#and suddenly you think you know better than everyone

[deakyjoe]

I Dream Of You Even When Awake

Pairing: Robert “Bob” Reynolds x Reader (fem)

Category: hurt/comfort, friends to lovers, smut

Summary: Your gift makes sleep difficult. Luckily, Bob is there to guide you through it.

Warnings: 18+, smut, Thunderbolts* spoilers, kissing, handjob, hurt/comfort, nightmares, reader has power of feeling other's emotions, friends to lovers, sexual innuendos, talk of sex, Bob is kind of a sub but not entirely, pet name (pretty boy)

Word count: 6.8k

A/N: Lewis Pullman, my love, you have charmed me with another character of yours named Bob. We knew this was coming.

One thing that the New Avengers had in common was nightmares. You all had them. It was worse for some than others. But it was terrible for you most of all. Being able to feel other people's emotions meant that the feelings everybody experienced during their nightmares would rocket through you as well.

This caused a lot of sleepless nights for you. Laying awake in bed, sweating from the shared anxiety that would travel through the other members of your team and land in you as their final destination. At least when you were awake you could find something to distract yourself from the emotion. It pained you to know that your friends went through it every night but when you managed to sleep through it, all it would do is influence your own nightmares. You'd find yourself dreaming up your own worst fears with the horrors of your friends' lives mixed in. 

It was a particularly bad night, all of them having bad dreams which only filled your body with sadness and anxiety. You stuck headphones over your ears, music turned up loud to blast through your head in an attempt to block out some of the feelings. It only helped a little. You stared at the wall opposite your bed, trying to think of better things and trying to latch onto any sort of feeling. You were getting nothing. Either everybody was having a bad night or no positive emotions were strong enough to reach you in the moment. It sucked.

A few hours went by, your eyes blurring with exhaustion as you continued to stare. The emotions weren't dying down, only going through fluctuations where everybody's sleep cycles would circle around. There was a tugging at the side of your head, like something else was trying to get in but you couldn't quite manage to get a latch on it. You sighed and squeezed your eyes shut, only opening them when the tugging got stronger.

You squinted at your door, trying to figure out whether it was your tired brain making you see things or whether there actually was a shadow moving underneath your door. Taking a deep breath in a bid to relax, you used your gift to reach out. Then you felt it. A different type of anxiety, it was more like a quiet concern rather than fear and nerves. 

You ripped the headphones from your head and sat up straighter, surprised when there was a tentative knock on your door. "Hello?"

"Hi." The voice was timid. "It's- it's Bob."

You let out a soft sigh of relief. It was only Bob. You clambered out of bed and padded towards your door, opening it with a tired smile. "Hey, Bob. What can I help you with?"

He blinked back at you, his hair mussed up and clothes crinkled from sleep. "Your light was on."

You frowned. "Uh, yes."

"It's the middle of the night." He added on, hands twisting together into the hem of his shirt.

You realised he was worried about you and wondering why you were awake in the middle of the night. "Yeah, uh, the team dream rather restlessly. And- and I can feel it."

"Oh." He nodded, suddenly remembering what your gift entailed. "That's horrible."

You shrugged. "I'm used to it. But thank you for checking on me. That's sweet of you."

The apples of his cheeks bloomed pink, blood rushing to his face. "No- no problem. Just wanted to see if you were okay."

It was then that you realised you suddenly felt better. Bob's concern was a nicer feeling than the nightmares everyone else was going through. And when he'd blushed you felt another emotion, a warmer emotion. 

"I appreciate that, Bob. Thank you." You smiled at him, pleased when he offered a small smile back. That also improved your mood. "You're making me feel a lot better actually."

"I am?" He seemed surprised, hands dropping to his sides.

"Yes, you're a lot calmer than everyone else right now and it feels good." You paused, looking him up and down. "Can you- could you maybe stay with me for a little while?"

"Oh! Yes. Yes, of course." He shifted from foot to foot, glancing over your shoulder at your room. "Um, why?"

"Because I'm tired of feeling anxious from everyone else. We can just sit for a few minutes and then you can go back to your room. If that's okay?"

He nodded and took a step towards you. "Sure, for as long as you want."

Bob really was sweet, his awkward demeanour only the surface of how lovely he really was. It was difficult to believe that he was technically the same guy who had killed half of New York only a couple of months ago. He really wasn't that person, and never had been. Since then, he'd quickly become one of your favourite people and you didn't see that changing any time soon. He was just the kind of person you wanted to keep around, so worthy of love and protection. 

You tilted your head backwards and opened your door slightly wider. "Come on in then. We can sit on my bed."

His blue eyes widened for a moment before shuffling towards you, bare feet sliding against the floor. You shut the door behind him, gesturing towards your bed to offer him a seat when he hesitated in the middle of your room.

"It won't bite." You snorted, stopping next to him. "You can just sit on the edge if it makes you uncomfortable."

"No, it's not that. I just don't want to intrude into your space." He glanced at you from from the corner of his eye.

"I wouldn't have invited you in if you could do that." You replied, walking around the side of your bed to sit back down in the spot you had been before. You pointed at the space next to you. "I don't bite either."

A small smile graced his face as he went to the other side of the bed to sit next to you. Bob rested against the headboard, staring at the same wall you had been before he'd arrived.

"So... do we chat? Or something?" He asked, head flopping to look at you.

You resisted the urge to push his hair out of his face so you could see his sweet face in all of its glory. He really did make you feel better with his mere presence. You'd never experienced that with someone before.

"We can, if you want. Or we can just sit quietly."

He pushed his own hair out of his eyes, revealing the baby blues to you again. "What were you doing before I knocked?"

"I was listening to music. To try- to try and block it out."

"Was it working?"

"No." You shook your head. "But you're working."

He looked away from you and you panicked, scared that that had been too much. It often freaked people out when you reminded them you could feel all of their emotions. But then you felt it. Bob was happy.

You inched slightly closer to him. "Feels nice when you're happy. It's warm."

He looked back at you. "Warm?"

"And soft. Most people feel harsher when they're happy, in an excitable way. But not you. It's difficult to explain." You closed your eyes, a pleased smile on your lips. "I like the way it feels."

Bob's breathing grew heavier, his voice cracking as he spoke. "I'm glad."

You hummed lowly, your heart rate slowing the more you relaxed. You hadn't realised it had been thundering against your rib cage for the majority of the night. As you calmed down, you grew more and more fatigued. Bob's effect on you was quick and he could only watch as you started to fall asleep. He didn't want to disturb you, it was clear how exhausted you were. He'd seen the way you would move sluggishly on the days when you hadn't slept very well. It hadn't quite clicked in his head why you'd been like that but it was all adding up now. You had always been so kind to him that he hated to see you struggle. You didn't deserve that. So if all he could do to help was sit by your side so you could sleep peacefully, then he was all too happy to do that. 

When you awoke the next morning, you were startled by what greeted you when you opened your eyes. Bob was laying down beside you, mouth slightly agape and quiet snores leaving him. He really was rather lovely to look at. He had a delicate face, his features rather soft. And that was only increased by the peace that radiated off of him during his slumber.

The feeling that was trickling through you was new, and difficult to comprehend. You'd always been surrounded by people with big characters, their lives usually motivated by some sort of misery. You couldn't complain, you were the same. But it meant that the emotions that you received in response would be equally as agonising. They had their high moments, of course. Evenings the team spent together in the tower when you ate dinner, played games and watched movies were usually far more pleasant. But those were only fleeting moments. 

Bob was a breath of fresh air. He certainly wasn't the happiest person you'd ever known, especially when you first met. But because he was rather easy to please, the simplest of compliments making him practically glow, it meant that you often found yourself also feeling good around him. You tried not to take advantage of that but because he was also just kind of wonderful you found yourself enchanted by him. 

You watched him sleep, trying not to move so as not to disturb him. But he probably sensed your gaze in his slumber as it didn't take long before he stirred. He murmured something lowly as he opened his eyes, squinting against the sunlight streaming in through your windows, and stretched. When his eyes landed on you he offered a timid smile.

"Good morning." You whispered, propping your chin on your hand as you looked down at him.

"G'morning." His voice was gruff, even lower than it usually was.

"Did you stay all night?" You asked, suddenly realising that he was underneath the blankets. 

"Yeah, I hope that's okay." He turned on his side. "You fell asleep and I didn't want to disturb you if I left. Especially since everyone's emotions were getting to you."

You grinned at him. "You really are rather sweet, Bob."

He rolled away from you, groaning into the pillow beneath him. "Thank you."

You laughed and sat up as he did. "No, thank you. I appreciate this. It was nice of you."

"You don't need to thank me." He stood up and turned to look at you. "Do you want to go have breakfast? I hide the good cereal behind the pots and pans."

Affection spiralled through you, he was a great friend and you were so thankful to have him.

"Is that why I can never find it? You keep it hidden?" You started following him out of your room, grabbing your robe as you walked. 

"Yeah..." He let out a short giggle. "Alexei keeps finding it though so I have to keep changing the hiding spot."

You smiled at the back of his head as you followed him to the kitchen, ready to start your day feeling more well rested than you had in years. 

After a busy day spent with Bob doing chores around the tower and just hanging out, you were ready to go to bed. You were tired from the day's activities and needed some rest. But Bob could tell something was off. As each member of the team headed off to bed one by one, he watched as you slowly curled in on yourself where you were sat on the couch. It didn't take him long to realise what was wrong.

"Is it bad again?" He asked you, voice hushed to keep it between the two of you. He wasn't entirely sure how the super soldier serum worked on the three members of the team who had it, but if it was anything like what he'd experienced then he didn't want to risk their enhanced senses hearing him. 

"Mhmm." You nodded weakly, your head collapsing against the back of the couch.

Bob moved to sit next to you, debating whether his next offer would be too forward. But the pain on your face was unbearable for him to witness. You'd been so happy all day, the change around was horrible to see. "Would you like me to come to your room again?"

You looked up at him through your lashes, using the little energy you had to cling on to his emotions. "Yes, please."

"Okay." Bob nodded and stood up, angling his head in the direction of your room. "Let's go then."

It didn't take long for that to become the routine between you and Bob. Free days spent in the tower you'd stay by each other's sides and nights would consist of the two of you sharing your bed in order to sleep peacefully. Practically every second you spent in the tower would be with Bob. As well as being a soothing presence, he was also very funny and considerate. It took you about two days of hanging out one on one for you to decide that he was perfect in basically every way. You only hoped he enjoyed your company as much as you enjoyed his. If the emotions that radiated off of him were any indication, then he did like you. A lot. 

A new feeling had started pouring out of him, you'd noticed. One that made the back of your neck tingle and your brain feel fuzzy behind the eyes. You just couldn't quite figure out exactly what it was yet.

The rest of the team didn't fail to notice how you and Bob seemed closer. Stolen glances became a regular thing, the two of you acting as if you shared a secret. They could only watch on in somewhat confused amusement as Bob would look at you first whenever someone told a joke, to see if you were laughing, and how you had started singling out Bob by name whenever you offered to make anyone else a snack or a drink, like he was suddenly your priority. The two of you would also sit next to each other during every evening the team spent together.

They all assumed something had happened between the two of you. Just what, they didn't know. You weren't exactly acting like a couple, neither of you being flirty or touching the other anymore than usual. But the dynamic had certainly changed and was clearly developing more everyday. Whatever it was, it was clearly having a positive effect on you both. Bob seemed happier, smiling more often when you were around, and his emotions directly influenced yours, you were now a lot calmer and seemed less tense. So they just continued to observe in silence, curious to see where it would lead.

When Yelena had attempted to question Bob on it he had stuttered out that it was nothing, a clear give away that it was something. And when she'd asked you, all you had done was give her a coy smile accompanied by a shrug. She just decided to be happy for the two of you.

The thing between you and Bob was going steady for a few weeks, he'd started to open up to you more and more and you clung on to every word he decided to tell you. It was nice. But things quickly changed one night.

You'd been sleeping peacefully next to each other when you'd suddenly woken up. No clear negative emotion was travelling through you and Bob was still asleep so you assumed something else had woken you up. You listened out and heard nothing so sighed and closed your eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep. But you couldn't.

There was a tug at your lower stomach, a sudden ache further down. You shifted yourself, wondering if your position had you pressing on your organs strangely. But it didn't let up, and started getting more intense instead. And then you realised what it was. It was arousal. You were turned on. Puzzled, you flattened yourself on your back with a huff. What could possibly have you feeling like this? It was a normal night, sharing a bed with Bob with no disturbances other than the soft soundtrack of his breathing. Ever since you had started sharing a bed with him at night, you hadn't found yourself disrupted by the anxious feelings of the rest of your team. Bob's presence had been enough to soothe away the nerves and the fear and replaced it all with comfort and relaxation.

You glanced at Bob through the darkness, nothing seemed different with him. And then he made a noise. It was halfway between a content hum and a needy whimper. Your eyes widened in the dark as the pull in your tummy increased. It hit you all at once. Bob was having a sex dream and it was having an effect on you. 

You scrunched your eyes shut, willing it to go away. Not entirely sure why you were even bothering, it had never been possible to just push the feelings away, you took a shaky breath as Bob let out another sound. This one was louder, more of a whine than anything else. Your brain felt misty, you weren't convinced whether what you were feeling was all of Bob or if it was also a combination of your own arousal at the noises he was making. 

Bob was cute, you'd always thought it, but due to the circumstances through which you'd met you hadn't thought it appropriate to ever try to pursue anything. So the idea had died down and you hadn't even considered it in months. As the two of you had steadily gotten closer, you started to treasure him as a friend and nothing else. Bob was sweet, that was undeniable, and you had grown rather fond of him. And now here he was in your bed having a sex dream that was making you wet between your thighs. 

The final straw was the desperate moan that rumbled from Bob's chest and out of his mouth. You shot up in bed, switching the bedside lamp on and tapped him on the shoulder.

He didn't stir. You envied how deeply he slept.

You poked his arm, surprised when you hit solid bicep. "Bob."

He grumbled and turned his face into the pillow.

"Bob." You sighed, shaking him gently.

"Mm?" The sound was questioning but had an undertone to it that reminded you of the sounds he'd previously been making. 

"Bob, wake up." You said, louder than before. You were hoping that the feeling of being turned on would fade away as he came to but you were wrong.

As Bob's eyes slowly blinked open and landed on your face, the feeling in your core pulsed for a moment as his face turned a rosy shade of pink. 

He shuffled around until he managed to sit up next to you, looking around the room to see if there was some sort of problem. "Is something wrong?"

The sincerity in his eyes was infuriating. But only because it made your breathing go ragged as you took in his messy hair and sleepy eyes. His flushed complexion wasn't helping and you didn't fail to notice how he cautiously tugged the blanket over his lap.

You decided to be blunt with it, not being able to concentrate on anything else other than the ocean between your legs. You hadn't even known it was possible to experience the physical things the people around you were going through. You had only ever felt the emotions of others. The closest you had ever gotten to this was being able to tell when people were injured or sick - people had very distinct emotions when they were in pain. But this was a whole new thing.

"You were having a sex dream."

Bob looked away from you. "H-how... how do you know that? Did I- did I say something?"

He looked nervous, more nervous than you'd seen him in weeks, and you could feel it burning underneath the state of arousal he was still in. 

"No." You rasped, hands gripping the sheets beneath you. "I can feel it."

His head snapped in your direction, eyes going wide. "You what?"

Your chest was heaving. "I can feel it."

"What do you mean?"

You laughed lowly, unsure of how you could explain it. "I'm turned on right now because you are."

"Oh." The flush spread to his ears, his voice barely a squeak. "Sorry?"

There was a momentary ache in your chest at his apology, it was phrased like a question but his body language gave away how genuine it was. He was timid, that was for certain, and always feared he was going to do the wrong thing. Bob was scared of rejection and being abandoned. It was why he so often would tell people when he'd completed a chore or done something helpful like the laundry or the dishes. He felt the need to prove why you should all keep him around. He seemed unaware that you kept him around because you all loved him, and it wasn't conditional based on how useful he was.

You shifted towards him, hands reaching out for a second before awkwardly hovering in front of him. Maybe it wasn't the best time to be touching him. "No, no. You don't need to be sorry. At all. I just..."

Bob stared at you, waiting for you to finish your sentence.

"It's just an unusual situation. I've never felt this before."

