#and yeah it frustrates and frightens me

[queenlucythevaliant]

So much of Christian faith is about sitting with tensions. Here's one:

God wants our minds and He created our ability to reason in His own image. He created through discoverable means. He inspires us towards science, philosophy, archeology, math. He wants our questions. He wants us to search Him out and to keep finding Him in creation, in logic, in study. If our faith is just based on dogma, it will be a rigid, fragile thing. We ought to be convinced of what we believe.

And yet you can't logic your way to God. You aren't going to be able to prove His existence scientifically, philosophically, archeologically, or mathematically. If you try, you'll either talk yourself out of faith or give yourself false certainty. If you try too fervently, there's a not-insignificant chance you'll basically end up overconfidently asserting an obviously bunk conspiracy theory, which is its own kind of dogma. In the end, faith is just faith. In the absence of proof, who do you say that Jesus is?

For me, at this stage of life, it all comes back to epistemology. God is the final Truth and the giver of all lesser truth. Study and reason can lead me closer to him, but at the end of the day I'm left with a binary choice. Is God who He says He is? Do I believe Him? Yes or no? And that choice is all just bold, unsubstantiated faith, baby.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 17 thoughts

this episode took a few days to work... and it built up the suspense! i tried to watch it on thursday- i was ready for my scullynmulder time- but it wouldn't play. and then i finally had time to try again yesterday, and it STILL wouldn't work.

(i had to go on reddit and learned that i needed to change a single number in a random string of code, because apparently a new firefox update just killed any ability to use hulu? the hoops i jump through for these two...)

but, i really enjoyed this episode! it had cute lil moments and then also some soul-crushing angst, which is the way i like it. so allow me to begin, and all of my note taking shall begin below!

YAYYYYY it’s scullynmulder time… my heart is so happy

so we open in a grocery store in virginia. it’s a nice looking grocery store. would browse there.

a guy is buying like a billion cans of stuff that has a muscle on it. and then a magazine with the freaky worm baby from s2 on it! haha a nice callback! again. shoutout to the props team <3

but then, the scene of tranquil grocery shopping was interrupted, as the guy with all the cans grabs the jacket of the guy in front of him- and it turns out the whole thing was a sting operation!!! guy who wanted his cans is referred to as “pusher”. the FBI has a TON of guys dealing with him. 5 cars full. wow! he must be very scary.

he’s in the back of the last car. and going on about this officer’s uniform color. 

he keeps saying cerulean over and over until somehow the guy driving the car stops seeing the big tractor trailer coming his way. and so when he drives straight ahead, he is immediately hit!!! is this some sort of hypnosis?

the intro was different again!! who do they think they are fooling by changing this?? not me!

mulder's office time. side note: it really is THEIR office as a collective. because we never see her at her desk. but anyway.

the police car’s driver died after hitting the tractor trailer that was magically invisible to him, but not before he unlocked the prisoner, pusher. pusher had confessed to contracted killings over two years that had been staged to look not like murders, if you catch my drift.

why would this otherwise great agent unlock this prisoner and also drive straight into a tractor trailer? a great question! one we can hopefully answer.

pusher had kept mumbling about cerulean until the driver ran into a truck for a business called cerulean. then he had written a clue at the scene of the crime! it says “nin or” which mulder flips backwards to read… ronin. ronin! i know that word!

mulder points out that this means a samurai without a master (nerd), and that this is the name of a… self defense magazine? so off to go read some magazines!

a young woman who we later learned is named holly brings them a big stack of the aforementioned magazines- maybe she's an archivist! maybe that should be my job!

she has a giant bruise on her face from getting mugged. mulder asks if they got whoever did this to her, and she says “do they ever? ….no offense” awww, holly, you're gonna make him sad. but seriously, poor girl, that is awful :(

she heads out, and scully is like, how did pusher do all of these killings? mulder says that he was probably utilizing the power of suggestion 

so they find an advertisement for someone “who solves problems” in all of the ronin magazines since 1994- which was when the murders started! a clue! with a phone number to go with it!

and in the ad were the letters OSU, which they thought meant ohio state but no! it’s a japanese word that means “to push”! gasp! it's definitely their guy!

(there was very conveniently a japanese to english dictionary on the shelf of the room where they were reading the magazines. i guess it's important to keep your language learning tools around in the FBI, but it was funny because all the other books looked like boring legal stuff)

they call the number, and it goes to a phone in virginia. mulder is in a car nearby and scully is there too, but she is sleeping. ON HIS SHOULDER!!!!

he lightly taps her face to wake her up and says “i think you drooled on me” and she quickly apologizes... NOOO DON’T BE MEAN TO HER!!! SHE’S SLEEPY 😭😭😭 awwwwww oh my HEART <3

(i need to scream real quick, because that was so precious. AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhHHHH)

((nah i'm never gonna move on from this actually. never never. the way he tapped her face.......... how she seemed so embarrassed.... the intimacy of falling asleep on someone's shoulder, how long he must have sat there trying not to make any sudden movements while still keeping his attention on the case........... i need to collect myself))

but then the phone rings back!!! they sprint sprint sprint and they pick it up… to someone asking if they are just going to sit there all night!!!! the pusher!!!

oh he’s creepy… he comments on how mulder “and his pretty partner seem awfully close”. now, is he invested in whatever the hell it is they have going on like i am (which is valid), or is he just a creep (less valid)? 

pusher seems to be a freak at least in some regards, saying that "they have to follow his breadcrumbs", and that the next one is right in front of mulder, who he keeps calling “g man”. he also says to let his fingers do the walking, which makes slim to no sense to me. 

but they figure that it means to call the last number on the pay phone, and it reaches a golf course! they hold the phone up so they both can hear the message and it’s so CUTE AWWW

mulder calls her “g-woman” as they leave <- STOP I’M GONNA SCREAM!!!

off to the golf course. where pusher is golfing with a very beat up face from the accident. he spots snipers hiding in the grass, mumbles that it is “about time”, and tries to get out. 

they have him cornered!!! but when he tells the dude with the gun on him to relax, he really does. and when pusher tells him to show him his face, he does. he knows the guy by name?!?

pusher tells this collins fellow to pour a ton of gasoline, which he does while crying. collins screams at the agents to stop him as he flicks on a lighter, but scully is fast and grabs a fire extinguisher, and mulder uses his jacket to induce a sort of stop drop and roll maneuver. huh, they really do work so well together!

a car horn is blaring, so mulder goes to see what is going on and it’s… a dude with his head on the horn. he says “bet you five bucks i get off”… it’s pusher! he was mumbling as if he was remotely controlling the dude who lit the flame... okay, weird.

mulder at da court. he is fidgeting as they question him about this pusher fellow and his 14 murders. mulder explains that he thinks pusher can talk his way into his victims hurting themselves, which is by far not the most outlandish thing we’ve heard on this television program, but the people in the court act like this is akin to spotting a unicorn, and scoff at mulder for proposing such a bizarre idea.

(usually i agree that mulder's ideas are bizarre, but this one seems entirely possible to me, with or without mind control. people can be talked into doing all sorts of things. mulder i am on your side and would not laugh at you like these fakes)

AND pusher had called and confessed to 14 murders, but his defense tries to write it off as a drunk prank call. while this is the most absurd thing we (both the viewer and the characters in court) have ever heard, and surely no one would ever believe it, pusher uses his mind power skills to get into the judge’s brain and make him be declared innocent.

pusher walks up to mulder and says he owes him five dollars. this dude majorly sucks.

cutscene to mulder practicing his aim. it’s pretty good!! he must be really unsettled by this whole situation to work on his marksmanship.

scully comes in (with the ear protection things on so mulder's firing doesn't blast her ears <3 queen of precautions) with more information on this pusher fellow. mulder starts reciting all the things he can guess about the pusher’s life, from his college to his military service to which branch and i'm thinking man, did he study up on this? is he that unsettled by this case? but ohhh yeah, mulder does profiling, seemingly very successfully.

but he didn’t know that the pusher applied to the FBI!!! and had flopped at the psych evaluation, where he had been ego-centric and lied and claimed to be trained by ninjas. mulder seems to think this could be true, but i don’t know if he knows the ninja lore and that they were not as historically common as media would make you think 💔

luckily, scully doesn't break this terrible news to him. man, this reminds me i need to get a good translation of the kojiki and the nihon shoki

(at this point i did a bit of a wikipedia rabbit hole into japanese medieval literature before remembering the plot at hand. focus!)

mulder says that they should have had enough evidence to at least get him in custody, and that the pusher “put the whammy” on the judge. to which scully deadpans “please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy” <- HDHEJSNWJSKDMND i love her sooooo terribly. 

mulder is still thinking this guy was a ninja, but scully points out that if he could control people’s minds, why wouldn’t he be an FBI agent like he wanted? a very good point! well, maybe it’s a new skill, mulder posits.

he seems very frustrated that scully isn’t buying his mind control theory, but she makes it very clear she believes he is guilty of murder!!! they just need to figure out what went down. queen of communicating her logic. she won’t communicate her feelings though, but that's okay we can work on that in the future.

pusher at da FBI. writes himself a note that says “pass” and sticks it in his lapel, goes in and asks for computer records. the guard immediately gives it to him. and he waltzes in! 

no!! the poor girl with the bruised face from before, holly!!! he starts talking to her, and she gives him the keyboard to her super secret FBI computer. he asks for printouts and says he wants to hurt whoever did that to her face. hmm. well, maybe a little revenge on her behalf wouldn’t hurt...

but skinner is here! he heard an unfamiliar voice and walks in, asking if he can help this strange fellow. skinner realizes that he is up to no good, and grabs him, but the pusher convinces holly that skinner is the guy who mugged her!!! so she busts out her mace the minute that skinner manages to call for security and starts KICKING HIM??

things escalated very quickly there.

holly is in his office, apologizing profusely to skinner and whole bunch of other people for kicking the hell out of his face. scully is there too. okayyyyy, she’s moving up in the world, helping out when skinner gets attacked!!!! she is very calm about the whole thing though, which makes her a great choice, so she deserves it.

holly says that it was like the pusher was in her head, and she was watching herself do the things she did. creepy...

she’s crying, and skinner doesn’t honestly seem too mad about the whole thing. i would be very mad if one of my employees let a random guy have access to secret files and then pepper sprayed and kicked me, but clearly he understands something was afoot.

OH! scully agrees that it is the pusher’s persuasive powers that made holly attack him, even if she can’t explain why it is he can do that! wow! the evidence is undeniable, even if it is inexplicable!

the pusher left with mulder’s file… so now he knows where he lives. so they should have a sleepover at her place!!! and watch movies!!! <3 before they catch him ofc, because now that he was trespassing, they have him on hook for a crime

(sadly, i must report that no sleepover took place. but it would be nice to imagine that it did)

they go to the pusher's apartment to try and find him, and scully announces before she turns the lights on. okayyyy! giving everyone a warning.

something about her with a trench coat and a gun in investigation mode makes my stomach do flips. we don't have to unpack that right now. i just was very aware that it happened.

he left a movie on the tv, that scully immediately identified as svengali. hold on let me google something. okay, that is a book/movie about guy that uses mind control. fitting. a clue, perhaps…

and is she watching horror films on the regular to be able to identify the film after seeing like three frames….? love that for her <3

(wait, she did say before that the exorcist was one of her favorite movies! so this further proves that she is going to be seated for a spooky film <3)

mulder opens his fridge to find a million and a half of those protein cans from before. you think those are giving him psychic powers? hmm…

oh!!! scully found something in his cabinet: epilepsy medication!!! a clue, perhaps? i’m just gonna keep saying that about anything they find. so that means they know more about him, and that he will need medication, which could be a way to try and find him, because he’ll need to get more at some point probably… AND HE STARTED TAKING THE PILLS AT THE SAME TIME THE MURDERS STARTED!

mulder asks what can cause epilepsy late in life. her answers: head injury, neurological disease, a tumor…

mulder perks up because he thinks a tumor might give you psychic powers. which would be a bright side to an otherwise very dismal situation, i’m sure. 

she says that if he had a brain tumor, he would not be well enough to do all of these shenanigans- a very valid point. mulder responds with: maybe he isn’t well at all!! he was too tired to escape at the driving range, after all, and he had confessed to murders he had gotten away with… maybe he wants to go out in a blaze of glory!

huh. bold theory.

phone rings as this theory is proposed. and the pusher is in fact on the phone. he asks for mulder and scully, who are sitting next to each other on a bed with their heads close, listening in. it’s endearing. 

anyway, the pusher is going on and on with the dude on the phone named frank, saying he looks super unhealthy, and i get that they are trying to trace the call, but they also should know by now to not listen to a damn thing he says because of the mind control. but again, he could be offering a clue, so someone has to listen. agh! such a conundrum.

mulder says to hang up the phone, right as the pusher talks frank into having some sort of medical condition where his blood thickens (gag. gag gag gag bleurghhhh). mulder and scully are trying to get him to hang up the phone but he won’t, he keeps listening so they can get a trace on the call!! and then frank is dead.

scully’s trying to save his life, but mulder picks up the phone. the pusher says that he wants a real adversary, and he’s read up on mulder, who he deems worthy. okay just ignore scully at your own peril i guess...

scully realizes she can’t save frank :( and mulder is mad because he killed this dude for nothing!! but he says no no, all these people die by themselves. 

they trace him to near a hospital, where he must be getting regular treatment for his condition. they find his car outside. and he’s scheduled for an MRI.

mulder says he should go in by himself, so that no one else gets hurt. a bold choice...

he gets all suited up with a camera and some fancy equipment to go in, then he gives scully his gun, so he won’t shoot anyone even if the pusher uses his mind games on him. and then they hold hands for a second. and look into each other’s eyes. and i will sob like a baby. 

mulder is going into the hospital. scully is watching all of this from his fancy camera. the og live stream. 

we hear two shots fired; the pusher made the guard shoot the technician and then himself. scully sees the monitor and asks mulder to get closer. and he does indeed have a tumor…. and is dying, so he has nothing to lose. which makes him even scarier!

scully is begging him to get out of there. but he turns and scully sees from the camera the pusher holding him at gun point!!! she yells “god!” and then runs into action. oh you know it’s serious when the catholic is yelling the name of the lord as an exclamation….

scully putting on a bullet proof vest to go in there and save him😳oh wow… i am learning so much about myself

she goes in, tells the SWAT team to wait for a signal. everything is very very very tense as she makes her way into the hospital. so slowly. she finally comes to the right door, and pushes it open.

mulder is seated with the pusher in the room of a patient, while the two stare at each other. they’re both very sweaty, and pusher has a gun in his hand. the pusher is going on about martial arts and a fight to the death and stuff. he gives mulder the gun and says to pull the trigger, one pull with a one in six chance to kill him.

scully is suspicious because they are, again, in a hospital, which has pure oxygen, and who knows what could happen if he pulls the trigger? but despite her very logical warning, he does pull the trigger, right away, and nothing happens. 

but the pusher talks mulder into putting the gun against his own head. she is begging him not to do it, to listen to her, to get out of there together, and everything will be okay.

and despite scully’s best efforts, he DOES pull the trigger. no bullet this time, but she is FREAKING OUT that he did that. she yells, and that yell will probably haunt me forever, how furious and terrified she sounded to watch him do such a horrific thing.

and then he turns the gun on HER, she’s crying, telling him to fight this. terrified she's about to die at his hands.

(oh my gosh, i really hope he’s faking the mind control working on him, so he can turn the gun on the pusher at the last minute)

the pusher mentions that SHE SHOT HIM, he read it in his files, “PAYBACK TIME, SHOOT THE LITTLE SPY” <- OMFG???? this escalated SOSOSOSOSO fast????

he tells scully to RUN while he still has the gun pointed at her, but then once she gets out and pulls the fire alarm, mulder shoots him!!!!! he keeps clicking the gun over and over at him despite it being empty. and he looks so tired, handing the gun over to scully, holding his head in his hands. 

man, he must have been horrified, to have someone in his mind, making him try to hurt himself and hurt scully, watching her scream at him after he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, watching her cry as the gun was pointed at her, fighting for access to his own mind... and after he had left his gun with her, just to make sure he wouldn't hurt anyone, he found himself in this situation...... how he kept firing even after the single bullet had been shot, just to ensure that no one else would be hurt..... woah. there is a lot to unpack here about the lack of agency and losing loved ones and mulder's deepest fears.... i will be gnawing on this in my head for a while...

so, the pusher is on a ventilation system, and mulder is watching. scully enters and says he will never regain consciousness. apparently, he had been refusing treatment, refused to have the tumor removed even though it was possible. mulder says that it’s like she had proposed, he was a little man, and this finally made him feel big.

they linger long enough for me to wonder if they’re actually going to kiss, right in front of this comatose murderer, but she does something just as intimate: grabs his hand and says to not let this dude take up another minute of their time. we end with mulder taking one last look and leaving the room.

oh, this episode was GOOD. REALLY GOOD. the suspense was killer, the mind games were trippy, and these two. these two.

scully falling asleep on his shoulder? the fluff of an indulgent fanfic writer. but it REALLY HAPPENED. them holding their heads close multiple times to listen to the phone... the hand grab at the end. listening and trusting each other's wild theories.

this episode showed how well they work as a team, and it made me so happy. it felt in very sharp contrast to a few episodes before where they were not working together at all. and i get that was cosmic opposite day, but still, this episode and their dynamic felt so right.

and then at the end, the level of angst was unexpected. and honestly, they go through a LOT on this show, but scully seeing him held at gunpoint and then watching him pull the trigger on his own head made me lose my MIND. how she begged him to stop, pleaded and yelled, how she cried as he pointed the gun on her, him using every ounce of energy he had to try and resist mind control to keep her safe. and the minute she is away, he unloads the gun into the pusher, again and again and again despite knowing it was empty, just to be sure no other bullets could hurt anyone else. how exhausted he was when he sat down at the end, his head in his hands; how he watched him in his comatose state until scully told him they should leave.

(insert prolonged muffled screaming as a way to comprehend the feelings i am experiencing)

and a massive shoutout to skinner for showing up for 5 minutes, realizing there was a problem, addressing the problem, and not being too mad when the girl in the computer department beat his ass because he was sympathetic to her mind control quandary. really a solid fellow. skinner, you and i have had our disagreements in the past, but i have come to see you as a friend. now, do i trust him fully? no. but can he come to a birthday party? yeah <3

wow. just wow. a really great episode. definitely making it onto the best episodes list! i'm trying to make a mental list of all the ones that stick out as the most enjoyable, especially the ones that are single episodes rather than the larger two or three part ones, and this is a contender surely.

"please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy"... how could you not love her?

[hecksupremechips]

re: udg reblog,

clearly the solution to “oh i love this but i don’t think anyone should play it” is to write a fic with only the good parts and none of the bad parts but then you have this big empty space where the bad parts were so you just make something up that seems vaguely believable

that seems like a normal thing normal people do right?

RIGHT?

It’s always correct and totally won’t ever lead to agony as you look at the canon and scream because my god how are you supposed to salvage something this stupid why are you doing this you used to be so normal and not care oh god why does attacking the little girl make her pants fly off oh god why is delta a character

[irisbaggins]

What the fuck is an American number from Arkansas doing calling me? And why the fuck are American phone lookup sites blocking me from viewing who the fuck this is? Y'all fucking live like this, unable to search for shit? If I just google a number I'll at least get a resemblance of an owner, but y'all Americans I get fuck all. Urgh.

Thanks for waking me up, fucker, it's 1 am and I have an eight hour work day plus Uni assignments. I am not a happy camper.

[miupow]

hear me out...chan trying to fit it in but he's too big and he's whispering all kinds of stuff trying to get you to take it and you're frustrated and needy and you're just so !! done !! because it feels empty and he's so close yet he's not in and finally finally, his thick tip catches and he inches in agonizingly slow simply to hear you whine for it

꒰୨୧◞ ⤷ ❛❛ TOO BIG ! ❜❜ .ᐟ bang chan.

[ ⟡ ] ── minors do not interact ! ⭑ fem!reader , soft dom!chan , est. relationship , monster cock chris lol , size kink , dirty talk , praise kink , daddy kink , missionary/mating press , unprotected sex , bulge kink

a/n ⸝⸝ happy (late) comeback day !! i’m not very proud of this drabble but it’s here and i’m posting it anyway lol <3 save me big dick chris.. save me..

♡ ⸝⸝ ꒰ m.list ꒱ ‧ ꒰ reblogs and feedback appreciated! ꒱

“it’s too big, channie,” you whimper, peering down between your legs— the big fat tip of chan’s cock throbs an angry red as he slides it up between your pussy lips, taps it against your fluttering hole. your ankles dangle in the air over his shoulders, thighs pushed up to your chest by his body pinning you against the mattress, so close you could feel his hot breath, ache for a kiss from the plump, spit-slick lips he bit in arousal. he grips the base of his shaft in one hand, guiding it to push at your rim; you’re frightened by the sheer size of it, thick as a can, veins fat and pulsing… the pressure of it was already overwhelming yet you roll your hips down eagerly, desperate for it to slide in and fill you up.

“shh, stay still, babygirl,” chan coos so sweet, his veiny hand splayed out across your tummy. “and take this fucking cock. daddy knows you can.”

your pussy is making it difficult, so wet chan’s cock misses your hole, slides up your folds to bump against your clit. you shake in pleasure and frustration, reaching your hand down to take ahold of chan’s cock yourself— chan lets you with a warm smile, his thick arms shaking with every slick twist of your hand.

“you need me that bad, baby?” he chuckles, breathless. “thought you said it was too big.”

“i’m so empty,” you whine in response, angling his flared head to spear your core. “need your big cock, daddy—“ finally, finally his tip catches and slides in, sudden yet so achingly slow, your eyes rolling back in tandem with chan’s deep, guttural groan; the stretch burns deliciously, clouds over your senses as your mouth drops open in a moan for more.

“there you go, baby, just like that,” chan continues to bully his cock in past your tight rim, slow and gentle— but there’s nothing gentle about the way he fills you up, inch by fat, throbbing inch stretching your wet gummy walls to their limits. you can feel every ridge, every vein drag hot and heavy… you let go of his shaft in favor for scratching deep red marks into his flexing bicep, scrambling for something to hold on to and ground you. “daddy’s good girl, taking his cock so well— feels so good, doesn’t it?”

“b-big—!” you croak in a daze, an echo of your earlier sentiments; it was all you could manage to make yourself say, rendered brainless in an instant as chan’s blunt cockhead kisses your cervix. “so— so fucking big! ‘n deep, daddy, fuck—“

“yeah?” chan huffs, hips stuttering flush against yours. “am i too big for your little cunt, baby? feel me all the way up here?”

he presses down on the bulge his cock makes in your belly, causing the both of you to keen, your little dripping pussy fluttering around his cock as he twitches inside of you; you desperately want him to move, start pounding your pussy like you’ve been wanting so, so badly… you eagerly nod at chan’s teasing words, buck your hips the best you can folded in half. “yes, yes!” you wail, voice slurred, “give it to me daddy, please!”

“you’re so pretty when you’re begging for me, angel,” chan grins crookedly, pulling his hips back to slide himself out of your hole. you hold your breath in wicked anticipation. “beg some more and i’ll give you what you need.”

[stunie]

˖ ݁𖥔 ݁ “MY BOYFRIEND IS GONNA KICK YOUR ASS !”

PT 2: WINDBREAKER BOYS PROTECTING YOU FROM PERVS. ft. yamato endo, chika takiishi, akihiko nirei, taiga tsugeura, & choji tomiyama x f!reader

PART 1: kaji, togame, umemiya, sakura, suo, hiragi, kiryu, & sugishita x f!reader

sfw. wc: 1.7K. ohh i had sm fun w endo’s hehe <3 individual warnings are below, but f!reader: referred to as she / her.

