#and a lot of them would be a lot less lonely if they figured out how to support each other and make friends 💀

[usernameforaboredcat]

Things I DID Like About The One Piece Live Action

So, I’ve been getting a lot of hate for my most recent post about how I PERSONALLY didn’t like how they writ Sanji, and a lot of people are saying I hated it when I never said that like once.

SO since I “hate” it so much why don’t I tell y’all stuff I DO like so hopefully I stop getting yelled at and called a hater when I’m really not.

Let’s get started!

Inaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy

In only the nicest way possible, Inaki as Luffy has the same cutie patootie wide eyed idiot vibes as the original Luffy himself. “Idiot” being in quotation because he’s just goofy, Luffy is definitely one of the most emotionally intelligent characters in One Piece.

I love his wide eyed “IM SO EXCITED TO BE HERE” mentality until shit hits the fan and he gets serious when it comes to those close to him/his friends.

There isn’t a lot to say other than I did enjoy his performance as Luffy, and I’m excited to see more from him as an actor.

On that note as well check out The Imperfects, I liked that and it has out cutie Inaki.

Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro

A complaint I personally see is “he’s too serious”… have they SEEN the first couple of episodes or chapters of one piece? Yes, Zoro is goofy later on but he’s also serious, more importantly he’s serious in the beginning. Zoro was always serious, but he’s goofy depending who he’s with.

He’s not serious, per say, he’s closed off, much like another character I’ll talk about later. In the live action they removed Zoros two bounty hunter friends to assumably make Zoro more of a lone wolf and I like that, it show how much Kuinas death really effected him and his will to open up to people and make friends. Until he meets Luffy.

Zoro slowly opens up, it takes time to open up to people after loosing a friend and wanting to make more friends at risk of them dying as well. Especially his drinking scene with Nami at the Baratie, this goes for the both of them, but they’re both willing to opened up to another person and grow closer as friends, and I LOVED THAT!!

I hope Zoro does the foot clap in Drum Island.

Speaking of…

Emily Rudd as Nami

Loved, adored, I LOVE WOMEN!!!

Look I’m not biased because I’m an aggressive bisexual, I just like her a lot as Nami. Something little I love that they added for Nami is how nervous and on edge she is basically all the time, scared to fuck up or get caught because the dread of Arlong is always lingering over her.

The moments she does open up are few, but you can tell that the bricks to her thick built walls are slowly crumbling, like the dressing room scene in Kayas mansion, her scene with Kaya in her bedroom I think was an amazing add, the previously mentioned drinking scene at the Baratie with Zoro.

I can’t wait to see more from her.

Taz Skylar as Sanji Vinsmoke

Alright alright alright alright now I know what some of y’all are thinking, but PLEASE PLEASE HEAR ME OUT IM BEGGING 😭

I said the aspects I didn’t like, but I’m being positive and saying what I DO like about Sanji, so stop bullying me please.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was instantly rizzed up, bite a chunk out of that WholeCake he’s packing, okay I’ll stop. But he’s still dashing, charming, and I do like his chemistry with Luffy in relating on “my father figure lost a limb for me” that was cute.

His love of cooking is there, his strength is there, and I like the little colder Sanji because his past still lingers with him and he’s being denied his true passion in life which is cooking.

And I wanna give a special shout out to Taz himself, getting a degree in cooking and training in kick boxing for his role as Sanji, true dedication to the role.

Are we all cleared up now? Has my hate train arrived at its station? Yes? Please?

Jacob Romero as Usopp

He’s a massive pussy and a charmer and I love it!

I’ve heard some people say the live action “fixed” Usopp because he’s less annoying, which…bro. He’s not annoying, he’s scared, I think ANY sane person would be scared doing half the shit they have to go through, I know I would be.

I wouldn’t say they fixed him, just saying he’s more composed. He’s a liar, he’s an actor essentially, and he plays that well.

Speaking of Usopp…

Usopp (Jacob Romero) & Kaya (Celeste Loots)

*inhail*…AAAAHHHHH!!!!!

I love them, adore, so cute, love and kisses and rainbows and glitter and roses and unicorns all around!

We all know that the fandom has shipped one woman with Usopp since day one and it was Kaya, their chemistry was there and with Usopp leaving to adventure with Luffy it seemingly held off and blue balled their relationship until later in the story.

Oda doesn’t write romance, but when he does it always goes hard!

Am I saying Usopp and Kaya are officially boyfriend and girlfriend? No, course not. But do I think it’s more motivation for Usopp to come back and survive to see the woman who loves him.

So sweet.

Morgan Davies as Koby (Coby?)

First of all, love the Aussie in the cast, me too the fuck! Plus, personally it was great to see him again in a franchise I love, the first movie I saw him in being in Evil Dead.

Anyway, if I had to admit, probably my personally favourite when it comes to manga, to anime, to live action. How nervous and skittish he is at the beginning, to becoming more confident in himself and his role as a marine are so well done, especially him already so early literally growing into his uniform, a sign of his growth later in the series.

I also love the little nod from Garp, since Koby used to work on a pirate ship he already knows how to man and take care of a ship, which gives him a level above other rookie marines.

They’ll probably push Garps group to the side in season two to focus more on Smoker and Tashigi, but I do hope to see Morgan again in season two.

Steven Ward as Mihawk

When I say perfect, I mean perfect. Chefs kiss even. As iconic as his intro in the anime and manga is, I don’t think it shows the true power of the title Warlord probably, I don’t think we see that till Crocodile, but even he got his ass beat by a 17 year old. Warlords are powerful and feared, and Mihawks introduced does that perfectly.

How carelessly and effortlessly he destroys an entire ship and it’s men and captain with ease, all because they woke him up from his nap. He may be called MiHAWK but he’s always been more like a cat to me personally. Plus, now that we’ve seen the power of a warlord, it’ll really hype up Crocodile for Season 2/3, especially for those who are live action only.

Side note, Steven was at the last con I was at, so sweet and lovely, please adopt me. I got him to sign my Crossguild poster it was epic, can’t wait to add Joe (Crocodile) and Jeff (Buggy)

Speaking of Buggy…

Jeff Ward as Buggy

The Buggy cult is real, some of y’all may remember the little Buggy in the bottom corner of Tumblr to promote the live action.

What I love most is how they terrifying they made Buggy. Less we forget this is the same man who fired a canon in a dudes face because he thought he said something about his nose in the manga. There’s also the clown phobia and the real life clown attacks back in I think 2016.

Buggy is both terrifying and hilarious and they pull that 50/50 amazingly. I love goofy Buggy, but I hope they keep how ruthless he is.

Also lemme suck that nose, ANYWAY!!!

Peter Gadiot as Shanks

(I reached my image/gif limit by the time I got to Shanks…ALSO THERES A LIMIT?!)

I don’t have a lot to say because he’s not on screen much, but I think that’s okay because Shanks appears like every ten years in real life in the anime like some cryptic.

But, he still kept that warm Shanks charm that he has that we all know and love from Shanks. And as Emily said herself, “Shanks is daddy” and I can’t agree more queen.

Shout Outs

These are for characters/performances that didn’t leave much of an impact on me personally but I still liked them.

Vincent Regan as Garp

Aiden Scott as Helmeppo

Ilia Isorelys Paulino as Alvida

Kathleen Stephens as Makino

McKinley Belcher as Arlong

Celeste Loots as Kaya

Alexander Maniatis as Captain Kuro

Craig Fairbrass as Zeff

Again, I really hope all this clears up my feelings for the live action, I never said I hated, not once, cause I never did.

It’s just like one piece itself, we all have bits and pieces we don’t like, from arcs to characters to designs to anything.

I like Skypia when many don’t, same with Thriller Bark. My friends don’t like Skypia or Thriller Bark. My friend likes Long Ring where I don’t.

We all have our own thoughts and opinions regarding one piece especially with it being such a huge series with so much.

I love one piece, and I’m not going to stop loving such a masterpiece.

[menlove]

one crazy thing about the "male loneliness epidemic" to me is that romantic/sexual love and companionship is not the be all end all. for many women, straight & queer, their friendships with other women are the most important ones in their lives. and yet somehow men not being able to make friends they can open up with and find emotional fulfillment from is women's fault lmfao. like no I'm sorry that you're lonely, but there's a lot at play here including the way men treat male friendships. go figure yourselves out and treat each other better before whining and stomping your foot that you're not getting pussy like cmon man 😭

[alchemiclee]

I hope someone writes a good fic about the high cloud quintet with all the messy pieces of lore we have because i'm very unsatisfied with what we got and I want MORE OF THEM. don't know why i'm so obsessed with this tragic group of friends but 😭 IM SO FEELINGS ABOUT THEM but also empty because they didn't satisfy me with what they gave us lmao I require more. but that was the end and i'll never get more....unless someone writes a great fic about them.....!

[ravengards-rogue]

WHAT SET YOU FREE, BROUGHT YOU TO ME BABY.

rdr2 men + short blurbs about their favorite sex positions.

ft. arthur morgan, john marston, javier escuella, and charles smith.

✧ tags : SPOILER HEAVY, fem + afab!reader, unprotected sex, light angst (in the horny post is crazy im sorry fdkjjkds), very gendered language, javier says one thing in spanish (thank u @nanamimizz), a little sprinkle of plot with each (and some canon divergency), john co-parents w abigail, otherwise just horny. 18+

✧ wc : about 1.4-8k each (6.3k total)

✧ a/n : sorry for making a multi character post for the cowboy game its cooking me to death. my john bias is showing rip. title is from rebel yell by billy idol but i listen to the bvb cover

sorry about charles and javiers but if i edit this anymore im going to level an entire city using hollow purple technique. please rb if you enjoyed i worked kind of hard on whatever this is.

sorry for . the THIRD repost of this i promise i wont after this. its just really bugging me. PLEASE

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆ ARTHUR MORGAN + PRONE BONE ; 

It’s an odd feelin’ for Arthur. 

Wanting something, he means. Wanting anything as much as he wants you. He’s lived a less than quiet life up until now. And he ain’t the brightest, certainly, but living this kind of life teaches you many lessons. One of them being, it’s better not to covet anything. Coveting something you’re not entitled to, well—it’ll lead you places you wouldn’t want to go with a gun. 

Arthur has made the mistake of coveting love before, dreamed of a future so completely out of his reach he almost convinced himself it was possible. Dreamed of it so foolishly he’d even go visit a woman he very well ought to forget. It’s his problem, his burden to bear - always desiring outcomes unsuited to him. 

He’s just that sort of man he reckons. But he learned his lesson. He tries (tried?) to stay away from it after that. Tried not to pine too much for normalcy when such hopes had failed him twice. The loss of his child completely on his account and the loss of his love at the same fate. 

So, wanting you - well, he feels like the world's dullest fool. Really. How is it that Arthur had fallen in love with someone again? It had all just happened so quickly. You were another woman he’d saved from the O’Driscolls, though it wasn’t like you were no damsel. A lot of those men were dead by the time they arrived. That sort of perseverance would stick with you while you traveled together. Much like Sadie, you didn’t take well to housework - you liked to earn your keep. Though you’re not nearly so trigger happy. 

You’re quiet, thoughtful, well-read. Plus you’re good at making money. That’s why Dutch don't complain about you joining them, he figures. 

(Arthur tries not to pry into it too much at first, but he eventually learns that you’re gambling. Which is how you’re able to make such a fast turn around. A prim little lady like you makes for a fine poker player, and you love to play men out of their money. He thinks it’s one of the funniest and most interesting things about you. He can’t help but love you a little more for it. )

When the feelings in him start to stir, Arthur tries to overlook it. Arthur convinces himself, time and time again - that there’s no way he’ll grow more tender about you. Eventually, it’ll die down. You’re a decent woman is all, a kind one - who’s easy for him to love and even easier for him to confide in. In your time together, you often come to Arthur and you always seem to have some profound wisdom he is so sorely lacking. Someone easy to love, who does not expect much from Arthur at all. It’s only natural a lonely, covetous man like him would start to dream about you. He tells himself, it will pass eventually. Should he simply let it run by him, it will pass. But Arthurs a fool, you’ll remember. 

 Of course, by the time he understood all that - he already loved you enough that he couldn’t bear it. It was already too late and it wasn’t going to change any time soon. Especially not while everything changed around him. 

So, Arthur is undoubtedly a fool, but he’s lucky. He felt divinely blessed when you’d returned his feelings for him so politely. A coy little smile on your face, a laugh like you thought he was silly for being doubtful. Arthur tried to explain himself but you wouldn’t hear a word of it. Maybe that’s another thing he loves so much about you. There’s nothing he ever needs to explain. 

In any case, all Arthur seems to do lately is want you. Wants you when it’s inconvenient. Wants you before he wants liquor or a cigarette or some other vice. Any time anything goes wrong, you’re the first thing his mind can conjure up for relief. That pretty smile and that self-assured way of living. It’s hard to get time alone in camp. And Arthur is a man in love, so any touch could be enough to set him on fire. Last week you hugged his waist a little before giving him a kiss goodbye and he had to listen to you laugh yourself into a fit as he waited for…little Arthur to settle down. 

He don’t get many chances to be with you. Lay with you in that way that grown folk in love do. Though, if the two of you book it somewhere for a few days - the camp knows better not to ask where you’ve been. But it’s not often you get to really be together, where it’s peaceful to do that. Someone’s always hounding one of you to do something. 

Arthur is a lucky man though, like he said. Today he had time. Today he’s alone with you in a beat up little saloon and today he gets to do as he likes. He gets to be greedy. And it’s an odd feeling for him, really, to want something so bad he disregards everything else in the world for a little while. 

Feeling you, though - absolves the guilt for wanting. He’d be stupid to want you any less desperately. 

Arthur’s favorite way to have you is on your stomach. Laid flat, just barely pushed up against him as he fucks you deep. You’ll fuck like rabbits for a little while and Arthur will wear you out just like this, maneuvering you until you’re pinned all underneath his weight. You lose any fight you might have, too exhausted to worry yourself with pleasing him - and when you’re like that, you let Arthur take care of you. 

(He really ain’t talented at much, but he’s good with his hands. Being dexterous is part of being a talented shot. When Arthur has the time to spread you sweet in his lap and make you cum all over his fingers, he does so for as long as he can. At least until you beg him so sweetly otherwise. The same hands, soiled with gunsmoke, look so good so deep in you. At least in his eyes.)

Wet and pliable and helpless. Arthur loves you like that. He knows, he knows you’re anything but - but he’d be damned to pretend this don’t feel best. Tight, wet cunt so welcoming from all the pleasure he’s ripped out of you. Your bodies pressed together, your heartbeat pulsing through your skin. All sticky, honeyed need and animal desire as Arthur lets all of him sink on top of you. His heavy, lumbering form crushing you in - trapping you somewhere you can’t run from him. The curve of your spine pushed against his chest, ticklish. 

Every inch of his body that so wholly wants for you, Arthur aches to make you feel. Burn it in you lest anything happens that risks your forgetting. 

He can feel his hips meet your ass, backside squished against him - desperate for deeper friction. Whining. You’re whining to him so pretty, a pillow pushed underneath you to give friction to needy clit. 

Arthur can feel how much you want more. Maybe Arthur is greedy, but he likes that look much better on you. Your pussy is sucking him in so tight, silken walls pulsing with every shallow little measured thrust. Arthur lets his arm wrap around your neck, your face pressing into his bicep. You moan again and he laughs. 

“Arthur,” Your words come out in a messy slur. He lets his scruffy face press against your neck, a kiss behind your ear. He wants to kiss you all over. There’s not enough hours in the day. “Oh, god, Arthur,” 

“Still feels good, then, I’m guessin’,” 

“Shut up,” You huff and press your cheek into his arm. He doesn’t bother stifling his laugh. “Still feels…big. Stretchin’ me out—hicc—so much,” 

You really don’t try to rile him up - but you do a damn good job of it anyway. He groans, grunts as he pulls back and pistons himself in you. A gesture half-way between a kiss and the warning shot of a gun. The sound of skin hitting skin echoes, noisy and vulgar. Arthur don’t pay it much mind. He laughs against your shoulder.

“One of these days, that moutha’ yours is gonna get me in real trouble.” 

You giggle back at him 

“What kinda trouble is that now?” 

Even from your side glance, you’ve got that lovely little smile on you. Fuckdrunk and ingratiating, like you know he’s wrapped so tight around your fingers. And he is, like nothing else in the world could have him. A wave of possession curls up over Arthur, makes him press more of himself into you. Onto you. Another deep push of his cock, sliding against the tenderest parts of you. Staking some silent desire in you. He wants and wants and wants, and hopes that whatevers above him can forgive him for making the same mistake thrice. 

“Dunno,” Arthur comments, teeth grazing your shoulder and kissing the indentations “Got our whole lives together to find out, I reckon.” 

“I’ll hold you to it, Mister.” 

Arthur laughs. “Hope you do, Miss.” 

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆ JOHN MARSTON + COWGIRL ;

John doesn’t say that he loves you lightly. 

Hardly a thing he says can be said that way. Could never afford too. In an alternate universe where nothing goes wrong in his life, maybe - but he has a hard time picturing what the hell that’d look like. A version of himself so untainted, without all of the violence and blood and gunsmoke? Foreign. John can’t picture it worth a damn. 

Who John is without a deadbeat father and a dead Ma is somewhere far beyond his reach. Ain’t nothing about his life, at any point, lighthearted. 

On top of all that mess, he’s got a boy at age four with a woman he ain’t married too. And that relationship is always on rocky waters, even though John’s decided to do right by his own flesh and blood sometime ago. Most things in the world he should feel good about he doesn’t, and most things he should understand render him clueless. He’s a mess on multiple accounts, and he still doesn’t know how exactly he’s meant to approach this life of his. He knows what he should do, but nothing about how to do it. 

