#and not just 'let me spectate whatever gets me clicks this week'

[torchickentacos]

i feel like commentary youtube has a subsect of videos that come down to 'this could have been a tumblr vent post'

[angeliqueiguess]

kitchen nightmares (s.jn)

010 smoke w.count:725

warnings: swearing, tobacco use & mention, rude johnny

By the end of the week, Y/n had started to find her rhythm in the chaos of the restaurant, but a packed Friday night brought her progress to a screeching halt. Orders flew in faster than she could handle, and one particularly demanding table insisted on the kitchen’s “specialty”—a dish she completely misunderstood. In her frantic attempt to fix the mistake, she sent the entire kitchen into disarray. Plates were shuffled, orders delayed, and the tension that had been simmering all night boiled over.

The kitchen door swung open with a sharp bang, silencing the room. Johnny stormed in, frustration radiating from him, his dark eyes narrowing as they locked on Y/n.

“Are you trying to sabotage us?” he demanded, his voice low but razor-sharp.

Y/n’s exhaustion hit its breaking point. She turned to him, her chest heaving, and abandoned all pretense of restraint. “Excuse me?” she shot back, her tone edged with fury. “Maybe if you stopped acting like a dictator, people could actually do their jobs without you breathing down their necks!”

The kitchen staff froze, their attention snapping between Johnny and Y/n like spectators at a tennis match. Even the noise from the dining area seemed to fade as the tension grew thick. Jeno, who had been chopping vegetables at lightning speed, paused mid-slice, his apron caught in his nervous grip. “Uh… guys?” he tried, his voice uncertain.

Johnny folded his arms, his jaw tight. His voice was ice. “If you can’t handle it, maybe you don’t belong here.”

Y/n’s hands trembled as she clenched them into fists, trying to steady herself against the mounting pressure and fatigue. The burning in her chest wasn’t just anger—it was the crushing weight of everything: the mistakes, the judgment, the unrelenting pace. Without another word, she shoved past Johnny and stormed out through the back door.

The cool night air hit her like a slap, sharp and jarring against the heat and chaos she’d left behind. She leaned against the brick wall of the alley, forcing herself to take deep breaths, to shove down the tears threatening to spill over.

The door creaked open again behind her, and she didn’t have to look to know who it was. Johnny stepped out, his presence heavy even in the open air. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with a practiced flick. The ember glowed faintly in the dark as he took a long drag and exhaled, the smoke curling around him like a shield.

“Impressive temper,” he remarked, his voice dry but quieter than before.

“Go away,” Y/n muttered, hating how her voice wavered.

He didn’t move. Instead, he leaned against the wall beside her, his gaze fixed on a distant point. “Didn’t think you’d break that easily,” he said after a moment, the challenge in his tone softer but still present.

“Why do you care?” she snapped, turning to face him for the first time. Her voice cracked despite her efforts to keep it steady. “I’m trying, okay? I’m trying because I don’t want to let my brother down. I don’t want to be the screw-up everyone expects me to be. Sorry if that’s not good enough for you.”

For a moment, Johnny said nothing. He took another drag of his cigarette, his eyes fixed on her in a way that made her feel exposed, like he was seeing through the cracks she’d worked so hard to patch. There was something in his expression—surprise, maybe, or understanding—but it was fleeting, gone as quickly as it appeared.

He flicked the cigarette away, the ember scattering on the pavement, and stood up straight. “You’re not as bad as you think,” he said finally, his voice low but steady. “But this place? It doesn’t go easy on anyone. Not me, not you. Get used to it.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and went back inside, the door clicking shut behind him. Y/n stared after him, the weight of his words settling over her. She couldn’t tell if he meant them as encouragement, a warning, or both. Whatever it was, it left her breathless, a strange mix of anger and determination bubbling inside her.

With a final deep breath, she pushed herself off the wall and straightened her apron. She wasn’t ready to give up—not yet. Not on herself, and not on proving Johnny wrong.

prev. masterlist. next

angie´s note: Lee Donghyuck a.k.a. milf hunter strikes again

taglist: @thegracerammy @neocupidd @pjsteroid @peterm4rker

(lemme know it you'd like to be tagged <3)

[figmentof]

i’m gonna share a little story, my close ofmd friends know about this but i think it’s due time that i tell it because i’m tired. so tired of the racism this fandom has exhibited towards me and others

back in late march, around a week before episodes 9+10 aired, i joined a server called “our flag means brainrot”. you might’ve heard of it as it is the biggest ofmd server on discord and still remains so to this day with approximately 2100-ish members. everything was fine and dandy for a couple weeks, i even made several friends-- and then the mod team asked for new mods as the server was growing at a break neck speed and it was getting harder and harder for them to wrangle. naturally, i applied as i had experience running discord servers and i figured it would be best if they had a poc on the team that also lived in asia (the mods and admins were all white save for one other mod who was also asian). i did things that mods do and let people have fun and hosted a couple game nights and movie nights. as the days went by however, the number of izzy apologists (not enjoyers, apologists) started to grow, and of course, the racism started running rampant

increasing amounts of fic where ed was described as being “twice stede’s (or triple izzy’s) size” or would engage in rough behavior with stede and that “stede (izzy) was often terrified of him” was starting to gain traction on ao3, several fans (poc and white) were expressing their concerns about the way ed was being written and how unbelievably racist it all is yet those fics still get disturbing amounts of clicks and kudos. our indigenous main character was being written as a savage brute when canon has vehemently dispelled that trope, but racists would come to these fics defense with “it’s just fiction” or “well canon has them being wholesome so we can do whatever in fic! it’s not canon anyway!”. most of these defenders were indeed, izzy stans. i expressed this to the mod team and asked that we need to step in to give warnings to these fans as they are being racist. i was told that people are allowed to write what they want, and if people don’t like it they simply don’t have to read it

i had also asked the mod team to make a PSA about whitewashing/greywashing ed in art, and that as mods we should notify artists to fix the art they post if ed is too pale or grey. they ignored me and claimed it can’t be helped that artists have their own art style

that was only the first few incidents where the white mod team allowed racism to slide, and told me, a poc, that i should make racists feel welcome and let them have a safe space

back in early may, several ed/izzy shippers had asked for a channel that was aptly named #nsfw-dark and it consisted of, you guessed it, dead dove do not eat metas and discussions where ed (and only ed) was brutally, revoltingly, violent towards poor defenseless izzy. it got so bad to the point that several poc members (and white fans alike) had expressed to the mod team that the depiction of ed by these fans were disturbingly problematic, and it didn’t help that often times their discussions would branch out into other channels. if you’ve ever been in a discord server, you’d know how easy it is to accidentally start talking about something in the wrong channel. the mods stepped in and those fans reigned themselves in a little. but eventually the existence of that channel became too much that even the merely curious spectators/lurkers broke their silence and spoke up because underage content was allowed within that channel

finally the mod team decided to remove the channel only because they were getting so many tickets about the channel being inappropriate that it got too overwhelming, which caused an uproar amongst the contributors/enjoyers of that channel. i had suggested that the subject matter simply wasn’t suited for this server and that they could easily open up their own server so they can act and chat however they please with no one to stop them. several people expressed how this server shouldn’t make them feel excluded (using the kink belongs at pride argument of all arguments) and that my suggestion of them getting their own server made them feel judged and unwelcome, and that i was effectively kinkshaming and policing them. the next day i was removed as mod without warning. no discussion within the mod chat, nothing, just removed because i expressed that an overwhelming amount of people stated that their boundaries were crossed. a couple weeks later, people in the server who made me and other poc uncomfortable were added to the mod team

so that was the treatment i recieved as a poc who tried their best to make fandom a safer space for my fellow poc. white people talked over me and ignored me and sided with racists

[criminalmindzjunkie]

Avoidance

masterlist

part two

Summary: Reader doesn’t know what she did to make Spencer hate her so much.

A/N: This fic is just a reminder that sub!Spencer lives rent free in my head at all times. Also, if anyone would like to be on a taglist for one shots like these, let me know! I’m going to work on getting one started.

Pairing: sub!Spencer/femdom! reader

Content Warnings: honestly way too much swearing, sexual harassment, slapping, hands free orgasm, oral sex (male and female receiving), hand job, orgasm denial, edging, unprotected sex, vaginal penetration, degradation, femdom 

Word Count: 8.2k

           I have absolutely no idea what I’ve done to make Spencer Reid hate me.

           Usually, when someone despises a person to the point of complete and total avoidance, there’s a reason. No one just wakes up and decides to resent another person for the hell of it – right? Wrong.

           Because Spencer Reid positively loathes me – and I have no idea why.

           It all started on my first day at the BAU. I had somehow landed the highly coveted job of media liaison after the previous one had decided to complete the training to be a profiler. For reasons unbeknownst to me, they thought a twenty-four-year-old fresh out of college with no prior job experience was the best fit for the position. I didn’t understand it, but I also wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

           To say that I had been terrified the first time I set foot into the bullpen would be the understatement of the century. After a very formal and very intimidating orientation with the unit chief, my predecessor, a beautiful blonde named Jennifer, offered herself up to be my personal tour guide. Jennifer introduced me to the other members of the team, and with every smiling face I came in contact with, my fears of being the odd man out were assuaged. I could tell that Penelope Garcia, tech analyst extraordinaire, would most likely be my biggest ally – and it was abundantly clear that Derek Morgan and I would probably get into a fair amount of mischief together. Elle Greenaway seemed like the obvious choice for a future drinking buddy, and Jason Gideon – well, he merely grunted at me in acknowledgment before retreating back to his office. I figured three out of four wasn’t so bad.

           I didn’t meet Doctor Spencer Reid until after lunch. Jennifer mentioned something about him guest lecturing at a local university, which surprised me considering she mentioned him being a year younger than me. Apparently, the kid was an actual genius, which was more than a little bit intimidating, but Jennifer assured me that Spencer was a sweetheart.

           “He’s a little quirky, but I’m sure you’ll love him. Just don’t be surprised if he tries to talk your ear off,” Jennifer laughs. “Last week I asked him about the weather and he went off on a tangent about climate change that lasted nearly an hour.”

           By the time Spencer strolled into the bullpen at exactly one in the evening, I was sitting perched atop Jennifer’s desk, thoroughly engrossed as she told me about their latest case. When she stops talking midsentence in favor of smiling at someone behind me, I half expect that Morgan is attempting to sneak up on me, when:

           “Hey, look who’s back,” Jennifer greets, prompting me to turn around excitedly. I was eager to put a face to the man I’d heard so much about.

           And when I turn, my eyes land on the prettiest man I’ve ever seen.

           Sharp cheekbones and a chiseled jawline are framed by shaggy brown hair, complete with beautiful brown eyes and soft, pillowy lips. As if his good looks weren’t enough, he’s dressed in the most adorably nerdy sweater vest and a pair of thin framed glasses. He’s absolutely precious – a fact that Jennifer had conveniently left out.

           “How was the lecture?” Jennifer asks him as he places his satchel on the desk adjacent to hers. Spencer perks up at this, smiling excitedly from across the divider.

           “I think it went really good, actually. I incorporated this really cool joke that I heard about quantum physics. Do you want to-”

           He stops abruptly when he realizes Jennifer isn’t his only spectator, and those lovely brown eyes go almost comically wide when they settle on me.

           “Spencer, this is Y/N Y/L/N. She’s the new media liaison. Y/N, this is Doctor Spencer Reid.”

           I give him my best smile, tacking on a small wave for good measure.

           “It’s nice to meet you, Doctor Reid. Jennifer’s told me a lot about you.”

           “Uh, y-yeah. It’s n-nice to meet you, too,” Spencer stutters. He looks positively stricken and I’m fairly sure he hasn’t blinked in over a minute. I cast a glance at Jennifer, who seems just as confused as I am.

           Well, she had mentioned that he was a tad strange.

           “I’d like to hear the joke,” I offer, only to immediately regret it when I see him tense up.

           “N-No, that’s o-okay,” he chokes out as he struggles to gather the files on his desk. “It’s n-not that good, anyways.”

           And just as quickly as he came, Spencer leaves in a flurry of crumpled papers, leaving Jennifer and I wondering what the fuck just happened.

--

           Things didn’t get better with time. In fact, they got much worse.

           In the six months that I had been working for the BAU, I could count my interactions with Spencer Reid on one hand. It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part – in my desperation to figure out what I’d done to make him avoid me, I sought out the young genius every chance I got. But every time I got within ten feet of him, it’s like an alarm would sound in his head and he’d make up some excuse to leave the room.

           The others had noticed his strange behavior, too. It seemed they all had made a sort of game out of it – calling Spencer into rooms that I was in just to see him panic, or asking me to personally deliver files to his desk. At first, I played into it, hoping that their teasing would help to diffuse some of the tension.

           After a month of being on the receiving end of Spencer’s cold shoulder, I started avoiding him, too.

           I tried to act indifferent – like it didn’t hurt me as badly as it did. I no longer sought him out, and by month two, we had a sort of understanding. I didn’t go near him, and he didn’t go near me, and that’s how it went on for four miserable months.

           Until today.

           “Reid, Y/L/N, you’re in 202.”

           I damn near drop my bag on the floor. This was bound to happen at some point or another, but I hadn’t planned on that day being today, and I was not prepared. After nine hours of running around the local police department, my body was weighed down from fatigue and I was downright grumpy. Not to mention I had picked the worst possible day to try and break in a new pair of heels, and my feet were throbbing.

           Needless to say, I was in no mood to deal with Spencer Reid’s bullshit.

           “Uh, Hotch? Could I maybe room with Elle?” I ask, sending a glare in Morgan’s direction when he snorts out a laugh. Hotch raises an eyebrow at me.

           “Why? Is there a problem?”

           Yes, sir, there certainly is. And your guess is as good as mine as to what that problem is.

           “No, but I just think that-”

           “Good. Then you should be fine to share a room with him.”

           Right.

           I spare a brief glance at Spencer, who, in the last thirty seconds, has turned the color of a tomato. I pray that he’ll speak up and voice his discomfort, but just like always, he stays silent.

           Hotch doles out the room keys and I begin the trek down the hallway, my poor aching feet groaning in protest with every step. I’m vaguely aware of the sound of footsteps behind me, and it’s not until I swipe the key into the key card that Spencer speaks.

           But not to me – no, never to me.

           “Derek, please, I’m begging you. Just switch with me this one time, and – and I’ll do your reports for a month!”

           After six months of dealing with Spencer’s aversion to me, his words should come as no surprise. And really, I’d expected as much - but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

           “Not happening, kid. This is the perfect opportunity for you to get over whatever problem you have with Y/N. I bet you’ll even end up liking her. She’s not going to be rude to you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

           “… T-That’s not what I’m worried abo-”

           I don’t wait around to hear the rest of his sentence. I push open the door to the room, not bothering to wait for Spencer before closing it. I kick off my heels as soon as the door clicks shut, letting out a half relieved, half frustrated  groan.

           After claiming the bed nearest the air conditioner as my own, I pluck my pajamas and toiletry bag out from my suitcase and shuffle over to the bathroom. The way I see it, the quicker I get a shower and can go to sleep, the faster the night will pass. Before I know it, this unfortunate situation will be a thing of the past.

           After drawing out the shower for as long as I possibly could, I exit the bathroom clad in a tank top and a pair of shorts, hair dripping wet and skin freshly scrubbed clean. Spencer’s sitting on his bed, book in hand and tie loosened. He doesn’t look up at me when I walk by - not that I’d expected him to. A thick silence hangs in the air as I pull a bottle of lotion out from my suitcase, and I debate turning on the TV just to make things slightly less awkward. In the end I decide against it, because I doubt even that could make this situation better.

           I prop a leg up on the bed and begin to lather my legs in cherry scented lotion, paying special care to my aching feet before moving on. It’s not until both of my legs have been thoroughly massaged and coated in lotion that I look up.

           Spencer’s eyes are locked on me, mouth hanging open and chest heaving up and down. His knuckles are white from how hard they’re clutching the book in his hands, but despite that I can still see the way they’re trembling. When he realizes I've caught him staring, he closes his mouth and gulps hard.

           I straighten up and raise an eyebrow in a silent question, and that’s enough for Spencer to snap his book shut and scramble off of the bed. He’s clumsy as he moves to his suitcase, dropping his bottle of travel shampoo twice before he reaches the bathroom. If I wasn’t so off put by whatever the hell had just happened, I might have thought it cute.

--

           As if the universe thought my current predicament wasn’t enough to deal with, the next morning I was dealt another shitty hand. This time, my distress came in the form of a young cop who couldn’t pick up on social cues to save his life. After an entire morning of dodging sleazy advances, I finally managed to shake him when his superior sent him out to go and actually do his fucking job.

           Or so I thought.

           I’m standing in the breakroom, pouring my fourth (or is it my fifth?) cup of coffee when I hear the sound of footsteps in the hall. I don’t know if I’ve developed a sixth sense about these things, or if I’m just particularly on edge today, but I know it’s the young officer before he can even cross the threshold.

           And when he does, and he sees that he has me cornered, a saccharine smile stretches across his lips.

           “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he drawls in an accent that could probably be attractive if he wasn’t so damn skeevy.

           “Might wanna get your eyes checked,” I mutter, refusing to look in his direction as I stir my coffee.

           “Pretty and feisty. Just how I like my women.”

           “I am not your anything,” I seethe, and instead of backing off like any respectful human being would, he just chuckles and begins to saunter towards me.

           “C’mon baby, you don’t have to be that way. You don’t have to act all professional with me.”

           “Don’t call me that.” I look at him now, and the smug, self-righteous smile on his face makes my blood boil.

           “You don’t like baby? That’s fine – I’m sure I can think of lots of other things to call you,” he murmurs. He’s closer now, so close that I can practically feel his breath against my neck.

           “I’m going to tell you to stop one more time, and it would be in your best interest to listen,” I growl.

           “Or what?” he taunts. “I’d like to see you try to stop me.”

           I jolt forward when a hand comes down hard on my ass, squeezing me harshly through the material of my skirt.

           Oh, fuck no.

           I’m whirling around faster than I ever thought possible, and then a harsh crack sounds throughout the room as my hand comes in contact with his face.

           My hand stings from the contact, but the pain is welcome because he flies backwards, stumbling and grasping as his already reddening cheek.

           “What the fuck?” he roars, eyes flashing with unbridled fury. I take several steps towards him, and to my utmost delight he nearly trips over himself in his hurry to put distance between us. I stop when his back hits the wall and I lean in until our faces are only inches apart.

           “Listen here, you limp dick fuck,” I snarl. “I’m getting real sick and fucking tired of pathetic pieces of shit like you thinking they can put their hands on women. What’s your problem? Are you so fucking tactless that you can’t get anyone to fuck you?” I punctuate my question by jabbing my pointer finger into his chest and cocking my head to the side. “Are you so unappealing that the only way you can get your hands on a woman is to wait until she’s alone and try to corner her?

           Or is it a power thing? You’ve got the gun and the badge so you think you’re entitled to just take what you want, don’t you? You think no one can stop you because you’re in a position of power. Well, I have some news for you – I outrank you, and you just assaulted a federal agent. I will not stop until I ruin your fucking career, and if you even think of trying to lie your way out of this, I’ll do a helluva lot fucking worse. After the week I’m having, I am just looking for an excuse to kick your fucking dick into the dirt. Do you understand?”

           By the time I finish speaking, my chest is heaving up and down and my eyes are narrowed into slits. The officer is so angry that he’s shaking, hands balled up to fists at his sides. For a moment, I think he’ll try to hit me, but then his hard-exterior cracks and the anger gives way to fear.

           “You – You can’t tell anyone about this,” he says, trying his best to sound menacing. But his voice wavers, and I can tell he’s losing his grip. “It’ll r-ruin my career.”

           I raise my hand up to his cheek, placing my palm over the red imprint I had left on his skin. And then I flash him the sweetest goddamn smile that ever there was.

           “I’d like to see you try to stop me.”

           I give him a pat on the cheek before turning around and heading for the door, only to stop halfway when I see that I have an audience of one.

           Spencer stands in the doorway, a coffee mug gripped tightly in one hand, mouth agape and eyes wide. He’s standing stock still, eyes darting in between the police officer and me. I let out an exasperated sigh because of-fucking-course it would be Spencer that would happen to walk in on whatever that just was.

           “Close your mouth, Reid. That’s how you catch flies,” I deadpan, prompting Spencer to snap his mouth shut.

           Without another word, I brush past him and leave the break room.

--

           I suppose the universe had decided to finally give me a break, because that afternoon we were able to apprehend the unsub. But my good fortune only went so far, because Hotch announced that we would be leaving first thing in the morning – which meant another night alone with Spencer Reid.

           He didn’t mention what he walked in on when the two of us arrived back at our room, and I didn’t expect him to. The two of us went about the motions of unwinding from the day in complete and utter silence, and by the time I emerge from the shower I decide that I’ve had enough.

           “I’m gonna go stay with Elle and Derek,” I murmur as I zip up my suitcase and slip on my shoes.

           “Oh. O-Okay.”

           And that was that.

           It’s about an hour later when my phone is on four percent that I realize I hadn’t remembered to bring my charger with me. I contemplate just letting it die, but the idea of sitting through a seven-hour jet ride tomorrow without it sounds excruciating. Then again, so does the idea of having to suffer through an interaction with Spencer.

           The phone wins out in the end, and with Derek and Elle still snoring softly in their respective beds, I slip out of the room and into the hallway. With any luck, Spencer will be in a similar state and I’ll be able to sneak in and out without him waking up.

           I think thank my lucky stars when I slowly crack open the door to Spencer’s room and see that the lights are off. I take special care to close the door as quietly as possible before tiptoeing across the carpeted floors, feeling my way around in the dark so that I don’t trip over anything.

I make it halfway across the room when I hear it – it’s quiet, and if the air conditioner had been on, I wouldn’t have even heard it at all. It’s faint, so faint that I wonder if I’d imagined it, but then that same sound breaks through the silence and I know it’s not a product of my imagination.

I hear the covers rustle, and then a low moan followed by the distinct sound of skin on skin. My blood runs cold as the moans grow louder and more frequent, rolling off Spencer’s lips in rapid succession. There’s heavy breathing and whimpering and holy fuck I just walked in on Spencer Reid masturbating.

Spencer cries out a particularly load moan, one that sounds so pornographic that it shoots straight to my core. It’s sexy and dirty and he sounds absolutely wrecked, and the part of my brain that is still capable of logical thinking is screaming get out! Get out, now!

I begin to slowly backtrack, moving at one tenth of the speed that I had coming in because the possibility of being caught is absolutely not an option. If Spencer hates me now, he’d really hate me if he found out I snuck into his room at night and heard… that.

I’m about five feet away from the door when:

“O-Oh my God, yes! Y/N, please - fuck!”

I think then that I certainly have to be dreaming, because there’s no way I’d just heard him correctly. There’s no way that Spencer – the same Spencer that scurried out of the room when I walked in – was moaning my name while he touched himself. Absolutely not.

But then it happens again and again and again – my name falling from his lips incessantly like some kind of debauched chant.

It feels like my skin is on fire – my mind a befuddled mess – and before my brain can tell me what a terrible idea it is, my feet are carrying me back into the room and I’m coming to a stop at the foot of Spencer’s bed.

Bathed in the glow of the moonlight shining through the window, Spencer looks ethereal. There’s a thin line of sweat beading on his forehead, and his usually meticulously slicked back hair is fanned out on the pillow like some sort of halo. His teeth are nestled into his bottom lip now, and all that can be heard are tiny whimpers as his hand slides up and down underneath the bed sheets. Spencer’s always beautiful, almost painfully so. But the way he looks now, shadows dancing across his face as he works himself to orgasm, is infinitely more breathtaking than words can express.

It doesn’t take long for Spencer to release his lip from beneath his teeth, and when he does my name is flying out of his mouth once more.

I take that as my invitation to speak.

“I don’t think I’ve heard you say my name before.”

Spencer’s entire body stills and his eyes fly open to reveal two dark pools full of sheer panic.

“I-I can explain,” he stammers, moving to clutch the comforter to his chest in an attempt to cover himself.

I let out a hum and sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Please do. I’m very interested in hearing about just what you were picturing me doing.”

Spencer sucks in a harsh breath. I can practically see the wheels in his brain turning -desperately trying to concoct some kind of reasonable explanation.

“I-I… I don’t… I’m s-sorry,” he stutters, and it’s so adorable how he’s squirming underneath my gaze that I decide to help him out.

“Was I sucking you off? Or were you fucking me?” I wonder aloud. He tries to hide it, thinking the covers will mask the way that his hips buck up, but I definitely see it.

“I-I…”

“Which was it, Spencer? Was I taking you down my throat or were you fucking my pussy? Or maybe I was coming undone on your face – was that it?”

Spencer lets out a low groan, and if my patience hadn’t been running so fucking thin, I probably would’ve left it at that. But after the hell he’d put me through for the last six months, I feel like he deserved to squirm a little.

“Fucking answer me.”

“Y-You were, um… r-riding me. And you s-slapped m-me.”

Oh.

This just got a lot more interesting.

I raise an eyebrow at him and I can see the way his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he gulps.

“So, you liked what you saw today, did you?”

Spencer nods so fervently that I have to bite down on my tongue to suppress a laugh.

“Words, baby. Use them.”

“I-I liked it. A lot.”

“Apparently so, seeing as you were moaning for it like a desperate little slut,” I breeze, my tone cool and indifferent. “Have you done this before, Doctor? Touched yourself to the thought of me, that is.”

“… Y-Yes. I’m s-sorry. I didn’t m-mean to. It just kind of happened one night, and once I started, I couldn’t s-stop.”

I reach out a hand and brush away the hair that had fallen into his face, tucking it back behind his ear before continuing.

“Why the cold shoulder, then? And here I thought you hated me,” I muse, before pausing and cocking my head to the side. “Do you hate me, Doctor?” I ask, and just when I thought he couldn’t look more guilty, he proves me wrong.

“No! I just… couldn’t be around you. I felt so b-bad. You were so nice, and I was using you to g-get off,” Spencer explains. “I couldn’t look you in the eye. Not after picturing you… like that.”

I let out a sigh. Knowing that Spencer didn’t actually hate me for the last six months was a relief. Knowing that Spencer was secretly rubbing one out to me was something else entirely. Whatever was I to do with this information?

“So, you want to fuck me, then?” I reiterate. “Why not tell me this sooner?”

“The probability of you responding positively to me telling you that I, uh, m-masturbate to you was very l-low. And after what I saw today, I think I was wise for keeping that from you,” Spencer says, the last part coming out in a rush. I can’t help but let out a low laugh.