YAMATO ENDO. ‘my girl,’ ‘angel’ & ‘pretty thing’

“Hey,” Endo’s voice cuts through the thick air like a blade, heavy arm coming to rudely rest on one of their shoulders. “What do you think you’re doing scaring her into a corner like that? Tryna get at my girl?”

On a normal day, you’d roll your eyes at the teasing tone he always uses around you— but today, it brings you nothing but relief, fresh tears threatening to spill as you choke out his name.

His presence alone is enough to silence the group of guys who had just been talking over you moments prior, the three men in front stiffening at the sight of him alone. They can hardly believe this.

You really weren’t bluffing when you said Endo would kick their asses— he’s frightening.

They exchange knowing looks when they hear you sniffle, hands coming to wipe at the tears that had begun streaming down your cheeks. They were so fucked.

“N-no! Of course not.” One of them breaks the silence.

“We had no idea she was your girl— ” another one stammers, hands coming up defensively.

“Didn’t know? You serious?”

Endo’s voice comes out sharp, eyes narrowing as he puts more weight onto his arm, grinning at the way the man’s knees start to tremble at the pressure. “My angel here doesn’t usually look at me like that, y’know,” he whispers, jutting a thumb in your direction. “So what’d you do to put that terrified look on her face?”

“Sorry— we’re really sorry.” One of them starts to apologize profusely, but your boyfriend was clearly not in his usual good mood today, and he grabs his face roughly, ignoring the way his cries of pain come out muffled against his palm.

“Asked you a question, didn’t I?”

The veins along his forearm bulge when his grip tightens, and you hear a painful crack, the man’s hands coming to desperately scratch and claw at Endo’s arms. “She likes it when i’m nice, so I’ll give you a second chance to quit spewing some fucking nonsense and answer me, yeah?”

The two men behind him exchange glances before stumbling over their words, desperately coming up with any excuse that came to their minds. One of them accidentally slips out the truth. A “we told her we’d make a mess of that pretty face if she kept turning us down” and the group falls completely silent.

“I-it’s okay!” You stammer, hands come to tug at his the back of your boyfriend’s jacket.

Unfortunately for them, your words fall on deaf ears. He lets go of the one he’s holding by the face, not sparing him a second glance as he drops to the floor with a loud thud.

“Okay, i think i get it now,” Endo says through a genuine laugh, and it sends a shiver down your spine. He’s not facing you, but you think you can picture the expression on his face pretty well. “E-Endo-”

“Fifteen.” He speaks slowly. “I’ll meet you in front of that corner store in fifteen, pretty thing.”

CHIKA TAKIISHI.

Oh— so that’s why you’re late today.

Takiishi watches from a distance as you jut your thumb towards your phone screen, your usual chirpy voice laced with anger now as you repeat yourself with a frustrated huff. “I said have a boyfriend.. see? His contact is right here. Can you leave me alone now?”

“And I said I didn’t give a fuck about your little boyfriend.” The man laughs loudly when your lips wrinkle in disgust. “I prefer the ones with an attitude.”

“What do you think he’s gonna do if he finds out, huh?” He reaches out to get a feel of your hair. “Think he can touch me?”

“Takiishi’s gonna knock your lights out cold,” you spit, slapping his hand away when it comes too close to your face. That seemed to be enough to set him off, his eyebrow twitching in anger as he takes a step towards you, looming over your figure with quick breaths.

“Don’t piss me off— I was nice when I said you’d have a good time if you came with me.”

“I’d rather eat shit-” you seethe, angry expression contorting when he grabs firmly around your wrist— “That hurts!” It makes you wince, your phone hitting the concrete with a thud.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The coldness of his voice sends a shiver down your spine.

“Ah- Takiishi—”

The man jerks his head around at the name, hand still gripping your wrist as he sizes him up. His first thought is that he’s alright. He notices the muscle definition right away, but he doesn’t look particularly heavy. There is, however, a sudden coldness in the air that he can’t quite grasp, and you look awfully relieved now that he’s here.

“So you’re the boyfriend she’s been talking about?” He says with a laugh. “You gonna let her come with me?”

“Move. Don’t waste our time.”

“Huh? Who the fuck do you think you’re talking t—”

“I said move.”

Your mind can hardly comprehend the speed, mind just barely able to register the second Takiishi’s foot connects with the man's chest, sending him crashing to the ground beside you in an instant.

He’s beside you the next second, fingers coming to fix the stray pieces of hair beside your eyes. “Did he hurt you?”

“N-no! I’m okay.”

He’s monotone, as usual, but the hint of concern makes your heart flutter anyways. He lets you latch yourself onto his bicep, lets you tighten your grip around his arm as you fume about the audacity that guy had, and most importantly, he makes sure you call him every time you’re about to leave your home alone.

TAIGA TSUGEURA. someone touches around your lower back

“My bench has blown up since i switched to bulldog grip,” Tsugeura rambles, “and my squat too. The ‘tripod foot’ cue really helps with even foot pressure.”

You nod along, always interested when he tells you about things he loves, but your attention shifts when you feel a hand press against your lower back. It’s not Taiga’s touch. It’s too unfamiliar. Too invasive. Your eyes fill with panic when you feel the hand start to roam downwards, and you can barely stammer out Tsugeura’s name, voice trembling too much for him to hear.

“I should also get new knee sleeves eventually.” He continues, and you curse his obliviousness. “The cue helps, but I would get way more bounce if I had a pair of Inzers instead of the flimsy ones I’m using now.”

“I always get stuck at the bottom of my squat, so they would help. But i know pause squats help with that, so I could also implement those—”

Your grip tightens on Tsugeura’s shirt, knuckles turning white as you try your hardest to convey your situation. He pauses mid-sentence, finally picking up on the expression you’re giving him.

“Whoa— you okay?” His voice is filled with concern when he peers down at you.

His gaze trails down, and that’s when he notices it.

You gasp at the speed of it all. In an instant, the man is slammed into the wall behind you, loud thud echoing throughout the entire train. “No way.” His voice is loud, and you hear the bystanders gasping and whispering, their attention shifting to the scene.

“That’s messed up, man.” Tsugeura’s voice comes out low, a serious glare on his face that you’ve never seen on him. The vice grip he has around the man’s wrist tightens, enough to have him yelping in pain and stammer out an apology.

“Turn yourself in at the next stop, yeah?”

CHOJI TOMIYAMA.

“Tell me— who was that?” Choji asks, latching himself around your middle to wrap you in a tight embrace, and you glance at the unconscious man sprawled on the ground beside you.

“You knocked him out cold without knowing anything?” You ask incredulously, arms coming to return his embrace regardless, and your lips curl into a small smile when he melts into your touch.

“Mhm. He was bothering you, right?” His voice comes out cheerful, but there’s a small trace of worry in his eyes when he meets your gaze.

He hates to admit it, but his body had completely moved on his own. It’s a bad habit he’s developed since meeting you, because he finds himself worrying about you— desperately wanting to put his strength to use and protect you from everything he saw as ‘bad.’ It was only after he had jump kicked the man grabbing at your arm that he had considered the slim possibility that maybe he wasn’t bothering you in the first place.

“He was.”

He lets out an exhale he didn’t know he was holding. “Then….it was okay that I kicked him in the face, right?”

He relaxes a bit more when you nod, his usual smile returning to his lips. “Thank you for saving me, Choji.”your voice comes out soft and soothing, and he feels his heart skip a beat at the praise.

AKIHIKO NIREI.

“Ah— where are we going?!” You yelp as you stumble forward, barely able to keep up as Nirei pulls you by the wrist.

The two of you were at the mall, shopping for new summer clothes when he had suddenly called you to him by name— dragging you and your bags along with him in an instant. Before you could even realize what had happened, you’re in an elevator, watching in disbelief as he fumbles to frantically click the ‘close’ button, the doors finally sliding shut after the tenth click.

“You’re safe.” He sighs. “That’s a relief.”

“You scared the shit outta me.” you fold your arms across your chest and give him a glare. “What was that for?”

“Sorry,” Nirei chuckles lightly. “There was a guy who kept looking at you. He’s bad news.”

“How can you tell?”

You feel more at ease when his fingers come to interlace with yours again, and you feel him squeeze. “I guess um…” his other hand scratches the back of his head. “I have this sort of danger sense whenever it comes to you.”

“Something like that.”

[dark-fics-4-you]

Can you do reader ignoring stepbro rafe and he gets mad so he sneaks in readers room and eats her out until shes crying and begging for him to stop! Love ur fics💗💗

Silent Treatment

mean!stepbro!Rafe Cameron x reader

Warnings: noncon/forced sex, incest (step siblings), oral, fingering, forced orgasm, jealousy, controlling behavior, smut

After an excruciating family dinner where you seemed happy to speak with any other family member but him, Rafe glared at you when you were the first to excuse yourself from the table.

He rolled his eyes when he heard your door slam upstairs, but chose not to comment on it in front of Ward, Rose, Sarah, or Wheezie. If they noticed his reaction, they didn’t say anything.

Although they would have definitely noticed how little you had been speaking to Rafe, completely snubbing him at his every attempt to strike conversation with you.

Normally the two of you would be attached at the hip, and only Rafe knew why you were acting differently now.

The blond had chased off another guy that you had been talking to, insisting to you that he wasn’t any good for you, and that he didn’t deserve to date “Rafe Cameron’s little sister.”

You both knew the real reason behind his actions though.

Rafe waited several minutes before excusing himself and then casually walking up the stairs and approaching your door.

He didn’t even bother knocking, twisting the handle and opening the door to let himself in before shutting it quietly behind him.

At the noise, you sat up in bed, and glared at him.

“Leave me alone.” Your voice was curt and resolved, but Rafe didn’t really want to listen to you right now.

���C’mon Y/N, are you really going to do this right now? This silent treatment shit is getting old fast.” When your older step brother sat on the side of your bed, you tensed, scooting yourself away from him a bit.

“I already told you, I don’t want to talk to you right now.” You snapped at him. “You threatened Tyler to get him to stop talking to me!”

Rafe shook his head, his jaw clenching in frustration when he looked at you. He stared at you in silence before chuckling darkly.

“God, you’re such a cunt sometimes, Y/N, you know that?”

You reeled back at his words, jaw dropping in disbelief at his insult.

“Fuck you, Rafe,” you cursed under your breath and you were surprised when his fingers clamped down on your chin, forcing you to look at him.

“Oh yeah? Maybe I will.” His words shocked you, but not as much as the dead serious look on his face. “Maybe that would teach you to not be such an uptight bitch.”

You tried to grasp at his wrist but he swatted your hand away before sliding his hand around your throat and forcing you onto your back.

“Rafe-” you struggled against him when he straddled you, and when he reared his hand back like he was ready to slap you across the face, you tensed up, finally stilling beneath him and looking up at your older step brother with fear in your eyes.

“Relax, I wasn’t going to hit you, sweetheart,” you weren’t sure whether his raspy words were meant to be a comfort or a threat.

You couldn’t speak, too shocked and frightened by his actions to create a sound. All you could do was blink the tears from your shiny eyes.

“What? Nothing to say now, huh?” Rafe mocked you, drawing closer. His breath was hot on your face and his large hand at your throat kept you pinned in place.

You defiantly kept your mouth shut, although you didn’t think you could have made a sound even if you wanted to with Rafe’s fingers starting to crush your throat.

Your silence was short lived however, because you gasped when you felt Rafe’s other hand gently ghost over your clothed core. You jerked away from his touch, but the hand at your throat held you firmly in place.

He shifted on top of you, crawling lower and finally releasing his hold on your neck. Your attempts to shove him off of you were futile, and when his big hands began pawing at your shorts and kneading the soft skin of your thighs, you felt your stomach drop.

“Get the hell off of me!”

He ignored you, unbuttoning your shorts, only unzipping them part of the way before just tugging them down your legs and discarding them behind him. Your heart was beating hard in your ears, and the sound of your rushing pulse made you feel dizzy.

He eyed your lacy pink panties for just a moment before pulling them down, ripping them when you kicked your legs out trying to stop him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hissed quietly, too confused and embarrassed to be loud enough to attract the attention of your family.

He didn’t respond, but you got your answer when he spread your legs, which you were desperately trying to squeeze together, and buried his tongue into your pussy.

You weren’t sure if the noise you let out was a cry or a moan, but either way, it was loud. Disgust and pleasure sinfully mingled together in your gut when Rafe’s tongue teased your clit.

With his strong arms wrapped around your legs, you had nowhere to go. When you squirmed in his arms, his tongue just licked at you more hungrily, shooting sparks of ecstasy through your entire body.

Your step brother devoured your silky cunt, savoring the sweet flavors of your unwanted arousal like it was nectar from the gods. The sound of your soft cries of protests mixed with involuntary moans of pleasure made him harder than he had ever gotten by just fantasizing about this moment.

“Rafe please!” You begged him, panting as he messily lapped at your tender clit. His harsh grip on your soft thighs tightened, and you winced at the feeling of his fingers digging into your skin.

When you felt the tip of his finger slide along your dripping folds, you bucked your hips in surprise, trying again to free yourself from his grasp.

His blue eyes glanced up, taking in your disheveled form. Your chest was rising and falling unevenly and Rafe watched your face as he slowly pushed his index finger into your tight heat.

Your eyebrows shot up in shock and you bit your lip, trying to stifle the gasp that escaped at the feeling of your older brother sliding his ringed finger along your walls. Every flick of his tongue against your clit had you tensing and tightening around his finger and Rafe’s moans vibrated against your soaked pussy.

“P-please stop,” you whimpered, tears beginning to prick at your eyes and overflow past your lashes.

“Not ‘til you apologize, princess,” he mumbled in between sucking at your clit and curling his finger inside your quivering walls. He slowly slid in a second finger, stretching you out even further and earning a strained gasp that made his cock twitch. Rafe had fantasized about this moment so many times before, but seeing your perfect face and hearing you moan and whine as he fucked you with his fingers and lapped at your clit was better than anything he could have ever imagined.

Your head was in the clouds, horribly confused by your conflicting feelings of disgust and desperate want. It was wrong for so many reasons, but maybe that fact was why you were so close to being pushed over the brink.

“I’m sorry, Rafe! Okay? Fuck- Please, mm- I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” You breathlessly begged him. Your eyes were squeezed shut, but your tears were still flowing down your cheeks in a steady stream.

“Look at me, Y/N,” he ordered. Rafe was fucking you with his fingers harder now, the feeling of his ring dragging along your walls was making you see stars behind your eyelids. His thumb circled your clit with just the right amount of pressure to keep you right on the edge of finishing.

You reluctantly cracked your eyes, meeting Rafe’s intense gaze with heavy lidded eyes that you could barely keep open.

“Apologize to your big brother like you fucking mean it.” His grin was triumphant and mocking, and he allowed his eyes to trace over every part of you, taking in how much of a pathetic mess he had made of you.

“I’m sorry, Rafe! I’m sorry, I’ll never ignore you again. I was just being stupid. Ple- mm please stop.” You pleaded with him, tears and hiccups interrupting your words. You had never felt so much humiliation in your entire life.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he groaned, not stopping his movements at all. “You’re just too cute for your own good, baby.”

“What-?”

Your question was cut off with a moan when he resumed working your clit with his tongue. He lapped and licked at the tender flesh like a man starved and when he slide a third finger into your tight cunt, the band inside of you finally snapped.

“Rafe!” You loudly whined as you came, legs quivering as he continued fucking you through your high.

“Aw, there’s my good girl,” he cooed, drinking in your beautiful face and enjoying the feeling of your cunt clinging to his fingers and pulsing around them. Your pink, puffy tear stained eyes fearfully met his eyes and you sniffed sadly.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it, Y/N?” He smirked at you when he pulled his fingers from your sore, weeping pussy and slid them past his lips, savoring the flavor of your arousal.

“Mm, tastes like you enjoyed yourself,” Rafe chuckled darkly. “So quit your fucking crying. Just makes me want to choke you with my dick till you shut up.”

[cupidriki]

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ᭄᭡ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ROMANCE AND LOATHE 𝗂 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗇𝗈𝖻𝗈𝖽𝗒 𝖼𝖺𝗍𝖼𝗁 𝗎𝗌 , 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗂 𝗄𝗂𝗇𝖽𝖺 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗒 𝖼𝖺𝗍𝖼𝗁 𝗎𝗌

PREC𝒾S getting stuck in the office elevator with your most hated colleague left you red-faced and him with multiple kiss marks in your favorite lipstick shade on his neck.

노래 추천해줘 jake x fem reader enemies to lovers fluff suggestive office au 𝟭𝟮𝟲𝟱 making out tension use of profanity ｡｡ MES OUEVRES

• 𝒾f enjoyed, please 𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆 ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱

As soon as you laid eyes on the man you despise most, a rush of pure anger and loathing overwhelmed you. He strolled into the elevator with his typical arrogant smirk, the same one he always used to anger you.

You folded your arms tightly across your chest and shot Jake a fierce glare, to which he responded with an equally intense look. From the moment both of you stepped into the workplace, you and Jake seemed to clash, and your initial encounter did nothing to help bond you two.

You remember rushing inside the building because you were late and you bumped into him, unfortunately spilling your coffee all over his suit. You tried to apologize but that arrogant jerk just gave you a nasty look and walked away.

From that moment forward, a fierce rivalry ignited between you and Jake, setting the stage for strict competition and ongoing conflict.

It seems like despite everyone's efforts, it's impossible to repair the relationship between you and Jake. Regardless of the attempts made by your boss and colleagues to make peace between you two, conflicts and arguments always seem to arise between you and Jake.

But your attention is suddenly drawn back to reality by the sound of a deep Australian voice coming from beside you.

“Geez, why are you always zoning out? You’re probably thinking about me, aren't ya?” Jake had a flirty grin on his face, obviously taunting you. Even though Jake was really attractive, more than you want to admit, he was still a jerk.

“Oh, please, you’re the one always begging for my attention” Jake tightened his jaw as he gazed at your raised eyebrows, your teasing expression goading Jake to react.

“I do not beg for your attention. Stop being ridiculous” You let out a small laugh in response to his defensive tone, but as you remembered who you were speaking to, your smile vanished quickly.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say” As you were just about to step out of the elevator, you were startled by a sudden, intense shaking that caused your heart to skip a beat out of fear.

Jake appeared to be intimidated as he swiftly grasped the railing of the elevator, his face contorted with a frightened expression.

“No, no, no, this cannot be fucking happening” In a state of concern, you quickly reached for the help button, expressing your worry.

Ever since you were a child, you have been haunted by the fear of this precise moment. Your hands tremble as you repeatedly press the help button, seeking reassurance and support.

Upon hearing a voice coming through the speaker, you experienced a rush of relief.

“H-hello? Anyone t-there?” The speaker's words were interrupted by frequent cuts, making it difficult for you to understand what the rescue team was saying.

“The elevator is stuck, please help me immediately”

Jake coughed, an offended expression crossed his face, causing you to roll your eyes in response. “Please help us, immediately”

‘We are heading there as fast as we can, this will take about an hour” You stood there in horror as the voice behind the speaker turned quiet.

“Son of a bitch!” You slammed your hand against the elevator wall in frustration, momentarily forgetting that Jake was standing right next to you until you heard his familiar voice.

“Take a deep breath, m’lady, we’ll be fine” The endearing nickname caused a slight flutter in your heart, but you immediately shot Jake a glare, while he looked back at you with an amused expression.

“I can't believe I have to be stuck with you for an hour, this is a nightmare” In a dramatic fashion, you dramatically slammed your face, causing Jake to scoff in response.

“Stop being so dramatic, you’ve probably fantasized about this before” You dismissed his playful comment with a hint of amusement and defensively crossed your arms.

“You wish, I would never date a jerkface like you”Jake laughed in reply as he took a step closer to you, his eyes crinkling with competitiveness.

“You know I just watched this movie, this is exactly what happened between the main character and the love interest” With a raised eyebrow, he approached you slowly, causing you to back up until your back met the wall.

“D-don’t tell me that you watch rom-coms, Sim” You stumbled over your words while attempting to imitate Jake, which made you feel flustered and embarrassed.

“Hm, you know what happens next tho?” With a mischievous smile, he hums a tune while looking at you with a hint of flirtation in his eyes.

“He held the girl's face” Jake gently lifted your chin with his fingers, prompting you to look up and meet his gaze.

As you caught sight of Jake's earnest gaze, you felt a sudden tightness in your chest. In that rare moment, a sense of tranquility enveloped you and Jake, allowing for a peaceful silence to settle between you.

“Then he held her face closer” Jake had a calm tone to his voice, moving your face closer to his. You felt his hot breath against your face as you gazed into his eyes softly. There wasn't any hatred in them, just pure love and sincerity.

Your heart pounded in your chest as your mind felt foggy, leaving you completely disoriented. Despite the confusion, you were determined to stay put, not wanting to ruin the moment.

“Then he kissed her” As he completed his sentence, he swiftly drew your face towards his, and your lips met in an intense kiss. He wrapped his arms around your head and waist, while you clung to his shoulders, drawing each other as close as possible.

As you both continued to make out, your bodies were entwined, with your breaths steady and your heartbeats quickening.

As he held you tightly, he carefully balanced on the elevator railing, making sure to keep a firm grip on your hand with his left hand.

You know it might not have been the best decision. If word got out about what went down between the two of you, the entire building would be buzzing with gossip.

But you couldn't bring yourself to worry about that. At that moment, it felt like everything else faded into the background, leaving only Jake in your line of sight. Time felt like it was slipping away as both of you found yourselves caught up in the moment, your minds racing and losing all sense of the passing hours.

As the two of you were lost in your moment, you two were abruptly jolted back to reality by the sound of a knock on the elevator door and a voice calling out from the other side.

“Oy!! Is anyone in there?” The search and rescue team shouted loudly, causing both of you to react with panic, quickly releasing each other.

As you smoothed down your hair and adjusted the fall of your dress, Jake straightened his suit and pushed his glasses up his nose. You both stepped out of the elevator and in a moment of awkwardness, you found yourself coughing.

As you both gaze at each other once more, you notice that Jake's neck is adorned with kiss marks from your lipstick, causing your cheeks to flush with embarrassment.

With a final wink, Jake exits the building, leaving you feeling flustered and bewildered by his sudden departure.

“See ya soon, m’lady” As you observed him silently mouthing his words, you stood there feeling a mix of confusion and anger, coming to the realization that you had just intentionally kissed the man you despised the most.

[vonlycaonwife]

May I please have a smexy von lycoan x maid!reader, (fem please) where the new maid is a clutz and gets on Von's nerves on accident. and then one day he loses his composure and decides to 'punish' her and maybe teach her a lesson about proper serving etiquette. please scenario, i would like to hear your thoughts. ;)

I know who you are you sonuva- ANYWAY yeah I can do that.....lord help me

Female reader! Also very ooc!

Warnings: Smut, breeding, face fucking, knotting, dubious consent, unbalanced power dynamics (boss/worker like), severely ooc, partially written before game release

He has just about had it.

A few months ago the agency had just hired a new employee, one that Lycaon had to supervise. She seemed very sweet and excited to do her job, something he enjoyed seeing since those at Victoria Housekeeping Co. must have a good head on their shoulders to do their job.

But then it turned out she was even more of a clutz than Corin, something that's baffled almost everyone.

An often occurrence would be her cleaning something to perfection, only to end up breaking said thing. Another would be her always burning whatever it was she was baking, or adding too much of something. Even during hollow raids she and others end up getting hurt by her own weapon rather than by ethereal. Mainly the only thing she can do is serve tea and even that's a fifty-fifty on if she'll drop the cup in your lap or not. It was astounding how many things went wrong when she was near, though she was always apologetic over every mess up.

And today Lycaon had to scold her once again over the continuous trip ups, though he has not done that yet since the woman was late for their meeting again. 