John doesn’t come to love you easily ‘cause he wouldn’t know easy love if it hit him in his face. Quickly and painfully, but not easily. 

Your return to the gang was an odd one. You were an old presence and your disappearance was an even older story. John thought he’d never gonna see you again for sure. You’d been a part of the gang back long before all of the nonsense that took place in Blackwater and you left about the time Arthur’s boy died. John don’t remember why you left exactly. He thinks it was a fight with Hosea, of all things.

 Dutch weren't too happy about it neither, but Dutch back then didn’t make a show. 

So you left, and John buried every feeling he ever harbored. You found all them again up in Colter, where you’d been living out your days lately. According to you, in the middle of riding, you thought you’d heard Arthur. So, somewhat recklessly, you went chasing him. Didn’t matter if he was just something your mind conjured. According to you, if it was him, it was at least worth checking to make sure. You’d reunited with Arthur and after some tears, he rode with you back to camp. 

Upon your return, the gang welcomed you with open arms. 

You’d done a lot in your time alone.You spent most of that time just like that, a ghost wanderin’ the planes. You weren’t gonna stay with ‘em, but Arthur insisted and Hosea did too. That wasn’t enough to compel, so John was last to chip in. You should stay, at least until Valentine. 

(Silently he thought, you should stay so John can trace memories of you. It was so long ago, he should’ve forgotten all of it. You were a year older than John and always on his ass but easy for him to talk to. Didn’t fuss over his failures. You just barely grew into your womanhood when you set your sights on running away. You wanted more than this life, and John never really forgave you for it. His first heartbreak, maybe - but it’s all too blurry for that. 

You understood him though better than anyone, and one day you were gone. Nothing’s really the same.) 

You changed tremendously and not at all. He missed you. God, did he ever. Missed you a long time. Didn’t realize how much until you came back and everything in him felt right again. Your return stirred up old feelings and everyone noticed. He wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, but he really wasn’t trying to fall back into anything with you. Not how he did. 

Just like you did back then, you read John like an open book. And just like he did back then, he loved you all too helplessly for it.  It was just all too easy again, to be with you. 

You stayed out of the way at first, for the sake of his family. 

But, John ain’t a half-decent man even when he’s trying to be. So he set himself on being with you. It wasn’t easy - most things with him aren’t as you’ll see.  Having you around again straightened what was left of his common sense, at least. He told Abigail before telling you. He figured you wouldn’t even reply unless that was all out of the way. That turned out as well as you’d expect.

 It was settled between the two of you thereafter. He’s lucky she didn’t toss him into the street. 

Everything works out in a way. As best they can between broken people. You make peace with each other. His boy loves you like a third parent (you’re better with him than John is). Abigail commends you for straightening out such a worthless man though she’s a little melancholy.  John just tries to stay out of the way. You’ll be together in the end. There’s a plan with the five of you. 

But until it all falls apart, he doesn’t get all that much time with you. 

There’s moments like tonight, though. Rare ones. Together out robbin’, cooped out some place in the woods where no one is around. A place so shaded by nightfall that John can absolve himself of every sin he’s ever committed in his life and pray at the altar between your hips. John is convinced he might find worship like he’s always hearing about there whenever he touches you, the marred skin of his hands and knuckles reading the scripture of your body with careful precision. 

You might turn him into a literate man yet. 

John glances up at you. Only the light of the fire and the moonlight there to accompany as he watches you over him. You’re beautiful. John couldn’t picture a single thing more perfect in his life. 

Your hands against his bare chest, nails digging into the flesh as you lean forward. Your palm dug into the dirt, John finds his own hands rested at your hips. John looks at you awe-struck, cock twitching at the mere sight. His heart settles in his throat, but he’s calm all at the same time. With you, he forgets. All of it. The worst of himself. 

Bare naked and so close, he watches your face as you strain. You feel soft. Every inch of you in comparison to him is. A bead of sweat slides down the valley of your breasts. John cranes his neck up to catch it with his tongue, licking a stripe up to your neck - letting his teeth sink into the space between your jaw and neck. You want to make it last and John doesn’t blame you. It’s so rare you get to have each other so unrestrained. John can feel all the ways you want him, can see it in your face - all pinched with need. You’re holding yourself back, trying to get it to last as long as the night will allow. It’s cute in a way.

It’s different than how he’s used to seein’ you, all cocky or otherwise. You’re needy like this. Just needy. His stomach turns with lust, jolting through him like a strike of lightning. His cock twitches against your folds, sliding against them. Pure admiration watching the sticky mess of his pre-cum and your own arousal mix together and smear on your mound. You make a soft noise in the back of your throat, faint and tender as you fall forward just a little. John laughs against your neck. 

“Darlin’,” He says with a huff. Not malice. Something akin to bliss, where he can rarely afford it “Have I done something to piss you off today?” 

You pick yourself up and look down at him and frown. John kisses the corner of your mouth, resisting some crude desire to fuck up into you. 

“Just,” You grunt as the tip of his cock passes over your throbbing clit, your whole body wracking to a shiver. John looks awed. “Pent up. Goddamn it,” 

John figures it out quickly after that. It’s this part of it he likes. The proximity. The closeness. Feeling the tremble in your hands as they struggle to keep up right, muscles strained in your forearms. Being able to hold you, to keep the pace or let you take the lead. The clear view of your face as pleasure travels up through your spine and melts into you. He grabs your hips, the fat dimpling underneath his fingers as he moves you along. He can’t wait. You don’t bother to protest seeing John can’t seem to bear it anymore. You collapse into his chest, your tits pushed flat against his pecs.

His cock throbs near painfully, sliding against your soft cunt before finding himself lined with you. He thinks to himself that it’s this he was looking for, as he tucks your face against his neck and lets his tip stretch you out slowly. Such a vice like grip, stretching - resisting him like your whole body can’t anticipate the sensation of fullness. You gasp against his throat. 

“John,”  

What a sweet sound from your mouth, even sweeter as he bucks himself up. Keeps you steady and lets his cock stretch you full, feel you deep. “That’s right, my angel. Didn’t think you’d remember my name when you’re all worked up like this.” 

“You’re,” You gasp and John thrusts, thrusts hard until he’s buried to the hilt. You shudder, walls pulsing around him as he bottoms out and John laughs like the terrible man he is. He fucks you again, over and over - a wicked little smile watching “Awful. Just awful, John Marston,” 

“Ain’t that the truth,” He hums against your mouth as his hand snakes between your bodies, thumb rubbing against your clit. “Wonder what kinda woman that makes you,” 

“A foolish one,” 

John laughs. 

“I sure do love you for it,”

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆JAVIER ESCUELLA + SIDEWAYS ;

Javier hasn’t thought about much other than surviving. 

It’s been like that. Been like that for a while, probably much longer than he cares to admit. He’s sure any sane man would suffer the same plight if they lead the same life. Anything but survival is little more than a pipe-dream, so Javier tries not to go for anything too strongly. In that aspect he’s like many of the members of the gang he’s in, perhaps that’s why he sticks to them. There’s that phrase Hosea’s always saying - that misery loves company. Javier will take any decent company he can get.  He’s desperate for it just like he’s desperate for most things - inwardly, silently. 

Some of that desperation may be symptomatic of who he is. After he killed a man in a crime of passion for a woman he loved and ran from a government who would sooner exile him than change, Javier decided to not dream anymore. Every revolutionary who dreams too hopefully pays the price in blood.

(Javier thinks there’s probably nothing in the world as true as this. A form of gospel. He remembers the first dream he ever had after his uncle passed. Not a nightmare but a dream. He remembers the exact feeling of waking up, cold and confused. What is a dream, except a memento of survivor's guilt that loyal people cling onto fruitlessly. When hope starts to feel like a debt he’s going to waste his life paying back, Javier loses sight of everything. The beginning of the end in some way.) 

His mind doesn’t occupy itself with anything bigger than that. Since Dutch found him starving, there was never a desire to try and live off aspirations. He pays his penance with loyalty and honor. Practices some form of humility and tries, not too desperately, to carve a place for him to fit. All without drawing too much attention or caring too much. If you ignore the bleeding in his fingers, his penchant for knives over guns, and his refusal to talk too long about the place he comes from - it’s nearly believable that none of it matters. 

Except loyalty. All Javier honors is that. It’s the only thing he has some part in choosing, so he choses it every time. Living like that didn’t make any difference to him. He was surrounded by mostly decent people. He didn’t hate the life he was living. 

It wasn’t important. It didn’t matter. His directionless-ness, his floating. Hadn’t since he joined the gang. At least not to anyone but him. He didn’t know what he’s meant to do or if he was meant to proceed with this forever. He was (is)  loyal to Dutch. To the gang. 

He hadn’t thought much about what comes after. 

And it didn’t matter until he met you

He’d sworn off love after seeing where it got him, at least until he could love more dispassionately. When the women bring you back from their outing from Valentine and beg Dutch to let you stay, Javier doesn’t think much of it all. He thinks you’re pretty, if it counts for anything. But he doesn’t let himself linger on you too long. 

But that’s the sequence with you two, really. The whole time.  He doesn’t linger until he does. It doesn't matter until it does. He doesn’t think about you until it’s all he can think about. 

You go for him first. And it’s in little, unimportant ways that might not mean shit to you but mean a whole lot to him. You have some kind of tenderness about you that you wear deep, runs through your blood like love ran through his once long ago. Some softness he can’t really measure with his own. It’s not that that gets him. It’s that sometimes you look at Javier like he's … someone you want to see. He forgot what that was like all together. It felt foreign to him the first time it happened. Seeing how you light up when Javier is around. 

You wanted to see him. You noticed that he’s gone. If he sang by the campfire - you’d sit by him and listen.  If he was out in the trees keeping guard, he’d hear the soft call of your voice to Grimshaw ask Where’s Javier? And sometimes the girls will make fun of you - but you wouldn’t deny anything they said. It’s so small and ordinary. He would’ve never considered himself simple before meeting you. Nothing is simple. Nothing. 

(But then, Javier thinks of the kinds of songs he sings and the way he takes care of himself and the clothes he wears and maybe Javier has some kind of affinity for preciousness that explains all of it.) 

When Javier confesses his feelings for you - he finds the affair to be like most things between you. Ordinary love, not really between outlaws but people. It’s up against a tree while you share a drink and he’s looking at the curve of your mouth and the plum color Karen’s so kindly put on you. And his head fills with kissing you so he does. A breathless confession between alcohol stains and the feeling of your hands curled in the lapels of his suit. 

From there, Javier is your lover. He’s not interested in the business of secrets, but he tries not to let it show too much. Not that he doesn’t want to. He wants to show you off more than anything - at least some part of him does. But the other part wants to keep you away from prying eyes, keep his love for you only where the both of you can see. If he could keep that pretty lovestruck face you make all to himself forever he would. 

When he gets a chance to whisk you away from everything, Javier jumps at the chance. Not often, but Javier makes time for you. Makes time to indulge in love he thought he’d  never find again. 

That’s why he’s here with you in the middle of nowhere, a ghost town where no one knows you.. A reserved room with a bed and lowlights all to yourselves. 

Javier can’t keep his hands to himself and he doubts you expect him too. 

For Javier, this sense of proximity is what intoxicates him most. The warmth of your bare skin in the slivers of yourself exposed. Javier is fond of finding you like this after a long day of horse riding. Of sneaking touches to your waist as you push back against him to sleep, only to find his desire for you - laid clearly. He likes hearing you whimper feeling his length poke against your back, the embarrassment when it dawns on you that he wants you after all. Always surprised, even though Javier tells you it so often. Whispers it along your neck and shoulders whenever you’re at camp together.

You like the feeling of his hands so Javier always starts with them. He squeezes your hips. Planes his palms over your chest before squeezing your chest, pushing the fat between his fingers. You like the way  they look when they grope you, his chin resting against your shoulder as you spoon. In the lowlights of a cheap hotel - Javier gets the perfect view of your silhouette. Your body is sensitive over the fabric of your gown, heat prickling through you. 

Javier who is always so gentle with you, rouses so deep listening to your whining as he explores your body. The suffocating closeness of a single bed intoxicates him. 

“Javier,” Your voice is sweet and thin. Plays in Javier’s head like music and makes his mouth curl up into a catlike grin as you push back on him.  You look slightly over your shoulder, lips pushed into a pout. “Please,” 

He tugs at the fabric of your nightgown. The top half pulls haphazard underneath your tits, nipples perky and sensitive to touch while the skirt pools at your waist. What gets Javier like this is the desperation. Wanting so much but not being able to look too long. A way for you to mirror him, it’s a matter of possession. In some stupid way. Bunching your clothes up, pushing the fabric of your panties to one side, letting his arm wrap around your waist to touch and tease.  All of these are imprints of his longing, tucked faithful into your side as he whispers sweet nothings into your skin.

His cock twitches as it pushes past your folds with finality, your hands curling up at your sides.  You whimper softly, let your cheek rest against the sheets as Javier takes you on your side. Terribly close, you fuss as you feel him slide every inch into you slow, your hands reaching back for purchase. It’s the fit of you against him so perfect, the silent strokes of intimacy, the hush-hush giggles between the sheets that Javier loves most about fucking you like this. Too enamored with you to look too closely, he lets his eyes flutter closed. He could get drunk just being in your space. 

He carves out space for himself inside of you, feels your cunt accommodate for him like it loves him. A feverishness breaks out as his forehead rests on the space between your shoulders, an uncharacteristic whiny quality in his words. 

“Ser mío,” Javier says - as a reflection of what he really wants, to belong only to you. “Belong to me.” 

Darling as you always are, you nod softly. 

“All yours, Javier,” You whimper, finding his hand. “Forever,”

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆ CHARLES SMITH + MATING PRESS ; 

Wandering. 

He’s been doing it his whole life. Not something he’s proud of. Or ashamed of either, really. Just how things have gone for him until now. Charles doesn’t think his life has been any better or any worse than anyone else's. At least not when he weighs it with the same kind of pragmatism he does most things. It’s been a hard life, and a miserable one in so many ways. Still, it’s not something Charles is too keen to dwell on. 

There’s just something thematic about loss in Charles' life in a way he finds completely unpleasant. It’s more constant than anything. Loss of his home, loss of his mother, loss of his father in an attempt to find what’s best for him. It’s some overarching message that hangs over his head like a shadow. Everywhere he goes, trying to rectify his own solitude seems to come back to him. It doesn’t help that it’s an unfair world to start with, and would’ve been if he had just been black or just been native. But Charles is both, and has lived a life that reflects that specific injustice thoroughly. 

There’s not really anything Charles can do about it, at its baseline. When he left his father, the name of the game had simply been survival. He was well-equipped enough for that at least. But after survival comes trying to live and trying to live isn’t something so simple. Jumping in and out of gangs who thought they could get away with slighting him or generally being surrounded by unpleasant people. Trying to find something in pages of book and scripture, or in the way water ripples when it rains. 

He’s never felt any one way towards the gang. Even when he joined them all the way back in the Grizzlies. Lost in the cold, they’d crossed paths as Charles was out hunting. A lot of it feels like a blur. Of all the folks he’s met in his travels though, Dutch treats him fair and the rest of them (or most of them) are decent, honest folk. Charles stays in the Van Der Linde gang for such simple reasons as trying to stay alive and be somewhere that isn’t actively hostile towards him. He’s a good gunman, and a better fighter. The inner workings of gang politics and forging connection isn’t at the forefront of his mind, with the exception of the kindest few. 

The Van Der Linde gang is just a place where he can figure out what his purpose is meant to be, even if he doesn’t find it there. He’s never expecting anything to come out from his loyalties to it. 

Of all the things Charles expects of his life in the Van Der Linde gang, love is at the very bottom of the list. 

Maybe it’s about time he stops being surprised by these things happening to him one or way another.

 You were a member of the gang far before him, and someone Charles took to quickly. You’d joined the gang not too long after John from what Arthur tells him. Though the brunette speaks about you more fondly than he does his brother. A problem child at the start, according to Arthur - always getting into all sorts of trouble. Something you seemingly feel embarrassed about now and refuse to bring up. Charles has a hard time picturing it having only known you as you are. 

The woman you’ve grown into is someone else completely, and Charles sees that in you all the time. Compassionate like Hosea but charismatic like Dutch, and clever. And you’re beautiful, too, though Charles feels a little shallow admitting that’s part of what drew you into him. 

It wasn’t Charles that approached you first. You were the one who spoke to him, as often as you thought necessary but never in a way he found invasive. He doesn’t know what it is exactly about you that charms him near instantly. You’re enigmatic to a fault. It’s like you always know exactly what to say and exactly when to say it. Even more than that, you’re a terribly pleasant person to be around. Subtly warm and free of assumptions. When Charles talks to you about anything, you listen without making him feel like it’s any sort of burden to you. You don’t pry, don’t make missteps. Treat him fair, and then some. 

It’s unbearably simple, just how quickly and how easily he comes to adore you.  And, in some ways, Charles knows better than to believe that his purpose is loving someone. There’s more to it than that, surely - after everything. 

But then, he’ll watch you do something. Watch you do some kind of menial work that he could do for you instead. Thinks of skinning animals for new clothes and chopping wood and rubbing the soap off of you and all of a sudden it makes him feel anchored. Everything he could do for you. You anchor Charles easily, with a wispy smile. Make him want to find purpose in life with you. He never wants to be somewhere you’re not. 

