#anyway. whatever. if u liked it i have a ko-fi

[corpsentry]

a glass sun 1/2

[mylovejimimi]

The Kims, your breeding problem | SJ & NJ TWO SHOT PT. 1

— PAIRING: mafiaboss!seokjin x mafiaboss!namjoon x mafiaprincess!reader — GENRE: smut +18. minors dni — WARNINGS: dirty smut (hell yeah), vaginal sex, oral sex (f receiving), dirty talk ofc, fingering, ass action, anal penetration, double penetration, lots of degradation, some slaps, a bit of pain kink, breeding kink as per request <3, some plot that will be explained in part 2 (stay tuned), seokjin is MEAN — SUMMARY: Desperate to save your empire and your name, you walk into the lion's den with a plan. Turns out those two lions had a plan of their own, and now you're the piece of meat they had been so starved for. — WORDS: almost 9k SORRY DEAL W/ IT Ok babygirls i apologize for this eternal wait, it took me a month to finish bc i like to carefully plan my craft to not fall into boring stuff or repetitiveness. I hope it is worth the wait and you all like it <3 ALSO! part 2 will be up maybe tomorrow bc i wrote everything and it was way too long and u know, i wasn't gonna post a 20k words shot lmao Anyways pslease remember you can send me a tip by buying me a ko-fi if you like my works, it will meant the world to me ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ And as always, i look forward your thoughts on this. Enjoy !

Being the princess of an empire wasn’t as easy as you once thought – but you had triple the fun you expected.

The businesses of this lawless side of the world weren’t just for anybody, that’s why only a couple families survived and thrived despite of time and mass murders. In those select families, in which the highest honor was to have no fear of law or men, one must just grow up strong and shameless to fit in them; if not, it was better to step down (which, more often than not, meant dying). And you must, at all coast, beat anybody else with your intelligence and cleverness, or else you were relegated as a mere pawn. Even worse if you were a woman.

One of the top families in the businesses was yours, which couldn’t make you prouder – because you were the one behind their success.

For the world, you weren’t particularly different from the average woman, but you had many hidden qualities that set you apart: you had money and influence, charm and wit, though most important than anything, you had dauntless drive. Enough drive to make you break rules, promote corruption, break as many families as you had to, terrorize all other elite families into submission. You had the world in your hand and you were ready to eat it.

And because you knew you were danger, you recognized which other menaces out there were as deadly as you.

“I don’t give a shit whatever you plan” your older brother spat in your face, throwing at you the documents that you compiled so carefully, all of them full of valuable information about your biggest enemy in the business. You gritted your teeth; you went to the deepest of holes to get all that data, you bought many men for it – with money and anything you could give.

“I didn’t ask for your fucking opinion, I was just informing you before you get your stupid ass in my business and fuck it up.” The relationship with your brother has never been the greatest. Being raised to be ruthless, it only worsened when your parents got old and sick, because it meant that you were now competitors for the throne. You despised him mostly because he was a useless piece of shit that only leeched off of your hard work.

“I’ll fuck it up? You would get all of us fucked in the ass and then decapitated in a public park. Those fuckers are at the top of the food chain for a reason, shithead.” You reacted violently at the cowardice of your brother, hitting his desk with your fist.

“And they are burying our business! They’re already fucking us and massacring us! They stole all our dealers and our spots on the west and south; they killed all our links in the government; they even opened their disgusting brothels next to all of our strip clubs. And you will do nothing about it?!” Your brother rolled his eyes at your outburst.

“It’s not big deal. You will think of something else to avenge us.” And he turned around on his spinning chair, ending the conversation. You were fuming, to say the least.

“FUCK YOU!” you yelled before taking the lamp on his desk and throwing it towards the nearest wall. Then, stomping out, you decided to proceed as you wanted.

…

Your shiny dress moved with the wind and blinded the security guards as you stepped out of the car that drove you. Currently, you were in the Kim mansion, the territory of your enemies, infiltrating in the intimate party they were throwing for one of their birthdays. You thanked in your head the trusted friend that popped up out of nowhere when you needed them the most, offering you a way to take down the Kims. It was all you needed, the way in, you would take care of the rest.

After the long walk from the exuberant entrance to the more exuberant halls, you finally were in the big ballroom that hosted the most people. You noticed there weren’t that many; a couple you recognized from negotiations and such, and nodded your head in acknowledgment to them, but there were many new faces for you. And that worried you, because you didn’t know which ones were the Kims. Maybe it was a little careless to go there with just a description of their appearances instead of researching more for pictures (which was really difficult since the most powerful people in the business, including yourself, didn’t show their faces ever).

Taking a random glass from the service station and bar, you scanned the room and downed the strong drink in one go, thinking what to do next. But then, your luck struck again:

“Mister Kim, congratulations for your birthday.” You spun your head almost instantly to look behind you, to the supposed mister Kim. He was right behind you in the bar but giving you his large back dressed in black. And, damn, what a back. Peering down, you also checked his ass and legs, draped in black too. And daaaamn. How could all his behind look so hot? Was it the height? Were his proportions just mathematically perfect? You hoped he was as nice in the front because it would be really disappointing otherwise.

Right at that moment, Mr. Kim turned around to look at someone that called him in the distance, and you saw him clearly, but most importantly, he saw you. His dragon eyes fixated on yours intensely, pinning you in your place, for what you felt was an eternity. You recognized his fiery stare. He was deadly.

“I don’t think I know you, dear” he started in his deep voice, flashing you a smirk. You looked at him from behind your lashes, batting them coquettishly.

“Would you be interested in knowing me, sir?” Despite your strategic flirting, you were eclipsed by him. He was tall, graceful and so, so handsome. He looked like he could be on the cover of any magazine; be the face of every luxurious brand. And as far as you knew, he was single. Manly and powerful – your kind of man. If he wasn’t your literal nemesis, you would have tried to seduce him for real.

“A sweet thing like you? Very much.” Knowing as much as you knew, it ringed an alarm that he was that easy to approach, to fool. It was weird. You decided to be careful. “Tell me, beautiful,” he said, stepping closer to you and smiling darkly. “do you know who I am?”

“I do. And I find you a fascinating man, sir.”

“Do you now?” You nodded shortly, feigning shyness and sipping on your drink to avoid his sharp eyes. You realized quickly that he was a very calculating, very analytic man; he was observing you meticulously, and you felt like a rare specimen being studied when he dragged his attention all over your body and every inch of your face.

Though, you weren’t dumb. You knew how to pose, how to talk and how to dress to captivate a man; you did it a million times already, and you had big plans for this man and his brother in particular. His lingering on your almost naked legs; how he tilted his body more and more close to you; his constant smirk – everything told you that he was interested in whatever you had to offer. Still, the deal was yet to be seal.

“You are very well-known for doing what you want and getting what you want. You’re like a god, I heard.” You batted your lashes, also inching close to his standing body. “I like powerful men – and they usually like me back.” And you looked away, like ashamed of sharing that.

“So you like danger” he stated, while moving a strand of your hair behind your ear. His hand went down your neck slowly, caressing with the tip of his cold fingers your skin.

I am danger, you thought while smiling cutely for him.

“I find it kinda romantic to give yourself completely to a forbidden man.” You bit your lip lightly, mirroring his action when you grazed your fingers on the hand he rested on the counter.

He stared at you for a long moment, in absolute silence. It was difficult to read him with his impassive face and controlled attitude. Just in case, you passed a hand through your hair, the decided signal for your guards to be alert. By the corner of your eye, you saw one of them signing back discreetly. If needed, they would fire all guns to take you out of there.

“Would you like to watch the big man at work, sweetheart?” Mr. Kim suddenly said. You looked at him with big, naïve eyes, nodding.

“Really? I would love to, sir.” He offered his big hand, which you took eagerly. Once more, you carded your hand through your hair.

His slender fingers enclosed your hand firmly, guiding you from the bar across the groups of finely-dressed people in the open ballroom to long, dimmed hallways. You knew you were venturing into the lion’s den but what else could you do? You needed both of the Kims alone, and getting one of them at the time was easier. You would seduce one and get him, and later you would find and do the same with his brother – if they didn’t cooperate with you, of course.

“You know, sweet thing, we get lots of women at our feet daily. Some are useful, some are just a hindrance” Mr. Kim casually told you. You were getting to the end of a particularly secluded hallway; the end of your walk, it seemed. You decided it was safer to keep up with the façade until the very end. “Which one would you be?” Stopping at a large, wooden door, he looked at you expectantly. You found his eyes, and even in the dimmed light you saw something shine in his pupils.

Just now you realized the energy that swam between you.

His strong hand squeezed yours and he couldn’t take his eyes off you. You bit your lip. Kim Namjoon (you guessed it was the younger Kim based on the descriptions you were given) was the hottest man you ever saw: his secure posture, his devilish expressions, even his work ethics were attracting. You would never admit it out loud, but you were really impressed by how the Kims ran their business. In no time, they build up an empire equal to yours, which had years and years of existence, and took over almost all of the city. It was really hot to you how they were fierce, and ruthless, and did whatever they wanted without a care for consequences.

“I’ll be whatever you want me to be, sir” you replied in a low tone. His obscure smile showed up again.

“Mhm, I think we would get along really well, dear.” The door in front of you opened, and a spacious and well-illuminated office appeared. It was modern and austere, with scarce black furniture a desk that had not a single trace of clutter as you would see, for example, in your own. “Hyung, I just received the biggest gift for my birthday.”

The chair at the desk spun around to reveal the most stunning man you have ever seen. Kim Seokjin had his hair perfectly brushed back to show the most well-proportionated face you’ve seen so far: plum, kissable lips; round, conceited eyes; an instant derogatory grimace when he saw you. His haughtiness was nothing; what worried you the most was that now you would have to deal with the two Kims together.

 “Really? That’s the big gift? A cheap whore?” You had to bite your tongue. You may be a whore from time to time, no shame in it; but cheap? CHEAP? When you had your own queendom and where the owner of half the city? When powerful men had died just for touching your hand without permission? He definitely didn’t know who he was talking about.

“No, hyung, no.” Namjoon chuckled. Getting bolder, he circled your waist with an arm and took your jaw to emphasize his next words “I got us a toy to spend the night, and if it is good, maybe we could consider giving it more use.” Seokjin just arched an eyebrow to you.

“I admire both of you, sir, that’s why I want to serve you” you expressed, lowering your eyes to the floor in a submissive manner.

“Serve us? Are you a fucking slave or something, stupid bitch?” The older Kim didn’t need to yell to be aggressive and threatening like a rabid dog – his words, neutral tone, and overall mean energy was enough to aggravate you. It took everything in you to stop yourself from setting your jaw.

“Do you want me to be one?” It came out harsher than you intended, and yet, you felt a slight shift in the air.

“You couldn’t handle being my slave, dear” Seokjin said as a matter of fact. “I’ll make you and your slut holes unusable after a day.”

“How are you so sure of that?” you counterattacked calmly.

“It would only hurt you, sweetheart, really” Namjoon joined in with a teasing tilt in his sensual low register and a mild push of his hips into your ass. Well, at least you could be sure one of them was interested in you, judging by the hard member that poked your behind.

“Do you really think I’m a virgin in any way?” Something burned in Seokjin’s eyes. Bingo. “Would I be offering myself to you if I were?”

“Your performance as a poor, submissive girl was shit, but I was hoping you dropped the act sooner than later.” The man at the desk smirked. You thought that maybe he wasn’t the brightest of the two.

By his hold on your waist, Namjoon walked you around the desk until you were in front of his brother, who turned in his chair and was watching you expectant, with his legs spread apart and hands clasped together. “Why don’t you show who you really are then, angel?” As he said that, he pushed you to the floor until you were kneeling between Seokjin’s long legs, inches aways from his crotch. Honestly, what was about to happen kinda excited you.

You had understood right away that they were the typical hyper-masculine control freaks. As most men you had met in the business, you assumed they would feel challenged as soon as you showed a little bit of character. What dominant, powerful man didn’t enjoy taming a brat from time to time? And thus, you would put up a little fight, just for funsies.

“Would you be able to handle me, sir?”

“I’ll fuck you up so bad, don’t mess with me this early.” You scoffed at the warning.

“But I said nothing yet, sir. Mr. Kim,” you called the other Kim, turning your head to look at him. “can I ask you, then? Like, does your brother have any idea of anything? It feels to me he is capable of words and nothing else.” Namjoon snorted.

“You’ll fucking see what I’m capable of” The elder grunted and proceeded to stick your face on his groin. “But your nasty mouth won’t be on my cock.”

Unceremoniously, you opened your mouth and closed it on the shape his member made in his pants. The cloth was very thin and he had no underwear beneath it; you could feel almost every detail of him, including his faint throbbing and the very massive girth. You let yourself indulge in it a bit – Kim Seokjin was too damn hot after all. You sucked enthusiastically on his shape, lapping obscenely with tongue and all for the greedy eyes of your spectators. After a couple minutes, you realized that Seokjin´s cock pulsed more when you looked up at him, so you fixated on him while suctioning on the place his tip was.

“Hyung, look, she’s rubbing her legs together like a desperate slut. Is your hungry cunt too empty, sweetheart?” Namjoon said from above you but you had no time to even form a thought before you felt a cold object between your legs, pressing on the apex of your legs. “Get off on my shoe, baby, let’s see if you aren’t just talk.” And he pressed even harder on your pussy. You let go of Seokjin’s hard member with a high-pitched moan when the shoe’s tip hit directly on your clit, and Namjoon, as evil as his brother, touched that spot over and over again. But the oldest Kim couldn’t let you slack off on your duty; no, he had to push you onto his cock once more, shaking your head until you got back to gobbling him sloppily.

“Fucking filthy whore, look at the fucking mess you made” Seokjin grumbled, and you confirmed he was right with a quick peek. The dark and expensive fabric was even darker all over the lap, and the man’s penis would stand all the way up proud and hard if not for the restrictions of the pants. You patted yourself in the back for your great work, before getting down to devour him some more – though, you didn’t because he continued: “Aw, look at you so eager to spread your legs for the enemy to save the family business. Daddy must be really proud of you.” You froze. Stopping all motion midair, you stared at him. Kim Seokjin smiled joyfully while he caressed your hair.

“Did you really think we didn’t know you were coming? How, if we were the ones that invited you over.” Them? Your blood boiled once more at realizing you were betrayed by one of your closest, most beloved friends.

From behind, Namjoon took a hold of you by the hair roughly, yanking you back painfully until you were looking directly at him. You yelped and grunted loudly at that. And then, the door busted open and one of your guards entered pointing his gun at Namjoon; but the criminal wasted not a second in pulling out his own gun and firing it at the intruder.

“Shit!” you exclaimed as you saw the body fall down with a thud and Namjoon took hold of your arms, gripping them behind your back to immobilize you. If only one of your men got there, it must mean the others were already dead.  “You fuckers, let me go!” you yelled at the men holding you. Struggling to get free from their tight grasp, you could only lift your knee with force, colliding into Seokjin’s crotch.

“Fucking bitch!” Despite his brother folding into himself and holding his crotch, Namjoon cackled. You felt a little proud for causing him pain.

“I see you’re not as average as I thought” the younger mused near your ear. You turned as much as you could to look at him and spit at his face. He was shocked but still grinned.

“There’s no bitch like me, you better learn it now.” Namjoon’s hold on you tightened as his tongue peeked out to wet his lips, catching a single drop of your spit that rolled to his mouth.

“No bitch like me my balls” you heard Seokjin grunt, but when you turned to look at him, he took you by the hair like his brother did previously. You catched just a glimpse of him putting a liquid onto a rag but you knew right away what it was, and so you started to insult them louder, fighting them violently. “Oh, shut up already, stupid whore.” And when the rag was over your mouth and nose, it only took seconds for everything to turn black.

…

Consciousness came back to your body in what felt to you like an instant. You groaned, opening your eyes slowly. Why did your body feel so heavy? You could barely move to get on your side, feeling your wrists tied together but lying on a comfortable bed. And why were you in your underwear? Though, that was the least of your problems.

Looking around, you found yourself in a luxurious bedroom. You grimaced at its ‘single man’ decoration though, disgusted with the lack of good taste. Was it the room of one of the Kims? It looked like an isolation room in a psychiatric ward. Well, you thought, they’re fucking insane so it checks out.

“I have to get out” you murmured to yourself, but you couldn’t even try to sit up without feeling too lightheaded. Groaning, you left yourself lie on the soft surface momentarily. You would see how to escape on the go.

“Look who just woke up.” You grumbled when the voice of Kim Seokjin entered the room. You moved slightly to look at the door, watching your two enemies getting in and nearing the bed. Seokjin smiled to you. “It’s our favorite girl.” When he brought his hand down to stroke your cheek, you tried to bit him, missing him for an inch. “Wah, you’re a feral one, aren’t you?”

“I’m your worst nightmare, asshole.” Both men chuckled mockingly. Namjoon stepped forward and took a sit on the bed beside your body.

“Maybe you were, before intruding in our home and getting tied up by us. But you seriously thought you could just walk in and shoot us up?” You held his stare without an ounce of shame because they hadn’t realized yet that wasn’t your real plan. You played along. Men in power were that easy to trick, you only needed to show a little bit of skin and act a little clueless and their ego would get in their way to make them think you’re so stupid and they’re so in control. Truth be told, you were pretty desperate to end them, but you not only had beauty – most of all, you had brains.

“Whatever, just kill me now so the fuckface of my brother drowns in his own shit.” You resigned to your possible fate with a roll of your eyes. Namjoon smiled at you for the nth time.

“No, baby, that would just be the easy way out for you. You’d been in this line of work since birth; you know we can’t just let you go without a lesson.” Your breath hitched a little when the man posed a cold hand on your hip, fondling the zone. Got you.

At this point in your hectic life, you were not afraid of whatever these guys might do to you. If it was something sexual, it would be just a short-cut for the ending you expected. Also, you had sex with all kinds of men and women, who had all kind of kinks and weird shit, so sleeping with the Kims wasn’t big deal – it could even be fun, in your honest opinion. Fun like a smart cat playing two buff, dumb dogs that thought they were in charge. They didn’t know what kind of cat they just caught.

“And so? You want me to cry and beg for forgiveness? Please, sirs, spare me my life! Don’t defile my pristine, virgin pussy!” you exclaimed in a mocking tone, snorting for the absurdity of your own joke. Not even a shadow of a smile graced the Kims’ faces before they pull the serious, mafia-men façade up. They were not happy with your mocking attitude. “Yah, is not that serious, really.” Seokjin got close to the bed to grip your neck menacingly. Like he could scare you.

“It is serious if you come with the intention of murder.” You snorted. So fucking dramatic, and for what?

“It is so obvious that you both are newbies here. We, the real crime-syndicates, just have fun with it.” Seokjin tightened his grip. “Woah, you feel threatened by the tied up, drugged girl, I see.”

“Nah, baby, we just want you to be silent.”

“I swear I’ll stop!” you replied with a short laugh. You could see on their faces that they didn’t find you funny. “Just let me say –”

“Just shut up before we really make you to” Namjoon warned with a pointed look. The frustration became evident on them; they clearly wanted you to submit, scared of them taking advantage of you. They were too used to frightening people into submission. What pair of fools.

“Oh? Why don’t you try?” you dared, batting your eyelashes at both men. Seokjin scoffed before taking you by the hair (again) to lift you until you were sat on the bed, and he got nose to nose with you. You complained for the harshness of his action, but loved it nonetheless.

“Remember you asked for it, sweetheart” Seokjin said lowly, almost in a grunt, before crashing his mouth on yours so hard that both your teeth clashed and clicked. He kissed you with vigor and violence, making it really difficult to keep up with his rhythm. Your lips ached already from the way he suctioned them. The only thing you could do was to whimper.

It was even hard to breath properly in that heated make out, so you felt more and more lightheaded than when you were drugged. His tongue wasted no time entering and reclaiming the whole inside of your mouth, and you could feel his warm spit getting into your cavity but also dripping from your lips the sloppier he became. It was safe to say that you were elated with the ferocity of the older Kim and proof of it was the wetness that you felt leaking from your see-through underwear to your inner thighs. Suddenly, the man separated from you with a wet sound, and you instinctively took a big breath quick enough before Seokjin moved you by the hair to collide with Namjoon’s mouth this time.

If Seokjin was dizzying, Namjoon was electrifying. He wasn’t as pressing but his hands seized your hips roughly and his tongue wasn’t letting go of yours; he even bit your lower lip here and there. At some point, his lips took a hold of your tongue and he sucked it viciously, while his brother pushed your head against the assaulting mouth insistently.  

“Open up, honey” Seokjin grunted in your ear, and you didn’t know what he was talking about until you felt a big, cold hand on your inner thigh, a hair away from your pussy. He dabbed the skin there, no doubt entertained with all the wetness that seeped from your panties, but the demon that he was could not give you the satisfaction of touching your cunt properly.

With a man devouring your mouth and the other holding you still and rubbing nimbly your folds and flesh, you did start feeling overwhelmed – the kind of overwhelmed where you need more direct stimulation, though. So you whined loud. Namjoon released you.

“Want more, baby?” No words were left in your mind, so you nodded. The younger Kim, with wild fire lightning up his hooded eyes, smiled big in a shark-like smile – deadly, deadly, deadly. “Hyung” His brother looked up at him, and both shared a knowing look, like they already had planned the next step. Maybe they did.

But you had no time to think about anything. Each of them took one of your knees and shoved you back until you were lying on top of your tied hands; then, they parted and lifted your naked legs as much as your damned good elasticity allowed, ending up folded in half. And, somehow, they made themselves fit in that space side by side, as large as both were.

Next thing you knew, someone’s teeth were pulling your flimsy underwear down, grazing lightly your folds. You cursed, throwing your head back and thinking how the hell did you ended up in the best-case scenario possible. Taking you underwear out of your body in a flash, the Kim brothers seemed very eager to please you – or to torture you in their own way. Whatever they planned, you had no other choice but to take it.

Soon enough, a rough tongue parted your folds rudely and licked your juices away with the urgency of someone that doesn’t want a single drop wasted. Then, another tongue appeared, but this one went straight to your clit to punish you in the most delicious way possible: whoever it was, started by sucking it fervently, petting it with his tongue at the same time until he touched a nerve that made you scream, and jabbed at it repeatedly. They didn’t spare a single gaze in your direction, and, with the way you were losing your mind piece by piece, it was difficult to focus and distinguish who was who when both their heads were down – but whoever was lapping at your labia, now circled your wet hole with his whole tongue just the way you liked, both to tease and lubricate you.

Though their attention was getting overwhelming, it was also nice, because you had been shared by several men in various occasions in the past but none of them ever used you like this. No, they only cared to get their dicks in whatever part of your body they could and get off in there – and, really, you never minded since you weren’t expecting (nor didn’t want) a romantic lovemaking night where you ended up satisfied and chirping. Business was business. The Kims, however…

“You were so smart a minute ago, now can’t even form a single word?” It was Seokjin taunting you, lifting his head from your mount and you realized he was the one assaulting your poor clit. Of course it was him.

