#average soldier main

[mothmansbakery]

FUCKIN HAMBURGER

Me and @lovemug16 ‘s mains, they are in love ✨

Extras🦅🦅🦅

[media-illiterate]

Remember! In the fallout timeline, the UN stopped existing in the 2050s, and whatever semblance of "international law" existed went with them.

my last conversation before getting banned from nukapedia was getting screamed out of the room for saying i just assumed the Sole Survivor was a war criminal because he was an american soldier

[girl-lostconnection]

The thoughts are chasing me for the last few weeks or so, so now I’m gonna share them with you.

TaskForce 141 x Helldiver!Reader

141 who are getting higher clearance to find out about the whole entirely separate military branch that operate on intergalactic fucking levels.

And then they meet the Reader — always in armour, primary weapon slinged over their shoulder, heavy boots thudding on the metal of their ship as they jog from armoury to main panel, punching in coordinates.

141 don’t think they ever saw someone work this quickly with missions that never last more than 45 minutes at most, jogging through harsh terrain to work through every mission objective.

But still it seems doable. It doesn’t seem like anything too harsh they’ve seen on Earth. Not so different really. They don’t get why the soldiers of this branch are called “helldivers”.

Reader hums, voice getting distorted due to helmet they seem to be always in. Always ready for battle.

“Cause we dive feet first into hell”, they chuckle, rolling their shoulders before locking themselves down into the pod.

141 watching with growing worry the way the pod gets fucking launched down the orbit like a bloody missile. It’s a miracle the person inside even gets out upon collision. It’s a miracle they are in any state to fight.

But there is something wrong with the whole branch. Soldiers too young, heads too hot, missions too risky and weapons that are never provided. Most of ammunition helldivers buying themselves. Spending their own money to improve the state of the ship and their own weapons.

It’s not until 141 find out the horrifying statistic that colour drains from their faces, fingers cold and static-y.

Average lifespan of Helldivers in the field is less than half a minute.

Average age is 18 to 22 years old.

Continuation

[a-little-revolution]

what do you think about amethyst from steven universe as a little person?

Hello!! Yes I've mentioned Amethyst in passing, but I'd love to discuss her since I feel she's a great example of dwarfism within a non-human race!

Here we see that Amethyst is the same height as our main boy Steven (about 3 foot 5) and as Peridot who is average for her gem type.

In Steven Universe we establish that all the various gems have standard sizes that suit their professions and purpose - Amethysts are tall, broad, and intended as soldiers or guards. We learn that Amethyst was "born" late (emerged from her hole late) and is significantly smaller than she "should be". As a result, she faces a lot of internalized ableism wherein she feels incredibly alienated from her kind - it's a major point of character growth throughout the show. She later comes to find that there are other gems of differing sizes and "off colours", and that her fellow Amethysts embrace her completely.

This to me is a great example of dwarfism within a non-human species! There are clear rules set up that can then be broken by our Little character, her design is excellent, and her character arch is incredibly humanizing!

[solbaby7]

Sweet Thing

pairing: rhysand x reader

[ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]

part 4 of the shy!reader massage mini series

warnings: swearing, sexual implications, possible violence, jealousy, gambling, male egos, petnames (bc being called bunny is so cute and soft, fight me on it)

summary: Your High Lord hosts a party with a dozen hothead Illyrian soldiers where you become the main attraction

—

“Stay close,” Rhysand murmurs in your ear, a warm hand pressed at the low of your back to guide you into the large room. It’d been recently renovated; not yet decorated and you'd assumed it was turned into a makeshift meeting area, a giant table pushed in the middle with a dozen chairs wrapped around it. It was also the furthest room from your own—a little detail that Rhys quickly bristled over when you'd mentioned it earlier. “Wanted to keep my good luck charm close by tonight.”

Your cheeks warm under the words, annoyingly aware of how sensitive your body had become in response to the High Lord since that night. It haunted your every breath; his barely contained need, the throbbing cock just a few measly layers away from being everything you’d ever dreamed of and Rhysand fed off of it like ravenous wolves who'd been starved three winters over. The teasing was merciless; heated touches and sinful words of remembrance haughtily whispered in your ear when you were supposed to be concentrating.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about.” You shy out of his touch, the hunger in his voice unmistakable and creating distance is easy when the others begin to filter in. A dozen or so pristinely dressed males of all sizes briefly greet Rhysand, hands clapping at each others backs and the testosterone that filtered in was thick enough to suffocate. They were friends; guys he’d fought and bled with, people he’d known for hundreds of years all gathered for card games and expensive glasses of liquor.

You were only there to help, to look pretty and shuffle the cards and stay close to Rhys—easy enough. “I’m thinking I should’ve dressed better.”

His fingers trace over the pleated pattern of your skirt, the soft purple fabric teasing at the middle of your thigh and all he can smell is some fruit on your skin—pomegranate? pear? “You look perfect, don’t worry about all them. You’ll be collecting their money for me by the end of the night.” Rhys is touchy; shamelessly so in front of others and you notice a few of the guests beginning to take you in, their stares raking up your form, sizing you up and you can feel Azriel shift closer from beside you.

"You always did have the prettiest little things hanging off your shoulder, Rhysand." Your head slowly turns to face the drawling voice, male entitlement and an incredulous amount of confidence seeping from every pore. Handsome and wealthy, but the allure dies the moment his mouth opens. The tailored suit alone was worth three months of the average faes rent and then some. "You have to tell me where you found this one."

Rhys laughs but you can tell there's no real humor behind it, his hand raising to wrap around your waist and pull you in closer; enough for your thighs to skim on the arm rest of his chair. The body language is possessive no matter how casual it’s intended to be and you catch Cass and Az sharing a look—mentally agreeing to pounce when they deemed fit.

Like salivating lions dressed in sheep's clothing.

"Couldn’t tell you, Maverick, she just stumbled in my lap."

He's trying to hold back for the benefit of the greater good—that was the whole point of inviting them over in the first place. Even after Mor had insisted that it was the dumbest idea ever inviting a dozen ill-tempered Illyrian soldiers and filling them up with booze. "I'd love to see her stumble in mine."

Your reaction is instinctual after feeling the High Lord's shoulders tense under your fingers and in seconds your hands are gently kneading at the muscle there, a palm running soothing lines up the length of his back and manicured nails scratch wonderfully at the nape of his neck until a bit of that darkness subsided. With a hum, you gently push his hand from your waist, backing away with a pitch only audible to him, "Gonna grab you guys some drinks."

"I'll help." You don't even try denying the spymaster, more than familiar with his customs and how unbearably uncomfortable he got once you started taking care of large groups of people. Az was always the first to say thank you when you served dinner and always made sure to wait until you sat down and took the first bite before even touching his fork.

He's quiet behind you, busying his hands with polishing the glasses you'd lined up and his shadows follow you around like a clingy pet but you understand why he's there—a silent promise that he'd have your back the entire night. That you’d never be left alone.

Azriel watches you pour a six-hundred year old bottle of amber liquor one knuckle deep for every cup besides one—that one got double and a single ice cube. Just how the High Lord liked it. "It's going to be fine," You tell him softly, storing away the rest of the bottle and you don't fight the smile that pulls when he stops you from carrying anymore than three glasses—brunting the rest of the work on the shadows. "Just a few hours and it'll all be over."

Azriel only hums but there's an underlying gratefulness for not having to speak or explain and his protectiveness towards you grows at how easily you understand him—adapting to his moods with ease.

He returns to his seat, shadows wisping their thanks over the length of your calf and a sweet smile is sent Cassian's way when he presses a grateful kiss to your hand. You turn to go back to Rhys, one final drink in your hand and you can feel Maverick's eyes trailing you, undressing you, touching and lusting from afar but he might as well have been shouting it across the room from the top of his lungs. "Come sit, bunny. And shuffle the deck, will you? They think I cheat."

"We know you do." Another male chuckles over the rim of his glass, blue eyes sharp and tawny curls tickle at the sides of his ears—Cade, you learn after a few minutes of listening in silence. You sift through the deck, righting the cards and splitting them in two before shuffling once, twice, a third time before you set it before you to be split by another. “Look at the hands on this one,” Cade poorly whispers to Maverick, shoulders bumping playfully and you felt like you were being hunted, ganged up on—eaten alive by males who didn’t follow the same code as the ones you hung around. “I bet they get the job done quite nicely.”

Rhysand has no time to respond because Cass is already doing it; gold battles with blue, large hands broadcasted before him and the General looks down at them to peer like a high maintenance woman after her nail appointment. “You should look at mine,” Crimson red Siphons glow with life on his arms; all seven of them, most hidden by the dark long sleeved shirt he wore but the message got across rather quickly. “I’m sure they’ll do it much better.”

You shift in Rhys’ lap, settling into the hands splayed around your waist, the other trails ticklish lines up the length of a bare arm and you’re grateful for how quickly the conversation shifts. “What do I do now?”

The low cadence of his voice rumbles against your back, hair gently pushed off one shoulder to make room for the chin that settles there. His instructions are thorough and intended to be purely informational but the smell of his cologne, the large hands sliding down lower to rub at the sides of your thighs and you’re unbearably aware of the plush of your ass nestled right atop of him. Cards are dealed, the rest left in a pile and you slowly draw three, facing them upright and most of the rest is a bit of a blur.

Every now and then Rhys will lean closer to mumble about what was going on but mostly it was just a room full of drunk males and their money. They cursed like sailors and laughed like hyenas, a chorus of voices overlapping the other until the liquor took its course and the true personalities settled in.

At some point you stand, hands grazing the back of Rhys’ neck when you mutter something about grabbing a snack. You’re not far, maybe a few feet away, body just barely obscured by the wall that separates them and the kitchen while you pile a plate full of finger food to snack on; fruit, mini sandwiches, warm meats wrapped in flaky dough and you’re pulled away from your focus when a voice clears. “There you are,” Maverick doesn’t look shitfaced but the liquor was definitely taking its toll, his steps a little unsteady and he slurred the s’s in his words. “How about you come rub my shoulders for me, sweet thing?”

Your brows furrow, mouth opening to give a response when the males hand raises to trace the line of your collarbone, you freeze. Four fingers graze over your shoulder and slowly moves down the length of your arm. “I don’t think—“

“I’m not asking you to think, sweet thing.” Your stomach churns, discomfort evident in the way you crane away from his touch but Maverick doesn’t care—as if unreciprocated want wasn’t an issue for him. “I’m telling you to come over here and offer up some of that treatment you’ve been feeding those three,” His eyes feel like hands in the way they roam your body, catching on bare skin and practically salivating to see the rest. “Swear I’ll return the favor.”

Your heart hammers in your chest and anxiety swells—you really should’ve just stayed put, the food in your hand threatening to spill to the floor with the intensity of your shaking but Maverick feels so close and you can smell his cologne; the whiskey. “I should get back to Rhys.” It’s no more than a whisper but when you try to slink past him, a hand clamps tightly around your arm, roughly tugging you back.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

A whimper escapes and just like that the kitchen explodes with darkness; relief overtakes your form as familiar hands tug you close and the arms that tuck you in close feel right—safe. Safe enough to not notice the warm spray of wetness that splatters against the back of your legs until you hear the steady drip,drip, dripping on the floor. Your head turns but before you can look Rhysand is tucking you in tighter, full lips pressing kisses to the top of your head. “Don’t look—let’s just get you cleaned up.”

“What about the others?”

“Cassian and Azriel will handle them,” The High Lords voice isn’t nearly as calm as you remember and it’s only when you’re halfway down the hallway does he loosen his grip a bit, turning you to face him to begin his assessment. “Did he hurt you? Did he fucking touch you?”

You can’t form words, realization beginning to form when you see blood splattering your clothes but you manage to shake your head. “He just grabbed me—Rhys did you—“

“I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“It was just a second.”

“A second longer and he could’ve—“ He stops himself from saying more; too afraid to make the words reality or too pissed to have to verbalize them but Rhys lets out a deep breath when he can find no damage besides a hint of a bruise. “I should’ve taken my time.”

You don’t need to ask to know what he means.

Instead, you place a palm on his cheek in hopes to ground him, to remind the High Lord that you were safe. Violet eyes soften, silver flecks catching in the light and it takes everything in you not to buckle beneath him when he looks at you like that—like it was nothing to kill for you. “Let’s go, I’d say it’s about time you return the favor and give me a massage.”

Mischief glints in those eyes, a smirk curling at the corner of full lips. “I can’t promise I’ll remain professional.”

“That’s sort of what I’m counting on.”

[fanaticsnail]

SNAILLL!DROP ANOTHER KILLER or /KID FIC! AND MY LIFE IS URS🙏

honestly love all ur work💛🙈

But why can't we have both?

Acid, Salt, Fat and Heat

Masterlist Here

Word Count: 5,600+

Synopsis: Your captain has engaged with a petulant challenge that included refusing to make port until both Kid and Law did first. Feeling pent up at sea, you set your sights on the blonde first mate to aid you in finding relief. The catch? He won't unless his captain does too.

Warnings: Eustass Kid x afab!reader x Massacre Soldier Killer, MDNI, 18+, smut, NSFW, throuple, with little plot, double penetration (same hole), facial (reader receiving), eating from the back (reader receiving), cock sucking, poor puns, poor jokes, vibrator play, swearing, pet names (little one, little thing, kitten, Straw-Hat, buttercup, sunshine), messy eating, masked sex, fingering, finger sucking, inappropriate use of devil fruit, size difference (average afab 163cms, Kid & Killer 200cms), praise, cervix touching, Killer has a shrill laugh, overstimulation, aftercare, creampie, squirting.

Notes: the smuttiest smut I have written on main. Shout out to the OC discord chat and @thenotsofantasticlifestory for their input! Love you guys 🖤

“You sure you can handle it, kitten?” Eustass Kid purred at you, reaching his right arm up to flick at your chin. His purple-hued fingernails colliding with your skin caused shivers to shoot down your spine and ignite your senses with anticipation.

Looking up at him through your eyelashes, you nodded your head slowly with your lips parted. He hummed down at you, his close-lipped smile splitting up his cheeks and his eyes narrowing to assess you further. Leaning down to a lower stoop, he hovered his painted lips above yours. The heat of his breath tingled against your skin, your body moving against its will to draw ever closer to the man in front of you.

As you drew yourself closer, the two arms of the man behind you clapped over your upper arms and tugged you flush into his chest. A soft gasp fled your lips, head tilting back and glancing up at the base of the blue and teal mask above your vision. Gulping back a soft mouthful of saliva, you began to double back on your prior over eagerness to engage with not one, but two, very eager playmates.

It had been a while since the Victoria Punk had docked at port, the entire crew feeling exceptionally pent up and in need to release their energy. Engaging in trysts amongst the crew was not unheard of, but it was uncommon. Ruining camaraderie and rapport was the main reason for the lack of entanglements, and Eustass Kid did not want to lose any more of his crew to their own broken heartedness.

Similarly to you, the crew of the Thousand Sunny were not helpful with catering to your needs. Luffy refused to make port due to the fact that both Kid and Law had yet to dock the Tang and the Punk. He was not going to lose to them, no matter how much you were in desperate need of relief.

When the three ships had brushed their hulls together, ropes thrown over the sides and knots tugged firmly to pull them flush against one another, you were bursting at the seams to at least talk to someone who was not a member of your crew. Shachi and Penguin were always a delight, and you couldn't get enough of their chaos.

However, when the blonde first mate of the Kid Pirates stepped over the barricade of the Thousand Sunny with a large pot of pasta, you were just about ready to spread your legs and have him take you on the dining table. Sanji was an excellent cook, but there was something about the blonde’s pasta that made you weak in the knees.

You had never engaged intimately with any member of the other two crews before, but the neediness pooling and soaking your underwear at the first bite of penne encouraged you to be a little bolder in your intentions. Killer was your first target to attempt to woo your way into his pants, but in doing so, it only attracted the magnetic presence of Eustass “Captain” Kid in the process.

“Fucking hell, Massacre Soldier!” you moaned, chewing back on the aldente texture of the cylindrical tubes, “Whoever said sex was the best thing invented hasn't tried this fucking pasta!”

That earned you a shrill giggle from the larger man, alongside a barked laugh from his captain a little further away. You beamed at the redhead, scrunching your nose playfully at him before the blonde recalled your attention.

“If you think my pasta is good,” the larger blonde huffed down at you, leaning closer to your ear, “You should see what else I can do with just a few ingredients.” You giggled at his comment, genuinely enjoying his comradery beside you.

“Oh yeah?” you arch your brows up at him, gently leaning in closer and brushing your thigh against the outside of his, “Tell me, big guy, what ingredients can you see yourself toying with here?” Killer twitched his head to the side, not expecting this kind of sultriness from a Straw-Hat.

Turning on the wooden pew beside you, he cupped the back of your thigh with his larger hand and gave your flesh a gentle squeeze. He gave you a little pause to test how far he was allowed to pursue you, which you would've appreciated in any other encounter. You were simply too pent up to care, arching your back and sucking your lips into your mouth to still the spread of your smile.

“See, I'm easy,” he hums down at you, “Every good recipe has four main ingredients: acid, salt, fat, and heat.” You nod along to his explanation, your brows knitting together as his fingers brush up and down your thigh before clasping around your hip. Holding your bone firmly, he tugs you towards him and engulfs your form with his larger chest.

“You think you can take my fat cock, little one?” he hushed down at you, causing your fluster to rise higher in your face. He hummed at your reaction, bringing his other hand up to capture your chin, “See, now there's the heat. You're practically radiating with it. I bet your pussy would be just as warm.” His thumb caressed the ball on your hip.

“A-And the acid and salt?” You managed to stutter, prompting Killer to raise his hand on your chin to cup your cheek.

“I think we both know about the salt,” he cooed at you, “What I wouldn't give to pump you full of my load. I could fill you up, or use it like a glaze over your perfect skin.” Your eyes widened and your body moved closer to his against its will.

Your underwear was sticking to your pussy with how wet his words made you. Pressing your thighs together for some relief, you could barely tear your eyes away from his mask for a single moment.

“The acid is where it gets a little tricky,” he traces his hand over your cheek and down your jaw once more. He gently pushed your face away from his and drew your attention towards the redheaded captain of the Victoria Punk.

“My Cap’n gets bitter and sour if he's left out of the mix.”

The amber eyes of Eustass Kid looked dangerously over your form from across the deck. Every part of him was solid and tense, the pure lust and jealousy radiating on him like a beacon illuminating complete darkness.

“You reckon you've got a way we can both fit, little one?” he whispered into your ear, the cool puff of air tickling your ear. You shudder, closing your eyes and giving into your desires with a soft moan.

“With the right chef doing the prep work,” you whimper, “I can think of several ways I can fit the both of you, big guy.”

“That's a good little thing,” he complimented you, the smile tangibly felt in his tone, “I'll make sure you're prepped for both of us. Once we're all done with our actual food, go and give him a kiss for me, would you?”

Not tearing your eyes away from Eustass Kid, you nod dumbly and slowly. Kid is taken aback by your action: cocking his head to the side, narrowing his eyes, and furrowing his brows. Darting his attention between you and Killer, he finally has the thought bloom in his mind and shoot straight to his cock.

He was going to fuck his little Straw Hat with his first mate.

And that is where you found yourself, wedged between two broad chests and grabby hands in the captain's quarters aboard the Victoria Punk. The red tint of Eustass Kid's lips finally collided with your mouth as he pressed himself against you. Desperation and neediness arose in you all, Kid's arm snaking around your shoulder prompted Killer to bring his hands down to the front of your pants.

As Kid’s tongue entered your mouth, Killer dipped his fingers beneath your waistline and immediately slipped his fingers between your glossy folds. You whimper into the mouth of Kid, prompting him to chuckle and consume your moans with more fervor. Growling into your lips, he tugged you closer to him while tilting his pointed chin up to get a better angle.