He confesses it to you just like that, and like you do with most things - you accept and reciprocate without making too much of a fuss. 

For Charles, making love is an extension of wanting to ground himself in you. A distant siren song - the intersection of lust and bone deep adoration. Like most things, you’re the one to approach first every time. A soft hand on his forearm, a whisper that you want him. It’s with ease that he draws you away. Drags from you camp during nightfall with his horse and blankets and picks a spot with the perfect view of the stars. 

Charles watches you under the glow of moonlight, his vision adjusting to you easily. Naked underneath him, laid on your back with your legs folded at your knees - heaving deep breaths. He can see the sweat beading down your skin, your chest rising and falling - and the perfect view of your pussy. His hands and mouth are wet as you breathe out. He finds himself smiling at you, his own erection pressed against your thigh, pre-cum leaking out in a mesmerized haze. 

You lift your hands up and he leans down, surprised as you wrap them around his neck and pull him closer to you. Your mouths meet like that, and Charles laughs against your lips as you kiss him so eagerly. You blink at him, pretty. You’re always prettier than he remembers you being the last time he looks. 

“Charles,” You frown at him. “It’s impolite to keep a lady waiting,” 

He kisses the corner of your mouth. “Sorry, my love. I don’t want to hurt you,” 

“Well, I’m fine with it,” You repeat, almost petulant. Charles frowns. “‘Sides, it ain’t my first time taking you, you know?” 

“Well, I’m not fine with it.” 

You pout, looking at him all endeared. Charles couldn’t help but love you even if he tried. “You ain’t gonna hurt me. C’mon. Please?” 

“Please, what?” 

You look at him aghast before breaking out into a faux-scandalized giggle. “Now you—please fuck me. Pretty, please.” 

Charles feels something tickling against his spine hearing you say it. He couldn’t imagine getting sick of you in his whole life.  “Yeah, that’s good to hear.” 

You make an indignant noise but it’s silenced quickly as Charles positions himself against your entrance. He has plenty of discipline when it comes to matters like these, but right now - he feels like he’s going to lose his mind. Not nearly enough patience to wait. He lets his hands go up underneath your knees just to have something to hold onto. 

You make a little gasp as the tip of his cock pushes into you. Your walls are so soft, likely after all the orgasms he’d given you prior. You stop him in a shocked gasp, and Charles immediately readies himself to pull out. As if sensing his hesitance, you shake your head. 

“Charles,” You gasp, the words caught in your throat and hoarse “Deep. Want it deep,” 

His abdomen tightens, cocking twitching hard at your words. He agrees silently to your desires. 

When it comes to sex, there’s very little Charles dislikes.

But this is his favorite. He’s simple but no other position lets him see you so close. He likes the way your eyes widen as he pushes up underneath your knees and folds you underneath his weight. How you look pinned down under him, the perfect view of your eyes rolling back into your head and the proximity from your face to his. He lets his cock stretch you out slowly, throbbing each time your nails dig desperately into arms trying to keep your composure. Fuck you feel so tight like that. Soft pussy, dripping and sticky. You suck him in relentlessly, and Charles groans as he bottoms out. You take every inch of him so well. So perfect like the rest of you. 

Your eyes flutter open as he stays there, buried in you in complete bliss. You’re dazed. 

“Kiss?” 

Surprise followed by adoration, he abides by your request easily. Overwhelmed with it as he presses a chaste peck to your mouth, he laughs. “As many as you want.”

Anything you want, Charles thinks, he would give to you. 

.𖥔 ݁ ˖˚☽˚｡⋆

[hanasnx]

“ YOU GOT A FETISH FOR MY LOVE, I PUSH YOU OUT AND YOU COME RIGHT BACK ” — anakin skywalker.

MINORS DNI 18+ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ NOTES: if this counts for kinktober, i'm saying the kink is begging. WARNINGS: ex!anakin ノ fem reader ノ mild angst ノ established relationship ノ size difference ノ sexual content: some p in v stuff ノ pathetic begging anakin.

All of your relationships leading up to this point had resolutely ended. There were no loose ends, and nothing worth sacrificing your self-respect for. You'd cut them off, or burn the bridge if you had to, just to ensure you couldn't backslide on your decision. It's an incredible trust to place in yourself, and a little lonely. No matter how much your heart ached for the person you separated from, you would not reach out, and you'd make it pretty clear you didn't want to hear from them either. One exception stands before you now, that familiar crease in EX!ANAKIN SKYWALKER's brow as he demands to be let inside.

"It can't end like this." A statement that leaves no room for argument. One of the reasons you called it quits in the first place is dating a general doesn't feel like dating, it just feels like taking orders. "Do you have any idea what I've done for you? What I've sacrificed?" he admonishes incredulously, taking up the space of your doorway as stand your ground.

"Anakin- leave." you command. You know he's just here to pick a fight, to see if he can break your spirit with guilt-tripping manipulations. It's hard to feel large against a towering figure like General Skywalker, but you're bold enough to try to. Even if he can sweep you out of his way with an arm, you block his entrance with your body.

"You stubborn girl. You don't understand anything, do you?" he spits, the deep lines of his scowl drawing shadows that cascade his expression to a near unrecognizable degree. If you didn't know him, you'd fear for your safety.

"I told you to go!" you cry, jabbing your finger over his shoulder to signal him to turn around.

He advances, forcing you to arch away. "You don't mean that!" His voice is a lot louder than yours, and it carries. The frown in your brow relaxes as your eyes widen in response to his outburst. In a way, it's a keen reading. If it combats the loneliness of your self-sabotaging nature, you wish you'd let yourself invite him to stay. However, your pride has gotten you this far, and you don't want to appear weak. Perhaps, you don't want him to go, but it's the right thing to do.

You've been through so much together, and you're sure that he only holds onto you so tightly because you're all he's ever known when it comes to romantic entanglements. If he had been more experienced when you'd met him, he wouldn't have such passionate outrage about being refused.

He's the only one who's chased you so closely while you ran away. Retreating from intimacy, retreating from love, he's the only one who's seen right through you, and demanded you anyway.

"Anakin, you should go." you whisper against his lips as he backs you up deeper into your apartment. Eager hands curtly whip your clothes from your body, careful not to disrupt the connection of your mouths, recycling breath between you.

"Please, don't say that—You don't mean that." he murmurs, the vulnerability of being rejected laced into his plea. Your hands suspended in air from shock come to rest on his leather padding, helping him out of his robing like you've done a thousand times before. It's like a dance, the way your figures move fluidly, retracing the steps, how he backs you up against the wall as he slips his tongue between your lips, tilting his head to reach you as you're less than cooperative. The taste of him intoxicates you, coaxing your own tongue to smooth over his, and he expels a pleasant noise through his nose. His fingers splay on your shoulders, keeping you in place while staying at an uncharacteristic distance. It's as if he's begging for you with his body, showing you he'll do whatever it takes to prove to you his devotion, his love. Kiss him without touching places he's not allowed to touch anymore.

Part of you wishes he'd get over that, and in a fit of impatience, you place them for him, tracing them over the curves of your bare figure.

Herding you to the bedroom you once shared, his hand comes to cup the nape of your neck, pinning you to him as he delves his tongue deeper. You've never had anyone kiss you like Anakin, and if you didn't care for him it would be unpleasant. The impatient plunge of an inexperienced lover still laces the way he makes out with you, and it's clingy, it's forceful, it's desperate. At its end, he sucks your bottom lip between his, dragging it through his teeth. Plump, wet, and pink he speaks against yours, hushed and hurried. "Say you love me." he breathes—another plea, delicately concealed.

"Say you love me." he asks again, holding your gaze while he enters you. The fragile flinch of his softened features endears you, reintroducing his sex to yours as if its his first time—like the sensation is just too much, evidenced by the hitch in his throat when he questions you.

He sinks to the hilt over and over again, using his own hands to wrap your legs around his hips, keeping you close in embrace. He squeezes his eyes shut, grunting through his mouth from effort as he buys your love with his body, begs for your attention through his pitying ministrations. "Say you love me." he pleas one more time. "Please- please, I need you. Even if you don't mean it, even if you hate me... just... just..."

You bite hard into your lip, trying to think your way through the pleasure coursing through your veins. Skin hot and mind occupied, you clutch onto him as if he grounds you. In the dull light of the room, you find his eyes again, glossy and bloodshot. You palm his cheek, and his face softens. "I love you." you concede. The wall you've put up begins to dismantle.

[occasionalsnippets]

I’m curious about Tim and MC’s relationship.

Like, is Tim grateful for the fact that MC took care of him?

Does he know that MC took his shifts as Robin so he wouldn’t deal with B’s bad days/nights?

Does he know that Jack and Janet didn’t really like MC?

How much does he resent Jack and Janet?

How does he bond/show his love for his sibling?

Also, how would the members of the Batfam bond with MC? (Before and After Damian snitched)

And what do the Batfam think of MC?

- Storm.Anon

Focusing on just Tim for this! Send another ask for other Batfam members owo because I do want to individually dig into each relationship.

Taglist: @dragondevinity, @lonely-star2044, @sheep-from-rad, @ilxandra, @thethingwiththefeathers, @star-wars-lycanwing-bat, @sackofsadstuff, @zonked-times, @paastaboi, @venfia, @fantasy-angelo, @linaisadream, @shirp-collector-of-fixations

Their relationship is both less complicated and more complicated than it should be. On one hand, you’re Tim's older sister-caretaker-parental figure-best friend- who can’t be categorized neatly into any singular category. On the other hand, none of those categories matter when you are the person he trusts more than anyone else in the world. More than he trusts himself.

Your parents do not hate you. You were an accident (huge, immensely big, giant accident) but they do care for you in some nebulous, difficult to discern, rich-people kind of way. They give you all the money you could want. They teach you the rules of high society and how to deal with the company. They try. Sometimes.

In many ways, you are their protege and student before a lot of things but you are still your mother’s child. A reflection of Janet Drake in every way that matters with a mind like a steel trap and a mouth that murmurs sweet poison. It is one of the main things Tim notes as a child when he thinks of you and mother.

The biggest mark against your parents, really, is the neglect. Their children weren’t their number one priority and both you and Tim knew. They could be worse. They could be better. C+ parenting all around.

Tim’s view on Jack and Janet are a bit fickle? Inconsistent? Complicated? He had wished for a very long time when he was younger for them to come home more often but he never really processed the whole situation until you forced everyone to get therapy. There’s quiet sadness in his feelings about his parents but not really resentment, not like you.

Not that those feelings have anywhere to go anymore. Both of you still grieved during their funerals.

Tim gives you gifts on mother and father's day and overtime the message written in the cards attached get longer and sillier. He still remembers the stillness of your initial reaction when he first presented you with a card.

He hadn't really noticed how much you did behind the scenes until he got older and realized you were internalizing a hell of a lot of things. His early days of existence are marked by your ever encompassing presence in his life. His parents leave. You stay. You always stay even as he digs himself into the pit that is becoming Robin.

He can always rely on you. If there is any truth in his life then it is that you will always be there for him. So, when you tell him with dark shadows cast upon your face that he shouldn't go out as Robin tonight, he accepts with minor protests.

You keep detailed reports on patrol to keep everyone updated when you're filling in as Robin and the ones from Tim's early days are... rough. Tim reads them because of course he does, and talks with you about it. A lot. You insist that he shouldn't have to deal with Batman because Tim is like 13 and Tim keeps saying that he chose this. So, the two of you compromise on it. Teamwork makes the dream work, right?

No one else really reads the old patrol reports. What happens during the early days stays between you and Tim and Bruce. Tim thinks Bruce still feels guilty about it, about both him and you.

Tim shows affection for you the same way you show affection. He'll go to company meetings in your stead. He learns to cook and bring meals to you when you're too busy. He orders materials for your hobbies whenever he notices you're running out.

Your relationship is not immune to normal sibling shenanigans though. You yell, you fight, he stands a centimetre away from the entrance of your room for no apparent reason, the two of you want to kill each other sometimes because "mother and father always liked you better-" and "I never wanted to raise you-"

You and Tim are so crazily co-dependent even if it isn't obvious. You're a bit less dependent than he is but you've also revolved your life around him and everything you do is basically for him so how true that statement is can be debated.

Sometimes you think you need him in order to be allowed to exist. There is no role for you except in reference to him, to your little brother who you'd give the world to.

Tim literally doesn't know how he'd survive or live without you. You taught him unconditional love. You're his favourite person. You've always protected him. He can't fathom the idea of existing without you.

You're impossible to separate from him and him from you. Aren't the two of you one and the same? Where does one end and the other begin? Who is he if not a reflection of you and who you raised him to be?

Alsjfjak so yeah. The Siblings. Them.

[0rczy]

I really like analyzing Varigo, one thing I've noticed recently is how different their approach to romance (and human connections in general) really is, but also how they're pretty much the perfect foils in this regard.

Varian grew up sheltered away in their mansion. He didn't have much clue about socializing, so when Rapunzel came to him, he gives all of them proper respect (calling Rapunzel "Princess", Eugene "Flynn Rider", as in the full name). You could assume it's because of his dad; later when the two confronted each other, Varian called him "Sir". Probably because Quiring taught him to be respectful of others, and they both clearly take this social rule rather seriously.

So then Cassandra comes in and saves Varian, for apparently no selfish reasons. She likely just didn't want to have a child get crushed when she could've prevented it, but to Varian, this changes his view on people. Cassandra isn't just a distant figure to respect; instead, someone he could have a connection with. And this is where one of Varian's most essential traits come to light: when comfortable, he treats situations like an experiment. He immediately starts calling her by a nickname, "Cassie", to see how she would react. At the day of the expo, he keeps trying out different tactics, trying to essentially just get close to Cassandra. One could Interpret this romantically, but I personally like to think he just really wanted a friend. A lonely kid, seeing someone cool show any kind of affection for him immediately made him go "there could be something here! I need to find out!", and so he does. In his own, nerdy way.

Hugo, on the other hand. He, unlike Varian, grew up having to socialize all the time. Having to talk his way out of situations constantly, he learned to put up walls so that the most desirable results come out, benefiting him and his missions. When he weasels his way into the Team, he also calls them nicknames. In his case, it stems from a need to distance himself from people, so that he doesn't get attached. One slight exception though is Varian, as Hugo seemingly not only uses nicknames on him to keep up built-up walls, but to get a reaction out of him. This is very similar to how Varian approached Cassandra when he was younger. He's interested in Varian from early on, and he handles this in his good old Hugo fashion, because he finds Varian entertaining. Varian at first doesn't trust Hugo, but when he proves himself trustworthy, he gives in. He's willing to reach out, making Hugo more than a means to an end. Eventually, the two become friends! Then more than friends!

And then, their approaches change.

I'd like to think that it was Hugo, who fell first. Or at the very least, he's the first to realize it, and he HATES THIS. His flight or flight is activated, and he really wants to flee. He's the type to ignore his feelings, try to bury them. That's all he knows how to do, really. Especially because for what could be the first time in his life, he's actually falling for someone who is his friend. Someone who means a lot to him! He wouldn't want to ruin things, especially because he knows that betraying Variant will break the guy's heart, once he finds out. Therefore, the less pain, the better.

Varian is the exact opposite of this. It takes him a long time to figure out what he feels, and that it could be romantic (he didn't exactly have the history with romance before. The "puppy crush" on Cassandra could have easily been more of an obsession with the possibility of someone showing affection towards him). But once he realizes that there's a chance that the two could be a thing? He doesn't have to think hard about what his next step should be: he likes Hugo, and he's a scientist. Trial and error is practically in his blood at this point, so if there's even a small possibility of them getting together? That Hugo likes him back? Varian will do anything to find out how probable his theory is. And so, once again, he treats the situation like an experiment. Wasting no time, he tries to confess or bring up the idea as quickly as possible. And Hugo FREAKS OUT. He's not ready!

Varian's other big trait is his stubbornness. He's not satisfied with an uncertain answer. He wants to know Hugo's view on them, as clearly as possible. So he keeps poking around, trying to find an approach that brings out different reactions, different answers as to why Hugo would be scared of them being together. Again. Really similar to how he treated Cassandra at the expo back then. This is the only way he knows how, though. And he needs clear answers.

He gets one at the last trial. Boom. Heartbreak. This isn't about angst though, so I'll end it here.

I find them so interesting. How their upbringing influenced their view and approach to people, to friendship, to romance. To each other. They are both scientists, but one is more afraid of the results than the other.

So it all boils down to the importance of clear communication: another big theme in Vat7k, what with Ulla and Donella setting an example as what not to do.

I could ramble about these characters for ages, but yeah. This is my view on them, I loooove reading different Interpretations in fan fiction though!

[cannedsandwichh]

Jayce headcanons

I need more Jayce headcanons to fuel me so here we are. some are x reader but they're all pretty random lmaooo

hear me out jayce is a really big reader- or at least he was back in his high school days. he loved to read, almost about anything. he enjoyed everything from fantasy to sci-fi, and of course about non fictional stuff too, like physics books to try to figure out more about hex tech.

i feel like he'd be the same way about movies too. like he'd looove sci-fi type movies and binge watch documentaries as well.

he'd HATE horror movies though. he'd like being jump scared, but not for two hours straight.

jayce would be a big music nerd. I will die on this hill. like, while he was working on hex tech before he met Viktor he'd always have music playing. he didn't like the silence, it messed up his thoughts.

going off that note though, he hates silence while he's working. he needs some noise, may it be you, viktor, or himself talking, he needs it to stay sane and make him feel less lonely.

