#but do anyway to keep face for the people who look up to you. who depend on you

[direbeastrex]

fun facts for the thread: the old fashioned 'hand a clerk a list and then wait while they grab you your items' is still a thing in the UK in *one store*, called Argos. The whole customer-facing part of the shop is comparatively rather small considering they stock the amount of things you'd find inside a big airy warehouse style department store. it's set up very minimally, maybe some tvs on the wall to show things like picture quality and refresh rate, the odd thing they want to display like furniture or the like- but not a lot that is worth it to grab and run out of the shop with. Small electronics or headphones might be hung up in the aisle to try and catch you with impulse or the like, but otherwise- it's not really got shelves or bins or anything. Just tables with laminated catalogue books, slips of paper, and tiny, infinitely stealable wooden pencils. The function of Argos has been for the last however many decades that you walk up to all the laid out laminated catalogues, flick through them for the thing you know you want already (and maybe some things that might be specials that month or whatever if youre flush), jot down the product codes on said provided slip of paper with said provided infinitely stealable little wooden pencil, walk up to the register and pay, and then they send the product codes to the *rest* of the shop- which is actually a massive warehouse with rows and rows of shelves organized by those product codes. Like the part of Ikea where you get the flatpack version of the thing you found in the showroom, but it's everything- tvs, consoles, white goods, kitchen appliances, video games, pc equipment- it's all back there. It saves a ton of space and time and man power, because they don't have to make anything look pretty or browseable- that's what the catalogue is for! They know you know what you want, and they save overhead on loss prevention and having a dozen people on the shop floor keeping the place tidy and reorganized and restocked any time some lady or her unruly kids wreck the place, let alone having to deal with people shoplifting. No being accosted by someone paid to be nice to you at the door. Just- go in, Pay for Thing, wait a couple minutes, leave with Thing.

It's also affordable as shit. Obviously the big ticket items are going to be expensive anyway, but they have their own brand for a lot of essentials. It would, however, be DIABOLICAL to put shit in a supermarket behind glass and locks, to me. Its annoying enough when they do it for safety reasons with certain kinds of medicine or whatever, and in the UK sometimes some shops will have their booze have a little alarm tag on the top to 1) keep it sealed and 2) if you book it out the door it'll make a hell of a noise, but at least you can still put it in your basket and you don't have to track down someone to unlock a whole shelf for you, yikes.

I think the only reason delis/butchers work this way is because it's so limited- it's just one kind of food, you can have a conversation with the expert who is right there and can do things like a special cut for you or give you a recommendation- it's more like getting drinks at a bar during a quiet hour. Much less about money changing hands quickly, much more about clarity and purpose and good service.

Published Jan 14, 2025

[sageivy11]

feral street kitty hybrid!reader who’s been slinking up the fire escape and sneaking into ghoap’s apartment for food.. but they know. 18+

introduction: omg hiii 😻 so i was totally gonna abandon the first post but i already have like 5 other things in the works bc the brain worms haven’t stopped soo.. don’t expect anything tho bc im not very consistent. if i make another part there will probably be smut. 1.1k words, basically just a long drabble i decided to proofread a bit to post

contains/warnings: reader is homeless and eats fish, established ghoap, no mention of size or appearance expect for ‘underfed’, reader only has ears and a tail. no smut

Maybe they’ve known for a while, Ghost once saw you skitter away down the ladder after being woken from a nightmare. He complains about it to Soap, scolding him for forgetting to lock the window, but he’d been doing it on purpose ever since he saw you in the alley behind their apartment, digging through trash and underfed. Hoping.

He convinces his LT to leave it unlocked and says that they can spare a piece of bread now and then. That you look so lost and sad, that’s the least they can do. You haven’t even stolen anything more than a few bites of left out food, he insists.

But you grow more confident, napping on their couch for a few hours during the night to keep warm, washing your face in their sink, licking their leftover plates clean. They pretend not to notice. Ghost, who used to sit on the couch and watch television when he couldn’t sleep, has switched to the chair in his office so as not to spook you.

Until one day you fish through the laundry bin in the bathroom, looking for a pair of socks that no one would notice missing. You’ve never stolen anything more than a bite or two of food from them but it’s getting colder. People lose socks all the time.

Your head snaps towards the door when you hear it creak open, seeing a pale, shirtless man with mussed hair pause in the doorway when he sees you. He grunts. You scramble, only grabbing a single sock in your process of shoving past him and bolting towards the window.

You don’t notice the way his eyes drift down your body to take in the healthy weight gained. He sighs, shaking his head and not bothering to close the door as he makes towards the toilet.

You don’t come back for a week and a half. Soap got worried on the fifth night, realizing you hadn’t stepped through the window in days. Your dirty fingerprints had been cleaned off the window on the second day and they hadn’t come back since.

But eventually, you get hungry. With how cold it is at night, you’ve been forced to spend less and less time searching through trash lest you freeze. You think about it for a few days, and decide there’s no point in not going back if you’re going freeze to death out here anyway.

You slip through the kitchen window on the eleventh day, shivering at the temperature change. You head straight for the fridge where they keep their leftovers, your shaky hand holding it open as your eyes quickly scan for something small to eat.

“There’s fish in the freezer. F’you want some.”

You nearly jolt out of your skin, the fridge door snapping shut as you suddenly whip around to find the location of the voice. You can feel the fur your tail puff up in fear as your back presses the cool doors. It’s the same man you saw that night. This time, he’s wearing a mask. And not a medical one.

The mask is black and embroidered with white skull markings. Or, more like grey skull markings. There’s dark brown stains on the fabric where the white is. Maybe the black, too. You can’t tell. It kind of looks like dried blood. No, it’s definitely just dirt.

Your ears are pricked, chest silently heaving as you stay frozen, staring at him. How did you not see him? Or hear him?

He looks like he just got home despite the fact it’s the middle of the night. It’s early, maybe three, or four in the morning. He’s still got shoes on. He holds a clear glass full of a gold liquid propped on his knee. There’s a duffle bag by his feet.

You just stand there, stuck in time for what feels like a week as you watch him. The only time he moves is to bring the glass up to his lips, pushing his mask up to the bridge of his nose to take a long sip. He would’ve moved by now if he wanted to hurt you. Right?

You swallow thickly, slowly turning to open the freezer. You look over your shoulder every few seconds, but he’s just sitting there, watching. Your eyes land on three saran-wrapped plates in the freezer. Huh. Maybe they had a guest over.

Two plates have various vegetables and sauces, while one looks plain. Just fish and something green that looks like a tiny tree. You grab it, closing the freezer and glancing at him for the millionth time. Still stayed the same. You slowly sink to sit on the kitchen floor, tail curling around the side of your leg protectively.

You watch him as you peel the wrap off, as you eat. He stares back. You pinch a cold piece of meat between your fingers, slowly bringing it up to your lips. And it’s fucking good. You don’t waste much time with your next few bites, try the little tree thing too. It’s not great, but it’s not horrible. You start wrapping the dish up again when you’re interrupted.

“It’s all f’you. Eat it.”

You pause, your eyes flicking back up to him. Your ears twitch. For you? Sounds like a trap. You should have a pretty good radar for danger. I mean, you live on the streets. You can feel your heart beat a little faster, but it tells you to continue. You waste no more time, greedily finishing the rest of the dish almost concerningly fast.

He watches and only adds more whiskey to his cup when it empties. You stand when you’re done, quietly placing the dish in the sink and discarding the wrap in the trash. You flinch when he abruptly stands, stepping closer towards your exit. His hands reach towards the bottom hem of his black hoodie, pulling it over his head.

You stay and watch, for some reason. Then he tosses it towards you, over the kitchen counter separating the two rooms. You startle, twitching back when the fabric falls to your feet. You look between him and the hoodie briefly, before crouching down to grab it.

Your footsteps are light and tentative as you step back towards the window, still watching him. You quickly slip out, practically running down the fire escape stairs until you’re back in the streets. Back in your little box hidden in the trash, with a few blankets to keep warm.

You replace your thin zip-up with his hoodie. You push the fabric of the collar up towards your nose when you slip it on, inhaling deeply. It smells like man. Like sweat and something coppery. Like burning firewood and grill char. Like it would be so easy to just slip into his bed and sleep into the late hours of the morning.

You sleep easier that night, even if it’s on cardboard and tattered blankets. And if you’re already wet when you slip your fingers between your thighs, it’s no one’s business but your own.

notes: i figured out how to do the ‘read more’ thing!! sorry my first post didn’t have that. again, written and edited on my phone. ty for the love btw 🫶 im trying to stay humble bc this is lowkey boosting my ego. tumblr tips appreciated.

tags??: @other-fandoms-reblogs hi 🙈 this is not related to my first post but i thought i would tag u anyway! if i ever post the other part in the works to my first post ill also tag u in that.

[ginnsbaker]

All Of Your Pieces (14 - The Twins)

Chapter Summary: Stark's Annual Charity Ball pulls the invisible string that finally nudges you and Wanda in the right direction.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader Chapter word count: 6.2k+ | Chapter Tags: Age of Ultron!Wanda, Mild angst, comfort, fluff

A/N: I haven't written anything new in more than 2 weeks, but I'll just keep posting the chapters I've finished *cries* Anyway, this particular update is a milestone in R and Wanda's relationship, and it involves an auction. Kinda obvious where that will lead us to, yea? Enjoy! // More author's notes here.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

“I can't believe you're letting Tony pimp me out to some geriatric billionaire—” you stormed into Steve's office, tracking mud across the carpet.

It was pouring outside, and as soon as you arrived at the compound, Vision greeted you with a curious question. “What's a human auction? Is it like those slave sales back in the 1500s?” he had asked. You had brushed him off, heading straight for the one person you knew had to have given the final approval on this sort of thing.

“Whoa, hold on a second,” Steve cut in, his eyes going wide as he dropped his pen. He braced himself, clearly prepared for whatever wild accusation you were about to hurl his way. “No one is going to be ‘pimped out’ at Stark's Annual Charity Ball!”

Natasha, sprawled in a leather chair by the window, ankle cocked over knee, quirked an eyebrow at your entrance, a smirk tugging at her lips. “Someone’s fired up today,” she commented dryly.

You paced, the wooden floor creaking underfoot, fingers threading through your hair. “Then what do you call auctioning me off like some kind of prize to the highest bidder?” you demanded.

He leaned back, the chair groaning under his weight. “It’s not like that. You know it’s one of the biggest fundraising events of the year. We make an appearance every time to show our support.”

“Yes, make an appearance,” you jabbed the air with your finger. “Smile for the cameras, shake a few hands—that I can handle. But being part of an auction? That's crossing a line.”

Natasha shook her head, clearly amused by your distress. “You know, the bidders aren't all bad. Sure, some of them might be older, but age brings experience. You might end up meeting an attractive, mature woman. Isn't that your dream?”

You shot her a skeptical look. “Very funny, Nat.”

“Lighten up, darling.”

You squinted at her. “Are you one of the prizes to bid on?”

“Nope,” she replied without elaboration, her face giving away nothing.

Turning back to Steve, you threw your hands up in exasperation. “You said everybody was involved!”

He squirmed, eyes darting away. “Well, not everyone.”

“Great,” you muttered sarcastically. “So who’s actually on the block?”

Steve started counting off on his fingers. “There's me. Vision agreed to participate—some tech leaders are eager to meet him. Sam volunteered; he's offering a personalized flight experience. Bruce is giving a private lecture on gamma radiation. Even Don from accounting signed up.”

“Don from accounting?” you echoed incredulously. “The guy who brings tuna sandwiches for lunch every day?”

“He's offering financial planning sessions,” Natasha said. “Riveting stuff.”

It seemed everyone had a well-thought-out plan tailored to their expertise—everyone, that is, except you.

“So, what are you guys expecting me to offer?” you asked, already dreading the answer.

Steve swapped a look with Natasha, then cleared his throat. “Tony was thinking you could throw in something exclusive—like a dinner, maybe an entire evening out, for the highest bidder.”

“A date?” you scoffed.

“Think of it less as being ‘sold’ and more as donating your irresistible presence for a noble cause,” Natasha said.

“Me?” you said, pointing to yourself with a sardonic chuckle. “Irresistible?”

Natasha smirked. “Don't sell yourself short. Some people might find your brooding charm... appealing.”

“Careful, Romanoff,” you retorted, a sly grin on your face as you sauntered over with a mischievous sway in your step. “Keep talking like that, and I might think you're flirting with me.”

She barely spared you a glance. “Not in a million years.”

“So, there's a number?” you quipped, grinning wider.

“Alright, that's enough,” Steve barked, pushing himself off his chair, trying to look like the picture of authority. “The auction lineup is final; people have already shown interest. All I'm asking is for two hours of you on your best behavior. Can you do that?”

You shrugged, already backing toward the door. “No promises,” you muttered, turning to leave.

As you rushed out of Steve's office, you collided abruptly with what felt like a solid wall—only it turned out to be someone. 

More specifically, Wanda. You caught a wisp of her red before it vanished completely, suggesting she'd instinctively used her powers to cushion her own impact. Good for her. For you? Not so much.

“Sorry, didn't see you there,” you said, rubbing a tender spot on your shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Wanda's eyes widened when she saw you, like a deer caught in headlights. She nodded too eagerly before excusing herself as if she was in a hurry. You shrugged and turned back to the direction you were heading.

It had been over a week since you'd inadvertently caused a scene at a restaurant Wanda often visited, leading you to awkwardly apologize later with takeout. After Wanda stormed out that night, you lost interest in your date and ended up cutting the evening short just as Alex was suggesting drinks. Your relationship with Wanda hadn’t really improved or worsened since then, which was probably for the best, all things considered. You had noticed, however, that Vision seemed to stick by her side even more than before. You’re happy for them. Ever since he told you that Wanda was lonely, you thought she needed someone like him—a truly devoted friend or more.

“Two hours,” you muttered to yourself as you entered your room, closing the door behind you with a soft click. “How hard can it be?”

—

It was a spectacle—exactly what you'd expect from a Stark event.

Hosted at New York's iconic Metropolitan Museum of Art, the fundraiser didn't just rival the Met Gala—it eclipsed it. The guest list was a who's who of the world's elite, pulling not only A-list celebrities from fashion and entertainment but also power brokers from technology, real estate, automotive, food, and pharmaceuticals. 

Your teammates were dispersed throughout the venue. Having arrived half an hour earlier, you hadn't spotted any of them yet, but you suspected they were probably doing the same thing you were—stalling, avoiding the spotlight until the last possible moment when they would have to step forward and be seen. You found yourself lingering near the entrance, fidgeting with the straps of your elegant black dress. It was a daring choice, selected by a fashion guru Tony had brought in specifically for this event. You had resisted this outfit until the final moment, relenting only when Tony threatened to schedule you for more public appearances—gigs he usually delegated to Rhodes or Sam on ordinary days.

“Looking sharp,” Clint remarked, coming up beside you. He was adjusting his bow tie, a slight grin on his face as he took in your outfit.

Finally—someone to stick with for the rest of the evening.

“Flattery won't get you out of babysitting duty tonight,” you teased, trying to ignore the anxious butterflies in your stomach.

He chuckled, his eyes scanning the patrons. “Wouldn't dream of it. Besides, someone has to keep an eye on you.”

“Uh-huh,” you replied, scanning the room yourself. 

You tried to distract yourself by diving into shop talk with Clint, who indulged you but seemed more focused on his martini, sipping and nodding with the occasional terse response. It was fine by you; at least it was a way to pass the time until the event wrapped up. 

Soon, Natasha joined you, wearing a glittery gold dress that was both classy and seductive, covering most but highlighting just enough. You made an effort not to stare too much at your mentor. Back in your rookie year with the team, you'd harbored a bit of a crush on her, but that had faded as she took a more active role in your training. Over time, you came to see her as a sister, finding in her and Clint the semblance of the family you never had.

She complimented Clint on his suit before turning to you. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Trying to,” you replied truthfully.

“Here,” Natasha said, offering you her glass of champagne. “Two more of these and you’ll be fine.”

You accepted the glass, taking a tentative sip. It did little to settle your nerves, but you appreciated the gesture. “Thanks.”

“Look who decided to grace us with their presence,” Clint announced, nodding toward the entrance.

Vision had just arrived, dressed to impress. He resembled a polished gentleman, a look so fitting it was almost comical—like he belonged in a museum exhibit. You stifled a laugh at the thought, chiding yourself for even entertaining such a cheeky idea. Notably absent was Wanda, who you had expected to see at his side. 

“Vision actually looks... dapper,” you observed.

Behind Vision, Sam and Rhodey entered, each with a stunning woman on their arm. Sam's date wore a sleek silver gown that shimmered under the lights, while Rhodey's companion was radiant in royal blue. 

“Where's Bruce?” Natasha asked, glancing around the room. “He was supposed to be here by now.”

Clint emptied his glass of drink just in time for the waiter to arrive with a new one. “Haven't seen him. Steve's getting nervous he's a no-show.”

You frowned. “Wait, we can do that? Just... not show up?”

“If you're the Hulk, yeah, probably.”

“And Tony?” you asked.

“You know he doesn’t attend his own parties these days,” Clint said.

“Anyone seen Wanda?” Natasha asked suddenly.

For a moment, you'd forgotten about her. You hadn't heard anything about her participating in the auction, and you didn't want to ask why. She was still relatively new to the team, and the events of Sokovia were still fresh in everyone's minds. Maybe Tony didn’t want to stir the pot by introducing the newest member so soon.

“Haven’t seen her,” Clint replied. “Maybe she's skipping it.”

“Or maybe she's just running late,” Natasha suggested.

You shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. “Either way.”

Just then, the grand hall’s light dimmed, and the spotlight found its way to the center of the stage where Steve stood, clad in a classic tuxedo, his hair slicked back, the blue of his eyes catching the light and gleaming under the gaze of hundreds who adored him.

“Good evening, everyone,” he started, racking up cheers from the crowd, mostly from the women up front. “On behalf of the Avengers and Stark Industries, thank you for joining us tonight. Your generosity makes a profound difference.”

For a guy who was frozen for half a century, he sure had a knack for working a room and blending into this new era. You shifted your weight, trying to quell the restless energy inside you. Who would make a bid for you? Or worse, what if no one did? Each thought was as mortifying as the other. You reached for your third glass of champagne, trying to drown the embarrassment that had started with Natasha's first toast.

Steve went on, “We're starting tonight's auction with some exclusive items straight from Tony's personal garage—a collection of rare prototypes and unique gadgets.”

The first item was wheeled out—a sleek, custom-built motorcycle with cutting-edge tech enhancements. The crowd murmured appreciatively. Bidding was enthusiastic, and the motorcycle sold for an impressive sum. Next came a high-tech smartwatch with capabilities far beyond anything on the market, followed by a limited-edition arc reactor, encased in glass as a piece of art.

As the last of Tony's treasures was auctioned off, Steve returned to the microphone. “And now, we have something very special. For the first time tonight, we're offering you the opportunity to spend time with two of our own heroes.”

The cheer was resounding. You wanted to throw up at the sound of it.

“First up,” Steve announced, “we have Vision.”

A spotlight found Vision as he made his way to the stage. He nodded politely to the audience and they cheered even louder. 

“The winning bidder will enjoy a personalized afternoon with Vision,” Steve continued. “A chance to discuss philosophy, technology, or any subject of your choosing.”

The bidding began immediately.

“Fifty thousand,” someone called out.

“Seventy-five,” another voice said.

“One hundred thousand!” 

A collective gasp filled the ballroom. From there, the bids shot up even more quickly.

“One hundred fifty thousand!”

“Two hundred thousand!”

“Two hundred fifty thousand!” a woman declared from the back, her paddle held high.

It was the highest bid of the night so far.

“Going once, going twice... sold to bidder number 112 for two hundred fifty thousand dollars!” Steve announced, leading a round of applause.

Vision gave a gracious nod before exiting the stage.

You took a deep breath, realizing your turn was next. And there was no way you could go higher than Vision.

“And now,” Steve continued, “we have another incredible opportunity. An exclusive experience with one of our most skilled team members, Y/N.”

The spotlight swung in your direction. With a gentle nudge from Clint, you made your way to the stage, your heart pounding. Standing beside Steve, you tried to focus on the faces in the crowd, but the bright lights made it difficult.

You were expecting Steve to mention what you had to offer, but you were pleasantly surprised that he went right ahead to the bidding.

“Do I hear twenty thousand?” the auctioneer prompted.

An initial silence stretched on longer than you'd hoped.

“Twenty thousand,” a woman called out softly.

“Thirty thousand,” added a man seated toward the middle.