While tugged closer to Kid, Killer's fingers ground themselves against your clit in small circles. The pads of his large fingertips rocked against your hooded pearl and caused your slit to gush out a fresh wave of arousal. You parted your lips to mewl into Kid's mouth, which caused his teeth to seek out and bully your lower lips with soft nips.

“Fuck, our little one is so wet, Cap’n,” Killer gasped behind you, “I think I can make them cum just like this-...” He increased his speed, flickering your sensitive nerves with each different motion. Kid pulled his lips away from yours, a string of saliva attaching to both his and your lips with the soft tint of red paint lingering within.

“You gonna cum, kitten? You want the big guy to make you cum on his hand?” Kid goaded you, prompting you to pout at him. He removed his hand from your shoulder and pinched your chin in his thumb and index finger.

“Look at me while he makes you cum,” he ordered you, looking down his nose at you as your body continued to be worked at by Killer behind you. As much as you wanted to hold back from submitting to his request, one more swipe at your clit had your pussy contracting and fluttering with the overwhelming bliss of your orgasm.

“F-Fuck,” you stuttered, holding your eyes against Kid's as Killer continued to usher you through ecstasy. Slouching your back against Killer, you keened into his neck as he held you firmly against his chest. His forearm rocked against your chest, prompting you to buck your hips into his hands.

“There you go, little one,” Killer cooed down at you, slowing down his rocking to a steady pause. Running his fingers through your oversensitive folds causes you to shudder and mewl at the sensation. Withdrawing his hand up in front of you, he scissors the glistening slick on his fingertips.

“Fuck, look at that,” Kid gasped, his former abrasive attitude melting away as soon as he saw your essence, “Give us a taste, would you?” Killer offered Kid his hands, Kid making eye contact with you as he parted his lips and swirls his tongue over Killer’s fingers.

Humming, he immediately closes his eyes and cleans Killer’s fingers with his lips and tongue. Killer huffs out a sigh, bucking his hips and grinding his clothed cock against your ass, his neediness growing the longer he holds off from sinking himself into you. Kid pulled his lips off Killer’s fingers with a soundly ‘pop’ before looking up into your face once more.

“You need to get prepped before you take the both of us, kitten. All fours for me, would you?” Kid ushered you over to his large bed, the duvet astray and pillows askew, “Pants off, sunshine. Lemme see it all.” Killer whimpered at your absence, his cock aching and twitching beneath his pants.

The three of you were all as needy as one another, your pussy already dripping with desire thanks to Killer's earlier words, and coaxing an orgasm from you by just rubbing your clit alone. Your pants and shirt were cast aside hurriedly, your chest now exposed and nipples peaked within the cool air. Hooking your fingers into the hips of your underwear, you began pulling them over your ass slowly. The groin of the material stuck to you, the dark patch of arousal from your core painted the center and dampened the fabric.

“Fuck, you're so wet,” Kid stuttered out, his voice breathy and body immediately sauntering over to you with desperation in his footing, “Where do you want, Kil? You want our little Straw-Hat’s pussy, mouth, or ass?” You could barely register any words, arching your back and planting your head onto Kid’s mattress as they discussed what to do with you.

“Wherever you don't want, Cap’n,” he whispered huskily, his eyes hungrily consuming your body with his pointed gaze, “Fuck, that ass does look good, though.” Kid laughed at his oldest friend, clapping his right hand over his right shoulder while pressing a curt kiss against his right.

“Go put their head in your lap, hm?” Kid directed his first mate, “Hear that, kitten? You're gonna suck Killer's cock and treat him right.” You begin to raise your head off the bed, halting when you felt a metal casing cage around your stomach and hold you flush against the mattress. The ringing of belts and dropping of heavy materials on the floor indicated your two bed guests had shed themselves of their clothes.

Kid's metal hand elevated you effortlessly, your face growing more flustered as you felt him pant against your pussy from behind. Killer crawled into the bed, your hands hastily drawing his large thighs closer to you. Nestling your head between his thighs, your eyes drank in the pretty cock bobbing in front of you. Without any further word or direction, your smaller hands wrapped around his large cock and your lips found his inner thigh.

Chasing a trail of kisses over his inner legs, you ground your palm against his cock before pumping his shaft. Killer panted, his cock involuntarily twitching and bobbing with every subtle change you made. Drawing yourself up onto your forearms, you lulled your tongue outside your lips and licked a heavy stripe along the underside of his cock. Following the bulbous vein up his shaft, you flickered your tongue over his blunt tip and collected the first few drops of precum onto your palate.

As soon as you parted your lips to take his knob into your mouth, you cried out as you felt your folds part by Eustass Kid’s large, red tongue. Your eagerness to take Killer’s cock into your mouth multiplied tenfold, using him as a tool to ground yourself to the earth while the motion of Kid's tongue had you ascending. Flicking and bobbing his head, Kid mouthed at you, rolling your sensitive clit over his tongue and sucking briefly on whatever took his fancy.

You had never engaged with anyone so eager to please you with their mouth, feeling yourself truly unable to hold back the rocking of your hips into his face as you began to take Killer's cock into your mouth. Filling your lips with Killer's fat tip, you whimpered and keened around it as Kid rocked your body against his face with his cool metal arm.

“Fuck, little one,” Killer gasped for you, his hand falling down to cradle your scalp and coax you to bob against him, “You feel so good. How you doing back there, Cap'n?” All Kid could find in his coherence was a groan at the back of his throat, too drunk on your essence to give either of you an answer.

Taking what you could of Killer's cock in your mouth, you pumped the remainder of the base with one hand, while the other caressed his balls.

“Hhah-... F-fuck-... I-I-...” Killer threw his head back, bucking his hips up to fill more of your mouth with his fat cock, “...-I don't know how long I'll last like this. Fuck, little one. Who taught you how to suck cock like that?” You attempted to giggle at him, only halting as you felt Eustass Kid pull away from your pussy to spit on it. You whimpered, feeling his lips dive back in and flicker over your clit.

You had half a mind to talk to Killer and tease him, but Kid’s skilled lips and tongue had your mind foggy and clouded by each fell swipe. The coil in your abdomen began to stir and tighten to a tense pinnacle, just as Killer felt his balls twitch and draw up into his stomach. Kid’s tongue pressed against your entrance, lapping messily and greedily into your slit while humming and moaning at the taste of your arousal.

“Nghhm-... F-Fuck! Stop- I'm gonna c-cum!” Killer attempted to warn you, already past the point of halting his eruption while desperately trying not to cum in your mouth. Tugging at your scalp to halt you, you managed to shake your head and bob it faster over his shaft. “No, no, no, no, no-...” He stuttered, finally getting a foothold on your head and hastily tugging you away from his cock.

Just as your lips left his knob, you couldn't help but desperately pump his shaft as Kid has you unravel on his tongue. The coil in your stomach snapped and your walls spasmed around his tongue with the first waves of your orgasm. Massacre Soldier Killer held the back of your head in a firm cradle, his cock twitching as you pumped him. Your thumb flicked over his tip, which switched the final channel of lust in Killer's stomach and had him cry out for you.

His cum shot out and immediately splashed over your forehead, cheek, and chin in thick ropes. The milky-colored seed littered your skin in hot splashes, immediately causing you to cum harder against Kid’s face and tongue.

“Shit!” Killer cursed at the sight laid out before him. His captain's face buried deep within your thighs, lapping greedily and messily at your walls while he coated your face in his thick cum. Each splash from Killer seemed to propel you to cry out and cum harder against Kid's face, truly basking in the fact he couldn't contain himself or force himself back from that edge.

Both riding your highs down, Kid gave your clit a quick kiss before bringing himself up to the sight above him. Killer's chest rose and fell in a thick pant, his cock still proudly standing as it dribbled with the soft aftershocks of his release. Your face was riding the blissful waves of a soft afterglow directly after contorting in ecstasy. Lips parted, eyes closed, and face completely covered in several waves of Killer’s heavy load.

“Fuck, big guy,” Kid chuckled at his first mate, “There’s so much.” Kid gives your ass a gentle slap as he crawls up to hover over your back. “So messy, kitten,” he commented on your face, “Hand us a tissue would you, Kil?”

“I-... I got it…” Killer panted, reaching to the bedside table to the right of him. Tearing four leaves in hasty consecutive motions, he drew the material to your face and began dabbing at the cum while Kid rubbed his hand along your back and traced every dip and crevace along your spine.

Several fragments of the tissue paper stuck to your face, prompting you to giggle up at the big guy as he cleaned you.

“Sorry about that, little one. I tried to warn you it was gonna happen,” he spoke in a low and warm tone, “What would you have preferred, me cumming in that beautiful mouth of yours?”

“I would prefer it if you came in my pussy, honestly,” you admit with a shrug, causing Kid to let out a sound between a growl and a whimper. Kid gave you a final dab of the cheeks before giving your nose a gentle, affectionate tap.

“You'll still get some in your pussy if you want it,” Killer cooed at you, turning you to face Kid as he knelt back. His red lip paint spilt over his lipline, the juices of your release glistening against his chin and nose. Smirking up at him, you barely had the opportunity to raise your hand before he pounced on you.

Pushing your back flush against Killer’s chest, Kid rose your hips and sat you on Killer’s Adonis belt above his deflating cock. Eustass Kid’s angry cock twitched it's shaft as he caged both you and Killer beneath his looming form.

“Feeling adequately prepped for me, kitten?” Kid purred down at you, playfully nudging your chin with his forehead to push your head back to lull into Killer’s shoulder, “Or should I fuck you with my metal hand to stretch you a bit?”

“I can take your cock, Captain,” you scoff, attempting to look down at his steely shaft, only for him to push you back down into Killer’s shoulder once more.

“You say that now,” Kid cackled at you, rubbing his tip against your folds before placing the tip at your entrance, “...but once I sink in a little-.” He rocked his hips forward a little,

“-Ah, fuck!” you cry out at the stretch, prompting him to immediately pull his cock head away from your entrance. Killer wrapped his hands around your waist, soothing circles into your skin with his thumbs. Kid and Killer both share a glance with one another, communicating wordlessly before Kid placed his tip at your entrance one more time.

As he slowly pressed his mushroomed knob into your needy cunt, Killer reached his hands down to pry your folds apart with the heels of each palm, seeking out your clit and gently caressing it with his thumbs. Immediately your body relaxes and your hips rock against each roll of his digits in your clit. Kid sunk himself down further, eyes not leaving your face as he watches intently for any discomfort.

“There you go, little one,” Killer praised you, enjoying the feeling of your ass rocking against his Adonis belt, “Taking the Cap'n so well. Good job, just a little more.” Kid fought back the urge to slam his hips forward and immediately sheathe himself in your gummy walls. Using each fiber of his being to not give in to the temptation, he inched himself slowly into your needy core.

“You're doing well too, Cap'n,” Killer hummed up at the redhead, “Being gentle with our little Straw Hat, while I know you want to give in.” Kid whimpered, pressing his goggle-adorned forehead against your chest to hide his fluster. Gently rocking forward, your back bowed as you finally felt him press up to the hilt.

Giving a testy buck of his hips, Killer ensured both you and Kid felt secure enough while still gently rubbing circles against your clit. Kid felt your walls flutter and adjust to his size.

“Nggh-... Fuck…” Kid whispered against your flushed skin, pressing a soft kiss against the bone in the center of your chest. “...why haven't we done this sooner again?” He chuckled into your chest, rolling his head up and resting his chin at the center.

“Because we haven't been desperate enough to try?” you offered him with an arched brow. He huffed aggitatedly, rolling his hips against yours and testing the stretch. Killer braced you against him, holding you completely against his broad chest and taught stomach muscles.

“Fuck,” you keen for Kid, feeling the way each rake of his cock inside you molded you to the shape of him, “That, and I didn't think you were interested in fucking a Straw Hat.”

Kid stopped his movements, sheathing himself to the hilt within your pussy and turning your chin with his flesh hand. Your eyes met his through fluttered lids, examining his expression with curiousity. He drew his face towards yours, all prior cockiness melting away and a stern seriousness left in its stead.

“We don't want to fuck a Straw Hat,” he uttered, his lips almost brushing with yours, “We want to fuck our Straw Hat.” You only had a moment to react to the admission before Kid started properly rocking his hips into you. No more timidity, no more subtlty, all of Eustass Kid’s hulking form finally giving in to his feral urges now that you had fully adjusted to his size.

“Our little Straw Hat,” he growled into your skin, pressing his lips to your neck and mouthing at the skin, “Our spicy little kitten,” he chuckled into you, cementing and punctuating his exclaim with a crude slap of his hips meeting your pelvis. Killer let out a squeak of laughter at that comment, to which you would've laughed along with him if Eustass Kid wasn't slapping his balls against your unexplored ass hole with each heavy, deep thrust.

Killer hummed down at you, removing his hand from between you both in favour of hooking his legs beneath your thighs and raising them to your chest. Kid rose his right leg, trapping Killer’s leg beneath him and changing the angle of each stroke. You mewled out, gasping for air as Killer exposed more of your pussy for Kid to drive into. Killer never took his eyes off you, insuring you were enjoying the feeling of how deep Kid burried himself into you with each buck and rock.

As you adjusted to the depth of his deep rocking, Kid hooked his other leg over Killer's, crouching in a deep lunge. His motions were now so deep, you felt your air being pushed from your throat, and his bulge deep in your abdomen. Kid's lips parted, huffing and panting with his eyes scrunched tightly shut. The crude, squelching ‘plap,’ of his balls slapping against your overstimulated pussy was enough for Killer’s cock to twitch back to life, his own empathetic waves of pleasure coiling in the pit of his stomach.

Your lips parted, brows raising to a peak at the center of your face as you felt Kid finally hit your g-spot with each crude hook of his blunt tip. Your collective moans grew louder, all carelessly flinging them from your chests as you raised your hand up to cup at Kid’s neck.

“Fuck, I-I’m gonna cum! F-F-Fuck- I'm cumming,” Kid cried out, his cock twitching and motions drawing into a manic pace. You barely had any chance to catch up to him, feeling far too overwhelmed by the depth of his cock to properly contract around him. Hot waves of his thick release blew out of his small slit and splashed back against your cervix. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he changed with each languid thrust, falling into his knees and continuing to rock into you. You moaned with him, feeling his release coat your walls with each motion.

Killer couldn't stop what happened next, his body reacted of his own accord. As Kid pulled out, Killer’s fully erect cock danced at your entrance. Kid looked down at Killer's cock brushing against his knob and smirked at him.

“You reckon you can handle both now?” Kid asked with a chuckle in his tone. You were simply too out of it and desperate for your third release that you nodded without any afterthought. Kid reached down and pressed his cock against Killer's, Killer moaning at the immediate attention.

Squeezing his still drooling cock with his first mate's, Kid placed both tips at your slit. Using his prior release as lubrication, Kid rocked both Killer's and his own shiny tips into your slit. You have a soft whine at the stretch, but immediately nodded while bracing Kid's body against yourself. Kid moaned into one shoulder, while Killer hissed in the other. Both cocks slowly stretched your walls, the soft sting of your body accommodating them aided with your’s and Kid's prior release.

Only making it halfway into your pussy, Killer began to set a lazy pace inside you, brushing his frenulum against Kid’s and gasping at the feeling. You felt the most full you had ever been, sandwiched between two walls of flesh on a foreign ship, and taking two cocks deep into your pussy.

Kid pulled his head away from your shoulder to check in with you, sensing any discomfort from you by darting his eyes all over your face. He tilted his head at you, a small thought crossing his mind and causing him to chuckle.

“Mind if I try something, kitten?” he whispered in your ear, giving your skin a soft kiss after you shake your head in response.

“We're already trying a lot of new things for me,” you attempted to laugh along with your confession, huffing out while Killer rocks his cock deep inside you. Kid grins broadly, raising his hand and activating his devil fruit ability. Soaring through the air were six, small, egg-shaped objects no bigger than your thumb.

“This is gonna be new for all of us,” Kid nodded nonchalantly, his cock already twitching with interest while half-sheathed within you. You felt each rock of Killer’s hips press Kid’s knob against your g-spot, causing your walls to flutter and constrict both of them deep within you. Just as you felt yourself build up to your third climax, two of the objects attached themselves to your clit and vibrated them with a hard intensity. Two more were placed on each of the two men's balls as they buried their cocks in syncopated rhythm.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!” you screamed, your pussy immediately releasing a gush of fluid directly splashing against Kid’s pelvis and Killer’s thighs. Kid gasped in surprise, groaning against the feeling of your walls fluttering against his and Killer’s cocks.

“We've got ourselves a squirter!” Kid laughed, immediately rocking with more intension, craving more immediately. “Hear that, big guy? A squirter!”

Killer was completely lost, his mind foggy and need for release causing him to whimper and whine out soft squeaks. Kid barked a soft string of laughter, riding your pussy through the waves of absolute overstimulation, increasing the intensity of the vibrating bulbs on your clit and his and Killer's balls.

“One more, one more, one more,” Kid desperately chanted, feeling his own release propel forward at the knowledge he can make you cum hard enough to splash him with it. Killer gripped your thighs harder, bucking up into your pussy with a desperation he had not felt prior. You were experiencing an outer body encounter, your body flooded with pleasure. Still riding through the waves of your prior release, you felt another creep up onto you.

“You gonna cum? You gonna cum, kitten?” Kid asked, his balls slapping against Killer's as they both thrust up into you, “You gonna squirt on our cocks again? C'mon little one. You've got more for me. Just one more. I'll cum with you, baby. You want that?” You nodded dumbly, feeling your body becoming as pliant as a marionette dancing on Kid and Killer's strings.

Kid increased the intensity of the vibrations one last time, prompting Killer to roar into your shoulder immediately. Hot spurts of his release splashed up and swirled against Kid’s former waves. The chain reaction of Killer’s release caused both you and Kid to cum alongside him. As Kid shot up into you, you released another gush of fluid over Killer’s thighs with enough power to splash against Kid’s stomach and trickle down his balls.

“Just like that, just like that,” Kid praised you, manicly rocking into you with each spurt of his cum dancing with the three fluids.

“Fu-ck!” you keened, crying tears of pleasure down your cheeks at the impact of your fourth release. Kid and Killer's movements stilled, opting to pull out of you and roll you onto your side. Killer tucked himself behind you, resting his covered forehead against your shoulder blade while Kid immediately sprung up and removed the vibrating bulbs from your bodies with a flick of his wrist.

Although he was wonky on his feet, he stumbled to the bathroom and dazedly turned the taps on for his large bathtub to fill with waters and bathing oils. Bracing himself against the side of the tub with his metal hand, he snuck a look over his shoulder at the two of you panting and catching your breaths at the intensity of your climax. Chuckling to himself, he set to work on taking care of his first mate and his little Straw Hat.

Filling a large decanter full of water, he managed to only locate two mugs, and three shot glasses in his bedroom that seemed to match. Opting for the matching set, he cleaned them in the sink and set them aside to dry. As soon as the tub filled with enough water, he turned off the tap and dipped his fingers in it to test the temperature. Nodding and feeling rather proud of himself, Kid returned to his bed and noticed the two of you had finally caught your breath and were almost asleep.

“Nope, none of that,” Kid warned you, rousing you from your almost slumber with a pout on your lips, “Gotta clean you up, buttercup. We stretched you pretty good just now, don't want you to regret it more than you already probably will.” You scoff at him, slowly drawing yourself away from the man behind you by wriggling on the mattress.

“I don't think I'm gonna regret being sandwiched between two legendary pirates, Captain,” you hummed at him, your legs feeling as stable as a plate of jelly in an earthquake. As you stumbled forward, Kid chuckled at you and caught you in his arms.