“Yes, but the guy that was coming on to me today wasn’t someone I find attractive. He was pompous and crass and pushy - and you, Doctor Reid, are none of those things.”

“R-Really? You think I’m attractive?”

I hum.

“Very much so, Doctor. But I’m afraid you may have waited too long, and now I don’t feel as inclined to be nice,” I murmur, allowing my hand to trail down from his shoulder to his collar bones before lightly grazing his nipple with my thumb.

“O-Oh my… God,” Spencer whimpers, eyes fluttering shut as my fingers continue to dance across his skin.

“But then again, I don’t think you really want me to be nice to you. I think you want me to treat you like my little play thing.” I stop my hand just below his navel and I thumb across the light layer of hair that makes up his happy trail. “You want to be my dirty boy - don’t you, Doctor Reid?”

“P-Please,” Spencer chokes out, hips jerking up when I allow my thumb to graze a little lower.

“Please what?”

Spencer lets out a frustrated groan.

“Please, I-I want you to u-use me. However you want, just as l-long as you just do-don’t stop touching me,” he rambles. He’s shuddering underneath me, his breaths coming out in harsh pants as my hand wanders lower and lower until I abruptly pull away. “W-Why did you stop?”

“Because I don’t think you deserve to be touched just yet. You’ve got six months to make up to me, after all. I think I want you on your knees for me first,” I say, and from the way his eyes seem to dilate even further, I don’t think he has any objections. “Are you familiar with the color system?”

Spencer nods.

“Green for good, yellow means slow down, and red means stop now.”

“Do you have a safe word?”

“I… I’ve never really, uh. Done t-this.”

Oh. Oh.

I withdraw my hand from its place on his leg and Spencer lets out a distressed whine. “No, please! Don’t go. I’m not a complete virgin, I promise. I got a h-hand job once,” he argues. “And I think I’ve done enough, uh, research, and I really want to try to make you cum. I want to be good for you. Please let me try.”

Spencer looks like he’s about two seconds away from crying, and I can feel my argument dying before it even leaves my mouth.

“Oh, baby, I know you’d be so good,” I coo, and just like that Spencer’s leaning towards me, desperate to have the contact. I indulge him, placing my hand on his cheek, and he relaxes into the touch. “Are you sure you want to do this with me? I’m not what anyone would call vanilla, and I don’t think you know what you’re getting into.”

“I trust you. I wouldn’t want it to be anyone else,” Spencer whispers, and he sounds so damn sincere that I feel my resolve crumbling.

“You’ll let me know if at any point you want to stop?”

“Yes. Absolutely!”

Enthusiastic little shit.

“Safe word?”

“Um… Tolstoy?”

I let out a snort.

“Alright, smarty pants. We’re going to start now, okay?”

“Yes, Miss,” Spencer pants out.

Fuck me running. He clearly has been doing his research.

“Get on your knees for me, baby. I wanna see just how eager to please you are,” I instruct as I stand up and shimmy out of my shorts. I discard my shirt, too, absentmindedly throwing it somewhere across the room. Spencer lets out a startled squeak when he sees that I’m now completely naked, aside from my underwear.

“Y-You’re so pretty,” Spencer breathes out. “Even better than I imagined.”

The sentiment tugs at my heart, really, it does, but I specifically requested that he get on his knees and he seems a lot more content to just sit and stare.

“On your knees,” I command, and Spencer jumps up almost comically fast.

“S-Sorry, Miss,” he apologizes as he lowers himself down. I seat myself on the edge of the bed and spread my legs for him.

“Don’t apologize, just do as I ask of you, okay baby?”

Spencer nods.

“C-Can I kiss you? Like on the lips first?” Spencer asks as he looks up at me with big doe eyes. It’s a beautiful thing, the image of Spencer Reid sitting in between my legs, cheeks flushed and chest rapidly rising and falling. I give Spencer a sweet smile and lean forward, and the excitement radiating off of him is practically palpable. He leans forward, too eager to wait for me to close the gap, and the action makes my chest swell in adoration.

Just as our lips are about to meet, I pause, and Spencer barely has the time to look confused before my palm connects with the side of his face. The moan it draws out of him is obscene and his hips jolt forward, desperate for some kind of friction. His dick rests painfully hard between his legs, flushed red with precum beading at the tip.

I waste no time in taking his chin in my hand and tilting his head upwards.

“Did I say you could kiss me?” I ask him, voice sugary sweet, contrasting starkly with my actions.

“N-No, Miss. I’m sorry,” Spencer pants out. His hand twitches at his side and I can see how desperately he wants to touch himself, but his desire to please keeps him still.  

“Then the answer is no. Maybe if you can prove to me that you aren’t completely incompetent at eating pussy, I’ll consider it,” I allow a moment for my words to sink in. “Color?”

“Green. So fucking green,” Spencer whines.

“Good boy,” I praise him, and the effects of my words are instantaneous. Spencer rests his cheek against the skin of my thigh and then he’s nuzzling his face against me in a silent plea for permission. After a moment, his pleas become a lot less silent.

“Wanna be your good boy - please let me,” Spencer begs as his nose brushes against my skin. “I want to make you feel good. S’all I ever think about, since the first time I saw you.”

His words send a jolt of pleasure to my core and I reward his brazen honesty with a tender smile and a nod.

“Go ahead, baby. Let me see what that pretty mouth of yours can do.”

The words barely have time to leave my mouth before Spencer is reaching out and hooking a finger underneath the waistband of my panties. I raise up off the bed just enough for him to slide them down my legs, and before I even manage to settle back down onto the bed, Spencer literally dives in. He starts with one long lick, and by the time he reaches my clit he’s crying out lewd moans against me. The feel of the vibrations mixed with the feel of his mouth on me is maddening in the best possible way, and my eyelids threaten to flutter closed under the weight of my pleasure.

“Fuck, baby – you’re doing so good,” I sigh as I lift my hand up and card my fingers through his hair. “You look so pretty on your knees for me.”

Spencer’s movements stutter when he feels my hand tangle itself into his hair, and I let out a light chuckle. I grab hold of the roots and give an experimental tug. My actions cause his hips to jolt forward violently.

“O-Oh my…” Spencer keens, raising his glossy, lust filled eyes to mine. “H-Harder, please.”

I oblige, and Spencer lets out a particularly filthy groan before lapping at my pussy like a man possessed. His hands come to wrap around my thighs and he pulls me closer to him, causing me to let out a gasp when his nose nudges against my clit. The sound only spurs him on further – Spencer begins assaulting my clit, alternating between short, kitten licks and light sucking. The control I had so adamantly been asserting over him began to slip from my fingertips the longer he worked his mouth against me, and quiet, breathy moans started falling from my lips.

“Such a good boy, Spence,” I moan as I scratch my fingernails against his scalp. “You’re making me feel so good, baby. Love that dirty little mouth of yours.”

Spencer thrives on the praise – that much is made obvious by the way he whimpers and tightens his grip on my thighs. He’s completely submitted himself to the act of getting me off, only stopping long enough to cry out when my hands give a particularly harsh tug on his hair.

“Add a finger, baby,” I tell him, allowing my hand to drift down the side of his face, caressing the sharp angles of his cheekbones.

Spencer releases my thigh from his hold and tentatively raises a hand to my entrance, eyes raising to meet mine.

“You’ll tell me if I do something wrong?” he asks, and his concern is so endearing that I tilt his chin upwards and lean forward until my lips meet his.

Spencer gasps into the kiss, shocked, but it doesn’t take him long before his lips are moving against mine fervently. His lips are slick with my arousal, and I dart my tongue out just long enough to swipe it across his bottom lip.

           “D’you like how I taste, baby?” I murmur against his lips, pulling back slightly when Spencer tries to bring his lips down against mine.

           “S-So much,” he whispers, before letting out a frustrated groan when I tease him with the slightest brush of my lips before pulling away again. “P-Please, kiss me again.”

           I bump my nose against his before I reach down and grab his hand in mine.

           “Don’t be a greedy boy, Spencer. Greedy boys don’t get to cum,” I chastise him as I raise his hand up to my mouth. I trace my bottom lip with his pointer finger as Spencer watches on in rapt fascination, before taking the digit into my mouth and sucking. Spencer chokes out a pathetic cry and his hips hopelessly buck into the air as I swirl my tongue around the pad of his finger, taking special care to coat it with spit before releasing it from my mouth.

           I guide his hand back down to my pussy, gasping when the tip of his finger brushes across my entrance.

           “Just take it slow, baby. Start with one and move up to two once you get the hang of it.”

           Spencer nods, eyes alternating between my face and my entrance as he slowly slides his finger in me.

           “You’re so warm, oh my God,” Spencer breathes out, tentatively pulling out his finger before inserting it back in. I hum appreciatively as he begins to move faster, eyelids fluttering shut when he lowers his head and begins languidly licking my clit.

           “Feels so nice, Spence. I fucking love your fingers. Knew that they’d feel like this. I can only imagine how good your cock will feel,” I ramble, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other tugging on his honey brown hair.

           I groan as he inserts a second finger, reveling in the way he’s stretching me out.

           “Curl your fingers when you – fuck! Just like that, baby. Gonna make me cum if you keep doing t-that.”

Spencer speeds up both the onslaught of his fingers and his mouth at my admission, tongue working figure eights on my clit while his fingers brush up against my g-spot. A familiar warmth starts to spread in my lower belly, and with every swipe of Spencer’s tongue against my clit, the coil in my stomach winds tighter and tighter until, finally:

“O-Oh, fuck, Spence!”

The coil snaps, sending jolts of pleasure straight through my core. I can feel the way my walls tighten around Spencer’s fingers as my orgasm rips through me, never stopping their ministrations in an attempt to help me ride out my high. Vibrations ripple across my clit when Spencer lets out a cry of his own before his movements halt completely as shudders wrack his body.

I know he didn’t just…

           I allow myself a moment to recover before I lean forward and drag my eyes down Spencer’s slender frame – and sure enough, his tummy is covered in white ropes of cum and his now softening cock is hanging limply between his legs.

           Spencer’s eyes reluctantly open when his shudders cease, and one look at my pissy expression is enough to send him into a fit.

           “I-I didn’t mean to cum! I’m so sorry, Miss. It’s j-just that you looked so pretty when you came, and you taste so good! And you were pulling my hair, and you called me a good boy and I just couldn’t do it anymo-”

           “Shut up,” I seethe, voice cold and laced with annoyance. Spencer’s mouth snaps shut and he gulps. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember saying that you were allowed to come. Am I mistaken?”            “N-No, Miss.”

           “Mm, that’s what I thought,” I hum. “Stand up.”

           “B-But I want to make you cum again! Can I plea-”

           “Shut the fuck up and stand up, Spencer.”

           Spencer rushes to his feet, stumbling a bit when his legs begin to shake. He corrects himself, standing perfectly still in front of me with a shameful look on his face. I scoot back on the bed and fix him with a stony look.

           “I want you to lay on your stomach across my lap. Can you do that, Doctor Reid, or are you too stupid to follow simple directions?”

           Spencer adamantly shakes his head, scrambling to splay out across my bare thighs. Once he’s comfortable, I raise a palm to his bare ass cheek and smooth my hand across the skin.

           “Color?”

           “G-Green,” Spencer stutters out.

           “Wonderful. Since you’ve decided to be a greedy little slut and cum before I gave you permission, I’m going to punish you. Do you remember your safe word, baby?”

           “Tolstoy.”

           “Good boy. I’m going to give you ten, and I want you to count them out for me. One for every month you held out on me, and four because you’re an insolent little whore who can’t do as he’s told. Does that sound fair to you?”

           “Y-Yes, Miss. P-Please.”

           A harsh smack sounds throughout the room, and Spencer lets out a whorish moan that’s bound to wake the people in the neighboring rooms. The pale skin of his ass transforms to red, and I rub my palm across it soothingly.

           “O-One,” Spencer says through gritted teeth as he rocks his hips against my legs.

           “You okay, baby?”

           “Y-Yes, Miss. Please don’t stop. I deserve it. P-Punish me, please.”

           My palm comes down across his ass four more times, and with each strike I watch Spencer fall apart right before my eyes. Tears are gliding down his flushed cheeks, and his cock is now painfully hard against my legs.

           “Five more to go, baby. Keep counting for me, my pretty boy.”

           By the time my hand comes down against his flesh for the final time, Spencer has devolved into a mess of pathetic whimpers. His cock is smearing precum across my thighs as he rocks against me, and his ass is covered in a litany of bright red marks. Incomprehensible pleas are falling from his lips, and his hands are tightly fisted in the sheets.

           I lean forward and place a gentle kiss to each of his battered cheeks.

           “T-Thank you, Miss. Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

           “You’re welcome, baby. Can you go lay in the center of the bed for me?”

           Spencer gives a feeble nod and crawls to the center of the bed, carefully laying himself down and letting out a low hiss when his ass came in contact with the mattress.

           I let him rest against the sheets before I roll over and settle in between his legs.

           Spencer’s cock, painfully hard and leaking precum, sits against his belly. Spencer watches as I trace lithe fingers up his thigh, his chest rising and falling quickly as I get closer to where he demands my attention.

           A garbled groan rips from his throat when my hand grasps his cock, and I have to place my other hand on his hip and force him back down onto the bed when he tries to buck up.

           “Stay still, baby,” I tut as I drag my fist up and down at an agonizingly slow pace.

           “S-Sorry, M-Miss,” Spencer stutters. His brows are drawn together and his eyes are heavy lidded. “Need m-more, please.”

           “Mm, I don’t think you need more. You just want more. Dumb little greedy baby,” I tease as my thumb swipes across his head.

           “Oh… G-God, please!” Spencer mewls.

           “Is what I’m giving you not good enough?”

           “N-No, it’s just-”

           I raise an eyebrow at him and halt my movements.

           “No, it isn’t good enough?”

           Spencer lets out a frustrated groan and his fists clench the sheets.

           “P-Please, Miss! I’ll be your good boy, I promise. Just let me cum, please, I want it so bad!”

           Thoroughly pleased by his shameless begging, I start moving my hand again.

           “Let me know when you’re about to cum, baby.”

           That moment comes when, not thirty seconds later, the muscles in Spencer’s abdomen start to spasm – telltale signs of an impending orgasm. Spencer is so lost in the way my hand is moving against his cock that he makes no move to warn me, and just as I see his eyes start to flutter shut, I withdraw my hand.

           “W-Why did yo-”

           “You didn’t tell me you were about to cum. I thought you said you were going to be a good boy, Spencer? You sure aren’t acting like someone who wants to cum.”

           “S-Sorry, please, just… fuck!”

           Spencer’s whole-body folds in on itself when my mouth wraps around the head of his cock. I swirl my tongue around the tip, lapping up the precum that had gathered before I pull away.

           “You’ve got such a pretty cock, baby. Can’t believe nobody’s had you in their mouth yet,” I murmur, pausing to drag my tongue along the veiny underside of his erection. “Let me hear you, baby. Wanna know how much you like when I use my mouth on you.”

           “Love it so much, oh God… Feels so warm and wet. Thank you so much, Miss. God, it feels perfect,” Spencer keens as I take him into my mouth again. Mumbled praises fall from his lips as I take him deeper, and the second my nose hits the soft skin of his belly, Spencer’s hand comes up and begins to tap incessantly on my shoulder.

           “S-Stop! I-I’m close – Jesus Christ, I’m so fucking close and I really want to cum inside you, i-if that’s okay with you,” Spencer babbles, eyes wide and pleading. I smile up at him.

           “Do you think you deserve to cum in my pussy?”

           “H-Honestly, no, but I’m hoping you’ll let me anyways,” Spencer says, shooting me an adorably shy smile that has my heart doing somersaults in my chest. I let out a light laugh and shake my head, moving to straddle his lap.

           “Are you sure you want to do this, Spence?” I murmur as I caress the side of his face with my hands. “This can stop right here, if you want it to.”

           “Please, Miss. I want this. I want you,” Spencer reiterates, eyes shining and filled to the brim with adoration.

           “Want you, too, baby. You can call me my name now, if you want,” I say as I place a gentle kiss on his lips. I move to pull away, but Spencer’s hand is quick to grasp the back of my neck and pull me back in.

           While our lips move together, frenzied and desperate, I sneak a hand in between our bodies and grab Spencer’s cock. He gasps into my mouth as I drag his head in between my folds.

           “I-I won’t last long,” Spencer chokes out, eyes trained on where I’m rubbing him against me. “I’ll try my b-best, but I’m sorry if I c-cum too fast.”

           I sink down just enough that his head is the only thing inside me, watching as his face contorts beautifully as a result.

           “Don’t worry about me, baby. Tonight’s all about you.”

           With one last, chaste kiss to his lips, I slowly begin to lower myself down onto his length. The sound of our moans fill the room as Spencer clings desperately to me, hands finally finding purchase on my hips.

           “Y/N, fuck, you feel so good,” Spencer whimpers as I begin to slowly rock against him. “I-I knew it would feel good, but oh my God. I-I can’t… I’m gonna cum, soon. M’so sorry.”

           His admission prompts me to move faster, raising my hips until he’s almost completely out of me before I’m slamming back down.

           “Spence, you feel so good. Such a good boy – my good boy.”

           “Yes, yes, I’m all yours! Only yours, please!” Spencer whines. I lean forward, and the change of angle is enough for both of us to cry out.

           “Are you gonna be a good boy and cum for me, Spence?” I murmur into his ear, biting lightly against his earlobe. “I want you to cum in me, baby. Don’t you want to be my good boy?” I punctuate my words by lightly wrapping my hand around this throat and squeezing, and that’s all it takes for Spencer to completely fall apart underneath me. 

           “Y/N - fuck!”

           Spencer’s grip on my hips tightens as he bucks up into me, painting the inside of my pussy with his cum as he yells out strangled exclamations of my name. He presses his face into my shoulder as I ride him through his orgasm, whispering quiet thank yous and pressing open mouthed kisses to my skin as the euphoria floods through his body.

             I place a kiss to his forehead before I crawl off of him, having every intention of getting up and procuring a wet washrag. But Spencer reaches out to grip my arm, and his eyes look so sad that I stop in my tracks.

           “C-Can you stay? Please?”

           The insecurity in his voice tugs at my heart.

           “Of course, I’m staying. Was just gonna get a wet washrag for us. M’not gonna leave you, Spence,” I murmur. Spencer visibly untenses, but his grip on my arm doesn’t lessen.

           “Could you just stay here a little bit longer?”

           “Sure thing, baby,” I say, prompting Spencer’s lips to pull up into a pleased smile. I crawl back into the bed and lay on my back, and Spencer instantly plasters himself to my side. He hums contentedly as he wraps his arms around me, and I let out a light laugh when I catch him stealing glances at me.

           “What is it, baby?”

           A rosy blush spreads across his cheeks.

           “Can I kiss you?”

           After everything we just did, he still feels the need to ask permission to kiss me. What a sweet boy.

           My answer comes in the form of me pressing my lips to his, and that’s how we stay until he pulls away.

           “I have another question,” he says shyly.

           “Lay it on me, baby.”

           The blush on his cheeks gets significantly more pronounced.

           “It’s just that, uh, you didn’t get to cum again. And I really want you to, because you took such good care of me,” Spencer pauses, and his fingertips lightly graze the inside of my thigh. “C-Could I please eat you out again?” Another pause, and he retracts his hand. “I-It’s okay if not. I understand if you just wanted this to be… a one-time thing. I guess I was just kind of hoping that it w-wouldn’t be. But that’s silly – you were just doing me a favor. I’m sorry I asked.”

           Spencer cringes as he finishes speaking, not even giving me a chance to reply before he’s trying to pull away. I tighten my grip on his arm, and Spencer gives me a weary look.

           “First of all, I don’t think I would ever say no to being eaten out – especially if you’re the one offering. Second, this is definitely not a one off. I have lots of plans for you, pretty boy,” I explain, and the relief that radiates off of Spencer is almost palpable.

           “Thank God,” he sighs, and then he’s scooting down the bed and settling in between my legs.

--

           And if the rest of the team notices the way Spencer starts following me around like a lost puppy - well, they’re all kind enough not to point it out.

[wh6res]

one more time | markhyuck

"if i'm going to teach you how to fuck her right, you’re gonna need the best seat in the house, markie!" — lhc 

warnings. dubious content, swearing, bondage, voyeurism, masturbation, exhibitionism, mentions of stalking, fingering, oral (f receiving), degradation, there’s a knife (but no knifeplay), a threesome, implied kidnapping 

disclaimer. i dont condone anything. this isnt a normal relationship. this aint love.

note. prolly going to hell for this but who cares. markhyuck for @nakamotocore​ i wuv ya ie please get better soon! TT and dom hyuck for my napaka kalat na mami @donghyukcore​

against all rational thinking, haechan is getting bored from seeing the pathetic five feet distance between you and mark when he comes home. he tries to understand the other male in the relationship. truly, he does, even if he highly doubts that celibate little mark lee can pleasure you the way he can but everything's practically past that line now. donghyuck just wants to have some fun with you two, is that too much to ask for? at this point, he's blatantly ignoring the fact that you and mark don't even like each other.

but haechan cares for mark just as much as he cares about you and he won't just let his best friend miss out on all the fun things he can do to their little doll, right? what kind of a friend would he be? once haechan shoves him into a world of temptation and sin and pleasure, mark would kiss his self-induced celibacy goodbye.

plus, you've been awfully naughty these days.

talks about wanting to come home or getting at least a few rights to have gadgets were the only thing you said whenever you see him. it went as far as practically growling and running away from haechan when he tries to initiate something with you, screeching your lungs out and saying, "don't fucking touch me, you creepy little psycho!"

deflowering mark.

punishing you.

he'd be killing two birds with one stone.

he's fucked your stubborn little self into submission once, but all that overprivileged tv sessions might've put silly little ideas into your dumb little head again. alas, no worries, he'll just have to do it one more time. and maybe, now with the aid of his good 'ol buddy mark, they'll both be able to screw you up so good you'll never want to leave their clutches.

"gumdrop, can you come here for a second?"

haechan isn't deaf to the exaggerated groan you let out from the living room and it grates on his nerves how utterly brave you are for being passive aggressive. you reminded him of a little girl in a temper tantrum because they weren't given any candy - and when you show up in the master bedroom clad in your little pink dress, eyes upturned and sharp, a pathetic little girl was all he can think of when he saw you.

only now did he notice that you had even detangled your hair from the intricate braids haechan spent at least twenty minutes doing earlier this morning. where was mark all this time? why wasn’t he there to stop you? geez, you both are so going to get it, this time!

"what do you want?"

"can you give me a hug? i felt awfully stressed at work today. i need my little gumdrop."

this was obviously a test. don't get him wrong, he'll still punish you but if just this one time you learned to swallow that bitchy attitude and come crawling to him as the perfect lover should, maybe he won't be too harsh.

but he gave you too much credit, he thinks. of course his dumb cockwhore doesn't know shit. of fucking course, you wouldn't know it was a test. not when you scoffed, rolled your eyes at him, and spun in your heels to walk back to the living room.

"beat your meat with your own hands, creep."

haechan's reaction is immediate, his long legs allowing no delay in crossing the room to mercilessly fist your hair. he had pulled your hair so bad you thought it was going to rip right at the roots, all of his pent up anger due to your poor behavior channeling into that one grip.

you feel his scoff of disbelief against the curve of your neck as haechan pulls you flush against his body. "what the fuck did you just say to me?" he laughs patronizingly. "beat my meat with my own hands – aw, baby! that has got to be the best one yet!"

it truly was, though. he's not going to lie. out of every vicious snarl and hate-induced words you said to him, that particular offhand comment takes the cake. seriously, sometimes haechan thinks you're deliberately trying to make him furious – gumdrop, if you wanted to be fucked silly, all you had to do was ask.

he hurls you to the mattress, breath knocking right out of your lungs. before you can even sit back up and crawl away from haechan, he's already crawling over your body to sit directly on your stomach, fiddling with something on the headboard. you nearly scream in frustration, no matter what you do, you just can't throw him off of you!

"i don't know why the fuck you're behaving this way but it's gone too far. one more time. do i need to fuck some respect into you, one more time?”

a new wave of motivation surges through you when you hear the familiar click clacking of metal. your eyes widened just a fraction, the only thing that gave away the unease quickly seeping under your skin. if not for haechan's perceptive eyes, he would have missed it.

he merely used one hand to grip both your wrists in a vice. "no!" you squirmed, tossing and turning and trying with all your might to get him off of you. "no! i don't want that – not the cuffs!"

he loops the respective bands around your wrists with practiced ease. the last handcuffs he used had torn and marked your skin, something haechan wasn't fond of. only he can paint your bare skin with colors.

thus, he bought newer ones. the bands were a bright shade of red, connected to each other using a medium sized chain that loops around one of the steel wires of the bed, and the little bells attached to the bands ring with your every movement.

haechan knows the bells drove you crazy. its incessant ringing driving you up the wall as you couldn't keep your hands still whenever he fucked you to oblivion – he knew how much you loathed the sound of the bells, all the more reason for him to enjoy.

and mark, too. speaking of which…

you stubbornly pull at your bounded hands, glaring at the man before you as he studies your state. the corners of his lips curl up at the sight of you struggling. "you always look so good in red, gumdrop."

before you were given a chance to reply, he stormed out of the room with a sense of purpose bounding his steps. "lee donghyuck!" you screamed. "fucking come back and get me out of these, you pervert!"

he can hear you thrashing in your chains and yelling profanities from a room away. where was the demure girl he turned you into after only a week living in the apartment? though funny enough, the blood in haechan's sadistic side rushes in excitement at the prospect of wiping that glare off your face. it wasn't the fear, nor your submission that gets him off. it was the idea that he can and he will break you down no matter how many times you try to build yourself back up again.

he's not too sure whether he's going to eliminate that dirty mouth you've developed, though. because you did make him snort in the most unattractive way when you told him he can fucking jack himself off when he had been merely asking for a hug. this aggressive side you developed is… nice. he can work with it.

"can you ask your play thing to keep it down?" mark hisses, flinching and making an offkey sound with his guitar when a certain screech from you caught him off-guard.

haechan smiles.