“You fucking idiot,” you started in a breathy voice, trying with all your might to fixate on him and not get distracted by Namjoon penetrating you with his tongue. “you don’t need my instructions, you’re eating my cunt like you’re my good bitch on your own.” At that, he pressed his thumb on your sensitive button roughly, and moved it in circles keeping the same pressure. “Fuck!” you exclaimed out of surprise.

“Goddamn, do I have to force something down your throat, stupid slut?” And then, he did force his index and middle finger into your mouth, pressing on your tongue to slide down your throat. The older Kim was extremely short-tempered, you concluded – it explained why people kept talking about the violent Kim brother whenever a massacre was done out of seemingly nowhere.

You have heard millions of stories of them, one worse than the other, but you were too prideful to believe even an ounce of whatever dumb shit they supposedly did. Burning down a whole building? Yeah, right. Bombing an enemy’s car? Suuure. Kidnapping a whole family because the father dared to go and try to take advantage of them? Well, maybe that had some truth, given your actual position. No doubt, all of those things – if true – were Seokjin’s idea.

Speaking of the devil, he almost hits the back of your throat with the tip of his longer digit, forcing the ugly and loud sounds of gargling out of you. The choking itself wasn’t so bad, but his insistence of keep pushing and pushing was making your jaw hurt a little. Drool was all over your lower face and his fingers, sliding down from between them and dripping into his palm. Through your teary vision, you catch a glimpse of Seokjin’s sadistic smile, so pleased with your degradation. You made sounds of complaint between gargles.

“See why you have to watch your tone with me, dumb cumdump? And quit pushing your luck because we will fuck your whore cunt into submission.” Right at that moment, you felt a hand parting your asscheeks and something wet circling your wrinkled hole. A surprised whimper escaped you. With a short chuckle, Seokjin took hold of your face with his free hand. “Right, and we will fuck your ass too, sweetpie.” His fingers left your mouth suddenly, and you took a big gasp of air, not knowing what else to expect from the brothers.

You didn’t have too much time to wonder because a finger surprised you bottoming out in your back entrance. No easing into it, no finesse, just plain, old Seokjin penetrating your ass with his long finger as a punishment of some sort. But was it really punishment if you were enjoying it? It was not, but Seokjin didn’t need to know that.

You could feel every knuckle, every ridge of his digit grazing your tender insides; stretching you, sliding in and out with the help of your saliva on his index. You whined out loud shamelessly at the sensations, which only spurred the men to go faster. You saw it in his eyes: he was merciless.

“You like it, sweetheart? You like when we’re rough to you?” This time, Namjoon got up on his knees to speak to you, in his low, raspy register. You moaned and clenched on Seokjin really hard when his eyes fixated intently on yours. Like bewitched by his dominant aura, you nodded to him dumbly. “Oh yeah? Should we take it up a notch?” His brother got out of his way so he could descend on you and capture your mouth in another ardent kiss. His whole frame pinned you down, coercing you to accept whatever nibs and licks he was giving into your cavity – not that you weren’t willing to accept them in the first place, though.

Distracted enough by his searing kiss, he seized his chance to push down your bra and take hold of your left breast; most precisely, to take hold of your nipple between his index finger and thumb, and squeeze it. He swallowed every noise or gasp you made while squeezing and rolling your nipple until it hardened. Meanwhile, his older brother had made way for a second finger in your ass and was scissoring them to open you up more and more. All of this was way more than you expected, but in a good way.

“Please,” you gasped when Namjoon went to suck your lower lip. “untie me, please” you begged in a whine. If there was just one thing you would beg for tonight, it was for them to let your arms go, because having your own weight on them plus Namjoon’s was cutting your circulation fast. Both men stared at you pointedly. “I swear I’ll not try anything funny, I just can’t feel them anymore.”

None of them believe you; however, Namjoon gets off of you and turn your whole body over with a single move of his hand, getting off the bed too. Seokjin is quick to get you on your knees and get his fingers back into you, now adding a third. You face to the side to the night table just in time to see the younger man opening the drawer and getting out a small knife. Your heart accelerated at the prospect of real harm but you didn’t show it. It would only put you in disadvantage in front of the men.

Luckily for you, Namjoon only used the knife to cut the ropes that bound your wrists. You let them fall to your sides with a satisfied moan at being liberated, despite not being capable of moving them yet.

“Does the princess have any other request?” The younger Kim, who was the one that tied you in the first place, inquired sarcastically with a tilt of his head, toying with the tip of the weapon. Closing your eyes and exhaling heavily at one deeper thrust of Seokjin’s fingers, you nodded.

“Can you fuck me already? The fingering is getting boring” you taunted in a thread of voice, weakened at the feeling of Seokjin’s dry digits grazing harshly your insides. The aching in your fingered asshole only added to your over-stimulated body – and to add to it, you felt a sting on your right ass-cheek that spread all over your skin. It barely even hurt on your long-stimulated body; instead, it felt like electricity hitting right on your sensitive clit. Seokjin’s hand was big and heavy, and he slapped you one more time on the same place. You moaned when it echoed between your legs.

“Boring? I was being nice.” And he slapped now on your other cheek. You yelped. “I was being a gentleman and stretching you.” He hit you a couple more time on the tender and red flesh; you kept your eyes close since the first impact and whimpered but still took it like a good girl. While all of that was going on behind you, something sticky and wet rubbed on your upper lip. When you opened your eyes, you were met with the sight of Namjoon’s monstruous cock pocking the corner of your mouth. You opened it to let him in, but he was content with painting your face with his precum. “But ungrateful whores like you don’t deserve niceness” Seokjin spat – figuratively and literally. You felt his spittle drip down the crack of your ass, and then, a hard rod impaling you.

You screamed out of surprise and the pain of being overstretched; the man’s fingers, as many as they were, did not compare in the slightest to his penis. The thick and curved meat hammered into you as soon as it entered, leaving you breathless with the vigor of the movement. Seokjin’s drove his hips into you with guttural groans and wild abandon, not giving you a moment to catch your breath. Honestly, you felt a little in love with the way he was rearranging your guts – and more so when you felt the tips of his fingers wandering on your clit.

“Ah, so now you finally have nothing to say?"

You were just about to give Seokjin an out of breath but clever retort, when Namjoon took advantage of your wide-open mouth and eased his own dick into it. Gentler than his older brother, he just glided his member in and out, more so to wet it with your saliva than to pleasure himself. Despite being a heartless hit man with no morals, he saw the overwhelming pounding Seokjin subjected you to and felt a little compassion for your clearly tired self.

Taking his cock out of your mouth, he started to fuck his own hand. You stared at him in confusion – didn’t he want to use you like his brother? – but you understood what he really wanted when he got his crotch closer to your face, still jacking himself off. Keeping your mouth open, you received one of Namjoon’s balls inside, slurping it right away. You licked and sucked on it hard, until you could hear him groan louder than the slapping of Seokjin’s hips into your ass. Letting saliva pool in your cavity, you soaked his nut thoroughly before passing to the other, and lave on it. Looking up pass the standing penis invading your vision, your eyes found Namjoon’s heated ones; you just now looked at him but his piercing dragon eyes hadn’t left your face not even for a second.

You intuited there was something behind his intense staring, but Seokjin’s hand snaked, once more, to your scalp and grasped, hair tightly in a fist and pulled back.

“You’re slacking. Weren’t you supposed to lure us to ruin with a good fuck?”

Namjoon seated with his back on the headrest and his legs on each side of where you and his brother were on your knees. Seokjin, with the zero consideration he had with you, threw you sideways onto his brother and you realized he wanted you to face him now. You smirked and gulped enough air to push his buttons again.

“You’re the one doing all the work. Can’t you not even satisfy yourself? Maybe the problem isn’t me but that teeny weeny peanut dick.” You saw a frown appear on Seokjin’s handsome face and, next thing you knew, his hand was coming down to slap you on the cheek. Just like the slaps in your ass, this one stung but send waves of electricity all over your skin. You groaned and put your still weak hand on your cheek to sooth the dull pain. “You’re too easy to work up, dude. Insecure much?” you sneered.

The man’s response was to take hold of your legs and open them to fit himself. He moved close enough to your body that you felt every inch of his manhood when he grinded it roughly in between your folds, which, at this point, were drenched and dripping, and that only made the glide very slippery. You moaned when his tip aimed to your nub, hitting the bundle of nerves repeatedly. He just grunted.

Behind you, Namjoon got his hands on your breasts, massaging them almost tenderly, while his hips thrusted up a little until his member lodged between your asscheeks. You didn’t expect his lips roaming on your neck, and much less for him to leave open-mouthed kisses and a trail of saliva there where his tongue licked; you were too distracted squealing as Seokjin gripped your waist and rammed his cock into your pussy in one go. By now, after everything you went through, nothing too soft or vanilla would satisfy you enough; the spark of excitement was always missing when men fucked you slowly and carefully. You were a woman of action, of adrenaline – so you liked how he was rough and wild.

“Are you liking how Seokjin fucks your pussy, baby?” Namjoon murmured right in your ear before taking your earlobe between his lips and sucking it. He was the real menace. “You want him to fill you up? Because, I’ll tell you a secret,” If it wasn’t for his closeness – his mouth glued to your ear – you wouldn’t be capable of hearing him due to the smacking of skin with skin and the blood that was rushing in your ears. “That’s all he thought about since he found you.” Through half lidded eyes, you looked up at the older man while Namjoon kept talking. “Fill you until you were gushing with his cum. Mark you as his bitch, he said.” He cupped your breasts and played with both your nipples, but you couldn’t even close your eyes at the feeling because you couldn’t miss even a second of the sight Seokjin was.

You didn’t really like him like that, but it was undeniable that he was one of the most beautiful men you have seen – now more than ever. His face was flushed and glowing, with a drop of sweat down his side; his full and bitten-red lips a little open in a panting; his cold stare down to you, judging you, hating you, and yet, fucking you franticly… And you haven’t even started on his god-like body. If you had to be attracted to someone, it would be someone like him: heartless, vain, profane. Someone not afraid of wanting, not afraid of taking.

“And, you know? Good bitches have to be bred.” Out of a sudden, Namjoon had his fingers shamelessly torturing your clitoris. You squeeze Seokjin’s member and moaned in a high-pitch, feeling your insides tightening fast. “That’s why we brought you, to stuff you with cum until our bitch is well bred– fucked until you beg to be filled over and over again.” Your breath shook as a result of his words, and your core was clenching until the point of no return. Just then, the older Kim reangled himself and penetrated you deeper, nudging all your hot insides with the tip of his long cock. “Would you like that, sweetheart? For us to put a baby into you? To fuck you until you´re round and can do nothing but take our cocks in all your holes all day?” The speed of his digits on you increased, rubbing past the hood that covered you most sensitive part. You cried when he started touching directly on the nervous nub. “Come on, baby, I know you want it. Beg for it.”

“Ye-yes” you exhaled, overwhelmed with sensations. You were so close that anything you heard sounded hot and cum-inducing. Being reduced to a bearing slave and a hole to warm their cocks? Hell yeah. “I wa-want you to – want you to b-breed me. Please!” With a sharp movement of his index finger, Namjoon made your tense core snap. You cried louder when your climax hit you all at once; your cunt tensed and gripped Seokjin like a vice, while all blood flushed down south of your body and electricity ran all on your clit, folds and thighs. For a second, everything was white and muted, and Seokjin’s clash with your body prolonged your climax, sending wave after wave of more electricity. “Please, breed me. I’m your bitch, cum in me, please” you murmured in the middle of ecstasy. You couldn’t keep your mouth shut normally, much less in that mind-altering moment.

Seokjin stopped for a moment, releasing your legs, though you didn’t realize it until you felt his tongue forcing his way into your mouth. You had no energy to kiss him back, but it was not needed; he took your jaw and forced your lips to apart with his. Once again, he licked all inside your cavity, brushing your tongue with his and sucking each of your lips until they were red. You let him do as he pleased, and it even felt quite nice to make out so passionately after cumming so hard.

However, none of the men had cummed yet. Still hazed, you felt strong arms hooking under your knees and lifting you, causing you to circle your arms around a neck to avoid falling. You hugged yourself to Seokjin while he got up from the bed and stood on the floor beside it – cock never leaving your pussy. Focusing again on reality, you felt the heat of Namjoon’s body behind you when his skin sticked to yours. With an extraordinary strength you didn’t know he had, Seokjin moved your body up on his standing dick and down until he bottomed out. From this upright position, gravity naturally made your body go lower and the thick penis go deeper. You whined from overstimulation.

“Shush, whore. Didn’t you wanna be bred? This is how filthy whores have their cunt filled” the older brother grunted. You whined louder like the brattiest of brats just to annoy him. At this point he could only roll his eyes to you. Though your fun didn’t last long – next time Seokjin pulled you down, you found yourself filled to the brim suddenly.

It took a little patience and team work from all parties to make both of them fit into your pussy at the same time. You whimpered for real the whole time, closing your eyes tightly, because you were stretched to the limit, and despite having done this before, it was never with two cocks that large. Between shaky exhales, you felt Namjoon tonguing at the spot under your ear and nibbling his way to the base of your throat.

“Holy shit, it’s better than I thought” Seokjin groaned, half lidded eyes posed on your strained face. “Do you like your cunt stuffed like this, baby?” He saw the intention to clapback when you barely opened your eyes, so he thrusted the tiniest bit up to tear a yelp off of you. He admitted to himself that he kind of admired your tenacity; you came this far and never once had you showed the littlest trace of fear or regret – no, you kept pushing and challenging them even in that moment. It really was admirable how far you would go for your fortune.

Finally, you felt yourself reaching the base of their penises, with much, much effort. You couldn’t think, much less utter a single word from how overwhelmed you felt. All you could do was gasp and gape like a fish, digging your fingers on Seokjin’s shoulder – who was enjoying every second of your helplessness. Having you at his mercy was all he had thought about for years, and all he had needed was patience and time. And there you were.

“You turned out just a meek kitten, baby” Namjoon commented on your left ear, swiveling his hips slowly into you. “I don’t like proving Seokjin right and I told him he was fucking crazy with this stupid plan, but here we are.” Both of them secured their hold on your legs, and just like that started moving taking turns; each time one was out, the other penetrated you with a hard thrust.

“Told you this dumb whore would fall for it” Seokjin grunted, looking down at the place where all three of you connected. “She thinks running a business is fucking people and that’s it. ‘Cause that’s how you made your way to the top, right? There’s no other way for you to get anywhere, as useless as you are.” Seokjin was really, really into degrading you. He spat his words to your face with the utmost disgust, pounding into you harder whenever he said something demeaning. “You’d been a disgusting slut since daddy gave you the wheel, hadn’t you? Letting anybody use your cunt, dripping everywhere you go with any bastard’s cum.”

Now they were really getting into it – and so were you. Heat stirred up in your core again and you found yourself panting and whimpering, needing more. You opened your glazed eyes and focused on Seokjin, expecting he catches up the silent begging. He did, but he would make you suffer before anything.

“It was going to be a surprise, baby, but your beautiful, tortured face is weakening me a little so I’ll tell you.” Still shaking you everywhere with their pounding, the older of the brothers got his mouth on the juncture of your neck and shoulder, and he bitted hard enough to hurt. When he heard you scream, he sucked the tender spot and laved his tongue on the dents he left, before getting right by your right ear to talk. “You’ll stay here with us. We will shoot your brother, steal your kingdom and make everything, including you, Kim property.”

Namjoon fucks into you at the last sentence, not waiting for his brother to be fully out. You shout as he fills you suddenly; the pressure of his entire cock inside of you, alongside the half Seokjin didn’t get out, got your whole body quivering. A collective gasp echoed in the room, and after that, the smacking of skin with skin resumed.

“You know what your future here holds, baby? It was true, we will knock you up,” Namjoon’s satin voice paired with his ramming into you every time he said will made goosebumps run up your spine and your insides to tighten. “We will make you bear our children, and we will make you tend to them only for the rest of your life. What about that, baby? The great mafia princess lessened into a breeding machine, good for nothing but popping out our babies.”

After hearing his brother, Seokjin begins fucking into you rougher, more urgent, moving one hand to your throat so you won’t look anywhere but at him as he fucks you. Sweat was making it difficult for you to keep your hold on his strained biceps so, in a particularly hard thrust, you sank your fingers, nails and all, deep onto his skin with a moan. Both brothers bang into you together, cocks heedlessly slamming and dragging over your walls, their pace picking up as they jackhammered into your pussy at the same time, into the same spot. They were rubbing your insides raw; sensitive skin swollen and unbearably tender, way past the point of pain and pushing into pleasure.

“This is your life now, sweetheart” Seokjin panted on your face, now holding you by the jaw. “Get used to being my bitch because I’ve been waiting for too long to fuck” he thrusted up with force. “my seed” His brother caught on his rhythm and now you had to cocks punctuating every word with rough movements. “into you.” With one last pound of the two members, filling ridiculously stretched and overly sensitive inside and out – and with a single stroke of Namjoon’s magic fingers on your clit – you tip over the edge. You scream, your muscles tense everywhere like a rubber band before releasing all at once, and both men keep fucking you despite you blacking out for a moment.

Fucking themselves into you, both brothers knew they wouldn’t last much longer given how you clenched around them, your walls throbbing alongside their cocks. Unable to hold out anymore, Namjoon groans low, hips getting sloppier as he started pumping his come deep into you. It just took Seokjin one more spasm from your cunt to moan loud and long and come beside his brother, white ropes filling you up as both of them continued to fuck every last drop inside. White, liquid cum seeped from your pussy and between their joined members to their thighs. All of your chests heaved in and out to catch your breaths, and just then they realized you let yourself fall onto Seokjin, body liquified and mind still out there.

[night-market-if]

this. might be a stupid ask so im sorry if it is, but i haven't fully played the game yet but i've like, guessed whats going to happen near the end with all the asks your getting (i read them out of my own will so its not rlly spoilers yk, and i have the end game spoilers tag blocked anyway or whatever it is) but. i did have a question with the milo/mal romance. i know (from what im understanding) that you can enter a poly with milo/mal (or im just dumb) or stay with milo and just let him do what he needs to do with mal w/o MC, but is it an option to. . date malcom w/o milo being with the MC aswell? do u get what im saying 😭 i feel like im explaining it bad

As of right now, I am hopeful that there is going to be a Mal route. Mal will still have Milo connections (just as Milo would if you were dating him). Again, this is something I think might happen but I don't know. I don't plan out my books before writing them. I just see where the characters want to go. I know that is kind of stressful for some readers but I don't want to give solid answers and then change it at the last minute.

🪷✨🪷✨ If you want to support me 🪷 ✨🪷✨ 

Demo 🌿 Patreon 🌿 Ko-fi 🌿Discord🌿Kickstarter

[jenanigans1207]

girl that’s so messed up tht ppl are harassing you ab ur fics. i thought it was becoming common to understand tht fic writers are human beings with lives outside of their stories they create for FREE. shit happens and ppl should be grateful for what you have written. thank you for ur stories and time. theres a ton of us waiting patiently for when you have the time and energy to create. take as much time as you need. i hope life gets easier for you. id rather wait years to read another chapter than for you to feel stressed to make something you’re not happy with and for writing to become a burden rather than a fun outlet for you. keep moving forward and don’t let the negativity influence u <3 godspeed soldier

heyo anon w the long rant before this here: do u have any links where we could tip/donate to u lmao asking for a friend 👀

hope it's okay that I combined both asks into one!

First of all, thank you so much! You are so kind and this really helps me feel a lot better. I really should amend my rant to clarify that most people are being incredibly kind and understanding, just like you are. And to the people who have reached out to check in on me: thank you <3 But I've been through this in other fandoms and I guess I'm going through it in this fandom too. And maybe it's something I should just expect but it did almost get me to quit writing for the previous fandom that did this to me. Because you're totally right-- it took all the joy out of writing for me. And I had such a fear whenever I looked at a blank page about whether this update would live up to the expectation after "so long" of not updating that it paralyzed me.

That won't happen here, I promise I'll finish discriminating taste, just like I finished the fic I was just talking about. But it's just frustrating sometimes because I will sometimes have free time and the fear of it all with cause me to be unable to grab my computer and start writing. But I am very lucky to have a fic that is so well-loved and I am very thankful for the people who care enough about my fic to want more, so I don't want to complain too much. I just want everyone to trust that I won't walk out on you or leave the fic unfinished!

Anyway, that did not need to get so long and I'm sorry for dumping that on you! The short version is, thank you <3 I appreciate the kind words and the understanding and it's people like you who have made it so that I still want to finish this fic. Being cared for as me and not as the author of a fic really helps. So truly, thank you!!

As for links (omg thank you but also nobody is ever obligated)-- I had to dig this up from... i honestly don't even know when. I can't name the last time I looked at this so if you go to it and look at it, don't judge whatever you see there, haha. But I did make a ko-fi once upon a time!

Thank you again, so much, just for being so kind and caring. It really means a lot <3

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

Night In (Starlord x Reader)

Summary: Romance in the way only a Peter Quill can.

Word Count: 3,687

Warnings: None!

A/N: I listened to a lot of Moulin Rouge! songs while writing this and the campiness may have bled into it juuust a little bit, lol.

