#and I was brewing ideas for a silly guy that can’t fight for shit

[cupophrogs]

Woe, random character design be upon ye

[solynaceawrites]

Promise Me Forever [5]

Fandom: Devil May Cry Characters: Dante, Lirael Thorne (OC) Tags: Slow Burn, Romance, Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe, First Time, Friends to Lovers Chapters: 5/14 co-written by @lickitysplitfic​ Summary: An old, long-forgotten promise between gods comes back to haunt Dante when it deposits an unfamiliar woman on his door. Claiming to be the descendant of Ler, she says that they’re meant to fulfill the oath made by Sparda centuries ago, and all he can do is watch as she turns his life upside down. Yet when her parents come knocking, demanding the oath be fulfilled, he’s forced to choose: return to the bachelor ways he loved so much, or give in to the emotions brewing between him.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

Lir sits at Dante's desk, gazing at him. He is stretched out on the couch, his feet crossed on the arm and his eyes closed, snoozing away. She is supposed to be organizing the bills and writing checks, but his soft snores caught her attention, and now she can't stop staring at him.

Watching Dante has been something she often catches herself doing. It's been over a week since she arrived at the Devil May Cry, and every day brings something new she never saw before: a new television show, a new joke of his, a new case that piques her interest. But none of it as interesting as the son of Sparda himself, who has turned out to be an intriguing mixture of strength and determination wrapped up in a layer of an simplicity she hadn't expected.

Even now, napping on the couch, he's a conundrum of contradictions. His outfit, an odd blend of red and black leather, was quite obviously chosen with care, yet his face holds a day's growth of stubble, and his sprawl is haphazard; he looks like he puts effort into his appearance, like he doesn't, like he's comfortable, like he's going to fall to floor at any second. It's a far cry from what she was raised to expect, to be certain. There is no cold, elegant warrior here. Just a man, or a little more than, content in his little corner.

Despite her doubts, the truth of him is far more comforting than the myth she was led to believe.

Lir ducks her head, feeling a bit silly now. Even a legendary knight and the son of humanity's hope is still a man, isn't he? It seems foolish now to know she never once considered he would be a normal guy, but it makes a lot more sense than a mysterious figure whose life was fighting and justice.

Of course, Dante is a fighter; that was made clear enough first hand. He's had two jobs since the cat incident, both dispatched with ease. As for justice . . . well, he has a good heart, good enough to take a stranger in, anyway.

In the end, Lir is glad that Dante isn't what she had expected. It's much more interesting this way certainly. She is even having fun, something that also had never occurred to her to even expect in their union. Fun and flirting and enjoying one another's company is something that might come later, after years of marriage; love at first sight and romance lived in novels and Hollywood movies, not reality. Yet being with Dante had Lir questioning everything.

"Yer starin' a hole in me," Dante mumbles from the couch. His voice is heavy and thick with sleep, and he rubs at his face before yawning so widely that his jaw pops. "Somethin' wrong?"

"No, I'm sorry. I was woolgathering, I think." Lir stands with a smile and heads into the kitchen, where she sets to making him a cup of coffee from the pot she'd only just brewed. He takes it from her with a grumbled thanks when she carries it to him, and the sight of him with mussed hair and drowsy eyes is so strangely adorable that it makes her heart pound. "It's strange for you to have a day off, isn't it?"

Dante swallows a large mouthful of coffee before he replies. "Mm, nah. Sometimes I get handyman jobs—that's how the shop is listed in the phonebook—but I rarely take 'em unless the pay is good. So it's a lot of this, unless Morrison or Lady drop by."

Lir nods, continuing to watch him. Her chest tightens a bit when her thoughts land on how handsome he is; if this marriage had worked out, that is one thing that would not have been an issue. Lir had tried not to have any expectations, particularly since the paintings of Sparda in the old books had him with long, curved horns and spikes on his hands. She moves to sit back down at the desk, her eyes drinking him in. Never had she pictured his son with soft silver hair, tall and broad and muscled, strong jaw and lips the perfect shape to kiss—

"Where'd you go?" Dante laughs, and Lir misses the desk chair and lands on her backside on the floor.

He's on his feet in an instant, coming over to help her to her feet. "Shit, you okay?"

"Yes." Embarrassment colors her cheeks scarlet. "I don't know what's wrong with me today."

"Might be something in the air," he says. His hand is warm and solid against her own, and she clasps it gently, marveling at how much larger than hers it is. "Can't seem to wake up, myself."

"Well, luckily, we ca—"

The door to the shop swings open, admitting Lady inside, and she eyes the two of them with what Lir assumes to be amusement. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Not at all," Lir laughs as Dante pulls her to her feet. "Just clumsy."

"You're back sooner than I expected." Dante lets go of her hand and turns, folding his arms. "Don't you know how to call first?"

"No time. I told you, I was running an errand. A mutual friend needed a ride back to Red Grave." She gestures behind her and Lir looks up to see a gentleman walk in, his suit almost as sharp as the little gleam in his eye. 

Before she can ask, Dante groans. "Unless you have some money I don't want to hear it."

"Nonsense," he says. "I got wind of your predicament and I just had to come see for myself." Lady smirks as he crosses the shop, and Lir sees Dante roll his eyes a moment before he takes her hand, holding it up to press his lips to the back of her fingers. "You must be Lir. Lady told me all about you."

"I'm afraid you've got me at a disadvantage, sir," Lir says, falling naturally into the role of demure hostess, "as you know my name, but I don't have the pleasure of knowing yours."

"The pleasure is all mine. It's been a long time since I've seen true beauty, and you, my dear, are a sight for sore eyes." The man smiles at her, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. "Name's Morrison. I act as Dante's broker, bringing him jobs that I think suit him." With a wink, he adds, "He starts giving you trouble, you let me know, and I'll set him straight."

Lir glances at Dante with a giggle, but he looks unamused. "Thank you," she says, smoothing out her smile as she delicately retrieves her hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"So what do you want?" Dante sighs.

"Call it curiosity," he says. "I was out of town and Lady offered to give me a lift home, seeing she would be in the area. Naturally I accepted, and when she told me about her latest job I had to come and see for myself."

Morrison turns back to Lir with a wink. "The daughter of Ler, this is an honor. I'm somewhat familiar with your family, and of course I've heard the story of how your people helped the legendary knight Sparda."

"You have?" both Lir and Dante ask at the same time.

"Sure." He reaches into his coat, drawing a cigar from a pocket along with a trimmer. "The gods are mostly forgotten now. Humanity moved on, and only a couple of the old ones managed to hold on. Ler is one of 'em. Back when Sparda was separating the worlds, he needed a priestess, and Ler sent one of his along . . ."

"I was always told it was a relic," Lir replies with a frown.

"That too. In fact . . ." Morrison tilts his head towards Dante. "That pendant you gave Trish came from Ler's temple."

Dante sucks in a sharp breath as Morrison casually moves to the sofa, sitting and crossing one leg over the other. Lady leans against the pool table and watches as he puts his hands on his hips. "How do you know?"

"She showed it to me. There's some patterns on the side that look just like their buildings." He nods at Lir, who jumps. "Don't know how Sparda got his hand on those amulets though. Care to enlighten us?"

Three sets of eyes fall on Lir, who blushes and shakes her head. "I don't know what he's talking about."

"Ah well. Mystery is long over anyway. Two thousand years has a way of muddying the truth." He chews on his cigar a moment thoughtfully. "Surprised to hear about this oath though. From what I understand Ler and Sparda didn't see eye to eye."

"No, they were great friends," Lir interrupts, stepping around the desk. "At least, they respected one another very much."

"Not what I heard," Morrison chuckles. "Sparda lost too much money playing dice to him for them to be that good of friends."

"Really?" Confusion swirls within her, along with a faint, barely noticeable tinge of discomfort. Was everything her family told her wrong? Could they really have forgotten so many truths? 

It must show in her voice, or on her face, because Morrison exhales a slow cloud of smoke. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. It could be both, or neither. The only ones who would know for sure are Sparda and Ler, and neither of them are talking."

". . . Yes, I suppose."

"Anyway," Lady interjects, "the fact of the matter is that you're stuck with her, Dante. I can't move her now that she's here, or the cult might find out that the two of you aren't honoring the promise. So, Lir, you're gonna have to stay here until we figure out what to do."

She nods as she leans against the desk, listening to Lady tease Dante about being a terrible gambler ("like father like son," she laughs), but not processing anything. It's just like Dante himself: she had expected one thing, and found another. Ler himself might not be at all what they know, but the idea leaves her feeling shaky.

"Hey," Dante says, his hand heavy on her shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yes!" Lir says quickly. "Are you both staying for dinner? We'd love to have you."

Lady laughs and waves her hand. "I can't stay. I have work tonight." She nods towards Morrison. "You coming?"

"I think I'll take the lady up on her offer," Morrison smiles. He takes a drag from his cigar and nods at Lir. "I want to hear more about her people."

Lir ducks her head, wondering what would have happened if Dante were more like Morrison, deciding that she likes him just as he is. Then she flushes, a rather odd trend that's started whenever she's around or thinks about the devil hunter. "Dante, would you mind entertaining our guest while I get started on dinner? I'll be out with drinks in a moment."

His eyes are assessing on her face. "Don't worry about the drinks. I got 'em."

"Nonsense!" She pats his arm. "I can take care of it. Besides, you said that Morrison often brings you work, didn't you? I'll leave the two of you to discuss business."

Lady huffs a laugh, drawing an uneasy look from Lir. "Careful you don't spoil him too much," she chides. "Dante is insufferable enough as it is."

Lir feels a strange urge to defend him, but Dante interrupts. "Get going. And you didn't let Lir's family know what was up, did you?"

"Of course not!" Lady gives a wave as she saunters through the shop. "I told you, I'm a professional!"

Lir turns and heads towards the kitchen, but to her surprise, Dante is right behind her. "You okay?" he asks with a frown as she opens the refrigerator. "First you fall over, then you're offering dinner? You don't have to do this, it's just Morrison."

She considers the options within and his question with equal care. "I'm fine, I think. All of this has just been . . . a bit of a shock, if I'm allowed to be honest. It's like . . . like my family was so disconnected from the world that they forgot how things really were. Or are. I don't know."

"Lir . . ."

"I mean, it was one thing when it was just you they were wrong about, because they never met you. But to be wrong about Ler, or his relationship with Sparda, it . . . it means they're probably wrong about everything else, too. What if there never was a promise? Or they wrote it down wrong?" She pulls out a thing of ham, deciding that a roast will do nicely. "What if they sent me here and I've been in your way for nothing?"

"You're not in my—"

"The worst part is, they don't even know that they're wrong!" she continues, rifling through the pots and pans. "Our entire community is built on providing a bride for the damn son of Sparda, and if Sparda didn't even want that, if there was no agreement, then what have we even been doing for two thousand years? Sitting around on the sea looking like idiots! We'd be no worse than the Order who thought they could raise him from the dead. I mean, I didn't get to do anything because I had to prepare myself for this thing, and it's not even—"

"Hey." She blinks up in surprise when Dante grabs her arm. Then very suddenly he pulls her into a hug, suffocating her slightly as he crushes her to his chest. "Slow down," he chuckles, patting the back of her head.

Despite the lack of oxygen, it does feel good in his arms, and Lir allows herself a moment to enjoy the feeling of his broad chest and arms. But then she eases back, looking up as she wipes at her nose. "Sorry," she mumbles.

He gives her a crooked smile. "We can't know anything. So don't get all worked up. We just need to figure out today." Lir smiles at that sentiment and he nods. "Now, I'll cook dinner. You go talk to Morrison since you actually want to know this stuff."

"But—"

"No buts." He swats her rear end, making her squeak, before pushing her out the kitchen door. "I got this," he laughs, and Lir finds herself back in the office, Morrison grinning in her direction.

Belatedly, she realizes that she has no idea if Dante even knows how to make anything more complicated than a sandwich, but one of them needs to sit with Morrison and Dante has made it clear that he wants her to do it. Lifting her chin slightly, Lir crosses to the couch across from Morrison and settles delicately on it, crossing her legs at the ankle and resting her hands in her lap. "How long have you known Dante?" she asks.

"'Bout ten years. I met him shortly after he opened shop and gave him a bit of a loan to help him along. He's still working on paying it back." Morrison chuckles. "That's long enough to notice how much he likes having you around."

"You must be very good friends."

"Something like that." Morrison looks around the shop. "Probably something more like what Ler and Sparda had. A relationship out of necessity."

Lir swallows nervously. "In our community, we believe they had a close relationship built on mutual trust and respect."

Morrison chuckles. "Oh, I'm sure the two old ones respected each other well enough. My curiosity isn't to be invasive, but to understand." He leans forward and studies her closely. "See, from what I've been told, Ler's magic was used to maintain the seal on the oceans, so the demons couldn't come slithering out of all those unexplored deep parts. Considering the planet is eighty percent water, that is a pretty big task." Then he nods at her knowingly. "Your oath here was a part of that. Payment for the spell."

Lir shifts nervously. That is similar enough to what she had learned, with a marked difference. "It isn't a payment," she murmurs. "It is a . . . an agreement between friends."

"Is it now?" He leans back as if thinking deeply, tapping one finger on his lips. "All that magic must have cost Ler a great deal. Maybe even took his immortality. And he just gave it away for nothing?"

"I . . ." Her gaze drops to her lap. "We are taught from birth of the legends of Sparda, and of Ler. Millennia ago, when Sparda sought to permanently divide the human world from the demon world, he came to Ler, as they were friends and he knew that Ler was wise in the ways of magics. Ler agreed to aid him and Sparda, as a show of faith, promised to marry his firstborn son to one of Ler's daughters."