"why don't you shut her up?"

it took a good few minutes trying to talk mark into stepping into the bedroom where he's got you chained to the headboard, but alas, haechan can be persuasive if he wants to be.

frankly, the younger man is sick and tired of hearing both of you bicker – it's no wonder you've developed a sharp tongue! it's all mark's fault and yet it's haechan that has to do the dirty work of setting you straight all over again. you're a tough cookie to crack, someone hauntingly immune to the violence and chaos.

and yet…

"you don't – don't seriously plan on doing this, do you?" your eyes go back and forth between the two males, primarily addressing the younger, devil-spawned male. haechan, ever observant, picks up the light tremor in your voice.

haechan had uttered a playful "if i'm going to teach you how to fuck her right, you're gonna need the best seat in the house, markie!" before forcing the older boy to sit by your side, mark's thighs grazing the temples of your head as your eyes awkwardly flutter up to the spectator.

mark couldn't deny he was intrigued by the emotion reflecting in your orbs. when your eyes met, it was a silent plea, he just knew it was. and unlike vulnerable and helpless you, mark, to some extent, still had at least some sense of freedom to him. he can choose to walk away, to stop haechan from trying to get him laid, maybe even talk the other boy into postponing your punishment.

but he'll do no such thing.

not because he has a moral compass (he doesn't, really) but because mark knew firsthand, there's no stopping haechan once he sets his mind into something – and right now, if that boy wants to punish you and use mark to fulfil his exhibitionistic fantasies then that's what'll happen.

your bottoms were the first to go, haechan's blunt nails digging into your skin as he pulled it down slowly, patronizingly, while watching bemused at your squirming. "this is how you know she needs a reminder," he says, addressing mark. "a good princess should take whatever's given to her like a good girl but if she's being an ungrateful brat –"

you flinch when he harshly smacks your thigh.

"– she gets what’s coming for her, right?"

there's a second's delay with mark's reply. haechan didn't mean for the question to be rhetorical, he wanted an answer from the other boy.

"right, mark?"

"r – right…"

haechan laughs, flipping the skirt of your dress up. "what, are you that excited for pussy that you're stuttering? that's cute."

you hear mark intake a sharp breath when haechan dives in to give you feathery kisses in your inner thigh. he always starts off this way, after figuring out this gets you wet way faster than simply kissing you.

as haechan starts talking, lips lazily grazing over your skin, you fight hard not to utter a single sound as you pull on your chains. "listen carefully, markie. do you hear those whimpers? she likes it," you feel the prickles of his sharp stare. "she's just too much of a fucking brat to admit it. go on gumdrop, your fighting spirit makes this all the more interesting."

you hate the patronizing tone he used as his hands trail higher, and higher until it's pinching at the bud of your clit. and against your whole being trying to keep your lips sealed, alas, it parts and creates a soft whimper that has mark stiffening next to you.

haechan lays his tongue flat against your folds. you weren't in the least bit wet yet to accommodate his size, but that's easy. he merely circles the bud with the tip of his tongue before pushing two fingers in. months of standing in the shadows outside your window had made him memorize the movement of your fingers whenever you pleasured yourself.

he felt the jolts of the bed as you shook your head side to side, trying with everything you can to hold your moans in. a corner of his lips can’t help but curl up. "what, gumdrop? too shy to lose yourself because we have an audience? don't worry our celibate little friend over here seems to like it. go on, give him a show."

too lost in the ministrations of his lips and fingers, you don't see haechan meeting eyes with mark, nodding at an object lying on the bed side table. you can only shudder when the cool tip of a knife presses against the base of your throat, hooking under the collar of your dress as mark slowly rips it off.

but haechan doesn't have the patience. "dude, give that to me. at your phase you'll get her naked tomorrow. let the tip cut her skin, the bitch deserves it anyway."

you scream when he drags it unceremoniously down your front, narrowly missed tearing at your navel. there are a few pricks of pain here and there for when the knife accidentally nicked your skin. he sure was ruthless as can be. why did you even bother acting like a brat, cursed him out, when it gave you no benefits whatsoever? did he unknowingly transform you into this sick little masochist that thrived on his sadism?

"no."

it was a defeated whisper. the last of your resolve turning into dust as the breath escapes your lungs. why did losing feel so heavy in your chest? you don't notice your arms slumping, nor your head nodding off to one side, the weight of your horrible reality sinking into you once again as if you had only been kidnapped yesterday.

but it had not been yesterday. it's been days. weeks. months. and the last time you sneakily got ahold of mark's phone and searched for your name, the last news clip or article published about your disappearance had been three months ago. that only meant one thing.

they weren't looking for you anymore.

just like that the world continued, other people's lives continued. all the while you're stuck here, rotting in the arms of your captors.

haechan's face emerged in front of you. he smiles and you would've believed he felt an ounce of guilt if not for that wicked stare in his eyes. "you've always been most beautiful like this, gumdrop. the hope disappearing in your eyes upon the realization that no one's coming for you anymore – i love it. i love you, my pretty girl."

he placed a chaste kiss on your forehead but he might as well have shot you straight in the heart.

there was no warning, nothing to ready you for the sudden intrusion happening on your bottom half and it was so bad, that it made you shut your eyes, hands wrapping around the chains as tears started falling across your cheeks.

rough fingers reached out and wiped them away.

something felt off.

the fingers were too calloused, opposed to the softness of haechan's nimble fingers. and while the aforementioned male had more length than girth, the person who's thrusting himself inside you is the complete opposite. he's stretching you out too much, not even bothering to give you time to adjust when he's already bucking his hips like an animal.

"shh, it's okay. i'll take care of you…"

this wasn't haechan.

and when you fluttered your eyes open to see mark's boyish little face, you can't help that look of betrayal painting your features. at least you only had to deal with one obsessive, sex-deprived freak. now, you're not so sure if you can handle both of them.

how foolish of you to think that mark's self-induced celibacy stretched far and wide when in reality, he was also just a boy with his own needs. a slave to his own temptations.

how cruel. so, so cruel.

in the back of your mind, you were thankful haechan cared enough to properly get you in the mood or else you would've been staining the bed sheets red by how deep and frantic mark’s thrusts were. it felt like he wanted to tear you in half.

"if i didn't know better i'd say you're experienced, markie! i wouldn't fucking know you're a virgin by how much you're humping her like a dog.”

curse him and his dirty mouth. his constant degradation is making it easier for mark to slide in and out of you, and a proof for that is the lewd slick sounds echoing in the room partnered with the older male's deep grunts – a complete opposite of the pitched, whiny sounds haechan makes.

'gumdrop, come on! be noisy with our first-timer here just how you're always noisy with me, yeah? don't be such a killjoy." the pout in his voice is evident, coming from the side of your ear.

you wish you had never turned your head, otherwise you wouldn't have to see him pumping his own dick in his hands right in front of you. the glare you shot probably looked pathetic, what with all the tears streaming down your face and your little theory proves true when you see his mouth quirk up to the side.

"i fucking hate you."

"mark, fuck her harder, wouldja? until she learns her fucking lesson."

the disturbed stare you gave him does not slip his notice, his hand's pace turning erratic, spurred by the slick sound of your walls, skin clapping, and mark's broken whines.

make him stop, your eyes said. please.

but haechan only shoots you an innocent smile before shaking his head. "didn't you tell me to beat my meat with my own hands?"

taglist !!

@hoeartchoke @donghyukcore @stopknot @greenish-taro @stayvision @zhongriot @lmaoskz @zephyr-abyss @anonymous-stuff @josuke8 @jaemotel @gothboyjisung​

wanna be added to my general taglist? click here! ​

jenoluck (c) all rights reserved

[arhvste]

001 MIYA ATSUMU X SHUT UP AND DRIVE SERIES

++ MSBY GARAGE

❝ i've been looking for a driver who is qualified, so if you think that you're the one step into my ride ❞

dt — @rintaroll

“so, what’s it gonna take for ya to praise me a little more?”

you rolled your eyes and huffed, brushing the setters hand off your shoulder.

“shouldn’t you be more concerned about, oh i don’t know, your fans, interviews, your teammates?!” you snapped back as atsumu held both his hands up in defence.

the crowd was loud and still bustling as the black jackals most recent victory continued to stir excitement through the mass of spectators in the high stands. fans were still yelling and chanting as interviewers scrambled to grab the attention of any player they could. multiple had pried for atsumu in fact, alas, all his attention was solely focused on none other than his teams promotional manager; you.

you were chatting to the teams photographer and uploading updates and playbacks onto the teams twitter at the time the blond had bounded his way over to you and here you were, faced with the famous setter leaning on the advertisement boards lining the court diving you from him.

“miya,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose as you shook your head. “go and talk to some interviewers and get yourself back over to the others, i’m begging you at this point.”

“beggin’ huh?” a boyish smirk tugged at his lips and his eyes stayed locked on your own.

“not in the way your disgusting little mind is thinking of.” you shot back, stepping back from the board and looking back down at your phone where the teams twitter was currently blowing up.

atsumu snickered before standing up straight.

“whatever ya say doll, just hold up a little longer and i’m all yours again yeah?”

you scoffed and shook your head at him before shooing him away.

“i’d prefer you weren’t.”

“lyin’s a bad habit.”

“would you just go already?”

atsumu laughed as he turned to make his way back to the rest of his awaiting team. waving a hand back at you, he turned to face you before shooting a wink your way as interviewers and photographers flooded the scene.

this was a typical exchange of interaction between the two of you. ever since you had been introduced to the team as their promotional manager, atsumu had fixated his interest outside of volleyball onto you. 7 months later and nothing had changed despite his never faltering persistence.

you sighed as the photographer laughed softly before turning to his own laptop to import more photos for you to upload.

“he seems to have a soft spot for you.”

you groaned and switched your phone off, leaning back on the advertisement boards atsumu himself was previously leaning against.

“he’s such a handful.” you stated as the photographer chuckled.

“looks like he wants to be one for you though.”

“i wish he didn’t” you muttered back as the photographer smiled earnestly at you.

“i think we both know that’s a lie, we’ve been working together for a while and i don't think this dread to spend time with him is as evident as you make it out.”

you whined as you sent a soft frown his way.

“trust me, it is.”

“whatever you say.” the man teased back before clicking on the last images to send your way.

thanking him and making your way over to the teams manager and coach, you stood beside them in front of the msby boys and watched them as outlet interviewers shot questions their way.

multiple flashes went off every few seconds as each player flashed a handsome smile to the camera. you scanned over the team and bokuto was excitedly chatting and laughing with the interviewers. you smiled softly to yourself as you let your eyes wander from bokuto over to sakusa who was trying his best to avoid contact with his sweaty teammates and ‘annoying’ interviewers. it was clear he wasn’t as thrilled to be there as the others so you sent an apologetic look his way and mouthed to him he only had to put up for roughly 10 minutes more. he silently wallowed in self pity at that, but that quickly turned to agitation as atsumu dominated your vision.

slinging an arm over sakusa, (much to the latters disgust), atsumu grinned at you and flashed a smirk for a brief second before turning back to give the cameras a toothy grin.

your face dropped back into a frown as atsumu feigned hurt from a distance.

the team manager laughed as she elbowed you gently.

“interviewers might have a little more luck keeping him focused if you were the one interviewing him.”

you raised an eyebrow as you turned to face her.

“he’s like a puppy.” you stated bluntly as the manager laughed.

“a lovesick puppy.” she corrected as you faked a gag.

“why you all think he’s head over heels for me is way beyond me.”

the manager smiled before nudging for you to look at the attractive setter.

“because it's obvious. you break the boys heart every week.”

you watched as atsumu happily chatted to interviewers and forced sakusa to begrudgingly pose for photos and join in with him.

“he’s not my type.” you said as your eyes stayed focused on the blond.

“right.” the manager teased before smiling over at the team's captain, meian, her own boyfriend.

you smiled at the pair’s interaction as the team dispersed after thanking interviewers and fans for their support.

meian wandered over to the manager who happily placed a kiss to her cheek before guiding her off towards the back of the stadium, hand lingering on the small on her back.

you sighed as your own thoughts invaded your headspace. it wasn’t that you didn’t want a boyfriend. you just hadn’t met anyone worth the time yet.

well, that was your go to excuse to tell everyone anyway. the truth was, you didn't even know the limits to your own standards, you just knew they were high when looking for a potential partner.

the feeling of a heavy arm slung over your shoulder forced you back into reality as your eyes flickered up in surprise.

“miss me?” the hot breath and familiar voice teased the shell of your ear as you scowled.

“you wish.” you snapped back as you attempted to duck out of your offender's grip.

“ah-ah, yer coming home with me today.” atsumu smirked confidently as you hissed at him to get off.

“says who?” you argued as the setter looked down at you smugly.

“me.” another voice joined the conversation as you turned to face the owner of it.

your eyes met the coach who was looking at you slightly sympathetically.

“huh?”

“sorry,” the coach began, hand holding the back of his neck. “i know i said i’d take you home, but my wife has some errands she needs me to pick up before getting home and i’d hate to have to drag you along with me this late at night.”

you groaned but nodded understandably.

“luckily, atsumu here was kind enough to offer to be your ride back home.”

“lucky me.” your voice dripping with thick sarcasm as atsumu ignored it.

“yeah, lucky you indeed. do ya know how many girls would kill to be in yer position right now?” atsumu teased, arm still firmly made at home around your shoulders.

“let them kill me.” you glared at him as he gasped playfully.

“ya don’t mean that.”

“i do.”

“you don’t.”

“just take me home already i’m tired!” you threw your arms up as atsumu grinned.

“sure, give me a few minutes to grab my stuff and i’ll meet you round the back of the building, yeah?”

“whatever.”

you made your way towards the back exit of the stadium and were met with other members of support for the team who were waiting for the boys to grab their things from the locker rooms. some players opted to shower after matches while others waited til they got back home. atsumu fell into the category of players who waited until they got home. this was both a blessing and a curse. you wouldn’t have to wait for him for too long, but you would be met with a sweaty atsumu.

this wasn’t technically a bad thing, atsumu had a habit of getting rid of the smell after each match with an expensive cologne you’d never even attempt to pronounce, but he happened to somehow be a little more attractive when he looked worn out and disheveled. you hated yourself for thinking such a thing but you just couldn’t help it. he was annoyingly attractive and it made his personality a little more dislikable in your opinion.

you waited for around 10 minutes before you were met with boisterous laughter ringing through the spacious lounge by the exit.

atsumu and bokuto came striding out from the hall directing towards the locker rooms, gym bags in their hands and ruggish hair that would need taming again eventually.

you sighed as you waited for atsumu to approach you. he bid his goodbyes to everyone and sent a look at bokuto's way. the ace held a thumbs up at atsumu as the others in the lounge looked at each other giggling and smiling smugly.

you raised an eyebrow but shrugged it off as you felt a hand find its way on your waist.

“let’s get going then.” his voice strumming chords through your body as you shivered slightly.

atsumu led you out and down towards the underground garage used by players and staff members whilst at the stadium. you’d never actually seen atsumu’s car before so you had no idea what to be looking for, but atsumu’s hand remained firmly on your waist as he led you over to an array of expensive cars. mentally trying to guess what car belonged to the setter, atsumu watched with a small smirk etched on his face as your eyes scanned along each car. keys hooked around his finger, atsumu pressed the unlock button as your jaw dropped slightly.

of fucking course.

miya atsumu was the proud owner of a jet black 2021 chevrolet corvette with the number plate gracing it in all its glory ‘MIY4 13’.

you scoffed as atsumu’s smirk widened.

“so, ya gettin in or what?”

“into what? my one way invitation to death?”

atsumu snickered as he led you over to the passengers seat.

“i won’t kill ya, i promise.”

you looked back at him, handsome and sharp features making your eyes soften.”

“well, it’s not like i’ll be able to yell at you if you break that promise.”

“exactly.” atsumu grinned as you climbed into the luxury vehicle. the soft leather padding of the seats welcoming you as your weight shifted onto them.

you glanced around the interior as your eyes were met upon. various lit buttons caught your attention as a screen switched on as atsumu opened the drivers door. you were certain the car had way too many features but that’s what made it a luxury vehicle you guessed. the sleek black and red complimented interior was admired by you as atsumu watched your eyes dance around the car. his eyes softened as you visably relaxed a little more. your hand hooked across the firmly threaded seatbelt as you pulled it around you.

you looked at atsumu who’s smirk seemed to have faded. instead, a soft grin was painted across his face as he helped you click the belt securely in place.

“don’t kill me miya.”

“i’ll do my best.” he winked at you before pressing the start engine.

mentally chanting your last prayers, you accepted the position fate had put you in and did your best to stop the stirring of butterflies in your chest as atsumu placed his hand on the back of your headrest and pulled out.

well fuck.

as if he wasn’t attractive enough before, he sure as hell was now. your eyes widened and heart picked up it’s pace as the scent of atsumu’s signature cologne flooded your senses.

his sharp jaw and focused eyes, pointed in the direction of the rear window as he successfully pulled the car out the space. moving his hand back onto the wheel, atsumu turned to smirk at you as you gave him a pleading look. before you could open your mouth to speak, the setter slammed on the accelerator and the engines picked up its volume as your head was thrown back a little as the car sped out the garage exit.

“you little shit!” you cussed out as atsumu laughed as you sped onto the highway through the city.

“ya love the thrill don’t lie.”

“i’m not lying!” you protested as the flashes of bright lights flew past the window.

atsumu smiled as his right hand found its place on the middle of your thigh.

“miya!” you hissed as atsumu tilted his head momentarily your direction.

“ya can call me atsumu ya know?”

“i don’t want to!”

“for such a genuine person, yer so full of shit sometimes.”

you huffed as you gave up letting atsumu’s touch encourage the stir inside of you. you turned and glared out the window at the passing scene as atsumu hummed in satisfaction.

a few more moments of comfortable silence went by, nothing but the sounds of cars zooming past and the soft hum of atsumu’s own car’s engine.

you frowned and bit the corner of your lip as you peaked towards the blond whose eyes were fixed on the road.

“so,” you began, resulting in the player's eyes to flicker your way for a millisecond. “why are you so hooked on me?” you questioned.

you held your breath as you finally voiced the concern that had been playing on your mind for a while. you rarely had moments of privacy with the man despite his infatuation and demand to be around you.

“am i not allowed to be?” he challenged teasingly as he sqeezed your thigh slightly.

you wanted to force his grip off of you, you really did, but something about it felt so natural you just couldn't.

“miya.” you sighed and shook your head.

“atsumu.” he corrected as you turned to face him properly.

“look, you’re just my type. that’s all there is to it.” he replied simply,as if it was no big deal to him.

“and just what exactly is your type?” you quizzed as you pulled up at a traffic light.

slowing the car to stop for a while the light was red, atsumu turned his face to look at your own before he flashed that boyish grin you’d unknowingly grown rather fond of.

“you.”

and with that, the world threw you back into fast motion as the green light flashed, highlighting his face before he hit the acceleration again making your eyes widen.

“atsumu…” you sighed quietly as the adrenaline brought more life into his eyes.

it wasn’t that you hated atsumu. it wasn’t that at all. he was just someone you didn’t see yourself seriously with. someone so out there and demanding of the world. you had always envisioned yourself with someone a little more down to earth, someone with a stable job with a lowkey personal life, a person who took life at a comfortable pace. you had never seriously considered being with someone like miya atsumu. someone who demanded the world's attention, dominated every scene he was put in, who took life at the speed the highest the accelerator would go. someone so big, so bright. you never imagined someone like miya atsumu would take interest in someone like you. you were opposites stuck in an entanglement of professional lives.

out of every person in the world, the universe had decided miya atsumu would become the man who ticked the boxes to your unknown standards. you just hated to acknowledge it.

pulling off the highway, atsumu drove through the less busy roads as your apartment complex came into vision. half of you wanted the ride to be a little longer, but the other half of you couldn’t wait to lock yourself in your apartment away from the man who caused turmoil inside of you.

atsumu hummed as he pulled around the back of your complex. the roads were quiet and the soft lights of other buildings gleamed off the vehicle as the golden light flooded through the tinted glass of the windows, pulling attention to the boyish, but charming features of his face.

you sighed as he pulled the car to a stop and let the engine settle down. you stayed like that for a moment as the two of you sat there packed in the quiet parking lot.

“listen, I meant it, i really do like you.” he said as you studied his eyes for any signs of him being ingenuine; you couldn't find any.

your eyes softened as you leaned on the headboard.

“miy- atsumu.” you began quietly as his eyes admired your form. “it’s not that i don’t like you or anything, it's just- i don’t know if you’re my type.” you confessed as your heart hammered against your chest.

“well, you just called me by my first name, that’s gotta count for something right?”

you looked up at him and locked your eyes into his honest ones. you sat up and turned to face him as he took both of your hands into his.

“look, i get it, i’ve been annoying since day one-”

“-annoying is an understatement.” you cut in as atsumu playfully glared at you.

“rude. anyways as i was saying, i might’ve come across as a little too strong from the start, but there's just somethin’ about you. i just can’t seem to leave ya alone.” the blond confessed honestly as his warm, calloused hands held yours tightly.

“atsumu, i just don’t know.” you shook your head as he held onto your hands tightly. “i just don’t know what i’m looking for.”

“let me help ya find it in me then.” he pleaded softly, a small grin tugged at his lips.

you cast your eyes down to where your hands were being connected by him. the stir in your chest sped up as your heart was slamming against your chest at this point.

“atsumu i just-”

cutting you off, atsumu pulled your hands away from each other as he moved one up towards your jaw to cradle your face gently. dark golden eyes melting at the sight of you close up, atsumu pulled your face in closer to his and your heart just wouldn’t let you pull away. his lips finally met your own after what felt like an eternity and it was if yours were made to fit against his.

his hand moved towards the back of your neck as he encouraged you to move closer. you leaned closer letting your own hand find its way against atsumu’s broad chest.

the kiss deepened as you gave access to the setter’s tongue as he dominated your movements. small gasps and whines were heard in the silence of the parking lot as neither of you had it in your to pull away. atsumu’s hand was securely at the back of your neck with the other gripping your waist as you groaned at the slightly uncomfortable position.

pulling away, the two of you breathed heavily as you leaned back in the expensive leather seat as atsumu stared at you softly.

“what the fuck was that?”

“our first kiss as a couple.” atsumu teased but failed to stop the wide smile spread across his face.

“who said anything about being a couple?” you shot back as atsumu found your hand once more, lacing your fingers together tightly.

“your body language. you kissed back.”

“i-”

“msby setter miya atsumu as yer boyfriend, wow, arent’cha just the luckiest!”

you playfully hit his chest as he laughed.

“keep it up and that’ll be ex-boyfriend.”

atsumu’s eyes lit up as he grabbed your hand again and held it tightly.

“so ya admit it! i’m yer boyfriend!”

you giggled seeing how genuinely excited he was over it.

“for now.” you hummed as he pouted slightly.

you cupped his jaw and leaned to press a soft kiss to his cheek causing heat to rise to his face.

“let’s just, take this slow though okay?”

“don’t tell me that while sittin’ in this car.” he joked as you groaned against him.

you leaned back looking back into his bright eyes as his gaze softened.

“i’m kiddin’, we’ll go as fast as ya want, and i promise not to kill you on the way.”

you snickered as the blond beamed at you.

“i’m holding you to that.” you smiled as atsumu pulled your face in closer once more. leaning forward to better prepare yourself, you allowed yourself to melt into another deep kiss with the man you would now call your boyfriend.

you never saw yourself being with someone who took life at a fast pace. someone who demanded the world’s attention without verbally calling for it. you never saw yourself falling for someone like that.

but here you were, with the man who ticked all of those boxes easily. the type of man you insisted wasn’t your type, turned out to be the blueprint for your exact type; you just weren’t aware of it until miya atsumu insisted you did.

++TAGLIST! @crescenttooru @miss-angel-ash @sarahvvictoria @babierin @fxncyoomi @s0utien @toobsessedsstuff @omibaby @kenkodzu @sugabeaniee @lovesunas @slutawara @bunny-on-crack @shouyouorange @memorableminds @whootwhoot @yikes-buddy @sweetsamus

[the-darklings]

—𝐭𝐢𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞;

⤫ pairing: johnny silverhand x corp!v(ermillion)

⤫ summary: Usually, they’re a calamity together—destructive and volatile as each other. But right now, just for a second, there is only music and them.

⤫ word count: 2.3k+

⤫ warnings: spoilers for act i & side mission the ballad of buck ravers, third person but can be read as RI ig, swearing, written in one sitting so who knows what the final result is - certainly not me. 

⤫ notes: let me leave my clown shoes outside.

It starts out the way it always does. 

One ring leads to another and she suddenly finds herself running or driving around the Night City with little to no rest, pulling one job after another. The more jobs she closes the more she seems to be in demand.

Good for business. Good for making a name for herself, too, but not so good on her overall being. 

She’s been running. Like a fucking coward. Filing her days with meaningless shit while trying desperately not to think about her ticking clock. About Jackie. 

Guilt gnaws on her bones daily. She should have done more, been better, more careful. Jackie never should have died. It was stupid and blind ambition that drove them both to try and pull this near impossible heist in the first place. Her own reckless drive has blinded her, and now the person closest to her in this fucking city is nothing more than a cold corpse. 

Fuck.

She should have sent him to his family instead. She only wanted to spare them from the grief of having to see Jackie in the state he was in but now Araska has his body and god knows what those assholes might be doing with it. 

And now…

Well she has nothing to lose, does she? She’s already dying, already hunted, her only close friend is dead. She promised to make him proud. Make it to the big leagues or make a league all on her own if that’s what it takes. Bleed this city dry if that’s the price to pay for what she wants. 

Back when she worked for Arasaka she wanted knowledge which led to power. Then she wanted guns and money and a roof over her head. 

Now she wants something more. After coming face to face with her own fragile morality, she has begun to realise how meaningless things like money and power are. Now she wants to surpass that. To become something immortal—something that will outlive her body. Maybe even outlive this city.  

Jackie should have been one of such people. 

“You look like you’re about to shit yourself,” a voice drawls from beside her, a crackle filling the air as a too familiar silhouette of a man appears in her sight. “Or cry.”

“Fuck off.”

V turns away from one Johnny Silverhand because it’s hard to look at him and not be reminded of the fact that she’s slowly dying and the construct only she can see and hear is the one doing the deed.

“This self-pitying bullshit needs to stop,” he says, ignoring her vicious words. “We share a brain, remember? I feel what you feel. It’s downright depressing in your head right now.”   

Her jaw clicks at the reminder. Everyday she wakes up and feels like they’re linked by a bridge—he stands on one side, and she on another. When they come closer, she can feel it—feel him. The overlap is near dizzying, overwhelming, even a little addictive. But it’s always followed by agony because she fights back, tries to shove him away. If not, he will consume her, but she will get him out of her head before that ever happens. 