“You might not,” he shrugged, hoisting you into his arms and carrying you to his bathroom, “But your pussy might feel a little raw after a while. Lemme take care of you for a bit, alright?” Killer hummed from behind you both, rolling onto his stomach and rocking back onto his knees.

“M’coming too, Cap'n,” Killer nodded, springing to his feet and walking beside the two of you, “You reckon we can all fit in there?” All of you look down at the triangular spa and tilt your heads to the side. You giggle, looking to the mask-wearing first mate and shoot him a winning smile.

“I can think of several ways to make us all fit in there, big guy,” you hum affectionately at him with half-hooded lashes. He shakes his head, giving your chin a soft pinch, and beginning to ready the three of you by finding towels and wash clothes to dote on the both of you.

Filling up the three short glasses with cool water, Killer passed them two both you and Kid sitting beside him in the scented water. All relaxing in comfortable silence while enjoying one another's bare skin, you all finally felt the tension wash away and recline into one another. Finally finding a small semblance of peace between ports, you had never felt more content than you were with your two allied crewmen.

Tag list: @mfreedomstuff @daydreamer-in-training @since-im-already-here @gingernut1314 @writingmysanity @sordidmusings @i-am-vita @indydonuts @feral-artistry @the-light-of-star @empirenowmp3 @racfoam @sunflowersatori @carrotsunshine @skullfacedlady

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 11: It's Giving Kidnapping?

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary:  When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team.  (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 10.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it) and because there is an unwanted sexual advance (not Soldier Boy) (it's more someone making the reader feel uncomfortable and the person talking to the reader, not so much touching, but it's still there and it's wrong), Violence, Swearing, Mentions of sex, Thoughts of Sex, Kidnapping, GASLIGHTING, Threatening, Denial, A whole lot of denial, Sexism, Creepiness, Manipulation, Talks about weed, Super manipulative trash man, And another Super Manipulative Trash Man but this time he's even more creepy, Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Spotify Playlist 🪴

Reader POV

"So where is it that we're going again?" You ask your brother Darren while looking absentmindedly out the passenger side window of his car watching the other people on the bridge.

The sun was shining, bathing the interior of the car in a warm light, the clouds puffy and the sky a beautiful blue that faded into the background behind the iconic New York Skyline as the buildings raised their hands to worship the beautiful day. It was the perfect day for you to grab a paper back and a cup of iced pineapple tea and make your way to Central Park, instead you were stuck in a car with your brother who was taking you God knows were.

"I told you it's a surprise." Darren replies, hitting the gas to cut off someone in the fast lane who honks at him, but Darren only flips them the bird and continues to speed down the bridge.

You had been in the car for over thirty minutes, a car that Darren said was a "loan" from his new BFF, the same person that he was ecstatic about you meeting.

The car was fancier than what you were used to, state of the art with butterscotch colored leather seats so supple and smooth that it felt like you were being hugged by the passenger side chair. The windows were made of thicker glass and you guessed that they must be bulletproof given how sturdy they looked, not to mention they were also darker than average so no one could see into the vehicle, but you could see out. The car was four doors and was made by a European company that you'd never heard of, but you were sure it was expensive. The car probably cost more than the entire inventory of "Please Don't Die" and the building the shop inhabited.

This is weird. You think to yourself, squeezing the leather seat in your hand.

Most of the "friends" your brother introduced you to were as down on their luck as Darren and just as eager to ask for a loan from anyone they could. You'd never met one that could afford a new car let alone a car that looked like it should be owned by the wealthiest man in New York City.

Your frown deepens as you try to figure out where the two of you are going and who it is Darren wants you to meet.

Truthfully, Darren was acting like you didn't hate surprises, you did. Every time your brother dropped by unannounced made you furious. You'd told him over and over again to call first, but no matter what you did each time he showed up without so much as a text.

You sigh audibly. "I just want to be prepared for wherever it is we're going."

"And I told you it's a surprise." His hands tighten on the wheel as if you're annoying him, before he glances over at you with a tight smile. "Come on sissy, it's like you don't even trust me."

The word "trust" makes you frown at him and drags you back to your apartment thirty minutes ago when Ben told you that you were stupid and "too trusting." You didn't understand why Ben got so mad at you going with Darren.

He's my brother, what did Ben think was going to happen? And why was he so angry?

You cross your arms over your chest and lean back into the plush seat.

Who did Ben think he was? He's not my dad! And I am not just some stupid little ditzy girl who needs a big strong man to protect me! I am a grown woman who has survived this long without someone like him butting into all of my business.

The more you sat there in the car, the more your frown deepens, and the more angry you became. You didn't understand why he treated you that way when you hadn't done anything to warrant his temper.

He's just a temperamental petulant child who thinks that he knows everything and that his opinion should be treated with the highest regard!

Usually, you would feel bad about what you had shouted at Ben about his old team and about his son, but not right now. You didn't understand why he was getting so angry and why he cared so much about what you were doing with your brother.

Does Ben really think that Darren would do anything to hurt me?

The whiplash that Ben kept putting you through where he seemed to care and then he didn't was getting old quick…

"Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I give a shit about her."

You wince as Ben's words ring in your ears making something stick in your chest. They had hurt more than you thought they would, maybe because you were starting to care about Ben and you thought that he was starting to care about you.

Because what other reason would he walk with you to work, pick you up, and bring you coffee sometimes? And why did he seem to be almost worried when Darren suggested that you meet his friend?

But he doesn't care about you. He's made that much perfectly clear.

You chew the inside of your cheek contemplating the conversation the two of you shared. Maybe I did say some things that were a little harsh, but Ben was being a total dick and he deserved what I said!

A flash of Ben and you tangled in one another this morning comes roaring back bringing a wave of heat flashing through you. Your cheeks flush and the wildflowers growing on the opposite side of the bridge outside of the car all flare bright pink in the sunlight when Darren drives the car past them.

You had been so close to kissing him, so close to letting yourself sink into his warmth and lose yourself in all he was. He was so strong and broad and warm in all the right ways, not to mention he looked really cute this morning with his eyes still a little hazy from sleep and his dark hair falling forward into his face, mused just slightly against the pillow. You could still feel his body laying on top of yours, but the weight wasn't oppressive, it was perfect, like a weighted blanket that made your anxiety fade away. The feeling of his powerful chest beneath the palms of your hands as you dragged them up to tangle his hair ghosts through your body.

Despite Ben's gruff exterior those few soft moments this morning you wished hadn't slipped through your fingertips, you wanted to kiss him, wanted to feel what it was like for him to kiss you softly as if he wished to savor you. The one you'd shared outside your apartment was hungry and frenzied, but you had a feeling deep down in your gut that the kiss Ben and you would have shared on the couch would have been different. The moment felt different too. The way he looked at you, the way he smiled when he noticed the apple tree flowering, and the way he held you close to him with care.

No. I am not going to think about any of that right now. He was a jerk for no reason and even if he wasn't Ben said he didn't care about me. Which is exactly what I've been trying to say since I first met him, he doesn't want to date me, he just wants to fuck me and move on.

When you'd walked out of your bedroom in a fresh outfit, Ben had already gone, and Jake had answered you back saying that it was okay for you to take the day off. Jake rarely said that it was a bad idea, he had said that he would "miss you" but instead of that filling you with warmth it did absolutely nothing. You figured that it was because of the fight Ben and you had. The anger, frustration, hurt, and rage was still currently swirling around your head and whenever it came to a peak you'd get a flash of how good it felt to wake up with Ben on top of you.

"How did you meet your friend?" You ask to keep your mind from wandering back to Ben.

"The usual."

"Usual, meaning?"

"Met him at Richie's poker game, we hit it off." Darren adjusts the radio and flips it to an 80's rock song that you can't remember the name of.

You sigh. "You owe him money don't you?"

"No I don't!" Darren clams up, his hands tightening on the wheel for a moment. "Well, just a little…"

Typical, just typical. Should have brought my damn checkbook.

"I thought you said that you didn't need money?" You pinch the bridge of your nose doing another mental calculation of how much you could give your brother.

"I don't, we worked something out." Darren answers vaguely, turning off of the expressway and onto a side street.

The buildings outside the window begin to be more and more spaced out, becoming more industrial. Each one you pass is fenced in and are quickly changing into giant warehouses and desolate streets. There aren't any other cars on the road with you and you hadn't seen another person in a few minutes.

"Well this looks… murdery." You frown at another empty warehouse with rusting sides and a roof that’s caved in.

Why are we all the way out here?

"It's not murdery, it's just eclectic. Don't be so judgmental." Darren rolls his eyes at you as he makes a left turn in front of a warehouse that is larger than the others, but in much better shape.

It's fenced with barbed wire swirling along the top of the chain links, but there's a man standing at the gate with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a clip board, the first person you’d seen outside of the car since Darren got off the expressway. He gestures for Darren to roll down the window with the clipboard.

"Hey there Joe." Darren says smoothly, leaning his elbow on the window frame, the picture of ease.

"Darren." Joe states eyes falling on where you're sitting in the passenger seat. "That her?"

"Yeah this is my sister." Darren flashes the usual smile, the one you've seen him use countless times when he needs to schmooze someone or close a "deal."

"Hi." You say awkwardly, smiling at the man identified as Joe.

Something about this feels wrong. Why does he know who I am? I thought I was just meeting Darren's friend?

All Joe does is frown at you. "Doesn't look like a supe."

You turn to look at your brother surprised. Darren knew that it was something you didn't share with everyone, that it was something you only revealed when you had to.

Darren shrugs it off with a laugh. "She is, trust me."

"Hmm." Joe grunts. "And you're late. The boss doesn't like it when people are late."

"Sorry it was her fault. Told her to put on something nice and you know how women are." Darren is completely in his element, gesturing with his hands, and smoothing down any ruffled feathers.

But the whole situation makes you more uncertain.

Who was "the boss?" Is that Darren's friend? And why the fuck did he tell Joe that I was a supe?

You pull on the end of your long sleeved blouse nervously. Darren hadn’t let you leave the house before approving your outfit and finally when you'd walked out of your bedroom wearing a long sleeved green with white polka dot blouse and a pair of dark jeans and your converse he had said that you were "presentable" but then insisted that you leave your hair down.

It made you feel like you were about to go to a job interview. You didn't understand why Darren made you change so many times or why he cared what you wore to meet another one of his skeevy friends. They never seemed to dress up to meet you, so why should you dress up to meet them? Not to mention Darren wasn't wearing anything different than his usual outfit.

He was wearing his black army jacket over a pair of black ripped jeans and a Meatloaf t-shirt. He'd changed out the gauges in his ears for black pointed spikes and the two rings in Darren's right eyebrow were now bright blue. Darren runs his hand over his buzzed hair, giving you a flash of his onyx skull ring on his thumb.

"Yeah I get it, my old lady does the same thing." Joe eyes you appreciatively and winks. "Cleans up nice though."

"Thank you." You reply dryly.

Joe waves Darren through and as he does, you see a gun in a holster hanging against the left side of his chest under his leather jacket.

"Darren what is this? Why was he armed? And why the fuck did you tell him I was a supe?" You shout at your brother as soon as he rolls up the window.

"Oh well, my friend is kind of important and Joe is just some extra security." Darren pulls the car into a parking spot just outside of the building. He says it like you're overreacting, but you didn't think you were. This entire situation was suspicious. "I told him you were a supe because he's just trying to keep my friend safe. He asked an honest question and I didn't want to lie to him."

Bullshit. Darren doesn't give a fuck about lying to other people.

Sometimes you even wondered if Darren gave a fuck about lying to you. That thought was usually brushed away by the reassertion that Darren was your brother and you trusted what he said.

But everything about this situation made you feel odd. You didn’t understand why Darren had to bring you here to meet his friend or why his friend wanted to meet you in the first place or why his friend seemed to need so much security. You'd never had one of Darren's friends ask to meet you before, most of the time you just showed up to meet Darren and they were there scratching something in public that they shouldn't be.

"Come on Darren, you know how much I hate telling people that I'm a supe-"

"Relax. It's already done, let's just move on." He waves a hand, ignoring you.

"Please, tell me what I'm doing here. This is more than me just meeting your friend."

"Hey." He brings his hand down on yours where it rests on the middle console. "I know you're nervous, but I would never do anything to hurt you." Darren's blue eyes are wide with sincerity. "Do you really think I would?"

"Well-" You bite the inside of your cheek.

He's your brother. He wouldn’t hurt you. You say it to reassure yourself, but it doesn’t stick completely.

"Come on." Darren sighs it as if he's genuinely upset that you thought he would. "I'm your brother, I'm your only family and I love you sis. I just want to do what's best for you. And my friend is really nice and he keeps saying that he wants to meet you. Not to mention he's loaded and I know that you struggle with things like that and he said that he'd help you out."

"What?" You sputter in surprise. "Why would he do that? Why would you talk to him about me?

"Because he's a nice guy and I like to brag about how amazing you are to everyone I meet." Darren smiles. "Now come on I don't want to keep Eli waiting and we're already late."

"Eli?"

It was the first time that Darren had used his friend's name and somewhere at the back of your mind it rang a bell.

"My friend. You're gonna love him. Come on I don't want to keep him waiting." Darren repeats as he gets out of the car first, but you stay in it for a second absorbing the entire situation.

You had half a mind to text Butcher or Annie, something about the whole situation made alarm bells go off in your head, and as mean as Ben had been, you wondered if he was right, if this was something you should be worried about.

And weirder still a piece of you wished that Ben was here with you. You didn't know why, but you did.

Instead of calling or texting someone, you discretely unlock your phone and check that the tracking software Annie and you downloaded to keep tabs on one another when you moved into the city was on. No one else knew about it, in fact the app was disguised as a period tracker on your home screen so if someone were to take your phone all they would see is another general app and they'd immediately pass over it. 

You'd never had to use it before in an emergency situation. Annie and you both used it when you went on a date with someone you barely knew as an extra precaution in case the guy turned out to be a freak or a secret cannibal. The horror stories you saw on the internet made you worry about that and the last thing you wanted to do was go on a date with a guy who had a taste for human flesh or wanted to turn you into a skin suit.

You open the passenger side door of the car and step out into the sunshine, tucking your phone into your pocket back pocket while looking up at the building. It glints a dull gray in the morning light, but the general appearance of the building does little to make you feel better about the whole situation. Memories of all the other times you met Darren's friends came flitting back across your mind, all of which occurred at a fast-food restaurant or a random poker game or a bar. Not to mention you'd never had one of his friends specifically ask to meet you before and you'd never met one in the middle of nowhere at a warehouse that was fenced in and patrolled by armed guards.

Darren adjusts the collar of his jacket flipping it down before he looks back at you. "Come on."

"Darren I don't think-"

Darren looks up to the sky with a heavy sigh as if your apprehension is annoying him. "Sis come on." He walks closer to you. "That asshole, Ben, is in your head. Are you really going to trust some random guy you live with or me? Your own flesh and blood?"

"Well-"

"Have I ever put you in a dangerous position before?"

"No."

"Exactly. I care about you so much and I would never do anything to hurt you." He takes your hand, eyes soft in the morning light. "I love you. You're the only family I have left that matters. And I promise if anything in there makes you uncomfortable we can leave. Just say the word."

"Really?"

"Yes." Darren nods once. "Fuck, sissy I'm not taking you here against your will. If you don't want to go in we don’t have to, but you said that you would come with me and you never break your word. Not to mention it would make me happy."

He's my brother. He loves me. He would never hurt me. It's going to be okay.

You let out a soft breath and squeeze his hand. "Okay."

Darren leads you to the thick metal door and opens it for you so you can walk in first and as soon as you do, you stop mid-step. The inside of the warehouse is covered with tables, but they're not empty, each table holds more weed plants than you can fit inside your entire apartment. The room is so green that you have to squint for a moment for your eyes to adjust from all the brightness outside. There are large fluorescent lights hanging above each table trying to give the plants the sunlight they need, but the plants don’t look good.

The plants are wilting, dying, and some have a strange black substance that fans out over the leaves in a vein-like pattern, choking the green that remains. Dead plants in piles are stacked on the edges of the room, already succumbing to whatever the hell was wrong with them.

You'd never seen a plant have something like that before. Even the energy given off by the plants is not the usual one you feel when surrounded by so many, it feels wrong, sickly, almost oppressive. You've never felt something that felt so wrong from any of the plants that you had encountered in the past.

You walk up to one of the tables, examining the black veins that are creeping along the gentle bend of the leaves up from the stalks. "What happened?"

"No idea." Darren shrugs. An unlit cigarette is perched between his lips and he's searching through his jacket pockets for his lighter. The one he'd had for years that looked like a silver dragon. "Eli said that he came back from somewhere and he found them like this."

"Oh."

"Do you think you can fix them?"

"What?" You turn to look at him incredulously. "This is weed. This is illegal why the fuck would I fix this?"

"Come on. Don’t be so high and mighty." Darren groans. "They're plants. You've told me countless times that you hate it when plants suffer. Well all of these are suffering!"

"Not the same thing!"

"You're telling me if Newton's dad's cornfield was suffering you wouldn't wave a hand and work some of that plant lover shit to save it?"

"That cornfield is his family's livelihood this is-"

"It's Eli's livelihood. It's how he makes so much money!"

"Is this why you brought me here?" You shout crossing your arms over your chest. "To fix all of these?"

"No. I wanted you to meet my friend and he's waiting for us so we might as well fucking go." Darren grouses, turning to walk up a rickety staircase that leads to the second level of the warehouse.

But you don’t believe him, because why else would Darren bring you to a place with a plant related problem, not to mention why would Darren get so angry when you refused to.

Did he really think I was going to fix an entire warehouse full of weed plants? The last thing I'm gonna do is help Eli cultivate his crop.

You weren't surprised that Darren's friend wasn't as above board as everyone else. You knew that your brother tended to get involved with people who weren't as law abiding, not to mention your brother's moral compass didn't always point North when it came to other people, but you didn't think that he would involve you in something like this.

Occasionally the moral boundaries you had were pushed when it came to what you did for Butcher, but at least he respected you when you said no.

Darren continues to stomp up the stairs angrily, another reason why you believed that Darren was lying to you.

He knew that if he mentioned any of this I would never come with him.

He throws open the door at the top of the stairs not bothering to knock and you follow behind him, fuming.

The room just inside is not what you were expecting. The entire wall to the left is made entirely of glass giving whomever is inhabiting the room an amazing view of the water beyond, water that you didn't realize was so close when Darren pulled up to the building. There's a giant wooden antique desk at the back at the room with a large maroon leather desk chair sitting behind it and two smaller leather chairs in front of the desk. A few bookshelves line the non-windowed walls, but there's no one else in the room, just Darren and you.

Where's his friend?

Darren sighs and exhales a breath of smoke, before he turns to look at you with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry sis. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I know that you've always been more on the straight and narrow than me and I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"What?" You weren't expecting him to sound so sorry, if anything you thought that your brother would have started yelling at you all over again. Why is he apologizing.

"Yeah." He rubs a free hand over the top of his buzzed hair sheepishly. "I shouldn't have gotten so mad about it. Of course you don’t have to do anything you don't want to do."

"Thank you." You sigh. "And I'm sorry. I do hate to see plants suffer, but that out there is different than what I do regularly."

"I know. And I don’t want you to be uncomfortable" Darren grabs your hand with his free hand, before he looks around the room. "Guess Eli is also running a little late huh?" He smiles and it reassures you that you've been forgiven.

"Yeah. Weird that he's not here. Especially when Joe said he was waiting for us and-"

"Oh shit!" Darren interrupts you, lets go of your hand and smacks himself on the forehead. "I completely forgot."

"Forgot what?"

He's frantically patting down his pockets looking for something. "I was supposed to call Richie. I told him I would and I-" He continues to check his pockets, the cigarette still burning between his lips. Darren talks around it. "Can I borrow your phone real quick? I think I left mine in the car."