He swallowed thickly. "You haven't? But I thought you felt everything other people felt."

You nodded. "I do. But emotions. Not physical things."

His eyes flickered up and down your body quickly. "So you're- you're more than feeling it?"

"I assume I'm experiencing the equivalent of whatever you are." You glanced at the tent in the blanket covering his lap. "Which is a physical reaction in the body."

"What you're saying is..." He didn't seem to know how to word it, fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt.

"Yes, that's what I'm saying." You clenched your thighs together, being careful with your words since you didn't want to freak him out. "I woke you up so it wouldn't be awkward."

He seemed to deflate slightly, nodding in acceptance. "Awkward."

You smiled softly at him, dipping your head down to meet his eyes. "Not because of you. But because me being awake and horny next to you when you're asleep is... odd."

"No more odd than me having a sex dream in your bed." He mumbled, a small smile turning the corners of his mouth up.

A gentle giggle escaped you, glad he was easing up enough to joke. "It's not like you can choose when you have a sex dream. It's okay."

"I know. But I'm still sorry." He leaned towards you. "I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable."

"Bob, you could never." You mirrored him, leaning in. "I'm just wondering how we're going to solve this."

He blinked and sat up straighter. "What do you mean?"

You took a deep breath. "Well, considering I seem to be feeling whatever you are then there's a possibility that if you decide to go and... sort yourself out-" You sent a meaningful look towards his lap. "-then I will also feel it."

His eyes widened. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh." You repeated. "But I also don't want to leave either of us sexually frustrated. That's never fun. So..."

"So..." He seemed to think for a moment. "Are you suggesting that...?"

You shrugged. "Some variation."

"Variation?" Bob was full of questions, finding himself doing nothing but being confused. 

"If you don't want to actually do anything then mutual masturbation is always good."

Bob spluttered, taken aback by that answer.

"Or not." You added in, trying to determine what his real reaction was. His outward appearance seemed reluctant but your body throbbed at the prospect, which you knew reflected his feelings. That meant nothing though. If he said no then that was all that mattered. 

"No, it's-" He cut himself off, a quiet whine leaving his mouth.

You shifted, thighs clenching. "Bob, I beg of you not to make that noise."

"Sorry." He mumbled.

"If you're unsure then we can start with something slower." You suggested, easing into it.

"Like what?"

You shrugged. "Kissing."

He turned bright pink again. Affection blossomed through your chest, he was so sweet. As shy as he was, you could see the sudden sparkle in his eyes at the idea of kissing you. It made you curious about something, something you'd been suspecting since he had first woken up.

"Bob? Who were you dreaming about?" You asked and watched him grapple for an answer that seemed to evade him. "Was it about me?"

He paused his search for reasoning, turning to look at you slowly before nodding. "Yeah."

You smiled. "I'm flattered."

He rolled his eyes, almost self deprecatingly. "Yeah, okay."

You frowned. "If I wasn't flattered then I'd kick you out of this room for being a creep. But I'm not doing that, am I? No. I'm waiting for you to make a decision. Either you stay and we make out. Or you leave and I hump a pillow."

His jaw dropped open, drawing your eyes to his lips.

"Up to you, Bob." You scooted closer to him, dropping your voice down low. "I'm waiting."

Before he could respond, you flinched. Your body recoiled from the door and towards the headboard.

"What's wrong?" Bob sounded panicked.

"Someone's having a nightmare. A bad one." You groaned. "It's a weird sensation feeling their anxiety whilst also being turned on."

Bob only looked at you for a second. "Will I make it better?"

You smiled at him, thankful he'd finally seemed to have caught on to the fact that he was the only thing that managed to soothe you. "You always make me better."

He softened, whole body relaxing as his face turned red with a different emotion. That's when he seemed to make up his mind, shuffling down so he was laying down again next to you and patting the spot directly in front of him. "Turn the light off."

"You sure?" You asked, already reaching for the lamp.

He nodded, sucking in a sharp breath as you settled down in front of him. You were suddenly face to face, but only for a moment as the next second the light was off and you were plunged into darkness again.

"Bob?"

"Yeah?"

"You're cute when you blush." You eased out a hand, gently cupping his cheek.

His own hand inched towards you under the blankets, fingertips grazing the fabric of your shirt. "I think you're the only person who thinks that."

"I find that unlikely. But if so then I'm happy to keep telling you."

"You're only saying that because you're turned on." He chuckled breathlessly. "Trying to get into my pants."

"Do I have to try?"

"No." His nose nudged against yours, steadily get closer and closer but not quite closing the gap.

You realised you were going to have to take that step. "Can I kiss you?"

"Yes."

Bob was breathless before your lips met his, so when the collision finally happened it felt as if all oxygen had left him. But that didn't matter. He didn't need oxygen. All he needed was you.

You were gentle at first, testing the waters. But it only took about two seconds before Bob whined, the sound pulsing through you, so your mouth opened up like you'd lost control and your tongue swiped across his lips, teasing him. Bob's hands knotted into the front of your shirt, pulling you closer to him. His tongue curled against yours, a whimper leaving him.

You smiled into the kiss, thumb swiping over his cheek to keep it soft. You were overcome with lust but wanted the same mood that had floated between you and Bob up until this point. It didn't need to turn aggressive in any way now that you were taking it a step further. 

The hem of your shirt cut into your back as Bob's grip on it tightened, his feet pressing into yours so the two of you started playing footsie as you kissed. Bob tasted sweet, you noted, probably about as sweet as he was in general. You suckled his bottom lip into your mouth, revelling in the moan he let out. You pushed yourself closer to him, nose cramming against his cheek as his hair tickled your forehead. 

You pulled away from him to catch your breath, planting a quick kiss on his lips as he chased you. "Hm, slow down. We have time."

"Wanted this for so long." He admitted in the haze of passion that was swimming around the two of you.

The confession surprised you. "Oh, yeah?"

He backed up a little to look at you in the darkness as he gave an affirmative hum. That's when you felt it. The tingle on the back of your neck and the fuzziness behind your eyes. 

"What is that?" You asked, moving your face closer to him to get a better feel for it.

"What's what?" He sounded genuinely confused, voice kind as he asked.

"This new thing you keep feeling? Like a tingle on the back of the neck and a fuzz behind the eyes. What is it? I've never felt it before." 

The intensity you were looking at him with was amusing to Bob, how you seemed so unaware when usually it would be the other way around with the two of you. He knew exactly what you were referring to.

So he only smiled as he told you. "It's the feeling I get when I'm close to you."

Your breath got caught in your throat, eyes searching his in the dark to see how genuine he was being. When you detected nothing but honesty in his face, you dove forward and kissed him again. Despite your initial desire to keep it as relaxed as possible, you couldn't help the sudden craving you had for him. It was raw and primal, a yearning feeling.

Bob's pelvis rutted into yours, a reminder of the thing that got you into this position to begin with. He was still painfully hard and, based on the way you were feeling, that wasn't going to change any time soon. Your teeth and tongues clashed over and over, Bob making happy little noises at every press of your lips. He was insatiable, chasing you every time you decided the two of you needed to breathe. But he didn't seem to have the confidence to touch you anymore, not going any further than the vise like grip he still had on your shirt.

So you decided to make the move again. "Can I touch you?"

He nodded rapidly, his voice desperate. "Please."

The mewl of his voice was intoxicating, giving you permission to let your hand drift down the front of his torso. His abdomen was solid underneath his shirt but, as tempting as it was, you had another destination in mind. When you hit the waistband of his pants you paused, fingers toying with the strings that kept them fastened.

"Are you sure?" You asked, double checking that he was positive he wanted to take it this far.

He barely pulled away from your lips to answer. "Yes, I'm sure."

That was all you needed. You pulled on the string, undoing it, and let your hand slide into the front of his pants. You didn't have the patience to start with any over the clothes touching. Bob's size was somewhat surprising, he was big, which meant that your hand met the velvety skin of his cock pretty much as soon as you'd breached the waistline of his pants. He whimpered into your mouth at the feeling of the silky skin of your palm. 

He was keen, his body reacting immediately with a buck of his hips into your fist. You started with a slow pace, moving your hand up and down carefully to get a rhythm going. His precum worked well as a natural lubricant, making both your skin and his slick. It was only a reminder of the wetness between your own legs. But that thought escaped you pretty quickly when Bob continued to make pretty little sounds into your mouth. He throbbed in your hand, pace of his thrusts increasing when you tightened your grip. 

You kept kissing him, shivering as the feeling of his arousal travelled through you as well. An overwhelming curiosity was plaguing you as you wondered whether you'd feel it when he eventually came. That became less important when Bob's hands finally untangled from your shirt and one of them crept up the plains of your torso to start groping your chest through your shirt. You moaned into his mouth, hand momentarily stilling in place. That didn't last long when he whined into your mouth, a mumble begging for more leaving him.

Your fist pumped his cock harder and faster, drawing him closer and closer to orgasm.

"Come on, pretty boy. I know you're close."

He whimpered at the name you'd given him, the fact that he liked praise was something you quickly noted in your head. Bob kissed you harder, the desperation for closeness evident.

It didn't take much longer before he started twitching in your hand, hot ropes of cum spurting out of him and landing on the sheets between you. You pumped him a few more times, milking him for everything he was worth. A train of whimpers and moans tumbled out of mouth, filling the space between you, as his eyes scrunched shut with pleasure. You kissed him through it, wanting to keep him close as you were feeling his orgasm yourself. The feeling rocketed through you, a sense of ecstasy as it poured out of Bob and into you. Your prediction was right, you did indeed feel it when he did. This was a new development to your gift that had you curious. 

Once he'd calmed down from the high, Bob's eyes blinked open again as he looked at you. "I'm- I'm sorry."

You frowned. "Why are you sorry?"

"Because I- and you didn't-" He cut himself off, distressed. "I thought we were going to-"

You eyed the mess on the sheets between you. "Believe me, what just happened is not an issue."

"Are you still... feeling it?"

"Kind of. Less so now that you've come. But I'm still horny. Especially after that." You sighed. "Can we keep kissing?"

Bob wasn't sure why you'd even asked. It wasn't like there was any scenario where he'd say no to that. So he nodded at you, assuming that your eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to see him. He was right. You manoeuvred yourself over the mess on the sheets and hovered yourself over him.

He looked up at you, the sparkle from before twinkling in his eyes. He finally allowed himself to touch you, not realising that he'd groped you in the heat of the moment before, and placed his hands on your hips before letting them skate up your waist, then your rib cage, before going over your shoulders and letting them land on either side of your face. Then he pulled you down to kiss him. 

You weren't sure how long that went on for exactly, only really aware of anything other than Bob existing when he'd asked whether you wanted to change your bed sheets. You'd only told him it could wait until the morning and that the two of you would just have to stick to his side of the bed. At some point his hands had drifted below your waistline, drawing your own orgasm from you. It surprised you how adept he was at it, but you figured he had a past long before you'd even met him. 

What surprised you both was Bob had moaned as you did, blinking in shock as you came.

"I felt that." He stated, mouth hanging open.

"What do you mean?" You asked, still breathless from the orgasm. 

"I felt that." He repeated.

A frown wrinkled your brows. "You mean... like how I feel things?"

"I think so."

That was another thing that had never happened until Bob.

"I didn't know that was possible." You thought about it for a second before shrugging. "Another thing for tomorrow."

And then you kept kissing him. That went on for a while until the two of you grew sleepy, eventually drifting off in each other's arms.

When you woke up the next morning you found yourself intertwined with Bob, limbs tangled together. You hummed happily and snuggled closer to him. 

"G'morning." He grumbled into your ear.

You smiled at the sound of his voice and turned your head to look at him. "Good morning. You're awake before me."

"Shocking, I know." He huffed, hand stroking up and down the length of your arm.

"What's the time?"

"A little after nine."

Your eyes widened and you shot out of bed, scrambling to find your robe. "Shit, it's late."

Bob followed you out of bed, feeling bad that he'd let you sleep in. But you had just looked so peaceful. "Sorry, I should've woken you."

"No, don't apologise." You beamed at him. "Shouldn't apologise for the way I slept."

He watched you slide a pair of socks on. "How'd you sleep?"

"Good." You grinned. "The best. You?"

"Good too."

You huffed. "You always sleep good."

There was a moment of silence before Bob seemed to decide what he was going to say.

"Do you want to know why I sleep so easily?"

You nodded, always just figuring the amnesia that came with what happened to him meant that he just didn't have bad dreams. 

"Because I dream about you." He confessed quietly. "Even when I'm not having sex dreams."

Your shoulders hunched as your skin prickled with the burn of self-consciousness. There was no way he was telling the truth. "Really?"

"I spend my days thinking about you and my nights dreaming about you." He chuckled shakily. "Even though we spend every second of every day together, I can think of nothing but you. It consumes me. You consume me."

Tears welled in your eyes. "For how long?"

"For as long as I've known you pretty much." He shrugged. "It's been very difficult sleeping next to you for these past few weeks and not telling you."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you needed me to sleep. And I was scared that you didn't feel the same way so you'd- you'd push me away and go back to restless nights." His hands started wringing together, a telltale sign of his nerves.

You choked out a teary laugh. "How could you ever think I didn't feel the same? Why do you think I spend so much time with you? Why I can't sleep unless I'm next to you?"

"My emotions calm you."

You shook your head. "You make me calm. There's something about you. There always has been. You make me feel things that nobody else ever has. I've experienced new emotions with you. As well as more feelings."

He smiled at the reference to what the two of you had done the night before. "So, what now?"

"What now?" You chortled as you repeated his words back to him. "Now you kiss me and we never stop."

Bob didn't need to be told twice.

The team noticed the moment the switch in yours and Bob's relationship flipped. All it took was one simple gesture. The group of you had been in the kitchen together, chatting about nothing in particular and Bob had been looking at you with a gooey look in his eyes as usual. But then you'd reached up, brushing a lock of hair away from his eyes. 

They all knew then that you'd finally taken the step towards being officially more than friends. None of them pointed it out, exchanging nothing but pleased looks with each other and enjoying the fact that neither you nor Bob seemed to be aware that the rest of them now all knew about the two of you. They weren't entirely sure that either of you cared if they knew.

And when later that evening you rested your head on Bob's shoulder during movie night, and he not very subtly grabbed your hand, they realised that the two of you definitely didn't care if they knew. You only seemed to care about each other in that moment.

[hillbillyoracle]

This post got me thinking. Like really churning. I just started working through Momento Mori by Joanna Ebenstein and this post kicked up some realizations for me.

Most of my major experiences with death happened before the age of like 25. Some were the ones you "expect" like grandparents and others were friends in my scene who either OD'd or straight up disappeared. My more recent experiences were supporting my partner through 3 deaths in the family in 3 months - one a cousin that was a few years younger than her that accidentally OD's leaving behind her children. Another was the grandmother who was her rock growing up in a chaotic household and who steadfastly included me at family gatherings when my partner's mom and sister would ice me out. All passed suddenly.

I think the only thing that is universally true about grief is that everyone goes through it differently.

Because so much of what these replies held up as "this is what you say" and "this is what you do" - I fucking hate that stuff (even though I admit I default to it) as much as or more than so many people here hate the religious comments (which I usually don't tend to mind personally).

To me:

"I'm sorry for your loss" = "I am having the correct feeling about this."

"I can't imagine what you're going through" = "I can't relate to you and I'm putting distance between us to feel better about it."

"How are you doing?" = "Share something vulnerable with me so I feel like I helped you."

And you could say I'm hearing that wrong, and I get that I likely am, but that's what those words mean to me. And when I'm grieving I've learned I can't really access that part of my brain that better attunes me the "proper responses".

I also do not want someone to feel angry with, I do not want my anger fed at all. I want help dissolving it because if I don't it'll fully consume me and that's even worse than the grief for me, to have all the good in me burnt up while I'm still alive because that's my personal experience of anger.

Which is all just to say, it has nothing to do with religiosity in my experience - there's simply no "correct" response you can rely on for all people. In words or in deed.

And that is what makes experiencing grief so hard - everyone gives you what they got and often it's a reflection of their own stunted relationship with death, yes even the atheists, and it often sucks.

And trying to comfort someone in grief sucks - how do you use words and actions to reach them when communication of any kind is so highly individual and this individual might not be able to tell you what they need and want to hear/have done?

