#and then that's it that's the size of your fabric

[alnilaem]

coyote head and the body of a man — (e)

ghost/fem reader There's a killer on the loose. But your logging town is small and quaint and doesn't even appear on maps, so you know you're safe. That all changes when a gruff, big, taciturn man shows up at your workplace one day. Or; Simon is a fugitive serial killer, and you're the housekeeping girl that caught his eye.

cw for explicit content, graphic violence, possessive behaviour, size difference, cunnilingus, stalking

pinterest board | ao3 | for @spidehpig <3

Sometimes, you believe you were born in the centre of a dying star. 

Born on the crest of death and fated for a bleak life. Dead, before you even had a chance.

The universe sweeps before you. Infinite. Expansive. Hungry. You float at the mouth of the galaxy and it swallows you whole, but doesn’t seem to like the taste of you—too bland, too trite—so it spits you back out and sends you tailspinning. 

You land with a lack of courtesy. Tossed between trees and dropped in a basin. You find yourself in nowhere, Oregon. In a town flecked by a lake inlet and a clement fjord, where the moose population outnumbers the people population. It has a maritime allure but strangely enough, isn’t commercial enough to be a tourist hub. It’s too hidden in the thicket. Too deep in a borehole.

Every day here is the same. It's an abyss that yawns before you with no end in sight, lacking undue entertainment and vividness and excitement. There’s no light pollution so far off the beaten track, so oftentimes, you’ll wish upon shooting stars for someone to come for your deliverance. 

There’s a reason they say be careful what you wish for.

The day isn’t even halfway over and your bone tips already ache with hard work. 

It isn’t to say your workplace is busy. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. A cut-rate motel with more vacancies than residents found far-removed from the highway, taking only cash, no card, which is good for deterring paper trails and welcoming the transient but is bad for providing records when the police come knocking. 

You’ll get the occasional trucker, the sparse backpacker. In any case, folks stay here when they don’t want to be bothered. They’ll drive past the splintery welcome sign and stop at the diner for earthy, full-bodied coffee and a slice of famous rhubarb pie. They’ll recuperate in the motel and leave before sunrise, and you’ll be there to clean up what they leave behind, scrubbing the memory out of the fibreglass bathtub for whoever’s next. 

It’s a place where time fleets away. Hallucinatory. Where people pay their due and you hang your head because after all, you’re nothing more than the housekeeping girl. Cottony pinafore and a black dress. Mary Jane flats. Fingers desquamating from years of bleach and vinegar stuck in your nail beds. You get handed dog-eared tips and in return, you don’t ask questions. But maybe you should have.

You’re sliding the window cleaner back into its compartment on the cleaning cart just as your boss scales the veranda. He’s grinning and sporting sweat stains across his armpits. A patchy beard. A loose tie. 

Your nerves lock up tight when he grasps your shoulders. His razorous fingers and the pinchbeck of his wedding band saws under your skin. The dregs of his afternoon drinking knocks into you, and you try not to let your body betray you. Despite that, your eyes water and your nose crinkles. You white-knuckle your dress and almost pop the fabric of your pinafore. 

“How’s my favourite employee?” he grins. “Is she workin’ hard?”

There’s an irreverent innuendo somewhere in his smile. You ignore it and opt for a stale smile.

“I’m working,” you eke out. “I've got to restock the bathroom, then I’m done.”

“That’s good, peach. Real good,” he watches you collect toiletry essentials, then tacks on, “there’s a man in the lobby.”

You falter. The travel-sized shampoo bottle almost slips between your forefinger and thumb. 

“An outsider.”

It’s an observation, not a question. If the man in the lobby were a local, Phillip would have given you a name because in this town, everybody knows everybody. The fact that a name was bereft tells you your new guest came from elsewhere. Maybe he’s cutting through the main road on his way to Yachats for your town’s cascade mountains and bigleaf maple, or for the diner’s famous rhubarb pie. In any case, he's in need of a rest stop. 

“Mh. I’m gonna check him in. Just wanted to let you know I’m givin’ him this room, so try to hurry it up, okay peach?”

You blink slowly. This motel holds twelve rooms—there’s never been a need for any more—and currently, nine of those are occupied. That leaves three. There’s no reason for your boss to put up the new guest in Room 11, especially when you’re still cleaning it.

Phillip reads the question in the bend of your eyebrow. He smiles knowingly and pats your head. “He requested a room on the higher level. Room 9’s aircon is busted and Room 6 shares a wall with the Pettie’s. They’re loud.”

You sigh. “Ah.”

“Sorry peach,” he smiles like he’s apologetic, but you don’t think that’s the case. “Just get it done, alright? And add some extra coffee packets."

You furrow your lips. Displeasure flutters over you but you wash it away with a smile, refusing to irk him. You nod and pivot, bones bending against your skin for an escape as his hand whispers against your bum in an encouraging caress.

Anger simmers in your marrow. Phillip simply chuckles, disparaging.

“That’s a sweet peach.”

His voice gets muted by the tinny, rattling radiator as you make it to the bathroom. You stock it up dutifully—perhaps taking extra long to ensure he's not waiting outside for you—and spritz air freshener around the room when you finish. It’s a flaky, expired bottle of Platinum Ice which barely masks the town’s deep-seated smell of old-growth forest, petrichor and woody debris. You hope the new guest doesn’t have a sharp nose. 

You make sure to stuff the coffee station with extra packets before stepping out of the room. Off the mysteriously stained carpet, onto the veranda. You putter around with your large keyring, thumbing through the nickel-brass since you also have a key to the elementary school, post office, and city hall (aptly titled shitty hall by locals, since this town isn’t much of a city and the building’s roof is held together by nothing but rusty rivets and tassels of sprig collected in the corners). You’ve got so many keys because again, everybody knows everybody, and it isn’t rare to see the housekeeping girl at the motor lodge supplementing her income as a part-time teaching aid. 

Finally, you find the master key. You lock the room and roll the cleaning cart into the utility room before locking that too. Your wrist drags across your forehead, wiping away sweat, and you tug on your dress because perspiration has pasted it onto the pert curve of your breasts, the squish of your thighs. You furtively glance down your bodice and watch how the sweat pocks your skin, knotting your nipples against your cheap bra. Lament catches you in regards to your shower after work—it’s going to be freezing since the heating system here is so fickle—and in the paroxysm of your grief, the sound of heavy breathing eludes you. 

You don’t hear his footsteps. He’s an ambush predator. Stalking and shadowing in the tall grass, waiting for the moment your hackles melt to bite into your neck like an unripe stone fruit. You don’t see him, but you feel him. His breath tickling down your neck. The erogenous zone behind your ear. 

A gasp parts your lips and you whip around, coming face-to-face with a paunchy chest plated by moth-eaten flannel. You heft your head up, exercising the hinge in your neck. Paling at the sight that greets you.

He has a Cabela’s cap on. It’s pulled over his eyes, but a few blonde curls peek out from under the crown of his hat. He has a damaged, blistered face. A cauliflower ear. Nicks on his cheeks that distend from his skin and have turned pallid with time, rippling like seafoam petticoats on waves as he flickers his jaw. He wears jeans and mud-clogged boots and holds a duffel bag. 

His gaze unties you. You slowly find words, fitting them in an orderly queue in your mind as you avert your gaze and stare at the floor. Squirming. Preening. Sweltering.

“Welcome to Sockeye Inn, mister…” 

Silence. He lets your words awkwardly trail off. Doesn’t do anything to belay the discomfort in your belly. The man simply stares at you with brown eyes. 

Humiliation crawls up your spine and settles on your cheeks. It burns through your skin, withering you away, to which you fidget with your fingers and baldly nod towards the door.

“Your room is ready,” you murmur. “Enjoy your stay, sir. Uh– if you need anything just give us a shout. Phone’s on the bedside table.” 

Foolishly, you wait for a response again. Nothing. He towers over you, owlishly blinking, one slower than the other because he seems to have a lazy eye. You clench your skirt and softly shoulder past him, heading for the stairs as you hear him putter with the keyhole. 

You’ve halfway scaled it when a rasp distorted by what seems to be years of cigarettes stops you dead in your tracks. 

“Bring me a BLT and root beer.” 

You burn up at the muscle in his voice. The drag. Just as you’re about to reply, his room door slams shut and rocks across the veranda. 

Your dress is stickier than it was before. Perhaps an ice cold shower isn’t so bad after all.

The end of your shift slowly arrogates. 

After delivering food to Simon Riley—you glinted at the logbook while waiting for his order, reading his name—you left his room as soon as possible. You set the food down and found yourself plugging your nose. The Platinum Ice you sprayed before didn’t accost you— instead, it was pomade. Lucky Strike cigarettes. Decaying heartwood. Bleach. 

You pointedly breathed through your mouth. It didn’t actually help though, since you could taste it then. The ethanol in the air drizzled over your pockmarked tongue and glided down your throat. Collected in your stomach. 

You almost retched it back up at the sight of him.

Through the foggy shower wall, the colour of his hazy contour was striking. It seemed to be a tight fit for him, hemming in his lumberjack build. The shampoo bottle looked like a damn accessory in his large hands and his chased shoulder blades pressed soap against the glass pane, sudsy. 

Your curiosity pulled your gaze lower. Down to the heavy mass between his thighs, thick and fat. Bulbous. 

His spine suddenly went erect, straightening like a chary animal. As if by the agitated pappus of his skin, his chin lifted in your direction, and that’s when the earth collapsed under your feet and you beetled for the door. 

You distract yourself in the kitchen. Emptying the dishwasher. Taking the garbage to the bear-proof receptacles. Putting the oven on steam clean. Kate, the kitchen supervisor, stares at you oddly under her hairnet but she isn’t going to reject a set of helping hands. 

You scrub at a pan hoping it will erase the image burned into your mind. Hoping that the steel wool will have the same effect on your temporal lobe as it does on the pan. You don’t realize your hands are chafing and the pan is flaking, not until Kate is passionately complaining beside you, her spit dashing onto the side of your face.

“—fuckin’ freeloaders. They drain our taxes but can’t even do their damn jobs. Wait until one of their family gets butchered, you’ll see, that’s when they’ll start taking this seriously.”

She waves a newspaper in your face. The paper stack fans in front of you, blowing you with cool air. You’re just barely able to read the big, blocky headline. 

Connection Made Between Ventura, Gilroy and Eugene Serial Killer — Aptly Coined the Ghost.

“Eugene!” Kate slaps the newspaper, frazzled. “Not even three hours from us!”

You scarcely listen to her, her voice ripening into white noise as you scrutinize the police sketch on the newspaper’s margin. The offender is drawn with an overripe balaclava and probing eyes. Dark brown, as if his corneal opacity has laid claim before death. His eyelids have no tension, but a furl of crow's feet gather at the corners. It’s uncanny. Eerie. And even though he’s pressed on paper, you can’t help the unease welling inside you. 

A part of you waits for the other shoe to drop. For him to manifest and crawl out of the paper, dripping ink and viscous tar, ruining your Mary Jane flats and the floor you’d just mopped.

Hemlock hits the back of your throat. Lemony, sedgy. Your eyes fixate on the information detailing his crimes. Spines broken and necks snapped with inhumane strength. Pieces of flesh carved with the precision of either a surgeon or a butcher. Rigour mortis locking the victims in a scream, nail beds caked with skin which implies a struggle, but leads nowhere since the Ghost’s DNA hasn’t been found on any database.

(He’s as elusive as his name suggests. Investigators say he could be foreign, or that he has a clean record. The latter seems unlikely for the violent calibre of his crimes.)

There’s also his modus operandi—slicing off his victim’s ring finger, taking it with him. A cruel reward. 

“They say he’s taking Route 101,” Kate tacks on. “That he’s a long-hauler. How the hell will they catch a long-hauler?”

You shake your head, shrugging. Your tongue is too heavy and your gums rub against the round of your cheeks when you try speaking. The sentence gets snagged on your molars, and all that comes out are sparse words, lamely falling to the floor with how out of breath you are. 

“…They’ll catch him.”

“They better,” she shortly huffs. “I don’t want this town making the paper for all the wrong reasons.” 

Death comes to you in a cornfield. 

You’re sprinting through the crop, barefoot and scantily clad and pricked by thorns. Your clothing catches on thistle and corn husk, slowing you down, but the quick-footed trampling at your tail keeps your pace steady and stable.

Your lungs burn. Your bones rasp. Your eyes well up with how fast you’re moving, with how your retinas strain to see more in the pitch black than just reflective corn silk and the crescent moon. 

The midnight sky is close to swallowing you whole, but at this point that would be an act of mercy. The whistle of his cleaver slicing through the air and the stomp of his boots are promptly catching up, heckling you, barely whispering against the flowy cotton of your dress.

By a cruel twist of fate your foot catches on a tiller and sends you flying. Your nose softens the impact, the crack of cartilage reverberating through your skull, glutinous red spurting down your chin as you try scrambling to your feet.

But true to his name, Ghost, he slips through matter and suddenly, he’s standing in front of you.

Black, sweaty tank top. Freshly sharpened meat cleaver. Stout arms. Predatory eyes. Rotting balaclava—which at this point, you’re starting to believe was grafted onto his face, fitting him like skin. 

You raise your hands for mercy. 

But you should know dead stars have exhausted all their luminosity—that after death, they hold no power. That space is a graveyard. That’s why the Ghost poises his cleaver behind him. That’s why the last thing you see is his cleaver handle swinging towards you, about to collide with and shatter your cheekbone into a million pieces—

—but daylight strikes you with no clear trajectory. 

It’s your alarm that rings, waking you up from a nightmare, telling you to brush your teeth and scrub yourself down and pop your supplements before biking to work. You do so sluggishly, standing under the shower spray as you massage your cheekbone. Burning your toast as you scour the news for developing details on the Ghost case. Ordering a cup of coffee from the local diner and gulping it down behind the motel lest Phillip catches you.  

Your nightmare—omen, prophecy, portent of death?—pursues you like the persistent stench of fish on an angler’s hands all morning. You flinch at the slightest noise while scrubbing toilets, you constantly look over your shoulder while sweeping floors.

Malaise builds in your blood vessels like creosote. It doesn’t thin into fluid, flowing in and out of your appendages and around your sex until you situate yourself in front of Room 11. Fluffing up your skirt and puffing out your chest.

You announce your presence and rap the door with your Mary Jane flat because your hands are occupied with new bed sheets. Your knuckles blanch around the linen, quivering, struggling to keep it in your grip. The sheets almost flutter to your feet when a voice penetrates the door, abrasive and husky. Rough. Grating against your spine and shaving down the vertebrae. 

“Door’s open.”

You wait a few seconds before contorting yourself against the threshold. You try the handle and lo and behold, it’s unlocked, swinging open when you press your weight onto it. 

You step inside and toe off your flats. Next to Simon’s boots, they look fit for a doll, and a dizzy spell ricochets through you at the size difference. At the stark reminder that he’s as big and packed as a thick tree stump.

You walk inside and heed the CRT television playing the news. 

It does nothing to soften the scream that rips out of you as you round the corner.

Simon is in bed, pulling on a cigarette. His pudgy tummy and bristly chest are bared, the steel wool of his happy trail disappearing into the bed sheets furled around his hips. The flat sheet is thin enough to outline something stirring. Something thick and pressed against his inner thigh. 

He stares at you, eyes of Argus. It’s so intense you’re sure he can sense the slick running down your back. The dew that settles in the gusset of your panties. 

You stutter. “I can come back later.”

Simon sits up with a groan. It rattles you. His joints must be fettered with age, or hard work, but in any case your head goes cottony with the picture of him splitting wood and hauling heavy bovine flanks. 

You swallow thick as he shakes his head. “It’s no problem, sugar. I’m not even here.”

The pet name makes you squirm. You sure do feel like it—sugar, that is��with the way you could melt on his tongue, wedge yourself between his teeth. Turn syrupy and sappy at the back of his throat.  

He takes another drag of his cigarette. You watch raptly as his jaw feathers around it, lips proffering another plume of smoke. 

He blinks. “Well?”

You eke out an apology and fiddle with your hands. 

“I’ll have to, um, change your bedsheets first.”