"So," he says mildly, "two different stories, two different versions of how it all played out. In my experience, when something like that happens, the truth is somewhere in the middle."

"In the middle?" she murmurs.

Morrison nods. "In the end, though, it probably doesn't matter why. Whether Sparda asked him for a favor or Ler offered, hell, Sparda might have threatened him over it, stole the magic, who knows. Doesn't matter if they were friends or enemies or just drinking buddies."

He points at her as she considers this. "What does matter is this oath of yours. That's serious business. And if it is true, and the ocean seal is caught up in this power, then we need to know. It would be a devil of a time if you two didn't get married, and suddenly demons started walking out of the ocean."

Lir glances at the kitchen, where she can faintly hear Dante singing wildly off-key, and then she lowers her voice. "It's not that I don't want to marry him," she admits. "In the time that I've been here, he's proven to be a far better man than I ever dared to hope he would be. He treats me kindly, and I've learned so much since coming here, and he never asks me to do anything that I don't want to do."

"But?" Morrison prompts.

"But I . . . I don't think it's what he wants. That I'm what he wants. And it doesn't feel right to me, anymore, to try and force him into it because it's expected. There's also . . ." Her cheeks burn, but Lir forces her voice to remain steady. "Well, I think I could love him, and I didn't expect that, either."

"Is that so?"

Lir's eyes open wide as she realizes what she just said. "No! No, I mean . . ." She holds her palms up frantically, "I didn't mean that! I've only known him a week, we're friends. It's silly, I spoke out of turn."

Morrison chuckles, leaning over to pat her knee. "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." He winks, but Lir is filled with shame, looking down at her hands twisting in her lap.

A moment goes by during which she takes a deep breath. She glances towards the kitchen, wondering what would happen if Dante had heard that—if her parents had heard her say something like that.

"In the meantime," Morrison sighs, chewing on his cigar, "there is this question of the oath. It would be a bad idea to just wait around and see if the seal breaks, although I don't see any alternative."

"What if we . . ." Her heart pounds in her chest. "If we did the ceremony, it would count, right? We wouldn't have to actually get married, or anything like that?"

Morrison chuckles. "Maybe. You would know more about this stuff than I do."

Lir frowns, her mind wheeling, when the fire alarm goes off. They both jump up at the high pitched beeping as Dante bursts through the kitchen door. "Everything's fine!" he hollers. He pulls one of his revolvers out and aims for the smoke detector, shooting it from the wall, and it lands on the floor, smashing into pieces.

She gapes at him in the sudden silence. "We're ordering pizza," Dante says.

»»————-　⚜　————-««

Morrison leaves before the pizza arrives, citing heartburn, offering his apologies for not having more information to give. Lir and Dante eat in relative silence; she watches him scowl as he picks the olives from his silences, thinking of how wrong her family has been about everything so far. What other lies have they taught her, so caught up in tradition that they never thought to question any of them?

Setting her half-eaten slice on her plate, Lir works up the courage to ask, "I know that it's . . . a sore topic for you, but would you mind telling me what you remember of Sparda?"

"What for?" He doesn't look up, and that worries her.

"Because I . . . I want to know the truth.”

Dante snorts. "Who cares about the truth?"

"I do!" she insists. "When I came here I knew what I had to do: marry the son of Sparda, be a good and obedient wife, and give him children to continue the line."

He almost chokes. "What?"

"But now it's all—it's all shit!" She clenches her hands furiously, tearing her paper napkin. "Sparda didn't tell you anything. So either he forgot, or it wasn't important. But what if it's not even real? What if Ler didn't give him the power? What if everything I've ever known is a complete and total lie?"

She looks at him with eyes that are bright with frustration, and Dante takes a thoughtful bite. "That sucks."

"That's it? That's all you have to say?" she snaps.

He says nothing for quite a while, working steadily through his pizza, taking measured drinks from the beer at his elbow. Finally, when her irritation has begun to simmer into mortification for saying so much, and none of it pleasant, he leans back in his chair. "He was a jackass. Nice when he wanted to be, but I don't think he ever really knew what to do around children, even his own. So, my mother took care of us. He was usually off doin' something or other. Sometimes we wouldn't see him for weeks."

"I see . . ."

"Had a strange sense of humor, thought swords were good gifts for toddlers. That's the kind of guy he was, as far as I know." Dante looks at her steadily. "But he disappeared when I was six. Went off and got himself killed. A year later, the demons came, killed my mother, and Vergil disappeared. And every time he's come up since, it's been some mess of his that I've had to clean up."

Lir flushes, regretting having asked. She bows her head and whispers, "I'm sorry."

There is a moment, and then Dante says, "He made good brownies. Not sure how, but they were extra chocolate-y. He taught me and Vergil how to arm wrestle. Came in handy when I was living on the street, I could hustle some money for food." She peeks up at him, relieved to see him smiling. "He had a laugh that sounded like a goose dying. Mother would put the radio on and Vergil would dance and it would make him laugh."

"He sounds . . . human," she murmurs, more to herself than anything.

Dante shrugs. "He lived here for a long time before he and my mother met. Locals probably rubbed off on him. But all that Legendary Dark Knight stuff? That wasn't him, not as I knew him. He was old by the time I was born, even for a demon, and he lost a lot of his power when the gates were sealed."

Lir nods, and Dante leans in to lift another piece of pizza. "Not what you wanted to hear, huh?"

"Actually . . ." Lir picks an olive off of the pizza and pops it into her mouth before making a face. "Ugh, you're right, these are awful."

"Told ya."

She chuckles, and they exchange smiles. "I'm not disappointed," Lir murmurs. "It actually sounds nice. I think I like human Sparda better than the legendary stuff anyway."

"Oh?" He cocks a brow, but the expression has lost the taunting edge it held when she first arrived.

"Mm." Tucking her legs beneath her, she yawns. "Just like I like the real you more than the Legendary Devil Hunter."

Lir leans her elbow on the back of the couch, propping her cheek on her hand and smiling. "Real me, huh?" Dante chuckles.

He sits back as well, the two of them gazing at one another, and Lir is struck by how comfortable she is with him. There are no expectations, no rules, no one there to tell her what to do. Instead she sets her own schedule, does what she wants, and the only standards she has to meet is her own. And Dante . . . in just a short time he has made her feel at home. "Real you," she murmurs.

Dante chuckles, his voice deep, and it makes her breath catch in her throat. "How do you know the real me, hm?" he teases.

"I just do," she answers. "I know I haven't been here long, and maybe it's out of place for me to say, but I'm . . . I'm really glad that I met you, Dante."

His eyes on her keep her pinned, and before she realizes it, she leans towards him. Her gaze falls to his lips, and Lir wonders what it would be like to kiss him, wonders what would have happened if he accepted her offer right away and married her that night. Something tightens deep inside and a small part of her wishes he had, despite the freedom she has now.

"You're not so bad either," he says, leaning in too.

The air between them is charged, and she feels a shiver up the back of her neck. But Dante doesn't move any closer, just keeps gazing at her with those intense eyes, and as the moment stretches on, Lir starts to doubt. They get along, and he's said he likes having her there . . . so why didn't he take her offer? Why hasn't he tried since?

Maybe he wants something more, she thinks, but that is ridiculous. More, what more? Romance isn't really a thing, at least not that she's ever seen outside of books and movies. Sure, they have a connection, and he is sweet and handsome and she is dying to taste his lips. But that can't mean anything . . . and even if it does, it doesn't mean he feels the same.

Suddenly embarrassed, she eases back and looks away. "That's kind of you," Lir murmurs.

"Yeah."

He is still staring at her, but now his brow is creased, as if confused. All it does is make him look more handsome, and make her want to reach out and brush her fingertips on the crease and slide closer, so she stands, gathering up their plates. "I'll take care of this," she says, escaping to the kitchen, and once there she splashes water on her face, telling herself to get a grip.

[doctorgerth]

Matchup for @lucynnamonroll​

Im a 5'7 girl and I m pan (with a little preference for man). My hair does what they want (and it’s worse since I frizz them) i have a lot of beauty mark all over my body and my skin is naturally tan. Thick thighs no boobs team 🤙. Im an INFJ-T Libra (ascendant Leo)... which perfectly sums up who I am. I m very curious and has this bad habit to love dramas (when it doesn't concern me or my friends). Mom friend and perverted friend in the same time... I am an adept of black humor and sexual innuendo. I have insomnia (mostly because im a worried person who can stop thinking) and it’s impossible for me to sleep without my plush (or what’s left of it...). Worried because i don't want to deceive anyone/want to make everyone happy, probably because my biggest fear is to be alone (for a very long time). My hobbies are writing, learning new facts about animals (because i love animals), napping, reading tarot cards and listening to music (i have literally everything in my playlists, Disney song, russian rap, k-pop, metal...) .

Lucy!! You are such a delight, thank you for sending this request in. I really hope you enjoy your matches! 🥰

Your match is...

Robin (Aquarius, INTP)

You two share a very deep, emotional bond that shines in all aspects of your relationship. You two get along well, even before pursuing a relationship, and the both of you also connect on a high mental level, constantly stimulating each other’s ideas and skills. Neither of you require more from the other than you are willing to give! Robin is really drawn to your curiosity and caring nature. It reminds her a lot of herself which shows that you two have similar interests and values. Robin has a desire to learn and has vast knowledge of history and archaeology, so your conversations are never boring as you two constantly learn new things from each other. She admires your intelligence and eagerness to learn, especially all of your knowledge about animals! Would she spoil you with trips to zoos, museums, aquariums, etc because of this? Absolutely. She also adores how caring you are to your loved ones. This is an important trait to her and she’s head over heels for your gentle heart. You fit right in with her family and she feels honored that she holds a place within that special heart of yours! She never takes you for granted and gives all of her love to you, all day every day, through the good and the bad. Dating another “mom friend” can be a bit challenging as you two try to assert who gets to be the top mom in the relationship, but in the end both of you always cave. You two just care for each other so much and will do whatever it takes to keep each other safe and happy! When it comes down to it, you two are the best team and work hard together to seek out the greater good.

Robin thinks you are hilarious with your sexual innuendos and dirty mind. Combining that with her dark humor, people can’t help but be thrown off by you two but you both find each other amusing in your own ways and you can guarantee she’ll always laugh at your jokes. She’s not one to get easily flustered so she’ll play along with you and tease right back. Not everyone gets her macabre humor, but you go along with it and that means the world to her. She feels truly understood with you! Robin doesn’t typically care for gossip, but she’ll entertain you when you’ve got tea to spill. When it comes to your hobbies, Robin is your cheerleader. She is constantly inspiring, encouraging, and supporting you in everything you do. She loves to read so of course she is going to want to read your stuff (if you’ll let her). She has all of her favorite works of yours saved in a drawer. Tarot reading is not something she’s thought about before until meeting you! Having a partner that introduces her to new things is one of her favorite qualities and you always do just that! She just finds you incredibly interesting and amusing to be around, you make her heart flutter, gushing like a teenager in love. 

She’s researched and discussed with Chopper some strategies to help alleviate your insomnia and it has been a true blessing. Anything ranging from sleep schedules (that means no more napping, Robin’s orders!), exercising, to enhancing your sleep environment, she puts special care into all of it. She doesn’t want to smother you, but if you ever want her by your side through any of it, she won’t hesitate. Her favorite thing to do is draw a warm bath for the two of you before bed. Depending on your mood, she’ll join in and help to wash you. Her soft, gentle hands massaging into your hair or lathering you almost always eases your anxiety and makes going to sleep a lil easier for you! If you’re still unable to sleep, she’ll stay awake with you, brew some tea for the two of you to share out on deck and talk about anything and everything under the stars. She just wants to be there for you in any way she can, so losing some sleep is no biggie to her. Plus, your shared conversations helps ease her own anxiety. Robin has her own demons and you know how to fight them best. She knows exactly what it’s like to be alone and the fear that comes along with being alone, so she always has the words to comfort you and remind you that as long as you have her (and the crew) you will never be alone! Robin loves you with all of her heart and she’ll make sure you feel loved and cherished every single day!

Other potential suitors:

Kaku (Leo, ENTP) - You two work so well because you bring out the best in each other! You share enough interests to build mutual understanding while also sharing unique differences to make your relationship exciting. You help keep Kaku grounded while he brings you out of your shell a bit. Kaku hasn’t had much luck in the romance department, so being with you he tends to go full force to make up for everything and to ensure that you love him! This makes him a bit dramatic, a little different than the drama you like, but it keeps life interesting for you two! He also loves animals (especially giraffes, they’re his favorite!) and music, so most of your dates are centered around animal experiences and going out dancing. 

Killer (Aquarius, ISTJ) - Killer loves your easy-going attitude and big heart. Being with you is peaceful, and he much prefers to have a peaceful life, but that can’t prevent the drama that surrounds you two. Being on the Victoria Punk, there is always drama going on, especially involving the one and only drama queen Eustass Kid. So, your relationship with Killer is never boring that’s for sure, and Killer has become skilled in shit-talking. You two share a love for music and he honestly enjoys your dirty mind because it conveniently fits in well with the Kid Pirates! Overall, he really likes you because you bring him a sense of comfort and peace he hasn’t felt in a while, but you also fit in with his chaotic family. Oh, and he loves your thicc thighs - can’t get any better than you!

Law (Libra, ISTJ) - Much like Killer, Law loves your introverted, balanced nature but you have enough silliness in you to get along with his crew as well. In private, Law loves the dirty jokes and will tease right back, but in public he gets easily flustered! But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the way you teased him at least a little bit because we know this guy is a major tease. You two are probably not the best for each other when it comes to your sleeping habits but hey, you at least make the late night hours less lonely for each other! When you two do finally sleep, you always get the best sleep when holding on to each other tight! He adores your intelligence and curiosity and how much he learns from you. He wants to avoid drama at all costs, but that doesn’t mean he won’t participate in some shit-talking with you! He’s secretly a major gossip. 

