#also fill the tags please I should be the only post

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[phagodyke]

had a very weird dream the place I worked was in the marine exploration industry and I was presenting a review of a deep sea probe we were retiring and then woke up extremely abruptly bc my body started digging my uterus out with a million tiny blunt spoons YOWIEEEEOWWW

[spencerreidenjoyer]

we've already done it in my head | spencer reid x reader

You have fantasies about Spencer, and you feel bad about it when you have to see him at work. Thing is, he has fantasies about you too.

wc: 4.8k, rating: explicit

tags/warnings: professor!spencer, post prison!spencer, bau!reader, fem!reader, sexual fantasies, masturbation, daddy kink, getting together, hookups, friends with benefits (?), mentions of public sex/exhibitionism (they don't actually do it), fucking with feelings but neither of them really realise it yet lol...

a/n: i am insane and that's all i'll say about this fic. jk i started this at the top of the month and i'm glad i've finally finished it. this was such a crazy one to work on, aside from being swamped with school work. thank you to my lovely friend from twitter vic who kept encouraging me to work on this hehe. inspired heavily by taylor swift's guilty as sin? (obviously) and chappell roan's picture you just for those horny yearning vibes yknow? please enjoy this insanity!!! (crossposted to ao3)

Spencer rushes in from the university when Emily calls. It’s a serious case, one that Emily decides Spencer needs to be pulled away from his teaching for. She doesn’t feel good doing it – the whole team knows how important teaching is to Spencer, but he understands all the same when he comes into the round table room. Spencer sits down at the last empty seat next to you, his hair a mess as he sets down his things and flips open the case file. He turns to smile at you, before Penelope starts the case brief.

It’s a long, tiring day of work after landing in California, the BAU having been called in to investigate the murders of young moms in the area, and you need a glass of wine and a nice hot bath to even fathom everything you’ve seen today.

You should just turn in for the night, the Bureau being particularly kind with their budget as you all get individual rooms. Your drowsiness should put you fast to sleep, but your mind is racing with thoughts of Spencer.

Spencer’s been in his nice suit all day, filling out his shirt nicely. You’ve noticed his stubble growing in, and his hair is messy and gorgeous. You can’t help yourself for feeling this way, as guilty as you feel about it. You’ve been harbouring your crush on Spencer for way too long, in the couple of years since you joined the BAU. Spencer is a sight for sore eyes for sure, but his kind gentleness despite the horrors of what you all do for work is a welcome reprieve. 

While his sweet nature was what had you falling for him in the first place, Spencer could be extremely sexy, even if he didn’t know it. 

Today was especially tough for you. You and Spencer were sent in to interrogate a particularly uncooperative suspect, playing into the good cop-bad cop dynamic. Your coaxing wasn’t doing anything, and Spencer had ended up raising his voice in an attempt to intimidate them. He’d slammed his hand on the table, a loud clang against the metal, and his large figure only served to crowd the suspect in to scare them further.

You only got to know Spencer after the mess that was him getting wrongly sent to prison, but Spencer supposedly wasn’t like this before prison. Still, you found Spencer’s quiet intimidation incredibly attractive, and you had to keep your composure in the interrogation room earlier.

And your mind drifts to Spencer from earlier, his rough callousness with the suspect, his glare wild and intimidatingly sexy, you end up thinking about him.

About Spencer, who is so kind and sweet with you and the rest of the team, seeming like he couldn’t hurt a fly. 

About Spencer who could also be domineering and intimidating. He seems like he’d only pull it out if you asked, but the duality has you hot under the collar. 

Your eyes slip shut, mind swirling with thoughts of Spencer, about having him all to yourself, about him wanting you. 

About his large hands on you, making you feel so small under his firm grasp. 

About him pinning you down on the hard, cool metal of the table in the interrogation room. 

About him caging you in with his arms, the look in his eyes almost crazed and full of lust for you. 

“Spencer,” you gasp, before Spencer kisses you fervently. His stubble is rough against your skin, but you don’t care. Spencer kisses you like he’s a starved man and you’re his next meal, with such desperation that you feel weak in the knees.

“You’re gorgeous,” Spencer says. He kisses your jaw, down your neck, and his large hands are all over your body. You feel so secure in his grasp, he feels you up and drinks his fill of you. He gropes your tits, your thighs, your ass, manhandling you into spreading your legs, so he can press the hardness of his cock to your cunt. “Look what you do to me.”

You whimper, fully indulging in this wet dream as you slide a hand into your underwear. “Spencer,” you gasp.

“You’re so hot, you make me feel crazy,” Spencer hums, rolling his hips against you. You’re separated between layers of fabric, but Spencer humping you like this turns you on to no end. 

You rub at your clit in tight little circles, your wetness aiding the slide as you get yourself off to the thought of Spencer.

“Spence,” you moan, frustrated. While Spencer’s hardness grinding against you is literally a dream, you want to imagine his cock buried inside of you. You’re perfectly capable of moving this along, so you do. 

Magically, Spencer’s clothes are off and so are yours, the perks of a fantasy being that you don’t have to awkwardly stumble through taking your clothes off. You have a hazy picture of what he’d look like naked in front of you. You imagine toned muscle, a slight pudge to his tummy from his time in prison, his pecs filled out nicely. You imagine his cock would be pretty, as pretty as he is, veiny and thick and all sorts of perfect. 

“You’re too fucking good to me, baby,” Spencer groans, the blunt head of his cock pressed up against you now. He rubs off against you, sliding over your clit, your folds, over the wetness leaking from your whole. “Gonna fuck you so good, just like you deserve.”

Without hesitation, Spencer’s cock slips into you, the perfect thickness to make you feel full as he slides in inch by inch. 

You slip your fingers into yourself, aided by how impossibly wet you are just at the thought of Spencer, and your groan weakly. Two fingers aren’t enough, not when you bet Spencer could fill you up, like he’d split you in half on his cock. 

He pushes into you until he’s pressed flush against you, buried inside of you to the hilt. He starts to pound into you, like he’s uncaring of what you need, but the way he treats you turns you on impossibly.

Your fingers aren’t enough to satiate you, but you thrust them in and out of you in an effort to mimic how Spencer fucking you might feel. You moan, a little louder than you’d like.

“Spence–” you gasp, in your fantasy. It should be scandalous, Spencer taking you over the table in the interrogation room. You don’t know if the thought of people being behind the one-way mirror turns you on or not – being watched, letting Spencer take you in front of everybody. You like the thought of Spencer being so obsessed with you, so desperate, needing to fuck you right where you work.

The metal table is cool and harsh against your hips, but you don’t care if it hurts as Spencer fucks you relentlessly, quickly taking on a brutal pace. It’s exactly what you need, what you want Spencer to do with you, being rough and frantic enough to make you scream his name.

You whimper his name under your breath, bashful even while in your fantasy. 

Spencer has you pinned down, but it’s not like you intend to get away. You want to savour this even if it’s only in your mind, shameful as you’re getting off to the thought of your coworker. You just need this out of your system, need Spencer out of your system, and then tomorrow you can face him like a normal, well-adjusted person. 

“Fuck,” you gasp, palm grinding against your clit, fingers pressed inside of yourself. You’re shaking, with the thought of Spencer fucking you until you can’t take it anymore, the ideal of him in your mind too perfect, until you’re moaning into your hand as you orgasm. You sob, clenching tight around your fingers, feeling your slick gush out as you ride your high.

You don’t mean to fall asleep, but after both a long day and a crazy good orgasm, you end up passing out with a tissue clenched in your hand, with your panties and sleep shorts kicked off to the foot of the bed.

---

Spencer can’t stop thinking about you.

He shouldn’t, not when you’re his coworker and also one of the people he’s friendliest with in the unit. 

Spencer would say he couldn’t bring himself to trust many, especially after coming out of prison, but you were the one he warmed up to the easiest. A new face in the BAU wasn’t uncommon, but Spencer had found himself drawn to you. You were kind and warm to him fresh out of prison, your tenderness a welcome reprieve as he’d gotten accustomed to being back at the BAU. With your intellect and quick wit, matched with your beauty, Spencer could not help but be attracted to you – but that’s besides the point. 

Spencer knows how much your friendship with him means to you, and he’s certain that that’s all you see him as: a friend. 

Yet, he can’t stop himself from thinking about you in those pants. Those pants that hug your curves just right. Those pants that make your ass look great – not that he was looking – especially when you’re leaning over an interrogation table, trying to play the good cop with the suspect from earlier.

Spencer had hung back, trying to get a read on the suspect while you spoke to him. Him getting to ogle your figure and stare at how good you looked in those pants was unintentional, but he definitely wasn’t complaining. 

Spencer only felt a bit bad wrapping his hand around himself in the shower, mind flooded with thoughts of you. Water, almost scorching, running down his body, his hand moves fast and reckless, exhaling harshly as he gets himself off. 

He can’t get you out of his mind, your gorgeous figure, your pretty face, your wide eyes and thick thighs and soft lips – he shouldn’t be thinking of you like this. You were a coworker, a friend, for God’s sake, and yet he can’t stop imagining you under him. 

He can’t stop imagining pressing you against the table in the interrogation room – your lithe frame underneath him, making you look so small, making him feel so big. 

He presses his growing problem to your perfect ass, watching you writhe underneath him. You keep looking back up at him, with your wide, wet eyes and your flushed cheeks, looking like you need him to give you exactly what you need.

“Please, daddy,” you whine, and Spencer is groaning and undoing his belt before your pants get pushed down too. Stroking his cock quickly, Spencer easily finds his way to your entrance, wet and dripping with your slick. He pushes into you, pressing kisses to your neck as you groan with the intrusion. 

“Daddy,” you whimper, “Feels so good.”

“Yeah?” Spencer coos at you. Spencer feels you press yourself back up against him, pushing his cock deeper, and he loses all sense of control as he starts to fuck you hard. He feels like a madman, unable to hold himself back as he takes and takes and takes, fucking into your tight wetness, his head spinning with how good you feel around him. 

You’re whining and moaning under him, your noises music to Spencer’s ears as they echo off the walls. Your cunt is wet and sloppy as Spencer fucks you, wanting to give you everything you need and more.

“Fuck, baby,” Spencer groans, his hand tightly fisted around his cock. The way the tip of his cock leaks is easing the slide, as he pictures in crystal-clear detail how your cunt would draw him in, slick and messy be fucks into your perfect, tight cunt. “You’re too good to me.”

“Daddy,” you sob, your hands clawing down Spencer’s back. Spencer gropes you greedily through your clothes, grabs your tits and feels his fill of your waist, your perfect ass, your thighs as he rocks himself back and forth between them. 

“Gonna cum inside of you, love,” Spencer grunts, his pace unrelenting. His hands are on your thighs, gripping you tight, both fucking into you and dragging you onto his cock over and over. “You’re gorgeous. Gonna make a mess of you.”

You’re whining underneath him, making him feel too good, as you clench around him tight and moan even louder. Spencer can’t help himself, thrusting into you hard and fast and eager until he’s cumming.

He spills into his hand, the thick white ropes of his cum washed down the drain with the spray of the shower from above him. Visions of you flash through his mind, your gorgeous frame, your pretty face, your mouth on his. 

He’s barely towelled off before he’s knocked out in his bed, too tired to even process feeling guilty about jerking off to you. 

---

Sure, perhaps it’s childish to try and avoid Spencer all day, especially when you have an active case all of you need to be working on. You must be a fool to think that getting yourself off to Spencer would help, because all you can think about is your fantasies of him last night, how you imagined him bending you over and taking you– Not helping, you remind yourself.

Emily must secretly be on your side or be able to read your mind or something, because Spencer is relegated to work on geographic profiles and speed-read through case files back at the police precinct, while you get sent out onto the field to chase down your killer. 

But you can’t avoid Spencer forever, and you aren’t any good at it either. You feel like Spencer’s eyes are on you the whole day when you and him are in the same room, but you never look up at him to find out. While you could chalk up your nerves to a serial killer still being out on the streets, you don’t have any more excuses at the end of the day when you’ve finally caught him, and the team decides to get dinner to celebrate.

You purposely wedge yourself between JJ and Emily when you sit down at the table, trying to avoid Spencer, and you think you’re successful with getting away with seeming a little out-of-it when you end up slipping away early, claiming you had a rough sleep last night.

You’ve barely settled down in your hotel room for the night, finally feeling like you can relax, when there’s a knock at your door. You have no clue who it could be, but you open the door, and–

There Spencer is. 

“Hi,” you say curtly, feeling embarrassment wash over you all of a sudden, because all you can think about is getting off to the thought of him last night. You feel your cheeks warm, but you hope it’s not obvious that you’re blushing. Then, in an attempt to seem somewhat normal and well-adjusted, you add, “What’s up?”

“I should be asking you that,” Spencer says, his eyebrows furrowed slightly. “What’s up with you today?”

You press your lips together in a thin line before you say, “Nothing’s up. I’m fine.”

“Come on,” Spencer prods, his head cocking to the side as he deadpans. “You know I can read you like an open book. Something’s up.”

You frown, Spencer stoking the flames of brattiness in you. “Yeah? Tell me what’s the matter, if you can read me so well.”

Spencer’s eyes widen slightly. You watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

“I- I thought we said no inter-group profiling,” Spencer says, his voice a little weak, and for the first time, you see Spencer look a little helpless. It’s kind of hot. 

Do you make him… nervous?

“Yeah, but if you insist on thinking something’s up with me…” You shrug, smiling. Spencer just blinks at you.

No. You couldn’t possibly entertain the thought. 

Spencer clears his throat. You watch him fidget with his hands just slightly, before he puts them by his sides to seem confident. “Well, you’ve been avoiding me, on purpose or not – both attest to your desire to avoid me somewhat. You could barely look me in the eye all day, which means you might be embarrassed or guilty of something, likely having to do with me.” Spencer says, his voice even, but he isn’t looking at you. 

You raise your eyebrows. His explanation is both specific and vague, and you feel slightly called out and safe from his scrutiny at the same time. But, you can’t shake off the feeling that there’s something more to Spencer’s words, the way he’s looking at you like he hopes you can’t pick his brain apart. 

So, you turn it back onto him, “Then, what do you think is the problem? You aren’t looking at me either, and you were fidgeting with your hands. Is something up with you, then? It almost sounds like you’re projecting, Dr. Reid.”

Spencer freezes, like he’s a deer caught in headlights. You can practically see his brain running a mile a minute, overthinking every possible outcome, overly self-aware of himself, his actions, his thoughts.

You try to stop yourself from smiling, because Spencer is kind of cute like this. “You wanna tell me what it is then, Reid?” 

“When did this become about me?” Spencer squeaks, his usually cool facade quickly disappearing. There’s a look in Spencer’s eyes, as he nervously looks you up and down, and oh– “I just– Well, I– You–”

“I’m thinking we might be on the same page, here,” you say, smirking. “Wanna tell me what it is?”

Spencer furrows his brows, his mouth agape as he looks up at you, but you’re putting your hand on his chest and trailing it down slowly. “Oh–”

“Tell me, Dr. Reid,” you cock your head, eyeing him up and down lazily. When you look at Spencer’s face, he’s shocked, enamoured and turned-on all in one. 

“You’re… attracted to me,” Spencer says, somewhat uncertain. “The same way I’m attracted to you.”

“And what makes you say that?” You hum. 

“I thought I heard you last night. Through the walls,” He says timidly, nothing you’ve seen from him before. “Thought I should’ve gone over to help, but I realised you were, um– You were pleasuring yourself. To- To me.”

“The walls are thin, huh?” You laugh, a little sheepish, but you note how Spencer’s becoming shy at the thought. “Did you…?”

His eyes grow wide. “Did I do what?”

You smirk. “That tells me everything I need to know, Reid,” you say, laughing.

“Well, you shouldn’t presume–”

“Shut up and kiss me, Reid,” you huff. You pull Spencer closer to you by his tie and you press your lips to his. 

It’s too perfect, when Spencer’s mouth is finally on yours. His hands cupping your face, Spencer kisses you hard and eager, like he can’t believe that he finally gets to have you. He kisses you like he’s starving, desperate for you as his next meal. You moan as his hands reach for your hips, pulling you in closer to him, greedy as he feels you up.

“Did you fantasise about this too? About me, like this?”

“This is better than I could’ve ever imagined,” Spencer says breathily. “You… You’re so attractive.”

“Could say the same about you,” you laugh, reaching to unbutton his shirt. His tie is already loose, hanging around his neck, but you want to see more. You undo the top few buttons, revealing more of his chest. You trail your finger over the exposed skin, letting your nail graze it slightly. You hear Spencer inhale sharply, and grin to yourself, proud of the effect you have on him. “So, do you want to just stand around and talk, or do you want to fuck me?”

Spencer’s eyes widen, and you chuckle. As if he hadn’t expected this was how it was going to go. Spencer purses his lips. “I mean, absolutely. I want to fuck you. But, um– We should definitely talk about this though.”

“Later,” you say, waving him off, before you lean in to kiss him again. Spencer grabs your waist again, like he needs to have you close. He lifts you slightly, making you squeak, but the both of you stumble over to the bed, unable to keep your hands off of each other, unable to keep your mouths off each other. You sit down on the bed, Spencer crowding you in with one of his knees on the mattress.

You loosen his tie and take it off, while Spencer moves to unbutton your shirt. HIs hands move deftly, eager to undress you, and he pulls away to marvel at the curve of your breasts in your bra when he pushes the satin shirt off of you. “Wow.”

“Wow yourself,” you say. You appreciate the view: a dishevelled, eager Spencer Reid in your bed, his hands all over you, his shirt half-undone, revealing tanned skin and a gorgeous body. “Need you to fuck me right now.”

Spencer laughs, perhaps a little incredulously, and he instead moves to take his shirt off instead. “I’ll- I’ll do that.”

“Good,” you say, distracted as you admire Spencer’s frame, the lines of his body, the softness of his stomach. He’s so hot you might die. “Very good.”

“I’m glad you like the view,” Spencer says, a little timid, like he’s shy to show off in front of you. He meets your gaze when you look up at him, caught in the middle of ogling him with no shame. 

You smile up at him sheepishly. “Please fuck me, Spencer.”

“Okay,” Spencer smiles, warm and gentle. He helps you slide your pants and underwear off your legs before you spread them. Spencer’s jaw drops, his eyes focused on the slick mess of your cunt. “Oh, my God.”

“Yeah?” you laugh, thoroughly amused with his reaction. “Show me how much you want me, too.”

Spencer’s hands are quick to push down his bottoms, dress slacks and boxer-briefs on your floor in an instant, wrapping a fist around himself as he works himself up for you. You can’t tear your eyes off of him – “Spencer, you’re… big.”

“Am I?” Spencer asks, and you’d lose your mind if you weren’t expecting Spencer to fuck your brains out. 

“You are,” you say calmly, because if you let yourself sound any more excited he might think you were insane. “But I can take you.”

Spencer grins. “Good.”

His fingers press against your cunt after you tell him to do so. His slender digits pick up all the slick that’s leaking from your hole, spreading it around messily as he toys with your clit. You shudder with the sensation, throwing your head back against the pillows. Then, one of his fingers slips into you, and he coaxes you open with a care you haven’t felt from most partners before. “How’s that?”

“So nice,” you groan, getting used to the feeling. He fucks you on his fingers, slow and careful, intent on stretching you out until you’re comfortable. You whimper and whine, feeling embarrassed at how vocal you’re being, but Spencer is kissing your breasts without a care in the world, and then you’re thinking about letting him know that you do feel good. Your next gasp is less ashamed, as Spencer coaxes a second finger in.

You’re panting as Spencer fucks you on his fingers, the repeated motion only working you up even more. The squelch from his fingers fucking you is obscene, and his eyes are wide as he looks at you. “You’re perfect,” he whispers. 

“Fuck me, Spence,” you say. 

Spencer bites his lip as he sits up and settles between your legs. He’s tugging at his cock as he lines himself up with your entrance. He slides his length along your folds, wet with your slick, and you groan at the friction. You grunt, wanting more, “Come on, Spence.” 

His hand on your leg, Spencer leans forward so he can press into you, and Spencer is practically folding you in half so he can fuck you. You moan at his thickness deep inside of you, filling you up, and the stretch is so undeniably amazing. Spencer’s length drags against your walls, such a delicious sensation deep in your bones, and you sob a little.

“Does that feel good?” Spencer asks softly, his voice tender. 

“So good, Spence,” you gasp. Spencer kisses your cheek, down your neck, and waits patiently for you to give him the go-ahead.

You feel his cock twitching inside of your heat, both your fantasies unable to live up to the real thing. Confident, cocky Spencer in your dreams is just that – a dream. The Spencer right in front of you is perfect, more perfect than what you’ve dreamed: shy but so attentive and sweet. He takes such good care of you. It makes you lose your mind a little bit.

“Fuck me,” you insist, and Spencer puts his hands on your hips as he starts to move. He fucks you deep, just the way you need him, and you cry out as he digs into your soft flesh, holding you tight so he can fuck you hard. The way Spencer pounds into you has your whole body trembling, pleasure coursing through you like electricity, till your mouth has fallen open and your toes are curling. 

“You’re so much better than I imagined,” Spencer groans, eyes squeezed shut as he puts all his energy into railing you. “Can’t believe this is real.”

You clench around him just to hear him moan, and you’re proud of yourself when his hips stutter and a groan rips through his throat in his pleasure. He glares at you. You grin, as Spencer keeps fucking you.

“What- Oh, fuck– What did you imagine? With me?” You gasp, as Spencer rolls his hips in a particularly deep thrust.

Spencer squeezes his eyes shut, before looking down at you, like he’s really contemplating if he should say this. “I– I pictured bending you over the interrogation table. Fucking you, making you scream my name, taking you right there, I–”

You moan as Spencer hits that perfect spot inside of you, your legs trembling as you gasp, “I– Why did we have the same fucking fantasy? Fuck–”

“What? You thought of me that way too?” Spencer sounds incredulous, like he can’t imagine you thinking of him that way– As if he isn’t drilling you into the hotel bed right now.

“Fuck, Spencer– Oh, my God– Yeah, I– You had me pinned down on the table, and you were fucking me in the interrogation room, in front of all of them–”

“God, you’re perfect,” Spencer grunts, burying his head in your shoulder as he uses the leverage to fuck you deeper, harder, faster. You can’t stop moaning Spencer’s name, simply too overwhelmed with the pleasure he’s giving you, the way he’s fucking you into the mattress. This is all you’ve ever wanted. Spencer fucking you like a madman, giving you all the pleasure you need but still being greedy enough to take and take and take. 

“Please! Spencer, you– I’m gonna cum, I can’t–” You cry, sobs wracking their way from your throat, so loud but you can’t be bothered to keep yourself quiet. Spencer groans your name, a sweet, sultry sound, and you feel like you’re going to lose your mind. 

“Cum for me,” Spencer hums. “You’re so perfect, and you’re laid out like this all for me. You’re so fucking hot. Show me how good I make you feel.”

You’re sobbing as your orgasm hits you, overwhelmed by Spencer’s filthy words and his filthier actions, so intense as he fucks you into next week. It’s too good, and you lose yourself much sooner than you expect. Your pussy clenches tight around Spencer with your orgasm, sending him over the edge as he fills you up, cock twitching as he cums inside of you.

He collapses on top of you, his weight comfortable as you both catch your breath. Your mouth feels dry, but you don’t care when Spencer is leaning over to kiss you again. It feels so right, this wild feeling you only thought existed in your dreams.

The next morning when the team is gathered in the hotel lobby to head to the hangar to fly back to Quantico, Emily gives you a pointed look, and Rossi is clapping Spencer on the back with a knowing grin. You apologise sheepishly, while Spencer grows red, avoiding eye contact with the rest of the team. He only meets your eyes, and the two of you share a smile. You can tell neither of you want this to end here. Maybe you’ll talk about it when you get back home. 

[danidrabbles]

Cardinal

Pairing: Logan Howlett ("Worst" Wolverine) x f!reader

Rating: Explicit (for themes and smut).

Word count: 16.6k

Summary: At the edge of the world, someone from another keeps you from stepping off.

Tags/Warnings (Please, read the warnings!!): Post-Deadpool & Wolverine, female reader (female anatomy etc + 2 mentions of hair long enough to fall into your eyes), strangers-to-lovers, depression, suicidal ideations, suicide attempt and mentions thereof, addiction, drinking alcohol, drugs (mentioned not used), panic attacks, sobriety meetings, anxiety, recovery, co-dependency vibes, sprinkles of soulmateism, explicit smut (oral and unprotected PIV), happy ending (yay!!). If I forgot anything, please let me know!

Notes: Deadpool and Wolverine re-triggered my X-Men obsession and what started as a means to write some smut actually became this idea about two broken people who shouldn't even have met in the first place finding each other. There's a lot of me in this story, more than there's ever been I think. I'm sorry for this glimpse into my head, and I'm sorry if this isn't as Reader-insert as it should be, but... I'm not that sorry, you know. Huge thanks to @javier-pena , for not only reading this over and fixing so many embarrassing mistakes, but also for saying she'd read this even if it was 20k words and always believing in my abilities as a writer, even when I sometimes didn't.

If you want to read the smut as a standalone, you can! Just CTRL + F (or search in page) for 'Logan reaches for' and read away.

THE LOOKOUT

With closed eyes, you inhale the cool, December air, before looking down at your feet. Here, at the edge of the lookout, the grass has been trampled. You imagine friends taking bets on who dares get closest to the edge, lovers making memories, families taking pictures. It’s strangely soothing that maybe you’re not the first to stand here to do this. 

Far below your feet, the water laps at the rocks. The force of it depends on the weather and tonight it’s violent, with big splashes and crashing sounds. The wind tugs at your coat, pulling you towards the water as if to help you along, making you look up again as you hold your balance. In front of you, the line of the horizon is dark but visible – it would have been impossible to make out if the moon hadn’t been as bright as it is.

It’s like you’re looking at the edge of the world.

During the weeks that fall had made way for winter, you scoped the place out a couple times. The first time you stood at this cliff’s edge, the place it took you to mentally scared you so much that you got back into your car and broke down in tears. The next couple times, things became more and more serious, as your life crumbled around you, and your feelings numbed, and nothing seemed to matter anymore.

Something had crept in while you weren’t looking, settling somewhere behind your eyes and spreading out to make a home behind your ribs, slowly but surely changing you. And once you realized it, it was already too late. It had grown large, became jilted and jealous, like it wanted all of you. It pushed away everyone and everything you held dear, until it was just you and that… something.

Especially during the quiet of the night, the lookout became soothing, a strange sense of familiarity enveloping you each time you were here. It was addictive and pretty soon, it became a daily routine to visit. But lately it’s been losing its shine, your feelings here dulling and darkening too. You’re exhausted, fed up, tired of giving it more of you.

Today you want it to be your last time here. 

You’ve had countless hours to contemplate what it would be like, imagined – all but romanticised – how the cold water would paralyse your limbs if the impact wouldn't do the trick. You read somewhere that it’s apparently like falling asleep when the water finally fills your lungs. You’ll be gone, but the thing will be too.

The thought makes your eyes fill with tears, but not from fear. All you feel is relief, like it’s right, how it’s supposed to be. It makes you smile despite everything, and–

“Hey, stop!”

A voice behind you thunders through the silence and makes you shriek into the night, dirt toppling over the edge of the lookout below the shuffle of your foot. A string of curses follows, heavy footfalls behind you indicating that the intruder is approaching you.

“Fuck off!” you throw over your shoulder, your voice a roar with how it’s amplified by the wind. 

After, your throat closes up, fighting the angry tears over the fact that you can’t even fucking kill yourself in peace. Never have you seen anyone here at night, never. What you hate even more is how it breaks your momentum. The haze that was surrounding you is pierced, and your body’s baser instincts kick in. Adrenaline suddenly pumps through your veins, making your legs tremble, your heart hammer, your body scream for you to step back from where you’re standing. Your anger, however, has you nailed to the floor. 

You almost miss the much softer, “Hey,” as a man steps into your peripheral vision. You pretend like you don’t hear him, or see him – you simply pretend he isn’t there, focussing on getting back into your previous mindset. 

But then he takes his hands out of his pockets.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you warn, hating how your voice comes out trembling – weak.

“Easy.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

You stand there together for what feels like hours. You will yourself to not let it affect you, setting your jaw to keep your teeth from clattering on account of the cold, allow the wind to blow your hair into your eyes without brushing it away. Even when it begins to rain, you don’t move, don’t blink even once more than you need to. From the corner of your eye you watch the man shove his hands back in the pockets of the brown leather jacket he’s wearing, and you quietly celebrate that your surroundings are fazing him more than they are you.

“You know–” he begins.

“I’m not really looking for a conversation.”

“Me neither,” he immediately counters, suddenly impatient, “so I’ll get right to it: You planning on jumping? Because if you think the water’s gonna be nice to you, you’ve got that wrong. You’ll end up in there feeling everything, that fall isn’t gonna do shit.”

Having expected a gentle approach, his bluntness and his tone knock the wind out of you. You cock your jaw, the shame creeping up your body the first bit of warmth you’ve felt in a while. Your cold fingers ball to fists as you will yourself not to care. Yes, his words and the way he's shatteríng your expectations with them sting, but you don’t even know this guy–

“And there’s nothing fuckin’ peaceful about it, it’s just panic. Right before you go too far…” He raises a fist and holds it against the center of his chest, “...there’s this burning right here that’s hell.”

“And what makes you such an expert?” you finally spit out.

“Died like that a couple times,” he says without waiting a beat.

The casual statement of something so bizarre beats your resolve before you know it, your head turning in his direction. “‘A couple times’?”

“I, uh…” You watch him hesitate, the moonlight illuminating the tick of his jaw, the bob of his throat as he swallows, the way his chest falls as he sighs, “Let’s just say I can’t die.”

Before you can stop yourself, you snort at that. “That must fucking suck.”

He barks out a laugh, “Got that right.” It startles you when his head suddenly turns to you, when he looks you in the eye for the first time. “But trust me, being down there isn’t much better.”

There’s something in the way he looks at you that makes you waver. You can’t really place it, or decipher why it makes you want to open up to him. Maybe it’s because you’re freezing and it’s your body betraying you, tricking you into moving so you can generate some warmth, moving your lips to keep them from going blue. Or maybe it’s simply because he’s a stranger and it’s so much easier to be honest when there are no consequences.

“Things just feel so…,” you begin, voice shaky. Every possible way to end the sentence crosses your mind, seemingly all wrong, before you settle on what’s closest to how you feel, “endless.”

To your relief, he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t tell you to give it time that it will get better, or any of the other bullshit you’ve heard from all the other people that had been in your life and left a long time ago. You do find something else in the shift in his eyes, something you haven’t encountered before.

Understanding.

It might be worse. If anything, it’s overwhelming, making your eyes dart away from his as you sniff. 

The wind still tugs at you, the waves still hit the rocks, but your moment seems to have passed. It’s a sobering conclusion, a twisted version of wrong place, wrong time. Or maybe it was him who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, the outcome is the same.

You take a step back, and another, but it takes considerable effort; you hadn’t taken your numb legs into consideration. You stumble, falling back on the dewy, cold grass, not quick enough to catch yourself on your hands. With a groan, you move to sit upright.

“Shit. Hey, you still with me?” The stranger kneels next to you, fingers lifting your chin to look into your eyes. “Jesus, you’re fucking freezing.”

“No s-sh-hit,” you retort.

He sighs, offering you a hand so he can pull you up. “C’mon, let's get you warmed up.”

– – – – –

Logan.

That’s his name. 

It’s how he introduced himself, anyway, after he suggested you follow him. To his credit, he did offer to drive you, but you didn’t want to leave your car in the parking lot of the lookout. Logan waited 15 minutes for you while you put the blowers on the highest, warmest setting and waited for the feeling to return to your limbs. After, his brown truck led the way here – here being some hole in the wall, 24 hour diner. You could have not followed, but the drive was kind of mesmerizing; the night seemed darker than usual, and Logan’s tail lights served as a lighthouse.

Outside, the diner is all Christmas lights and flashing signs, but the interior is like something straight out of Twin Peaks; booths to the left, red barstools to the right, a girl that looks too pretty and too young to be here standing behind the counter. There were two other patrons you spotted along the way as Logan led you to one of the back booths. Once seated, Logan studied the pamphlets–or pretended to, more like, because as soon as the waitress came up he ordered two whiskeys and nothing else.