It was bad enough for him that he had to deal with his own body that was determined to start a rut, but combine that with the fact that the woman that irritated him to no end also had a scent that drove him mad. He usually had better control over himself, but every time something happened that involved her he would have to steel his nerves or otherwise he would go into a full rut. It annoyed him to no end. Though he supposed it was why he was harsher on her than he was on anyone else, as much as he hated to admit. Others had brought it up to him about his behavior, but he would rather be harsher than act like a feral dog. 

"You're late." He huffed once he heard the door open, he turned his eyes to meet the doe like ones of the woman. He held back a growl as her scent entered his nose, quickly placing his hands onto the desk to keep himself from tearing into his uniform. She flinched at his tone, brows pinched in anxiety.

"I'm sorry, I was trying to run here to be on time and...I bumped into someone and caused another mess. I cleaned it up though! So it's no worries!" She reassured, waving her hands around in an attempt to placate his wrath. She tried to smile even when the atmosphere began to grow cold, something that irritated the man even more.

"Another one? How many has that been today?" He asked angrily, his claws just barely scratching into the wood of his desk. Her scent was driving him mad, he had to keep his mind off of it by directing his growing frustrations onto her. 

The woman flinched again, fear rising within her. While she was used to being scolded, this kind of anger aimed towards her was new and frightening. At most the wolf was only ever annoyed or frustrated, but now she felt like she was about to be eaten alive.

"It seems you need another lesson." He said, suddenly calm. At least what she thought was calm, but at meeting his eyes once again all she could see was unbridled anger. Along with something else she couldn't discern. As he stood she froze in place, her hands gripping onto her skirt tightly her knuckles almost turned white. The two kept eye contact as the large man walked his way around his desk, ignoring the claw marks, before standing directly in front of the woman. "We've had this conversation so many times, but it seems you're not getting it.”

"I-I'm sorry Sir! I'll do better, I promise!” She begged, straining her neck to look up at him. While she wasn't that short, she always had a hard time not cramping her neck whenever she had to look at Lycaon. She shivered under his gaze, steeling her nerves so she wouldn't step back in fear. While she is able to handle most things, right now it almost felt like she was prey staring into the face of a predator. “Really I will.”

“You say that…” He started, before suddenly growling with a ferocity that terrified her. She suddenly backed up, her mind running over what options she had, before her back ran into the door behind her. She quickly turned around, her flight instincts blaring danger in her head, attempting to open the door before she felt hands slam onto the surface beside her. Frozen in place she could only be aware of her thoughts screaming at her to run, before it all stopped when she felt his breath hit her neck. “And yet you never seem to improve.”

Lycaon can only berate himself as his own body had seemed to be taken over by his instincts. Just the sight of her looking up at him with her wide eyes had made him mad, he couldn't stop himself from wanting to be closer to her. Her scent was overriding his sense of smell, the feel of her shaking in fear under him was embarrassingly delicious. He didn't think of himself to be cruel, and yet he relished in her fear. His hands were shaking against the door, claws scratching at the surface while he barely tried to reign in himself.

“Do you even know how much you irritate me? How annoying it is to have to have these talks with you every damn week?” He growled out, his nose brushing against her hair as he spoke. His claws dug deeper into the wooden surface as he tried to keep himself from touching her with them. He knew if he did that he couldn't go back, he wouldn't be able to hold himself together like he barely is at this moment. His sharp ears heard her gasp as the sound of wood splitting rang out. “Do you even know how hard it is to keep myself contained with that smell of yours?”

“I-”

“Shut up.” He brushed his teeth against the skin of her neck, groaning as he heard her whimper in fear. But what also caught his attention was that her scent somehow became even more potent, making him realize something. He slowly released his hands from the wooden surface, giving them a quick glance for any potential splinters, before dropping to his knees. His hands lifted up her skirt, releasing an enormous wave of her scent. He quickly moved his face closer to her, his nose brushing against her core.

“S-Sir!” She yelped, her hands moving to try and move him away before he could realize. But she stopped when he heard him growl, ordering her to stay in place. Understanding he figured out how she was suddenly turned on by the sudden turn of events, she obeyed his order. She stared at the patterns of the wood, trying to keep her mind off the fact that her superior was suddenly sniffing her like a horny animal. Not that she minded too much, as she had developed a small crush on him since gaining her job at the company. 

“Lesson one, speak when spoken to.” He said, his hands gently caressing her thighs as he nudged them to spread apart.

“B-But-”

“Quiet.” He ordered, before pressing his nose against her once more. He could feel his entire body shiver as the woman's scent flooded his senses. His ears could pick up the noises she tried to repress, causing him to huff in amusement. He used one hand to move the thin fabric that separated him from her bare skin aside, making it possible to place his long tongue along her folds.

“Ah! S-Sir wait-”

“I said, be quiet.” He grunted, adding a growl to emphasize his order. He felt her freeze from his tone as he swiped his tongue over her once more. The taste that spread on his tongue was like heaven to him, completely making him forget the world around him as he pushed his face deeper to taste more.

As his tongue entered her, her hands quickly flew to cover her mouth to prevent any noises from escaping. Her forehead leaned against the door as she tried to even out her breathing, her legs began to shake as she felt his tongue reach deeper. She could feel his hands gripping tighten as a way to keep her still, his claws digging into her skin in a way that brought no pain to her. 

Soon she began to feel that familiar coil within her tighten, causing her to grip onto her face harden. She could feel his tongue quicken its pace as her walls constricted, her whole body shook as she felt that coil ready to burst. Only to be met with a sudden emptiness causing her to quickly turn her head around to see him stand up. She wanted to ask why he stopped, before she suddenly was lifted into the air. Squealing at the movement, she wiggled in his grip before she found herself placed onto one of the plush chairs. After blinking a bit to understand what had happened, she looked up to see his piercing red eye staring down back at her.

“Lesson two, all employees must fulfill their tasks with perfect proficiency.” Lycaon barely spoke, adjusting his belt before pushing down his slacks to reveal his hardening member. Her eyes widened in surprise as she took in his size, her thighs squeezing together in both mild fear and anticipation. Wordlessly she adjusted herself in the seat and hesitantly wrapped one hand around him, slowly moving it along the shaft. She closed her eyes in embarrassment, but a gentle began to pet her head, making her meet his eyes once more. “Just relax.”

His voice was very gentle, putting her in a shock before she could realize he removed her hand and pressed the head of his cock against her slightly parted lips. She almost jumped at the contact before that hand gripped her hair to keep her in place. The low growl he released was the only warning he would give her. Shivering she widened her opened mouth and slowly gave small licks, earning a hum in approval. Soon she leaned forward, bringing the head into her mouth and sucking. Her hands were gripping onto the skirt of her uniform, knuckles turning white as she tried her best to keep her mouth wide enough to accommodate his size. 

Quickly the thirian took charge and began to move his hips slowly, pushing his length further and further down her throat. As time went on his pace became rougher and faster, causing tears to start welling in her eyes. But she made no complaint, only kept her eyes shut as she focused on breathing through her nose. Embarrassingly she could feel the spot on the cushion seat below her become damp, making her whine against him. Though she could barely hear herself over the growls the man was releasing. Soon she could feel him pulsate against her tongue, but before he could cum, he released himself from her mouth. 

Before she could question anything, she suddenly felt him grab her by the waist and all but slam her onto the desk. But nothing happened, he only stared into her eyes. It’s as if he was hesitant to do anything else, his claws gripping onto with the same intensity as earlier. The two stayed in their fixed position before one finally spoke.

“Do you want this?” The words barely came out of the thirian, more so only able to leave past his lips with his pants.

“W-What?”

“I’m asking if you truly want this, because if this goes further then we can’t go back.” He slowly explains, like he was in a daze.

“Oh…” She blinks, her muddled brain struggling to fully comprehend what he was saying. But once it settled itself within her thoughts did all the muddiness completely disappear. “O-Oh! Y-Yeah I am! I’ve uh…”

Her face flushes as she attempts to get her thoughts in order. “I’ve already…had some feelings for you so…if you don’t-eep!”

His lips slam onto hers, interrupting her words. She lets out a surprised squeal, tensing in his grip, before relaxing and wrapping her arms around his neck. She moaned as his tongue explored her mouth, swallowing her noises as he reached one hand to rub circles around her clit. Soon she felt the tip of his cock nudge at her entrance, causing her to tense once more.

“Relax.” She could barely hear him say as he slowly thrust himself inside. Her insides almost felt like they were on fire from the sheer intense heat of his length. When he finally completely filled her, tears were running down her face as she tried not to move and adjust. Lycaon trailed soft kisses all over her face as he waited for her to give the go ahead. Soon she began to relax, leaning her head against his shoulder.

Reading her body languages, Lycaon began to move his hips at a slow pace. He closed his eyes as he concentrated on not losing control, the way he could only smell her scent and the fact it was all over him made him almost go insane. The one hand still holding onto the desk tightened around the wood, close to splinting it like what he did with the wall earlier. He had moved his other hand to her clothed waist, keeping her in place as soon began to speed up. Her whines rang out of the room, adding fuel to the fire of his loosening restraint.

As he focused on controlling his instincts, he somehow didn’t notice her fingers settling into the fur at the back of his neck. She gave it a quick pull, not too harsh to pull out any fur, making him groan in pain. He opened his eyes to meet her own, glaring down at her intensely. He leaned down, growling out harsh words of disapproval. But the lustful gleam he saw in her eyes and her whiny begging was what finally drove him to let go. Slamming his hips against hers with wild abandonment, his teeth gently biting at the exposed skin of her neck while his hands grabbed onto her legs to move them on top of his shoulders. 

He was taking it all in, the sound of her moans and high pitch screams, the taste of her sweat and tears on his tongue, and the smell of their scents mingling together along with the growing smell of sex. He even could hear his own groans and growls, though his focus moved quickly to the feeling of his swelling knot enlarging. His instincts were urging him to push it in right this instant, but he had some restraint left to wait. 

Meanwhile she was overwhelmed by his rough pace, tears flowing down her face as she was slammed with wave after wave of pleasure. She could barely think, her mind only focused on the feeling of him filling her to the brim. But soon she could feel that familiar coil within her, tightening at such an alarming rate. Her voice began to break as it reached a higher pitch than her vocal cords were able to handle, her hands clutching onto his fur in search of anything to stabilize herself. She tried to let any words out, but was once more interrupted by him kissing her. She could only moan into his mouth as she felt something bigger push into her. Her eyes widened in shock as his knot was thrusted in, her body tensing and squirming as the rush of pleasure flooded her veins once more. Released from the kiss, she could only whine as her insides were filled with his hot seed.

“Wait.” He said, gently keeping her in place as she squirmed. “Give it a few minutes.”

She nodded in response, having no energy for words. He chuckled at that, amused at her state. Once he was able to remove himself, he shushed her as she whined from the loss. She could feel her eyelids growing heavy, as her body finally relaxed after everything. She barely felt him move her to sit back in the chair she had stained, hearing him whisper about returning with cleaning rags and other necessary items. She wasn't able to respond before sleep finally overtook her.

She wasn't able to see the soft he gave her, nor did she even realize he had kissed her forehead. He quickly made himself suitable again before quietly leaving through the door, locking it to make sure no one would walk in on the mess he had to clean up. Though he's sure he would walk into an even bigger mess once the woman wakes up and tries to clean. But he isn't too upset about that fact now.

Since it just means he has an opportunity to teach her another “lesson.”

[covenofagatha]

But you're my stepmom! (Part 6)

Word count: 2100

Warnings: making out, mommy kink, jealous Agatha

Taglist:@stayevildarling@i-just-cannot@hazey-g@buttercandy16@320viada@evilangels-stuff@rmaximoff@morganismspam23@aboutcustardcreams@sasheemo@rigglemethat@walkethisway@mommywandas @r-3-becca @harknessshi

Before you can open your mouth to respond, she yanks you back into the bathroom you had just come out of. You rip your hand out of her grasp. 

“What – what are you doing here?” You ask, mouth agape. How had she known where you were? Why is she so mad?

She advances on you until your back hits the wall. Fury is radiating from her and you’re more than a little frightened (and kind of turned on). 

“You see me kissing your dad, so what?” She sneers scathingly. “You run and find the first girl you can for a lousy fuck in a bathroom?” 

She keeps coming closer so you put your hand on her shoulder to stop her. “What are you talking about?” You shout exasperatedly. “We didn’t ‘fuck in the bathroom,’ I was upset and she was comforting me!”

“You kissed her,” Agatha says, voice strangely calm. 

“And you kissed my dad! Also, are you fucking stalking me?”

“I followed you to make sure you didn’t do anything rash, because news flash, your father and I are married! I know you don’t want to hear it, darling, but not everything is about you.” 

You grit your teeth. “I know that. But do you? Because every time I even get close to a girl, you basically call me a slut.” 

“Well, maybe if you weren’t acting like one,” she snarls. You fist your hand into the shirt she’s wearing, digging your nails in through the fabric. 

“You know, it’s pretty rich that you’re calling me dramatic for earlier when you’re literally going crazy over the thought of me with someone else.” The air in the room seems to change. It’s the closest either of you have gotten to addressing this thing between you. 

You see Agatha falter for a split second. “That’s not what I’m doing,” she growls. 

“Oh, yeah?” You challenge. “Then what is this? Cause to me, it looks like you’re jealous.” 

The vein in her forehead throbs as she leans in. “You know what this looks like to me? Like a spoiled little girl didn’t get the kind of attention she wanted for one second so she decided to throw a temper tantrum. And now she needs to be taught a lesson.”  

“Fuck off, Agatha.” You let go of her shirt and raise your hands to shove her back but she easily catches them and pins them above your head. 

You inhale sharply, a noise sounding an awful lot like a moan coming out of your mouth. She smirks wickedly, her eyebrow raising. 

“What a naughty girl,” Agatha tuts and embarrassment burns your face. 

“Let go of me,” you say, struggling to get out of her grasp but she holds you tighter. 

“Is this what she did to you when you took her to the bathroom?” 

She’s bringing up Rio again. She clearly has some serious jealousy issues and you wish you didn’t find it so hot, however frustrating it is. “I didn’t have sex with her, for fuck’s sake! I kissed her, yeah, but I was thinking about you the whole time.” The admission stuns you both and her grip around your wrist slackens. But you don’t pull away. You need to see how she’ll react. 

Her eyes drop down your lips, then back up. She leans in closer and you forget how to breathe when she ghosts her lips over your mouth and you find yourself instinctively drawing in an attempt to actually kiss her. 

But she steps away before you can, dropping your hands and letting go. 

“What?” You sigh defeatedly. You’re already tired of this game she keeps playing, the one where she strings you along and makes you think she likes you and then cuts you off. She doesn’t get to be jealous and possessive and then back away after almost kissing you. 

“I’m married to your father,” Agatha says. “I’m your step-mother. I’m over twice your age. We can’t do this.” 

“I don’t care!” You insist, but she shakes her head. Your insides harden and you get a rush of boldness. “Okay, fine. Here we go. I want you, Agatha. I don’t care who you’re married to, or how old you are. Fuck, I like how old you are!” 

She scoffs in disbelief, eyes darting up to meet yours and then to the floor again. 

“So you can either do something about that, or you can let me go back out there and have fun with my friend.” You give her the ultimatum, praying that you didn’t just ruin everything.

For a minute, you think Agatha will change her mind. But then she spins on her heel and walks out of the bathroom. You feel a rush of emotion flood over you, but you shove it down. You got your answer. It’s better you know now. 

“Hey, where have you been?” Rio asks when you finally rejoin her on the dance floor. 

“Ran into someone I knew,” you say evasively. “You wanna get out of here?” She nods eagerly. You give the bar one last look over just to see if there’s any sign of Agatha. 

There isn’t. 

You bite back the disappointment rising in your chest and pull Rio out the door by the hand. 

You’re walking to your car when you see a shadow in the alleyway by the parking lot. You squint your eyes and can make out the trace of a woman. 

Is it her?

Stopping abruptly, you turn to Rio and drag her in for a long kiss, pushing her against your car. She groans into your mouth. It grows heated and you’re almost too distracted to notice your phone buzzing in your purse. 

You break away, both of you gasping for air. Rio runs a finger over her lip smugly and you pull out your phone. 

You win. Drop her off and come over to my house. Do NOT touch her. It’s from the unknown number you’ve memorized. A number you could recite in your sleep. A hot thrill runs through you. 

You smirk to yourself and turn to glance back at the figure in the alley, still cloaked in darkness. Of course Agatha would wait to watch, not being able to give up control even after she tried to. 

You’re not sure you’ve ever driven so fast in your hurry to get Rio home so you can go be with Agatha. But once you’re parked in Rio’s driveway, there’s an awkward pause. 

“Do you want to come inside?” Rio finally asks. You feel bad that you’ve led on her, made her a pawn in this game between you and your step-mom. 

“I should probably go. School tomorrow, you know. There’s still some things I need to finish,” you say apologetically. She nods like she understands and then she gets out of the car and enters her house without looking back. A pang of guilt hits you hard but you shake it off. 

I’ll be there in 20 you text Agatha. 

I’ll be waiting. Her reply comes almost immediately and your breath catches in your throat. 

Anticipation builds in your stomach the entire drive to your dad’s house. You’re not sure what will happen, or really what can happen if your dad is home. You have a feeling that if you have sex, Agatha will want to hear you make noise. 

You arrive in front of the house, all the windows dark. You shift nervously. Maybe she just made you drive all the way over here, knowing you wouldn’t do anything with Rio if she told you not to, and is hanging you out to dry. 

You check your phone. It’s been about twenty minutes, so Agatha should know you’ll be getting there any minute now. You wonder if you should ring the doorbell, make Agatha come down and explain or risk waking your dad. 

And then you see it. 

The gate to the backyard is unlocked and slightly pushed open. An invitation. 

You quietly shut your car door and creep up the driveway, cringing at the sound your car makes when you lock it. The gate squeaks. Your shoes echo on the patio concrete. It’s like you’re asking to get caught. 

When you finally turn around the house and come into view of the pool, your mouth falls open. 

Agatha is floating in the pool, an inviting smile beckoning you to join her. But that’s not what gives you pause. 

You can see in the light of the moon that she’s naked underneath the water. 

Your mouth runs dry as you strip off your dress as quickly as you can and your underwear follows in suit. You’re not sure you’ve ever been so turned on in your life and you can see her eyes darken at the sight of you. You walk quickly over to the pool steps and wade over to her, stopping when you’re right in front of her. 

The two of you stand like that for what feels like forever, simply soaking in each other’s bare skin. No words are spoken, risking nothing that might break this spell. 

And then Agatha reaches a hand out to cup your cheek, asking for permission with her eyes. 

You give it to her by entangling a hand in her hair and dragging her into a bruising kiss. There’s no teasing, no featherlight kisses – you both need this too much – and her tongue is in your open mouth before either of you knows it. You feel her moan into you and your arms circle around her naked back to pull her in even closer. You whimper at the feeling of her breasts against yours and you’re easily able to wrap both your legs around her waist, practically weightless in the pool.

Her fingertips dig into your ass and you can’t help but roll your hips against her lower stomach at the sting. 

“I can feel how wet you are even in the water,” Agatha chuckles darkly, walking with you until your back hits the edge of the pool, pulling another groan out of you. 

Her lips are back on yours, kissing you so fervently and so dominantly that it makes your head spin. You feel like you’re drunk. You’re literally vibrating with need for her. 

Her hot mouth trails down the side of your neck and then bites harshly. You whine, trying to get some stimulation on your clit by squirming against her stomach. Agatha tugs your bottom lip between her teeth and sinks them into it, eyes flashing with the sound you make. 

“Please, Agatha,” you beg. Her hands start stroking up and down your thighs, the dull ache between your legs now a roaring fire, still holding you in place against the pool wall. 

There’s a glimmer of mischievousness on her face. “Oh, baby, I know you can do better than that.” 

You’re panting, lips swollen, and grinding on her stomach. You’re not sure how much more she wants. “Please, Agatha, I need you, I want you, please fuck me, mom-” You clamp a hand over your mouth before you accidentally embarrass yourself beyond repair and she smirks like it’s the most delicious thing she’s ever heard. 

She leans in and whispers against your ear, “Say it. Who do you belong to?” Her right hand slowly moves up your thigh until she’s hovering her fingers right over your pussy. 

Your breath stutters, feeling her right where you want her. “You, mommy,” you whisper, barely audible. 

"That's right." She slides her hand through your folds, pressing hard on your clit which elicits a moan from you, and then she shoves you off her, stepping away like she had done in the bathroom at the bar. 

“What the fuck?” You ask, throbbing with need, never more aware of the emptiness inside you than right now.

“You didn’t think I was going to reward you after that little stunt you pulled in the parking lot, did you?”

“Agatha, I’m sorry, I just wanted to make you mad, please don’t, I need you so badly.” Your pleas fall from your mouth and she delights in them.

The smirk on her lips is pure evil. “I know, sweetheart. But mommy needs to make sure you learn your lesson. And trust me, when I do finally fuck you, it won’t be in a pool.” She climbs out of the water, grabbing the towel she set on the side and dries off. You watch her in a stupor, not believing that she’s going to leave you like this, lips still burning from her kisses. She throws the wet towel back on the ground for you to use and then walks naked to the sliding glass door, tossing you one last look. “And don’t even think about touching yourself.” 

She goes inside and you are alone once again. 

[stevie-petey]

episode three: the case of the missing lifeguard

You glance at your door, worried your mom has heard Steve’s pathetic fall, while he clutches at his knee and groans. Through gasps of pain, he manages to respond, “Give me a second to recover my pride, Y/N.” “We need more than just a second to recover your pride.” You crawl out of bed and offer the boy your hand. “Get up, dummy.” He accepts the help and stands, brushing himself off. “Your bed is freakishly high.” “Have you ever considered that you’re just clumsy?” “I’m an athlete, angel.”

Summary: dustin blackmails you for $5 and then dubs steve as boyfriend material for you, robin cracks yet another russian code, you all almost waterboard yourselves after sneaking onto the mall's roof, you have a sexy nervous breakdown, and jonathan takes you for a drive in his sick car

Rating: general, some swearing

Warnings: swearing, use of y/n, fem!reader

Words: 7k

Before you swing in: hi my loves !! had a hectic final week of classes but im finally done !! (technically i have one more final but thats a later issue). this chapter is a lot of banter and chaos and theres some sad feelings towards the end that im a bit frightened to see the reactions to so ,,,, enjoy !

-

When your alarm goes off for work, Steve accidentally kicks you off of your bed in his panic.

“Fuck!”

Your brain barely has time to process that you’re awake as you begin to fall. “What–”

Steve manages to catch you from face planting just in time, flinging you back onto the bed as he struggles to untangle himself from the blankets. “Fuck! Sorry!”

“What’s going on?” you rub your eyes and realize that the screeching sound next to you is your alarm. Slamming your hand against it, the cloud of sleep starts to lift from your brain and you realize why Steve is a storm of chaos right now. “Oh, fuck.”

The two of you accidentally fell asleep together last night. 

He never went home, he never snuck back out your window with a kiss farewell. 

Now, as you take in the situation you’re currently in, you can hear your mother making breakfast in the kitchen, blissfully unaware that there’s a boy in her daughter’s room.

“Yeah, fuck!” Steve shakes at his leg, which is somehow twisted within your bedding and prevents him from escaping. “Get me out!”

“Shit!” You quickly untwist the bedding and free him, but as he rolls off your bed, he misjudges the height and fails to catch himself. He lands with a horrifyingly loud thud, and you throw a pillow at him. “Will you shut up?”

You glance at your door, worried your mom has heard Steve’s pathetic fall, while he clutches at his knee and groans. Through gasps of pain, he manages to respond, “Give me a second to recover my pride, Y/N.”

