#and it works too so thank yOU for that lol

[rafecameronssl4t]

73 Questions with Vogue || Drew Starkey x fem!reader

Summary: Actress!reader participating in 73 Questions with Vogue and it goes viral!!!

Warnings: fluff!!!

Word count: 1,935

A/n: It's been so long since I've written a Drew fic!!!!!!! Also I got inspired by my previous acc's fic so if it seems familiar to some of you who followed me from there, don't come at me, I loved the idea too much lol. CAN SOMEONE PLS SEND ME REQUESTS FOR DREW FICS???

MASTERLIST

divider by @h-aewo

"Hello!" You greet the interviewer with a bright smile, swinging open the door to reveal him and his camera. "Hi, Y/n! Mind if we come in and ask you 73 questions?" he asks, his tone friendly and warm. "Yeah, of course! Come on in," you say, stepping aside and holding the door wide open, gesturing for them to enter as the camera pans through the foyer of your house. The space is beautifully designed, with soft lighting that gives it a cozy, inviting atmosphere.

"Wow, what a gorgeous house you have," the interviewer remarks, his voice filled with genuine awe as his eyes take in the sophisticated yet comfortable décor. "Thank you!" you respond, the compliment warming you as you flash a radiant smile. "Is this your favourite house?" The interviewer asks, already settling into the rhythm of the questions as you lead them down the hallway and into the open-plan living area.

"Yes, it definitely is. It's in my home city, and Charleston means so much to me, just like this house does," you say, your eyes lighting up as you gesture around. The view of the beach through the large windows makes the space feel even more special. "I love the view," the interviewer comments, looking out at the sunset that bathes the room in warm golden light. "The sunset looks amazing from here."

"It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?" you say with a soft chuckle. "I love spending time in this room specifically. It feels like a little sanctuary." You both share a laugh, enjoying the peaceful moment. "What's your morning routine like?" The interviewer asks as the camera follows you through the coastal-themed living room toward the kitchen. You pause for a moment, thinking about your answer.

"I haven't had much of a routine the past few months because of work, but currently, I wake up to a strong cup of coffee and a walk through downtown," you share with a soft smile. "It’s become a little ritual to clear my mind before everything gets too busy." As you stroll through the warm, inviting spaces of your home, the camera captures the personal touches that reflect your personality—a mix of elegance and laid-back comfort.

A question about your career comes next, and you happily share some behind-the-scenes anecdotes from your latest film. "This," you begin, the affection in your tone unmistakable, "is a magnet Sydney gave me when we wrapped filming Immaculate earlier this year." You glance at the picture, a grin spreading across your face. "It’s a photo of the two of us in our nun costumes... let’s just say, not doing very nun-like things." You laugh, the absurdity of the memory still fresh, and hold the magnet up for the camera to focus.

The image shows the two of you mid-laughter, each holding a cigarette with exaggerated defiance, your habits slightly askew, as though caught mid-rebellion. "What's the best compliment you've received?" the interviewer asks, a hint of curiosity in their voice. You pause, your expression thoughtful. "Oh, that's a tough one," you say, your lips curling into a playful smile.

"I think the best compliment I’ve ever gotten was when someone said, 'You're like Meryl Streep… but, you know, with fewer Oscars.’" You chuckle, shaking your head in amusement. "It was the kind of backhanded compliment that made me laugh for days." The interviewer laughs along with you. "That’s a good one," he says, clearly entertained. As you make your way towards the outside deck, the interviewer continues with another question. "Texting, calling, or FaceTiming?"

You grin as you lean casually against the railing, looking out at the beach below. "Oh, definitely FaceTiming," you say with a mischievous glint in your eyes. "I’m terrible at replying to text messages. I’d much rather see people's live reactions, y’know?" A more personal question comes next, and you smile thoughtfully as the interviewer asks, “How do you handle the pressures of fame?”

You nod, taking a moment before responding. "I lean on my family and friends—they keep me grounded. And I remind myself that pressure is a privilege. It means people care about what I do, and that means a lot." Your voice softens as you speak, the sincerity of your words clear as you step into your home office, showcasing the awards and accolades lining the shelves. The conversation turns to your personal life, and a warm, affectionate smile spreads across your face.

"Congratulations on reaching your two-year anniversary with Drew!" The interviewer says with a grin, and you beam in response. "Thank you!" you reply, your eyes sparkling as you think of him. "Drew is incredible. He’s my biggest supporter, my partner in everything, and honestly, just my favourite person. It’s been such a special journey since starting my career, and I’m so grateful to have him by my side."

"What's the key to a successful relationship?" He asks. You pause as you walk through the hallway, your gaze softening as you think. "I think it’s communication and a lot of patience. No relationship is perfect, but being able to talk things through and genuinely listen to each other makes all the difference." You smile, adding, "Oh, and laughter—if you can laugh together, you can get through just about anything."

The sound of the front door creaking open interrupts the moment, and a familiar voice rings out, instantly making your face light up. "Oh, there’s Drew right now!" you say, smiling brightly as you move toward the foyer. The camera follows you, capturing the scene as Drew enters, with Nellie, your cocker spaniel, bounding beside him. "Hey, baby," He greets you as he slips off his sunglasses, pulling you close for a tender kiss

When he pulls back, his eyes widen slightly as he spots the camera. "Oh, 73 Questions with Vogue?" he asks, a playful grin tugging at his lips. You giggle, nodding your head. "I forgot you were doing that today," he chuckles. “Go ahead, continue your interview," he adds with a fond look before walking off with Nellie. As the camera returns to you, you make your way toward the stairs, glancing over your shoulder to find Drew already on the floor, happily playing with Nellie.

A soft giggle escapes your lips, captured by the camera momentarily fixated on the fleeting connection. "What's something people don’t know about you?" the interviewer asks, pulling you back into the conversation. You pause, thinking for a second. "I’m actually allergic to most flowers," you reveal with a sheepish laugh. "Really? I wouldn’t have known," the interviewer responds, clearly surprised. "Oh, absolutely! When we film Outer Banks, they have to shoot around the flowers, or I'd be a sneezing mess," you confess, casually walking backward while maintaining a steady gaze with the camera.

The tour continues through luxurious walk-in closet, filled with designer attire. “What’s your pet peeve?” You laugh, shaking your head in mock exasperation. "Oh, definitely when people chew loudly. It’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. Chase is notorious for doing it on purpose, so I avoid him during my lunch breaks," you add, giggling at the memory. "Where was the best vacation you’ve been taken to?" the interviewer inquires as you step into your shared bedroom with Drew, the ocean stretching out just outside the windows.

"I think I’d have to say Vienna with Drew for my birthday," you say, smiling over your shoulder as you look out at the view. “A song you replay often?” "Hm, I think Charlie, Last Name Wilson," you say with a grin, rifling through the records. "It never gets old, and it’s super catchy." You smile as you pick it out. "Most of you guys would know that this song is also Drew and Austin’s favourite, so we always play it on set," you chuckle.

"Does the rest of the Outer Banks cast like it too?" the interviewer asks, laughing along. "They don’t have much choice," you joke with a grin.

"Is there anything from any set that you've taken home with you?" The interviewer asks eagerly. "The interviewer questions as you giggle, clapping your hands. ""Oh, I love this question!" you exclaim, opening a drawer to reveal a variety of souvenirs. "This is the bag my character 'Whiskey' from Glass Onion owned," you say, showing off the brown frill bag. "And here’s a pack of Italian cigarettes from Immaculate, they’re just props, by the way," you add with a wink.

You pull out a cowboy hat. "This one’s from Tom on the set of Billy the Kid," you explain. "And this," you say with a smile, holding up a ring on a necklace. "This is Rafe's ring, the one he gave my character." "What a beautiful photo of the two of you," the interviewer notes, pointing to the large black-and-white photo of you and Drew at a Vogue photoshoot above your bed.

"It is! That day was actually so special for us. We both got the call saying we’d been cast in our respective roles that we’d been auditioning for," you explain, your face lighting up with nostalgia. The interviewer then asks about Drew’s upcoming movie. "Speaking of which, Drew’s film Queer is coming out very soon. Are you excited to watch it on the big screen?" "Yes, of course!" you say, your voice full of pride.

"I was so incredibly proud of him when he got the role. He was definitely excited too, especially since it’s, you know, the Luca Guadagnino." You chuckle. "I got the privilege to actually be on set for a bit, and it was amazing. Plus, I got to catch up with Daniel," you mention. "It was really nice to see him again." You smile, the pride evident in your expression as you talk about Drew's accomplishments.

The conversation is interrupted by a gentle knock at the door, and both you and the interviewer turn your attention toward it. Drew’s head peeks around the corner, his grin lighting up the frame as the camera zooms in on him. "I made some iced teas—yours is half and half," he says casually, stepping into the room with a tray holding two glasses. You can’t help but beam as he hands you your drink. "Aww, thanks, babe," you say gratefully, your fingers brushing his for a brief moment as you take the glass.

Drew hands the other glass to the interviewer, who looks pleasantly surprised. "Wow, thank you, Drew!" he says with a wide smile. "Of course," Drew replies warmly before glancing at you. "Let me know if you need anything else," he says, shooting you a quick wink before stepping out of the room. The camera lingers on him for a beat as he walks away, capturing his effortless charm.

You take a sip of the iced tea, the cool, refreshing taste spreading through you as you let out a content sigh. "Is this something you drink often?" the interviewer asks, clearly curious. You nod enthusiastically. "Oh, absolutely. I like mine half and half, and I drink it like 24/7," you say with a chuckle, the glass still in your hand. The interviewer grins before asking a more personal question. "I can tell Drew is very thoughtful. What’s your favourite trait of his?"

You laugh softly, caught off guard by the difficult question. "You can’t make me choose—I love everything about him!" you say with a playful grin, your tone light but sincere. The interviewer chuckles along with you, clearly charmed by your response. "Okay, okay, fair enough. But if you had to pick just one thing that comes to mind?"

You pause for a moment, your expression softening as you think. "Hmmm," you hum, swirling your iced tea absentmindedly. "I love the little things he does," you begin, your voice warm with affection. "Like how he always remembers my coffee order or when he leaves me little notes when I’m on set. It’s those small, thoughtful moments that really mean the most to me."

The camera captures your tender smile, and the interviewer smiles himself, visibly touched by your response. "That’s so sweet," he says, his tone genuine. "It really is," you smile, a soft, almost bashful grin spreading across your face. "He’s the best boyfriend I could have ever asked for," you say, your tone filled with warmth and sincerity.

The interviewer watches you with an amused smile, clearly endeared by the dreamy, almost schoolgirl-like look on your face as you think about Drew.

~

The Vogue 73 Questions interview quickly becomes an internet sensation, captivating fans. It was everywhere. Clips of your candid answers and sweet, unscripted moments—especially the one where Drew casually walked in with iced tea—became the ultimate proof of why you were Hollywood’s darling. Within hours of its release, the hashtag #73QuestionsWithY/n trends worldwide.

The comments section was flooded with fans losing their minds over the glimpse into your life. "Can we talk about how Drew KNOWS her iced tea order by heart? If this isn’t relationship goals, I don’t know what is." "Y/n casually being gorgeous, funny, and real in her Charleston dream home? I’m in love." "The way Drew looked at her when he walked in… I CAN’T. He’s so whipped, and I’m here for it."

Memes circulate, celebrating your witty remarks and playful demeanor, while your thoughtful insights and open vulnerability spark heartfelt discussions. The part where Drew sneaks into the interview with iced tea becomes a fan-favourite, with many dubbing it "the cutest boyfriend moment of the year."

“I love how real she is,” one fan tweeted, accompanied by screenshots of your answer about Drew’s little notes and coffee orders. Another post with a screenshot of you laughing at Drew’s confused “Oh, Vogue’s here” reaction read, “You can just tell they’re best friends. I want a love like this.”

The media couldn’t get enough, either. Everyone from gossip sites to prestigious magazines weighed in on how you’d managed to blend the glamour of your career with the warmth of your personality. The buzz reignites interest in your past projects and elevates anticipation for your upcoming ones. Your social media following soars as fans, old and new, praise your ability to remain grounded despite your success.

Meanwhile, Drew’s small but sweet cameo sparks renewed admiration for your relationship, with countless threads and videos dedicated to celebrating your bond. “Y/n and Drew are proof that true love exists,” one viral tweet declares, garnering thousands of likes and retweets. Another fan edits together a montage of your cutest moments from the interview, set to a romantic song, which quickly racks up millions of views.

Drew couldn’t stop teasing you about how viral the iced tea moment had become. “You’re lucky I didn’t walk in shirtless,” he joked one night as you scrolled through TikTok, finding yet another edit of you two. “Please,” you said, giggling, your hand affectionately stroking Nellie, “half the internet would’ve fainted.” “Half?” He raised an eyebrow, smirking. “I think you’re underestimating me, babe.”

[short-honey-badger]

Doll

Pairings: Shanks x Female Reader

Summary: Shanks meets an escaped slave from Marie Geois and swears to teach her how to live.

Notes* hey lovelies. As you can see from the oneshots, I'm finally back in action. I hope you enjoy the start of my new series that I'm planning to help me really get going. Expect some protective Shanks and some darker elements. Pretty fast pace just cause that how I enjoy writing him lol. I've really missed writing for him and sharing works with you wonderful people. Anyway, enjoy! ❤️

Doll Masterlist

There aren't many things that could surprise Shanks on the Grand Line anymore, but the woman that sat at the bar could definitely be considered a good one. He didn't recognize her, but he could tell that she was in a league above the other patrons that sat around the bar. She sat in the back corner, a bottle of booze sat on the table in front of her that she occasionally took a pull from. Shanks sat at the front and got the attention of the bartender.

“Who's she?” He asked and the man shrugged as he cleaned a dingy glass.

“Dunno. She blew in a couple of days ago. She pays, so I don't ask questions.”

Shanks huffed and ordered a drink for himself, “And whatever she's been drinking, too.”

Drinks in hand, Shanks stood from the bar and ambled over to the table where the woman sat. He plonked the bottle down and, head tilting to the side, “This seat taken?”

You looked up, blinking rapidly as if coming out of a daze and gave the redhead a smile once you focused on the ale he'd sat beside your empty one. “Is now.”

Shanks grinned and plonked down in the chair opposite you and leaned back and eyed you from under his bangs, “You from about here?”

The woman shakes her head, a mysterious little smirk painting her lips, “Nope. And I can tell that you aren’t either.”

She tilts her head, eyes narrowing in thought before her eyes brighten like a bulb has gone off, “You’re Shanks, right?”

The emperor huffs and gestures to himself, “You caught me.”

He doesn’t expect the woman to go quiet, an almost contemplative look about her as she shifts in her chair. He can’t help but lean in, curious despite himself.

“Maybe you could help me out then?” You murmur and flick your eyes up to meet his own. Shanks is surprised to see the desperation lingering there, hidden behind the self-assurdness that you seem to wear like a second skin. What would a girl like you need help with?

“Alright, I’ll bite. Tell me what’s going on. Don’t let my money go to waste though, doll,” he murmurs and gestures to the untouched ale that he’d brought over. You smile in thanks and take a sip, wetting your mouth as you get ready to spill. You can only hope that the emperor will accept.

With shaking hands you reach up and unbutton the top few notches of your shirt, just enough to expose your left shoulder where the brand still tugs uncomfortably at your skin. Even though you’ve had the brand for years now, you’ll never get used to the sickening way it pulls at your skin. The constant reminder that you were owned.

Shanks sucks in a sharp breath, the brand of a slave staring back at him in before he tears his eyes away and looks back at you, “How’d you escape?”

You grimace and button back up, eyes flinty, “My old master,” you hiss the word in disgust, “Sent me on an errand in Sabaody so I took my chance. That was about a month ago now. They’re stil looking for me.”

“Who got your off the archipelago?” Shanks asks and downs half his tankard of rum in one go. He’s met slaves before while visiting the string of islands, but with Silvers there, Shanks steered clear most of the time unless he happened to drift close. The though that even after all that Fisher Tiger had done, the Celestial Dragons still kidnapped and baught slaves. It disgusted the emperor to have seen that brand on a woman like you.

You shrug and bite your bottom lip. You busy your hands by playing with the ring of condensation that the bottle of ale has left behind, “Didn’t really catch their names. I stowed away the first ship I could find and I’ve been drifting ever since. I just… I can’t go back to that place Shanks. I don’t want them to find me.”

Shanks doesn’t know what makes him reach out, but he takes both your hands in his own, and wow, you were such a small thing weren’t you? He squeezes your palms and gives you a confident grin to hide the rage that threatens to erupt like an active volcano. He may have just met you, but there is a feeling in the pit of his stomach that tells him that he’d met someone special. Someone that could change his life, and he finds himself hardpressed to even think of letting you slip away from him.

“Don’t worry, doll. I won’t ever let that happen,” Shanks swears, and it’s then that a thought crosses his mind. A blush flushes his face and he peers at you, “Maybe you outta tell me your name, though. Or I could just keep calling you doll. Either works for me.”

Your laugh sends a shot of heat straight to his stomach, and your smile could light up the sky, “My name is _, but you can keep calling me Doll if you’d like.”

Shanks meets your grin with one of his own and then stands, carefully pulling you up with him, “Well, doll. How about you come meet my crew?”

Shanks stays close to you for the rest of the evening, introducing you to each one of his crewmates and pointing out what they do aboard the ship. You smile and make conversation, though some of it is stilted and awkward, like you aren’t sure how to talk to someone so casually. You loosen up after a couple more drinks, and find yourself leaning against your new captain, bottom lip stuck between your teeth as you watch the crew’s antics.

“I don’t want to be a burden to you, Shanks. Do you think that you could teach me?”

Your voice is soft, breath featherlight against his skin, and Shanks thinks that he would do anything for you in that moment. Instead, he tips a bottle of rum up to his lips and takes a deep swig before he answers.

“Sure, sweetheart. What do you want to know?’

Your eyes burn with a sort of determination that the emperor doesn’t see often, and it makes anticipation well up in his chest as you lick your lips and look at him.

“Everything, Shanks. I want to know everything.”

He sets the bottle away so that he can give you his full attention. He can feel the air thicken, the winds and sea changing as he dips his head and reaches out to cup your face in his hand. He swipes his thumb along your jaw, then your chin, eyes never leaving your own.

“Then that’s what I’ll do, Doll. I’ll teach you how to live, yeah?”

[trendywaifus]

↳ you’re my violet in the sun! (part one!)

a/n: ngl if i were to truly make this a friends with benefits fic, it would of been a bit toxic and sad. two parts btw. ly all.

cw: gn! reader with a dick, virgin! reader, reader down bad asf, no established relationship, reader is a pubsec! officer, reader described to be taller and have pretty lips at some point but gn ofc, you’re such a honest loser and jane’s a sucker for it, confessions during sex, creampie, praise, worship, oral fixation, cum-eating, tail-job (lol), cursing, mind dumbfication, size kink, vaginal penetration, pussydrunk, blowjob

you walk through the bustling streets of lumina square, fresh off your shift with an aching body. fortunately, you shed your heavy equipment from your person after clocking out so you’re able to tread around easier. who would of thought that solving mundane cases like chasing after lost cats and calming down rowdy teenagers would make you drained today? since you had worked with your rookie squad partner, seth, it made things a little easier. since he was a cat thiren, he has a natural affinity with cats and is certainly proving himself to be a good addition to the criminal investigation response team. but, his character is a little too. .earnest for your liking. seth is a textbook good guy but you don’t like how he endangers himself sometimes. however, it was either him, qingyi, or the captain. zhu yuan doesn’t like messing with furry animals and isn’t exactly good at talking to teenagers. qingyi. .isn’t really good with teenagers or cats either for obvious reasons so there’s not much to say there.

with a heavy sigh, you walked through the crosswalk as the pedestrian signal light turns green. a nice cup of coffee should do it and then when you return home, you’ll make some dinner. you should have enough ingredients for alfredo after doing a grocery run recently. you’re deep in your thoughts as you walk with a small crowd of civilians who’s busy with their own plans. suddenly, a finger lightly taps you on your left shoulder, pulling you out of your thoughts. you crane your neck to glance over at that shoulder and left puzzled when you couldn’t find the person who did it.

“ haha, on your right~ “ the familiar saccharine voice snickers.

your stomach flutters as you turn your head to the source of the voice. you lock eyes with your colleague, jane. she gives you a playful smile, siren eyes crinkling. “ y-you play too much. .a normal hi would of sufficed. “ you groan, crossing your arms as she softly laughs besides you. she always sounds so pretty when she laughs. her voice pleasantly rings in your ears and you try your best to not let it linger on your mind. subconsciously hooking her left finger back with her coat strap, she steadily matches your walking speed.

“ sorry, sorry. i saw you walking down here after a important phone call. you seemed a little exhausted so i wanted to make you smile. i guess i should try a different method, huh sweetheart? “

sweetheart? your cheeks burn.

“ th-there’s no need, “ you start, fiddling with your belt to distract yourself from the butterflies jittering around in your tummy. “ i was going to get some coffee at coff’s cafe to help my exhaustion. um, thank you though, miss jane. “

you’re so polite and awkward, it’s adorable.

“ oh? “ you feel her interested gaze on you. “ you don’t mind me coming along, do you? i could use some caffeine right now because i’ve been pushing myself a little too hard lately. i feel like eating a energy bar right now wouldn’t give me the extra kick that i need. ”

you thought about it for a moment. although you’re quite shy around jane, you enjoy her company. you just need to swallow back your social anxiety and hold a decently long conversation with her. it’s quite hard though when she’s gorgeous. “ i don’t mind, miss jane. i. .would appreciate your company. “ you’d admit, sending the shorter woman a warm smile that came out too awkward for your liking. there’s a certain glimmer in her siren eyes as they slightly widen. her rodent ears lightly jitter before she reciprocates your smile back with a soft one.

“ . .alright, good. “

after a minute of walking, you stroll into coff’s caffe with jane at your side. you greet tin master with a small wave and ordered what you want. “ mochaccino, please. what about you, miss jane?”the rat thiren hums thoughtfully.

“ hm, a latte is fine. “

tin master enthusiastically collects your orders and fixes up your coffees.

“ so, “ the tin master begins as he swirls the cream on your mochaccino. “ are you two perhaps a couple now? it’s my first time seeing you two together. if so, you made the right choice, miss jane. they maybe a little shy and stiff but hopefully you can help get them out of their com—“

bashful, you abruptly cut him off, sputtering, “ n-no, tin, w-we’re just grabbing coffee today—not dating, just c-colleagues! “

“ . .oop! i’m sorry! l-let me just finish with your orders! forget what i said! “

jane blinks several times, glancing between you hiding your flustered face with your head tilted away from her and the tin master nervously humming away as he does the last finishing touches with her latte. such a comedic sight to see—it feels like she’s in a comedy romance movie. jane bursts into a fit of giggles, bringing a palm to her mouth as she does. “. . .hahaha! i will, i will. but, i do like to admit that they’re quite the cutie~”

“ j-janne. . “ you grumble, carefully taking your cup of coffee after the tin master slides yours and hers on the counter.

“ i’m just teasing you, (name). you don’t have to take everything i say to heart sometimes~ “ though, what she said was the truth. you’re very easy on the eyes.

jane gets her own cup and follows you over to the small tables. you sat down at a seat with a soft sigh. she sits down alongside you, and plucks a spoon from the small bin containing the silverware. jane curls her tail around her leg to keep it contained. a small moment of silence sinks in between you two and you anxiously think about what to say. maybe ask about the important phone call she mentioned about earlier? no, she’s a consultant, most of the information she receives is classified, even for you. perhaps her day? that’s a good general question to ask. you wonder why she’s been pushing herself lately.

“ so. .miss jane? “

“ hm? “ the light sound of metal hits your ears as she aimlessly stirs her coffee, dissipating tin master’s latte art. poor guy.

“ . .how was your day? you mentioned to me earlier about how you’ve been pushing yourself lately. by any chance, are you prepping for a big case? “

jane nods with a “mhm” before explaining, “ yeah, but i can’t really say anything given the severity of the case and i’m sure you’ll be brought to light about it soon enough. “

she sips on her latte. the relaxing, rich contents seeps down her throat, filling her body with a satisfying warmth.

you give her a puzzled expression. ‘brought to light about it?’ since jane works under pubsec and the criminal investigation response team as the specialist—perhaps captain zhu yuan assigned her to the case first before informing the rest of the team. you might be expecting another raid operation in the following days or so.

“ so, when are you leaving for it? are you going under a different alias this time? “

she shakes her head, chuckling, “ i’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning. for this case, jane doe will do just fine. “

oh? so her actual fake name. you lift the cup to your lips, the creamy fluid explodes on your tongue. you’re unaware of jane’s keen gaze watching you. with a satisfied sigh, you set the cup back down, feeling the soft cream on your top lip. you stick out your tongue to lick away the residue. jane’s ears flutter with unknown intent, cyan eyes slightly narrowing. “ so, how was your day? anything interesting happened?”she inquires, lazily propping a leg over the other, and rested her chin on her gloved palm.

you perk up nervously, rubbing the back of your neck. “ well, not exactly. chasing pets and squashing teenager squabbles was really all i did. “ jane drums her finger against the wooden surface, silently identifying your awkward tendencies that makes her smile a little. rubbing your neck, fiddling around with your fingers, while having that small, sheepish smile on those pretty lips of yours, and you’re glancing around—you can barely look her in the eye. despite your size, you’re quite the adorable little officer.

“ oh, really? squashing teenage squabbles? i’m wondering how you’re able to do that when you can barely look at me while we talk. you don’t have to be nervous around me, i’m just here to give you company. i don’t bite. “ she teases light-heartedly, her carmine lips curling upwards more as you laugh awkwardly.

“ w-well, it’s just you’re. .”

“ i’m what? “ jane eggs on with an amused expression on her features. her tail unwraps from her leg and lowly sways.

“ you’re very. .beautiful so it’s hard for me to talk to you sometimes—“

“ pfft, hahaha! “ jane lets out an endearing laugh, nearly hunching over with a hand on her stomach.

“ d-don’t laugh, miss jane! i didn’t know what else to say—i was only being honest! “ you stammer, lips pursing into a thin line.

“ no, no, you’re fine, sweetheart. that’s what i like about you. i-i was just taken back by how cute you really are. i haven’t laughed like that in a while. “ jane wipes the tears from the corner of her eyes with a thumb. you decide to take a few more sips of your coffee, fighting back the dopey smile threatening to spread across your lips.

after an hour of talking, you long since finished your coffees. she’s so lovely. you only worked with her a few times in operations and had some occasional small talk during your patrols. this was the first time you sat down and had a long conversation with her. you learned about her taste in action movies, taste in music, and what she usually does on her days off. despite how quick she is on her feet, jane’s more of a laid-back person. you almost can’t believe that she likes to have lazy days where she snacks on energy bars? that’s unexpected but somehow fitting for her. it’s starting to get late but admittedly, you want to spend more time with her before she leaves for her case the next morning.

you stand outside of the cafe with jane, swallowing thickly as she wraps up her conversation with you so she can head back home and prepare for her next case. before she can bid you goodbye, you blurt out, “ actually. .i’m making alfredo tonight. do. . you want to come over and have some dinner with me, miss jane? i-itt’ll also be beneficial for you so you wake up with extra energy in the morning. . “ you offer awkwardly, shifting your weight on the opposite foot.

the fairly, sable haired woman merely stares at you with a quizzical look on her face for a short moment. anxious under her stare, you shift your weight on the other foot. jane breaks out into a fond smile, her tail swishing slowly, mirroring her delight. “ i guess it wouldn’t hurt to join you, sweetheart. how far are you from here? “

you exhaled a quick puff of air in relief. “ at least twenty minutes away from here. i take the metro. “

“ interesting. .we could be in the same neighborhood because i take the metro and that’s the estimated time that it usually takes for me to come home from here. “

that really is interesting. how come you never see her if you and her are from the same neighborhood?

“ i’m usually out and about during evenings and throughout the nights so that might be why we don’t really see each other. “

ah.

you unlock the front door of your home and opened it for her. “ you first, miss jane. “ you smile politely at her and she smiles back. she brushes past you, the pointed end of her tail gingerly grazes under your chin as a silent, playful thank you. “ o-oh. . “ you murmur, easily flustered by her mischievous gesture and followed her inside, closing the door behind you then locking it. jane slips off her boots and steps inside your living room. she scopes out the decently large space with visible interest. it’s tidy and feels homey, not to mention, it smells just like you.

“ so, um, yeah this is my home. “ you force out a little shy laugh that she finds endearing. “ i’m going to go freshen up and change first before i cook anything. you can rest on the couch and listen to the radio, o-or watch tv while you wait. do you want me to give you some water before i go? “

jane slips off her bomber coat and sets it on the elbow of the couch she have decided to rest on. a black, sleeveless mock neck crop top that fits her and her style perfectly. that’s what she usually wears underneath? she’s looks so good in that. you hold yourself back from staring longer than you should. “ no, i’m okay. thanks. i’ll be right here when you come back~” she sing songs, plopping down on the sofa and stretches out her limbs. jane waves at you playfully and giggles when you scurry off to your bedroom.

“ sweet thing. .today may not be so tiresome after all.” she trails off, skimming a quick thumb over her polished red nails.

jane decides to turn on the portable radio that’s settled on the coffee table in front of her. carefully, she adjusts the notch, glossing over channels until the one that suits her taste pops up. a slow r&b song that she often hears from time to time fills the quiet atmosphere of the living room. exhaling, she leans back against the head of the couch and checks her phone for any new dms and calls. she sighs with relief when she discovers none and rests her device on the rounded table. it took a little over thirty minutes before you come back out—in a tank top and sweatpants. jane always wondered what you’d look like outside of your uniform and she is not disappointed by the sight in front of her. how could you look so good while being such a socially awkward sweetheart? there are many interesting characters within pubsec but it’s still surprising that you’re one of them and a good one at that. her primal thiren instincts softly kicks in the longer her stare lingers on your form.

“ sorry that i kept you waiting, let me go make the food. “

“ or better yet, “ jane purrs, admiring you from head to toe with an inviting gaze that makes you shiver. “ come here. let’s talk some more. ” she pats a spot next to her. you gulp and made your way over to the long sofa where she resides at. your fresh scent pass through jane’s nostrils as you sat down next to her which stirs something from within her. yet, jane tries to ignore the growing sense of yearn that’s slowly chipping away at her self control. there’s that nervous glint in your (e/c) eyes that almost makes you look innocent.

“ miss jane— “

“ just jane, sweetheart. you’re making me feel old when you say it so sweetly like that. we’re just about the same age. “ the rat thiren corrects through a soft, half whisper and chuckle, running a steady hand down your arm and squeezed your biceps. you slowly bob your head, subconsciously running your tongue across your lips. jane’s gaze follows the movement of your kissable lips before flickering back up at your eyes. “ jane, um, so what is there you wanted to talk about? “ you inquired gently, cheeks hot and so is the blood coursing through your veins. she doesn’t think she can hold herself back—not when her thiren senses is beginning to act up like this.

her rat ears flutter, not once, but twice.

“ have you. .ever been with anyone like this before, sweetheart? “

your gaze shifts off to the side.