"But-"

"Please it'll take like, two seconds. I told him that I'd meet up with him later and I want to take you to lunch after this to make up for all that shit." Darren nods his head back towards the door where the tables of weed plants are.

"Oh you don’t have to take me to lunch Darren, I can-"

"No." Darren smiles. "I want to. It’s the least I can do, driving you all the way out here and making you meet Eli."

"Um-" You look around the empty office expecting Eli to materialize out of nowhere. "Sure. But please make it quick. I don’t want to be in here alone with this random dude."

"He's not a random dude, he's my friend. And he's a gentleman, definitely a better person that that dick you have at your apartment." Darren waves a hand before he takes your phone. "You'll be fine. And we can go wherever you want for lunch."

You frown at Darren's comment about Ben as he disappears out the door and leaves you in the large office.

Honestly you did think that Ben could be a dick at times, but there were other times when he was almost sweet, well, sort of at least.

Not before he left today.

You think about what you yelled at him, about him needing people, but just wanting to push them away. That you were sure about. You believed that Ben did need people, but he had so many trust issues about everything that had happened in the past that it made him suspicious and not want to admit it to himself. That and you figured if he believed he was such a "manly man" he thought that it was ridiculous and feminine to admit that he needed someone.

Which again, you thought was stupid because you'd always seen emotional maturity in a man as an attractive trait. You liked when men could be vulnerable around you, you liked when they were honest, and you liked when they had the confidence and security to break around you so you could help them. And you found yourself wanting to help Ben, even though you thought you shouldn't.

He's not a bad guy, he's just got a ton of trust issues, machoistic ideas, and an inability to open up to anyone.

You tap your fingertip against your bicep where they were crossed in front of your chest and make your way to one of the bookshelves to look at the books. Some were antiques, others were versions of classics that you had read when you were a child, but you were sure that each volume was worth more than the apartment building you lived in. Some of the spines were so faded that you could just barely make out the flecked golden lettering and others were in another language that you couldn't understand.

Honestly, you could see yourself sitting in the big maroon chair curled up with one of these books, reading through the book with a large cup of tea while looking out over the water and admiring the iconic New York Skyline across the bay. It was a nice office, but your mind began to drift back to the quiet moments Ben and you shared a few days ago when you curled up on the couch beside him and read through your current obsession while he sat with the paper on the other side. It was nice and you were surprised that the two of you could share such a quiet moment together without ripping each other's heads off.

Maybe I should call and apologize. You think to yourself while you stroke your fingertip down one of the spines. I shouldn’t have said those things about his team or his son. And yes maybe he shouted some things at me too, but maybe he also feels bad and he's just not man enough to tell me that he's sorry. Or maybe he doesn’t give a fuck and he couldn’t care less about me.

The words he snarled at your brother, vibrate through your head again.

"Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I give a shit about her…"

You hear someone come through the door and because you expect it to be Darren, you don’t turn to look at him.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting darling." The voice says in a warm and low rumble, the ends tilting in an accent that you can't place. But your entire body freezes, because you knew that voice.

You slowly turn to look at the man who just entered the room eyes widening.

"Ms. Worthington. It is so nice to see you again. How was the drive?" Elijah Black asks with a pleasant smile, one eyebrow raised at you. "Not too much traffic I hope."

Elijah Black looks almost exactly the same way he did at the fundraiser a few days ago and the use of the fake last name you used only reminds you that he hadn't forgotten meeting you. His greying black hair curls behind his ears in waves that have been slicked back over his head. More of his sun-kissed golden skin is revealed to you, showing tattoos that curl up his muscular arms and disappear into the rolled up sleeves of his navy dress shirt. The top two buttons are unbuttoned revealing more of his muscular chest and the dark ink that swirls up from his pecs and licks up onto his collar bones. He's wearing a gold chain to offset the dark swirls of the tattoos, but he still is built like a body-builder, bigger than Ben across, not taller, but taller than you.

Oh fuck. This is not good.

You reach for your phone in your back pocket, prepared to send an emergency text to Butcher and Annie, the one you should have sent before when you were outside, but talked yourself out of. But then you remember that Darren still has your phone and he's not back yet.

"Mr. Black. Funny seeing you here." You clear the fear from your voice, fighting the shudder of fear when you watch Elijah's eyes trace up your figure, clinging to places that make you wish that you hadn’t worn something so tight.

"Please call me Elijah." He purrs, taking another step forward into the room. The door is closed behind him and Darren is gone. "I was disappointed when you used a fake name the other night. I was hoping to get to know you better." Elijah almost looks a little hurt, before his lips twitch into a smirk. "Of course Soldier Boy also seemed to be opposed to the idea, but he's not here now is he?"

"He's outside actually, just give him a second."

"You’re a terrible liar." Elijah chuckles. "I'd hate to see you try to play poker."

"Well give me a chance and I'm sure I'll surprise you."

Elijah is blocking the only exit. The windows could be an option, but it would mean that you’d have to throw something at it or you'd have to throw him through the window. You were strong, but not strong enough to do something like that. Not to mention you had a feeling that Elijah was a supe. The way he carried himself with a careful confidence seemed dangerous.

"Oh I can’t wait to see just how many surprises you have." His eyes trace up and down your body again in a way that makes your throat tighten and a wave of revulsion prickle over your skin. Even though you're wearing a long sleeved shirt and pants, you feel naked under his gaze.

"Darren said that Soldier Boy and you had a fight." Elijah taps his fingers against the edge of the wooden desk. "I hope he didn't hurt you."

Why did Darren tell Elijah that we had a fight? And where the fuck did my brother go?

"That's none of your business-" You say taking a step back moving around the back of the desk, preparing to run the other way and make a break for the door.

Elijah shrugs.  "I like to know everything about the women I get involved with."

"We're not involved. I don’t know a fucking thing about you." You spit backing away.

This is bad. This is very bad.

There weren't any plants in the room and you didn’t have any seeds with you. The other option would be the plants out in the warehouse, but each time you tried to reach for them, all you could feel was the sickly energy they had, and honestly it was making you feel a little bit nauseous. You’d never encountered that before, usually plants made you feel stronger, but they were all so sick that it was overwhelming your senses. You wondered if Elijah planned that.

"Well let's change that. I'd love for you to get to know me better." Elijah continues to move forward through the room slowly. "It’s a pity that the two of you had a spat, especially because you seem to care so much about him and he seems to care about you, and especially  because what he said must have hurt you, but I suppose it's better for me."

Ben doesn’t care about me, but Elijah doesn’t have to know that. If he knows who Ben really is, then he knows how dangerous he is, and if Elijah thinks that Ben will come to get me, that might be everything I need to make him back off.

"Why is that?" You inch around the table with Elijah following after you.

He's still smiling as if he believes that he's won.

"Because he won't come to save you if he hates you. Darren told me that the things you said to him were quite cruel. And I guess none of your team will be coming either."

Darren heard what we yelled at each other and he just pretended not to. He knew that Ben and I had a fight. He knows that Ben is Soldier Boy. Why would Darren do this? He's my brother-

"Of course my team will come to get me. They're on their way right now. And if I were you I'd let me go now, before this becomes an even bigger problem than it is." The lie isn’t completely out of your mouth before Elijah starts to laugh at you.

"No. They're all in Boston, including Soldier Boy." Elijah's smirk grows like the cat who caught the canary. "A thing about those anonymous tips, none of them seem to be that helpful. But Butcher wanted to catch that electric buffoon so badly I thought I might as well give him a push, not in the right direction unfortunately. I was hoping that Solider Boy and you would catch him the other night. He's been causing some trouble for me. Someone like him is bad for business, especially when I'm expanding into auto-motives."

"Oh no. The drug business isn't working out for you? So sad." You snark eyes flicking to the window for a minute and wondering if you could grab a chair and throw it out before he stopped you.

Elijah looks delighted. "I see you've noticed the problem. A rival of mine broke in and poisoned them, and instead of throwing away that much product and wasting more money I thought of you."

"What about me?"

"Well, your brother mentioned something in a game about his sister being able to 'make plants grow.' Honestly, your brother has a problem keeping his mouth shut about lots of things, but I was intrigued. He didn't see the value of such a gift as I did. And when Darren accumulated such a large sum of debt after the game I offered a deal."

"And what deal is that?" You take another step back, not looking away from Elijah.

"You."

Your entire body goes cold. "He wouldn't do that. My brother wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn’t give me to you as fucking payment!"

Because that was what Elijah was suggesting, he was suggesting that Darren would use you to pay off his gambling debts. Darren had done some shitty things in the past, but this seemed to be too much for him.

He wouldn’t do that to me. I'm his sister not some stranger. Darren is a lot of things, but that is too cold to consider.

"Oh my darling." Elijah sighs and throws you a pitying look. "He did. Do you really think he had to call someone? That he left his phone in the car? He needed your phone so you wouldn't call Butcher." Elijah looks at you as if you're a kicked puppy in need of solace. "But don't worry. I always take care of my toys, especially ones that are as beautiful as you."

"If you touch me I'm going to-" You begin to snarl at him

"You've got spirit." He smiles continuing to move towards you as you back away towards the door. "It always makes it more fun. More of a challenge to break."

"Stay away from me."

"I can't wait for you to beg for me to touch you."

"I mean it." You leap backward to grab the doorhandle, but as you do Elijah lunges across the room, grabbing your right arm to pull you away from the door.

He's still holding on and you bring your foot up between his legs hoping to find something soft, but when you do Elijah only laughs and tightens his grip on your arm and you hear a high-pitched snap that vibrates through your body.

At first you don’t understand what the sound was, but a wave of pain surges up and you realize the high pitched snap was the sound of your right arm breaking. The nausea comes roaring back, but the pain is almost excruciating as you try to pull your now broken arm from his grasp.

"Don't worry." Elijah purrs again. "I'm going to take good care of you."

And it's the last thing you hear as everything goes dark.

Soldier Boy POV

4 Days Later…

Ben leaned back in the faded floral cloth armchair in the corner of the crowded motel room, his head thrown against the back of the chair, as he takes a hit from the blunt in between his thumb and forefinger.  The other people in the room continue to bicker and shout at one another pouring over a map and a laptop on the lone table pressed under the window in the corner of the room and it was ruining his buzz.

It had been four days since Ben had been shoved into the back of a car and taken to Boston, four days of listening to Butcher bitch and moan about why none of them could locate the electric supe, and four days since Ben had last seen you.

He exhales a cloud of smoke remembering the conversation the two of you had before he left. Honestly, he hadn’t meant to make you cry and he had no idea where any of what he shouted at you came from, but he was just so damn frustrated about the way your asshole brother was treating you and how damn trusting you were that he just exploded.

Everything he told you, he thought was obvious and something that you could see for yourself. And yet you stood there, eyes wide with tears, while he shouted those things at you and then you had the audacity to yell back at him.

He'd never met anyone so completely clueless and trusting before and it was infuriating. He hated that you let that asshole use you, hated how submissive you got whenever your brother brought up the fact that he was your only family, and Ben hated how you couldn’t see what was directly in front of your face.

All he'd wanted to do was tell you to be careful, and instead he insulted you. And then he'd had to listen to you cry to yourself quietly in your room like you also hadn't insulted him.

Why the fuck do I give a shit? She's just being damn hormonal and never wants to listen to anyone, but herself.

Ben's frown deepens when he remembers what you shouted back at him. He'd never allowed anyone to speak to him that way, then again no one had ever had the balls to and he respected that. Well, respected it, but wished you would fucking stop.

Worse still was that Ben didn't understand why he couldn't stop thinking about you. He'd never had that happen before, usually all it took to get a woman out of his mind was a quick fuck with whatever walked by, but that hadn't worked when he tried it last night.

He'd changed his location on tinder and gone out with a girl who looked nothing like you, and seemed to be the stupidest person Ben had ever met. This time he had bought her dinner, and Ben could feel himself zoning out while she talked about nothing at all. He thought of you while she talked, thought about how you always seemed to speak with purpose and how when you spoke about things they always seemed interesting and important. Not to mention he liked it when you talked because he wanted to learn more about you. You were so different than the women he'd met over the years and it was refreshing. Ben didn't like that he felt that way. He'd never been one for talking, he thought it was fucking boring, but for some reason talking to you was different.

The only time his date shut up was when Ben took her back to her apartment and yet on the walk home all Ben could think of is if you were okay. He didn't like that he had left you with your brother and he had been debating to tell Butcher to fuck off and follow Darren and you, but he hadn't wanted to after you said all that shit about his son and his old team.

Why the fuck do I give a shit what happens to her? All we do is live together. I'm not fucking her, I'm not-

He wasn't used to worrying about someone else, but he was worried about you and again Ben didn’t like it. He didn't like it so much that he almost walked back around the block to his previous date's apartment to see if she was ready to go for round three, but he didn't. Instead he went back to the motel room and tried to sleep, but he couldn't.

Over the past four days, each time Annie's phone rang or chirped he perked up hoping that it was you on the other line and every time it wasn't he seemed to sink further into the chair.

Ben puffed on the joint, but it wasn't as soothing as it had been in the past. The buzz wasn't taking the edge off the thoughts he had of you and it only pissed him off more.

Ben hadn't ever met anyone like you before. You were different and most of the time he never understood you, but he liked that about you. He liked that you were different than all the other women he had met in the past and he liked that you seemed to surprise him. He also thought that was why he liked talking to you, because he wanted to learn more about you so he could understand more.

Ben had never wanted to do that with anyone before, most of the time he just moved on, but not you. As much as he hated to admit it, it was making him want to spend more time around you, because you were interesting, odd, but interesting.

Especially because you kept refusing to sleep with him. It was a point of pride for him, being able to work whoever he wanted into bed with him, but not you. He had tried time and time again to get you to sleep with him using every trick in the book and yet, nothing.

Ben's mind flashes back to the other night at the party when you told him that you wouldn’t sleep with him was because you thought he "threw women away." It struck a nerve more than he thought it would when you said that to him. In fact, women had said similar things to him in the past, but he'd only laughed in their faces, but when you said it to him, it hit something deep inside that he thought he had locked away a long time ago. And weirder still Ben didn’t like it when you said that he wasn't "one for relationships" as if he couldn’t do it if he really tried.

I can do anything.

Ben downs the scotch in his other hand considering what you said and thinks of Countess. He thought that he'd loved her, he'd been in a relationship with her, an open one, but still it was something.

He remembered when you said that sex meant something to you and Ben had never met someone who felt that way before. Someone who thought that sex was special and should be shared with someone you loved. It was weird for him to consider that and Ben supposed that the only way he was ever going to have sex with you was if you fell in love with him or if he fell in love with you.

Yeah, like that'll fucking happen.

He rolled his eyes at the thought. He didn't think that he'd ever be able to fall in love with someone like you. Not with someone who infuriated him as much as you did and was so different than him in every way. Not when you made him angry and annoyed all the time because you refused to listen, talked back, and yelled at him.

The memory of you in his arms when he woke up four days ago surfaces and Ben swallows. He was going to kiss you, and you were going to let him, he knew it.

When he'd kissed you outside of your apartment the first night he came home with you, he'd only done it to make Mike leave you alone, but he hadn't expected to like it so much. And he'd wanted to kiss you badly when he woke up next to you. He thought you looked cute, your body soft against his, your hair flaring out over the pillow, your eyes wide, and your lips supple and welcoming. He'd wanted to trace his thumb over your lower lip, wanted to taste your lips again, and lose himself in everything you were.

I sound like a fucking pussy.

Ben sighed to himself again and closed his eyes, hoping to drown out his thoughts of you with the conversation Butcher and Annie were having over the laptop. MM was cleaning a gun and glaring at Ben while Kimiko and Frenchie were talking in rapid fire sign language that Ben couldn't understand and he wished you were there to translate or at least there to talk to him.

It's always so boring when she's not here.

Ben froze, thumb and middle finger pressed tightly on the blunt. He'd never done that before, never wanted a woman around to talk to, but that was what he meant. Even with Countess it was different. He wanted her around for a good fuck but they didn't talk about anything important and they certainly didn't sit around on the couch and watch his old films and he never sat with her while she read a book.

Ben's mind went back to the other day when you'd sat with him quietly on the other side of the couch, your gaze so focused on the pages of a book that you hadn't seen him watch you read. He noticed that when you did, you sometimes stopped breathing, like you'd forgotten that you needed to and whatever was in the book was more important than oxygen and that you sometimes formed the words with your lips as you did. Ben didn't know why he thought it was so interesting when you read, but he couldn’t look away. Sometimes during the day he'd have some free time from Butcher and he'd walk past the plant shop to see what you were doing and would see you sitting at the counter reading to yourself. He always thought about going inside, but you looked so peaceful that he didn’t want to interrupt you.

It was better than when he found you talking with that idiot Jake. Ben rolled his eyes to himself at the thought of your boss.

He definitely wants to fuck her. Ben sighs crossing his legs. And she wants him to. She shouldn't. She needs someone that'll actually be able to handle her. That guy's built like a fucking twig, not to mention he's not a supe.

Ben's jaw tightened with the thought of walking in on the two of you fucking in the apartment. You had made a rule about Ben not having any women there, but you'd never said anything about you bringing back someone. You hadn't yet and Ben hoped that you wouldn't bring Jake there anytime soon. His grip on the arm of the chair tightens to the point that he pierces through inside to the stuffing. Ben wasn't sure he'd be able to go into the apartment to listen to the two of you, let alone smell him all over you when you were done.

It was bad enough when you'd come back to the apartment smelling like the plant guy and Ben didn't want to experience what it was like after you'd had sex with him and have to smell him all over you. That also made him a little confused. Ben had fucked plenty of women who had significant others, women who threw themselves at him, and he hadn't cared about sharing. Not to mention Ben didn't get jealous, ever, whenever Countess had messed around with someone else at Herogasm Ben would watch, but with you… The sound of the arm of the chair breaking in his hand is audible when he thinks about someone else touching you, but no one else notices.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I care? She's infuriating! And she's always so damn angry with me all the time that I'm pretty sure she'd never let me kiss her ever again let alone touch-

"Hello?" Annie held her phone up to her ear interrupting Ben's train of thought. "Oh hey Jake what's-"

Ben perked up at the sound of Jake's name with a frown. He hoped again that while he was gone you wouldn't sleep with him.

"I'm worried, I haven't heard anything from her and she didn't come in for her shift this morning." Ben heard Jake say on the other side of the line referring to you.

His muscles tensed slightly. Ben hadn’t wanted to leave you there with your brother, something about the guy made him antsy. Ben had met men like him in the past, men who used things like family and love to manipulate people into caring about him. He knew that  Darren was your brother and you were just so kind and open that you would do whatever he asked without question. 

Darren knew that. He knew exactly what to say to her to get her to give in.

Ben wondered how much you’d let Darren get away with in the past and quietly made a promise to himself that he wouldn't let Darren get anything out of you ever again for as long as Ben was around.

"Do you think she's running late?" Annie asks diplomatically, but Ben doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows scrunch together and the worried look she throws Hughie who is sitting across the table looking up at her.

"Not three hours. I tried to text her and when she texted back the message was weird." Jake presses.

"What do you mean weird?"

"Well, she used a lot of emoji's and she never does that."

Ben watched Annie's smile pull down into a frown. "Huh. Here I'm going to try to call her and I'll call you back okay."

"Sure."

Annie hangs up the phone and scrolls her finger on the screen to find your number.

"Everything alright?" Hughie asks leaning back in his chair.

"I'm not sure." Annie puts the phone up to her ear again.

Ben can hear the ringing on the other side of the line and he finds himself leaning forward, waiting for you to answer.

"Come on. Pick up the phone." Annie whispers while tapping her foot on the ground.

