#back to my hole now to write the second half of this fucking long story

[jessepinwheel]

happy may the fourth as a treat here's the entire uncut first chapter of race condition for you to chew on while I spend the next year or so finishing the story

All interrogations are kind of the same. The walls have slightly different coloring or there's a few chairs more or less, but in the end it's always a depressing room you're not allowed to leave, locked in with a person who thinks you've done something wrong and will do just about anything to get you to admit it.

It's not really about truth at that point. By the time you're under the hot lights, they've already decided you'll swing and are just waiting for you to supply the right noose. They know the game. They can twist your words around until they've got you saying things you never did or even thought of, anything so long as they can pin you and send you off to rot. It's like that every time--they'll tell you it isn't, but they're lying. You don't make friends in an interrogation.

I sat there, cuffed, across from a man with the same face as mine and sad eyes that could break even the hardest heart straight down the middle. He didn't look like a High General or a Master Jedi or an interrogator--he looked like a tired man who was trying his best, and maybe that's what he was. Maybe it really was breaking his heart to have to handle me this way, but it didn't matter. I'd known my plans would hurt people, even decent ones like him, and that made me sorry, but not sorry enough to stop. If he was anything like me, he would understand in the end. Maybe not enough to forgive me, but I wasn't doing all this for forgiveness.

At that point, we'd been at it for at least two hours, going around in circles. He was good at the questions game, but I was good at being difficult.

"Obi-Wan," he said in that Coruscanti accent of his. "Why did you do it?"

"You'll have to be more specific, dear," I replied.

"Infiltrating the army. Sabotaging Republic military engagements and stealing classified information. Collaborating with Sith. What's the point? What's your goal?"

I shrugged. "I didn't tell you the first ten times you asked, Master Jedi, so I don't see why you think I'll tell you now."

"I'm trying to understand," he said. "You're a reasonable man. You're loyal and intelligent and kind. Why would you betray everyone like this?"

It was flattering, I guess, that he thought so highly of me, despite what I'd done to him and was still planning to do in the near future.

"Betrayal only depends on your point of view, doesn't it?" I asked.

His brow furrowed. "Then what is your point of view, Obi-Wan?"

"You won't believe me," I said, leaning in towards him. "But Master Kenobi, I am trying to save the Jedi."

---

That's not where the story starts.

The story starts a lot earlier on a small trash-covered world on the Outer Rim called Lotho Minor. I'd never heard of it before a witch's Dark talisman had led me there. Even feeling the Force twine tightly around it as I approached, I had a hard time believing that anyone would end up on such a hellhole planet, much less stay there for any amount of time, though I suppose that hadn't been a choice. It wasn't my place to say how the Nightsisters' Dark magic worked, and wasn't as if Lotho Minor had a lot of functioning ships to go around.

It was obvious even from atmosphere that Lotho Minor was not a beautiful planet. Its entire surface was mottled gray and brown, covered over with refuse from other systems--the natural result of interstellar transport being simpler and cheaper than efficient recycling measures. Clouds of steam wafted off of the mountains of trash, either from the planet's natural heat or from bacterial decomposition. I landed my ship on the most stable-looking pile I could find and it creaked and cracked precariously under the weight. It didn't inspire a lot of confidence.

I stepped out of the ship, and even with a respirator the smell was revolting. From where I stood, the steam rising from the unpleasantly warm mountains of trash became endless fog that made it hard to see further than maybe a hundred meters and the sky was stained deep red from all the atmospheric contaminants. The very ground had an unsettling texture from the mix of broken droids and discarded electronics and rotting clothes and food, squelching under my boots on one step and crunching under the next. None of it felt very stable, and I could hear the low rumbling sound of piles shifting and resettling in the distance. I didn't like to think what could be hidden in these enormous mounds--they almost certainly didn't bother to sort their sharps or biohazards in a place like this. Not a safe place, indeed.

I ventured out, following the witch's talisman as its Force pressed against my mind and tugged me forwards. It was not a comfortable sensation--it felt almost like a compulsion and a malicious one at that, trying to claw into my psyche. It had been uncomfortable before, when I had reached orbit, but it was much stronger now that I was planetside, like an invasive weed putting roots through the back of my mind. It felt like obsession, as much of the Dark Side did, and it tried to push me faster and into recklessness.

I breathed deep and took hold of the feeling, then with a practiced hand, excised it. I was not a Master of anything, of the Force or the Light or the Dark, but only I controlled myself and I'd gone through too many of my own angers and obsessions to let someone else's undo me. I was here because I wanted to be, and I would go where I needed to in my own time.

Slowly and carefully, I descended the mountain, watching out for jagged edges and uneven footing all the while. The talisman led me through to a cave which appeared to be the hull of an ancient starship, corroded by chemical waste and partially collapsed from the weight of all the refuse piled on top of it. It was easier to navigate inside than outside--at least the floor was less likely to fall apart beneath me--but there was something supremely creepy about a dead dark rotting starship with all the systems down. Like walking through a towering corpse.

I lit a glow stick and held it out. Small device casings were littered everywhere, shucked for any valuable components and discarded. There were dark streaks across the floors, which I could only assume was blood or other body fluids, and heavy scrapes and scratches across the metalwork like from enormous claws. A few parts of the corridors looked like they had been haphazardly slashed with a lightsaber--out of anger or frustration, if I had to guess.

Even without the talisman, I felt I was close. The Force grew colder with the Dark Side the further I went, flowing slowly and thickly like sludge. It clung to me as I ventured deeper, like hands trying to drag me down into a deep dark hole where I couldn't escape. Someone had hurt here, very badly and for a very long time. I didn't like to think about the implications.

I followed the tracks back to what may have once been the ship's command center. Through the door, there was a muffled humming sound of a working generator. The door jammed slightly when I pushed, and I had to lever my mechanical hand against the frame to get it open. The inside reeked of death.

The first thing I noticed was a jury-rigged broadcasting box sitting on what used to be the data terminal dashboard. It was pretty big, large enough that I wouldn't be able to get both arms around it, and it seemed powerful, like the long-distance transmitters used for distress signals. Chances were, that was its intended purpose, though it wasn't currently operational--my ship would have received the transmission.

The second thing I noticed were the piles of discarded food containers and small animal bones and rotting skins littered across the floor. It seemed that even on a planet that consisted of only refuse, there was still a little sustenance to be found, whether it was refused packaged foods or vermin. Having scavenged for food in much the same way in the past, I could sympathize, though even I would balk at having to survive on it for as long as the size of the piles implied.

The third thing I noticed was the body.

It lay in the corner of the room, a Zabrak with red skin and black tattoos that were stark even under the dim light. It was sprawled on a mass of twisted metal, and it was only when I stepped closer that I realized the body was missing a bottom half.

"Oh, Maul," I murmured. "What happened to you?"

Maul remained senseless as I approached him. He was breathing shallowly and I could still feel the Force moving within him, so he was alive, though not by much. Closer inspection revealed the pile of metal was not droid refuse as I had suspected, but an actual cybernetic prosthesis, a grotesque one with too many limbs. It seemed to have been grafted directly to Maul's abdomen, without even a proper neural port or other surgical mount.

I grimaced. My experience with cybernetics was limited to what was necessary for my mechanical hand, but it didn't take an expert to realize that a bad surgery and a non-matched species prosthesis made for a very bad time.

I took it apart. I didn't really have a choice--Maul was clearly in no state to move himself and there was no way to carry both Maul and his enormous arachnid lower half all the way back to my ship. He could get a new prosthesis--a proper one--after we got off this hellish planet.

I was careful, but there's only so much you can do with a prosthesis that isn't designed for removal and I felt Maul's Force curling in pain as I used my multi-tool to cut connections and pry away layers of metal. It took maybe an hour to strip everything down to the crude socket, an ugly thing like a ragged and open wound in durasteel alloy. Looking at it directly, it was obvious that Maul had not had the luxury of a proper cybernetic technician, nor of any sort of post-op care. The socket was badly fitted, chafing against inflamed scar tissue all around his abdomen, and the prosthesis itself didn't look like it had been serviced once in the last decade. Maul's entire experience with cybernetics must have been excruciating.

I pulled my cloak off to make a sling for carrying Maul back to the ship, and it was in the middle of easing him into it when his eyes snapped open, the Force around him swirling like tongues of fire.

His red-and-gold gaze directly met mine and his lips curled back into a snarl. "Kenobi."

So at least he remembered me. They didn't seem like good memories.

I couldn't feel the Force the same way that Jedi did, but I didn't need that to feel the utter hatred spiraling out of him. I felt him lash out with the Force, whether trying to choke me or otherwise, and I tightened my grip on him.

"Maul," I said. "Calm down. I'm getting you off this planet."

Maul screamed something at me that sounded like a threat of bodily harm, which was pretty impressive considering his physical state.

I didn't have the time or energy to deal with it. I wanted to be off this planet as soon as possible, and the last thing I needed was Maul trying to strangle me on the way there. I pressed hard against Maul's diaphragm, driving the air out of him, and pushed my Force to my voice and said, "Sleep."

Maul flinched from the command, the scream dying in his throat.

"Sleep, Maul," I said, the Force vibrating through my words. It sank into him easily--he was too unbalanced or too unaware to keep it out. "You're safe now. I'm getting you out of here. Sleep."

Maul growled at me again, fighting it, but his eyes slipped closed as unconsciousness took him. When he was well and truly asleep, I secured him in the sling across my back. He was feverish and one of his horns dug uncomfortably into my shoulder, but he was so light that he was easy to carry--and not just because of the missing legs. He needed a lot of care, the professional kind. He needed it a long time ago.

"All right," I said, more to myself than to him. "Let's get off this dump."

---

I'm not a fan of hyperspace.

I'm not a fan of space travel in general, but hyperspace is the worst--it's a big reason why I settled down in Coruscant ten years ago with the intention of staying indefinitely. Hyperspace is empty and endless, and for someone like me who can feel the Force a little bit but not nearly enough, it's like staring straight into a black hole.

Dead and dark.

The only good thing about hyperspace was that it was dead time with nothing better to do, which meant I could finally sit down and think about what the hell was going on.

I had a lot of questions. I'm not unobservant--I can tell when things don't add up, and at the moment, a lot of things were not making sense. Least of all the half-a-Zabrak laying on the cabin bed, deep in Force-induced sleep.

Less than a tenday ago, I had killed Maul. I had shot him dead, a bullet through the heart, and held him until he breathed his last. Three days ago, I had arrived on his home planet of Dathomir and spoken to his family and buried him there according to his last wishes. His mother, the witch, wasn't happy about the situation, not that I expected her to be. She must have taken issue with Maul's death, because she did some kind of Dark magic on him, and maybe on me, though I don't know what--between the strength of the Dark Side on Dathomir and her magic, I blacked out pretty early on in the process.

When I awoke, she shoved a talisman into my hands and led me to a ship and told me to retrieve her son. I asked questions, obviously, but she wasn't in much of an answering mood. From what little she deigned to explain, Maul who was dead was no longer dead, and also on another planet several light years away, and this somehow made it my job to get him.

Fine, okay. I had killed Maul, so the least I could do was grab his resurrected self off whatever planet he'd landed on. I'm not the kind of scumbag who only cares about someone once they're dead, and I'm not the kind of idiot who tries to get on the bad side of a witch who's powerful enough to bring her son back to life, so of course I took the ship and the talisman and went. Magic could bring Maul back to life and resurrect him on a completely different planet than the one he'd been buried on? Sure, whatever. I didn't know a damn thing about magic, and as Master Jinn had once said a lifetime ago, through the Force all things were possible. I could suspend my disbelief long enough to check it out for myself.

I couldn't suspend my disbelief for this.

Maul--this Maul--was not the one I remembered. It wasn't just that he was missing his legs. It wasn't just that he was even more gaunt than the last time I had seen him.

It was that he had a cybernetic socket that looked like it was installed several years ago. It was that he had clearly lived in that alcove in that ancient starship for months, if not years.

The Maul lying on the bed beside me had no scar over his heart--not one where I had shot him dead, nor where Master Jinn had run him through with his lightsaber eleven years ago. I could believe that a magical resurrection might give him more injuries and scars, but to take them away? And not even all of his scars--only the one? That didn't make sense. It was too arbitrary.

This Maul was not my Maul. I could believe that. So why, then, had he recognized me? That didn't seem possible. I was missing something big. Until he awoke and answered some questions, I had no way to find out what.

I sighed and left the cabin. Maul would wake up in his own time, and I would feel it through the Force when he did. Hovering wouldn't help either of us.

I paced the ship slowly, Maul's lightstaff a heavy weight on my belt. That was another thing I couldn't reconcile, when to my knowledge his lightstaff had been stored in the Jedi Archive vaults eleven years ago after Master Jinn collected it from Naboo.

I didn't like to carry it--it's not right to carry a kyber crystal that isn't yours to begin with and the Force around this one was so volatile it was almost physically painful to touch. The crystal felt like it was weeping.

It made my heart hurt in a lot of ways. I hadn't ever seen a kyber crystal treated so cruelly--they were sacred to the Jedi and the Guardians of Jedha both, and respected as companions and for their connection to the Force. Kyber wasn't sentient the way a creature is, with discrete thoughts and feelings, but it was still alive in the Force, and it could hurt and care as much as anything else. For a Jedi, a chosen kyber crystal was practically an extension of the soul, and mutilating one this way was desecration of the worst sort, both to the Force and one's self.

I didn't know why Maul would do something like that--I asked the crystal, but my connection to the Force wasn't deep enough to understand anything from it except vague impressions of pain and blood. I suppose that was answer enough.

It would be nice to believe that Maul had been coerced into it all by his Sith Master and that he was really a decent person deep down, but chances were, that wasn't true. I already knew he was cruel. He had hurt himself and he had hurt others, and all things remaining equal, he would do it again.

Until I knew what was going on, until I knew it was safe, I would hold onto his lightstaff. I don't think Maul's kyber liked that very much, but it seemed to accept the necessity of it. It didn't like me much, either. I could respect that.

I went to the ship's kitchenette, not really out of a desire for food but just to keep moving. Hyperspace made me restless no matter the circumstances--a tendency that had greatly annoyed Jango in the years we had collaborated. Only now, I didn't have Jango to spar me to exhaustion. I was effectively alone in a two-cabin cruiser that was older than I was, whose previous owners were now assuredly dead by the Nightsisters' hands. I supposed I ought to be grateful it still worked at all.

It was a good thing I wasn't hungry, because the kitchenette had very little in the way of sustenance--mostly nutrient powder and other preserved foods which were edible enough, but whose taste, I had found out, had not improved over the years. Food was food, but I sincerely hoped that once we landed I could restock with something a bit more palatable.

Just then, the door slid open and the ship's astromech rolled in, a somewhat junky KY4 model that had gone through some hard times. Its chassis was a small box of about knee height with three omni wheels for movement and a wide-angle ocular sensor on top--an outdated style, but functional enough. I moved to the side so it could roll without tripping me, and it chirped to me in response. My Binary wasn't great, but I got the gist--that all systems were running steady. It was the third time in as many hours it had come to tell me so.

"Thank you, KY4. How much longer will we be in hyperspace?" I asked.

KY4 chirped that it would be about two more hours, then rushed to reassure me its navigation processors were completely functional and that there would be no problems with its calculated course. This was, again, something it had done multiple times over the course of transit.

"I believe you," I said. "Did you need anything else?"

KY4 chirped a negative and skittered off without waiting for a response.

I let it go. Droids might not have feelings the way a person did, but they tended to develop personalities if they went too long without refreshing their firmware, and for better or for worse, KY4 had been alone long enough to discover anxiety. Considering the fate of its previous owner, that was understandable. I didn't know much about dealing with skittish droids, or droids in general, but I'd give it space and maybe once it was used to me it wouldn't feel like it had to flee the moment it stopped talking. Chances were, it didn't know what to do with me under these strange new conditions. It would probably take a while before it felt like it was on level ground.

I guess that made two of us.

---

True to KY4's calculations, we dropped back to sublight just over two hours later. The two of us piloted the ship into low orbit over a small ocean moon known as Bantu IVb, the only inhabitable moon of six orbiting a gas giant in the Dothikan system on the Outer Rim. It was excessively obscure and there was very little notable about it except that I knew a medical professional lived there--Solis Greer, a Mandalorian Duros and acquaintance-slash-sort-of-family-member of Jango Fett. I knew about her because thirteen years ago, when Jango had picked me up with a crushed mechanical hand and a shoulder recently stabbed through with a lightsaber, he had brought me here for treatment.

It was a stretch to say that Solis and I were friends or even friendly--she had obviously known Jango well, but I was only ever her patient. Still, she was level-headed enough that I felt confident she wouldn't shoot me in the face before I could ask her to help Maul.

We held the ship in low orbit and I sent a transmission requesting landing clearance. Even on a planet without a spaceport, that was only polite.

The responding transmission arrived not ten minutes later, to the effect of "who the hell are you?" and also "where did you get those landing codes?", except in much coarser language. I guess Solis didn't remember me--it had been thirteen years, after all.

I responded that I was an old friend of Jango's, and that I had a patient in need of medical care. There was a little more back-and-forth, but about half an hour later she sent me a set of coordinates where I could land safely and said that she would meet me there. I thanked her and started the descent to the planet's surface.

It wasn't an easy landing--Bantu IVb had heavy winds and my ship was not designed for a single pilot with only one fully functioning hand, but between me and KY4, we made it down with only a minimum amount of damage. We landed on a rocky outcropping a few kilometers inland from the shore.

I stepped out onto the bluish shale, getting a feel for the slightly lower gravity, and breathed deep. The air smelled just like I remembered--damp and a bit metallic from dissolved mineral deposits. There were no trees on the island--or at all, if I remembered correctly--giving me a clear view of the moon's enormous oceans with gray hydroturbines and clumps of red algae floating in the distance. The skies were cloudless and tinted greenish-blue, with a large hazy orange crescent hanging a few hand-widths above the horizon--the gas giant this moon orbited. Despite the apparent barrenness, it was far from dead. I could feel the Force all around, flowing in slow currents from plant and animal life hidden just below the water's surface. It wasn't for me, but it was as good a place to live as any.

I felt eyes on me before I heard the footsteps. I turned to face them.

Solis stood ten paces back, in full armor with her blaster rifle aimed at my face. It was not, in short, the welcome I was hoping for. I held up my hands slowly.

Solis did not put the blaster down. "Why come here, Kenobi?" she asked in heavily accented Basic.

Okay. So maybe she did remember me, though everyone seemed unhappy about that lately. "Solis," I said. "I'm sorry for arriving without warning. There's a patient in the ship who needs medical care. You were the only medic I knew who could also do technician work. I have credits--I can pay." I didn't have too much, but it would be enough for this. "If you don't want me here, that's fine. Just tell me where I can go, and I'll leave."

"How do you know this place? Where do you know my name?" Solis demanded.

"I…what?" I asked. "Solis, you treated me, remember? Jango brought me here after I got stabbed with a lightsaber. You told me to get phrik plating for my hand."

This, if anything, made her angrier. "Do you hear words you're saying? Do you think I'm fool, jetii?"

My mind came to a screeching halt. "Jetii? Solis, I'm not a Jedi. I can't even use the Force. You knew my name; don't you remember me?"

"Only fool doesn't know your name. It's on all the HoloNet for the last year." I could hear the sneer in her voice. "High General Obi-Wan Kenobi."

That froze me.

That's a title I had never wanted to hear--one I never thought I would hear. I'd had my war on Melida/Daan and it had cost me my place with the Jedi Order, my hand, and the Force. That was enough war in a lifetime for anyone. Given the choice, I would never pick up that mantle of command again.

My mind whirled. Solis had recognized my face from the HoloNet, because I was apparently High General Obi-Wan Kenobi. A Jedi Master, maybe even a Councilor. That didn't make sense, but it was the start of a picture I could just about see the outlines of.

Solis didn't remember me from thirteen years ago because I hadn't come here thirteen years ago. Like Maul, this Solis was not my Solis.

Or, perhaps more accurately, I was not their Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The very idea of it was absurd. Not just that I could have somehow slipped from one reality to the next, but also that it could happen without my realizing it.

…But I had blacked out. The Force had taken me on Dathomir when the witch had done her magic, and she could have done anything then. Maybe even send me to another universe entirely.

I had a hard time believing it--anyone would--but it fit. It was why Maul was stranded on a distant trash planet for so long, bisected at the waist. It was why Solis would call me a Jedi when I had never told her about my connection to the Force or the Jedi Order.

The whine of a charging blaster coil shook me out of my thoughts.

"No words to say, jetii?" Solis asked.

"I--Solis…" I trailed off weakly. I didn't know how to play this. I didn't have enough information. "Solis, I don't know how to prove this to you, but I am not a High General." Just saying the title made me feel sick. "I'm not a Jedi."

"Playing no-memory now?"

"No, that's not--that's not what I meant. I mean, I'm not the Obi-Wan you know. I'm not a Jedi, Master or otherwise--I don't even have the Force. I'm a private detective on Coruscant and have been for the last ten years. I have my license in my pocket if you want to see it."

Solis tilted her head to one side. I couldn't see her expression under her helmet, but she seemed willing to humor me. "Give it," she said.

I tossed my wallet to her. She caught it with one hand and flipped it open, all while keeping the rifle aimed at me. She looked over my license, then went on to my other ID cards, which was frankly rude. When she seemed satisfied with what she saw, she closed it and tucked it into a pouch on her belt.

"Uh," I said.

"You get it back when I think I trust you. You say you know Jango?"

"I lived with him for two years. We worked together on jobs."

"Jango Fett works with no people," Solis said, then switching to Mando'a, "He certainly did not work with a beansprout like you."

"Don't call me a beansprout until you've fought me," I said, switching languages myself. "I've sparred Jango with or without weapons and won. I could do the same with you."

She paused. "You've got his accent."

"I should think so--he taught me the language," I replied. "He taught me a lot about fighting, too, which I'll happily demonstrate sometime after my friend gets medical attention and when you don't have a blaster pointed at me."

She looked over to my ship, where KY4 was sitting at the base of the ramp, doing the droid version of pacing nervously. "What condition is the patient in?"

"He's stable, but it's pretty bad. It's best if you see him yourself."

Slowly, Solis lowered her blaster and gestured to the ship. "Fine. Show the way, Detective. This isn't over, though. You owe me an explanation--one that isn't full of shit."

I was pretty sure that in this particular case, even the correct and full explanation would sound full of shit. Still, I said, "I'll be happy to explain what's going on as soon as I know what's going on. You said you have a HoloNet connection?"

---

The first thing I did once we transported Maul back to Solis' infirmary and she kicked me out to do her work was lock myself into a fresher and make sure my body was still mine.

I looked at myself in a mirror, visually tracing my features--same gray eyes, same nose, same mouth, same beard. I went on to catalog the scars across my body, from Melida/Daan to the lightsaber scar through my right shoulder to that time I got shot pushing Bail out of the way of an assassin--scars that a hypothetical Jedi version of myself shouldn't have. Everything seemed accounted for.