Simon shakes his head. He taps the ashy casualties off the tip of his cigarette and you watch as it sinks onto the bed sheet, almost burning through the floral motif. “No need.”

“Well,” you cough, forcing your eyes away from him, “if I don’t, my boss…”

Simon pricks up. The hind of his spine straightens the same way a dog would sit straight and plumb after hearing rustling in a bush. His muscles tighten, thick, and his face twists into a sneer. The bed sheet around him falls and you lock up tight lest it bare his pubic bone. 

“Is he a minger?”

“I’m sorry?”

He huffs. “‘s he a bully?”

“Oh, no,” you blandly laugh. “Mister Graves isn’t a bully. He just…”

“Makes you uncomfortable?”

There’s a lapse between acknowledging his question and spitting out an answer that makes you kick yourself. Simon already looks dubious. You hug the sheets closer to your chest and smile, your cheeks feathering like beeswax.

“He’s a kind man.”

“Not wha’ I asked,” he says. The bed creaks as he leans forward, the sheets slipping lower, scarcely covering his sex. “I asked if he does stuff he shouldn’t be doin’.”

Your heartbeat quickens. Briefly, you wonder if he can hear it. He probably can, albeit softly, due to his lumpy cauliflower ear.

“He’s a married man,” you mumble. “He doesn’t touch me if that’s what you mean. Not like that.”

“There’s only one way to touch someone,” Simon grunts. His chest starts churning a little, as if he’s agitated. “Does he put his hands on you?”

Your skin burns, remembering. A phantom scar runs through you, long and creeping, mapping all the places in which Phillip’s pinchbeck wedding ring has burned you. The suture of your spine, the pappy flesh of your neck, the rise of your hips where his palm has melted through your dress and smarted your skin.  

Your silence makes Simon grunt. 

Panic surges up your throat. You feel the need to defend Phillip, in some approximation of gratitude and fear since you’re on his payroll and you don’t want to reap the consequences should you rat on him and he find out. 

“No!” you hurry. “Mister Graves isn’t like that. He’s a good man. Honest.”

Simon’s eyes push against your skin. He scrutinizes you, tests you. Waits to see if you’ll fidget too much and flake away and sink into the carpet. 

He growls. “You fancy him, is tha’ it?”

Answering yes is the only way to shake him off your leg. You do so archly, so it seems as though the thought of your boss has you flushing when really it’s Simon. He’s fully upright, and now you can see the girthy base of his cock. Stirring, twitching. You suppress a moan.

“Yeah…” you murmur. You can feel your makeup turning blotchy, running down your cheeks. “It’s just a bit…embarrassing, is all.”

He lapses into it again. Staring at you. Razoring his way into your head and thumbing through your consciousness, searching for an Achilles’ heel. A crack he can break into a hole because he has the size for it—barrel-chested, stupidly thick fingers. 

Simon slips out of bed and disturbs the coiled aches of the mattress. He holds a washcloth over his crotch. It’s crusty and keeps shape and covers almost nothing, confirming your inkling. 

His bulbous cockhead winks at you from under the hem. It’s heavy. Leaky. Dripping precum that laves down his legs and gets caught in the wiry hair of his thigh. 

Anxiety pools in your armpits and around your groin. Or maybe that’s just arousal. Brackish and sticky, rubbing your pussy lips together, hugging your clit. 

Simon pulls on his cigarette once more and then folds it into the bedside table. You should scold him. You should tell him that he’ll have to pay for damages even though the wood is already degraded and mouldy. You should scuttle out of the room and call for Phillip, but that would be a crueler fate. Instead you stay fixed to the carpet as Simon steps forward. Cock swinging between his legs, tummy jiggling. 

You don’t know whether he’s going to pull you in for a kiss or rip off your dress or—and you’re unsure why you think of this—take you by your skull and smash it against the television stand. He has the muscle to, surely, but somehow you know he won’t. And the thought of that makes your skin hot.

You’re at his mercy.

You gird yourself for his lips or for your dress to be torn off, but your preparations flux away as Simon steps close and crowds you against the television stand. The stench of Lucky Strike cigarettes and gamey meat impair you, as he reaches behind you and increases the television volume. You want to say something but cotton fills your mouth and the news report floods your ears. It’s fragmentary—you can only heed oddments of the news anchor’s latest updates. 

The Ghost is still at large. Corpses keep popping up around California and Oregon, each with their ring fingers sliced off. The tipline has been leading investigators nowhere, shepherding them to the end of the earth and over the edge, floating, where they’ll move through molasses and will never be able to catch him. 

White male. 6’4”. 196 centimetres. Brown eyes. Heavyset. Likely military background. Likely a surgeon, or a butcher. A dangerous, ruthless individual. 

If spotted, do not approach. 

Simon’s breath fans against your neck, rousing the bristles of your warm cheeks. He turns off the television and steps back. An ether opens up in the pit of your stomach as your gaze falls on his bulging pelvis, on the purplish veins and webbing muscle, sitting like a tuft under his navel, disappearing behind the washcloth where his cock stirs. 

Simon tuts. “World’s goin’ to shite.”

You nod.

“You shouldn’t be out here anyway,” he tacks on. “Should be at home takin’ care of your man’s house. Keepin’ safe.”

You flash your naked ring finger embarrassingly fast. “I-It’s just me…and my cat.”

His eyes darken. His head tilts down at you. He purrs. 

“Better get started on mine then,” he breathes. “Put yourself to good use.”

You shyly get to cleaning his room. 

You try to ignore his hand disappearing behind the washcloth, pumping his cock. You can’t ignore the silk ruining your panties. Scarcely, you manage to ignore the caution creeping up your back. Your lower instinct that screams at you as you feel his stare tracking you across the room, burning. Smouldering. Warning. 

Daylight scissors into you.

It melts the sleep in the corners of your eyes. It clears the haze in your head. It interrupts the sultry dream you were having. Your flesh is still pocked and your clit is still peaked, as you rehash the contents of it. 

You can still feel Simon’s weight on top of you, sweat compressioning you, the sheets gathering under your slick back. Your underwear had dangled from one of your ankles, flapping and swaying as Simon pounded into you. Your head bobbed over the lip of the mattress. Your tits bounced, nipples caught between his gnashers. Your slick ran down your cunt and over your asshole, pooling onto the floral bed sheets. You just quit your job. You didn’t care about the sheets. Or the Pettie’s down the veranda. Phillip was on the other side of the door too, and he could hear everything. Your moans. Simon’s balls dragging over your furled hole. His groans—

—And the sudden tearing of cartilage and skin stretching, rubbery, as Simon shifted into something else above you. Something larger. Deadlier. His drool dripped onto your chest, and his cock was suddenly too big for your pussy, popping back out until only his tip managed to squeeze inside your puffy hole. He snarled down at you, but it got covered by a creeping balaclava. You still reached your orgasm, quivering around his cockhead. Watching him go spotty and graphite-like in your vision, as if he were a composite sketch.

You get out of bed and wash the absurd dream away under the shower. The nozzle hits your clit weakly, and you never reach your high. You show up to work pigeon-toed and sweaty. Pent-up. You scrub harder at bathtubs and almost snap at Phillip when he swats your bum. Almost. Simon is watching from the dining hall, and he makes you skittish.

The day rolls by sluggishly. There’s a Do Not Disturb sign dangling from Simon’s door, so you don’t get the chance to see him in his room. You huff and puff at the Pettie’s and give Kate attitude. It’s the peak of afternoon when you’re sent home, shoulders stiff because Phillip squeezed them and tacked on, ”I can always help out if you’re stressed, peach,” before shepherding you out the door.  

You bike into town. Indulge in the diner’s famous rhubarb pie because the motel’s cherry pie is nowhere near as good, though you’ll never tell Kate that. You polish off your treat then ride to the beach (which is more of a graveyard for birds and braided, washed ashore sea meadow), and prop your bike against the wooden bollards.

The beach is familiar with you. It sees you when you're overwhelmed by the monotonous colour of your life. You never worry about meddling kids or loud teenagers or anything, because the stench of fish usually keeps them away anyway. It's your own Shangri-La. Your little Eden. Albeit overcast and greyscale, with an ocean spray that gets into your hair and dries out your mouth.

You slip out of your Mary Jane flats and wade through the sand dunes, breathing in salt and sulfur and tasting it on your lips. You maneuver around seawrack and driftwood and eventually find yourself seated behind a tussock of seaoats, watching as the waves lazily beat against the shore.

It's easy for you to lie down and get comfortable among the scent of iodine and the feel of pillowy granules. It's also easy to let your eyes flutter shut, lulled into limbo by the ebbing tide and murmuring waves.

You stir awake with flaccid lungs.

Presentiment hangs in the air, thick, like a blanket of smog. It interrupts your breathing pattern and makes you light-headed. Vertiginous. Makes you see things that aren't there…

…Such as the off-white scleras and twists of dilated blood vessels that stare at you from the foreshore.

They approach you eerily. Two pieces of driftwood floating over the waves, jolting slightly as it hits the sand, splintery and mossy and heavy.

The man feathers toward you from the blue glow of the beach. You squint through the darkness, because maybe it's the sheriff, but you know he walks with a drunken gait and he…strides like a bear on its hind legs.

The way he lurches for you says otherwise. Perhaps he's rather a panther or a coyote, or some crude backyard breed of all three.

A large palm splits itself over your mouth. An arm lays beside you and secretes a musk of sweat and iron. A knee digs into the plush of your cunt, agitating your clit, as a warm breath fans over your pulse point.

"Waited for me, didn't you?" he rasps against your neck.

In your stupor, you brace your hands against his shoulders. A sticky substance coats his skin, too viscous to be sweat.

Nausea knots in your throat. Tremors wash over your body. You dig your nails into his flesh, and when your hands don't fall through it like you hoped, you gravely realize he's made of muscle and skin instead of your drunken, sleep-inspired imagination.

You experience a cruel loss of equilibruim. If you weren't already lying down, you'd collapse to the ground. You go limp in the sand, thawing into his hands which you unwillingly notice are caked with that sticky substance too.

"There's dangerous folk 'round here," he grunts. "What if someone else followed you? A big, bad man?"

A chord of recognition stirs in your brain at his voice. That brash accent.

"Simon…?"

He chuckles. "It's me, sugar."

You squeeze your thighs together but it's abortive. He pries them apart anyway, and cups your pussy through your panties.

He rubs you through the gauze, knuckling your soft lips. Through the darkness you barely see the misshapen silhouette of his mouth. That snarl, curling off him as if he suffers from some chronic wasting disease, slowly atrophying and turning into some vestigal cadaver.

He kisses down your sternum. Grips your hand and forces it over his crotch. Your fingers brush over the solid mass. It's hard due to both stiffened denim and his thickening cock.

"All for you," he mumbles. "Take it out, sugar."

You fumble with the metal teeth of his zipper. You pull him out with both hands and your mouth goes dry. Tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. Deadly nightshade hitting the back of your throat. Despite you, your thighs squish together, and a rumbling chuckle slips through the seam of his lips.

He's huge. Fat and heavy, so much so you need both fingers to wrap around him.

"Give it a kiss, yeah?" he coos. "Like a sweet girl."

You spread your lips against his cockhead. You pull away and a string of precum chases you, but Simon is pushing your head back down and bucking his bristly pubic bone into to your nose.

"There it is," he grumbles. "Such a big girl, aren't you?"

You look up at him with wide, wet eyes.

The stiffs of hair on his pubic bone tickle your nose. You smell sweat and iron, but you can't tilt your head away, because the stout muscle of his arms keep you in place.

Fighting is futile. His cockhead hits the back of your throat like oleander and he holds your jaw in place, dimpling your cheeks with his rough fingers, letting his balls slap against your chin.

Just as you're getting used to his size, he pulls out, breaking the strands of saliva and precum between you.

"Take off y'panties, sugar."

You pull them off and squirm at the way the gusset clings to your pussy lips a little while longer. Simon takes it against his nose and sniffs it, running his fingers through your pussy, spreading your slick.

You don't get a warning before he's curling one of his fingers into you. Massaging your walls. Scissoring you open. Thumbing your clit.

He adds another and twists them deeper—meaner—into you. He swallows your whimpers but spits them back into your mouth when he empties his saliva down your throat. He keeps stroking the inside of your pussy, your sticky walls, and rubbing your clit.

He squeezes your cheeks together and gives you a big kiss. He coos condescendingly into your lips, and licks away your fresh track of tears. "It's supposed to hurt, baby. Don't be mad, alright? It'll feel good soon."

He gets deeper and deeper. Knuckle-deep, when he curls his fingers inside you. You lock up tight and thrust your hips through the bulk of your orgasm, trembling and quivering around him.

Your lips quiver around a plea when he pulls his fingers out. It's a lapse of judgement on your part—you know it—but you can't help it anymore.

"Please what?" He grins. It's ugly. Like a truss of stitching falling off his face, mangled and chewed up.

"Can you g-go…" you squirm when he rolls his tumb over your clit, agonizingly slow. "Can you go–"

"C'mon baby," he whispers against your lips, "spit it out. Big girls use their words."

"Canyougodownonme?" you gasp and grip onto him, bucking your cunt into his palm.

He chuckles against your mouth. He kisses down your chest. He crinkles his nose against the husk of your pussy. He deeply inhales and vibrates at your scent. He darts his tongue out and flattens it against your dewy folds, licking a stripe up your slit.

You writhe but he holds you in place with those big, thickened hands of his. They're wet but at this point you can't tell if it's your arousal or that mysterious substance on him. You can't even think about it, not with your thoughts melting away, escaping you like the humming waves.

Simon's a bit too aggressive in how he eats you out. It doesn't come from a juvenile attempt influenced by sex-on-screen with undue emphasis, but rather his tongue spelling devotion into the fat of your cunt.

Your fingers flex into his blonde head of hair. It's closely cropped, but you still manage to pull him closer, grinding yourself down on the bumpy bridge his nose. You pull on his hair and he growls and sends a quake up your spine. He wraps his lips around your clit and swirls his tongue further into you, softly suckling your juices out.

The waves fold over each other, beating against the shore. They crest and crash and just as they race up the sand dune, teasing your flexing toes, your second orgasm crashes into you too. You twist and twirl Simon's hair in your grip and almost miss the feel of something cold being slipped onto your finger.

You're shaking, trembling, as you raise your hand. You're hazy and the moonlight is shrouded by clouds. It makes the mystery object look smeared across your vision, blotchy and spotty.

You hold it a little closer to your face, examining the twinkle as Simon massages your thighs to ease the quiver.

You turn your hand over and whisper your thumb over its curve.

You bristle when you realize what it is. It hangs off you a little loosely, burning your knuckle.

A pinchbeck wedding ring.

Stained with red, and still warm from the body it was pulled from.

Bile gathers in your throat and burns your mouth. Tears gather in your eyes. A small gasp parts your lips, billowing out of you like the mushroom-head of a flare just as realization fully commits itself to you.

You shiver. Both through realization, and your orgasm. "…What did you do to him?"

"Took care of him," Simon grunts, caressing your hair. "I'm supposed to handle the monsters under your bed, ain't I?"

You spare him a glance. You heed the white of his teeth and a smudge of—you know it's blood—across his cheek. His eyes, hidden in the shadowy canopy. His nose, bent out of shape and speckled with blood.

"You're not going to hurt me."

He brushes your hair back. "No."

You pant into him when he captures you for a kiss. "…Why?"

"I'm supposed to take care of ya," he grunts. "That's what couples do, no?"

He pushes something in your grasp—a folding knife. Your thumb slips over the two initials engraved into the handle—your initials.

"How do y'feel about Kate?" he asks.

Your coworker flashes into your mind. "I like her"

Simon—the Ghost—grunts. "And what about that bloke at the diner? What's his name?"

"I– Franklin?"

"Hn. Does he bother you?"

You thumb through your memory. Perhaps what you say is an embellishment, giddy of what Simon's going for.

"He did steal my bike once…" you mumble.

Simon pricks up. His chest puffs out and squishes against your arm. "He married?"

"Yeah, um," you swallow, "for about ten years."

"You want his pretty ring? Or his wife's?" Simon asks, then kisses you. "Anythin' you want."

Your lips stretch into a smile.