I feel like the poor baby didn't have many friends going up. all the kids thought he was weird since he'd talk about magic so much. he'd always act like he didn't mind what the other kids thought but in reality it always bothered him.

btw he'd loveee thinking out loud to whomever. he wants to rant to someone about his thoughts and hex tech. he'd ramble on for hours and you can just listen to him get excited about hex tech or a new discovery he found.

that being said, if he had a romantic partner, jayce would never shut up about them. someone would bring you up in a conversation and he'd just start yapping non stop about you.

you being his partner would be a lot to him, so he'd just talk about you a lot in general.

he always will make sure his partner is safe as well. seeing his mom almost die in front of him gave him a huge fear of losing anyone close to him.

if you got hurt he'd make such a big deal about it. you could have the common cold and he'd bug you about taking you to the doctor the whole time. he'd baby you the entire time as well, nursing you back to your original health.

while we're on the topic of romantic partners I'd like to note he'd fall for just about anyone really fast. you could just look at him and the poor boy would start catching feelings. thinking 'oh, they're cute'

i know everyone says this but I'll say it again because its true, jayce is a portable heater.

he'd give the nicest, warmest cuddles. he'd definitely wanna be the little spoon though, he likes being held. but if you like being the little spoon as well, he'd be very open to take turns

[leidensygdom]

The ways in which being asexual feels isolating

I've been pondering whether to post this or not, but I figured out I wanted to explain a bit of this experience.

So, I could go on a very long tangent on how being asexual is usually a lonely experience, and how much I've been otherized here and there- Specially in real life. How the same people that claimed to be queer (or allies) had been much weirder about my asexuality than they were about me being bi/pan or whatever.

But I think I wanna talk about how something like that bleeds in every aspect of socializing, even down to something like fandom. I stay away from fandom usually- I like to look at cool fanart and that's about it. I hate discourse, I hate drama, I hate reading people getting worked up because they're treating fanon as canon. But there's one thing I've noticed, over and over, that just sends me off my rails.

And it's how fandom tends to treat asexuality (or aromanticism). So, you get a character in some piece of media that explicitly, unequivocally, states they're either ace, aro, or both. "I do not have interest in a partner", "I don't desire to have sex nor do I enjoy the topic", whatever. And as an ace person, I do appreciate being able to see myself in media- There isn't many chases where something is established that bluntly.

Now, you decide you want to check some fanart for that. Fandoms have this tendency to make absolutely everything about shipping, even when the media they're basing it in does not revolve about that (and it's annoying, because a lot of times people aren't interested in the actual themes- It's all reduced to shipping). Suddenly, you notice people treating the aforementioned character as anything but aro or ace. It's all about shipping. "This person interacted with this other person in a way two friends would, but we gotta make this their entire personality now". Some people may instead go for "well, maybe the character is not having sex, but they're probably an absolute freak about it, studies it extensively, has encyclopedic knowledge about it-"

Now, there's of course sex-favourable aces, and that's completely valid, but it's already straying from what, canonically, the character had mentioned. Asexual or aromantic characters aren't really allowed to exist as themselves. People often see them as a blank slate to fill, to change, to fix. I could talk forever about how people react to real life aces like that. I've had people asking me incredibly invasive questions because they saw my lack of sexual attraction as something broken, something they could fix.

And I hate that! I think I'm allowed to say that I hate that! It's hard and unusual for media to cement an aro/ace character, because they're defined by the lack of interest for something, which is often hard to show. But when it does- No one seems to care. It's all shipping, it's all "well, he's gay in denial", "well, she's probably super repressed". If you took a canonically gay character and made them straight on a fanfic, you'd get angry people. Which is bound to happen when you erase representation that people identify with. But aro/ace characters are NOT even seen as queer, they're not even seen as "representation" by most people. You can erase that bit of it, put some god awful shipping on top, and people will applaud you. And it sucks!

I wish people would see being aro or ace as an identity worth respecting, not an identity that needs overwriting. It feels a bit too close to how people often treat aro/aces irl, and it sucks. It reeks of this sort of exclusionism, where "aro/aces are technically queer but it's queer lite at best, it's less interesting than being gay, and we kinda don't want them near us anyhow". Again, I've had far worse experiences about being ace than I have about not being straight.

Sorry if the post got long, but I hope this experience may at least resonate with other people who have been struggling with this, too. It has always felt just kind of lonely to be ace, and see how little people do even consider it an identity, even when it comes down to something like fandom.

[chipistrate]

Welcome to the Grand Opening of Freddy Fazbears Balloon Circus!

After an array of previous undisclosed incidents at the Mega Pizzaplex, ending with the sudden collapsing of the building due to an unexpected earthquake, Fazbear Enterprise has demolished the old mall and rebuilt a new and improved carnival on the property! But just because the attractions above ground have been overhauled, doesn't mean the secrets beneath the surface have magically disappeared.

Reblogs appreciated!

MANY more rambles about this AU under the cut: would much appreciate if you read them, but there's no obligations!

EVERYTHING HERE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE!! This AU has just been pieced together by my insane ramblings to my friend over the past few days, so everything in it's early stages of development, and this post is being written VERY late while I'm very sleep deprived and just trying to finish it in time to schedule it! If some things are a bit weird or inconsistent then please keep that in mind! Thank you! :D

Gregory, Vanessa, and Freddy all return to the now renovated lot where the Pizzaplex once stood, having been called back two years after their last failed visit too save a long lost friend, too repair their old creation known at the M.X.E.S after it was suddenly and unexplainably shut down again. Upon entering the new-ish carnival, they'll quickly find it hard to safely look for the entrance to the layers below as the friendly mascot suits above chase after them for being unwanted guests.

Above ground, they're hunted by the mascots- new suits built for both performers and endoskeletons to be able to wear. This night, controlled by corrupted endoskeletons, they've been ordered to chase after the intruders by someone lurking below the carnivals ground. As well as finding the littler animatronics, known as Balloon Babies, to be quite the inconvenience.

Below ground, they're hunted by the old Glamrocks, still functional after all this time, and now under a new threats command that's also trying to keep the 3 star family from reaching M.X.E.S; Vannie. Aka, Cassie. Still here in the ruins of it all, waiting for the her perfect moment to lure the family back in and get her revenge for what they did to her all those years ago.

The mascots are the new faces of the Freddy Fazbears Balloon Circus, their costumes built to be worn by both endoskeletons and actors- but in a safer way than the springlock suits. The actors are used during the day for greeting and interacting with guests, putting on performances, etc etc. While the endoskeletons are used at night as a replacement for security guards and STAFF bots, kindly, but forcefully, escorting any intruders off the premises. Under Vannie's control they, of course, are much less kind and gentle with how they "escort" the 3 star fam out of the carnival.

Balloon Babies are smaller, almost Helpy-like animatronics in appearance, built to keep lost and lonely children happy and entertained while waiting for their guardian to arrive. They can't speak, but they can play song, games, sound effects, blow up balloons with their fingertips, etc etc. They found Gregory after he had been forcefully split up from Vanessa and Freddy by the mascots, and upon the family reuniting, the Balloon Babies more annoying feature kicked in: The Emergency Alert System. Whenever a child they are playing with is approached by an odd looking adult or other figure that seems like they could be a potential threat to the child's safety, whether that be a kidnapper, unfit guardian, bully, etc. the Balloon Babies will use their emergency alert system to call one of the mascots over and deal with the threat, kindly guiding the threat away and bringing the kid to a safer area away from potential danger where they can stay with staff until a proper guardian arrives. The Balloon Babies had decided in their time with Gregory that Vanessa and Freddy were unfit guardians for leaving Gregory scared and alone this late at night, and any time Vanessa and/or Freddy is nearby, their alert system will sound off and call a mascot to their location. The problem, other than the obvious, is that the Balloon Babies are fixated on Gregory. They will always be attracted to him and find their way back to him no matter what, with the only exception being when he's under ground. Which means that, until they can find a way to deactivate or otherwise get rid of these guys, Gregory is forced to be split up from Vanessa and Freddy above ground, and regroup underground.

The only exception is Goldie, a soft yellow version of the Freddy Balloon Baby that doesn't follow the others. Goldie is the only one of the Balloon Babies that can go underground, Vannie specifically programming him to be able to do so. He follows Vannie around and provides her with much needed company, being her only real friend down here besides Roxy. Later on, Gregory will find Goldie, but instead of calling for the mascots whenever Vanessa is near, he'll send out a signal to distract the other Balloon Babies away from Gregory so they won't call for the mascots or overwhelm him. Goldie can tell that Vanessa and Freddy are fit guardians that love Gregory very much, and can also tell that they're afraid of the mascots, though he can't compute why- it's his job to make sure that kids and their families are safe, so he's doing his best to ensure their safety however he can. Later on, Vannie will come looking for her friend after a long period of time of him being away and find him with the 3 star family, causing more conflict between the two parties that Goldie can't understand- Cassie and Gregory are supposed to be friends, aren't they? That's what Cassie said. Friends aren't supposed to fight each other, they're supposed to protect each other. That's what Goldie believes, at least.

Random trivia;

-Gregory, Freddy, and Vanessa have been living together for about 3 years now. 1 year by the time of Ruin, and 2 years after the fact leading up to Balloon Circus.

-Cassie has been gaslit into thinking that all the stuff Dr. Rabbit did was actually Gregory himself with no outside influence, only fueling her want for revenge, not only for the elevator incident, but everyone he hurt. This will affect Gregory greatly(he has not 100% recovered and this Does Not Help).

-Cassie still doesn't fully trust the Mimic, despite being under its influence. She let the M.X.E.S stay up after the 3 star family put it back up after Ruin despite Mimic's demands for her to shut it down again, assuring him it was "part of her plan". She wasn't entirely lying, shutting down the M.X.E.S was how she wanted to lure the family back, but she'd be lying if she said it wasn't also partially because she wanted to keep "that old endo" sealed away. He's not completely free from fault either.

-Gregory and Vanessa both have chips implanted in their heads, it's how Dr. Rabbit and Vanny took over way back when. Those same chips gave them VR vision, but the chips have since been "domesticated" and can't go full VR mode anymore. Despite this fact, they do still have a few side effects of the VR vision, such as some walls and objects simply not existing, despite them looking perfectly normal and real. They can phase through them without trouble, and this helps them navigate the Balloon Circus, becauseeeeeee;

-Cassie was there during the construction of the circus and set up VR walls in certain spaces to help her hide out and travel around undetected, even during the day. The 3 star family can also use these now as an easier way of navigating through the circus, but also as a way to hide from the mascots and even sometimes the Balloon Babies.

-The entrance to the underground levels is behind a VR wall, but it's one set up by the construction workers so the patrons wouldn't notice it. The reason an intentional opening is there is because the new entrance is now used as a dumping ground for stuff from random items from the ruins of the Pizzaplex to unused stuff from the circus to anything the employees with access to the area want to throw in there. It's how the ruined Glamrocks ended up there.

-The Glamrocks were being slowly reintroduced to the public, the biggest attraction so far being 'Chica of the Sea', a tent for the underwater hologram show of a prerendered mermaid Glamrock Chica that would swim around, wave at guests, and do a few preset moves that employees could turn on whenever. There's hints of them wanting to reintroduce the others as well that haven't been shown off to the public yet, with the new roles being; Glam Freddy and Bonnie are the co-ringmasters of the main tent where the mascots performances are held, making sure everything runs smoothly. Roxanne is the mascots and glamrocks make up artist, as well as offering to do make up/face paint for any patrons that came by her tent (for a price, of course). And Monty would roam around the circus grounds as a strongman showing off his incredible strength. He also has a tent for this, but he was mostly supposed to roam around and sometimes try and make people swing by his tent, mostly so they would buy his merch.

-Chica being the first to be reintroduced has an effect on her character below ground, with her hearing the news and trying her best to dress herself up in whatever scraps she could find to look like her mermaid counterpart, practicing her singing and dancing despite her condition so she could prove that she could be just as good as the hologram if she just got a few repairs.

-Roxanne is headless, having lost her head in her tussle with the Mimic. But she still has control of both her body and head, carrying around her decapitated head in her arms.

-Vannie/Cassie cares about Goldie soso much that's her new bestie<33 Friendship ended with Gregory, Goldie is new best friend<3 (I'm so sorry Gregory)

-Vannie is also known as Vengeful Vannie, but usually shortened to just 'Vannie'. A callback to the "Vengeful Spirit" aka Cassidy, because I think the parallels between the two are neat<3 (THIS MEANS NOTHING LORE WISE IT'S JUST A NAMING THING.)

-Some of the stuff at Balloon Circus was bought from the carnival mentioned to be across the street from the Pizzaplex in the TFTPP epilogues, and rebranded to fit with the new Fazbear theming

I wanna talk more about these guys later- not sure what else exactly to do with them, but if anybody has any questions then feel free to send 'em to my inbox! I'll be more than happy to reply to the best of my abilities<3

[teaboot]

I used to dream of finding Home.

Somewhere between my tweens and my teens, the house my family lived in stopped feeling like a comfortable pocket where I belonged and started feeling more like a roomshare with strangers.

I'd read a lot of books. A lot of stories about outsiders and misfits who fell into grand adventures that led them into perfect little keyhole they were destined to slide into. I thought that someday, in a much less exciting or eventful way, the same would happen to me. If I worked very hard to be good and kind and forgiving then I'd stumble into Home.

It never happened.

I moved from town to city to country, and didn't find it. Every building felt the same, no matter how long I stayed. None of them felt natural, or easy, or safe.

I was living in a dilapidated loft above a busted-out mortuary when I figured it out.

No running water. No heat. No AC. No furniture or mattress or internet, and a dusty bathroom with a broken toilet and a sink inexplicably pre-filled with cigarette butts, and it finally clicked.

I ripped out the old carpet. Swept the floors. Taped the sun out of the windows with foil and foam and big black garbage bags. Cleaned off an old shelf, stole a cot, piled all my blankets on top of it, painted pictures and taped them to the walls and spray-painted a mural and leaned a tarnished old mirror up against the wall.

I found a room divider in an old office room and took a lamp left out with the trash and set up an empty coffee pot with cheap silk flowers. Hung a shower curtain in the morgue and turned a storage bin into a bath and hooked my towel on a loose nail stuck into the wall.

And when I left, and left everything behind, I found another little empty hole in the world and did it all over again.

That's something I don't think I could have learned from all my stories. It's not something very interesting to read about, some lonely stranger puttering about by themselves in a hot, dark room. But it's important to share it, I think, so I've done my best.

I think that a Place is a beast, and to make it a Home, you have to dig in your claws and fight for it, tooth and nail.

Then, once you've tired it out, string up lights below it's ribcage and pet it nice between the ears until it purrs.

[writingsbychlo]

SWEET LIKE SUGAR | 01

summary; azriel is lonely, and goes to the pleasure house. he doesn't get very far before his world is flipped upside down, and he's not the only one.

word count; 7646

notes; working title. working fic. everything is just a work-in-progress. not sure how I feel about posting this, so if we all hate it, lets not tell me, okay? because I love it. I just didn't know if I wanted to share it.

You stared up at the building before you, nervously tugging at the hem of your dress. Your lungs would barely open to take a breath, every pounding note of the music from inside reverberating out across the pavement seems to shake you to your bones, and your heart was racing so fast it might tear right out. 

The smell of alcohol spilt out across the street, and the sweet tang of mirthroot smoke sat heavy in the air. It was cloying, probably even thicker inside. A voice cleared, impatient and deep, and you jolted out of your thoughts. 

“You’re blockin’ the fuckin’ door.” He growled, words already a little slurred, and your cheeks heated as his gaze leered across your body, a smirk forming on his lips. “‘Less you’re goin’ inside? If that’s the case, let me escort you.”

“No, no. I’m— you go ahead, please.” Your words could barely be choked out, the male rolling his eyes at you before swinging the door open and stepping inside, the music loud enough for a split second to shock you once again. Stumbling back a couple of steps, your body slammed into someone else, a squeak leaving your lips, and your eyes began to sting at the overwhelm of emotions now. “I’m so sorry, I’m in the way, I’ll just—”

“Are you alright?”

A pathetic laugh left you at the question, beyond your control as the wet sound of your inevitable tears leaked into it, despite your best effort to keep them at bay. “No. Nothing is okay, not even a little bit. Everything sucks, actually. Everything is shit, and I’m scared, and I hate it. No, I’m not alright.”

With a heaving breath, one that seemed to shake through every cell in your body, you hauled a watery gaze up to the owner of the deep voice and ridiculous question. And up, and up. Good God’s, he was tall, even in your stupid heels. He had a sharp jawline, lips pursed in a flat line, a straight nose, and thick brows raised in silent question. Or judgement, you really weren’t sure. No matter what, he was one of the most attractive men you’d ever seen, though. What he was doing here, you had no idea.

“I’m sorry. You should— you’re going inside, right? You should go inside, don’t let the sobbing girl in the street ruin a very fun night for you.” Stepping to the side, and raising your arm to wave at the club, he didn’t budge, and your gaze tracked back to his. 

“You’re not going inside?” His sights dropped, scanning along the material that could barely be called a dress, that you’d had to buy from a lingerie store just to be appropriate, and you still felt exposed. Warmth rushed to your cheeks once again, that lump returning to your throat, and you shook your head. 

“No. No, I don’t think I can.”

“You don’t work here?” His tone wasn’t so flat now, a slight tip of curiosity, and you shrugged. 

“I was… hoping to. I was trying to work here, but I’m not sure I can make myself do it.” Your lip wobbled. “Not that there’s, y’know, anything wrong with it. Gods, I respect those who do it and I wish I had their confidence, everything would be a lot easier for me if I could, but it’s just not who I am.”