When you don't she opens the text thread of messages the two of you have and texts you. When you moved to the city the two of you had come up with phrases and words that you used to warn each other of danger. Annie insisted on it. Two single women living in a big city meant that the two of you were targets even if you were supes and as capable as the two of you felt handling your own, it was a comfort to have someone else.

Annie: Hey babe! I'm thinking about dying my hair blue again. Thoughts?

She waited patiently staring at the screen. Ben couldn't help but watch her with interest, he didn't know what was going on, only that Annie seemed to be worried. Something that he had never seen her be.

You: Hey girl! I think you should go for it! You always rock it.

Ben hears Annie's sharp intake of breath and rises from his chair understanding that something is wrong.

"Fuck." Annie mutters.

In middle school as an act of rebellion, Annie had tried to dye her hair blue with a box of cheap hair dye the two of you bought at the pharmacy in town while Annie's mother was away. But when it was done, something had obviously gone wrong. The dye must have been old or maybe just too cheap to do any good because it had dyed Annie's hair a vomit colored green. And to make matters worse, Annie had a terrible allergic reaction. It was that day the two of you realized that she was allergic to the chemicals most hair dyes. Her entire head had swelled up and she had to go to the Emergency Room.

Not to mention when Annie's mother showed up she told Annie she "deserved it" for doing that to her hair. The only way the Doctors could help her was to wash her hair out with bleach and then when that didn't work they cut it all off.

Annie had to wear itchy wigs for months after.

The correct response you were supposed to have was:

"Fuck no. Do you want to shave your head again?"

"Butcher-" Annie says raising her eyes from her phone.

"Yeah?" He doesn't look up from the map in front of him, trying to find out where the supe is hiding.

"We have to go back." She touches his shoulder to get his attention.

"Why?" Butcher looks at her annoyed, and he was. He had devoted a lot of man power to finding this supe and a lot of his own personal time. The last thing he was going to do is to come up empty handed.

Annie says your name. "Is in trouble."

"What do you mean?" Ben asks.

"She didn't show up to work today and she never just skips." Annie explains. "And we have code messages we made and she answered wrong." She holds out her phone to show Butcher the text thread.

“Hair dye?” Butcher still doesn’t look convinced.

“She knows I’m allergic. And she didn’t show up to work today.”

“Maybe she slept in-“ Butcher didn't want to drive all the way back to NYC for no reason, not when he believed he was close to catching the electric supe.

“She loves that job. And yes maybe she runs late, but she’d never just vanish or not go into work without calling Jake.” Annie pulls her phone back and begins to swipe through.

“What are you doing?” Ben questions. By now he could feel something unfamiliar tightening in his chest, a weird feeling that he couldn't place.

“We share our locations with one another.” Annie replies typing something on her phone. “I just have to find the app and-“ She looks down at the screen for a moment before raising it so Butcher can see. “See look! Why would she be all the way in Brooklyn?” 

“Maybe that’s where her brother took her.” Ben grunts taking another puff from the joint in his fingers, hoping that it will relieve some of the weird tension he was feeling, but it doesn't.

Annie swivels her head around to glare at Ben so fast he gets whiplash. "Wait a minute. Darren's in town? Why didn't you say anything?"

“Yeah. Fucker spent the night four days ago.”

“And you left her with him alone?"

“He was going to take her to meet his friend-”

“For fucks sake Ben, why didn’t you just slather her in honey and tie her to an ant hill?" Annie shouts waving her hands dramatically at him.

Guess she doesn't like him either.

"Well-"

Annie isn't interested in what he has to say, instead she begins to type something on her phone and raises it one final time to her ear.

"Where the fuck is she?" Annie snarls into the phone and it doesn’t take Ben much time to figure out that she's called Darren.

"Who?" The voice of your brother fills the phone and Ben's hands clench together into fists at his sides.

Ben can tell he's lying from just one word and he feels rage begin to replace the odd feeling, licking up against the walls of his chest like an unquenchable fire.

"You know who you fucking leech." Annie spits.

"I don’t know. I took her back to her place after she met my friend. Think they hit it off." Darren sounds casual and Ben can almost imagine the sick smirk on his face.

"If you’re lying, I’m going to roast you alive like the pig you are."

"Oh baby the way you talk to me."

"Darren I’m serious."

"I don’t understand why you’re getting your panties in a wad Annie. She’s fine. I took her back to the plant shop four days ago after she met my friend, because she wanted to go to work. I haven’t heard from her since."

"Darren-" Annie begins to say, but Ben crosses the room so fast he didn't remember moving and snatches the phone from Annie.

"Listen to me you little shit." Ben growls into the phone. "If she's fucking hurt I am going to show you what it's like to be turned inside out."

"Whoa easy there Benny boy I don’t know who the fuck you think you are but-"

"For your sake I hope you're telling the truth, because if you're not there's going to be no where for you to hide from me and there's not going to be enough left of you to wipe up with a tissue." Ben hits the off button on the phone call and as he does he realizes that everyone in the room is staring at him with wide eyes, but he ignores it.

"Oi what the fuck was that mate?" Butcher says, but Ben ignores him.

"You can either give me the fucking keys to your car or I can take them from what's left of you." Ben snarls. "You get to pick."

Butcher eyes him for a minute, considering. "Come on yank, let's go."

A/N: And we have the reappearance of Elijah Black who is just as creepy as he was the first time. Maybe more? Wanted to throw in a little bit of Ben POV because it's a lot of fun to write and he's just so conflicted about everything, not to mention just as clueless as the reader when it comes to how he really feels.

As always thank you for reading! Reblogs and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. Feedback is always welcome. If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know :)

Taglist:

@roseblue373 @mrsjenniferwinchester @corruptedcruiser @winchesterwild78 @the-super-who-locked-wizard

@criminalyetminimal @52ndstreeet @bitchykittenconnoisseur @anna6307 @libby99hb

@faephoria @possiblyafangirl @jqtaro @quietlybitchy @tinydancer40

@roger-that-cap @megara0224 @miskwaadesiwag @rainyeggvoidpurse

@soldiergrimes @tiffsbagels @podiumackles

@ifyouwerethemoon @ririshkin @peachhiz @fitxgrld @sukunassfinger

@xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @ej13928 @deans-spinster-witch @kr804573 @modiddys-blog

@acciosherlockholmes @minas-fantasies @fireskyy

@n-o-p-e-never @nesnejwritings @am0rem @tpwkcalli @momggn

@fitxgrld @whimsicalcherry @ladysparkles78

@spxideyver @zepskies @impala67stellawinchester

@reidtomewinchester @samanthadegaro @glossy01 @nikimisery

@tunnelvisionlove @incandxscents @winchester-stark @samahanta

[psychotrenny]

It's funny to me how Armoured Core 6 spawned like an entire sub-section of Mecha fiction that isn't even based around the game's actual overall content but rather an exaggerated form of some very specific dynamics and ideas that crop up. And like the extent to which this sub-section "really" exists is kinda debatable, being something you only see in like short-form erotic fiction posted on Social Media and Fan-Fiction websites. But it's "real" enough to spawn a whole backlash to it which is also funny because of the stubborn refusal to recognise this fiction as like its own thing

And I'm not saying that this whole sub-section is "good" or that you have to respect it or that it's a thoughtful and compelling reflection of broader Mecha fiction. It's certainly reasonable to dislike this style of Mecha fiction. But you have to at least realise that this sort of thing is it's own style and stop criticising it as just a failed attempt of something more mainstream. Like I'll often see indignant cries of "Do these people even watch Robot shows? How can they call themselves Mecha fans?" and like yeah I'm sure a lot of people who enjoy this form of Erotic Mecha fiction only engage in that specific form of Mecha; which may make them fans of something you don't like but it's stupid to call them "fake fans". And there's also people who do very much engage with and enjoy other works of Mecha fiction but are obviously going to take a very different tone when talking about such erotic Mecha fiction in contrast to Gundam or something. They are very different takes on the same broad idea; interest in one doesn't automatically include interest in the other but that doesn't make them mutually exclusive either

I think an obvious illustrations of this is the whole "Imagine if a Mech Pilot was just a normal guy" post that was going around. To fans of the broader Mecha genre, both Super and Real robot, this comes off as a pretty inane thing to say. It's a common enough idea even among the most well known and successful properties; hardly something you have to "imagine" because most genre fans would have outright seen it. Not to mention the fact that most "proper" mech pilots are just ordinary human soldiers who have been trained for a special job. Like it's not a novel idea in the slightest. But within the specific context of (loosely) Armoured Core 6 inspired erotic Mecha fiction it takes on a whole new meaning. In such fiction your average pilot is some sort of lobotomised cyborg puppygirl, with the simultaneous transhuman and subhuman status of the pilot being a consistently major thematic aspect of the sub-genre. In that context, it would be pretty weird and fucked up for an ordinary guy to be caught in the middle of all that

Which isn't something you need to find interesting or compelling as a Mecha fan. It's perfectly understandable to reject this sub-genre and its ideas as stupid or obnoxious or whatever. But that rejection has to be a conscious act, not a reflexive outburst about how it's different from your preferred form of Mecha fiction. If you're going to criticise this sub-genre of Mecha then the criticisms need to be on its own terms; around what it's actually trying to achieve. You're missing the point entirely if you main criticism of horny mech posts is their failure to understand the themes of Mobile Suit Gundam.

[obessedwithfictionalmen]

You want my jacket?

John Egan X W.A.C! Reader

Summary: Y/n wants Bucky's jacket, but they have a little competition before...

Warning: Swearing/ sport inaccuracies (Wikipedia stats)/ use of Y/n/ flirting/ mention of erection/ kiss/ sexism (little bit)

Word count: 1.1k

The music was loud, Y/n and her friends made their way through the room, it was a party in their honor, and someone’s 25th mission. The W.A.C division Y/n was in just got transferred to Thorpe Abbotts. Y/n was a weather broadcaster, she was going to brief the men on the conditions they were going to fly. She liked her job, sure it was boring sometimes, but she got the insight on big mission and her job was important. She felt like she was truly having an impact on the war, not a big one, but still.

When John Egan learned that W.A.C were coming on the base, he was like every man on the base; excited. Unlike Buck, he didn’t have anyone to write to at home, he was single and loved woman! When his eyes stopped on Y/n, he knew that he needed to talk to her. Her uniform fitted her so good; her curves were highlighted, and he always loved woman with curves. So, when he walked up to her, he was a little nervous, but he tried to hide it.

‘’Hello ladies’’ he said, looking at all the woman, then he looked at the one he wanted. ‘’Hi, I’m Major John Egan, but please call me Bucky, what’s your name, gorgeous?’’ he flirted. Y/n blushed and hid a giggle. ‘’I’m Y/n, nice to meet you’’ she extends her hand for him to take. The other girls were a giggling mess. When Bucky took her hand, she felt something pass through them, maybe she was just nervous, but it felt weird. They went to sit at a table and Bucky ordered drinks. ‘’So, Y/n, what are you doing here?��’ he asked, looking at her. ‘’I’m the new weather broadcaster, so we’re going to see each other a lot’’ she flirted. Words of his reputation had got to Y/n’s ears, when the Colonel briefed them on the attitude of the men at the base, the woman were warned about Major Egan. Y/n was curious to see if his reputation was true. ‘’You’ll be Miss Sunshine?’’ he asked, with a grin on his face. ‘’Exactly, but with this English weather, I’ll be Miss Cloud, Rain and Fog’’ she joked. He laughed at her joke, he always thought English weather was shit. ‘’Maybe your presence will bring more sun over the base’’ he took a sip of his drink. Y/n tilted her head, before taking a sip of her drink.

‘’I highly doubt that, but hey I’ll probably die of cold, you on the other hand, you’re going to be okay with that beautiful jacket’’ she smiled. He looked at his jacket, then looked at her. ‘’You like my jacket?’’ he asked, with a crooked eyebrow. She nodded as she finished her drink. ‘’Yeah, they didn’t give us any jacket, they didn’t have the money for us’’ she chuckles. A wicked idea came to her mind, she was a fan of baseball, so was he… ‘’Okay, what about a quiz, on the subject of your choice, if I win, I get your jacket, if you win, what do you want if you win?’’ she says. ‘’I want a kiss’’ he grins. ‘’Then if you win, you’ll get your kiss. You in?’’ she asked. He nodded and called Curt, he was a fan of baseball and knew the Yankees. ‘’I’m on, and by the way, I hope your baseball knowledge is good, you know the Yankees, sunshine?’’ he teased. He was 100% sure he was going to win; nobody knew baseball as good as him, but that’s what he thought. Y/n was grinning like a devil, she was getting that jacket!

‘’Ok, last question since you’re both equal in points, Spud Chandler broke the record for what this season?’’ Curt asked. Y/n thought for a second and then took the apple, it was their buzzer. ‘’Y/n?’’ the room went silent; money was changing hands around the bar. Their little competition was the main entertainement right now, soldiers couldn’t believe that someone knew baseball better than Bucky. ‘’ Lowest earned run average in a season’’ she said, smiling. Curt pushed his tongue on his cheek before looking at other guys. ‘’That’s right, you officially win!’’ He exclaimed, making the woman and some guy’s cheer for her. Bucky’s jaw was on the floor, that woman knew baseball, was supporting the Yankees and she just beat him. Now he had to give her his jacket! Bucky looked at the woman, she was smiling proudly. He smiled as he shook his head. He went closer to her. ‘’Let’s get out of here, sunshine’’ he said, she nodded, and they went outside.

‘’How come you know that much about baseball?’’ he asked. They started to walk around the base. ‘’Weather girl wasn’t my original plan, I wanted to be a sport reporter, but because I’m a woman, it’s impossible, but I know a lot about sports’’ she explained. He thought he was dreaming; this woman was surreal. ‘’That was really impressive, even though you beat me, it was amazing’’ he said, he truly meant it, he was in awe before her. ‘’Thank you, but I think you owe me something’’ she grins. Bucky rolls his eyes before taking his precious jacket off. ‘’Take care of it’’ he said, before giving it to her. ‘’Can you help me put it on?’’ she asked. Her back was facing him, he helped her put the jacket on, smelling her perfume properly for the first time. She smelled good, too good, it was going to be stuck in his mind now. Seeing her in his jacket kina turned him on, he didn’t know why, but it was a problem. ‘’Thank you, Major’’ she smiled proudly. ‘’I wish I could say it's my pleasure, but that would be a lie’’ he said, laughing to hide his pain. Y/n giggled as they continued their walk.

‘’That’s me, I have to go to bed early. I’m waking up at 0500 tomorrow I have to do my job’’ she smiles. Bucky nods quickly, expecting her to walk to her building, but she stays in front of him. ‘’Since we were equal, it’s only fair that you get your part of the bet’’ she says. Before he could process what she meant she quickly kiss him on the lips. By the time he acknowledges what just happened, she’s already at the door. ‘’Good night, Bucky, thanks for the jacket’’ she says, his name sounding like a prayer on her lips. ‘’Good night sunshine’’ he said. She blew him a kiss before entering the building, with his jacket on her. Yep, his problem was definitely growing more…

[katerinaaqu]

Hi! Love your takes and all! What do you think of people talking about Penelope being all buff and strong physically as she was "Spartan?" or that she find Odysseus more attractive with blood plaster on his body as she is "Spartan" or such?. Is it true in the Epics? I read something about a Lykurgus or something..I just want to have a nuanced answer to that, also sorry for the silly question.

You are very kind Anon and I am glad you find them useful

Okay for starters I think this whole thing is a massive stereotype in regards to Sparta that "they are all sexually aroused by blood and violence". I mean yes Sparta as we know had an extreme military outline but it is not like they all just killed around to have fun like a twisted version of Asterix village or something. They valued war and the strength in war of course and they took pride to their warfare and all but yeah I think the whole thing of "oh gosh! Blood! Foreplay for Spartans" is just a joke that goes too far sometimes (although we DO have some exaggerated sources about the Spartans but, surprise surprise, they come from their main rival, Athens so yeah one needs to consider that too. So yeah although the Spartans were strictly military I do not think it is actually realistic to say that they all went like:

lol XD

Two this "Sparta" that they mostly mention is at least 100 years if not more away than the "Sparta" mentioned in the epic cycle. You see the Epic Cycle might have been synthesized at the 8th century BC but the events taking place in it, reflect on the Bronze Age or the Mycenean kingdoms which existed before. These "Spartans" everyone speaks about is usually referring to the Doriean Spartans. The Dorieans were a Greek set of tribes with their own dialect that came down from the north at the year around 1100 BC, around 100 years after the estimated date of the events of the Trojan war and they got to remain to the areas such as Macedonia or Lacedaimona aka Sparta thus we have Macedonians and Spartans speak Doric Greek dialect while Atheneans speak Attic Greek dialect and the Asia Minor greek cities speak Ionian etc Either way as I said the events of the Trojan war happened around 100 years before this Doric Tribe descend much less till the strictly military spartan system to be fully crystallized. So we need to think of that. And even then it is not like the Spartan women were some sort of body-builders who didn't have any sort of binary roles to their society or being active warriors in armies etc (don't mistake them for Amazons guys! Hahahaha!). They did actively excersize more than most Greek cities at that time and they did take part in athletic events more than let's say Athens (Athenean women by n large seemed to participate in sports such as running and those were exclusively for Hera's celebrations) so we can imagine they would be more athletic than the average Greek lady but that doesn't mean they were soldier-trained or anything. The military training was for boys at the city of Sparta. And women still had their own binary roles in their respected society, they just had some more freedom as compared to their Athenean counterparts.

So even if Myceneans DID have a more military form of society or at least based on the findings they did focus on warfare to their art and such and the building of their walls and all they still wouldn't be the same as the doric Sparta that were exclusively military. Could perhaps mycenean Sparta have the basis for the future doric Sparta? Perhaps but I doubt we have sufficient evidence to say they are identical.

Three. I believe that people who wanna desperately depict Penelope as some buff lady, misses the concept of Penelope's strength in the Odyssey. Penelope was not strong because she could fight with the sword. She was strong because she was mentally steadfast, clever and resourceful and enduring and she managed to hold the kingdom of Ithaca steadfast by herself for 20 years. It wasn't about her being buff lady. Homer does seem to imply she was tall and stoutly buillt; see my other post where I mention her physical description in Homer:

but not buff as "I'm gonna kick your ass" buff and all. Homer doesn't mention that any of the Spartan princesses have some specific training (Helen Clytemnestra or Penelope) but later literature implies that they have basic knowledge on weaponry (for example in later 5th century dramas and above Clytemnestra not only is seen wielding a weapon but knowing some basics as to how it was made) but it needs to be said that the posthomeric sources were also influenced by their contemporary Sparta aka the doric military Sparta. Homer doesn't imply that this strict military doric way of life was part of his lore but he does imply that Sparta relies more to its military (as compared to Ithaca or Pylos for example) so maybe he attempts to create the illusion of historical continuation but either way no this whole "300s-like" Sparta was not crystalized yet to the times that Homer synthesized his poems much less to the time of Bronze Age.

And there is no hint that Penelope goes "WOW BLOOD!" that seems to me one of the overused jokes on the internet, again emanating by the whole series of Sparta stereotypes used for comedy. It was in fact Euryclea the one to almost welp in happiness seeing Odysseus covered in blood and that was because Odysseus had killed the men she hated. Penelope doesn't show such a thing. Odysseus also washes himself up to be presentable to her. And even in posthomeric sources Penelope was not linked to physical strength but rather with the strength of her mind and the purity of her intentions (well...except maybe from Parthenius narrative if I recall correctly. There Penelope is pictured as scheming in jealousy against one of the sons Odysseus ellegedly produced and manipulated her husband to kill his illegitimate son)

As for the last part I am not sure what you are referring to? Are you referring to Lycurgus that is mentioned in some later sources as king? I did find for example the reference of Plutarch (who lives much much later) that he implies that Lycurgus lives at the same time as Homer or possibly had met him personally but is that what you are referring to? Either way I assume you refer to the historical person rather than some mythical figure because in homeric realm we do have rulers such as Tyndareus (the king of Sparta father to Helen and Clytemnestra) and Icarius (father to Penelope). It seems that Homer with the mention of the two rulers, even if not directly mentioning it, seems to be winking at the later but still ancient custom of doric Sparta to have two kings but I am not sure if that truly was his objective (and therefore creating an anachronism most likely)

I hope that answers your questions a bit

[iamluzgar]

Okay I have thoughts on Veilguard and why I liked Rook and the whole positivity thing. Hear me out.