If you go "no actually they're using the wrong words/actions, these are the correct ones", you wind up doing the very same things as the people who've pissed you off.

Or at least, that's what I found when I dug into it.

I try to be forgiving when I'm grieving but I fall short. I don't expect someone grieving to be forgiving if I miss the mark, but I appreciate it immensely when they're able.

My favorite things to hear when I'm grieving are ones I know some other people hate:

"I miss them so much."

"Remember when they..."

"I thought about them today."

"I wonder what they'd say about..."

"They would have loved this."

"I had a dream about them."

Releasing the idea that there was a correct thing people could say to me and I would feel a little better (or ensure I wouldn't feel worse) let me grieve how I needed to grieve. It let me support in ways I could better sustain over the long term (because boy howdy if grief isn't long term).

Anywho, a heartfelt hug and virtual cup of tea to anyone else reading this and going through it. On other side. Solidarity friends.

it's been a year so i feel more comfortable talking about it..

when you're atheist and you lose someone, religious people don't really know how to interact with you. it's fine, we have different worldviews.

'He's in a better place, now.'

Sorry auntie, but I don't believe that. I believe that his brain stopped working at 5h55pm on december 11th 2022, and that's it. Nothing after that.

It makes grief very difficult, because not believing in god or the afterlife also means accepting that you will never, ever see that person again. That's it. The end. Nada mas.

But, back to the aunties and other faceless people gravitating in the grey blurry waters of your awareness.

They tell you 'He's with god now' and you tell them 'Yeah I don't believe that' and.

they. get. annoyed.

Here I am, gutted open, the worst day of my life, barely holding myself together, and they! Get annoyed that I won't smile and entertain their point of view!

Another faceless person tried to heal me with cristals. She also got annoyed when I told her I didn't believe in that.

I usually don't really mind religious people. It's fine, we have different worldviews. I think I'm right but so do they. As long as they're good people, I don't judge them for their faith.

I'll even be grateful for them trying to console me. I get that you're trying to give me strength and love. Thank you.

But I'm going to be true to myself, yes even when I'm mad with shock and grief. And I still can't believe they got annoyed that I didn't play along to placate them, on the worst day of my life.

(I wanted to share because I've never heard anyone talk about atheism and grief, and the loneliness that comes out of it.)

[mahmahmahmysharona]

When you don't know why Bob doesn't like you, but a relapse forces you to find out.

(Bob Reynolds x Avenger Reader) Part 1/?

You don't think Bob likes you very much. Especially when the situation goes from being a ragtag group of underdogs to a fully blown Avengers Avengerz(!)-living-together-in-the-tower deal.

In fact, maybe he just doesn't think much about you at all. He's quiet, shy even, with most of the team, but on the rare occasions he contributes more than a mere small smile, you're the last person he's talking to.

It doesn't bother you much. So what if Yelena is his keeper, making sure he's alright and keeping a tactful eye on him? Obviously he'd be more open with her. But still, you wonder if you ever said something wrong, or were too harsh on him when you all first met. (Hell, he'd even rather talk to Walker than you, it seems.)

Okay, maybe it bothers you more than you'll admit.

You've never been one to make friends easily, but when you can't even win the affections of someone who literally has the living embodiment of guilt and resentment fighting for dominance inside of him, then there must be something wrong with you.

But you get on with life. The new version of it, anyway. You train, you go on missions, you sleep, and you do it all again. Occasionally, the team starts to develop into something more important to you. They have your back, and you have theirs.

Still, even with all this, Bob doesn't bite. Not when you offer him coffee, not when you ask him about what book he's reading, and not even when you try to crack jokes about the team's questionable public branding.

So you give up. You keep your head down. But then one day, Yelena asks you to hang back from a mission to keep an eye on Bob, who seems to be in his head more than usual.

"Maybe it'll be good for you two," she says, not unsubtly. "Get to know each other a little."

Great. Now you know everyone has noticed the rift between you.

You stay out of his way, poking your head around the corner ever now and again, catching him sitting in front of the window and looking out at the sky. You know better than to ask him if he's okay, so you stay hidden.

Except one time you look out, expecting to see him there, and he's gone. Shit. You've lost the biggest asset and most dangerous weapon in New York.

You quickly head to his room, certain he's fine, but not wanting to be responsible if he's not.

When you get there, the door is partially open, and you gently push it the rest of the way. The lights are out. You look around, and your heart stops when you see a shadow sitting on the bed. A black silhouette, sitting very still. Your head suddenly fills with memories of that day, when you were forced to relive the most horrific snapshots of your past: revisiting some of your most terrible deeds — ones that you can't outrun, even in your sleep, even now. It’s torture without the pain.

Without thinking, you reach back and pull out your gun, pointing it at the shape. Your hands are steady, but only just. You know from experience bullets will do nothing to stop The Void, but if the team comes back and finds your shadow burned into the ground, you at least want them to know that you fucking tried.

As soon as you do, the shadow moves. "Woah, woah," it says. "It's me." It reaches over and switches on the bedside lamp, illuminating the room in a relieving warm glow. It's just Bob, sitting on his bed, looking rightly panicked.

You immediately stand down, hooking your gun back into place. Your heart is still pounding. "Bob. You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were..." Then you immediately feel bad.

"Sorry," he says. "I just wanted to sit in the dark for a while. I should have thought--"

"No, don't apologize."

When you ask him what’s wrong, he’s cagey. You’ve done this dance before — trying to talk to him and getting little in return. He’s okay, you’re okay, so you give a small grunt and decide to leave.

But he stops you, a guilty look on his face. Finally, he explains. He always feels this way when the team leaves for missions, knowing how dangerous he is but hating knowing everyone is in danger. He wants to help, but has no idea how to harness his powers beyond simply controlling them. He looks up at you, suddenly quieter (if that’s even possible) and says that today feels even worse, because the one person who likes him the least is stuck babysitting him.

“Hold on,” you say. “What do you mean?”

Then it all comes pouring out. Bob thinks you hate him. You think Bob hates you. Neither of you hate each other. The realisation makes you laugh, hard. He doesn’t quite get there, but he does crack a confused smile.

Evidently, your resting bitch face paired with his natural shyness has caused a stalemate.

“Bob, I’ve wanted to be your friend this whole time,” you say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I just stopped trying because you seemed…I don’t know, scared of me or something.”

“I think I am, just a little.”

“Don’t you have the power of a hundred suns or something?”

“A million exploding suns,” he says casually, shrugging. You don’t really know what to say to that until he cracks a smile, and you realise the only response is another laugh.

“Okay, well, for clarity’s sake, can we be friends now?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says. Emboldened, he holds out his hand. You look at it, remembering what happened the last time you accidentally grabbed his hand a year ago in that damn incinerator. (A trip into the "Void Rooms", even when brief, isn't good.) Your recollection must register on your face, because you see his smile drop. He pulls his hand back, but you know that in order for this to work, he has to trust you. And you have to trust him.

You reach out and grab his hand, gripping it firm in yours, shaking it as he wanted you to. Between your fingers, something is happening. There’s an invisible charge. Can he feel it? You shake it off.

“For what it’s worth,” you tell him. “I don’t see you as a burden. Nobody else around here does, either. I think we need you as much as you need us. And don’t be scared of me, because I’m not scared of you.”

That seems to unlock something in him. His shoulders drop, his chest expands and releases with a loaded, relieved breath, and his hand quickly relaxes in yours.

“Well…” he tears his eyes away from your hands, looking back up at you. “…That’s another person I can add to my very small list.” Another thought crosses his mind, causing the smile to fade.

"What would you have done?" he asks. "If it hadn't been me in here? If it had been...the other me? If I'd dragged you back into that place?"

You feel your fingers flex in your palm by your side. You'd go down fighting, is what would really happen. But you can't say that. You have to say something else: something not as desperate but equally true.

"I would have found you," you tell him. "I would have torn through every memory to find you, Bob. And we'd get out of there, just like we did before. Together."

His brow creases, watching you, ringing his hands, torn by some internal conflict you'll never fully understand. But he does soften still, giving you a grateful nod.

You leave him then, giving him the space he obviously wants. But what you don’t know is that he doesn’t want you to leave. He wants to talk to you, to catch up on getting to know you. There’s so much he missed out on, because he’s stupid, and now he wants to do everything he can to make up for it.

What you also don’t know is that, despite being relieved that you two can now be friends, is that soon, there’ll be a whole new problem.

Soon, just being friends won’t be nearly enough for either of you.

Part 2 (aka: When you realize you're falling in love with Bob, and it sucks.)

[jazzthatonewriterchick]

A Fool For Love (18+ Fic) *PREVIEW*

Pairing: Gangster!Bakugou x Black!Bimbo!Reader

Synopsis: You were just a lowly young woman singing and dancing at your local club to care for your sick mother and a chance at fame. He was just a renowned gangster, building his lonely empire and riches on the bones he broken. And then you two met and suddenly, everything seemed to fit together...until he broke it all apart again. Now, trying to move on, you find affection with another, but your gangster ex doesn't take too kindly to that and will have to find it in himself to make you understand that you're the one for him.

Story Warnings: Smutty Smut; 18+ (MINORS GTFO); Time Period AU (Roaring 1920s); Gangster/Thug!Bakugou; Bimbo!Reader; Strangers to Lovers/Exes to Lovers; Opposites Attract Trope; Sunshine x Grumpy Trope; Mild Violence; Some Mentions of Racism & Sexism; Love Triangle; Jealous BF!Bakugou; Possession/Ownership; Bondage; Mild BDSM; Marking; Scent Play; Daddy Kink; Spanking; Spit Play; Cum Play; Public Sex; Dom!Bakugou x sub!Reader; Breeding Kink; Unprotected Sex/Creampies; Fluff & Hurt/Angst

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters mentioned in this fic. However, as this is my writing, I do not give permission for my work to be reposted on any other sites that are not from my own accounts. Thank you!

Writer's Note: Soooo I had this idea in my head for THEE LONGEST TIME after listening to Lucky Daye's "That's You" back to back for months now lol. I wanted to write a gangster fic for a minute now, but I was having trouble picking WHO to write it for until I did a poll on here & people chose Bakugou for it. I'm so hype to write this because I'm a slut for mafia romance (I'm a wattpad girl stfu) & I love writing period shit. I hope y'all enjoy it! 🥰🥰🥰🥰

I also have a tracklist that I made for this short compiled of songs I think fit the story & the time period it takes place in. You can find it below! If anyone has any idea who the artist is for the fan art in the tracklist, PLEASE let me know! (I found it on Pinterest) 💗💗💗💗 -Jazz

Chapters: PREVIEW. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X.

***********

PREVIEW 

Bakugou watches you intently sitting next to him in the passenger's seat of his car, the rain pitter-pattering outside, creating a loud cacophony of endless noise.

Your sweet voice nearly gets swept up with the rain. “I don’t understand, Katsuki. I just don’t understand you.”

You won't look at him. Your beautiful, doe-like brown eyes are staring somewhere else outside the windshield, the rain reflecting back in those pools of bewilderment and sorrow that Bakugou could get lost in forever.

'I know, baby,' he thinks, his own sorrow and regret threatening to swallow him whole. 'I wish I could tell you everything. Wish I could make you understand...'

But making you understand would also mean he would have to tell you and show you everything about him, and he dreads that. Because everyone he has ever shown the him behind the designer suits, fancy cars, laser red stares, and cool exterior has abandoned him. Broken his heart. Taken his affection and stomped on it.

He is afraid of what will happen if he does show you who he is because he has no idea what you'll do if he does. That is the reason he separated from you-to leave you before you left him. To save himself the heartbreak and you the horror of seeing that he is nothing like the man you thought he was.

It doesn't make it any better than you're so sweet. So kind. So different from the rest. The temptation to show you everything-the blood, the pain, the scars, the mistakes, the regrets-frightens him so.

"I'm sorry" is all he can say to you now, sitting awkwardly in the driver's seat, his hands gripping the steering wheel for dear life to avoid trembling. He doesn't want to appear weak with you, his dear, precious little singer.

It is so lame, so trivial, but it is all he can muster to tell you now despite the brown liquor fogging his sense of rationality and his filter. He wants so much to tell you how much he misses you.

How he cannot fall asleep without envisioning your face next to him.

How he hasn't washed his pillow since the last time you slept on it just to smell your perfume on it.

How there has been no other woman in his bed or in his arms since you departed.

But he keeps it all back...for now. You look up at him now, turning away from the raindrops to finally put those pretty eyes on him. He nearly swallows his tongue at your beauty-your creamy skin that contrasts his; your baby face and dimples; your curly black hair made even curlier from the rain. The urge to kiss you lingers in the air.

"I don't get it," you say aloud, frustration and confusion evident in your tone and the crease in your brow. "What do you want?"

Bakugou blinks at you, not counting on the question being asked. It should be so easy to reply to, but he can't. Because if he says "you" then he will be forced to tell you the real reason why he ended your relationship: because he is afraid.

The silence must frustrate you more because your cute little lips purse, something you do when you're irritated. "What do you want, Katsuki?" you ask again, your frustration growing.

Finally, Bakugou relaxes his hold on the steering wheel and replaces it with your small, warm hands. You stare at his bigger, calloused, inked ones interlaced with yours as if you can't believe he is touching you. "I want you happy," he answers, true and genuine. "Even if it isn't with me, Y/N. I need you to be happy."

And despite the utter anguish that his response brings, despite the fact that he would be heartbroken if you were to end up with that stupid extra "Todoroki" or some other chump, if you were to be happier than you were with him, that would be the answer to his nightly prayers.

But he would also be lying if he said that he wouldn't be filled with envy for the rest of his days and dying to take the spot of the other man in your arms.

[multi-fandom-imagine]

𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿 , 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗗𝗮𝗱 || 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀 ||

A/n: Sam would be an amazing Uncle, also I'm really on a Marvel kick rn. Also AU where everyone is alive cause I love Nat, Wanda, Tony and vision ( they're all alive so eat my ass if you dont like it

Steve jogged after his daughter, his brows furrowed and hands outstretched as she darted away, her giggles echoing through the playground. Her golden curls bounced as she sprinted toward the slide, her tiny legs pumping with all the determination a four-year-old could muster.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Steve said, exasperation mixed with a smile. “It’s lunchtime. You’re gonna run Daddy into the ground.”

The little girl ignored him, her eyes gleaming with mischief as she scrambled up the ladder to the slide. Instead of sliding down like a normal kid, she managed to hoist herself onto the very top, balancing precariously like a tiny, giggling daredevil.

Steve’s eyes widened. “Whoa, hey! No, no, no—”

From her spot on the top of the slide, she grinned and launched herself off with a triumphant squeal.

Steve surged forward, his heart in his throat as he caught her mid-air, her little arms wrapping around his neck as he stumbled back a step.

“Gotcha!” he breathed, clutching her tightly to his chest. “What do you think you’re doing, Spider-Monkey?”

She giggled, pressing her cheek against his neck. “I was flying, Daddy!”

Steve shook his head, his stern expression melting into an affectionate grin. “Yeah, well, let’s not fly off anything higher than the bench, okay?”

From the bench nearby, you watched with a hand resting on your very pregnant belly, trying not to laugh too hard. The sight of Steve, Captain America himself, nearly taken out by a four-year-old was too good to miss.

Steve glanced over at you, a dramatic groan escaping him as he shifted his daughter onto his hip. “You find this funny, huh?”

You grinned, eyes twinkling. “Oh, immensely.”

He walked over, pressing a kiss to your forehead, then to your belly, where your unborn child kicked in response. “Can we please get lunch now? Before she decides to base jump off the swing set next?”

You reached up and ruffled his hair, chuckling. “Better move fast, Cap. You know she gets her appetite from you.”

Steve groaned again, rolling his eyes as his daughter wriggled in his arms, already asking for pizza and ice cream.

"How about, we go to the Avenger Tower and see all your Uncle and Aunties." Steve asked, the man hoping this would calm her down.

"Yeaaaa!!!!"

He was wrong, this will be worse than pizza and ice cream.

Steve leaned back against the couch, his arm draped around you as you chatted with Bucky, Nat, and Wanda. Retirement suited him — he was more relaxed, a little softer around the edges, but still the same Steve. The warm glow of the common room lights illuminated his face, and his hand absently rubbed your swollen belly as you laughed at something Bucky said the distant hum of JARVIS’s systems providing a familiar backdrop.