“So, if you don’t want to work at the pleasure house, why are you here?”

“Why are you here?” You shot back, and his stare pinned you. Observant, invasive, intense. It was enough to make you crack after only a second. “Why does anyone do a job?”

“Money?”

“Correct.” Blowing out a breath, you crossed your arms, the adrenaline wearing off as your decision was made, back turned to a club you wouldn't enter. The cold was beginning to leak into you, to take hold. “But, I guess I’ll just figure something else out.”

He watched you for a second longer, before slipping off the leather jacket he was wearing, over proud wings that were tucked tight into the darkness behind him. Swinging it around your body to settle over your shoulders, your first thought was that it was heavy, and large, but warmth soon followed, like a blanket by the fire on a cold winter’s night. 

“Thank you.”

“Would you like me to walk you home?” His hands stuck into his pants pockets instead, black skinny jeans that clung so tightly to his thighs it should be a crime, and you had to force your gaze away. 

“You, uh, you’re not going in?”

“I’m getting everything I need right here.” Panic shot through you, your whole body tightening for just a second, and his eyes widened, those lips finally parting in shock and he shook his head. “That’s not— I’m not implying anything is happening here. You don’t owe me anything, fuck, okay—” He took a deep breath, head tipping back to stare at the sky for a second, and his shoulders slumped. “I don’t know if I can go in, either.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. So, I’d really rather walk you home, if you’ll let me, than stand out here in the cold for another hour debating my choices.”

Your lips flicked up at that, the first real smile you’d had in weeks threatening to spill over. What happened to your tears? “You’ve been out here even longer than I have.”

“I know. I saw you arrive.” A smile pulled at his lips too. With a single glance down the street, the not-so-good part of town you’d ended up in, and caved. 

“You promise not to, like, murder me, or something?”

A laugh burst from him, sudden and rough, like he wasn’t used to making such a sound, but something in his eyes flickered. 

“It’s not funny! Weren’t you ever taught about stranger-danger as a child?”

“No, we weren’t really taught that in the camps. They skipped right over trust, to how to stab someone in the back.” Your throat dried up for a second, before seeing the smirk still sitting on his lips, and you scoffed, a curse muttered under your breath that only made him chuckle more. “Alright, fine. I’m Azriel, and I promise not to murder you.”

A sharp sting on the back of your neck made you gasp, your hand flying to it, and your eyes widened. The burning sensation lasted only for a second, before fading to nothing but a tingle. “What the fuck was that, what did you do?”

“You made me promise!”

“And?” You pressed, fingers tracing the spot. They came away clean when you examined them, and while the skin was smooth to the touch, you could feel whatever had happened. 

“You’re not from the Night Court, are you?” Amusement and curiosity wrapped his voice, and you shook your head lightly. “That would be your promise mark. Making a promise brands you, here.”

“What?” He tugged down the collar of his shirt, and even in the darkness, you could see slashes of dark ink across his collarbone, swirls and shapes. Your hand came up, before you could stop yourself, rocking onto your tiptoes to get a closer look, and tracing one finger across a whorl softly. “You’ve made a lot of promises.”

The clean, earthly smell of him filled your nose, and you backed away from him, letting him slip his shirt back into place as he watched you closely. 

“Your hands. Are they promise brands too?” Those same hands formed fists by his sides, arms twitching to tuck behind his back and hide, and you could see the effort it took for him to straighten them out in the space between you instead. “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn't have— that was so insensitive of me. I’m sorry, Azriel.”

“They were a promise of a kind, but not the marks the magic of this court gives you. These were promises from my step-brothers when I was a child, promises that worse would come. Worse could come.” 

Silence settled between you for a moment, his sights fixed on his own marred flesh now as he turned his hands slowly, over and over before himself. Cupping his hands softly, your palms met his, thumbs smoothing across the rough skin. “I hope you gave them some promises of your own.”

“I did.” His voice was something darker, something sharper, as if daring you to be scared by it. By him. Your hands only squeezed a little tighter around his own. 

“Good.” The moment lasted a little longer, his hands flexing briefly around your own, before he was pulling them back. “Do you still want to walk me home?”

“I do.”

“Well, I think I’d like that.” He only smiled again, offering you his arm, and you freed one hand from underneath the layers of leather to loop your own through. 

Ambling down the sidewalk, you got as close to his side as possible, stealing both his heat and his protection as drunken fae stumbled past you on all sides, the streets filled with broken glass and litter. It was the worst part of the city, every Court had such places but you’d never thought you’d wind up living in such a place. 

With Azriel by your side, even for the short walk it was, people seemed to steer far away from the tall, powerful man who was keeping you company. You’d received countless leers and stares since leaving the house in this outfit, but now, they didn’t even dare to look at you. The safety was something you’d never felt before, and you’d miss it when you were alone again in your apartment tonight, behind a door that didn’t lock and had a chunk missing from the bottom. 

Slowing down on the pavement before the place you currently called a very begrudging ‘home’, you avoided a pile of vomit on the street, cringing a little internally and hoping Azriel hadn't noticed it. You weren’t sure why you were so bothered by his opinion, but you were.

“Well, this is it.” 

Azriel paused, glancing up at the decrepit building you’d come to a stop before. The windows were boarded up along the bottom floor, graffiti lined the walls, and there were stains on the bricks you’d never bothered to question. Azriel took it all in, and shame flooded your body. The coat wrapped around your shoulders was probably worth more than several months of your rent here.

“Thank you for walking me home.”

“You can’t be serious.” He continued to stare, up and up at the several layers, to the open window with shouting pouring out from one of the upper windows. “You can’t live here. We haven’t even left—” The bad part of town.

He cut himself off, but the words still sounded out between you both. Slipping his coat from your shoulders, you held it out, but he didn’t take it. He didn’t even look at it, still staring up in disgust at the apartment building. “Gods, this place makes Nesta’s last apartment look like the Townhouse.”

“What?”

His focus moved back to you, like he hadn't realised he’d even said that out loud, before shaking his head. “Would you like to have a coffee with me?”

“Oh, uh, sure.” The offer shocked you, but sparked a little warmth, like despite every shameful thing he’d learned about you tonight, he wasn’t disgusted by you yet. “When?”

“Now.”

“But nowhere will be—” His hands came out, holding softly to your elbows and tugging you closer, before cold shadows seemed to dart from every corner of the street, wrapping you in a black bubble. The earth seemed to fall out from under you as your vision was lost, everything was silent and cold, before you were stumbling in your terror, and the shadows moved again. “What the fuck just happened?”

The coat dropped from your hand, crumpling to a pile on the street as you stumbled backwards. Only, this wasn’t your street. 

The faelights in the lampposts didn’t flicker in their stained yellow glass, but were a clear and bright white. No cracked street tiles or shouting, nothing but peaceful moths batting at the glass, and several houses lined up, spaced far from one another along the street. It wasn’t dark or damp, broken and stained, a part of the city you’d never even seen before. Only one row of houses lined the street, so far between each house it would take you ten full minutes to walk to the next, the Sidra bubbling quietly behind you over the bridge. 

Azriel dipped down, picking his jacket up from the ground, and when he took a step closer to you, you took one back, a shaky hand coming up between you both to hold him away.

“Where are we? What the fuck just happened? Why am I here?”

He sighed, shoulders straightening a little. “It’s called… well, I don’t know what it's called, because I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can do it. It’s like winnowing, only with my shadows. I’m a shadowsinger, I control them.” As if to emphasise his point, the darkness lingering all around you on the street swirled slowly, your breath hitching in your throat as you watched the darkness move. “You step into the shadows one one place, you step out of them in another. I brought you here for coffee, but that was just an excuse, if I’m honest. Really, I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving you in that place.”

“That place is all I can afford.” You muttered, arms crossing over your chest, a dull pound in your head as you tried to process every overwhelming piece of new information. “So, what are we doing here?”

“I live here.” He stepped up onto the pathway of one house, the gate squeaking a little as he pushed it open, and your jaw fell slack, staring up at the towering estate before you.

“Here?”

“Yes. Now, will you please come inside?” Tipping his head to the side, that smile was back, and you couldn't resist it, the pull toward him as your feet carried you in cautious steps. 

“Fine, but I don’t actually want coffee. I hope you have tea.”

“I have plenty of tea. So many flavours that you won’t know what to pick.” His grin only widened as you stepped through the gate, letting him close it behind you, and following you up towards the grand house as you put every effort into not making a fool of yourself in these ridiculous heels. As you reached the porch, he swerved around you, producing a set of keys from his pockets and unlocking the door, holding that out for you too. “Welcome to the Bridge House.”

“That’s a pretentious name. All of these houses are on the river, and none of them are on the bridge.” You muttered, his chuckle following you inside as fae lights came on automatically, lighting along the long hallway, giving a muted glow to the space. He shut the door, and you spun to face him, watching as he clicked all of the locks securely back into place. 

“I know, but Rhys likes to name all of his houses, and he wouldn't let me change it even when I bought it.”

“Rhys?” You echoed, deciding to skip right over the display of wealth you couldn't even begin to handle, and copy his actions, toeing off the shoes that had been torturing your feet for hours now, and giving a soft sigh when your feet flattened on the floor. 

“My brother. Not biologically, but, it’s what he, Cassian and I like to call ourselves.” 

With a warm hand on your lower back, he softly began to guide you through the house and into the kitchen, but the names lingered in your mind. “Cassian… Rhys— oh, fuck, as in Rhysand? The fucking High Lord?”

Azriel only smirked at your outburst, stepping away from the island counter in the middle towards the kettle sitting neatly on the stove. “So, their names you recognise, but mine you don’t? I’m almost offended.”

“Well, isn’t that supposed to be the point, spymaster?” You growled the word out, knees feeling a little weak underneath yourself, and you braced your hip against the counter. “Oh, Gods, this is so inappropriate. I can’t be here! You’re a part of the Royal Court, you’re—”

“I’m just Azriel, to you.” His voice had gone soft once again, pulling two mismatching mugs from the cupboard, and watching you cautiously. 

“I’m wearing lingerie!” You burst, voice too high and shrill to even be remotely calm, and he clicked his tongue. 

“I'm aware. You look cold and uncomfortable. Would you like something to change into?”

“Would I…” It was surreal. It was a dream. None of this could possibly be true. “I can’t be here!”

“Why?”

“Because… because you’re Azriel, the spymaster! You literally call the High Lord brother, and I am a pleasure house worker who can barely afford rent in the shittiest part of town, I came to your house in a pair of stupid heels that I had to tape the sole back onto, in a dress that barely even qualifies as underwear! Your jacket could probably have bought my whole apartment outright, and—” Azriel crossed the room before you could even process it, hands sitting on your waist to scoop you up and deposit you onto the counter just before your legs could give out fully. He planted his hands on the outside of each of your thighs, planted himself between them, and his nose practically brushed your own. “What are you doing?”

“Take a breath. You’re panicking. You’re going to give yourself a panic attack.”

“I think we’re way past that.” You whispered, but did as told, trying to take a shaky breath to match the one he took. You did it again, and again, each breath calming you a little more, but it didn’t help the chaos in your mind, just helped to slow your heart a little. “Azriel, c’mon, you and I both know it. I should go, and we should just hope none of your neighbours saw, because it’ll ruin your reputation.”

“My reputation is destroyed anyway. If anything, you’ll be wanting to hope nobody saw you with me, once you learn about me.” You rolled your eyes, head tipping forward to lean on his shoulder, and he slipped one hand up to rub softly along your back. You could feel everything, the sexy dip of the dress barely covered your ass now, and more embarrassment flooded through you. “Besides, you’re here now. You might as well stay for that tea. It’s not like anyone can see you in here, you’re not on a timer.”

“Okay. Just one cup.”

“Just one cup.” He confirmed, lingering for a second longer before pulling away. Disentangling himself, he filled up the kettle from the tap, setting it off on the hob. “What flavour tea would you like?”

“What’ve you got?”

Hopping down from the counter as he beckoned you closer, it was only when you were by his side that he opened a double-standing cabinet, both of the doors slowly opening on a hinge, silent as ever, to reveal the jars of loose tea within. Each one was lined up meticulously, labelled with the flavour of tea and the benefits underneath, your jaw dropping. “Told you I had plenty.”

“You could run a tea shop with this stash!” Your elbow flew out, nudging into his ribs to dim his laughter. “I have no idea where to even start. Why don’t you pick?”

“Alright.” Instead of getting one out, though, he closed the cupboard doors, backing you away from it slowly. “It’ll be a surprise, but how about we get you that change of clothes first, huh?”

You glanced down at yourself, giving into the urge to finally feel settled in your own body again, chin dipping in a single nod. His hand slipped into your own, warm and sure, before he was tugging you along behind him, and guiding you through the house. Up two sets of stairs, past far too many different rooms to count, before stopping at the doorway to the grand bedroom. It had double doors, for fuck’s sake. The one bedroom itself, as you entered, was bigger than your entire apartment had been. 

Clean, simply decorated and organised, and extremely homely, a sigh left you as you took it all in. “This is your bedroom?”

“Well, I am the only one who lives here.” He teased, dropping your hand and leaving you to observe in the centre of the room, as he made his way over to one of the wardrobes. 

“Really? I couldn't tell, what with this place being the same size as my entire apartment building.” He laughed, and you hardly had time to turn and see the smile that would be accompanying it, before soft material was smacking you in the face, and falling to the floor. You looked down, agape, to see a soft blue t-shirt sitting in a pile at your feet. “Did you just throw that at me?”

“That’s what you get for sassing me.”

He opened another drawer as you crouched to pick it up, shaking it out to hold the material in front of yourself. When it was lowered, he threw something else, another bundle you were just quick enough to catch this time, but it didn’t stop you from scowling in his direction. This time, it was sweatpants, thicker and black in colour.

“I’ll give you a chance to get changed, and I’ll be back.” 

He was gone, the door shutting gently behind him, and he was absolutely silent as he walked away, leaving you alone in his bedroom. It was an odd feeling, to say the least. To be trusted so deeply with someone’s things, when they had no reason to be, and Azriel didn’t read to you as the easily trusting type. 

Then again, neither were you, and you were somehow still confident that this wasn’t all going to end with your untimely death. Your toes sank into the plush carpets, sore patches on the backs and sides of your feet already threatening to be blistered by the morning, and this dress had been irritating your skin since the moment you’d put it on. Cheap material, but the best you could afford.

Slipping open the ties across the front one at a time, the dress came loose, enough for you to slip your arms out of the tight sleeves, and begin to shimmy it down your body, feeling less than elegant as you worked your way out of it. Perhaps it was a good thing you hadn't gone in, you certainly weren’t cut out for this kind of work. How anybody could make peeling themselves out of that sexy was beyond you.

Azriel’s shirt was built to accommodate his large frame, with panels in the back that buttoned up for his wings, but even once it was on, with those few slits down the back, they revealed nothing compared to the dress on the floor at your feet. You didn’t feel so exposed any more, so vulnerable, and as you slipped the sweatpants up your legs to tighten at the waist, you finally felt more like yourself again. 

A sigh slipped past your lips, hands smoothing down along your covered body, warm and comfy once again. You hadn't felt this settled in a long time, and already, Azriel’s house was feeling more like home than your shitty apartment ever had, and ever would. Scooping up your dress and folding it neatly into a flat square, you laid it atop one of the dressers, beside a half-burned candle and a book. 

You were sniffling the candle when there was a knock at the door the knob twisting slowly. 

“Can I come in? Are you, y’know, dressed?”

“I’m dressed, you can come in.” He nudged the door open, a tray in his hands, stacked up with pottery and plates, and you placed the candle back down to help. He didn’t need it, though, resting the tray down on the small trunk at the end of his bed, and straightening up. As he turned to you, his gaze found you again, running far more slowly along your body than he had out in the street, and the smile you were becoming fond of formed on his lips again. 

“Feel better?”

“So much better.” 

He patted the silky quilt on the end of his bed. “Come sit. I made cranberry and spiced apple tea. It’s very calming, a good late-night tea.”

“Sounds delicious.” Your legs crossed as you perched atop the plush mattress, a bed larger than you’d ever seen before as you took it in, spanning your gaze across the entirety of it. When you turned back, Azriel was pouring you a mug, watching.

“It’s because of the wings.”

“What?” 

“My wings.” He flexed them out behind himself, stretching them taut to their full, glorious length, and your hands shook a little in awe as you took the mug and saucer from him. Black, leathery flesh was thinner in some places, enough to glow a softer purple and red as the light shone through, some patches had tendons and veins visibly moving under the skin, marred patches of scars in the shapes of slashes and arrow piercings. “So I can stretch them out in bed and they don’t touch the floor.”

“They’re sensitive?” You wanted to reach out, to trace one of the scars sitting right at eye level, to ask what had caused it, but he only chuckled. As he poured his own mug of tea, he pulled them back in, hanging comfortably behind his back once again.

“Very sensitive. You can bring an Illyrian male to his knees with just one touch in the right place.”

“This feels like top-secret information. Surely you shouldn’t be spilling all the ways to hurt an Illyrian male to me?” You teased, and he uncapped a jar of honey, his smirk growing as one brow raised at you. 

“Do you want to hurt me?”

“Of course not.” He added two spoonfuls to his mug and stirred, before offering it to you, a fresh spoon to follow, and you accepted the scoops he made. 

“Then why shouldn’t I tell you?” You had no answer to that, instead grinning into your tea as you stirred it, watching the ripples form as you tapped the spoon against the edge, and rested it on the saucer. Steam curled up from it, and as you raised it to your lips to blow, he hummed. It smelt so good, your mouth watered. “Besides, who said you’d be bringing me to my knees in pain?”