You share a brain now, Vik had told her only days prior, his eyebrows knitted tight and—albeit subdued—but clear worry in his low voice, senses and memories, even perception. Eventually it will become impossible to tell whose who anymore. 

The worst thing is the fact that he’s right. 

She can feel Silverhand rooted inside her; a constant, a presence that is persistent to a point she knows she’s not alone even if she wishes to be. 

An echo of a being deep inside her.

“Then get the hell out,” she bites back, fighting to keep her temper leashed so she doesn’t burst out at him like she did at the diner. She can still remember the wary stares she received from the diners when she started shouting verbally at a figment only she could perceive in the first place. “I didn’t ask for a parasite to make himself home in my brain.”

Johnny scoffs under his breath, raising a cigarette to his mouth, and she’s nearly overcome with need to remind him that he’s fucking dead, and can’t smoke. That, and the fact that she would prefer him to leave her the fuck alone. 

“You did the job, didn’t ya? You sure you didn’t have this comin’?”

Flipping him off, she storms past him, her jaw clenched to appoint it aches and eyes narrowed. Just her luck not only to get stuck with a human tumour but for the said tumour to be a bastard to boot.  

So much for being buddies. 

Sun has set over Westbrook hours ago yet Chinatown is as busting with life as always. Overflowing with conversations all spoken in different languages, smells, distant gunshots, and people from all walks of life just trying to survive. Even during her years with the Arasaka, she never quite got used to the vastness of the Night City—not even when she was sure she was at the top. The way this city seems to breathe and fester day in and out; a living beast full of dangers and potential is unique. 

Lost in the crowd, it’s almost easy to forget who she is aside from another face in the said crowd. She’s not a merc, not an ex-corp working counterintelligence—she’s not anything. 

Her optics catch sight of several Tiger Claws lingering around the market, and she makes sure to give them a wide berth, especially when she notes the impressive list of their stats. She’s not stupid enough to attack outright when they outclass her—for now—and there are several of them around. With the market this busy the only outcome to that fight would be a bloodbath with police on her ass when that’s the last thing she needs right now. 

Despite that logical part inside her steering her well clear of the gang members the need to blow off some steam bubbles under her skin. An ache starts to form against her temple soon after, making her focus blur around the edges as she wanders from vendor to vendor aimlessly. 

“Hey, V,” a rumble of a voice cuts through her thoughts—and she hates how she can’t quite ignore his voice unlike everyone else—and turns her head in the direction of the call. She had foolishly assumed he was going to give her some peace of mind for tonight at least. “Check this guy out.”

Walking up a dimly lit staircase, she had barely noticed a man sitting on a rickety chair and playing a guitar. Much like her, others walk right past him, ignoring the man altogether. 

Johnny glimmers into sight, squatting in place and oddly intent on observing the old man while he plays.   

She entertains the idea of walking away simply to piss him off. If something is of interest to him, then she wants to ignore it so hard it gets under his nonexistent skin. Petty, perhaps, but ever so satisfying. 

Hearing no reply or receiving much reaction at all, Johnny slants his head her way, nodding once towards the man, “What do you think?”

Squinting, she drags her gaze towards the guitarist, crossing her arms over her chest while she listens. She’s not even sure why she’s bothering but…

The melody is slow, near drowned out by the bustling sounds of the nearby market and chatter of people walking past. 

“He’s...fine?” she offers lamely. “I mean he’s pretty good.”

A slight smirk crosses over Johnny’s mouth—gone in a blink but the focus he places on the man who seems to be unaware of her or the silent second spectator surprises her. 

“Loses tempo more than he keeps it,” he comments, almost absently, and she feels her eyebrows arch in another show of bewilderment. A quiet spells falls over their little nook, and Johnny listens more, thoughts rolling inside his head if his body language is any sign. “Sloppy on the technique but he has feeling in the way he plays. Can’t teach that.”

“If only you didn’t die,” she sighs softly, closing her eyes in mock sympathy. “This could have been you.”

He surprises her again by laughing at that. It’s a deep rumble of a sound, and she can almost feel it echo between them and their mental bridge. “You’re kinda of a bitch. Has anyone told you that before?”

Her teeth flash in the dim orange glow of the neon lights. “And you’re sort of a dick. Anyone tell you that before?” she wonders with a charming, practiced smile. 

He flickers out of sight and she’s about to call it a mental victory but a tickle of electricity kisses across the bare curve of her shoulder and neck, and she shivers when he appears beside her. His arms are crossed as well, and he glances her way briefly.

“Seems to me like we’re two peas in a fuckin’ pot, then,” he points out easily, and shakes his head, seemingly amused by his own words. “I might have tried to kill you a few weeks ago but look at us being chummy, Ver.”

Her throat closes up at that, expression tightening. He notices of course. Or maybe it’s the unease that slices through her mind at the casual way he uses her nickname. 

“What? Am I not allowed to call you that or somethin’?” he wonders curiously, seemingly entertained by her reaction. Asshole. 

“Only my friends call me Ver.”

Jackie was the first. 

That thought makes her swallow painfully, a dull ache clawing against her heart. One would think that years being a corpo would have wiped whatever humanity still lived in her but Jackie’s death had been a stark reminder that she couldn’t be further from the truth if she tried.  

“Why?”

She gives him a flat look. “Because my full name is Vermillion, but people tend to find it a mouthful so…”

“Vermillion,” he repeats, his intonation dry, and she shoots him a quick glare, daring him to make an issue of it. Naturally, his next words don’t surprise her, “That’s a stupid fuckin’ name.”

“Oh, because Johnny Silverhand is so much better.”

She expects him to say something snarky in return, argue maybe, but he only snorts. His metal hand lifts, pushing his aviators down slightly as he glances at her over them.

“You got me there.” 

Usually, they’re a calamity together—destructive and volatile as each other. But right now, just for a second, there is only music and them. Shadows and life of the Night City holding them both suspended in this moment. No arguments or biting comments. No guilt, either. 

A slight smile tugs across her mouth as she continues listening to the man play his downbeat little tune. Her shoulders loosen, drooping slightly and she lets herself breathe for a moment. Just the one. 

“Used to be just like him,” Johnny speaks up suddenly, his voice more subdued, lower, and taps his fingers against the cigarette he’s holding. “But better. Used to play everywhere we could. Garages, bars. Anywhere that would have us, and we always had an audience.”

She hums, offering him a brief glance. “You mean you were actually good?”

She can’t see his eyes in the darkness of the street or through his tinted shades. But despite that, she can still feel his glare and the mental bite of chagrin/irritation/why is she so annoying? and deeper than that a spark of amusement/little shit thinks she’s funny. 

“What’s this?” he muses, his words sarcastic. “A corpo rat that actually has a sense of humour? Colour me surprised.”

“No can do,” she shoots back promptly, fighting back a wider grin. “You’re too dead for that.”

He tsks, throwing his cigarette to the ground and she almost rolls her eyes. “Can’t wait to be out of your damn head, princess.” 

“Can’t wait to be rid of you, either, so the feeling is mutual.”

Their words might be stringent but she can almost taste the faint amusement trickling between them and under that bridge that connects them. 

“There might still be some bootlegs of those old days,” he muses thoughtfully. “People used to record everything back in my day.”

She drags her gaze his way, lips thinning into a firm line, “I’m not becoming a fan, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

“Afraid you’ll hear real music and won’t be able to go back to this modern garbage I hear everywhere?”

There is challenge in his words and she bristles. Maybe this is what she needs. She may not be able to put holes in some Tiger Claws with her sniper rifle but she sure as hell can go on a scavenger hunt and see what she finds. 

Besides, it might help her to understand the man nested inside her mind a little better.

So when an hour later the old, wrinkly vendor asks her why he should give her his oldest, most precious Samurai vinyl, she tells him the truth. 

A twisted truth. 

But truth all the same.

“He’s with me every step I take, every move I make,” she confesses softly, something deep down breathing awake at that admittance. “Johnny’s like my conscience. My eternal, infernal moral compass.”  

She doesn’t miss how the man in question doesn’t appear, doesn’t say anything even after hearing that. She would have figured he would be the first in line to offer her some mocking, snarky comment but there is only silence. 

In fact, she can barely feel him at all. The tether between them is still and quiet. 

And his silence says a lot more than he probably realises. 

.

an: hello. guess whose not dead and kinda back to writing. dunno how much of cp77 you should expect because coa is still my priority but maybe occasional fic for these dumbos is on the cards. oh, and takemura because cdpr are cowards for not giving us that enemies to friends/partners to lovers romance. also I know this isn’t strictly RI and I honestly considered writing it as such but saw...no point? since the premise still would have been the same, so something a little different today ig. 

[commander-diomika]

(Click to Read From the Beginning) Part 5 - Fandom: Rusty Quill Gaming Pairing: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde, literal background Barnes/Carter Rating: Explicit Word Count: ~2500 Additional Tags: Slow Burn, 18-Month Time Gap (Rusty Quill Gaming), Opposites Attract, Masturbation, Accidental Voyeurism, Pining, oh there's yearning in this one lads,

Summary: With the quarantine cell still under construction, it's not quite as soundproof as it ought to be.

It was remarkably easy to keep busy in the business of saving the world. Wilde made it his mission to get to know every face in town, and in turn have them know him, and like him. He made friends easily, the locals charmed by this tall man with his fluent Japanese and endless supply of entertaining stories. For the sake of the job - not just his own lingering fear - he was meeting every person on the island and building a solid network of people who would let him know the moment a new face appeared. The wider his web, the less he found himself reaching for the scar on his face.

Zolf won people over not by charming them, but by helping them. The gruff dwarf at the inn became known as someone the locals could go to when someone fell and broke something, or to use magic to help Stone Shape the stumps of houses that were slipping into sodden earth.

He also worked on supply lines. Trade was still relatively lively, but he and Wilde were in the market for more esoteric items than bread and booze. They needed adamantine for the cell, they needed anti magic equipment, and it was certain Barnes and Carter were going to return having depleted the stock of healing potions they’d taken. Strangely enough there wasn't a steady supply of any of those items on the island.

As much as Zolf wouldn’t admit it, Wilde smoothed the way when it came to trading. He charmed the locals and when Zolf appeared with increasingly obscure demands, he was seen as a friend by association. Zolf knew he wouldn’t have achieved that so quickly.

They both oversaw changes to the inn. Many rooms were separated with nothing but thin paper walls on slides, making the whole space quite modular. Wilde sequestered one of the few solid, seemingly defensible rooms on the ground floor and turned it into an office-cum-sitting room. Before their gentle takeover it had probably been a private dining room for special, or at least rich, guests. Zolf took the time to install a proper bed frame in his room, since his legs made climbing down to the floor-level futon bedding difficult.

On another continent, sentient creatures went wrong, turned on their loved ones, fought, died. Cities were turned and abandoned, and storms ravaged places that had never seen more than a light drizzle. But even knowing that elsewhere things were coming apart at the seams, there was a touch of peace in their little corner of it. For a few weeks they slipped into a routine.

Zolf rose in the mornings before Wilde, wordlessly depositing a coffee in front of the bleary man when he appeared. In the evenings that Wilde wasn’t out liaising they took to Wilde’s sitting room and read, or drank, or talked. Frequently about the mission of course, but there was only so much hashing and rehashing they could do. When things got too heavy, or nothing had changed, topics wandered. Zolf’s stories from the navy. How Wilde became a journalist. Small things. Easy things when they both just needed to put it down for a while.

Wilde would never do something so gauche as ask for forgiveness, or understanding, but some days when he reported another success, it sounded like I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.

Some days when Zolf poured coffee into Wilde’s mug it looked like you don’t have to apologise.

And on the rare mornings when some watery sunshine peeked through the clouds, as Zolf practiced in the yard with his glaive, Wilde followed to idly spectate over the paper and his breakfast, and the action felt like I don’t know why but it’s easier to be around you than not.

Barnes and Carter returned in good enough spirits and got started on their isolation in the mostly-complete cell. As soon as they returned, Zolf felt himself get itchy for action and movement again. He couldn’t even scratch the itch by properly debriefing the returnees yet; the newest information from Curie posited a hive-mind connection between those infected by the blue veins. Still, this was just the way it had to be. Zolf tried to soothe his agitation. Things were just going to move slow for now. He only had to look at Wilde’s scar to help quiet any feelings of angst. A little bit of frustration was something he could cope with if it meant what befell Wilde never, ever happened again.

Four nights after Barnes and Carter returned, Zolf sat in front of the fire attempting to read the Dwarvish tome Wilde had picked up in Damascus. It wasn’t exactly riveting stuff, and his Dwarvish was rusty, but he promised he’d at least make a dent in it. Wilde came in fresh from the bath, his hair wet and wearing the yukata he’d been gifted by one of the locals. As he passed the back of Zolf’s chair, Wilde placed a hand on one of Zolf’s shoulders and leant over to inspect the page.

This close, Zolf could smell him. There was a soft, flowery note that Zolf couldn’t identify, probably whatever he washed his hair with. And then there was the warm, familiar smell of the man himself. Zolf kept his eyes on the page in front of him.

Pointing with his other hand, Wilde spoke. “This character here- the translation guide I was using didn’t even have it. Brought the whole lot to a screeching halt. How are you getting on with it?”

Zolf, nose full of Wilde’s scent and nearness, opened his mouth to reply. “I – er, it’s fine. It’s an older script but I can read it- don’ quite understand what they’re gettin’ at, but, er.” He looked over to Wilde’s face again, profile lined in firelight. His face was so close that Zolf could lean and place a kiss on the man’s unscarred cheek, if he chose.

Wilde glanced up from the book. Their eyes met for the briefest moment before Wilde straightened, letting go of Zolf’s shoulder with a small squeeze.

“Wonderful. Let me know if anything useful comes up, will you?”

Zolf simply grunted in reply, still feeling off-kilter. This wasn’t the first time Wilde had touched him like that. As Wilde started to settle into life at the inn, started to feel a little safer, some of that old comfort was returning. Zolf didn’t mind the touching. He got the feeling Wilde was lonely. He was probably used to a lot more physical contact than he was getting now. For all he had been ingratiating himself with the locals, it was clear as day Wilde couldn’t trust them. If Zolf was the only person Wilde could reach out to…

Zolf shook his head a little and tried to focus back on the text. Wilde collected his own evening reading material, some piece of Japanese fiction, and settled in the other chair. The silence, but for the ever-present sound of rain, was comfortable enough. Their new lot in life involved a lot of waiting, and they were both doing their best to try and make peace with that.

Time passed and Zolf, already struggling to focus on the dull history book, realised he’d read the same sentence three times over. Some essential part of his mind had shifted, noting a change in the soundscape. Previously, there had been nothing but the rain and slight crackle of fire, but now there was a new element in the mix.

Zolf stared blankly at the page, listening hard. It was… conversation? Perhaps, but the innkeeper and his wife had rooms all the way on the other side of the building, and Zolf couldn’t usually hear them. It was… the wind? No, for all it was raining, it was the usual dreary patter, no strong winds to explain the slow rhythm or hint of a moan in those sounds.

Zolf’s heart beat slowly. One, two, three… and suddenly he knew what he was hearing.

Zolf looked up from his book to see if Wilde had noticed. Obviously, whatever he was reading was much more riveting than Zolf’s dry historical facts, because he was still engrossed in his book. Despite his close attention to the pages, Wilde could sense Zolf’s regard. Without Zolf even clearing his throat, he looked up.

“What?” he asked mildly to Zolf’s raised eyebrows.

“You hear tha’?” Either it had gotten louder, or Zolf’s ears had adjusted to picking out rhythmic moans and whimpers.

Wilde slipped a finger in his book to mark his place, cocking his head. With his attention drawn, he contextualised the new sound quickly (much faster than Zolf) and his eyebrows started climbing. When the brows couldn’t get any higher, he straightened in his seat and placed a hand delicately on his chest in feigned shock. “Well, we didsay that Barnes would look out for him, but that’s not quite what I had in mind.”

Zolf tried not to roll his eyes.

“And we knew that Howard would struggle with the isolation period,” Wilde continued, voice artificially prim. “I’m glad they’ve found a way to pass the time.”

Zolf’s efforts to not roll his eyes failed, then he glanced around, puzzled. “How is the sound even…?”

Wilde’s eyes were bright; his expression screaming this was the most fun he’d had in weeks. “The trapdoor. The one in the Teal Sitting Room. It’s still under construction, so…”

“So, sound is travellin’ through it.” Zolf finished the thought, voice level despite the blush he could feel rising in his cheeks.

Barnes and Carter were slowly increasing in volume. Zolf could finally make out the timbre of Carter’s voice specifically, though he’d never heard him make those noises before.

“I didn’t know that Barnes had it in him,” Wilde murmured. “Or, had it in Carter, specifically.” With that puerile comment, Wilde moved. He folded the corner of a page to mark his place and stood, checking the ties on his yukata as he did.

“Where are you going?” Zolf hissed.

Wilde smiled wickedly. “Why, to the Teal Room, of course.”

“Wilde!” Zolf said, flushing angrily. He was trying to formulate a scolding regarding privacy and eavesdropping, but the scoundrel had already stridden off. Zolf’s thighs tensed and relaxed as he went to stand then aborted the movement, debating with himself. Carter voiced a particularly sharp cry and Zolf decided that anything was better than sitting here by himself.

I’m just gonna stop Wilde from doin’ anything inappropriate, he told himself as he stood and followed.

Inside the room, Wilde leant against the doorframe, body languid as if he attended a mere dinner party. There was a tarp covering a half-constructed hole in the centre of the room. When Zolf came to hover beside him in the doorway, any lingering mystery about what was happening downstairs was dispelled.

“Fuck, James, please,”Carter sounded utterly desperate. This close, Zolf could even hear the slow rasp of movement, skin-on-skin. Barnes’ voice was harder to make out, as he responded with something quiet and urgent. There was a breath, then the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and Carter making a choked noise that pulsed straight from Zolf’s ear to his crotch.

Wilde was delighted. He looked sidelong at Zolf and mouthed the word “James?” wrapping his lips around it in impish joy, as though first names were the controversial thing about this situation.

There was a grunt from downstairs that was undoubtedly Barnes

Wilde spoke sotto voce, keeping his voice under the sound of the rain. “I knew he’d be the strong and silent type.”

Zolf didn’t reply. He didn’t know where to even start. He would hate to be overheard like this, but there was something thrilling about it. Fuck, Wilde’s a bad influence on me. He knew he should leave, just walk away, but…

The pace downstairs changed. What had previously sounded like a languorous tease picked up energy. Carter literally wailed as the thump of a cot knocking against a wall started up, one, twice, three times, continuing, not rushed but steady. Carter’s whine cut off in a muffled ermf and Zolf could see in his mind’s eye, agonisingly clear, the way that Barnes had just put his hand over Carter’s mouth.

Zolf’s eyes had been locked, unseeing, on the rough tarp, but at Carter’s stifled moan, he looked up at Wilde. He was gazing back, and Zolf was shocked to see something hungry in those eyes. Mere moments ago, the energy from Wilde had been lewd and juvenile. Something had shifted.

Wilde’s scent was still in Zolf’s nose and suddenly the image in his mind changed.

His hand, hooked behind one of Wilde’s knees, pushing it up toward his chest… fucking him open fluidly, pace keeping time with the rhythmic thudding from below. Wilde’s face flushed cheek to cheek, eyes half lidded, awash with the pleasure of it.

Zolf shut his eyes, hard, hot with shame. When he opened them, Wilde was still staring him down, a touch of that imagined flush now true in his cheeks. There was something knowing in his expression as well, as though he could see straight into Zolf’s mind and the images that lay within.

They had been so in tune with each other lately, after all.

Wilde’s mouth worked as if he was seeking words, but he was interrupted. “Heavens above, James, faster please, I’m going to-”

Wilde sucked his breath in hard as Carter came. The words died on his lips and he half-shoved past Zolf to leave the room, taking long strides and disappearing down the corridor.

Zolf stumbled. If the two men downstairs were in any state to be paying attention to their surroundings, they would have heard Zolf’s clumsy footsteps, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He went to follow, but by the time he’d caught up to Wilde, the bedroom door was shut.

There was no lock. It was only a barrier in that it was one that Wilde chose to put up. Zolf wasn’t about to go barging in where he wasn’t wanted. He lifted a hand to knock. Paused. What exactly was he here to say? To tell Wilde off? To apologise? To say, Look at me like that again, I’ll be ready this time? He lowered his hand.

Later that night in bed, for the first time in months, Zolf found himself firming a spit-slick hand around his cock, breath unsteady. He kept his mind cautiously blank. Every time he was tempted to dwell on the sound of Carter’s whimper, or Barnes’ low rasp, or that ravenouslook in Wilde’s eyes, he drew himself back to sensation alone, pleasure coiling in his gut. He certainly wasn’t thinking of Wilde’s hand on his shoulder, the relaxed set of his body as he listened to Barnes and Carter fuck downstairs, the salacious delight in his eyes.

Zolf pumped his fist faster, definitely not thinking of the thud of the cot against the cell wall downstairs as his hips rolled and breath hitched. Hanging on to awareness by a thread, he remembered the thin walls, and bit his lip to stifle his groan as he came.

His eyes closed, he listened to his hammering heart, breathing slowly. It had been a very strange night. From the buzzing post-orgasm haze, a thought emerged, unbidden.

Lavender. Lavender was what Wilde’s soap had smelled of.

[shysneeze]

persuasion (part two)

George Weasley x Malfoy!Reader 

Description: on their weekly afternoon tea, a letter arrives that forces reader to reveal a recent event to her mother and further revisit the past. 

Warning: angst, the most angst i’ve ever written. mentions of alcohol. again, quite au in the sense the lucius is in jail 

author’s note : I don’t know how i feel about this, it feels confusing but i’m not sure how else to write it. Any feedback is still greatly appreciated. I was overwhelmed by the response for part one so I can only hope this part doesn’t dissappoint.

Tag List: @andineversawyoucoming @theweirdsideofstuff @the-grey-lady13 @peanutem @paigeyisme @wolfiepirate @sir-lili 

series masterlist

.~.~.

The manor’s empty halls and high ceilings make the small click from (Y/N)’s shoes echo loudly as she walks towards the parlour. The only other noise is sound of the curtains cracking like whips in the wind She shuts each wide-open window with a disapproving click of her tongue as she passes.

“It’s below freezing outside.” She sighs loudly. “Can I ask again why the windows must always be open?”  

Her question announces her arrival as she enters the parlour. From her spot on one of the sofa’s, (Y/N)’s mother is already rolling her eyes at her daughter and sipping at her tea, as if this is a usual occurrence, which of course, it is.

“Hello to you too, Dear.” Narcissa hums into her teacup. “And I want some fresh air is all.”

“Hello, Mother.” (Y/N) corrects herself, leaning down to kiss her mother’s cheeks and taking a seat across from her. “However, you do have a very large garden for fresh air.”

Narcissa Malfoy could easily challenge (Y/N)’s status as the Malfoy family recluse. Despite being released from house arrest almost a year ago, (Y/N) can count the amount of times her mother has left the dreary manor on one hand. 

“You said it yourself, Dear.” Narcissa reminds. “It’s below freezing outside.”

“I wish you’d get out of here more.” (Y/N) sighs. “I’d hate to be stuck in this house all the time.”

“I can take care of myself, (Y/N).” Narcissa states. “In fact, I recall several years where I took care of you and your brother too.”

(Y/N)’s mouth opens to tell her there is no need for the sass when the creak of the door announces the second arrival of the day. It’s no surprise to either of the woman to find it’s Draco stood in the doorway, the only missing member of this week’s Sunday afternoon tea.

“She’s not on about the windows already, is she?”

He smirks at her as he makes his way further into the room and (Y/N) can only roll her eyes and try to ignore the smug smile that climbs their mother’s cheeks at his question. He mimics her arrival in kissing their mother’s cheek then joins (Y/N), a smugness around him that has her wanting to dig her heel into his toes. He never ceases to bring out the immaturity in her.

“I give it ten minutes until you’re cold.” She mumbles childishly.

“I’ll still have lasted longer than you have without complaining.” He replies with another signature smirk.

“Every week…” Narcissa sighs. “You argue like children.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do with us if we started being nice to each other.”

Narcissa’s head tilts as she gives her daughter a pointed look, a warning glance, one perfected from years of family dinners where (Y/N) verged too close to crossing the line of suitable conversation to have around her father. (Y/N) bites her lip to hide her smirk at her mother’s expression and focusses herself on making her brother and herself a cup of tea while Narcissa quizzes Draco on his week.

“So how is the ministry?”

(Y/N) tunes out, she can’t imagine the ministry to have ever been particularly riveting and she knows that when it is her turn to summarise her week, Draco isn’t likely to be interested in her shop keeping tales. Instead, she stares down at her lap and twirls her fingers nervously while she considers the pros and cons of telling her mother about her night out with Fleur from two weeks pervious.

The pros are alluring in the sense that at least her mother will know all the background information she needs to understand how horrible it had been; however, the cons heavily outweigh that. The Weasley’s, or more particularly, George Weasley, has been a taboo subject under the roof of Malfoy Manor since the secret romance had been discovered all those years back.

Lucius Malfoy had caught his daughter sneaking out of Weasley Wizard Wheezes in the early hours of the morning in the same clothes she’d left the Manor in the night before. He put the pieces together quick enough.

“Where were you?” Lucius demanded when she returned.

“What do you mean?” (Y/N) shrugged. “I told you I was at a friend’s.”

“Who?”

“Alexandra’s.” She stated confidently under his scrutinizing eyes.

She jumped when his cane cracked against the floorboards though, and her father’s expression turned furious. She subconsciously backed against a wall as he moved closer, hooked end of his pompous looking cane rested intimidatingly against the wall right by her ear.

“Don’t lie to me.”

She can still remember the raspy edge to his voice that gave her chills. Full scale war had then promptly broken out after and it had seen the end of a relationship she’d been willing to run away from home for barely two hours before.

“What about you, (Y/N)?” Her mother asks suddenly, dragging her the scenes of her past. “How has your week been- and the week before since you cancelled on us last Sunday?”  

“Oh, it was okay.” She explains. “I’m sorry about last weekend, I think it was something I ate.”

“That’s code for hungover.” Draco coughs, causing (Y/N) to dig her elbow into his chest. “Ouch!”

“I wasn’t hungover!” She exclaims unconvincingly.

In a way, she’s glad Draco has made up this wonderful, embarrassing excuse that she won’t be asked any further questions on. It’s even better than her   ‘something-I-ate’ excuse and she only wishes it was her own idea. She’s much more willing to listen to a long-winded speech on drinking responsibly than whatever her Mother would come up with for meeting up with George Weasley again.

