dream continues, solemn gaze fixed on Hob’s, “and at such risk to yourself, surely deserve more reward. Your loyalty, your…” his eyes track over Hob’s body, where Hob’s still half-draped over him, appreciative, “consideration, surely beg a higher price.”

Hob is caught on his expression. Pinned in place, as he so easily is by Dream. “What did you have in mind?”

“When I have retrieved my tools. And restored my realm.” His tongue darts out, briefly, to wet his lips. “Perhaps I might return.”

“Perhaps you might,” Hob says. He’s slow but he’s gradually learning to catch on to how Dream communicates. That’s if he can wrap his mind around the impossibility of what he might be saying. “Perhaps you might… grant me more of your time. As recompense.”

“Yes. And perhaps you might. Consider. What you want of me while I am here.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty I’ll want with you,” Hob says, throat tight. He finally pushes himself up from where he’s still draped over Dream, and instead lies on his side next to him, so they’re at eye level. He pushes an unruly strand of Dream’s hair behind his ear. An act that still feels somewhat daring, but less so with each passing moment. Dream studies him, eyes wide and dark. Oh, Dream, Hob thinks.

“Maybe I’ll take some of that payment now,” he says.

“Will you?”

“Too greedy not to take everything on offer.” He uses the hand still dug into Dream’s hair to draw him in close, press their bodies together, wrap his arms around Dream’s back, palms flat over the sharp edges of his shoulder blades. Dream’s heart beats quick under his fragile ribcage, uneven breaths ghost over Hob’s shoulder, and tentatively, Dream’s bony arms come up to grasp onto him. He presses his face into Hob’s throat. His hair tickles Hob’s cheek. And Hob thinks, with a deep, throbbing pain, no, actually, there are greater rewards than his pleasure.

He holds Dream for some moments, until Dream’s skin, perpetually on the edge of cold, has warmed at all the points where they’re touching. Hob draws a blanket from the base of the bed over them. Dream shivers, the shake of cold leaving the body, then settles back against him.

“I hope this shows some measure of thanks,” Dream says quietly, face still buried in Hob’s skin, “for your service.”

Hob breathes out hard, chest heavy, but steadies his voice before responding. “How about I let you know when we’re even?”

Dream lets out a long sigh. “Very well. I will trust you to carry the scale.”

Dream’s trust alone is worth more than gold, in Hob’s estimation. But he thinks Dream might not point out if Hob measures it in pyrite. He thinks, as he runs his hand up and down over Dream’s sore, bony back, as Dream sighs again, melting into him, that neither of them might mind if that scale stays tipped for a very long time, indeed.

Perhaps, Hob hopes, until there’s no more need for it at all.

[lixiesfreckless]

Sugar & Spice | h. j.

A Sugar Across The Hall bonus scene

➸ synopsis: in reality, Joshua Hong can never say no to you.

➸ starring: joshua hong x reader

➸ word count: 1.9k words

➸ general content: boyfriend!joshua, kissing, slightly more than kissing lmao

➸ warnings: suggestive content, brief mention of alcohol

➸ rating: TV 16+

➸ author’s note: this can be read as a stand-alone BUT…happy one year anniversary to my magnum opus, sath. I love it to death, and I’m still not done writing for these characters, but for now, you get a much needed not-quite-hallmark-channel-approved scene. and before you get it twisted, this is and will always be dedicated to my beloved @ashonheavenscloud , but I’d like to give special thanks to @catboyieejeno for always encouraging me to stir the pot <3 love you guys a ton mwah

♫ this fic has a soundtrack! touch by keshi uhhhhhh somebody by keshi aahhhhhhh

Oh, he's really done it now.

Walking around some lively street corner a few blocks away from your shared apartment building, Joshua leads the two of you through downtown NYC at the height of spring. Strangers pass by your lovestruck duo without a second glance, not bothering to watch you look back at him with a borderline absurd amount of fondness in your irises. It's funny; usually Joshua wouldn't give spring a chance when it came to stating his favorite season, but since you waltzed into his life, he can confidently say that any of them are worthwhile—as long as you're with him. He squeezes your hand for what feels like the millionth time this evening, an action that makes you giggle happily to yourself.

Because you find it cute.

Oh, how you have no idea at all.

How tortuous this night has been for Joshua. How he regrets the day that he walked into that fateful department store, not looking for anything in particular but coming to a full stop in front of a specific mannequin. How he mentally patted himself on the back for remembering your size when you opened the gift bag a few hours earlier, eyes alight in excitement as you pulled out the present, letting the fabric unroll in your fingertips. How his face heated up as you opened your apartment door, and he quickly noted how the mannequin did the dress no justice.

Truthfully, if the dress looked as good on the mannequin as it did on you, he would have never taken it off the rack. He'd know better.

Because all through dinner he had to stop himself from staring at you and the slope of your neck, broken up by the thin straps of the halter dress and abandoned by your hair that was conveniently(to his demise) in an updo, to show off the open back. Luckily, you were so delighted by the Greek restaurant that you'd picked out that you hardly noticed his deepening flush, or the way he nearly downed his white wine in one go the second the server left your table.

And now, as you swing his hand and practically run up the stairs(because the elevator is broken, again), he finds himself almost dreading the night ahead. It's a Thursday, which means self care and Grey’s Anatomy, and while he would never turn down spending time with you, being that close to you for a prolonged period of time after the night he's had would be borderline masochistic.

Of course he contemplates all of this, but in reality, Joshua Hong can never say no to you.

So you unlock the door to your home, blabbering on about something that had happened at work and completely oblivious to the way that your boyfriend is eyeing you, torn between running towards you and running across the hall to get a grip on himself.

“Johnny went off at a customer yesterday,” you chuckled, crossing the room to set your purse down on the kitchen table. “They were being so rude, and over spilled milk too—throwing a fit over where we get our coffee beans imported from–”

You yelp in surprise, followed by a giggle at the feeling of Joshua’s hands encircling your waist from behind. His head settles in the space on your shoulder, but not before leaving a light kiss to the exposed skin of your neck.

“Hi,” you greet him, hands coming up to hold onto his forearms as you try to decipher the reason for this sudden display of affection.

“Hi,” he sighs, nose nudging against your pulse point, “Did I ever tell you how stunning you look in that dress?”

“No, I must have misheard you the first fifty times.”

He laughs at your little jab, willing his hands to stay still despite his growing desire to let them wander. You make the terrible decision to turn just enough so you can look at him, and it's this position that puts Joshua at his most vulnerable.

“Ready to wrap up season five?”

Looking up at him the way that you are paired with your slightly parted lips and flushed demeanor, Joshua finds himself at a loss for words, instinctively leaning into your face as his restraint wears thin. And your unfazed and accepting disposition makes it that much worse for him, his breath shaking as you flutter your eyes shut and part your lips.

The first touch of his lips is familiar, his kiss walking the line between mind-numbingly sweet and devastatingly tender as one of his hands comes up to lift your jaw. But instead of pulling away like he had originally intended, he presses harder against your mouth with a small sigh, unable to find any logical objection to the change of plans.

Your giggly demeanor fizzles out under the heat of his mouth, and your breath escapes you once his hand slides down to your neck, fingers languidly tracing the curve and playing with the straps that rest there. In contrast to his slow hands, his kisses grow faster and almost desperate, not wanting to separate for even a second as he tilts his head and slants his mouth against yours.

You stumble backwards slightly in pleasant surprise, and the table hits just above the hem of your skirt before the arm around your waist tightens, pulling you further into Joshua’s chest.

He takes this opportunity to lean forward slightly, clearing the table with a sweep of the arm that was holding you before hoisting you up onto it, hands firm on your thighs and then sliding down to your knees so he can part them.

“Josh,” you whisper breathlessly, clutching onto his shoulders as your eyes dazedly flicker between his lips and his eyes. His lower lip gets trapped between his teeth as his strength falters, gaze hardly able to meet yours as his fingers dance along the scalloped hem of your dress.

“Oh God, don't do that baby,” he nearly moans, and the pet name turns your brain waves into radio static. You've never heard him sound so helpless, as if his very fate would be decided by whatever you choose to say next. “You make it so hard to just sit and watch TV with you sometimes. Especially when you look like this.”

Knowing now that you have the upper hand, you decide to humor yourself and tease him a bit, leaning forward with a slight smirk on your lips. “Like what?”

His eyes drink you in from head to toe, taking their time to memorize all of your body lines in the flattering dress. If the opportunity were to present itself tonight, he doesn't know whether he would even want to take it off of you.

He leans in close, hoping that his desire translates well as it's mumbled against the skin of your neck.

“So damn good.”

His confession against your sensitive skin has you muffling a whine, gripping the edge of the table as your rationale evaporates under his searing lips, traveling higher and higher with each press.

You can't take his teasing much longer, and frankly, this side of him doesn't come out often enough for you to pass up an opportunity such as this. Meredith Grey will have to wait.

“You know…” you whisper, head tilting back as you feel his hand slipping behind your neck to support it, “they play reruns on Friday nights too.”

“Thank God, ‘cause you in this dress has been driving me crazy since you put it on,” he chuckles against your lips before catching them with his again, taking his time now to fully taste you, swiping his tongue along your bottom lip to elicit that delightful shiver that runs up your spine. You respond in earnest with your hands, carding through his brown locks and nearly melting when he doesn't suppress the groan that tumbles from his throat.