My hair was still the same length, coming down to my mid-back with singed edges where it had been recently sliced by a lightsaber and my mechanical hand looked like it was supposed to--prosthetic halfway up my right forearm with phrik plating. It was the same simple but robust Jedha model with limited motion in the wrist I was supposed to have. A Jedi wouldn't have chosen a model like this--it wasn't flexible or sensitive enough for saberwork.

I let out a slow breath in relief. By all accounts, I was still me. I didn't know how it could be otherwise, considering my clothes had remained the same through the transition between worlds, but there was so much I didn't know about the situation. I had to be sure, that's all.

The second thing I did was use a borrowed datapad to search myself on the HoloNet. Doing so was…overwhelming.

It took no time at all to find that Jedi Master--a Master at thirty-five? What the actual hell?--Obi-Wan Kenobi was a highly-regarded diplomat known for his calm disposition and charisma who had resolved hundreds of cases of governmental unrest or other diplomatic affairs across the galaxy. Now, with the Clone Wars, he had become notorious for his strategic brilliance as a High General of the Republic army. He wasn't just at the head of the war. He was the face of it.

My stomach churned at the thought.

There were holos of me--of him--everywhere. Candid snapshots, publicity holos of him interacting with younglings and soldiers and senators, blurry holovids of him deflecting storms of blasterfire with his lightsaber--

It was too much. Just about everyone in the Republic must know his name and face, and that was absolutely horrifying.

I found myself staring at a short holovid of him at some kind of Senatorial event--it didn't matter which one. He was dressed up in traditional Jedi robes and tabards and his hair was cut short, cropped at the nape of the neck, and he talked with a distinct Coruscanti accent, the way I used to when I was younger. His face looked just like mine.

That could have been me. In another life, in this life, that would have been me. Not a Temple reject who left the Order after less than a year of padawanship, but a man who fulfilled his dreams of becoming a Jedi Knight. A man who never had to leave his family in the Temple or become permanently disabled in both body and spirit. A man who was respected for doing good across the galaxy.

A perfect Jedi, they called him. Serene, level-headed, and competent--not angry and impulsive like I had been. Not a failure like I had been.

I didn't want to see this. I accepted a long time ago that the Jedi life was not the life for me, but what was I supposed to do when I saw evidence to the contrary so starkly? Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi fit. The life fit him so well that there wasn't any other path he could walk. He devoted himself to the Force and to helping others because that's where he was meant to be.

What did that say about me?

I don't know how long I sat there, staring at that holovid, looping again and again. All I know is that when I came back to myself, I had my face in my hands and the datapad was somewhere on the floor, timed out to sleep mode. I shook myself roughly to snap out of it. Time and place. There was a time and place for those thoughts, and it wasn't now. Jedi Obi-Wan was a personal problem, and I would deal with it later.

Right now, there were more important things to find.

I reached the datapad off the floor and booted it up again to search recent events--surely, my failure to become a Jedi was not the only divergence from what I remembered.

Well, it didn't take long to find out two key points: First, the Battle of Geonosis was fifteen months ago, making it now almost an entire year later than when I had left my world, and second, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic was still one Sheev Palpatine.

Sheev Palpatine. The Sith Lord.

---

"Solis."

Solis looked up from her data terminal in the infirmary. She wasn't wearing full armor anymore. She'd never explained that to me--maybe as a medical professional it was inconvenient, or the years in near-isolation since Galidraan had made it less important. She looked just as I remembered: purple scaled skin, red pupil-less eyes, thin face, no hair, and a cybernetic left arm with a hand that didn't match--I vaguely recalled she swapped out different hands for different types of work. She had the same strange ageless quality that most Duros seemed to have, and except for modifications to her arm, she hadn't changed at all in the last thirteen years.

"Detective," she said tonelessly in Mando'a. I guess I'd made a good enough showing that she assumed I was fluent--which I was. "What do you want?"

"Is there a test you can run to see how old I am?" I asked.

"Shouldn't you know that already?" she asked. "You know what year you were born. Surely basic arithmetic isn't beyond you."

"I want to make sure I didn't black out for an entire year." Most likely, I had traveled through time as well as across dimensions, but the idea that I possibly hadn't--that I had been in the grip of the Force for an entire year on Dathomir where the witch could have done anything to me--made me nervous. I had already meditated for a while and verified that the Force within me was all mine, but I wanted the extra reassurance.

"Is that a…common issue with you?" Solis asked.

"Nothing that drastic, but I've had episodes," I replied, which was a mild way of saying my soul occasionally, annoyingly, left my body. "Can you find out my age or not?"

Solis hummed. "Hypothetically, yes. There's no magic indicator in a human body that tells you the age of the germ cell, but I can make an estimate based on certain biomarkers and gene sequences." She glanced back at me. "I would need to take needle biopsies."

"That's fine," I said. "Can you do it now?"

"Impatient, aren't you?" she tutted. "You haven't even explained what's happened to you or your friend yet."

"I don't think you'll like the explanation, but I'll tell you what I know now, if you want."

Solis thought about it for a bit, then said, "Fine. Go change into a gown and sit. I need to finish something first."

I nodded and did as she asked. It was a quiet wait, and not too long--maybe only fifteen minutes. Solis finished what she was doing, then had me lay prostrate on a bed and hooked up a vitals monitor to my arm.

She paused before prepping my back. "That's a lot of scarring," she said. "Does it hurt?"

"No. They're from a long time ago."

"Okay." Solis wiped the area clean. "Do you need general anesthesia?" She asked as she set up the appropriate medical droid.

I shook my head.

"All right." She held up a small hypo. "This is a mild nerve disruptor--it's to suppress pain and make it so you'll stay still while the medical droid does its work. It'll last about ten minutes. If you don't want that, the droid can use mechanical restraint instead."

"I can't use most painkillers--I'm allergic to spice."

"This is a different class of drug. It's not a spice derivative."

"Injection is fine, then."

"Okay. You'll feel a pinch in the side of your neck." She jabbed me with the hypo. It did, in fact, pinch, and I could feel an uncomfortable pins-and-needles sensation move down through my body. She stepped back and disposed of the hypo, then took a seat in front of me. "Now we let the droid do its work and in the meantime, you can explain what the hell is going on."

Considering the circumstances of my arrival, she had been very generous. An explanation was the least of what I owed.

I gave her what I could. I told her about where and when I had come from, and about Dathomir's witch and retrieving Maul from Lotho Minor and finding what I'd found on the HoloNet. She let me say it all without interruption, though all told, the story wasn't very long--I had only been in this universe for about two days, of which large parts were spent in hyperspace. Even for me, that wasn't a lot of time to accomplish anything.

"You realize this all sounds insane," Solis said after a long pause.

"Sure, I do. I hardly believe it myself, and I'm the one it happened to, but it's my best guess for what's going on," I said. "I don't really know how to prove it to you."

The medical droid beeped, indicating it had finished its work, and Solis checked its console report. "All three samples are good. I'll have these processed and I can calculate your results after I deal with your friend." She put some bacta patches on my punctures, checked my vitals, and helped me sit up as the drug wore off. "Crazy as it is, Detective, I believe you."

"You do?" I asked, rubbing my lower back. It throbbed a little, but it wasn't bad. With the bacta, it would probably be better tomorrow.

Solis nodded and returned my clothes, turning away so I could put them on with some privacy. "You seem smart enough to come up with a more believable cover story if you were lying, but honestly if you ignore the ridiculousness of it, your explanation makes the most sense. I checked your IDs--they're all legit, except for the fact that they shouldn't exist. You have Jan'ika's landing codes and you speak with his accent."

Jan'ika. Cute. He would have strangled me if I ever called him that.

"And of course, there's your hand," Solis continued. "I'd know my own work anywhere--it would be a pretty big coincidence if anyone besides me designed that. You said I suggested the phrik plating?"

"For defense against lightsabers, yes," I said as I got dressed. "The good news is: it works. The bad news is: even if it can stop the blade from cutting, the heat still gets you. My port got seared pretty badly and I had to get a new hand." I straightened out my shirt and sat back down on the bed. "I'm decent."

Solis nodded. "Well, we already knew the heat would be a problem, but the phrik kept you alive, didn't it? That means it did its job." She handed me a glass of water. "This will help with the pain."

I accepted the glass and drank. It made me feel better, more because of the water than the medication in it--I couldn't remember the last time I'd had anything to drink. Back on the ship, probably.

Solis sat down. "So. You've traveled from one universe to the next. What are you planning to do now, Detective?"

That was the million-credit question.

This galaxy was at war, and had been for over a year, Separatist droids against Republic clones. It was even worse than I had imagined it could be--worlds burned out, millions of people dead, and there was no end in sight. That alone made me ill, but there was more to it than that.

Chancellor Palpatine, the single most powerful man in the Republic, was Maul's Sith Master. He had told me that back in my universe, and there was all the evidence that it was the same in this one--the man had risen to office in the same way, and operated the Republic in the same way, accumulating power towards some horrible end that I couldn't yet see.

And nobody knew. This universe had progressed a year further than mine and nobody knew that the poison was coming from the very top of the system, flowing down to everything underneath--the army, the Jedi, the Republic itself. The circumstances that had led to my discovery of this deceit simply didn't exist here.

A low voice in the back of my mind murmured that I didn't have to do anything with that. This wasn't my universe. This wasn't my business. My concern should be returning to my own world, perhaps with Maul in tow, and going back to Coruscant to my life as a private investigator. It would probably even be easy--the witch had sent me here, so she could very well bring me back.

But I couldn't do that. Palpatine was plotting for a genocide--the genocide of my people. It didn't matter that they weren't my Order or my family. They were the Jedi Order, and while I could never be one of them again, I couldn't let them die just because this universe wasn't mine. I couldn't let a war so great and terrible go on when I could reasonably find a way to end it.

That only left me one option. "I…think I have to end this war."

Solis, to her credit, didn't laugh. "Easy enough to say. How will you do that?"

"I don't know. I know who's behind it and I know what he wants--the end of the Republic and the Jedi Order, and a powerful apprentice to serve him." Maul had told me that much, back in my universe. "I can't let that happen."

"If your problem is one man, then remove the man," Solis said. "Jan'ika taught you how to do that, yes?"

I shook my head. "It's not that simple. This man's got support that runs deep and his pieces are already moving. He's had years to prepare. If I go straight for him without any preparation, he'll kill me and a lot of other people, too. I don't even know if killing him will stop his momentum. I…need to figure out what he's trying to do, first."

That was the crux of the problem.

Palpatine was not stupid--he had a plan, and he was putting it to work as we spoke. How did you destroy a Republic and a people and a culture? Orchestrating a war and forcing Jedi to serve at the head of it was all well and good for thinning the numbers, but it wasn't as if all Jedi could serve in a war, nor would every Jedi who fought in the war fall. A war would find the Order depleted and weary, but they would recover, and I couldn't imagine Palpatine being satisfied with that. Attrition wasn't enough. There had to be something more. Something decisive.

I thought about the Republic's army, the millions of men with Jango's face, commissioned to fight for the Jedi. Jango had hated the Jedi, yet he had agreed to help build an army to fight for them. The Jango I had known wouldn't have done that--he would have died before helping the Jedi who had destroyed his home and his people, so why had he agreed? Even beyond that, the Jedi Mind Healers had detected some kind of Darkness within Captain Rex's mind--was that coincidence or somehow part of this plot, too?

That was the problem--I simply didn't know enough. I knew the man behind it and I knew the end goal, but not the path between the two.

Back in my world, I had gathered evidence against Palpatine--fraud, corruption, and other unsavory deeds--and given them to Bail, who had the resources and the support to raise a political movement against him. I had informed the Jedi High Council of the Sith Lord in their midst. I had spoken to soldiers about the conspiracy that might be brewing from the moment they were commissioned. In my world, a world where the war had only started, that may have been enough.

In this world, with a war that had dragged on for so long and a Chancellor who had gained unprecedented power and influence and the time to place his agents everywhere he needed them to be, there was no way. He was too well-rooted to be taken down unless I uncovered all of his schemes one by one and burned them out beyond any hope of recovery. If I couldn't do at least that, nothing I did to Palpatine would matter, and people would die.

"If you want my opinion," Solis said after a long silence, "I think you will need help to pull this off. I don't know what man you're trying to hunt down--and I don't need you to tell me--but he sounds powerful."

"He is very powerful."

"Then you'll need to fight smart, and you'll need help. Even the strongest fighter can't be in more than one place at a time, and it sounds like you'll need to be in more than one place at a time."

I nodded. "Is that an offer, dear?"

Solis sighed and clasped her hands. "No. You're a friend of Jan'ika's, so I'll help you if you come here, but this fight is yours, and I have my own duties. You're not the only one who comes flying in needing medical treatment."

"I understand."

"I have no love for the jetiise," she continued. "I can't blame them for killing us the way they did--it is only appropriate that the strong survive and the weak perish, and if we did not want to be cut down we should have been stronger before challenging them--but their victory ushered in the end of the True Mandalorians. I can't forgive that."

I bowed my head. "I understand."

"But the jetiise are yours, so you fight for them. It's one thing to hunt and kill in battle, but another thing entirely to purge an entire people, their home and culture and younglings included. There's no honor in that. I wouldn't wish it on anyone." She folded her fist over her chest. "So fight, Detective Kenobi. If you think you can end this war and save your people, then do so. Destroy the man who threatens your family and make it so he can never hurt anyone again."

I folded my own fist over my chest, hardening my resolve for what had to be done. "I will. I'll learn his plans, I'll dismantle each one in turn, and when I've rooted out all his traps and contingencies…I will kill him."

[sleepy-fiction]

Please Madame!

Weeping Clown x Fem!Reader

syn: Pegging Weeping Clown like it's his last day on earth.

tags: pegging, dom!reader, sub!weepy, pure fucking + a lil sprinkle of romance, no plot, barely beta read

a/n: I've always loved this man since release. And his voice was so nice to hear... i finished the story and was like aw thats so sad- OK time to write him getting pegged. one day I'll have to tell my partner about this account uhh... uhhhh erre uhhmmm

"F-fuu- Agh! Madam," Weepy cries his prosthetic fingers gripping the sheets, his face beat red beneath half wipped face paint, a color matching his blushed ass. He was bent down on his knees on the bed, ass perked, perfectly in line with your strap as you pegged him.

His moans were high and raspy, loud and thrilled. He shivered with delight, as his aching, reddened cockhead leaked dribbles of slick. His cheeks were a bruised red as you squeezed and smacked them, each time earning a deliciously sweet whimper.

"Mmh, is it good, sir," you giggled, patronizing.

He squeaked out, "Ah! Ah-ang... Amazing!"

You raised your hand, crashing your palm down against his bruised ass cheek again, watching him jerk out. He cried, his voice shaking the walls of the manor room; you reached and grabbed chunks of his hair. "Guh! Aaa-aa," he trilled, arching viciously into your touch.

In this angle, you fucked him deeper, your fake cockhead rubbing against his spot and digging deep into his gut. "Oo-mm... Fuck. M-Madam," he moaned out long and drawed out, his eyes escaping to the back of his head as he squirted his second orgasm into the sheets.

You dropped his head seconds later, and it fell limply forward, through top of his head grazing the bed as he peered down. You took the opportunity to grab your black paddle, meeting the cold leather to his bruised ass. Weeping jumped in surpise, his head flinging up, while his cock twitched in anticipation. "Madam! A-Are you go-going to whip me... Again," he hushed out, pulling chunks of the bedsheets white-knuckle tight.

"Ooh, changed your mind," you teased, drawing circles into his skin with the leather.

"N-No! I would n-never," he gasped, his own shame and humiliation long fled his body. Before you could respond, he stuttered, "More please, I'll be g-good... I won't jerk away!"

Desire crawled down your body, burrowing itself deep to your already soaked cunny. A shudder leaves your lips as you sigh, "Good boy." A crack splits the air as you leave your first mark on him with the paddle, and Weeping calls out intensely, his back arching into you. His body shivered all over as you thrusted a medium pace and rose the paddle once more, cracking it down against his ass.

"Mad-aam," he cries, his voice breaking up into useless sounds, "oncemore-oncemorepleasepleaeeplea--" you crack a stronger hit against him again, and he sparks like fireworks. He shoots forward, launching his face into the sheets, jerking his perky ass off your dildo, leaving it puckering for purchase in the wind.

You grit in annoyance, "Weeping," scolding him with your displeased hush.

Still in a daze, he didn't notice between his drawn-out orgasm, not until you cracked him alert. "Aah!" He squealed.

"You pulled off me again. You naughty clown, I'll really punish you now," you spat.

"Madaam... I'm soorry I'll be good. I'll b-be good," he moaned. You couldn't see it, but on his sweaty sticky face was a dirty smile, a smile as he wiggled his ass in the air.

"There is no next time," You plugged his hole up quick, taking the paddle in your left hand and cracking it against his left cheek. You trusted intensely, paddling him to the beat of your thrusts. His voice spiked out, his back arching off the bed as he shot his head up, his hands shaking against the pressure.

Off his lips came senseless mumbo, as his hair stuck to his scarred face, a face that smeared paint into the sheets before, and left him but nothing but faintest to cover said scars. You'd be lying if you said you didn't orgasm just then, just as his voice hit its limit and turned into a raspy, airy mess.

"A-Amazuh-- Madame," he cried with all his heart as he shot out milky sperm. Sperm that was liquid and slick, barely carrying any semen from all his prior ejaculations.

You slowed down, dropping the paddle and grinding your base against his ass, forcing it deep into his body. He perked, whole body spasming as he buried his head against the sheets. His pants were buttery, the sweat dripping down his body lustfully. This was a much needed cool down for him and for you.

"Madam," he whispered, peaking over his shoulder to gaze into your eyes.

"Yes, clown," you murmured, half listening while you squeezed his ass, panting softly.

"M-May, may we switch... Uh... Positions? I want to l-lay on my back... I don't think I-I can't hold myself up f... For longer," he takes a gulp in-between his words, his gorgeous red hair wet with sweat.

"Alright," you pulled out of him, causing his toes to curl, "You need water?"

He flipped onto his back, his cute wide eyes staring up at you so sweetly, so innocently, "No-mm... 'M okay for now. T-Thank you, mistress," he smiled. You almost felt bad for punishing him.

You grabbed a pillow from above, ordering him to raise his head and sliding it beneath him when he does. He smiles so kindly at you, his hands curled up against his heart. You sigh wistfully and place one last pillow to prop up his ass.

He suddenly squeaked.

You perked, "What?"

"M-My semen is cold against my back-! T-The... The whole spot beneath me is wet," he cried in his comfort, his eyebrows weaving in stress. You giggled, pinning him down and lining up with his hole.

You coo between lidded eyes, "Aw, I almost feel bad for you." He whimpers pitifully. You gaze into his eyes right as you plunge in, soaking up his every feature. That's also when you notice most of his face paint had been wiped off. It was a euphoric treat for you.

Watching as his mouth fell slack, the way his eyebrows knitted, his eyes disappearing behind the clouds. But also, noticing his scarred cheeks, the way the corners of his lip suffered worse scars. How his cleft revealed his flashy, pearly whites. You'd be lying if you said you didn't orgasm again then too.

You gulped, not noticing how you still had been. Long enough for Weeping to wrap his arms around your shoulders, "Mistress," he hums raspy. The sound is quiet, gentle, and almost loving. It snaps you right out of the slow-motion replay.

You gulp, now aware of how your beating heart "Yes, Clown?"

He reaches and nuzzles his forehead and nose against your face, "'M ready now. I-I promise I can tuh... Take more," he whispers. Just as he says so, he leans back into the pillows, his red hair sprawling, a perfect match to his beat red cheeks, wistfully eyes, and caring smile. God. He was fucking beautiful.

You thrusted slow and deep, watching his face twist up in excitement. You gripped his hips tightly, swallowing back the feelings bubbling up. You knew you should have never let him turn around. God.

He cracks another moan, easing his head back, closing his eyes- completely succumbing to your will.

Fuck.

"Weeping," you pant, feeling passion heat in your veins, "your face paint rubbed off."

He gasps suddenly, "N-No! My--" but before he could cover himself with his hands, you slammed downwards, catching his wrist with both hands and leaning forward, your face inches apart. He squeaks and squirms, but you keep yourself there, stating deep into his eyes.

He has nowhere else to look but your intensity, no way to flee from your teasing yet perfect thrusts. His eyes flee behind his eyelids, succumbing once more, his jaw hanging open in his vulnerability. He felt so powerless it felt-- A warm shot of cum splattered against your belly, as you quickly looked down to see his weeping cock, spitting up on itself.

"Ooh, you like this, huh? You like how powerless you are? You like the Madam looking at your pretty face, huh," you teased.

"Yes- yes ma'am," he leans his head away, revealing his gorgeous, lean, pale neck.

He was so lean, tall, so slanky.

You swallowed thickly.

You pulled off his wrists, but he kept his arms there, and you sunk into his neck, nipping and biting down on the milky flesh. His moans rose, spiking, the vibrations striking through his body. You too felt the familar feeling of your pussy clenching, pleasure from purely watching and experiencing this with him, was drawing you near an orgasm.

You panted and grabbed his hips, burying your teeth in his neck for purchase as you thrusted faster and faster. Riding out his high, ans reaching your own euphoria, as he released his last moan, "Oh y-yes! Madame!!"

You came at the same time, dropping your tired body onto his larger, skinnier one, slowly pulling out of him. "G-God," you moaned, feeling how disgustingly ruined your panties had turned.

"Amazing-uh... Mmgh... Madame," he murmured, gently caressing your head.

This was bad.

You were falling for a one night stand.

You only needed to break steam off in this damn manor, not...

You peered up at him, watching him stare down at you so tenderly, "Madam," he hushed it as if he worshiped the name.

Ah.

You were in big trouble now.

[desert-rose24]

I Hate You, I Love You (Just Imagine Series)

Welcome to Part Three of my first series called Just Imagine! This is where you, the reader, can read your filthiest thoughts without having a character or person specified. It's all up to you and who you want to picture these fantasies with.

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT! THIS IS 18+ ONLY! YOU WILL BE BLOCKED IF YOU ARE NOT OVER 18!

WARNINGS: Pure Smut, Half Hate Sex, Half Soft Sex, Edging, Use of Nicknames (Sweetheart, Baby), Fingering, P in V, Kissing, Cussing, Teasing, a little bit of fluff, and just a dash of angst

These stories will not specify any reader ethnicity or race! However, these stories will differ. If you want to read one where you're fantasizing of a specific gender, I'll write those too! THIS STORY IS MALE GIVING!

I AM WRITING THESE MORE AIMED TOWARDS FEMALE, PLUS SIZED READERS RECEIVING! It's something I'm more experienced with writing, but I will take requests. Thank you for reading and enjoy!

I do not give any permission for my work to be copied, translated, modified, or reposted on any other site, app, or platform

Part One Part Two

:)

Just imagine the hatred you feel for him. There was absolutely nothing to describe what you felt. The hatred in your heart that made you want to rip his pretty face off. The kind where he makes your gears grind in an almost satisfying way. When the bickering between you makes your heart race. Where he's constantly on your mind, making you hate him even more. You couldn't stand him. At least, that's what you tried to convince yourself.