“You’re an adult, Dear.” Narcissa assures. “It’s you that has to deal with the consequences of drinking, not me.”

“Thanks.” She mumbles.

“Although I hope you aren’t just drinking alone in your apartment.” Her mother adds sadly, destroying (Y/N)’s hope of the subject being left unquestioned. “You’re worth more than that, Dear.”

“I wasn’t.” (Y/N) assures with a kind smile. “I promise.”

One of her mother’s carefully plucked brows twitches curiously but (Y/N) has already turned her attention back to sipping at her tea and avoiding eye contact. The older woman across from her lets out an almost inaudible, disappointed sigh that has a twang of guilt hurtling straight to (Y/N)’s chest. She almost opens her mouth to expand when she’s interrupted by a flapping sound from the window.

The beautiful brown owl glides into the parlour with an elegance that, even if (Y/N) didn’t already know it as Fleur’s, identifies it as her best friend’s. It lands gracefully on the edge of the coffee table and gently bows to drop the letter on  before her. (Y/N) begins to check her pockets for a treat for the dutiful bird.

The bird takes the treat gently and willingly accepts (Y/N)’s arm as a lift back towards the window to make its flight from the room easier. Once it’s flown away again, she turns back to face her family, both mother and brother perched on the edge of their seats to peer nosily at the letter.

“Subtle.” (Y/N) comments as she takes her seat again, snatching the letter up.

“I’m just curious as to who it’s from.” Narcissa assures. “It was a beautiful bird.”

“It’s Fleur’s.” She admits somewhat nervously.

It’s not that her family is unaware of her friendship with the French woman, but more so to do with who she’s married to. Her surname, although never mentioned aloud to her mother, always causes something between curiosity and concern to flash across the older woman’s face. This time, the look is fleeting and Narcissa tries to look uninterested, a ploy to make (Y/N) feel less uncomfortable opening it now, in her presence.

(Y/N) opens it with a sigh, already seeing through her mother’s act. She skims the contents quickly in a bid to hide them from her brother’s eyes from beside her. She can see him frowning out the corner of her eye though, already just as confused as she is.

“The Burrow?” He wonders aloud.

(Y/N) gulps avoiding her mother’s curious eyes. Less than two years ago, when (Y/N) first befriended Fleur, she’d assured her genuinely concerned mother that she wasn’t in touch with the Weasley’s again and that she wouldn’t get herself hurt. Following Draco’s revelation, their mother is exceedingly confused.

“Fleur has invited me to a family quidditch match.” (Y/N) explains quietly. “At the Burrow.”

“With the Weasley’s?” Draco asks in slight astonishment.

“It seems that way.” (Y/N) confirms. “The others- Harry and Hermione, are likely to be there too.”

“Are you going to go?” Draco asks, not attempting to hide his amazement. “You don’t play Quidditch.”

“I can probably just spectate.” She shrugs, sheepish under their gaze. “I should go.”

“I never realised you were speaking to the Weasley’s again.” Her mother admits, a strange calm to her voice.

“Again?” Draco frowns.

(Y/N) ignores him and tries to come up with a response to this question that will approach the subject delicately. She folds the parchment carefully and tucks it into her pocket with a hand that’s suddenly shaky.

“Fleur and I went to the Leaky last week and bumped into the twins.” She explains eventually, voice low and secretive in a way that confuses Draco even more. “There were no other seats.”

Narcissa takes a moment to take this in and process it, only managing to come up with an ‘oh’ in response. She feels like she’s been flung back in time, her heart acing again with concern for her daughter’s fragile heart. Two years isn’t long enough to get over that sort of heart ache.

“That must have been hard, Dear.”

(Y/N) flinches as the softness of her mother’s voice, the concern laced through every word. She’s not sure why she’s so surprised, her mother has always been the more lenient on the subject, even back when it first came to light. She was the eye of the storm in the manor that evening, a gentle middle ground in what is the worst fight (Y/N) and Lucius have ever had.

“You can’t leave, Dear.” Narcissa sighed from the doorway of her daughter’s room as she flung clothes into her trunk aggressively. “Not now.”

“Yes, I can.” (Y/N) grunted, although her arms shook as she shoved another jumper in her trunk. “He can’t tell me who I get to be in a relationship with.”

“(Y/N), we’re about to go to war.”

“I know that!” She snapped with a voice cracked with raw emotion. “I don’t want to be on this side!”

“I know…” Her mother sighed as she stepped into the room and took a seat on the bed.  “But If you care for him, you have to know that he’ll be safer without you by his side.”

(Y/N) stilled as she considered this, it sunk in slowly, then all to quickly. She dropped onto her mattress beside her mother and began to sob.  Narcissa’s heart broke as she pulled her daughter’s head onto her lap and stroked at her hair soothingly.

“You’re right.” She bubbled. “Why do you have to be right?”

“It was.” (Y/N) admits quietly in the present. “It was horrible.”

“Then why subject yourself to it any further?”

“Fleur is my best- my only friend and I can’t keep letting her down.” (Y/N) explains. “ She’s going to get annoyed at my excuses eventually and I can’t lose her as a friend, Mother.”

She’s already convinced herself. She promised Fleur she would try more and if quidditch at the Burrow is what that means, then (Y/N) is going to be there and she’s going to deal with the tension whether she likes it or not.

“(Y/N)- “

“I’m going.” (Y/N) states strongly, conversation over. “Anyway, Draco, how’s that cold?”

“Oh, I see.” Draco quips bitterly. “I’m allowed to be part of the conversation now that you want to change the subject.”

“Not if you’re going to be stubborn.” (Y/N) huffs. “Mother, how is your reading list coming along?”

Narcissa chooses to take the bait, anything to diffuse the tension that has settled, thick and suffocating. She gives her daughter a knowing look, one that makes (Y/N) squirm and avert her own eyes, then begins to summarise one of her recent reads. It takes a minute for the flow of conversation to return but eventually it does and (Y/N) can only hope the entire thing is forgotten about, no matter how delusional her optimism.

.~.~.

The sun is beginning to set when (Y/N) sets out on her way to leave. As has become their weekly tradition, the three of them stand on the doorstep of the manor and exchange last minute pleasantries. Draco is first to leave, his farewell curt and slightly sour from being denied the knowledge of his sister’s Weasley-related secret.

(Y/N), however, lingers a little longer on the doorstep as her mother gives her a long look that has (Y/N) sighing, shoulders slumping in surrender as she walks into her mother’s open arms. There is something tragically familiar to how she rubs (Y/N)’s back, a memory she’s tried to supress from that evening two years ago.

“Just be careful, Dear.” Narcissa says softly in her daughter’s ear. “I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

“I won’t.” She assures. “I’ve got thick skin.”

Pulling apart, Narcissa runs her hand lovingly down (Y/N)’s cheek and smiles with a small nod of agreement. She knows this, if their surname has done anything for her children, it is give them tough skin. Yet, her concern doesn’t ease just like that, a parent’s never would.

“I know, Dear.” She smiles.

“Can you try and get out more though? I worry about you alone in this house without… without Father.”

“You must really be worried to mention him.” Narcissa frowns, resting her hand soothingly on (Y/N)’s arm. 

 “I just reckon even his company would be better than none for you.”

She knows that as much as her father and her have their differences, the two years without him have been tough on her mother, that much is clear to (Y/N). She herself hasn’t spoken to Lucius Malfoy since the first Christmas he spent in prison. Visiting hour lasted ten minutes before they’d gotten into a screaming match and (Y/N) had left and vowed never to come back.

“You’re sweet to worry, but I’m okay, Dear.” Narcissa promises. “I get to see you ever weekend.”

“Well, you can visit me sometime.” (Y/N) decides. “Come see me at the shop.”

“That sounds like a plan, Dear.” Narcissa nods. “Now, off you go before you freeze out here.”

“See you next week.” (Y/N) grins. “I’ll try not to be ‘hungover’ next time.”

“I’d hope not!” Narcissa teases.

(Y/N) pulls her in for another hug, suddenly overwhelmed by a love for her mother, her unjudging and ever reassuring mother. She holds on for longer, unwilling to let go this week, unwilling to return to the reality of her life, of the rumours in bars and dirty looks from strangers. She wants to feel safe in her mother’s arms again for as long as she can.

“I love you.” She whispers.

“I love you too, Dear.”

(Y/N) finally gathers the strength to pull apart and make her way down the long path to the apparation point with a final wave to the woman on the doorstep. Once back in her apartment, the urge to cry finds her, helpless and vulnerable. Ever since the unexpected and uninvited reunion with George Weasley at the Leaky Cauldron, she’s beginning to feel like she’s living in the past, and it’s all-consumingly painful.

[myimmortalisimmortal]

Why Chapter 39 of My Immortal was due to an actual hacker

After considering some findings, I’m confident in this theory. And thus, I’m confident anyone who claims to be Tara Gilesbie while claiming the hacked chapter was faked is not being honest. Below I will explain why I believe so and how I came across this information in the first place.

All this was from a long chain of breadcrumbs. Let’s go back... all to the mid 2000s in the LiveJournal days when Tara Gilesbie had a dedicated fan club.

The Tara Gilesbie Fan Club

One thing that particularly stuck out was members mentioning finding Tara through IMDb. Yes, you heard right.

[ID: Two comments on the Tara Gilesbie Fan Club LiveJournal.

The first is from ‘golden_helikaon’ on 2008-01-19 writing, “I found it on the Order of the Phoenix IMDb board. There were several long threads dedicated to ripping her apart with every new chapter.”

The second comment is from ‘heartdreamerz’ on 2008-01-20 writing, “It was almost 2 years ago and I've told this story many times. I knew Tara a month before My Immortal was published. It was on IMDb's board for My Chemical Romance. When the story came out I knew about it but didn't pay attention because I wasn't into HP at the moment. Then, like icarus_malfoy wrote, there were the threads about her and that's when my interest started. There were also another troll on the His Dark Materials...” (Image cuts off.) End ID.]

According to this, Tara Gilesbie was already tyrannizing the internet before she posted My Immortal. This actually is very consistent with the fact “Tara Gliesbie is totlly Gottik” was a petition that existed in November 2005. (My Immortal was posted in March 2006.)

This IMDb profile seemed very intriguing. It hasn’t been mentioned much, and isn’t considered to be official by most people. Was it a legitimate account? If so, was there gothicness we were deprived of all along? I searched to try find out more about it, hoping screen captures or something would turn up. Luckily, one of the same members copied and pasted Tara’s bio in another comment.

[ID: A comment on the Tara Gilesbie Fan Club LiveJournal by ‘heartdreamerz’ on 2007-05-05 writing, “All her posts are deleted now. I can still visit her profile because she's on my friend list. Her bio:

‘hi im tara. im a goth (n prode!). i have died blak hair n blu eyez. i wer eyeliner a lot of da time. i hav a bf. his naym is justin. he rox! i liv in Dubia.

likz: eyliner, goffik makep, beng goffik, GOOD CHRALOTTE, death, sleting my rists, drak colorz, hot topik _

dizliks: beng alive, bo, pop music, brite colors, pink, brabie, hiraly doof da music i lik: linen prak, GOOD CHRELOTE, evinezenz, simpl plan, akon, arvil levine, blink-183, panik! at da disko, foll oot boi, mcr. HIRALY DOOF IS A PSR!

fav moviez: when a stranger kallz, da grudge, da grudge 2, korps bird, da nitemare b4 krismas, da ring 2, da ring, shrak attak, undreworld 2, da texas chonsow massakre da bogenning

ps 2 all da prepz nd pozers tryin 2 diz me u r jus jeloz!!!! so yolsentik nd hartdremer u kan go fok ur momz 4 al i ker ok U SUK!!!111′

I feel so special to be personally insulted by her on her profile.” End ID.]

People like to copy & paste things stupid things to laugh at all the time (no offense Tara), so I thought: why not Google some of the bio? Maybe whoever did that posted additional stuff.

And it worked! (I found more content from Tara’s supposed IMDb, but more on that for a different post.)

When searching the bio, a Reddit thread about Rose Christo popped up.

During Rose Christo’s brief reign, a user said Rose’s claims seemed to check out. This user actually happens to be the same commenter, Heartdreamerz, in the LiveJournal thread. (Which makes sense, considering she’s the one who originally had the bio I was searching.) 

If you don’t feel like clicking the Reddit link, basically she confirmed Rose’s claim that two Filipino users from the forums hacked the account.

Because of Heartdreamerz’ long involvement in My Immortal and the fact she never claimed to be Tara or Raven, I take a lot of trust in her word.

Heartdreamerz linked the FF.net profile of the original hacker: Coruscate Corruption.

Looking up “Coruscate Corruption” had me come across this from the LiveJournal fan club, which implies that there were two hackers.

[ID: post on the Tara Gilesbie Fan Club Livejournal by 'nicespice' on Dec. 28th, 2006, writing, “Just a little thing I drabbled down. Hope it's not too horrible. What do you think?

There is an evil on FF.net and All who encounters it feels their Respiratory system give out And become too scared to scream. Gruesome, it is. The anti-christ fanfiction, My Immortal, written by a total idiot. Does she Leave you to cry tears of blood, because I have before. EarnestInBerlin and Coruscate Corruption, the hackers, Sought to bring My Immortal redemption. Too Bad the real Tara had to come back so soon to ruin the fun. I wish she had at least continued her story, I look at her fic Everytime I go online, wishing she'd just update so I could laugh at... Tara Gilesbie." End ID.]

While searching “Coruscate Corruption”, a few posts popped up from a forum for The Bartimaeus Sequence called Bartiforums.

[ID: Two images showing 3 forum posts by Mwamba.

The first post was a reply to, "Mwamba, how did you crack both passys? Just guessing or what?"

On December 8th 2006, Mwamba replied, "Tara's was just pure luck. It didn't take long to get. The password was tara. *snorts* Post's was just guessing too, but I remembered when his passy was cracked on here, so I tried out the same password. It worked. Oh yeah, and I wrote a fanfic for Post, it's a rip off of Tara's story, but meh.”

The last two posts were made on January 14th, 2007. The second post wrote, "It was me. I had complete control for two days. And then EarnestInBerlin had to hack in too and change the password. But then she told what it was and then the real Tara had to come back and rechange her passy so nobody could get in. But that's old news. That account is most certainly not mine. I could not continue that fic for 39 chapters, I'd get bored after the first fifteen.”

The third post wrote, “*Shrug* It doesn't matter. Call me whatever. Though if I have to pick, I suppose you can call me by my FF.net name, Coruscate Corruption. What book category are you writing this fic in? Just curious.” End ID.]

Chapter 39 was posted late November 2006, so that first post was only a few weeks after it happened.

The password was “tara”... does that ring a bell at all?

[ID: A screencap from Rose Christo’s now-deleted blog. It says, “And My Immortal? You can come to your own conclusions. This was really never about the fic; it was the marketing team at SMP that decided to make My Immortal the main part of the story. Our email address was gofikchick@hotmail.com and our password was tara.” End ID.]

-- Rose Christo’s claim before deleting

 You may be asking, “Rose Christo? The woman who lied about her family, being Native American, and writing My Immortal to sell a book?” Yes, that Rose Christo. Yes, she was a fraud and a scammer, but she peppered in some little-known true details to make her claim seem more legit. For instance, she talked about a Voldemort rper in the reviews, and that ended up being true. You can actually find this Voldemort reviewer in the web archives of Raven’s stories. (Apparently, that Voldemort even came out and said “hey, that’s me!” Cannot find it unfortunately.)

Keep in mind the only way I found any of this was because Rose Christo made that claim. Without it, Heartdreamerz wouldn’t have made that post that led to Coruscate Corruption and those posts on Bartiforums. It’s possible Rose somehow came across the same information I did, but it’s more likely she was there. Rose Christo may not be the author of My Immortal, but it was likely she was a spectator as it all went down. (As I was a spectator for Rose’s ordeal when it all went down.)

 Since it was said the hackers posted on the fanfiction forums, I sought to find it by searching “Tara”, “My Immortal”, etc. on FFnet’s search. The posts are unfortunately long gone, but there is a surviving forum called “My Immortal Forum Tara Gilesbie is a genius!”

[ID: A screencap of “My Immortal Forum Tara Gilesbie is a genius!” from Fanfiction net. Someone named Ebony Dark’ness wrote, “I have personally logged on to Tara’s account when her password was revealed after she got hacked.” End ID.]

TL;DR: Multiple, separate people made consistent claims over the span of years. Because of this, I personally believe Tara’s account was legitimately hacked.

(Sources/links will be added in a reblog.)

[capricornus-rex]

A Shadow of What You Used to Be (1)

Chapter 1: A Child Can Dream | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

A/N: I AM SO HAPPY TO BE BACK! Our house is clean, power and wifi is back on, and we’re slowly getting back on our feet now! ❤ It was a tough 2 weeks, but we survived. My neighborhood is getting back on its own feet as well. We just need more time in flushing out whatever trace of the flood remains. Thank you so much to @glxy-otter​ and @someoneovertherainboww​ for sending me lots of love & support! It really made me smile 💜🥺

Also in AO3

Previous: Prelude | Next: Part 2 | Masterlist

2 of ?

The garage was filled with the same perpetual noise. For a seven-year-old, this is no suitable place for a child—but this is the normal she grew up in.

“Hurry up with that chassis!” barked a male Twi’lek with orange skin in Huttese.

The girl answered, in the same dialect, “Can’t you see that this thing is twice my size, Pelug!?”

“You’re lucky you’re faster than those pit droids, otherwise, I would’ve put you in concessionaire duty!”

A pair of hazel eyes shot a piercing look at the humanoid, a scowl forming in her eyebrows.

The orange Twi’lek’s pair of lekku wagged along with his finger pointed at the girl, his threat didn’t scare her as much as he wanted to—though it’s common knowledge that concessionaire duty was the worst, one is essentially demoted if put there. But she thinks she’s proved herself highly unlikely of being in that position.

Not receiving help—not expecting to either—she hauled up the chassis on a crate while shooing the doddering pit droids. When the path was clear, the hatch had already been opened—thanks to those little ones—to screw in the part before the big race. The speakers crackled and echoed across the entire garage, reminding us that the participants have less than thirty minutes before the racers are required to bring their rides on the starting block.

“Irele,” Pelug called in Basic, but immediately went back to speaking Huttese. “You got tiny hands, hold this open for me while I close off the hydraulic seals.”

Irele obeyed. She had a few seconds of relaxing her fingers one seal after the other.

After the tech work, their contender—a male Togruta named Gelesh with uneven lekku—hopped onto his podracer. A few switches and clicks, the Brazen Bullet roared to life—lights flickered across the entire dashboard, the engines belched, and the turbines thrummed.

“Hey, if Sebulba fights dirty—”

“I’ll fight filthier!” he cuts Irele off laughing, but she let it pass. The exchange was somewhat tradition for both of them.

The speakers in the garage crackled again, startling many who are inside, and the croaky announcer prompted the racers to prepare at the starting block; in less than a second, a second translates everything to Huttese. The announcer was the two-headed sentient of species she still doesn’t know the name of.

Gelesh’s entourage—including Irele—strolled out of the garage and made for the exit. The Tatooine sunlight abruptly blazed its rays over their heads, luckily, they were wearing headgear. Gelesh was confident although the nervousness was somehow getting to him, the girl can sort of sense it—along with a few more emotions that she didn’t want to point out to make it worse for him.

“Hey, Gel?”

“Yeah, Irele?”

“Relax.”

That took a load off of his chest, his lips stretched to a friendly grin, he pulled himself together first and then his goggles next. To each racer, they followed the instructions as the two-headed sentient said so. All the technicians began scrambling back to their pit stop when the mufflers have fired up. Little Irele went further into their pit stop, crawling through spaces that only she can enter; she then scaled a spire with makeshift handholds she herself installed until she could reach a ledge on the spire that apparently supported one of the spectator boxes.

The seven-year-old was small enough to seat herself on such a narrow edge; from there, she has as good as a view of the spectators in the towers and stands. If the crowd was already rowdy before the racers lined up on the block, the noise got wilder and louder that perhaps one can hear it all the way to Mos Pelgo. Each podracer had their characteristic noise for each action: ignition, acceleration, compressor activation, and what have you—Irele can identify the Brazen Bullet and its every sound with her eyes closed.

“Alright, racers, rev up those engines because we start in five…”

A collective of podracers engine noises rung and rumbled the circuit. Three seconds in, their ignition sent dust clouds flying over the heads of the poor people in the bottom row of the stands. The people in the bleachers joined the countdown, and so did Irele as she kept her eye on the single podracer whose body plates are forged with bronzium.

“ONE!!”

One by one, the vehicles zipped past—their noises abrupt like the firing of a blaster, the mufflers thunderous as they pulled the accelerators—some of the audience members had the hems of their clothes flying to the direction of the podracers, nonetheless arousing their secondhand adrenaline.

Irele’s little heart went with Brazen Bullet speeding right in the lead, the bronzium finish of the vehicle were fleeting specks of light over her glossy, hazel eyes. She scaled the spire some more until she could sneak a peek on one of the watchers’ tablets to see who’s in the lead and dead last. For everytime Gelesh completed the lap, Irele could almost feel her heels floating, as if she was the one driving the pod and feeling the exact velocity, the thrill, the sheer focus—driving one was a dream, though her mother forbade her, begged her even not to try it, but said so with a softness that compels Irele to obey, despite her desires.

Everyone had their eyes on the rising star, Gelesh, who was also leaving Sebulba in the dust. Hot on his heels, the Dug desperately cranked every possible lever his hind legs could grab on—in the hopes of catching up to the Togruta. The Dug, unwilling to accept defeat after the destruction of his streak by the victory of that one human boy years ago.

That boy was Anakin Skywalker.

Irele had heard stories of him: how he defeated the Dug despite all odds, and snagged the top place in the race, and how he was an underdog in everyone’s eyes. She wondered if they might have been friends somehow, given their mutual penchant for podracing albeit preferring different aspects.

“This is it, people! This is the last lap of the circuit—Gelesh Odibra and Sebulba are practically neck-and-neck! Who will cross the finish line first!? They’re all so close now!! It’s Gelesh!! No, it’s Sebulba!!”

The sentient argues with its Huttese-speaking head, looping what the Basic-speaking head kept saying in a continuous effort in riling up the crowd. Irele was literally on the edge of the tier when the Brazen Bullet and Sebulba’s podracer were within view. A twin-trail of sand, clouding the tail-ends of the podracers approach the starting line—with the third light blinking green, eager for the victor to zoom through it.

It was all such a blur. The crowd cheered, nonetheless, believing that their eyes didn’t deceive them and that they saw their contender stay ahead of the other by a hair. Not long after, a scuffle was developing when two differing spectators argued on whose champion went through the finish line first. Irele spotted it across from where she sat, but she didn’t watch the scuffle for long; she turned her attention to the announcer’s tower.

“Wow, did you see how close that was! Everything was such a blur I’m not even sure if I saw it right!”

The second head agreed, speaking in Huttese, in the same enthusiasm as the Basic-speaking one.

To finally calm the crowd, and settle it once and for all, the sentient clicks a pattern of buttons on their control panel to project a snapshot of the two racers at the finish line—determining who was closest to the line. Showing images from all angles, it’s clear that the Brazen Bullet’s nose was basically under the sensors of the light—thus triggering all three lights to indicate that a racer has completed the circuit.

“I don’t believe it! This is Gelesh’s third win in the streak—cementing his record just right above Sebulba’s!”

By the hum of a gong echoing across the circuit, a large portion of the crowd jumped and roared in a united cheer—ribbons and petals of sorts flew in congratulation, showering the youthful Togruta in his victory. He hopped out of his podracer, his entourage comes sprinting out of their pit stop with Irele at the tail just getting down from her perch.

“GELESH, YOU DID IT!” squealed the girl, sprinting and shouldering her way to his view.

A host hands over a trophy to Gelesh who then let Irele—perched on his broad shoulder—hold the other side of the trophy. People have gotten out of their seats to surround the defending champion. They chanted his name, the rest of the spectators showered him with flowers, petals, and ribbons.

Every victory was wonderful for Irele. Perhaps, it equaled to the exact same thrill as driving her own podrace. This went on for two more years, and in those next years, they enjoyed the sport—win or lose.

–

24 BBY

It seemed that the garage manager was feeling gracious today. The Rodian boss let Irele go home earlier than her normal shift, in which the girl celebrated with a grin whose ends pierced her plump cheeks, a squeaking cheer as she scrambles to put away her things, and a sprint that sent the dust floating behind her heels.

Irele didn’t head home right away, she went the other direction—towards the junkshop where her mother worked, employed by the blue, pungent Toydarian, Watto. The chimes rang as she burst through the door, startling the creature—who hoped it was a customer, but much to his chagrin, it was only the girl, and so he returns to his chair with a groan.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Over there,” Watto lazily pointed and croaked with his native accent running thick in his voice.

“Mommy?”

Shmi paused at the workbench to meet her daughter, “Irele? You’re out early.”

Irele threw herself into Shmi’s arms, embracing her as tight as her scrawny arms can, “Yeah, Selek let me out early today. Good thing he did!”

Her mother simply smiled, perhaps too overwhelmed by her daughter’s energy.

“You didn’t forget, did you?”

That somehow jolted Shmi enough for her realize that she had caught herself spacing out. She shook her head and mouthed the word “no,” she saw the concerned expression in Irele’s face and took her daughter by the shoulders.

“No, darling, I didn’t forget,” she pursed a sweet smile and tapped the tip of Irele’s nose with her forefinger. “How could I forget my promise to you?”

Irele’s eyes lit up, the sihght of it delighted her mother. Shmi then finished up whatever work she’s been busying herself with before getting off of work. Mother and child strolled out of the junkshop, Irele trottd off happily while keeping her hand clasped in Shmi’s—who was walking in her normal pace, with a few occasional tugs from the child because of her prancing.

By the time they got home, Irele impatiently put her things away in her room, got washed, and eagerly waited for Shmi to join her in the kitchen. The promise was that they were going to cook something together—a house favorite of Irele: Shmi’s own, delicious recipe. They had saved enough from their wages separately, and in total, they had enough to buy ingredient for a hearty, full supper consisting of meat, a medley of mushrooms and vegetables, and fruits and pallies for dessert.

They could only do this once for their individual pay was rather low.

All of this is a celebration of Irele turning eight.

A simple celebration with fulfilling food on the table, with no one else but her mother and herself, in the coziness of their cottage—to Irele, it was wonderful. And perfect.