“ no, eyes back over here. look at me. “ she holds your jaw with her gloved palm and maneuver your head back to her. a helpless noise vibrates in your chest as her siren eyes bleeds into yours.

“ i. . no. “ you muttered, ashamed.

jane releases your jaw to caress your cheek, “ that’s okay. there’s no need to be ashamed about it. do you trust me? “ she asks in a hushed tone, closing the proximity between you and her until the intoxicating scent of her perfume wafts strongly against your nose and you can feel her calm breath against your lips. her thumb massages your cheekbone in a tender manner while she waits for an answer. you swallow, gathering the courage to say one word that’s threatening to spill from your tongue.

“ y-yeah—“

soft lips press against yours in a quick kiss, gladly consuming the surprised sound rumbling in your throat. jane shifts forward, her free hand plants itself on your shoulder and gently push your upper body downward until your back hits the cushions. she hovers on top of you, situating herself between your legs. one of your legs is hanging off the long sofa while the other is bent on it. her fingers skim down to your jaw and slowly traced the outline of it. your heart is beating fast against your rib cage, pumping blood lower and lower to the specific part of your body that exposes your excitement.

“ ah? “ jane momentarily pulls back to eye the tight outline of the growing bulge hardening in your sweat pants. she’s only seeing the preview and she can already tell that you’re big. you’re full of surprises aren’t you? excitement flows her veins like an injection of anti-corruption serum. she rolls her bottom lip between her teeth with profound anticipation. “ . . .j-jane, you’re staring. .”you pointed out shyly, tentatively placing your hands on her waist. a nonchalant hum simmers in her chest.

“ am i baby? sorry, it’s hard not to when you’re under me like this. “ jane simpers, dipping down to lay sweet kisses on your cheek before targeting your lips again. unlike last time, it’s a firm press which is nearly not enough to signify her want for you. but because you’re obviously inexperienced, she want to take it slow with you. you nervously apply pressure to her sweet lips, faintly tasting the cherry balm and latte she consumed earlier with you. your hands lack confidence as they run down her sides.

“ don’t be nervous. touch me more, i’m all yours for tonight. “ and maybe for many nights more. she takes one of your hands and guides it to her right breast. with the help of her delicate guidance, you gently squeezed her through her black, mock neck crop top. the plump flesh feels tender and pliable even through the silk fabric. a pleased hum leaves her. jane’s pillowy lips smoothly slot between yours by the slight tilt of her head. your head becomes light-headed as the slow, dizzying kiss lasts longer and longer. the hand that was once over yours drops and slips under your tank top. your body slightly arches into her warm palm as it explores the plane of your belly.

your mouth parts and so does hers, following after your lead. “ j-jane, “ you murmur in between quivering breathes and soft open-mouthed kisses to your lips. a mhmm?, rasps in her throat. the aforementioned woman’s hand edges near the waistband of your sweats.

“ th-this is my first time. . “ you mutter breathily as if to remind her.

jane slowly pulls away, half-lidded teal eyes softening once they pool into yours. “ . .i. .know, “ then she reels herself back from her carnal desires for a moment to rationalize. was she really intending on taking your first time when she’s not even in a romantic relationship with you? you don’t even know much about her or her true name. did she seriously allow herself to give in at the heat of the moment? didn’t you originally invite her over to eat dinner with you? your first time should be with someone you wholeheartedly know and love. you deserve a genuine experience with someone who’s just as genuine as you are. it shouldn’t be her. she belongs in the shadows, not in the soft light of your eyes. she shoves back her growing feelings for you before things get more complicated than they are now.

jane sighs almost dejectedly, straightening up her back. you hold onto her waist. she’s vague as she apologizes. “. . let’s stop. i’m sorry, i should of known better than to do this when you’ve only invited me over as your guest to eat. . let go, i’ll take my leave. “

your eyes widen with confusion and hurt.

“ j-jane, no. please don’t apologize and go, i want this too. “

her turquoise hues study the expression on your face; you look like a sad, kicked puppy. damn, it’s making her not want to go. she doesn’t want to leave you alone like this and prefers it when you’re happy with that crooked smile on your face. things really are starting to get more complicated now.

“ you should want this, “ she chuckles bitterly, ears subtly flattened, “ but not with me, sweetheart. come on, let me go—hm! “

you take jane by surprise by firmly pulling her down by the forearm and she lands on-top of you. you place your hand on the back of her head and pulled her into a clumsy, open-mouthed kiss. teeth clash as you kissed her. your other hand clamps down on the small of her back. you arch your body into her, grinding the ache that’s straining your sweats up against her.

her breath audibly hitches. “ i want you, i never wanted anyone more in my life, “ you confessed, splaying hasty, wet kisses against the corner of her lips, down to her chin and sharp jaw. “ please don’t leave me. “ you beg, voice thin yet filled with honest passion.

jane’s tail replies before she herself does; the thick appendage softly thumping against the firm cushion. her chest bloom with profound infatuation as her heart starts to bleed with warmth. it wouldn’t hurt to escape the underlying loneliness of her disingenuous lifestyle for just one night with you—it wouldn’t hurt to bask in the pleasure of feeling genuinely loved and sought after.

“ i. .won’t. are you sure about this though, baby?” she checks, her nose brushing against the plush flesh of your cheek.

“ y-yes, yes—so please, “ you grasp one of her hands and moved it downward until she’s touching your throbbing cock. you babble, “ touch me, fuck me, i’ll do whatever you want just—“

“ alright, alright. slow down, “ jane chuckles at the needy tone clinging to your strained voice. she applies weight to her palm, rubbing you in broad strokes. you slip out a drawn-out soft moan that cements the infatuated woman’s desire to stay. “ i’ll stay. “ she finishes in a tender whisper. thrilled by her change of decision, you press your lips against hers, again and again and again until her rosy lipstick has faded.

finally, she returns upright again—her hungry gaze striking down on you. “ you really are something else.” jane notes playfully, pulling off her fitted, sleeveless top from over her head. your eyes grow cutely wide as her generous, supple mounds spill and sit prettily on her chest. bright pink, perky nipples gleaming like gems under the soft lights of the living room. her milky skin looks so soft and pristine. your fingers twitch, itching to touch her. she tilts her head, fang-like strands hovering her eyes as she sends you a roguish smile. “ go on. “ she encourages, once again having to take your eager hand and place it on her bare right breast. just as you expected, soft and pliable like clay. when you squeeze, it slightly spills between your fingers like a stress ball. jane draws out a breathy groan and bites at her lip.

sticky pre-cum stains through the cotton fabric of your boxers and sweats. you feel so swollen, it’s starting to hurt.

whining, you retract your hand away, taking quick puffs of air as your frantic fingers pull at the waistband of your bottoms and hurriedly tugged them down to your thighs. your leaking length springs out, nice and tall, surprising jane. you sigh of relief from freedom. the baffled expression on the rat thiren’s face makes you regret giving into your impulse.

“ m’sorry jane, i-it was starting to get uncomfortable. .” you whimpered out, fighting the urge to stroke yourself right in front of her to relieve the ache. she recovers, teal eyes softening apologetically with a twinge of amusement.

“ my poor baby, “ she coos in a smooth drawl, slipping off her gloves and tosses them onto the table. “ ‘should’ve told me so, i would’ve helped you relieved it sooner. now, relax for me. “

jane transitions downward until she’s face to face with your needy cock. she encircles her hand around you, starting the momentum off slow and aimed. “ . .you’re bigger than i thought. “ she mutters under her breath, noting how she can barely fit one hand around you. her hand size is above average than a typical rat thiren.

you try to suppress the small groans as jane pumps you—all the way to the base and back up to your leaking tip. her thumb swipes over the rivulet of pre-cum and skillfully uses it as lube. “ hang in there, sweet thing~ “ she purrs, her sultry voice sweet like candy and smooth like butter, “ i’ll take care of you.”she plants a saccharine kiss against your cockhead. her tongue slips through parted lips and leaves a longg wet stripe up your shaft. your toes curl with trickling pleasure while she butters you up with her elongated tongue. once your cock meets the inside of her hot, humid mouth, you become a whimpering mess.

“ ‘so warm, so good. . “ you moaned, smoothening your face with a shaky hand. her gaze is focused on you, filled with amusement and lust as she sucks at your cockhead and twirls against it with her skillful tongue. she slowly sinks down, taking in heavy inches of your shaft. even when she’s relaxing her jaw, you’re heavy just enough that it’s tensing. a guttural noise bubbles in her chest when the thick head of your cock stretches down the opening of her throat. she deems it enough and moves back up to the top, leaving behind a sheet of her slick saliva. “ f-fuckk. .i. . “ you cursed, propping a forearm over your eyes.

her brows raises with mirth. she managed to get you to curse like that already, huh?

jane does it all over and over again—until you’re completely drunk off her mouth. the slick noises escaping her stuffed mouth while she pleases you sounds so vulgarly satisfying, it’s teetering you closer to sweet release. when she sucks hard at a particular sensitive vein, your hips judder and you utter out a loud, strained whine. “ imightcumimightcum, “ you repeated like a desperate prayer, sucking in quick breaths of air to battle the rapid rise and fall of your chest. the hand that’s not busy stroking what she can’t reach, massages your trembling thigh.

jane ascends to the tip and spoils it with attention with her slick tongue. she flicks at it and drags the thick ball of her tongue along the puffy slit in tight, circular rotations. your cock twitches erratically as you cried, “ c-cumming! “ billowy spurts of cum shoots into her mouth without warning. a stunned noise vibrates in her chest as she struggles to swallow rope after rope of velvety cum. you let out a cacophony of broken cries, rickety hips leaning up into her mouth.

“ pl-please tell me i’m not dreaminggg, “ you slurred, staring up at the ceiling with blurry vision while trying to catch your breath. jane swallows the rest of your load, the slightly salty and bitter taste of your cum marinating in her mouth. she laps up the remainder of your cum with her tongue. by now, her neglected heat is dripping and her panties soaked.

pop!

the rat thiren titters as she pulls away temporarily to undress herself, “ maybe you are, maybe you’re not~ i’ll leave it up to you to figure that out, baby. “

it takes her a minute to undo her black, fitted shorts and the straps to her ripped stockings. you hear her sigh and mutter under her breath, mostly complaining about how inconvenient it is to take off her stockings without ripping them more. your droopy gaze shift away from the ceiling and onto jane who’s now completely naked. your mouth goes dry as you admire her breathtaking figure. she herself looks like a dream you’re lucky to witness—to touch with your own hands. then, your eyes fall to her pussy that’s practically dripping. her transluscent essence trickles down her inner thighs and your mouth almost instantly salivates.

“ j-jane, you’re. .”

and she gives you a knowing smirk, knowing exactly what you’re referring to by the direction of your entranced gaze. her hand travels down to her soaked pussy and with two fingers, she skims them across her folds, smearing her juices. “ all of this is because of you, sweetheart. here, “ she brings the two slick-coated digits to your lips and they part open immediately. “ have a taste. “

your eyes flutter at the addicting taste, a slutty moan releases from the base of your throat. your slimy tongue hungrily licks at jane’s fingers, lapping up the left-over juices. jane finds herself enjoying how needy you are for her—just like a desperate puppy. drool rolls down the right crevice of your lips once the saliva overflows. “ w-wan. .more. .” you groaned after jane removes her digits from your mouth. the thread of spit thins out and dissipates.

“ oh, you do? “ she queries, the modulation of her voice is meant to almost be mocking, feigning ignorance. you bob your head frantically.

“ f-fuck yes. pl–please baby, sit on my face. i-i promise i’ll make you feel good! “ you’d beg hoarsely, your mind is practically hanging onto a thread.

licking her faded peach lips, jane’s cobalt eyes crinkles. “ you already are, no need to promise. but since you’re giving me those puppy eyes, i can’t say no, huh? “

it only took a moment for jane to adjust her whole body and hover her sopping pussy over your face. her thick thighs sunk into the cushion on both sides of your head. you feel yourself growing hard again as you hungrily eye her pink, dewy folds and engorged clit. “ tap me when you need to, got it? i can’t guarantee that i’ll get up though. .just kidding~ “ your colleague teases and you wish that she wasn’t.

after nodding your head, she carefully sits down on your face. the strong, heady scent of her has your mind gladly slipping off the singular thread. you get straight to eating without prior experience, your hands envelop around the plush fat of her thighs. you run your greedy tongue up and down her messy pussy, coating her essence all over your tastebuds. she tastes so heavenly. jane rasps out a moan before biting her lip. “ mm, move your tongue a little lower—yeahh, focus right there, baby. “

you focus your attention on her sopping hole, lapping and slurping up her syrupy juices. smushing your face further into her cunt, your nose graze her pulsating clit. her blessed hips rock back and forth on your tongue, chasing the ever-growing pleasure that’s clouding her rational thought. you drag a sloppy strip back up her folds to suck on her neglected clit. “ haha, you’re a natural. .” jane lets out a strained laugh, kneading her left breast. she rolls her hardened bud between her index and middle finger.

sluurrp! sluuuurp!

you’re soo pussydrunk, nestling your face into her delicious heat, making a mess of yourself. through heavy breathing, you whimpered out, “ i-i’m so in lovee. .” while digging your nails into tender skin.

“ oh y-yeah? “ she smiles roguishly, teeth baring as a sense of pride flows into her. the pointed end of her tail trails down your abdomen and to your groin. it meets with your fresh boner and you melt. she wraps the thin ends of her tail around your cock and slowly strokes you. a sharp gasp retracts from your swollen lips. “ j-janeeee. . “ you utter out, buckling your hips to her strokes. her fingers thread into your hair, curling around (h/c) strands.

she tugs, urging you to continue. “ aht, no. keep using that gifted mouth of yours. “

through quick, quivering breaths, you gloss your tongue all over her cunt, swerving your head side to side. your nose brush against slick, black hairs as you suck on her clit once more. her thighs tremor from each hard suck of her nub. her back arches, head thrown backwards as you stimulate her to the edge. “ d-damn, i-i needed this, baby. . “ jane moans out, pressing her thighs harder against your head. you’re starting to feel light-headed from the limited room of oxygen and the heat of her skin. yet, you still devour her pussy without a care in the world.

“ just like thatt, mmmh, hah. .haha, “ she exerts out a raspy laugh at the obnoxiously loud slurping noises you’re producing from between her legs. “ just like a thirsty puppy th-that’s having its fill. .”

jane rides your face while also fastening the pace of her tail around your cock. beads of sweat roll down her furrowed brow, beautiful features crunching together as the urge to climax accumulates in her body. without a second thought or a thought lack there of, you push your tongue into her sensitive, sopping hole and she squeaks. jane grabs the elbow of the couch for support as she hunches forward, digging her teeth into the tender flesh of her bottom, plump lip.

your tongue swirls inside before thrusting along her gummy walls. she’s close. she’s so so close. despite her hips stuttering, she rolls her hips sloppily. “ ugh, g-gonna cum, take it all for me, yeah? i-it’s only fair after all. “

you grip her thighs tighter, holding her down as a response. with one last prolonged moan and the tight press of her thighs, she cums. globs of thick, syrupy essence pour down on your eager tongue. a throaty whine crawls out of your throat, sending sweet vibration through jane. “ i-i think i might be dreaming too. .” slightly light-headed, she jokes breathily, taking in soft gulps of air. by now, her tail is already unwrapped around you and swaying slowly in the air. you’re still slurping away, cleaning up the candied mess between her thighs.

after jane catches her breath, she slowly removes herself from your face to witness the mess she’s made. the lower half of your face is covered in her cum. there’s something that ignites a candle within her as she eyes that drunken expression you currently have. “ what a mess eater. .my messy eater.” she mutters possessively, positioning herself on top of your body. her fingers softly curl around the left side of your neck while she leans in and laps up her own fluids from your face withy filthy intent. her long, warm tongue wetly swipes up your chin and stops right below your hot cheek.

chuuu.

she plants a damp kiss on your cheek. “ kiss mee. .” you’d slur, slightly turning your head to her, chasing for her sultry lips. jane chuckles, giving you what you want without teasing. your head angles to deepen the kiss and moaned from the bittersweet taste of her cum and your own on her tongue. your hand finds a spot on her bare back and slowly skims down the gentle slope of it. “. . i want you to stay here tonight. “ you mutter against her lips and kissed her again.

“. . .you know i can’t. don’t tell me you’ve forgotten and we haven’t even finished yet. “ she mutters back, stifling back a frown at the thought of having to leave you in an hour or two to prepare herself for the undercover mountain lion gang infiltration in several hours.

“ i-i haven’t. .i just. .— “

“ don’t worry, “ jane interjects, “ i’m sure we’ll see each other soon enough. but. . “ just not like this goes unspoken.

“ b-but what? “

“ let’s make the most of the time we have now, sweetheart. come on, both legs on the couch. “ she instructs gently, and you do so, propping the leg that was once hanging off the bed on the couch. her hand skins down your collarbone before she moves away to align herself with your thick length. she throws you a easy smirk, “ watch closely now. “

squeeelch.

jane slowly sinks down on your cock, her face twisted into a concentrated expression. you watch with lovesick eyes as her pussy greedily swallows all hefty inches of you, bottoming you out. “ oh my god. .” you’d whimper, feeling everything raw —from the heat of her insides, the fluttering of her slick walls, your cockhead brushing against a tender spot. “ i can’t believe th-this is happening. . “

you’re so big. even as a rat thiren who has an impressive ability to adapt to nearly anything, she’s struggling to adjust to your sheer girth and size. you’re stretching her out in every which way. but, she can’t help the thrill rushing into her veins like a dopamine rush. “ i’ll h-have to admit, i can’t believe this is happening either, “ she dips her chest against yours. her weight on top of your body makes you trip over your desperation all over again. her long tail slithers out to the radio and carefully turns it up a few notches. the music plays noticeably louder in the background.

“ but l-like i said, we’ll make the most out of it—of my stay that is. . “ jane finished, gyrating her hips on your eager length. she has stuck you in place with tight circles, leaving you utterly breathless. you throw an arm around her midsection, pressing her more against you to leave no space behind. all you want to feel is her bare skin sliding over yours like the perfect puzzle piece. her sweet, breathy moans fan against your left perky ear. your unsteady hips pump up into her and she’s nearly gasping for air. “ i-i wanna know more about you. .” you begin, kissing at her pierced, rodent ear.

‘can’t quit you, you’re like drugs.

“ i w-want to hold you close just like this whenever i get the chance too. “ you continue, and moaned in sync with the woman of your dreams as you clumsily thrust into her ruined pussy. her hands grip your shoulders, velvet nails digging into your skin to withstand the immense pleasure. your tongue trace the cool metal of one of jane’s ear piercings, her ear twitches. “ i often wonder about your name. i-is it just as memorizing as you are? hngh. . “ you almost choke on your own spit over the firm squeezing of her gummy walls.

‘swear I tried to clean up.

“ wh-where. .hah. .is all of this coming from? “ jane finally asks amongst her trust issues, confusion, and well-hidden doubt. frothy cream pools from her sloshing pussy, causing a ring to form around your member.

‘too much shared between us.

“ . . i-i don’t know but i just don’t w-want to leave you alone. “ you confessed honestly, the three words not developed on your tongue just yet. your other arm wraps around her body, hugging her fully as your rutting hips piston into the fat of her ass. her heart skips one of many beats. the filthy sounds of plap! plap! plap! resonates loudly in your ears. you turn your head, the tip of your nose grazes her flush, milky cheek as you find her lips. jane also turns her head to meet you in a passionate kiss full of tongue and teeth. hot breaths mingle as the desperation between you twists and turns into a endless spiral.

she holds your jaw in place, firmly pressing the pads of her fingers into your jawline. you twitch erratically inside of her, yet you still continue to fuck into her. even when you shoot globs of cum inside of her, you still keep going; not wanting to stop.

‘saved my soul like jesus!

you desperately suck on her tongue, ignoring the exhaustion of your burning thighs one last time and snapped your stuttering hips up off the cushion. jane produces a strangled moan as your fat cockhead smack against her g-spot, emptying yourself into her more. suddenly, jane pull away from the kiss to bury her face into the crook of your neck. thick fluids seep out of the cracks of her stretched hole while her tail is stiffened, signaling her quiet release. she breathes heavily into your neck and you hold her tight in your arms, coming off from your high. the long, faded red piece of her hair runs past your fingers as you comb through them shakily.

you swallowed the lump in your throat before speaking, “ i. .i know we’ve done these operations multiple times now but. .please be safe since you’ve mentioned about this case being severe. hopefully captain calls the squad up for a special meeting about this case soon. “

it takes a prolonged moment for her to respond. she drags a finger along your collarbone. jane feels vulnerable, stripped away from her armor and the only thing she has now is her true feelings—its raw and indescribable. oddly enough, the way you’re holding her close feels like a blanket around her; she feels warmth. “ . . if i knew you were this much of a sweet talker, i wouldn’t have come here for ‘dinner.’ ”jane finally whispers against your skin playfully.

“ what d-does that suppose to be mean? “

she giggles at your flustered voice. “ think about it. but i was only kidding though, sweetheart. “

jane removes her face from your neck to gaze at you with her lidded eyes. her thumb gently brush across your bottom lip as she stares into your eyes, as if to decipher anything that’s hidden behind the colored shades of them. the sharp edges of her gaze softens when she finds nothing but raw devotion. “ you’ll stay for a little longer right? “ you ask hopefully in a weak voice and she sighs before resting her forehead against yours.

“ mhm. it’s not like i can move anyways when you’re holding me tight like this and while you’re. .”

she alludes to you still being inside of her, cockwarming her. your face visibly grows shy and jane laughs. she leans in to kiss you, slow and brief. “ aht aht, don’t be shy, take responsibility~ “ jane purrs, tapping your cheek affectionately.

“ u-umm, i will! i-i promise that i’ll take care of you and our baby and—“

flabbergasted by your misunderstanding, jane was quick to correct you, “ woah, woah. that’s not what i meant. what’s going on in that mind of yours, baby? did i get you dumb just like that? “

it’s cute that you’re willing to take responsibility of that role though.

“ o-oh! sorry, sorry. m-my brain is still in a daze right now. .“

“ figured~ “

you pout and she kisses it right off. after a few long moments of music and silence, the question that’s been floating around in your head now sits on the tip of your tongue.

“ jane? “

she hums, caressing your warm cheek with her thumb as a slow jazz song plays in both of your ears.

“ what are we now? “

her thumb stops, ears subtly flattening, and her gaze shifts somewhere else.

recognizing that look, your heart plummets.

[bakukags]

hiii i luv your blog!! honestly the 'more then enough' fanfic had my crying lol :)) so i saw your requests were open and was wondering if you could do a bakugou x reader were y/n is bakugou's and deku's childhood friend and they have a lot of trauma bc of their dad who is an ex pro hero becoming a villian when shes in ua and bakugou has always had feelings for her and comforts her when class 1-a sees it on the news. make any changes youd like :))

the 3 things bakugou taught you (bakugou x reader)

summary: As a childhood friend of Bakugou and Deku, you had always dreamed of attending U.A. to train and become heroes together. However, everything turns upside down when Class 1-A discovers that your father, once a former Pro-Hero, has now become a Villain. In the chaos of it all, you find that Bakugou is full of surprises and that there may be more to him than what meets the eye.

pairing: bakugou x female! reader

genre: fluffy angst 

warnings: slight swearing 

word count: 4,176

a/n: thank you so much for all of your kindness and support <3 my request box is open!! please let me know if y'all would be interested in a part 2 or how I can improve my writing :)

Growing up with Bakugou Katsuki had taught you three things:

Bakugou Katsuki had a temper like a firework - explosive, loud, and colorful. 

His bark was somehow worse than his bite.

No matter how grumpy he was, you couldn’t stop smiling around him.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Bakugou grimaced, as you jogged to catch up, an extra bounce in your step. However, he slowed down slightly, allowing you to fall into step with him. 

“My dad’s coming home today.” Your grin widened. “I’m going to visit home later today to see him.” 

Your father was the pro-hero Aeris, who was known for his air-like attibutes and unique speed. You had also inherited his abilities, and his day-to-day heroism was what first motivated you to enroll into UA alongside Bakugou. Growing up, he had encouraged you to become a hero that not only helps the world, but changes the world for the better. 

“Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.” Whenever he came home from work, he always reminded you of his life motto with a warm smile lighting up his face. “And you my dear, have the most beautiful dream. But you must also be ready to have the strength to pay the price when it comes to fruition.” 

From then on, you had resolved that you would do anything to become a hero. You father’s words had inspired you to become someone who would willingly sacrifice yourself in order to fulfill your dreams of saving the world; just like your father. As he rarely came home, you were especially elated on the days he did, today being one of those days.

Bakugou grunted in response, eyeing your chipper expression with thinly veiled annoyance. 

“Well stop it. It makes you look stupider than normal.” He grumbled, looking away from your bright smile.

“Mhmm,” You hummed noncommittally, not really listening. The walk back from class had become your guys’ unspoken routine. Ever since the two of you had moved into the dorms, Bakugou always waited after class for you to pack your bag so that the two of you could walk back together. Of course, he’d rather die than admit to you that he was waiting, often making up excuses such as finishing up an assignment or perfectly timing the speed at which he placed his books back into his bag. 

“I’ll go with you. To see your father." His tone indicated that it was a non-negotiable statement. You tilted your head, slightly confused. He had never accompanied you before. 

“I can’t have an idiot like you wandering around at night.” He clarified, clearing his throat. “You’d be too easy of a target for Villains. It’s almost like you want to get attacked.” 

You opened your mouth to point out that you were one of the top 5 students of Class 1-A and that you could handle yourself, thank you very much. However, the words died on your tongue when you caught sight of how his fingers twitched restlessly at his side, at how he was intentionally looking everywhere but at you. Many people wouldn’t pick up on it, but you knew him better than anyone. The signs were were clear - Bakugou Katsuki, of all people, was worried. For you. Your smile widened.

“If you wanted to spend more time with me Katsu, you could’ve just asked.” You teased, laughter bubbling in your voice. 

“That’s not, I don’t- stop making things up crazy woman!” He spluttered in response, the tips of his ears turning pink.

Much to Bakugou’s dismay, you continued laughing, causing you to almost miss Izuku falling into step alongside you. 

“Hey guys! Good training today, huh?” Izuku exclaimed, smiling at you. You grinned back, nodding excitedly in agreement. Your spirits were still high from your previous conversation with Bakugou. However, upon spotting the freckled boy, Bakugou’s face immediately morphed into a deep scowl. His eyebrows furrowed irritably, but he remained silent.

“Izu!” You grabbed onto his arm, just like you had growing up. “Training was amazing! Did you get a chance to see my practice match? I could hardly believe it - Shoto and I tied!” You chattered incessantly, easily falling into natural conversation with him. The three of you used to always hang out together and you found yourself suddenly missing the green-haired boy’s presence. 

“It’s been a while since we’ve hung out!” You continued. “You should join us more often - it’ll be just like old times!" 

A pink flush spread across Izuku’s cheeks, trailing down his neck.

“Of-of course, I’d love to!” Izuku stuttered, eyes glancing down at your arms that were still wrapped around his. A faint crackling popping sound, along with the smell of smoked caramel filled the air, causing the both of you to glance at Bakugou. He now had his hands curled into fists, jaw tightly clenched. 

“He’s not invited.” Bakugou spat out, eyeing the two of you murderously. Growing up with Bakugou however, made you immune to his violent tendencies. You smiled sweetly in return, letting go of Izuku in favor of placatingly rubbing Bakugou’s arm. 

“You’re always invited,” You said to Izuku before raising an eyebrow at Bakugou, daring him to argue. He hissed like a cat baring his teeth, but didn’t protest.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind!” Izuku nodded, eyes flickering between you and Bakugou hesitantly. “You guys must be pretty close now - almost inseperable huh?”

“We’re not.” Bakugou snarled at the same time you chirped “Yup!” The two of you looked at each other for a moment before you let out a laugh, shrugging nonchalantly.

“It’s funny because you guys are total… opposites.” Izuku spoke carefully, glancing at Bakugou as if he was a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment. The green-haired boy’s words were true - Bakugou oozed aggression and abrasiveness, while you were all cheerfulness and tact. While Bakugou burned intensely like the sun, you were constant like the moon. Just as bright, but in a different way. After the blonde boy had been kidnapped by Villains, he had refused to talk about the situation to anyone. Everyone had pestered him with countless opinions and questions - except for you. He didn’t need to speak in order for you to know how he felt or understand what he needed. You had spent your whole life learning him, and now, all you had to do was merely stay by his side as an unwavering source of support. The two of you had been attached by the hip ever since. 

“His grumpiness adds to the appeal.” You giggled. “Right?” You turned to look up at Bakugou, ready for a classic snarky remark, but your eyes met molten embers instead. Taken by surprise, you tripped, stumbling over your own foot. Two hands immediately reached out to steady you: one belonging to Izuku and the other belonging to Bakugou. The blonde boy let go of you just as quickly as he had touched you, as if your skin had scorched him. However, Izuku’s hand remained, steadying you. You shot him a grateful look. 

“Thanks.” You regained your balance with a sheepish smile. 

Bakugou’s face darkened as his gaze shifted from yours to Izuku’s hand, which still lingered on your arm. A low growl left his lips as his eyes burned holes into Izuku, who instantly let go.

“So-Sorry! I’m glad you’re okay! I mean-are you okay?” He sputtered, eyes wide.

“She’ll be fine once you leave.” Bakugou spat venomously, a vein bulging out of his forehead. Izuku chuckled uncomfortably while your gaze darted nervously between the two boys, unsettled by the sudden escalation of emotions. The air suddenly felt a little too warm, too tense. In a second Bakugou was moving, stopping only when he stood between you and Izuku, effectively separating the two of you.

“What kind of idiot can’t even get back to the dorms without falling?” Bakugou sharply retorted, nostrils flaring. “Hurry up, I’m hungry.” He stalked away, leaving you to direct an apologetic glance at Izuku before following close behind. 

“That was rude.” You glanced towards the blonde boy as you struggled to catch up to him.

“Not my fault Deku pissed me off.” He grunted in response. 

“And it’s not his fault that you have a short fuse.” You rolled your eyes in annoyance.

If those words had come out of anyone else, you probably would be slammed against the wall and blasted into oblivion. But you were always the exception. He growled, the sound low and dangerous.

“Not right now, sunshine.” He barked your nickname out like it was a curse, but you knew better than to take him seriously. Your words had struck a little too close to home, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. He angrily slammed the door to the dorms open, uncharacteristically propping it open for you.

“Move it. I don’t have all day.” He practically yelled in your ear, causing you to wince. He at least had the decency to look back at you half-apologetically, before lowering his voice to a more suitable volume. “Well? Why aren’t you walking idiot?”

“Thanks, I think?” You shrugged, hesitantly walking through the door. “But you really got to tone it down Katsu, I me-”

The words caught in your throat. You froze, causing Bakugou to ram right into you.

“What the hell sunshine? What kind of idiot stands in the middle of the doorway?” He barked, but you didn’t respond. Your eyes were glued to the television, trained on the newscaster Miyagi who imparted the breaking headlines for today.

“Breaking news - A Pro-Hero has turned out to be a Villain? You heard it here folks, Ex Pro-Hero Aeris was found injuring several innocent children just this afternoon. It appears he has been secretly working alongside the League of Villains as an undercover agent.”