Simon cups your cheek, blood rubbing off on you. For the first time ever, you feel exhilarated at the thought of the future. At the thought of being taken care of. Doted on.

Suddenly the town doesn't feel so cold anymore. It doesn't feel like an invisible barricade is hemming you in. Simon is your ticket out of here, and a ticket to your new life.

You can abandon your pinafore and Mary Jane flats and maybe he'll spoil you with frilly socks and a cute sundress. Maybe he'll fuck you in his truck or in gas station bathrooms as the corpse of a man who wronged you rots in the truckbed. Maybe you'll get caught but at least you'll be together and at least your name will finally be known.

Not as the housekeeper girl, but Mrs Riley.

[syoddeye]

dragging john to some fancy eyewear boutique because you're so sure he'll look better in a more modern pair. a rare occasion where you insist on paying for whatever frames he likes best (and the lenses, the anti-reflecting coat, etc.).

he dutifully tries on everything you hand to him. he also selects a handful, though he rolls his eyes when you claim his picks are too similar to the wire frame readers he already owns.

in the end, the shopping trip is a bust. you go for lunch instead, lamenting the fact you left empty-handed.

your sour mood flies out the window when john slips his old glasses from his shirt pocket to read the menu, grumbling about the font size. there is something about the way the frames slide down the bridge of his nose. how the wire temples disappear into his brown, now slightly salt-and-peppered, hair. the furrow of his brow. you know he's in a fair mood, but he looks so stern like that and and—you twist the napkin in your lap almost violently with the direction your brain goes.

"see anythin' you like?" he asks, scanning the entrees.

"yep."

"i was thinking the papaya–"

"oh, i'm not talking about the food."

john looks at you from under his brow, puzzled for all of a second, before his face softens. he leans back in his chair, a smirk curling the edge of his mouth, and he pushes his glasses up. he folds his arms across his chest and stares as if he's already figured you out. his eyes light up with something both smug and amused.

"thought you didn't like these old things."

"i changed my mind."

"i can see that." he tilts his head and zeroes in on the fabric bunched in your hands. "you're squirmin' in your seat."

"yeah? well, if you'd like to see more, get your ass up and let's go."

[wannaeatramyeon]

Your Adventures as the Lookismverse Designer

G/N. Run-ins with Burn Knuckles, Goddog, Allied and Big Deal. Masterlists

Being in the Fashion department, you had assumed your classmates had a passion for fashion. For god's sake, it's in the name.

But no, you're wrong.

Apart from using it as an excuse to wear designer brands from head to toe, no one really gave a shit.

No one cared about the history, about design, fabrication, construction.

No one... apart from you that is.

.

.

Your first client wasn't really someone you could say no to unless you had a death wish.

When the whole of the Architecture department shows up along with Vasco, their terrifying leader, you consider running off and screaming.

It was only Jace Park, who seemed to understand a more subtle approach and how intimidating they looked, that stopped you from wanting to flee to the teacher.

(Strange. You actually don't recall seeing your teacher for months.)

"Please," Jace murmurs to Vasco and he's practically begging. "You didn't need to turn up with everyone. Just leave this to me. Please."

If you didn't know better, you would think Vasco was giving him grateful puppy eyes. But that can't be right. He's a thug.

"Sorry," Jace turns to you, looking contrite and fiddling anxiously with his big ears when you're finally on your own. "Are you the Fashion Designer?"

It should have been a stupid question, considering you're in the Fashion Department.

Except you look around at the so-called boxer who pitifully simps after the brunette all day, the rich blonde kid who never talks to anyone, the other girl who is an aspiring streamer and you sigh to yourself.

"Yes, that's me."

.

.

All things considered, the Burn Knuckles are very easy to please.

It's a design printed on some pre-made boilersuits, not exactly avant garde.

You did touch up the logo though and provided some more clothing options than requested. Boilersuits in a small selection of colours, bomber and leather jackets.

When you hand over the boxes to Vasco and Jace, the latter shakes your hand and the former stares at you with tears in his eyes and asks how they can ever repay you.

You shrug. Because he did already pay you for your time and the materials.

"Don't worry about it." You say, giving him a polite grin.

Vasco beams and you think maybe this guy isn't so scary.

.

.

.

.

Somehow your reputation precedes you.

To be honest you didn't even realise you had any sort of reputation until a guy with a messy mop head and two dogs corners you in an alleyway.

"I heard you're the Designer," he grunts.

A part of you thinks of fleeing once again. A smaller part of you thinks damn, that nickname is kinda cool.

"I am?"

"Don't play dumb. I know who you are."

You would have found him rude and menacing if not for his dogs picking that exact moment to roll around on the floor belly-up, desperately wanting some attention.

"Fuck's sake," he mutters though he squats down anyway to pat them. "So?" he continues, trying to regain his previous threatening aura even as the pups wriggle around under his touch.

"So what?"  you ask, not able to stop the smile creeping over your face at this adorable sight.

"I need some clothing."

.

.

Perhaps the Burn Knuckles gave you a false sense of bravado, thinking everyone would be as easy as them. Unfortunately, this guy is a goddamn headache.

He wants hoodies, which isn't an issue but he wants matching dog-sized ones and he wants you to design the logo from scratch too.

"But I don't do graphic design," you cry and he pretends he can't hear you.

On your twelfth iteration, he doesn't glare at it and praise the heavens; he's finally happy.

Well, happy is an overstatement. He doesn't exactly look happy but he's no longer glaring at you, so you assume in Johan Seong's world, that means he's exhilarated.

The hoodies fit, both Johan and the dogs, and the logo looks good too.

You wave goodbye to the back of all three. Your bank balance is healthier except you hope they never darken your doorstep again.

.

.

(You have no such luck. He returns, months later, requesting tracksuits.)

.

.

.

.

It's a sorry state of affairs when three of the members of Allied are part of the Fashion Department, and come to you asking for help.

"Why don't you design it yourself?" you ask Daniel Park, Zack Lee and Jay Hong.

They look at you like you've grown two heads.

.

.

You will be eternally grateful that Jay Hong is mute, that Vasco is actually the sweetest cinnamon roll, and Daniel Park is pretty easy-going because having Vin Jin and Zack Lee constantly bickering and criticising your design is bad enough.

Apparently these men are very adept fighters. Caught up in some gang shit. It didn't matter. You still wanted to ram your pen through their skulls.

Then throw in someone else called Hudson Ahn who also seems to like giving rude, overly critical comments concealed as constructive criticism -

You threatened to quit more than once.

.

.

Eventually, after staying awake for 46 hours - you all agree on a logo.

"Here." You thrust the USB drive with the files at Daniel Park.

"What do I do with this?"

"You're in the Fashion Department too." You rub at your tired eyes, patience long gone with these morons. "Find a clothing printer yourself. Search for it on the internet. You know what that is right? The internet?"

Somewhere to your right, Vin Jin bursts into laughter.

.

.

.

.

You can't decide if this guy is trying to sell you something or if you're actually falling in love with him by the second.

Hell, he could sell you some snake-oil and you're so charmed you don't mind.

"So, you'll do it?" he asks, holding your hands in his larger gloved ones and you feel yourself simpering like an idiot at the contact.

"Sure thing, Mr. Kim."

"Jake," he says, giving you a toothy grin. "I'm Jake. And this is Jerry."

"Who?"

"Jerry Kwon," A large hulking man steps up besides Jake, offering you a handshake.

What? How did you miss him? You didn't notice him at all.

"Oh. Uh. Of course. Nice to meet you too Jerry."

"Come here, guys." Jake signals for the other men hanging back to come forth. "Ths is Brad and Jerry and Lineman."

Shit. Damnit, you've been so fixated on Jake Kim that you ignored everyone else.

Hell. You didn't even realise there was anyone else.

"Hi," you say, wanting the ground to swallow you up and blushing furiously.

Jake catches your eye and gives you a wink.

.

.

Being completely honest, the Big Deal tracksuits aren't your best work.

You're not too sure on the logo design (though hey - that's not really your handiwork). The placement is a little awkward and the design is sort of plain.

You added gold elements to at least make it a bit more cohesive, and sourced extra durable fabrics with lots of movement as apparently the guys have a tendency to damage clothing during fights.

"What do you think?" Jake says, modelling your finalised version.

From the smile on his face, you could tell he's very much satisfied with your work.

"Looks great," you say and you're telling the truth. Although it's not really the tracksuit that looks great, but the man wearing it. His broad shoulders and tight waist, long muscular legs and-

Oops. You silently apologise for objectifying him.

The way your eyes rake over his form isn't subtle, though it's definitely flattering. Jake playfully throws another wink your way.

[bigification]

Pretty Eyes

"You've got pretty eyes, you know that." Your boyfriend, Lenny, tells you.

"You think so?" You reply, no one's ever complimented your eyes before.

"Yeah, they're perfect windows into your soul." He smiles as he looks into your deep brown eyes.

You blush in response, trying to hide how much the compliment affected you.

"I think the rest could do with some work, though." Lenny adds.

Your smile drops instantly. Why would he say that? Is he messing with you? What does he mean by that?

"What.." you ask, hoping he starts laughing and says it was a joke. But his face remains serious.

"First let's work on that belly." Lenny says while pulling up your shirt, revealing a soft pad of fat on your stomach.

By now you're freaking out. He's gone way too far for it to be a joke, why is he being so mean? And what does he mean working on your belly? You want to push him away and hide your stomach but you feel frozen, completely incapable of moving or talking back.

Lenny plants his hand on your stomach, it feels warm. He pushes firmly into your body, knocking you back a bit.

"That's better." He says with a charming smile.

You look down in a mix of happiness and horror, seeing your belly entirely disappear. In its place is a perfectly chiselled six pack with a sharp V line leading down to your crotch. But before you can even react, Lenny has moved on.

"Hmmm." He ponders to himself. "That chest needs fixing too."

He cups your soft chest with both his hands and starts to rub. You hate to admit it, but it feels great. So good in fact, you almost forget that you're mad at him. He keeps rubbing, sculpting your pecs into the perfect shape. You notice them grow and grow, but with muscle rather than fat. They begin to push out from your body, creating a shelf over your six pack. You even feel your nipples growing as they slowly drift to the underside of your juicy pecs. By the time Lenny pulls away, you're left with two massive pecs that are threatening to burst out of your tiny shirt at any moment.

"I think I'm gonna need to broaden your shoulders to match your expansive chest." He states as if you have a say in it.

His hands grip tightly onto your shoulders and begin to pull them outward. Each pull broadens your shoulders like they're made of putty, eventually ripping right through your shirt. The torn fabric falls to the ground, unveiling your muscly physique and revealing a tattoo sprawled across one of your pecs.

Lenny continues to pull your shoulders until they're wider than your chest, giving you a masculine V shaped torso. And while he's at it, he massages your traps and causes them to triple in size, forming two solid humps of muscle on either side of your neck.

"It's looking good, but not down until we finish your back." He says as he circles behind you.

You feel his warm hands dig into your back, almost like a professional massage. Unbeknownst to you, though, he is creating waves of muscle up and down your back.

"We're almost done with your upper body, but those arms look pathetic compared to that body." Lenny swings back around in front of you. "I have an idea to fix it." He says with a devilish smile.

He grabs your right hand and sticks your thumb into his mouth. He starts to blow, and like a balloon your arm starts to inflate. Your bicep inflates to the size of an American football as veins start to surface, adding to the muscly look. Your forearm follows suit while a black tattoo forms over it. And finally your delicate hand grows into a thick calloused manly mitt. He then repeats the process on your left arm, creating a star tattoo on your shoulder and another black tattoo on your forearm.

"That completes the upper body, but those scrawny legs just won't do anymore." Lenny states as he looks at your severely top heavy body. And you couldn't agree more as your puny legs are struggling to hold up your hulking upper body.

"First let's get you some manly attire." Lenny snaps, and suddenly your short shorts are replaced by a rugged pair of jeans with a brown belt. The belt doesn't seem to be doing much though, as the pants are still much too big for you. That won't be a problem for long.

"Now let's get you an ass to be proud of." He chuckles to himself before wrapping his arms around you and cupping each of his hands on one of your cheeks. He squeezes your flat ass, pumping it up with each squeeze. You feel the shelf form behind you as your pants get tighter and tighter until they feel like they're about to explode. Lenny finally lets go, making your cheeks bounce as they fall into place.

"Now that I see it, that bulge is basically non existent. Let's fix that." Lenny grabs your crotch and pulls up, aggressively handling your cock and balls. A visceral erotic sensation shoots up your muscular body as he handles your meat. Though you can't help but notice a pressure rising in your pants. Your now tennis ball sized testies are being squished between your legs and your thickening cock is struggling to tuck inside your pant leg. You let out a moan, the first noise you've been able to make and it shocks you how deep your voice comes out. You almost don't recognize it. Though that's the least of your concerns as Lenny finishes his final touches to your crotch. An unmistakable outline of your cock is permanently etched into a bulge in your pants, 10 inches long and as thick as a pop can. No pants you could ever wear will hide that monster from the world.

"You're coming along perfectly, but you're not done yet." Lenny says as he kneels down. "Time to fix these chicken legs."

He grabs your legs, slowly sliding his hands down your pant leg. Your thighs inflate as his hands glide by, making them double in size with muscle and fat. They're so thick that they permanently rub together, even when you try to spread your legs. If your balls weren't squished before, they sure are now. His hands then glide down your calves, leaving them thicker than your thighs used to be.

"Hmmm, these runners won't do. It just doesn't suit you. Some cowboy boots would suit your style much better." He snaps again and your brand new running shoes are gone, replaced by some massive size 20 cowboy boots with the spurs and all.

Lenny steps back and takes a moment to admire his work. "You're lookin good, but there are some details I need to get right before I work on your face."

He starts brushing his hands across different parts of your body. First across your chest, growing thick brown hairs all over your pecs. Then a light dusting over your stomach, arms, and back. Finally you feel an itchy sensation take over your legs as a forest of brown hair engulfs the lower half of your body.

He yet again takes a step back to get a good look at you. "Oh right! I almost forgot to fix your height, 5"8 just isn't gonna cut it."

He first grabs your legs and stretches them by 3 inches, temporarily making you look out of proportion. But he quickly fixes it by lifting up your shoulders, causing your torso to stretch 5 inches. This leaves you at an intimidating 6"4, making you tower over your boyfriend. The longer body really makes you look more manly, and gives more room to show off that six pack.

"And now there's nothing but your face. Don't get me wrong, your face is pretty, but it just doesn't match the rest of your body. So we're gonna have to change it."

Lenny starts by squaring off your jaw and making it sharper, accentuating your chiselled features. He then shaves your head, leaving a short buzz cut in place of your lucious locks.

"Let's give you some more manly features while we're at it."

He pulls out your browline, giving you a simpler and manlier look. Then he thickens your nose, complimenting your square jaw. And he pushed in your cheeks, making you look more mature. Speaking of mature, Lenny has much older plans for you. He starts by receding your hairline slightly, not enough to make you look like your balding but just enough to make you look mature. He massages your skin, forming wrinkles around your forehead, mouth, and eyes, though he makes sure not to touch those beautiful eyes if your. And finally he rubs his hands across your jaw and upper lip, leaving behind a somewhat patchy beard and moustache on your face.

"Now to deal with that pesky brain of yours." Lenny says as he rubs his thumbs over your temples. Suddenly it's getting hard for you to think. What was your name again? What do you do for work? What are your hobbies? You can't seem to remember anything, not even the grueling transformation that your body just went through.

"That should do it." Lenny smiles as he pulls his hands away from your head.

Ahh that's better, so much easier to think. You remember that your name is Bruce and you're a 43 year old farmer.

"What are you looking at son?" You ask Lenny in a deep southern accent.

"You're eyes, they're very pretty you know." He responds.

"You goin make me blush boy." You flash a rare smile as you pull Lenny in for a kiss.

[lanadelreyscokewhor3]

DISEASE- P.B PARKER

Pairing- Peter x Fem! Reader (friends to lovers)

Word Count: 3.8k

Summary: You and your friend group head up to Peters infamious ski lodge weekend getaway, the same as every year. Except this year, theres tension in the air, and a masked man on the loose. Your actions have consequences....