“We need more than just a second to recover your pride.” You crawl out of bed and offer the boy your hand. “Get up, dummy.”

He accepts the help and stands, brushing himself off. “Your bed is freakishly high.”

“Have you ever considered that you’re just clumsy?”

“I’m an athlete, angel.”

You place your hands on his chest and gently shove him towards your window. “Well, if you’re such an athlete, then it should be no problem for you to hop through this window and get to work, Harrington.”

“At least pretend you’re sad to see me leave–”

Someone knocks on your door. “Y/N? You awake yet?”

Hearing Dustin’s voice, you and Steve exchange a horrified look before you’re shoving even harder at his chest to get him out of your room. “Go!”

Steve stumbles over his feet and makes as much sound as humanly possible. He knocks into your desk and sends a stack of comics falling and he almost slips on them, only narrowly catching himself. Frustrated and bewildered that he keeps falling, he exclaims, “Why does this keep happening?”

The knocking on your door stops. A beat of silence passes before Dustin hesitantly calls through the door, “... did I just hear Steve?”

“No!” You almost throw Steve out your window with the force you shove him, which he curses at and gives you a dirty look, though you ignore him. He’s the one who got you into this fantastically horrible mess in the first place. “I–uh. I stubbed my toe!”

You anxiously wait for Dustin’s response, mentally running through all possible explanations in your head, but after a few minutes pass and you don’t hear anything; you exhale with relief. Seemingly sensing that you’re in the clear, Steve breathes out as well. “That was close.”

“Ew!” Your brother’s screech could rival the Demodogs with how loud and terrifying it is.

Gulping, Steve looks at you and laughs nervously. “Whoops?”

You glare at him. “Get out.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He kisses your forehead and does as he’s told, crawling through your window. Thankfully he lands gracefully this time, and as he begins running towards his car parked down the street, he calls over his shoulder, “See you after your shift!”

Despite your annoyance, you can’t help but laugh as you watch him run away. It’s reminiscent of the boyish charm you saw a few years ago, back when you had almost hit his car with your bike and he had pretended not to know your name in order to get you to laugh. 

Your reminiscing is cut short by Dustin’s obnoxious groaning. “Oh, god. Why did it get quiet in there? Get off my sister!”

You march over towards your door and fling it open. Your brother stands there, a horrified look on his face, and you glance behind him to make sure your mom is still in the kitchen. When the coast is clear, you sneer at him, “Nothing happened!”

“I’m fourteen, not an idiot.”

“We didn’t do anything.” When Dustin snorts at you, disbelieving, you want to strangle the kid. You’re mortified and cannot fucking believe that your little brother thinks anything else happened between you and Steve. “I swear.”

“See, I’d believe you, but mom…” He shrugs with a smug look on his horrid face. “I don’t know, Y/N.”

You drop your head and sigh, knowing where this is going. “How much money do you want?”

“$5, please. I prefer exact change, too.” He extends his arm out and opens his hand, silently demanding the money. 

“You’re horrible, you know that?” You go into your dresser and pull out a five dollar bill before handing it to him. 

Clutching the cash, Dustin smirks. “You raised me well.”

“Get out of my room.”

Hearing the anger in your voice, your brother knows he has about five more seconds before you start throwing things at him. “Yes, ma’am.”

– 

Work is slow, as usual, and when it’s time to pick up Alex from the pool, you wish Mrs. Waters a good day and get into your mom’s car that you borrowed today. With fewer shifts at the bookshop, Alex has started working at the pool to make extra money; on days when he’s there before a shift at Bookstrordinary, it’s your job to drive him to work. 

It’s pouring as you drive to the pool, setting an eerie tone on the first day of July. The summer’s heat causes the thunder to shake your car, and your knuckles are white from how tightly you hold onto the steering wheel.

When you pull up and see Alex hunched over and drenched from the rain, you laugh at him. “Well, looks like someone’s shift ended at the right time,” you say as he quickly jumps into your car. 

Alex doesn’t return your good mood. “Not funny, Y/N.”

Sensing that there’s something more to his foul mood than just being rained on, you look over at him in concern as you begin to drive. “Is everything alright over there?”

“Billy and Heather never showed up for work, so we were short handed fending off dumb kids who wanted to swim with lightning.” Alex wrings out his t-shirt and shakes his hair to dispel excess water, and you cringe as some of the water droplets land on you. “Telling a bunch of scary twelve year olds that they can’t swim… I thought I would die.”

The genuine terror in his voice is amusing, though his words unnerve you. It’s not like Billy to just not show up for work. He’s a lot of things, mainly a dickhead, but the few times you’ve driven the party to the pool, he’s always been there working; he’s dedicated to discipline. Hell, you’ve been to Max’s house, you know her family isn’t the wealthiest.

Billy can’t afford to skip work. 

“They just… never showed up?”

“Nope,” Alex curls into him in a feeble attempt to warm himself up. “We all think they ditched to hookup.”

You think about how rough Billy had looked yesterday, with fresh blood still dripping from him and the feverish chills he seemed to have. Something hadn’t been right, and a knot forms in your stomach. You highly doubt he had ditched work to go hookup with Heather, not if he’s still in the state that he was in yesterday. 

Regardless of what he’s done to you, you hope he’s okay.

Something about this feels wrong.

“Yeah, probably.” Your voice is weak as you respond to your coworker, but he doesn’t seem to pick up on your now solemn mood. 

The rest of the car ride is spent with Alex gossiping about where Billy and Heather could be, so it’s a relief when you finally arrive at Bookstrordinary and he leaves your car. You sit in the parking lot for a few minutes, your stomach twists and the knots multiply. The rain patters softly against the windshield in an almost rhythmic pattern as you try to calm yourself down with deep breaths.

The only sound in the car is your own breathing accompanied by the raindrops. 

– 

It’s Dustin’s idea to spend the day looking for evil Russians. 

Steve isn’t sure where he got the binoculars, but at this point he’s learned that it’s best to not question the kid. Makes things easier.

Which leads to now: the two of them hunched behind fake plants at Starcourt sharing binoculars as they look for people who could fit the “evil Russian” description, all while ignoring the fact that Dustin caught Steve in your room. 

“I don’t know what an evil Russian looks like.” Steve is holding the binoculars up to his eyes as he scans the food court area. He has no clue what he’s looking for and he swears that Dustin is purposely staring him down to try and get him to confess about this morning.

“Tall, blond, not smiling.” The kid responds, knowing that Steve is trying to distract him with stupid questions. He’s squirming under Dustin’s gaze, which he gets a sick joy out of. Between the $5 you coughed up and Steve’s obvious distress, it’s a pretty good day for Dustin Henderson. “Anyways, look for earpieces, camo, duffel bags, that sort of thing.”

Steve continues to look through the binoculars, relieved that Dustin seems to be playing along and hasn’t hounded him about this morning. “Right, okay. Duffle bags.”

As Steve busies himself with the search, Dustin waits a few seconds to lull him into a false sense of security. He’s been waiting all day to do this. Clearing his throat, he prepares for the attack. “Hey, uh, Steve?”

“Yeah, little Henderson?”

“While you look for evil Russians, keep an eye out for idiots who traumatize their friends by sleeping with their sisters.”

Steve yanks the binoculars away from his face as if they’ve burned him. His eyes are wide and panicked as he turns to Dustin with a horrified look on his face. “That is not what happened!”

“Tell that to the traumatized kid.” The younger teen waves a hand over himself to emphasize his point. “You owe me like, at least five years of therapy.”

“I didn’t sleep with Y/N, dude! That’s–that’s gross–”

“Are you calling my sister gross?” Dustin crosses his arms now, daring Steve to go on. 

He groans and rubs his face. “That’s not what I meant, alright? I just… She’s your sister and–and we aren’t even together–”

“That’s a good point, actually.” Dustin snatches the binoculars out of Steve’s hand and starts to look for any signs of Russians. “Why aren’t you with my sister?”

Steve stares at him, dumbfounded. “You’re sending totally mixed signals, dude. Do you want me dating Y/N or not?”

“It’s not preferable, especially when I catch you sneaking out of her window like some skeezy douchebag–”

“How many times do I have to tell you nothing happened–”

“But, besides that,” Dustin shrugs, narrowing his eyes when he sees a possible blond teen who could fit the evil Russian description. “You’re not so bad, even though you’re a massive tool for not asking out the perfect girl right in front of you.”

Steve rolls his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, entirely over this conversation. “You sound like Robin.”

The blond teen Dustin had been eying sits down and starts eating a hot dog, so he concludes that he isn’t Russian if he has an affinity for American food. “And Robin would be correct. Just ask Y/N out, she’s been waiting for like, at least a year now.”

“It’s not that easy.” Steve slumps over and bangs his head against the plant display they’re leaning against. “I have no idea how to ask her to be my girlfriend.”

“What, do you need my blessing or some shit?” Dustin removes the binoculars from his face and looks at the older teen, making sure to catch his eye. Then, in a horrible British accent, he says, “I give thy my blessing.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Steve deadpans, shoving the kid’s face away from his, uncomfortable with the eye contact. “But your blessing isn’t the problem. Y/N is just–she’s different and has been through a fuck ton of shit that I can’t even comprehend, and I’m just supposed to believe she wants to be with me?”

“Yeah?” Dustin cocks his head at Steve, not all understanding why he’s so confused about this. “You literally slept in her bed last night, man.”

Steve releases a quick breath and scratches his nose. He feels like an idiot and just really wishes you were here right now. “I… Well, yeah. Then there’s that.”

“It astounds me that you were once known as King Steve with a million girls drooling over him.” Dustin mumbles, baffled by the other’s patheticness, before going back to looking for Russians. 

“Let’s remember that it was my advice that got you that girlfriend of yours, alright? Girls love me, that’s never been the issue, ” Steve flicks the kid’s nose, a habit he’s picked up from you. “So cool it with the arrogance, dipshit.”

“Steve, do I need to remind you that it’s not okay to call my brother a dipshit?”

Your sudden appearance causes Steve to clutch his chest and scream. He spins around and gasps, terrified of how much you may have heard from his conversation with Dustin. “Y/N! Y-you’re here!”

“I am…” You frown, unsure why he looks so scared; normally he’s excited when you surprise him at work. 

“Uh,” Steve clears his throat and straightens his shirt out, trying to come off as collected rather than five seconds away from losing his shit. “I, uh. How much did you hear, ya know. Standing there?”

“Not much…?” Truthfully you’d been lost in thought, still worrying about Billy as you had approached the two teens hiding behind the fake plants. “All I heard was you calling my brother a dipshit.”

Steve deflates, and his reaction only confuses you further. Clearing his throat once more, he nods. “Oh. Yeah.”

You look over at Dustin, hoping for some type of clue as to what the fuck is wrong with Steve right now. “Did I miss something?”

“He was giving me horrible dating advice. Can we get back to looking for evil Russians?”

“Dating advice, huh?” You raise your eyebrows at Steve, who blushes furiously, and you giggle at his misery before turning back to Dustin. You eye the binoculars in his hand and point a finger at them. “And you can’t seriously think you’ll find evil Russians this way, right?”

“You got any better ideas, Y/N?” Your brother snarks as he brings the binoculars back up to his eyes. 

You nudge him with your shoulder. “No, but I’m positive I can think of something less childish than whatever this is.”

“Just help us look for someone tall and blond with duffel bags.” Steve sighs.

“Oh, because duffel bags are so scary and Russian.” You roll your eyes at the boys, ashamed of their antics. Their logic is flawed and biased with so many gaping holes, it’s almost comical, but it’s enough to distract you from your anxiety from earlier. “Guys, why can’t we just go back to Scoops and figure out another way–”

“Target acquired.” Dustin suddenly interrupts you. 

You share a look with Steve, who leans closer to the kid. “Where?”

“Ten o’clock. Sam Goody’s.”

Steve snatches the binoculars from Dustin’s hands and takes a look for himself, which you scoff at. They’re being ridiculous right now. However, when the older teen exhales in disbelief and announces the person has a duffel bag, your curiosity gets the better of you.

“Hand it over, pretty boy.” Before he can argue, you’ve snatched the binoculars from Steve and bring them up to your own eyes. It takes a few moments for you to find what the boys had been looking at, but when you finally spot the tall, blond man dressed in all black with sunglasses and a duffel bag, you can’t help but admit that he looks suspicious. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Steve and Dustin turn to each other and say in unison. “Evil Russian.”

The three of you chase after the guy, weaving between the crowd of people at the mall as you trail him. You and Dustin side step a woman with her kid as Steve speeds ahead of you guys. Struggling to keep up, your brother berates Steve to slow down. 

“We’re losin’ him.” He responds, only speeding up even more. 

“You’re getting too close.” Dustin warns, and you almost trip over your shoelaces in your haste. He’s right, Steve is getting too close to the guy, and it’s making you nervous.

You quicken your footsteps and tug at his uniform. “Steve, we need to be careful–”

Suddenly the Russian looking guy stops in his tracks and slowly begins to turn around. You all scramble and try to appear casual; Dustin runs to the phone and pretends to make a call while Steve pulls you to the corner and places his hands on your waist to pull you close. 

“Pretend we’re a couple!” He whispers, throwing your hands over his shoulders. 

“This is wholly unnecessary,” you mumble, face burning at the close proximity. His fingers burn your sides, it’s been too long since he’s held you like this. 

Steve chuckles at you and pulls you in closer, enjoying the moment far more than you think is needed. “Gotta admit, this is pretty romantic.”

You roll your eyes. “Totally. Super hot hunting down evil Russian spies with you, Steve.”

“Stop sucking face, the guy is getting away!” Dustin yanks at you and tears you from Steve’s grasp, disturbed and annoyed that it only took three seconds before you distracted the teen. 

Soon you’re all following the blond guy again, and when he starts to slow down, the three of you hide behind a column and poke your heads out. Watching, you see the guy enter into the Jazzercise studio and pull a speaker from his duffel bag. 

“Oh, this is much better than him being a Russian spy.” You snort, entirely amused by how this has all unfolded. The guy unzips his hoodie and reveals an incredibly muscular physique, and you can’t help but bite your lip. “His arms… Oh my.”

Steve sees you eyeing the guy and scrowls. “His arms aren’t that nice. “ He starts pulling you away now, sending death glares at the now confirmed zumba instructor, obviously jealous. You laugh, knowing your comment would annoy him. 

“I don’t know, honey. His arms were huge.”

“Please,” Steve rolls his eyes, unamused. “They looked like twigs to me.”

“You and I both know you’re lying.”

Steve groans and kisses your hand as he tugs you towards Scoops Ahoy. “You’re killing me here, angel.”

“It’s what I do best.”

While you and Steve argue, Dustin gags at you both and sighs in disappointment. He listens to you two argue the whole way back to the ice cream shop, and he’s never wanted to bang his head against a wall more. Here Steve is, claiming he can’t ask you out, yet he’s pathetically moping about you finding some random guy’s arms hot.

Dustin thinks the poor guy is doomed. 

When you arrive at Scoops, you break away from Steve’s whining and greet Robin. “Dude, you won’t believe the hot zumba instructor we followed–”

The girl rushes past you, not at all acknowledging your presence, as she exits the shop. You stop walking and share a confused look with Dustin and Steve as you all watch Robin run outside and jump on top of one of the benches. 

“What the hell?” You follow after her, concerned by her franticness. 

Robin is mumbling under her breath when you catch up, repeating the first sentence of the Russian code you deciphered over and over again as she spins and looks around the mall. “A trip to China sounds nice.”

“Hey, is everything okay?”

“A trip to China…” She ignores you as her eyes scan around the area once more. She looks as if she’s searching for something, repeating the phrase to herself.

You look around as well, not fully understanding what she’s doing, but it’s clear she’s at least looking for something to match the sentence. In the center of the food court, all you see are chain restaurants and vendors. Frustrated, you sigh. “Robin, I’m not sure what we’re looking for.”

“There!” She points at a restaurant called the Imperial Panda. “A trip to China!”

Bits of the code start to piece together in your head. If the message corresponds to stores in the mall… Unsure if you’re understanding Robin correctly, you hesitantly point towards the local shoe store up above. “If you tread lightly?”

“Yes! God, I knew you were the smart one in that weird trio!” Robin nods eagerly and tries to recall the rest. “When–when blue and yellow meet in the west. What could that mean?”

You both spin around, trying to find anything that could align with the line. As you’re studying a poster sign, Robin snaps her fingers and nods her head towards the giant clock that hangs below a bay window. Its hands are blue and yellow. “Think this could be it?”

“Robin Buckley, you’re a genius!” You throw your arms around her, in disbelief that she was able to figure the bizarre Russian code out all on her own. 

Robin is stiff in your arms for a moment, having not expected the praise, before she slowly melts into the embrace. She coughs slightly, her voice a pitch higher than usual. “It was easy enough to figure out.” 

“Robin, Y/N,” Steve and Dustin now join. “What are you two doing?”

“She cracked it!” You pull away from Robin but keep an arm thrown over her shoulder. 

Steve frowns. “Cracked what?”

Robin gently shoves your arm off and jumps down the bench she had been on. Stepping towards the boys, she leans in close, a glint in her eye. “I cracked the code.” 

–

“Is this even legal?” You shout over the thunder, shivering as the rain from the storm soaks through your clothes and into your bones as you sit with Steve and the others on the mall’s rooftop to spy on Russians.

You’re not at all sure how you ended up in this situation. 

When Robin had cracked the code, you figured that the four of you would ask the other mall employees about their delivery shifts. Maybe hide out in Steve’s car and watch for deliveries during the day, eliminate other variables. 

What you didn’t think the four of you would do, however, is sneak onto the roof of the mall in the pouring rain for an impromptu stakeout. 

Thunder rumbles above you as lightning strikes, causing you to jump further into Steve’s side. He wraps an arm around you and rubs soothing circles to try and comfort you, knowing that this entire situation is your nightmare.

Seeing your fear, Robin tries to reassure you. “We’re fine, Y/N.” Then she turns to Dustin, who is holding his stupid binoculars up as he surveys the group of delivery men below you. “Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes.”

Your brother takes a moment to look around before he spots something. “They’re with that whistling guy, ten o'clock.”

You look down and watch the guy cart a series of boxes into the shipment alleyway. “It’s just a bunch of boxes, guys.”

“Sure, but what do you think’s in there?” Steve questions, absentmindedly drawing you closer for warmth when he feels you shiver again. He loaned you his raincoat, but clearly it doesn’t seem to be helping much with how much he can feel you shiver. A twinge of guilt sears through him for putting you through this in the first place.

“Guns, bombs?” Dustin guesses.

Robin throws in her own suggestions. “Chemical weapons?” 

“How about delicious noodles and sensible shoes? Why haven’t we considered those as options?” Your teeth are chattering now as more rain slams against you.

“Shut up, Y/N.” Dustin raises his binoculars up again. “Whatever it is, they’re armed to the teeth.”

“Armed?” You exclaim as more thunder clashes. Your switchblade warms in your pocket ominously; you didn’t sign up for men wielding fucking weapons. 

“Great.” Steve wipes water out of his face, feeling just as overwhelmed and defeated as you. “That’s great.”

The metal doors in the alleyway start to open, and faintly you can see the outline of more boxes within the storage room, it looks almost like a vault, though it’s hard to tell. Next to you, Robin squints as well. “What’s in there?”

“It’s just more boxes.” Dustin has to raise his voice in order to be heard over the rain.

Steve reaches for the binoculars. “Let me beck it out.”

However, he only ends up in an intense game of tug-of-war with Dustin as they start to fight over the binoculars. They grapple over it, argue about who needs it more, before the rain causes the thing they’re fighting over to slip out of their hands and bang harshly against the guardrail. 

The noise rings out through the night and catches the men’s attention from below. Gasping, you yank everyone down before they can see you. Instinctively your hand reaches for Steve’s while Robin reaches for your other hand. With your backs to the ground, the four of you pant as the adrenaline of almost being caught courses through you. 

Steve looks over at you to make sure you’re okay, and his eyes land on Robin’s fingers intertwined through yours. He frowns a bit, finding the physical affection from her odd, but sends her teasing wink.

When Robin sees his wink, she only clenches her jaw and turns away before releasing your hand. 

– 

“Well, I think we found your Russians.” Robin says as you all re-enter the mall.

“That was too close.” You mutter, wringing out your soaked t-shirt as your hair drips onto the floor. While the others seem to have already forgotten how the men with giant guns almost found you on the roof, you haven’t. It’s been on your mind the last ten minutes; it’s all you can fucking think about. 

You’re in too deep again. You can feel it. 

Dustin passes you and now walks in step with Robin. “What’s our plan now?” 

“Well, strange child, I think it’s obvious that we gotta break into the vault.”

“I’m sorry?” You step in between them now, not at all liking what you’re hearing. “No one is breaking into anything. Do you have any idea how dangerous and stupid that is?”

“C’mon, Y/N, loosen up a little!” Dustin whines, wanting you to just be on his side for once. 

“Loosen up? Guys, this is serious.” You look around at the others, lacing your voice with urgence. “We could be dealing with a national crisis, this isn’t just some stupid spy mission. We aren’t at all qualified to handle this.”

“I mean, aren’t we?” Steve hesitantly speaks up. When your angry eyes meet his, he flinches slightly. “Y/N, I know you’re scared, but–”

“I’m not scared.”

“We’ve been through… a lot,” his eyes flick over towards Robin, knowing she’s listening and that he can’t reveal too much. “All we’re doing is breaking into a vault. I mean, c’mon. We can do that, easily.”

Dustin nods eagerly at Steve’s words and Robin hums in approval. The three of them seem to almost form a unit against you, which makes you draw into yourself. Suddenly you feel like the odd man out, with no one on your side. Feeling panicked and defensive, your anger rises. “We shouldn’t have to break into anything! We can call Hopper, tell him what’s happening and at least have someone else on our side in case something happens.”

“Oh, like Hopper would believe us.” Dustin scoffs at you as if you’re some idiot, which doesn’t help the insecurity you feel.

“I know he’d listen to me.” You still regret having not called Hopper two years ago when you had found El in the woods. Had you told him about her sooner, about everything sooner, you know that you would’ve saved your brother and everyone else the heartache they endured because of you. 

You can’t make the same mistake again. You refuse to. 

Robin tries to appease you. “Look, we can just take a peek inside the vault, maybe dig through a box or two, then we can rat the Russians out to the cops! I promise, we won’t be doing anything dangerous.”

“We don’t know that.” 

Your words ring throughout the empty hallway the four of you stand in. An echo follows them, as if taunting you of your fears and worries, and no one says anything else. You all stand there, frozen, with Robin, Steve, and Dustin facing you. As if there’s a line now dividing them from you.

Steve’s heart pounds in his chest as your eyes land on him, silently pleading with him to say something, anything. “Y/N…”

But he can’t. Even though he heard the rising anxiety in your voice, even though he knows the weight behind the words you’ve yelled, Steve can’t meet your eye.

He knows that you carry so much guilt within you, and he wishes he could offer you more. He’s torn between wanting to defend you and ease the fear that you’ve confessed to him before, how you feel this overwhelming need to protect the ones you love, but he also wants to follow through with the Russians. To see where it takes him, if he can redeem himself. 

You stand before the three others, chest rising and falling rapidly, wondering if you’ve gone too far this time. 

Dustin is the one who steps forward first. He stares at you for a moment, his eyes sad, knowing that there’s more to your reluctance than just the possible danger. He understands how hard you fight to keep him safe, and how much harder you blame yourself when something goes wrong. With a sigh, your brother grabs your hand and starts to pull you away from the others.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” Dustin says to Steve and Robin. Then, with an uncharacteristically gentle voice, he says to you, “let’s go home.”