The bidding was slow compared to Vision's, and you felt a flush rise to your cheeks. You wanted to kill Steve and Tony after this. You swore to yourself you would.

“Forty thousand,” the woman countered.

“Forty-five,” came another bid.

Just as you began to resign yourself to a modest outcome, a new bidder declared his interest.

“Sixty thousand,” declared a man standing near the side of the room.

You squinted, trying to make out his features. He was well-dressed, with dark hair and a pleasant disposition. Something about him seemed familiar, but you couldn't quite place where you'd seen him before.

“Seventy thousand,” the previous bidder upped the ante.

“Eighty thousand,” the newcomer responded.

The crowd began to take more interest.

“Do I hear ninety?” the auctioneer asked. 

Your face was hurting from smiling the entire time, and you could feel sweat starting to roll down from the base of your exposed neck.

“Ninety thousand,” called out the woman from before.

The bids climbed steadily until the man finally offered a hundred-twenty.

Everybody held their breaths, waiting to see if this bid would top Vision’s, despite the auction's sluggish beginning.

“Going once, going twice... sold to bidder number 214 for one hundred twenty thousand dollars!” 

The applause swelled around you as you stood there. You weren't hung up on how well you performed; you were just relieved it was finally over.

“Congratulations,” Steve said, pulling you into a hug. You kept your smile in place, leaned in close, and whispered, “This isn't over.”

The man who had won the bid was being escorted by one of the event staff to meet you.

As you approached him, recognition clicked into place. His name was Daniel—a member of the support staff at the Avengers compound. You'd seen him around, handling logistics and occasionally assisting with training setups.

He had that much amount of money to spend on you? 

“Daniel?” you said, extending a hand. “I didn't expect to see you here.”

He shook your hand with a friendly smile. “Good to see you, Y/N. Actually, I'm here on behalf of someone else."

Before you could ask, he gestured toward a quiet hallway. “The person who actually bid on you and won is waiting for you down that hall.”

You entered a quaint gallery displaying an array of quirky artifacts that seemed centuries old—though your limited attention in history classes made it impossible to pinpoint their exact origins or era. What made you stop and stare was how it was peaceful and kind of personal, with no crowds to elbow through. You could see why some folks find it therapeutic to hang out in museums and galleries like this.

Standing near a large window was a figure. That unmistakable posture was all too familiar.

“Wanda?” you called out, startled.

She turned to face you, and her nervousness was impossible to miss. It clashed with how stunning she looked in her gown—a deep red that draped perfectly, with a daring neckline that plunged but somehow still looked elegant. The sleeves fluttered around her arms, and her brunette hair cascaded in wild waves, shortened by the curls to just past her shoulders. She was breathtaking.

Looking between Wanda and the closed door, you tried to piece it together. “So... you hired Daniel to bid for you?”

Wanda nodded. “I didn't want to draw attention by bidding myself. I hope that's okay.”

Warmth spread through you. Why would Wanda bid such a substantial amount of money for time with you, especially when you saw each other every day? It was odd, a little unsettling, but at least you weren’t paired with a complete stranger whose intentions might be unclear.  

Though… what were Wanda’s intentions?

“Are you okay?” Wanda asked softly, her eyes searching yours. It hit you then—you hadn’t said a word in a while.

“Oh, sorry,” you mumbled, snapping out of your thoughts. “I’m just… surprised.”

Wanda took a few steps, not toward you, but toward the exit. “I didn't mean to—I just... If this makes you uncomfortable, we can just forget the whole thing.”

You could have simply taken her up on the offer, paid her back, and moved on. But instead, something compelled you to reach out and grasp her arm before she could leave. Wanda glanced over her shoulder, her expression a mix of wariness and curiosity.

You searched for the right words, your heart pounding. Then, a small smile formed on your lips as you shrugged lightly. “Do you want to get out of here?”

—

For a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, Wanda Maximoff didn’t just secure a free hotdog sandwich—she also claimed what might be the best view in the city. Better than the one from the Empire State Building, even—an exaggeration, perhaps, but isn’t any view more breathtaking when shared with the right person?

It was hardly the deal of a lifetime, but there you were, actually trying to make it worth her while.

Sitting together on a quiet rooftop terrace, the city's lights stretched out before you like a shimmering sea. You took a bite of your hotdog, moaning at the comfort of a simple snack.

Wanda glanced over at you, a soft smile playing on her lips. “This is nice,” she said.

You swallowed your bite and turned to face her. "Can I ask you something?"

“Of course.”

“Why did you bid on me?” you asked. “I mean, you could've bid on Vision.”

Wanda looked fairly confused. “Why would I bid on Vision?”

You shrugged, biting your tongue to keep yourself from insinuating to Wanda that he’s her boyfriend. Well, wasn’t he?

Wanda laughed softly, causing a smile to form on your own lips. 

“Vision is always there,” she began thoughtfully. “Even when I don't ask for him, he shows up. Some days, it felt like there was too much of him.”

That was… unexpected. “I thought you two were close,” you said.

“We are, in a sense,” she said. “He's got a good heart, smart, well-meaning. But there are times I just need to be left alone. With Vision, it's as if he's always trying to figure me out, not just exist alongside me.”

You took a slow bite, chewing over her words. “Well, Vision does seem like an honorable person. I think he really cares about you.”

She smiled faintly. “I know he does. And I care about him too. But it's complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

Wanda sighed, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. You gave her space, watching silently until she turned to face you. When she did, you were struck by her eyes—a vivid green that outshone the moon itself.

“He's still figuring out what it means to be... human,” she explained. “Emotions, relationships—they're concepts he's learning, and sometimes I feel like a subject in an experiment.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way,” you whispered. Believing Vision would simply cure Wanda's loneliness was naive. You regretted the times you thought it was so simple, pushing her towards someone else just to keep her at arm's length. Now, sitting side by side on the terrace of your apartment—a detail you hadn't mentioned to Wanda—you realized her company wasn't so bad. Removed from the context of her powers and past faults, she seemed almost ordinary. And it didn't hurt that she was undeniably beautiful—a fact that admittedly played a part in why you had kept your distance. Her appearance made it too easy to become distracted.

“I could do a lot worse,” Wanda said lightly.

“Yeah,” you replied, before pointing to yourself. “You’re looking at her.”

Her laughter erupted, full and unrestrained. You realized you enjoyed hearing it—and even more, being the reason for it.

After a moment, you took a deep breath. “You know, you didn’t have to bid on me just to hang out. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was cold to you. It's just, initially, we were on opposite sides, and I'm kind of a loner by nature.”

“I didn’t bid on you for the company,” she said. “I heard you were upset about being auctioned off. I thought I’d help out.”

“Oh,” you managed, heat creeping into your cheeks in surprise and a bit of shame. “You really didn’t have to do that. Honestly, you could be anywhere else, doing something better with your time.”

She gave a light shrug, dismissing the thought. “I wanted to be here. And you're under no obligation—it’s your time.”

“That was a lot of money, Wanda.”

She flashed a small, knowing smile. “We get paid pretty well, and we live rent-free in a state-of-the-art facility with more food than we know what to do with. Honestly, I don’t know where to put all that money.”

You couldn't help but whistle at her extravagant dilemma about where to spend her money.

“Some of mine went here,” you mentioned, beginning to tidy up. You picked up Wanda’s hotdog box, then yours, and slipped them back into the paper bag they came in.

“Here?”

“This is, uh, my apartment in the city,” you admitted, feeling a bit sheepish about the modest surroundings. It wasn't much to look at—barely furnished since you hardly spent a night here. But it was nice to have a fallback, a place where you could imagine being just another average citizen, cooking dinner and passing out on the sofa to late-night TV. Not that you've actually done that here, but, you know, the possibility's always there.

“Oh,” Wanda breathed, her eyes going wide—and you hadn’t thought it was possible for them to be more disarming than they already were. “I—I didn’t realize. Sorry for intruding—”

“I invited you,” you pointed out, your grin turning amused at her reaction. It was nice to see her a little off-balance. Her gaze met yours, and there was something in her eyes that made you a bit nervous. Usually, you weren't easily thrown off by pretty women, but Wanda was different. She wasn't like anyone you'd ever met.

“It's getting a bit chilly,” she noted after a while, rubbing her arms lightly.

“Would you like to come inside?” you offered. “I can lend you something warmer.”

It didn’t take Wanda another second to accept. “Yes, please.”

“Come on,” you said, leading her to your bedroom. Opening a drawer, you pulled out a pair of soft pajama pants and a cozy sweater. “These should fit well enough. The bathroom is just through that door.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, taking the clothes. She headed into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.

You grabbed a t-shirt and some comfortable boxers for yourself, beginning to change in your bedroom. As you pulled your shirt over your head, your eyes accidentally darted towards the bathroom. Through the partially open door, you inadvertently glimpsed Wanda from behind as she changed. Her back was turned, revealing a black lace bra as she slipped out of her dress.

You swallowed hard and quickly turned your eyes away, focusing on getting dressed as quickly as you could. You yanked your shirt down and shimmied into your shorts, trying to shake the image from your mind.

Moments later, Wanda stepped out dressed in your clothes, the sleeves of the sweater hanging slightly past her wrists. The outfit was a bit oversized but looked comfortable on her.

“These are perfect,” she said with a grateful smile. Noticing your flustered expression, she tilted her head. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” you stammered.

She gave you a curious look but didn't press the matter. Glancing at your attire, she commented, “Won't you be cold dressed like that?”

You looked down at yourself. “Oh, I'll be fine. I tend to get hot,” you replied, then realized the double meaning of your words. Your face grew warmer. “I mean, I warm up easily.”

Wanda smirked and didn’t bother to be subtle about it. “Good to know.”

You grabbed a pillow from your bed and tucked it under your arm. “Well, I guess I'll let you get some rest,” you said, heading toward the door.

“Wait,” Wanda called after you. “You're not sleeping on the sofa, are you?”

You looked up, surprised. “I was actually planning to catch up on some reading.”

She sighed, giving in. “Fine, if you're sure.”

“I'm sure,” you said, fluffing the pillow.

She smiled softly. “Goodnight, then.”

“Night, Wanda,” you replied. After a moment's pause, you added, “And... thanks again for tonight.”

She lingered in the doorway of the bedroom and nodded at you with a smile.

Before she could slip away, you called out, “Hey, wanna train together tomorrow?”

Her face lit up. “Looking forward to it.”

—

It wasn’t that your bed was uncomfortable. Far from it, actually. The mattress was firm but not too firm, the pillows soft enough to cradle her head. By all accounts, Wanda should’ve been fast asleep. But she wasn’t. Everything about the bed—about the room—was a distraction.

She couldn’t stop thinking about how the sheets had probably wrapped around your skin countless times, how your scent lingered faintly in the fabric no matter how often they’d been washed. She wondered what position you usually slept in. Did you curl up on your side, clutching a pillow? Did you sprawl across the bed, limbs outstretched in different directions? The thoughts were small, trivial, and maddeningly persistent.

No matter how many times she turned over, pulled the blanket tighter, or closed her eyes, her mind wouldn’t shut off. So, when she tossed and turned for what felt like the hundredth time, Wanda decided she wasn’t going to just lie there, restless and alone, while you were only a few feet away.

Wanda eased the door open, careful to make as little noise as possible, though the faint creak still gave her away. You were there, of course, exactly where she thought you’d be, sitting on the sofa with a book in your lap. The soft glow of the lamp illuminated your face, and Wanda’s breath hitched when she noticed the glasses perched on your nose.

“Hey,” you greeted softly, glancing up from the page but keeping your finger tucked between the chapters as a placeholder.

There was something about you at this hour, something Wanda couldn’t quite put her finger on. It wasn’t just the glasses or the book or the way the light softened the sharp lines of your face. You seemed different. More laid-back. Almost mellow. Wanda decided this was one of her favorite versions of you.

“Can’t sleep,” she murmured, fiddling with the rings on her fingers—a nervous habit she couldn’t quite kick. 

Wanda bit her lip as you slid your glasses off and set them on the side table. It was endearing to think it was because you were giving her your full attention. You tapped the cushion next to you.

She obliged. The sofa dipped slightly under her weight, and she sat close enough for your shoulders to almost touch but left just enough distance to not assume too much. Wanda’s fingers stopped fidgeting, her hands resting in her lap as she glanced at the book you’d set aside.

“What were you reading?” she asked.

You smiled slightly, reaching for the book and turning it so she could see the cover. It wasn’t anything grand—just a worn paperback with creased pages and a faded title. That’s when Wanda’s gaze wandered to the shelves behind you, packed tight with books, some even spilling over into piles on the floor. Hardcovers, paperbacks, thick, ancient volumes that looked like they belonged in a library—

You weren’t just an ordinary reader.

“Didn’t take you for a… what’s that phrase you Americans use for someone who’s obsessed with reading?” Wanda asked, a light laugh escaping her lips.

“Bookworm,” you replied, grinning.

“Yeah—that.”

You chuckled softly, the sound low and warm. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Maximoff.”

The way you said her name sent a small shiver down her spine, but she hid it well, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she looked away for a moment. You weren’t sure if it was because it was late and your defenses were worn thin, or because the edges of exhaustion blurred your better judgment after spending the entire night nose-deep in your book. But something compelled you to speak to her.

Not small talk. Not another shallow exchange to fill the silence. No, you wanted to talk to her, really talk to her. About things that mattered, like how she was actually doing—not just the perfunctory “I’m fine” you’d heard her mutter too many times before. About how she was settling in at the compound, surrounded by strangers who were supposed to be her teammates but often felt like little more than colleagues. About what it felt like to start over in a new country, surrounded by a language and culture that weren’t hers. 

About how she was coping without Pietro.

You wondered if anyone had asked her these things before—apart from Vision, maybe. And even then, you could imagine what those conversations might have been like. Vision was earnest, but earnestness only went so far. He probably asked like a child would, curious but detached.

“So, uhm,” you cleared your throat, pulling up your knees to hug them in front of your chest. “How—How have you been holding up?”

It took her a moment to respond, and for a second, you wondered if you’d overstepped, if she didn’t like being asked in the first place. But instead, she tilted her head slightly, studying you like she wasn’t sure if you were serious.

“Why do you ask?” she said finally, her accent curling softly around the words.

You hesitated, suddenly hyper-aware of how vulnerable the question made you feel. You weren’t used to this—to reaching out, to asking someone else to open up. But it was too late to backtrack now, so you shrugged, feigning casualness you didn’t feel. “Just thought… it’s been a lot. For you, I mean. New country, new team, new life.” You paused, glancing away. “It can’t be easy.”

Wanda let out a small, humorless laugh. “That’s putting it lightly.”

You didn’t reply immediately, giving her the opportunity to say more if she wanted to. When the silence stretched on, you pressed gently. “So? How are you holding up?”

She exhaled, a long, tired sound. “I’m... fine,” she said.

“That’s not an answer,” you said. “And you don’t have to give me one if you don’t want to. I just thought... maybe you’d want to talk.”

Wanda looked at you again as if trying to gauge whether you meant it. Whether you really meant that you cared. 

“You’re asking me this now?” she said.

“Seemed like as good a time as any.”

Her lips twitched—almost a smile, but not quite—and she looked away again. “I don’t think anyone’s really asked me that,” she whispered after a moment. “Not like you just did.”

You didn’t know what to say to that, so you stayed quiet, letting her continue.

“It’s... hard,” she said, slow and careful. “Being here. With all of you. Everyone’s been... kind. But I can tell most of them don’t trust me.”

“They’ll come around,” you said, though you knew it wasn’t a guarantee. You knew better than anyone how slow trust could be, how much it took to earn it in a place like this. After all, it had taken you ages to come around yourself—ages of Wanda wearing you down in ways you hadn’t even noticed at first, of her saving your life and an embarrassing predicament.

“Maybe,” she said, her voice distant. She twisted the hem of her sweater between her fingers, her eyes focused on the floor.

“And Pietro?” you asked softly, almost afraid of the question.

“I think about him every day,” she said quietly. “About what he’d say if he were here. What he’d do. Sometimes, I swear I can still hear him in my head—his voice, the things he used to tell me. But then I catch myself trying to shush it, like I’m afraid I’ll get stuck there. In that space. I know it sounds crazy—”

“It’s not,” you cut in too quickly, but you meant them. Whatever grief looked like for her, it wasn’t something you had the right to call crazy.

She turned to you then, a small, rueful smile that felt like hope when her eyes couldn’t pretend she was grieving hard. It was the kind of smile that said she appreciated your words, even though you both knew they weren’t entirely true. You weren’t sure if she believed you or if she just wanted to believe you, but either way, she nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Sometimes,” she continued after a long pause, “I wonder if it would’ve been easier to go with him.”

You swallowed, the ache in her voice pulling something loose in you. You didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to make it about you—but that feeling hit too close to home.

“I used to think that way, too,” you said quietly.

Wanda turned to look at you, surprised. She didn’t interrupt, though. She waited.

You rubbed a hand over your face, buying yourself a second to organize the thoughts you’d buried for so long. “I’m not saying it to compare,” you added, voice tight. “I just... I know what it’s like.”

“My dad died when I was a kid,” you said, keeping your voice light, like saying it matter-of-factly would dull the edges of it. “I barely remember him. Just flashes—his laugh, his cologne, stuff like that. But my mom... she hated me long before he was gone. She blamed me for everything. Especially for my twin not making it.”

Wanda stiffened beside you, but still, she said nothing.

“She blamed me,” you continued, the memories clawing their way back to the surface. “Said I killed him before he ever had a chance. And she never let me forget it. Never let me forget that it should’ve been me who didn’t make it.”

Wanda finally looked up, her eyes glistening, red-rimmed with tears she refused to let fall. You didn’t have the same strength. A single tear slipped down your cheek, hot and heavy.

“And for the longest time, I believed her. I thought she was right. I thought it would’ve been better if I hadn’t made it,” you said.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

You shook your head. “Don’t be. And it’s not like… it’s not like I think that way all the time anymore. But I get it. That feeling like maybe you weren’t supposed to be here, like someone else deserved it more. I know what it feels like.”

Wanda's gaze dropped to your hands that were still gripping your knee like a lifeline. She looked like she wanted to reach out and grasp them, but you weren’t ready for that kind of intimacy. You were barely keeping yourself together, and the thought of her touch, however comforting, might be the thing to break you.

“I didn’t know,” she said softly. “About your twin. About your mom. If this... if this was the nightmare I gave you in—”

“No reason you would,” you interrupted, cutting her off before she could finish, before she could drag Johannesburg, and the bitter, consuming hatred you’d felt for her then, into the room. You’ve forgiven her for that, and it was best that it stayed forgotten too. “It’s not exactly a conversation starter.”

She huffed a quiet, almost bitter laugh, but it faded quickly. “Still,” she said, hesitating, “I think… I think you were meant to be here. I don’t know why, but I do. I think there’s a reason.”

You swallowed dryly. “Maybe there’s a reason for you, too.”

Wanda looked hopeful. “Maybe,” she echoed.

Wanda’s shoulder pressed into yours, solid and warm, like she was holding you in place without even realizing it. Neither of you spoke, the silence stretching out just long enough for it to feel safe. Safe to sit here with the mess between you, around you, part of you.

The words she’d said—I think you were meant to be here—kept looping in your head, circling around all the things you’d told yourself for years. All the things you still believed. Maybe you didn’t deserve to be here, but in that moment, you weren’t sure it mattered.

Because she was here. And maybe that was enough.

[midnightshindig]

rex or cecil (or both, separately) discovering that the reader is a viltrumite who actually wants to conquer earth and never actually cared about them 🙏 the angstier the better :)

Cecil and Rex (seperately) X Viltrumite!Reader

(someone on here just declared me the savior of Cecil fans and I’m riding that high so fair warning)

(also I might try and make these prettier like w/ images and stuff once I start using my laptop and not my phone for these…. Would you guys like that?)

anyways, fic below the cut!

Rex Splode

It’s the end of season one, and your uncle and supervisor, Nola Grayson aka Omniman, has just smashed your cousins face into a mountain.

You’re only a few feet away, having declared your allegiance to the Viltrumite Empire when Mark wouldn’t see the way of things

back at Guardian Hq, Rex is like crashing out hard

Like. Black Samson is hugging him to keep him from breaking shit.

that bad.

back with mark and Uncle Nolan

”What about you Y/n?! What about Rex? Did you ever even love him?!!!” Mark screams accusatorially, his body beaten into the contours of the hard rock crater, and it takes all his strength to spit out his question

You pause for a minute, finger curled and rested below your lower lip as you processed and considered.