I mean, just look at yourself. You're lying underneath him in a crappy motel room while his fingers circle your clit. He brings his free hand to your jaw, turning your face towards him to plant a deep kiss. You drag out a long moan as your tongues swirled in pleasure. He groaned in frustration as he pulled away from the kiss.

"You're so annoying, calling me like this. You know that, right?" he says with a smirk. You give him a long, harsh glare before answering.

"Then, why did you come?" you ask with a shaking voice, trying to keep yourself harsh so he wouldn't get the idea that you were softening up for him. Like he was going to fall for that. You grip his shoulder as he adds pressure on your throbbing clit, letting out another moan.

"Because how could I resist a chance to watch you pathetically cum on my fingers and cock?" he replies, no hesitation in his voice. His dirty words sent shivers down your body, leading to your chubby pussy, making your hole clench. He seemed to have noticed this based on the face he makes.

"Aw, poor baby, you're a needy little cunt, aren't you?" he says, trailing his fingers to your entrance, gathering up your wetness, then dragging it back up your clit. You softly gasp as you try to muster up an answer. Only one thing came to mind.

"Fuck youuu.....Ah~" you say, letting your voice go. The tension in your abdomen builds, letting your clit throb with such need as he rubs faster. Your head sinks into the pillow as your back arches. It's almost there, just a little more. Your muscles are tensing, the grip on his shoulder is so tight, it has to leave a bruise in the morning. He kisses you right as you moan, swallowing everything you have to give him. Your moan, your body, maybe even your soul. And scary enough, maybe even your heart. Shit, you can't think about that right now, especially when you're so close. So, so close. Right there....

The pleasure is suddenly gone, making you loudly groan. He lets out a giggle, almost as if he's mocking you.

"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" he says, retracting his hand to bring up to your face, softly, yet teasingly stroking your cheek.

"For a second there, you made me forget why I hated you so much. Now I remember" you state, rolling your eyes, then slapping away his hand.

"Awww boo-hoo, sweetheart" he said, planting a kiss on your lips. With the kiss getting deeper, he trailed his hand down your chubby stomach, reaching for your puffy pussy. His fingers pass your clit, stopping just at your entrance. Pulling his head away from you, he looked at you for permission, lustfully, yet with caution. You looked him, your head nodding with need.

He pushed his middle and ring fingers in, making you hiss in pleasure. Your hips bucked, making his fingers brush that little spongy part inside of you. You moan out, gripping his shoulder as you try to grab your bearings.

"Fuck, you're so tight" he breathes out, the unbelieving tone in his voice. You let go of his shoulder and lightly slap it.

"Shut up" you say as you cover your face with your hand in embarrassment. He smirks smugly as his fingers start to move inside you. You softly gasp at the pleasure as your eyes flutter closed.

He stays quiet, keeping his eyes locked on your face as his fingers fuck you. Why was he so damn good at this? Another thing to hate about him. Your mind goes blank as you feel him go faster, your pussy clenching around his fingers.

"O-oh fuck. Yes, yes, yes" You moan, your muscles tensing as you legs spread wider, trying to feel more of him. And once again, much to your dismay, he stops.

"What the fuck, dude?!" you yell angrily. He chuckles at your anger, making you fume. Don't you just love when someone laughs at you when you're mad? Yeah, me neither. At this point, you feel like you want to get the hell out of this room and go home. You push him off of you and get up from the bed, then grabbing your bag and packing your stuff. You hear his laughing stop, then the bed creaking as he sits up on the bed.

"What are you doing?" he asks, watching you pace back and forth looking for some items you took out. You rolled your eyes before speaking.

"The fuck does it look like I'm doing?" you say, venom basically spitting out at him through your tone. Turning your back to him to get dressed, you hear the bed creak, then footsteps coming towards you. Right as you slip your arm through the strap of your bra, you feel a hand on your shoulder, making you stop.

"You're not going anywhere. Look, just...stay. I'm-I'm sorry" he says, a pleading tone in his voice. He sighs when you remain still, your back faced toward him and not a word leaving your mouth. To be completely honest, you've never heard him apologize. Ever. It's a bit shocking, yet refreshing.

"It's not the fact that you were edging me. It's....just that I felt embarrassed at how it felt like a joke to you" you say, your brows furrowing as your eyes fill with tears in embarrassment. No crying, you thought. Why the hell were you going to cry in front of him?

He wraps his arms around your thick waist, pressing your back against his bare chest. Then, he grabs your chin and makes you look up at him, turning your head to look him in the eye.

"I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to make you feel like I was making fun of you. Just please...stay with me" he says, rubbing your plush stomach as his arms are around your waist. You never liked your stomach, but for some reason, he always just loved to touch it. Rubbing, squeezing, kissing, anything he wanted to just be near it. That's what kind of started making you like it too. Of course, you would never tell him that.

"Okay" you whisper, your heart fluttering. Shit, stop that, you thought to your heart. He brings you in for a soft, tender kiss. Something that he's never done before. It's a bit surprising to you actually. You two always had this thing where you couldn't stop bickering or arguing. And the sex was always passionate, a little rough and angry. This time, it was different. Loving, fulfilling, and actually....satisfying. It was satisfying having him in a way you thought he would never show you.

You dropped your bag as on the floor as he pulled you by your waist, walking back to the bed. He sat down in the middle, his back against the headboard, then patting his lap. Oh hell no....

"I already know what you're thinking and I'm not taking no for an answer, Y/N. Get up here. Now" he demanded. You had to admit to yourself that was pretty hot.

You rolled your eyes and reluctantly crawled on the bed, then straddled his hips. Oh my God. He couldn't imagine a better sight. You. Straddled on top of him. Your warm, thick body pressed up against his. Hair all frizzy and mussed. Your face staring at him with hooded eyes and red, flushed cheeks. He could feel the heat from your core, making him close his eyes and groan. His cock couldn't help but harden, poking your inner thigh.

"Fuck, baby, you drive me crazy" he said, bringing his hands to stroke your thighs. You shake your head and roll your eyes, trying not to let his words make your heart skip a beat. Emphasize trying.

He brings you in for another kiss, this time being more heated. You wrapped your thick arms around his neck, pulling him in closer. He couldn't help but moan into the kiss as your tongues swirled around together.

"Just...fuck me already" you said, needing more than ever. Needing him more than the last times you slept together. Needing him more than air. Oh, you're down bad. And deep down, you know...he is too.

You lift yourself up as he grabs his dick, giving it a few pumps before aligning with your entrance. Using his free hand, he tilts your chin up to look at him, then giving you a deep, sweet kiss. You moan into each other's mouths as you sink down onto him, taking in every beautiful inch.

"Shit, you're gonna have to start moving. You feel so damn good, I don't think I'm gonna last long, sweetheart" he states, a strain in his voice from pleasure. You softly giggle at his words, then bringing yourself up only to sink back down. You both release a breathy moan, looking into each other's eyes. Getting onto a steady pace, he brings his hands down to your ass, guiding your hips going up and down.

He wished you knew how much he was holding back from cumming right then and there. Look at you, wide hips bouncing on his dick, full breasts pressed against his chest. And he couldn't even forget about your oh so beautiful, pudgy stomach jiggling with every thrust as you fucked him. Oh yeah, he struggling alright.

Starting to feel your orgasm coming, you started going faster, your cunt squeezing around him. Your eyes roll back as you close them, getting lost in pleasure. You take in everything you can sense. His cock slipping in and out of your puffy pussy, the sounds of his groans and moans of pleasure, his hands on your ass as his guides you up and down his dick. Fuck....you're....gonna

"Oh shit, fuck. I'm gonna cum" you said, pressing your forehead against his as your moans get higher in pitch. He grips the back of your neck, keeping you close as he releases a breathy moan.

"Cum for me, baby. Give it all to me" he says deeply, kissing you with everything he has.

You pull away from him and moan loudly as you cum on his cock, your body spasming as your hips jut, riding out your orgasm. The feeling of your walls fluttering around him had him whimpering as he came inside you.

"Fuck. Yes, sweetheart, cum on my cock. Everything you have" he babbles, making you softly moan into his ear.

Your thrusts eventually come to a stop. Groaning in overstimulation, you pull yourself off of him, emptiness making its way through your body. He wraps you into his arms and cuddles you, planting a kiss on your temple. Here it was, your favorite part. The part where you both lay next to each other in your afterglow, smiling in contentment as no thoughts or worries come to the surface. After a few moments of silence, enjoying each other's company, he finally spoke.

"So...this may seem a little informal, but you wanna go out with me this weekend?" he asks, a playful tone in his voice and he gazes down at you.

You slightly chuckle a bit, "I hate you", you say as you look up at him. He lets out a heartily laugh before answering.

"I'll take that as a yes, then" he states, stroking your arm with his hand.

"Good, because it is" you say with a soft smile. You both laugh a little as you get comfortable, snuggling up to each other, embracing each other's naked bodies as sleep start to take over. You both fall asleep, ready to wake up in the morning to start a new chapter of finally not hating each other. Or even love. Wouldn't it be nice to know and see the worst side of someone and still loving them for it? Still embracing their imperfections because the love overpowers it all? Anyone would kill for that kind of love because in some people's eyes, that's to only kind of love that's true.

Too bad it's all just a fantasy...right?

[koqabear]

okay i wanted to ask, because i see you writing such long fics but i can barely pull myself together to write this bomb-ass 20k word fic, how do approach a fic you know is going to be a long one in a way that you don't feel intimidated by it, or do you still get intimidated by it and just try and push through it?

okay so first off, thank you so much for sending me this ask 😭 you literally forced me to go through my writing process and caused me to make a huge breakthrough with one of my stories alfkgh

anyways, i'll try to be as thorough and clear as i can be with my process, i hope this helps! (but also im so sorry once i started i couldn't stop)

i think my process can be best described with three fics; Only You, Darling (40k), Killer Instinct (37K), and Memories We Made (unfinished but estimated to be over 30k.). With each story, I knew that they were going to be long, but mostly because I went in with the approach that it has to be long in order for the story to be executed right; characters have to be written thoroughly, and there are certain scenes that need to be written for the plot/character to progress-- like, if it's not written in, the story could lose those small details that make the fic feel more... alive, if that makes sense?

The most important part is making an outline! I know that's probably obvious, but outlines can seriously vary; like with OYD and MWM, I have a whole doc dedicated to the fic. I'm gonna show you what a bit of my OYD planning looks like, please don't point out how genuinely unhinged it is 😭😭😭 (so.. spoilers for OYD + fun fact it was gonna be Sunghoon instead of Jaemin in the story originally hehe)

This is an example of what my outlines can look like; but, it only gets like this as i write-- the first pic is my outline filled with things i added as i wrote OYD such as characteristics/important notes/things i wanna edit, and the second pic is what i started out with.

the first thing i do is brainstorm the bare basics of the plot; what kind of story is it, and what do i want to happen in it? you can see that i separated the story into the key plot points/arcs; and within each one, i also put how i wanted them to begin and end. (the numbers are the wc for each arc alskhg)

the hard part comes in when you're filling these arcs/key points in. because now the big question is, how do you get there? for example, during the first act of OYD, i wanted to establish beomjun's relationship with the mc, and end it off by having the two work together. but in order to do that, i decided to include scenes that showed yeonjun's relationship with the mc, and then beomgyu's relationship with her. now that i had the foundation, i allowed the two to interact; that let me establish beomjun's relationship with each other, and let them realize they had a common goal.

last, you add a catalyst (a character, a situation, etc.) that can get you to your end goal; the catalyst being jaemin, which brought the two to work together out of jealousy-- and that's how i was able to fill in that key point.

then i just repeated that process for all arcs! add scenes that elaborate on key points, then add a catalyst that can take you to the end!

another thing i do when plotting for my stories is record myself brainstorming! i let myself ramble and talk about the plot out loud, and that's usually how i run into plot holes/issues. i kinda let myself figure it out in real time, and once i've figured the plot out, i listen back to it and write it down. (i have voice recordings for OYD and MWM. MWM is 48 mins, if that gives you a gist of what i mean by like... brainstorming. and half of it is straight up fucking nonsense. just let out ideas, details about the characters, scenes you'd like to write, anything. it lets you become more familiar and comfortable with your story, if that even makes sense.)

also! whenever i'm writing but get tired and decide to take a break, i add a quick want to add note at the bottom; that's what the weird little spiel up there in the second pic is. it's where i wrote down the ending scene because i had a super specific idea of what i wanted and how i wanted it to happen. if you get any scene ideas like that for your fic, write them down!! there's a chance that you might forget about it/write it differently if you don't; plus, it could even help you add things in that could make the transition into the scene super smooth.

OYD was honestly a bit intimidating for me when i wrote it, because i knew that it had to be extremely detailed and long. that's why i made sure to properly plan things out, that way so i didn't forget anything that could skew the execution. but one of the biggest tips is that you should brainstorm scenes you want to add in each key point, that way you don't feel as intimidated when writing-- because now you have a guide, yk? I'd love to show how my MWM outline looks like, but the fic isn't even out yet 😭 but it's literally a scene-by-scene outline of how i want the story to go! now all i have to do is flesh out the said scenes :)

then there's fics like killer instinct. i went into that with pure vibes, no outline, no planning; more of a mental outline, if anything. so if you find the idea of the whole written outline + scene & key points boring/not for you, i'd still suggest to get the bare basics down; but what i did with killer instinct was that i brainstormed as i went, and added small notes to keep track of important things so i wouldn't screw with continuity-- age and time is pretty important in that story, and i kid you not this is the only thing i had for killer instinct outline wise (bc im not counting my doc of mma notes.)

but for killer instinct, i kinda winged it; i knew what the general plot was, but allowed myself to have fun on how to get there. the only thing i will say though, is that with every scene, you should try to plan out the next one-- like, intro to killer instinct is introducing taegyu, then i'll introduce the mc. then i'll introduce the world and background. and now that i have a foundation, i'll add extra scenes, then a catalyst! this leads into the main conflict, then y'know the rest. but instead of planning it out bit by bit, i kinda let myself go with the flow...? it also let me be a lot less intimidated by the fact that I knew the story would have to be long.

as for the story i had a big breakthrough with, i'm definitely a bit intimidated by it! i know it has to be intricate and emotional and intense, so in order to help with that, i've made playlists to get me in the correct mood, watch shows, read other fics, anything to help me get comfortable with the genre and spark inspiration. I'm currently winging it as well.... but have three key points im sticking to-- it's gonna sound a bit confusing and vague but it's like... add foundation + the male lead is introduced -> background is given to let ppl know motivations and stuff -> final scene. and whenever i run into an issue, i brainstorm and try to get to the root of why im stuck. like, is it plot, the character, or the scene? in this case it was all three so. pray for me.

anyways. i hope this helped and im so sorry if it didn't 😭😭😭 because then that just means u read this painfully messy explanation for nothing. but when writing long fics, pleeeaseee make sure to take your time with it-- if nothing's working, give it time and don't force yourself to write whatever! (mwm has been in my wip for a solid like. year..? but this is a rare case plus im insane)

and if your word count ends up surpassing/being under than what you originally expected, don't panic! (killer instinct was estimated at 20-25k. so.) sometimes certain scenes just aren't necessary, and other times, you find that you may need to elaborate more in order to make things work.

im seriously wishing you luck on your project!! and if you found this somehow did help and have more questions, don't hesitate to ask! oh and if you found something i said confusing (bc i do have the tendency to not make sense) pls lmk and i'll try to clear it up asdglsh 😭

[somekndofnature]

Summary:

Inuyasha reveals something important to Sango and Miroku that shocks both. Kagome and Sango get some things off their chest.

Notes:

Hello all! Time for another couple of chapters. These next two sort of go together so I wanted to release them together. This is where the story starts getting thicc. So, I hope you enjoy.

For this chapter, there were a few songs that really inspired this chapter. First, is 'Walls (You Changed)' by Sick Puppies. I feel like this song is really important from Sango and Kagome's perspective, towards Inuyasha. And for those who were wondering about the music Inu is working on, this is one of the songs he ends up 'writing' in the story as he grows a little more. Second is 'Goodbye Apathy' by One Republic which is obviously chosen for Inuyasha in this moment. And the last is 'Torn' by Natalie Imbrugila which is also probably obviously chosen for Kagome.

Anyway... that's my music rant for now. Let me know if you like it.

AO3

Chapter 4: That Left Me On the Floor

Inuyasha was stunned into silence and could only watch Kagome’s shoulders tremble as she retreated towards the restroom, wheezing from the hole she’d punched straight through his chest. Each tear that had fallen onto her cheeks lashed his heart like a whip, drawing an answering warmth from his eyes. He had struggled to stay in place, compelled to drop to his knees and grovel on all fours, begging forgiveness. He knew that he had hurt her but…

You broke me.

Inuyasha bit back the whine that crawled its way up his throat and let his head fall into his hand, rubbing the gathered moisture from his eyes. Fuck , he hated seeing her cry. That was why he had always walked away; he’d never been able to take the shame that could—rightly—be placed at his feet for hurting her.

“Smooth,” Sango said from beside him.

Inuyasha scowled in her direction but didn’t respond; he had nothing to say in his defense.

Miroku sighed and pushed a hand through his dark hair. “Well, I guess that’s out of the question. It sucks, but I think we’ll have to find someone else.”

“No!” he growled, making their eyes widen. “It has to be her, no one else.”

Sango shook her head. “Inuyasha, I know you feel guilty for everything that happened but—”

“This isn’t about that!”

She raised a dubious brow.

He winced. “It isn’t just about that. It’s—fuck, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” she insisted.

Inuyasha shook his head.

“If you want any more of my help with Kagome, you’ll have to tell me why this is so important. Why does it have to be her? Why are you suddenly so eager to have her in your life?”

His ears lowered against his head; he couldn’t tell them. When Sango and Miroku understood what Kagome meant to him, the resulting guilt might bury him alive.

“Inuyasha?” Sango prompted again.

He hung his head, allowing a curtain of silver hair to hide his face as he whispered, “She’s my mate.”

He heard them suck in a sharp breath. Both had no doubt heard the same stories in school growing up. Great demons searching for their fated mate, the first glimpse of romance that their little minds were afforded. Inuyasha had been bored out of his skull just listening to them.

In the past, when the world was smaller, there was a reasonable assumption that this goal was attainable, that this mysterious person who made up your other half could be found, but on a planet of over seven billion beings, those odds slimmed considerably. A mate was someone to be treasured, and he had treated Kagome like she was… worthless .

Argh! The sound of that word gasping from between her trembling lips wouldn’t leave his ears. It twisted his heart, pumping an icy poison of regret through his veins.

“Wh-what? When?” Sango went silent for several seconds before gritting out through her teeth, “How long have you known?”

“From the beginning,” he replied, voice low. “From the first day I met her.”

“I knew it. I knew you were hiding something from me.” He heard Sango move but didn’t even brace as her fist connected with his cheek. “You ass!”

Inuyasha’s head whipped to the side, and he embraced the sting. He deserved her wrath on behalf of their friend, on behalf of fate, on behalf of everything he had scoffed in the face of, like a complete idiot. If it made him worthy of Kagome, he’d let Sango beat the hell out of him with a godsdamn smile.

“Nine years?!” Sango screeched. “Nine years and you… you were fuckin around, stickin your dick in anything that moved—”

“I didn’t actually do that.”

“What?!”

He shrugged. “I know it looked like I was always with a woman, but I just wanted it to seem that way. I didn’t actually sleep with any of them; I couldn��t. After being with Kagome, touching another woman felt,” he shuddered in disgust, “wrong.”

“Why?” Miroku asked. “Inuyasha that just sounds—”

“Cruel,” Sango interjected. “Why the hell would you do that to her?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I was trying to push her away, to make her hate me.”

“Well, congratulations,” Miroku said with a hint of reproach in his tone. “I think you succeeded.”

Inuyasha’s head fell back, rubbing his hands between his spread legs while they jittered with tension. He was getting judgment from the pervert now?

“No doubt,” Sango agreed with a derisive snort. “You only made it worse by constantly falling into her bed, too.”

“I couldn’t help it!” He pushed a hand through his silver hair, scraping his claws against his scalp.  

Her lip curled with disgust. “That’s pathetic.”

“You got me, Sango,” he snapped. “I’m a completely pathetic, sad sack, piece of shit. Happy now?”

“Don’t say any of that like it’s going to save you,” she said, placing an indignant hand on her hip. “You think just because you finally pulled your head out of your ass means you deserve a second chance?”

His shoulders slumped. “No.”

“You’re damn right! What you deserve is to watch her move on with her life…”

Inuyasha squeezed his eyes shut as a hopeless anguish ripped through him, but Sango continued without mercy.

“You deserve to watch her find a man who treats her with compassion and devotion, like she’s precious.”

Mine! His demon howled from the back of his mind until his temples throbbed.

Still, she didn’t relent. “You deserve to watch her build a happy life and at its end to be surrounded by a family who loves and treasures her.”

Inuyasha folded in on himself, a keening whine breaking past his lips when he could no longer contain his misery. Did he deserve to watch Kagome leave him behind forever? Probably… Was it something he feared with every fiber of his being? Absolutely…

Miroku cleared his throat, saving him from any further torment. “Sango, sweetheart.”

“What?” she snapped.

“I’m not entirely sure if this shame-fest is having the desired effect.”

She went quiet for a long moment, but Inuyasha didn’t raise his gaze from the floor, which he was hoping would open and swallow him whole. “What was the point of doing all that?”

“I told you,” he said again. “To push her away.”

“Yes,” she hissed. “But why the hell would you want to do that? Any other demon in your position would be over the moon and that should go double for half-demons. Most people don’t even think you have mates. So, why?”

Inuyasha took a deep breath before answering. Eventually he’d have to face the same question from Kagome, he better get damn good at answering it now. “I was a dumbass! I was young and stupid and arrogant and…scared,” he admitted.

“Scared? Of what?” Miroku asked.

“I wasn’t ready for something like that,” he said, looking down at his clasped hands. “I’m not good with women in general. How was I supposed to win this person who was meant to be it for me? And let’s be honest, she’s way outta my league; it didn’t seem like we would ever actually fit together. It felt like I was being set up for failure.” He scratched at the back of his head. “I resented it, being forced into this relationship that I didn’t even want or think myself capable of growing. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, anyway. We were just starting out; it was supposed to be all parties and music and groupies.”

“Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll,” Miroku said in a wistful tone.

Inuyasha lifted his hand, gesturing at him over the table. “Exactly!”

“Don’t lump me in with you,” he grumbled. “You took that entire thing to an extreme.”

“Exactly!” Sango mocked with a similar wave of her hand.

Inuyasha scowled. “You don’t get it. These instincts are overwhelming. It felt like I wasn’t in control of myself.”

“And copious amounts of alcohol and amphetamines made that better?” Sango asked in a disbelieving tone.