He kisses you like you’re air itself, hands sliding up your skirt and body pressing against yours, and once your nails slide down his scalp he softly groans into your mouth, moving onto kissing across your jawline. You repeat the action while winding your legs around Joshua’s waist, and he whines quietly into your neck, “Please…tell me to stop before I can’t.”

So subtly you almost miss it, he rolls his hips into yours, his desires clouding his judgment as a foreign sound jumps to the top of your throat. Immediately your attention is drawn to the heat you feel in your abdomen, and while you have grown accustomed to bearing it in silence, you’re finding it increasingly hard to ignore with him like this, hands all over you.

Wanting you.

He does it again, with a little more pressure this time, and your head falls back as a whimper just barely tumbles out of your lips. He shivers slightly, nearly overcome with the exertion of fighting every urge to take you on this table this instant.

To temporarily solve this problem, his lips find yours again, but feeling your muffled moans against him proves to be no more effective than trying to put out a forest fire with a garden hose.

As his hips softly grind into yours and your kisses get more and more frantic, your voice of reason pushes through the heavy cloud of lust at the forefront of your brain. “Wait, I've never–”

“We don't have to baby,” he cuts you off, wanting to make his intentions clear despite being unable to put an inch of space between the two of you, “and I don't want to just yet, but I…”

His hand that was previously bunched in your dress comes up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing gently against the redness of your cheek as he calms himself down with a deep breath.

And as he gazes at you with nothing but adoration in his brown irises, you can almost feel the words coming before he says them out loud.

“I…I am so in love with you,” he begins, fighting a chuckle born out of the absurd location of this sudden confession, “that sometimes, when I look at you, I can’t even think straight, and I…” he trails off, struggling to find the right words the longer he stares at you.

You, on the other hand, are practically beaming, bottom lip trapped by your teeth in an attempt to fight the smile you’d be flashing him, so as to not distract him any further. But you soon realize; with him seated between your legs, there’s not much you can do to help him out here.

So you switch to offense, legs squeezing him tight around his waist to pull his hips back to yours. “You what?”

His chocolate eyes darken to a coffee color in seconds, and the hand that was on your hip tightens again, keeping you firm in place on the table as you bat your eyelashes at him.

“Sometimes I wish I could just show you how much you drive me crazy.”

You don’t hesitate, lifting your chin to meet his lips in a deceptively chaste kiss as your hands fall onto the buttons on his shirt, playing with them just to rile him up further.

You shrug, feigning indifference. “Maybe you can.”

And at that, before you can even register what’s happening, he’s sliding an arm around your waist and under your knees, picking you up and heading towards your bedroom with a chuckle.

“Maybe I should.”

‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧

click to read Sugar Across The Hall

[lostintransist]

.. that idea on ghost coming back with his therapist’s contact is brilliant, could we get a pt2 when we do hit him up cuz,,, it’s inevitable and he pulls up in that same motorbike and actually plans a banger date?

Just for you! A part 2! Original post for anyone curious is here.

Also thank you for what I am percieving as patience, I had things to accomplish today. But it gave me time to think about this...

CW: I can't think of any.

You held onto the business card. No real explanation that would satisfy you or anyone who might have asked. And your best friend did ask. Repeatedly.

“You still have the card?” She asked over drinks.

Running your tongue along the inside of your teeth you debate on how to answer.

“Yes,” you reply curtly.

“And have you called the therapist or texted him yet? Do you even know his name?” She followed her questions with a sip of her drink.

“All I know is that when I search up S. Riley I get a few hits about a brother to a home invasion that ended badly a few years ago and nothing else. No one on social media matches him and without his full name or maybe a birthday I can’t find much else about someone that might be him.” Flopping back into the couch you watch your drink slide side to side as you tip your glass.

“You don’t have to call him but you have to make a decision about this soon,” she chides.

“No decision is a decision though.”

She gives you the flattest stare she can muster. Seeing as your best friend is autistic it’s a pretty impressive flat look.

Heaving a sigh you concede the point.

“Fine. I get it. I can’t avoid this forever, what if he finds me at a coffee shop again and asks why I haven’t called? S. Riley sure does seem like a man who doesn’t know how to leave well enough alone.”

“I think you should call and tell the therapist to inform him that you would like to never see him again, but you have this whole ‘attracted to the adventure’ thing going on.” She rolled her eyes.

Aghast at being so well identified, it does not matter that she is your best friend, you fire off a rude gesture at her. She only laughs.

“At least I never have to worry about not realizing I fumbled the woman of my dreams three months late,” you say with a wicked grin.

“It was one time!” Your best friend launches one of the couch pillows at you.

“Twice.”

The purest look of concern crosses her face.

“Twice?” Comes her panicked ask.

“Once at the bar,” she nods, “And then last week at the bookstore.”

Watching her eyes go wide and her mouth drops open you can’t help the full-body laugh that overtakes you.

“I thought she was just being nice!” Her voice gets squeakier with each word.

You are laughing so hard you can’t breathe.

“I fucking love you and am so glad we are best friends,” you manage to croak out between ab-shredding laughs.

💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠💠

Your next early day off of work you pop in your headphones and call the number printed on the business card. It sat between your insurance card and your driver’s license. Those two cards didn’t see much action and would keep the business card from disappearing.

“Thank you for calling Healing Sky Therapy, how can I help you?”

“Yes, is Anna Mortz available?”

“For a phone call or an appointment?” The sound of clicking keys bubbles over the line.

“A phone call, I am calling to speak to her about a current patient of hers.”

“Okay, and are you a provider?”

This causes you to pause. Did you really need to explain why or how you were connected to this crazy situation? No. Bare bones it is.

“No, I should be listed as a person who can discuss the care of a patient of hers who goes by S. Riley?”

“Okay,” she drags the word. “It looks like I can drop a call in her schedule in about forty minutes if that would work for you?”

“That would work great, can I give you a callback number?”

“Yes, I can take that when you are ready.”

Finishing up the phone call you grabbed your grocery list and headed out the door. Your phone rang as you were transferring bags from your cart to your trunk. The number looked vaguely familiar and so you answered.

“Hi this is Anna Mortz, I am returning a phone call.”

“Yes, hi Anna. I am the one who called.”

“That was in regards to Simon Riley, right? Let’s go through some information on my end to make sure that we can discuss him first okay?”

“Absolutely,” you slam the trunk closed and return your cart while confirming all of your information.

“So, what questions can I answer for you?” Anna started.

“Let me get settled and I will give you the rundown.” Tossing your purse to the passenger side and locking the door you get situated in your seat. You push a large breath from your lungs and start. “Okay, so this is a weird situation. The long and the short of it is that Simon had been dating a friend of mine several years back and they were not good together. He was being a pushy asshole who refused to let the relationship die and she was codependent to a deeply unhealthy level. My friend asked for help in telling him off once and for all. She tended to cave and give into having sex every time he came by to start a fight. That is where I met Simon.”

Anna made a noise of confirmation. You took it as permission to keep telling your story.

“Nothing more came of that except my friend and I drifted apart, nothing major and not important to the story. I ran into Simon next at my friend’s wedding reception. I don’t know if he showed up to confirm to himself that it was really over or if she actually invited him but,” you paused here eyes tracing the dash of the car parked in front of you. With a slight shake of your head, you focus back on your phone call. “That is neither here nor there. He hit on me that night and I told him basically to fuck off and go to therapy if he wanted a shot at that conversation.”

Puffing your cheeks with air you slowly let it out, you felt like you were explaining a whole crazy situation to the principal.

“He ran into me at a coffee shop close to probably a year later, dropped your card on the table with his number on the back, and insinuated that I would call because I was interested in him.”

“Okay, that is pretty close to the story he told me as well,” Anna speaks with kind authority. “What I can tell you from a clinical standpoint is that Simon struggles with C-PTSD, which is complex post-traumatic stress disorder. This basically means that Simon has been through so many traumatic events at so many points in his life that he has a hard time functioning day to day without it affecting every aspect of his life. I can also tell you that we have been working on him gaining some coping abilities and practicing social skills.”

“Okay, I guess what I am asking is that if I go on a date with him will I end up with a stalker who will end up killing me in the night if I say I don’t want to see him again?” You lay your concerns bare. She’s not your therapist so her judgment worries you a bit less.

“While nothing is guaranteed,” she hedges, “I cannot see that kind of behavior occurring with the progress Simon has made. He has scheduled out appointments weekly for the next three months with me and has even mentioned he is working on some other types of therapy I have recommended to help him process his traumas further. He’s actually doing the work to deal with his issues. I think he is here because he wants to be, you happened to be the trigger.”

Resting your elbow on the steering wheel you leaned your head into your hand.

“Whew, okay. Thank you. That is actually really helpful. How is he about accepting boundaries?”

“He is familiar and comfortable with them in a work context but if you choose to interact with him I know personal boundaries will come up in our sessions. So, I would keep it in mind when interacting with him.”

“Okay, thank you so much Anna this call has been,” a slight pause, “Enlightening. I appreciate your time.”

“Happy to help. Have a good day!”

With that the phone call ends and you stare down at your phone. Flicking open your messaging app you add the contact you saved to it almost a month ago.