You’re too tired to argue and you’re afraid you’ll start crying if you try to say anything else, so you follow after your brother and leave Steve and Robin alone in the hall.

– 

At home, you lay in bed trying to ignore the twisting feeling in your stomach that you’ve let everyone down. That you’ve let Steve down. You’ve never really argued with him before, at least not like this. You’re not even sure if you can call what happened earlier an argument, and the thought makes you groan and shove your face into your pillows.

You’re exhausted. 

As your thoughts spiral, your phone rings. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, bug.”

Jonathan’s voice settles over you in slow, soothing waves. You close your eyes, having not known how much you needed him until now. “Hi, bee.”

“You sound tired.” He notes with slight worry, always able to read you.

You sigh. “It’s… been a long day.” 

He hums over the phone, and the sound is familiar and lovely, though just as tired. “You too, huh?”

“I take it you’re not doing too well, either?”

“No,” he sighs, a slight gruffness to it. “Meet me in your driveway in ten minutes?”

“Deal.” 

He hangs up and you crawl out of bed, despite your aching bones protesting. You throw on a hoodie knowing to ward off July’s brisk night air and lazily lace up your sneakers. Slowly, so as to not make any loud noise, you open your door and poke your head out. 

The house is quiet. Your mom and Dustin must be asleep in their rooms, so you softly close your door and make your way outside. 

It doesn’t take long before Jonathan’s car pulls into your driveway. He has his headlights off, long familiar with the routine of picking you up late at night for drives around town. The two of you used to do it every night the summer he first got his license. 

You get into the car and the heat kisses your cheeks. Jonathan greets you with a tired smile as you put your seatbelt on, and when you nod your head at him, he starts the car and drives.

Neither of you say anything for a while as Jonathan drives the route you always take together. He has an old mix tape playing and you hum along, familiar with the songs. It’s peaceful, your fears from earlier have now faded; for now, it’s just you and Jonathan as you drive around Hawkins. 

“I’m sorry for being M.I.A recently.” He finally says after a while. You sit up a bit, knowing he’s ready now to talk about what’s brought him here tonight. The two of you never just drive around anymore for the fun of it, you know he’s here because there’s something bothering him. “Nancy has been… worrying me.”

You lean closer to Jonathan, now concerned. “Is everything okay between you two?”

“Honestly?” He breathes in shakily. “I–I don’t know.”

“Talk to me, bee.” You grab his hand that rests on the stick shift.

And he does. He explains about a woman named Mrs. Driscoll who called the Hawkins Post and how Nancy had decided to check out the story without telling their boss, roping Jonathan into it. He explains the rat they saw at the woman’s house, how it had looked sick, maybe infected with rabies, and how he had taken pictures of it to show their boss. 

When Nancy showed the men at the newspaper what they found, they had all laughed and belittled her. 

As Jonathan tells the story, he shakes his head in anger. “They were horrible to her, bug.”

You sigh, feeling awful for Nancy as well. “She’s smarter than all those men combined. She deserves better.”

“She does,” Jonathan shakes his head again. “But Tom, our boss, ordered her to drop the story. But Nancy…”

“Refuses to back down?” You guess, knowing how stubborn and passionate the girl is.

Jonathan swallows. “Yeah.”

“What happened tonight, Jonathan?” You sense there’s something he isn’t telling you, that there’s more to this than just men being shitty to Nancy at work.

“Nance, she–uh. She wouldn’t back down, even after I told her I was scared we’d get fired if we kept investigating Mrs. Driscoll, but she–she needed to prove she was right and I just–I can never tell her no. She’s relentless, ambitious, it’s what I love about her, but… Y/N, we found Mrs. Driscoll eating fertilizer after breaking into her house.”

“Oh my god,” you gasp and drop Jonathan’s hand. “Is she okay? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Jonathan clenches his jaw. “We called for help and they took her to the hospital. When I dropped Nancy off at home, she… She wants to go visit the woman in the hospital.”

You’re silent for a moment, now understanding why Jonathan seems so shaken up. “Nancy still wants her story.”

“She does.”

“And you think she’s going too far.”

“I do.”

You sigh. “Jonathan…”

“I don’t know what to do, Y/N!” He raises his voice now, his anger surfacing. “I mean, we could get fired and she doesn’t seem to care! When Tom finds out that we’re the ones who put Mrs. Driscoll in the hospital… I–I can’t lose this job, bug. I can’t. Especially not because of some douchebags my girlfriend wants to prove wrong.”

As Jonathan unravels, your heart aches for both him and Nancy. It’s a tough situation, you understand both sides, and you can’t imagine having to go through any of it. 

Sighing, you grab his hand again and try to find the right words. “You have every right to feel scared, bee. I completely understand, this job means so much more to you than just some summer activity like it does for Nancy, but…” You bite your lip, worried you’ll say the wrong thing. “I also think Nancy’s ambition is admirable. From the stories she’s told me, those men are fucking vile and treat her like shit. I think you should try being more supportive of her.”

“How am I supposed to be supportive if I lose my job?”

You sigh again. “By holding her hand and recognizing that while it’s hard being poor in this world, it’s also hard being a woman. Both of you have a reason to be upset, and while I’m not saying it’s fair of Nancy to disregard your financial situation, I think you both need to sit down and talk about this without the other getting defensive.”

Jonathan rolls his eyes. “Neither one of us gets defensive.”

“You two are the most defensive and prideful people I’ve ever met, it’s a miracle you haven’t fought until now.”

He laughs at this, knowing you’re right. “Maybe another conversation wouldn’t hurt… I just, what’s going to happen tomorrow?”

You shrug. “I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you that you’ll need Nancy just as much as she’ll need you, okay?”

“It frustrates me how you always manage to say the right thing.”

“You’ve known me for years now, it’s your fault for not getting used to it.” 

Jonathan laughs again and his shoulders relax, his anger and fear now dissipating. While he’s still unsure what tomorrow will bring, he knows that at least he’ll have you. Then the two of you drive past Steve’s house and Jonathan remembers how tired you sounded earlier on the phone.

“So, we gonna talk about why you had such a long day today?” Though it’s phrased as a question, you know that Jonathan understands if you don’t want to answer.

However, your own fears weigh heavily on your mind and you indulge him, because you always do. “Dustin intercepted a Russian code a few days ago and roped Steve, Robin, and I into helping him decipher it.”

“A Russian code?”

“Yeah. Not sure if I can explain it any better than that, honestly.”

Jonathan raises his eyebrows at you. “Is it anything dangerous?”

“I don’t know,” you groan, dropping your head into your knees. “That’s the million dollar question right now. Dustin and everyone else wants to keep investigating this, they want to break into a goddamn vault, and I just… I have a bad feeling about this, bee.”

“What does Steve think about all of this?” His voice is light, but his hands tighten ever so slightly on the steering wheel. You see this and look away, knowing he won’t like what you’re about to say.

“He’s why I sounded so tired earlier,” you confess, eyes closed. “He wouldn’t listen to me tonight, and I just–”

You stop mid sentence, your words catching in your throat. Jonathan looks over at you with concern and makes a quick decision to pull to the side of the road and park. “Hey, bug. Look at me.” Swallowing back tears, you do as you’re told. When your eyes meet his, Jonathan brings your hand to his lips. “Talk to me.”

“I’m terrified he’ll be another ‘almost.”

Jonathan’s lips ghost over your hands and you feel his breath stutter slightly at your words. He knows the pain that comes with “almost”, he knows he’s the reason why the word stings your tongue as you say it out loud. “He’s not another ‘almost’, Y/N.”

“I don’t know anymore.” Tears start to fall down your face and you’re mortified. You hate the words coming out of your mouth, they feel like a betrayal to Steve and the promise you made him, and you hate that you’re saying all this to Jonathan. “He–he seems interested, sometimes, but it’s July now and–and he hasn’t… He couldn’t even look me in the eye tonight, Jonathan.”

Jonathan doesn’t say anything. He can’t say anything. 

You’re crying in his passenger seat over a boy you love, a boy who isn’t him, and all Jonathan can do is hold your hands as you cry. 

“I’m sorry, bug.” He apologizes for more than just your upset over Steve. Jonathan apologizes for it all, for the years between you two, for the almosts and what if’s and missed chances.

“Yeah. I am, too.” You wipe your eyes, embarrassed now. “Can you, uh, take me home, please?”

Jonathan nods and wordlessly starts the car again.

It feels like last year, back to being unsure about love and relationships and being exhausted by it all, and you can’t help but laugh at the irony of it. The small laugh turns into a louder one, then into full body hysterics, and Jonathan worries for a second that you’ve lost your mind. “Y/N, you’re scaring me a little.”

You clutch at your stomach and laugh even harder. “S-sorry, I just–oh my god. I can’t believe I–I’m here again.”

“I’m lost.”

“Just drive, bee.” You try to calm yourself down, though giggles still rise through your chest. You think you’re delirious, honestly. 

Yet some things never change, and it feels good to be in Jonathan’s car and breathless from laughter, even if your heart aches as you do so. 

-

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[thegnomelord]

CH:2 You Were Made For This At Least You're Good For Something

CW: NSFW, blood, gore, scars, cannon typical violence, dissociating, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, survivor's guilt, military inaccuracies. Heavy description of reader having scars, reader gets called 'sir' once but overall GN.

AO3: 13.7k words. Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!

Magic is often described as a loaded gun, a double edged sword, a grenade with a missing pin, an unmarked minefield — and a thousand more little comparisons parents have come up with to frighten their children, to drill the dangers of magic into their heads. And, should their spawn unfortunately present with said aptitude, to teach them how to spend the rest of their lives vigilantly holding the leash on their emotions tight, lest the magic consume them the next time they throw a tantrum.

Your own parents spoke about magic like it was a beast sent by a vengeful God; a venomous insect hiding in your boots, a beautiful creature luring you to touch it's deadly skin, glowing eyes peering at you from the darkness, a handsome wolf stalking your red hood from the tree line. Something so desperate for a single chance to devour you. Famished. Ravenous.

What a load of shit.

—Ethereal mana rushes through your veins like water through a busted dam, your fingers forcing it to form into skin chafing ash. Large dark clouds swirl around you like a shield, stray cinders brush your feverish skin in a distorted attempt to mimic a lover's touch, smog curls around your head like blinders to focus your eyes forward so you don't need to notice if it's a combatant or a civilian your ash consumes—

If magic was half as unpredictable as people made it out to be, you would have never reached the heights you did.

—The thick disgusting scent of gas and burning human flesh tenderly presses down on your chest, sharp claws persuading you to breathe out by gently caressing the spaces between your ribs. Your breath fogs over the darkened lenses, steam rising from your chest as the generator inside churns out more mana—

What does that make you?

—Sparks nip at your heel when your body thinks of faltering, sharp needles pricking half dead nerves and commanding your limbs to move in order to evade obstacles and falling debris and whatever else is thrown at you, magic strengthening your muscles so you can rush through the streets like a forest fire—

A weapon? A fellow beast?

—Silent black flames devour the corpses your magic creates, leaving nothing behind. Stifling heat straddles your brainstem and burns away the weeds of empathy before they can spread the seeds of hesitation in your mind, isolating your heart so it remains too hot to harbor any mercy, regardless of how many lives you cut short—

Yeah, sounds about right.

—The roar of fire deafens the screams and sirens, the soft crackle of flames is indistinguishable to the crack! of breaking buildings and snapping bones. It makes it so easy to retain the single minded focus you were praised and cursed for. To remind yourself of what you are; a mage, a soldier, an Ifrit, a Red Right Hand—

What else are you good for?

You—

Breathe.

You need to breathe.

You need to think.

While you still can.

Your brain is a jumbled mess of puzzle pieces a frustrated child threw into the fireplace. Burnt edges and missing corners prevent your mind from its natural configuration and forces your thoughts into obtuse positions. It takes time and effort to open your eyes, needles of stagnated mana stabbing your irises and making what should be a pitch black room feel like you're staring into the sun. Your body feels light like you're falling, your vision swims with spots of blurriness and sharpness, the back of your throat tight in an attempt to get you to puke up your empty stomach. You only manage to cough, but the vestigial impulse gets some other thoughts to trickle from your mind.

You focus your eyes to one point and stare until the blurriness retreats to the edges of your vision and the tripling shapes solidify into one. It takes more time for your brain to understand what your eyes are seeing through the steam, but you manage to make out. . . your glowing hands. . . your knees. . . dark ash, muddied water, bathroom tiles.

Your vision improves the longer you keep your eyes open, the room steadily darkening and becoming more bearable as the stagnated mana is forced to recede.

You concentrate on what you feel; water pelts your naked body, only to sizzle and turn into steam after rolling an inch down your skin. Cool ceramic tiles brush against your spine every time you shift, rapidly warming up to your body temperature. A drizzle of discomfort nibbles on your nerves when the hot air you breathe out burns the corners of your dry lips. Your fingers feel like rusted pistons as you intertwine them and numbly watch your 'skin' bubble, and those bubbles 'pop', giving you a grim glimpse of your blackened muscle and sinew and bone before the surrounding lava covers them up.

You don't even notice the ringing in your ears until your slowly sharpening mind forces it to go away, replacing it with the sound of running water, of the ventilation fan uselessly trying to suck up the steam, of your own heart beating like a hummingbird against your ribs, woodpeckers drilling into your skull from all angles as the world becomes so fucking—

—Loud. The world is Loud. Nothing like the calm and quiet brought to you by the battlefield, nothing like the sense of safety that comes from familiarity. No. Now the world feels like a swarm of angry wasps are burrowing into your ears to build a nest in your skull, sharp pincers gnawing on your bones and flesh and nerves and—

No.

You got this far.

You're not allowed to fall back into panic.

You force your chest to expand and take in a deep, unfiltered, unrestricted, breath. Ash with the disgusting undertone of rotten eggs curls inside your nose and doesn't let anything else pass. But a small hint of you manages to register in your brain, light and calming; your body’s lackluster attempt at incense to cover up the stench of rot.

And you taste. . . a lot. Too much; morning breath, ash, smoke, blood, the peppery battery acid quality of your blood — all blended together into a disgusting cocktail tailor made for you by what's left of the butchered angel sitting on your shoulder.

You don't think when you reach out to grab the glass of whatever shit liquor past you had bought. 'Glass' is far too kind a word for the tin can you're using, but metal doesn't shatter in your burning hands like ceramic or glass.

Your head thunks against the wall as you throw it back to gulp down the alcohol before it can boil, swallowing in big gulps like it's water. Your stomach cramps, the devil's finest piss would taste better going down your throat than the booze, but it's as effective as it is disgusting and bleaches your mouth until it's the only thing you can taste — sweet relief wrapped in thorns.

You don't revel in it.

The tin can bends like playdoh as you squeeze your burning hand, quickly reddening metal molding to your palm before you crumple it into a small ball. You flick it into the corner where it becomes another piece of the small pile that's been steadily growing there over the months.

Breathing in deep makes your ribs creak and groan like rusted hinges, your lungs burn and complain as you keep the air trapped in them until they're forced to function properly and a shuddered breath escapes your parted lips. The water feels nice and a part of you wants to stay under the stream forever, a part of you would be content growing moss and listening to the soft apologies your mana murmurs as it nibbles on your blood vessels.

You would hit that part of yourself if you could.

The thinning steam urges you to move. Shifting to your knees is difficult with Atlas's burden weighing on your shoulders, forcing your fingers to find purchase in the scorched grooves previously melted in the wall. Pulling yourself to your feet causes them to grow a few inches deeper, your burning hands leaving singed handprints on the ceramic walls.

The weakness in your knees forces you to spend a few seconds just standing, watching your magic slowly start to slumber. The once runny lava consistency of your 'skin' shifts to that of cooling magma, the vast excess of loose mana still in your blood slowly coagulating atop your 'skin' in the form of large chunks of volcanic rock, little cracks remaining between them to simulate blood vessels.

Washing yourself isn't a relaxing affair in general, but it's made worse by the heavy duty soap and rough sponge you have to use in order to scrub away the grime and ash stubbornly clinging to your skin. You try not to look at your body more than you have to, your eyes transfixed on the way the dirty water carries the signs of your violence down the drain. You never get any blood on you, your fires burn too hot for that, and you don’t know if seeing the water turn red instead of black would make you feel better or worse.

The most painful place to wash is the sharp transition between mage marks and living tissue at your shoulders; magic cares little for appearances, volcanic rock abruptly transitioning to soft skin that boasts spiderweb cracks — a tell tale sign of your mana intending to spread further. The nerves there are partially eaten away too, turning your skin into a minefield of zero sensation and absolute hell when one of those nerves is prodded.

You get out when the water runs clear, the residual droplets turning to steam the second you turn off the shower. You stumble as take a few steps, bracing against the small sink next to the shower, staring at the tap to keep your gaze from doubling again.

Something gnaws on your heart as you recognize that you're standing naked in your small safehouse. You should have recovered by now, gotten your shit together and went off to carry out whatever other massacre your employer wanted to commit. Your mind, ever the problematic thing, chimes in: How improper.

Your eyes skirt to the dog tags sitting on the sink, those little plates of steel chastising you "Fuck's sake firebug, this isn't a nudist beach!" like their owners did before. . . before.

Just thinking about it gives you the phantom taste of blood and something acidic, makes you feel a ghostly ache in your bones as if your chest had been ripped open one rib at a time. Invisible glass digs into your throat as you swallow, fish hooks tug on your skin. The mirror hanging above the sink calls for you, mocks you, dares you, orders you to look at the horrid thing that replaced a sweet young child.

Burning flames greet your gaze, swallowing up every last bit of natural color in your eyes just as the hungering beast devours those stupid enough to enter its woods. And you were that fool. The raised bumps of veins and arteries snaking across your chest and throat like creeping ivy attest to that, each inch of your blood vessels meticulously, painfully, pulled from the safe depths of skin and bone to heal on the surface of your skin (or bleed and rot. You could never tell when torture turned into intended murder.)

Your body tells a tale of your survival (for whatever that's good for), most of your scars old and healed, created at a time when you didn't know how to heal yourself. Dimly glowing lines of hardened mana occasionally stretch across your skin, spiderwebs of deep cyan peek beneath your hair on one side of your head and pulse across your throat, glittering amber swirls across your side — small and pretty testaments of wounds so horrendous only magic could keep you in one piece.

An eternal flame burns in your chest, its steady unfaltering glow outlining your sternum and each rib in such clarity it's like you're a cadaver in a morgue, a textbook example of a person slowly spiraling towards lichdom. The light emanating from within you makes the jagged dark ink curving along the space of your ribs stand out like a sore thumb, D.O.D. 2016.01.01. Your fingers ache to trace the little shaky messages of not Today, Guess again, yuo wish, NO, just one more day that circle it, but you can't bring yourself to do it.

You can't sully the last few things you have left of them, you can't, you can't you can't—

Crack!

You realize you've broken the mirror when you pull your hand back and see large shards stick out between your knuckles. Little reflections of yourself continue to mock you as you pull the pieces out. It doesn't hurt, it hasn't hurt since the mage marks first cracked the pads of your fingers, though you're still unsure if it's a gift or a curse —"leave it for the scholars to bicker about" as your Commander loved to say.

A shadow flickers in the corner of your eye, almost like a silhouette of someone you think you knew. Glowing lines of a magic circle burst into the air before you can physically react, mana simmering beneath your skin as magic comes to you easier than breathing.

The hallway lights up to reveal nothing. The thing you saw was just the shadow of a tree branch moving in the wind. You unsummon your magic before it can burn anything, the dwindling sparks nipping your fingers before they’re snuffed out as a way to show your mana is not pleased by the false alarm.

There is nothing there.

You are alone.

Again.

Your phone rings, the factory setting music grating on your ears. The phone is a piece of shit Nokia brick that belongs in a museum, but it works fine as far as burner phones go. Archaic technology like this plays better with magic than the flashy electronics people use nowadays, and the fact it doesn't connect to wifi helps make you harder to track.

You use the back of your knuckle to answer the phone, luckily not needing to pick it up as your mana enhanced hearing is a lot better than human. You manage to force a rough "Yes?" out of your throat.

"Nicely done my friend." Khaled sounds pleased with the death you brought, "You put on a very nice show." The eloquent Arabic he speaks makes the praise sound even nicer to your ears, like a balm of milk and honey to soothe your mind after what you went through. You can see how he's amassed as many men as he has, you could see yourself joining him full time if you were younger and dumber.

Your thoughts sit on your tongue like hot coals, but you swallow them down. "Thank you sir." You say instead, politely. Respect for your superiors was beaten into you years ago, yet exhaustion makes your words sound far rougher than his. Thankfully you're able to keep the accent of your mother tongue from deforming the fragile vowels.

"Ever the modest one." Khaled's chuckle is deep and just at the edge of mean, the subtle change in tone making the fine hairs at the back of your neck stand on end. "I need to pick up some more toys." And by 'I' he means you.

Toys — guns, bombs, other weapons intended for mass destruction; you're not surprised he's using slang instead of saying it outright. Your employer may be an overgrown murderous warlord, but he's not dumb, there's no doubt heavy surveillance has been put on both of you and Al-Qatala as a whole after your stunt.

It makes sense why he'd want to send you for the weapon's deal instead of going himself, there's no telling when some military group or pmc will try to bushwhack them in hopes of body bagging Khaled. Hell, you'd be disappointed if the CIA wasn't already in the final stages of planning a counter terrorism measure. Nosy fucks.

"Understood sir. Send me the shopping list." You feel your brow twitch with irritation when Khaled abruptly cuts the call. A sigh escapes you; your stomach feels like a witch is using it for a cauldron, all sorts of nastiness bubbling into a disgusting brew — your body's trying to warn you of something you can't see.

Not like you listen.

Dropping the last of the mirror shards into the sink you reach over to grab the dog tags and slip the cold chain around your neck. The metal warms up quickly, becoming indistinguishable from your skin. You rest your hand over them. If you try hard enough, you can just about sense the last remaining dregs of their magic— cool water, nibbling ice, soft soil — but the rest blend together into senseless mana, nothing but whispers of the past.

16 other tags rest against your skin, your own nestled somewhere between the dead.

You should have died instead.

You tear your hand away with a scoff, shaking those thoughts off and go get dressed. You slip on your helmet last, the tension in your shoulders evaporating when your face is hidden. Your lungs stutter for a second before adapting to breathe normally. You throw a glance at the shattered mirror and this time it's the helmet that greets you; just another soldier, just a mage.

Yeah. . . that's you alright.

Your phone vibrates, telling you you've received a message.

Right. You have a job to do. Here's to hoping this one isn't your last.

You're not holding your beath.

. . .

The briefing room is silent as Laswell goes over the census: 200 confirmed dead, hundreds in serious condition, thousands more who will be affected in the coming weeks and months when the seasonal storms wash the toxins into water sources and pollute the earth. And that's not talking about the long term effects, who knows how many will be lost in the coming years trying to neutralize the poisonous magic and rebuild.

Toxic gas itself is problematic when they don't know what specific kind it is, but when it binds with loose particle magic like ash or sand it can linger for decades, eroding concrete and skin alike. A whole generation will be born in hazmat suits.

Kate finishes speaking. A minute of silence follows.

Soap takes the time to try and visualize the dead as people rather than just a statistic, but his mind falls short. His tail twitches with irritation, fists clenching by his sides; he just can't understand how one person could do all of that without rockets or explosives.

His brain births a grim thought — fire hot enough to burn through concrete wouldn't leave behind any bodies, so he can tack on several more hundred deaths to the census, ones that have no way of being confirmed, leaving families without a body to grieve over.

"As far as we know." Kate begins again, her face grim, deep dark shadows stretching beneath her eyes. Only caffeine and determination have helped chase away her exhaustion. "This was a terrorist attack organized by Khaled Al-Asad," She pulls up two pictures on the interactive board, one of Khaled, the other — the same featureless helmet they'd seen on the news. "And carried out by a mage mercenary called Ifrit. True identity unknown."