Between then and now, as you nursed your drink sip by careful sip, you hadn’t learned much more about him other than that he could knock back a glass of whiskey like he got paid to do so. And in truth, you like it this way; preferring silent company, the droning of the machinery behind the counter and the quiet hum of a song on the jukebox next to the entrance. The white noise helps to distract from the white noise in your head. Settling back into the leather cushions of the booth, you let some warmth seep back into your body. Opposite you, Logan does the same. 

Some moments after you finish your drink, one of the waitresses walks up to your booth to ask you about a refill, like she’s asked Logan twice now. You’re handing her the glass when Logan says, “She’s had enough.”

Your head whips from her to him. “Excuse me?”

He doesn’t say anything, and from the corner of your eye, you see the girl leave. With your glass. Logan’s is on his lips, his eyes observing you over the rim, looking at you like he– Dammit. You sigh deeply, a sense of anger filling you. You don’t need this, least of all from him. When you stand from the booth, those eyes follow you, making you voice your observations,

“Quit pitying me, Logan.”

“I’m not,” he says before taking another sip. “You still have to drive.”

You quirk an eyebrow at him. “And you don’t?”

Logan shrugs. “It’s different for me.”

Anger is still prevalent in your voice when you ask, “Well, let me guess, it’s another case of ‘I died like that a couple times’?” 

He hums.

“And how does that work?”

“Regenerative ability,” he sighs. Another sip before he elaborates, “X-Gene.” 

The admission makes you plop back down in your seat. Well, that explains things – he’s a mutant. You’re not familiar with that world, but you know enough to know it meant that. It isn’t like you couldn’t have deduced it before, but truthfully, you kind of thought he was bullshiting you as part of some tactic. Now, his actions and words make more sense: He really knows what it’s like to... That’s why he had that look on his face. Suddenly, you see him in a different light–

“Now who’s pitying who, hmm?” Logan asks, giving you a thin-lipped smile that doesn't reach his eyes as he sets his glass down on the table.

“I’m not, I’m just… processing. So this...” you lift his glass, swirl the contents around, “...doesn’t even affect you?”

“It does. For a few seconds.” He plucks the glass back from your hand, and throws the whiskey back with one gulp. His pupils dilate, pushing the hazel of his irises out until his eyes are almost black for a second, two… before going back to normal. “But if I chugged the bottle, I’d pass out.”

“Well, so would I,” you say with a chuckle. “So maybe we’re not that different after all.”

Just as the corner of his mouth lifts, your smile falls, because… it isn’t true; you’re very different. You’re pretty sure you don’t have what it takes to do what he did tonight. To care enough to do it. To sit with a stranger and hear them bitch and moan about being denied a drink. A feeling creeps up on you, sticky and uncomfortable, like you’ve overstayed your welcome—burdened him.

“I should head home,” you say, standing again.

Lightning fast, Logan’s hand shoots out to close around your wrist. “That really where you’re going?”

“Yes,” you reply. When you pull your hand back, he doesn’t let up. You fish your car key out of your pocket with your free hand, voice tighter when you say, “Let me go.”

“Just promise me something,” he says, eyes as dark as they’d been earlier, yet his drink has gone untouched since. “Don’t go back there again.”

“Not making promises I can’t keep,” you say, giving him a wry smile. “To strangers, but least of all to myself.”

He sighs, and lets you pull yourself from his hold.

THE CRAVING

New Years comes and goes, and you quickly discover that it was foolish superstition to think that it might change how you feel.

You find yourself in some club, a drink in each hand. You hate to admit it, but Logan’s words scared you out of your original idea and the only time you can bear to think of how to move on from it is when alcohol soothes the embarrassing grief of your shattered, macabre fantasy. It’s not a good way to deal with things, but it works.

There’s a part of you that welcomes feeling anything at all, but that… something inside you is busy trying to squash it. 

It’s getting somewhere, because you have no idea how much you’ve already had to drink, but you’re buzzing pleasantly. Adding to it, you knock both drinks back, slamming the glasses on the bar before spinning around and facing the crowd of dancing bodies. The music sucks, the dance floor is cramped, you’re tired… The truth is that you’re too old for this, but it’s easy to escape here, surrounded by strangers. You clumsily drag the back of your hand over your wet mouth, push your sweaty hair from your eyes, and join them.

The past couple weeks, you found yourself craving something. Contact. And here is where you can get your fill; a hand on your waist, lips on your ear, the music too loud and yourself too drunk to even comprehend what’s being said, but never more. You want them to get close, but never too close.

After some time – could be an hour, could be 10 minutes – you make your way to the bathroom. It’s quieter here, the dulled thump of the music making the time you spend there feel slow and syrupy. 

When you exit the stall, you bump into someone.

It’s a man. The dark hood over his head obscures his eyes, but you can’t help but think he’s looking right at you when a bright, almost unnatural grin appears on his face. It draws you in like a magnet, more so when he says, “Need something to take the edge off?” 

Curiously, you watch as he opens his palm, long fingers unfurling slowly until they reveal a small plastic bag in his hand. 

“First time’s on the house.”

You have no idea what it is exactly, but your eyes widen. This is new territory for you, and all the possibilities it opens up are suddenly invading your mind. As if on auto-pilot, you reach for the place where you keep your money, the sound of the door opening completely lost on you.

A hand closes around your bicep, pulling you aside with a quick yank of an arm.

“She isn’t interested, pal.” 

It’s another man, who effortlessly tucks you half behind him. Before you can protest beyond an indignant huff, there’s a sound, like a sword being unsheathed, and you catch a flash of red, and of knives. Frowning, you try to get a better look, but your view is obscured by the man’s shoulder. The hooded man seems undeterred, regarding the weapons with the same sickening grin, before leaving the bathroom, muttering something that you don’t understand on the way out. The sword sound returns, the man twists around, and–

“Logan?” you slur in disbelief. 

Logan doesn’t reply, instead takes hold of your arm again, making you follow him out of the bathroom. There he stops the two of you to murmur something to a woman wearing the same clothes as him, before tugging you along again. You’re stumbling after him on account of his pace and the iron grip he has on you as he leads you to the back door. He pushes it open with enough force to make the hinges creak, a gust of wind blowing in your face. It’s a contrast to go from the crowded, sweaty club to the silent, cold back-alley where tall brick walls and employee cars cage you in. You shake your arm and Logan’s grip loosens – another and he lets you go.

“How did you even find–” You cut yourself off, eyes widening, “Oh, my god, are you following me?”

Logan scoffs, narrowing his eyes. “Oh, please, do you think I have time to follow you around all day?”

“You’re here, aren’t you? You and your fucking…,” you gesture wildly into the air at him, “savior complex.”

“I work here,” he growls. When you give him a look, he adds, “It’s temporary. ‘Sides, me and my savior complex are the reason that creep isn’t selling god knows what to you in that bathroom right now!” His voice is a roar, echoing off the walls around you.

“Maybe I wanted that creep to sell god knows what to me in that bathroom,” you say, doing a poor impression of his voice, before turning and walking away from him.

Logan sighs. “Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.”

“And then what, huh?”

“I don’t fucking know, Logan,” you say, twisting around to face him again, arms spread out by your side. “Figure out a new way out of this.”

“Yeah? Third time’s the charm?”

“Why do you even care, huh? You don’t even know me,” you say. Almost immediately, you let out a bitter laugh as your own words hit your ears, a sad realization dawning on you. “But I guess that makes two of us.”

It’s not like you expected him to, but he doesn’t answer.

“You know I used to like myself? I used to smile, I used to have friends, I used to be more sober than drunk. But this feeling, it takes… everything.” You raise a fist, hold it to the center of your chest. “It takes everything I love, pushes away everyone I love, including myself. It eats me up, and wants more and more, until I’m something I’m not and until I’m so far away from that version of myself, my old self, that it feels easier to just fucking–” you pause with a wet gasp for air.

“Destroy yourself,” Logan finishes for you.

Your chest heaves, an unshed tear clings to your lash line. “Exactly.”

He takes a step closer to you. “Let me take you home,” he says, voice gentle. 

You should hate the implications of that gentleness, but you don’t. In your drunk state of mind, it’s easier to admit it’s nice that someone understands, that someone’s there to stop you from going too far… 

Tomorrow, when some of your pragmatism returns, you’ll deny this embarrassing thought ever occurred; if relying on other people worked, it would have worked a long time ago, and you wouldn’t be standing here with him. If you’re lucky, you might even forget this entirely, and wake up with a hangover that you’ll enjoy a little too much because it feels like a punishment–

“What about your job?” you ask with a sniff.

Logan’s palm finds the space between your shoulder blades with a gentle push, the warmth of it seeping in through your clothes, and he leads you to his truck. “They’ll manage without me.”

– – – – –

When you wake, your world is tilted sideways, a blanket is pulled up to your chin and there's a pillow under your head. They’re not your own; the blanket is itchy and the pillow’s too small. When you try to move your legs, they stick uncomfortably to the material below them, and you realize you’re on a leather couch. You squint at the light that comes in from a window across from you–

“Mornin’, sunshine.”

The voice startles you, eyes shifting to focus on the source: A man lying on his front on the floor, chin in his hands as he kicks his feet back and forth in the air. 

“Wish I could say it’s a pleasure, but it hasn’t been very pleasurable. You’ve been barfing up the place since the moment you stepped inside. Kept poor Al up all night. Her ears are sensitive,” he adds with a whisper. “But don’t worry, she left about an hour ago.”

“Who are you?” you slur, blinking against the light.

“Logan.” He sighs when you frown. “I know, not how you remember. This is what I look like during the day; blessed with incredible good looks at night and, well,” he gestures at his face that’s covered in scars, "this, during the day. Bit of a reverse Princess Fiona situation–”

“Cut it out, Wade,” comes the sharp protest from next to you. With considerable effort, you turn your head and see the actual Logan, slumped back in a recliner next to the couch, rubbing some sleep out of his eyes while motioning for the other man to go.

“I’ll let you two talk.” Wade winks.

Logan stands when Wade does, walking from your field of view. Your head is scrambling to catch up, trying to piece together what happened last night, but only coming up with bits and pieces.

“How are you feeling?” Logan asks as he makes his way back to you, handing you a glass of water.

You flinch when the front door closes behind Wade with a bang, before taking the glass from Logan and taking a few thankful sips. “Like shit.”

“Yeah,” is all he says as he sits back down.

“What–”

“You fell asleep in the car. Didn’t know where to take you, figured the couch was the safest place.”

“Oh…,” you say, voice small. 

You try not to think about being so wasted that you had to be carried out of Logan’s car, or about what Wade said earlier about the things that happened as soon as you stepped inside the apartment. During your silence, Logan’s fingers fiddle with the armrest, before his hand balls into a fist, and it unlocks something in your hazy memory.

“I have the weirdest memory of you having… a sword?”

You watch as Logan’s lips purse in amusement. His tongue rolls around in his mouth, seemingly contemplating something, before saying, “You probably saw these.” He holds up his fist, flexing his forearm before three blades shoot from between his knuckles like claws, accompanied by a shing!

“Jesus fucking Christ,” you startle, spilling some water on your blanket. Your head spins with your hangover and the bizarity of the situation. If it didn’t sound so much like how it did in your memory, you might think you were still drunk. 

There’s so many things you want to ask, your intrigue almost winning out over your hangover until the sharp start of a headache gives you pause. Instead, you take another sip of water before rubbing your temple.

“It’s a story for another time,” Logan says, like he can read your mind, and you want to ask him that, too. His claws retreat, the cuts they leave between his knuckles immediately smoothing over until they’re gone. “I gotta go check if I still have a job.”

The words make you feel warm all over, the memory of your back-alley conversation coming back in full force. The thought of the things you admitted to him and that you put him in the position that he had to risk his job for you make you feel even warmer, your gaze no doubt laced with embarrassment and worry when you look at him.

“‘S not your fault,” Logan assures, standing and fishing his car key from the pocket of his jeans. “You don’t have to rush but um, make sure you close the door behind you on the way out. Gets jammed sometimes.”

“Yeah, okay,” you say, watching as he makes his way to the front door. 

He takes a final glance at you over his shoulder, then leaves, accompanied by a bang.

THE PUZZLE

It takes you a little over a week to muster up the courage to go back. Admittedly, your courage is aided by another, foreign feeling. You don’t have a name for it yet, or maybe you’re afraid to call it what it is, but somewhere along the week, you became consumed with the thought that feeling like you did wasn’t all there was. That there is something beyond this. 

Perhaps foreign wasn’t the right way to describe it, because it is something you’ve felt before – it’s just been long dormant. The last time, it lasted about a month before it all came crashing down, and you swore you wouldn’t fall for it again, but you can’t help it. The feeling’s too sweet, and the idea that there’s still some baser instinct willing you to keep fighting for yourself makes you feel like the sun is shining on you. 

So yeah, maybe you’re just having one of your good weeks, where the thing sleeps – quiet while its presence still simmers. But you figured now’s your chance to take advantage of its unguarded moment.

Sneaking into the building is surprisingly easy. It helps that it isn’t anything fancy. You wanted to forego the humiliation of ringing the bell and him not letting you in, but standing in front of the door now, panting after climbing three flights of stairs, you don’t know if this is much better. 

Just when you’re about to knock, the door swings open. In the opening, Logan has one arm in his jacket, head twisted to watch the other that’s caught halfway in the sleeve. It takes him almost bumping into you to realize your presence. “Shit, sorry.” He steadies himself with a hand on your arm, the touch leaving you as fast as it appeared.

“Hi,” you breathe, taking a step back to give him a little more space.

He nods in greeting. “Brings you here?”

It takes you a moment, caught off guard by him skipping over pleasantries and cutting right to the chase, despite your best intentions; it’s not that he’s ever been any different in his interactions with you.

“I came by because I, um, owe you an apology, for my behavior at your workplace and for, you know…,” you trail off, gesturing at the door.

“Barfing up the place!” comes a shout from inside the apartment. 

Logan’s eyes close with a sigh, before he steps into the hallway with you and closes the door with a bang. 

“That,” you finish sheepishly. “I’m really sorry.”

He nods in acknowledgement.

“I also wanted to ask, um, if you want to come with me to get a coffee. To make it up to you.”

Logan just looks at you, the leather of his jacket creaking as he crosses his thick arms in front of his chest. He raises an eyebrow at you expectantly. You hate how he somehow can see right through you, how he makes you elaborate, and honest.

“I want to quit drinking,” you say, fiddling with the sleeve of your coat. “It doesn’t make me better, and when I don’t do it I finally feel a little… normal. Maybe coffee’s technically just as bad, but it’s the only thing that’s currently acting like… like a reverse gateway drink? And I feel like you’re the only person I know that might get that feeling of–”

“I do,” Logan cuts in, voice softer than before – assuring. His arms drop from where they’re crossed and he starts making his way to the stairs. “Let’s go.”

– – – – –

You don’t know this coffee place, and from the way he looks around and shifts around in a chair that might be a bit too small for him, neither does Logan. Main reason you picked it is because the booths remind you a little too much of a bar – and you like the tall windows. The coffee’s pretty decent.

“Did they fire you?” you ask, picking at a loose corner of one of the laminated menus before setting it back in its holder.

“Boss commended me for helping a customer, but not so much for leaving before my shift ended,” Logan replies. “Got off with a warning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Said that already, and I accepted,” he says. When he takes a sip of the coffee, he winces. “No need to worry about it anymore, okay? I would do it again.”

You nod, folding your hands around the warm cup in front of you.

“But, um, Wade hasn’t shut up about… the incident.” There’s a different tone to his voice, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. “His words.”

“You know, I kind of get the feeling that Wade doesn’t shut up about a lot of things.” It comes out a little meaner than you intend, but it makes Logan laugh and finally slump back in his chair a little. 

“You’re a quick study.”

Offering him a short smile in return, you continue with the other real reason you came to see him, before you chicken out. “I also stopped by because I wanted to, uh… because I realized I never really… I never… I never thanked you, for um… And–”

With a shake of his head, Logan sits upright. “Y’don’t–”

To your horror, your eyes brim with tears, “Logan, I’m supposed to be dead–”

“So am I,” he counters. He lets the words hang between the two of you for a moment, until you look at him, before he continues, “I’ve been where you are. Past it, even.”

You don’t know what to say to that, if the lump in your throat will even permit you to speak, but it’s impossible to look away from him. Logan’s gaze is piercing, frown ever present, but it’s not from anger. Instead, it’s like he’s searching for something, the right thing, to say. The silence doesn’t bother you; if anything, it makes his words seem more genuine when he does speak,

“I had someone who was annoying enough to not give up on me when I could really use it. If getting a coffee with you that’s, frankly…,” he makes a face as he pauses, “a horrible excuse for a coffee, helps… I can do that. I want to do that.”

The corner of your mouth lifts as you blink away your tears. “Was it Wade?”

Logan lets out a chuckle, and it’s honest – fond. “Yeah.”

“Figured,” you say. “How did you meet him?”

Across from you, Logan stills. You swallow thickly, adjusting yourself in your chair. It’s an innocent question, but maybe it isn’t something he’d like to revisit right now. Logan’s mug squeaks when he grips it tighter, and he looks at you with something like defeat– 

It makes you deflate. This must be what you looked like the night you met…

There’s no way to have prepared for what he tells you next: That he came from another timeline about three months ago, that he and Wade saved this one from being destroyed and almost got killed in the process, that he has nothing to go back to after the death of his team, so he stayed here. 

There’s hesitation in it, like he isn’t telling you the whole story, though you don’t comment on it. He doesn’t owe you anything and you’re too busy putting all the pieces in the Logan-shaped puzzle in your mind together; his words and actions towards you are starting to make more and more sense.

“It’s a very brave thing the two of you did,” you say when he’s finished.

“Hmm, it was all Wade,” Logan muses. “He did it all for the people he cares about.”

“I’m sure you would have done the same if you were in his place.”

At that, he lets out a dry laugh with absolutely no joy behind it. “Do me a favor, don’t put me on a pedestal.”

You frown, but before you can comment, he stands. A knot forms in your stomach, worried you’ve offended him, but he clears up the uncertainty immediately.

“I gotta go but um, Wade’s friends–,” he stops himself, correcting, “our friends are coming over to watch a movie, next week, 7:30. I have no idea what crap they’re going to be watching but… it’s nice. It’ll be nice to be around good people.” Logan doesn’t wait for your answer, simply takes his wallet from his pocket and leaves enough money to cover the bill.

“Wait, no, I invited you,” you protest. “I should–”

“You can pay next time.” 

When you nod, he says his goodbyes with a jerk of his head and makes his way to the door.

– – – – –

You see Logan two more times for coffee that week. He never lets you pay.

THE PANTRY

“–but it’s the best one!” Wade protests, DVD in hand.

“They fly a car into space, Wade,” Laura sighs.

“Launched off a jet,” he corrects. Like it helps.

You cover your mouth with the back of your hand, hiding the smile that appears at everyone’s babbling. Unbeknownst to you, you had found yourself invited to a double feature night, with Wade as the self proclaimed DVDJ. The credits had barely started rolling on A Good Day To Die Hard, or Wade had another DVD at the ready. It was met with the same amount of enthusiasm as when he presented the first.

It hadn’t been easy to make yourself go to this tonight. On your way, you’d thought of turning around at almost every step. Of course, that was all before you knew it would be this fun, and that you’d be relieved you hadn’t canceled last minute. Even meeting everyone hadn’t been as bad as you feared. 

There’s Peter, Wade’s friend. Ellie, another one of Wade’s friends. Yukio, Ellie’s girlfriend. Laura, Logan’s daughter. Mary Puppins, Wade’s small, disgusting but adorable dog, who had greeted you with equal amounts saliva and enthusiasm, before falling asleep next to the TV, completely unbothered by the commotion. Unlike Althea, Logan and Wade’s blind roommate, who had taken one listen to the gaggle of voices and left. The elusive Vanessa, Wade’s ex-but-we-might-get-back-together you heard about a couple times, wasn’t there.

Logan had been right, it was nice to be surrounded by good people. Especially good people who were… unconventional. It made joining them less complicated, less performative, and as the evening progressed it made you a participant instead of a silent observer. Wade even called you, “good for the group dynamic,” and it made you beam with pride.

“Don’t they have like, rockets attached to the car?” Ellie questions, to which Yukio’s eyebrows knit together.

“Exactly!” Wade exclaims, mistaking her confusion for enthusiasm. “Citizen Kane wishes.”

There’s more grumbling from everyone when Wade pops the DVD into the player, and he grumbles something back about how Logan would back him up if he wasn’t in the bathroom because he, quote unquote, goes way back with some of these dudes.

You’re pretty sure he’s the only one who knows what he’s even talking about.

An empty bowl of popcorn rests in your lap, and as you put it on the table, you notice how sticky and greasy your fingers and palms are. When the opening credits begin to roll, you get up to wash your hands, assuring Wade he doesn’t need to pause the movie before you go.

The apartment’s small, so it isn’t far to the kitchen, but it’s nice to stretch your legs. You can still hear the sounds from movie night; tell-tale action movie music, comments of disbelief and Wade shutting them down. They’re more faint, though, more so when you turn the tap on and wash your hands.

Right as you’re finished, you hear a dull thud. You turn the water off, head tilted and at attention while you dry your hands. There’s another sound, like a muffled groan. It’s coming from the pantry, you realize, noting that the door is slightly ajar. There’s a shing! sound followed by a distressed grunt, and before you know it you’re walking over, wrapping your fingers around the door to pull it open–

You’re not sure what it was you were expecting, but it wasn’t this. Logan’s sitting on the floor, uncharacteristically small, curled up against one of the walls. His chest is heaving, shoulders all but going up to his ears with how he’s trying to draw in breaths. Next to him, his fist is balled against the hardwood, claws buried in the floor.

Fuck.

Dropping to your knees, you wedge yourself between his. “It’s okay, you’re having a panic attack,” you explain, your hands landing on his shoulders with a light shake. “You need to breathe. I’ll help you, just look at me.”

Logan’s head stays tipped down, a deep, rattling breath sailing from his mouth as he curls further in on himself.

“Hey!” you say sharply, cupping his jaw with two hands and tilting his face up, “Look at me.” 

Logan’s eyes are wet when they meet yours, moving frantically as they search your face, tears spilling over when he blinks. Something changes in his gaze, like he finally sees it’s you, and his bottom lip begins to tremble. His hand lifts from where it’s buried in the floor, clutching onto your wrist like a lifeline.

“Breathe,” you instruct, trying not to flinch at the sharp claws in front of you. He doesn’t catch on immediately, so you overdo the purse of your lips when you blow out a breath before exaggerating an inhale through your nose, showing him what to do. It starts off shaky, a fresh set of tears falling from Logan’s eyes as he does as you instruct, but after a couple of times you find a rhythm together. The silver between his knuckles slowly disappears. “There you go, good job. Keep going.”

You sit like that, until the wild shift of his eyes stops, his pulse steadies beneath your fingertips, and eventually his eyes close with a deep exhale. His grip on you loosens and you take it as your cue to let go of him, slumping back against the wall opposite him with a sigh of relief. The both of you catch your breath, sitting together in silence until Logan breaks it.

“Came outta nowhere… suddenly I was back there… letting them down.”

“It caught you off guard, it happens–”

“I let them get killed,” he says, voice raw. “They were like– They were my family, they trusted me to be there for them and I… I was too caught up in my own bullshit. I should have been with them, I should be dead with them.”

Logan’s tears still come, but the words almost sound reverent; as if saying them out loud just to punish himself with his own shortcomings is a balm. He’s talking about his team from there, you realize, and something clicks. All this time, you thought this was about him being unable to die due to his mutation, but it’s more than that. It’s shame, remorse, grief, survivor’s guilt, all wrapped into one.

It’s the final piece of your mind puzzle that makes his picture appear.

“How– How can I ever atone for that?” he asks. “How can I ever–”

“Logan, you can't change your past,” you interrupt carefully. “You made your choices and they made theirs, and you honored them by– by…stepping up to the task, by doing what you did with Wade.”

“What if it wasn’t enough?”

“What if it was?” you counter. Your hand finds his knee with a squeeze, before adding, “You did what they would have done. And now you… you need to allow yourself to honor their memory without feeling like you have to destroy yourself to do it. You deserve that.”

Logan blinks at you, eyes still glossy. He looks devastated yet calmer than before, like the emotion is still there, but displaced. For a good while, you sit with him like that while his sniffles lessen and his breathing returns to normal… until there’s a loud explosion coming from the living room. It’s followed by cheers and hollers, and you’re both suddenly reminded of where you are. 

“C’mon,” you say, patting Logan’s knee before using it as leverage to haul yourself up with a groan. You give him room by holding the door open for him. “Better get back before we miss the good stuff.”

Still on the floor, Logan exhales heavily. “Think this was the good stuff.”

– – – – –

Three weeks later, on your way to your third movie night, you catch Wade and Vanessa making out in the building hallway. 

It stops you dead in your tracks and makes for an awkward meeting with Wade’s mystery woman, who is beautiful but very direct when she asks you what the fuck you’re staring at. Wade certainly has a type when it comes to the company he keeps… He quickly shushes the situation, introducing the two of you, and it immediately makes Vanessa’s expression twist into recognition. 

“Nice to meet you,” she says, followed by an apologetic smile. 

You respond in kind. 

When Wade tugs at her jacket impatiently, they brush past you and make their way to the exit. “See you around!” she throws over her shoulder.

A grin forms on your lips, realizing what you just witnessed, and you race up the stairs. With Wade gone, you’re not sure if there will be a movie, but at least you have gossip to share with your friends.

THE MEETING

April flies by, rolls into May, and thing’s are… okay.

With some help, you find a therapist. It’s good, she’s good, but it’s difficult to be confronted with things that are painful, week after week, and to keep reminding yourself it’s all part of the process you’re going through.

Last week, after a particularly difficult session, you’d left her office being auto-piloted by dark feelings, like they knew exactly when to strike. You had turned corners and crossed streets, wandering as you stewed on everything you’d discussed –  like your mind was playing a constant loop of your most painful moments. It was a small miracle you had heard your phone, and that you had the presence of mind to thumb the green button.

You’d answered without saying a word.

“Got any plans?” Logan had asked on the other side of the line.

“No,” you’d replied, coming back to yourself a little bit at the sound of his voice.

“Al’s making her meatballs – she and Wade can’t agree on if they’re famous or infamous. Thought you might like to come. If it tastes like shit, we’ll order in.”

You’d hummed, managing to ask, “What time?”

It had stayed quiet on the other end, and that’s how you’d known he was onto you, could picture the pinch of his brows, his lips forming a thin line. For the first time, you welcomed it—wanted so badly to reach through the phone, shake his shoulders, ask for his help and accept it, like he had done with you weeks ago. 

“Sounds to me like now might be good.”

“Yeah,” you had agreed, the constricting tightness in your chest easing up. “Yeah, I’ll be there soon.” You’d released a shuddering breath, ear still pressed to the phone as you took in your surroundings before you auto-piloted yourself to a different destination. 

“Logan?”

“Still here.”

“Thank you for calling.”

“‘course. Get here soon, I’ll stay on the phone.”

The afternoon had ended with Logan and yourself allowing Althea to boss you around in the small apartment’s kitchen, rolling meatballs, sharing stories — Althea’s recollection of something that happened to her in her 20s that involved her stealing a police horse while wearing nothing but a thong, made you cry from laughing.

The meatballs were the best you ever had, though you couldn’t be sure if they actually were, or if it was just the taste of the moment that was better than anything had been that day. 

Sometime after dinner, Logan had nudged your shoulder to show you a little plastic chip. He flashed it at you long enough that you could read the words one month, before he pocketed it again. Then he suggested you come with him next week. 

“I thought it was bullshit too, but it helps,” he’d explained. “Figured I couldn’t continue to drink whatever that stuff is you call coffee to… avoid my problems.”

You contemplated his suggestion. Things were going well for you in that regard, but your therapist had also recommended you go to one of these things, even if it was just for the community aspect of it. It just made it so… official. Your problems, but most of all, your recovery. You weren’t good at keeping promises to yourself, and this felt like a big commitment. Not to mention the speeches and other people’s problems...

But as Logan told you more about it, the location, how it had been for him, you sensed something else between the lines: He wasn’t just asking for you, he was also asking for himself. Maybe… this was his way of telling you he needed some support. 

That’s how you find yourself inside a high school gymnasium a week later. It’s as gloomy as you expected. Slick floors, gray fold-out chairs set in neat rows, buzzing lights in a high ceiling, and a slightly raised podium with a whiteboard that reads a welcome message in capital letters. 

Unsure of what to do, you follow Logan as he weaves through the crowd to find a seat. As you do, it strikes you that there’s a pretty even distribution of people, with many genders, ages and lifestyles represented. Eventually you take a seat; not quite in the back, but definitely not in the front. 

The whole thing goes by in a blur, but where you expected to be overwhelmed, you feel… connected. Here you are, surrounded by people with different backgrounds, different lives, but all their stories have something you can relate to. Where you thought addiction was the common denominator, it’s actually the desire to turn your lives around that unites you the most.

“Before we end the night I want to circle back to last week, when we spoke about goals, or things we want to work towards,” says the woman leading the meeting – you’re ashamed to admit you already forgot her name. “Does anyone want to share something about that?”

It takes a lot to hide your surprise when Logan raises his hand. 

“Logan! Come on up!” She sounds as surprised as you feel, beckoning him to her.

The plastic chair he sits on creaks when he stands and his boots squeak against the shiny floor as he does as she asks. He looks so out of place on a podium; both larger than life behind the lectern and lost to the space of the stage. He clears his throat as he retrieves a paper from his pocket and unfolds it while his eyes scan the room until they land on yours. You give him a little nod of encouragement, and it kicks him into gear.

“Not good at this stuff, so I’m going to keep it brief,” he starts. 

It earns him a chuckle or two from the other attendees, and you can tell he doesn’t expect it when he looks up from his paper. Your hands clasp together with nerves as you watch him divide his weight from one leg to another, before focussing his gaze back down.

“My life has changed a lot over the past few months. For the first time in a long time, it’s not all bad. Coming here has been good. I’m starting to feel more like I did before–” 

He stops his monotonous droning with a frustrated sigh, stuffing the piece of paper in his pocket and sounding considerably more lively after. 

“I have people I care about again, and um, it scares me. ‘Cause I don’t want to let them down, and every day I feel like I will because of all of my… past shit.” He pauses and swallows hard before he continues, “They show me so much kindness and understanding, that… that even though it’s fucking hard, I want to be able to see myself the way they see me. And allow them to care about me without feeling like I… have to earn it all the time, without destroying myself to do it.” 

You exhale for what feels like the first time in an eternity.

“So, that’s what I’m currently working on.” Logan sighs. “That’s it. Thank you.”

A small applause follows, and you quickly unclasp your hands to join in.

Your palms hurt after.

– – – – –

“It was really nice, what you said in there,” you say, fingers caressing a little plastic chip of your own that you keep safe in your coat pocket. You haven’t felt proud of yourself in a while, but tonight you do.

The evening is nice, the setting sun bathing the city in hues of orange and pink. Your pace is slow and comfortable, your arm occasionally brushing Logan’s when you make room for all the other pedestrians. You didn’t plan on him walking you home, but he insisted and you enjoy the company – it makes you a little sad when you turn onto your street.

Logan scoffs in reply. 

“I’m being serious,” you say, knocking your elbow against his arm on purpose now. “It was nice for people to hear a guy like you say those things. I’m proud of you.”

You swear he blushes. “A guy like me, huh?” he asks, almost amused.

It’s your turn to scoff. “You know what I mean.” 

“A mutant?” He looks at you from the corner of his eye.

“No,” you say, because it’s not what you meant, but the hint of seriousness in his voice and the fact he’s not entirely wrong make you track back. “Well, maybe that, too, but I meant someone who looks like you, allowing themselves to be vulnerable. Sets a nice example.”

Logan doesn’t shoot your comments down like you expect. Instead, he seems to consider your words, maybe he even silently accepts the compliment. “Think you have some things to say that could set a nice example, too.”

“Maybe next time.”

During the comfortable silence that follows, you’re reminded of something you’ve been considering for weeks now. You hadn’t paid much attention to it since that night, but as you worked through the feelings that got you to that point, the question kept coming back.

“I’ve been wondering something,” you begin. “The night we met... What were you doing at the lookout?”

Logan glances at you, contemplating the question. “When I had just, um, gotten here, it wasn’t always easy to adjust, you know? So I went to all these places that I knew from back there, to ground myself, to see that things may be different, but that they’re not that different.”

“You went there on your side?”

He hums.

“By yourself?”

He hums again.

“Did you…” You hesitate to finish your sentence, both because you’re not sure if you have any right to ask and because you’ve reached your building. You stop walking, and Logan follows your lead. 