”I mean, of course I like him. But Mark-“ your tone is soft and gentle, like a schoolteacher “but he’s careless and stupid, he’ll die before he ever does anything of consequence.” You smiled wantonly, closing your eyes ^^

Rex can’t believe what he’s hearing, you’d been dating since you were fourteen- you’d became Teen Team members together and joined the Guardians at the same time.

You were the one who convinced him to get his GED

You were the one who patched him up by hand when he’d get into fights as a teen

He lost his virginity to you- and stayed faithful the entire five year relationship- do you KNOW how difficult that is for canon serial-cheater Rex?!!

He looked at the screen and tried to figure it out

You must be being controlled or blackmailed or something.

but Black Samson decides enough is enough and cuts the power, convincing Rex to focus on the mission at hand: helping those trapped in the wreckage of Omniman and Invincibles fight.

So off he goes, exploding rubble and pulling people out of the wreckage

And suddenly there you are

You don’t know he knows

He finds You when you pull a giant boulder off a group of preteens stuck in a broken mall

”Hey babe! I’m glad you guys started without me- sorry I’m late, I had to help Mark.”

He’s sick to his stomach just looking at you

You float down after safely depositing the boulder.

”Haiiiii :3” you lean over and give him a quick kiss, prying your hands into his

He remembers just this morning promising to pick you up and twirl you the next time he saw you, but that was when you were rushing off to support Mark

Now he’s just some dumb pet you’ve been keeping on the side.

why?

His body is frozen stiff and there’s not much chance of him moving anytime soon

you tilt your head and furrow your brow

hes acting weird

”What’s wro-“

”Fuck you!”

the gaggle of preteens from a minute ago are eating this shit up

“Rex- what? What are you-“

the look in his eyes confirms your worst nightmare. he knows.

the way the light and warmth fade from your eyes confirms Rex’s worst nightmare. You know he knows.

fuck.

well here it goes

”Fuck you- I’m not some fucking pet, I’m not your little puppet man I don’t do a fucking puppet dance!” His palms are glowing red by his side, clenched into tight fists.

“how dare you! Howwwww fu-cking DARE YOU!” He’s just yelling, and Monster Girl comes over to remove him, not wanting him to get his fucking head taken off by the newly evil Viltrumite person she thought was her teammate

“Ahahhahahahaaaaa don’t mind him, he had a dream about you cheating! Haha!!!” She’s covering his mouth with him tucked under her arm, fucking hightailing it as fast as she can

But not fast enough. The jig is up, you can feel it. Might as well tie up loose ends.

Theres nobody around to witness you punch Monster Girls heart through her chest, clenching her first and popping it like a water balloon all over you and Rex.

Youre standing over him now, he’s on the ground looking up at you

”Did it mean anything? Did I even matter to you?!” He demands, shaking his head viciously

”Oh… oh Rex…” your schoolteacher voice is back as you crouch down, pushing a piece of his hair behind his ear

“Of course it did, I loved you.” You paused a beat “But it was more like how you love a pet.” You cooed, continuing to push his hair around, like you were petting him

he smacked your hand away, and you caught it by the wrist, snapping it

“But I think this little blip has run its course.”

he watched helplessly as you stepped on his chest with one foot, bringing yourself to your feet and hovering the other over his face

“Im breaking up with you”

crunch.

his brains spilled over the pavement, mixing with the blood from Amanda’s heart.

you grimaced at the sight of your first love splayed out on the city sidewalk in front of you, mushy under your boot.

Youd miss him, you thought to yourself. But you could always find another one.

Cecil Stedman (much smaller bc I’m weak)

After the events of season one and Shapesmith , Cecil can’t help but need verification on the identity on every Guardian of the Globe.

which means blood tests for everyone

you secretly swap yours with human blood

but Cecil takes your blood while you sleep, nice try.

It’s not that he suspects you, but because he need to be sure

he doesn’t have a job where he can just fuck around.

and the test results come back Viltrumite, like Mark and Nolan’s blood yours is uniquely shaped

hes surprised he didn’t notice it before when doing standard labs on you.

and now he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The next few months are him pretending not to know while desperately trying to find a way to shut you down…. All while praying you’re here for good reasons.

Mark is the only one who’s been told about you, but god… he’s just a teenager, and he wants information you ought to have.

and he learns some stuff.

”Mark, ask them about their origin, get them to admit why they came to earth!”

Mark inquires as to what led you to earth, and you take a moment to be vulnerable.

”Yknow, I know you don’t agree with your dad, but I’m also a Viltrumite sent to colonize earth- although I’m just here as backup for when Nolan gets back.” You shrugged, a sanguine smile like always

”what about the guardians? What about Cecil?”

you raised an eyebrow “oh come on, Nick. Cecil’s ancient and I’m going to live for thousands of years. He’ll be dead before I begin to wrinkle. I was only with him to give Nolan an eye on the inside.”

Cecil is slackjawed at this, and scrambling to find some sort of way to- kill you?

could Cecil even do that?

heartless gilf he is, he loves you

he loved you

and he thought you loved him

He married you for christs sake- he swore to god and the government and every superhero on earth that he’d protect you and stay by your side until he died.

but this…. Fuck….

were you even the person he married?

Donald had to take over while Cecil spiraled, coordinating every bomb to stay trained on your location, and instructing Mark to get you somewhere remote.

“maaaark, why are we in the dessert?”

Mark didn’t have a good answer

”Oh, yknow. It’s scenic.”

you raised an eyebrow

weird but wtv, mark was a weird dude you guessed

Then Mark gets all panicky

”oh uh I forgot my camera! I’ll be right back stay here!”

and he’s gone

and the fucking BOMBS START DEPLOYING WHAT THE FUCK-

You call Cecil over your earpiece, trying to get a grip on what’s even happening

When he picks up his voice is stoic and cold

”I know what you are, surrender or die.”

oh shit.

ohhhhhh shit

Mark you little weasel.

You fly straight for HQ, crashing into the building in front of Cecil

It’s a classic showdown, you looking down at him and him looking up at you

in better circumstances you would’ve kissed him

instead he narrows his eyes and furrows his brow further, taking a step forward, your noses pressed together

”You heard me. Surrender or die.”

you cocked your head “And what if I kill you and everyone here?”

He falters, a glimpse of fear and sadness in his eyes

“Then you better do it before my men have you dead on the ground.”

you stare right back at him, waiting to see who breaks.

His scarred mouth twitches, a muscle memory from when he would’ve kissed you for being this close

not anymore.

You knit your brows together, pain coloring your expression

“I… I can’t do it.”

before Cecil can respond, much like Nolan, you fly off into space, leaving Cecil a wreck

He flings his wedding band at the big monitor, cracking it with the force of the unbeatable metal

unbreakable like your vows

like hell.

Donald watches as he grits his teeth and gets to work minimizing damages

Never again.

[ihavetoomanyocsdealwithit]

You break down into tears and tell them: "It’s been so long since I’ve felt this happy, I think I just got overwhelmed. You make me happy.” 

Heartslabyul dorm; Savanaclaw dorm (here); Octavinelle dorm; Scarabia dorm; Pomefiore Dorm; Ignihyde Dorm; Diasomnia Dorm

Leona Kingscholar – It isn’t often that his dorm throws a feast, but when they do they party like, well, animals. He knows that you haven’t had a chance to really experience any of the cultures outside of the Isle, and let’s be honest, if there is anybody who needed a break in this damn school, it was you.  

You had crashed into his lounging spot, legs weak from dancing and a drink placed in your hand. He doesn’t think anything of it, telling you that it’s safe. He had meant the drink. But when you look at him, you hear something different. Something whole, something that echoes in the way he shares his bed with you, his dorm, his food, his people, rough and tumble as they are. Even when you are fighting to earn your share, you know that he wouldn’t allow things to go too far.  

When he looks at you trying to hide the tears, and even your soft explanation, he understands completely. By the Ancestors does he understand.  

He pulls you deeper into his chair, his jacket tossed over your head as he hides your weakness in the seclusion and dark.  

“One day, you’ll get the lion’s share.” He rumbles, rubbing at your arms while you sip on your drink. “Joy will crack under your teeth and you will never hunger for it again.”  

Ruggie Bucci – It isn’t often that they hold a feast at Savanaclaw but when they do they party like, well, animals. Ruggie especially has been looking forward to this for weeks. Free food, great drinks, dancing until the sun comes up, and all those delicious leftovers to snack on and hide away!  

He never expected to get you on the dance floor, but you learn fast, hips swaying and stomping with beats from his home. It’s only when you two finally come together, sweating and out of breath that he realizes.  

When you explain though, he starts laughing, his own tears pinpricking until the both of you are simply taken off the floor, your hysterical laughter almost concerning. Ruggie picks the both of you up, splits a donut and eases the both of you back into the couches.  

“We are going to be rich in joy one day,” he tells you, eyes shining as he wipes the tears from both of your eyes, “You’ll be drunk of it, with no end in sight.”  

Jack Howl – You are one of the few people who will at least try and keep up on his runs, and he appreciates it. He knows it’s mainly for the views at the end, but you come none the less, and it’s nice to have a running buddy, even if he has to run a bit slower for you.  

When the sun peaks out over the water, it’s a sunrise he’s seen a dozen times over. The sun in bringing a glow to your face, the wind tossing your hair around, he still appreciates little moments like these were the both of you get to get away. That’s when he sees the small trail ghosting over your cheek.  

He doesn’t fully understand, but he pulls you in anyway, nuzzling into your neck until you start giggling from his hair.  

“Most people don’t cry when they’re happy, you know.” He murmurs, but his tail is going a mile a minute behind him.  

[tozettastone]

Okay, the results of my Bleach OC character poll specified: Hollow, needs a little treat, bad eyesight, causes catastrophic plot derailment.

Here's a very rambling draft (about twice as long as it needs to be lbr) of how that might begin. I've named her Espina Espinosa, but her name doesn't come up at all in this which I guess is part of how you know it's a first cut draft lol.

---

Sometimes, you just need a little treat to get you through the day. Or, in my case, the night: in hueco mundo, it was all night, all the time.

You know, I thought when I dropped out of my university classes in a wash of shame and humiliation that my life was basically suffering. It was as if, having forsaken my higher education, I was then destined to be trapped in my one room in a sharehouse and stacking shelves all night for my pittance forever.

Spoiler: it was not forever! It was barely six months! And then I got hit by a train, crossed over to the other side — which was apparently a fucking anime, by the way, more on THAT later — and lost years and years to scrabbling around in the desert like an animal. I didn't remember who I was until I emerged from the Forest of Menos as an adjuchas, trembling like a newborn foal and panicked about my weird undead body.

And then I really knew what it really meant to say 'my life is suffering.'

Suffering is being a fully grown human personality stuck inside an undead lizard, living in a lightness hellscape and eating other undead animals just to survive.

I got more humanoid over time. Once I finally hit vasto lorde, the hunger was way less demanding and the risk of regressing and losing my personality was eliminated. Vasto lordes did not regress. They just died.

...If something could kill one.

Today's reasons as to why I deserved a little treat were as follows:

- My vasto lorde body was clearly designed by Kubo Tite. I was a nightmare of spiky armour and claws, with no real face, but god forbid I get around without built-in high heels and smooth, round, pendulous boobs. My adjuchas form had been a spined lizard. I was not even a mammal. Why did I need boobs? What were they for? Why were they the size of my head? Just the demands of the story in which I found myself, I was pretty sure.

- I had minimal access to goods or services of any kind, because Hueco Mundo, right? And it was hard to stay long in the human world to get anything because just showing up tended to freak the shinigami out. Like, vasto lorde-class menos were nigh mythological, we were so rare, and even if I suppressed my presence so people on the ground couldn't sense me organically, shinigami researchers had instruments for this. Ugh.

- I was constantly hunted by other hollows, especially powerful adjuchas on the look out for advancement. Eating a vasto lorde basically guaranteed they'd get the power they needed to become one. Today, one of them had left a nasty bite on my spiky tail and I'd eaten him, as he deserved. But it hurt, and I cried about it, because... I was still a giant baby who cried when I got hurt.

- Bored, bored, oh my god, bored. So bored.

- I'd broken my glasses, AGAIN, because I had no goddamn ears to keep them on, and my mask was a... challenging surface.

Most hollows somehow didn't seem to get bored in hueco mundo. They roamed the sands, ate each other, fought a lot, made occasional uneasy alliances, and napped.

But I had a very good memory of my last life, back when I was not an unrealistically buxom masked lizard woman, and all this shit was just a daydream from a manga.

I got so bored. I wanted something to do other than running away, lying down, or smacking weaker hollows.

So every... period of time? ... well, once I presumed the shinigami had stopped worrying about it, anyway, I took a little jaunt to the human world and treated myself. And, like, what was a little shoplifting if you were already dead, am I right?

I had a sweet tooth, and I liked jewellery and books. Hueco mundo was boring and lightless, but if you could curl up in a cave with a heavy duty flashlight, a pile of candy and a novel, you could just about pretend you were somewhere else for a while.

But visiting the human world and getting stuff was a pretty full-on operation. I had to pick places where there was enough ambient reiatsu to hide what leaked through my suppression, and there were not many of them. Then, it was often better to visit in the middle of the night, because if I tried to shoplift while surrounded by people — look, a vasto lorde has a lot of reiatsu and human beings are, on average, fragile. It was better to browse a dark shop after hours. And the last thing was: there was no optometrist in hueco mundo, because it was just kind of full of cannibal demons who wanted to eat me. I just had to stop by a chemist that stocked glasses and guess my prescription based on vibes. It sucked. A lot. And then when I inevitably broke them again, I stopped being able to read my little stash of novels and got quite sad.

So on that night, with my busted glasses and six Vampire Hunter D novels waiting in my cave, I decided I deserved a little treat and I did something kiiiiiind of stupid.

Despite knowing that it was exactly where the plot of Bleach was hiding.... I went to Karakura in Tokyo.

It wasn't as stupid as it sounded, you know. Sure, I knew they monitored for every garganta, yes. But I also knew that there was so much reiatsu in Karakura. If I crushed mine down enough, I was absolutely certain I could hide beneath the suffocating blanket that was Kurosaki Ichigo.

I opened my garganta for maybe half a second and slipped through with my reiryoku squished into a tiny ball inside my belly, so scrunched up it left my claws tingling with cold. From the sky, I pinpointed two pretty obvious locations: the Urahara Shoten and the hospital. Then, because I wasn't goddamn suicidal, I picked the furthest point away from both of them that still fell within the range of Kurosaki's spiritual pressure and made that my landing point.

There was a big labyrinthine train station, a bunch of warehouses huddling miserably behind it, and a series of cramped stores all piled in on each other lining the nearby streets, poised to catch commuters as they went by. A few of the bigger ones were still lit up from the inside, bright lights glowing out. But it was very late indeed, and almost everything was closed. The local 7-eleven was apparently open from 7 AM to midnight, a rarity even on the outskirts of this twenty-four hour city.

I couldn't find a good chemist, but there was one of those travellers' shops next to the station that stocked an array of low-prescription glasses, which would do in a pinch. I looked both ways — as though there were any cars on the streets at three o'clock in the morning, and as though any could damage me if they were — and scuttled up to the darkened window.

After a quick inspection to confirm the existence of glasses inside, I tapped my claws on the reinforced glass. It cracked, one long jagged line through the glass. I tapped again, and it shattered into a multitude of glittery pieces.

I hopped inside, heedless of the glass. My skin was next-level tough, even among hollows of my class.

Very likely the cameras wouldn't catch me at all, but what they would see is floating glasses, which wasn't necessarily much better for the humans' peace of mind. Ideally, I'd get this done and nobody would be any the wiser about any mysterious activities relating to a break in. I paced the shop, squinting around for cameras.

There was an alarm system in place. It was armed, so it started wailing about thirty seconds after the glass broke, flooding the dark street with noise. A few lights went on above stores, but mostly it remained dark — this wasn't a residential district.

There were two, blinking green lights from either end of the store, so I jumped up and ripped them both out of the ceiling, sending a rain of plaster dust down upon me to get caught in my spikes. Who knew what the owners would make of that, but probably they wouldn't automatically think it was a hungry ghost.

Glasses were stored neatly on a circular stand, ordered by strength — which, of course, I couldn't read, because I needed glasses. I plucked pairs at random and crammed my mask's eye holes up against five of them in quick succession. The fifth let me read the prescription information, so I decided that was good enough to be going on with.

My mask did not come off, obviously — trying to get out off hurt like all hell, and I didn't know if I needed to be an arrancar badly enough to go through with that — and it was covered in angular, stylised spikes, and I had wide useless little horns but no fucking ears. So my new glasses were sitting kind of lopsided, but as usual when I got a pair, I was excited about how much I could see with them.

The humming of a drinks fridge attracted me, briefly, on my way out, the way a fire attracts a moth. Did I want a soft drink? I did like the ramune ones with the little marble... And I could read the labels, which was a huge novelty.

I'd spotted a 7-eleven on the way, though, and I wanted to see if they had a slurpee machine. They were pretty rare in Japan, generally, but if they didn't have one I'd still be able to get a different sugary drink there.

I hesitated for a second, thinking about the wisdom of this plan. I should get out of here, probably, but... If I'm honest with you, my spirit rebelled. Did I truly not deserve a slurpee? A single fucking slurpee?

So, anyway, I broke into the 7-eleven. No, I didn't need to. Fight me. (But, er... don't, actually. I am a delicate flower.)

I stepped outside the store and — okay, listen, in my defence, the shop's alarm was really loud and I was busy clutching my slurpee in my clawed hands and marvelling at my semi-okay vision through the only-slightly-lopsided glasses I'd swiped. I did not immediately hear him, and I wasn't actually looking for shinigami using persquisa because I'd carefully marked where the Urahara Shoten and the Hospital were, and I had avoided them so carefully.

So, from my perspective, there was no reason to worry about shinigami, until I came out of the 7-eleven squinting at the text on the side of my slurpee cup, and then almost walked straight into one.

And not, like, a little one, either. It was a lot like being surprised by the sudden introduction of a spider — like, you know, if it's a little house spider, you might twitch, but if you turn around and see a twelve inch birdeating spider on the wall, you might actually just shit yourself.

Anyway, I slunk out of the seven eleven store, ignoring the alarm, completely absorbed in my slurpee, and then almost walked face first into Hirako Shinji.

He was actually perfectly recognisable from canon. He was about an inch shorter than me, skinny, and wearing a long grey coat, presumably because it was the middle of the night and cold enough to freeze your nipples off. (Still warmer than hueco mundo.) His blond hair really did fall in a perfectly smooth pageboy down past his chin, like it was all one meticulously styled piece. It probably wasn't. It was like my lizard tits: demands of the setting. Loads of people had hair that looked styled and required no styling.

Just in case you're wondering, on the Unexpected Spider Encounter Scale, Hirako was probably, like, one of those Colombian giant tarantulas.

I froze.

He stared at me.

A vasto lorde was scary shit in her own environment, so I was probably worth a stare. However! (A huge, flashing neon 'however'!)

A veteran shinigami captain was scarier.

Especially since I was a pretty weak vasto lorde, all things considered, and Hirako was... well, if I remembered right, he was not necessarily one of the weaker shinigami captains.

I was used to fighting adjuchas who were aggressive, hungry and bestial, and I mostly got around them by being like... marginally smarter than they were. I distracted them or trapped them.

I did not highly rate my ability to trap or distract Hirako. For one, he was an actual military officer.

For the first time I realised exactly how unfair Aizen must have been to his little arrancar army. Hollows were killers, but we weren't soldiers. Our only training was in appetence and its satisfactions.

I stared, frozen, at Hirako and blinked rapidly.

In hindsight, I would eventually come to understand what this looked like from his perspective: he came to investigate the unsteady flickering of hollow reiatsu and the alarm, but discovered a surprise vasto lorde — already so vanishingly rare as to be basically mythological — wearing lopsided reading glasses and clutching a slurpee like her life depended on it, outside the broken window of a 7-eleven at three in the morning.

"...I saw that, Hollow-san," he said slowly, looking at the broken window. His eyes drifted from the window to me and back.

I squeaked. My claws dug straight through the cardboard slurpee cup. "Um," I said, slowly. "Do you... perhaps... also want a slurpee?"

With both slurpee-clutching hands, I gestured towards the store and the source of the screaming siren.

Hirako tapped his zanpakuto on his shoulder, squinting at me like I was something new and strange and he had not quite settled on his opinion of me yet. I did not like that.

"Think I'll pass," he drawled. His Kansai Japanese was actually pretty new to me; there was no need for me to ever go to the Kansai region. What was even there? Osaka? Was there a Soul Society version of Osaka? "You came to the living world for a slurpee?"