The screen cut, and suddenly, footage of a man filled the TV screen. His grin looked borderline crazed, an unknown murderous glint flooding his eyes. Two heros held him down as he struggled against them, handcuffs digging into his wrists.

Your legs gave out, and you stumbled backwards. Somebody immediately caught you, muttering something into your ear, but you couldn’t tear your eyes from the screen. All you could see was your father’s deranged expression flooding the screen. 

“No.” You whispered, eyes peeled on the TV, arms trembling. “No. This can’t be real.”

"How could you do this?” A civilian yelled at the ex Pro-hero, angry tears blurring her features. “Don’t you have a child too? A daughter?”

All eyes turned to you, the dorm falling impossibly silent. This couldn’t be happening. Your whole world was collapsing, right in front of your eyes. Your arm reached outwards in attempts to grab onto something, anything, that could ground you. A warm hand enveloped yours immediately. You latched onto it, squeezing tightly. Something deep inside of you knew that you should look tear your eyes from the screen, but you for some twisted reason, you couldn’t. You needed to know more. You needed to know why.

Your father stopped struggling, finally allowing the heros to usher him into a police car. 

“So?” Your father shrugged. His posture suddenly looked eerily calm and nonchalant, but his eyes remained dark. Frenzied, yet disturbedly content. He looked stared right into the camera. At you. “Why would I care? I never considered her to be my daughter anyways.”

Those words were all it took to send you spiraling. The walls closed in on you, trapping you, until suddenly, it was impossible to breathe. Your whole life was a lie. The person you had always looked up to in life, the person responsible for your existence, had just revealed that he never truly cared if you existed. You thought back to your childhood. He had taught you how to ride a bike, how to cook chicken marsala, how to use your powers for good. He had been your sole role model, had shaped you into the person you were today, and now he was-

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.

Your dad’s life motto rang in your mind unbidden, yet it no longer sounded like encouragement. It sounded like a threat. 

Are you happy? You wanted to ask him. Was the price worth it? Was betaying me, betraying the world worth it? Even though the questions screamed inside your head, you knew you didn’t want to hear their answers. A part of you knew what his response would be and hated it. 

“It’s a trick.” You whispered, still in denial. A tear tricked down your cheek; you barely felt it. Your voice grew louder, more insistent. 

“They’re lying. They have to be lying!” The words rang in the room, sharp and empty. A gust of wind rushed surrounded you as your face twisted with fury. Your classmates stared back at you, speechless. You had always been the calm and collected one, the one to rein Bakugou in whenever he exploded. But the roles had suddenly reversed, and suddenly you were the one bubbling over, about to explode. They had never seen you like this before - all seething, abrasive, aggressive. Even you had never felt this way before. 

“It’s really a shame,” Mineta was the first to speak up. “that your father is a criminal. I mean, you’d think even criminals love their daughters-”

Before anyone could even blink, you were across the room, slamming Mineta hard against the wall. 

“Say it again.” You growled dangerously, hands wrapped around his throat. A couple classmates tried to intervene, only to be blown back by a harsh gust of wind. 

“It’s a pity. You’re so pretty, but I guess even you have violent tendencies.” Mineta sneered, wheezing when you tightened your grip around his neck. “It makes sense though. Like father, like daughter. ” 

His words crawled along your skin and you instantly dropped him. He spluttered, leering as you backed away. All your life, you had been proud to be called your father’s daughter. But now, you felt nothing but a wave of shame and disgust. You looked up at your classmates. They all stared back with stiff postures and raised defenses. As if they too, thought that you would become a Villain. Blinking back tears, you did the only thing you could do. You ran.

You ran until your lungs nearly gave out, until nausea overwhelmed you. Gripping the edges of a nearby trash can, you emptied out all of the contents of today’s lunch. Your body trembled as you fell to the floor, pulling your knees in. The sound of stomping echoed in the halls, loud and harsh. Bakugou. Your stomach churned; he was the last person you wanted to see.

“Go away.” You growled, torn between wanting to be left alone and being too drained to run away. He ignored you, like he usually did, but this time it made you furious. Why couldn’t he just listen to you, just take you seriously for once? 

“I told you to go away Bakugou Katsuki!” The words were icy cold and you heard the stomping pause for a moment. All your life, even when you both got into disagreements, you had never once called him by his full name before. Yet for some reason, you couldn’t let him see you like this - embarassingly weak and pathetic. 

“What are you, my mother?” He retorted. The footsteps continued again, until he was soon towering over you. “Don’t call me that - shit’s weird.” 

“I mean it.” Your words were coated with venom. You refused to look at him. “Leave me alone.”

Bakugou ignored you again, choosing instead to take a seat next to you. 

“When have I ever listened to you?” He scoffed. “Don’t expect me to start now.” 

You didn’t reply, curling deeper into a ball instead. The two of you sat in silence for several moments. The longer you sat, the more it all sank in. Your whole life had been a sick and twisted lie - how could you even start to separate the fiction from reality? Your breathing started to grow more ragged as you spiraled further, your throat tightening. You watched as your vision grew more and more blurry, until a choked sob ripped free from your chest. Hiding your head in your knees, you finally let the tears pour down your cheeks, let your shoulders shake from the sobs. 

You felt a hand grab yours, the same hand that had wrapped around yours earlier in the dorms. Bakugou silently pulled you towards him, wrapping his arm around your shoulders in a tentative hug. Immediately you burrowed yourself into his broad chest, finding comfort in the way he held you closer to him, as if his arms could protect you from reality. 

“I don’t even know,” You murmured, breath hitching. “what to believe anymore. If he raised me to be like him, then maybe I’m-” A villain too. You swallowed the words back into your throat, but they still hung in the air, unspoken. Another sob wracked through your chest, causing Bakugou’s grip on you to tighten. You stayed like that for a while, seconds passing into minutes. As the blonde boy tentatively rubbed soothing circles into your back, you couldn’t help the incredulous laugh bubbling alongside your sobs - Bakugou being calm and soothing? Your life was definitely falling apart. 

“Don’t be an idiot. You’re obviously not a villain.” He spoke with absolute certainty, as if he was merely stating a fact, like how the sky was blue or the grass green.

“You can’t know that.” You murmured, remembering the way you had nearly strangled Mineta, the way your classmates had all stared at you afterwards. “Mineta-”

“Is taken care of.” Bakugou’s chest rumbled as he cut you off, tone menacing. “He’ll no longer have the audacity to look at you, let alone even speak to you. Neither will the others. I’ve made damn sure of it myself.”

Warmth spread throughout your stomach, rising up into your chest and onto your cheeks. You hid your flushed face further into his shirt. You opened your mouth to protest-

“Don’t even start sunshine.” Bakugou interjected, his tone leaving no room for argument. “You were upset and Mineta had a shitty attitude. If anything, he deserved it.” 

You let out a watery chuckle. Only Bakugou would justify nearly strangling someone. As if sensing your upcoming retort, he spoke again. 

“You didn’t hurt anyone. And you never will because…” He paused, eyes trained at the wall above your head. The following words sounded like they were being ripped from him against his will. “you’re one of the good ones, alright? Why else would I spend so much time with you? It’d be embarassing, ya know?”

You understood what he was trying to say. Bakugou always needed the best of the best, in every aspect. Which meant that whatever he chose to do or whoever he chose to spend time with, all of it had to be good. The best, in every sense of the word. After all, it’d be embarassing to him if it wasn’t. He’d view it as an unforgiveable slight towards his perfectionistic tendencies. 

“Thank you Katsu.” You breathed in deeply, his signature smell of ashy caramel and fresh pine filling your nose, relaxing your limbs. You weren’t quite sure how you had gotten here, how you had somehow managed to slip in between the cracks of his impossibly high standards. You certainly didn’t feel like the best and you weren’t even sure if you believed his words, but they somehow still brought you comfort. At least you knew that someone in your life was raw and real. It had always been that way with Bakugou - what you saw was what you got. 

"It’s nothing.” He huffed, but you caught a hint of a smile on his lips. Moving his hands upwards, he started playing with your hair, his touch oddly gentle. 

It wasn’t nothing, but you didn’t have the strength to argue. Instead, you silently accepted the bottle of water he was offering to you. After muttering a soft thanks, you allowed the liquid to coat your dry tongue while matching the sounds of his even breathing with your own. And as the two of you sat in comfortable silence, you felt something in the air shift. For the first time, you noticed the fluttering in your stomach; the racing of your heart. You wondered if Bakugou felt it too.

The blonde boy eyed the window, watching as the rain started to pour down, droplets splattering across the glass. The sound was soothing, melding perfectly with the melody of our matched breaths. 

“I like the rain.” You said, tilting your face slightly toward the window. 

He snorted. “Of course you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You like everything.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s annoying.”

“Not everything.” You protested, shifting your body.

“Well, you like me.” He joked, all bravado. You stilled. One moment passed, then two. 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Bakugou paused. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was flustered. A faint crackling pop echoed in the hallway. “I only meant who wouldn’t like m-”

“I do.” The confession blurts out of your mouth before you can even think. “Like you I mean.”

Maybe your defenses were lowered because of the constant crying. Or maybe it was because of the way he was gazing at you now - like you were something precious, something so beautiful that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from you, even for a second. 

“Took you long enough to catch on.” He swallowed, nonchalance forced into his voice. Another pop echoed in the hall. You stifled a grin as he forcefully stuffed his sparking palms into his pockets to hide them. A moment passed before your eyes widened as you connected the dots.

“For how long?” You breathed, voice catching in your throat.

“Too long.” He said gruffly, keeping it vague. “A snail moves at a faster pace than you.”

A laugh made it’s way out of your throat. “You could’ve said something!”

“That’s lame,” He huffed. “and you know it. But since we’re already on this topic, Deku better stay the hell away from you now that-”

You kissed the edge of his lips, partly to shut him up and partly because you could. He instantly froze, a shade of red rising up his neck. 

“If you’re gonna do that.” He whispered, the sound deep and husky. “Then do it right.”

He yanked you towards him, the move rugged and harsh, pulling your mouths together. Kissing him was like a smoldering fire - hot, burning, and intense. His arms pulled you closer, and you wanted more of this, more of him. He kissed you like a starving man tasting bread for the first time, and when you pulled away, he groaned reluctantly, chest gasping for air. You caught his gaze and held it, a brief moment of understanding passing between the two of you. And for the first time, you knew that despite everything, you were going to be okay.

A smile crept it’s way onto your face, the way it always tended to whenever Bakugou was present. In your head, you found yourself unconsciously amending the list of things you had learned about Bakugou over the years: 

Bakugou Katsuki had a temper like a firework - explosive, loud, and colorful. But when the time called for it, he could also be gentle, quiet, and fiercely protective. 

Although his bark was somehow worse than his bite, when it came to you, he had no problems following through with his bite. After all, he was an excellent kisser. 

No matter how grumpy he was, you couldn’t stop smiling around him. You still weren’t quite sure why yet, but you did know one thing for certain. 

Through thick and thin, through the lies and the villains, Bakugou Katuski would always be there for you. He might be abrasive and biting. He might be aggressive and impulsive. But he was also solid and real. He was true to his word and below all those layers, he was inconceivably, irrevocably good. And of course, most importantly - he was most definitely all yours. 

[megamindsecretlair]

Hiii girl! Can I make a request for a prequel to I swear I’ll never leave? Something super angsty on how y/n and Terry got to that point in the first place🤍

I Still Don't Want You To Go

Pairing: Toxic Baby Daddy!Terry Richmond x Singer!Black!Fem!/ Plus Size reader

Warnings: 18+, Minors DNI, You are in charge of your own reading experience. Intentional use of AAVE. ANGST, cursing, teasing, mentions of loneliness, depression, brief mention of harm against a child, bad ass child, all consensual. Sorry if I missed some, my mom is distracting me.

Summary: A prequel to “I Swear I’ll Never Leave”. Four months ago, things came to a head for you, the loneliness getting too loud for you to ignore. You wanted your husband home, safe and sound with you. As you reminisce about the good times, it’s the bad times you can’t get over. And though your timing sucks, you have to finally tell Terry what’s really on your heart.

Word Count: 7,801k

AO3 Link | I Swear I'll Never Leave

A/N: WHEW. When I say this hurt MEEE. I'm exposing myself like a MF LOL. I see you sneaky anon, a prequel request. I'd love to know your thoughts on the angst, I wanna get better at it. Toss a coin to your blogger by leaving a comment, gif, or unhinged ask.

Six years ago…

“Lovely Day” by Bill Withers crooned from your portable speaker on the marble countertop. The smell of meatloaf and mashed potatoes filled the kitchen, steam rising from the pot on the stove. You were working on the gravy, tasting as you went. Cadence kicked in your belly and you stopped to place a hand there. 

“Alright babygirl, we almost there. You are so impatient already,” you said to her, rubbing your belly. You had a few months left to go but she was already kicking to get out. You’d have to put her in track or soccer or something. She’d run you ragged if you weren’t careful.

“How’s my two favorite girls?” Terry entered the room, following the scent of food. 

You giggled. “You always know when the food is done!” You shrieked with laughter as Terry encircled your waist, pulling you back against his chest. He placed his hands on either side of your protruding belly. 

“Can’t help it when I smell a snack,” he said, kissing your cheek.

You sighed at his corny joke but giggled anyway. “You get on my nerves,” you said with a shake of your head. This man of yours. 

“I love you too. Time to eat?” He asked. 

You craned your neck to look over your shoulder at him. He grinned, catching your eye, and then kissed your cheek once more. “You can’t be that hungry,” you said. 

“For your famous meatloaf? Hell yeah, I’m that hungry,” he said. He swayed with you to the music and you closed your eyes, taking it all in. 

“Didn’t you just eat like…?”

“That was my pre-dinner food. This is dinner. I got room,” he said. 

You shook your head. Thank goodness you weren’t having a boy. You didn’t know what the hell you would do if you had two of them running around, eating you out of house and home. You were barely keeping up with Terry and his voracious appetite when he was home. 

“You can’t possibly eat like this on base,” you said.

“I can pack away some food. But hmm, ain’t nothing better than being home,” he said.

“I worry about you. Help me with the meatloaf please,” you said.

“I need a kiss first,” he said. 

You sighed and craned your neck to kiss his cheek. He shook his head, releasing you long enough to turn you around. 

“A real kiss,” he said, suddenly turning serious. He furrowed his eyebrows as he leaned down, capturing your lips with his. 

It felt like he was trying to tell you something with the kiss, but you weren’t sure what. He held onto you, gripping your waist as if you were the lone anchor and he had been out at sea for weeks. 

You leaned back and looked at him. “Terry? Everything okay?” 

&&&

Four months ago…

“Everything okay?” Terry asked. 

“Huh?” You turned your attention back to him. Cadence fidgeted in your lap. You sighed and righted her once more so that she could look at the screen at her daddy. He was on base and you were talking to him on video chat, trying to make it a nightly thing for Cadence’s sake, but it was getting tougher.

She had sunk into her terrible six’s, getting impatient the minute she didn’t get her way. You blamed Terry of course. Spoiling the damn child and making it seem like you were the bad parent, always saying no and doing nothing fun. 

“I’m just tired, Terry,” you sighed. You smiled, despite it all, but even that was getting exhausting. You were cranky, irritable, and at your wit’s fucking end. 

Terry’s eyebrows furrowed but he took you at your word. Cadence flopped in your arm like she was over the whole thing. You corrected her again, holding down her arms and legs so she’d sit still. 

She began to whine, paying attention to anything but her daddy. “When are you coming home?” Cadence asked, suddenly switching gears and leaning far into the camera. 

“I’m not sure yet, baby. But I hope it’s soon,” he said. 

“Will you be here for Mustard’s birthday?” She asked. Mustard, being her imaginary friend. She babbled endlessly to the mysterious Mustard who was usually to blame when Cadence acted out. 

“I don’t know if I can, baby,” he said.

Cadence groaned, flopping into your arms once more. Ugh. You finally picked her up and set her down. She began to cry, trying to climb back onto you. “Aht aht, you’re acting out because your Daddy isn’t here. And you know better,” you said. 

Cadence cried harder, fighting to get back in your lap. You looked at Terry. “I’ll call you back,” you said. You slammed the laptop shut without even hearing his reply. You were tired and fucking over it. 

Cadence turned her cries into a full blown temper tantrum, stomping her feet and jumping up and down. You stared at the little devil and for a split second, just a split, you pictured tossing her ass out through the window. Fuck. That was an evil thought.

“Cadence. You have three seconds to stop and use your words. Acting like a damn barn animal,” you said, sucking your teeth. 

Cadence continued to cry and stomp, falling onto the floor and screaming at the top of her lungs. You stared at her. At your wild, beautiful, terror of a daughter. You couldn’t scream. Screaming would only feed into whatever this fucking phase was. Screaming would turn you into your own mother, who forced you into a box when you were younger. Only to be seen and never heard.

You didn’t have the greatest relationship with your mother. You wanted a mom and she raised you to be the mother she never had. She thought you were the best of friends when you just wanted to escape. Be free from her constant judgement and disappointment.

You stared at your child as she screamed bloody murder and you didn’t know what to do. Terry didn’t have much family that you could turn to. There was Mike, but Mike was young. Mike didn’t need the responsibility of looking after his niece like that. He should be out and enjoying being young and free. There was your best friend Gianna, but she had her own life to live.

Cadence’s wails were like nails on chalkboard, making your brain itch in places you couldn’t reach. Great, heaving sobs trapped in your chest and you held it in. Held in the anger. Held in the frustration. You were a bad fucking mother and you didn’t know how to fix this. The only one who could was a few states away, off on base doing who knew what. 

You stared. You hurt. You stared. She cried. 

Cadence flopped on the floor, crocodile tears streaming down her face. “Cadence, off the floor. Now,” you said as calmly, voice ready to wobble but you kept on a brave face. 

Cadence ignored you, flipped onto her stomach, and then kicked at the floor in her footie pajamas. You stared. And stared. You felt absolutely drained. Like there was nothing left inside of you to keep going. Keep moving. Keep doing this shit day in and day out. 

But she was yours. You would not abandon her. She may grow up to hate your guts, never speak to you again like you barely did with your own mother, but dammit, you weren’t going to yell and scream at a child who didn’t truly understand the world yet.

You left Cadence on the ground to scream and yell while you went to your room to collect laundry. Let her fucking yell and scream. Maybe it’d tire her little behind out. 

You grabbed the laundry basket from your room, picking up wayward clothes that needed to be washed. The famous chair was overfilled with clothes and Terry’s robe. An ache formed behind your eye, growing worse the more Cadence screamed. Cadence jogged into the room, rubbing the back of her eyes with her hand. 

She continued to cry and scream and you turned to her. She looked at you and sat on the ground, snot running down her face. “Are you ready to use your words?” You asked.

She shook her head. “Then you sit there until you are,” you said. You scooted past her to her room to collect her dirty clothes. She followed you, continuing to cry her eyes out. 

“So now you don’t listen to Mommy?” You asked. 

Her cries turned to sniffling and hiccuping. She finally caught on that you weren’t going to feed into her nonsense. “No,” she hiccuped. 

“No? You don’t listen to Mommy?” You asked. 

“I do listen!” She yelled. 

You tilted your head and gave her The Look. She rubbed her eyes with her hand and then walked closer, putting her head on your leg. “Where’s Daddy?” She asked. 

“Daddy’s at work. You know that,” you said. You placed the basket on her pink princess bed and then dropped down to her level. You grabbed one of her hands and helped wipe her face. 

“I didn’t raise you to act out. You have a voice and you have to learn to use it,” you said, tears threatening to spill down your face. How could you make her see how important it was to use her words? To use what so many people took for granted? 

She was still too young to understand the nuances of being Black and a little girl. Your mother silenced your voice when you were younger. Placing the burden of being alive on you and not on her for not swallowing you instead of giving birth. You didn’t want that for Cadence. Didn’t want her to grow up, mincing her words, swallowing it all down, chest caving in whenever there was confrontation.

You wanted her to be strong. Full of life. Everything you weren’t. You blinked away the hot, itchy tears and smiled at her. 

“I miss Daddy,” she said. “I don’t want to see him on the ‘puter.” 

You sighed. You figured as much. But there wasn’t anything you could do about it now. He had a good job providing for you and Cadence. Maybe it would’ve been easier if he was a deadbeat. It would be easier to ignore the growing ache in your heart, missing him at home with you and Cadence. 

“I miss Daddy too. But you can’t throw a tantrum whenever you don’t get your way. That’s not how young ladies act. And your Daddy would be very hurt to know you’re acting up,” you said. 

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” she said. She hugged you and you hugged her back. God, you needed this shit to end. This constant need to cry or yell or scream yourself. You weren’t a child anymore. You didn’t have the luxury of flopping on the floor whenever you were overwhelmed. 

“Thank you, baby. Go wash your face and get ready for bed,” you said. You released her and then popped her on the butt to get a move on. She giggled, jogging out of the room and headed to the bathroom. 

“With soap!” You called out. Cadence giggled like that thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. You shook your head and continued grabbing her dirty clothes off the floor. You seriously had to teach that little girl to pick up after herself better. It was like once Terry was out of the house, she lost all pieces of her marbles.

You could relate. You distracted yourself with picking up her toys, crayons, and coloring books off of the floor and back into its proper places. You grabbed the laundry basket and left her room.

“Daddy says he may not make your birthday, Mustard. But that’s okay! We’ll take sooooooooo many pictures for him!” Cadence chattered on and on to her little friend. 

You shouldn’t be…worried, right? Your daughter had friends but she only saw them at school. The other parents constantly asked you about playdates but you had so much to do between your own work, the house, and getting Cadence together, that you didn’t have it in you to take her for playdates.

You didn’t trust her with anyone else and you didn’t have time to sit and hang out with the mommies while they all gushed about their husbands. Gahh. The whole thing made you sick. They always managed to feel sorry for you. But always thanked your husband for his service.

Whatever. Fuck the service. Fuck the government. Fuck America and its bullshit. You wanted your husband at home. You wanted to crawl into bed and have him wrap his arms around you. If you knew that you’d be this damn lonely in marriage, you would have saved yourself the hassle. 

You loved Cadence with everything in you. But it was never in your plans to raise her with no help. And it wasn’t fair on Terry. He was doing what he needed to do. But…you were tired of feeling like the bad guy when all you wanted was someone to hold you at night. 

You finished up gathering today’s laundry and placed it in the laundry room. You tucked Cadence and Mustard into her bed, sitting down to read her a story while she drifted off to sleep. 

You had a pounding headache from all her screaming and the unshed tears. But you sat for a while longer and prayed over your baby. Prayed she never ended up like you. Prayed she knew nothing but joy and love and how to reach out to people. 

You were half alone, with one friend, and no family to help you. It was you, Terry, Gianna, Mike, and Cadence against the world. What a fucking family you all made. 

You stood up and left the room and turned off the light. You left her door cracked and then made your way through the house, turning off lights, and running through a mental checklist of everything you had left to do tomorrow. 

Making it to your room, you closed the door and flopped onto your cold, lifeless bed with a heavy sigh. You pulled the nearest pillow towards you and snuggled into it. Fuck. And you had to wake up and do it all over again. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

Tears immediately welled in your eyes like it had just been waiting for you to be alone. You let the tears fall. Let your face get hot and puffy as you curled into a ball and cried. Your sniffling was muffled by the pillow.

You let it all out. The frustration from not being good enough for Cadence. The guilt over your disgusting thoughts about harming her. The loneliness from not having your husband there, beside you. Call you a weak ass bitch or whatever, but you just wanted your man home. 

You cried over stupid shit, like spilling your coffee at work. Washing everything in the laundry but finding that one random sock that managed to miss the load. Watching Cadence play with Mustard and seeing Terry written all over her face. You curled into yourself harder and cried and cried, letting every last bit of it out. 

You didn’t have enough strength when it was all over to clean your own face. So you flipped the pillow to a clean side and promptly went to sleep.

&&&

Six years ago…

You paced the length of the hallway in the hospital, trying to breathe through the pain. For all of Cadence’s kicks and tumbling, she sure as shit didn’t want to come out now. Your mother walked with you up and down the hallway, trying to tell you how to birth a child. 

You held back whatever you wanted to say and rubbed your lower back. Fuuuuuck, this shit was painful. You were never doing this again. Fuck this. How did people have multiple kids? How did they birth a basketball team like it was nothing?

It felt like your insides were being scooped out with a rusty spoon. You stopped and leaned on the wall nearest you. “It’s gon’ be okay. Your body knows what to do,” your mom said.

You wanted to tell her to fuck off. So what if your body knew what to do? You didn’t. This was your first child and it was looking to be your only child. You couldn’t do this shit no more. And you sure as shit didn’t want to do it without Terry there. 

Going through the last few months without him was bullshit. No one there to rub your feet or run errands when you were craving something stupid like ice cream and gummy worms. No one there to hold your hand when your panic over being a bad mom got too loud, too close to home, and you were spiraling. 

But…you did it. You got through it. You could continue on. “Terry really ought to be here for this. I can’t believe he’s gonna miss the birth of his own child,” your mom complained.

“It’s not like he has a choice, mom,” you said, careful to watch your tone. Your mom never missed an opportunity to remind you that she was older and could still pop you in the mouth for being disrespectful. 

“Don’t they have leave or something?” Your mom continued. 

Can’t you fucking leave? You wanted to scream at her. You’d rather do this shit alone if all she was going to do was remind you that your husband would not be there. Would not be there to hear your child’s first cries. 

You had planned and gushed over your baby together. You had theories on top of theories of who she’d favor more, what kind of personality she would develop, and what kind of life she would lead. He should be here. 

Tears pricked your eyes but you beat them back. You had a job to do and it involved seeing this baby safely delivered. “I’m tired, mom,” you said.

“I know, baby. One more lap and then we’ll go sit for a minute,” she said. She grabbed your hand and your eyes ached from trying to hold back the tears. Sometimes your mom showed a bit of affection and like a kicked dog, you soaked it up. You reveled in the simple gesture, knowing that at any moment, her claws would come back out.

Squeaking tile made you turn your head. Terry leaned forward, the inertia from running making him rock on his heels. You locked eyes with him. 

“Terry!” You yelled. 

Terry power walked down the hallway dressed in his fatigues. He was clean shaven since he was on base and he looked so damn scrumptious you wanted to gobble him up then and there. He smiled as he approached, carefully taking your hand out of your mother’s.

“I knew you’d find a way to make it,” your mom said, patting Terry on the shoulder. “Otherwise I’d have talked shit.”

“Mom!” You said.

Terry chuckled. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Terry said. He grinned as he cupped your face. “How you feeling?” 

“Better, now that you’re here,” you said. 

Terry kissed your forehead and then grabbed your hand. With him by your side, it wasn’t so bad. You could get through it. You could do this. Still hurt like a motherfucker. Wait…You wailed as you held your stomach, feeling a contraction come on and ruin everything. 

You gripped Terry’s hand with all the strength you could muster as you rode out the pain. You huffed and puffed as you calmed down from the intensity. You turned a side eye to Terry. “You’re never doing this to me again,” you said, your voice rough from wailing.

Terry had the good sense not to look dumb. He smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. “Had fun making her though,” he said with a wink. 

You groaned and rolled your eyes. “Nasty ass. Just like a man to enjoy all the benefits with none of the work,” you said. 

Terry guided you back to your room. He walked slowly with you though his long legs could cover the distance in two seconds. “I wouldn’t say none of the work. I seem to recall you loudly begging –”

“Begging?!” 

“Beggin’ me not to stop,” Terry said.

You chuckled and winced as it disrupted whatever the fuck Cadence was doing in your belly. Lord, you needed this child out neow. 

Terry stayed with you every step of the way. He held your hand when you needed it and got lost when you cursed him ten ways from Sunday. He was there to make sure the doctors and nurses gave you what you needed, ensuring that your voice was heard and your concerns were met. 

And when little Cadence Richmond came screaming into the world, Terry was right there grinning and laughing and kissing your forehead. “She’s fuckin’ beautiful. She’s so fucking beautiful,” he whispered against your temple. “You did so good, beautiful.” 

&&&

“I can’t do this anymore, G,” you said, picking at the grass in your backyard. 

Cadence jogged around the backyard with Mustard, running back and forth and screaming with laughter. That girl had a set of pipes. But it was a happy scream and you’d take that over anything else.

Your best friend, Gianna, flipped her locs over her shoulder and leaned back on her hands. “Do what?” She asked. 

“Spend my life waiting for a man that don’t wanna come home,” you said. You looked down at the blade of grass and let the melancholy thoughts run wild. You knew your brain was a big, fat, ugly liar but sometimes that motherfucker made sense. 

Terry went into the service to take care of you and Cadence when you were still two kids who didn’t know better. Now that Cadence was six, what was Terry doing? Why continue to stay on base? 

The only logical answer was that he didn’t want to come home. He didn’t want to be here to help you. After years of practically living apart, the weight of your decisions made your head heavy. 

What would’ve happened if you had joined him on base? Once it was proven that he wasn’t going to hop from state to state, or country to country, you could have joined him. But the thought of being a “military wife” tasted like sand in your mouth. You didn’t want to trade in a normal life for whatever the hell that was. You didn’t want Cadence to grow up coddled from the world. 

No one was going to protect her because the world didn’t protect little Black girls. You didn’t want her to grow up with rose-colored glasses, thinking the world began and ended at the base. You wanted her strong but soft. Capable of taking care of herself but not hiding behind a steel wall all the time.

“Girl, you know that man loves you and Cadence. Have you talked to him at all?” Gianna asked. She shielded her eyes from the sun to look at Cadence doing cartwheels. 

“Every time I try to, I get so choked up I can’t speak. And I don’t want him to see how much I’m struggling,” you said. 

“He’s your husband. He’s supposed to see your struggle,” Gianna said. She leaned forward and looked at you. You felt her assessing gaze as if she was trying to see past your words. But there was nothing to see past.

Day by day, it became clearer that you no longer spoke the same language as your husband. He became a stranger before your eyes and you hadn’t noticed. Or had you not cared? You loved him still. You were very much still in love with him. But you weren’t going to hold him back. 

The next time Terry came home, you were going to talk to him. Truly talk. And let him know that you weren’t going to hold him to a marriage he didn’t want to be in. Just thinking it turned your stomach sour. You didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want some other woman to get her claws in him. Didn’t want to “co-parent” with some chicken head with fake boobs. 

You sure as shit didn’t want to see him kissing all over some other woman. Or have him create more children with someone else. But what was the alternative? Spend the rest of your life in a state of limbo. Longingly looking down the quiet street for a car that was never going to pull up? 

The whole thing made you sick to your stomach. You didn’t know what you were going to do. But you knew this was your rock bottom. You couldn’t stand it another second.

“The other day, Cadence showed her entire ass screaming and all I could think was, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t half parent her. Not when he hangs the moon and I’m the monster under her bed,” you said.

“Where is this coming from? Why didn’t you call me?” Gianna took your hand in hers and shifted towards you. 

“I thought I could handle it, is all,” you said and shrugged. Cadence was your child. Why should you pass the buck to someone else just to get a break? A break from your own child. That was your mom’s MO. She had to distract you in order for you to leave her alone. And now you were doing the same thing to your kid. 