(UNTIL DAWN INSPIRED) (but u dont need to play the game to read:) )

Warnings: SMUT, lowkey darkish peter, dumbification kink, mocking, size kink, fingering, teasing, creampie, swearing, foreplay? (peter gets off on y/n getting scared), mentions of booze and implications of torture

Notes: since the revamped verison of until dawn came out my obsession has came back full force, so i wrote a fic with marvel characters as if they were in until dawn! i wrote this in one sitting lol. its not lore accurate but..love josh washington.. so of course peter must be him....

"could play the doctor, i can cure your disease/ if you were a sinner, i could make you believe/ lay you down like one, two, three/ eyes roll back in ecstasy/ i can smell your sickness, i can cure ya/ cure your disease"- disease, lady gaga

You stared in dismay at the thin piece of paper that fluttered in the wind, barely clinging to the large iron gate by a thin piece of tape.

“Gate Broken. Climb over. -Steve”

Taking a breath, you gathered your wits about you, grumbling the whole way over to the side of the wall where the stone sides had started to crumble, giving you access to climb up and over. This was not the way you wanted to start your weekend getaway at Peters lodge, but it seemed you had no choice.

First your bus was late due to black ice, then your bag had dropped in the deep snow, the fabric dripping cold drips of water down your thin jacket. And now this.

Would anything go right this weekend?

You were nervous. You hadn’t seen the group in over a year, but once Peter had sent a text to the group, everyone had been quick to respond. You were excited to be back but also… anxious.

It had been a while since you had been here and what happened last time…

Your fingers stung as the stone dug into your palms, and you huffed chilled air as you tossed yourself over, feet tingling as you landed with an oomph.  It wasn't far now to the ski lift. You’d be out of this cold, haunting forest soon enough, surrounded by your friends' warmth.

Especially Peter's warmth, a little voice in the back of your head chimed.

The longer you thought of him, the warmer your cheeks became, making your breaths turn to startled pants in the deep snow. You and Peter had been friends since the first year of college, which he then introduced you to the rest of the group.

Bucky, who had been Peter's best friend since childhood, Steve- the big flirt (not nearly as bad as Peter though), Natasha- who was Bucky's girlfriend, Wanda, her friend Matt, and Loki.

All of them had been welcoming to you, making you feel right at home as if you had been friends with them for years. But when things got out of hand last year at the lodge, when Peter's sister went missing… it was distant.

You had pushed that memory as far back as you could, so whenever you tried to conjure it to the surface it was murky. A prank had gone wrong, despite you begging to the group to end it- Peter passed out on the couch.

His sister had been so in love with Bucky and well…

You watched the lift inch towards you, the doors swinging open with a loud clang. You closed your eyes in prayer that this car wouldn't snap with you inside, the old thing barely inching faster than a snail's pace.

Surely if the Parkers were rich, they did maintenance checks regularly? You doubted it.

The glass inside was foggy, and you traced a heart on the window pane as you started to trudge up Blackwood Mountain. The scenery was beautiful, the sun starting to become covered by rolling clouds, the snow coating the trees below- but all you could think of was Peter.

You had always had a crush on him but recently it had turned dangerous. All you could think of was him. Ever since he had sent that text to the group, it was like a switch in your body had snapped. Like you were reminded- “oh shit, yes, yes I do like this man”.

And no amount of time or distance would change that.

Wanda and Natasha had always teased you, insisting Peter liked you back- but he flirts with everyone. You refused to believe it, not wanting to give your hopes up… in case they were playing a prank on you.

You couldn't help but worry about him though, with everything that had happened. You hoped he didn't resent anyone for what had happened that night.

You wished you could've stopped it, could've been there to wake him…

The car jutted to a stop and rocked back and forth, the door remaining shut. Oh fuck. You peered your head through the window in the door and saw Wanda with Matt, waiting at the stop. You banged on the door, snapping their attention over to you with a start.

“Could you open this? I'm uh.. Kinda stuck.”

Wanda laughed as she walked over to you, banging on the door before pressing the old button that took several seconds to work. Finally the doors swung open, leaving a loud creaking sound in their wake that echoed off the mountains.

“What, you didn't want to see us so you stayed in the car?” Matt called, a smirk on his lips as Wanda wrapped her arms around you, grasping you in a comforting embrace.

“Oooh I missed you girl! It's been so long since we've been back.” she smiled softly as Matt hugged you, taking the soaking backpack from your back. “I missed you guys too. Is anyone else here?”

“Everyone now I think. It's almost night-time, so I’m sure they're all waiting at the lodge for us.”

You bit your lip, nodding solemnly.

“Were you guys waiting long? Sorry, you didn't have to or anything, my bus was super late and the gate was broken…”

“What no! It's all good girl, Matt didn't mean anything by it. We’re just all so excited to see you.”

“Especially Peter.” Matt laughed, and you put your head in your hands.

“Maybe he’ll warm you up Y/N, since it's so cold out here.” Wanda winked, making you giggle. “Well, let's hope he can warm my freezing buns up.” you snorted, earning a pat on the back from Matt.

“Atta girl. Maybe we’ll all get lucky tonight.” he said, and you flickered your eyes over to catch Wanda blushing deeply.

Wait.. were they? You didn't push it. You'd find out as the night went on.

Who knew what had happened in that year, maybe things had changed. You didn't have much time to think about it before you arrived at the lodge's entrance, warm light glowing from inside.

“You get the easy treatment. I heard Bucky and Peter had to break in and unmelt the lock.” Matt grimaced, and you couldn't help but laugh as you imagined Bucky falling flat on his ass through the window.

“Jesus. You guys just needed me here, I could have warmed the lock up with my hotness.”

“Damn straight bitch!” Wanda laughed as she unlatched the door, letting the warmth wash over your frozen bones. An eruption of cheers sounded from the blazing fireplace, drinks opened on the ground.

“She made it!” Steve called, rushing over to give you a bear hug, practically picking you up and swinging you around like a rag doll.

“Oh fuck youre freezing. Did you walk all the way up here?! Is that why you're late?”

You rolled your eyes. “No, my bus was late. I’m so sorry guys.”

“We thought you forgot about us.” Peter smirked, boyish charm radiating off of him, a lint in his eyes as he walked over to you, towering over you.

“Hi. I'm so sorry Peter, I swear-"

" I'm kidding you. Cmere.”

You wrapped your arms around his torso, breathing in his scent of musk and amber, his skin like fire compared to yours. “Fuck Steve was right. Shit, come sit by the fire.” he urged, and as if on cue, you shivered.

He helped you peel your cold layers off your body, hanging up your coat to dry. Bucky gave you a taste of his warm whisky, immediately making you splutter and grimace at the strong, overpowering taste.

Jokes were tossed around, and you found yourself in an easy rhythm with the group, as if nothing had ever happened. You looked to Peter in reassurance, already finding his eyes staring you down when you met his. He studied you as you talked to Natasha, drinking you in.

You tried to keep your composure, but the butterflies churned in your chest.

“Did you want to take a warm bath?” Peter asked, everyone turning to look at you as you shivered again.

“No, no it's okay Peter. Thank you though.”

“Are you sure? You're still freezing.” Loki nudged you with his leg from where he stretched out on the couch. Everyone looked at you with concern, Peter most of all.

“Okay maybe that would be nice. But that wont take away from what we're doing? I don't wanna just leave you guys.” you frowned.

“What?! No! Matt and I were gonna go for a walk around anyways, and I'm pretty sure Bucky, Loki and Steve wanted to dig out some spirit board anyways. Go take a bath and warm up, okay?” Wanda smiled softly at you, urging you to go with Peter.

“I just have to turn on the hot water.” He said, making his way over to the basement door. “I can come with you.” you offered.

“You sure? It's cold and dark.” You shrugged, honestly just wanting more time with Peter. “It's my bath, and I hear I’m pretty good at holding a flashlight.”

He laughed, tossing you his light. “Flashlight duty it is then.”

You followed him through the dark passageway, old stairs creaking under your weight as the little spotlight guided you onwards. The door slammed behind you with a slam, making you jump.

“Sorry, that always slams like that. This place is old as dirt.” You laughed, wrapping your arms around yourself as you shivered, not only from the cold but how eerie it was.

“Man, it's creepy down here.” you noted as you finally reached the crypt, barely being able to see anything but dark shadows in the far distance. “What, you can't handle a little cobwebs?” he teased, shooting you a wink as he made his way over to the pipes.

You followed him, giving him a playful smack across his solid bicep, aiming the light where he navigated. It was quiet all but the drip of water on the concrete concrete floor, and your heavy breaths.

“Peter?”

“Hm?” You started fidgeting nervously.

“Are- are you doing okay? I mean, with everything? Today was a hard day, so I just…”

“I’m okay. I just… can't think about it for too long, ya know? But I wanted us all together to celebrate. To take our minds off of it.” he shrugged, switching on the hot water at last.

“I understand. And, thank you for inviting me Peter. I really appreciate it, and if you need anything at all… we’re all here for you.” you softly smiled, sensing his pain and vulnerability.

“I know. And between you and me, I wish I could have only invited you.” he winked, hand reaching up as if he wanted to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear before he caught himself.

There were the flirty comments again.

“You’re really sweet Y/N. You’ve been what I’ve needed this year, ya know? Just the thought of you is enough to cheer me up. I’m really happy you could make it.”

You felt your cheeks start to heat under his gaze. You knew he had been in therapy for some time now, and you hoped the sessions helped him. You always thought maybe you could fix him, not that he needed to be fixed. He wasn't broken, he was just…

A loud bang sounded from the corner of the room and you jumped, instinctive leaning into Peter. “What was that?” you croaked quietly, flashlight starting to shake.

“I have no fuckin idea.” he murmmed, stepping in front of you, as if he was to shield you. “Should we.. Should we check it out? Maybe it's an old pipe or something?”

“Old pipes don't make that noise.”

You gulped. Suddenly, something lunged for you and you screamed, clinging to Peter's bicep as you two started to bolt towards the stairs, and you nearly tripped up them as the shadow rushed at you.

Stumbling up the stairs you almost made it to the door before you could hear laughing.

“Hah! You just got Bunked! Get it, like punked? But I did it, so it's Bunked.” Bucky howled with laughter as he tugged the dark sheet off his body. Peter chuckled along with him, but your eyes nearly popped from their sockets.

“You- well you fucking dick!” you screamed, stomping down the rickety steps to give him a peace of your mind. Smacking his chest you growled.

“What the fuck were you doing?! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” you snarled, pawing at him with closed fists.

“Hey, hey I’m sorry okay! We always do pranks here. I had to, because of tradition.”

“Did you know about this?”

Peter rolled his eyes, moving closer to you. “Nope, but you're cute when you're scared. Don't act like you weren't clinging onto my bicep like a monkey just then.” Peter smirked coyly, winking.

“You're both dicks.” Peter mock gasped, turning to Bucky with eyes wide in bewilderment. “You hear that Buck? She thinks we’re dicks! Guess my chances of getting some are slim.” he snickered as you trotted up the stairs, giving them an eye roll before escaping back out into the main room.

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

You weren't sure how long you stayed in the bath, but the water was cold. You woke with a start, eyes fluttering open as the chill sent little shocks down your body.

You must have fallen asleep in the tub, the night darker than ever.

A little candle flickered on the vanity, and you grabbed it as you wrapped yourself up in a towel, wet footsteps trotting across the hardwood floors. It was dead quiet in the lodge, not an echo of chatter from the main room. You knew people had probably gone exploring, or gone to sleep but this was eerily quiet.

Something felt off. Something was wrong.

“Guys? Hello?” you peered your head out and saw nothing but an empty hallway. With only the candle to lead you on your way, you slowly padded down the hall, poking your head into empty rooms.

“Was I really asleep that long?” you murmured to yourself as you finally found your room where Matt had dropped off your bag near the freshly made bed.

It was uncomfortably large the lodge, and you constantly felt a set of eyes following your frame. You set the candle down, shutting the door behind you as you went to rub your pjs.

If this was another prank they were playing… you would be pissed. Once was enough for the night. God knows you needed another heart attack.

Humming to yourself, you bent down to grab your lace panties from your bag, turning around only to scream.

A large man towered by the doorway, lingering in the darkness, body hidden in heavy overalls, gloves adorning his hands- a mask on his face.

You nearly dropped your towel, backing up and falling onto the bed. Scream dying in your throat as he got to you in two large strides, gloved hand covering your mouth as the other scooped you up, backside pressed against his large frame.

You whimpered into the leather, hot, silent tears streaming down your cheeks. “Please don't hurt me, please. Please..” you cried, muffled in his glove.

“You’re so pretty when you're scared, baby. You promise you won't scream if I remove my hand?”

You nodded frantically, willing to do anything this stranger told you to save yourself. You hiccuped on your sobs as he slowly removed his hand, instead allowing it to come up and stroke your hair gently as you cried in his arms.

“Shh, shh baby. Not a word okay?” the distorted voice asked and you nodded again, too scared to make a peep.

“You’re so, so pretty when you cry baby. You know that? You’re so hot when you’re scared. The way you held my bicep earlier? Just wanted to pick you up and pound your little body, fuck.”

Realisation dawned on you, eyes widening in shock.

“P-peter?” His arm let go and you stumbled onto the bed, scooting away from him as he took off the mask, revealing that glint of mischief in his eyes, that coy smirk on his lips as his tongue darted out to lick the lower one.

“What are you doing?” you asked softly. He tilted his head, studying you. “Pranking everyone else, like they did last year to us. Just thought I’d stop by to check in on you.” he smiled.

You gulped as the mask thudded to the ground. “Where is everyone else?”

“Oh they're all out. I was hoping some trauma bonding would make Wanda and Matt finally make that move, ya know? Maybe I’m doing them a favour.” he chuckled.

“But why.. Why were you dressed like that?” you asked, clutching your towel tighter to your breasts that poked out at the top as he slowly made his way closer to you.

“Just some harmless fun. Did it scare you?”

“Y-yeah.”

He pouted. “You're so pretty when you're scared. I'm sorry for making you cry sweetheart. You were just too good to resist.” he sighed, thumb brushing your tear stained cheek.

“I-its okay.” you stumbled over your words, flustered at his proximity, body growing hot at his touch and the hungry look in his eye as he stared down at you.

You squeezed your thighs together, trying to be subtle, but failing miserably. You felt your arousal leaking out of you down your thighs, and your breath was shaky.

You wanted him so bad. But what kind of sick fuck would you be for feeling this way? When he had scared you to death?

He looked you up and down, eyes lingering longer on your breasts, licking his lips hungrily.

He knew. He knew the effect he had on you.

“Now baby, tell me. Did you like that stunt I pulled just now?”

You were silent, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Did I make you flustered? Did that turn you on? Hm?” his low voice sent another pulse down your spine, and you clamped down on nothing. “Mhm.” you nodded.

His fingers gripped your chin, making you jolt with a start as he forced your eyes to meet his. “Do you like how helpless and weak you felt? Cause I did. I could do whatever I wanted to you baby, and no one would even know. It's just you and me.”

You whimpered, making him smirk. You felt yourself being backed up on the bed, Peter hovering over you as you lay flat under him.

You were his now. And fuck, if you didnt like it.

“P-peter-”

“You know how long I’ve wanted you baby? Fuck.”

“I-I wanted you too.” you confessed softly, looking up at him with doe eyes, already starting to feel your brain go fuzzy with his presence.

“Yeah? Even just then? You liked it, didn't you?”

“I.. I did like it.” you bashfully admitted, and he groaned.

“I knew you were a dirty girl. Aren't you? You want me to fuck you baby?” You nodded, hand slithering up to grasp his bicep, the way you knew he liked. He hissed, head dropping down to take a breath.

As if he was controlling himself, like an animal on a leash that threatened to snap. “So little under me. Such a cute lil thing, so breakable.” he sighed to himself as he pulled your hand away, hand lingering on your towel knot.

You met his eyes that pleaded, asking if he could go further. “M’ not breakable.” you murmured, taking his hand in yours to yank the towel loose, letting it come undone around your naked body.

He drank you in, having to reach down to adjust himself in his overalls. “We’ll see about that when I’m done with you.”

His fingers traced your smooth skin, a finger dragging down your abdomen, tapping your inner thighs, making you wiggle. “So responsive. You like when I touch you here?”