Soap's ear twitches and he tilts his head at Ghost. "Bet yeh he's an ugly focker."

Ghost's dark eyes flicker to him. "Didn't think that 'bout me did you?" He mutters, eyes returning to the screen, staring at your picture as if it'll reveal some deeper meaning; an insight into a murderer's mind. Soap holds off on doing the same, he doesn't want any of the sludge on him.

“Could also be a ‘her’.”

Their gazes turn to the two women sitting at the front, the captain and lieutenant of another pmc the US has contracted to help them deal with this problem.

The one who spoke is a woman in her late 30's, brown hair pulled in a tight bun, green eyes occasionally flickering with whisps of unnatural blue; Captain Roberts – if Johnny remembered her name correctly from orientation – continues. “Women are better at using magic, and control it with the finesse required for more complex spells.” She explains with a dismissive look, absentmindedly waving her gloved hand like they’re just insects buzzing around her head.

Yeah, Johnny doesn't like her. And it's not because she smells like sweet lotus mixed with the stench of rancid fish rotting under the sun. It's because she's as hoity-toity as every other mage he's met (thankfully he's only met a few).

The shorter woman sitting next to Captain Roberts shrugs, black hair pulled into a similarly tight bun. "A little biased there captain." Lieutenant Martinez says, her black eyes flickering to look at the monsters. "Though, I can't say it's unwarranted." He hears her mutter.

Johnny notices striped patches velcroed to their arms, 2 icy blue ones on Martinez, 3 deep blue on Roberts. Distantly he remembers them to signal the power level of a mage on the international power scale, though he's blurry on the finer details.

Johnny’s ears twitch as he hears Ghost mutter a “Fuckin’ ‘ell.” under his breath before the wraith gruffly speaks up loud enough for all to hear. “Nail Ifrit and you’ll get the chance to check for bollocks.”

Roberts turns her head to look at Ghost. Her eyes look him over and the initial scowl (which Johnny's sure she was born with) turns into something that makes Johnny's fur stand on end and gums itch with the need to bare his teeth. She opens her mouth to speak—

A low rumble wafts through the air as Price blows out a puff of cigar smoke, the soft cloud escaping through the open window but the strong scent remains. "Hush." Price's pupils are thin like needles, shutting up Roberts with one look before he looks at Kate. "What do we know about 'em?"

Kate frowns, "Not enough." She pulls up a map of the world, a red dot placed somewhere in Libya. “Ifrit first appeared on our radars 2 years ago under the employment of a Libyan warlord called Ahmed Saleh.” Next she pulls up a video, playing it. The camera work is shaky, but Soap's able to make out said warlord speaking in a language he doesn't know, Ifrit standing by his side like some freaky statue. The camera shifts to focus on the row of men behind them, all bound on their knees with bags over their heads.

Johnny knows immediately what this is.

He still flinches when glowing circles spring beneath the mens knees, violent flames shooting high up into the sky as if Ifrit just used their personal key to open Satan's backyard. The camera flickers like an old TV, catching the last few seconds of glitched dying screams and magic burning away skin and muscle before the the video ends.

"Jesus." Kyle mutters next to Soap, his clawed fingers carding through the black feathers on his other forearm in a self soothing motion. "Just. . . Jesus."

"Ah dinnae think he’ll help." Soap mutters back, nose wrinkling as if he can already smell the burning bodies.

"A few weeks after this video was taken, Ifrit went into hiding before resurfacing again under a different employer." If Kate's bothered by the public execution, she doesn't show it. "Cross referencing the attack in Uzrikstan we’ve found over 50 arson attacks with the same M.O.” More red dots spread across the world map haphazardly, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. “As well as indication of Ifrit's involvement in numerous organized crime groups. Khaled is just their latest employer.”

Ghost lets out a low whistle. "Our arsonist's been busy."

"So what?" Soap's fur bristles even more, "The torcher just pop oot like a weed aw o'a sudden an' immediately jump intae terrorism?"

"Maybe?" Kyle scratches the back of his neck. "If they're a late bloomer and unbound then it makes sense why some crime rings would want them," He turns his head to look at Captain Roberts, "Right?"

She doesn't spare him a look, chewing on her words like Kyle had put something foul in her mouth. "I suppose developing strong magic after adolescence is possible." She begrudgingly says, "And unbound magic is stronger than bound, making Ifrit look like an appealing attack dog." She crosses her arms over her chest, stroking her chin in thought.

"But unbound magic also damages to the body." Lieutenant Martinez pipes up. "And that type of mage marks would take more than just 2 years to develop even if they used magic 24/7."

"You're correct." Captain Roberts finally glances at Kyle, giving him a look as if he had asked the difference between a pug and a werewolf. "It's more likely they had magic for a while. Not to mention received training for it."

Another low rumble escapes Price's chest, the sound reminiscent of construction machinery. "How come we didn't know about the firebug earlier?" His voice is calm, making the sharp edge underneath it cut deeper.

Kate sighs, "I hate to say it, but Ifrit is good." She says solemnly. "Their magic destroys electronics, they never show their face or leave witnesses, and they manage to cover their tracks up so well that we can't find even a partial mana-cule signature on the arson attacks, the most recent one included."

Her words make little sense to him, entering Johnny's ear and exiting through the other. He remembers taking a few classes on the types of magic that can mimic explosive materials when he was doing his demolition course, but all the jargons had made his head hurt and wasn't needed in the end. His tail tucks closer to his leg. "A what?"

Captain Roberts scoffs, but her Lieutenant speaks up. "A mana-cule detector picks up the way magic that's left in a victim's body refracts light. It's specific to every mage, so, like a magical fingerprint." She holds up her gloved hand to give visual to her comparison.

Soap feels Gaz's feathers brush against him as the man folds his wings closer to his body, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks at the screen. Kyle's eyes wander back to the starting image of the video where you're standing behind the warlord, mentally comparing it with the brief glimpse of you he got on the news. Something about you screams 'professional' to him, like you've done this so many times you got used to it the same way he got used to pulling the trigger of his gun.

"Ifrit doesn't look like some gang banger Khaled or some warlord picked off the street." Kyle finally says, and though he knows Laswell probably had the same thought, he still asks. "Could they be ex military or part of some pmc?"

"We're operating under this assumption, but we can't confirm anything." Kate frowns. "We're still trying to find any personal information about them."

"Getting to the important information." Captain Roberts says, giving them a pointed look. "What even is Ifrit’s level? With destruction like that I can’t imagine anything beneath L3. L4 if they’re 3 seconds away from becoming a lich or just high on Magnus dust."

"Fuck what dust?" Soap asks, but Captain Roberts just waves him off like his question is too stupid for her to answer.

"Magical crack." Ghost shrugs. "Makes the magic stronger, but also turns the mage into a firecracker."

Kate rubs her brows, a headache starting to pound behind her eyes. "By our calculations Ifrit falls into the L5 category." Her words make the rest of them go silent, but Soap just looks around confused.

"Preposterous." Captain Roberts huffs, "I can count on my fingers how many L5's there have been since Christ was born. Ifrit being one is just impossible." A deep scowl etches across her face. "At best, Ifrit is just an L3 high on Magnus dust with no regard for their body. They'll be a lich in a couple months."

"Regardless of what Ifrit is," Price speaks up, stubbing the cigar butt on the window sill and throwing it out the window. "What do we do about them?" A small bit of smoke escapes the corner of his lip, dragon fire burning hot in his chest in response to his well masked anger.

"An insider in Al-Qatala claims a weapon deal will be going down in a day." Kate swipes away the previous pictures, putting on a bird’s eye-view map of a shipping dock. 5 large warehouses circle an empty concrete space bordering the ocean, clearly long abandoned. "From what we know, Khaled has Ifrit secure most of his weapons because they’re careful. If a buyer’s even a minute late they call it all off."

"So punctual and paranoid?" Gaz sumarrises.

Ghost hums to himself. "Quite the work ethic." He side-eyes Johnny. "You could lean som'thin' from 'em."

Soap just huffs, his tail bumping against Ghost's leg in retaliation, his snagglefang showing as his lip quirks up into a small smirk when Ghost's dark eyes flicker to him.

"You’ll need to be tight, there's no telling when this opportunity will present itself again." Kate continues, ignoring them. "Team Alfa," A dot pops up on one side of the docks, Price's and Lieutenant Martinez's faces beneath it. "you'll be going in from the north. Bravo—" Another dot appears on the opposite side with Ghost's and Captain Robert's faces. "—the south."

The dots move to indicate how they're supposed to approach the position, ending up with them completely surrounding the docks. "We don't know Ifrit's full battle capabilities, so you'll need to be careful. Isolate and tire them out before attempting capture, but kill if you must." Laswell looks at them all. "We can only assume ifrit's magic is short ranged so under no circumstances do you get close to them, understood?"

"Crystal ma'am." Captain Roberts shrugs, throwing a look at the monsters at Taskforce 141. "Just let us take care of the mage and keep out of the way so you don't become collateral. I would hate to waste my time healing you." Her eyes linger on Ghost, bits of bright blue mana flickering in her eyes. "Well, most of you." Soap feels Ghost subtly stiffen next to him.

That woman's charming as a train wreck; Soap can feel himself prickle with irritation, more and more strands of fur rising to stand straight on his tail the longer he has to stay near Roberts.

Luckily they're let go early to go rest up and prepare while the two mages stay with Price and Kate to iron out the finer details of which mages which team is taking and what spells to use. Apparently everyone but Price and Kate are too stupid to understand the 'complexity' of their spells.

Soap would be insulted, but he takes the opportunity offered to him. He glues himself to Ghost's side as much as he can 'professionally', his tail curling around his leg as Johnny throws a smug look over his shoulder at Captain Roberts.

Johnny catches her looking back at him like he’s a flea ridden mutt and that just makes his tail wag. He forgets about her the moment the door of the briefing room closes, busying himself by subtly rubbing his arm against Ghost's, spreading a bit of his scent on the wraith's jacket. It's one of the few times he's glad wraith's don't have a scent — makes it easy to smell himself on Ghost.

"Someone's territorial." Gaz chirps as he joins them on Ghost's other side, feathers brushing against their backs to throw his own scent into the mix.

Ghost just looks at Soap bemused, his thick paw of a hand coming up to cradle the back of Johnny's head, gloved fingers gripping his skin like he's a puppy. "You bettah not piss on me."

Gaz breaks out into laughter and Johnny feels his cheeks grow warm. "Dirty bastard." He huffs, but stores the idea for later. "Are all mages like that?" He tilts his head back at the door.

"Uptight?" Gaz asks. "Snotty?"

"Wankers with their heads shoved up their arse?" Ghost helpfully adds.

"That's putting it brawly," Soap lets out a breath, amusement tugging at his lips as his tail wags.

"Yeah, I think it's like a requirement to be a military mage." Kyle chuckles, holding up his hand like he's judging someone's height. "You've got to be this much of a twat to join." He grins, passing them as he goes to get ready.

Soap wants to say more but Ghost's hand on his neck demands his attention, tilting his head up. His breath catches in his throat as Ghost bends down until their foreheads bonk together softly, the cool metal of the mask tickling Soap's skin. "Don't go doing anything dumb pup, olright?"

Dark eyes meet his own, a shiver runs down Soap's spine, his mouth dry as a desert when he tries to swallow the rock in his throat; Soap can't even begin to define the strange thing that was born between them on that one night in Las Almas, he can still remember the way Ghost's deep voice had kept him sane and his wolf's demands to blindly rush the enemy and get back to his pack quiet.

Johnny certainly can't define the late nights spent sharing that dog piss Simon likes drinking, nor the rough touches and hickeys they leave on the other, though they never have time to get further than that.

This feels nice too.

His hands sneak to Ghost's hips, thumbs hooking under his belt loops to pull their bodies closer, pressing his chest against Ghost's. "When have I ever done that?" He smirks, lips ghosting over Simon's masked ones.

He feels Ghost's chest rumble as the man chuckles, his other hand roughly gripping Johnny's arse. "You want a list?"

Johnny's tail wags more, "Well, I reckon I'd be up fer-"

"Oi, I’d hate to break the snogfest but we’ve got things to do!" Kyle’s chuckle breaks them up before they can do anything else. Soap turns to flip the bird to the bird, but Kyle's tail feathers have already disappeared into the changing room.

. . .

 The night is calm.

Mellow waves break against the well worn concrete walls of the docks, tree leaves softly flutter in the mild breeze, crickets and frogs sing their songs into the night air. The world itself doesn't care about you or the soldiers guarding the docks. Absentmindedly you track the movements of the men Khaled gave you, the barely noticeable crumbs of magic you stuck on them flickering at the back of your mind like dwindling coals.

All are accounted for. The night is calm. There is nothing out of the ordinary.

And yet your nerves are on a razor's edge. The relative silence scratches down your spine with long crooked claws, the calmness crackles beneath your skin like electricity. Your fingers itch with the need to tap them against your thigh, to do something; waiting has always been your least refined quality regardless of how often you needed to use it. Your body, your magic, Hell — the very essence of what you are — craves the heat of battle, the sweet lull of adrenaline's song to put your nerves at ease.

You resist moving too much. Years of training make hiding the signs of unease and nervousness easy as breathing, your body so still you could be mistaken for a statue if your chest didn't steadily rise and fall.

Taim doesn't possess your abilities. You can feel his nervousness on your tongue, like licking an old battery. His hands shift to re-adjust the hold on his gun for the 6th time in the past 10 minutes. You doubt he knows you're watching him from the corner of your eye, so the tenseness of his shoulders must be from you just being near him.

It doesn't surprise you — many countries that have had Russian or Soviet influence consider mages more monstrous than actual monsters. Mages like you are perversions of God's template, thieves who possess power not intended for you. Urzikstan is no different.

You don't point out how Taim flinches when you raise your hand to look at the time, the watch face strapped to the inside of your wrist; some habits are hard to break.

The deal is supposed to happen at 3AM, and it's 02:57 already. "The seller's taking their sweet time." You say under your breath, lowering your hand. You have half the mind to call it off and tell Khaled to teach his suppliers punctuality. Hell, you've done it before when you had less surveillance on yourself and your employer. This just feels like tempting luck.

Taim looks at his own watch and glances your way. "I understand your frustration sir, but- but we just need to wait a bit more." He absentmindedly holds up three fingers to indicate the minutes left, starting the count from his thumb.

It wouldn't be so odd if middle eastern countries such as Urzikstan didn't start counting with the pinky finger. Americans count with the index. That just leaves the entirety of Europe. You hum a low sound at the back of your throat.

"They-" Taim quickly puts his hand down and grips his gun in both hands, apparently thinking you hadn't noticed his blunder. "They should be here any min- minuta." Another slipup; the hint of a different accent softens and shortens the last vowel of the Arabic word. It narrows down a couple countries, but nothing specific.

Taurus would have made you run around the base for days if you had ever made the same mistakes, provided you survived the consequences of getting caught.

What a fucking amateur.

But Khaled isn't paying you to get rid of vermin, so you let it slide. You catalogue this moment in case you'll need it later, concentrating on the present.

The radio inside your helmet sputters to life, a rough voice speaking quickly in Arabic. "Ship incoming."

Your gaze falls on the dark ocean, mana flowing to your eyes without even having to cast a spell. It's not the same as using a mana sensing spell, those leave your head feeling like you'd volunteered it to be used as a church bell in exchange for perfect clarity of the world around you. But your sight becomes significantly brighter and sharper, enough to see the ship sailing towards the docks. It's a medium sized fishing vessel, the lights inside turned off so as not to attract too much attention, but it meets the specifications Khaled had given you.

You reach up to activate the voice receiver of your radio, pressing the button hidden on the inside of your helmet just behind the gas mask portion. "Our seller's incoming. Get the truck, secure the perimeter and keep tight." You order into the radio, cutting it off again.

You motion for Taim to follow as you walk out from your cover. You had hidden yourselves between two warehouses, their roofs extending to the sides enough to hide you from the sight of drones.

You stop a few feet from the edge of the docks, listening to the truck back up behind you as the boat slowly sails up to the edge of the dock and drops it's anchor.

You don't recognize most of the men on the boat, except for one. "Ah, Ifrit, long time no see," Victor Zakhaev greets you in Russian as he steps off the boat first. You notice a new scar across his face, but otherwise he looks good considering last you've heard of him he'd gotten himself shot and left for dead by some monster taskforce. "I am not late, yes?" He asks in English, offering you his hand.

"Right on time." You say and take his hand in a firm handshake. You try to ignore the way the touch of another human, regardless of the fact you can't really feel his touch, makes your skin crawl.

"Good, good, from you, that is a compliment." He smirks and steps to your side, giving room for his men to unload the heavy weapon crates from the bowels of the ship onto the dock. "I assure you, you'll find the garden hoses and other peashooters are all accounted for." Zakhaev makes a motion with his hand, making his workers put a heavy box onto the ground beside you. "But I know you well, you want to check the goods, yes?"

Needles prick your skin and your mind kicks itself for becoming so predictable. But Zakhaev has known you since your stint with that warlord in Libya, it's only natural he would learn a few of your habits after so long. "You would be correct." You say, your voice betraying nothing.

Zakhaev just chuckles, his workers undoing the crate's top board with his company logo printed on top of it. Inside, nestled between a sea of white packing peanuts, lies one of many M134 miniguns Khaled has been keen on getting — people of your ilk call it the garden hose for the ridiculous amount of ammunition it can spit out in a minute.

Say what you want about the yankees, but their weapons are top notch. Having once been on the receiving end of that weapon, you know first had how useful it can be; both for tearing enemy combatants to shreds and for decimating their morale.

You look over the weapon, unable to find anything wrong with it. Zakhaev takes pride in the guns he sells, you've never had any problem with them. "Looks good." You nod your head at Khaled's men and stand up. "Load them up."

You reach into your pocket and pull out a flash drive. Khaled had paid half of the price up front, leaving you to deliver the second half. Inside the flash drive are wallets with thousands of dollars worth of crypto currency. This is a smart play on your employer's part; you don't need to lug around suspicious briefcases full of cash, and there's no wire transfer some nosy agent can trace back to Khaled.

"Rest of your payment." You say simply, handing the inconspicuous flash drive to Zakhaev.

"Thank you kindly." Zakhaev slips the drive into his pocket. You watch the men carry the heavy weapon crates and put them in the truck.

Zakhaev shuffles through his pockets and pulls out a packet of cigarettes, some Russian brand. He taps the bottom of the carton on the back of his hand, offering you the stick that partially sticks out of the box. "Care to join me?" He asks, taking it in stride when you don't react. With a shrug, he puts the cigarette between his teeth. "Help an old friend, yes?"

You don't particularly like being the personal lighter for anyone, but you acquiesce — powerful and resourceful men with fragile prides are better as friends than foes; The task is so simple you don't even need to form a magic circle, a single thought making the end of the cigarette smolder before vestigial flames spark up from nothing, catching on the tightly packed dried leaves and setting them alight.

"Impressive trick." Zakhaev compliments and breathes in the nicotine, unbothered when he receives your silence again. You expect the rest of the weapons exchange to pass quietly, you and him watching from the sidelines as the men load heavy crates into the back of a truck. Your presence here is only as a guard dog.

Zakhaev surprises you by speaking up again. "Ah, there was another thing I wanted to speak to you about."

Another crate is set by your feet. You tilt your head to look at Zakhaev before your gaze flickers to the worker who pries the top board open. Inside isn't a minigun or an automatic rifle Khaled had ordered, but a sniper rifle.

"What is this?" You ask, just about keeping yourself from tensing; This is unexpected, a surprise, and surprises can get you killed faster than playing patty cake with a landmine.

Zakhaev, as if sensing your unease, waves you off. "A gift, my friend." He says in Russian, the words easy to understand. "And a. . . taste, shall we say, of what I can offer you in the event you decide to seek other employment opportunities."

Ah. So that's what this is about — he's trying to bribe you.

Now that you think about it, it isn't too surprising. He knows what you're capable of, and mages of your abilities don't grow on trees. "Is that so?" You ask in Russian, playing along as you kneel down and pick up the gun.

Your fingers move with life of their own, gliding smoothly and confidently over the metal as if you'd been born with it. The barrel is straight as an arrow, the butt fits comfortably against your shoulder, the magazine locks into place with a soft 'click', the bolt moves back with buttery smoothness and gives you sight of the live round before it's loaded into place with a second satisfying sound. It tickles your brain, that violent thing in your chest stirs with interest.

"You like it, yes?" Zakhaev chuckles, the sharpness in his eyes momentarily lost as he observes you as one does a child opening gifts on Christmas morning. "It’s a .50BMG, semi-auto, 5 rounds every 1.6 seconds, 1,800mile range, 1,319 m/s velocity, and has a 5-round detachable box mag with a muzzle brake." He details, and you mentally whistle to yourself; guns like these cost a fortune. "It's a nice gun, no?"

It is a very nice gun.

Something at the back of your mind tingles; a smoldering coal is quenched, a string snaps and sends a single needle through your amygdala. Foreign mana, as subtle as a tank, traipses at the edge of your consciousness — a fly unknowingly vibrates the threads of a spider's nest.

It is a very nice gun.

And you just found a target to practice on.

. . .

"What is Zakhaev doing here? I thought we buried him in Verdansk?" Sergeant Garrick’s voice chatters quietly over the coms as Captain Roberts makes her way through the swamp, muddy water up to her knees and insects buzzing around her head. A few of her best mages trail behind her, the rest of her team mingled between the monsters on the other side of the docks.

"Turns out our matchstick's just a magnet for wankers." Sergeant MacTavish’s voice crackles. She doesn’t stop the scoff that comes to her lips. He just has a voice that’s easy to dislike, then again she never did like mutts.

"Our mission remains the same, get Zakhaev if you can but Ifrit’s a more dangerous target." Captain Roberts wants to argue with Price. Hell, she did for nearly an hour after the briefing was done just on the subject why everyone but him and the wraith had to wear gas masks. Captain Price is too paranoid in her opinion; after the terrorist attack there's no way their target's mana reserves aren't depleted to shit, Ifrit probably couldn't put up a fight tougher than wet tissue paper but nooo, Laswell just had to pick that lizard over her own kind.

"Took care of a straggler." The deep rumble of Lieutenant Ghost’s voice sends a nice shiver down her spine. He had broken off to go ahead, briefly giving her a nice look at his ass. At least there’s one sideshow in that freakshow of a taskforce that’s easy on the eyes. She bets he would look even better without that ugly mask, all those big muscles on display and quivering beneath her…

"Alfa team in position." Price speaks into the radio.

Roberts shakes her head, refocusing on the task as she kneels in the dark water. She's partially hidden behind a rotten tree stump, but the night is dark and there's enough critters and insects in the swamp to make sensing them with mana difficult. "Team Bravo in position." She says.

"Good, stand by, we only get one chance at this." That's probably the only thing she and Price agree on. Opportunities like this don't fall into their laps often, maybe she can even nab herself a promotion if she captures both Ifrit and Zakhaev.

Curiosity tugs on her mind as she watches the weapons deal go down. She doesn’t know what she expected but this isn’t it; The last time she had seen someone capable of similar destruction, it had been a teenager in the late stages of lichdom— mind eroded, body nothing but skin and bones, magic rotting the poor girl from the inside out until all that was left was an animal in human skin.

She expected something similar, maybe worse, not for Ifrit to look no different than every other criminal piece of shit she's seen.

Unable to hold back her curiosity she hunches her shoulders and takes off her gloves. Her mage marks are extensive and ugly; reach to the first knuckle of each finger, the dried coral like texture scratching her skin as she places one hand on her face to peer between her fingers, another resting over her chest.