I inched sideways so maybe my back could not be to the building and I could get a clear path of retreat by which to mcfucking book it down the street.

"As you see," I hedged, holding the cup out like it would protect me from him. It would absolutely not protect me. His zanpakuto would go through it, and probably also me, like fucking pudding. "Slurpee."

His facial expression was doing something super complicated. "That... might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, it feels dumb now," I muttered.

The alarm seemed so so loud. I would have wrinkled my nose but, unfortunately, my face was covered in bone. Hollow problems.

"Look, Shinigami-san, isn't it a global chain? They'll have insurance for break-ins." Probably. "I'm just here to get my glasses and my slurpee."

"Insurance," he repeated. The sword went tap-tap-tap. I could see the tendon flexing in his wrist where the cuff of his shirt did not quite cover it. "Uh-huh. Sure. They got insurance. They're teaching you about insurance in vasto lorde school now?"

Vasto lorde school was just regular school, was the rub there: hollows were all just human souls, after all. Fucked up human souls, but just human souls. I didn't say it.

"You're giving everyone in a twenty kilometre radius nightmares," he pointed out, mouth tugging down.

In my defence, I simply couldn't prevent that, just like I couldn't prevent the yowling cats. Besides, what was one bad night's sleep? Nothing, honestly. Come on. Don't be such a coward!

"Sorry?" I offered. Obviously, I was not sorry, but his expression made it seem lke I should at least lie about it.

He opened his mouth to speak and gestured — with his sword. Seeing the zanpakuto swish in the air made me jump. My new glasses, absolutely predictably, flew right off my mask and hit the pavement with a heart-rending crack.

"No!" I gasped, and nearly dropped my slurpee on top of them. I crouched down to grasp at them but the lenses were, of course, already fucked. I couldn't see it very clearly, but I could sure feel the jagged cracks with my fingertips.

"No, no, no," I chanted. "Nooo."

In a flash, the horrible future unfolded before me: long periods of endless night, alone, unable to even pass the time with a book, stuck in a cave. It would be ages before I could creep into another human city with another garganta. My reiatsu suppression just wasn't good enough to hide from the technological sensors the shinigami used, and a vasto lorde in the human world put them on highest possible alert.

Karakura was probably the only exception, because Ichigo, but now there would be other shinigami here expecting me. If I tried to come back here, surely I'd be getting a face full of another vaizard, or maybe Urahara.

It all seemed so overwhelming. I really just wanted to have a slurpee and read my book. Didn't I deserve that much?

I made one of the more pathetic noises it's possible for a hollow to make, a sad little multitonal keen.

Whatever Hirako had been saying (to which I had naturally stopped listening, due to the tragedy that had befallen me) stopped abruptly.

"Are you crying?" His voice was unflatteringly incredulous.

I probably was, though. I patted my mask. It was kinda damp, yeah.

"No," I lied, with a highly telling warble in my voice.

[callme-holly]

OKAYY so can you plz plz do likeee an imagine where reader is just super duper clingy and is on dally’s lap clinging into him and she whispers and murmurs how much she loves and wants him, and he like teases her and is super cocky about it but it’s all playful in the end and he adores her (he just doesn’t show it too much ofc bc, it’s dally cmon)

𝐟𝐢𝐤𝐚 [𝐝𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫]

fika: (n.) a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life

The Curtis house was surprisingly settled, the TV playing on low in the background, it’s static filling the room, keeping the attention of the loudest members of the gang. Darry was in the kitchen, cooking up dinner with whatever leftovers they  had from the night before, and Pony was curled up in the armchair, dozing silently. Usually, he’d be spread out across the couch, and so would Soda, Steve, and Two-Bit; however, the three had been forced to the floor by you and Dallas, who were taking up the entirety of the small seat.

Dallas was lounged back against the cushions, looking far to comfortable and at ease, an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips and you in his lap, your face tucked in the crook of his neck.

Your breath was warm, fanning out across the expanse of his skin and sending the occasional jolt through his body. It was rare that he’d let you cuddle up against him like this; he much preferred to have you pressed up against him in a less affectionate way, but he could tell you needed this, and the other boys hadn’t said anything about it yet, so he was more than happy to just let you be. He toyed idly with the ends of your hair, twirling the strands around his finger and watching it unravel slowly before repeating the action again. The moment was strangely peaceful, your hands curled into the fabric of his shirt, almost as if you were holding onto him, afraid he'd move you and break the tranquil moment that has settled over the both of you. 

"I love you..." Your voice is a low murmur, muffled from where your face is hidden, and he glances down at you, something akin to amusement flashing across his features. You're half asleep, not fully gone, but just teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, your body pretty much dead weight against him. 

"Yeah?" he hums, shifting slightly to get more comfortable. "What do you love about me, sweetheart?" He speaks low in your ear, loud enough so that only you can hear, though everyone else is the room is drowsy in their own comfort that he doubts they'd point out his affection anyway.

You're quiet for a few moments before letting out a soft breath. "Everything. Your voice, your accent, your face..."   rumbles deep in his chest, and he tilts your chin up gently, forcing you to meet his gaze.

"Is that all?" There's not an ounce of malice in his voice, just pure fondness and a hint of teasing and cockiness that never quite leaves. 

"There's other things... We'd be here a while, though." You let your head fall back to his chest once more, and he doesn't proest when you cuddle close and cling to him, instead resigning to his fate, relaxing under you with a huff.

"You're half asleep, baby."

"No, I'm not." But there's no fight in your words. You know he's right; you're barely awake, too wrapped up in the heat and comfort of his body.

"You are. And you don't know what you're saying." He presses his lips to the side of your jaw, lingering for a moment, before pressing another just below your ear. A shudder passes through you, and he smiles against your skin, not pulling away as he speaks again. "Tell me more." 

And you do. With a small, sleepy smile, you pull back your head to look up at him, an almost dreamy, adoring look in your eyes. He's never seen anyone look at him like that before. Sure, he's seen people in love, seen the way they look at each other in that love-sick, wanting way, but he's never been on the receiving end of it. Not until now.

"You're one of my favourite people in the whole entire world. I always feel safe around you, and you're really tough, and you care about people a lot, even if you don't show it." 

You're smiling softly again, and he leans down, capturing your mouth with his in a searing kiss, his fingers gripping your hips tightly as he pulls you into him, relishing in the feeling. He's never felt like this with anyone until you, never felt comfortable enough to express how he feels. You see him, actually see him for who he is, for who he wants to be.

"So what you're saying is that you're obsessed with me, doll." He raises a brow, flashing you a cocky smirk that has butterflies erupting in your stomach, fluttering wildly.

"Something like that." You respond, eyes barely open by now, but still filled to the brim with tenderness. "Yeah..."  you sigh, melting into him once more. His warmth radiates off of him in waves, and you revel in it, nuzzling closer to him.

The TV continues to drone on in the background, but you two pay it no mind, and nobody pays you any mind, too caught up in their own worlds to even think about the one of your own that you're both so wrapped up in. You know it won't last; it never does, these soft moments with him... But you might as well enjoy it while it lasts, no matter how short that may be. 

[lsunstreakerl]

honestly, any strange ship, a while ago you had commented about Sebastian being a "guilty" "ship" something strange or guilty in that sense

this did not end up being sebastian- I mean, he's kind of there. I also need just not try and estimate word counts because this ended up being 1.3k. HI HELLO: this is from the kink prompts so it is explicit in nature, as in people are fucking and getting fucked.

pairings: mark webber/max verstappen, max verstappen/marc márquez, implied mark webber/sebastian vettel, implied daniel ricciardo/max verstappen

relevant heads up: slight exhibitionist kink, semi-socially acceptable public sex, sex under the influence of alcohol, the slightest hint of a temperature kink, mild slut shaming

Max doesn't make a habit of feeling out of place at parties, considering how often he's at them, but this-

This is totally different to anything else he knows. They're in some huge remote cabin-style resort, a weeklong trip entirely paid by Redbull.

Everyone in attendance is either an insane talent in their respect area, or a revered alum, which is how Max has found himself on his knees, Mark Webber's cock down his throat, with Sebastian Vettel piping in with incredibly unhelpful instructions.

"Little bit more tongue, yes, like that- he loves that. Hates to admit it, but nothing gets him off faster- also you'll want to close your eyes when he comes, he likes to get it all over the face, nasty-"

"Shut up."

Mark's talking to Sebastian, but Max is the one who gets his hair pulled roughly, which really doesn't feel fair here- he's not mouthing off, and it's not his fault Mark and Seb still don't have their shit figured out.

He makes a muffled noise around Mark, who groans at the vibrations, and Max realizes with a twinge of annoyance that he actually has been listening to Seb- which is fucking stupid, if Seb wants to suck Mark's cock he can come do it himself, but Max is going to do it his way.

He doesn't give any kind of warning, just watches his teeth before suddenly taking Mark all the way to the base, breathing through his nose.

He's not as impressive as Da- some other Australians Max has gotten on his knees for before.

Mark chokes on an inhale, fingers clenching in Max's hair, and Max grins to himself, because he's not Sebastian Vettel, and no matter how badly Mark wants to dominate a blonde bratty European Redbull world champion, he's not going to find it in Max.

Max deliberately moans, low and long, and Mark's hips jerk before they snap frantically into his mouth.

"Fuck- fuck, Sebastian-"

Oh come on.

People who can't call Max by his name do not get to come on his face, so he doesn't let up, keeps Mark down his throat as he comes, and it's longer than Max expected for a guy in his late forties, honestly.

Seb just laughs from his chair, and Max shoots him a glare as he pulls off, already thinking of which drink he's going to wash down the taste with.

"Cunts."

They can be weird and off putting and miserable together, Max doesn't care. It wasn't even that good anyways, and now he's not going to be able to look Oscar in the eye for a few weeks.

He stalks into the kitchen, passes Coulthard in the hallway, hopes he doesn't look too much like he just sucked off a retired driver in one of the lounge rooms.

Not that it would be surprising- Max had been freaked out the first time he was here, but he gets it now- it's like the Olympic Village. Redbull takes their hot, talented athletes, sticks them in a resort for a week, and lets them fuck like rabbits in the hopes of avoiding sex related PR crisis for the rest of the year.

It works pretty well.

He's checking for gin, fingers dancing over bottle caps, when a hand wraps around his waist, and Max knows that hand.

"Marc!"

He spins around, and then he has an armful of excitable MotoGP rider, hips pressing Max's into the counter while he's busy getting his tongue in his mouth.

Marc tastes like vodka and fireball, and Max wants to drink it straight from his system, wants to-

He pulls back for a second, meeting Marc's eyes. Marc is down for anything- Max loves that about him. The MotoGP guys know how to party.

"Do you want to do body shots and fuck on the pool table?"

Marc yanks his head back down to continue making out, one arm scrabbling behind Max for a familiar clink of a few bottles.

He pulls back to reach for some limes, and then he's grinning at Max, with his trademark brilliant smile.

"Yes!"

------

"Fuck- Marc, please, you are going to kill me-"

Max isn't used to being the one with his dick inside someone, but he's flat on his back on the table, and Marc is tight and hot and wet, sinking down onto Max, one hand braced on his chest as he grins at him.

Max tosses his head back onto the table, and his fingers are digging into Marc's thighs, corded muscle straining under his palms.

His mouth still tastes like lime and liquor, and he's pretty sure his neck is crusted with salt, and he's trying so hard not buck his hips up-

"You are so cute when you're trying to be good."

Max shudders, hands gripping tighter, and Marc is practically purring at him, because the game is that Max can't come first, and he was going to lose from the fucking start. They both knew it.

"Marc- Marc I'm gonna come, please please can I-"

Marc just shakes his head, eyes crinkled at the corner as he changes his pace on the next slide down, tight and irresistible. Max can feel himself shaking, closer and closer to the edge, and he squeezes his eyes shut, one last time-

Marc's fingers come down to pinch his nipples, and they're dripping with ice water, cold and freezing.

Max comes with a scream, back arching off the table, the sound of Marc's laughter ringing in his ears.

He's still riding the wave when Marc gets off of him, and then Max is being manhandled, rolled onto his chest as Marc knocks his knees apart. Everything is hot and cold and sensitive, and he's glad Daniel stretched him out earlier, because Marc pushes two fingers into him off the bat, scissoring Max open as he groans into the table.

"Aw, you are all loose. Whore."

Marc spits into him, and Max keens, scratchy fabric of the pool table rough against his chest, and then Marc is pushing in, splitting him wide, an endless press.

It's unfair for a man that small to be this hung.

Max is overwhelmed, slurring into the table as Marc snaps his hips in, and it's too soon from his last orgasm- he feels raw and peeled open, which is exactly when Marc leans over him, chest pressed to his back, and shoves three fingers and an ice cube into Max's mouth.

He bucks back onto Marc's cock at the sensation, the heat of his fingers and the chill of the ice, and he realizes what's next a second too late, squirming as Marc brings his other hand to wrap around his still soft cock, fingers ice cold.

"Ohhhhh, please, please-"

Marc nips at his back, and Max can feel him smiling at he starts to jack his hand, and it's too much- he feels too full, he's too raw and overwhelmed, he's pretty sure people are watching them-

Marc aims deliberately for his prostate, and Max is wailing, tips over into his second orgasm brutally, shaking to pieces underneath Marc.

He doesn't stop- his rhythm picks up, chasing his own pleasure- Max is limp, lets Marc use him however he wants, and he can't tell if it's seconds or minutes later when Marc snaps in for a final time, hips pressed flush against his ass.

Max slumps down as Marc pulls out, and then there's fingers gently patting at his cheek.

"You are as always very fun, Verstappen."

Max blinks, tries to get his brain started back up.

"Yup."

Marc giggles, and then he's gently kissing Max for a moment- he tastes like lime again.

"Thank you, you are very sweet- for being a slut."

Max half chokes on a laugh, because, well-

He kind of is. He's laid out on the pool table at what is technically a company event, and just tonight he's given multiple blowjobs, been fucked twice, and he's just come back to back.

It's a good thing they have mandatory testing before they get here.

"Anytime, Márquez."

[blueishspace]

Hero, Villain God 59

(Prev) (Next) (First)

*Scar's pov*

You never really liked hospitals, they are empty and dull and white and you go there only when something bad happens... Never a pleasant experience, you of all people have bad memories of them...

This time It's really silent too, the association pulled all the steps to keep Grian far from other patients, maybe to prevent his identity being discovered by someone wandering around.

Cub stops you in front of the door right before you can enter.

"Before we go in, Altostratus and Ocean Queen don't know Cuteguy's identity"

You forgot about that, you didn't even consider it... you feel awful, you got distracted and- not the time, you'll feel bad later, you can just ask Grian what he wants to do...yeah.

Altostratus crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. "And?"

You are the one to speak up this time around. "A-and the choice to reveal his identity is still his" Your words get caught up on eachother a bit but they must understand what you are trying to say.

"So, I'm going with Cub to ask him if he wants to do it." That should be ok right?

Altostratus goes to say something but is shushed by his wife (You are still shocked about that and no, you will not let this go, how did no one notice??). She nods in his place and hits him the head slightly when he tries to protest...

You open the door and step in, there is a corridor in front of you and at the end of it is Grian's room, as you do you hear Ocean Queen call Altostratus a "Nincompoop" from behind the door...you have no idea what that means and at this point you don't think you even want to ask.

Grian is waiting for you, you don't really question how he knew you were coming, as far as you know he just has been waiting like that for hours... You hope he hasn't done that. Maybe he just heard you! That makes more sense! You didn't really care about the noise you made so he must have noticed when you and Cub came in.

"Scar! Cub! Finally!"

He's excited? You of course It's good that he's doing good of, that's the most important thing, butbyou didn't expect this from someone who just woke up from almost dying. You just don't know how to feel, you expected him to be angry or sad or something, more then that it feels like you don't deserve to see him so happy since he got hurt because of you being careless.

"You can't believe how bored I was! Here all alone ... waiting!"

He was...bored? The room is mostly empty except for some medical machine stuff, that does seem like it would be pretty boring. You are wondering if your thought about him waiting for you the whole time might actually be what happened- Wait, you need to say something, you are usually a lot better at talking over thinking.

"Well, eh...no time to be bored with me here. And I brought friends!"

Cub nods and adds "They are heroes...but still, seeing them would have you reveal their identity to them, Scar insisted we ask you first. I agree with him."

...

Grian looks thoughtful, this is probably a really big choice for him so you understand he might need some time to make the choice-

"Sounds good to me!"

Nevermind! That was a bit fast though, you hope he doesn't feel like he has too.

"Are you sure Grian? You can say no, no one is-"

"Nah! I'm sure, bring them in! I wanted to meet the others for a while now anyway."

Oh. Oh? Oh! Well, that's good news then Cub nods again and leaves to get the others... Hopefully they'll get along well.

...

Well this is weird, Altostratus and Grian are just staring at eachother. Like they know eachother already??? I mean, Altostratus is a top hero so it makes sense for Grian to know OF him but this feels different, like they met face to face.

But you would know if something like that happened right? Grian would have definitely told you. Cub beats you to it though, you aren't surprised he noticed it too, he's very smart about these things.

"Do you two know eachother already?"

The two answer at the same time, Grian with a no and Altostratus with a yes....Ok so, something strange is definitely going on here, you akwardly look between the two. For a second Grian looks actually angry???? Frustrated at least. You don't think you ever seen him make an expression like that, it disappears immediately but you can swear it was there.

. . . Huh

*End of Chapter 11*

[fiveredlights]

under the whispering door by TJ Klune given the maxiel treatment—but i only read the blurb, the top goodreads reviews and the free kindle sample because i haven’t decided if i want to pay $10 to read the book yet

“Ah.” Daniel brings the tea up to his lips, aggressively huffing out short and sharp breaths. The steam bends in Max’s direction, like the chicanes on circuits he’s driven on throughout his whole life. Or well. The chicanes he used to drive on.

Daniel takes a sip, hissing through his front teeth, before biting down on his tongue, cursing the teacup like it personally set out on a vendetta against him. He drops the tea down, the murky brown splashing along the rim and onto the table.

It’s kind of stupid, Max thinks. To be trivialised by silly things like the temperature of tea. It’s not like he could harm himself further.

“My official title is Ferryman,” Daniel continues, looking back up and smiling at Max. He wonders if he bit hard enough if he would still bleed. Can people still bleed here?

Max raises his eyebrows. “Ferryman?”

“You know? Because we ferry people to and from realms. Like a boat.” He holds his fist and pumps it up and down two times. “Choo-choo.”

“I know what a ferry is, Daniel.” If he didn’t watch the dirt be shovelled on top of his casket, Max might’ve thought he was hallucinating. Or in a coma. Maybe both. “And trains make the choo-choo sound, not ferries. Is that how boats sound in New Zealand?”

Daniel, for his part, doesn’t bat an eye. He tilts his head, ever so slightly and leans in, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. Max almost tells him to get his elbows off the table. “You and I both know you’ve been to Australia too many times to confuse the accents for another.”

Max blinks a couple times, and Daniel just leans further in, smiling even harder. Another stupid thing, to add to the list. Something deep in his gut swirls larger every second he witnesses Daniel’s smile.

He wants to punch it off his face.

“I’m good at my job, Max,” Daniel says, with an air of almost too much confidence, considering his job is to literally just walk people into the afterlife. A dog could do it. “Best to not keep secrets from each other, hey?”

“If you knew who I was, then why ask anyway?” Max questions.

Daniel seems to seriously consider it, searching Max’s eyes for something. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he’s definitely trying to find something. Maybe he’s a mind reader too.

“I think people are more complex than words on paper,” Daniel replies. Definitely not a mind reader. “I want to know who you say you are.”

Max picks up his tea, watches as Daniel tracks every minuscule movement he makes, eyes flicking down to his mouth as he mimics the two puffs of breath Daniel did minutes earlier. He didn’t need to.

The tea is uncomfortably lukewarm.

“That’s very generous of you,” Max eventually settles on. “Usually people have already decided who I am without even asking or knowing me.”

“Like I said,” Daniel finally drops his chin off his hand and the elbow off the table, leaning back in his chair. “I’m good at my job. That’s why I stay,” he says, grinning.

Most of his shiny pearlescent teeth are on display, and it feels like the grin of a wild and crazed animal trapped in its cage, baring their teeth as a method of distraction.

He would know. Max has spent a long time watching his smile transform into something that could bite. He perfected it enough to sink and burrow underneath his thick skin, so it would be easier to sink it into someone else’s.

“I thought we weren’t keeping secrets from each other?” Max asks, running his tongue on the sharp edges of his upper teeth.