“Retirement looks good on you, Rogers,” Bucky said, nudging Steve’s shoulder. “You actually look… relaxed.”

Steve snorted, shaking his head. “Yeah, when I’m not chasing Lilly around the playground or convincing her not to color on the walls.”

“Wonder where she gets that from,” Wanda quipped, her eyes darting to you with a knowing smirk.

You opened your mouth to protest but were cut off by the distant sound of Tony’s unmistakable yell.

Natasha snorted. “And you're now on Snack duty and diaper duty." As Wanda barked out her own laugh.

“WILSON!���

Everyone’s heads snapped toward the hallway just in time to hear the pounding of footsteps and the unmistakable sound of Sam’s booming laugh.

Suddenly, Sam burst into the room, running at full speed with Lilly clinging to his back like a little monkey. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, her tiny fists clutching fistfuls of his shirt as she giggled uncontrollably.

Sam was grinning from ear to ear, his eyes sparkling with pure mischief. “You shouldn’t have fallen asleep near a four-year-old!” he bellowed as he sprinted past the common room.

Right behind him, Tony came skidding into the room, his face a complete disaster. Bright purple and green scribbles covered his cheeks and forehead, and a poorly drawn mustache and goatee adorned his jawline. There was a lopsided Iron Man helmet scrawled on his left cheek and a massive flower drawn around one eye.

Tony’s eyes blazed as he pointed furiously at Sam. “Wilson! I have a meeting in twenty minutes! Twenty!”

Sam just cackled as he bolted down the hallway, Lilly’s gleeful shrieks echoing through the tower. “Faster, Uncle Sam! Faster!”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a long, suffering sigh. “Oh, God…”

Natasha was grinning, her eyes dancing with amusement. “That’s what he gets for being the ‘fun uncle.’”

On the security monitors, the cameras captured Sam and Lilly darting around the corner, still laughing hysterically. Tony stormed after them, his face now smeared with ink as he furiously wiped at the scribbles, only making it worse.

Bucky was howling with laughter, leaning back against the couch as he watched the chaos unfold. “Man, I missed this.”

Steve shook his head, looking over at you with a look of pure exasperation. “Why did we think bringing her here was a good idea?”

You just smiled, patting his thigh. “Because you love them. And you missed your friends.”

Steve let out another groan, sinking back against the couch. “Yeah… definitely missed them.”

Meanwhile, on the monitor, Sam and Lilly could still be seen running down the hall, cackling like a pair of outlaws as Tony chased after them, shouting threats about meetings and permanent marker removal.

Steve grimaced. “I think I’d rather face Thanos again.”

Before anyone could respond, a loud, indignant shout echoed through the tower.

"WILSON! YOU WINGED MENSON! YOU CAN'T BLAME A FOUR YEAR OLD ALL THE TIME! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!"

Steve and you were still seated in the common room, Bucky and Natasha laughing about the chaos unfolding down the hall. On the security monitors, Sam and Lilly were still on the run, evading a very ink-stained, very irate Tony Stark.

Then, Vision floated into the room, hands clasped behind his back as he observed the commotion on the monitor with his usual calm, curious expression.

“What’s going on?” Vision asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched Sam and Lilly duck into a nearby closet.

“Oh, just the usual,” Bucky said, still grinning. “Sam and Steve’s kid decided Tony needed a little makeover.”

Vision nodded thoughtfully. “I see.”

Meanwhile, on the monitor, Sam was whispering something to Lilly as they crouched in the closet. Lilly’s eyes sparkled mischievously as she whispered back, and Sam’s grin grew wider.

Vision’s gaze lingered on the monitor, and with a slight tilt of his head, he said, “Would you like me to assist?”

Steve immediately sat up. “Wait, Vision—”

Too late.

With a brief flicker, Vision phased through the wall and into the hallway, reappearing right outside the closet where Sam and Lilly were hiding. Sam opened the door cautiously, peeking out to see Vision standing there, a serene expression on his face.

“Ah! Vision! Just the man I was looking for,” Sam said, a little too casually.

Vision blinked. “Is there something I can assist you with, Sam?”

Sam’s eyes darted to the hallway where Tony’s angry footsteps could be heard approaching. “Yeah, actually. Could you, uh, maybe… float us to the other side of the tower? Just, you know, for safety reasons?”

Lilly clapped her hands, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Please, Uncle Vision?”

Vision looked down at her, his face softening. “Of course.”

Without another word, Vision placed his hands on Sam’s and Lilly’s shoulders and phased them right through the wall, effortlessly carrying them across several rooms until they reappeared in the kitchen — well away from Tony.

Meanwhile, back in the hallway, Tony burst open the closet door, panting and looking around wildly. “Sam? Lilly? Oh, come on!”

In the kitchen, Sam and Lilly landed safely on the floor, both of them wide-eyed and beaming.

“That… was… awesome!” Lilly squealed, throwing her arms around Vision’s leg. “Again!”

Sam clapped Vision on the shoulder. “You, my man, are a hero.”

Vision blinked. “But I thought Tony was the hero?”

Sam snorted. “Not today, he ain’t.”

On the monitor, Steve groaned, dragging a hand down his face as he watched Tony stomp down the hallway, completely lost, while Sam and Lilly cackled in the kitchen with Vision looking completely unbothered.

Bucky leaned back, chuckling. “Guess we’re gonna have to add ‘unintentional prank accomplice’ to Vision’s resume.”

Natasha smirked. “Someone should really tell him what a ‘fun uncle’ actually means.”

[harkharknessness]

kiss city

summary: you're the head of a studio that's caught the attention of one of Continental's biggest and brightest directors, causing the team at Continental to scramble as they try to keep her in the fold. relationship: Maya x Reader (established) content notes: explicit smut (18+), light bondage, nipple clamps, clit clamp, vibrator, face sitting, masturbation, AFAB reader, reader is referred to as girl/babygirl/babe/baby/bitch, maya says "fuck" every other sentence... I think that's it.

disclaimer: probably nothing about how i describe the film industry working is accurate lol. forgive me word count: 10.8k (ao3)

It was quieter than usual in the conference room at Continental Studios that morning, especially for having all of the firm’s biggest players sitting around the table for an emergency meeting. It wasn’t a tense quiet—not yet, at least. Just charged, simmering with the news Matt had shared moments before: Bridget Archer was considering another studio for her next project.

“Well, who is it?” Sal asked, not undeterred by the prospect of losing Archer just yet. “Is she thinking Universal? Fox?”

Matt took a deep breath and cast a quick glance in Maya’s direction. She didn’t pretend not to notice, per se, but she was too busy checking her nails to acknowledge him at the moment.

“Adoculos.”

Everyone else’s eyes found Maya then, and the weight of their combined stares forced her to look up from her cuticles. “What?” she asked, even though she knew damn well why she’d suddenly caught everyone’s eye.

“Did you know about this?” Sal asked from his seat across the table.

“I fucking told him about it,” Maya said, gesturing toward Matt with her now thoroughly-inspected hand. “You’re welcome.”

Matt cleared his throat as everyone’s focus returned to him at the front of the room. “We can’t let it happen.” He shrugged, as if there were nothing more to say. “She almost single-handedly made Q4 our best quarter in eleven years.”

Quinn leaned forward in her chair, eager to contribute. “Dreaming in Violet killed it last year. Critical darling and it did great in theaters. Better than expected. Topped the Coen Brothers project that came out at the same time in its second week.”

Anyone who didn’t know that shouldn’t have been in the room, but it was business, and they needed to lay all their cards down.

Matt took back over, hands flat on the table in front of him. “We need her next project. It has to be us. We need to make it so that people know if Bridget Archer is on a film, it’s coming from Continental.”

No one said anything, but everyone sat in silent agreement.

“We’re meeting with her this afternoon, and we’re going to give her whatever she wants,” Matt said, pointing down at the table with one hand as if it was marked with a play-by-play on retaining your studio’s highest-grossing director. “What we did for Scorcese, but multiply it by ten.”

“We’re going to kiss her ass,” Sal chimed in, translating to the rest of the group who didn’t necessarily need the assistance. “Give her the metaphorical hand job of the century.”

Maya scoffed. “If you’re planning a hand job for Bridget Archer, then you’ve already fucked up your pitch.”

“Fine. The cunnilingus job of the century,” Sal said, exasperated. He let the thought hang in the air for a moment before shaking his head. “Doesn’t sound as good.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow at him. “It’ll sound better to the queer auteur who has at least one allusion to the vagina in every scene.”

“We have the upper hand here. We’ve proved we can be the kind of studio where she can make the kind of movie she wants to make,” Matt popped back in, trying to get the conversation back on track. “But Adoculos isn’t unworthy competition. It’s got that art house prestige—the kind an indie-at-heart director still longs for, even after they’ve gotten the major deal. There’s also that automatic rapport—the sapphic bond. We have to overcome that.”

Maya couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the prospect. “Archer is not going to choose the other studio just because the studio head is gay unless you act like a moron and say something like that to her face.” She thought about it for another beat before raising a finger in warning toward him. “And don’t mention what you did to Scorcese, either. We don’t need to remind anyone of that fucking disaster.”

Tyler snapped his fingers in agreement beside her.

“Fine. No Scorcese,” Matt conceded, a grimace crossing his face at the memory.

“So we keep it director-friendly,” Quinn said, projecting confidence in that junior-exec way of hers. “Creative control. Big budget. Significant upfront and equity—”

Maya’s voice, more brash, cut in. “Offer her the terms that would make a director cream their fucking pants to keep working with us.” Matt looked at her skeptically, given her objection to Sal’s earlier metaphor, but she just shrugged. “Genital inclusive.”

The conversation went on, discussing every possible way they could think of to appeal to Archer in ways they hadn’t already during her last film. Quinn had three full pages of notes by the time the ideas stopped flowing and the apprehension began flowing too freely.

Matt sighed the way he did when he was starting to regret having ever being offered studio head, then nodded in Maya’s direction. “Do you, uh,” he said, voice low and yet, still anything but subtle, “Do you have any idea what they’re offering?”

Maya snorted, leaning back in her chair, elbows perched on the armrests. “You’re lucky we know she’s thinking about leaving at all.”

Matt shrank then, just a bit, the amount of shrinking he did anytime Maya pushed back, more out of respect than fear.

“We don’t need to know what they’re offering,” Quinn said, her voice cool and steady. “We have a plan. We just have to stick to it.”

Matt ran his hand through his hair as he tried to keep calm. “All right, let’s take a lunch. The meeting’s at two, so be here before then.”

-*-*-

The meeting lasted longer than it should have, and yet, by the end, no one was sure they had Archer back on the hook.

“Bridget, thank you so much for coming in today,” Matt said, shaking the hand of the woman—short, but still taking up the whole room. “We are really, really excited for this opportunity, and we couldn’t be more willing to make it happen. Let me walk you out.”

Matt led the way out of the conference room with Archer and her team behind him. When the door swung closed, Sal immediately pointed to Quinn.

“Quinn—go. Don’t let him fuck this up.”

Quinn scurried to her feet and ducked out of the conference room, trailing the group for only a few steps before she was walking in stride with Archer’s publicist, close enough to hear whatever Matt was saying (and to jump in and redirect if needed).

“So,” Maya said after the Bridget and her entourage had fully disappeared down the staircase. She pulled a vape pen from her pocket and brought it to her mouth before cocking her head in the direction Quinn had just disappeared into. “How’s that going?”

“There’s no ‘that,’” he answered, but he wasn’t a good liar.

“Okay, man,” Maya said, raising her hands as vapor rose up in wisps around her, sharing a look with Tyler through the brief mist.

Sal swatted at the disappearing cloud from across the table. “Could you not do that in here?” he asked, the words laced with an irritation he wasn’t fully ready to unleash but needed to make known.

“It’s medicinal,” Maya said in response, but put the pen away anyway.

Matt and Quinn returned minutes later, neither looking particularly concerned, but not too optimistic, either.

“She’s going to decide by the end of the day,” Matt said steadily. “They’ll call.”

“What the hell is Ad-hacks offering that’s keeping her from saying yes? You practically handed over the keys to the studio,” Sal asked, saying what they’re all thinking. Maya’s lips twitched, but she had enough loyalty to not give Sal ‘the look’ at the nickname. “I think we’ll actually lose money on this movie if she agrees to our terms, no matter how well it does.”

Matt grimaced briefly, like he’d been trying not to think about it, then held his head high, resolute. “It’ll be worth it, if it means she sticks with us for her next few features.”

“And if she does one and bounces?” Maya asked. “Or it flops despite my undoubtedly fire socials campaign?”

“We can ask the hypothetical questions after we find out if she’s staying,” Matt said, cutting the conversation off.

They dispersed shortly after, with the understanding that they were all sticking around the Continental building until they got the news, good or bad.

Maya went back to her office to resume OK-ing poster proofs and scrolling through rough trailer cuts for movies that were coming out next quarter in between taking bites of her Postmates order, eyes on her monitor rather than her fork.

It was just past eight when Tyler came sprinting into her doorway, breathing heavily.

“Quinn said Matt’s on with Archer’s agent.”

“Shit,” Maya said, standing up immediately, meal half-eaten and forgotten on her desk, and trailing Tyler out into the hall.

“Did you tell Sal?” Maya asked as they came up on his office a few doors down.

“I did,” Quinn answered, coming up from behind them. “He’s just… taking a minute,” she muttered before taking off, like she wanted to be far away before Maya could ask any more questions. Tyler followed.

Maya looked in through the window to Sal’s office, and found him still sitting in his chair, looking a little drowsy with the imprint of a book slicing a red line down his cheek. He seemed to be in no hurry, and Maya was having none of it.

“Come on!” she called, banging on the glass with her palm.

Sal startled, making a face at her, but standing up to make his way down the hallway after her. The two of them slid into Matt’s office just as the call was ending, crowding around Matt next to Quinn and Tyler.

“Understood,” Matt said, his face locked in a grin. “Well, let her know we’d love to work with her again some time, OK? OK. Good to talk to you.”

Matt brought the phone down from his ear, the beep signifying the end of the call just barely audible to the rest of the group. “Well,” he said to no one in particular, “That wasn’t how I hoped it would go.”

“Shit,” Sal breathed, dropping into the nearest chair. Not defeated, not even resigned. Just quiet shock.

“Fucking shit,” Maya parroted, taking the seat across from him. Her tongue jutted out into her cheek the way it always did when she was upset and trying to hide it.

“I can’t believe we lost her,” Quinn murmured, rounding out the immediate chorus of reactions.

“It’s all right,” Matt said in an attempt to convince them all, and especially himself. “I mean, it’s a loss, for sure, but we still have a whole roster of great directors—Wilde, Polley—“

“Not Scorcese,” Maya interrupted, though the quip lacked its usual bite.

“And not Howard,” Quinn added under her breath, like she was hoping no one would hear.

“Okay, fine,” Matt conceded. “I take the blame for those two, one-hundred percent. But I didn’t do anything wrong here, guys. We just got outbid.”

The room went quiet as everyone took in that truth.

The silence was broken by the buzz of Maya’s phone in her cargo pants pocket, then by the rustle of fabric as she fished it out. Despite it all, a small smirk crept onto Maya’s face as she read the incoming message, which Sal caught onto immediately.

“Tell your poacher girlfriend I said congrats,” he snorted lightly, though he only meant it half-heartedly.

“Hey,” Maya said, her fingers pausing mid-air with her response only half complete. “I’m pissed, too. No cap. I had some good ideas for that roll-out already. Sight un-fucking-seen.”

Tyler nodded solemnly to her left, like it was his greatest regret to deliver the next words to the rest of the group. “They were good.”

“And actually,” Maya continued, looking around the room, giving each person plenty of time to become reacquainted with her withering glare. “I’m offended as hell that everyone’s giving me the corporate espionage side-eye. Like I haven’t been the backbone of this studio for ten years. Be fucking for real.”

Matt cleared his throat again, clearly not recognizing the danger he was putting himself in. “I wouldn’t say marketing is the backbone of the studio. There’s nothing to market without the creative department, and—“

Matt trailed off when he noticed Maya’s fingers flexing against her chin and the wicked smile on her lips. “You wanna finish that?”

Matt shook his head, lips in a tight line. “No. I do not.”

The look on Maya’s face turned somehow deadlier at his response, reveling in the personal victory—a small one, sure, but there weren’t many others to claim from the rest of the day. “All right, chat, today is busted. I’m out.”