Ko-Fi | Commissions

~~~

The Benatar was usually lively and chaotic 24/7, so coming back to the hangar that your crew had docked at to see it completely dark and empty was a little jarring. You pulled out your communicator–an augmented phone-like piece of tech that you snagged off a random person on a random planet after losing your phone–to check the text that your partner, Peter Quill, had sent you about preparing to take off. After confirming that Peter had in fact told you to come back to the ship, and glancing between the message and the ship a few extra times, you put your communicator away and replaced it with a quad blaster.

You slowly neared the ship, keeping an eye on your surroundings as you reached the ship’s entrance. After a quick inspection, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that wasn’t a word that could normally be used to describe the Guardians anyway. Plus, Peter specifically was always getting into weird trouble, so you wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if you made it inside and found him being held captive by solid matter-phasing goo-people… or something.

Made it inside you did and things were still deathly quiet but after sneaking around the ship and finding nothing dangerous or interesting, you started feeling like maybe you were the crazy one. Then your communicator beeped and your response was to scream, so you were sure you were.

“Oh my fucking god, you hear a beep and you scream? This is how you deal with your problems? How the hell am I one of the ‘Dangerous: Most Wanted’ criminals on five planets but I hear my phone go off and want to throw my gun at it, what in the galaxy…” You continued grumbling as you put your weapon away and retrieved your communicator again, unlocking the device and checking your messages.

✨Peeber Quibble✨ 💝: R u here yet?

You leaned against the wall as you responded, ARE YOU???

✨Peeber Quibble✨ 💝: Omg was that u????

You groaned. Maybe.

✨Peeber Quibble✨ 💝: 🤣 🤣 🤣 Babe I’m in the kitchen

You hooked your communicator onto your belt and made your way there. As you reached the main hall leading to the ship’s cramped kitchen area, warm light greeted you along with soft music and your boyfriend’s off-key singing. Wandering in, you were greeted with the surprising sight of a makeshift romantic dinner setup on the kitchen’s small island–said island actually being a couple of large crates of equipment that everyone pretended didn’t exist most of the time so no one had to move it. You were also greeted by Peter himself, who was shimmying with his back to you as he sang and hunched over a small stove that was probably older than the entire ship.

“You text like a teenager,” you said to announce yourself. You walked over to the counter to lean against it as Peter spun to face you, though he didn’t pay much attention to you other than singing into his spatula at you for a few bars. He briefly threw the spatula into your face to encourage you to sing with him but you grabbed his hand and gently bit it as your defense.

“I text like a me, thank you very much,” he said finally after his song ended, wagging an accusing finger at you. He spun again, back to the stove to move whatever he was cooking onto one of two mismatched plates, which he then shimmied three steps to set with the rest of the fancy setup. He went back to the stove once more to turn it off and toss the spatula on a still-hot burner–you quickly moved to remove it to prevent the plastic handle from melting–before turning to you with a grin, a pair of jazz hands, and a “Ta-da!”

You snorted and took a better look around. Old Valentine’s Day decorations in the form of shiny red and pink hearts were hanging from the ceiling and taped to various parts of wall and cabinet. The “island” was covered with a red plaid bed sheet with lit candles, chipped mugs of red wine, appetizers of breadsticks and salad that Peter definitely stole from someplace and didn’t make himself, and the two plates of what looked like slightly burnt stir fry. An old school radio that usually spent its time in the bathroom entertaining people while they showered–or other business–was sitting on the kitchen counter close to Peter.

Peter himself even looked more dressed up than normal. Instead of his usual red jacket, he wore one of black faux leather over a mildly wrinkled but nicely-fitting red button-up shirt. On his bottom half, he wore a pair of gray slacks and dark, shiny shoes that you knew hadn’t belonged to his wardrobe until today. His hair was styled and pushed back in a way that was a little out of his style–not that everything else going on around you wasn’t already–and he’d clearly spent a lot of time trimming and grooming his facial hair; he even opted for no stubble, which was a rare decision.

“You look like a dork and this whole thing is a fire hazard,” you pointed out but the goofy smile on your face and red-tinted cheeks told Peter otherwise. You took a couple of steps to him and he grativated the rest of the way to you, immediately melting into your touch as you took his face in your hands and pulled him into a kiss. It was soft and sweet and lasted for a bit; when you pulled away, Peter nuzzled his nose against your hairline and you wrapped your arms around him and asked, “What’s all this for?”

Peter shrugged and leaned further into you as your hands affectionately roamed his torso between the layers of leather and cotton. “I don’t know, just thought it would be nice. We’ve been going on a lot of missions and stuff and no one on this ship has any boundaries. Especially that Thor guy.”

You swatted him lightly on the back but then pressed a kiss to his shoulder to make up for it. “Be nice. He’s recovering.”

Your partner briefly grumbled something about Thor and an angel baby under his breath before leaning back from you a bit. He gave you a slow look-over, which had you blushing a bit again, then fixed a giddy but charming grin on you. “Anyway, I kicked everyone off the ship for a bit. We have the whole place to ourselves for… at least a couple of hours… while they’re on the hunt for a golden turkey with a really cool mechanical wing.”

Your hands found his face again and his hands mimicked yours, finding a cozy place on your hips. “And where on this world did you come up with that?”

Peter quirked a brow at you. “Isn’t that what that kids’ story is about? The golden turkey? The mechanical wing was for Rocket purposes.”

“You mean the goose that lays golden eggs or whatever?”

He pretended to rethink his scheming choices, then shrugged and smirked at you. “Same difference.”

It really wasn’t at all but then Peter was kissing you and you were too busy to complain. As you kissed, you felt Peter pulling you forward, so you followed, cautiously so you didn’t ram into some piece of equipment or a counter corner. You were stopped when, assumedly, Peter had you where he wanted you and he pulled away from you completely to strike a dramatic pose while gesturing to his dinner setup.

“May I introduce you to… food!”

“Why hello, food,” you said, leaning against the crates and flirtily walking your fingers up the length of a breadstick, “How pleasant it is to meet you.” 

You plucked the breadstick from its bowl covered in rainbows and took a bite of it. After a moment, you glanced around the area again. “Where am I supposed to sit?”

“Knew I was forgetting something.” Peter replied after a long moment of staring at the lack of chairs in the kitchen, “Hang on.”

You happily munched your breadstick while Peter disappeared down a hall. It didn’t take very long for him to find a pair of folding lawn chairs and carry them back, and you two were quickly seated to eat. 

“Wow, okay, damn,” you mumbled around your fork as you took the first bit of stir fry on Peter’s request, “this is actually really good.”

“Thanks, I think?” While he pretended to sound offended, though, he was clearly pleased by the compliment by the way his shoulders and chest puffed up.

You still couldn’t help teasing him anyway. “I once watched you and Rocket try to make toast with laser guns.”

Peter pouted. “That was one time!”

“Peanut butter and jelly cannons?”

“Okay, two times!”

Banter and conversation flows easily during dinner but this is how it always was for you and Peter. You were overly sarcastic and teasing in nature, which either meshed well with or combatted Peter’s overall chaotic menace-ness. Either way, the two of you left the many annoyed groans of your crewmates in your wake.

When you weren’t chatting, Peter was breaking into song between bites of food. Over time, your resolve began to wear down and you eventually started joining in, which then led to a full-on kitchen concert–until Peter accidentally knocked over a candle. You were quick to save it from catching the ship on fire but it still resulted in a charred breadstick basket as well as a burn mark on the plaid sheet. It was at this point that most of the food was gone, except for your and Peter’s breadstick microphone and the rest of the bottle of wine that the two of you were now sipping from, mugs forgotten. 

“We should clean up while we’re at it,” you said from your place at the counter where you were completing your new task of extinguishing the rest of the candles as Peter threw away the burnt basket. 

Peter replied after taking a sip of wine straight from the bottle, “Couldn’t agree more.” Then you watched, dumbfounded, as the man pulled the four corners of the sheet up, tied them together like a bindle full of dirty dishes and picked up the entire 

“Peter Jason Quill, don’t you dare!” you warned. “Do you know how hard it was for me to collect enough dishes for this place? You guys used to eat exclusively tupperware and takeout containers. Which were scattered everywhere all the time, by the way.”

“‘Tis the nature of a pirate,” Peter goofed. Instead of heading to the garbage chute immediately, though, he paused to stuff a hand into the bag.

You replied, “I don’t think you can call yourself a pirate when your team is called the Guardians and you’ve saved the universe at least three times now. Like, legally.”

Peter just chuckled and dug around in his makeshift tablecloth bag. Then, one by one, he pulled your mugs, plates, and eating utensils out and put them on the counter next to you. He freed his hand once more and shook it free of droplets of spilled wine and a couple of stir fry noodles, then gave you another cheeky grin. “There.”

Just to be as juvenile as he was, you made a face and stuck your tongue out at him. You moved the still-warm candles to a safe spot on the counter until they could be properly put away and then turned to the dishes. Before moving them to the tiny sink, you put a plug in its drain and turned on the hot water. As you grabbed some soap and squirted a good amount into the water to get it soapy, you suggested that you wash the dishes while Peter dries.

Your brunette boyfriend walked over, dinner bindle in tow, to give your temple a kiss. “Sure. I did this whole thing, though, I’m washing.”

“Works for me.”

“And then… we dance!”

“We dance?”

Your gaze followed Peter as he walked out of the kitchen and down to the ship’s main garbage chute until he was enveloped by shadow, shaking his hips and doing funky arm and feet movements as he went. “We dance!”

You snorted out a laugh as he then burst out into screaming the lyrics of a song currently playing on the radio. “If you dance with me like that, dear god, I hope not.”

You diddled around the kitchen a bit while you waited for Peter to return. He did so a few minutes later, now jacket-free, probably because he’d shoved his leather-sleeved arm into a bag full of dinner mess. The two of you comfortably squished into the corner of the kitchen where the sink was and Peter started washing. He handed dishes to you, occasionally bumping hips or shoulders and serenading you as he did so, and, with there being no drying rack, you dried them with a rag and tucked them away in the baby-proofed cabinets. Traveling in the Benatar could get a little chaotic and incredibly messy, so you and your teammates didn’t worry too much about nice things and just did your best trying to take care of what you had, hence the baby-proofing.

Also, Rocket had a surprisingly hard time handling the baby-proof locks, which was just an incredibly amusing bonus.

With how small the load of dishes was, washing them took no time at all. You probably could have managed on your own and still have been done in a timely manner but it was nice spending mundane, intimate time with Peter as opposed to the ship’s usual bustling… Guardian-ness. By the time the two of you were finished, you were lazily leaning on each other and swaying along with the radio as he drained the sink and you hung your drying towel to dry. Even when that was done, you found yourself snuggled up to Peter’s arm, which found itself around your shoulders, as you both simply enjoyed each other’s company for a bit.

“So,” you said after a while, to which Peter responded by humming and leaning his head against yours, “where do you expect us to dance?”

Peter suddenly went from zero to 100 and you ended up watching him for several minutes as he tried to force the crates that you’d previously used as a table to one side of the room. From your position of sitting on the edge of the countertop, you gave him an occasional clap or encouragement, such as the one you gave him now. “You’re doing amazing, sweetie.”

Peter let out a huff that was equal parts tired and annoyed as he stepped back from the crates. Kicking the lowermost one, he exclaimed, “What is even in these? How long have they been here? Are they glued to the ground and we just forgot about it?”

You answered unhelpfully, “Sorry to burst your bubble, babe, but your guess is as good as mine. They were here when I joined.”

Peter huffed again and placed his hands on the corners of the top crate, then crouched down and stared at it like it had eyes and he was going to intimidate it and others into submission. Then he turned his stare at you for a moment. Turned it back to the crates. Turned it back to you. This went on for another several minutes until you eventually coaxed him to speak again with an arched eyebrow. He hopped back up to standing and made an arm movement in your general direction. “Come here.”

You slipped off the counter and joined him but before he could give you orders, you pointed a finger at him and said, “If I blow my back out and not for fun reasons, I’m going to be pissed.”

Standing closer to him now, it was clear that he was desperately trying to keep a straight face and, to your pleasure, your comment made him break into a smirk for just a moment. He quickly recovered, though, and without any warning, he picked you up by your hips and plopped you onto the stack of crates. You eyed him incredulously as he took a step away and looked you over, scratching his chin like he was a very deeply thinking scientist making a breakthrough and muttering under his breath, “Hmm. Yes, yes, very good.”

As Peter continued with whatever the hell he was doing, you felt a little bit of yourself die. This was a long-term bit, you could tell, and you weren’t sure that you were ready for the ride. You finally gave a little exasperated flap of your arms in his direction. “Okay, man, you gotta clue me in here. How is me sitting on the crates gonna make–”

Luckily for you, the bit quickly ended as Peter’s lips met yours in a deep kiss. Peter’s smiling lips moved perfectly against yours and you let out a relieved little hum, although you were sure whatever he had been doing would come back into play in a few minutes or so. For now, you hooked your arms around his neck and enjoyed the feeling of his teeth teasing your bottom lip. 

It wasn’t long until you were tangled around your partner in tongues and limbs, which apparently was Peter’s chosen time to strike. His hands left your body and found the edge of the stack of crates again and he groaned– No, it wasn’t so much a groan but a grunt, and it certainly wasn’t because of the makeout session. This you pieced together in seconds as you felt the crates begin to move underneath you, and you and Peter with them.

You broke the kiss with a cackle as Peter heaved the crates out of the center of the kitchen. While you were still laughing and throwing giggly expletives at him, he managed to push the crates against a far wall, revealing a discolored rectangle of floor where the crates had once been; this you could barely see out of teary eyes.

“Pet-er-Quill, you absolute menace!” you yelled at him, propping yourself up with one arm and wiping away laugh-tears with the other, as he danced away with a clap of his hands and a grin.

Peter laughed back as he strutted around the kitchen, waving and flexing his arms like he was a pro wrestler who’d just one a huge fight. In a booming voice he said, “I am the almighty Starlord, crates are no match for me! Thanks to my secret power source of sweet kisses, no obstacle is too powerful for me to face!”

“Is that what that was?” you asked, “Is that all I am to you? A sweet kisses storage unit?”

Peter responded quickly, “No, of course not. You’re amazing. Very important to me. Very powerful. Buuut not as powerful as me! Call me the Opposite Hulk because I get strong and red when I– You know what, I probably shouldn’t say that since I know the guy now.”

As he twirled and broke into a giggle, you snickered as you hopped down from your crate throne. “Horrible. Nightmare. I love you.”

“And I love you.” Peter turned back to you and you could see him visibly relax as he shimmied over. By the time he reached you and took you in his arms, no longer was he the cocky goofball but rather the cuddly teddy bear of a man whose facial hair tickled your cheeks and forehead as he peppered your face in kisses. His arms trailed up your back until they reached yours shoulders, where they changed directions and slid down to your hands so he could intertwine his fingers with yours. 

You smiled and lightly bumped noses with him, but couldn’t help teasing him once more, “You’re a child. That joke was awful.”

Peter grinned back at you as he countered, “I’m only a child because you make me feel young.”

He snickered again as you rolled your eyes. You caught his face in your hands and nuzzled your face closer to his but were careful to avoid your lips touching his outside of the lightest of brushes. Peter’s own slowly chased after them but they didn’t properly meet until after you mumbled, “You’re also extremely cheesy.”

Any other conversation was turned to pleased hums as Peter’s lips melded against yours. Once again, your arms found his neck while his found your hips and the two of you slowly swayed in a random dance as the sweet kiss continued. At some point, your fingers found Peter’s hair and you were quick to ruin its sculpted style with ruffles and the occasional tug. Peter responded with fingers playing with the hem of your shirt and his tongue exploring your mouth.

Eventually, the need to breathe reared its annoying head and two of you parted, panting softly. You pressed a couple of extra kisses against his neck before burrowing your face into his shoulder and hugging him close. Peter kissed the top of your head, your temple, briefly nipped at your earlobe and made you giggle. You remained squished cozily against your partner until he saw an opportunity in the dance for a twirl or a dip or a subtle step change; otherwise, the rumbling from Peter’s chest as he hummed to whatever song was playing combined with you being enveloped in his arms left you feeling tingly and warm. 

Then a certain song came on and forced you out of it.

“Peter,” you whispered, “we’re slow dancing to Jimmy Buffett.”

Peter hummed. “It’s fine. It’ll change.”

“Yeah but… now I want margaritas.”

“Really?”

“Kinda.”

Peter leaned back slightly with a thoughtful sigh as he glanced around the kitchen. Without breaking your swaying circles, you did the same, eyeing a particular cabinet that was designated for various alcoholic beverage ingredients. “Do you think we have margarita mix?”

“Margaritas and movies?” Peter suggested.

“Woo,” you hooted quietly, “margaritas and movies!”

[shurisneakers]

harmless (viii)

Summary: Bucky volunteers to go stop a small time villain, but nothing can prepare him for what exactly he has to deal with. (Bucky x villain!reader, drabble series)

Warnings: cursing, protesting, frustrated bucky, dramatic reader, gamer (derogatory), smidge of angst

Word count: 3.5k

A/N: listen idk what goes on at construction site and im too sexy to research so we’re going with my version of the world. hello. how are we all doing?

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333

Previous Part || Series Masterlist

He doesn’t expect to see you on TV. 

In jail maybe, for something scandalous and completely unnecessary, but not TV.

But there you are, a sign board waving around furiously in your hand, voice in protest against the demolition of the community centre. You’re flipping the board back and forth to alternate between the messages you’ve scrawled on the cardboard.

You were among a few protesting, but clearly the loudest. 

He thinks that maybe he has the weekend off if you’re too busy fighting big corporations. He’d send his support even.

Until he zeroes in on the sign when it flips over, finally reading what it says.

You better get your ass here, sarge

And so he does.

Half the crowd had dipped by the time he arrived. You were there, still the loudest, but he couldn’t help but notice the lack of people as compared to an hour or two ago on TV. He supposed that justice could wait as long as it took to get lunch from the nearest café.

“I can’t stop you from protesting, y’know.” He’s a little wary of approaching your raging self. 

“Oh, hey Barnes. You got my message.” You break away for a second to scream a bunch of obscenities at the gigantic glass building before turning to him. “You wouldn’t be able to.”

“What’s your dumb plan then?” 

“First of all, it’s not dumb. It’s stupid. Put some respect on my technological genius.” You held up a finger. “Second of all, it’s not here.”

“Where is it?” 

“At the construction site.” You point down the road. “Come on.”

Right along the way you stop to chant another slogan. He waves his arm around meekly in support. He did, after all, have to stand up for what was right, but if his publicist saw him here she’d have an aneurysm. 

The construction site isn’t very far off. It’s adjacent to the community centre, which he assumes they’re going to tear down to make more space for whatever shitty commercial building was going to take its place.

There are already a few excavators and dozers there but no one to man them since it was lunch time. What garners his attention is the small silver plate that’s on the floor a few feet ahead in the direction you’re walking towards.

“Here.” You stop once it nears. “The plan.”

“Am I supposed to know what this is?” He lightly kicked at it, earning a smack on the arm from you.

“Stop that,” you scolded, “and look at it. It’s not hard to figure out.”

He narrows his eyes. There’s a small u-shaped piece of metal in the middle of the plate. “That’s a magnet.”

“Exactly.” You clapped your hands together in excitement. “The world’s strongest electromagnet.”

He looks around. The only possibly magnetic things are the cranes and excavators around him.

“You’re going to... stop the machines from moving ahead?” he hesitates in his deduction. 

“Yep. Can’t tear anything down if they can’t get to it first.” 

Bucky looks down.

“Does this thing even work?” He toes at it again. “It’s kinda small.”

“It works beautifully, stop kicking at it, you demon-”

“What happens if I step on it, huh?” He knows this would get on your nerves wonderfully. He raises his leg. “Do I get to go home for the day?”

“You’re such a little shit,” you whine, reaching for your back pocket. “Stop bullying my invention.”

“’m gonna squish it like a bug.” He’s only half kidding about that part. “I’m gonna-”

Before he can finish his sentence something yanks him down hard. His head nearly hits the ground before his right arm shoots out to break his fall.

"Woah there, don't go falling for me as yet.” 

“What the fu-” he begins, eyes locking on his metal arm that was pressed flat against the earth.

“I told you it works,” you say smugly. “Try crushing it now, Barnes. If you can even get off the floor.”

He tugs his hand but it’s firmly attached to the thing. No matter how or where he’s applying the effort, his limb refuses to move. He’s stuck.

“Turn it off,” he sighs. “You made your point.”

“No. Stay there.”

“Y/N, shut up and turn this off,” he groans, trying to find a better position rather than chin down on the ground.

“Lay there and rot. You deserve it for underestimating me.” You huff.

“I wasn’t underestimating you, Jesus Christ.” He really was planning to just step on it, but he had complete faith that it worked. 

When he doesn’t receive a reply, his gaze follows yours. Suddenly the crane looks a lot closer than it initially did. Awesome. 

“Those are moving towards me.” He picks up on the low groan and creak of metal.

“Yeah, they are.” You nod, one hand on your hip, watching them.

He didn’t think that getting crushed under construction equipment would be how his day went. 

“Not my problem,” you decide finally after a bout of silence. 

Now that simply wouldn’t do. 

Death was definitely a problem, but what was more important was that he was going to get a dust allergy from the mud. He could already feel the blocked nose and temperature incoming.

“Are you really going to waste this on me? Don’t you have a demolition to stop?” He manages to twist his body so that he’s lying on his back.

“Good point,” you squint into the distance at the whirring of the heavy machinery. Their owners wouldn’t be happy to find them missing from their original spot. “But I still can’t help you out.”

“You’re willing to sacrifice your-”

“I can’t help you out because I don’t have an off switch. Yet,” you add the last part in a hurry.

“Then when the fuck were you planning to build one?” He sits up, leaning on his elbow. The cranes weren’t a mini object on the horizon now; the closer they got, the faster they were starting to move towards him. 

“I don’t know, after they agreed not to take down the building?”

He could just detach his arm and come back for it later he but had no guarantee that you would stop here for the day or that the vibranium could withstand all that pressure. 

“You better make a switch right now and get me out of this, I don’t care how.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you grumbled, bending to assess how badly he was stuck. “You know, this thing runs really deep into the earth. It’d take forever to dig back up and then get you back to my lab and then build a switch.”

“How long?” He didn’t have a lot of time, clearly, but even generally he didn’t have the whole day to waste. He had a mission the next day. He had to put the fear of death into some Russians and bring some pirozhki back for Nat. 

“I don’t know,” you furrowed your eyebrows. “Too long for my schedule anyway, I have class prep to do.”

“Motherfucke- that thing’s like twenty feet away.” He’s worried about how you don’t look fazed at all when he points at the stupid machine.

He’s about to volunteer to detach his arm when he realises it’s definitely less than twenty feet now. He had a backup just in case. It didn’t move as smoothly, but who could tell the difference when a couple of tons of pressure was aiming for your face, and hell, if he explained his circumstances of the destruction of his arm to T’Challa-

“Okay, fine.” You reach into your backpack to grab something that looked like a wrist watch. It matched the one already around your hand. 

You reach over and clasp it around his hand before turning a dial on the side.