[camelot-queen]

At every occasion, I’ll be ready for the funeral

A post-Endgame fic

After the funeral, Peter is introduced to Morgan.

Pepper walks her up to him, she’s holding her hand and the little girl shyly approaches him. She looks like she’s trying to hide behind her mother but Pepper keeps a firm yet gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Morgan, this is Peter,” she says sweetly. “Can you say hi?”

“Hi Peter,” Morgan says, swaying slightly.

Despite everything, Peter smiles. He’s been told that five years have passed, even though it doesn’t feel like it for him. But he’s glad Tony got a chance at a happy ending before it all came crashing down.

Was it worth it?

“Hi Morgan,” Peter crouches down to her level. “It’s nice to meet you.”

And it really is. Mr. Stark’s kid… he had a kid. He got married. Peter’s happy, he really is. But it stings that he missed it all, while he was… he was…

“Daddy told me about you,” Morgan says, unprompted. Peter blinks in surprise.

“Uhhh… he did?”

Morgan nods. “Mmhm, he told me stories about you. Can you really hang from the ceiling?”

“I, uhhhh…” he looks up to Pepper for help, but she just smiles and nods. “Uh, yeah, I can.”

Morgan beams. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

He laughs. Pepper laughs. It’s the first time he’s felt any semblance of joy since…

“Sorry, Morg, I don’t think that’s something that can be taught,” Pepper breaks it to her. “Peter is just lucky.”

But is he lucky? He doesn’t feel lucky.

Morgan pouts, and he keeps smiling but it feels more forced.

—

He feels a little like a spectator, like he’s not allowed to be here. All these people spent the past five years with Tony. They know what he’s been through. They were there for his wedding, for the birth of his daughter. Peter feels like an old acquaintance who has never been there for him and has the gall to show up to his private funeral and call himself a friend.

Everyone keeps telling him he belongs here. They tell him how much he meant to Tony, how much he missed him. Pepper tells him that he’s the reason Tony kept fighting. It doesn’t make him feel better though, it only makes a pit form in his stomach.

Do they blame him?

He’s surprised when he sees a boy around his age at the funeral. He doesn’t recognize him—he’s tall, blonde, and no one else seems to be surprised to see him there. He generally keeps his distance, not too interested in socializing, until Pepper grabs him by the hand and pulls him over.

“Peter, I’d like you to meet Harley,” she says, dragging him closer. “Tony met him a long time ago and he always made sure to check in on him from time to time. I’m sure he would have loved you two to meet.”

Peter can’t quite contain the shock on his face. There was another kid he was mentoring? Or, no… just keeping in touch with. How had they met exactly? Why did Tony never tell him? Peter tries not to let the jealousy brew. It doesn’t matter now.

“Hey,” Harley says cooly, hands in his pockets and slouched, looking out-of-place in a suit.

“Um, hi,” Peter responds, his awkwardness a contrast to Harley’s confidence. “I-I’m Peter. Or… Pepper already told you that…”

Harley smiles, a small smile that Peter can’t read. “So you’re the guy that Tony kept telling me about? The kid genius?”

“Oh, I’m not…” Peter stutters over his words.

“I vanished too,” Harley continues, ignoring Peter’s bumbling. “I come back, and suddenly it’s five years later. My little sister is older than me now… so that’s weird. And Iron Man is dead.”

Peter winces at the bluntness of his words.

“The world has gone to shit,” Harley goes on. “I thought aliens in New York was weird, but this is… a new level. My mom and sister keep crying over me, but last thing I remember is yelling at my sister for going through my stuff. And then I was asked to come to Iron Man’s funeral… I always wanted to meet the rest of the Avengers, but not really like this.”

Peter lowers his eyes. He understands Harley to some extent, he missed the last five years too. But the one person who was around to mourn him is dead. Both his aunt and his best friend were also dusted, and they’re all he has left…

“How did you meet Tony?” Harley asks, and Peter’s head whips up. It’s an innocent question, but a complex lie.

“I, uh, uh…” Peter stumbles, much like he has this whole conversation. “The September Foundation. I applied. He hired me. I’m… I was… an intern.”

Harley narrows his eyes. “Tony worked directly with interns?”

“Special project,” Peter squeaks, trying to remember what he was told to regurgitate when people asked.

“That reminds me,” Pepper pipes up, saving Peter from further questioning. “I have something for you.”

She runs back into the house, leaving Peter and Harley alone for a minute. When she comes back, she’s holding a frame.

“I think he would want you to have this,” she explains, handing it over to him.

Peter takes it questioningly, but when he looks at it, his eyes burn. It’s one of the photos they took when Tony swore up and down that Peter deserved some recognition, despite not really doing much in his “internship” rather than messing around with his web shooters. They had taken a normal photo, which they sent to the papers, and then a “silly” one at Tony’s request. He had no idea Tony had framed it.

Without even realizing it, Peter starts crying. Tears plop onto the glass of the frame and his vision blurs.

“Oh, sweetie,” Pepper rubs his shoulder. “He cared about you so much. He never stopped thinking about you.”

He knows it’s supposed to make him feel better, but it doesn’t. His face burns from crying in from of Pepper and a complete stranger, so he tries to excuse himself. They seem hesitant to let him go, but when Pepper tries to pull him into a hug he flinches away. She backs off and he feels bad, but not bad enough to stay. He retreats and finds himself in the back of the house, where no one else is, and crouches on the ground, curling around the picture. There, he lets himself release the pent up sobs he had been trying to stifle.

It’s already been three days since the battle, and the numbing pain hasn’t subsided at all. It’s only gotten worse, the more it’s sunk in. Tony Stark is dead and he’s not coming back. The world went on for five years without him, and now he’s back and it’s in chaos. He died in Tony’s arms, then he watched Tony die. There are so many things he can’t reconcile with right now, and he’s not sure he ever will.

“You alright, kid?”

Peter jumps so fast that he almost falls over. But he catches himself last minute and stares wide-eyed at his unknown company. Happy is standing there, looking awkward.

“Well, I guess you’re not alright, that’s a dumb question,” he says after a while when Peter doesn’t respond.

“What are you doing here?” Peter says in a rush, embarrassed that he was caught crying.

“Well, I was about to make Morgan a cheeseburger,” Happy explains, looking more and more awkward by the second. “And I figured I should ask you if you wanted one too. But I couldn’t find you, so I was wandering around the house and then I heard crying…”

“Oh,” Peter kind of wishes he could be anywhere but here right now.

“Yeah,” Happy agrees. “But now I feel like you probably don’t want a cheeseburger, and it probably would have been better if I just left you alone.”

“No,” Peter wipes his face as best as he can. “A cheeseburger sounds great, actually.”

He follows Happy back into the house, trying as hard as he can to make it look like he wasn’t just crying his eyes out in the back of the house a moment ago. However, as soon as he enters the kitchen, May is right there and embracing him in a hug.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby,” she says soothingly, rubbing his back.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles, even though he’s clearly not.

Morgan sits at the table, kicking her feet, and Happy grills some burgers. Peter goes to sit at the table with Morgan and May goes to talk to Happy.

Peter looks out the window. People are still offering Pepper their condolences. He wants to offer his own, but he’s scared. He looks around. Everywhere in the house has memories of Tony. Pictures of the family he created while Peter was gone, forgotten wrenches and pieces of machinery laying around, projects he’ll never finish.

He tears his eyes away and stares down at the table. He can’t think about it. His heart aches. Suddenly, he feels a hand land on his… he looks up and Morgan is leaning across the table, smiling.

“Don’t be sad,” she says innocently. “It’s okay.”

Peter is stunned. How is this little girl more composed than he is? But then again, he thinks, she has the combined strength of Tony and Pepper… of course she’s doing better. Peter hasn’t even seen Pepper cry since that first time.

“I’m okay,” Peter says automatically, not wanting to be comforted by a child. “How are you feeling?”

“I miss daddy,” Morgan responds, and her lip trembles. “Mama said he saved the universe and now he’s not here anymore. That’s why there’s more people now.”

That’s right. Peter realizes that Morgan was born into a half populated world. She wasn’t even alive during the snap, the aftermath was all she’s ever known.

“Your dad is the best superhero ever,” Peter’s voice cracks. “Just… the best.”

“That’s what he used to say about you.”

That’s all it takes. The dam bursts and Peter is crying again. He laughs at the same time, both overjoyed and devastated. His emotions well and slosh into each other, combining until he doesn’t know how he feels. Morgan looks taken aback.

“No, don’t cry,” she pets his head gently, which just makes him laugh-cry more. “I’m sorry.”

May and Happy are interrupted from their conversation, which seemed to involve a lot of giggling, when Peter embarrassingly lets out some whimpering sounds.

“Sweetie,” May comes over to pull him out of his chair. “Do you want to go to the bathroom for a minute?”

She doesn’t wait for him to respond, just walks him straight down the hall and into the bathroom. She closes the door and locks it. Peter is standing in the middle of the alarmingly large room awkwardly blubbering. May gives him a pitying face and then bunches up some toilet paper.

“Shh,” she soothes, blotting his eyes uselessly, as more tears just well up.

Peter clenches and unclenches his fists over and over again. He’s reminded of when Ben died and he was throwing up in the bathroom, covered in blood, while May rubbed his back. She must have been in such pain too, but she made sure to comfort him first.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” May says softly. “You did nothing wrong. You’re hurt, just let it all out.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he admits brokenly. “What am I gonna do? Why does everyone leave?”

May pushes his head into the crook of her shoulder. He cries openly and she continues to make shushing noises and rock them both.

“It hurts, but you’ll get through this,” she whispers. “Not today, not tomorrow, but someday you’ll feel okay again. He’ll never be forgotten, but his memory won’t hurt so bad. And just know that he died a hero… because of him, we’re here. You’re here. I’m so grateful for that.”

Peter tightens his grip around her waist. They stay like that until they hear a knock at the door.

“Are you guys alright?” he hears Happy’s voice.

May pulls away to open the door. Happy is standing there looking sheepish.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “Cheeseburgers are ready.”

“Thanks, Happy,” May smiles. “We might need a second.”

“Of course,” Happy looks past her to make eye contact with Peter. “Hanging in there, kid?”

Peter knows he looks like a mess. His eyes are red, his hair has become unstyled from running his fingers through it repeatedly, his skin is blotchy. But he nods anyways.

Happy nods. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” he finally says, then walks out.

May turns back to Peter. “We can leave now if you want. I think you’ve stayed long enough.”

Peter nods. “Cheeseburgers, then home.”

May smiles. “You got it.”

[naromoreau]

For Love I Come

A fic no one asked for jaksdh. Thank you so much to @outranks for giving me the idea and betaing and being and absolute sweetheart about it. Thank you so much!!!!! and also to @seedsplease and @bintangy for giving it a read. THANKS YOU GUYS!

Pairing: Female Deputy x Sharky Boshaw x Jacob Seed

Raiting: E __________________________________________________

At some point Rook's gonna have to choose. To actually speak loud and clear instead of going in roundabout ways whenever they poke and probe at her to figure out what's the deal.

There's no deal to be dealt with as far as Rook concerns. She's perfectly happy the way things are, foraying into the Vet's Center whenever she feels like it, to be completely wrecked by Jacob, in that weird and unusually comfortable dynamic of two people joined by the fray ends of their own needs. Inches away from warm intimacy.

And that makes the other end of her unsought arrangement, very complicated. Toeing the line of dangerous if she can judge by Jacob’s face every time she leaves him. But Sharky. Rook can say without the sliver of a doubt there’s something going on between them that surpasses the fucking. He gets her. And for what she knows, that’s something that’s always considerably underrated.

Damn choices. That’s always been the thorn on Rook's side. The reason why she ended up taking home Bugger and Whiskers when she finally decided she wanted a pet. A pet. But when the puppy had wiggle that little tail of his, she didn’t even think it twice.

And five years into the future, is the same thing all over again. Rook can’t keep waltzing around tacit and implied statements. Especially because now she has a pretty good idea of what she wants, an idea that had jackhammered its way into her brain since the last time she visited the Marina looking for Addie’s advice. But it seems ludicrous, because they both are as immiscible as water and oil.

“You leaving already?”

Jacob sits on the flat cot they spend their nights in whenever she decides she misses him. One rough hand sits at the small of her back and Rook can’t stop a broken sigh from escaping her. Those few steps to the door are always the hardest.

“Yeah, have to catch up on a lot of things.”

“Already late to burn down half the County huh?” He scoots closer, burying his face and what’s probably post-orgasm induced affection in the crook of her neck. Rook bites her lip trying to saddle her thumping heart, because it tastes too much like the real deal.

“I think John misses me already,” she says with a smirk, leaning to kiss him softly, catching a half-grunt from Jacob on her mouth. “Don’t want him to feel left out, you know how he’s like.”

She scrambles off the bed, picking up her discarded clothes, feeling his eyes taking in the tiniest detail of her. He’s counting her bruises and marks, she knows, trying to determine which are his and which are-- well, not. He’s too good of a huntsman to not read the signs.

Why hasn’t he snapped her neck until now? She has no clue. A lot of restraint perhaps. And a good amount of good ole feelings. She’s willing to jackknife into the belief he has them all.

“When are you coming back?”

There’s longing grating in the low pitch of his voice that makes Rook’s breath catch in her throat. Looking back at him is a mistake. She can’t fight those baby blues of his. They always manage to make her weak in the knees.

“I dunno. Two weeks?”

“That’s a long time, Rook," he says, as if he actually cares. Which Rook knows he does.

She clenches her jaw to avoid thinking in the annoying fluttering butterflies in her stomach. “Why? You need me for something?”