You jerked, gaze snapping back up to him, before a splash of the tea spilt over the edge of your mug, hitting your thigh and dripping onto the covers below, creating a small wet patch. “Azriel!”

He only laughed, your cheeks heating at his innuendo, but the flush on his face was worth it, even if he was laughing at you. 

“Now look what you made me do, there’s tea on your covers.”

“Sweetheart, seeing that reaction would have been worth it if you’d spilt a bucket of mud on my bed.” Your cheeks flushed again at the drawl of his voice over his words, even if he didn’t know he was doing it, your heart jumping in your chest.

“I still might, as revenge.” Muttering your words didn’t make him miss them, laughter starting anew, and you hoped he at least couldn't see the smile the sound gave you as you sipped your tea. You finally let your eyes move to the tray, noting the large teapot sitting in the centre, the used pot of honey and your spoons, and the small plate stacked up with shortbreads. “Would it be already if I had one of those?”

He tracked your gaze, nodding rapidly when he realised and presented the plate to you. “I don’t normally have food in my bedroom, never mind my bed, but, I didn’t know when you last ate. I didn’t want to assume, and start cooking a whole meal, but I can—”

“Azriel.” His lips pursed shut, this time it was his turn to blush, an adorable shade of pink that suited him so well crawling across golden skin. “I love these, and I was hungry. They’re perfect. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” 

Slipping from the bed to stand once again, you placed your mug back on the tray, and held up your saucer instead to catch crumbs as you ate the first circular treat. 

“What are you doing?” Azriel’s voice was a little rough, and you licked stray crumbs and sugar from your lips, not missing his gaze following the motion. 

“I’m eating.”

“Why did you stand up?” He flexed his fingers around his mug, watching you happily as you took another bite. 

“I didn’t want to risk getting crumbs in your bed.”

“You can,” He stepped closer, putting his drink down and settling his hands on your shoulders, a look in his eyes you didn’t quite get a chance to read before he was moving you, pushing until your legs met the bed and you sat down slowly. “You can sit. I don’t care if you get crumbs. I’ll clean it.”

He moved to take the saucer, the one you had cupped under your chin to catch any loose crumbs, and you gripped it tightly, not letting him have that too. He was making all kinds of sacrifices for you tonight, you weren’t sure why, but this was one rule you could at least respect. 

“You can sit up at the pillows, if you want. You don’t have to sit down here.”

Glancing back, the end of the bed felt miles away, and you shrugged, feeling him stack another pastry onto your plate as your attention was turned away. “Will you sit with me if I do? I mean, I know it’s your bed, but…”

“I will. Let me just change, first.”

He swiped up his pyjamas, which had been sitting neatly by the pillow on what you assumed was his side of the bed, and disappeared with a flurry of shadows into the connecting bathroom. Not all of them went, some remained, swirling on the floor, and a single tendril rose up, like a snake lifting its head.

It didn’t have eyes, a face, or any discernible features, and yet you had the distinct feeling you were being watched by it. You popped another shortbread into your mouth, whole this time, and placed the rest down, watching it just as studiously as it approached you across the floor slowly. 

It slithered up, across the bedding, and snaked over your thigh until it found your wrist. It was cool, not cold, but a soft breeze across your skin. Soothing, to say the least, and it wrapped in coils around your arm. Up and up it went, crawling under the baggy sleeve-hem of the t-shirt you’d borrowed, across the pulse point in your neck and before re-emerging from your collar and darting into the hanging strands of your hair. 

Another soon followed, this one tickling across the bare bad of your foot before snaking up your leg, toying in your fingers, weaving through the digits. Another came, curious like puppies, but this one never touched you. No, instead, it danced across the trunk before you, over the tray and swirled around your mug, again and again in whirling circles. 

“What are you doing, little one?”

You reached a finger out, brushing it across the mist. “It’s trying to tell you to drink your tea.”

“Jeez, Azriel!” You jumped, shadows skittering like butterflies back to the corners of the room as he waved a hand, and you clutched your own over your heart. “You’re so fuckin’ sneaky, what is up with you!”

“Spymaster, remember? Sneaky is kind of in the job description.” He winked, winked, and wandered right past where you sat, up to the head of the bed. He looked good, too good for someone simply intending to sleep later tonight, with a fitted black shirt stretched taut across those muscles, and a pair of matching sweatpants to the ones he’d given you, except they looked much better on him. Pulling back the covers, he patted the mattress beneath, raising his head to look at you. “Come on, and bring your tea.”

You did as told, rising and grabbing both your mug and his, moving to sit on the space he’d learned for you, amongst fluffy pillows and cushions. He tucked the blankets back around you, caring for you in a way nobody ever had before, and you had to bite at the inside of your cheek to contain it. “Thank you.”

Your whisper was hardly audible, but he smiled nonetheless, one curl from his raven black locks flopping across his forehead as he nodded, before making his way around to his side. Sinking into the bed, he sat forwards, ruffling his wings for a moment until he was satisfied, before sitting back and taking the mug you offered. 

Once one hand was free, you indulged yourself, leaning across to tuck that curl back up into his hair, his golden eyes tracking every movement. “Why are you doing this for me, Azriel?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you looking after me? Why are you being so kind to a complete stranger? I’m here, wearing your clothes, sitting in your bed, drinking your tea. Why?” The words hung thick in the air around you, for so long you sipped your tea just for something to do as his lips pursed in consideration. You swore you could hear your heartbeat, drumming in anticipation. This was it. This was where stupid, ridiculous, blind trust from desperation got you. Into the bed of someone who could ruin your life, who would make it seem like nothing ever happened, who—

“I don’t quite know.”

“You— what?” It wasn’t what you’d been expecting, head emptying once again, and he shrugged. He sipped his tea, and didn’t continue. You placed your own down on the bedside table to your left, turning onto your side and propping yourself on the pillows to study him. “You don’t know?”

“No. I just saw you, and I wanted to talk to you. So, we talked. Then I walked you home, and I saw where you lived, and I just knew I couldn't let someone as good as you go in there again.”

“You don’t even know me! What if I’m a really awful person?”

“I don’t think so.” He smiled, tucking a strand of your hair away behind your ear as he smiled. His thumb came down, tracing slowly across your cheek in a way that made sparks fly along your skin, your heart skipping another beat, and his grin only got wider. “I’m pretty good at reading people, and you’re golden. Besides, my shadows are all shadows. They know these things, they don’t trust people easily, but they like you. That tells me that you’re good, that you deserve more.”

“That’s a lot of faith to have in them.”

“They’ve earned that faith over the centuries.” His confession brought another wave of silence, but nothing about it was awkward. He finished his tea, as did you, sitting side by side in his grand bed, where your feet didn’t even come close to touching the ends. “Azriel?”

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me something?”

His expression was sweet like sugar, and he rolled a little more to face you, a little closer to you, sharing your space. “What would you like me to tell you?”

“Tell me your funniest story.”

And just like that, Azriel was off, words flying from his mouth as he began to recreate the scene, and you slumped down into the pillows to listen. He told you about his brother, Cassian, and you laughed with him so much your sides hurt. You told him your own, your funniest tales of your time in school, pranks you and your friends had pulled, drunken nights out. 

Just one cup had become two, had become three, into four, as the stories moved on, conversation flowing so easily between you both in a way it never had before. 

The teapot was drained somewhere between talking about your childhood and his, when you’d returned the mugs to the tray, and found yourself braced in his arm, cheek on his chest listening to the rumble of his voice as he talked. 

Somewhere around the time of talking about all the promises he’d made, you’d found yourself sat up, cross-legged to match him and knees touching, leaning in like you were talking in secrets, hiding giggled in whispers like you were kids getting caught talking in a classroom. 

You told him about your trip to the Night Court, how you’d always felt so lost in Dawn, nothing seemed right, and after Amarantha's reign and the war, everything seemed to have fallen apart for you. He listened, he actually heard you, when you told him about your trip here, to see the City of Starlight and feeling more rooted here than you ever had in your home court. Something was calling you. You may not have the life you’d dreamed of yet, but you’d get there. 

He swore you would, he believed in you. He told you all the places to visit, the best parts of Velaris to see, when you could spare the time and the funds. Most seemed like dreams, things you’d never get to truly achieve, but it was fun to imagine them.

By the time the sun had been rising again, you were laying on your back, his head on your stomach as he lay sideways across the bed. Your hand was in his hair scratching across his scalp as he explained to you the trials that had brought him and his brothers to victory as Carynthian warriors.

“Azriel, can I ask you a question?” You whispered, dragging your hand through his hair one more time, before he was moving, propping his chin on your stomach and offering a sleepy smile.

“Sure.”

“What were you doing at the pleasure house tonight?”

“Looking for this.” He mumbled, yawning to follow it, and your thoughts swirled. He crawled up the bed a little more, collapsing down half on top of you still, half beside you in the bed, sharing your pillow. “Looking for company.”

“Well, yes, but not this kind of company.”

“No, not this kind.” His lips still smiled as his lashes fluttered, those pretty eyes finally opening to look at you again. “I’m so fuckin’ lonely, all the time. All those stories are great, they’re fun, but it's the times in between that hurt. When I sit at the dinner table, surrounded by five happy couples, all alone. When I see them, and I want to be so happy because they’re so in love, and I’m just jealous. Sometimes, I just want to be touched, to be loved, to be the one getting attention. Being the eleventh wheel sucks.”

“Eleventh wheel?” Your chuckle made him roll his eyes, shrugging helplessly, and groaning as he readjusted in the pillows, propping himself up. 

“I don’t know what drew me there tonight, just that I was lonely, and I want to feel love. Even if it was just a short time, even if I had to pay for it. Even if it wasn’t real.” He lifted your hand, weaving his scarred fingers through your own, and smiling fondly when he settled your hands in his lap. “Maybe it was fate that I found you instead. That, rather than pay for false love that would make me only feel worse after, I got to meet you, to help you. I didn’t bring you back here with this intention, I didn’t mean to bring you back at all, it just sort of happened. But, this has been one of the best nights of my existence, and all we did was talk.”

“Oh, Az…” Your voice cracked, leaning across towards him you pressed a kiss to his cheek, feeling his smile pull under your lips. 

“Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you.” You pulled back, settling your hand on his shoulder as your thumbs battled aimlessly. 

That blissful silence settled between you both once again, exhaustion eating at your boned as you fought to even keep your eyes open, and watch the growing sun rays come through the windows you’d never even bothered to cover last night. 

At some point, you’d have to leave. You’d have to give him his clothes back, and try to find your way home, living with nothing but the warming memories of this night to keep you from freezing in your apartment this Winter. It was all so worth it, because while you may not have confessed it in return, you hoped he knew it was one of the best nights of your existence, too.

“What if we did this again?”

“What do you mean?” You asked, words slightly slurred through your tiredness, and you wondered idly if you fell asleep here, would he let you stay until you woke up before sending you on your way?

“This. This, whatever this night was. We could make it an arrangement.”

“An arrangement?” You snorted, cloudy amusement filling your veins, but he only hummed. “Would you like to pay me to cuddle you, Azriel?”

“I would, actually. That and… other things.”

“What?” That cut through the haze, your head snapping up to look at him, your hand pulling back from his own as an icy feeling filled your chest. “I’m not— that’s— if I was going to do that, I’d be at the pleasure house right now!”

“What are you— no! Not those things!” His eyes widened as he released, shooting out to hold onto you once again as you searched for the edges of the covers to fling back. “Not like that. I just mean, there are things I want. I want company, I want someone to talk to over the dinner tables in the evening and hold like this, someone to make me feel less alone. I need affection, and just look at us tonight. Just like this, this was enough for me. And, there are things you need.”

“What do I need?” Huffing out the words, he gently smoothed your fingers from gripping the blankets, tipping your chin up to meet his gaze again. 

“You need a place to live that isn’t that horrible building. You need a real address, in a good part of town, so that someone will hire you. You need a friend in this city, and I want to be that friend.”

“So, you’d, what? Have me move into your house, live here with you? You’d change my whole life all for the measly price of cuddling you at night? You know, a girlfriend would do that for you. You wouldn't have trouble finding one, Azriel!”

“You’d be surprised.” He muttered, rubbing his thumb over your chin as he still held it. “Most people are scared of me, or want something from me. Even after that, I’m hard to put up with.”

“Oh, c’mon, Az.” Your eyes rolled, and he pinched a little in response. 

“Sometimes I have to go away for days at a time, weeks at a time. I have a hectic and unpredictable work schedule, so planning dates and getting to know someone isn’t exactly easy when you might have to inexplicably stand them up and not be able to explain why. Even so, I’m meticulous and pedantic, and people don’t want to date someone like that. Even with all that aside, actually connecting with someone is something I struggle with.” He let it all off his chest in one burst, and you felt the weight of his troubles and confessions like a rock on your chest. “You’d be perfect for me.”

“You don’t even know my name!”

“I do!” His eyes sheened over, thinking back across the whole night, and you watched the moment he realised that perhaps he’d given you his name, but he’d never asked for your own. “Names don’t mean a thing when I can see your soul so clearly, already.”

“You know this is insane, right?”

“Totally.” He confirmed, smiling a little at your scoff. “But we should still do it. You can live here, with me. You can get a job, make this your home, and have the life you always wanted in Velaris. In return, I get to not feel like the darkness, like I’m alone, all the time.”

“Would I have my own room?”

“Any you like. You’re not going to be a prisoner, or some kind of kinky hostage. This will be your home too.” Your shared snickers at his wording only brought you closer, until your forehead was resting on his own, staring at him through warped vision at your closeness. 

“This is madness. How would it work, what are the rules here?”

“The rules are whatever we want. We do what makes us happy, what makes us comfortable. I care about you, I like you. I don’t know what it is about you, but you’ve had me since the moment I saw you.” Your breathing stuttered, his hand cupping your whole cheek now instead, and you settled down into the pillows to face him. “It may be crazy, but I am crazy, you’re gonna’ learn that. Let me change your life, sweetheart. You’ll be changing mine too.”

Your voice was nothing more than a shaky whisper, accompanied by a smile. “Then I think you’ve got yourself a deal, Azriel.”

[lillaydee]

Head Over Heels Part 5

Jackson!Joel / Reader

Special Guest Appearance by a Certain FBI Agent who may or may not look a lot like Joel.

You left the loneliness of your home and headed to Jackson with Joel and the teenage girl he was with, hoping your new life would be less lonely. You should've stayed alone.

WARNING:

Non-canon Compliant, Pining, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Joel (The Last of Us), Joel is Bad at Feelings (The Last of Us), Joel Needs a Hug (The Last of Us), Joel Lives (The Last of Us), Protective Joel (The Last of Us), Soft Joel (The Last of Us), Jealousy, Loneliness, Trauma.

MEGA WARNING: Descriptions of Attempted Sexual Assault.

@copperhalfcent @joelalorian @vickie5446 @peelieblue @nandan11 @liciafonseca @senoratess @denisanoemi @lovefreylove @heartpatch

SERIES MASTER LIST

Part 4

---

Maria pulled you inside, hugging you with all her might as your body went limp, sobbing uncontrollably while she tried to hold you up. She made you sit down and disappeared into the kitchen, coming back with a steaming cup of tea for you. She sat down next to you and rubbed your back until your sobs became less than a hiccup, before asking you to tell her what happened.

You told her everything. Bill and Frank. Tess. The crush you had harboured for Joel all this while, watching him from afar wishing he would look your way at all, all the while knowing there was nothing you could do – he was with your best friend. The way he ignored you on the road, the way he abandoned you, and then acted like you didn’t exist while sleeping across the corridor from you. The conversations you’d heard from him and Tommy, the way he talked about you. How adamant he was that he would never, ever be with you. How those conversations basically made you feel so fucking unworthy of his attention, when he so freely gave them to others he barely knew.

You told her about Ellie. The outburst the teenager had that sliced your heart into thin, deli slices. How she broke your heart with the things she said, the things she called you.

How all your efforts to have a somewhat normal life and routine with the two of them, even if only as roommates, were thrown back in your face as if they were worthless.

How finally, after 20 years of only having regular contact with two people in your life, you now lived in a town full of people, a place where you were not wanting for friends to talk to, to turn to, but had never felt lonelier in your life, simply due to the actions of the two people who you were supposed to trust the most in what was left of this fucked up world. The two people you put your neck out for. Risked your life for. Put up with. Those you protected and cared for this past year or so.

Your steaming cup of tea had gone cold by the time you finished talking, Maria looking at you with tears in her eyes.

“Elena, Ellie is a kid. Don’t you remember what you were like at that age? And we grew up in a different world, and even back then being a teenager was torture. It couldn’t have been easy for her, going through everything… she just needed some time to adjust. Maybe, after escaping FEDRA, she got so used to having no one control her, and now she acted out of frustration. I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” she said.

“And Joel… he had been through a lot… when you guys were gone, I thought about the things you said about him, you know, when I asked you to be careful with him? I asked Tommy questions about him, about you. He told me things, things that I cannot tell you – not my story to tell. But, Elena, you need to give Joel a chance. It’ll take some time, but he’ll come around. Tommy assured me that he would.”

You shook your head slowly.

“You may be right about Ellie, but Maria, she may be a kid, but you don’t need to be an adult to know your words could hurt. And she said those words to hurt me, Maria. She knew they would hurt me. That’s why she said them. Out of malice. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

You wiped your face with your shawl again. You seemed to need to do that quite a bit tonight.