“You ready?” you ask, ignoring the large crane that was starting to charge towards you. 

“For what?” he replies, looking down at it. He can barely hear you over the sound of the whining of machinery.  

“Teleportation, baby.” You send him a big grin before slamming down on his watch.

“Huh-” His voice cuts off immediately. 

If there’s anything that can be said about teleportation, it’s that he feels like every atom in his entire body violently splits to float around briefly before suddenly rejoining again.  

The ground beneath him feels different, and it takes him a second to realise that he was on the floor of your lair. 

“What the fu-”

“Hello,” your voice comes from above him. 

“You can teleport.” It’s not difficult for him to look at you now without the sun in his face. His arm is still stuck to the magnet but since the giant rod it was attached to was no longer deep in the ground, he could lift the entire apparatus up relatively easily.

“What, like it’s hard?” You discarded your bag on the floor. “You good? Takes a while to get used to.”

He gives you a grunt in acknowledgement, shaking his arm to see if he had any luck. It didn’t budge.

“Come on, take a seat.” You gesture to a lab chair you’ve pulled up for him on the raised platform at the front of the room. He realises that this is the first time he’s properly seen what’s actually inside your lair.

There are various buttons that do God knows what, drawers and cabinets painted black, several computer screens and gigantic pillars of glass on either side of the set up that encapsulate some green bubbling liquid. There’s a giant television set up against the wall, divided into several screens.

“Whaddya think?” You do a small swoop of your arm to show off the place.

“Gamer,” he says simply, testing his luck.

“What did you just say to me?” you recoil instantly, disgust on your face.

“It’s a gamer set up.” He points a finger at the TV screen. He was told by Shuri to use it as an insult, but he wasn’t exactly sure why. It just felt appropriate. 

“Take that back right now.” You raise a finger accusatorially at him.

“No.” He was sticking with it even though he had no idea what exactly the context was.

“Fuck your arm,” you announce, throwing your hands up in surrender.

“Fuck your demolition then,” he replies simply, getting up from his place on the chair to leave with the thing still attached to him. 

He takes one step ahead before your voice rings out.

“Sit down, drama queen,” your voice calls from behind him. “God, you’re annoying.”

“You’re infuriating.”

“I’m the best part of your week,” you fire back, ”and also your only way out of this. Now sit down.”

He didn’t even need the second warning, he was already on the chair the first time around.

“I’m not going to build a switch to turn this off. It’d take too long,” you examine the piece of equipment with more gentleness than he was expecting, “I’m going to remove it instead. It’s gonna take a while, so you better get comfortable.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s so sad,” you say without any indication of wanting to help. 

He rolls his eyes.

You pull up next to him, welding glasses covering your face and the tool in your hand. 

He turns away when you start, making sure his face is not directly within its trajectory. 

He makes himself busy by looking around some more. There are details you’ve put into the place, materials that are non-flammable made up most of the architecture. It’s dramatic, sure, but somehow the designs and colours seemed to go together. It did look sinister, he’d give you props for that.

The space was quite big. It occurs to him only then that that’s how you manage to sneak up on him so often in the past. Everything clicked. Fucking teleportation.

“So,” your voice was raised to speak over the noise. “How’s it going?”

He decidedly doesn’t answer. His position is more than enough.

“Right.” You clear your throat. 

He takes to counting the tiles on the floor, figuring out how many were there from the raised platform to the wall of the entrance. 

“Not how you imagined your day to go, huh?” you continued despite his lack of response. “But some might say it’s a privilege to be spending the day with a cool, mad scie-”

“Are you going to keep talking?” he interrupts, losing his count on the floor.

“Yeah, duh,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You got anything better to do?”

He didn’t. 

“What’s it like living with a bunch of superheroes?” You change course. He’s not sure if he’s really allowed to disclose top secret information. “I assume there’s a lot of protein shakes, talcum powder for the chafing-”

Then again, how much damage could you do by knowing that Steve preferred pancakes over waffles?

“It’s quiet,” he says. “Most of the time.”

“Save all your smart talking for the battlefield, huh?” 

He doesn’t reply. It’s quiet around the Tower. A lot of their energy goes towards missions and recuperating once they’re back. 

“You go on missions a lot?” 

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Boo, you whore,” you say with mock disappointment.

He got that reference.

“What’s your favourite food then?”

He scrunches his eyebrows.

“What?” The welding stops for a second while you look at him. “Don’t tell me that’s classified too.”

It’s not, he’s just never thought about it. 

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, “Pasta?”

“Vague, but I’ll take it.”

He used to boil a lot of pasta, from what he could remember of his days in hiding. Cheap and bought in bulk before he saved up enough to buy things like fruits. A lot of the times the amount of sauce he had access to was enough for maybe seasoning, not a whole component on its own. 

It’s one of the perks of being a free man in the 21st century he thinks, a steaming bowl of fettuccini drenched in sauce and garlic bread on the side. 

“What do you do in your downtime?”

“Nothing.” Well, he considers it to be a pass time and doing nothing is a full time gig. It takes effort to do nothing. He even has days dedicated to doing nothing, as suggested to him by his therapist.

“Really?” You sound a little surprised, although it’s hard to make out when you’re already speaking a lot louder than usual. “No shining your penny collection? No software update for this thing?” You tap at his arm. 

There really isn’t anything. Truth be told, he thinks he’s the most boring guy in the Tower. He sticks to himself, has a few succulents that he adores and occasionally watches trashy television. So then why are you so interested in him?

“You’re obsessed with me,” he says pointedly. “Why?”

You give a short laugh. “I think it’s the blue eyes, sarge, they’re really popping today. Gotta say, I’m loving this colour on you. Is it different from the black you wore last week? And from the one from the week before that?”

He looks down at his dark t-shirt and utility pants. He had other clothes but those were reserved for things that were not this.

“Or maybe it’s the grumpiness, I don’t know. I love it when someone shows absolutely no interest in me. Very sexy of you.” Oh jeez, you were going to continue. “Hell, maybe it’s the thighs-”

“Okay,” he interjects, feeling the need to count the tiles more than ever. He equates the heat in his neck from the welding going on beside him. 

The loudness of your laughter is clearer than the sound of metal on metal when you tug a large piece of the invention off. Things were moving fast. He could get back home to his Star Trek marathon and forget this day ever happened.

“You know, you’re more interesting than you think,” you pipe up casually. 

He doesn’t expect this and therefore he supposes he can’t stop the curiosity from enveloping his face. He hasn’t told you anything about himself, so then the inference you reached came out of nowhere.

Apparently, you take notice of the confusion on his face, even though he can’t see through the giant welding mask, because you let out a chuckle. 

“Oh, come on, really? You have no idea?” you ask lightly, pausing to see if he offers anything other than silence. “You’ve come back almost every week even though you know it’s a waste of your time, you always keep your promises and I know for a fact that if you wanted to stop me once and for all, you could have. But you’re not.”

He doesn’t realise you’ve stopped welding until you start again. Good, it gives him an excuse not to have to look at you after that. 

Frankly, he’s a little stunned.

You’re not looking at him, he can tell from his peripheral vision. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have a small crush on me.”

At that, he’s forced to roll his eyes out of instinct. Thankfully you do know better.

A few screws out later, another piece comes out. You inform him that’s it’s going to get trickier from there since the circuit was a little more intricate, a lot more time than the original few pieces. He can see his Star Trek marathon fade away in the distance.

You ask him a few more questions. Some he answers with silence, others maybe a tidbit here and there. 

“How’s dating now compared to the forties?”

“Strange.” He purses his lips in thought. “One guy asked for a gym date. Didn’t know that was a thing.”

“How’d that turn out?” you laugh.

“He didn’t ask for a second one.” His Bumble matches with girls somehow had gone down since he cut his hair, but he’s not too bothered. Not like there was a huge shortage. 

He likes cats, thinks the worst merchandise that they make is the stupid baseball card with his face on it, and doesn’t have social media for the sake of his sanity. He’s seen the thirst tweets. 

Clearly, he’s revealed his deepest, darkest secrets. Utterly classified material. But he doesn’t know anything about you other than your name, number, address, where you teach, what your hobby is-

“You, uh-” he hesitates, “You got a favourite food?”

Your hands hold still to hover above what they’re working on. You fight back a smile. “Sure do.”

He asks a few more questions. Shuts up when he feels his social battery drain. That’s enough for the next month, he thinks.

The sun’s dipped down beyond the horizon by the time majority of the work is completed. Both of you have taken a few breaks to fight the feeling of stiffness that was creeping into your joints. 

You scoff and tell him you’re not planning to poison him when he denies the offer of a soda. He doesn’t deter in his decision.

“How much to go?” He has a mission tomorrow that he’d really like to get some sleep in before. Waking up at 3am to get ready was the worst part of the job. 

“Basically done.” You roll your chair back, rotating your shoulder and stretching your fingers. “There’s just this little part that I can’t access from this angle. How good are you at hanging upside down like a bat?”

Fuck it, he sighs to himself, it was almost finished anyway.

Bucky stands up, tilting his neck to the side slightly before pulling at a small latch under his arm, one so tiny that you’d never make out was even there unless you knew it existed. The arm releases from his shoulder with a small click.

He offers it to you, a piece of your magnet still attached to it.

Your eyes are slightly wide. He raises his eyebrows.

You don’t say anything, just accept it and flip it to a position you were comfortable with. It takes only a minute or two for the sound of the last piece hitting the floor to reverberate through the hall.

You give a small cheer. He lets out a tiny exhale in equal parts fatigue and relief.

“So,” you drawl, handing his arm back to him, “you could have just done that the whole time.”

He doesn’t reply, just slides it back onto his shoulder. 

“You had the option of leaving your arm here and coming back later to get it.” 

He gives it a few shakes, opens and clenches his fist shut a few times to make sure everything is working.

“You wanted to talk to me.”

He gives you a deadpan look. “I was distracting you.”

“Bullshit,” you laugh.

“Believe what you must.” He shrugs, turning around. “My job here is done regardless.”

“Oh, I believe alright,” you call out from behind him as he walks towards the entrance of your lair. “I believe you’re a sneaky bastard, Bucky Barnes.”

He doesn’t stop himself from smiling at the overdramatic gasp you give when he flips you a middle finger. From the metal arm, too. 

Next part

[myelocin]

Postcards From: Kanazawa | Tsukishima Kei

Synopsis: The fear that comes with love is the realization that it isn't always just light. Love, rediscovered as both the fear and the drive that depicts the push and pull of whether it's worth it to say "I do," if the unknown is what's to come beyond the vow. In which it's a week until the wedding, and the both of you return to Kanazawa--to day one--as strangers.

Characters: Tsukishima Kei

Genre/Tags: Engagement!AU, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with Happy Ending | WC: 10,200+

A/N: this is a piece commed by @tsukishumai​ ;w; tq for trusting me w u and ur bb boi ily to the moon n back

playlist

commissions | ko-fi

The illusion of the soul is the false belief that love must always—always—be just light.

The truth is, it’s not. Love is many things. Primarily, love begins from desire. Then, that desire seeps into a drive that pushes you to keep wanting. Then finally, when it’s seeped in through the skin deep enough, love pools in the soul.

Love is bound to be raw at the very core. A desire. To say, “I want you,” and think it holds as much credibility as “I love you.”  To look at what you know is only the tendrils of something at the very most, and trick yourself into thinking that it’s enough. A beating heart—bloody red. The line just barely hanging in-between what’s selfish and selfless, before it ultimately sways and becomes selfish sometimes.

Sometimes, being right now, Tsukishima thinks.  

Sandwiched in-between you to the left, and Yamaguchi to his right, he finds his eyes flickering towards the clock a lot more often than he would have liked. Akaashi, who sat across from his seat on the table, was the first to catch on.  

He quirked a brow, presumably in question earlier, and mouthed the question if he was in a rush. Tsukishima’s never been known for having too many words, but because Akaashi pauses and insists to relieve his question with an answer, he shrugs, waving him off and mouthing back that he’s alright.  

“So,” Bokuto starts, his voice already slipping into somewhat of a slur. “How’s it feel to be the first to pop the question?”

You laugh, finding amusement in the man’s enthusiasm. Turning to Tsukishima, you sit and wait, expectant of a reaction.  

In response, he just shrugs, but a smile breaks through and redefines the nonchalance of his expression anyway. Raising the glass to his lips, he takes a quick sip before answering smugly, “It’s nice to finally settle down. You should try it sometimes.”

Bokuto waves him off, cheeks flushed and eyes already drooping from the inebriation. “Nah,” he slurs, shaking his head. The exaggeration warrants a quick laugh from Sugawara, who sits on the other side, nursing his own drink. Continuing, Bokuto huffs and takes a slight pause before he connects the last of what he says with, “—getting married is nice and all, but I don’t know, man,” he laughs. “Just feels like I’ll end up hitting a fucking blank space after I do or whatever. Not my vibe.”

Visibly, Tsukishima shifts a little, the smile on his face maintained but the lighthearted energy that earlier fueled it just slightly more drained now.  

From the corner of your eye, you notice it. Though, Akaashi’s the one who gives him a pointed stare, to which the former simply ignores.  

“But—“ Bokuto continues, as if trying to remedy the cracked part of the atmosphere that isn’t even visible in the first place—“If that’s your thing, then I’m obviously not going to judge you for that.”

Tsukishima responds by his silence. Bokuto, with his head still warped around the heavy state of his inebriation, doesn’t do so much other than sip a little more of his barely filled glass of beer, Tsukishima’s apathetic expression just a blur in his eyes now.  

“You seem happy, though,” Bokuto notes, then raises his glass towards you.

Blinking at being the sudden subject of his interest, you raise your own glass of water. The ice inside shifts, clinking against the sides of the glass, and slowly, Tsukishima watches. There’s familiarity in the way it moves down: trickling slow like the patience inside him that’s suddenly running by the clock. His palms just barely gripping the utensils, clammy. While his head, still whirs at Bokuto’s halfhearted words.  

It’s halfhearted, he reminds himself.

The thought of hitting a plateau after “I do,” in a way is terrifying.  

But he is happy, right?

The way his palms respond solely through tensing suddenly spikes the fear that maybe his ring will slip. So he looks at you, trying to find an anchor to keep the love he pushes to stay intertwined with his truth afloat as he responds, “Of course I am. I’m happy.”

You look back at him, eye to eye, though you find something waver just for a split second— wondering if there’s credibility in the saying that gold will always deliver truth.

-

The rest of the night flows easy.  

Almost naturally, he’s quick to wave off Bokuto’s invite for more drinks at the bar just down the street, tugging your interlaced hands towards the parking lot as soon as the group found its way to the exit.  

“You know he probably just wanted more company,” you laugh. Thirty minutes after making it back home, instead of jumping straight into the shower and getting ready for the night routine, you instead take out the suitcase and take your place, seated on the floor in the living room.  

“We needed to pack,” you hear him respond, his voice a little distant from the bedroom down the hall.  

You shrug. “Yeah, but we could have made time.”

“Sometimes we can’t just make things, if we don’t have any to make it with in the first place,” he sighs.

You chuckle. Perhaps it’s just one of those nights again. In the ten years you’ve known Tsukishima Kei, you found that he had a tendency to become a multitude of things.  

A stranger, at the start, because that’s where every connection begins. The neighbor who lived with his grandfather across the street from your childhood home. Kanazawa was a long way from Sendai, but before his parents had whisked him off to Miyagi some years later, he had been the friend that oftentimes spent his afternoons with you.  

Strawberry cake and tiny sips of boxed juice from the convenient store down the street, and not much conversation exchanged between the both of you. He’d tell you about the things on his grandfather’s old encyclopedia, and you’d listen with rapt attention, finding it nice how he seemed to carry a little bit of the stars the more his eyes gleamed. He just talked about dinosaurs, you remember. At ten, Tsukishima had always been a wonderer.  

Then he moved.  

From the friend who told you stories and shared his juice boxes with you under that tree, to the occasional email that would pop up on your phone, when you were in highschool and weaving your way in and out of pathways and dead-ends. Miyagi was a little like Kanazawa, he said. There was a lot of quiet in the two cities. His email would come once a week, then twice when you reckon he felt a little lonely.  

You’d reply with the same kind of enthusiasm as he had established, though you still couldn’t deny the fact that the notification with his name on it never failed to have you smiling—at least just a little bit. At fifteen, Tsukishima was far from a stranger, but he was also falling just a little short in making it to the halfway mark of being a friend too.  

The once-a-week emails were welcome, none the less. It stayed like that, until once a week turned into twice. Though most were just the customary how-are-yous and obligatory holiday greetings once the seasons came and went, one year it turned into emails about the little nothings.  

‘I had strawberry cake today,’ it once read. ‘The one we used to share tasted sweeter.’

‘I joined the volleyball team.’

‘Winter here is a little colder. I remember your puffy green jacket.’

‘I don’t know if you want to know…or if I should tell you...but our team won, and we’re going to nationals.’

Somehow, you were managed to be convinced by one of your friends that same week to travel with your own highschool’s volleyball team to assist in the preparation for nationals in Tokyo. It was just a coincidence, you used to reason. You were there, and so was he. There was a hundred other courts his team could have played at, and your priority was assisting your own team in what they needed.  

But still, you couldn’t help but wave back and cheer the loudest from your stands when he perfected the block and scored the winning point for the first set.

It was then, where you realized that perhaps Tsukishima Kei wouldn’t just be a stranger.  

Kanazawa to Miyagi, but somehow Tokyo became the in-between. Childhood friends to the sort-of friends from the other ends of the country sharing a few scattered memories in slices of strawberry shortcake and random dinosaur trivia from an old man’s outdated encyclopedia.  

He was the first to approach you after that match. A hand held out to shake, perhaps to commemorate the evident shift between strangers to friends—but it was nice.  

Because after that, friends turned into something more.  

Maybe Tokyo really was the middle ground. After you graduated and moved out of your respective cities, Tokyo became the third place of hello.  

Then things just slipped into place. He was here, and so were you. He had plans to stay, and you just signed the contract that bound you to the city for the next two and a half years. The apartment right down the hall from yours was recently vacated, and he was looking for a place to stay.  

His new work place, coincidentally enough, was just a stop away from the train station closest to your place.  

You had always doubted the presence of serendipity and everything that had to dictate with the celestial control of fate, but the ease that came with the relief of him signing the lease the very next week almost seemed to validate what had been just a farfetched something.  

From strangers, to friends, to lovers, then to this:

Ten years later, a ring on your finger, and an I do, bound to be said just a little over seven days from now.  

Tokyo was kind to the both of you. His mother’s close enough to visit on the weekends, while Kanazawa was just a shinkansen away from Tokyo station. A new apartment with enough space for two, plus maybe an extra, and a bakery right down the street with the best strawberry shortcake made fresh every day.  

The wedding’s just a week away. His grandfather, still living in Kanazawa was meant to travel with Akiteru to Tokyo last week, but because plans changed, the both of you were instead tasked with going there yourselves to travel with him. While Tsukishima hesitated, you didn’t. Yes was easy to say in a situation like this. Though your parents had moved to Tokyo some years ago, you were aware that his grandfather didn’t.  

The house across the street was still his, while the one you grew up in just now became a summer home your family would frequent to when Tokyo became too swarmed with tourists.  

You look at the half-filled contents of the suit case on the floor in front of you. The right side’s meant to hold your clothes, while the left was left bare for Tsukishima’s. You turn and look at him.  

“You can just grab the stuff you need me to bring for you and I’ll fold it in. We should probably catch the first train tomorrow if we wanna get there before sundown.”

What comes as a reply is only prolonged silence.  

You let what he started stay for a little, but because you had never been the type to be fond in gouging out answers from the blank spaces, you sigh, and break the impending silence before it could get a chance to even settle. “You’re quiet again, Kei.”

When he makes it to the living room, instead of coming back out with a stack of clothes, he stands by the wall with his hands in his pocket. His eyes shift from wall to wall, but skip over you.  

Knowing that you’ll just prompt another conversation again the more he keeps his silence, he sighs, swallowing the hesitation and clinging onto the bits of courage that floats by him in the moment. Grasping at the very tips of it, he forces the words out of his mouth. “Are you really coming with me?”

You raise a brow. “Back to Kanazawa? Of course. I’m from there too, you know. Plus I haven’t seen Grandpa in a while.”

He shifts his gaze to the side, thankful for the blur that came with forgetting to slip on his glasses. He’s always had a tendency to give in the moment he looks at you, so the vagueness in the blur was a welcome change. “It’s just for a week,” he mutters. “I think I’ll handle the trip just fine.”

“Plus,” he adds, the hike in the tone of his voice giving away his panic. “—I heard there was a problem with the florists? Maybe one of us needs to go in and fix it ourselves just in case.”  

In the ten years you’ve known him, you’ve always considered it a given that you’ve well perceived him by now. In front of you, he’s stammering. While Tsukishima has never been the face to poise and perfection—because at the end of the day he still is just a boy—you knew he only stammered when he was nervous.  

Perhaps trying to manipulate the situation through a wordless exchange was his way of doing so. In your head, you chuckle. Tsukishima Kei is many things, and is witty when it counts—but he could never be blunt when it came to the things he was unsure of.  

You try to gouge out his truth. Speaking straight to the point, you let him know that there’s no purpose in trying to skirt around. You turn to him, his sweater half folded on your lap. “You know I could have believed what you just said, but,” you pause, giving him a pointed look, “—you’re not even looking at me.”

“Is this about what Bokuto said earlier?”

The way he shifts his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly, confirms your suspicions that that it is about that, before he can muster up the courage to even say it. “Tell me,” you initiate. You’ve never been afraid to speak what needs to be said. “What’s got you so afraid?”

Once more, he hopes for the silence to speak for him. And like before—it doesn’t. Silence was never meant to fill in the blanks. What it did, rather, is add three seconds more on the clock that’s ticking regardless. Tsukishima bets on a timed clock to speak for him, and because you’ve never been the type to shrink at the presence of raw truth, you huff and poke into what obviously hits for him just a little deeper.  

“You’re afraid we’ll hit a blank space after we get married, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t look away, but little by little, his body language starts slipping bits and pieces of the truth you’ve already long sensed. “I think I just need to think this through.”

“What?” you scoff. “You planned to go to Kanazawa by yourself for a week to what? Soul search? To decide if you even wanna marry me?”

“I’m sor—“

“That’s what you’re not supposed to say,” you interrupt him. “You don’t say you’re sorry for how you’re feeling, because you’re allowed to feel it how it is, but shit, Kei,” you exhale, pausing to suck in a quick breath. “You couldn’t have just said this earlier?”

He looks away again, the guilt evident on his features. “You’re mad.”

“Do you blame me?”

This time, he turns to you. “No,” he murmurs. “I don’t, but I’m gonna be blunt here—“

“—first time—“

He gives you a pointed look, but in the moment, you don’t really have much in you to care too much.  

“I think I need space to clear my head.”

“Sounds like you’re contemplating on whether you wanna stay with me or not,” you respond. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”

Tsukishima’s steady, this time. “Of course I wanna stay with you.”