“No, no, no, I… I can’t explain it, it’s just one of those places I was always drawn to,” Logan says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans with a shrug. His brows furrow suddenly, his mind seemingly lost in something before his eyes flick back to yours. “Think it took me coming over here to find reason in it.”

It’s a thought that’s equal parts sad and lovely. 

The silence that follows hangs between you, thick with something you can’t place, but Logan doesn’t look away from you, eyes scanning your face before they land back on yours. You can’t help thinking that maybe this is how he does it, and the question comes out before you can help it,

“Is mind reading part of the X-Gene thing?”

His eyes widen – amusement or surprise, you can’t say. “It can be.” 

“Can you do it?”

“No,” he says. “And it’s for the best, fucking hurts when you can’t control it.” Then the start of a smile begins to form on his lips. “‘sides, I don’t know if I would have a lot of… consideration for people’s boundaries.”

It makes you chuckle. “Right. Not to mention some minds are probably a lot – imagine reading Wade’s mind.”

“Hurts to even imagine,” Logan says, gesturing for you to be quiet as he winces, but a smile breaks through anyway. When your shared laughter dies down, he jerks his chin at the building behind you, “This your place?”

“Wha–?” Going home long forgotten in the moment, you glance over your shoulder. “Oh! Yes.”

“All right,” he nods. “See you next week?”

“Definitely,” you reply.

“Oh,” Logan says right before you turn around. “Bring coffee? You owe me.”

You make a face at him. “You don’t have to– I’ll get you something else, I know you don’t like it.”

“I like it when I drink it with you.”

It’s incredibly hard to hide your grin. “Okay, I’ll bring coffee. See you next week, Logan.”

“See you.” 

He lingers, watching you climb the steps, waiting until the door opens after you turn your key in the lock. It’s not until you close the door, when you can only make out his silhouette through the patterned glass window in it, that he walks off.

THE SUMMER

Walking back from a very successful job interview, you find yourself on your way to your friends with a big, plastic bottle of coke under your arm. It’s a warm feeling to know that you’ll soon have a job that suits you and that you have people to celebrate with; you look forward to seeing them and sharing this with them.

You’re invited inside with open arms, tight hugs, exclaimed praise and congratulations, and it makes you giddy, a feeling so foreign that you wish you could bottle it up right this instant. With a grin, you shake the Coca Cola bottle, before twisting the cap off. You let out an excited shout as you watch the foam shoot out from the top, bubbles and dark liquid pulsing down the neck of the bottle as cheers surround you.

It’s not champagne, but Althea grumbles about the soda ruining her floors, Wade gets mismatched glasses from the cupboard, and Logan clinks his glass to yours and tells you he’s proud of you.

It’s way better than champagne.

– – – – –

You’re in serious, desperate need of a new place… 

The August heat is relentless, and the entire building’s AC isn’t working. It’s with considerable effort that you manage to make your way to your friends’ place, the promise of a constant, cold stream of wind the only thing that keeps you going. But when the front door opens, it isn’t with the welcoming, cool waft of air you were hoping for. Instead, there’s no temperature change, only Wade in his underwear.

“No.” It’s a little embarrassing how you literally pout, but these are desperate times. “Here, too?”

“If it wasn’t this fucking hot I’d be offended by that greeting.” He sighs. “Come in.”

Slightly defeated, you shuffle past the threshold, while Wade lingers. Mary Puppins trots by, an ice-pack wrapped in a towel secured on her back, and you catch a glimpse of Logan exiting the bedroom. He’s in black shorts and a ribbed, sleeveless shirt, and with a desperate groan, he lets himself fall back into the recliner in the living room. 

“Tried everything, there’s no fixing that fucking thing.”

Wade makes a face, “Listen, I know what you’re thinking: Wade’s in his underwear, Logan’s emerging from the bedroom… But we didn’t fuck, it’s not that kind of st–”

“Who are you talking to?” you ask from behind him, glancing over his shoulder into the empty hallway.

“No one–You!” The door closes with a bang.

Confused, you walk further into the apartment. “Well, telling me you didn’t is just going to make me think that you did.” Wade darts past you and takes a seat on the couch, but you hang back and lean against the kitchen table to avoid sitting on leather.

Wade suddenly turns to face you. “Did I ever tell you about our time in The Void?”

“Wade,” Logan warns.

Wade’s eyes are sparkling with mischief and you can’t deny how fun it is to indulge the way he pushes Logan’s buttons. It’s a good distraction from how you’re drenched in sweat. And you’re actually curious.

You play your part, letting out a faux-scandalised gasp. “Did you..?”

“Oh, yeah, baby. Wolverine goes both ways. All the ways, really.” He grins. “We’re so alike.”

“Shut up. Both of you.” Logan groans, lacking any real threat as he adjusts in his seat and wipes some sweat off his brow. “It’s too fucking hot to be annoyed.”

It isn’t lost on you he doesn’t deny a thing.

– – – – –

Apartments look weird with nothing in them.

It’s what crossed your mind after you finished packing up your place three days ago, and it crosses your mind now as you look into the open space of your new one from the doorway. It’s a pleasant, late summer day; perfect weather to move, which was on your schedule for today.

“Incoming!” comes from behind you, followed by quick, heavy steps.

You jump aside as Ellie sails through the door, carefully setting a big box marked “Kitchen” down in its designated area, followed by Logan who is balancing three boxes at once. After a beat, Yukio follows, holding a single table lamp in her hand. It takes some effort not to laugh, not just because of how funny it looks, but also because you relate; after all the exhausting late nights you pulled packing up, that’s also the kind of energy you’re bringing to this.

It’s nice of them to help, and instead of shoving that feeling away in fear, you allow yourself to bask in it. You don’t get long, however, because more help has just arrived.

Wade. With Vanessa. Hands interlocked.

It draws everyone’s eyes to the doorway. Wade looks almost bashful, and it baffles you how someone who can say the most insane things unprompted, all without batting an eye, could blush while holding hands with a girl he likes. To his credit, he shakes it off quickly.

“All right, all right,” he says. “Stop ogling me and my girlfriend and get back to work everyone!”

– – – – –

“So it was like an experiment?” you ask, stirring the pot on your stove before taking a careful bite of food off your wooden spoon.

Tonight’s your first night hosting at your new place – Family Dinner, Wade had dubbed it. With fall setting in, you had an idea of what to make, but it still made you nervous to have everyone in your space. Logan saw right through you, offering to come over early to help you prepare. 

Once he had arrived, it hadn’t taken long for him to admit he wasn’t much of a cook, so he mainly chopped vegetables as you chatted; you about your new place, Logan about his new job as a boxing instructor, Laura going off to college. You don’t remember exactly how the subject of his adamantium came up, but he was telling you freely about it.

“They needed someone who could regenerate fast enough to bond with it,” he explains. “I was in a dark place. Figured I didn’t have anything to lose if it didn’t work.”

You nod in understanding. “Do you… remember much about it?” You put your spoon down, then put the lid back on the pan. 

Logan’s knife stops hitting the cutting board. “Yeah, I… I remember every second of it.”

You look at him then. His eyes are still cast down at his task. Unsure of what to say, you think about what you’d want to hear, and you find it might be best to say nothing at all. Instead, your hand finds his shoulder. Logan’s head turns to you, and you feel like the look you share is more important than anything you could’ve told him. His hand covers yours with an appreciative squeeze. 

“But I’m trying to leave that there so I can focus on remembering what happens to me here.” As soon as he’s said it, his hand quickly slips off yours, adding, in a rush, “Here in this timeline, I mean.” 

You smile at him, but a strange feeling settles in the pit of your stomach. “That sounds like a great idea.”

– – – – –

“I need your help with something,” you say, balancing your phone between your ear and your shoulder while you turn a birthday card over in your hand. Deciding you don’t like it, you throw it back on the pile of cards and continue your grocery shopping.

“Just say the word,” comes Logan’s reply from the other end.

“I need you to steal something out of the apartment for me.” There’s a silence, and you purposely let the feeling of trepidation linger.

“Am gonna need you to say a little more than just that.”

You laugh, “Wade’s been talking about getting a little frame for his polaroid. You know, the polaroid that you held on to for him in The Void, after the two of you fu–”

“Yes, I know the one,” he interjects with a huff. He pauses, sighs, then says, “Consider it done.”

THE PARTY

“There you are!” Wade shouts after he opens the door. He pulls you into a hug that you return with a wide smile. Over his shoulder, you see that the apartment’s crowded, bustling with people who are there for his birthday party.

“I got you something,” you say, offering the small package to him after you step inside and hang up your coat.

“Wouldn’t have let you in if you hadn’t,” he admits as he closes the door behind you with a bang. Wade takes the package from your hand, shaking it next to his ear but hearing it make no sound in response. “Is it a cock ring?”

You can’t help but laugh at that. “Unfortunately, they were all sold out.”

“They always are,” he says, making a disappointed face. Bottom lip tucked between your teeth, you watch as he tears at the wrapping paper to reveal his gift. He makes another face when he sees it. “Well, now I feel like an asshole. This is really nice.”

“Logan helped me kidnap it,” you explain, pointing at the picture. “And the little red hearts on the frame, well, they’re your color, but they also reminded me of how much you care about people.”

When he looks at you after, it’s with genuine emotion… but Wade is Wade. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of happy you walked in here barfing up the place.”

A strange mix of embarrassment and gratitude claws its way up your neck. “Thank you.”

“We should take a new one,” he decides suddenly, pointing at the picture. “You both should be in it.” His head turns, watching as Logan approaches the two of you. “But let’s be realistic, his shoulders are so broad he wouldn’t even fit in the frame, much less his bul–”

“Stop talking about my dick, Wade,” Logan snaps.

“I was saying only good things! Jeez, so sensitive…” Wade turns, putting the picture on the kitchen table behind him where it joins all the other gifts.

“Did he like it?” Logan asks, voice low.

“Yeah,” you smile.

“Good,” he replies. “Was a nice idea.”

You eye all the other gifts, some clearer who they are from than others. “What did you get him?”

The corner of Logan’s mouth lifts as he points at a roll of silver duct tape with a small red bow on top, making you fix them both with a confused look.

“It’s an inside joke,” Logan shrugs.

Wade’s eyes sparkle, but in a rare turn of events, he doesn’t elaborate, only adds, “It’s classified. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.” 

“And I have top level clearance, lieutenant,” you reply. You exhale through your nose in an amused laugh when Wade makes a surprised face that indicates you’ve gotten the reference. “What, you thought a Tom Cruise impression could save you?”

“No,” he grins, and as if on cue, the doorbell rings, “but that can. Birthday Boy duty calls, but I want it on record that I could do Top Gun, easily, while Tom would never be able to pull off Deadpool.”

– – – – –

The party settles into something comfortable, soft music in the background of lively chatter. Yukio has just finished telling you about a Professor Layton cosplay she’s doing when you excuse yourself, both your glass and your social battery empty enough to look for a momentary out. Finding your way through the crowd, you make it to the kitchen, filling your glass with water and taking a few sips. 

While you do, the music suddenly gets louder, taking over for the steady chatter. You turn around, leaning back against the kitchen counter, and watch as Wade drags Vanessa to the middle of the apartment. People make room for them, exchanging looks while Wade wraps his arm around her waist, takes her hand in his and begins dancing with her. With a laugh, she slaps him on the chest, before settling into his embrace anyway. Some follow their lead, but your eyes stay glued to them. Wade spins Vanessa under his arm, the smile on her face bright enough to light up the entire room. In return, he looks at her with so much adoration he’s almost glowing himself. It fills you with warmth to see the both of them so happy.

It hits you how you haven’t thought about this in a while. You’d decided long ago that the future wasn’t something you had to worry about, but suddenly you’ve arrived, like you’re in some alternate reality where your future is now, and that it would be nice to share it with someone. The sting behind your eyes catches you a little off guard; mixed feelings of time that has been taken from you, but also of time you’re getting back with the life you now have.

For a while now, you’ve suspected the thing inside you is gone, that there isn’t much to feed off of anymore. If it is, it would make sense that there’s room for something else.

Wade and Vanessa make it look easy, even though you know it’s been far from easy for them. You suppose that’s what it’s like, especially as you get older. It’s less about big gestures, more about small ones; someone to make you laugh, to spin you under their arm, who knows how to apologize, seeks you out during your quiet moments–

“Do you dance?”

You startle, head turning towards the voice next to you– 

“Logan,” you breathe. 

It’s like you’re seeing him for the very first time. He’s standing so close, almost touching you but not quite, heat radiating off of him nonetheless. The plaid shirt he’s wearing isn’t even buttoned and still the fabric is pulled taunt over his shoulders and the thick of his biceps. He’s grinning, his nose pulled up in an adorable scrunch, the corner of his eyes crinkling - you never noticed before, but there’s a hint of green between the hazel.

It hits you so suddenly that you have to grab the counter to keep your balance. Everything that’s been happening, that you’ve been feeling, all the times something happened between the two of you that you couldn’t put your finger on… it falls into place with a well-timed, completely unrelated question and a glance at him.

You like him.

All you can do is blink at him, dazed, unable to speak, even more so when he leans in a little closer, mistaking your silence for misunderstanding. “I mean, not that I– You and Wade were doing a bit earlier, it’s a reference to–” Logan straightens suddenly, his expression slipping into concern as he watches you, “Are you okay?”

You feel warm, so aware of all his attention on you that you’re afraid he might be able to see your pulse blink rapidly below the angle of your jaw. “Yeah,” you reply, voice hoarse, looking away from him to blink the leftover wetness from earlier out of your eyes. 

Anxiety claws its way into your chest, your mind coming to terms with what it’s puzzled together at such a sickening pace that there’s an immediate knot in your stomach. The party has instantly lost its shine, and you look down at the glass in your hand, gulping down its contents. You need to be alone with your thoughts, you need to think about this before–

“I gotta go,” you say in such a rush that it almost sounds like one word while you set your glass on the kitchen counter.

Logan’s eyes follow you as you push past him, grab your coat and reach for the doorknob. “Wait–”

“Bye, Logan.”

THE TABLE

Once at home, you change into something more comfortable, your mind racing while you peel your party clothes off, toss your bra aside, change into an oversized shirt and plop down on the couch after.

Despite having already established that your mind was occupied with other things for a very long time, it’s laughable in hindsight that you never noticed your feelings before. It’s not like you don’t know what Logan’s like; he’s kind, funny, supportive…

…broad, handsome.

Shit.

Why did you have to come to your senses? Things were better before that moment. Logan’s your friend, whom you met in the most unconventional way possible. It’s ridiculous to want more than what you have when what you have is good. Or to think that he would want more.

But he might.

Because you may have been occupied with depression, anxiety, recovery, and everything in between, but you were there; you remember the time you spent with him, the way he looks at you, drinks the coffee you like, laughs at your jokes, seems to know exactly when to call you, seeks you out in a crowd.

But it would change everyth– 

Actually, not a whole lot would change, if you really think about it. You already see him all the time, you’ve seen the very worst of each other, overcome a great deal of hardship together, you make each other better, his friends are your… 

friends. 

You didn’t say goodbye to Wade.

The thought comes suddenly. It was his birthday party and you didn’t even say goodbye to him before you left. You’re a terrible friend. Dread sinks into your limbs, and you reach for your phone to type out a quick, apologetic message. Just as you hit send, there’s a series of loud knocks on the door, and it makes you freeze up where you’re seated.

“Are you in there?” a muffled voice calls out.

It’s Logan, you realize, and a plethora of fake excuses as to why you left the party early present themselves to your mind as you quickly make your way over to the door.

The first thing you notice when you open it is that he’s dripping wet from the rain, clothes soaked through and his hair flat. There’s a deep furrow in his brow, and it’s different from how he usually looks; he looks actually mad.

“Logan, is everything–” you begin, concerned, but he cuts you off by pushing past you and letting himself inside, boots stomping against the wooden floor. 

“Jesus, here you are. Why’d you leave like that, huh? Saying goodbye, your eyes all wet. I went after you and you were fucking gone, it scared the shit out of me. Didn’t see the car at the lookout, but I went to look for you anyway, and you weren’t in the water, thank fuck–”

“Wait, you went–” you pause, the mental image of Logan running out into the rain to the cliffside making your eyes widen. “Did you think..?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, shoulders slumping.

“Shit.” Your heart is racing when you step closer to him. “No, I wasn’t… I don’t want that anymore.”

“Then what the fuck was that all about?”

The desperation and misunderstanding in his eyes is unmistakable, and you hate that you made him feel like that. “I was just… I needed a moment, after seeing Wade and Vanessa like that,” you say, trying to provide yourself with more time to think, unsure if you already want to broach the subject of why you really left.

“You… like Wade?” Logan asks, his frown deepening.

You can’t help the laugh that escapes you at the unexpected question. “No. I mean, I adore Wade, but not like that. He’s with Vanessa.”

The answer does nothing to change his expression. “And you want it to be different?”

His line of questioning confuses you. “I– No. Logan, this isn’t about Wade or Vanessa, but it’s about… what they have. Something that’s real, but imperfect, and that’s what actually makes it perfect, and I just… I was in a really bad place for such a long time, I didn’t give myself time to even think about… I haven’t felt myself wanting for so long,” your gaze flicks up to his. “Seeing them just made me realize there’s so much left that I still want.” 

Internally, you curse the way he always makes you say too much, because you can see the understanding wash over his features. His expression softens, the balled fists by his side loosen, and his eyes search you, as if to see if that thing you want is him. There’s no doubt he finds his answer; you’re ever the open book when it comes to him, and your pulse quickens while he silently observes you. 

Logan reaches for you so quickly that you can barely prepare for it, a hand on your waist to pull you in, another on your cheek to tip your face up and guide your mouth to his. A shaky breath sails out through your nose when your lips meet, your eyes fluttering shut and your palms sliding up his damp but warm chest to curl in the soaked fabric of his shirt. It’s eager, and the angle is off, but it’s quickly adjusted with a brief parting and a near in-sync tilt of your heads in the other direction. 

Logan pulls away, but stays close, and you almost feel his words before hearing them, “Been… thinking about doing that.”

“Really?” you say, breathless and amused. “When did you, um, start wanting to do that?”

“Few weeks ago–Fuck, no, more than that. Almost did, that day after your first meeting, after you told me you were proud of me,” he admits. “But I wanted to give you time, space. Wasn’t sure if you felt–”

“I do. Didn’t realize it before, but I fucking do,” you assure him, another tug on his collar trying to pull him back to you. His admissions, knowing he wants you too, only make you want him more, like you have to make up for all the time you wasted not doing this sooner.

Logan’s hand on your waist holds you off. “I just don’t know how to… how to be this,” he confesses softly.

“That’s okay,” you say, your nose brushing against his. “I don’t either.”

He inches forward like he intends to kiss you again, but seems to reconsider, swallowing hard before saying, “Wouldn’t be the first time we figure it out together, huh?”

The words make you surge forward to close the gap between you, your brows creasing, attempting to convey everything you feel with one press of your lips to his. Logan’s hand slides from your cheek to the back of your head, pulling you to him in a way that seems to mirror your efforts. Something lights up inside you, something you lost long ago, and it makes you bold, opening your mouth under his to get a taste of him. 

His grip on you tightens with a groan, spurring him into action and walking you backwards into the dark kitchen, the only illumination the slivers of moonlight that come through the kitchen window. You jolt when the back of your thighs hit the table, before you’re scrambling to get on top of it, two hands at your waist helping to hoist you up. Your thighs widen to make room for Logan’s while you push the green flannel shirt off his shoulders, struggling to peel it off his arms to the point you have to break away with a laugh to really get it right. It lands on the floor with a wet sound, before he reaches for the back of his shirt, curling his fingers around the collar and pulling it over his head.

Logan’s sturdy, warm to the touch and surprisingly pliant when you can’t help but let your fingers flit along the corded muscles and protruding veins while he toes off his shoes. His hand flies to the back of your head to fist the hair at the nape of your neck when your lips explore, find his jaw, and travel down his neck. A soft sound sails from his mouth, a barely audible moan that carries over into something deeper when your lips brush a spot just above his clavicle. Using the grip he has on you, he drags you back up to his mouth, doing some more of his own exploring when his warm tongue strokes against your own. 

“You’re so good to me,” he murmurs with a buck of his hips against yours. The thrill of having him pushed up against you, half-hard, warm, full of promise, makes you moan, teeth clacking against his when you do. “Always so fucking good to me.”

It makes you want to protest, from the very moment you met, he’s the one always being that to you, but it dies on your tongue when Logan’s flicks over the tips of his fingers. His impatient hand finds its way between you, disappearing under the waistband of your underwear and stretching the material to make room. His name comes out as a whimper when his spit-slick fingers easily glide through the soft skin between your legs. He curses, another buck of his hips pressing his hand closer against you, and your kiss turns messy and uncoordinated when he dips one finger to touch your clit. 

“This okay?” Logan asks when you gasp, drawing languid circles between your legs.

“Yeah, it’s just– Oh, god.” Two thick fingers find your entrance, swirling the wetness there around. “Been a while,” you manage to finish your sentence.

“I’ll make it good for you,” he promises. “You want that?”

All you can do is nod, and Logan presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth before he pulls his hand back. It’s paired with a wet sound that makes your cheeks heat, more so when you watch him get on his knees and yank you to the edge of the table, the quick turn of events and the casual display of his strength making you a little dizzy. Logan’s nose presses into the fabric between your legs with a sharp inhale, before quick, practiced moves work your underwear down your legs. One eager hand places a thigh on his shoulder as another holds you at the bend of your knee. You lie back, arching as you hurriedly pull your t-shirt over your head, leaning up on your elbows just in time to watch him bend down. 

The feeling of Logan’s hot breath sailing out over your sensitive skin alone is enough to make you gasp. He drags his lips and nose across your folds, easing you into it as much as his lack of patience will allow before tasting you with a swipe of his tongue. It isn’t tentative or testing, but firm and sure, and clearly for his enjoyment as much as yours when he repeats his action and groans into you. The vibrations of it and the gentle scratch of his facial hair only add to the liquid feeling in the pit of your stomach. Letting go of your knee, he curls a strong arm around your thigh, spreading you open then pulling you flush against him while he sucks your clit into his mouth.

“Oh, that feels really good,” you spur him on, your heel digging in between his shoulder blades. You watch him with hooded eyes, shifting your weight to one elbow so you can cup your breast with a whine. 

Logan’s eyes slip shut in focus, working his tongue up and down your clit and making you arch into his mouth. Reaching for you blindly, he slides a hand over yours on your chest, fingers fitting between your own and squeezing while his tongue slides lower to lick over where you’re dripping for him. He lets out an appreciative hum as he repeats the move until your thighs clench and shake around his ears. His tongue dips inside you, curling up against the slick walls of your cunt, and his name tumbles from your mouth, soft, pleading, making his eyes shoot open to meet yours.

The sight of him looking up at you like that from between your thighs, with dark eyes, the tip of his nose glistening with your wetness, will probably haunt you for the rest of your life. 

Logan shushes your begging, pulling away and watching as your pussy clenches at the sudden lack of attention. “Let me give you something to come on,” he murmurs, before fitting a finger at your entrance. It meets absolutely no resistance, a second finger sliding inside with just as much ease, and he sets a steady, deep rhythm before his mouth returns to your clit.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck–” Your head rolls back between your shoulder blades, mouth open on a silent gasp, but he draws your attention back to him with a curl of his fingers, finding a spot that makes you go rigid for a second. It all builds so fast, so suddenly. The hand on your chest shakes Logan’s off, finding the crown of his head and sliding your fingers into his hair. He’s too strong to really make purchase, but you try anyway, using your grip to roll your hips against him. The sound of his groans, every flick of his tongue and every squelching, delicious curl of his fingers all send you closer and closer, until his hand presses down on your belly, and…

“Logan,” you manage, voice sharp with a warning that comes too late when he makes you tumble over the edge. 

It’s so much after so long, the force of it making you fall back against the table, something between a gasp and a shout tearing from your throat. He holds you tighter, to keep you in place and guide the desperate roll of your hips against his face. Your orgasm quickly slips into something bordering on oversensitivity, and you let out a dry sob that makes you slap a hand over your mouth when Logan’s tongue travels a path from where his stilled fingers disappear inside you, up to your clit. He stays there, gentle, uncharacteristically patient as you slowly come to a twitching halt. 

He’s a blur when he comes back into your field of view after standing up, towering over you to watch as you come back down to earth. Becoming sharper with every heavy blink of your eyes, you notice the smile on his face is smug, that the hair surrounding it is a shade darker than the rest. You sigh softly when his fingers slip from you, the feeling of them sliding wetly over your clit making you tremble, but his touch doesn’t leave you completely when he moves to stroke the outside of your thigh.

“How’s that?” Logan dares to ask.

“Hmm, no speaking yet,” you protest.

Reaching for him, you slide both of your arms up over his broad shoulders, wrists crossed in the nape of his neck to pull him in for another kiss. It’s slow, and deep, the taste of yourself shared between the two of you as your tongue slides over his. The table protests with a creak when his hands land beside your head, more when his chest pushes down on yours and you wrap a leg around his waist to get him even closer. The hair scattered across his broad chest teases your nipples and the hard ridge of his cock strains against his jeans and presses up against your slick cunt. It makes your jaw go slack, stoking your desire and making you burn with the need to make him feel as good as he just made you feel. 

With a push against his shoulders, you take him along as you sit upright again, accompanied by another creak of the table. Mouth still on his, you slide a hand down to cup him over his jeans, the weight of him against your wide open palm making you pulse. Logan grunts when your hand squeezes, and your mouth slides off his, kissing his jaw, sliding back down his neck. He cups your head, keeping you in place while watching your hand.

“Feels nice,” he husks, voice so deep it makes you want to push him aside and get on your knees for him, but then he asks, “Are you gonna let me fuck you?”

“God, yeah,” you say with a nod, watching as the mark you just sucked into his neck disappears far too soon while you continue rubbing him over the denim. “Want you inside of me.”

“Jesus–Then get it out,” he instructs, guiding your hand to his belt. 

If you weren’t so turned on you might wince at how eager you are, at how quickly you tug the buckle open and pull the leather free. Logan groans when it relieves some of the pressure, letting his forehead rest against yours. Together, you watch your hands make quick work of his zipper, your fist closing around his cock while your other hand works his pants down until he can kick it off and under the table.

He fits nicely in your palm, heavy and ready, sticky at the tip. With a purse of your lips, you let your spit trickle down in a straight line, and he hisses when it hits him. Your free hand flattens against his stomach, sliding down along the hard planes of his body and following the vein just below his belly button down, until it meets your other hand that loosely strokes up to the root of his cock. Logan arches into you when you stroke back up with a tighter grip, all but getting on his toes to chase your touch. Using both of your hands to get all of him, you twist your fists in opposite directions once, twice, before circling his tip with one thumb. Your other hand curls around the underside of him, dragging some of your spit down to his balls with the tips of your fingers.

“F–fuck,” Logan stutters when you play with him there, cupping him in your hand as well as you can and squeezing his shaft when it twitches in response. His eyes slip shut as his palms land on the outside of your thighs with a smack, fingertips digging into your soft skin. 

It makes you jolt, then grin, giddy from the sharp sting and the power you have over his pleasure. “How’s that?” you echo with a teasing lilt.

He does have the words to answer, albeit a little slurred, “‘S good, sweetheart.”

The nickname tacked on at the end takes root in your chest, blooms bright and makes you ache. You translate your appreciation into tightening your strokes and spreading more of the precome that steadily leaks from his tip around.

“C’mere,” Logan says softly, taking over for you with one hand, giving himself a few strokes before pushing your thighs further apart and shuffling closer to line himself up with you.

You’re so wet that the head of his cock is practically already slipping inside of you, but your hand clasps around his bicep when he really starts to breach you. After giving you a shallow little thrust, his hips draw back, before pushing a little further, gauging your reaction.

“Just like that,” you sigh, watching the careful slide of him in and out of you. “Keep going just like that.”

He gets you opened up like that, giving you a little more with each wind of his hips. Logan’s hand finds the back of your neck, his palm splaying out and keeping you close enough that you’re practically sharing air with each sigh and moan. Eventually, your knees have to draw up to his flanks in order for him to keep going and you wind a leg around his hip to close the final distance with a press of your heel into one of the firm cheeks of his ass. A long breath sails out from between your lips when you pulse around him, slowly adjusting to having all of him filling you up. You can tell he has to put considerable effort into letting you, wood groaning below you when he clutches onto the table.

“Fuck, it’s a lot,” you say, and when he grins against your mouth you can’t help but kiss him again – just a peck. The hand at the back of your neck squeezes in reassurance as he continues to let you lead, and it’s a small gesture, but it makes you feel warm all over. You melt into it his touch, your body relaxing as the pleasure of the stretch of him takes over.  

“Can stay like this a little longer if you want,” he says, but the strain in his voice says something different.

“Hmm, no, you can move.” You’ve barely said it, or his hips are drawing back, and it would have made you laugh if it didn’t feel so fucking incredible. He almost slips from you completely, before sliding all the way back inside with a grunt. The table scrapes along the floor, and vaguely you register one of your chairs falling over in the process. When he repeats the action, the furniture squeaks again below you. “Just don’t break my table.”

The sound he makes in response is non-commital, and when he fucks back into you and nudges against something wonderful, you can’t say you disagree. Grabbing hold of his shoulder and using the leg you have wrapped around him, you roll your hips against his, and he begins to meet you halfway until you work up a rhythm together. The table protest further, a shrill sound filling the room after each slap of skin–

With a frustrated groan and accompanied by a startled squeal from yourself, Logan lifts you. The surprised laugh that threatens to bubble up your throat quickly morphs into something heavier that comes out with a rasp when he makes it all look unusually effortless. Attempting to brace yourself, you sling one arm over his shoulders, the other winding around his neck so you can rake your fingers through the hair at the back of his head. It’s a struggle to keep your balance, a helpless heel digging into the back of his thigh to keep yourself upright. Quick to aid, Logan slides an arm under you, fingers splayed across your ass as your knee hangs off the inside of his elbow. He turns a quarter, presses you up against the wall, and doesn’t miss a beat as he continues fucking you. 

“Jesus, Logan,” you say, voice almost a growl and barely recognizable as your own.

With your new position, you can see him better, the both of you lit from the side with the window to your left. The moonlight paints him in a tapestry of light and shadows when the wind blows through the tree branches, momentarily amplifying the glint in his eyes and the flex of his chest and arms like a strobe light.

The different angle he finds with his cock is a little too good, the feeling of the thick base of him stretching you open with each thrust making you dazed and talkative, “It’s so deep like this, can–oh, my god–can feel you everywhere.” 

Logan curses at your words, squeezing your waist and pushing you harder against the wall. There’s a deep-voiced appreciation of how good you feel in there too that doesn’t quite make it from your ears to your brain because somehow he’s still speeding up. His head ducks down to your chest, mouthing at the soft skin of your breast before closing his lips around a nipple. 

You whine, using the grip you have on him to roll your hips against the piston of his while you pant into his crown. Though the sound he makes against you when you do it makes you beam with pride, it’s not something you can keep up for very long, your hold on him slacking after a few thrust until you slip back against the wall. 

Logan pulls back when you do, tightening his hold on you while his eyes glide from the bounce of your tits that glisten with his spit to down between your bodies. 

“Touch yourself,” he instructs, grunting when you immediately do as he says by bringing a hand down between where you’re joined. Your fingers spread in a V-shape around where he fucks into you, collecting some of your mixed arousal before using it to rub your clit. “That’s it, sweetheart, fuck, make yourself come.”

You nod, rapidly feeling everything zeroing in on the fingers that draw tight circles over your clit and that spot deep inside you that Logan’s finding with every thrust. “Yeah, fuck, I’m–Don’t stop, don’t stop, please–”

He’s coming before you are, tucking his head below your chin to let out a deep, drawn out moan against your neck that ends with his teeth grazing your skin. It’s so much, the pressure of him grinding himself into you with twitching, barely there thrusts, the heat of his release as it fills you where you’re gripping him like a vice, and as your fingers still twirl between your legs you come, and come, and come. 

The leg you have wrapped around his hip slips off, but before your toes can even scrape the floor, he catches your thigh, cupping your ass with both hands now to keep you up, and close. With a soft, satisfied sound, you let your forehead fall against Logan’s shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat with every light press of your lips there.

It takes you a moment to notice your back has come off the wall, that Logan is walking the both of you into your living room and to the couch. He bends his knees, dropping you between your pillows, where you land with as much grace as you can muster considering you feel like you’re made of lead. The soft couch is pleasant against your body, your sore limbs sinking into the cushions. 