You were a mess and you were drowning. You were so far underwater there was no more light above you. And your light was a few states away toiling away at a job he loved more than you. 

“Mommy! Auntie Gigi, loooook!” Cadence said, trying to turn a cartwheel into a flip but only flopped onto her butt. 

“You be careful out there, little girl! But great job!” You said. 

She got up and dusted herself off, nodding to herself. Then she kept practicing, falling over and over. But she kept getting up. You hoped she continued as she got older. 

“You better talk to that man, you know he not gon’ like this,” Gianna said. 

You squeezed her hand. Yeah. Yeah, that was putting it nicely.

&&&

Three years ago…

You sat down on the brown couch with a deep sigh. Terry chuckled and hummed tiredly, reaching his arm down from over the couch to pull you closer. 

“You sound how I feel,” he said. Light from the TV splayed across his handsome face, a mix of colors dancing across his features. It was too dark in the living room to see his storm-blue eyes but you saw enough. 

“That girl, I swear. I don’t know what kinda DNA you got swimming, but that is your child,” you said. You shifted until you were tucked protectively under his arm and against his chest. His heart thumped against your cheek and you closed your eyes briefly. Still your favorite song in the whole world. 

“Nah, anything after seven is your baby. You never go to sleep on time,” he said. 

“Yes, I do. Sometimes,” you said.

“What time you go to bed last night?” He asked. His thumb traced lazy patterns on your shoulder. The sound was muted on the TV but you looked at the picture. He was in the middle of some old movie from the 60s. 

“That is beside the point,” you said, remembering that you didn’t go to bed until 2am. The night just made more sense to you to be awake. Day time was a burden and a half. 

Terry chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t believe we got her down. When is she going to grow out of her terrible fours?” He asked. 

“I don’t know. I thought we were tiring her out. That wasn’t even her final form,” you said and groaned. 

“I have a crazy thought,” he said.

“Mhm, what’s that?” You asked. 

“What if we had another?” He asked.

You leaned away from him to look him in the face. He looked back at you with no change in his expression. He was serious. Like really serious. You leaned up further and faced him. “After today, you want another one?” You asked.

Cadence had been more than a handful lately. Since her Daddy came home, she had run him ragged taking up all his free time. She wanted to play princess or go for a horseback ride. She wanted to run around the backyard with him and push her stuffed teddies on the small swing set he built for her. 

She wanted to lay down with him for her nap and yes, he had to climb under the Bluey blanket with her whether he fit or not. You did snap a thousand pictures and giggled to yourself while you got to some household chores. 

After the nap, he had to watch TV with her. And he had to play dolls while he did so, non-negotiable. Then, for no reason at all, she ripped off her clothes and went streaking through the house. You two nearly gave up trying to chase her around. 

Terry finally managed it and gave her a bath while you finally went to lay down. Goodness knew you needed it. Terry indulged in every little whim of Cadence’s and you told him often that he was doing nothing but spoiling her rotten.

“I know, but I can’t help it. She got me wrapped around her tiny finger. I miss so much,” he had said when you told him.

And now he wanted another? 

“Yeah, before she gets too big. She could use a buddy. Our family is so small,” he said. His smooth voice trailed off, getting lost in thought as he stared at the TV. You wondered if he was even seeing it. Or if he was lost in a thought or a memory. 

You cupped his cheek and caressed it with your thumb. “But are you sure?” You asked. Unlike Terry, you remembered what it was like trying to carry the child alone. You had no choice but to endure and handle it if Terry was gone during this pregnancy too. But sometimes, you got the sinking feeling that he was always looking for a way out and he just didn’t know how to tell you. 

“You and Cadence mean absolutely everything to me. Yes, I’m sure,” he said. He smirked and bumped your shoulder.

“Remember all the fun we had making Cadence?” He pulled you closer and nuzzled your cheek with his nose. You held firm, refusing to give in to his charms. You were not going down that easy. You refused. Absolutely refused. 

“I must’ve turned your little world. You stay bringing that up,” you said, pushing him away.

Terry held firm, moving his nose down to your neck and inhaling. He hummed, low and deep in his chest causing it to rumble. The sound carried up and down your spine, sending electric shocks through your brain. “Been waiting for you to do that shit again,” he said. 

You giggled and leaned away. He followed and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Lemme give you a baby,” he said.

You laughed and shook your head. “You are out of your mind,” you said.

“You know you wanna be swollen with my baby again,” he said. He moved his hand to your shirt and searched beneath it, rubbing his fingers along your skin. You sighed with a moan, shifting your body closer. He was a cheating ass nigga. 

“You get on my nerves,” you said. You feebly pushed at his chest but he was a mountain. Too immoveable. He grinned against your neck and then kissed it, his lingering lips sending pulses of heat straight to your pussy. 

“You just wanna cum all up in this again. Admit it,” you said, giggling.

“I admit it. I confess. I am guilty,” he whispered against your neck. 

You managed to giggle and moan at the same time, your brain in full on mush mode. There was nothing but the feeling of his hands on your tummy. He didn’t venture anywhere else, just ran the rough pads of his fingers against your skin. 

It was more than enough. You pushed into him, needing more but not willing to say it. You couldn’t utter a single sound so you talked with your body. The only language you and Terry spoke well. 

“Use your big girl words,” he said.

“You get on my nerves!” You said.

Terry smiled against your skin. “I love you too,” he said.

&&&

Four months ago…

“DADDDDDYYYYYYYY!” Cadence’s scream was loud enough to wake the dead ten towns over. As soon as Terry stomped into the house, light shining behind him, Cadence was on him like white on rice. 

She launched herself into his arms and he had to kneel or get ran over. He scooped her up into his arms and hugged her tight. “How’s my babygirl?” He asked. He kissed her head and leaned back to look at her face.

His eyes softened as she talked a mile a minute, telling him every thought that came out of her head. Terry fixed her purple flowered shirt while she spoke. He nodded and asked her questions as he set his duffel bag down and closed the door behind him. 

You stood off to the side, feeling like a sack of meat for all the enthusiasm Cadence showed you. You shouldn’t be jealous and well…no one said you had to be rational all of the time. 

You stood rooted to the spot, knowing that whatever came next was going to hurt. It was going to break you. And yet it would shatter you if you didn’t. 

Terry kept throwing glances your way like he knew something was up but couldn’t pinpoint what. He squinted at you and still paid attention to Cadence’s stream of consciousness. 

“And then Mustard said that I was a booger, but that’s not true because boogers are green and I’m not green,” Cadence said.

“You tell Mustard to be nicer to you,” Terry said. He walked over to you and dropped a kiss to your forehead. His large palm cupped the back of your neck and he held his lips to your head. You closed your eyes and breathed in his uniquely manly scent. 

“Welcome home,” you whispered. You leaned back and looked at him. He tilted his head and massaged the back of your neck. Your shoulders drooped as he rubbed, all ounces of tension leaving your body. 

Why couldn’t he make this easier? It was just like your stupid heart to plum forget the past few months he was on base. You never could stand on business. Not with your mom and not with Terry. It was a curse, it truly was.

You and Terry fell into an unspoken truce while Cadence soaked up having her Daddy home. You spent most of the time in the living room, talking, laughing, and telling Terry about everything he missed. Everything you didn’t get to discuss over the computer. 

Terry had to know something was up. He kept reaching out to you but you found ways to dodge or get up to do something. You weren’t trying to be a bitch. But you didn’t want to fall into his arms if he was only going to hate you later.

It’d be easier to stomach his hate and anger if you didn’t have his lingering touch on your skin. So you continued to move and fawn and shake him off anyway you could. 

Cadence had to have Terry read her the bedtime story, not asking for you once. Not throwing a tantrum once. Not even a sniffle. Little booger. 

You made some tea in the kitchen while Terry stayed with Cadence until she truly fell asleep. If she sensed Terry moving a muscle, she’d wake up groggily and ask for him. You waited at the dining table with a steaming mug of tea nestled between your palms but you swore you felt none of the heat.

Terry shuffled into the kitchen and sighed as he sat down in the chair. He looked so ragged. But beautiful as always. Loving Terry was like loving a precious jewel. It hurt to look at but it hurt worse to look away. 

He leaned one arm on the table and leveled you with a stare. “What’s up with you?” He asked. 

You took a deep breath and stared at your mug. “I have to talk to you about something important. And I didn’t want to get in the way of Cadence seeing you,” you said. 

“What’s going on? Just tell me,” he said.

“I don’t want to be a single mother anymore,” you said. You held up your hand as Terry pitched forward, confusion twisting his features. “You’re an amazing father, Terry. But…I want my husband home. And I won’t make you choose between the Corps and me.” 

“That’s not even a choice,” he said. You held up your hand again before he could continue to argue. Yes, it was a choice. He clearly loved what he did. And you knew he loved Cadence. But you were feeling pretty fucking unloved. You knew it wasn’t intentional on his part. You knew that if you just told him what’s up, he’d do everything in his power to make it up to you.

But you were terrified that he’d wake up one day and resent you for making him quit while he was ahead. You wouldn’t survive that. 

“This isn’t something new for me. And I know it feels out of left field, but I think I’ve been feeling like this since we had Cadence. I kept waiting for you to say enough is enough and you’d resign from the service and come home. I kept waiting for you to make that decision but you never did. You kept going and going and going.” 

“I did it for us. So that you and Cadence were taken care of,” he said.

“I know. Baby, I know,” you said. You gripped the mug hard enough to break it. The heat singed your palms but you let it. Your heart thumped too fast, stealing your breath. You vibrated with nervous energy, stomach twisting into painful knots. 

You hated that confrontation made it seem like your insides wanted to crawl out of your skin. You hated the sinking feeling that you were hurting someone even though you were hurting too. You hated that your voice shook and tears threatened to fall. 

“But you’re not here all the time. You don’t see that Cadence can be a fucking nightmare sometimes and it’s just me. I never thought it’d be just me when I had a family. I thought I’d have my husband with me. And I’m tired of feeling like a weak ass bitch for wanting that.

“And I get lonely. And sad. And tired. And I keep thinking that you’re not here. You’re off taking care of us and how can I be mad at you for that? But I am. I can’t stand it. I’m at my fucking limit, Terry, and I can’t keep going back and forth between hoping you came home and thinking it’d be easier if you didn’t.

“I won’t make you choose. Because I love you too fucking much,” you said. The tears came anyway, streaming down your face. Ugh. Now you were crying and he’d think you were manipulating him. It was the last thing you wanted him to think. 

“You love me but you’re trying to leave me? This is fucking insane,” he said. He pushed away from the table and you nodded, looking back down at your mug. It was insane. You were definitely insane. 

He paced the length of the kitchen, hands on his hips as he shook his head. “Fuckin’ unreal.” 

You rubbed your head. “I can’t be stuck in limbo anymore. If I knew where I stood with you, I could move accordingly. But I’m not that strong. I am exhausted fighting my brain and my heart all the time,” you said.

“And what about what I want? What if I don’t want to let you go?” He asked. His voice strained and your heart ached for him. This was so fucking painful, like shards of glass embedded into every beat of your heart. 

“I’m not happy. And I’m not trying to hurt you, it’s not you in particular that made me unhappy. I just am. I’m constantly feeling like a bad mother. I’m constantly feeling like a failed wife. Because why else aren’t you home? Why aren’t you here with me?” You sobbed harder, silently, tears falling in scalding streaks down your face. 

“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” He asked. His voice rose and your tears only fell harder. You were just a failure of a person, not able to make your child happy. Your husband happy. Yourself happy. 

“I didn’t want to make you choose,” you said.

“You keep saying that as if I wouldn’t choose you every time!” His voice rose higher, practically yelling at you and you swiped at your face. You hated crying. Pressure built in your face and made everything gross and full of snot. 

Terry lifted fists to his face and knocked his forehead. “I knew something was up with you. I knew it and I just couldn’t name it. This is my fault, I know that,” he said.

“It’s not! You’re a good father,” you said.

“But a terrible husband?” He asked.

“I didn’t say that!” You said. 

Terry paced the kitchen some more, rubbing furiously at his face. If he had his facial hair, he’d probably tug at it. “I thought you wanted me away. I thought…you hated having me here. It seemed like you never wanted to talk over the phone anymore or you barely looked at me on chat. I should’ve known that was my clue to check back in,” he said.

“Will you please stop saying it’s your fault? I’m in this relationship too and I haven’t been the best wife,” you said. You knew that you could have done better. Could have talked more openly. Told hm you were struggling over the years but you didn’t want him to feel guilty while he was at work. He was providing for you after all. And you thought you could be happy with that. But you weren’t. You were a basic simp. You wanted your husband. And you’d rather beg on the street with him than live in luxury without him. 

“How could you say that? You’re an amazing wife. It’s my job to make sure that’s not a doubt in your mind,” he said. 

You groaned. “M-Maybe we just need to cool off,” you said. 

“No, no, we can fix this. Don’t shut me out!” He said.

“I can’t help it!” You yelled.

“Why not?” 

“I don’t know!” You swiped angrily at your tears. “Because I’m broken? Because I’m a horrible person? I don’t know! I don’t know how to be happy. I don’t know how to let things go. I don’t know how to live and let live. My brain is fucking mean and every time we get off the phone, I start worrying that I’m bugging you? Holding you back? Am I selfish for wanting you at the cost of my happiness? Is that self love or destruction? I can’t fucking tell anymore, Terry, and it scares the hell out of me.”

You stood up and turned away from him, looking down at your left hand. You looked at the simple band he got when he first proposed. He promised to replace it as soon as you had two nickels to rub together but you told him not to bother. The band was to deter other men from talking crazy to what belonged to him. You just wanted him.

You never took it off. Never. It was practically glued to your finger. But you turned around and slipped it off. 

Terry stood up and backed away. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare,” he seethed. 

His eyes were a raging storm, swirling with mixed emotions. His shapely eyebrows were curved downward, nostrils flaring. If you waved a red flag, he would surely charge you. 

“I know I’ve been a shit husband. I…used the military as an excuse. That maybe we just worked better apart. But all I’ve been doing is hurting us both. Creating this distance between us. I want nothing more than to come home to you and Cadence. I’m on leave. We can talk this out,” he said.

“All you’re going to do is convince me that things will change. And the next time you go back to work, we’re back to the same shit. What kind of life is that?” 

“I’ll put in my papers tomorrow. I’ll get a local job,” he said. 

“And what will you say when you wake up years from now resenting me?” You asked.

“What the fuck is it going to take for you to believe me?” He asked. 

You sighed. “I don’t know,” you said. You looked down at your feet. What would convince you? You weren’t sure. You didn’t want Terry to jump through hoops to prove that he was still the man you were in love with. 

You lifted your gaze to him just in time to see him swipe at a lone tear halfway down his cheek. He stepped closer and you tensed, waiting for him to explode. To yell or scream or call you out of your name. But your husband would never. 

Instead, he paused just beside you, facing forward. He didn’t move to touch you. Didn’t press for more contact than what you were willing to give at the moment. You felt fragile. Raw. Like you could collapse at any moment. 

“Don’t you ever take that ring off your finger. I’m not done fighting for us. And until you figure out what it will take, I’m not letting you go. I swear to you I’ll never leave you and Cadence. Both of you are my reason for living and if it takes my last breath, we’ll be a family again. I’ll stay at Mike’s for a while, but I’ll be back in the morning to tell Cadence myself,” he said.

He walked out of the kitchen and like the coward you were, you let him. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut. Because this was true agony. This was a hell of your own making and you still weren’t sure what the fuck was wrong with you.

Maybe you truly were that broken.

The end, end.

WHEW. I'm sorry, my loves. The Secret Terry Richmond Files

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[zepskies]

Awww yeahhh!! Again, I'm so happy you're reading this little Russell series--thank you again, and Happy Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it)! 🥰💕

I can't wait to dive into the rest of your thoughts on Part 1...

I love their friendship so much 😂 And kudos to Dory. It takes a lot to agree to this. It could potentially get very awkward 😝

Aww I'm so glad you love her and Dory's friendship! They've become that "ride or die" best girlfriends, and Dory strikes me as someone mature enough to handle her best friend dating her formerly estranged brother. loll It really does take a lot! Which is why the reader is being so cautious about even going on a date with Russell. 😅

God, I know. This is honestly what I think about the most when I watch Tracker. The whole story line is insane and intriguing and... 😅 I have a thousand questions, and there's so much you could do with it in fics. I love it (clearly) 😂🤍

Right?! That's what kept me watching, honestly. I still have so many questions, and even in this series I mostly go off of what we know so far in the show while exploring a couple of my own headcanons. Like you said, you can go in infinite directions with their family past, and even Russell's background!

I do think Russell knows a lot more about their past than he lets on. Also, he was way too chipper for someone who was accused of patricide by his own brother for twenty years. The dynamic between the brothers is just... interesting 👀

Oh yeah, definitely. Their mom is VERY SUSS as well. 🤔🤔

Oh, she's going full Reagan! 😂 I sense some trouble coming from the brother, though...

LOL you're spidey senses are correct. Charlie's a piece of work. 😬

Well, I hope he already picked out his casket... 🙈💀

Omgg but you killed me with that scaredy Dean gif from season 1. 🤣🤣 Like I said, Charlie's a piece of work, an addict, and unfortunately, lashing out at the one person still holding him down. 💙

I'd be a puddle before I even made it to the damn seat 🫠 And they are literally so cute together! I'm full on swooning over here 😍

Ughhhhhh girl SAME. Stick a fork in me with a slab of butter, I'd be DONE.

Ah, yes, the family business. Love that sublte hint 😆 Would be a good name for a brewery, tho 👍

Omgg I'm so glad you caught that!! lmao

Oh yeah, that's catchy. I could so see that on a draft label. 😜🍻

I like that you emphasized the darker parts of his life. Like I said, I don't buy his whole "I'm happy and funny and quirky" act. There's a lot more stirring beneath the charming surface 😅 (Another thing he has in common with Dean lol)

That's definitely not all there is to Russell, so thank you for pointing that out! SO many Deanisms in Russ, but it was pretty clear to me from the get-go (and especially in 2x02) that this guy has an edge, and a lot of experience with the darker shades of the military, despite his bouncy charm lol.

And oh, don't we love a good cry on the first date? Poor thing 😂🤍

Oh God yeah, she was mortified. 😂😂 I thought it would be understandable though, given what just happened with Charlie. 🥲💙

Indeed 😂 I would've loved to be a fly on the wall when Dory had this conversation with her lol How he very eloquently avoided talking about Colter accusing him of murdering their father. I wanna be a fly on the wall for that future convo too 🤣

Ha, ikr! Maybe I'll flash back to that convo in a future ESC story. 🤔

Oh he dodges that real well, doesn't he? 😂 He's going to continue hiding that aspect of things with Colter (I have plans for another sequel story in the future), but he will get into the circumstances around his father's death with her later on...

Loved that she got a punch in before even Russell got there. He might have actually killed that pig lmao

We love a strong heroine, right? 😘 Plus, as the sister of an Air Force/military guy, I felt like Charlie would've taught her how to defend herself. But oh God yeah, Russell might've let his hand "slip." 😬

I'm having vivid flashbacks to Smoke Eater 🥵🔥

Aahahaa I had hoped that moment where he holds her hand would be a nice little Easter egg for people who read Smoke Eater. 😘❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

Probably one of my favorite scenes is when characters are so hot for each other they lean against a car. There's just something so incredibly passionate about it 🔥🫠

Clearly we have similar taste on this stuff, because girl YES. 😮‍💨😮‍💨❤️‍🔥 Melts me every time I see/read it...

Oh, Russell, this is not what the lady wants to hear. Bless him tho 😂 And I figured she wanted more than a one-night-stand or fling. His job and lifestyle truly is a bit of a problem. But he wanted out anyways, so... 🤞

Bless his heart, he tried to make it sexy loll. And yeeep, not only does she want to tread lightly because he's Dory's brother, but she also isn't typically one for a fling, being an introverted nerdy type lol. Not to say that professors can't get down like that, but this character in particular is more the cautious type. 🤣🤣

I loved their first date! 😍🤍 Hopefully, they'll see each other again soon and might give this another shot. I have a feeling it's gonna involve her brother's bullshit somehow 😅

Aww thank you, friend!! I had so much fun writing their date lol. You already know they're gonna see each other again soon 😏 and your instincts are spot on as usual! Charlie's about to get himself into some trouble that he might just need some help getting out of... 😬😬

As always, reading your lovely, thoughtful and hilarious comments put a huge smile on my face! 😉💓💓

Every Second Counts - Part 1

Pairing: Russell Shaw x F. Reader

Summary: One date with your best friend’s brother leaves you wanting more, even though his questionable job and vagabond lifestyle make you want to guard your heart. When your brother falls into trouble, however, Russell is the first one you trust to help you find him. 

AN: Finally, here we are at Part 1! Remember that A Line and a Half functions as our prologue here.

Word Count: 5.7K

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only for some mature thoughts. Fluff, angst and hurt/comfort, drug use, mentions of drug addiction and alcoholism, skeevy men, and a tinge of spice.~

💜 Series Masterlist

Part 1: "Permission Granted"

“Are you absolutely sure?” you asked, with your hands on your hips. 

You wanted no miscommunication here, no read-between-the-lines mishaps, no subtext or nuance to bite you in the ass later. So here you stood in the middle of your best friend’s office, still at the Wyoming University campus after your last class.

Dory had to laugh at you. She pushed away from her desk and threw her hands up.

“Yes, for the love of God, you can grab a drink with my brother,” she said.

After brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, she went to you and set her hands on your shoulders.

“You have my blessing,” she said. “All I ask is that you don’t scar me with any gushy details afterward.” 

Your face began to heat up in a blush. You crossed your arms.

“All right, no one said there was going to be any of that,” you replied. “It’s just a date. Barely a date, mind you.”

“A-huh,” Dory said with a sneaking smile. “Out of curiosity, what was it about him that hooked you? You’ve been dodging Chris’s valiant attempts for like a month now.”

Chris was a French and Spanish professor. His office was on the same floor as yours, so you two occasionally crossed paths whenever you ventured into the teacher’s lounge.

He usually caught you in the morning while you were grabbing your free coffee fix at the Keurig. He’d chat you up about his classes and his dog and his new boat, and all the while you’d struggle to get a word in edgewise. Despite that, he was good-looking and pleasant, for the most part. It was just…

“I don’t know. He’s not my type, I guess,” you shrugged. You kind of liked conversations where both people got to speak.

“And Russell is?” Dory said, in a teasing tone. You chewed the inside of your lip, fighting a smile.

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “Kind of want to find out though.”

“Okay, well, let me know what you find,” Dory said, more wryly. You caught a bit of melancholy when her gaze drifted off. Your brows furrowed in concern as you drew closer, setting a hand on her arm.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

She was hesitant, but she eventually answered you with a confession.

“You know, it’s been about twenty years since I’ve seen him,” she said. “We’ve had entire lives already. I see him now, and there’s some of the Russell I knew when we were kids, but…there’s just a lot I don’t know about him, who he’s become.”

You could understand that. You squeezed her arm in sympathy.

“Well, he really seems to want to know you now,” you said. You remembered all the questions he asked you when he helped you carry your files back to your office after lunch today—most of them about Dory, about her career, your friendship, and ultimately, if she was happy.

“What happened to you guys?” you asked. “Why are you all so distant? Colter included.”

Dory’s face tightened. “It’s a long story. I’ve told you some of it. But basically, after our dad died, nothing was ever the same again.”

You dimmed at that. You knew their mother still lived in the cabin they grew up in, but Dory had never quite been able to tell you what happened to their dad. You’d never pushed the subject. You knew better than anyone what kind of pain that was. 

“I just wish we’d been able to stay with each other. Me and my brothers, at least,” Dory said. But she adopted a smile for you, before she returned to her desk.

“Okay. Go on your non-date at your favorite bar with Russell. I’ll be here, grading papers until Judgment Day,” she said, with a small laugh that felt like a coverup for thoughts she no longer wanted to think about.

You let her do it. You grabbed your purse and work bag off the spare chair in front of her desk.

“So you’re sure,” you wanted to confirm. “One last chance for me to tell him I came down with food poisoning.”

Dory collected her stack of midterm papers and gave you a cheeky look that said, class dismissed. Then she clicked her red pen and pointedly looked down at the first batch of papers to read through.

You smiled. Okay, you thought, giving her a little wave goodbye when you turned to leave. You had just a couple of hours to drive home and get ready to meet Russell.

“Goodnight,” you called.

“Goodniiight,” Dory replied.

You heard the smirk in her voice without even having to look back.

After fighting through rush hour traffic, you were exhausted when you got home from work. Your tentative excitement and nerves about tonight gave you some new energy though, even if you thought those nerves were silly to have.

Barely a date, you reminded yourself, as you unlocked the door to your house. Barely a date, barely a date.

The Ring Camera beside the door chimed when you entered the house, signaling your arrival. You had to wrinkle your nose at the dank-ass smell that greeted you.

Frowning in annoyance, you dropped your stuff on the kitchen table for now and shucked off your heels. You made a beeline down the hall, to the bedroom that lied across from yours. You pushed it open without knocking. There you caught your older brother, Charlie, snoozing in his bed with the covers half pooling on the floor.

His room was a mess, as usual. Your gaze locked on the evidence of half a blunt on his nightstand and two smoked roaches beside it. You were glad it wasn’t remnants of white lines of powder, like times before, but there was also a large bottle of whiskey. It was almost empty, and hanging loosely from his hand.

He managed to raise his head a bit when you came in.

“Hey,” he said, blinking bleary eyes. He cleared his throat and tried to sit up.

You shook your head and picked around piles of dirty clothes and a couple of used paper plates on the floor. You swiftly grabbed the bottle from his hand and slammed it on the nightstand.

“You promised me, Charlie,” you snapped. “You promised me for the hundredth time that you’d quit all this shit. Where even were you last night? You weren’t home when I left for work this morning.”

He sighed, frowning at how loud you were, and sat up in bed. He swung his legs over the side and held his swimming head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. He ran a hand through his hair. It was nearly black, like Dad’s had been, but he’d inherited Mom’s lighter eyes.

“I got invited to a party,” he said. “I’m sorry, I know. This is the last time.”

You expelled a frustrated breath and shook your head.

“You’re a grown fucking man, Charlie! Do you really need me to give you the just say no speech?” you said. 

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know how many times I can say it,” he said. He shut his eyes tight, probably trying to fend off a headache. 

Good, you thought. Let that be a reminder of how bad he’d screwed up again. 

“And while we’re at it, what about your half of the bills? You’re a week late,” you said, testily crossing your arms.

“Yeah, I’m a little behind,” he said. Once again, he cleared his throat past a wad of phlegm. He was still a bit crossfaded too, you could tell. “You know they cut my hours to part-time at the museum. I’ve, uh, I’ve been looking into getting another job—”

“I already paid the phone bill. And the internet, the water bill, the electricity,” you said. “The house may be paid off, but the least you can do is pay your half of living here.”

The longer you stared at him, seeing the guilt hidden behind drunken eyes, you realized he wasn’t just late on his half of the bills.

“How much?” you asked.

He frowned up at you. “What?”

“How much do you owe?” you said. Your voice was as cutting as your gaze. Charlie lowered his.  

“It’s okay, don’t worry—”

“How much,” you pressed.

He looked up at you again, this time with pursed lips. After a beat, he sighed and gave in.

“About two grand,” he admitted.

You raised your eyes heavenward, muttering a curse. Your hands went to your temples as you had to pace the room. You were angry and exasperated in equal measure.

“Who the fuck do you owe two grand?!” you asked.

Charlie shook his head. “It’s better that I don’t tell you that.”

You paused. As you looked down at him, your anger dissolved into sadness, like it always did.

“If Mom and Dad could see you now, they wouldn’t recognize you,” you said.

Charlie fought not to react to that, his brows furrowing. Instead, he just looked down, unable to answer you.

“Charlie, you need help. I can’t keep doing this with you,” you said. Your shaky breath gave way to the burn of tears.  

His red-rimmed eyes became glassy as well.

“I’m sorry,” was all he said.

He was always sorry. And you always had to be the one to nurse him back to health, pick up the pieces, pay the bills. You were exhausted. The bone-deep kind of tired that felt like gravity wasn't so much keeping you down, but pushing you.

“I’m going to ask for two things: do what you need to do to get paid, and clean up your shit. If you can’t accomplish that, then I’m taking you to rehab,” you said.

“You know I’ve tried that,” Charlie said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Didn’t really work for me.”

“You left the program after two weeks!” you retorted.

“I did it on my own! I’ve been clean for months,” he argued.

“And what happened? You go to one party and all your good sense, all your training, mentally and physically—that all goes out the window?” you said. You had half a mind not to believe him.

“Yeah well, maybe just for one night, I wanted to relax without you harping on my back,” he said, glaring up at you. “Is that too much to fucking ask? For you to give me some goddamn slack?”

Your mouth fell open incredulously.  

“I’m on your back?” you said. “Okay. I’ll get off. Do whatever the hell you want, Charlie. I’m done.”

You left his room in an angry huff. You headed over to your room so you could take a shower and start getting ready to meet Russell at Howley’s. 

By the time you got to your bedroom, you heard the front door slam closed.

The truth was, you were no longer in a mood to have fun when you pulled up to Howley’s, but you needed to escape your house. Also, you weren’t someone who canceled on people last-minute, especially not on Dory’s own brother.

You found Russell waiting for you at the bar. He waved to you with a fifth of whiskey in hand and an easy grin. He’d saved you a seat beside him.

You found yourself smiling. Your mood began to lighten as you went over to him. He looked more or less the same, but this time the jacket and jeans combo was navy blue and dark wash, respectively. His hair was swept back, lightly gelled. You smelled the familiar, rich woodiness of his cologne when you drew near, along with a hint of spicy soap.

“Hey, there.” He greeted you with a warm hand on your back. He helped you into your seat.

“Hey, yourself,” you replied, and thanked him for the assist onto the tall stool. You’d opted for jeans and a blouse, paired with your favorite leather boots. It was less dressy than he’d seen you before, but that was “work mode.” This was a more casual affair, even if you’d spent at least twenty extra minutes on your makeup.

You were glad he picked a spot at the end of the bar though. It put some distance from the group of guys getting rowdy as they cheered at the football game playing on the TV.

“How was the rest of your day, Professor?” he asked. “And what’re you wanting to drink?”

You let out a long sigh and turned toward him, resting your elbow on the counter.

“Awesome. I’m going to need two shots of tequila and an order of something fried, and preferably covered with cheese, please,” you replied.

Russell’s grin deepened. “Okay, I’m thinking ‘awesome’ is code for something. But we can get started on that order of Forget Today’s Unfortunate Events.”

He flagged down the bartender with a raise of his hand, but he shot you a glance.

“Though I’m hoping it’s not all of today that you wanna forget,” he said.

Your lips threatened another smile, as the memory of your hand being swept up into his, and soft lips meeting the back of your hand filtered through your mind.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s possible,” you said.

After about ten minutes of playfully debating the appetizer menu (you swore by the pretzel and beer cheese, but Russell had his eye on those spicy wings), he finally settled on ordering both.

“When in doubt, don’t go without,” he’d remarked.