“But,” you counter. “You aren’t sure if you want to marry me.”

He looks away. “What if—we hit a plateau after.”

“That’s still not an excuse to back out before we even try, Kei,” comes your reasoning.  

“You’re right,” he sighs. “It’s not.”

Then it’s you, who shrugs this time, giving in a little and throwing him what you hope he doesn’t see as a lifeline. There’s no comfort found in knowing that an out is a means of mercy when it comes to love. Why should there even be an out?

You settle for just cracking the door open instead. Though it was never locked, the fact that it remained close must have been understood differently by him.

“Let’s go back to Kanazawa separately, then,” you propose. The open suitcase in front of you still has the right half filled with his half folded clothes, so you reach in, taking it out one by one. “You stay with your grandfather and I’ll stay at my parent’s house.”

Tsukishima raises a concern. “He’ll wonder why we aren’t staying together.”

In response, you shrug. “Just make something up then.”

“Is this just a passive aggressive way to say you’re mad at me?”

You scoff. “When have I ever been passive aggressive, Kei? I’ve said shit as it is since day one.”  

He flinches, maybe because of what you said or the tone of the deliverance, but either way, you decide you can’t give much of a shit. It’s a given that you’re angry, but because being hurt just paves the path to silence more than lashing out, it’s not much of a surprise that you probably look deflated in front of him.  

“What I’m saying is,” you explain. “Let’s go back to Kanazawa as strangers. Do what you gotta do, however you’ve gotta do it to get your head sorted out, and then we’ll talk. I’m not dancing around in circles with you on this. Either we get married next week, or we don’t.”

He panics. “I don’t want to lose you—“

“You’re already talking like you’ve decided that you won’t be at the other end of that aisle, Kei.”

Words feel lacking all of a sudden, so you pause. The absence of the split second brevity has Tsukishima standing still, his breath held, throat dry.

But like always, clarity seems to weave its way through the cracks in the room and find you first. “Yes or no isn’t easy to decide between,” you finally mutter. Eyes to the half folded sweaters you meant to tuck into the other half of the suitcase, you realize that you’ll need to switch to a smaller trolley now because you won’t be needing this much space anyway. “I don’t know what I should tell you, because I don’t know that we’d be having a possible fallout a week before the wedding. But at the same time—I don’t want to say you’re despicable for feeling like that, Kei. It just—“

“—fucking sucks,” you sigh.  

“If you feel like you need a week to figure whatever this shit is, then okay,” you nod. “Okay. Let’s be strangers for a week and by the time we’re back in Tokyo, you give me a yes or no and be fucking blunt with it.”

-

Later that night when you turn your back against him and face the wall, his whisper breaks through the quiet. “Why are you still patient with me about this? You could have just left me.”

You shift, laying on your back and sighing to the makeshift glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling of your room. “Because I love you,” you sigh. “Loving someone just means you have to exhaust every other option before even thinking of throwing in the towel.”

He sleeps that night, feeling heavy.

-

He woke up later that morning, feeling the same too.  

In a sense, things admittedly started weird. You woke up before he did this time, when he usually would be the one trying to be quiet when he slipped out of bed. Even though early mornings had never been a thing for the both of you, there was still something unpleasant in waking up to an empty bed.

The sheets on your side were done, and your phone that usually would be pinging with email notifications by now wasn’t there.  

It’s odd, he thinks. While he agreed to be strangers for a week, the walk to the train station was the same. Silence was normal, but the five extra inches that added to the distance between the both of you wasn’t. You nodded his way when he pointed at the shinkansen’s direction, and wordlessly would hand him his usual brew when you stopped at the coffee shop just before going in.  

Seated beside you in the train, he tries to ignore the urge to poke you on the side and make conversation. Words have always come easy when it came to moments with you, he noticed.

Tsukishima’s aware that he’s always been dubbed as the kind of person who never preferred to say too much, and while that was true—to an extent—he realizes that there is some truth to the saying that silence kills.  

You’re seated beside him on the train, eyes to your phone, and earbuds in place. He resorts to just staring at you through his peripherals, caught in between wanting to satiate the want to talk to you by breaking the silence, or keeping it as is.  

This is where fear grips him a little tighter. The deal was, as you had pointed out just last night, that the both of you would move through the week pretending to be strangers again. You’d stay on your side of the street, while he stayed in his.  

It’s a given that his grandfather’s bound to ask about you, and so in the event that it does happen, you would just spend a few hours with them and pretend like everything was fine.  

You made it clear that you’d try to exhaust all the options before resorting to that, though. And it’s easy, he thinks, doing so. It doesn’t take much to fake a phone call from work or a last minute meeting with an old friend that wouldn’t be able to make it to the city for the supposed wedding.  

The lines were drawn, and the outline of what was to be expected in the next week was made clear.  

He thinks of what you said before you slept. Love, as that one drive that has you exhausting all your options before even thinking of quitting. It’s fair, he thinks. You’ve always been the rational thinker in the relationship.  

But then again, he doesn’t doubt your hurt either. A week was lengthy, he realizes, and to act as strangers again just a week before the wedding was a different kind of test when it came to your patience.  

Still, he owes you truth.

You’ve always told him to lay things bare, and even though what’s bare is ugly, because love always pushes to try—he stays, doing just that.  

Undoubtedly, this is a jump. There’s no question in the fact that the possibility of reaching the peak and coming face to face with a plateau scares him. But still, his thoughts counter, to face a drop that doesn’t guarantee a landing somehow terrifies him even more.

The sound of your phone vibrating snaps him out of his thoughts. Before you answer it, he snags a look of the name written on the screen—Akiteru’s.  

Tsukishima sighs, shooting you a cautious stare as you pick up the phone and turn to him.  

The tone of your voice is easy, though you look at him, unbothered. “Hey,” you answer. “Just got in the train, so Kei should be calling you in about three hours when we’re there.”

In comes a pause, before you chuckle a little. Unconsciously, Tsukishima scooches in, curious. But before he could get a chance to lean in too close, you pull away a little, looking at him curiously, an eyebrow raised. “I meant to tell you,” he hears you say, and as you look at him, he chooses to hold your stare.

“Kei and I will be staying separately for the week.”

Beside you, he shifts, fighting the urge to turn away and face forward.  

Assuming that your flinch afterwards was only a response to what he’s only certain is Akiteru’s sudden outburst, the prior nervousness of his stare shifts into concern. Understanding the are-you-okay that he mouths, you wave him off. “We’re fine,” you laugh. “I just miss staying at the house that’s all, and I’m pretty sure Kei wants to spend quality time with his grandfather.”

You stay silent after that, which truth be told, doesn’t exactly help with his nerves.  

“He’s right next to me,” you add. “We’re fine, I swear. Just wanna enjoy Kanazawa in different ways that’s all.”

-

To put it bluntly, the first day is awkward.  

His grandfather’s waiting from outside the gate the second you make it to that familiar street. Nothing much has changed, the two of you notice. The gate’s rusted a little by the edges, and the door’s still got the same chip on the left side he always said he’d take a look at.  

“Heard they were cutting down that tree,” his grandfather says, when it’s a little over three hours later and you’re all seated at a local restaurant for dinner. His old friend owned the place, he explained. Low lights, home cooked meals, and a family run business you vaguely remember your father talking about when you were young.  

Tsukishima pauses, eyebrows rising in question. “What do you mean that tree?”

“The one you used to run off to,” he laughs.  

Elbowing him, you nod towards his grandfather before pointing out, “We met by that tree, you know.”

His grandfather’s quick to responding, laughing at Tsukishima’s perplexed expression. “Seems like your grandfather’s memory is doing better these days than you, boy.”

You suppose that at the end of the day, it shouldn’t have been a big deal that he forgot. You’ve never been one to dwell too deep within the symbolic little nothings that’s bound to come with life. Rationally speaking, maybe you’re just a little miffed because of what he said the night before. And maybe that’s the reason why you’re taking this a little harsher than you would have on a normal day.  

But strangers, you remember. Strangers wouldn’t care if the other forgot.  

So with that, you shrug. You take another spoonful of the food in front of you and shift your body just slightly to the left—to which Tsukishima took noticed—and leaned forward. Without even saying much, his grandfather already has his attention on you, the smile on his face kind.

He’s always been kind, you remember. With a smile, you choose to keep the peace in the room at bay, willing yourself to ignore Tsukishima’s stare boring holes into the side of your head from beside you.  

“Now that I think about it, I don’t remember a lot of people stop by that tree,” you comment, as you take a step into nostalgia.  

His grandfather shrugs, absentmindedly nodding his head as he mulls over your word through a spoonful of broth. “It was in the middle of a residential area. Bound to get taken down if you ask me. People nowadays need a place to park.”

This time, you really feel his stare beside you almost intensify. Truth is, you can make sense of what you know he only fears. The point in life was to brave through the unfamiliar to establish a consistency in familiar grounds. To continuously rise from day one, only to hit the peak and possibly come face to face with a plateau instead of something greater than even the height of all highs—you admit that it’s terrifying.  

The plateau, that perhaps works sort of like that tree.  

It’s been there, so here it still is.  

You’ve both been at that tree—at the start—so here you both still are. Side by side back in Kanazawa, sharing a meal like I do, isn’t hanging on the line.

His grandfather’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. “You’re not wearing your ring.”

Tsukishima’s voice is quick to cut into the conversation, his voice smooth. “She just doesn’t wanna lose it.”  

You nod along to his lie, undecided with how to feel in regards to how smooth he seemed to have delivered his lie.  

“You know, now that I think about it, it’s good that they’re cutting down that tree.”

Tsukishima speaks his mind this time. “Last week, you said you were looking forward to coming back home so you could visit that tree again.”

You don’t look at him when you answer. “I know, but your grandfather has a point. When things change, what else can you do but get rid of it?”  

“Oh nothing’s changed,” he laughs across you. “Even before the two of you were born, people would always talk about how it’s just there when the space could have been used for parking.”

“Then why put off cutting it down this long?”

“Who knows,” he laughs. There’s an unfound wisdom in his eyes that read through your soul when he looks at you. “Maybe cutting down what people already see as a permanent fixture will do more harm than good in the long run.”

“Even if it doesn’t contribute anything?”

Tsukishima thinks of his fear, then of the plateau.  

Through the rim of the glass, he keeps a steady eye on his grandfather, breath held as the anticipation for his words begin to really settle.  

“People these days just see what’s the most obvious from the surface and consider it as the only fault then run with it. Maybe it’s not the tree,” he laughs. “Maybe it’s just the people. They want convenience so they cut off everything around them instead of adjusting to it.”

The food tastes bland in his mouth, suddenly.

“Goes to show how selfish people can get sometimes,” his grandfather finishes, as an afterthought. “A shame, really. That old tree’s done nothing but give people shade.”

-

At the end of the day, you really had to give his grandfather a lot more credit than what was due.  

The second and third day was awkward. Even though you tried to stay inside for most of your day, venturing outside and meeting up with old friends was inevitable. And really, you should have remembered that he often started his day with a couple laps walked around the block.  

On day two, he hinted that he could sense something was off. Tsukishima had been a lot more silent lately, he pointed out. First, as just a passing comment, then by the third time he’d bring it up and wouldn’t get too much of a response out of you, there came more emphasis to what he says.  

He passed by the tree every time you’d round the street too. It occurs to you that passing through it was a shortcut, and contradicted his prior statements to having a route that catered towards the long way home, but you chose to not comment much about it.  

The second day was curiosity, and you figured that you could live at least just a week with it.  

The third day, on the other hand, gave you a little more trouble than you had bargained for.  

You’re on your way home from an old friend’s house, and ironically enough, both Tsukishima and his grandfather are out by their front door, tending to the weeds of a garden that doesn’t even look remotely grown.  

Tsukishima’s the first to look at you.  

Stubborn, and frankly intent on upholding your end of the deal in staying strangers, you attempt to wave them off with a passing greeting as you look through your bag, feeling around for the keys to the gate.  

“You don’t have to think of an excuse,” you hear him say. “He’s back inside now. It’s just you and me here.”

It’s funny how ever since you’ve made it back to Kanazawa, he’s been the one to break the silence a lot more lately.  

You don’t turn. Strangers, you think. The deal was to pretend the other was a stranger.  

“Cam,” he calls out again, the desperation in his voice inching more and more out of its shell. “I’m really sorry.”

You turn around, the buried anger getting the best of you in the moment. “You know the more you say that, the more convinced I am that I should just give you back your ring right now and go back to Tokyo alone. You talk like the only thing you’re sure of is the fact that you won’t be marrying me next week, Kei.”

The moment you shift your gaze from the ground to his eyes, a part of you aches at the idea that you may have to bid farewell to gold. Swallowing down the mass of emotions you hope isn’t entirely just made of anger, you steady yourself and sigh.  

It hits you that it’s been a long day.  

“It’s just you and me here,” you repeat, slowly. There’s a flutter in your heart that tells you it’s still love that stares back when you look at him. “Then why do you feel so far away, Kei?”

-

He doesn’t sleep that night.  

Day three of being strangers, but he hasn’t had anything figured out. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but what only grew was the silence. The distance is really just a few feet away—across the street and through the leaves of that tree that your father would always say he’d get to.  

The light from your room is still turned on, though the curtains are drawn.

8PM and it’s early. 8PM, and on a usual day, you’d usually be seated beside him in your Tokyo apartment’s living room, mulling over the nothings that went on in your day.  

It’s nice to talk about the rest of the world as if all they’re meant to be is just a passing blur in the background, he thinks. He’s never been much for words, but you were.  

Then again, you had always been one for truth.  

Reality is, he knows he could always swallow his doubts, walk across the street, cover the distance, and apologize to you with an I’m sorry, that covers all that needs to be addressed in a standard apology. Life can be lived as easy as that. You swallow your own thoughts, adhere to what they say needs to be done in the way they tell you how to do so, and be done with it.  

But he knows you just as well as he knows himself.  

You’d call him a coward—and truth be told, he’ll think the same.  

Present wise—he does think he is a coward.

Tsukishima sighs, knowing that blinking at your closed curtain visible from his window won’t do much of a difference. Begrudgingly, he sits up, grabbing his glasses from the bedside table.  

The streets around the neighborhood are quiet this time of night. The perks about living away from the city was the silence, he thinks. As soon as he tugs on a sweater, he makes his way downstairs, carefully, so he doesn’t stir his grandfather he presumes is sleeping on the room across the hall.  

He exhales, relieved at the barely audible creak the door clicks to as soon as he shuts it and turns the lock from the outside. The keys, jingling in his pockets, is the only sound that rings in the quiet.  

It isn’t lonely, but it isn’t comfortable either.  

Kanazawa has always been a town he’s considered as a piece of constant that’s meant to drift inbetween.  

Neither like Tokyo or the towns by the outskirts of Okinawa, it stays as is. Twenty years ago, the crack on the sidewalk was there, and now, twenty years later, it remains.  

There’s comfort in recognizing constants, Tsukishima admits. The tree just down this road, the crack on the asphalt, and the fact that your room is still the second window to the left visible from his on the second floor.  

When he was younger, he remembers he often would stand under your window, caught in between wanting to knock on your door and ask permission from your parents if you could accompany him for the afternoon, or just wait around until you’d come down yourself.  

While he left a lot of things on chance, the conscious choice to stay rooted in the spot by your window remained constant.  

The gravel under his feet crackle everytime he’d take a step. The moon’s hazy behind the clouds tonight, he muses. While you’d wish for the stars, he found a temporary safety in the midnight clouds. A timelessness felt when it’s midnight, stays.  

Before he turns to the corner that would lead home, he stops midway—recognizing the tree from a good few meters away.  

There’s a sense of feeling an urgency to let something go, the more he stares at it. Nearing autumn, the colors start to change, and just like that, he’s reminded of the impermanence in life.  

As the earth eventually changes throughout the years, he fears that perhaps in love—it would too.

-

“You’re out late,” is the first thing Tsukishima hears as soon as he enters the room.  

From the genkan, he peers over the shelf, noticing the lights from the kitchen is what floods into the dim living room. Slipping on his house slippers and making his way around the corner, Tsukishima gets a feel of the warmth that’s radiating from the familiarity of the space.  

After his grandmother had passed, his grandfather stayed in Kanazawa. Though his mother often expressed her desire for him to move with the rest of the family in Tokyo, every time, he’d only wave them off and say that there’s too much rooted here for him to just up and leave.  

Walking into the kitchen, his grandfather’s the first to raise a mug his way and offer a smile. “I’d ask you if everything’s fine, but I think I’ll just wait around and see if you’re even willing to tell me.”

Tsukishima chuckles airily. “Sounds like you wanna ask anyway.”

He takes a slow sip. “Okay then,” he nods, smiling like he’s just struck a deal. “First question is—are you okay?”

In response, Tsukishima smiles, pulling the chair and taking the seat across his. He nods. “’Course I am.”

His grandfather’s eyes don’t leave him. “You’re not wearing the ring, and neither is Cam.”

Suddenly feeling like he’s caught in between a blocked exit and the spotlight, Tsukishima freezes, but wills himself not to look away. “Just needed some space, that’s all.”

“To think?”

He sighs. “To reconsider.”

“Ahh,” the older man sighs. “Cold feet. Pretty normal, if you ask me.”

He raises a brow in question. “It’s normal?”

“To be nervous, yeah,” his grandfather laughs. “But looks like it’s a different case for you.”

Tsukishima doesn’t respond, his eyes fixated towards a spot on the wall that feeds more into the blank space of his thoughts than anything more.  

“You’re afraid,” Tsukishima hears, and as soon as the retaliation he tries to string together at the very last minute don’t come—he realizes the core of all the chaos in his head is meant to be just like that—

Blank.

“What are you so afraid of, boy?”

In the silence, he lets the rawness of his truth slowly spill. “What if I hit a plateau after this?”  

His grandfather wastes no second in countering.  “How is it life if we just keep climbing? What’s the point in doing all that work if we never get rest?”

Tsukishima laughs. “You know, by that logic it can just go the other way around too.”

He settles in his seat, trying to appreciate the silence instead of looking for company in the noise, before he adds, “What if we decide we don’t love each other anymore?”  

“That’s not all there is to a plateau,” he laughs. “It’s a valid fear, but being afraid isn’t all there is after you marry someone.”

“Then what’s there?”

With a smile, his grandfather leans back, raises the mug to his lips, and relaxes—his eyes looking fondly at a faded photograph hung beside the wall clock. “Everyday,” he answers. “What’s there after I do is just everyday.”

Sensing that his grandfather means to say more, he chooses to retain his silence. Sighing softly, his grandfather keeps his smile steady as he continues to speak. “Everyday you wake up. You roll over in bed, you think about the checklist you do to consider a day done, then you come home, eat a meal, rest a little and start the whole day over the next day. Everyday’s like that.”

He shifts, leaning forward with his arms crossed supporting his weight on the table as he eyes his grandson with a smile. “Best part is, you can do all that with someone you love. Makes the boring part of the plateau a lot more bearable.”

“You wake up with them and complain about how boring the rest of your day will be, then come home and eat a meal with them. Wash the dishes, share the silence, and just go to bed knowing you’ll wake up with somebody.”

The smile on his face is honest, then he shrugs. “It’s nice, though. The plateau after you hit a certain point in life is just inevitable, Kei. You can either complain about life alone or complain about it with somebody. At least there will be two pairs of slippers by the genkan waiting for you everytime you come home. You’ll say you’ve made it home and someone will greet you. You’ll roll over in bed at 2am and someone will be there with you. The point of climbing in life is to get somewhere, not ascend past the norm.”

Tsukishima stays quiet, pondering over the truth in his grandfather’s words. “So life’s just meant to stay in the middle?” he asks, slowly coming into terms with his grandfather’s redefinition of the plateau.  “Life’s meant to find a consistency in everyday,” he corrects.

A few moments pass before he stands back up, pointing to the counter with a thermos. He knows it’s yours. The old one that your mother refused to throw away, because there’s a crack by the lid and a couple faded sailor moon stickers stuck by the side.  

“Look at that,” Tsukishima hears. He turns his head just in time to see the old man offer him a patient smile, the message in his eyes delivered without a hitch. “That old thing’s seen a couple of decades, but it still gets to you when you need it, right?”

It’s not so bad to have an old thing be your constant, right?

-

Twenty minutes after his grandfather climbs back to his room upstairs, Tsukishima’s seated on the side of the table beside the window. Peeking through the half-opened blinds, he can still see that the light from your room is still flicked on.  

Without mulling over the decision, he takes his phone out, scrolling through the contacts until he taps your name. A swipe without too much pressure, because even his thumb’s memorized where your name is by now. Kind of like muscle memory, he supposes.  

Bypassing the unannounced rules about what to do as the strangers you had claimed from the start of this week, it results to the lack of hesitation as he types a quick text and presses send without a thought that would counter it.  

I love you, it reads.  

From his spot in the kitchen, he leans back and smiles, pouring himself a cup of the tea he knows you brewed yourself on the nights where he can’t sleep.

The lights from your room stay on for a few more moments before it dims, but before the metaphoric silence could take root, the screen of his phone lights up.

Stop walking around at night. Drink the tea and try to get some sleep.

Exhaling almost in relief, it’s the slow beating of his heart that resettles him back into the love he’s known everyday.  

It’s not quite the end, but it isn’t exactly somewhere unpleasant either.

-

Two days before you’re meant to return to the city, instead of spending the day in your room—like you had initially planned—you somehow found yourself in the passenger seat of his grandfather’s old car, with a grocery list in hand.  

You sigh, understanding what his grandfather’s trying to do.  

As you look down, there’s nothing much written in the grocery list. He had complained about some back pain earlier, followed up by his insistent request of desperately needing his groceries done so when Akiteru was to arrive later on, dinner would be taken care of.

Beside you, with his hands on the wheel, Tsukishima sighs. “We could have just ordered in food for dinner. It’s just Akiteru coming,” he mumbles.  

Keeping your eyes to the window to your left, you shrug. “He likes making the ordinary special, I guess.”

Tsukishima stays silent after that, mentally thankful for the green light and the empty roads. The more stops, the longer silence would stay. And even after the sort of middle ground from the night before, he doesn’t know what to say to you.  

After making a quick turn, he pulls up into the parking lot and kills the engine. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he turns to you, with an expectant look. “You can just stay here if you don’t wanna go in with me,” he offers. “It’s a short list, I can be in and out in a bit.”

You wave him off, already slinging on your bag and opening the car door—the list on your hand. “It’s alright. I think I’m more familiar with this area than you are, so we can just meet back in the car in thirty minutes if that’s okay with you.”

“You don’t need me to come with you?” he raises a brow.

You shake your head no, but upkeep the smile on your face anyway as you exit the car and close the door.  

-

Something about what you say sticks with him, the more he thinks about it.