It’s incredibly satisfying to witness Daniel slowly absorb what he’s saying, attempting to shutter himself up before Max can dig any further.

“No. No I guess not,” Daniel echoes, bringing his teacup up, slowly sipping the tea. There’s no slow and sharp huffs of air, just someone who is trying to pretend he hasn’t been pierced through his soul.

It’s too late.

Max has already bitten.

[angelyuji]

no love like caleb's love

helloo my silliesss a lot of discourse going down on ladstwt and honestly... idgaf what people like to think abt the characters. unless its a huge mischaracterization then im like "HE WOULD NEVER DO THATT" but then again, fanfiction is called fan-fiction for a reason lolol also i know some people get the ick from caleb calling mc pipsqueak but i like it. i also like when sylus calls mc kitten. idc i love it

18+!!!!!!!!!! MINORS DNI!!!!!!!!!!

caleb (love and deep space) x gn!reader

cw // fauxcest, COLLEGE MC AND CALEB, dubcon, gaslighting, mild violence, general yandere-ness (lmk if im missing any tags plss)

your chest hurts as you sob, sitting on the floor of your room. a knock sounds at the door, “hey pipsqueak, guess who?” you rush to open the door, throwing yourself into caleb’s arms. he laughs, “yeah, i missed you-“ he steps back, seeing your tears, “what happened?”

“he cheated on me, caleb." you sob into caleb's shoulder, he was the only one you could rely on in the end. he lets you cry, rubbing your back.

"listen, (y/n)," caleb squeezes your cheeks as you look up at him, "he was a waste of space in your life anyway. a good for nothing asshole." you snort and caleb smiles, he presses a kiss to your forehead. "stop crying about him... let me make you feel better." his lips go to your neck, teeth grazing your pulse point, but you push him away.

"caleb!" your face heats up, "w-we can't! i-i can't." you swallow, letting the fire in your stomach quell. caleb frowns, but relents, stepping back out of your room.

he gives you a leisurely smile, "feel better, pipsqueak."

"he told me to break up with you." "he made it all up, (y/n)." "look at the texts he'd been sending me." "he's sick."

you didn't know who had texted you the rumors of him cheating, but the proof the asshole had showed you was enough for you to doubt caleb's intentions. you sit in the dining room when a knock at the front door pulls you from your thoughts. "come in, the door's unlocked." you call out. caleb peeks his head in, his cheeky smile resting on his face. for a second you hesitate to ask, but seeing the conflicted emotions on your face, caleb frowns. he sits down across from you, eyes scanning your face. you take a sip of your water, nervous.

"you know, you should keep your door locked. it could've been some maniac at the door, not me." he shakes his head with a smile, "did grandma and i not teach you better?" he pretends to sigh disappointedly. you roll your eyes.

"caleb... i need to ask you something..." you wring your hands. he doesn't respond, waiting for you to continue. you take a breath, "that jerk... he told me that you threatened him... that you made up the rumors... is that-" you look at caleb, anger dripping from your voice, "is that true?" caleb doesn't say anything, watching your face.

he looks down with a sigh, "yeah... it's true." you stand up, abruptly, sending your chair shrieking. caleb jolts, watching you stomp around the table to him. you grab his collar in your fists.

"why. what were you thinking, caleb." you shake him and he lets you. his hands grab yours, tightening to force you to let go.

"(y/n), it was for your own good-" you let him go, letting him slump in the chair.

"for my own good? FOR MY OWN GOOD?" you could barely contain your anger. you fight the urge to slap your best friend, choosing to grab your glass and dump your water on his head. he blinks, straightening in shock.

his eyes narrow, "you feel better now?"

"no." you slam your glass on the table, turning to storm back to your room. caleb grabs your hand and pulls you back into his lap. you try to fight it, but he keeps his grip tight. you look away, rage turning to tears. "how could you do this to me, caleb?" he rubs your back and you melt into his hold.

a few minutes of silence passes as caleb comforts you, "he wasn't good for you, (y/n). i know who's good for you, and.... it wasn't him."

you look up at him, "then who's gonna be good enough for you, caleb? or will i have to spend the rest of my life alone." you sniffle, trying to get off him. caleb tightens his hold on you. he swallows, eyes falling to your lips.

"you won't be alone... i'll be there, pipsqueak." he presses his lips to yours and you squeak in surprise. you try to push him off, but his hands squeeze your waist. you yelp in pain and he mumbles against your lips, "just let me take care of you." he continues, his hand moving up to your chest. he looks at you, waiting for a reaction. "all i want to do is take care of you, (y/n). you... you're the only person i care about. the only person i love..." you hold back a whimper as his thumb caresses your nipple. you give him a small nod and you melt into his touch.

[nerdsnuff]

hello!! not sure if you're taking requests but if you are could we possibly get mark boyfriend headcanons?

🐊 MARK BERSKII BOYFRIEND HC’S

MY FIRST REQUEST OHMY GOD GUYYYSSSSS YHANK YOU SO MUCH OFC ILL TAKE IT HERE U GO I HOPE I DID HIM JUSTICE I LOVE MARK MY INDONESIAN KING anyway diana/mark friendship mentionedddd :P sorry took long </3

cw for descriptions of smoking.

𓆊 before dating and before getting close, you bet he was shy as as fuck. probably ran away from you a lot (not too literally, but would shy away from long conversations) and always be visibly red with how pale he is

𓆊 during the confession, he was so nervous that you got nervous too. he was a stuttering mess

“i uh—okay…” he mumbles something you can’t hear. you attempt to listen closely as he mumbles something. “look… i like you alright… it’s fine if you don’t like me back i just thought it’d be a good time to tell you…”

𓆊 anyway, with a lot of convincing you two date. THUMBS UP. HOORAY. he was super shy in the beginning it took awhile for him to comfortably do a lot. but he always tried to be affectionate. imagine shy hand holding! where he starts off by slowly intertwining your fingers before fully wrapping around yours.

𓆊 if you smoke, oh you KNOW he’d do it with you. he’ll share his cigarettes with you (only a few though) and do that romantic thing where he lights your cig with his.

he leans leans closer to you, cigarettes being the only thing keeping your faces apart. without a word he puts his cigarette against yours. you inhale, the sound of burning paper crackling very lowly between the two of you. once lit, he pulls away, swiping the cigarette off his mouth as he blows out smoke. the exchange was silent, and you simply admire your boyfriend with a slight blush on your cheeks, noticing how nice he looks. though you got so distracted that you almost forget to exhale too.

𓆊 if you don’t smoke that’s fine, but he’ll still smoke in front of you so you’ll smell like cigs after every hangout with him lol! just so you know, he would NOT smoke around you if you’re uncomfortable or can’t handle it. he may have an addiction but he is respectful!!!! either way yes you should bring perfume btw especially if you live with people who wouldn’t be cool with the smell of smoke.

you grimace as he blows smoke onto your face, giggling afterwards despite your sour face. “hahah, sorry. you bought perfume right?” you let him know you did, and he smiles. “okay, good”

𓆊 he loves sharing things… he’ll share his beanie, he’ll share his jackets, he’ll share his cigs and lighters, he’ll share his ear/headphones. you could say it’s a love language.

“don’t listen to diana. i don’t have lice, she’s lying!” you couldn’t help but laugh as he grumbles and protests, trying to get you to wear his beloved gator beanie. of course you don’t believe her, it’s just fun to mess with him. you then mention his oily hair, backing up your excuse as to why you still don’t wanna wear it. he rolls his eyes. “come on, if you have such a problem with it then maybe you should just… wash it for me or something” he suggests bashfully.

𓆊 won’t ask, but he needs reassurance once awhile. you’ll notice him looking down sometimes, drooped eyes more droopier and sadder than usual; that’s when you know you’ll need to say some sweet words to him. it helps, even if he doesn’t show it. it’s nice to know you’re there for him when he needs a shoulder.

𓆊 he has the sweetest cat, who loves you too. you always come home from his house littered in white cat fur even if you dust yourself off before leaving, haha. it’s suggested to not wear black when coming over.

𓆊 sometimes (a lot of times) gets jealous of his cat LOLLLL but only when you give her more attention than him

mark breaks the silence between the two of you with a grumble, snapping your attention away from his cat. politely, he pulls his cat away from your grasp and set her on the floor. once she walks away mark turns back to face you with full attention, the same amount you’re now giving him instead of his furry companion. he doesn’t spare a moment to speak before burying his face in the crook of your neck. his hot breath tickles you as he mumbles, “you’ve been paying more attention to my cat than me. so now that she moved it’s my turn. unless you only came over to see her…”

𓆊 absolutely yes to cat cafe dates. DUH! he likes how peaceful they are, and he’s surrounded by some of the things he loves most, you and cats.

𓆊 after dating long enough, he gifted you a gag gift of those rollers used to remove animal fur from your clothes. you always bring it when you come over and you never forget cause he’s always there to remind you to bring it.

𓆊 has tried to make some beats for you once and you loved it obviously. he tried to match it to your music taste so you’d like it more.

𓆊 you guys would absolutely share songs and he’ll absolutely judge you (LIGHTHEARTEDLY AND JOKINGLY) if he thinks something you shared is bad.

[deluluass]

It's all over now, baby blue (3/12)

Ushijima Wakatoshi/Female Reader/Oikawa Tooru

Multi-chapter sequel to "Red, like Blood. Blue, like Love."

General Warnings:  rape/noncon; nsfw; depictions of post traumatic stress disorder; a lot of negative self-talk (reader pov) Chapter warnings: internalized misogyny (reader pov); recreational drug use (by other characters); sexual content

“Do… you have a soulmate…?”

It was an inane question. You knew that, even before you uttered it. Ask the lady that called soulmates bullshit if she had a soulmate, why don’t you? However, as of this very moment, this woman was no longer just the same one that Hana Misaki had to impress; the one with the important title that went on for forever. 

To you, she was now the one to whom you’d committed every single social blunder that featured in your worst nightmares against– stuttering, throwing up, cursing, etcetera. You checked your pants to make sure that they’re still dry. You sighed.

Thank all that is merciful that you haven’t done that yet. 

Chief of everything, humiliation and stupidity included, was the current reality that she was now that woman whom you’re sharing a makeshift seat with, your thighs sharing warmth and shoulders leaning against each other– the only thing keeping the other’s unbearable weight from crashing. 

“Me? A soulmate?” she muttered. 

“A soulmate, yeah.”

“Nope.” The woman turned to you, smiled, before pointing to her eyes. “What would be the point anyway? These old things up here could never be trusted with blues. And other colors.”

Your heart seized. She was still amused, like she was waiting for you to laugh. You didn’t.

“I’m- I’m sorry–” Your hand, in want of other things to do, reached for hers. “That was so insensitive– I mean– I shouldn’t have just assumed that you’re–”

Her smile stretched, eyes becoming more luminous, until all of her teeth showed. This close you could see a chipped front tooth. At the confusion that must have spilled across your face, the woman threw her head back, and then laughter—the kind exhumed from the belly, bounced across the parking lot.

“God forgive me, kid,” she chortled, wiping away tears. “You’re just so easy— look at your face— I’m so sorry—”

You closed your eyes. A deep breath. Patience incarnate.

“Was that a joke?” you sought clarity.

“Yes.”

“Was that a fucking joke?”

“Yes!” she yelped, with a gasp that quickly devolved into sucked in guffaws.

You faced her, your knees knocking together. “Well, it wasn’t funny…!”

“Holy shit, kid! Live a little!” A light slap on your shoulder. “I swear, children these days would get their panties twisted about every fucking thing—”

“That was really not funny! There are people who live with color blindness or- or deficiency and their lives have been very difficult for—”

“Oh my God! Spare me, okay! Stop whining—”

“I’m not whining! Some cultures even go as far as to treat them like outcasts! It’s really not that hard not to make light of their struggles and not to be- to be- a- a dick about it!”

The woman sighed, reigning in her laughter (struggling to, you marked with a frown), then patted the back of your hand. “Alright, alright, let’s cool it?”

You grumbled.

“If it helps your… delicate—“

You rolled your eyes.

“—sensibilities,” she continued, “My cousin from my dad’s side couldn’t tell red and- what was it- green- to save his life.”

“It’s always a cousin,” you scoffed.

“No, it’s true…!” the woman exclaimed, sitting up. She clasped her hands over her knee and pulled it over the other. “Of course, this was back then, you know, people were a lot meaner—”

“More ignorant, you mean.”

“Sure was. There was the usual stuff. Some name calling. Teachers being a cunt. I knew. I grew up with the guy. Got held back when we were eight. Then, when we were fifteen, there was some kid in school who had a retired colonel for a dad— so that made him believe he was hot shit, pulled a prank on dear old cousin. After a game of baseball, while they were changing out of their uniforms, I guess he must’ve grabbed his arm or something. Then, you know… Everyone in that room saw it, but nobody said anything. ‘We’re soulmates,’ the kid told him. He must’ve thought it was funny, ‘cause they were both boys and my cousin was that kid. And then— “

Laughing, she resumed, “The funniest thing happened. Do you know what my cousin said?”

You shook your head.

“Cow dung, he said. Ever the country boy, my cousin. Y’see, he never had any trouble telling blues. Purples were a different story, but not blues. But nobody ever believed him. And red, to him, looked like—”

“Cow dung,” you snickered.

“Cow dung.”

“And then what happened?”

“He punched that little fucker. Got detention, but life was fine. Went as usual. He left when he was twenty. The country, I mean. But it wasn’t just leaving that made him realize…. Growing old made him realize too….” 

She looked at you, still smiling, but softer and less like she’s pulling a prank.

“He had his soul glow, contrary to all the assholes who said otherwise. He was— lemme see, about twenty-seven? He got married, too. But not to the same man. Different one. I asked him once, at a family function, why him? You know, not the other one. I even asked him if it was hard, making that choice. He looked at me like I was crazy. And then he said, ‘But it’s common sense! You choose the one who won’t put a pillow over your head when you snore!’ She shook her head. “I don’t know a funnier guy.”

There was a lady bug climbing up your leg. A beautiful, fragile thing; one that could fly off at any moment. You didn’t dare move.

With a gentle nudge, the woman then whispered, like she was consoling you, wiping what’s left of your tears despite having barely raised a hand:

“People live, don’t they, kid?”

Splinters came out of the shower head. It ran down your back as you pressed your head against the wall, sloughing off all debris and muck from this morning’s service. You reached for the knob and turned it higher.

A thousand frozen knives cut through every pore, every wart, every bit of tiny pimple that grew out of the sweat and follicles and dirt. 

Any moment now and even your bones would disintegrate and create a whirl pool around the drain.

The bar of soap in your hand diffused into the wet towel as you scrubbed them together. Bar of soap wrapped in towel—like baguette wrapping around fat blocks of ham. Squeeze between two hands and perhaps it would also be good enough to eat. The soap was just as pink as the ham fresh from the walk-in, too.

That’d been what you served the last customer in your shift. His hair was the same color as the imitation mahogany tables. They were actually made of plastic, just varnished to look like genuine wood. Anyway, his hair blended in too well with those tables that you even had the idea of slamming the tray over it.

You didn’t do that, of course. You went to his table and showed him the menu as usual. And when he’d smiled tightly and told you what he’d wanted, you even expected him to tell you, “Thanks, kitten.”

Weird.

His eyes weren’t as brown.

Suds and bubbles dribbled from your torso down to your toes. It slid off your chest, circulating around your breasts, and sinking into the crevices between the folds of your stomach as you scrubbed, slinking the towel around your neck, then pulling both ends together, its junction like a stone against the middle of your throat. You pulled to the point of drowning.

The pressure only eased when you let go, bleary eyed and lashes sopping, and began scouring between your legs. Your fingers clawed at the towel as you used it to get around the fatty thighs, like vultures orbiting above carrion. Each digit was wrinkly and as warm as a corpse’s. They brushed and stabbed and pierced through. You muffled a scream, and then it felt like falling off into a ravine.

Your belly was a cold, hollow pit. You parted your thighs and it salivated like a sick bitch that needed to be put down. You scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed at each pit and crack.

Bits of scabs flaked off where your thighs pulled inward, making way for new ones.

Your skin split open. The soap soaked through. It stung. Maybe it disinfected everything it touched and bleached your bones along the way.   

Good.

The shower floor looked like you’d knocked over cranberry juice all over it. Fifty percent fresh fruit, fifty percent sugar. Beloved by the senior regulars.

That’s how you knew, then, that you were clean.

You got off the shower and promptly stormed through your closet. The nicest thing you owned was something from five years ago. Misaki-san told you they had their own make-up people, but you walked into a job interview once with nothing but a lip balm and was then shown the door.

Settling for the wrap-around dress, you sat on your bed and pulled out your work lipstick and blush.

Make-up looked nice on other women, but you looked at the mirror and, with that dress on, saw someone who habitually got on her knees for attention instead.

You pulled out wet wipes from your tote and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.

The sun was just beginning to set in the horizon, cranberry juice spilling all over the neighborhood, when you finally left your apartment. Your face was bare and the insides of your thighs bit into each other.

And you felt right, going on your way, because you knew then that you were clean.

It took you half a month to sign the contract. It took Wakatoshi a day.

When you finally got together in one room, his legal counsel on one side and yours, provided by the company, on the other, all that you had asked for was to make it clear— in bold, legible print— that you “will not be required to attend or make an appearance at any game involving, or of the interest of Ushijima Wakatoshi and other affiliated organizations, for public viewing or otherwise.”

Much talk went on for another week, or so Misaki-san had informed him. The contract was only granted your signature when that condition had been included in it.

Practice went on as usual. The Schweiden Adlers won a couple more games at the tail end of the season. Misaki-san had told him then, quite randomly, that you worked for a popular family restaurant, and that perhaps you would not mind a message or two, but it wasn’t anywhere within Wakatoshi’s inclination either to disrupt the day-to-day living of a person who had a far more demanding job than he did.

Neither one of you heard from the other, nor seen hide nor hair. Not until today.

“Excited?” Brandon’s voice popped in his ear. “You lovebirds haven’t seen each other in a while. Don’t get emotional. ‘Kay, big guy?”

His manager patted his chest before he went away.

From inside the café, he saw you descend out of the large van where you, according to Misaki-san, had gone to have your make-up and wardrobe fixed. They changed you out of the dress you came in with to another that stopped an inch above your knees.

The afternoon sun traced a blinding outline around you as you walked in. Your entrance disturbed the chimes above the door— tiny bells tied to ruby strings giggled lightly.

You greeted the staff with a soft ‘hello’, and your lips glittered as you gave Wakatoshi a faint, cautious smile.

The place was something out of a fairy tale book. The ones with boards for pages and watercolor illustrations of cottages hidden in forests. It was tucked somewhere along a cobbled path miles away from the main road.

Barely anyone walked by.

Misaki-san had only known about it because she was acquainted with its owner, or at least familiar enough to ask about the well-being of her sister without much preamble or niceties.  You hadn’t even been aware that a place like this existed in the city. One look and one might think that it’s one of those spots that drove up the price of the buildings within its vicinity. If not that then the product of it.

But, no. Its quaint novelty did not conceal anything calculated. It just was.   

The stones that made up its roof was overgrown with moss. Its chimney was in the same state. The brick walls showed signs of wear and tear. And being in it was like staying for far too long inside a dream, or a memory that you knew at the very back of your brain had never existed.

You were seated by the window. Purple wisterias flowed along the café’s gutter and cascaded against the glass like waterfalls. Everything about this place conveyed that it was, among other things, an heirloom, passed down with an unapologetically haphazard sort of care typically found among large families. There wasn’t a corner not occupied by black and white portraits, or colored ones taken in water and amusement parks, and bookshelves with mangas and novels that had creased spines. A place that had seen one too many daughters for it to be mistaken as some pastiche of a café designed to be a selfie studio— exactly how your group treated it at the very moment.

In front of you, Ushijima was being directed by the photographer, while the owner herself set a glass of matcha latte beside the cheese cake platter. With that, the tableaux of sweet coziness were complete.

“Then— cover your face with the phone— not too close—"

They didn’t have any problems making you do that pose. You’ve seen it countless times among the young couples at the restaurant. One holds the phone over their face, taking a picture of their sweetheart. The other mimics it, taking a picture of their sweetheart. Their cameras are pointed towards each other, so when they finally share it for everyone to see, it would have been as if they’d said, “I’ve been found. How about you?”

Ushijima, however, must not have gotten the memo for the past…six years. He seemed to not understand that the phone had to be far enough to create an illusion that it’s blocking his entire face, but that he also had to position his body in a way that made the whole thing look like he wasn’t trying at all, and not like some old man struggling to decipher what’s on his screen.