Logan fits himself between your legs again, widening them around his broad shoulders before his lips find your overstretched thighs, leaving marks and kisses up up up, until his tongue slips back into your pussy. Your back arches off the couch, hands shooting down to fist his hair with a whine while Logan’s hand fists his cock. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you can tell he’s already getting hard again, and his tongue is making something swirl low in your belly that’s making you pant, and...

It’ll be a long night.

THE PEARL

It had taken a lot of convincing and downright groveling, but Wade had allowed you to bring a movie for movie night. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust your taste in movies, his main gripe with your choice was that it wasn’t a Christmas movie – mandatory for December. Wade’s right, but after you explained that it’s the movie you always watch at the end of the year (and after Logan and yourself conceded that yes, his birthday was technically also your anniversary) he’d agreed. 

Now that you’re actually watching it, you suspect he’s genuinely invested, because after a handful of comments about The Hulk, he’s been quiet for longer than you’ve ever heard him be quiet.

In the scene on the screen, Mark Ruffalo’s character Dan and Keira Knightley’s character Gretta are taking an evening walk around New York City, dancing, singing and sharing music with each other as they do. Eventually, they stop and sit next to each other on some steps, watching as the city continues to move without them.

“...the most banal scenes are suddenly invested with so much meaning, ya know? All these banalities, they're suddenly turned into these… these beautiful, effervescent pearls,” Dan says, wistfully looking on as New York bustles around him. “I gotta say, as I've gotten older these pearls are just… becoming increasingly more and more rare to me.”

The arm Logan has slung around your shoulder tightens, and the couch creaks softly as you lean further into his side, your cheek squishing against his warm chest.

“More string than pearls?” Gretta inquires with a frown.

“Yeah. You got to travel over a lot more string to get to the pearls.” There’s a pause as he turns to look at her, “This moment is a pearl, Gretta.”

She gives him a hint of a smile. “It sort of is, isn't it?”

“All this has been a pearl,” he admits, sharing a look with her.

A finger curls under your chin, tipping your head up until your eyes meet Logan’s. He gives you the same look you just saw on the screen, his eyes soft as they take you in, the hint of green between the hazel illuminated by the light of the television. A thumb swipes over your bottom lip fondly, before he leans down to kiss you.

It takes a lot of string indeed.

Sometimes even interdimensional string.

– – – – –

(THE END)

If you made it all the way here, thanks for reading. Seriously. Please come say hi and/or share your thoughts via ask/messages/reblogs/whatever you feel comfortable with. I hope to share more writing soon - emphasis on hope, I'm not making promises, just an educated wish.

And lastly, if you're struggling with mental health problems, please don't wait for a handsome stranger to sweep you off your feet. I know from experience that it can be incredibly difficult to reach that hand out, but I also know from experience that things can get better. There are ways to get help and you deserve to get help 🫂

[febuwhump]

FEBUWHUMP 2024 PROMPT LIST

this year's prompts were chosen through a suggestion poll (in which we recevied 2,281 prompts) and a subsequent vote, where over 1,000 people voted for their favourites. the top 29 make up the core prompts, and a mixture of the next most popular - and this blog's personal favourites - have become the alternates

i’m so excited to see what you all create with these prompts, and hope they’re inspiring enough to trigger a whole month’s worth of creativity for you! if you have any questions, please check out the blog's faq before sending an ask, or check out the previously asked questions on the blog!

please note: this year, notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form that will be released closer to the end of febuwhump.

full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:

FEBUWHUMP 2024 PROMPTS:

DAY 1: helpless

DAY 2: solitary confinement

DAY 3: "bite down on this"

DAY 4: obedience

DAY 5: rope burns

DAY 6: "you lied to me"

DAY 7: suffering in silence

DAY 8: "why won't it stop?"

DAY 9: bees

DAY 10: killing in self defence

DAY 11: time loop

DAY 12: semi-conscious

DAY 13: "you weren't supposed to get hurt"

DAY 14: blood-stained tiles

DAY 15: "who did this to you?"

DAY 16: came back wrong

DAY 17: hostage situation

DAY 18: too weak to move

DAY 19: "please don't"

DAY 20: truth serum

DAY 21: unresponsive

DAY 22: "you weren't meant to be there"

DAY 23: presumed dead

DAY 24: "i'm doing this because i care about you"

DAY 25: waterboarding

DAY 26: "help them"

DAY 27: left for dead

DAY 28: "no... not like this"

DAY 29: not allowed to die

ALTERNATE PROMPTS:

is there a specific day’s prompt you don’t want to fill? here are ten alternatives you can switch them out for!

ALT 1: human shield

ALT 2: "i love you"

ALT 3: found footage

ALT 4: human weapon

ALT 5: cpr

ALT 6: immortality

ALT 7: last words

ALT 8: killing game

ALT 9: lightning strike

ALT 10: last man standing

RULES:

SOFT RULES:

prompts should be answered in the form of whump

creators can produce whatever kind of media they want

you don’t have to complete all the prompts! you can create however much you want to

you can use the prompts after the event ends and can complete them in tandem with any other event

you can post on any platform you want, however this blog will only be sharing those posted on tumblr

if you want to be featured on the hall of fame then you have until the 3rd of March to inform this blog that you completed all the days

if you have questions consult the faq before asking

HARD RULES: (specifically for being featured on the blog)

when uploading febuwhump content to tumblr, please use the tags:

febuwhump (i’ll also be checking febuwhump2024)

the relevant day’s tag e.g. febuwhumpday1, febuwhumpday2…

nsfw (if relevant)

and any trigger warnings that may be important!

you can also tag the blog, @febuwhump

i cannot guarantee your work will be archived on the blog because I have no idea how many participants there will be. a random selection of works tagged in accordance to the rules above will be reblogged every day of february.

[jinxthequeergirl]

The Ol Switcharoo (pt2)

Stan pines x reader /ford pines x reader

Summary: Your family vacation lasted longer than expected. When you return home to Stanford, you realize quickly something wrong.

Warning: NONE

Hey! Just some housekeeping before you read on

☆Thanks for all the love ya'll it means bunches

☆this part is shorter do to me wanting to pace this better, but I hope yall enjoy none the less!

☆a few of ya'll asked to be tagged so I'm starting a tag list if you'd like to be included don't hesitate to ask

☆additionally I did have a Playlist for this specific series and if ya'll would like me to post the songs for it also lemme know

Enjoy!

~~~~~☆~~~~~

"STANLEY HELP!"

Stan felt himself freeze up, his heart race and mind go blank, why couldn't he think? Why couldn't he move?

He watched in horror as his brother floated up backwards through the air into the gaping hole in space and time.

"Do something!"

"What...what do i do!?" He asked meekly, looking around for something to help.he watched as parts of his brother slowly disappeared, and as he reached into his coat pocket and tossed something at him. "Hide my research...CALLL Y/N ANYTHING-"

Stan shielded his eyes as a bright white light filled the room and knocked him back onto the floor. The room was suddenly quiet.

"Ford!?...Ford! Come back!" He wasted no time to get back up and bang on the machine, hoping it would start back up like an old appliance. "Please!"

He raced to the lever a few feet away, desperately pulling and yanking at it, but it didn't budge.

"Stanford!?...Ford!? Are you home yet!?" The small coo of an unfamiliar voice snapped Stan from his nightmare.

"Hello!?" The voice echoed out again. He quickly got up, reaching for his only form of security. A baseball bat.

The voice had gone silent, but he could still hear someone moving he took a long pause, then opened the door swinging his bad.

"FORD WAIT! WAIT, IT'S ME! ITS Y/N!!"

Y/n?

He stopped swinging the bat and stared down at you.

"Call y/n! Anything-"

"Y/n?"

"Yes, it's me, Ford! I haven't been gone that long have i?"

He cleared. "No not at all we have some catching up to do."

You could tell there was something ford...well stan (you'd have to get used to the sudden name change) wanted to tell you while you sat across from him. Like he wanted to give you bad news. But he seemed to be thinking of the right way to put it.

"So..stan...what made you want to change from Ford to stan? Did your family have that much of an impact on you?" You tried to joke to lighten the tension that seemed to linger in the air.

"Well...something like that...listen y/n-"

"Are you OK? You seem...different you seem nervous...more nervous then when I left.." You placed your hand over top of his and offered a reasuring smile.

"I..."

stan didn't know you...he had no right to lie to you. But Ford seemed to trust you and judging from the photo on his desk in the basement, how fondly he seemed to write about you in the journal...the scrapped drawings of you in the garbage you meant a whole lot more to him then stan could understand right now, you must have felt the same way about his brother.

He remembered how worried his brother had been in making sure he understood you were absolutely under no circumstances to not touch the journals or anything pertaining to it again.

"My closest friend y/n and I have been working on this project for months now...I should have listened to her but I didn't...I need you to get rid of this journal she can't be near any of this when she returns."

"Did something happen with the portal?...with that...creature? And what happened to your hands!" You said now, pulling both hands into yours to examine them.

Besides, you already seemed so worried. He couldn't be the one to break the news to you. Not now.

Besides, he had a plan.

Sort of.

So he did what he did best.

Lied.

"Well...uh while you were away, I had a little accident. I had to get surgery...yea surgery, and the accident you know was from the portal...so I said, Forget the whole thing! "

He Tried to say it in a way that would convince even himself.

"Stanford, what do you mean? What happened? Are you just going to give up on everything we worked for?"

"I have to, I just need some time."

Neither of you noticed at first that you were holding hands as you spoke. Stan was the first to notice the closeness. It was the first time in what felt like years that anyone had shown him this kind of affection, let alone the kindness you were demonstrating with your concern.

"I don't know what happened while I was away or when you even had time for something to go wrong or why you would even start working again without me!" He noticed the slight annoyance building up and squeezed your hand.

And you took a breath. "But I understand and I won't pretend to know what happened and if you aren't ready to tell me I can respect that...things got a little rocky between us before I left and I'm really just hoping things can go back to the way they used to be with us. If a longer break and time is what you need... then I am 100% behind your decision."

He felt a wave of relief wash over him at your words. Maybe it wasn't your words but the kind-hearted look in your eyes, or maybe it was the way you still held his hands in yours.

You'd be the first two admit two things about your current situation.

One, Nostalgia was a funny thing. You knew when something was off about your bestfriend, the man infront of you was was a changed man, while his story didn't add up he looked shaken and defeated...after all this was the man you trusted with half your life. And you wouldn't lie, you had clung so desperately to the memories of college and spring through winter, it was that glimmer of hope and a mix of Nostalgia for your good times together that made you believe him.

And two, You always knew better then to trust your heart you and Ford would joke about the idea of following your heart and not your brain, how silly a concept it was that the organ that pumped blood through your body had such a pull on your decision making it made your thought process stop.

Yet here you where.

Following your heart.

"How about a few drinks and I can tell you about my trip?" You offered standing and being the first to break the lock between your hands. "And I can tell you about the plans I have for this place!"

"Plans?"

"Sure! I mean, we aren't doing our science junk anymore, so we need to make money somehow, right?"

You set down two glasses.

"Ok?"

You sat down, you listened to him explain how he had already done a few tours displaying whatever you had already had laying around and how people where eating it up.

"Stanford you've never been one for the gimmicky tricks, you've always cared more about the real deal...WE'VE been about the real deal...why lie to people?"

"Trust me y/n do a tour with me tomorrow try to show the people a real life monster and whatchamacallit and put it up against my made up creature."

You laughed. This wasn't what you had expected Stanford pines to spend his break away from work doing. It was out of character for him. But refreshing somehow.

Just like that, the seasons changed, and it was spring again

You learned quickly people didn't like the truth.

Real monsters and ghouls seemed to only upset or bother people so you and stan collaborated a way to make attractions that seemed real enough but also gimmicky enough that tourists would eventually laugh at it.

You learned pretty quickly that you were not only a pretty crafty person but an excellent storyteller.

You and Stanford seemed to almost pick up where you left off bonding and cracking jokes. It was like he was more confident than when you left him, more relaxed and full of life. You two fit right back into place with eachother with out missing a beat.

It's exactly what you'd been missing.

Soon, you were renovating half the house to be a showroom and giftshop, and soon after you were selling and wearing t shirts, you began putting up a sign. By the following summer, you were basically an operational business.

The mystery shack felt more like a brain child of you and Stanford and you cared for it like such.

It was something fun.

Something that didn't seem to be running Stanford down like the science stuff did. You could see a genuine smile on his face as he showed some local kid the corni-corn.

It was silly. You couldn't remember the last time you'd done something silly and adventurous.

It felt good.

"Another day another dollar y/n my dear." Stan said, flipping the open sign to close and placing his little red fez cap on top of your head.

"Soon enough, we'll have people from all over the place coming to get a piece of the mystery shack." He said, wrapping his arm around your shoulders, leading you back to the section of the Mystery shack that was still your shared home.

"Yea, we have a real Walt Disney start-up story, don't we stanford." He laughed loudly before suddenly getting serious.

"Listen. I wanted to say thank you for sticking with me through this. It means a lot."

"Of course, stanford." You reached up and planted a small peck on his cheeks. "We've been through everything together. I'm not going to stop now."

You could see stans face flush slightly as you stretched and yawned. "Anyways goodnight stanford."

"Uh yea...goodnight..." You heard him mumble as he touched his cheek where you kissed him.

Things where looking up.

~~~~~☆~~~~~

Tag list!:

@fanficcrow

@slay-thou-pookie

[harrysfolklore]

i told you id request to keep it alive, so like honouary wag fluffy blurb with first race back where she’s an official wag? and the girls are so excited and charles is excited to be able to say that she’s his 😇

MORE HONORARY WAG BABIES !!! this is our girl as an official wag 🥺 READ THE HONORARY WAG HERE

The summer break had flown by, and as you stepped onto the familiar grounds of the paddock, the buzz of the post-summer atmosphere hit you immediately.

But this time, something was different. No longer were you just the 'honorary WAG' tagging along with your friends, half-hidden in the shadows. This time, you were walking hand-in-hand with Charles, officially his girlfriend, and it felt as though all eyes were on you.

You gave his hand a slight squeeze as you both passed the Ferrari hospitality area, the usual sea of red and white surrounding you. Charles smiled down at you, his green eyes warm and comforting, his thumb gently stroking the back of your hand. "You okay?" he asked softly, clearly sensing the slight nervousness in your body language.

You nodded, smiling. "Yeah, just feels a bit different now."

"Don’t worry. You’ve always belonged here," Charles chuckled softly, "Now it’s just… official."

You smiled at Charles' words, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. As you approached the area where you were meant to meet the girls, you turned to face him.

"I should go meet the others at the Paddock Club," you said, adjusting the strap of your bag on your shoulder.

Charles's lips curved into a playful smirk. "Ah, abandoning me already for your glamorous WAG duties?" he teased.

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly. "Oh, please. As if you won't be busy with team meetings and interviews all day."

"True," he conceded, then leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "But I'd much rather be busy with you."

A blush crept up your cheeks as you gave him a gentle push. "Behave, Leclerc. We're in public."

Charles laughed, pulling you close for a quick kiss. "See you later, mon coeur," he murmured against your lips before reluctantly letting you go.

With a final wave, you made your way to the Paddock Club, spotting your friends gathered near one of the tables. As you approached, you could see the grins spreading across their faces.

"Well, well, well," Rebecca called out teasingly as you joined them. "If it isn't the newest official member of our little club!"

Kika giggled, linking her arm through yours. "Welcome to the dark side, darling."

"Oh, stop it," you laughed, feeling both embarrassed and oddly proud.

"You were always one of us, it's just official now," Carmen said, winking at you.

You loved these girls so much.

"But seriously," Lily said, "how does it feel to be the official Ferrari WAG now?"

"I mean," Kika added with a grin, "it’s kind of a big deal."

You laughed softly, shaking your head at their teasing. "It feels good. Weirdly normal though. I guess because I’ve been around so much already."

"Well, we have two reasons to celebrate today. Not only do we have YN officially joining our ranks, but it's also Kika's first race as Mrs. Gasly!" Rebecca said as she called out a waiter to order some champagne.

Kika beamed, her new wedding ring glinting in the light. "I still can't believe it sometimes," she admitted, a dreamy look in her eyes.

As the champagne arrived and Rebecca began pouring glasses for everyone, you couldn't help but feel a sense of belonging. Sure, things were different now, but as you clinked glasses with your friends and laughter filled the air, you realized that everything felt right.

As the race day activities continued, you found yourself moving between the paddock, the garage, and the hospitality areas. Charles had commitments, but every so often, he’d glance over at you, his eyes softening as he caught your gaze. There was a quiet comfort between you two now, knowing you didn’t have to hide anything anymore.

At one point, during a brief break between work, Charles pulled you into a quiet corner of the garage. He leaned against the wall, tugging you closer by the waist until you were standing between his legs, his arms wrapped around you protectively.

"You doing okay?" he asked, his voice low and affectionate as he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

You nodded, resting your hands on his chest. "I’m fine. Just… still getting used to all this. But I’m happy to be here with you."

Charles smiled, brushing a strand of hair from your face. "I’m happy you’re here too." His expression softened as he leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your lips. "You make everything better, you know that?"

You smiled against his lips, feeling your heart swell at his words. "You’re not so bad yourself, Leclerc."

Before either of you could say anything more, you heard the sound of someone clearing their throat. "Am I interrupting?"

You turned to see Joris standing there with an amused grin on his face. "Come on, Charles. Time to get back to work. You’ve got a race to win."

Charles sighed dramatically but gave you one last kiss before stepping back. "I’ll see you after the race?"

You nodded, giving him a reassuring smile. "I’ll be cheering you on."

As Charles disappeared with Joris, you rejoined the girls, who immediately started up their teasing again.

"Did you guys have a moment?" Kika asked with a smirk.

"Oh, they definitely had a moment," Lily added, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Can’t a girl spend a few quiet minutes with her boyfriend without you lot jumping in?" you rolled your eyes playfully.

"Oh, come on," Rebecca chimed in, her eyes sparkling. "We're just happy for you two. It's about time, honestly. "

"How could I forget? You literally bet on us," you teased with no real malice in your voice..

"Hey, it worked out, didn't it?" Carmen said with a wink. "And now you're no longer our honorary WAG. You're the real deal."

[importantstudentbusinessspy-blog]

Hit List pt. 1

Masterlist

Pairing: Jason Todd x (f)reader

Tags: NSFW, smut, height school sweethearts, first time, nerdy reader, jock Jason, bad boy Jason, before Jason's death, prequel,

Jason got arrested while drag racing. Well, not while drag racing - He’d already won, leaving his opponent eating his audi's dust. The arrest happens after the fact. For assault. The thought made his eyes roll.

Translation: one clean punch to the sore loser who couldn’t handle defeat. But hey, he started it! It wasn't Jason's fault the pretty boy couldn't take a punch after dishing one out so bravely.

You were still catching your breath in the backseat of his Audi when you two heard the sirens. Jason's lips pulled away from yours, his brow furrowing as red and blue lights flickered nearby.

"Shit," he muttered, glancing at the rearview mirror. His jaw tightened as his mind worked out they were probably here for him. Then, with a meaningful look at you, he opened the door. “I think you should get out of the car.”

You blinked at him.

"They’re here for me," he explained, his tone disappointed. “Go back to your friends. I’ll handle this.”

"Come with me," you pleaded, clutching his arm.

He shook his head, pulling his hoodie back on over his head. "If they run my plates, they’ll trace them back to Bruce. It’s better if I stay."

The sirens grew louder. Reluctantly, you stumbled out of the car, gnawing on you lip in worry. You glanced back one last time.

"Go," Jason urged, a brief mischief in his eyes. "I’ll be fine."

You returned to your friends, doing your best to act nonchalant.

"Where were you?" one of them asked, thrusting a red solo cup into your hand.

"I had to take a phone call." You offer a fake chuckel, running your fingers through your hair, trying to unmess it up.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Bruce and Jason got into a fight when the elder had to post bail that night. The ride back to Wayne manner was a silent and awkward one.

"The only reason I let you skip patrol tonight was because you 'had an assignment due tomorrow." Bruce shut the door behind them as they entered the mansion.

Alfred appeared at the entrance to take their jackets.

"I finished early." Jason murmered, shrugging at his adoptive father.

"You need to start taking your life seriously, Jason." Bruce grabbed him by the shoulder.

"By risking it running around wearing spandex with you?" Jason challenged.

Jason got punished for lying that night. Sentenced to having to do patrol with Dick for the next month. Bruce told him that if he hated his life with him so much, he could try his luck back on the Gotham streets.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Bruce’s voice is low, but it carries enough anger to make Alfred glance up from his stitching of the gash on his masters shoulder. “He lied to me again, Alfred. Skipped patrol to go drag racing.”

"Did he win?"

Bruce glared at Alfred over his shoulder.

Alfred wasn't deterred. "Well? Did he?"

"Yes."

"Ah, to be young," Alfred replied, his tone even as he threaded the needle. "Filled with rebellion, rage, and on top of that an orphan. Quite the combination.”

Bruce huffed, leaning against the desk. "I wasn’t that bad."

Alfred’s brow lifts, unimpressed. "If you say so, Master Bruce."

"What about Dick? He never gave me this much trouble. He wanted to patrol.” Bruce argued.

Alfred didn't look up from his work. "Master Dick is a hard worker at everything he does. He was eager to please and found purpose in the work."

"Exactly." Bruce hissed against the pain.

"But he also had you.”

"Jason has me too," Bruce counters, his tone defensive.

Alfred pauses, the needle poised in midair. "You’re quite different with Master Jason, sir. Running Wayne Enterprises leaves little room for fatherhood."

Bruce didn't reply, but the words linger on his mind.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Jason tossed his books into his bag, his shoulders tense.

"You’re really gonna leave?" Dick asked from the doorway, his voice quieter than usual.

"Yep." Jason didn't even glance up.

Dick exhaled, crossing his arms. "Look, I get it. You didn’t ask for this life. But it’s not as bad as you think."

Jason slammed the bag shut and finally looked at his adopted brother. "Look Dick, you're a nice guy, but this life isn't for me. A room over my head and food on my table is a fucking blessing - don't get me wrong. But all of these fucking responsibilities? The training and running around at night in those ridiculous costumes? No offense..."

"None taken."

"The city’s never done anything for me. Why should I put my life on the line for it? For him?”

Dick shrugged, leaning against the door frame: have you tried telling him you don't want it?

Jason scoffed. "Yeah, like he'd let me quit. By the way, you're stuck with me for the next month. Sorry."

"I dont see it that way." Dick said. "So dont be sorry. And hey, I wasn't Robin for a long time. Only reason why I became Robin was cus I asked him to let me patrol too."

That made jason pause. "Really?"

"Try it."

Jason didnt say anything, the idea lingering on his mind.

Dick took a deep breath before leaving. As he went, he called over his shoulder, "let me know if you leave! I'm gonna turn your room into a gym."

Jason rolled his eyes, but there was a small grin on his lips.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Night patrol with Dick was actually tolerable. Dick’s laid-back attitude made the grind less unbearable.

"Watch this," Dick called out before flipping over a crate with perfect form and landing gymnast-style, arms outstretched.

Jason rolled his eyes beneath his mask but felt a pang of jealousy. "Show-off."

Dick was always good at all the tricks. Whenever Jason tried them, he was always to clumsy, too sloppy, and ended up messing up somehow.

Regardless, he took it as a challenge, running to the edge of the crate and jumping, trying his best to copy Dick's flip. He managed it, however the landing was a different story. He tried to land feet together the way Dick had but ended up losing his balance and having to fall into a crouch with one hand on the ground for balance and one hanging in the air. He laughed to himself because he unintentionally made a superhero landing.

"Not great," Dick spoke with the expertise of a gymnast and the lighthearted one of someone trying not to hurt your feelings. "Dont be too hard on yourself, though. I started training when I was five years old. You're a high school senior-"

Jason rolled his eyes under his mask. "It's this fucking cape. How'd you move in this thing?"

"Poorly." Dick mused, cringing as if he recalled a bad incident. "That's why I ditched it." He gazed down the Nightwing suit with a smile. Jason had to admit it looked cool.

"Nightwing, Robin," Alfreds voice cut their conversation, speaking through their earpiece. "A car chase in pursuit. Two black Buick SUVs pursuit by police on the grand highway, heading towards the exit to metropolis. That's near you."

"Copy that," Dick said, then to Jason. "Let's go."

"How're we gonna stop a car chase?!" Jason asked, bewildered.

"Just follow me!" Dick said, already breaking into a run.

Jason kept up with him, the sound of his boots running against the wet asphalt the only thing they heard. Until the distant police sirens grew louder.

"There!" He pointed towards a series of lights and on the highway.

Dick turned and nodded. "Take cover."

Jason watched as his adopted brother ran from one end of the road to the other, taking something from his utility belt and scattering it where he ran.

The buicks were nearing them, so Jason ran and hid behind a nearby crate and looked around the corner to see what was happening.

As soon as the cars reached their part of the road, explosions went off. Their tires popped, then lit up.

Despite his initial hesitancy, Jason found himself grinning.

"Hey-" Someone spoke beside him.

"Oh, Jesus!" Jason gasped, his fists blindly flying out. Dick stepped aside, dodging it easily.

"When did you get here?" Jason held his hand to his chest, trying to catch his breath.

"Just now," Dick said nonchalantly, before nodding to the scene. "What'd you think?"

Jason turned back to see the cars stopped and the cops pulling up, and arresting the men inside. "Not bad," he said. "What explosives did you use?"

Dick took one out of his utility belt, handing it to his brother to assess. "Oh you mean these little guys?"

Jason studied the tiny gadget in his gloves hand. "Its triggered by impact?"

Dick tilted his head, looking impressed. "Yeah, how'd you kn-"

"Do you make them yourself?" Jason interrupted, still studying the gadget. "Can I keep it? What sets it off?"

Yeah, this kid had ADHD, thought Dick, but he still wanted to answer all of Jason's questions. "Sure. And no I dont make them. Bruce’s buddy is a weapons engineer. He does this kind of stuff."

Cool, Jason thought, still wondering about the make up of the bomb as he shoved it in his pocket.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Dick sighed. "He was plenty interested in one of these today. Maybe he should meet Lucious."

Bruce turned away from his computer to look at dick. "Yeah," he said with a thought. "Jason likes to break things apart." Recalling the story of how they met. Jason was a runt, taking apart the batmobile, planning to use the parts until Batman caught him.

Exhaled a soft chuckle. "Sure, someday I'll take him to meet Lucious."

That day never came.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

You had your own style outside the school’s strict uniform - a blend of rebellion and practicality that Jason couldn’t help but notice. Oversized baggy jeans slumped low on your hips, and that cut-off green jacket you seemed to live in. It was your favorite piece, worn so often that Jason could recognize it from a mile away. He remembered seeing you in it even before Gotham Academy, back when you were just the girl across the street, before adoption changed both your lives in very different ways.

He never thought he’d run into you here in this pretentious school with its manicured lawns and entitled students, but when you landed a science scholarship, he caught himself feeling oddly proud. Happy, even. You were like him - a kindred spirit in a place that felt like it didn’t want either of you. And he made sure you knew it, showing his appreciation in the most 'mature' way possible: tugging at your hair whenever he passed you in the halls, especially when you were with those same three friends you always stuck with.

Jason was walking down the empty school hall. He had just finished swim practice, water still dripping from his dark brown hair, when he heard your voice behind one of the classroom doors. He paused mid-step, instinctively drawn closer.

"Thank you, sir," you said, your tone carrying an unmistakable enthusiasm.

The door opened, and Jason ducked back, leaning casually against the lockers as you walked out. You were stuffing a folder haphazardly into your bag, your face bright with a small, self-satisfied smile. He couldn’t help but grin as he watched you push your glasses up with that familiar, unconscious gesture.

Then he stepped into view. "Big day-?"

"Oh god!" You startled, nearly dropping your bag as you turned to face him. "Hey," you gave him a wave in greeting, then you made a double take. "What are you doing here so early?"

"Swim practice. Six a.m. sharp." He shrugged, ruffling his damp hair with a towel. "What about you? Private meeting with Fischer? What’s that about?"

You frowned, glancing down at your bag. "That’s none of your business."

He smirked, undeterred. "Must’ve been something good. You looked very satisfied walking out of there."

"It’s called being polite," you shot back, rolling your eyes.

Jason leaned in slightly, his grin turning sly. "Polite? Nah, that wasn’t polite. That was more like… out of breath squeaky." He raised his voice to mimick yours with an exaggerated nicenessm "'Oh, thank you, sir! Anything else I can do for you, sir?" He made a show of batting his eyeloashed, ignoring the unimpressed look you gave him.

Shaking your head, you smiled as you brushing past him.

But he didn’t let you off that easily. He fell into step beside you, his tone casual. "I’m just saying-if you’re gonna have a crush on a teacher, maybe aim higher. Fischer’s gotta be pushing fifty."

You stopped mid-step, turning to glare at him. "He is not! He's thirty-four."

Jason’s smirk only widened, and you knew you gave yourself away. Trying to save face, you continued walking.

"So, what are you doing Sunday night?" He fell in step with you again.

You looked at him. "Nothing. Why?"

"I was thinking," he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder, "we could go for a ride. Clear your head from Fischer for a bit. You know, balance things out."

You groaned. "Let me live." Though, you couldn't help but be curious. "A ride where?"

He only grinned, leaving the question unanswered as he turned down another hall. "Just be ready by six pm. Sharp.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Jason planted kisses on your neck, his hand sliding up your thigh under your skirt, before your fingers wrapped around his wrist, stopping him. "Did you bring a condom?" You asked.

He blinked at you in confusion. "Got somewhere you need to be?"

You blinked. "No."

"I'm not gonna jump straight to fucking you." He chuckled.

Your brows furrowed. "Right. Of course not." You forced out a laugh, feeling stupid.

Then his eyes narrowed. "Have you ever let someone finger you before?"

"...No?"

"Have you ever had sex?" His brow rose.

"...No." You felt your cheeks heat up, lowering your eyes. "I'm guessing you have."

He chuckled. "Yeah,"

"What's so funny?" You asked defensively.

"Nothing, nothing." He waved his hand. "Just..."

"Just what?"

He grinned a stupid grin. "Just... im happy."

Well, you didn't expect that response. "Really?" You asked. A small smile tugging at your lips. He wanted to be your first?

"Yeah," he lowered his lips, biting yours. "I'm gonna be your first." he grinned, feeling a wave for pride rush trhough him.

You couldn't help the smile on your lips.

He cupped your cheek. "I'm gonna make you come first, though." His fingers reached reach the top of your panties, pulling them down past your feet, leaving you only in your skirt and bralette. You dressed nice for him, hoping he'd notice, but you were guessing that he didn't care much about the clothes when you could feel his eyes focus on your bare skin. He lowered his mouth to your thinly clad nipple, sucking it through your bra. You arched you back.

Leaning back on your elbows, you waited for what he would do next. Suddenly, you felt pressure on your core, his finger sliding against your folds before settling on a sensitive spot and rubbing it. Your breath hitched as you arched toward him. "Oh."

"How are you doing?" He asked, grinning.

"G-good," you nodded eagerly, biting your lip, and his fingers sped up. "Nh...when did you lose your virginity?" You asked. "How do you know to do that?"

"Porn." He shrugged.

You snorted. "And the first question?"

Blue grey eyes looked from side to side. "Last year, Halloween party at Jenna Wharton's house."

"Oh. With Jenna?" You blurted out the question before you could stop yourself. You weren't sure why, but the thought of him being intimate with someone made you upset. Even though you two weren't exactly exclusive...

He grinned as if recalling the experience. "Nah, Jenna's older sister. She was visiting from college."

"Oh," you nodded, swallowing down the wave of envy that rose up to your throat. "Was it good -"

His finger curled inside of you, causing your gasp cut off your own question.

"Shut up." He smiled, lowering to kiss you again.

Every movement he made that night was patient, his fingers trailing along your skin as though memorizing every inch. He came to kneel in front of you, bringing his mouth to your cunt, before licking up your slit.

"Fuck," your head rolled back. "Jason, please! Oh my god."

He groaned, grinning against you. He kept licking around one particular spot that made your breath hitch.

When he entered you for the first time, you both gasped. He paused before pulling out of you slowly, concern flickering in his eyes. “Too much?”

“No,” you managed, your voice trembling. “It’s perfect.”

Jason chuckled softly, the warmth of his body feeling dvine aganist your skin. His lips curved into that familiar, boyish grin, and he brought his lips to yours. “Good. Because I’ve been wanting this for a long time.”