“Not exactly,” he replied, rubbing at the back of his neck. “When I was around her, it made it damn near impossible to control my impulses, but away from her… I was able to forget about it, I didn’t feel this constant need gnawing at me.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t just your instincts or fate,” she explained. “It was you being infatuated. The mating bond doesn’t force you to want someone, it reveals who you’re most likely to be compatible with.”

“I get that now,” Inuyasha replied, his mounting frustration clear in his tone. “But back then it was just easier to blame it all on my demon side and push it away.”

She clicked her tongue. “You almost died, Inu. Was it really worth it?”

“How many times you want me to admit that I’m a dumbass?”

His ears twitched as Sango cursed. “You’ve made such a mess of this.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” she replied. “Humans feel it too, you know? That connection, those bonds of fate. We may not be able to name it and maybe we don’t feel it with the same intensity, but it’s there. Imagine the pain, the betrayal she felt.”

“Please … stop,” he whispered, hiding his face in his hands. “I just want to fix it.”

“Sango,” Miroku interjected again.

She sighed. “Inuyasha, I don’t know if you can fix this. You threw a gift back in fate’s face; you’ll need a miracle.”

He finally worked up the courage to meet her eyes. “Then help me… please ,” he begged through clenched teeth. “I can’t do this by myself.”

She pursed her lips. “Fine, I’ll go talk to her, but you have to promise me that if I get her to come back out here, you’ll be on your best behavior.”

He nodded.

“And you swear that you’re taking this seriously?” she asked. “No more waffling back and forth, no more jumping into bed with her only to push her away?”

“Fuck no!” he snapped before deflating. “Look, I know what life is like without her and I don’t want to do it anymore. If Kagome’s really done with me, then I’ll accept that,” he admitted, “but if there’s even the smallest chance that I can win her back… I gotta take it, Sango.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled, her face softening just a fraction. “Fine, I’ll go talk to her, but I don’t think she’s any happier with me than she is with you.”

Miroku chose this moment to pipe up, “I could go if—”

“No,” Inuyasha and Sango cut him off at the same time.

“The last thing we need is your brand of charm,” she added before walking away, following Kagome’s path to the restrooms.

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

Kagome avoided the curious gaze of the woman standing at the mirror as she stormed into the bathroom, feeling the warm burn of tears in her eyes. She slammed open the door of the nearest cubicle and immediately rested her back against it, sucking in a shuddering breath. What the hell?

It was difficult to even parse out how she was feeling. All of her emotions clambered on top of each other, fighting for dominance: betrayal, rejection, grief, compassion, and even still longing.

This was supposed to be a no pressure reconnection with a good friend. She had been excited to see Sango again, to heal her relationship with a woman who was once her sister in many ways. She had been prepared for it to be a little awkward and uncomfortable, but this had felt like an attack.

She had tried not to resent Sango when her partnership with The Strays had fallen out and her friend had gone silent for almost a year. Inuyasha was Sango’s oldest and best friend, they were more like family. It made sense that she stayed to help him recover, to help him find his way back to reality. It still felt like she was choosing Inuyasha over her, though. While Kagome logically understood, it didn’t negate the disappointment at being so easily forgotten.

When Sango had finally reached out, she had started by apologizing over and over again. It had been difficult to deny her. They had stayed in touch during the next five years by text and the frequent phone call, but this was the first time since severing her ties with the band that she was supposed to see Sango face to face. Just a quick little stop over on her way home from vacation.

Kagome had been eager; it had been ages since she had seen Sango’s smile and laugh or felt the strong reassurance of her embrace. She had missed it and, on her way here, she had allowed herself to feel the deep loss, that hole in her life that the absence of her friend had left. And yet, she couldn’t help but feel grateful that Inuyasha had her support during such a difficult time, even if Kagome felt guilty that she couldn’t provide it. He looked… good, and, if not content, more himself.

Seeing him after all this time was such a shock. Inuyasha had filled out, his tanned skin was packed with more muscle than she had seen in a while, still tall and lean but healthy. He was magnetic; she hadn’t been prepared to steel herself against his appeal. He had the same irreverent, bad-boy look that had drawn her in the beginning, with the piercings, tattoos, and black jeans that barely clung to his slim hips, torn by his fidgeting claws rather than designer labels.  

It had been Inuyasha’s golden eyes that tugged at her heartstrings, though. They had been full of the same pain and remorse that was reflected at her each morning in the mirror, as if he had suffered every day of their separation with her. Those invisible ties that had grown slack between them had bound her once more and with it came that same fierce desire to hold him, soothe him, and to allow him to comfort her in turn, a yearning that she didn’t truly understand.

She heard the doorway to the bathroom swing open and closed. “Kagome?”   

Sango’s voice made her flinch, and she bit her lip as another frustrated tear fell down her cheek. 

“Kagome, I know you’re in here,” she said in a patient tone. 

She grit her teeth and flicked the lock, flinging the door wide open. “Of course, I’m in here,” she hissed. “I have nowhere else to escape. You made sure of that, didn’t you?”

Sango rolled her dark brown eyes. “That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? You can leave at any time.”

“Not without making a scene,” Kagome grumbled as she stomped towards the sinks and grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser. “I’ve already made a hysterical fool of myself once today,” she said while leaning forward to dab at her smeared mascara. “Not exactly eager for a repeat.”

Sango sighed and took a step towards her. “Look, I know it was a shock to see Inuyasha—”

“Don’t.” Kagome whipped around to glare at her. “Don’t you dare come in here and argue on his behalf.”

“I’m not,” her friend replied in a shaky voice. “I’m arguing on mine.”

Kagome swallowed hard as Sango took another step closer.

“I know that I’ve said this before,” she began while staring at her hands. “But I’m sorry, that I abandoned you.”

“Sango, we’ve talked about this,” she said in a dismissive tone. “What you should be apologizing for is bringing him here with no warning.”

“I know but this is the first time I’ve seen you in person since Inuyasha…” She hesitated. “overdosed.”

Kagome pursed her lips as another tear fell from her eye.

“I didn’t want to choose sides,” Sango continued. “But then you left, and I-I couldn’t leave.”

“And I couldn’t stay,” she whispered around the lump caught in her throat. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him or have to use your hands to keep his heart pumping. For a moment, the whole world became gray and dull, like life itself wasn’t even worth living. I never want to feel like that again, especially for someone who doesn’t love me.”

Sango stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Kagome’s trembling shoulders. “I don’t blame you for leaving.”

“I don’t blame you for staying,” she replied through sniffles. “I’m glad Inuyasha had you around.” 

“He’s doing a lot better, if you’re wondering.”

Kagome pulled back with a watery chuckle. “I thought you weren’t here to argue for him.”

“I’m not,” Sango replied with a shrug. “It’s just that, even though I’ve watched his health improve, he’s become quieter, more withdrawn than I’ve ever seen him. I just thought this would give him something to live for again. And I know if anyone can make it happen, you can.”

“I don’t know, Sango.”

“Just give him a shot,” she replied. “You don’t need to commit to anything now.”

“So what?” Kagome said with a sly grin. “Just take the music and run?”

“Why not? We already had plans today, didn’t we?”

“You don’t think that’s a little rude?”

“Serves him right for how he treated you.” Sango ducked around her and took a quick glance in the mirror, dabbing at the skin under her eyes.

Kagome did the same before she felt a nudge against her shoulder.  She met Sango’s reflected gaze.

“Remember that time in New York when we stole Inuyasha’s wallet and went to have brunch at the Ritz?”

She giggled. “How could I forget? Inuyasha was so mad, he made us pay for his meals for the rest of the trip.”

Sango rolled her eyes. “Sometimes, I wonder if he isn’t half-cat instead of dog. That asshole can sure hold onto a grudge.”

“Don’t ever let him hear you say that,” Kagome replied. 

They shared a dubious look and melted into a fit of giggles until Sango’s gaze grew tender. She swiped a few strands of hair behind Kagome’s ear.

“See? There were some good times, too.”

“I know. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it.”

Sango smiled and pulled her into another hug. “I’m really glad you came.

“Me too, the ambush notwithstanding.” Kagome paused and pulled back, loosely gripping her friends’ elbows. “Why didn’t you tell me he was coming?”

“I wanted to see you and I didn’t want you to cancel just because of him.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have canceled. To be honest, I’ve been wanting to see all of you. I just didn’t expect him to be so—”

“Dickish?”

Kagome laughed. “No, it’s just… the way he was looking at me.”

“Like he’s head over heels?”

“Don’t say that,” she scoffed. “It’s not true.”

Sango’s gaze grew serious. “You have to know that he cares about you.”

“Not really, he never made a point of showing it,” she replied.

Her friend grabbed her by the shoulders. “I know he’s screwed up in the past, but Inuyasha’s changed, Kagome. More like the guy you fell in love with and less like the playboy rockstar.”

She looked down to study her nails and remained quiet.

“You do still love him, don’t you?” Sango asked.

Kagome hesitated to answer. She should hate him, everything she knew about being a strong independent woman told her so. Inuyasha had toyed with her affections, pulling her close only to push her away. He had used her, satisfied his lust within her body only to treat her with disdain. It was hurtful, but Sango wasn’t wrong. There were good times.

The moments when they were intimate seemed to exist in a universe of their own, outside of the way he treated her in the real world. Lost in each other, Inuyasha showed a new side of himself. He was attentive, generous, and focused solely on her pleasure before his. In those sweet hours, she had felt like all that mattered. It was only afterwards that he made her feel like a mistake and that contradiction had slowly chipped away at her self-esteem.

Things were different now, though. She wasn’t the same immature girl anymore. She owned her own business, managing several different well-known clients. She owned her own home, and had just paid off her modest sedan. She had even adopted a cat. By most people’s standards she was successful, but the wounds that she had incurred back then had left lasting scars. 

Kagome didn’t open herself up to people anymore. She was friendly and polite, with many close acquaintances, but none that she considered actual friends other than Rin. She wasn’t sure she could count that one since technically she was family. Her love life was non-existent; she’d practically become a nun. No one had touched her intimately since… him .

Not that she hadn’t tried, but being in romantic situations with other men made her stomach turn. No one had touched her, held her, set her blood on fire the way that he did. It had been years since the first time they had connected in such a way, but she could still remember every detail. It was a well-trodden and comforting memory. From the first moment she was hooked; he became her drug, one that she had been in withdrawal from for the last six years.

[crossingbaranduin]

Guessing Games

(Teen | The Almighty Johnsons | Anders & Mike | 1.4k words)

Summary: Axl found out that saying “guess what” will lead to Mike knowing the “what” in question, since it was a game. Naturally, Anders figured out how to exploit that. (Or, five times Anders made Mike “guess what”, and one time he couldn’t but asked anyway.)

Notes: A quick, fun work spawned by a Discord message from @blairsanne: “I need someone to write a 5&1 where Anders annoys the shit out of Mike and then uses that Guess What game for a good purpose”. I’ll never turn down writing about my two favorites, so… here it is! Enjoy! : )

Read on AO3 here!

----------

As with many things in their family, it all started with someone being just a bit too curious. This time, it was Anders — about Mike's powers in particular.

“There’s no way you can know what I’m thinking if I say ‘guess what’. That’s bullshit!”

“One, no it’s not. Two, how did you even find out about that?”

“Axl told me. You’re god of games, not god of being psychic!”

“It’s a game where to win, I have to know what you’re thinking. It’s not that hard, Anders.”

“Fine,” Anders rolled his eyes. “Guess what?"

A thought that was definitively not his own filled his mind. Ty and I were the ones who broke the window crank on your old truck. Ty tried to crank the window closed on me.

Mike stopped, all thoughts of proving his point abandoned at Anders’ admission. "That was you?!"

"Holy shit, it does work," Anders said, astonished.

"Yes, it does, but my window crank doesn't!"

"It didn’t; that truck is long gone now, anyways." Anders grin only grew as he continued. "Oh, I'm so going to abuse this."

And with that, Mike realized just how critical of a mistake he had made in mentioning this ability to Anders.

"...Goddamnit."

----------

It wouldn't be Anders if he didn't immediately test the limits of something.

Unfortunately, knowing that did nothing to stop it, as Mike found out not long after Anders' original discovery. The bar was empty, and oddly quiet for once, as the two of them waited for the rest of the gods to arrive.

Or, it was, until Anders spoke up out of the blue. “Guess what?”

What if—

…

…Mike refused to repeat the rest of what Anders was thinking, even within the confines of his own head. Frankly, he wasn’t sure what of that was Anders’ own fucked-up ingenuity and what was Bragi’s gift with words used for horrible purposes.

It was a vivid mental image, that was for sure, and one he'd like to never have again.

He didn't dare turn around, his jaw clenched as he nearly glared a hole into the shelves in front of him. “Anders?”

Mike didn't have to look at Anders to hear the shit-eating grin he was wearing. “Yes?”

“You have three seconds to start running.”

If the other gods walked in a few minutes later to a couple barstools knocked over and the two of them tussling on the floor… no one really needed an explanation.

(Or wanted one. No one wanted to get in the middle of that — or find out what they had done to start it.)

----------

Of course, even that didn't stop Anders' plan, as he tried once more — this time from Mike's couch upstairs, rather than at the bar.

“Guess what?”

Mike responded without missing a beat. “No, I’m not playing this game, Anders.”

And he really wasn’t intending to. Nothing said he had to agree to play, and guessing games took two participants to work.

The unfortunate thing was, as much as his mortal half didn't want to give Anders the satisfaction... resisting the will of his godly half was another story. From the insistent nudging at the back of his mind, he figured he could get a headache from Ullr, or a headache from Anders.

The choice was easier than it should have been, really.

Bracing himself for the impending disaster, he huffed. “Goddamnit.”

I was wondering how long this thing would last since you just have to guess what I’m thinking but that doesn’t have a limit on how long that guess is going to be—

It turned out that if Anders didn’t need to breathe, he really could talk forever. Mike would be impressed, if he had any room to think over the constant stream of sound now in his mind.

—so if it’s all one thing to guess I just have to not take a break and keep talking blah blah blah—

"Will you shut up?!"

—absolutely not I'm nowhere near done Mikkel did you really think I'd stop talking this quickly you've known me too long for that—

"Oh my god, stop—"

—that won't stop me I can keep thinking even if you try and interrupt me haha I can go on forever—

With a groan, Mike blindly reached for the whiskey bottle across the table. He thought he'd been done with Anders tiring himself out by talking decades ago.

("God, my head fucking hurts," Anders muttered a good bit of time later, rubbing his temples.

Mike, who was doing the same with one hand and a glass in the other, leveled Anders with a blank stare. "I feel absolutely no sympathy for you.")

----------

Mike had — rather mistakenly — assumed it would be a quiet night in for him. That is, until a seemingly innocuous text flashed across his phone screen.

> Guess what?

"Great." He'd never had someone try it over text, but if that curious tingle in the back of his brain said anything, Anders had figured out yet another way to exploit it. He opened the messaging app, ready to chastise Anders for abusing his power yet again, when—

Ty and I are headed your way; situation happened with Loki. We'll explain when we get there.

Mike's heart dropped. Loki never meant good news, and if Anders was willing to admit that himself—

> Guess what?

We're fine. Loki just crossed some lines he shouldn't have. It's taken care of.

A breath he didn’t realize he was holding suddenly escaped him. They were alright — somehow, if Loki was involved yet again. He could bitch them out about it once they got to the bar. They weren't burnt to a crisp, or spontaneously combusted, or smited, so he could still chew them out.

(It was a horrible, relieving thought.)

Sitting down less steadily than he'd ever admit, he closed his eyes, breathing out as he let Ullr wash over him.

He could feel them approaching the bar — they were nearby. And still alive. He could handle the rest when they got here.

> Guess what?

Oh yeah, and Ty is Hodr again. Surprise.

...Probably.

----------

The world was ending, or damn near close to it, and by morning, none of them would be gods anymore.

It was a weird feeling. Mike had been a god for as nearly as long as he hadn’t been one, now.

Michele had stepped away for a moment, leaving Mike and Anders in an uncommon shared quiet, sitting back and observing the bustle of the casino around them.

"Guess what?"

Mike turned his head at Anders' sudden question, barely murmured above the background din of the room. He prepared himself for some quip, but instead—

It was the first time Mike had gotten more of a feeling that a coherent thought, and it was nearly overwhelming. A combination of thankful-relieved-peaceful-happy washed over him, and for a moment, he was at a loss for words.

(For a split second, it was as if a much younger Anders was superimposed over the one sitting in front of him, smiling and carefree before everything had gone to hell.)

He couldn’t send the feeling back, not in the same way, but he hoped his own smile and the light knocking of their shoulders together got the point across.

(He thought it did, from the way Anders leaned ever so slightly into him, even as Michele returned.

And of everything he was going to miss come the next morning, that would certainly be one of them.)

----------

"Guess what?"

Mike didn't have to answer Anders. He really didn't, this time; there was no pull from the now-gone Ullr, and even if he did, it wasn't as if it'd work the same way.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the night before, or maybe it was simply not giving a fuck in comparison to all the shit they'd been through recently. (Or maybe he knew he'd miss it if he didn't.)

Regardless, Mike turned around, an eyebrow raised as he finally answered Anders' question. “What, Anders?”

(“Nothing!”

“What?”

“Nothing! That was it.”

“You can’t just ask me what and then say nothing!”

“I sure can if it bothers you that much—“

Anders’ bright laughter was audible even over his own groaning into his hands, and if he cracked a smile of his own— well, no one would ever know. They couldn’t guess it, after all.)

[dimonds456]

Hi dims! :D

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

Oooooo this is a fun one!

When getting in-character for writing, I tend to do it best when I've already either A) daydreamed a scene every day for 3 months and tweaked the dialogue in my head, matching the show's artstyle near perfectly to capture the vibes of the original to the best that I can, or B) I have just finished writing that scene and am now On A Roll and I could tell you this character's entire past, present, and future and me 100% correct in everything I say ever.

Or C), I just understand how that character thinks, have built a couple of strong "they would say this" headcanons around them, and let that breeze guide my sails.

All that is to say that I don't think I write 100% in-character all the time. But, when I do think I nail it, it creates some of my best work.

Gonna allow myself to gush about my own writing for a second. It's old now, but my magnum opus- in my opinion- is still Chapter 19 of Half a Puppet- Pearl's chapter. I had been waiting for the chance to have her be the best goddamn Crystal Gem this side of the galaxy since I first started getting more and more story threads for HaP in my mind.

I wanted to show the version of Pearl that wouldn't let Homeworld push her down, but not in the way that she was in the beginning of the show. She's FAR more independent now, and channeled all that negative energy towards Greg she used to have into being Loki incarnate. Weird on paper, but in my head? It was fucking brilliant. And I still agree- that chapter is still the best thing I have ever written.

The subtle ways that Pearl tricks Morganite, and manipulates her in similar ways that Morganite has definitely done to other gems below her, getting subtle stabs of revenge without outright attacking her is one of my fav things ever. Plus, she does fight back! She's incredibly talented with the blade and spear, and she would have gotten out of there single-handedly if Morganite wasn't a fucking cheater with technology far beyond Pearl's understanding.

Plus, it renders Morganite as just a petty, whining child. Like, she's on the same level as Aquamarine, she's just a brat who, while also talented, uses her talents to boost herself up and think she has the right to push everyone else down. And it's not even a talent she earned, she popped out of the ground already knowing how to make wondrous statues. Pearl earned her talent, every step of the way.

Plus, that love that Pearl still holds for Rose is still there, so painfully evident. But, for once in the show, she's not weighed down by the sadness or the hole left in her being. She's moved past that. Like, yes, she still mourns Rose, but it's not obsessive like how she was in Season 1. She's grown far past that. So, instead, she does something she know would make Rose so fucking proud of her and just pranks her way out of her bad situation by portraying Rose the way she wanted to live.

(which gave me a chance to point at Rose and go look there's a trans metaphor in here somewhere and Pearl is the best fucking ally on the planet LOOK)

Idk. I still get really excited when I think about that chapter. I think it turned out really, really well.

On the flipside, though, I do struggle getting into characters heads when I don't understand how they think. It's one of the reason y'all aren't getting NEARLY as much HLVRAI writing from me as you got SU writing. Because HLVRAI is an improv series, the characters aren't as nailed down as someone like Pearl is. This is not a bad thing, though! I don't want them to be as nailed down, as long as they're consistent, which they are (and when they're not, it's usually for a joke, so you can take what they say as just them bullshitting and laugh and move on).

In order to fully get into character for the HLVRAI gang, I think I'd have to write them more in general and try to picture my writing happening in canon. Would it?

The greatest lesson I can give to fellow writers is not to say "this character would never do this," but instead to say "what would push them to do this?" Any character could become a pirate, but why? Even if you don't think they would ever become a pirate, what could push them to that point? Maybe they were forced into it, or maybe they knew it was the only way to save their daughter. Maybe they just kinda became pirates through an unfortunate series of events. Either way, there is something out there that would tip the scale.

I guess the best way I get into character is figuring how to put my finger on the scale in the exact way to push that character in question to act.

tl;dr who fuckin knows fhgsadkj

[artificialqueens]

[WIP] The Miracle of Living - Lita

A/N: So - picture it, Sicily, 1934. Many many moons ago I wrote a ludicrous/devastating Bitney AU based on the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror that I never bothered my arse posting the conclusion of. Veronica specifically was obsessed with this AU, and has been pestering me to upload the rest of it almost incessantly for literally years. Cut to last year, myself and V met up IRL and turns out spending three days in a hotel with the bitch gives her a lot of time to peer-pressure you into restarting writing projects that you originally started when you were still in high school. The original AU is…fine, but there were plot holes and unaddressed issues that have been bothering me for years, so because I’m me, I’ve decided to just totally restart the whole gd thing with more backstory, more tragedy, and more bullshit. 

This has been a long, long time in the works, and I have no ETA for the first completed chapter, but you’ll get it eventually. So, now I’m here - again, under duress by V, but here regardless. Since I’m a good daughter, here’s the first snippet of the prologue to the main story (because I inexplicably decided it needed a prologue.) Enjoy, divas xoxo

Los Angeles, California

“BEN!” 

Bianca’s furious voice rings out through the small apartment. She’s sitting on the toilet with her pajama pants and underwear around her ankles, willing the second blue line to disappear. If anything, it’s getting darker. 

“Uh…yeah?” The tentative reply comes from the other side of the bathroom door..  

“I thought you said you wore a fucking condom!”

“I did!” Ben protests from the other side of the bathroom door. Then, meek and cautious: “…It might have split.” 

“It might have what?”

Two and a half months ago, Bianca and Ben had gone out drinking to commiserate the ends of their respective relationships - Ben had found out about his long-term boyfriend’s secret Grindr profile and dumped him, then Bianca’s longest-lasting FWB had called it quits with her less than a week later. When they got home, drunk and dumb and miserable, they’d started making out with each other on the couch - as a joke, just for something to do. And then, since they were shitfaced and apparently didn’t know any better, one ‘joke’ led to another, and they’d woken up naked in Ben’s bed. They had laughed it off the morning after, hunched at the kitchen table over alka-seltzer and black coffee - too much liquor, too many emotions. Shit happens. 