Captain Roberts can at least feel proud for being so magically gifted she can shorten a 40 something word incantation to just 13 measly words: "Sister of steams, daughter of oceans, give me sight to see the hidden." She can feel her mana leisurely crawl through her veins as she murmurs the spell, like squeezing honey through a cheesecloth.

The world lights up in an array of colors like a broken kaleidoscope, shapes and outlines flickering in and out as the mana inside every living creature mixes and twirls with the dark backdrop of dead mana without rhyme or reason. The sight is something humans were never meant to see, and it stabs at her eyes for even daring to look, but she can stomach it long enough to catch sight of Ifrit's mana.

Captain Roberts is disappointed to see the mana surrounding you is nothing to write home about; orange mana cleanly outlines your entire frame, barely a couple of inches thick, not too bright and not even the barest flicker in the even surface to indicate mana suppression.

The disappointment morphs into relief as she deactivates her spell — at the very least she won't need to waste her time with this monster and terrorist nonsense longer than she has to. Shame, she had been looking for a challenge—

A violent shiver runs down her spine, her heart lurches and bashes against her ribs with the feral panic of a prey animal trying to escape, cold sweat breaks out across her skin and pain blooming in her arteries as mana rushes to her fingers—

A bullet strikes the rotten stump she's hiding behind.

Magic explodes on contact.

Violent flames race to devour those still living.

. . .

You count 5 seconds between the bullet hitting it's target, the magic you imbued it with exploding, and it all going to shit.

You throw a hand over Zakhaev's shoulder and force him to the ground as the first hail of bullets comes your way. You drop to your knee just in time to avoid receiving a lead injection, the concrete behind you exploding in small puffs of dust as the high caliber bullets hit the ground or bounce off Zakhaev's boat to tear through the meat shields that are Khaled's men. You try to take a few potshots, but your position is bad and you can't tell where the shots are coming from.

You catch large elongated sticks fall from the sky and clatter to the ground. You immediately screw your eyes shut, bending at the waist to put your face parallel with the ground and pressing your hands to your ears. You avoid the flash as the stun grenades go off, but the following bang! rattles inside your ears and makes you stumble as you straighten out.

But you know this is just a distraction: beneath the whizzing bullets and echoing shots you can feel the world groan, the air shivering with disgust as magic slowly gathers at the fingertips of enemy mages. They take every precious second given to them to build and strengthen their spells, the average cast time around a minute.

You need no such preparation.

The moment you feel their spells release, like a rubber band snapping against your skin, you summon your own magic. You have neither the time nor space to produce a proper counter spell when you haven't seen your enemies casting circles, so your offence becomes your best defense — glowing circles spark across the air to shoot out violent flames, burning heat and freezing cold colliding in the crisp night air. Your magic is far superior, turning the balls of ice and water into steam.

The boundless steam floods the area and rushes at you like a stampede of frantic beasts. You pull Zakhaev close to you, shielding his fragile body from the blistering mist as it washes over you, nothing but a mild inconvenience. Your stomach feels tight, as if mocking you for not listening to your body.

At least you can be certain this isn't just some group of Khaled's enemies or gangsters that stumbled on you. The fact they're using water and ice spells means this was preplanned, they have a specific target — you.

The thought makes something inside you stir. You feel your heart begin to beat a little faster, a little harder, a little louder, banging against your ribs in the slow start of a war march to rouse the slumbering beast in your veins. Enticing it with what it you craves.

You hear Zakhaev say something but his words fail to reach your ears, not that you'd be able to respond with how your tongue feels like it's made of lead. Your body always does this; jaw tensing to keep you quiet, muscles relaxing in preparation, the lingering vestiges of nervousness evaporating to clear your mind so you can focus. Something in that fucked up brain of yours makes you switch to the first language you ever learned — violence.

Your grip is ironclad as you throw Zakhaev over your shoulder like he's a sack of potatoes, summoning more spells for cover instead of listening to his cursing. Even more steam blankets the ground, joining alongside gunfire and magic to create a disorientating shroud you're very familiar with. You easily duck and weave through Khaled's men, catching glimpses of enemy bodies moving beyond the steam as you head to the truck, hoping to use it for momentary cover.

Throwing Zakhaev into the back of the truck with the weapon boxes you skirt to the front of the vehicle, the sharp bang! of your fist knocking against the metal door scaring the shit out of the driver. You meet the man's eyes through the darkened lenses of your helmet, giving a hand gesture for him to drive.

Hummingbirds peck at the back of your skull, giving you ample warning to jump out of the way even before a circle spreads beneath your feet. A shard of ice erupts from the ground where you'd just stood, thankfully avoiding the car and giving the driver further incentive to get the fuck out. Ants crawl down your spine in another warning, and you saw enough of the previous circle to disrupt the one that appears behind you, a few orange lines springing up in the neat blue circle to make it fizzle out and send the half built spell right back at the caster.

With the primary targets secured you can turn your full attention on the attackers, your gloves smoldering as hot mana rushes to your fingertips. You hear pebbles crunch under a boot while you summon your own magic circles, the return of that tight feeling in your stomach making you break concentration just enough to catch sight of one of Khaled's men in your periphery.

You notice the gun aimed at you a second too late.

Bang!

Pain flares through your shoulder, your body moving on its own as you throw yourself to the side to avoid another round. You don't need to think for your flames to burst beneath the feet of your attacker, using the distraction to retreat into the space between two warehouses, giving yourself better cover. Mana rushes to the hole in your shoulder, drops of molten metal leaking from your wound when you lean forward, your clothing greedily drinking up your mana saturated blood and sticking to your skin.

Your magic repairs your body as quickly as you're injured, pain rapidly fading away until only the dull sting of betrayal remains. Like a sacrificial lamb, it catches the deadly attention of the thing slumbering in your heart.

It wakes up angry and feral and oh so hungry.

Fangs of freezing heat tenderly grip your heart, ravenous nothingness once birthed by your desperation now begs and demands for your will to give it shape. How can you refuse?

Flames spark at your palms, burning away the thick material of your gloves to free your hands. A freezing chill gnaws on your burning fingers and harkens the arrival of something that slinks out of your heart like crude oil, bulging and molding itself to your veins as it crawls to your palms. Darkness consumes the orange glow of your magic, leaving behind little pitch black candlelight flames burning at your fingertips. 'Flames' is a bad word to describe them when they suck the light around them; it's like looking at black silhouettes in the approximation of fire, painted straight onto reality by a child's hand.

A magic circle spirals beneath you, glowing bright blue and stinking of enemy magic. You can just about hear the chanting of spells near you, more circles appearing on either side of you, trapping you.

"Beelzebub," You mutter under your breath, not out of need — you've long since mastered the art of wordless magic — but out of respect. "Devour."

2 measly words is all it takes for the black fires to shoot straight up like the fangs of a beast, leaping off your fingers in wide arcs and creating a quickly expanding perimeter around you, circling like sharks as they rush outwards. The meticulously crafted circles shatter like glass, hundreds of little shards of visible mana fluttering around you for a second before they're swallowed up by the black fires.

Beelzebub is a ravenous spell, lashing out at everything around you with the sole intent to consume, to devour every little bit of mana in an endlessly fruitless attempt to sate its hunger. Regardless, if said mana has already been made into a spell, of it's still inside a person.

You don't see it, but you know the exact moment Beelzebub finds the enemy mages, screams of horror and pain filling the air as black flames descend on them like bloodhounds. You can feel Beelzebub's freezing claws tear into them, leaving the flesh unharmed but tearing their mana out bit by bit, devouring it, syphoning the power back to you.

Once, long ago, the acrid rush of foreign mana through your system would have knocked you on your ass, now it just forces you to sway and lean against the warehouse wall. Long ago, the way stolen mana gnaws on your veins and claws at your chest for escape would have left you writhing on the floor, but now you can barely feel it. Your stomach cramps, the urge to vomit still as strong as it was back then, your senses registering all the rot; people don't think about how many forms rot can take — decaying kelp, festering flesh, acid rain, gangrene, moldy wall paper — hundreds of little deaths making up the very essence mages depend on.

Your body begs to use magic before you explode, muscles tensing, chest fluttering, ribs squeezing down on your lungs in an attempt to keep the stolen mana imprisoned. Sweet relief floods your mind as the searing heat of your own magic pushes the stolen mana through your veins, herding it into your palms where you can easily reshape it into something familiar to you: Ash.

Pushing off the wall you rush into the open, using Beelzebub's flames to burn the lines of the attack circle into the ground. The thinning steam lets you catch sight of enemies rounding the warehouses in front of you, likely human or monster since Beelzebub would have taken mages closest to you out of commission. You don't ponder this further, the second the final line is drawn you use Beelzebub as a transition point and push all the stolen mana out.

The docks erupt in a puff of disorientating ash. You don't waste time waiting for someone to fire the shot needed to ignite your magic, falling to your knee as you punch the ground. All it takes is for the chips of volcanic rock along your knuckles to scrape against the concrete for a spark to form.

The resulting explosion is never pleasant.

The sudden surge of light and the loud bang! leaves you disorientated for a few seconds, your skin dry yet clammy as if you has just got sprayed by a flash flood of boiling water. Tiny chisels pick at your bones as you stumble to your feet, trying to sculpt you into something holier than what you are.

But you can't complain when the same explosion tears through soldiers like they're paper, not even leaving behind blood to stain you when the harsh heat cremates the bodies closest to you. Your lungs struggle to get in a good breath, the stench of smog and burning meat passing through the filter and clinging to your tongue. You can hear your enemies coughing, you can feel them moving through the smog in search for you, but your ash is so thick it completely hides you, giving you a few seconds to think.

Thousands of thoughts roll around your skull, but one stands out — Khaled finally betrayed you.

Fire shoots out from beyond the ash at you. Your body moves instinctively as you throw your hand up to guard your head and turn away. The hot flames lick harmlessly over your skin, too similar to the heat inside you to harm you, so all it can do is burn your outer clothes until your shirt and bulletproof vest peek out beneath the large smoldering holes.

You get a second to catch sight of sharp curving horns and predatory blue eyes staring at you from the ash, the smog shifting around a rapidly approaching figure. Next thing you know something hard hits you right in the stomach, fast and unyielding like a truck.

Your skin and muscles ripple under the fist, you feel and hear your ribs crack! under the immense strength right before the punch flings you back like a ragdoll.

You crash into a warehouse wall, the metal denting in the shape of your back as more bones crack. Pain flares through your body, your tongue, caught between your teeth, bleeds peppery acrid blood into your mouth. You gasp for breath as much as you're able to, chest weakly fluttering like a butterfly's wing as you find yourself unable to take in a deep breath.

Then a sickening crack! rings right behind your eardrums as your magic pulls out the rib piercing your lung, pushing on it until it fully expands and you can breathe again. Heat slithers through your body to glue together broken bones and torn muscles, repairing you as if nothing ever happened. You're on your feet in seconds, the ripple in the ash giving you enough warning to lunge out of the way before another stream of flames can wash over you. You send your own in return, a magic circle forming in front of you before spewing out a beam of concentrated flame. The force behind it causes the lingering ash to disperse, giving you better sight of your opponent—

Dragon.

Of course your luck has to be so dogshit you'd get a fucking dragon sicked on you. What's next, a damn stone-skinned goliath? Maybe a leviathan to really fuck you over?

You bend your knees as you summon a magic circle beneath your feet. The ash erupts with such force it sends you careening through the air, launching you into the ash free air above you. You're close enough to a warehouse to grasp the jutting out metal sheet of the steel roof, your muscles tensing as you haul yourself up.

Quickly wiping away the ash stuck to your helmet lenses your eyes instinctively look up to search the sky, the bright spotlights of the docks making the night so much darker. If a dragon's after you then there's a high likelihood there are more monsters, and those rarely come without at least one flyer in their team.

The subtle, unnatural, flutter of distant stars across the dark sky gives you enough incentive to throw up a fiery shield, retreating further back onto the roof. Feathers sharp as knives burn to cinders in your flames, some stragglers imbedding themselves near your feet, easily slicing through the steel roof; Harpy.

You can't tell what kind it is, probably a common variety, but it doesn't really matter so long as you can clip the bird's wings.

Mana floods into your eyes as you use a mana sensing spell. The sky lights up like an aurora borealis, the ground below explodes in all sorts of nauseating colors that makes a headache pound against your skull. But it's worth it when the body of the harpy lights up like a lightbulb, contrasting sharply against the sky, it's wings making for the perfect target.

You know harpies are fast fliers. It forces you to give up some firepower in exchange for a homing ability. Changing a spell is an easy thing to do, mentally erasing and adding a couple of lines in your circle before you summon it. You disable your mana sight so you don't blind yourself and let your magic loose, firing off 4 tightly packed balls of fire in rapid order.

You don't stick around to see it try to dodge your magic, turning to your heel to race across the roof after you flood the earth bellow with even more ash. You need to escape; you could try to kill the monsters, you doubt they have anything worse than that dragon, but you have bigger problems — you can't let an enemy like Khaled live.

Something catches your leg like you're a rabbit in a snare, an unforgettable cold creeping up your skin to gnaw on your brain. Ethereal shadows curl like ropes around your ankle and pull you down before you can burn them away. You tumble to the steel roof and blindly summon flames around you, rolling to your side the moment you get yourself free and just barely managing to avoid your own shadow trying to skewer you.

You burn away the shadowy spikes sticking out from the ground, flames flaring up around you to momentarily distract your opponent as you get to your feet. Your eyes settle on the one that tripped you; big fucker, tall and wide, half wreathed in shadows, a skull mask peering at your from the darkness. Your spine feels like it wants to crawl out of your back, the silence of the grave ringing in your ears when you go to sense his magic and pick up nothing.

The same nothing that makes up Beelzebub. Furious. Hungry. Dead.

Wraith. You are facing a Wraith.

Not a goliath, not a leviathan. Worse. Much, much worse.

You have no shot at outrunning that thing when your own shadow can betray you, not to mention the wraith's range is far larger than yours in the dead of night. You have no choice but to charge at him, a circle forming beneath your heel and ash bursting out to launch you forward, your magic burning hot and bright to produce as much light as you can in an attempt to limit the shadows he can use.

Flames wreathe your fist as you throw a punch to his side, your sudden advance taking him off guard just enough for you to hit him, fire eating away at tactical gear to gnaw on the dead flesh. It forces a grunt out of him before shadows spew out from where you hit him to engulf your arm, leaving you open for a sharp knee to the gut. Your hands flare up, volcanic stone melting into active lava to burn away the shadows holding you. A pillar of flame erupts between you two to force him back, but whips of shadow shoot through the fire in quick retaliation. You duck and roll, adrenaline rushing through your veins like a feral hound as you charge at him again.

Shadows and flames are both volatile and taxing, making you two employ similar tactics: rush and overwhelm your opponent. You have to admit, the wraith is fucking good; he's not an oaf despite his size, using it to his advantage and giving you no reprieve from the constant jabs, trying to bully you into a position where you'd be open for his shadows to pierce your flesh.

But you're faster, ducking and weaving between his blows, mana pulsing through your blood and strengthening your muscles when they think of failing you down. You can almost hear Jackal shouting at you for being too slow.

Your flames are an extension of you, you trust them to clash with his shadows so you can focus purely on the Wraith. You can tell he's getting annoyed when you duck under another swing and jab your elbow into his ribs, the un-melted rocks covering your joint much more painful than actual bone. And that's before magic shoots out from your elbow, flames burning away both of your clothes and creating a sizable blistering wound on his side.

"Fucker," His shadows flare out to put out your flames, "Stay still." You catch a hind of a British accent in his rough voice, unable to get any more as liquid shadows roll of his shoulders and shoot out at you. You're forced to stumble back in an attempt to avoid the shadows trying to claw your face off, your heel ending right on the edge of the roof.

There's a small space between the edge you're standing on and the start of the roof of the warehouse adjacent to this one, the space big enough for you to fall through if you're not careful. The fall itself wouldn't be pleasant either. Your jaw clenches harder and you swing your arm down in an arch, summoning dozens of palm sized circles and shooting out bolts of concentrated flame through the shroud of darkness. Some of them hit him and force black smoke to fizzle out from the wounds you inflict on him, his shadows repairing the walking corpse the same way your magic does to you.

That's not good. While you could go hours, you'll run out of the mana you'll need to take out Khaled if you continue this attempt to put the wraith down. Beelzebub's cold flame simmers in your heart, begging to be set free. You'd rather not use it again when the closest mana source is a wraith — a dead thing full of unfiltered rot — god forbid it triggers the only spell you've sworn not to use, but you don't think you have many other options.

Just as Beelzebub readies to crawl from your heart something else grabs your foot, sharp claws digging into your skin and jerking you down. You buck forward and nearly fall face first, throwing your head to look at the thing that's caught you. A man has half hoisted himself up on the roof, clothes torn and barely hanging on to his frame, a gas mask obscuring his face, one clawed hand gripping the steel to keep himself up as the other has your leg in an iron grip that leaves your bones groaning.

You notice the man's elongated ears and gleaming blue eyes as those of a werewolf. Those blue eyes widen to the size of dinner plates when you summon a magic circle point black with his head, the reflective orange glow of your magic swallowing up all the color his eyes.

Shadows shoot out into the space between his head and your circle, devouring the ball of flames you shoot out so the worst the wolf gets is a face full of smoke and singed hair. You turn your body back to face the wrath, throwing up both hands to summon different circles to take both out, but you're too slow. Whips of shadow shoot out and hit you dead center in the chest. The force sends you crashing back, the dumb wolf holding onto your leg pulled down with you.

You crash through the window of the other warehouse and straight down to the ground. The fall forces a loud wheeze from your lungs as large glass shards embed themselves into your back and shoulders where the bulletproof vest doesn't reach. Your ribs crackle like popcorn as magic heals them, but the pain from constantly getting them broken and repaired is starting to linger.

Dark brown fur flickers in the periphery of your vision, the sensation of a heavy body bearing down on your own snapping you back to action. You throw your arm up, the sharp fangs meant for your throat biting down on your forearm. You don't feel pain there, but a sick sense of satisfaction bubbles in your stomach as you get the first row view of your assailant registering the blistering head of your mage marks against the tender flesh of his mouth.

He yelps like a kicked dog as he releases your forearm. With a grunt you grip his shoulders, the patches of fur there smoldering the few brief seconds it takes you to gather enough strength to throw the heavy mutt off you. You stumble to your knees quickly, forced to dampen your healing abilities. The glass shards dig deeper into your muscles as you move, but the threat of them exploding from the heat of your magic prevents you from doing healing your wounds; the best you can do is dull the pain.

The warehouse is dark, but the mana in your eyes gives you a rudimentary night vision, letting you see the werewolf scramble to his own feet, spitting saliva and curses at you, "Aw ye fockin' bawbag! I-"

The rest of his words fail to reach your brain as you register the ignited remains of your ash blanketing the ground, making it impossible to see your feet bellow your knees. The scent of melting steel and smoke invades your nose, your mind taking this as the most opportune time to replace the metal ceiling high above you with hundreds of feet of rubble. Your chest tightens, the wide walls of the warehouse closing in until you feel like there's no space to move.

You're trapped. Again.

Your eyes flicker around in search for an escape, flames sparking from your fingers to burn all the way up to your shoulders, your mage marks burning hot and bright in the darkness. There! — at the very back of the warehouse you spy a motorcycle, your way out. Only a werewolf stands between it and you. It's true what Taurus used to tell you: freedom is a rope and God wants you to hang from it.

Steeling yourself, your hands reach out to grasp the knives you keep strapped to your shins, a subtle shift of the handles in your palms letting your magic flow freely into the steel.

Let him try to stop you.

. . .

Soap 's hackles raise, his fur feeling like it wants to leap off his tail. Such a deep and strong stench of rot permeates his senses his mind thinks he's the one decaying for a second. His eyes focuse on you as flames coat the knives in your hands and artificially extend the blades to give you better reach. Laswell's voice replays in his mind, telling him not to get close. Hell, he swears he can he can hear his ma's voice call him a bloody idjit for thinking of rushing at the fucking demon.

But his body still shifts further, bones snapping and reforming, muscles growing and the tattered remains of his shirt snapping off his torso as his body doubles in size. He can see his glowing eyes reflect in the tinted lenses of your mask before he rushes at you, body low to the ground before he leaps, claws bared.

You sidestep at the last second and raise your arm, the artificial blade of flames licking a blistering cut across his side. Pain shoots up his spine, his blood literally boiling as the fire both cuts him and cautarizes the wound.

"Focker-" He yelps and drops to all fours to dodge a second slash, leaping up and swinging his arm in an uppercut. His claws cut into the Kevlar as they scrape against the bulletproof vest instead of your skin, snagging on something around your neck and pulling it with him as you lean down and duck back to create distance.

Johnny doesn't get to check what it is when you immediately retaliate by throwing your knife at him. He quickly pockets what he got off you and tries to avoid the weapon but it still hits him in the shoulder, hot flames burning at his skin to let the metal slide in deeper. "Bastard-" He snarls but before he can do anything you're next to him, ripping the knife from his shoulder as you duck past him to slash at the back of his knee.

Soap yelps from the pain as he tumbles forward, turning his body as he falls to roughly swipe at you with his superior reach. The force behind his swing makes you stumble, giving his body the few seconds it needs to regenerate. He rolls to all fours, muscles tensing to lunge again— a sense of wrongness shoots down his spine, forcing him to pause.

A pillar of flames erupts from the ground where he would have been had he lunged at you, the bright light blinding him. When he can see again, he catches your form on top of one of the shipping containers, magical circles appearing as you run across the container to pelt him with balls of concentrated ash. The balls explode in large puffballs of ash as they hit the ground, his mind urging him to move to avoid getting a face full of ash. "Aw no yer fockin' not." He mutters under his breath, taking a few quick and wide steps before he leaps onto the shipping container to escape the suffocating smog, racing after you on all fours.

This proves to be a mistake as you suddenly turn around, thrusting your hand out to cast a giant circle right in front of his eyes. Claws digging into the metal Soap throws himself to his side just as a beam of flames shoots out, singeing his furry tail and forcing a strangled gasp out of his lips as a bit of his thigh gets caught in the blast of fire.

He crashes to the concrete ground, the scent rot curling in his nose as the ash swirls over him, but can't reach his lungs thanks to the gas mask. Johnny's leg muscles twitch, his though skin blistered and red like a tomato, the tattered remains of his pants partially burned into his skin. He struggles to get to his knees, pain stabbing his skin as his body tries to heal, watching through blurry eyes as you reach your target — the motorcycle.

The engine revs to life and you get on it without wasting a second. A violent sensation rushes down his spine as you summon another circle, this one so big it stretches across the entire back wall of the warehouse. In a second the metal heats up to the point it's glowing, solid steel turning into molten slag and dropping to the ground like melting snow. Soap's mind stutters when you flip him off before racing away, shouting and gunfire audible but quickly growing quiet as you get away.

Fucking Bastard.

"So- Soap! H-ghr!- ow co-kghr-ppy?" Price's voice crackles through the radio, barely understandable thanks to how much magic is floating around him.

He groans, sucking in a sharp breath. "Still alive." He grinds out. Rapidly approaching footsteps make him stumble to stand, a threatening growl erupting from his throat.

"Just me." Ghost's voice makes him instantly calm down. His body presses against Johnny's and Soap lets himself put his weight on Ghost. "You broken?" Ghost asks, slipping Johnny's arm over his shoulder and gripping his waist, easily holding him up despite Johnny being nearly twice his size currently.

Johnny tries to breathe in deep with the gas mask restricting his lungs, "Just me pride." He glances down to his leg, the wound glistening with clear fluid and still blistered, his healing factor not even making a dent in it. "Fucker got me good." His ears twitch,

"We'll track 'em down." Ghost grunts as he helps Soap limp out of the ash filled warehouse, safe from the magic as he doesn't need to breathe. "I stuck a tracker, they're not getting far."