He can distinguish the hesitation laced each of your decisions. You look past him, but not exactly at him. You speak to him, but keep the conversations short. Though conversation was rare between the both of you this past week, the times that you did speak to him, your words often were clipped short.  

It’s your means of upkeeping your end of the deal, he realizes.  

You’ve always been one for communication, but then again, patience can only stretch so much.  

He respects your wish for distance and walks the opposite way from the grocery store, towards a building he doesn’t really known. It’s a gallery, he realizes. Three steps past the entrance, he notices that he’s one of the few that’s in the room.  

Traditional artwork line the wall, hung in frames that have rusted throughout time.  

Tsukishima stares, eyes drawn to the pieces of art he recognizes from the few scattered memories in his childhood that relate to his time in the city.

A fieldtrip, when he was seven. He remembers leaving the house upset over the yellow hat he had to wear, and the rain boots his teacher wouldn’t let him change out of. Unlike the present, rain was present that day. He stood beside you in line, and had to tilt his head up at the piece of art he always thought was the prettiest out of the bunch.  

And now, almost two decades later, he still thinks the same.  

He smiles at the memory, finding the comfort of returning to what’s familiar, pleasant.  

As if caught by an epiphany, and suddenly enveloped in a sense of a rediscovered home, here, within a room that’s familiar, he finds purpose in the permanence of love.

Love, that’s never meant to be stretched into the likeness of what the poets declare as the absolute form of love after “I do.”

Staring at the piece of art with the rusting frames, the strokes within the canvas still depict the same story. It still is beautiful.  

It’s doesn’t become more—but it stays as is.

And maybe that’s what his grandfather was trying to convey.

To fear a certain phase in love is something that comes and goes, but it often never stays. It can linger, but eventually, it too, fades.  

What stays is what’s rooted.  

Primarily, just you. Truly, just love.

That tree in that old street, these paintings on the walls, and the kind of serenity that washes over him at the thought of you.  

The fear in life comes in the form of thinking that beyond the peak lays a plateau. Beyond “I do,” what’s next to come is love, dwindling until “I don’t love you anymore,” is the only thing left to be said.  

It’s fear, that spoke to him the past few weeks, so this time, as he gives in, he listens to love.  

It’s quiet.

But through the smoke in the room, the message that’s meant to deliver truth comes in full clarity. Illuminated, it appears before him as it is. A painting that’s struck him as beautiful then and now, and the thought of you as the face that’s always been the first to greet him every morning for more than just a few years now.  

An old man stands not too far from him, hands clasped behind his back as he stares—with a smile on his face—at a similar painting on the wall. Sensing Tsukishima’s presence, he looks over and redirects the smile his way. “Been coming here for years, and looking at this still feels the same.”

Poking at the doubts, Tsukishima responds, “Are you afraid that it won’t get old?”

The gentleman laughs, though soft enough so it doesn’t echo too much in the halls. The joy lingers around Tsukishima, on the other hand. “To have something grow old with you isn’t a bad thing. Day one, this piece was beautiful, and now, almost forty years later, I look at it and think the same too.”

A beat of silence passes, but the man speaks once more.  

“My wife, when she was alive, showed me this piece. Maybe I look at this and still find it beautiful after all these years because I think of her, but I don’t think trying to focus on that matters much. The feeling’s the same, even if it grew old.”

Reciprocating the older man’s goodbye with a nod to the head, it’s then where he laughs, a little bit more of the truth unraveling as each moment comes and goes. Thinking of his words, he dwells on its meaning.  

Standing there, alone in the museum hall, the smoke clears, and he presents himself his words of blended truth and patience.  

Love is timeless, his thoughts say. The plateau after the peak is as possible as the drop, but life’s meant to be lived in the lows and in betweens as much as the highs. Time moves in waves, and perhaps love doesn’t always grow stagnant. It can be timeless, even though the frames rust. His hair will grey, and maybe you’ll stop linking your pinky with him beneath the sheets during the rainy season’s thunderstorms, but the root of love stays.  

Within the plateau, time will move, and you’ll both grow old, but the taste of the tea you’ll brew for him will remain the same.  

And thirty minutes later, when he makes it back to the parking lot with you waiting by the door, the love that steadies his beating heart will be the same too.  

Steady, present, and timeless.  

-

Eyeing the dashboard, you’re the first to break the silence. “Why’d you buy a postcard?”

Rolling into a stoplight, he eases on the brakes and shrugs. “Lived here for so long, and I don’t even own a postcard from here.”

“Me neither,” you blink.

A couple minutes pass, and the car’s rolling again, but he misses a turn. Assuming that he’s just not used to the usual route, you stay quiet—until about he pulls up to a familiar street.  

Parked to the side, through the windshield, you find yourself face to face with a familiar tree. “Kei.” He hums.  

The coming autumn has a few leaves beginning to change its colors, you notice. The summer hues, unbalanced, as bits of red begins to bleed through the green. “You were supposed to turn there, not here.”

He shifts the gear into park, then takes his hands off the wheel, leaning back. “I know.”

It’s quiet after that, but it isn’t all that unpleasant either.  

This is the part where the questions begin to poke at you, the what-ifs in love let out in the open as you voice a little bit of your vulnerability. And because the truth is daunting, you hope he understands you through the metaphors. “Do you really think they’ll cut it down?”

He doesn’t allow the silence to take more than a moment. “I think so,” he nods his head.

“It’ll be good though, I think,” you add, nodding your head.  

It’s quiet in the room even though the words of your truth coaxes the unhealed wound to resurface. As it comes into light, it doesn’t sting.  

Sitting shoulder to shoulder beside him in the car, the tree that witnessed the first hello stays rooted, and watches.  

He doesn’t turn to you as he speaks, but in a way, you feel as if a farewell was the finale that was meant to be delivered somehow. “It’s good,” he starts. “Letting go of something that needs to be let go of.”

-

Tokyo

-

Tsukishima’s the first to speak.  

“I’m not good with words,” he starts.  

There’s a hush in the crowd, so you stay with it, knowing you’ll only add to the silence should you choose to respond. It wasn’t your turn anyway, so you will yourself to be still and listen.  

“Hey Cam,” Tsukishima continues, choosing to begin his vow with a hello. “I think a lot about what love’s supposed to have meant, mean, or eventually mean in the long run. I thought too much about it to the point where it…” he trails off, blinking at the piece of paper before flicking his eyes up to you with a slight shrug. “—to the point where love began to scare me.”

For a brief moment, he closes his eyes, confident in the fact that when he opens them, he knows he’ll see the world in clarity this time. With the smoke cleared and the scattered pieces of all his doubts set in order, the words of his truth may not speak of the most tender poem of love—but within the lines lies his truth.

As he lays his truth on you, he holds a breath and lets it all go. “I wanna wash the dishes with you for the rest of my life,” he laughs, exhaling softly, his shoulders shaking a little. “Never occurred to me how much of a liar the downside of your thoughts are when you listen to everything that isn’t love,” he continues.  

Your shoulders relax, and even through the blur of the veil, you can tell his eyes are steadily watering.  

“I’m sorry,” he says, the microphone just barely picking up what he says. You nod your head anyway, wishing you were holding his hands instead of the bouquet. Reassurance comes in many forms, but you know he’s always been the type to receive it well through physical touch.  

A kiss on the cheek, your head on his shoulder, or your hands squeezing his. But the smile you give him suffices for now, you think.  

“I wanna wash the dishes with you for the rest of my life. I’ll wash, and you dry. Nothing much happens in our day usually, but nothing has to. I’ll listen to you talk about how shit the traffic is in the city, because I know you’ll listen to me talk about the same complaints I have from Monday to Friday anyway.”

You realize he’s written his vows in the back of a postcard—the one you saw on his dashboard a few days ago, from Kanazawa.  

He sniffles a little then looks up, laughing to himself at how emotional he’s getting. Allowing more than just truth to trickle out slow is a part of love too, he realizes, so with a soft laugh, he lets the tears be and speaks again. “What needed to be let go of was let go of,” he exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for this long.  

In a sense, maybe he has. Sometimes fear grips you tightly enough that it shifts your point of view from one thing to another. What’s love, becomes fear. Then what’s fear, becomes the smoke that buries the core of truth too deep within the haze.  

“I let go of the thought the thought that after marriage, if nothing great would come then that would be the end of love,” he breathes. “I stared at that tree and thought of Grandpa’s words again and again then wrote my apology and I love you on the back of a postcard that only had one a couple of blank lines at most.”

He waves it for you, then to the crowd, to see. The words, jumbled up together look almost incomprehensible written so closely together, but in a way, you have a feeling that he’s just speaking the rest of his truth as it comes in the moment.  

The truth in love, you realize, is that its truth comes, fully unraveled the moment the initial plan falls apart.  

He puts down the postcard, and just looks at you.  

“There’s a lot I don’t think I will ever understand when it comes to love, but maybe I’m here to just feel it and not try to decipher it.” He pauses, ignores the few tears that roll down, and shrugs his shoulders, admitting to himself that the truth in his love is the first thought that comes.

“Love doesn’t have to the greatest,” he tells you. “I just wanna wash dishes with you for the rest of my life and hear about how traffic was unbearable.”

You smile, and your assurance reaches him.  

“I think that counts as love too,” he finishes, the smile on his face tender.

-

As he leans in after I do, he murmurs a question in your ear that you’ve been expecting since the start.

You could have just left, he said. How did you deal with me and still choose to stay?

Your answer was said without a hint of hesitation. With a shrug, and an honest smile, you told him, “Because I love you.”

“I think we both had to let go of the thought that to love always means to have the biggest reasoning behind it. We do things for love, and because of love. That’s just how it is,” you shrugged.

Oddly enough, it’s in that same exact moment where he remembers Bokuto’s question from that dinner a week and some days ago.  

How does it feel? he recalls, and even though words have never found him first nor met him in the middle easy, he gathers what he can and just settles on the conclusion that it just feels like love.

Wherein love, is this.

An identical band on his and your finger, and the taste of I do pleasant on the tongue. I love you, as a truth that’s easy to fathom and healing to hold, and the fear of what comes next just a passing thought that goes as soon as it comes.  

Later that evening his grandfather sits him down and asks him what he really thinks about why people have been putting off cutting down that tree for a few decades now.  

With a laugh, the hesitation that often turns decisions is made clear to him. “You know I think that people would decide things and think they’re so solid on it before even being face to face with it. The second they get to that tree with a chainsaw, I promise you they changed their minds. You think you go there and cut off or let go of one thing, then realize you’re cutting off something else in the end. They go back to what’s been there and realize that it’s not the problem at all.”

Tsukishima sighs, and his grandfather watches, the smile on his face easy. It’s like watching some emerge from a smoked out room, he thinks. Clarity’s always been a blessing, and he’s glad his grandson’s finally found it.  

“Sometimes going back to the start is the one thing you need to be reminded that it’s worth it to keep going.”

“Sounds like you’re not talking about the tree,” his grandfather comments.  Looking at you, Tsukishima smiles. “You could say that too.”

[thefloatingstone]

A short while ago I was really into "Pony Metal U-GAIM", possibly for the very fact that Pony Metal is so far out of reach even in the age of the internet, that my mini-obsession was more fueled by that feeling of "I need to know more and I know there IS more but I have no access to it!!"

Basically; in the mid to late 80s, there was a fan-created character in Japan who was basically Yuu Morisawa from "Mahou Tenshi Creamy Mami"... except instead of a Magical Girl she was like.... a robot.

The original Creamy Mami's Yuu

Pony Metal U-GAIM's "U"

The best comparison I can think of is she's kind of like what Underfell Sans would be to the original Undertale... (or maybe... Error?? I don't even know).

(the art of her robotic parts is RIDICULOUSLY well done)

Much like the Undertale AUs she was EXTREMELY popular. There were Several Garage-kits of her, 3 art books, a 3 minute promotional video, and even an NES game in the works which never really saw the light of day in the end.

(and remember, this would be 1988. So all of this had to be done on paper with pencil, and cels, and ink and paint and photographed and composited all by analog)

Apologies for the bad quality. As a promo video from 1988, this was likely shown off at conventions and such and I'm not entirely sure how many actual copies of it even exist since it was never mass produced and sold iirc (feel free to correct me)

Most of this done by young college-something otaku that were just really passionate about anime and manga. However exact creators of Pony Metal doesn't seem to be super clear, one name we have for the creation of Pony Metal is Mika Akitaka who was a mechanical designer for Gundam 0083 (considered one of the best Gundam stories) as well as Gundam ZZ, Seta, War in the Pocket (also considered one of the best Gundam stories) and just a BUNCH more.

This is further supported by Akitaka having a series of illustrations of "Mobile Suit Girls" which were basically the same idea as Pony Metal except... Gundam. (if you google "Mobile Suit Girls" there is a TON of these)

Anyway as I said, Pony Metal was INSANELY popular in the otaku circle, and it seems it was VERY close to possibly getting an anime made, possibly an OVA or something, but it never got that far.

So there exists a lot of Pony Metal stuff out there, but the language barrier as well as the fact that a lot of modern weeb culture is primarily focused on whatever the newest anime is, means it's VERY hard to really grasp onto a lot of what Pony Metal has. There's a short story manga that's fully available online and is REALLY well illustrated, but it hasn't been scanlated.

So yeah, I have that classic problem of learning about something that's pretty cool, realising I don't have easy access to it, and then JUST because I don't have easy access to it I become obsessed and I NEED to find everything I can about it. Maybe it's that case of just being like "there HAS to be more!" when there isn't really.

Also I think I just really like this era of wild west anime. Where questions like "wait... Why is Yuu a robot now?? Why does she live in a sci fi/Tokyo suburb?? Why are there robots after her?? What are the emotional ramifications of her being a robot??" simply Do Not Matter.

She's a cute anime girl who's a robot and can fire rockets. THAT'S IT. That's all you need!

It reminds me of Project A-Ko which was originally just gonna to be a very short segment of a straight to video softcore hentai series until the people making it went "nah let's just make it its own OVA" and you have this parody sci fi action thing that's part REALLY impressive sci fi action show and part completely ridiculous parody referencing EVERY anime that was popular at the time and part really mild ecchi. Oh and also it's implied A-ko herself is Superman and Wonder Woman's daughter. Why?? Why in Japan?? Why is Tokyo sci fi now?? Why is Kenshiro's daughter in the same High School? WHO CARES!!!

Or like how the people who went on to become Gainax made Daicon IV in their spare time, had it screened at various otaku conventions and literally changed the face of anime forever because people lost their FUCKING MINDS.

I guess Pony Metal U-GAIM is just another part of the giant smelting pot of the eruption of talent in 80s anime, where the enormous economic bubble was at its peak, old animation veterans who had had DECADES to perfect their craft were coming into contact with brand new hungry animators eager to make their marks on the industry and the introduction of the OVA completely breaking down the walls on what you were "allowed" to show in anime.

Maybe I'm just obsessed with Pony Metal because its a smaller part of when anime had it its highest peak, something we have not seen it be able to reach since, and as with many lesser-known outside of Japan anime pieces of the 80s in a world of nothing but Isekai fan-service shows made by underpaid employees working themselves to death making homogeneous product within the parameters they know will make a lot of money, it's a small example of a more wildly creative time. And sometimes I feel a bit like I'm scavenging the remains from ruins of a better and more advanced civilization for whatever scraps I can in the current, creatively starving environment we find ourselves in.

Ok so it's not REALLY that dire and not REALLY all that awful... but I think there's also a large reason why anime made during this very specific window of time continues to be obsessed over and revered in a way that goes beyond wimple "nostalgia".

Maybe if the anime industry PAID THEIR FUCKING ANIMATORS we could start creating a firework explosion of creativity like this again. (to be honest Netflix isn't doing that badly in terms of its anime but it also has a long way to go)

Anyway this post got away from me a bit.

Kenny Lauderdale (who is someone you should DEFINITELY AND ABSOLUTE BE SUBBED TO) made an entire video on Pony Metal U-GAIM which I recommend;

And that's the very short story of Pony Metal U-GAIM which I've been obsessed with recently.

I've been meaning to draw her, actually...

[noritoshiikamo]

- 3k milestone event!

[main event] [mini event] [masterlist]

update 27/6 - EVENT CLOSED

hellooooo, well who would've thought we will be here lol welcome to my very first milestone event!

happy 3k <3 i want to say thank you sm to everyone that follows me and interacts with me, mutuals or anonymously, it made my day to know that there are 3k of yall who enjoys my nonsense lol anyway this is my first event so be kind lmao

this event's theme is all you can request buffet ⁽⁽ଘ( ˊᵕˋ )ଓ⁾⁾

you heard that right, im not gonna link any prompt lists or anything bcs i dont want repeating theme. so go nuts, what ever you want, as long as it's in the within my comfort, i shall serve <3

open for jujutsu kaisen & tinsy bit for haikyuuu!! (maybe a dash of aot and owari no seraph??? shinya???)

how to:

make sure to clarify that this is for the event so i might not confused it with my existing req - "for 3k event can you please [insert your brainrot]? thank u!”

remember to be polite and kind <3

the rules:

event opens from 24 hours gmt+8 but might close earlier or not if i think it's enough slices ;)

i might limit it to 20-ish spots, 0.5-2k words each but if i see repeating character with suitable ideas i might combine them together. pls understand that i work so the update would be sporadic and messy but im sure yall used to it already lmao

one character per request

reader would female (as thats what i'm capable with) but it would be as neutral as possible

aged up characters!

dark content brainrots are welcome too

dark content rules are applicable to this event, minors do not interact

feel free to go through my writings to get an idea of what im used and will write. im more flexible in nsfw works, so if you really want to try for a kink, just send me in and if the idea is up to my liking, we’ll see how it goes!

please be respectful and kind, lmao im baby

what i dont write:

dom!reader (but it depends), mommy kink, furry kink, i dont have exact full list but it might change times to times

disclaimers:

as always i reserve myself the right to turn down any requests that make me uncomfortable or unable to do for whatever reason.

event will be tagged under #3k event and i'll make a full masterlist for easier navigation. if yall are not interest with the full event, check out the mini event where we confess our fantasy for 2d men <3

˚｡⋆｡˚ click here to submit your brainrot! ☽˚｡⋆.

here's some more link:

to support me more by buying ko-fi

to be in my tag list

to check my other writings

if you have any more questions don’t be scared to ask. once again, from the bottom of my heart, i wanna thank yall for being so patient and kind to me throughout whatever im going through and shits and lets cut the chase and

lets get horny bitches <3

[madfantasy]

Dearest Mani, you are always in my heart and prayers! You're incredibly talented as an artist and a writer (I think you could write a good autobiography, I find your writing both heartbreaking and fascinating), and so strong and persistent! I dreamed of becoming an artist as a kid, but wasn't allowed to study drawing, but when I became a teen nobody could prevent me from learning... but I was too hesitant... with too low self-esteem... so I never learned, alas. Be blessed, my darling!

Oh dear Bianca, thank you so much, bless your heart🫂💛

I always fear when I share about my life that I be a burden.. I have to apologise

I'm sorry you had that experience, I understand at times people think of art as not a rewarding path and maybe discourage people from it, but if its your dream, its yours and it is in you, and you're never late to start if the dream still dwells within the space of your pleased mild unconsciousness and the results shouldn't matter most of the time, the more you do it, the more it be obvious what you can and can't do, and what you want and don't want to do in the vast fields of art~

I honestly have never considered art as something I'd go with, I actually was a mathmatic wiz and enjoyed solving these equations like chewing on sour candy,  my mouth frothing at the thought of getting more... and wrestling, its still my second goal..

Art was something I did out of necessity; I wasn't allowed to express much, it was similar to the life style of military (the irony here is my last name means warrior, and alot of distant family were inrolled, including my guardians) it was a life line mechanism your body forcesyou to do, to breath.  I didn't think of it,  I didn't plan it, I didn't consider it Art, so I always feel because I didn't seek it as art or have sought to learn it properly or have in my possession a sealed certificate of learning it, i can't call myself an artist! (But that continuesly was proven wrong as I became more and more involved in it)

And the amount of resistance I got towards me drawing equalled me stubbornly drawing even more. It was as if I was involved in the dark arts, which it was to my family, my teachers, my peers— everyone. It was a reason for them to crush me, but it didn't crush the urge to draw non stop.

I remember as a kid they let me cuz its child's play, and was aware of all those adults saying to my guardians, oh Mani's art is amazing but you know what to do when they grow up. They beat the freak out of me every time they caught me doing it. So my choices became draw while they are asleep ( or my own sleep time under the covers) or at work. Second place is at school, I was taking every pause possibility to draw like I'm possessed to, while decently acing school. I mean I literally did my homework and everything at school so I don't have to do anything home but draw.

Inevitably I was found out at school, even tho I was and still a very quiet shy kid, and I try to hide my art anyway possible whilst drawing. Evey time the consequences were either of those two: utter humiliation, or a praise with guilt.

They praised me saying its amazing but I can't do that, and to please stop it. Or just being silently fascinated by it and taking it without telling me its good so they "won't encourage me"

The humiliation was me pointed out as what not to do to the whole class, and telling me I'm going to hell when I die and be forced to try and make those creations I made come to life, seeing that I could not, be tortured with alot of graphically disturbing description of fire and burns. First when I was 7 years old. I remember standing too in a line in front of the whole school at queue as the "shameful" students line, watching some of my peers cry and me just standing there just struggling not to laugh. Cuz idk

Other time peers snatching my art from me and running around with it and calling me names, and such, and it takes a bit more than rough housing by me to get it back. Often school calling home and getting my share of beating from there too.

I remember the biggest humiliation I got is by a freaking art teacher snatching my mouths stocked folder thanks to the stupidity of a peer I didn't even allow to share my art with leaving it wide open for the teacher to see. They took it, questioned my classmates as to how the frk nobody reported my art to the admin or whatever. And if they were okay with the horrors I make. They were heh.

But didn't stop the admin from basicly spreading that and assuming that i am crazy and need psychological help. Which made more hard beatings at home hearing that in the phone call they made.

I eventually fell out from school because of continuing decline financial situation and my mental stability. The cycle didn't end, guardians never stopped killing me over it, destroying my art, threatening, the whole work— till I got commissioned for the very first time. Like only few years ago. They let off seeing now it brings money..

Till this day they don't know what I draw thanks to switching digitally nd speaking English. Also they don't have the health to go around snooping in my stuff anymore right around the time too

The bottom line is, I don't know how everything just fell into place, into being an artist rather than it being a choice to make.. still carrying those shackles of always get those flashes of being hurt by it, regretting posting and drawing always and feeling its never good enough or not being something acceptable or sought-after. But on the flip side, it's the embodiment of freedom, it's the most accomplished, happy, fulfilled, humaaaaann I ever be while practising it.

What you love and will be will happen no matter what and how long...

I'm sorry for more sad dibble about my life..