And then tonight, Bianca had mentioned offhand that she was incredibly overdue her period, and suggested going out to buy a test half as a joke. Ben had gone along with it a little too willingly, and he’d been overly-energised and super fucking weird on the walk to the drugstore. Really, Bianca should have known something was up when he’d detoured via the liquor store across the street, and came back with two bottles of tequila. 

“Ben, are you fucking kidding me?” Bianca says through her teeth. 

“I was gonna tell you,” Ben replies, sounding flustered. “Is the door locked? Can I come in?”

Bianca wants to say no, but it was Ben’s curiosity about her vagina that got them here in the first place, so who cares about whether or not he sees her now? She reaches over to turn the lock. Ben shuffles into the room in his leopard-print boxers and an oversized pajama shirt, and perches on the edge of the bathtub, looking at the floor. 

Part of Bianca wants to burst into tears - another part of her wants to scream until she throws up. Not now. Not fucking now - not like this. She’s twenty-two; Bianca doesn’t even know that she wants a goddamn kid at all, forget about one fathered by her gay best friend.  

“Look, I didn’t notice until after we were done. And I didn’t want to freak you out - I figured it would probably be nothing, and then there was never a good time, and then you told me you were late and I…”  

“You’re a faggot, we were hammered, we fucked because we thought it would be funny - if you knew that there was anychance whatsoever that you’d knocked me up, you should have fucking told me!” 

“So, you’re pregnant?” 

“Yeah - no shit, Sherlock.”

“Do you think you should take another one? To make sure or whatever?” Ben asks. Bianca presses the heel of her hand to her temple, still not breaking eye contact with the pregnancy test. 

“Nope - that looks pretty positive to me,” Bianca shows it to him, wiping the mist of stress-sweat from her brow. Ben pulls a vaguely disgusted face. There’s a moment of pause - Bianca bites her lip, struggling to make sense of the messy cocktail of emotions swirling around inside her head. 

“Are you okay?” Ben tries to take Bianca’s hand. It feels weirdly violating to have someone touching her while she’s sitting on the toilet. She swats him away, chuckling and shaking her head. 

“I think so. I need a little time to get my head around…everything,” Bianca sighs, still staring at the test. “I really didn’t see being a single mom in my life plan.”

“Who says you have to be a single mom?” Ben tilts his head. 

Bianca scoffs. 

“What? No- Ben, I really don’t want to date you - one night was bad enough.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. But like…if you’re gonna go through with this, I’m not just leaving you by yourself to do it. Both of us did something dumb, and now we’re here - so, both of us should have to parent the consequence.” There’s a quiet, sympathetic smile on Ben’s face. Bianca still wants to fucking kill him. 

“You’re just saying that so I stop being mad at you.”

“No! Anyway, I can’t let you raise it by yourself - I love you, but the world really, really doesn’t need two of you.”

“Ha-ha, go suck a dick,” Bianca rolls her eyes. She can’t help but crack a smile. 

“If this is what happens when I try to go outside my comfort zone, then yeah, that’s what I’m sticking to.”

 **** 

Sydney, Australia 

“So…what the fuck do we do now?” 

“Get ratarsed?” Vanity offers, lifting a bottle to her lips with a grin. 

The Louboutins she’d insisted on dropping a bomb on for graduation had barely stayed on the whole way through the ceremony; her bare feet are resting in the grass, her dirty-blonde hair glowing golden in the sunset. Her red lipstick is smudged and her foundation has half-sweated off, and she looks beautiful. 

“I mean beyond that,” Courtney says, lying back on the hard ground and stifling a burp. “Like…how the fuck do we doanything? I don’t wanna be an adult.”  

There was only so much formality that the two of them had been able to stomach. Vanity has the attention span of a toddler, and Courtney didn’t know anyone else well enough to give a shit about socialising with them. She had Vanity; she’d been there since they were in kindergarten, and she was all that she needed. So, they’d stolen two bottles of cheap champagne from the boring, stuffy grad afterparty and escaped to watch the sunset in the park - the endeavour was more killing time pre-drinking and waiting for the clubs to open than trying to do anything cute or memorable, but Courtney couldn’t lie and say she didn’t love it a little bit. Calm moments with Vanity didn’t happen very often - she herself was the storm. 

Four years of university for…this. Life seemed so vast and confusing. Courtney had expected to come out prepared to face it; but if anything, she just feels smaller and less ready for the next fifty or sixty years she had left to screw around on the planet. She doesn’t know how to entertain herself for that long. Sucks to be her, she guesses - the journalism degree she’d pursued felt useless. After spending last summer interning at a newspaper, she’d learned that the career choice that seemed chic and fun when she was seventeen was mostly sitting around in an office being bored, when she wasn’t being sent on coffee runs. 

At least she wasn’t in Vanity’s boat - passing her major by the skin of her teeth and with the assistance of a stack of mitigating circumstance forms, with an attendance rate of 17%, two spates of alcohol poisoning, and one arrest for pissing in the street under her belt. She’d viewed higher education more as an opportunity to party for four years. But they’d made it - both of them had. 

“Tough shit,” Vanity shrugs. “Nobody ever fucking knows what they’re doing, they just pretend to. You’ve got like, forever to figure it out.” 

“Are you really someone I should be taking life advice from?” Courtney tilts her head. 

“What do you mean? I’m a fucking delight.”

“You did skip a month’s rent to pay for those shoes,” Courtney observes - Vanity elbowing her in the shoulder with a playful laugh.

“That’s not irresponsible, it’s self-expression - fucking transphobe,” she scoffs. “I’ve got twenty years worth of masculine posturing to get out of my system, let me have my expensive shiny shit.” 

“You think you were masculine? Like, ever?” Courtney laughs. Vanity nods in a way that indicates a little too much sincerity. “Vanity, I’ve known you since we were six - I’m still convinced that the only reason we’re friends is because my parents let you play with my Barbies.”  

“It was originally, but I learned to like you too,” she shrugs. Courtney grins. 

Last year, after a particularly messy night in the club, they’d stumbled home - Vanity a dozen drinks and two lines of white miscellanea deep, Courtney not far behind her - and congregated in the cramped bathroom of their shared apartment. It had become a ritual. Getting home as the sun was coming up, parking themselves on the tiled floor, or in the empty bath, or kneeling in front of the loo if they’d really overdone it - exhausted and sweaty and coming down, but unable to accept that the party was over. Like most nights, Vanity started crying. Usually it was about a boy, or her parents, or her general ennui. The bitch had a lot of fucking demons. But this time it was heavier. And she wouldn’t tell Courtney what the fuck the matter was. Eventually, the confession had tumbled out of her mouth in between breathless sobs, as she slumped against the wall with a half-finished bottle of wine in her hand; Courtney sat on the toilet, mid-piss and unsure what to do with herself. 

So, that was it. Vanity was a woman. And left to her own devices, she would have been all too content to keep pretending that she wasn’t - with the help of a steady stream of one-night stands and whatever mind-altering substance she could get her hands on. Can’t acknowledge your problems if you’re not sober enough to remember what they are. Courtney hadn’t so much helped her come out of the closet as she had dragged her out of it kicking and screaming. 

Vanity had always been the one who knew what she was doing - louder, more confident, even when they were kids. Growing up, Courtney really hadn’t had friends; Vanity had friends who let Courtney hang out with them. Courtney adored the bitch - someone had to - but she had always felt a little pinch of jealousy towards her too. She shrunk in comparison to her best friend. 

And now here she was; Vanity was staggering blind into this new phase of her life, with Courtney - who at that point had been accomplishing womanhood to relative success for twenty-one years - by her side, ready and willing to teach her whatever she needed to know. She’d had all of these cute little fantasies about shopping trips and manicures, being the one to school Vanity in femininity. 

Annoying thing was, once Vanity had finally admitted that the ongoing gender crisis she’d been ignoring since her mid-teens wasn’t going away any time soon, she’d just blossomed into herself. Everything seemed to come so naturally to her; she hadn’t needed any of Courtney’s help, except from borrowing a lipstick here and there. So, the jealousy remained - she’d only been doing it for eleven months, and Vanity was better at being a girl than Court was too, on top of everything else. 

 But Courtney didn’t really give a shit. Whatever saccharine big-sister daydream she’d had about her role in Vanity’s ‘new’ way of being didn’t really fucking matter. Vanity was…actually happy, arguably for the first time ever. 

“Do you think we should start thinking about making a move? That three-for-two happy hour thing at Ginger’s finishes in a bit,” Vanity ponders, swallowing back the dregs of her champagne.

“Can we just chill here for a bit longer? Let me finish my existential crisis before you start thinking about where your next drink is coming from,” Courtney scoffs. 

“You can sweat over the futility of your sad little life any time you like, do you have to do it right now?” she huffs, picking at her chipping nail polish. 

“Please,” Courtney says, looking up at her with plaintive doe-eyes and reaching for her hand.  

“Fine - you’re such a fucking loser,” Vanity grins. 

She lies back in the grass, resting her head on Courtney’s shoulder and playing around with a lock of her hair. The last sliver of sunlight is still glowing dusky orange, and Courtney is pleasantly tipsy and, for all her internal stress and bullshit, she feels this air of calm washing over her. Panicking about what she was going to do with the rest of her life could wait until tomorrow, at least. 

Vanity slips her hand into Courtney’s. Her presence feels warm and safe and familiar - she smells like cheap vanilla perfume and hairspray, and it’s overbearing but Courtney adores it anyway. 

[doktordismemberment]

Roundup: Dec 27, 2023

Blah Blah:

Holidays are over and we’re back down to recording. I think the track we’re working on right now is my favorite thing we’ve come up with so far. Sounds almost like “Cop” SWANS meets super skuzzy early 90s DM meets the relentlessly rolling tribal toms from The Cure’s “Hanging Garden” shot through with eerily glowing veins of radioactive electronic noise.

Now the question is: Do we wanna buy a cheap telecaster and try to to do some really scratchy/ scrapey Santiago Durango type shit over top of a couple of songs? -

Muzak:

I have neither the time nor the patience to write about all of these albums individually right now, but I’ll do as many as I can before I have to put this down and go be productive… Long story short: It’s been a hectic week and the holiday season is always kind of a bummer for me so I’ve been retreating into a bunch of older favorites more than I’ve been seeking out anything new. -

SvartidauðI - Flesh Cathedral - This is a weird opinion founded in nothing but my own personal tastes, but I think Flesh Cathedral is probably my favorite Icelandic black metal record. Floored me so fucking hard when it came out back in 2012. Cavernous. Evil. Remember thinking it sounded like Deathspell Omega on steroids. -

Sinmara - Aphotic - Close second Icelandic BM album just behind that SvartidauðI. Sounds like nearly freezing to death before getting chucked into a fucking volcano. -

Godflesh - Godflesh EP -

Bathory - Hammerheart - “Baptized in Fire and Ice” is probably my favorite song of all time, period. Maybe tied with Venom’s “Manitou.” Whole album rules. -

Samael - Ceremony of Opposites -

Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract - In my eyes Rotting Christ’s first four albums are absolutely unfuckwithable. I love how this album sounds really skuzzy, but still has all these soaring Maidenesque leads all over it. -

Starkweather - Croatoan - I‘ve had the creepy clean vocal “what makes love so frightening“ middle section of Silken Garrote/ Infinity Coil stuck in my head on and off for like the past month and a half.

https://starkweather.bandcamp.com/track/silken-garotte-the-infinity-coil-

Big Black - Atomizer - Top 5 favorite album of all time for me. Hard to even put into words why. Something about the willful nastiness of it all… And also that hearing a really fucked up sounding band use a drum machine made me think “oh shit I could totally get a drum machine and do this myself” back when I was a weirdo teenager that lived in the middle of nowhere and had no friends, let alone friends that played drums. -

Anorexia Nervosa - New Obscuratantis Order - Straight up, that album cover has always sketched me the fuck out, but goddamn... This album is just insanely fast in places. Scratches the trillion mile per hour icy-cold 90s black metal itch that I always feel so acutely this time of year. -

Alice In Chains - Dirt -

Lustmord - Heresy - The sound of a gaping hole in the earth that leads to a cold, lonely, hell. Bleak as fuck. -

Pitch Shifter - Submit Unholy - Gracefallen -

Video Games:

Warm Snow - Blood splattered samurai rogue-lite… Picked it up after hearing it compared to Hades cos I liked Hades way more than I thought I would. So far the combat feels fast and satisfying even if I can only get to the second boss before getting absolutely fucking bulldozed. -

Sanabi - Grappling hook cyberpunk ninja game with a 90s Image Comics meets 80s action movie style plot. Gameplay reminds me of a cross between Celeste, Speedrunners, and the old NES Bionic Commando. Pretty awesome. -

Reading:

The Elric Saga: Book 1 - Michael Moorcock - I keep starting this collection ‘cos I’ve really wanted to read the Elric stuff since I was a teenager, but every time I start the first chapter it seems like life gets super busy and I have to put it down almost immediately. Been forcing myself to read a couple pages before bed and feel like I’m finally making progress. -

Monsters in Print - Adam Benedict - Collection of old timey newspaper articles about monsters, pretty easy to read a few quick snippets and go on about your day. -

Tube:

I’ve had zero time to sit and watch movies this week… I think I’ve watched like half of two episodes of The Great British Baking thing that my wife is obsessed with, and that’s been pretty much it.

[chrisryanspeaks]

The Natvral (Kip Berman, former frontman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) shares its sophomore album, Summer of No Light, on Dirty Bingo Records. "Carolina" from the album has also been released as the album's fourth single: "Sometimes I come at an idea I’ve written about a while back, but it seems the model has shifted their pose, or the light has changed. “Carolina” is one such song. Its subject is, more or less, the same as “The Tenure Itch.” That older song was fixated on the more prurient elements, and if it seemed a bit arch or judgmental, it’s not exactly covering its eyes either. But in “Carolina” I want to know “what happens after? Are you alright? Am I?” Maybe my concern still isn’t entirely noble, and that’s fine. But something has changed with what I’m after." -Kip Berman Bio: “These songs live somewhere between the climate crisis of 1816, the climate crisis of now, and the climate crisis of the heart,” says Kip Berman. “You might say it’s a gothic record—but the house isn’t haunted. The ghosts moved out years ago, but I still get their mail from time to time." On his second album as The Natvral - a spirited, beautifully observed collection of rough and ready songcraft - the former Pains of Being Pure at Heart frontperson was eyeing the past while dealing with an inescapable present. In 2020, in the early stages of lockdown, Berman began writing songs that reflected on a world that had seemingly ended – while contending with the needs of his young family seeking solace in the familiar. “After putting my children to bed, I spent many a late night in the basement with my guitar and let my mind wander to the places where I could no longer go,” he says. “Initially, a lot of the songs were about getting as far away from the reality of my moment as possible.” He drew parallels with another tumultuous summer. “The record’s title, Summer of No Light, is taken from the climate crisis of 1816,” he says. Often referred to as The Year Without a Summer, that year a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia darkened much of the world’s sky. The resulting ash brought dramatic global cooling and widespread famine, hitting Western Europe especially hard. But it was during the present climate crisis – this one very much of humanity’s design – that he began to think about the people who were holed up during those times while creating their own form of escapist art. “Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written that same summer,” he says. “Like me, she was among the relatively fortunate who could take shelter,” famously riding out the foul weather in Switzerland on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Claire Clairmont (Mary’s half-sister and Byron’s paramour) embarking on a ghost story contest (she won), as well as many less cerebral ways to pass the time. “I found the idea of these people sustaining themselves through art, while fucking and getting fucked up, both familiar and foreign. Faced with the endless rituals and work reproducing some normalcy and joy for two small children (then just 18 months and 4 years) when even the sandbox, slides, and swings were cordoned off with police tape, Berman’s imagination began to stretch out even further in the few moments he had to himself. “Maybe I was embarking on a few ghost stories myself,” he says. “Indulging in a kind of gothic fantasy of tragic loves and lost friends while a more banal specter loomed on milk cartons, suburban playground equipment, and the very breath of conversation.” But Berman is quick to make clear that his labors weren’t solitary or even notable, but in tandem with his partner. “Don’t feel bad for me, my wife pulled long days working from home – and still found time to be present for all of us.” While he initially sought escape from the isolation in which he found himself, soon the solace of home and family life began to seep its way into the music “The routines of domesticity were often unwelcome, and always exhausting - but probably mentally helpful. I was isolated, but not alone.” Despite the many graveyard romps that populate the record, it’s the moments that celebrate home that gives this album its heart. For a record written in a time of enormous constraint, Summer of No Light sounds defiantly free. The opening “Lucifer’s Glory” has the kind of punchy, rousing, almost triumphant chorus that Springsteen himself would envy; while “Summer of Hell” charges along infectiously, with its melodic refrain conjuring exultant feelings in stark opposition to a spurned lover who can “write it down for somedays that you know will never come.” For every song about death or absence – that loss isn’t for nought. “Those unwelcome experiences give us the ability to see the shape of what life is more fully.” As he sings on “Lucifer’s Glory,” “It’s the kind of loss you don’t live without.” Look past the more lurid paeans to tragic figures and lost time, and you’ll find another side of the record that is unabashedly domestic. “Your Temperate Ways” sings of a lover who is as keen to make the bed as sully it. Even the nod to The Book of the Dead in “Wait for Me” (I’ve got money ‘neath my tongue, if that’s what you require) is as much about what is needed to be loved and accepted in this world as the next. Ditto “A Glass of Laughter,” that captures the allure and limits of a lover who, “could not buy you winter gloves, but always took your hand.” On album closer, “Wintergreen,” Berman’s dialogue between his own history and the present is at its most potent, as he reflects back on the tumultuous early stages of his relationship with his now wife. “When I found you in the snowbank, never wanting to come home – I knew you were the one I’d die with, I think I’d die for you to know.” he sings. “I’m far from a teenage runaway beholden to only my art and pleasure,” he says, once again looping back to Shelley. “And though there are moments where that sounds tempting, this music would not exist if I were.” The immediacy that radiates from the record is due, in no small part, to the fact that it was recorded mostly live in one week with Berman’s long-time collaborator Andy Savours (Black Country New Road, My Bloody Valentine, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) in London. “I was listening to a bunch of Silver Jews, Neil Young, Karen Dalton, Leonard Cohen, and Ezra Furman – the kind of singers that strained to see into the dimly lit moments of life.” “The way we recorded it felt very much in step with the hope I had when I started this project,” he says. “Which was: I just want to pick up my guitar and sing – whether it’s by myself or with a band, whether it’s for a handful of friends in a basement or something more. Andy, to his credit, never let me deviate from that ideal.” Summer of No Light is an album that’s born of a precise moment, yet revels in anachronism. Collapsing time to make a little bit of sense of this one, Berman feels artistically rejuvenated, drawing on histories large and small to breathe new life and perspective on his own. “It was a time that is now almost unspeakable – not because the tragedy was too profound or in any way trivial – but because we were all there.” TOUR DATES Sept. 2 - Philadelphia, PA - Main Street Music # (4:00 PM) Sept. 6 - Washington, DC - Comet Ping Pong ^ Sept. 7 - Raleigh, NC - Terrorbird Hopscotch Day Party at Slim’s Sept. 8 - Phoenixville, PA - The Record Shop Sept. 9 - Princeton, NJ - Princeton Record exchange (4:00 pm) Sept. 12 - Brooklyn, NY - Purgatory @ Sept. 14 - Jersey City, NJ - Pet Shop $ # w/ The Tisburys ^ w/ Quintron + Miss Pussycat @ w/ Lightheaded, Jane Herships $ w/ Joy Cleaner, Desir Decir Read the full article

[audiofuzz]

The Natvral (Kip Berman, former frontman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) shares its sophomore album, Summer of No Light, on Dirty Bingo Records. "Carolina" from the album has also been released as the album's fourth single: "Sometimes I come at an idea I’ve written about a while back, but it seems the model has shifted their pose, or the light has changed. “Carolina” is one such song. Its subject is, more or less, the same as “The Tenure Itch.” That older song was fixated on the more prurient elements, and if it seemed a bit arch or judgmental, it’s not exactly covering its eyes either. But in “Carolina” I want to know “what happens after? Are you alright? Am I?” Maybe my concern still isn’t entirely noble, and that’s fine. But something has changed with what I’m after." -Kip Berman Bio: “These songs live somewhere between the climate crisis of 1816, the climate crisis of now, and the climate crisis of the heart,” says Kip Berman. “You might say it’s a gothic record—but the house isn’t haunted. The ghosts moved out years ago, but I still get their mail from time to time." On his second album as The Natvral - a spirited, beautifully observed collection of rough and ready songcraft - the former Pains of Being Pure at Heart frontperson was eyeing the past while dealing with an inescapable present. In 2020, in the early stages of lockdown, Berman began writing songs that reflected on a world that had seemingly ended – while contending with the needs of his young family seeking solace in the familiar. “After putting my children to bed, I spent many a late night in the basement with my guitar and let my mind wander to the places where I could no longer go,” he says. “Initially, a lot of the songs were about getting as far away from the reality of my moment as possible.” He drew parallels with another tumultuous summer. “The record’s title, Summer of No Light, is taken from the climate crisis of 1816,” he says. Often referred to as The Year Without a Summer, that year a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia darkened much of the world’s sky. The resulting ash brought dramatic global cooling and widespread famine, hitting Western Europe especially hard. But it was during the present climate crisis – this one very much of humanity’s design – that he began to think about the people who were holed up during those times while creating their own form of escapist art. “Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was written that same summer,” he says. “Like me, she was among the relatively fortunate who could take shelter,” famously riding out the foul weather in Switzerland on Lake Geneva with her lover Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Claire Clairmont (Mary’s half-sister and Byron’s paramour) embarking on a ghost story contest (she won), as well as many less cerebral ways to pass the time. “I found the idea of these people sustaining themselves through art, while fucking and getting fucked up, both familiar and foreign. Faced with the endless rituals and work reproducing some normalcy and joy for two small children (then just 18 months and 4 years) when even the sandbox, slides, and swings were cordoned off with police tape, Berman’s imagination began to stretch out even further in the few moments he had to himself. “Maybe I was embarking on a few ghost stories myself,” he says. “Indulging in a kind of gothic fantasy of tragic loves and lost friends while a more banal specter loomed on milk cartons, suburban playground equipment, and the very breath of conversation.” But Berman is quick to make clear that his labors weren’t solitary or even notable, but in tandem with his partner. “Don’t feel bad for me, my wife pulled long days working from home – and still found time to be present for all of us.” While he initially sought escape from the isolation in which he found himself, soon the solace of home and family life began to seep its way into the music “The routines of domesticity were often unwelcome, and always exhausting - but probably mentally helpful. I was isolated, but not alone.” Despite the many graveyard romps that populate the record, it’s the moments that celebrate home that gives this album its heart. For a record written in a time of enormous constraint, Summer of No Light sounds defiantly free. The opening “Lucifer’s Glory” has the kind of punchy, rousing, almost triumphant chorus that Springsteen himself would envy; while “Summer of Hell” charges along infectiously, with its melodic refrain conjuring exultant feelings in stark opposition to a spurned lover who can “write it down for somedays that you know will never come.” For every song about death or absence – that loss isn’t for nought. “Those unwelcome experiences give us the ability to see the shape of what life is more fully.” As he sings on “Lucifer’s Glory,” “It’s the kind of loss you don’t live without.” Look past the more lurid paeans to tragic figures and lost time, and you’ll find another side of the record that is unabashedly domestic. “Your Temperate Ways” sings of a lover who is as keen to make the bed as sully it. Even the nod to The Book of the Dead in “Wait for Me” (I’ve got money ‘neath my tongue, if that’s what you require) is as much about what is needed to be loved and accepted in this world as the next. Ditto “A Glass of Laughter,” that captures the allure and limits of a lover who, “could not buy you winter gloves, but always took your hand.” On album closer, “Wintergreen,” Berman’s dialogue between his own history and the present is at its most potent, as he reflects back on the tumultuous early stages of his relationship with his now wife. “When I found you in the snowbank, never wanting to come home – I knew you were the one I’d die with, I think I’d die for you to know.” he sings. “I’m far from a teenage runaway beholden to only my art and pleasure,” he says, once again looping back to Shelley. “And though there are moments where that sounds tempting, this music would not exist if I were.” The immediacy that radiates from the record is due, in no small part, to the fact that it was recorded mostly live in one week with Berman’s long-time collaborator Andy Savours (Black Country New Road, My Bloody Valentine, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) in London. “I was listening to a bunch of Silver Jews, Neil Young, Karen Dalton, Leonard Cohen, and Ezra Furman – the kind of singers that strained to see into the dimly lit moments of life.” “The way we recorded it felt very much in step with the hope I had when I started this project,” he says. “Which was: I just want to pick up my guitar and sing – whether it’s by myself or with a band, whether it’s for a handful of friends in a basement or something more. Andy, to his credit, never let me deviate from that ideal.” Summer of No Light is an album that’s born of a precise moment, yet revels in anachronism. Collapsing time to make a little bit of sense of this one, Berman feels artistically rejuvenated, drawing on histories large and small to breathe new life and perspective on his own. “It was a time that is now almost unspeakable – not because the tragedy was too profound or in any way trivial – but because we were all there.” TOUR DATES Sept. 2 - Philadelphia, PA - Main Street Music # (4:00 PM) Sept. 6 - Washington, DC - Comet Ping Pong ^ Sept. 7 - Raleigh, NC - Terrorbird Hopscotch Day Party at Slim’s Sept. 8 - Phoenixville, PA - The Record Shop Sept. 9 - Princeton, NJ - Princeton Record exchange (4:00 pm) Sept. 12 - Brooklyn, NY - Purgatory @ Sept. 14 - Jersey City, NJ - Pet Shop $ # w/ The Tisburys ^ w/ Quintron + Miss Pussycat @ w/ Lightheaded, Jane Herships $ w/ Joy Cleaner, Desir Decir Read the full article

[silver-tongued-bby]

Part II of Trouble

This fic is a part of A Dark Celebration.