<Your therapist seems nice.

Three minutes pass as you watch the screen. It goes black once and you wake it with a tap on the screen.

Tossing it to the passenger side on top of your purse you put the text from your mind. You instead focus on pulling out of your spot. Parking lots are of the devil and you aren’t even religious like that.

Five days pass before a message dings on your phone from one S. Riley.

>Can’t say she is nice to me. I get a lot of mean looks from her.

Setting a timer for an hour and thirteen minutes you let the text simmer. You hope he can see that you have opened the message.

<You normally take a work week to respond?

>Only when I am on a job.

The reply comes in instantly.

<What kind of jobs keep you from your phone?

>Classified.

<Ooh big brain work then. Got it.

You snort at the eye roll emoji he sends.

>So, have you decided if I can hit you up yet?

<I’m thinking about it. If I were to say yes, where would you take me?

>Indoor sky diving.

You read the three-word message at least six times, check out the closest indoor sky diving place near you, and then finally reply.

Starting and erasing three messages you finally settle on one.

<Would we ride your bike there?

>Unless you would prefer to talk on the drive over?

What do you talk about with a man when you had to check with his therapist that he wouldn’t murder you?

<Bike sounds like fun.

>Saturday?

<Maybe. Time?

>2

<Done. Pick me up at noon and we can grab lunch?

>No, you’re going to want an empty stomach. Dinner instead.

Narrowing your eyes at the message you debate the logic of testing a boundary yet. The advice to not have a full stomach did look like a good one.

<Fine, but nowhere fancy. If I can’t roll up in the same outfit I don’t want it.

The only reply you get for several hours is a thumbs up on your message.

Guess you had a date coming up.

[lie-lacdreams]

Thermodynamics and Turmoil (Curly x Reader pt. 4)

I am back !! Thank you for bearing with me as I try and figure out where I want to take this :)

Last

Engineer! Reader x Curly TW: J*mmy being a creep Word Count ~ 1.7k

A few days passed since the incident in the utility room, and (Y/N) saw very little of Curly. It was almost as if he was now the one avoiding her. The only thing keeping her from believing so was Jimmy telling the crew that they were steering through a chaotic bit of space debris and bragging about his contribution.

“Well if you’re so much of a help, why aren’t you in the cockpit with the captain instead of sitting down and eating dinner with us, huh?” Swansea glared, annoyed with his gloating. That shut Jimmy up quickly as he murmured something about working really hard today. 

Nightly routines went on as usual, and (Y/N) sat on the couch to read. Before she could open her book, she glanced over at the coffee machine. Given that she hadn’t seen much of Curly in the past few days, it was likely he was still in the cockpit, looking over the steering of the ship. She got up, pressed a few buttons to dispense coffee and started making her way out of the lounge. He seemed like the kind of person to like his coffee black.

Opening the door to exit, she almost bumped into Jimmy and withered slightly under the intensity of his gaze.

“I was just looking for you,” he said, voice low and breathy. Something didn’t feel quite right to her about this. 

“Oh? What do you need me for?” She asked cautiously as he walked into the room, making her backpedal into the lounge. 

“I just wanna talk, that’s all. Can we do that?” He started reaching for her shoulder and she quickly stepped a bit further from his reach. A sinking feeling in her gut told her that talking to him wouldn’t end well. 

“A-Actually I’m on my way to take this cup of coffee to the captain. He should be expecting me any minute now. Maybe we can talk another time?” She diverted and lied. He grumbled and skulked past her, making his way over to the kitchen as she made her escape. Closing the door behind her and now heading to the cockpit, her heart beat against her ribcage and she felt a rush of relief. Talking to him was always so uncomfortable, but this was the first time that she felt like he was hunting her with his eyes. If she hadn’t lied about Curly expecting her, she didn’t want to think about what Jimmy wanted to talk to her about. 

In the cockpit, Curly sat, exhausted and a little frustrated. He had heard enough of his co-pilot’s complaints of having to stay shut in there all day and couldn’t blame him for his cabin fever induced by the cramped and overstimulating room, so he sent him to bed, not taking too much effort to assure him that he could take care of the steering for the night. A small knock on the door snapped him out of his fatigue only slightly, and he cautiously put on autopilot to get up and open the door. He opened the door to find (Y/N), the object of his thoughts when he needed some comfort from this hellish leg of their journey. 

“Hey,” she said shyly. “Figured you might still be up and over here. How are you?” He slowly moved his arms around her, engulfing her in a hug and letting out a tired sigh. 

“We’re in a bit of a rough patch of our journey, but we’ll make it through.” He looked down at the mug of coffee she held in her hands. “Is that for me?” He asked. She nodded, bringing the cup closer for him to take it. Tenderness filled his expression as he took the cup and moved his other hand to place his palm against her cheek. “Thank you. Can I…” He trailed off, hesitant as he darted his eyes to her lips, unsure of where things were where they left it a few days ago. She nodded, closing the gap herself, conveying as much care as she could through the kiss. Breaking away, she looked over at the multitude of screens. 

“So, what are we up to tonight?” she asked. 

Curly raised an eyebrow. “We?” 

“Uh, yeah. Seems like you decided to throw a slumber party in the cockpit and didn’t think to invite me, so I’m inviting myself,” she stated simply, moving towards the chairs. 

He looked at her in disbelief, amused by her antics. “Okay, very well then.” He sat down back in his seat before patting his lap. “Want to join me here?”

(Y/N) felt shy with this new level of intimacy with the man she had only gotten to know and catch feelings for within the past few weeks. She was a grown woman with independence to do whatever she liked back on Earth but it had been a while since her last romantic encounter, and this level of vulnerability was uncomfortable to her but not unwelcome.

Lowering herself down into the chair to sit on one of his thighs, her shoulders lay perpendicular to his, resting against his chest as he wrapped an arm around her waist and a hand on her thigh. Concerned, she broke the silence. “Are you sure you’re okay steering like this if I’m sitting on you?”

“Of course. Most of the steering is done by autopilot anyway. All I’m doing is making minor adjustments to the course every fifteen to twenty minutes or so.” His hand moved to her knee, rubbing his thumb against the material of her pants. 

She rested her head on his chest, trying to see if she could hear his heart beating when she yawned. “Oh, there it is.”

“Hmm?” he looked down at her, amused by how comfortable she had already gotten, and so quickly too. Space had a way of making people feel lonely in a way they never experienced before. After so many years of flying with Pony Express, Curly thought he had gotten used to it, but in that moment when the two of them sought comfort from each other, he realised how wrong his assumption was. With her, things were moving quickly, but in a place as lonely and isolating as space, he thanked his lucky stars for such an easy person to talk to, someone understanding of his ambitions and desires and wouldn’t fault him for them like his friends did. It made sense how fast these feelings approached and manifested into what they were now – her, curled up on his lap with her head on his chest, trying her best to force herself to stay awake with struggling success. 

“Curly?” She looked up at him. He smiled, hearing her drop the title and nodded for her to continue. “This feels like it’s moving so fast.”

“Us?” he questioned. 

“Yeah…” She trailed off, mentally kicking herself for not knowing what exactly she was trying to say.

Curly moved forward a bit to adjust the position of the ship with manual steering before leaning back in the chair and sucking in a breath. He watched as the ship coordinates blipped forward on the screen, moving frame by frame. “I’ve been doing this with Pony Express for nearly a decade now. Every time I leave, every time I return, I always have a routine I never break. I’ll have drinks with Jimmy and a few of our other friends to catch up on what we missed back home at the same dive bar we always go to. I’ll spend some time with my widowed aunt who lives alone and has no children, just to make sure her insurance is up to date and to keep her company as much as I can. The family-owned Chinese restaurant that’s only a few blocks away from where I live will be waiting for me so that the owner could complain that I got thinner returning from space and encourage me to stuff myself with char kway teow and collard greens while sitting with his younger son, telling him to study hard so he could someday become a captain like me and make a lot of money. I feel like I come back as the same Curly, year after year, and even though my routine stays the same, everything around me changes. Friends get married and have children, my aunt gets older, heck, that little boy from the Chinese restaurant just started high school, I think.” 

He stared at (Y/N) with what she read as sadness in his eyes. “There isn’t really such a thing as time out here. I lose track of it so easily. Whenever we return to Earth it feels like everything around me goes by so quickly and I feel like I’m always missing out, so I’m glad you’re here,” he said, brushing a few strands of hair out of her face before tucking them behind her ear. “I’m glad that you joined us so that we could get close so quickly. It makes me feel like I’m back on Earth, going the same pace as everybody else is. Every time we talk, every time I see you, I feel grounded. I feel normal.” 

He buried his fingers into her hair as he pulled her in for another kiss, trying to convey all of the want he had for her through the shared contact of their lips. Her hands were splayed across his chest, and she dragged them up to his shoulders, gripping the collar of his coveralls. 

Breaking away, his hands dropped back down to loop around her waist as he gave her a look that ached with so much longing. 

She broke his gaze trying to stifle a yawn, making him chuckle. Placing his hand on her head, he brought it down to lay on his chest. 

“Rest, hun. There’s no need to torture yourself to stay up with me.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

“But you’re going to be up all night trying to make sure things are fine.” She frowned. 

“It’s okay. A pretty lady came by earlier to bring me a cup of coffee, see?” He raised the mug up to his lips to take a drink and she scoffed. 