You swept a pretty coil of hair over your shoulder and downed your tequila shots with a lime wedge. Meanwhile, Russell tried not to linger his eyes on the way your tongue swept over your finger to catch a drop of lime juice. Your nails were manicured, and the shade of the polish matched your lipstick.

Russell didn’t pretend to know the art and science of a woman’s wardrobe, but everything about you was thought out, it seemed, falling in line with what he’d expect from a (sexy as all hell) college professor. You’d also told him at lunch today that as of last year, you now had two doctorates: History and Ancient Studies.

Even with all that under your belt, you also seemed refreshingly down-to-earth, a lot like Dory in that sense. He could see why you two were friends.

“So, are you from here, or are you a transplant, like my sister?” he asked.

Dory hadn’t come to live in Wyoming until their aunt and uncle took her in, when she was about eight years old. Before last month, Russell hadn’t seen her since. It hurt his heart to think about, but he tried to focus on you.

You now seemed to be staring a bit listlessly at the glass of whiskey in his hands. He laid a hand on your arm and called your name.

“Hmm?” Your brows rose as you blinked to attention. “Oh! I’m sorry. Yes, I’ve lived here pretty much forever.”

“You okay?” Russell asked. “Tequila hit ya a little hard?”

You shook your head. “No, I’m sorry…”

You raised your hands up to your temples. You debated whether you wanted to open up about this, but…considering who Russell was, you thought he might just understand.

“Dory told me you’ve been trying to reconnect with your brother, right? Colter?” you said.

Russell nodded. He wasn’t sure how much Dory told you about their family business, but it dimmed his mood.

“Well, you could say I’ve got a brother issue of my own,” you said, laughing humorlessly. “You don’t have to talk about yours, but maybe you’ll understand… My brother is a veteran too. He was a Captain, air force pilot. He fought in Afghanistan, mainly.”

Russell processed that with a nod. “Yeah, I was there too. Special Ops.”

“Wow, okay. Then you know what it was like for him, coming back home,” you said. Your gaze fell to your empty shot glasses. “It was hard, after…”

“After?” he prompted.

You sighed. “Near the end, he lost half his unit in a raid, off of some flawed intel.”

Russell’s brows knitted together. Hmm. Grief, survivor’s guilt, feeling like you don’t belong.

He was starting to get a clearer picture of who your brother was. It struck at familiar chords inside himself that he wasn’t so comfortable with. He shifted in his seat, fingers flexing over his glass on the counter.

You didn’t notice, but you did push the shot glasses away from you.

“I helped him the best I could,” you said. “I got him a job at the museum I interned at when I was in undergrad. He’s there as a security guard, but it’s not really enough, you know? It’s like, nothing satisfies him. I just…I don’t think I know how to help him anymore.”

You couldn’t help it. Emotion bubbled in your throat, making it close up on you as tears stung in your eyes. Your lower lip wobbled, and you tried to turn your face away. Embarrassment coiled up in your chest and made your face hot.

You felt a hand cover yours on your thigh, squeezing warmly. You looked up and met Russell’s gaze, both sympathetic and understanding.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, trying to calm your shuddering breath. “This isn’t exactly first date material. I can’t believe I unloaded on you like that.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “Believe me, I get what your brother’s going through.”

He pushed the plate with the last piece of soft-baked pretzel over to you.

“You finish that if you want, then you go ahead and pick something else off the menu. I won’t even argue with you this time,” he promised with a grin.

It got you to laugh, at least, and he gave you a napkin for your tears.

God, get it together, you told yourself. You’re a damn mess.

“Thanks,” you said. You managed to smile as you blotted at one corner of your eye. You hoped you hadn’t just irreversibly smudged your mascara.

Russell surprised you by brushing his thumb against your other cheek, wiping a stray tear away. Your face began to warm with a blush.

“Again, I’m sorry for dumping on you. We had a fight right when I got home,” you admitted.

“What’s his name?” Russell asked.

“Charlie.”

“Older or younger than you?”

“Four years older,” you replied. “He enlisted a few years after he graduated high school.”

Russell flickered at a smile. Enlisted, huh?

Yet another thing he and Charlie had in common, except Russell hadn’t made it through high school in the classic sense.

“What do you think?” you asked.

“I think your brother sounds lost right now. I’ve known a lotta guys like him, unfortunately,” Russell admitted. “Walking back into civilian life, it ain’t easy. That I know my damn self. Just like I know a thing or two about being an older brother. He’s probably doing his best to keep it off your shoulders.”

You shook your head at that. Trying, maybe.

You weren’t even sure of that anymore. Still, it made you all the more curious about Russell and his family.

“I know I said I wouldn’t ask this, and you don’t have to answer. But did you and Colter have a falling out or something?” you asked.

Russell expelled a deep breath and took a sip from his glass. How was he supposed to navigate this minefield with you?

“You gotta understand that me, my brother, my sister, we didn’t grow up like a normal family,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” you nodded. “Dory’s told me some of it. It sounded…rustic.”

He snorted. “Putting it mildly.”

He shook his head and drained the rest of his glass. 

“Well, my brother’s got an idea about me that isn’t true,” he said.

Your head tilted in curiosity. “Which is?”

His lips briefly raised in a wan smile. 

“We don’t gotta get into that one tonight. But uh, the truth is, I’ve tried reaching out to him several times now. He just doesn’t wanna hear from me,” said Russell.

You considered him for a moment. You laid a hand on his arm, covered by his jacket. 

“Don’t give up,” you said, with a sigh of your own. “Despite some things I said to him today, I know I can’t. My brother’s the only real family I have.”

Russell grew curious then. “What about your parents?”

You gave a weak smile.

“They passed away when we were young, but…we don’t have to get into that one tonight,” you said, borrowing his words. 

His expression fell. “Jesus. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you,” you accepted, twisting the napkin around your fingers.

An awkward lull of silence fell between you, until Russell nodded and blew out a breath.

“Well. Heavy, huh?”

You chuckled and rested your head against your hand.

“I know. Again, my fault,” you replied. 

“It’s okay, swee—. Mmm,” he cut himself off, shooting you a knowing glance.

“Were you about to sweetheart me?” you asked playfully, nudging his hand. “You know how I feel about that.”

“No, ma’am. Not at all,” Russell shook his head. His smile gave him away though. You laughed and grabbed his arm.

“Come on,” you said.

He allowed you to lead him out of his seat. He already had a tab open, so he’d settle up with the bar later. “Where we going?”

“You’re gonna lose to me at pool,” you said with a smirk.

Russell laughed and wrapped his arm around your waist instead.

“Oh, okay. I’m gonna give you a run for your money, though,” he promised.

And he was true to his word.

Russell Shaw turned out to be a more than worthy opponent. You studied the board as you changed the angle on your cue stick no less than five times.

“You gonna make a move, or we going to be here all night?” he said.

He was smiling as he leaned against his own cue on the other side of the board. His clever moves had left you in a difficult position to get your three remaining solid-colored balls into the pocket.

“You hush. I’m thinking,” you said, fighting your own smile.

“Careful, you’ve got steam coming out of your ears,” he teased.

You shot him a narrowed look for that. But then you smiled, as the answer came to you. You walked around to his side of the board and nudged him with your hip.

“Excuse me, sir,” you said to him over your shoulder.

Russell made way for you, but his eyes followed the way you bent over to line up your shot. Namely the curve of your ass in those tight jeans. He could see you knew exactly what you were doing, in more ways than one.

You shot your shot. The solid green ball leapt over his white-striped blue one and managed to sink into the pocket. You straightened up and gave him a triumphant little smirk.

He tried to temper his smile (and ignore the way his cock twitched).

“All right, go on, do your little victory lap," he said. "But remember, I let you go first.”

“Like that matters,” you quipped back.

You went back to the other side of the board to line up your next shot. Russell noticed a pair of drunk men ambling your way from the bar, but before he could make a subtle move to put himself in between, one of the men’s gazes slid down your form and gave into the base urge to let out a low whistle.

And he slapped you right on the ass.

You gasped, grabbing hold of the pool table. Then your shock melted into ire.

Russell was already heading toward you with an angry frown of his own, but even he had to stop short, when he watched you throw a punch that cracked the drunken man across the bridge of his nose.

Good form, Russell thought, when the guy reared back with a howl. His nose dripped blood when his hands came away from his face.

His buddy started to raise his hackles, but that was when Russell stepped to your side. He angled himself toward you and loosely gripped his pool cue by his hip, like it was an extension of his arm. He was fully prepared to use it like one.

“Fucking bitch!” said the one who was still dabbing his nose in vain. He glared at you, his eyes watering involuntarily, while his friend tried to keep him upright. You rolled your eyes.

"You're the one who's crying, bitch," you returned. Russell held in a snort. He cleared his throat and looked on at the pair of idiots.

“I’d have a little sit down if I were you,” Russell told them, with a smirk. “Let that be a lesson to ya. And if it don’t stick? Well. Whatever you start, I can damn well finish.”

His steely gaze reinforced the promise of his words. The other men were still angry, but even drunks had some sense of self-preservation. They ambled toward the back of the bar to find another pool table.

Russell focused his attention back on you, finding you looking down at your hand, rotating your wrist and flexing your fingers.

“Well, look at you, slugger,” he said. You met his smile with one of amusement.

“That’s just what I needed tonight. A broken hand,” you quipped.

“Aw, it doesn’t look as bad as all that. But can I see?” he asked. You allowed him to take your smaller hand in his. Your knuckles were red and tender to the touch when he gently pressed. You hissed in pain.

Damn, she really gave it to him, Russell thought.

“Sorry,” he said, but your hand felt fine, at least. More than fine. His gaze flicked up to yours as his amused grin deepened. “Good hit though.”

If he liked you before, he might’ve fallen half in love with you right there.

You laughed through the pain. “Yeah, my brother did teach me something. Shit.”

Russell led you back to the bar after you grabbed your purse. There he called to the bartender for some ice. The guy nodded; he’d seen the entire exchange and was sympathetic.

You knew this sort of thing was just par for the course at this kind of bar, but they had the best drinks. Charlie had to carry you out of here on your twenty-first birthday, drunk off your ass. Not to mention, he’d punched out two handsy dicks that night.

You recounted the story to Russell over a couple more drinks. Your conversation was lighter then, filled with laughter and a warm, companiable feeling. He was still rather evasive about his job, but you supposed he had to be, since it was government contract work.

Private security, mainly. Or so he'd said. This man made you infinitely curious, and a bit apprehensive, if you were honest.

And yet, at some point while you two shared and laughed and split a hot sandwich with another round of beers, you realized it.

I like this, you thought. And I like him.

However, the night had to come to an end sometime. Your third involuntary yawn told Russell it was time to call it.

"I'm okay," you tried.

"Nah, you've gotta work tomorrow," he said. He signaled to the bartender. "Let me go ahead and close out my tab."

“Oh, I can pay for half,” you said, reaching for your purse now hanging from your hip.

“You kidding me? Put that away,” he said, guiding your hand with your wallet aside.

Smiling, you accepted his generosity with a small thank you. Then, you let him take up your sore hand again, just to carefully press the half-melted bag of ice over it.

“Feelin’ better?” he asked.

Your smile became softer. “Yeah.”

You had no doubt that this man, tall as he was, with his broad shoulders and the controlled way he carried himself, could’ve laid both of those drunken assholes onto their asses. His intimidating gaze had promised as much.

But his hands were gentle for you.

“I was about to win that game, no contest!” you said, laughing as you and Russell headed out of the bar and into the parking lot.

“Hey, hey, I still had time to win it back,” he argued. “I only had three more balls to go. I could’ve sunk that with my eyes closed.”

“Three balls, huh?” you said slyly, and maybe, a little tipsy. “Might wanna get that looked at.”

Russell snorted. “You think you’re funny, huh?”

“Hey, you laughed!” you said, pointing at him.

He shook his head, despite his amusement. He slowed to a stop in front of his car.

“Where’d you park, huh?” he asked.

“Over there,” you said, pointing several parking spaces down. Your eyes were drawn to his car, however. “Wow. This is your car?”

Russell grinned and patted the top of his black Chevy.

“Aw, yeah. That’s my baby,” he said. “She’s a Chevelle, 1967.”

You didn’t know much about cars, but you could see this was a classic beauty. You passed a hand over its sleek paint job without touching, so you didn't get any fingerprints on it. Though you quirked a smile over your shoulder at him.

“She?” you intoned.

“That’s right. She,” he confirmed.

You smirked and crossed your arms. You paused in front of the passenger door, and when Russell drew in closer, you had to crane your neck up to meet his warm gaze.

“Now, if I go in for a kiss goodnight, are you gonna deck me?” he asked, with a teasing glint in his eyes.

You tilted your head, your own eyes dancing.

“I’m sure you’re brave enough to find out,” you said.

Russell decided he’d take that bet.

He leaned in slowly. He made a show of hesitating, raising a brow, as if waiting for a blow. You were tempted to laugh.

But then he let loose a true smile, and he bowed his head to press his lips against yours. Your eyes fell shut, and your hands moved to flatten against his chest. A firm fucking wall. Jesus.

He circled his arms around your waist, bringing you in closer. Your fingers wound up in his hair, while he tilted his head to kiss you again. You met him with the same fervor with each new kiss, and the feel of your body, soft and pliant under his hands, each little sweet sound that you made, it all drove him to delve in deeper.

You moaned into his mouth at the first warm swipe of his tongue against yours. He tasted like the burn of good whiskey.

You pressed yourself flush against him on instinct. He found no other recourse but to back you up against the side of his car. His hand tangled into your hair, gripping, then easing through the soft strands.

Russell veered away from your soft mouth after a while, just to burn a line of warm, wet kisses along your jaw, and down your neck with the added rasp of his beard.

His lips found the sensitive spot where your neck met your shoulder. He kissed and sucked at your skin, even grazing with his teeth. You gasped softly in his ear, shuddering against him. You ran your hands over his shoulders and down his strong back out of a need to feel him.

His hands were heavy along the curve of your waist then, squeezing your hips. It all felt incredibly right. And by right, you meant body tingling, warmth churning in your lower belly, and wetness growing between your legs, for sure dampening your panties.

You tugged him back by his hair, so you could reach him for another steamy kiss.

“I’m staying at a motel, if you wanna…” he said, between kisses.

You paused against his lips, parting from him softly.

“Or not," he added. "Just thought I’d mention.” 

You giggled, catching your breath, and then smoothing your hands down his chest. The faint throb of your core was telling you one thing, but the warning signals of your more cautious mind were telling you another. You thought for a moment…but then you sighed. 

“How long are you really in town?” you asked.

His wet lips tugged to one corner, ruefully. “A few more days, probably.”

“Right,” you said with a frown. “Russell, I like you. I actually, I really do. If you were sticking around for a while, it’d be one thing. But you’re my best friend’s brother, and I—”

“No, I get it. I can’t predict when I’m gonna be able to swing back into town, and you’ve gotta live your life,” he said, but not without care. He curled an errant strand of hair behind your ear. 

Your heart tugged, almost painfully.

“You’re a good guy, Russell Shaw,” you breathed. “Why can’t you be a good guy who’s staying?”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said. Then he cringed, knowing how you felt about sweethearting men. “Ah, sorry—” 

You smiled and covered his mouth with your fingers. 

“It’s okay. You have permission to sweetheart me.” 

After blinking his surprise away, his face eased into a grin.

“Then I’ll wear that badge with honor,” he said. 

Your shoulders shook with laughter when you let your forehead fall against his chest.

Russell remained what he had been throughout the entire night: a gentleman, who accompanied you over to your car.

After another stolen kiss or two in front of your sedan, you parted ways from him with a bit of a heavy heart. You wondered if you made the right decision, or if you should’ve just gone for it for once, instead of second-guessing yourself like usual.

You did know this. The rumble of his Chevelle driving down the opposite road would be imprinted on your memory.

When you returned home, you realized that the house was empty, and in complete darkness.

Charlie still wasn’t home.

Worried, you flicked on the lights and began to text his cell, only to find a note for you on the kitchen counter.

And it worried you even more.

I’m sorry. I’m going to make it right. 

— C.

AN: 😬 Well then! lol We're diving straight into the drama and feels on this one. What did you think of her "barely a date" with Russell? 😂

And where do you think we're going next with Charlie?

Next Time:

Dory was sat next to you on the couch, rubbing your back with sympathy and concern in her own eyes.

“You should call the police,” she advised.

You’d thought of that, but if Charlie was doing something he wasn’t supposed to, then depending on what it was, you didn’t necessarily want him locked up in a cell. He wasn’t a bad person, he was just…lost. You wanted him to get help.

You set down the butterknife beside the jar and turned to her, after drying your eyes the best you could.

“Do you think your brother would be willing to come back to Wyoming?” you said. After a beat of hesitation, you specified:

“Colter, the tracker.”

▶️ Keep Reading: PART 2

Series Masterlist

Ko-Fi Me ☕

Russell Shaw Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Russell S. Tag List:

@kazsrm67 @letheatheodore @agothwithheavysetmakeup @jacklesbrainworms @foxyjwls007

@wincastifer @ades106 @iamsapphine @simpforbuckyb @roseblue373

@brianochka @branj19 @hazel-eye-coffee-shop-girl-blog @globetrotter28 @charmed-asylum

@waywardxwords @deanwinchestersgirl87 @this-is-me19 @rachiem4-blog @sweettimelady

@leigh70 @clinicallydepresso @xiphoidbones @skoveu @nyotamalfoy

@kmc1989 @jackles010378 @emily-winchester @waynes-multiverse @jessjad

@my-stories-vault @deans-spinster-witch @syrma-sensei @stellasfictionalworld @ultimatecin73

@jesllianaquilesrolonsworld @pieandmonsters @lhymer1995 @taehyungxjungkookistaekook @lovelystoriesaj

@nicksalchemy1 @spnwoman @onlyangel-444 @sexyvixen7 @illicithallways

@wolkenprinzessin007 @alwaystiredandconfused @carpenterswife @cheynovak @grilledcheeseandtomato

[syphirachaos]

Goddamn I'm still not done talking about that dancing scene in Wicked!! (See my other post for additional thoughts lol)

Okay okay. SO.

This may be a hot take, but I'm basing this purely on how Cynthia Ervo acted out this scene. I think Elphaba knew as soon as Glinda gave her the hat that it was a prank, that Glinda was being intentionally cruel. I think there was something much deeper at play happening. I think Elphaba saw something in Glinda from the very beginning which is why she enjoyed their rivalry so much--she saw something in Glinda that Glinda herself didn't even see or understand about herself. That although she had an insanely oversized ego thanks to her upbringing, she did have a good heart. Her offering to "help" de-greenify Elphaba (in a very WHite girl princess coded sort of way lol) annoyed Elphaba because she saw Glinda's desire to be a good person, but Glinda's lack of perspective and massive ego were standing in her way.

Anyway I'm setting up context to talk about the dance scene. So. Elphaba sees the potential in Glinda. But then when Glinda gives her the hat, Elphaba realizes in that moment what she must do. She has to be the one to show Glinda there are CONSEQUENCES to her actions! Glinda didn't stop to think how hurtful that would really be, how awful it is to offer someone a hand of friendship only to PUBLICLY slap it away in a very Mean Girls sort of way.

I dare to believe Elphaba knew exactly what she was getting into when she went to the Ozdust. She was CONSCIOUSLY showing Glinda the consequences of her actions. This is what happens when you mock the marginalized and the outcast. You're the leader here, everyone is looking to you Glinda. Look what you sowed through your choice to be cruel. The entire school is now mocking and bullying me and you hold all the cards and yet you think what you did was "just for a laugh?" Your actions have CONSEQUENCES! CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE. And she taught her all that without having to say a word. THAT'S real power. And it worked. I think Glinda fell in love with Elphaba in that moment because she saw what Elphaba was doing and she was grateful! She was grateful her mistake didn't stop Elphaba from still seeing her and wanting to befriend her anyway. I think Elphaba's tears were of relief that her insanely brave plan worked. She was relieved and grateful to be seen!

Whoever thinks Elphaba was a mere victim of circumstance doesn't see how incredibly brave and powerful and amazing and epic she really is, and that's a damn shame. She chose to challenge the most powerful student in the school to step up, to open her mind and SEE. And she gambled a lot on her belief that she could reach Glinda, but I like to think Elphaba just had that much faith in herself. And faith in Glinda too. She trusted her heart and oh boy did her heart deliver.

As I said before, that was the most beautifully intimate scene I've ever witnessed on film and it is a damn privilege to be alive during this time to get to see Wicked.

[yuukirita]

Thanks so much for answering my ask! I’d love to see step by steps if it’s not too much trouble! I actually started drawing again after years so I have a background I think it’s just being an adult and being nervous about not being perfect anymore lol

I don't really do sketches unless it's something I plan to colour or render. Or if it something big- like with a background that I know I want the angle or the proportions to work with the character. I don't mind if things look off as long as they look reconizable!

The baby au is pretty good if you want to learn because they are the simplest designs I've made! They're very easy to animate thanks to that! But anything about animation would be it's own thing-

Anyhow- What other characters / things would you like a step by step of? Was this good enough?

Reblog with your results! :D

[cappybawa106]

Rivals 🎼🍎🦔

Close ups + Extras:

[papita474]

@eri-pl hey! Crows are pretty too! Jajsjjsjs not but for real theyre beautiful birds.

Honestly I've think about it,doing a patreon and buy a pen and digital art stuff,but 1- idk how patreon works lol 2-I dont have enought money to buy things,I mean I HAVE,but its summer and the street dogs have a lot of ticks and garrapatas(idk how its said in english lol),so i have to buy them pills for avoiding this,and those are expensive😔👍,i mean IF patreon work it would help me whit the money thing but i have to think about it.

@peasant-player I WAS GOING TO MAKE ONE OUT OF CLAY TOO!

I do need a pen😩 I think it would make things so much easier! And about the people giving money in patreon idk,I think my art is pretty good and have improved a lot,but I dont think its ready for that,like not yet,idk I should give it chance.

Anyways thanks you both for saying those pretty things to me,it means a lot for me <3💕

And im sorry for answering this now,it got lost in my notifications🫂

"Fëanor was the mightiest Gnome of all that have been, wordcrafty and handcrafty, fair and strong and tall, fiery of mood and thought, hardtempered, undaunted master of the wills of others.

Songs have been made of his deeds that day. His speech was like to flame."

The Later Annals of Valinor

A little Fëanor appreciation post. Tolkien really went all out with the adjectives on this one. I'm glad he eventually realised that it would all sound less comical if he stopped calling Fëanor a "Gnome".

[hyperions-light]

I heard through the grapevine that people do not like Taash, which is bizarre to me, as I love Taash. So here’s a probably-expanding list of things to love about Taash!

1. They love animals so much!! The birds, guys! My heart melted <3

2. How kind and considerate they are to Karash, who needs someone to be gentle with him. They get that! They’re careful, and they warn both the Rivaini and their mother to be careful, too!

3. If you bring them to the Qunari in Treviso who is having a difficult time communicating, they will help them ;-;

4. How when they annotate the codex entries they always use footnotes ;-; because Shathann is an academic

5. How open-minded they are about stuff! They don’t automatically know everything, but they are always so willing to listen when someone explains things to them! They listen to Neve about Minrathous, even though it contradicts what they’ve been told; they listen to Davrin about working out, and Lucanis about the Crows.

6. How quick they are to admit their problems, listen, and apologize, if needed. It’s never frustrating to deal with Taash’s problems because as soon as you point out something’s wrong, they agree and are ready to handle it. It’s great!

7. It was really adorable when they tried to lie to Shathann about using their fire and they just… didn’t lol

8. They are sooooo sweet to their friends in the Lighthouse!! They always talk to everyone about whatever bad thing is happening, and they always offer to help fix it! I love that one dialogue where they insist to Bellara that her being upset about her brother is okay, and she should let the team help!! The way they express themselves is not always traditional, but it IS always considerate and well-meant!

9. Even though when Rook is recruiting them Shathann made the decision without their consent, Taash stops to reassure Rook that working with their team IS what Taash wanted. It’s really sweet <3

10. They are completely fine about Spite and treat Lucanis normally no matter what.

11. They love Shathann so much ;;;;;-;;;; I will write a whole post about it one day, but their relationship is soooo… it’s so real! I literally know people like this in real life, it’s written with so much attention to detail. And like even though they argue, and things can be difficult between them, Taash adores Shathann. There’s a reason almost every one of their outings involves her.

12. They are extremely knowledgeable in their areas of expertise! It’s fascinating to listen to them tell Lucanis how to lure out dragons, or Emmrich how to pick the right gems for his helmet. They are so confident !

13. The part where they yelled “the crows axe their regards” during battle almost made me die to the Antaam, I was laughing so hard

14. The fire-message they write themselves after the end of their arc thanks… Neve? I think ? For her help (will update this if I’m wrong)

15. They take everyone’s problems as seriously as they take their own. Even when other people miss it, they are the one to point out or affirm the importance of the emotional aspect of things (like during the Solas memories, when they call out that Solas regrets not speaking with Mythal again before she died)

Okay! More soon? Add, if you want!

[lightseoul]

CHAPTER 4 | ALL OUT OF LUCK

w.c. 5.0k (can you see the trend)

tags. fem!reader, pro-hero!katsuki, aged-up (26), still a lot of cussing, some mature themes (no smut, sorry), we're finally in the headquarters!, the story moves significantly along here (i think)

a/n. this one took a second to get out, but i hope the wait was worth it! we're going knee-deep into the storyline, so brace yourselves for the nitty gritty. the dialogue here was too fun to write tho lol

links. masterlist, ao3 (coming soon)

Neither of you says anything about what happened.

After you used your quirk on Masaki and the rest of his crew, eventually convincing them to let you take off the bugs and censor the cameras in the evenings, you and Bakugou were briefed about a few more details before you went your separate ways, returning home to pack up your things and spend your last night alone for the foreseeable future.

The trek back to the subway station was quiet, with Bakugou leading the way and you trailing a few feet behind. The silence that enveloped the both of you bordered on tense more than awkward, and you itched to confront him about unceremoniously jumping you, but restrained yourself at the looming thought of the trackers planted firmly against your chest.

As much as it pained you to think about it, from this point on, you have to work double time on biting your tongue and watching your words. Just your words and location—if you’re lucky—but your facial expressions and movements, too, when there are cameras around.

Fortunately, there weren’t any when Bakugou didn’t step out of the carriage just as the automated voice announced his stop, nor when he wordlessly got out of the train beside you at yours. Your face contorted in evident confusion in those two instances, to which he only tossed you silencing looks. It didn’t take long for you to realize it’d be suspicious if Bakugou didn’t see you home—his alleged girlfriend—this late into the night.

And so you rolled with it.

You even went ahead and thanked him with the sweetest possible voice you can muster when you reached your front door, as well as wished him a safe trip back home. You think you caught him off guard, but he was able to quickly gather himself and mutter back a few words of gratitude before telling you to get a good night’s rest.

You couldn’t.

Aside from the paranoia that came with knowing someone or some people were listening to your very breathing, the anxiety about this whole mess that you’ve walked into was too palpable for you just to ignore. You tossed and turned for what felt like hours—brain buzzing with a hundred what-ifs and hypothetical scenarios—before you eventually knocked out at around 3 AM.

You promptly woke up at 7 AM a few hours later, albeit begrudgingly and all thanks to your bothersome alarm tone. You had to show up at work, despite it being a Saturday, to file an indefinite leave as soon as possible. Annoyance shot through you as you remembered Kouki’s dismissive remark about your job in contrast to Bakugou’s.

You shook it off.

There were more important things to deal with, such as the guilt that bloomed in your gut as you turned in the paperwork to Yuzuki, your school’s HR personnel, who, at the sight of them, visibly deflated.

“You’re going on a leave?” she asked that cool morning, incredulous and tone somewhat begging you to say no.

“Yeah…” you replied, rubbing the back of your neck sheepishly.

“But why?” she pressed, sitting up behind her desk that’s riddled with knickknacks and picture frames of her and her toddler. “You never take off from work. And,” she enunciated, “…the kids need you, Y/N.”

Your polite smile faltered at the mention of the kids.

“Yeah, well…” you started, unsure of what to say next. “I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding a temp, what with the recent licensure exam results. The kids won’t even notice I’m gone, I promise.”

She cocked her head to the side, frowning. “I highly doubt that.”

It didn’t matter if she had her doubts, though, because this was happening. You braced yourself to tell Yuzuki just that, but to your relief, she didn’t push further after that exchange, opting to half-heartedly process your request instead.

By the time lunchtime rolled around, you were already cleared by her department and now officially on a short indefinite leave without pay.

In an attempt to take your mind off of potentially losing your job, you stopped by the grocery store on your way home and picked up a few items, such as toiletries and other things you may need for your stay in the headquarters. There was no telling when you’d get to shop for your necessities again, so you went full ham and spent the money you usually budgeted meticulously to the nearest cent. Besides, if you succeeded in this mission, you wouldn’t have to worry about finances for the next year, at the very least.

You were about to head to the check-out counter when your eyes caught the display of…house slippers in the back aisle.

You paused at the sight of them.

If you were going to be under house arrest, you might as well be cozy while doing so.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you grabbed a beige pair for yourself, and a black pair for Bakugou. You had no idea what his feet size was, but those were the largest they carried, and so that’d have to do. Plus, you doubted quirk supremacists were mindful enough to provide their hostages with comfortable footwear.

It was already around 4 PM when you arrived home with your arm-numbing groceries and takeout dinner in tow. Setting them aside by your kitchen counter, you quickly got started on gathering your necessities. You blasted your favorite album as you packed your suitcase partly to make the arduous process more bearable, but mostly to drown out the voices that fought to take the reins in your head. You were nervous—very much so—but there was no going back from this.

And so with a heavy heart and a churning stomach, you swiftly got to work, and by dinner time, you were already packed up and ready to go. After going through your checklist one more time and confirming that everything was accounted for, you got changed into fresh, more appealing clothes and scarfed down the meal you purchased to-go after shopping.

You sat in your living room with all your things stacked beside you on the couch, waiting, though it didn’t take long for Kouki to materialize by the kitchen with that irritatingly haughty expression on his face.

You tried to ignore the disgust that sprung as you watched him step on your freshly washed rug with his booted feet, choosing to shift your attention upwards instead. You observed him as he eyed your belongings with mild disinterest, before shifting to regard you.

“Ready?” he asked, holding up one hand for you to take, while the other moved to touch the pile of stuff.

You didn’t bother to verbalize your consent, resorting to just nodding as you gingerly took his hand. Your surroundings instantly morphed the moment that you did, and you found yourself going through the now-familiar motions, emerging smack dab in the middle of your floor’s hallway a few seconds later.

Kouki was gone just as quickly as he arrived, apparently way above helping you move your things to the space at the end of the hall. The same goes for the twins, who only watched you as you lugged your baggage into the room.

You locked eyes with the female guard, and for a second, you debated engaging her in conversation.

You already knew what to say. You’d ask her if they were sure about you staying in, when Kouki can just teleport you to your respective apartments at the end of each day if they’re so worried about you getting spotted.

Besides, you thought as she glared at you with seemingly unfounded hate, that means we’ll be out of your hair.

But as tempting as it was to bring up that alternative at the moment, you ultimately thought better against it.