The goal today was to tease: post images that whispered coquettishly, rather than ones that proclaimed with its whole chest. 

“I think ‘soft launching’ is what people call it these days,” Misaki-san said.

The photographer, with silent permission, took Ushijima’s wrist— the one with the phone, one last time to communicate to him exactly where his hands should be, like a store manager posing a tall, overly tall, and flawless mannequin. Then, he draped his elbow over the edge of the table, as he was instructed to splay his long, muscular legs a tad. “Right! You got it, Ushiwaka! Hold that for me, please!” the photographer remarked.

You couldn’t help but wonder, as you watched him, if it was possible that Ushijima Wakatoshi was as much of a stranger to… dating, as you were. What you knew, you learned via osmosis. How much did he know? His breadth of knowledge seemed like a narrow one.

That conjecture, however, was immediately chucked away.

I mean. Just look at the guy.

With just a simple, brown-ish gray long-sleeved polo shirt hanging slackly over his broad frame, the buttons on top come undone, along with loose-fitting jeans, and his hair parted cleanly, artlessly in the middle— he was lethal enough to stop a busy street; or an oncoming traffic to a screeching halt.

You know. It was happening now.

People went on their merry way when it was you doing that. You were merely another beating flesh doing its job by the side, but with him, the mundane act of putting a phone over one’s face seemed more like a once in a decade astronomical event.

Everyone in the café had to drop whatever they were doing just to…see. Even when some of them had the view of the phone blocking his face.

It couldn’t be possible. Not him.

If he were like you, then what a tragedy, isn’t it? Someone as beautiful and desirable and accomplished as him deserved an equal on his first foray into intimacy. What sin did he commit in his previous life to be destined to a basket case?

What a relief that none of this was real.

“Ushiwaka, please, don’t move!”

The giant apologized under his breath because, apparently, you realized as you blinked, that he had turned his head to look at you.

Oh, no. Hold on. Not just look, actually.

He was watching, too.

You snatched the latte off the table and sipped, averting your eyes as they carried on. It was nice. Not too sweet. And once that was over, the photographer proceeded to capture the ensemble of caffeine and pastries between the two of you. He and Misaki-chan moved fleetly yet assiduously, like a ship captain and her second mate, discussing angles, lightings, and intent. “Do they look good here?” “I think this one looks busy” “Let’s stick to the mood board for now” etc. etc.

On the other hand, you and Ushijima were more akin to the ship’s bow and stern, as far away as you could get from one another. Not physically, though. You remained sharing the same table: Ushijima taking a bite out of a tart and you, sipping— as chatty and familiar as strangers forced by chance to breathe in the same lift. The two of you only got up to move, and acknowledge each other’s presence after the past couple of hours, when you’d been told to go to the café’s powder room, captain and second following behind.

Ushijima let you in first, opening the door for you. He had to duck to get inside that nook of a space. In there, the wallpaper was a muted shade of peach, doodles of rabbits in frilly dresses scattered about. The shelves surrounding the vanity were stacked with tchotchkes: porcelain kittens licking their paws, wicker baskets filled with buttons and marbles, and enamel portraits of beautiful women in gowns and ceremonial garbs and feathered hats.

It would’ve all been very comforting, a perfect, warmly lit spot for a prey animal to hide in, had it not been for the fact that you could practically feel Ushijima right against your back.

“For this one, we’d like to ask you to recreate—” From outside the room, they showed you an image of a couple in front of a bathroom mirror. The man was behind her, chin resting on her head and arms wrapped around her waist, while the woman held the phone. Again, both of their faces were obstructed. “Easy, right?”

It was your task to take the picture for the both of you. Maybe that’s why they thought that this’d be a breeze. You took the phone with a damp hand. He stepped closer and your heart sprinted. You wanted to close your eyes, but that wouldn’t be helpful. Some of the tiny kittens had fracture on their eyes, likely the result of being dropped by tiny, grubby hands. They smiled at you. ‘See,’ they tee-heed, ‘even broken things can manage to be cute.’ Then—

“Would it be alright to skip this?” Ushijima’s voice came rumbling.

Misaki-san, who leaned against the door frame, stood up in alarm. “O-Of course…!”

“Yeah, this does feel a bit…much,” the photographer agreed. “We can do this one some other time, Misaki-san.”

They decided to move on to the next and final location.

Ushijima waited for you to walk out first, his large hand propped above the door and keeping it from shutting on its own. You passed through with a quiet thank you, and as you did, the smell of fresh laundry and yuzu lemons wafted from above you. Bright and sparkly like a summer’s day. Dandelion fluffs waltzing with the wind.

Your fingers ached for calloused warmth.

You needed to peel off your skin.

The way to the flower shop that Misaki-san had called ahead for this shoot was just as whimsical as the café, another cobbled hill with steps made for teacup dogs, or, perhaps, elves. You couldn’t help but drag your feet climbing up, admiring the way tufts of Bermuda and wildflowers bloomed through the cracks, at the back of the trail with Ushijima behind you. A small, man-made creek ran down the side.

For just this one day, just this moment, the world felt light on your shoulders. You haven’t had one of these in a while. You would have hopped if it did not make you look all the more insane. Giggled, too. All that sugar must have finally rushed through your system.  

The photographer turned around. Although you were losing daylight, with a perky tone, he suddenly yelled, “Wait, miss!”

He pointed his camera at you. “This is a great shot! Can you look down a bit? Yes, thank you. This’ll make a beautiful candid photo, Misaki-san! Something her soulmate would’ve taken of her while they’re— uh…”

The man laughed. “Please, can you move out of the frame, er, Ushiwaka?” he requested, grinning impishly.

You looked back.

It took Ushijima a second to understand that he was being spoken to. Those sharp, penetrating eyes were— and maybe you were seeing things— soft, like dewy leaves after a heavy rain. And they were turned right at—

He’s tired. That must be it. He’d just won a game, too.

“Ah,” the giant muttered. “Apologies.” He climbed ahead of you.

The rest of the afternoon flew by.

By the end of it, Misaki-san’s team had accumulated photos that ranged from delectable to charming. The shot of the food was your favorite. The photographer had done an incredible job. You hoped, with the amount of attention that you were told this’d receive, that the café would garner the same. Maybe more. All of this would have been worthwhile then, you thought.

You were to upload most of the pictures from the café (at Misaki-san’s behest, of course) using your old account (the only one you had), which you mostly (only) opened to promote the restaurant’s special holiday group meals. Misaki-san didn’t see the problem with that. She said it would help make your pictures look organic.

The ones taken outside were to be posted on Ushijima’s account (that, upon seeing, you didn’t think the man even knew the password to). Your pictures would be a shock among still life images of volleyballs, courts, trophies, shoes, and products, for sure. The rare, sedate photos of other human beings: teammates, coaches, Ushijima flying in the air, Ushijima receiving an award, will be disturbed by you—

On the hill, looking at flowers like you couldn’t do any wrong.

Crouched down to the pavement, beckoning a stray cat to come to you.

Holding a bouquet of red tulips— “Symbols of passion, loyalty, and everlasting love,” the florist had said— their lush buds smothering half of your face.

It wasn’t until late in the evening when the company started showing signs of inebriation.

Brandon came to the izakaya after the shoot, as it was only a block away from where he had his appointment early in the afternoon. He, too, was drunk. And if the way Misaki-san didn’t mind playing bekuhai with him, then that meant, maybe, that so was she.

Her entire team, after all, was celebrating the successful first phase of their project. Even the ones who couldn’t come with them earlier showed up just for this party. They earned it, Wakatoshi thought, as he watched their group clap and sing, “The drunken god is an honest god! Please point out the beautiful one! Hey, point it out!”

The spinning top on the table stopped, pointing towards Misaki-san. The table erupted in fists and cackles.

“Ah, Tengu, Tengu! You’re so unlucky, Misaki-chan!”

They poured sake into the ceramic goblin cup, the largest one of the three, and cheered as she tossed it back. And even with all that whooping and yowling, Wakatoshi could still hear you chuckle behind your hand.

The two of you were at the edge of the long table, once again, facing each other. Your glass of mocktail was half-full and what little food you’d asked for was already gone. Ushijima had only one glass of beer and no more. He ordered another plate of gyoza.

“Hey, everyone!” Misaki-san’s assistant, if his memory served him right, shouted from the hallway. “The karaoke upstairs is empty!”

The group got on their feet like the floor had caught up in flames. “C’mon!” Misaki-san exclaimed his way, just as she did when they’d put down the bekuhai set on the table.

He chewed, then swallowed to say, “No, thank you—”

“—I’m okay right here...!”

He looked at you. You looked at him. Misaki-san looked at the both of you, then, with her whole face aflush, beamed.

“Okie-dokie!” Misaki-san’s thumb and index formed an O, three fingers up. From behind her, Brandon wiggled his brows at Wakatoshi as he slid out of the room. “We’ll leave you to it! Have fun!”

It got quiet, then. The TV by the bar droned on with its weather report. The few patrons around their table ate alone, or in pairs, conversing in mutters. Or not at all.

“Ushijima-san,”

You spoke.

To him.

Wakatoshi’s chopsticks paused from picking, as he shifted his attention to you.

“You can go anytime if you want to,” you muttered.

He dipped the gyoza in sauce. “I don’t want to,” he replied, admittedly puzzled.

“O-Oh. I didn’t mean, like, go go. I meant, go, join the karaoke upstairs, with Misaki-san and the others. Y-you can just go…if ever…you feel like it.”

“I understand.” He blinked. “So should you.”

“R-right.”

A beat. You finally plucked one gyoza from the plate.

Somebody did tell Wakatoshi once that conversations one does not wish to have are best buffered by food. One would have no recourse but to eat, just to avoid speaking. He watched, at ease, as your face brightened, humming discreetly when you nibbled.

“You don’t have to talk to me.”

You covered your mouth. “I’m sorry?” you chewed.

“I meant to say,” he said, “you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”

“I- I see. Um.” You gulped, then smacked your lips. “You also don’t have to. If you don’t want to.”

Your eyes were everywhere but on him as you told him that. You took another morsel as his phone piped up.

A text. “Takl 2 he rr !!!1!!!            111111 she looks LONELEY USHWAIKA,” it said.

“Many people beg me to,” Wakatoshi huffed, closing his phone. That was not necessary.

“Brandon-san?” you glanced to his phone, then winced. “Sorry.”

Wakatoshi placed his chopsticks to the side. This way, with nobody and nothing else demanding you to listen, he had all the freedom to study you as you were. All his own. It called to mind the turtle that their classroom once had, back in kindergarten. He’d forgotten what they’d named it, but it retreated to its shell every time he got close too.

He wondered what the difference was, between then and now. You did not have this reaction to him the first time you’d met. You hadn’t known who he was at that time. Perhaps it was the knowing that induced this. Besides, it wasn’t his place to compare. Then and now held minute differences for Wakatoshi too: before he’d learned your name and what you could possibly mean, and after.

Things seemed… muddled now, somehow. Like the point where colors are mixing together before they can transform into another hue.

“Do you mean that?” Wakatoshi crossed his arms together. He leaned back into the chair.

The bead of sweat that’d gathered on your forehead went to the shell of your ear. You stared back up at him, mouth agape. “Excuse…me…?”

“Why are you sorry?”

“N-no, no, I was just—” You dropped your chopsticks. “It was just an expression. I was only—"

You swallowed, then dropped your gaze. You sighed. “I am. Sorry. I do feel that I’ve been…Look, dude, can we talk about something else?”

His brow lifted. You’d raised your tone. That was new. “We don’t have to,” he reminded you. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“Right. Sorry.”

There it was again. Wakatoshi frowned, but before he could say something back, the news that had been a white noise in the background became one that his ears could recognize in his sleep.

Shrill whistle, followed by a vociferous crowd. He turned to the screen. The Sendai Frogs were playing against the Tamaden Elephants. Wakatoshi tried to recall the date today. He must’ve forgotten. The camera panned to a blonde player wiping his glasses. “Folks, we have just entered the second set and the game is already this tense!” the commentator boomed. “No one is letting up! Especially Tsukishima over there! Talk about drive, eh, Miyake-san?”

Wakatoshi could hear Tendou cackling somewhere.

No doubt he’s joyous to see the blocker in a pinch, all the while impatient to see him overcome.

“Do you know them?”

He almost didn’t hear. Not just because Wakatoshi had been too engrossed, but also that you’d asked so bashfully. Again, you barely met his gaze when he looked at you. Nevertheless, at the very least, Wakatoshi was no longer confounded. Not as he’d been before.

So you did want to speak to him.  

“Yes,” Wakatoshi said.

“Like, personally?”

“Yes.”

“Th-That was stupid of me, of course you do, sorry—"

“Stop apologizing.”

“So- I just thought…I might as well talk to you about this.” You gave him a smile that didn’t reach your cheeks, eyes downcast. “Volleyball, you know. It being our common interest and all—"

“It’s not.” Wakatoshi felt the words deep in his throat. That was untrue. You did not care for it. Perhaps even averse to it. There wasn’t a need to lie for something as hollow and flimsy as keeping the conversation going. “And we don’t have to talk about it.”

You stared, face dimming. “Got it,” you mumbled, before taking the last gyoza on the plate.

It seemed that the more he talked to you, the easier it was getting for Wakatoshi to recognize the tells: the way your features sink, lashes flickering as if trying to get dirt out, the inflection in your voice breaking like fine china. He knew then that his response had brought about a sort of dejection. The last thing that he liked seeing on your face, he realized. Wakatoshi inched closer to the table.

He could watch a recording of the game tomorrow.

Shearing the edges off of his tone, Wakatoshi began, “Please forgive me. I wanted to say that I’m more than capable of conversing about other things. Not just volleyball.”

Wakatoshi had expected that that would soothe you, having expressed that he’s not being hostile as people often thought he was. It usually did the job in his experience. After explaining himself, he’d learned that most people can be quite forgiving.

What he did not expect was for you to laugh.

After that pause that looked to Wakatoshi like you’re trying to work out what he said, you suddenly broke into a snort, then slapped your hands over your mouth, then laughed.

“What?” Wakatoshi demanded.

“S-sorry-“ You snickered, coughing and shaking your head. He pushed a glass of water towards you. “T-Thank you- it’s just you- dude, you looked like you were having the worst time of your life saying that.”

 He should start getting used to surprises when he’s with you, Wakatoshi noted.

You looked like you were having the worst time of your life saying that.

Did he really? He hadn’t noticed. Nor did he feel like it. He couldn’t help but touch his face.

“I’m sorry,” Wakatoshi murmured.

“Stop apologizing,” you grinned.

His brows furrowed. He hadn’t known you were this…puckish.

“I think I get it, though,” you sighed, slumping on your chair. “Maybe. I could be wrong, but you love it, don’t you?”

You looked up at the screen. He followed you. The Sendai Frogs had won the second set. “More than anything in this world,” you continued. “Everything else must be very boring to you.”

Love.

Many people had called what he’d felt towards volleyball in a myriad of ways. “Ma’am, volleyball makes Wakatoshi happy,” his father had supplicated to his grandmother when he was young. “You only enjoy playing volleyball!” the girl he’d tried dating when he was fourteen had cried. From then on it generally oscillated between dedicated and obsessed.

But never loved.

It wasn’t a word that he— nor other people in his life, really— would ever throw around so casually, either. It had never even crossed his mind. You weren’t just throwing it around, though, weren’t you?

You’d meant that.

Not like earlier. This time you’d looked at him in the eye, and you smiled at him like you’d been there with him when he’s alone, on the rare occasions after a lost game, pondering methodically how he could make it up to his team in the next.

Wakatoshi could only nod.

“I’m saying you don’t have to force yourself.” You picked up your neglected mocktail. “I’m not completely ignorant about volleyball. I don’t know much, but I know some things. Like, that—” Gesturing towards the game, “Was their libero doing an underhand serve.”

He glanced at the screen, then to you. “That was an overhead serve.”

“Was it?” You pursed your lips.

“Yes.”

“And was he their libero?”

“No.”

“I see. Not their libero, huh.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am sure. Liberos wear a different jersey from their teammates.”

“Right, I remember tha— Ouh! The ball was in!”

“It was out,” he informed.

“But the referee went…” You put both arms forward.

Wakatoshi mimicked and raised his hands to his face, palm inwards. “It was out.”

“Hm.” You suddenly perked up. “That one, I know. That’s their setter.”

Sure enough, it was Hirabayashi, Sendai’s setter, that had tossed the ball to Koganegawa. A rally ensued. 

“That was a dump!”

The crowd roared as Tamaden’s blockers dove to the floor. Wakatoshi almost rankled at the sight, if not only for…

“What a powerful jump serve,” you said, almost to yourself. But, then, your commentary halted completely when the camera zoomed in on Sendai’s opposite hitter.

It’s as if all your interest in the game had died, and with it all the light and mirth that had set you aglow in the past couple of minutes.

“Another player that’s been the talk of the town,” the commentator supplied. “A dark horse, one might even say. Not as illustrious as his teammate Tsukishima, whose had an impressive high school career, but don’t you underestimate this guy! Kyotani Kentaro is one tough nut!”

Wakatoshi hadn’t had the opportunity to play against him, but he could recognize the hitter from Aoba Johsai’s game against Karasuno, all those years ago.

You looked back down at the table, but having nothing to distract you with, settled for feeding your teeth with the blunt nail on your thumb. You gnashed and tore. Wakatoshi tempered the instinct to pull your hand away.

That would be impolite, Wakatoshi reminded himself.

He contented himself with observing you.  

A lack of rudimentary knowledge about volleyball, as if all that you’d been made aware of were things that had to do with the roles and skills of the setter. There’s also that reaction.

The muddled colors swirled, melting into each other, once a muddied shade now becoming more distinct— something so unlike what it was, but unequivocally itself.

But not yet.

“Do you dislike volleyball?” he asked, jolting you back to him.

You discarded your nails back to your lap, before looking at Wakatoshi like you’d been scandalized by your behavior. He could make out the beginnings of an apology on your face, which you wrangled back with a grimace. How could he have ever thought you to be a mystery?

Everything is right there for him to see, isn’t it?

“Not- Not really… I don’t give off that impression, do I? Oh, God. It’s okay,” you prattled. “It’s okay. Really. I can’t judge. Clearly, I still have a lot to learn.” A frail chuckle.

“Do you want to?”

Your forehead creased. “Learn? To play? From you? As in, learn how to play? From you?”

Wakatoshi nodded through it all.

You barked, all smiles. 

“That is so generous, Mister Olympic MVP, but no! Are you insane?!” you giggled.

He shrugged. He tried.

“Why not?”

You swallowed. The light snuffed out. In a blink.

“…Got hit by a ball in high school,” you lied. “Square in the face. Brings back bad memories. I wouldn’t wanna embarrass myself like that…again. Especially not in front of you.”

The thousand-yard stare returned with vengeance.

Where do you go when you do that? And how do you do it so easily? Are you subjected to this capricious maelstrom that comes to pull you away without your consent? Or is it just that you’ve always been there— in that place that even Wakatoshi cannot reach?

Something like this happened to him once, when he’d finally been prepared enough to hike Orla Perć. He was halfway to climbing the peak, but then what was once a placidly sunny day became abruptly beset by a storm that had engulfed the trail, strong enough to knock him off where he’d been hanging. Worse, it had stolen the few slants of light that guided Wakatoshi to his destination.

Below him was a steep drop, and behind him only darkness.

Wakatoshi had not known the cold in that way before.

All he could think then, with his hands gripping the metal rungs, was that regardless if the storm had been there to stay, regardless if the few drops of sun had disappeared forever, Wakatoshi had no other choice but to drag himself out of there, and into the light— bleeding, if he had to.

And so, he thought the same now, looking at you. 

“Do I make you uncomfortable?”

The shutters blew open. “I- Ushijima-san- I don’t…follow- I…”

Neither of you said anything more after that. However:

“…You make me nervous,” you whispered.

Wakatoshi breathed in, then nodded. “Many people have said the same thing.”

You huffed, smirking. “I believe that.”

“I’ve heard our opposite hitter from my last team once say about me that—” Wakatoshi tipped his head back in an effort to conjure the words front of his mind. You waited patiently, hanging on. “He said, ‘Pan Ushijima may not be the anti-Christ—”

Both your eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

“—But I would not hang out with him willingly.”

You pressed your eyes shut, looking as if you’re about to sneeze. “Oh my God?”

“And not even with a gun to my head,” he continued, even when you’re already reduced to convulsions on the table. “Apparently I always made him feel like he’s never left the court.” Which, to this day, Wakatoshi still did not find the problem with.