You nodded. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please touch me Peter. Please. Need you so bad it hurts, it hur-”

His fingers slid through your slick folds, rubbing your clit gently. “Shh shh that's it baby. You just sit still and I’ll take care of you, mkay? Gonna make you so dumb n helpless.” he cooed at you, your mouth parting in an o shape as his large finger slipped inside you, clenching around the digit.

“Gotta stretch you out. You’re so tight, fuck. Youre so hot, like a fuckin porn star.” Your back bowed off the bed as he worked your clit, the rough pad of his thumb taking over as he pumped two thick digits in you, curling just the way to make you moan.

“Peter, Peter f-fuck, feels so good-” you choked out, his palm splayed on your tummy to keep you from wiggling away.

“Yeah baby you gonna cum? Yeah?” he teased, his fingers slipping out at the last second, making you groan in protest, before he slammed home with his cock.

You gasped, screaming at the fullness, as he watched your face contort from pleasure to pain, back to pleasure again. Your mascara was smudged from your tears and he swore a hint of drool trickled from your lips, and fuck if it didnt turn him on even more.

“Is it too much for you honey? You gonna take it all?”

You couldn't even response, eyes rolling to the back of your head as he fucked you, snapping his hips hard and fast, letting the animal off the leash. He couldn't control himself any longer. He had wanted this for too long, and the idea of the two of you being alone, with no one around for miles made him snap his hips harder.

“Yeah you like when I fuck you? Youre so fucking slutty baby, letting some masked man fuck you. But you like it, don't you? I always knew you were a freak.” he growled, making you mewl, clinging onto him.

“Scream baby. No one can hear you.” he chuckled as he abused your cunt, the sound of skin merging with your juices making a squelching sound that mixed with your moans.

“I c-can’t, too much-” you slurred, making him cluck his tongue.

“Cum baby. Cum for me.”

That was all you needed to hear, orgasm rippling through you hard and rough as he continued to fuck you through it.

“Such a good girl. So wet, fuck. Fuck I’m gonna cum, fuck fuck Y/N, you’re so fuckin hot-” he growled, pace faltering as he reached his orgasim, shooting ropes of his sticky seed inside you.

The world was blurry, the room spinning as he stilled inside you, breathing heavily himself as he cooed down at you. “Baby? You with me?”

“Mhgm.” was all you could mutter out, body shaking and twitching from the overstimulation. “I’m gonna go clean you up okay? You gotta let go for two seconds.”

His soft, protective demeanour came back within seconds, as he slowly peeled your grip from his biceps, crescent moon shapes adorning them.

“When we’re all clean I gotta go clean some stuff up with them okay? And then we’ll have the whole place to ourselves and we can rest, pretty girl.”

[echobx]

You sure? - JJ Maybank × fem!plus sized!inexperienced!reader

summary: you take your first hookup JJ back to your place and things start to get hot and heavy very fast

word count: 1.2k

warnings: smut adjacent, making out, suggestive talk, mention of reader being a virgin, mean!cocky!JJ (but only while horny), light petting, slapping, dry humping, biting

author's note: I don't think I'm ready yet to write full smut again, so I hope you forgive me for this somewhat fade to black kinda thing

   You're leaning against the wall behind you, hand holding onto the door frame that is pressing into your back. There's this dizziness inside you that you've never felt before. Warm and heavy and exciting and- 

   “You comin’?” JJ asked while pulling his shirt off and mindlessly throwing the fabric somewhere on the floor. The yellow overhead light casts a glow onto his toned, sun kissed skin as you watch his back muscles before he turns, and your breath hitches. There's something primal in how you force your throat to still and press your legs together. The thought of simply laying him down and licking him all overcomes to your mind before you remember what you actually had planned, and why you had picked specifically him for it. 

   “JJ, I've never done this before,” you croak, wishing you didn't feel so small under his unwavering gaze as he stalks toward you.

   “Hookups ain't for everybody, s'all good, I don't judge, princess,” he winks, twirling some of your hair in between his fingers while leaning over you. You wanna let loose a bit, let yourself fall into how easy he makes it all feel, yet there's the guilt tugging at your conscience. 

   “No,” you shake your head, speaking softly. “I've never done this. Kissing, touching, feeling-” 

   “Fucking?” he interrupts with a cocky smile on his lips, maybe too cocky, but he's standing too close for you to actually care. Your eyes focus on his, blue and growing darker with the passing second. It's like your throat is clogged up by the fear that he would actually leave or worse make fun of you for it, for revealing the truth. A gulp followed by a nod and a small, whined “yes” is all you can get out at first.

   Closing your eyes, you try to focus solely on your words, and not the fact that his calloused fingers are softly cradling your jaw, rubbing a thumb over the apple of your cheek before pulling your bottom lip down as you try to speak. “It- It would to-totally okay if you- you wanted to leave. I shouldn't have-” 

   JJ’s lips are warm and wet and a little chipped, but you don't mind it. You like that he knows exactly what he wants, and that his hand slips down to hold your throat, tilting your head back while swallowing your breath and whimpers. He's even closer like that, his free hand squeezes your hip while his body is fully leaning against your own. And you don't know where to put your hands, so you keep them by your side at first, until he forces one up to have you hold onto his neck. It feels like learning to drive; you're scared to do something wrong, but he's not letting you fail. Chasing your lips and grinding his hips against your body like it's the most normal thing to do. 

   You get dizzy again, the different kind of dizzy, the kind that makes you push against him enough so he stops and lets you both get some air to fill up your lungs. At least you thought so before his lips attach to your neck, kissing and licking, but when you let out a choked moan because he found your sweet spot, his hand lands hard on your cheek. 

   “Don't fucking dare holdin’ back,” he glares, and you nod diligently. It's not something you would've expected from charming, funny, flirty JJ Maybank, but you can't say it doesn't turn you on. 

   His lips lock down on yours again, and you sigh into it. Digging your hands in his hair, running your nails over his scalp until he bites your lip. Your mouth falls open at the piercing feel his teeth left on your plump lips, giving him enough room to dart his tongue into your mouth. Tentatively assessing the situation, he lets his tongue run over your teeth for a moment before smiling and somehow leaning into you even deeper. It's like he's actually trying to devour you, tasting every last millimeter of your mouth and doing it over and over again until you pull on his hair, and the only thing connecting your lips is a short string of spit. 

   “Done already?” JJ teases, tilting his head to the side. 

   “Does it always feel like this?” you ask, and it doesn't even make sense that those words come out of you when you actually just wanted to tell him to fuck you already. 

   “Nah, that's just me, baby,” JJ growls, pulling you away from the wall and kissing you again. It's like he's addicted to your taste, not getting enough even when it still lingers on his lips and tongue. 

   He's slowly stumbling backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed, and he lets himself fall, pulling you with him. But his kisses and the way his hands roam your body never falter. Squeezing your hips, then your ass and boobs, before moving his hand between your thighs and under your dress. 

   Your breath hitches and he sucks on your bottom lip, letting his digits run through your slick folds another time while chuckling. 

   “No panties? You naughty girl,” JJ tsks, taking his hand up and licking it clean. “You wanna get up and strip for me, beautiful.” You’re still debating whether it was a question or an order when his hand closes around your throat. “I don't like repeatin’ myself, princess.” 

   The first thing you take off when you stand, is your heels, and all of a sudden you're another three inches shorter than him, which seems to amuse him. 

   “I should definitely put some inches in you,” he jokes, at least you hope so as you watch him lean on his elbows. 

   “Does that work on other people?” you ask, moving your hands behind your back, but failing to find the zipper. 

   JJ sits up, his hands coming to your hips before spinning you around and forcing you back until you can feel his face pressed right above your ass. “It's workin’ on you too,” he says before carefully pulling the zipper down while lifting his head. “Now turn around and take it off, slowly.”

You follow his instructions, turning your face to look at him before slowly letting your body follow. “It's okay if you wanna leave again-” You can't bring out another word because he's already bitten down hard on your belly fat. 

   “Don't fucking say shit like that again. You're fucking gorgeous, and I'm gonna be fuckin’ you stupid, all right? That's a Maybank promise,” JJ gives you a single wink before slapping your ass and making you jump a tiny bit at the pleasant sting. 

   He pushes himself to stand, taking your face in his hand and digging into your full cheeks a little, forcing you to open your mouth. “I should teach you how to give a proper blowjob. But first, we gotta make sure you're so sore you can't walk no more, once I'm done with you.” 

   And with that he forces another kiss on your lips before throwing you onto the bed as if you weigh nothing at all, all the while your friend's words cross your mind, and you want to laugh in her face. A hookup is the completely right decision for losing your virginity, especially when it's JJ Maybank. 

please don't copy and/or post my work onto other platforms! ~e©ho

taglist: @redhead1180 @spideysimpossiblegirl @drwstarkeyy @princessmaybank @ijustwantttoread @kys4-20 @immyowndefender @julczimozart @m2m2m2 @mochimms @dorkyfangirl24 @itsme-again @maybankslover @th3eternalersi

[followthebluebell]

Hi! Just looking for your opinion on something:

I recently got a chair with a velvety texture and one of my cats is OBSESSED with it. He sits on it and digs and digs at it, and already has scratched furrows into the velvet of the seat cushion. I've never had an issue with either of my cats scratching at furniture before, not to this degree anyway, and I'm thinking of getting him claw caps for a bit until he (hopefully) chills out about the chair, what do you think? Any hot tips?

ooof, i feel your pain! A little, anyway. I've inherited a similar velvety chair from my grandparents, so I had to spend some time teaching my cats not to scratch at it. Thankfully, both Yardstick and Saia have ignored it, but my previous cats really liked it.

ok, so it's really hard to teach a cat NOT to do something. Like, Doing the Thing is a rewarding action and, frankly, if you try to stop them, they just learn to do it when you're NOT watching. What you do is provide them with something else that's MORE rewarding. In my case, that was as simple as providing scratching posts and scratchpads that were better feeling than the velvet chair.

Until they figured that out, I covered up my nice chair with fabric that I didn't much care about. Since they couldn't access the NICE fabric anymore, they just kind of lost interest in it. In a few weeks when I removed the ugly fabric, they just... never really seemed to understand the velvet was back again. I can't really explain that one, tbh.

If you do want to go the claw cap route, make sure the claw caps are properly sized. They don't cover the WHOLE claw. They only cover the very tips. When they cover the whole claw, the end irritates the flesh in the nail bed and can cause minor infections and irritation. Properly sized nail caps should not inhibit a cat's ability to sheath their claws at all.

You can see that the end of the claw cap doesn't even make contact with the nail bed. (picture taken from the National Cat Groomers Institute here)

before putting the cap on, you also have to trim the cat's nails anyway. So you might find that just trimming their nails is sufficient.

[rawan-family98]

🍉🚨Stop, please don't passA small donation can make a big difference

I am Rawan, a 26-year-old graphic designer from Gaza. Last year, I had a project that I could earn some money from. At the same time, I was preparing for my wedding, furnishing my home🏠🩵, and building a family,👫 but fate had another opinion.😭

The drums of the hideous war began to beat.✋🏻🥺🚨🚨

The world around me grew dark, and the sounds of laughter turned into echoes of sirens.😭😭

It started with my marriage being completed without a wedding ceremony and a wedding that was supposed to be on the third day of the war, in addition to the destruction of the place where my project was located, leading to the loss of my livelihood.🥺

After 30 days, my husband and I miraculously escaped from the bombing of our home, and moved to his family's home. Nevertheless the house was not spared from the F16 🚀missiles, as a result my husband lost his entire family and relatives. After that we moved to my family's simple home that consisted of asbestos panels until a house in the neighborhood was bombed with an explosive barrel, and the roof of the house collapsed on us, and we were all injured with varying degrees of severity.😓

Our journey began with displacement dozens of times, fleeing the random shelling without any clothes or personal items, where we were forced to sleep in hospitals🏥, schools 🏫and streets. 🛤️

Now my family and I live in a tent amidst the rubble,⛺💔 adding more suffer to our misery. As we live under a thin fabric that provides no protection from the scorching sun☀️🔥 , whose rays penetrate the walls of our tent, making the heat unbearable. In the winter, our tent turns into a cold, damp box⛈️❄️, with water leaking from all sides, increasing our misery. 🥺

This is in addition to the stray dogs🦮 that have become wild from eating the bodies of martyrs thrown in the streets, and the insects🪰🦟, reptiles🪱🦎🦂 and garbage.

We have not even been able to reclaim a room in our house to shelter us and relieve us of all this suffering. Every day is a bitter struggle for survival. 😓

The situation developed into a long and harsh famine in northern Gaza, forcing us to eat food intended for animals until I noticed that I lost 15 kilograms of my weight and my face turned pale, and my husband lost 25 kilograms of his weight,😔 moreover we suffer from malnutrition and skin diseases due to the lack of detergents and the lack of cleanliness. 😭💔

This came after my husband was full of ambitions, dreaming of starting a family and securing his professional future to be able to support his small family, these small dreams made him a person full of life and ambition, with a strong🏋️ and athletic body and endless energy. Today, he has become a shadow of his former self - weak, emaciated, struggling even to move, as the war has deprived him not only of his dreams but also of his vitality. The bright future he once saw has become a painful memory. 🥺💔

Now I'm suffering from double malnutrition, as Allah has blessed me with a child in my womb for 4 months🤰🏻😔, which has added to the suffering of providing the appropriate food for its formation.😓

Please 🙏🏻help me🙏🏻 to evacuate my husband and my family to Egypt to provide an environment that suits my pregnancy, birth, and to find safety from the ongoing bombing and destruction of life in Gaza at the present time. Your donation, in its size, is deeply appreciated. Share my story through your platforms, with your family and friends, and contribute to conveying my suffering. Time is the essence, as every second makes a difference in saving our lives.❤️‍🩹🙏🏻

https://gofund.me/c1fe774b 💔❤️‍🩹

Thank you all 🍉🫂

[samk1tty]

I'm not a bad girl but I, do bad things with you (Pt.1)

Summary: Bjorn finds out what you do on the side for extra money. He plans to use this knowledge to his advantage.

contents: smut, cam girl reader, masturbation, not proofread, not accurate to alien universe

a/n: this is my first fic so ignore the bad writing (I suck at writing dialogue). Since I saw the movie in theaters i've thought about writing for Bjorn, but since i've always just been a reader for fics i've been hesitant to share anything with anyone else so this has been sitting in my drafts since early October. p.s. inspired by literally everyone who's already written for Bjorn/Spike

"Who's she then, you twat?" Bjorn scoffed, sitting in a group of other workers at lunch. "She's my girl. We've been messaging for a while now" smirking, the worker passes around his phone, one by one, the group of huddled workers taking bites of sandwiches or shoveling spoonfuls of food into their mouths, taking the phone and scrolling through the account for a few seconds. The phone lands in Bjorn's hands, and he looks through the content. "No way. She's jus' doing her job." There was a sense of familiarity with the pictures and videos. He'd thought maybe he'd used this girl's content to get himself off before, but he couldn't place the sense of recognition.

The phone, playing explicit sounds coming from the girl in the videos, gets handed back to its owner, though the conversation doesn't change, many shouting obscenities over each other about what they just saw. Soon after lunch is over and everyone gets back to their shift.

Bjorn is silent now, deep in thought. He can't get the girl out of his mind, though he has no idea what she looks like, as the girl's content never shows her face and only shows her from the neck down. However, upon seeing the moles and bits of hair that peeked down the girl's back in the videos, Bjorn felt a strange sense of closeness towards her. Despite only catching a brief glimpse of her, he had an inexplicable feeling that he knew everything about her, yet nothing at the same time. He memorized the account name, planning on visiting it later that night to investigate and pinpoint why she felt so familiar, of course, there was no other reason to go back to the account other than that.

⋆｡‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧｡⋆

You walk to Kay's and Tyler's trailer later that night after work wearing the beat-up cargo pants handed down to you from Bjorn. Your belt is tight to keep the pants, which are two sizes too big for you, up. You sigh and adjust their hem, pulling it up to prevent the excess fabric from pooling around your ankles as you walk. 