It was everything she could ever ask for.

–

Months after their promised celebration, Irele had been seeing a man with sandy brown hair and a scraggly stubble. Maybe once or twice, she saw him clean-shaven. She always saw him frequenting Watto’s shop, either to buy or play Sabacc—but oftentimes, the latter in which Watto had a questionable win record. One should not be surprised if the blue Toydarian won through his swindler’s methods.

This man was Cliegg Lars.

Apparently, Shmi had caught the eye of Cliegg, as he frequented the junkshop in search of parts mostly for speeders and other machines he uses. Despite being a child, Lars’s feelings did not escape the insightful Irele; in her opinion, he’d been coming over to the shop a little too often for someone who kept fixing speeders. Although, she cannot be certain if his motives are true; it’s still a lead nonetheless. Even she had drawn attention to herself from the man, shying away from his gruff yet friendly hello’s, and then curiously watching him deal with Watto whilst hiding behind walls.

It wasn’t long until Cliegg began to fall for Shmi, rooting from their day-to-day interactions with one another whenever he would stop by. He pretended that he doesn’t feel Irele tailing them, but he didn’t let that bother him—she’s a child after all, he thought.

Shmi presently being a mother with a daughter in tow didn’t trouble Cliegg. A man of ethics—a rare trait in this lawless ball of sand—he could not imagine buying off Shmi from Watto, but then leaving the child to the Toydarian. Fortunately for Lars, it was evident that Watto’s gambling—with a not-so-impressive track record to boot—had gradually collapsed his business. Little by little, Watto’s wares had either been disposed of or been sold to the lowest possible price in the hopes of keeping the business up. When there was nothing else to profit from, Watto would be forced to sell his remaining property—the mother and child slaves. Cliegg took it from there.

From a certain point of view, his proposition of buying Shmi and Irele intrigued the Toydarian.

“How much you gunna pay fo meh two slaves, eh?” rasped Watto, irreparably pronouncing “slaves” as slehvz in his thick, native Toydarian accent.

“I can pay you twenty thousand each,” Cliegg bobbed his head for the dramatics, pretending to be pensive. “I’ll pawn off my X-class landspeeder to pay them.”

A single holodisk produced a projection of the item in question. The speeder—brand new and in its prime, only seven months old—was an interesting wager in and of itself. The rusty-reddish paint job would stand out in the desert, whether up close or in the horizon, sunlight would bounce off on the sheen of the thrusters’ metallic sections. Truly a shiny new toy.

Cliegg could have sworn he heard the clinking of credits when Watto’s eyes lit up with greedy intrigue.

Good, that’s gotten his attention. Thought the man.

Watto hovered himself closer to the projection, his flimsy wings struggled to carry his weight as they flapped erratically, and rubbed his fleshy chin at the same time. To the flying sentient, it wasn’t a bad deal, at least for Lars’s expense in his mind—the ratio of the trade somewhat balances out: Lars wants two things from him, thus he wagers something in the same worth.

“You must think me a fool, Watto,” Cliegg noted the perhaps long silence of Watto examining the images. “To pay you the price of a single landspeeder for two slaves.”

The Toydarian chuckled, then gestured defensively, “No, no. I don’t that, Lars, meh friend. In fact, this is quite an int’resting investment.” His emphasis on the word “investment” made him enunciate the S into a harsh, buzzing Z.

Perhaps, it is in the nature of every Toydarian to call anything an investment—even a gamble on a card game. There aren’t many of Watto’s kind here in Tatooine, but that is the only impression Cliegg can pick up from Watto for his opinion on the species. Not having any of the suspense, the man tried to broke the deal until they can shake on it. Watto came so far as making an event out of it, but Lars insisted to refrain from the grandeur, to which his beneficiary gave in.

They finally shook on it. The two males were clueless that Irele had been eavesdropping on their exchange. It was a bad habit that Shmi had gently reprimanded her of, but just this once, she had never been invested in someone else’s conversation—only because the subject was their freedom at stake, and it was this stranger who dared to go through this length of settling an agreement with their current slaver. Irele’s mind was in a whirl—would he be a kinder slaver than Watto? More generous or more cruel? With their conversation going on what felt like hours, she had resorted to sitting on the floor, her back against the wall as she listened in on their voices.

The girl heard the door chimes followed by the silence, then she scrambled to her feet when she heard the flapping of Watto’s wings grow louder and disappeared as quietly as she could.

Two days later after that agreement had been set in stone, today’s the fateful day: Shmi finds out only now that she and Irele had been sold to Cliegg Lars. When Watto announced that he’s sold them together to this man, understandably, the woman was taken aback from her lack of prior knowledge, and she had every right to be surprised. Her daughter, on the other hand, feigned it—her false silence fit in with the mood of the room.

Shmi and Irele Skywalker watched the pouch of credits transfer from Cliegg’s hand to Watto’s, signifying that they now belong to Cliegg Lars.

“Take them,” Watto says, although somberly. He hovers in place as he watches Shmi and Irele join Cliegg out of the shop.

“I wish you good luck on your business, Watto,” Lars bade, however, it felt backhanded.

At the entrance of the junkshop awaited a pair of eopies—tall, quadrupedal animals that served as mounts for people and carriers of cargo—handled by a Jawa that Cliegg hired for a few hours.

“I’m sorry if I couldn’t give you two a more comfortable ride to your new home,” there was a sincerity in Lars’s voice, warm and genuine, something that Shmi nor Irele had not heard for a long time.

“It’s fine,” Shmi stuttered while trying to be polite. “I’m more used with the mount than speeders.”

“Ah, well, where you’re living—you’ll get used to it, but I’ll let you do it in your own pace.”

With a simple waving gesture from Cliegg, the Jawa hauled the animal pair then coaxed both to go down on their knees—level enough so the humans can hop on their backs. Each eopie grunted when they felt more weight on themselves; Shmi and Irele shared one saddle, Lars took the lead from town to their new home.

[ducktastic]

2020 Gameological Awards

Over on the Gameological Discord, we have an annual tradition of writing up our games of the year not as a ranked list but rather as answers to a series of prompts. Here are my personal choices for the year that was 2020.

Favorite Game of the Year

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into Paradise Killer. I knew that I liked the vaporwave resort aesthetic from the game’s trailer and figured I was in for a Danganronpa-style murder mystery visual novel with an open-ended murder mystery at its core. Those assumptions were… half-right? The game definitely plays out like the exploration bits of Danganronpa set on the island from Myst but with far simpler puzzles. What I didn’t expect was to fall so deeply in love with the environment—its nooks and crannies, its millennia of lore, its brutalist overlap of idol worship, consumerism, and mass slaughter. It makes sense that the world of Paradise Killer is its strongest feature, since the cast of NPCs don’t really move around, leaving you alone with the world for the overwhelming majority of your experience as you bounce back and forth between digging around for clues and interrogating potential witnesses. And despite what the promo materials indicated, there IS a definitive solution to the crimes you’re brought in to investigate, the game just lets you make judgment based on whatever evidence you have at the time you’re ready to call it a day, so if you’re missing crucial evidence you might just make a compelling enough case for the wrong person and condemn them to eternal nonexistence. Am I happy with the truth at the end of the day? No, and neither is anybody else I’ve spoken to who completed the game, but we all were also completely enthralled the entire time and our dissatisfaction has less to do with the game and more to do with the ugly reality of humanity. I’ve always been of the mindset that “spoilers” are absolute garbage and that a story should be just as good whether you know the twist or not and any story that relies on surprising the audience with an unexpected reveal is not actually that good a story, but Paradise Killer is a game about piecing together your own version of events so I feel that it’s vital to the gameplay experience that people go in knowing as little as possible and gush all about it afterwards. Just trust me, if the game looks even remotely intriguing to you, go for it. I’ve had just as much fun talking about the game after I finished it with friends just getting started as I did actually solving its mysteries myself.

Best Single Player Game

I honestly missed out on the buzz for In Other Waters at launch, so I’m happy I had friends online talking it up as Black Friday sales were coming along. The minimal aesthetic of his underwater exploration game allows the focus to shift more naturally to the game’s stellar writing as a lone scientist goes off in search of her mentor and the secrets they were hiding on an alien world. It only took a few hours for me to become completely absorbed in this narrative and keep pushing forward into increasingly dangerous waters. In Other Waters might just be the best sci-fi story I experienced all year and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi novels, regardless of their experience with video games.

Best Multiplayer Game

Look, we all know this year sucked. 2020 will absolutely be chronicled in history books as a fascinating and deeply depressing time in modern history where we all stayed inside by ourselves and missed our friends and family. It was lonely and it was bleak. Which is why it made my heart glow so much more warmly every time I got a letter from an honest-to-goodness real-life friend in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Knowing that they were playing the same game I was and hearing about their experiences and sending each other wacky hats or furniture, it lightened the days and made us feel that little bit more connected. Sure, when the game first launched we would actually take the time to visit one another’s islands, hang out, chat in real-time, and exchange gifts, but we all eventually got busy with Zoom calls, sourdough starters, and watching Birds of Prey twenty-two times. Still, sending letters was enough. It was and still is a touching little way to show that we’re here for one another, if not at the exact same time.

Favorite Ongoing Game

Zach Gage is one of my favorite game designers right now, and when I heard he was releasing a game called Good Sudoku I was sold sight unseen. The game as released was… fine. It’s sudoku and it’s pleasant, but it was also buggy and overheated my phone in a way I hadn’t seen since Ridiculous Fishing (also by Zach Gage) seven years ago. Thankfully, the most glaring bugs have been fixed and I can now enjoy popping in every day for some quick logic puzzle goodness. Daily ranked leaderboards keep me coming back again and again, the steady ramp of difficulty in the arcade and eternal modes means I can always chase the next dopamine rush of solving increasingly complex puzzles. It’s not a traditional “ongoing” game the way, say, Fortnite and Destiny are, but I’m happy to come back every day for sudoku goodness.

Didn't Click For Me

With Fortnite progressively losing me over the course of 2020, finalizing with my wholesale “never again” stance after Epic boss Tim Sweeney compared Fortnite demanding more money from Apple to the American Civil Rights movement (no, absolutely not), I dipped my toe into a number of new “battle pass”-style online arena types of games, and while Genshin Impact eventually got its hooks into me, Spellbreak absolutely did not. With graphics straight out of The Dragon Prince and the promise of a wide variety of magic combat skills to make your character your own, the game seemed awfully tempting, but my first few experiences were aimless and joyless, with no moment of clarity to make me understand why I should keep coming back. Maybe they’ll finesse the game some more in 2021, or a bunch of my friends will get hooked and lure me back, but for now I am a-okay deleting this waste of space on my Switch and PC.

"Oh Yeah, I Did Play That Didn't I?"

I remember being really excited for Murder By Numbers. Ace Attorney-style crime scene investigation visual novel with Picross puzzles for the evidence, art by the creators of Hatoful Boyfriend, and music by the composer of Ace Attorney itself?! Sounds like a dream come true. But the pixel-hunt nature of the crime scene investigations was more frustrating than fun, the picross puzzles were not particularly great, and the game came out literally a week before the entire world went into lockdown which makes it feel more like seven years ago than just earlier this year. I remember being marginally charmed by the game once it was in my hands, but as soon as my mind shifted to long-term self care, Murder By Numbers went from hot topic to cold case.

Most Unexpected Joy

I was looking forward to Fuser all year. As a dyed-in-the-wool DropMix stan, the prospect of a spiritual sequel to DropMix on all major digital platforms without any of the analogue components was tremendously exciting, and I knew I’d have a lot of fun making mixes by myself and posting them online for the world to hear. What I didn’t expect, however, was the online co-op mode to be such a blast! Up to four players take turns making 32 bars of mashups, starting with whatever the player before handed them and adding their own fingerprints on top. It sounds like it should just be a mess of cacophony, but every session I’ve played so far has been just the best dance party I’ve had all year, and everyone not currently in control of the decks (including an audience of spectators) can make special requests for what the DJ should spin and tap along with the beat to great super-sized emoji to show how much they’re enjoying the mix. Literally the only times my Apple Watch has ever warned me of my heightened heart rate have been the times I was positively bouncing in place rocking out to co-op freestyle play in Fuser.

Best Music

Only one video game this year had tunes that were so bumpable they were upgraded to my general “2020 jams” playlist alongside Jeff Rosenstock, Run the Jewels, and Phoebe Bridgers, and that game was Paradise Killer. 70% lo-fi chill beats to study/interrogate demons to, 20% gothic atmospheric bangers, 10% high-energy pop jazz, this soundtrack was just an absolute joy to swim around in both in and out of gameplay.

Favorite Game Encounter

It’s wild that in a landscape where games let me live out my wildest fantasies, the single moment that lit me up in a way that stood out to me more than any other was serving Neil the right drink in Coffee Talk. Over the course of the game, you serve a variety of hot drinks to humans, werewolves, vampires, orcs, and more, all while chatting with your customers and learning more about their lives and relationships. The most mysterious customer, though, is an alien life form who adopts the name Neil. They do not know what they want to drink and claim it doesn’t make a difference because they cannot taste it. Everybody else wants *something*. Neil is just ordering for the sake of fitting in and exploring the Earth experience. It’s only in the second playthrough that attentive baristas will figure out what to serve Neil, unlocking the “true” ending in the process. Seeing the typically stoic Neil actually emote when they tasted their special order drink? What an absolute treat that was.

Best Free DLC of the Year

It’s still only a couple of days old at the time I’m writing this, but Marvel’s Avengers just added Kate Bishop, aka Hawkeye, and THANK GOODNESS. Almost every character in the game at launch just smashed the endless waves of robot baddies with their fists and that looks exhausting and uncomfortable. Hawkeye (the game calls her Kate Bishop, but come on, she’s been Hawkeye in the comics for over 14 years, let’s show her some respect) uses A SWORD. FINALLY! Aside from that, I’m just having a blast shooting arrows all over the place. She and Ms Marvel are the most likable characters in the game so far, so I hope they keep adding more of the Young Avengers and Champions to the game, and if the recently announced slate of Marvel movies and tv shows are any indication (with America Chavez, Cassie Lang, and Riri Williams all coming soon to the MCU), that seems to be what Marvel is pushing for across all media

Most Accessible Game

Nintendo is, first and foremost, a toy company. They got their start in toys and cards long before video games was a thing, and they still do more tests to ensure their video game hardware is childproof than anybody else in the industry (remember how they made Switch cartridges “taste bad” so kids wouldn’t eat them?). This year, Nintendo got to rekindle some of their throwback, simplistic, toys-and-cards energy with Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, a Switch collection of timeless family-friendly games like Chess, Mancala, and Backgammon, along with “toy” versions of sports like baseball, boxing, and tennis for a virtual parlor room of pleasant time-wasters. The games were all presented with charming li’l explainers from anthropomorphic board game figurines, and the ability to play quick sessions of Spider Solitaire on the touch screen while I binged The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix made Clubhouse Games one of my most-played titles of the year. Plus, local play during socially-distant friend hangs was an excellent way to make us feel like we were much closer than we were physically allowed to be as friends knocked each other’s block off in the “toy boxing” version of Rock’em Sock’em Robots.

"Waiting for Game-dot"

I get that everyone loves Disco Elysium. I saw it on everyone’s year-end lists last year. I finally bought it with an Epic Games Store coupon this year. This year was a long enough slog of depressing post-apocalyptic drudgery, I didn’t want to explore a whole nother one in my leisure time. I’ll get to it… someday.

Game That Made Me Think

Holovista was an iPhone game I played over the course of two or three days based on the recommendation of some trusted colleagues on Twitter and oh my goodness was I glad that I played it. What starts as a chill vaporwave photography game steadily progresses into an exploration of psychological trauma, relationships with friends and family, and the baggage we carry with us from our pasts. In this exceptionally hard year, I badly needed this story about spending time alone with your personal demons and finding your way back to the people who love and support you. Just like with Journey and Gone Home, I walked away from Holovista feeling a rekindled appreciation for the people in my life.

[syilcawrites]

archived memories | 6

Series: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Type: Multi-Chapter Main pairing: Zelink (Zelda and Link) Rated: T Tags/Genre: pre-calamity, fluff (middle chapters mostly), hurt (toward the last chapters lmao), pining Summary: bits and pieces of zelink scenes strewn in between the canon memories in botw! Snippet from Ch 6: “’Oh fish pie, one day you will soon find your home inside my stomach,’ Zelda sighed out wistfully at her drawing, hugging it close to her face.” A/N: Between Memory 7-9  You can also read it on ao3! Click here to see all chapters on tumblr

Chapter 6: people watching

Zelda swung her legs as she sat snuggly inside a tree that faced Castletown, hiding from her citizens. She watched them roam about their day, unaware of her presence, as she observed them curiously. This had been a habit of hers since she was young, and it was a nice break in between praying and studying Sheikah technology.

She quickly shoved the last of her candied apples into her mouth and scrambled for her quill as a group of little kids appeared around the corner, running and scrambling and laughing.

It seems that the citizens of Castletown are quite close to one another, as many of the children that I have seen roaming about are doing so unsupervised. This is pleasantly surprising considering how many outsiders come in and out frequently, but I’m glad to see such safety present in our beloved, bustling town.

Zelda brought a leg up to her chest as she tried to keep the ruffle of her dress down in the process. She would’ve changed into her field attire if it wasn’t for the fact that she wasn’t supposed to leave the castle without some sort of escort in the first place.

She leaned against the trunk of the tree, watching them play tag for a little. She could already hear her father’s reprimanding tone regarding her boorish posture, but that was the beauty in hiding—she could do whatever she wanted to do, and she desperately needed this. She shook her head at the thought of her father, letting thoughts of him fall out in the process. The last thing she wanted to do was to mull over her relationship with him when she finally had some time to herself. With a sigh, she tapped the feather of her quill on her knee as she absentmindedly flipped through the pages of her notebook, mostly paying attention to the noisy, boisterous children.

The longer she watched them, the more uncomfortable she became—it was a sensation she was all too familiar with. Zelda scolded herself as she nipped away a bud of jealousy that had begun to form within her. She wanted to run around in the grass, laughing carefree and wholly. She thought she had dashed away such desires, but watching others do so seemed to resurface those bygone dreams.

As they rounded another corner, disappearing from view, her attention drifted to a bakery a bit further down the road. Zelda brought her ink bottle up and dabbed the tip of the quill into it before going back to her notebook.

The bakery near the east gate always has delicious bread and pastries available—I’ve always wanted to try some, but I would have to disguise myself. I’m not sure if I will have time…

She looked up thoughtfully, watching the leaves sway in the wind, as she tried to scourge up some plans to sneak into Castletown on her own. The last time Zelda tried venturing in, she had taken escorts, and the experience resembled the taste of watered down fruit juice. The escorts took every single thing she tried to eat out of her hands and tasted it themselves first before letting her have a bite out of it. Eating a meal that was already bitten out of wasn’t quite the same and made the experience quite… unenjoyable to say the least.

Zelda sniffed the air—fresh bread. Her stomach growled as she rapidly wrote down her thoughts.

The owner must wake up before the sun even rises to prepare his dough for it to look as scrumptious as it usually does! I cannot wait to see what types of pastries he’s made this week. Two months ago, the last time I was able to take a breath outside of the castle on my own, he had a set of specific assortments. Maybe now, he’ll spruce up the variety that he offers. Will he have more pastries this time around? Does he work alone? It must take hours preparing as much delicacies as he does.

Zelda tapped her notebook carefully as her thoughts drifted to Link. He would eat almost anything, and he probably had already tried every single meal that Castletown had to offer at this point.

She perked up when she saw the bakery owner walk out with a steel plate full of various pastries and breads—from fish pie to plain wheat bread—and all of it looked as delicious as one would expect. She chewed at her bottom lip as she quickly sketched the tray of goods in his hands. Luckily for her, he was setting it down outside on a table to organize it.

Zelda’s eyebrows knitted together in concentration, her hands trying to get down the perfect line and stroke. If she had the Sheikah Slate with her, she could’ve taken a picture, but Impa had asked for it before Zelda decided to go on her rendezvous.

Regardless, her drawings outside of Sheikah technology never ended up the way she wanted them to. She found sketching ancient ruins and tech much more linear and… ironically, more simplified compared to sketching the daily wonders of life itself, which always seemed to prove difficult for her.

“Oh fish pie, one day you will soon find your home inside my stomach,” Zelda sighed out wistfully at her drawing, hugging it close to her face.

She lowered her notebook to see if anything else particularly stuck out, but instead found herself face to face with bright blue eyes. She squealed in surprise and scrambled in her spot, almost falling off the tree. Link released one of his hands that grasped the tree branch hanging above her to catch her by her shoulder before she could fall off.

“Link, you almost scared the Goddess out of me!” Zelda hissed as she composed herself, going back to her snug spot nestled in the tree. She looked him up and down, raising an eyebrow. “When did you even—how did you even get up there?” she asked, her heart still racing in her chest. He looked a little funny just hanging around in front of her, but she was also concerned that the branch would snap off if he hung there any longer.

“I climbed,” he stated simply. He began swinging to a branch on her left, and she lightly hit his shoulder when he swung by.

“Don’t make too much noise or they’ll hear us!” She hissed again. He landed quietly on it, crouching. The branch was thicker and closer to the trunk, easily supporting his weight.

He cupped his hands over his mouth. “What are you doing up here?” He half whispered back, but it was still much louder than she would’ve liked.

She brought a stiff finger to her lips, darting her eyes over to the citizens, but they continued to obliviously go about their day.

“I’m simply…” Zelda waved her hand toward the people. “Observing my people. Sometimes I like to people watch.” She whispered, shrugging. She had been doing this since she was a young girl. Although she certainly stopped coming here as frequently as before, sometimes it was nice to just… watch others go about their day. To be an invisible spectator. It was something that she hadn’t experienced much in her own day to day life, where everyone was constantly watching her every move.

And she was still feeling a bit glum about being unable to accompany Link back to Hateno, so she sought refuge away from everyone else in order to feel sorry for herself in solitude. After her father had found out she was planning to visit Hateno with him, he had explained his disappointment in her for even considering such a thing.

“There are enough rumors about you already, do you plan to add more by accompanying your knight attendant, alone, to his hometown?” He had told her, shaking his head.

Zelda was confused, because they had traveled alone together before, but any word to defend herself simply went in one ear and out the other whenever it came to communicating with her father. She wasn’t sure what was worse though—hearing him explain how unacceptable and foolish it was of her to consider such an activity or the fact that Link remained quiet for the remainder of the week afterwards.

He didn’t tell her when he left for Hateno, and she saw him ride away across the grassy plains early yesterday morning from her study tower. She was glad that he was able to visit his family without any setbacks, if anything.

“When did you get back?” Zelda asked him, still scribbling away at her notebook. She was almost done with the last batch of pastries, and the baker was beginning to bring them all back into the building to put them on display.

“Just now.”

She heard him shuffling around—he did have a satchel around him when she saw him. It was probably food, knowing him.

I’ve also feel inclined to mention that the baker seems to have two children, both quite young, but I have never seen the baker embrace another adult. Perhaps his significant other is ill, or—

Zelda stopped writing, letting the sentence drop off where it was. She used to create scores of stories for random citizens she saw, but for some reason, she found it to be rude the more she thought about it.

Link tapped her shoulder, and she withdrew herself from her notebook.

“I brought these for you,” he stated, shoving a couple of jars filled with a milky liquid color at her. His voice had a sound of excitement that she was surprised to hear.

“Oh—“ Zelda struggled to juggle holding her notebook, ink, quill, and the bottles all at once, but Link was too busy pulling the bag over his shoulder to notice.

“I’m not sure what colors you wanted so I just picked up a bunch of bright flowers and rocks…some monster parts too.” He flipped the flap open, and she saw various colorful materials neatly stacked and labeled. There were fleet-lotus seeds, nightshade flowers, rock salts; there were even some moblin guts in a jar.

“What’s all this for?” Zelda asked, blinking.

“You said you needed to dye some clothes right?” Link asked, tilting his head. He looked down at her lap and noticed all of the stuff piled on top. “Sorry, your hands are already full.” He frowned and reached over for the jars, stuffing them back into the satchel.

“Oh Link,” Zelda laughed lightly, her heart felt full against her chest. “You didn’t have to go out of your way to get all of this.”

“You sew a lot, and Hateno’s dyes are really good.” Link pulled something out of the pocket inside of the satchel—a piece of paper. “The owner of the dye shop told me a list of materials that make really strong colors, in case you’re interested. Just let me know if you want anything and I can get it.”

Zelda’s tongue caught in her throat and she didn’t know what to say. For some reason, it felt overwhelming and her cheeks hurt from smiling.

“That’s awfully sweet of you,” Zelda said, accepting the piece of paper. “Did you draw this?” She held up the list, waving it a little.

Link hummed, nodding his head.

Her smile widened as she rifled through the list—the drawings were simple and crudely colored, but they were carefully considered.

“Thank you Link.” She hugged the paper to her chest. “I’ll keep this close to my heart.” Zelda hummed happily as she shifted through the objects that Link still held out to her, his arms stiff. She looked up quizzically when she didn’t hear a response from him, and froze. He was staring at her, his cheeks tinted a warm red—and now she was blushing because he was. She looked back down at her journal.

“Anyway, h-how did you even know I was up here?” Zelda said, her hands fumbling as she tried to be quick, but careful not to crumple the papers, as she shoved the list into her notebook. “I know that no one can see me from town.” She was too far from the castle for anyone to see her with the naked eye.

He let out a quick exhale, as if he was relieved she had changed the topic. “I asked Impa,” he jabbed his thumb behind him, back toward the castle. “Apparently she’s been watching you with the Sheikah Slate since you left.”

Zelda raised her head, peering past Link’s shoulder. “And to think I could avoid the gaze of the castle,” she mumbled. If she was alone, she would’ve stuck out her tongue and hoped Impa would’ve caught it. She was constantly watching out for her. Sometimes Zelda wondered if she ever slept. She was hoping at least one of her hiding spots would remain safe, but apparently that was too much to ask for. Feeling exposed, Zelda let out a small, frustrated sigh.

“Shall we head back then?” she asked stiffly, already moving herself from her position. She hoped that the various flora and shrubs would block her from anyone’s sight. Link looked at her curiously, but began to climb down as well.

“Is something bothering you?” Link asked as Zelda patted down her skirt, making sure it was free of dirt.

“I’ve been up there before the sun rose up, so I’m just feeling a little winded down.” Zelda tried to keep her voice light, but she knew it came out strained instead. She flipped through her notebook quickly, ensuring that everything was still in its place.