“Playing dumb is not your best trait, darling.”

“And speaking your mind, clearly isn’t yours, old man."

He rumbles with laughter, tilting his head back, baring his throat to her. All those powerful muscles tighten like chords, and she stares a bit at the long expanse of his neck wanting to dive back into bed and just hold him and be held by him. But Sharky is also waiting and she feels torn.

Rook sighs.

"Why are you doing this?" Jacob finally asks, glancing at her with a frown.

"Doing what?" She wants to sound nonchalant as she balances on one leg while putting on her jeans. Rook isn't sure she wants to see everything they have go southways. What is exactly gonna happen once the bubble of unsaid words ripple off her mouth.

"You know damn well what," Jacob pokes again.

"Scout’s word, I don't."

"Jesus fuck, Rook, you're infuriating."

Jacob snaps with the brewed frustration of weeks of unanswered silence but Rook refuses to bend her knee. She doesn't want to see her world shifting into something bleak if he's not around.

So she stalls. "And now you're starting to sound like John."

"Not funny,” he grouses.  

"Yeah, I don't know what's the thing going on between you and him, but you guys need to talk it out before Joseph forces you both to do it."

She sees a mash-up of emotions on his face, and a deadly stare, Jacob Seed's specialty. And she gives up.

Rook flops at his side, shoulders hunched. "Fine, fine! What do you wanna know?"

Jacob grabs her chin and tilts her head up until the only thing she sees is him. Which is always a sight. "Stop playing games and tell me why you keep coming back to me."

"I um, I just- I really like the cold," she babbles, "and the whole Jack London aesthetic you have going here, like I really dig that-"

"Rook."

"And you have cute dogs-"

"Rook."

She rolls her eyes at the whispered command to mow down her bullshit, but braces to spill the anxiety off her chest.

"Okay, fine. I like you, okay?" Rook sighs at her own confession, not wanting to stop, because if she does there's not a certified chance she'll finish. "You ain't as bad as you think you are, in fact, you're fucking amazing and every time I go I just wanna go back the moment I’m pass the fences but--”

“But what?”

“Do you really want me to say it?” She's in pain, absolutely fucking unnecessary pain.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t leave him.”

His fingers squeeze her arms, just so and his face goes dark. She sees the tense line of his jaw spasming under the pressure of gritted teeth. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t know Jacob, okay?" Rook's angry. Hurt and upset, and a million more things that spike up too fast and recede after, so she can't name them. "Look, I never lied to you, we never said this was an exclusive kinda thing, and honestly? If you want me to go and never come back, if you want to, I don’t know-- kick me out of your life, then you gotta say it, ‘cause otherwise--”

She stops because the thought is just venom. She can't live without him, not after everything she already gave up in her life. For once, just once she doesn't want to renounce something.

“What if I want this to be exclusive?” Jacob says, far more calmed than she expected. But it's just an act, 'cause his shoulders are slumped and there's a waver in his voice totally alien for him.

“And why would you want that?”

“I thought Deputies were smart, perhaps I was wrong," he quips, wrapping his hand around her neck and pulling her in, until her forehead rests against his.

“Cut the crap, Jacob," she hisses.

“I love you Rook.”

Her throat is dry, and the kiss that follows sweeps coherence and preformed ideas aside. It feels right. Like home. But the hollow that it's always there when she just has one and not both, weights more.

“I can’t do it, I--" she says, tongue tripping over her teeth and words that are not enough." I really like--, fuck, I really love you, but I can’t."

“You know I could just kill him right?”

Rook laughs to dissipate the terrifying image because he could. Probably very easily. “Yeah, but you won’t. You ain’t like that Jacob," she says to reassure herself, as he clutches to the sides of her flannel with a white-knuckle grip.

“Then what you want from me?” He says with a lilt that sounds heartbreakingly close to a plea.

A prickly wave of heat rushes up, settling on her cheeks, pushing the words out of her throat and into a sputtered mess. “A threesome." Jacob doesn't move or make any sign to acknowledge her statement. Rooks blinks in utter confusion until she sees a pale tint under the scarring and grooves of his face. “Just to see how it goes, how we work together-” She hurriedly adds.

“I think some beers over some grilled meat would work better for it, sweetheart-” Jacob says, and the fact that he's speaking and not throwing her out St. Francis is good enough of a sign. He cups her cheek and Rooks heaves a soft breath of relief.

“I know, I know, but hear me out okay?", she says, clasping her eyes shut, bringing his rough fingers to her lips, "I love you Jacob, but I’m tired to keep my life split, hiding things I shouldn't be hiding. I want you both and that’s non negotiable.”

Through the cracks of the old windows, the wind howls, batting the threadbare curtains, a perfect set up for the anticipation boiling in Rook’s blood.

“Shit, I must be outta my fucking mind,” he says.

------------------------------

“What we doing here, shorty?”

Convincing Sharky is surprisingly more difficult than convincing Jacob. He huffs and kicks at the base of his old couch, killing the old and probably moldy thing for good. It takes her at least two hours to drill the idea into his thick skull, just to realize that he’s just afraid. And the words pour out unbidden. She’ll leave him because, he ain’t worth the trouble. Which is silly, and she tells him so.

The pick up truck stops just outside the fences of St. Francis.

“Remember what we talked about?” She says, eyeing his hands clasping the buttstock of his shotgun as she struggles out the truck. Rook’s counting her breaths, trying to steady herself, and don’t let the spark of fear of the unknown tumble off the decision she just made.   

“Yeah, but-- Are we picking up a judge to go or what?”

“What?”

She makes her way into the old building followed by a Sharky-on-edge. At the entrance Rooks nods at a waving Peggie. “Hi, Miss Rook, brother Jacob is waiting for you in his office.” The man is all sunny smiles and bright nonchalance which is weird and just hammers Rook in the head at how off this is.

Sharky scoffs at her side. “Miss Rook? Dep, how often--”

He freezes mid step.

“C’mon, Shark.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he almost yelps, “I thought--”

“Not here!”

She sees it in his face. He’s about to splutter his concocted half conclusions that will hold a good amount of info of what she does and how she fucks in her free time and that’s certainly something she doesn’t want the Peggies to find out. Not anyone for that matter.

Rook pulls him by the sleeve until they are in a secluded corridor, just around the corner of Jacob’s office that doubles as bedroom. “Now, spill it.”

Sharky’s eyes glint between confused blinks. “I thought-- Uh, I thought you meant John.”

“What? Why?” It comes off as squeak more suiting in a toddler’s toy than in a grown ass woman.

“I dunno, you've seen him,” Sharky shrugs, “he's fuckin loaded and suave and y’know, all those things chicks dig, and uh, you kept talking ‘bout a dude who tickled your fancy and I dunno Dep, I just-- I thought it was the psychotic fuckface."

She skips over, a little overeager. "Well, it's not, does that change anything?"

Sharky chuckles and leans, chasing her nearness. "Fuck, Dep, you sure know how to pick ‘em.”

Rook wraps her arms around him, pushing herself up on her toes to plant her lips on his. "I sure do." He rolls his hips grinding against her, always ready, and at half mast if the bulge rubbing on her thigh is what she thinks it is.

A door creaks nearby and common sense wedges in, so she pushes Sharky away, not too bluntly she hopes, because this is not how she wants Jacob to find out.

Just in time.

"I was wondering where you were," he says, voice sizzling with something Rook can't quite place. “My guards said you checked in the complex five minutes ago.” His gaze slides off Sharky and onto the wall as if he was nothing more than a blemish on the paint.

"Yeah, I uh-- got lost."

Jacob raises an eyebrow. "Come ere, sweetheart.”

They reach the door of his lair and Rook swallows an impatient huff.

“Get in and let's set this before I'll change my mind,” Jacob looks past her shoulder, “and send your Drubman lap dog packing, he can wait with my guards at the entrance.”

“Uh, I'm a Boshaw, not a Drubman, dude.”

‘Big difference.” Jacob folds his arms across his chest.  “Now kitten, send him off.”

“Yeah, uh, I--” Rook clears her throat, “I can't do that, Jake.”

She feels Sharky's arm slinging around her waist, and sees Jacob’s face distorting into the most absolutely perfect depiction of someone who’s about to have a stroke.

“You okay?”

His eyes narrow and for a moment Rook thinks he’s gonna pounce on Sharky like one of his judges.

The tight line on his jaw snaps. “Fuck, I just lost a few hundred bucks,” he bristles, shattering the heavy silence.

He turns on his heels and steps off the way signaling them to get in. Rook is greeted by a newly bought, expensive-looking bed replacing his old one.

“I told John to buy it for me, and now I can’t make him pay for it.” Jacob answers to the nonexistent question, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Fuck, darling, I thought you were talking about John.”

“What?”

“See, Dep?--” Sharky chirps, turning to Jacob to pat him on the shoulder completely unaffected by the deadly stare, “you and I are in the same frequency, amigo.”

Rook chooses a spot just next to him to flop down, nudging him on the shoulder. “Yeah, well, I was not.”

“No kidding.” He doesn’t laugh but the smirk on his face breaks some of the tension lingering in the air.

Sharky takes it as a cue to collapse next to her. “Now, excuse me if I’m outta line--”

“You are,” Jacob says.

“-- but I ain’t waiting for you to figure out your brotherly issues standing up like some mouth-breathing peggie, no offense man, my legs are killin’ me and I-- uh, wow, this is soft,” he says bouncing a little, “like real quality you have here, Jacob, can I call you Jacob?”

“No.”

“Anyway, I was just sayin’ we need some booze.”

“I thought you were incapable of saying something smart, Boshaw, but you’re right.”

“No. We’re doing this sober or I’m done here.”

They both shrink at her sides.

“Doesn’t matter, it’s like-- like I’m wasted already,” Sharky gruffs.

“You got it right,” Jacob scoffs.

Rook can almost feel the silence, thick, sagging her shoulders and tries to think on how to actually turn words into action. Jacob's thigh presses against hers and Sharky's arm brushes her own. Up until now she'd never realized how fucking warm they both are, like human furnaces melting her little by little. Her jacket feels constricting.

She's definitely not ready for Sharky taking off his pants in one swift move and jumping on the bed. "'Aight, let's do this," he says with the violent twang of an 80's action movie which effectively kills the pretense they're not there to fuck.

Rook can't do another thing than grunt.

“How do you wanna do this, sweetheart?" Jacob sighs, while his hand brushes her thigh up and down.

"I just--" She swallows a hard gulp while a jolt careens down her spine. "I want you both-- In me." Rook shudders hearing her own shaky, definitely harsh demand. Sharky sits at her side again, taking her jacket off and tossing it over a nearby table.

Jacob kisses her then, tongue darting into her mouth until the whole awkward angle of the situation gets swiped by his closeness. It's soft, sensual, thick with want, and a hint of despair. She doesn't have time to worry about Sharky, because he's already tracing the line of her jaw with chapped lips. A hand skitters down her shirt, rolling a stiff nipple and the room echoes her keening mewl. They're testing her, vying for her responses, while she's falling apart.

Air gets puffed out of her lungs in moans and small whimpers that are certainly not dignified, as she flexes her arms to hold onto something. Jacob’s shoulders, Sharky’s chest, she's not sure. Her body is already responding to the unspoken ideas, soaking her underwear, enough to know she's dripping on whatever is beneath her, two sets of hands wandering, when she's used to one. It already feels like it's too much when is not near enough. And they grope, and fondle, while their mouths nip and lick until they leave her bare, pulsing and wanton. Her clothes are off in swift and hungry movements that have her heart hammering against her ribcage.

Sharky’s fingers prod at her entrance, while Jacob’s rough, big hands clasp her thighs pulling them apart. Rook fights to keep her eyes open, glazed with a fog of need, just to be met with pupils blown wide by lust.  

Sharky soon pushes two fingers inside her and she arches into Jacob's chest with a short gasp and a really tacky buck of her hips forward. So eager that’s just embarrassing.

"Easy, Boshaw," Jacob warns, voice edge sharper than the blade of his knife.

"Dude, I know what I'm doing."

And he does, damn if she knows. His fingers curl and his thrusts are slow, deliberately scissoring to prepare her for more. For which one of them, she still doesn't know nor cares.

Rook's head spins when Jacob's questioning fingers reach her slit, brushing where Sharky is sliding in and out until he adds one. Her breath comes out in stuttered gasps at the sensation of her walls struggling to accommodating them both.  

"I--I..." Words dissolve in a flow of saliva, body jerking under the uncoordinated assault.

"Yes?" Jacob says, licking her ear.

"I can't-- I just-- need--"

"We know, shorty, we're gonna take care of you."

Their fingers are gone in the blink of an eye, and Rook clenches painfully around thin air, biting her own lip.

"Come 'ere."

Is Jacob who pulls her over him, easily, so easily she whimpers a little at the manhandling. Her own slick drips down her thighs, sodding the fabric of his pants. Soon she's clambered over his lap, naked and flushed and sweating.

"Relax, doll," Sharky breathes against her neck, kneeled down behind her and very much naked for what Rook can feel against her ass.  

When did it happen?

Sharky ruts forward, cock nestling between her asscheeks, flaring goosebumps all over her. Rook feels the urge to palm at her clit to find some release but she falls forward, pressing palms flat over Jacob’s chest, thanking he still has his shirt on so she can clutch at it as if her life depended on it.

“Nice and easy, kitten,” he rasps pulling out his cock, already leaking and swollen and just perfect as she remembers. His jeans scrap at her inner thighs as she tries to balance to keep her legs apart, bracketing his hips. She doesn’t wanna know, doesn’t wanna think about what his brothers would do to Sharky and her if they find out. She doesn’t even know if she’s in the liberty to scream her lungs off, as she is positively sure she will in a few minutes.