“And Joel, whatever he’d been through, we’ve all been through. We’ve all lost someone. And yet, not all of us decided to make the conscious decision to act the way he did. He’s not interested in me, I get it, I’m a big girl, I understand you cannot force the way you feel about someone. But did he really need to dig the knife in? He couldn’t have just treated me like a normal person he lives with? He doesn’t treat Ellie that way. When I met Ellie, he had known her two days. Two days, Maria. He’d known me 15 years. I swear he was almost gleeful in making me feel unwanted. And I am so sick of feeling like an unwanted puppy, just jumping around, vying for his attention only to be kicked aside. You should have seen him with Vanessa tonight. With Esther. But me? Hmph. God forbid he should treat me with kindness and respect.”

Maria couldn’t say anything. She knew you were right. She had seen it with her own eyes. She heard what Tommy said about her brother-in-law, but she could see where you were coming from too. Joel was different with you compared to anyone else. There was never any smile for you, his eyes always averted, his body language stiff, his expressions stoic.

She wanted you to stay. She liked you. She liked your company. Liv and Diana liked you. The whole town liked you. You were easy to like, except to Ellie and Joel.

“Okay,” Maria said, “I have a place for you. It’s sort of hidden, not many people know about the place. We’ll go look at it tomorrow. Can we get Liv and Diana to join us? We need to clean the place up a bit, it’s been years since anyone lived there.”

You nodded enthusiastically, hugging Maria with all your might. Please, you asked her, don’t tell anyone else. You lived with Bill for 20 years. You had older brothers. You could fix stuff around the house yourself. You didn’t need anyone’s help, no need to get Tommy or Joel to fix anything.

“You don’t want Joel and Ellie to know where you are?” she asked, her face crestfallen.

You took a deep breath and took her hand in yours.

“Maria, I doubt they’ll even notice I’m gone.”

**********

The place was perfect. It’s a room, basically, a studio with a small cast iron stove. With a bathroom attached. There was no kitchen, nor the ventilation for one if you wanted to use the stove for cooking. The one tiny window would hardly circulate the air around if you did. But you could take food from the dining hall. It’s hidden, just as Maria had said. It was part of the library, accessible from outside via a spiral staircase leading up to the door at the back of the building. There was another door leading directly into the second story of the library as well. The library in itself was not exactly a popular spot in Jackson; people mainly visited to borrow DVDs, and there were only a few of those still working in Jackson. Mostly people watch movies in the hall on movie nights. So as far as privacy goes, you’re okay.

The studio used to be where the librarian lived. But since the first librarian passed and Ike took over, no one had used the studio. Ike lived with his wife and grandson down the street from you. He knew about the apartment, of course, but he had agreed to keep your living there a secret. He liked you. He would do anything to help you out. He even recruited his wife Lucy to help you clean the place, even bring you some sheets and towels from the laundromat that she ran.

You only brought your backpack with you when you moved, along with your to go cup, and that was it. That was all you took from the house. Maria gave you a Tupperware container for you to eat from and take food from the hall in. That, and a fork, a spoon and a steak knife. Took you less than five minutes to unpack. Took you, Liv, Diana and Lucy less than 45 minutes to scrub the whole place clean, bathroom, doors, walls, window, ceiling, floor and all, Maria and Ike beating down the mattress and pillows outside.

You laid in bed that first night feeling free. You meant what you said to Maria. You didn’t want Joel and Ellie to know where you were. You doubted they would want to know anyway, but somewhere deep in your heart, you did wonder how long it would take for them to realize you no longer lived there.

**********

Six weeks. Turned out, it took six weeks for someone to realize you were no longer living in the house.

You basically disappeared from their lives altogether. You switched to kitchen duties, staying in the hall kitchen, not going out to the hall to eat at all. You used the back alleys to walk to the hall, and the back alleys again to walk back home. You spent your days chopping and slicing and dicing and stirring, making food for the townsfolk three times a day. You had your meals in the kitchen with Liv and Diana, and sometimes Maria, sneaking to her house whenever you could, since she was just about ready to pop.

Strangely, ever since you moved out, you didn’t feel as lonely as you did living with Ellie and Joel, despite being completely alone in the studio.

Liv told you Joel was at the greenhouse a lot, when he was not on patrol, that is, walking Vanessa there every chance he had. He would walk into the greenhouse, look around and then leave, not talking or even smiling at anyone, not even Vanessa. On those days, Liv would leave work a few minutes later to find him loitering around outside for a bit before going home. He’s not with her, Liv told you, according to Vanessa he had never entertained her advances, in fact, he never even talked to her much unless necessary. She continued cooking him meals, it seemed, and he returned the empty containers the next time he saw her. But no, they were not together.

Why she thought you’d want to know this, you could never figure out.

About a month after moving out, Bonnie, the oldest person in town had a birthday. They asked the kitchen to make her a birthday cake. You helped carry the massive birthday cake out, half the town’s population gathering at the hall to celebrate the feisty old lady. As you stood with Diana singing happy birthday to her, you saw Joel enter the hall. He was with Esther, the young lady looking as if she had just won the jackpot, her arm wrapped around his as he held the door open for her. She had been very vocal about ‘sampling’ Joel, wanting to be the first woman in Jackson to do so. He seemed to be the only man uninterested in her, so this must be a huge victory for her.

You thought you had moved past this. But your heart dropped to your stomach.

He saw you. He immediately pulled his arm away from her clutch and walked towards you. You told Diana you had to leave and walked into the kitchen, grabbing your jacket off the hook and went out the back door. You hid in the supply shed behind the kitchen, the door locked behind you, hearing Joel come out and call your name as he searched for you in the darkness, trying the thankfully locked shed door before leaving through the alley, presumably to go back to Esther.

You stayed in the shed for about 20 minutes, composing yourself, not at all happy you still felt this way after leaving his household for a whole month.

Why did he even come after you? What could he possibly want? What would he have to say that was so important? He spent months on the road not talking to you, a month living with you without saying anything that was not necessary, effectively ignoring your presence, and now he was following you into back alleys? A whole month had gone by since you left the house by then, and he hadn’t asked anyone your whereabouts. Maria would’ve known if he did. You wondered if he had even noticed you no longer lived there. A whole month, a month he spent walking Vanessa to work and loitering around waiting for her, eating her home made meals and letting her and Esther take his arm, opening doors for them.

You came out of hiding, your heart weighing your feet down. You walked out into the streets to go home, no longer in the mood for a party, knowing Joel would be there with one of his women hanging on to him. You looked left and right, making sure he was not around, before walking quickly past the clinic to go to the back alley to go home.

“Elena, there you are. Long time no see!” Tommy’s voice rang out. Maria was with him, her face immediately morphing into concern when she saw yours.

“You going home already? Come on, stay, we have cake!” Tommy said, “It’s a big night. Bonnie’s turning 80, Joel’s finally going on a date,” he started again, looking excited at the prospect.

“Joel’s on a date?” Maria asked him.

“Yeah, with Esther. Didn’t I pick a good one?”

“You set him up with Esther?” Maria asked, her voice rising.

“Well, yeah, why? They’re both single, why not?”

Maria let go of his hand and took yours instead, leading you towards her house, leaving a very confused Tommy on the street. Liv and Diana came running to join the two of you, flanking you and Maria, Liv’s hand rubbing your back comfortingly.

“Really, I’m okay, guys. He can do whatever he wants. He’s single, she’s single, let them be happy,” you assured your friends as the four of you sat on Maria’s couch.

“Joel never came back to the hall, after he went after you,” Liv said. Diana nodded, agreeing with her. “Esther was looking all over for him. She did not look happy.”

“It was their first date, apparently. She was complaining that he didn’t even shower after his patrol. Didn’t even pick her up. Just waited for her at the stable. Muddy boots and all.”

“Come on guys, if he feels ready to date, if it makes him happy, good for him.  I’ll be okay. Just need a little more time.”

You believed that, too. Your heart was heavy, but your eyes were dry. In fact, you hadn’t shed one tear for him since you left the house. You truly believed that once you had more time to adjust, you would be okay, and maybe, just maybe, seeing Joel with someone else wouldn’t hurt so badly one day.

“I can’t believe Tommy set them up. After everything he told me, he encouraged the man to go out on a date? Stupid man.”

You laughed, “It’s okay, Maria, he just wants his brother happy. Let him do what he thinks is right.”

“It’s not right, Elena. Joel is not interested to date. I wonder what Tommy said to him to force him into doing this. Like Liv said, the man didn’t even bother to dress up. He clearly didn’t want to go on this date.”

“Maybe Tommy was just trying to get his brother laid. He’s just a man, you know, he has needs,” you said, your eyes focusing on your feet.

“You don’t believe that do you? Joel doesn’t seem like that kind of a man,” Diana asked you.

You shrugged, too tired from cooking for the celebration to care anymore at this point. You got up, telling them you wanted to go home. You were tired. You and Diana needed to wake up extra early the next day to clean up before starting breakfast. Diana got up with you, handing you the bag containing your Tupperware for your dinner. You made to go out the back door, not wanting to see your former house across the street, when Tommy walked in, asking Maria why she left, a bewildered look on his face. You, Liv and Diana hugged Maria and left quietly.

Maria looked at her husband with such anger he shrunk back. What had he done, now?

“You set Joel up on a date? With Esther, of all people? Are you fucking kidding me? Did he even want a date? Did he ask you to set him up?”

“Well, no, but… I figured… so long as Joel was not dating anyone, Elena wouldn’t have a chance at dating. The men are scared of Joel, and they think he’s with her.”

“What about everything you told me, Tommy?”

“He said no. He said he’ll never date her. She deserves to be happy, Maria,” he coaxed, taking a step closer to his wife. She took a step back.

“And you think setting him up with the town hussy whose goal is to sample every man in town is the answer?”

“Well…”

“You’re sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future,” she told him, turning around to make her way upstairs.

“Baby…”

“Say one more word Thomas Miller, and the couch will be downgraded to the porch.”

**********

Ellie walked to the greenhouse, her legs taking her there on their own volition. She wondered if this was what the infected felt like once they turned, having no control over their own bodies.

Once she got there, she walked right in, looking around the vast, tented area, looking around for a familiar face. She didn’t find it. Her legs just turned around, taking her home instead. Her head was foggy, her heart clenching and squeezing the breath out of her chest.

When she got home, she stood in the doorway, her mind taking in the silence throughout the house. You were not down here. Her legs took her upstairs, and she stood in front of your door, her knuckle raised to knock. But suddenly, she drew back.

Would you even want to listen to her? What she said to you… they were unforgiveable.

At first, Ellie thought she had won. You finally left her alone. She stayed out of the house until midnight at one point, when she knew Joel was on night patrol, and you didn’t come after her. She repeated it the next time Joel was on night patrol, and still you didn’t come after her. She was elated. On top of the world. Finally, she could live a free life, free of FEDRA’s control, free of your overly watchful eyes and incessant nagging. Joel was far too busy and distracted to give her his full attention, but you, you were always on her back, and she was tired of it.

For the first time in her life, she had friends. Plural. She only had Riley before, but here, she had an entire group of teenagers to hang out with, and they were a lot more fun to spend time with than you or Joel. Don’t do this, don’t do that, as if she was a child who needed protection. She’d killed countless infected and even a couple of men, she could take care of herself. She’s not some fragile thing you needed to bubble wrap and treat like glass. She’s nearly 15 for God’s sake.

You humiliated her. None of her friends' parents sent her to school with a packed lunch. They teased her when she took out the sandwich you packed for her that first day of school. None of them even ate their meals at the hall with their parents. None of their parents or guardians came looking for them at the hideout after hours. She just wanted to belong. And you were ruining it with your curfews and packed sandwiches and the endless nagging.

She had lied to her friends, telling them that she was bitten by a rabid dog, and it got infected. They kept telling her that it looked like an infected bite, talked her into covering it up with a tattoo, just so one of them could practice her skills. She agreed, of course, not wanting to seem like a prude. They had all gotten so excited, telling her how cool she was for agreeing to get the tattoo.

And then you caught her.

She knew you were right, of course, she knew what could have happened if someone didn't buy her rabid dog story and told, she knew what could have happened if Joel found out - he would go ballistic. She knew you were just looking out for her, just the way you were looking out for her in Salt Lake City. But she didn’t want to admit she was wrong. She was too prideful for that. So she said everything she said, her words pouring out of her mouth like piping hot water from a burst pipe.

As soon as she walked away from the house, she knew she had gone too far. She could see how hurt you were. She had hurt you. Indelibly so. She could see your face shut down. But she didn’t care. You needed to be put in your place. Who did you think you were? Her mother?

When she got back to the hideout, her friends cheered her for her bravery, for walking out on you. She bragged about the things she said to you, embellishing as she went along. Wow, you are so cool, they had said. She could see Dina look at her in awe. Her chest puffed up with pride upon seeing how impressed she was with her.

She was very much taken by Dina. She was beautiful, exotically so. Kind, funny, smart. Ellie really liked her. And she thought Dina liked her too. She spent many a nights dreaming of Dina, thinking up ways to impress her more than she already did.

But today…

Today, she walked into the hideout to see Dina and Jessie kissing. The two so engrossed with each other they didn’t even realize she had come in.

She was broken hearted.

And all she could think of was to find you and bury herself in one of your very comforting hugs, to hear your gentle voice tell her everything would be alright. She knew you wouldn’t judge her. You would never. You cared about her.

But… after everything she had said to you, did you still care about her?

She took a deep breath, composed herself, and knocked on your door.

No answer. She knocked again.

No answer.

She turned the knob, only to be met with an empty room. She walked inside to check the bathroom. Empty.

Oh, you were not home.

She reached out for the knob again to shut the door, and that’s when she saw them.  

Dust prints. On the dark floor. Her dust prints.

No one had been in this room for a while. That didn’t make any sense. You were a neat freak. Even when camping, you would sweep the camp before setting up. You were always cleaning when you were home. And no one had swept or mopped this floor, nor stepped on it in a while, judging from how much dust was on it. She went to your closet and opened it – empty.

Come to think of it, she hadn't seen you around town either. At all.

She thought long and hard of the last time she saw you.

No… it couldn’t be. It couldn’t have been that day she yelled at you, right? Her entire body suddenly went cold. Had you left Jackson? You were contemplating it, did you actually do it? Did you leave and not say goodbye?

She raced across the road, her heart thundering as she banged on Maria’s door. She stormed inside when Maria opened the door, asking her if she knew where you were, telling her all your stuff was gone.

“Well, it only took you six weeks to notice. Congratulations!” Maria said, her face stoic.

“Where is she, Maria? Did she leave?”

“Why do you want to know? You want to yell at her some more? Why are you even looking for her? I thought she was… what was it you called her? Oh, right, ‘a fly nobody wants’?”

Ellie looked at her own feet, her hands playing with her jacket, not daring to look at Maria.

“I didn’t mean it, okay. I was angry, she’s so annoying! Always on my business.”

“Yeah, that’s called caring about you, Ellie. That’s what people do when they care about you. They worry for you, nag you, try to keep you out of trouble.”

“I’m not a child, Maria, I don’t need her nagging me.”

She took a deep breath, “Look, I know I screwed up, okay, but I didn’t mean it. I never thought she would leave, she promised me she wouldn’t leave,” she said, her eyes beginning to water.

“Words hurt, Ellie. They don’t leave a mark, but they can be deadlier than a gun.”

“I didn’t know that, okay?”

“Bullshit! You knew exactly what you were doing. You were mean, Ellie, cruel.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m just a kid,” Ellie retorted, her tears starting to flow down her cheeks, startled that Maria would say these things to her face.

“Are you? I thought the whole reason you hated her was because she was treating you like one, and you were not one. Which is it, Ellie? Are you a kid, or an adult? You don’t get to decide to your convenience. Even adults have a limit, Ellie. She cared about you, and you threw it in her face.”

Ellie started sobbing.

“I cannot tell you where she is, Ellie. I made a promise. I keep my promises. You made your bed, now lie in it. Let this be a lesson for you. Hope you enjoy your freedom, the one you were always looking for, without Elena in your life,” Maria said, her heart heavy. She hadn’t wanted to do this, but this girl needed this. She needed to be shaken awake. She opened her door and waited for the sobbing teenager to leave, shutting it behind her when she did, hoping to God that she learnt her lesson.

**********

You left the dining hall after your shift, taking your usual route, the Tupperware full of food in your pack, your to-go cup in your hand. You looked around a bit more than you usually did as you walked across the threshold of the clinic, the only area you had to use the main street for to get home. You didn’t know why, but these last few days, you felt as if you were being watched. You didn’t even turn the lights on at home anymore, worried that you were being followed.

You turned the corner after the clinic and made your way behind the row of shops, headed home. No one was behind you, so you relaxed a little. You turned the corner behind the grocery store leading to the spiral staircase to your studio.

You stopped.

Ellie was standing against the library building, her hands in her pockets, a guilty look on her face, looking at you with pleading eyes.

Without saying a word, you pulled your key out of your pocket, walked past her, climbed up the stairs to your studio, unlocked the door and went inside, closing the door behind you, locking it.

---

Part 6

[gor3-hound]

silver lining

ft. leon kennedy x fem!reader

cw: 18+ content, hybrid!reader, very brief suicide mention, p in v, creampie, daddy kink, a LOT of pet names

a/n: hiii! throwing out some (kinda) fluffy smut for once lmao. mainly picturing vendetta leon, but any older leon works tbh. i'm so tired, so if you see typos, no, you don't >:[ hope you enjoy !!

word count: 1.7k words

Raccoon City was something that Leon would never forget. It's been years since the incident, and he still wakes up in a cold sweat some nights with nightmares of the things he'd seen.