(Y/N) kept her eyes open, not moving from her position on Curly’s lap, straining her eyes staring at the screens before her eyelids lost the battle of staying open.

ugh. Be still, my heart. I love a good monologue, if you couldn't already tell. I also cannot stop thinking about Curly's thighs. Thank you for all the support so far :D

[majesty0h]

#TONGUETIED

gojo x fushiguro x f!reader

Part two of Sharing is Caring

*sum. Your boyfriend Toji is finally making your dreams of a 3way come true with a blast from his past. God, why are his eyes so blue??

*wc. 4.4k

*warnings. Fem! Reader, boyfriend Toji, bull! Gojo, blowjob, fingering, mild hatefuck, degradation, doublé penetration, praise, choking, unprotected, past lover, creampie, implied gay sex, biting, threeway.

[ Toji is green text and Gojo is blue ]

“Fuck, Old Man. She’s got a mouth like a porn star.”

“Yeah. Consider this a thank you for taking care of Megumi all these years.”

“Hah. I mean, I killed you. Shouldn’t I be thanking you?”

Toji and Gojo seem far more relaxed than you expected. Having a casual conversation and witty banter like they’re enjoying a coffee date. Wait, did Gojo say he killed Toji? What the hell?

“Mmph,” you’re snapped back to reality when the sorcerer’s cock pushes a little deeper, triggering your gag reflex. The saltiness of precum coats your tongue, tears prick at your eyes. Your hands grip into his slender hips, forearms braced on the sofa, and you will yourself to not choke. He’s a bit thinner than Toji, but has the length to make up for it.

Satoru’s still on the couch, lanky legs spread comically wide, head tipped back to the ceiling. One hand fists your hair, pulling your closer until your nose is pressed firmly into his well-trimmed pubes. The carpet matches the drapes, funnily enough.

Toji had long since ripped off your underwear as you knelt before Gojo, hiking up your dress just enough to reveal how much you were enjoying this. “Damn, ma. You ain’t been this wet for me in ages. I’m almost jealous,” he pouts as he reaches between your warm folds, ghosting two fingers across. You whimper and instinctively roll your hips back to increase the contact, but Gojo lets out an ‘aht, aht’ and his palm pushes deeper on your neck, ensuring you stay put.

“You really are a lady-killer, y’know that Gojo? Look at this,” Toji grins as he holds up his hand and wiggles the slippery digits. It’s so embarrassing and hot at the same time…how they talk about you like you’re not there, like you’re an object. You can hear the sounds of greedy slurping noises as Toji licks his fingers clean, which elicits a pout from Satoru.

“Wowwwww, you can’t even share? What kind of shitty friend are you? Lemme get some.”

There’s silence for a moment. You feel Toji stiffen behind you. Did Gojo overstep by asking to taste you? Was your fantasy dead in the water before it properly began? You’re still sucking cock like the good slut you are, eyes watery and looking up at Satoru, too nervous to peer back at your boyfriend in fear. This was bad. So fucking bad.

You grunt as the weight on your back increases exponentially; Toji is leaning over you, hands braced on either side of yours. “Then come get it, brat,” is all he utters before roughly smashing his lips against Satoru’s.

Your eyes grow comically large as you watch in disbelief, shock, and unbridled arousal as /your/ boyfriend kisses another man. It’s not that you assumed he was straight, well, you did. That conversation had never truly come up; it didn’t need to. So this…this was intense.

Satoru doesn’t even hesitate to meet Toji’s advances and he opens his mouth against Toji’s scarred lips. Their tongues dance, hungry. You stop sucking for a moment, too entranced by this entire display. Satoru’s cock drips pre-cum even harder as him and Toji explore each other’s oral cavities, and fuck, your boyfriend’s manhood is twitching against your thighs. You had to be dreaming.

“Ah,” Gojo whispers when they finally pull apart, a line of saliva connecting them, before dripping into your hair. “She does taste good.”

“You too,” Toji murmurs, growing more erect by the second. “I forgot. It’s been so long.”

You can’t take it anymore. With a loud pop you free your mouth and clear your throat, trying to gain their attention, to break up this…reunion? “Uh….what are you guys…talking about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” they reply in unison.

You want to press the issue. You need to know. When? Why? How long–

“You ready to take this to the bedroom, Princess?” Toji interrupts your inner monologue as he stands up, clearly done with the foreplay. You know that sound in his voice. He’s going to brutalize you, more so than usual. And the way Gojo chuckles in response, dark and heady, you know he will do the same. You shudder from an equal mix of lust and fear.

“...yeah. S-sure,” you reply softly as you slowly right yourself, knees sore from being pressed into the carpet for so long. You feel like a little lamb, thrown into a cage with two voracious lions. Ready to be devoured. After they’re done toying with you, that is.

Your footsteps echo softly down the hall, followed by heavier, eager thuds. You swallow hard as you push the bedroom door open, only to gasp and cover your mouth in surprise. Your normally messy living quarters (thanks Toji) were spotless. Fragrant candles lined almost every surface, and rose petals were scattered across the floor and silk sheets. In the two years you’ve been with Toji, he barely remembered your birthday, much less perform a romantic gesture like this.

“You see! I told you she’d like it,” Gojo cheesed before cupping your ass firmly, pushing you closer to the bed.

Toji rolled his eyes. “Yeah whatever. Take all the credit. Sorry I don’t need props to make a memorable lay.”

They continue to bicker mildly as you sit at the foot of the bed, watching them undress. You’d seen Toji’s naked form a million times, but this time felt different. His muscles seemed to ripple a little bit more, his cock stands prouder, thicker, his emerald eyes glazed over with a mysterious emotion you couldn’t name. You finally tear your gaze off his form and scan over Gojo’s bare form. His baggy black clothes were misleading. The stringbean was in fact jacked, with a chiseled six-pack, perfect V line. What really took your breath away was when he set his glasses onto the nightstand and winked at you; fuck they were so blue. It was almost ethereal, otherworldly. Enchanting. Your boyfriend notices you’re captivated and scoffs, easily pushing you back into the comforter. You scoot up closer to the headboard to make room for the two large men who are clambering in to join you. The bed creaks from the strain.

Toji and Satoru work in tandem to peel your dress off your nervous frame; the 6 Eyes whistles as he rubs your pink buds, causing you to moan slightly. “You’re beautiful,” he hums before capturing a nipple in his mouth and sucks, pinching the other between graceful fingers.

Toji nods in approval as your fingers tangle into snow white hair, at the little noises of pleasure. He shifts your legs apart, thumb pressing against your glistening nub, working it in time with your breathy gasps. “You just lay there and let us do the work. Just relax baby. Just relax,” Toji coaxes as he buries two fingers deep. Twisting them to find your sweet spot. It’s not long before you start panting his name. He leans up to bite and suck on your collarbone, his hair tickling your neck, his fingers becoming more aggressive, more persistent.

“Mm—fuck Daddy….it feels so good don’t stop please please—“ you beg hiccuping, your mind swimming, barely able to focus on his motions, because at the same time, Satoru has penetrated your cunt with his own two digits. Four fingers total. You feel so full. You’re sandwiched between the duo who assault your senses in perfect synchronicity, taking turns to shove their tongues down your throat and tell you what a dirty little whore you are. It’s delicious.

Two hard cocks nuzzle against your body, insistent, heads leaving slimy trails on your warm skin. You feel drunk. Wanting to prove how eager their slut is, your shaky hands reach for their manhoods and stroke. The sound of them cursing through gritted teeth was music to your ears, and they rut into your hands. Toji’s grunts are low and gruff, like sandpaper. But Satoru’s are softer, more delicate. Your mind wanders to how their earlier dynamic was. It seems clear that Toji was the one on top, and your already swelling clit twinges in delight, imaging Toji’s balls slapping against Satoru’s ass, those strong arms keeping him pinned, making sure he took every thrust, not stopping until his tight hole was dripping with seed.

“Ahn, fuck…oh my god…fuck…I’m gonna cum, I really want to cum please make me cum!” Your daydreaming is too much, and you stop stroking your lovers, wanting to solely focus on your impending orgasm.

“Cum for us then, Sweetheart.”

“God I can’t wait to feel how tight this pussy is on my cock.”

That’s all the encouragement you need, and soon your shrill cry fills the air as Satoru slips his fingers out and frantically play with your throbbing bud. You grip the sheets for dear life as you climax with Toji still punishing your G-Spot in a way that makes you taste static, that has your vision dotted with bright streaks of light. Even as you’re crying out and writhing they don’t stop; if anything it just spurs them on. You feel delirious. Your walls grip onto Toji’s fingers like a vice as a foreign sensation fills you. It’s intense, it’s hot, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before.

You fucking squirt.

It’s like a flood gushing out of your abused hole, slicking the sheets, your thighs, and your lovers. You’ve never even done that before! You want to die. This is so embarrassing.

The men don’t share your sentiments whatsoever. Satoru has a shit eating grin plastered over his face, and Toji is smirking like he hit the biggest jackpot of his life. You feel so empty when they withdraw their fingers and comment to each other about how this was the hottest thing they’ve ever experienced.

“Wow it’s just like in the porn. I’m literally Johnny Sins.”

“Pft. You fuckin’ wish.”