She stood from her chair, waving over her shoulder wordlessly at the muttered “goodbyes” as she headed back toward her office to grab her purse and go home.

As she walked out into the cooling Los Angeles evening air, she fished her phone back out from her purse, where she’d tossed it back up in her office. She held it screen facing up between her thumb and fingers, mic closest to her mouth. “Siri, text BBG.”

“Okay,” the robotic voice replied. “What do you want to say?”

-*-*-

Stay calm. Stay calm.

That had been your entire internal monologue for two hours, with no clear end in sight.

You were standing in the video village on the set of a film that you were this close to pulling the plug on, just taking the loss. It didn’t feel remotely worth the time, effort, or money anymore.

That afternoon (evening, really, but who was counting), you’d been called to the set by one of your junior execs who informed you that the crew had gotten approximately forty seconds of usable film in the last three days.

It wasn’t just mismanagement or poor planning causing the dysfunction. That’s something that you, as the studio head, wouldn’t normally be involved in, at least not to the same degree. The situation was just so far gone that there was no other choice but for you to be there. This wasn’t just incompetence. It was tension. It was hostility. It was a lead actor or the DP threatening to quit every other week. And you could link it all back to one person: the director.

You’d once had great respect for the director in question. You’d written papers on him in film school when he was just a big deal on the indie circuit, hiding your outright fangirling behind a thin veneer of academic stoicism to hand in to your professors. But you hadn’t worked with him at that point, and you could’ve never predicted then that, years later, you’d be getting called up regularly to serve as a glorified babysitter and ego-stroker to that man you’d been told to trust with a multi-million-dollar budget and your studio’s reputation.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t just a big name in the industry. He was also a close friend of your founding partner, a.k.a. the CFO of Adoculos Pictures, so wish as you might, there wasn’t very much you could do. You were just going to have to see it through unless someone literally died on set. But God you hoped that didn’t happen. That might be the only thing worse than staying the course.

You could handle it. That wasn’t ever in question. It wasn’t enjoyable, not in the slightest, but you could. You had a reputation for being able to work with the most difficult characters in the industry. A soothe sayer, they’d called you in the trade magazines on occasion. But that didn’t mean you wanted to.

Really, you should’ve been making your partner deal with this. It was his friend, his pet project. (Okay, maybe you’d been a big proponent at first. But not anymore.) Unfortunately, though, he had been spending time at the East Coast office over the last several weeks, so the burden had fallen to you.

At least if you were here, though, you knew something was getting done and the director wasn’t just going to get the pass because he had a buddy in high places. Not a whole lot of progress had been made in the short time that you’d been on location today, but the air did feel slightly lighter than it had when you’d arrived. At the very least, you’d managed to avoid another round of union penalties by firmly suggesting that it was break time—the amount in fees this production had already racked up by delaying or skipping breaks entirely made you balk when you first heard it yesterday.

The other members of the little enclave of folding chairs and video monitors had dispersed quickly after the director had made the begrudging announcement. He was still there though, grumbling under his breath, loud enough for you to hear but not for you to make out the words.

“See you after the break,” you said in as cordial a tone as you could muster in the moment.

He didn’t respond—not even under his breath. You held back a sigh.

As you walked away, you made a silent vow to yourself that, even if the film tripled its budget at the box office, you were going to make damn sure that your studio would never make a film with that guy ever again. The asshole.

After a little wandering around the property to stretch your legs and just be somewhere else for a while, you found yourself tucked away somewhere with trees and evening bird song and no cranky, argumentative directors or actors with bruised egos. A luxury.

Unfortunately, the atmosphere was probably going to be the only remotely relaxing part of the next 30 minutes. You were planning to call your partner, shame him into booking a seat on the first flight out of JFK tomorrow so he could start cleaning up his mess himself, and you knew it wasn’t going to be a sweet little chat.

Despite the chaos, you couldn’t help but smile when you unlocked your phone. It was still on your thread with Maya from earlier that evening when you’d gotten the call about Bridget Archer.

You’d barely gotten two minutes to bask in your success when you were called back to the more immediate realities of your situation, but those two minutes had been good.

As soon as you hung up with Archer’s agent—before you texted your partner, even before you told your assistant to call legal and get everything nailed down, you’d texted Maya.

We got her.

She’d started typing immediately, the three little dots coming up almost as soon as you hit send, but they disappeared shortly after. It took a few more minutes to finally get her response:

That’s my fucking girl!!!!

Suddenly Maya’s name and picture (something perhaps a little NSFW for a public contact photo, but then again, it was Maya) flashed on your screen. A coincidence that you couldn’t be more thankful for.

You answered before the first ring ended.

“You eat?” Maya asked as soon as the call connected. You two rarely exchanged pleasantries anymore. After all, you’d started out your day together, had been messaging in short bursts throughout. The “hello”s and the “how are you”s were unnecessary because the conversation never really ended, so they’d fallen out of your calls.

“On occasion,” you said, shouldering your phone as you leaned against a nearby palm tree, squinting up into the navy blue haze of the southern California sky after sunset.

“Smartass,” Maya said, but you were sure (despite not being able to see her) that the smirk on her lips matched your own. You could hear the sounds of the highway rushing by—she must’ve been on her way home. “Let me rephrase: Do I personally need to feed you to make sure you’ve eaten something in the last 18 hours?”

You didn’t answer right away, knowing the true answer was not the right answer. “…I haven’t had anything.”

Maya hummed knowingly. “God, you’re lucky you have such a loving and attentive and selfless girlfriend.”

“That’s one word for it.”

A scoff came from Maya’s end of the call. “Keep talking like that and you’ll deadass have no girlfriend by this time tomorrow.”

You closed your eyes and let out a breath—one you hadn’t realized you’d been holding in until Maya had given you the tiny amount of room you’d needed to relax. “What I meant to say was, yes, I am so incredibly lucky.”

“Okay, say less,” Maya said with another thoughtful hum. “So what’s your deal tonight?”

You sighed, leaning your head back to thump softly against the tree trunk. “I’m on set. Just taking a break. I’ll probably be another couple hours.”

“That set?” Maya asked.

“Yeah. That one.”

You could practically hear her eyes roll, but she didn’t say anything more about it—a rare moment of restraint in your honor. “You coming here after?” she asked instead, the faint clicking of a turn signal as a backing beat, probably pulling off at her exit.

“You want me to?” you asked in answer.

“If you want to,” she replied, trying to sound nonchalant, but neutrality was never Maya’s strongest suit.

You rolled your eyes this time. “That’s not an answer.”

“You started it,” she said pointedly, then sighed. “But fine, fuck it. I want you here. I always fucking want you here. Happy?”

“Yes,” you said, grinning and trying not to let yourself go soft when you had to be back on set in about twenty minutes. “I’ll text when I’m leaving.”

“You better,” Maya said. It sounded like a threat, but you knew better.

You figured that was the end of the call, goodbyes having fallen to the wayside as well, so were bringing the phone down from your shoulder, thumb hovering over the End Call button when you heard her say, “Hey—“

Your phone was back up to your ear in an instant. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” she said. “You’re a fucking rock star.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, like it might settle the flutter that rose in your chest—not just at the words, but at the way they were said. Maya always sounded so sure.

“I love you, too.”

The call ended a few seconds later, and you sucked in a deep breath through your nose.

That was the easy part. The pleasant surprise.

And now you were about to spring a not-so-pleasant one on your partner.

You navigated to your contacts and tapped his name before bringing the phone back up to your ear.

“Adam,” you said as both a greeting and a warning once the call connected. “We need to talk.”

-*-*-

You didn’t pull into Maya’s driveway that night until nearly midnight.

The house stood on a hill in Calabasas, large, modern, with clean lines and huge windows. Nothing that caught you off-guard anymore, but back in film school, walking up to a house like this would’ve had you feeling like you were in a different world.

You parked your Porsche coupe next to her BMW, then got out of the car and walked up the illuminated stairway, though you could probably make it to the door blindfolded at this point. Water poured in a sheet over a black marble ledge on either side of you, lit from behind by a warm white LED.

When you reached the upper level, you found the door unlocked, like you knew it would be. You had exchanged keys a long time ago, but you’d rarely given each other a reason to use them yet.

The door opened into a brightly lit entryway, and you closed and locked it softly behind you. The air inside the house was a little warmer than out in the night, but just barely, and something garlicky was wafting from further down the hall.

You kicked off your loafers next to the rack where Maya kept her “beater” shoes, then tried to shrug off your suit jacket without taking your leather messenger bag off of your shoulder; you managed, but were grateful no one was around to see.

“Hey, babe,” Maya called from the direction of the kitchen.

“Hey,” you called back, draping your jacket over your arm before walking toward her voice, your fingers working on undoing the second button of your shirt as you padded down the hallway.

She was ready and waiting when you entered the open concept kitchen area, moving into your space as soon as she saw you round the corner.

“Well, look at you, big shot,” she purred, reaching out to grab you by the belt loops and pull you in for a kiss.

“Out celebrating?” she teased, once you parted.

You let out a heavy sigh. “If ‘celebrating’ includes sending emails to people ‘circling back’ to conversations we settled weeks ago and putting out fires on that shit storm set for the last five hours, then yes. Partying really hard.”

Your words were a little harsher than you’d meant them to be. It had been a good day. You’d gotten Bridget Archer to sign with you. That was a big fucking deal. But the rest of the world hadn’t stopped after you’d gotten the phone call—and even if it had, you probably would’ve just taken it as an opportunity to whittle down your workload a bit for when it started spinning again.

Maya’s face twisted from a soft smirk to a stern frown.

“Sorry,” you said softly, resting a hand on Maya’s bicep. “Didn’t mean for it to sound like that.”

“You’re good,” she said softly in kind, thumb massaging little patterns into your stomach over your shirt.

Her eyes studied you, but you didn’t shrink away—you never had. Her gaze softened as she took in the exhaustion that buried the excitement of the day, the relief of finally being able to shed your executive form.

“How was everyone with the news?” you asked, treading a bit more lightly than you usually would. It didn’t seem like Maya felt betrayed by the day’s outcome, but you’d felt guilty for it all day anyway.

Maya shrugged. “They’ll be fine.”

“And you?” you asked.

“I’ll be fine, too,” she murmured. “Just watch your back with Gerwig.”

You chuckled as you leaned forward to rest your forehead against her shoulder. “I think the call of the Barbie might have ruined that for us both.”

She reached up to rest one hand on your shoulder blade, and the other on your lower back, and you in turn wrapped both arms around her waist. Her smell—the spice of her perfume with a hint of mint from her vape—wrapped around you.

Your eyes blinked closed, and your breathing slowed as you finally—finally—allowed yourself to take a moment.

When you finally leaned back, Maya took your chin between her fingers, gentle but firm. “Put your bag and your phone down, and go sit. I’ll bring you dinner.”

You opened your mouth, but she knew what you were going to say before you’d even taken a breath. “Don’t argue with me.”

You relented, not really up for any more fights and more than willing to be taken care of (and bossed around a little bit, why not) by your girlfriend. “And wine, please?” you asked as you took a reluctant step back.

“Already poured,” Maya said with a grin that only a handful of people had ever seen from her. You felt grateful all over again to be one of them.

You passed by the stools at the island, and then by the kitchen table, before finding yourself standing in the living room. You two didn’t normally eat out there—Maya was too uptight about her Restoration Hardware sectional to allow it very often, especially if any red sauce happened to be involved. But she hadn’t said anything when you walked in that direction, a silent sanctioning of tonight’s dining venue.

You flopped down on that very couch, pulled an aggressively-patterned throw pillow over your face (an aggressively-patterned Gucci throw pillow, as Maya would be remiss not to remind you), and closed your eyes. You couldn’t hear anything except the sizzle of whatever Maya had going on the stove and the hum of the air conditioner keeping the place to the near frigid temperatures you always complained about. Peace. At last.

A few minutes later and a power nap, the likes of which you’d perfected long ago, you felt a nudge to your shin. You peered out from under the throw pillow, one eye half-open and squinting up at Maya, who was now standing over you with a plate of some kind of sauced-up protein and a side of roasted vegetables in one hand and two wine glasses precariously held in the other.

You offered up a grateful but weary smile, even though half your face was still hidden by the pillow. “Thanks, My.”

“What else am I here for, the domestic goddess that I am?” she said back, waiting for you to sit up before seating herself beside you, her thigh flush with yours, like she was attached to your hip. Your smile grew a little softer, a little more smug. For all of Maya’s independent spirit, she sure did like to make sure you were close by, right where she needed you.

As you ate, Maya launched into a dramatic retelling of the Continental executive meetings from earlier in the day, punctuated occasionally by sips of wine or by you somehow being silently convinced to feed her a bite off your plate, even though she’d already eaten.

The story wound down in perfect sync with your meal, and when you finished, you set your plate down on the coffee table and settled into Maya’s side. Her arm wrapped around your waist and squeezed.

“You tired?”

You nodded, stifling a well-timed yawn. “But I don’t think I’d be able to sleep. Too much going on. Too much to think about.” Realization dawned on you then—you hadn’t checked your email in an hour. “I need my phone.”

You made to stand up from the couch, but Maya’s hand remained snugly wrapped around your waist like an anchor. “Babe…”

You looked over at her, skepticism clearly visible in your expression. “You know I run a studio, right?”

“Painfully aware,” she said, deadpan.

“I can’t go MIA,” you sighed.

“Okay. Question,” Maya said, tugging you back down to fully sit on the couch instead of the half-hover you’d been doing. “Do you think if I emailed Matt right now, I’d get a response before morning?”

“You’d know better than me,” you said, even though you had an answer in mind. You’d never worked with him directly, but you’d heard enough stories from Maya and others to know that, while he was a nice guy, he didn’t always know how to leverage the position he’d been given.

“I probably wouldn’t hear shit until lunchtime.”

You shrugged. “And that’s why I got the next Bridget Archer project.”

“Okay, bet,” Maya said, nodding, and you furrowed your brow. You’d be embarrassed at this point to admit to her that you didn’t know what that even meant. “But that still doesn’t mean you need to work all the goddamn time.”

“Getting lectured by Maya Mason about an appropriate work/life balance,” you muttered with a shake of your head. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“I have a work/life balance, thank you so much,” she corrected you, knocking your shoulder with her own. “You’re just not around to see it.”

You looked at her sideways, your eyebrows raised in doubt. “I’ve seen enough.”

“You say that, and yet, I’m the one trying to get you to chill the fuck out,” she said, heaving herself backward into the couch cushions, but not lightening up her grip around your waist. “What’s it gonna take?”

You looked at her from over your shoulder. “A miracle. Divine intervention,” you said, then pausing to think of one more. “Maybe an induced coma.”

Maya snorted before narrowing her eyes and looking up at you for a long moment. Her hold on your waist finally relaxed as she began trailing her fingers up and down your spine. “I can think of something a lot simpler than any of that,” she said in a deep voice that went straight to your lower belly. You didn’t let on, though.

“I’m not that easy,” you protested, trying to hold on to ground that was rapidly disappearing from beneath you.

Maya hummed as she sat upright again, her expression devilish, and pressed a kiss to your clothed shoulder. “Yes, you are.”

Jesus Christ.

She leaned in close so her forehead was pressed against the side of your head, her breath grazing your ear for a few moments before she turned her attention to your pulse point, alternately kissing and sucking and grazing her teeth over the spot. Your head lolled automatically to your opposite shoulder to give her better access.

The idea of having sex hadn’t even crossed your mind in the last twenty-four hours… maybe even longer, if you were being honest. It was just about time for Maya to start teasing you for being overworked and underfucked, and, even though you would’ve denied it, she would’ve been right. You could already feel the wet spot between your legs, and she’d barely touched you.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she started, the words muffled against your skin. “You’re not going to get your phone. You’re not even going to take your plate into the kitchen. You’re going to go upstairs take off all your clothes, and kneel in the middle of the bed until I tell you what to do next.”

Both of her hands had drifted down to the waistband of your tailored pants to untuck your shirt and work on undoing the lowest buttons. They weren’t frenzied, just steady. “Is that a deal you can make right now, babe? No directors, no execs, no multi-million-dollar offers. Just you and me.”

“Yes,” you said, voice hitching in your throat.