You see Bjorn sitting at the entrance playing a video game with Navarro near him, fixing something like she always did. You greet them, saying hi loud enough for them to hear. Bjorn looks up for a second, then back down to his game. Navarro gives you a quick wave before you carefully step up the three steps to the trailer that are covered mainly by Bjorn. You pat his head softly, chuckling slightly when hearing the sound of him dying in the game and his slight cursing as he puts the device down. You plop down on the couch inside after greeting Kay, and then the rest of the group comes in to spend the rest of the night like you always did, as if it were routine now.

After a few hours, the laughter and conversation die as each friend vents about their rough day. The room is filled with understanding and camaraderie as everyone sips their drinks and passes around a lit cigarette. Soon after a second of silence, just when you thought there would be no arguing tonight, Bjorn brings up the pants you were wearing that belonged to him, saying they looked better on him, causing you both to disagree and leading to an argument that made your friends laugh due to the ridiculousness that the conversation has become as you all were in drunken states. 

Bjorn then shockingly says, "You gotta stop obsessing about my balls, man. It's unhealthy." You run an annoyed hand over your face in hearing his unimportant argument that had nothing to do with your last insult directed at him before spitting back, "Keep talking, and I'll chop 'em off." "Aw, you really want 'em for yourself, don't you? Hey, you want me to show you my balls or somethin'?"  Bjorn says pretentiously. You roll your eyes as a smile tugs at your lips. You down the rest of the liquid in your beer can before throwing it at him, the can bouncing off his head, making a bonk sound, leading everyone to laugh a bit more, everyone feeling hazy due to the smoke and drinks. "No one wants to see balls that tiny." Your friends can't help but laugh at the absurdity and humor of the situation while Bjorn wears a playful, sly grin in reaction to your words. "Oh, you're feeling brave, eh? Well, bring it on, princess." "Whatever, I should get home, it's getting late," you say after another dramatic roll of your eyes towards Bjorn. You bid farewell to your friends and headed home, ready to get online and continue working, although you had just finished working at the mines. Though it wasn't the type of work you desired, putting out content online to lonely men wasn't entirely unpleasant. You even found it somewhat arousing, imagining the countless individuals who had used your media in private moments. You speculate on the possibility of knowing these people personally if they could be people you know or interact with regularly.

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Later that night Bjorn rushes to his room once arriving at his trailer. He quickly goes to the account when he closes and locks his door. He plops down on his bed and lays back with a deep sigh, getting comfortable.  As he watched video after video, he lost his search for the familiarity of the girl and instead focused on his desires his hand went down, fiddling with the clasp of his belt and the zipper to his pants, and he eagerly pulled it off, leaving him bare. His hand went immediately down. He was already hard, his tip red and wet with precum. He skimmed several videos, each one of her doing heinous things to her own body. Thighs smothered with her juices. He throws his head back, his right hand pumping himself desperately, vividly imagining it was the girl whose touch he felt. Then suddenly he saw a notification drop down on the screen. A colorful circle surrounding your profile picture signifying you were live at that very moment, immediately he joined.

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You were for the most part, a shy girl so this type of work was something not even you yourself could believe doing, yet here you were... laid out on your freshly washed and changed sheets, just as you pressed live on your website. The maid costume you wore tonight consisting of a black dress that cut at your mid thighs, with frilled edges and a white bib-shaped front. The sheer black stockings accentuating your legs. As people joined your live all commenting different things they wanted you to perform on yourself, you open your legs to your laptop that sat at the end of your bed, showing the panties you wore. You teases the audience for a long while, hearing all the alerts coming for the laptop you suck in a breath and seductively pull off the moist material. Your own two fingers dip into your pussy, squeals of delight coming out of you. Turned on by your own movements and knowing that hundreds of people were watching you making you wetter.

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Bjorn listens and watches immensely, beads of sweat formed all over his body. He closed his eyes thinking of what he'd do to the faceless girl had she been in the room with him. How he'd grind his bulge onto her, desperate for stimulation. How her hand would slip down his chest to palm him through his boxers, pulling the hem down just enough for his cock to spring out. He'd imagine her looking up at him with her innocently lustful eyes as she crawls down, then as she hollows out her cheeks and takes his cock into her mouth, bobbing her head up and down. Her eyes water as it hits the back of her throat. He grunts at the squelching sounds coming from the phone in his hands. His hands would tangle in her hair to continuously fuck in and out at his pace, pushing her head down and holding it in that position as he groans and shoots his cum deep in her throat. The praises he'd whisper, like how good she did for him. Just then, he is taken back to his reality where it is just him alone, his hips jolting up, needing more than just his hand. He tries to stifle his pretty noises, being mindful of the other person in the trailer. His fluids spray out. Bjorn, pants , coming down from his high, laying limp, waiting for his breath to steady. He brings his phone back up and he sees something familiar behind the girl. On her bed, resting against the pillows, was a stuffed animal that he instantly recognized. He recognised it because he remembered gifting it to his childhood friend. Remembering the scene that unraveled years ago, you, a bratty young girl with messy hair basically crying to Bjorn who was three years older than you saying you wanted the what he thought was an ugly stuffed animal. You whined until he finally gave in out of annoyance. He took the remaining money he had and used it on you. He came out of the store and shoved it in your hands upset at the scene you created out of yourself as you hugged the animal to your chest happily. He immediately sat up his hand on his lap as he thought. He quickly scrolls through more content trying to find something to hopefully prove that this wasn't his friend. Surely this couldn't have been you. But glimpses of familiar clothing and jewelry makes him more and more doubtful. It must be a coincidence he was sure of it. In fact, he was so sure it was a coincidence he decided to go to your place and speak with you in person.

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[sm0lprism]

Bite-Sized (14) - A BG3 G/t Fanfic

This contains g/t (giant/tiny content) so if that isn't your thing, then I suggest you stop reading. Thank you!

Read on Ao3

Chapter 1 | Previous chapter| Series master list

Summary: Ria awakes the following morning from the events of the tiefling party to a horrendous hangover and finds herself in Astarion's tent.

Pairing: Astarion x f!borrower!oc (Tav/oc) (slow-burn)

Warnings: Suggestive, mild nudity, course language, mentions of slavery/abuse (Astarion's past/backstory).

Word count: 4.4k

Taglist: @alexcutecolly @rose7420 @empressxmachina @taters169 @feral-sins @smolgloves @smolkuriboh27 (if you want to be removed or added to the taglist, feel free to let me know!)

A pounding, almost bludgeoning pain resonated through Ria’s skull as she struggled to open her heavy eyelids. Immediately she clutched her head, feeling every single pulse as if someone was swinging a hammer at her skull. Despite the vibrating pain in her head, her body was surprisingly comfortable. This certainly felt nothing like her old tent. The surface she was lying on was incredibly soft and plush, her tiny body sinking into the luscious fabric as if she was floating on a fluffy cloud. A familiar scent quickly graced her nostrils and she breathed it in deeply. Sunny notes of citrus flooded her senses, coupled with a slight alcoholic overtone that piqued her interest.

Wait…is that…brandy? No…that’s…that’s…

Her eyelids suddenly shot open once she realised where she was, the remnants of sleep now completely gone as she turned her head over to her side. Her entire body froze over when her gaze fell on the slumbering giant that was lying directly next to her.

It was Astarion.

Her heart almost threatened to leap out of her throat once she realised her predicament. She was lying on a pillow with Astarion’s handkerchief draped over her body to act as some kind of blanket, and Astarion himself was lying right next to her. She wasn’t lying on the same pillow as him, but this was still far too close for comfort. Frantically she attempted to recall the events of last night, wondering what had she done to end up sharing his tent of all people.

What happened last night? Did…did Astarion and I…?

Red blossomed across her pale face as the very thought plagued through her mind. No, there was no possible way that anything could’ve happened between her and Astarion. But, despite her brain trying to think logically, another part of her mind began to wander elsewhere. Her gaze fell onto the pale elf’s lips and her heart began to flutter against her chest. She remembered the events of yesterday prior to the party just fine, and now that she was staring at his lips, the memory of falling in the giant cup and being pressed against his mouth flashed through her mind. Her entire body had been pushed against his lips – practically kissing her.

No, stop it! It was not a kiss! I just…fell onto his lips. That’s how gravity works.

She remembered how soft his lips had been. Her body pressed against his mouth, moments before she had fallen inside. He had been so very gentle with her, even after she had stabbed his tongue repeatedly.

Stop this right now!

Ria clasped her hands over her burning face and refused to look at the sleeping vampire. She was horrified with herself that she was having such indecent thoughts about the elf of all people. Her head was still pounding relentlessly, constantly reminding her that she had consumed so much alcohol that she still couldn’t properly remember the events of the tiefling party from last night. What had happened? She remembered speaking to Shadowheart who had kindly offered her some wine. Not long after the cleric had left, Astarion had found her. After that everything became hazy.

I need to leave. Now.

Very tentatively she slipped down the pillow until her feet hit the hard floor below. Perhaps if she was quiet enough, she could sneak out of the tent before Astarion woke up from his trance. Slowly but surely, she inched closer towards the mouth of the tent, wincing every so often as her brain reeled from the effects of her drinking from last night. Gritting her teeth, she kept on pushing forward.

Just keep on going…

“Leaving so soon? Don’t I at least get a good morning?”

The borrower’s entire body froze over as if she had been blasted with a ray of frost. Her heart almost burst out of her chest as she slowly turned her head around to look up at the smirking giant elf. Her breath hitched as she saw that he had rolled over onto his side, one hand holding his face as he leaned against his pillow, the laces of his ruffled shirt had become loose and was revealing more of his chest than what she was used to.

“My fangs are up here, darling,” Astarion’s voice chimed from above, startling Ria back to her senses.

If her face wasn’t completely red before, it certainly was now and she frantically fixed her eyes onto the floor of the tent. She couldn’t believe that Astarion had just called her out for staring and embarrassment threatened to smother her completely.

“W-what am I doing here?” she managed to choke out, her voice wavering.

“Well, after the events of last night, it made perfect sense for you to share my tent.” A very smug grin curled at the corners of his lips. “You don’t remember?”

Her heart spasmed against her ribcage. What was he implying? What had happened last night?

“N-no,” she stammered, swallowing thickly. “I don’t remember. All I remember is drinking some wine, you offered me some, and…that’s it.”

Astarion’s massive frame suddenly shifted, now looming over her even closer than before, the ground trembling from his large movements. If this had been a few weeks ago, the sight of Astarion hovering above her would’ve sent her running. But right now, it was almost as if someone had glued her to the ground as she gazed up at his giant form.

“I’m not surprised you don’t remember after all that wine you drank last night,” he hummed, wetting his lips. “I’ve never seen someone so small consume so much alcohol before.”

The rumblings from Astarion’s voice vibrated through the air and she winced as a stab of pain flared in her skull.

“I’m certainly paying for it now,” she grumbled, clutching the side of her head. “Remind me never to drink that much again.”

“Note taken,” he replied.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, she steadied her gaze back at the giant vampire.

“So…um…what happened last night? Why am I here?”

“Oh, you should see the look on your face,” Astarion purred, completely ignoring her question. “It is delicious. Are you worried that events may have…transpired between us?”

Her face burned as Astarion voiced her thoughts. And what made it worse was the feeling of butterflies swarming in her stomach that refused to leave. There was no way that she should be feeling like this about the pale elf, especially considering everything that had happened, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how he had saved her life yesterday. It certainly didn’t help that he was very attractive–

Shut up! Shut up! Stop it right now!

“Oh darling, while it is adorable watching you act so flustered, I won’t hold you in suspense any longer,” he said, a devilish smirk curling at the corners of his mouth. “You can rest assured that nothing happened between us. Besides, can you imagine it? Ugh. No. You’re a borrower after all.”

Astarion’s words shouldn’t have hurt her, but for whatever reason, they did. Not that long ago she was spitting curse words at him, but now, she felt a part of her heart crumble upon hearing his response. If anything, she should’ve been relieved to hear his answer, but she wasn’t at all.

“Y-yeah, right,” she answered stiffly, trying to hide her real emotions. “And you’re a vampire. Of course nothing would happen. Besides, how would it work? I’m so…small.”

“Precisely, darling,” Astarion said. “Anyways, the real reason why you’re here is because some careless tiefling crushed your tent underfoot. I couldn’t just let you sleep out in the open by yourself.”

Ria’s eyes widened in shock upon hearing his response.

“W-wait, nobody put my tent away during the party?” she gaped, a bit horrified that if she hadn’t been with Astarion last night she would’ve been crushed in her sleep.

Astarion shrugged casually, as if he couldn’t care less. “Aren’t you happy that you were with me last night? Gods forbid what would’ve happened to you if you had stayed in your tent during the party.”

Ria swallowed thickly, a shiver running down her spine as she tried not to think too much about it. She was upset that nobody had bothered to put away her tent. Despite how kind and accommodating everyone had been to her since she had joined the group, it shocked her that nobody had thought about her small tent. She didn’t want to think about where she would be sleeping once nightfall came again now that the tent was destroyed. Exhaling deeply, she walked towards the entrance of Astarion’s tent.

“Oh, you don’t want to keep me company?” Astarion’s voice rumbled from above.

“I need to get out of here,” she answered quickly. “And I desperately need a decent bath, especially after what I went through yesterday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to ask Shadowheart if I can borrow some of her soap.”

Ria didn’t hear a word from the pale elf as she exited his tent and her eyes squinted as the morning rays of sunlight shone down on her tiny frame. It was still somewhat early, not everyone had risen yet. She assumed most of them were feeling the effects from the party last night. As if to remind her, a searing pain flared in her skull as she walked towards Shadowheart’s tent.

Perhaps I can ask Shadowheart to remove this hangover for me with her magic while I’m at it.  

As she neared the cleric’s tent, she paused as she noticed the half-elf emerge from the tent with a very happy expression painted across her features. It seemed as if Shadowheart had a very good night. The half-elf’s gaze quickly fell on the borrower and her smile deepened upon seeing her.

“Shar’s blessing to you, Ria.”

Ria was somewhat perplexed by the mention of Shar – she had briefly heard Shadowheart mention the name a few times, but she couldn’t recall exactly what it meant. Perhaps she would have to ask the cleric later when she wasn’t feeling so horribly hungover.

“Good morning,” she replied thickly, wincing as more pain pierced through her skull. “Did you have fun last night?”

Shadowheart’s face practically lit up upon hearing the borrower’s question. “Oh, it was wonderful. Karlach and I basically talked the entire night away, since, well, we couldn’t exactly touch each other. She mentioned that perhaps we could find some temporary ways to cool her down, so maybe I’ll be able to steal a kiss from her very soon. How was your night?”

Ria could only offer the cleric a very weak smile as her head continued to pound violently against her skull. She was happy for Shadowheart and Karlach, but she couldn’t express her full support when her head felt as if it wanted to explode.

“To be perfectly honest, I’m terribly hungover,” she murmured, her eyebrows knitting together. “I can barely remember what happened last night.”

Shadowheart’s eyes widened in concern, and the cleric immediately kneeled so that she wasn’t towering over the borrower anymore.

“Oh, that simply won’t do,” the cleric said, a green aura beginning to radiate from her hands. “Just hold still for a moment, I’ll rectify that in a second.”

Ria froze in place as Shadowheart’s index finger softly touched her forehead, magic coursing through her body as the throbbing pain in her skull gradually faded until it was completely gone.

Shadowheart retracted her finger, smiling softly at Ria.

“How do you feel now?”

“Much better, thank you.” She heaved a deep sigh of relief, thankful that the pounding feeling in her brain was gone.

“Anytime,” Shadowheart replied softly.

“I do have another favour to ask, though,” Ria quickly added. “I am in desperate need of a good bath; do you have any soap that you can spare?”

“Oh, absolutely!” Shadowheart exclaimed, quickly dipping into her tent without another word. A few moments passed and the half-elf reemerged with a bar of soap in her hand along with a clean purple handkerchief.

“I can give you a ride down to the river as well,” Shadowheart added. “There is no need for you to walk all the way over there by yourself. This’ll be much faster for you.”

Ria stared up at Shadowheart with gratitude, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you so much, that is very kind of you.”

“This is nothing, honestly. I’m happy to help whenever you need me, okay?”