That was lost on you, however, as it seemed that you’d been robbed of the ability to form a coherent sentence. Your shaking back was accompanied by shrill cackling that soon became a soundless, breathless thing. It made Wakatoshi fear that you might be on the verge of a cardiac event, but rather than asking if you were okay, or if you needed help, or water (again), he found himself smiling along instead.

Wakatoshi did not have the heart nor the desire to interrupt the sound. Although neither melodious nor the kind his grandmother would call appropriate for a lady, it was pleasant all the same.

It meant that you were here, with him.

“S-sorry, that was just so mean!” you gasped. “Why would he say that oh my god,” you snorted. Wakatoshi nodded. Indeed. “For what it’s worth, I- I think I’d hang out with you willingly, Ushijima-san, oh my god that was still so mean though!”

You laughed. Wakatoshi tilted his head slightly, pensively, looking at you. Watching.

“You think?” he pushed.

You stopped. Your mouth closed and opened like a fish. “Oh, um- yeah- you know what I mean-“ You touched both of your cheeks. He’d bet that if he held your face in his hands that it’d feel like a fresh cup of coffee. Wouldn’t that be something?

“I just think- now, you know, that we’ve- that we are speaking- like this- not like before- sor- I think that maybe- you’re cool? I don’t know. I think. Which is not to say that you’re not, Ushijima-san. All I’m saying is I’d do this again even if Misaki-san didn’t ask us to…”

You were already panting. “…I think.”

Wakatoshi smiled. “I would too. I would like to hang out with you again, please.”

For a second, he’d thought he’d said the wrong thing. You just stared at him as if he weren’t real. Then, your expression crumpled, a misty film over your eyes, and it was like your toes had been stepped on and the person who’d done it didn’t bother apologizing.

He felt the pain shoot up to his chest like it’d been his own.

“That—” you snarled, grinning ruefully, “is something I have not heard in a very long time.”

You grabbed your mocktail and chugged, finishing it, before swiping away its traces with the back of your hand. You looked up, keeping your tears unshed, then exhaled.

“Thank you, Ushijima-san, for saying that,” you croaked.

Simple honesty did not warrant such a reaction, but Wakatoshi chose not to say that. As such:

“I’ve been hit on the face too,” Wakatoshi told you at length. “Only that one time. In the middle of a game.”

You sat up, blinking. “No way?”

“Yes. I was ten. I bled and I had to run to the infirmary right after.”

Your eyes narrowed. “After you bled or after the game?”

“After the game,” he clarified. “I had to make the point.”

“What?!”

The couple nearest to the table turned to you, to whom both of you regretfully bowed your heads to. You leaned towards him. Wakatoshi did the same.

“What?” you continued, hushed this time. “So you played while bleeding?”

He nodded. He could see all the blemishes this close.

“That’s crazy!”

“I suppose,” he muttered. “It wasn’t a smart decision. I made a mess on the court.”

You gawked as if Wakatoshi had beheaded a man in front of you.

“Of course you did!” you cried.

“My mother had the same reaction,” Wakatoshi recalled. That was the first time he’d seen his mother yell at someone other than his father. He still owed a great deal to his coach for bearing it. “She was deeply cross with me.”

“I would be too! I can’t believe your coach forced you to play in that state! That’s very irresponsible.”

You shook your head and Wakatoshi wanted to pinch your cheeks.

“No one can force me to do anything,” he said. “I refused to leave the court.”

“What…” Your smile hung on your lips. “You were still a kid, you know?”

That was true. However, “I was also team captain.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” You nodded emphatically.

“But,” Wakatoshi conceded. “You’re right. That was irresponsible. And it wouldn’t happen now. I wouldn’t be allowed to.” It was reasonable. It was also, in Wakatoshi’s heart of hearts, quite annoying.

You chuckled, gazing at him knowingly. “Of course.”

Silence dawned, but not the kind that you didn’t know what to do with. Silence shared between the two of you, Wakatoshi had realized, was cushy enough to lean into.

“Were you close with your mom?” you asked after a beat.

He considered the question for a minute. “No,” he finally answered. “She didn’t like me very much. Although I believe she tolerates me now.”

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, delicate yet firm.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m sorry anyway.”

“How about you?” Wakatoshi asked this time, and was rewarded for it with a sure and even a tiny bit defiant smile, as if you were daring him to oppose you. He came to the conclusion that he liked you best like this.

“Yes,” you avowed. “Well, I like to think we are. She cares for me even after all the trouble I’ve brought her, so there’s that at least.”

Wakatoshi would’ve been more than happy to ask some more— Are you an only child? Yes, he would assume by the way your eyes lingered at the family pictures back at the café; Do you like your father? He couldn’t be sure, but he’d readily say that he does; Doesn’t alcohol suck? Yes, absolutely, he’d agree with you; Would you like to have a family of your own? — but the clambering return of Misaki-san’s party had taken the opportunity from him.

Both of you left to catch those who’d almost tripped on their way to the table. Brandon was being carried by two men whom Wakatoshi had never met before. They handed him to Wakatoshi with a winded thank you.

“Maaaaaan! You kiddies shoulda been there!” Misaki-san hiccuped as she tackled you into a hug. “We sang our hearts out! You are always gonna be my love! Itsuka-” Her assistant pulled her away from you, followed by an outburst of apologies. Hamasaki-san, who was tasked to drive the large team van, seemed to be the only one who’d stayed sober. The man only shook his head and laughed as he lugged his traipsing co-workers out of the restaurant. 

The entire company made a trail of drunken, rambunctious Utada Hikaru songs towards the parking lot.

With Brandon in his arms, Wakatoshi quickly retrieved his manager’s car keys in his (slightly moist) back pocket. He laid him at the back of his car and started the engine. You knelt to the floor to pick up some dropped wallets and makeup bottles, while Hamasaki-san set the team to rights inside the van. Wakatoshi went to you to help.

He picked up a watch, then another. You faced each other as you closed some loose caps, before placing them inside a bag that had his sponsor’s logo on it. He slipped his finds there.

“Being soulmates with me must be overwhelming.”

You paused, staring at him. “Not…really…” you lied, again.

But you just looked at each other and exchanged stifled chuckles.

“May I ask you something?” he then murmured.

“Hm?”

A few coins fell from your hands.

Wakatoshi retrieved them for you.

“Why did you run?”

He was looming over you, even as both of you were on your knees. This was how it must’ve been, that first time, but you’d just been too out of it to even be conscious of that. But his presence wasn’t as it was, wasn’t it? A mystery, how far a brief conversation can take two strangers.

It was no longer as fleeting and dream-like as the first, nor as daunting as the second and third.

Wakatoshi Ushijima felt more…tangible now.

There was a distance between the two of you, but you feel every one of his breaths like you’re the one catching them, wrapped in a blanket of yuzu lemons.

Why did you run?

Ushijima waited for your answer.

You knew you shouldn’t have done that earlier, opened a conversation like that. Dumb dummy. Was his smile, watching that game, really that striking? Like you were looking at a different person?

Really? Really, little girl?

Now look at what you’ve done. What will you tell him, huh? Not even the answer closest to the truth would sound believable from your mouth.

Dummy.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said as he put another a compact powder in the bag.

“No…!” Your hand trembled when you pulled at his sleeve. “S-sorry.” You let go.

You didn’t answer, in the end. Instead, you asked, “What did it feel like for you, the first time it happened? When our palms…”

Unlike you, it didn’t take him a meltdown to give a reply. “Weird,” he answered. “I’d long believed that it was impossible for me. So it was a shock when it finally happened. You?”

You looked up at him.

He wasn’t so bad: you’d thought that earlier. You were still thinking it now.

Wakatoshi Ushijima was an unscalable a tower as ever, perhaps not even years of acquaintanceship would change that for folks such as yourself. But you’d accepted now that he was also the type to pull a woman whom he didn’t know from a can of paint out of the hell residing in her mind; the one to say “You did well” and the one to give a forthright sort of kindness without asking for anything in return.

This unscalable tower, who’d bled from his nose when he was ten because he couldn’t leave his volleyball team without winning first.

So, would it be so bad?

“I was…” you choked. “I felt…” You breathed in. “…scared.”

You kept your head down as you got up, dusting off your dress, before pulling at the bag’s drawstrings. When you met his eyes, he had already been there expecting you, still on his knees. You haven’t watched any of his games yet, had never seen him play, but this must be how he looks at his opponents when he does.

It’s a wonder how anybody can survive this.

Wakatoshi stood, gazing down at you, as he handed you something with a closed fist. Something pink and translucent peeked through his thumb; it was the shimmery gloss they’d used on you.

You opened your palm for him. His warm, calloused fingers brushed forked and dashed lines and you’d felt like crying again. You almost caught them with your own.

He stepped forward, not too close, but he leaned just enough for you to hear.

“You don’t have to be scared anymore,” he told you as he took the hefty bag from your hand.

Ushijima walked with you to the van, then bowed and thanked the team, leaving the bag inside the compartment. You watched him through the rearview mirror, watching the car leave, as you mulled over what he’d said.

Did he mean that you didn’t have to be scared anymore because he’s really not as scary as he seems? Or was it that you didn’t have to be anymore now that he’s here?

Was it a promise? Or a threat?

The line between the two seemed to blur with someone like Ushijima.

As soon as you got home, you’d called your mother to share about the things that’d happened at the shoot, how the people treated you (They were all very nice, mama!), how Ushijima had been (He was…nice, too!), what you’d done (We just took some pictures, then had a dinner party), and other gossip here and there (Did you know they have people in their teams who are dating but they’re not allowed to be public about it?). Finally, she asked you if you had fun.

You said yes, meaning it.

She also asked how you felt now that this wonderful and romantic thing was finally happening to you, as she’d always hoped it would. And you’d only said that you felt happy, keeping the other bit to yourself for fear that she might worry about you again.

Although you really did want to say it, that something much more miraculous than a soul glow had occurred, because it'd felt that, after all these years, like you had finally made a friend.

The sweltering heat melted Wakatoshi’s skin and clung to his shirt. Bass imploded under his feet, thumping an unending rhythm as he weaved his way out of the pack of swaying bodies.

Ahead, Nikola-san had already reached the couch where Matias Ruiz and his teammates were waiting. They embraced and clapped each other’s backs. A stark contrast to two days ago when they had been at each other’s throats on the court, crying foul and cursing at the referee.

The two had played together in an international league when Wakatoshi was still an amateur, and he could see them calling each other brother even through the pulsating kaleidoscope that engulfed the spacious room.

He picked up his pace, gingerly pushing the ones who’d knocked into him out of his way, apologizing even though Wakatoshi knew he couldn’t be heard among the din.

“Hey! Asshole!” An American accent. Wakatoshi looked down to see a woman. “Watch where you’re go—”

The woman seemed to have forgotten what she was about to say, gaping at him. He didn’t have the time to wait for it. The renowned outside hitter called out his name, and Wakatoshi speedily escaped the labyrinthine crowd.

Matias and Nikola-san flanked him, shaking him by the shoulders.

“Fédération Internationale de Volleyball’s Most Valuable Player of the Year!” they declared.

The men whistled, raising their glasses. “Salud!”

Andrzej, Janek, and Daniel were already sprawled on the couch. Their youngest grinned, yelling.

“…flacha!” he caught from Janek.

Nikola-san ruffled the boy’s hair, to the entire couch’s amusement, before offering a shot to Wakatoshi. He shook his head.

“Co tam?” the older man asked, scrunching his face when Wakatoshi answered.

“Git,” Wakatoshi repeated. Nikola-san nodded, then shoved the tiny glass to their middle blocker. Daniel accepted it gleefully.

Beside his teammates were Valentin Paez and Martin Cufré. The rest of them stood up to join the dance floor, while the others were engaged in arm wrestling. The only one missing was—

“Chabón!” Wakatoshi stooped under the sudden onslaught of Federico Muñoz’s arm. “Buenos Aires ni irasshaimase!”

Wakatoshi bowed slightly.

“The fool is drunk, please excuse him, Ushijima-san!” Matias hooted with laughter.

“Tomé bocha…birra….!" he caught from the intoxicated libero, who’d grinned at the men on the couch. Then, to him, “You gave us hell out there, brother! You are a… How do you say… tensai!”

He patted Wakatoshi’s chest and proceeded to slump on the low glass table in the middle.

Just behind the couch was a fire exit. Wakatoshi was filled with gratitude seeing it. He excused himself from his team.

The night air welcomed him in its cool bosom. He welcomed the sound of the muted honking of cars below, inhaling, but a trace of musk and a familiar burning smell prompted Wakatoshi to halt, and turn around.

Aleksander, a fellow opposite hitter, was there, leaning against the railing, head to the starless sky. Standing next to him was Klemens, who had something pinched between his fingers. Its end glowed and emitted smoke.

“Pan Ushijima,” Aleksander sing-songed, blowing out a cloud.

Klemens followed, smiling dazedly. "Zioło?” He extended the thin roll to Ushijima.

It was snatched by Aleksander, who’d then spat, “The MVP is too good for smoking. Winner like him, does not do things… such as this.”  

Yet another thing he’d gotten wrong about him.

“I have,” Wakatoshi explained. During his stay in America. His roommate had a habit, and he was quite adamant that Wakatoshi would take well to it, but, “It only made me hungry and unproductive.”

Aleksander sneered. “Idiota.” Klemens, red eyes drooping, glanced to Wakatoshi, and was about to reprimand the taller blonde, but:

“Excuse me, señor.” They all turned back to the door. “What a mean thing to say to your teammate.”

Nahuel Caneo addressed them with a smile, a bottle in each hand. He bowed briefly to Wakatoshi.

Wakatoshi bowed back.

His teammates, clearly perturbed by his presence, left in haste. Aleksander, however, grumbled along the way. Wakatoshi had never seen an angrier man who’d indulged in the purportedly calming drug. Fascinating.

“You must forgive him,” Nahuel told Wakatoshi as the door shut close.

He looked at him. “They haven’t harmed me.”

Nahuel laughed. “You’re just as they say, Ushijima-san.”

A frosty, unopened bottle was handed to Wakatoshi.

“Felicidades.” The setter beamed. “That was one of the most delightful games of my career.”

Wakatoshi felt his chest expand. “It’s an honor, Nahuel-san.” He bowed once more.

“I hope it’s to your liking. I heard from Nikola that you would only partake in beer.”

The one given to him had low alcohol content. He’s had it before. Andrzej must have told him. A quiet thank you, then Wakatoshi borrowed a discarded bottle cap and used it to break his open. Tangy sweet ginger refreshed his parched throat.

They rested their arms against the railing, drinking in silence as they watched over the traffic.

“Getting benched is one thing. Staying benched is another. A sort of death,” Nahuel suddenly uttered. “Sometimes death is better. Less shame to it.”

“Aleksander has not died. He’s just not good. Not right now. He is blinded by expectations of his potential.”

Nahuel paused from drinking. “Aren’t we all, at that young age? Aren’t you?”

“No,” he replied, sipping. “I only see what I can do and what I will. What others expect of it is none of my business.”

The older man shook his head, chuckling. “Spoken like a champion. That one only had his eyes on you, you know. You two— truly something else. You do acknowledge that it was a very close call?”

Wakatoshi huffed, smiling. “I do.” It was the best game of Wakatoshi’s career, too.

“A pair of prodigal sons,” Nahuel muttered around the lip of the bottle. “Your motherland must be weeping for the loss of you two.”

“Japan doesn’t hold a grudge against us.”

Nahuel laughed kindly. “No, no. Please excuse me. I mean to say…they must want for the both of you to come home and play there.”

He considered this. “Perhaps. But they can’t be wanting that much. We’ve no lack of competent players.”

A flash of pride in Nahuel’s eyes. He offered his bottle for a toast. Wakatoshi accepted.

“There are rumors of Romero…”

“A land of beasts.” Nahuel frowned, shivering. “Please, I take back what I said. Do not ever come home.”

Wakatoshi chuckled lowly.  

“But do you plan on going back?” Nahuel asked.

“…In a few years,” he answered.

After emptying the bottle, Nahuel patted his back to say goodbye. “I must get going. Matias might be undressing as we speak.”

Wakatoshi nodded, then, “Do you happen to know where the toilet is?”

“Take those stairs.” He gestured behind Wakatoshi. “The one for the customers smell. Use the one for employees. It’s okay. They’re fans too. They know you know us. And we know the guy who runs the place. Good guy. Wife and four kids.”

Wakatoshi bowed, thanking Nahuel.

Then, just as he was turning to leave, Nahuel called his name. He spoke, but Wakatoshi did not recognize the words. It must be his native language.

“It’s something my grandmother used to tell me,” he elucidated with a gentle, patient expression. “I hope everything that occurs to you will be as joyful as a dream.”

“You too, Nahuel-san,” Wakatoshi said.

Nahuel smiled, waving as he turned back.

What a man.

He followed the older setter’s instructions. The men’s room was unoccupied and, although dimly lit, was as clean as Nahuel had said. Wakatoshi washed his hands after having done his business. He was about to go, send a message to his teammates and retire for the night, when a loud thud alerted him to the cubicle at the farthest corner of the room. It was the largest one, painted a deep maroon like the others.

Another thud, then a groan.

“Hello?” His voice echoed back to him. “Is everything alright?”

A strangled cry prompted Wakatoshi to march to the cubicle and force his way inside. The door unhinged partly at the top. It hung open.

A man in a black shirt, with the club’s logo stitched on the chest, stared back at Wakatoshi.

He’s shoved against the wall, his wrists pinned above his head. His eyes were blown wide open, grinning blankly, as a large, veined hand smothered his mouth into muffled keening. The other taller man who’s got him there is on his throat, a thick head of brown hair facing Wakatoshi, as his hips thrusted in wild abandon into the smaller one.

“Oikawa,” Wakatoshi growled.

The hand left his mouth, and the man let out a sharp howl, his entire body caught in trembles. Oikawa whispered something to him, pulling an absent, empty giggle out of him, before he fixed his pants and stumbled out of the cubicle, then out of the room. Wakatoshi glanced at the sopping pile of rubber beside the toilet. 

Oikawa slumped to the floor; belt still unbuckled around his waist. A sheen of sweat glistened against his pale face. He looked up at Wakatoshi, who then knelt next to him without another word.

His pupils were massive, shining black marbles. He should’ve brought a bottle of water with him, Wakatoshi thought.

“What did you take?”

Oikawa bared his teeth to grin at Wakatoshi, then stuck his tongue out. A bright, bubblegum blue pill sat there, still perfectly round.  Before he could roll it back in and swallow, Wakatoshi grabbed him by the nape, pulled, and shoved his tongue inside Oikawa’s mouth.

His lips were pillowy and wet against his, and he tasted bitter, almost astringent, as Wakatoshi swiped the fat of his tongue to catch the pill. He pulled away, already hard in his pants, and spat it into the toilet next to them, slamming the lid down.

In the next breath, Wakatoshi is on his back. Oikawa is on top of him, fist wrenching his collar. “Don’t leave me hanging, you fucking dog,” he drawled, chuckling.

He spat into Wakatoshi’s mouth. “Just like old times, huh?”

Wakatoshi grunted. He found himself unable sit up, until he pulled Oikawa by the hair and sunk his canines into his throat. Copper and salt mingled in Wakatoshi’s tongue. Oikawa moaned, grinding his ass down into Wakatoshi’s stiff cock as he made quick work of his pants.

Around his fingers, there’s a tacky downiness to Oikawa’s chestnut strands that made Wakatoshi grin. It almost felt like coming back home. He tugged harder, until Oikawa is facing the ceiling. The brunette cackled as he swiveled his hips.

“My greedy, little virgin boy,” he groaned. God, he wanted to slam himself inside that tight heat so fucking bad. “A trophy isn’t enough for you, huh? Want my ass too?”

“Fucking tease,” Wakatoshi grounded between his teeth. Blood trailed down Oikawa’s throat. He licked it up, feeling his Adam’s apple bob under his tongue.  

Oikawa cackled, sighing, as he stroked himself. “Iwa-chan.”

The world turned red. Wakatoshi snarled, then grabbed Oikawa’s arm with the other hand, and lunged him to the wall, both of them a couple of scrambling feet. Oikawa barked, sneering, as he pushed Wakatoshi to the plank of wood dividing the cubicles, his arm locking Wakatoshi by the shoulders.

The divider cracked under the impact. The hinges of the door creaked in protest.

“You think you're all that?! Think you’ve won, motherfucker?!” Oikawa snapped. They heaved into each other’s panting mouths.  “You haven’t won shit!”

Hot flushes fluttered in Wakatoshi’s chest. He laughed. “You’re a sore loser.”

“Yeah, better a sore loser than a— fuck me,” Oikawa groaned, “—than a desperate one. Hm?”