“Hey don’t be mad I’m just good at everything that I do. It kinda comes with the title. Did you really not think it applies here?”

“Not sayin’ that. I just remember how you laid there and yelled like Riley Reid when I bent you over that pool table in Kyushu.”

“Nuh-uh. You were begging me all night because you couldn’t get over that trick I did with my—“

“Guys,” you interrupt their fond recollections, feeling a bit left out and far too untouched. “I want it, please. Please give to me. Both of you I want…I wanna feel your both inside me at once. Please,” your voice wavers as you sit up slowly, grimacing at the large wet spot underneath you. The boys look down at you, and their cocks which had softened slightly during their heated debate spring back to attention.

“I thought you’d never ask, Princess.”

“Let’s get ready to rumble! Wait. Who gets which hole?”

Satoru’s question has you all pause. Nobody had considered that up until now. You look to your boyfriend for guidance and he responds that “it’s your rodeo, doll. We’re just ridin’ in it.”

That makes you feel a little bit better. Because deep down, you’d already made up your mind. You weren’t the biggest fan of anal, especially with anyone besides Toji. An actual sex god, he knew how to make it feel good, make the pleasure override the pain, never getting carried away past what you can handle. Satoru was nice, but you didn’t want him to lose control and have you limping at your 7am meeting tomorrow. But you had a feeling that would happen regardless.

“I want uh….Gojo in my pussy. And you in my ass, Daddy,” you proclaim, and you can practically feel the sorcerer’s ego puff up.

Thankfully, Toji doesn’t seem upset, too horny to focus on the schematics. As long as he was buried in any tight hole, he would chalk it up as a win. “Dope. You guys can start. I gotta go find the special lube. I think it’s in the bathroom?” He said as he slid off the bed and disappeared.

It only dawns on you that you’re alone with Satoru when he lays flat, one hand gripping his shaft, the other wiping his brow. Those magical blue eyes beam up at you, he looks like an angel with a 9 inch cock. “Hey. You okay with riding? I wanna see your tits bouncing. Are they natural? They’re perfect.”

Self conscious, you look down at your chest, not sure what was so special about it. “Uh, yeah. Natural. The left is bigger than the other honestly. And I’ve always been insecure about it. Like that not that much bigger,” you ramble, flustered. “But just enough that—“

“Hey,” he interrupts gently, squeezing your thigh. “Can you ride it for me, babes?”

The second time he says it, you nod obediently. Toji’s still throwing shit around in the closet. You’re on your own.

You straddle him, watching that pretty cock lay flush against his stomach, uncut and leaking. “Okay,” you whisper, rising up on your haunches, murmuring when the tips ghosts against your moist folds.

“There we go. Take your time,” he coaxed, hands rubbing small circles on your hips. “I’m way more fun to ride than the Old Man. He’s so lazy.”

You can’t help but blush, but figure this is the best time to get answers. “You…rode him?”

He nods, and a soft groan tumbles from those pink lips when you sink yourself down past the head teasingly. “Mmhm. Bunch of times. Awhile ago. Long time ago. Its complicated. But we had our fun.”

You want to press “how” it was complicated, and decide to further the interrogation by shifting deeper an inch, two at most. You both hiss at the pressure, the slick resistance. God he looks so cute underneath you. “Were…were your two dating?” you ask, before lust gets the better of you and you drop fully, bottoming out on Satoru and shivering at how your swollen clit rubs against his pelvis. “I didn’t even…fuck, I didn’t even know he liked guys.”

Satoru doesn’t take long to take control. Fingertips will leave bruises on your ass come tomorrow. You’re in his domain now. “Nah. Not dating. Just fun. He’s not the type to settle down. That’s why I was shocked to hear he has a wifey. But with pussy this good,” he snaps his hips upward, and you yelp his name, hands on his chest for support. “I can see why he’s playing househusband.”

“Hey!” Toji calls, sounding irritated. “Don’t make her cum without me, asshole!”

“I won’t,” Gojo replies , but he’s not making a great attempt at holding back. He sets a slow, but powerful rhythm, not once taking his eyes off you. “Fuck. Take this dick, baby. You’re so beautiful. Like it’s insane. Like a model,” he professes, obviously pussy-drunk. But the way he says it, it makes you feel so warm, so special.

“T-thank you, Satoru…ahn…~” you reply as you lean forward and rest your forearms next to his shoulders, rolling against his thrusts, your breath hot and whining against his neck. Your chests are sticky as they rub together, and he wraps his arm around your waist. You feel small, full. “Yes, yes please. Pleas fuck me, please fuck me, Sir. Please!” You cry as he bites your neck, claiming you as his cockslut.

This seems to fill him with increased vigor, and soon the room is filled with the sound of wet skin slapping on wet skin, the creaking headboard, and your strangled mewls. You’re so wrapped up in the moment you barely notice when Toji manifests behind you. It’s only when he spanks you, hard, that both you and Satoru pause, hearts thrumming rapidly.

“It was stuck under the radiator,” Fushiguro says of the lube as he slathers it on his cock,and carelessly slips a slimy finger into your puckered heat. Probing it, relaxing it, working it over. You wince and pout in response, but the way Toji growls back in response makes you fall silent.

Satoru seems to enjoy the tension as Toji withdraws his finger just as quickly as he entered it, opting to smear his tip between your cheeks, flickering against the hole. He usually takes far more time to prep you, but this is a special night and he didn’t have time to fuck around. “Don’t break her, dude. We’re just getting started,” he says to your defense, but there’s evil glinting in those ocean eyes. “What, you worried I’ll fuck her better?”

Shit.

“Toji, he’s just kidding. I don—fuck! Oh fuck Daddy what the hell!” You exclaim when your boyfriend shoves himself deep, and even with the numbing lube it’s too much to accommodate at once. You can feel their cocks rubbing against each other through that thin wall of skin. And it’s obvious they feel it too, how they say your name like a curse in unison. God it’s so much. Even when Toji would fuck your pussy when you had a fox butt plug in…it wasn’t even comparable. “Be, be careful! It’s so much—ohmygodohmygod. I don’t know if I can do this,“ you’re practically sobbing. Not from pain, but just the overwhelming sensation of it all. The stretching you feel…will you rip? Is that possible? You’re starting to panic and regret this whole thing, blubbering.

The boys do their best to soothe you. They don’t move. They just tell you how pretty you look when you’re stuffed, that you’re doing so good. Toji says you have to make him proud, and Gojo says you do make him proud.

After a few moments of reassurance, you calm down enough and steady your breathing. It does feel amazing once you get past the initial burn, replaced by twitching, glorious pleasure. “That’s my girl. That’s my good girl,” Toji praises, layering kisses against your cheek and neck.”You ready now? We can take it easy.”

The boys await further instructions, and in this moment, you feel like a goddess. These two muscular, dangerous men are going to worship you and defile you. Has there ever been a girl so lucky?

“I want…” you start, cautiously gyrating against Gojo before you press back against your boyfriend. “I want you to fuck me…like you used to fuck each other.”

And like that, with that simple utterance, you would be completely violated.

Toji is the first to fuck you into submission, wrapping your hair around his fist and yanking it roughly, exposing the quivering column of your throat. The things he says to you are downright filthy as his cock pulls almost fully out of your gaping ass, just to slam back in without remorse. The things you respond with are equally revolting.

Satoru catches on quick, pounding you with the same tempo and delirious intensity as Toji. You’re absolutely wanton now with your vocals, a cross between breathless gasps and guttural howls. Your holes tingle, and your body reacts surprisingly well to the onslaught. The rougher they are, the more soaked you become, the more your body relaxes to accommodate. The harder they go, the more you want.

“Fuck! Yes! Fuck me, daddies. Please don’t stop. This is so fucking good I wanna cum again. I wanna squirt again. Fuuuuck,” you manage to squeak out, feeling squished between the two large men, who are using you as a condom between their own unresolved sexual desires.

“Fuckin’, nngh—! Fucking do it then!” Gojo commands as he licks away your tears, before wrapping his hands around your neck and squeezing, hard.

Even Toji doesn’t choke you that hard.

It’s terrifying and exciting.

Your head spins, and you see fireworks. Partly from cumming unfathomably hard, but also from the last of oxygen to your brain. You would scream hysterically as you gush over his balls and get those snow white pubes drenched, if you could breathe.

This doesn’t go unnoticed by Toji.

“Yo, take it easy, brat. If you hurt her I swear to god..” he barks, and Gojo loosens his vice just enough for you to blink and take a hungry gasp of air, still feeling like you’re you’re floating on a cloud, spinning on the world’s fastest carousel.

“Sorry, I ju—“

“Shut the fuck up, Satoru,” your boyfriend interrupts, and you watch as a hand shoots out in slow motion and chokes Gojo. For a moment you swear you can hear a tendon pop.

“Daddy, fuck—“

It’s not you saying it.

They still continue to use you as the perfect fleshlight, but in a weird way it’s like you’re an observer more than participator. It’s like porn, real life porn. Even better than that dumb VR.

“God that’s hot,” you exclaim, as you watch Satoru’s eyes roll to the back of his head, his body still snapping into yours like it’s in autopilot.

“Toji, stop…stop it—-“ he croaks out, but your boyfriend snickers, doubling the pressure he’s exerting on both of you. “You gotta stop.”