Pairing: Tattoo Artist!Loki x fem!Reader

Words: 3,605

Summary: You meet Loki for dinner and look into booking that second appointment.

This is work of fiction is 18+!!!!, and contains graphic descriptions of sex (m/f), teasing, oral sex (f), dirty talk, dry-humping, tattoo aftercare, and a touch (a teensy bit!) of dom!Loki. Please do not interact if you are a minor or are sensitive towards any of the themes mentioned above.

This is technically still a part of the challenge- I just had to write a second part for this story! Tattoo Artist!Loki is my new vice. I hope you all enjoy- likes, reblogs, and comments mean the world!! 🖤

~~~

You slowly blinked your eyes open, groaning at the light streaming through the crack in your curtains.

“Fuck,” you mumbled, muscles protesting as you slowly sat up in bed. You winced, angry at your unconscious self for rolling onto your back in your sleep. Your shoulders felt stiff, the skin a little sore, but the pain slowly receded as you stretched out your neck from the side of your bed.

Rubbing one eye you reached for your phone, tapping the screen to bring it to life. You were bombarded with texts from your friends in the group chat. They were going off about your failure to provide any updates from last night. You scrolled to find another message, this one making your heart beat a little faster.

“I hope you aren’t too sore this morning x.” It was from Loki.

You’d texted him once you’d gotten home last night, the two of you exchanging a few messages before you turned in.

“No real pain but I think that half marathon you’d planned for us this evening will have to wait.” You hit send then got up to walk to the kitchen.

“Damn. I was hoping to impress you with how well I could pull off a pair of short shorts.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “You can’t tease a girl like that then take it off the table!” You responded, your smile faltering as you pictured him in runner’s shorts, topless, his inked skin glistening with sweat. Oh no. You had it bad.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the soft buzz of your phone. “Maybe one day, darling.” He was still typing. “If you’re good.” You felt your core twitch.

“In light of your situation, how does dinner sound instead?” He asked.

“It sounds lovely.” You responded, the two of you working out the details for later tonight.

~~~

You walked to the park, the sun just beginning to set, the sky strewn with vibrant pinks and blues.

You turned a corner and saw him standing by the wrought iron gate of the park, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his phone.

He was dressed in a black, soft-looking shirt covered in white brushstrokes, paired with dark jeans and black leather shoes. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, the tattoos on his forearm just peeking out from where he’d rolled up his sleeves. He wore his hair loose today, the inky black curls pushed back from his face as he looked down at the screen. His shirt was untucked, the top buttons mostly undone to show off his decorated skin. You smiled, your heart beating sat at the mere sight of him.

You slowed as you approached and he turned, a grin spreading across his lips.

“Hello, darling.” He spoke, the timbre of his voice already making your knees weak.

“Hi,” you smiled.

He pulled you in for a hug before coming to face you, still holing you close. “You look stunning.”

“Thank you.”

He had his finger under your chin, and tilted your face a little before pressing his lips to yours ever so gently, his other hand firm against your lower back. That cool, peppery scent, now a little more familiar, enveloped you. You could feel your heart beating quickly, your body responsive to him.

He came away and you opened your eyes to his. He searched your gaze for a moment, the sounds of the city seemingly far-away before he stepped back, his hand coming to hold yours. You shivered, already feeling that heat bloom through you. It was going to be a long night.

He slipped your hand in the crook of his arm and the two of you passed through the gates, carrying on the winding path through the trees.

“So,” you looked down at his forearm, “is the pain of shading the reason you only have one coloured tattoo?” He chuckled, “who says I only have one coloured tattoo?” He looked at you, pulling down his glasses to shoot you a wink.

You felt another pulse of heat at that. Damn him.

He settled his glasses back on his nose, running a hand through his hair. “I suppose I’ve never thought of the pain much. It was more of a stylistic choice. Was it really that bad?”

You shrugged. “It did hurt. More than I’d expected,” you laughed.

“I’m sorry, darling. I do hope I helped to soothe the pain?”

You swallowed and contemplated forcing him back to your apartment at that very moment. “You helped a lot more than the numbing cream,” you looked to him again.

“For you I’m more than happy to be of service,” he grinned at you before angling to speak in your ear. “Though I’m not close to finished with you.”

You couldn’t see his eyes through his glasses, but you were sure they were simmering with the same heat his words held. You let out a shaky breath quietly, doing your best to hide how much he’d affected you.

He gave you a smirk before carrying on with a conversation of a more innocent nature as you made your way to the restaurant.

~~~

He brought you to a taqueria, one of his favourites. The decor was sleek yet comfortable, the menu toting authentic Mexican cuisine.

You were seated in the back corner of the restaurant, out of the main thoroughfare, the dimmed lighting and dark walls making you feel as if you were hidden away.

After ordering your drinks, you told him a few stories of your friends, your work. He nodded along, interjecting every now and then, his gaze making you feel as if you were the only one in the room.

You were so caught up in him, and the dinner that you hadn’t noticed the lights dimming, each of you ordering a final cocktail with the bill.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” you admitted. He’d asked you who you thought would be tattooing you yesterday. “I certainly didn’t expect you.”

“The same goes for you,” he smiled then looked pensive. “I’ve never done that before.”

You frowned, a confused grin pulling at your lips. “Really?”

“Never.” He mirrored your expression. “Do you really think me such a letch?”

Your eyes went wide, “shit, Loki- of course not, I didn’t mean to insinuate anything,” you spoke quickly as you tumbled over your words.

He chuckled, waving the idea away with his hand. “No harm done, you aren’t the first to wonder. There have certainly been situations where clients have,” he sighed, wincing a little at the memory, “been unreasonably unprofessional. It has always been- well it always was,” he smiled at you, “my policy to never get involved with a client. Especially in the studio.”

You raised your eyebrows at him, his face serious. “Can I ask what it was?”

He took a sip of his drink, his brows furrowed. “What it was?”

“What made you decide to go against your rule yesterday?”

He looked at his drink and smiled, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the tabletop, his fingers coming to brush against the inside of your forearm. You felt heat bloom within you at his very touch, his rough, warm hand tracing over your skin. He looked up to you, his eyes darkening in the slightest.

“It was this,” he said with a little grin. “It’s almost electric. I think you feel it too,” he pressed down a little with his thumb into the muscle of your forearm, hitting a pressure point that made you gasp and press your legs together. “Don’t you, darling?” It was more of a statement than a question. He kept his eyes on yours while raising your wrist to his lips. He pressed a gentle kiss there, making you swallow hard.

He let your arm go and you almost stopped him, never wanting his touch to leave your skin. He leant back in his chair, holding a finger to his lower lip as his eyes assessed you, a flame flickering behind the blue-green.

Christ. You kept your eyes on him as you took one more sip, licking your lips as you rested the empty glass back on the tabletop.

He stood and held a hand out for you. “I think we should leave before I do something I may regret.”

You took it as you stood. “Such as?” You taunted, smirking.

He shook his head with a smirk and held up your jacket. You turned to slide it on. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to keep myself from slipping my fingers up this lovely little dress?” His voice was low in your ear. You bit your lip to hold in a gasp and turned to him, his hungry gaze making you grip his hand a little tighter.

He walked you out of the restaurant and into the cool night air. Your breath hitched when he suddenly tugged on your hand, leading you down the dark brick alley of the restaurant. You backed against the wall, shivering as he brushed a hand over the skin of your cheek.

He closed in on you, his chest firm against you, lips inches from your own.

Your breath was heavy as you looked to him, daring him to come closer.

“I’m sorry darling,” he breathed against your lips. “I can’t wait any longer.” With that he captured you in a kiss, his thumb brushing against your jaw as his fingers curled along the back of your neck. He drew you closer, smoothing his other hand against your lower back.

You got lost in him, his kiss enveloping you fully, his tongue teasing, demanding. He slid his hand lower and angled his hips into yours ever so slightly, the feel of him between your legs forcing a gasp from you. Your hands slid up his back as if you could somehow draw him closer, the finely toned musculature of him radiating warmth from under his shirt.

He bit your bottom lip and you arched into him further. Bending to kiss along your neck, the loud sound of your breath rung out into the small space. He hit a spot just below your ear and you moaned, your head spinning.

“Do you want me to take you home, pretty girl?” He rasped into your ear and you nodded, your hips angling against him. He came to look at you straight on, his dark eyes glinting in the low light. His fingertips came to rest under your chin as he looked at you, his expression expectant.

“Please,” you whispered, “I want to go home with you.”

His gaze flickered to your lips and he smirked. “Good girl.”

~~~

You weren’t exactly sure how it had happened but Loki had you flat against the door of your apartment, one leg thrown over his shoulder as he teased your clit with his tongue and fingers. You were whining, almost mewling pathetically at the man kneeling before you, his tattooed fingers pressing in spots that made you see stars.

His tongue traced lightly along the skin of your clit, blue-green eyes watching you as you writhed above him, the leg supporting your weight starting to tremble. You were gripping the door handle hard, gasping as he turned to ever so gently held your bud between his teeth, his tongue rubbing against it. Your other hand was tangled in his soft dark hair.

“Loki- fuck! I can’t-“ you gasped, so close that you couldn’t form the words.

His eyes held a smile as he nodded, his movements unrelenting. He hit that spot within you once, twice, then held it there as you came, your fingers going numb as your body shook with the waves of pleasure. You were crying out for him between frantic gasps as he held you steady, eventually pulling his lips from you.

He guided your leg off his shoulder and stood to hold you steady. “Are you alright, darling?”

“Yes,” you smiled, “very, very alright.” You pushed yourself off the door, holding his hand as you took a few steps on wobbly feet before walking to your bedroom. “I’m sorry but I think the tour is going to have to wait,” you said as you undid the zipper of your dress then slid it off of you.

“Christ,” he murmured as you stood before him naked, your back and shoulders still too sore for you to even attempt a bra and you panties discarded earlier. His eyes took you in as you came closer to carefully undo each button of his dress shirt before pushing it off his shoulders.

You watched him, a small smirk on your lips as you undid his belt and pants, pulling them down his legs. He sat on the bed behind him as he took them off the rest of the way, the tattoos littering his legs in black ink making your mouth run dry. He was truly fucking covered.

Your eyes fell to his boxers, his length barely concealed behind the soft black fabric.

“Come here,” his fingers found yours as he guided you to straddle his lap, his hard, warm length against your bare heat forcing a gasp from you. He smirked, his hips angling into yours before he pulled you in for a kiss.

Your body moved with his as you lost yourself in him, your wet heat rubbing up against the soft cotton of his briefs. He bent to kiss down your throat and chest, pressing his lips against your nipple before taking it into his mouth. You groaned, moving against him more frantically, wishing he’d take off the only layer separating you from him.

“Loki,” you breathed, “please,” your fingers curled in the waistband of his briefs.

“Oh darling,” he cooed, the smile in his eyes clear. “Do you want me to take these off so I can fuck you?”

You squirmed and nodded, “please,” you begged, swirling your hips against him in an attempt to draw him closer.

He swiped his thumb across your cheek before guiding you up, pushing down his briefs before settling you back over him. “Is this what you needed?” He asked, moving you against him so his length glided through your folds.

You sucked in a sharp breath and nodded.

“Such a good girl for me,” he looked up to you with a smirk before nodding to the space beside him. “Lie down.”

You did as you were told, his hands guiding your hips as you flipped over. He quickly stood, pulling a condom from his pocket and rolling it over his length. He stepped back to the bed and settled a pillow under your lower back before kneeling between your legs, coming forward to tease your folds with his tip.

You shivered and angled your hips in an attempt to draw him further in. He was watching you as he teased you, his brow furrowing as he pressed just the tip of himself within you before pulling back to tease you again.

He rubbed himself over your clit and you cried out, the feeling amplified by your sensitivity.

“Are you ready, pretty girl?” He asked, his voice raspy.

You nodded frantically, your hips angling further against him.

His brows furrowed once more as you took a little more of him in with your movement. He took a breath then pushed further, slowly stretching you on his length.

You moaned once he was fully seated, your walls fluttering around him. The angle had him pressed deliciously within you, hitting that same spot he’d brushed with his fingers before.

“Darling- fuck, you feel divine,” he leant down to press a kiss to your lips. He angled his chin, looking down at you as if to ask permission.

You nodded and he slowly brought himself out before thrusting back in, forcing the air from your lungs. As he quickly found his rhythm you desperately hung on, each thrust bringing a deep, almost painful pleasure from you.

Your eyes fell to his tattooed hands firmly holding your waist before running up and over his littered arms to the brightly coloured snake in the middle of his chest. His corded muscles strained under the inked skin of his neck. You looked back to his face, his hair falling in waves around him. Fuck. He was angelic. Those blue-green eyes dark as he hungrily took you in, his jaw set. You slid your fingers through it and held your hand there, tugging lightly.

His eyes closed briefly as he hissed, his thrusts slowing. Looking back down at you, he raised an eyebrow as his hand came to rest on the skin of your lower stomach, his thumb moving to swipe against your clit.

“Fuck!” You cried out, your grip falling from his hair.

“That’s it, good girl-“ he breathed. “You take me so well- fuck. Such a good girl.”

You held onto his forearms, your legs shifting to open to him even more.

“Are you going to cum?”

You nodded, unable to answer.

“Cum for me, darling. I want this pretty cunt,” he rubbed your clit a little faster, “to cum all over my cock. Fuck, I can feel how close you are. Let go- be my good girl and let go,” he was moving his hips in shallow thrusts deep against your g-spot, your grip on him tightening as you held your breath.

It took one firm push with his thumb over your clit and you came, crying out for him. He started moving the moment you came, his thrusts stuttering then halting a few seconds after as he swore above you before he came forward, holding you tightly against him.

You could feel him twitch within you, your walls still convulsing around him with aftershocks. You both caught your breath as you held each other, the pleasure eventually receding. He pulled himself up on his forearms, looking down at you, his eyes warm and bright.

He kissed you slowly before he broke off and pressed a kiss to your forehead then pulled out. You licked your dry lips and smiled at him, sitting up on unsteady arms before shifting down to the end of the bed.

“Bathroom?” He asked, and you stood to guide him to the room down the hall. You ran the shower and the two of you slipped inside, washing slowly between lazy kisses.

He was gently washing your shoulders when a thought came to you, your brows knitting together.

“Where is it?” You asked, trying to ignore the way his hands felt on your skin.

“Where is what, darling?” He pressed a kiss to your neck and your eyes fluttered closed.

“Your other coloured tattoo?”

He chuckled. “It’s here,” he turned you and pointed to the inside of his left ankle, a little blue cube brilliantly shaded there as if it were glowing.

“Cute,” you smiled at the geometric tattoo. “What is it?”

“Quite a long story,” he smiled. “Best for another day,” he winked then pressed a kiss to your forehead and turned off the tap.

Once dry, he helped you rub on some aquaphor over your shoulders and back.