Sharky places a wet kiss on the nape of her neck just then, making her shiver. “Just breath, babe.”

Jacob smirks underneath her, clasping her hips and eases her down on his lap until she’s fully seated on the cradle of his hips. She fights a moan at the hard stretch, rolling her hips to try to adjust at the intrusion.

“All good?” Jacob groans, running his palm up,cupping her breast, and she mumbles a ‘fuck, yes’, as if her breath wasn’t coming in hitching gusts or her thighs weren’t quivering at his sides. He feels so good inside her, and she rises to her knees just to flop back down, stealing a deep moan from him.

“You feel so good, sweetness, so damn good.”

Still, he doesn’t move and it’s driving her up the wall, even if right now she’s completely lost to the point she can’t count to ten.

“Are you ready for me, babe?” Sharky says to her temple.

Rook nods. It’s the only thing that she seems to be doing since this whole thing began. They’re gonna split her apart and fuck if she’s not eager to be used, and be full and fucking satisfied.

One moment later there’s a good amount of lube on Sharky’s fingers, as he slips them inside her ass. Jacob pushes upwards just when Sharky stretches her open, and it’s enough to drag whines from the back of her throat she’s completely unable to bridle in.

“Can I?” Sharky finally asks.

She chokes on a sob at the loss of his fingers. “Yeah, please-- just, please.”

The fact that Jacob has gone still, tells her they’re really trying to, despite whatever misplaced sense of possession they have about her.

The tip of Sharky’s cock press against her ass and she almost goes cross-eyed once he’s inside her to the hilt.

“Fuck.” She scratches at the broad expanse of Jacob’s chest, slamming her eyes shut. “Shitfuck-shit-”

The sensation almost makes her believe her spine will tear in half, but the dull pain of the first thrust is gone in seconds, replaced by a jolt of pleasure that jumbles her brains. They’d done this before, but never like this, when she’s sure the heavy press of their cocks inside is the perfect definition of stuffed.

“Keep forgetting how tight you are, shorty,” Sharky pants on her neck, one hand splayed on her lower back, the other just above one of Jacob’s, trying as he might to balance behind her. “All good?”

“Should we stop?” Jacob asks, and Rook can’t but be amazed at his restraint as she feels him throbbing inside her.

“No-- please, don’t. I want it, fuck--”

She rolls her hips with heightened senses, and just then they push inside her, completely out of sync, completely out of whatever shred of grounding reality they all were grasping until now. Is not something she was expecting, the perfect, astounding fullness that makes her want more, and move, buck up and down, and back again, hips out of her damn control.

“Slow down, babe, or this is gonna be a helluva short trip,” Sharky moans, gripping her chin and tilting her head to the side so he can kiss her. A kiss that soon becomes an exchange of broken gasps that she has too soon to let go to catch her breath.

The slick slide of their cocks along her walls is slowly propeling her to the edge, and she hears herself beg for more, faster, deeper with a stark voice of sheer need.

“So greedy, darling, you think you can take it all?”

She’d answer if she remembered how to speak so she grunts in acquiescing.

Jacob’s arms snuck around her waist, bringing her closer to catch her lips in a stifling kiss, all teeth and tongue and the sweet taste of what’s right. This right here.

The broken rhythm soon establishes as a constant wave, a heartbeat that guides every pounding and sink, and she manages to find some leverage to play her own tricks. And then it’s her the one fucking them deep, harsh and quickly, even if her knees ache and she’s not sure if she will be able to walk tomorrow. Or the day after. But their moans and whines are good enough of a fuel until her legs ache and she can’t take it anymore.

They’re all rough pants and moans, not letting her do what she wants, determined to make her come apart on their cocks, before they fill her up. She can’t keep track of every move and drag, vaguely registering how deep they’re sinking, Sharky yanking her back so he can lick and kiss every spot he can reach.

A hand sneaks down and presses a flat thumb to her clit, but she’s too far lost on the their cocks pushing hard and hitting every right spot inside her to even notice to whom it belongs to. The pleasure burns close to scorching her, so overwhelming she doesn’t realize she’s sobbing. Her arms now gripping Jacob’s biceps feel weak, just when the waves of her orgasm start crashing against her. She trips over the edge with a special hard press of Jacob’s dick, just when Sharky decides to give deep roll of his hips and every muscle tight and on fire, and everything around her peters out into sparks of white as she comes, harder than ever before.

“Oh shit,” Sharky moans in her hair, as his hips slap against her ass, speed faltering.

Jacob’s movements lose momentum for a second, as she feels his cock practically sodden with her release. “Fuck.”

They guide her through her peak and undoing, as she finally falls slack over Jacob’s shoulder, silently and thoroughly enjoying every pound and harsh thrust. She considers fighting back for a second, to move and buck against them but her legs are of no use, and she whines as they chase their own releases, making her body jerk as they use her for their own pleasure.

Jacob comes first with the familiar growl, amplified a hundred times over, stilling after a deep push and she knows, she positively feels her insides painted with his thick cum. His baby blues stand out against his reddened cheeks, lips parted to regain his breath and Rook kisses him again.

Sharky’s push, rough and off any rhythm, slams her down on Jacob’s chest until there’s a part sob-part grunt bouncing on the room before his hips go flush against her ass, until he finally slides out and she feels his come dripping out her rear.  

“Whoa.” It’s an exclamation that comes between ragged breaths from Sharky’s part and she sees it mirrored in Jacob’s eyes. She’s a mess. An utter, sweaty, satisfied mess and she loves it.

The bed is big enough they can all fit without smashing each other’s essential bits and once the heat has considerably tuned down, she pulls the covers over them.  

“You know Jacob? I was lying,” she says, as she turns on her side to face him, her hand drawing circles on Sharky’s hip, “I hate the cold.”

Jacob chuckles, staring at the ceiling and maneuvering beneath the covers to kick off his jeans. “Yeah well, I think we can make something to correct that, darling.”

Rook turns to kiss Sharky, just to turn to Jacob after it. “Thanks-- seriously, to both of you.”

“It was good.” Jacob grins. Not just at her. Looking behind her.

Rook is a hundred percent ecstatic.

“Yeah, within my top five-- no, top three experiences.”

They finally share a laugh that pulls at Rook’s heart, filling it with searing bliss as the two men she loves, share a bed, sandwiching her in the most perfect way.

“Hey, Jake-man, uh, y’know I’ve been thinking.” Sharky turns to look directly at Jacob, slinging an arm over Rook’s hip.

“About?”

“I think-- I think I know how to make John pay for the bed if you wanna--”

Jacob’s face shifts in a shit eating grin. “I’ll let you restock from my armory, if you can pull it off.”

“Deal.”

Rook feels herself growing tired, exhausted, every joint and muscle screaming and her brain slowly fading into sleep. “So-- can we do this again?”

She knows she has no right of asking more of them. Not when they’re just crossing the line of acquaintances to acquaintances that fuck the same woman, but she hopes.

“Sure, why not?” Sharky mumbles, already sprawled on his side of the bed.

Rook turns to Jacob, with what she thinks are her best pleading eyes.

He blows air hard, brows pulling closer in what seems a deep furrow and her stomach sinks.

“Maybe.” He smirks.

[theeeveetamer]

Personally I'm so down for cute family shit. Maybe seeing the Forrest/Kiragi/etc sibling dynamic?

I’m such a sucker for cute family Leokumis

Relevant Tags: Omegaverse, Alpha!Leo, Omega!Takumi, Alpha!Kiragi, Omega!Forrest, Mama Bear Takumi, mentioned sexual harassment

AO3 Link for the interested: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15954623/chapters/39561847

He wasn’t really sure what he’d been expecting when he arrived at the school. Maybe something about their youngest son goofing off in class, or interrupting the teacher, or heck even getting caught cutting last period. What he didn’t expect was to see his son’s blonde hair and clothes stained with mud, or the beginnings of a black eye marring his tanned skin.

“Kiragi! Gods, what happened to you?”

His son was sitting in one of the chairs in the school’s office, arms crossed and fuming. Takumi knelt down in front of him and pulled his chin up so he could get a better look at the bruise forming around his left eye. There was also a bit of blood on his lip and it was slightly swollen.

“Papa! Stop, I’m fine!” He swatted the hand away testily.

Takumi sighed. He didn’t seem too hurt at least, aside from the split lip and black eye. And his irritable attitude. But he’d been a bit of a pain ever since he presented as an Alpha, and what fourteen year old boy wasn’t?

“What happened?” He turned to the principal. It wasn’t a question, he was far too furious to be polite. His baby was bloodied and hurt and he demanded answers.

“We would prefer to wait until your mate arrives.”

“You’re making Leo leave work for whatever this is?” He growled deep in his throat. “What, you think I’m not capable of handling my son because I’m not an Alpha?”

The man shuffled uncomfortably under his indignant glare. He probably wasn’t used to taking the full brunt of a mother’s fury; The school explicitly tried to deal with Alpha or Beta parents first, and tended to leave Omegas out of the equation. It was such a ridiculous policy; He didn’t even work, and Leo couldn’t leave his job for every little incident. Hell, he and Leo had fought tooth and nail to get them to call him at all for situations like this.

“No, of course not but–”

“I got in a fight, papa.” Kiragi interrupted quickly, probably to stop the brewing storm. Once he got started, there was no stopping him, really.

“Well I can see that kiddo!” He turned back around toward his son, exasperated. “What was the fight about?”

The principal felt the need to intervene once again, clearing his throat and standing a little straighter.

“Your son attacked another student.”

He glanced quickly between Kiragi and the principal, and tried to keep his voice under control.

“Why did you do that?”

“He was harassing Forrest, papa! They cornered him in the bathroom and tried flipping up his dress!”

His eyes softened, and all of his rage immediately melted away.

“Be that as it may, we do not find this kind of behavior acceptable and–”

Aaaaand then it was back again. Tenfold.

“Wait… You’re punishing Kiragi for defending his brother? What about the boys harassing my son? Why aren’t they here?”

“Kiragi was the one who instigated the fight.”

“And the people who harassed my son? Where are they?”

“We’ll be dealing with them separately.”

“You mean you’ll be going easy on them! What, because Forrest is an Omega it’s okay if he gets assaulted on school grounds?! So what if he likes dressing like a girl, that doesn’t mean people get to treat him like shit!”

He was vibrating with rage, fists balled up at his sides and face flushed as he continued his tirade. The principal looked incredibly uncomfortable as he continued laying into him, spitting out every curse word and insult under the sun. He was a good deal taller than Takumi, but he was so angry that he couldn’t appreciate the comedy in a short little Omega like him craning his neck to yell directly in this Alpha’s face.

“–I have half a mind to-!”

He barely noticed the arrival of his mate in his righteous anger.

“Takumi! Takumi, love, what are you doing?” Leo all but ran into the room and grabbed him by the shoulders. He gently pulled him away from the man.

“Some boys assaulted Forrest, and Kiragi is getting punished for it!”

“Now that’s not–” The principal tried to defend himself, but Takumi interrupted him.

“Shut up!” He snarled. “I have had just about enough of Alphas like you! This is the third time Forrest has been harassed and your spineless administration has done nothing!”

“Shhh,” Leo leaned in close and nipped the back of his neck gently. The Omega whined in protest, but he did calm down marginally. “Takumi, why don’t you take Kiragi home, okay? I’ll handle things from here.”

“You don’t need to handle this for me.”

“I know you’re more than capable, love… But you really should get Kiragi’s eye treated before it starts swelling too much.”

“Fine.” He finally acquiesced. “But I’m taking Forrest home too. Gods forbid the school encounter another incident involving our children today. Come on Kiragi, we’re going.”

He nearly marched down the hall to Forrest’s classroom to grab him himself, but the woman manning the desk had the good sense to just call him to the office over the intercom.

There were a few minutes of impatient foot tapping – and him not-so-subtly trying to listen through the door – until Forrest arrived.

“Papa, what’s going on?” Their eldest son asked uncertainty as he came down the hall with his backpack.

“Nothing, baby. We’re going home early. Do you have all of your stuff?”

He nodded and Takumi marched out to the car, grumbling to himself about “how Leo was going to go too easy on that spineless principal”.

It was a very short, very tense drive home. He could see Kiragi twiddling his thumbs in the back through the rear view mirror. Forrest must have realized what had transpired, because he was also quiet as a mouse and staring intently down at his lap.

They’d just pulled into the driveway when he finally spoke up.

“Papa? Is Kiragi in trouble for fighting?”

“What? What gave you that idea?”

“You just seem really upset about it, is all… Look, it’s not his fault.”

“Don’t worry baby, I’m not mad at him. I’m proud of him, actually.” He turned around to face them as best he could from the front seat of the car. “In fact, why don’t we all go do something fun tomorrow? Whatever you guys want, you’ve earned it.”

Their faces lit up; Kiragi nodded eagerly and Forrest just beamed at him from the back seat. “Alright, papa!”

They both grabbed their backpacks and ran inside. Or, Kiragi ran. Forrest did his best to keep up, but he still wasn’t too used to wearing heels around.

Takumi took the moment alone by himself to cool down. As angry as he was at the school, he didn’t want to let it affect his children.

Takumi paused outside of the bathroom when he finally entered the house. Forrest was dabbing at Kiragi’s eye with some disinfectant and an ice pack, and Takumi couldn’t help eavesdropping on their conversation.

“You know you didn’t have to get in a fight over it.”

“Of course I did! That guy can’t go around harassing my brother like that!”

“But you got hurt! Because of me!”

“You should see what I did to him!”

Takumi smiled as their eldest son laughed himself silly over the joke. He could just see Kiragi’s goofy little smile in his mind’s eye. Once the injuries were all taken care of they all settled into the living room and more or less went about their usual post-school routine.