“Why?” You can practically feel Toji sneering behind you. “I thought you loved it like this, brat. Don’t switch up now.”

Gojo reaches up past you, palms pressed into Toji’s chest. He’s almost…whining. “I do. But if you don’t stop I can’t …I’m gonna—-“

His words falter as he almost loses consciousness, and for a moment you’re worried. If Toji wound up killing him, that would be really fucking hard to explain to the police. Fuck, what if your job found out?

“You’re gonna what, brat?”

“Toji,” you start, nuzzling Gojo’s cheek, your pleasure overridden by concern. You glance back at your feral boyfriend and shudder at the crazed, sex-intoxicating expression he’s wearing. “You’re going to—“ you freeze, as what Satoru was trying to tell you dawns on you, and you feel it. You FEEL it. Warm, thick ropes of cum fill your throbbing cunt, flooding up to your bruised cervix, gushing out with each of his slowing, weak thrusts. Oh God. He just came in your pussy? Yeah, you’re not in birth control and Toji creampies you frequently , but only on “safe” days. Is today a safe day? You’re too out of it to remember.

“Huh? What the…” Toji feels the milky white substance smear against his bouncing shaft. “Hey. Hey, wake up,” he demands as he stops choking Satoru and slaps his face gently. “Did you cum? Did you just cum in my fucking girl?”

You freeze and bite your lip, the vibe suddenly changed. Satoru finally snaps back to reality, grunting as his softening cock deposits the last few drops of seed into you, glancing at you before peering up at Toji sheepishly. “Uh. I’m sorry. I tried to tell you. My bad,” he swallows hard, and holds onto you like a naughty child seeks safety from their mother when they’ve upset the father.

You wince as Toji bears down past you, his lips meeting your jaw before pressing against Satoru’s softly, tenderly. “I forgot how pretty you are when you shoot your load.” He snakes his hand down between your bodies and rubs your slick and pulsating clit, circling it in time with his rapidly quickening thrusts. “Now princess, I need you to beg me to fill you up. You both had your fun. Now it’s Daddy’s turn.”

You don’t deny him. By the time Toji’s glistening hips snap one final time and he empties his balls inside your pounded-numb asshole, your voice is hoarse, having cum one final time from his fingers.

The room feels unbearably warm, the air thick with the mingling scents of skin and exhaustion. Your body is a trembling, overstated heap, sprawled between them in a tangle of limbs. Toji’s hand rests possessively on your hip, his palm rough but steady, while Gojo’s arm drapes lazily across your stomach, his fingertips brushing your ribs in a way that makes you shiver despite the heat.

No one speaks. The silence is filled only with heavy breathing and the occasional shaky curse. Your muscles ache, your skin buzzes, and your mind flits on the edge of unconsciousness. You feel the weight of their bodies pressed against yours, grounding you even as sleep pulls you under.

“She’s a mess,” Toji mutters somewhere above the fog of your thoughts, his voice a low sigh that vibrates through the bed.

“You’re not exactly clean yourself,” Gojo replies, his tone smug but tired.

There’s a pause, then Toji chuckles darkly. “After we clean her up…Shower?”

“With you?” Gojo sounds amused, the grin in his voice unmistakable. “Fine, but don’t get any ideas.”

You want to respond, maybe make a snide comment or laugh, but your body refuses to cooperate. Their voices fade as you slip fully into the darkness of sleep.

When you wake up, the first thing you notice is the sunlight streaming through the curtains. The second is that you’re alone. Panic hits you in a sudden rush, your brain scrambling to calculate how much time has passed. Work. You’re going to be late. You groan, dragging yourself upright, but your anxiety stutters when you spot the outfit laid neatly on the chair by the bed.

Next to it sits a cup of your favorite coffee, still warm, and a doughnut in its wrapper, and a Plan B. A folded note catches your eye. You pick it up, your lips curving into a sleepy smile as you read the words written in two distinct handwritings:

“Good luck with the merger! :D “

Shaking your head, you get dressed quickly, the earlier panic replaced by a soft warmth in your chest. When you step into the living room, you pause at the sight of them; they’re are sprawled together on the couch, limbs tangled, Toji holding Gojo the way he usually holds you.

You snort quietly, grabbing a blanket and draping it over them. Leaning down, you press a gentle kiss to each of their foreheads, Toji murmuring something incoherent in his sleep while Gojo shifts but doesn’t wake.

As you slip out the door, you realize you don’t know if Gojo will still be there when you get home, or if your life with Toji has changed forever. But something feels different. Different, and strangely right.

[bullet-prooflove]

Three Things Prompt Game! for Ryan of Yellowstone

Ryan Yellowstone + fireworks, dog, blanket

Tagging: @kmc1989 @trublu2u @yousigned-upforthis @queenslandlover-93 @ladychaos1525

Companion piece to:

Romantic Shit - Ryan and you talk about Texas.

Texas - Ryan and you see each other for the first time in three months.

Summer (NSFW) - Ryan enjoys a moment with you in the summer sun.

Ryan finds out the two of you have a dog when he gets home from his six month secondment in Texas to find a Belgian Malinois, snoozing in a dog bed near the fireplace, his blanket tucked over him. He’s not sure whose more surprised in that moment, him or the dog.

“Are we taking care of him for someone?” He asks you when you get home from work and the expression on your face tells him everything he needs to know.

“You did say you hated the thought of me being here in my own after what happened to Gina.” You remind him as he and Briscoe track you through the house, hovering in the laundry room as you begin to unpack your gear bag.

“I meant without me, your person.” He informs you, his arms crossed over his chest as you stuff everything into the machine. Briscoe sits alongside of him, head tilted up, watching the exchange between the two of you.

“Ryan…” You say firmly with your hand on your hip. “I know you’re not mad about the dog.”

“No, I’m…” He struggles to find the words as his palm rubs over the scruff of his beard. “…I’m worried about what comes after the dog.”

“After the…” You repeat before understanding dawns on you. “You mean a baby?”

“We never talked about having kids.” He reminds you as he reaches down and scratches behind Briscoe’s ears. “Texas came up and we decided to get married, we never really talked about anything beyond that.”

“Oh.” You say because he’s right. The two of you had been so focused on what was right in front of you, you hadn’t been looking five years, ten years down the line. “I don’t… they’re not really for me.”

“Oh thank fuck.” He mutters and you can see the tension flooding from his body as his shoulders relax. “I thought the dog was your way of telling me you were ready for one.”

“God no.” You tell placing a hand over your heart. “Briscoe was retiring and nobody else could take him, they were talking about putting him down and I couldn’t let that happen. He has canine PTSD from the shit he’s been through, loud noises like fireworks scare the hell out of him so they couldn’t have him in the field anymore.”

“Oh Briscoe.” Ryan says as he crouches down to the dog’s level and uses both hands to ruffle his furry cheeks. “Welcome to the family bud, we’re all a little bit messed up.”

Briscoe woofs his response to Ryan’s antics, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and you can’t help but smile, because this right here, this is your family, the only one you want.

Love Ryan? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[romana-after-dark]

heyaa!! for your follower fundraiser game i have found 4 titles!! (i hope im doing this right)

ghost of you (5sos), yellow (coldplay), apple (charlie xcx), and burn (ellie goulding)

if i got all those correctly, can i request for Logan howlett please? i would love anything dark about him. thank you!!

Hi Hi Hi!!!!!

Roman's 1000 follower fundraiser game

Thanks so much for playing! ghost of you is actually from MCR, and Apple came out (i think?) after Apple did, but yes to the other two!

thats 200 words for you, and $2 to smile train! After writing, this still ended up 550 words lol

Here is some dark Logan for you! I expanded on dacryphelia logan I did months ago

Let it Out

Logan Howlett x gn!reader

Main Masterlist : Logan Masterlist

Follow @romana-updates and click follow, join my tumblr community or ask to join the tag list to keep up!

Buy Me A Coffee : Kofi : Go Fund Me

Summary: You're crying to Logan about your family rejecting you as a mutant. Logan isn't helping.

Warning: Dacryphelia, maybe some trauma kink? But shes not talking about sa or anything. jerking off subtly. Nothing sexual really happens to reader. mentions of family not accepting reader as a mutant, (lgbt allegory?) Logan doesn't non con or anything but she's not consenting to what he's doing, even if they are mostly unaware. He's kinda goofy and silly in this one I won't lie.

******

"I just don't understand, I'm their child!" You sob onto Logan's plain white T-shirt as the two of you sit on the couch. Love is Blind is forgotten in the background, your attempts to reach out to your parents after years of rejection leaving you a sobbing mess.

Unfortunately, the sight of you had him rock hard in his pants. It wasn't his fault, really! He can't control when he gets a raging erection. He can't control that he gets it while you cry against his shoulder, so vulnerable and trusting...

Your parents had rebuffed your latest attempt to reach out, rejecting you for being a mutant and you were distraught, no reason for him to get bricked up on a Tuesday afternoon. And yet. here he was.

He needed to take care of business before you noticed he was hard. Logan reached down, rubbing his aching cock as his other hand cradled your head, trying to be comforting but also kinda holding you there.

"I know baby, I know... I sorry..." His voice hitched a little bit when his palm ram down the length of him, full pressure, trying to make himself cum in his pants as quick as possible. He glided over himself, feeling cock desperately twitching in his jeans, begging for your mouth as salty tears ran down...