Spoilers:

One of the main topics of Veilguard (it has many imo) is the question of leadership (which is connected to the question of identity too). It's a question that is asked through Solas at the beginning as to why Rook should be given information regarding the gods.

None of the reasons are "because I'm special". None of them are "because I killed an Arishok" nor "killed an archdemon" nor "because I was blessed by whatever god you want". The purpose of Rook is that they're a rando, so far away from what heroes look like in Thedas. The only stuff you can answer to Solas is "I'm good against odds" or "there was nobody else to do it" and a third one I haven't picked yet that's probably as underwhelming.

Rook did one good deed Varric saw and was like "uh unpredictable and defending people, neat". Solas has been dealing with politicians/politics/big names all of his life, they are assertive people, leaders in the sense of leading faceless soldiers to war for a cause. Rook is none of that, they're the antithesis of this actually and that's the whole point of Varric choosing them.

What IS a good leader actually? The purpose of Rook as a character was to grow and make players wonder. If we look at how "Varric" treats them during the game, and the options, it becomes kinda obvious that Rook is meant to be unsure/not feeling like they deserve to be there/not in their right place. I saw many criticisms about the game for that, but it is MEANT to be like that. We see other leaders, through Solas, Elgarn'nan, etc etc... Every time we see what they do, what they think regarding their faction, how they treat their people. The whole game explores what the fuck is a leader.

I think Veilguard wanted us players to wonder, if we got into Veilguard tomorrow recruited by Varric etc, who would we be as a leader? I think anyone, and even people with leadership positions IRL, would feel awkward and unsure once in a setting to fight gods, having the weight of the whole world on their shoulders. We weren't meant to play "any" character like we used to in other DA (and even then I'd argue Hawke is always kinda the same dude too but I digress), we were meant to play Rook: the rando who got there by Varric and who is unsure about leadership because wtf is happening. This is an honest characterization, what would genuinely and obviously happen. We'd feel inadequate and useless. But the game doesn't tell you "ah you're shitty for feeling inadequate and useless because you have none of what makes a great war leader", it tells you "okay, you have nothing giving you an advantage against your enemies... You're average. What's the best you can do with what you have?"

How would you deal with the rest of the story, with all the understandable vulnerabilities and insecurities you have? Rook dealt with it by supporting the people they thought were better/adequate/fit the hero box they didn't. Because they do, all of them have something narratively special about them. Rook supported them so they realized themselves as heroes, so that they didn't die in the final fight. Which... All comes back to the positivity thing. I know I would do my pep talk to my team, because that's probably the only thing I'd think I'd be good at, and I know they would certainly need it considering the weight on our shoulders. It is what I do in my daily life in the face of struggles.

Rook is meant to be that. They're meant to be the supportive leader, because they have an absolutely disastrous view of themselves and, as a character, fit none of the boxes meant for Heroes. But in dealing with the hands they had, they made heroes out of special people. And those heroes saved the world. And Heroes could include Solas depending on your ending imo.

Veilguard tells you that's the kind of leader you can be, even if you don't think you're adequate in your life, even if you have vulnerabilities, even if you're facing enemies who have a tremendous advantage over you. You, as an individual, can support the special people around you so that they realize themselves and become heroes, even if you're average yourself.

NGL I can't wait to be in 2034 when people realize Veilguard is actually a great game.

[akingdomscrypt]

Make a Mercy Out of Me

Part Five

Pairing : König x male reader (slow burn)

Word Count : ~6.75k

Summary : time to put those skills of yours to the test. and König definitely has a thing for size differences

Warnings : none? don't think. Maybe a slight dissociative state briefly. Very brief.

A/n : working on a few other chapters for this series at the moment too, dk when those will be posted tho. Also didn't know what to title this ch, so that'll probably change.

---"a test: p1"---

Without that looming feeling of betrayal lingering at the forefront of your mind, your thoughts have been a lot more clear lately. You're able to return to your normal self; to analyze your situation and puzzle out the best way to handle it.

This wasn't any average operation, not often did they send soldiers like you so far from the Nest. Perhaps this meant your past transgressions had finally been forgiven; that they no longer held them over your head, suffocating you with the palms of guilt clamped tightly over your mouth.

And with that fog finally lifted, you began to plot.

A switch seemed to have flipped in the other soldiers ever since you had chosen to come back to them, instead of choosing the obvious way out and abandoning them back at that train wreck of an operation.

You were still under intense supervision, always a shadow hovering over your shoulder, and you were only granted access to a few areas of the compound, but it was better. It showed some level of trust, or maybe not trust, but a common ground laid between you and the other five.

A mutual understanding of, though no one was overjoyed by it, this was the only viable option.

You'd been allowed a shower, even, now dressed in an everyday, military-esque outfit. Sure, it was.. a little big on you, but they hadn't had your size, and it was nothing a belt fastened snug around your waist couldn't fix. Though it was certainly nothing like what you used to wear; somewhere in your mind, a feeling of.. longing.. for your old home festers.

Comforted only by the idea that you would someday make it back there. Alive.

Your injuries had been healing well, too. No longer limping so much when you walk; gaining a bit more mobility in your shoulder. Your bandages were cleaned and inspected everyday—courtesy of König. And, all around, you were treated fairly well.

None of them had even hinted at torture, especially none of the kind you had been trained to endure, though you were certain it was likely to have been a topic at some point. As you were pretty sure people who took prisoners didn't also let them wander around their base.

You had never seen any of the captured prey leave in the same state they had come; not that any of that was your concern. You were just a soldier, a pawn, and that part of the operation wasn't any of your business.

It wasn't only König who was in charge of your person, though the man was your main babysitter, sometimes it was one of the other three. But that only really happened when the big man himself had other duties to attend to.

The only one who never watched over you was the captain, their leader. You hardly even saw the man walking around, and you assumed the guy was likely just busy taking care of bigger shit than you.

It wasn't easy to gain the- well, perhaps not friendship, but you were on better terms with the rest of the team.

What was easy happened to be picking up on each of their mannerisms and speech patterns, figuring out who favored who the most, and becoming that person around them. For example, the way you acted with Soap was different to how you behaved around Gaz, and so on.

König was more difficult, or rather, König saw more of you—the real you—than of what was probably in your best interest. You weren't sure what it was, but there was something that made it more.. difficult to put on that one-man show for him.

While the giant fit in with the team, there was a little something there, between them. You'd say a rift, but that was too strong. They watched over him the same way they looked over each other, but there was still something there. You were probably right to assume König was a recent member, while the others had most likely known each other for several years longer.

That curious little part of you, that often is what had gotten you in trouble so much in your younger years, rose its head at the string left dangling in front of you once more. You wanted needed to understand what made up each member of the team, who they were, what made them tick. Weaknesses and strengths, the do's and don'ts.

That was the assignment.

But when it came to König? There was something more. An itch you couldn't quite scratch, something constantly nagging at the back of your skull. Urging you to dig deeper, to take a better look. To find out everything.

The big and small. The information you needed to gather for Viktória, yes, but more. The little things they didn't need to know. The ones you could hoard and keep all to yourself. Could wrap up in a neat little box with a bow, then put that box in a safe that only you held the key to.

You just needed to come up with a way to pick the meat off his skeleton and suck the marrow from his bones without having the favor of his own claws and teeth turned on you.

“You are much more.. pleasant, when you are quiet.” König voices from where he sits on the bench beside you, the sound pulling you from your own, far more peaceful, thoughts.

You snap your head up to face him, but the man doesn't even glance up from where he's sharpening one of his blades. This one a more ornate piece, marginally different from any you've seen him holster on his person. You doubt the pretty little thing even needs to be sharpened, likely never even used; you file that curiosity away for a later date.

You had been staring up at the sky, admiring the cloudless sky, a soft, muted blue, almost grey, stretching for as far as the eye could see—which meant a lot, coming from you. It has been a while since you have last been able to simply sit and enjoy the comforts of the natural world- all abruptly ripped away by the giant, irritating babysitter to your right.

Your eyes narrow, staring at him a few prolonged seconds later before giving an annoyed huff and returning to the sky above. Winter was settling in now, the trees barren, the earth below dry and cracked. All other vegetation was gradually becoming yellow-toned and dormant as the days passed.

You were not planning on indulging in.. whatever the man was trying to goad you into, but you just couldn't seem to keep your mouth shut around him. Unable to help yourself as you grumble a low, “there is nothing to talk about.”

“That so?” König must've finally looked away from his knife, and you can almost feel that familiar, intense gaze burning into the side of your masked face. “You barely scraped past death twice recently, one would think you had much more to say.”

“Just.. lucky, I suppose.” You grit out, one word in particular leaving a bitter taste in your mouth as it was dragged past your teeth. Surely there was nothing lucky about having one's hands bathed in the blood of a dear friend. Frowning, you look back at König once more, “thought you didn't want me to talk?”

“Is just strange, is all,” the man shrugs, “you were in the blast zone of not one, but two bombs, and survived.”

You scoff, “where are you going with this, König?”

“Only curious.” He assures. “Once is a little weird, but passable. But twice..? It just makes a man wonder. Not to mention the instances of before we found you..”

The only reason you were allowed outside happened to be thanks to the man seated next to you, it is for that reason alone you don't rip his throat out for disrupting this scarce opportunity of peace—or at least your fucked up definition of it.

“If you have something to say. Say it.”

What was with all this lead up? Couldn't he just spit it out already? This was getting boring. Fast.

“Don't waste our time with this whole,” you wave your hand at him vaguely. “‘Say everything but what you mean’ thing you are doing.”

The others must have decided that you could not possibly escape with the big guy saddled up beside you—even though, up until now, he had not been paying an ounce of attention to you. You, too, had few doubts that König could easily wrangle you.. considering the events leading up to now.

Not that you planned on leaving anyway, not when you had only recently regained your purpose.

“Why you?”

That causes your thoughts to come to an abrupt halt, opening and closing your mouth a few times, brows furrowing as you ask a suspicious, “sorry?”

“Why you?” König wonders aloud once more, as if saying it twice is going to magically make it make more sense. He must notice your confusion, because he grunts and expands on the inquiry.

“We thought we were tracking a new entity when the first trail we caught of you went cold, but then we noticed a pattern.” He says. “Every single hit they made, both fatal and not, was in a city or country you had previously been in.”

You frown, favoring to keep your mouth shut this time around and listen.

“Then we noticed something far more intriguing. Slowly but surely, with every hit they made,” Keeping the knife in hand, König holds up both forefingers. Slowly bringing them together as he spoke. “They got closer and closer to where you had last left a body.”

Finally, his fingertips touch, and the man looks down at you. “Until the most recent hit, which was right beneath you. Truth be told, our original goal wasn't to get you, we had not even been tracking you at that point. That was until we got tipped off that you may be there, and with the bombings lining up so perfectly, it was worth a shot.”

He puts his hands down, resuming his previous position. Looking at you, those intense, oh-so-curious blues once again aimed and focused on you. Something in your body twinges, but it's not injury related, so you opt to ignore it.

“So all of you are under the assumption that I am somehow involved?”

König appears to think on it for a moment before deciding on his reply. “Well.. yes and no.”

“At first we had the idea that maybe you and them were working together, maybe they were a sort of “clean up” crew. Someone to provide distraction while you slipped through our fingers. But after this more recent attack.. with how close it had been to you, we are now leaning more into the idea that you are the.. target.”

“The target?” It makes sense, when you think about it. When it had happened, you had thought it had been König's team, trying to flush you out or something; which worked, but also made their job harder to a degree. Besides, aren't these ones supposed to limit civilian casualties?

“Ja, the target,” König says. “No one in their right mind would willingly put one of their own in such danger like that. The point of this hit, after looking at the finer details, was to kill you, and no one else. It does make us wonder how they knew you'd be there, at that time, in that specific spot.”

It made you curious too, and a bit confused. If someone had been after you, the others would have known. Someone would have pulled you off duty and back to the Nest, they wouldn't have left you to wander blindly, to walk into traps that they were aware of.

Though, you suppose, it did make for a great distraction while you fled the crime scene. Not that you needed the help.

Viktória had mentioned that they had intended for you to get caught, that that had been the goal of sending you there in the first place. But she had also let slip that, whatever damage you had taken, had simply been collateral, and she had also seemed surprised that you had survived.

At the time you assumed that the point was for you to die, for your thread to be severed, another loose end tidied up with a big red bow on top. But your handler had seemed so damn relieved when you answered the call, which led you to believe the bombing was not on their part.

If not your own organization pulling the strings, not König's team, then who, or what, was behind all of this?

You get cut out of your thoughts by a relatively new, but familiar, voice shouting at the top of their lungs. Or maybe that was just your enhanced hearing.

“König! König’s sidekick!” Soap calls as he makes his way over, the noise sharp enough to make you wince. The newcomer greets König with a nod and pulls your attention with a heavy, but probably not malicious, kick to your boot.

“Captain wants us to test yer skills, runt,” you glare up at him at the nickname, scowling behind your mask. There's no real heat behind it, and you didn't exactly hate it, but you felt the need to put on a show as if you did. You and Soap got along decently, despite you still, technically, being an enemy.

…and you weren't that small..

The other men around you were just unnecessarily large.

König doesn't appear surprised when you glance over at him, though that veil covering his face doesn't assist you in deciphering his feelings much. So you assume he already knew about this.

“C'mon you two, up,” König is already packing up his knife and sharpening tools, so you figure this is unavoidable. “Ghost and Gaz are already there, we're just waitin’ on you two rascals. So enough ‘a this weird bondin’ yer doin’ and lets goooo!”

With that Soap turns and is on his way, leaving König to presumably know where to go because you sure as fuck don't. There are only a few places you are allowed to go, and their version of a training sector definitely isn't one of them. Until now.

It's been a few weeks since you've last been able to freely move and keep up with your self-assigned, intensive training routine. One you usually do in the comfort of a rundown hotel room or in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the calm, steadying atmosphere of trees and soil.

Given your healing injuries and lack of recent practice, you doubt that you'll be at your top performance during.. whatever this is. The others likely don't even expect you to fare much above average, given the current state of your body, but there's still a part of you that feels the need to prove yourself.

Even if they currently had no idea what your given status was. They didn't know you as P-107, they knew you only as Mouse.

It was time they knew what they were really dealing with; all those years of training and experimentation finally out on display.

To show them what it truly means to be a Predator such as yourself.

König and you arrive shortly after Soap presumably does, the latter already chatting away with Skull Guy™ and Gaz. They all turn to you when König and you enter.

“Sergeant,” Ghost nods to König, then narrows his eyes at you, “Mouse.”

You tip your head slightly in greeting, feeling oddly exposed with them all staring at you like this.

“Stop intimidating the poor bloke and get on with it, Lt,” Soap huffs, nudging Ghost's arm with his elbow.

Ghost doesn't seem to pay Soap any mind, still locked in you with a certain look in his eyes that you could only describe as distaste, despite not knowing much about the lieutenant.

That little staring contest goes on between you two for a few prolonged moments longer before the man eventually just grunts a low, barely audible sound and moves on.

“A’right, runt,” seemed as though Soap wasn't the only one privy to calling you that. Great. “Seein’ how this has become long-term for now, we need to make sure you can keep up in the field. Now, König and Garrick said you performed decently on that last op, up until the very end, so this is just to get a feel for where you'll place on the team temporarily.”

You briefly wonder what they would do with you after this was over—if you didn't already have a plan to betray them first, at least.

“Go ahead and get warmed up. We regroup in ten.”

You may be on a bit of a time crunch, but you take your time enjoying the stretch and slight burn of your muscles after having not used them to their full capacity for what is nearing almost a month now.

As you prepare your body for whatever they are about to put you through, that familiar calm, silent headspace that always greets you in times like this, begins to settle over your mind like a blanket.

The other's, apart from Ghost himself, take the time to get their own little warm ups in, and all too soon the lieutenant is calling you back.

“First we will be testing how well you can hold your own against each of us, starting with Sergeants Garrick, MacTavish, and König, then finally myself, understood?”

You nod in place of a verbal response, feeling as though your mouth itself has been sewn shut. Another sensation that always seems to accompany this mindset, turning you more into a humanoid creature than an actual person. Something that appears and feels like a human, but acts nothing like one.

You will not disappoint Her, nor your handler, not again, not after what you did all those years ago. You have something to prove, and you will not be outmatched by a few nobodies such as themselves.

“Good. First up, Sergeant Garrick.” You had been standing a little apart from the group, and Gaz steps out from the pack with a nod to you before making his way to the large mats set out not too far from where the rest stood. “After you get through each of us, we'll move on to the agility course outside. Unless you're too tired, then we'll go ahead and move that to tomorrow.”

Your legs carry you over to join Gaz near the blue mats, Ghost's words background noise as all your focus pinpoints on the prey man before you. Gaze locked solely on him, categorizing every miniscule movement Gaz makes, analyzing his stature and running various predictions as to what moves he could possibly make.

Some part of your brain registers that Ghost is still speaking somewhere to your right, yet not a single word he says breaks through to your consciousness until that countdown, and subsequent, “Go.” rings clear. Then you're on the move.

This is the same man who had rammed the blunt end of a gun against the back of your skull; the only member of the team who had been fast enough to not only keep pace, but he was quick enough to get an advantage over you. You, a man who has been trained to deal with matters far worse than this your entire life.

Gaz had caught you in a bad state back then; delirious from blood loss and exhaustion, and even then you had almost escaped. You were better than that, stronger than they all thought you were.

You act first and hit hard. Past experience has taught you how quick your opponent is on his feet, and you will not be beat again.

It's over faster than it started; meeting in the middle, followed by seamlessly ducking under Gaz's arms when he reaches for you. A quick pivot of your right foot and an attack from the back.

Using your weight and the momentum carrying your body, it's easy to bring him down. Barreling into him from behind and latching on—hands on his shoulders and heels digging into his hips—, but jumping off right before the other lands.

A small huff of air is all the noise Gaz makes as he comes face first with the foam mat below, just barely getting his hands in front of himself before his face can make contact with the floor.

But it's not over. Your prey opponent isn't immobilized yet. He's still an active threat.

You don't give him a chance to recover; don't risk the possibility of him getting back up and giving you any trouble. In a split second you're on his back again, trapping his forearms together in both hands—curse these men for being buff as fuck—and pressing them uncomfortablly high to his upper back. Just shy of dislocating both shoulders if Gaz struggles too hard, and the man beneath you seems to know this. Relenting into a defeated limp with a slow exhale.

You're used to your prey giving you more of a fight, familiar with the grapple for control and venomous spats that comes with a situation like this, but that doesn't come. And the man beneath you isn't prey like all the others had been. Yet.

That realization shocks your system and with a sharp inhale you release your grip, rolling off Gaz and standing upright in one smooth motion. You don't look down at the other as you reach out a hand, offering to help him up, surprised when he takes it.

“Seems I underestimated you, eh?” Gaz’s voice breaks through your thoughts, the tone reads as friendly, if a little out of breath. And with the help of your hand, he's standing up straight beside you. “You were pretty out of it back then, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.”

With a friendly pat on the shoulder from a heavy hand, the man takes his leave to stand by the others. Soap is up next.