"Me too," you smiled, feeling like you were floating as the intense pulsing took your core.

◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇

Jason lay on the warehouse floor, his Robin suit was torn around different parts, the exposed skin under it seeping blood onto the cold floor. Speaking of cold, Jason was pretty sure he was going to die here...

Taglist

@x-gabrielle-x

[troublesh00terfaery]

BELOW 18 PLEASE DO NOT INTERACT. THIS WORK IS NSFW! KEEP OUT! [THIS WORK IS PURELY FICTION]

[Alhaitham x AFAB! Reader]

Words: 3,003 Synopsis: In the heart of Sumeru, thrives the peaceful and unique kingdom to which governed by the monarchy. A young prince experiences a strange succession of dreams to which a mysterious woman comforts him. Wouldn't it be delightful to make this dreams into a reality? Tags: AFAB! Reader, slight teasing, Prince! Alhaitham x Goddess Reader. Pronouns for AFAB reader are she/her. Alhaitham slightly obsessed with you. So far, this will be main tags, more will be added on the following chapters. A/N: after a year of not posting, I AM BACK! AND YES, WITH MORE WORKS. I PROMISE I PROMISE! This idea has been in my head for quite sometime and I personally think you guys will be enjoying this. Should I make a series for the Sumeru men? Prolly. ALSO I DID NOT PROOFREAD THIS SO APOLOGIES, ENGLISH ISN'T MY FIRST LANGUAGE. -Circe,xoxo. <3

FOLLOWING, REBLOGGING, INTERACTIONS, AND FEEDBACKS ARE APPRECIATED

"My Lord, the scrolls have arrived." One of the scribes of the King arrived, offer him a handful of nicely kept scrolls.

For the past three months, Alhaitham has kept himself confined by the study. The setting filled with scrolls of knowledges, as if he tried to absorb every detail he was trying to comprehend. He only replied with a nod and took the scrolls and placed it by the table.

Alhaitham was the only son in line to the throne and he was no ordinary prince. With his knowledge and skill, the other neighbouring nations spoke of him warmly, although setting aside his stoic and rather cold demeanour upon interacting.

The past three months, a mysterious woman had appeared in his dreams in successions. Seemingly telling an ode to him but he couldn't remember what it was, only her beautiful face could he remember. Drapped in white linen and surrounded by padisarah flowers, she would comfort him in his serene dreams to only wake up with scrolls beside him and a cold cup of tea.

It haunted him, every move he made and every thought he had, it followed and haunted him. At times he could not sleep and tried his best to decipher what was it about. He would find himself drawing pictures of this mysterious woman to only ruin it, frustrated and convinced himself that it didn't look like her nor it was not her. Questioning his ability for artistic work he had learned.

At first, he was rather indifferent. It didn't bother him about this mysterious yet ethereal looking woman to appear in his dreams once in a while but as it went on oftenly, this somehow awakened something in him. His curiousity has took over him, trying to look for answers. He was not a man of spirituality but as the dreams went on, he had to summon a spiritual leader to interpret his dreams which he rather finds ridiculous. He was afterall, programmed with knowledge, rational, and logical thinking and approach.

But it did not help him at all, his curiosity grew and grew for this woman in his dreams. At some point, he would forcefully make himself fall asleep to see her again and promised to ever probe her, but her could not dream of her. Thus, he concluded that she would only appear in his dreams when it's: 1) it's night, and 2) when he doesn't force himself to fall asleep.

He wasn't a believer of such. In fact, as the dreams came in successions, he was concluding that he was either sick in the head or he lacked sleep. Given in his work focused nature, he deduct the idea that we was just lacking sleep but somehow, it made him rather stuck in a same routine where he longed for this mysterious woman in his dreams. Who was this woman? What did she mean? Was she real? What is she even?

Of course you were real, in fact, appearing in his dreams was not coincidence. You were indeed a living being, but not an ordinary one. Hindered from the advancement of Sumeru, lies your monastery filled with padisarahs and gold entombed monuments you refuse to leave for it is a sanctuary you have cultivated. It is true to what they say, the Sumeru has still secrets to be revealed, and you were one of the secrets yet to be come upon.

The dreams the prince set genesis when he stumbled upon an old scroll he found during the expedition a month prior his dreams. It was a shabby ancient scroll he found in a mausoleum to expand their territories in the vast lands of the sands. This way, they could keep a hold of the expanding group of eremites and their illegal trading and activities, as per the orders of the king himself to his only successor to the throne.

At first, he didn't pay much attention to the scroll as according to Alhaitham, it wasn't something he nor scribes comprehend. Although a shaman suggested this could be an ancient text telling a story of a goddess who secluded herself from the world. To his prior knowledge, Alhaitham considered the idea rather off. He digressed the notion of a goddess secluding herself from the world. Why would this goddess even seclude herself?

"Are you certain of this?" he asked the shaman, as if questioning the capabilities of the elder.

"That is for you to find out, your highness." the shaman replied.

Ridiculous. Alhaitham thought. He has never heard the tales of this mysterious divine being, nor was taught to him.

Unbeknownst to him, this would eventually trigger a response from you. You could hear his curiosity from a radius away and found it rather amusing. It didn't bother you that nobody prayed for you nor called out for refuge in your arms but this man has had you delighted. Is this an acknowledgment from a being the gods were referring to?

His growing curiosity was getting louder that you had to appear in his dreams. It was mere simple dreams, you appearing and observing him from a far, to showing him your small abode, to entertaining him by playing an instrument as he watched from a close distant.

And it got to the point that you teased the poor scribe by planting a small kiss on his lips. Upon breaking the kiss, he could only stare at you with feverish desire. His colorful eyes looking answers as you cupped his cheeks and feel his strong jaws clenching, urging himself to stop. He returned the favor by brushing his thumb to your luscious and plump lips, grazing his nose bridge by your supple cheeks and leaving kisses and hushed breaths. His palms making its way to your waist, as if trying to remember every detail he could remember. You let him, of course. Everything was new to you, the feeling of intimacy and the warmth of his touch would surge an unexplainable excitement to you. Something you lacked for years and something you, unexpectedly, found a need.

"Please, tell me who you really are and I would search for you in every nation." he begged, his head resting by your shoulder, seeking for both solace and answers as he left kisses over your exposed collar and neck.

You could only reply with a soft chuckle and cup his cheek and pecked a kiss on his cheek. It's a never ending question left unanswered. It was a cue to stop the dream and awaken him from his slumber. A kiss that would blur his vision and awaken him from his dream.

Even if it was only a dream in his point of view, he was still in your domain. Everything was real and it was beyond scientific explanation to prove that every time he was dreaming, everything was happening was happening in your domain. But could he really comprehend and figure out it was the goddess he denied of existence?

"Your grace, your father has called for you." a scribe entered his study, to find Alhaitham lazily looking by the painted ceiling. Seemingly awoken by the morning breeze of the open space of his chambers. The smell of incense from last night was freshly burnt out and the hues of the sunlight passing through the long curtains.

He tilted his head and responded with a nod. Few moments has passed, the prince presented himself to the king. Surprisingly, the king thought it would have been another day to nag the prince to get out of his chambers but there he was, walking towards the king in his seat.

"Father," he greeted.

"Ah yes, son." he spoke, delighted with the presence. Alongside the king was their pet, a Rishbolan tiger, Jihan, to which Alhaitham smiled as the big feline nudged its head to his legs before positioning itself beside Alhaitham.

"How was your night?"

Alhaitham could only remember your face and your soft chuckle. It took a moment before he could respond in his usual laidback demeanor.

"Nothing special." he replied. "You called?"

The king wasn't new to his straightforwardness and thus explained to him. A mysterious woman was spotted near the Vissudha expansion. The king explained to him that the guards spotted the woman just a few meters away from the construction the king has started two years ago. The woman was reported to be rather composed, explaining as to why she freely roamed the ungoing site. The site itself was dangerous, filled with wild beasts and noxious florals thus the only personnel allowed within the Vissudha expansion were architects and members of the royal committee.

"Oh." Alhaitham nodded to his father's story.

"The guards and the look outs commented on her knowledge with the terrains around Sumeru." the king replied. "So they brought her here."

"She's rather adventurous for exploring the area." Alhaitham circled the study table of his father before he comfortably sat by the sofa.

"Dare I must say, but her extensive knowledge with the sands is quite admirable."

"Oh?"

"Yes, in fact, I had spoken a few words with the young woman." The king chuckled, amused. "She's quite brilliant, suggesting a further expansion by the sands. Especially the mausoleums!"

Alhaitham could only respond with a hum. Seems like the women in Sumeru are rather peculiar for roaming carelessly, he thought.

"If I can guess, she's at your age or probably younger. Must have come from a noble family, and archons, her beauty is otherwordly!"

At his age, Alhaitham isn't new to his father's suggestion of him marrying. He was at the age, it is just that his son didn't pay attention and put the importance of it at this moment. He knows it so well that his father would insist upon meeting this woman and thus readied himself by rejecting his father's notion.

"You should meet her."

"No," he replied. "I have scrolls to keep and manage, father." he stood up, Jihad yawned from his action, causing for the feline to stand up and flex its body before nudging and circled the prince. "Jihad…"

The feline responded with succession of chuffs.

"No, no, guards please escort the young lady." the king hurriedly instructed, halting the young prince from walking away. The young prince heaved a sigh, and sat back by the wide sofa once again. This time, Jihad had placed himself by his lap and offed himself to his usual sleep.

The king himself was delighted to see the prince not walking away thus, became slowly impatient to introduce this lady and a few moments has passed, the guards themselves arrived by the king's chambers. Accompanying this said lady to meet the prince.

Each tick of the time, Alhaitham grew impatient with the little meet and greet. He angled his face to towards the curtains, he rubbed his forehead using his middle finger and his index finger whilst his thumb rested on the temple of his forehead. His other hand rested by the felines body to which Jihad appreciated by chuffing.

This was a waste of time, according to Alhaitham. He wasn't aware his father was a matchmaker, so eager to get his only son to be wed. The thought of being married has Alhaitham furrowing his brows.

"Ah, Alhaitham, come meet the young lady." The king softly spoke. Alhaitham could hear his positive remarks to this young lady to which she replied in small and shy chuckles. If he was to judge her, he would find her peculiar and mindless for roaming the area alone. Who on earth would walk alone confidently in an area yet to be finished with construction and still to be tamed?

"Father, I do not have time for this discussion you are initiating--"

"It is an honor, to finally meet the prince." the young lady spoke.

He took a peek from his fingers to have a view of the lady just a few meters away from him. And there she stood, wearing a simple white clothing and a scarf that was loosely wrapped around her hair, a few loose strands of her hair swayed by the wind.

Eyes matching the gaze of the royal prince, a small smile forming in your lips. Upon having a clear view of you, Alhaitham realized what was in front of him. Dumbfounded and speechless, he slowly stood up and awoken the tiger that comfortably laid himself by his lap. Jihad yawned and chuffed, excusing himself by jumping just below the luxurious sofa.

All he could do was to stand there and thought to himself this must be an illusion, or one of his dreams. Silence enveloped the study of the king as he observed you gaze at him with those beautiful yet studious eyes. It's like he couldn't decipher if it was truly you in his dreams or a different person.

There you were, standing in your corporeal form but nothing changed, only the clothing of choice. Ever so radiant, ever so ethereal. The prince couldn't utter any words as he was dumbfounded by the person in front of him. Was his head playing tricks with him? Probably the light? With every inhale an exhale you did, it was proof of life that you were indeed real. After nights of longing for you, you were finally here. In his reality.

Truth be told, this wasn't a scheme you would normally do. Why would a goddess, who voluntarily secluded herself from the world to live in her curated domain, leave her sanctuary? But oh, maybe it was his effect on you? Something finally ignited your curiosity from the outside world. A prince, a brilliant and handsome one.

The king was rather amused with the reaction of his son as he slowly approached you but then halted, as if doubting your existence again.

"Ah, seems like the prince is astonished by your beauty, my dear lady."

The warmth of the king only made you smile as you gazed at Alhaitham. He on the other hand somehow doubted every inch of life in you thus his brows furrowed. The king was indeed right, Alhaitham couldn't deny the beauty in you. You radiated of something out of this world, a beauty that could make a man lose his mind. Lethal, he would call it.

"They were right, your highness." you spoke. "He was indeed a beautiful prince."

Alhaitham stood there, ready to speak.

"Where did you come from?"

That was rather an unexpected question, you thought.

"I was just roaming around the area because I heard there was a constructio--"

"I am asking where are you from." His tone was stern but calm, probing the situation more.

You wouldn't tell him of your sanctuary. It would be ridiculous and of course, it was a secret.

"I came from the desert."

"Which part of the desert exactly?"

"Hadramaveth."

"Ridiculous, that area is out of the reach of the palace nor the council."

"Well I suppose you should widen your expansion within the desert." you replied with a monotone. "After all, the king mentioned you have an ongoing expedition, why not discover it yourself."

He could only stare at your answers, his hawk-like gaze observing you as if he was to judge you of your being. You actually forgot to distinguish whether this was his usual attitude compared to his demeanor during his dreams.

"That area of the desert is out of reach because of its harsh desert." he crossed his arms. "It is an untamed land filled with sandworms and consecrated beasts."

The probing session awakened Jihad whom approached his prince, slowly circling him.

"Well indeed, your grace." you replied. "But there is an area where humans can live, just the passage between Hadramaveth and the Tanit camps."

"To which the eremites occupy." he rebuked. "So, you are an eremite then?"

"No, of course not." the question made you furrow your brows.

"Then answer my question, where are you from?"

The king felt the tension between the two of you. You initially thought that he was going to be delighted to see you in your human form instead of his dreams. But here he is, questioning you. A human, questioning you.

"Now, now, Alhaitham." the king awkwardly chuckled, stepping in. "I think you are scaring the young lady. She offered help to navigate the sands."

"I already sent my men, no need for navigation." Alhaitham looked at his father.

"Your men are headed the wrong direction," you replied. "They're still at the mausoleums."

"And how do you know this? Are you certain they're my men? What mausoleum are you referring to?"

Well, shoot. Of course you couldn't tell him that you can just see everything in a snap. That would ruin your plan. Think. Think. Think.

Now you were certain this was a bad idea, you should've just shut yourself inside that sanctuary of your comfort instead of feeding this man of his wants. What is he up to anyway? You scolded yourself.

"Your highness--"

"That's enough. Guards, please escort this young lady to her quarters." the king sighed.

"No, father. She will be accompanying me in my study." Alhaitham turned his back, walking away and his tiger following along. "She'll have to map the desert out."

You stood there, dumbfounded. This was different man, a different man in his dreams. Where was the man who would look at you with those longing eyes despite being close together? Where was that man who would listen to you play the harp and smile as your grazed your fingers through the strings? Where was the man who would ask for your touch and comfort? Where was he?

You couldn't move from the unexpected reaction from him. Was he not content of seeing you? The silence enveloped and only the heave of the king snapped you back from the heavy thought. Alhaitham stopped as he noticed you were not tagging along.

"Come," he looked back with those stoic eyes.

What an unexpected turn of events.

A/N: FOLLOWING, REBLOGGING, INTERACTIONS, AND FEEDBACKS ARE APPRECIATED! Make sure to follow the first hashtag #Circeworks୨୧ to be updated with my future works! Happy reading faes!

[landograndprix]

╰┈➤ ❝ desire • l.n c.l ❞

part one - part ii

➪ Charles hasn't paid much attention to you after your daughter was born but a certain Brit does.

➪ Everything seems to be going right and life seems amazing, at least to the others..not for you.

➪ established relationship mom!reader x dad!Charles x lando

➪ this came to me as I was running a high fever, stop judging me..i also needed a charles fic here, No lando in this one yet, Charles ain't a real good partner and google translate is my bestest friend

➽────────────────────────❥

charlesgirlies

liked by 456 others

charlesgirlies Charles and Zoë in y/n's story today 🥰

view all 189 comment

cahlossainz oh

chilisainz oh my god I'm dead 😭

↳ bott_ass bestie same

charles16 she needs to keep feeding us dad Charles please!!

leclerc_16 volunteering to be his baby mama

lanlan Zoë is just the cutest little bean 🥰

↳ charlesgirlies she is! 🥰

lanlan lil cutie like her mom :)

charlesgirlies and her dad!

charloslesainz y/n living my dream life 😭

landoscar I just know zoë has Charles wrapped around her finger

yukisan didn't know y/n and charles were together let alone have a kid 😂

↳ clsixteen have you been living under a rock? It was a big scandal when they were seen together 5 years ago?? 😭

yukisan I'm new so i dont have all the lore, just thought they were friends because they both come from Monaco 😅

leckerkcharles y/n the predator and her victims

mrsleclerc love that there's still people in the comments being mad about them dating 💀

↳ carlandooo for real it's been 5 years people and charles is not little sauber Charles anymore 🤡

charlesgirlies people be acting like y/n is 40 years older than charles

➽��───────────────────────❥

y/nusername

📍 Sicily, italy

liked by charles_leclerc, noellepicard and 369,989 others

y/nusername babes big day out 🏖

tagged: noellepicard, manon_roux

view all 1,111 comments

noellepicard she's a little mermaid 🧜🏻‍♀️

charlesssss I can't, she's the cutest 😭

charles_leclerc princesse ❤️

↳ charloslesainz stop it, he's such a girl dad imma throw up

hamilt44n man is made to be a dad honestly

manon_roux lucky to have the prettiest girls in the world with me 🥰

↳ joris__trouche je n'ai pas reçu mon invitation? (i didn't get my invite)

y/nusername probablement parce que je n'en ai pas envoyé :) (probably because i didn't send one)

joris__trouche comportement inacceptable (unacceptable behaviour)

charles_leclerc Joris est une des filles maintenant 😂 (joris is one of the girls now)

y/nusername Je devrais lui acheter une mini-jupe et des talons hauts pour nos prochaines vacances :') (should buy him a mini skirt and some high heels for our next vacation)

manon_roux j'aimerais voir cela se produire 🤣 (i'd love to see that happen)

joris__trouche j'aurais l'air sexy et tu ne peux pas le nier (i'd look sexy and you can't deny it)

sharl16 no idea what they're saying but I agree 😭

landoscar her little feeties 🥺

leclerc_16 am I the only one who finds it strange that they haven't been together this summer break?

↳ carlosleclerc they were bestie, they spend time together with friends in Monaco last week..they're both on their girls and boys vacation..pretty normal

leclerc_16 oh I've missed that part..still something feels off

carlosleclerc I mean y/n gave birth to their daughter not that long ago and its probably not the best idea to fly with a new born/baby all around the world. I'm sure they're fine..

leclerc_16 mmm you're probably right, would hate to see them split up though

➽────────────────────────❥

➽────────────────────────❥

y/nusername posted to their story

➽────────────────────────❥

➽────────────────────────❥

y/nusername

📍 Monte-Carlo, Monaco

liked by arthur_leclerc, pierregasly and 327,888 others

y/nusername juste toi et moi à l'infini, petite fille 💗 (just you and me to infinity, little girl.)

view all 1,222 comments

noellepicard 😍

yourmumsuser mes anges ❤️ (my angels)

charloslesainz 'just you and me' doesn't sit right with me lmfao

↳ thurthur my god it's just a caption 💀

landoscar for real they're always reaching for things

thurthur they always trying to start shit and it's getting annoying and repetitive

clsixteen never seen such a cute kid 🥰

francisca.cgomes need to meet her soon!

↳ y/nusername your always welcome!

bananaclerc cutest little bunny 🐰

manon_roux mon lapinou ❤️ (my bunny)

joris__trouche mon petit monstre ❤️ (my little monster)

↳ hamilt44n stop this kid is so loved 😭

sainzleclerc feeding the delulu fans with that caption

↳ charlesgirlies it's literally just a damn caption!!!

sainzleclerc I know but the crazy charles girlies haven't seen them together in a while and don't forget Charles hasn't mentioned zoë in a while.. things add up in their heads 🤡

charles_leclerc mes princesses ❤️

↳ y/nusername 🥰

➽────────────────────────❥

➽────────────────────────❥

➽────────────────────────❥

y/nusername posted to their story

➽────────────────────────❥

➽────────────────────────❥

Everything taglist; @thomaslefteyebrow @hopefulinlove @smoothopz @honethatty12 @cixrosie @parkersmjs @ireadthensuetheauthors @celestialams @be-your-coffee-pot @heli991113 @kodzuvk @reality-is-a-con @80sloverry @bibissparkles @myescapefromthislife @lanando4 @elliegrey2803 @ravisinghs-wife @harrysdimple05 @minkyungseokie @pretty-little-bunny382728

Lando taglist: @simp-for-fictional-people @landossainz @christianpulisic10 @bored-brunette2

let me know if you want to be taken off the taglist

[twilightangel83]

Hello and good day to all my fellow Legend of Zelda fans!

As you may or may not be aware we in the Legend of Zelda fandom have been having some troubles when it comes to tagging on A03. Mostly that the only tags that seem to be available to tag various Links with was the Linked Universe specific tags. Which led to writers either trying to make their own tags (which no one knew how to find) or inaccurately using Linked Universe Tags. Neither of which were fair to creators writing outside of Linked Universe, or fair to the Linked Universe community (let alone JoJo herself!).

People trying to tag their non-Linked Universe fics were either scrambling to be found or blending their words in with Linked Universe works. And Linked Universe fans who were searching for Linked Universe fics ended up stumbling across fics they weren’t looking for.

So, with that in mind, I reached out to the A03 team in search of a solution. And they have gotten back to me! I am going to post a picture of their reply under the cut, but I will summarize it first.

There (now? I’m not clear if they’ve all existed before) are tags we can use for most of our various Links that aren't Linked Universe. They’re just not tags that go in the “Character” box. Instead, you put Link (Legend of Zelda) in the character box and then one (or more) of these tags into the “Additional Tags” box. The tags are ‘Link from X game’. So, for example: Link from Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom (Legend of Zelda) or Link from Twilight Princess (Legend of Zelda). If you try to put a specific Link in and they don’t exist already you’ll just have to fill it in unfortunately. And the more people use that tag the sooner it will be made into one that’s canonized.

Mind you! These tags should NOT be used for Linked Universe fanfictions. JoJo has explicitly asked that Linked Universe fanworks NOT be tagged with general Legend of Zelda tags. And that is what these are. So please leave these tags for those of us writing outside of Linked Universe.

I did a little experimenting and there seems to be a tag for every game EXCEPT;

“Link from Four Swords Adventures (Legend of Zelda)”,

"Link from Triforce Heroes (Legend of Zelda)",

“Link from The Legend of Zelda (Legend of Zelda)”,

“Link from The Adventures of Link (Legend of Zelda)”, and

“Link from Age of Calamity (Legend of Zelda)”.

There is also no tag for:

“The Hero of Men (Legend of Zelda)” (or whatever title could be used for the hero before Link from The Minish Cap)

But there are Character tags for “Ancient Hero (Legend of Zelda)” and “Hylia’s Chosen Hero (Legend of Zelda)” (who I believe is the First Hero).

The more we, as a fandom, use these tags (especially the ones that aren’t currently searchable) the more readily usable they will be.

[thatdeadaquarius]

PowerPoint night with the genshin cast ✨

NO BC I SAW THIS IN MY INBOX AND I WAS FROTHING AT THE MOUTH WITH TOO MANY IDEASSS, the energy is just this:

You introduce the wonderful concept of powerpoints, then a powerpoint night and you should expect absolute chaos

Mondstadt over here like,

"Why I Deserve Wine:

I am a god

I am YOUR god, give me offerings duh

(insert conclusion here)"

by Venti, he didn't even both filling out some slides, and they're all just plain text with maybe a nice selfie of himself on the first slide lmao

STOP, DILUC'S POWERPOINT BEING A 40 SLIDE PRESENTATION RESPONSE TO VENTI'S AHALKSJ

or better yet, Creator!You version:

"An Explanation of Why the One Above Us All Would Enjoy Living in Liyue During Their Stay Here" by Zhongli, which takes approx. 4+ hours to get thru, and its his case for why u should stay in Liyue Harbor - half the ppl there are actually paying attention and the other half are fast asleep (u included)

Meanwhile Yae Miko trying to stir the pot like, "Which Vision-User, God, or Nation is Our Ruler's Favorite" 💀

Also another presentation that would make several ppl give response presentations and it just becomes: HER SISTER WAS A WITCH BRO = THE CREATOR LIKES SUMERU MORE BRO

CRYING- people like Zhongli, Albedo, Alhaitham, Xingqiu, Neuvillette, Xiao, Sucrose, Jean, Ei/Raiden Shogun, Faruzan all misunderstanding and thinking u actually want a real presentation from them 😭😭

ngl all the Sumeru/Akademiya/Fontaine characters have probably gotten somewhat close to doing some kind of equivalent to this, mostly bc ppl will debate abt the stupidest stuff over there so they get it, wonder if they made drinking games out of it lol

(first question from Sumeru characters is "what is powerpoint night, and why has Alhaitham probably already won it")

pls im so braindead rn there are ENDLESS possibilities for this, if anyone has more I am LISTENING!!!

Safe Travel 0rah,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck / @questionotmystopit / @chinuneko

@kiyomi-uchiha777

[kaybreezy3000]

Looking for Happy Five Hargreeves X FTM Reader -anon request)

~Explicit sexual content -if no likey-stay away please.

Hilariously simple but true summary: Five Hargreeves is sad and horny and wants to fuck, and all he wants is you.

(Don't worry, I will try to take you a little emotional rollercoaster that's not all the dirty-dirty 👍)

~Reader is post-top surgery and pre-bottom surgery.

~This story was done as an anon request, asking if I'd be willing to do a pairing of Five X m reader, or Five X ftm reader. The request left the plot open for me to decide if it had much of one or how deep I went with it. Anon did give me a few fun ideas to include if I could, and I did my best to deliver and had a lot of fun doing it, so I hope you enjoy. Thank you, anon. And special thanks to my buddy Bad Kitty @badkitty3000 for proof reading this and catching my zillions of mistakes.❤️

(18,900 words)

Content Warnings and additional tags: Dom Five and some Sub Five, small 'Scream' movie add in per anon's personal love of the movie with sexy Billy and Stu, light praise kink, daddy kink, rough sex, choking, spanking, public sex, Five being sweet, Five being a cocky jerk, masturbation mentions, flirting)

NOTE: This story takes place during season four and after it, using a series of flashbacks, so it moves between past and present several times. Also, this was obviously written before season 4 came out, with an alternate season 4 ending written my way. It has lots of season 4 trailer and interview mentions to make it more fun and hopefully tie in a little with the real season 4.

~~~~~Looking for Happy~~~~~

Coming out of one of the empty offices at the Temps Commission headquarters, Five is met with silence. He still holds the title to the main building of the time controlling agency that he founded, but now, he and his family are the only ones that know it ever existed. 

He has no reason to be there.

It’s as it should be, but like always, he can’t seem to move on.

As Five told The Handler, he is a man that no longer belongs anywhere, only when he said that, he didn’t realize he was the driving force behind so much of his own suffering, or that in the end, it would all come down to him.

Everything he’s done was to restore life as it should be, and finally, this time they won. They are all alive. He should be happy. They are back in their original timeline where they should have always been, but the concept of time and Five’s place in it have always felt like pieces of a puzzle that were never meant to be solved. 

For everyone but the Hargreeves, with their exceptional powers given at birth, it’s as if the final battle that brought on the end, and then opened the door for the new beginning never happened.

That means you don’t remember him.

The rest of the world didn’t need to remember the terror. You just needed to live.

Strolling along, hands in his pockets, eyes downcast as the heels of his dress shoes echo down the vacant halls, despite his wins, Five feels empty. All he wants is to go back to a time and place that’s no more, back to when he could feel your lips pressed to his with a desperation that matched his own.

Reaching the end of the hall, he enters the narrow room filled with screens and panels of little white and blue blinking lights. He sinks into one of the industrial style chairs that’s placed in front of the Infinite Switchboard’s main frame.

Five clicks on the outdated looking monitor, his fingers turning the knobs, dialing.

~~~

Not long later, Five’s face is glued to the screen when Klaus peaks in at him from the hall.

Knowing Five would be here, Klaus passes over the threshold, loudly clearing his throat before saying, “Hey there, big bro…watcha doing?”

Five doesn’t even look up. “Yeah, lucky me. Is it time for our weekly check-in already?”

Treading lightly, Klaus approaches. “When you missed dinner tonight, we were a little worried you’d fallen asleep on the countertop in the break room again, but here you are...”

Klaus lightheartedly laughs at his attempt to make a joke about Five’s odd sleeping habits, but Five continues to ignore him.

“Thank goodness we still have a few of these things hanging around, otherwise the rest of us wouldn’t be able to visit this lovely place,” he says as he lugs up one of Five’s time traveling briefcases, waving it in his face.

Five glares at him.

“Really, man,” Klaus continues. “Everyone was there tonight. It was all the usual banter you’d expect from such an amazing group of misfits, but it would have been so much better if you were there too. Things even got a little out of hand when Diego insisted on coming here to force you to eat what was left of their disgusting vegan goulash, but don’t worry, I put him in his place.”

“Sure, you did,” Five mumbles.

Taking a step closer Klaus asks, “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

Klaus’s eyes follow his brother’s unbroken gaze to the monitor, just as you enter your apartment building, where you stop in front of the wall of mailboxes. Your hand comes up, bringing your key to your lock, but your eyes remain fixed on the mailbox above yours.

“That was your mailbox,” Klaus points out, like Five doesn’t already know that.

Five once stood right there by you in that entryway. He hadn’t thought anyone that wasn’t part of his family would ever have the balls to try to put him in his place, but you did, and by doing it, you opened a part of him that before that, he hadn’t been willing to let anyone touch.

After shoving your mail in the back pocket of your baggy jeans, just like the day you met, with your face obscured by your sweatshirt, you stomp up the stairs, your anger evident.

The screen hisses with static as Five adjusts your location until it shows you walking into your bedroom. 

“Why don’t you just go there and talk to him? Maybe jump him in the shower or something. Sounds like something you kinky boys would both enjoy,” Klaus unhelpfully suggests.

“He’s not in the shower, you dumbass,” Five says, letting out an irritated sigh afterwards.

“He might be in a few minutes…”

“No.”

“Hey man, I know it wasn’t supposed to happen, but he remembers you,” Klaus insists, spinning Five’s chair around.

Swinging around, Five almost falls out of his chair. “What the fu-!"

“Five, I know you’re only trying to do what you think is right, but just look at him, something is wrong!”

Five does look, just as you pick up the stack of papers and news clippings from your bedside table. He doesn’t need to zoom in to see the one you are holding. It’s a famous image of him in his academy uniform, mask and all, standing like the smug little jerk he was while posing in line next to the rest of the superpowered Hargreeves children.

“There is no other explanation for why he is looking up all this stuff about you, and there’s other reason why he keeps coming by my old place,” Klaus furthers, “Why won’t you let me go talk to him? We were friends. He might remember me too.”

“Leave him alone!” Five snaps, but his bark has no bite, and his eyes can no longer hide how painful this is seeing you this way.

“Everyone is worried about you. We just want to help,” Klaus pleads.

“You can’t help me with THIS!” Hands shaking, Five jumps up, his voice breaking just a little as he says, “Klaus... I can’t.”  He looks back over at the screen, right as you furiously toss a tiny collector figurine version of him across the room. “Just because I want to see something in this doesn’t mean it’s real,” Five whispers, looking anywhere but at his brother, or you.

“He maybe wasn’t supposed to remember, but I think he does. As we all know, there are a lot of things that make no sense in this world,” Klaus disagrees. “There is something going on with him. Can’t you see he’s falling apart?”

Jaw working anxiously, Five drops back down in front of his screens again, flipping them to what is clearly a random time and date, somewhere in the past with ladies in long billowing skirts and the men in fancy dress coats, escorting them down muddy streets filled with steaming piles of horse shit.

It’s over.

This is how it always goes.

Klaus remains silent as Five pulls out a notebook, pretending to be taking notes on whatever he is pretending to get out of watching things from the past when there is no longer a reason to monitor it for corrections. 

Klaus knows that Five isn’t going to budge, but before he leaves, he says, “Five, I know you are only trying to do what you think is best for him, but what if it’s not best. It’s not too late to fix this part of what was broken too.”

Five’s pen slows as he looks up at his brother standing over by the door. He nods, trying to smile but Klaus can see it’s so hard for him to do it. “I promise I’ll be there next time. Tell Lila that I am sorry.”