“Nothing else is wrong?” Link pressed again.

“What isn’t wrong?” Zelda huffed out, shutting it with both of her hands a bit more forcefully than she intended. She stood there for a moment before letting out another small sigh. “I apologize. I’m not angry… just frustrated." She stared up blankly at the castle. "I simply want to unlock my sealing powers,” she admitted tiredly.

She turned to face him when she felt his hand press against the top of her head. He drew his hand back with a small cherry blossom flower in between his fingers. He twirled it a little by the stem, looking at it thoughtfully.

“Just know that you’re not alone,” he said quietly. Zelda smiled at him, but it did not linger for long. Even though she knew he meant it, it couldn’t erase the sense of loneliness that was ever-present in her life. She followed his movements as he looked up to the sky, raising his hand, about to release the little flower into the wind.

“Wait—“ Zelda held out her hand, staring longingly at the flower pinched between his fingers. “May I?”

He placed it in her palm, and Zelda watched the petals flutter lightly against the gentle breeze. She softened at the sight of it and glanced at Link.

“It’s just for research.” She declared swiftly, when she saw him eyeing her with an unreadable expression.

“Using a cherry blossom?” Link asked. The corners of his mouth twitched, as if he was trying to keep a laugh at bay.

“Yes!” Zelda insisted, drawing her hand back to her chest. “Just for research,” she quietly said. She glanced down to make sure the little flower was still safely in her palm before she turned around so he couldn’t see what she was doing. She tucked the flower into an empty page, pressing her notebook shut firmly and tightly to ensure that it wouldn’t slip out.

She told herself that she always pressed flowers and all sorts of vegetation for documentation. This wasn’t any different.

“On a more important note,” she started, mostly to remind herself, “I want to get the Sheikah Slate back from Impa. I still have a multitude of tests to run through with it, and there’s a shrine that I want to visit with Robbie and Purah before we head to the Spring of Courage.” It was going to be one of the last shrines she would be able to visit in months, and she wanted to get the most out of it before then.

Zelda raised an eyebrow when she noticed his eyes flit to the left, which was a habit of his when he was thinking.

“Thinking about something?” she inquired curiously.

He parted his lips slightly, but just as quick they sealed back together and he shook his head. Zelda narrowed her eyes.

“Come on, tell me?” she asked, poking his chest. “You can’t just not tell me after looking so thoughtful!”

He smiled at her—but it was a smile filled with mischief.

[dreams-of-kalopsia]

Fictober Prompt 21

“Change is annoyingly difficult.”

Voltron fanfiction (Plance)

No warnings apply.

Read it on AO3.

____

Part 1 (Pidge): Timing

Part 2 (Lance): Intuition

Part 3 (Colleen): Grounded

Part 4 (Hunk): Change

Hunk senses something wrong the moment he lays eyes on his best friend. Lance is sitting alone at their usual table, elbow propped and sulking face resting heavily on his fist. His other hand pokes at his food with a spork.

“Stop that,” Hunk scolds as he takes the seat across, carefully placing his lasagna-laden tray on the table.

Lance stops. But only to give him a sullen glance.

He shakes his head in annoyance. That’s when he sees the half-finished tray of food beside his friend’s. Everything clicks in his mind.

Pidge was called away again.

“Who was it this time?” he asks without preamble.

Lance’s answer is a grumbled “MFE pilots.”

“Aww man, again?” Hunk groans. “We don’t see Pidge her first week of being grounded. She gets a little leeway, and Sam, Matt, and Slav drag her around with them for days. They finish whatever they were doing, and the MFE Division takes her away—with me, because apparently they’re big fans of Voltron’s tech team, but that’s beside the point—and now the MFE pilots want something from her again?” He throws his hands up. “What about us? We haven’t hung out for weeks!” He then points at Pidge’s tray. “Pidge didn’t even enjoy her food long enough to realize I made it, in celebration of our supposed hang out day!”

Another grumble. The weak reaction aggravates Hunk, and he crosses his arms.

“You didn’t notice either, did you.” A statement because his friend clearly hasn’t. “I’ll assume it’s due to Pidge bailing out on us and not my culinary skills.”

No response other than louder stabby noises and a sulkier Lance.

“Ugh. I miss her!” he gripes. “Don’t you?”

A flash of regret crosses Lance’s face.

It’s a stark contrast to the confused, embarrassed blushes he’s had for the past two months or so. Hunk can’t remember exactly when he began seeing the expression, but he’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen it on his friend until around three weeks ago. At first, he thought it was because Allura’s been spending most of her time with Romelle and Coran in the hospital wing, waiting for the Altean pilot of that Komar-robeast to regain consciousness. He didn’t even connect anything when news of scary Mrs. Holt grounding the Green Paladin of Voltron first reached their ears. But after repeatedly watching Lance make that expression at every mention of Pidge, Hunk is now sure that it’s a Pidge issue his best friend is having.

And he thinks he has enough facts to put together to figure out what’s been happening with his friends.

Fact number one: Pidge likes Lance. She told Hunk herself.

Fact number two: She used Hunk’s cheesy, thoughtless pick-up line—a fact that will forever crack him up—on his best friend. Lance told him himself.

Fact number three: Lance also said that he’d tried asking Pidge about what she meant but ended up taking her to Varadero for sunset watching instead. How he managed to turn an impending serious talk into a day trip, Hunk will never know.

Fact number four: Pidge was grounded the day after and disappeared for a week.

Fact number five: She’s been spending less time with Hunk and Lance since her reappearance. Okay, no. For the benefit of the doubt, Hunk will allow that she’s become so busy she barely has time to hang out. That still implicates her because she doesn’t make time for them. She’s not the only busy Paladin on Earth, after all; if he and Lance can do it, she should’ve been able to do it, too. So the benefit of the doubt doesn’t work for her… well, benefit.

Sooo something happened in Varadero convincing Pidge that Lance rejected her, hence why she’s limiting her interactions with him without making it obvious that she is—which, contrary to what she believes, she’s being totally obvious about.

“I wasn’t rejected, Hunk. I just decided to give up on him,” Pidge said around a mouthful of peanut butter cookies he’d given as secret bribe, during one of their breaks from upgrading the MFE units last week.

Give up? On Lance? As if.

As if Hunk doesn’t catch the longing glances she’d send their friend when she thinks everyone’s too distracted to notice. As if she doesn’t stare after Lance with a regretful expression on her face the exact same way he sees Lance do.

Yeah.

He chomps grumpily on a heaping spork of lasagna.

As if.

Hunk hates that he’s the only one who notices stuff like this. He hates it. But what he hates more is his inability to leave ostensibly well enough alone once his gut tells him that something’s off. And what he hates most is his perceived, reluctant duty to be the voice of reason that points everything out to everyone else. Because that’s how he ends up standing right in the middle of things whether he likes it or not, how he unwittingly advertises himself as mediator when things turn out to be a full-blown conflict.

It’s exhausting sometimes. Getting to say ‘I told you so!’ loses its vindicating satisfaction when one gets to do it all the time. Still, bringing up an issue so the people involved can address and resolve it is an awkward task he’d willingly undertake if it means they’d all get along again.

But that’s the problem with the current thing he’s embroiled in. There’s no issue. No conflict, no falling-out, no friendship broken. Just Pidge dealing with rejection in the maturest manner Hunk has seen from her and Lance acting like he’s lost her even though she never left in the first place.

It’s like watching two people dance expertly around each other. Except one twirls in pirouettes of classical ballet, the other breaks it down with hip hop moves, and neither of them is aware of dancing at all. As a frustrated spectator on the sidelines, Hunk is honestly starting to worry that his motion sickness will return one of these days.

A resounding stabbing sound causes him to jerk his head up towards the source. He finds Lance staring out onto the hallway beyond the mess hall’s window, fingers frozen and tines of his spork impaling a slice of lasagna rather morbidly. Following his friend’s gaze leads Hunk’s eyes to Pidge, who’s talking animatedly with Nadia and James.

Oh boy. Great timing, Pidge.

She meets their gazes and sends them a genuine, apologetic look, but she doesn’t spare them a minute to give an actual apology. In three seconds, she’s walked past the windows, disappearing on them again. She makes it look so easy.

“Gotta admit, that one hurts a bit,” Hunk says with a wry smile. His best friend releases a miserable sigh at the same time. He turns back to Lance in surprise. “Chill, dude! It’s just one missed hang out day. No need to be that dejected.”

The stabby noises resume with increased force. He resumes eating his food.

“Look, you’re being dramatic. It’s not as bad as that time Eliza Moreno rejected you—no, no,” he corrects himself, “You didn’t really like her; you just liked flustering her. Okay, so not as bad as when Noelle Page dumped—”

“I dumped her.” Whoa, a response, albeit grumpy.

“Yeah?” Memories of that messy one-sided breakup resurface in his mind. “Yeah, right!” He slaps his forehead. “How could I forget! Remember how she waited crying outside our bunk room until you talked to her? Even our COs couldn’t take her away.”

Lance’s sulky frown deepens. “I don’t think anyone could forget.”

“So not as bad as when Mila Chen—”

“She was over me by the time I became fighter class.”

“Oh. What about when Sophie Carson—”

“Turned out to like Madison Boyer?”

“…That didn’t bother you? You were courting her for some time, right?”

“To help make Maddie jealous and confess to her.”

“Ooh. An ally, I see.” Hunk raises his cup to his friend, impressed by this inside info.

Lance just scoffs.

“Okay, wait. I’m sure about this: Jenny Shaybon. The only Jenny who ever mattered to you. You had a really good thing going on for over a year before she left the Garrison to chase her dreams.”

“We parted as friends.”

“You did?” Hunk pouts, then sighs. “So I guess it’s not as bad as when Allura and Lo—” Lance strikes the table with his palms.

“Why are you going through my romantic history, Hunk?” he demands, still miserable but now also fed up. “Just tell me what your point is.”

“My point is that you don’t have to feel as bad about a missed get-together as a failed relationship.”

Though Hunk’s tone is placating throughout his explanation, his best friend shoots him an affronted look. “First of all, my relationship with Allura hasn’t failed; it’s actually just about to start. Secondly, I don’t feel as bad about this as you think.”

“So stop looking like you do.” The words seem to strike Lance like a direct, physical hit, and Hunk has this acute feeling that he just said the wrong thing at the worst possible time.

But why?

Before Hunk can begin to figure out what he said wrong, Lance gathers his and Pidge’s trays and quietly stands up.

“Uhh, where are you going?”

“I’m heading back to my room. Sorry, Hunk. Let’s hang out another day.” Lance walks out of the mess hall without another word, head bowed and shoulders slumped.

“…Wow. Left behind twice today,” Hunk grouses once he’s alone. “Leave me a third time, why don’t you. I feel the love.” He chews angrily while preparing for another bite. “What was that for, anyway? I just pointed out what I see.”

Why’s Lance so touchy when it comes to Pidge? She may (pretend to) have given up on her feelings for him, but it’s not like she’ll ever give up on their friendship. Besides, it’s not like he knows about how she feels. Oblivious when it matters, that guy. And yet he acts all broody as if he’s the one who got—

A sudden idea skews Hunk’s perspective and with it his spork of lasagna. The chunk falls with a small splat on the table. The metallic clatter of spork hitting food tray follows soon after.

The way Lance acts whenever Pidge is mentioned…

It’s as if he’s the one who got rejected.

“Hoooly crow,” Hunk mutters to himself, palms finding their way to his temples. “What?!”

He knows not when the change in his friend happened, only that it did. He also knows that it complicates everything. It adds unannounced contraflow lanes to a one-way expressway. It flips the script on itself after getting flipped once already. It turns a straight line into a triangle.

And this change…

“…is annoyingly

difficult

.”

____

Thanks for reading! Names of Lance’s non-canon exes credited to @artemisarya. You’ve been a huge help! ^u^

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

J.B.B (14)

Bucky x fem!Reader

Series: Will contain fluff, smut, bloodshed, violence, anxiety, tears and the cries of my wilted soul. Yes, the usual. With a dash of the not so liked canon that I wanted to set on fire and drop into a 2000 ft deep valley.

Chapter content: The Endgame stuff and more.

Warnings: Pain. duh!

Word count:  don’t really know where the resolve to write it came from but I just went with it. And...let’s see how it comes out to be.

MASTERLIST & Taglist in bio, my love

The pressure of water was smooth over the fingers that were moving in a dreamy trance under the flat flow, not with the intention of being cleansed, but with the purpose of finding some part in the grooves and edges that might be hiding something- anything- that once was and now had turned to ashes. The knuckles were bloodied red, feeling the coldness ten times more than what it was supposed to be. The otherwise spotlessly clean sink was now marred with whatever dirt these numb hands had brought in from the grounds outside.

There was a ruffle outside the door. Someone walking outside; probably keeping an eye out. For you.

What do they think, I'm gonna kill myself?

And suddenly that thought swirled inside your head like a jerk of absinthe hitting in late- poisonous but enticing.

The sudden tremble of the huge mirror in front of you made you fear that the walls heard your thoughts, shaking back at you for thinking such a thing. It was only a few seconds later when the mirrors did not stop vibrating that you realised it had nothing to do with you but something to do with whatever happening in the grounds outside.

You opened the door and found the way to the eerily empty hall that had been bustling with grim faces and forces beyond your comprehension.

Where did everyone go?

It was cold. Too cold. You really could not figure out whether the shaking of your insides was because of the lack of heat or the aftershock. Nonetheless, it was not helping. At all. Your chest was aching on having felt the squeezing reality the entire day. Your gut was not helping either. The placebo of feeling something ready to gush out of you from between your legs any moment did not help either.

What could possibly be worse than this happening to you?

The furore at the door caught your ears, making your head turn in that direction to watch Miss Potts help a man reduced to bones and skin inside and on a chair, Steve, Rhodey, Natasha, Dr Banner following them. And that mysterious woman who glowed- coming out of nowhere before flying away to get...oh God.

That was bones and skin was Tony Stark.

.

Nebula stood by the doors, watching the woman with a kind face take care of a now unconscious Tony. That must be Pepper. She was just like how Tony described her. And the man taking off Tony's glasses must be Rhodey.

Family , she heard her mind echo Tony's words.

"They're my family. Do you have a family, Smurfette?"

"What's a Smurfette?"

"A blue Princess. That's what I'm gonna call you if you don't tell me your name."

"I'm not a Princess!"

"Okay! No need to hiss. I'm Tony. I've given you my name. Now..."

"..."

"Now you can tell me yours. Otherwise, I'll be calling you all things blue so-"

"I have a sister. I...had a sister. She had a family."

"...okay. Okay. I...I don't know if my family is...well, I can only hope."

"Do they fight you till death?"

"Wh-I'm sorry?"

"Your family. Do they have deathmatches with you? Do they spar with you?"

"...we clearly have different definitions of family. And no. We don't spar. We give each other hugs and kisses and lectures when one of us is being too stubborn of an asshole about saving the world and not listening to the other about taking a few days off to a self-care spa or something."

“...”

“What.”

"Gross."

"Yeah, well, your dad didn't take you to Disneyland during grade week so easy with that judgy vibe, okay? All right then. Come on, let's fix that engine, shall we? And try going easy with the welding equipment this time. Keep it away from your eyes. I could only do so much for that...that broken metal thing on your face."

"..."

"...you comin'?"

"Nebula."

"...I'm sure the engine model doesn't matter-"

"That's my name."

"Oh. Oh! Nebula. That's a beautiful name, Nebula."

"Let's just fix that damn engine."

Family.

She had already decided whom she was supposed to look after. The rest of the crowd had her neutrality- considering they were already used to Rocket and his noisy mouth. The only one left to observe was the red-eyed woman- barely- standing by the corner next to the kitchen space. Pepper had called her Y/N and thanked her for getting a glass of water for Tony when the latter had toppled down after heated words with Steve. That woman stood there, her arms wrapped around her- the thin sweater barely doing anything to stop the cold from taking over that visibly shaking body. Those puffed up eyes told Nebula she had not been taken by sleep. Her guess was she hadn't slept for the past twenty-three days. Twenty-three days since the snap. She seemed lost here. Not knowing what to do before hesitatingly walking towards where Pepper and a now sedated Tony were, making the assassin stand straight walk towards that human with her hand ready on the dagger sleeping in her belt.

"Is there anything I can bring you, Miss Potts?"

Nebula stopped right behind the woman, the words of the woman making her pause the movement of her hands from getting the dagger halfway out. The voice that just came out was laden with lack of sleep and quite probably a repeatedly choked throat.

"I'm fine," Pepper replied softly with a smile that reached her eyes, creating this weird sensation in Nebula's chest, "thank you, Y/N."

The dagger went back to its sleeping den.

.

"Steve, please."

"Y/N-"

"Please! Don't!"

"I have to do it."

"Why?!"

The pitch of your own voice startled you as well as Steve. This was the first time you were really talking to him- even though it was more of an argument than a chat.

"Because this is the only thing that could work, Y/N!"

"Going to the one thing that wiped away people we cared about is in no way a sane option, Rogers."

"I never said it was sane," Steve stated, crossing his arms.

"Steve! Are you listening to yourself!" Your lungs ached at the amount of effort they were putting in just to lay your point across. "You are needed here. You are the only ones left to defend the planet and-"

"I lost half the people I was supposed to defend, Y/N," Steve shouted back, taking you a little by surprise, "and I am not going to sit here wallowing in the loss when I can take on that son of a bitch. You lost something too-"

"Don't," you growled through your gritted teeth, your eyes on the edge of giving way to the floodgates. "Don't you dare!"

"I cannot not do something about it, Y/N."

"Oh, my G-don't you understand! I cannot lose you as well, Steven!" you shouted, the tears breaking both your voice and your spirit, the words coming out hoarse and broken with every passing second, "I have already lost him and now I cannot you lose you. I cannot lose Nat! I can't!! I can't! I don't have the strength to watch you disappear just like him."

He was nothing but a blur in front of you. Your breaths stuck in your throat, no voice escaping it while you held on to his arms.

"I have to go, Y/N," Steve whispered as he moved his hands away from his arms, wiping away the tears from your cheeks, "I need to do everything in my power to bring them back. I need to bring Bucky back."

You winced at his name, your insides on fire at the memories flushing back in.

"I promise I'll bring h-"

"No."

You were already turning away, inching away from him, letting your back face his startled face. "Don't do that to me."

"Y/N-"

"Go away," you declared loud and clear for the rest of the spectators before walking away, never looking back.

.

Two Years Later

"Yes. Yes, Panther. I heard you the first time."

Kline poured the milk in the black bowl, not getting enough time to keep the bowl on the floor for Panther was already up on the slab, drinking the liquid as fast as he could.

"Slow, Panther," Kline stressed, teasingly moving the cat's face away from the bowl, "you'll be sleeping outside if you puke in my hall."

Panther yowled before cutting a look outside the window with a steady glare, forcing Kline to look in the direction the cat was looking. And see something he did. A figure clad in a black overcoat looking at the dilapidated building in front of his apartment.

A tiny gasp left his lungs.

It was a small possibility. But it was a possibility nonetheless.

Within no time he was grabbing his walking stick and coat, covering himself decently before clicking open his front door to let the nascent October chill inside the welcome area. He could already see his breathe- which was getting a bit shallow as his heartbeat picked up the pace- when he looked at the odd familiarity of the person's back- who was already turning around to greet him with a smile.

"Y/N," he found himself saying in a relieved breath.

Your eyes had the same kindness in them, your hair longer than he'd last seen you, your face a little different than he'd last seen you. But that smile. That smile did not change.

"Hi, Kline."

The cups clattered, forcing you to get up and take them from Kline's hands before you drew his chair for him.

The dining hall was just as you'd last seen it. Same seats. Same chandelier. Same photographs of the couple. Nothing had changed.

Except for everything.

"Oh." Your voice brought Kline into the room as he saw you facing his roommate, "I see Panther found his way in here finally."

Kline chuckled. "Yes, he did. This stubborn bastard just won't leave me alone so thought oh what the hell."

"You hearin' that Panther?" you said to the black cat sniffing you whole. "And this is coming from the man who didn't like cats that much."

Panther let you scratch his head, closing his eyes and enjoying the much-needed massage that Kline barely let him have.

A few moments passed in comfortable silence before you finally spoke.

"How're you doing, Kline?"

He gave you a weak smile, letting the dullness in his eyes speak for him. "I'm going about. It's...uhh...it's been hard since Michael...since he..."

"Vanished," you helped him, earning a nod.

"There was a bit of chaos. Panther was scared since Sakura and...the other one didn't...survive. So, I took him in. How...how have you been?"

You took in a lungful before smiling. "I'm fine. I've been doing okay for a while now. You know, one day at a time."

"Oh," Kline nodded, "okay. Th-that's great."

"Yup."

"And how's...how's he?"

You took in another lungful, this time your resting fingers rising up and away from the table. "He is not here. He didn't-" you clear your throat, leaving a whisper to do the rest of the work, "he didn't make it."

This time the silence is a little heavy, carrying in the air the unspoken burdens of the past lying a little too heavy on the hearts.

"I'm sorry, Y/N." Kline's words broke the unspoken barriers, "I am sorry for what I did that day. I am so sorry for leaving you like that. I didn't realise what I was putting you through at that point. I was blinded by fear. I should have listened to you. I should have done some-"

"Kline. It's fine. It doesn't matter now."

"It does," he stressed, the moisture in his eyes increasing, "It does because I lost you. I lost Michael and I feel like I am being punished for what I did to you. I lost the one thing most precious to me when I did not help you save yours."

The ripple in your chest was small yet noticeable. Breathe, your mind echoed, just like you had clocked it to. And so you took his hand in yours.

"This wasn't a punishment. This was the work of insanity. We, unfortunately, were the lucky ones to have survived to be hurt every day. Over and over again."

.

You parked the car in front of the guesthouse and turned off the lights quickly so as not to disturb your hosts.

It's your house , your mind repeated his words.

Right , you stressed to yourself, my house.

You barely stepped out of the car when you can heard a squeaky little voice call out 'Dee-Dee' from the main house.

That was your cue.

"You're late, young lady."

"Yes, sorr-hey!"

"Dee-Dee!" the squeaky little voice came out of the living room in the form of a two-year-old in PJs trying to run the funny run of the kid who has just learned how to use their legs. The little one wrapped itself around your leg in a hug, phasing from the 'dee-dee' to 'daa-daa'.

"Hi, Magoona!" you greeted the cutest Stark in the house, picking her up in your arms and melting just as she opened hers to wrap around your neck in a hug.

"Daa-daa home!"

"Woah, hey," Tony called out from the kitchen before walking into the space with a washcloth on his shoulder, "I'm the daa-daa here. Give her another name or you don't get any juice-pop tonight."

Morgan rests her head on your shoulder, looking at Tony from the corner of her eyes before softly poking your chest with her finger and declaring you 'daa-daa', testing the waters.

"I was stuck in traffic," you answered Tony's question to save Tony's ego from being bruised, hoping he did not hear Morgan over your voice. Also hoping that you were not interrupting Stark family time even though it was the weekend family dinner where, as Tony put it, 'you have to be present or I cut off all your perks .'

"Your flight landed four hours ago. So, that traffic better be something," Tony declared before turning towards the kitchen, "and I heard that Magoona! No juice-pop for you."

"Noooooo! Daddy!"

You let the wriggling kid down for her to run towards Tony, who first elected to ignore her before picking her up and throwing her in the air to catch her and hug her tight, planting a kiss on her cheek.

You stood in the living room, smiling at the scene unfolding in front of you, your eyes a bit dewy at the love and warmth always present in this house.

You, a spectator, standing there watching the father and daughter giggle and laugh at their inside joked before Pepper called them for dinner at the table and they went in, out of your sight, leaving you to feel the emptiness that would resurface at the most inordinate time.

This. This was home. This was complete. A family.

What were you?

The feeling of your coat being moved off your shoulders broke you of your trance to turn and watch Tony taking it away to hang it up while Pepper stood by the doorway, waiting for you.

"You okay?" Tony asked, his soft eyes not giving away anything he didn't want to give away.

You nodded.

"Come on, Y/N," Pepper softly called out for you with a soothing smile, "dinner's waiting."

You breathed. Eased your chest.

Home.

Taking one step towards Pepper, you had a realisation breaking over your face.

"I just realised I forgot to get the things Morgan had asked me to get from my little trip."

"Oh," Tony exclaimed, walking towards the table with you, "what did she ask for?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just the plane I flew in."

"Huh," Tony acknowledged out loud, "that should be easy to arrange."

You turned to a very done Pepper. "I really can't joke with him, can I? ‘Cause I honestly don’t know if he’ll buy the airline tomorrow."

She shook her head and sat down, already raising her hands in defeat.

Morgan squiggled on her chair between you and Tony to face her mom.

"I'm surprised he hasn't bought all the toy stores yet," Pepper whispered to you, making you chuckle.

"What?" Tony felt insulted as he popped a carrot in his mouth, "I have entire industries as her playfield. Well, your industries that have my name on them. I don't need some Toys R Us shit for Magoona."

You burst out laughing while Pepper gave him her signature stare with a stern 'Tony!' making Morgan giggle and look at her parents with starry eyes.

Home.

[ariahearthockey]

Love Me, If You Will - Chapter 6

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

_/_/_/_/

Fandom: Men’s Hockey RPF

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

Tags: 2017 NHL Playoffs, Concussion, Memory Loss, Medical Inaccuracies, Unexplained Medical Conditions, Alternate Reality, Time Travel (sort of), Pining, Fluff, Porn With Feelings, Happy Ending (sort of)

Soundtrack: Dancing On My Own - Calum Scott

_/_/_/_/

Chapter 6

As days turn to weeks, the line between his memory and his reality has began to blur into one big dream. He has played every game after missing one, and he played them with the same tenacity just as before. Game five and six with the Caps were brutal, and even though he already knew, it still didn't take the sting out when they lost. However, the sting kind of faded away when Flower shut the front door in game seven and led them to the East Conference final.

It wasn't like Sidney was surprised by it or anything, because it was already in his head. He kept them mostly to himself though and only hinted vaguely when Geno was curious enough to ask. Sometimes it felt like he was cheating, but no matter how much he thought he knew, he wasn't capable to change anything that happened on the ice. So, in a way it felt like he was just a spectator reliving the playoff for the second time.