Gaz had broken you out of that mindset briefly, but now that the stakes were up once more, it quickly flooded back in. Jaw set, eyes locked on your new opponent.

He's just barely shorter than Gaz, and definitely the most visually muscled out of the group in comparison to his size.

You go through the motions again, take stock of how Soap holds himself—right foot slightly out further than the other, posture held firm but fluid enough to absorb any impact that may happen head on—, the little tells you can pick out here and there.

Now that Soap has seen you against Gaz, they all have, you can't use the same strategy on him. You have to recoup and adapt, take him by surprise.

Your strategy with Gaz had been shock and speed, with this one you just want to avoid being caught. Once trapped in that cage of muscle there would be no other out beside lowly moves that, likely, wouldn't pass in front of this team.

As you assume they held some sort of defensive attitude towards their lower halves, not much of a concern for you. You could handle pain, have had much worse, and were fully sterilized. So that wasn't a problem either.

By the time Ghost once again commands you to begin, you easily hop into defense.

You two circle each other, neither taking the first strike but wound tight and ready to spring into action at the first hint of movement.

Soap makes the first move, lashing out with a fist coming up on your left. A hit you just barely doge at the last moment with a quick hop away.

Then it's circling again, a length of time that goes on far too long for the impatient man in front of you. Always so eager to jump in head first, you've noticed.

You have the upper hand for the most part, dodging and weaving whenever Soap strikes, trying to wear him down. Looking for a weak point. But by now you both are beginning to grow impatient, all of your muscles tensed and coiled to attack.

Slowly but surely, you begin to rush, circling tighter and tighter, gradually closing in on your opponent.

But you should know better than anyone else; nothing else is more unpredictable than a cornered animal.

Which is why the sudden launch your way, thick arms wound tight around your torso, locking in your own arms, restricting you, shouldn't have been a surprise.

Given the shocked yelp you let out, it definitely was.

The tackle sends you both rolling into the group, Soap's arms stiff and an unbreakable force securing you in place.

And that is when the panic sets in. That's when you give fully into nothing but the pure instinct that had been drilled into you. Wiggling and struggling against him, making it as difficult as possible for your enemy to keep a sturdy hold on you.

Grappling and heavy breathing as you two roll around on the floor, neither holding the upper hand until you manage to knock an elbow into the side of his head. His hold slackens just the slightest, but it's enough for you to break free and squirm away.

Only to quickly return.

Springing into his back before he has the opportunity to roll over, but even with both hands, you know you wouldn't be able to hold his arms securely. Unable to hold him down the same way you had with Gaz, you come up with the next best option.

Strangulation.

Or, not really. If this was a proper fight, you'd have cut off his air and snapped his neck. But that's not what this is and you have to settle for squishing his head in one of your arms while the other hand steadies yourself on the mat below. His arms trapped beneath your knees.

You hold him there for a good few seconds, tightening your arm whenever he tries to move.

3..

4..

5..

And that's time. One call from Ghost and you release the sergeant. Rolling off him similarly to how you had after your fight with Gaz, albeit a little slower than last time. And very pointedly ignoring the dull ache in your mostly healed wounds.

Panting softly beneath your mask, you do the same as you had done to Gaz, holding your hand out to help the other man up. That hazy mindset takes a moment longer to dissipate this time.

Soap takes your hand and pulls himself up with a grunt, releasing your hand with an energized, “Woo! Looks like you've got some fight in ya after all, runt!”

You shake your head at his playful demeanor, but only you know about the secret smile beneath the cloth.

Still primed for your next fight, you stand there, waiting, as Soap takes his own leave back to stand between Ghost and Gaz.

“O’right.” Ghost calls, nodding in your direction. “Let's take a quick five, then it's back to the mats, yeah?”

Giving your own signal of acknowledgment, the tension in your shoulders lessens slightly, that background irritation of your injuries returning with a vengeance.

You stretched your arms high above your head, releasing with a heavy sigh before walking over to where the others are.

Two down, two more to go. But, for now, a break. Some time to prepare yourself before facing off with the next two.

Soap had been a struggle, the only reason you got away with Gaz was by surprise, how would you fare against the other, much bigger, members of the team?

__

Fuckfuckfuck.

König hadn't cared for the thought much yesterday, when Ghost had brought the topic up with him. Had asked if he thought you were ready for something this intense. And given how you had gone into the field with them not too long ago, König has assumed it would be fine.

And it was.

You didn't seem to have much of a struggle, at all, really. So why the hell was König's mind having- having not so.. great thoughts.

Thoughts that centered around you specifically. And how you looked when sparring against his teammates. Of course.

You were still his enemy, technically; simply one that shared a mutual goal with them at the moment. And when the time came, they would cut their losses.

This was supposed to be professional. Just you and his team, one ending in mind. A plan set in stone.

The feeling König got when he let the idea of you squirming beneath him fester was, decidedly, not of the professional variety.

Your speed with Gaz had been impressive, and König had tried to focus on that. On logic and fact, that your skills were on par with the team. That you were a valuable tool to be used.

How you acted with Soaps was even better—that glazed over, near feral look in your eyes..—, then it was over, and with it came the realization that he was up next.

It wasn't that König didn't think he could take you on.. because of course he could! You may be fast, but he was much bigger, and definitely stronger. Had proved as much when he had lifted you up by only the arm without any struggle all those weeks ago.

So it was definitely not about physical capabilities. No.

It was the places his mind drifted to when concerning you; when wondering just how much of him you could take—andtakeandtakeandtake—before you broke. Before you shattered beneath him—and let König put you back together again.

He wasn't sure he was thinking about sparring anymore.

A five minute break, five minutes to get his ducks straight and in order. To remind himself just what this was; a test, and you were simply a means to an end.

König's ducks were so, so far out of line, and now his five minutes are up. And now you're by the mat. And now he is too. And now Ghost is giving him a weird fucking look. Verdammt!

You don't look any more phased than you had when up against Gaz or Soap; so to say, you didn't look like you gave a single fuck. As if all of this was no problem at all for you.

You were just staring at him. From past experience, that was already enough in itself to unwound König in record speed.

König isn't thinking when Ghost calls out the command to begin once again, all of his attention focused in solely on you, and only you.

He saw you narrowly escape that man from back in that little town, was there when you somehow managed to hear a damn ticking time bomb that König himself couldn't hear even when standing right next to it, and now he had seen you defeat not one, but two of his teammates—which.. should probably- definitely concern them all just a bit. So, surely, he should have some sort of advantage here.

König has seen you in action, but you have yet to witness him. He wasn't going to let those intruding thoughts from before get to him; he was going to do his damn job and be done with it.

He just had to touch you first.

But, see, that was another problem, he didn't want to. Which was odd, considering just how much he's been touching you since you two met.

This was.. different, and König chooses to willfully ignore the teasing his team has put him through as an explanation for his odd behavior. As he could say, with definite, absolute certainty, that their suggestions—stupid ideas, inklings of something deeper than what should exist between reluctant allies—were completely and utterly false. It was just jokes, just friendly banter amongst teammates.

There was not an ounce of truth to it.

A sudden burst of pain on his left flank shocks König out of his thoughts and he hops back at the same time that you return to circle him once more. It wasn't a complex move, and had been a hit he could have easily dodged if he hadn't been distracted. You had only caught him off guard because he was stuck in his thoughts-

Ah. The team was going to give him hell for this later.

The next hit you swing his way König seamlessly avoids with a smooth step to the side, returning with a jab of his own. Aiming straight for a heavy strike to the abdomen. Not too hard, he's not really trying to hurt you, but he also wants to get this over as quickly as he can. The longer he's in this mock arena with you, the more time he spends so close to you, the greater the opportunity his mind has to spiral.

The hit lands and you stumble, the breath forced out of your lungs, and now is the perfect time to tackle you and end this right here and now- but you don't react as you should.

You recover quickly, getting back into position, gaze still locked in him.

What.

That's not how the human body works, König would know. He's done this hundreds of times before; the body has dozens of weak points that are easy to exploit. A mean punch to one of those areas should've been a quick take down for someone of your stature, one that left you gasping for air; leaving just enough time for König to restrain you.

While König is busy trying to figure out the logistics of whatever the fuck that was, his feet moving on their own, you're going in for another hit, but this time he catches on. At the last moment he steps aside, not giving you the opportunity to back out, flipping around and slinging an arm around your waist.

König wastes no time, throwing you to the ground, with probably more force than necessary, and jumping on you. He can't let you get up, can't let you recover again. No. He has to end this.

Of course, you don't make that easy for him, squirming and flailing beneath him whilst he struggles to get all of your limbs under control. Grunting now and again with every thud of your fist and kick of your boot.

And König swears on his own sanity, that you fucking growl at him, and in the moment his mind produces a picture of a tiny snarl on that face of yours. A small huff of laughter escapes him at the idea, a traitorous part of him finding the image cute.

It would be so much easier if you would just stop moving. You don't grant him that generosity.

It's becoming quite the.. problem. To focus on anything but your body beneath his, almost entirely forgetting that you two are supposed to be sparring at the moment. And that you aren't alone right now.

God help him, König hopes they don't read too much into this interaction as well.

He doesn't have to see it from an outsider's point of view to know this doesn't look entirely.. professional right about now. His larger body positioned above yours, your legs locked around his waist, the heels of your boots digging into his back- trying to flip him, König knows. Hands scrabbling at his chest, the way you're squirming and bucking beneath him like a feral bull.. it all would read very alternatively in an entirely different situation.

Fuck him—or you, he isn't picky—, König's breathing is growing a bit heavier as time wears on, his body a little warmer. Both could be written off as exertion from the struggle, but König knows damn well they aren't.

“Stop fucking moving,” he grunts, low enough for only you too hear. The last thing he needs is for the rest of his team to catch into what's going on—if they haven't already. “You've lost, it's over. Just accept it already.”

“Over my dead fucking body,” you snarl right back, wiggling one of the arms he'd finally caught out of his hold once more.

Everyone is smaller than him, it's nothing new- so why does it feel so much different with you?

You're his enemy, König should be having entirely contrasting feelings on this situation. He shouldn't be.. shouldn't be enjoying how much smaller than him you are, how perfectly you fit underneath his hulking form.

All the people König has ever met have been small compared to him, but none of them have made him want- want. That's it. Yearning. Wanting. For things he refuses to name even to himself, in the safety of his own mind.

Admitting it would mean defeat, in a whole different context. And König isn't ready for that just yet. Ever.

He needs an out, and König gives it no thought before simply releasing his firm holding and dropping down onto you like a dozen sacks of potatoes. Or maybe more, it's not like he'd know his own body weight in potatoes.

“Mmph-!” Crushing you beneath him, there's no way you could escape that. Why hadn't König thought of it before? Could've saved himself so, so much turmoil.

“Time.” Ghost says, and König could've sworn he detected a hint of amusement in that gruff tone. He's never going to live this down..

He pulls himself off of you, shaking himself out before simply reaching down and grabbing you by the arm. Yanking you up and placing you on your feet, only letting go once he's sure you're steady.

You don't say anything, merely glaring at him, but König ignores it. Stomping away back to his place beside Ghost.

“Distracted, König?” The Brit says as soon as he's close enough. And, yep, that's definitely humor in his lieutenant's voice. Damn him.

“Shut up.” He scoffs, sending daggers Ghost's way with mental power alone.

“Wasn't sure if I could call time or give you two some privacy.” König was going to end him. Dishonorable discharge and such be damned, he was going to murder his lieutenant.

“Shut it.” He continues on his way, choosing to stand beside his fellow sargeants instead. Which he should've known would, also, be a bad idea.

Today was definitely not König's day.

“So,” Soap hums, his time casual but König can see that damned spark of impish glee in his eyes. “That how you treat all your “subjects of interest” or just him?”

Gaz doesn't add on, but König can tell he's enjoying this almost as much as Soap is.

“Shut it, Soap.”

“Think I ‘eard ya whisper somethin’ to him too, mind fillin’ us in?” Who is he kidding, Soap has never heeded his warnings. “Or is it just the runt yer keen on filling?”

König groans, Gaz trying his best to stifle his laugh.

“I don't know what you think you saw-”

“Oh, König, pal, we don't think we saw something. It was clear as day. Too bad Ghost called it, I wanted t’see how it all played out!”

“C'mon, Soap, you must be outta your mind,” Gaz cuts in, and for a moment he thinks the man will get Soap to drop the subject. “With that size difference? Don't think the poor little guy would make it out alive.”

König mentally jots down both of their names on the list he just made up after Ghost's first quip.

“Ha!” Soap laughs, nudging his partner in crime. “Good one, Gaz. But I rest my case, who said the runt would be on the bottom anyhow?”

König is out into a shocked silence, staring at the Scot wide-eyed, the tension only broken by Gaz’s bubbling laugh.

Letting out a deep breath, König grumbles, “I harbor a deep dislike for the both of you.” and is endlessly thankful he had decided to keep his hood on. It did well to hide the furious blush warming his face at the moment.

Drawing his attention away from the two idiots beside him, his gaze falls on you. Ghost is speaking, and despite knowing he won't be able to make anything out, König strains his ears to try and listen in.

It yields nothing, of course, but worth the try anyway. Ignoring whatever weirdness that hard sparked between the both of you during your fight, König was eager to see how this next one would play out.

Now it's time they put you up against The Ghost.

__

Masterpost | One | Two | Three | Four | Next

__

@cptg00s3 @ruthgrimxiao @20nerd04-blog @gloma08 @mikahrh @in-down @hauntedapplefarm @mello-life69 @unkn0wnd3ad @tayaisback @starre-eyes @gabbvr-dog @suhmie @lazyrel @spiritzofthedead @yeonpm @its-ares @k1ssesofdeath @ravagerdogz @embry-garrick-ravengard @the-spartan-himself @justacreamcheesesandwich @dilf-lvvr @tukus13 @literallyrousseau @olibird

[elixrr]

Stages of Love! : Part 2

STAGES : how they fell in love (1), them as they pin for you (2), how they plan the confession (3), their confession (4) FT : Yanqing x Teen!Reader CONTENT NOTES : Nothing but pure fluff! It's headcanons but in the format of your average fanfiction, excluding dialogue (except for the confession part)!

STAGE 1 - how he fell in love with you.

It wasn't planned. He'd never suspected that he would fall for you on this one strange yet fateful day. Yanqing recalls, though, when you and he had first met. You weren't a cloud knight, but you admired the swords that each soldier carried. You weren't nearly as interested or as engrossed in swords as he was, but you still thought they were something worth looking at; something to admire. And to be honest, he admired that about you, too. Someone who was interested in swords! Maybe Yanqing was just bored, maybe he was curious, but he was definitely feeling social that day, and so he approached you— not that you noticed, though. Aloud, you asked a question about some of the swords. He doesn’t remember what you asked on that day, but it was a question that he answered, and that’s what earned him a new friend, and that new friend was (and is) you.

But that wasn't really what made him fall. It was more so the effort you put into the friendship that made his heart swell and squeal. You realized very early on that his life revolved around swords and swordsmanship, and to make him happy, you started to research swords. You grew closer to him by learning about swords and discussing anything and everything pertaining to them, swordsmanship, and even the Cloud Knights. He didn't actually know that you were putting so much effort in for him until he witnessed it all himself. On a mediocre, boring, and especially eventless summer day, Yanqing found himself strolling into a library. It's hardly ever too crowded, but it's not abandoned. It's a public library, but more private, and while he doesn't really enjoy books, he loved to look at the covers of certain fantastical stories and skim through pages of various books that have some sort of relation to swords and the simple topic of swordsmanship. It was on this day that he ran into your slumped figure scrolling on your phone with various books laid in front of you, a lot of which having books on swords and stories that pertained to sword masters. One particular book was a well-known, cliché, and typical fictional story that had its protagonist draw their blade at the main antagonist for some heroic reason that leads to a duel at the very end of the book. Actually, he was the one who told you about that story, and you decided to read it. Or, rather, you were in the middle of reading it, but you were distracted by Gunaifen's most recent post about ghost-hunting. He remembers that day well. Next to you was a small pile of books that Yanqing had mentioned before, and they were all books that he wanted to try and pick up (as they were about swords, swordsmanship, and mainly were written by old Luofu sword masters). Before you'd met him, you weren't all that into swords. You thought they were cool, but that was it. Maybe Yanqing was able to convince you that swords were so much more than what meets the eye?

But then he asked you, and he learned that you just wanted to give him a friend to talk to. You noticed that people eventually grew tired of his constant talk of swords, and you wanted to give him a nice little change where he could finally just speak to someone about the things he likes.

His heart jumped. He might've jumped, too—slightly, only slightly, but he was caught off guard. A rose-tinted blush blossomed across his face, and he excused himself out of the library, and from the window, he saw you continue reading the books. Later that week when you visited him briefly, you gifted him that small pile of books, and for some reason, Yanqing couldn't shake off this weird and fuzzy feeling that he felt every time you appeared in his thoughts.

STAGE 2 - how he's pining for you.

Lately, it's been frustratingly hard to function properly when he thinks of you. It's even worse when he sees you! He panics a little, freaking out about what to say or do around you, and it's a feeling so incomprehensible to him because he's never been an overthinker. He never dwelled too much on worries, but now he double checks himself in the bathroom mirror, he fixes his hair a little more, and whenever he's off duty and he takes a stroll around the Central Starskiff Haven, Yanqing always seems to glance around for the potential sight of you because he'd be wearing either his newly washed uniform or his best, polished outfit. The thing is, Yanqing has never dealt with love before. He's never really cared about anything outside of swordsmanship, swords, and being a Cloud Knight, but now you seem to override everything he's been paying attention to, and that's causing him to focus primarily on you, even when his current tasks don't even pertain to you! He finds himself groaning so much everyday now, and it's no longer from the frustration of training.

Love is just a strange thing for this boy, and that's easy to spot. He doesn't understand this furious sting in his gut and heart when he sees you talking to another guy-- hell, just anyone with a sword! It's embarrassing when he thinks about it, but he's sure that he would make for a much better swordsman than anyone else you'd hang out with. He's destined to become the next greatest swordsman in the entirety of the Luofu, so if you wanted to talk to anyone else with a sword, he could be your best bet!

Still, he knows better than to barricade you from friends. He just can't help but feel a slight irk whenever he sees you with someone else. It could be his mind tricking him, but you might be smiling a little wider and a little more with some other guy from the Cloud Knights, and if he gets the chance to see who this guy is exactly, he might request a sparring session with him with you to watch. Would he do that? Maybe. But then Yanqing imagines your sad face to see this other guy hurt, crap, he can't do that! He doesn't even know if you guys are actually friends or not, so what's it to him? He groans so much now, it's so frustrating to even try and grasp what these feelings mean. Why is he so jealous of people who talk to you? Why does he yearn to just be in the same room as you so much? Why does he feel his heart pound at the slightest glance, at the smallest smile, and at the littlest touches that you provide him? He's blushing, crap, why does his face feel so hot right now? The General notices the changes in Yanqing personality, performance, and even his improvement in looks. He asked Yanqing about his frustrations and what's been going on with him as of late, and Yanqing, not knowing what else he could do about this, tells Jing Yuan about his dilemma. He understands the situation immediately, and now that he's caught wind of his potential (literally guaranteed 100%) crush, the General might try pushing you guys together. No more pining, no more screaming into a pillow at two in the morning for Yanqing! It's time to let the confession commence!

STAGE 3 - how he plans for the confession.

Technically, Yanqing hardly does any of the planning. It's mostly Jing Yuan. Jing Yuan plans most, if not all, of your sudden hangouts. Yanqing had once caught the General telling someone that he, Yanqing, wasn't available at the moment because he was about to go on a date… A date? Yanqing? On a date? With you? His face exploded into a beet red, and he refused to listen to the General's pushes for him to go out with you.