"He was never there for me, I think he kn-knew something was wrong with me even before my mutation showed..."

Faster, harder. Logan's breathing grew a little ragged as his release neared, getting harder by the second when he could feel your tears on his peck. "It's not fair. He was always gonna b-be mad at you, no matter what you were... hmm..."

"Lo, are you okay?" You tried to lift your head up to look at you, but he holds you down shushing your worries in a strained voice.

"Don't worry bought me baby, just m'old bones creaking. Just let it out." I'm so close... he thought to himself. Part of him wanted to drag it out, relish in the pleasure of how good your voice felt crying to him, his own hand making himself feel good... but you were already calming down. He needed to make this quick. He needed to egg you on a bit. "I mean, he tried to kick you out even before they knew you were a mutant."

Bringing up this trauma caused a fresh bought of tears from you, leaving you wracked in sobs in his arms.

Rubbing himself quickly, Logan bit his lip HARD as he came, stifling the moan but not his abs flexing in the process. Warm filled his leg and he felt embarrassed, wondering how he was going to get out of this was a wet spot now. Oh well, a problem for Logan a few hours from now, not for Logan now. Now, he revealed in his release, the ache releaving as he stroked out every last drop he had in an attempt to prevent his short refractory period from causing issues again.

Now Logan had his baby in his arms and could relax and try to make her feel better.

"It's okay sweetheart... I'm here for you now."

***********************

@tomhockstetter7-111 @hornystan @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @del-ightfulling @madamerubrum @journal3sposts @and-claudia @yeaiamme2 @xoxabs88xox

[life-love-geekculture]

Okay, let’s talk Lucanis’s mind prison (Warning: Spoilers):

I honestly haven’t seen much discourse yet on how the “prison guards” reflect aspects of our favorite assassin’s personality. So, I figured I throw my two cents into the ring.

Let’s start with Caterina. Honestly, the most surface level of our four candidates, especially with Spite spelling it out for us. Caterina is Lucanis’ fear. Specifically, his fear of failing. Failing and disappointing Caterina. Failing the expectations set for him and by him. Failing Rook. Not killing Ghiln’nain at Weisshaupt was the cherry on top of an absolute shit sunday of what Lucanis would see as a year’s worth of failure. He’s been captured, tortured, and turned into an abomination by the very people he’s supposed to put the fear of the Maker into. It all just confirms those secret fears of not being good enough he’s been carrying for most of his life. And now he’s being confronted with a similar situation but with stakes on a personal level. Either decision he makes, he (at this point) loses.

Next up, Harding. Harding is his fear of Spite. Of what he could become, and who he could hurt, if he ever loses a modicum of control over the demon. It’s no accident Harding’s is the face he summons to project this. She might be the most sympathetic to his plight and still be willing to kill him if he ever loses control. Harding tells him in the real world that she would know it wouldn’t be his fault, but she wouldn’t let him hurt their friends. And Lucanis encourages her with this! Harding also seems to be the only other person besides Rook to ask if he would like a different room and to show concern with his isolating patterns. The fact she cares in spite of her fear (which he shares) makes her a perfect representative. Because he might literally kill himself then risk hurting her.

Neve. Ah Neve, a potential love interest or Lucanis’s best friend if you romance him as Rook. By this point in the quest, Rook has bulldozed their way past Lucanis’s fears and insecurities. Now it’s time to lash out. If you listen to his & Neve’s banter with each other and in general, they are the driest pair of a-holes you will ever meet. It’s great! So, naturally, when it comes to throwing that cynicism and sarcasm up like a freaking shield, Neve is who he thinks about. I also love the insight this section gives into how Lucanis groups people in his head (family, enemy, and contract). That’s not Spite. Spite, we’ve seen, tends to build the framework of his interactions from his host. That is all Lucanis, baby! We also get a little more insight into how Lucanis views Neve herself. I like to think Spite’s description is kind of the gut instinct, first impression our boy had meeting Neve in the Ossuary or later at the Lighthouse. On paper, she’s a Tevinter mage like the ones who held him for a year. His head knows she’s not the same, but I’ll bet she set off all his defensive instincts and now there’s guilt associated with that. Because he likes Neve. He gets along with Neve. He really needs to teach Neve how to appreciate coffee. But he can’t shake how he felt first meeting her and, like everything else, he carries it with him.

Fucking Illario. It tracks that Lucanis at his most self-hating would dredge up this dumbass. This is the crux of his current dilemma. He loves his cousin. They’re the last person the other & Caterina has. But if he’s going to do this the Crow way, Illario has to die & Caterina will likely fall in the crossfire. Or, worse, she will never forgive him. It is the surest confirmation he is the monster everyone thinks he is. After all, only an abomination would kill all the family he has left. And because it’s Lucanis and it’s Rook, who just keeps sidestepping every excuse he can come up with, his last card is to show the monster behind the man. To show Rook the demon of Vyrantium.

In case you couldn’t tell, I love this mission!

[deafeningfanlight23]

SOLAR AND RUIN HEADCANONS THAT ARE LONGER THAN THE BIBLE! :D

IMPORTANT: I CALL RUIN/JIGSAW DOLUS BTW SO DON'T BE CONFUSED- QWQ

Solar:

(I SWEAR IT LOOKS BETTER IN REAL LIFE TRUST ME THE QUALITY OF MY HANDY IS JUST STRAIGHT FROM THE 99 CENT STORE- 😭🙏)

Solar is Romanian (WHERE MY ROMANIAN PEOPLE AT? >:D And don't question the logic of my headcanons MY HEADCANONS, MY RULES >:D). Solar can speak fluently German, Romanian of course, and a bit of French and Portuguese.

Solar is gender-apathetic and could care LESS about gender and pronouns. Solar still dresses more masculine though because he simply likes it.

He's gay and somewhere on the ace-spectrum :D (HE'S OUR ICON I TELL U 💅)

Solar has chronic migraines and backpain and they just get worsened by his AWFUL posture habits. He always takes medications for those, otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to function properly in life. Sometimes, however, he overuses them and goes overboard. Sometimes TOO much overboard. (I SWEAR TO Y'ALL IF YOU QUESTION THE LOGIC OF THE MEDICATION THINGY I'M GONNA MAKE YOU EXPLODE LIKE LUNAR 😃)

His rays aren’t usable anymore. They are fully broken, and two tips of the seven couldn’t be patched up, while the two others were able to be a bit restored by fixing the ends through another, mismatched metal. HIS Moon used to always grab and tug at them as punishment, and unconsciously, he sometimes repeats those actions inflicted upon him by lightly pulling at them when he is stressed or dissociating. He doesn’t allow anyone to touch his rays. NO ONE. (... OUR TRAUMATIZED QUEEN 💃✨ BUT LIKE HE GOING THRU IT FR 😭🙏)

He is an insomniac and a workaholic with a non-existent sleep schedule. He’s got no free time to rewind and relax and doesn’t ALLOW himself to do so, only fueled by coffee and medication.

However, he finds comfort in Dolus (AKA RUIN) and whenever he spends all of his time to hang out with him. He loves those musical numbers Dolus always persuades him into, and although he looks like he is annoyed at first, it’s a big joy for him.

Apropos Dolus, Dolus gifted him a shark keychain which is now securely hanging from Solar’s belt every day. (See picture above :D) Solar uses this as a stress toy because its soft, squishy texture and wool underneath makes it perfect for it.

He often vapes when no one's looking. That's why his voice is so raspy (and from the screaming)

Dolus (aka Ruin/Jigsaw):

DOLUS IS BRITISH, MATE, NO ONE CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE, MIC DROP 👏 He can only speak English in a British accent and the most broken French known to mankind.

He is genderfluid and sometimes feels like a man and sometimes just non-binary :D His preferred pronouns are he/they.

He is Achillean and somewhere on the ace-spectrum too!

Dolus has a passion for musicals and the theatre. He knows every song of the Hamilton Musical in and out and has watched “The Greatest Showman” over a dozen of times and loves EVERY song of it. Every day, one can catch him humming a song from his favorite musical and dancing a bit to them. In addition, he LOVES to perform those musicals, and he involves Solar in them. Basically: He is a theater kid.

He also has a REALLY big obsession with sharks and even has a full-body shark suit for sleeping and a few shark plushies, which is why he loves the nickname “Sharky” so much.

A big scar is stretched across his face and covers up his right eye, coming from a fire incident where he was trapped underneath ashes, flames and wood. His right eye is still usable, but not as strong as his left in terms of eyesight.

He also has weak joints and can’t endure any sort of pressure for a long time, which is why he has to take sitting and laying breaks and has to do some physical exercises. It's annoying and prevents him from doing some things, but this won't stop him doing things he LOVES. He can’t run properly because of this, walk for a long time and stand more than necessary. Solar sometimes helps Dolus sit when Dolus needs a sitting break or helps him walk when there's no other option. Dolus feels bad about that.

He doesn’t like travel and moving vehicles, as well as bright lights.

THANKS FOR LISTENING, TUNG (=Bye)! :D

[belbelcries]

♡How to try and be productive when you are bedrotting♡

These are some tips and tricks that help me a lot, and I want to share them with all of you ♡

We all know how hard living can get, especially when we have things that we must do but can't get ourselves to do them even if we really want to.