“Good,” she said, peeling herself away from you with a final brush of her fingers down your back. “Go.”

You didn’t need to be told twice. You stood from the couch with a renewed sense of purpose and headed toward the staircase that led to the bedroom. You could hear the soft clatter of plates and silverware being stacked fading into the distance behind you.

You finished unbuttoning your shirt as you climbed, though between the two you’d unbuttoned earlier and however many Maya had just gotten to, there wasn’t much left to be done. You were finally able to shrug it off as you reached the top step. You started working on your pants, then, which you slid off your legs as you approached the bench at the foot of the bed. You placed them there with your shirt, folding them into a neat pile, because that’s what you did, followed by your bra and underwear.

When you were totally bare, you climbed onto the bed and kneeled facing the door with your hands on your thighs, waiting for Maya to tell you your next move.

She took her time coming upstairs—or maybe she didn’t, but it felt like forever to you by the time she entered the bedroom.

She heaved an exaggerated sigh as she closed the distance between you. “Must be exhausting, making all those decisions for everyone all day long, huh, babygirl? Keeping everyone in line?” Her voice was dripping in sympathy—not all of it feigned.

“Yes,” you said, your breath growing shallower just from her proximity.

When she reached the edge of the bed she climbed on and crawled over to you, still fully dressed in her designer lounge wear set. She brushed a fallen piece of hair out of your face, and you leaned into her hand instinctively, even though she’d barely grazed your skin.

“Why don’t you lay down and let me choose for a while, then,” she murmured, placing her hand on your chest and guiding you onto your back. “You gonna let me do that for you?”

“Please,” you said, as if you hadn’t already surrendered control to her in the living room and there was room left for negotiation.

You were fully on your back by now, but Maya was still on her knees next to you on the mattress, towering over you.

“Say it again,” she demanded, placing one hand flat on the mattress next to each of your biceps, bracketing you in with nothing but her to look at.

“Please,” you said again, stronger this time, but it wasn’t enough.

“Louder.”

You let out a frustrated whimper. “Please, Maya!”

“That’s right,” she said, leaning down until she was as close as she could be without touching you. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll make sure there’s nothing in that pretty little head when we’re done.”

She leaned back until she was sitting on her heels and stayed there for a little while, just trailing a finger up and down your arm. “Now do what I say. Understood?”

You nodded as she moved toward the foot of the bed, kneeling close enough to your bent knees that your toes were pressing into the soft fabric of her joggers.

“Spread.”

Your body responded without any thought on your part, and cold air suddenly flowed over your core, already wet and hot from the little you’d done on the couch and the anticipation of what was to come.

“Look at that perfect fucking pussy,” she husked, running one finger up your slit, finishing by pressing firmly on your clit for just a second. “Now close your eyes. Hands on the headboard. Don’t move unless I tell you.”

You didn’t feel her move until you were in position—she was clearly making sure you were following her instructions. When she did move, it was to get off the bed entirely, judging just by the movement of the mattress.

You heard her feet padding across the soft faux-fur rug on the floor, heading in the direction of the closet, then the soft thump of clothes hitting the floor and the opening and closing of drawers.

You could’ve looked, your intrusive thoughts told you. You could get a glimpse of what she was bringing back into the room and snap your eyes shut before she rounded the corner enough to see you peeking. But no. That wasn’t the scene tonight. She’d told you what to do, and you were going to follow her instructions as closely as you could.

No more than a minute later, you heard her crossing the room back to you and felt the bed shift with her weight.

“Lift your hips.”

You obeyed and were rewarded by the brush of something velvet against your lower back and ass. She tapped your hip to signal you to relax, you weren’t surprised to find yourself positioned at an angle, your lower back now supported by wedge-shaped pillow. Historically, that meant one thing: the strap was coming out.

You swallowed—one of the only movements you could make right now without violating the rules.

You were content with that. Maya fucking you with her cock (maybe the thick one—please be the thick one) would do it for you tonight. The only problem was, you hadn’t heard the sounds of her putting on the harness—no clinking buckles and certainly no soft “Fuck” from Maya’s mouth when she inevitably slotted the leather strap through the wrong ring.

You didn’t have time to think about it too hard—next thing you knew, Maya was pulling a soft blindfold over your eyes, then taking one arm at a time down from the headboard to cuff your wrists at your sides, followed by your ankles.

You were startled by the sudden sound of metal chains pooling into a pile near your ear, but Maya was quick to distract you by putting her mouth on your clit, no warning. You jumped, hips thrusting instinctively to meet her, but the next thing you knew, she pulled away and you felt her hands warm on your hips, acrylics digging into the skin, forcing your ass down into the velvet.

“What did I tell you to do?” she murmured in a voice that was only deceptively sweet.

It was a direct question. That meant you were allowed to answer. “Not move.”

“That’s right,” she said, swiping at your clit once, roughly, with her finger in emphasis. “Are you going to listen to me?”

You resisted the urge to nod your head. Instead, you just said, “Yes.”

“Good girl,” she purred, releasing her hold on your hips and spreading your legs just a little further apart. You could feel her warm breath ghosting over your stomach in ripples. “Stay still. That’s all you need to think about.”

When she put her mouth back on you, you somehow managed to keep yourself still, even as her lips wrapped around your clit and started teasing it with her tongue. At the same time, one of her hands traced up your side until it was resting on your breast. She ran her thumb back and forth over your nipple, just far enough out of sync with her tongue flicking over your clit to be maddening, but you couldn’t whine, couldn’t complain.

She flattened her tongue against you, a sudden change in stimulation that, under different circumstances, would’ve made you gasp, but you used all of your willpower to keep yourself from physically acknowledging it. She gave the bud one last swirl and a quick peck of her lips before moving on, and you restrained a whimper at the loss of contact. You were lucky your wrists were cuffed; otherwise, you probably would’ve had your fingers in her hair and a punishment to endure by now.

She kissed up your stomach until her mouth reached the nipple her hand wasn’t already giving attention. It received the same treatment she’d given your clit, but it hardly needed any coaxing; you could already feel the strain of it having gone stiff by association. It wasn’t long before Maya released the hardened peak from her mouth with a wet pop, simultaneously tweaking your other nipple with her fingers before removing herself from you entirely and moving to your side.

Whatever Maya had put next to you—the metal sound from earlier—was her next target. Your eyelids fluttered under the blindfold and your throat strained to hold in a gasp when you felt the weight of cold metal on your ribs.

“No squirming,” Maya instructed. You almost wanted to protest—that wasn’t fair. You hadn’t moved since she’d pinned you down. You had been good. You—

Maya’s warm hand cupped your breast, and then you understood her warning. Something cold was now squeezing your right nipple, then you felt the same pressure on your left, and then, unexpectedly, on your clit. Clamps.

“That feel good, baby?” Maya whispered from above. You opened your mouth to answer, but all that came out was a helpless gasp as you tried your hardest to suppress even the smallest twitch. You could almost hear her smirking down at you. “Use your words.”

“Good,” you managed to say, your voice tight and thin as you fought to keep your back from arching off the bed.

Her nails grazed your ribs as she grabbed for the piece of metal resting there. When she lifted it from your skin, you felt the clamps tugging deliciously at your nipples and clit until she laid it back down.

Fingers brushed against your jawline, rough and tender all at once, Maya’s specialty. You didn’t even flinch at the unexpected touch. “You’re being so good for me, baby. So good.”

Your insides preened, but other than the slight smile and the broken breath you took in, you didn’t show it. But she knew.

She moved her hand to your lower belly, rubbing there for a quiet moment before a sound whirred into existence to your left. You knew that sound—the wand.

Oh shit.

You couldn’t see where it was, but you could track it by sound and you were going to feel it in three, two, one…

The vibrations made contact with your spread-open lips, pulsating underneath your clamped clit, and you couldn’t help the whimper that rose from your throat at the sudden, overwhelming change in stimulation.

Maya pounced on the opportunity you’d given her with your misstep. “Does that mean you want more, babygirl?”

You didn’t respond immediately, too focused on the interplay of pleasure and pressure coming from your core.

“Answer me,” she said with another pull to the clamp chains. You groaned without thinking.

“Yes,” you rasped.

“I thought so,” Maya said, her voice dripping with smug satisfaction. The button clicked once, then again, only two notches, but the intensity felt like it had skyrocketed.

Maya spent the next few minutes teasing you all over: tugging the chain and pulling at your nipples and clit; sucking bruises into the tops of your breasts and along your collarbone and to a dangerously visible spot on the column of your neck; running both of her hands down your sides and along your thighs.Your muscles were desperate to act—to writhe, to contract, to flail, but somehow, you remained motionless. The only thing you couldn’t control was your breath; your chest heaved, and you felt the metal of the clamp chains, warm now from your body heat, tickling your ribs and stomach with each inhale.

When she finished marking your neck, Maya pulled away, the bed dipping in her direction, and for a while, you didn’t feel her hands on you at all. It was just you and the wand and the blood from where you’d bitten the inside of your cheek while trying to stay quiet.

“I wish you could see yourself all clamped up like this,” she finally said, voice low. Her finger began tracing the chains connecting your nipple clamps to the metal plate. The chains felt heavier as she dragged a finger along the links. “You look like one of my necklaces. There are even little diamonds to make my girl look so pretty. All iced up, just for me.” She flicked one of the supposed diamonds with her nail to punctuate the sentence, the dull ting of plastic on metal ringing in your ears long after it ended.

“And you know what this says?” she said, tracing the plate at the center of it all before tugging it in a new direction, down toward your bottom half, making you choke on a gasp. Her hand wrapped warm around your own, and she brought it up as far as the cuff would allow her. She traced your pointer finger over the metal. There was definitely something etched into it, but what, you weren’t able to say, especially when your focus was already split three ways, between what was going on between your thighs and the pull on your nipples from Maya holding the chains taut.

“It says ‘bitch.’ Because that’s what you are. My little bitch who does whatever I say,” she muttered before dropping your hand back down. “Isn’t that right?”

You didn’t make her ask for your answer this time. “Yes.”

You heard her sigh, long and heavy. “That’s fucking right.”

She went quiet, which was almost never a good sign. You felt her change position on the bed then settle next to you. Seconds later, your ears were filled with sounds from lower down the bed—wet, unmistakable squelching.

Maya was fucking herself.

You couldn’t see it, but you could hear it—her fingers, her own quiet moans.

You let out a wounded whine.

“Quiet.”

You stilled.

Several minutes passed, until you were barely keeping yourself together, with the sound of her in your ear and the unforgiving vibrations between your legs and the exquisite pinch of your nipples all pushing you toward your release. Your thighs started to quake despite yourself, and your fingers twitched against the mattress without your permission.

Maya noticed. Of course she did.

“Looks like you just can’t help yourself anymore, huh, babygirl?” Her voice came out ragged, with a familiar edge of condescension. She hadn’t stopped fucking herself. “You’d just love to sit up and ride my thigh like a good bitch would, wouldn’t you?”

You responded with a sound that you weren’t sure you’d ever made before, because she was right—at that very moment, you’d have given anything for the privilege.

“Well, that’s not happening,” she said, dashing hopes you hadn’t even known you’d had until seconds before. “But maybe I’ll let you grind on this wand and suck on my fingers.” She paused as a moan ripped from her throat, and her voice was lighter, raspier, when she spoke again. “What do you think?”

You were on edge, shaking in ways that weren’t just due to the vibrations between your legs. It wouldn’t take much more for you anyway, but if she let you get a little more friction and a taste of her, you’d be gone in five seconds flat.

“Yes,” you said. “God, yes.”

At your plea, the wet sounds from Maya’s cunt came to a stop. Her fingers—a little sticky now—skimmed over your arm, then your stomach, and then, suddenly, the pressure on your clit was gone, replaced by a rush of blood like you’d never felt before. You were throbbing in an absolutely desperate way.

“Well?” Maya said, feigning impatience. “Get to it.”

You moved your hips at her command but slowed almost immediately. The clamp had your clit at its most sensitive. Just the air passing over it had you shuddering, and the lightest touch would’ve felt like lightning. Riding the wand at its highest setting, then, was almost too much to think about, even though you could sense the edges of your orgasm just beyond your reach.

“Oh, baby, don’t stop. You fucking wanted this,” Maya coaxed, running her fingers through your hair. “Now open your mouth.”

You did, and in return, she shoved her fingers in just far enough to graze the back of your throat and make you gag. You sputtered momentarily around her before recovering and beginning to clean her fingers, licking them like you were starved of her. As you did, you started to roll your hips into the vibrating head of the toy. It was pain. It was pleasure. It was over for you in about three weak thrusts. You came with an unrestrained moan.

“That’s it, baby,” Maya said in your ear. She didn’t remove her fingers from your mouth, even as your jaw went slack. “So fucking hot.”

She gave you time to ride the high, using her free hand to brush her fingers against your temple.

You’d barely caught your breath again when she slipped her fingers out from between your lips.

“You can give me more, right, babygirl? I know you can.”

You swallowed and nodded.

“Words.”

Maya’s hand made contact with your exposed cunt with a thwack and you hissed at the sensation.

“Yes!”

You heard the button on the wand again, and a new pattern began pulsing at your lips. Short, short, long, short, short, long, long—the vibrations slower than before by just enough to keep you on the edge without falling over it. It still held enough of your attention, though, that you barely noticed the newfound slack in the cuffs around your wrists.

The mattress shifted again—Maya was moving, and your mouth practically watered when you felt the weight dip near your left shoulder, and then your right. You could feel the heat of her hovering over you, smell her familiar musk, and your freshly unbound arms almost reached up to wrap around her thighs. She hadn’t said you could touch her yet, though, or even that you could move again, so you kept them by your sides, exactly where they’d been while in the cuffs.

The satin blindfold slid up your forehead and you blinked once, twice, readjusting to the light. You saw her face first, or a blurry rendition of it, her arms stretched out, palms against the headboard, and then you saw her cunt—already swollen and glistening—just inches from your face. “Make me feel good, baby,” she said, giving you only seconds to reorient before she lowered herself onto your face.

You opened your mouth instinctively to lap at her folds. You made one long drag of your tongue through her slit and groaned. Even though you’d already had the taste of her delivered by her fingers, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as getting it from the source.

You thrusted your tongue into her, and she bucked against your face. “Fuck, yeah. Right fucking there,” she said roughly. Her hand smacked the headboard and the sound echoed through the room.

Tentatively, you started to curl your arms, your hands drawn to hold onto her hips, but you still weren’t sure if you were allowed to move anything but your mouth, so you were being careful about it. As you continued to thrust your tongue in and out, pausing momentarily to nip and suck at her labia, your fingers moved closer and closer until they finally brushed her hips from behind, like a silent question.

Maya continued grinding against your face without a pause, but she reached one hand back to find yours. You wondered briefly if she was going to swat it away, but she didn’t. “Fucking touch me,” she said as she moved your hand down to rest on her thigh instead of her hip, and you didn’t have to be told twice. You mirrored the action with your other hand so both your arms were hooked around her legs, greedily holding her in place on top of you.

Maya’s breathing grew steadily more ragged, and of course, yours did too, with the little gasps you could get when she rode just high enough for you to grab a breath before she sunk back down on your mouth.

“Fuck, baby,” she whined, and if she had looked down, she’d have teased you for the look on your face. When she got whiny, you couldn’t help but feel like you’d unlocked something rare and secret, and at this point, you couldn’t be bothered with restraint anymore—not with your mouth, not with your limbs, and definitely not with your facial expressions. “Fuck,” she said through gritted teeth, “Don’t stop.”

Her hips started moving more desperately against you, your nose bumping up against her clit harder and faster than before. You could hear her earrings clanging against each other to the same rhythm. You sped up your pace with your tongue, intent to give Maya what she needed, trying to keep your own orgasm at bay until you did. Her walls squeezed around you.

“Fuck. FUCK,” she cried as you curled your tongue inside her, and you knew by how vocal she was becoming that she was nearly there. She smacked her palm against the headboard again. “Fucking make me come right now.”

You tilted your chin up so you had direct access to her clit. You swiped your tongue left to right and back again, and then with one more circle around the bud, she tensed, gripping the bed tight, squeezing her thighs against your skull. “Shit, babe…” she mewled, her voice coming out low and broken as she twitched with an aftershock.