It's fucked him up in more ways than one. He would have killed himself a long time ago if he was sure that Sherry would be safe. The “top secret programme” the government so lovingly initiated him into isn't the way he saw his life going - but if it kept her safe, he'd grit his teeth and bare it.

Sure, he's made his peace with it, but it doesn't make it any less difficult. He runs around like the government's personal lap dog and then comes home and drinks himself half to death. It's a routine he's gotten used to, and he doesn't plan on changing it anytime soon.

But it gets lonely. He's not a stranger to flirting with a pretty girl in the bar, but he never manages to get them to stay. He's not sure he's capable of forming a relationship anymore. Work always comes up, and no woman seems to want to stick around when he disappears for weeks or months at a time.

When he was younger, he always wanted a dog. That was another thing Raccoon City took from him. He still flinches when a dog moves too fast near him or gets too close. He's never been a cat person, either. Thinks they're grumpy bastards at the best of times.

He leaves it at that for a while. Looks like he's destined to be alone. Whatever. He's used to it by now. Or he thinks so, at least, until he starts to hear about hybrids becoming more commercially available as pets.

They've been around for a while, sure, but they were the type of exotic pet rich assholes buy to show off. He hears about the new hybrid adoption center opening in his city and spends one of his only weekends off doing a shit ton of research. He's not entirely convinced, but he figures there's no harm in taking a look. As soon as he spots you, he knows he's smitten. Bat your pretty lashes at him, and he'd do anything you asked.

You're the cutest little puppy girl he's ever seen. Fluffy ears atop your head, your tail wagging so fast behind you it's practically a blur. He doesn't even think about it when he calls a worker over, paying for you then and there. He doesn't even blink at the amount of money you cost him. He'd sell a kidney to be able to afford you if he needed it. At least the government pays well.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

It's been a few months since he brought you home with him. You were a pain in the ass at first, constantly bouncing around his apartment. Your tail was a hazard, always knocking things off his table and breaking things.

He wouldn't change it for the world, though. You've become the highlight of his day. He finds himself smiling as he opens the door to his apartment, hearing you thunder towards the front door as he walks in. He can't help but chuckle as you wrap your arms around his waist, leaning up to lick at his face.

“Alright. Easy, girl. Easy.” He says with a smile, pushing you off him and ruffling your hair as he steps past you. He shrugs off his jacket, hanging it up and settling on the couch. “I had a long day, y'know? Could at least let me through the door before you jump all over me.”

“But I missed you.” You whine as he pushes you away from him, following him closely as he moves to sit on the couch.

“Yeah, yeah. I missed you, too, pup.” Leon says with a grin, patting his lap. He waits for you to jump in his lap, leaning back comfortably. “C'mere, then. Don't you wanna come sit with daddy?”

Your tail wags lazily behind you as you shift closer, straddling his lap happily. His hands settle on your waist to tug you closer, and he rubs small circles into you with his thumb.

“Missed you.” You repeat softly, cuddling close to him.

“You’re a sweet girl.” He nuzzles his nose into your head and caresses your hair. “A good girl…” 

Leon hums quietly and his hand starts to wander along your side and up towards your chest. “And beautiful, too. Can't believe I got so lucky, baby.”

You giggle softly at that, tail wagging just a little bit faster as you press your chest into his hand, shivering as his thumb brushes your sensitive nipple over your shirt.

“D'you wanna play with me, daddy?” You ask softly, trying to press as close to him as possible. Your hips start moving on their own, rutting your aching pussy against the hard muscle of his thigh. You bury your face in his neck, inhaling his scent deeply. He always smells so good when he gets back from work, sweat clinging to his skin. 

“I just got back, baby. What's got you so worked up, huh?” He teases softly, grabbing your hips and adjusting them so you're grinding down onto his steadily hardening cock over his pants instead. He groans softly, reaching around to pet the base of your sensitive tail.

That gets a twitch and a whine from you, making the corner of his mouth tug up into a lazy smile. He rocks his hips up into you until he's fully hard and leaking.

“Alright, alright. C'mon, puppy. Let's get you to bed.” He grunts, trying to act like he isn't as desperate as you. His voice is low and gravelly, brows furrowed in concentration as he lifts you up, carrying you to the bedroom.

He plops you down on the bed, kicking his shoes off and pulling off his jacket. His hands roam your body, tugging off your clothes as he runs his palms along your curves. His eyes take you I'm greedily, his hands working to undress himself instantly.

“Fuck.” He groans as you shift on your hands and knees, ass up in the air as soon as you see his cock. His cock twitches, pre-cum leaking and staining his stomach. “Always so eager…”

All he gets is a whine and an ass wiggle in response. You lift your tail straight up, presenting your glistening pussy for his hungry eyes. “Daddy, please…”

“Yeah, yeah. I got you.” He murmurs, settling between your legs. He runs the pads of two fingers between your glistening folds, dragging them from your clit to your entrance, gathering the slick dripping from you before pushing them inside.

He thrusts them in and out a few times, letting you get used to the intrusion. Not that you need it - your pussy is always so drippy, sucking him in greedily every chance it gets. He curls his fingers, earning a low moan from you, your cute ears pressing firmly against your head.

“That's it.” He coos, repeating the action every time his fingers are half buried inside of you. “There's my good girl. You want my cock, don't you, sweet thing?”

All you can manage is to babble please repeatedly, already so desperate for him. He's not sure how he ever managed without you. You always make him feel so wanted, and not just when he's buried balls deep inside of you. It's nice. Makes an unfamiliar warmth build in his chest, something he hasn't felt since he was still a bright-eyed kid in the police academy.

“Don't worry, baby, I got what you need.” He says softly, pulling his fingers out of you and rubbing your juices onto the sheets before grabbing your hips. His breath hitches as he slides his length into your tight heat, his head tilting back in pleasure before he lets out a low moan.

He leans over you, pressing some of his weight against you as he starts to thrust slow and deep. He presses his lips to the back of your neck before leaning back, his thrusts picking up in pace.

“Such a pretty puppy.” He groans, gripping your tail to pull you back against him every time he fucks into you. The room is filled with your needy moans and the sounds of your sloppy pussy.

“Daddy…” you whine, drool spilling past your lips and onto the pillow your face is smashed against. He can feel you tightening around him, so he knows you're close. He adjusts his angle slightly so he rubs up against that sweet spot that makes you see stars every time he pushes in.

“C'mon, cum for me, pretty girl.” He grunts, hand tightening on your tail as the other slides up from your hip to your waist, giving him more leverage ti rock you back onto his cock.

“Fuck, daddy… cummin’!” You moan, your walls clenching so tight around him you almost push him out. He presses his hips against your ass and thrusts shallowly, keeping him buried deep inside of you as his tip grinds against your cervix.

His mouth hangs open as he feels you gushing all over him, his breath caught in his throat as his cock jumps and kicks against your cervix, the feeling of your pussy fluttering around him making him shoot ropes of his cum deep inside of you.

You whine softly again, slumping against the crumpled sheets. His breathing is slightly heavy as he drops his weight on you, pressing you against the bed.

You grunt at the feeling of him dropping on top of you, wriggling yourself free with a soft huff. You cuddle up to him after, ignoring the feeling of his cum leaking down your thighs. You give him a few locks to his stubble cheeks before cuddling up to him with a smile.

“Sleepy.” You huff softly, nuzzling into his neck with a content sigh, your eyes fluttering shut. He lazily wraps an arm around you, tugging you closer to him and petting your back.

“I bet. C'mon, baby. Think we deserve a nap.” He murmurs, kissing your forehead before letting his eyes shut, too.

[sexyandcringe]

Hopeless romantic

Part 1 ◇ Part 2

Warnings: none except mentions of readers past traumas, mention of sexual objectification.

Content: osamu x reader, Angst (to fluff in the next chapters), hurt no comfort.

A/n: it's my first long-fic, please be nice :)

You're not used to being loved.

Your parents were always strict, hardly ever showing their affection, you didn't even have any close friends until you started working, where you found your best friend who showed you the blessings of a platonic love; but time passes and things happen, you had to move out of the town, leave your one true friend behind.

You are not used to love but especially romantic love, because all men did was see you as the object of their sexual desires, or maybe a good time-pass until a better one came along. Never as a person with feelings, never as a woman who loved them more than they loved her.

Sometimes you were too much, sometimes you weren't enough.

Too affectionate, too clingy, too dramatic, too loud. Not pretty enough, not smart enough, not horny enough. You tried and tried to be more, to be less, to be loved, but despite your efforts, love remained elusive, even with women.

So, after years of hoping and yearning, you resigned yourself to a loveless existence.

It is not to say that you never felt happy; even if you didn’t have love, you had fun and drama, you had friends to drink with (accompanied by the ting of pain the day after), you had a lot of books to read (leaving a bitter taste in your mouth whenever you finished one), you had dates and clothes and all the good and beautiful things in life and you've learned to appreciate these fragments of happiness.

But sometimes you get lonely.

You are used to it at this point, the crushing weight in your chest at 11 PM is your daily ritual before you finally give in to sleep.

So when you see Osamu Miya’s warm smile as he greets you in his restaurant, you battle to stop your stupid crazed heart, which is currently trying to jump out of your mouth.

You are just a client, his smile doesn’t mean anything, he is only doing his job, and you have seen him give the same smile to the old ladies who only order a coffee and linger to chatter for more than two hours, too. He’s a professional, after all. You are a regular and all he wants is your money, the bastard.

(you completely ignore the fact that he remembers details about you that no one bothers to remember; like the colour of your jewellery, the names of the dogs in your shelter or how your eyeliner is a little glittered today.)

Still, you are glad you got to know him. If anything, at least he is a good friend to you, always listening to what you have to say and filling your stomach with delicious food.

“ ‘Evening, Y/N. The usual?” He asks. You nod as you sit on the corner of the counter, the same seat you sat on the first day you came in.

(Osamu puts a “Reserved” sign on it every day until your arrival, not letting anyone else sit on it because it’s yours. But you don’t need to know that.)

You chatter with Tsumoto, the part-timer student who works in his shop, about his new crush, giving him advice you wouldn’t listen to nor follow from somebody else, and just as you are about to tell him that he should just write love letters to his crush, the doorbell rings; a pretty girl with dark long hair and the body of a goddess walks in, looking around for something, or better, for someone.

“‘Samuuu!” she calls him just as he comes out of the kitchen, and his face lights up, his arms envelop her figure and her lips meet his cheeks in an affectionate gesture.

… what?

“Emi! How are you, doll?” his voice holds tenderness as he guides the girl to one of the seats available, “Have a seat, I'll fix something up for you.”

She is a beautiful girl indeed, her hair flutters in the air like sea waves and her deep green eyes would make any man weak in his knees. She graces him with a smile, her flawless teeth gleaming.“A coffee is enough ‘Samu, I’m going to meet a friend soon.”

“Roger that!” he nods, signaling to Tsumoto for the order, before returning his attention to her.

He looks happy, you don’t think he has ever looked at you with this much fondness, and you’ve never witnessed any girl embrace him, let alone kiss his cheek. Hell, you didn’t even know if he had any female friends who were not his friends’s girlfriends.

(You feel your vision blur and something clenches in your chest. You swallow it down.)

You have no idea what they are talking about, you are not listening, all you can think about is how much you feel so so stupid. You didn’t hope for anything, you tried not to hope for anything at all, but feelings are hard to get rid of, especially if you see the one causing these feelings every week.

You look at them talking like best friends who haven’t seen each other for a long time and the feeling of inadequacy gnaws at you. You wonder if you ever even stood a chance to begin with. You yearned to be someone close to Osamu, someone who could give him hugs and kisses easily, someone who knew everything about him; you yearned to be part of his inner circle, but now you feel utterly stupid and delusional. Of course, he would never see you in that light, his affection is reserved only for a pretty girl like her. Of course he wouldn’t even think about getting physical with you. What were you even thinking?

Of course, you can’t be part of his world.

Reblogs are really appreciated! - Part 2

[dykecubes]

I was a hardcore dream fan up until the point the initial grooming accusations (the stuff in from the “The Truth” video).

I think a lot of people call Dream fans a cult kind of like,,,,, either insultingly or hyperbolically. Like they aren’t really thinking that the group is cult-like, and are saying it just because of the extreme devotion to dream through controversies. As a former fan tho, my experience genuinely does feel somewhat cult-like to me (I don’t want to downplay real cults, but I don’t have another word).

Cults often target people who are lonely and vulnerable and offer them community in return for not questioning things. I joined the dream fan community a couple months into the pandemic. I was very lonely. I had depression that I had just started getting treatment for (literally one session and I was still unmedicated) at my college, before getting ripped away from my hope things were going to get better. I wasn’t out to my parents, so living at home again meant getting constantly misgendered.

in short, I wasn’t feeling great. And Dream- you have to understand how much of his fan community (at least on tumblr) is into the idea that he loves his fans, and he loves his friends. And getting to watch those friendships felt like living vicariously. And having someone tell me they loved me, even if I knew I was just another fan helped. For a long time during the pandemic, the dream team were the literal highlight of my day. They were often the reason I got out of bed. I knew even then that that wasn’t healthy, but I was having trouble figuring out how else to get through things.

even after going back to college after the first vaccine had come out, Dream (watching and re-watching videos, interacting with the community) remained a pillar of my mental health. Less so, but if I needed to calm down, I watched a dream video. A lot of my free time was spent in fan spaces. I really, really put him on a pedestal.

I cannot describe to you how anxious I was when the grooming allegations came out. I genuinely started feeling nauseous all the time. I was checking my phone obsessively. I’m not going back to look at these, but I remember that dream had some initial responses (long Reddit post and whatnot). There wasn’t enough there to really make anything clear/disproven and the girls looked like they had a lot of evidence, so I was still anxious and sick and feeling like I was waiting in limbo to find out what was really going on. Trying to prep myself to accept that things might not be what I hoped, as much as I didn’t want to believe it.

when I logged on, the vibe in my tumblr circle was… very different. A lot of people (except for a few that ended up leaving with me) were acting like everything was disproven and it was all good and we could go back to normal times, with a few posts about how disgusting it was that someone would fake something like that. My first response was, honestly, confusion. I thought that I must have been being stupid and missed something or not understood something. So I politely sent an ask to a big name in the community that I trusted to be smart and explain things well, saying that I wasn’t sure we had enough evidence to really dismiss the accusations and asking why she thought that everything was disproven. She gave me exactly the same information that I already knew, while calling me stupid and saying that if I didn’t believe dream that I should just get the fuck out.

I felt suddenly, unpleasantly woken up. I wasn’t being stupid or missing evidence that would fully exonerate dream (maybe there was evidence like that in “the truth”. I never watched it, couldn’t). They just wanted to believe Dream wasn’t guilty, so they did, and twisted things until that made sense. Because they wanted to feel excited and loved again, instead of the crushing anxiety and dread I was in. And I thought about my own reactions, and I knew that I had been so fucking anxious over someone I didn’t even know because secretly I also wanted Dream to be exonerated. I wanted to bury my head in the sand and pretend that it simply wasn’t true because of what being a dream fan gave to me: bits of happiness and community.

And I was really scared of myself. Because I wanted to not believe those girls, not because I thought I had evidence otherwise, but because it would make me feel better. And I knew that was really, really shitty, and that that was something I had to stop in its tracks. And that I NEEDED to not be as obsessive or put anyone on a pedestal as much again. Because I would do the same thing- wanting to make excuses to keep my own happiness. And that’s not ok.

I stopped following almost everyone overnight and stopped watching anything Dream-related cold turkey (<—I realize this probably sounds stupid but I genuinely watched so much dream stuff it was an actual change in my life). I’m still in the mcyt space, mostly hermitcraft, but I make sure that I never put anyone on a pedestal like that again, and I have a way healthier internet to real life ratio.

Coming out of that space genuinely felt like something I was grieving. The intensity of my emotions, both in it and coming out, wasn’t healthy, and I’m really glad I left. if I wasn’t faced with a situation where someone was potentially materially being hurt, I don’t know if it could have happened, I was so embroiled. For obvious reasons tho, that crossed a line and luckily on the other side I had people that were kind to me when I was still kinda reeling.

anyway, tldr, my hot take with this situation is that more dream fans wake up and realize he’s a piece of shit, and get grace and kindness while doing so. Sorry for how long this is- hopefully I get my point across that I genuinely believe that at least some dream fan spaces are intensely unhealthy, more than some people outside of them might consciously think

anon if I’m being honest with you this whole situation has me thinking a lot about this post from a while ago and at the moment, yes, it is frustrating seeing his fans deny the evidence right in front of them but I really can’t help but hold a level of sympathy for them

I was never really a hardcore dream stan but I was very adjacent to that community back when I still had Twitter and TikTok and spent a lot of time defending dream and his community whenever criticisms of him came up, I very much disliked the idea of calling dream stans a cult because I spent probably about 5 years or so of my life in stan communities on Twitter and I’m very much of the opinion that they get a bad rap, but it was around the time of his grooming allegations that I stopped defending him as well and came to understand what people meant when they called his community a cult

while I still don’t fully like using that word to describe his community because I know people who are survivors of cults and don’t want to downplay their severity, I will also say it’s alarming how easy it is to apply the BITE method to dream’s fanbase, especially information and thought control

that being said, even if it technically is not a cult it’s still a very intense community and it’s still difficult to get out of (speaking specifically on the way former dream stans are often bullied for leaving) and obviously the connection you’d have to such an intense community like that is going to be a serious emotional one so I understand why a lot of them might still be holding on

so I agree, I hope if fans of dream choose to leave his community they’re treated with grace and kindness

thank you for sharing, anon, I hope you’re doing well <3