If you want to try to change that, keep on reading ♡

Start by writing down what you have to do:

It might sound a bit dumb, but it helps you to visualize what you have to do! For this part, try not to write too many things so you don't end up overwhelming yourself.

If you need to keep yourself accountable, you can set reminders and/or tell a friend to ask you about it!

Start working little by little:

When I need to study something that works for me , I start slowly getting into the mood of studying to get the motivation!

For example: if I have the reading material on my tablet or phone, I start by just reading, not trying to highlight or learn anything, just read in the same way you are reading this now, and if it has any videos to go with I start by watching those!

During this time, you can use the ponodoro method and read for 10 minutes and have a 5 minutes break until you feel the spark of doing it for longer.

Once you feel that spark, you can try and start studying for real/do what you need to do.

Tip! Remember to always start from the easiest thing.

Slowly try to get out of bed:

I think that this might be a difficult one. When I want to get out of bed, I can't help myself to do it all at once. What I do is step by step. How does it work? Easy, first I try to sit on my bed and slowly moving myself so I'm sitting in the corner of the bed with my feet touching the floor, so finally, when I feel like it, I stand up. Of course, this takes some time, and it will vary from person to person.

Change clothes, do your bed or take a shower:

I find doing these things really helpful to set another mindset, one that says, "This is important, I have to do it." I know that it can be hard sometimes to do these daily things, so don't be so harsh on yourself if you can't do it!

Find something to motivate yourself:

It can be giving yourself time to do something that you really like, getting a drink after doing it, buying yourself a little something, basically giving yourself a little treat after accomplishing your task.

I like to buy something nice or make myself my fav tea or a coffee!

Don't be so harsh on yourself!!:

If you are already having a hard time trying to be productive, don't punish yourself even more!! I know that we all have self-destructive tendencies, but for this stuff, we gotta try to fight them!!

Try to give yourself some love in order to try to do your best, and by best, I don't mean a 100%, of the best you can do at that moment is a 50% or a 20% that's okey dokey!!

This is the end of these tips and tricks for now.

Remember, this is what works for me, and if it doesn't work for you, it's perfectly fine because we are not the same person. The important thing here is that you are trying to do something for yourself and get some work done, and just for that, I'm proud of you!! ♡♡

If you want to share your opinions and help others by commenting or reblogging, you are more than welcome to!!

Pls take care, bye-bye, pretty angel~♡

[thenexusofsouls]

Wade chuckled. "Okay. Just don't wanna overwhelm you or anything..." ...after what happened in the store, went unsaid. Wade usually had a good rapport with people, and his humor and kindness got him far, but he could be a little intense for some, a little too outgoing sometimes, so if he needed to tone it down, he wouldn't take offense at that. Fortunately, it seemed like he wasn't, so that made him feel better.

"Nah, I can have 'em, I just don't wanna waste 'em," Wade tried to explain before realizing she probably wouldn't have any clue what he meant by that. "Okay uh... I can eat pancakes, but they won't really do anything for me, nutrition-wise. I can't digest 'em." He shrugged as if to say, oh well, them's the breaks. "So to me, if they're not gonna actually gonna do anything for me, then why waste 'em when somebody else could enjoy them, right?"

With regard to the word unhirable, Wade shook his head. "I don't know. is there like uh... some kinda council of people somewhere that just making rulings on words? They strike a gavel and boom, this word is inducted into the dictionary of whatever? I have no idea how words are created, but if you ask me, I think that theory sounds pretty legit," he said with a chuckle.

When she said she lost her ID and social security cards, his smile faded. "Damn, really? That sucks so badly, I'm sorry. What a pain in the ass. I mean, you can get 'em back, but they always make you jump through a million hoops to do it." And unfortunately, that wasn't anything he could help her with.

"Uh, no... No, they wouldn't," Wade said awkwardly regarding his medical condition. "It's pretty rare and uh... not well understood, so..." He trailed off as they began to watch the man struggling with his umbrella in the wind and rain. Wade had a mind to get up and help the guy, but he wasn't about to randomly do that and leave this woman all alone to- oh, okay, there she goes.

"Hey, wait! I'll do it!" he called after her, not wanting her to have to go back out into the rain. She either didn't hear him or didn't care to listen, so he got up and followed her, pausing only briefly to let their waitress know where they'd be. "We're not skippin' out on the bill, we just... there's a guy outside who needs some help, we'll be right back, okay?"

"Sure thing, sug'," the waitress said, fairly unconcerned. It wouldn't be the first time somebody skipped out on the bill, but she hadn't pegged this guy for a runner.

Wade ran out into the driving rain, but the woman was already helping the man with a rather expert... method of... well, what was she doing exactly? He briefly saw the blue electric something that seemed to weave around the metal spoke of the umbrella, and Wade blinked. What the hell? She seemed to have it fixed in no time, though, so he simply stood by and watched, feeling that his assistance wasn't really needed. Although he had to smile at the reather ineloquent and swift way she okay bye'd it outta there.

He turned back inside when she seemed to be headed that way, arriving back at the booth, dripping wet every bit as much as she was. "Yeah, I know," he said with a little smirk, wiping his hand over his head and shaking off some of the water. "Neat trick you did out there," Wade said but then the waitress returned.

"Everything copasetic?" she asked.

"Yeah, we're uh... gonna need another round of hot tea and coffee. And some napkins. Like... a stack of 'em," Wade replied.

"You got it," the waitress said, wandering off.

"That was nice of you to help that guy," he said once the waitress had left.

The soldier bunched herself up under the desk, palms pressed to her ears with enough pressure that she could hear the squeak of her joints. She was trying to block out the noise. The angry shouts as she disobeyed direct orders. When had she entered the office? One minute she'd been searching the aisles...

well,

Shallow breaths

A tap on her shoulder, sending her jolting alongside her racing heart, wide eyes searching for the source- an elderly woman with a light laugh, and an apology for startling her. She was only reaching for the milk

Bright, fluorescent lights

Constant chatter and clanging and beeping that was not, in fact, a heart rate monitor, and was instead the tills as the cashiers scanned various items

Too many options

kind of.

At some point she'd passed the bakery, and a small child in a cart had wheeled by, holding a...

And then she'd found herself in the office. The door was locked from the inside. The desk had the indent of fingers on the edge of it's surface, as though imprinted in wet cement. One of it's legs wiggled like a snake. Both still gleaned with the sweat of her hands.

The manager kept slamming on the door, shouting and raving about calling the police, and company files and trespassing. And yet she was frozen in place. - For Wade, sadiebrin

@sadiebrin

"Donuts or muffins?" Wade muttered to himself as he looked around the bakery section. His head tilted to one side, then the other. "Eh, they each have their good points..."

It was supposed to rain today. Not just rain, thunderstorm. So far, though, the sky had gone dark for a couple hours and it had gotten rather windy, but so far... no rain or thunder. Perfect weather for Wade to do a little shopping during normal human hours without fear of getting too impaired by the sun. He'd felt a mild tingling on his skin when he stepped outside, but... not too bad. And really, he just had to go from his apartment building to his SUV, and then from there into the store. He could do that standing on his head, so... time to shop.

Being a vampire sucked, pun intended. Needing blood all the time was not only unappealing to Wade, but it was massively inconvenient with his schedule and lifestyle. And he refused to give up the foods he loved, even if they did nothing for him nowadays. At least he could eat whatever he wanted without fear of getting fat or developing heart disease, since whatever made him a vampire seemed to regulate his body to keep it in tip-top shape without him having to do much of anything.

His deliberations on exactly what kind of indulgent human food to buy were interrupted by a very distressed woman staggering from near where he was toward the back of the store. Confections could wait. Wade followed her, sensing that something was very wrong. When she went inside an office and slammed the door, Wade stopped and watched as the manager began pounding on the door like a child throwing a tantrum. "Really?" Wade mumbled to himself.

Making his way to the door, Wade laid his hand on the manager's shoulder. "Take a breath, okay? I think she's havin' some kinda problem." The manager was taking too many breaths, as it were, and spouting more boisterous nonsense about how she wasn't allowed in there, and if she didn't come out right this instant he was going to called the cops!

With an irritated smirk, Wade reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. "Dude, relax, I am the cops," he said, flashing his badge just fast enough for the manager to see something that looked official but not long enough for him to actually read that it only said government licensed bounty hunter on it. It worked, and the manager took a step back from the door. Only one. Wade looked at him like, you gotta be kiddin' me with this bullshit. "Yeah, you wanna gimme some time here, man? I'll handle it, don't worry." With that, the manager huffed and left to deal with an irate woman who couldn't find the type of cheese she wanted and was making it everyone else's problem.

"Hey... miss?" he called through the door. "You okay in there? Need some help?" He was trying to get through to the woman but also sound as non-threatening as he could manage.

[bellamysgriffin]

being 23 is actually the most evil thing that could happen to a person

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Second day of running off of coffee and spite only

[tardis--dreams]

Some of those doctors make hating oat milk their entire personality. I hate them. Cannot pretend to find them funny or like i give a shit. Fucking pretentious assholes

[cerealmonster15]

i dont think i ever felt more annoyed at commercials than when those mean girls walmart ads were playing a few months ago or whenever that was