You already used your luck to convince them to turn off the trackers at night—something they probably wouldn’t do if you and Bakugou lived outside due to the lack of backup surveillance. It simply wouldn’t be smart and cautious of them if they did. You also didn’t want to undo that already tall order of a bargain when what you needed the most was the privacy in which you could discuss the mission and steps moving forward.

Besides, you bet your money it’s not just that. The teleportation quirk of that old geezer has to have a limitation somehow…

You let all these simmer in your head as you settled in for the night. To your chagrin—you wanted at least one night where you get to sleep on the decent-looking bed—Bakugou showed up not an hour later with his own luggage.

You didn’t say anything to each other aside from brief ‘Hey’s’ as he entered the room and unpacked his belongings, as well as when he disappeared into the small comfort room and showered.

You decided then and there that you both had to work on your conversing skills if you wanted a shot at making this ruse believable for the sake of the mission.

By the time he stepped out of the bathroom, decked out in lounge clothes and haphazardly drying his ash-blonde hair with a towel, it was already 8 PM sharp—your agreed-upon time to retreat for the night and consequently, remove your trackers.

And so you wordlessly filed out of your room, only to see the twins already at your front door, waiting. You doubted they ever left their post ever since you arrived.

You eyed the male twin as he sashayed into your room before his sister called you to attention. Other than that, the exchange was nothing but silent and perhaps a little bit hostile as the woman roughly stuck her hand up Bakugou’s shirt then yours, similar to last time, and removed the devices. You fought back a wince just as she ripped it from your skin, leaving a stinging feeling in its wake.

You could tell she was resisting the urge to shove you back to your room when the deed was done. You didn’t want to risk being her punching bag, so with a curt nod, you promptly turned back and once again entered the room, with Bakugou following you just as the other twin exited and closed the door behind him. Looking up, you immediately registered how the cameras were now facing down—covered—and the red, flickering lights were nowhere to be seen.

An instantaneous wave of relief flooded through you.

Bakugou must’ve noticed, because he whipped to face you, and the disturbed expression on his face was enough to shut you up.

He tilted his head, perhaps gesturing to the rest of the room, and it took you a second, but you eventually managed to make out what he was trying to say.

Shut your trap, his icy stare told you. Check the room for bugs.

And so with a nod of understanding, you tossed him a look right back before quite literally turning the room upside down. It probably took you at least 10 minutes to uncover and check every surface, nook, and cranny, but by the time you both were pretty sure you were safe, you were already stifling a yawn.

And having a hawk eye must come with the job description, because that didn’t go unmissed by the pro-hero, who wordlessly took one of the two pillows from the bed, as well as the throw blanket on top of the actual duvet cover, before tossing both on the brown couch.

You were just about to thank him for preparing your ‘bed’ for you, but you didn’t get to, because you were very much robbed of all words when he plopped himself down on the couch, wrapping himself with the quilt.

“What are you—”

“Don’t argue,” he cut you off, his commanding tone comically juxtaposing how snug he looked with his head barely peeking out of the cloth. You’d laugh at the way his large feet were poking out at the end of it if you weren’t in a contentious mood.

You frowned. “You’re the guest of honor. I should be the one sleeping on the couch.”

“If it bothers you that much—” Bakugou piped from where he laid comfortably on the (p)leather furniture, “—we can take turns. Tomorrow, I get to sleep on the bed, and so on.”

“But—”

“Conversation’s over. ‘Night.”

With that, Bakugou flipped on his side, turning his back against you, effectively shooting the conversation down in its entirety.

You stood there for what felt like a couple more minutes, keen on shaking him awake, maybe even yanking him off the couch and planting yourself on it before he could wrap his head around what was happening, but you ultimately decided to let it go, at least for now.

You wished him a good night as you turned off the lights and snuck into the queen-sized bed a few moments later, although you bet he was already fast asleep based on the lack of a reply.

Which was good for him, because he needed the rest for what was about to crash into you the next day.

Apparently, Masaki wasn’t kidding when he said groups like theirs needed the space to conduct their activities, because they sure handle a lot.

At 8 AM, you were roused awake by a violent knocking on your door, and you could tell Bakugou was awoken by the very same thing, because he shot up in alarm just as you did. You quickly got up and padded to the entryway, trying to ignore the silly embarrassment of being seen in your threadbare pajamas in broad daylight, before whipping to look at the man. You didn’t have to say it, though—Bakugou was already grabbing his pillow and blanket and plopped into the bed, lying down as if he was there the entire night. Only when he was fully settled did you turn the knob open, only to see the female twin scowling at you. Her hand was held up, on top of which were two trackers.

“It’s breakfast time,” she spat out—literally, some of her saliva landing on you. She looked over your shoulder to glare at Bakugou. “Hurry up and get ready. You’ve got a full day ahead of you.”

Behind you, a distinct grumble sounded out across the room, and you glanced back to see Bakugou getting up from the mattress and folding his blanket, a deep frown etched on his sharp features.

Looks like someone’s a morning person, you thought to yourself.

Not wanting to aggravate her even further, you wasted no time in getting dressed and presentable enough. You debated on whether or not to spend five minutes putting on makeup, ultimately deciding to do so, with you ending up patting on just enough product to look eye-catching before you and Bakugou went down to the mess hall to eat breakfast.

Immediately upon entering the space, you found yourself thankful for that extra five minutes because all eyes were on you. Well, maybe more on Bakugou, but they inevitably drifted to you, the person who walked next to him side by side. You could hear the people whisper to themselves as you moved to sit at the table near the back, before it hit you and you froze.

“What?” asked Bakugou from across you, who followed suit and paused, butt hanging mid-air.

“Come and sit next to me,” you blurted out, and before he could react in a way that would incriminate you both: “I want to sit beside you, babe.”

Bakugou’s eyes widened ever so minutely at the pet name, his face then sobering up as if he just realized what you were trying to do.

You wished you could spell it out for him, that couples tend to sit next to each other rather than across, and…you needed to seem like one who is head over heels for each other around these people as well. Thankfully, you didn’t have to, because Bakugou merely nodded without question, before rounding the table and seating himself right next to you.

You did your best to tune out the looks and murmuring throughout the entire meal, after which you got swept to one of the halls for an introductory talk for the new members. There were eleven of you in total, including you and Bakugou, the rest of whom you didn’t recognize. They didn’t even hide their surprise and awe when the two of you walked in and sat yourselves at the farthest row beside each other. You tried to radiate an aura of friendliness, smiling at the others when they looked at you, and then beaming at Bakugou whenever you caught him looking your way.

You could tell he was having a hard time playing the part, his smile strained whenever he attempted to return the motion. It was probably after the third time of trying to get a reaction from him when you mustered the courage to bring a hand to his shoulder, kneading the muscle as a form of an affectionate gesture, but mainly to get him to relax. He initially tensed at the contact, but eventually loosened up as you continued the action.

Soon enough, the talk commenced, with someone you didn’t know presenting himself as Kazuma, one of the officers of the organization. He went on to formally introduce the association, named The Quirk Coalition, as a group of like-minded individuals who aim for a future where quirks are nurtured and fostered to their fullest potential in a democratic society that puts a primacy on said powers. You noted how they conveniently left out the part where they detest the weak and the quirkless, although you did not comment on it. You only glanced at Bakugou one time, who looked onto the stage with tight lips.

Kazuma also went through the hierarchy of the organization, starting with Masaki at the top just as you suspected, then Sayaka and Kouki, followed by Hiroto and Omiru—the two who you recognized as the twins, looking like they just got their mugshot taken in the photos. Kazuma sat there at the lower tier alongside several other officers, under which were the regular members, totaling about 70—some of whom live in the headquarters and most going in and out, having normal jobs during the day and families to tend to.

You don’t know how they got it, but at the bottom row of the chart was a picture of you, right beside Bakugou dressed in his full hero gear.

You let the reality sink in as Kazuma droned on about the group’s beliefs, how they equally valued their ideals and the people who carried out these ideals. You made a mental note of this piece of information, before accidentally zoning out for the rest of the lecture.

The next seven days went on roughly the same way, with either of the twins serving as your unfriendly alarm to demonstrating PDA in the mess hall during breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with talks, history classes, support group sessions, and even quirk training nestled in between mealtimes.

You and Bakugou went through every single thing together, from sitting out the ‘classes’ where the teachers essentially waxed poetic about rewritten history with a strong bias against the quirkless, to attending what felt like group therapy where you each took turns sharing your ambitions and goals as members of the organization. Bakugou even partook in one of the quirk training sessions, wherein he practiced shooting precise targets while propelling himself in the air.

You couldn’t decide if he was trying to act all serious for the mission or was just showing off—could’ve been both, really, but regardless, his efforts were enough to catch the eyes of the fellow members working on their respective quirks. You, on the other hand, sat to the side and watched the pro-hero do his thing, not being able to ‘practice’ anything without a partner to ‘boost’—or really, manipulate.

Needless to say, you’ve both been busting your ass pretending to be eager, dedicated members, but aside from the information readily provided in the forums, you haven’t had much luck extracting details that could prove to be useful for the mission, a fact that you’re now planning to bring up with Bakugou, a full week into moving into the headquarters…

…After you finish checking the bedroom for bugs.

It’s become some sort of an unspoken nightly routine for the both of you. The second the door shuts behind you after the trackers have been taken off and you’ve checked that the cameras are pointed downwards, capped, and are not blinking anymore, you go to your respective halves of the room and thoroughly check each inch for a wiretap. Neither of you dare to say anything compromising until you’ve completed the survey, and even then you’ve telepathically agreed to watch your choice of words.

Still, you can’t deny the familiar sense of reprieve whenever this time of the day comes along, and you’ve since associated these moments with Bakugou with comfort.

Which is probably why you have the audacity to joke around.

“Are they comfy?” you ask just as you plaster your butt down into the couch. You’ve had your fun yesterday, sleeping easily in the soft bed. You watch Bakugou as he eyes you warily, sitting on the edge of the mattress, facing you.

He huffs, crossing his legs. “Are what comfy?”

You point to his feet with your lips. “The slippers. They were buy one take one, you know.”

At that, he smirks. You can’t help but feel your own smile growing.

“I don’t think that’s something you should be bragging about, princess.”

Flying right past the tail end of that sentence for your sanity, you force a frown on your face. “Why not? It was a great deal. And, I’m sure yours are comfy. Mine are.”

He leans back on his hands that are firmly planted at his sides. He’s still smirking. “So why bother asking me in the first place if you already knew the answer to the question?”

You open your mouth to retort a witty comment, but come up short. Bakugou’s smirk morphs into a grin when you do. You wrinkle your nose in disdain, “I was just trying to make small talk. You’re welcome, by the way.”

The pro-hero only chuckles at that, before sitting up and bringing his hands forward, one holding and wringing the other arm’s wrist.

You study him for a beat, and then the cameras, which are still turned down and capped with a lens cover.

And when he only continues the rotating motion, you finally speak up.

“…What are we gonna do now?”

Bakugou’s eyes shift upward from his wrist to look at you, the softness that was just in his gaze a second ago now replaced by his trademark caution. You try not to focus on the disappointment of having caused that, as well as the misplaced longing for what was once there.

It takes him a while to reply, his features contorted into a look of deep thought. But when he does so, he straightens his back. “We—”

A barrage of heavy knocks resounds from the door, startling both of you and cutting Bakugou off. It’s immediately followed by a gruff voice, which you can now easily recognize as Hiroto’s.

“You’re not making any noise,” comes his bite, although it’s slightly muffled. “You better think twice about planning something behind our backs, you two.”

You roll your eyes. You understand any hostility coming from the members, as you and Bakugou come with risks that can potentially harm the organization that they hold dearly. But even you can say that the twins are taking it a bit too far with the harsh treatment.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think their being extra hard on you has something to do with Masaki agreeing with the off-surveillance.

“Fucking relax,” Bakugou seethes in their direction. “Just because we’re not audibly having sex doesn’t mean we’re talking shit.”

You snort. Bakugou whips to look at you, the corners of his lips upturned.

That seems to put a plug on Hiroto, because the man doesn’t say anything after that. Once again, you’re met with silence, with you and Bakugou sitting on your respective furniture, looking at anything but each other.

It’s him, though, who finally breaks it a few minutes later with a clear of his throat.

“We keep at it—” Bakugou starts carefully, “—is what I was trying to say earlier. They’re gonna discuss the plans with us sooner than later.”

…Patience, huh?

You can do that.

Nodding, you adjust your position on your seat. You don’t dare to ask him to expound or add your own thoughts on the matter. Better to be safe than sorry, even though you’re pretty sure your room is free of bugs.

So instead, you finally give in and steer the conversation to something that’s been plaguing your mind ever since the commission kidnapped you a little over a week ago.

“Bakugou,” you begin, and he looks at you expectantly. You gulp. “Can I ask you something?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Depends on the question.”

“…So might as well shoot your shot,” he finishes when you don’t say anything.

Well, then.

You blurt it out before you can talk yourself out of it.

“Don’t get me wrong, alright? I know you’re strong and all that. But…” you trail off, fixing your eyes on him, “Why did they specifically want you of all heroes?”

Almost instantly, Bakugou’s smug expression is wiped off his face just as it falls.

You scramble to backtrack.

“Sorry if that’s too invas—”

“Are you sure we were batchmates?” he cuts you off, a brow raised in question. “Back in UA?”

You stare at him. Where is he going with this?

“Yeah?” you reply, not at all willing to try and jog his memory with the only prominent exchange between the two of you. So instead, you toss the query back at him: “Why?”

“Because if we were, you would’ve heard about the rumors about me, unless they weren’t as widespread as I thought.”

You feel your brows furrow. “Rumors?”

He peers at you for what feels like an eternity, before shaking his head in what you think is resignation. His body language has changed drastically, you note—the distinct confidence from earlier now long gone, having been replaced with…shame?

He heaves a deep breath.

“I was a bully,” he finally declares, meeting your gaze. “I bullied someone for being quirkless. I guess you could say I had a…” he hesitates, as if he’s trying to filter his words,” …certain mindset up until late into our first year.”

He shakes his head again, which is now bowed down toward the floor. “I did some pretty…awful stuff, to say the least.”

And before you can say anything, he beats you to it. “And don’t ask me about what I did.”

“I wasn’t going to,” comes your speedy response. That causes him to look up again and at you, a surprised look written on his face.

“Well, that’s a first.”

“I don’t have to know,” you reason, schooling your features into a neutral, even sincere expression. “Besides, I can clearly see there’s remorse. There’s no need to reopen that can of worms, especially if you’ve tried to make amends.”

You pause, eyeing him. “Have you?”

He tosses you a look of offense, as if you just accused him of being a serial killer. “Of course. And he’s forgiven me. What do you take me for?”

“Someone who feels remorse—” you chuckle, “—just like I said.”

He shoots you a glare, although it’s playful and has no bite to it. “Smartass.”

You grin at him. “I am smart, aren’t I?”

Bakugou doesn’t verbalize his agreement, but he doesn’t deny it either. Instead, he turns the table on you.

“You’re a guidance counselor, aren’t you? You use your quirk on your clients?”

You gasp, insulted. That grants you a smirk from him. “No! Of course, not. What do you take me for?”

He shrugs, “What? It makes sense to me.”

“So should this thing called ethics, which I follow and is very important, especially for people like me who work in the mental health field.”

That doesn’t seem to convince him. “Why’re you in this field, then? If not for its compatibility with your quirk?”

You think about it for a beat.

“I guess you can say my quirk did play a part in all of this, but not as my crutch,” you eventually explain. “Using it made me realize how much I like making people feel and do better, which is something that I now do with evidence-based techniques as a counselor. Plus, my job trains me in identifying emotions, which, you know…”

—helps with maximizing your quirk.

But you don’t say it out loud for fear of getting exposed, and it seems like that’d be unnecessary, because understanding flashes across Bakugou’s eyes. He nods, and that’s all you need to know he gets what you’re leaving unsaid.

“That’s a pretty noble cause,” he offers, although it comes out a bit awkward.

Still, you flash him a genuine smile. He looks away.

…Right at the wall clock, which now reads a little too late o’clock.

“You should get some sleep,” says Bakugou just as you are about to tell him the very same thing.

And when you don’t respond: “Are you sure you wanna sleep on the couch?”

‘What, are you proposing we share the bed?’

…Is what you would say if you were a fucking lunatic, which you’re glad you aren’t, because you don’t know how you’d survive this hell of a mission if you were.

Instead, you nod, shooting him a grateful look as you move to lay back and drape the blanket over your body. “Bask in the luxury of a proper mattress, your highness.”

You don’t get to see his reaction anymore in your new position, but you bet your cheap but surprisingly ergonomic slippers that he’s grinning with the way he snorts loudly.

“Stupid.”

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 feel free to drop an ask, too—i'd love to chat with you. have a nice day!

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[caffeinatedmunchkin]

An Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove

Emmrich Volkarin x Fem!Rook ✦ Rating: M (MDNI!) ✦ 13k words

"Their corpse proved quite stubborn." He presented her an opportunity, and she grasped at it in desperation. "I'm surprised, you're so very good at taming stubborn." Her playful attempt at schmoozing won a stiff snort, and nothing more. "Oh..." Breathed with a coy lilt, she feigned innocence that could have been believable, if she were anyone else. "Are you still cross with me?" Stealing another gulp, he sneered against it's bite. The strength of which smoked his voice to a heady resonant. "Back during your apprenticeship, when you disobeyed one of your superiors, or spoke back at them out of turn; in what manner did they see fit to punish you?" A preemptive attack from which she was slow to recover. "I... got a good tongue lashing." Her words were tight from a throat that fought against their release. "A common occurrence, I might add." "Just as I suspected." After a breath, he then angled a brow down into his drink. "The correction of your behavior falls into my lap after all."

Banner credit

Crossposted to AO3!

I just want to take this opportunity to once again acknowledge and thank you for all the wonderful feedback I received on my first Emmrich piece. All of your praise, engagement, compliments, freak-outs - you name it - have been the single most gratifying, uplifting, validating and humbling experience I have EVER received in all my years of sharing what I’ve written. From the bottom of my little perfectionist heart, you are all in my cool book.

With that said, may I humbly offer this to all you incredibly sexy, gorgeous Emmrich babes to which I’m forever indebted. This one’s for you. 

This is hands down the most stressed I’ve ever been to post something LOL

Writing this was a wild oscillation of; “I’m on to something here” and “this is straight trash”. So I either really popped off with this fic, OR, I lost my mind and it’s documented here for all to witness. Regardless, I REALLY hope you all enjoy!  *blows kiss for all you lovelies* and to my one super sweet anon, this ones especially for you 😩 you kept the imposter syndrome caged so I could finish this. 

Dusk settled over Treviso like a veil. The gradient of a setting sun against the encroach of twilight a dreamlike glow, it stretched across the skyline in a rosy, gossamer haze.

Despite the festering boils of blight, and roving Antaam units, the city was still almost serene. Crickets chirped and nightingales squawked. Music drifted from the odd window, cracked open to invite the warmth of the breeze. A strong city; one too proud to kneel. Too enamored with its culture to bend to the devastation.

Emmrich and Ariadne were dutifully at each others side, while Neve trailed behind to afford them privacy at what she thought was an adequate distance.

The three were on their way to report back to Teia and Viago; their beloved city, and her people, no longer unwitting victims of the Qamakmaster, or his modified poison. The younger Watcher insisted they traverse the more "scenic route" along the canal proper.

In this it's most desperate hour, much of it's familiarity withstood the test of its carnage; sprawls of ivy wove through panels of lattice work. Pockets of lamplight dotted the pathways, their warm flicker reflecting off the lazy churning of the waters they strode beside.

The younger mage coiled herself around his arm like a vine. Content to take in the sights alongside him in shared silence, their physical contact was non-negotiable. She didn't care much for discretion when it came to their burgeoning affair. There were high stakes and grave consequences greeting her at every turn, every decision consigned to her.

She possessed neither the patience nor energy to pander to self-control. Least of all during these scarce luxuries of calm; the lulls between urgency.

She needed Emmrich's closeness. His touch.

Though the elder mage was more reserved in his displays, he bore her attachment with pride.

Still not quite used to the notion that his affections were requited, he couldn't deny the swell of his heart with how candid she was with her own.

How could he protest, when such a pretty thing wanted to be seen cozied up to him? Hanging off his arm like he was some young, and virile stud?

No, Emmrich could deny her nothing. He was weak to her. And by the ingratiating little simpers she'd aim his way, he swore she could smell it.

At times it still caught him off guard, her wild attraction to him, her insistent fawning. The elven necromancer lunged at him like a little lioness in heat, regardless of when or where - or who might be unfortunate enough to happen upon them in the midst.

But it wasn't a habit he felt compelled to curve.

The others seemed largely unphased. Bellara thought their relationship held devastating romance, no doubt drawing on bits and pieces for inspiration to her new craft. Neve adored Ariadne, and Araidne her - the two kindred street rats. He surmised her blessing had more to do with seeing such a close friend so happy, than the bearing of her personal approval of him.

Lucanis was content to get in his subtle teases and knowing smirks whenever he was the first to breakfast in the early mornings. Slinking off with servings for two, looking more than a hint disheveled and stupefied. Taash pretended not to pay attention, though he sometimes caught them initiating a covert high-five when crossing paths with Ariadne.

That left Davrin and Harding as the outliers.

Nothing malicious, Harding would sometimes make remarks that at times seemed innocent, while others were more coy. They all made him squeamish, which he maintained his best to keep polite about.

Davrin's approach was more blunt, albeit good-natured. Chuckling at his own crude jokes; those to the effect of the poor young Watcher abandoned by her parents, and her subsequent daddy issues. And how 'good old Emmrich sidled up to scratch that itch.' All in good fun, they turned his complexion ashen, and rang in his ears all the same.

However none was a harsher spectator than himself.

He'd lay awake deep into the night, with her pert figure sprawled naked atop him. Her shorter limbs curled around his like another one of his jewels, while she slumbered.

His racing mind tormenting him, even in the safety of his post-coitus haze, by the disparity of their years. Or by the stomach-turning truth of their first meeting, one he kept close to the chest.

That this little body that writhed under him in worship to his prowess, that rode him to mutual release while screaming his praises, was the same one that fit in the palm of his hand those twenty odd years ago. An incongruity he could draw because he had done just that. Only once, but the memory was sharp. Punishing.

Every time he reminded himself of that fact, he felt even more ill than when Harding had, rather abruptly and in full company, asked if he was old enough to be Ariadne's father.

It would have made him a very young father to have sired a woman of her age, but that didn't exempt him from that candidacy, he'd have to concede.

Is what he said at first, and a touch too defensive.

Until he did the math, and the realization dawned that it was not only reasonable for a man of 27 to have a babe - the age that he was when he met her, a fresh infant - but that most 27 year old Neverran men did. Some even had several by then.

He hadn't smoked in quite some time, but after that self-confrontation his clammy fingers itched to feel the length of a cigarette dangle between them.

"A pity." He volunteered with a sigh, willing his tortured psyche to rest. The craving for that detestable vice he worked so hard to best now rearing once more. "to see such a place ravaged by the blight. Though I would be remiss not to commend the perseverance of it's romance, despite all it's had to endure. I can only imagine how magnificent the blooms here might have been before."

"I thought you might think so." She drew herself tighter into him, both arms winding around the one she leaned into. To his measured chuckle, she melted.

"Dear girl, do you mean to tell me my accompaniment was requested just so you could hear me wax poetic?" His smile soft and amused. "Do you find me so predictable?"

She gazed up at him from beneath the thick flutter of her lashes. "I had hoped the atmosphere might inspire some of that famed spontaneity from the trysts of your past you've seen fit to regale me."

His gait faltering, he peered down the bridge of his nose at her, gawping at the confession.

He was becoming more adept at swift recoveries from her flirtation. She was almost disappointed in how quick he rebounded from this attack.

"You little jezebel." His reprimand was steeped in such a deep sultriness it burned the tips of her ears, murmured low to keep his words between them. But not low enough. Neve shook her head with a wry grin.

"Why don't I catch back up with you two at The Diamond." Her gaze flicked over them with an impish gleam. "I think you know your way back from here."

Emmrich had forgotten himself, and Neve, swept up in the generous evocations from his little blonde temptress. A profuse apology - and a begged pardon - at the ready, Ariadne cut in on behalf of his mortification.

"Are you sure?" Her eagerness to having him all to herself betrayed by the smirk she fought and lost.

"If I know one thing well, it's to leave the party when I'm having the most fun." Neve waved her hand as she sauntered on ahead. Without looking back, she called to them from over her shoulder with a smile in her voice. "Behave yourselves."

The pair of Watchers paused in a testament of their resolve. Their combined focus trained to the ice mage, as she moved further along the cobblestone walk and rounded the corner of a building, disappearing from sight. Leaving them alone.

Ariadne was the first to strike; hard and fast. Winning a startled grunt from him to the sudden impact of her body colliding with his.

Her arms snaked around his neck, she pulled him down to bridge the gap in their heights. A necessity in capturing his lips, even as she perched on the tops of her toes. Latching her mouth to his, she kissed him deeply, and with hunger.

One might have suspected a long-awaited reunion between the two, if her fierceness was anything to go by. And the loud, exaggerated approval she moaned, as his fingers began their own storm of her figure.

A new fragrance decorated her pulse, one he knew she selected with him in mind. A suggestive mingling of praline and black peony, it pervaded his senses to disarmament. When he breathed, he could smell only her. When he swallowed, he could taste only her.

In one swift motion - careful not the break their frenzied necking - he hoisted her up in his arms, while her legs curled around his waist. Her ankles locked at the small of his back, the little necromancer wrapped herself around him as if she wanted to permeate his flesh. Unable to get close enough.

He walked her the few steps to the banister overlooking the canal below. Placing her atop the railing, his hands were freed to explore. His wide palms roamed her, their paths indicated by the soft jingle of his bracelets, as one settled against the small of her back, while the other trailed up to her neck.

Though he handled her as if she were as fragile as a pressed flower, the placement of his hands were overwhelming with how deliberate. He cradled her with possession.

Her thighs parted to allow his stance between them, tugging his lean torso closer to press up against. Lulling her head back to grant his tongue deeper access down her throat, one hand fisted in the cloth of his robes, while the other made a brazen cop of his length.

Palpating his shaft with intent, Emmrich rolled a grunt against her tongue, both exasperated and needy in equal measure.

"Ariadne- please." His lips numb from her fervor, the corner of them twitched in a smarmy grin at her impatience. "We've made enough of a spectacle as it is."

She gazed up at him like a wild thing; her eyes glossy and lips kiss-swollen, with a heaving chest to match. Looking over first one shoulder, and then the next, she found the streets were calm, and still. The only sound between them were the breaths they exchanged, and the gentle laps of the canal to its revetment.

"You're in luck. There's no one else here now. Only us." Leaning back in to mouth at the jut of his Adams apple, she then tilted back to nip him beneath the jaw. Smiling into his skin as it rumbled with a relenting chuckle.

Peppering a trail of light pecks up and over the cleft in his chin, she sought his mouth once more. "And I've-missed you-Emmrich." Her whispered declaration broken apart by lips that crashed ceaseless upon his.

"I'm-right here, my-darling. I haven't-gone away-" He managed to slip out sections at a time, in the breaks of her assault for breath.

He felt nimble fingers sweep across his shoulder blades, to knot in the draping along his upper back. Her free hand had found the close-cropped hairs at his nape, to comb her nails through the base of his scalp.

Stalling any reservations he might have held, he purred to her attention like a pacified panther. With his guard lowered, she pounced.

"I've missed you inside me." Her hips rocked against him in emphasis.

The little Watcher's words dropped his stomach to somewhere down around his knees. She abandoned his mouth altogether to nose at his pulse, humming in satisfaction at how it quickened beneath the press of her kiss.

The sharp cut of his jaw lured her next, nipping a path along the ridge of bone from chin to mandible. Relishing the deep groan she won for her efforts, and the musk of his aftershave; pine and cedar-wood heightened by the spice of Neroli. Even freshly groomed, stubble was quick to shadow his gaunt cheeks, and she adored the way it caught her lips, and snagged her flesh whenever he nuzzled into her.

"My dear, your enthusiasm flatters more than my words could ever hope to express; but we must exercise some restraint."

She giggled into the open-mouthed kiss that stretched her lips over his high cheekbone.

"Asking me to heel, are you?"

A challenge to his authority, he rose to the occasion with the grace of one who didn't have to force his hand. Submission had been freely given, in offering to receive his lead.

"Not asking, my pet." He increased the pressure of his palm slipped around her nape, scruffing her like an unruly kitten as he pried her off the side of his face to lock eyes. He tried not to dwell on how limp she went in his hold, or the salacious little mewl that squeaked past her lips. "Expecting."

She peered up at him as if in a daze. The hazelnut of her eyes nearly overtaken in full by her pupils, her ferality was softened by the thick lashes she fluttered up at him. His other hand rose to cup her jaw, dragging his thumb down over her bottom lip.

They parted for him in obedience, the pink of her tongue coming to flick over the tip of his digit in dizzying suggestion.

"One of these days, my love, I will be undone by you." He slid the gloved pad of his thumb over the muscle, through her teeth. Sealing her lips around him, she began to suckle whilst holding his eye-contact, his lids now just as heavy as her own.

The gentle pulling of her suction, and the swirl of her limber tongue, were sent straight down to the heavy twitching of his groin. His voice all the hoarser for it. "And it will come to the surprise of no one."

A smile spilled across her face. A retort no doubt at the ready, a distant, hostile shout in qunlat - that presented like an expletive - caused her words to die on her tongue.

They turned in unison to see three hulking Antaam charging their way, their painted faces screwed in rage.

Three warriors against the two necromancers, they untangled from one another's embrace. Offering his hand, Emmrich helped her down from the railing to her feet, as her much smaller one slid over it in acceptance of the gesture.

The roaring Qun's interference offered harsh sobriety, Emmrich's withdrawal from her body heat stung. Not at all dissimilar than if he had plunged himself in an ice bath.

Sharing a brief glance as the assailants advanced, the two Watchers split up to close in before they lost the chance.

The largest of the three, the surmised leader, honed in on Ariadne. Though there wasn't much assistance he could lend, his hands full with the other two.

He made sort work of the first; ensnaring him in vortex of the intolerable hisses and shrieks of damned souls. It pulled him to his knees while he held his ears to the tortured plight they now put upon him. With shut eyes and covered ears that wept crimson, Emmrich turned his attention to the second.

In a display far less flashy, he swept him up in a similar, vicious gust that sent him careening backwards into a far-off trellis, one he had been admiring mere moments ago. The collision saw it splinter into a cloud of wooden slats and mangled greenery. The warrior remained motionless, upended over the wreckage.

Having all but written off the first, he ignored his presence in favor of seeking out Ariadne. Availing himself to her aid had been his desire from the start.

Spinning on his heel he found her, standing above the leader who had begun the process of disintegration by way of concentrated necrosis. Sprawled at her feet, he clutched at his throat in a futile attempt to prevent his gasping breaths from continuing to siphon. The unassuming young Death Caller took a step back, prying her eyes away long enough to catch his.

The beginnings of a triumphant smile morphed into a flash of panic, as her gaze shifted from his face, to beyond his shoulder.

"Emmrich!"