He’s already got Wakatoshi in his grip, their cock heads twitching and leaking into each other. Wakatoshi felt each heavy drop of Oikawa’s pre-cum on the tip, then slithering down to trace every vein on his shaft.

His cock was as pretty as him. The pink, curved head caught around Wakatoshi’s thick girth. Their fingers probed and scratched against each other as Wakatoshi stroked along with Oikawa. They bucked their hips forwards and backwards in a slow, frenzied rhythm.

They throbbed against each other, the meat of their cocks grinding and kissing. Sticky, wet sliding noises reverberated across the room.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa moaned, those enlarged pupils laughing at him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Wakatoshi growled, thrusting his fingers into the brunette’s waiting mouth.

He gnawed until they bled. Wakatoshi hissed, but watched anyway, transfixed, as Oikawa sucked them dry.

“Then what do you want me to call you?” he crooned around his fingers.

Their once measured movements became erratic, and his heart careened along with it. The light behind his eyes bursting, a volatile thing, sending shockwaves in his nerves.

“My baby? My prince? S’that what you want? You and that fucked up savior’s complex of yours?” Oikawa spat, sighing into his ear. “My prince? Have you come to save me? Ah, right there— My prince — fuck, baby, I’m so close—”

They spilled all over each other’s hands, shivering and gasping.

Oikawa fell to him, his damp forehead resting on his equally damp shoulders. For a while, there was only the sound of their strained breathing. Then, whimpering.

He wondered if the high had worn off and if it was causing him pain. Wakatoshi tried to shake him off just so he could see his face, but Oikawa stubbornly pressed into his cheek instead. He let him. Only for a minute though. They needed to clean up soon.

A steady trickle of sweat dripped from Oikawa to Wakatoshi’s neck.

Oikawa was blabbering something. He might still be up there after all, swimming in a river of adrenaline. However, the more he did it, that high-pitched blabbering, the less convinced Wakatoshi had been that that was indeed the case.

He was repeating a name, whispering it like a prayer, almost like sickly plea.

Wakatoshi understood then that Oikawa was no longer provoking him.

It wasn’t even Iwaizumi Hajime’s name.

It was somebody else’s.

One he couldn’t recognize.

And the sweat that flowed unceasingly didn’t seem to be just that.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

FSBE 13 - Gods Ain't Shit

You learn some things.

On AO3.

“Oh my gods!” Karlach all but squeals. “The Jaheira! Like, the actual Jaheira!”

Good news: y’all found the harper hideout.

Bad news: they almost shot you’uns.

Thank fuck for Wyll and his buckets of charm. He’d been out front as an older lady came out to meet y’all. So he’d been the first up when the old lady pulled a Poison Ivy and lifted vines outta the ground to grab y’all. He was able to stall her long enough for one of the druid grove tiefling kids to run out and recognize y’all.

“Who’s Jaheira?” you say as Astarion fusses and pinches bits of vine out of his armor.

“You never heard of Jaheira?” Karlach says. Girl ain’t modulating her voice down at all. Couple of people look over. Then she blinks. “Right. You’re…she’s a hero. A real, proper one. Fought down a Bhaalspawn back in the day…oh. You don’t know about those either. Bhaal is the god of murder, you get me? And he apparently likes sprouting out kids—don’t ask, I don’t want to think about it. But they’re wicked dangerous. Whole ‘god of murder’ as your dad, yeah?”

You blink. “Y’all got a god of murder?”

Hope the what the fuck ain’t showing.

“You don’t?” Karlach says.

So there’s a whole readjustment of everything you ever known. A sharp ache chisels in behind your right eye.

“We don’t got gods,” you say. “Not real ones, anyway.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Shadowheart says.

Gale already made a beeline over to a woman standing in front of what looks like a ramshackle merchant stall at a ren faire. Wyll is already heading towards the inn, pausing to talk to a group of harpers gathered around a bone-dry fountain.

Lae’zel…she’s just standing there looking bored.

Shit.

You put on your best polite-interest (and not at all judging) face. “Yeah?”

“You’ve said you have no gods several times,” Shadowheart says. Behind her, Karlach makes a yikes face and tiptoes her way outta the conversation. Goddamnit. At least Astarion lingers. “Yet the concept isn’t foreign to you. How is that?”

She’s a cleric. Which means she’s some sort of, what you done put together, a battle nun for her god. Who sounds like a dick. And this one heals y’all.

You really don’t wanna get into it. Astarion knows about your background, and you told Wyll enough he might be suspecting some stuff.

“Some people,” you start. Pause to try to find safe footing. “Some people where I come from do.”

“And you think them, what. False? Liars?”

Fuckshit. She’s way too damn perceptive.

“Ain’t nobody ever seen one. Different civilizations had different pantheons, hundreds of them, and ain’t no physical evidence of any of it being real.”

Shadowheart arches an eyebrow. “So you think your entire people wrong?”

The anger rises hot and fierce like a steam explosion. Pressure spikes up the sides of your neck. You hold your breath a second to keep from saying nothing. Gotta keep calm. Breathe out. Snapping at her ain’t gonna solve shit. Biting somebody’s head off don’t change their mind and usually makes them dig in deeper, like a starving tick.

You ain’t her mama. And though her goddess sounds like she sucks, you ain’t gonna change her mind. She’s a grown ass woman who can make grown ass choices with her grown ass life.

You suck in another deep breath. “I cannot speak for nobody but myself. I don’t know much about y’all’s world; we don’t got magic in mine. But y’all very clearly do. So hell, I might have everything ass backwards. I’m just trying to figure everything out.”

Shadowheart presses her lips thin. Nods once. Don’t seem satisfied, but she don’t seem all huffy, neither. Thus go all shitty compromises.

(Part of you chafes at that, as it always does. You ain’t never been sure if that’s a reflex against your upbringing, or that upbringing manifesting itself into a new variety of self-righteousness. You wonder if you’ll ever know.)

“Do you think they have bathing facilities?” Astarion says. “I, for one, am tired of this filth.”

You should kiss him. But Shadowheart rolls her eyes and disengages, and you don’t want her staring you down any more than she already is.

Gale still talks to the trader or merchant or whoever. Pulls something outta his bag while Karlach pokes around a couple of shields propped against the booth. Lae’zel follows after Shadowheart as the two start across the courtyard. You assume she’s done some Jason Bourne surveying in her head. And Wyll…

Wyll stands at the door of the inn, arm lifted, waving y’all over.

“Oh, what now,” Astarion says.

“Maybe we got rooms?” you say.

“Ugh, I hope so. But with so many vagabonds—”

Who even says that?

“—traipsing about, I doubt they have any room to spare. Still. An honest bed would do wonders.”

He ain’t wrong.

The other people—harpers, you assume—all carry weapons and that light armor. Not metal; maybe leather. Must be more used to ambush attacks than full on assaults. Those kinda tactics tend to work pretty good against armored or heavy ass baggage trains. Ask the French what they thought about the English-allied Cherokee during that war. Before the English fucked over the Cherokees, as they did everybody, eventually.

These guys look fucking tired. Scared. It’s in the way their gazes don’t settle. One man shakes his hand, but when he grips the handle of his spear, fine tremors shiver up and down his fingers.

There’s some kinda low building to the right. A stable, you think. You catch the sound of metal clanging from that way. But then y’all are at the inn doors and ducking into what should be light and warmth. A plush rug and maybe a fish tank. Marble counter tops and a receptionist with a Karen haircut and a shiny name tag.

Instead, wood creaks underfoot and you look deeper into the building to what’s clearly a bar. Several people slump over it. One’s red, another blue. More tieflings.

“Hey, you! You look an enterprising sort!”

A small voice from down low. Tucked up into the corner is a red tiefling kid. He’s scrawny as hell, clothes patched and frayed, and…weirdly familiar.

“Oh no, not this little deviant,” says the biggest deviant you know. To the kid, Astarion says, “You’re lucky we’re not in any civilized place. They tend to punish thieves.”

Right. Kid from the grove. The one hawking stuff while his friend picked your pocket.

You still give Astarion a look. “How’d you get all them pillows outside your tent?”

“Through charm and wit.”

“Aw, it’s you,” the kid whines. “Don’t suppose you got more coin than pocket lint this time?”

“Nope,” you say.

The kid runs a clawed hand through his hair. Mutters something in a raspy language.

“Excuse me?” Astarion says.

The kid blinks, but don’t look any kind of mollified. Just tired. “Move along. If you can’t pay, you’re taking up room for someone who can. Where’s the funny man with the purple robe?”

Gale, who probably just dumped all y’all’s group money on a pile of sausages.

“You can speak his language?” you say to Astarion, still glaring like a kicked cat.

“That wasn’t his language, unless our tiny friend here is very good at shape changing. Though I am curious as to how he might have learned the language of the Abyss.”

“Oh.” The kid smirks. “You get called that enough to recognize it, then?”

Okay, fuck no.

You step between the two. That’s a nice thing about your size. If you wanna make yourself a problem, you are hard as fuck to ignore.

“Y’all made it this far, huh?” you say. And win, when the kid looks away from Astarion to you.

But his face goes eerily blank for a second before he smiles. Or tries to.

And you seen that before. The younger kids on the farmstead looked like that sometimes after a worship session. After a holy cleansing. Because being loud brought the Aunts, and crying brought the other kids, and it was hard sometimes to tell which was worse.

“Some of us,” the kids says. Give a one-shouldered shrug. Acting all cool and unbothered.

Being very, very bothered.

“What happened?” you say. You almost kneel down to his (her?) level, but you’ve cracked their armor now, and calling attention to it like that, reminding them how small they are is just gonna crack that deeper.

“What always happens,” the kid says. “We got attacked. Lost some people. The lucky ones made it here.”

The inn is awfully empty. Some of them tieflings looked ready to fight. Might just be outside with the harpers. Or up in rooms somewhere. But this place—trapped beneath a glowing, silver dome—ain’t that big.

“So are you gonna buy something or not?” the kid says. “Cause my crew is still looking to set up a business once we reach the city, and we need to start a principal.”

It takes a second for that one to translate. Principal, as in…chief? Top? School?

Astarion leans in. “He means an investment fund.”

Right. Sure thing, dirt potion.

“What’cha selling?” you say.

And that pipsqueak gives you the most incredulous once-over you ever did see. “You said you didn’t have any money.”

“I don’t.” You turn. Find Astarion glaring over your shoulder. Give him your most wide-eyed smile. “But he does.”

“Don’t you dare,” he says.

“You heard him. It’s an investment. Wouldn’t hurt to get on the ground floor of a promising new venture, huh?”

The worm in your head shudders. Shivers. Reaches out so you can press into him the ice-cold iron of “not abandoning a traumatized child.”

His worm shies away. His frown twists into a narrow-eyed scowl. And then he lifts up a coin—copper. You look at it. Look at him. Hold that gaze.

He sighs. “Suit yourself. But I expect repayment in full, darling.”

And pulls a gold coin out of thin air to toss at you.

You manage to catch it. Just. Sigh yourself as he pivots and heads over towards Wyll, standing further in.

You thought you was getting into him a little. He’s eased up around you, just a bit. Hasn’t threatened to eat either Scratch or Sweetums in a while. But asking him to show the tiniest sliver of empathy towards anyone but you—and even that’s pushing it—and it’s like trying to get a cat to swallow a pill. A cat who don’t like you all that much.

You press your lips tight as you watch him go. Finally turn back to the kid. Hold up the coin. “Let’s see your wares, huh?”

[soul-meister]

slight pete dinunzio x fem!alternative!reader : the eltingville club

not beta read

cw: misogyny, slight sexual harassment(reader gets called tits), a crumb of pete and reader interaction

summary: you, being used to the attention of others, visit a rundown comic book shop in your friend's place

note: this does involve "geek girl" from the comics but I rearranged it so this takes place before the comic book shop incident. also, this is really short but I don't care

Your friend, Rebecca or Becca[1] as you called her, was a geek in her own right and you loved that about her. You found delight in seeing others enjoy their own hobbies without a care for other people's opinions as you did exactly that yourself, from your hobbies to your unusual appearance.

So, when she told you about what happened yesterday afternoon, this morning before school, you were a mix of disgust and annoyance. Did no one ever teach those boys it's just plain weird to take pictures of people you don't know without asking, especially underage girls?

Well, anyways- That's why you're here, Joe's Fantasy World, after school to find this comic book Becca was looking for, Saga[2], in trade paperback or whatever she called it. While you two did have similar interests in anime and manga, you weren't much for comics and such, focusing yourself on other things.

Opening the door to the little rundown shop, you step inside and just like Becca described, there was young and middle-aged boys mingling around the store, some reading through comics and others discussing god knows what.

"A girl?!"

At the random boy's voice, it was like a domino effect as each pair of beady eyes turned in your direction. Creepy. Even creepier was that it took only a few seconds for them to have their phones out and directed at you, the clicking of the picture button popping up around the store.

You stood there, eyes darting around as you thought over your next actions, trying to figure out what would work best to keep their leering gazes to themselves, or at least turn the observing into something more fearful.

You smirked to yourself as your eyes set on a shorter boy who held his phone out like the others, a bucked tooth grin spread on his face. You kept your gaze set on him as you walked up, your smirk turning into something meeker, hoping to make you seem more approachable despite your piercings and dead-appearing makeup. "Can I borrow this? I need to make a call and my phone's dead."

"Oh, uh, yeah, sure," the kid hesitated, his smile twitching out of nervousness.

"Thanks," grabbing it from his hand, you make your way out of the shop, making it seem like you were taking your call in private. You then pulled your arm back and launched it as far you could, watching as a motorcycle drove over it once it hit the ground, leading to the person crashing.

Walking back inside the boy ran up to you, his face morphed in distress at your action, "my-my phone! Why would you do that?!"

You stared down at him, the smile you had given him earlier gone, before bending down enough to scream in his face for a few seconds before stopping and turning away from him, making your way up to the man behind the counter.

"Do you have the new Saga trade?"

"Over there," the balding man pointed to a corner of the store with apprehension, and you followed his directions, ignoring the whispers that slowly started around the store at your little outburst.

Grabbing the book that Becca had shown you earlier on her phone, you glanced over briefly to find a recognizable title and image from a movie you've been recently obsessed with.

"Oh, shit. You have Tank Girl[3]. I didn't even know there were comics about her." Not finding any numbers on the spines of the comics, you shrug to yourself and grab a few with different titles. Once back at the counter, you set Becca and yours stuff down before reaching into your backpack riddled with keychains and pins to pull out your wallet.

"Can I do two separate transactions?" You separated the two comics, glancing up at the man who was still staring at you.

"Sure."

『••✎••』

As you were about to exit the building with your purchases in hand, an accented voice came from your left, "nice shirt, tits."

Glancing down, you took remembered the House of 1000 Corpses[4] graphic tee you wore before turning your attention to the boy, who you recognized from around school. His name was Pete something. "Aww, thanks, pimples."

[1] Rebecca is the name I gave to "Geek Girl" from "This Fan...This Monster"

[2] Saga is the comic Rebecca was looking for in "This Fan...This Monster"

[3] Tank Girl is mentioned in "Bring me the Head of Boba Fett" in the comics so I'm assuming Joe sells the comics, though they might be talking about the movie instead

[4] House of 1000 Corpses is the first movie in a horror trilogy made by Rob Zombie

[jackwolfes]

@febuwhump day 13: "i don't trust anyone else" Wesper | Six of Crows | TW: Drugs; Blood; Wounds/First Aid febuwhump masterlist

Truth be told, Jesper isn’t sure who exactly he expects to be at his door when he hears a knock at three in the morning, but it isn’t his drug dealer.

The night outside is balmy; it’s been a sticky summer. Jesper slouches against his doorframe, tonguing a half-healed cut on his bottom lip. “You aren’t meant to be here until tomorrow.”

“I know,” Wylan replies wearily. 

What little entertainment Jesper had been holding in his chest at Wylan’s novel appearance begins to shrivel. “Don't tell me you're here to stage an intervention. I don't want to have to find another dealer, none of them are as cute as you.” 

A pink flush rises to Wylan's cheeks, but he ignores the latter half of Jesper’s flat-toned jibe. “I wasn't going to. Can— can I come in?” 

It's such a diversion from their normal interactions that, for a second, Jesper is too-caught off guard to be suspicious. A second is all it takes, though, because by then Wylan is through his defenses. He steps back, holding the door for the boy and casting an instinctive eye over the silent street outside. 

Wylan drags himself inside, arms wrapped around his torso. Bright with curiosity, his blue eyes trail over Jesper’s tiny apartment. They don’t linger long on any particular thing, but instead dance across the entire, glorious mess. He gnaws on his bottom lip, probably chewing back some sort of unsolicited criticism about Jesper’s nonexistent tidying skills.   

“So why are you here, if it isn’t to get me to quit my filthy habits?” 

Wylan blinks, turning back to look at Jesper. “Your filthy habits keep me in a job.” 

Jesper sees him open his mouth to continue, but before the words come out a wince replaces whatever he'd been about to say. Wylan lurches forward, knees buckling, a half second away from falling to the floor until Jesper grabs him. 

A fresh wince shoots across Wylan's face. Jesper's hand, wrapped around the boy’s waist, is pressed to something sticky. 

“Saints, what—” 

“I’m okay—” 

“The hell you are,” Jesper bites back. Wylan shrinks down into himself.  

That little flinch gives Jesper the opportunity he needs. He pulls back, ignoring Wylan's protests and weakly scrabbling fingers to pull up his shirt. As soon as he sees the mottled skin and bloodied cuts hidden beneath, he gags. 

Wylan yanks his shirt back down. “Do you mind?”

“Do you?” Jesper replies. “What the hell, novice?”

“It’s nothing—” 

“You can’t seriously think that’ll fly when you show up at my apartment with a stab wound.” 

“It isn’t a stab wound,” Wylan retorts, “it was brass knuckles and steel-toed boots. I'm not even bleeding.” 

“Uh, yes, you are.” 

Surprisingly, there is still enough blood left in Wylan's body to make his cheeks pink. He glances down at his torso as if surprised to realise that the smudge on his tattered shirt is, in fact, his own blood. “Oh.”

Jesper shakes his head incredulously. “Why the hell did you come here?” 

Wylan's lips press together thinly. He has the audacity to raise his chin anyway, like Jesper is the one out of line here. “I don't trust anyone else.” 

Jesper wets his lips. Trust is an ugly, frivolous thing for children, which does not explain the fact hearing Wylan say he trusts him yanks hard at the heartstrings he hasn’t dulled already with gambling, girls and inadvisable use of recreational substances. 

Trust. Saints know that he, of all people, isn’t worth a drop of it. 

But then Wylan's knees buckle again, and he's saved from hitting the floor only by a tightening of Jesper's hands around his waist. The novice bites off a surprisingly foul curse, pretty face screwing up in fresh pain. 

“Saints,” Jesper mutters, helping the boy limp to his sofa. “If I'm the only person you trust, you have bigger problems than a stab wound.” 

“Not a stab wound,” Wylan corrects. His body hits the sofa hard. “And I only need to trust you not to mug me for what little kruge I have left in my pockets.”

“Not like I have your life in my hands or anything.”

Wylan sinks down into the sofa. His breathing is laboured, and Jesper becomes intimately aware of it when he tugs Wylan’s shirt away from his battered body again. The frail shape of his ribs is too pronounced, visible even under all the purpling bruises. 

“Is it really that bad?” Wylan's voice is uncharacteristically small. 

Jesper glances up at him and sees worry in his baby blue eyes. “You'll survive long enough to get me another hit.” 

“Not that you need it,” Wylan murmurs back. 

“I can quit anytime I want, Wylan.”

“I’m sure you could.”

“I get the sense you’re being sarcastic.”

“All I’m saying is that it isn’t doing you any favours.”

“Saints, you’ll definitely be fine if you have the energy to keep nagging me.”

“I’m not nagging you, I just think—”

“Not this again.”

“— that you aren’t admitting why you rely on it so much!”

Jesper heaves a grand sigh, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips from the sweet familiarity of it all. “I’m not a junkie,” he says, mostly out of principle, “and you’ll be fine. Just try not to bleed out on my sofa.” 

“Doubt it would show up below all the other stains,” Wylan mumbles. 

With a laugh, Jesper rises up to his feet. Truth be told the actual wound isn’t quite as bad as he initially thought, but the blood has smeared and still pulses at the seam of Wylan’s body. Jesper isn’t convinced he knows how to bandage up a wound properly, or that he has any first aid supplies, but he does know he’s willing to give it a damn good go. 

He trusts the little bastard too much not to try, at least.