You didn’t even think to ask him to stay, the two of you simply curled up in your bed together, your head on his chest as you traced the lines littering his skin with your finger, whispering to each other before you drifted into a calm sleep.

~~~

“Darling,” his voice was low and full of warning against your ear. “If you don’t stop moving I will have to restrain you.”

You let out a gasp, shifting a little to relieve the pressure between your legs.

“Or would you like that?” He spoke, a smirk to his voice.

You bit your lip, praying he’d find a shred of mercy soon.

“You would, wouldn’t you? Helpless as I take what I need from you,” he let out a low chuckle. “I think you’d look lovely like that, my pretty girl all tied up for me.”

“Loki,” you breathed. “I can’t take much more.”

“I know, darling. Just a little bit up here,” he spoke slowly. “A little more- and we are done,” the buzzing stopped and you felt him gently wipe your skin before rolling his stool away from you.

He returned to your side, holding your hand stead as you stood up on shaky legs. He smiled at you warmly and gave you a chaste kiss. “You did so well. How are you feeling?”

“Good,” you smiled at him, “the pain wasn’t what was getting to me.” You raised an eyebrow at him before turning to walk over to the mirrors.

He laughed as he followed behind you. “Apologies, darling.” He guided you up to the little pedestal and he angled the mirrors for you to get a better look.

Your mouth hung open, “holy shit.” You turned this way and that, finding the delicate little intricacies that so clearly came to life with the shading and colour he’d added, perfectly complimentary to your skin tone

“What do you think?” He asked, a little grin playing at his lips.

“I love it!” You turned to him, stepping off the pedestal and into his arms. “I love it. Thank you, Loki.”

He smiled, “you’re welcome, darling.” He pressed a kiss against your lips before leading you to the table at the centre of his studio.

“Let’s get you covered up,” he guided you onto the bed face-down. You could feel him lean down to speak into your ear. “Then we can look into getting our hands on some rope.”

Author's Note: We love tattooed Loki on this blog.

Can't wait to hear what you guys think! I had fun writing this one, it was nice to bring in a more relaxed version of him to the story.

Thank you all so much for reading!!

[rnelodyy]

c!Dream and the rules

(/dsmp /rp, all names refer to characters, not content creators)

I think one of the most striking parts of Exile is something that I rarely see talked about, and it’s Dream’s rules. Or rather, how his rules were made to be used as justification to hurt Tommy.

The thing about exile is that, outside of the initial rule of “Don’t go back to L’Manburg”, Dream never told Tommy the rules, yet constantly operated under the assumption that Tommy already knew them, and had accepted them. The rules also changed constantly, without Tommy ever being notified until he was already in trouble.

The second time Dream told Tommy to put his armor in the hole, he didn’t tell Tommy to do that right away. Instead, the conversation went like this (slightly edited to remove stammering and unrelated dialogue).

Dream: Do you have, uh… something you wanna put on the floor here? Tommy: Yes. (drops two pieces of red concrete as Dream digs a hole) Dre-eam! You’re evil. You’re evil. Dream: Anything else, Tommy? Tommy: Nope! Dream: Oh c’mon, I know there’s something else you wanna drop down here. Tommy: (panicking slightly) No, there… (messages BBH “take this and run”, throws him the disc BBH had gifted him earlier) Um… I don’t reckon there is! (pause) Dream: Okay, are you suuuure? Tommy: YES. Dream: Alright… How ‘bout your armor, Tommy? Tommy: Well, no, this is- I actually earned this myself. Dream: I know you did! Tommy: Leave me alone. Dream: Just drop it in the hole, Tommy. Tommy: Wh- no, NO, you can’t just come and demand things from me! I’ve been exiled, I’ve done your shit, what do you mean?! Dream: (sing-song) Tommy… Tommy: What? (Dream hits Tommy with his axe, taking over half his health) Tommy: (screams, drops his armor) OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY!

The only rule Tommy was aware of at this time was that he wasn’t allowed to go back to L’Manburg. Dream had taken his armor the night before, but there was no indication that he expected Tommy to do this constantly. Taking his armor upon initially arriving at Logstedshire made some kind of sense, allowing Tommy to keep it would run the risk of him trying to fight his way back into L’Manburg. Taking his new, very shitty armor (seriously it was an iron chestplate and a pair of golden leggings he got from a ruined portal chest) made no sense at all, so the fact that Tommy was confused and refused to cooperate at first isn’t unexpected in the slightest.

And the thing is… Dream was aware of this fact. Throughout the conversation, he never really sounded annoyed, and was actively teasing Tommy at times. This isn’t a good thing btw, it’s a sign that he was fully aware that Tommy didn’t know what he wanted from him, and that that would create a situation where Dream could “put him in his place” as it were.

If you’re a parent, and your kid does something that’s not allowed, without knowing it’s not allowed, you don’t start off with a beating. You sit them down, calmly explain the rules to them and explain why those rules are there, then send them on their way with the knowledge that they shouldn't do it again.

This interaction wasn’t an instance of Tommy acting out and Dream correcting him. This interaction was a trap. Dream set Tommy up to fail by not telling him the rules beforehand, and when Tommy offered even the slightest bit of resistance and asked why he needed to drop his armor, Dream jumped straight to beating him. It’s a powerplay, plain and simple.

This is demonstrated again with the destruction of Logstedshire. Dream got pissed that Tommy disobeyed him by having hidden chests with gear under his house, and retaliated by destroying everything Tommy had built, destroying every item he’d collected, killing his pet and only foodsource, barring him from the Nether, banning everyone except himself from visiting, and telling him to start over from scratch after a whole lecture about how Tommy betrayed him.

Again, I wanna point out some specific lines from this lecture that illustrate my point very well.

Dream: You were lying to me! You were lying to me. Tommy: No- Why was I lying?! Dream: What do you mean, why were you lying?! Tommy: I wasn’t hi- I wasn’t- Dream: You hid things in a chest knowing they were things I wouldn’t want you to have! And you hid it in a way that way I would never find it!

Except Tommy didn’t know that. The contents of the stash were all items that Tommy had obtained previously without any issue (diamonds, emeralds, iron, ender pearls, some pickaxes, and some purely sentimental items like flowers, a jukebox, and pictures of Tubbo and L’Manburg). In fact, the vast majority of them came from Tommy’s aboveground storage, which Dream had full access to, and had looked through before!

Dream also never said Tommy wasn’t allowed to hide stuff, and there was nothing to suggest he didn’t want Tommy to keep secrets from him.

There’s been a theory floating around for a while that Dream knew about Tommy’s item stash beforehand, since it was a very strange place to dig a hole (like, right in front of the house in the center of Logstedshire itself, instead of out in the plains where the TNT wouldn’t damage any structures), and Tommy had previously forgotten to cover up the entrance ladder. While Dream hadn’t looked inside the house, he would’ve definitely heard Tommy place the block back.

If this theory is correct, then this was yet another trap. Dream knew Tommy had a hidden room, and instead of just saying “hey, I don’t want you to have a hidden stash, go put this back and fill in the room” (which would’ve still been bullshit btw), he went COMPLETELY ballistic, destroyed EVERYTHING Tommy had, and while doing it, kept admonishing Tommy for betraying him, said shit like “I thought we were friends”, and even accused him of preparing to attack Dream. Again, a powerplay.

Hell, even the exile conflict itself is this! Tommy was exiled for griefing the king’s property while being a high-ranking official in L’Manburg. Except Fundy, the then-president’s son, CONSTANTLY griefed Eret’s shit after the L’Manburg war, ranging from ripping down one of their towers to “shrink” it, filling another tower with water, and multiple elaborate plots to steal the throne from under their nose. But apparently, between all of that shit and the exile-conflict, the rules were silently changed, meaning Dream could exile Tommy for breaking a couple blocks and placing some rude signs in George’s house. Even the punishment itself was changed without warning, as Tommy went from being exiled from L’Manburg to exiled from “everywhere that’s ever been touched.”

...I was originally gonna make a different point here. I may put it in the reblogs, because I still think it’s very interesting. But, in the middle of writing this essay I had to stop because it was late, then I spent the entire next day packing up because I’m in the middle of a move. It's now the next evening, I'm sat in my new room, on my camping bed, I opened this doc because I pretty much forgot what I typed, I reread it, and then I realized… This isn’t an isolated series of events. This is a pattern for Dream.

Before Tommy first joined the server, there were only three set rules: no stealing, no griefing, and no killing people. Except by that point, those rules weren’t enforced at all. In fact, Dream broke all three at once at one point, by killing George and burning his diamond armor because he didn’t feel it was fair that George got to run around in full diamond when everyone else still had iron.

Tommy joined the server, and broke the rules like everyone else. He stole shit, broke shit, killed George for funsies… and he got exiled for it. Seriously, they dumped him in an empty snowfield for breaking rules that nobody had enforced for weeks. So technically, the Exile-arc isn’t even the first time something like this has happened to him!

During the events that would eventually spark the Disc War, Sapnap stole a bunch of Tommy’s items (including the only Netherite chestplate on the server at the time), and told him he’d only give the stuff back if Tommy helped him with a conflict he had with Ponk. Long story short, Dream tried to intervene and was killed by Tommy and Sapnap, and Dream stole Tommy’s discs to force him to apologize. He then kept the discs, and the Disc War followed. Sapnap, despite being the aggressor and arguably forcing Tommy to participate in the conflict, was never punished.

This proves not only that the rules can change whenever Dream feels like it, but that they’re arbitrarily enforced. Dream refuses to punish his friends for the same crimes he endlessly fucks over Tommy for.

L’Manburg was created in part because of the fact that the rules were unevenly enforced. Tommy, Wilbur, and later Tubbo were repeatedly killed, stolen from, imprisoned, and even held hostage for very minor crimes, while the people killing, imprisoning, kidnapping and stealing from them were able to do so without impunity.

This was also the point where Dream just started making up new rules; there was no rule against having governments on the server, or making a separate area where Dream’s rules wouldn’t apply, so Dream banned governments, and used this new rule as an excuse to kill them, take their items, and tear their land to shreds.

And that’s another thing: the punishments for breaking Dream’s rules are INCREDIBLY harsh.

Kill him non-canonically one time? Your most prized possessions will now be dangled over your head and used to hurt you for the next few months.

Make a country with different laws that doesn’t infringe on anyone’s territory, has no desire to expand, is explicitly pacifistic and open to trade negotiations? You’ll be forced to fight a war you’re in no way equipped to fight, you’ll be betrayed and murdered and have your land destroyed in front of your very eyes until you literally have no choice but to surrender.

Mildly vandalize the king’s house, which nobody else has ever been punished for? You’ll be dragged into court, exiled from your home, and subjected to weeks of abuse until you believe that all of your friends hate you and you actively want to kill yourself.

Hide some stuff in a secret chest? Your only shelter will be exploded, your pet/only food source will be killed, all your items will be destroyed, you’ll be banned from the Nether, and none of your friends will be allowed to come see you.

This is all such disproportionate retribution it’s ridiculous. It’s like punishing someone for speeding by blowing up their car with a ballistic missile.

So to sum up: Dream’s rules are arbitrarily enforced, and he can just straight up make them up on the spot if he feels like it. Sometimes, he won’t tell you a rule exists until you’ve already broken it, and you’re treated as if you broke it out of malice instead of genuine ignorance. And if you do break a rule, and he decides you have to be punished, it will always be a punishment so harsh it doesn’t even ATTEMPT to fit the crime.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty fucking corrupt and tyrannical to me.

When people say Tommy deserved exile, or made Dream spiral into villainy, or abused Dream somehow (seriously I’ve seen this take multiple times and every time it makes my brain melt) by breaking the rules, I would invite them to take a step back and ask themselves, why did that rule exist? Did Tommy know it existed? Was it enforced for everyone other than him as well? Does the punishment fit the crime?

Dream has a bad habit of making up rules, or enforcing old ones that were never enforced before, to punish those who threaten his power. None of the Dream Team were ever punished for anything, despite committing the same crimes as the L’Manburgians. That is, until they founded Mexican L’Manburg (i.e. went against Dream’s rule), at which point they were attacked by Dream and George was dethroned for “not being neutral enough.”

Tommy should’ve faced consequences for what he did. But those consequences should’ve come naturally, and been carried out by the people he hurt. Like, if Dream hadn’t intervened, griefing George’s house would’ve resulted in George griefing Tommy back in revenge. In fact, he DID do that, by turning Tommy’s entire house into granite and putting the Jump In The Cadillac picture on his front lawn.

These are natural, proportionate consequences. Exile was none of that. The Disc War was none of that. Everything that happened to L’Manburg was none of that.

Dream’s rules and how he enforces them are inherently corrupt and tyrannical. To pretend it’s anything but is disingenuous at best.

[emwritesstuff]

housesitting | bucky barnes x reader

summary: Housesitting for Steve Rogers has many perks. The man has the comfiest bed you’ve ever slept in; his coffee machine is top tier; and he also pays for every single streaming service you could think of, because he doesn’t wanna miss anything.

You can hardly see how Bucky Barnes stumbling into his apartment at 3 am with multiple wounds is one of them. But I guess it might be?

notes: this is my attempt at a more ~comedy centered one-shot, with some making out in the middle because uh, who doesn’t like that? In other news, reader is Chaotic. Canon mcu (Infinity War/Endgame) is non-existent in this.  (word count: 3K)

warnings: language, mentions of blood, gunshot wounds, general patching up shenanigans, some making out/grinding but not quite third base

[PART 2: breaking and entering]

Housesitting for Steve Rogers has many perks. The man has the comfiest bed you’ve ever slept in; his coffee machine is top tier; and he also pays for every single streaming service you could think of, because he doesn’t wanna miss anything. An old popsicle thing, you assume.

It’s peaceful, too. The neighborhood is nice and quiet, the other tenants are either extremely polite or too scared of Captain America to make much noise. You’ve had very nice stay-cations at his place, where you were free to choose to binge The Office while eating an entire pizza in the spam of 2 episodes or taking advantage of the quiet to write your grad-school thesis.

So when a loud BANG almost makes you drop your coffee mug on the floor, your spidey senses are immediately on alert. You don’t care how many times Peter insisted that it wasn’t a thing, your arm hairs stood up and your heart started hammering on your chest all the same.

You contemplate squeezing under the bed, turning off the show that was long abandoned and hiding until whatever it is goes away, but before you can do any of that, a string of sharp cursing and soft thumps and thuds snaps you out of your fear.

Maybe it’s a burglar. You could take a clumsy burglar, easy.

Now feeling like Tony had just welcomed you into the Avengers, you hop off Steve’s bed and let your baby Yoda socked feet carry you stealthily into the living room, holding a table lamp as if it was a baseball bat.

Everything is quiet, with no signs of forced entry at the door (you remember someone on Law and Order using those words), and in the dark you don’t notice the bloody trail coming from the kitchen.

You’re imagining things, then. When was the last time you slept? You don’t even feel tired, but you know sleep deprivation always gets you all kinds of crazy.

It happens the second your arm falls to your side and your posture shows the slight of relaxation. A strong arm around your neck and a hand against your mouth to muffle the screaming.

In the quiet of Steve’s apartment building, there is only you shrieking and howling and thrashing against the hold of a stranger.

“Don’t fuckin’ move.” You still.

And then you bite into the hand that is muting you, immediately regretting it when your teeth sink into something hard. Metal? Concrete? Ouch. You resume your resistance, determined, and is shoved away.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Who the fuck are you.” His voice is gruff and dulled over the mask he is wearing, and as you’re taking this giant of a man in, you notice it.

The metal arm. The strapped leather jacket. The tortured blue eyes.

Winter Soldier.

The intruder is James “Bucky” Barnes, Steve’s best friend. That’s who the fuck it is.

“I’m Steve’s house sitter! I even have a key.” You say, with arms in front of you to signal no harm but inching closer to the table lamp with every step.

“House…sitter? Where’s Steve?”

“Who knows. Maybe a mission. He texts me, I come over.” You shrug, and put a chair back to where it was before it got knocked over.

“I don’t believe you. Where is Steve?”

“Listen, I don’t know, okay? I guess he’s just out for a few days. I don’t ask. He just lets me stay in here so I can water the plants and feed the Avengers.”

“The– the what?”

“The Avengers! The fish, see.” You point to the aquarium, where a handful of colorful fish swam peacefully in.

Peace. So much for your peace, because now what you have is a surly super soldier eyeing the fish tank like it was the most loathsome thing in the entire universe, except maybe for you.

“I hate this thing. Naming them makes it even worse.” He trudges back to the kitchen, stomping on the floor like he was on a parade.

So much for the other people’s peace, too.

“Hey! Sir. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s 3 in the fucking morning?” You sass, putting your hands on your hips when he retorts that yeah, he does know. “What are you even doing here?”

“Back from a mission.” He grumbles without looking at you, as if you’re the one who stumbled into his place in the middle of the night.

It wasn’t your place, but still.

“Don’t you have a house?” There’s a part of you that knows pushing the Winter Soldier’s buttons is asking for trouble, but your tired and confused brain decides to ignore it.

“You interrogating me? I need a motherfucking– ” He wheezes and nearly doubles over, holding on the door frame between the living room and the kitchen. You finally spot the blood, both on the tiles and seeping out of the Soldier’s jacket and pants.

He’s hurt. Shit.

“– first aid kit.”

“You need a motherfucking hospital!” You shrill, panic chilling your bones. You don’t do blood. Or any kind of wound, for that matter.

The man ignores you, opening up cabinets hastily. You huff, and walk past him to get to the actual home of the first aid kit. Steve’s oldest, closest friend and can’t even find a box with pharmaceutical supplies in his kitchen. You slam it on the counter next to him.

“You’re welcome.”

“Zip it.”

Just a look from him is enough to render you speechless, and not in the good, butterflies-in-your-stomach kind of way. You’re positive that one swat of that metal arm and you’ll be flying out of the window.

He begins by removing his mask, revealing a handsome face underneath, and you try your best to focus on how dark and menacing it looked while locked in that scowl of his. Then, he unbuckles his jacket and discards it on the floor, it coming to a stop next to your feet.

Oh man, he’s naked. Well, not really, just the incredibly toned, strong and muscular top half of him, but you stare wide-eyed as if he was.

“See somethin’ you like, doll?” He quips, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and you turn your back to him, mostly to hide your own embarrassment.

“No.” You cross your arms resolutely, because you definitely don’t think he’s attractive. He is a rude, grumpy, private-property-invader-bastard. Doll. Yuck.

You hear a rumble come out of his chest. Is he laughing? Shithead. Other noises follow, wheezes, small grunts and the tinkle of metal on the marble counter.

A particular pained grunt makes you turn, and you see Barnes with his body twisted, trying to reach a bloody hole on his back. It would be funny if he wasn’t trying to poke a gunshot.

“Do you need… help?” You ask, against your own will, only to be met with his icy gaze.

“No.”

“Come on, you can’t even reach that.”

Another glare is shot your way, and you quirk your brow up. He did need the help, you think, because aside from the muscles and the sweat making him glisten like a delicious – wait what – glazed donut, the man looked like hell.

“…fine.” He slides a pair of surgical prongs, something you identify in your head as oversized tweezers, and you instantly regret your offer. Pressing an iodine-soaked cotton ball to a wound, sure. But not this.

He turns his back to you without a word, supporting himself on the marble. You think that he’s about to make a dent on the goddamn stone if he keeps holding onto it that hard.

“Ah, fuck. Shit. Fuck. Ugh, it’s so gross. Fuck.”

It’s the most horrifying thing you’ve ever done, but you try your best to get to the bullet quickly, so very thankful that Barnes holds himself perfectly still for you. “Got it!”

He lets out a long breath when you toss the prongs and the bullet on the counter with the rest and resumes his cleanup. So, he’s not even going to say thanks. Great.

You try not to think about how you still want to make conversation while you hurriedly scrub the blood from your hands, because aside from the hostility and him jumping on you as a meet-cute, the guy peeks your interest.

Steve has said Barnes is nice, too, and you believed Steve, because he’s basically incapable of lying. Or maybe because he’s pretty. Both, for sure.

With your hands now clean, you turn to him, mouth open with some kind of conversation starter that is immediately forgotten.

Oh man, he’s naked. For real this time.

Bucky Barnes has stepped out of his pants while you were overthinking by the sink, now standing in only a pair of black boxers. It’s like he feels you staring at his butt, because he turns to you with raised eyebrows.

“Last one’s on my thigh. I got it.” He’s holding the prongs this time, and you’re glad you don’t have to do anything, because your face next to that groin might make you go into spontaneous combustion.

“Yeah.”

He hums. You hope all of this is a fever dream.

“Isn’t there a med bay at–”

“Don’t like people prodding and pokin’ at me.” His comment makes you grimace. He’s the Winter Soldier, damn it. You know the stories, everyone does. Of course he doesn’t like being prodded.

He looks at you funny, probably because you went dead quiet. You don’t want him to think you feel pity, because you don’t, but god don’t you feel bad for poking him now, even if verbally.

“I’m gonna – grab one of Steve’s – uh. Dude you need to put some clothes on. Jesus.”

He laughs at you again, which you’re thankful for because anything is better than the awkwardness of the other subject. You pick up a black pair of sweatpants that was so deep in one of Steve’s drawers that you know he’d have to have bought it and never had the guts to put it on. This one would do just fine.

If there is one thing Steve Rogers isn’t, is a black sweats guy.

“Here.” You deposit the sweats and a white tee on the counter, one of the millions that you found inside the closet. Barnes was patching himself up now, bandages wrapped everywhere on his body.

Got his ass kicked good. You shudder when you imagine the state of the other guy.

He eyes the clothes, and saying nothing, returns to his task. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I didn’t ask you to help me.”

“Yeah, but I did anyways! ‘Cause I’m stupid, I guess.” You almost hurl a dirty plate at him when he scoffs, muttering a yeah, guess you are. “God, why are you so grumpy?”

“Well you try being shot 5 times and see how cheerful you are after.”

“You got shot 5 times?!”

Looking at you from between his brows, the Soldier nods to the five mangled bullets sitting on the counter. You think about how you’ve made yourself a sandwich just hours earlier on the exact same spot. You want to puke.

Taking time to look around yourself, you can finally grasp the state of Steve’s ever-so-pristine kitchen, now a mess of dirty clothes, blood and your own few dishes from the night before. You don’t even think about what you’re doing as you move, gathering every single cleaning supply you can find, and start working on the cleanup.

You’re struggling, because obviously you’ve never done this before. Anyone can tell, from your soft abdomen and your severe lack of muscle, that you’re not an Avenger. Sure, you work with them, but you’re usually neck deep into advanced tech, not in the gym by any means. Also, you don’t do blood.

That means you have to think about something else, anything else, while you’re manically cleaning the floor. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, the Winter Soldier’s tight ass, four sheep, get it together goddamnit –

“Leave it. I’ll clean.”

You huff, he huffs back, and you look up at him.

“You got shot five times. Go sit down or something before you blow your back too, grandpa.” You call him that to assure yourself that he is old, like actually super old, and thirsting over him is weird. Even weirder when he’s all bandaged and bleeding. And still shirtless. Shit.

He mumbles something that you ignore, and stomps off. You think you actually did a pretty decent job with the cleaning, considering.

You need coffee. Definitely an entire bottle of vodka too, but there was no alcohol in this god’s good home, so you settle for the brew that you made earlier. You pour a mug for Barnes too, because you’re nice like that, and amble into the living room to find him slumped on a chair.

“Coffee?” You start, settling his mug on the table next to him.

“It’s almost 5 a.m.”

“Guess I’m up early for once. Maybe I should go for a run.”

He snorts, and opens one eye to inspect you from where he is. He reaches out for the coffee, using his metal hand, and you consider the two ways this could go.

He’d shatter the mug right then and there. Or, he’d throw it at you. Your jaw goes slack at what he actually does, sirens blaring loudly in your head. Truly astonishing, the most bewildering turn of events.

He drinks from it.

“Thanks. Quit staring at me.”

“Wow, Mr. Winter knows the magic words. Mr. Barnes. Sergeant?” You’re thinking aloud, abandoning any trace of sanity you’ve been holding. You even sit on the couch next to his armchair.

“It’s Bucky,”

Again, absolutely bewildering. You must be going insane.

“– and you talk too much.” He finishes, with an end-of-story tone, and returns to his rest. At least that felt like normality.

“Bucky. Bucky.” You roll the name on your tongue, feeling a weird buzz start to take over you. It grows stronger when you notice he’s looking at you, one brow quirked as if you lost your marbles. “You know, Bucky, this is definitely not how I saw my night going. Home invasion, playing surgeon – not my usual kind of fun.”

You get up, maybe because you decide that you – and Bucky – need a blanket, or maybe because you need a distraction from his chest going up and down like it’s got a business with making you want to touch it.

You’re not a slut, but who knows? Jim Halper would get it.

“You’re that kid, aren’t you? Stark’s assistant.” Bucky’s voice, low and husky, makes you jump. You look at him, your eyebrows furrowed slightly.

It’s surprising that he knows you, considering. He’s – well, he’s basically a celebrity, if ex-assassins could be considered that. You’re only Tony’s techie, and you and Bucky have never actually met, not even in the few parties you had attended to stop your boss from nagging you that you had to actually go out and have some fun sometimes, because you’re still young and cute and you need to enjoy yourself before you get saggy and bitter.

Jokes on him, you were born bitter.

“I’m no kid.”

“Nice socks.”

You wiggle your toes and it makes the ears of one of the baby Yodas move.

“Still not a kid! If you wanna be sad and wear your sad, plain socks, Bucky, that’s entirely your choice.” You said, pointing your index at him, making circles in the air with it to really get your point across.