"Fockin' hope so, ah got a score to settle an' the bawbag flipped me off for fuck—" A thought comes to him. The tattered remains of his pants have pockets high up so he doesn't tear them when he transforms. He reaches into the pocket and pulls the thing he'd accidentally nicked off you. Johnny lifts it up so both of them can see the chain hanging off his fingers, a little more than a dozen dog tags dangling from it.

Even with the gas mask obscuring part of his face, Ghost knows Johnny's smirking. "Bet you Laswell will love this."

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii

Masterlist; Chapter 1 <- Chapter 2(you are here) -> Chapter 3

[charliemwrites]

A little request from the discord server about Castle “Daddy” Alistair and No Nut November.

CW: free use spice; everything is enthusiastically consensual and part of an established dynamic.

It’s all Keegan’s fault.

Looking back on all the devastation, every fault line to this disaster can be traced back to Keegan fucking Russ and his stupid cocky mouth.

It started like this: the team was playing cards and sharing drinks, the dinner Nova prepared long since enjoyed. They were discussing silly internet trends and challenges, trying to explain to an unimpressed Nikto what the point of it all was.

Castle was listening with mild amusement, shaking his head at the nonsense of it all. The fact that these arbitrary tasks were considered difficult was a mystery to him and he said so. Then Keegan tapped his finger on the table, a glint in his eye.

“Ya know… November is coming up…” he mused.

“What about it?” Castle asked.

Nova to perked up, eyebrows arched. No way would Keegan actually suggest—

“There’s this one challenge I think you’d struggle with Cap. It happens that month.”

Castle snorted softly, tossed a couple cards down. Let the moment draw out just to fuck with his partner, even though they all knew he’d humor him in the end.

“Yeah? What is it?” he asked, taking a swig of his beer.

“It’s called No Nut November. Pretty much what it says on the tin. You don’t cum for the whole month,” Keegan explained. He sat back and crossed his arms, looking smug. “Tell me you wouldn’t fold, Cap.”

Castle leveled him a steady, smoldering look. “I wouldn’t fold.”

Nova shifted, face flushing when Castle focused on her, eyebrows arched in silent invitation. She debated all of three seconds before throwing caution to the wind; Keegan could use a bit of backup against a man so formidable. And besides, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about what would happen.

“I’m not saying you couldn’t,” she mused, “I’m just saying that given your usual libido, I don’t think it would be a walk in the park.”

He snorted, seeing right through her half-hearted attempt at diplomacy. “Is that right? And what do you think, Nikto?”

A pause as he considered, then spoke low and measured. “The sergeants are getting too cocky.”

Castle smirked. “I agree.”

A week into the “challenge” Keegan had nearly forgotten. The team was busy, not much opportunity for more than cuddles and stolen kisses.

Two weeks in and he was enjoying himself immensely. Teasing Castle with wandering hands, climbing under his desk and getting him right to the edge, only to be stopped by a firm hand in his hair and a low warning that he wasn’t as sly as he thought. It wasn’t like Keegan (or anyone else on the team) was taking on the challenge. They were getting to indulge themselves as often as time and energy would allow - usually with their Daddy right there, talking them through it, organizing them as efficiently as he would in the field. Taking care of them with his mouth and hands to stave off some of his own frustration.

But week three… week three he started to worry. It wasn’t that Castle was struggling. It wasn’t that he was snappish or pent up or frustrated. It was that he seemed perfectly fine. A quick adjustment of his pants here or there, idly stroking himself while he watched his partners together. But he was like fucking iron for himself, and Keegan’s normal admiration was taking on a frightened edge.

And then week four began the silent, unknown countdown. Keegan felt it on the back of his neck like a sniper scope. A little, private smirk on his captain’s face, or a slightly rougher than usual sigh. An unusual flex in his jaw or twitch in his steady hands.

On November 30th, the team was lounging in their private rec room, idly watching a tv show together. Nikto was curled up with Nova in one of the big arm chairs, her head settled on his shoulder. Keegan and Castle were sharing the couch, the latter with an arm thrown over the back around his sergeant’s shoulders.

Halfway through, he glanced casually at his watch. Stood up to take his empty glass to the sink. Sidled back around to his spot.

Then snatched Keegan by the shirt and threw him to the ground.

“What the—”

His sweats were yanked down to midthigh, but his underwear didn’t survive, split right down the seam by brutal hands.

“Did you have fun?” Castle asked, dangerously low and even.

Keegan started to push himself up, but a big hand on the back of his neck stopped him. And then a heavy body followed, pinning him prone to the floor. He shuddered as he felt the thick, hot, rocking fucking hard cock sliding between his asscheeks.

“S-sir…“

A thrust hard enough to rock his entire body, dragging his quickly-filling dick across the carpet. He choked out a noise as reality began to set in. Christ, he almost wished that didn’t feel so good.

“Daddy, I—”

“Asked you a question, didn’t I?” Castle rumbled, voice deceptively casual. “Did you have fun?”

Keegan shuddered, any defiance or self-preservation draining when he felt the pierced head of his daddy’s cock catching at his rim. His well-stretched, well-used, still-wet rim. Because Castle had spent an hour before dinner getting him off on his thick fingers.

“Yeah…”

“What was that? A bit louder, kid.”

“Yes, Daddy, I had fun.”

Castle chuckled, so deep and low and rough that Keegan could feel it in his own chest, all the way down into the pit of squirming stomach.

“Good,” he cooed, “I hope it was worth it. Because now it’s my turn.”

Keegan was a stupid, drooling mess when midnight struck. Stuffed full of his captain’s cock and shuddering on oversensitivity. Would forever deny the high-pitched whine that escaped when he felt the absolute flood of cum being fucked into him. There was so much, it leaked out around Castle’s still-hard cock and dripped down Keegan’s reddened thighs.

“Happy December 1st,” Castle chuckled, pulling out.

Keegan shuddered as he stood, could hear the audibly pop as he cracked his neck.

“Nikto, take care of Keegan. I’m not done with him yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

A heavy, tense pause.

“You know what’s next, don’t you, babygirl?”

“Daddy, I’m not the one that—”

“If you run, I’m fucking you wherever I catch you,” he warned, taking a languid step towards her.

Nikto silently slipped out of the way to kneel down by a dazed Keegan. Nova despaired. “So make your next choice very carefully.”

He had them both twice over that night, leaving them whimpering and sobbing in his bed. They only got a break when Nikto took one for the team, kneeling down to suck Castle off so his partners could get a rest.

The next ten days were a lustful sort of hell. At any moment, without warning, Castle would grab a teammate and press them against the nearest surface - his desk, a wall, a chair, even the counter at gun range - and pound the daylights out of them. Sometimes even going out of his way to sneak up, appearing like a shadow and dragging one of them into a supply closet to ruin them.

On a normal routine, Castle had an almost improbable level of stamina and lust. But after a month without getting off, with satisfying himself on his partners’ pleasure and indulging their teasing? He was utterly insatiable. Keegan made a comment about him being so horny that Castle would override biology and get him pregnant. One day, he’d learn to keep the thoughts inside. Blame it on his brain being ruined by astronomical levels of cock.

The compensation fucking finally began to taper off halfway into December, Castle seeming to level out back to his normal libido. Still high, but not anytime-anywhere-anyone levels anymore. He did chuckle at his jumpy teammates in the aftermath though, watching their pupils blow out whenever he looked at them a certain way.

The next time they played cards (everyone but Castle sitting gingerly in their chairs) he smirked at Keegan around his beer bottle.

“So, you wanna try your luck next year?”

[ohimsummer]

RANDOM HORROR GAMER! SATORU HCS

— one(1) suggestive under the cut so minors dni, gamer! gojo x reader, established rs, explicit language, some gamer! reader, pet names (sweetums, baby, (my) love), the link has body horror!!, horror-loving gojo in general <3

⭑ ࣪ ˖ sum’z notes.ᐟ gojo playing outlast and resident evil and silent hill and fnaf and and

horror gamer! satoru who always likes you around whenever he starts playing. doesn’t matter if you’re cooking, showering, or out for the day—and prefers you in his lap while in his comfy gaming chair, but if you’re even just on the bed nearby then that’s totally okay, too.

horror gamer! satoru who finds it so cute when the jumpscares actually startle you. laughs when you let out a yelp or a scream, giggling a ‘relax, baby’ as if his heart didn’t stop for a second at the same scare.

horror gamer! satoru who asks your opinions and recommendations on what games to play, even if you know nothing about them. if he’s stuck between two games, he’ll let you be the tiebreaker, shoving the two options in your face for you to choose from even if your reasons are inane. ‘you like the art on this one better? the title sounds cooler? okay, come check it out with me!’

horror gamer! satoru who finds it comforting whenever you’re cuddled under him while he plays. your scent and the warmth of your body soothes him, makes the scares a little less frightening and he calms down way quicker when he gets to hug you so tight. (refers to you as his emotional support y/n)

horror gamer! satoru who’s just about always eating his words about how terrified the game is making him. talks so much shit going ‘oh this dumbass monster isn’t even that scary’ and you just like to humor him even though you can feel his heart pounding in his chest.

horror gamer! satoru who enjoys when you also talk a little trash with him. ‘i could totally take that monster on, right, baby?’ ‘hell yeah, it looks weak as shit, you could destroy that thing.’

horror gamer! satoru and you both frantically talking over eachother when he gets to a fast-paced area of the game, parts that require swift puzzle-solving or thinking quickly on your feet. ‘fuckfuckfuck where do i go, where do i go ?!’ ‘that way, THAT WAY, no the other way, oh my god, run!!’

horror gamer! satoru who likes handing you the mouse/controller and watching you play. guides you through some parts when you get confused, and always returns your victorious grin when you’re able to get past the really scary or difficult areas by yourself.

‘look at my baby gettin’ through the little mini-boss after 26– ow, fine, 18 tries! so proud of you, sweetums, guess my super-awesome gaming skills are rubbin’ off on ya, huh?’

horror gamer! satoru who lets you get jumpscared even when he knows a scare is coming up. ‘didn’t wanna ruin the experience for ya, baby’ while he’s almost spitting out his water from trying to hold back laughter.

horror gamer! satoru who you have to gently drag away from his setup when he starts getting frustrated. he’s been stuck on this one part for hours now because of rng or the boss is just ‘stupid and rigged’ and insanely hard. you can see his jaw clench, his moves getting sloppier in his exasperation.

horror gamer! satoru let’s you pepper kisses up and down his neck, over his jaw and cheeks, on his forehead as you murmur suggestions to take a break in his ear. you hold your own drink up in an offer for him to take a sip, before slipping away to grab one of his favorite sweet treats to hopefully ease his frustrations. ‘give it a rest and come cuddle with me for a bit, my love, you can always try again later.’

horror gamer! satoru who buys another controller (in your favorite color) so he can play co-op horror games with you. he loves watching you improve, proud when he doesn’t have to carry you as hard anymore. and it feels so much more fun because it’s like you’re experiencing the scares together, not the same as when you’re just watching him play.

horror gamer! satoru who goes horror game-hunting with you. he loves that your interest in them has grown so much, and you two can actually talk in detail about them since your ‘horror knowledge’ isn’t at base level anymore.

horror gamer! satoru likes that you’re not just watching him play and listening to him explain what’s going on anymore. you’re more heavily intrigued in the game lore and spotting tiny details or references in the games.

you’re playing a multiplayer horror game with satoru, exploring a different room of the house since you two have split up to cover more ground.

‘oh, wow! satoru, look at this little figure on the desk!’

his avatar makes its way over, and he’s a little excited to see the tiny evil within 2 reference on the piece of furniture.

‘it’s obscura, isn’t that so cool?’ ‘fuck yeah, wonder if there’s any more hidden around here somewhere?’ and you both keep an eye out for any other allusions to more horror game characters.

horror gamer! satoru who convinces you that playing in the dark is so much better. and it is, it makes the whole experience that much scarier, and you hate (love) it. you find yourself peeping into the dark shadows of the room, goosebumps raised on every inch of skin. and also wanting to punch satoru in the throat when he grazes a finger up the nape of your neck, laughing at your fright when you just about jump out of your skin.

horror gamer! satoru who buys little trinkets or figures of horror game characters. bought you a silent hill nurse figurine to go next to his of pyramid head. you both dressed up as said characters for a Halloween party once, and then ended up, um, undressing eachother in someone’s bathroom later that night…

horror gamer! satoru who knows all kinds of horror game trivia and he loves exchanging facts with you, even if you tell him stuff he already knows. again, he just loves that you share his favorite interest! tell him over and over about how [char.] is your favorite horror game villain or how [song] makes that scene so much creepier! he will eat it up again and again and again.

horror gamer! satoru who gets so excited whenever you present a new game to him, especially if it’s one he hasn’t seen before! ‘holy shit, baby is this a new release? fuck, we have to play this tonight!’

a casual (horror-themed) date night with horror gamer! satoru could be going out to see a new scary movie in theatres, or even just staying in to play your favorite horror games together. on nights like those, he likes to suggest cheesy, parody, or nostalgic horror games like slenderman or some .EXE game.

tagz: @anthoosies @staryukis @hellkaiserinphoenix @biscuitsngravie @elusivemoon @rxddxvotion @babytoshiii

[bohbee]

Do you think you could do some genshin characters reacting to you flinching during a fight? 👉🏻👈🏻 Im not picky with which characters as long as Childe is included

Flinching During an Argument, Genshin.

Part 1?

Masterlist

Characters: Childe, Diluc, Kaeya, Wanderer.

Warnings: Mentions of violence, misunderstandings, past abusive relationships, insecurities, yelling, blood (unrelated), potential harming.

Notes: There are some kinds of spoilers for The Wanderers but yeah >:). Sorry for not writing for a long time, there's been a lot of stressful things happening in my life right now but I'm trying to write more :). There will be more parts to this I just don't know when.

Childe (Tartaglia, Ajax)

The room which was usually filled with laughs and smiles now had a dark aura. Both occupants of the household argue with each other, in a fit of rage and hurt. "Ajax please just listen to me! I could've lost you!" You said, wiping the tears from your eyes, a shudder left your chest as your boyfriend's eyes darkened towards you. His boots took a step forward and he pointed his finger toward you.

"You always underestimate me!" A vein popped from his forehead, the air getting thick causing your heart to speed up. "Ajax I di-" He cut you off with a shout causing you to back up into the wall "No! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I SUFFERED THROUGH TO BE SEEN LIKE THAT"

He went to push the hair out of his eyes, his gloved hand swayed in front of your face causing you to cover your eyes, frightened of his next course of action. Your knees buckle slightly. Childe's movements came to a halt, and his annoyance quickly left, now filled with shock and pain.

"Dove... I-" he started to speak, his hands gently grabbing yours, delicately not to strike for negative emotions in you. As he moved your defense, he winced at your fear-struck face, tears he caused painting your skin. "I would never... ever harm you... I'm so- so sorry" He opened his arms slowly, trying not to frighten you, offering for you to hug him, and you pounced into his grasp. Small sobs emitted from your throat, "I'm sorry- I just don't want to -hic- lose you, and I-" your rambling was cut off by a small hush from the ginger.

"I would never leave you... I was being unreasonable, let's just drop it for now, come on I'll take you to the bedroom."

The rest of the day was filled with soft hums, and both of you enjoyed each other's presence. "My dove?" Tartaglia's voice was soft, you looked up to meet his eyes questioning him. "C'mon let's go to a restaurant.... let me treat you?" He said, well more of asked... still not knowing how much you were willing to do. "Of course.... let's go."

Diluc

Nothing was different from today than any other day, you went on commissions and came home to your loving husband. However, the crimson irises begged to differ. "You need to stop being so reckless! You've come home yet again with a new bloodied bandage!" His tone was deep, filled with irritation and worry. Though, that didn't do much but annoy you. "Luc, please listen to me, love. This is a part of working for the Guild!"

His eyes shot toward yours, pure frustration filling his pupils. "Every. Day." He started, his body slowly getting up from where he was sitting. "I. Have. To. See. You. Get. Hurt." His body was slightly in front of you, a two-foot gap in between your bodies. "EVERY. DAMN. DAY.!" His booming voice shook the air, causing you to flinch and stumble onto the ground.

A few seconds of silence went by until he kneeled to where you fell. "I am deeply sorry, I- it was never my intention to frighten you, my love." His eyes were filled with shame and insecurity, his gloved hand reached out to you slowly. You softly grabbed it allowing him to pull you up and into a hug, watching for your injuries. "I'm sor-" you started but your husband shushed you "No need dear, I must be the one to apologize. I was being rash, just promise me that you'll be more careful?"

You nodded softly and hugged his torso a bit tighter, the both of you stood in the common room for a while before he broke away from the embrace. "Why don't you let me re-bandage your injuries and then after we can go for a walk?"

As the day continued on, the well-known couple could be seen walking down the paths of the outskirts of Monstadt. Hand in hand, soft delicate smiles painting both of their features.

Kaeya

Sadly, petty arguments with Kaeya always happened, it was all fine though. None of it really went far, that is until now. The two of you were in his office at the KOF building, snapping at each other. Snarky comments and shouts were heard throughout the whole building, though no one dared to enter not even Lisa nor Jean.

"You are being unreasonable!" you shouted at the blue-haired male who only scoffed back, he stood from his seat and turned his back away from you. "For the last time, now listen real closely and get it through your more than thick skull." He slowly turned towards you, his deep frustrated tone quickly shutting you up. "She was NOT flirting with me, just because you're insecure does not mean you get to PROJECT your feelings on me nor the poor lady who was being nice."

His words made you wince, stepping back in shock as you look up into his eyes with hurt, no more than hurt..... betrayal "oh." Your head bobbed in a quick nod as you went to leave the room. "W-wait.... (y/n) shit... I didn't mean-" he chased after you. The people in the city watched in shock which only rubbed the salt more in your wound.

You finally made it to your home, your boyfriend rushing in behind you. No words were spoken, his strong arms yanked you into a hug as you sobbed into his chest. "I....... I am so so sorry snowflake......" your loud cries pulled at his heart strings. After gathering your emotions, you went to respond, feeling guilty for the situation. "You were ri-" his soft lips slammed onto yours, effectively stopping your words. "Don't even think about finishing that sentence."

The two of you made an executive decision to take some time off together in which Jean more than happily approved of. The two of you were now in the amazing city of Sumeru, sitting together in the Grand Bazaar. Your head laying on his soft shoulder as both of you watch the amazing dancers.

Wanderer (Kuni)

You and the umbrella hat male were walking down a trail in the outskirts of Gandharva Ville, when suddenly a random root appeared from nowhere, which caused your body to fling forward into the ground. The Wanderer turned around slightly shocked, he laughed slightly and swung his hand to help you up. But the sudden motion frightened you and caused you to cower backwards. "I'm sorry!" you yelped out while closing your eyes, preparing for the hit that would never come.

Kuni looked at you shocked, no words left his mouth, he was truly stunned at the scene in front of him. You soon opened your eyes and looked to the side embarrassed, "I- uh- sorry heh, that's embarrassing.... well lets uh continue." You stood up and brushed your pants off and walked past your "new" boyfriend, expecting him to follow you. Though his next words, stopped your movements.

"What......" he paused before slightly hanging his head in shame "I know I used to... treat you unfairly....... just know that I am trying to get better." he muttered before walking to you and gripping the back of your shirt. "I don't want to lose nor hurt the one I love...." he mumbled before he slowly and awkwardly hugged you from behind.

"I know you are trying.... don't think I've given up on you Ku.... I trust you."

Over time, the two of you slowly dropped your walls with each other, becoming closer than ever. He was a completely different person than the one you used to date. Same face..... same body.... same soul..... just different purpose.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

I hope this is good :), I love you guys... also dude why are genshin characters written so WELL gah damn!

[mediumgayitalian]

“Will, can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything.” He glances up from his clipboard, grinning wide and wry and sparkling. “Especially if it’s that you’ve got food.”

Nico knows his best friend, so he does have food; a pack of twizzlers the size of his face that he tosses, deliberately quickly, at his face, smiling to himself when he misses and dives down to grab it anyway. His clipboard clatters to the ground, pen bouncing after it, as he tears into it, inhaling at least ten twisty candies in half as many seconds.

“Gods, I love you,” he groans, mouth open like the disgusting mannerless loser he is.

Nico coughs. “Funny you should say.”

He’s spared from having to jump clear through the nearest window and landing right on his neck by the honestly uncomfortable noises Will continues to make — by the gods if he finds out it’s been another twenty three hours since William has eaten he is going to kill him and resurrect his skeleton for permanent manual labour — and instead worries himself with the first random task he sees unfinished. Do the kiddie Band-Aids actually need to be emptied from their boxes and sorted by size and vibe? No. But Will won’t stop him. And Nico needs, like, twenty minutes of recovery. So.

“What did you want to ask me, by the way?”

His mouth is still — somehow — full, so it sounds closer to whaa joo wanna asme. Nico, brave veteran that he is, feigns confusion.

“Hm?”

“Question,” Will swallows, an actual, audible gulp, gods, where have Nico’s standards gone, “that you had.” There’s the sound of joints cracking and a deep sigh, then quick footsteps, and then Will is in front of him, eyes squinted, mouth wide and crooked, leaning on the counter. He has been up before the sun and working the entire time, people pouring in and out like ants to an anthill, and Nico knows he has not rested, but energy still sparks all over his skin. He bounces, almost, from his frizzy ringlet curls to the balls of his feet, humming, twitching, moving.

“I.” Nico’s throat is dry, and his eyes move from the bandages, to Will, to the bandages. “Well.”

When Nico was a kid he would stutter over his words. He was a shit speaker. Bianca spoke four languages by the time she was six, and Nico could barely ever manage the one; he knew what he was trying to say, and he would say it, only somewhere along the way his brain sent the wrong sparks or maybe his tongue got twisted or maybe his mouth made the wrong shapes. Or he blended them all together, like ice sleet on helicopter blades, and everything left his mouth just fine but got smashed to bits in the air outside of him, never reaching his audience quite right. And then he was ten and everything he cared about was smashed to dust and he stopped caring about where the words got twisted and stopped relying on them at all, and stared, instead; glowered, let his face speak for him, even if they weren’t saying the same thing. It annoys everyone around him. It frustrated his mother and pisses off his father and annoys or frightens every other person around him, and everyone guesses, fills in the blanks, deciphers what he is going to say to make his presence just a little easier to bear.

But Will waits, rocking, as he always does, eyes flicking around the infirmary, a handwidth of space between them. Fingers, drumming on the curve of his thigh, too-big front teeth gnawing on his chapped bottom lip. Waiting. For the words, for the time, for the courage.

“I missed you today,” Nico blurts, and it isn’t what he meant to say, not by a long shot, but it’s an approximation and it will count. And Will is suddenly smiling, huge, too big for his face; beaming, brightly, beautifully. “I hate it when you work too long.”

“Yeah?”

Nico exhales, cheekbones ruddy. “Yeah.”

“That’s not a question, Neeks.”

“Oh, stuff it.”

Will laughs, then, and the room gets brighter, and Nico gets warmer, braver, and takes his hand. He walks even both out of the infirmary and Will goes willingly, even though there is work too be done, swinging their hands, and he talks, and talks and talks and talks, and then he waits, quietly, humming to himself, and Nico says nothing, although he thinks things, and Will acts like he has said them. And his palm is still rough and warm against his, and the sun is setting, and Will smells like artificial strawberry and lavender body wash, and Nico thinks, You can tell me anything, and he vows that he will. And he holds his hand, and squeezes it around his, and smiles, and waits, easily, contentedly.