At the same time, something new and not hockey related is also happening in his life. It is exciting as much as it is frustrating, but he has never felt more alive. Before all these madness started, he has sometimes allowed himself to fantasize about having a family of his own. White picket fence, a golden retriever named 'Pucky' and a bunch of kids whom he can't get enough of. But as crazy and demanding as his career is, it all seemed pretty out of reach, even when the lack of someone who wants to have all of that with him doesn't put a damper on things.

But it is funny how the universe works sometimes. Somehow he finds himself living in the ultimate fantasy without remembering how he got there.

For one, he has the sweetest little girl that has him wrapped around her little finger the first time they spoke. It was during one of their off days when they called Sidney's parents, whom were temporarily taking care of the little one during the post season. He recalls being so damn nervous that he kept zoning out on what his mother was saying, and strained his ear to listen to the small voice that was mumbling adorably in the background. His mother let out a fond sigh before she finally placed the phone to her granddaughter's ear and urged her to speak.

No one can blame Sidney for wanting to make a good impression on his own daughter. He already feels guilty for not remembering her, and he doesn't want her to sense that something is wrong with him. So, understandingly, he over thinks about how he should act or what he should say to her just so he won't feel foreign to her as she would be to him, but as soon as he hears her squealing 'daddee, daddee!' quite excitedly in his ear, all his nerves are gone on an instant.

And then there is Geno, his husband of five years and fiancé a year before that and boyfriend of two years before that.

And Sidney has no idea what to make of Geno.

To sum it all up, Geno is everything and nothing Sidney has ever expected him to be. There is a side to Geno which Sidney is very well acquainted with—the side which racks up points on the ice like it is nothing, does some hasty dumb shit when he is provoked and comically yells back and forth with Phil when they get frustrated during game time. Sidney is awfully familiar with that side and he has no problem dealing with that.

However, he is woefully under prepared when the husband side of Geno comes up. For one, Geno is very touchy whenever Sidney is around. In other words, he loves to touch Sidney, like, a lot. It is not necessarily a bad thing in Sidney's opinion, if only those lingering touches are not becoming a teasing nuisance that is fucking driving him up the wall.

Sometimes when they are waiting in line to pay for their groceries, Geno would casually slides his hand into Sidney's back pocket and squeezes his ass lightly. And then there are a few occasions when they are driving, Geno would take Sidney's hand in his own, resting them on Geno's thigh before he starts to trace his calloused finger into Sidney's palm and the back of his hand. And one that is more intimate than the others is when Geno joins him in their bathroom, with him crowding Sidney from behind while Sidney is at the sink. Their gaze would connect in the mirror for a short, meaningful moment before Geno hooks his chin over Sidney's shoulder, and they would each brush their teeth in silence. All those little interactions seem innocent enough, and it may have been really nice if only they don't leave Sidney feeling hugely frustrated.

Ever since their almost-incident before game four, Sidney has been expecting Geno to jump him the first chance he gets. Those lingering touches seems promising at first, but it never advanced anything further than that, and it both baffles and infuriates Sidney to no end. Sidney is craving the intimacy that he had a brief taste of, his body is itching for it, but nothing is happening the way he wants to. He is yearning for the hard press of Geno's body on his and those hot, wet kisses that makes his knees go weak. He wants Geno to slam him against the wall and devour him like his last plate of piroshki. But the most he has gotten from Geno—other than those menacing touches—is a little peck here and there and some warm cuddling.

And when he wakes up one night to Geno pressed warmly against his back, he thinks the cock tease is finally coming to an end. Geno is gliding his fingers along Sidney's arm, so soft they almost tickle. The gesture is gentle and unhurried, like it is meant to lull someone back to sleep, but for the intimacy-starved Sidney, it is the most alluring things he has ever felt in weeks. He closes his eyes and surrenders himself into the sweet assault of Geno's touch, and lets out a shuddering breath when Geno plants a feather-light kiss onto the back of his neck. His dick twitches at that and he feels himself getting hotter by the second. And when Geno shifts to get more comfortable behind him, Sidney's throat goes dry. There is no mistaking the hard bulge poking at the small of his back, and it takes every ounce of Sidney's control to stay in absolute stillness, just so he won't startle away whatever that is going on between them.

And then Geno's hand gets more adventurous. Sidney waits with bated breath when the touch trickle from his biceps down to his side, and slowly dragging the warmth to the jut of his hip bone. Sidney's boxer briefs has been tugged low when he is sleeping and he has never been happier to know that Geno is taking full advantage of that. He leans back a little against Geno's chest, and spreads his thighs as subtly as he can manage, at the same time hoping for Geno to slip his hand towards where Sidney desperate needs him to. The anticipation is killing him, and he feels a little light-headed from the sheer amount of time he has held his breath. But then he relents, his body is charged with electricity when Geno starts drawing invisible patterns at the patch of skin very near to his crotch, separated only by the elastics of his sweats. He is miles deep in the cloud of his own pleasure, suffocatingly good before he feels it dissipating, and then gone completely.

He is immediately shocked back to earth and his eyes shoot wide. He counts the seconds before he feels the bed dip behind him, followed by the soft pitter-pattering on their hardwood floor and the click of the light switch. Sidney turns around to see lights coming from their ensuite bathroom, with the door slightly ajar. He tries to listen in from where he is, and it is pin-drop quiet for a moment before he hears a rustling sound followed by a light thud, and then the unmistakable sound of someone jerking off. His mind is immediately assaulted by the image of Geno touching himself. The moans are coming in low and throaty, and it comes in tandem with the image in Sidney's head, and all hell breaks loose.

Sidney springs up on the bed, mind reeling with his unimaginable predicament. Here he is, well and awake and horny as hell. His weeks of accumulated frustration is reaching its boiling point and it is bubbling over the brim. He doesn't think Geno is capable of being cruel like that, riling him up and then abandoning him to his own demise. Geno should know that he is a perfectly willing participant with a perfectly healthy libido, and it is ten levels of unacceptable for Geno to outright rob him of the attention that he deserves. And then Geno goes to take care of himself in the bathroom? No can do.

Sidney crosses the room in several big strides and swings the door wide open. He is all ready to let Geno know how upset he has been, ready to argue that he too has a perfectly functional pair of hands that can make Geno come just the same, if not more. However, he finds himself stuck in motion, his mind blank and there is not much he can do other than staring ahead with his jaw on the floor.

It feels like he is watching a scene out of his own personal wet dream. Geno is leaning over the sink, one hand perched on the marble top and the other a blur around his hardened dick. His chin rests against his flushed chest, totally lost in the chase of his own high, and Sidney swallows hard when Geno lets out a low, throaty groan. It is hypnotising and hot as fuck to see Geno pleasuring himself in quick, hard strokes, and Sidney can't help but presses the heel of his palm onto his own erection, tenting uncomfortably in his sweats.

He hears a guttural moan reverberates into the room before he registers it as his own, and Geno's eyes fly open in surprise. If he is embarrassed for getting caught jerking off on his own, it doesn't show in his face. He just halts his hand but makes no move to shield himself from Sidney whatsoever. Sidney ought to feel annoyed for the lack of scrambling or something of the sort, but he can't help but be more turned on by that confidence. Geno stares at Sidney with hazy, bedroom eyes, and gives his dick a few cursory strokes before he lets out a breath in a huff.

"Sid," Geno starts, his voice noticeably low and husky. "Sorry I'm wake you, I'm try to be quiet but," He continues a little sheepishly, but Sidney isn't paying a lot of attention to what Geno has to say, really. His eyes are stuck on the throbbing length in Geno's big hand, and it is reddened and slick with precome and looks so incredibly mouth-watering, he just want to drop onto his knees and just lick.

"I—I was already awake when you uh—when you were groping me." Sidney mutters with his eyes still locked on Geno's dick, and by the way his precome is dripping down the side, Sidney can tell that Geno is almost near the end if he hasn't interrupted earlier.

"Oh! I'm not know you awa—fuck, Sid. I'm sorry, I'm not mean to—" He tears his eyes away from Geno's dick when he hears Geno's rambling, trying to make sense of what he is saying. It takes a while though—since his mind is filled with nothing but lust at the moment—but he thinks he get what Geno is apologising for. He flicks his eyes back up and locks Geno in, before he takes a cautious, experimental step towards Geno.

"Why'd you leave, Geno?" He asks with another step forward. Seeing Geno being frazzled by his admission is making him feel braver.

"Fuck, I'm not plan to do. I'm think we just sleep, but Sid feel good, very pretty when sleep and I'm uh—"

"But why did you leave?" Sidney asks again, cutting Geno's rambling short. Geno looks at him with a confused daze on his face but it is quickly dissolved into something else. Sidney closes the remaining distance between them, until he is just a breath away from Geno.

"I—I'm not—"

"Geno," Sidney stops him again, his voice just short of a whisper. "Don't you want me?"

In that instance, Geno's demeanor changes entirely. His face crumbles in defeat, his eyes shut tight in a groan. And when he opens them again, they are looking at Sidney with so much want, it makes Sidney buckle under the weight of it.

The first touch of their lips together is more chaste that Sidney expects. It is tender and sweet, with soft press of lips and gentle swipes of tongue. But the tenderness escalates into something else quickly when Sidney opens his mouth in invitation, and Geno takes it without hesitation, deepening their kiss by thrusting his tongue pass Sidney's mouth. Sidney grabs Geno by the arms and pushes himself up on his tippy toes and gives his all into the kiss, sucking and licking and biting on Geno's lips. Sidney moans his delight when Geno slides his hand to his ass, the warmth from his palms seeping through the layers. Geno gives his ass a good hard knead before he smooths it towards the bottom and hauls Sidney up in a heave. Sidney lets out a surprised yelp and wraps his powerful thighs around Geno's waist. He pulls back to see Geno smirking at him (the gall of him!) but all humour is forgotten when Sidney clings himself tighter to Geno, and groans in unison when their hardened length press firmly together.

"Take me to bed, G." Sidney pants out against Geno's mouth, and grins when Geno complies without any question.

Sidney continues to kiss Geno and thoroughly enjoys the little punched out groan whenever he does something Geno likes, and it is not long before he is lowered onto the bed and he takes Geno with him without ever breaking their kiss. Geno is draped above him, his hips snugly in between Sidney's thighs and Sidney loves the weight of Geno pressing him into the bed.

"I'm miss you, Sid." Geno says as he comes up for breath, and ducks down to drop wet, opened-mouth kisses along his neck. "I'm miss you so much, baby."

Sidney's moan reverberates across their chests and he arches his back into a bow when Geno bites down hard near his pulse point. He curls his fingers into Geno's hair and tugs, feeling himself losing his mind quickly because Geno has started to rock his hips in a circular motion, grinding him into the bed.

"Hmm, Geno.."

Geno breaks away, and rears back just enough for him to bunch Sidney's shirt up and over his head.

"Fuck, baby. So pretty." Geno swears above him as he drags his big hands down Sidney's chest and stops to play with Sidney's nipples. He pinches the hard nubs in between his thumbs and index fingers, tugging and rolling them until they are red and tender. "I'm want you, baby. Fuck, I'm want you so fucking much."

Sidney moans as his body jerks upwards, and his hands clench and unclench on his sides. His moans turn into sobbing whimper when Geno replaces one hand with his mouth and sucks.

"Sid okay? Is too much?" Geno checks in after he has paid both the nipples an ample amount of attention.

"It's uh—it's a little sensitive but I like it."

Geno's smirks at the admission, like he is pleased to hear it and drops to kiss a long line down Sidney's sternum. "Sid still same, like when I'm make little pain."

Sidney feels his blush rushes up to his cheeks, because he does like his pleasure with a little pain on the side. This little kink of his is far from uncommon but it is one that very few knew about. It is not like he is ashamed of it but he is used to taking whatever his partner is willing to give, and hardly asks for anything he wants. But he can't deny the convenience that his husband not only knew about it, but seems to take pleasure from giving it to him.

He lets out a dry gasp when Geno sucks on the skin near his ribs, and his hands flies up to tug at Geno's hair again as Geno kisses lower and lower until he comes dangerously near Sidney's dick.

"Hhmm, Geno, please.." Sidney pleads in broken voice and he tilts his head up to see Geno looking back at him with a sly grin, like he is about to do something filthy to Sidney.

Sidney watches as Geno hooks his fingers under the waist band and pulls his sweats and briefs down smoothly. His dick bobs out before it rests on his lower abdomen, precome smears messily on his skin there. Geno kisses Sidney's inner thigh and locks him into an intense staring match, then flattens his tongue on the underside of Sidney's balls and drags it up until the dripping tip, and licks the precome off the slit.

"Oh, fuck.." Sidney feels his body shakes with the sudden influx of endorphins and almost crashes over by how good Geno's tongue felt on his dick.

Sidney is easily falling apart and Geno hasn't even done anything yet. At this point, he is not sure if he can survive to actually have his dick in Geno's mouth. But the thought is quickly put to test, as Geno begins pecking small kisses on his swollen head before Geno takes it into his hot, wet mouth.

The first sensation hits him like a punch to his gut, and it feels infinitely better than he imagined. When Geno engulfs more and more of his length, he feels his body is ready to combust at any moment. Watching Geno's luscious lips wrapped around his dick, stretched thinner as he goes deeper, feels a lot like watching live porn, only better and more intimate. He is about halfway down before he bobs up, hollowing his cheek as he goes. The suction feels incredible, like Geno is trying to suck his soul through his dick, and Sidney has to look away, simply to preserve his dignity by not coming too fast like an adolescent child.

Sidney lets out a whiny sob when Geno comes up for air, and he hitches Sidney's legs over his shoulder before going down on his dick again. Sidney trashes his head from side to side, his orgasm mounting fast and it is when Geno slips one finger into his hole that has him wailing into their once quiet room.

Having Geno sucking earnestly on his dick and his long finger in his ass, Sidney feels like his body is coming apart at the seam. His moans are getting gradually louder and his voice is almost hoarse from the constant need to gulp down air. The sensation is too much and not nearly enough, as he bucks his hips to chase the slight stretch of Geno's finger. Geno keeps a steady pace of fucking Sidney's ass with his finger and adds a second one, pushing it slowly in. Sidney rolls his hips and almost chokes Geno with his dick, but he really wants to speed things up a little, not because he is impatient, but because he is rapidly losing his goddamn mind.

"Oh god, Geno. Geno please, please, please.. I—I need more.."

It feels like forever before Geno pushes in a third finger, twisting and stretching the rim of his hole and the inner muscles and Sidney keens over it. Geno has switched to stroking his dick now, and focuses on driving Sidney crazy with the ever slow thrust of his fingers. Geno brushes against his prostate once in a while, and Sidney has his suspicion that Geno knows exactly where to touch, just that he is missing it on purpose. It makes it rather difficult for Sidney to get annoyed by that, especially when it feels like he is shocked by electricity whenever Geno does hit his prostate. He can only whimper like a sobbing mess and surrenders himself to the wishes of what Geno wants to do to him.

"Ass look so good, baby. Want to fucking destroy it."

Like music to his ears, Sidney nods frantically and makes a noise that is almost too whiny when Geno withdraws his hands from his ass as well as his dick. Sidney huffs a few deep breaths as he watches Geno go over the content in their nightstand, and pulls out a less than half empty bottle of clear lube. Oh, yes. They will need a lot of those if Sidney wants the night to go with what he has in mind. The spit may do an okay job for when it is just Geno's fingers, but no matter how stretched Sidney is, they will still need lubes to help ease Geno's impressive length into Sidney.

"How you want?"

Without hesitation, Sidney shifts onto his front and gets up onto his hands and knees. He spreads his knees a little, testing the position to acquire the best balance and comfort before he hears a string of Russian that sounds really filthy in his ears. He looks over his shoulder and sees Geno's wrecked face and he feels a smug satisfaction for making Geno forgets his English.

"Like what you see, Geno?" Sidney teases with a little wiggling of his ass.

It sets off another round of incoherent swearing but it boils Sidney's blood just the same. The look of desire and want is clear on Geno's face, and suddenly, there is just too much space in between them.

"Come on, Geno. Fucking destroy me."

Sidney feels as scandalous as he is desperate, but it no longer matter when Geno comes up behind him, spreading generous amount on Sidney's entrance and lubes himself up in a hurry. Sidney holds his breath at the first press of Geno's blunt head, and hisses when Geno gives a constant pressure in his thrust. When the tip of Geno's tip is all the way through the tight rim, he pauses, and sucks in a breath before he pushes again. It is now Sidney's turn to sucks in air in rapid succession, as his ass is filled inch by inch, his muscles stretching to accommodate the girth of Geno's dick.

Geno grits his teeth in concentration and punches out a deep grunts when he is balls' deep in Sidney, and he keeps himself as still as possible, giving Sidney some time to get used it. For what feels like the longest time, Sidney rocks forward a little to test it out, and it earns him a delicious friction. Geno's grip on his hips tightens significantly, and Sidney knows it is just as good for him as it is for Geno. So Sidney gives Geno the go ahead, and very slowly, Geno rears back until only the head is still inside, and pushes back in. The slow drag of Geno's dick is deliciously good, and they both moan their pleasure in harmony of each other.

"Fuck, baby," Geno grunts as he pulls out again. "You feel fucking good, so fucking tight." And thrusts forward a little harder.

"Oh, God, Geno. Don't stop. That feels so go—" His word ends with a bashful moan when Geno slams into him again.

Geno's thrusts are long and deep, and increasing in strength and speed. It is not long before Sidney is a moaning mess and muttering absolute nonsense, and Geno is pounding into Sidney without much inhibition. All bets are off when Geno plants one leg up on the bed, shifting his position a little, and the slight change of angle has allowed Geno to hit him squarely on his prostate with every thrust. He cries out in pleasure and buries his head into the pillow, and takes it hungrily as Geno continues to pound into him.

"Sid, baby, come on. I'm want you to come." Geno says lowly through gritted teeth, and his hand winds down to tug at Sidney's dripping dick. With just a few strokes, in sync with Geno's thrusts, Sidney comes hard, his vision whites out and his body goes boneless with only Geno holding him up by the waist. Geno's rhythm begins to falter after a few more thrusts, and comes deep in Sidney with a loud roar.

It feels like a while before any of them can move, and that being Geno because Sidney still can't feel his limps. Geno lays Sidney face down, thoughtfully avoiding the cooling splats of come on the sheets before he carefully pulls his softening length out. Sidney winces slightly at the sudden change of pressure but let out a content sigh when he feels Geno's warm come dripping out of his hole. Then, in his bliss-addled mind, he feels the bed bounce beside him and registers Geno plopping himself face down, an arm across his back.

"Fuck.."

"Mhmm.."

Minutes passes, or maybe it is hours, but it sure feels like a long while before Sidney feels his heart go back to its normal rhythm and his limps no longer feel like jelly. The room is now quiet aside from their breathing slowly coming back to normal, and Sidney chances a look at Geno next to him, only to snort as he takes in the wrecked look on Geno's face.

"You're slacking off, G. Need to work on that stamina a little."

Geno groans and says, "No, Sid. I'm come so hard, dick maybe broken now." Sidney gives out a loud honking laugh only to have an annoyed Geno slapping his palm onto his ass before he snuggles closer. Sidney lets himself bask in the aftermath of their explosive orgasm, and hums in delight when Geno litters some kisses on his shoulder. Sidney eyes the puddle of come on the sheets and makes a mental note to strip it out before the cleaning lady comes in tomorrow. But when he tries to push himself up, he is immediately reprimanded by Geno's arm across his back.

"Hey, I'm just gonna get a wash cloth for us, eh?"

Geno grunts and tugs him in even closer, if that is possible.

"Come on, G. It'll only take a second."

Geno wriggles like a fish and plops half his body onto Sidney's back. "No."

Sidney shakes his head and laughs unceremoniously into his pillow, but not moving away from the physical touch. "Is this how it's going to be with you, moving forward?"

"Yes."

"You are unbelievable, you know that?"

And so they stay in that position and bask in the comfortable haze of having their body so wrung out and satiated.

"That was really good, Geno. I think I've never come so hard in my life."

Sidney says with an expectation of a smug response that will sound something like 'of course, Russian best' but Geno is uncharacterically silent. A few moment passes and Sidney feels the weight of Geno lifts as Geno turns onto his back, his arms draped across his eyes.

"I'm feel like asshole, Sid."

Puzzled, Sidney asks, "What? Why?"

Geno lets out a long sigh before turning to face Sidney, and his expression is something Sidney usually saw when Geno feels bad about something. "Sid not remember many things."

"What? What does that have anything to do with—" Sidney trails off and backtracks all the conversations and interactions between them, from the time since the morning he woke up confused up until this very moment, and finds no clue to help him understand what Geno is saying.

Sidney has been nothing but an open book about the glitches of his memory, and it is a relief that Geno seems not bothered by it at all. Geno has been really understanding and supportive, especially when Sidney has his doubts and insecurities. Geno makes an effort to fill Sidney in about their time together, and half of them makes Sidney all flustered and red-faced. And then of course Geno tells him everything about their daughter, about her first word, about how she loves her baths, and about how she would only fall asleep on Sidney's chest before she is put into her cot.

And they just go about their life as normal as they would, and Sidney is thankful that Geno gives him the time and space that he needs, and not pressuring him to remember. If anything, Geno seems rather confident that the memory will return to Sidney, so in the meantime, they live like a pair of doting husbands, except..

"Geno, did you—did you think you were taking advantage of me or something?"

Geno is quiet for a second before he turns to his side and faces Sidney. "Ugh, is hard to say in english. You not remember we together, Sid. To you, we not kiss, we not do things like lover. I'm not want make weird for you."

Sidney doesn't know how to react to this new piece of information. His brain is still stuck on the insinuation of being taken advantage of and it is making it difficult for him to process anything else. Then it dawns on Sidney that Geno has been carrying this false burden with him all these time and it is the cause for all of Sidney's sexual frustration. He cannot believe the surreality of it but at the same time he cannot dismiss the selflessness of Geno's effort to stay away. Stupid, but very thoughtful nonetheless.

"Geno, you stupid jerk," Sidney says when he grabs Geno's chin and kisses him for a full minute. "Did you really think that I don't want this?

"Hmm, I'm think you maybe want, but you not say, so I'm not sure." Geno replies without a pause, still catching his breath.

"Are you serious right now? You flaunt around the house half naked all the time and then you touch me every chance you get. How could you be not sure?"

Geno grins something borderline sheepish, and it is the kind when someone is caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

"Oh my god, you evil bastard. You know exactly what you're doing, don't you?" Sidney accuses and gives Geno's chest a little shove. He goes for it another time just for fun and it falls into the grasp of Geno's hand.

"Come on, Sid. Don't be angry. I'm just have little fun." Geno says as he tugs Sidney down onto his chest.

"Oh, I bet it's plenty fun for you, doesn't it? Seeing me squirm like that? Ugh, God. You don't know the amount of cold shower I've had these past few weeks—"

"Wait. Sid, you not jerk off?"

Sidney rolls his eyes at the assumption. "Well, of course not. I was waiting for you, dickwat."

Geno looks shocked for a moment before his brows furrow into a straight line and looking all serious and determined. "Give me twenty—no, ten. Give me ten minutes, then we go again."

Sidney lets out an embarrassing squeak then laughs heartily when Geno flips them around and starts peppering little kisses all over Sidney's face. "Oh, God. Geno, stop. Your beard tickles!"

Geno in turn kisses Sidney on the lips and the complain quickly melts into a long moan. Sidney doesn't think it was possible before, but it seems like they can actually go again despite the fact that they have both came not too long ago. Geno seems pretty determined to make good on his words, with him grinding down on Sidney and doing sinful things with his mouth. It awakens the hunger in Sidney and his previously tired body isn't so tired anymore. However, he pushes Geno away all too reluctantly and ends their foreplay prematurely.

"Wait. Wait, Geno. I—I need to say something."

"Ugh, you killing me, Sid." Geno whines out, panting, and rests his forehead against his. Sidney can't resist the puckered lips and tilts his chin up to steal a kiss from it.

"Just hear me out, okay?" Sidney smiles to himself as Geno mutters an 'okay' before he goes nuzzling into Sidney's neck, all the while murmuring his dissatisfaction in a mix of Russian and broken English. Sidney can't find it in his heart to chirp Geno of his childlike behaviour, because he finds it embarrassingly endearing. He soothes his hand down the back of Geno's head and plays with the his hair near the nape.

"I guess I wanna thank you for being so patient with me these past few weeks. I know it sucks that my brain decided to screw with me now but you were handling it so well, way better than I could ever ask of you. It must have really stressful to deal with me in the middle of the playoff, and I can only imagine how it feels to suddenly have a husband who doesn't remember anything about their time together." Sidney pauses to see if Geno has something to say to that, but Geno just buries his head deeper into the crook and wraps his arm tighter around Sidney's waist.

"But you keep surprising me by being so thoughtful and sweet. I just—" Sidney draws a long breath to calm the emotions that came up unannounced. "I just want you to know that I'm really happy that I get to start this new memory with you as my husband. And you know something else? You don't have to feel like you have to keep away from me. It doesn't matter if I remember about us or not because beyond all that, I think I have always been attracted to you, since the first day we met."

Geno lifts his head to look into Sidney's eyes, gaze piercing with such adoration and fondness. It is almost like Geno is confessing his feelings through his gaze, and Sidney is overwhelmed by the amount of love that he is receiving. Sidney winds his arms around Geno's neck and tugs him down for a kiss. It starts sweet—gentle swipes of lips against lips, once, twice before Geno delves his tongue into Sidney's mouth to deepen it. Sidney has never known such passionate kiss before this, and he surrenders himself into it completely and lets Geno take the lead.

Sometimes Sidney wonders if this is crafted by someone higher in the universe to fill up the emptiness in his heart, because he knows not of such happiness could exist in real life. He has someone who knows all of his quirks and accepts them without question. He has someone who chirps him relentlessly about his huge ass but still cook him his favourite pasta, a mountain of it. And it so happened that, that someone is Geno.

He thought about the possibility of maybe waking up one day and be heartbroken over losing it all. He thought about how devastated he would be, having to finally have a taste of such bliss and then be stripped away after. But even with that risk looming threateningly over his head, Sidney can't see himself trading it, for the alternative is ten times worse, because it means that he will not have any at all.

And the night ends with them snuggled closely under the cover, sharing body warmth and lazy kisses. Their hands wander with meaningful touches, coaxing quiet moans and short gasps little by little. And it is another twenty minutes before the quiet affair reach its pinnacle, and when it does, they murmur their 'I love you's during the throes of their pleasure against each others' mouth. And they lay in the bed, languidly with their limps entangled, and they stay that way until eventually, sleep finds them.

_/_/_/_/