Her warning had sufficed. Whipping his head around with plenty of time, and distance, between himself and the charging Qun, the chipped edge of his blade poised to embed itself in the senior Watchers chest. Stricken blind, it saw him swinging it with heightened aggression, and in a worrying lack of direction.

The situation corrected itself just as quick. One moment he had been staring down the jagged bite of battleaxe, and before he could react, she had taken his place. A violet ripple flickering in the Fade, she then materialized in front of him. Right in the buffer that separated him from hungry steel wielded by an angry, blinded Qun.

Insinuated between them as if to shield him with her smaller, delicate frame. Only by then the warrior had been much closer than before, shortening the distance with his lumbering flails.

Placing herself in much more danger than he himself had been.

An acidic eruption of necrosis sprang forth from her outstretched hands, and not a moment too soon. A plume of murk that enveloped him in unending smoke, the torrent bent to her whim and swirled at her command, as if it possessed sentience.

Curling around his being in gaseous rot, it dissolved his armor with the same ease it did his flesh. Rending him to the ground in a sloughed heap of bone glinting from beneath pulpy tissue.

She kept her eyes trained to the veritable sludge that up until recently resembled a fearsome biped, all the while his bore into the back of her head. Molten embers where placid pools used to be.

How could she be so cavalier in risking what was most precious to him?

The very thing that called the entirety of his pursuit of Lichdom into question; unable to conceive of the loss of her from the remainder of his days, much less having to bear her absence for all of eternity.

A gesture that could have endeared him, his innermost turmoil saw it twisted.

And as much as he didn't want to acknowledge it, it touched on the sensitivity of his age - the tenderest spot. All his frustrations and guilt as of late wove back to that resentful infestation of the self.

Did she think him feeble? Impotent?

It was a curious thing, he never considered himself old before her. Fresh into his fifties, he was just as fit and alert as ever. Even more so then some of the youngest men at the Necropolis.

Softness has gathered in areas where there hadn't been. Aches in his joints persisted for longer than before. The salt and pepper of his hair had since committed to it's silver luster, and his crows feet had decided to stay. Despite all physical signs of maturity, it hadn't stemmed the flow of admirers he'd attracted, both in and outside of his classroom.

Yet when Ariadne all but plopped herself into his lap, he felt geriatric.

A coy glint roused in the hazelnut of her eyes upon noting his bewilderment. Having misread his expression entirely.

"What would you do without me?"

The muscle of his jaw rippled as he clenched it. "An apt question indeed."

His terse grit startled her like a clap to the cheek, quirking her brows.

"What's wrong?"

"Your recklessness." He bit back, frustration narrowing his round eyes to accusatory slits. "Needless endangerment is not heroic, it is inane."

Emmrich had never snapped at her before. Once she thought on it, she realized she had never seen him lose his temper with anyone.

Grappling with a whirlwind of confusion, she latched on to one point of many that insulted her sensibilities. "Needless?" She parroted. "You were seconds from being cleaved in half! What would you have had me do, stand idle to your demise?"

He softened, but only some.

"Do you think, in such a scenario, that I'd prefer you, then, in my stead?"

Hip cocked, she folded her arms across her chest in defiance. "You were threatened, so I acted."

"Yes, you most certainly did." He conceded. "With breathtaking imprudence."

The scar striping her nose disappeared into the adorable, girlish crinkle at the bridge. "I'm no thing to be coddled."

"I'm not coddling, dearest." His anger ebbed into the tired patronizing of a professor lecturing a rebellious student. His inclusion of the pet name had her bristling. "Do you hold self preservation in such low regard?"

"I'll not apologize for wanting to protect you." Knowing full well her spite would only worsen things, she was too aggravated to ponder the decision. "You're very welcome, by the way."

"I'm quite able to fend for myself, my dear." For how dignified he maintained, his ruefulness was just as clear. Splintering his poise like veins through marble. "I've been doing so since well before you were even born."

That sent her eyes back into her skull. "Oh, Maker - anything to bring that up, I see."

"It bares repeating." He stiffened.

"Is that what this is about?" She scoffed, her tone raising to a chirp. "Is your ego so fragile that it's bruised just by coming to your defense?"

His hackles raised despite himself. For how soon he was to forget just how mouthy she was, her attitude was quicker to remind him. As did her penchant for needing the last word.

"This isn't about ego - I'd just simply ask that you abstain from rushing into danger headlong."

Enunciated with the air of someone unruffled, Emmrich had succeeded in snuffing out the spark of his anger before it spread, while hers only seemed to blaze in full swell.

"Are you quite finished berating me like I'm a child?"

"That," he plunged his voice into his chest, his admonition firm. "is contingent on whether or not you continue to behave like one."

Her pupils dialed to points that pierced him. Her pout pressed to thin line, she glared up at him with a suspiciously stilled tongue. He matched her, but with a significant discrepancy in vitriol.

"A necromancer so afeared of his very medium, it reduces him to petty insults."

A hideous thing to say. No sooner did the words escape her mouth, did the tension between them see fit to gag her, but it had come too little too late. Her venom singed him.

Holding her stare, he remained quiet, his uncertainty of how to proceed etched in the deepened lines of his face. All the while, remorse spilled through hers. Gradual and dreaded, like a wound as it bled through gauze.

A sigh then bruised his lungs. "So it would seem."

Her rationale pleaded with her to say something - anything - her owed apology notwithstanding. Her throat locked with a dry, acrid taste in her mouth to the mere thought.

The infestation of her foul mood first needed to be exterminated, before she'd be allowed to speak. Lest she do further damage.

"We've dallied for long enough." While chaste, his inflection had regained much as it's usual strength, and his expression matched his solemn posture. Though he couldn't hide the wistful glint from his eye. Not from her. "I believe it's time we were on our way."

The rest of their time together was condemned to contemplation, and unbearable silence.

By the time they reached The Cantori Diamond, Ariadne had simmered. More regretful of what she said in carelessness, than what had gotten her so hot in the first place.

She thought to try for reconciliation, but her pride - and shame - kept her preoccupied, as she relived their argument.

Her temper had flared, but she didn't mean to lash out so. Her confusion to his vulnerability certainly didn't excuse her indelicate handling of it.

Though Emmrich's state remained questionable.

His frustration with her had been much quicker to cool. A sudden spark of unchecked emotion before he smoothed himself back over, as if his careful disposition had never cracked in the first place. Yet he was still troubled. Still on edge.

Still dismayed by her accusation, and how rash her behavior.

The little elf stole sidelong glances at him on the occasion, brimming with the hope their banter had returned with every breath he took, or sighed.

But Emmrich opened his mouth to broach her not once. So neither did she.

Upon their return, they were greeted by Neve. Waiting for them outside on the balcony, poised with the anticipation of one who bore news.

Her keen observation noted the shift right away.

Mussed hair and disheveled armor, with more than enough guilt between them weighing their repentant expressions. Though she deduced it wasn't from unbridled passion at each other's hands; a suspicion that had everything to do with the space that split them down the middle, and kept them apart.

As they approached her, Emmrich maintained his separation. Holding hands - that never seemed able to resist the cheeky little blonde for any reasonable length of time - clasped behind his back. It raised her brow, but she refrained from commenting.

"Emmrich, Viago's waiting for you. A Crow took down an alleged associate of The Butcher's, and they're hoping you could lend your expertise in getting their dead to talk."

"Certainly." He obliged, at the ready to take his leave of the women, though not before lingering for a moment as he looked to Ariadne.

Expecting her to follow, the junior Watcher never refused an invitation to watch him work - least of all for the opportunity to observe corpse whispering. However she stood in place with no motion to join him, finding herself unable to meet his gaze. His chest caved in with a sigh.

"Until later then, darling?"

She merely hummed.

With the discomfort of that parting metastasized, she at last looked up in time to see his retreating form disappear inside. Shoulders sagging, she turned to Neve, whose manicured brow arched in suspicion.

The young mage looked spurned, as if she hadn't been the one to rebuff him. She cut in before the detective could begin her line of questioning.

"You've got the look of a bearer of bad news."

The taller mage tittered. "Only depending on how you look at it."

"Alright, let's hear it." She urged with a tired grimace.

"The Eluvian's acting out. Bell sent word she won't have it sorted before first light."

Ariadne expelled a lengthy breath. Hands on her hips, she shot her eyes upwards, seeking the strength of some unknown, higher-power. "Great."

Neve's simper threatened to become a full smile. "Aren't you going to ask me for the good news?"

"There's good news?"

"Teia's putting us up for the night." She revealed, implicit slyness alight in her hooded gaze. "I've heard tell that The Diamond's suites are something intimate."

The Watcher's heart fluttered at her friends insinuation, though reality was quick to temper that girlish rush of excitement. As if she'd been so fortunate to have forgotten about their spat so soon.

A turn events that would have been kismet, now it just seemed cruel.

"Oh..." Was all she gave. A weak, resigned mutter, it was a far cry from the reaction Neve presumed. "We could use some time away... that could be good for us."

"Alright you," she sighed, a warmth to her impending patronization. "Far be it from me to pry, but those were certainly not the faces I expected when you returned." Her shift from partner in crime, to sororal confidant complete, she gestured towards the balcony with one arm, while she encircled Ariadne with the other. "Want to talk about it?"

Ariadne stayed with Neve for a long while, probably too long. While she valued the slightly-less-than-impartial insight, she was stalling. Only leaving the comfort of her company after she was all but shooed away to go to Emmrich, and make amends.

Finding their room with relative ease, she had run into Viago on her way - without the professor- having deduced that he retired to their shared suite, and was awaiting her there.

Trying the door knob before knocking, she found it unlocked. A pit had sunken in her stomach at the confrontation that she wouldn't be able to avoid him for any longer, no matter how ardent her attempts.

The unlatched handle was an open invitation, one she now found herself hesitant to accept. Suffocated by the weight of indignity at once more receiving his severe disapproval, she only had herself to blame.

She let herself inside, creeping through the door with as muffled of footsteps as she could manage. Unsure why she even bothered to avoid attracting attention to herself, knowing her appearance was expected.

She found his regal figure stood before a large picture window adjacent from the doorway, bathed in the luminous glow of the moon as it spilled in through the panes. An arm bent at the small of his back, the other held a stout glass of deep burgundy liquid.

The room was every bit as romantic as Neve's implication. Rich sanguine textiles dressed sturdy, ebony wood furnishings, all carved with correlating floral motifs that were as intricate as they were subtle. A handful of lanterns had already been lit; just enough to keep him from the same shadows they whipped against the ceiling, and stretched across the walls. His back to her, she slipped the rest of the way inside.

Her concentration shattered into a wince, at how deafening the latch clicked into place behind her amidst his silence. Though to the announcement of her arrival, he didn't budge an inch.

She waited in the beat that followed, suspended in the moment like a withheld breath.

Unsure of where they now stood, she needed him to be the first to act. She needed him to lead. After an eternity made to stew, he then turned his head just as far as his shoulder, his silhouette heightened by candlelight.

"Darling." Was all she got by way of a greeting, or clue to his mood. His even tone addressed her like the whisper of fine silk shifting over steel.

Dignified and assertive as ever, it both lured her in, and hid away his inner machinations. Her eyes followed his hand as he brought the glass to his lips for a healthy sip.

"Were you able to learn anything?" She tested while remaining by the door, working her cadence into conversational neutrality. Steeling herself to the possibility of a long evening ahead; one cold and lonely.

"Unfortunately, nothing the Crows were not already aware of." He dismissed with a sigh, his attention coaxed back through the window to regard the smattering of stars that smeared the midnight sky, instead of her. "Their corpse proved quite stubborn."

He presented her an opportunity, and she grasped at it in desperation.

"I'm surprised, you're so very good at taming stubborn."

Her playful attempt at schmoozing won a stiff snort, and nothing more.

"Oh..." Breathed with a coy lilt, she feigned innocence that could have been believable, if she were anyone else. "Are you still cross with me?"

Stealing another gulp, he sneered against it's bite. The strength of which smoked his voice to a heady resonant.

"Back during your apprenticeship, when you disobeyed one of your superiors, or spoke back at them out of turn; in what manner did they see fit to punish you?"

Far from the course of conversation she anticipated, it had her reeling. A preemptive attack from which she was slow to recover.

"I... got a good tongue lashing." Her words were tight from a throat that fought against their release. "A common occurrence, I might add."

"Just as I suspected." After a breath, he then angled a brow down into his drink. "The correction of your behavior falls into my lap after all."

Every time she believed she had righted herself on even footing, he staggered her once more, each time quicker than the last.

He now had her pinned and wriggling from beneath his thumb. The obstreperous little necromancer who never knew when to quit.

Who acted out, and prodded boundaries - yearning to know where one ended, and the next began.

He was inundated all of a sudden with the memories of his colleagues, and from not long ago, bemoaning the unruly young apprentice. How stubborn, and non-compliant she portrayed. How impossible she was to reign in.

Emmrich now well understood what she needed. And his was just the firm hand for the undertaking.

She cocked her head at him with a wrinkled brow of her own. "Meaning...?"

To this, he turned to her. At last face to face, she fought the urge to squirm beneath the weight of his gaze. Shrinking away like a frisky cub who had nipped the ear of the panther one time too many.

"Tell me, my dear, do you recall during our first night together, you mused what discipline by my hand might have been like?"

The little elf blinked. Opening her mouth, only for it to fall shut, she then answered lamely. "Yes... I do."

Though his expression was serene, his tone lowered several octaves.

"That mouth of yours has landed you in quite the bind." Without breaking eye contact, he pushed away from the window and strode the short distance to the writing desk that sat between them. "One a miserly tongue lashing will not relieve you of."

Her lips quirked in the beginnings of a scoff, but before the sound could complete itself, Emmrich interjected. His brow lifted in infuriatingly dashing arrogance, his authoritative edge cut through her with a shiver as he made his first demand.

"Remove your clothing. All of it."

A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, but she crushed that threat upon recognizing his severity.

The young Watcher couldn't help but hang there with a dumb look on her face, only to be shaken from it by his gentle condescension. Ever patient, but grave in unambiguity. "Was there something of my instruction that necessitates reiteration?"

Speechless in reply, his expectant look goaded her to follow his orders.

However coltish her movements, and the beginnings of embarrassment heating her cheeks, she did as Emmrich said. Prying off her boots and shimmying out of the layers of leather and cotton that clung to her legs, all that was left was to shirk the bolero from her shoulders, and pull her collared blouse up and over her head.

A groan seethed from the pit of his chest at the sight of her body naked and flushed.

Teacup breasts that fit so nice in his hold, it was as if they budded to the exact specifications of his hands. The dusky peaks of her nipples hardened to their abrupt exposure. The temperature of the room mild, they stiffened to attention all the same. An achievement he prided himself on.

Her form so fresh and nubile, an ethereal daintiness afforded by her elven features made for an enticing complement to her other, fuller attributes. Decidedly all woman. A slim waist accentuated how wide her hips were by comparison, the observation incited reckless imagination.

Rousing fantasies from the most debauched of his recesses, the sort he'd otherwise be far too ashamed to acknowledge. The age that he was, and the gentleman's demeanor he paid strict adherence to.

His little Watcher wasn't shy. Even as early into their relationship as they were, he had seen her naked plenty. Yet this was uncharted territory; a new, untried side of Emmrich that both thrilled and intimidated her all at once.

Though she rushed to strip at his behest, her hands rose to cover what indecency she could think to shield. The first mistake of many he'd soon scold her for.

"Ah- drop them." His chin lifted, his one brow arched. "Now."

A whimper blossomed in her throat as she forced her hands to her sides. He flicked his gaze over her from head to toe, candid in his assessment of her presentation.

Her timid posture, her fidgeting. That untamed, seductive shimmer returned to her eye.

The appetitive press of her inner thighs against themselves. Done with her body stilled and expression reserved, in hopes he wouldn't catch her.

"Unlike my fellow colleagues, you'll find me to be far less tolerant of such poor deportment." He stood tall across from her, lengthening his gait to step out from behind the desk. "Might there be even the faintest desire to offer penitence, my girl? Are you willing to submit to me your due deference?"

The blush that began at her cheeks flooded throughout the entirety of her body. The skin of her arms and legs pebbled to his crooning, she felt the impulse to rub them from her limbs, but thought better of it.

Pinned in place by his gaze, every part of him seemed to hold her to some level of expectation. At that moment his eyes alone, bright with persuasion, forbade her from touching herself again without permission.

So she opted instead to nod, and he smiled.

"Come." His fingers thrummed the surface of the desk. "You're to lean across here. Hold yourself up by your elbows. Shoulders straight, and head forward."

His cool voice and composure made for an unfair advantage, one that snuffed her resistance like a candle's flame spluttering at the end of a spent wick.

She ambled to the ledge of the desk before bending herself over it, just as she was told. Her elbows met the the polished wood cold and rigid, while the height dug it's beveled edge just beneath her sternum.

Emmrich left her there, perched on the balls of her feet, as he circled her compromised position.

"Spare the rod, and spoil the child." He volunteered with a mournful sigh, as if a sympathetic father who wanted to spank their ill-behaved offspring about as much as the she wanted to receive the spanking.

Only Emmrich was eager to introduce her to such a lesson. As eager as she was to participate, if the full roseate flush that stained her was any indication. "While I feel compelled to disclaim that I do not condone any harm done to children, you are no child. And the principal rings true."

The air fought her distressed lungs. Her struggle only worsened, as he then set his gloves on the desk for her to see. While he remained behind her, she heard the discordant murmur of him reaching for the Fade, before a hush of fraught silence fell over them once more.

When his palm slid over the swell of her exposed bottom she gasped aloud; both at the sudden contact, and how his touch wasn't just warm - it was just shy of burning.

Startled more than uncomfortable, he had her eased into the increased heat before long. "W-what are you-?"

"Enhancing sensation." His explanation as blasé as if he were no more than reciting the dogma of autogenous liminality, he teased her flesh. "Heat promotes circulation, which in turn, will heighten your sensitivity."

His caress was a means to have her more suggestible to his discipline, though it demanded monumental restraint on his end to not insert his fingers inside her.

Her soft, needy sex mere inches from where his touch occupied. His attention on that area, and all his talk of punishment at last culminated in awareness to what the fog of her mind had prevented her from understanding.

"Are you... going to give me a spanking?" Escaping from her in jest, she couldn't help how her tone quavered beneath the weight of the words. A correct response, as he affirmed her suspicion.

"I am. Twenty times to be exact. Does that seem fair, my dear?"

"Only twenty?" Teased her simper apart, the goad of one who hadn't a clue what she was in for. Her underestimation of the kind professor woeful.

Emmrich gazed upon her petite frame bent in half before him with fondness, unperturbed by her attempted riling. Withdrawing his touch, satisfied with the rosy hue he had rubbed to the surface, his next command was as calm as it was cunning.

"You're going to reach out to the Fade for me. Once you have it, you'll want a firm hold."

He soon caught sight of a chartreuse glimmer curl and wisp itself around the joints of her wrists and fingers, as she flexed them against the wood. Slight and fluid manipulation, it then settled against her hands like a second skin, translucent in the moonlight.

She had professed many times how she was awed when watching him cast; an appreciation for their shared art that he found just as delightful in her demonstration.

Where he was precise and rhythmic, she was energetic, and inconstant. The unapologetic rawness, to his innate grace. "Very good. You're to hold that just as you are; you may release only when I permit you to do so."

His choice of phrasing went straight to her clit, as it pulsed in anticipation. The opulence of the room warped fuzzy and tilted to her bleary vision, her blood-pressure spiking to how stern his directive.

"Yes sir." She breathed, lifting higher on her toes, she gave a performative little sway of her hips.

It clenched his jaw until the joint creaked, though as far as she was concerned, he was otherwise unmoved by her bold provocation.

"With every strike, you will count out each one. Should you fail to maintain your cast, or lose count, we shall have to start again from the top." He cleared his throat upon concluding his recitation of her rules.

His voice had yet to pitch any higher than chest deep, and her heart threw itself at her ribs with every agonizing syllable. "Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

"Perfectly."

"Good."

His hands settling over her flesh had her breath catch, before it melted into the air in a sigh of relief. Emmrich smiled to himself, his ego fostered by how well she took to his touch. The slightest of his attention quelled her fire, rendering her meek and pliant.

His palms still hot, he stroked and massaged her in further preparation. Any time his finger-tips teased a suspicious descent between her thighs, her hips would rock in precious expectancy.

Finding the sense of security he lulled her to advantageous, his arm snapped forward, doling the first strike.

Nothing too severe, though it wasn't gentle - no where near as gentle as she assumed. A foolish assumption she amended on the spot. The slap of flesh echoing against her ear, she sucked in a stunned breath.

"One."

He had her full attention.

"That was very cute." Chuckled with playful condescension, her body betrayed her as it clenched in conditioned response to his voice. "A promising display of your cooperation, though we have yet to begun."

"W-what?"

"A necessary warm-up, dear girl." He collected his glass for one final sip of brandy, before discarding it back to the desk beside her. It thickened his voice to a confident drawl. "You'll know when I begin in earnest."

Thus began what felt like an hour long rehearsal of what was to come.

Emmrich paddled her with a firm hand, and varied positioning. He maintained a steady pressure, taking care between each one to soothe her stinging flesh by either a tickle, or purposeful effleurage strokes. Her grasp on the Fade came close to wavering, but never enough that he could see it's strength falter.

His insolent little mage harmonized their room with her yips, all the while he drip-fed careful praise to make certain her willfulness remained staunch.

"Such lovely little noises you make." His purr slunk between his lips to her twitching ears. It was all the preamble he spared before the transition from exercise to execution.

His first proper smack ripped the loudest gasp from her yet.

True to his word, she could sense the shift in his intentions by the weight and trajectory of his cupped palm alone. Her body sagged against the desk upon feeling him smooth over the faint pinch of toned flesh.

"O-one." She hushed, humility taking root.

"Good." He cooed. "Very good."

The next was a hair firmer, and her eyes widened as it sent her bobbing across the desk.

"Two." A more permanent blush swelled across her cheekbones, the dusty pink deepening to a vibrant rogue. Her fingers curled against the wood.

Emmrich ran a hand through his coif, fingers combing strands of hair that weren't mussed out of place to begin with. When he dropped his hand, it sailed upwards her rear for an underhanded strike.

Clapping her upside the gluteal crease, he swallowed thick beneath his collar at the way her peachy orbs jostled against the belt of his palm.

A strangled noise erupted from her, like a kitten whose tail he caught underfoot.

"Three-!"

"I must profess, darling, I expected you to put up much more of a fuss." He comforted the newest sting to prickle against her backside. "Surely I haven't silenced that smart mouth of yours already."

She was shocked by how well suited he was to playing the disciplinarian, and she was a fool to be.

Emmrich didn't have a cruel or haughty bone in his body, a fact that she would have attested to until that very moment. It wasn't born in the absence of kindness, so much as it came from his pedantic leaning.

He thrived on order, and protocol. Propriety. Steering her back in line came was as natural to him as regulating a classroom, or commanding the dead.

Now that she had been properly acquainted with this side of him, she couldn't help play the brat. Unable to resist the temptation of his masterful ploy.

"I think you're holding back because you're sweet on me." A lazy grin spread her cheeks, while she braced for the bruising she was all but begging for. "Those hands of yours should have me unable to sit for a week."

"Ah," he almost sounded pleased that her bite was returned, if only to excuse his dialed force. "There she is."

Four, five and six made her thighs begin to quiver. Smacking first up the back of her hindquarters, against their left side, and then the right. Thwack-thwack-thwack. A tingle roused beneath the burning skin, it reached the apex of her thighs, as she wept for him there.

Emmrich granted her a moment to catch her breath. Petting the sting, his praise un-spooled from the seat of his chest near vulpine in it's conceit. His croon cloying and velvet rich.

"You are doing very well, my little darling." Continuing to pet her, he eyed the glow emanating from her fists for any signs of weakness in her tether. "Though it comes as no surprise, I'm sure to you this has all felt little more than a tickle."

His next three blows were rapid fire, coming firmer than she was prepared for, and faster than she could count out in sync.

"Seven-e-eight-nine!" Each one echoed by her shrieks, jolting her higher on her toes while she scrambled further along the desk, as if to escape him.

Ariadne held tight to the Fade, willing her focus as it threatened to recede from her grasp with every hit. He leered down the prominent bridge of his nose at how she pressed her thighs together with a whimper, and shook his head.

"Ah-ah, there will be none of that." He inserted his foot between hers, nudging her legs apart. "Come now, widen your stance."

With much chagrin she allowed herself to be spread by him, as if she had much say in the matter. The senior Watcher was quick to correct her with the lashing that followed.

Proceeded by a rush of air, it was all the warning she was given before the punishment landed with a crack.

"AhH-! T-ten!"

The worst of it by far, and they were only half-way through.

Her flesh ached, the strength of which rivaled only by the emptiness her walls throbbed around. The wetness that webbed between her flushed lips maddened with discomfort, teasing her with a need for friction he kept her from chasing.

Eleven, twelve, and thirteen were slower than the last round, but made up for in their heft what they lacked in speed. The first of all of them to well tears along her lash line, each one threatened to reduce her to sniveling, as she fought to announce their respective number.

If at any point during the punishment a break was needed, it was then.

He spared her no such benevolence.

The length of his hand in full, the heel of his palm to the tips of his fingers, swept in hard to where the tops of her thighs met her glutes.

A sharp clap of flesh ripped its way through the stifling air. It shoved her across the desk, the glow from her hands flickering like a dying flame.

Fourteen. Fourteen! She hollered at herself, but her mouth was too preoccupied with gasping for breath to comply with that vocalization.

Fourteen dangled from the tip of her tongue, but her lips refused her will. She was so close to twenty. The tops of her thighs stinging, the reverberation of his whack throughout her body saw each and every inch of her pulled taut and humming.

"I'll issue one final warning." He intoned, encouraging her to keep count. "Use your words, darling."

"F-fourt… fourteen." Her voice was a strangled, weak thing. A flicker of her wildfire not yet extinguished, it goaded the low, mutter of "masal din'an." to seethe from her before she could even think to stifle it.

Aware that Emmrich most likely heard, a shred of hope blossomed in the shelter of assumption that he couldn't decipher the specific venom, obscured in the elvish.

Time ground to a halt. Everything seized in that moment, even her heart.

Then came the shuffling of feet as he positioned himself behind her, caging her against him as he planted one palm alongside her elbow, and then the other.

She braced herself as he swept in low, his mouth hovering beside her blushed ear. Her skin prickled in a wave down her body as that shelter cast her out into exposure, that faint gasp of hope shriveled and wilting.

In a startlingly fluent timbre, "ma nuvenin" was purred in response.

As you say.

The little elf shivered at the depth and severity of his enunciation. Eyes widening, heat flushed upwards from her neck in a vibrant bloom that stained the whole of her face. The arousal at hearing her language in his voice was almost enough to eclipse her dread that he knew exactly what vulgarity she had slung his way.

"Y-you-!"

Another whack doled to her tender flesh, though one that was sharp as it was stinging. Hollow. He didn't allow the meat of his palm to cup the swelling upon impact, nor did he soothe it with a lingering touch. He rebounded like snapped twine. It was a biting smack, one that had her suck at the air around her for strength.

"Fifteen!"

Before she could offer a weak excuse, he scolded her with tired disappointment. "Honestly, dear, you think me unacquainted with your tongue?"

He adored the sight of her flushed skin pebbling in the wake of this revelation. Though the exact verbiage a little muddled, he was able to parse the broad strokes. Recognizing her off-color assertions of his manhood in no uncertain terms.

"Quite the gamble, speaking to me in such a way. Perhaps I've been a touch too lenient?" He clicked his tongue, crooning with silken fluency. "Mala suledin nadas."

Now you must endure.

She craned her neck to steal a glance at him from over her shoulder.

Head held high and shoulders drawn back, not a hair of him was out of place. His leer shone with en-rapt attention - and a stray glint of gratification - one that had knotted her stomach when she caught it. He chided her all the same.

"Don't worry yourself with what's happening back here." His touch teased a path all the way up her spine to her nape, finding a hold in the ashen locks he wove his fingers through. His grip domineering, he squeezed the roots just enough, her scalp flaring in a sensual tingle as her gaped pout let slip a breathy moan.

He chuckled as he guided her head back to it's position by the reigns of her hair. "Keep your head straight and your eyes forward, dear girl. Your attention should be on your cast. Not on me."

Releasing her tresses, his splayed palm dragged back down the length of her body to flatten over her sacrum, pinning her still with even pressure. Switching to his non-dominant hand, he proved it no less proficient, as it whistled through the air before landing against her raw skin.

She didn't think a bare hand, one that fondled her so lovingly, could also raise welts on the very flesh it revered. The chafed skin of her backside served to oppose that mutual exclusivity.

"Sixteen!" Her voice cracked as she pushed it from her chest, wound tight against the blistering sting, and her tenuous grasp on the Fade.

Holding his hand in its place, the one that had just struck her returned, rewarding her with an affectionate graze to the irritation. "You're doing well, sweet girl. Very well indeed."

She opened her mouth to respond - with what, she herself wasn't even sure - before he came down on her once more, this time back against the top of her buttocks. Blossoming a dull, throbbing ache, it wrenched a pathetic sob, hitching her tally.

"S-sev..seven-seventeen." The light from her fists flickered like the flame of a torch whipped in the wind, warning abandonment. She curled her fingers in tighter, until her nails bite the flesh of her palms. Concentration battled her, as did her waning tenacity.

The heaviness of his hand seared across her rump in a ludic swipe. One that melted the beginnings of a harsh gasp into stretched moan.

"Eight-teen-,"

"That's a good girl, we're almost through." His approval at her endurance colored his baritone, soothing her with the tenderness of sincere praise. "You're doing so well for me, da'len." He hushed. "So obedient."

Little one.

She groaned at the familiar pet name, the elvish intonation deepening his voice to a silvery croon. Their power dynamic already tipped against her, this recent development plunged the scale to weigh heavily in his favor.

She could only imagine the humiliation if he let slip such a name to her around the others - he'd have her blushing as furiously as he did back when she was a school girl, buckling her knees in the same fell swoop.

If he only knew the hold he had on her back then.

"Oh, I haven't lost you, have I?" His attempted diversion successful, she hadn't noticed the rustling of his armor behind her, while he began to disrobe. Leisured, and only pieces at a time. The resolve of man well versed in the importance of pacing.

First the onyx outer layers, and gold plated adornments were placed on the desk beside her. Then a green blur in her peripheral, as his collared shirt joined the neat pile. Now bare from the waist up, it was a tactic to further her distraction. For even at the nineteenth, his next blow startled her. Her sore body jerking forward with a throaty groan.

"N-nineteen..."

Grasping the Fade now felt as though she were trying to pluck a sewing needle from the surface of melting ice with a gloved hand. It dimmed in pulsations like the twinkling of a lightning bug, before steadying itself back to his desired opacity. She expelled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"There you are." He purred. "I was beginning to suspect your mind had wandered; we almost began again from the start."

The final blow plucked a yelp from her, frail as her spent lower half felt.

She was finished.

Ending on the same sweet spot of where her rear ended, and her thighs began, a numbness began to seep throughout the burning muscle in ecstasy. A kindness of her body, having turned the intensity of his pain to subdued pleasure. Admittedly not as delicious, but leagues more tolerable.