You had her cum on your chin, her clit in your mouth (so what if you hadn’t been able to breathe for the last 30 seconds), the vibrations between your legs, and the whole fucking view of her above you—the most beautiful, most feral woman you’ve ever known. The combination was enough to make you come on its own, but suddenly Maya reached behind her and fumbled across your chest until she found the metal plate on your ribs and tugged, pulling at your nipples. You couldn’t fight it anymore. You came again.

Maya must’ve felt your gasping against her, because she dismounted from your face, but she wasn’t done. She shimmied down your body, so she was straddling your pelvis instead, which was still angled up by the wedge. She planted her cunt, still hot and wet and occasionally twitching at even the gentlest contact, against your lower stomach.

Always a few steps ahead of you, even in a post-orgasm haze, she unclipped the final two clasps from your nipples and tossed the chain contraption to the side of the bed. Just like with your clit, the sudden rush of sensation hit you like a freight train, and it was only heightened as Maya arched her back and dipped down to suck—roughly—on one of your erect peaks—careful to keep her core on you so she could ride your stomach when the need hit. You moaned.

Were you going to come a third time, just like that? The vibrator was still pulsing against your clit, which was still somehow growing more sensitive by the minute.

You reached your hands up, shakily, to rest against Maya’s cheeks, which were hollowed out just in the slightest as she sucked on your nipple. She looked up at you questioningly through her lashes, not detaching herself from your heaving chest.

“Turn t’off?” was what you managed to say between the thickening fog in your brain and your desperate attempts to take in enough air.

You didn’t want her to stop, but something needed to give.

She released your nipple after one last soft scrape of her teeth. She dragged her tongue up your sternum before pressing a barely-there kiss to the tip of your chin.

“Just one more, babygirl. For me,” she said, moving to suck your jaw. “Can you?”

You swallowed hard. You didn’t want to disappoint her, but you already felt entirely fucked out. “I don’t know,” you almost cried.

Maya sat up, her full weight settling across your waist, her hands resting on your shoulders as she leaned over you with a serious look in her eyes. “Do you need to say it?”

You didn’t do anything right away, caught in the rip current of rising pleasure and exhaustion and oversensitivity. Your hips simultaneously tried to buck toward and shy away from the vibrator, but Maya’s body on yours had limited your movement.

You reached up, your hands wrapping around Maya’s forearms—not to push her away, just to feel her with you. She did nothing but wait for your answer.

You didn’t say the safe word. Just a quiet, “I’m okay.”

Maya fell back into the moment right away, looking down at you with a half-wicked grin on her face.

She leaned back down and reattached her lips to your jaw, and then that spot on your neck again, while the fingers of both her hands found their way to your still-tender nipples—your own hands still gripping onto her arms and moving along with hers. You arched your back into her touch, tilting your head to make it easier for her to reach your pulse point. “So fucking good,” she husked into your ear. “So fucking hot.”

Your clit was throbbing and you could feel your pulse like a drumbeat in your ears. She knew exactly how close you were when she grabbed you by the chin, looked you in the eye, and whispered, “Come for me. Now.”

And you did, calling her name, your voice hoarse.

“Perfect. Fucking perfect,” she said, resting her forehead against yours as stars continued to dance behind your fluttering eyelids and your limbs were still quaking. She stayed there, brushing her thumb over your cheekbone and peppering little kisses over your nose and cheeks, until your breathing evened out and your grip on her forearms relaxed enough that your arms fell back to your sides.

Once she felt you were sufficiently relaxed beneath her, Maya pressed a last kiss to your forehead and climbed off of you. You heard the click of the button on the wand, and the buzzing that had been the soundtrack to nearly the whole encounter stopped immediately. The room plunged into silence except for the soft swaying of the tree branches outside the bedroom windows and the soft ting of metal on metal when Maya shifted enough to jostle her jewelry.

Quietly, she removed the soft cuffs from your ankles and then gently pulled the wedge from under your lower back and hips, leaving you lying still and boneless on the mattress. You watched through half-lidded eyes as she piled the wand and the clamps on top of the pillow and stood from the bed. A soft smile spread across your face when she started humming some song—maybe SZA—something you suspected she did for you in these moments, because she never did that anywhere else.

She took the pile over to the walk-in, disappearing for only a minute and reemerging in a pair of Gucci pjs, pants long and the top unbuttoned to reveal a bandeau you weren’t sure why she bothered with except for fashion. Two sweating bottles of water were cradled in her hand from the mini-fridge she kept near her vanity, mainly for her creams and masks, but for this, too.

She made one last stop at the chair in front of the vanity to pick up the robe that was hanging over the back, but she didn’t put it on, just draped it over her arm and came back to the bed. She set the waters down on the nightstand.

You nodded at the robe. “That for me?”

She raked her eyes down your naked body as you lay on top of the bedspread. Your nipples were still pebbled, maybe from a combination of previous stimulation and the low thermostat setting, and your stomach and legs were covered in goosebumps. You shivered without realizing.

“Might be,” she said, but she didn’t hesitate to climb onto the bed and start helping you into it, which turned into a whole operation since you weren’t doing very much to assist with the process.

“Fucking impossible,” Maya mumbled as she tried to sit you up so she could drape the robe over your shoulders, but you saw the smirk on her face as you finally gathered enough strength to push yourself up against the headboard. She tied the belt into a loose bow at your waist once you were all wrapped up, and you snuggled back down into the pillows, eyelids still heavy. The fabric smelled like her shampoo from the shower that morning.

“Thank you,” you said softly.

She didn’t say anything back, but she rested her hand against your cheek. “Water, baby?”

You hummed in agreement.

She cracked open one of the bottles from side table and brought it up to your lips for you to sip, then set it back on the nightstand when you’d finished. When she was reclining again, you burrowed into her, your head resting on the bare skin above the hem of her top and your fingers splayed across her stomach. Without even thinking about it, she began to run her fingers against your scalp, the scratch of her nails a comfort.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked after you’d been laying in silence for what was probably just a few minutes, but your sense of time had yet to reorient itself, so you couldn’t be sure.

You angled your head so you could just see her face through your lashes. “Bridget Archer isn’t secretly an asshole, right?”

Her fingers stilled in your hair as a half-amused, half-annoyed look appeared on her face. “Glad to see this whole thing worked,” she muttered. Clearly that wasn’t the answer she expected.

You drummed your fingers against her ribs. “If you don’t answer, I’ll just have to wonder all night, when I could be thinking about you.”

“You could be thinking about me anyway,” she countered, but there was no heat to it, which was only underscored by her fingers resuming their path along your scalp.

“I just need to know,” you said, your voice almost back to normal. “Then you’ll be the only thing on my mind for the next…” you glanced over at the clock on the nightstand, doing bad post-coital math in your head. “Four to five hours.”

Maya just looked at you for a few moments—her expression shifting into something unreadable, but undeniably softer.

Finally, she sighed.

“She’s a fucking dream, babe,” Maya said. “But she’s still got nothing on you.” -------------------------

[couch-potato28]

Imagine being a Blue Lock manager! ⚽️

VERSION XV.

(a/n: literally my spirit animal ☝️guys excuse my colorblindness because wtf is this. ty for ur support, enjoy ❤️)

Warning-none

wc: 0,8k

also: @ttheggrimrreaper @irethepotato @ohagiyoo 🔥

——————

FROM THE PROLOGUE:

"Congratulations L/N Y/N! Based on your results, you've earned your place in Blue Lock as the manager of player number…

…25, Niko Ikki.”

Oh, okay, not bad at all. His rank was decent enough to pay off your hard work over the months, but you were a bit taken aback by the bangs that covered 90% of his icon, leaving you to wonder how in the world will you recognize him once you two meet.

Still, that being the least of your concerns—happy with your results—you said goodbye to the others, and headed towards the managers’ room to get your stuff before being dismissed to find the boy.

Imagine being Niko Ikki’s manager.

——————

Niko Ikki, who was similar to a hidden gem since he was—and still is—relatively short compared to some of his teammates, made it a challenge for you to spot him out of the bunch. Yet the moment he sprinted across the field in seconds even with bangs that covered half his face, confirmed everything you needed to know.

You watched him play for a while, taking in his strengths and weaknesses all while he secretly did the same, observing you from the field. Before he realized it, practice was over, and in the blink of an eye—to his shock—you were already right in front of him, congratulating his team’s victory.

Quickly moving on from one topic to another by the time he understood that he got his own manager, you were already far too deep into the new schedules, training sessions, and games to get to know each other better. He was a bit nervous by your lively presence, yet silently grateful for how you took the lead and put in a huge effort to be more comfortable with him.

By the end of the day you two were hitting the friendship line, the excitement of a new journey waiting ahead of you.

——————

•Niko who is literally the youngest in the facility means you are extra protective of him—be it on or off the field—which he really appreciates and smiles whenever you baby him.

•You’re the talking machine in the relationship while he barely ever mutters a word, standing behind you like a scared child.

•Everyone would imagine a soccer player to like P.E but this boy? He hates it, saying even lifting a finger seems tiring so you gotta put in some extra work to get him moving.

•Loves it when you time his 50 meter run tho, the only thing he dares to show off. Thinks a lot during matches, and analyzing with him feels like a 2 hour lecture for you.

•Very respectful all while being super cautious of everything. He’s careful not to cause you trouble, and always apologizes even for the tiniest mistakes.

•When you tell him you like anime, his eyes pop under his bangs as he becomes super thrilled to share his hobby with you. Always asks who your favorite character is then proceeds to judge you for it.

•You two also binge-watch a lot of anime instead of resting but he doesn’t mind it. It serves as a bonding activity and by the 12 episode of some series you basically become childhood besties.

•Niko whose heart suddenly beats faster than normal any time you clearly favor him over everyone else. It makes him feel like the main lead in a shoujo anime, and loves to brag to his teammates about it.

•After your continuous nagging, he tries to train harder despite his dislike for physical exercises so you always make sure to get him the best meals.

•Also, SNACKS. He lives for it when you secretly hide a bag of crisps or an extra protein bar inside his bag, risking your career just so he could munch on them—it means the world to him.

•Both of you try to stay indoors 24/7—excluding outdoor matches—rarely ever going out of the building, avoiding fresh air like the plague. (very healthy might I say)

•He focuses and trains hard for the U20 match, carefully noting down each suggestion you give him. Decides to cut off from the sneaky treats as well even tho it breaks his heart.

——————

AFTER THE U20 MATCH…

•Niko’s dream changes from being a striker to playing as a defender for his team. You, still not convinced about his sudden decision, talk his ear off each night causing the boy to shake you by the shoulders, and reveal his full face after a week of endurance.

•“Look me in the eyes! Do you think I’m joking?” he asks, followed by dead silence as you are too busy admiring his turquoise eyes, forgetting what he was even talking about.

•Refuses to show them ever again but from that day onwards, he’s often seen wearing cute hair clips you randomly put in his hair. The team teases him nonstop, and he just quietly mutters, “Shut up,” to everyone, refusing to take them off.

•Everyone knew he could be savage, but after joining the Ubers? He’s a menace during matches, dropping off roasts in the middle of a game as he steals the ball from the opponent.

•You practically have to put a hand on his mouth, or use tape to keep him from throwing in another shade before they report him for verbal harassment.

•Gets along with his new team quite well, the seniors take great care of the boy, making you feel at ease. He also loves to tell you the story of how they initially planned to dye Barou’s hair pink but decided against the idea, in case he beat them up.

•Starts to actually take training seriously, a hint of enjoyment hidden during practices. You make him do a bunch of exercises, upgrading his physique along with his vision on the field.

•He doesn’t let you make him do photoshoots, but interviews are fine. Nothing can go wrong as long as you don’t let him handle his own social media account because it’s guaranteed to get banned within 24 hours.

[not-poignant]

What plots or characters did you not plan ahead to write and their time suddenly came when the next light bulb on the garland came on? UtB

I won't be able to remember them all but here's a few:

Anton deciding to be Gary's supervisor.

Me realising that's actually a terrible idea because Gary isn't an alpha companion and Efnisien isn't an omega

That making sense anyway to roll back lmao

Faber gaining his own story.

Faber becoming Efnisien's friend.

Flitmouse becoming Efnisien's friend.

Flitmouse calling Gary on the phone and having a go at him.

Efnisien's first corrupted heat being "solved" with a combination of a bunch of things but especially Gary spitting into his mouth.

Temsen just having so much chemistry that he ends up in a bunch more scenes than I planned.

The teacup. The teacup being broken.

Gary's office being destroyed by Efnisien in that methodical, deliberate fashion.

Size training before sex, I really didn't think Gary initially had the patience for something like this but he realised it'd be better if he did. Thank god.

Faber being attacked by Lludd

Faber disclosing that he's in love with Caleb to Efnisien

Flitmouse and Efnisien nesting together.

Efnisien nesting in general (though I had a faint idea? It was never a sure thing).

Gary joining Efnisien in his nest and actually really liking it.

Efnisien meeting Marikit (and it being Faber's idea). (And, Marikit in general).

The bit about 'choosing your own birthday' from Flitmouse

Efnisien loving photography

The bushwalking trail and Efnisien's agoraphobia in general

Cella visiting and Efnisien mounting the challenge immediately after and being smacked down with ardolphogen.

'Ardolphogen rage.'

Temsen calling out Efnisien's emotional abuse and telling him he expects better from an alpha even when it's hard and unfair.

Efnisien actually really responding to that.

Efnisien realising he's also an omega (again, I realised this one fairly early on, maybe chapter 3/4 that Efnisien might be genderfluid, but it wasn't a sure thing. There's a point early on in my comment responses where it's clear I'm like 'he's an alpha, he's not an omega' and then there's a pivot where in my comment responses I start saying 'actually, I don't know where he's going to land.')

Efnisien calling out Temsen for betraying his confidentiality and Temsen respecting that.

Efnisien and Enris reconciling. Efnisien apologising to him.

The story about how Kadek ended up at Hillview.

PACS / Gary's heart condition.

Some of these were also strongly influenced by reader response - people wanting to see Efnisien and Flitmouse meet, folks falling in love with Faber, people wanting to see Efnisien have more friends who aren't alphas etc. This is specifically what I love about serials. While I don't do everything everyone hopes for (that's a fast track to ruining a story) and I don't do things that don't make sense for the characters, the fact is that serials are made stronger by keeping your ear to the ground and seeing where folks are gravitating (this used to be true for television shows, once upon a time, as well).

ETA: It's wild to think of all the things we never would have gotten, if I adhered to a really strict chapter plan.

[naturesapphic]

Billie x little!reader

Billie has dyed her roots red and reader has seen it out of her headspace. When reader sees the change while being little, she experiences a mix of emotions.

New Hair

Mommy!Billie Eilish x little!fem!reader

Warnings: age regression, change of hair, hurt/comforf

Billie was out taking shark for a walk when you were on the couch suddenly regressing. You haven’t gotten to regress in weeks and you couldn’t hold it in any longer. Your body needed the release and so you let it happen. Recently Billie got her roots dyed red and you’ve only seen it outside of your headspace, not in it. You weren’t sure how your little self would react to it but it’s better now than later.

Billie walked in the door with a panting shark and when she unclipped him, he immediately ran over to his bowl of water and start lapping at it. Billie giggled at his behavior and went into the living room where she heard your favorite cartoons playing. She had a feeling that you were regressing and that made her a little nervous. You haven’t seen her in her new red hair and you don’t like change at all. Billie carefully walks through the living room and slowly approached you.

You looked up at your mommy and jumped as you got startled by the new change that was in front of you. “M-mommy?” You say confused and nervous. “Yes baby. It’s mommy. Mommy just got her roots dyed red. Do you like it?” She asked you and you shrugged your shoulders. “It different…mommy different…” you said quietly and Billie sighed. “I know mommy is different but I’m still your mommy baby. Nothing has changed besides my hair. I still love my little baby.” She said and at the end of her sentence she starts tickling you, making you squeal out.

“M-mommy! T-tickles!” You pant out as it was getting harder to breathe from laughing so much. Billie moved and pulled her hands away and you started catching your breath again. “What can mommy do to make it better princess?” She asks you as she pulls you onto her lap and rubs your back. You think for a few moments and look up at her. “I dunno…it just differents. N-needs to gets u-used to its…” you respond and Billie nods her head in understanding. “That’s completely valid baby and I’m so proud of you for speaking your feelings. Such a good girl baby.” She reassures and praises you.