I am happy today; I just wore like passes as a boy trouble maker here and my guardians were laughing and hyping me to go out on the streets and make some trouble. The exact intention hehe. And I wanted to share but can't do that publicly but posted on my ko-fi hehe

Leaving u with sev wip , and all my love 💛🌟

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers DARK FATE ー Ayato Dark [Epilogue]

Yui: ( Huh...? When did I fall asleep...? )

Ayato: ..Nn...

*Smooch*

Nn...Aah, you finally woke up, huh?

ー Yui wakes up in the castle’s bedroom

Yui: Ayato-kun...Good morning.

Ayato: ‘Morning.

...Chichinashi. You’re really livin’ up to that name, huh?

Yui: Wha...!? Oh come on...!!

Ayato: Hehe, don’t get your panties in a knot. You can’t blame me for statin’ the truth, can you?

Yui: ( Uu...It’s frustrating how I can’t deny that. )

( But...I guess Ayato-kun feels a little better now? )

Ayato: ...

Oi, Yui.

I...

ーー I’m goin’ to kill that shitty Old Hag once more.

This time, I’ll end her life for good.

Yui: ...Ayato-kun...

( Is that his answer? )

...

( ...I guess there’s no point in me racking my brain over it. If that’s what Ayato-kun has decided, then I’ll... )

...Right, Ayato-kun.

You haven’t eaten since this morning, so should I make you something? Takoyaki, for example.

Ayato: Oh, sounds good! Yes please. Guess I’ll have no other choice but to eat a bunch.

ーー Ah, but just one thing.

*Rustle*

Ayato: You better don’t think ‘bout goin’ outside looking like that?

Yui: ...!! I-I know!!

*TIMESKIP*

ー The scene shifts to the living room

Yui: ( I wonder if I can make takoyaki here? While I have the chance, I’d like to cook various things for him... )

( I wonder what kind of ingredients this world has to offer? )

( There might be a bunch of other differences as well. )

( ...This is the place Ayato-kun grew up at. )

( ...I should try and get to know it better. Even the smallest of details. )

( Okay! Anyway, I’ll start by cooking up a deliciousーー )

???: Where are you going in such a rush~?

Yui: Laito-kun!

Laito: Nfu~ Exactly! The one and only!

Hmー... Say, Bitch-chan? Did you perhaps...have some ‘fun’ with Ayato-kun last night?

Yui: ...!?

Laito: Nfu~ Guess I was right judging by that reaction.

You’re making me jealous...I would have loved to join in if you had told me.

...But well...

I guess you made the right choice, staying close to him during these times.

Yui: Eh...?

Laito: Ayato-kun is the one who made the first move on her after all...As a result, I’m sure he is more shocked than anyone to see her still alive.

As for Kanato-kun and myself...How should I put this...Right...

We just can’t seem to bring ourselves to wholeheartedly hate her. It’s complicated, very much so.

We loathed her to death, and we actually did slaughter her. 

However...We still can’t quite claim to hate her from the very bottom of our hearts.

However, Ayato-kun might have been the only one who genuinely despised her. Although that’s something only he knows for sure.

Yui: I see...

Laito: ...Oh dear. I suppose I broke character there for a bit by speaking so honestly~

I’ll go get some fresh air...

ー Laito leaves

Yui: ...

( They all bear different sorts of emotions inside. )

( ...Ayato-kun said he would kill Cordelia, but... )

( Still...I wonder if that will truly make him feel better? )

( After all, when I first met Ayato-kun, he seemed to be in emotional distress as well. )

( I wonder if he’ll end up repeating that same outcome? )

( But...Even so, I don’t exactly know what to do either. )

( I... )

Reiji: ーー You are in the way.

*Rustle*

Yui: Wah!

ー Shuu and Reiji appear

Yui: ( ...! What a strange sight to see these two together... )

Reiji: ...You have this annoying habit of showing whatever you are thinking on your face.

Yui: S-Sorry...

...Anyway, why are you guys here? Did something happen?

Reiji: Wellーー

Shuu: ...Pwaah...

Reiji: Shuu! Is this truly the time to be yawning!? Good grief...How vexing!

Yui: U-Um...Excuse me...?

Reiji: Haah, good grief...

You should not be spacing out either.

I do not know how that woman has been brought back to life...However, right now this is more important.

*Flip*

Yui: This is...

Reiji: An invitation to the evening gala held by Father.

Yui: Evening gala...?

Reiji: Exactly.

Apparently he intends to invite guests from across the whole Demon World, and we have been put in charge of all preparations.

First we must start by putting together these invitations. ...Aah, so much work...!

Yui: U-Um...Shall I help out?

Reiji: Hmph. And how exactly would you do that? I suppose sealing the envelopes would be the most you can handle.

Yui: Right...

Reiji: Haah...However...Why did Father decide to hold an evening gala during the Lunar Eclipse out of all times...?

It is too dangerous, no matter how you look at it...

Shuu: ーー There must be some people he wants to lure out, no?

Yui: Eh...?

Reiji: ...Aah, I see...Those two Founder gentlemen, right?

Yui: ( Carla-san and Shin-kun... )

Reiji: Those two are most definitely an eyesore.

...However, I fail to understand why someone as powerful as Father needs to rely on an evening gala to take them out...

Shuu: ...

Yui: ( ...I don’t know what Karlheinz-san is thinking. )

( But ever since those two Founders showed up, it’s been one strange happening after the other. )

( I don’t want any more trouble to occur... )

Ayato: Heh, bring it on then...!

Yui: Ayato-kun...!

What brings you here?

Ayato: ‘Cause you were takin’ a damn eternity, duh!

...Hehe, so I listened in on the conversation.

That scarfed freak and the eyepatch dude won’t back down so easily.

I bet they’ve still got some tricks up their sleeve, don’t you think?

In that case, we should just send them an invitation or whatever and straight-up call them out.

I’ll crush them fair and square!

They better don’t think I’m gonna keep quiet after gettin’ my ass kicked!

Yui: B-But...

( What if they really do show up and it ends in a fight...? )

( Oh no, at this rate... )

Shuu: Pwaah...Well...I don’t know what their motive is, but I’m sure they’ll show up eventually either way.

In that case, making the first move might save us a lot of trouble.

Yui: ( Shuu-san too... )

Reiji: How thoughtless. What if a fight breaks loose at the gala?

Ayato: Che...! You wimp...!!

ー Ayato leaves

Yui: Ah...Ayato-kun, wait...!!

ー Yui chases after him to the garden

Yui: Haah, haah, haah...

Where is Ayato-kun...?

???: ...What are you looking at?

Yui: Kyah...

Ayato-kun...

Ayato: Why do you seem afraid still...? Che...

We’re already at the point where we’ve tried out plenty of things, no?

Yui: T-That doesn’t mattーー

*Thud*

Ayato: Say...!

Yui: ...Uu.

Ayato: What’s your answer? Huh!?

Yui: ( Ayato-kun’s extremely worked up. )

Ayato: Or have you still not had enough? In that case...Should I remind you?

Yui: ( He is frustrated by his own incapability to do something about the whole situation despite his strong desire to do so...That’s the vibe I’m getting. )

( ...But... )

( Right now, being by his side is the only support I can provide. )

( I don’t mind what happens to me, if it helps him feel better. )

( He can suck as much of my blood as he wants too. )

Yui: ...

Ayato: ...Che...!

...Ugh.

...

Aahー God!

...Listen...

I’m sorry!

Yui: Eh...?

( What did he say just now...? )

Ayato: ...Come on, you heard me...I said sorry.

Yui: ( Ayato-kun’s apologizing to me... )

You don’t need to say sorry, really...Well...It surprised me a little though.

Ayato: D-Don’t be surprised!

I...wouldn’t get upset with or hit you without a reason either, you know...

Despite what you might believe, I’ve been puttin’ a lot of thought into everythin’!

Yui: Ayato-kun...

Ayato: Also...

If I were to take my anger out on you right now...That would make me exactly like that woman.

That’s the last thing I want!

So...I’m sorry.

Yui: ( Ayato-kun’s been trying his hardest in his own way. )

...I’m sorry for getting scared as well.

But you know, Ayato-kun?

Ayato: What?

Yui: I...want to be with you, even when you’re angry.

It’s fine even if you take it out on me. I want to accept all of it.

So don’t ever force yourself to act a certain way in front of me.

After all, I will love you no matter what.

Ayato: You...

...Ugh.

...Well...You know...I’m glad to hear that.

Anyway, I’m sorry. And also...

...Thank you.

Yui: ( Ayato-kun... )

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

<- [ Dark 10 ] [ Maniac Prologue ] ->

[acaseforpencils]

Jonesy (aka Steve Jones).

Bio: So far I’ve been published in Private Eye, New Statesman, Prospect, Harvard Business Review, The Oldie, Reader’s Digest (UK), The American Bystander, The Phoenix, CAM (Cambridge University Alumni Magazine), Resurgence and Ecologist, London Evening Standard and The Spectator.

Tools of choice:

Traditional: Pentels, pencils (seldom anything harder than a B), Uni-balls, Sharpies, brush pens and dip pens. Allsorts, really. For instance, you’ll find various other weird and wonderful oddities in my arsenal like Pilot Parallel nib pens and folded brass dip-pens. The Pilots are intended for use by calligraphers but I enjoy drawing with them. As for the dip-pen, a HIRO Leonardt 41 Copperplate is my nib of choice, nib fans. 

I use Higgins Black Magic and Daler Rowney FW ink and White Knights (formerly St. Petersburg) watercolour paints plus various makes of brushes. I find a toothbrush comes in handy too. (Not for my teeth, obviously: I’m British.) Oh, and a diffuser.

My favourite paper for ink and watercolour work is Saunders Waterford High White HP 140lb, and Canson Bristol mostly for ink only.

I draft out rough ideas on Daler Rowney layout pads. I also use various sketch and note pads and have been known to scribble ideas on anything to hand including pets, plants and passers by. Anything alliterative, really.

Sometimes when I’m out and about I also recite cartoon ideas into my mobile so I can pick them up off my voicemail when I get home. Saying stuff out loud like “lighthouse with a bowling alley” and giggling can attract strange looks from passers by. Scribbling on them, however, invokes a much stronger reaction.

Digital: I use MacBook Pros (x2), a Wacom Intuos 4 pad and stylus. I started off with Photoshop and Painter Essentials but now use Clip Studio Art and Affinity software. Both are much cheaper and - for my purposes anyway - just as good.

Recently I was considering an iPad but I think my newer Macbook Pro is about to give up the ghost so bang goes that idea for the time being. My 2010 MBP has been hammered day and night without giving me a moment’s complaint: a wonderful workhorse. I wish I could say the same for my 2015 version. In their efforts to make the laptop thinner and lighter, Apple, sadly, seem to have sacrificed build quality and durability. How about u-turning on this skinny/lightweight malarkey and making the upcoming model a bit sturdier, eh, Apple? Go on, you know you want to…

Tools I wish I could use better: All of them.

Tools I wish existed: Scanvision - ie: Just looking at the drawing equals instant scan filed on your computer.

Command z on dip-pens. Failing that, an effective ink eraser.

Tricks: Not so much a trick of the trade as sound advice: join the Professional Cartoonists’ Organisation. Only if you’re a cartoonist, like. Or a caricaturist. If you’re a shepherd, say, you probably won’t get too much out of it. Anyway, it’s been an enormous help to me.

Don’t spill coffee on your freshly drawn artwork. All other beverages are fine.

Never throw away ideas. Sometimes I return to cartoons I initially rejected and get a fresh angle on them. Absence can make the thought grow stronger. (Sorry, that last sentence reads like one of those crap motivational posters…)

I find I get the best results by holding the pointy end of my pen to the paper.

Try to avoid cleaning your brushes in your tea/coffee/whatever cup/mug/glass/beaker/whatever. Or, indeed, drinking from your brush water container. (I’ve done both.)

Try to avoid typing sentences with lots of/too many/an excess of options/alternatives/choices/whatever.

Rejection comes with the cartooning territory, I’m afraid. Easier said than done, I know, but try not to let it get you down: use it as motivation to do better. Or try blackmail.

Miscellaneous: Be as helpful as you can to people starting out. I appreciated the kindness of, and learned a great deal from senior pros who took the time to help me with my first steps. (See “Tricks” section above as proof.)

Websites, etc:

My social media empire, such as it is, comprises the following...

Website (I should update this more often)

Instagram (I should update this more often)

Twitter (I should visit this less often)

---

If you enjoy this blog, and would like to contribute to labor and maintenance costs, there is a Patreon, and if you’d like to buy me a cup of coffee, there is a Ko-Fi account as well! I do this blog for free because accessible arts education is important to me, and your support helps a lot! You can also find more posts about art supplies on Case’s Instagram and Twitter! Thank you!

[kiatkiat-tree]

Sweet Kitty

A/N: not a request, but like, here’s some romani food haha. please remember to request if you want something of your own, or commission me on my ko-fi ;o

-

Yes, it was a month before October. And yes, Ritsuka had better things to do than looking for a cute costume with the other women in Chaldea. An unsuspecting pair of cat ears were placed on her head courtesy of Mash, who commented on how cute it looked. Everyone else seemed to think the same, except for Medb. She had a strange look on her face that didn't fade until the group decided to stop for today.

Ritsuka bid the others farewell as Mash stayed behind to fix the costumes, but Medb obviously had other ideas. She pulled the poor Master to her side, already starting to ramble about the potential of cat ears. The Servant spared no details, both pure (for her Master to enjoy) and lewd (for her Master to blush and stammer at). Mash was thankfully out of hearing distance.

“Look at these black cat ears, so soft and fine to touch! A Mystic Code that can go along with this... do you have any black sets of lace lingerie, Master?” Medb asked without restrain. Ritsuka dwelled on her words, wondering if she could get a set like that to wear in the bedroom before coming back to her senses.

“W-what!? Wh-why would I have access to something like that?” she sputtered, going red in the face. While such a risque Mystic Code probably existed, she hadn't really thought about it. But this Master had normal clothes with her, and even a woman like her had bought a set like that out of curiosity.

Medb had foreseen that, as well. “The face you're making is very cute, Master. It also shows the true nature of your wardrobe! Very well, if you have a black set, I'll lend you a cape to go along with it. Attracting other men is my job, so use it when you want to wear it in public!”

“What makes you think I want to wear it in public?” Ritsuka cried out, attracting Mash's attention. The young girl finally emerged from the back of the closet, arms full of the things she wanted to bring back to her room. She joined the conversation between her Master and Medb, looking a bit puzzled.

“Senpai, what is it you don't want to wear?” she asked, eyes directly on the cat ears. Ritsuka hadn't really taken them off yet. She blushed, her hands going up to her head to cover them as Mash and Medb giggled. “It looks cute, though. I guess no one can really force you.”

“I shall take my leave then. Ritsuka, do not hesitate to call out to me tonight! I look forward to hearing your voice in my mind,” Medb said, flipping her hair and dematerializing into thin air. Ritsuka looked as dumbfounded as Mash.

“T-tonight...?” the Master whispered. Whaaat? She wants me to wear that cape so early? She thought before shaking her head, clapping her cheeks with her hands. Her cold hands made contact with the warm skin of her cheeks, repeatedly slapping them. Mash could only watch in confusion and fear.

“Have you made a deal with her, Senpai? I feel worried for you...” Mash said. The frown on her face mirrored her words. Ritsuka felt bad for Mash, but even she felt worried for herself. Medb wouldn't harm her, but it still felt nerve-wracking. They didn't speak of modelling the lingerie set, but she knew that would probably happen anyway.

“It's fine, I think,” Ritsuka reassured the Demi-Servant. Her heart was pounding in embarrassment, but she still took a deep breath to calm herself. “She won't try anything funny, I mean it.”

-

It was true. Medb didn't try anything funny, but she did suggest this walk of shame. Or as the Servant liked to call it, the catwalk. Ritsuka donned the black pair of cat ears, covering her true outfit under Medb's long cape. The cape turned out to be one of her many outfits from being such a beloved Queen, something Medb was proud of.

The fabric covered the tail hanging from her ass, held by a buttplug snugly fitted into her. No one could see the limp tail, nor the lingerie she wanted to replace so badly. It was a good thing that neither of the staff nor Servants suspected anything. If they did, they didn't say anything about it. However, the ears did turn a few heads.

The “catwalk” to Dr. Roman's office was thankfully uneventful, save for a few kind Servants who were offering their own capes to her. They thought she was only too cold, or maybe even playing the act of a snug kitten. The only problem was Merlin, who gave her a small headpat before lowering his lips to her ear.

“I'm sure the doctor would love your little surprise, kitten,” he teased, laughing as he got away with only a harsh tug on his hair. Ritsuka had half a mind to yell 'pervert' at him, but that would cause a scene she didn't want. After Merlin, the hallways connected to the office were empty.

She knocked on the door, waiting for Dr. Roman's response. Medb's words echoed in her head, her cheeks heating up again.

“Be sure to drop that big, big cape if he's alone! A man will surely love a surprise like this. The doctor may even pounce on you if you look too cute.”

“I don't even know if I want that...” Ritsuka muttered to herself before hearing the doctor welcome her in. The young woman gulped, walking past the doors as she tried to lock them behind her. Roman wasn't looking at her yet, giving her ample time to lock them while she was facing him. Her hands before her fiddled with the keypad, locking it just in time for her cute doctor to look up.

“Oh, hi Ritsuka. Da Vinci did say you were wearing cat ears today,” he greeted her, looking away for just a moment just to set his coffee down. Ritsuka used that second to drop the cape to the ground. It was just as Medb instructed and predicted. Her oblivious boyfriend turned back to her, but his eyes were zeroing in on her outfit.

“And then say, 'I'm a little cold, do you think you can warm me up?'”

“Um,” Ritsuka started, covering her body with her hands. She averted her gaze from his, glancing at the side of the office before speaking up again. She was running her hand along her waist nervously. “I-I'm a little cold, do you think you can warm me up?”

“Ritsuka, of course I can!” Roman took his lab coat off, placing it around her shoulders. The cracks in his facade were invisible to the untrained eye, but Ritsuka was too shocked and flustered to notice. Her eyes widened as she was suddenly surrounded by the doctor's scent, warmth emanating from his body as he covered her. “Is there anything else you might need?”

What!? Romani is too wholesome, I almost feel bad for doing this... Ritsuka internally panicked, trying to remember Medb's next words. She didn't know if Dr. Roman was just too soft and kind, or if he was just oblivious as hell. Either way, her lewd Servant seemed to be prepared for just about anything.

Ritsuka shuffled on her feet, fidgeting with her hands before hugging Roman. Surely, this will shock him! Or maybe I'm just too flustered, she thought. Next, she'd have to attempt to repeat Medb's words without melting into a puddle herself.

“You can also give me a little hug, Roman,” she said, rubbing her thighs together as she guided one of his hands onto her waist. The lab coat was too big for her, so she managed to place it there without any problems. The doctor was still tense, but didn't stop her. His hand started to move downward, eventually reaching the tail that was there.

The thong she was wearing didn't really provide any cover to her tail, which at least granted the long line of fur some freedom. Roman ran his arm across the first few inches, feeling the fur on it before gently pulling on it. Ritsuka would've collapsed if she wasn't in his arms. She moaned softly into his black shirt, hiding her red face in his chest.

“You have a tail here,” he commented, giving it another tug. She moaned again, bucking her lips a little into his groin as he continued to pull at the artificial tail, mesmerized with how she was reacting to his touch. “It's even connected to your butt.”

“Ha... wait, don't tease me!” Ritsuka complained. Well, this wasn't going smoothly. She was on the verge of collapsing right then and there, if it wasn't for Roman taking his hand off her tail and slowly leading the two of them to his chair. She followed with wobbly steps, clumsily landing on him as he sat down.

Roman's eyes were no longer on her chest, but rather on her face. It felt rather intense as he studied her expression, compelling her to hide her face. The doctor chuckled as he pulled her hands away, smiling at her before pushing her head down so he could kiss her. The two of them pulled away with her heart finally beating a bit more normally.

The doctor's calm and cool facade ebbed away, leaving him to be the flustered mess this time. He coughed into his hand, sounding too fake for both of them to believe. “Well, Ritsuka, I didn't know you were into these kinds of things. U-uh, what even made you act like that? You don't normally...”

The young woman sighed. “I know. I don't normally do this, but Medb said this pair of cat ears might excite you. I guess we were wrong,” she said, reaching out to them to take them off. The doctor stopped her with his hands, protecting the ears from Ritsuka's grasp. She frowned, but she put her hands down.

“Who said I didn't enjoy it? I mean, it's very... cute,” he said. The blush on his face would've been considered cute, but the straining erection Ritsuka could finally feel was even better. She'd been so caught up with her own shame that she didn't even notice until now. It was her turn to tease him, finally gaining the confidence to do so.

“W-well, am I really just cute?” she asked in a tone of false hurt. Roman bit his lip, but his gaze never strayed far from hers. She was waiting for an answer though, and yet silence merited him a grind of her hips against the bulge in his pants. A barely-contained groan escaped through gritted teeth.

“R-Ritsuka—“

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted as she gave another shallow grind. Said woman looked down to see a wet spot directly on his pants, as well as a ruined pair of thongs. Even if she wanted to be the tease here, she couldn't help but feel another surge of blood rush to her cheeks at the sight. She lifted herself up, removing the thongs herself.

The two of them stared at the drenched, tiny piece of underwear before Roman cleared his throat. “I'll t-take that. Don't want it to be a mess on the floor, right?” he offered. It wasn't like him to be so straightforward with these kinds of things. The words' impact couldn't be denied, though, as she felt herself get wetter.

The thong, as wet as it was, smelled of her natural musk. If Ritsuka wasn't mistaken, Roman's breath hitched the moment he touched the fabric. He was hasty in his motions to hide it in his lab coat's pocket. She felt the weight shift on her clothes, being the one wearing his coat and all.

“I should probably take this off,” she mumbled, but he was quick to object to that.

“Wait, don't,” he said. The woman raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. She didn't expect him to have a thing for fucking her in his clothing, but it was welcome nonetheless. He blinked twice before continuing with a sheepish expression. “You can take it off, if you want, though. It looks really nice on you.”

“Doctor, I don't know how something a few sizes too big looks nice,” she said. The two of them laughed at their little joke, albeit his being a bit awkward. Ritsuka watched as Roman tried to not look dejected when she took it off, taking her bra with it. She didn't miss the way his face lighted up as well when she put it back on.

“R-right. Your bra needed to go,” he said.

“I didn't say anything,” Ritsuka retorted. They were finally going back to their natural, silly rhythm. Without any weird dialogue to go by, they were back to making weird jokes again. She settled on his lap. More specifically, his thigh. She didn't really care about where she was until he flexed it under her, unexpectedly stimulating her.

“It wasn't—Ritsuka, are you alright?” Roman asked, concern lacing his tone. Ritsuka realized she must've gone wide-eyed for a moment there, but she nodded in response to the doctor. She bit her lip, trying to grind on his thigh again. He reflexively tensed under her movement, eliciting a little mewl from her.

She gave it another try, but his thigh was too soft to provide anything. The woman groaned. “Mm, your thighs. T-they felt kind of good,” she explained. The friction of his pants against her clit was a different, yet pleasant feeling. It wasn't like he understood clearly, but the doctor tried flexing it again. Ritsuka's positive reaction only confirmed his theory.

He kept his thigh flexed for as long as he can. She thought it might've numbed him, but he may have been just enjoying the little show. His stare bored right into her, and that made her shiver more than she thought. She leaned against his warm body, gasping a little as she came on his pants.

A small puddle formed above the spot that was too saturated, a small line connecting it to Ritsuka's sensitive pussy. One of her hands was on Roman's shoulder, keeping her stable as her walls pulsed in the aftermath. The other traced a line along his torso and stopped right on top the bulge. Roman groaned, brows furrowed.

“A thigh kink, Ritsuka. W-who would've known?” he stuttered a little. Ritsuka knew he was just trying to act fine, even if his cock was probably leaking and hurting. She placed a little peck on his lips as she unzipped his pants. If his body was warm, his cock was undeniably burning. Even through the thin fabric of his underwear, she could feel it.

“I know,” her voice was small, even smaller than before. They'd have to talk about it later. For now, she focused on her doctor's stiff length, pulsing in his underwear. Roman wrapped an arm around her as he lifted himself up. His underwear slid down his thighs, letting his cock free out of its constraints.

They didn't have to wait very long. Ritsuka had come already, and drawing this out would be torture for both of them. She let herself hover over his dick, slick dripping down and onto its red tip. Slinking her arms over his neck, she carefully lowered herself, moaning at the contact. His cock made its way inside her inch by inch, making her feel full.

“Mmh, finally,” he muttered before capturing her mouth in a sloppy kiss. He waited for her to settle down, focusing on the kiss instead. It was all tongue and teeth before he started to thrust languidly, enjoying the feeling of her walls fluttering around him. Ritsuka moaned into his mouth, pulling away for air.

Her neck was somehow exposed, too. The lab coat Ritsuka was wearing made her even sweatier. She wondered if she tasted salty as Roman descended onto her, nipping and sucking at her skin as he continued to pound into her from below. She whimpered as he bit around a sensitive spot, combining it with a thrust into her g-spot.