Leo arrived home about a half an hour later. Kiragi had fallen asleep beside him watching TV and Forrest had just finished explaining to him what exactly had happened at school. It was more or less what Kiragi had already told him with a few added details.

As soon as his mate walked through the door though he excused himself went to their bedroom. They shut the door behind them, so the kids wouldn’t hear unless they came snooping. Leo dropped down onto the bed and sighed.

“I cannot believe they pulled me out of work for this.”

“Is your boss that upset? I told them that they didn’t have to call you over this…”

“It’ll be fine. And it’s probably a good thing they did call me, I thought you were going to bite that man’s head off! If I were any later I think they would have been calling security on you!”

“Can you blame me? Forrest has been getting harassed for weeks and the only person getting in trouble for it is Kiragi.”

“Maybe we should stop letting him dress like that when he goes to school.”

“Leo,” He said sternly. “Don’t even start.”

“It’s just a suggestion! He keeps getting teased! He’s sixteen, kids are cruel. Do you remember the kind of shit I used to say to you when we were in high school?”

“Yes, you were an asshole. But that doesn’t mean our son should have to change! He likes wearing dresses and doing his hair and makeup, so what?”

“He already has to deal with being an Omega, do you want another target on his back?”

“Are you saying that there’s something wrong with being an Omega?”

“Love… You know that’s not what I meant. Life is already hard for him, why should he make it harder for himself?”

“I just…” He sighed. “I just want our son to be himself. If that means I have to scream at the school administration until I’m blue in the face then so be it. Besides, if they aren’t flipping his skirt up in the bathroom then it’ll be something else. Maybe that really cute Alpha from his history class will corner him right before they go home for the weekend, make him think he’s going to ask him out on a date like he wanted, but then just ask how much it is for a blowjob right in front of his very protective older brother.”

“Hey, I only did that on a dare! And don’t act so innocent, we both know you were actually blowing Alphas in the bathroom”

“Not for money! I wasn’t a damn prostitute! And you’re lucky Ryoma didn’t kill you for that one! Though that split lip did look good on you.”

Leo pulled him down onto his lap and kissed him.

“I cannot believe you still agreed to go on a date with me after that.”

“Neither can I, frankly.” He rested his forehead against Leo’s neck and sighed. “So, what’s going to happen to Kiragi?”

“Two days suspension. It was originally going to be a week, but I guess you scared him.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “Hunting season is coming up. Maybe I’ll take Kiragi out with the bows?”

“You’re rewarding him?”

“Of course! You think Mama punished Ryoma for kicking your ass?”

“I… Had been hoping something like that had occurred.”

Takumi just laughed. “Nope, she took us all out to dinner after that one!”

He nuzzled the side of Leo’s neck. There were a million things that still needed done, but he allowed his Alpha a few minutes to hold him and unwind from the day. He waited until the tension in his mate’s shoulders relaxed a bit before he spoke again.

“So, I really scared the principal that much?” Something about a six foot tall, snobby Alpha being intimidated by him was entertaining.

“He was positively terrified of you, love. Can’t say I blame him either, how long were you yelling at him before I showed up?”

“Oh I don’t know, a minute or two? I can’t believe they called you! I can handle disciplining my own child without your help!”

“You don’t need to tell me that, dear. I’m fully aware of what you’re capable of.” His tone became more serious, and Leo squeezed him tight. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He found Leo’s hand with his own and squeezed once.

“Lucky for you, I’m not going anywhere.”

They heard a shout from down the hall. Kiragi had apparently woken up from his nap, and now he and Forrest were loudly bickering over him drooling on one of Forrest’s hand-embroidered pillows.

He chuckled to himself and stood up.

“One of us should probably go tell Kiragi the bad news.”

“Mm, in a minute, love. Do you really want to walk into that?” Leo wrapped his arms around his waist pulled back down onto the bed with him. “Besides, it’s been awhile since we’ve had a moment like this.”

He settled back down on Leo’s lap and sighed.

“Fine, but you’re responsible for burying the bodies if they kill each other.”

Leo kissed along his neck and pushed the collar of his shirt aside so he could nibble at his bond scar.

“Not a problem, love. We can always make more.”

He laughed in spite of himself.

“I hate you.”

“I love you, too.”

[happydaysandersen]

Making up

this is my third post. 

hope you enjoy guys. 

Warnings: Smut 

Pairings: Alex &Y/N

Tagging: @littlepanda-love & @toodamnscaredt0try-blog

Hopefully you both enjoy. Thank you both again. 

The night that you had been anticipating all week had finally come around. You and your boyfriend, Alex had planned a much-needed date night after the time spent apart with his acting and your own work schedule. This date night had been planned for nearly a month now. After a long and stressful week at work, you couldn’t wait to relax and spend time with Alex.  

You had already arranged the table ready and had just finished getting dressed. ‘Alex should be arriving any minute now’ you thought excitedly. You made your way to the couch and turned on the T.V. hoping it would make time at least go a little bit faster. An hour passed and Alex still hadn’t shown up. You began to worry; he would have been here by now.  You were putting away all the dinner you had made when finally, Alex walked through the door. 

 ”Y/N? Are you there?” You heard him call from the hallway. Alex’s footsteps echoed through the house, getting closer and closer to the kitchen. 

 ”Well don’t you look fancy! What’s the occasion?” Alex asked with a smile. 

You were shocked. How could he forget? After all the countless times you had reminded him, in the end he still forgot.  This wasn’t like him. Usually he would remember, he knew how much you wanted to spend time with him. After the rough week and time apart.

”The occasion Alex!? Are you kidding me right now? We were supposed to have a date night, we’ve been planning this for weeks now!” You exclaimed angrily, pointing to the calendar. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t stay calm. You were furious. 

Alex felt awful. He knew how excited you were for tonight; it was all you would talk about since planning the date. He truly hated himself for forgetting. You could see it on his face.

”Aw shit, Y/N I’m sorry! I wasn’t watching the time, I was at the set babe.” He explained. You looked at Alex. The sorry look upon his face. The worst thing was the regret that was in his eyes. It shattered your heart. 

Usually, you would have been forgiving, but this time you felt the urge to stand up. You expected Alex to remember.  

“Alex, honestly I can’t believe you right now. How could you forget! How does someone even fucking forget something that’s been discussed every. Single. Day?!” You shouted.  You felt too angry. The idea of fighting felt so tiresome. All you wanted in that moment was to clear your mind. You grabbed your car keys and headed for the door.  

“I’ll be home later.” You said. 

~*~*~*~

 A day passed since your little explosion. Including spending the night at your friends. With the events replaying in your mind. Filling you with regret, regretting walking out on Alex. Even having a go back and not just calming down. You shouldn’t have yelled at Alex like that, is all you kept telling yourself.  Things are always said in the midst of an argument.

You entered your apartment letting out a deep breath. Unsure of what would be there when you step through the threshold.  You could hear the sound of Alex playing his guitar through the hallway. You softly closed the door not to startle him. Partially buying yourself some more time, to brace and prepare yourself for whatever may happen. You took your coat off and placed your keys back in the bowel sitting on the countertop. Listening to the melody filling your apartment.

 You were fully aware of his tendency to play guitar as and when he felt frustrated or when too many things were going on. Often for a momentary escape. the argument must have hit him hard. So you put on the kettle and made a brew each with some biscuits. Nothing like a peace offering after all.

You slowly walked up the stairs with the tray of goodies. Making your way to the bedroom door, you took a deep breath. Before reaching out and knocking on the door first, letting him know you were about to walk in. 

 ”Alex?” You called out. The music had stopped immediately. Silence almost suffocating the room. Alex gave you a small smile, before patting the spot on the bed, telling you to come sit with him. You couldn’t help but notice his eyes blotchy and still being in the same clothes from the night before.

“oh Alex” you whispered placing the tray on the side table and leaning in gently. Wiping his tears away. He leans his head against your palm. Handing your wrist there gently.

 ”I’m so sorry” he whispers. “I fucked up last night. I honestly don’t know what possessed me to forget about our date night” he rushes out in a hushed tone.

“shhh Alex, its okay, I feel like shit for too.” You paused, taking him in.

You could feel his lips against your palm. Now gently leaving a trail of kissed.

“I shouldn’t have blown up like that on you. You didn’t deserve that”. You said softly, feeling a sense of calm wash over you.

“So please, would you consider forgiving your stupid ass girlfriend?” You rushed out nervously. Holding your breath for his answer.

Alex broke out in a smile and sat up this time. He leaned into you and wrapped his arms tightly around your body.

“You are such a silly, silly person. Of course, i’ll forgive you!”

You smiled back at him now sitting up with both legs either side of his.

“do you forgive me?” he asked. “For forgetting our date night?” he added now placing his hand either side of your hips.

“of course, Alex. I would be stupid if I didn’t forgive you” you told him matter-of-factly. Leaning into him and placing your lips on his.

Alex then deepened the kiss, running his hands through your hair. Alex’s arms had wormed their way around your back. Now scooting you up and onto his lap.

You lean in to place another kiss on his lips. “I do love you. You do know that right?” you ask in seeking reassurance.

You feel his lips smile against yours “I do, you wouldn’t have comeback otherwise”. He whispered finishing off by biting your bottom lip playfully.

“I guess that is true. I also guess it’s time to get you of out these clothes”. You whispered and traced gentle kisses down his neck. You could hear him let out a sigh.

“well I guess since you asked nicely” his hands made their way to the bottom of your shirt. As he lifted it up and over your head. He smiled as he flung it to the floor and you helped him out of his shirt. You playfully pushed him back against the bed. Hovered closer and over him. Leaning in for a kiss. “what about we make things right?” you ask with a smirk kissing gently along his jawline.

“you mean with makeup sex?” he asked voice croaking at the end of his sentence. A sure sign that you were getting to him.

“is there anything better?” you asked now looking down at him.

“Not that comes to mind” Alex replies flipping you over on the bed. Leaving you at the bottom this time around.

~*~*~*~

Once all the clothes had been removed and were thrown to the floor in a hurry. Alex lightly pushed you back down onto the bed, underneath himself. Alex had begun to tease your breasts. Leaving you to let out a moaned as he started licking and sucking all around your left nipple. 

After a few minutes, you began to get impatient and bothered. 

“Alex… Babe c’mon please!” You begged. He chucked as he aligned himself with your entrance. Once he was fully inside of you, your whole body became numb with pleasure. 

You grabbed his neck and pulled him down to kiss him. He started to push into at normal speed. With every push, he began to go faster and faster. You could feel yourself getting close.

“Y/N, you feel good! I fucking love you so much.” He moaned.

“Fuck Alex I love you too. Babe I’m close!” You screamed. Alex slammed into you one last time and you felt yourself let go. Shortly Alex joined you. 

You slowly tried to regain your breath. A smile crept onto your lips as you glanced at Alex who was smiling at you. 

“I love you Y/N.” Alex whispered, cuddling into you.

“I love you too Alex.” You replied, slowly falling into a deep sleep

“maybe you were right?” Alex whispered now bringing you closer to him and wrapping an arm around you.

“about what babe?” you sked now rolling onto your side and cuddling into his chest. Your fingers now tracing shapes all over his rippled torso.

“there is no better way to makeup than with makeup sex”. He said causing you both to laugh. You both laid there sticking together in the aftermath. Just rejoicing in the touch and comfort of having him next to you. As he felt about having you next to him. Where you both belonged.

[kotorno]

I watched the Adventure Time finale...

I’m proud that show was able to last as long as it did, especially with just how... kind of batshit insane the production got in its later seasons. I’m glad it kickstarted the careers of many great creators who have gone either to helm or create their own unique and diverse shows. I can tell that, at least in the early days, there was a big brewing pot of ideas and the “anything goes” mentality allowed different creators to tackle what they wanted with the program. The likes of many popular shows today are either rooted or inspired and admired by this show. And that’s fantastic. The finale was underwhelming. Truthfully I never really kept up with the show, so that’s probably part of it. AT came on the air when I was in college and when I wasn’t busy with games, studies, etc. the only show I tended to really watch at the time was Phineas and Ferb (and you can mock me all you want about that, I still stand by that that was a great show (that also had a nice run... until either Disney or the creators are trying to ruin it/recreate it without being the same show with their new product, but that’s another dumb talk for another time)). Adventure Time would have initially premiered when I was in my Junior of college, so yeah, probably didn’t watch it that much but respected a lot of the voice talent and kind of silly style the show had going for it. I’d watch it on and off through the years and get invested in some of the bigger multiparters such as the return of the Lich (never really understood it too much other than it was just evil), the really cute relationship Finn had with the Flame Princess until someone went “we don’t know how to write this and this is a show about adventure!” so they kind of just... stomped on that, and then the introduction of the being known as Prismo, who was pretty dang cool. A good friend of mine and I began bonding over cartoons because we watched a lot of them. Cartoons are, by in large, vehicles for everyone. They get this bad rep that they’re “kid’s stuff” and I can see why if you have stupidly easy to produce shows that just rely on fart jokes or the like. But we didn’t really see that. This drove us both back to watch Adventure Time, since we wanted to catch up on all the current cartoons. The episode we ended up watching... I think it was a two-parter, was about Finn’s dead-beat dad and getting him out of jail so he could then... betray his son to go somewhere? They killed off Prismo (at least for now), Finn lost an arm, and it seemed like things were getting tense. ...then Finn grew an arm back a few episodes later like, “lol, nothing bad happened.” For both of us, though my friend was already bothered by the two-parter we had watched, we kind of viewed the show has not really wanting to take itself seriously. Like there was this sense that yes, they wanted to have high stakes. Yes, they wanted to create this big expansive story (that the creator of the show kind of just said didn’t really exist or wasn’t extremely fleshed out when the show began, it was just a fun weird idea he had). But it seemed like someone burst into the writing room and went, “NO, WE CAN’T DO THAT. WE NEED TO REVERT IT BACK TO A FUN HAPPY JOLLY ADVENTURE” This seems to have persisted for the rest of the show’s duration.