“Tell her yourself,” Klaus shoots back, followed by a small chuckle, “She’s pissed. She worked for hours cutting up all those fancy organic carrots for you, so don’t be surprised if the next time you drop by, she chops something off that you find equally important as wanting us all to eat sustainably. And by important, I mean your wiener,” he unnecessarily clarifies.

The hint of a real smile fights to come out and wins this time as Five says, “Lila hates to cook, so I know she did not help make me dinner, and if she was going to chop off my dick, she would have done it by now.”

Klaus smiles too and shrugs. “Maybe… She was pretty mad at you though, so I guess you’ll have to come over to their place to find out if you are still besties. And hey, maybe think about bringing my friend along with you next time. Everyone is dying to meet him and see that adorable smiling face of yours. It’s not like we all don’t know how you like being perpetually grumpy, but seriously…you’re so much prettier when you smile.”

While Five is telling Klaus to fuck off, hoping he finally talked some sense into him, Klaus quickly rounds the corner, hoisting up his briefcase, his fingers punching in the correct date to go back to the present.

As soon as Klaus is gone, Five’s smile fades. He turns the dial, bringing up the footage of you also back in current time, right as you’re screaming into your pillow. “What the fuck is wrong with me!”

His heart breaks a little more.

Nothing is wrong with you. He is the problem, that is why he never should have done what he did. 

He should have let you walk away, but he didn’t.

~~~

The invisible string, a connection that refuses to be ignored, tugs at your mind and it won’t stop.

You’re going crazy.  

Like the miniature resin version Five you just sent flying, the pillow on your face joins it on the floor.

It makes no sense, but you can still feel the tickle of Five’s breath against your neck as you cuddled together on your couch, him contentedly holding you like he never wanted to let you go.

Your eyes remain focused on your motionless ceiling fan, but your brain refuses to come back to the present.

The pain inside your chest tightens.

You try to push it away, but it only gets worse the more you try to tell yourself to stop this.

This is insanity. You need help. That’s what people would say if you told them about the things going on inside your head.

From anything you can gather, Five’s family seem like they aren’t concerned about anything at all, but not that long ago you remember them being shown on every news channel, doing unimaginable things while defending themselves from the barrage of artillery being shot at them.

Five left you only hours before that, promising to be back, but he never came back.

Long after he said he’d be home, you watched in shock as the news blasted stories about him and other people associated with him that made no sense. They said they were aliens! They said they were superheroes from another dimension! They flashed images of Five’s much younger face alongside the other people he grew up with, including Klaus.

Then a war started in the streets.

Almost immediately, the news reporters had given up trying to maintain their façade of calm. The holiday lights beyond their lens twinkled eerily as the sound of explosions filled the air and rocked the ground.

People screamed and sirens blared, and not just on the TV. You could hear it coming from outside your windows.

As the collapsed news camera continued to stream live feed, out of nowhere, Five appeared in the frame, enveloped for a fraction of a second in a flash of violet hued light.

Your jaw nearly hit the floor. It couldn’t be real.

Five’s long coat tails flung like wings behind him as he grabbed ahold of the terrified girl whose picture you’d seen on the birthday invite Klaus had shown you. Five and the girl disappeared in another burst of light, just as bullets ripped through the metal garbage can she was hiding behind.

You smelled the smoke in the air when you ran outside. The earth shook, rattling your teeth as the echo of gunfire sent chills up your spine.

It all happened, only it didn’t. Nobody else remembers it.

Now, the Umbrella Academy is a thing of the past. The superpowered children that had once lived there are common knowledge, but they supposedly moved on with their lives long ago.

Klaus’s apartment isn’t his anymore, and the doors at the Umbrella Academy never open when you ring the bell.

The world in which you met is gone and the Five you knew is gone with it.

Five Hargreeves disappeared at the age of 13, never to be seen or heard from again.

Was any of it even real?

Again, you’re back to questioning your sanity.

“Fuck,” you curse, while raking your hand through your hair.

It’s been months. Three months and twenty-seven days to be exact since you first talked to Five, only then, you didn’t know that was his real name and not just a quirky nickname he preferred to go by.

He always had a nervous energy about him, and he always seemed distracted, so you usually paid no attention to him, but that day, something about the way he refused to acknowledge your presence set you off.

After he rudely stepped on your foot and pushed into you with his shoulder while reaching for his mailbox, you slammed your metal mailbox door closed, doing it much louder than needed.

You smiled with satisfaction when Five startled, even jumping a little.

He looked over at you with cartoon sized wide eyes.

Shaking your head, you’d said, “Not sure if you noticed, but you are not the only one trying to occupy this space. I exist too.”

Five’s eyes narrowed, the intensity of his glare slowly moving up and down as he took in your loose t-shirt and baggy jeans, comfortably paired with your favorite beat up low top sneakers.

You were sure the assessment he was making of you was not a good one. Especially when you consider that he was dressed impeccably as he always was, a long wool coat over a three-piece suit, with his hair a mess of chocolate brown strands, that though all over the place, only made him look even more unfairly attractive.

Compared to him, even though you stood over him by an inch or more, you suddenly felt like a tiny bug on the floor about to be obliterated under one of his shiny dress shoes. Your bodies outwardly didn’t look that much different, but you could tell that you were a little scrawny even when compared to his relative scrawniness. On top of that, he appeared to be close to the same age as you, but it was as if you were opposites, living in the same shitty apartment building, but he was somehow better than you.

You quickly concluded that he was a totally dickhead. Thinking about his stupid big black shoes, and then dicks as they related to shoe size, your mind started moving to certain ways that you were pretty sure you were different from him other than the fact that you weren’t an asshole.

You started to turn away, but before you did, you bitterly added, “I live here, by-the-way. We pass by each other almost daily. Not sure if you are aware of that?”

Ingrained manners getting the best of you, you extended a hand. Five looked at it like a foreign object.

He said nothing, so getting really mad, you casually as possible hooked a thumb under your waistline, while defiantly cocking your chin at him. “An I am sorry, or an excuse me, are just two options you could use to apologize when you just rudely rammed into someone, but it looks like you’re not going to do that since you lack even the most basic kindergarten level social skills.”

You tucked your mail in your back pocket and his eyes immediately moved down to your waist, openly checking out your striped boxers that were starting to show thanks to your pants sagging. Even more annoyed by this less than pleasant interaction, you started to walk away, quietly breathing out the word ‘jerk’ as you headed back towards the stairs.

“Wait!” he called out.

Surprised, you turned back to see the corner of Five’s mouth ticked up, the small movement hardly even noticeable if you hadn’t been suddenly hyper focused on the softness of his slightly parted lips.

“You aren’t wrong. Social graces aren’t where I excel,” he started. “I get lost inside my own head sometimes. I am sorry. Will you accept my apology, or is there something else I can do to make up for being so impolite? Wouldn’t want the neighbor boy thinking I’m a jerk.” 

He extended his hand. 

“You can call me Five, by-the-way.”

Fuck. He heard you, and what the hell, was he trying to be condescending? And Five? 

What the hell kind of name is that?

You looked back over at the name on his mailbox, it wasn’t Five.

“Five is a family nickname,” he explained. The dimple in Five’s cheek grew deeper the longer you dumbfoundedly stared at him. He lifted a brow. “I may be a lot of things, but deep down, I swear I’m a gentleman. I really am sorry for violating your personal space, but I am not that sorry about it because it meant we got to do this.”

What was with this guy?

Rarely did guys his age act so…

Shit… Was he hitting on you?

Five’s smile was like a superpower all its own and it was rendering you speechless, making you temporarily unable to maintain the level of irritation you’d had before. Feeling your face getting hotter, you couldn’t figure out why his words or his expression looked and sounded so flirty, but they did.

Maybe he was just trying to be nice?

Trying to play it cool, you threw a hand back through your slightly less shaggy looking haircut, then replied, “Sure… Nice to meet you and the apology is good enough. Very big of you. Thanks.”

Five’s taunting smile remained, as if you shooting him down was exactly what he wanted.

“Oh,” he breathed, digging through his stack of mail before pulling out an envelope, “I believe this is yours?” He frowned as he looked down at the feminine sounding name and your apartment number that was printed under the clear cellophane address window. “Your roommate, or girlfriend’s, I’m assuming?”

You took the mail from him. “No. No roommate and no girlfriend, just me.”

You were sure that Five looked relieved to hear that, and your breath caught, and your heart kicked up accordingly.

Adding the envelope to your back pocket, you breathed in, then slowly let it out as you rocked back on your heels. “That’s…my dead name,” you clarified.

Five said nothing. He seemed confused as his eyes wandered from yours and he rubbed his chin, but then his eyes suddenly came up, meeting yours again just as it seemed a lightbulb went off inside his brain.

His handsome smile took your breath away as he said, “I never would have guessed, but then again, there is a slightly unhinged, 64-year-old man hiding inside my head, and I am sure you never would have guessed that either.”

You laughed. You never would have guessed he’d be so funny or cute, but he was full of all sorts of surprises.

“You know, nobody reads the news that way anymore, other than grumpy old men, but I guess that makes sense since you’re a retiree,” you teased, trying to keep this whatever it was going by fucking with him again.

Unfazed by you making fun of him, Five nodded. “True,” he agreed, “When it comes to reading real newspapers and my other geriatric ways, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty from time to time on these ink smudged pages,” he waved his paper at you, “-or in other more challenging ways that are much more enjoyable. With the lifetime of experience I have under my belt, I’m sure I could teach you a lesson or two on how to have a good time the old-fashioned way.”

Taking his rolled newspaper, Five slapped it into his opposite hand, making a spanking gesture, all the while never taking his eyes off you.

You rubbed your palms down the front of your jeans. “Wha-what kind of fun?” you stammered, your brain clicking off as blood rushed between your legs.

“The crossword puzzle,” he clarified, followed by a cocky little chuckle. “There’s much more to the newspaper than doom and gloom news stories. It’s all about the delayed gratification. Seeing all those empty squares filled in the only words that can solve the puzzle is a sight well worth the effort.”

“You’re talking about doing crossword puzzles from the newspaper?”

“What else would I be talking about?” he countered.

Holy shit, you wanted to deck him.

~~~

A few days went by, and you didn’t run into your charmingly arrogant neighbor again, not until you were coming home late and you walked into a neighborhood pub to grab some dinner. You looked over, and to your surprise, you saw the familiar profile of a dark-haired asshole sitting alone at the bar.

“You can’t be twenty-one,” you said, sliding in next to him.

Five’s lips pulled to the side as he gave you the most mischievous looking side eye you’d ever seen. “So, you’re stalking me now? If my coworkers at the CIA knew how easily you tracked me down, I’d be fired.”

You scoffed, “You wish,” meaning both to the stalking and him working for the CIA.

Smirking fully, as if acknowledging he did wish you were stalking him, Five self-assuredly tipped his glass your way before sending the rest of the amber colored liquid down his throat.

With his head tipped back, tie pulled loose, and the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone, try as you might, you couldn’t stop looking at the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Really. How old are you?” you pushed, trying not to drool.

Five let out a cocky sounding laugh, his eyes a mossy calm as his gaze flicked down and up, drinking you in like he was a lion, sizing up its prey. “19 going on 64, give or take. Doesn’t matter because here, the drinks are strong, and the bartenders don’t care.”

“Right…” Shaking your head at him as you smiled, you flagged down a server.

Knowing what you wanted already, you ordered, but when you asked for it to-go, Five unexpectedly interrupted. “Make that for here, and for two, and put it on my tab, please.”

The bartender looked at you and you nodded that it was okay.

When you were alone again and Five realized you were still looking at him like he was nuts, he calmly said, “What? I thought we were friends now, and I owe you, remember?”

“I suppose that talking smack to each other for five minutes, one time, means we’re friends,” you pointed out, before adding, “And as long as you don’t try to plow into me again, you don’t owe me shit.”

Five shifted his weight, leaning closer, so only you could hear him since the seats on both sides of you had just been taken. “As a man that hasn’t come close to mastering traveling through time, both forwards or backwards, and can no longer do either anymore anyway, I can’t promise anything with it comes to my spatial awareness issues, but that’s a whole different problem of mine among the many. When it comes to sticking my landings and running into you accidentally or not, I tend to think you like the idea of me plowing into you again.”

Your mouth opened and closed a few times, like you were a brainless fish, nothing coming out, because what the hell do you say to that!

Five burst out laughing. “You are so easy to fuck with.”

“And you are a dick,” you duly noted.

“A dick that you’re apparently not opposed to eating dinner with, and hey, I’ll even buy you a drink too, but only if you’re a good boy and keep looking at me with that handsome little smirk of yours.”

Jesus… Did he just say that?

He did, and his patronizingly suggestive comments weren’t the only thing getting you worked up. You could smell the heady scent of his cologne every time you had to move closer to him to let someone else get up to the bar, and damn did he smell good.

“Confident much?” you cocked off.

Five shrugged. “Yes,” he said, matter of fact. “But the truth is, most of the time I am not great with people. I’ve spent most of my life alone, and I have only ever been with one other person intimately, and that relationship wasn’t what anyone would call normal, and abstaining from any sexual relationship since then is definitely not my penis’s first choice, it's more of an existential problem.”

“Oh, my God!” You burst out laughing.

Your second conversation with Five was starting no less shocking and confusing than the first, and like the time before, you were loving it.

For the next few hours, you sat there with him, getting to know each other, having several more drinks that went down with plenty of laughs and hardly concealed innuendoes that proved over and over that what was going on between you was much more than just friendly chatter.

With his dark strands of hair dangling in his eyes and his perfectly tailored three-piece suit, Five looked hot as hell, and because of that, he was getting checked out constantly the entire time, but he never seemed to notice, and that was because his eyes were always on you.

You didn’t even think about leaving until the band that had been setting up since you got there started to play, and it got way too loud to hold a conversation. As you offered to pay again, Five refused. Then, having already had his foot resting on the rung of your barstool, he abruptly spun you around to face him more directly, giving you an innocent looking smile as he let the tip of his shoe glide up your ankle.

“I’m not ready to let you go yet,” he said, his voice low.

“You’re not?” you sputtered, trying not to spray the liquid you’d just tried to swallow all over him.

“This has been nice,” he said, velvety soft as he moved closer “Thank you for keeping me company.”

“That’s not all I want to do,” you found yourself saying back, your lips brushing his cheek as your hand lowered to his knee, your palm running along the smooth wool fabric, stopping mid-thigh.

Five’s leg tensed. For the first time since you got there, he was tongue tied.

He suddenly moved back, and you instantly removed your hand. You were sure you’d just freaked him out, but then he quickly said, “Maybe we should move?”

Not a second later, you were both making your way through the mob of people, all the way to the edge of the dance floor in front of the stage.

Five seemed so at ease in the crowd, even having fun listening to the live music. He was not at all who you thought he was, and just looking at him next to you made it feel like you had a swarm of butterflies fluttering around in your stomach.

With eyes glossed over, standing as close as you were, the music wasn’t the only thing Five seemed to be enjoying. Taking full advantage of there being no room to move, every now and then, his hand would brush against the side of your thigh, staying there a little longer than necessary. Then, after both of you were getting repeatedly shoved around in the crowd of inebriated people, Five strategically placed himself behind you, as he was trying to protect you.

With him standing behind you, your body got even warmer, and you smiled to yourself, remembering how Five had claimed to be such a gentleman. Whether he did it to be gentlemanly or not, Five seemed all too happy to have a reason to press up against your backside, because now he had an even better reason to place his face next to yours, humming in your ear as he said absurd things to make you laugh.

You weren’t so much dancing together as the people around you were trying to do, but that didn’t mean Five wasn’t intentionally or unintentionally moving himself against you to the rhythm of the music. Trying to figure out which one it was, you reached back taking him his belt, tugging him flush as you dropped your head back and arched your back into him.

Five let out a pained sounding whimper as his hard-on poked the back of your leg and almost just as fast, the tip of his nose brushed your neck as the warmth of his breath caressed your skin. “I’m sorry, but fuck, you’re making me hard,” he whispered before you felt his lips gently kiss your already tingling skin.

He had no reason to be sorry.

Turning around, you slipped your hand around his, assertively leading him through the crowd. You weren’t even off the main floor, a few feet down a side hall near the bathrooms, when Five was on you, taking your face in his hands, pulling you into a kiss. He was so excited, his lips actually trembled as they pressed against yours, a low moan coming from deep inside his chest when you eagerly reciprocated.

It had to be a whole minute later before he let you up for air, gazing at you with darkened eyes as he smiled. "I really like you.”

Sliding your other hand around his neck, you grabbed at the soft tangle of hair brushing the crisp edge of his shirt collar, tugging it sharply. "You’re going to like me even more in a second,” you shot back, while moving your other hand lower.

Five let out the cutest sound as you started fondling him while also giving his mane another tug, but it must not have been all that upsetting that you were manhandling him because as you tightened your grip in his hair, his hips reactively bucked into yours.

Five’s hard cock pressed up against the crotch of your jeans as he ground himself against you, his hands hungrily groping your ass, pulling you back and forth over his dick.

"Fffiv-vvve," you panted into his frantic kiss.

He smiled against your lips and kept on kissing.

You trailed a hand up his inner thigh, cupping his erection through his clothing as your mouths parted wider. The heat of his tongue entered you, engaging you in a sloppy kiss that ended with biting and tugging at your bottom lip before he said, “You have no idea how bad I wanted this.”

Five let out a shaky sigh as he glanced over at the man carrying several cases of liquor, trudging by, heading towards one of the bars' storage rooms.

You were a little taken aback by how vulnerable he looked, his face flushed, and his lips wet and full from kissing you. You stayed silent for a few seconds, just looking at him.

You weren’t sure if he was going to stop. Something seemed off, only you couldn’t put your finger on it. Not that you were trying that hard. Your fingers were still busy doing something else.

Before you got too worried that he’d changed his mind, Five started kissing again, your oversized sweatshirt hood falling over your heads.

Going at it hard, with his hands latched on your ass, Five dry humped you into the wall, not even stopping when the door across from you flung open. Coming to your senses only slightly, you shoved Five backwards, forcing him into the men’s room.

Your adrenaline was pumping hard, and your heart was racing as the door closed behind you.

Five came at you again. Your hands went around him as he grabbed a handful of your ass, nearly lifting you off the floor. He pinned you to the wall again, his cock slamming between your legs.

His hands ran down your sides, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he kissed and sucked your collarbone, trailing teeth and kisses gently up your neck.

Breathing heavily as you momentarily broke apart, Five anxiously said, “You need to tell me to stop if this is too much, okay?”

You didn’t reply verbally, instead you kept kissing him. Five groaned into the kiss and pushed your crotches together with more determination.

Miraculously for as busy as the bar was, the bathroom was empty, but it wouldn’t be for long. Not even breaking apart, you walked Five backwards again, moving him inside the largest bathroom stall. Thankfully it didn’t appear that dirty, but again, you weren’t really looking.

You kicked the door closed, hand only leaving Five long enough to twist the lock. Lips coming off your neck, Five’s eyes trailed up and down your taller frame. He reached out as you cornered him, brushing some of your hair away from your ear while his other hand snuck between your legs and squeezed your crotch. Looking pleased with himself and what he was feeling, he tilted his head to kiss your neck while he rubbed his hand over your clothed sex repeatedly.

In return, you moved your hand over his dick again, unzipping and then tugging his pants down. His cock sprung forward with no underwear to prevent it from happening.

Naturally you both looked down, and wow did Five look proud as your eyes went wide.

“Impressed?” he asked.

“Hardly.”

He was clearly not buying that lie because fuck…

With no further ado, you lowered to your knees, and he watched you do it as if transfixed. Your hand wrapped around his ankle, then trailed up a bit further, before you stopped under his knee, rubbing lightly.

Five reactively opened his legs a little, and so did you in a futile effort to ease the slight feeling of friction you were experiencing against your briefs.  

You were buzzed and horny, and this was nuts, but fuck it. This was happening!

Five’s cock was already leaking. You licked your lips and positioned yourself. With the hand not already holding him, you reached out and gave his long cock a tentative pump, spreading the precum around with your thumb. He pulled back a little.

“You okay, big shot?” you teased.

A smile crept onto Five’s face, but his voice came out so broken it caught you off guard. “You don’t have to do this.”

Okay… Maybe he was nervous, that was fair, especially if all his arrogance was just a show and what he said about being inexperienced was true, but considering how he had just been all over you, and now you were on your knees in a bathroom stall with his dick in your face, you looked up at him in disbelief as you said, “I know I don’t have to do this. I want to. Now stop being so damn frustrating and let me suck your dick!”

It was as if something in him snapped, the darkness in Five’s eyes smoldered as he purred, "Just remember, pretty boy, you asked for it. I am going to fuck your face so hard you’ll think twice before smarting off to daddy again.”

Holy fuck that was fucked but it only made you wetter.

Just then, someone walked in, going straight to the urinals. Your heads both flung that way. If they looked behind them, they for sure would see Five’s shoes lined up against your knees. There was no question what was happening, and even more turned on by that, you started stroking Five gently as you could while playfully sticking out your tongue to lick up the glistening fluid running down his shaft.

Falling back against the partition between the stalls, Five’s head made a hilariously loud thunking sound.

You kept at it, kissing the slit of his rounded tip, working it in a circular pattern. Five let out the quietest hum of approval as his fingers at his sides clenched and unclenched repeatedly.

You kept toying with him, enjoying how he was struggling to stay quiet, but only until the door closed and you were alone again, then he brought his hand to your cheek.

You looked up as his hand moved into your hair. “You look so good with your mouth on my cock.”

To that, the throbbing between your legs had you tensing your thighs to increase the sensation but it wasn’t enough and you let out a moan of complaint over it that made the darkness in Five’s eyes look all the more wicked with delight.

You put his whole tip in your mouth, opening and closing your kiss reddened lips around it, grazing it just barely with your teeth. From above, Five let out a moan as his hand in your hair moved, brushing your fringe of hair out of your face.

He couldn’t take his eyes off you and God did you love it.

He was letting out breathy sighs and grunts as you serviced them, his free hand pushing back through his hair the more agitated he got.

Wanting to send him over the edge, with the hand you were holding him with, slowly pumping him at just the tip, you leaned in even more, letting the musky scent of him fill your senses as your tongue ran along his balls. You were rewarded for that with a deep groan and an unsteady hand coming to the top of your shoulder.

That was all the praise you needed.

“Fuck yeah,” Five hissed, then he bit down on his lower lip, as you took him in your mouth, moving over him just little deeper and faster.

Almost right away, Five started rocking his hips in strained, shallow nudges. Each time he entered you and hit the back of your throat, he’d break apart a little more, and you swore you’d never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

Petting you, and making your hair all sorts of fucked up, Five encouragingly murmured “You are so fucking good at this. Fuck- Ohh-ffffff-you’re amazing,” he gasped.

Even though it was happening, you could hardly believe you were seeing this normally composed man turning into such a stuttering, red-faced mess.

Tipping your head back and opening your throat to him, the thick head of Five’s cock moved inside with ease, fucking you deep and hard enough in quick but controlled thrusts that it took away your ability to breathe.

Your eyes instantly began to water.

“Fu-ck-ye-ah-take-my-dick,” Five stammered as he wildly fucked into you.

The door opened again, the music getting louder for a moment before it shut again. This time there were several guys in there, but between the sound of them pissing, and their talking, and the thrum of the bass coming from outside, it still wasn’t enough to hide Five’s sharply cut off breaths and curses.

They knew, but the way Five’s eyes kept drooping closed proved his brain was no longer running the show and he didn’t care.

His fingers gripped tighter, yanking at your hair. You took the abuse, gagging on him until Five suddenly clasped his hands on the sides of your face, stopping you. “I’m gonna-cum,” he quietly cried.

He had a panicked look in his eyes. His teeth were clenched, and it was clear he was trying so hard not to orgasm, but it was coming one way or another, even with the guys outside your stall snickering and making lewd comments.

“Fuck yeah you are, and you’re going to do it my mouth,” you commanded, right before sucking him raw again, taking him all the way to the hilt.

Losing all self control, Five started railing your face again.

You couldn’t breathe at all, and were choking on your own spit. Your fingers dug into his thighs as your body instinctively fought back, but Five held the back of your head tight, forcing you down on him over and over.

Then, while violently scrambling your brains with his throbbing cock, hot spurts of Five’s seed started shooting down your throat. His hips jerked uncontrollably as he dug his heels into the floor. He fell back against the wall again. The waves of his shuddering release came out in a cadence of grunted curses as he moved himself in and out of your gaping mouth, moving slower and slower with each thrust until he was spent.

Having dumped his load, he started to slide out. Getting oxygen again, your blurred eyes took in the sight above you as you gave his well worked shaft a few more loving licks and twirls of your tongue. Sure that you just blew his mind, you popped your mouth off and smirked.

Five’s doe eyes were only slightly open and the dreamy way he was looking down at you was priceless.

~~~

Five was temporarily out of commission but you were both still horny as fuck as you burst out in the cool night air onto the sidewalk. Both riding the high, you fully intended to take your fun back to one of your apartments. As worked up as you were, coming out of that bathroom, hand-in-hand, quickly cutting through the crowded bar, your discussion hadn’t gone much past both of you smiling like idiots, but you knew the night wasn’t over, that was until you saw Klaus.

“Five?” he questioned, sounding totally shocked to see him as he approached from the opposite direction with his colorful meditation robe bundled around him.

Five slowed to a stop, back peddling a little. You looked from him to your friend, as his hand slipped from yours.

“Hey there, little brother,” Klaus said, “Would have never thought I’d see you out this late. What’s this?” He pointed at you with one of his latex covered gloves, the motion exposing his usual weird bubble wrap inner padding system that he liked to keep secured around him, so as he put it, he didn’t die while accidentally getting run over. “I didn’t know you guys knew each other,” Klaus added as he waved the hand holding his Styrofoam cup between the two of you.

It was subtle, but Five moved away from you a little more as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying even harder to hide that he’d been touching you.

Looking very uncomfortable, Five cleared his throat. “Well, Klaus, what with the nature of my employment, I am known to leave my apartment from time to time, and it’s not like I see you that often, so you wouldn’t know that. I also wasn’t aware that I needed to keep you updated with who my acquaintances are.”

Five looked at you for the briefest of moments, no indication of the sweet guy he had been in his now hardened eyes.

“We live in the same building,” Five irritatedly furthered, as he looked at Klaus again. “Happened to run into each other a bit ago while picking up dinner, so yeah… That’s it.”

“You guys going anywhere else fun? I’d love to join you, catch-up on life before the big family reunion b-day party next weekend.” Klaus held up his drink again. “This tea is amazing. I got it at a place about a block down. I’ll buy you guys one,” he pushed as you silently tried not to let it show how confused you were.

You’d met Klaus over a year before while at a park. He was there alone, sitting under a shady tree, legs crossed, eyes closed while positioned in namaste, when one of your friends threw a frisbee that glided over and clocked him in the side of the head, which was the only part of him not covered with protection from germs or flying projectiles.

Running over to apologize, from that point on, you’d been friends with the slightly odd, but always interesting spiritualist. The fact that Klaus was Five’s older brother, one of the other six orphans he’d told you he’d grown up with, was as crazy and unsettling as the way Five was acting all of a sudden.

As if you weren’t already feeling like shit, then Five said, “No thanks. I’ll have to pass on the tea. I have work to do at the office. I’ll see you around.”

“You still doing cool secret government stuff?” Klaus questioned, but Five didn’t answer him, or specify if he meant he’d see you around, or just his brother, then he strode off, his breath a plume of white in the night air as he quickly rounded the corner like he couldn’t get away quick enough.

~~~

The work week came and went, and you didn’t run into Five again, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t thought about him about a million times.

Of course, you asked Klaus about him, and he asked you about you and Five. Klaus said that his brother was super secretive. He said that he thought Five worked for the government in some capacity, but really, he wasn’t sure, but you were pretty sure that was a lie.

Klaus said Five was a loner and that he didn’t get out socially that much, so he was floored when he saw him laughing and smiling, walking down the street with you, and that part you figured was true.

When Klaus pressed you about Five, you could tell that he knew you were lying when you went along with Five’s story, by not giving him anything new, other than you’d eaten dinner with him since you both happened to be sitting at the same bar.

You said you were being neighborly. That was it.

You both weren’t telling the whole truth, and you both knew it.

As much as you wanted to tell someone how mad you were about what Five had done, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his older brother. The way Five played you was dirty, but you weren’t the type to start shit.

Five was a prick. End of story.

You didn’t know if he was ashamed of people knowing about him being with you, or it was just his family knowing about it, or if he just used you to get off and that’s all it ever was.

It didn’t matter.

You felt so stupid because you had felt like you had something real with him, something that was maybe a bit too much based on an intense sexual attraction and a shared craving to one up the other with cocky remarks and flirty jokes, but there was also something else. When you were with Five, it felt like you were all that he could see. And even more important, he saw you how you wanted to be seen.

You wanted to get lost in him and the feeling seemed to be mutual, but you were wrong.

What Five did hurt. There was no other way to put it.

When you came and went from your place, a part of you wanted to run into him, and another part of you never wanted to see him again. Some days when you couldn’t stop thinking about that asshole’s smile and those dark lashes of his fanning his pale cheeks, you contemplated going up a floor to kick his door in, to either jump his bones or kick him in the nuts, maybe both.

You didn’t.

It had been a long day, and the last thing you wanted was to go out. You were planning on having over a group of guys to watch a horror movie marathon. It was going to be a mixed group, old friends and Klaus.

Klaus always seemed lonely, too obsessed with keeping himself from getting sick or avoiding quicker, more gruesome forms of death, so you weren’t about to leave him out. He needed to get outside of his head and so did you. Klaus was someone that needed a friend and you were happy to bring him into your fold, even if he often remained quiet, or nervously excitable. He could be so hot and cold, and so detached, and something about that reminded you of Five.

They were brothers, so…

No. 

No, you were not going there.

Fuck Five.

You dropped some bags of chips and other junk food on the table in front of the couch, busying yourself with getting things ready for your guests, rather than wasting your time thinking about Five.

Life goes on, your friends showed up and as usual, Klaus was late, but when he knocked on your door with his brother in tow, you naturally did a double take because you were so floored.  

“Mind if I join you?” Five sheepishly asked while handing you a bottle of very expensive looking Scotch, the same brand he kept buying you at the bar.

There you were, wearing your favorite sweats and frumpy faded t-shirt, and there he was, looking amazing as always in his slim fit white dress shirt and usual black slacks, but gone was the self-assured guy who strutted into your life and then stomped on your dick.

He looked so nervous and unlike himself that all you could bring yourself to do was take the bottle as you nodded your head, stepping aside to let them in.

Klaus came waltzing in, minus his usual bubble wrap bumper vest, which you assumed he left at Five’s apartment before coming down to yours. He instantly took his place on your recliner since you’d abandoned it.

“Since, my dearest little brother lives in your building and you two are friends, I figured I’d stop by and see if he wanted to join us,” he explained, clearly aware that you weren’t thrilled. “With how chummy you two looked the other night, I was surprised that you hadn’t already plucked Five out of his boring man cave,” he added while wagging his eyebrows at you.

“Funny, when inviting my friends over, thinking anything about Five and our chumminess totally slipped my mind,” you muttered, as you glared at the jerk you did not want there who was still expectantly staring at you.

The asshole was standing there on your door mat, looking about as clueless as ever, so you waved him on. “Don’t just stand there. Come on in. Join the party. We’re about thirty minutes into the first ‘Scream’ movie.”

“Are you sure this is, okay?” Five quietly asked, clearly not wanting anyone else to hear as you shut the door behind him.

“Why wouldn’t it be,” you shot back, the anger in your voice impossible to hide.

“It’s not what you think. I am sorry,” he tried.

“Whatever,” you snapped. “Hey, Klaus!” He looked up with his mouth full of popcorn. “Introduce your brother, please.”

After dismissing him, with no other choice Five walked out to meet your friends.

Entering your kitchen, you got down some tumblers to pour everyone a glass of Five’s ‘you sucked my dick and then I rejected you,’ peace offering or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be.

“Gentleman, my ass,” you breathed before coming out to the living room with your hands full of the sloshing liquid.

Of course, there was nowhere to sit but next to him on your L-shaped couch. Five was at the hooked end, doing his best to look somewhat comfortable.

Like before they came, mostly everyone ignored the addition to the party as they zoned out, watching the movie, making comments here and there. As it was before, everyone was just chilling, lounged out on your furniture. Deputy Duey was being a dipshit that you couldn’t help but love, and terrified girls with big tits, and stupid horny guys ran for their life, screaming as the ghost-faced killer sliced and diced them.