Bucky smirks, and you go up to him with the two blankets on your arms. He’s blocking the door with that bulky body of his, and you raise your eyebrows quizzically.

“I’ll have you know – meeting Steve’s annoying, mouthy, pretty house sitter is not how I saw my night going either.” Bucky puts a doubtful tone on house sitter, as if he still doesn’t get exactly what it means.

You blink. You’re positive you heard it wrong. Is he… is this flirting?

“You think I’m pretty?”

“I called you annoying and mouthy too.”

“Yeah, I mean I know that much about me.” You chuckle, rolling your eyes. “The pretty part is new though.”

Bucky still hasn’t moved from the doorframe, and you find yourself staring up at him. He is inches away now, pupils blown wide in the darkness, and you can see a ring of steely blue around them. He licks his lips, and you’re drawn in.

The maelstrom in his eyes sends you spinning.

“I think someone should say you’re not see through, much less–”

Bucky shuts you up by pressing his lips onto yours, a slow, exploratory kiss, the tenderest he’s been all night. His metal hand rests on your lower back, making you shiver at the cool touch.

You’re all panting and eagerness when you cup his face with both hands and press your body against his. You need to deepen this kiss. You haven’t drooled over Bucky Barnes all night to keep things lovey-dovey.

He responds in earnest, pulling you closer. The flesh hand on the back of your neck is a stark contrast against the chill of the other. You and Bucky stumble from the corridor and back to the living room, knocking over a few of Steve’s decorations in the process.

“I don’t feel as bad for this one.” You mumble against his lips, stopping to look at a particular framed picture of Captain America in uniform, surrounded by every single counterfeit Cap in Times Square.

“S’ one of his favorites.”

You nod, you’re aware. Steve thinks it’s the most hilarious thing ever.

Bucky’s breath tickles the hairs on your neck when he continues.

“I hate it.”

“Yeah.”

You capture his lips again, and you two resume your chaotic redecorating. You’re thankful for Bucky’s strong arms keeping you from falling over, because at this point you’re not sure if your legs work anymore.

He takes you with him when he drops down on the same armchair from earlier, and the dizzy spell you find yourself in is broken when you hear him groan.

Right. He’s battered up and stuff.

“Shit, Bucky, I’m sorry–”

“No.” He pulls you close again, and guides your body to straddle one of his thighs. “Stay right here, doll.”

Doll. God-fucking-damnit.

His hand moves under the elastic band of your pants, oh my god you’re making out with Bucky-Hot-Piece-Of-Ass-Barnes in your wiener dog pajama bottoms, and finds the hem of your underwear. He pulls on it, and you yelp when he lets it snap against your side.

He laughs, and you vibrate along with his chest.

You find yourself grinding on his leg, sucking on his bottom lip, raking your nails along his shoulders, doing anything, everything for more, trying to burn the taste and the feel of him on your memory. He moves on to kiss your neck and you sigh, tugging on his hair and making sure you’re holding on for dear life.

Your eyes flutter open, enough to see the fish Avengers in their tank.

The Avengers.

Steve Rogers is an Avenger. So is Bucky, technically.

You’re making out with Bucky. One of his hands is on your boob.

This is Steve’s apartment.

You manage to sober you up enough, despite Bucky’s constant attacks of open mouth kisses and bites on your neck.

“I don’t think Steve would – if we–” You lift your head begrudgingly to look at him. “You know, on his armchair.”

“Right.” He didn’t seem convinced, but his hand moved up from your butt to your waist again.

Steve Rogers was probably miles away right now and still cockblocking you.

Even worse, his furniture was cockblocking you.

Stupid star-spangled IKEA shopper.

And his hot best friend. Who’s currently smiling at you in a such a way that makes you almost abandon all comradery towards Rogers and the sanctity of his place.

You debate getting up, but resign yourself to burying your nose in the crook of Bucky’s neck and just staying there, because honestly, when are you going to have the chance to do this again. Never, that’s when.

Also, he’s surprisingly comfortable for someone with a metal arm and such a jacked-up body.

“You’re sleepy.”

“No, I’m like, super awake.”

It’s a lie, because now that the sparks have flown and the rush of blood in your ears gave way to the quietness of the early morning, you feel yourself drifting, on and off, surprising yourself when you come to once and find that Bucky is still there, warm under you.

“Sleep, doll. I need it too.”

You shift, ready to let his rhythmic breathing lull you to sleep. The last 75 sleepless hours catch up with you.

“Bucky? If you want to break into someone’s house again sometime – I have a first aid kit too. Just sayin’.”

[geocait0815]

The Punishment

I am really enjoying all these writing prompts you all are sending me!

This story was written for @red-writes-stuff, who was whishing for a fluffy and flirty story about Dan and MC.

I guess we have to consider this as a bit of an AU. Because by the time I remembered about his wheelchair, I was already too far down the rabbit hole.

Anyways... Enjoy!

“Oof, if I would have known that this is going to be a full hike, I would have brought something to drink.” MC stopped to catch her breath. Lilly and her had just walked up the hilly lane leading from Lillys place towards the market square. They intended to do some shopping. And since it was such a nice day, they had decided to walk. “There is a small gas station over there with a store. We can get some water.” Lilly responded, looking a bit heated herself.

Inside the store, MC browsed the shelves while Lilly purchased the drinks for them. This place was not what MC would have expected from a gas station convenience store. Next to the usual items, like drinks, snacks, magazines and car merch, there was also an assortment of toys and other knick-knacks like party supplies.

“You coming?” Lilly called over. MC nodded and they left the store together. Outside, Lilly stopped and pointed towards the opposite side of the gas station. “Look who we have there! He must have arrived while we were inside.” It took MC a second to recognize the car, but then she realized that it was Dan, who was standing at the vacuum cleaners, with his back to them.

“Oh! I have a great idea. Here, hold my bag. I'll be right back.” MC turned on her heel and walked back towards the store. Over her shoulder, she added: “And make sure he does not see us.”

It took only a few minuted for MC to return. Lilly saw, that she was now holding a sort of pipe. Before Lilly could inquire, what MC was planning, she had already hurried past her, removing part of the item. A devilish grin lay on MCs face, clearly indicating that is was nothing good she was up to.

Lilly repositioned herself to get a clear view on what was about to happen. In the meantime, Dan had started to clean out his car with one of the vacuums. He was really getting in there. His back was still turned to them, he half kneeled in one of the doors and had bent down far to reach under the seat. When MC was only two steps away from him, she held the pipe in front of herself, turned her head slightly away and triggered something causing a load of confetti to erupt. The majority of the paper fragments flew into Dans car which now looked like a clown threw up on its back seat and floor. MC had gotten a confetti canon that she had spotted earlier amongst the party supplies.

Dan froze. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?” he thundered. He turned around to find out who was messing with him. MC, directly behind him, burst out laughing the moment she saw his enraged expression. Lilly stared in shock, but her laughter also started to bubble up. “You...” he growled and slowly got up. Sensing the danger, MC stopped laughing. “Uh-oh.” And with that she took off, running past Lilly. “Come back here, you little devil!” Dan called behind her, already chasing behind MC.

It did not take long for him to catch up with her. Once close enough, he managed to grab her arm and the sudden shift in her momentum made her swirl around and collide with him. “Oh come on,” she pants. “Don't be mad. It was just an innocent joke.” She can't help but keep laughing. “Forget it, you rascal. You'll have to be punished.” Then he just picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. The surprise over this sudden development caused MC to shriek. “What are you doing? Let me down. Dan!” Completely ignoring her, he stomped back to his car.

As he stopped next to his car, MC started to wriggle and kick out. “Let me down this instant! I'm not a sack of potatoes, you brute.” “Ok, I will let you go. But only under one condition.” “Ugh, what is it?” “Go on a date with me.” MC suddenly stopped fighting. “What?” “I want to take you out. Otherwise, I'll have you clean my car all by yourself.” “Okay fine.”

And with that, het set her down and gave her a bright smile. “I'll pick you up at seven.”

*******

“A Diner?” MC asked surprised. Dan had picked her up and they drove for about half an hour until he pulled up in the parking lot of Barney's, a remote but obviously busy restaurant. “Best Burgers in the entire area. But we'll just pick up soemething to go and move on. I have something better in mind for us tonight.” Puzzled, MC got out of the car.

They ordered at the bar and had a drink, while waiting for their food to arrive. “Is that your picture on the wall over there?” MC pointed at a photo above the register. Dan laughed. “Yep. That's the wall of fame. You get up there when you conquer the big hitter: Finish the largest burger on the menu in under an hour, fries included. I had ice cream afterwards.” “Well, congratulations.” MC raised her glass in mock cheers.

A few moments later they left the place with several bags containing burgers, fries and drinks. It smelled delicious. After they settled back into Dans car MC could not help it but ask again: “So are you really not telling me where we are going?” “Nope. Surprise.”

From there it was only a short drive until Dan took a turn onto a forest road. Soon, the street lights ceased to exists and the road became very dark. MC felt the urge to press him again as to their destination, but did not speak up. He seemed adamant about it being a surprise. They drove for about another kilometer of pitch black forest, only iluminated by Dans headlights, when suddenly the trees started to withdraw from the street and a clearing came into view. There were a number of other cars parked on a grass field, which was illuminated by many fairy lights. At the far end, MC could see a large screen. Then it finally dawned on her: This was a drive-in cinema. “Wow, I had no idea these places still exist.” “This is one of the very few. I'll quickly go and fetch us some speakers. Want some popcorn?” MC nodded and he got out of the car. She used the time to fetch the burgers from the back seat and placed them on the console between their seats.

"We are in luck. They are screening 'It Follows' today. Have you seen it before?" Dan dropped back into his seat and placed a small speaker infront of them. "No. But I heard that it is a really good horror movie."

MC leaned back in her seat. The large screen infron of them had not yet flickered to life. "I'm really glad you braough me here. I always wanted to go to a drive-in cinema. You normally only see these things in old movies." She grabbed a handful of popcorn. "Do you guys come here often?" Dan frowned. "To tell you the truth, I have kept this place a secret from the others. I prefer to enjoy my movies in peace." "Well, then this is a big honor, you bringing me here." "You have a special permission."

In the course of the next few hours they enjoyed the movie and snacks. At first, it was a bit awkward, since a story about a sexually transmitted curse is not the best choice for a first date. But soon, both of them were captivated by the plot and distracted by the jumpscares.

During the drive back MC stated: "At one point, I was convinced that you would have to scrape me off the roof of your car with a spatula. Also, I'm sorry about the scattered popcorn. Looks like I will have to clean your ride after all" Dan chuckled. "I'm just glad you didn't have a drink in your hand at that moment." "Next time, I'll choose the movie. I will make sure to get back at you." "Next time, huh?" Dan looked over at MC, and even though it was dark in the car she could see that he had a wide grin on his face. "Eyes on the street, Anderson!" MC leaned back in her seat and turned her head, pretending to look at the landscape rushing past the window. But in fact she was trying to hide the fact that she was blushing a little.

[kingdaddydaichi]

One of my favorite stories I’ve ever read is “Lessons Learned”. So I would like to request something similar with a mixture of Hard dom/ Brat tamer Bakugou ❤️‍🔥 Take it in whatever direction you want, I know I’ll enjoy it however it ends up 😏

@ssplague, bestieeee! Tysm! 🥺💕 I'm sooooo fucking sorry it took me so long to answer your ask! It made me weak the first time I read it! I've got so many other wips I should probably be working on rn, but I finally said FUCKIT! I nEED this in my life rn!

I LOVED writing Lessons Learned - god! It was hard to get through tho. Nearly every time I sat down and started working on it, it always ended the same way and that's all I'ma say rn! 😈

Yes. I see your HardDom!BratTamer!Bakugou and raise you Jealous!Exhibitionist!Bakugou. 💅🏼💋

I hope it's worth the wait...

MINORS 👏🏼 DO 👏🏼 NOT 👏🏼 INTERACT 👏🏼

The Performance 💥 HardDom!BratTamer!Jealous!Exhibitionist! Katsuki Bakugou x f!reader 💥 NSFW

Warnings: slight dubcon, Dom/sub dynamic, possessive dynamic, exhibitionism, marking, circle jerk, creampie, absolute filth

Word Count: 2.9k

It was half past 9 when he walked through the door at the well-to-do club where you'd been enjoying down time with some of your friends. He kissed your cheek and sat down in the half-circle booth next to you, putting his warm, athletic arm over your bare shoulders.

"How long you been waitin'?"

"Maybe an hour?"

He looked down, grumbling. "Got here as soon as I could". He glanced at you with his bottom lip poking out.

You propped your cheek on your hand and smiled at him, rubbing his arm. "I know, babe. It's perfectly fine, I understand".

"Ay, Bakubro! You finally made it!", Kiri yelled from across the table.

Katsuki snarled at him. "Yeah! Some of us have to actually work for a living!"

At that very moment, the cocktail waitress stopped by the table to take Katsuki's order and Mina yelled, "Yes please, for the love of god, get that man a drink!"

He growled at her before turning back to the waitress. "Four fingers of whiskey straight, no chaser".

She scampered off and everyone fell into the chatter and laughs they'd been sharing when Katsuki arrived.

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

You were on your way back to the table from the restroom when you felt fingers against your elbow and a voice behind you say, "Hey, (y/n)!"

"Oh hey!" It was a young man a few years younger than yourself who worked in the same office building as you. "Fancy seeing you here". He appeared to be with a couple of friends judging by the prying eyes peering from behind him, smirking.

"I know, right? I've been here a few times, but I don't think I've seen you here before".

"Really? I come here quite regularly and I've seen you here before".

"Oh, I'm sorry, I guess I just haven't been paying attention".

"Don't worry about it! I just thought I'd say hi this time".

"I'm glad you did! Maybe I'll see you again the next time I'm here". You waved your fingers at him and started back towards your table again only to see Katsuki's eyes about to burst into flames as he watched you approach.

When you sat down, he leaned in. "Who's he?"

You waved him off. "Just a guy who works in the same building as I do".

"What did he want?"

"Nothing, just wanted to say h-"

"Bullshit". He placed his hand over your thigh under the table. "When a guy looks at a woman the way he was looking at you, trust me baby, he wants something". His large, rough hand squeezed the meat of your thigh beneath it. It hurt and you gripped his wrist in an effort to keep the whine in the back of your throat from escaping. The rest of your party was too close in proximity...at least one or two of them would've heard you. "I don't like it when other guys look at you like that". He dragged his fingers upward, taking the hem of your skirt along with them.

"Katsuki, get ahold of yourself. They're just looking...it's not like they're touching me".

He put his mouth to your ear. "Fuck it. Let 'em look". His hand moved further up your skirt, parting your legs enough that you could feel the cold draft of air against your dampening panties. "It'll just give me every reason I need to show them who you belong to".

His eyes shifted away from yours and you followed them to see what he was looking at. The guy who had just been flirting with you was watching as your husband's hand worked between your legs. His eyes flicked to Katsuki’s whose dark, lopsided, toothy grin spread across his handsome face, pleased that he was making himself clear to the other man that he had already laid his claim on you.

His pinky grazed your clothed, wet slit and you squirmed in your seat, trapping his hand between your thighs hoping it would make him relent. "Stop it, Katsuki", you growled at him.

But he twisted his wrist until he was able to push your panties aside with two of his fingers. He sank said fingers between your inner folds, coating them with your clear slick before curling them upwards to flick them over your hardening clit. You shuddered under his touch as he locked eyes with the other man, making sure he was watching when Katsu raised his fingers to his mouth, sucking them both off at once.

You glanced down to see Katsuki's cock pushing against the fabric of his slacks, tight against him in his sitting position. Showing other men that you belonged to him had always put him in a rut. You used the situation to your advantage and knowing he wouldn't follow you with a half, but nevertheless large, erection for everyone to see, you stood up in one fluid movement, turning away from him and strutting to the bar.

As you waited for the busy bartender to take your order, you noticed the rather strapping gentleman who stood beside you, looking down at his glowing phone screen.

"What can I get for you ma'am?"

You looked back at the bartender, who'd finally spoken to you. "Oh, um- (favorite drink)-"

"On me", the man beside you said.

"Yes sir", the bartender said before turning to his task.

You looked again at the handsome man beside you - taller than Katsuki, but he didn't exude quite the same confidence he did. Then again, not many people did.

"Thank you, you didn't have to do that".

"I know". He gave you a smug, sidelong look. "I wanted to".

You tried to hide your smile, but fuck. His sexiness could easily go head to head with Katsuki's. You watched his eyes travel from your face down to your toes and back up again. You could almost feel your possessive husband's fiery eyes burning a hole in your back.

You turned to face the gentleman beside you, glancing over at the blond in the process. When you focused your gaze back to the man beside you, Katsuki stood up and started stalking towards you. His dick still wasn't completely soft yet, but he didn't care. He probably wanted the man next to you to see the bulge in his pants, using it to his advantage during the impending exchange at the bar. Not many men had a bigger cock than Katsuki and he knew it.

He wrapped his arm around your waist, squaring his hips off at the other man, most likely willing him to notice his size. "Let's go".

You pushed back against him. "Stop Katsu, I'm not ready to go yet".

He locked eyes with the man beside you and put his mouth right up next to your ear. "Would you prefer I fuck you right here on this bar to show everyone who your slutty pussy belongs to? Because I will! You're already wet and aching for my cock, aren't you, pretty girl?"

He was NOT bluffing. You knew your Dom. It had only taken him once before to show you that he was not above covertly pulling his dick out and pushing it inside your hot cunt while standing behind you at a crowded bar, much like the one you were standing at now.

The bartender sat your drink down on a small napkin, but Katsuki pushed it back to him and said, "Oi! Throw this one out and make her another one". He glared at the taller man beside you. "ALL of her drinks are on me, got that?"

He slid two thick fingers inside the plunging neckline of that little black number you wore, carding your hard nipple between them as he rutted his hips against your bottom. "Well?"

A part of you wanted him to fuck you then and there with the other man watching. But you'd never let it actually go that far. "Katsu, please go sit down and I'll be over after I get my drink since I have to wait longer for it now". You rolled your eyes.

He leaned back, his vermillion eyes searching yours until they locked onto the feminine form brushing past your shoulder. He reached out and stopped the cocktail waitress in her tracks, leaning down to her ear, whispering something. Without another word, he calmly walked away and sat back down at the table.

Stubborn as you were, you held your position at the bar. A couple of minutes later, out of the corner of your eye, you saw movement near the table where Katsuki was seated. The same waitress was now leaning down and whispering in his ear, her lips less than an inch from his face. He caught your gaze and smirked before turning his face towards hers. For a second it looked like he might actually kiss her. You were relieved for about half a second when she stood up and started walking away from him, only to watch him stand up as well and follow her up the stairs into the private VIP area.

Now it was your head that was about to explode. I know he did NOT just invite a fucking cocktail waitress to the VIP so he can fuck her! He turned the tables faster than a cheap hooker turns tricks on the streets of Vegas. You knew how other females looked at him. Hell, males too! That girl was probably 10 years your junior too, barely old enough to be serving alcohol. And now you watched as she led your husband up the stairs.

Drink forgotten, you marched your pretty, indignant ass right up to the 2nd level, ready to snatch a bitch up by her hair only to find Katsuki sitting on the couch, alone.

"Seems you're a petty, jealous asshole too".

Relieved, you plopped down on the couch next to your faithful husband, putting your arm over his waist as he pulled you in and kissed your forehead.

You lowered your head to his chest only to notice once again that his cock was pressing against the confines of his pants. You stroked him through the rough material as he raised up, pushing his erection closer to you, physically begging for more of your touch. You palmed him a couple more times before unzipping his slacks and pulling his cock out. He wasn't fully hard yet, but if you had anything to do with it, he was going to be standing at full attention in less than a minute.

You lowered your head further and pushed some spit through your ruby lips onto the angry head of his dick. He watched as you lowered your mouth and swirled your tongue around the smooth texture of his tip before sinking your lips down around him, taking as much of him into your mouth as possible. Not easy, but you're a blow job champ determined to take all of it for the team.

Only a couple of minutes passed by when Katsuki pulled you off his cock. You raised your lusty gaze to see the two men who'd flirted with you standing side-by-side, eyes as big as half dollars at the sight of your tits hanging out of your dress with a fat string of saliva hanging from your bottom lip. Your face snapped to Katsuki who had a shit-eating grin on his face. "What the fuck, Katsuki? Why are they here?"

"Because I had them brought here to watch and see under no uncertain terms who the fuck you belong to!"

Your protest was cut short when Katsuki flipped your body around so that you were facing the back of the couch. He pushed your skirt up around your waist and hooked your soaking panties with his thumb, pushing them aside and holding them against your ass cheek. "I suggest you hold onto something, you bratty cockslut!"

"Baby, no, I don't want them to see-". You averted your eyes from theirs.

Katsuki gave his thick cock a couple of strokes before pushing the head against your weeping entrance.

"Katsuki, you can't-". Your words failed you as he sank his meaty cock inside you.

He looked over at the audience of two, who were enraptured as they watched your husband pull himself nearly all the way out before gliding himself in balls deep again. He set a rhythm, making sure that the two guys who'd had the audacity to flirt with you could see the striations of your slick along his length as he fucked you. The younger of the two, the office boy, had been palming himself through his pants.

"Oh my god, Katsu! They're watching us!"

"I know, that's the fucking point!" Maintaining his pace, he looked at them. "You understand now that she's mine?"

Their mouths moved, but no sound came out. Katsuki pounded his thighs against you harder, a sharp clap ringing through all 8 ears. "Answer me!" The taller man's erection was now evident through the fabric of his pants.

"Y-yes, I un-understand", one of them mustered while the other one could only nod.

Katsuki's wet balls were slapping your clit now, and you whimpered "Katsu? Baby?"

He wrapped your hair around his fist, ignoring your mewl. He never broke eye contact with the men who'd made passes at you. "Tell her who the fuck she belongs to".

The younger one had pulled his cock through his open zipper, jerking off his smaller dick with his eyes locked on the point where your body met your husband's.

"Look at her!", Katsuki commanded. Both pairs of eyes met yours, their dry mouths hanging open. "SAY IT!"

They both jumped. "Y-you...belong to h-him", said the younger man who had been jacking off.

"The name's fucking Bakugou! Fucking say it!"

The same guy said, "You b-belong to B-Bakugou!"

By this time the taller man had pulled his dick out too, much larger than that of the other guy, but he still didn't hold a candle to Katsuki.

Katsuki's eyes darted to his. "Say my fucking name!" Your pussy was sucking him hard and his voice nearly cracked.

"B-Bakugou..."

"That's right...Bakugou. It's her last name too, you fucking beta. Don't you ever forget!"

The man's eyes drifted over to your pussy just in time to see the pink ring of flesh around your husband's cock begin an undulating cycle of flexing and relaxing. "Nnn-Katsu! G-gonna cum!"

Your thighs tightened and your hips stopped rocking back against Katsuki's, but the clamping down of your vaginal walls only got stronger as you unraveled around your husband's weighty cock.

He pulled back on the fistful of your hair, still plunging himself deep within your quivering cunt. Smarmy as ever, he looked at the taller man again. "Who does this fucking pussy belong to?"

"Y-you! I-I mean, Bakugou!"

"You're goddamn right it fucking does". Katsuki's groan escaped on the tail end of his words.

You could feel his cock tensing up inside you, such was his size. "Katsu?" Your body had turned to putty as you tried to hold onto what little shred of dignity you had left. "Cum for me, Katsu!", you whimpered.

"Why the fuck should I?"

"C-uz I want y-ou to mark m-e!" Your eyeliner smeared across the leather material of the couch cushion.

"That's a good a reason as any", he said before shifting his eyes away from the small circle jerk and back down to you. "Ah fuck, baby, yeah. I'll fucking mark you alright!" His eyes darted back up to that of his audience. "Gonna make sure my musk saturates you so they can fucking smell me on you!"

Drool seeped from your open mouth against the cream-colored leather. Your tits swayed and your ass cheeks rippled from the sheer force of Katsuki's relentless thrusts.

"Ah fuck, baby, gonna fill you up with my seed! So fucking full of it you're not going to be able to hold it all in!" Katsuki's hips snapped against your ass one last time before locking up, his ass flexing, relaxing, flexing, relaxing, flexing.

The younger man who'd been jacking off whined quietly as he blew his load onto the carpet beneath him.

"Nn fuck", the taller one groaned.

Finished with his orgasm, Katsuki pulled his cock out, bouncing under its own weight. He pulled your hips around to put on display the creampie he'd left behind inside you. The taller man, still tugging on his cock, watched as your pussy clenched, causing some of Katsuki's seed to ooze out of you and drip onto your ankle. That's all he could take and he came rather loudly, his cum nearly hitting you on the first release, such was the power behind it.

Katsuki frowned at both of them. "She's fucking mine. Don't you ever fucking forget it. Now...get the fuck OUT!"

They barely got their sticky, softening cocks back in their pants before retreating downstairs to no doubt go straight to their respective homes and have existential crises because they just orgasmed while watching another man fuck and cum inside an attractive woman. Porn was one thing, but Katsuki's show of dominance had hit different. And they had to wonder if they were wrong for it somehow.

Meanwhile, your husband helped you pull yourself together at least enough to make it to the car to take you home.

And with the privacy window partially cracked open, the driver was able to watch as Katsuki lapped up both your fresh slick for him, as well as his own seed as it continued to leak out.