You blush and hide your face in her neck making her giggle. “Such a cutie.” She says and you hide further. The rest of the day was filled with snacks and cartoons, which is a perfect day to you. It will take a little bit of time for yourself to get used to Billie’s hair but eventually you know you will love it and that’s what matters.

A/n: thank you anon for the request! I hope you and everyone else likes it! Remember to stay hydrated and to rest! Take care of yourselves. I love y’all! Happy Saturday!

[hwrtmimii]

So u wanna be a Roman Reigns fan?? read this first ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･🩸

“Hey Mimii, I want to become a Roman fan SOO BADD. How do I do it?” Well im the expert so welcome to the promise land 💯☝🏽

step one: bow down. acknowledge him.

like seriously. this is the tribal chief. the head of the table. the one. if you’re not starting your day with a lil “yes my chief” moment in the mirror… are you even doing it right??? roman reigns doesn’t walk into the room, he arrives. and so do you when you rep him.

step two: black is the new everything.

black hoodie. black joggers. black gloves if you wanna be extra. maybe even some air forces if you’re really down. the vibe is “dangerous but cozy,” “will smash you through a table but respectfully.”

bonus: wear his merch like it’s a uniform. the we the ones shirt?? iconic. essential. holy.

step three: loyalty is everything.

you ride or die for roman. he could superman punch a fan favorite and you’ll be like “ok but they had it coming.” when he wins, you win. when he loses (rare), you gaslight everyone into thinking he didn’t. you defend him like your life depends on it. because in a way??? it does.

step four: embrace the drama.

roman reigns isn’t just a wrestler. he’s a soap opera. the bloodline storyline? better than any netflix series. betrayal?? tears. family tension?? screaming. jey uso calling him “sir”?? cinematic masterpiece. get comfy being unwell over wrestling. crying over tribal conflict is part of the experience.

step five: get used to being called delulu.

you’re gonna say “he’s not the bad guy he’s just misunderstood”

you’re gonna say “he needed to do that. for the family.”

you’re gonna justify things that are… objectively unhinged.

but it’s fine. we’re all delulu here. it’s part of the charm.

step six: learn the poses.

fist in the air. fingers up. chest puffed.

you gotta hit the tribal chief stance every time he enters. you gotta do the slow walk. the side eye. the deep inhale like you’re about to destroy a city.

roman fans don’t just watch. we perform.

step seven: fear no boo.

they’ll boo him. they’ll hate on him.

you? you smirk. you post a gif of him smirking back.

you know what they don’t: that deep down… they all wish they were repping the chief.

you walk into a crowd of haters like it’s a runway.

“boo the goat all you want, he still owns the ring.”

step eight: find your people.

follow roman stan accounts. reblog the gifs. make memes. post thirst traps. scream about his promo like it’s poetry.

whether you’re here for the legacy, the charisma, the muscles, or the drama (or all of the above)… this is your family now.

we. the. ones.

step nine: optional but recommended — develop a little crush.

it’s ok. we’ve all been there. he raises the title and suddenly you’re thinking about baby names. he looks into the camera and it’s like he’s staring into your soul.

don’t fight it. just let the tribal thirst flow.

step ten: say it loud. say it proud.

you are a roman reigns fan.

you acknowledge him.

you love the drama, the dominance, the chaos, the gold.

you stay loyal.

and you never, ever fold.

bonus: here’s your roman reigns starter pack!!

• fave gif: smug smile w/ the lei

• fave phrase: “i’m in god mode now”

• fave match: any match. all of them. he wins. period.

• fave look: wet hair, black vest, “i just wrecked everyone” energy

• fave accessory: championship belt. always.

in conclusion:

being a roman reigns fan is a lifestyle. a ‘religion’. a vibe.

and once you’re in??

you never go back.

we. the. ones.

tag ur fellow tribal babes

#romanreigns #tribalchiefvibes #acknowledgehim #wearetheones #wrestlingtumblr #bloodlineera #yesmychief

[karokawwo]

ik insulting religion is a huge no no but I really find it so scary how christianity can poison people so easily. how people can become so unsympathetic, so hateful, and so stubborn in this awful mentality. but it's alright because all this animosity is in the name of our almighty God, who loves us but despises them, apparently

[halikyon]

Maybe mighta coulda possibly wrote out the scene in my head perhaps kinda:

As Ryune made her way along the path though the old, damp remains of what was once a green, healthy forest, she couldn't help but wonder what it was her old friend was doing out here. She had heard something had happened, but it seemed everyone had their own version of what. All Ryune knew was that Kab had been hurt, and that she had disappeared shortly after. It had taken a fair bit of sleuthing to tease out where she was, but even knowing how the place looked didn't prepare her for what she saw.

Kab had always been easy to spot, sporting her iconic bright colors, but here she may as well have been part of the wall she leaned on. As she got closer to the old shack Ryune's chest began to tighten. For as long as she had known her, Kab had been a beacon of light and energy, and now it seemed as if someone had taken it right out of her. There was no way Kab hadn't noticed her yet, but she kept her head turned away, grasping the broom she leaned with as if it would grant her some sort of security. It was only as Ryune started up the steps that she saw the empty sleeve.

Ryune paused, transfixed for seconds that seemed like long minutes, as they both stood in silence, a light drizzle beginning to fall from the sky. Questions flooded her mind. Are you alright? Clearly not. How are you? Bad, obviously. What happened? Something traumatic. How… Ryune tossed it all to the side. Questions like that weren't going to help any. Slowly, she made her way up the stairs and across the old deck to her friend. Wordlessly, carefully, she placed her hand upon Kab's shoulder. She could feel how tense she was even through the jacket. Everyone dealt with this sort of thing differently. Some people retreated, some threw themselves into their work, some got angry, some became hollow masks of who they once were, but what they all needed was often quite similar. Her heart knew what she would say long before her head did.

"You don't have to tell me what happened. You don't even need to say a word." Ryune said softly, "I'm here, and-" The words caught in her throat has Kab turned her head to face her. The mixture of pain and sorrow hit her like a runaway chocobo, echoing back into her own heart. "…oh…Kab…" Ryune's arms were around her before she could register the action. At first Kab tensed up even more, but seemed to resign herself to the embrace, awkward as it was with the broom stuck between them and her leg up on the railing. Kab seemed so small in her arms, even more so than usual. Releasing the broom and extricating her arm, Kab returned the embrace as best she could.

Ryune, realizing she may have gone a bit too far for having just walked up to someone clearly having a bad time, let go and backed up a half-step. "Er, sorry."

"There's not a long list of people I would have tolerated that from, Ryune, but you're fine." Kab assured her.

Ryune nodded as it suddenly became a horrible game of not looking at her arm now. Looking away made it seem like she was staring at Kab's chest, which also seemed incredibly inappropriate. Then, looking her in the eyes felt like staring at the sun. Ryune decided to lean up against the wall beside her instead, suddenly feeling incredibly foolish and childish.

"So, are you here to talk me back into the fight?" Kab asked wearily. "No, not at all." Ryune said, "I heard something was wrong and wanted to be at hand." "Why?" Kab asked. "Because its what friends do. I know its what you would do were the situation reversed." "Hm." Was Kab's only reply. Many minutes went by as the rain began to pick up, the small awning keeping them dry as the sky turned darker. "I, um, I know I'm not great at this. Usually I'm the one having to sit on the sidelines." "I can't say I would be doing any better, Ryune." Kab replied. "Last time I was out of action I had M'naago there with me." Ryune said, "For a while we didn't think I'd ever be able to do more than survive, but she kept me busy enough to not think about it most days." "How so?" "She taught me how to read and write." Ryune admitted, "I'd never learned before." "Truly? That seems unlikely at best. You're telling me you made it until, what, 30 before you could write?" Kab asked, incredulous. "Yep! Only thing I knew how to write was my name, and I didn't even know what the parts of that meant. It was just a funny shape that was me on parchment." Ryune told her. "It's funny, M'naago had much the same reaction."

From here they began to trade stories with one another. The awkwardness faded away, revealing two old friends catching up and reveling in old times. It wouldn't be until many bells later that the rain would stop, but through it all they kept talking. As the clouds parted enough to send down a few beams of warm light, Ryune stood up from where she had taken a seat on the floor, as they had both slid down next to one another sometime between then and now.

"I should probably be getting back soon." Ryune said, stretching this way and that. "Always seems that something needs doing after all." "Yeah," Kab said, getting back to her feat before Ryune could offer to help, "wouldn't be fair to keep you all to myself." A wry smile showing Ryune how she felt. "I'll be back when I can." Ryune assured her. "I'm not leaving you out here by yourself." "Alright, I'll hold you to it." "But, before I go," Ryune brought Kab's wrist up with one hand and pressed a linkpearl into her palm with the other, before clasping her hands around it, "don't you dare hesitate to use this, you hear me?" Kab gave her a weak smile, "I hear you." "Good." Ryune gave her one more hug, pulling her tight. "I'll see you later, Kab."

"Later, Ryune." Kab replied as they let go of each other and Ryune began back up the path. It took a while for her to fade from sight, but it seemed as soon as she did that the rain picked back up once more. It wasn't the hard rain from before, just a shower, but its arrival finally prompted Kab to head inside. Looking at the linkpearl in her hand, she sighed. She supposed Ryune was right, she would have done just the same.

After losing her arm in the fight with Kestrel, Kabniel retreats to her grandfather's old home to recuperate.

[arom-antix]

Hey, just wanted to reach out to say that I found you pointing out and calling this person was really great and you shouldn't have apologized. It was incredibly true what you said, and to be honest it seems out of touch with the reality of a great deal of the japanese fandom, the nuances and their culture. Also, it was as you pointed out, extreme and may I say rude. I want to mention too that the way it was written, as if entitled of the knowledge and the 'explanation' made it all worse in context of the 'fucked up'. The original poster always gets away by using the 'well-written academic'' statement of their 'metas' as an excuse to do or say and make everyone else agree and if not, uses victim narrative and discourses exactly selecting wording for people to agree on it or feel bad.

I don't know if they tagging you in the way they did made you reblog and apologizing/backing up, but no one thought bad about you pointing it out. On the contrary, a lot of people had been bullied and discriminated by this person when they called them out/disagreed going onto lenghts of sending their friends to harass people, and the other persons can't even defend themselves because they are effectively blocked. To quite a few people in the fandom has been done, even accusing them as 'acephobes' (when they're not) or even Nazis by spreading lies. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. I think you were right to call them out publicly.

Thank you very much for this ask. To be completely honest I agree with everything you said here and don't actually feel bad about pointing anything out. I mainly apologised because I didn't want any potentially poor phrasing from my side to cause unnecessary hostility and because I myself have gripes with this person's behaviour but didn't want to cause a scene.

My honest opinion is that they have a serious issue with taking accountability for their own mistakes and highly overestimate their own intellect. If you're reading this, @thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai, sorry if I seem harsh, but it's true. I saw your post lamenting how you're the only academic meta writer / fan in the fandom and I didn't interact then because I honestly do not care enough to start that drama but with the information Blonndiec has just given me, I think it's necessary that someone calls you out.

You're not an academic. You're not beyond the mental capabilities of other fans. You're actually incredibly childish in your metas and analyses and I am not kidding when I say that I was halfheartedly writing essays more academic than every analysis I've seen from you when I was barely a teenager. I don't know how old you are and I frankly don't care. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't reblog my correction (link here to my correction and here to their "response" for those who didn't see that exchange) of your post so that you could control what your followers saw of the exchange. You're the opposite of an academic. You control information to tailor the narrative, you don't cite your sources properly if at all, you don't format your posts in anything close to how an academic analysis would be, you make unbased claims, you reference posts and canon material without in any way indicating where that information is from, you reference your own (equally unacademic) metas and your conclusions from them without indicating what post it's from or that it's your own theory this new one is based on and instead present it as a common fact, and I could go on and on and on. Your posts are also riddled with logical fallacies and you talk in absolutes and opinions when there's no canon basis to claim such things. I'm sorry, but that's not academic in the slightest.

To be clear, you don't have to be an academic to post on the Internet. You don't have to be anything at all. You could up front be a genuine idiot with no remorse and that's fine. But when you claim to be an academic and also put down the rest of the fandom for not being on your level, you have to be able to back that up. It'd still make you sound like a prick but at least your arrogance would have a basis. It currently does not.

I haven't personally seen the discussions that Blonndiec is referencing and I'm not going to claim anything definitive (because that would be unacademic of me, take notes) but if what they're saying is true and did happen as described, which I have empirical, if anecdotal, evidence to believe could very well be (a friend of mine has personally been blocked by you after they criticised you without actually mentioning your name which I of course can't prove is the reason for the block but the timing is awfully convenient), you should know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

If there's context missing, feel free to enlighten me and call out any incorrect accusations. You have every right to defend yourself. However, I encourage you to cite your sources since you're such an academic. If you don't, then it's just your word against Blonndiec and anyone else who might comment's word and that doesn't prove anything. Don't misunderstand, acephobia and nazi rhetoric should absolutely be called out but only if it's actually happening. False accusations can ruin lives. I hope you know that.

I'm not a fan of calling people out publicly and, again, thank you for this ask, Blonndiec. But considering many of the issues I've personally seen and those I've been informed of by second hand sources were posted publically, I don't really feel bad about calling this out. I could do a full breakdown of just the insulting "academic" comments alone and how there's no academia to be found in said academic metas and, Samurai, if you give me reason to, I will show exactly what I mean point by point (and academically just to give you an example of even low level academia).

If you respond to this, do it in a reblog. That's what a real academic would do. If I'm wrong and you can prove it, you'd have no reason to not show my post in your rebuttal. If I'm right, you'd have every reason to be upfront about your mistakes and how you intend to rectify them. There's nothing wrong with being wrong but there's a lot wrong with refusing to admit to it in a way that lets others peer review you (academic thing, look it up) and come to their own conclusions about the situation. That's what you did when you just @'ed me instead of reblogging my response. A true academic wouldn't hide a peer review. You'd know that if you were one.

I swing in many academic spaces and yet that doesn't make me any kind of expert and I don't claim to be one because I'm not. But since you want to be one so badly, reblog this with a response and show us all how smart you are. I'm dying to know what your academic take on this is.

[dcggersedge]

It's not a very satisfying answer. She doesn't really blame him, though. She doesn't know what she expected when she first started stumbling through her thoughts, and anything of greater clarity isn't going to suddenly reveal itself here without her first spilling her guts out onto the floor for everyone to see. Things like that are better saved for small, dark places, where the stains can only really reach her.

Did they believe in Yunaka or did they believe in her? If they knew everything, would they still believe? And, if she failed to live up to their shining examples, would they continue to believe in her? All questions too fragile to be handled by the tools of a blacksmith.

So, like Rafal rises, she does her best to rise her spirits with him. She scoffs, knitting her fingers together so she can sit up and lift her arms above her head in a big stretch. Sitting slumped over like that was not good for her back. "Sounding like quite the show off when you've only given me one lesson, Professor. You haven't even told me how I did yet."

She pulls out cinquedea again, flipping it around for him to examine. The blade is definitely sharper now, though it still rattles a bit in its hilt. Needs to be tightened up again, but he hasn't taught her that yet and she wouldn't dare get ahead of her oh so wise teacher.

"So, do I get a pass on this lesson, Professor, or do I need to start thinking up ways I can get you to raise my grades?" She flashes him a playful grin with a laugh that almost feels comfortable. With the average guy, she wouldn't actually have to think too hard about that. Rafal makes everything so much more difficult.

She is curious to see what else he has in mind, though, all jokes aside. It's strange to think of people like them making things after so much time breaking them, but Rafal takes to it with an easy kind of confidence. She's glad for him, even if she knows better than to say something like that out loud.

He doesn't have any of his weapons on him, come to think of it. Did he really come here just to work on things for others? Huh...

it is itself no longer

Restoration | Axe +1

[king-lena]

ew i hate looking back on any social media and seeing my old cringe posts (especially on tiktok) like help!!!! that isn’t me anymore don’t look please!!!! 😅 i can barely handle my current cringe posts don’t make me revisit the past please!!!! i am working so hard to constantly keep growing and learning and changing my mindset and becoming a better me every day and i am no longer that version of myself and i do not know her like that anymore. but dang like her reminants are still out there lingering and i do not like it one bit… 😔

[oldcurse]

Having a relapse moment