“R-Roman! There!” she cried out. Her head lolled forward, resting her forehead on his shoulder as he thrust back into the same spot. She bit her lip, muffling the sounds that were escaping her. Her previous orgasm had made her sensitive, and she could feel her pussy twitching every now and then.

Her legs tensed as Roman started to quicken his pace, hiding his face in the crook of her neck. Low groans could be heard from him as his thrusts started to become more erratic, and Ritsuka's legs tensed for a moment before that familiar fire started in her abdomen again. A few more strokes, and she'd be able to come.

“A-are you close?” the doctor breathed out. His orgasm was imminent, and it was evident in his movement and the flush in his cheeks. He moved his head so that he could properly face her. Both were breathing heavily, but Ritsuka managed a smile on her face as the coil in her stomach threatened to unwind. “L-let's cum together, okay?”

She didn't even have the time to voice out her agreement. Another snap of his hips sent her tumbling over the edge, forcing another climax from her. Ritsuka's legs trembled, her toes curling and relaxing as Roman came as well. Her pussy twitched and pulsed, milking his shaft for all his cum.

He rode out his orgasm with shallow thrusts, earning a whine from Ritsuka. “Roman, I'm still sensitive,” she complained, but she relaxed against his shirt-covered chest. The fabric was a bit damp against her sweaty skin, but it still provided her comfort. For a few moments, the doctor ignored her, but eventually slowed down to a halt.

They first steadied their breathing, still coming down from their high. Ritsuka moved, careful to not let any of his cum drip out as she stretched her legs. The last thing they needed was cramps. The rise and fall of their chest matched perfectly, their breathing in sync as they basked in the afterglow of sex.

“So, we learned two things today,” Roman started. She gave a tired hum in reply, letting herself fall into slumber in his lap. Her head was getting attention, as well. His soft caresses were usually found behind her ears. Ritsuka wondered if he actually wanted to scratch some cat ears. “A catgirl thing, and then something with my thighs.”

Ritsuka knew she couldn't fall asleep, not here. The door to the office was locked shut, but other people would still want to come here. But she felt like an actual cat, right here in his arms. She was too tired to speak, much less dress herself again. She didn't even have any extra clothes.

Her eyes shot open at that line. She came here with little to no clothes, and with her thongs ruined, she'd have to make the real walk of shame back to her dorm. Roman noticed the change as well, making a little puzzled face. A little debate on telling him started in her mind, since Ritsuka didn't know if he could do anything.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked. The pats were momentarily stopped. While Ritsuka was panicking internally, she wanted something to at least relax her. She pouted, looking away from him. This time, it was Roman's turn to panic. “Ritsukaaa.”

“I'm a little too naked for my tastes,” she said, almost a whisper. “Also, please keep petting me...”

“Ah! You're right!” Roman said. Well, he was in full panic mode now. Ritsuka grumbled, settling back into his lap against all rational thought. She could take a break today, and that included some cuddling in some tiny chair in his office. The poor doctor struggled underneath her. “Hey, I can't move when you're on top of me! Let's find some extra clothes.”

“No, I wanna cuddle with you, a like a cute little kitty,” she said, smirking when another blush formed on Roman's confused, yet excited face.

[tiaragqueen]

Albatross

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Nanamine Sakura x Female! Reader

✂ Word Count: 938

✂ Trigger Warning: Possessiveness, manipulation

[Edited]

***

I’ve been dying to write a tbhk content for quite some time, and only now did I finally get the idea.

If you like my writing, please support me on ko-fi!

“Let me show my love, girl. You can be my girlfriend. I just wanna talk to u, don't be afraid.” - You Can Be My Girlfriend [Cai Xu Kun]

The tea party was more awkward than any party you’d ever attended. Not because there were barely any people aside from Sakura and you, but because you didn’t want to be here. The tea reflected the glowing chandelier above you, enclosed in an alabaster cup. The dainty cake lied forgotten on the oak table, and yet, the sweet taste that lingered in your throat reminded you of the underlying tension. It wasn’t that strong compared to Tsukasa's onerous presence, but it existed nonetheless. It floated in the air like an undercurrent, caging your body on to the antique chair she’d forced you to occupy.

If Sakura noticed your discomfort, she said nothing about it. She calmly flipped a page of the novel she’d been consuming the entire hour, expression neutral as always. However, you could discern the exhaustion that encircled itself around her jaded eyes and the way her lips descended a bit lower than usual. This wasn’t the first time you’d seen her in this state – Tsukasa could be quite overbearing with his demands, after all – but it still didn’t justify her action.

“[Name], can you please stop shaking? You’re ruining my focus.” A trace of irritation tainted her apathetic voice as she squinted, trying to absorb the content despite the unconscious quiver you were causing. There was a sadistic pleasure derived from her quiet pain, but you knew that she wouldn’t be hesitant to assert her dominance if she saw fit. Despite his caprice, Tsukasa tended to help her as a part of the contract. And that meant whatever she ordered him to do to you, he’d happily execute. Seeing the transition of your disturbed mien to fear was a ‘reward’ in itself.

But you had enough of her shenanigans, today.

“I want to leave.”

Sakura merely hummed. “I see.”

You frowned, slightly pissed by her blatant ignorance. “Aren’t you going to let me out of here?” You tapped the arm of the chair to emphasize your impatience, hoping that it might pressure her somehow. “It’s been like… what? An hour or so.”

“Forty minutes, to be exact,” she replied coolly as she glanced towards the grandfather clock in the corner of the strange room. You'd forgotten it was there in the first place, your brain easily dismissed its familiar sound.

Your frown deepened into a scowl. “Still, I’ve wasted too much time here when I could’ve been doing something else.”

“Like flirting with Teru?”

At the mention of the school prince, your body automatically froze.

“N-no, of course not.” you huffed, averting your gaze as though she was looking at you in the first place. Blood warmed your cheeks as you played with the hem of your skirt. “He’s just…” You coughed, trying to even your slightly pitched voice. Had Tsukasa was here, he'd surely tease you relentlessly. That was just in his nature to poke fun at people regardless of their reactions. Fortunately, Sakura wasn't as sadistic as him. “… a friend to me.”

“Friend or crush?”

“W-why does it matter anyway?” you grumbled, unable to keep the blush from spreading to your entire face.

“It matters to me.” Sakura finally clasped the book shut and put it on the table, narrowed eyes peering towards you. “Don’t you know why I keep inviting you here?”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you chose to ignore the irony of the situation and squinted. “What? Because you don’t like to see me interacting with other people?”

“Well, that,” Pausing, Sakura rose from her seat and slowly approached your wary figure. She bent down to stroke your cheek, eyes lidded with subtle fondness. “and because I like you.” Her fingers suddenly dug into your skin as her face hardened. “That’s why I don’t like it when I see you talking and laughing so freely with them, especially him. Have I not given you enough attention, [Name]? Why do you keep seeking theirs?”

“S-Sakura…” You tried to push her hand away, but her other one held down your wrists instead. “You can’t… you can’t do this. I’m not yours, I’m free to do whatever I wish.”

“[Name], I’m sure you already know about my affiliation with Tsukasa, right?” she inquired. “What is he to me?”

Yes, you knew. That’s why you always felt on edge around them, specifically him. He was the reason for your abrupt involvement with the upperclassman, after all. You just… didn’t expect her to threaten you.

Sensing your tentative compliance, Sakura loosened her hold and smiled gently. “I’ve always wanted you, you see. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I think it started when you stumbled into me in the library at that time.” She chuckled at the memory; a quiet yet melodic sound that gripped your chest. “It was a long time ago, so I won’t blame you if you forgot.”

Indeed, you’d forgotten about your ‘first encounter’. Though, it didn’t mean you hadn’t passed by her in the hallways one or two times. And during those short meetings, you always caught the stray glances thrown in your direction. You didn’t think much of it at first, assuming that she was looking somewhere else. But when you spotted her lingering stare, you began to think that she had some kind of interest in you.

Again, you didn’t expect it to be romantic, either.

“Regardless,” she said, snapping you out of your thoughts. “I think we can be a great pair. Odd, but lovely.” Cocking her head, Sakura smiled. And despite the tenderness of her visage, the whisper of threat was flagrant to you. “You want that too, don’t you?”

[radioactive-rosh]

anyway to all the other picrew sluts out there: here are some not-people ones !! have fun using more of these to cope with how much u hate it here 🙃🙃🙃

part 1 ( ◜‿◝ )♡

[ladylynse]

@gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights​ my internet is working again this morning, so here’s your fic! As requested, I’ve expanded this three sentence fic. (Thanks again for your ko-fi donation!) Note that this is set after Miracle Queen.

Guidance [FF | AO3]: André wants the best for his daughter, wants to give her the world, but when he can't fix everything and make it right for her, the best he can do is try to nudge her along the right path.

-|-

“Your mom has to go away again,” André told his sniffing daughter as he sat down beside her on her bed, “but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. We both love you, and I’ll always be here for you, I promise.”

Chloé turned her tear-stained face towards him, lower lip trembling, and sobbed, “I’m never going to be enough for her, am I?”

“Don’t say that, princess.” He reached an arm around her and was relieved when she leaned into him instead of shrugging away. “Your mother has never liked to be pinned down in one place. She wants to travel, to see all the fashions of the world and make them her own.”

“But I could go with her,” came Chloé’s small, broken voice. “We could…we could both go, couldn’t we? As a family. So we can be together. Like…like families are supposed to be.”

“We will still be a family even if we have to be apart.” He knew it was hard. Nom de Dieu, but it was hard on him, too. He never wanted Audrey to leave, not really. Certainly not for as long as she did when he knew she had to go, but she wouldn’t stay, and she refused to cut her trips short. Not even for Chloé’s sake.

However much he might try to be there for Chloé, she needed her mother. He wasn’t enough for her. He couldn’t give her what she needed most. What she wanted.

Money couldn’t buy her happiness when all she truly wanted was to be acknowledged and openly loved by her mother.

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“I know. It’s hard. Sometimes, we have to let people go because we love them. With your mother, it’s not forever. We can count the days together till she’ll be back.”

“She’ll delay. She always does.”

He couldn’t very well argue that point. The only time Audrey hadn’t put off a return trip was the last time Gabriel Agreste had extended her a personal invitation to his fashion show.

“And I know why she’s leaving this time, anyway.” There was a catch in Chloé’s voice that she couldn’t hide. “It’s…it’s because of me. Because of what I did. Because I messed up. She would have started planning her trip the moment she found out what happened.” That wasn’t entirely untrue—Audrey had changed her mind about staying more quickly than he’d anticipated—but the truth was, she was always planning her next trip. “It’s why she won’t take me with her, too. Everyone in the city hates me, especially Ladybug and Chat Noir, and she doesn’t…she doesn’t want me to ruin her reputation!”

“Shh, shh, that’s not true, you know that’s not true,” André said, but Chloé was sobbing again. He handed her another tissue—he’d carefully folded half a dozen or so into his pocket before coming in here, knowing where this conversation would lead—and she blew her nose before tossing the sodden tissue to the floor with the others. He’d have to get the cleaning staff in here once he could convince her to leave her room, but she hadn’t left in days.

She would have been mortified to learn what had happened, to hear of everything she’d done. He knew his little girl; she could have been coaxed into agreement easily if Hawk Moth had promised her a means to get what she wanted, and he must have done just that. It was her soft spot, the chink in her armour. She tried to build a wall between herself and everyone else, but it wasn’t enough to protect herself.

André himself didn’t know everything that had happened. Chloé refused to talk about the situation, and the few clips shown on the news or posted to the Ladyblog had been taken primarily from security camera footage. That hardly told the whole story, but it was enough convince Chloé that everyone was against her. She had a better idea of how everything had transpired than the rest of them did, of course; he was lucky to even know she’d had a conversation with Ladybug afterwards. There were certainly no reports of that anywhere, and Chloé hadn’t told him more than the fact that she was no longer one of Ladybug’s fans and that it wasn’t necessary to have the bee signal repaired.

However, he knew how easy it was to fall prey to one’s most vulnerable thoughts, to listen to the voice that whispered and promised. He didn’t need to remember what he’d done after agreeing to Hawk Moth’s terms; it was enough that he was left with the impression, that sour taste in his mouth, that he’d wanted it, whatever it was. He knew he’d agreed to something. He knew, given what had happened, that he was more than likely to agree again. He loved this city, but he also knew he could be turned against it.

He didn’t know if anyone could refuse Hawk Moth, but Chloé would hardly believe that. She was blaming herself. Of course she believed that Audrey’s decision to leave again was her fault. It didn’t matter that she knew Audrey’s reasons, that this news had only been a matter of time in coming, even if it had come sooner than they had anticipated. Audrey’s mind was highly changeable, but the truth of that wouldn’t matter to Chloé. She simply looked at herself, saw failure, and had that impression reinforced by her mother’s leaving.

“Her work takes her away,” André said, “just as mine keeps me here. It’s better for you to have a stable—”

“I don’t want a stable environment!” Chloé shrieked, pulling away from him. “I’m tired of hearing you say that this is better for me. Look at what I did! What I tried to do! How can you see that and say that this must be better for me?”

“You weren’t yourself—”

“That’s not the point!” She jumped to her feet, stalking furious circles at the foot of her bed while he watched. “I…. Daddy, I wanted this. Wanted all of it. A…a part of me still does. And I know I don’t deserve it. I failed you and Mom, I failed Ladybug, I failed everyone, and I…. I ruined everything. I wanted to be better, to show Ladybug that I could be a real hero, and I just kept messing up.” She stopped pacing, her expression crumbling again. “Ladybug was right. I don’t deserve to be a hero.”

“Chloé, sweetheart, I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that.” He wasn’t even sure if Ladybug had said that, but that didn’t matter. The point was that Chloé believed she’d said it. “Everyone has the potential to be a hero.”

“Not me. I’ve proven that much.”

“You do.” He patted the bed beside him again, and she hesitated before sitting back down. “You might just need to learn to coax that part of you out more often. You are a marvellous Queen Bee, and Ladybug knows that.”

“I’m not. I…I did things I shouldn’t have done. I endangered people. I…. That’s not what heroes do. Ladybug will never let me be Queen Bee again. She’ll never…. She’ll never even let me near her, let alone trust me with anything.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I…. It was different this time. I remember everything. And even if I didn’t, I’ve seen the footage on the Ladyblog. The entire city has. Maybe the entire world. Everyone that matters, anyway. Everyone hates me, and I deserve it!”

“Just take a moment to breathe,” André said, knowing that outright telling his daughter to calm down would have the opposite effect. He should have known that Chloé didn’t really mean it about Ladybug. Once her anger had drained away, all that remained was guilt and regret. Whatever Ladybug had said, whatever Chloé had done…. “Despite our best efforts, we all make mistakes, and we can all be tricked. You’re no different. I’m no different. Ladybug herself is no different. If you work hard at it, you’ll be able to earn Ladybug’s trust again.”

Chloé shook her head. “No, I won’t. I’ve messed up too many times. I’ve…. I don’t deserve her trust, anyway. Just like…just like I don’t deserve for Mom to be around.”

“Oh, my little princess, it’s not like that at all.” André hugged Chloé to him again, rubbing her arm in what he hoped was a soothing manner. “Your mother would love to have you—”

“She doesn’t even remember my name.”

“That’s not true.”

“She doesn’t. She calls me everything but Chloé. She always has to catch and correct herself.”

André let out a slow breath. He should have known Chloé would notice that. “You remind her too much of your namesake, I think. Your aunt was smart as a whip, too, with a razor-sharp tongue and a stubborn streak unmatched by the rest of the family.”

Chloé picked at the sliver of bedspread between them. “I don’t really remember Auntie Chlo.”

André pressed a kiss into her hair. “You’re just like her. I think it’s hard for your mom sometimes. She’s just trying to give you room to grow out of your aunt’s shadow—and her own. I know it’s hard, I know it doesn’t seem like it, but she does know your name, Chloé, and she does love you.” He had talked to Audrey about this so many times, as much as they had ever talked in recent years. She never heard him out, always ignoring him or talking over him or changing the subject. He was certain she saw Chloé as a painful reminder of her sister, though if she spent any amount of time getting to know her own daughter, she’d realize Chloé was her own person. “We just want the best for you, to grow up into whoever you were meant to be. That road is rough sometimes. It’s rough for everyone. You just need to keep going and trust that things will get better.”

“But they won’t.”

“Yes, they will. Just take it one day at a time. And if you don’t think that’s working, fight for it one day at a time. I’m not saying it’ll be easy to earn Ladybug’s trust again, but I think it can be done. We haven’t seen the last of Queen Bee. She’s a hero of Paris; she’ll be back. I’ll help you find her again, princess. I’ll help you fight for her.”

Chloé sniffed. “Do you think Ladybug has a favourite charity?”

“You won’t buy her trust with money.” That was, unfortunately, another thing he couldn’t give his daughter.

“I know. I just….” Chloé shrugged. “Wouldn’t it be a start?”

“You could volunteer with a few different organizations across the city,” he suggested slowly, even as Chloé stiffened beneath him, clearly unimpressed. “Serve a meal at a soup kitchen, perhaps. Actions speak louder than words. And certainly louder than money, though of course we can make some donations as well. I simply think doing something to help the people of Paris will mean more to Ladybug.”

“But then all those people who are beneath me would—” Chloé broke off and pushed away from him. “That’s ridiculous, Daddy! Utterly ridiculous! I’m a Bourgeois. I don’t lower myself to that.”

“It will be a hard task for Chloé Bourgeois,” he agreed, meeting her eye, “but, in helping Paris, is it not something Queen Bee would do?” Should do, he silently corrected, but one never got anywhere by simply telling Chloé to do something.

Showing her the right path—or what he believed was the right path—was the only thing he could do to help her learn to recognize it for herself. He gave her as much as he could; he was quite sure, from the mutterings he overheard from the staff, that he gave her far more than he should. But this wasn’t a problem that could be solved with money or political pull, and Chloé knew that.

Just like he couldn’t make her mother stay, he couldn’t make Ladybug forgive her, let alone trust her.

Chloé opened her mouth and shut it without saying anything.

“We can write your mother every week and tell her what you’ve done. Every day, if you like. She’ll be so proud of you.”

Chloé crossed her arms and stared at her lap. “She won’t care. Neither will Ladybug. That would never be enough.”

“It doesn’t need to be enough. It only needs to be a start.”

Silence. But silence was better than shrill denials and demands that a better plan be proposed. Silence meant she was listening to him. Considering it, unpleasant though it may be to her. She knew he was no stranger to volunteer work. She knew, if she asked, that he could make a big deal of this, the mayor and his daughter volunteering to help the less fortunate of Paris. She could have the eyes of the city on her if she wished. She could have her name on people’s tongues for something other than a snide remark or derisive comment, holding her accountable for the actions she had taken under Hawk Moth’s influence—though he doubted anyone in the city didn’t know of someone who had been akumatized, even if they hadn’t had the misfortune themselves. Still, if Chloé asked, they could try to turn the public in her favour, feed her praise instead of harsh criticism, and make it far more likely that Ladybug would hear of her work.

But she didn’t ask.

And that, perhaps more than anything else, told him he might be getting through to her.

“I miss Mom already,” Chloé whispered. Her voice broke on the last word, and she began to cry again. André handed her a tissue (promptly fisted in one hand but otherwise ignored) and wrapped her in another hug.

Audrey wasn’t supposed to leave until tonight, but Chloé was right. Audrey didn’t like goodbyes, and she absolutely detested waiting. While he’d been talking to Chloé, she’d have called for a helicopter.

He didn’t know when she was supposed to come back. Not that knowing would help, really, because Chloé was right about that as well; any date she gave them now was highly unlikely to remain the date of her return.

He wasn’t sure how long he held his daughter before there was a quiet knock on the door. Not one of their servants—he knew their knocks as well as he knew their footsteps; he should really see about getting his office carpeted—but a familiar knock nonetheless. It seemed like so long since André had heard it.

Chloé had sent Sabrina away so many times that she’d set a standing order with the staff that Sabrina was not to be allowed in until she said so, but she had never made any such ban against her oldest friend.

Likely as not, she’d assumed he’d abandoned her, too.

“Chloé? May I come in?”

André said nothing, waiting for Chloé to answer, but all she did was hold her breath to try to silence her sobs.

“I know this is hard,” he murmured into her hair. “It’ll be good for you to be around your friends.”

“I don’t want him to see me like this,” she whispered back. “I’m not perfect right now.”

“He’s your friend, my little princess. You don’t need to be afraid to let him see you when you don’t feel at your best.”

“Chlo? I…I heard.”

He could be referring to Audrey’s leaving as much as he could be to what Chloé considered her disgrace; Audrey may well have informed his father about her plans before she’d told any of them. It hurt, thinking that she put business relations ahead of her family, even though he knew the reasons for it.

Or thought he did, anyway.

Sometimes, he wasn’t so sure.

Not that he’d ever let Chloé know that. She had enough on her plate.

“Please, I just…. Can we talk?”

André hugged his daughter tighter, feeling her relax into his arms and waiting for her nod. When she gave it, letting him know she was ready, he released her and got to his feet. It was easy enough to don a mask and pretend the wet patch on his shoulder didn’t exist; he’d had to do much the same too many times before. “Just a moment more, Adrien. You’ll have to forgive my old bones.”

There was laughter in Adrien’s eyes when André opened Chloé’s bedroom door. “You aren’t old, M. Bourgeois.”

“Perhaps not,” he agreed as he stepped into the hallway, “but I’m not feeling as young as I did when you were only up to my hip.” He clasped a hand onto Adrien’s shoulder, quieted his voice, and added, “You’ve grown into a fine young man, Adrien. Thank you for still being Chloé’s friend. I know she can be difficult at times, but she needs someone like you more than she realizes.”

Adrien’s smile held too much sorrow in it, and André’s heart ached for these kids. “I…I how she feels.” Adrien’s confession was hesitant, barely more voice than breath. “I know what it’s like to make mistakes and to love someone who isn’t there. I…. She’s my friend. I won’t abandon her.” He stepped back, out of André’s reach. “Please excuse me, M. Bourgeois.”

He ducked around André and into Chloé’s room, easing the door closed behind him.

André stood there a moment longer, even though he couldn’t hear the conversation within. Paris was changing so quickly these days, and its youth were growing up and changing with it. It made him wonder whether he should even run for re-election in the coming year or if he should step aside as mayor and let someone else step up. He was trying to be a good example for his daughter, but she seemed to have better role models than him.

Truly, if he and Audrey were Chloé’s role models, they had done her a poor service.

He could see about practicing what he preached, though. Perhaps a fundraiser for the homeless would be a good start. There were any number of issues he could call attention to, of course, but it would be a good reminder for Chloé. She always had a roof over her head and food in her belly; she could afford to remember that some had more pressing concerns than whether their drinks were chilled to precisely the right temperature.

“Sir?”

The tentative call came from one of the staff.

“Sir, I, ah, am sorry to inform you that your wife has decided she must leave immediately. Her bags are being packed as we speak, but perhaps, if you are inclined to hurry—?”

André blinked, surprised that Audrey wasn’t already gone. It was so rare that he had a chance to catch her before she left—and to try to talk her into staying for a few more days. For Chloé’s sake, of course. “Yes. Yes, please. Lead the way. Thank you.”

Thank you. It was something he hadn’t said enough. Hadn’t taught Chloé to say enough. But perhaps they could all learn from each other’s mistakes and try to do better.

Sometimes, the little things led to the biggest changes of all.

And he was sure that, despite all the changes he had seen so far, the greatest were yet to come.

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