However, because of that, you'll notice that Yanqing has been avoiding you for a while. Even if you tried going to his usual sparring sessions, he'd break out into a sweat, he'd start to get nervous and a little red, and he'd ignore you as though you weren't there. Of course, to him, it helps him clear his mind, but as your appearance in his everyday life begins to thin out, and as you begin to talk to other guys, he starts to worry about you and your friendship. He's not dumb; he knows why you're not appearing on his life as much anymore, but now the hurt is starting to sink in. He can't avoid you any longer. The longer you're gone, the more he thinks about you. Yanqing finds himself tugging at his hair in frustration— why can't he just figure this out?!

.

“Talk to them.” Jing Yuan says.

“But, I— I just, I...? I don't know how? I mean, I know how, they're my best friend! It's just... I don't know, I haven't spoken to them at all lately, and—”

“You have a crush on (Name), Yanqing. It's normal for these feelings to arise, but it's useless to push them away. The more you push (Name) away, the bigger the chances of your relationship tearing will become. Talk to (Name), even if it's as friends. They will appreciate it, I know.”

“I...” Yanqing was at a loss for words. “I will. Thanks, General.”

In truth, he never thought that he could lose you through this. How naive, he Yanqing realizes, for him to expect everything to be the same as it was after avoiding you like the plague. Hearing Jing Yuan and his advice, Yanqing fights the urge to bite his nails off at the mere thought of losing you. He doesn't want to, and now he's willing to do as much as he can to stop this potential ending.

So, off Yanqing goes to find you and make amends... and maybe ask you out.

STAGE 4 - the confession.

As if a field of cotton grew in his throat, a lump formed and prevented speech from flowing. Yanqing stood near you, watching you from afar as you hung your feet low towards the ground, kicking them around occasionally in thought. He needed to do something. He needed to say something because he almost felt you slip away from him. You haven't spoken to your friend for a whole month, plus an extra week. You miss him, he misses you, but he's afraid. And you're hurt.

He sees it in your eyes, gloom overriding that spirit he had once seen in you. It lingers in your impassioned brows that nearly meet by the creases made above your nose. You're upset, clearly so, and Yanqing regrets his avoidance when you decide to stand and start towards the exit of the training ground.

"Wait! Don't leave!" You turn around, confused by the voice of your ex-friend. Surprise! It's him. Yanqing stares at you, hesitant and speechless. It's clear that shouting was hardly his plan.

"Yanqing?" You call in awe, "Is that really you?" He panics, realizing that you're running straight for him. Are you mad at him, or are you just happy to see him?! Wait, you must be so mad at him, no way you would just take this situation lightly after all of this time-

But you hug him. Thank Lan and whichever Aeon let this happen! Feeling your embrace, Yanqing thinks that he's forgotten what relief and joy felt like for the whole duration you were gone. He can't deny it, he missed you so much, and from the way his arms reciprocated the tight embrace, you knew that he didn't mean to hurt you.

Yet, you still want to know why he avoided you.

"Yanqing, why'd you leave like that?" You ask, muffled in the sleeves wrapping his shoulder.

"Well- I..." No use lying now. Yanqing fumbles, trying to figure out the words he wants to use. "The General..." No use lying now.

No, you deserve to know why.

"The General told me that I, uhm, apparently... Don't like you as my friend anymore?"

CRUD! What the heck was that response? Don't like you as my friend anymore? Holy moly, I like you so, so much! Yanqing cringed at his own voice. You pull away from the hug, shocked and visibly hurt from what he just said. You- You can't believe him, right? Yanqing prays amidst this awkward pause that the ground swallows him whole.

"...What? You don't- you don't want to be friends? Why? What's wrong with me?"

"No, no, no! Nothing's wrong with you, crap, I actually think you're amazing! I didn't mean what I just said, I meant to say something else- I just- I don't know, I kind of panicked and I-"

"Relax," you put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "tell me what you wanted to say. Just tell me the real reason why you had to avoid me, then."

Yanqing looked at you, the lack of distance nearly shutting him down as a whole. Aeons, after being deprived of your presence for more than a month, he's not used to having you even breathe the same air as him, let alone have your gaze on him while he's fully aware of it. It's overwhelming, his heart is racing, and he can only spew out a few vowels in response.

"It's fine, you're alright, and you'll be alright. Just tell me what you can."

"I- uhhh," tell you what he can? Sure thing, "you see, I..."

"I... I like... you...?"

That was not the response you were expecting.

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ @gamergirl029

HEREEE IT IS I'm so sorry that your request took so long, I don't know why I took so long 😭🙏 THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE. You are amazing!!!

[marley-manson]

the topic is Trapper and the army as foils, you have three hours, go

In no small part the satire of Mash, particularly in the first half of the show, is tied up with gender performance.

The army represents traditional, stifling and violent masculinity. This is shown through everything from freudian jokes about guns (eg Frank and Margaret's flirtations in The Sniper or The Gun), to Margaret trying to cajole Hawkeye into performing a more traditional standard of masculinity while treating him like a soldier in Comrades in Arms Part 2, to many jokes and comments about (usually) Hawkeye not being a real man in contrast to army standards and various specific army personnel (eg Lyle in Springtime, Flagg in White Gold), to Frank and Margaret's worship of the masculinity of the army ("He's twice the man you'll ever be," re: Flagg and Hawkeye, Margaret's lust for MacArthur, Frank pursuing the sniper in The Sniper in an attempt to be a "real man" in Margaret's eyes, etc) to many jokes positioning the military as a sexually aggressive man pursuing Hawkeye ("Sure, the sun the moon the stars, your high school letterman jacket. Same deal I promised nurse Baker." "A receipt please, and promise you'll go out with other doctors," etc.)

In contrast, the main characters all fail to perform traditional gender in some way, from crossdressing to immaturity to indecisiveness to peacefulness to Margaret's masculinity and Frank's pathetic failure to live up to his own masculine ideals, to just about everything about Hawkeye. His cowardliness, his jokes about not being a real man, his jokes about taking the feminine role in sexual encounters with men and women, even multiple double entendres about his average at best penis size.

Trapper is the most traditionally masculine of the main cast. He still subverts masculinity in some subtle ways here and there, such as the occasional feminizing joke and mentions of not being in great shape, but overall he's the more butch counterpart to Hawkeye's fem. He plays the role of boxer while Hawkeye plays the role of diva in their respective manager/star roleplaying episodes. He's broader and buffer and plays football, often seen playing catch with someone while walking around the compound, while Hawkeye disdains sports and doesn't participate. He reads Field and Stream which Hawkeye derides in Alcoholics Unanimous while making a wry comment about shaving his armpits. A past lover nicknamed him Big John.

And there are many, many jokes about Hawkeye and Trapper being sexual partners. The recurring Uncle Trapper and Aunt Hawkeye gag, if my father sees this you'll have to marry me, for me? only if you put those on, your father and I will tell you what we did to have you, that's when I fell in love with him, etc etc etc. It's constant. In these jokes Hawkeye usually takes the feminine role, though not strictly every time ("Me and the missus," is one exception in As You Were, the dance in Yankee Doodle Doctor is another).

Trapper's masculinity is differentiated from traditional military masculinity in a few ways. Most obviously, Trapper abhors the military's violence. He never uses guns and mocks Frank's obsession with them, he's a healer rather than a soldier, and he's disgusted by the results of military violence on the men on his operating table.

He's also secure in himself. The military's brand of masculinity is strongly characterized by insecurity and overcompensation. Frank is the main representative of this military insecurity - a coward who insists he's brave (The Army Navy Game), a man who clings to a phallic gun to compensate for his sexual and gendered inadequacies (a main theme of The Sniper, perfectly mirrored when the army itself comes in with a vastly disproprotionately powerful automatic machine gun on a helicopter to shoot down one sixteen year old), a homophobe repressing his own attraction to men (As You Were, the original script of George), etc. We also see this in Flagg, who implicitly sublimates sexual urges into violence (seen when he suggestively caresses his gun while describing how he wants to torture a boy in Officer of the Day).

Trapper doesn't need to overcompensate. He's well-endowed physically, he's portrayed as a competent and considerate lover, he's a brave man who doesn't mind being seen as a coward, and he may or may not be attracted to men but either way he's not a homophobe (George) and he doesn't express his sexuality through violence. When Margaret proves herself stronger than him, his response is to be impressed rather than offended (Bombed). When he dances with Hawkeye for a gag, he doesn't mind letting Hawkeye lead.

He's also differentiated in terms of tradition, with the mliitary representing a more propagandic 50s traditionalism, and Trapper representing a 70s, countercultural freedom from tradition. We see this in the way Trapper has plenty of sex despite being married, while adultery is a court-martial offense in the military. It's notable that he's open and carefree about it, while Frank and Margaret are surreptitious and hypocritical in their affair. This lack of traditionalism is also shown in his disrespect for authority, often in direct contrast to Frank and Margaret's worship of it, and his allyship to George who the military would persecute for his sexuality.

So ultimately we can see that while Trapper and the military are both examples of masculine performance, Trapper's masculinity differs from the military's in being more flexible, less violent, less traditional, and more secure. The military's masculinity is far more toxic than Trapper's, particularly in the context of 70s counterculture media, which aligns womanizing with sexual liberation rather than a lack of respect for women, accurately or not.

This contributes to their respective dynamics with Hawkeye.

Hawkeye, we've established, is usually more feminine, and there are a myriad of jokes characterizing Trapper as his sexual partner, as well as the military as a sexual pursuer.

The jokes Hawkeye and Trapper make about their relationship tend towards cozy domesticity. They're Radar's "aunt and uncle," they directly roleplay marriage ("Martha, we're going to have to move, the people upstairs are impossible,") and less directly behave as though married (the bickering in Alcoholics Unanimous, the discussion about naming their pony in Life With Father). Occasionally they're treated as a healthy couple in contrast to Frank and Margaret's toxicity ("While I'm gone, promise you'll go out with other doctors," vs "Touch anyone else and I'll cut off your hands" in Aid Station).

In some instances the jokes lean towards predatory - "If you're trying to get me drunk, it'll work," or "Who is this man in bed with me?" "I followed you home from the movies," but they're always playful, always fond. If Hawkeye takes on a submissive or victimized role in these jokes, it's one he has fun with and discards just as easily in the context of the rest of his relationship with Trapper.

So, it's important to note that Hawkeye and Trapper support each other and look after each other in an equal, enthusiastic friendship. From Trapper ensuring Hawkeye gets to sleep in Doctor Pierce and Mr. Hyde, to Hawkeye supporting Trapper when he wants to adopt a child, to Trapper right at Hawkeye's side as they attempt to procure an incubator, they are there for each other every step of the way. If their relationship is a marriage in some ways, it's a healthy, strong, and non-traditional marriage, an equal and open partnership free of jealousy and insecurities.

Compare that to the military's relationship with Hawkeye. In jokes it's characterized as powerful and predatory, far from an equal partnership. Sometimes it approaches positive - in Carry on Hawkeye, much of the humour is derived from Hawkeye and Margaret's gendered role reversal as she assumes military command of the unit. Hawkeye playfully calls her sir, seductively lies on her desk like a secretary in a porn film, and most notably treats an immunization shot as sexual penetration in a prolonged gag about sexual role reversal. Hawkeye has fun playing a sexually submissive role to a representative of military authority in this episode, but it is a submissive role.

Several of the one-off jokes have a similar sensibility, such as the double entendre of "My bellybutton's been puckering and unpuckering all day," in response to a representative of MacArthur assuming their excitement over the general's arrival to the unit, or Hawkeye's "Okay, take me, I'm yours," to Colonel Flagg. They demonstrate a willingness to play the receptive role on Hawkeye's part, but they also, pointedly, disturb the object of the jokes.

When Hawkeye makes these jokes that sexualize military authority, he's attempting to be provocative as well as defiantly drawing disruptive attention to his own powerlessness as a drafted surgeon. The power dynamic between Hawkeye and the authority of the military only goes one way, and Hawkeye gets a kick out of pointing it out in ways that perturb the representatives of that authority, but it's a power dynamic that takes its toll on him.

Many of Mash's plotlines revolve around Hawkeye rebelling and attempting to seize some scrap of agency back from the military. Adam's Ribs, for example, in which he starts a mild riot over the food he's being fed and spends the episode attempting to procure barbecue ribs from Chicago (which Trapper procures for him), or Back Pay where he tries to charge the military for his forced labour. A particularly notable example is Some 38th Parallels, in which Hawkeye complains about being paid the equivalent of a nickel per operation, and his frustration manifests in impotency until he can perform a gesture of rebellion against the military.

One unfortunate consistency of these episodes is that the army ultimately retains its power. When Hawkeye achieves his goals, it's only in small ways that do little more than satisfy his own need to assert his sense of self. Often, Hawkeye doesn't achieve his goal at all, but is thwarted by the army, such as in For Want of a Boot. In every instance he remains powerless in comparison to the authority of the military.

So the context in which Hawkeye makes these sexualized jokes about the military literally fucking him is one of abject helplessness. In a sense, all he's capable of is pointing out what the military is doing and putting it in his own, audacious terms. He's not capable of preventing it. His jokes usually have an edge of bitterness to them in delivery, and when they don't, that tone is imparted anyway by the greater context.

With Trapper, Hawkeye can play-act a marriage or an assault, but in either case he's an enthusiastically consenting, equal partner. Trapper's performance of masculinity allows for Hawkeye to take any role from victim to wife to husband, and enables Trapper to respond in kind from a position of equality and respect. The military, in its insecure, domineering performance of masculinity, is a dictatorial authority, never allowing Hawkeye perform any role but a feminized, victimized one, and only ever giving him the choice of whether to perform with a wry smile or a sneer.

In short, Trapper is the cool, considerate service top to the military's insecure domineering boyfriend.

I'm tagging everyone who enabled this lol, share the blame. @beansterpie @majorbaby @professormcguire @rescue-ram

[pompomchihuahua]

So, I've seen a Twitter thread making the rounds about Yuichirou being in the right for not trusting Amane which you can read here. Overall, I think it nicely covered why Yuichirou was so "mean" to her: a strange woman shows up at their home trying to recruit two vulnerable 11-year-old boys who just lost their parents. She starts talking about demons and them being descended from swordsmen and being able to save people and in Muichirou's hopeful little heart it strikes a chord.

But Yuichirou says that he's certain she's just going to use them, that she's plotting something, which, from a story telling perspective, is an interesting seed to plant in the viewers mind.

What I mainly want to focus on in this thread is Kagaya Ubuyashiki, as he is the one who ultimately sends Amane to recruit the Tokitou twins (though, yes, she is complicit in the recruitment of child soldiers. The average age of soldiers in 1912 Japan was 17-20 not 11).

Putting aside that he ends up recruiting Muichirou anyway after he's made almost impossibly more vulnerable (just lost his last remaining family, critically injured, just lost his memories and also, once again, an 11 year old CHILD being coerced by an adult into fighting mythical monsters) Kagaya has a way of appearing to the Hashira at their most vulnerable moments to recruit them (aside from Rengoku who was basically born and raised into the role which is a whole other can of worms).

Another thing I'd like to point out is the cruelty and impracticality of final selection, something that is exemplified perfectly with Sabito. How many slayers with the potential to do something great's lives were wasted in final selection? Considering the sheer amount that goes in and how few come out and the lack of any kind of age limit, I'm going to guess quite a few. Why exactly is the system set up like this?

They essentially set up a demon buffet featuring children as the main course. Did they know about the demon growing out of control on the final selection grounds? Most likely, and if not that's highly irresponsible to not at least monitor your supposed testing grounds.

Why not have them fight against other, higher-level slayers? If they fail the test, they'd be sent back into training or dismissed entirely instead of just... killed. And Ubuyashiki seems fine with this! And I'm truly curious- he mentions memorizing the names of every slayer that dies in the line of duty, but does that include the dozens of people that don't even get to become official slayers because they die in the very baffling final selection meat grinder?

I'm getting off track.

What I mean is that Ubuyashiki is shown to have questionable moral decision-making when it comes to the pursuit of defeating Muzan: it seems his goal is to kill Muzan at all costs.

Later, Muzan says this: "That schemer! Like a viper, his rage and hatred toward me... was coiling inside his pitch-black heart!"

As the viewer we're, of course, meant to take this with a grain of salt. We know Ubuyashiki didn't have a "pitch-black heart," but I think there's a grain of truth to be found in Ubuyashiki harboring rage and hatred toward Muzan.

We know the reason the Ubuyashiki clan started to hunt Muzan in the first place was to save themselves from the curse (and along the way I think they genuinely believed it was for the greater good as well).

But I think it sets Ubuyashiki up as the perfect morally ambiguous foil to Muzan. Yes, he is supposed to represent humanity, but what is more human than the endless moral struggle between the greater good and what's right for the individual? Ubuyashiki points out that in the thousands of years of Muzan's existence, the corps has never been wiped out but this is because the corps inherently preys on those who are at their most vulnerable. It is built on the back of tragedy.

Everything down to even just their life span is meant to be equal but opposite from Muzan's immortality to the Ubuyashiki's ephemeral life spans. Even their clothing choice, with Muzan picking darker colors and Ubuyashiki clad in white. Muzan is beautiful and unmarred while Kagaya is consumed by the curse of their bloodline yet their appearance is described as "twin-like" in the Kimetsu extras. Yet they are also equal, once again returning to their supposedly identical features, they both have a tendency to appear to those that serve them at their most vulnerable.

This is not a "Kagaya is evil" post at the end of the day. This is a "Kagaya is not a morally pure character and that's a good thing" post. And, I think, had the author had more time, they would have explored this fully. We all know the ending was a tad bit rushed due to the author having a family emergency and I will never blame them for that, but just looking at the story they built even on that time crunch I can only imagine they narrative they could have built given unlimited time.

I feel like they could have explored Kagaya's character more which they set up as being Muzan's equal but opposite: equally scheming but thankfully on humanity's side. He had empathy for the children, yes, but he still, at the end of the day, used people at their most vulnerable to do what he couldn't on his own.

And I didn't even get to START on the implications of his magical "voice" and foresight powers, but this post is already so long that I'm gonna end it here.

TLDR: Ubuyashiki is so much more complex than your stock "Greater good" character. He's Muzan's equal but opposite force, conniving but empathetic, morally ambiguous. Had the author had more time, I feel this would have been explored in more depth.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

shallan and kaladin are like two sides of the same coin

> both take responsibility for things that were outside of their control in order to create the illusion that they had some measure of influence over horrific things that happened to them (because the alternative is too unbearable)

> both have hardcore main character syndrome - which is just reaffirmed by the narrative again and again lol (like, it is true that they do happen to be main characters in a book series. but even if they weren't they would still feel like that imo)

> both feel the need to take care of others and hate being the one that is taken care of (but despite how uncomfortable it is for them they still somewhat crave it)

> both have a very strong sense of justice (even if their ideas of what is right and wrong don't exactly align)

> both have put a lot of time and effort into one specific skill that they then use to define their entire sense of self-worth

> both try to view who they are on bad days and who they are normally as two separate people (i just say "the wretch")

> on that note: so much mental illness lol

> both absolutely abhorr failure

> connected to the above: both are willing to do slightly insane things in order for things to go according to their will

the main difference is that everyone views Kaladin as somewhat above them ("Stormblessed") even though he genuinely just wants to be one of the guys. He is just like everyone else! By the Almighty please stop worshipping him or seeing him as somehow better than the average soldier !! 😭

while Shallan is viewed as meek and somewhat weak and all around not something all too special (cue kaladin's absolute shock when she tells him her backstory) even though she really really really needs to be seen as something special. she knows in the end effect it benefits her if she doesn't stand out too much or if people underestimate her (their looks of wonder when she surprises them is always great) but damn it she went through hell and pulled through - pulled her brothers through, that are older than her - and still people can never properly appreciate her 😔