It would have been great, exactly what you needed, but Five’s presence was making it anything but relaxing for you. He was so close; you could feel the heat of his leg next to yours as the silent tension between you grew. The way he was bouncing his knee made it clear he wasn’t feeling very comfortable either, but fuck him.

Nearing the end, when the masks came off, Five’s agitation had gotten noticeably worse. He could hardly hold still. You could tell he wasn’t okay. His hand laying against his leg was shaking. Not even thinking, you reached over, placing yours over it.

His breath hitched as he looked at you. “Excuse me,” he whispered, abruptly pushing himself up off the couch.

As he passed, Klaus gave his brother a worried glance, but you told him to stay put as you got up to follow Five.

Coming around the partition dividing your small living space, you saw that Five had himself leaned back against your kitchen counter, head down, pinching his forehead between two fingers.

“Not enjoying the movie?” you sarcastically asked.

Five pulled in a long breath AS he looked up at you. “I am afraid that as an ex-assassin, there is something about these tragically misguided young men happily stalking their prey before slicing them apart with blunt objects that hits a little too close to home.”

You blinked rapidly. “You’re kidding?”

His lip quirked up. “Not entirely.”

“Ah-huh,” you breathed before taking a long pull of your drink while glancing around the corner at the TV in the other room.

“At least part of the motivation for these two bonehead murderers being their secret love affair made this otherwise less than thrilling teen slasher film less boring,” Five furthered, seemingly a little less upset, almost playful as he smiled a little more when you looked at him again.

“What! NO! I love this movie,” you argued, forgetting that you hated him, even playing up how offended you were by his comment over your favorite scary movie. “And hell yes, them being mad as fuck for each other makes this better,” you agreed, followed by a laugh.

Five’s smile fell. “I wish I hadn’t done what I did the other night.”

“Then why did you?”

He ran his hand back, pushing his hair out his eyes, but it fell right back. “Because, when it comes to my family, it’s complicated, and not even factoring them into my life, I don’t know how to be with anyone, and I don’t know if I should be with anyone with the way I am anyway.”

“I don’t get it. If you’re ashamed-"

“It’s not that,” he interrupted, then he raised his voice. “I don’t care if the entire world knows how I feel about you!”

Klaus had been talking, but hearing that, the other room got very quiet.

“You are the first person I want to open myself to like this, or who has ever made me feel this way,” Five said, coming to you, his hands finding yours at your sides as he leaned into you. “I still want this more than anything, I just messed up because I am messed up.”

Coming closer, his lips touched yours so softly for just a fraction of a second. His eyes like gems, implored you-asking forgiveness.

“Since the other night, other than hating myself, I have wanted nothing more than to see your smile again,” he whispered, “even though what I did made it seem like I don’t care about you, that is about the farthest thing from the truth. Will you give me a second chance to show you how much you mean to me?”

You were pretty sure you couldn’t have made your lips form the word no, no matter how hard you tried.

“Are you sure you’re not embarrassed about this?” you questioned, your fingers making soothing circles along the undersides of his wrists.

Five smiled again. “I’m sure.”

“Prove it.”

“You forgive me then?”

“I’m working on it, but you have a lot of making up to do.”

Five’s hand moved around to your lower back, sliding up the back of your shirt, pulling you closer. You nudged his nose with yours.

“Like I said, prove it,” you softly repeated, daring him to show you that he meant what he said about not caring if his family or anyone else knew.

Five glanced over your shoulder, as if he could see your guests even though there was a wall in the way. His hand moved along your hip, slipping below the waistband of your sweatpants. “What do you have in mind for how I can prove it to you, handsome?”

He plucked the knot in your drawstring free, pulling the bunched cotton at your waist, loosening it so his hand could slip inside your pants.

“This, maybe?” he hummed against your ear, his fingers just under the elastic of your briefs.

You looked back at him with pleading eyes.

“Your bedroom is right over there but you want it right here, don’t you dirty boy?” he taunted.

There was no time for a comeback, only a shuttered breath before Five’s hand dove lower and you gasped at the sudden feeling of his finger abruptly entering you.

A devilish smile lit up Five’s face. “Awww… Wet for me already? Such a good boy,” he chuckled as his finger began to move, lovingly stroking the lubrication upwards.

You lowered your head against his neck, your body already tightening with pleasure from the feel of his finger rubbing against your clit.

Five kissed your forehead as you clung to him, his words tickling the shell of your ear as he spoke. "Wanna give our audience a show? You were amazing the other night, but I’m sure if we both try really hard, we can do better this time.”

You whimpered, trying to put your thighs together so you could increase the friction. Five brought another finger into the game trailing his digits up and down before flicking them against you, making you let out a small moan.

A shout came from the other room. “Hey! While you guys are in there, you should make some more popcorn!”

Twisting just enough, you snatched a bag of microwave pop off the counter, furiously tearing into the plastic with your teeth before spitting it out. You reached back, yanking the microwave open, carelessly tossing it in there without looking.

After you slammed the door shut, while smiling at you looking so fucking cocky, Five helpfully reached up, punching in the popcorn button before he hit start. He raised a brow. “Looks like I better get to work. We have a countdown, sweetheart.”

Moving his fingers quickly, jerking you hard, you let out a low groan that got much higher pitched when you felt the warmth of his erection nudging your hip.

Riding Five’s glorious fingers, but thinking of him slowly entering you with his heavy cock instead had your eyes rolling back in your head. The agonizing pace he was setting making your moans of complaint louder.

“That’s it, baby, louder,” he encouraged, gazing at you with half lidded eyes that were so beautiful.

“I need more,” you hissed, gritting your teeth.

“So needy,” he teased, just before his finger dipped inside you again, only this time crooked up just a little before he pulled it out again.

Then, just as you thought the bastard was going to really start finger fucking you, he slipped his hand out of your pants leaving your cunt clenching around nothing. After your waistband snapped against your tensed abs, Five brought his slicked finger to his mouth, making a naughty show of sucking it clean.  

“I fucking hate you!” you growled.

If he tried to leave you with blue balls again, you were going to kill him!

Five gave you a sly grin and you frowned. “I’m going to make you take that back,” he menacingly sang, then suddenly your pants and underwear were tugged down, and your legs were forcefully spread open by his knees wedging yours wide.

His hands come up your sides, moving under your shirt, over your rib cage. His eyes looked into yours, watching you for signs of distress as his fingers moved up, traveling over the flattened planes of your pecs.

You closed your eyes and you felt Five rest his forehead against yours.

His hand smoothed down to your hips again, stopping.

You took a deep breath.

“You are the most handsome man I have ever seen,” he breathed, throwing you off even more.

To say your senses were heightened was an understatement. Every sound your friends made in the other room only added to the tension brewing. All they had to do was come around the corner and they could see you back up against your counter with Five dominatingly standing between your legs as your pants and underwear lay in a heap at your ankles.

Five moved his forehead away from yours. “I will stop if you want me to. If not, you know what to say,” he soothed. “You want me to suck you off, right here. Right now. With them listening.”

 Little explosions started to go off inside the microwave.

 You had never been so hot and bothered in your life. You moaned desperately, “Five, you fucking-!"

"Shh...” Five teased as his hand moved up over your mouth to silence you. "Can’t have you getting too loud. Don’t want anyone thinking I’m in here doing awful things to you.” He leaned in, his breath ruffling the short ends of your hair, his words ominously intimidating. “I want to hear you beg.”

“Please,” you whimpered under his hot fingers.

"Sorry, what was that?" Five asked, sweet as honey while moving his hand a little so you could say it louder.

“Please!”

“That’s it.” Five’s sinful looking grin spread across his entire face.

He got down on his knees. Not taking his eyes off you, he pushed up your t-shirt just a little so he could leave a trail of wet kisses along the fine trail of hair leading from your belly button downward.

He let out a heavy breath, hovering over your sex. “You’re perfect, you know that, right?” he said, then his tongue drug along your length before flicking against the tip of your swollen clit.

“Oh, FUCK,” you loudly cursed.

You tried to relax and keep your hips still as Five licked at you slowly, but with the way his tongue was pushing between your thickened folds it was impossible

A bitten whimper croaked out of you as he licked up a stripe while slowly palming his own dick. You lowered to your head, your fingers threading through his hair, tightening.

You gasped when Five began sucking you. His hum of approval and the sting of pleasure from his teeth accidentally dragging as he sucked a little too roughly, left your thighs shaking and the next thing you knew, you were grinding down on him trying to get more.

Undeterred, by you humping his face, Five continued to contentedly lap at you. At this point, you didn’t know what to focus on, the pleasure that was tearing through your veins, the screams coming for movie, the people who could come in the kitchen at any second, or the fact that there was no way Five was able to breathe correctly with the way he was going at it, his whole face buried between your legs, fucking you.

Everything clouded over. His hands were plastered to your thighs, his hair was sticking out in a million places, and his tongue kept probing inside your entrance, devouring you before he came back up to harshly flick at your clit again.

Your body fought against the invasive sensation. Vulgar noises were being forced out of you, but you couldn’t cum no matter how badly you wanted to.

The microwave beeped.

“I-I fff-fu-ah-ck,” you stammered as you tugged at Five’s dark waves, attempting to separate your throbbing sex from his mouth, but he wasn’t having any of that.

He grasped your waist, holding you in place, hungrily demolishing you. He was like an animal, the scratchiness of his very light stubble only adding to the brutality of what he was doing to you.

It felt like every nerve in your body was being touched at once. You were being torn apart more and more with each trail of his tongue and rub of his fingers, pinching and pulling you between forefinger and thumb as he sucked your clit like a dick.

As your orgasm hit, it felt electric, a flash after flash of hot white light.

Five made you cum so hard that you totally forgot that he was fisting his own cock, but he sure was, and he was loudly moaning while doing it and still sucking you with the most tender of kisses, making sure not to leave you until you’d ridden out all your crashing waves of pleasure.  

When he finally came up for air, his face from his eyes down was shining and his smug grin proved that he could have cared less that he was a mess.

 “So, did you enjoy cumming on my face?” he rhetorically questioned.

He lifted himself off the ground, staring at you as he leaned in, connecting your lips, making you taste yourself on his tongue.

“I am not sure. It was okay, I guess,” you said, smirking when he pulled away, wiping his face and then yours with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Maybe one more try, with a little more tongue and teeth this time and you’ll have a more definitive answer?” he suggested.

He started to drop back down, and even though your body felt like jello, you pulled him back up easily enough.

As you were reaching to pick up your pants, Five took advantage of you dropping your guard to quickly spin you around, your socked feet slipping on the floor before he aggressively pulled your hips out, making you present your ass to him.

You heard him hastily unhooking his belt, the metal clanking together before you heard his zipper coming down, then his body molded to your backside, the tip of his thick cock dangling between your legs.

“We aren’t done and I’m not stopping until they know you’re mine,” he said while lovingly massaging the side of your ass.

He started nudging himself against your inner thigh and you let out a little whimper. “So cute, just like your little dick,” he mocked. Then he moved his hand around you, tugging you out a little more from the counter so he could grope you, making you shudder.

He slapped your ass hard, the thwack sure to make everyone’s head in the other room spin in your direction. You jolted up. You heard your friends laughing, then Five spanked you again. "Fuck!” you cried, moving your ass against his cock even tighter.

“You really want it, don’t you baby,” Five growled in your ear, slapping your ass again.

“Please!" you begged with your head falling back against Five’s shoulder before rolling to the side so you could see him.

“You want danger?” he purred as he yanked up his shirt, letting his predatory eyes narrow at the sight of his cock wedged between your cheeks.

You said nothing, so, looking like a mad man, he reached up, taking hold of your neck.

You whined and squirmed in his grasp as his other hand cupped you bare. He slid his fingers inside as his thumb swirled over your slippery clit. Before you could make a sound, he started to choke you. 

He fingered your hole roughly, as he cut off the flow of oxygen to your brain. You couldn’t even think. You were drowning with desire, your body submitting.

Five started to rut his hips into you as you lost your mind, moaning into the palm of his hand.

That’s when Klaus called out. “How’s that popcorn coming, boys? Better not be any dick in it!”

As Five fucked into you and his second finger slide inside, you all but screamed through his fingers. “Mmmfff-fuck, Ff-ive!”

If Five hadn’t thought to muzzle you, you were being so loud, it wouldn’t just be the people in the living room aware of what he was doing to you.

As if that wasn’t enough, Five bit down on your shoulder through your shirt, thrusting as hard and as fast as he could go.

You felt your orgasm building all the way from your toes to your stomach. Your calves painfully flexed as you bucked your hips, trying to get more.

Five let out a moan of his own, and the pleasure of his fingers, the dizziness of being choked, along with the pain from his teeth marking had you clenching around his fingers.

The only sounds that could be heard in the room were the sounds of squelching, your moans, and Five’s sexy grunting.

Yanking your face back, he took his hand off your mouth, forcing his tongue onto yours, aiming to take you for all you were worth.

Your walls contracted around him, spilling fresh liquid pleasure with his every thrust.

His breath and his movements started getting more erratic, and he let out a few manic sounding noises.

He only stopped slipping his dick up and down your crack for a second to reposition himself. Apparently, the new angle was even better for him because when he started back up, his fingers in you started to move again too and that got you cursing and gasping into his hand again.

"Good boy. Let it out. Your pussy is mine now,” he growled, but he didn’t let you let it out as he clamped down on your mouth harder and slammed into you with all the energy he had.

You peaked again, him clinging to you, your stifled gasps hissing through his fingers.

“So perfect,” he breathed, then he let you free, the air filling your lungs doing nothing to clear your clouded mind and you helplessly slumped over.

One of his hands kept a tight hold on your hip, the other taking care of his own need. The sight of you bent over on the counter in front of him had Five grunting and growling as he stroked himself, his cum splattering all over your abused ass.

When Five was done, he crashed into you, pulling you up in a lovers embrace from behind, panting harder than he had been the entire time. The second he had enough air to speak, he did. “That was- Fuck."

You were out of it, legs shaking, mouth agape, head lolling to the side. He grabbed your face and languidly kissed you before breaking away, his lips moving along your sweat moistened neck as he said, “I want you and only you and I don’t care who knows. Don’t you ever question that again.”

“Ready or not, the men out here are demanding a proof of life check after that beautiful screaming performance, and we need more sustenance, so pull your pants up! I am coming in,” Klaus suddenly shouted.

Scrambling, you and Five both untangled yourselves. He snatched your hand towel off the counter, taking it to your butt cheeks, doing his best to wipe you first, then himself.

Dropping to the floor, he started pulling your sweatpants up, then sure you had them in hand, Five started trying to fix his own rumpled clothing.

“Is my little brother behaving himself?” Klaus questioned and by the way he said it, you could tell he had a huge smile even before he rounded the corner, eyeing you both up proudly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Five fired back, with his pants only just zipped up, the ends of his belt hanging in front of the prominent tent he was still sporting. 

“Oh, I don’t know… Sounded like you were getting a little frisky in here is all,” Klaus replied.

Five reached over, opening the microwave, throwing the bag of popcorn at his brother.

As one would expect, Klaus started tossing the bag, hand to hand. “Ouch! Hot! Hot!”

You couldn’t help but laugh. That’s how mind blowingly dazed you were. You could tell it took a great deal of effort for Five to pry himself from you and you were still having a hard time standing up straight, so you had no idea how he was composing himself so well but then again, he didn’t just cum three times.

“If only I could blink us out of here,” he muttered while sticking the prong of his belt through the length, tightening it as he looked at you fumbling the strings on your sweatpants.

“Blink?” you questioned, unable to stop laughing as you said it because for the life of you, you couldn’t perform the simple task of tying a knot.

“What my adorable brother is referring to,” Klaus said, “is a thing we used to call a thing he used to do.” He reached out, ruffling Five’s already fucked up hair. “He’s super fast, but you already knew that,” he said while winking at you, “He used to be able to blink or as the common man says, telapor-"

“If you don’t shut your yapper, I am going to shut it for you,” Five snapped, while reaching over to tie your pants up since you’d failed and they were already slipping down.

“Oh… Not going there yet. Okay,” Klaus said as he shrugged off whatever Five was angrily trying to get him to shut up about. “You two joining us for the second movie?” Klaus mumbled with a handful of freshly popped kernels in his mouth.

You looked at Five. He took you by the hand, grabbing the bottle of liquor off the counter in his other, leading you out there.

Moving to your spot on the couch, Five sat down first, pulling you down next to him. As soon as you were seated, he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you in tighter, his lower leg hooking yours to him as he took your throw blanket, tossing it over you both.

“So, you guys a thing now,” your buddy next to him asked while giving you a smart-ass grin.

Five glanced at you. He squeezed his hand that was already in yours. “Yes,” you firmly stated and just like the amazing friends they were, they all let it go. They could see this is what you wanted. It was written all over your hopeful face.

You leaned back against Five’s warmth, the comforting rise and fall of his chest reassuring you that everything was as perfect as it seemed.

Every so often, as his fingers absentmindedly trailed down your arm, Five would softly kiss the side of your cheek, then nuzzle his face into your hair.

~~~

When you woke, hours later to one of your friends leaving and Five attempting not to wake you as he quietly answered something his brother had just said, you had no idea what time it was.

“Klaus was planning on staying at my place,” Five whispered. “We have that family birthday thing early in the morning and we are riding together.” He slid you out from under him. “You want me to carry you to your room?” he asked, as he righted himself.

“I doubt you could,” you said back while smiling up at him in the dim light as you stretched your legs out, accidentally kicking your zonked out friend who was sprawled out on the other end of the couch.

“Goodnite,” Klaus whispered, before he went out the door.

Swooping down, Five gently kissed you and kept on kissing you until you started to laugh over how obviously he didn’t want to go. “Best night of my life,” he chuckled, his own smile stretching as he finally pulled away. “I’ll be back sometime early afternoon. Can I see you again?”

Stroking your fingers along his jaw, you whispered back, “You better.”

Five’s tired eyes softened even more. He brushed his lips against yours one more time.

Then he was gone.

~~~

Back to reality, your mind lost in a past that doesn’t exist anymore while your body remains stuck in a present form of hell you can’t escape, lying there in your bed, you keep trying to work through your memories of Five.

For his part, like he always does at night, Five stays with you in the only way he feels that he can, over 60 years of time separating you as he sits in his chair in front of the Infinite Switchboard.

After thrashing around in your blankets, reliving things you don’t want to let go, giving into your body’s most primal urges, you shove your hand in your pants, digging your fingers against your clit, tugging and pulling and rubbing. Breathing heavily, your release comes and goes way too fast, giving you nothing to replace the man you refuse to let go.

Finally, worn out and mentally broken, your breathing slows, and your eyes close.

You fall into a fitful sleep, your face pinched with the same stress it’s had since you entered your apartment earlier that night.

A few minutes before this, with his reddened eyes darting around as he tries to squash his own anguish, trying in vain to convince himself that what he’s seeing isn’t because of him, Five throws his arms down on the messy desk space, burying his face in the fold of his arm.

You’re upset, that much he is willing to admit.

You have old news clippings of him and his faded collector cards, and other silly trinkets from the days the Umbrella Academy meant something to the world.

You only have his.

Going through the list of issues in his head, Five comes up with only more problems with all this.

All that is something, but it's not like you would be harboring some old crush on the nerdy little 13-year-old he was in those pictures, because back when those cards were cool, you were only four years old! Back then, you probably didn't even know your address, let alone who the kids who lived at the Umbrella Academy were. But despite that, you clearly have something going on and it’s clearly aimed at him.

You moan repeatedly as the blankets covering you shuffle.

“Fuck…” Five breathes as he looks up, realizing what you are doing.

What you have going on is clearly at least partially a horny thing, and an angry thing, and fuck, fuck, FUCK!

Five can’t stop looking at you writhing against your hand.

He shifts his legs apart, refusing to give his hardening cock the attention it's screaming for. It’s bad enough that he’s watching you jerk off, but doing that with you, like this…

No.

“God damn it!” he curses, kicking his legs out, throwing his hands back behind his head as he forces himself to look at the floor.

No one else remembers, so there is no way you do! 

This has to be something else causing this, right?

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looks back up. Your breaths are slowing. Your hand slips up along your stomach, laying limply against your t-shirt.

Your eyes stay closed and Five wants so badly to kiss the lids covering them. Since he can’t, he does what he’s always done, he imagines the things he wants.

Shutting his own eyes, he imagines himself there with you, protectively folded around you, your bodies illuminated by the muted silhouettes from the leaves fluttering outside in the canopy of trees outside your window. 

He can almost feel himself kissing the moonbeam dancing across your cheek, flickering along the ridge of your nose-almost.

There’s no warmth to this dream, no sensation of your touch lovingly holding him back.

This is all there had ever been for Five for nearly a lifetime, but now, thanks to you, he knows what it’s like to have something real, and now he is drowning in the shocking reality of his endless loneliness.

Chilled, but unwilling to move to an office to throw himself down on something more comfortable, when his breathing melts into a rhythm of rest, Five floats away with you, going into a nightmarish dreamscape, a place moments before the world fell apart and he lost you.

~~~

As your sleep deepens, you start tossing and turning, your mind projecting images of you bursting out the doors of your apartment. You didn’t care how terrified you were or that you had no weapon to defend yourself against whatever was happening. You had to get to Five.

You took off, sprinting down the sidewalk in the direction of the explosions, rather than in the opposite direction like everyone else was doing.

The sky was casting a strange glow of orange and violet light over everything. It looked like an alien landscape, not the loud city with its shops and business filled with people doing normal things, unless you considered running for their life normal.

You knew it was crazy for you of all people to think you could do anything to help, but it was also crazy that the Five apparently had superpowers, but you'd seen it for yourself on your TV, and the people with him did too.

You kept on, moving along, seeing the destruction getting worse the closer you got to where the news had shown the fighting.

The air near the ground was thick with black smoke as you got closer, but you kept going, knowing from what you’d seen on the news that Five was there, but nothing could have prepared you for it when you rounded a corner and saw all of them. Like some kind of science fiction movie on crack, everywhere you looked, unexplainable things were happening that shouldn’t be.

It was madness, all of it, the way Five was disappearing and reappearing, the way they were shooting laser beams from their eyes and throwing cars like they were nothing. Klaus was there too, like some kind of oracle, casting his hands out, making phantom-like figures appear out of nowhere, all the luminous bodies he’d created readily joining the fight.

Either brave or stupid, you started to cross the battlefield of flipped cars that lay between you and them, staying down, trying not to get hit by the barrage of bullets and other things flying in your direction.  

Five was yelling, calling for everyone to get together. He wasn’t okay, you could see that. He was staggering, trying so hard to stand in the storm that was enveloping him.

He fell to his knees, screaming for them. 

Blood smeared across his face as his hand came up, wiping his cheek. 

The blood was gushing from his nose and seeping down his neck from his ears, but he kept screaming for them. The near blinding light kept growing, extending out from his hands and entire body.

Between broken car windows, you watched as the group gathered around him, two of them looking like they were sending out some kind of force field that was keeping them safe from the bullets and the fire-like aura that was glowing down from the sky.

Then, to your horror, you realized the fire was actually coming from some of them. Their flesh was cracked and blackened, like lava was running under their skin.

They were burning. 

Five was burning!

Your voice cut through the air, penetrating the chaos. “FIVE!”

Just then, extreme pain was the only way to describe what you felt. 

A deafening blast sent you flying, slamming your spine against the door of an upside-down car. Pain radiated through you. You reactively curled in on yourself. You desperately clasped your hands over your ears, trying to block out the high-pitched sound that was trying to stab your brains out, but you painfully realized that the ringing wasn’t something you could stop.

You could hardly move, gasping for air that wouldn’t fill your lungs, but then suddenly Five was next to you, eyes wide, searching you over, saying something, but all you could see was his lips moving as his hands frantically moved over you, trying to cover all the places where your clothes were becoming wet with blooming circles of red.

You watched Five’s mouth repeating the words, “I will fix this.” He was saying it over and over.

Then, just like that, stinging pelts of liquid hit your face as the side of Five’s skull ripped open.

You watched as if in slow motion as the inside of his head spilled out like a macabre brain soup. Then you watched in horror as he tumbled over, your shell-shocked body not working fast enough to catch him.

The side of Five’s ashen face slammed into the glass covered concrete.

Scrambling to your knees, you pulled him to you, his broken head rolling limply in your lap as you screamed. 

Your tears mixed with his blood. 

You didn’t even notice Klaus until he was right there. He came sprinting to a stop a few yards away, seeing you and his brother.

“Help him,” you begged. You refused to take your eyes from Five’s, then Klaus took off, shouting something.

“No, no, no! Please, no!” you wailed as Five remained motionless, legs twisted in a way that made him look so small.

Five was not small. He was strong and he was…

He was everything.

Suddenly a wind from nowhere started whipping up tiny bits of debris from all around you. Looking up, you saw the impossible. There was a ghostly image of Five out in the street next to his brother where they were standing in a blue-ish purple electrical storm filled with glistening marigold, fire and light.

You could see Five over there, but he was also still with you, his warm blood matting his dark strands of hair, coating your fingers as you cradled his head as if you could fix the damage done to him if you willed the hole in him closed, but his empty green eyes continued to stare off at nothing.

The torrents of energy that Five had been violently projecting before he’d appeared over by you grew stronger, making it near impossible to make out anything happening over by them, but you were able to see him out there, lightning filled hands clenched like claws as fire like sparkles swirled around him and the strange static and twinkling lights of power weren’t just coming from Five. It was coming from all of them, as if mixing.

Dazed, and evidently not stable, they all simultaneously fell to their knees, but Five didn’t this time.

His face was no longer spattered with his blood as he looked up, past his siblings as they fell to the ground as if they were puppets whose strings had just been cut.

As your eyes met, it was as if you were seeing Five for the first time ever, seeing all versions of him, and it wasn’t just happening to him, though the ghostlike projections of Five were dramatically different compared to those of his siblings. He was older in some of them, but you were sure it was him, with that funny mustache and his same soft eyes.

Five was that man, and then he wasn’t again, he was just a boy, so young, so angry, nothing but skin and bones, his tormented face covered in ash and grime. 

All of them, all the different versions of them were morphing, snapping together with alternate images of themselves, like a flip book that’s pages clapped with thunder as they turned.

Then, out of nowhere, out of anyone who could have been out there in all that madness, Reginald Hargreeves, the richest man in the world, was towering over you. His expression was serene as he looked down at the dead boy you were crying over. Then he looked up, his expression not scared at all as he said, “Hold on to him. It will all be over soon.”

Bleeding out and going into shock, you looked back out at the other Five. Even in the distance, you could see his mouth. 

His mouth! The one you knew intimately, pulled up just a little as he gave you a dreamy smile, as if he was seeing something in all this that you couldn’t.

You screamed Five’s name as the ball of fire inside him began to consume what was left of his crumbling body.

“No!” you cried, but this time Five couldn’t hear it.

The bubble around them burst, life and death, creation and destruction, you, Five, all of it and time itself, all tied to him and the tale of rebirth, and it was coming for you in a wall of fire.

Your own terrified scream echoing inside your head was the last thing you heard.

Then you were all gone.

~~~

“NO!” You cry out, trying to free yourself from your knotted blankets. You’re in the darkness of your bedroom again, no longer holding Five’s dead body while you watched the ghost of him in the distance, being taken away by an otherworldly fire.

Your heart feels like it could rip out of your chest, it's pounding so hard.

Your hands come up, digging at your eyes as if you can make it all go away, but the heat of your tears is as real as the pain of losing him. “Please no,” you helplessly whimper as you pull your legs up under your arms so you can drop your head between your knees. “I need you, Five,” you sob, your body shuddering.

“I am here, please don’t cry, I am so sorry.”

Your head shoots up, your eyebrows flying halfway up your face, the thumping in your chest threatening to do you in as you blink, over and over, seeing Five right there, at the side of your bed, looking like he just woke up, but looking as beautifully disheveled in his three-piece suit as he always does.

“Ff-Five?” your voice cracks.

“Hey, handsome,” he quietly breathes as he sinks down on the bed next to you, his legs dangling over the side as he reaches over, gently brushing a sweat-dampened piece of hair out of your eyes.

“You you-you-"

“I know,” Five says, pulling you to him.

Arms around him, he squeezes you tight. You breathe in, your face buried against his collar because you’re still not sure he’s real.

“I didn’t think it was possible, but-” He stops, pulling back enough to make you look at him. His eyes glaze over in thought as he lets out a shaky breath. “No one else but us remembered, and I didn’t-" His teary words catch in his throat. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never should have-” A single tear rolls down his cheek. “I never should have let this happen, but nothing could have prepared me for you and how you made me feel, and I- Even if you remember me, I shouldn’t be here, but I heard you crying, and I had to-"

He tries to pull away.

“NO! Don’t you dare go!” You give Five’s shoulders a little shake, “Don’t you dare leave me again! And what the hell do you mean you heard me? Where were you, in my fucking closet!”

“No, I was pathetically hiding out in a musty old office building in 1955.”

“Okay- Okay-" Your heart is racing so hard you can’t think but that makes no sense. “What the fuck, Five!”

He lowers his face like he wants to disappear and that only makes you cling to him tighter.

“The place I am talking about, and my association with it is a long story,” he starts, “-and I promise I will tell you everything if you want me to, but the reason I was there now was because it’s the only place I could go to see you.” He looks up, his eyes filling. “There’s a machine I invented, it lets the operator dial in places and times. I have missed you so fucking much,” he rambles, clearly spiraling, but you refuse to let him go no matter how confused and mad you are.

“Look, the things you say are just- Yeah.” You let out a puff of air, shaking your head over all this craziness. “But I want you! I don’t care about the rest!"

“I’m not who you think I am. I have done so many horrible things,” he interrupts.

“Five, I know that you are so many more things than what I thought you were in the beginning, but I want all of them. I saw you! All of you! You had a mustache for Christ Sake! I know who you are!”

“You don’t know all of it,” he whispers.

“I don’t care! You saved us. I don’t understand it, but I know you did. You were the only one in the end before everything disappeared. I thought you were dead!”

“I know.”

“You told me that I’m the first person you wanted to open yourself up to,” you continue, “Did you mean it when you said that?”

His lower lip quivers as he nods. “I meant every word of it, and you are still all I want.”

“Then don’t leave me again!” you shout at him, pushing him down on your bed.

Five still looks totally lost but with your insistence, he surrenders himself to you heavily crawling on top of him.

Fully reclined, you throw your leg over his, coming down at his side to tuck your head under his chin, effectively detaining him but letting him breathe. You can hear his heart hammering in his chest as he looks down at you peering up at him. 

His eyes search yours he quietly asks, “Are you sure you still want this?”

“Yes, I am sure,” you insist.

His long fingers trace a line up your back, skating the surface of your shirt.

“Please talk to me, Five. I meant it when I said I want this with you more than anything.”

“Why?” he questions, sounding so dejected.

You sit up, straddling him so you can keep him trapped but also take him on, face to face. “Because even with all the crazy things you told me, knowing what I know now, I think you were telling me the truth about all of it, and you know what, I am not scared. I don’t care how old you are, or if you were an assassin. I don’t care what you’ve done to get here. All that matters is you are.”

“You mean that?” he whispers, reaching around you, his long fingers tracing a soothing line up your back.

You nod and his hand comes up, moving to the back of your head, pulling your lips to his in a chaste kiss that ends all too fast.

You try to kiss him again but Five turns his head, squirming away, not letting you.

Your eyebrows come together in frustration.

“You know… For all my mistakes, I finally thought I had it all figured out, but then this…” His voice trails off as his hands move around your backside, grabbing your ass. “This never should have happened. You weren’t supposed to remember, but you evidently do, or you wouldn’t be trying to hump my leg because you know that getting me hard is going to help you get your way.”

You look down where your crotch is pinning his quad, and he laughs.

You’re just about to tell the asshole you are not trying to hump his leg when he says, “The reason I think you remember,” He cracks a sad smile, making him look so beautifully broken, “The reason you remembered, is because I fell in love with you. A part of you was with me in the end and I couldn’t let it go. You’re a part of me now whether you like it or not.”

“You love me?”

“More than anything.”

In the subsequent silence, your shoulders wither, a single thought floating among the sea of worries in your mind.

You love him too.

You come at him, there’s no stopping you from kissing him. Like you are doing to him, Five’s hands grasp at your body, everywhere they can reach, caressing, groping, pinching, anything to feel each other. 

Jutting your cunt across his thigh, you assault his lips, drawing your teeth across his pout in retribution for him thinking you wouldn’t want this.

Stroking his neck, his hands holding you in place, he moans as you grind his leg. Adding to your pleasure, Five begins exploring your neck with his tongue, tasting your skin, licking the sweat of your nightmare clean off as you rut into him, panting and gasping, filling the quiet of the small room.