Random side characters would be brought back, changed up, revived, killed off again, all for the sense of some kind of “drama” but then episodes would go “lol forget that happened” as if the writers were literally fighting with each other on what the hell they wanted to do now that most of their founding talent had moved onto other projects. Not to say anything bad of the last few seasons, but it just seems no one was willing to compromise to make something vaguely coherent. I realize that’s hilarious given that the first few episodes are anything but, but that seems to come from again a time when the series really wasn’t MEANT to have a large overarching narrative. I think with a lot of shows that have appeared since then, everyone just assumes “oh, this is a big overarching story with a beginning, middle and end and we’re just getting pieces of it at a time” such as the like with Steven Universe, the recent Ducktales reboot and parts of Gravity Falls. But I think the proof is in the pudding: This isn’t a “grand scheme, J.K. Rowling had most of the ideas for Harry Potter set out when she wrote the first book,” this is more of a, “Nomura realized he was going to make more Kingdom Hearts games and had to write by the seat of his pants in order to make a long narrative, making up new crap as he goes along.” There’s nothing wrong with that second one when done correctly, lots of older shows such as Star Trek: TNG were able to do this pretty competently. But when I think about it I think back to college when an old roommate and I were discussing the manga, “Bleach” which was beginning(?) or at least had signs of wrapping up at the time. I argued that Bleach overstayed its welcome, had horrendous pacing issues, and was plaguing itself with the most (at the time) bloated ending (which ended up NOT being the ending, fancy that). My roommate argued that once the series was completed, he would reread it and he was sure it would all make sense read as one package rather than the weekly updates we got.

So a few years passed and Bleach finally ended. My former roommate set himself out to do this task. He was kind of disappointed to find out that what I had said was true: The pacing got sloppy after a certain point, new powers get introduced pretty much at random, and fights last for goddamn ever (and this is the MANGA) leading to a really “meh” ending that feels extremely forced... after two other arcs that also felt extremely forced since they go against that proposed “what everyone thought would be” ending.

I feel like Adventure Time will be viewed in a similar light in the future. From the limited knowledge I have, it seems the “writers fighting over” what to do with Finn, Jake and the characters did indeed happen. There were plans for a movie, then it got canceled, then they tried to revive it, then they wanted to do specials and finally they just got a few more seasons. While I’m sure some would say, “well of course Cartoon Network would give them more seasons, it’s their most popular show!” Well it isn’t anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. The fact the show got a few more seasons seems more on good faith of “this product was good in the past, maybe it can still shine” they say as they cram Teen Titans Go literally to everywhere on their schedule. By the time my friend and I had watched the episode with Finn’s dad, Steven Universe had become huge on the network and many fans of AT, who liked some of one of the main original writer’s stories for that show, switched over to their new show instead. Cartoon Network was also premiering new shows around this time with We Bare Bears and Clarence, which had their own form of a humor that was relatable (like the ones found in AT) but without having a confusing as heck backstory/world. These shows became pretty popular because they did things without even making a fuss out of them (one of the characters in Clarence has two moms, and no one questions it, it’s just acceptance. There’s even a joke in that show about one of the characters waiting for a blind date, sees a hot guy and gets excited, then finds out he’s actually on a dinner date with his boyfriend/husband, it’s honestly masterly crafted). This kind of left AT in the dust for a bit as it’s weird show was becoming more serialized to the akin of the later seasons of Spongebob -- When in doubt, do something weird, or dumb or maybe shock-value (substitute for Spongebob’s gross-out humor) just to get views.

It seems the dust finally settled as the writers were able to come up with SOMETHING in order to end plot threads that were set up or messed up or whatever. Did you know Ice King was a regular human from before an apocalyptic war? It was a pretty cool reveal. Cool. Now there’s just a magic time portal for some reason and he’s no longer cursed for a bit and his wife is here. Oh, but he’s Ice King again and doesn’t remember her so... his wife will just wander the wilderness or something now? Okay... Jake’s an alien now. In hindsight, sure, it makes sense, but it feels like many of these ideas are just thrown at the wall for the sake of making “lore” when it’s really just making random crap up to make the show feel more “deep.” (Seriously, go look at the Kingdom Hearts plot to see the master of this craft.)

In the end, the finale wraps with a war... or not... it just kind of devolves into this thing for a bit where Finn has to confront his fears one last time, Bubblegum (who was just kind of shit on a bit from the writers during the later seasons) has to fight her uncle?? But then they make peace, and then a giant demon shows up for some reason because Ice King’s wife summoned it. Why did she summon it? What was the purpose? “Well I wanted my husband back” yeah ok, but... giant demon? The f*ck? Then through the power of music they kind of banish it... it’s... weird. I mean it makes sense for the show, and it’s definitely not a terrible episode. But it feels like they really wanted to play up, “LOOK AT THIS EPIC TALE WE’VE WEAVED, YOU BETTER HAVE NOTICED ALL THE DETAILS!!” for their last shebang. And that’s really the problem: The show was never set up like that to begin with. It was set up as a funny show with silly gags and interesting locales for characters to explore from episode to episode. If they ever did something that had consequences (in the earlier seasons at least) something would be done with a quick explanation of dialogue or something that gave the viewer indication as to what was going on, so they wouldn’t be lost. If you’ve watched Steven Universe at all, this show does it pretty brilliantly. Even with more recent episodes that have become heavily story-driven, you can start an episode without having seen ANY of the previous and it’s easy to work your way into. Having that previous knowledge helps, but the shows are constructed in a way that you shouldn’t have to do that unless you want to. Maybe because this was a finale, that’s why they could get away with it? ...but Gravity Falls had a finale too. It put in a lot of references to past episodes and things that happened in the series. You can still watch that finale without having seen any of the series. There’s no big bar that holds you back as to “why is this happening.” You learn character motivations, importance of items, etc. quickly in how it’s established. I know that sounds really selfish, “well it’s a finale for THIS show, and they should reward longtime viewers” and sure, fine. But the way Gravity Falls did it also didn’t alienate newer viewers either?

We’ll see what time has to say on it when people begin bringing it up to their kids or when past kids look in on it in just a few years who may have never seen the show. Maybe I’m 100% wrong. But I feel that it’s a show that, like Bleach, should have ended while it was ahead, at least a few years back. Luckily unlike Bleach, it’s still an enjoyable conclusion. But it definitely feels like a hollow shell of its former self. (But hey Marceline and Bubblegum becoming an item is actually cool and some of the scenes with them at the end are really cute so that’s a good plus, and Beemo (the best character) became a king so not everything’s terrible... just mediocre besides those points.)

[jacklawsonsurvivor-blog]

April 13th - 26th

April 13th 

ok journal update time. Just got back from Atlanta and the house seems odd without Wife lady here. I know she will be home in just two weeks but still. At least she will be home for my birthday and i will still get my favorite meal! My silly kitten of doom (Lady Socks) snubbed for for all of 30 mins before she relented and allowed me to pet her. Cubs won and the season is looking good so far. 

However! seems there was something going on at scary ass detrick while we were gone. The news and the paper say it was a small contamination break but that it didn’t pose a threat to the area. I am very glad Mary and I did not buy a house out that way when we moved here. Between the cancers people get and the thought of what ever weird shit they get up to it just isn’t healthy to live there. 

April 15th 

Uh well being without a job right now sucks. I am board as shit and feel like i am not doing enough for the house. Yeah sure wife lady is a GS-14 and can pay all of our bills and then some by herself but i just don’t feel like i am pulling my weight. I applied for 7 more jobs today. Went down to the river too. Caught some nice fish including the biggest trout i have ever caught. I hope he knows that he was very tasty and that his sacrifice was worth it to me and the cat. I swear i had to fight her just to cook the damn thing. Crazy cat. 

More weird shit going on in town. The late news had some sort of report on attack at the hospital over on 7th street. Details were sketchy but when ever i hear about something like that happening at a hospital i get nervous. Maybe i am just too much of a nerd but that is how crazy apocalypse shit starts. 

April 18th. 

Talked to Mary. Her work trip is going well and she even got a chance to try some great brews out in Utah of all places. I guess even the Mormons are chilling out about good beer.....Talked to Ma too. She is trying to figure out when we can meet up for birthdays i told her she needed to speak with Mary about it because i am pretty sure she is up to something. No hits on work yet but i am still keeping at it. My hope is to have something before June. 

That thing at the hospital turned out to be some Bath salt type drug induced shit. This is why we need to end the war on drugs and do like Portugal. It would make more sense to clean up street drugs and tax the shit out of them. People can get high as fuck in a safe place and society can move the fuck on. 

April 22nd

Aunt Rose would have been 90 today. I miss her a decade on. Still she wouldn’t want us to be sad. She would want us to have a stiff drink to her memory and maybe go get crab cakes. Think i just might do that. Had an interview today as well. Turned down the job. They wanted me to do medical collections on low income houses. Fuck and No to that. I have done that before and got fired for writing too much off. Never the fuck again will i step foot in that work. Mary agreed with me. Soul crushing work would not be worth the paycheck. 

Ok what the actual fuck is going on in the news. Here in Maryland we have all kinds of people acting like PCP addicts. Two people yesterday attacked restaurants claiming they couldn’t get full and started ripping the place apart for raw meat. They got shot by cops when they wouldn’t stop attacking people. THEY TOOK SHOT TO THE CHEST AND KEPT GOING! Took a head shot to bring them down. This more of that bath salt shit? Also the BBC says in London an american tourist had some kind of fit and started attacking people and killed some woman by biting her throat out. fucking weird. 

April 25th 

Fucking hell that tourist in London? I knew them! It was Greg Flynn that awesome cook from the brew pub down town. What the hell. I am asking that too much. Dale hit me up today and told me to go to the store and buy all the dry goods, batteries, water, and the like i could. he also told me to go and get shells, arrows and wood for windows. He told me all of this but made me promise to not go around telling other people. I have known this dude since we were 8 and he has never ever given me a reason that this was bullshit. So i did. i look like a fucking weirdo prepper but when the guy with a high class clearance and known Generals by their first name you just do what he says. 

i kept the receipts juuuuuust in case he lost hit nut for a day or something. 

April 26th AM

Uh wtf? I woke up to Mary calling me and asking if i was home and ok and all kinds of stuff. It was 3am and while yes since she is not home i have been staying up late reading and playing games 3am is a bit even for my fat ass. She said that there are all kinds of news stories about Frederick and the surrounding area being quarantined. first i fucking heard about it. The news says it was that fuck up at Detrick. Some sort of pathogen did get out. I have seen this movie before. We are so very fucked aren’t we? Someone get Hoffman up in a helicopter to stop them from bombing my county. Mary is safe out in Utah so that is one thing off my mind. 

I got off the phone and thanked Dale in my head for telling me to get supplies. Then i thought if he knew this was going down why didn’t he just tell me to get the fuck out? He thinks i have the pathogen. He was playing odds. I bet he couldn’t stand thinking i would be caught flat footed but couldn’t risk me having what ever got out of the base. Guess i can’t blame him. He has a kid to worry about. Called Mom and my Pop and sisters too told them i am fine have plenty of supplies and i’m not sick. Dad of course asked about my guns, bullets, and the like Mom was more worried about  food and my step dad didn’t seem worried at all. My sister Loraine is taking the kids to her in-laws out in Washington State for a few weeks. She has the right idea i think. 

April 26th PM

WELL FUCK! How fucking stupid does a group of people have to be to not listen to nerds when they say something is a bad idea? Who in government/bio-weapons creation though making A ZOMBIE PATHOGEN WAS A GOOD FUCKING IDEA?! You have got to be kidding me with this shit. Zombies?! That shit is supposed to be not real for a fucking reason. Ok from the top. 

I still have power for now and i am able to watch the news and the like. There is a video being aired that shows two men and a woman in uniform with half bitten off faces and arms walking down rt 15. well staggering (at least these are Romero’s and not Boyle’s) getting hit by a car and when the lady gets out to see what she hit she GET EATEN! The guy hit by the car just gets up and bites the ever loving fuck out of her. 

So needless to say after watching that at 10 this morning i put all that lumber and stuff to work. the windows in the basement, and first floor are now blocked but i have some small eye holes cut out so i can see. the door is bared from the inside and the sliding glass door on my deck in reinforced. I locked the garage and set up a watch post from the top floor. I cut down as much of the tree out front as i could to give myself a good view. i pulled in my whiskey barrel planters just incase i need to grow food in the house. I took stock of my food, water, and other essentials. so there is that. I figure as long as i don’t act like a fucking glutton i have enough food for two to three months. Socks has enough cat food for fucking forever considering we got a deal on cat food just before all of this. I sent Mary some pics of what i did. She is full on melting down. They shut down all flight to Maryland and the surrounding area today. She has a Cousin out on Wyoming that is the closest person she has and she is heading there now by road. She should be there soon and is going to text me.  wtf is going on?! 

[ricardosousalemos]

X-Ray Spex: Germfree Adolescents

Who is Poly Styrene? On January 20, 1979, the BBC endeavored to find out. “I chose the name Poly Styrene because it’s a lightweight, disposable product,” Styrene stated, with an absurd serenity, while scrubbing her teeth on national television during a 40-minute special on her London band, X-Ray Spex. “It sounded alright. It was a send-up of being a pop star—plastic, disposable, that’s what pop stars are meant to mean, so therefore I thought I might as well send it up.” Only two months had passed since the release of X-Ray Spex’s Germfree Adolescents, a brash, vivid masterpiece of the germinal punk era. An incisive 1977 interview with the fanzine Jolt, penned by one Lucy Toothpaste, was revealing in other ways. “She’s a girl and she’s half-black,” goes Toothpaste’s introduction. “HOW OPPRESSED CAN YOU GET?” (Caps Lucy’s.) “Doesn’t seem to keep her down though,” Lucy added, before quoting a patch of Poly’s more impressionistic lyrics: “‘Yama yama yama yama yama yama.’”