"Twenty."

"Yes, dear girl, I believe so." One palm swept an absent-minded path over the swell of her, now thoroughly raw and hot to the touch. "I wonder; was I successful in communicating the purpose of this lesson? Or does that darling petulance within you remain?"

"I... but you said-," her tongue stalled, as sluggish and unreliable in her mouth as it was when she was intoxicated. She huffed in frustration, and tried again. "I did as you said-,"

"An adequate performance, though not wholly satisfactory." He of course teased, but did so believably. "I question your interpretation of this exercise."

"I... I've been good." She croaked in embarrassment to how subdued he had her.

"Have you now?" He mused, his palm sweeping over her like his touch was a balm to the angry flesh. "Only one way to be certain."

He sank to his knees behind her, and swallowed hard at what he found.

He could see how swollen she had grown from his spanking. Burning bright pink, and drooling from between her quivering thighs.

"Oh just look at you." His warm breath misted against her as he rumbled in appreciation. Though he still kept firm to his stringency, his admiration was unmistakable. "I fear my punishment was enjoyed, and rather too much, you wicked little thing."

"I-I, I didn't... I-,"

"Shhh." Mouth snapped shut, her eyes misted despite herself, as he spread her apart in more thorough inspection. His fingers adroit and reverent, as if peeling apart the petals of a tulip in fresh bloom. Wet with early morning dew. "It's of no use to demur, my girl. I see well the mess I've made of you."

Any semblance of a reply she might have been able to articulate was strangled by the obscene moan that erupted up her throat.

Opting against prelude, Emmrich had darted between her shivering thighs to flatten his tongue against her slit. Opening her up to his eager mouth, the agile muscle flicked and slithered along her slick heat.

At his first taste of her piquant nectar, he groaned into her, feeling it's conduction along her aching sex as much as she heard it muffled from between her legs.

An imperceptible pressure bore down around the entirety of her body, squeezing a gasp from her burning lungs that choked it's way out. Ariadne felt his lips curl in a smug grin against her tender folds, before beginning to move them against her in the makings of a deep, impassioned kiss.

He worked her entrance to interrogation. Demanding her noises, and her trembles against his relentless mouth. Intent to find the obstinate little hellion he believed to still be lurking within.

"E-em... Emmrich-," her eyes watering, a mantra of his name poured listless for him. Hoping it served as just recompense.

He answered by creating a seal of his glistening lips around her cunt. Pulling hard, he grunted as she rocked back into his face, constricting in hollow pulsations against the tip of his tongue to encourage it's entry.

To surprise so great it collapsed her against the desk, he granted her request.

Palms snatched her thighs to hold her still, he probed the slick muscle in and out of her weeping center with lethal precision. His girth heavy between his thighs, it flicked against his trousers with impatience. His condition worsened with her every strained whimper, and disjointed stutter against his strong chin. That damnable scruff brushing her sensitive clit, the groomed whiskers of his mustache tickled her to similar unraveling.

Between the steady pressure of his shadowed jaw to rub her bud against, and his lips and tongue orchestrating a devoted composition, he had already dragged her before the crest of her release.

She had indeed done well for him, and to her efforts, a reward was owed.

Emmrich tipped his chin to allow his tongue access to her swollen pearl. Teasing it with feather light pressure in clockwise motion, he closed in tighter with every circle. Weaponizing the vibration of his hums in tandem with his ministrations, she came crashing down against his mouth with little more prodding.

The elf whined with such loud sincerity, he was certain the odd passersby as far as the very end of the walk outside their window, could have heard her without difficulty.

He lapped at her mussed petals, cleaning her up with paternal attentiveness as her full-body tremors relaxed to sporadic twitches. Next came his own maw, smeared and shining with her pearlescent remnants. Licking his lips while he rose to his feet, his sharp brow arched as he looked her over.

"Oh, aren't you a treasure." He murmured in reverential disbelief in catching sight of her persistent hold to the Fade, however weakened. "You may release, dearest, just as you may await me in bed."

Ariadne picked herself up from the desk, and lowered herself to her heels for the first time since the professors punishment.

The very professor who watched with open satisfaction as she limped across the floor, on thighs that still wobbled from his oral dissection.

Emmrich dropped his trousers where he stood, stepping out of them the moment she pulled herself onto the lavishly made bed. Electing to keep herself propped up for him on all fours, he hadn't expressed to her the position he wanted her in, she just knew. She could read it in way she felt his leer rake across her, dutiful in her presentation to him on her hands and knees.

He had never been so assertive with her before, least of all with such determination. His dexterous hands bruising in their strength. His height wielded to impose, like he had something to prove.

She hazarded a glance at him from over her shoulder.

A lean athleticism to his tapered physique, his regular, early morning cardio showed in the toned ripple that carved through the length of his abdominals.

Obliques tensed, his traps pulled taut his broad shoulders as he held himself erect before her admiration.

A dusting of silver hair between his pectorals, they mapped down his linea alba, coaxing her gaze down with it to arrive at the soft thatch beneath his naval. That handsome iron trail lead further, not that she required any additional incentive to seek what waited lower still.

His engorged length bobbed upwards in a slender curve towards his abdomen. A bead of precum at his tip, he quirked in gentle pulsations from between his thighs in wait.

He didn't permit her too much indulgence, beginning to make his way towards her with the sort of noble confidence only afforded to one who knew how he appealing we was to his lover. One who maintained exceptional care of himself, and knew his efforts were appreciated.

She wasn't left to her lonesome for long. Joining her at the edge of the bed, he grabbed her by the hip-bones to yank her up, and back to meet his groin. One foot planted on the floor, he drew his knee up on the the mattress. Dropping his pelvis to grant them the deeper angle they both knew they needed.

Grabbing himself roughly about his swollen base, his patience lasted only for as long as it took him to align himself with her soaked folds. Pushing through them with his tip, a whine dislodged from him with the guttural timbre of an animal claiming a compatible mate.

By the time Emmrich sank inside her, just to the point of where curve of his head blended with his shaft, he was completely gone. Head tipped back, a wet and strained noise of fervor sprang from the back of his throat.

Her tight velvet sheathed him one agonizing inch at a time. Even with her lubrication he still hurt her; unable to hold himself back once he felt that initial, hasty stretch of her walls. A growl seeped from his depths, knotted and yanking inward, as her muscle squeezed at him with her own greed.

He was able to will himself still for long enough to allow her time to adjust - a decent girth, he was longer than he was wide when swelled in full. A lot for her small frame to take, slotting himself to the hilt saw him bottom-out in the same motion. A gasp tugged itself from the tender depths of which his cockhead just battered.

The noises he made when he buried himself within her never failed to tighten her around him. Like a reflex, his groaned relief only worsened her need for her own.

This time had been different. He didn't experience relief. He didn't feel satiation from her plush heat kneading his heft. It only worsened his withdrawal. He wouldn't know contentedness until he split her open, and burrowed as far inside her as he could.

"You'll be the death of me, my girl. Gripping me like that," he sighed, relishing the way her core both fought his intrusion, and spasmed wider in frenetic accommodation. "Whimpering, as you are."

Long, spidery digits dug into the firm flesh of her hips for purchase. His chest felt tighter with every breath he relied on to steady himself, to keep from pistoning his hips too hard, too fast. Though her previous defiance tempted half his mind to handle her with such aggression.

Hoarse, full-body pants drooled from him like a sick hound as he began to work himself inside. Fluttering her delicate velvet as he stretched her down around his length, using her hips as both leverage for his slow, too-deep thrusts, and catharsis for what still swirled within him.

The lucidity he had been able to maintain all that time had dissolved just like that. The confines of her slobbering muscle pulsed around him with the suffocating tightness of a woman who sought revenge. Even with how thoroughly she had been broken in, her body reaped retaliation where it could.

It saw his initial thrusts ragged and uneven. The little elf had him sloppy.

"E-em-aHh-!" Ripped from her as he picked up his pace without warning. His taut musculature rigid as he leaned into his momentum, it didn't interfere with his perfect posture, even as he began to drill.

"You're infuriating. No one's ever gotten under my skin quite like you, little Death Caller." His divulgences near frenzied, he suddenly switched his hold on her to clip his hands around her upper arms.

Hoisting her up abruptly, he took from her the hold she had on the duvet. He was all that kept her from falling face first into the mattress. "You haunt my thoughts. I'm unable to rid myself of your smell - how insufferable you are, so arrogant and so effortless as you undo all that I am, all I have striven to become."

Any and all quips or pleas died against the back of her throat, strangled by the shrill yelps from the sheer pressure of his hips snapping against her. Pinching her with his grasp at the crease of her elbows. Locking her against him, while he rode her out with harsh bucks. A single strand of his hair broke free from the pomade that held it in place.

Her bottom still tender and throbbing, it didn't appeal to his mercy to lessen his attack. He was too enamored with how the swell of her fit with his groin, his slick length disappearing into her pretty pink folds with every snap.

Emmrich had always made love to her. Thorough, and meticulous and bursting with tender affection. This time wasn't like that. This was an assertion of his dominance. This was a reminder of her place.

This was a fuck. Pure, and plain as day.

His stamina was a thing to behold, but he had been stretched ever thin since their evening began. Bouncing her up and down his shaft made quick work of his strained resolve, the whispers of his climax pulled at him with neediness reminiscent of his young lover.

"Tell me, my pet." He huffed, his skin prickled at the tightening of his scrotum. Threatening the burst of his dam. "Where would you like me to-"

"In-side-me-!" The demand made breathless and choppy, his unrelenting force stilting each syllable.

He had only ever finished on her; the small of her back, the protrusion of her clavicle, one spur of the moment rendezvous that left him with the visual of him dripping down the quirk of her victorious pout. All at her behest, she had never asked this of him before, and he'd never dare suggest it.

Of course she'd ambush him at such a pregnable moment, when he felt more animal than man. Liable to unwise decisions in his haste to exorcise whatever had possessed him back at the canal.

He shut his eyes tight to her plea, as his stomach flipped over with blunt force. He knew better than to be so irresponsible, and yet-

"Ariadne." Grunted low in warning. "I'll not last much-longer-,"

He hadn't been with her long enough to gauge the risks, unfamiliar with both her cycle, and the strength of her fertility. He hadn't the time to weigh that potential cost, as her wanton mantra of please please please sent the necessary blood blow from his brain to the strain between his legs. As if he could erect harder than he already was.

"Please! Please inside me-please-,"

Her temptation was far greater than the meager shred of resolve he clung to. Her depths were so warm and snug, tugging him in deep and then deeper still. Fluttering around the heft of his cock in frantic coercion.

To feel him crowd against her womb. To leave her feeling full. Of him.

The pressure behind his eyes began to swell, prodding his paper-thin restraint. Pushing him to devolve to his most base biological motivators.

He might have been an older man, but he was still just a man, after all.

Without a hitch in his stride, he released one elbow at a time, snaking her around the abdomen with one wiry arm, he snatched her beneath the dainty cut of her jaw with his other hand.

Bending her head back, he curved over her like a viper. The extra height he had on her allowed him to look into her eyes, manhandling her like a rag doll as his thrusts increased momentum. Reaching new depths with his penetration, signaled by the crude joining of wet flesh. More loosened locks fell into his darkened eyes, further obscuring the man she knew.

Ariadne was mounted by beast who borrowed Emmrich's skin. His touch was known to her, his smell was right; but the force that pummeled her into submission she already surrendered long ago was a force she had yet to reckon with.

His rhythm faltered as she fluttered her lashes up at him, her feline gaze pleading, drunk on his speed and ferocity. Her throat purred beneath his palm with her strangled groans and whimpers, each one sent straight to the knot in his scrotum, uncomfortably tight and twitching.

The jut of his hips canting at a wicked pace, one that telegraphed his crescendo, every withdraw of his veined girth had her keening from the loss. Even from the fractions of a second it took before he thrust back in.

He was only vaguely aware of the depravity that sloshed out from over his neat lines. His crisp presentation crumbling, his mindful respectability now a memory. His view of her full hips unobstructed, her abused womanhood raw and stretched around the brunt of him was all he could subscribe to. The molten ache coiled in the seat of her pelvis cranked tighter and tighter with every nudge to her womb.

A shred of his pride remaining, it was enough. Enough to prevent him from spilling his less savory fantasies, as his tongue tangled a growled litany of English, elvish, and a language unfamiliar to her ear.

An indecipherable proclamation of just what her desire for unprotected copulation did to him, she caught it in fragments only.

Anvallenim, nadas, mamae, and his repeated use of da'len all struck at her with sinful awareness. Each word recognized twitched her ruined cunt around him. Filling in his gaps, enough to betray what he had so thinly veiled.

Somewhere through her mottled stupor she supposed that was by design. To impart his shameful urges without having to face the mortification of hearing himself voice them.

Her perfect gentleman, near unrecognizable with the sheer magnitude of his abandon.

His grunts of elvish and their implications proved to be what brought her to the edge, feeling her seize around him as she fluttered in her tell-tale crest. His tip continuing to jab the spongy patch inside of her his digits had finessed with ease. The way the tine of her right ear gave a little twitch, a call for assistance; all she needed now was a push.

"Come for me, da'len." His grandiloquent embellishment stripped, he commanded her stern and chest-deep. "Come for me."

That broke her.

And she had already been broken from the start.

A release heavy and throbbing, the coil in her stomach sprang loose, scorching her in undulation from the inside out. Fresh wetness dampened the corners of her squint, Emmrich continued to ride her through it. Massaging himself against the clenching ridges of muscle, that wrung him out with every contraction.

"This body of yours, your youth-," he huffed through grit teeth, feeling himself drift further away with every rut against her she had no choice but to take. Yielding to him like she never had before. "-leads my mind to wander to... dangerous places."

"I- l-like you- ...dangerous-," she managed to pant out in pieces. "Please Emmrich - claim me. I want you vulgar and selfish and messy and-,"

Flush against her prenatal chamber, he released.

Without the constraint of reason or dignity, he spent himself with a sharp grunt, his distinguished features screwed up in both elation and regret. His polish had tarnished and dulled, and all for her to witness.

Coating her depths with his seed, and the nagging horror that they could absolutely take root. Yet he could hardly keep his head level, let alone acknowledge such probability. Attempting too proved as successful as pinching a tendril of smoke between his fingertips. Dispersing into oblivion the moment he made contact.

The knots of semen worked their way through his girth, loosening the tension from his bowed shoulders and furrowed brow a little more with each spurt. To his flooding of her sex, she offered tender mewls of repose.

As the blinding ebbed to allow for his good sense's return, he shook like a wet hound. Stuck to her backside, Emmrich was ginger in his movements as he went to withdraw from her blessed center.

She whined in what presented like drunken protest, pawing weakly at him to keep him still, and sheathed to the root inside her. He shut his eyes as he felt the thick viscosity of his spend leak from where their sexes meshed, the sensation stirring lazy kicks of his half-hard cock against her tender walls.

Coiling his arms around her middle to lower her down into the mattress on her belly, he followed her; his softening member still nestled within her sticky heat, as he collapsed half on top of her. It almost could have been spooning, had he more cradled her than crushed her.

Not that she minded at all.

"Mm-mmrich?" Slurred by drowsiness and lousy with satisfaction, the lure of unconsciousness pulled her further and further away from him.

"Yes-," he swallowed his hoarseness, already beginning to rid the evidence of what he had transformed to during their union. "Yes, love?"

After a pause so long he thought her out cold, she then offered; "Your insults aren't petty." Her voice so small he almost didn't hear. A crooked grin curled his lips into her sweat-dampened hair. Her candied musk faint, but lingering.

"No?"

"They're first-rate." She sighed, as if given in grudging propitiation. "Peerless, as you are in all your fields of expertise."

I'm sorry.

Her stroked his thumb along her exposed scapula, seeking to tame her trembles. "An accomplished denigrator, and an old fool. You give me far too much credit, little love. Something I do not grant you near enough."

As am I.

Her breaths deepening, they shared the silence as she soon drifted away. With much care in his handling, he slid his arm beneath her and flipped them, drawing her to his chest where she belonged.

Sleep wouldn't call for him, not for some time. He was still too keyed up from what she had managed to rip from his depths. A mess she made, one she left for him to clean up.

He raked his knuckles up and down her spine, a motion that served to calm him, more than it was for her. When that no longer occupied him, his fingers crawled for her hair. Her bun had fallen out at some point during their tousle, but he couldn't recall when.

Emmrich stared up at the ceiling, his eye following how the sparse candlelight threw the shadow; flickering and twisting the source, it reminded him of how the Fade took to her. How she held it for him, even as he passed her through the maelstrom of release.

His yearning for a drag flared anew, it squirmed in his slender fingers. Aching for a cigarette, but one with the filter bitten clean off.

Tagging as per request: @goddessnyx216

[crowhyun]

gym rat taehyun who you end us seeing frequently at the gym whenever you’re around too and he starts helping you out on some of the stuff and sexual tension and then BAM, sex

a/n: I haven't written smut in so long so please bare with me 😭 I'm trying to get back into the groove of it but I've kinda lost confidence though I hope that doesn't show in my works lol. I hope you enjoy this, anon, and thank you for requesting!!

Warnings: smut, pnv, exhibitionism, unprotected sex but hyun's pull out game is top tier, I would know

WC: 1.8k

The gym a few blocks away from your apartment was always too crowded for your taste. Midday was the worst, with every piece of equipment occupied, and the ones that weren't were a sweaty mess due to peoples' lack of politeness.

Though, around 10PM was always the best time to go. It was much less crowded, and it was almost calming, in a way.

You, along with a few other late night gym rats, took this time to your advantage. The gym was nearly empty, and hip-hop music played quietly from the speakers. The sound of equipment moving and barbells clanking was miniscule compared to how it usually was.

Though, you'd be lying to yourself if you said that that was the only reason you came to the gym at that time.

Your other reason - your main reason - was currently at the pull-up bar, biceps bulging and sweat dripping down his clear skin as he effortlessly hoisted himself up on the bar. You were quite familiar with this man, or at least as familiar as you could get from afar. Without fail, he'd always be at the gym at this time, always alone, and ever so efficient in his workouts.

You tried not to stare as you leisurely stretched. You weren't in the mood for heavy lifting or cardio, yet you were fully intent on boy watching.

After what seemed like over a dozen pull-ups, the man hopped down from the bar, turning around with a hand on his hip to grab his towel, and you quickly looked away to not get caught ogling. To look busy, you continued with your stretching, doing basic stretches to pass the time. You were so distracted trying to look busy that you hadn't even noticed a certain someone approaching until you heard his voice.

"Your form isn't good." He said, causing you to flinch and sir upright, staring right at the man who was sipping from his water bottle.

Is he talking to me?, you thought. Though, he was obvious who he was talking to, due to his large brown eyes seemingly piercing into your soul. "...huh?" Was all that you could muster out.

"Sorry." He apologized, screwing his water bottle shut. "I don't mean to bother you, but I just thought that I should tell you that your form isn't very good. You might hurt yourself."

Your lips went into an O-shape as you realized what he was saying, and you couldn't help but feel embarrassed. You fully expected him to just walk away after that, but he spoke once more.

"I can help with some stretches if you'd like." He said. "I'm no personal trainer, but I know a thing or two."

"Oh...you'd do that?" You asked, trying to keep your voice steady as you inwardly fangirled, knowing that this was the perfect opportunity to get closer to the man you've been crushing on.

"Yeah, of course." He nodded, placing his water bottle down and coming closer, your heart beating a mile a minute. He gave you a sweet smile before he bent down to your level, and you got a close up look at his sweaty skin and well built arms, causing you to shiver in anticipation.

"See, when you're doing lunge stretches, you have to make sure your back is flat and your core is engaged so that you can keep your balance." He said, his voice soft, though the near emptiness of the gym made it seem as if he were loud and clear. He got into position beside you, showing off the proper way to stretch, and you followed suit.

Throught the stretches, you had learned that his name was Taehyun, and he was pretty flexible himself. You may have even purposefully made yourself seem incompetent in your stretches so that he wouldn't leave anytime soon. It was getting later and later, but you didn't want to go home - not yet.

"Hamstring stretches are a bit harder, as most people don't stretch for long enough." He informed you, gently pushing you onto your back. "How flexible are you?" He asked, helping you to hike your leg up. You were hyper aware of the feeling of his strong hands on you, and the change of position nearly made you dizzy.

"Uh, maybe moderately?" You spoke, clearing your throat in an effort to sound like your panties weren't starting to get damp.

"Moderately?" He chuckled with a slight tilt to his head. "We'll see about that then, yeah? Just tell me when it's too much." He said, his hand circling around your calf as he started to slowly push your leg up...up...and up.

You winced a bit, the stretch starting to get painful, but you were too distracted by how he placed his other hand right on your thigh.

"There you go." He encouraged, your leg straight up and pushed against his shoulder as he kneeled down in front of you. "How're you feeling? Think you can go a bit more?"

"I can definitely feel the stretch." You chuckled, your heartrate beating a mile a minute. "I think I can go further, though."

With that, he started to slowly push your leg up once more, your thigh almost touching your chest. "Hmm, you're pretty flexible, aren't you?" He spoke, and you don't know if it's the rising desire within you or not, but his voice was starting to sound more...intimate.

"I didn't...I didn't realize before now." You said, finding it hard to breathe.

"Good thing you have me here then, huh?" He smirked, the sight making your walls clench around nothing. He then started to slowly lower your leg before doing the same to the other one. Your breath hitched at the stretch, and you winced.

"Fuck..." You whispered, unable to keep it in.

"Just a bit more, you got it." He said, his whisper matching yours as he stretched you further. His torso pressed against your leg, and you couldn't help yourself from taking a peek down between your legs. Truthfully, you just wanted to make sure you didn't completely soak through your leggings, but instead, you got a glimpse of what Taehyun was packing. The dim light of the gym reflected on the bulge in his gym shorts, and you literally felt your heart beat in your clit.

You quickly looked back up, eyes slightly widening, just to see that he was making eye contact with you. There was a certain gleam in his eyes that told you that he knew exactly what you were looking at.

If that didn't tell you enough, then his next actions did.

Stretching your leg so that your thigh met your chest, he positioned himself so that he was pressing up against you, and your breath hitched once you felt his bulge directly press against your clothed heat.

Shit...he's so close.

"There you go..." He said, his voice dangerously lustful. "Now you're all stretched out for me."

You weren't exactly sure when the switch flipped, and at this point, you didn't care if you were soaking through your leggings or not. You weren't crazy, his voice definitely held some underlying tension there, and neither of you could hide from it.

"Now that you're all stretched out, you can work out safely, no matter how hard."

Next thing you know, your leggings were hanging off of one leg, and your panties were pushed to the side to accommodate for how Taehyun's girth was stretching you out in a completely different way.

Sweat dripped down the strands of his wet hair, and your leg was hiked up on his shoulder, ensuring that you had no way to hide from just how deliciously he was rocking his hips into yours.

It was a caconaphy of hushed moans, grunts and whimpers, the sounds of your bodies colliding. You but your lip harshly to try and silence yourself even though you were pretty sure the gym was empty at this time. Taehyun's cock ruthlessly massaged your g-spot with each thrust, and he groaned in ecstacy as your nails dug into his arms in order to brace yourself.

"Ah- ah- ah-" Staccato moans left your lips as your body jerked each time his tip slammed against that spot within you, his pelvis hitting your clit over and over again.

"Fuck, you're so tight." He groaned, his brows furrowed in concentration, solely focused on fucking you dumb on his cock.

A loud keen ripped from your throat as he slightly adjusted his positioning, his cock hitting so deep inside your fluttering walls. Your hips bucked up and your other leg lifted, the urge to close your legs and run away from the numbing pleasure growing greater.

"Nuh-uh." Taehyun tsked, shaking his head as he roughly spread your legs, his cock pushing deeper inside of you. "C'mon, you can take it. Take this cock." He grunted, gifting you with a particularly harsh thrust that had you reeling.

Your head fell back on the mat underneath you and your thighs shook. You could feel his cock throb inside of you, his low grunts only driving you closer to the edge. You then gasped loudly, your jaw dropping and your body tensing.

"C-cumming, I'm cum-" You stammered out, only to cut yourself off with a high pitched moan that would've been impossible for you to keep in. Your pussy walls clamped around Taehyun's thick shaft like a vice, and he felt like he was seconds away from absolutely losing it at the way your fucked out face contorted into barely concealed pleasure as you creamed all around his cock.

He wrapped his hands around your wrists, holding you down as he pumped faster, his balls tightening as he saw completion on the horizon. "Mmmh, that's it...cum on my cock just like- hah- that." He groaned, his jaw clenching as his blunt nails dug into your wrists, and before he knew it, he couldn't take anymore.

He was quick to pull out of your tight heat, which was almost painful, but that no longer mattered to him, because his hot, thick cum was spurting out of his glistening cock and onto your stomach. The hottest whine left his throat as he came down from his high, his chest heaving up and down, and his eyes darting down to your fucked out form.

A few minutes of comfortable silence passed, the only sound being the low volume of the music playing through the gym speakers and the sound of the both of you catching your breaths.

"Well, uhm..." He suddenly spoke, clearing his throat. You noticed that he was avoiding eye contact, and the tips of his ears were tinted red.

Was he...embarrassed?

You fought the urge to laugh as he continued.

"If you just, uh...do those stretches before every workout, you should be good to go." He said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Thanks..." You spoke, your voice a bit hoarse. "For helping me stretch...and for the little present you gave me." You said, referring to his seed that was splattered across your stomach, seeping down to your belly button.

His eyes widened and he choked, almost as if he forgot that he had came on you.

"I'll...deal with that."

[idolomantises]

Have you watched Murder Drones, and if so what’s your opinion on it?

Also your art is great, keep it up.

Thank you!

And uh. Man. I may make an enemy out of another indie fandom because I don’t really like this show.

I actually loved the pilot and thought episodes 1-3 were incredible, if a bit too fast paced. But episode 4 was kind of a breaking point for me and I dropped off after that.

I don’t think it’s very funny. I think it relies too much on Bathos and it makes it hard to take its cast seriously. As a black comedy it mostly worked for episodes 1-3, but 4? No.

It does this thing I really despise in media where it has themes of genocide but like… heavily deprioritizes it and often portrays it like a comedy. It’s supposed to be funny when innocent characters are murdered because they’re just goofy side characters but when it’s a major character suddenly we have to care, and I don’t like that at all. The main character has a meltdown over finding out that murder drones are sent to kill her people at the end of the pilot, and then in episode 4 she’s murdering her classmates and crying because a boy she likes might think she’s weird. I actually find it pretty frustrating that the robots are portrayed as incredibly cowardly because they’re slowly dying off and scared to die and then they’re hanging out with V who casually murders random children and nobody reacts to it.

I actually do like the idea of a character who’s not reformed but is kind of forced to stick around but when I see her murder characters, traumatize children and then go “haha I just have mental problems” and everyone just… moves on, I just cannot bring myself to care. It causes such a massive dissonance and not in a fun way.

I think it’s very frustrating and unengaging when a story about people doing the right thing and trying to help others has no interest in helping those they’re trying to save.

I think the female cast is solid but I did kind of raise my eye a bit when the only major female character that was killed off was a victim of genocide while the other genocidal characters, two of which gleefully murdered her fucking parents, are just allowed to hang out with the rest of the cast. Uzi especially lost a lot of sympathy for me when she was more emotional about freaking out N than murdering her classmates. Like yeah, they weren’t the nicest to her but it’s weird to establish a character wants to end genocide and then… barely reacts when they also indulge in that genocide.

I don’t really like the characters at all. I don’t like Uzi, I found N irritating and boring (and gives me anime harem protagonist vibes), I thought V was a tryhard and I couldn’t really care for the rest of the cast. I liked Doll but lol, you know how that turned out.

It also has this problem of having an overloaded cast with very little breathing room. I really wish the show just had one, low stakes episode, so we can actually get to know these characters and collect their thoughts. It’s actually one of my concerns for TADC, because as much as I do like that show, I think “no filler” with constant story is going to make or break the show for me. It’s too fast paced and no, I don’t think it’s good that you have to rewatch an episode 4 times to understand what’s going on. I don’t watch indie shows to play where’s Waldo, information should be explained to the audience in a way that feels digestible and natural.

The animation is incredible and the stuff that came out from the finale was insane, but at times it just felt like jangling keys in my face. Like don’t pay attention to rushed story, underdeveloped characters and bizarre tonal whiplash, look at the cool fights. I dont think it does horror well either. In fact I kind of cringe a bit when characters a big wide grins and giggle evilly and it’s mean to be intimidating and it just. Doesn’t work. Feels a bit juvenile honestly.

And. This is a very personal thing. I don’t like the robot designs.

[impactrueno]

Hi! I really love your comics, and art in general! Your Hey Arnold and Simpsons stuff was fire, and I've been loving your Beetlejuice comics (Lydia and Juice's falling out got me tearing up lmao) As far as your Beetleverse comics go - idk if this is something you've mentioned somewhere - I know they're probably meant to be, like, separate canons and stuff, but if they were to take place in the same kinda "timeline", what would the order of events be?

Does CartoonLydia meeting older MovieLydia - a Lydia who's had some really negative experiences with MovieBJ and preaches that ToonLydia SHOULD NOT trust ToonBJ - have any impact on her getting fed up with her BJ and breaking it off with him?

Again, thank you for making these comics - they're dope as hell, and I'm excited for what comes next!

thank you so much!

the beetleverse comics are just a "what if" where we pull each duo out of their respective canons (unceremoniously) and force them to be in their little white void enclosure that i made for them lol

so the events in the story i'm currently doing haven't been influenced by any of that. but if they were to take place in the same timeline, it'd happen some time before the end of the show (maybe even before season 4,) and i think movie lyds telling her to be wary of toon bj would make her doubt herself and her beej for a moment, but then would be proven wrong or realize that movie lydia was wrong about him. and this would not make sense in a real life situation (in fact, it would be concerning) but here's the thing:

something i've found interesting to think about with the beetleverse comics is that each duo operates on different logic. movie lydia is closer to real life logic aka "why the hell are you letting this child hang around so closely with this weird old man" but cartoon bj and lyds work under saturday morning cartoon logic, meaning none of the things movie lydia is fearing would ever happen, because it's a show for kids. so in their little universe, cartoon lydia is perfectly safe with her beej, who as we all know would sooner die all over again than to cause her any harm, so she has nothing to fear. they'll just be best friends forever (with a few bumps along the road of course) and that's it. movie lydia can't even wrap her head around that.

now going back to the current story of them 30 years later; i'm still writing them under cartoon logic for the most part, but with a bit more realistic flavor. so their relationship is still too weird to happen in real life, only now we're seeing the consequences of the friction between them that was already there in the cartoon, and he can't joke his way out of this one or have silly incidental music and sound effects to lessen the blow. movie lydia's warnings wouldn't have had much of an effect on them because this was something that was going to happen either way, and cartoon lydia's problem with bj was never "you're a creepy old man why are you obsessed with me" (real life logic) and more so "you're supposed to be my best friend in the whole world but all i do is babysit you and solve your problems for you while you try to scam some sucker out of their money and i've had it" (cartoon logic)

i hope all that makes sense lol