Boldly sticking your hand down your pants, rubbing your cock, you lower your voice as deep as you can as you ask, “Did you watch me do this?”

“Yes,” Five rasps, his hands moving down, suddenly taking you by the waist. Like lightning striking, the air around you lights up, every nerve ending in your body comes alive as you’re flung through a swirling storm of sapphire, coming back to the present a millisecond later with your back slamming on your mattress.

Head still spinning, Five falls over you from the air, his body still glowing in his whirl of magical light. His irises dance with embers as he dives in, kissing your neck again.

“What. The Fuck Was That? Did you just teleport me?” you deliriously groan as he attacks you.

"No, I blinked you," he corrects, "It's a spontaneous reaction to having a very naughty boy trying to fuck my lap,” Five informs you with his lips at your earlobe, before kissing down, gnawing on your jaw, as he attempts to blindly unbutton his shirt.

Oh, my God, this man...

Not satisfied with the speed, you begin to help him, and his smile at your impatience is almost as hot as the sight of him laying over you, shrugging it off. Five is nothing but lean valleys of muscle, all pointing to the dangerous weapon he’s packing in his pants, but interestingly enough, his famous Umbrella Academy tattoo on his wrist isn’t the only tattoo he’s got.

Seeing geometrically balanced circles and lines criss-crossing in the middle of his chest must have you making the funniest looking face because Five starts laughing.

“This,” He points to the black and gray washes of ink marking him. “This is evidence of one of my many blunders through time, but it’s worth the pain and looking like a fucking idiot if it means I get to see you looking at me like that.”

You trace the lines. “You are beautiful, Five, all of you.”

“As long as you think so, because I think I’m stuck with it now,. I am a complete package of the old me, the young me, and the tattooed and very fucking horny me,” he says before much more seriously asking, "You ok taking yours off too?"

You nod and Five dips low, using his nose, he starts nudging your t-shirt shirt up. He playfully sucks and nips you all the way up to one of the darkened pink scars under your pecs. Your breath hitches as he traces a line over it with his fingertip, then slowly begins to kiss you there too, his teeth grazing your nipple for good measure.

“So perfect,” he hums, sending a direct signal from you’re the now hardened nub all the way down to your groin. 

As you’re reeling over him saying that and the feeling of him flicking his tongue across your other pec, Five’s hands start moving up your sides, slowly lifting your shirt over your head.

Your legs tense, fighting against the growing ache between them as Five kisses down your torso, marking you where the skin dips at your hip, the palm of his hand hot as it rests over your abs, firmly holding you down.

Already trembling, you let out a small cry of desperation.

Gazing up at you with his pupils blown dark with desire, Five tears open the button holding your jeans closed. Lifting for him, he pushes your remaining clothes down your flushed thighs.

With you fully naked, your bodies roll slightly as Five comes down on the bed next to you. You spread your legs and just as fast, he reaches between them, rolling your clit between thumb and forefinger.

You gasp your approval, “Fuck yeah, don’t stop.”

“Fuck, you’re so hard for me,” Five groans, just below your ear, sending a shiver zipping up your spine as a gush of wet drips out of you. “I can’t get enough of your dick,” he says while playfully pecking your jaw.

“Same,” you gasp, your enlarged clit so sensitive, you can’t help but whine like a puppy when his hand starts to firmly rub it.

Your hand reactively grips his shoulder painfully hard the faster he goes, and his eyes narrow dangerously in response.

Knowing without words what you need, barely thirty seconds into it, two fingers start jabbing inside you, aiming at your sweet spot.

“Holy fuck,” you breath before Five can capture your mouth in a hard kiss again.

As your hips jerk into his hand, Five’s hand snakes down along your side to rub his own cock, all the while he never stops sucking at your neck or giving you needly little licks in between his kisses. Soon the nips get hard enough to make you throw your head back, thrashing.

With Five jerking himself, bucking against you, your hands grip at the sheets, hanging on for dear life as your walls start spasming.

Even though you’re flailing, moaning loud as your hips jerkily fuck into his fingers, you can hear that Five is humming all sorts of dirty things, the vibrations of his words against your throat sending your brain even further down the spiral of your fuckedy fuck land.

Having brought you over the edge, he pulls out. His hand on your thigh moves around you, gripping your ass to pull you in closer as he rolls on top of you.

Five licks at your lips before he slides his hands down to the back of your thighs to pick you up, grinding your crotch into his restrained shaft. “God, I want to fuck you so badly,’ he growls before crashing your lips together again.

Five’s powerful body bears down on you, the drag of his cock between your legs too much but also not enough. Encouraging him to keep up what he was doing, only with his pants off, you try to push his pants down, even as he’s still urgently rocking his hips into you.

“Fuck,” he groans, his teeth grazing your neck as he gasps for air. His hips twitch to a stop at the feeling of his cock about to spring free.

“I want all of you, Five,” you breathe, holding his cheeks under your palms as you pull his head up, making him look at you.

“Are you sure?”

“More than anything. I love you, Five.”

His soft eyes light up as if this wasn’t already obvious. He smiles down at you with an adoring look, caressing your face and pushing your hair aside as you blush under his loving gaze. He leans in to kiss along your jaw and down your neck as he scrambles to remove his pants with you helping him along, hooking your fingers under his tailored waistband, dragging them down his thighs, pushing them the rest of the way off with your feet.

“Oh Fuck,” Five groans as he lowers back down and his cock slips over the moist heat between your legs.

Instinctively, he starts to rut against you again. Before you can do more than hum a moan through your pinched lips, you feel the head of Five’s dick align with your throbbing hole. 

“Protection?” Five impatiently asks, coming to a full stop.

Drunk with desire, all you can do is shake your head no, but the message is clear. You don’t need it.

Tenderly squeezing your ass, with his eyes locked to yours and his voice barely above a whisper, Five asks, “You ready?”

“Yes,” you breathe, keeping your fingers threaded in his thick dark hair, holding him in place with one hand, the other sliding from his muscular back to gripe his shoulder.

He starts to push slowly. “Aw fuck” you moan as just the head of his cock slips in. You throw your head into the pillow, biting your lip to keep from crying out.

Five’s warm breath slowly fans over your neck. He’s not moving a single inch. “Does it hurt?”

“It- It’s good,” you huff, letting out a tense breath as you lift your hips higher, letting him know you can take it.

“That’s it, baby,” he soothes, as your body tightens and quivers along the thick length slowly filling you.

Not even full deep, your brain feels like it’s just flashed on and off and it’s not at all working right.

"You’re so fucking gorgeous," Five patiently huffs, his focus on gauging your every reaction, holding himself still as possible.

“More,” you whine.

You clench involuntarily, letting out a low moan when Five works his hips forward, then back a little, a pleasant change that has you twitching for him even more.

He dips to kiss you, gasping for breath as he opens you even more. Too much for him at once, he takes his kisses to your neck.

He takes a moment to pull half-out of you before digging back in. Firm, slow, and steady, he fucks his hips into you while he bears down with a hiss. Your walls clench him tight, the extra pressure drawing out a moan from both of you.

Your eyes flutter closed as your fingers scratch against Five back. His hips press up, aiming to get as deep as possible, where he stays for one moment before pulling out and thrusting halfway in again and again.

"Fuck, Five, fuck," you slur out as your body begins to slip and slide across your sheets.

He grabs hold of your knee, pushing it back to meet your shoulder, falling into you deeper on his next thrust and you let out wet gasp, before he starts fucking you at a maddening pace, in and out, in shallow thrusts.

As he looks between your bodies, watching with an adorable fascination as his cock disappears inside you, you cry out, “Faster.”

Five obliges.

He really starts moving and the feel of him pumping his whole length inside you has your body arching and writhing up from the bed, lips parted in broken moans that fill the room and your entire apartment and probably your entire floor.

“Yes, Five. Fuck yes! “Don’t stop-fucking-fff,” you stammer, moving your ass up slightly which drives him deeper and brings on more breathless curses from you both. He’s so deep each time his body meets yours he’s knocking the wind from your lungs in breathy consonants and vowels of nonsense.

“Mmmmffff- aaah-ahhh-"

“Fuck-you-rrr-such-ah-good-boy, so tight,” he incoherently gasps along with you, as he pistons his cock into you, his thick tip fucking your cunt just right.

You’re plunging into a freefall, the coiling inside you causing you to cry out his name. At the sound of it, Five’s mouth finds yours, sloppily kissing you.

You’re both breathing too heavily for the kiss to last very long because breathing through your noses isn’t giving either of you enough oxygen. Breaking away, his forehead presses to your shoulder, a curtain of his dark hair falling around it as his strong pelvic slams into you.

"Please- fuck- harder-" you plead, and your magical super boy grants your wish.

Your eyes roll back in your head as Five pounds you harder and faster. Head spinning, your heart feeling like it might burst, your entire body is screaming for release.

“Come on, cum for me,” Five growls before resting his palm over your clit, thrusting his hand in time to his hips.

Your brain is getting shook loose with each slam of his body smacking into yours, and your bed frame isn't doing much better as it creaks and thumps into the wall in a pattern that matches your curses.

"Fuck- Fuck- FUCK-"

You’re reduced to disjointed moans as you fall apart. Shaking head to toe through a mind-melting orgasm, the throbbing intensity as you cum hits you over and over until it completely overwhelms your senses and leaves you speechless.

“That’s right, cream on daddy’s cock,” Five encourages as he quickly flips his head back, his dampened hair falling right back in front of his eyes as he smirks.

“Five- Fu-ffff,” you wetly gasp.

“Ready for another one?” he asks, still undulating his cock as he quirks an eyebrow.

“Ww-wah? How are you doing this,” you ask, meaning how the fuck is he still fucking you! He said he’d been with someone else before, but… Fuck!

His smirk only gets bigger. “Lots of practice with a very receptive inanimate object, named Dolores,” he replies. “Now roll over. Don’t make me count to three,” he warns, before suddenly pulling out, leaving you reeling, his hands on your hips, rolling you over before he pulls your ass high in the air.

The heat of his cock hits your entrance with zero resistance and your body jumps forward when you feel his balls hit your ass.

That move gets you both hissing out strings of discombobulated profanities again as Five holds himself stock still, his eyes closing tight as if he’s in pain..

“Dolores?” you manage to choke.

“Desperate times,” he huffs in way of explanation, then just as the shocking statement he just made and the jolt of him bottoming out is starting to subside, Five smacks your ass, and he’s back to it, fucking into you with a relentless pace.

“Fu-ua-uch-yea-ah, so good,” he disjointedly praises as he rides your ass, hooking his feet inside your ankles so you can’t close your legs.

Your body tightens as his thrusts speed up. You shudder, mouth falling open with a shocked moan as you feel Five’s cock rutting against your insides, demanding every inch of your attention.

With your face down in your mattress, you gasp against moistened fabric. Your shaky fingers clutch at your fitted bedsheet, Five’s brutal pace making steady smack, smack, smack sounds.

You still have no idea how he’s doing it, but Five just keeps on going like his real superpower is that he’s the fucking Energizer Bunny.

Pulling your limp body up to his, Five’s face nuzzles against the back of your neck, hips rolling hard and fast, the sweat from your flush bodies only making it easier for him to fuck into like he’s a well-oiled machine.

“God, you’re magnificent. You feel so fucking good,” he breathes.

"Hnn-mm-unh, uh, uh, please, please-" you moan.

“I’m gonna cum inside you. And you’re gonna cum with me,” Five growls, bearing down on you harder.

You cry out, your next orgasm hitting you as Earth shattering at the first two. You’re shivering, open-mouthed and helpless as you start to feel his warmth spreading with each thrust, Five’s hips jerking slower and slower as he empties his throbbing cock.

He hisses, moaning out a melody of expletives as his hips stutter to a near halt. He just came hard, but that doesn’t stop him as he rolls you against the mattress, coming down next to you, his cock pumping into you a few more times until you’re both left panting and boneless.

He kisses the nape of your neck and tenderly brushes a sweaty strand of your hair from the side of your face. Five stays connected to you until your chests are both rising and falling much slower, then his softening length slips out on its own, a white ribbon of cum immediately spilling out of you, the feel and sight of it making Five let out the softest whimper of distress.

Not letting you go, he kisses your temple.

"That was amazing," he contentedly breathes.

You huff out a sigh in agreement, cheeks flushed, gaze half lidded.

"I didn’t hurt you?" he whispers, a hand coming up to brush over your jaw, so gently. The concern for your wellbeing is reflected in Five’s soft green eyes as he pulls himself up on a wobbly elbow to look at you better.

“Not at all," you mutter with a weak smile as you pull your blankets over, throwing them over both of you.

Five’s hair is sticking up in just about every direction and it’s only adding to the beauty of his dazed grin.

“I’m never leaving you again, that’s unless you make me,” Five murmurs as he lays back down, kissing your shoulder. 

“I can’t see that happening, unless you get all boring, getting up early, only to take afternoon naps on my couch before you finish your old man day with one of your exhilarating crossword puzzles rather than finding new ways you can pounce on me and spank my ass.”

He laughs. There’s an impish glint in his eyes, like the twinkles of distant starlight.

“Awww, sweetheart,” he mocks. “You make all my favorite hobbies sound like bad things” 

You lean into his touch, sighing in contempt before gently whispering, “Go to sleep and I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Obediently shutting his droopy eyes, he whispers I love you. Then the prick sneakily pulls his hand back, then smacks you in the ass, making you yelp like a little girl.

Ass burning, your heart is full.

This is Five. The wonderful, amazing, sexy jerk you fell in love with.

Next to you, almost as soon as the quiet fills the space between you again, you can tell he’s drifting off to sleep.

Five is finally home.

You roll over just enough to watch him sleeping. 

He looks so peaceful. Like a very naughty angel. The best kind.

You kiss his forehead, and he pulls you back in, making you his little spoon.

Laying there, still trying to take in everything that just happened, you think about all the times Five made jokes about his traumatic life and his loneliness. You caught stolen glimpses of his pain in his sweet but sad smiles, shaking his head, eyelids fluttering closed as he determinedly set his jaw, acting like his memories didn’t hurt him.

Five tried to build a wall around his heart, the barriers entrenched by years of grief, but it all came crashing down at the world’s end. 

Now it’s time for happiness. 

~~~~~~~

Masterpost

Link to my other Tumblr story/art/and asks

Link to visit me direct on A03tua

[runaeveena]

Your dashboard if you were in a d&d fantasy world still involved in fictional erotica discourse part 2

⛰️ berenicesblade Follow

now that the new Mountain Angel volume has come out can we please tag spoilers, some of us are still waiting for our pigeon mail

🦚 faeynadaughter Follow

you can access the volume in full on TomePlane!

🎭 bardcampistrash Follow

until TomePlane acknowledges that its interplanar storage is made possible by binding aboleths to the plane and killing them then we are going to continue not using that platform, thanks

🦚 faeynadaughter Follow

aboleths killed my cousin who was a royal cleric. ill never understand why theres a whole movement to protect abyssal creatures when theyve caused so much damage to our kingdoms. and disliking a pocket dimension which provides thousands of people access to books? your attitude reeks of anti literaturism and mal-aligned virtue signaling and im not sure which is worse

🫒 tenthday237 Follow

Aliizya gets pregnant on page 62

⛰️ berenicesblade Follow

banished

620 Notes

🏰 finchtruther Follow

okay but the way that faelor finch writes every song that perfectly fits pennbiel liiike its giving closet fangirl

🧭 waywardwarlock

seriouslyy!! like what else is "give me your unmarked hand / in the shadowfell we won't be a secret" supposed to be about if not pennipher and corabiel

16 Notes

🌫️ cloudgiant-snailboy Follow

yall please dont fill up the unseen servant tag with your super fucking weird smut posts im just looking for tips on how to find my unseen servant

🪡 scç-writer

the search function on tomeblr does need to be updated but we dont have to kinkshame :)

🌫️ cloudgiant-snailboy Follow

the site is being overrun by virgin degenerates

🍯 treebarkhookhandwagondoor

sounds like you need Wilam the Wizard with Wandering Hands to help you summon the unseen stick in your ass

290 Notes

🗝️ crypt-princess Follow

so whose going to be the first to commission a painting of that scene with Aliizya and the beholder 👀

🍎 bloodmaledickening Follow

i already asked my local artisan he said he's gotten two other commissions for the same scene lmao

🐁 softbarbarian

girl i commissioned a tapestry

45 Notes

🕯️ andersfirelight Follow

friendly reminder that devil deals are a real thing that a lot of people fall victim too and that demons are malicious and do destroy peoples lives if theyre not careful so please be careful when consuming works like Hellionfinity which romanticizes devil deals and fiendish soul contracts

🌾entangled-farmer Follow

imo any work of fiction that involves a romance between any type of fiend is not just problematic but harmful

🕯️ andersfirelight Follow

i used to be indifferent to books that had devil romance interests because like thats their whole thing theyre seducing people to get their souls and the mc overcomes it, but reading through the replies i see that Hellionfinity actually ends with the devil character as the main romantic lead which is super problematic in terms of power imbalance and the fact that he has a redemption arc is so out of touch especially since our military is finally recovering from the azgurian assault

🧚🏻‍♂️arms-of-faelor

helliofinity also has a scene where the main character uses a soul coin that an imprisoned mortal gave him and he uses it to bring the devil out of avernus so he doesnt fully die and no one in the book mentions it or talks about how messed up it is to use soul coins and we never see the now bound to hell prisoner ever again

🕯️ andersfirelight Follow

hellionfinity officially cancelled on my end!

88 Notes

☘️ celest-ial Follow

moment of silence for all the customers waiting on drink orders while the tavern wench gets her back blown out by a new guy every night ✊😔

🦁 king-killa Follow

the gods work hard but Girthy Gladys gets worked harder

57,022 Notes

🎲 beholdersbeholdingme

paladin and warlock romances are OUT! cleric and necromancer romances are IN!

🪭 royalcoinpurse Follow

the only thing a cleric should do to a necromancer is beat him to death so she can revive him and kill him again

🎲 beholdersbeholdingme

❇️ arch-dryad Follow

i think we need to analyze why we're so quick to place women in categories of devious seductress or healer in romance novels as if that hasnt been the pervasive trope that holds magic-touched women back in our actual society

🍯 treebarkhookhandwagondoor

why do you assume these fictional tropes are mf couples only? can a gay cleric not beat his gay necromancer boyfriend to death?

🎲 beholdersbeholdingme

and off! beat him off cmon guys

5,275 Notes

🧀 weremouse Follow

yall ever be talking or whatnot and feel like no one understands you

🪨 sebrenenogdon Follow

ᛄᚠ ᛡᚢ ᚳᚪᚾ ᚱᛁᛞ ᚦᛄᛋ ᛡᚢ ᚺᚪᚠ ᛏᚢ ᚱᛁᛒᛚᚪᚷ ᚦᛄᛋ

🧀 weremouse Follow

say that shit fr (<- looking around clueless)

🪨 sebrenenogdon Follow

ᛋᛁᚱᛁᚪᛋᛚᛁ

60 Notes

🌠 crownofstars

remember when that person made a call out post for the author of ilairepeler for using a ghost writer and it turned out the author was an actual ghost. writing. like a literal ghost writer. like.

🍄gnomestool Follow

arent you the dwarf that fucked a slaad

🌠 crownofstars

how would you like to become a ghost so you can write more witty comments like this for eternity

301 Notes

[ilygetou]

๑ 2023 KINKTOBER | MINORS DNI. ๑

⋆｡°✩ details. will be posting a total of (almost) 13 fanfics throughout the weeks of october with one bonus/special piece. I’ll only be writing the main c/w here, once you get to the actual post you’ll get the whole c/w list so make sure to read that as well. Some works would be highly suggestive & won’t be suitable for some. read at your own discretion.

⋆｡°✩ notice. please be aware that i might not be able to finish every single piece by time but let’s hope that doesn’t happen. </3 main note is under the cut.

⋆｡°✩ taglist. fill this up if you’re tyna’ get tagged whenever i’m about to post a piece from this masterlist. scroll to the end if you only wanna be tagged in specific ones/pieces. must be 18+ to get tagged!

๑ THE FOLLOWING CONTENT YOU’RE ABOUT TO VIEW INCLUDES EXTREME DARK CONTENT THAT MIGHT BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME PEOPLE.๑

๑ PLEASE PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION. ๑

NOTE: AAA HI GUYS!!! this year’s kinktober is going to be a bit different than last year’s kinktober, last time i did a “one kink + character” this year is going to be fully dark content fics with more than one kink, i’ll try & finish & post all of them right on time since i kinda gave up on last year’s kinktober–i’m hoping i’ll manage to post every single fic for this one–anyways!! i hope you guys like it!! (๑•́ ᎔ ก̀๑)

DARK CONTENT WARNING. PLEASE, READ THE TAGS UNDER EVERY LINK.

MET HER ON THE INTERNET. – Eren Jaeger.

c/w: noncon –> dubcon, online stalking, solo m! masturbation, lovesick! eren, possessive! eren, cheating, vaginal fingering, face/throat fucking, facial, brief after-care at the end.

HEROiN CHEERLEADER – Gojo satoru.

synopsis: You were like an addictive drug to satoru, he couldn’t get enough of you. Always coming back for more, that was until you told him that you had enough – that you two should stop messing around. You wanted to focus more on your cheerleading career while gojo satoru was furious with your sudden decision, he knew the whole “focusing on cheerleading” thing is a lie when he saw how swayed you were with the new captain of your cheerleading team. He won’t leave you alone until you willingly come back to him, you got him addicted to your taste so that’s all your fault.

c/w: college au, dubcon, voyeurism, male masturbation, jealous! satoru, degrading (like lots of it), satoru blames you for everything, unprotected sex, alcohol consumption, creampie.

PACKRUNNER BiTCH. – Ran Haitian.

synopsis: You were in it for the money. Why would you waste all your young years dating a thirty year old man? Let’s be serious here, you still have so much to do with your life rather than wasting it on an old guy but you need the money. But dating an old man just for money wasn’t that worth it either, that’s why the man you chose to use was a gang member – he’s old but is a part of an incredibly famous gang in your city. You knew he had more than money and that was; drugs. You were in it for the drugs & money! This whole acting in-love thing was fun until you were found out. Do you think Ran Haitian will forgive you for using him? He’s much more arrogant than that.

c/w: age gap (reader is 22 ran is 36), spanking (he uses his hands and a belt), choking, throat fucking, cum swallowing, unprotected sex, multiple (when i say multiple I mean many, numerous) creampies.

UGLY MAN? FUN PLAN! – Toji Fushiguro

synopsis: you found toji fushiguro ugly, he’s not your type and you’d rather die than date a guy like him. On the other hand toji found you gorgeous, it was love at first sight, he fell so hard for you he’s willing to do anything for your love. Toji confessed to you many times and they all ended up with heart breaking rejections. Toji is willing to try one more time and if you reject him again then that’s also alright, he has a nice plan in mind to (forcefully) make you his.

c/w: noncon, babytrapping, forced breeder! toji :<, slapping, sloppy makeout’s, lots of degrading, choking, low-key manipulative! Toji.

WEBGHOST – Rintarō Suna

synopsis: You stumbled across an abandoned hospital and decided to go explore it, alone. You were a huge fan of horror movies & loved the “exploring haunted places” concept, it’s nerve-racking because you never knew what to expect. Once you stepped foot into the old hospital, you felt a chill run past your spin. You hoped that you may run into blood-curdling stuff so you could have something to talk about for the next week or so — but you didn’t expect to run into an actual ghost. And it didn’t seem to want to leave you alone either.

c/w: ghost! suna (don’t ask how cause idk either), mentions of blood, spectrophilia, you feel it but you can’t see suna, hair pulling, creampie.

EViL NiGHT, LOVELY NiGHT! – Jean Kirstein.

synopsis: An infamous burglar lives in your city, he somehow managed to break into 120 homes in total and still didn’t get caught, he was known for stealing valuable objects–if he broke into your house and found nothing worth stealing then he’s going to flee and find another home to rob. He never restores to violence unless the house-victim tries anything against him, he’d immediately pull out his gun and shoot. Everyone was advised to keep their doors locked until they eventually catch the burglar. And tonight was no different, double checking that you had both your doors and windows locked before heading to sleep.

c/w: non con, coercion, somno, slight degrading, gun-fucking, facial, slapping, bondage, creampie per usual.

GRAVE ROBBERY. – Getō Suguru & Gojo satoru.

synopsis: You couldn’t escape them. From middle school to highschool and all the way to college. They were there. Following you everywhere, wherever you went–those two were always there, they made sure they were always there. You haven’t escaped their bullying and harassment for the past 9 years, gaining both enjoyment & entertainment by your reactions to their heinous acts towards you. Both Gojo satoru and Getō suguru loved you despite their horrible treatment towards you, they loved you.

c/w: bully! suguru bully! satoru, noncon, blackmailing, non con recording, hair pulling, threesomes, ass + pussy slapping, clit stimulation, dacryphilia, blowjob, handjob, facial, creampie.

TU4N Y<3R PH0N3 0F5 – Sanzu Haruchiyo.

synopsis: the feeling of someone watching your every move never left you, feeling as if there were eyes on you all the time. To the point you were uncomfortable to do almost everything. Eating? Sleeping? Changing? You couldn’t do anything without feeling two eyes inspecting your every move.

c/w: stalking, noncon, hints of misogyny, semi-public sex, forced/noncon breeding, slapping, virginity loss, mentions of blood and impregnation.

RUSSIAN ROULETTE. – ft. Yuushi Totsumoto.

from lady k and the sick man.

synopsis: Yuushi took you in cause’ you had nowhere else to go. you’ve been living with him for almost two years now and he barely knows anything about you. Not only that but he almost never heard you speak, he was okay with it at the beginning. Thinking you were just a little shy. But it’s been two years and he never heard your voice properly–there were a few occasions when yuushi could hear you speak but those would be barely audible mutters.

c/w: voice kink (auralism?), pervert! yuushi, peeping, breeding kink, cunnilingus, ear licking, size kink, man handling, squirting, overstimulation, creampie per usual.

WiTCHBLADES. – CHILDE/TARTAGLIA.

synopsis: (this takes place after the fontaine archon quest), childe who ended up thrown into jail because that god awful machine decided that he was guilty. And you, you ended up being his jail mate. You wanted nothing to do with childe but he’s a literal chatter box, he never shuts up. Finally, you snap back at him, scolding him and telling you guys are literally in a jail cell right now. Childe didn’t like that attitude of yours so he decided to fuck some manners into you.

c/w: noncon, forced breeder! childe, lots of misogyny, ass + pussy slapping, no prep, size kink, dacryphilia.

F0UR L3AF CL0V3R. — Aoi Todo.

synopsis: your boyfriend was either in his room playing games 24/7, at the gym, or sleeping. Never giving you proper attention until you grew desperate so what’s better than teasing him? until he gives you the attention you’re looking for. <3

c/w: read has big tits😓, dubcon just in case, kinda modern au?, gamer! todo, lots of teasing, boobjob, face fucking/blowjob, possessiveness, size kink, manhandling, pervert! todo, panty sniffing, sumata (“A Japanese sexual term in which the female rubs her labia majora against the male's penis, without actual penetration.”), facial, cum swallowing.

⋆｡°✩ 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋/𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒:

DEVIL ON MY BACK./ REPENT. – Getō Suguru.

synopsis: After watching a movie about the so-called game; Ouija board, with your friend Anna, You couldn’t help but grow more curious about it. After purchasing the game, you ran to your basement to try out; the first thing you tried to communicate with was the infamous devil; Getō suguru.

c/w: religious themes, ouija board, non con → dubcon, slapping, hair pulling, spitting, pussy + ass slapping, anal play, dacryphilia, overstimulation, v light somnophilia, manipulation, multiple creampies, non con creampie, lowkey monster fucking??, suguru has two dicks, face fucking, cum swallowing, guilt tripping kinda, very aggressive suguru, he is mentioned to have red eyes.

© ILYGETOU 2021-’23. All rights reserved. DO NOT steal, translate, or modify any of my works <3

[kataang-week]

Special thanks to our mod @penguinsledder for making this year's banner!

What is Kataang Week?

Kataang Week is when we, as a corner of the fandom, celebrate the ship Kataang on Tumblr! The prompts for Kataang Week 2024 were selected through five rounds of voting over the last few weeks and all prompts were submitted by Kataangers.

Cool, when is it?

Summer Kataang Week 2024 starts on Monday, July 29th - a little over seven weeks from today - and ends on Monday, August 5th.  

Who is the founder of Tumblr's Kataang Week?

@secretsecrettunnel revived Kataang Week in the summer of 2013 a few years after Avatar: The Last Airbender ended and when the fandom was itching for more Kataang during The Legend of Korra’s run.

Who are the mods?

@airbender-dacyon AKA Mod Dan: A Kataang fanfic writer who prefers fluff, but also loves some drama and angst. Mod Dan started writing Kataang stories in 2013 and has helped organize Kataang Week since 2016.

@penguinsledder AKA Mod Atarah: A writer, gif maker, and musician–she enjoys fluffy young adult Kataang and all the ways they complement and parallel each other. She first joined Tumblr for Kataang Week 10 years ago, and started helping out with writing posts and making banners as a mod since 2016!

@itsmoonpeaches AKA Mod Belle: An avid Kataanger with a penchant for angst and mild violence who likes writing. Mod Belle has been a mod since 2021 and helps write posts and social media.

@chocomd AKA Mod Celes: Fanfic writer who adores Kataang for their fun and flirty side but also their bond forged through grief and loss. Mod Celes joined in 2023 and helps with a little bit of everything - whatever needs to be done!

How do I participate?

The most common ways to participate are by creating art or writing a fic and posting it online. Some people try and create something for every day while others only fill one or two prompts.  

As always, we want to reassure you that it’s perfectly okay not to do every prompt! We just hope to have lovely pieces to share on each day.

But I can’t draw or write!

That’s totally fine - there are more ways to participate! You can sing a song, create a graphic, write a poem - just about anything really. You can also show your support by reblogging and liking other people’s contributions.

What are the prompts?

The following will be the running order for Kataang Week 2024:

Cultural Exchange/Culture Sharing/Revival of Traditions - Monday, July 29th

Protectiveness/Bodyguard - Tuesday, July 30th

Parenting/First-Time Parents - Wednesday, July 31st

Post-Battle Reunion - Thursday, August 1st

Disguise - Friday, August 2nd

Jealousy - Saturday, August 3rd

Proposal - Sunday, August 4th

Free Day - Monday, August 5th

* As a reminder, Cultural Exchange/Culture Sharing/Revival of Traditions, Protectiveness/Bodyguard, and Parenting/First-Time Parents were combined during voting as they were very similar prompts. You can interpret them as singular or separate prompts and incorporate one or both for each day.

** And as always, there is a Free Day at the end of the week. You can use this day to post anything you’d like! It can be a prompt that didn’t receive enough votes or something you’ve been wanting to work on, anything goes!

*** Kataang Week is also being hosted by @dailykataang on Twitter this year! In addition, @dailykataang will be extending Kataang Week by another week, exclusively on Twitter. Please see this post for more details on how to participate on Twitter.

How should I tag my work?

The easiest way for us to find your work so we can reblog it to this blog is by using the tag “kataang week”. Using “kataang” and “kataangtag” also help. You must tag one of the three in your first five tags otherwise it doesn’t appear in the search. It is also helpful to tag us directly with @kataang-week.

Sometimes even properly tagged posts may not appear when we search the tags, so if you do not see your content reblogged, please let us know.

Once we’ve reblogged it to this blog we add our own tags (a prompt tag and a user tag) for easy organization. This means we can find all the work for one prompt or all the work from one user in one easy click (this also means that if you have changed your username since participating last year you need to let us know so we can update your tag!).

Can I post my stuff other places online too?

Of course you can!

For those of you who will be posting your works on AO3, feel free to add your fic to our AO3 collection.

Why seven weeks? Is that enough time?

Traditionally, we like to provide our content creators seven to eight weeks to create quality content. Kataang Week is also traditionally held in the last week of July.  

If you are unable to complete a prompt in time, please do not fret. You can alert this blog by mentioning it in your post (ex. @kataang-week​) or messaging one of the mods and your content will still be shared even if it is a week (or a month - or sometimes more!) late.

We also like to post WIP for Kataang Week and encourage everyone else to do so as well - we reblog it here for motivation!

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to send an ask. Don’t forget to reblog this as well to help spread the word!

Good luck, Kataangers, and happy content creating! 😊

- The Mods