Ria had never been more thankful for a bath in her entire life. After being dunked in beer, swirled around inside Astarion’s mouth, and sprayed in blood, the feeling of cleanliness felt like a blessing from the gods themselves. She had scrubbed vigorously against her skin using a chunk of the soap that Shadowheart had provided until she was adamant that the smell of blood and beer was completely gone.

Shadowheart offered her hand to the borrower, her palm facing upwards. The cleric’s kindness almost made Ria forget about the entire tent scenario, and she eagerly climbed into her waiting hand.

***

She had also used this as a good opportunity to clean her clothes, which, at this point, were more like a bunch of rags now with how tattered they were. Her shirt and pants were thoroughly scrubbed, and were now drying in the sun on a small rock along the shore. Hopefully when she had finished her bath, they would at least be somewhat dry enough for her to wear comfortably. 

She released a sigh of contentment as the cool waters of the river rushed over her. It was a welcome change to how gross she had been feeling over the past few days. Being able to finally be clean was exactly what she needed. A few more minutes passed as she enjoyed the soothing waters of the river and massaged her fingers through her auburn locks.

As she continued to massage her scalp, a flood of memories from the tiefling party suddenly crashed through her brain like a tidal wave. It seemed since Shadowheart had cured her of her hangover, it had allowed her to tap into those foggy memories from the previous night.

Ria slowly stopped scrubbing her hair as she remembered her heartfelt talk with Astarion – the fact that he had approached her by himself and apologised for what had happened at the Goblin Camp almost made her jaw hit the ground and her chest tighten. But what shocked her most of all, was the fact that she had gotten so horrendously drunk with the pale elf that she had fallen asleep on his leg.

Oh gods…that’s why I woke up in Astarion’s tent…this is humiliating.

At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to bury herself alive so she wouldn’t have to show her face at camp ever again. At least none of the others – other than Astarion of course – had witnessed her drunken antics. The fact that she had allowed herself to be so vulnerable and drunk around Astarion was utterly mortifying to say the least. She knew she would never hear the end of it from the vampire spawn, and it surprised her that he hadn’t shared that detail with her when she had woken up in his tent that morning.

Perhaps I should get out now before I drown myself in the river from embarrassment.

As she began to stride towards the shoreline, she noticed the water rippling strangely. Pausing briefly, her brows furrowed as she noticed the bizarre movement.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

She sucked in a sharp breath as small earthquakes rattled the sediment beneath her feet. Someone was approaching, and quickly. Frantically scanning the area, she immediately sprinted towards the shoreline and ducked behind a large rock that was jutting out of the ground. In her haste she grabbed the handkerchief that Shadowheart had given her and wrapped it around her trembling form.

The tremors quickly became more intense with each passing second and she clapped a hand over her mouth as Astarion’s towering figure came into view. The pale elf was carrying a small rattan basket at his hip and he gently placed it on the ground near the shoreline. He seemed to be completely oblivious to Ria’s presence.  

Why did it have to be him?

Much to her astonishment, the vampire spawn began to remove his clothing. Her eyes widened as she watched him remove his ruffled shirt, revealing an expanse of toned abs, defined muscles rippling beneath his lustrous pale skin.

She knew that averting her gaze was the right thing to do, but it was almost as if she was under some hypnotic spell as she continued to watch the pale elf remove the rest of his clothing. As he peeled off his dark pants, she had to stifle a laugh as she saw Astarion’s shockingly blue underwear. Her amusement quickly faded as the bright blue underwear soon flew off, revealing his incredibly pale behind.

At this point, Ria had enough strength to tear her gaze away from his giant naked frame before she saw anything else. Her skin burned like fire as her brain attempted to process what she had just seen. Her stomach twisted into knots, the realisation that she had just willingly witnessed Astarion strip and seen things she really shouldn’t have begun to sink in. Burying her face with her hands, she pressed her back against the stone and wrapped the handkerchief around her body tighter.

At least Astarion doesn’t know I’m here. Maybe I can leave without him noticing.

As soon as the thought popped into her brain, she quickly dismissed it. If she decided to make a stealthy escape, there was a very strong chance that the vampire’s keen eyes would be able to detect her scurrying away. Perhaps if she was deathly quiet, she could wait it out until the pale elf had finished his bath and went on his way.

I could be waiting here a while…he really does care about his appearance.

Chewing on her bottom lip somewhat anxiously, she waited behind the stone as the occasional splashing noise filled the air. Time seemed to pass by longer than usual as she waited with baited breath for the elf to finish his cleaning routine.

Gods, I’m going to be here forever at this rate!

Somewhat gingerly, she decided to peek a small glance over the stone to see if Astarion was anywhere near to being done with his bath. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw his towering figure half submerged in the river, his toned and very pearly white back was now facing her. For whatever reason, she found it almost impossible to tear her gaze away from his form. Strongly defined scars were raised above his skin, a stark contrast to the pale smoothness of his back. Her brows furrowed as she stared intently at his scars. The arrangement of them seemed very deliberate as if someone had carved it strategically into his back. She squinted her eyes at his back and her jaw slacked.

The scars were written in Infernal, the language of the Hells.

When she was a child, her family lived in a home owned by a small family of tieflings just along the outskirts of Baldur’s Gate. The tieflings had many things written in Infernal and she remembered seeing some of the writing scattered around the house when she went borrowing with her father. What any of it meant though was unknown to her.

“Enjoying the show, darling?”

An icicle of terror jolted straight through her chest as Astarion’s voice pounded through her tiny eardrums. She had been so caught up with deciphering his scars, she hadn’t realised his head had turned to the side and was looking directly at her. Her entire body was washed over with utter horror as she rapidly hid back behind the stone. As she reeled in shock, the sound of water splashing filled her ears as Astarion moved around in the river.

“There’s no point pretending to act like you aren’t here. I can hear your little heartbeat pounding away after all, remember?”

Swallowing thickly, she attempted to steel herself.

“I-I was just leaving!”

She scrambled over to where her clothes were sunning on the small rock and snatched up the clothing hastily, refusing to look where Astarion was in the river, and quickly returned to her spot behind the rock so that he couldn’t see her anymore.

“I thought vampires couldn’t swim in running rivers,” she said shakily.

“Another perk from having the mind flayer parasite,” Astarion answered. “I can run through rivers, walk into homes uninvited, walk in the sun…it’s quite remarkable, really.”

“Of course, that makes sense.” She clutched her clothing to her chest and wasted little time in putting them on.

A small moment of silence passed between them. Ria could hear her own heartbeat pounding so fiercely in her eardrums that it drowned out any other noise.  

“I couldn’t help but to notice you were staring earlier,” Astarion chimed, breaking the silence. “I didn’t realise you were that smitten by me, darling. Although I can hardly blame you when I have these gods given good looks.”

Ria wanted nothing more in that moment to vanish entirely. Blood rushed to her cheeks and her skin burned with embarrassment. There was no use trying to deny it, he had caught her in the act after all for the second time that day. But perhaps she could deter the subject.

“I was only trying to decipher those scars of yours,” she said. “How did you get them?”

There was no response to her question. She couldn’t see his face as she was still hidden behind the rock, but it appeared that her question had struck a chord with him as he was silent for once.

“Astarion?” Ria called out. When she was met with nothing, she cautiously peered around the rock she was hiding behind. Astarion was still waist deep in the river, his lower regions concealed by the water, and a rather pained look was painted across his elegant features.

“You don’t have to answer, I’m sorry for prying,” she said hastily, worried that she may have resurfaced some troubled memories from his past.

“No, it’s quite alright,” Astarion answered, his face sombre. “I was a slave, kept by the Szarr family. The scars are a poem. A gift from my master, Cazador. He considered himself quite the artist and used his slaves as a canvas. He composed and carved that one over the course of a night.”

Astarion paused, his face contorted in discomfort as his eyes glazed over, seemingly lost momentarily in a dark memory of his past.

“He made a lot of revisions as he went.” His jaw clenched as the words fell out of his mouth, his playful behaviour from before had completely vanished before very eyes.

Ria’s eyes widened as she fully absorbed the weight of his words, her mouth parted slightly in shock. She would’ve never had guessed that Astarion had been – or perhaps still is – a slave. A wave of sympathy washed over her as she struggled to think of how to respond.

“I’m so sorry,” she said softly, her brows furrowed. “I had no idea.”

“Oh please, I don’t want your sympathy,” Astarion scoffed. “I was his slave for 200 years of my life. I prayed to every god there was, but no one came to help. No prince in shining armour came to my aid. Of all the things that could’ve saved me, it was the mind flayers. As rotten as they are, they broke Cazador’s spell on me and I was finally able to resist his commands. Now I’ve been conveniently lost.” He peeled back his lips into a growl as his gaze hardened. “They won’t ever control me again.”

Her chest was constricted with sadness upon hearing more of his past. She wanted to offer more words of comfort, but she knew it wasn’t what he wanted to hear given his previous response.

“Why did Cazador write the poem in Infernal?” she questioned.

Astarion’s eyes widened in surprise, seemingly caught off guard by her question.

“Infernal? I…who knows? The bastard was insane.” He ran his fingers through his damp curls, his gaze sharpening as he focused back onto her. “Better question is, how does a little borrower like you know the language of the Hells?”

“My family lived under the floorboards of a house full of tieflings,” she answered, a small smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. “I can’t read it though, but I know Infernal when I see it.”  

“Well, that is certainly interesting.” He massaged shampoo through his scalp before rinsing it off in the river, shaking droplets of water from his wet locks. “Now, if you are quite done staring, I would like to continue my bath.”

Scarlet blossomed across her face and she quickly spun on her heel so that she was no longer facing him.

“I told you I was planning on having a bath earlier, it’s your own fault for blundering down here when you knew I would be here too.” She sucked in a sharp breath, trying to hide her own embarrassment. It was bad enough that Astarion had already caught her staring at him when she had woken up in his tent that morning, now she had seen other parts of his body that had previously been left up to her imagination.

“I didn’t realise you were going to take so long,” Astarion responded. “Everyone is packing up camp and getting ready to move on, and it was vital that I had a decent bath before we hit the road again. Oh, what I wouldn’t do for a proper bath…”  

“Well, maybe if someone hadn’t dropped me in a tub of beer and then proceeded to stick me in their mouth, I wouldn’t have had to spend so much time cleaning myself,” she shot back.

Ria still had her back turned to him, but she could feel in the air that he was rolling his eyes.

“The fact of the matter is that you’re still here,” he said. “I never took you for a voyeur, but I suppose we’ve both learned something new about each other.”

“I’m leaving!” Ria began to stride very quickly towards the direction of camp, not daring to look over her shoulder as her skin burned as hot as Karlach’s engine. “And I am not into voyeurism!”  

“Whatever you say, darling.”

[the-guppy-fish]

Cold snake.

Tags: colleagues to friends to lovers, hesitation, confessions, callsign: Viper, its a little long, but! smut will follow, 3 parts...maybe more to come.

Content warnings: none. (other than my possible spelling mistakes)

Summary: Ghost being a little soft...for now. (2,8k words)

About Vipers: named after the family Viperidae, they are venomous and have long hinged fangs that permit deep penetration and injection of their venom. These snakes can decide how much venom to inject depending on the circumstances. Rattlesnakes for example, have evolved the strike-and-release bite mechanism, which provides a huge benefit to snakes, by minimizing contact with potentially dangerous prey animals.

Vipers come in many different sizes and colours, they are highly adapted to their environment and the type of prey they hunt.

You and Ghost fled the warehouse. The mission had been successful. While Ghost kept the coast clear, you retrieved the confidential documents, Price wanted you to secure from a target warehouse. Once the documents were safely tucked inside the pocket of your tactical vest, you gave Ghost the sign to get out of there.

Just as you left the warehouse, you heard Price in your earpiece,

"Ghost, Viper, get the hell out of there. Enemy activity confirmed by drones. Safehouse Foxtrot-Whiskey-Bravo is clear. Pick-up tomorrow at 1700 at the safehouse. Radio-silence until then. Do not answer. Price out."

You and Ghost simply nodded at each other, silently running off in direction of the safehouse, while keeping eyes and ears open for any activity in and around the warehouse. Once you had laid back a decent amount of space between you and the rusty warehouse, running through tall grass sprinkled with frost, you walked the remaining distance to the safe house in silence, still being alert to your surroundings.

A few hours pass, and the sun begins to set. You're still marching towards the safehouse, now crossing a large meadow surrounded by trees. The cold creeps into your nostrils and fingertips, as the warming rays of sunlight slowly hide beneath the horizon. Your breath is visible, pulsing through the fabric of your balaclava in small clouds. Ghosts breath-clouds are much larger than yours, his huge lungs needing a lot more air than yours, to feed oxygen to all his muscles.

You can see the small safe house not too far away, hiding in between large pine trees. While walking the last few hundred meters, your eyes fall onto Ghosts back, clad in tactical gear and tucked-in weapons. The leg of his camouflage trousers slightly fluttering in the cold breeze, the grey fabric hugging his hips just right. Do you feel bad about looking? Not at all. It is not the first time your eyes linger on him, how could you not? When he is so largely built and looks like he has been sculpted by a group of goddesses, who knew exactly what they were doing?

Your relationship to Ghost used to be very professional. You only spoke together when needed. Always kept the conversation light and work-related. When you were surrounded by the rest of the 141, you barely even glanced at each other.

It was safe to say, you were surprised beyond your imagination, the day Ghost began small-talking with you.

A few weeks back, when you were home on base, the huge brute of man asked you, if you had had a good day. Just like that. Over dinner in the mess hall. While it was just the two of you. Normally you would have just ate in silence and then given the other a polite nod once you finished, and left. But no. You carefully chatted with him, being slightly SUPER suspicious of his friendliness. After finishing your meals, the conversation naturally died, and you went to each your dorms.

The following evening it happened again, and then he evening after that, and all the following ones. But always when it was just the two of you. Ghost would go completely silent if any one else joined you.

You slowly began to talk more and more, sharing more and more details of your lives. Even though Ghost rarely shared anything from his life. If he did, oddly enough, he mostly shared about his favourite meals or new movies in the telly.

You began to talk throughout the day, not just at dinner. When he caught you in the briefing room or in either of your offices, he initiated a conversation, eyes fixed to your face, looking at every little polite smile and expression you made.

But always, when you two were alone.

One time, Soap walked in on one of your conversations in the common room. You had stood with your back to Ghost, rummaging in the small tea-kitchen, trying to make a cuppa for the both of you. Ghost watched your every move, how your clothes hugged you frame, while listening intently.

You did not notice Soap entering, before turning around and only seeing Soap.

Ghost nowhere to be found.

"Who are ye talking to bonnie?", Soap looked at you with confused eyes.

"Uhm, I was just talking to Ghost." you answered, perplexed at Ghosts sudden disappearance.

"Seems like he flew away, bon. Don't feel bad about it, you know how he can be." You tried to hide your disappointment, while Soap eyed the second cup of tea in your hands with large puppy eyes.

When you met Ghost later that evening at dinner, he initiated conversation as he did every dinner, but the conversation failed to reach around his disappearance. You let it go, thinking he had to leave for some important reason unbeknownst to you.

The conversation moved along, you finished eating and you chatted back and forth, like some table tennis ball experiencing the match of its life.

While talking you accidentally unconsciously touched his arm, which was resting on the table you ate at, while telling a (to you) very exhilarating story about your latest attempt at making a new soup at home.

You were so enthralled with your story telling, that you completely disregarded the shift in Ghosts form.

He went from sitting sluggishly, resting his elbows on the table, arms crossed, and looking at your lips, while you rambled on and on about that soup.

Ghost cared little about soup, but when you spoke about it, it seemed to be the most interesting topic of conversation ever. When your fingers found his forearm and snaked around his bare skin, he froze. His mind short circuiting and vision blurring. Still looking at you, feigning his newfound interest of soup, every fibre in him focussed on your soft skin on his rough and scarred one. He fell deeper and deeper into the blur your touch had created in his mind. All his thoughts vapourised and no sound was picked up by his ears.

All to sudden, Ghost was ripped from his hyper focussed state by your voice.

"Ghost? Hey, what do you think?" He blinked the fog away from his eyes, cleared his throat, and croaked out a quick "sorry?", focussing his eyes on yours, mind still running laps in his skull over your fingers resting on his arm.