Poly Styrene was born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, the daughter of a Scottish-Irish secretary and a dispossessed Somalian noble, in 1957. While UK punks were screaming about cutting ties with their pasts, Poly spoke of her fascination with her own history, her uniquely multicultural family tree; plenty of punks played Rock Against Racism gigs, but Poly was one of few active participants of color. After working in fashion in her youth, she ran away from home between the ages of 15 and 17 and spent a year touring Britain’s hippie music festivals, including the Trentishoe Earth Fayre—after the fest, she lived with fellow travelers in the countryside, where they brewed dandelion tea and bathed in streams. This wandering all stoked the ecological consciousness that would fuel her ethos in punk. Armed with her itinerant background, Poly Styrene became one of the most original pop stars in music history—trained in opera, acutely anti-authoritarian, braces cemented across her teeth—and she was indeed the sharpest punk lyricist that Britain ever saw.

She rolled her Rs over supercharged riffs with more tenacity than Johnny Rotten. She yabbered gibberish more wildly than the Ramones. She naturally did punk-reggae better than the Clash or the Slits, and she was upending the notion that “cleanliness is next to godliness” when Kurt Cobain was in elementary school. With guttural, soul-cleansing, full-body wails, Poly sang of our sanitized culture’s lethal obsession with sterile perfection long before pop culture had sniffed “Teen Spirit.” Poly Styrene’s prescient lyrics could serve as epigraphs to scholarly books about identity politics, commodified dissent, or consumer society. They are also fun.

On her 19th birthday—July 3, 1976—Poly saw the Sex Pistols at Hastings Pier and was changed. She swiftly put an ad in Melody Maker seeking “young punx who want to stick it together.” X-Ray Spex—name inspired by ads in True Detective mags, and brilliantly evoking punk’s impulse to dissect life below the surface—was managed and produced by one Falcon Stuart. Sixteen years her senior, he was also Poly’s boyfriend and produced her pre-punk reggae single “Silly Billy,” released on GTO—the UK label that put out Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love.” One of the “young punx” to reply to that ad was 16-year-old Lora Logic, a Bowie-child who wrote and performed the band’s definitive sax arrangements before getting unceremoniously chucked out (allegedly for claiming too much of its spotlight). “Poly just wanted some men that would blur into the background,” Lora once told me, and she got a formidable lot in guitarist Jak Airport, bassist Paul Dean, drummer BP Hurding, and later sax player Rudi Thompson. They released four singles before EMI put out their only album, Germfree Adolescents, in November ’78.

X-Ray Spex is what I consider capital-P Punk—meaning, of the original movement—more than lowercase-p punk—meaning, by current vernacular, an action. Though raw, strange, and legitimately subversive, the songs of Germfree Adolescents have traditional structures. There are persistent verses and choruses and swaggering solos, steady beats and percussive hip-shaking claps; there are overdubs, candy hooks, chiseled little flourishes in the form of “oh-oh”s and (on “Highly Inflammable”) even some galactic synth shimmer. Germfree Adolescents holds up, in some sense, like pop music, albeit pop that is equally scorched and joyful, liberationist, charged with intellect and insurrectionary zeal. It inspires in ways that transcends genre, which explains why an artist like FKA twigs has called Germfree Adolescents her favorite album ever. Its musicality is honed; the musicians here are obviously amazing players. Its chugging faster-harder chords accelerate by the second, like the culture Poly describes. It is steely, shit-kicking, and bright; like an unbreakable machine, its build reflects the industrialization at hand. Germfree Adolescents’ singular sax-punk sound is, to borrow a word from Poly’s lyrics, “bionic.”

Along with her hippie inklings, Poly devoted much of her teenage years to watching fringe theater groups, and so she was visually inclined. This manifested in her striking and unusual sartorial choices—such as a green tin army helmet or a lipstick-red conductor’s jacket—as much as in X-Ray Spex’s music. The riffs were tonally fluorescent, but Poly’s language also made immediate appeals to the imagination. Her images—of “warriors in Woolworths,” of her mocking desire to turn into a “dehydrated” “frozen pea”—become 3D in your head. And Poly is refreshingly funny. “I am a poseur and I don’t care!” she sneers on the galloping “I Am a Poseur”; sarcasm vivifies “I Am a Cliché”’s pogoing titular chant. On the vibrant, almost-slapstick “I Can’t Do Anything”—“I can’t read and I can’t spell/I can’t even get to hell”—Poly cheerfully fights back against a guy called Freedom who tried to “strangle” her with plastic jewelry. Each word is an embodied exclamation point: “I hit him back!/With my pet rat!”

The prevailing theme of Germfree Adolescents is the inescapable horror of daily life in consumer society. Poly’s voice and the music—always peaking, always cranked to 100%—is persistently in-your-face, just like the most garish excesses of capitalism. “There was so much junk then. The idea was to send it all up,” Poly said in England’s Dreaming. “Screaming about it, saying: ‘Look, this is what you have done to me, turned me into a piece of styrofoam, I am your product. And this is what you have created: do you like her?’” The original tracklist opened with revving drums and Poly roaring “AAARRT-I-FIIICCIAL,” a reverbed rallying cry. “I know I’m artificial/But don’t put the blame on me,” she blazes. “I was reared with appliances/In a consumer society.” There is a scene in Who Is Poly Styrene, set among the modern industrial wasteland of the supermarket aisles, where Poly is pushing a shopping cart beneath the glare of fluorescent lights, grabbing at products: Daz laundry detergent, Special K, Anadin painkillers, Comfort fabric conditioner, Sunlight lemon liquid cleaner. The Raincoats’ Ana da Silva once told me she wrote her 1979 song title “Fairytale in the Supermarket” after watching it and realizing that Poly’s songs were like “fairytales, but in a consumerist society.” In 1978, Joe Strummer was lost in the supermarket; Poly Styrene stared its offerings dead in the eye.

Anthems like the unsparing “The Day the World Turned Day-Glo” and “Plastic Bag” anticipated the anxieties of a world made of hidden cancerous chemical detritus. “Day-Glo” has an ominous gravity, but it’s catchy, sneaking into you like a sweet, hastily-torn packet of Splenda. Poly explores the toxicity of daily life in excruciating, relentless detail: our homes (“nylon curtains” and “perspex window panes”), our infrastructure (“the acrylic road”), our transport (“my Polypropylene car”), our fake food (“a rubber bun”), irradiated air (“the X-rays were penetrating through the latex breeze”). It culminates with an image of fake plastic trees years before Thom Yorke sang of a “cracked polystyrene man” (“synthetic fiber see-thru leaves fell from the rayon trees”). X-Ray Spex songs are like musical Andy Warhol soup cans; they find a spiritual predecessor in Warhol’s pivotal 1964 exhibition The American Supermarket. Look around, both whisper to you: Everything is plastic.

On “Plastic Bag,” Poly coupled her eco-critique with an incendiary indictment of advertising: “My mind is like a plastic bag/That corresponds to all those ads/It sucks up all the rubbish/That is fed through my ear/I eat Kleenex for breakfast/And I use soft hygienic Weetabix/To dry my tears.” Her sly reversal—Kleenex for eating, Weetabix for crying—underscores the interchangeability of these artificial products. Poly knew advertisements were inescapable, were rewiring brains; look out, they are coming for you right about now. But she was also genius enough to speak their mass language: “The Day the World Turned Day-Glo” was an unlikely chart hit in the UK, reaching No. 23 in April ’78.

In an age of burgeoning A.I. and rampant outsourcing, the sci-fi poetry of “Genetic Engineering” is even more prophetic, as Poly declares that “genetic engineering could create the perfect race… could exterminate/introducing worker clones/as our subordinated slave.” Her grim propositions have lost none of their daunting edge. Punks were screaming “NO FUTURE,” and fair enough, but Poly went further, deeper; her songs dared to imagine just how bad hellish normalization could be. And here we are.

Words like “disinfectant,” “Listerine,” and “sterilized” have never sounded so oddly seductive as they do on the postmodern love song “Germfree Adolescents,” the era’s greatest punk-reggae ballad. “I know you’re antiseptic/Your deodorant smells nice/I’d like to get to know you/You’re deep frozen like the ice,” Poly beams through this dubby, surreal waltz. In her futuristic tale of boy-meets-girl, purity reigns; “he’s a germfree adolescent” and “cleanliness is her obsession.” “Cleans her teeth 10 times a day,” Poly sings, “Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away/The S.R. way.” Both “deep frozen like the ice” and “the S.R. way” (sodium ricinoleate) reference a promo for Gibbs S.R. toothpaste, the very first television commercial broadcast in England in 1955. As Poly’s voice cracks out with each repeat of “10 times a day,” the desperation—the casual corner-store apocalypse of unpronounceable additives—pierces through the song’s swirling veneer. “Germfree Adolescents” became X-Ray Spex’s most successful single, reaching No. 19 on the charts in November ’78.

Somehow, Poly’s two most radically feminist statements—debut single “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” and a later B-side, “Age”—were left off the original Germfree Adolescents tracklist, only added back to the 1991 reissue. All punch and bounce, “Age” takes on ageism, body dysmorphia, and the beauty myth perpetuated by Hollywood in a fell swoop: “Age/She’s so afraid/Age/She’s not the rage.” (Check the mellow, reggae-tinged version of it on Poly’s lovely, misunderstood 1980 solo album Translucence.) The iconic “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” was, and is, like dynamite to patriarchy. It is a succession of lightning bolts, dizzied with ideas, as Poly’s profoundly unhinged voice skyrockets into the red to cap each chorus line. “Bind me, tie me, chain me to the wall/I want to be a slave to you all,” Poly seethed. It’s the ultimate punk song, and also intersectional feminist scripture: “Some people think that little girls should be seen and not heard/But I say oh bondage, up yours!”

In 2005, excerpts from Poly’s “diary of the seventies” appeared on her website. Poly muses on Superwoman, on vegetarianism, on reading about genetic modification in the glossy pages of Time. But she also reflects on Lucy Toothpaste probing her regarding “Oh Bondage! Up Yours.” “Is it about women’s liberation?” Lucy asks, and Poly replies vaguely, mentioning bondage trousers she saw at Vivienne Westwood’s SEX boutique. Then her entry continues forth, tracing the DNA of each line. She alludes to The Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich, to images of “Suffragettes chained to the railings of Buckingham Palace,” to “pictures of ball-and-chained African slaves stored in my psyche.” Poly Styrene would often deny that her songwriting was autobiographical; six months before Germfree Adolescents came out, she told NME, “You have to be detached from everything in order to write. I have to observe… I can’t get too directly involved.” But you can’t escape yourself. The glimpse into Poly’s inner life shows just how innately distinct her perspective was from all around her in UK punk. Transcending time and place, though, in Shotgun Seamstress—the indispensable zine by and for black punks founded by Osa Toe in 2006—the author repeatedly dubs Poly “Captain of the Brown Underground.”

Poly did not have to try to be this different; she simply was. At the core of Germfree Adolescents is a mantra that could summarize all of popular culture in 2017: “Identity/Is the crisis can’t you see.” Just over a year ago, Wesley Morris in The New York Times Magazine declared 2015 “The Year We Obsessed Over Identity,” situating our world “in the midst of a great cultural identity migration” where “gender roles are merging” and “races are being shed,” and of course this is felt at the turn of any axis. But a migration has a destination; identity is always fluid. On “Identity,” Poly wisely presents these dilemmas of personhood as perennial question marks: “When you look in the mirror do you see yourself?/Do you see yourself on the T.V. screen?/Do you see yourself in the magazine/When you see yourself does it make you scream?” Eviscerating and empathic in equal measure, “Identity” is a most logical anthem for today.

When X-Ray Spex imploded in mid-’79, they cited creative differences, but there was a darkness churning below the gleeful surfaces, which boiled over before Germfree Adolescents was released. The wages of Poly’s exuberance had a cost; she lived, to some degree, within the extremities of the hyperactive mindset she sang from so intimately. (It was not until 1991 that she was diagnosed as bipolar.) In the mid-2000s, Poly referenced a “traumatic experience of a sexual nature” she’d endured in ’78; she had a breakdown, went to John Lydon’s flat, and shaved her head (if she ever became a sex symbol, she promised early on, she’d shave her head). On tour that summer, she claimed to have seen a UFO fly past her hotel window “like a fireball.” (“I wasn’t mad, but I went into the hospital after that,” she said.) Lydon wrote of Poly in his 2014 memoir: “They used to lock her up occasionally… She’d break out and always make a beeline for my house… She was good fun until the ambulance turned up for her.” Poly soon remembered chanting with Hare Krishnas during her teen hippie years, began reading The Bhagavad Gita, and aligned with the movement. One need only look at the muchness of what Poly writes about to understand the potential sources of her struggle. In England’s Dreaming, Poly said she wanted Germfree Adolescents to be like “a diary of 1977.” It is also a diary of survival in a world closing in on us all in ways that can go hauntingly unseen.

Elsewhere in her journal, Poly meditates on her own ascending fame with three quotes:

“We will be famous just for one day.” —David Bowie “Everybody will be famous for 15 minutes.” —Andy Warhol “I am a cliché.” —Poly Styrene

But clichés do not hold. They dissolve. Poly Styrene is solid; Poly Styrene lasts. With her inclinations towards Eastern spirituality, perhaps she would relish in how the status of Germfree Adolescents now feels sky-like. Poly Styrene is the future, and she is now.