"I asked, whether you think the soup would be better with or without garlic?", you looked at him with a small smile, expecting his answer curiously.

Ghosts ears peaked at your question, and he could not avoid the small smile forming on his lips under the fabric covering his face.

"With." was all he managed to say, which earned him a satisfied smile from you.

"I'll try that next time then."

With that, you gave his arm a quick squeeze and lifted your fingers from his skin to pick up your tray. Your touch and bold display of comfort around him made his mind grow foggy again.

"You done as well?" You stood up with your hands on your tray and nodded to the one beside him. He gave you a silent nod, and you pulled his tray across the table to balance yours on top of it.

While you went up to return the trays, Ghost sat completely stunned, waiting for you to return, so he could walk you to your dorm (another thing he had absentmindedly begun doing).

Back in the meadow, you and Ghost had reached the treeline and made it to the poor example of a safe house: a simple shed, neatly tucked away by the large pines, small enough for you to question whether there was space enough for two rooms in it.

And you were right. The sheds interior consisted of a small fireplace, a bunkbed, a large chest and a table with two chairs. Everything looked well used and ancient in your eyes, the smell of old cigarettes and firewood confirmed your suspicion about this place being many decades older than you.

Ghosts deep voice tore you from your disappointed thoughts about the safehouse.

"You're on top." While he began stripping out of his gear, placing it neatly beside the lower bunk, he had claimed for himself.

You followed along, closing the wooden door and bolting it shut with the large piece of wood acting as a lock. You laid your gear at the foot-end of your bed, as to keep it close while you slept, should anyone want to pay your shed a visit during the night. Your gut told you that this place was safe enough, for you to relax in. The remote location, the bolted door, and Ghosts presence, assured you that this was good enough for tonight.

Neither you nor Ghost lit up the fireplace, knowing the smoke outside and light from inside the shed could lead anyone to your super cozy hiding spot.

After having settled into the thin mattress, under a thick wool blanket Ghost had pulled from the chest, you tried to get some rest.

But sleep never came to you, as the cool air crept inside and under your blanket. For what felt like hours, you laid crumpled up like a small ball to keep, whatever heat was left, close to your body. But nothing worked, the cold bore into your skin and settled uncomfortably in your bones.

You scolded yourself: as a special forces soldier, you were supposed to fend for your self in every possible way; and you usually did so, perfectly.

But this never ending, merciless cold was going to beat you.

Your stubbornness kept you from climbing down to look for another blanket. But also the thought of waking up Ghost; anyone who woke him up from his precious few hours of sleep, would feel his wrath in the morning.

So you stayed. Freezing and shivering under your heavy blanket. Just existing in the coldness, hoping that some heat would come your way, at some point.

Heat never came, but a deep voice did instead.

"Viper?" Ghost called out quietly.

Your teeth clattered at you let out a weak "yeah?".

Ghosts gravelly voice made its way to your ears again, "If you don't stop shaking my bunk with your shivers, you can sleep on the floor." His oh so humorous comment made you shiver even harder, and you mumbled a quiet "sorry", wrapping the blanket impossibly tighter around you.

Once again you tried falling asleep, willing the shivers to stop, only for them to return with even greater force than before.

You heard Ghost sigh from his mattress beneath you. The bed croaked and you sensed a shadow move in line with your eyes, over the edge of the bunk bed.

Ghost had gotten out of his blanket-cocoon and stood centimetres from your icy face.

"Did you not hear me before?", his hot breath fanned over your frozen features, warming you just enough to answer him in a full sentence.

"I did..sorry.. I just can't get warm." Your voice came out much weaker, than you had hoped for, and seemingly did nothing to stir empathy within Ghost. As if not accepting your weak apology, he pulled the blanket from your shivering form and quietly said "get down."

Puzzled, you unfolded your cold body in a sloth-like motion, slowly climbing down the bed. You stood in front of Ghost, not believing that he actually wanted you to sleep on the floor.

After all, you were the same rank, so he could not order you to do it. So you stood before him, shivering furiously, waiting for him to actually tell you to sleep on the hard, wooden floor, just so you could weakly scold him for trying to punish you.

He said nothing, sat down on his mattress and rolled in under his blanket, his back facing the wall. You stayed on your feet, absolutely confused beyond your mind.

You knew Ghost could act weird from time to time, but this was beyond the usual weirdness of him.

The moonlight from outside only cast enough light inside, for you to make out the outline of his body. Once he had settled, he opened the blanked towards you, which only sent a waft of cool air towards you. As you stayed on your sock-clad feet, still so, so confused, Ghost quietly told you "come 'ere. Can't 'ave you freezing like that."

And like a much faster sloth you slid into the oh so warm comfort of his strong arms and the thick blanket covering him. He wrapped his arms around you, making sure that the blanked covered every millimetre of you.

"Christ Viper, you're like an icicle." His hot breath fanned over your head as he pulled you into his warm embrace.

Your shivers slowly ebbed out, leaving you smushed up, face first, against Ghosts t-shirt covered chest, arms awkwardly tucked close to your own chest. You became embarrassingly aware of just how close you were to one another.

You tried to shimmy away from him, just a little bit; get a some space between the two of you. Keep it professional, you know. But a strong hand around your middle kept you close.

"Stay", Ghost whispered, hugging you closer again, wordlessly telling you that he didn't mind you being this close to him.

With the warmth seeping into your body, the words returned to your mouth in a quiet whisper, "I thought you wanted me to sleep on the floor."

A quick, exhale blew onto the top of your hair and his low voice sounded above your head, "I did" , followed by an even quieter whisper, "but then i remembered, that i like you."

Heat rose to your face, warming your cheeks. You knew Ghost tolerated you, maybe even enjoyed your company from time to time, he definitely liked looking at you, based on how often you felt his eyes on you.

But that he liked you. Oh boy.

"I didn't know you liked me", you whispered into his chest, raising your face to look up at his moonlit, masked one.

His eyes found yours in the dim light, "I do. 'ave for a long time."

Ghosts rough fingers slowly slid up along your spine, fingers gliding over the soft fabric of your shirt. His fingers reaching and curling around the, now warm, skin of you neck. You felt his thumb soothingly swipe back and forth on that very soft patch of skin on the side of your neck.

You hummed at his admission, melting into the touch of his fingers on your skin.

Not knowing how to respond verbally, you turned your palms from your own soft chest, to his much more muscular one, gently squeezing his muscles, to let him know his whispers were heard.

The warmth had truly settled inside you by now, and your eyelids grew heavy, threatening to block the view of Ghosts dark, moonlit eyes looking at your tired ones.

During a dangerously slow blink of your eyelids, Ghosts hand squeezed your neck; just enough to get your attention, but not hard enough for you to open your heavy lids in attention.

"Get some rest Viper. Sleep well." His whispers made a tired smile tug at your lips, and you responded with another whisper.

"Goodnight Ghost."

In front of your closed eyes, a satisfied smile grew behind Ghosts mask. His eyes glanced over your face, taking in the sight of your calm face: eyes closed, brows at ease, just a hint of a smile on your lips and deep, steady breaths blew quietly through your nostrils.

He almost couldn't believe that you were actually sleeping in his arms. He could almost not believe that he had had the courage to pull you close and be soft with you.

His troubling and traumatic past made him fear close relationships, afraid that the people close to him would get hurt. With you though, it was different. Ghost knew you could handle any challenge thrown at you, just like himself. He knew how strong and capable you were, and it pulled him closer to you. Made his heart skip a beat or two, when ever your mere presence filled the room with authority and control.

He had wanted to let you this close to him for a while the last many many weeks, but could never muster the bravery, and did not want to scare you away. To not make you think he was some creep, like other soldiers on base, he took it slow; showed you more and more of himself in adequate amounts.

Ever since your soft fingers had snaked around his arm that evening in the mess hall, he had wanted to reciprocate the comfort and affection, but an occasion had never come along.

Until now. And he was filled with glee, deep into the marrow of his bones.

Ghost held you a little tighter, feeling your body against his. He sucked in the warmth of your skin against his and sweet smell of your hair. His smile only growing larger and more giddy (not an emotion, Ghost was truly familiar with yet)

Gently, he brought his masked lips down on your forehead, giving you a feather light kiss.

"Sweet dreams little snake"

[softlyspun]

Oh, this is fun! As a historical costumer, I have some Thoughts on how corsetry and fit interact, and this is actually a topic that was keeping me from writing a costuming post for the Ginger and Mint girls. Might as well get it out of the way now! So, corsets...

I think the first thing that might not be completely obvious is corsets are sturdy. Even cheap ones from places like Corset Story are much, mush heavier than, say, a t-shirt or dress shirt. For its components:

The Busk

So, when I refer to the busk, I'm taking about the front closure of the corset, this bit right here:

(My cat decided to help.)

This is the bit that's going to give you trouble when you put the corset on, even if it's the correct size. It's a rigid bit of metal, much, much less flexible than the rest of the corset bones, and it's where the closures are attached. Usually those are the little metal clasps that you see here, but sometimes, especially in modern fashion corsets, you get some really whimsical ones, like this thing from Corset Story.

I'm inclined to say the busk isn't generally a point of failure in a corset: those little metal loops are riveted in place.

Next, we have

The Bones

So, when I'm talking about corset bones, I mean these bits:

These are long strips of something stiff but flexible. Historically, whalebone (a misleading name, it's actually baleen) was used, though, you'll also see things like stiff cord or reeds used for the purpose. Modern corsets use plastic or metal. They tend to be about the weight and flexibility of zip ties, maybe slightly stiffer. With time and use, these bones will conform to the shape of the wearer's body. This is sometimes a point of failure, usually when the boning pokes through at either the top or bottom of the corset. This will usually manifest as the tip of a bone poking you. (Almost every time this has happened to me, it's been under the armpit, but it could just as easily jam annoyingly into your waist). I suppose, technically, if it was put under some kind of weird strain, a bone could snap and poke through the middle of the garment.

Last, we have:

The Laces

So, a corset is actually a fantastically adjustable garment. This isn't to say that it isn't possible to wear them too tight, or for a corset to be too small, but in general they're a lot more forgiving than pop culture would have you believe.

At least with the corsets I've worn, the top and the bottom of the corset actually lace separately, and they tie at the middle. I almost always end up loosening the laces almost as far as they'll go when putting a corset on, getting the busk fastened, and then lacing it to the desired tightness.

While it's possible to lace it up on your own, the whole thing is much easier with another pair of hands.

For the points of failure here: the laces themselves can vary wildly. I've personally never had an issue with laces breaking, but it's not impossible that they might fray/weaken against the eyelets, or, if they're under a lot of strain and made from a flimsier material, they might just snap. The eyelets themselves are another potential point of failure: I've found that they can pull out and tear a garment when under strain (Or if you make the mistake of putting a grommeted garment through the wash. RIP, the kirtles I made in college). This is less of an issue when you're looking at historical construction, since historical eyelets are more or less embroidered into the garment, like this:

This is stronger and less likely to pull out, but still has the potential to unravel or wear out.

The final potential point of failure is the fabric of the corset itself. Like I said, these things are sturdy, but they're not indestructible. If the corset was already worn/damaged, and not carefully mended, it's possible for the fabric to tear (possibly dramatically!)

Just for funsies, let's look at how likely the issues are to occur:

The corset is uncomfortably tight, and it's all your character can think about.

Yeah, this is absolutely likely to happen. I think anyone who's done historical reenactment or cosplay has misjudged the fit of a costume at some point. Bonus points if the corset is an integral part of the costume, or if you're at a con or a Faire where you can't easily get out of the stupid thing. It almost always goes along with chaffing from the fabric of whatever you're wearing underneath the corset (and you should be wearing something underneath the corset. They're undergarments, but not next-to-the-skin undergarments)

I actually have my own personal experience with this. At a wedding, a reenactment friend came up to ask why I wasn't dancing. When I mentioned that I was corseted into a formal dress that didn't quite fit, her face went from teasing to sympathetic, and she assured me that I should just sit down.

The corset won't fit, no matter how much your character--or a helper--tries to get it on.

Like I said before, corsets are surprisingly forgiving (just lace it looser), but sometimes a garment is just too small. This is bound to be a point of frustration: even mass-produced fashion corsets can set you back a couple hundred bucks, and it takes a while for them to ship. If it's a custom corset, that's a much, much bigger investment, in time, money, or both. Depending on how much time you have before the event where the corset was being worn, this might require some radical changes to costume/garment plans. Many historical dresses are made to fit over structured undergarments, and won't fit correctly (or possibly at all) without a corset underneath. If it's for a cosplay, this might mean having to frantically throw together a look-alike out of duct tape and hope the morning of the convention.

All that being said, it might be possible to salvage the garment by just adding in a new panel. This was often how maternity corsets were handled in-period. Still, if the character is in a hurry, this is likely to end up being an obvious patch job, especially if they don't have a matching fabric on hand. If the corset is being worn as an undergarment, this might not matter. If it's being worn as a fashionable overgarment, it might cause remarks.

The corset is beginning to break or come undone as it struggles to contain your character.

I suppose it's possible that a less-experienced assistant might tie a bad knot that could come undone, which would honestly be the best case scenario here. The corset would just loosen as the night went on. Otherwise, this is the herald of frustration: this is going to mean either some time-consuming repairs, or buying a new corset.

The corset bursts open, unable to contain the pressure behind it.

This one's pure fantasy (not that there's anything wrong with that!) The possible ways I can see this working:

The rivets along the busk pull out, letting the corset fall open in the front.

The laces tear, sending shreds of ribbon everywhere, and the garment opening in the back.

The fabric itself tears, probably along one of the sides, in between the bones.

The corset is too restrictive to take off, and your character needs help getting out of it.

This has so, so much potential for a sweet, intimate moment. At the end of a day, feet and head both aching, I've found that I usually just want my beautiful outfit off. And there's always that point of exhaustion, realizing that the busk isn't going to cooperate and let you get out without unlacing the stupid thing, but that the laces are either tied too tight for you to undo yourself, or the knot is just out of reach. Turning to your equally exhausted assistant, and just quietly asking for help. The sigh of relief when the corset finally falls away. The red marks on your skin, where the fabric was pressed too-close for hours. The overall soreness of being through a busy day in costume, and the satisfaction of having had a great event. A vow to take things easy tomorrow, to let your body rest and recover.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on corsets and historical costumes as they relate to this kind of kinky fun!

corset prompts if u can!!! like being too big for a corset and just either not fitting or burstin it if thats ok !!

A time and a place:

On the way to an event that your character needs/wants to look extra nice for.

At an event, presumably with plenty of people your character wants to look good in front of.

On the way home from an event that your character may or may not have gotten a little too wild at.

At home, while getting dressed.

At a store, while trying things on.

The issue:

The corset is uncomfortably tight, and it's all your character can think about.

The corset won't fit, no matter how much your character--or a helper--tries to get it on.

The corset is beginning to break or come undone as it struggles to contain your character.

The corset bursts open, unable to contain the pressure behind it.

The corset is too restrictive to take off, and your character needs help getting out of it.

The cause:

No fault on your character's part; the corset was simply too small for their body.

Too much eating/drinking.

The corset used to fit, but your character has gained weight since they last wore it.

Bloating, be it from nerves, bubbly drinks, something they ate earlier, what have you.

Too much movement, gradually wearing on the too-tight corset and/or your character.

[astrellium]

Hexweave Cloth in WoW is probably meant to refer to hexes like spells, but I can't help but imagine it all as being triaxially woven so that the pattern of the weave forms hexagons rather than squares, and I'm in danger of giving myself more projects to try and figure out how to do it at that scale

[voidedjuice]

frilly maid apron i desire you

[icannotgetoverbirds]

Actually, no, fuck you. Changing your sheets for you. Swaddling-fabric blanket in the dryer for 15 minutes, wrap yourself up and get cozy. kissing you on the forehead and tucking you in. nap for up to two hours or go to bed if it's that time.

[moeblob]

Anyway they can change between being tiny and human sized. And when they're tinier they can only be seen by the other fae or their selected humans. So if you just passed Noll on the street while Shavuli was perched on his shoulder chatting away you wouldn't see or hear her.